Climate Change

[bluescreen]

Recommended reading:
Arctic Sea Ice Excellent blog with some very informed commenters

Arctic Sea Ice : Forum - Index
Posters really worth reading there include A-team, Andreas Muenchow, Andreas T, Crandles, Espen, Jim Hunt, Neven (obviously), Wipneus - actually, probably most people: it's a well-modded forum so there is little nonsense.

robertscribbler
Inclines to drama but well-researched and good for links and the quality of comments.

 

[teqniq]

 

[Crispy]

That's actually from 2013 - I can't imagine it's got better since.

 

[NoXion]

Still waiting on those Offworld Colonies though.

 

[teqniq]

World's carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return

 

[bi0boy]

World's carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return

It's no more "no return" now than it was when it "teetered" at 390.

 

[teqniq]

I am happy to accept that this is overblown hysteria or something along those lines but perhaps you would care to explain why.

 

[2hats]

It's no more "no return" now than it was when it "teetered" at 390.

That statement could be interpreted several ways:

1. as (anthropogenic) climate change denial, or
   
2. as acceptance of anthropogenic climate change but equally consideration that through geoengineering we could also modify that which we have changed, and/or
3. as recognition that the current observations are a consequence of actions in the past (and current human activity has stored up consequences yet to come).

I'm with 2 and 3.

 

[bi0boy]

I was just wondering what basis in fact there was for 400 being a point of no return. Not to mention teetering implies it could easily fall back. More a criticism of the Guardian headline writer I guess.

But yes, the idea that any particular level of CO2 represents a no return point is obviously dodgy ground. It's quite conceivable that in 50-100 years we'll be merrily bringing the level down.

 

[2hats]

It's quite conceivable that in 50-100 years we'll be merrily bringing the level down.

...and equally conceivable that it will be exponentially out of control.

 

[bi0boy]

...and equally conceivable that it will be exponentially out of control.

Exactly, so there is no "point of no return".

 

[ferrelhadley]

...and equally conceivable that it will be exponentially out of control.

There are two sources of CO2 that will be in play, human sourced and natural. Human sourced CO2 is mostly from fossil fuels and land use change. Land use change, aka deforstation is pretty limited (edited as a potential future source, there are only so many trees to knock down)and fossil fuels will peak by the economics of their geology without any new technologies or legal impediments to extraction\consumption. More over solar PV and onshore wind are beginning to compete with fossil fuels in the most adventitious locations. Given that once the cost of construction is paid off their costs will fall to very low levels in the coming decades, it is very very unlikely that human sourced CO2 will be rising at all by 2100.

In terms of natural sources most are pretty slow to react. Deep ocean clatherates are expected to only become a major source in centuries time, northern soils will be sources of CO2 but I have not seen anything to suggest they will be a source of some kind of runaway in the range of about 100 years. Ocean degassing is very slow. The only real runnaway source that is in shallow enough water is the controversial ideas of Semiletov and Shakova of giant clatherates already releasing methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, personally I am very dubious of this and the likes of world leading ocean chemist, David Archer has been critical.

With the exception of a handful of figures such as Peter Wadhams and James Hansen, almost every climate scientist and active physicist\astronomer\mathematician who blogs or communicates with the public on climate tend to downplay the "runaway" scenarios.

It would be my personal assessment that we will over shoot the 450ppm guardrail target, and thus likely over shoot the 2C target but by mid century technology will be acting as a very strong "pull" away from fossil fuels. We are now also likley "over the hump" in building public support for a political "push".

 

[2hats]

tend to downplay the "runaway" scenarios.

Fair point. I should have written "not inconceivable".

 

[oneflewover]

editor posted this in a separate thread, well worth a link here aswell.

Horizon, 2015-2016: 8. Ice Station Antarctica

Rising methane levels being the big risk, with perma frost melting (as mentioned in ferrelhadley post)

 

[ferrelhadley]

India records its hottest day ever

A city in India's Rajasthan state has broken the country's temperature records after registering 51C, the highest since records began, the weather office says.

The new record in Phalodi in the desert state comes amid a heatwave across India.

The previous record for the hottest temperature stood at 50.6C in 1956.

The heatwave has hit much of northern India, where temperatures have exceeded 40C for weeks.

The run-up to the Indian monsoon season is always characterised by weeks of strong sunshine and increasing heat but life-threatening temperature levels topping 50C are unusual.

April 2016: Earth's 12th Consecutive Warmest Month on Record

Keeping a year-long string of record-warm months going, April 2016 was by far the planet's warmest April since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Wednesday. In the NOAA database, April 2016 came in a full 1.10°C (1.98°F) warmer than the 20th-century average for April of 13.7°C (56.7°F), as well as 0.28°C (0.50°F) above the previous record for April, set in 2010. This is a huge margin for breaking a monthly global temperature record, as they are typically broken by just a few hundredths of a degree. The only months with larger warm departures from average were March and February 2016 and December 2015. NASA also reported the warmest April in its database (1.11°C above the 1951-1980 average), and the margin it broke the previous record by--0.24°C--was the largest margin ever recorded to break the April record by. The seven warmest months in NASA's database, relative to average, have been the past seven months (with data going back to 1880); these are the only months in the database with readings of at least 1.0°C above average.

 

[teqniq]

Yes folks it's one of those implied facepalm moments

Noah's Ark story is a 'fact' that disproves climate change, says Irish MP

 

[ferrelhadley]

Some graphs
A huge storm ran through the thin, end of melt season ice in the Arctic. Pressure bottomed out at 966mb in the 16 of this month.

2016 will unlikely break 2012s records but in many of the datasets it will be a damn near run thing.

Among the many extreme events happening in the world over the past couple of weeks Louisiana has had a very serious flooding event and some truly epic rains, calculated at 1 in 1000 year events in places

Louisiana flood: Worst US disaster since Hurricane Sandy, Red Cross says
August 2016 extreme rain and floods along the Gulf Coast


You can see 3 tropical storms coming close to each other and begining to interact near southern Japan


Here is the daily global ocean surface temperatures.



To tie things together you can see the really warm waters of the US East Coast that is feeding the Louisiana storms. Also lots of warm waters in the Philippine Sea (between southern Japan and the northern Philippians)
Notably across the tropical Pacific the developing la Nina is very visible, that is the tongue of cold waters right on the equator in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The curly patterns to its side is where the Coriolis Effect is turning the strong winds into spirals that actually push warm waters into the deeper ocean. This helped explain what some people called a "haitus" in warming during the 2000s and early 2010s
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus : Nature Climate Change : Nature Research

La Ninas pull cool deep waters from the Humboldt Current to the surface and push warm surface waters in to the deeper ocean.

Greenlands melting has hit 2 standard deviations above average this year (again!!!)

Looking at the ocean temperatures above one can see why, and where the energy to melt the Arctic ocean sea ice has come from.

A tiny fraction of the data we have coming in every day showing the climate changed world slowly (on a human time scale) adjusting to the 250 trillion Joules per second that is being trapped into the ocean atmosphere system.

Tick fucking tock eh. Flying anywhere nice this year?

 

[ferrelhadley]

Hawaii getting Teed up

 

[ferrelhadley]

Hmmmm thats very interesting

And that helps contribute to the death of another meme.

Annual average temperatures on the UAH dataset for the mid troposphere now exceed 97/98's peak. The actual trend is statistically significantly upwards from 1996 to present.

 

[ferrelhadley]

 

[nuffsaid]

^ saw that on F'book. The date for the Great Pyramid construction is way off I reckon.

 

[ferrelhadley]

^ saw that on F'book. The date for the Great Pyramid construction is way off I reckon.

Something wiki'd this way comes.

 

[nuffsaid]

Something wiki'd this way comes.

you need to dig a lot deeper than Wikipedia to find the truth on that pyramid...

 

[ferrelhadley]

you need to dig a lot deeper than Wikipedia to find the truth on that pyramid...

Have you also cracked the code?

 

[teqniq]

Terrifying 'signals from nature' prompting world to ratify climate treaty at 'breakneck speed'

 

[ferrelhadley]

Matthew Becomes the Atlantic's First Category 5 Hurricane in Nine Years | Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Weather rather than climate but it looks like trouble for Jamaica.

How did Matthew get so strong so quickly?
Vertical wind shear of up to 20 knots has plagued Matthew for most of the last two days, yet the storm has not only maintained its structure but grown at a ferocious rate. Dissertations may be written on how this happened! Working in Matthew’s favor has been a steadily moistening atmosphere along its westward path, which means that the shearing winds didn’t push too much dry air into Matthew. Once it developed a central core, Matthew was able to fend off the wind shear much more effectively. In addition, water temperatures are unusually warm throughout the Caribbean (and the entire western North Atlantic), with an area of high oceanic heat content directly beneath Matthew’s path. Such deep oceanic heat allows a storm to strengthen without churning up cooler waters from below that could blunt the intensification.

5th Cat 5 of the year for the world and latest cat 5 in the north Atlantic basin ever.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Matthew Becomes the Atlantic's First Category 5 Hurricane in Nine Years | Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Weather rather than climate but it looks like trouble for Jamaica.

5th Cat 5 of the year for the world and latest cat 5 in the north Atlantic basin ever.

Hurricane Matthew: At least 100 people killed in Haiti devastation

It will take time for a full assessment but this is a really terrible part of the world to catch something this big full on. Its hill, the soils are easily eroded and many of the people have only makeshift shelter. It will be in the news more as it hits America.

 

[Crispy]

Pointed right at cape canaveral where, somewhat ironically, the about-to-be-launched GOES-R weather warning satellite has been put in a protective bunker. This is forecast for tomorrow morning:

The cape is the filigreed bit just north of the eye. Most buildings there aren't designed to handle anything like 140kt winds.

 

[2hats]

The latest high resolution GFS runs this evening place the centre (and importantly the NE quadrant) off the coast, rolling up the coast to NC, possibly not quite making landfall.

The radar loop makes for interesting viewing.

Pointed right at cape canaveral where, somewhat ironically, the about-to-be-launched GOES-R weather warning satellite has been put in a protective bunker.

Actually it's secured in a clean room in a building, rated to category 4, several miles inland away from the Cape. Older buildings at the Cape (up until early 90's) are category 2/3 rated. Subsequent constructions are rated to 4/5. It might be the storm surge that does the major damage around there.

 

[2hats]

Now down rated to category 3, it has indeed stayed off the coast so far keeping the very highest winds off the land. The ECMWF, GFS and UKMET models (and others) see the storm looping back around clockwise and heading back S/SSW in the coming days.

GOES-R waiting in the cleanroom: