Climate Change Science

Not Worried About CO2

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Update May 25 below.

We should all know what Alfred E. Neuman knows, namely: Where does all that CO2 come from? Here is the answer from engineer Ronald Voisin.

 

Excerpts below are from An Engineer’s Take On Major Climate Change

Figure 3 outlines the primary sources of natural CO2 release in decreasing order of quantity of carbon emitted: oceanic release, microbial decay, insect activity, frozen terrestrial release; volcanic release; forest fire and then mammalia exhalations and emissions – summing to a total of ~325-485 petagrams (PgC). Then there is our ~2.0% anthropogenic release at ~8-9 petagrams. (Based on terrestrial sources alone, without oceans, anthropogenic release is ~3-4% of the natural flux. Some argue that the oceans are net absorbers and ignore the oceanic release estimate below. However, according to the hypothesis presented herein the oceans are net emitters as indicated below when warmed by ~0.5C per century).

These natural sources all correlate to global temperature (including, at the least, terrestrial volcanism, as recently verified). When the Earth gets warm, for whatever reason, these natural sources all kick-in together to contribute vast quantities of CO2; and to produce the observed habitual atmospheric CO2 spikes upward. Conversely, when the Earth gets cold, for whatever reason, they all go into remission together; naturally and (generally) coherently to produce a consequential reduction in atmospheric CO2. Each spike or dip in CO2 follows temperature with a lag time averaging 800 years, but proportional to the level and magnitude at which the temperature swings take place.

It is extraordinarily difficult to imagine that these natural sources are not at play during this current period of warming. They most likely are the primary cause of the currently observed CO2 spike. And yes, we humans, as co-inhabitants of this Earth, are emitting CO2. But so are microbes and insects emitting. And each of them is emitting with ~10 times our current anthropogenic emission. In both cases (microbes and insects) there is every reason to believe that their populations are geometrically exploding in this current highly favorable environment to their existence. The recently warming oceans are most likely the largest emitter of all.

Atmospheric CO2 is spiking just now. And we have good reason to believe that it is largely, essentially entirely doing so for all the same reasons it has done so within each and every prior warming period of the past. All natural sources of CO2 emission are currently revved-up and in high gear during this extended interglacial. Approximately 98% of the current spike is natural while we add our anthropogenic 2%.

We also have reason to believe that the current spike would be as large, or larger, than now observed, if we humans were never here at all. Why? Because those organisms that would otherwise be here in our stead would most likely emit much more CO2 than we are. i.e. We humans have chosen to systematically limit the proliferation of micro-organisms and insects in the land we use for cultivation and occupation – which represents about 1/3rd of all land. And in the other 2/3rds of all land, microbes and insects are each estimated to emit ~10 times our anthropogenic emission (insects alone outnumber humans >>10,000,000,000:1 – enough to fill several large dumpsters per person).

The relative contribution from microbe and insect emissions would have gone up significantly if we were never here (by a very rough factor of up to 1.5*). They would have filled our void geometrically; unlike our anthropogenic contribution. When we humans get rich, we uniquely self-limit our proliferation, by deciding to have fewer children. And our human emission pales in comparison to the emission from these astronomically vast numbers of other organisms. So if we were never here, greatly enhanced populations of microbes and insects would be emitting many times our anthropogenic emission from the very land that we systematically exclude them from. This situation most likely characterizes the events within prior interglacials.

Summary

1. Climate science is very complicated and very far from being settled.

2. Earth’s climate is overwhelmingly dominated by negative-feedbacks that are currently poorly represented in our Modeling efforts and not sufficiently part of ongoing investigations.

3. Climate warming drives atmospheric CO2 upward as it stimulates all natural sources of CO2 emission. Climate cooling drives atmospheric CO2 downward.

4. Massive yet delayed thermal modulations to the dissolved CO2 content of the oceans is what ultimately drives and dominates the modulations to atmospheric CO2.

5. The current spike in atmospheric CO2 is largely natural (~98%). i.e. Of the 100ppm increase we have seen recently (going from 280 to 380ppm), the move from 280 to 378ppm is natural while the last bit from 378 to 380ppm is rightfully anthropogenic.

6. The current spike in atmospheric CO2 would most likely be larger than now observed if human beings had never evolved. The additional CO2 contribution from insects and microbes (and mammalia for that matter) would most likely have produced a greater current spike in atmospheric CO2.

7. Atmospheric CO2 has a tertiary to non-existent impact on the instigation and amplification of climate change. CO2 is not pivotal. Modulations to atmospheric CO2 are the effect of climate change and not the cause.

Ronald D Voisin is a retired engineer. He spent 27 years in the Semiconductor Lithography Equipment industry mostly in California’s Silicon Valley. Since retiring, he has made a hobby of studying climate change for the last 7 years. Ron received a BSEE degree from the Univ. of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 1978 and has held various management positions at both established equipment companies and start-ups he helped initiate. Ron has authored/co-authored 55 patent applications, 24 of which have issued.

Footnote:  Voisin’s article was published in 2013, the facts still overlooked and ignored.

Update May 25

Robert Kernodle provided this chart recently in a separate comment thread.

Those patterns indicate that over millennial time scales, atmospheric CO2 appears as a natural negative feedback to planetary warmer periods.  As warming stimulates natural sources, CO2 rises, and after many centuries of delay, temperatures cool down.  Ironically, scientists in the 1950s and 60s who raised concerns about a coming ice age maybe had a truer sense of how CO2 is related to climate.  Of course, even then they exaggerated the effect of humanity’s 2% contribution, overemphasized decadal fluctuations and mistook CO2 as the cause rather than the effect of warming periods.

The Curious Case of Dr. Miskolczi

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Update May 18 below

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button relates the story of a fictional character who is estranged from the rest of humanity because of a unique personal quality. He alone was born an old man, grew younger as he aged, before dying as an infant. Living in contradiction to all others, he existed as an alien whose relations were always temporary and strained.

Recently I had an interchange with a climatist obsessed with radiation and CO2 as the drivers of climate change. For me it occasioned a look back in time to rediscover how I came to some conclusions about how the atmosphere warms the planet. That process brought up an influencial scientist whose name comes up rarely these days in discussions of global warming/climate change. So I thought a tribute post to be timely.

Dr. Ferenc Mark Miskolczi (feh-rent mish-kol-tsi) was not born estranged, but alienation was forced upon him at the peak of his career as a brilliant astrophysicist. Part of his NASA job was to analyze radiosonde data, and his curiosity led him to find a surprising empirical observation. He published it and continues to hold to it, but his findings happen to cause indigestion among the climate establishment, and also to many skeptics. His writings are dense and filled with math, another reason for some to set him aside.

“I was warned that for every equation in the book, the readership would be halved,
hence it includes only a single equation: E = mc2.”
–Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

The Back Story

In 2004 Dr Ferenc Miskolczi published a paper ’The greenhouse effect and the spectral decomposition of the clear-sky terrestrial radiation’, in the Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service (Vol. 108, No. 4, October–December 2004, pp. 209–251.).

Various wavelengths of solar EM radiation penetrate Earth’s atmosphere to various depths. Fortunately for us, all of the high energy X-rays and most UV is filtered out long before it reaches the ground. Much of the infrared radiation is also absorbed by our atmosphere far above our heads. Most radio waves do make it to the ground, along with a narrow “window” of IR, UV, and visible light frequencies. Credit: Image courtesy STCI/JHU/NASA.

The co-author of the article was his boss at NASA Langley Research Center (Martin Mlynczak). Mlynczak put his name to the paper but did no work on it. He thought that it was an important paper, but only in a technical way.

When Miskolczi later informed the group at NASA there that he had more important results, they finally understood the whole story, and tried to withhold Miskolczi’s further material from publication. His boss for example, sat at Ferenc’s computer, logged in with Ferenc`s password, and canceled a recently submitted paper from a high-reputation journal as if Ferenc had withdrawn it himself. That was the reason that Ferenc finally resigned from his ($US 90,000 /year) job.

At the bottom of this post will be links to Miskolczi’s papers, including the latest one in 2014. Perhaps the most accessible introduction to his understanding comes from his interview with Kirk Myers published at Climate Truth.

Climate Truth: Has there been global warming?
Dr. Miskolczi: No one is denying that global warming has taken place, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect or the burning of fossil fuels.

Climate Truth: According to the conventional anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, as human-induced CO2 emissions increase, more surface radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, with part of it re-radiated to the earth’s surface, resulting in global warming. Is that an accurate description of the prevailing theory?
Dr. Miskolczi: Yes, this is the classic concept of the greenhouse effect.

ClimateTruth: Are man-made CO2 emissions the cause of global warming?
Dr. Miskolczi: Apparently not. According to my research, increases in CO2 levels have not increased the global-average absorbing power of the atmosphere.

ClimateTruth: Where does the traditional greenhouse theory make its fundamental mistake?
Dr. Miskolczi: The conventional greenhouse theory does not consider the newly discovered physical relationships involving infrared radiative fluxes. These relationships pose strong energetic constraints on an equilibrium system.

ClimateTruth: Why has this error escaped notice until now?
Dr. Miskolczi: Nobody thought that a 100-year-old theory could be wrong. The original greenhouse formula, developed by an astrophysicist, applies only to the stars, not to finite, semi-transparent planetary atmospheres. New equations had to be formulated.

ClimateTruth: According your theory, the greenhouse effect is self-regulating and stabilizes itself in response to rising CO2 levels. You identified (perhaps discovered) a “greenhouse constant” that keeps the greenhouse effect in equilibrium. Is that a fair assessment of your theory?
Dr. Miskolczi: Yes. Our atmosphere, with its infinite degree of freedom, is able to maintain its global average infrared absorption at an optimal level. In technical terms, this “greenhouse constant” is the total infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere, and its theoretical value is 1.87. Despite the 30 per cent increase of CO2 in the last 61 years, this value has not changed. The atmosphere is not increasing its absorption power as was predicted by the IPCC.

ClimateTruth: You used empirical data, rather than models, to arrive at your conclusion. How was that done?
Dr. Miskolczi: The computations are relatively simple. I collected a large number of radiosonde observations from around the globe and computed the global average infrared absorption. I performed these computations using observations from two large, publicly available datasets known as the TIGR2 and NOAA. The computations involved the processing of 300 radiosonde observations, using a state-of-the-art, line-by-line radiative transfer code. In both datasets, the global average infrared optical thickness turned out to be 1.87, agreeing with theoretical expectations.

Fig. 15 the actual and expected atmospheric absorption trends are compared for the full time period. No change in the IR absorption is detected.

ClimateTruth: Have your mathematical equations been challenged or disproved?
Dr. Miskolczi: No.

ClimateTruth: If your theory stands up to scientific scrutiny, it would collapse the CO2 global warming doctrine and render meaningless its predictions of climate catastrophe. Given its significance, why has your theory been met with silence and, in some instances, dismissal and derision?
Dr. Miskolczi: I can only guess. First of all, nobody likes to admit mistakes. Second, somebody has to explain to the taxpayers why millions of dollars were spent on AGW research. Third, some people are making a lot of money from the carbon trade and energy taxes.

ClimateTruth: A huge industry has arisen out of the study and prevention of man-made global warming. Has the world been fooled?
Dr. Miskolczi: Thanks to censored science and the complicity of the mainstream media, yes, totally.

The Implications

Others have referred to Miskolczi’s work as finding a saturated greenhouse effect (not his terminology). Most people agree that gases have a logarithmic relation to IR absorption. Thus the effect of adding CO2, or H2O to the atmosphere has diminishing impact, like putting on another coat of paint.


Miskolczi’s analysis shows that at present CO2 concentrations, the radiative warming effect is saturated, because the atmospheric heat engine is always striving to maximize the dissipation of surface heat into space. In the present circumstance, any additional input of heat produces a reaction of additional evaporation or convection to restore the energy balance. Radiative equilibrium is not disturbed, as shown by the stability of the optical depth in the upper troposphere.

globalrelativehumidity300_700mb

This graph shows that the relative humidity has been dropping, especially at higher elevations allowing more heat to escape to space. The curve labelled 300 mb is at about 9 km altitude, which is in the middle of the predicted (but missing) tropical troposphere hot-spot. This is the critical elevation as this is where radiation can start to escape without being recaptured. The average annual relative humidity at this altitude has declined by 21.5% from 1948 to 2007.

If Miskolczi is right, then presently the land-sea surface heats the atmosphere only by evaporation, conduction, and subsequent convection, not by radiation. The layer of air in contact with the surface is in radiative equilibrium, so that warming and cooling of the surface is matched by the immediate air. The land-sea surface does not cool by radiation to the atmosphere, nor is it warmed by “back-radiation.”

Above the surface-air boundary, heat exchanges between layers of air do include radiative activity, and at the TOA it is all radiation into space. The climate system makes regulatory adjustment to compensate for changes in CO2 with changes in humidity and clouds, in order to most efficiently convert short wave incoming solar energy, into long wave outgoing energy. With warming and cooling periods, the proportions of H20 and CO2 at the TOA have fluctuated, but the combined optical depth has been stable over the last 60 years.

earth_energy_budget_ERBE
Credit: Image courtesy NASA’s ERBE (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment) program.

No wonder so much effort is going into a better understanding of cloud effects on climate.  Note in the above estimated energy budget diagram that convection and latent heat combined are twice the estimated surface radiation absorbed in the air.   Note also that the air absorbs more energy directly from the sun than it absorbs from the surface.

Bear in mind that water vapor does more than 90% of all IR activity by gases.  And note that clouds are composed of water droplets (liquid state), and IR activity by clouds (likely underestimated here) is on top of water’s thermal effect as a gas.

Summary: Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi’s  Strange Journey

Miskolczi’s story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution — originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today — ignored boundary conditions by assuming an “infinitely thick” atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.

So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference … but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.

NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. “Money”, he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research.

Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his October 28, 2005 resignation letter, “Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results.”

“More than three years ago, I presented to NASA a new view of greenhouse theory and pointed out serious errors in the classical approach to assessing climate sensitivity to greenhouse gas perturbations. Since then my results were not released for publication. Since my new results have far reaching consequences in the general atmospheric radiative transfer, I wish to have no part in withholding the above scientific information from the wider community of scientists and policymakers.”
More at Cornwall Alliance Peer-Reviewed Research Suggests Very Little Warming from CO2

His theory was eventually published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in his home country of Hungary.
The greenhouse effect and the spectral decomposition of the clear-sky terrestrial radiation

Miskolczi’s latest paper is The Greenhouse Effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere 2014

Previously in 2010 he published in Energy & Environment The Stable Stationary Value of the Earth’s Global Average Atmospheric Planck-Weighted Greenhouse-Gas Optical Thickness

Dr. Ferenc Mark Miskolczi

Update May 18

Robin Pittwood has done an analysis confirming that recent global warming has been matched by increasing outgoing longwave radiation, such that the equilibrium point has remained stable.  His money graph is this one:

This finding is consistent with Miskolczi’s finding that the atmospheric heat engine adjusts to changes so that energy balance is maintained.  There is more at KiwiThinker: An Empirical Look at Recent Trends in the Greenhouse Effect

CO2 ≠ Pollutant

Posted on by Ron Clutz

My university degree is a Bachelors in Organic Chemistry from Stanford. For that and other reasons, it always annoyed me that some lawyers decided CO2 can be called a “pollutant”, all the while exhaling the toxic gas themselves.

This nonsense forms the root of all the ridiculous regulations that POTUS ordered reviewed and rescinded yesterday. Thus I agree completely with this Wall Street Journal article by Paul Tice Trump’s Next Step on Climate Change. Full text below.

Reconsider the EPA’s labeling of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, based on now-outdated science.

By PAUL H. TICE
March 28, 2017 6:41 p.m. ET

The executive orders on climate change President Trump signed this week represent a step in the right direction for U.S. energy policy and, importantly, deliver on Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to roll back burdensome regulations affecting American companies. But it will take more than the stroke of a pen to make lasting progress and reverse the momentum of the climate-change movement.

On Tuesday, in a series of orders, Mr. Trump instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to rework its Clean Power Plan, which would restrict carbon emissions from existing power plants, mainly coal-fired ones. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the CPP pending judicial review.

Mr. Trump also directed the Interior Department to lift its current moratorium on federal coal leasing and loosen restrictions on oil and gas development (including methane flaring) on federal lands. And he instructed all government agencies to stop factoring climate change into the environmental-review process for federal projects. The federal government will recalculate the “social cost of carbon.”

These actions are a good start, but all they do is reverse many of the executive orders President Obama signed late in his second term. While easy to implement and theatrical to stage, such measures are largely superficial and may prove as temporary as the decrees they rescind.

Because they don’t attack the climate-change regulatory problem at its root, Mr. Trump’s orders will not provide enough clarity to U.S. energy companies—particularly electric utilities and coal-mining companies—for their long-term business forecasting or short-term capital investment and head-count planning.

To accomplish that, the Trump administration, led by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, needs to target the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which labeled carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That foundational ruling provided the legal underpinnings for all of the EPA’s follow-on carbon regulations, including the CPP.

It also provided the rationale for the previous administration’s anti-fossil-fuel agenda and its various climate-change initiatives and programs, which spanned more than a dozen federal agencies and cost the American taxpayer roughly $20 billion to $25 billion a year during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

The endangerment finding was the product of a rush to judgment. Much of the scientific data upon which it was predicated—chiefly, the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—was already dated by the time of its publication and arguably not properly peer-reviewed as federal law requires.

With the benefit of hindsight—including more than a decade of actual-versus-modeled data, plus the insights into the insular climate-science community gleaned from the University of East Anglia Climategate email disclosures—there would seem to be strong grounds now to reconsider the EPA’s 2009 decision and issue a new finding.

In 2013, the IPCC issued a more circumspect Fifth Assessment Report, which noted a hiatus in global warming since 1998 and a breakdown in correlation between the world’s average surface temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, causing the U.N. body to revise down its 2007 projections for the rate of planetary warming over the first half of the 21st century.

Although this initially reported “pause” was subsequently eliminated through the downward manipulation of historical temperature data, this latest IPCC assessment calls into question both the predictive power and input data quality of most global climate models, and further highlights the scientific uncertainty surrounding the basic premise of anthropogenic climate change.

An updated EPA endangerment finding based on an objective review of the latest available scientific data is warranted, along with a more sober discussion of the threat posed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the “public health and welfare of current and future generations,” in the words of the original endangerment finding.

As long as the 2009 finding remains on the books, it will provide legal ammunition for environmentalists, academics and state government officials seeking to sue the administration for any actions related to climate change, including this week’s executive orders.

Issuing a new endangerment finding would be a bold move requiring thorough work, but the Trump EPA would be well within its legal rights to undertake such an updated review process. In Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority, but not the obligation, to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The EPA needs to “ground its reasons for action or inaction” with “reasoned judgment” and scientific analysis.

Addressing the 2009 endangerment finding head-on would show that Mr. Trump is serious about challenging climate-change orthodoxy. Thus far he has sent a mixed message, as demonstrated by this week’s ambivalence on CPP (reworking rather than repealing) and his administration’s silence on U.S. participation in the U.N.’s 2015 Paris Agreement.

Simply standing down on regulatory enforcement, cutting government funding for climate-change research and stopping data collection for the next four years will not suffice. Ignoring the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding would mean that it is only a matter of time before another liberal-minded occupant of the White House reasserts this regulatory power, bringing the country and the domestic energy sector back where Mr. Obama left them.

Mr. Tice is an executive-in-residence at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a former Wall Street energy research analyst.

From “Show me the money” to “Show me your work”

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Much of what is wrong with climate science started when they switched from real world observations to building and playing with computer toy models of the world. Much of the research money has gone into climate modelling, which has yet to show skill in predicting changes in weather patterns on any time scale beyond a few weeks. The models themselves are confused by their makers with the real world, and they even refer to computer runs as “experiments.”

Almost 2 years ago I became aware of Dr. Arnd Bernaerts’ insightful phrase, “Climate is the continuation of the ocean by other means.” From oceanographic observations, he has long been persuaded the climate changes because of ocean oscillations, and I learned a lot from him while writing a number of posts here collected under the category Oceans Make Climate.

Arnd is also persuaded that humans are impacting on the oceans, and thereby upon the climate, but by obvious maritime activities and not by CO2 emissions. For his impertinence, he was “disappeared” from Wikipedia by the zealots there who purge that website from sources and information skeptical of global warming dogma.

As happened in Soviet history, climate revisionists are rewriting history.

As happened in Soviet history, climate revisionists are rewriting history.

Dr. Bernaerts continues to write on climate and ocean matters, most recently at his website: Oceans Govern Climate

Ironically, alarmists are crowing right now about Arctic ice extent being a little lower this year, while not mentioning most of the deficit is due to Barents Sea, and secondly to less ice in Bering Sea. Both of those places are subject to extensive maritime activity–shipping, fishing, oil and mineral exploration and extraction, and icebreaking to support year-round operations. Bernaerts explains: Man-Made Ocean Warming? Yes, but it’s not CO2.

Activist scientists, fixated on models and global warming, are indifferent to the correlation between WWI Atlantic naval warfare and unprecedented warming at Spitzbergen (Svalbard). Only an evidence-based scientist like Bernaerts is paying attention, as I have reported previously (here).

Another example of how science is perverted to support a political climate agenda was provided by commenter crypto666 referring to Matt Lachniet’s research into the former ocean basin in Nevada. By happenstance, Bernaerts had visited the Great basin last September (If you’re devoted to the oceans, I guess you are interested even in prehistoric, dried-out basins.)

Lachniet is properly circumspect in his writing and presentations, noting his findings pertain to a particular location, and suggesting several possible explanations for anomalous warming starting 1600 years ago. Yet his research was twisted into a climate change warning by journalists writing in the Las Vegas Sun (here).

As crypto points out, this is not what Lachniet himself has said. He is as clear as anyone that warming starting in the Fifth century did not come from people driving SUVs, so some natural oscillations must be in play. (California terminology: SUV=Axle of Evil).

Summary

My hope for 2017 is to begin seeing a regime shift in climate science from “Show me the money” to “Here are my data and work, Let the chips fall where they may.” Natural scientists have always owned a sense of awe alongside their curiosity, appreciating the enormity of the world they seek to understand. Dr. Bernaerts is right to remind us that even with modern technologies, our hard-won observational data is a minuscule sampling of oceanic and atmospheric activities. Any conclusions to be drawn should be put forward with humility. The dogmatic positions of climate alarmists are a disgrace to the profession.

Footnote: Below are reprinted relevant comments from Bernaerts and crypto.

Arnd Bernaerts said:

Hi Ron, having been to the Great Basin/NV recently, I couldn’t resist asking: what have 3,500 Argo floats and other ocean sensors (image caption) and the Matt Lachniet „nevada-caves-climate-change” (link in one of your comments) in common?
In – MHO – a lot, as they are both of little help to understand how to prevent anthropogenic climate change sufficiently. Recalling my visit of the Lehman caves a few days earlier or later (on 9th September) as Matt Lachniet, the cave formation was impressive, but hardly of any use for current concern.

3,500 Argo floats are certainly a more promising approach. But if one considers the dimension (& temperatures) in which they operate; nicely outlined recently at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/26/warming-by-less-upwelling-of-cold-ocean-water/, it is like reading from stalactite about AGW matters.

The use of Argo floats is an achievement, but by far too small. Observations below the sea surface would require a number of several hundred thousand, if not millions of devices (and the capability to process the data sufficiently). After all we need to understand the role of the oceans, and whether they bring a severe cooling, which is possible at any time.

Ron, to you, your family and everybody calling at this site:
HAPPY NEW YEAR

crypto666 said:

Thanks for pointing that out Ron. All I can say is unbelievable.

“Lachniet’s Great Basin research suggests that, based on the Earth’s orbit, the region should not be in a dry period. But it is. In any scenario, human-caused climate change, amplified over the next few centuries by natural warming, could be troublesome for a place that’s already notoriously dry and hot.”

The first thing I will point out however, is that those are not his words. Those are the words of the article writer. It is also either an outright lie, or a mistake. Another writer from the UNLV paper tried saying that Matt’s research suggests humans started changing the climate 1,600ybp, which again is not the case.

I know Matt, and he delivered his 2014 study to my colleagues and myself personally. After we talked for a bit, and surprised him by identifying that change in trend before he did in his work, which he identified as being 1,600 ybp, I asked him what his thoughts were on co2. What I vividly remember is Matt pointing to his chart and stating that he doesn’t think anyone will be able to identify co2’s contribution to climate change until we reached the point of his finger, which is where we should start the long road back to glaciation. It may have 2ky or maybe it was 55ky, at any rate what he says in person isn’t exactly what you get from news articles and twitter feeds.
I will also point out this:

A Speleothem Record of Great Basin Paleoclimate
January 2016
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63590-7.00020-2
In book: Lake Bonneville – A Scientific Update, pp.551-569

https://www.researchgate.net/publica…n_Paleoclimate

“The lag behind NHSI of d18O variations suggests that the forcing is indirect. Several possible forcings are associated with the Great Basin d18O variations. First, it is clear that CO2 concentrations increase abruptly around the MIS 2/1 and MIS 6/5d transitions, which may explain some of the warming over Terminations I and II. However, Nevada d18O values drop steadily throughout the Holocene, whereas CO2 remains high and even increases slightly over the last 8000 years (Ruddiman, 2003). Similarly, the strongly low d18O values during MIS 5d and MIS 7 happen during intervals with intermediate to high CO2 values.

Thus, the CO2 changes may amplify a warming already in progress around ice volume terminations but are unlikely to be the source of the climate change, because they are decoupled during prominent intervals such as MIS 1 and 5d. A related hypothesis suffers from similar problems: the extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS). The LIS retreated over the MIS 2/1 and MIS 6/5 transitions when temperatures in the Great Basin warmed (as inferred by increasing d18O values). However, decreasing d18O values from 8 ka to modern happened in the absence of any ice-sheet regrowth, and the prominent MIS 5d and MIS 7 minima also happened when ice sheets were small. Thus ice-sheet extent cannot be the primary driver of Great Basin d18O variations. The clear conclusion is that neither CO2 nor ice-sheet extent were the sole or dominant controls on Great Basin paleoclimate over orbital timescales.”

That conclusion doesn’t strike me as coming from someone who believes co2 controls climate.  There is a big leap from believing that co2 could cause increased heating of the atmosphere, and thinking co2 controls climate and/or we can control climate with co2.

I have actually had people try to use Mr. Lachniet’s twitter account in an attempt to change the conclusion of his studies. Which is always entertaining.

Pesky Australian Alarmists

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Those pesky Australian alarmists sure do like to exaggerate. First they sold everyone that the “Science is Settled. Fossil fuels are warming the planet dangerously.” The government said: “We accept your report, thank you for your service,” and followed up with a plan to downsize the climate research unit (CSIRO).

Then came their loud public outcry: “You can’t do that. There is so much we don’t know and have to study. We need those jobs.”  So the government walked back that plan.

Now Australian scientists figure to build on their success by writing an open letter to the Prime Minister urging action to “fight climate change.”  And, no surprise, Exhibit A is the threat to the Great Barrier Reef. Trouble is, once again they are exaggerating and hoping no one will notice. The bluff is being called by people who visit and dive the reefs every day.

April 2016 Observations

New research found about 68 per cent of reefs from Cairns to Lizard Island had varying levels of coral bleaching, but most of it likened to sunburn on a human body where the coral glows pink before fully recovering.

Latest findings by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre give hope about the resilience of the living wonder after scientists this week revealed 93 per cent of the 2300km-long reef system was in the grip of a mass bleaching event.

Great Barrier Reef as seen by Activists. (Later Greenpeace admitted the image is a storm-damaged reef in the Philippines).

“It’s the Great White Lie,” said Col McKenzie, chief executive of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators. “It’s not dead, white and dying. It’s under stress but it will bounce back.’’

Coral bleaching is linked to high water temperatures of the latest El Niño weather system, where stressed coral polyps eject their photosynthetic zooxanthellae and, in extreme cases, the living colony will appear totally white. Skeletons are covered in algae.

The RRRC report found on the 126 key tourists sites there was, on average, 35 per cent coral cover – about one-third unbleached – and, on average, only 2.5 per cent of the coral had died because of bleaching.  “We think there is a much lower level of severely bleached corals. To say 80 per cent of the reef will die is catastrophising the situation,’’ RRRC director Sheriden Morris said. Source: Great Barrier Reef: Signs of recovery despite major coral bleaching, The Courier-Mail, Brisbane

That was in April.  In June Alarmists doubled down on their deceit by excommunicating one of their own for calling them out on their exaggerations (here):

An Australian university recently censured marine scientist Paul Ridd for “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution,” because he questioned popular claims among environmentalists about coral reefs and global warming.  Background post Circling the Climate Wagons

Great Barrier Reef photographed by Ronald Hanko June 16, 2016.

Updated Observations of Great Barrier Reef

In April 2016 the reef bleaching from El Nino was at its peak and occasioned widespread alarms. Now this week we have an observational update

Great Barrier Reef tourist operators found less than 5 percent of the natural wonder has died off from “bleaching,” despite claims from scientists that most of the reef had been killed off by the effects of global warming.  “Scientists had written off that entire northern section as a complete white-out,’’ Chris Eade, owner of the diving boat Spirit Of Freedom, told The Courier-Mail in an interview.

“We expected the worst,” Eade said. “But it is in tremendous condition, most of it is pristine, the rest is in full recovery. It shows the resilience of the reef.”

“It wasn’t until we got underwater that we could get a true picture of what percentage of reef was bleached,’’ Craig Stephens, who manages Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, told The Courier-Mail.

Stephens has surveyed the reef and compared his findings to a similar survey he did 20 years ago. He found almost no change between what he saw back then and today.

“Coral mortality in the outer shelf reefs north of Lizard Island was between one and five per cent,” according to findings exclusively obtained by The Courier-Mail. This stands in sharp contrast to reports from April of 50 percent bleaching in the northern section of the reef.

“The discrepancy is phenomenal. It is so wrong. Everywhere we have been we have found healthy reefs,” Stephens said.

Conclusion

Down under the alarmist icon is the Great Barrier Reef. In the North of course, it is the Arctic Polar Bear.

Update Aug. 26 Yes PM Pokes Fun at Climatism

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Update May 12, 2017

This video seems to work for everyone:

Update Aug. 26, 2016 Below

In Feb. 2016 I posted this:

A humorous look at why the global warming campaign and the triumphal Paris COP make sense.

Yes Minister explains it all in an episode from 2013.

h/t to Peter S.

This is an all-too-realistic portrayal of political climatism today.

Update Aug. 26, 2016

Yesterday I realized that BBC had blocked the viewing of the video.  So I sought and found the subtitles for Yes Prime Minister 2013, Episode 6, “A Tsar is Born”.  That final episode for the series began with the dialogue in yesterday’s post Climate Alarms LOL.

Today I provide the dialogue that formed the episode conclusion, and which was the content of the blocked video.

The Characters are:

Sir Humphrey Appleby
Cabinet Secretary

Jim Hacker
Prime Minister

Claire Sutton
Special Policy Adviser

Bernard Woolley
Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister

(Dialogue beginning at 20:16 of “A Tsar is Born”)

Humphrey I have returned with the answer to all your problems.
Global warming.

Jim I thought you were against it?

Humphrey Everybody’s against it, Prime Minister.
I suddenly realised that is the beauty of it.
We can get a unanimous agreement with all of our European partners
to do something about it.

Jim But how can we do something about
something that isn’t happening?

Humphrey It’s much easier to solve an
imaginary problem than a real one.

Jim You believe it’s real?

Humphrey Do you? I don’t know.

Jim Neither do I. Haven’t got the faintest idea!

Humphrey But it doesn’t matter what we think.
If everyone else thinks it’s real, they’ll all want to stop it.
So long as it doesn’t cost too much.
So the question now is, what are we going to do about it?

Jim But if it isn’t happening, what can we do about it?

Humphrey Oh, there’s so much we can do, Prime Minister.
We can impose taxes, we can stiffen European rules about
carbon emissions, rubbish disposal.
We can make massive investments in wind turbines.
We can, in fact, Prime Minister, under your leadership, agree to save the world.

Jim Well, I like that!
But Russia, India, China, Brazil, they’ll never cooperate.

Humphrey They don’t have to. We simply ask them to review their emissions policy.

Jim And will they?

Humphrey Yes. And then they’ll decide not to change it.
So we’ll set up a series of international conferences.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister, you can talk about the future of the planet.

Jim Yes.

Humphrey You can look statesmanlike.
And it’ll be 50 years before anybody can possibly prove you’re wrong.
And you can explain away anything you said before by saying the computer models were flawed.

Jim The voters will love me!

Humphrey You’ll have more government expenditure.

Jim Yes. How will we pay for it? We’re broke.

Humphrey We impose a special global warming tax on fuel now,
but we phase in the actual expenditure gradually. Say, over 50 years?
That will get us out of the hole for now.

Bernard The Germans will be pleased.
They have a big green movement.

Claire And we can even get the progs on board!

Bernard As long as they get more benefits than everyone else.

Jim My broadcast is on Sunday morning.

Humphrey You have a day to get the conference to agree.

Jim That’s not a problem.
The delegates will be desperate for something to announce
when they get home.
There is one problem.
Nothing will have actually been achieved.

Humphrey It will sound as though it has.
So people will think it has.
That’s all that matters!

(Later following the BBC interview, beginning 27:34)

Bernard Oh, magnificent, Prime Minister!

Humphrey I think you got away with it, Jim,
but the cabinet will have been pretty surprised.
We’ll have to square them fast.

Jim Bubbles!

Humphrey We’re not there yet.
After that interview, you’ll need to announce some pretty impressive action.

Jim An initiative.

Humphrey Yes.

Claire A working party?

Humphrey Bit lightweight.

Bernard A taskforce?

Humphrey Not sure.

Jim Do we have enough in the kitty?

Claire It could be one of those initiatives that you announce
but never actually spend the money.

Jim Great. Like the one on child poverty.

Bernard Maybe it should be a government committee?

Jim Well what about a Royal Commission?

Humphrey Yes!
It won’t report for three years, and if we put the right people
on it, they’ll never agree about anything important.

Jim Right! A Royal Commission!
No, wait a minute, that makes it sound as if we think
it’s important but not urgent.

Claire Well, what about a Global Warming Tsar?

Jim Fine! Would that do it?

Humphrey No, I think it might need a bit more than that, Prime Minister.
It’ll mean announcing quite a big unit, and an impressive salary for that Tsar,
to show how much importance you place upon him.

Jim No problem. Who would it be?

Humphrey Ah, well, it can’t be a political figure.
That would be too divisive.
It has to be somebody impartial.

Jim You mean a judge?

Humphrey No, somebody from the real world.
Somebody who knows how to operate the levers of power,
to engage the gears of the Whitehall machine,
to drive the engine of government.

Jim That’s quite a tall order.
Anybody got any ideas?

Humphrey… Could you?

Bernard Oh!

Humphrey Yes, Prime Minister.

The End.

Footnote

CO2 hysteria is addictive. Here’s what it does to your brain:

Just say No!

 

The Coming Climate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Update July 4 below

When you see a graph like that below, it is obvious that an unusually strong El Nino just happened in our climate system. It resulted in higher global temperatures the last two years and so far in 2016. But that event is over now, and naturally we wonder what to expect in the months and years ahead.

cdas_v2_hemisphere_2016june2
For example some comments from a recent thread at WUWT (here) were intriguing:

It will be interesting to see what comes next. The major difference between the 1998 el nino and this one is that in 1998 the sun was increasing in solar activity, while this one solar activity is decreasing. (rishrac)

Nino3,4 and UAH LT dC Anomalies, and UAH LT Scaled *3 and Lagged 4 Months h/t Allan MacRae

And richard takes the long view of the situation:

While we all stare at the short-term ups and downs of the global temperatures, pay a little thought to the fact that the Earth’s orbit around the Sun causes snow in the winter and warmth during the summer, so it may be important?

Perihelion presently occurs around January 3, (Northern hemisphere winter, Southern summer) while aphelion is around July 4. Therefore, the southern hemisphere receives more solar radiation and is therefore warmer in summer and colder in winter (aphelion). The Northern hemisphere has cooler summers and milder winter (solar radiation-wise).

Also the northern hemispheres autumn and winter are slightly shorter than spring and summer, because the Earth is moving faster around the Sun in winter slower in summer.

This alone could account for “Global Warming” attributed to CO2, (which no doubt plays some part in it).

Over the next 10,000 years, northern hemisphere winters will become gradually longer and summers will become shorter, due to the change in the Earth’s Orbital Eccentricity.

Couple this with changes in the Earth’s tilt, which varies from 22.1 degrees to 24.5 degrees, (currently at 23.4 degrees). More tilt means more solar radiation gets to the poles (global warming) and less tilt means less radiation gets to the poles (global cooling). The last maximum tilt occurred in 8700 BC (Holocene maximum) and the next minimum tilt will happen in 11,800 AD (the advance of the ice sheets), precisely at the time of longer northern winters and shorter summers.

Orbital Climate Factors: E for eccentricity, T for tilt, and P for precession

Predicting the Future is Tough

Chiefio (E.M. Smith) has a good post (here) reminding us that statistical projections do not help us much in this case. Temperature series produced by our climate system have special qualities. The patterns are auto-correlated, meaning that tomorrow’s weather will be similar to today’s; the occurrence is not totally independent, like the flip of coin. IOW there is momentum in the climate characteristics, which can and do fluctuate over seasons, decades, centuries and more. Our attempts to use linear regressions to forecast are thwarted by temperature time series that do not follow a normal gaussian distribution, and are semi-chaotic and non-stationary.

Four Possibilities Forward From Today

From past experience, the next few years could logically follow one of four temperature scenarios:
1. The Plateau since 1998 continues.
2. The Warming prior to 1998 resumes.
3. A new Plateau begins with 2016 at a higher (step up) level.
4. A Cooling begins comparable to the years after 1940.

All of these have analogues in our recent climate observations. If this now finished El Nino triggers a regime change comparable to the 1998 event, then a step-up plateau can result. If warmists are right, and there is a release of pent-up heat in the system, then a warming trend would resume.

If this El Nino is not strong enough to shift the regime, then the Plateau could continue at the same level. Finally, it could be that several factors align to reverse the warming since the 1970’s, and bring a return to cooler 1950’s weather.

Those who see a quasi-60 year cycle in weather patterns note that it is about time for the PDO in the Pacific and the AMO in the Atlantic to be in cooler phases, along with a quiet sun, which went spotless last week. There are also those attending to orbital climate patterns, which gave us the Modern Warming Period and will eventually take it away.

 

Changes in climate due to earth’s orbit around the sun

Update July 4

In the thread below is a chart from J Martin displaying the effects of the changing tilt of earth’s axis.  As shown, the long term pattern is toward cooling.

In addition, ren provides interesting links to studies showing SA (Sunspot numbers) correlating to Middle Ages Warm period and LIA, and a 2012 study forecasting the next 2 cycles.

Figure 1. Bottom plot: the summary component of the two PCs (solid curve) and the decaying component (dashed curves) for the “historical” data (cycles 21–23) and predicted data (cycles 24–26). The cycle lengths (about 11 yr) are marked with different colors.
shepherd etalfig1

Again, to the extent that SSNs are a proxy for changes in heat content within the earth’s climate system, the graph is also indicating future cooling.

For quantification of climate effects from Solar Activity, see:
Quantifying Natural Climate Change

Climate Partly Cloudy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Dr. Curry has a new very informative post (here) on clouds and climate, including links to several studies recently announced from CERN and others. It reminded me of Joni Mitchell’s song Both Sides Now:

Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s clouds’ illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all
– Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now Lyrics

The above chorus could serve as an anthem for climate modelers. Clouds are arguably the least understood and most unpredictable of factors in climate change. We are getting much better at the weather connection between storms and cloud formation. But the long-term effects of clouds and cloudiness are still uncertain. Dr. Curry helpfully separates the cloud problem into two issues: cloud microphysics and cloud dynamics. She observes that the latter is much more difficult and also has much more impact on climate.

Some things are known and described in textbooks of Atmospheric Physics. In introducing Chapter 9: Aerosols and Clouds in his updated volume, Murray Salby (here) suggests the complexities involved:

Radiative transfer is modified importantly by cloud. Owing to its high reflectivity in the visible, cloud shields the Earth-atmosphere system from solar radiation. It therefore introduces cooling in the SW energy budget of the Earth’s surface, offsetting the greenhouse effect. Conversely, the strong absorptivity in the IR of water and ice sharply increases the optical depth of the atmosphere. Cloud thus introduces warming in the LW energy budget of the Earth’s surface, reinforcing the greenhouse effect. We develop cloud processes from a morphological description of atmospheric aerosol, without which cloud would not form. The microphysics controlling cloud formation is then examined. Macrophysical properties of cloud are developed in terms of environmental conditions that control the formation of particular cloud types. These fundamental considerations culminate in descriptions of radiative and chemical processes that involve cloud.

Cloud Formation

The microphysics is mostly related to how clouds form, and the role of aerosols. Even though clouds can form simply from enough water vapor, in practice the required conditions for such “homogenous” formation are higher than those needed for “heterogenous” formation from ever-present aerosols, termed CCN. From Salby (pg. 272):

The simplest means of forming cloud is through homogeneous nucleation, wherein pure vapor condenses to form droplets. . . Yet, the formation of most cloud cannot be explained by homogeneous nucleation. Instead, cloud droplets form through heterogeneous nucleation, wherein water vapor condenses onto existing particles of atmospheric aerosol. Termed cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), such particles support condensation at supersaturations well below those required for homogeneous nucleation.

Cloudiness Impact on Radiative Balance

The extent of cloudiness varies a lot, as shown by measures of OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation) by satellites above TOA (h/t greensand). Notice that the scale has a range of 100 W m^2 compared to estimated CO2 sensitivity of ~4 W m^2.

OLR or ‘Cloudiness’ at the equatorial dateline 7.5S – 7.5N, 170E – 170W (large sea surface area) has been below norm for 15/16 months. Below average OLR is the result of increased cloud cover, which in turn = reduced insolation, less incoming solar energy. Yet as Salby says, cloud tops can reflect SW solar energy away while the cloud mass absorbs IR from the surface, delaying cooling. Different types of clouds have different impacts on radiative forcing. Not to mention water changing between all 3 phases inside.

Therein lies the cloud conundrum: How much warming and how much cooling from changes in cloudiness?

giphy

Clouds Complicating Climate
Salby, 9.5.1.pg.315ff

A quantitative description of how cloud figures in the global energy budget is complicated by its dependence on microphysical properties and interactions with the surface. These complications are circumvented by comparing radiative fluxes at TOA under cloudy vs clear-sky conditions. Over a given region, the column-integrated radiative heating rate must equal the difference between the energy flux absorbed and that emitted to space.

Shortwave cloud forcing represents cooling. It is concentrated near the Earth’s surface, because the principal effect of increased albedo is to shield the ground from incident SW. Longwave cloud forcing represents warming. It is manifest in heating near the base of cloud and cooling near its top (Fig. 9.36b).

That radiative forcing depends intrinsically on the vertical distribution of cloud. For instance, deep cumulonimbus and comparatively shallow cirrostratus can have identical cloud-top temperature, yielding the same LW forcing of the TOA energy budget. However, they have very different optical depths, producing very different vertical distributions of radiative heating. The strong correlation between water vapor and cloud cover introduces another source of uncertainty.

Summary

Since 90% of water in the atmosphere comes from the ocean, clouds are another way that Oceans Make Climate. And as Roger Andrews demonstrates (here) cloudiness correlates quite positively with SSTs.

Bottom Line: Any CO2 effect is lost in the Clouds

Globally averaged values of CLW and CSW are about 30 and −45 W m−2, respectively. Net cloud forcing is then −15 W m−2. It represents radiative cooling of the Earth atmosphere system. This is four times as great as the additional warming of the Earth’s surface that would be introduced by a doubling of CO2. Latent heat transfer to the atmosphere (Fig. 1.32) is 90 W m−2. It is an order of magnitude greater. Consequently, the direct radiative effect of increased CO2 would be overshadowed by even a small adjustment of convection (Sec. 8.7).

 

Cutting Edge Sea Level Data

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

PSLMPThis post is about the SEAFRAME network measuring sea levels in the Pacific, and about the difficulty to discern multi-decadal trends of rising or accelerating sea levels as evidence of climate change.

Update May 10 below, regarding recent Solomon Islands news

Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Network

The PSLM project was established in response to concerns voiced by Pacific Island countries about the potential effects of climate change. The project aims to provide an accurate long-term record of sea levels in the area for partner countries and the international scientific community, and enable the former to make informed decisions about managing their coastal environments and resources.

In 1991, the National Tidal Facility (NTF) of the Flinders University of South Australia was awarded the contract to undertake the management of the project.  Between July 1991 and December 2000 sea level and meteorological monitoring stations were installed at 11 sites. Between 2001 and 2005 another station was established in the Federated States of Micronesia and continuous global positioning systems (CGPS) were installed in numerous locations to monitor the islands’ vertical movements.

The 14 Pacific Island countries now participating in the project provide a wide coverage across the Pacific Basin: the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

SPSLCM_2008_4_data_report_Image_11

Each of these SEA Level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment (SEAFRAME) stations in the Pacific region are continuously monitoring the Sea Level, Wind Speed and Direction, Wind Gust, Air and Water Temperatures and Atmospheric Pressure.

In addition to its system of tide gauge facilities, the Pacific Sea-Level Monitoring Network also includes a network of earth monitoring stations for geodetic observations, implemented and maintained by Geoscience Australia. The earth monitoring installations provide Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements to allow absolute determination of the vertical height of the tide gauges that measure sea level.

Sea Level Datasets from PSLM

Data and reports are here.

Monthly reports are detailed and informative. At each station water levels are measured every six minutes in order to calculate daily maxs, mins and means, as a basis for monthly averages. So the daily mean sea level value is averaged from 240 readings, and the daily min and max are single readings taken from the 240.

 

untitled

A typical monthly graph appears above. It shows how tides for these stations range between 1 to 3 meters daily, as well variations during the month.

According to the calibrations, measurement errors are in the range of +/- 1 mm. Vertical movement of the land is monitored relative to a GPS benchmark. So far, land movement at these stations has also been within the +/- 1 mm range (with one exception related to an earthquake).

The PSLM Record

March SL range

In the Monthly reports are graphs showing results of six minute observations, indicating tidal movements daily over the course of a month.The chart above shows how sea level varied in each location during March 2016 compared to long term March results. Since many stations were installed in 1993, long term means about 22 years of history.

This dataset for Pacific Sea Level Monitoring provides a realistic context for interpreting studies claiming sea level trends and/or acceleration of such trends. Of course, one can draw a line through any scatter of datapoints and assert the existence of a trend. And the error ranges above allow for annual changes of a few mm to be meaningful. Here is a table produced in just that way.

Location Installation date Sea-level trend (mm/yr)
Cook Islands Feb 2003 +5.5
Federated States of Micronesia Dec 2001 +17.7
Fiji Oct 1992 +2.9
Kiribati Dec 1992 +2.9
Marshall Islands May 1993 +5.2
Nauru Jul 1993 +3.6
Papua New Guinea Sept 1994 +8.0
Samoa Feb 1993 +6.9
Solomon Islands Jul 1994 +7.7
Tonga Jan 1993 +8.6
Tuvalu Mar 1993 +4.1
Vanuatu Jan 1993 +5.3

The rising trends range from 2.9 to 8.6 mm/year (FSM is too short to be meaningful).

Looking into the details of the monthly anomalies, it is clear that sea level changes at the mm level are swamped by volatility of movements greater by orders of magnitude.  And there are obvious effects from ENSO events. The 1997-98 El Nino shows up in a dramatic fall of sea levels almost everywhere, and that event alone creates most of the rising trends in the table above.  The 2014-2016 El Nino is also causing sea levels to fall, but is too recent to affect the long term trend.

Picture17revSummary

Sea Level Rise is another metric for climate change that demonstrates the difficulty discerning a small change of a few millimeters in a dataset where tides vary thousands of millimeters every day. And the record is also subject to irregular fluctuations from storms, currents and oceanic oscillations, such as the ENSO.

On page 8 of its monthly reports (here), PSLM project provides this caution regarding the measurements:

The overall rates of movement are updated every month by calculating the linear slope during the tidal analysis of all the data available at individual stations. The rates are relative to the SEAFRAME sensor benchmark, whose movement relative to inland benchmarks is monitored by Geosciences Australia.
Please exercise caution in interpreting the overall rates of movement of sea level – the records are too short to be inferring long-term trends.

A longer record will bring more insight, but even then sea level trends are a very weak signal inside a noisy dataset. Even with state-of-the-art equipment, it is a fool’s errand to discern any acceleration in sea levels, in order to link it to CO2. Such changes are in fractions of millimeters when the measurement error is +/- 1 mm.

For more on the worldwide network of tidal gauges, as well as satellite systems attempting to measure sea level, sea Dave Burton’s excellent website.

May 10 update Regarding recent news about Solomon Islands.

As the charts above show, there is negligible sea level rise in the West Pacific, and receding a bit lately at Solomon Islands.  So it was curious that the media was declaring those islands inundating because of climate change.

Now the real story is coming out (but don’t wait for the retractions)

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters shows that some low-lying reef islands in the Solomon Islands are being gobbled up by “extreme events, seawalls and inappropriate development, rather than sea level rise alone.” Despite headlines claiming that man-made climate change has caused five Islands (out of nearly a thousand) to disappear from rising sea levels, a closer inspection of the study reveals the true cause is natural, and the report’s lead author says many of the headlines have been ‘exaggerated’ to ill-effect.

http://www.examiner.com/article/sinking-solomon-islands-and-climate-link-exaggerated-admits-study-s-author

 

 

 

Man Made Mild Weather (MMMW)

Posted on by Ron Clutz

For some relief from the relentless stories of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW), we turn today to a study of Man Made Mild Weather (MMMW).  CAGW also stands for Citizens Against Government Waste, not to be confused with the first acronym.  Oh wait.  (sarc/off)

Specifically this post concerns work by Dr. Arnd Bernaerts on human activities contributing to mild winters in Europe.

To start with, he is analyzing “climate” properly. Climates are plural, not singular; the term is a human construct referring to distinctly local and regional patterns and expectations of future weather. Secondly, he addresses changes observed in one particular season as a way to identify inter annual variation. Thirdly, he is well aware of oceanic fluctuations, and seeks to understand human effects in addition to natural variability.

Specifically Dr. Bernaerts studies the linkage between the Baltic and North Seas and winters in Northern Europe. His article (here) is entitled “Northern Europe’s Mild Winters. Contributions from Offshore Industry, Ships, Fishery, et cetera?”

From the Abstract:
The marine environment of North Sea and Baltic is one of the most heavily strained by numerous human activities. Simultaneously water and air temperatures increase more than elsewhere in Europe and globally, which cannot be explained with ‘global warming’.

The climatic change issue would be better understood if this extraordinary regional warming is sufficiently explained. The regional features are unique for in-depth studies due to different summer-winter conditions, shallowness of the seas, geographical structure, and main pathway for maritime weather patterns moving eastwards.

The impact of sea activities on the seasonal sea water profile structure is contributing to stronger regional warming, change in growing season, and less severe sea ice conditions. The impact of the man, whether small or large, should be understood very soon and very thoroughly.

Pay particular attention to the Discussion at the end, which includes this:

Regional seas in Northern Europe are minor from size and volume in global ocean affairs. Weather is “done” elsewhere, but every location contributes to the global picture. In the case of N-Europe it may be more significant as weather can be divided in maritime and continental influence, and due to the global air circulation from West to East, it is a gate. It may support the flow of warm wet air eastward (low pressure), or stem it by dry and cold continental air (high pressure), by diverting low pressure areas– in extreme circumstances – towards the Bering Sea or Mediterranean. In so far the North Sea and Baltic play a crucial role in how to open or close this gate.

Three facts are established: higher warming, a small shift in the seasons, and a decreasing sea ice cover. In each scenario the two sea’s conditions play a decisive role. These conditions are impaired by wind farms, shipping, fishing, off shore drilling, under sea floor gas-pipe line construction and maintenance, naval exercise, diving, yachting, and so on, about little to nothing has been investigated and is understood.

Summary:
The facts are conclusive. ‘Global Climate Change’ cannot cause a special rise in temperatures in Northern Europe, neither in the North Sea nor the Baltic or beyond. Any use of the oceans by mankind has an influence on thermo-haline structures within the water column from a few cm to 10m and more. Noticeable warmer winters in Europe are the logical consequence

Conclusion:

Two of my heroes are Dr. Pielke Sr. for his work showing how human use of the land affects climates in the locales where it occurs, and Dr. Bernaerts for exposing how human use of the ocean impacts on nearby climates.