[Global Change: 3815] Climate Risk Policy for Sceptics

[Robert I Ellison]

Climate Risk Policy for Sceptics

Beyond a couple of simple physical fundamentals of climate change –
that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human beings are
changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere – there are variations
in climate from the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic
Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the El Niño Southern
Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
Peer reviewed scientific literature says that these natural variations
may result in no global warming for another decade at least. It
happened last century. Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking
off at the end of the 2nd World War, global surface temperatures fell
from 1945 to 1976. Imagine what no warming for another 10 years will
do to the politics of climate change, when already most of the world
has fallen by default into the sceptic camp.

Just before opening the champagne bottles, think about the idea that
humans are changing the composition of the atmosphere. If it is
impossible to disentangle human impacts from natural variation – it is
impossible to be definitive about climate risk. But it cuts both
ways. If we can’t define the risk we cannot eliminate it either. If
there is a 1 in 100, 1000 or even 1,000,000 chance of dire
consequences to the planetary life support system we must make the
decision to change the behaviour and eliminate the risk.

Some insist that we can use computer models to disentangle climate
impacts. Climate models use the same Navier-Stokes partial
differential equations of fluid motion that Edward Lorenz used in his
1960’s convection model to discover the third great idea of 20th
Century physics, after relativity and quantum mechanics, of chaos
theory. So the models are chaotic in their essence. There is no
discrete answer within the bounds of plausible initial and boundary
conditions. Modellers make a large number of runs that produce
radically different answers and then subjectively choose one for
public consumption. This is fully understood in the modelling
community – but not much appreciated in the wider world.

The IPCC characterise weather as chaotic in the sense of chaos
theory. Small changes in initial conditions cause changes in the way
the complex components of the system interact and result in the large
changes to the system. A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil causing
a tornado in Texas. Climate, however, is seen by the IPCC as an
average of weather – the unstated underlying assumption is that the
climate is not a complex and dynamic (chaotic) system and that there
is therefore an average climate state. This assumption can’t be
supported by any observation of climate. Real climate changes are
abrupt, nonlinear and bound to, according to the US National Academy
of Science, produce inevitable surprises.

Despite, rather than because of the nightmare scenarios of the self
proclaimed socially progressive, action must be taken to rein in human
emissions of greenhouse gases. Given the diversity of technological
approaches to the problem – a global aspirational goal of net zero
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, without higher energy costs, lower
growth and greater restraint on human development, is possible. Such
a goal contrasts starkly with the economics of scarcity championed by
progressives – who in effect wish to progress backwards. It involves
more global, public funding of research and development – in
technologies that serve rather then diminish legitimate human
development goals - and far less subsidising the distribution of
energy technologies that will never be low cost. The aspirational
amongst us believe in a better future for humanity – the enduring
dream of the technological age. A global goal of zero net emissions
by 2050 is an affirmation of the human capacity for change, adaptation
and innovation.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[sploo.laroo]

Despite my progressive tendencies (rather than because of them), I'm
more or less with you for the first four paragraphs (ignoring a few

Post by Robert I Ellison
Given the diversity of technological
approaches to the problem – a global aspirational goal of net zero
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, without higher energy costs, lower
growth and greater restraint on human development, is possible ...
It involves
more global, public funding of research and development – in
technologies that serve rather then diminish legitimate human
development goals ...

Are you certain that the former will lead to the latter? Or are you
merely hoping that it is so?

-Eric
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Just last night on the New Inventors there was a printable solar cell
on thin sheet plastic – cheap as chips to produce as opposed to the
current generation of solar cells that depend on thick and rigid
silicon wafers. Fourth generation nuclear engines are a reality.
These are small reactors that burn nuclear waste from weapons and
earlier generation reactors or uranium and thorium, burn 97% of the
fuel as opposed to 3% in conventional reactors and produce waste that
is safe after hundreds of years rather than many thousands. They
can’t melt down, are factory sealed, delivered on the back of a truck,
placed in a concrete bunker (in case anyone wants to try blowing it up
with ANFO) and can supply cheap energy to 10,000 households at a
time. A really cheap source of energy changes the equation totally.
Coal and oil could then be kept for much more valuable purposes –
materials engineering especially. Hydrogen could be produced in
abundance and combined with carbon dioxide to form liquid fuels.
Garbage, algae and cellulose can be converted to fuel oil or
plastics. Technological development is occurring at an exponential
rate and we can increasingly bring this to bear on problems of
economic development. Cheap energy sources transform the prospects
for better health, a secure food supply and education for all of the
people of the world.

Out of a trillion government bucks - a few might go a to right place.
But innovation is what capitalism does best. It is not a hope but
business as usual. And if you want to be a social democrat and not
believe this - well I can't give a rat's arse.

Post by sploo.laroo
Despite my progressive tendencies (rather than because of them), I'm
more or less with you for the first four paragraphs (ignoring a few

Post by Robert I Ellison
Given the diversity of technological
approaches to the problem – a global aspirational goal of net zero
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, without higher energy costs, lower
growth and greater restraint on human development, is possible ...
It involves
more global, public funding of research and development – in
technologies that serve rather then diminish legitimate human
development goals ...

Are you certain that the former will lead to the latter? Or are you
merely hoping that it is so?
-Eric

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[David B. Benson]

...  Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking
off at the end of the 2nd World War, ...

Not so. CO2 concentration increases during the 1940s and 1950s are
amoung the lowest since before the 1880s.

After that, your misunderstandings multiply seemingly without end.

You are seriously embarassing yourself and ought to study before
offering comment.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Oh David - give it up

Loading Image...&imgrefurl=http://elmhcx9.elmhurst.edu/~chm/onlcourse/chm110/issues/issue197.html&h=348&w=479&sz=9&tbnid=FU-xbg0Q8vJawM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dco2%2Bin%2B%2Batmosphere&zoom=1&q=co2+in++atmosphere&hl=en&usg=__WMEV_DDiRBvO2nn3Iz8MgmOiy7c=&sa=X&ei=WsSRTKmAFs34cZ-omYMH&ved=0CCwQ9QEwAw

Are you objecting to a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050? Clearly
exceeding Australian Green Party policy? I don't know what I have done
wrong.

Shouldn't take risks with planetary life support systems? Doesn't
seem controversial.

Navier-Stokes partial differnential equation of fluid motion? Edward
Lorenz? Climate models? No that's right.

IPCC? Chaotic weather? Climate as average weather? No that's exactly
what they say.

The US National Academy of Sciences published a report called “Abrupt
Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises”. It is based both on
paleoclimatic proxy data and modern climate records and identifies
mechanisms and examples of abrupt climate change from ancient times to
the modern era. The definition of abrupt climate change is that small
initial changes in conditions result in large and sudden changes in
climate. Climate both past and present is chaotic based on
reconstructed and observed data. A numeric approach by Anastasios
Tsonis and colleagues used sea surface temperature and atmospheric
pressure records to identify abrupt climate changes in 1909, the mid
1940’s, the late 1970’s and 1998/2001. The 2007 study is called ‘A
new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’. The 2009 study,
“Has the climate recently shifted?’ was reported on realclimate
(‘climate science by real climate scientists’) in a blog entitled
‘Much ado about natural variation’. If climate is chaotic we are
likely to see another 10 years at least of more frequent La Niña,
resulting in flooding in Australia, and no increase in global surface
temperature. I might be wrong – but 20 plus years of no global
warming from 1998 is a big deal and will result in almost all people
falling into the sceptic camp by default.

You need to wake up and see which way the wind is blowing.

Cheers

wrote:> ...  Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking

off at the end of the 2nd World War, ...

Not so.  CO2 concentration increases during the 1940s and 1950s are
amoung the lowest since before the 1880s.
After that, your misunderstandings multiply seemingly without end.
You are seriously embarassing yourself and ought to study before
offering comment.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking
off at the end of the 2nd World War, global surface temperatures fell
from 1945 to 1976. Imagine what no warming for another 10 years will
do to the politics of climate change, when already most of the world
has fallen by default into the sceptic camp.

how about the 60's and 70's? Selectively quoting is not fair,
considered or reasonable.

Loading Image...&imgrefurl=http://www.our-energy.com/non_renewable_energy_sources.html&h=337&w=450&sz=15&tbnid=4SfS4uEgGlfJsM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcarbon%2Bdioxide%2Bin%2Bthe%2Batmosphere&zoom=1&q=carbon+dioxide+in+the+atmosphere&hl=en&usg=__T8OTkdNxcvpazpQBSrnLimXjZJA=&sa=X&ei=vOSRTOqSLo27ccb1wbUG&ved=0CDAQ9QEwBA

a meaningless comment and an insult just to muddy the waters -
typical

wrote:> ...  Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking

off at the end of the 2nd World War, ...

Not so.  CO2 concentration increases during the 1940s and 1950s are
amoung the lowest since before the 1880s.
After that, your misunderstandings multiply seemingly without end.
You are seriously embarassing yourself and ought to study before
offering comment.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Robert, you mention the increase in rate of CO2 emissions after WW II,
but fail to also consider the companion increase in the rate of
emissions of sulfates and other particulates, which tend to increase
albedo and thus cool the global climate. Why is that Robert? Are you
just ignorant of the science? Oh, now that the solar cycle has
started up again, temperatures appear to be going up again. The
melting of sea-ice over the Arctic Ocean this year is again producing
a near record loss, in spite of the short term cooling effects from
the particulate emissions from the fires in Russia...

E. S.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking
off at the end of the 2nd World War, global surface temperatures fell
from 1945 to 1976.  Imagine what no warming for another 10 years will
do to the politics of climate change, when already most of the world
has fallen by default into the sceptic camp.
how about the 60's and 70's?  Selectively quoting is not fair,
considered or reasonable.
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.our-energy.com/slik...
a meaningless comment and an insult just to muddy the waters -
typical

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

I think there are actually 2 sciences of climate – the science of
global warming and the science of abrupt climate change - and the 2
are mutually incompatible. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Changes (IPCC) defines weather as chaotic. Chaos theory is one of the
3 great ideas, along with relativity and quantum mechanics, of 20th
Century physics. The ideas are all counter intuitive but are based on
observation. In the case of chaos theory – Edward Lorenz in the
1960’s noticed that an odd thing happened when he changed the input of
his computer convection model slightly - the result of the calculation
changed by a lot. This led to identification of the butterfly effect
– poetically expressed as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil
causing a tornado in Texas – small initial changes causing dramatic
and abrupt shifts in complex and dynamic systems such as weather. It
is the reason why weather can’t be predicted beyond about a week.
Climate, on the other hand, is defined by the IPCC as the ‘average of
weather’. On average, if a little carbon is added to the atmosphere
the world will be a little warmer regardless of what the weather is
doing at any one time – global warming. Independently of the reality
or otherwise of an average climate - it should be noted that modern
climate models use the same partial differential equations of fluid
motion used by Lorenz. Climate models are themselves complex and
dynamic systems – small changes (well within the limits of
plausibility) in inputs produce radically different answers. What was
that result again?

The US National Academy of Sciences published a report called “Abrupt
Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises”. It is based both on
paleoclimatic proxy data and modern climate records and identifies
mechanisms and examples of abrupt climate change from ancient times to
the modern era. The definition of abrupt climate change is that small
initial changes in conditions result in large and sudden changes in
climate. Climate both past and present is chaotic based on
reconstructed and observed data. A numeric approach by Anastasios
Tsonis and colleagues used sea surface temperature and atmospheric
pressure records to identify abrupt climate changes in 1909, the mid
1940’s, the late 1970’s and 1998/2001. The 2007 study is called ‘A
new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’. The 2009 study,
“Has the climate recently shifted?’ was reported on realclimate
(‘climate science by real climate scientists’) in a blog entitled
‘Much ado about natural variation’. If climate is chaotic we are
likely to see another 10 years at least of more frequent La Niña,
resulting in flooding in Australia, and no increase in global surface
temperature. I might be wrong – but 20 plus years of no global
warming from 1998 is a big deal and will result in most people falling
into the sceptic camp by default. I think that 2010 is very unlikely
to be the warmest year on record given the big La Niña currently in
the central Pacific. Of course, climate may not be a complex and
dynamic system subject to the rules and mathematics of chaos theory –
and pig’s might fly.

The ideal integration of changes of atmospheric composition and cloud
cover on radiant flux balance is of course the satellite TOA data.
This indicates that cloud cover changes - associated with ENSO - is
the major cause of ocean and atmosphere warming in the satellite era.
CERES - Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System - since 1999 shows a
similar effect. The satellites actually show cooling in the LW. The
IPCC argues that the satellite record is inconsistent with surface
cloud observations. Which is not correct - at least for cloud in the
most important areas of the Pacific.

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-4-4-1.html

A quality of a cogent argument is called the completeness requirement
- a cogent argument should not omit relevant evidence. Of course I
understand about aerosols - not that anyone has much certainty about
the quantum of effects pre-satellite. But you assume that a partial
answer is the whole answer - i.e. the levelling off of sulphate
emissions is the whole explanation for mid century cooling. If you
look at ENSO variability - a chaotic system - and understand the
connection with cloud then a different but not exclusive explanation
emerges. Unless we understand the essentials of natural variability
we can't distinguish anthropogenic changes. That's a very basic
scientific requirement for a fuller understanding of the bigger
picture and not just bits and pieces randomly thrown into the mix and
presented as the complete solution. The confidence that we understand
everything in sufficient detail is the hubris of many post-modernist
scientists. They have forgotten the lessons of the past and this will
come back to their cost.

But I am concerned with the politics and economics more than the
science. I think that 2010 is very unlikely to be the warmest year on
record given the big La Niña currently in the central Pacific. The
solar cycle variation is about 0.1 degrees C. Interannual variation
due to ENSO is much greater and we are in a cool Pacific phase. Peer
reviewed science is suggesting that there might be a cooling influence
for a decade at least. I think they might be right and this has
implications for the trajectory of the public pressure for
decarbonisation of the economy.

So why am I arguing for carbon neutrality? Wally Broeker – formally
of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography – likens human carbon
emissions to poking a stick at an angry and unpredictable beast. We
might get away with it – but why take the risk if we don’t have to.

'Why is that Robert? Are you just ignorant of the science?' I am
very over idiots with misplaced and aggressively insulting confidence
in their command of the evidence.

Post by Eric Swanson
Robert, you mention the increase in rate of CO2 emissions after WW II,
but fail to also consider the companion increase in the rate of
emissions of sulfates and other particulates, which tend to increase
albedo and thus cool the global climate.  Why is that Robert?  Are you
just ignorant of the science?  Oh, now that the solar cycle has
started up again, temperatures appear to be going up again.  The
melting of sea-ice over the Arctic Ocean this year is again producing
a near record loss, in spite of the short term cooling effects from
the particulate emissions from the fires in Russia...
E. S.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking
off at the end of the 2nd World War, global surface temperatures fell
from 1945 to 1976.  Imagine what no warming for another 10 years will
do to the politics of climate change, when already most of the world
has fallen by default into the sceptic camp.
how about the 60's and 70's?  Selectively quoting is not fair,
considered or reasonable.
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.our-energy.com/slik...
a meaningless comment and an insult just to muddy the waters -
typical- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Robert, you sure are a funny guy. There's nothing in your reply about
my specific comment regarding your previous post. And, while we are
at it, climate as defined by the people who study climate is the
statistics of weather, not just the average. The average temperature
is usually considered over a period of about 30 years, which makes any
one year's variation (chaotic or otherwise) much less important. The
IPCC isn't the source of this definition, as it has been in use for
decades.

Those of us who may have read your rants before recognize your
obsession with the work of Tsonis, et al. Funny thing, it's been a
rather warm year in many locations around the world and this year is
already close to being a record warm one. Where did that cooling
trend go, you know, the one the denialist claim started in 1998?
Only 2 1/2 more months and the data will be in for 2010 and the sea-
ice extent is near the previous record low set in 2007. Of course,
you refuse to discuss any other explanations for the recent
variations, such as changes in the THC, a known factor in the climate
of the North Atlantic and the driver of much of the global overturning
circulation...

E. S.
-----------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
I think there are actually 2 sciences of climate – the science of
global warming and the science of abrupt climate change - and the 2
are mutually incompatible. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Changes (IPCC) defines weather as chaotic. Chaos theory is one of the
3 great ideas, along with relativity and quantum mechanics, of 20th
Century physics. The ideas are all counter intuitive but are based on
observation. In the case of chaos theory – Edward Lorenz in the
1960’s noticed that an odd thing happened when he changed the input of
his computer convection model slightly - the result of the calculation
changed by a lot. This led to identification of the butterfly effect
– poetically expressed as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil
causing a tornado in Texas – small initial changes causing dramatic
and abrupt shifts in complex and dynamic systems such as weather. It
is the reason why weather can’t be predicted beyond about a week.
Climate, on the other hand, is defined by the IPCC as the ‘average of
weather’. On average, if a little carbon is added to the atmosphere
the world will be a little warmer regardless of what the weather is
doing at any one time – global warming. Independently of the reality
or otherwise of an average climate - it should be noted that modern
climate models use the same partial differential equations of fluid
motion used by Lorenz. Climate models are themselves complex and
dynamic systems – small changes (well within the limits of
plausibility) in inputs produce radically different answers. What was
that result again?
The US National Academy of Sciences published a report called “Abrupt
Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises”. It is based both on
paleoclimatic proxy data and modern climate records and identifies
mechanisms and examples of abrupt climate change from ancient times to
the modern era. The definition of abrupt climate change is that small
initial changes in conditions result in large and sudden changes in
climate. Climate both past and present is chaotic based on
reconstructed and observed data. A numeric approach by Anastasios
Tsonis and colleagues used sea surface temperature and atmospheric
pressure records to identify abrupt climate changes in 1909, the mid
1940’s, the late 1970’s and 1998/2001. The 2007 study is called ‘A
new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’. The 2009 study,
“Has the climate recently shifted?’ was reported on realclimate
(‘climate science by real climate scientists’) in a blog entitled
‘Much ado about natural variation’. If climate is chaotic we are
likely to see another 10 years at least of more frequent La Niña,
resulting in flooding in Australia, and no increase in global surface
temperature. I might be wrong – but 20 plus years of no global
warming from 1998 is a big deal and will result in most people falling
into the sceptic camp by default. I think that 2010 is very unlikely
to be the warmest year on record given the big La Niña currently in
the central Pacific. Of course, climate may not be a complex and
dynamic system subject to the rules and mathematics of chaos theory –
and pig’s might fly.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[David B. Benson]

Post by Robert I Ellison
I think there are actually 2 sciences of climate – the science of
global warming and the science of abrupt climate change - and the 2
are mutually incompatible.

Nonsense, and the rest of the misunderstanding elided.
Here are the radiative forcings:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/NetF.txt
Study it.

Also, check decadal temperatures, NCDC has a fine graphic. NOtice
each decades's average global temperature has been going up for 30+
years. Also, but incidently, it looks like 2010 will be something
like 4th or 8th warmest on record. Also, I predict that the 2010s
will continue the decadal warmng, but you failed to understand even
something as simple as that.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[David B. Benson]

On Sep 16, 6:43 pm, "David B. Benson" <***@eecs.wsu.edu> wrote:
...
Well, maybe 2010 will be right up near the top for
global temperature:
"NASA reports hottest January to August on record"
http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/12/nasahottest-january-to-august-on-record/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Try this one for daily temps - and compare for at least this century -
heaps of fun. Unlike you guys. 2010 was trending to be the warmest
ever.

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

Have a look at this one - a very pretty picture - a big, big La Nina
in the central Pacific and a planet cooling off. Frigid, nutrient
rich and quite acidic water rising from the briny depths in the
Humboldt Current. I predict a huge increase in biological
productivity across the Pacific.

Loading Image...

I hesitate to link to Roy Spencer but it is the monthly data that is
most relevant to ENSO.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

Global temp peaked in July and can't go anywhere but down.

I just heard on the radio this morning that Arctic ice extent this
year was the third lowest.

You might tell Eric that the definition of climate as the average of
weather is the one the IPCC promotes.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-1-2.html

All your link does is show forcing increasing over the decades. So
what? There is not a scintilla of methodology. I am supposed to
accept this on faith?

All there here is a bogging down in detail that is approximate when
not totally misleading, totally uncalled for, but typical, taunts of
rants, accusation of failure to understand something as simple as that
the world is as warm as it has been for at least a thousand years,
bald decalaration of nonsense, a failure to discuss (elided) any of
the issues, accusations that I failed to respond when clearly I
discussed aerosols in the context of the logical requirement for
completeness in even a moderately cogent argument.

Overall - a lamentable failure to see the big picture.

'The ideal integration of changes of atmospheric composition and cloud
cover on radiant flux balance is of course the satellite TOA data.
This indicates that cloud cover changes - associated with ENSO - is
the major cause of ocean and atmosphere warming in the satellite era.
CERES - Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System - since 1999 shows a
similar effect. The satellites actually show cooling in the LW. The
IPCC argues that the satellite record is inconsistent with surface
cloud observations. Which is not correct - at least for cloud in the
most important areas of the Pacific.' Amy Clement and colleagues did
a fairly recent study collating cloud observations in the Pacific -
they called it a positive global warming feedback.

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-4-4-1.html

Study the NESDIS NOAA SST anomaly linked to above and combine it with
an understanding of the state of the ocean indices below - and you
might just get an appreciation of natural variation.

http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/

The world is full of fools and charlatans - defined here as post
modernist types who have forgotten in their hubris, or never ever
understood, the need for an appropriate intellectual openness and
modesty.

Post by David B. Benson
...
Well, maybe 2010 will be right up near the top for
"NASA reports hottest January to August on record"http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/12/nasahottest-january-to-august-o...

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Yes, it does look like a La Ninio is in the works. That's part of the
natural short term variability. In addition, that's why one needs to
look at longer time periods, instead of monthly data, such as you
point to from Spencer and Christy's web site. The AMSU temperatures
time series doesn't go back in time very far and there's some question
to me regarding the validity of Spencer & Christy's earlier work with
the MSU. After all, remember that I found an apparent discrepancy in
their data over the Antarctic. Christy and Spencer's method of
combining the AMSU with the MSU data requires a model, which only adds
another source of possible error. Even Roy Spencer admits that there
is a Greenhouse Effect:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-2010-controversial-greenhouse-theory/

As for the IPCC's definition of climate, they rely on earlier work.
To quote from your link, they mention the "statistics of weather", as
did I:

"Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate
change and weather are intertwined. Observations can show that there
have been changes in weather, and it is the statistics of changes in
weather over time that identify climate change. While weather and
climate are closely related, there are important differences..."

Your comment about hubris applies to you as well, I think. Here's a
long blog post to show the problem:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/scientists-react-to-a-nobelists-climate-thoughts/

E. S.
.....................................

Post by Robert I Ellison
Try this one for daily temps - and compare for at least this century -
heaps of fun.  Unlike you guys.  2010 was trending to be the warmest
ever.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Have a look at this one -   a very pretty picture - a big, big La Nina
in the central Pacific and a planet cooling off.  Frigid, nutrient
rich and quite acidic water rising from the briny depths in the
Humboldt Current.  I predict a huge increase in biological
productivity across the Pacific.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.9.16.2010.gif

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison
Study the NESDIS NOAA SST anomaly linked to above and combine it with
an understanding of the state of the ocean indices below - and you
might just get an appreciation of natural variation.
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/
The world is full of fools and charlatans - defined here as post
modernist types who have forgotten in their hubris, or never ever
understood, the need for an appropriate intellectual openness and
modesty.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Miskolczi makes claim to certain fundamental physical laws - when you
look closely at this the physical laws claimed don't apply and the
formula are based only on empirical data that can't possibly be
accurate enough to demonstrate Miskolczi's claims. This is what
Spencer was saying. I did start with certain physical fundamentals
also - 'that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human beings
are changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere'. Sceptic love
Miskolczi beca

All of the satellite records have very significant problems -
calibration, drift, orbital decay, equipment failure, space shuttle
disasters etc.

My point is for ENSO - the monthly record is the most relevant - the
satellites are now achieving some consistency. Did you have a look at
the daily record? Good for looking at annual trends. Horses for
courses.

ENSO is not just a short term variation - it is, statistically, non-
gaussian and non-stationary. It varies over decadal timescales and
longer - and is driven in part by the Antarctic circumpolar current.
Which is influenced by the top down UV changes identified by Lockwood
et al in the other research linked to. ENSO drives changes in cloud
cover and global T - see the ERBS and ISCCP TOA flux. It seems a
matter of SST. Cold surface water promotes low level cloud formation
- which seems sensible.

Yes, it does look like a La Ninio is in the works.  That's part of the
natural short term variability.  In addition, that's why one needs to
look at longer time periods, instead of monthly data, such as you
point to from  Spencer and Christy's web site.  The AMSU temperatures
time series doesn't go back in time very far and there's some question
to me regarding the validity of Spencer & Christy's earlier work with
the MSU.  After all, remember that I found an apparent discrepancy in
their data over the Antarctic.  Christy and Spencer's method of
combining the AMSU with the MSU data requires a model, which only adds
another source of possible error.  Even Roy Spencer admits that there
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-2...
As for the IPCC's definition of climate, they rely on earlier work.
To quote from your link, they mention the "statistics of weather", as
"Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate
change and weather are intertwined. Observations can show that there
have been changes in weather, and it is the statistics of changes in
weather over time that identify climate change. While weather and
climate are closely related, there are important differences..."
Your comment about hubris applies to you as well, I think.  Here's a
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/scientists-react-to-a-no...
E. S.
.....................................

Post by Robert I Ellison
Try this one for daily temps - and compare for at least this century -
heaps of fun.  Unlike you guys.  2010 was trending to be the warmest
ever.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Have a look at this one -   a very pretty picture - a big, big La Nina
in the central Pacific and a planet cooling off.  Frigid, nutrient
rich and quite acidic water rising from the briny depths in the
Humboldt Current.  I predict a huge increase in biological
productivity across the Pacific.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.9.16.2010.gif

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison
Study the NESDIS NOAA SST anomaly linked to above and combine it with
an understanding of the state of the ocean indices below - and you
might just get an appreciation of natural variation.
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/
The world is full of fools and charlatans - defined here as post
modernist types who have forgotten in their hubris, or never ever
understood, the need for an appropriate intellectual openness and
modesty.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

I was thinking more Feynman than 'cultural cognition', or associatied
cognitive dissonance - central as they are to the human condition, the
'need to be right' and to will to impose that on others. Start with
identification of the enemy and end with genocide and totalitarian
repression.

'In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and
arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of humility, not always
with the lack of knowledge. An accusation of hubris often implies that
suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional pairing
of hubris and nemesis in the Greek world. The proverb "pride goes
before a fall" is thought to sum up the modern definition of hubris.
It is also referred to as "pride that blinds", as it often causes
someone accused of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common
sense.'

In a scientific context it applies to scientific conservatism - too
great a confidence in your conclusions and a failure to be open to
reflection and falsification - a resistance to and angry rejection of
new ideas. In a very modern sense it applies to misguided scientists
and greenies thinking that science gives them a casting vote on policy
and economics - and that any other idea is immoral, insane, ignorant
and self serving.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just
as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that
here and there.
Richard P. Feynman

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty
that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some
direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so
many times before in various periods in the history of man.
Richard P. Feynman

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the
easiest person to fool.
Richard P. Feynman

The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge
the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to
judgment in one particular direction or another.
Richard P. Feynman

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not
unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of
thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we
can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
Richard P. Feynman

Hubris is the assumption of truth - that some ideas have been so
conclusively validated that they are beyond criticism except by
uninformed rednecks. Let's take Newton as an example of assumption of
truth. Newtonian laws are a nice approximation - but they are not
exact. They fail at high velocities - they do not by any means
provide a complete explanation of relativistic space and time. I
think evolution is similar - works well enough in a Newtonian universe
- but might fall over if we ever understood the nature of time in a
relativistic universe.

Climate science is in this boat - if we start with a catalogue of what
we don't know, partially know, can't know and don't want to know -it
puts a severe limit on what is known. But people don't want to know
that. They have to fall back on logical positivism - which is the
antecedant of post modernism and relativism - because for reasons
involving the human condition we need to think we know what the future
holds. Is this the central objection to chaos theory? Populations,
economies, nervous systems, hearts and climate are all chaotic and
this doesn't bear thinking about?

All the people in your linked blog are still thinking in terms of
proximate cause and effect. Newtoniam thinking in a chaotic
universe. If I say that this categorically and emphatically isn't
right and you are a fool for believing it - it is an example of
hubris. If I say that climate might not be a complex and dynamic
system - and pigs might fly - it leaves open the door to truth.

Yes, it does look like a La Ninio is in the works.  That's part of the
natural short term variability.  In addition, that's why one needs to
look at longer time periods, instead of monthly data, such as you
point to from  Spencer and Christy's web site.  The AMSU temperatures
time series doesn't go back in time very far and there's some question
to me regarding the validity of Spencer & Christy's earlier work with
the MSU.  After all, remember that I found an apparent discrepancy in
their data over the Antarctic.  Christy and Spencer's method of
combining the AMSU with the MSU data requires a model, which only adds
another source of possible error.  Even Roy Spencer admits that there
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-2...
As for the IPCC's definition of climate, they rely on earlier work.
To quote from your link, they mention the "statistics of weather", as
"Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate
change and weather are intertwined. Observations can show that there
have been changes in weather, and it is the statistics of changes in
weather over time that identify climate change. While weather and
climate are closely related, there are important differences..."
Your comment about hubris applies to you as well, I think.  Here's a
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/scientists-react-to-a-no...
E. S.
.....................................

Post by Robert I Ellison
Try this one for daily temps - and compare for at least this century -
heaps of fun.  Unlike you guys.  2010 was trending to be the warmest
ever.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Have a look at this one -   a very pretty picture - a big, big La Nina
in the central Pacific and a planet cooling off.  Frigid, nutrient
rich and quite acidic water rising from the briny depths in the
Humboldt Current.  I predict a huge increase in biological
productivity across the Pacific.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.9.16.2010.gif

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison
Study the NESDIS NOAA SST anomaly linked to above and combine it with
an understanding of the state of the ocean indices below - and you
might just get an appreciation of natural variation.
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/
The world is full of fools and charlatans - defined here as post
modernist types who have forgotten in their hubris, or never ever
understood, the need for an appropriate intellectual openness and
modesty.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Have you read James Hansen's book, "Storms of My Grandchildren"? If
he is even half right, then humanity may not survive much longer on
Earth, but will die out along with most of the rest of the planet.
Your use of chaos theory sounds like a great excuse to ignore Hansen's
warning, but what if he is right? Do you think it's really a good
idea to take that risk, especially since you are claiming that
humanity doesn't know enough to make a solid prediction of future
climate? Continuing with Business As Usual is a choice and there is a
risk that is associated with that choice. Your comment about "Hubris
is the assumption of truth" applies to the choice of BAU as well as
the choice to do those things which minimize CO2 emissions. Either
choice has consequences and without some effort to understand the
totality of the problem, it's impossible to make a rational decision.
Your knowledge and that of the policy makers may be limited, but the
scientists who study climate change are making their best efforts to
understand the situation. As you note, they may not have certainty,
but they have enough knowledge to set bounds on the range of likely
effects, since we know something about historical and paleo climate,
and that's what should be considered, now some hand waving claim that
everything is chaotic. Newtonian physics still works rather well in
many situations, in fact we used that level of physics to launch
satellites when I was working in the field...

E. S.
------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not
unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of
thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we
can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
Richard P. Feynman
Hubris is the assumption of truth -  that some ideas have been so
conclusively validated that they are beyond criticism except by
uninformed rednecks.  Let's take Newton as an example of assumption of
truth.  Newtonian laws are a nice approximation - but they are not
exact.  They fail at high velocities - they do not by any means
provide a complete explanation of relativistic space and time.  I
think evolution is similar - works well enough in a Newtonian universe
- but might fall over if we ever understood the nature of time in a
relativistic universe.
Climate science is in this boat - if we start with a catalogue of what
we don't know, partially know, can't know and don't want to know -it
puts a severe limit on what is known.  But people don't want to know
that.  They have to fall back on logical positivism - which is the
antecedant of post modernism and relativism - because for reasons
involving the human condition we need to think we know what the future
holds.  Is this the central objection to chaos theory?  Populations,
economies, nervous systems, hearts and climate are all chaotic and
this doesn't bear thinking about?
All the people in your linked blog are still thinking in terms of
proximate cause and effect.  Newtoniam thinking in a chaotic
universe.  If I say that this categorically and emphatically isn't
right and you are a fool for believing it - it is an example of
hubris.  If I say that climate might not be a complex and dynamic
system - and pigs might fly - it leaves open the door to truth.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Don't get me wrong - I love Newton. How about a 1st order
differential equation of global energy storage:

d(GES)/dt = Ein/s - Eout/s

Average energy in and energy out (at TOA) over a period is equal to
the rate of change of global energy storage - which is mostly in the
oceans. In CERES (Clouds and Earths Radiant Energy System) the planet
has warmed over the past decade for instance - Ein exceeeds Eout and
the rate of change in global energy storage is positive. Mostly,
however, in the short wave and because of changes in cloud cover. As
the current mega La Nina persists - cloud cover will increase and the
planet (oceans and atmosphere) cool a little.

This is my original quote in arguing for carbon neutrality by 2050 -
something that goes well beyond Green Party policy in Australia. and
something that is emphatically not going to happen through cap and
trade.

'Just before opening the champagne bottles, think about the idea that
humans are changing the composition of the atmosphere. If it is
impossible to disentangle human impacts from natural variation – it is
impossible to be definitive about climate risk. But it cuts both
ways. If we can’t define the risk we cannot eliminate it either. If
there is a 1 in 100, 1000 or even 1,000,000 chance - as shown in the
chaotic behaviour of paleoclimates - of dire consequences to the
planetary life support system we must make the decision to change the
behaviour and eliminate the risk.'

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make. Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively. I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.

The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation. I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking. If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat. Or is that a tuatology?

I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states. Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular. The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection. Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable. Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.

Have you read James Hansen's book, "Storms of My Grandchildren"?   If
he is even half right, then humanity may not survive much longer on
Earth, but will die out along with most of the rest of the planet.
Your use of chaos theory sounds like a great excuse to ignore Hansen's
warning, but what if he is right?  Do you think it's really a good
idea to take that risk, especially since you are claiming that
humanity doesn't know enough to make a solid prediction of future
climate?  Continuing with Business As Usual is a choice and there is a
risk that is associated with that choice. Your comment about "Hubris
is the assumption of truth" applies to the choice of BAU as well as
the choice to do those things which minimize CO2 emissions.  Either
choice has consequences and without some effort to understand the
totality of the problem, it's impossible to make a rational decision.
Your knowledge and that of the policy makers may be limited, but the
scientists who study climate change are making their best efforts to
understand the situation.  As you note, they may not have certainty,
but they have enough knowledge to set bounds on the range of likely
effects, since we know something about historical and paleo climate,
and that's what should be considered, now some hand waving claim that
everything is chaotic.  Newtonian physics still works rather well in
many situations, in fact we used that level of physics to launch
satellites when I was working in the field...
E. S.
------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not
unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of
thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we
can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
Richard P. Feynman
Hubris is the assumption of truth -  that some ideas have been so
conclusively validated that they are beyond criticism except by
uninformed rednecks.  Let's take Newton as an example of assumption of
truth.  Newtonian laws are a nice approximation - but they are not
exact.  They fail at high velocities - they do not by any means
provide a complete explanation of relativistic space and time.  I
think evolution is similar - works well enough in a Newtonian universe
- but might fall over if we ever understood the nature of time in a
relativistic universe.
Climate science is in this boat - if we start with a catalogue of what
we don't know, partially know, can't know and don't want to know -it
puts a severe limit on what is known.  But people don't want to know
that.  They have to fall back on logical positivism - which is the
antecedant of post modernism and relativism - because for reasons
involving the human condition we need to think we know what the future
holds.  Is this the central objection to chaos theory?  Populations,
economies, nervous systems, hearts and climate are all chaotic and
this doesn't bear thinking about?
All the people in your linked blog are still thinking in terms of
proximate cause and effect.  Newtoniam thinking in a chaotic
universe.  If I say that this categorically and emphatically isn't
right and you are a fool for believing it - it is an example of
hubris.  If I say that climate might not be a complex and dynamic
system - and pigs might fly - it leaves open the door to truth.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Of course the weather is chaotic on short time scales and small
dimensions. That's a fundamental characteristic of turbulent fluid
flow. Do you really think the people who have studied and who work in
the atmospheric sciences are unaware of this? Given this obvious
fact, the reality is that the climate in the past has changed rather
slowly and we have learned much about the reasons for the changes in
climate seen in the historical and paleo records. And, the skills of
the model builders have progressed to the extent that the models can
produce a very good simulation of past and present climate. That's
because the climate system is a highly dissipative system with energy
flowing thru it at a nearly constant rate. The energy storage within
the oceans is important, but much of the water in the oceans is
relatively isolated from the surface, therefore the thermal storage
changes very slowly (at present, of course).

I share your concern about abrupt climate change and from my
perspective, the most likely cause of those abrupt changes seen in the
record is the Thermohaline Circulation. I am on record pointing this
out in a comment to the US Climate Science Program. It would appear
that political influence resulted in such warnings being ignored.
Also, I know of no hard evidence which links ENSO and the abrupt
transitions which ended the Interglacials, leading to Ice Age
conditions. If you are really worried, why not provide us with a
link, you know, as in science? I think I see an indication that the
THC has weakened in the Greenland Sea in recent years, but I do not
have the tools, the money and the institutional associations needed to
provide hard proof. Oceanography is a very expensive science. I
can't even pay for a fishing boat.

BTW, if the rational choice were so easy to make, we would already
have made it.

E. S.
----------------------------------------------
On Sep 19, 5:09 am, Robert I Ellison <***@robertellison.com.au>
wrote:
[cut]

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make.  Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively.  I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.
The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation.  I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking.  If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat.  Or is that a tuatology?
I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states.  Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular.  The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection.  Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable.  Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Tom Adams]

This seems relavent:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-chaos-of-confusing-the-concepts.html

Post by Eric Swanson
Of course the weather is chaotic on short time scales and small
dimensions.  That's a fundamental characteristic of turbulent fluid
flow.  Do you really think the people who have studied and who work in
the atmospheric sciences are unaware of this?  Given this obvious
fact, the reality is that the climate in the past has changed rather
slowly and we have learned much about the reasons for the changes in
climate seen in the historical and paleo records.  And, the skills of
the model builders have progressed to the extent that the models can
produce a very good simulation of past and present climate.  That's
because the climate system is a highly dissipative system with energy
flowing thru it at a nearly constant rate.  The energy storage within
the oceans is important, but much of the water in the oceans is
relatively isolated from the surface, therefore the thermal storage
changes very slowly (at present, of course).
I share your concern about abrupt climate change and from my
perspective, the most likely cause of those abrupt changes seen in the
record is the Thermohaline Circulation. I am on record pointing this
out in a comment to the US Climate Science Program.  It would appear
that political influence resulted in such warnings being ignored.
Also, I know of no hard evidence which links ENSO and the abrupt
transitions which ended the Interglacials, leading to Ice Age
conditions.  If you are really worried, why not provide us with a
link, you know, as in science?  I think I see an indication that the
THC has weakened in the Greenland Sea in recent years, but I do not
have the tools, the money and the institutional associations needed to
provide hard proof.  Oceanography is a very expensive science.  I
can't even pay for a fishing boat.
BTW, if the rational choice were so easy to make, we would already
have made it.
E. S.
----------------------------------------------
[cut]

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make.  Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively.  I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.
The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation.  I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking.  If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat.  Or is that a tuatology?
I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states.  Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular.  The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection.  Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable.  Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/final.html

'As definitions of abrupt change are being refined, scientists
continue to pose hypotheses regarding mechanisms, but only a few of
these mechanisms have been tested using climate models. Even for one
of the best known abrupt change events, the Younger Dryas, neither the
global extent of temperature or precipitation change nor the
accompanying changes in ocean circulation and atmospheric trace gases
are well known. The next decade is sure to bring many new developments
on this topic.'

Post by Tom Adams
http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-chaos-of-confusing-the-concepts.html

Post by Eric Swanson
Of course the weather is chaotic on short time scales and small
dimensions.  That's a fundamental characteristic of turbulent fluid
flow.  Do you really think the people who have studied and who work in
the atmospheric sciences are unaware of this?  Given this obvious
fact, the reality is that the climate in the past has changed rather
slowly and we have learned much about the reasons for the changes in
climate seen in the historical and paleo records.  And, the skills of
the model builders have progressed to the extent that the models can
produce a very good simulation of past and present climate.  That's
because the climate system is a highly dissipative system with energy
flowing thru it at a nearly constant rate.  The energy storage within
the oceans is important, but much of the water in the oceans is
relatively isolated from the surface, therefore the thermal storage
changes very slowly (at present, of course).
I share your concern about abrupt climate change and from my
perspective, the most likely cause of those abrupt changes seen in the
record is the Thermohaline Circulation. I am on record pointing this
out in a comment to the US Climate Science Program.  It would appear
that political influence resulted in such warnings being ignored.
Also, I know of no hard evidence which links ENSO and the abrupt
transitions which ended the Interglacials, leading to Ice Age
conditions.  If you are really worried, why not provide us with a
link, you know, as in science?  I think I see an indication that the
THC has weakened in the Greenland Sea in recent years, but I do not
have the tools, the money and the institutional associations needed to
provide hard proof.  Oceanography is a very expensive science.  I
can't even pay for a fishing boat.
BTW, if the rational choice were so easy to make, we would already
have made it.
E. S.
----------------------------------------------
[cut]

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make.  Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively.  I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.
The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation.  I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking.  If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat.  Or is that a tuatology?
I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states.  Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular.  The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection.  Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable.  Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

It may be relevant but wrong. Try realclimate - and then read the
science.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/

Read this 2009 study - and most especially the original 2007 study -
"A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shift."

They identify climate shifts around 1910, the mid 1940's, the late
1970's and 1998/2001 from a numerical method involving ocean and
atmospheric indices - mirrowing the tracjectory of surface
temperature.

The US National Academy of Sciences identify abrupt climate change all
over the place.
'Modern climate records include abrupt changes that are smaller and
briefer than in paleoclimate records but show that abrupt climate
change is not restricted to the distant past.'
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=R1

Wikipedia is often a good place to start
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change

Post by Tom Adams
http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-chaos-of-confusing-the-concepts.html

Post by Eric Swanson
Of course the weather is chaotic on short time scales and small
dimensions.  That's a fundamental characteristic of turbulent fluid
flow.  Do you really think the people who have studied and who work in
the atmospheric sciences are unaware of this?  Given this obvious
fact, the reality is that the climate in the past has changed rather
slowly and we have learned much about the reasons for the changes in
climate seen in the historical and paleo records.  And, the skills of
the model builders have progressed to the extent that the models can
produce a very good simulation of past and present climate.  That's
because the climate system is a highly dissipative system with energy
flowing thru it at a nearly constant rate.  The energy storage within
the oceans is important, but much of the water in the oceans is
relatively isolated from the surface, therefore the thermal storage
changes very slowly (at present, of course).
I share your concern about abrupt climate change and from my
perspective, the most likely cause of those abrupt changes seen in the
record is the Thermohaline Circulation. I am on record pointing this
out in a comment to the US Climate Science Program.  It would appear
that political influence resulted in such warnings being ignored.
Also, I know of no hard evidence which links ENSO and the abrupt
transitions which ended the Interglacials, leading to Ice Age
conditions.  If you are really worried, why not provide us with a
link, you know, as in science?  I think I see an indication that the
THC has weakened in the Greenland Sea in recent years, but I do not
have the tools, the money and the institutional associations needed to
provide hard proof.  Oceanography is a very expensive science.  I
can't even pay for a fishing boat.
BTW, if the rational choice were so easy to make, we would already
have made it.
E. S.
----------------------------------------------
[cut]

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make.  Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively.  I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.
The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation.  I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking.  If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat.  Or is that a tuatology?
I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states.  Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular.  The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection.  Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable.  Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Climate related business reached $500 billion last year? The critical
early areas are conservation, efficiency and reducing carbon intensity
- all of which have been progressing solidly for decades.

Many energy sources - nuclear and other - are progressing rapidly on
the back of government subsidies. This would all be fine if it
weren't for the spectre of third world development. Social bloody
democrats worrying about China, India and Africa having a western
lifestyle. 4 bloody plaents down the drain and other nonsense. Stuff
it - a low cost source of energy is absolutely critical in bringing
along the world to reasonable standard of living.

Fo you take me for an idiot? You don't read anything I say. I gave
you the bloody IPCC definition of weather as chaotic and you waffle on
about me somehow thinking this is a surprise.

We barely know what ENSO was doing 400 years ago - what the hell has
this to do with glacials - and only well for the past 60. I am
talking about obvious abrupt change in the instrument record - in both
surface and ocean temperature. I referenced the US Nationl Academy of
Sciences - 'Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable surprises' which
discusses both paleoclimatic and modern changes. I referenced 2 among
many per reviewed studies - and you - and those that specifically and
numerically identify abrupt change in the instrumental record and as a
result of ENSO, the PDO, the NAO and the PNA - AND YOU UTTERLY MISS
THE POINT AGAIN and snidely suggest that I supply some science. As if
I have not.

Chaos is a caracteristic of complex and dynamic systems - such as
computer programs using the partial differential equations of fluid
motion. Skill of modellers for God's sake. They bifurcate - jump
into different states entirely with inputs within the realm of
plausibility - just as Edward Lorenz's 1960's convection model did.
Then these skillfull modellers chose one result that seems about
right. If you don't understand this about models you understand
nothing at all.

'Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often
successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena,
dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature.
This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices
for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing
processes that introduce structural instability into the model.
Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in
quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly
formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several
empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate
forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically
designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant
irreducible imprecision.' The latter has not been undertaken at
all.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full

Do you comprehends nothing at all and simply respond with platitudes?
Energy flowing at a nearly constant rate? Ocean heat storage changes
very slowly? Neither of these statements mean anything at all. Of
course ocean temperature change according to the energy imbalance of
the planet - a matter of conservation of energy - don't you understand
my differential equation? The oceans are heated strongly at the
surface by SW radiation (a 100 odd metre deep warm surface layer) and
this interacts at many places with frigid sursurface conditions - both
with falling and rising water. But oceans have a heat storage
capacity a 1000 times that of the atmosphere - it is mostly at the
surface but it changes all the time.

You contradict yourself. Climate both evolves slowly and in the
second paragraph abruptly? There are lots of factors other than north
Atlantic THC - dust, cloud, ice and the entire bloody Southern
Hemisphere. Get your head out of your proverbial and read a litle
better, deeper and wider.

BTW - the 'transport index (bottom panel) estimates the strength of
the baroclinic gyre circulation in the North Atlantic, or the strength
of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current system. The units (Mtons
s-1) are within a few percent of the volumetric unit of transport
(Sverdrups = 106 m3s-1). It is calculated from the difference of the
potential energy anomalies (PEA) near Bermuda and in the Labrador
Basin (top two panels).

The evolution of the index from 1950 through 2000 shows a circulation
reducing through the low NAO period in the 1960s, then strengthening
during the period of persistently high NAO over the next 25 years,
reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. They found that the timing and
mechanisms associated with PEA changes in each gyre varied, and were
dependent on both locally and remotely-forced changes in the ocean
(see paper for details).'

http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php

I have provided this link previously as well - some of this is very
difficult science unlike my attempts at science communication. Do try
to pay attention.

Post by Eric Swanson
Of course the weather is chaotic on short time scales and small
dimensions.  That's a fundamental characteristic of turbulent fluid
flow.  Do you really think the people who have studied and who work in
the atmospheric sciences are unaware of this?  Given this obvious
fact, the reality is that the climate in the past has changed rather
slowly and we have learned much about the reasons for the changes in
climate seen in the historical and paleo records.  And, the skills of
the model builders have progressed to the extent that the models can
produce a very good simulation of past and present climate.  That's
because the climate system is a highly dissipative system with energy
flowing thru it at a nearly constant rate.  The energy storage within
the oceans is important, but much of the water in the oceans is
relatively isolated from the surface, therefore the thermal storage
changes very slowly (at present, of course).
I share your concern about abrupt climate change and from my
perspective, the most likely cause of those abrupt changes seen in the
record is the Thermohaline Circulation. I am on record pointing this
out in a comment to the US Climate Science Program.  It would appear
that political influence resulted in such warnings being ignored.
Also, I know of no hard evidence which links ENSO and the abrupt
transitions which ended the Interglacials, leading to Ice Age
conditions.  If you are really worried, why not provide us with a
link, you know, as in science?  I think I see an indication that the
THC has weakened in the Greenland Sea in recent years, but I do not
have the tools, the money and the institutional associations needed to
provide hard proof.  Oceanography is a very expensive science.  I
can't even pay for a fishing boat.
BTW, if the rational choice were so easy to make, we would already
have made it.
E. S.
----------------------------------------------
[cut]

It seems to me that the rational decision is easy to make.  Create the
market for low carbon technologies and business will respond
creatively.  I think that government investment in not even neccessary
- just the right social and cultural understanding sine qua non. The
difficulty is in using irrational predictions of the certainty of dire
outcomes for political engineering by social bloody democrats.
The problem with Hansen and the IPCC is that if they are wrong over
the next couple of decades - as I believe they most certainly are and
as suggested by peer reviewed literaure - everyone is going to end up
a sceptic and the impetus for decarbonisation is lost for at least a
generation.  I am arguing, perhaps forlornly, for action despite the
confluence of ideologically inspired and millenialist thinking.  If
there is immense uncertainty - why not admit to it and not take the
risk of being shown to be hopelessly wrong, muddleheaded, misguided
and a social democrat.  Or is that a tuatology?
I don't think you are understanding chaos as one of three great ideas,
along with relativity and quantum mechanics, in 20th Century physics.
Small initial changes propagating nonlinearly through a complex and
dynamic system and causing the system to jump between radicaly
different states.  Science can give us a correlation between UV and
cloud for instance - but the system involves changes in the
temperature of stratospheric ozone and consequential changes in sea
surface pressure at the poles in particular.  The system involves
planetary spin, surface and deep ocean currents, wind and cloud
feedbacks, wave propagation and refraction and reflection.  Climate is
theorectically determinant but practically incaluable.  Global warming
is certainly wrong - the more correct paradigm must be abrupt, and
perhaps dangerous, climate change.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Post by Robert I Ellison
Fo you take me for an idiot? You don't read anything I say. I gave
you the bloody IPCC definition of weather as chaotic and you waffle on
about me somehow thinking this is a surprise.

Actually, you wrote:
"... Climate, however, is seen by the IPCC as an
average of weather – the unstated underlying assumption is that the
climate is not a complex and dynamic (chaotic) system and that there
is therefore an average climate state..."

Post by Robert I Ellison
We barely know what ENSO was doing 400 years ago - what the hell has
this to do with glacials - and only well for the past 60.

Over the past 10,000 years or so, the paleo data shows that the global
average temperature has remained within a rather narrow band. Going
back further in time, to the LGM, the average temperature appears to
have been about 5-6C lower, i.e., not a great change. Of course, over
short time periods, within the past 10,000 years, there have been
episodes of variation in temperature, but there is also evidence that
these changes were the result of known impacts of events, such as
volcanic eruptions, which are EXTERNAL to the climate system. The
glacial-interglacial cycles are thought to be forced by EXTERNAL
variations in solar energy flows. Thus, when discussing the climate
system and the INTERNAL variation, one can not ascribe all the
variation to INTERNAL CHAOTIC processes. The abrupt changes of
greatest impact, such as the Younger-Dryas period, were due to
situations which do not exist today and thus can not be expected to
occur in the near term, if I understand the paleo data.

Post by Robert I Ellison
.....I am
talking about obvious abrupt change in the instrument record - in both
surface and ocean temperature. I referenced the US Nationl Academy of
Sciences - 'Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable surprises' which
discusses both paleoclimatic and modern changes. I referenced 2 among
many per reviewed studies - and you - and those that specifically and
numerically identify abrupt change in the instrumental record and as a
result of ENSO, the PDO, the NAO and the PNA - AND YOU UTTERLY MISS
THE POINT AGAIN and snidely suggest that I supply some science. As if
I have not.

[cut]
See above comment

Post by Robert I Ellison
Chaos is a caracteristic of complex and dynamic systems - such as
computer programs using the partial differential equations of fluid
motion. Skill of modellers for God's sake. They bifurcate - jump
into different states entirely with inputs within the realm of
plausibility - just as Edward Lorenz's 1960's convection model did.
Then these skillfull modellers chose one result that seems about
right. If you don't understand this about models you understand
nothing at all.

Except for the 8200 year BP event, I know of no example of a large
scale, abrupt change in global average temperature since the end of
the Y-D. And, again, both events appear to have been the result of
situations which do not exist today, that is, the flooding of the
North Atlantic and Nordic Seas due to the draining of large paleo
lakes formed as the glaciers retreated.

Post by Robert I Ellison
'Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often
successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena,
dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature.
This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices
for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing
processes that introduce structural instability into the model.
Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in
quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly
formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several
empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate
forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically
designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant
irreducible imprecision.' The latter has not been undertaken at
all.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
Do you comprehends nothing at all and simply respond with platitudes?
Energy flowing at a nearly constant rate? Ocean heat storage changes
very slowly? Neither of these statements mean anything at all. Of
course ocean temperature change according to the energy imbalance of
the planet - a matter of conservation of energy - don't you understand
my differential equation? The oceans are heated strongly at the
surface by SW radiation (a 100 odd metre deep warm surface layer) and
this interacts at many places with frigid sursurface conditions - both
with falling and rising water. But oceans have a heat storage
capacity a 1000 times that of the atmosphere - it is mostly at the
surface but it changes all the time.

Yes, the ocean's mixed layer is typically about 100 meters thick.
And, how did all that cold water below actually get there? Well, it's
formed by sinking of waters at high latitudes via the THC. The warmer
waters can not sink, due to their lower salt content and higher
temperatures, which result in a lower density.

Post by Robert I Ellison
You contradict yourself. Climate both evolves slowly and in the
second paragraph abruptly? There are lots of factors other than north
Atlantic THC - dust, cloud, ice and the entire bloody Southern
Hemisphere. Get your head out of your proverbial and read a litle
better, deeper and wider.

There is a component of the THC which acts around the Antarctic,
associated with the yearly advance and retreat of sea-ice. The
deepest waters of the Atlantic and Pacific are formed this way.

Post by Robert I Ellison
BTW - the 'transport index (bottom panel) estimates the strength of
the baroclinic gyre circulation in the North Atlantic, or the strength
of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current system. The units (Mtons
s-1) are within a few percent of the volumetric unit of transport
(Sverdrups = 106 m3s-1). It is calculated from the difference of the
potential energy anomalies (PEA) near Bermuda and in the Labrador
Basin (top two panels).
The evolution of the index from 1950 through 2000 shows a circulation
reducing through the low NAO period in the 1960s, then strengthening
during the period of persistently high NAO over the next 25 years,
reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. They found that the timing and
mechanisms associated with PEA changes in each gyre varied, and were
dependent on both locally and remotely-forced changes in the ocean
(see paper for details).'
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php
I have provided this link previously as well - some of this is very
difficult science unlike my attempts at science communication. Do try
to pay attention.

That index appears to describe the gyre circulation in the North
Atlantic Sub Polar Gyre, which has a strong wind driven component.
The Gulf Stream is a wind driven current, which feeds into the North
Atlantic Gyre. However, the THC appears to be located in the Nordic
and Labrador Seas, with some fraction also occurring in the Arctic
Ocean. this is not the same geographical location as the NA Sub Polar
Gyre.

I think you are missing the importance of the THC as a process of
longer time scales with results which appear to dominate the long term
record. There are also short term fluctuations in the THC, such as
that which may have resulted from the Great Salinity Anomaly, starting
in the early 1970's. During the early 1980's, there is evidence that
the THC sinking in the Greenland Sea ceased. I suggest that the
cooler winter conditions around the North Atlantic of that period may
have been the result. My perception (based on satellite evidence over
the last few years), is that the THC may have again weakened in the
Nordic Seas. The cause this time might be the known freshening of the
Nordic Seas as the sea-ice yearly melt has strengthened, allowing more
fresh water to enter the Greenland Sea thru the Fram Strait. That we
did experience a bit colder weather last winter in the Eastern US may
have been the result, but, sad to say, I can not point to any
acceptable proof.

E. S.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean potential
energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and subtropical
gyres. It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current. You don't bother reading anything do you?

Post by Eric Swanson

Fo you take me for an idiot? You don't read anything I say.  I gave
you the bloody IPCC definition of weather as chaotic and you waffle on
about me somehow thinking this is a surprise.

"... Climate, however, is seen by the IPCC as an
average of weather – the unstated underlying assumption is that the
climate is not a complex and dynamic (chaotic) system and that there
is therefore an average climate state..."

We barely know what ENSO was doing 400 years ago - what the hell has
this to do with glacials - and only well for the past 60.

Over the past 10,000 years or so, the paleo data shows that the global
average temperature has remained within a rather narrow band.  Going
back further in time, to the LGM, the average temperature appears to
have been about 5-6C lower, i.e., not a great change.  Of course, over
short time periods, within the past 10,000 years, there have been
episodes of variation in temperature, but there is also evidence that
these changes were the result of known impacts of events, such as
volcanic eruptions, which are EXTERNAL to the climate system.  The
glacial-interglacial cycles are thought to be forced by EXTERNAL
variations in solar energy flows.  Thus, when discussing the climate
system and the INTERNAL variation, one can not ascribe all the
variation to INTERNAL CHAOTIC processes.   The abrupt changes of
greatest impact, such as the Younger-Dryas period, were due to
situations which do not exist today and thus can not be expected to
occur in the near term, if I understand the paleo data.

.....I am
talking about obvious abrupt change in the instrument record - in both
surface and ocean temperature.  I referenced the US Nationl Academy of
Sciences - 'Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable surprises' which
discusses both paleoclimatic and modern changes. I referenced 2 among
many per reviewed studies - and you - and those that specifically and
numerically identify abrupt change in the instrumental record and as a
result of ENSO, the PDO, the NAO and the PNA - AND YOU UTTERLY MISS
THE POINT AGAIN and snidely suggest that I supply some science.  As if
I have not.

[cut]
See above comment

Chaos is a caracteristic of complex and dynamic systems - such as
computer programs using the partial differential equations of fluid
motion.  Skill of modellers for God's sake.  They bifurcate - jump
into different states entirely with inputs within the realm of
plausibility - just as Edward Lorenz's 1960's convection model did.
Then these skillfull modellers chose one result that seems about
right.  If you don't understand this about models you understand
nothing at all.

Except for the 8200 year BP event, I know of no example of a large
scale, abrupt change in global average temperature since the end of
the Y-D.  And, again, both events appear to have been the result of
situations which do not exist today, that is, the flooding of the
North Atlantic and Nordic Seas due to the draining of large paleo
lakes formed as the glaciers retreated.

'Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often
successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena,
dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature.
This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices
for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing
processes that introduce structural instability into the model.
Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in
quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly
formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several
empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate
forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically
designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant
irreducible imprecision.'  The latter has not been undertaken at
all.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
Do you comprehends nothing at all and simply respond with platitudes?
Energy flowing at a nearly constant rate? Ocean heat storage changes
very slowly?  Neither of these statements mean anything at all.  Of
course ocean temperature change according to the energy imbalance of
the planet - a matter of conservation of energy - don't you understand
my differential equation?  The oceans are heated strongly at the
surface by SW radiation (a 100 odd metre deep warm surface layer) and
this interacts at many places with frigid sursurface conditions - both
with falling and rising water.  But oceans have a heat storage
capacity a 1000 times that of the atmosphere - it is mostly at the
surface but it changes all the time.

Yes, the ocean's mixed layer is typically about 100 meters thick.
And, how did all that cold water below actually get there?  Well, it's
formed by sinking of waters at high latitudes via the THC.  The warmer
waters can not sink, due to their lower salt content and higher
temperatures, which result in a lower density.

You contradict yourself.  Climate both evolves slowly and in the
second paragraph abruptly?  There are lots of factors other than north
Atlantic THC - dust, cloud, ice and the entire bloody Southern
Hemisphere.  Get your head out of your proverbial and read a litle
better, deeper and wider.

There is a component of the THC which acts around the Antarctic,
associated with the yearly advance and retreat of sea-ice.  The
deepest waters of the Atlantic and Pacific are formed this way.

BTW - the 'transport index (bottom panel) estimates the strength of
the baroclinic gyre circulation in the North Atlantic, or the strength
of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current system. The units (Mtons
s-1) are within a few percent of the volumetric unit of transport
(Sverdrups = 106 m3s-1). It is calculated from the difference of the
potential energy anomalies (PEA) near Bermuda and in the Labrador
Basin (top two panels).
The evolution of the index from 1950 through 2000 shows a circulation
reducing through the low NAO period in the 1960s, then strengthening
during the period of persistently high NAO over the next 25 years,
reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. They found that the timing and
mechanisms associated with PEA changes in each gyre varied, and were
dependent on both locally and remotely-forced changes in the ocean
(see paper for details).'
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php
I have provided this link previously as well - some of this is very
difficult science unlike my attempts at science communication.  Do try
to pay attention.

That index appears to describe the gyre circulation in the North
Atlantic Sub Polar Gyre, which has a strong wind driven component.
The Gulf Stream is a wind driven current, which feeds into the North
Atlantic Gyre.  However, the THC appears to be located in the Nordic
and Labrador Seas, with some fraction also occurring in the Arctic
Ocean.  this is not the same geographical location as the NA Sub Polar
Gyre.
I think you are missing the importance of the THC as a process of
longer time scales with results which appear to dominate the long term
record.  There are also short term fluctuations in the THC, such as
that which may have resulted from the Great Salinity Anomaly, starting
in the early 1970's.  During the early 1980's, there is evidence that
the THC sinking in the Greenland Sea ceased.  I suggest that the
cooler winter conditions around the North Atlantic of that period may
have been the result.  My perception (based on satellite evidence over
the last few years), is that the THC may have again weakened in the
Nordic Seas.  The cause this time might be the known freshening of the
Nordic Seas as the sea-ice yearly melt has strengthened, allowing more
fresh water to enter the Greenland Sea thru the Fram Strait.  That we
did experience a bit colder weather last winter in the Eastern US may
have been the result, but, sad to say, I can not point to any
acceptable proof.
E. S.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

Post by Robert I Ellison
The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean potential
energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and subtropical
gyres. It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current. You don't bother reading anything do you?

Those currents are generally horizontal surface currents and, while
their strength and path do influence the weather around the North
Atlantic basin, they are not the same as the THC. The THC is the link
between the surface and the deepest portions of the world's oceans.
The THC is the cause of the cold temperatures and high salinities of
the deep layers. The paper you reference focuses on the currents
nearest the surface, the authors stating:

"As will be seen in the discussion of the subtropical gyre below, PEA
changes comprise components arising from density changes directly
forced by surface buoyancy flux and mixing (diabatic effects), and
those due to the main pycnocline moving (quasi-adiabatically) up and
down. In the Labrador Sea, convection is typically of order 1000 m but
can exceed 2000 m . A weak pycnocline separates the LSW from the
denser Nordic seas overflow waters but contributes very little through
vertical movement to PEA variability..."

Please notice the reference to "denser Nordic Seas overflow waters".
Those waters are formed by the THC process in the Arctic
Mediterranean. Don't you understand anything I write?

E. S.
---------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
Fo you take me for an idiot?

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
Do you comprehends nothing at all and simply respond with platitudes?
Energy flowing at a nearly constant rate? Ocean heat storage changes
very slowly?  Neither of these statements mean anything at all.  Of
course ocean temperature change according to the energy imbalance of
the planet - a matter of conservation of energy - don't you understand
my differential equation?  The oceans are heated strongly at the
surface by SW radiation (a 100 odd metre deep warm surface layer) and
this interacts at many places with frigid sursurface conditions - both
with falling and rising water.  But oceans have a heat storage
capacity a 1000 times that of the atmosphere - it is mostly at the
surface but it changes all the time.

Yes, the ocean's mixed layer is typically about 100 meters thick.
And, how did all that cold water below actually get there?  Well, it's
formed by sinking of waters at high latitudes via the THC.  The warmer
waters can not sink, due to their lower salt content and higher
temperatures, which result in a lower density.

Post by Robert I Ellison
BTW - the 'transport index (bottom panel) estimates the strength of
the baroclinic gyre circulation in the North Atlantic, or the strength
of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current system. The units (Mtons
s-1) are within a few percent of the volumetric unit of transport
(Sverdrups = 106 m3s-1). It is calculated from the difference of the
potential energy anomalies (PEA) near Bermuda and in the Labrador
Basin (top two panels).
The evolution of the index from 1950 through 2000 shows a circulation
reducing through the low NAO period in the 1960s, then strengthening
during the period of persistently high NAO over the next 25 years,
reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. They found that the timing and
mechanisms associated with PEA changes in each gyre varied, and were
dependent on both locally and remotely-forced changes in the ocean
(see paper for details).'

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
I have provided this link previously as well - some of this is very
difficult science unlike my attempts at science communication.  Do try
to pay attention.

That index appears to describe the gyre circulation in the North
Atlantic Sub Polar Gyre, which has a strong wind driven component.
The Gulf Stream is a wind driven current, which feeds into the North
Atlantic Gyre.  However, the THC appears to be located in the Nordic
and Labrador Seas, with some fraction also occurring in the Arctic
Ocean.  this is not the same geographical location as the NA Sub Polar
Gyre.
I think you are missing the importance of the THC as a process of
longer time scales with results which appear to dominate the long term
record.  There are also short term fluctuations in the THC, such as
that which may have resulted from the Great Salinity Anomaly, starting
in the early 1970's.  During the early 1980's, there is evidence that
the THC sinking in the Greenland Sea ceased.  I suggest that the
cooler winter conditions around the North Atlantic of that period may
have been the result.  My perception (based on satellite evidence over
the last few years), is that the THC may have again weakened in the
Nordic Seas.  The cause this time might be the known freshening of the
Nordic Seas as the sea-ice yearly melt has strengthened, allowing more
fresh water to enter the Greenland Sea thru the Fram Strait.  That we
did experience a bit colder weather last winter in the Eastern US may
have been the result, but, sad to say, I can not point to any
acceptable proof.
E. S.-

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[David B. Benson]

The abstract of
Zaliapin, I. and Ghil, M.:
Another look at climate sensitivity,
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 17, 113-122,
doi:10.5194/npg-17-113-2010.
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/17/113/2010/npg-17-113-2010.html
appears relevant to this discussion
(if we can call it that).
[Thanks to Chris Colose]
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

The Royal Society Climate change: a summary of the science I September
2010

'In principle, changes in climate on a wide range of timescales can
also arise from variations within the climate system due to, for
example, interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere; in this
document, this is referred to as “internal climate variability”. Such
internal variability can occur because the climate is an example of a
chaotic system: one that can exhibit complex unpredictable internal
variations even in the absence of the climate forcings discussed in
the previous paragraph.

http://the-eggs.org/bookreviews.php?id=55

'The readers of Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics are well aware that
the solutions to nonlinear deterministic-like equations governing
weather evolution are most probably chaotic in space and time: a small
scale truncation can in a finite time generate large-scale errors.
This behaviour has been conjectured precisely, for the prototypical
Navier-Stokes equations and is subject to a million-dollar Clay
Mathematics Millennium prize. Without awaiting this mathematical
conclusion, statistical theories of turbulence and corresponding
stochastic models are already in constant use in a wide range of fluid
mechanics applications.

The book “Stochastic Physics and Climate Modelling” edited by Palmer
and Williams (2010) pushes forward these ideas in an original manner
to the even more challenging and wider theme of climate change, which
has an estimated worth of one trillion dollars (Stern, 2006), as
recalled by the editors in their breathtaking preface. This book
indeed promotes the use of stochastic, or random, processes to
understand, model and predict our climate system, and in particular to
resolve the presently considerable uncertainty in global and regional
climate predictions.'

Irreducible imprecision in atmospheric and oceanic simulations James
C. McWilliams 2007 PNAS - http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full

'Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin
properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about
which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other
famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the
undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical
systems (Godel’stheorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms
due to excessive size of the calculation'.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009BAMS2712.1

'There is a delicate web of interactions among the different
components of the climate system. The interplay among the time scales
is quite intricate, as the fast atmosphere interacts with the slow
upper ocean and the even slower sea ice and deep-soil and groundwater
processes. Spatial scales are tightly connected too, as small-scale
cloud systems, for instance, affect the large-scale energy balance.
Furthermore, everything is connected by water in its various forms.
Water flows easily from place to place and exchanges energy with the
environment every time it changes phase. Evaporation, condensation,
freezing, and melting processes must be taken into account and
evaluated as accurately as possible. The past 40 years of climate
simulation have made it apparent that no shortcut is possible; every
process can and ultimately does affect climate and its variability and
change. It is not possible to ignore some components or some aspects
without paying the price of a gross loss of realism.'

The Navarra et al conclusion that

“Such models have become the central pillar of the quantitative
scientific approach to climate science because they allow us to
perform “crucial” experiments under the controlled conditions that
science demands”

Nonetheless, the real pursuit of science is in theory and
observation.

'In a truly nonlinear setting, indeterminacy in the size of the
response is observed only in the vicinity of tipping points. We show,
in fact, that small disturbances cannot result in a large-amplitude
response, unless the system is at or near such a point. We discuss
briefly how the distance to the bifurcation may be related to the
strength of Earth's ice-albedo feedback.' Your reference - it doesn't
mean that climate is linear - just that large change happens at
tipping points. Duh.

'EBMs exhibit two saddle-node bifurcations, more recently called
"tipping points," which give rise to three distinct steady-state
climates, two of which are stable. Such bistable behavior is,
furthermore, supported by results from more realistic, nonequilibrium
climate models.'

Neither the original or the original article is well founded in
observation - a 2 or 3 state model can't be compared with multiple
equilibria of the real climate system.

Loading Image... - you need to
include clouds in the delicate web of interactions.

I am seriously disturbed that don't think that this is a logical non
sequiter - from linear to nonlinear - but still you think it makes a
point?

Post by David B. Benson
The abstract of
Another look at climate sensitivity,
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 17, 113-122,
doi:10.5194/npg-17-113-2010.http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/17/113/2010/npg-17-113-2010.html
appears relevant to this discussion
(if we can call it that).
[Thanks to Chris Colose]

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

'There are three main processes that make the oceans circulate: tidal
forces, wind stress, and density differences. The density of sea water
is controlled by its temperature (thermo) and its salinity (haline),
and the circulation driven by density differences is thus called the
thermohaline circulation.

The Gulf Stream (and its extension, the North Atlantic Drift) bring
warm, salty water to the NE Atlantic, warming western Europe.
The water cools, mixes with cold water coming from the Arctic Ocean,
and becomes so dense that it sinks, both to the south and east of
Greenland.'

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/

'The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean
potential energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and
subtropical
gyres. It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current.'

http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php

I am not clear that you know what you are talking about - how do I
stand a hope?

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean potential
energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and subtropical
gyres.  It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current. You don't bother reading anything do you?

Those currents are generally horizontal surface currents and, while
their strength and path do influence the weather around the North
Atlantic basin, they are not the same as the THC.  The THC is the link
between the surface and the deepest portions of the world's oceans.
The THC is the cause of the cold temperatures and high salinities of
the deep layers.  The paper you reference focuses on  the currents
"As will be seen in the discussion of the subtropical gyre below, PEA
changes comprise components arising from density changes directly
forced by surface buoyancy flux and mixing (diabatic effects), and
those due to the main pycnocline moving (quasi-adiabatically) up and
down. In the Labrador Sea, convection is typically of order 1000 m but
can exceed 2000 m . A weak pycnocline separates the LSW from the
denser Nordic seas overflow waters but contributes very little through
vertical movement to PEA variability..."
Please notice the reference to "denser Nordic Seas overflow waters".
Those waters are formed by the THC process in the Arctic
Mediterranean.  Don't you understand anything I write?
E. S.
 ---------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
Fo you take me for an idiot?

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
Do you comprehends nothing at all and simply respond with platitudes?
Energy flowing at a nearly constant rate? Ocean heat storage changes
very slowly?  Neither of these statements mean anything at all.  Of
course ocean temperature change according to the energy imbalance of
the planet - a matter of conservation of energy - don't you understand
my differential equation?  The oceans are heated strongly at the
surface by SW radiation (a 100 odd metre deep warm surface layer) and
this interacts at many places with frigid sursurface conditions - both
with falling and rising water.  But oceans have a heat storage
capacity a 1000 times that of the atmosphere - it is mostly at the
surface but it changes all the time.

Yes, the ocean's mixed layer is typically about 100 meters thick.
And, how did all that cold water below actually get there?  Well, it's
formed by sinking of waters at high latitudes via the THC.  The warmer
waters can not sink, due to their lower salt content and higher
temperatures, which result in a lower density.

Post by Robert I Ellison
BTW - the 'transport index (bottom panel) estimates the strength of
the baroclinic gyre circulation in the North Atlantic, or the strength
of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current system. The units (Mtons
s-1) are within a few percent of the volumetric unit of transport
(Sverdrups = 106 m3s-1). It is calculated from the difference of the
potential energy anomalies (PEA) near Bermuda and in the Labrador
Basin (top two panels).
The evolution of the index from 1950 through 2000 shows a circulation
reducing through the low NAO period in the 1960s, then strengthening
during the period of persistently high NAO over the next 25 years,
reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. They found that the timing and
mechanisms associated with PEA changes in each gyre varied, and were
dependent on both locally and remotely-forced changes in the ocean
(see paper for details).'

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
I have provided this link previously as well - some of this is very
difficult science unlike my attempts at science communication.  Do try
to pay attention.

That index appears to describe the gyre circulation in the North
Atlantic Sub Polar Gyre, which has a strong wind driven component.
The Gulf Stream is a wind driven current, which feeds into the North
Atlantic Gyre.  However, the THC appears to be located in the Nordic
and Labrador Seas, with some fraction also occurring in the Arctic
Ocean.  this is not the same geographical location as the NA Sub Polar
Gyre.
I think you are missing the importance of the THC as a process of
longer time scales with results which appear to dominate the long term
record.  There are also short term fluctuations in the THC, such as
that which may have resulted from the Great Salinity Anomaly, starting
in the early 1970's.  During the early 1980's, there is evidence that
the THC sinking in the Greenland Sea ceased.  I suggest that the
cooler winter conditions around the North Atlantic of that period may
have been the result.  My perception (based on satellite evidence over
the last few years), is that the THC may have again weakened in the
Nordic Seas.  The cause this time might be the known freshening of the
Nordic Seas as the sea-ice yearly melt has strengthened, allowing more
fresh water to enter the Greenland Sea thru the Fram Strait.  That we
did experience a bit colder weather last winter in the Eastern US may
have been the result, but, sad to say, I can not point to any
acceptable proof.
E. S.-- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

After all this discussion, I doubt that you are interested in facts.
The Gulf Stream Current, which later branches with some flowing toward
the north as the North Atlantic Drift, is not the THC. That is to
say, the rate of flow as the THC is only a fraction of the rate of
flow in the Gulf Stream as that current moves away from the US coast
off North Carolina. The PEA transport index, which you continue to
reference, does not provide a measure the THC, only the currents which
flow closer to the surface. If you will look again at Curry and
McCartney (J. Phys. Oceanogr., 2001), the graphic of Figure 12 shows
the path of the currents and the Nordic Seas aren't even on the map!
Likewise, the depth of the strongest currents, such as shown in
Figures 4 and 10, is near the surface. The THC produces the deepest
flows and much of that originates in the Arctic Mediterranean, well to
the north. thus, the PEA does not measure the THC sinking.

Sorry, I think that it is YOU who still do not understand...

E. S.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
'There are three main processes that make the oceans circulate: tidal
forces, wind stress, and density differences. The density of sea water
is controlled by its temperature (thermo) and its salinity (haline),
and the circulation driven by density differences is thus called the
thermohaline circulation.
The Gulf Stream (and its extension, the North Atlantic Drift) bring
warm, salty water to the NE Atlantic, warming western Europe.
The water cools, mixes with cold water coming from the Arctic Ocean,
and becomes so dense that it sinks, both to the south and east of
Greenland.'
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/
'The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean
potential energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and
subtropical
gyres.  It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current.'
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php
I am not clear that you know what you are talking about - how do I
stand a hope?

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean potential
energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and subtropical
gyres.  It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current. You don't bother reading anything do you?

Those currents are generally horizontal surface currents and, while
their strength and path do influence the weather around the North
Atlantic basin, they are not the same as the THC.  The THC is the link
between the surface and the deepest portions of the world's oceans.
The THC is the cause of the cold temperatures and high salinities of
the deep layers.  The paper you reference focuses on  the currents
"As will be seen in the discussion of the subtropical gyre below, PEA
changes comprise components arising from density changes directly
forced by surface buoyancy flux and mixing (diabatic effects), and
those due to the main pycnocline moving (quasi-adiabatically) up and
down. In the Labrador Sea, convection is typically of order 1000 m but
can exceed 2000 m . A weak pycnocline separates the LSW from the
denser Nordic seas overflow waters but contributes very little through
vertical movement to PEA variability..."
Please notice the reference to "denser Nordic Seas overflow waters".
Those waters are formed by the THC process in the Arctic
Mediterranean.  Don't you understand anything I write?
E. S.
 ---------------------------------------

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

It is clearly the Bermuda-Labrador Transport Index whcich is based on
potential engergy anomalies (PEA) which gives an indication of the
strength of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift.

http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php

The Climatic Research - http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/ - has
some interesting and up to date graphics on both surface and deep
flows. To quote again - 'There are three main processes that make the
oceans circulate: tidal forces, wind stress, and density differences.
The density of sea water is controlled by its temperature (thermo) and
its salinity (haline), and the circulation driven by density
differences is thus called the thermohaline circulation.

The Gulf Stream (and its extension, the North Atlantic Drift) bring
warm, salty water to the NE Atlantic, warming western Europe.
The water cools, mixes with cold water coming from the Arctic
Ocean,and becomes so dense that it sinks, both to the south and east
of
Greenland.' That is fairly clear - note 'mixes with cold water coming
from the Arctic'.

Increasing salinity due to evaporation in the Gulf Stream as water
moves north - is an imporant aspect of thermo-haline circulation. The
strength of the Gulf Stream - and thus the volume of cooling salty
water in the North Atlantic and thus the volume of deep water
formation - is influenced by interannual to multi-decadal changes in
the North Atlantic Oscillation. Thermo-haline circulation is a to an
extent a self sustaining process as water moves north, sinks and flows
south again in the deep oceans. And you have to remember that they
are not 'streams' as such - but complex and turbulent hydrodynamic
flows.

You seem to be arguing that the Gulf Steam and associated North
Atlantic Drift is not involved in thermo-haline circulation dynamics.
I think you are just playing with words for your own reasons - not
showing good fath at all.

Post by Eric Swanson
After all this discussion, I doubt that you are interested in facts.
The Gulf Stream Current, which later branches with some flowing toward
the north as the North Atlantic Drift, is not the THC.  That is to
say, the rate of flow as the THC is only a fraction of the rate of
flow in the Gulf Stream as that current moves away from the US coast
off North Carolina.  The PEA transport index, which you continue to
reference, does not provide a measure the THC, only the currents which
flow closer to the surface.  If you will look again at Curry and
McCartney (J. Phys. Oceanogr., 2001), the graphic of Figure 12 shows
the path of the currents and the Nordic Seas aren't even on the map!
Likewise, the depth of the strongest currents, such as shown in
Figures 4 and 10, is near the surface.  The THC produces the deepest
flows and much of that originates in the Arctic Mediterranean, well to
the north.  thus, the PEA does not measure the THC sinking.
Sorry, I think that it is YOU who still do not understand...
E. S.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
'There are three main processes that make the oceans circulate: tidal
forces, wind stress, and density differences. The density of sea water
is controlled by its temperature (thermo) and its salinity (haline),
and the circulation driven by density differences is thus called the
thermohaline circulation.
The Gulf Stream (and its extension, the North Atlantic Drift) bring
warm, salty water to the NE Atlantic, warming western Europe.
The water cools, mixes with cold water coming from the Arctic Ocean,
and becomes so dense that it sinks, both to the south and east of
Greenland.'
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/
'The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean
potential energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and
subtropical
gyres.  It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current.'
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php
I am not clear that you know what you are talking about - how do I
stand a hope?

Post by Eric Swanson

Post by Robert I Ellison
The transport index is calculated as the difference in ocean potential
energy anomaly near the centers of the subpolar and subtropical
gyres.  It gives an indication of the strength of the Gulf Steam and
North Atlantic Current. You don't bother reading anything do you?

Those currents are generally horizontal surface currents and, while
their strength and path do influence the weather around the North
Atlantic basin, they are not the same as the THC.  The THC is the link
between the surface and the deepest portions of the world's oceans.
The THC is the cause of the cold temperatures and high salinities of
the deep layers.  The paper you reference focuses on  the currents
"As will be seen in the discussion of the subtropical gyre below, PEA
changes comprise components arising from density changes directly
forced by surface buoyancy flux and mixing (diabatic effects), and
those due to the main pycnocline moving (quasi-adiabatically) up and
down. In the Labrador Sea, convection is typically of order 1000 m but
can exceed 2000 m . A weak pycnocline separates the LSW from the
denser Nordic seas overflow waters but contributes very little through
vertical movement to PEA variability..."
Please notice the reference to "denser Nordic Seas overflow waters".
Those waters are formed by the THC process in the Arctic
Mediterranean.  Don't you understand anything I write?
E. S.
 ---------------------------------------- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Eric Swanson]

No, I'm saying that the THC happens in the Nordic Seas and the Arctic
Ocean, not the North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre. The Arctic
Mediterranean has that name because the deeper waters are connected
via the deep sill in the Fram Strait. Water which sinks in the Arctic
Ocean feeds the Greenland Sea via that deep trough. The flow of water
which becomes the THC is a small fraction of the Gulf Stream and
arises from waters which are of lower salinity than the water in the
Sub-Tropical Gyre. That's why the water must become very cold to
sink.

http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~ltalley/papers/2000s/wiley_talley_salinitypatterns.pdf

The models which have been used to study the THC suggest that sinking
can happen further south due to freshening of the Arctic
Mediterranean, thus cooling the climate around the Nordic Seas. That
does not mean that the Gulf Stream would stop, just that the location
of sinking would change. The PEA does not reflect the THC sinking,
only the major surface flow of the Gulf Stream, most of which turns
back toward the south and flows around the Sub-Tropical Gyre. Please
look at Figure 12 which I referenced in my last post.

Here's a later paper by Curry and Mauritzen to give you a more up-to-
date sense of what's happening:

"Dilution of the Northern North Atlantic Ocean in Recent Decades",
Science 17 June 2005: Vol. 308, pp. 1772 - 1774
DOI: 10.1126/science.1109477

E. S.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Robert I Ellison
It is clearly the Bermuda-Labrador Transport Index whcich is based on
potential engergy anomalies (PEA) which gives an indication of the
strength of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift.
http://ioc-goos-oopc.org/state_of_the_ocean/sub/berm_lab_trans.php
The Climatic Research -http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/- has
some interesting and up to date graphics on both surface and deep
flows

[cut]

Post by Robert I Ellison
You seem to be arguing that the Gulf Steam and associated North
Atlantic Drift is not involved in thermo-haline circulation dynamics.
I think you are just playing with words for your own reasons - not
showing good fath at all.

[cut]
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[David B. Benson]

...
We barely know what ENSO was doing 400 years ago ...

There is a good proxy for the past 10,000 years.

But I fear you have fallen into the fallacy of
reductionism. Instead, concentrate on longer
time scales. A good beginning is W.F.Ruddiman's
"Earth's Climate: Past and Future" with its fine
and simple exposition of relevant time scales;
decadal. centennial and millennial.

Then use some linear system theory to consider
the climate's response to the (approximately)
ramp function of additional forcing over the past
130+ years, a centennial scale.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange

[Robert I Ellison]

Accurate ENSO records more than a few decades old are rare - although
modern reinterpretations of the instrumental record might change this
somewhat.

Some proxies rely on tree or coral rings - biological - about 450
years max and not hugely accurate.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.1297/pdf

Other proxies rely on deposition in cores - see Figure 4 of the
following. It 'suggests' a change 5000 years BP - which is
interesting in terms changes of African rainfall. Please note the
language below - climate is by no means linear.

'This is a proxy record based on the distribution of inorganic clastic
laminae in a core retrieved from Lake Laguna Pallcacocha in Ecuador.
The laminae
are deposited during ENSO-driven episodes of alluvial deposition in
the Laguna Pallca10
cocha drainage basin. These laminae are mixed with dark-colored
organic-rich silt. The
surface of the core sections was scanned and the intensity of the red
color was used to
generate the proxy record. In general higher intensity values
correspond to El Ni˜no and
lower values to La Ni˜na. This record has been extensively analyzed
and recent results
(Moy et al., 2002; Tsonis, 2008) suggest a change in the dynamics at
around 3000 BC.
15 It appears that around that time a bifurcation occurred in the ENSO
system causing
the attractor of the underlying dynamical system to become higher
dimensional with
less stable behavior (Tsonis, 2008). As a consequence the system
switched from a
dynamics where the normal La Ni˜na condition was the dominant mode to
a dynamics
where El Ni˜nos became more frequent and stronger. Changes in boreal
summer in20
solation or slow changes in ocean dynamics (which are known to be
affected during
interglacial events) have been suggested as possible mechanisms for
this bifurcation
(Tsonis, 2008).'http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/6/801/2010/
cpd-6-801-2010-print.pdf

wrote:> ...

We barely know what ENSO was doing 400 years ago ...

There is a good proxy for the past 10,000 years.
But I fear you have fallen into the fallacy of
reductionism.  Instead, concentrate on longer
time scales.  A good beginning is W.F.Ruddiman's
"Earth's Climate: Past and Future" with its fine
and simple exposition of relevant time scales;
decadal. centennial and millennial.
Then use some linear system theory to consider
the climate's response to the (approximately)
ramp function of additional forcing over the past
130+ years, a centennial scale.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to ***@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to globalchange-***@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange