Conservative Scientists & its Consequences

[TeaPotty]

That said, it is very simple minded for "happy talk" scientists like Gavin Schmidt to assume the simplest forcing combination with the lowest ECS is the most like case.  Uncertainty is not our friend and serious climate scientists need to publish upper bound projections; otherwise, policy makers will surely say that they were not adequately warned and "Who Would Have Thought?".

www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/07/why-uncertainty-about-climate-change-is-not-our-friend/

“Headlines that scream ‘Scientists say sensitivity higher than thought!’ will not be justified,” says Gavin Schmidt, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “This is one extra ingredient that needs to go into the hopper.”

Like, I've said before, Gavin is a dolt. I have yet to see his scientific work justify his career performance. He mostly likely got where he is bc of active or passive support of the 1%. None of his work is significant or remarkable in any way.

When methane was increasingly proven to be a significant climate change contributor, Gavin was one of the first to go on attack against any and all funding for more methane research. He would link CH4 observation charts before they started rising rapidly like in more recent years, and just hammered it away like it was conclusive proof that all is fine. Of course, he has since deleted all traces of this, since it makes him look really dumb.

This has been Gavin's schtick for years: happy climate talk 24/7, or else ur an "alarmist". Reminds me of the emotional development of a 10 year old.

[sidd]

I regret to see this site degenerate into increasingly personal attack and innuendo. Each such message (considerably) decreases my interest and participation. Such a tendency, if unchecked, will turn this forum into a copy of, say, Revkin's sewer.

[TeaPotty]

I regret to see this site degenerate into increasingly personal attack and innuendo.

If you don't like this thread, you can just avoid reading it. I will continue to attack those (like Gavin Schmidt) who bet against my future just bc they won't live to see the collapse and have the emotional maturity of a hamster.

Most of the scientific establishment today can honestly be described now as Climate Change Deniers.

[Timothy Astin]

Most of the scientific establishment today can honestly be described now as Climate Change Deniers.

And that is potty.

[jai mitchell]

In the process of indoctrination and then performance within the sphere of authority, incredible forces of control are placed on those who qualify.  The indoctrination requires reasonableness and the force of control is that of institutional consensus.  One does not simply react to the science in a personal and emotional way.

For instance.

We are currently engaging in a path that will yield a 2C warming globally averaged future within the next decade and possibly by 2020. 

However, regional analysis of temperature responses indicate that Central Africa will experience a 3.5C warming in that reality.  There are approximately 50 million people in this region.  This will necessarily produce a mortality of between 10 and 20 million people.

And the locked in temperatures are much higher than 2C if future emissions are taken into account.  To discuss these things rationally, one must be emotional disassociated from the suffering of hundreds of millions of human beings and billions of earth's lifeforms.

[AbruptSLR]

Currently, the impact of wildfires are ignored in all IPCC climate projections because there is insufficient data to meet the 95% confidence level to include this positive feedback mechanism in the ESM projections.  However, the linked article discuss how paleo-evidence can be used to gain the confidence needed to include this positive feedback into future (AR6) projections:


Robertson, A., E. Githumbi, and D. Colombaroli (2016), Paleofires and models illuminate future fire scenarios, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO049933.


https://eos.org/meeting-reports/paleofires-and-models-illuminate-future-fire-scenarios


Extract: "Paleofires and Models Illuminate Future Fire Scenarios
Advances in Interdisciplinary Paleofire Research: Data and Model Comparisons for the Past Millennium; Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, 27 September to 2 October 2015"

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article provides a snapshot of efforts to include plant sensitivity to climate change within ESMs:

Kueppers, L. M., C. M. Iversen, and C. D. Koven (2016), Expanding use of plant trait observation in Earth system models, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO049947. Published on 12 April 2016

https://eos.org/meeting-reports/expanding-use-of-plant-trait-observation-in-earth-system-models

Extract: "To be useful, Earth system models (ESMs) must capture important ecosystem feedbacks to environmental change. However, it remains a challenge for models to represent the wide variation in plant sensitivity to, and influence on, the climate.
Most ESMs use plant functional types (PFTs), which are lists of parameter values that govern plant processes represented in the models, differentiating plant physiology and growth form among groups such as needleleaf evergreen trees, broadleaf deciduous trees, shrubs, and grasses. Through PFTs, these ESMs already represent some diversity in plant traits—such as variation in leaf shapes and maximum photosynthesis rates—that affect ecosystem processes."

[Lennart van der Linde]

Now DeConto & Pollard 2016 has been published we can look back at IPCC 2014 and see how 'conservative' it actually was. Attached figure 2.8c from AR5 Synthesis Report shows about 7m as the max SLR by 2500, although IPCC did say this was probably an underestimate.

Attached fig5a from DeConto & Pollard shows 15-17m as max SLR by 2500 from Antarctica alone.
Supplementary fig1 from Applegate et al 2014 shows 7m of SLR by 2500 from Greenland alone.
Fig3b from Rohling et al 2013 shows about 17-18m of max total SLR by 2500 based on paleo-data.

So now we need a new figure that combines DeConto & Pollard and Applegate et al, and adds maybe another 2-3m of SLR by 2500 from thermal expansion and small glaciers. So instead of the 7m by 2500 from IPCC or the 17-18m of Rohling et al we could maybe get 27m by 2500 if we don't cut emissions sufficiently. And then we would have to check for all potential underestimates that could make even this worst-case estimate an underestimate still...

[Lennart van der Linde]

When we look at 2100 and 2200 we can compare the findings of DeConto & Pollard 2016 and Applegate et al 2014 with table 1 in Kopp et al 2014, attached below.

Kopp et al find a 99.9% chance of max SLR by 2100 of 2.45m and by 2200 of 9.50m, for RCP8.5.
Their 99.9% chance max contribution for 2100 from Antarctica is 1.55m and 0.95m from GIS.
Their 99.9% chance max contribution for 2100 from small glaciers and thermal expansion is 0.95m.
Adding all max contributions for 2100 would give 3.45m (instead of the 2.45m with 99.9% chance).

DeConto & Pollard find a 16% chance of 1.35m or more max contribution from Antarctica by 2100.
Their max Antarctica contribution for 2200 seems to be about 7m.
Applegate et al seem to find a max contribution from Greenland of about 2m/century, so maybe about 3m max by 2200.
Max thermal expansion by 2200 is about 1m, with 16% chance of more.
Adding all this gives about 11m max total SLR by 2200.

So let's be 'conservative' and say 3m by 2100 and 10m by 2200 seem a real risk if emissions are being allowed to keep rising for too long, also considering the potential underestimates that have not been included so far.

[AbruptSLR]

The following two linked research efforts evaluate why estimates of climate sensitivity empirically based on the historical observed surface temperature record differ from those based on the physics of climate models; and both studies conclude that provided the climate models adequately simulate physics in order to closely match the observed record, then the climate sensitivities based on the climate models are preferable for projecting future behavior than those empirically based on the observed record (which is relatively short):

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-747.pdf

Abstract: "To properly address the anthropogenic impacts upon the earth system, an estimate of the climate sensitivity to radiative forcing is essential. Observation-based estimates of climate sensitivity are often limited by their ability to take into account the slower response of the climate system imparted mainly by the large thermal inertia of oceans, they are nevertheless essential to provide an alternative to estimates from global circulation models and increase our confidence in estimates of climate sensitivity by the multiplicity of approaches. It is straightforward to calculate the Effective Climate Sensitivity (EffCS) as the ratio of temperature change to the change in radiative forcing; the result is almost identical to the Transient Climate Response (TCR), but it underestimates the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). A study of global mean temperature is thus presented assuming a Scaling Climate Response Function to deterministic radiative forcing. This general form is justified as there exists a scaling symmetry respected by the dynamics, and boundary conditions, over a wide range of scales and it allows for long-range dependencies while retaining only 3 parameter which are estimated empirically. The range of memory is modulated by the scaling exponent H. We can calculate, analytically, a one-to-one relation between the scaling exponent H and the ratio of EffCS to TCR and EffCS to ECS. The scaling exponent of the power law is estimated by a regression of temperature as a function of forcing.We consider for the analysis 4 different datasets of historical global mean temperature and 100 scenario runs of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 distributed among the 4 Representative Concentration Pathways(RCP) scenarios. We find that the error function for the estimate on historical temperature is very wide and thus, many scaling exponent can be used without meaningful changes in the fit residuals of historical temperatures; their response in the year 2100 on the other hand, is very broad, especially for a low-emission scenario such as RCP 2.6. CMIP5 scenario runs thus allow for a narrower estimate of H which can then be used to estimate the ECS and TCR from the EffCS estimated from the historical data."


J. M. Gregory & T. Andrews (14 April 2016), "Variation in climate sensitivity and feedback parameters during the historical period", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL068406


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL068406/full

Abstract: "We investigate the climate feedback parameter α (Wm−2 K−1) during the historical period (since 1871) in experiments using the HadGEM2 and HadCM3 atmosphere general circulation models (AGCMs) with constant pre-industrial atmospheric composition and time-dependent observational sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice boundary conditions. In both AGCMs, for the historical period as a whole, the effective climate sensitivity is ∼2 K (α≃1.7 Wm−2 K−1), and α shows substantial decadal variation caused by the patterns of SST change. Both models agree with the AGCMs of the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project in showing a considerably smaller effective climate sensitivity of ∼1.5 K (α = 2.3 ± 0.7 Wm−2 K−1), given the time-dependent changes in sea-surface conditions observed during 1979–2008, than the corresponding coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) give under constant quadrupled CO2 concentration. These findings help to relieve the apparent contradiction between the larger values of effective climate sensitivity diagnosed from AOGCMs and the smaller values inferred from historical climate change."

See also:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/time-dependent-feedbacks/

Extract: "There seem to be a number of conclusions that one can draw from this study.
   - Climate models that have a reasonable representation of the pattern of surface warming do a reasonable job of estimating the resulting feedback response.
   - The reason why observationally-based estimates for ECS tend to suggest lower values than other estimates (such as climate models) may well be simply because of the spatial distribution of surface warming that we have actually experienced, rather than because our climate is actually less sensitive than these other estimates suggest.
   - Projections for future warming will likely be reasonable as long as the pattern of surface warming in climate models is a reasonable representation of what we will likely experience under increasing anthropogenic forcings."

[Laurent]

Was that subject already added ? I don't remember.
Severe Arctic Ocean acidification via permafrost thawing and river runoff
http://www.su.se/english/about/profile-areas/climate-seas-and-environment/severe-arctic-ocean-acidification-via-permafrost-thawing-and-river-runoff-1.279396

When organic material from thawing permafrost is transported to the sea and breaks down in the seawater it contributes to a more rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean, finds new research by scientists from Stockholm University and colleagues.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference projects increasing deposition of black carbon in the Arctic (following RCP 8.5) from Asia by 2100, but they fail to consider the direct emission of black carbon in the Arctic due to increased shipping within the Arctic (note that China has announced that they will begin transiting the Northwest Passage this summer, and it looks like we might be headed towards a historic load Arctic Sea Ice Extent by Sept 2016):

Chaoyi Jiao & Mark Flanner (21 April 2016), "Changing black carbon transport to the Arctic from present day to the end of 21st century", Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1002/2015JD023964


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JD023964/abstract

Abstract: "Here, we explore how climate warming under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) impacts Arctic aerosol distributions via changes in atmospheric transport and removal processes. We modify the bulk aerosol module in the Community Atmosphere Model to track distributions and fluxes of 200 black carbon-like tracers emitted from different locations, and we conduct idealized experiments with and without active aerosol deposition. Changing wind patterns, studied in isolation, cause the Arctic burdens of tracers emitted from East Asia and West Europe during winter to increase about 20% by the end of the century, while decreasing the Arctic burdens of North American emissions by about 30%. These changes are caused by an altered winter polar dome structure that results from Arctic amplification and inhomogeneous sea-ice loss and surface warming, both of which are enhanced in the Chukchi Sea region. The resulting geostrophic wind favors Arctic transport of East Asian emissions while inhibiting poleward transport of North American emissions. When active deposition is also considered, however, Arctic burdens of emissions from northern mid-latitudes show near-universal decline. This is a consequence of increased precipitation and wet removal, particularly within the Arctic, leading to decreased Arctic residence time. Simulations with present-day emissions of black carbon indicate a 13.6% reduction in the Arctic annual-mean burden by the end of the 21st century, due to warming-induced transport and deposition changes, while simulations with changing climate and emissions under RCP8.5 show a 61.0% reduction."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked (open access) reference highlights CMIP5 projected changes in the Maritime Continents terrestrial water flux that will likely have a negative impact on the Maritime Continent's ecosystem, with associated reductions in CO₂ absorption and increases in CO₂ emissions (including from wildfires):

Chia-Wei Lan, Min-Hui Lo, Chia Chou & Sanjiv Kumar (19 April 2016), "Terrestrial Water Flux Responses to Global Warming in Tropical Rainforest Areas", Earth's Future, DOI: 10.1002/2015EF000350


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015EF000350/abstract

Extract: "Precipitation extremes are expected to become more frequent in the changing global climate, which may considerably affect the terrestrial hydrological cycle. In this study, Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) archives have been examined to explore the changes in normalized terrestrial water fluxes (TWFn) (precipitation minus evapotranspiration minus total runoff, divided by the precipitation climatology) in three tropical rainforest areas: Maritime Continent, Congo, and Amazon. Results reveal that a higher frequency of intense precipitation events is predicted for the Maritime Continent in the future climate than in the present climate, but not for the Amazon or Congo rainforests. Nonlinear responses to extreme precipitation lead to a reduced groundwater recharge and a proportionately greater amount of direct runoff, particularly for the Maritime Continent, where both the amount and intensity of precipitation increase under global warming. We suggest that the nonlinear response is related to the existence of a higher near-surface soil moisture over the Maritime Continent than that over the Amazon and Congo rainforests. The wetter soil over the Maritime Continent also leads to an increased subsurface runoff. Thus, increased precipitation extremes and concomitantly reduced terrestrial water fluxes (TWF) lead to an intensified hydrological cycle for the Maritime Continent. This has the potential to result in a strong temporal heterogeneity in soil water distribution affecting the ecosystem of the rainforest region and increasing the risk of flooding and/or landslides."

Extract: " Thus, TWFn has a declining trend from 1981-2100 because of increased frequency of high intensity precipitation, and a higher runoff ratio (R/P) over the Maritime Continent. In other words, the negative TWFn becomes more frequent and becomes more negative, implying the duration (magnitude) of losing water from land water storage becomes longer (larger) in the future (Figure 5) that may cause an uneven distribution of water resources. Our study reveals the potential vulnerabilities of the Maritime Continent’s ecosystem in the changing global climate."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference presents new paleo evidence about the Eocene.  While the authors emphasize that their findings support the IPCC interpretation for climate sensitivity, when looking at the attached Fig 4 panel f, it appears to me that this is only the case if one averages ECS over the entire Eocene; while if one focuses on the Early Eocene Climate Optimum (EECO) which CO₂ levels were higher than in current modern times, it appear that ECS was higher (around 4C) than the IPCC AR5 assumes (considering that we are increasing CO2 concentrations faster now that during the EECO this gives me concern rather than reassurance).

Eleni Anagnostou, Eleanor H. John, Kirsty M. Edgar, Gavin L. Foster, Andy Ridgwell, Gordon N. Inglis, Richard D. Pancost, Daniel J. Lunt & Paul N. Pearson (2016), "Changing atmospheric CO2 concentration was the primary driver of early Cenozoic climate", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature17423


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature17423.html


Abstract: "The Early Eocene Climate Optimum (EECO, which occurred about 51 to 53 million years ago), was the warmest interval of the past 65 million years, with mean annual surface air temperature over ten degrees Celsius warmer than during the pre-industrial period. Subsequent global cooling in the middle and late Eocene epoch, especially at high latitudes, eventually led to continental ice sheet development in Antarctica in the early Oligocene epoch (about 33.6 million years ago). However, existing estimates place atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels during the Eocene at 500–3,000 parts per million, and in the absence of tighter constraints carbon–climate interactions over this interval remain uncertain. Here we use recent analytical and methodological developments to generate a new high-fidelity record of CO2 concentrations using the boron isotope (δ11B) composition of well preserved planktonic foraminifera from the Tanzania Drilling Project, revising previous estimates. Although species-level uncertainties make absolute values difficult to constrain, CO2 concentrations during the EECO were around 1,400 parts per million. The relative decline in CO2 concentration through the Eocene is more robustly constrained at about fifty per cent, with a further decline into the Oligocene. Provided the latitudinal dependency of sea surface temperature change for a given climate forcing in the Eocene was similar to that of the late Quaternary period, this CO2 decline was sufficient to drive the well documented high- and low-latitude cooling that occurred through the Eocene. Once the change in global temperature between the pre-industrial period and the Eocene caused by the action of all known slow feedbacks (apart from those associated with the carbon cycle) is removed, both the EECO and the late Eocene exhibit an equilibrium climate sensitivity relative to the pre-industrial period of 2.1 to 4.6 degrees Celsius per CO2 doubling (66 per cent confidence), which is similar to the canonical range (1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius), indicating that a large fraction of the warmth of the early Eocene greenhouse was driven by increased CO2 concentrations, and that climate sensitivity was relatively constant throughout this period."

See also:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0426/What-the-Eocene-epoch-tells-us-about-global-warming-now
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-ancient-marine-sediments-clues-future.html

Extract: "Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was the major driver behind the global climatic shifts that occurred between 53 and 34 million years ago, according to new research led by the University of Southampton.

The study, which was published today in Nature, is the first to resolve the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) and climate during the period known as the 'Eocene epoch' when global temperatures were around 14 oC warmer than today. This is an important step in understanding ancient climate and thus helping scientists better predict future climate change.

…
This research can also be used to gain a better understanding of how the Earth will respond to increasing levels of CO2 in the future. Co-author Professor Gavin Foster, of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton, said: "After accounting for changes in vegetation and how the continents were arranged in the past, and correcting for the effect relating to the lack of ice sheets in the Eocene, we found that the sensitivity of the climate system to CO2 forcing in the warm Eocene was similar to that predicted by the IPCC for our warm future."
Dr Anagnostou added: "This confirms that the Eocene world really was a greenhouse world, with the main difference to now being the higher CO2 level. The comparison gives us more confidence in our predictions of future climate warming in the face of rapid anthropogenic CO2 increase." "

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference provides findings from CMIP5 of the continued poleward expansion of the Hadley Cell with continued global warming; which in-turn supports the idea that ECS is greater than 3C:

Lijun Tao, Yongyun Hu & Jiping Liu (May 2016), "Anthropogenic forcing on the Hadley circulation in CMIP5 simulations", Climate Dynamics, Volume 46, Issue 9, pp 3337-3350 DOI: 10.1007/s00382-015-2772-1

http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-015-2772-1

Abstract: "Poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation has been an important topic in climate change studies in the past few years, and one of the critically important issues is how it is related to anthropogenic forcings. Using simulations from the coupled model intercomparison projection phase 5 (CMIP5), we study influences of anthropogenic forcings on the width and strength of the Hadley circulation. It is found that significant poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation can be reproduced in CMIP5 historical all-forcing simulations although the magnitude of trends is much weaker than observations. Simulations with individual forcings demonstrate that among three major types of anthropogenic forcings, increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) and stratospheric ozone depletion all cause poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation, whereas anthropogenic aerosols do not have significant influences on the Hadley circulation. Increasing GHGs cause significant poleward expansion in both hemispheres, with the largest widening of the northern cell in boreal autumn. Stratospheric ozone depletion forces significant poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation for the southern cell in austral spring and summer and for the northern cell in boreal spring. In CMIP5 projection simulations for the twenty-first century, the magnitude of poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation increases with GHG forcing. On the other hand, ozone recovery competes with increasing GHGs in determining the width of the Hadley circulation, especially in austral summer. In both historical and projection simulations, the strength of the Hadley circulation shows significant weakening in winter in both hemispheres."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference discusses how the general public are easily confused about what experts actually believe; and I would like to extend this to say that I believe that most scientists are easily confused about what true experts (such as James Hansen) believe about the risk of abrupt climate change, and that all of this confusion lets decision makers off the hook for taking effective action such as implementing carbon pricing (which almost all experts agree would be effective is applied in a timely fashion):

Derek J. Koehler (2016) "Can journalistic “false balance” distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion?", Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol 22(1), Mar 2016, 24-38; http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000073

http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~dkoehler/reprints/False%20Balance%20JEP%20Applied.pdf

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycarticles/2016-00600-001

Abstract: "Media critics have expressed concern that journalistic “false balance” can distort the public’s perceptions of what ought to be noncontroversial subjects (e.g., climate change). I report several experiments testing the influence of presenting conflicting comments from 2 experts who disagree on an issue (balance condition) in addition to a complete count of the number of experts on a panel who favor either side. Compared with a control condition, who received only the complete count, participants in the balance condition gave ratings of the perceived agreement among the experts that did not discriminate as clearly between issues with and without strong expert consensus. Participants in the balance condition also perceived less agreement among the experts in general, and were less likely to think that there was enough agreement among experts on the high-consensus issues to guide government policy. Evidently, “false balance” can distort perceptions of expert opinion even when participants would seem to have all the information needed to correct for its influence."

See also:

http://www.desmog.ca/2016/04/25/we-re-easily-confused-about-what-experts-really-think-new-research-shows

Extract: "For example, on the issue of whether a carbon tax would be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there was a very high level of agreement; 93 experts agreed, five indicated they were uncertain and two disagreed.

…
“Two different people can look at apparently the same body of evidence and draw very different conclusions from it,” Koehler said. “We know from past psychological research that that can and does happen.”
 
But Koehler became more interested in what general factors might lead people to “systematically misperceive where the expert consensus lies across these different domains.”
 
In these experiments, Koehler explained, the participants’ “task is not to tell us what they personally think about the issue but where the experts’ opinions fall on the topic.”
 
Individuals tend to hold strong opinions on economic issues like minimum wage or carbon tax so Koehler performed additional experiments with more neutral topics like the ranking of films ...

…
Koehler’s experiment shows that even before you add in “additional complicating factors” like strong beliefs or preferences surrounding issues like a carbon tax or minimum wage, “the presentation of conflict between specific experts can distort people’s perceptions and lead them to think there’s more disagreement among a population of experts than there really is.”
…
One remedy that’s been popularly advanced as a solution is ‘weight of evidence’ reporting. Koehler said weight of evidence information would require a reporter to indicate that the opinion of one expert is shared, for example, by 97 per cent of experts while the opinion of the other is only shared by three per cent.
 
Yet Koehler’s research indicates weight of evidence reporting isn’t enough to combat misperception of expert consensus or the distorting influence of false balance.
 
“Even when that weight of evidence information is given, people in their perception of expert consensus discriminate or distinguish less sharply between high and low consensus issues when weight of evidence information is accompanied by conflicting comments from specific experts,” he said.
…
The distorting influence of false balance triggers a pretty significant “cognitive glitch,” Koehler recently wrote in the opinion pages of the New York Times.
 
“Whatever the cause, the implications are worrisome,” Koehler wrote.
 
“Government action is guided in part by public opinion. Public opinion is guided in part by perceptions of what experts think. But public opinion may — and often does — deviate from expert opinion, not simply, it seems, because the public refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of experts, but also because the public may not be able to tell where the majority of expert opinion lies.”"

Also see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/why-people-are-confused-about-what-experts-really-think.html?_r=0

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference discusses field evidence that the Amazon rainforest is more sensitive to damage from climate change than previously understood.  By extension this means that virtually all rainforests around the world are more (than previously understood) subject to degradation from both global warming and from the increased frequency and intensities of the ENSO cycles:

Caroline B. Alden, John B. Miller, Luciana V. Gatti, Manuel M. Gloor, Kaiyu Guan, Anna M. Michalak, Ingrid T. van der Laan-Luijkx, Danielle Touma, Arlyn Andrews, Luana S. Basso, Caio S. C. Correia, Lucas G. Domingues, Joanna Joiner, Maarten C. Krol, Alexei I. Lyapustin, Wouter Peters, Yoichi P. Shiga, Kirk Thoning, Ivar R. van der Velde, Thijs T. van Leeuwen, Vineet Yadav & Noah S. Diffenbaugh (28 April 2016), "Regional atmospheric CO2 inversion reveals seasonal and geographic differences in Amazon net biome exchange", Global Change Biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13305


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13305/full

Abstract: "Understanding tropical rainforest carbon exchange and its response to heat and drought is critical for quantifying the effects of climate change on tropical ecosystems, including global climate–carbon feedbacks. Of particular importance for the global carbon budget is net biome exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere (NBE), which represents nonfire carbon fluxes into and out of biomass and soils. Subannual and sub-Basin Amazon NBE estimates have relied heavily on process-based biosphere models, despite lack of model agreement with plot-scale observations. We present a new analysis of airborne measurements that reveals monthly, regional-scale (~1–8 × 106 km2) NBE variations. We develop a regional atmospheric CO2 inversion that provides the first analysis of geographic and temporal variability in Amazon biosphere–atmosphere carbon exchange and that is minimally influenced by biosphere model-based first guesses of seasonal and annual mean fluxes. We find little evidence for a clear seasonal cycle in Amazon NBE but do find NBE sensitivity to aberrations from long-term mean climate. In particular, we observe increased NBE (more carbon emitted to the atmosphere) associated with heat and drought in 2010, and correlations between wet season NBE and precipitation (negative correlation) and temperature (positive correlation). In the eastern Amazon, pulses of increased NBE persisted through 2011, suggesting legacy effects of 2010 heat and drought. We also identify regional differences in postdrought NBE that appear related to long-term water availability. We examine satellite proxies and find evidence for higher gross primary productivity (GPP) during a pulse of increased carbon uptake in 2011, and lower GPP during a period of increased NBE in the 2010 dry season drought, but links between GPP and NBE changes are not conclusive. These results provide novel evidence of NBE sensitivity to short-term temperature and moisture extremes in the Amazon, where monthly and sub-Basin estimates have not been previously available."


Also see:
https://earth.stanford.edu/news/stanford-scientists-find-amazon-rain-forest-responds-quickly-extreme-climate-events

Extract: "A new study examining carbon exchange in the Amazon rain forest following extremely hot and dry spells reveals tropical ecosystems might be more sensitive to climate change than previously thought.
The findings, published online on April 28 in the journal Global Change Biology, have implications for the fate of the Amazon and other tropical ecosystems if greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb.
“There have been a lot of projections of what might happen in the Amazon in the future as global warming intensifies,” said study co-author Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of Earth Systems Science at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. “In this study, we are bringing together many different data sources to take a more comprehensive and detailed look at how the Amazon has responded to severely hot and dry conditions that happened in the recent past.”"

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article indicates that a correlation of the PDO and the Arctic sea-ice loss contribution to Arctic Amplification, may increase model skill levels in the future:

James A. Screen & Jennifer A. Francis (2016), "Contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification is regulated by Pacific Ocean decadal variability", Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate3011


http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3011.html

Abstract: "The pace of Arctic warming is about double that at lower latitudes—a robust phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Many diverse climate processes and feedbacks cause Arctic amplification, including positive feedbacks associated with diminished sea ice. However, the precise contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification remains uncertain. Through analyses of both observations and model simulations, we show that the contribution of sea-ice loss to wintertime Arctic amplification seems to be dependent on the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Our results suggest that, for the same pattern and amount of sea-ice loss, consequent Arctic warming is larger during the negative PDO phase relative to the positive phase, leading to larger reductions in the poleward gradient of tropospheric thickness and to more pronounced reductions in the upper-level westerlies. Given the oscillatory nature of the PDO, this relationship has the potential to increase skill in decadal-scale predictability of the Arctic and sub-Arctic climate. Our results indicate that Arctic warming in response to the ongoing long-term sea-ice decline is greater (reduced) during periods of the negative (positive) PDO phase. We speculate that the observed recent shift to the positive PDO phase, if maintained and all other factors being equal, could act to temporarily reduce the pace of wintertime Arctic warming in the near future."

[jai mitchell]

Saw this from Sam Carina's Blog,

It is good and allows for the inclusion of some but not all potential feedback and earth system responses over the next 10 years.  In this period of rapid warming we are very likely to experience a rise to +3.5C by 2026 and possibly a rise to as high as 10C (if ESAS methane is released in abundance - less if it is not)

blog post here:  http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2016/03/ten-degrees-warmer-in-a-decade.html



We have talked about these individual feedback and response attributes for years here now, these estimates are all within the realm of the likely response based on the peer reviewed science.  It is a well done and thought out piece that compliments the work on this thread significantly (if I say so myself, but really complimenting ASLR for his steady contribution of science to these threads).

[AbruptSLR]

In this period of rapid warming we are very likely to experience a rise to +3.5C by 2026 and possibly a rise to as high as 10C (if ESAS methane is released in abundance - less if it is not)

Do you know whether these values apply only to North Hemisphere Land temperatures or global land temperature?

Note that per the linked NOAA global land series, 2016 temperatures are well above average:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/p12/12/1880-2016.csv

Extract:
"201501,1.3869
201502,1.6914
201503,1.6237
201504,1.0811
201505,1.2247
201506,1.2353
201507,0.9459
201508,1.1241
201509,1.1514
201510,1.3093
201511,1.2969
201512,1.8783
201601,1.5675
201602,2.2665
201603,2.3305"

[jai mitchell]

The 1.92 used is the January Northern Hemisphere (land/ocean) temp anomaly.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/NH.Ts.txt

So the graphic is stating an extremely conservative estimate by labeling it as land only temperatures.  Note in the link above, the january temp was 1.92 but feb and march went through the roof

2016   192  245  236
Year   Jan  Feb  Mar

Interesting to see how the expectations match the RCP projections in the near term. 

[AbruptSLR]

The 1.92 used is the January Northern Hemisphere (land/ocean) temp anomaly.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/NH.Ts.txt

So the graphic is stating an extremely conservative estimate by labeling it as land only temperatures.  Note in the link above, the january temp was 1.92 but feb and march went through the roof

2016   192  245  236
Year   Jan  Feb  Mar

Interesting to see how the expectations match the RCP projections in the near term.

For what it worth I am concerned that Sam Carana's plot may be mixing monthly data with annual projections, and may be mixing NH data with global projections.

[jai mitchell]

I realize that too,  to unbundle the work

he uses northern hemisphere land/ocean and says northern hemisphere land only - (this makes his estimate conservative)
he uses monthly data and compares it to annual averages (this is realistic since he is looking at the total northern hemisphere temperatures IN FEBRUARY)
he includes nearly instantaneous effects from multiple sources some of which are delayed longer than the 10 year period he indicates

he projects that this would be land-based temperatures, but the projections of warming from all of his sources are globally averaged values.  The indication is that these globally averaged values will be much lower than the actual land based temperatures but the discussion of 2C above pre-industrial is always a globally averaged one (with regional land based warming, like central Africa reaching +3.5C by that time).

So it seems to be a good approximation, though the translation between the two wrt impacts is not clear.  A 2C of warming globally averaged could easily be a 3C warming (or 4!) of NH land based temperatures.  Since his projections use globally averaged temps and he attributes it as an estimation of land-only temps then his projections are conservative but what this means with regards to actual impacts are not well understood.

[AbruptSLR]

With a hat tip to Steven, the land & ocean GISS data can be found at the following link:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/NH.Ts+dSST.txt

[6roucho]

Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!

Um, yeah, 30% of recent years were huge blowout years.  The others were just typical new-normal years maintaining the low ice volumes created during the blow outs.

But I've just been watching _In the Heart of the Sea_ so I'm sympathetic to theories that whales are carting off the ice.

I appreciate the response as a conservative world needs actionable rationale on which to act.

If you caveat the rationale with 'of recent years' then automatically you aren't talking about 30 year trends, and I would further say you aren't even talking about 11 year trends which is a single solar cycle.

How can a conservative world- interested in staving off anarchy by keeping people gainfully employed- be expected to act on such arguably unactionable advice?

I think I can provide part of an answer to that, but I thought this was maybe a more apt thread than the 2016 melt season where I moved it from.

I work for an engineering consultancy that provides investment risk analysis to companies building large infrastructure projects, like power stations, pipelines and ports. These can have lead times and production lifetimes longer than fifty years, so they're at risk from climate change effects.

That risk has to be measured, and just as there are relatively few atheists in foxholes, there are relatively few climate sceptics in hedge funds. No matter what its marketing department implies by making contributions to dirty tricks operations like the Heartland Institute, Exxon would no sooner manage its own investments using pseudoscience than ask an astrologer.

Unfortunately, convincing the public about the need for real action on climate change might not be possible at this time. That requires politics, and that's not going to happen until sufficient vested interests align such that real action becomes advantageous to them.

Then we'll get action on climate change. And boy, will it be profitable.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference indicates that past modeling efforts may have overestimated climate sensitivity to solar forcing due to stratospheric ozone feedback.  This would have the influence of paleo modeling efforts underestimating climate sensitivity to other forms of radiative forcing; and as GHG emission continue to be a larger fraction of radiative forcing (as compared to solar forcing), this indicates that future global warming may occur more rapidly than AR5 models project:

G. Chiodo & L.M. Polvani (2016), "Reduction of climate sensitivity to solar forcing due to stratospheric ozone feedback", Journal of Climate, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0721.1


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0721.1

Abstract: "An accurate assessment of the role of solar variability is a key step towards a proper quantification of natural and anthropogenic climate change. To this end, climate models have been extensively used to quantify the solar contribution to climate variability. However, owing to its large computational cost, the bulk of modeling studies to date have been performed without interactive stratospheric photochemistry: the impact of this simplification on the modeled climate system response to solar forcing remains largely unknown. Here we quantify this impact, by comparing the response of two model configurations, with and without interactive ozone chemistry. Using long integrations, we first obtain robust surface temperature and precipitation responses to an idealized irradiance increase. Then, we show that the inclusion of interactive stratospheric chemistry significantly reduces the surface warming (by about one third) and the accompanying precipitation response. This behavior is linked to photochemically-induced stratospheric ozone changes, and their modulation of the surface solar radiation. Our results suggest that neglecting stratospheric photochemistry leads to a sizable overestimate of the surface response to changes in solar irradiance. This has implications for simulations of the climate in the Last Millennium and geoengineering applications employing irradiance changes larger than those observed over the 11-year sunspot cycle, where models often use simplified treatments of stratospheric ozone that are inconsistent with the imposed solar forcing."

[Sigmetnow]

 Not so much "conservative scientists", but rather "skeptics":  RealClimate takes on satellite data and confusing graphs.

Comparing models to the satellite datasets

How should one make graphics that appropriately compare models and observations? There are basically two key points... – comparisons should be ‘like with like’, and different sources of uncertainty should be clear, whether uncertainties are related to ‘weather’ and/or structural uncertainty in either the observations or the models. There are unfortunately many graphics going around that fail to do this properly, and some prominent ones are associated with satellite temperatures made by John Christy. This post explains exactly why these graphs are misleading and how more honest presentations of the comparison allow for more informed discussions of why and how these records are changing and differ from models.

The dominant contrarian talking point of the last few years has concerned the ‘satellite’ temperatures. The almost exclusive use of this topic, for instance, in recent congressional hearings, coincides (by total coincidence I’m sure) with the stubborn insistence of the surface temperature data sets, ocean heat content, sea ice trends, sea levels, etc. to show continued effects of warming and break historical records. To hear some tell it, one might get the impression that there are no other relevant data sets, and that the satellites are a uniquely perfect measure of the earth’s climate state. Neither of these things are, however, true.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=18943

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference analyses the CMIP3&5 results to conclude the ECS is likely 3.9C +/- 0.45C:

Chengxing Zhai, Jonathan H. Jiang & Hui Su (2015), "Long-term cloud change imprinted in seasonal cloud variation: More evidence of high climate sensitivity", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2015GL065911


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065911/full


Abstract: "The large spread of model equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is mainly caused by the differences in the simulated marine boundary layer cloud (MBLC) radiative feedback. We examine the variations of MBLC fraction in response to the changes of sea surface temperature (SST) at seasonal and centennial time scales for 27 climate models that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 and phase 5. We find that the intermodel spread in the seasonal variation of MBLC fraction with SST is strongly correlated with the intermodel spread in the centennial MBLC fraction change per degree of SST warming and that both are well correlated with ECS. Seven models that are consistent with the observed seasonal variation of MBLC fraction with SST at a rate −1.28 ± 0.56%/K all have ECS higher than the multimodel mean of 3.3 K yielding an ensemble-mean ECS of 3.9 K and a standard deviation of 0.45 K."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference examines the CMIP5 findings to demonstrate that the influence of local regions that exhibit a super greenhouse effect (SGE), is fundamental to determining climate sensitivity; yet different CMIP5 model projections of the SGE varies by an order of magnitude across the models.  It is not comforting to know that mainstream scientists (as represented by AR5) are so willing to "Fake it until They Make it" by discounting the significance of this fundamental Earth System effect.

Graeme L. Stephens, Brian H. Kahn and Mark Richardson (5 May, 2016), "The Super Greenhouse effect in a changing climate", Journal of Climate, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0234.1


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0234.1


Abstract: "In all outputs of the 1% per year increase in CO2 climate model experiments archived under the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5), regions exist in the low latitudes where both the clear-sky and all-sky OLR decrease with surface warming. These are identified as regions of positive longwave feedback and are regions of a super greenhouse effect (SGE). These SGE regions are identified from feedback analysis of the 4×CO2 abrupt experiments of CMIP5 and despite their existence, there is little agreement across models as to the magnitude of the effect. The general effects of clouds on the SGE are to amplify the clear-sky SGE but there is also poor agreement on the magnitude of the amplification that varies by an order of magnitude across models. Sensitivity analyses indicate that localized SGE regions are spatially aligned with large moistening of the upper troposphere. The reduction in clear-sky OLR arises from a reduction in emission in the far-IR with non-negligible contributions from mid-IR emission from the mid-troposphere. When viewed in the broader context of meridional heat transport, we find that of the 1.03 PW rate of heat gained globally, 0.8 PW is absorbed in the tropics and is contributed almost equally by reductions in clear-sky longwave emission (i.e., the clear-sky SGE) and increased absorbed clear-sky solar radiation associated with increased water vapor. The processes that define the clear-sky SGE are shown to be fundamental to the way models accumulate heat and then transport it poleward."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference finds a distinct spatial pattern differences between anthropogenic aerosol and GHG forcing and concludes that: "The aerosol-induced negative radiative forcing in the Northern Hemisphere requires a cross-equatorial Hadley circulation to compensate inter-hemispheric energy imbalance in the atmosphere. Associated with a southward shift of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, this inter-hemispheric asymmetric mode is unique to aerosol forcing, and absent in GHG runs."


Hai Wang, Shang-Ping Xie and Qinyu Liu (6 May, 2016), "Comparison of Climate Response to Anthropogenic Aerosol versus Greenhouse Gas Forcing: Distinct Patterns", Journal of Climate, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0106.1


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0106.1

Abstract: "Spatial patterns of climate response to changes in anthropogenic aerosols and well-mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs) are investigated using climate model simulations for the 20th century. The climate response shows both similarities and differences in spatial pattern between aerosol and GHG runs. Common climate response between aerosol and GHG runs tends to be symmetric about the equator. This work focuses on the distinctive patterns that are unique to the anthropogenic aerosol forcing. The tropospheric cooling induced by anthropogenic aerosols is locally enhanced in the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere with a deep vertical structure around 40°N, anchoring a westerly acceleration in thermal wind balance. The aerosol-induced negative radiative forcing in the Northern Hemisphere requires a cross-equatorial Hadley circulation to compensate inter-hemispheric energy imbalance in the atmosphere. Associated with a southward shift of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, this inter-hemispheric asymmetric mode is unique to aerosol forcing, and absent in GHG runs. Comparison of key climate response pattern indices indicates that the aerosol forcing dominates the inter-hemispheric asymmetric climate response in historical all-forcing simulations, as well as regional precipitation change such as the drying trend over the East Asia monsoon region. While GHG forcing dominates global mean surface temperature change, its effect is on par with and often opposes the aerosol effect on precipitation, making it difficult to detect anthropogenic change in rainfall from historical observations."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference discusses why people (including scientists and policy makers) "self-silence" themselves on the topic of the reality of climate change:

Nathaniel Geiger & Janet Swim (8 May 2016), "Climate of silence: Pluralistic ignorance as a barrier to climate change discussion", Journal of Environmental Psychology, doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.05.002

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441630038X

Abstract: "Despite the importance of interpersonal public communication about climate change, most citizens rarely discuss the topic. In two studies, we find that inaccurate perceptions of others' opinions (i.e. pluralistic ignorance) contribute to self-silencing among those concerned about climate change. Study 1 illustrates that those who are aware of others' concern about climate change report greater willingness to discuss the issue than those with inaccurate perceptions of others' opinions. Study 2 demonstrates that correcting pluralistic ignorance increases concerned participants' willingness to discuss climate change. In both studies, pluralistic ignorance leads to self-silencing because perceptions that others do not share one's opinion are associated with expecting to be perceived as less competent in a conversation about climate change. In contrast to previous research on confronting prejudice, in the present research expectations about being disliked did not explain self-silencing. We discuss the implications for self-silencing and promoting interpersonal communication about climate change."


See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/05/12/the-vicious-cycle-that-makes-people-afraid-to-talk-about-climate-change/

Extract: "In a nutshell, Geiger and Swim find that people are often afraid to talk about climate change with their peers because they wrongly think those peers are more doubtful about climate change than they actually are. This incorrect perception — which the authors dub “pluralistic ignorance” — then makes people fear that others will think they’re less competent, and thus, view them with less respect, if they bring up the subject or talk about it."

[Anne]

The linked reference discusses why people (including scientists and policy makers) "self-silence" themselves on the topic of the reality of climate change:

Nathaniel Geiger & Janet Swim (8 May 2016), "Climate of silence: Pluralistic ignorance as a barrier to climate change discussion", Journal of Environmental Psychology, doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.05.002

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441630038X

Abstract: "Despite the importance of interpersonal public communication about climate change, most citizens rarely discuss the topic. In two studies, we find that inaccurate perceptions of others' opinions (i.e. pluralistic ignorance) contribute to self-silencing among those concerned about climate change. Study 1 illustrates that those who are aware of others' concern about climate change report greater willingness to discuss the issue than those with inaccurate perceptions of others' opinions. Study 2 demonstrates that correcting pluralistic ignorance increases concerned participants' willingness to discuss climate change. In both studies, pluralistic ignorance leads to self-silencing because perceptions that others do not share one's opinion are associated with expecting to be perceived as less competent in a conversation about climate change. In contrast to previous research on confronting prejudice, in the present research expectations about being disliked did not explain self-silencing. We discuss the implications for self-silencing and promoting interpersonal communication about climate change."


See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/05/12/the-vicious-cycle-that-makes-people-afraid-to-talk-about-climate-change/

Extract: "In a nutshell, Geiger and Swim find that people are often afraid to talk about climate change with their peers because they wrongly think those peers are more doubtful about climate change than they actually are. This incorrect perception — which the authors dub “pluralistic ignorance” — then makes people fear that others will think they’re less competent, and thus, view them with less respect, if they bring up the subject or talk about it."

See also the effect of paywalls in silencing informed discussion. 

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article indicates that the contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic Amplification is regulated by the PDO and that in positive PDO phases (like we are in now) there should be less Arctic Amplification.  Thus the fact that we are currently experiencing high Arctic Amplification during a period of highly positive PDO values gives cause for concern that climate sensitivity may be higher than considered by AR5:

James A. Screen & Jennifer A. Francis (2016), "Contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification is regulated by Pacific Ocean decadal variability", Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/nclimate3011


http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3011.html

Abstract: "The pace of Arctic warming is about double that at lower latitudes—a robust phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Many diverse climate processes and feedbacks cause Arctic amplification, including positive feedbacks associated with diminished sea ice. However, the precise contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification remains uncertain. Through analyses of both observations and model simulations, we show that the contribution of sea-ice loss to wintertime Arctic amplification seems to be dependent on the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Our results suggest that, for the same pattern and amount of sea-ice loss, consequent Arctic warming is larger during the negative PDO phase relative to the positive phase, leading to larger reductions in the poleward gradient of tropospheric thickness and to more pronounced reductions in the upper-level westerlies. Given the oscillatory nature of the PDO, this relationship has the potential to increase skill in decadal-scale predictability of the Arctic and sub-Arctic climate. Our results indicate that Arctic warming in response to the ongoing long-term sea-ice decline is greater (reduced) during periods of the negative (positive) PDO phase. We speculate that the observed recent shift to the positive PDO phase, if maintained and all other factors being equal, could act to temporarily reduce the pace of wintertime Arctic warming in the near future."

Also see:
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-sea-ice-loss-arctic-temperatures-pacific.html

Extract: "New research led by University of Exeter expert Dr James Screen and published in leading scientific journal Nature Climate Change has shown that the influence of sea-ice loss on warming in the far north during winter is dependent on a recurring ocean temperature pattern in the North Pacific."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference indicates that with continued global warming the period and range of the PDO will be reduced.  However, as current the PDO is very high and we are clearly in a warming period, one has to wonder whether the authors used a sufficiently high climate sensitivity, or just used the AR5 standard:

Liping Zhang and Thomas L. Delworth (11 May, 2016), "Simulated response of the Pacific decadal oscillation to climate change", Journal of Climate, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0690.1


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0690.1

Abstract: "The impact of climate change on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is studied using a fully coupled climate model. The model results show that the PDO has a similar spatial pattern in altered climates, but its amplitude and time scale of variability change in response to global warming or cooling. In response to global warming the PDO amplitude is significantly reduced, with a maximum decrease over the Kuroshio-Oyashio-Extension (KOE) region. This reduction appears to be associated with a weakened meridional temperature gradient in the KOE region. In addition, reduced variability of North Pacific wind stress, partially due to reduced air-sea feedback, also helps to weaken the PDO amplitude by reducing the meridional displacements of the subtropical and subpolar gyre boundaries. In contrast, the PDO amplitude increases in response to global cooling.
In our control simulations the model PDO has an approximately bi-decadal peak. In a warmer climate the PDO timescale becomes shorter, changing from approximately 20 years to approximately 12 years. In a colder climate the timescale of the PDO increases to approximately 34 years. Physically, global warming (cooling) enhances (weakens) ocean stratification. The increased (decreased) ocean stratification acts to increase (reduce) the phase speed of internal Rossby waves, thereby altering the timescale of the simulated PDO."

[wili]

Interview with a number of climate scientists:




Survivable IPCC projections based on science fiction - reality is far worse

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference identifies a newly identified and abundant source of dimethyl sulfide, DMS; which is the Pelagibacter marine bacterium.  DMS assists with the formation of clouds and thus results in a negative feedback mechanism.  As the impact of this negative feedback is already included in all of the AR5 estimates for climate sensitivity, this discovery does not result in lower estimates of ECS; but rather this discovery raises the highly probable risk that continuing climate change (e.g.: ocean acidification, freshening of the ocean surface layers near ice sheets, and changes in ocean surface water temperatures) may likely reduce the population of Pelagibacter bacterium, which would result in increased future global temperatures as compared to AR5/CMIP5 estimates:

Sun et al (2016), "The abundant marine bacterium Pelagibacter simultaneously catabolizes dimethylsulforniopropionate to the gases dimethyl sulfide and methanethiol", Nature Microbiology, doi: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.65

http://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201665

See also:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0517/How-this-itty-bitty-ocean-dwelling-bacteria-regulates-our-climate

Extract: "While studying the bacterial group Pelagibacterales, the most abundant organism at the ocean's surface and one of the most abundant across the entire globe, scientists found that they are involved in an integral process that helps regulate our climate – the production of dimethylsulfide (DMS)."

[AbruptSLR]

Per the linked open access reference: "… Arctic sea ice may have critical points beyond which a return to the previous state is less likely."  Current AR5.CMIP5 models do not adequately exhibit this behavior:

Goldstein, M. A., Lynch, A. H., Arbetter, T. E., and Fetterer, F.: Abrupt transitions in Arctic open water area, The Cryosphere Discuss., doi:10.5194/tc-2016-108, in review, 2016.

http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2016-108/

Abstract. September open water fraction in the Arctic is analyzed using the satellite era record of ice concentration (1979–2014). This analysis suggests that there is a statistically significant breakpoint (shift in the mean) and increase in the variance around 1988 and another breakpoint around 2007 in the Pacific sector. These structural breaks are robust to the choice of algorithm used for deriving sea ice concentration from satellite data, and are also apparent in other measures of open water, such as operational ice charts and the record of navigable days from Barrow to Prudhoe Bay. Breakpoints in the Atlantic sector record of open water are evident in 1988 and 2007 but more weakly significant. The breakpoints appear to be associated with concomitant shifts in average ice age, and tend to lead change in Arctic circulation regimes. These results support the thesis that Arctic sea ice may have critical points beyond which a return to the previous state is less likely.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference indicates that aerosols in the Arctic have a “profound” impact on the global climate system. Climate models often underestimate the extent to which aerosols from industrial air pollution (especially those containing black carbon) warm the atmosphere because they assume Arctic air is cleaner than it actually is:

Yousuke Sato, Hiroaki Miura, Hisashi Yashiro, Daisuke Goto, Toshihiko Takemura, Hirofumi Tomita, Teruyuki Nakajima. Unrealistically pristine air in the Arctic produced by current global scale models. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6: 26561 DOI: 10.1038/srep26561

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep26561

See also:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160525083925.htm

Summary: "Black carbon aerosols are important for understanding climate change. Unfortunately, current simulation models consistently underestimate the amount of these aerosols in the Arctic compared to actual measurements. Now, scientists used the K computer to perform fine-grained simulations of how black carbon aerosols are transported to and distributed in the Arctic region. By using smaller grids they were able to show that they could more realistically model the amount of black carbon aerosols."

Also see:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/tar-sands-impact-climate-air-quality-20376

Extract: "Aerosols from the production of heavy oil is a growing climate and pollution concern because new tar sands developments are on the drawing board in Venezuela, Utah and elsewhere, the study says. Today, heavy oil accounts for 10 percent of global crude oil production worldwide, mostly in Canada, which produced about 1.1 billion barrels of oil in 2014.

“The results indicate that the environmental impacts of Canadian tar sands are much larger than previously recognized,” said Allen Robinson, a mechanical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who is unaffiliated with the study. “What is so novel about this paper is that tar sands were not on anybody’s radar as a major source of aerosol.”"

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference provides data that some common antibiotics can almost double the amount of methane emissions from cattle dung:

Tobin J. Hammer, Noah Fierer, Bess Hardwick, Asko Simojoki, Eleanor Slade, Juhani Taponen, Heidi Viljanen, Tomas Roslin (25 May 2016), "Treating cattle with antibiotics affects greenhouse gas emissions, and microbiota in dung and dung beetles", Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0150

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1831/20160150

Abstract: "Antibiotics are routinely used to improve livestock health and growth. However, this practice may have unintended environmental impacts mediated by interactions among the wide range of micro- and macroorganisms found in agroecosystems. For example, antibiotics may alter microbial emissions of greenhouse gases by affecting livestock gut microbiota. Furthermore, antibiotics may affect the microbiota of non-target animals that rely on dung, such as dung beetles, and the ecosystem services they provide. To examine these interactions, we treated cattle with a commonly used broad-spectrum antibiotic and assessed downstream effects on microbiota in dung and dung beetles, greenhouse gas fluxes from dung, and beetle size, survival and reproduction. We found that antibiotic treatment restructured microbiota in dung beetles, which harboured a microbial community distinct from those in the dung they were consuming. The antibiotic effect on beetle microbiota was not associated with smaller size or lower numbers. Unexpectedly, antibiotic treatment raised methane fluxes from dung, possibly by altering the interactions between methanogenic archaea and bacteria in rumen and dung environments. Our findings that antibiotics restructure dung beetle microbiota and modify greenhouse gas emissions from dung indicate that antibiotic treatment may have unintended, cascading ecological effects that extend beyond the target animal."

Also see:

http://phys.org/news/2016-05-drugs-dung-bad-climate.html

Extract: "Lab studies revealed that dung pats from animals given a common antibiotic gave off more than double the methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than those of non-treated cows, a team wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B."

&

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/feeding-antibiotics-farm-animals-may-worsen-climate-change-n580406

Extract: "A study published this week finds that when cattle were fed a common antibiotic, their manure produced even more methane than normal — a potent global warming gas."

&

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/antibiotics-farm-animals-livestock-climate_us_5745d4e0e4b03ede44137d3e
Extract: "An international research team found that dung from cattle treated with a commonly used antibiotic gave off a little less than double the amount of methane of antibiotic-free dung."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference uses an information-theoretic weighting of climate models by how well they reproduce the satellite measured deseasonlized covariance of shortwave cloud reflection, indicates a most likely value of ECS of 4.0C; which indicates that AR5 errs on the side of least drama:

Florent Brient & Tapio Schneider (2016), "Constraints on climate sensitivity from space-based measurements of low-cloud reflection", Journal of Climate, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0897.1


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0897.1

Abstract: "Physical uncertainties in global-warming projections are dominated by uncertainties about how the fraction of incoming shortwave radiation that clouds reflect will change as greenhouse gas concentrations rise. Differences in the shortwave reflection by low clouds over tropical oceans alone account for more than half of the variance of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) among climate models, which ranges from 2.1 to 4.7 K. Space-based measurements now provide an opportunity to assess how well models reproduce temporal variations of this shortwave reflection on seasonal to interannual timescales. Here such space-based measurements are used to show that shortwave reflection by low clouds over tropical oceans decreases robustly when the underlying surface warms, for example, by −(0.96±0.22)%/K (90% confidence level) for deseasonalized variations. Additionally, the temporal covariance of low-cloud reflection with temperature in historical simulations with current climate models correlates strongly (r = −0.67) with the models’ ECS. Therefore, measurements of temporal low-cloud variations can be used to constrain ECS estimates based on climate models. An information-theoretic weighting of climate models by how well they reproduce the measured deseasonalized covariance of shortwave cloud reflection with temperature yields a most likely ECS estimate around 4.0 K; an ECS below 2.3 K becomes very unlikely (90% confidence)."

See also:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160816110756.htm

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference indicates that most current climate models are underestimating the amount of methane emitted by freshwater temperate wetlands:

Cristina M. Poindexter, Dennis D. Baldocchi, Jaclyn Hatala Matthes, Sara Helen Knox & Evan A. Variano (23 May 2016), "Overlooked methane transport process controls significant portion of a wetland's methane emissions", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL068782

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL068782/abstract

Abstract: "Wetland methane transport processes affect what portion of methane produced in wetlands reaches the atmosphere. We model what has been perceived to be the least important of these transport processes: hydrodynamic transport of methane through wetland surface water, and show that its contribution to total methane emissions from a temperate freshwater marsh is surprisingly large. In our 1-year study, hydrodynamic transport comprised more than half of nighttime methane fluxes, and was driven primarily by water column thermal convection occurring overnight as the water surface cooled. Overall, hydrodynamic transport was responsible for 32% of annual methane emissions. Many methane models have overlooked this process, but our results show wetland methane fluxes cannot always be accurately described using only other transport processes (plant-mediated transport and ebullition). Modifying models to include hydrodynamic transport and the mechanisms that drive it, particularly convection, could help improve predictions of future wetland methane emissions."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked Reuters article notes that NASA reported that a new satellite-based method have located 39 unreported sources of anthropogenic emissions that, when accounted for, increase our previously estimated amount of sulfur dioxide by about 12 percent of all such anthropogenic emissions from 2005 to 2014.  This indicates that the CMIP5 projections also underestimated the impact of this negative forcing source; which raises the prospect that climate sensitivity (ECS) is likely higher than the CMIP5 models indicate, and the linked Zhai et al (2015) reference analyses of the CMIP3&5 results conclude that the ECS is likely 3.9C +/- 0.45C:

Chengxing Zhai, Jonathan H. Jiang & Hui Su (2015), "Long-term cloud change imprinted in seasonal cloud variation: More evidence of high climate sensitivity", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2015GL065911

http://in.reuters.com/article/us-nasa-pollution-idINKCN0YO1PW

Extract: "Researchers in the United States and Canada have located 39 unreported sources of major pollution using a new satellite-based method, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
The unreported sources of toxic sulfur dioxide emissions are clusters of coal-burning power plants, smelters and oil and gas operations in the Middle East, Mexico and Russia that were found in an analysis of satellite data from 2005 to 2014, NASA said in a statement on Wednesday.
…
Environment and Climate Change Canada atmospheric scientist Chris McLinden said in a statement that the unreported and underreported sources accounted for about 12 percent of all human-made emissions of sulfur dioxide."

See also:

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-nasa-satellite-unreported-sources-toxic.html

[AbruptSLR]

While I linked to the indicated study in the Antarctic folder a couple of years ago; I provide the following Scripps link below as its summary makes it clear that abrupt climate changes (say due to changes in ocean currents) and lead to associated temporary accelerations of CO₂ emitting feedbacks that are more traditionally viewed as being slow response and part of ESS and not part of ECS (which was not "known" (by consensus scientists) before 2014).  This research makes it clear that if Hansen's ice-climate feedback abruptly changes the thermohaline circulation, that the effective ECS could be increased (say for 100 years or so) as slow response feedbacks (like permafrost degradation) are temporarily accelerated:

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2014/10/29/new-study-shows-three-abrupt-pulses-of-co2-during-last-deglaciation/

Extract: "A new multi-institutional study including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, shows that the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributed to the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago did not occur gradually, but was characterized by three “pulses” in which CO2 rose abruptly.
Scientists are not sure what caused these abrupt increases, during which levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, rose about 10-15 parts per million (ppm) – or about five percent per episode – over a period of one to two centuries. It likely was a combination of factors, they say, including ocean circulation, changing wind patterns, and terrestrial processes. Scripps geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus said the three episodes, which took place 16,100 years ago, 14,700 years ago, and 11,700 years ago are strongly linked to abrupt climate change events that took place in the Northern Hemisphere.
“Abrupt climate change has its own small but significant impacts on atmospheric CO2 and no one knew that before now,” said Severinghaus, a study co-author."

[AbruptSLR]

The link leads to an open access pdf of a new USGS report addressing whether Alaska's natural systems will be a net carbon source, or sink, through 2100.  While the authors have high integrity and superior intellect; nevertheless, as is the case with AR5 it is much more important to read their footnotes, and caveats, rather than their executive summary, as they intentionally (and purposefully) leave out of their consideration anything that they cannot be documented with 95% confidence level, such as likely methane emissions from Alaskan lakes and methane hydrates.  While the report concludes that through 2100 the natural systems listed, for the Alaskan regions listed, in the report will act as a net sink; however, including the likely methane sources alone that the report omitted would in my opinion be sufficient to cause Alaska (and most other Arctic non-glacial land regions) to be significant carbon sources, with high GWP, through 2100:

Edited by Zhiliang Zhu and A. David McGuire, "Baseline and Projected Future Carbon Storage and Greenhouse-Gas Fluxes in Ecosystems of Alaska", USGS Professional Paper 1826, ISSN 1044-9612 (print), ISSN 2330-7102 (online)

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1826/pp1826.pdf

Extract of the last paragraph in the main body of the report: "The results of our synthesis have implications for carbon management strategies that might be implemented as part of national policies aimed at controlling the rate and overall magnitude of climate change. These results suggest that Alaska could be a sink for greenhouse gases under some climate scenarios, but under others it could be a source, depending on the response of CH4 emissions of lakes. However, it is important to recognize that CH4 emissions from lakes have not been considered in this assessment, and it is likely that Alaska would be a source of greenhouse gases under all climate simulations if these emissions were considered in the assessment. Models have recently been developed for simulating CH4 emissions of arctic lakes (Tan and others, 2015), and these models may be useful for estimating regional CH4 emissions of lakes in Alaska in future assessments to more fully inform policy decisions concerning the mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States."

See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/03/alaskas-huge-climate-mystery-and-its-global-consequences/?postshare=4471464970653523&tid=ss_tw

[AbruptSLR]

As indicated by the linked reference, scientists have been well aware since 2012 that nutrient availability would reduce land carbon uptake; yet no AR5 projection considers such limitations.  ACME has included such limitations in their projections so maybe AR7 will err less on the side of least drama than AR5 does:

Goll, D. S., Brovkin, V., Parida, B. R., Reick, C. H., Kattge, J., Reich, P. B., van Bodegom, P. M., & Niinemets, Ü (2012).: Nutrient limitation reduces land carbon uptake in simulations with a model of combined carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, /Biogeosciences/, 9, 3547-3569. doi:10.5194/bg-9-3547-2012.

http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/3547/2012/bg-9-3547-2012.pdf

Abstract: "Terrestrial carbon (C) cycle models applied for climate projections simulate a strong increase in net primary productivity (NPP) due to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration during the 21st century. These models usually neglect the limited availability of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), nutrients that commonly limit plant growth and soil carbon turnover. To investigate how the projected C sequestration is altered when stoichiometric constraints on C cycling are considered, we incorporated a P cycle into the land surface model JSBACH (Jena Scheme for Biosphere–Atmosphere Coupling in Hamburg), which already includes representations of coupled C and N cycles.  The model reveals a distinct geographic pattern of P and N limitation. Under the SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) A1B scenario, the accumulated land C uptake between 1860 and 2100 is 13% (particularly at high latitudes) and 16% (particularly at low latitudes) lower in simulations with N and P cycling, respectively, than in simulations without nutrient cycles. The combined effect of both nutrients reduces land C uptake by 25% compared to simulations without N or P cycling. Nutrient limitation in general may be biased by the model simplicity, but the ranking of limitations is robust against the parameterization and the inflexibility of stoichiometry. After 2100, increased temperature and high CO2 concentration cause a shift from N to P limitation at high latitudes, while nutrient limitation in the tropics declines. The increase in P limitation at high-latitudes is induced by a strong increase in NPP and the low P sorption capacity of soils, while a decline in tropical NPP due to high autotrophic respiration rates alleviates N and P limitations. The quantification of P limitation remains challenging. The poorly constrained processes of soil P sorption and biochemical mineralization are identified as the main uncertainties in the strength of P limitation. Even so, our findings indicate that global land C uptake in the 21st century is likely overestimated in models that neglect P and N limitations. In the long term, insufficient P availability might become an important constraint on C cycling at high latitudes. Accordingly, we argue that the P cycle must be included in global models used for C cycle projections."

See also:
http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/news/focus-on-overview/phosphorus-limitation/

Caption for the attached image: "Figure 1: Simulated change in land carbon storage under the SRES A1B scenario. Shown are the 10-yr mean of soil temperature (a), the CO2 concentration as used in the forcing simulation (b), and the resulting change in total land C storage (c). C – only carbon, no nutrients considered; CN - nitrogen considered; CP – phosphorus considered; CNP – phosphorus and nitrogen considered."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference analyses CMIP5 and finds a risk of negative net biome production (NBP) indicating the risk that in the future the land could act as a carbon source instead of a sink (see the attached image):
 
Mystakidis, S., E.L. Davin, N. Gruber and S.I. Seneviratne, 2016: Constraining future terrestrial carbon cycle projections using observation-based water and carbon flux estimates, Global Change Biology, 22, 2198–2215, doi: 10.1111/gcb.13217

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13217/full

Abstract: "The terrestrial biosphere is currently acting as a sink for about a third of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, the future fate of this sink in the coming decades is very uncertain, as current earth system models (ESMs) simulate diverging responses of the terrestrial carbon cycle to upcoming climate change. Here, we use observation-based constraints of water and carbon fluxes to reduce uncertainties in the projected terrestrial carbon cycle response derived from simulations of ESMs conducted as part of the 5th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We find in the ESMs a clear linear relationship between present-day evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary productivity (GPP), as well as between these present-day fluxes and projected changes in GPP, thus providing an emergent constraint on projected GPP. Constraining the ESMs based on their ability to simulate present-day ET and GPP leads to a substantial decrease in the projected GPP and to a ca. 50% reduction in the associated model spread in GPP by the end of the century. Given the strong correlation between projected changes in GPP and in NBP in the ESMs, applying the constraints on net biome productivity (NBP) reduces the model spread in the projected land sink by more than 30% by 2100. Moreover, the projected decline in the land sink is at least doubled in the constrained ensembles and the probability that the terrestrial biosphere is turned into a net carbon source by the end of the century is strongly increased. This indicates that the decline in the future land carbon uptake might be stronger than previously thought, which would have important implications for the rate of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration and for future climate change."

Caption for attached image: "Global NBP over the period 1989–2100 (RCP8.5) for the prior (navy blue) and the four different constrained (light blue) ensembles: (a) ETcon, (b) GPP&ETcon, (c) GPPcon and (d) GPPglobal. Shaded areas represent the model spread expressed as one standard deviation of the multimodel mean for the prior (cadet blue) and the constrained (sky blue) ensemble. Negative numbers correspond to carbon source."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked Scribbler article is entitled: "Rapid Polar Warming Kicks ENSO Out of Climate Driver’s Seat, Sets off Big 2014-2016 Global Temperature Spike".  While Scribbler makes many excellent points, I note that in our chaotic Earth Systems can interact synergistically to form strange attractors that jointly boost climate sensitivity, i.e. high ECS, (rather than only focusing on the important trend for accelerating Arctic Amplification that Scribbler address in this article):

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/17/rapid-polar-warming-kicks-enso-out-of-the-climate-drivers-seat-sets-off-big-2014-2016-global-temperature-spike/

Extract: "A strong El Nino in 2015 helped to contribute to record hot global temperatures over the past three years. But with so much heat unexpectedly showing up in the global climate system, there’s clearly something else going on. And indicators are that the natural climate variability that human beings have grown accustomed to over the last 10,000 years may now be a thing of the past — as it is steadily overwhelmed by a stronger overall greenhouse gas based warming signature. One that is concentrating more and more warming near the poles.
…
Taken in total, these warm air slots were enormous — exerting an amazing influence over the totality of global weather. The overall story is one in which the polar vortex was basically getting smashed during an El Nino year. Another big indication that things are teetering pretty far off kilter. One indicator of this was an anomalous spiking of all the upper level Equatorial wind speeds at the same time (in the Quasi Biennial Oscillation measure) during September of 2015. An event that current climate theory says shouldn’t happen, but it did. And yet one more hint that the Hadley Cell produced a huge northward bulge at the time. It’s also an indicator that Northern Hemisphere Winter is getting steadily beaten back to the ropes by the bully of northward running heat.
So what we’ve seen from 1997 to 2015 is a dramatic transition in which El Nino appears to have lost climate influence powers and become a slave to what is now a heat-sucking engine at the pole. It’s an emerging first phase of a death of winter type scenario. And the upshot is that the extra heat in the system that scientists are getting pretty concerned about appears now to be coming in large part from a ramping Northern Hemisphere polar amplification."

[Sleepy]

Nice to see others noting the anomalous QBO. I guess scientists have done so for a while. Seeing such a regular pattern change, is disturbing.
We are changing everything and there's no going back.

[ktonine]

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/17/rapid-polar-warming-kicks-enso-out-of-the-climate-drivers-seat-sets-off-big-2014-2016-global-temperature-spike/

Extract: " One indicator of this was an anomalous spiking of all the upper level Equatorial wind speeds at the same time (in the Quasi Biennial Oscillation measure) during September of 2015. An event that current climate theory says shouldn’t happen, but it did."

I have no idea what RS is talking about here.  He doesn't provide any details -- just assertion. And since he doesn't allow any disagreement with his views in the comments, I rarely go there anymore.  More than once I've pointed out an error in his posts only to have my comments snipped and  told I was a denier or troll.  Just factual errors - not a difference of opinion.  In at least one case he corrected the post and *still* snipped the comment I had made that pointed out the error.  His revised post did not include any note or update to reflect that it had changed from the original.  I'm used to that on denier sites and tend to stay away from that whole mindset regardless which side of the fence they're on.

[AbruptSLR]

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/17/rapid-polar-warming-kicks-enso-out-of-the-climate-drivers-seat-sets-off-big-2014-2016-global-temperature-spike/

Extract: " One indicator of this was an anomalous spiking of all the upper level Equatorial wind speeds at the same time (in the Quasi Biennial Oscillation measure) during September of 2015. An event that current climate theory says shouldn’t happen, but it did."

I have no idea what RS is talking about here.

To support Scribbler's comments about the QBO, I provide the following selected posts on this topic made by Sleepy in the "2015/16 El Nino, the aftermath" thread:

First QBO post from Sleepy:

Pmt, when I started reading about ENSO a few years back I was quite surprised when I ended up with reading papers fom the sixities about the QBO... Why? It's a large scale clockwork oscillation that's still not well understood. The same goes for the MJO. And ENSO, and it's aftermath. There's a fundamental misunderstanding here somewhere, maybe the coriolis effect? I think we (they) will have to check the cornerstones here. But I'm just a novice reading, trying to understand.

ASLR posted a link to a new paper in the Conservative Scientists & its Consequences thread yesterday.
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1053.msg70113.html#msg70113
If someone has access to that paper I would love to read it.

Here's a paper from 2014.
Northern Hemisphere mid-winter vortex-displacement and vortex-split stratospheric sudden warmings: Influence of the Madden-Julian Oscillation and Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kfl/paper/Liu2014.pdf
Quoting the abstract:
We investigate the connection between the equatorial Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and
different types of the Northern Hemisphere mid-winter major stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs), i.e., vortex-displacement and vortex-split SSWs. The MJO-SSW relationship for vortex-split SSWs is stronger than that for vortex-displacement SSWs, as a result of the stronger and more coherent eastward propagating MJOs before vortex-split SSWs than those before vortex-displacement SSWs. Composite analysis indicates that both the intensity and propagation features of MJO may influence the MJO-related circulation pattern at high latitudes and the type of SSWs. A pronounced Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) dependence is found for vortex-displacement and vortex-split SSWs, with vortex-displacement (-split) SSWs occurring preferentially in easterly (westerly) QBO phases. The lagged composites suggest that the MJO-related anomalies in the Arctic are very likely initiated when the MJO-related convection is active over the equatorial Indian Ocean (around the MJO phase 3). Further analysis suggests that the QBO may modulate the MJO-related wave disturbances via its influence on the upper tropospheric subtropical jet. As a result, the MJO-related circulation pattern in the Arctic tends to be wave number-one/wave number-two ~25–30 days following phase 3 (i.e., approximately phases 7–8, when the MJO-related convection is active over the western Pacific) during easterly/westerly QBO phases, which resembles the circulation pattern associated with vortex-displacement/vortex-split SSWs.


And there's a workshop in Helsinki in June.
The Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation: Confronting Model Biases and Uncovering Mechanisms
http://www.sparcdynvar.org/enso-and-qbo/
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Madden-Julian Oscillation and the stratospheric Quasi Biennial Oscillation (QBO) are major sources of interannual tropical variability, and are also known to generate teleconnections between the tropics and extratropics. However, their effects in the stratosphere are hard to separate in the analysis of observational data and realistic simulations. Recent papers have shown a non-linear stratospheric response when they combine (e.g. Calvo et al. 2009) and also in some cases, the influence of these stratospheric signals in the troposphere (e.g. Cagnazzo and Manzini 2009). This DynVar Research Topic focuses on characterizing the ENSO and QBO signals and their combined effects in the stratosphere; and also on investigating the possible role of the stratosphere on tropospheric ENSO and QBO teleconnections.

Let's hope some information is published after that one.

Second QBO post from Sleepy:

Another oscillation connected to both ENSO and the arctic, is the QBO. Adding this study from last year on how QBO would affect the subtropical jet and the NAO in combination with a La Nina.
Tropospheric QBO–ENSO Interactions and Differences between the Atlantic and Pacific.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0164.1
This study investigates the interaction of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the troposphere separately for the North Pacific and North Atlantic region. Three 145-yr model simulations with NCAR’s Community Earth System Model Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (CESM-WACCM) are analyzed where only natural (no anthropogenic) forcings are considered. These long simulations allow the authors to obtain statistically reliable results from an exceptional large number of cases for each combination of the QBO (westerly and easterly) and ENSO phases (El Niño and La Niña). Two different analysis methods were applied to investigate where nonlinearity might play a role in QBO–ENSO interactions. The analyses reveal that the stratospheric equatorial QBO anomalies extend down to the troposphere over the North Pacific during Northern Hemisphere winter only during La Niña and not during El Niño events. The Aleutian low is deepened during QBO westerly (QBOW) as compared to QBO easterly (QBOE) conditions, and the North Pacific subtropical jet is shifted northward during La Niña. In the North Atlantic, the interaction of QBOW with La Niña conditions (QBOE with El Niño) results in a positive (negative) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern. For both regions, nonlinear interactions between the QBO and ENSO might play a role. The results provide the potential to enhance the skill of tropospheric seasonal predictions in the North Atlantic and North Pacific region.

My bold.
At present we are having a La Nada regarding both ENSO and QBO. Looking at the graph at fu-berlin the transition this year resembles no previous year on record. I don't like that.
http://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/qbo/

Third QBO post from Sleepy:

AbruptSLR  June 09, 2016, 07:42:29 PM
: Sleepy  June 09, 2016, 07:01:16 PM
Western Pacific hydroclimate linked to global climate variability over the past two millennia
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160608/ncomms11719/full/ncomms11719.html
Interdecadal modes of tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere circulation have a strong influence on global temperature, yet the extent to which these phenomena influence global climate on multicentury timescales is still poorly known. Here we present a 2,000-year, multiproxy reconstruction of western Pacific hydroclimate from two speleothem records for southeastern Indonesia. The composite record shows pronounced shifts in monsoon rainfall that are antiphased with precipitation records for East Asia and the central-eastern equatorial Pacific. These meridional and zonal patterns are best explained by a poleward expansion of the Australasian Intertropical Convergence Zone and weakening of the Pacific Walker circulation (PWC) between ~1000 and 1500 CE Conversely, an equatorward contraction of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and strengthened PWC occurred between ~1500 and 1900 CE. Our findings, together with climate model simulations, highlight the likelihood that century-scale variations in tropical Pacific climate modes can significantly modulate radiatively forced shifts in global temperature.

My bold.


Sleepy,

Thanks for the recent series of posts on the influence of the Tropical Pacific on both Arctic Amplification and GMST departures.  It is clear to me that the Tropical Pacific can act as a chaotic strange attractor to amplify otherwise relatively weak radiative forcing inputs, and your last post of Fig. 5 indicates that we are now entering a phase of the century-scale variations in which Tropical Pacific modes naturally promote more strong El Ninos, which must then be added to the influences of anthropogenic forcing.


Thanks ASLR and yes, unfortunately. First we have ENSO, the largest signal in the interannual variation of the atmosphere-ocean system, then add the positive decadal variation we seem to be entering right now and then add this, a century-scale variation. 

Eyeballing other atmospheric oscillations and the arctic sea ice, I don't really see many resemblances in indices to years like 2007 & 2012 so the badly shaped ice might survive this year as well. There's still much to do for those who work with this though, using the QBO as an example, it is still not incorporated in most models as far as I know. Also add the issues the models still have with forecasts over the arctic. So maybe 2017 for the anticipated new record drop.