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The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate
11

The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

(OP)
These "small" volcanic eruptions are being viewed by some scientists as potentially having a greater influence on earth's climate than was previously believed:

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/01/small-volcanic-e...

Please do not allow the vitriolic verbal pyrotechnics of your fellow contributors overshadow the points that you are attempting to make in your replies.

Maui

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So
20 small ones equal one large one
10 large ones equal one huge one
one huge one equals one mini ice age.
Maybe they should study up on pass mini ice ages?

Garth Dreger PE - AZ Phoenix area
As EOR's we should take the responsibility to design our structures to support the components we allow in our design per that industry standards.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"reflecting sunlight away from Earth and lowering temperatures " Sounds like the sun does have more effect than some people would have us believe.

Maybe the cause really is the cutting of trees, and not carbon.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I'll say it again..

..everybody's ignoring changes in ground cover, even though they track the same hockey stick with human population that CO2 does.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I think there might be a little difference, in that trees, or ground cover typically reflect more in the green light, where ash might reflect in a different spectrun. So it is not a one-for-one change.

But what are we doing when we are placing solar power plants in a nice white sandy area?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Maui,

As mentioned in the article, it’s been suggested for a while now (they reference Solomon but there’s also Vernier et al 2011) that we have underestimated the impact of recent volcanic activity but it was interesting to read through the supplemental information on how they separated out ENSO.

The impact on the “pause” is of interest to people. Schmidt et al 2014 and Huber and Knutti 2014 have examined this, amongst other aspects. It would be interesting to see this re-done with the results from this paper. (by the way, here’s a link to the actual paper)

Quote (cranky108)

Sounds like the sun does have more effect than some people would have us believe.
Cranky, all climate change is dependent on changes in how much net energy the earth absorbs from the sun. That’s not controversial. It’s a tautology, really.

However, when people say, “the sun is causing the recent change in climate” they really mean, “changes in solar activity are causing the recent change in climate”. Nothing in this paper, nor many others for that matter, supports that assertion. Actually, this paper, and many others for that matter, works against that assertion.

Quote (beej67)

everybody's ignoring changes in ground cover
1
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

The climate scientist are still trying to make Earth's climate fit their climate models, rather than the other way around. So, they're beginning to grasp at straws. 'Oops! Our models are fine - we just missed some data.'

"All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box, perhaps the greatest statistician of the 20th Century.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Lol rconnor.

Link 1 is just about the carbon accounting of land cover change, not about the effects land cover change actually has on warming the earth and on changes in the hydrologic cycle.

Link 2 ditto.

Link 3 says changes in land cover have a high impact on local and regional climates, but glosses over their effect on global climate. Then it says that the level of scientific understanding of the changes in global environment due to land cover change is basically zero. I'd agree with that last statement. Been saying it for a while.

Link 4 is a repeat of the generic lunacy that pervades the IPCC, where they claim that forests warm the planet more than crop fields do, based on a pure albedo approach without thinking about what happens to the energy that's absorbed. Hint: forests are a lot cooler than tennis courts but both are green.

Link 5 is actually pretty funny, as it states that one third of the CO2 spike is due to land cover change. Yet land cover is ignored in all the carbon based policy initiatives.

Link 6 was again just about emissions related to land cover change, not about the effect land cover change has directly on the environment.

Link 7 ditto.

At least one link admitted that nobody's studying this seriously.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

There's more in a volcanic emission than CO2 that may affect climate, but it's quite clear from the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 data that volcanic eruptions, small or large over the past 60 years, have barely made a blip in the atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements. Their effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration is so small that it is dwarfed by the annual summer/winter CO2 concentration variation caused by the difference in land area with plant cover between the northern and southern hemispheres. Eruptions in the recent past are definitely not responsible for the very clear trend of increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

molten,

Yes, there is more to volcanic eruptions than CO2 but I don't think anyone is really saying otherwise. Aerosol emissions are what's important, albeit over the short term. The papers are stating that stratospheric aerosol optical depth (SAOD), previously thought to have no variance outside of major volcanic events, is impacted by smaller eruptions. The papers show that, since 2005, there has been a notable increase in SAOD. This has implications on models as they currently carry the old assumption that SAOD has been unchanged since Pinatubo (1991).

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (Comcokid)

The climate scientist are still trying to make Earth's climate fit their climate models, rather than the other way around.
This is the exact opposite of what is going on here. Scientists, through new observational data and methods, have discovered that the Earth responds to small volcanic eruptions in a different manner than originally thought and the way the current models are setup. This research will help models better match reality, not the other way around, by incorporating the impact of small volcanic eruptions.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I would not be surprised to learn that the largest impact volcanic activity has on the climate is not direct SAOD at all, but rather in providing cloud condensation nuclei to promote cloud formation in moist air parcels, producing significant changes in albedo.

I would also not be surprised to find out nobody's going to bother to study that angle of it inside the next decade.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Maybe science is like the stock market, in that everyone want to be invested in the winners, and to dump the losers.
When bad news hits the winners, they can become losers.

So what is investigated is what is felt is a winning area/theory. The losers are just plain stupid and worthless.

So Bee you may be right or you may be wrong on how long it takes. I will remain a sceptic because humans are involved.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Beej67,

Firstly, volcanic aerosol cloud seeding is already studied. A simple Google search could have told you that.

Secondly, even if it wasn't studied and your novel idea spurred climate scientists to investigate a whole new arena of knowledge, it would have little impact on our understanding of long-term global climate change as volcanic impacts are episodic.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I've seen quite a bit online about anthropogenic cloud seeding as a way to artificially monkey with the climate. (there's money in this) I haven't seen much on the application of it to climate science, because climate scientists really don't like thinking about changes in cloud cover over time. It muddles the answer they're looking for.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Beej67, it's really quite simply - do a Google scholar search and read. The interaction between aerosols and clouds is a heavily researched topic. Your guess is neither novel nor accurate.

You continually make uneducated assumptions on what aspects of climate change are important (land-use change, volcanic albedo and now cloud cover change). You assume that no one has ever thought to study these aspects, which suggest just how little research you've actually done on the matter. You claim the reason why is because they don't want to know the truth. Where possible, you attempt to erroneously conflate "uncertainty" with "my idea is right and the current scientific understanding is wrong".

In reality, numerous studies have been done on those aspects and the results normally directly counter your assumptions. When you are forced to confront the research, you dismiss it, suggest it is purposefully fraudulent without explanation and declare your guess superior without explanation.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

But it is well known that Google Search is programmed to present you with the results that they think you want to see. Two different people doing the same search will see different results. Perhaps that is why so many think that people with differing views are so "blind to the facts".

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Ha, that's an interesting thought. However, Google Scholar likely wouldn't be as influenced by your past searches. Furthermore, the issue isn't really that people link to different references to support their views, the issue is they don't use any references to support their views.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

With the drop in oil prices I think we will see less money in Fracking and anti-fracking ads. Which is good, but now that there is talk of anti-fracking money coming from Russia (or it did), one questions where else money is coming from, or came from.

I would call money from foreign political positions, artificial bias in our thinking. So what else is artificial?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

...ahh...ok...anyways...now back to the land of the relevant.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

The Koch bros live here. Russian oil companies don't. Still you have a point, but not the same point I was making.

My issue is our political figures are moved by the people who elected them. And many of the people who elected them are still in the follow the bouncing ball stage of life (sadly).

I guess both the Koch bros and the Russian oil companies are both trying to sell about the same product, and are both profit based.

Back to the relevent. So if small volcanic erruptions can make a difference in the climate, and those erruptions are semi-random, what value is having a model if it is semi-incorrect?
Has anyone established a periodsity to volcanic erruptions, or base lined the typical amount of discharge? (I assume the goverment has funded something like that).

This goes back to earth science, and might be tied to the rate of energy disapation of the hot core over time. And then I question are we doing anything that will speed up or slow down this rate of energy disapation.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (rconnor)

The interaction between aerosols and clouds is a heavily researched topic.

Sure is. How the albedo of increased cloud cover dampens the supposed feedback effects of increased water vapor in the atmosphere is definitely not well studied.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cranky,

Volcanic eruptions are unpredictable but only effect climate for ~2 years. They have no impact on long-term climate (unless you had a massive one that destabilizes the climate) and therefore have no likely influence on long-term model projections, regardless of whether they are represented perfectly or not in models.

So why is this research important? For starters, it helps improve our understanding of atmospheric physics, which is a positive thing. However, the major reason this research is relevant is (sadly) because some people keep going off that the “pause” proves that our climate isn’t as sensitive to CO2 than we originally thought and that’s why models are running hot. This research demonstrates that part of the discrepancy between model and observed temperature is that models don’t account for the (short-term) impact of smaller volcanoes. Combine this with the fact that the “pause” has been in an El Nino dominated period and we find that most of the discrepancy is due to internal variability which suggests that we have not over estimated climate sensitivity.

wrt “the rate of energy dissipation of the hot core” – the geothermal flux is very steady and far too weak to explain the recent rise in global temperature. As I said in another thread:

Quote (rconnor)

Estimated surface heat flux = 47 +/- 2 TW, equivalent to 0.09 W/m^2. This is much smaller than the estimated 0.58 +/- 0.15 W/m^2 energy imbalance (using a very conservative value, by the way) and rather insignificant when compared to solar radiation at 341.3 W/m^2. Furthermore, the surface heat flux is very consistent, even over geological time frames, let alone over the past 50 years. Even if the surface heat flux went from 0 to 0.09 in the last 50 years, which it of course did not, it would be too small to account for the changes in climate noted.
(Stein and Stein, 1992 and Davies and Davies, 2010)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cloud Feedback Uncertainly != Large Negative Forcing
There is uncertainty in cloud feedback. Does this mean that cloud feedback will be strongly negative, negating the positive forcing of CO2? No, you cannot conclude that at all. Cloud feedback could be positive, amplifying the positive forcing of CO2, and the research seems to suggest this is more likely (see below). Furthermore, the current scientific understanding takes into account the uncertainty in cloud feedbacks and it is the largest contributor to the large range of model results. So they don’t shy away from the uncertainty, they’ve incorporated it and are looking to reduce it. As I said…

Quote (rconnor)

Where possible, you attempt to erroneously conflate "uncertainty" with "my idea is right and the current scientific understanding is wrong"

What the Science Says
Your under-research hypthothesis that “more water vapour=more clouds=greater albedo=cooling” demonstrates your overly simplified understanding of the science. Cloud feedbacks could be negative, if low-level clouds increase and high-level clouds decrease. Cloud feedbacks could be positive, if low-level clouds decrease and high-level clouds increase. The issue is: will anthropogenic climate change lead to more low-level clouds (cooling) or high-level clouds (warming)?

The bulk of the research suggests that the net cloud feedback will likely be positive and very unlikely be largely negative. Such papers include Clement et al 2009, Lauer et al 2010 and Dessler 2010. Sherwood et al 2014 compared the observed pattern of convective mixing of water vapour with how models represent this mechanism. They found that models that agreed with observations had positive cloud feedbacks and lead to higher values of climate sensitivity (ECS >3 deg C). Models that did not agree with observations had more negative cloud feedbacks and lead to lower climate sensitivity.

”Iris Effect” and Large Negative Cloud Feedback Papers
Richard Lindzen continually promotes low climate sensitivity based off a strongly negative cloud feedback (Chou & Lindzen 2005, Lindzen & Chou 2009, Lindzen & Choi 2011). This is part of his “Iris Effect” hypothesis (Lindzen et al. 2001). However, this has been largely and continually discredited (Del Genio & Kovari 2002, Lin et al 2002, Hartmann & Michelsen 2002 and Chamber, Lin & Young 2002). Furthermore, each of his low sensitivity papers have been demonstrated to be flawed as well (Rapp et al 2005, Wong et al 2006, Trenberth & Fasullo 2009, Chung et al. 2010, Trenberth et al. 2010, Murphy 2010, Dessler 2013). It’s really a bit of a joke nowadays.

So while there remains a high degree of uncertainty in the exact impact of cloud feedback, the research certainly works against the conclusion that it is strongly negative.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So you admit some uncertainty?

What I am hearing is we can change other things than just carbon to change the feedback loop everyone is concerned about. That there are other possible ends than the total end of carbon fuels?


RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Rconnor,

Rarely do I see you in an outright error. Can you explain your value of 341.3 W/m^2 for solar radiation? The MIL-HDBK-310 value is 1120 W/m^2 and the extra-atmospheric solar constant is 1366 W/m^2 per http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/552889/s... and http://www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/The%20S...

TTFN
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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

1366 W/m^2 is the total value. Only part of the planet receives solar energy at any given time and so you need to average out the value over the entire planet. The standard average value used is 341.3 W/m^2 (at TOA). Using 1366 W/m^2 would actually be inaccurate when doing any sort of energy budget analysis, the number to use is 341.3 W/m^2.

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/e...

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

sorry link broke (that's what I get for being lazy and not embedding it!). Here it is again.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rconnor,

I hear you saying the wide variation in climate sensitivity estimates in IPCC5 is largely because each model is treating clouds differently. And then I note that the climate sensitivity estimates in IPCC5 were more divergent than prior IPCC releases. And I think that's all I really need to say.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Beej67,

By “sensitivity estimates in IPCC5 were more divergent than prior IPCC releases” do you mean them going from 2-4.5 deg C to 1.5-4.5 deg C? That had to do with energy budget models (Otto et al 2013 and Lewis 2013), not cloud feedbacks. At the time, these studies had just been released and the criticisms really had not come in. I disagree with the IPCC lowering the range (given the research at the time though, it was the conservative thing to do) and I have no doubt that the research since AR5 (Cowtan and Way 2013, Durack et al 2014, Shindell 2014, Kummer & Dessler 2014, Andrews et al 2014, etc.) will allow the IPCC to put the range back up to 2-4.5 deg C. AR5 even made specific note that more scrutiny was required of the new energy budget model techniques:

Quote (AR5)

…this change reflects the evidence from new studies of observed temperature change, using the extended records in atmosphere and ocean. These studies suggest a best fit to the observed surface and ocean warming for ECS values in the lower part of the likely range. Note that these studies are not purely observational, because they require an estimate of the response to radiative forcing from models. In addition, the uncertainty in ocean heat uptake remains substantial. Accounting for short term variability in simple models remains challenging, and it is important not to give undue weight to any short time period that might be strongly affected by internal variability
As I stated, the change had nothing to do with cloud feedback research and does nothing to defend your point-of-view on that matter. If you’d randomly like to start talking about energy budget model techniques, then I suggest you post on my thread regarding climate sensitivity.

But back to the subject at hand (well actually you derailed the conversation on volcanoes and started talking about clouds but no matter):
  • You guessed that cloud feedback had to be negative due to albedo – That is wrong. Low-level clouds do increase albedo and result in cooling but high-level clouds block outgoing radiation and lead to warming.
  • You guessed that cloud feedback was going to be so strongly negative that it would counter act all positive forcings – That is wrong. The most likely value for cloud feedbacks is slightly positive. It’s possible it could be negative but it is very unlikely to be strongly negative.
  • You guessed that climate scientists and the IPCC are ignoring the possibility of negative cloud feedback – That is wrong. The IPCC includes research that concludes a negative cloud feedback (ex. Lindzen & Choi 2011). The uncertainty of cloud feedbacks is built into models.
  • You guessed that observations probably support a negative cloud feedback – That is wrong. Sherwood et al 2014 compared observations to the way models represent convective mixing. They concluded that high sensitivity models with positive cloud feedbacks matched observations and low sensitivity models with negative cloud feedbacks did not.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So what, in your opinion, is wrong with the models, rconnor? Do you think that the volcano thing is the key to unlocking what's wrong with our climate models, or do you think something else is at fault?

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (beej67)

So what, in your opinion, is wrong with the models, rconnor? Do you think that the volcano thing is the key to unlocking what's wrong with our climate models, or do you think something else is at fault?
Re-read my post here at 4 Apr 14 17:45. In a nutshell, the bulk of the variance between models and observations can be explained by:
- ENSO (Kosaka and Xie 2013, England et al 2014, Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 and many others)
- Lack of coverage of arctic warming in some data sets (Cowtan and Way 2013)
- Underestimating the amount of anthropogenic aerosols
- Underestimating the short term impact of smaller volcanic activity (Santer et al 2014, Ridley et al 2014)
- Required update to OHC (Durack et al 2014)
- The fact that models were never intended on matching short-term fluctuations perfectly

When you account for these factors (which are mainly notable over the short-term but not the long-term) models match observations very well (Schmidt et al 2014, Huber and Knutti 2014). None of these factors suggest that climate sensitivity is too high in models. None of these factors suggest that we are greatly underestimating a negative feedback or greatly overestimating a positive feedback. And so there appears very little to no evidence that the recent variances between models and observations severely threatens the core of our understanding of climate science.

(Regarding the image, GCM’s aim to calculate surface temperature. Balloons and Satellites measure the mid troposphere temperature. No one that knows what they’re talking about and is trying to be honest would compare the two. It’s apples and oranges or, at best, red delicious and granny smith.

Averaging model runs, without showing the range, is meaningless. The average isn’t the “best guess”. Models incorporate the uncertainty of various factors; some are stochastic (volcanoes and ENSO), others we don’t know with 100% certainty (cloud feedbacks). So, over the short term, models that get the short-term variability right (i.e. predict the right ENSO state) will be accurate and ones that don't will not. The average might mean more over the long-term but is rather meaningless in the short-term. No one that knows what they’re talking about and is trying to be honest would represent short-term model predictions as a single, averaged line.

The graph, which you didn’t source (but no worries, I know it was from CATO), is meaningless but purposefully designed to get a mistaken point across. Completely (yet unsurprising) garbage from a garbage institution.)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Did every single model overestimate global warming over the past 15 years, or did any of them actually get it right?

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Risbey et al 2014 found that models that matched ENSO conditions with the actual observed states were very accurate at reproducing the observed temperature trend.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Oh, and I just caught wind of this paper today – Marotzke & Forster 2015. It is basically a repeat of what I just said.

Quote (Marotzke & Forster 2015)

The claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

@rconnor,

but i thought you repeatedly posted that ENSO are isolated events and not significant to the long term climate trend ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Yes, and what contradicts that?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Yes, and what contradicts that?" ... your previous post ... "found that models that matched ENSO conditions with the actual observed states were very accurate at reproducing the observed temperature trend." isn't that saying that models that included ENSO produced better matching ? doesn't if follow then that the forecasts of these models include the effects of future ENSO events ? so that ENSO events are important for the long term climate trend ?

For me, if ENSO events are irrelevant to long term climate (something that surprises me) then the models should not try to match the historical data and should predict a mean trend though these oscillations. that would, in my mind, pose difficulties in choosing data to calibrate the model to (choosing data that are not affected by these events).

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

You’re confusing long-term and short-term.

It wasn’t really until 2008, during a strong La Nina, that observations dropped near the bottom (cold) end of model runs. Since 2008, we’ve had 4 La Nina years and 1 El Nino year (2010, which is the hottest year on record*). So the period we are talking about is very short-term and highly influence by La Nina events. If we extend back a little further, to 2000, we’ve had 7 La Nina’s and 1 El Nino. Still a short-term period in climatic sense and an even stronger influence of La Nina events.

ENSO is stochastic. Some model runs predict an El Nino state, others predict a La Nina state. The “average” model run predicts close to an ENSO neutral state (it’s not 50/50 though). So, if the past 5 to 10 years have been dominated by La Nina events (negative PDO), then observations will sit below the “average”. And they do. However, as long as they are accurate in other metrics (i.e. sensitivity, forcings, etc.), models that did, by chance, accurately predict the correct ENSO state, should match with the observations. And they do.

So, yes, of course models that match the ENSO state with the observed state will be more accurate in the short-term than models that don’t match ENSO states. However, in the long-term, ENSO states oscillate between El Nino dominated periods (positive PDO) and La Nina dominated periods (negative PDO) and so the long-term impact is negligible.

As I’ve said before, the ENSO state has a very large impact on temperature in a given year. As ENSO states flop between La Nina (storage of heat in the oceans) and El Nino (release of heat from the oceans), temperature trends will be pulled down and pushed up temporarily. However, there is no known mechanism within ENSO events that can lead to long-term impacts. That remains true and is not contradicted by anything I said here.

Does this address your concern?

(* - I’m not going into whether 2014 was the hottest year or not. It matters very little.)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I think you are confusing models with reality. Models treat the ENSO as stochastic. That does not make it stochastic in the real word. Modeling it as a stochastic event is a simply way to get around something you dont fully understand.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

The fact that the ENSO has to be modeled as a stochastic shows the logical fallacy in your "However, there is no known mechanism within ENSO events that can lead to long-term impacts." Argumentum ad ignorantiam since we don't know enough about it to model it as anything but a stochastic event then the statement of no known mechanism is meaningless, it would only have some meaning if we had a much greater understanding of the ENSO than we presently do.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Perhaps stochastic isn't the best word to use in the real-world context. You are correct. However, we do understand what ENSO is and what is does. ENSO is about the temporary release or storage of heat from the oceans resulting from the temporary changing in trade winds. It has a large impact on the temperatures that year. It doesn't have a long-term impact. It doesn't impact the long-term energy balance of the planet. What we don't understand is what causes it. This appears to be a mute point when we're concerned about the long-term global climate change because we understand that ENSO has a very short-term impact.

Furthermore, if you compare El Nino years with El Nino years, ENSO neutral years with ENSO neutral years, and La Nina years with La Nina years, they all warm at about the same rate. This further suggests that ENSO is short-term noise amidst a long-term signal. Beyond that, even if magically we went into a perpetual La Nina state, the planet would still continue to warm.

ENSO is simply not important to the long-term climate trend. It is, however, very useful if you want to cherry pick a short-term period to falsely conclude the planet hasn't been warming.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Those are some pretty absolute statements for such a poorly understood system.

"However, we do understand what ENSO is and what is does."

"ENSO is"

"It has"

"It doesn't"

"ENSO has"

I hope you can see the contradiction.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

ENSO is like volcanoes. We don’t know when they’ll occur but we know quite well what happens after they occur.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"ENSO is like volcanoes. We don’t know when they’ll occur but we know quite well what happens after they occur. "

Isn't this thread about us not being able to model what happens after volcanic eruptions occur?

I think you need to chose a story and stick with it. It doesn't help you cause when you contradict the original premiss to rebut a side issue.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

You continue to confuse or conflate trying to predict transient, unpredictable events in a long term model with not being able to model the transient events at all. They're not equivalent. This is why transient effects ENSO can be modeled the complete climate, IF, and only IF, you add a special routine to initiate the ENSO in the climate model. There's no contradiction here.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"You continue to confuse or conflate trying to predict transient, unpredictable events in a long term model with not being able to model the transient events at all."

Don't speak in absolutes. I'm not questioning if they can model them at all. I'm questioning if they model them well. This thread is about clay models not being able to model volcanoes well. So don't try and argue that we understand the ENSO which was discovered in the early 80s better than we understand volcanoes.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

My mistake. Walker winds which are a major driving force were discovered in the early 20th century. A more complete understanding came about in the early 80s.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (GTTofAK)

Isn't this thread about us not being able to model what happens after volcanic eruptions occur?
This thread is about the short-term impact of small volcanic eruptions having a slightly stronger cooling effect than previously thought. When you correct for this, it becomes even more clear that the short-term discrepancy between models and observations is more to do with short-term internal variability than overestimating sensitivity or underestimating negative feedbacks. This research does not impact long-term trends.

Your attempt to use a minor improvement in our understanding of short-term volcanic impacts as evidence that we know nothing about ENSO (and to use that as evidence that we don't know anything about long-term climate trends) is a nothing more than sophism.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So if you use an estimation of random events in a model, should you have a result with a limited random distribution, such as a high and low event estimation (margin of error). And to that there should be a confidence factor.

This is a sort of probibility based result of future events. But I haven't seen that as of yet. Just this is what the model states results.

If we take this to an extreem, what odds should we give to warming, and to cooling, and to the same? Call these bets as future weather contracts.

These already exist, but are mainly short term rain contracts.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Anybody posted this one yet?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11367272/Climat...





And a followup article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/...

The article(s) focus on an argument I don't often bother myself with - that the temperature records are in error and the globe may not be warming. I don't typically bother defending that point of view, but I also would much prefer the science to be based on good data.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

your pix miss the important point that the first is the "adjusted data" and the second is "raw" data (placment of quotes is intentional).

i agree that this is a bit of a side show, but many people are convinced by "look at the data" and that i think makes it important. i find it interesting that the "adjusted data" also fills in some years when there was no "raw" data recorded ??

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Beej67, unbelievable. Let’s look at your posts in this thread:
- Maui opens a thread on volcanoes
- You post about population and ground cover changes (completely random and totally off topic)
- You post about aerosol-cloud dynamics (slightly on topic but misses the point)
- You post about cloud cover change (…now completely off topic)
- You post on the climate sensitivity change in AR5 (completely off topic AND with zero response to/defense of your last argument)
- You post about models accuracy (accidently slightly back on topic but, again, misses the point)
- Now you post on temperature data (completely random and totally off topic AND with zero response to/defense of your last argument)

If you want to post unrelated nonsense, open a new thread. Actually, don’t. Instead, apply the slightly ounce of (actual) skepticism to the nonsense you gobble up, understand that it’s actually nonsense and, rightly, decide not to post such nonsense.

Cranky, I really think there’s a lot of good talking points in your post (that builds slightly on what rb1957 and I were discussing). I’ll get to it soon.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Your attempt to use a minor improvement in our understanding of short-term volcanic impacts as evidence that we know nothing about ENSO (and to use that as evidence that we don't know anything about long-term climate trends) is a nothing more than sophism."

Since we are at 18 years of model diversion how long until the short term becomes long term. I know that alarmists like to call the "climate normal" 30 years.

As for "sophism" the one arguing with logical fallacies here is you. One way you can tell a sophist is that they get irate when objectivists like myself poke holes in their logic. They also refuse to stick to any first principles such as models your in and out on the reliability of models based on nothing more than your desire conclusion.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

http://xkcd.com/258/
I'll just leave this here.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It's not that I agree, or disagree with the models. I just don't see the type of data that I would expect for the conclusions being drawn.
If I make a suggestion, and the only comment I get is it won't work, only our conclusion will work, I think I am being lied to.

I expect to see a range of possible results due to a reasonable allowance of random events. It looks like we haven't run enough model runs with the different numbers of random events.

I looks like the models are predicting what is being felt as right, and so no sensitivies are being run in the model runs.

And while it is true population drives energy consumption in communities, decreasing population in energy intencive communities would reduce energy consumption. Said another way, Central America uses less energy because it dosen't get as cold at night. So if carbon is the true problem, then political reform maybe one of the answers.

But back to the topic, isen't there a pattern of erruptions where there is a cycle of the number of erruptions over some time?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (GTTofAK)

Since we are at 18 years of model diversion

“18 years” is demonstrably false. Beyond that, in this context, divergence should not mean “away from the average” because the “average” model run is meaningless in the short-term when internal variability is the dominant factor. What divergence should mean is “away from models that accurately replicated the short-term internal variability”. This is exactly what Risbey et al 2014 looked at and they found that models that were in phase with the actual ENSO state matched observed temperatures extremely well. This demonstrates that there is little to no evidence to suggest models overestimate climate sensitivity. But even if you want to use the "average" as the gold standard, you're still wrong.

Furthermore, when you account for short-term internal variability (and keep forcings and feedbacks, the things that matter in the long-term, the same) here’s what you get:
(Schmidt et al 2014)

I used the term “sophism” to describe your posts because you make it seem like your making a point, when really you aren’t. You avoid the actual issue at hand and attempt to misdirect the reader to something unrelated.

An example of this is your first post discussing how “stochastic” is only appropriate in the context of models and not when describing ENSO is reality. While this is true, it is, on its own, pointless. You then attempt to sneak in a fallacious connection between us not being able to predict ENSO events to therefore ENSO could have a major long-term impact. While we are still unsure what causes ENSO, we understand quite well that any particular ENSO (1) merely moves energy around the system and has minimal impact on the energy balance and (2) only impacts surface temperatures for ~12 month period (La Nina’s can be a little longer). The frequency and intensity of ENSO events could change as a feedback to global warming. However, as stated before, even if we entered a perpetual La Nina state, the planet would still continue to warm. ENSO is about temporary fluctuations away from the “average” caused by moving energy out of/into the oceans. If the “average” continues to rise, then the long-term impact of ENSO is mute. Just because you don’t know that or choose to ignore that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

What’s more, you know what actually is an argument from ignorance? To say “the absence of evidence is evidence of the opposite”. For example, “I don’t know that ENSO has no long-term influence on climate (because I haven’t read the science on the matter), therefore it has a major long-term influence on climate”.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"You then attempt to sneak in a fallacious connection between us not being able to predict ENSO events to therefore ENSO could have a major long-term impact. While we are still unsure what causes ENSO, we understand quite well that any particular ENSO (1) merely moves energy around the system and has minimal impact on the energy balance and (2) only impacts surface temperatures for ~12 month period (La Nina’s can be a little longer). "

I didn't say that we just cant predict them. We know so little about them that we cant accurately model them. The models absolutely failed to model this past ENSO. And those are dedicated ENSO models. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has formally said that they were done making predictions based on their models becasue 'they have been burned too many times.' Your claim that a GCM can accurately model the ENSO when dedicated ENSO models do a poor job is the fallacious.

As Bob Tisdale easily showed the 4 best models from your beloved Risbey paper did a horrible job simulating the ENSO.

Link

This is undeniable evidence. In no way do the models accurately simulate the ENSO. Many of the major hotspots in the data are cool in the models and vice versa. Risbey is a pure treck into the stupidity of averaging.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"What’s more, you know what actually is an argument from ignorance? To say “the absence of evidence is evidence of the opposite”. For example, “I don’t know that ENSO has no long-term influence on climate (because I haven’t read the science on the matter), therefore it has a major long-term influence on climate."

I have not said that the ENSO must leave a long term trend. You are the one arguing that it does not based on models that don't work. And there is evidence to suggest that it does, its effect on cloud feedback, relative strength of the phases, hell even Trenberth found that you cannot linearly filter out the ENSO because it leaves a positive residual. You assume that I haven't researched this. I've researched it more than you. I'm just not a human link machine because I have more fun poking holes in the logic and lack of first truths from sophists like yourself.

You claimed it has no long term trend. The burden of proof is on he who makes the argument not he who refutes it. Your attempt to shift the burden is another logical fallacy on your part.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Data: http://berkeleyearth.org/data
Algorithms: http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis-code

Their conclusions: http://static.berkeleyearth.org/memos/Global-Warmi... and http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/why-every-seri...

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Your claim that a GCM can accurately model the ENSO when dedicated ENSO models do a poor job is the fallacious." ... i don't think rconnor was saying that GCMs can predict ENSO events, i think he's saying that including their effects improves the accuracy of GCM predictions.

but i agree with your 2nd post, ENSO events affect the "data" we're reading in ways we can't quantify, so we can't really say ENSO effects are irrelevant. I guess we can say we haven't expressly tried to model them.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"i don't think rconnor was saying that GCMs can predict ENSO events"

That was not my point. The models dont even correctly model the nature of the ENSO. The way this past ENSO played out and what the models predicted were in stark contrast. ENSO's are not deterministic. How they actual play out is unpredictable there are certain characteristics that are more consistent than others but you cant say with any certainty how an ENSO cycle will play itself out.

Like I showed in the gif I linked the 4 best models chosen by Risbey were by no means an accurate representation of actual observations. In terms of spatial distribution of heat they are almost mirror images of each other. The models show warming where the observations show is cooling and cooling where there is warming. Its only on the average are they close to each other.

The claim "This is exactly what Risbey et al 2014 looked at and they found that models that were in phase with the actual ENSO state matched observed temperatures extremely well. " Is demonstratively false. In no way are they in phase.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Another point to Risbey which seems to be endemic to climate science and soft science in general. They define their index of the ENSO as the long term trend Nino 3.4 index. The problem is that while Nino 3.4 is the standard index for identifying ENSOs it is a short term index. 5 consecutive months exceeding 0.5C in the Nino 3.4 region is the general definition of an el nino or la nina. The problem is that in the long term this relationship breaks down.

Another point to Risbey which seems to be endemic to climate science and soft science in general. They define their index of the ENSO as the Nino 3.4 index.

Two long term equal Nino 3.4 trends. In one the El Nino is dominant in the other the La Nina is dominant.



As you can see there is no correlation between the long term trend of the Nino 3.4 index and the dominance of El Nino or La Nina. As I said it’s a short term index.

Now when this happens its often chalked up to a mistake but my father was a lawyer. He often told me ‘The ball drops once you take notice. The ball drops twice you say hold on a minute.’

In the years I’ve studied this field I’ve gone from skeptical to cynical. The question that pops into my mind these days is ‘Did they make their choice priori or post hoc? Just how many different ways of tackling this problem did they use before settling on this method? How many other methods were tried but discarded because they did not produce the desired result?’




RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I had originally drafted a different reply, where I touched on the specific comments made by GTTofAK. However, I’ve thought better of it. GTTofAK is dancing around the point, so me replying to each superfluous (and largely incorrect) comment would only detract from the discussion. So, instead, I’ll provide a detailed post on the actual point of the matter:

Does ENSO have the ability to have a major impact on the long-term trend of global climate?

--------What is ENSO and What Does it Do?-------
To answer this, we need to understand what ENSO is and what it does. A nice rundown of ENSO can be found here or here, from NOAA. Some history on ENSO research can be found here. The write-up on the impacts of ENSO can be found here.

In brief, ENSO relates to the weakening (during El Nino) and strengthening (during La Nina) of Pacific equatorial trade winds. During El Nino years, when trade winds are weak, warm water that usually pools in the West Pacific moves closer to the surface, where it interacts with the Atmosphere more readily, and is transported eastward. During La Nina, the strong trade winds cause warm water to pool deeper in the Western Pacific and causes stronger upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Pacific.

ENSO has a profound impact on seasonal climate variability in certain regions. Due to the positive and negative impacts of ENSO on agriculture and society in certain regions, the ability to accurately predict the ENSO state and effect on regional-seasonal weather is very important. Currently, our ability to predict ENSO and its specific seasonal impact on weather in specific regions is rudimentary and often not that accurate. Much effort is being put in to improve our knowledge in this area.

However, it’s very important to differentiate between predicting seasonal weather variability in certain regions and modeling long-term global climate. Our inability to predict ENSO does not, on its own, mean that long-term climate projections are flawed. In order for our inability to predict ENSO to be a significant issue for long-term climate projections, ENSO must have a long-term impact on climate trends. However, logically, the burden of proof is on the asserter (i.e. those that support the anthropogenic climate change theory), so it should be phrased the opposite way – in order for our inability to predict ENSO to NOT be a significant issue for long-term climate projections, ENSO must NOT have a long-term impact on climate trends. The science supports this for a variety of reasons, which I’ll outline below.

--------Reasons Why ENSO Does Not Have a Long-Term Impact on Climate Trends-------
1. ENSO is episodic
The first strike against ENSO having a long-term impact on climate trends is that ENSO events are temporary. El Nino’s typically last for 9 months to ~12 month. La Nina’s can last for 1 to 3 years. As ENSO events do not last long, a trend in a particular ENSO event becoming more common and more intense would have to exist in order for ENSO to have any chance* on influencing long-term climate trends (*as described further below (#6, 7 and 8 specifically), even if a trend did exist, this chance is extremely low).

2. ENSO is roughly cyclical
ENSO switches between a positive PDO phase, when El Nino events dominate, and a negative PDO phase, when La Nina events dominate. The duration of the phase varies but has a cycle of roughly 30 years. No long-term trend of more El Nino’s and less La Nina’s have been observed. So any short-term variable warming cause by the positive PDO phase is roughly balanced by the negative PDO phase. The opposite is also true.
[image link http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif]

3. ENSO has no notable long-term increase in the intensity of El Nino’s or La Nina’s
It’s possible that, even if cyclical, ENSO could still have an impact if the intensity of a particular ENSO event was increasing (i.e. stronger El Ninos = warming, colder La Ninas = cooling). However, there appears to be no notable long-term trend in the intensity of ENSO events in the recent past, let alone the intensity of a particular ENSO state. It might be said that Trenberth 2002 found that ENSO left a residual impact in the latter half of the 20th century (1950-1998)…of 0.06 deg C. Not per decade, total. Not only is this not significant, it’s also heavily biased by the referenced period. The 1950’s were dominated by La Nina (negative PDO) and the 1990’s where dominated by El Nino (positive PDO). What this 0.06 deg C value really means is that the impact from a negative PDO to a positive PDO is minimal. Addressing a negative PDO period to another negative PDO period would likely have even less of an impact.

Some research does suggest that model projections indicate that the intensity of ENSO events could possibly become stronger as a response to global warming. However, this merely states that the short-term internal variability could be stronger in the future, which is an expected result of global warming. So even if ENSO events become more intense as a result of global warming, it does not follow that they will have an impact on long-term trends.

4. ENSO has had no notable long-term impact on pre-industrial temperature trends
ENSO has been a natural occurrence long before the pre-industrial period. Removed from major anthropogenic CO2 influences, if ENSO had any long-term impacts on climate, they should be evident in paleotemperature reconstructions. However, global temperatures have been very consistent in the Holocene. There is no evidence of ENSO impacting long-term climate change during the Holocene.

5. ENSO is not a driver
As ENSO has had no notable impact on long-term climate in the past (recent or paleo), it is obviously not a driver of climate change. Nor could it ever. Drivers must be “external” to normal climate, such as solar activity, orbital variance, volcanoes, anthropogenic actions. ENSO is an inherent part of climate. Even if ENSO were to or could possibly change in the future, it wouldn’t do so magically on its own. It would be a feedback to another driver. A possible “change” in ENSO could be a destabilizing of ocean currents. This “tipping point” for climate is unlikely to occur outside a major, calamitous event (i.e. asteroid or super massive volcanoes).

(*I’ll point out that the fact that ENSO is not a driver, on its own, doesn’t mean that that it couldn’t impact long-term climate change (for that you’ll have to take all the other points into consideration). Of course feedbacks can have substantial long-term impacts on climate. However, this does display the myth that ENSO, and not CO2, is driving for long-term global warming.)

6. ENSO only causes surface temperature to temporarily deviate from the “average”. It doesn’t impact the “average”.
A key aspect of ENSO, often forgotten by people that believe ENSO has a long-term impact, is that the “heating” during El Nino years and “cooling” during La Nina years is relative to recent years. El Nino events will be hotter than “average”, La Nina events will be cooler. However, if, in the long-term, the “average” is warming or cooling, this will become more significant than the short-term internal variability of ENSO. And this is exactly what we see. The 1995 El Nino was cooler than all ENSO neutral years and even all La Nina years in the 21st century. The 1983 El Nino (the 2nd strongest El Nino ever) was cooler than all La Nina years since 1995. In the long-term, the signal dominates the noise.

Another way to look at this is to examine El Nino years against El Nino years, La Nina years against La Nina years and ENSO neutral years against ENSO neutral years. What you see is that, in the long-term, EL Nino years, La Nina years, ENSO neutral years and all of them combined have similar warming trends.


This, to me, is some of the strongest evidence against ENSO having a notable long-term trend on our climate. It simple does not impact the “average”. It merely allows for a temporary deviation from it. So, even in the most absurdly optimistic condition (perpetual La Nina), you’d still have a warming planet and you’d still have an energy balance problem.

7. ENSO does not significantly impact the TOA radiative balance
The two main reasons why ENSO doesn’t impact the “average” is because it is episodic (as discussed in #1) and it does not significantly impact the TOA radiative balance. In order to have a notable impact on long-term climate, the driver or feedback must have a notable impact on the TOA radiative balance in the long-term. Anything else is merely internal variability caused by moving energy around the system – which is what ENSO is mainly about.

Note that I’m not saying that ENSO doesn’t impact TOA at all; it does very slightly impact the TOA radiative balance by affecting cloud cover temporarily. Mayer et al 2013 found that “TOA net radiation perturbations are small”. Trenberth et al 2010 states that “The main changes in SSTs throughout the tropics are associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events in which the dominant changes in energy into an atmospheric column come from ocean heat exchange through evaporation, latent heat release in precipitation, and redistribution of that heat through atmospheric winds. These changes can be an order of magnitude larger than the net TOA radiation changes” (my emphasis).

If ENSO had a major impact on TOA, you’d expect to see it appear in Ocean Heat Content data. If La Nina’s cooled the earth by impacting TOA then you’d expect to see sharp drops in OHC during strong La Nina years that mimic the surface temperature. The opposite for El Nino years. However, this is not the case. OHC has steadily risen, even throughout the “pause”.


The vast majority of the influence from ENSO events on surface temperatures comes from moving heat around the system, not impacting TOA balance. This is the result of the mechanism of ENSO, which is the moving of hot water to the surface during El Nino, where it interacts with the atmosphere more readily, and pooling it in the deep ocean during La Nina, where it can’t interact with the atmosphere as readily – i.e. temporarily releasing and storing heat. Meehl et al 2010 examined OHC during “hiatus” periods (negative PDO) and “non-hiatus” periods (positive PDO) and demonstrates that, in keeping with our understanding on ENSO, deep OHC increases faster during negative PDO phases (storing phase) but upper OHC increases faster during positive PDO phases (releasing phase). Balmaseda et al 2013 shows similar results.

Hoerling et al 2008 wraps things up nicely. They found that “Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth's climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.”

8. ENSO has no inherent mechanism that could have a major impact on long-term trends
The reason why ENSO doesn’t have a notable impact on long-term trends is because it lacks a necessary mechanism to actually impact long-term trends. ENSO temporarily causes more heat to be stored in (La Nina) or released from (El Nino) the ocean. It does not have a major impact on adding or removing heat from the Earth (i.e. it doesn’t significantly impact TOA). I’ll use an analogy of a hydronic home heating system with a hot water tank for storage. The analogy, like all analogies, is not perfect. I have no doubt that “skeptics” will cherry pick this analogy to death yet it matters very little to the overall point. Hopefully it helps illustrate the mechanism of ENSO to some.

- The home represents Earth.
- The electric water heater represents the Sun.
- The room temperature represents the global surface temperature.
- The hot water tank represents the oceans
- The control valve on the outlet of the hot water tank represents ENSO
- Insulation on your house and around the tank walls represents green house gases

Unlike a normal electric water heater, but quite like the sun, this particular electric heater runs all the time, regardless of room temperature. This isn’t a big problem because the house had terrible insulation and so the heat input from the electric heater closely matched the heat loss through the walls. However, someone started putting insulation into the walls. Now the heat input from the heater is slightly greater than the heat loss through walls.

What’s worse, the control valve on the outlet of the boiler cannot be controlled. It’s normally at 50% open, which we’ll call “neutral” but, seemingly randomly, flips between being slightly more than 50% open, which we’ll call “opEN” state, to slightly less than 50% open, which we’ll called “cLNosed” state. Over the long-term, there’s no notable trend of the control valve being more in the opEN state than the cLNosed state. In the neutral state, the room heats at a fairly steady rate since the insulation has been added. When in the opEN state, more hot water goes to heat the room and the room heats faster but there is less hot water left in the tank. When in the cLNosed state, less water goes to heat the room and the room heats slower but there is more hot water left in the tank.

This past Monday there was a very strong opEN state but this Saturday and Sunday were very strong cLNosed state days, which meant there was an insignificant increase in room temperature for this week. However, the hot water tank temperature continued to rise throughout the week (and months), the room temperature for the past two month increased steadily (since the insulation was added) and more so this past month (when more insulation was added) than the first month, and the strongest opEN day last week was actually colder than the strongest cLNosed state this week.

It’s obvious that the control valve is not responsible for the warming. While the control valve can add considerable noise to the warming trend, it is not responsible for the warming trend. Even if, in the future, we could “fix” the valve to always be in the cLNosed state (which is analogous to some MAGICAL perpetual La Nina state), we still would not fix the problem. The hot water tank would continue to warm and so would the room. You would still have an energy balance problem where the heat input is exceeding the heat output, even if not all of that heat was going to the room (/atmosphere) but instead was building up in the tank (/oceans).

TL;DR
Q: Does ENSO have the ability to have a major impact on the long-term trend of global climate?
A: No.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

looking at your graph of average annual temperature, some things jump out at me ...
1) no reference, you chide others for posting unreferenced material,
2) 1998 stands out as an exceptional year, and very unfortunately,
3) a linear trend line through that data is IMO mindlessly simplistic,
4) if 2014 is the hottest year on record (as I understand people say it was) it must look like the lamented 1998,
5) the trend line through the last 10 years looks awfully flat (did someone say "pause" ?).

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

1) NASA
2) Hottest El Nino on the modern record.
3) The point is, if ENSO had some significant long-term influence, you wouldn't see long-term trends for El Nino years, La Nina years and all years match as closely. It demonstrates that the warming trend exists regardless of the ENSO state.
4) According to some temperature record sets it is most likely the hottest year on record. However, I still feel 2010 could be (mainly because Cowtan and Way still lists 2010 as the hottest). It matters little though. But yes, 2014 is much higher than 2013 and it was a ENSO neutral year.
5) Haha

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

(sorry #2 should read Strongest El Nino on the modern record)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Nice long copy paste. Long on assertion short on supporting evidence. I'm also left to wonder what is long term. You say that the ENSO is short term but then say that it's driven by the PDO which is a 60 year cycle. Drawing a long term trend is meaningless. The simple fact is that in your long term trend warming is only observed for 2 30ish year periods. 1911-1945 and 1976-2001 both in phase with the positive PDO given a slight lag.. Before you start throwing stuff to a wall and hoping it sticks you first have to set some solid definitions you seem to use a nebulous "short term" "long term" that has no meaning but what suits your argument.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

P.S. Most of your argument is depend on reanalylsis of ocean heat content data which is totally unreliable.

Wunsch and Heimbach (2013) wrote, “clear warnings have appeared in the literature—that spurious trends and values are artifacts of changing observation systems (see, e.g., Elliott and Gaffen, 1991; Marshall et al., 2002; Thompson et al., 2008)—the reanalyses are rarely used appropriately, meaning with the recognition that they are subject to large errors

It's a fools errand to think that we know what ocean heat Co tent is over the term you claim.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

This is all nice, but it does not hit the topic very well.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Okay lets start playing with rconnor

“If ENSO had a major impact on TOA, you’d expect to see it appear in Ocean Heat Content data. If La Nina’s cooled the earth by impacting TOA then you’d expect to see sharp drops in OHC during strong La Nina years that mimic the surface temperature. The opposite for El Nino years. However, this is not the case. OHC has steadily risen, even throughout the “pause”"

This understanding of la nina couldn’t be more wrong. The la nina phase of the ENSO is the ocean heating phase. During an el nino the pacific gives up energy and during a la nina it absorbs energy. Not only does that wind your previously mentioned start to pool energy it also blows away cloud cover letting more solar radiation reach the ocean surface. Remember we don’t care about the top of the atmosphere we care about how much short wave radiation is actually reaching the surface of the ocean. You would think that before making your argument you would make sure you aren’t violating the first law.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Link

Saw this the other day, thought it was interesting and more on topic. Obviously very early stages of research, so take what you will.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Given that the deep earth has a heat content higher than the surface, and volcanic activity is one of the ways that heat is slowly transfered to the surface. So this transfer, while not predictable should be within a range. From that the surface conditions should follow heat content added - heat content loss = change in heat content. What changes climate on the surface is losses, gains, transfers between solid, liquid, and gas, and changes of state.
So what is unpredictable? Heat transfer from the core, and energy from the local star, but both of these should be in a typical range, which over time should give a cone shaped range of possibilities.
It's not happening, and that is a red flag.

Changing reflection from the surface, or clouds, is a given, and should be predictable provided the inputs are correct. Is this being calculated correctly?
Are we adding that the surface is changing everytime we add a solar panel?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

If the positive PDO is responsible for the warming period, and not some underlying warming trend, then the negative PDO phase should cool the planet, not merely cause warming rates to decrease slightly. In reality, we see periods of accelerated warming during positive PDO phases and modest warming during negative PDO phases – because there is an underlying warming trend.

If it’s a 60 year cycle and the positive PDO phase is responsible for the accelerated warming seen after 1970, and not some underlying warming trend, then 1949 should be approximately the same temperature as 2009 (originally I went 1950-2010 but didn’t want to pick the hottest year on record as the final date). Unfortunately, 2009 (a La Nina year, by the way) was 0.87 deg C warming than 1949 – because there is an underlying warming trend.

Quote (GTTofAK)

Okay lets start playing with rconnor
Wow, this post is…ahh…interesting. You missed the point of the quote so badly that you actually reinforced exactly what I was trying to say. I’m going to repeat the quote, bold some things you missed and expand on some points (that should have been obvious).

Quote (rconnor)

[***]If[***] ENSO had a major impact on TOA [which it doesn’t], you’d expect to see it appear in Ocean Heat Content data. [***]If[***] La Nina’s cooled the earth by impacting TOA [which it doesn’t] then you’d expect to see sharp drops in OHC during strong La Nina years that mimic the surface temperature. The opposite for El Nino years. However, this is not the case. OHC has steadily risen, even throughout the “pause”.

Point #7 demonstrates that ENSO does not significantly impact TOA. The quote above further proves that by demonstrating that if it did, you’d expect OHC to behave in a way that it hasn’t. Then you come along and hammer this point home by restating that ENSO doesn’t behave that way.

The funny thing is that post by you wasn’t wrong (…for the most part. Your comment that TOA radiative balance isn’t important is laughable). It matches what I said about how ENSO operates (I compared your quotes against some of mine below). ENSO does not significantly impact TOA. The majority of the influence of ENSO comes from moving heat around the system (which your post reinforces) – which is one of many reasons why ENSO does not have a major impact on long-term climate trends.

Quote (GTTofAK)

During an el nino the pacific gives up energy and during a la nina it absorbs energy

Quote (rconnor (from #8))

ENSO temporarily causes more heat to be stored in (La Nina) or released from (El Nino) the ocean

Quote (GTTofAK)

it also blows away cloud cover letting more solar radiation reach the ocean surface

Quote (rconnor (from #7))

Note that I’m not saying that ENSO doesn’t impact TOA at all; it does very slightly impact the TOA radiative balance by affecting cloud cover temporarily

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Still none of the diagrams show a range, but a 100% known trejectory. Which is not possible to be 100% accuriate, so all the predictions that show a know trejectory are wrong.
If a range is not predictable then the model is wrong.

Bottom line is not if there is a change, but that we can't model it to say what action we should be taking.

What I do see is there is more veriability in weather, not that that indicates a direction in the baseline.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

And there we have it: The standard "your data is meaningless" versus "No - YOUR data is meaningless" Eng-Tips climate debate.

Thanks for coming out...

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cranky, see below an image of the range of model runs and observed temperatures from AR5 (Figure 1.4):


CELinOttawa, this is about the third time you’ve posted in a climate change thread that you’re not interested in climate change threads. If you’re not, I’d recommend not wasting your time reading and posting in climate change threads. Or if you want to try to bring forward the science as honestly as you can, in hopes that people will learn (i.e. are a masochist and enjoy banging your head against a very thick wall), then do so. But posts about your disinterest are a waste of time for others and, more importantly, yourself.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"If the positive PDO is responsible for the warming period, and not some underlying warming trend, then the negative PDO phase should cool the planet, not merely cause warming rates to decrease slightly. In reality, we see periods of accelerated warming during positive PDO phases and modest warming during negative PDO phases – because there is an underlying warming trend."

I agree that there is an underlying warming trend. Its the trend we have seen since exiting the little ice age. If we use the 1911-1945 natural warming as a control case there is no discernible difference from the 1976-2001 warming. However it is a fallacy to say that phases of the PDO average out to 0. The negative phase does not have to equal the positive phase. Thinking that it does is nothing but new age earth in perfect balance yin and yang hippy bull. Start talking like an engineer and not some aging boomer in a hot yoga class.

"Point #7 demonstrates that ENSO does not significantly impact TOA. The quote above further proves that by demonstrating that if it did, you’d expect OHC to behave in a way that it hasn’t. Then you come along and hammer this point home by restating that ENSO doesn’t behave that way."

Ah I see you are trying to ignore that you said what you said you did.

"If La Nina’s cooled the earth by impacting TOA then you’d expect to see sharp drops in OHC during strong La Nina years that mimic the surface temperature."

This represents a total lack of understanding on your part about the ENSO. Since you don’t understand it we can’t expect you to actually look for the right evidence.

“ENSO does not significantly impact TOA.”

It looks to me that during the current La Nina phase it has significantly affected the outgoing short wave radiation.



“The majority of the influence of ENSO comes from moving heat around the system (which your post reinforces) – which is one of many reasons why ENSO does not have a major impact on long-term climate trends.”

And there is the rub. You don’t define what long term is!!! The PDO determines the relative the strength of the ENSO. It’s a 60ish year cycle. That is very long term. We only have somewhat accurate ocean data starting at ARGO even then ARGO is limited. Any attempt to create something before ARGO with model reanalysis is a fool’s errand and will inevitably reflect the bias of the modeler and models. Reanalysis can in no way be confused with data and used to confirm models.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Cranky, see below an image of the range of model runs and observed temperatures from AR5 (Figure 1.4):"

I liked it better when it was this.



When this graph was leaked the IPCC caught holly hell. So they sprung into action. They extended the scale of the graph all the way back to 1950 in order to obscure the 1990-2015 period. If you think this was an accident I have so ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.

They then changed the standard that has been used since the FAR “Values are aligned to match the average observed value at 1990″ to “Annual mean anomalies relative to 1961–1990 of the individual CMIP3 ensemble simulations.” This widened the spread of the models to encompass the observed data.

Remember when I said that I’m a cynic. For decades models were aligned to match observed values at 1990. When we moved outside of the envelop the method was changed. This is just post hoc lying with statistics. If you chose the method after the fact to get the answer you want it isn’t science.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I actually come to these threads in the honest hope of finding something different, or learning something about the subject... Only after a wasted period of time get so frustrated that I leave an unproductive post.

You're absolutely right; the posts are not productive. They therefore break one of my primary rules for Eng-Tips participation, and I'll try damn hard in future not to be so hypocritical. I still think you're all wasting your time because the opposing side is ignoring you, just as you are ignoring them.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Back in April of last year, I posted AR5 Figure 1.4 and, preemptively, included the following right after:

Quote (rconnor)

“But…but…the leaked draft version of that graph is the right one! The IPCC tried to cover it up with the other one! You’re cherry-picking!” said the “Skeptics”.

Let’s make sure we understand why it was changed – it was wrong. In the leaked draft version, all series (models and observations) were aligned at 1990, a single year. Observations inherently include the random year-to-year fluctuations. So to aligned to a single year, a hot one at that, makes the projections of the models appear hotter than they actually are. In other words, they took the projected trend from the models and attached it to the 1990 data point (which was hotter than the trend leading up to that). What should happen, and what did happen in the final report, is the projected trend line should be attached to the trend line leading up to 1990. That’s not “masking the truth”, that’s correcting a statistical error. If you’re curious, more info can be found here.

This is what the draft version did:


And here is the same projected trends but, correctly, applied to the TREND leading up to 1990 (it looks almost identical to the IPCC final report):

It’s no surprise to me that you “liked it better” when it was wrong, GTTofAk.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Tamino? You mean grant foster? An out of work musician. You are telling me that the IPCC took the recommendation of a musician?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It’s Grant Foster, the one with 69 citations of peer-reviewed publications he’s authored with other prominent climate scientists such as Stefan Rahmstorf and Gavin Schmidt:
Global temperature evolution 1979–2010 – 35 citations
Comparing climate projections to observations up to 2011 – 25 citations
Comment on “Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth's climate system” by SE Schwartz – 9 citations

But it seems like you’ve completely avoided the point and instead attempted to discredit the person making the argument. I think there’s a Latin phrase for that. Being the expert on Latin phrases, logic and debating, GTTofAk, could you help me remember what it’s called?...oh never mind. It’s unimportant.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

he was picking up on the domain name of your link.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Actually I'm attacking the IPCC. The IPCC claims to only rely on peer reviewed scientific literature. Yet when their back was to the wall they adopted a new convention from a blog no review no nothing.

As for Foster. I don't care much for him because I don't like frauds. The man claimed expertise he doesn't have he is an out of work musician who claimed to be a statistician.

I'll eviscerated his method later. In short if you are going to center the models on a trend you better do the same to the observations. That whole apples and oranges thing.[

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

From Foster, Rahmstorf where Foster gives his qualifications.

'Grant Froster Tempo Analytics, 303 Campbell Road, Garland, ME 04939'

Plug that into Google earth and see what you get. I don't have a problem with someone being self-taught if they are honest about it. Foster however, both under his real name and even more so under the Tamino alias has lied about his qualifications. That the IPCC would adopt his conventions straight from his blog with no review at all is laughable.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Just because Grant Foster, aka Tamino, pointed out an error in something and the IPCC corrected the error, it does not follow that the IPCC changed it because Grant Foster said it was wrong. A reviewer of the IPCC could have no idea about Grant Foster and spotted the same mistake.

It's funny that a Bobby Tisdale follower, a person with zero publications, zero citations and seemingly zero formal training in the field, would make ad homeninem attacks at Grant Foster for not being an expert in the field.

Regardless, it's rather meaningless as we know that model projections are higher than observations due to (as listed above):
- ENSO (Kosaka and Xie 2013, England et al 2014, Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 and many others)
- Lack of coverage of arctic warming in some data sets (Cowtan and Way 2013)
- Underestimating the amount of anthropogenic aerosols
- Underestimating the short term impact of smaller volcanic activity (Santer et al 2014, Ridley et al 2014)
- Required update to OHC (Durack et al 2014)
- The fact that models were never intended on matching short-term fluctuations perfectly

This has already been discussed. All I was doing was demonstrating to cranky that model projects are not a single value but a range of possible values.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Just because Grant Foster, aka Tamino, pointed out an error in something and the IPCC corrected the error, it does not follow that the IPCC changed it because Grant Foster said it was wrong. A reviewer of the IPCC could have no idea about Grant Foster and spotted the same mistake.'

Nope sorry not in the IPCC flow chart. The addition of the new graphic occurred after the review period. It was included after the fact with 0 review or documentation. And you have no evidence that it is an “error”. Where is the documentation supporting that centering on 1990 is an “error”. Under IPCC rules there should be some peer reviewed papers supporting this not some anonymous(poorly anonymous that is as everyone knows Tamino is Grant Foster). The centering is a convention. Different conventions might yield slightly different graphical results.

I would say that the actual error lies with the final graphic and Fosters new centering convention that the IPCC adopted. The error in Foster’s logic lies here.

“But observations include random year-to-year fluctuations, whereas the projections do not because the average of multiple models averages those out”

This is an error. In forecasting models year-to-year fluctuations average out. That is not the case in hind-casting. The models do not randomly hind-cast events. The events are already known and are built into the models. They might differ slightly on the degree of the event but the timing of the events is not random. If we align on the mean 1990 value this will drop the models below the observations because the models run hot in 1990 as they are correctly hind-casting known temperatures.

If you are going to center on a trend and not a year you have to do this for both observations and models. Foster and the IPCC don’t do this.

As you can see in this graphic the IPCC realigned the models to the trend but didn’t realign the observations



This creates an apples and oranges comparison.

Another side issue is that the IPCC is also expanding the envelope by using low emissions scenarios. Those low performing models come from low emissions scenarios that didn’t happen.



This is a slight of hand to trick people into thinking that we are still in the model range. The models that come close to the observed trend use emissions scenarios that didn’t happen.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

…and this is why we shouldn’t read too much into something from a leaked draft
All of the accusations that the IPCC secretly switched figure 1.4 at the 11th hour solely based on a blog post are completely baseless. The old figure was from a leaked draft. The image could have been a placeholder. The new image could have been approved long before the leak but wasn’t completed or added to the draft prior to the leak.

What we do know is there was a Lead Author’s Meeting (LAM) after the leaked draft (SOD – December 2012, 4th LAM – January 2013). At the LAM, comments from the SOD expert review are reviewed. It is very likely that the error in figure 1.4 was discovered during the SOD expert review, before Foster’s blog post, and commented. The comments were addressed at the LAM and the issue was corrected. To claim that the IPCC changed the image because of the blog post is utterly absurd and completely unfounded.

Trends Matter
The issue is that model projections represent the trends. The exact year-to-year values are not what they are trying to represent. So to apply model projections onto a single year, a hot one at that, and then compare trends is comparing apples and oranges. The model trends need to be applied to the temperature trend, not the single year.

But regardless of the baseline, as stated above, the trends are what matter. And what do you get when you compare model trends against observed trends (1990-2012)? A very close match. The "average" model run is slightly hotter than observations, mainly for the reasons which I’ve listed before. Both Schmidt et al 2014 and Huber and Knutti 2014 support that.


Emission Scenarios
While anthropogenic CO2 emissions are near the higher emission scenarios, anthropogenic aerosols and volcanic aerosols have been underestimated. This means that the total forcing, which is really what matters (and part of the reason why the IPCC moved to RCP scenarios which relate to forcings), is closer to the middle/lower emission scenarios.

Models obviously cannot predict anthropogenic aerosol emissions and have underestimated them. However, the harm caused by aerosols will mean that these emissions will reduce over time as more pressure is put on governments (i.e. protests in China over air quality). So the cooling forcing of anthropogenic aerosols is very likely to reduce in the future.

The papers that started this thread point to errors in how models handled volcanic aerosols (from smaller volcanic events). This improvement in the science will be used to improve models. This has a minor impact on the short-term predictions and explains some of the discrepancy between models and observations. However, it’s unlikely that this will have a long-term impact on model predictions as volcanic events are episodic.

The point of the matter is that it is incorrect to compare the recent short-term observed trends with the highest forcing scenarios when the forcings have been closer to medium/low-forcing scenarios. Furthermore, as volcanic activity does not have a long-term impact and anthropogenic aerosol emissions are very likely to decrease, the long-term trend is likely to shift towards the high-forcing scenarios without mitigation initiatives.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

(sorry, my wording was messing in one sentence (well, likely more than one...but no matter). The sentence under "Trends Matter" should read: "So to apply model trend projections onto a single year, a hot one at that, and then compare trends specific years is comparing apples and oranges.")

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"…and this is why we shouldn’t read too much into something from a leaked draft
All of the accusations that the IPCC secretly switched figure 1.4 at the 11th hour solely based on a blog post are completely baseless. The old figure was from a leaked draft. The image could have been a placeholder. The new image could have been approved long before the leak but wasn’t completed or added to the draft prior to the leak."


I think you need to look up the word baseless. Foster both posted his “correction” and publicly said the he had contacted IPCC lead authors about it. The IPCC then did exactly what Foster had recommended including Fosters error of only realigning the models and not the observations. All of these are facts and provide the basis for the argument.

It is your assertion that this was caught independently by an reviewer, somehow after the review period had ended, and then was changed just by coincidence how Foster had recommended including Fosters error is the baseless claim.

Up is down. Clod is hot. And my fact based claim is baseless while your pure supposition of some unknown reviewer doing this is fact based.

Let’s look at your sentence structure.

The image could have been …. The new image could have been … but

The one using the qualifiers is the one making the baseless claim.

“The issue is that model projections represent the trends. The exact year-to-year values are not what they are trying to represent. “

The IPCC graph isn’t a graph of the trends. So you are incorrect.

“So to apply model projections onto a single year, a hot one at that, and then compare trends is comparing apples and oranges. The model trends need to be applied to the temperature trend, not the single year.”

Again the IPCC graphic does not compare trends but the measured and predicted anomaly.

On the issue of realigning on the trend it actually makes little difference if its done correctly. The reason it makes such a big difference here that the Foster made an error and only realigned the models to the trend. If you are going to realign the models you need to also realign the observations. If the models and observations were perfectly in alignment applying Foster’s adjustment would still bias the models downwards relative to the observed. That is how you know its wrong.

“A very close match. The "average" model run is slightly hotter than observations, mainly for the reasons which I’ve listed before. Both Schmidt et al 2014 and Huber and Knutti 2014 support that.”

They don’t support that. They support that if you use after the fact fudge factors you can get the models back in alignment. Biasing a model after the fact proves nothing.

I suspect your Tamino graph does the same thing. But its hard as there is no support info. Since Tamino is an out of work musician who I just showed made a gross error I’m very skeptical of any of his analysis.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

On the issue of biasing the models after the fact I have had to laugh at a new term that has appeared in climate pseudoscience ”retrospective prediction” I’m not shitting you.

I went to vegas and tried to retrospectively put all of my money of the Patriots to win the superbowl. They told me to get bent.

Could it be that climate modelers failed miserably and are not trying to save their jobs and reputation??? Nah that couldn't be it.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I know i'm hi-jacking this thread, but ... going back to a post back on 9th Feb ...
"If you want to post unrelated nonsense, open a new thread. Actually, don’t. Instead, apply the slightly ounce of (actual) skepticism to the nonsense you gobble up, understand that it’s actually nonsense and, rightly, decide not to post such nonsense."

I accept rconnor's point that what was reported (at first look) as an abuse, was (at second look) a systematic modification of data.

no "grassy knolls", no "your data sucks", no "your mother sucks" ... just, do we think it's a good idea to modify data ? I understand monitoring stations move, but shouldn't we say these are separate data streams rather than saying let's run these two data streams together (to get a longer record) by adjusting the recorded data by the mean of the two locations. how can any scientist countenance modifying virgin data ? I get that you want to account for urban island effects, and nearby ac outlets, etc but surely you'd want to retain the original record ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

You’re claiming that the IPCC change AR5 Figure 1.4 because Grant Foster blogged about it and only because Grant Foster blogged about it, in an attempt to cover-up the “truth” regarding model/observations. This is a wild accusation that carries many explicit and implicit implications. All of which are unfounded or directly disproven by reality.

1. The change was solely due to Greg Foster
As I said before, just because Foster blogged about it, it does not follow that the IPCC changed the image because of it. You’d need to prove that Foster was the only person that spotted the error or was absolutely instrumental in the IPCC changing the figure. This is a tall order and speaks to just how outlandish your claim is.

2. This was a backdoor move by the IPCC and no one had a chance to say otherwise
Second Order Draft review period ended Nov 30, 2012. The leak occurred sometime in December 2012. Foster’s blog post occurred Dec. 20, 2012. You claim that there were no review periods after this point and the IPCC snuck it in the changes. However, there was the Lead Author’s Meeting in Jan 2013, where comments from the SOD expert review are considered (including comments on Figure 1.4), papers are accepted for consideration up to March 15, 2012, the Expert and Government Review in Jun-Aug 2013 and the 12th WG1 Session in Sept 2013 (source). Your attempt to paint this as some sort of 11th hour change that no one knew about is wrong. There were numerous review periods after the leaked draft came out.

3. Figure 1.4 was set in stone in the leaked draft
Firstly, it’s a draft. In other words, not the final version. Things tend to change between drafts and final versions, especially when there numerous review periods after the Second Order Draft. This is not an oddity and does not support some conspiracy to suppress the truth.

The second clue should have been the wording in the draft. Figure 1.4 is included in the draft in the following form:

Quote (Leaked SOD Version)

[INSERT FIGURE 1.4 HERE]
Figure 1.4: [PLACEHOLDER FOR FINAL DRAFT:…]
Not exactly ironclad.

4. The IPCC blindly accepted Greg Foster’s take on the image
Furthermore, even if Foster was the only person on the planet to spot the error, it does not follow that the IPCC blindly accepted his version.

They didn’t blindly accept his version. See Appendix 1.A for the discussion on how Figure 1.4 was produced. It’s different and much more robust than in Foster’s blog post.

5. The changes to Figure 1.4 undermine the message of the draft version
You’re assuming that the overall message of the report changed based off the changes to Figure 1.4 (i.e. the draft concluded that models did not match observations at all and the final version concluded they had). For this, we need look no further than the statements made in the draft version and compare them to the final version.

Quote (Leaked SOD Version)

Even though the projections from the models were never intended to be predictions over such a short time scale, the observations through 2010 generally fall well within the projections made in all of the past assessments.



Analyses by Rahmstorf et al.(2012; submitted) show that accounting for ENSO events and solar cycle changes would enhance the comparison with the AR4 and earlier projections. In summary, the globally-averaged surface temperatures are well within the uncertainty range of all previous IPCC projections, and generally are in the middle of the scenario ranges. However, natural variability is likely the dominating effect in evaluating these early times in the scenario evaluations as noted by Hawkins and Sutton (2009).

Quote (Final Version)

As in the prior assessments, global climate models generally simulate global temperatures that compare well with observations over climate timescales (Section 9.4). Even though the projections from the models were never intended to be predictions over such a short timescale, the observations through 2012 generally fall within the projections made in all past assessments. The 1990– 2012 data have been shown to be consistent with the FAR projections (IPCC, 1990), and not consistent with zero trend from 1990, even in the presence of substantial natural variability (Frame and Stone, 2013).



In summary, the trend in globally averaged surface temperatures falls within the range of the previous IPCC projections. During the last decade the trend in the observations is smaller than the mean of the projections of AR4 (see Section 9.4.1, Box 9.2 for a detailed assessment of the hiatus in global mean surface warming in the last 15 years). As shown by Hawkins and Sutton (2009), trends in the observations during short-timescale periods (decades) can be dominated by natural variability in the Earth’s climate system. Similar episodes are also seen in climate model experiments (Easterling and Wehner, 2009). Due to their experimental design these episodes cannot be duplicated with the same timing as the observed episodes in most of the model simu¬lations; this affects the interpretation of recent trends in the scenario evaluations (Section 11.2). Notwithstanding these points, there is evi¬dence that early forecasts that carried formal estimates of uncertainty have proved highly consistent with subsequent observations (Allen et al., 2013). If the contributions of solar variability, volcanic activity and ENSO are removed from the observations the remaining trend of sur¬face air temperature agree better with the modelling studies (Rahm¬storf et al., 2012).
(source)

The message did not change. The graphic did.

It’s truly a ridiculous claim that borders on absurd conspiracy theory. It’s not only completely unsupported but actual disproven by what really happened. I’ve wasted enough time on this nonsense.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"You’re claiming that the IPCC change AR5 Figure 1.4 because Grant Foster blogged about it and only because Grant Foster blogged about it, in an attempt to cover-up the “truth” regarding model/observations. This is a wild accusation that carries many explicit and implicit implications. All of which are unfounded or directly disproven by reality."

Your reading comprehension is poor. The leaked draft was big news. The IPCC went out looking for any reason to change it. Grant Foster while a scientific nobody isn't a nobody in terms of his influence. He is a member of the realcliamte group and therefore has access to IPCC lead authors who are also associated with real cliamte. He said that he contacted lead authors with his change. I take him at his word. In the end the IPCC adopted his recentering exactly with some other tricks as well, extending the reference period, adding the spaghetti both intended to make it illegible.

This is all fact based. Your assertion that some nameless reviewer came up with the change that just happened to be the same change Foster sent them is the baseless claim.

"It’s truly a ridiculous claim that borders on absurd conspiracy theory."

Everything boarders on conspiracy theory with you. That is just projection on your part.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"how can any scientist countenance modifying virgin data "

This done ALL THE TIME. Case in point, any photon radiometer's detector has parasitic dark currents, so any measurement performed by the detector is immediately corrected for an offset error as well as a scale factor. What's reported as uW/cm^2-sr is not really a virgin measurement. Any electronic temperature measurement using a PRT is likewise corrected for offset, scaling, as well as linearity, since the mapping of temperature to resistance is a non-linear function. These are all forms of calibration that are used to correct the measured data to reflect what is being measured.


So, what you might consider to be virgin data for temperature has already been modified. Now, admittedly, these are well-known and NIST-traceable calibrations, but, presumably, that could be said for station temperatures as well.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

personally, i expect that the raw strain gauge output (similar to your photon detector) is kept prior to being modified for calibrations and corrections. I guess I could accept retaining only modified data if i was convinced that the modifications could be reversed (because maybe someone comes up with a theory that uses uncorrected data or maybe there was a error in these corrections (eg, gauge factors have been calculated incorrectly).

"what you might consider to be virgin data for temperature has already been modified." sure, by factors that should be recorded and so are reversible. what i'm concerned about are "adjustments" for station move, for urban heat island, etc that appear to replace the original data. For the case in point (the Berkeley example) the changes are traceable but i'm wondering if they're appropriate ? I understand the in the past corrections have been applied and overwritten the original data, which sounds very "odd".

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"So, what you might consider to be virgin data for temperature has already been modified. Now, admittedly, these are well-known and NIST-traceable calibrations, but, presumably, that could be said for station temperatures as well."

You would think that but as bad as climate science might be now it was far worse a few decades ago when there was a handful of scientists laying the ground work for this young field. Many of the major adjustments that were still used today were the product of pure supposition. Take the bucket adjustment which is still used today and adds a large warming trend to the SST data. The support for the adjustment comes from Folland 1984

“The abrupt change in SST in December 1941 coincides with the entry of the USA into World War II and is likely to have resulted from a realization of the dangers of hauling sea buckets onto deck in wartime conditions when a light would have been needed for both hauling and reading the thermometer at night.”

In real science this is what is known as a hypothesis. The next step is to go out and support it. Once you have sufficiently supported it then you can apply it. Did that happen? Hell no. Climate scientists just took it as true, hey it sounded like a good explanation kind of like how Fosters realignment sounds like a good explanation until you realize that you need to realignment the observations as well. It wasn’t until 2007 that anyone bothered to check Folland’s hypothesis. Did the hypothesis stand up? Hell no, Kent 2007 found that buckets were still the predominate way of measuring SST temperatures all the way unit the 1980s.



So did climate scientists go back and correct their work? Did they admit that Folland was wrong? Hell no! This isn’t science anymore its politics and social science. These people are playing a poker game and they are 100% all in. And they know it. They are not about to admit a mistake and reduce the global trend by about a third. When your entire communication strategy is appeal to authority you cannot do anything that makes people question that authority.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rb1857,

I highly recommend digging around the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team website. It has a lot of answers to the questions you ask as it was specifically designed by a (former) climate change skeptic to address the major concerns of the temperature data set (and includes their raw data). The paper on the method used from BEST can be found here.

GTTofAk has stated that “bucket adjustment which is still used today and adds a large warming trend to the SST data”. As with most things he says, it’s half true. Bucket measurements have a cooling bias and so the “bucket adjustment” increases the temperature from the raw measurement. However, to imply that this means that “bucket adjustments” have artificially imposed a warming trend in the 20th century is wrong.

Bucket measurements were predominantly used in the early 1900’s and have steadily become a smaller portion of the total sea temperature measurement as engine room and, more recently, buoys took over the share. Engine room measurements have a heating bias and so the “engine room adjustment” decreases the temperature from the raw measurement. A more up-to-date image on the fractional breakup of the different measurement methods can be found in Kennedy et al. 2011.


What this means is that the temperature adjustments of the raw data moved from increasing the temperature of the raw value in the early 20th century to decreasing The first image below is plot of the data from Kennedy et al. 2011 by Kevin Cowtan (York University) showing the adjustments to the raw data over the 20th century. The second image is Figure 4 from Kennedy et al. 2011 which shows the unadjusted data (red line) and adjusted data (black line). Both demonstrate that the adjustments have worked to reduce the warming trend (by imposing a cooling adjustment). Climate scientists have done the exact opposite of tinker with the data to create a warming trend (as GTTofAk would love to believe), they’ve actually corrected the data that reduces the warming trend.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (GTTofAk)

So did climate scientists go back and correct their work? Did they admit that Folland was wrong? Hell no!
Oh, and I forgot to mention, all of GTTofAk's hand-waving about the climate scientists not correcting their assumption is also wrong. See the difference between HadSST2 adjustments, which go to zero after 1940, and HadSST3 adjustments, which account for the error in the previous iteration. They did correct it. Either GTTofAk is not up-to-date on the science (and chooses to cling to a 2007 blog post by Steven McIntyre) or he is purposefully trying to mislead.

Beyond that, this improvement occurred in 2011 and has been incorporated into the scientific understanding ever since. It has very little impact on the temperatures and certainly did not change anything major regarding anthropogenic climate change.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

yes, i know about the berkeley data, that's why i asked my question. a thermometer moves, should you ...
1) append the new data onto the end of the old data by shifting the new results by the difference of the average of new readings compared to the old ? or
2) consider them as separate data streams ?

am i right in thinking that the original temperature record has been overwritten with corrected temperatures ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Nice attempt at obfuscation rconnor. However, rconner tries to play a game of Loki's wager here. He knows well enough to know that he term "bucket adjustment" especially in the context used here referse to the adjustment of post WWII temperatures under the assumption made by Folland in Folland 1984. The adjustment for this assumed change over from buckets to intake is a negative adjustment that pulls post WWII temperatures down. This adds a warming bias of ~0.3-0.5C.

The source of rconnor's last graph says this explicitly

"when they come from warm-biased engine room intakes, a negative adjustment is required. There is a big shift from buckets to engine room intakes in 1941-1942; this is the 'bucket correction' implemented in existing datasets such as HadSST2. "

So we can safely conclude one of two things, either rconnor read it and didn't understand it or he read it and instead chose to lie about it.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

What are you talking about? What 0.3-0.5 deg C warming bias? You mean in the pre-1940 data? Yes, and then it went to near zero around 1970...which is when global temperatures started to rise. So what's your point? They shouldn't have added in the warming correction in the pre-1940 data? If that were true then that would make the recent warming trend even greater.

The point of the matter is do the corrections to the raw data add an artificial warming trend? The answer is no. Not only that but the corrections actually reduce the warming trend by warming the early data and (very slightly) cooling the more current data. Both images demonstrate this clearly.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rb1857,

Quote (rb1857)

a thermometer moves, should you ...
1) append the new data onto the end of the old data by shifting the new results by the difference of the average of new readings compared to the old ? or
2) consider them as separate data streams ?

BEST do something closer to your #2. From the BEST Methods paper:

Quote (BEST Methods Paper)

we incorporate a procedure that detects large discontinuities in time in a single station record. These could be caused by undocumented station moves, changes in instrumentation, or just the construction of a building nearby. These discontinuities are identified prior to the determination of the temperature parameters by an automated procedure. Once located, they are treated by separating the data from that record into two sections at the discontinuity time, creating effectively two stations out of one

However, the paper mentions that other temperature data sets do something closer to your #1.

Quote (BEST Methods Paper)

Other groups typically adjust the two segments to remove the discontinuity; they call this process homogenization. We apply no explicit homogenization; other than splitting, the data are left untouched. Any adjustment needed between the stations will be done automatically as part of the computation of the optimum temperature baseline parameters.

What this means is that the reading from the station is untouched. Corrections may be applied to the baseline temperature for that station or through the reliability/outlier weighting. But these are not done directly to the raw data.

The section called “Homogenization and the scalpel” has much more detail on the process used at BEST.

For a look at how other temperature data sets do this, see Menne & Williams 2009 (NOAA) or Jones & Moberg 2003 (HadCRUT) or Hansen et al 1999 (NASA GISS).

Quote (rb1957)

am i right in thinking that the original temperature record has been overwritten with corrected temperatures ?
BEST retains the raw data and does not overwrite with the corrected temperatures. You can find it all on their website.

But beyond all this, I feel your concern over the adjustments is that they’ve significantly influenced the temperature trend. However, that is not the case:

Note the image is for land only. However, as discussed above, the adjustments to sea surface temperatures actually reduces the warming trend.

I hope that this addresses your questions. If not, please let me know what I can clarify.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

You seem to be rellying heavily on Kennedy which is specualtive crap. How did Kennedy undo the bucket adjustemnt without undouing the bucket adjustemnt? Well remember how Folland made up some crap in his paper. Well Kennedy made also made up some crap.

"It is likely that many ships that are listed as using buckets actually used the ERI method (see end Section 3.2). To correct the uncertainty arising from this, 30+-10% of bucket observations were reassigned as ERI observations. For example a grid box with 100% bucket observations was reassigned to have, say, 70% bucket and 30% ERI."

So Kennedy claims that he can override 30% of observed data based on what?

"It is probable that some observations recorded as being from buckets were made by the ERI method. The Norwegian contribution to WMO Tech note 2 (Amot [1954]) states that the ERI method was preferred owing to the dangers involved in deploying a bucket"

Oh a Norwegian anecdote. Then he goes onto find data where none exists.

"Some observations could not be associated with a measurement method. These were randomly assigned to be either bucket or ERI measurements. The relative fractions were derived from a randomly-generated AR(1) time series as above but with range 0 to 1 and applied globally."

Remember the graph I posted from Kent



There is no justification for this method. It will result in ERI method being chosen at a rate not supported in the data. In the end after getting rid of 30% of the observed buckets and adding ERI from "unknown" data at Kennedy was able to keep the bucket adjustment mainly intact.

It doesn't surprise me that you cant see when the author of a paper is putting forth supposition as fact.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So if we have to peridocally move the tempeture measuring station because a heat island moves closer, would you also need to biasis the tempeture down to account for this? Are we seeing that happen?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Yes. If a station was moved from a (cooler) rural area to a (warmer) urban area, BEST would raise the baseline temperature for that station, thus reducing the anomaly. However, despite much humming and hawing from a certain weatherman and his blog, the impact of UHI isn't that large.

BEST examined the temperature trend for all stations in their data set and then only stations that were far away from urban areas. They found almost no discernible difference between the two. Actually, they found that rural sites read hotter than all sites combined. From the BEST paper on UHI, Wickham et al (2013):

Quote (Wickham et al 2013)

We observe the opposite of an urban heating effect over the period 1950 to 2010, with a slope of -0.10 ± 0.24°C/100yr (2σ error) in the Berkeley Earth global land temperature average. The confidence interval is consistent with a zero urban heating effect, and at most a small urban heating effect (less than 0.14°C/100yr, with 95% confidence) on the scale of the observed warming (1.9 ± 0.1°C/100 yr since 1950 in the land average from Figure 5A).

Our results are in line with previous results on global averages despite differences in methodology. Parker [2010] concluded that the effect of urban heating on the global trends is minor, HadCRU use a bias error of 0.05°C per century, and NOAA estimate residual urban heating of 0.06°C per century for the USA and GISS applies a correction to their data of 0.01°C per century. All are small on the scale of global warming.

We note that our averaging procedure uses only land temperature records. Inclusion of ocean temperatures will further decrease the influence of urban heating since it is not an ocean phenomenon.


You’ll note papers by Mckitrick are discussed in the BEST paper. So before someone says, “But Mckitrick says otherwise!”, actually read the paper.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

(rb1957, sorry I've noticed that I've included typos in your handle a couple of times now. My apologies. Please let me know if I addressed your question or if my reply spurred more questions/concerns. I also wanted to say that I greatly appreciate (and find extremely refreshing) your sincere and honest questions. Your willingness to digest (but still be appropriately skeptical of) the information presented to you is commendable. It greatly improves the quality of the discussion. Your posts give me a glimmer of hope that a worthwhile discussion can be had.)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

This thread is SUPPOSED to be discussing Volcano impacts, isn't it?

The last time the word 'volcano' appeared, and then only in a peripheral fashion, was Feb 12.

Time to 'eject' from this thread/pissing contest.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It's better to have a discussion like this, than a fight on the playground. I still get little things out of it, so let it go on.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Tinfoil,

I’m in agreement that the quality of the discussion is poor and I share a large part of that guilt. However, there’s a difference between being off-topic and the topic evolving. An example of the former is “Has anyone else read this (completely unrelated) newspaper article/blog post/paper?”. An example of the latter is “If models cannot predict volcanic events, what does this mean for long-term model projections?” and then the topic shifting to the long-term impact of volcanic events on modeling. The former degrades the quality of the discussion, the latter (to me) is fine and natural. Climate change science is a very interdependent discipline and it’s difficult to discuss one topic in isolation of everything else (and it still be meaningful). So rather than having 1000 threads on 1000 different topics, it makes more sense to let a conversation evolve to address many different issues so long as a logical narrative exists.

I have been guilty of feeding the former and causing the topic to be sidetracked. I regret spending as much time arguing about Grant Foster and Figure 1.4 as it was completely off-topic and pointless.

As for the “pissing contest”, I also apologize for getting dragged into trying to prove a poster wrong rather than addressing the issues with the idea presented. There is a subtle yet very important difference between the two. Posts should be geared towards providing accurate and thorough information (or correcting misinformation) and not towards proving someone wrong or ourselves right. My frustration gets the better of me at times and I forget this. I’ll do better to prevent that in the future.

As cranky108 pointed out, I feel there are some examples of very good discussions from time-to-time. I’ve recently acknowledged rb1957 for contributing to this. It is possible to have a meaningful, interesting discussion. And that doesn’t mean people’s minds will change, they won’t. That means that interesting, important questions will be asked and honest, thorough information will be provided.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Back on the paper. I think that the second thing you would have to do is show that 21st century aerosols are somehow higher than late 20th century aerosols between 15km and the tropopause. However, the authors have no way of showing that as that data does not exist pre AERONET. So given 2 facts, that there were more aerosols than previously thought and the presence of the pause they assume that there has been an increase in the early 21st century. The third option of ‘there were always more aerosols than we thought’ is ignored for the favored conclusion.

All this paper managed to show is that there are more aerosols between 15km and the tropopause than previously thought. The attribution of these aerosols to increased volcanic activity is pure speculation on the part of the authors. The fact that they don’t try and support this claim with hard data suggests to me that they did attempt to do so but found the evidence lacking. In my experience with “climate science” when you ask yourself ‘why didn’t they do X since it’s so obvious’ the answer usually is that they did and didn’t get the answer they wanted.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote:

I think that the second thing you would have to do is show that 21st century aerosols are somehow higher than late 20th century aerosols between 15km and the tropopause
I fail to see how this is relevant. Pre-2000 SAOD data was incorporated into models and not assumed to be zero due to Mount Pinatubo. Models do, however, assume that the post-2000 SAOD is negligible (see below) because no major volcanic events occurred after that point. I therefore cannot see any relevance between this comment and the paper because pre-2000 SAOD data is already incorporated but perhaps someone could explain the relevance to me.

The relevant issue is whether the assumption that post-2000 SAOD is negligible is valid or not. Vernier et al 2011, Ridley et al 2014 and Santer et al 2014 demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect and so models miss the cooling impact introduced by smaller volcanic events that occurred after 2000 (most of which occurred after 2005).

Perhaps a time line would be helpful:
1992 to 2000 – Large aerosol increase caused by Mount Pinatubo in 1992 and fading to near zero around 2000 (Source – Columbia University). This is factored into models.
1993 – First year of AERONET data (source).
1995 – The first year of AERONET data used by Ridley et al 2014.
2000 – The year in which models include no stratospheric aerosol impacts. From Ridley et al 2014, “The climate model simulations evaluated in the IPCC fifth assessment report [Stocker et al., 2013] generally assumed zero stratospheric aerosol after about 2000, and hence neglect any cooling effect of recent volcanoes (see Figure 3 of Solomon et al., 2011).” The Stocker et al 2013 (IPCC AR5 Technical Summary) reference points to Box TS.3
2004/2005 – Year when the "average" of model runs started to deviate from observations (see image from Schmidt et al 2014). This is subjective, of course, maybe one would suggest 2002/3. It matters little.
2005 – Year when Ridley et al 2014 find a notable increase in SAOD in the data.

To find the relevant impact on models, you need to study the change in SAOD post-2000. Again, this is done in the paper:
Ridley et al Figure 3

Fig. 3 - (a) Estimated global mean radiative forcing is shown for datasets from Sato et al. (orange), Vernier et al. (blue) and AERONET mean (black) with 25th to 75th percentile range (grey). The dotted line indicates the baseline model used in many climate model studies to date, which includes no stratospheric aerosol changes after 2000.
(b) The temperature anomaly, relative to the baseline model, including the AERONET mean (black), median (white), and 25th to 75th percentile range (grey), Vernier et al. (blue), and Sato et al. (orange) forcing computed for each dataset
(c) the total global temperature change predicted by the Bern 2.5cc EMIC in response to combined anthropogenic and natural forcing, including the reduced warming when considering the stratospheric aerosol forcing from the three datasets.

The paper demonstrates that the incorrect assumption that SAOD past 2000 was zero misses a cooling impact of increased SAOD, most note ably after 2005. Therefore, part of (but certainly not all) of the recent discrepancy between models and observations can be explained by the fact that models do not include up-to-date volcanic aerosol information. Incorporating this correction would drop the "average" model outputs closer to observations. This is an example of observation improving model projections, so I'm unsure why those skeptical of models would try to (erroneously) discredit this research.

Quote:

However, the authors have no way of showing that as that data does not exist pre AERONET
Again, I fail to see how this is relevant. Pre-2000, models incorporated SAOD data following the Mount Pinatubo eruption (Stocker et al, 2013). It was only after 2000 that models incorrectly assumed SAOD was zero. Therefore, this is the period of focus for the research. This entire period occurs when AERONET data exists. I should note that prior to AERONET data, there was SAGE II, CALIPSO, COMOS/ENVISAT and OSIRIS/Odin satellites (as used in Vernier et al, 2011). So even if it were relevant, I don’t believe the statement is true.

Quote:

So given 2 facts, that there were more aerosols than previously thought and the presence of the pause they assume that there has been an increase in the early 21st century. The third option of ‘there were always more aerosols than we thought’ is ignored for the favored conclusion.
1. The post-2000 SAOD was greater than 0, yes.
2. The post-2000 SAOD increases, most notably from 2005-2011, which adds a cooling trend that is currently unaccounted for in models due to the incorrect assumption.
3. This appears to be incorrect. The pre-2000 SAOD data is incorporated into models.

Quote:

The attribution of these aerosols to increased volcanic activity is pure speculation on the part of the authors
I don’t believe this is true. What information do you have to support this claim? I also claim if this is relevant. The issues is that aerosols have impacted the SAOD post-2000, unlike the assumption carried in models, which would have imposed a cooling trend on global temperatures. I fail to see how or why it's important to anything relevant if they come from volcanoes, other natural sources or anthropogenic sources.

The paper itself seems to suggest otherwise. Ridley et al 2014 describes numerous volcanic events that correspond to increases in SAOD. See Figure 1 from Ridely et al 2014:

Fig. 1 (a) The SAOD time series for the period 1995 – 2013 for satellite data from Vernier et al. (blue), Sato et al. (orange), AERONET mean, averaged from 30-45°N, (white) with 25th to 75th percentile uncertainty (grey shading), Tsukuba lidar retrievals (36.1°N, 140.1°E) above the tropopause (thick black line) and 15 km (thin black line), and aerosol sonde measurements at Laramie (41°N) above the tropopause (red dots) and 15 km (red crosses). Potentially important equatorial (solid lines) and mid-to-high latitude (dashed lines) volcanic eruptions are shown for Ulawun (Ul), Shiveluch (Sh), Ruang (Ru), Reventador (Re), Manam (Ma), Soufrière Hills (So), Tavurvur (Ta), Kasatochi (Ka), Sarychev (Sa), Eyjafjallajökull (Ey), and Nabro (Na). (b) Ratio of integrated optical depth above the tropopause to that above 15 km from three different lidars and from the in situ observations. The inset contains the same data on a log scale to indicate the ratios greater than 5 that are cropped for clarity on Fig. 1 (a).

Quote:

The fact that they don’t try and support this claim with hard data suggests to me that they did attempt to do so but found the evidence lacking. In my experience with “climate science” when you ask yourself ‘why didn’t they do X since it’s so obvious’ the answer usually is that they did and didn’t get the answer they wanted.
This seems completely false. It is certainly not supported by anything else said in the post because everything else said in the post is unsupported by the paper or any evidence. I don’t believe such unsupported statements belong in this conversation. Especially ones that attempts, with zero supporting evidence, to degrade all published climate science. In keeping with the comments regarding the quality of discussion on climate change, I don’t believe a quality conversation can happen as long as comments like this persist.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It's late. I was sure you would take your time to put together the usual fallacies.

Some points.

First you need to learn the difference between the stratosphere and the tropopause troposphere boundry. That you think they are interchangeable doesn't speed well.

Second, your assertion that just because the system started to be installed in the 90s does not mean we have good data before the early 2000s. Alarmist seem to like to live in these I stall periods. You've done the same thing with the ARGO data seeing castles in the clouds with a admittedly incomplete data.

Third, you still fail to see the point. You are confusing better observation with actual trends. All you paper shows is that we are better able to see these small effects that have always been there.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Since the effect has always been there it is already part of the models as it was incorporated. These are tuned models. Unknown constants are already incorporated what Ridley is doing is double counting.

P.s. I don't really see a very strong correlation either. Unless of course the 2002-03 eruptions traveled back in time. While that might look like a good correlation to the naked eye the thinking man is left to wonder how these eruptions are time traveling.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

At least these charts show some level of uncerenty. And some of this has been used to bring about leaking gas issues.

Never liked how slopy some industries are. It shows a don't care attitude.

Sort of a side note: exactly why are land fills bad, if they capture carbon? One of the biggest dislikes of the green movement is the constant complaints of so many things.
So now there are fights over transmission lines going to a wind farm, and because it is a business they want the transmission line at least cost.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

To the figure 1 SAOD, it looks more like its making the case that aerosols are causing volcanic eruptions not the other way around. Really just a childish trek through not only cherry picking but bad cherry picking.



Now to the supposed trend, rconner tries to argue that AERONET goes all the way back to 1993. This is a lie of omission. AERONET first started to be installed in 1993. We however the network was not complete and providing a full accurate data set until mid 2000s.

You can see this rather well in rconner’s link.

http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/type_piece_of...

As with most alarmist arguments it is a superficial one dependent on you taking the argument at face value and not looking any further if you simply go one step further and start clicking on the individual years you will see that rconner’s argument falls apart.

1993


1998


2000


2005
[img http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/type_piece_of...]

2010


Present


What he have here isn’t a trend in anything but better instrumentation and coverage. It’s no different than such previous false claims like an increase in hurricanes or tornadoes. We are simply able to see what we didn’t see before. As AERONET finished its final stages with better instrumentation at the poles we found more aerosols than we theoretically expected to be there, but they were always there.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Perhaps I need to repeat it again:
Pre-2000, models incorporated SAOD data following the Mount Pinatubo eruption (Stocker et al, 2013). It was only after 2000 that models incorrectly assumed SAOD was zero.

So the only impact this study has is on post-2000 model projections.

The relevant issue is whether the assumption that post-2000 SAOD is negligible is valid or not.

I’m unsure what anything said in the previous few posts has to do with that. However, there’s a focus on AERONET data, so we can discuss that.

I completely agree that the early AERONET data was not good (it’s why I linked the AERONET data), I apologize if you inferred otherwise. I did not explicitly mention the accuracy/uncertainty of the pre-2000 data because the pre-2000 AERONET data is irrelevant. However, the post-2000 data is better (and that is the time frame that is relevant).

Beyond that, AERONET is not the only observational aerosol data set. There are many satellites measuring aerosols as well - SAGE II, CALIPSO, COMOS/ENVISAT and OSIRIS/Odin. Vernier et al (2011) uses satellites and comes to a similar conclusion than Ridley et al 2014 (note that the results from Vernier et al are plotted on the Ridley figure).

While, yes pre-2000 AERONET data can be spotty (especially in the first few years), (1) pre-2000 data is irrelevant to the subject at hand and (2) it's not the only data set we have to go on. So, I fail to see what your point is.

Quote:

you still fail to see the point. You are confusing better observation with actual trends. All you paper shows is that we are better able to see these small effects that have always been there.
Ok, so you postulate that the increase in SAOD observed over the 21st century is an artifice caused by improvements in AERONET data quality and nothing to do with actual trends.

Firstly, observational data sets are improved by either increasing the number of measurements and/or correcting biases in the measurement. The thought that improvements in AERONET data creates an artificial trend in the data set needs to explain how increasing the number of stations or correcting biases created such an artificial trend. I’m unaware of any explanation but if you bring one forward, maybe we could discuss it. Spotting hurricanes is not the same as measuring aerosols.

Secondly, and much more importantly, if the trend in AERONET is artificially caused by improvements in the quality of the data set, then the trend would not exist in satellite data. However, satellites show a similar trend. From Venier et al, 2011:


So there appears to be an actual trend in SAOD from 2000 to 2011, whether you look at satellite or ground-based measurements. Furthermore, and getting back to the matter-at-hand, it is very clear that SAOD is non-zero post-2000. Therefore, the assumption that there is no impact caused by SAOD post-2000 is wrong. This means that models that carried this assumption will calculate temperature slightly hotter than they should. This explains part of, but certainly not all (see my previous posts for other factors), the discrepancy between the “average” model runs and observations. The extent of this impact (and that of other factors) is explored in Schmidt et al 2014 and Huber and Knutti 2014.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Venier et al, 2011

Thanks for proving my point. Look at figure 3. Ulawun, the dobule Ruang and Reventader event neither GOMOS or SAGE II see any significant effect. Time goes on, technology improves, AERONET and CALIPSO are fully deployed and guess what? We now see this effect. There is no reason to think that Ulawun, the dobule Ruang and Reventader event didn’t have this effect as well but we just didn’t see it. Your trend is simply an artifact of ever improving instrumentation and coverage just like the false trend in hurricanes and tornadoes that alarmist tried to claim was real until they were slapped down by more honest people.

These perturbations that we can now see have always been there. They are already built into the model during the tuning.

Fundamentally you have to show that there has been an increase in these small scale volcanic eruptions. Don’t think for one minute that Ridley didn’t try to do this and fail. One of the reasons I’m very good at destroying alarmist papers is because I put myself in a mindset of a person who’s scientific ethics falls one step short of outright fraud. Alarmists have no ethical problems with throwing away adverse results. So when you ask yourself ‘why didn’t they look at X’ the answer almost always is that they did and didn’t like their results.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

If SAGE II and GOMOS are trash, then explain why. More importantly, if they are trash but CALIPSO is an improvement, why are they in such good agreement with each other (SAGE II in agreement with GOMOS, GOMOS in agreement with CALIPSO)? Saying that they are trash because they don’t show a notable increase in SAOD during a few volcanic events (despite the fact they do show an increase) is simply not valid evidence. Not every volcano behaves the same way; some have bigger impacts than others (even within the same VEI classification). Furthermore, GOMOS does show a notable increase during Sarychev, so how could the same instrumentation be trash (i.e. unable to detect aerosols properly) in 2002 but be just fine in 2006?

Quote (GTTofAK)

Don’t think for one minute that Ridley didn’t try to do this and fail. One of the reasons I’m very good at destroying alarmist papers is because I put myself in a mindset of a person who’s scientific ethics falls one step short of outright fraud. Alarmists have no ethical problems with throwing away adverse results. So when you ask yourself ‘why didn’t they look at X’ the answer almost always is that they did and didn’t like their results.
You’ve looked at the evidence that counters your assumption and tried to spin-a-tale to support rejecting the data. More egregious, you’ve, in the same breath, accused climate scientists (and, implicitly, the entire climate science community) of academic fraud caused by inferior moral character. You tout yourself as being intellectually and ethically superior to the entire community of climate science professionals. This is not just stupid and incredibly pompous, it’s insulting. You are the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

A problem I have with some skeptics like GTTofAk is that they constantly complain about models and the need for observational data. Then when you present observational data they complain about that too. However, when it suites their purposes, it’s all the sudden flawless (even if it’s the exact same data set they previously complained about). This isn’t skepticism, this is choosing to reject certain things when they don’t match your ideological preferences and blindly accept them when they do. The exact same thing is done with peer-reviewed literature. This makes any dialogue impossible because with a wave of the hand (and no reputable reason) they dismiss anything that they want and somehow feel validated in doing so (well, in GTTofAK’s case, not just validated but intellectually and ethically superior).

I did honestly mean that I was going to do better to not focus on the individual but rather the idea. However, when GTTofAk carries the attitude that all climate scientists are intellectually and ethically inferior to him and uses this attitude to categorically reject anything that he wants to (without valid reason), it makes any meaningful dialogue impossible. I will not be responding to anymore posts by GTTofAk as responding only serves to worsen the quality of the discussion.

I apologize about going off (again) but I feel it’s necessary. If we actually want a worthwhile discussion, we need to have people come to the table with honesty and mutual respect. I do sincerely hope that other skeptics (rb1957, btrueblood and TGS4 as examples) continue to provide valid, honest skepticism to the discussion.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

and here comes the dunning-kruger effect complete with that wiki page that fellow alarmist wrote. The last refuge of the beaten alarmist. Only a true sophist would think that a paper that won an Ig Nobel Prize, the scientific equivalent of a razzie award, as some legitimate paper.

So rconnor accuses me of suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in other words too stupid to know you are stupid, and then accuses be of being so mean. Fortunately I'm not so thin skinned.

First I don’t reject the observational data. I fully accept that there are observed perturbations in aerosols associated with small scale volcanic events. What I reject is the flawed assumption that the difference between older data sets and newer more accurate data amounts to a trend. We have been down the this road before. Alarmist tried to claim that tornadoes were increasing. No we simply had better data. They tried to argue that hurricanes were increasing. No we simply had better data.

Rconnor what is pissing you off is that I’m better at this than you. You spend hours putting this stuff together and I dissect it with such ease that it infuriates you. But there is no need to go off on a personal tirade. I understand your ego is hurt but that is your problem.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

personally i think GTT got a little over-enthusiastic, painting climate scientists as the ones to reject "inconvenient" data. I think both sides do it regularly, with or without malice or intention.

personally, i believe that climate is a horribly complicated thing, and when i'm told "the one and only thing that's causing this trend is AGHG" i say "BS". collect all the data you want, i can't believe that there is one single source producing the trend, whatever trend, we see in the world's climate.

"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem ... neat, plausible, and wrong."

being a scientific problem, as we collect more data we understand things better, change our thoughts on how things work, and find more complex questions to ask. Rarely (Never?) does any scientific theory stand without being modified in the future, even Newton.

My 2nd issue is that I don't believe that the FFs we burnt yesterday are changing the climate today. As I understand things, AGHGs have been produced in quantity only over the last 50 years; this seems way too close coupled, IMHO.

my 3rd issue with AGHG is that if burning FF is the worse thing we've ever done, why are we still doing it ? why isn't petrol $10/gallon (/liter?) ? and the resulting funds directed towards energy solution that don't create GHG ? because it's politically unacceptable.

and straight to my 4th problem, this is a political problem and solution, not a scientific one.

now, it's a completely different question is my mind, "should we be burning FFs like there's no tomorrow ?". issues of efficiency, conservation.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

""I don't believe that the FFs we burnt yesterday are changing the climate today""

I would say that are trapping some additional heat today.

"" is that if burning FF is the worse thing we've ever done, why are we still doing it ?""

Well it takes public acceptance to voluntarily cut back. And as you can see the debate is ongoing.

"" and straight to my 4th problem, this is a political problem and solution, not a scientific one. ""

Well I would say it's both. There is much scientific work to be done yet.

What we should do is cut luxury consumption of fossil fuels. Nobody seems to want to talk about the elephant in
the room which is entertainment consumption. The USA uses nearly double per capita fossil energy per year as
many other first world nations.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"personally i think GTT got a little over-enthusiastic, painting climate scientists as the ones to reject "inconvenient" data. I think both sides do it regularly, with or without malice or intention."

If one of the most famous of not the most famous members of the field removed questionable data from his model only to find that his results were only an artifact of this questionable data and he then proceed to file that run away in a folder on his FTP server called "censored" never to even mention it, publish the model and receive praise and adoration, and when this folder was happened upon by someone trying to replicate his results because well he simply forgot about it instead of his peers criticizing him upon his revelation they instead circle the wagons and defend it what would you think of the field?

Reputations are earned. Climate science's reputation as shady is well earned. That is what happens when politics mixes with science.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"If SAGE II and GOMOS are trash, then explain why. More importantly, if they are trash but CALIPSO is an improvement, why are they in such good agreement with each other (SAGE II in agreement with GOMOS, GOMOS in agreement with CALIPSO)?"

Why do you assume that they are independent from each other and AERONET?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"What we should do is cut luxury consumption of fossil fuels. Nobody seems to want to talk about the elephant in
the room which is entertainment consumption. The USA uses nearly double per capita fossil energy per year as
many other first world nations."

Hm. The line between necessary consumption of fuel and luxury consumption is a pretty murky, grey one - in my opinion at least. Maybe that big grey blob is the elephant you speak of.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

GTT, I quite get your reposnse referring to, i believe, Mann and the infamous "hockey stick"; prepare for rconnor to rebutt. My point is that every single point raised by both camps is contested bitterly (irrationally?) by the opposite camp. Both sides make grand statements, both sides hype and over-hype, both sides slag and over-slag. We've seen some of the dirty laundry in the climate-gate emails. Maybe it's a new reality that people respond too quickly to social media and blog posts.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I know he thinks he can win that argument but I would easily eviscerate him. His fault is he thinks that because its published it has to be true.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I get that you're convinced you're right (just as much as he is), but comments like "easily eviscerate him" just serve to poison the well.

And I don't think he thinks "that because its published it has to be true". The fault with many posts on both sides of the argument (it stopped being a debate a long time back) is just that, and he has correctly pointed out several times when "deniers" made false claims (like the temperature station thing several posts ago). I think he has an inflated sense of respectability for peer reviewed journals, and an equally inflated sense of unrespectability for "alternative media"; I think both forms of media have been abused in the past (and will continue to be abused in the future). Mann's paper stands out as a poster boy for how flawed peer reviewed articles (and authors) can be; equally M&M's article assessing Mann's paper had an awful time getting published in peer reviewed media because IMO it was anti-orthodox. Of course outside peer reviewed media you get unreviewed articles that can mean anything.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I get that you're convinced you're right (just as much as he is), but comments like "easily eviscerate him" just serve to poison the well.

I'm not convinced I'm right but I know I will win. I know the argument he will make. I know that it doesn’t follow first principles so I know it’s easily shot with sound first principles. All sophistic arguments are easily defeated with first principles. This is philosophy. Scientific thought begins sound philosophy. If a scientific argument attempts to veer from sound philosophy it is always easy to falsify. This is why rconnor’s arguments despite all the graphs, citations and paragraphs upon paragraphs can be shot with a few simple philosophical truths. When science based on unsound philosophy no matter how verbose meets sound philosophy no matter how succinct the science undergoes its own big bang.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Good data is good, and bad data is bad, but how do you know the difference? I agree we should be debating the quality of data and those who develop and work with it.
I also think we should be debating the political direction that this is going.

Truthfully, if you feel energy is being wasted by some activity, then boycott it. Vote with your money. Like I have done with the viewing of some films, news and TV shows (or don't watch TV).

No matter which way this is, I still think it is wrong to import plastic, and wood furniture from China. The shipping alone is wasteful.

We do have the power to choose, but the answer seems to be that the population in general wants easy, trashy, and low cost.

So how do we change the perception that wastefulness is a problem, no matter which side you believe?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

In science philosophical truths must yield to probabilities. There are no absolutes and it is juvenile to pretend so.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I believe you do not understand first principles 2dye4. Let rconnor make his post about how great the hockey stick is and you will see the point.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

For the purposes of discussion shouldn't we quantify the basic model of climate we are debating.
To my thinking it is something like this.

Static steady state model WRT carbon dynamics.

Tss = Tsspr + Rnss + K(C - Cnss) + Rp

Tss : The steady state value of the Earths temperature with carbon increment added ( C - Cnss )
Tsspr : The steady state value of the Earths temperature with carbon levels in the preindustrial range.
Rnss : Band limited random process with Gaussian characteristics, sampled when overall temperature values are calculated.
K : THE question around which all this chattering occurs, climate sensitivity.
C : Steady state carbon density in the atmosphere.
Cnss : Steady state carbon density pre industrial.
Rp : A random process with Markov property and a Black Swan type of realization. Unpredictable but rare shocks.

To discuss this rationally we need a math model agreed on so we don't argue over our unconscious probability guesses.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

This equation clearly shows that the discussion has more complexity than even what can be conceptually placed on paper. Both spatial and temporal variations make the equation overly simplistic.

The assumption of Gaussian-ness is problematic, since we know that nature doesn't necessarily have Gaussian behavior. Rogue waves were thought to be mythical and delusional events because they were so far outside of Gaussian probabilities; it wasn't until there were photographic and video proof of "monster waves" that rogue waves were accepted as real and possible.

The whole notion of "steady state" is troubling, in my mind, because the atmosphere is clearly never steady state. El Nino/La Nina behavior spans multiple years.

Much of the arguments boil down to how to even quantify what the atmospheric state looks like, even in a single instant. Where is the "steady state" temperature to be measured and how would we know that we're measuring it?

Most of our every-day problems are trivial by comparison; there may be a dozen or so parameters that are extremely well-behaved, coupled with either true "steady-state" or "shock" events that are either well-defined to begin with or can be assumed to be well-defined. We then move on and do our analysis.

Even in the most complicated problems that my company runs across, which involve 50x50 matrix inversions, we can come up with covariance matrices that have nearly zero controversies. And, we can most certainly either completely agree on the input parameters their equations of state, or we can agree to disagree, and include them into the final equation.

Here, it seems like there is nothing that can be agreed upon.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Here, it seems like there is nothing that can be agreed upon." ... i disagree with that !?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (rb1957)

I think both sides [question data/research] regularly, with or without malice or intention.
Yes, that’s true. However, when one side questions the data/research, they publish peer-reviewed papers discussing the matter. When the other side questions the data/research, they make a blog post about it. Now, for those that distrust the entire peer-review process/scientific institution, this difference will matter little to them...but their opinion matters little to me. Especially when one of the more notable cases of "pal-review" involved skeptic papers, not "conformist" papers (i.e. Soon and Baliunas 2003 and Chris de Freitas). However, I don't even care about that because saying "sometimes bad science gets through to publication" (both skeptic and "conformist") is obvious and well-known; peer-review is not perfect. However, to extend this to think, "Therefore, blogs should be considered more reputable than peer-reviewed journals" or "Therefore, peer-review can be dismissed with a wave of the hand" is ridiculous.

Quote (rb1957)

personally, i believe that climate is a horribly complicated thing, and when i'm told "the one and only thing that's causing this trend is AGHG" i say "BS"…
While, yes, climate is extremely complicated, most of the complications come from interactions within the climate system (internal variability, feedbacks etc.). The hard question in climate science is determining long-term effects. However, there are actually relatively few external factors that can influence long-term changes in Earth’s energy budget that can lead to long-term, significant changes in global climate (i.e. solar variations, orbital/tilt variations, massive volcanoes, asteroids, large-scale anthropogenic actions). So prescribing attribution is a (relatively) easy question within climate science because (1) there is only a small number of external factors that it could possibly be and (2) the exact manner, the rate and extent these factors influence climate are quite different and therefore discernible from each other.

This distinction is well represented in the science. The IPCC has 95% confidence (“extremely likely”) in AR5 (up from 90% in AR4) that “more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.” However, the confidence in sensitivity (i.e. the extent of long-term effects) is lower and the range is quite high:
AR4 – “likely” (>66%) range 2 deg C to 4.5 deg C, best estimate “about 3 deg C” and “very unlikely” (<10%) less than 1.5 deg C
AR5 – “likely” (>66%) range 1.5 deg C to 4.5 deg C, no best estimate and “extremely unlikely” (<5%) less than 1 deg C and “very unlikely” (<10%) greater than 6 deg C.
(If you’re interested in discussing climate sensitivity, I’d encourage you to read and post in my thread on it.)

Quote (rb1957)

My 2nd issue is that I don't believe that the FFs we burnt yesterday are changing the climate today.
You need to separate fast and slow feedbacks. The carbon we release today that makes its way into the atmosphere, will have a very slight impact on the energy budget of the planet tomorrow. In high enough quantities, these start to have a notable impact – represented by fast feedbacks. Overtime, the initial impacts begin to have secondary, indirect impacts that develop over decades and centuries – represented by slow feedbacks.

The FFs we burnt yesterday are (slightly) changing the climate today. However, the full impact will not be realized for decades or centuries. (You’ve mentioned this before and I came across a great article that described this a while back and thought of showing it to you (but it would have been out-of-the-blue) Now I can’t think of where I read it. If I come across it again, I’ll post it.)

Quote (rb1957)

my 3rd issue with AGHG is that if burning FF is the worse thing we've ever done, why are we still doing it ? why isn't petrol $10/gallon (/liter?) ? and the resulting funds directed towards energy solution that don't create GHG ? because it's politically unacceptable.
Well, it’s not the “worst thing we’ve ever done” but the rest of the questions are exactly the same as those the people on my side ask. And your answer is spot on as well.

People don’t like to think long-term. Politicians sure as hell don’t like to think long-term. It’s a bad mix for creating policy that might be hard in the short-term but is beneficial to us in the long-term. Furthermore, and arguably more importantly, it works against the consumption-based capitalist zeitgeist. The capitalist structure requires increasing growth and consumption to sustain itself. Asking people to consume less works against this. So it's not just a political issue but a deep-seated cultural issue - which is why I'm doubtful that we can voluntarily (without regulatory and taxation reform) change our consumption habits (as cranky108 suggests).

Quote (rb1957)

and straight to my 4th problem, this is a political problem and solution, not a scientific one.
I’d broadly agree with this. Climate Science is a risk assessment exercise . What are the risks of us not mitigating climate change and what are the costs to do that? Scientists set up the inputs for the risk assessment but it’s up to the people and politicians to determine what actions (if any) are needed.

As you stated in your first problem, the climate is a complicated beast. Establishing an exact value for the temperature in 2100 and the exact dollar value of the related impacts is impossible. The best science can do is create a probability distribution function (PDF) for the sensitivity, both TCR and ECS (and they have - WGI). Scientists and economists then need to examine the potential social, economic and environmental impact based off the PDF of sensitivity (and they have – WGII). Then you need to examine the economic benefits (or lack thereof) doing something to mitigate the damage (and they have – WGIII) (…it’s almost as if there is a method to the IPCC’s madness!). With this information, the people and the politicians need to determine what the “tolerable risk” is and how much mitigation is necessary.

We engineers should understand this very well as many of us do Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (or similar). We pour over the data, calculate the risk and present that to management. Often, however, management looks at the costs to implement the risk avoidance measures and look for ways not to do it. “It’s awfully expensive! Are you sure it’s needed? Look at all this uncertainty in your numbers! The risk could be minimal. The risk is probably minimal. The risk is minimal. We don’t need these risk avoidance measures.”

The issue is that they look at the cost of reducing risk, don’t like it and then actively search for ways to justify not needing it. This is how most skeptics approach climate change science. They are told that reducing the risk requires costly, difficult reductions in CO2 emissions, don’t like that and then combed through the evidence, searching for the slightest fault and then extrapolate that to justify a “do nothing” position. But this is not how you do risk assessment as we engineers should know better. You don’t look at the range of possible outcomes, pick the smallest possible risk (despite it having very low probability), ignore the outcome with the highest probability and conclude the “do nothing option is best”.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

IRstuff

So true, and partly my point. Considering the equation brings up a framework to think about the issue.

Several random terms are there and as you pointed out more may be needed.

It needs modification but how about we discuss the terms and their influences and what to add.

Another consideration is whether the Earth has a temperature. If you consider that every particle of mass in the Earth
system has a quantity of heat stored in it at any given instant then It does have a temperature in that sense, but we cannot
measure this, so we make due with spacial undersampling and averaging.

The whole exercise is absolutely a statistical one. We cannot model everything and know the complete state of the planet so in essence
we will have to either act on circumstantial evidence or just wait and see.

Considering the industrial climate and what we know about pre industrial climate what are the probabilities that current CO2
trends will manifest an array of potential effects in 20,40,60,100 years. Say Pr(1) - Pr(10) with event 1 being we won't notice the
change to event 10 being a halving of the world population due to the effects.

I am not very optimistic.



RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

If you go back to first principles, objects at temperatures that exist on earth emit mostly infrared radiation, and CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. That's the greenhouse effect and basically the only first principle at play here.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

“If you go back to first principles, objects at temperatures that exist on earth emit mostly infrared radiation, and CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. That's the greenhouse effect and basically the only first principle at play here.”

The stratosphere emits mostly infrared radiation, and CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. However, adding CO2 to the stratosphere causes the stratosphere to cool. Sorry not a first principle. A first principle has to be true in all cases all cases. The effect of CO2 is dependent on the nature of the system.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Furthermore, and arguably more importantly, it works against the consumption-based capitalist zeitgeist. The capitalist structure requires increasing growth and consumption to sustain itself."

Well that didn't take long. But don't worry we are just paranoid knuckle draggers thinking you are you all just a bunch of socialistswink

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Tss = Tsspr + Rnss + K(C - Cnss) + Rp

Tss : The steady state value of the Earths temperature with carbon increment added ( C - Cnss )
Tsspr : The steady state value of the Earths temperature with carbon levels in the preindustrial range.
Rnss : Band limited random process with Gaussian characteristics, sampled when overall temperature values are calculated.
K : THE question around which all this chattering occurs, climate sensitivity.
C : Steady state carbon density in the atmosphere.
Cnss : Steady state carbon density pre industrial.
Rp : A random process with Markov property and a Black Swan type of realization. Unpredictable but rare shocks.:"

The last term is what both the authors of this paper and rconnor seem to be missing. This is the fudge factor. Climate models are tuned models. There is no increase in aerosols due to small volcanic eruptions. There is no trend in small volcanic eruptions. There are simple small perturbations in aerosols due to small volcanic eruptions that we are now able to see due to better instrumentation and coverage. While this might not be explicitly included in the models its there as part of the fudge factor. When the models were tuned this was taken into account. When you add these perturbations that we now see into models you are in effect double counting as you are explicitly adding something that was already there as part of the general fudge factor.

The authors of this paper know this. I fully believe that they had hoped they could get around this by showing a trend in small volcanic eruptions and attempted to do so but failed. As I said professional ethics that fall one step short of fraud. Climate science has well earned reputation of being shady.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

That is a 100% incorrect definition of first principle.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

For starters "A first principle has to be true in all cases all cases" is not a definition a first principle but a test to determine if something is a first principle. If something is a first principle it has to be true in all cases.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

To say this topic is not political then: http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/16/al-gore-sxsw-punish...

This some how looks like ISIS with there montra 'convert or die'.

Maybe we should go back to burning those round earthers.

Believe what you want, but to some people this is a religen. and this needs to be addressed as a war on beliefs.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Believe what you want, but to some people this is a religen. and this needs to be addressed as a war on beliefs."

This has been the case since religion was injected into politics in the Reagan presidential campaign. Most of today's political issues have inherited that religious tinge.

The US seems to go through cycles of (religious) extremism; just note the McCarthy era and the hysteria revolving "unamerican activities" and going all the way back to the Salem witch trials. Must be remnants of the Puritan forefathers' legacy.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Science is only true if people are free to believe different things. To say the science is settled, or we must punish denighers, is kin to believing you are never wrong (god like).

This is a deluded person, and we should be concerned about anyone who is that sure of anything. Science was settled along time ago that the earth was flat, and people were punished for believing it wasen't.

Where does that put us?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Please don’t try and blame that on Reagan. Religion has always been injected into politics and vice versa. Or did you forget the charges against Socrates?

Back to tearing down the “capitalist zeitgeist”. Alarmists like to scream that those on the other side see them as a bunch of socialists. Yet they never seem to deny it. Only that its wrong for use to see them as a bunch of socialists. I’ve never quite understood that logic.

The truth is that by its very nature climate science should be a small field. This is a branch of science that in a vacuum shouldn’t appeal to very many people. Yet since the 1970s with the global cooling scare lead by godfather of alarmist science the late Dr. Schneider this field has grown and grown. I seriously doubt this field is attracting people who are actually fascinated by climate or by nature free market libertarians.

Have you ever noticed the start difference between when skeptic climate scientists like a Lindzen or Bastardi are talking about the actually physics of climate science that their eyes light up. They truly enjoy climate science. It’s their passion. Contrast that with alarmists. When it comes to the science they are dry and dull. Their eyes don’t light up when talking about the science. They are not passionate about it. When their eyes do light up is when they start talking about the solutions. Tearing down the “capitalist zeitgeist” that is their true passion. That is the reason they got into climate science in the first place.

Now rconnor will come in saying this is all hyperbole. True enough but ask yourself if your mechanic showed no passion at all when talking about your car but suddenly lit up when talking about your bill would you trust him?


RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

2dye4, I don’t see the advantage of framing the discussion in terms of an overly simplified version of the climate (but I certainly appreciate the effort to focus the discussion). As IRStuff pointed out, the problem is that the equation itself doesn’t capture all the nuances. While this is an interesting discussion in itself, it’s not necessarily helpful in framing the debate as a whole. (What you’ve depicted is (kind of) an energy balance model. So, perhaps a discussion on the use of energy budget models vs. two-box models vs. GCM’s would be of interest?)

To me, the discussion is best served in framing it as a spectrum of agreement with the science. The “spectrum”, to me, works like this:
  1. The Earth’s climate system has shown an increase in energy over the past century
  2. The increase in energy is mainly due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (the attribution debate)
  3. The climate has a sensitivity to CO2 increases somewhere in the IPCC’s range (the sensitivity debate)
  4. The impacts of increasing the global temperature average become increasingly negative past a certain point (2 deg C is often this point) (the impacts debate)
  5. A risk assessment of the probabilistic range of impacts suggests that early mitigation efforts are more beneficial than adaptation or a “wait-and-see” attitude (the mitigation vs. adaptation debate)
  6. Mitigation can and should be achieved through personal changes/taxation/cap-and-trade/regulations/other/a combination thereof (the policy debate)
Framing the discussion as a spectrum allows us to drop terms like “skeptic” and “conformist”, where “skeptics” are (incorrectly) thought to reject all scientific evidence and “conformists” are (incorrectly) thought to accept, blindly, all scientific evidence. People can state, “I’m in agreement with some aspects but I begin to get skeptical at X”. This way you can see where you have a common understanding and focus the discussion on where people’s disagreement comes in. Furthermore, as each step in the spectrum requires an acceptance of the previous steps, you avoid the circular arguments and illustrate the logical narrative in climate science (and the inappropriateness of having issues with the last point and projecting that onto all the previous points).

One interesting point is that many people argue “we don’t know enough to justify mitigation” and believe this argument lies somewhere in point 2, 3 and 4, when really it might be closer to point 4 or 5. The uncertainty and probabilistic range of each previous point is included in the subsequent point. So, many “lukewarmers”, who believe that sensitivity is likely closer to the lower end of the IPCC’s range (but still in the range), are actually in agreement with everything up to point 4 . This may surprise people that feel the disconnect between skeptics and those that believe mitigation is required is massive and irreconcilable. We are actually much closer than it’s made out to be.

For me, I feel that there is a lot of uncertainty in sensitivity but so does the science. I’d like to say “let’s wait-and-see” but understanding the (probable) impact of slow feedbacks and rate that we’re seeing the fast feedbacks makes me think that the risk of the “wait-and-see” outweighs the gains. I, therefore, advocate for early mitigation but am cautious of some of the suggestions. This puts me in agreement with 5 but with my doubts on the answer to 6.

I don’t agree with cap-and-trade. I also don’t agree that people can just willingly change their life-style enough to make the reductions required on our own; we’ve simply become too comfortable and dependent to do so (myself included) and the normal means of production, which is out of our control, makes it incredibly difficult even if we were willing to (which I referred to early as the consumption-centric capitalist zeitgeist). While personal changes are certainly important, it will require more than that. In additional to personal changes, I agree with incentivizing energy-efficiency products/methods, increasing efficiency standards (and banning certain products/methods that don’t meet those standards) and revenue-neutral taxation initiatives (confusing this with promoting a socialist revolution or “tearing down the “capitalist zeitgeist”” is bafflingly silly).

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I would taking a flying guess that a certain party to this discussion basically claims that all 5 points are incorrect, because there's this huge conspiracy to hide the "truth" by all the socialist-leaning infidels.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Don't make this about other people who comment here.
However, it's the anti-capitalist that seem to make there money by using capitalist methods, and then attempt to prevent anyone else from doing the same (and maybe skirting the law some). The true capitalist would make there money, and help other people do the same.

So many of the recent protests are from hired mobs, and I believe they truly have dry and dull faces, because this is there job.

My biggest issue is not so much if it exists or not, but that we are attempting to limit peoples freedom based on the assumption that it exists, and the seas will rise 6 feet, and we will have more storms, and death and destruction. I want to see that there really is science, and not just some made up issues. What is the solution other than punish those who do not believe, and tax the hell out of everyone.

Is the problem carbon, or the cutting of trees to make room for people? Two different solutions.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I would say that socialists are generally sophists who work they way back from socialism to evidence. They have been this way since even before Marx. It doesn't take some grand conspiracy. To the points.

1. The Earth’s climate system has shown an increase in energy over the past century
Well that is actually false energy in = energy out especially over the time frame of a century. The temperature has probably risen but that isn't the same as energy.

2. The increase in energy is mainly due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (the attribution debate)
Now we start speculating. This is really hard to prove especially when you consider that the natural temperature rise form 1911-1945 was almost identical to the one form 1976-2001.

3. The climate has a sensitivity to CO2 increases somewhere in the IPCC’s range (the sensitivity debate)
Probably wrong, especially given the failure of the high sensitivity models. Most natural systems have a negative feedback. That the IPCC claims that a stable system as old as the earths oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere has a net positive feedback is a very difficult claim to stomach for anyone with a background is systems analysis.

4 .The impacts of increasing the global temperature average become increasingly negative past a certain point (2 deg C is often this point) (the impacts debate)

Net negative impacts being more speculation that IPCC admits that they have very little evidence or confidence linking AGW to negative effects like hurricanes drought, fire etc. And 2C being a number pulled out of thin air.

5. A risk assessment of the probabilistic range of impacts suggests that early mitigation efforts are more beneficial than adaptation or a “wait-and-see” attitude (the mitigation vs. adaptation debate)

Yet the IPCC admits that we are well past the point of mitigation.

6. Mitigation can and should be achieved through personal changes/taxation/cap-and-trade/regulations/other/a combination thereof (the policy debate)

Looking at 1-5 its pretty clear that you started at 6 and worked your way back. True sophist reasoning. This is to be expected from a socialist since socialists are almost always sophists.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

IRstuff, well looks like your guess was proven to be quite accurate. Are you psychic or something?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"IRstuff, well looks like your guess was proven to be quite accurate. Are you psychic or something? "

I allege human nature and endemic group think. You allege a massive oil industry funded conspiracy to convince people that alarmism is a conspiracy. Who is the conspiracy theorist?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Perhaps you were so desperate for an argument that you decided to lay your "capitalist zeitgeist" cards on the table so you could run and yell "conspiracy theory" when someone called you a socialist.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (crank108)

Is the problem carbon, or the cutting of trees to make room for people? Two different solutions.
Cranky, you bring up a good point that I forgot to mention. The problem (if you agree up to point 2 at least) is atmospheric CO2 levels; this is not just caused by increasing carbon emissions but also decreasing carbon sinks. Mitigation efforts include reforestation or, at a minimum, drastic reductions in deforestation.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"You allege a massive oil industry funded conspiracy to convince people that alarmism is a conspiracy."

Where, in any of my posts have I seriously proffered such an opinion? I've used "conspiracy" exactly once before this post, and it was, "huge conspiracy to hide the "truth" by all the socialist-leaning infidels"

Someone, on the other hand, blatantly repeats claims of a conspiracy of climate scientists, and blatantly throw labels around to denigrate and demean others. Moreover, bandying the "socialist" label is ironic, given that the typical engineer on this site is likely to be the top 25-percentile in salary. If I were to succumb to a conspiracy theory, I might consider it suspicious that an engineer has made no engineering posts or replies outside all the climate-related threads, in this engineering website.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

From Marx to present I've never found a socialist who actually practices what they preach. The communist manifesto might as well be a diet book written by a fat man.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"" The temperature has probably risen but that isn't the same as energy""

Raise the temperature of a system and it will contain more energy afterwards. Why do you think otherwise.

""That the IPCC claims that a stable system as old as the earths oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere has a net positive feedback is a very difficult claim to stomach for anyone with a background is systems analysis""

Does your background in systems analysis tell you that a stable system cannot react with positive feedback when its conditions change ??

""Looking at 1-5 its pretty clear that you started at 6 and worked your way back. True sophist reasoning. This is to be expected from a socialist since socialists are almost always sophists.""

Suppose for a minute that evidence emerged that made the MMGW theory very solid, a near certain likelihood of damaging the life carrying capacity of the Earth, what do you propose as a way to curb fossil fuel consumption if this was the only way to mitigate the damage.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rconnor, If carbon sinks are required to be created, then some of the rise is not just from the cutting of trees, but at about the same time the projected rise in tempetures started, there were a number of enviromential laws enacted to limit logging in this country. The cutting of trees, and producing products, which in time become land filled, while still allowing more trees to grow is a sink.

If I recall, it is the youngest trees than grow the fastest. So I might be able to conclude that wood products are actually good for the enviroment. Where in the life cycle of plastics, some are not land filled, but are burned.

Gee now I sound like the arberday foundation.

The issue with logging is the reduction of fertility of the soil, so new trees don't have as good of soil to grow in. What seems to be missing is the return of soil fertility.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cranky

There are trees that do well on poor soil improving it as they grow. Black Locust comes to mind as it is a nitrogen fixing tree.

I wonder how much impact we could make by planting as much open area as possible with fast growing trees and then
burying them when they mature. Sounds crazy doesn't it.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Suppose for a minute that evidence emerged that made the MMGW theory very solid, a near certain likelihood of damaging the life carrying capacity of the Earth, what do you propose as a way to curb fossil fuel consumption if this was the only way to mitigate the damage."

The answer has always been nuclear and hydro electric. Two things that make the environmentalists socialists go nuts because neither solution involves command and control of the economy and rationing of energy.

"Does your background in systems analysis tell you that a stable system cannot react with positive feedback when its conditions change ??"

I don't think you get what negative feedback is. We know that the direct forcing CO2 is about 1C with negative feedback the actual system response would be something like 0.5.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Here's even dumber. Grow the trees, convert them into charcoal, and burn them in generating plants made for burning coal.
Growing trees, the new farming. Use wood ash, and human sludge to fertlize.

Good jobs to replace coal mining.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (cranky108)

rconnor, If carbon sinks are required to be created, then some of the rise is not just from the cutting of trees, but at about the same time the projected rise in tempetures started, there were a number of enviromential laws enacted to limit logging in this country. The cutting of trees, and producing products, which in time become land filled, while still allowing more trees to grow is a sink.

If I recall, it is the youngest trees than grow the fastest. So I might be able to conclude that wood products are actually good for the enviroment.
Cranky108, I’m not sure I follow. Are you suggesting that because the rise in global temperatures started around the time environmental regulations began limiting logging in the US that reductions in deforestation are responsible for the increase in global temperature? And are you using this idea to say that through the life cycle of wood products, we actually increase the carbon sink by cutting down trees?

The first statement, if it reflects what you were trying to say, is not true. While deforestation in the US may have decreased since 1970 (I’m not sure this is true but let’s assume, for arguments sake, it is), deforestation world-wide has increased. The increases are most notable in South America, Indonesia and parts of Africa (one example from south east Asia). America is actual a relatively small player. So, firstly, global deforestation since 1970 has increased which means “reductions in deforestation in the US are partly responsible for the increase in global temperature because it actually increased the carbon sink” appears untrue. Here’s a good paper on the subject. Secondly, even if global deforestation dropped, I still don’t think you could conclude that. I have no idea how cutting down trees would increase the carbon sink. Sure, cutting down trees and replacing with more than you cut down would – but that’s net reforestation.

Now, I’m not saying that the global increase in deforestation caused the increase in global temperature. Deforestation certainly contributed to reducing the carbon sink, thus increasing the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 but CO2 emissions are also responsible (and likely more so than deforestation – see the paper above which states fossil fuels contribute the most, deforestation is second).

I should note that deforestation has other impacts on climate change besides reducing the carbon sink. Slash-and-burn style deforestation directly leads to more CO2 emissions. Also, deforestation changes the albedo of the planet and the amount of water vapour released into the atmosphere. Some contribute to warming (carbon emissions, loss of carbon sink) while others contribute to cooling (albedo change). The net impact appears to be highly dependent on the region of forestation/deforestation. However, even if deforestation has a net cooling impact on the planet (which is uncertain), it is absolutely not justification for continuing with rapid deforestation – it would be absurd to conclude this. At the end of the day, deforestation is a major issue – whether you’re talking climate change, environmental/species protection or otherwise.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Wood cutting in the US is different than the slash and burn in other countries, because in the US the wood is used to build things, which is a form of carbon capture. And in the US the forest is allowed to regrow.
I am saying that some of the reduction in wood cutting in the US correlates with the projected rise, and may be part of the cause. I agree that slash and burn likely is a larger part, but I don't have facts on that.

Also the reduction in cutting of trees in the US shifted tree cutting in other countries that may not have reforestation programs, or may have much larger soil erosion issues.

Many wood products in the US are used and landfilled, not burned in a heap like other countries, which is a form of carbon capture.





RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"Wood cutting in the US is different than the slash and burn in other countries, because in the US the wood is used to build things, which is a form of carbon capture." is not quite true; this is, at best, carbon neutral, since the wood was there to begin with, so making it into furniture doesn't sink any more carbon, and actually increases carbon through the energy consumed to make and ship the end product.

"And in the US the forest is allowed to regrow." This mostly applies to trees used for paper, and regardless of how fast the trees grow back, there's going to be at least a couple year gap before the new trees capture carbon to the same level as the original trees. Moreover, at least some of the trees used for other products are "clear cut" from "old-growth" trees which are not replaced, because the work required to remove old-growth trunks/roots to allow for new growth is very high. The Pacific Northwest is littered with clear-cut forests that look like the aftermath of Tunguska, except that all the tree trunks and crowns are gone. The cutting of old-growth was big hot-button issue a while ago, but I haven't heard anything recently.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cranky108, I think that IRstuff nicely covered what I would have said in response to the conversation on deforestation.

I would like to return to something you said before, that I didn’t address.

Quote (cranky108)

My biggest issue is not so much if it exists or not, but that we are attempting to limit peoples freedom based on the assumption that it exists, and the seas will rise 6 feet, and we will have more storms, and death and destruction. I want to see that there really is science, and not just some made up issues. What is the solution other than punish those who do not believe, and tax the hell out of everyone.

”I want to see that there really is science, and not just some made up issues”
While it’s clear that you aren’t sold on the science, I greatly appreciate the sincere efforts to ask questions to understand the science. I’ve tried to present the science to you as best I can. I understand that you may not agree with all of it but it’s far from a “made up issue”. If you continue to have doubts about certain areas, we can try to answer them. Like rb1957, you've shown an interest to ask questions and an honesty in what aspects you have trouble agreeing with.

“My biggest issue is not so much if it exists or not, but that we are attempting to limit peoples freedom”
I previously illustrated 3 mitigation efforts that I support (“[1] incentivizing energy-efficient products/methods, [2a]increasing efficiency standards ([2b]and banning certain products/methods that don’t meet those standards) and [3]revenue-neutral taxation initiatives”). I’m not in agreement that these “[attempt] to limit peoples freedom”. However, I will discuss the three and attempt to do so from a libertarian perspective.

1) Incentivize energy-efficient products/methods
While incentives (of any nature) are perceived to impose an artificial disturbance of the free-market from a libertarian perspective, I don’t believe this limits peoples’ freedom. It may limit the markets freedom but this is hardly unheard of in our current society. New technologies always require a bit of push to get market adoption and incentives are an effect way to do this. In fact, fossil fuels receive massive tax breaks and incentives. So to have issues with one, you surely must have issues with both.

2) Increase Efficiency Standards
Again, increasing efficiency standards hardly limits peoples’ freedoms. However, it could be stated that by increasing standards, you ban products/methods below that standard which could be taken as a loss of freedom. But, again, this is hardly limited to climate change mitigation initiatives. Do you feel the requirement to drive a car with seat belts is a loss of your freedom to drive a car without seat belts? Possibly you do but I would think the pros (safety) outweigh the cons.

3) Revenue-Neutral taxation
This is undoubtedly the toughest one to agree with from a libertarian perspective. However, currently, the pricing of fossil fuels allows the market to privatize the profits while socializing the risk/damages. In other words, the pricing of fossil fuels does not include the externalities associate with air pollution and impacts on climate.

An analogy is libertarians issue with universal healthcare. Many libertarians feel that if I choose to live an unhealthy life, I should pay a proportionally larger amount for healthcare than someone that actively chooses to live a healthy lifestyle. So, equally, if I choose to live a carbon heavy lifestyle, I should pay a proportionally larger amount for the impacts on the public that lifestyle causes. It would seem in keeping with libertarian ideology that incorporating the true cost of my actions in my share of the costs would be agreeable.

Surprisingly, many libertarians, who fight against universal healthcare and social services, all of the sudden begin to develop a keen sense of the disenfranchised when it comes to carbon taxes. They claim that carbon taxes would unfairly hurt the poor more than the rich (where this same sentiment is in the healthcare/social safety net program debate, I’m unsure). There is an element of truth to this, despite the fact that the poor live a much less carbon heavy lifestyle, and therefore would not be impacted as much (hence why I say “element” of truth). But much of this concern is erased in revenue-neutral taxation programs where part of the revenue goes to support low-income people or provide tax breaks to people in the lower income brackets.

I’d also add that a key fear of carbon taxation structures from a libertarian perspective comes from the assumption that it is a “power play” from governments (or, inexplicably, the UN). Again, a revenue-neutral system eliminates much of this fear as the revenue gained from the tax is injected back into the populous, normally in the form of support for low-income people and income tax and corporate tax breaks. This greatly decreases the possibility for increased level of government control or power resulting from the tax.

General comments
Now, I don’t expect this will change your opinion cranky108 but it’s important to understand that much of what you read on blogs and papers that oppose climate change mitigation is overblown and exaggerated. I fail to see how climate change mitigation efforts are purely an attempt to rob you of your freedom or how governments/individuals/scientists(!?!?!?!?!) stand to (sinisterly) profit from it (note: I do see how individuals could profit off of cap-and-trade/carbon credit trading, which is one of the major reasons I don't advocate for it). I also fail to see how these changes will be crippling to our economy. While they may be costly, it’s about investment in infrastructure and new, better, more efficient technologies. This is hardly a waste of money, regardless of the extent of future climate change.

Climate change mitigation is about protecting people from the risks of possible future climate change. These risks are not 100% certain. However, as I stated before, climate change science and the resulting policy is a risk assessment exercise. While the risks might not be as high as we think, they also might be worse than we think. In fact, most probability distribution functions on the impacts of climate change have a much lower probability of being smaller than we think than they do being larger than we think (i.e. it’s not a perfect bell curve, it’s a positive skew). I don’t say this to promote the fact that it’s probably worse than we think. I say this to help skeptics understand that the argument “well, it might not be as bad as we think” is simply not how you approach a risk assessment (especially when dealing with a positive skew).

Another important point is that even if the actual outcomes are on the low-end (less damaging), the situation is still somewhat damaging. The range is between less bad to very bad. Not good to bad (see my thread on climate change sensitivity for more on this). However, by “very bad” I don’t mean fire and brimstone will rain down from the sky. I don’t mean that humanity will enter some post-apocalyptic state. I mean that climatic changes could put a significant stress on the carry capacity of the planet for 10 billion people. Of course this might not happen (again, the risk is not 100% certain) but that’s what might happen at the upper-end of the risk spectrum. This isn’t “alarmism” this is differentiating between false representations of “alarmism” and what the science says.

Lastly, it’s important to realize that there is “alarmism” on both sides. The pro-mitigation crowd can demonstrate alarmism by saying things such as “society as we know it will crumble if we don’t do something!” or “won’t somebody please think of the polar bears!”. The anti-mitigation crowd can demonstrate alarmism by saying things such as “climate change is a socialist plot to control you!” (which would explain why those socialist, tree-hugging hippies at the US Military agree that climate change may be a serious issue), “all these scientists are a bunch of liars and crooks out to steal our money!” or, a more sane version, “climate change mitigation will cripple our economy!”. None of these are substantive, supported statements; they are emotionally or ideologically driven, unsupported allegations. This should not be encouraged on either side of the discussion.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rconnor, thank you, because so many people are so far one way or another. And I appreaciate to time you took to explain your position.
IRstuff, I think you missed something important. I missed this at first also. But carbon capture is never a forever capture. The issue is like the money supply, speed of the cycle. If you slow down the cycle, you decrease the amount the of carbon in the air. Trees will on there own grow, die, and decay. If you some how make the decay take longer, as in building things with the wood, you are slowing down the carbon cycle.

rconnor, I think the the proof, if any is so small it is difficult to see. And when I hear taxes offered as a solution, and with some of the government misapplications going on today, I do become concerned. I'm not a big government guy.

I do feel I should have the right to not wear seatbelts, but I do wear them. However, they don't appear to be effective enough because of the requirements in new cars of having more air bags.
As in the universal health care law, those of us with well paying jobs are also pay for part or all of the cost of the poor, and the freeloaders. It's the governments inability to throw off the freeloaders that really makes more subsidized requirements unlikeable. And I am also to blame for some of this, in that I refuse to pay extra for recycling. Recycling has become a tax to feel good, and not enough of a savings that it pays it's own way.

One of the problems with incentives, is they don't make since. They make big money for some companies, and don't justify the simple things like replacing windows. After all 40% of energy in a home is used for heat, and cooling, and the windows are the lowest insulated part of the home.



RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So rconnor you do believe that if you tax something you get less of it and if you subsidize something you get more of it. That is evident from your post. But if you believe that why do you not believe that the subsidizing of pro AGW research, to the tune of about 8 billion dollars annually from the US alone, does not effect the science? If almost all of the money earmarked to study "climate" is directed to pro AGW research then we would expect a "consensus" given your own logic.

Choosing to simply not apply are principle in one sense and then apply it in another is a hallmark of sophism. Hell its the hallmark of sophism. You aren't building your argument from the ground up with objective Aristotelian logic. You are building your argument from the top down choosing when and how you will apply principles based on if they suit your argument or not.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"2) Increase Efficiency Standards
Again, increasing efficiency standards hardly limits peoples’ freedoms. However, it could be stated that by increasing standards, you ban products/methods below that standard which could be taken as a loss of freedom. But, again, this is hardly limited to climate change mitigation initiatives. Do you feel the requirement to drive a car with seat belts is a loss of your freedom to drive a car without seat belts? Possibly you do but I would think the pros (safety) outweigh the cons."

Toilets that dont flush.

Light bulbs that hurt your eyes and give you head aches.

Dish washers that dont wash or dry.

Tin can cars that cant take an impact.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

GTTorAK, somehow you forgot about cars you can't work on by yourself. This one bothers me the a bunch. I have this light that comes on to tell me an oxygen sensor isen't working. The sensor is around $60 (last time I had it replaced), and the only thing it does is with the smog control. Also last time I had it replaced it only lasted a month before I started having the light again.

I don't blame the smog regulation so much, as I do the requirement for more complexity, and added chance for shoddy products.

As an engineer we should have learned to simplify. But the lawyers attempt to make things complex.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

cranky,

nature cycling of the trees is a generally slow process, barring disease. That's one of the reasons trees can grow 60 or 100 yrs or longer. When trees are used for product, be it paper or furniture or building materials, massive numbers of trees disappear, pretty much simultaneously. While companies like Georgia Pacific tout their "sustainable" harvesting, and even claim to be planting more trees than they're cutting, they fail to mention that they're not planting the same type of trees. In some cases, they're planting "rapid-growth" trees that can be re-harvested in less than a decade. This puts the duty cycle, at best, of the new tree population as something like 60%, i.e., 6 years of useful carbon sinking. This would be contrasted with the original trees having something more like 80% duty cycle, and, that's with a bigger trunk and more branches, and, the old growth trees probably had higher areal density, since there was no need to have truck paths nor need to have less damaging treefall paths, which potentially results in something on the order of 2.5x the net carbon sinking of the new trees, even ignoring all the gas-powered chain saws and trucks running around.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

cranky108,

Quote (cranky108)

“I think the proof, if any is so small it is difficult to see.”
This is a very interesting point and highlights a key issue with climate change discussions. You feel that the proof is so small it is difficult to see. However, I feel that it’s actually that the proof is so large, complex and interconnected that it is difficult to see. I completely understand why you’d think that though – I’m actually partly to blame! Allow me to explain:

When climate change is discussed by blog posts, forum threads or newspaper articles, it’s discussed in piecemeal. Furthermore, this piecemeal way of presenting the science is usually done in defense of challenges on the science where illustrating the science is almost secondary or only done to explain away the challenges. The solid scientific narrative that supports our current understanding of climate science never comes through (this is also partly because it would take too long and no blog, forum or newspaper could hold a reader’s attention long enough). Therefore, the average reader, trying to get a handle of this whole messy issue, only sees a piece-by-piece and defensive presentation of the science. It is therefore easy to understand why someone would think there isn’t anything solid, it’s all just a bunch of disjointed points (…and unfortunately also because there is just so much misinformation out there). However, in my opinion, the proof of climate science is not so small it’s hard to see but that it’s so large and interconnected, it’s difficult to adequately and thoroughly present in a single blog, post or article.

Where my blame comes in is that I’ve engaged in a random, piece-by-piece defense of the science and expected that to be good enough to get people to see the big picture. Of course it’s doomed to fall because I’m not presenting the big picture all in one place. Not only is it difficult to see the proof without the big picture, it’s actually very easy, due to the lack of context, to falsely present very insignificant issues with the science as show-stoppers. When you examine these issues against the full narrative or body of science, you understand that, even if true, they don’t significantly undermine the theory, Perhaps a post that runs through the science behind the 6-point “spectrum of agreement” I outlined above would be a better way to structure it. (in the meantime, if interested, there’s plenty of resources that summarize climate science better than I ever could - American Institute of Physics, NASA, NOAA, etc)

Quote (cranky108)

”I'm not a big government guy.”
I understand that but that’s irrelevant to climate science though. You can be an anti-big government guy and still agree with science (I hope), as they are two completely separate things. When it comes to the subsequent policy, political ideology does come into play (but I don’t believe it’s as big as it’s made out to be). The key is that you shouldn’t project your political ideology onto the science. However, this done again and again. Climate change skeptics have a disproportionately high probability of being Libertarians or free-market enthusiasts. Whereas those that agree with science come from a much more diverse ideological background (as described above, the US military is hardly the poster child for leftist ideology). Much of the skepticism from climate change science comes from disliking the resulting policies and projecting that view back on the science. But science doesn’t work on ideology, hence why nearly every scientific institution agrees with climate change science.

Quote (cranky108)

One of the problems with incentives, is they don't make since. They make big money for some companies, and don't justify the simple things like replacing windows. After all 40% of energy in a home is used for heat, and cooling, and the windows are the lowest insulated part of the home.
I’m in agreement with you! Typically, incentives are used as “favours” to lobbyists that involve over-sized scissors and ribbons. This is not what I mean by incentives though. I mean supporting demand side management (DSM) programs by supplementing financial incentives given out by utility or third-party DSM programs.

These DSM programs cover everything from industrial refrigeration and compressed air to commercial HVAC to residential window replacement. This is key because the typical issues with incentives is that the money doesn’t actually lead to anything substantive (i.e. energy/emission reductions). However, utility or third-party DSM programs currently design their incentives based off demand ($/kW saved) and energy savings ($/kWh saved). They involve standardized estimate, measurement and verification procedures to ensure the estimated savings match, more or less, to the actual savings. But utility DSM programs are limited by the fact that the financial benefit of DSM only allows for a small financial incentive. Government incentives could come in on top of the pre-existing DSM incentive. So the government doesn’t need to re-do the study or wildly guess at what projects will have a benefit, they can just piggy back on the studies that are already done. It’s administratively simple, technically accurate and the incentive is proportionate to the benefit.

I feel incentives, when used properly, can help encourage early market adoption of new, more efficient products/methods by helping overcome some of the obstacles that make early market adoption difficult – namely cost premiums and a lack of proven history. Supplementing DSM incentives is one. Supporting pilot projects for carefully selected new technologies is another. Pilot projects have the added benefit of being a small initial invest that can be used to determine if larger investment is worthwhile. Only if proven to be effective in the pilot stages do these technologies get adopted into the market. It also allows promising ideas, that have some technical issues to be resolved, to mature and sort out the technical issues – which is difficult to do without some early support.

However, the only reason I bring these things up is to help demonstrate that emission mitigation policy isn’t nearly as scary as some make it out to be. I’d like to avoid the conversation turning to policy as it doesn’t make sense to discuss policy if you still have concerns about the science.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"As an engineer we should have learned to simplify. But the lawyers attempt to make things complex."

Lawyers believe that they know everything. They also know that you can find an "expert" who will say whatever you pay him to say.

I found it funny that rconnor would use car safety as an example for energy efficiency when in the face of ever rising efficiency standards having picked most of the low hanging fruit manufacturers are simply forced to make the cars lighters sacrificing potential structural integrity. Now this added danger has been offset by ever increasing safety features but it begs the question how many more lives could have been saved were we not sacrificing the structural integrity of automobiles for increased efficiency.

And yes I know that there has been improvements in body and frame design that make it safer but the flaw in thinking comes when you say If you say ‘well using this new design we can get the same impact performance using aluminum as we did using steel in the previous design. So this design will let us use aluminum to meet our efficiency standards’

The obvious question of course Is ‘well how much safer would the new design be using steel rather than aluminum. How many more lives would be saved if we used this new design from the standpoint of saving lives rather than meeting efficiency standards?’

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"I understand that but that’s irrelevant to climate science though. You can be an anti-big government guy and still agree with science (I hope), as they are two completely separate things. When it comes to the subsequent policy, political ideology does come into play (but I don’t believe it’s as big as it’s made out to be). The key is that you shouldn’t project your political ideology onto the science."

What guarantee do I have that the scientist isn't projecting his ideology into it? We are largely talking models here because no one can do an experiment on the entire atmosphere. Models are nutritious for reflecting the bias of the modeler.

As I said I have no problem with auto mechanics. I am however I'm very weary of a mechanic who actually doesn't enjoy mechanics and is in the business to make money.

There is currently a glut of climate scientists attracted to the field for reasons other than climate science.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Here's a question about cars, which is cheaper to build a car with, steel or aluminum? And which requires less energy to produce?
If I knew the answers, I would not ask. But think about this, if someone could take a chunk out of your car and sell it for cash, would they?
The whole car thing is sort of a different issue, because there is so much other stuff going on there. And I have been wanting to know what it would cost to remove the things I don't want from a new car.

DSM is also a questionable thing because it takes money from one person to give to some other person to save money. Is this really what a utility company should be doing? Social engineering?
DSM also works on theory most of the time. LED street lights are more efficent, and are more expencive, but the fact that they don't last as long (yes the LED's should last longer), because the electronics are so sensitive to voltage spikes. The turn back the thermostat thing is also not true because with more stay at home moms of recent years, who just turn them back up.

The biggest thing to get in the way of new products is shoddy products, where the market had a good feel of what were good products, the disruptions in product availability has made consumers leary of new things.
The other things is the don't care as long as it's cheap attitude of many consumers.



RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cranky108, DSM is not a form a charity. It makes or saves the utility money in the long-term by delaying or minimizing the amount of new generation required, increasing export power (which is sold at a higher price than domestic power) or reducing the amount of import power required.

“The other things is the don't care as long as it's cheap attitude of many consumers.” – I’m in agreement and this makes up part of my point. Consumers, as a whole, respond primarily to costs. Of course there are exceptions but they are just that – exceptions. So to claim that consumers can, on their own and in large enough numbers to be meaningful, change their consumption habits to significantly reduce emissions (or any other social goal for that matter), I’m rather skeptical. Furthermore, as the market and producers simply respond to consumer demands, they certainly will not, on their own and in large enough numbers to be meaningful, change their production habits. Education, regulation, taxation and incentives are methods to influence consumer behavior which in turn changes producer behavior.

The first point, education, is the most important. Proper education on the science is a prerequisite to any subsequent policy. Frankly, I’d argue that proper education is the prerequisite to any substantial social change. This is why discussing policy without people understanding the science is not effective. Only once people understand where the science stands today, complete with the uncertainty and probabilistic range of outcomes, can a meaningful policy discussion be had.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

There was, a while ago, an option to buy your electricity from "green" suppliers only; you'd pay more, but the supplier certified that they were/are using sustainable and low-carbon footprint generation. Haven't seen it or noticed it recently, though.

One comment about education is that you get everyone educated, then they'll just all be arguing in vein of this thread. It's pretty clear that the participants in this discussion are indeed well-trained in math and science, so the issue isn't really a question of education, at least not here.

We've got people here that are refusing to even accept the possibility of AGW; that's a pretty wide chasm to cross. Moreover, I don't know whether it's simply rhetoric, or belief, but clearly both sides are at least somewhat in the camp of believing that the other side is part of some gigantic conspiracy, which is further compounded by the political differences and rhetoric in that vein. Just imagine if the fake Apollo guys had the backing of a major political party.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

" fake Apollo guys", you mean the guys that landed in area 51? This is a good example of people who despite proof don't believe the other side.

I agree that education maybe the answer, but with a dropout rate in some places near 50%, how do you propose that? There are many social nets that can support someone who won't accept an education.
Look at some of the Amish communities who are likely the most carbon neutral, and only have a 6th grade education. Everyone else has a higher level of education, yet because of the modern world are much less carbon neutral. So one could argue that education is not the answer.

The issue with the green energy, is many times there are so many people who want those options that they are sold out. But these things are not really all green. When the wind dosen't blow, at night, is it really green? Do there lights not work? But if these things include hydro power, they might really be green. There is no green energy storage.

If DSM really worked, would we see energy usage decrease? Until recently the load growth over whelmed the amount of DSM, so it did make since. But if load wasen't growing would it really make since for a utility to pay people to not use it's product? It's a plan to cut the rise in usage, not cut usage. There's a difference.

Are there any car companies who will pay me to not drive there cars? Any oil companies who will pay me to not buy there gas?

"some gigantic conspiracy" yes, some political types want me to pay more taxes, and they don't care what excuse they use. So Climate change could qualify as a gigantic conspiracy, no matter which way the science falls. That's the reason I disagree with it no matter the science. Also why I want to see alternitives offered to the taxes just to disprove that taxes are the only answer.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"So Climate change could qualify as a gigantic conspiracy, no matter which way the science falls. That's the reason I disagree with it no matter the science."

If the science is correct, then there is no conspiracy; it's just business as usual for the politicos. My only disagreement with your statement is the "some" political types. I think it's all types; it's just the way that the taxation occurs that's different.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It does not follow that if catastrophic AGW theory is correct that the science was good science. You may think something is true. It might be true. But if you cheat to provd it, it being true does not make the cheating right.

Just because someone gets the right answer does not mean that they didn't cheat.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

and if everyone else gets the right answer, did they all cheat, or were you just wrong?

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

geeze guys, c'mon. it's not black or white, truth or lies; it's a whole bunch of grey ... there's truth and (IMHO) fabrication on both sides. Fifty years from now I expect that both sides will be claiming victory ... believers will be saying "I told you so" and non-believers will be saying "of course the climate has changed, but not for the reasons you said (50 years ago)".

I believe it is impossible to reduce the global CO2 emissions to anything like the level of 1990. I expect that whatever gains (ie reductions) are made in the NA and Europe will be swamped by increases in the developing countries (India, China, Brazil).

If we were truly serious about reducing CO2 emissions we'd be ...
1) investing in the electric economy, pointing the developing world towards this greener approach; though, no doubt, batteries will have their own non-green side effects,
2) investing in nukes,
3) investing in fusion reactors and power generation,
4) increasing the price of FFs.

Wind turbines are IMHO cosmetic at best.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

If the are all copying each other. Climate models aren't exactly independent.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

What would the standard of proof look like.

Many have brought up the complexity of modeling the Earth and I am convinced to an extent that is may not be possible
to predict just what is going to happen.

But surely if the climate became 'different enough' one day we might conclude the one time only experiment complete and the
results in place that CO2 can alter the climate sufficiently to create economic damage far exceeding the costs associated
with alternatives and efficiency to reduces fossil fuels.

So where might we have to be to get say 97% ... no scratch that lets say 95% of the general public accepting the theory.
What type of weather manifestations would convince ?

What will we say to ourselves if the climate goes totally whacko and the suffering is great.

All this risk to avoid curtailing luxury consumption of fossil fuels. I will remember the position I took and if I am around
in 30 yrs will unhesitatingly reveal it. I hope those with emotional baggage drawing them toward skepticism will be honest
enough to do the same.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

as I understand it, different models include different processes depending on the lead scientist's ideas. personally, I'd've expected more difference between the models.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"as I understand it, different models include different processes depending on the lead scientist's ideas. personally, I'd've expected more difference between the models."

Only up to a point. Since the purpose of the climate model is to predict future behavior, the model must be capable of correctly modeling past behavior, within reasonable error bounds. Since past behavior is known, to some degree, the models have to be able capture the predictable portions of the behavior, and only in the future can the differences in the models cause divergences.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

It truly is complex and I would not expect anyone to believe any model that is overly simple. But on the other hand would anyone understand a very complex model?

I think it might be important to model things in singularty to see how much of an effect each has. CO2 is only one thing. CH4 is another. photo reflectivity, solar output, man made heat generation (not CO2 based), forest growth rates in respect to CO2, and solar output. cloud formation, percipitation, and evaporation rates. etc.

After all, if it were hotter, then the evaporation rate would go up. So where does the water go? More clouds, or more humidity, or more percipitation?

If there is more CO2, you would expect to see forest growth rates increase.

I have no doubt it is difficult to model. But I also don't believe some of the answers we are seeing, because they don't seem to give complete answers. I don't see more storms, I see less. And maybe that is people with an agenda blowing CO2. So for me to believe I need to see the removal of the hot air that is being presented. Al Gore is not helping you. The politics leaves a very bad after taste.

I do agree that CO2 is a problem in the short term, but I am not so sure nature won't solve this without man made fixes.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

If I were a carbon Nazi, I'd change targets.

The 'shades of grey' truth is that mankind is probably only responsible for about 60% of the warming we see, and carbon is probably only responsible for around half of that. Two thirds at most. Which means completely eliminating carbon emissions (which is impossible) would still only reduce the sea level rise over the next century from around 9 inches to around 4 or 5 inches. And since complete elimination is impossible, all the effort in the world over the next century will probably only mean about 3 inches difference in sea level.

Ocean acidification, however, is a very serious deal that nobody's paying much attention to. Something like half the coral reef area in the world is gone due to the oceans slowly turning to carbonic acid. That's huge. And if the pH level crosses a certain threshold, every diatom in the ocean will die because it won't be able to make a shell. No more aqueous calcium.

That'd be a crisis that would make Deepwater Horizon look like a bird fart. Seriously.

And ocean acidification aught to be a much easier thing to model than mean surface temperature. There's no hydrologic cycle to speak of, cloud cover doesn't matter, volcanic eruptions (the thread) are pointless, etc.

Hey rconnor, have there been any studies to project what ppm CO2 concentration in the *ocean* would mean a collapse of the diatom link in the food chain?

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (cranky108)

I think it might be important to model things in singularty to see how much of an effect each has. CO2 is only one thing. CH4 is another. photo reflectivity, solar output, man made heat generation (not CO2 based), forest growth rates in respect to CO2, and solar output. cloud formation, percipitation, and evaporation rates. etc.
You can do this to an extent. And to that extent it has already been done. The issue is that a change in one aspect has a multiplicity of changes to other aspects. For example, the green house effect of CO2 can be easily tested in a lab (and recently it has been done in the field). However, what the lab measurements don’t take into account is the feedbacks that the initial events will cause. Which you correctly point out in your next sentence.

Quote (cranky108)

After all, if it were hotter, then the evaporation rate would go up. So where does the water go? More clouds, or more humidity, or more precipitation
You’re correct, it goes into all three. Now, next time someone says, “The impact of CO2 is predicted to be so much larger than in the lab, how can that be?”, you can say this to them – feedbacks matter. Regarding cloud feedbacks, I’d point you to the conversation between beej67 and myself earlier in this thread.

Quote (cranky108)

I do agree that CO2 is a problem in the short term, but I am not so sure nature won't solve this without man made fixes.
This is a common thought. What this really translates to is that they believe climate sensitivity is very low and unable to cause large swings in temperature. However, this thought is usually maintained by the same people that say “the climate has changed [drastically] in the past”. These two thoughts are mutually exclusive. Either climate sensitivity is low, and the Earth’s temperature cannot fluctuate drastically, or climate has changed drastically in the past. The latter appears to be factually true, which would make the former false.

A way to hold both thoughts simultaneously and without contradiction would be to posit that Earth’s climate had high sensitivity back then but now has low sensitivity. This drastic and sudden (and convenient, I might add) flipping of sensitivity, without explanation of how that could be (and none currently exists in the field of science), is to posit magically qualities to Earth’s climatic system.

Quote (beej67)

mankind [you mean humankind, I’m sure] is probably only responsible for about 60% of the warming we see and carbon is probably only responsible for around half of that. Two thirds at most.
Perhaps it would be best to provide a proper reference to support your claim.

Quote (beej67)

Ocean acidification, however, is a very serious deal that nobody's paying much attention to
I’m in agreement that ocean acidification is likely a significant issue. However, I believe there is a great deal of attention being put into it. For example, the term “acidification” appears 5 times in the IPCC AR5 WGI Summary for Policymakers and 9 times in WGII Summary for Policymakers. In fact, in WGII, ocean acidification is one of the 10 “climate-related drivers of impacts”. Furthermore, the IPCC has an entire workshop report dedicated to ocean acidification. Note that I have chosen to focus on the IPCC reports because the IPCC is the most centralized voice for climate science. Of course you’d be also welcome to review the thousands of papers on the subject by doing a Google Scholar search. Regardless, ocean acidification is a “serious deal that nobody’s the scientific community is paying much attention to”.

Quote (rb1957)

geeze guys, c'mon. it's not black or white, truth or lies; it's a whole bunch of grey ... there's truth and (IMHO) fabrication on both sides.
I’m in agreement with you. Again, climate science is not about determining the exact temperature and exact dollar value of damages in 2100. It’s about setting up the probability of these risks so that we can make informed policy decisions.

Quote (rb1957)

If we were truly serious about reducing CO2 emissions we'd be ...
Proper education on the science is required first (note, I didn’t say “in science” as IRstuff seemed to suggest before). So long as people continue to “learn” about the science from their echo-chambers (on both sides) and not from proper, non-ideologically driven sources, we won’t get that far. While no institution is completely free from bias, places like NASA, the various national academies of science and internationally respected scientific journals are the best places for “proper, non-ideologically driven sources”. I don’t see how this is honestly controversial, especially coming from scientifically inclined people.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"While no institution is completely free from bias, places like NASA, the various national academies of science and internationally respected scientific journals are the best places for “proper, non-ideologically driven sources”."

But, I think there are those that consider these to be part and parcel to the conspiracy. The so-called "Climate Gate" is still being bandied about as the smoking gun by certain parties, and the fact that a bunch of government agencies concluded that there was no misconduct would add fuel to the notion that if the EPA was involved, then NASA, by virtue of guilt by association, is likewise complicit in the conspiracy.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

And those people (who aren’t you) have never read the emails in context. They’ve seen the spliced and cherry picked sections that make a mountain out of a molehill. Even if it were important (which it certainly is not), it would be one case involving a number of scientists. But the body of evidence comes from thousands of scientists from hundreds of difference institutions. In order for it to matter, you’d firstly have to believe it was important and secondly you’d have to stretch that conclusion to the entire field (or the entirety of science, I suppose).

The size and scope of the scheme required to supposedly suppress “the truth” about climate science is truly astonishing. It requires nearly every scientist in the field, major scientific institution from around the world, head of state (both leftists and rightists, from 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries), university and major scientific journal to be in on it (and apparently, all of them are nefariously benefitting from it…) – for decades upon decades . Call me crazy but I think the counter argument, that there is no international conspiracy but, instead, the blog post that they read is wrong, is ever so slightly more likely to be true. But, hey, that’s just me.

A more reasonable opinion is that of “group-think”. But this fails to recognize that you advance in academia by proving your peers wrong, not agreeing with them. Scientists are looking to be the ones to bust the consensus, not conform to it. Getting scientists to agree is a little like herding cats. Furthermore, the idea behind “group-think” implies that the thought shared by the group is inherently wrong. This is a non-sequitar.

Having said all this, I truly don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about “climategate”, I don’t care about oil-funded research, I don’t care about the Chris de Freitas issue, I don’t care about the Willie Soon conflict of interest issue, I don’t care that Fred Singer was part of the tobacco industries attempt to downplay the harmful effects of smoking. It is all a secondary circus to the actual science. I care that the science that supports anthropogenic climate change is more solid than the science that goes against it.

Let me be very clear – consensus or “group-think” on a topic implies neither that it is inherently true nor inherently false. If you think it’s group-think, you still have to prove it false. If you think there’s a consensus, you still have to prove it right. However, what we have is one group saying that all the peer-reviewed research and various forms of data are all inherently and automatically wrong because it’s either part of some giant conspiracy or a product of “group-think”. That’s just not a valid point of view. It’s utter nonsense which prevents a logical discussion from taking place.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Sure, but things are being painted in broad strokes, because, the supposed scientific conspiracy is being fueled by the leftist conspiracy to tax everyone to death.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I should add that the concept of “pal-review” requires something closer to a conspiracy (or at least a wide-spread, systemic issue) than mere group-think.

Sometimes good papers get blocked and bad papers get published due to inaccurate refereeing. Peer-review is not infallible. Of course it’s not. However, to claim that this happens repeatedly and only specifically to a certain stance requires a systemic issue far beyond mere “group-think”. In climate science, this systemic issue would have to be spread across every major scientific journal, involve thousands of different referees/reviewers and have existed for multiple decades. So, when someone claims that either (1) peer-reviewed research brought forth is inherently wrong because it’s “pal-review” (i.e. bad papers get published) or (2) the requirement for them to provide peer-reviewed research to support their views is impossible due to “pal-review” (i.e. good papers get blocked), they are suggesting a far-reaching, long-lasting, secretive systemic issue. One might call that a conspiracy theory, especially given the lack of credible evidence to support such a claim, and I would agree with that assessment.

Now, the first claim (it’s a bad paper that got through “pal-review”) can be supported by simply addressing the way the science in the paper is flawed. Here, no wide-spread systemic issue is required; it’s merely one of those bad papers that gets through a fallible peer-review system. This is sometimes done but, unfortunately, not nearly often enough.

The second claim (I can’t provide peer-reviewed research to support my stance because it’s blocked by “pal-review”) absolutely requires the wide-spread systemic issue of suppressing a particular conclusion which involves nearly every major scientific journal. What’s more, the wide-spread systemic issue is directly disproven by the existence of peer-reviewed papers that go against the “consensus” on climate change science, some of which appear in major scientific journals. Furthermore, the IPCC references these papers in their report. Heck, Nick Lewis’ low sensitivity papers had a major influence on the IPCC lowering its sensitivity range. Now I believe that the subsequent research since AR5 (Cowtan and Way 2013, Durack et al 2014, Shindell 2014, Kummer & Dessler 2014, Andrews et al 2014, etc.) demonstrates that the lowering of the range may not of been valid but, given the evidence at the time, it was the conservative thing to do. Nevertheless, this demonstrates that not only do papers skeptical of the “consensus” position get published (sometimes in major journals), they are also given careful examination within the rest of the scientific community and not simply tossed aside. No wide-spread systemic issue of suppressing a particular conclusion appears to actually exist.

So the next time someone brings up a blog post that asserts something completely opposite to the bulk of the science and claims victory, ask them why such ground-breaking research isn’t published? When they rebut with “because of pal-review”, remember that this claim requires a systemic issue centered around suppressing a particular conclusion, which involves every major scientific journal and thousands of different referees/reviewers and that this is completely unsupported. Then ask them and yourself the following:

What’s more likely - that the conclusion of that blog post is being systematically suppressed by every major scientific journal and thousands of different referees/reviewers (despite the fact there is no evidence to support that) – or – that the conclusion of that blog post is wrong?

(Bonus points if you actually take the time to demonstrate why it’s wrong by sourcing actual peer-reviewed literature)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (IRstuff)

Sure, but things are being painted in broad strokes, because, the supposed scientific conspiracy is being fueled by the leftist conspiracy to tax everyone to death.
As a paid spokesmen of Greenpeace, I can assure you, and all other posters here, that once people submit their will and freedoms to us acknowledge the truth behind climate science, that the taxes on your government issued rations goods and services and labour in the involuntary, unpaid tree planting gulags income will not be significant.

Sincerely,

Al Gore
rconnor

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

and still you don't like M&M's review of Mann 98 ?

and you're defending Mann not releasing his data to them ?

and you're supporting the journals for not publishing their report ?

Mann 98 was an enormously important paper, and the discovery that his data model would produce a hockey stick if it was fed noise is surely equally important ... no?

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Rb1957, out of respect to you, I will answer your questions but first you need to understand something - MBH98 is 17 years old. Reconstructions of paleotemperatures have been done repeatedly, using updated techniques and data, since that point. All of subsequent papers more or less supersede MBH98 (due to using more up-to-date data) but they come to similar main conclusions than MBH98 does (see the NOAA Paleoclimate Reconstruction Network). MBH98 is not referenced once in IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 5 – Information from Paleoclimate Archives (nor any other chapter from what I could find). While important at the time, it’s largely irrelevant now.

Is MBH98 flawed? In some senses, yes. In it's main conclusion, no. Real Climate has a good rundown of the situation.

“and still you don't like M&M's review of Mann 98?”
I think MM05 is technically correct, in parts, but at the end of the day is unimportant to the main conclusion. Also, see Huybers 2005 and Wahl & Ammann 2007 below.

“and you're defending Mann not releasing his data to them ?”
I'm not defending Mann, I just don't care one way or another. The whole "issue" is a circus to distract from the actual science which is so completely unaffected by MBH98 nowadays.

"and you're supporting the journals for not publishing their report?"
See above. Don't care. Huybers 2005 and Wahl & Ammann 2007 suggested the MM05 had issues, so maybe the journals were correct in not publishing MM05. While Mckitrick claims the issues with MM05 are superficial, again, I don't care one way or the other. Doesn't change a thing about climate science today either way.

“Mann 98 was an enormously important paper, and the discovery that his data model would produce a hockey stick if it was fed noise is surely equally important ... no?”
Key word, "was". It no longer is. Science moved on. So should skeptics.

But you know what, you want to think Mann is morally bankrupt, you want to think that "climategate" demonstrates wrong-doing by a handful of climate scientists, go right ahead. However, thinking that doesn't mean climate science is false nor does this mean that the entire scientific community is morally bankrupt.

There's a story that demonstrates this perfectly. One scientist thought the exact same things you did about MBH98 and about "climategate", maybe even stronger. This scientist stated that because of those events, "I now have a list of people, who's paper's I won't read anymore". He was so put of by this, he questioned the entirety of climate science. So, what did he do? Well, he started his own research group to investigate the science and repeat the work in a transparent manner. What did this scientist find? Well, that the science was accurate and that "Humans are almost entirely the cause [of climate change]" (quote, written by the scientists, can be found in the reference in next sentence). He known refers to himself as a converted skeptic. Yes, it's Richard Muller.

So you want to think MBH98 is completely flawed and lacks scientific integrity. That's fine. It doesn't change a thing about the science. Hence why I simply don't care about it. It's 17 years old. It's been superseded by numerous papers (that all conclude pretty much the same thing). The science has moved on. So should you.

You bring up so many other good questions that are relevant to climate science today. We should focus our energy on those.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Obviously, it's again a guilt by association/conspiracy; if MM05 was flawed, then anyone who comes up with the same or similar conclusions must also have had flawed or fudged data/theory.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I think you mean MBH98 (MM05 was Mckitrick's criticism of Mann's paper, MBH98). But yes, that is likely their thought process. Of course it's flawed because the issues MM05 had with MBH98 were largely superficial to the main conclusions (on top of the fact that many of the more recent papers used different techniques entirely). But, so it goes.

Isn't it telling that we've been around the block a few times when we can just predict the arguments before they happen? I suppose it highlights the futility of trying to show the science. But I do have faith in the ability of some to honestly review the information and learn a bit.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

So what is being proposed other than more taxes? Paint buildings roofs white anyone?

Engineers solve problems. What solutions are being offered? Self driving cars? more robots? The internet? These haven't made one inch of a solution.
Solar panels to cover the white sands of New Mexico?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

we agree to disagree. MBH may well be 17 years old, but it was the "poster child" for the climate change "debate" and Al Gore, etc.

sure others may have used other data models but as far as I know these haven't be reviewed in the same manner, and I can see why. I mean it took M&M 7 years to publish ! ok, a little less as they had to do their analysis. IMO these models are based on the same data as MBH98 and they're getting the same result ... so maybe they're just as flawed ?

The issues M&M had with the MBH98 ... sure a lot were technical, but they found data being copied (incorrectly) and their key finding was random noise produced the same hockey stick. That is way more than a "technical" issue.

but, as you say, this is old news, the "science" has moved on. we agree to disagree ... if I was buying the palace that is AGHG, I'd like to know that there's a sewer in the basement.

I'm not saying Mann is morally bankrupt. I do think that when he got the result he expected he said "eureka!" and in seeing the forest, lost sight of some of the trees; a very human reaction. and I think the reviewers (who clearly didn't interrogate the data model) said "yes, this is good" in part because it's what they expected and wanted to see and in part because Mann is a well known scientist; again a very human reaction.



another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

sure others may have used other data models but as far as I know these haven't be reviewed in the same manner, and I can see why. I mean it took M&M 7 years to publish ! ok, a little less as they had to do their analysis. IMO these models are based on the same data as MBH98 and they're getting the same result ... so maybe they're just as flawed ?

> Or, they're getting the same result because that's what is happening -- Occam's Razor would say that the simpler answer, which is that all the data is, in fact, correct, as opposed to concocting conspiracy upon conspiracy, falsified data on a global scale, hundreds of people lying, etc.

The issues M&M had with the MBH98 ... sure a lot were technical, but they found data being copied (incorrectly) and their key finding was random noise produced the same hockey stick. That is way more than a "technical" issue.

> Their key finding was random noise COULD produce a hockey stick, but only by "tuning, the noise, but you are suggesting that EVERY dataset taken ALL have the same noise that produces the SAME hockey stick. Again, Occam's Razor would say that the more likely story is that the only way to refute the overwhelming weight of evidence is to claim a massive conspiracy wherein hundreds of scientists are all lying and fudging data. After all this time, one would think that someone would weaken under that burden of guilt in deceiving all those gullible left wingers and confess to their part of the conspiracy.

This is oddly, well, perhaps not that oddly, reminiscent of those that believe that the Moon landings were faked. Again, they claim that all the data, all the records are fudged, and that thousands of people participated in the falsification of landings and the videos, etc., yet, likewise, no one has stepped forward under their burden of guilt to confess to faking the Moon landings.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I'm not saying the data is fudged, I'm suggesting that if a noise input gives the same result as a data input, then the result is less dependent on the input (and more dependent on the processing). hence what value is the result ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

That's fine for a single occurrence in a single set of data, but you're asking for suspension of reality if you think that every single dataset is showing the same thing because of the same noise. Moreover, they speculated on a noise mechanism that has no basis in reality; because if it were real, it would have manifested itself all over the place, and not just to be coincidentally aligned with AGW.

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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

A little bit both Burger et al. and Stockwell er al concluded that all statistical reconstructions would tend towards a hockey stick. It's fundamental, temperatures are tending only trending one way during the calibration period. Take any red noise. If you keep the series that correlate to the 20th century. The average of those series will be a hockey stick. If you can't see that in your head you should quit your profession.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"That's fine for a single occurrence in a single set of data, but you're asking for suspension of reality if you think that every single dataset is showing the same thing because of the same noise. Moreover, they speculated on a noise mechanism that has no basis in reality; because if it were real, it would have manifested itself all over the place, and not just to be coincidentally aligned with AGW. "

Would you mind restating this in English. Nothing in this gibberish of an explanation makes any sense. If at all it shows that you have 0 clue what you are talking about when it comes to statistical temperature reconstructions.

Its also wrong to think that every temperature reconstruction is a hockey stick, a believe that is what you mean by data set. Even the reconstruction in censored folder on Mann's ftp server wasn't a hockey stick. Why was the hockey stick reconstruction the one that was published while the one sitting in the "censored" folder forgotten? Mann didn't just remove the Grabyill chronology at random. He removed it because he knew then that the veracity of the series as a temperature proxy was doubtful. If anything the reconstruction sitting in the "censored" folder is the better reconstruction because it uses better data. So why was it discarded and the hockey stick published?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (rconnor)

"But you know what, you want to think Mann is morally bankrupt, you want to think that "climategate" demonstrates wrong-doing by a handful of climate scientists, go right ahead. However, thinking that doesn't mean climate science is false nor does this mean that the entire scientific community is morally bankrupt.

There's a story that demonstrates this perfectly. One scientist thought the exact same things you did about MBH98 and about "climategate", maybe even stronger. This scientist stated that because of those events, "I now have a list of people, who's paper's I won't read anymore". He was so put of by this, he questioned the entirety of climate science. So, what did he do? Well, he started his own research group to investigate the science and repeat the work in a transparent manner. What did this scientist find? Well, that the science was accurate and that "Humans are almost entirely the cause [of climate change]" (quote, written by the scientists, can be found in the reference in next sentence). He known refers to himself as a converted skeptic. Yes, it's Richard Muller."

Yes there is a story. Thats all it is a story. Or as some would prefer to call it a bald faced lie. Yes Mann is morally bankrupt and you have supported him by telling a story for an equally morally bankrupt individual.

Quote (rconnor)

He known refers to himself as a converted skeptic. Yes, it's Richard Muller."

Ah yes such a story. Its easy to tell such stories when you are a morally bankrupt liar. Lets look at some quotes from this skeptic before he converted.

November 3, 2011
“It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic — only a scientific skeptic,” he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. “Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller ‘Physics for Future Presidents’ I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id...

December 17, 2003
"“Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/402357/mediev...

October 7, 2008
"If Al Gore reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion - which he does, but he’s very effective at it - then let him fly any plane he wants."
http://grist.org/article/lets-get-physical/

November 2,2008
"There is a consensus that global warming is real. ...it’s going to get much, much worse."
http://www.wired.com/2008/11/physics-the-nex/

Wow such a skeptic. The first thing someone is willing to do for their beliefs is lie. The converted skeptic narrative made for good press so what if it isn't true. Dont you know the world is a at stake.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (rconnor)

A more reasonable opinion is that of “group-think”. But this fails to recognize that you advance in academia by proving your peers wrong, not agreeing with them. Scientists are looking to be the ones to bust the consensus, not conform to it. Getting scientists to agree is a little like herding cats. Furthermore, the idea behind “group-think” implies that the thought shared by the group is inherently wrong. This is a non-sequitar.

Bull for every Einstein there are literally hundreds if not thousands who advanced themselves by kissing ass. In today's day and age where the politicians have immense control over who gets promoted its even worse. Ass kissers out number free thinking rogues by orders of magnitude.

You have to be truly gifted to change the paradigm. There is a reason we know the names of Einstein, Newton, etc. They are rare very very very rare. How do you think the other hundreds of thousands of scientists put food in the table. They kissed ass.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

There is some truth to the old adige "Those who can do, and those who can't teach". And I would not be suprised if anyone can point out a few on either side of the argument. Most of these guys are trolls for grants, either from the government, or private industry. I expect there aim in either case is to produce the results there financer expects.

Al Gore is nothing more than a money grabbing hypocrite. If he really believe what he was saying he would live it.

Carbon offsets? Yes if you give me money to grow a tree, and you would have no way to verify that I am growing that tree, then the answer is yes I will grow you that tree.

I just can't stand the decept from either side. It is much more palatable that the non-warming side does not expect me to send them my money for dodgy schemes.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"It is much more palatable that the non-warming side does not expect me to send them my money for dodgy schemes."

That's just precisely what they want you to think; until the tipping point is reached, and they can charge you whatever the market will bear to alleviate your misery. There is little profit in prevention; there's always more profit in "fixes" after the fact. Once they make their money, they can afford to buy the higher ground and charge you accordingly for that as well.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

GTT

""A little bit both Burger et al. and Stockwell er al concluded that all statistical reconstructions would tend towards a hockey stick""

Surely not this bit of nonsense.

http://88.167.97.19/albums/files/TMTisFree/Documen...



RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

There is little profit in prevention; there's always more profit in "fixes" after the fact.
Just ask Al Gore how much he has made in prevention technology?

It cuts both ways. Create a problem, and charge people to fix it. Sort of like virus software.
What will happen with all the defunct wind towers in 20 years? And solar panels when they don't work?

Are these fixes to a problem, or a jobs program created by the government? Do they really produce more energy than is used to create them?
I don't know the answers, but I doubt very many other people know either.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rb1957, firstly, I think that I should acknowledge that you aren’t purporting a conscious suppression of “proper science” but mere “confirmation bias”, as made clear in your last paragraph.

You say, we agree to disagree but I’m unsure of where your disagreement comes in and whether our disagreement matters to the main point, which is - how and why does this matter to climate science today?. I’d like to go through a couple possible objections that could arise from MM05 (and the rest of the “hockey stick” saga). Please let me know which objection(s) you agree with and how and why it matters to climate science today. If I haven’t exactly captured the wording of your objection, please feel free to correct and elaborate.

1) MM05 and the “hockey stick” topic makes you question the character of Michael Mann
From what I’ve read, Mann is arrogant and cocky. Many scientists, that agree with the science on climate change, say that had Mann simply acknowledged the technical issues in the first place, no one would be talking about it today. It was his aggressive defense (or attacking of his attackers) that made it seem like he was “hiding something”. Had he simply went “ya, there’s some issues. We’ve corrected them and still get the exact same conclusion.” (which [link http://www.rap.ucar.edu/projects/rc4a/millennium/r... - response to MM05]Wahl and Ammann 2007[/link] did) people would have moved on. A great piece on the entire “hockey stick” issue can be found here. I’d highly recommend reading it as it’s a fun read and relatively unbiased.

So if you question the character of Mann, I’d hardly oppose that view. However, the main question is, so what?

Impact on climate science today
None. If Mann is a questionable character or not, it means absolutely nothing to modern climate science. Mann is not the only one studying paleoclimate nor is he the sole voice of the paleoclimate community. Disregarding all of his papers, you’d still have the same main conclusions in the paleoclimate science and climate science in general.

Questioning the character of a scientists does not allow one to conclude that all the science is questionable. Doing so highlights a sever lack of comprehension on just how robust and diverse the evidence supporting climate change science really is. Seriously, it’s nuts. Go to the references in any chapter of any IPCC report and look at how many different scientific papers, from different authors from different institutions and journals, are referenced. To accuse all of them (them being scientists, institutions, journals and reviewers) of having the same “confirmation bias” is difficult to believe (especially with nothing but a hunch and a few anecdotal examples to support it).

2) To you, MM05 demonstrates that MBH98 is fundamentally flawed
MM05 points out some issue that are technically correct. Other issues raised by MM05 are due to an incorrect analysis/assumptions done by MM05. Huybers 2005, Wahl and Ammann 2007 and Rutherford 2005 demonstrate this.

Taking into account the issues raised by MM05, what impact does that have on the conclusions of MBH98? Does it completely nullify the main conclusion (that the extent and rate of warming in the late 20th century is anomalous)? No, it does not. Apply the “corrections” suggested in MM05 and here’s what you get (from Wahl and Ammann 2007, Figure 2.):


Impact on climate science today
Seeing as MM05 really doesn’t change the conclusion of MBH98, it could hardly have any impact on climate science today. But let’s forget that for a minute. Let’s assume (incorrectly) that MM05 does demonstrate that MBH98 is fundamentally flawed, then what?

Still nothing. MBH98 is not the sole paleoclimate reconstruction. Again, I’d encourage you to visit NOAA’s Paleoclimate Network (PCN) which contains 92 temperature records. Or have a look through the “List of large-scale temperature reconstructions of the last 2,000 years” Wikipedia page (which contains links to the (30+) specific papers). Or the PAGES 2K Consortium (and FAQ).

3) …But all those studies were based off MBH98. So, if MBH98 is wrong, they all are wrong
This thought is false on pretty well all accounts. Firstly, MBH98 is not fundamentally wrong. As shown, if you incorporate the criticisms of MM05, the late 20th century (and early 21st century) is still warmer than any other period in the reconstruction. Secondly, the subsequent studies use different (and increasingly better and more robust) data sets and use a variety of different techniques (some don’t use PCA at all). This is demonstrated in Rutherford et al 2004 (Mann was a co-author). They conclude “These
evaluations suggest that differing methods of reconstruction (e.g., different CFR techniques or local calibration approaches) yield nearly indistinguishable results if differences in underlying proxy network, target season, and target region are controlled for.” Furthermore, they state, “Finally, the evidence for exceptional late-twentieth century warmth in the context of the period since A.D. 1400 (in warm, cold, and annual temperatures) is a robust conclusion with respect to all of the factors considered.”

If you don’t like that Mann was a co-author, then look at the PAGES 2K information. They examine a much wider range (and more updated) data sets and techniques and specifically state “On the basis of our current assessment, about 360 of our 511 records were not used in the reconstruction of Mann et al. (2008, 2009)” and Mann was not an author of the Consortium (neither was Bradley, Hughes, Ammann, Rutherford nor Jones for that matter).

It should also be noted that many of the techniques, such as “climate field reconstruction” (CFR) methods, do not utilize techniques that were criticized in Von Storch et al 2004 (VS04) or Burger and Cubasch 2005 (BC05)/Burger et al 2006 (BFC06). Despite VS04 being criticized (and subsequently GC05 and BFC06, which are based off VS04) by such papers as Wahl et al 2006, these papers are irrelevant to most paleoclimate reconstructions because they use different techniques than criticized by VS04, BC05 and BFC06. Again, the criticism of some possible techniques for reconstructions is not evidence (in the slightest) to suggest that all reconstructions are flawed.

So not only does it appear incorrect to conclude that MBH98 is fundamentally flawed but, even if we were to conclude that, it would be meaningless as the subsequent papers and reconstructions, from different authors, using different data sets and different techniques, all broadly agree with the same conclusion. To quote PAGES 2K,

Quote (PAGES 2K Consortium)

The 20th century ranked as the warmest or nearly the warmest century in all regions except Antarctica. During the last 30-year period in the reconstructions (1971-2000 CE), the average reconstructed temperature among all of the regions was likely higher than anytime in nearly 1400 years. However, some regions experienced 30-year intervals that were warmer than 1971-2000. In Europe, for example, the average temperature between 21 and 80 CE was warmer than during 1971-2000.

In light of this, I’m unsure what parts you disagree with and why you do. I feel that you’ve read some things that sound convincing (or damning) but, in the broader context, those arguments just don’t hold up. If you want to hold a different opinion than that I’ve PAGES 2K, your going against the entire field of paleoclimatology. And you’d do this with no leg to stand on because even if you want to throw away all of Mann’s work and embrace MM05 as truth, it doesn’t change the conclusion in the slightest.

So, rb1957, I don’t believe it’s good enough to say we’ll agree to disagree. You simply cannot discuss this in isolation of MBH98 or Michael Mann in general.
Either we agree, and I misunderstand your position, or you disagree with the entire field of paleoclimatology and, I’m afraid to say, reject all the papers, research and data.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

“I think environmental advocates have done a disservice by trying to amplify heat by saying we’re going to be alarmists, we’re going to scare you into agreeing. People don’t scare into agreeing,” said Elisabeth Moyer, a University of Chicago climate scientist who co-directs the Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy.

“The only way we can do this is back off, get some perspective, start talking about solutions and get away from that sort of sense of fear that’s driving people into whatever their comfortable preset positions.

....”

Moyer pointed out that the Little Ice Age was caused by a drop in average global temperatures of about a half degree Celsius. The world is currently on path, she said, to warm by 9º C.

“Geologically the changes of the Little Ice Age are really quite small,” she said. “We’re facing something that’s more than 10 times as great as what has happened in the past.”

You cant make this stuff up.

'We have to stop scaring people. Yadda Yadda Yadda its going to warm by 9C. Its going to be worse 10 times worse than the little ice age.'

It is nice however to see tha alarmists have moved beyond claiming that the little ice age never existed circa 2000. Of course they do so only because it suits their argument at the time.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

That's what I have been saying. Offer solutions other than big government taxes, and solutions would be more acceptable even to those who don't believe.

But the running around yelling the sky is falling dos not change minds. It creates a hard resistance to any scheme no matter the facts.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Not to be contrary but curious, since the earth is 4.5 billion years old. What does a temperature trend look like over that 4.5 billion years of history? What do GHG trends look like over that same span of time? What drivers can be unquestionably identified for those trends? Just curious.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"What does a temperature trend look like over that 4.5 billion years of history"

We seriously lack temperature measurements or proxies going that far back. But, bear in mind that a trend starting that far back is a bit meaningless, given that the surface temperature was probably in excess of 5000ºC. We're NEVER going to get that hot, unless we collide with something humongous.

TTFN
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RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

I understand that we do know it's been much hotter (and colder) in the past, that CO2 levels were much higher in the past (maybe there's some correlation ... maybe causal, maybe not). I understand we know there were sudden climate changes in the past, mechanism not well understood.

But this is, to a large extent, a red herring in the current debate. The current debate is how much is the FF we burnt yesterday affecting today's climate, that our reintroduction of CO2 back into the atmosphere is an unnatural (and unprecedented) process.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

" FF we burnt yesterday" I can't keep from wondering why we burnt French Fries yesterday. I know what you mean, but FF dos not make me think of Fossel Fuels.

Present the data where we don't need to question the collector or method used. Not that easy. Maybe that's why no one believes the other argument. Or the conclusion that we do nothing, or heavy taxes, smaller cars, etc.

Don't get me wrong, the methane leaks fixing is a good thing (it's just a sign of bad behavior).

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

KENAT, please see my post at 19 Mar 15 20:28 in this thread. I, and many others that believe mitigation is necessary, do not advocate for a cap-and-trade system. I think it’s important to not frame mitigation in such a one-dimensional fashion.

lacajun, that’s a good question. Someone asked something very similar in a previous thread. Please feel free to read my response at 23 Oct 14 17:19. You’ll note that my end conclusion is pretty much exactly the same as IRstuff’s response here (except I lack his brevity!).

rb1957,

Quote (rb1957)

we know there were sudden climate changes in the past
I think we need to be careful with some of the wording here. The “sudden” in your statement is on the order of thousands of years. Geologically speaking, this is indeed sudden. However, compared to the rate of change in the 20th-21st century, that’s moving at a glacial pace (…well given the rate of decline recently, this phrase may no longer be appropriate…but you catch my drift).

Quote (rb1957)

I understand we know there were sudden climate changes in the past, mechanism not well understood.
I disagree. The mechanism of past changes in climate is fairly well understood. It goes something like this (for deglaciation):
  • Orbital variations increase summer insolation at higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e. the North Pole points towards the sun more, see Richard Alley (comically) explain Milankovitch cycles (he’s a delightfully kooky guy)). This is fairly weak change in forcing but it leads to a series of climatic changes…
  • The increase in Arctic and Northern Hemisphere summer insolation causes the rate and extent of ice sheet melt to increase
  • North Atlantic deep water formation is inhibited by this freshwater runoff
  • Thermohaline circulation is interrupted
  • Northern Hemisphere actually cools as the equator to pole heat transports weakens
  • Heat that use to transfer to the North, now works to warm Southern Hemisphere oceans
  • Southern Hemisphere warming releases large reservoirs of CO2 from deep water
  • Global CO2 concentrations increase which leads to global warming
  • Global warming release CH4 feedback and positive ice albedo feedback
  • Warming intensifies (note: this process takes thousands of years)
  • As the initial driver (Milankovitch cycles) is not strengthening and as you run out of ice to melt (to provide a positive feedback), the climate settles momentarily before the opposite cycle kicks it
Some of this will sound familiar. The same underlying concepts explain past changes in climate as well as modern changes. The same (range of) sensitivity estimates explain past changes in climate as well as modern changes. The same cannot be said about any other theory I know of. This is why I’m very confused when people use “it’s change before” as an argument against anthropogenic climate change. I will also note that the 20th century warming could not be due to Milankovitch cycles because (1) the rate of deglaciation caused by Milankovitch cycles occurs over thousands of years (as stated above) and (2) the timing is all wrong (it’s off by about 20,000 to 50,000 years). But I digress…

Quote (rb1957)

But this is, to a large extent, a red herring in the current debate.
How so? It’s the same planet. You need a theory that explains past and current changes in climate. The mechanism can’t magically change (however, you do need them to magically change to make “competing” theories fit). Furthermore, the impacts of paleoclimate on biodiversity are extremely relevant. Major extinctions correspond to past (major) changes in climate (which is another reason I’m confused why the “it won’t be bad” crowd seem to also be a part of the “it’s changed before” crowd (which are part of the “it’s not caused by CO2” crowd)).

Quote (rb1957)

The current debate is how much is the FF we burnt yesterday affecting today's climate
If you’re questioning how quickly CO2 emissions impact the climate, I responded to this at 13 Mar 15 19:37.

If you’re questioning the extent to which CO2 emissions will impact climate (now and into the future), i.e. climate sensitivity, than, yes, I agree this is where the current debate lies. A great conference was just held on the subject of sensitivity. A lot of great information can be found at the Max-Planck Institute of Meterology.

However, I’ll point out again, that this is absolutely related to paleoclimatology. For example, if you want to say, “climate sensitivity (ECS) is likely about 1K. Therefore, future temperatures won’t be that high.”, you not only have to demonstrate how that value would be consistent with 20th century warming but, also and equally importantly, how it would explain past changes in climate. Beyond that, you’ll also need to explain how a low sensitivity planet lead to past mass extinctions. From what I’ve seen, you need an ECS of >2K to explain all this.

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting what you meant by it being a “red herring”, but paleoclimatology is absolutely relevant and extremely important to the current climate change debate. I hope we agree on that.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Quote (rconnor)

I think we need to be careful with some of the wording here. The “sudden” in your statement is on the order of thousands of years.

Not true at all. Ice cores are the best proxy we have for global climate shows rapid changes in global temperature during the Holocene.



Your claim that such changes only happen on the order of thousands of years is not supported by the evidence.

You are focusing on the poor proxy resolution in the distant past and assuming that such small decadal changes didn’t happen because we cant see them. But we know from earlier ice cores that such changes are quite common but we only have resolution to see them in the Holocene past that the ice is too compressed.

You seem to live and breathe in this lack of data environment where absence of evidence is evidence of absence. We know that rapid changes occurred in the Holocene ice core resolution therefore it is safe to assume that such rapid changes occurred earlier in the record. We however lack the resolution to see them but that does not mean that they did not happen.

Quote (rconnor)

I disagree. The mechanism of past changes in climate is fairly well understood. It goes something like this (for deglaciation):

Such an absolutist statement, much of your following claim is pure speculation.

Quote (rconnor)

1. Orbital variations increase summer insolation at higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e. the North Pole points towards the sun more, see Richard Alley (comically) explain Milankovitch cycles (he’s a delightfully kooky guy)). This is fairly weak change in forcing but it leads to a series of climatic changes…

This is the only solid evidence based part of your post. I hope everyone notices that it’s the only part that rconnor actually supported. The reason for this is it’s the only party that is supportable with hard evidence.

After this small truth rconnor goes off into pure speculation hoping that the initial truth will trick people into thinking that the following speculation is just as supported fact. This is a classic propaganda technique and has no place in science.

Quote (rconnor)

2.The increase in Arctic and Northern Hemisphere summer insolation causes the rate and extent of ice sheet melt to increase
3. North Atlantic deep water formation is inhibited by this freshwater runoff
4. Thermohaline circulation is interrupted
5. Northern Hemisphere actually cools as the equator to pole heat transports weakens
6. Heat that use to transfer to the North, now works to warm Southern Hemisphere oceans
7. Southern Hemisphere warming releases large reservoirs of CO2 from deep water
8. Global CO2 concentrations increase which leads to global warming
9. Global warming release CH4 feedback and positive ice albedo feedback
10. Warming intensifies (note: this process takes thousands of years)
As the initial driver (Milankovitch cycles) is not strengthening and as you run out of ice to melt (to provide a positive feedback), the climate settles momentarily before the opposite cycle kicks it

Nice hypothesis, but its hardly a “fairly well understood” truth. It fits nicely with AGW but there is no evidence to support it and actually rather convincing evidence to refute it. I know that in alarmists circles this is taken as gospel but there is harldy any evidence to support it. Its pure speculation. If you believe that CO2 can drive warming of the atmosphere then this hypothesis makes sense and is true to you. But other than your absolute belief in AGW this hypothesis is an unsupported hypothesis. We need only look at the relationship between CO2 and temperature found in ice cores to see that your hypothesis holds no water.



Study it carefully. We can see that temperature actually follows inslolation not CO2. No look very closely. Your unprovable hypothesis is that early small warming leads to CO2 which drives the remainder of the warming. Look at the rest of the graph. There are multiple small peaks with CO2 jumps but no maintained warming. The atmosphere never runs away. There is no positive feedback or there would be multiple peaks not just 2. Your hypothesis is incorrect and largely circular.

You believe that CO2 drove the warming then because you believe that CO2 is driving the warming now. You believe that CO2 is driving the warming now because CO2 drove the warming then.

In the end the evidence you have is really your own self-reinforcing belief. We get it you believe strongly in AGW. But your quasi-religious belief is not evidence.

Quote (rconnor)

How so? It’s the same planet. You need a theory that explains past and current changes in climate. The mechanism can’t magically change (however, you do need them to magically change to make “competing” theories fit).

Let the logical fallacies begin, onus probandi, shifting the burden, argumentum ad ignorantiam, argument from ignorance, fallacy of a single cause. You watched too many Perry Mason shows as a kid. There is no logical requirement to offer a competing theory. The onus is on you to prove your theory not for someone else to prove another. Furthermore you don’t need one theory, fallacy of a single cause.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Cont


Again your belief that you do is just reinforced personal bias. You believe that AGW is the driver of global climate and is therefore the cause of all climate change. The evidence for your claim is your own belief.

Quote (rconnor)

Furthermore, the impacts of paleoclimate on biodiversity are extremely relevant. Major extinctions correspond to past (major) changes in climate (which is another reason I’m confused why the “it won’t be bad” crowd seem to also be a part of the “it’s changed before” crowd (which are part of the “it’s not caused by CO2” crowd)).

But as evidenced by the record the major extinctions are associated with rapid cooling not warming. Life booms during a warming. If anything AGW would maintain the warming we are enjoying longer and stave off the catastrophe that is associated with sudden cooling, they don’t call it the dark ages for nothing you know.

Quote (rconnor)

However, I’ll point out again, that this is absolutely related to paleoclimatology. For example, if you want to say, “climate sensitivity (ECS) is likely about 1K. Therefore, future temperatures won’t be that high.”, you not only have to demonstrate how that value would be consistent with 20th century warming but, also and equally importantly, how it would explain past changes in climate. Beyond that, you’ll also need to explain how a low sensitivity planet lead to past mass extinctions. From what I’ve seen, you need an ECS of >2K to explain all this.

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting what you meant by it being a “red herring”, but paleoclimatology is absolutely relevant and extremely important to the current climate change debate. I hope we agree on that.

Same fallacies used above. The onus is on you to prove your theory not require others to prove an alternative. You cannot begin at CO2 caused mass extinctions prove another reason. There are actually many competing theories about various mass extinctions. Your its all CO2 hypothethisis being a relative new comer backed more the religious fervor you display here rather than actual evidence.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

lacajun, sorry, I only partially answered your question. With regards to "What do GHG trends look like over that same span of time?" we can look at NOAA data from ice cores:


Of course the dating and exact values are only roughly accurate but it certainly illustrates a correlation between the two. A key question often asked is "so does CO2 lead or lag temperature?". The best science we have tells us the answer is both. This plays into your next question, "What drivers can be unquestionably identified for those trends?" (although, I think we need to replace "unquestionably identified" with "identified with the highest probability").

The natural CO2 cycle keeps atmospheric CO2 relatively constant. However, it doesn’t stay constant for very long (on geological scales). Disruptions to the natural CO2 cycle cause concentrations to increase or decrease. A common driver is Milankovitch cycles or massive geological events which cause an initial change in temperature which leads to changes in CO2 concentrations (see above for a bit more detail or Alley 2000). In this way, CO2 lags temperature.

However, the change in Arctic insolation from Milankovitch cycles is too weak to account for all warming seen. Despite the drivers initiating the change, it's the feedbacks (GHG, albedo, etc.) that are responsible for the majority of the change. CO2 increases the greenhouse effect and causes temperature to rise and therefore acts as a positive (warming) feedback. Not only does CO2 correlate well with temperature change but it causally explains the extent of the temperature change. The increase in temperature from increased CO2 leads to further feedbacks which increase the temperature even more (again, see above for some more details). In this way, CO2 leads temperature.

In the modern context, climate change does not correlate to Milankovitch cycles, solar activity or other geological events. It does, however, correlate with increases in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Applying the same principals and understanding from paleoclimatology, we get a very consistent picture. Increased levels of CO2 are increasing global temperatures. The increase in global temperature will have feedbacks (positive/warming and negative/cooling). Paleoclimate tells us that even with a weak initial driver, the earth’s climate sensitivity is high. Today, we have a moderately strong initial driver – anthropogenic CO2 emissions. As indicated by paleoclimate, even if we stop CO2 emissions today, the slow feedbacks will continue to warm the planet for decades or centuries.

As stated, the statement “it’s changed before” is actually an argument for the anthropogenic climate change theory, not against. “It’s changed before” tells us:
  • The earth’s climate sensitivity is high (or at least non-negligible),
  • CO2 concentrations, while not always the driver, play an important role in the Earth’s temperature, and
  • Changes in global temperature lead to drastic changes in biology, usually involving mass extinctions.
So, you’ve brought up many important questions that are central to climate science. Thank you for bringing them up. Understanding paleoclimate (or how “it’s changed before”) is essential to understanding modern climate change.

(Amidst honest efforts to ask questions and explain the science, we have some attempts to use misinformation to muddy the waters. Such is the case with these discussions. For anyone new, I’m not bothering with such comments. However, if you’re curious about the validity of the points made about GISP2, see this response by Richard Alley. I’ll note that Richard Alley is one of the primary scientists responsible for GISP2 data. It would seem he’d have a pretty good grasp on what it actually shows. Using the absolute measurement of a single record says nothing about global temperatures (ex. follow the absolute temperature of your home town and see how it maps to global averages). Beyond that, even if the data were relevant to global temperatures, the image incorrectly assume “present” in the GISP2 data is 2000, it’s not. It’s 1950. The first data point in GISP2 is 95 years before “present”, so 1855. The image, therefore, ignores the last 150 years of warming. This is the trouble that comes from taking some random bloggers opinion on the data rather than the climate scientists in charge of the data’s take on it. The remainder of the post just gets worse.)

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

rconnor, I will investigate some of your sources.

Yellowstone's big magma layer

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

What sources? His onlysubstantive point is that Milankovitch cycles aline aren't enough . Which 8s sourced with a blanket link to a genetic NCDC page. He then runs off j to a lot of speculation about positive CO2 feedback filling in the difference. He has no evidence to support this. It's pure speculation there is no evidence to prove itwhile there is some to refute ir. There are plenty of incidences in the record of a substantial CO2 rise but no positive feedback.

You have to learn with rconnor'ss posts there is a lot of eyewash but the supporting evidence for his underlying claim is always weak. His sources are to tangential points I'm order to fool the reader into thinking that his underlying thesis is more supported than it actually is.

His thesis in this case 8s s positive CO2 feedback driving the warming. He supports this with absolutely nothing. The evidence isn't there. Nor will it ever exist. If he were to provide a source it would just be more speculation from some academic and/oor a model.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

2
GTTofAK, I understand from whence you write. I also try to understand from whence rconnor writes. As an engineer, albeit an old and outdated one, I am quite capable of independent thought still. However, some closest to me would probably debate that point and have me in hospice or the dementia ward. As an EE, too, I understand and still remember leading and lagging concepts from inductors and capacitors.

rconnor posted links and those are the sources I referenced. If they do not lead to peer reviewed papers by reputable, qualified people, it is up to me to determine my thoughts.

I know what I think. I am curious, to a minor degree, about the thoughts of both sides and what drives them. It is interesting to me, as a woman that has spent most of my life traveling to the Gulf of Mexico. My uncle had a front row beach house on Holly Beach and I have memories watching the rigs' lights appear and disappear with the rolling waves at night. I've seen other coastlines, too. At 55, my thoughts are, in part, shaped by those experiences. As a kid, the tide came in under the house and, further, crossed the road behind it quite often. The only thing that changed how far the tide came in were cement breaks along the coastline. I had not seen the waterline so far out and the tide remain so far out.

FYI, I am skeptical of man caused global warming and the catastrophes awaiting civilization for many reasons. But that does not stem curiosity nor should it, in my mind. I do not want to be smug and closed off to others and what they think and why, for the most part. Boundaries are sometimes needed.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

Lacajun, I agree with your perspective, and I can see if even if carbon dioxide is not a problem now, that it can potentially become one.

To this end I have asked many times for options other than the media hyped taxes, public transportation, solar power, ect. I don't get much for answers.

I just don't get why the only answers we see appear to be some of the most disruptive technology. That we must destroy what we have to make improvments.

But from the lack of other options, I am concluding this not real. That the solutions being brought forth are political in nature, and make someone money.
This is in addition to the fact that those who are pushing this are also the same ones not following there recommendations.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

lacajun, I really enjoyed that post. Many great points that are so refreshing to hear. That is a great attitude, not just for the climate change debate, but life in general. It's true skepticism, which I mean in the most complimentary way.

RE: The Impact of "Small" Volcanic Eruptions on Earth's Climate

"I just don't get why the only answers we see appear to be some of the most disruptive technology. That we must destroy what we have to make improvments. "

Really? I think the answer should be pretty clear; the low hanging fruit are usually already harvested, or overcome. Had we not been arguing about this for the last several decades, there might have be non-disruptive solutions and a gradual phasing away from the problem children. But, those on the other side have either blown it off, or gone out their way to make our dependence on carbon-based approaches even stronger. The current low oil prices and gas boom makes it even less likely that we switch away, so at the tipping point, assuming that's still in the future, we're going to have to go cold turkey, because all the gradual, phased solutions will not produce results fast enough or drastic enough. At some point in the past, solar and wind power could potentially have gotten farther, but the ROI was simply not there, and for a financially driven environment, that meant building more and expanding coal and gas generation facilities.

This is very analogous to the seat belt situation. Seat belts had been in existence for 50 years, but until a federal law made it a crime to not wear a seat belt, a large percentage of people wouldn't. So, yes we had disruptively create a crime to get the benefits of seat belt protection.

TTFN
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