RealClimate

Climate science from climate scientists...

You are here: Home / Archives for Climate Science / Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gases

The new IPCC climate report

by

Translations: (Português)

The time has come: the new IPCC report is here! After several years of work by over 800 scientists from around the world, and after days of extensive discussion at the IPCC plenary meeting in Stockholm, the Summary for Policymakers was formally adopted at 5 o’clock this morning. Congratulations to all the colleagues who were there and worked night shifts. The full text of the report will be available online beginning of next week. Realclimate summarizes the key findings and shows the most interesting graphs.

Update 29 Sept: Full (un-copyedited) report available here.

Global warming

It is now considered even more certain (> 95%) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Natural internal variability and natural external forcings (eg the sun) have contributed virtually nothing to the warming since 1950 – the share of these factors was narrowed down by IPCC to ± 0.1 degrees. The measured temperature evolution is shown in the following graph.

Figure 1 The measured global temperature curve from several data sets. Top: annual values. ​​Bottom: averaged values ​​over a decade.
[Read more…] about The new IPCC climate report

The answer is blowing in the wind: The warming went into the deep end

by

There has been an unusual surge of interest in the climate sensitivity based on the last decade’s worth of temperature measurements, and a lengthy story in the Economist tries to argue that the climate sensitivity may be lower than previously estimated. I think its conclusion is somewhat misguided because it missed some important pieces of information (also see skepticalscience’s take on this story here).

The ocean heat content and the global mean sea level height have marched on.

While the Economist referred to some unpublished work, it missed a new paper by Balmaseda et al. (2013) which provides a more in-depth insight. Balmaseda et al suggest that the recent years may not have much effect on the climate sensitivity after all, and according to their analysis, it is the winds blowing over the oceans that may be responsible for the ‘slow-down’ presented in the Economist.

[Read more…] about The answer is blowing in the wind: The warming went into the deep end

References

  1. M.A. Balmaseda, K.E. Trenberth, and E. Källén, "Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 40, pp. 1754-1759, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/grl.50382

2012 Updates to model-observation comparisons

by

Time for the 2012 updates!

As has become a habit (2009, 2010, 2011), here is a brief overview and update of some of the most discussed model/observation comparisons, updated to include 2012. I include comparisons of surface temperatures, sea ice and ocean heat content to the CMIP3 and Hansen et al (1988) simulations.
[Read more…] about 2012 Updates to model-observation comparisons

El Nino’s effect on CO2 causes confusion about CO2’s role for climate change

by

Are the rising atmospheric CO2-levels a result of oceans warming up? And does that mean that CO2 has little role in the global warming? Moreover, are the rising levels of CO2 at all related to human activity?

These are claims made in a fresh publication by Humlum et al. (2012). However, when seeing them in the context of their analysis, they seem to be on par with the misguided notion that the rain from clouds cannot come from the oceans because the clouds are intermittent and highly variable whereas the oceans are just there all the time. I think that the analysis presented in Humlum et al. (2012) is weak on four important accounts: the analysis, the physics, reviewing past literature, and logic.

[Read more…] about El Nino’s effect on CO2 causes confusion about CO2’s role for climate change

References

  1. O. Humlum, K. Stordahl, and J. Solheim, "The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature", Global and Planetary Change, vol. 100, pp. 51-69, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.08.008

Evaluating a 1981 temperature projection

by

Guest commentary from Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Rein Haarsma, KNMI

Sometimes it helps to take a step back from the everyday pressures of research (falling ill helps). It was in this way we stumbled across Hansen et al (1981) (pdf). In 1981 the first author of this post was in his first year at university and the other just entered the KNMI after finishing his masters. Global warming was not yet an issue at the KNMI where the focus was much more on climate variability, which explains why the article of Hansen et al. was unnoticed at that time by the second author. It turns out to be a very interesting read.
[Read more…] about Evaluating a 1981 temperature projection

References

  1. J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, "Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide", Science, vol. 213, pp. 957-966, 1981. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.213.4511.957

2011 Updates to model-data comparisons

by

And so it goes – another year, another annual data point. As has become a habit (2009, 2010), here is a brief overview and update of some of the most relevant model/data comparisons. We include the standard comparisons of surface temperatures, sea ice and ocean heat content to the AR4 and 1988 Hansen et al simulations.
[Read more…] about 2011 Updates to model-data comparisons

The dog is the weather

by

Update January 27: There is also another recent dog-based animations from Victoria (southeast Australia) explaining some of the key drivers of our climate and how some are changing.

A TV series that ran on Norwegian TV (NRK) last year included a simple and fun cartoon that demonstrates some important concepts relative to weather and climate:

In the animation, the man’s path can be considered as analogous to a directional climatic change, while the path traced by his dog’s whimsical movements represent weather fluctuations, as constrained by the man’s path, the leash, and the dog’s moment-by-moment decisions of what seems important to investigate in his small world. What might the leash length represent? The man’s momentary pause? The dog’s exact route relative to concepts of random variation? The messages in this animation are similar to the recent results of Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf in ERL (see post here).

We’d also like to praise the TV-series ‘Siffer‘, hosted by an enthusiastic statistician explaining how most things in our world relate to mathematics. The series covers a range of subjects, for instance gambling theory, the Tragedy of the Commons, anecdotes about mathematical riddles, medical statistics, and construction design; it even answers why champagne from a large bottle tastes better than that from a smaller one. There is also an episode devoted to weather forecasting and climate.

Success in understanding our universe often depends on how the ‘story’ about it is told, and a big part of that often involves how mental images are presented. Mathematics and statistics can describe nature in great detail and “elegance”, but they are often difficult and inaccessible to the average person. Conversely, the man-and-dog animation is intuitive and easy to comprehend. Similarly, Hans Rosling’s Fun with Stats provides some very nice demonstrations of how to convey meaning via the creative display of numbers.

An Arctic methane worst-case scenario

by

Let’s suppose that the Arctic started to degas methane 100 times faster than it is today. I just made that number up trying to come up with a blow-the-doors-off surprise, something like the ozone hole. We ran the numbers to get an idea of how the climate impact of an Arctic Methane Nasty Surprise would stack up to that from Business-as-Usual rising CO2

[Read more…] about An Arctic methane worst-case scenario