Seawater Sprayed on Clouds?

Blog posted by AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Mark Paquette

Hello again. I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend.

This website, will lead to the original article that I am going to comment on and which I want you to read and respond to.

I am not to sure what this "small panel of very acclaimed economists assembled by the Copenhagen Consensus" exactly is. Who exactly is listening to this group's ideas? Where did they get the "science", if we can call this plan "science, from? Wow, I've heard some strange plans, but this one has to be right up there in terms of weirdness. I have never heard of anything like this before? Have any of you?

I guess I would and should do more research on this theory. How big are the drops? What exactly is the science behind this? From what part of the ocean will you get the water from? What types of clouds do you spray? What latitude do you spray the clouds? Will this in anyway affect wildlife, air quality, or other weather variables?

Anyways, I just thought this was an interesting idea and I would like to see what other people think about and it and if anyone has more information on this theory or on this group of people.

Definitive Link of CO2 Emissions to Global Warming Found

A professor from Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, along with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K. have found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and global warming.

The team, lead by Damon Matthews, used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change, according to the Concordia University press release.

Matthews and his colleagues show that each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.

For every tonne of CO2 that is emitted there will be an increase of 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change.

A look at CO2 emissions across the world (2006 data). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

According to the study, we must restrict total carbon emissions, from now until forever, to little more than half a trillion tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

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This study was published in the journal Nature today.

Eavesdropping on Storm Waves

Scientists are now electronically filtering out the sounds of earthquakes to that they can listen to storm waves. It is usually much more common to filter out the sounds of waves so that scientists can listen to earthquakes.

The noise of waves crashing ashore creates very specific vibrations, according to study leader Peter Bromirski of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. And those vibrations indicate how severe storms at sea actually are.

The research team has been studying seismological data on storms which goes back to the 1930's and they note an obvious trend over the past 75+ years. "There is a definite increase in severe storm events over the years that we are noticing at the recording stations," said Bromirski.

According to the National Geographic article, many scientists believe that an increase in severe storms is one of the signs of climate change.

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The full findings of this study can be found in the journal Science.

Daily Arctic Sea Ice Images back Online

The daily Arctic sea ice images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) were brought back online on Tuesday. The NSIDC completed the transition from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F13 satellite, to the DMSP F17 satellite, which will allow the NSIDC to continue their long-term record of sea ice extent.

Looking at the latest sea ice extent, it appears that there was a significant drop off during the month of May. At the start of the month, the sea ice extent was very close to the 1979-2000 average, but by the end of the month it was closer to the record minimum year of 2007. Time will tell where it ends up at the end of the melt season in September.

June 2, 2009

Here is that same graph going back one year to June 3, 2008.

Here is an image showing the sea ice concentration as of June 2, 2009 over the Arctic region. Image courtesy of the University of Bremen, Germany.

Let's go back one year and see what the sea ice concentration looked like on June 2, 2008

It appears that there are many more areas of lower sea ice concentration currently compared to last year, especially on the Canadian side of the Arctic.

A Cooling Haze caused by High Heat

Haze just off the Carolina Coast

Satellite and ground-based sensor data from a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley indicate that sweltering summers can, paradoxically, lead to the temporary formation of a cooling haze in the Southeastern U.S. (negative feedback).

According to the EurekAlert article, manmade pollutants mix with the natural compounds emitted from forests and vegetation during the hot summer months, they form secondary aerosols that reflect light from the sun. Such aerosols may also contribute to the formation of clouds, which also reflect sunlight.

Why just the Southeast U.S.?

There is a known regional pattern of biogenic volatile organic compounds, such as natural hydrocarbons from plants and trees within this region, which increase exponentially when the temperature increases, according to lead author Allen Goldstein.

Based on their results, the authors of this study believe that climate models are likely underestimating the effects of organic aerosols.

Tropical Cyclones Adding to Global Warming?

Eyewall of Hurricane Ivan.

Usually, when most people see the words global warming and tropical cyclones put together, they think about the influences (or lack of) of global warming on tropical cyclones, and not the other way around.

In this new study from Harvard University, we read about the possible influence of tropical cyclones on climate.

Using 23 years of infrared satellite imagery, global tropical cyclone best-track data, and reanalysis of tropopause temperature, the authors found that tropical cyclones contribute a disproportionate amount of the tropical deep convection that overshoots the troposphere and reaches the stratosphere, according to the ScienceDaily article.

Diagram of the hurricane eyewall.

The authors of the study found that tropical cyclones contribute 7% of deep convection in the tropics, but that 15% of that convection reaches the statosphere.

Based on this information, the research team concluded that tropical cyclones could play a key role in adding water vapor (the most widespread greenhouse gas) to the stratosphere, which has shown to increase surface temperature. This leads them to conclude that there is the possibility of a positive feedback between tropical cyclones and global warming.

If this is in fact true, I would think the influence would be extremely small based on the percentages, especially when you think globally.

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This paper is published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Arctic Sea Ice Trends over the Past 10 Years

Now that showed the Antarctic Sea Ice, it's time to check out the Arctic region.

The images below show the minimum sea ice extent during the month of September in 1999 and 2008 below it. They also show the Arctic sea ice maximum during the month of March in 1999 on the top right and 2009 below it.

Clearly, you can see that the greatest differences between the 1999/2000 and 2008/2009 season are during the sea ice minimum in September. You can also animate the images of all years since 1999 by clicking the play button on the Earth Observatory page.

The yellow outline on each image shows the median sea ice extent observed by satellite sensors in September and March from 1979 through 2000.

1999/2000

2008/2009

Since 1978, satellites have detected an overall decline in Arctic sea ice. The rate of decline steepened after the turn of the twenty-first century.

A key statement from the NASA article......

Cycles of natural variability such as the Arctic Oscillation are known to play a role in Arctic sea ice extent, but the sharp decline seen in this decade cannot be explained by natural variability alone. Natural variability and greenhouse gas emissions (and the resulting rise in global temperatures) likely worked together to melt greater amounts of Arctic sea ice.

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This time series is made from a combination of observations from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers (SSM/Is) flown on a series of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program missions and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E), a Japanese-built sensor that flies on NASA’s Aqua satellite, according to the NASA Earth Observatory article.

Monitoring Antarctic Sea Ice Since 1999

NASA's Earth Observatory shows us the maximum and minimum Antarctic sea ice extent since 1999.

1999/2000

2008/2009

The images show the maximum sea ice extent during each September going back ten years and the minimum extent, which occurs each February.

Since the start of the satellite record, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1 percent per decade. Whether the small overall increase in sea ice extent is a sign of meaningful change in the Antarctic is uncertain because ice extents vary considerably from year to year and from sector to sector, according to the Earth Observatory report.

Sea ice extent in the Antarctic is greater than the Arctic's in the winter, but less than the Arctic in the summer due to large geographical differences.

You can push the play button below the images on the link for an animation of the max/min sea ice extents each year going back to 1999.

Burning Ice in Alaska?

I found this video segment from ABC News. A reporter begins the segment on the edge of the Bering Sea, which is located off the west coast of Alaska. The reporter then travels outside of Nome, Alaska and on to the frozen tundra, where he interviews one of the locals. According to the local man, the area experienced a stormier winter compared to normal.

According to the video, Alaska used to be a warm, tropical location millions of years ago, during periods of high atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration. Actually, much higher than what it is today.

The story then focuses on the potential carbon time bomb in Alaska, and that is the natural stores of CO2 and methane gas that were trapped millions of years ago in the permafrost. The permafrost is starting to melt and some scientists are worried that man's continued contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere could cause the release of massive amounts of this CO2 and methane back into the atmosphere, leading to an abrupt and irreversible warming of the planet.

Oh yea, what about that burning ice? Just check out the video, and you will see what I mean.

You can watch the short video segment right here.

Glaciers that are Actually Growing

There are actually 230 glaciers in the western Himalayas, which includes Mount Everest and K2, that are defying global warming and are actually growing.

A view of the Mt. Everest region from the International Space Station.

"These are the biggest mid-latitude glaciers in the world," John Shroder of the University of Nebraska-Omaha said. "And all of them are either holding still, or advancing."

Shroder and a team of researchers looked at satellite imagery of the region's glaciers going back to 1960. According to the Discovery News report, a total of 87 glaciers in that region surged forward during that period of time.

It's a different story throughout much of the Tibetan Plateau, high-altitude glaciers are dwindling. The situation is potentially dire for the hundreds of millions of people living in China, India and throughout southeast Asia who depend on the glaciers for their water supply, according to the story.

Shroder suspects that the strong winds aloft (close to the jet stream) are carrying more moisture from the warmer Atlantic (not the case recently) and Mediterranean Sea on eastward into the western Himalayas.

Vegetation Type, Not Rising Temperatures Key to Wildfire Occurrence

Rising temperatures do not mean there will be a higher risk for wildfires in a particular area. Instead, it more depends on the type of vegetation, according to research from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Montana State University, University of Washington and the University of Illinois-Urbana.

The massive 1988 Yellowstone N.P. fire approaching the Old Faithful tourist area.

This particular research looked at historical fire occurrence going back 17,000 years, by studying sediments found in the bottom of lakes in the state of Alaska.

Researchers concluded that historical changes fire frequencies coincided with changes in the type of vegetation in the area, more so than to rising temperatures alone.

An look at the 1988 Yellowstone fire from the air.

Although changing temperatures and moisture content set the stage for changes in wildfire frequency, they can often be trumped by changes in the distribution and abundance of plants, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory press release.

There is much more detail in regards to this story from the press release.

Changes in the Sun are Not Enough to cause Global Warming

Peter Adams, a professor of civil and environmental engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and Jeff Pierce from Dalhousie University in Canada recently tested a controversial hypothesis that says changes in the sun are causing global warming.

An image of the sun from yesterday.

The pair of scientists developed a model to perform the test, according to the Carnegie Mellon press release.

Hypothesis: Increased solar activity reduces cloudiness by changing cosmic rays. So, when clouds decrease, more sunlight is let in, causing the earth to warm.

The findings: The first atmospheric simulations of changes in atmospheric ions and particle formation resulting from variations in the sun and cosmic rays showed that changes in the concentration of particles that affect clouds are 100 times too small to affect the climate.

"The basic problem with the hypothesis is that solar variations probably change new particle formation rates by less than 30 percent in the atmosphere. Also, these particles are extremely small and need to grow before they can affect clouds. Most do not survive to do so," Adams said in the press release.

An Overlooked Part of Global Climate Change

Fire is often an overlooked part of global climate change, according to a new study, which is published in the April 24th issue of Science.

Intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human caused increases in emissions of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Excerpts from the EurekAlert article..........

In addition to carbon dioxide, methane, aerosol particulates in smoke, and the changing reflectance of a charred landscape each contribute to changes in the atmosphere caused by fire. Consequences of large fires have huge economic, environmental, and health costs, report the authors of the study.

The 22 authors of this study call on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to fully integrate fire into their assessments of global climate change, and consider fire-climate feedbacks, which have been largely absent in global models.

Jennifer Balch, a member of the research team, explains that there are bigger and more frequent fires from the western U.S. to the tropics. There are "fires where we don't normally see fires," she said, noting that it is in the humid tropics that a lot of deforestation fires are occurring, usually to expand agriculture or cattle ranching. "Wet rain forests have not historically experienced fires at the frequency that they are today."

Where are the Sunspots?

Sunspot activity continues to be very low to nothing at all. According to some sites that I have read, it appears that we my have gone into a second solar minimum after a recent, brief upturn in activity.

Latest image of the blank sun.

The latest prediction as of March 2009 indicates that sunspot activity will soon start to increase very shortly, but we have heard this before. Some predictions from over a year ago anticipated a solar minimum during March of 2008.

Collapse of Ice Sheet would Shift the Rotation Axis of Earth

Geophysicists from the University of Toronto in Canada say that it is the coastlines of North America and the nations in the southern Indian Ocean in particular that face the greatest threats from sea level rises if there is a complete collapse of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, according to their recent study.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected, for a total of between six and seven metres if the whole ice sheet melts,” says Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist.

Why is that?

1. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, sea level will fall close to the Antarctic and will rise much more than the expected estimate in the northern hemisphere because when an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it.

2. If the ice sheet collapses the depression (hole) in the Antarctic bedrock that sits under the ice sheet will fill with water. But, as the ice disappears, the hole will shrink as the region rebounds from the loss of ice, which will force some of the water out into the ocean.

3. The collapse of the ice sheet will cause the earth's rotation axis to shift 500 meters from its present condition, which will move water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.

There is still some question as to how much ice would actually disappear if the whole sheet collapses, but even still, the researchers state that the sea-level rise that would occur at many populated coastal sites would be much larger than one would estimate by simply distributing the meltwater evenly.

There is a link to an illustration of the process at the bottom of the University of Toronto press release.

Finally, a sunspot, but it is a Cycle 23 spot

Just when you think cycle 23 may be over, it pops out another spot. Here is the SOHO MDI image showing a sunspot dubbed #1012, in solar cycle 23.

From SOHO

For those wondering how this is determined, cycle 24 spots (the new cycle) normally start near the poles and gradually migrate towards the equator as the cycle progresses over 11 years. So in this case, a spot at the equator means it is a cycle 23 spot. The magnetic polarity of the spot also defines it as a cycle 23 spot.

Here is a closer view:

Global Sea Ice Update

I think it's a good time to see how the global extent of sea ice is doing compared to the longer term normal. Let's start in the Antarctic, where the peak of the summer melt off is not that far away.........

The image below is courtesy of the Polar Research Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Based on their sea ice graph it looks like the current area of Antarctic sea ice is right on normal.

The second image is courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This image shows the updated Arctic sea ice extent compared to the 1979-2000 average. As you can see, the current sea ice extent is running very close to the 2006-2007 line, which was the year of the record low sea ice extent.

Here is an explanation by NSIDC on why they use the 1979-2000 period as the average and not 1979-2008.

The image below, courtesy of the NSIDC, shows the entire 2008 plot of Arctic sea ice extent compared to the 1979-2000 normal.

Finally, courtesy of the Polar Research Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we have a global plot of sea ice area with the anomaly at the bottom. Global ice area appears to be slightly below normal at this current time. If look from 2000 to to current and try to visualize a trend line it is clearly, in my opinion, trending slightly lower (negative trend in global sea ice area).

Climate Warming Altering The Behavior of the NAO

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts are studying the growth layers of Beremuda Brain Coral to to determine the long-term behavior of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO is a very important driver of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic and is certainly a major influence on the weather in North America and Western Europe, especially during the winter months. What they found is quite interesting.

Excerpts from the WHOI press release below..........

"Because they (coral) are slow growing and have long life-spans, corals can provide high resolution records that are well dated and centuries long", said Nathalie Goodkin, lead author of the study.

The team found the variability of the NAO decade-to-decade (multi-decadal scale) has been larger, swinging more wildly, during the late twentieth century than in the early 1800s, suggesting that variability is linked to the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere.

"When the Industrial Revolution begins and atmospheric temperature becomes warmer, the NAO takes on a much stronger pattern in longer-term behavior," said Goodkin. "That was suspected before in the instrumental records, but this is the first time it has been documented in records from both the ocean and the atmosphere."

"Anthropogenic (human-related) warming does not appear to be altering whether the NAO is in a positive or negative phase at multi-decadal time scales," said WHOI paleoclimatologist Konrad Hughen. "It does seem to be increasing variability. Clearly, this has implications for the future."

"As temperatures get warmer, there's potential for more violent swings of the NAO -- the phases becoming even more positive and even more negative," Hughen added. "If the NAO locks more into these patterns, intense storms will become more intense and droughts will become more severe."

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The WHOI has an an interesting graph showing the longer term variability of the NAO and how it is related to the warming.

Also, here is the update plot of the NAO index going back to 1950, courtesy of NOAA.....