Perspectives from China
I spent the last three weeks in China partly for a conference, partly for a vacation, and partly for a rest. In catching up over the last couple of days, I notice that the break has given me a slightly different perspective on a couple of issues that are relevant here.
First off, the conference I attended was on paleoceanography and there were was a lot of great new science presented, particularly concerning the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (around 55 million years ago), and on past changes to tropical rainfall patterns (see this week's Nature) - two issues where there is a lot of relevance for climate change and its impacts today. I'll discuss the new data in separate posts over the next few weeks, but for now I'll just mention a topic that came up repeatedly in conversations over the week - that was how to improve the flow of information from the paleo community to the wider climate community, as represented by the IPCC for instance.
There was a palpable sense that insights from paleo-climate (in this case referring mainly to the ocean sediment record rather than ice cores or records from the last millennium) were not being given their due, and in fact were frequently being misused. In a panel discussion (hosted by Stefan), people lamented the lack of 'synthesis' that would be useful for the outside community, while others stressed (correctly) that synthesis is hard and frankly not well regarded within the community or their funders. I think this is a general problem; many of the incentives for success within an academic field - the push for novel techniques, the ownership of specific slices of data, the desire to emulate the paths to success of the previous generation - actually discourage work across the field that pulls together disparate sources of information.
In the paleo-oceanography case, this exhibits itself in the overwhelming focus on downcore records (the patterns of change at a single point through time) and the relative lack of integrated products that either show spatial patterns of change at a single time, or that try to extract common elements from multiple events in the past. There are of course numerous exceptions - the MARGO project that compiled records from the peak of the last ice age, or the work of PMIP for the mid-Holocene - but their visibility makes their uniqueness all the more obvious. There were no ideas presented that would fix this overnight, but the discussions showed that the community realises that there is a problem - even if the solutions are elusive.
My second thought on China came from travelling through some of the most polluted cites in the world. Aerosol haze that appeared continuous from Beijing to Hong Kong is such an obvious sign of human industrial activity that it simply takes your breath away (literally). In places, even on a clear day, you cannot see the sun - even if there is no cloud in the sky. Only in the mountains or in deeply rural parts of the country was blue sky in evidence. This is clearly an unsustainable situation (even if you are only thinking about the human health impacts) and it points the way, I think, to how China can be engaged on the climate change front. If reducing aerosol emissions can be done at the same time that greenhouse gases can be cut, the Chinese will likely jump at the chance. As an aside, I noticed that Compact Florescent Light bulbs were being used almost everywhere you looked, and that the majority of Shanghai's motorbikes and scooters were electric rather than gasoline powered. These efforts clearly help, but they are just as clearly not sufficient on their own.
Finally, the limited access to the Internet that one gets in China (through a combination of having better things to do with one's time and the sometimes capricious nature of what gets through the Great Firewall) allowed me to take a bit of break from the constant back and forth on the climate blogs. In getting back into it, one appreciates just how much time is wasted dealing with the most ridiculous of issues (Hansen's imagined endorsement of a paper he didn't write thirty six years ago, the debunking of papers that even E&E won't publish, and the non-impact of the current fad for amateur photography) at the expense of anything substantive. In effect, if possibly not in intention, this wastes a huge amount of people's time and diverts attention from more significant issues (at least in the various sections of the blogosphere). Serious climate bloggers might all benefit from not getting too caught up in it, and keeping an closer eye on the bigger picture. We will continue to try and do so here.
26 septembre 2007 at 3:28 PM
Gavin — “We will continue to try and do so here.” Yes please, and welcome back!
26 septembre 2007 at 3:40 PM
We rely on you to do just that.
However … social animals that we are, it is hard to ignore the chatter. Might this be a good time (by way of making lemonade from the current bumper crop of lemons) to discuss competing forcings in the light of evidence that aerosol sensitivity may be higher than previously thought, to explain why this makes action on greenhouse gases more, not less urgent, and to suggest that Rasool and Schneider may have been asking exactly the right question?
[Response: Asking about aerosols is definitely a good question, but this documentary (which we discussed at length when it first aired - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/global-dimming-and-climate-models/ ) doesn’t really show that aerosol sensitivity is larger than we think, and the implications for climate sensitivity were exaggerated (see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/climate-sensitivity-and-aerosol-forcings/ ). Still, aerosols are an important part of the mix. - gavin]
26 septembre 2007 at 3:54 PM
Gavin wrote: “My second thought on China came from travelling through some of the most polluted cites in the world. Aerosol haze that appeared continuous from Beijing to Hong Kong is such an obvious sign of human industrial activity that it simply takes your breath away (literally). In places, even on a clear day, you cannot see the sun - even if there is no cloud in the sky. Only in the mountains or in deeply rural parts of the country was blue sky in evidence. This is clearly an unsustainable situation (even if you are only thinking about the human health impacts) and it points the way, I think, to how China can be engaged on the climate change front.”
Bingo! Some of us have been saying this for some time now, even without traveling to China, but I’m sure seeing–and breathing–it in person drove the point home in a way that looking at satellite images of China in which you can not clearly see the ground does not. Now that China has exceeded the United States in per-nation emissions of CO2, let alone in aerosols, I have no doubt that the Chinese government is acutely aware of the impending health crises that their nation faces. It is clearly in our own best interest to assist China in developing technologies to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and shift to alternative forms of electrical generation and transport fuels. If we don’t China will eventually do it without us and it will be we who will end up buying those technologies from them. Our choice.
“In getting back into it, one appreciates just how much time is wasted dealing with the most ridiculous of issues…. at the expense of anything substantive.”
Hear, hear! Tilting at the pathetic attempts to pick away at perceived and imagined chinks in the mounting, mutually supportive evidence that it is we humans who are largely responsible for the current warming is a waste of time, and a navel-gazing luxury that we simply can no longer afford. Personally, I have decided to shift my time and effort over to campaigns to educate the public and school groups about the many actions that individuals, families, neighborhood groups, and small businesses can currently take to reduce their fossil fuel and energy consumption footprints, including putting real pressure on their elected representatives, and to motivate high school students to pursue careers in science, engineering and even developing and manufacturing marketable technologies that will be needed to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels to any substantial, meaningful extent. In other word’s it’s time to get to get out there and get to some real work.
That said, Gavin, I do very much look forward to your future posts to bring us up to speed on the science presented at the conference.
Regards,
26 septembre 2007 at 4:33 PM
i have been hearing that china is backing away from coal-to-liquid (CTL) processes to produce synthetic diesel and gasoline. while in china did you hear anything about that ?
26 septembre 2007 at 4:46 PM
I would like it if you would be specific on what you meant by the “non-impact of the current fad for amateur photography) at the expense of anything substantive”. I followed the link by clicking “non-impact” but saw no amateur photography at that website.
26 septembre 2007 at 4:53 PM
Apparently the future holds a little less chatter from Virginia.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:00 PM
Welcome back Gavin. Excellent post, but I am curious why a free survey of climate stations is considered a waste of time. A photographic survey of surface stations was recommended well before surfacestations.org started their effort. By people that would not be considered skeptics if memory serves.
[Response: See my previous post - not sure there’s anything to add. - gavin]
26 septembre 2007 at 5:13 PM
I don’t see why anyone is concerned about what anyone else is doing, or spends so much time discussing it. Everyone should be spending time implementing the truth as they know it, not discussing what they think it is with others or trying to convince anyone of anything. Except the people that are in control of the methods of implementing policy.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:28 PM
Gavin wrote:
I have had the impression pretty much from the get-go that the contributors would prefer to be spending more time on the issues that really matter, on explaining the science, answering questions and so on. In contrast we have seen a number of people come through here who only seek to confuse matters and make a general pain of themselves - to have their almost purely negative criticism of climatology treated on an equal par with the positive explanations of the science itself. An obvious case was the attack upon the surface stations - which seemed to go on well after everything had been done to death. I imagine the same might be said regarding the absorption and reemission of radiation - which went on far longer, but which I like to think was somewhat more productive even at the end. Then there are the alternate theories for which they can cite little or no evidence (on the rare occasions when they actually try to present them) treated as being on an equal par as well.
In any case, I am not sure that there is an easy solution. If no one responds, it may seem like there is no response to offer - at least to someone who has just wondered in. But if someone does respond, it can feed the senseless debate which is often only slightly above that of arguing with a pure troll. But it is something worth giving some thought to. I myself have have a project of sorts that is related to this site, but given the debating I haven’t had nearly as much time for it as I would like. I also know that people have wondered through here and been highly impressed with the level of discussion - which is I believe is well above that found nearly anywhere else on the web.
In any case, I am looking forward to learning more about your trip to China. Incidentally, back in the eighties Hong Kong was perhaps my favorite city. Either that or Singapore. Nearly polar opposites - the yang and the yin of the Orient.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:37 PM
Gavin, Welcome back, although it may have been disheartening to go directly from the pollution of the atmosphere to the pollution of the blogosphere. And with record energy prices filling the coffers of the major polluters of both atmosphere and blogosphere, I fear we are not due for any respite. It has been more than 22 years almost to the day since I last set foot on Chinese soil. It is an amazing place–over a billion people doing whatever they need to for survival. Perhaps China can take some heart from the experience of India. On my last trip there in ‘96, Delhi was so polluted, you literally could not see the lamp post across the street. My wife and I both got bronchitis after only a week. I am told that it is now relatively clean–albeit at the expense of surrounding districts. China will be tougher, but I would think that >$80/barrel oil would provide an incentive for them to adopt greater conservation and efficiency measures even if their environmental woes do not.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:41 PM
gavin> ‘This is clearly an unsustainable situation (even if you are only thinking about the human health impacts)…’
While I certainly think pollution in China should be greatly reduced, what is ‘unsustainable’ about the health impacts? Humans have lived hundreds of thousands of years with average life spans much less than anything likely to result from this pollution.
It probably is unsustainable from the point of view that as the Chinese become wealthier, they will decide it to be worth the cost of greatly reducing health threatening pollution, just as western peoples have. But that did not seem to be what you meant.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:43 PM
Gavin, I hope you can invite those researchers here, give them the anonymity they may need, and host a discussion locking the rest of us gabbling amateurs out so you all can find space to think (grin).
Seriously, more scientists, less noise, at least in one thread or one forum, maybe ‘next door’ — would be fascinating to watch.
Raplh, if you will reread what Gavin wrote:
> the overwhelming focus on downcore records (the patterns
> of change at a single point through time) and the relative
> lack of integrated products that either show spatial patterns
> of change at a single time, or that try to extract common
> elements from multiple events in the past.
He means — I think — that each lab has its core of sediment brought up and is going through it.
Each lab may be describing the sequence of layers, and from that describing what they learn about the ocean when that particular layer was laid down — then looking say at continental drift to see where that piece of the planet was on the globe when that layer formed.
That’s fascinating, but it’s a time series for a point that slowly drifts across the globe — depth of the ocean changes, currents around the area likely change as continents move, and so forth.
And Gavin means — I think — that few are able to spend time and money focusing on say collecting even a digitized image of every little bit of all those cores, let alone an index tied to the image of every bit of analytical work done, for each core, on each successive layer.
Suppose you could go to any piece of data from the ocean core records and cross-check every other data file that had the same kind of chemical signature, or was from the same point in time, or had formed at a similar latitude or depth or temperature layer on the globe at a different time …
Look at one, but be able to find all related info worldwide, from something like this or a database with it:
http://sciencematters.berkeley.edu/archives/volume2/issue11/images/story3-3.jpg
We’ve got Google Moon, and Google Mars, but no Google Sediment yet.
Why not? Oh, right. Not enough advertisers to sponsor it.
26 septembre 2007 at 5:45 PM
I’ve also recently spent time in China, though my reasons were mycological rather than paleoceanographical. Those little electric scooters are obviously a good thing, but also a danger to pedestrians - you can’t hear them coming. And I was very impressed by the number of solar water heaters to be seen - on the tops of apartment buildings, even yak herders (turned matsutake harvesters) homes.
I was actually quite impressed by the availability of broadband internet in hotels. Most had broadband connections in every room - even if they weren’t always connected up….
But the Asian brown haze is an amazing and terrible thing. Even in the largely rural province I visited (Yunnan), there was significant (eye-watering) pollution around major cities. Cleaning that up is going to be no small task.
26 septembre 2007 at 6:03 PM
Hank, I didn’t say anything about sediment. Are you talking about Lake Baikal?
My point was that the discussions should go towards influencing policy makers (and/or the general public) and not quibbling about minutia with people that clearly think differently about the issues. It’s pointless.
26 septembre 2007 at 6:05 PM
I’ve been dealing with the PRC for over a decade. There is something in the Chinese / communist mentality which most Westerners fail to grasp. The value of human life / the human spirit is considered much lower than it is in Western cultures and isolated examples elsewhere in the world. In fact, there is a certain fatalism about physical life in the here and now. This leads to an overall destructive mentality. Certainly, the West had its moments in the past. But back in those days decades ago when we were the primary belchers of unmitigated filth, our population was much, much lower. There were large spaces between our cities and the impacted areas were actually pretty small. There is no precedent for what is going on in China now.
26 septembre 2007 at 6:13 PM
If we don’t China will eventually do it without us and it will be we who will end up buying those technologies from them. Our choice.
As you must know, China is on a coal power plant building frenzy, about 1 per week is opened I have read, using the most primitive technology available, and avoiding more advanced technology from Europe or the USA.
China is, and seems intent, on being the lowest cost producer in the world. So, get used to the brown haze.
26 septembre 2007 at 6:53 PM
Raplh, Gavin started the thread talking about the need for more discussion among the scientists who are working in “paleo-oceanography … the overwhelming focus on downcore records” and the need for them to talk. We agree I guess that we nonscientists should sit back and hope Gavin gets that conversation going.
Gavin, did any discussion of the content of Ward’s book “Under a Green Sky” come up at your meeting?
26 septembre 2007 at 7:10 PM
RE: #10 - The problem is, China is now addicted to coal. Most current installations burn high sulfur, soft coal. There is very little use of high quality, low sulfur hard anthracite. Due to the lack of air pollution control laws / any meaningful air basin authoritie / systemic monitoring, etc, both the state (i.e. power generation) and industry have exploited the situation. As you ride the ferry up into the Pearl River Delta, there are stacks upon stacks to the horizon and beyond. I have never seen any thing like this elsewhere - not in the old US rust belt, not in the UK midlands, not in the Ruhr.
There is now much talk of reducing coal based pollution in the PRC. I shall believe it when I see it.
26 septembre 2007 at 7:48 PM
Steve Sadlov, First, I don’t think it is fair to say that the Chinese, or the communists for that matter (for China is hardly communist in any meaningful sense) do not value life. China’s policy on almost everything is driven by two related factors–its massive population and its alarm at being so far behind the West (and particularly the US) technologically. The latter represents an external threat to the survival of the Chinese Oligarchy. The former represents an internal threat. China’s economy needs to grow at 8% per year just to keep up with the growth of the workforce–and a large cadre of unemployed (and likely sexually frustrated given the gender ratios) males is not a welcome prospect.
The Chinese will use whatever means they can to address these threats, and if that trashes the environment–well those threats will manifest further down the line. However, the crisis presents a considerable opportunity–we can try to facilitate making cleaner technologies available to the Chinese. The infrastructure they adopt will penalize or reward us for decades, and maybe centuries, to come.
26 septembre 2007 at 8:24 PM
re #19
“… for China is hardly communist …” Someone better tell them to edit their constitution then:
“… the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the ruling political party of the People’s Republic of China, a position guaranteed by the country’s constitution. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China
26 septembre 2007 at 8:30 PM
I think it is insulting to say that the Chinese or any people for that matter do not value life. First, that is unknowable; and second it serves to alienate and isolate groups of people from others. I am sure Sadlov did not intend this, but it is easy to interpret it from phrases like “Chinese do not value human life as much as westerners do.” [It’s not adiret quote, I paraphrased a little.]
26 septembre 2007 at 9:38 PM
Gavin, I think you’ve highlighted some great points, both about the need for data synthesis and also the difficulties in obtaining them. There is frequently a tendency to underestimate the effort and resources required to take data from multiple sources and assemble them in a manner so that they are compatible (same time scale, same units, indicators presenting the same environmental parameter). Both PMIP and MARGO projects were multi-year (multi-decade in the case of PMIP?) projects involving many principle investigators. It seems to me, though, that there have been other recent data synthesis successes, although perhaps the majority have been centered in terrestrial data rather than the paleoceanographic community. I’m thinking of the drought data in the midcontinental USA; remarkable data compilations of Arctic temperature and vegetation changes for the last few millennia, the Holocene, and most recently the last interglacial - to name a few. There are always a few individuals who focus on synthesis, but it’s refreshing to hear that there is a developing, community-wide interest amongst paleoceanographers to create benchmark datasets.
26 septembre 2007 at 9:38 PM
Unless a Chinese Gorbachev comes around there soon, the entire world will fall victim to China’s big bag of lethal tricks. It is the most dangerous country in the world, and we should all refuse to go to the Olympics there. Send a message to China, the communists there, who do not value life, only their own.
[Response: Folks, this particular discussion is getting way off topic, so this will be the last such post we’ll allow If you want to discuss the politics, take that to some other site. Thanks. -mike]
26 septembre 2007 at 9:42 PM
John Norris, Try walking out of the Terra Cotta Army Museum and dealing with the hawkers outside, or walk through any Chinese market and you will find capitalism at its most raw. The “communism” in China is merely a useful fiction that perpetuates the myth of continuity and stability. There is nothing there now that Marx, Lennin, or even Mao would recognize.
26 septembre 2007 at 10:11 PM
RE: #19 - So, I’ll open my kimono a bit here. I am quite a mutt, in terms of ethnic background. Based on matrilineal descent I am Jewish, but am also a bit Chinese (father’s side). What I describe is not meant to offend. It is meant to bluntly shatter some of the notions that Westerners, who can easily fall under the spell of so called “oriental mystique” may entertain. This is especially common, I have noticed, with many of the Western business people who are currently quite obsessed with China. There is an understated brutality that is simply embedded in Chinese culture. To get somewhat of a sense of this, the Amy Tan books are actually not all that bad, believe it or not, particularly the sequences dealing with life prior to emigration to the US. Amy has clearly been very observant of her own family, Chinese friends and has also done her homework. Indeed, some of the things you’ve noted factor into why this is. Let me explore the statement about value of human life / value of human spirit a bit more. Some may commend the fact that Chinese society is less individualistic and more communitarian (this predates commun-ism by millennea) than most Western ones. Fair enough. But there is also a dark side (as with all things involving humans!).
Confucianism, combined with millennea of paternalistic, authoritarian social organizational priciples, have resulted in the issues with value of individuals that I have noted. If I were to portray a spectrum, with the purest Anglo-Saxon / English Common Law “human rights” culture at the left end and the purest Far Eastern top down, do as you are told culture at the right end, Chinese culture both pre and post Mao would certainly be much closer to the right end, and, realized 21st century Anglo Saxon ones closer to the left end. People who take human rights very seriously would likely render similar analysis. I make no deterministic value judgment. I simply report what I have learned from real life.
26 septembre 2007 at 10:54 PM
Stalin’s Constitution was perhaps the most liberal, in regards to person rights and civil rights, ever written.
Yet … millions did die in the Gulags, the oppression against the Kulaks, etc.
What counts? Words written on paper, or actions?
The answer is simple, I think.
26 septembre 2007 at 11:09 PM
C’mon, John, the Chinese have communism like the USA have a republic.
Editing either their — or our — Constitution would be a distraction from the real work urgently needed, eh? World to save and all that.
_____________________________________________________________________
At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a lady asked Dr. Franklin directly: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic if you can keep it” responded Franklin. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html
———————————
Gavin, how about the scientists in your host country there — why were you meeting there, specifically? Hope to educate the politicians? New info not published outside China to discuss?
26 septembre 2007 at 11:59 PM
Generally, the closer life comes to carrying capacity, the less value it has and the more perilous life’s struggle becomes. We still burn coal with the same result: air polution, CO2 increases and mercury dumped in the seas fed back to us in tuna, where it biomagnifies. The result is the same no matter who does it.
27 septembre 2007 at 12:10 AM
More science, less responding to the trolls? Yes, please!
27 septembre 2007 at 12:16 AM
So the extensive work done by surfacestations.com has shown, so far, that the GISS temperature record for the lower 48 (2 % of the world according to Hansen) is not significantly biased by UHI or microclimate issues. Great! Science works when skeptics arrive at the same result as proponents. However, the skeptics seem to have two points that I am still bothered by. One is why the NOAA record is so different than GISS especial when factoring the station classification. The other is the assertion that the GISS record for the ROW is derived differently and has more significant error sources than the US record. Since the ROW record is so important in climate modeling I would like to see some response to the “where’s waldo” posts on ClimateAudit
[Response: NOAA’s record is not particularly different from GISTEMP so there is nothing to explain. The ROW record is derived similarly to the US except for the rural/urban distinction which uses night lights in the US (which has been groundtruthed) but population in ROW which is the best that can be done at present. If you want to know where the global has been warming, look at the maps on the GISTEMP website (e.g. this one). The answer is all northern hemisphere land masses, Australia, India etc. etc.). - gavin]
27 septembre 2007 at 12:56 AM
Well put, but how do we do it? my guess is we have to start by simply not responding to a whole raft of trolls people who aren’t making the cut because they don’t change what they post even when answered, or even refuted.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:01 AM
I think Paulina is right.
An unnecessary-to-answer commenter is someone who keeps asking the same question after it’s been answered, or making the same point after it’s been refuted. If they are the original asker/pointmaker, TROLL: the process stops. No response whatsoever. If another commenter was the asker, pointmaker, UNINFORMED/REDIRECT: you say “asked and answered - link” or “already refuted - link” and no further answer. If they repeat the question or point anyway, go to TROLL.
It’s like going on a troll-free diet.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:12 AM
what was said about the PETM?
27 septembre 2007 at 1:20 AM
I suggest that John Norris might read some Marx or Lenin or Mao to understand the comment about “China is hardly Communist”. Authoritarian, yes, Communist–I don’t think so.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:27 AM
Does China’s aerosol pollution explain why global mean temperature has not risen for the past 8 years (or ownly very marginally if you assume 2005 was the warmest)?
27 septembre 2007 at 1:49 AM
I’d like to second (or whatever number is appropriate) the appeal for more new, interesting science and less responding to ridiculous non-issues.
27 septembre 2007 at 2:26 AM
China’s emissions may reduce sooner than we think due to depletion http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/5/13/105158/220. This somewhat contradicts assumptions of long term increasing coal use in the IPCC 4th report. The potential implications of this are enormous not only for emissions scenarios but global trade.
27 septembre 2007 at 2:39 AM
Dear Gavin
I am sure that the average professional climate scientists annual carbon footprint is somewhat larger for attending all of these global conferences several times pe annum even if one does take a vacation alongside it.
BAU seems to be necessary for everyone these days. I wonder if the message will ever truely get across to ordinary skeptical citizens of the need to dare I say it reduce carbon expenditure. The Tough choices people including scientists need to make are not becomming a reality, but maybe soon eh.
Soon, soon, soon.
27 septembre 2007 at 4:50 AM
Re 24 Have a look e.g. at the picture here: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Short_Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png
Then STFU.
27 septembre 2007 at 5:13 AM
I found this comment of interest.
My second thought on China came from travelling through some of the most polluted cites in the world. Aerosol haze that appeared continuous from Beijing to Hong Kong is such an obvious sign of human industrial activity that it simply takes your breath away (literally). In places, even on a clear day, you cannot see the sun - even if there is no cloud in the sky.
This industrial activity blocks out the sun so why does removing this not result in more global warming? Why should this not even be enough to outweigh improvements in co2 output.
It is interesting to me that given a hundred years of industrialisation it is only now that we are starting to clean up our act with industry that global warming is becoming a significant problem. Perhaps the farmer who said to me, “If you don’t like shit keep away from nature, it loves the stuff.” unwittingly has the answer. Natural burn is dirty but post industrial man orientated burn is more efficient and therefore too clean.
27 septembre 2007 at 5:18 AM
Sorry there should have been a line space after the comment at:- This industrial activity , which is misleading and unfair to the original author. Can’t see as a beginner how if possible to edit it.
27 septembre 2007 at 6:17 AM
PHE posts:
[[Does China’s aerosol pollution explain why global mean temperature has not risen for the past 8 years (or ownly very marginally if you assume 2005 was the warmest)?]]
I have just added a page, “Why Tim Ball is Wrong,” to my climatology site:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Climatology.html
It examines the fallacy in the “Global warming stopped in 1998!” cry of some deniers.
27 septembre 2007 at 8:08 AM
China is ripe for the kind of technology transfers envisoned under Kyoto. Sell them a license to green tech, and let them build it themselves. Otherwise they’ll steal it and build themselves.
(PS. I believe Beijing wants to make its entire public transit fleet move to fuel cells. They are VERY serious about this stuff, for the reasons Gavin mentions).
27 septembre 2007 at 8:15 AM
Welcome back Gavin! You may be a bit overly optimistic about the practical opportunity to combine aerosol reductions with CO2 reductions. Its quite a bit cheaper to install end-of-pipe scrubbers for SOx and NOx than to make more fundamental changes to the energy system. Ironically, the push for clean air in China will likely speed up warming rather than help abate it.
[Response: Much of the problems in China come from small inefficient sources - small factories, cars etc. that are not likely to ever get scrubbing technology installed. However, I think you could envisage a replacement of those small sources with more efficient large sources with scrubbers + potential for sequestration that would address all problems at once. However, I’ve had some offline discussions with people that have worked on precisely those kinds of issues in China with little success, and so I’m more appreciative of how difficult getting things to actually happen is. This is definitely the challenge of the age. - gavin]
27 septembre 2007 at 9:05 AM
Hi Gavin, welcome back.
Let me give an update on the amateur photography.
I could, of course, point to the work of amateur
astronomers, but since you work at Goddard I was
sure you had read this:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2003/03-78.htm
Nice collaboration there I thought.
Instead, however, I will point to the work of an
amateur climate scientist. JohnV. You already
linked to his work seen on Rabbetts site.
In the matter of a couple days, JohnV developed, coded
and posted a unique approach to estimating the land
temperature record of the lower 48. Quite a piece of
work for an amateur. And it’s different
from the GISS approach.
Now, to the results. The chart you linked represent the
results from roughly 50 sites in the US. Sites that
have been surveyed, photographed and rated as class1
or class2. When you check the trend over the century
you’ll find these sites to be slightly cooler that the
trend in GISS.
The significance of the difference in
trend has not been assessed, but once the professional
statisticians get involved, we’ll report the results.
and the analysis code. Further, when we restricted the
analysis to sites that are rural, we saw larger differences, but the number of stations was rather low.
So, we await the complete audit before concluding
anything.
Finally, we have also compared the best sites (class1 and class2) with the worst sites,the class5s. Here too we saw a difference in Trend, with the class5s warming at a higher rate than the class1 and classs2. Again, the
final analysis with proper statistical documentation has not been completed, there are some geographical
differences in site distribution that need to be addressed. Again, when the full audit is done we would
expect the geographical distribution of good sites and bad sites to be more uniform than it is with the current subsample.
So, what you see is a work in progress with full and open documentation all the way along. In the end at the very least we will have this.
1. The historical network will have photo documentation. Just as the new CRN has photos. 50 years from now no one will have to wonder what the site in Orland looked like in 2007. Today we can only speculate what it looked like 50 years ago.
Second we’ll have a suite of open documented software tools for people to run the numbers and see for themselves. We appreciate that Dr. Hansen released the
code; however, no one has been to compile it successfully; I worked with a couple guys and they got
to step5 of the release. In the midst of that effort JohnV just struck out and did his own thing from scratch. Hopefully, we’ll get back to the NASA code and do a proper cross validation, or Reudy can get the code
from JohnVs site. It runs on Windows, so no Unix or AIX required.
[Response: John V. did what I suggested you (pl.) do. Take the description and raw data and do an independent analysis yourself. That fact that his analysis is very similar to GISTEMP is a validation of both approaches. This is the best kind of replication and if it’s simpler than what GISTEMP uses and runs on more platforms, kudos to him. His application to the photo gallery classifications is interesting too, demonstrating that only using the ‘best’ stations (per your definition) gives pretty much what we had anyway. Again, a conclusion, as I said, that was very likely. Feel free to carry on, just don’t make the claim that your efforts change anything of substance. - gavin]
27 septembre 2007 at 9:21 AM
Barton Paul Levenson (#40) wrote:
It may seem like overkill, but I would include the formula by which one calculates the linear trend. I might also consider pointing out that if one calculates the trend since say 1992, the rate at which temperatures have increased is actually higher than that for the preceding 15, but then briefly explain why this is not statistically significant in terms of red noise with a reference to Tamino’s post on the subject. However, I hope you won’t mind if I steal this idea later.
Looking at your page on Climate Sensitivity, I would include the analysis by Annan and Hargreaves. It is conspicuously absent - particularly since this is the best we have.
Here is the tech article:
Using multiple observationally-based constraints to estimate climate sensitivity
J. D. Annan and J. C. Hargreaves
Geophysical Research Letters 33, L06704, 2006
Here is Annan’s post on the subject:
Climate sensitivity is 3C
Thursday, March 02, 2006
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html
This is the figure and analysis (or rather 2.9C) which seems to be held in high respect by leading climatologists. And it has a great deal of paleoclimatological evidence in its favor, more than 400,000 years worth. He also has a reference to an analysis from the 1960s I believe which arrived at the same value back in the 1960s based upon an eruption.
27 septembre 2007 at 10:05 AM
If you want to get a feel for the brown cloud, take a look at a couple of Monet pictures of the Houses of Parliment Eastern european cities were exactly the same in the last part of this century
As to China, it has been the wild west as far for the past 15 years or so. As long as you paid the sheriff off (the Party), kept your head down and didn’t have anything anyone else wanted to steal, anything goes.
27 septembre 2007 at 10:52 AM
Thanks Gavin,
You wrote:
“Response: John V. did what I suggested you (pl.) do. Take the description and raw data and do an independent analysis yourself. That fact that his analysis is very similar to GISTEMP is a validation of both approaches. ”
Actually, you argued that the papers supplied enough detail to replicate the approach. They didnt and we have found several details in the code that are not documented in the papers. For example, how various data sources are given priority over others. Second, the limited results JohnV has produced “match” .. for some periods. So, would you conclude that we can extend his method to ROW? And, since we have found a difference in trend between GISS and the best stations would you conclude that Johns approach is valid? One chart that has not been posted is the following:
GISS using all all stations.
JohnV using all all stations.
Now, it is a very interesting chart. When we compare the Class1 and class2 sites ( the 50 we have) to All the GISS, we see a differences here and there. I would not conclude, as you seem to, that that constitutes a validation. So, I ran all 1221 sites through John’s Code. Then compared. Interesting chart that.
We also compared the best sites to the worst. Interesting chart as well, showing that class5 sites warmed more than class1&2. Valid?
“This is the best kind of replication and if it’s simpler than what GISTEMP uses and runs on more platforms, kudos to him. His application to the photo gallery classifications is interesting too, demonstrating that only using the ‘best’ stations (per your definition) gives pretty much what we had anyway.”
Actually, it is one form of replication. The simplest form is running GISSTEMP. For example, to see if there are any platform dependencies or irregularites. In One of our compiles we found a floating point difference that made one station record a month longer ( It had to do with a test for Less Than on a floating point calculation which in certain cases can be CPU compiler dependent)
Further, the definition of best stations is not “mine”. Dr Leroy developed the site ranking methodology. The methodology is being used to classify all of frances 550 stations. You can find references to his work at the WMO. His methodology was adopted by NOAA to rate CRN sites. In order to rank a site you basically need documentation ( photos) of the site characteristics. Is it shaded, are there artifical heating sources within 10M, 30M 100M. That’s one of the reasons we suggested that volunteers take tape measures on their surverys. So, the ranking of the sites is based on an accepted methodology developed by the WMO, used in France and currently in use in the CRN. So, it’s not “ours”. Finally, the preliminary study ( software is still alpha) showed a trend difference. So, is it
“pretty much” what you got. That is hard to say. Our trend was lower as we expected. However, the chart you linked combined both urban and rural, and we do no adjustments for urban. GISS adjusts the Urban sites to the rural neighbors with a 1000km radius. Further the sample is skewed heavily toward ASOS sites. 11 of the 17 class1 were at ASOS. So, we hesitate to say there is agreement and conclude that both approaches are valid and we hesitate to poud the table about the difference in trend we found.
“Feel free to carry on, just don’t make the claim that your efforts change anything of substance. ”
Well, that’s odd. You look at preliminary results, ignore the trend difference, and conclude that the results validate BOTH. But, if we carry on, and find something of note we have no rights to make a claim.
Here is what we do. Take the data, publish the code, publish results as we get them and let others draw conclusions.
So, if the results match you can say the code is validated. If the results don’t match you can say the code is not valid.
[Response: If independent analyses of the same raw data give the same result, then the sometimes arbitrary choices that go into different analyses don’t matter. If the analyses do differ in any substantive way (which in this case they don’t), then it’s worth looking deeper into it to find the sensitivity. So if you find something that makes a real difference, then we can pursue it. If a one month extra in one station is all you find, I think even you would admit the effort expended was not particularly cost-effective. - gavin]
27 septembre 2007 at 11:16 AM
BLP (41) I don’t know the truth about Tim Ball, but on your website, you start off by knocking his academic credentials. What has that to do with the facts, and are you more qualified to comment on climate change than a retired PhD and Geography Professor? You accuse him of cherry picking by doing exactly that yourself. You chose the NASA temperature record to show 2005 was warmer than 1998 (as does Al Gore), while the IPCC ’scientific concensus’ shows 1998 as the warmest. Does IPCC represent the scientific consensus or not? Or is it OK to pick which bits you want? And using the term ‘deniers’ simply demonstrates that faith is more important to you than science.
27 septembre 2007 at 11:31 AM
RE: #44 - One key result of JohnV’s compilation of Class 1 and 2 sites is that the resulting temperature history indicates a warmer 1930s than 1990s.
27 septembre 2007 at 11:35 AM
RE 45.
Timothy.
I think one issue the nit pickers have with Tamino’s analyis of trend since 1975 is
the subjective selection of the period. To be sure it appears to be a change in regimes.
In fact, you’ll find me on CA making a similiarly misguided assumption.
So first a cite that I am plowing through as I get time.
http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/regimes/Red_noise_paper_v3_with_figures.pdf
The issue is Tamino looked at the data and said ” its natural to see ” and then
he sketched out three regimes the last starting in 1975.
Regime changes in time series that have red noise need more attention to method
than this appeal to naturalness, perhaps. I’ll stand corrected if a professional
time series analysis guy can explain how regime shifts in a time series
can be skillfully ,reliably and naturally detected by eye with 95% confidence.
Imagine if you would some skeptic who did trend analysis from 1998 to present.
Imagine if I picked the last two years and fit a line to them.
Perform a test for regime change in a time series and you have some footing.
27 septembre 2007 at 11:36 AM
RE: #46 - In the Pearl River Delta, the air pollution is so severe that the frequent northerly winds blow the effluent south into Hong Kong. Hong Kong was never pristine, at least not since the mid 1900s. However, it has taken a major turn for the worse in terms of air quality. Respiratory diseases are proliferating. Many of my friends who live there have the equivalent of a chronic smoker’s hack although they are non smokers. Getting expats to live in HK has become difficult - they do not want to expose their families to the air. Some commute from places like Australia and Singapore. That is a long commute but doable leaving work mid day Friday and returning late Sunday night. 20 years ago, Hong Kong was considered a choice expact location, even 10 years ago it was considered pretty good.
27 septembre 2007 at 11:37 AM
Welcome back Gavin & Stefan.
And we should all remember that a chunk of China’s pollution and GHGs are involved in their manufacturing products for US. Soooo, in my thinking it’s our pollution (that portion generated by products for us), not theirs.
27 septembre 2007 at 12:04 PM
I really hope you’ll stick to your guns and ignore the “noise”, including the “noise” in the comments section. Less time rebutting old arguments long dealt with, more time exploring new knowledge.
Thanks!
27 septembre 2007 at 12:07 PM
Different topic. Arctic Ice.
Is open ocean, (or ocean with fragmented ice for that matter), perhaps a better vehicle for transforming wind, wave, or tidal energy into heat than, say, ordinary solid ice pack?
27 septembre 2007 at 12:31 PM
Open Ocean and Arctic Ice. (see my previous post) I am sure that I am be-laboring the obvious by suggesting that this might explain the unexpectedly rapid diminution of Arctic ice, and it might be an accelerator of climate change worthy of note.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:02 PM
RE: #55 and #56. An open ocean is a more active ocean. Wind fetch directly affects the liquid, currents, as a result, can be stronger and more easily changeable. Therefore, as a result, from and energy tranfer standpoint, open water means tighter and faster reacting coupling between atmosphere and ocean. From a energy flux standpoint, flows are bidirectional. Mainly, I would anticipate great flow rates in both directions, and, as a result, more drastic, faster and more extreme interactions between atmosphere and ocean. No one know for sure what all the second order effects are, or what they might be in the future. Some of them may be expected and seemingly intuitive, over both short and long time frames, some may be unexpected and counterintuitive. Both may be going on simultaneously depending on synoptic conditions versus location. Climatic seasonality may become more pronounced in some places and dulled in others. The world could end up, at the extremes, either like the one depicted in the film “AI” or, like a much slower evolving “Day After Tomorrow” one, or, (and probably more likely) something different but not at either such extreme.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:16 PM
PHE: take any of the various temperature datasets (I don’t care if 1998 or 2005 is the highest). Now, take any running mean you want: 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, whatever. Do you see a continuing temperature trend?
Effectively, one anomalous year does not a trend make (in either direction). There is a physical reason that 1998 was extremely warm: a strong el Nino shifting heat out of the ocean into the atmosphere. So if you have a long term trend, you occasionally get such events (el Nino in ‘98, Pinatubo in the other direction in ‘92).
The misuse of such basic statistics is some choose to label people like Tim Ball as “deniers” because “skeptic” gives them too much credit. There are uncertainties and tradeoffs in both climate science and policy discussions where legitimate disagreements could exist, but the “world hasn’t warmed since ‘98″ argument is not one of those.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:29 PM
Why would a Geography Professor, retired or otherwise, be qualified to talk about Climate Science? He’s an amateur in the field.
27 septembre 2007 at 1:50 PM
re: 49. A very simple search here on RC (and on other sites) would tell you that the difference between the two years is statistically insignificant. We know that 1998 had an exceptional El Nino which served to warm the global average even higher. Along comes 2005 and it is just as warm, without the extra El Nino affects. We also know that if one includes Antartic data or not, it makes one data set very slightly but not significantly warmer than the other. For goodness sake, read and learn and stop cherry-picking.
27 septembre 2007 at 2:02 PM
A correction: In my last post, I wrote “Antarctic” when I meant “Arctic”. In any event, read the points made re: 1998 and 2005 global temperatures in http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/. The small difference changes nothing. The denialists clamoring is just another in the long list of their anti-science, failed attempts to spread disinformation; move along.
27 septembre 2007 at 2:50 PM
Steven Mosher (#51) wrote:
Steve,
Actually Tamino’s most recent analysis which involves the presence of red noise in the global average temperature trend would seem to suggest that whatever variation has existed in the rate of temperature rise since 1979 has not been statistically significant. Although for rhetorical purposes, it might be nice to be able to say that it has accelerated, obviously it is preferable that it has not - for practical reasons. Moreover, given the near logarithmic relationship between temperature and CO2 concentration and the near exponential rise in CO2 over time, it makes more sense that the rate of temperature increase would be roughly constant. Personally the last these matters more to me that the first two: I prefer a world that makes sense.
As for picking two years…
How many data points would you have? What statistical significance would this imply? Statistics is one of the tools we make recourse to in order to avoid “by-eye” subjective judgments or impressions - to the extent that this is possible.
27 septembre 2007 at 3:05 PM
As a respiratory therapist and part time climate activist, I would check keywords, coal, sulfur dioxide, methyl mercury, cancer, asthma, bronchitis, heart disease.
27 septembre 2007 at 3:44 PM
Re: #53: Lynn. I think about that all the time. China is becoming the factory to the world. Imagine what our GHG emissions would be if we made all our products here. But it’s not only China anymore. We’ve exported a good portion of our manufacturing to many different countries. Kind of sad that we’ve reduced our economy to one of servicing things made elsewhere.
On the other hand, I read yesterday that we could power our entire country with the energy off 92 sq. miles of solar panels. Obviously we wouldn’t want them all in one location, but it seems we could be off fossil fuels in a matter of a few years, if we made it a priority.
27 septembre 2007 at 3:49 PM
Re Dan (60) “read and learn and stop cherry-picking”. Perfect advice for anyone following the climate change debate. I would add: make sure you know why you take a certain viewpoint. It should be because you have assessed and understood the arguments and evidence yourself and not through following the headlines or ‘consensus’.
27 septembre 2007 at 4:57 PM
Let us see if I have this correct?
If China keeps putting out aerosols, the soot and sulfate will precipitate onto polar ice, cause melting, and runaway global warming.
If China stops putting out aerosols, then our atmospheric warming will intensify, causing runaway global warming.
OK! What is the best policy to steer between these two threats?
27 septembre 2007 at 5:20 PM
Re: #66: You have said pretty much word for word what the owner of a local auto repair shop said recently when I explained the aerosol issue to him. His conclusion: we’ve had it either way, so why change what we’re doing!
Since then, I saw “Dimming the Sun” on PBS. Dr. Hansen was interviewed at the end, and made it clear that regardless of the aerosol issue, we have to cut back drastically on the burning of fossil fuels within the next 9 yrs, or global warming will possibly spiral out of control. I trust his judgment. I’ve cut my CO2 emissions by 66%, to about 8 tons/yr. I think most people can do likewise, with readily available technology. Additional cuts are possible when solar panel costs come down a bit. That should happen in the next few years.
As for China, they’ve got some serious work to do. They’d better do it fast, or we’re in a heap of trouble.
27 septembre 2007 at 5:21 PM
Re the Nature Paper: So west Pacific convection strength may control the Atlantic Meridional Overturning circulation? Could this explain why the west Pacific and Atlantic tropical cyclone active periods seem to work opposite one another? This seems a ripe issue to discuss regarding AGW and tropical cyclones.
27 septembre 2007 at 5:48 PM
Re: 55,56, 57 With apologies for this divergence from the original thread about China.. What my earlier posts were trying to articulate was the speculation that ocean, freed of ice, would facilitate the transfer of wind energy to waves, which, upon reaching the ice mass, would cause ice pieces to smash into each other, causing some immediate local melting. The melt water thus formed would, I think, immediately mix with turbulent,saline, lower-MP sea water and be thereby hindered from easily refreezing. I’m just trying to come up with an explanation for what I understand to be the unexpectedly rapid loss of an unexpectedly large amount of the Arctic ice cap this year….
27 septembre 2007 at 6:16 PM
North China Plain: land use change and water:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/27/asia/water.php
27 septembre 2007 at 6:55 PM
Don’t panic!
While nothing new really, it does give Denial another nudge. The developing world is not going to turn around any time soon, so this is confirmation of a trend we will see more of. As Ive noted previously with Greenland and WAIS holding enough water for 15m sea level rise, loss of just 10% of that will see places like Bangladesh and the great river delta communities in deep trouble. So:-
*NASA Finds Greenland Snow Melting Hit Record High in High Places*
A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_recordhigh.html
and
*Remarkable Drop in Arctic Sea Ice Raises Questions*
Melting Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a 29-year low, significantly below the minimum set in 2005, according to preliminary figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the University of Colorado at Boulder. NASA scientists, who have been observing the declining Arctic sea ice cover since the earliest measurements in 1979, are working to understand this sudden speed-up of sea ice decline and what it means for the future of Earth’s northern polar region.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arctic_minimum.html
27 septembre 2007 at 7:21 PM
re: 65. It also helps to know what the scientific process and method is all about. It appears most denialists do not understand or follow either. Nor do they understand that the scientific method is a solid cornerstone of science. It is through peer review and consensus that science proceeds.
27 septembre 2007 at 7:29 PM
RE: #69 - Simple. Higher than normal SSTs plus a slight positive air temperature anomaly, both at the same time in the area near the international date line (Chukchi and East Siberian Seas). It tracks the temp anomalies perfectly. The anomalous region is where the open water showed up during high summer.
27 septembre 2007 at 9:13 PM
re #24 ” … There is nothing there now that Marx, Lennin, or even Mao would recognize. …”
The ruling party has a slightly different opinion then you of Marx, Lennin, and Mao’s input on how the party operates and what your obligations are as a member of the party.
http://english.cpc.people.com.cn/65732/4446148.html
“Article 3 Party members must fulfill the following duties:
(1) To conscientiously study Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents, …”
re #27 “C’mon, John, the Chinese have communism like the USA have a republic.”
I agree with that statement; sans your cynicism of course.
It will certainly be interesting to view with hindsight 20 years from now if communist China manages their CO2 output more appropriately then the US republic does.
27 septembre 2007 at 9:28 PM
Hi,
I’m a denier. I know you guys love folks like me, so I thought I’d just get that out of the way up front.
Even though I’m just a denier, and obviously haven’t thought much about it, I still have a question that maybe somebody can answer.
I believe I have seen it written that the emission altitude to space is 6 km. I’d like clarification.
Is it true that the climate models assume that photons emitted from carbon dioxide at an altitude of 6 km actually reach space?
I ask because the troposhere is roughly 12 km, and it appears that there is plenty of carbon dioxide above 6 km altitude.
If the CO2 above 6 km absorbs the photons emitted at 6 km, and then itself emits, it would seem that the CO2 at 6 km does not in fact emit to space.
I would be quite a bit happier with an assertion that CO2 near the upper altitude reached by CO2 emits to space.
I have a hard time believing that for some reason after CO2 clears an altitude of 6 km, it stops interacting with the electromagnetic field.
So there it is.
Does gas phase CO2 emission from an altitude of 6 km reach space?
If not, what altitude is important for emission, and where does this number come from? I didn’t make it up.
27 septembre 2007 at 10:37 PM
I am thrilled, gratified, dancing-around-the-office-chair overjoyed with Gavin’s closing comment about getting too tied up in nonsense-wad badminton (denialist-rebuttal). The next time a shill pops up in the corporate media (probably in another 15 minutes) with a tattered, thrice-recycled (at least - do you ever wash that thing, dude?) talking-point, it should be enough to merely point out the person’s track record, something along the lines of: “Apparently, the source of this surprisingly-crude piece of disinformation is one of those unfathomable nihilistic empty suits who has been up to no good (specifically, the exact same public-relations flavor of psuedo-scientific no-good) since the days of big legal problems for the tobacco companies. Nobody ever has, or ever will, figure out what drives people after they’ve lost the last discernible trace of humanity or intelligence. Going around literally blowing smoke, wasting everyone’s time. It’s worth taking care not to enable these psychopaths (see Kurt Vonnegut’s thoughts on the issue of corporate psychopathology, which is neither funny nor hyperbole) with too serious or hasty a response to fools.
Thanks so much for that thought, Gavin. You folks (all of you) have such awesome resources of training and talent. Scientifically, the issues at hand, and the very synthesis you say is often professionally discouraged, are so intellectually absorbing (to say nothing of their obvious importance for humanity’s future), so deeply fascinating, that there comes a time to really wise up and not squander bandwidth in the service of Newspeak-rebuttal. Hold onto that thought, please! We desperately need people like you to stay focused through this thing, whatever the heck this thing is turning into.
Whew! Now let me catch my breath… I think there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere than there used to be or something. It’s harder to catch my breath. (I must allow the possibility, however unimaginably miniscule it may be, that changes I notice in my own physiology are primarily due to old age. (Incidentally, sorry about all the paretheses; and the semicolons; I’m trying to learn how to write properly.))
28 septembre 2007 at 12:59 AM
#69& 73… Observations from up here are astonishing, calm sea waters not freezing with -12 C surface temperatures (it warmed up since) around Islands with new snow and frozen lakes (just frozen a few days back). Near Resolute (Canada) sea surface is just above 0 C. With steep surface based adiabatic lapse rates at times (10 C/km), and no surface based inversions. But I really saw the dawn of a new arctic age (you can see this on my website), with spherical and very early sunsets seen whenever the cloud cover is scarce ( given from all this open water), sounds funny but spherical sunsets are extremely rare here. There are big Polar related issues that need be discussed on RC, hope there will be a link dedicated for this soon. BTW, I believe the NE passage just opened, and the dynamics of arctic ocean ice recovery may be severely impaired by the lack of sea ice cover, past Baffin Bay yearly freeze ups may be the model for the wide open arctic ocean.
28 septembre 2007 at 4:02 AM
Re 71, Nigel Williams. About Tedesco & Valle, the melt days on Greenland in the summer 2007 study:
(http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_recordhigh.html)
Does the study contain data about the volume of Greenland ice melted?
It seems a little strange to me to express the melting in surface area, not in cm of snow melted. Melt days would vary in the amount of snow melted, as temperature rises above zero.
It would be nice to see a 2007 ablation map!
28 septembre 2007 at 6:15 AM
Amusingly, PHE posts:
[[ I would add: make sure you know why you take a certain viewpoint. It should be because you have assessed and understood the arguments and evidence yourself and not through following the headlines or ‘consensus’.]]
The scientific consensus is part of how modern science is done, PHE. It’s perfectly rational for someone who is not a climate expert to listen to professional climatologists. The consensus has been wrong in the past, but not as often as pseudoscientists have been wrong. The smart way to bet is always on the scientific consensus.
I, personally, got into this debate because I was interested in habitable planet astronomy and wanted to use climate models to predict the surface temperatures of habitable planets. The remark that “faith is more important to [me] than science” is quite correct; I’m a born-again Christian and my faith in Jesus Christ is of paramount importance to me. But I don’t believe in global warming on faith. I believe in it because I understand how the greenhouse effect works.
28 septembre 2007 at 8:28 AM
RE: #76
If you’re responding to my post in #75, you’ll have to be a more direct. I’m a little slow.
I realize there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. I also realize that the claimed emission altitude is roughly 6 km. The argument appears to be something to the effect, based on models provided elsewhere on this site, that more CO2 will raise the emission altitude to colder heights, decrease emission, and cause cooling.
In light of that argument, it does appear pertinent to ask for clarification on the altitude, since it seems to be pretty important to the argument.
I have also read that the stratosphere contains CO2. I’d like to know if this particular batch of climate scientists believes the stratosphere to be in local thermal equilibrium. Since the general concensus appears to be that atmospheres in LTE emit radiation purely as a function of temperature, without regard to pressure, it is important to know whether or not the stratosphere meets LTE conditions.
I’m assuming the response will be that the stratosphere does not meet LTE. If it did, then we could expect that where the stratosphere T crosses 255 K, on its way to even higher T, the downward radiation in this model should cancel the upward radiation from 6 km, and none of it actually goes to space.
I realize that many people are more than happy to simply appeal to authority and fall down in praise before the altar, but sometimes you learn a little more if you think for yourself, even if you turn out to be incorrect. If Gavin and others have no time for silly questions, then why bother with this site at all? They should expect that the general person posting has less knowledge than they do. It is natural for those with less knowledge to question aspects that don’t appear to make sense. You have the choice of clearing those up or not.
28 septembre 2007 at 8:48 AM
Harmon — use the Search box, top of page? Search: 6 km
Short answer: “6″ is an average, not a yes or no altitude.
Also useful: “Start Here” link, see above. Off topic here.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:03 AM
Regarding how science works, consensus, and independent replication and Verification, this is interesting. I don’t have access to the Science News article.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:30 AM
Re #75 & 80 I suggest you read Clough & Iacono, J Geophysical Research, pp100, 1995. Shows the switchover to emission at about an altitude corresponding to 200mb.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:31 AM
RE 81
Thank for responding Hank.
I’m sure six is an average. Stefan’s Law depends on the fourth power of T, and T more or less declines linearly through the troposphere. I’d like more of an idea of the range covered.
I have a strong suspicion that the choice of 6 km has more to do with a black body radiation calculation for temperature than it has to do with measurement. I’d like to point out that in addition to the stratosphere crossing 255K, it happens a few more times higher up.
I am looking for a convincing justification for choosing the troposheric temperature crossing as opposed to any of the others. If the stratosphere is in LTE, then I could use an identical argument to those presented on this site to claim that raising CO2 will increase the altitude of emission, go to a higher T, and cause cooling instead of warming.
THis may sound silly to you, and others, but this type of reasoning is sometimes quite convincing to members of the general public who don’t know what to think and have no background. These are precisely the people you need to reach, and many of them are just as easily convinced by someone else.
If this turns into a fairly complicated explanation without a quick answer, then I’m not terribly happy with being fed a quick answer by models on this site. If the answer is quick, easy, and obvious, then I just turn out to be wrong, no harm done.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:45 AM
Gavin, these two announcement look relevant to the concerns you state in the first post — is this pertinent? Useful?
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/products/ngdc_news.html
National Geophysical Data Center … database (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/curator/), providing online access to data and information about sea floor and lakebed samples curated by the participating repositories ….
NGDC will report on the NOAA Climate Data Modernization Program project L-19 to digitize and make available online data and photographs from the collections of several of the participating institutions.
——
October 5, 2007, … Mr. Kuiying Chen of the Chinese National Marine Data and Information Service, National Oceanographic Data Center, Professor Fuyuan Zhang from the China Second Institute of Oceanography, and Dr. Xiaoyu Zhange from the Department of Geosciences of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Mr. Chen and colleagues will be meeting with NGDC staff and Dr. Chris Jenkins of the University of Colorado Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research to discuss deep-sea sediment classification. Following their visit to NGDC, the group will meet with Dr. Peter Blum of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program in College Station, TX and Ms. Ramona Lotti and Dr. William Ryan at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.
(Carla.J.Moore@noaa.gov or 303-497-6339)
[Response: Well, ocean drilling produces a lot more information than simply climate data and all of these efforts go some way towards helping bring it together. But in the climate realm, bringing together different cores on consistent time scales is hugely time-consuming at the moment and so is rarely done (Liesicki and Raymo 2005 is a good example; they only used 57 records - out of the hundreds that should be available - and it took years to do). It seems to me that a step change in how the data is handled will be required before ’synthesis’ can become routine. In conversation yesterday, I was reminded of how similar this is to what happened in physical oceanography when Levitus started his climatology project (now the most cited work in the whole field). Anyway, I will be writing more about this and I’ll try and flesh out my thoughts more clearly soon. - gavin]
28 septembre 2007 at 9:49 AM
REf. 72 “. It is through peer review and consensus that science proceeds.” It might be worthwhile noting that the original letter to Nature on the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick was NOT peer reviewed. I remember reading it at the time. Two quotes “The tragedy of science; an elegant theory slain by an ugly fact” Thomas Huxley. “Dust for oblivion! To the solid ground
Of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye;
Convinced that there, there only, she can lay
Secure foundations.” William Wordsworth.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:56 AM
Harmon — _wrong_thread_
Use the search tool. Find the thread on your subject. It’s there.
Don’t just dump into the topic you see first. Use the search.
28 septembre 2007 at 10:05 AM
Right on. We climate science / policy bloggers need to step back and breathe once in a while rather than, say, waste our energy fighting with a clearly flawed paper not even in-review suggesting something that the entire community knows is wrong and in turn giving said paper un-warranted attention. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here.
28 septembre 2007 at 10:16 AM
An interesting an informative post. Thanks,Gavin. You say:
“In getting back into it(the climate blogs), one appreciates just how much time is wasted dealing with the most ridiculous of issues (Hansen’s imagined endorsement of a paper he didn’t write thirty six years ago, the debunking of papers that even E&E won’t publish, and the non-impact of the current fad for amateur photography) at the expense of anything substantive. In effect, if possibly not in intention, this wastes a huge amount of people’s time and diverts attention from more significant issues (at least in the various sections of the blogosphere). Serious climate bloggers might all benefit from not getting too caught up in it, and keeping an closer eye on the bigger picture……”
Great advice! A word to the wise, and not so wise should be sufficient. The time for debate has past.It’s past time for action.In fact the science has been in for over a decade, but the nitpicking goes on. You can’t convince everyone. There may even be some flat earthers out there. There’s an old joke about the man who says he never votes because it only encourages them. In a more real sense, by trying to respond to every piece of endless horsecrap that comes along may only motivate some of the more perverse, among skeptics.
28 septembre 2007 at 11:12 AM
We’ve had a steady, magnetic obsession here on RC with the ice melt this summer. No matter the subject of the thread, we turn around and *bingo* Ice Melt! Was the melt really all that much different that we should hear these cries of concern or was it simply a novelty and we should understand that there’s still lots and lots of ice left?
28 septembre 2007 at 11:21 AM
Re #86: “It might be worthwhile noting that the original letter to Nature on the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick was NOT peer reviewed.”
Informal letters do not require peer review. Formal publication of research does. Often, the informal letter is simply an announcement which precedes formal publication — a means of documenting your discovery before someone else beats you to publication and bags the credit.
28 septembre 2007 at 11:28 AM
This speaks to action (cf. #89), Socolow & Pacala and the issue of solutions: China is at least trying… hard. See Reuters, Sept. 21, 2007: in China “the industry is still booming. Most analysts think Beijing’s target of 30 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by 2020 is too modest, as China is already nearing its 2010 goal”. That is impressive and shows that China is serious about this — but with 1.3 billion people to support, its problems are an order of magnitude more difficult than those of developed nations.
Reuters Vestas article P.S. I’m with Ray on China.
28 septembre 2007 at 12:21 PM
RE # 90
RE # 90 Jeffrey Davis, you said
[Was the melt really all that much different that we should hear these cries of concern or was it simply a novelty and we should understand that there’s still lots and lots of ice left?]
Well, one would hope you are on to something nobody has considered. Ice melts. It does every spring in the north. Lots of ice left. What is the big deal! Is this your logic path?
Have you read anything about the consequences of this former mass of albedo rapidly changing to a mass of dark surface taking in and giving off heat?
Come out of the woods and join the discussion after you have done some serious reading and thinking.
Start with something simple—see the following link:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070927-9999-1n27icemelt.html
Do not stop there. Dig a bit deeper and convince yourself if the cries of concern are valid and, to some, maybe inconvenient.
28 septembre 2007 at 12:47 PM
Gavin,
You misrepresent my comments. You wrote:
“If independent analyses of the same raw data give the same result, then the sometimes arbitrary choices that go into different analyses don’t matter. ”
Actually, we dont get the same result. We show a difference in tend between class1 and class2 sites
and class5. The difference is in the tenths of degrees. Further, The analysis actually used DIFERRENT
raw data. Now, in Rabbets rush to say ” nothing here” and your rush to say “nothing here” neither
of you checked JohnVs work. In fact, in the midst of his work GISS change the data files that it used
a fact documented on GISS web site. Now, JohnV , ClaytonB and I have not jumped to conclusions about
validity or any such thing. I found it interesting that both you and Rabbet did without reading
JohnVs description of the code and the data. www.opentemp.org. In All fairness to you you probably
just linked rabbetts post with reading the entire context on CA and the studies that have been
conducted since then.
You continue
“If the analyses do differ in any substantive way (which in this case they don’t), then it’s worth looking deeper into it to find the sensitivity.”
Actually they do differ substantially depending on the time period you use or the classification scheme.
For, example when we use class5 sites we get noticeable differences throughout many time regimes.
Further,
“So if you find something that makes a real difference, then we can pursue it. If a one month extra in one station is all you find, I think even you would admit the effort expended was not particularly cost-effective. - gavin]”
The one “extra month” issue was merely an explaination of the type of bug that we encountered in
compling the program. It’s actually not a bug, just an example of why having an independent
team run your code is a good idea.
Further the issue is not cost effectiveness. No one pays us to make mistakes
or find them. Amateurs. Consider us to be like those amateur astronomers who worked in collaboration
with NASA. What we have been committed to is open inquiry open science open source and posting results
come hell or high water. We have no funding, but we are having fun.
Now, What do I expect to find. Our current working estimate of the difference between the best sites
and the worst sites is something on the order of .3C in a century trend. Since only 15% of the sites
are class5 you can see that in all likely hood we would not predict major changes to the US record.
But that is not the issue for us. In its adjustment of Temperature records the USHCN make a +.05F
adjustment for the introduction of the MMTS system at selected stations. That’s fine. We like that
attention to detail. So, if we identity a warming bias in class5 or class4 stations we would expect responsible scientists to consider removing these sites ( say 15% of 1221) from the calculations.
[Response: Time is unfortunately money, and in using the phrase ‘cost-effective’ I’m describing the the time involved that necessarily precludes doing things that are going to be more of an effective use of your time (or mine in dealing with your comments). The big picture is not whether you can see a difference in raw data compilations of CRN1 or CRN5, but whether it makes any difference to the structure or trends in the regional or global picture. It doesn’t (so far). If it ever does, let me know. - gavin]
28 septembre 2007 at 12:51 PM
Ref 91 “Informal letters do not require peer review.” Now you have lost me. I have always believed that scientific documents were valid because the science they contained was valid; not because they were peer reviewed and a scientific consensus had been agreed. Now there seem to be different sorts of scientific papers. There are those that have been peer reviewed and a scientific consensus has emerged, and no-one is allowed to disagree with them. Then there are paperes which have not been peer reviewed, like Watson and Crick, but their science can be valid because they are informal. But there are other papers which have not been peer reviewed, such as Dr. Manuel’s hypothesis about the solar system being the remnants of a supernova, which are not valid because they have not been peer reviewed. How do we know which documents are only valid if they have been peer reviewed, and which can be valid even though they have not been peer reviewed?
28 septembre 2007 at 12:53 PM
Re #84, It’s not temperature and its effect on emissions that is key here it’s the dramatically reduced number density and its effect on the probability of an emitted photon encountering another absorber before leaving the atmosphere (think mean free path). Also the probability of losing energy to collision partners before emission is reduced.
By the way Gavin did you notice how many trees they are planting in Beijing? When I was there early this summer they were planting them everywhere, must have been in the millions!
Regarding #90, the reduction in the Arctic Sea Ice had been progressing at about 100,000 sq km/year (september value), this year it dropped by over 1,000,000 sq km or a decade’s worth in one year! Why wouldn’t that get our attention? Maybe this winter it will all return to normal but there are good reasons to doubt that
28 septembre 2007 at 2:19 PM
Re# 86, 91, 95: While Watson and Crick’s letter to Nature was not peer-reviewed, due to what the editor perceived as exceptional circumstances (see Nature 2003, vol 426, p. 119), current editorial practice is that letters in that journal are peer-reviewed.
“A Letter reports an important novel research study, but is less substantial than an Article. . . . Letters are peer reviewed.”
28 septembre 2007 at 2:20 PM
Oh, well! I also think Gavin makes a good point in trying to limit irrelevant (even if interesting) posts and discussions to make room for relevant science. And I might have been carried away a time or two and been a guilty party. But you guys who are just beside yourselves, unable to contain your exuberance, dancing and shouting, ‘the wicked witch is dead‘, and expecting that skeptics and “deniers” will never ever be allowed to speak again are just too much. Not to mention taking a large portion of this thread for irrelevant stuff.
28 septembre 2007 at 2:20 PM
Ref 96 “Regarding #90, the reduction in the Arctic Sea Ice had been progressing at about 100,000 sq km/year (september value), this year it dropped by over 1,000,000 sq km or a decade’s worth in one year! Why wouldn’t that get our attention? Maybe this winter it will all return to normal but there are good reasons to doubt that” Let us get the facts right. Each year approximately 9 million sq kms of ice melt. Each year approximately 9 million sq kms refreeze. Since measurements started in 1979, approximately 35,000 sq kms extra ice has melted each year, and approximately 35,000 sq kms of ice has failed to refreeze, for a net loss of about 70,000 sq kms each year. This year about 10 million sq kms melted compared with 9 million normally. My bet is that within 10 years, sea ice in the arctic will be back to, say, 1985 levels.
28 septembre 2007 at 2:22 PM
Re: 93 & 96
Whoa, fellas! I’m a confirmed AGW believer and cautioner. Even unto despair over global inaction. My observation and question were just that. Commenters have harped on the melting to an almost alarming degree. A ten fold increase in the rate of melt as Phil Felton has pointed out is the definition of an order of magnitude increase.
I’d been reading the recent Hansen paper (”Climate change and trace gases”) in which he talks about the time necessary for significant melt. I’d always assumed that the span would be centuries, but he wouldn’t rule out decades. (”It is difficult to predict time of collapse in such a nonlinear problem, but we find no evidence of millennial lags between forcing and ice sheet response in palaeoclimate data. An ice sheet response time of centuries seems probable, and we cannot rule out large changes on decadal time-scales once wide-scale surface melt is underway.”) Publication of that was in May before this summer’s news.
My observation and question were intended to focus commenters concerns beyond a recitation of the immediate effects.
28 septembre 2007 at 2:54 PM
Jim Cripwell, please place your bet where it will be accepted:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/06/betting-summary.html
28 septembre 2007 at 3:03 PM
RE: wayne davidson Says: 28 September 2007 at 12:59 AM
I agree that this years Arctic Sea ice summer melt has been pretty memorable and, at least based on what we can interpret from the satellite record since 1979, certainly a record for the past 28 years. However, when you say:
“Observations from up here are astonishing, calm sea waters not freezing with -12 C surface temperatures”
I am sort of scratching my head, given:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/arctic.jpg
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/West_Arctic/Canadian_Arctic_West/2007/currentcolor.pdf
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/West_Arctic/Canadian_Arctic_West/2007/currentcolor.pdf
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/East_Arctic/Baffin_Bay/Baffin_Bay/2007/currentcolor.pdf
Now, I am not presently in the Arctic, so forgive me for having to rely on remote sensing. I trust that you are reliably observing.
You also said: “I believe the NE passage just opened”
No it has not quite done so. The blockage at that has been in place for months, persists:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/West_Arctic/Laptev_Sea/2007/currentcolor.pdf
28 septembre 2007 at 3:19 PM
Limited Access To The Internet? Are you joking? I lived in China for 6 months,waiting for my wifes visa,and that is one thing there IS plenty of is Internet Cafes…..
28 septembre 2007 at 3:46 PM
Re #103, just because you can hook up to the internet doesn’t mean you have unlimited access. Some sites will be unavailable to you, I was unable to link to certain BBC sites this summer for example.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060125-072617
28 septembre 2007 at 3:53 PM
RE #64, and I read solar & wind are beginning to become competitive with coal. And those many sq miles of solar could also include our roofs (which would help give extra insulation/shade for our homes, at least in sunny, hot areas).
28 septembre 2007 at 4:41 PM
Ah, just in the spirit of getting back to the original topic of the post, the emphasis on downcore records probably has a lot to do with how difficult is to get a deep sea sediment core, which involves renting an oil drilling ship (which is expensive), and then processing the core, which is time-consuming.
Still, many cores have been collected and some synthesis efforts have taken place using a wide variety of data. For example, see Regional climate shifts caused by gradual global cooling in the Pliocene epoch, Ravelo et. al Nature 2004 (no online pdf seems to be available)
“Relative to today, the Pliocene warm period (3-5 million years ago) was characterized by: 3C higher global surface temperatures, 10–20m higher sea level, enhanced thermohaline circulation, slightly reduced Antarctic ice sheets, emerging but small Northern Hemisphere ice coverage, and slightly (30%) higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.”
So, that shows why paleo studies are valuable - it gives you some idea of what conditions were like in the past, but you can’t just say that a 3C rise in surface temperatures would immediately flood the world with a 10-20 meter rise in sea level, because you can’t tell from looking at a multi-million year old sediment core (with tick marks measured in 1000’s of years, at least) how fast such transitions occurred.
Continuing:
“To test hypotheses that explain the end of the warm period, we compare distant palaeoceanographic records to examine tropical– extratropical interactions. This analysis results in the fundamental conclusion that major long-term cooling steps in different regions (for example, intensification of NHG (Northern hemisphere glaciation), reorganization of tropical circulation) did not all occur at the same time. Thus, regionally specific processes caused cooling phases at different times, and the end of the warm period was not forced by a single episodic event whose effects propagated globally.”
One take-home message here is that overly simplistic attempts to predict how the climate will respond are essentially useless. Here are the conclusions from Ravelo et. al regarding climate change. (The first point seems to be an example of what is happening in the Arctic right now, only it’s warming, not cooling)
“Implications for understanding climate change:
Several lessons can be drawn from the comparison of Plio-Pleistocene climate change records from distant locations.
*First, although changes in forcing were gradual, strong regional nonlinear responses generated pronounced regional climate changes including the onset of significant NHG.
*Second, the ventilated thermocline and/or latitudinal temperature gradient may have played an important role in linking subtropical conditions to change in other regions.
*Finally, tropical and subtropical conditions, specifically the time-averaged strength of coldwater upwelling in the eastern Pacific, and of Walker circulation, had a strong influence on the climate response to radiative changes.
Thus, the last 4Myr illustrates that as globally average conditions change, so do the feedbacks or ‘rules’ that determine climate sensitivity. This conclusion is relevant to studies of future global warming because it emphasizes the importance of ‘background’ or average tropical conditions in predicting high-frequency climate change. Furthermore, understanding processes responsible for recent climate change of the last hundreds or thousands of years, when average background conditions changed very little, is unlikely to be sufficient to predict climate variability for periods with different globally averaged conditions. This highlights the importance of developing theory to explain ocean and atmospheric change, and testing that theory using records from geologic time periods that represent a large dynamic range of climate conditions.”
28 septembre 2007 at 5:49 PM
Steve Sadlov, there is no point trying to minimize this year’s Arctic ice melting, which it appears you’re trying to do here, as you did on Tamino’s blog.
It is by all means astonishing. From satellites’ observations to research ships reports, to comparison with the oral traditions of local populations, it is obvious that this is an extremely unusual event. If one wonders what a tipping point might look like, this seems to be a good candidate. Your comments sound like you’re trying to say that it’s not all that bad. The cap is missing a chunk as big as Alaska (give or take, who cares). The Northwest and Northeast passages are completely irrelevant considering the huge missing piece of ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean . You can try to nitpick a little detail here or there, so what?
28 septembre 2007 at 8:20 PM
Jim Cripwell,
Since you bring up the subject of peer review in science, we should emphasize that all peer review says is that the work appears correct and sufficiently interesting to a group of responsible experts that they deem it worthy of consideration by the wider community. The judgement on the work is whether the entire community of experts reaches a consensus that it is correct and valuable.
28 septembre 2007 at 9:04 PM
Steve Sadlov in #102 scratched his head about Wayne Davidson and queried the reliability o