Global Surface Air & Sea Temperatures: Current Conditions and Future Prospects

[richie3846]

5 minutes ago, Downburst said:

And where would the Jet Stream be? I mean what kind of pressure pattern would this be. Would we have a very large polar vortex enlarge in winter and the polar front move much closer to here. Absulte nightmare thoughts on this one to be honest. 

Recent summary report of Irelands 30 year 1960 to 1990 and 1990 to 2020 comparison.  Mean Temps increase 7.6% and Rainfall mean is an  increase 7%. http:// https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/93cbad5530054f58a6246a44920aa3f3

Yeah, we could end up IN the polar vortex. I'd not thought of that before. 

[SnowBear]

Been nosing around on various articles and papers on the Amoc this morning. 

Most seem to agree the last time the Amoc stopped was around 14,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Now, when we began to come out of the last Ice Age there was a massive volume of fresh water run off from the melting of ice sheets across North America. This would have effected the circulation in the Atlantic hugely. 

Subsequently due to that shut down the Northern Hemisphere was pushed into a further 3,000 years of colder climate. 

Today, we have seen recently the Arctic losing ice, but more importantly in my view loss of land ice mass increasing fresh water into the system. 

Most papers seem to agree humans have effected the system a bit, but it's mostly still with the parameters of natural variability with the last time the Amoc being so slow was around 1000 years ago. 

The more I read into it the more I am beginning to think that perhaps we have not got the full picture here. 

The one thing that is certain is the Earth's climate has no constant state. It has over time shifted and quite drastically in short spaces of time too. 

This is not to take away from the fact humans are a dirty polluting species who are perhaps naively thinking they can work it all out and somehow control climate by changing singular factors within a chaotic system to prevent a change which is driven by a mechanism which is far larger and perhaps over a vastly longer time span than we can understand. 

It's not good to keep pumping CO² out, we know that, but I don't feel that everything we are seeing today is driven by that. 

We are perhaps witnessing one of the Earth's change periods, and humans being humans are looking for a cause, because humans don't like change, and are slow to adapt to that change. 

I think perhaps this year, Mother Nature is starting to show us just how much she can change, and very quickly, when she decides to. 

[LetItSnow!]

From what I’ve read I get the feeling the future of our climate and the effects of climate change may be a lot different than we once thought, and though I may sound pessimistic here (I consider myself the eternal optimist), if it is indeed true that CO2 emissions will continue to warm the atmosphere for a long time to come, even if all emissions stopped today, then I dare say we can’t escape this from happening. The only thing is whether it happens in 1 year, 10 years or 100, or even 1,000!

As for the effects on our climate, well the winters would have to be extremely cold to have an overall anomaly that low. Summers I feel would be a more mixed affair. Since our summers are so temperamental from moist westerlies I’d imagine the forcing would be so low that summers would be very blocked in their pattern, which would either mean very hot or very poor, or perhaps alternating year to year. Perhaps 1976 on steroids followed by 1912 on steroids.

But I also read a report that would suggest a weakening of the Azores in this scenario which if all year round could actually mean the summers could tend to be cold and wet. 

Imagine a winter 1-2C colder than 1963 followed by a summer like 1912. 

Only time will tell. I hate to get Mystic on everyone but I feel like a very/some very big shifts are gonna start happening in the next 1-3 years and take us by surprise. 

[The PIT]

We don't know the effects the Tonga eruption as such an event hasn't been witnessed before or that amount of water vapour. The size of the eruption also had effects out in space that's how big it was.

Climate is a complex beasty and it will be many years before it's understood properly. This year has been odd for the locked patterns we've been having.

Many moons ago ran a program on the climate and one of the things that came out of it was how stable the climate has been while in the past it used to swing from warm to cold and pretty quickly. It could be that we are now heading into unstable period and we are going to start flip back and forth although more co2 it probably be less cold and more warm when it does flip.

If we are going to be serious about save guarding the planet you need to stop thinking just in terms of climate change and about how we live with other animals on the planet and living along side them. For a start we really need to start thinking about the size of the human population as we are already going beyond the ability of the planet to support us.

 

[Addicks Fan 1981]

Think those scientists who reckon the AMOC will be sinking are just playing guesswork currently, roughly the same people who reckoned we were going to have an ice age last decade and it never came off.   

Reckon the media are scaremongering on it when not really much evidence points towards a climate decline, even our sunspot cycle is stronger this time.   

Social media though will be taken in by all of it whereas I won't, best idea is to be an independent thinker over it rather than having preconceived ideas on what might/could happen.   

Bet the third party forecasters are rubbing their hands in glee as that's what they've been suggesting to us.   

[Addicks Fan 1981]

This article sounds a bit more truthful which I got from sky news.   

UK's 2022 weather - which saw 40C temperature record - to become 'typical'

NEWS.SKY.COM

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Last year homes caught fire and vulnerable people died from the heat, and experts say the UK is not prepared for this to become more common.

 

[richie3846]

3 minutes ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Think those scientists who reckon the AMOC will be sinking are just playing guesswork currently, roughly the same people who reckoned we were going to have an ice age last decade and it never came off.   

Reckon the media are scaremongering on it when not really much evidence points towards a climate decline, even our sunspot cycle is stronger this time.   

Social media though will be taken in by all of it whereas I won't, best idea is to be an independent thinker over it rather than having preconceived ideas on what might/could happen.   

Bet the third party forecasters are rubbing their hands in glee as that's what they've been suggesting to us.   

It seems pretty open and honest to me. They've made clear the limitations on data, and were keen to steer away from sensationalist ideas. In layman's terms, it appears they are stating that the data and science used in the study, places high certainty on this happening soon, but because of the limited scope of data, (only since 2004 have records been kept of the current), and all the unknown unknowns, many other factors may be involved that aren't in the study. 

[Blessed Weather]

Apologies if this news report from the World Meteorological Organisation has already been posted elsewhere. My take  - it's the rapid speed at which the world climate is heating up that is very worrying. Previous fluctuations in global temperatures have been on a scale measured in thousands of years. Just look at the average first 23 days of July temperature chart (below) showing the trend in just the last 90 years.
Here's the report intro:

July 2023 is set to be the hottest month on record
Bonn and Geneva, 27/07/2023 (Copernicus and WMO) - According to ERA5 data from the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record. These temperatures have been related to heatwaves in large parts of North America, Asia and Europe, which along with wildfires in countries including Canada and Greece, have had major impacts on people’s health, the environment and economies. "We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know this. Short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board" said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Chart: Average global air temps 1 - 23 July from 1940 to date:

And the full report is here: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/july-2023-set-be-hottest-month-record

[Addicks Fan 1981]

Two very conflicting articles @Blessed Weatherwhich are basically disagreeing with each other.  When two aricles collide like that you are in a no man's land of what you believe in.   

[Blessed Weather]

7 minutes ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Two very conflicting articles @Blessed Weatherwhich are basically disagreeing with each other.  When two aricles collide like that you are in a no man's land of what you believe in.   

Sorry, I don't understand what 2 articles you are referring to. Do you mean the AMOC report and the above July temps report. If so I can't see any contradiction as it will be the rapidly warming global temperatures that impact the AMOC by, for instance, higher temps melting the ice sheets and introducing fresh water into the North Atlantic.

[Addicks Fan 1981]

That is precisely what I mean @Blessed Weatherand I should have elaborated earlier on it.   

[Mixer 85]

I’m struggling to see the rationale for concern regarding the AMOC. It’s an old chestnut that’s been rattled on about for years with only 20yrs of monitoring to support any theories of collapse. 
The previous collapse is thought to have been caused by a sudden release  of thousands of cubic miles of freshwater coming off a glacial lake on the North American/Canadian ice sheet. Thankfully there are no ice sheets there today and the only sheet capable of discharging that much water is Greenland which at the current melt rate will take about 17,000yrs to disappear. 

[Addicks Fan 1981]

Think the fact that we are in a stronger solar cycle than SC24 was @Mixer 85means we shouldn't worry too much as I think solar cycles and AMOC have a bit of a close tie if you see what I mean.    

[SnowBear]

But what is driving what and how much is really down to us. This year is so unusual, not only in heat records being broken but cold ones too, plus floods, huge shifts in sea surface temperatures.....I don't think this is down to CO² alone. 

One thing I will say is in the grand order of things the world's climate has been fairly benign for the past few thousand years, but it can change and quite rapidly. 

Personally I think humans all told are deluded if they think they know it all afters few decades or centuries of nature watching, nature has a funny habit of surprising us and quite often can be seen to be much more powerful than we thought. 

Last year, perhaps we saw some of our effects on climate, but this year I think we are seeing Mother Nature playing her hand. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by SnowBear
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[LetItSnow!]

At this point I genuinely don’t know if the continued warming or the theory of the AMOC shutting down sounds better. Very saddening…

[Blessed Weather]

10 hours ago, Mixer 85 said:

I’m struggling to see the rationale for concern regarding the AMOC. It’s an old chestnut that’s been rattled on about for years with only 20yrs of monitoring to support any theories of collapse. 
The previous collapse is thought to have been caused by a sudden release  of thousands of cubic miles of freshwater coming off a glacial lake on the North American/Canadian ice sheet. Thankfully there are no ice sheets there today and the only sheet capable of discharging that much water is Greenland which at the current melt rate will take about 17,000yrs to disappear. 

Whilst the previous collapse of the AMOC was likely caused by a huge outflow from a glacial lake, I believe the concerns this time around are based on the magnitude of the ongoing sea ice loss as global air and SST temperatures continue their upward trajectory.

There are known tipping points for many climate related aspects of our planet, for instance the melting of northern hemisphere permafrost e.g. in Siberia, has caused a 37% increase in small lakes (from the melting ice within the tundra) and this is causing ever more greenhouse gas emissions which will melt even more permafrost:

"As the permafrost thaws, microbes and fungi get to work and digest dead plants and other organic matter in the previously frozen soil. The process produces carbon dioxide, methane (CH4), nitrous oxide and other gases. This is a normal process. ‘Many lakes “burp” methane naturally,’ says Walter Anthony. In the normal scheme of things, the majority of bubbles in larger lakes would dissolve in the water column before reaching the surface. However, thanks to the speed of thawing and the morphology of the new lakes, the release of gases is happening at an unprecedented scale."
Source: https://geographical.co.uk/climate-change/the-big-thaw-melting-permafrost-is-causing-a-global-problem

Back to the AMOC and what we don't fully understand is the tipping point of this current by (a) the rise in SSTs and (b) the ongoing release of large quantities of fresh water into the oceans. Here are some indisputable facts:

NASA reports the Greenland icesheet mass has been falling by 271 billion metric tons per year since 2002

Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/

Copernicus Ocean State report 2022 reports Arctic sea ice loss 1979 to 2021 was an area of 2.14 million km2. About 6 times the area of Germany. They note that consequent changes to water salinity and temperature could impact the strength and flow of ocean currents.

Source: https://issuu.com/copernicusmarine_service/docs/2022.09.27_cosr_6_summary_single_page

My 'take' is that whilst there may indeed remain many unknowns, it's hard to argue against the evidence that we humans are conducting a very large experiment with earth's climate system.

 

[Blessed Weather]

Just breaking in the media is this statement from the Met Office regarding the Nature article on the AMOC. I can't locate the official/original Met Office statement. Anyone got a link please?

“As far as we're concerned in the Met Office, the paper is far too simplistic,” said Richard Betts, the Head of the Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre. He added: “There's still no evidence that we're kind of past the point of no return in terms of devastating impacts."

[Methuselah]

Some facts from the Met. Office:

 

[Addicks Fan 1981]

10 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Some facts from the Met. Office:

 

Which is why we need to look at credible sites like them, if we get into a confused state on issues like climate change or The Weather Channel which I rate as well and The Weather Channel are pretty accurate with the rain radar too.    

[Methuselah]

How our bodies cope with excessive heat and humidity:

Heatwave: How hot is too hot for the human body?

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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James Gallagher spends the day in the heat lab to see what summer heatwaves do to the body.

 

[Methuselah]

Does this guy have a clue what he's on about? Though I do find his stuff quite interesting sometimes: 

 

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

On 26/07/2023 at 00:43, Greyhound81 said:

It has been mentioned on another climate forum that no extra water vapor is being recorded in the lower stratosphere

Not having a go at you but that is simply incorrect, I recently posted here 

I'm confident there is a massive link with such anomalously high water vapour following the Hunga Tonga eruption throughout the stratosphere connecting to the absurd amount of record rainfall globally that has and continues to occur in 2023 likely aided by quite unusual summer stratospheric-tropospheric coupling activity. 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Atmospheric River 'rapids'.....

 

[James M]

On 30/07/2023 at 13:31, Methuselah said:

Does this guy have a clue what he's on about? Though I do find his stuff quite interesting sometimes: 

 

 

Oh he went right off the deep end. Into all the right wing conspiracy theories and joined GB news!

[Metwatch]