Global Climate Change Science News

[Seth]

Science
Researcher: Skeptical Climate Change Report Shut Down on Political, Not Scientific, Grounds
May. 16, 2014 1:36pm Zach Noble

The scientific community is all about asking rigorous questions and letting the facts speak for themselves — except, it seems, when it comes to climate change.

A study casting doubt on global warming fears was rejected by a prestigious journal on the grounds that it would be, as one reviewer wrote, “less than helpful” to the cause of climate change.

Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station in Montana. A study suggesting that greenhouse gases might not be as harmful as previously thought is causing a stir in the scientific community. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of the report’s five authors, told the Times of London his work was thrown out for political, not scientific, reasons.

“The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist,” Bengtsson said.

The study challenged the prevailing consensus about the atmosphere’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases, meaning carbon dioxide and other pollutants might not cause global temperatures to rise as rapidly as organizations like the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have argued.

Bengtsson and his colleagues submitted their study to the journal Environmental Research Letters, but were told it had been rejected during the peer-review process.

“(The study) is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate sceptics media side,” wrote one reviewer.

Bengtsson condemned the move as politically motivated.

“It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views,” Bengtsson said. “The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the (computer) models.”

He also noted the danger of implementing restrictive emissions regimes, like the Kyoto Protocol, on the basis on questionable science.

“If people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system,” Bengtsson said, “we must have much more solid information.”

[macdoc]

back to some science..instead of manufactured controversy

Emissions from forests influence very first stage of cloud formation
Date:
May 15, 2014
Source:
Carnegie Mellon University
Summary:
Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in present climate models. Much of the uncertainty surrounding clouds' effect on climate stems from the complexity of cloud formation. New research sheds light on new particle formation -- the very first step of cloud formation. The findings closely match observations in the atmosphere and can help make climate prediction models more accurate.

Clouds play a critical role in Earth's climate. Clouds also are the largest source of uncertainty in present climate models, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Much of the uncertainty surrounding clouds' effect on climate stems from the complexity of cloud formation.
New research from scientists at the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) experiment at CERN, including Carnegie Mellon University's Neil Donahue, sheds light on new-particle formation -- the very first step of cloud formation and a critical component of climate models. The findings, published in the May 16 issue of Science, closely match observations in the atmosphere and can help make climate prediction models more accurate.
Cloud droplets form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses onto tiny particles. These particles are emitted directly from natural sources or human activity, or they form from precursors emitted originally as gaseous pollutants. The transformation of gas molecules into clusters and then into particles, a process called nucleation, produces more than half of the particles that seed cloud formation around the world today. But the mechanisms underlying nucleation remain unclear. Although scientists have observed that the nucleation process nearly always involves sulfuric acid, sulfuric acid concentrations aren't high enough to explain the rate of new particle formation that occurs in the atmosphere. This new study uncovers an indispensable ingredient to the long sought-after cloud formation recipe -- highly oxidized organic compounds.

"Our measurements connect oxidized organics directly, and in detail, with the very first steps of new particle formation and growth," said Donahue, professor of chemistry, chemical engineering, engineering and public policy, and director of CMU's Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research. "We had no idea a year ago that this chemistry was happening. There's a whole branch of oxidation chemistry that we didn't really understand. It's an exciting time."
The air we breathe is chock-full of organic compounds, tiny liquid or solid particles that come from hundreds of sources including trees, volcanoes, cars, trucks and wood fires. Once they enter the atmosphere, these so-called organics start to change. In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, Donahue and colleagues showed conclusively that organic molecules given off by pine trees, called alpha-pinene, are chemically transformed multiple times in the highly oxidizing environment of the atmosphere. Additionally, other research, including from Donahue's lab, has suggested that such oxidized organics might take part in nucleation -- both in new particle formation and in their subsequent growth. Donahue and an international team of researchers with the CLOUD experiment at CERN set out to test that hypothesis.

The CLOUD project at CERN is a unique facility that allows scientists to reproduce a typical atmospheric setting inside of an essentially contaminant-free, stainless steel chamber. By performing experiments in the precisely controlled environment of the CLOUD chamber, the project's scientists can change the concentrations of chemicals involved in nucleation and then measure the rate at which new particles are created with extreme precision.
In the current work, the team filled the chamber with sulfur dioxide and pinnanediol (an oxidation product of alpha-pinene) and then generated hydroxyl radicals (the dominant oxidant in Earth's atmosphere). Then they watched the oxidation chemistry unfold. Using very high-resolution mass spectrometry, the scientists were able to observe particles growing from single, gaseous molecules to clusters of up to 10 molecules stuck together, as they grew molecule by molecule.
"It turns out that sulfuric acid and these oxidized organic compounds are unusually attracted to each other. This remarkably strong association may be a big part of why organics are really drawn to sulfuric acid under modern polluted conditions," Donahue said.

After confirming that oxidized organics are involved in the formation and growth of particles under atmospheric conditions, the scientists incorporated their findings into a global particle formation model. The fine-tuned model not only predicted nucleation rates more accurately but also predicted the increases and decreases of nucleation observed in field experiments over the course of a year, especially for measurements near forests. This latter test is a strong confirmation of the fundamental role of emissions from forests in the very first stage of cloud formation, and that the new work may have succeeded in modeling that influence.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 154136.htm

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27506349

Carbon loss from tropical forests 'underestimated'

The amount of carbon lost from tropical forests is being significantly underestimated, a new study reports.

Experts say that in addition to loss of trees, the degradation of trees by selective logging and fires causes large amounts of "hidden" emissions.

The slow moving process has remained almost invisible to satellite observations.

The study team say that 40% of carbon emissions from deforestation in the Amazon is due to degradation.

The research is due to be published in the journal Global Change Biology.

(continued)

[macdoc]

China glaciers shrink 15 percent in warming
17 hours ago

China's glaciers have shrunk by thousands of square kilometres over the past 30 years as a result of climate change, state-run media reported Wednesday.
The Qinghai-Tibet plateau in western China has seen its glaciers shrink by 15 percent, or 8,000 square kilometres (3,089 square miles), the official Xinhua news agency cited the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as saying.
Glacier melt in the region, which includes the Chinese portion of the Himalayas, has accelerated since the 1990s, the report cited researchers as saying, the latest sign of the impact of climate change in the region.
The report cited CAS researcher Kang Shichang as saying that "more and bigger cracks" have appeared in ice on Mount Everest, a sign of "rapidly melting glaciers".
The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers the area China calls the Tibetan Autonomous Region as well as highland parts of neighbouring provinces.
Kang added that over the long term the glacial melt could substantially reduce the flow into several of Asia's main rivers, which originate on the Tibetan plateau.

more....
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-china-glac ... rcent.html

and the heat goes on.....

[Hermit]

Droughts explained:

Border Mail
01/10/2008 page 18
Letters
Region: Albury-Wodonga VIC
Circulation 25499

Drought trigger clear as day

WHEN I was a kid we never had drought after drought.

Then we started with daylight saving. We started with a little bit,
but now we have six months of the year daylight saving.

It has just become too much for the environment to cope with.

It is so logical, for six months of the year we have an extra hour
each day of that hot afternoon sun.

I read somewhere that scientific studies had shown there is a lot less
moisture in the atmosphere which means we get less rain.

I believe this one hour extra sun is slowly evaporating all the
moisture out of everything.

Why can't the Government get the CSIRO to do studies on this, or
better still, get rid of daylight savings.

They have to do something before it is too late.

Chris Hill
Albury

[Seth]

Droughts explained:

Border Mail
01/10/2008 page 18
Letters
Region: Albury-Wodonga VIC
Circulation 25499

Drought trigger clear as day

WHEN I was a kid we never had drought after drought.

Then we started with daylight saving. We started with a little bit,
but now we have six months of the year daylight saving.

It has just become too much for the environment to cope with.

It is so logical, for six months of the year we have an extra hour
each day of that hot afternoon sun.

I read somewhere that scientific studies had shown there is a lot less
moisture in the atmosphere which means we get less rain.

I believe this one hour extra sun is slowly evaporating all the
moisture out of everything.

Why can't the Government get the CSIRO to do studies on this, or
better still, get rid of daylight savings.

They have to do something before it is too late.

Chris Hill
Albury

Makes more sense than the so-called climate scientists do.

[macdoc]

I'm not going to report just because it's so hilarious that you would swallow it......irony not in your wheelhouse ???

•••

Mean while in the real world people are getting on with adapting to AGW

European farmers: Importance of adapting to climate change
Date:
May 22, 2014
Stanford University

Farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops. Research reveals that farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops. For corn, the anticipated loss is roughly 10 percent, the research shows. Farmers of these crops have already seen yield growth slow down since 1980 as temperatures have risen, though other policy and economic factors have also played a role.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104957.htm


and some are actively countering the A influence despite monumental stupidity on the part of the deniers.

There is still hope for the climate, even if a world-wide climate accord proves to be unattainable. A new report shows that regional measures can hold the global rise in temperature within the two-degree limit.
"A number of analyses have already shown that the rise in temperature can be kept to within two degrees through a global quota market. This could be the parachute that Earth so urgently requires, but we are still far from reaching the agreement that is needed for it to be implemented," says Bjørn Bakken of SINTEF -- the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia.
The SINTEF scientist has been leading an international project whose members have performed a computer simulation that asks what would happen if individual countries agreed to take measures within their own region, adopting the European Union's climate and energy strategy as a template?
Their simulation showed that the two-degrees goal could be reached using this climate cure, but that it would cost about 15 -- 20 per cent more than a well-functioning global carbon market.
Adapted to local preferences "What distinguishes regional climate strategies from global quota trading?"
"The European Union's strategy is a good example of a climate-relevant strategy with multiple objectives of security of supply and competitiveness. For example, European politicians have required that European countries should prioritise the incorporation of a large proportion of renewables into their energy mix, even though the usual assumption is that a combination of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS) would be the cheapest option in a 100-year perspective."
"In a purely global quota market, the cheapest alternatives are always the first to be implemented. However, I am convinced that it would be easier for nations to agree on a set of climate strategies that are adapted to the wishes and local conditions of the regions where they are to be deployed."
More than just climate
"Is it the share of renewables alone that would make the regional option more expensive than a global quota system?"
"It would make a significant contribution. Furthermore, the European Union is in favour of putting more resources into energy conservation than the main players would have done in a pure quota-based regime. This is because the European Union's strategy is not merely a matter of climate, but also of energy security and industrial development, and this in turn is a result of conscious political choices."
Bottom-up approach
Bakken hopes that the results of the estimates can be used to further develop effective climate and energy strategies that are designed at grass-roots level. He emphasises that the project has taken the European Union's regional strategy purely as an example.
"Our message is not that the European Union's goals will have be copied for regional climate strategies to be realised. What the project has demonstrated first and foremost is that there is more than one potential route to reaching the two-degree target. A world that is striving to reach agreement on a global accord could probably achieve a great deal by letting large countries and regions develop individually adapted regional climate-relevant strategies instead."
American data model
Most of the calculations in the project were performed in the USA with the aid of a numerical model that is used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the US authorities. The model is owned by the one of the project partners, the Joint Global Change Research Institute.
In parallel, SINTEF and NTNU have used their own models to estimate the effects of choice of climate strategy on the need for new electricity generating capacity and new power grids in Europe.
More distribution grids
"Nuclear and fossil-fuelled power stations with CCS can be sited close to cities and consumers, and do not require major expansion of the grid. On the other hand, a high proportion of renewables would mean that wind-power would need to be exploited in the North Sea and solar energy around the Mediterranean and in Africa, and that the energy would have to be transported over long distances to consumers. This means that the European Union's combined climate and energy strategy would require more extensive grid development than a global quota system on its own," says Bakken.
Global vs. regional climate measures
• If the rise in global temperatures is to be limited to two degrees in the course of this century, we can permit ourselves to reach a maximum concentration of atmospheric CO2 equivalents of 450 parts per million (ppm) in 2100, according to calculations made by several climate research groups.
• The Linking Global and Regional Energy Strategies (LinkS) project, which is led by SINTEF, has produced estimates of the CO2 concentrations that can be achieved by means of individual regional measures, if the world cannot reach agreement regarding a global quota market. The estimates were calculated using the US-owned Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM).
• As an example of its calculation methods, LinkS simulated various regions using copies of the European Union's climate and energy strategy for 2020, with various additional restrictions being introduced in the course of this century. North America and other developed countries were granted an extension of 15 years vis-à-vis the European goals, while the extension for poorer regions was 30 -- 45 years.
• According to LinkS, the estimates would give a concentration of atmospheric CO2 equivalents of 514 ppm in 2100, which would keep global warming to within 2.3 degrees Celsius. "If we take the uncertainty in the initial assumptions and the calculations into account, this suggests that meeting the two-degree goal would also be possible without a global quota market," says LinkS project manager Bjørn Bakken.
"20-20-20"
• The European Union's climate and energy strategy is known as "20-20-20" because it is based on the Union reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 per cent, becoming 20 per cent more energy-efficient and raising its share of renewable energy to 20 per cent, all by 2020.
• The LinkS calculations will require these percentages to be stepped up in 2035 and again in 2050.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104858.htm

[macdoc]

meanwhile back in the ice loss arena ...not good news.

Why losing glaciers matters
May 23, 2014 11:38 AM
By Quirks
bobmcdonald-190.jpg
By Bob McDonald, Quirks & Quarks

The Earth is losing its ice faster than scientists have predicted. The loss of the white stuff is changing the colour of the planet, accelerating global warming, and could have serious consequences for low lying cities.

Maps of the world usually show Greenland and Antarctica as vast areas of white, which is pretty much all that explorers found when they crossed the enormous ice sheets, and what you see looking down from modern aircraft.

Now, thanks to ice-penetrating radar instruments carried by some of those planes, as well as satellite data, the geography of the land beneath the white is becoming visible. It turns out that the ice is hiding deep valleys and tall mountain peaks as rugged as the Rocky Mountains.

Some of those glacial valleys are below sea level, and that has scientists concerned.

Last week, a report described how warm ocean currents are undercutting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which actually lies on ground below sea level. This, scientists think, means the ice sheet has passed the point of no return and will inevitably collapse as water encroaches and tears away at the massive ice sheet that represents nearly 10 per cent of the ice on Earth.

This week another report showed that some glaciers in Greenland are also sitting in sub-sea-level valleys. So as the toes of those glaciers retreat, the sea water will follow them up the valleys, causing them to erode more quickly than if the valley floors were higher and drier.

Yet another report showed that glaciers in Alaska and British Columbia are retreating faster than predicted. In fact, all glaciers on Vancouver Island will be completely gone in just 25 years.

This loss of ice is having a multitude of effects on the entire planet. It's changing the colour of the Earth, or in astronomical terms, the planet's albedo. That's a measure of how much sunlight a planet absorbs compared to how much it reflects back into space. White reflects sunlight, so glaciers and ice sheets have been keeping the Earth cooler than it would be otherwise.

As ice disappears, it is replaced by dark land or sea water, which absorbs sunlight and turns it into heat. This process accelerates in a feedback loop that warms the planet faster as the area of the ice gets smaller and smaller.

This heating effect is in addition to the heating caused by our carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

more
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/technology/ ... tters.html

[macdoc]

Well finally a negative feedback.

Net carbon uptake has increased through warming-induced changes in temperate forest phenology

Trevor F. Keenan, Josh Gray, Mark A. Friedl, Michael Toomey, Gil Bohrer, David Y. Hollinger, J. William Munger, John O’Keefe, Hans Peter Schmid, Ian Sue Wing, Bai Yang & Andrew D. Richardson
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author
Nature Climate Change (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2253

Received 28 October 2013 Accepted 17 April 2014 Published online 01 June

The timing of phenological events exerts a strong control over ecosystem function and leads to multiple feedbacks to the climate system1. Phenology is inherently sensitive to temperature (although the exact sensitivity is disputed2) and recent warming is reported to have led to earlier spring, later autumn3, 4 and increased vegetation activity5, 6. Such greening could be expected to enhance ecosystem carbon uptake7, 8, although reports also suggest decreased uptake for boreal forests4, 9. Here we assess changes in phenology of temperate forests over the eastern US during the past two decades, and quantify the resulting changes in forest carbon storage. We combine long-term ground observations of phenology, satellite indices, and ecosystem-scale carbon dioxide flux measurements, along with 18 terrestrial biosphere models. We observe a strong trend of earlier spring and later autumn. In contrast to previous suggestions4, 9 we show that carbon uptake through photosynthesis increased considerably more than carbon release through respiration for both an earlier spring and later autumn. The terrestrial biosphere models tested misrepresent the temperature sensitivity of phenology, and thus the effect on carbon uptake. Our analysis of the temperature–phenology–carbon coupling suggests a current and possible future enhancement of forest carbon uptake due to changes in phenology. This constitutes a negative feedback to climate change, and is serving to slow the rate of warming.

more
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/ ... e2253.html

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ather-2014

....click on the link.

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014 ... evel-rises

Apparent pause in global warming blamed on 'lousy' data

A widely reported "pause" in global warming may be an artefact of scientists looking at the wrong data, says a climate scientist at the European Space Agency.

Global average sea surface temperatures rose rapidly from the 1970s but have been relatively flat for the past 15 years. This has prompted speculation from some quarters that global warming has stalled.

Now, Stephen Briggs from the European Space Agency's Directorate of Earth Observation says that sea surface temperature data is the worst indicator of global climate that can be used, describing it as "lousy".

"It is like looking at the last hair on the tail of a dog and trying to decide what breed it is," he said on Friday at the Royal Society in London.

Climate scientists have been arguing for some time that the lack of warming of the sea surface is due to most of the extra heat being taken up by the deep ocean. A better measure, he said, was to look at the average rise in sea levels. The oceans store the vast majority of the climate's heat energy. Increases in this stored energy translate into sea level rises.

"The sea level shows us the engine of global climate not one of the consequences," said Briggs.

In the past 50 years, sea levels indicated that the stored energy had increased by 250 zetajoules, he said. A zetajoule is 1021 joules. For comparison, mankind generates 0.5 zetajoules of energy every year in its power stations.

Since 1993, satellites have measured sea levels rising by an average of 3mm per year. Unlike the surface temperature, this rise continued throughout the supposed pause in global warming.

(continued, could be water coming in from the mantle and the pause actually did happen - someone will argue that?)

[macdoc]

The ocean/air interface is a two way exchange - when it's La Nina conditions which it has been for a last good while then more remains in the ocean.
But it does not stay there.

Watch this space....El Nino lurks and looks to be a monster.





Look at that heat off Alaska ....we'll report from there in person next month

Who needs Godzilla



Scale is plus/minus 5C. That's a big chunk of heat lurking.

[cronus]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-14/e ... ed/5523136

El Nino weather pattern already partly formed, climatologist warns drier conditions on the way

Australia may have already entered into the early stages of an El Nino weather pattern, increasing the possibility of drought and lower-than-average rainfall, an expert says.

Climatologist Roger Stone is warning Australia should brace itself for drier conditions as an El Nino weather pattern looks increasingly likely.

"Exactly how that manifests itself over the next couple of weeks will be critical to not only Australia's climate patterns but climate patterns all over the world," Professor Stone told Landline.

An El Nino event refers to a prolonged period of warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific that can lead to drought in Australia.

"The sea temperatures are already 1 or 2 degrees above normal, and right along the South American coast, perhaps 2 or 3 degrees above normal," Professor Stone said.

"That's the telltale sign of an early stage to an El Nino event."

Professor Stone says the sub-surface temperature across the central and eastern Pacific is warmer by up to 5 degrees.

"This is why we are saying it is [El Nino] primed," he said.

"If that comes to the surface you have a major El Nino - it's just tucked below the surface of the ocean at the moment."

Professor Stone says it is not all bad news in the short term though, according to forecast systems.

"The El Nino [pattern] is a little cruel, it allows some early rain to come in at the early stages, before it is really develops," he said.

(continued)

[macdoc]

Hmmph - learned something about Picasa.

Missing image



I was shocked how many people died in the 1998 monster,

National Geographic Magazine Article: El Nino/La Nina--Part 1
www.nationalgeographic.com/elnino/mainpage.html
Read personal tales of El Niño's effects in 1997-98. ... world, killed an estimated 2,100 people, and caused at least 33 billion [U.S.] dollars in property damage. ... But few had ever seen this much rain—five or six inches a day in some places.

[Tero]

The good news is that while the word "collapse" implies a sudden change, the fastest scenario is 200 years, and the longest is more than 1,000 years. The bad news is that such a collapse may be inevitable.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 090934.htm