New Research

[knocker]

Not sure where to put this so will stick it here.

 

Population myths.

I've just read an article by Danny Doring in this months Geographical Magazine where he argues that the idea of a population bomb is a fallacy and that human population is without any need for a grand plan. He is professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield.

 

If anyone is interested by coincidence I notice that Professor Rostling is giving the This World lecture on BBC2 2100 tonight on the very same subject.

Edited November 7, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

If a tree falls in Brazil…? Amazon deforestation could mean droughts for western U.S.

In research meant to highlight how the destruction of the Amazon rainforest could affect climate elsewhere, Princeton University-led researchers report that the total deforestation of the Amazon may significantly reduce rain and snowfall in the western United States, resulting in water and food shortages, and a greater risk of forest fires.

 

 

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S38/31/66M12/

[knocker]

How ocean currents affect global climate is a question oceanographer may be close to answering

Kevin Speer has a “new paradigm†for describing how the world’s oceans circulate — and with it he may help reshape science’s understanding of the processes by which wind, water, sunlight and other factors interact and influence the planet’s climate.

 

 

http://www.news.fsu.edu/More-FSU-News/How-ocean-currents-affect-global-climate-is-a-question-oceanographer-may-be-close-to-answering

 

Closure of the meridional overturning circulation through Southern Ocean upwelling

The meridional overturning circulation of the ocean plays a central role in climate and climate variability by storing and transporting heat, fresh water and carbon around the globe. Historically, the focus of research has been on the North Atlantic Basin, a primary site where water sinks from the surface to depth, triggered by loss of heat, and therefore buoyancy, to the atmosphere. A key part of the overturning puzzle, however, is the return path from the interior ocean to the surface through upwelling in the Southern Ocean. This return path is largely driven by winds. It has become clear over the past few years that the importance of Southern Ocean upwelling for our understanding of climate rivals that of North Atlantic downwelling, because it controls the rate at which ocean reservoirs of heat and carbon communicate with the surface.

 

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n3/full/ngeo1391.html

[knocker]

Arctic Ocean circulation patterns revealed by GRACE

Measurements of ocean bottom pressure (OBP) anomalies from the satellite mission GRACE, complemented by information from two ocean models, are used to investigate the variations and distribution of the Arctic Ocean mass from 2002 through 2011. The forcing and dynamics associated with the observed OBP changes are investigated. Major findings are the identification of three primary temporal-spatial modes of OBP variability at monthly to inter-annual timescales with the following characteristics: Mode 1 (50% of the variance) is a wintertime basin-coherent Arctic mass change forced by southerly winds through Fram Strait, and to a lesser extent through Bering Strait. These winds generate northward geostrophic current anomalies that increase the mass in the Arctic Ocean. Mode 2 (20%) reveals a mass change along the Siberian shelves, driven by surface Ekman transport and associated with the Arctic Oscillation. Mode 3 (10%) reveals a mass dipole, with mass decreasing in the Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev Seas, and mass increasing in the Barents and Kara Seas. During the summer, the mass decrease on the Eastern Siberian shelves is due to basin-scale anticyclonic atmospheric circulation that removes mass from the shelves via Ekman transport. During the winter, the forcing mechanisms include a large-scale cyclonic atmospheric circulation in Eastern-Central Arctic that produces mass divergence into the Canada Basin and the Barents Seas. In addition, strengthening of the Beaufort High tends to remove mass from the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas. Supporting previous modeling results, the month-to-month variability in OBP associated with each mode is predominantly of barotropic character.

 

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00013.1

[knocker]

An interesting paper by Frank et, al, 2010

 

A noodle, hockey stick, and spaghetti plate: a perspective onhigh-resolution paleoclimatology

 

http://cgi.st-and.ac.uk/~rjsw/all%20pdfs/Franketal2010.pdf

Edited November 9, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Intrusion of warm surface water beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Abstract

A six month temperature record collected below McMurdo Ice Shelf in 2011-2012 shows the temporal and spatial structure of the summertime warm water signal that penetrates beneath the ice shelf. The strength and duration of the warm water intrusion suggest an annual melt rate at Windless Bight of 0.71m/yr. A Ross Sea numerical model demonstrates a seasonal warm water pathway leading from the west side of the Ross Sea Polynya (RSP) towards McMurdo Sound. The warm water enters McMurdo Sound, subducts beneath the ice shelf and causes accelerated summer melting. Temperature data were recorded using Distributed Temperature Sensing fiber optics, which gives a vertical temperature profile at a one meter vertical resolution. This study constitutes one of the first successful implementations of this technology in polar regions.

 

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JC008842/abstract

[Gray-Wolf]

http://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-finally-reaches-the-last-arctic-region/?

 

More evidence from the natural world of the physical changes the current climate shift is driving

 

EDIT: feel I should comment on knocks's post above. The McMurdo end of Ross is the opposite end of the shelf from where the 'warmer bottom waters' entered into the ross Sea. to find them impacting here also is a worrying development on their journey around antarctica. I do hope the the changes we see to both Ozone hole and conditions do not signal a relaxing of the circumpolar's as there is an awful lot of heat ready to enter this system .... the imbalance is so great that water had picked their way under the influence of the current by inching their way through the canyons on the sea bed..... any reduction in the blanket of water keeping this water out will lead to a rapid influx of water the full depth of the ocean there and near instant impacts on the sea ice and shelfs.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

Clouds in Weather and Climate - The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project at 30: What Do We Know and What Do We Still Need to Know?

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00138.1

[knocker]

Influence of winter sea-ice motion on summer ice cover in the Arctic

Summer sea-ice cover in the Arctic varies largely from year to year owing to several factors. This study examines one such factor, the relationship between interannual difference in winter ice motion and ice area in the following summer. A daily-ice velocity product on a 37.5-km resolution grid is prepared using the satellite passive microwave sensor Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer*Earth Observing System data for the nine years of 2003-2011. Derived daily-ice motion reveals the dynamic modification of the winter ice cover. The winter ice divergence/convergence is strongly related to the summer ice cover in some regions; the correlation coefficient between the winter ice convergence and summer ice area ranges between 0.5 and 0.9 in areas with high interannual variability. This relation implies that the winter ice redistribution controls the spring ice thickness and the summer ice cover.

 

 

http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/20193?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cryonews+%28CryoNews%29

[knocker]

Tropical storms are worse?

 

Some thoughts by Stefan Ramsdorf

Head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University.

 

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.scilogs.de/klimalounge/werden-tropenstuerme-schlimmer/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DWerden%2BTropenst%25C3%25BCrme%2Bschlimmer%253F%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DoNX%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Edited November 11, 2013 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

Influence of winter sea-ice motion on summer ice cover in the Arctic

 

http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/20193?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cryonews+%28CryoNews%29

 

 

Just looked a CT's area data and the recent storms appear to have dropped us to second lowest in the series????? That is before the upcoming storm over Svalbard this weekend!!! Could we be seeing 'winter ice movements' already blighting the gains we made this summer?

[knocker]

LLNL scientists find precipitation, global warming link

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- The rain in Spain may lie mainly on the plain, but the location and intensity of that rain is changing not only in Spain but around the globe.

A new study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists shows that observed changes in global (ocean and land) precipitation are directly affected by human activities and cannot be explained by natural variability alone. The research appears in the Nov. 11 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

 

https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/Nov/NR-13-11-04.html#.UoFVwyevOpB

[knocker]

Tropical Upper Atmosphere 'Fingerprint' of Global Warming

May 22, 2013 — In the tropics at heights more than 10 miles above the surface, the prevailing winds alternate between strong easterlies and strong westerlies roughly every other year. This slow heartbeat in the tropical upper atmosphere, referred to as the quasibiennial oscillation (QBO), impacts the winds and chemical composition of the global atmosphere and even the climate at Earth's surface

 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522131158.htm

Edited November 13, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Panel Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Gap in Weather Satellite Data

Unless it acts quickly, the U.S. faces the likelihood of a "catastrophic" reduction in weather and climate data starting in 2016, resulting in less reliable weather and climate forecasts, a federally-commissioned review panel said on Thursday. The review team, which was comprised of veterans of the weather, space, and aerospace industries, found that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made progress fixing major problems in its satellite programs since the last outside review was completed in 2012, but that the agency has not done enough to mitigate the impacts of a satellite data gap.

 

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/review-team-urges-noaa-to-build-a-gap-filling-weather-satellite-16742

[Gray-Wolf]

Panel Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Gap in Weather Satellite Data

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/review-team-urges-noaa-to-build-a-gap-filling-weather-satellite-16742

 

 

Why would they allow this to happen? Who stands to gain if climate data becomes less and less reliable........oh yes......Derrr...... silly me

[knocker]

Warming of Global Abyssal and Deep Southern Ocean Waters between the 1990s and 2000s: Contributions to Global Heat and Sea Level Rise Budgets*

Abyssal global and deep Southern Ocean temperature trends are quantified between the 1990s and 2000s to assess the role of recent warming of these regions in global heat and sea level budgets. The authors 1) compute warming rates with uncertainties along 28 full-depth, high-quality hydrographic sections that have been occupied two or more times between 1980 and 2010; 2) divide the global ocean into 32 basins, defined by the topography and climatological ocean bottom temperatures; and then 3) estimate temperature trends in the 24 sampled basins. The three southernmost basins show a strong statistically significant abyssal warming trend, with that warming signal weakening to the north in the central Pacific, western Atlantic, and eastern Indian Oceans. Eastern Atlantic and western Indian Ocean basins show statistically insignificant abyssal cooling trends. Excepting the Arctic Ocean and Nordic seas, the rate of abyssal (below 4000 m) global ocean heat content change in the 1990s and 2000s is equivalent to a heat flux of 0.027 (±0.009) W m^−2 applied over the entire surface of the earth. Deep (1000–4000 m) warming south of the Subantarctic Front of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current adds 0.068 (±0.062) W m^−2. The abyssal warming produces a 0.053 (±0.017) mm yr^−1 increase in global average sea level and the deep warming south of the Subantarctic Front adds another 0.093 (±0.081) mm yr^−1. Thus, warming in these regions, ventilated primarily by Antarctic Bottom Water, accounts for a statistically significant fraction of the present global energy and sea level budgets.

 

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3682.1

[knocker]

Paths out of uncertainty: Increasing extreme confidence

 

Long-term and average changes are in the focus of the discussion on climate change: globally, as the different scientific climate models all predict, it will be warmer on Earth at the end of the century. For decision-makers and people affected by climate change, however, information on the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heat and cold extremes, heavy rainfall or dry spells are at least as important as indications of average values. Moreover, for them projections about the next ten, twenty, thirty or forty years are usually more relevant than the long-term view to the end of the century. The problem: for the short and medium term, the models yield extremely different results.

 

 

http://phys.org/news/2013-11-paths-uncertainty-extreme-confidence.html

Edited November 17, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Eurasian Arctic climate over the past millennium as recorded in the Akademii Nauk ice core (Severnaya Zemlya)

 

http://www.clim-past.net/9/2379/2013/cp-9-2379-2013.pdf

Edited November 20, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

A short history of ocean acidification science in the 20th century: a chemist's view

 

Abstract. This review covers the development of ocean acidification science, with an emphasis on the creation of ocean chemical knowledge, through the course of the 20th century. This begins with the creation of the pH scale by Sørensen in 1909 and ends with the widespread knowledge of the impact of the "High CO₂ Ocean" by then well underway as the trajectory along the IPCC scenario pathways continues. By mid-century the massive role of the ocean in absorbing fossil fuel CO₂ was known to specialists, but not appreciated by the greater scientific community. By the end of the century the trade-offs between the beneficial role of the ocean in absorbing some 90% of all heat created, and the accumulation of some 50% of all fossil fuel CO₂ emitted, and the impacts on marine life were becoming more clear. This paper documents the evolution of knowledge throughout this period.

 

 

http://www.biogeosciences.net/10/7411/2013/bg-10-7411-2013.pdf

Edited November 20, 2013 by knocker

[BornFromTheVoid]

Arctic sea-ice decline archived by multicentury annual-resolution record from crustose coralline algal proxy

 

Northern Hemisphere sea ice has been declining sharply over the past decades and 2012 exhibited the lowest Arctic summer sea-ice cover in historic times. Whereas ongoing changes are closely monitored through satellite observations, we have only limited data of past Arctic sea-ice cover derived from short historical records, indirect terrestrial proxies, and low-resolution marine sediment cores. A multicentury time series from extremely long-lived annual increment-forming crustose coralline algal buildups now provides the first high-resolution in situ marine proxy for sea-ice cover. Growth and Mg/Ca ratios of these Arctic-wide occurring calcified algae are sensitive to changes in both temperature and solar radiation. Growth sharply declines with increasing sea-ice blockage of light from the benthic algal habitat. The 646-y multisite record from the Canadian Arctic indicates that during the Little Ice Age, sea ice was extensive but highly variable on subdecadal time scales and coincided with an expansion of ice-dependent Thule/Labrador Inuit sea mammal hunters in the region. The past 150 y instead have been characterized by sea ice exhibiting multidecadal variability with a long-term decline distinctly steeper than at any time since the 14th century.

 

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/11/13/1313775110

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/11/13/1313775110

 

I'd noticed this and it has me wondering whether the early 1900's warming also impacted ice volumes to the extent that did not allow recovery over the 'dimmed' period leaving less of a task for the late 20thC melt out? We know that the ice shelves were badly impacted by this early melt phase with the resulting 'calves' leading to the massive ice islands that we tracked, on radar through the mid century ( and used as military bases during the cold war). If we saw no 'recovery' through the mid century then to task of recovery in the basin is far ,far greater than I previously imagined?

 

It could also be argued that the massive amount of energy employed in this mammoth task is now becoming increasingly redundant and so represents a big reserve of energy that can very swiftly become available to the climate system once the tail end of the ice is 'knocked off' over the coming decades? I believe that we have already seen a portion of this energy become available to the climate system and if this portion can begin impacting global circulation patterns then what ought we to expect from the 'full whack' that a seasonal basin ( open from july to october) would do to our current circulation patterns ( an so our weather). The speed that this change would occur is also a tad worrying with timescales, from the first 'ice free' september to ice free from late July, thought to be only decades long due to the feedbacks such a change would drive!

[knocker]

No direct correlation between galactic cosmic rays and earth surface temperature

 

We have searched for a correlation between galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and global earth surface air temperature (GST) datasets going back to the year 1900. The linear correlation coefficient between GCRs and GST varies erratically, exhibiting both positive and negative values over time scales varying from about 5–20 years. Since the finding of no persistent correlation is not supported by predictive theory but is what one should expect for two random, un-correlated time series, we infer that GCRs do not influence global surface air temperature.

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117713005978

[knocker]

The lingering clouds

 

RICHLAND, Wash. – A new study reveals how pollution causes thunderstorms to leave behind larger, deeper, longer lasting clouds. Appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 26, the results solve a long-standing debate and reveal how pollution plays into climate warming. The work can also provide a gauge for the accuracy of weather and climate models.

 

http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=1025

[knocker]

Interactive map showing past major droughts and their impacts

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v501/n7468_supp/interactive3/drought-map.html?WT.mc_id=TWT_NATURE_1311_AGRICULTURE

[knocker]

Sea level variations at tropical Pacic islands since 1950

 

http://www.legos.obs-mip.fr/delcroix/Becker_etal_GPC12.pdf