DaveH

I'm curious about this. I know the South Pole has some unique climate properties, but shouldn't we still see the atmospheric temperature change in response to increased CO2 concentration? In fact, more than this, we should see just how much response there is to Co2 (and CH4) in the absence of water vapour (and therefore also water vapour feedback).

What happens at the South Pole to minimise or obscure the 'greenhouse effect' of CO2?

The only thing I've come up with is that the air temperature is so cold that the radiative absorption is greatly diminished... but I've not found this discussed anywhere, perhaps someone here has.

Here are a bunch of bits and pieces of data around this question that may be useful.

The annual mean temperature at the South Pole is -48C. Winter mean is -60C summer mean is -28.2C.

Atmospheric water vapour: specific humidity is zero as near as makes no difference.

South Pole temperature since 1957

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_sta...

data: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp...

Antarctic polar region mean temperature (60S to 85S, land only)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8239/8661130957_09cb...

data: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.... (use column "land" after "sopol")

South Pole CO2 (and Mauna Loa)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8254/8661130951_7a67...

data: http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/flask_co2_and_isot...

South Pole CH4

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8265/8661130941_6274...

data: ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/ch4/flask/month/ch4_spo_surface-flask_1_ccgg_month.txt

For comparison

The annual mean temperature at the North Pole is -2.9C. Winter mean is -40C, summer mean is 0C.

Atmospheric water vapour: specific humidity in summer is 0.74 g/m3.

Arctic polar region mean temperature (60N to 85N)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8661130969_7492...

data: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.... (use column "nopol")

(GCNP58: #serious)

I'm trying to understand how (and how much) increased atmospheric co2 warms the ocean.

Water is completely opaque to LW radiation, and is completely absorbed in the top few microns. SW radiation penetrates the ocean to tens of metres. So how does increased downwelling LW radiation warm the ocean when virtually all that energy goes to immediate evaporation of water vapour at the top spit of the surface?

"Stomatal proxy record of CO2 concentrations from the last termination suggests an important role for CO2 at climate change transitions"

This paper contains an interesting and rather unexpected result. I have only seen the abstract, has anyone read the full paper? It raises all sorts of questions. What do you make of it?

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

This looks like electricity generation from coal is possible with nearly no co2 emissions.

http://cbe.osu.edu/news/2013/01/doe-supported-proj...

This is a good thing isn't it?

If we didn't have clouds, would we be hotter (I would expect hotter due to reduced albedo) or colder?

How much?

I know this paper isn't new, but it is often cited in response to "is Global Warming real?" types of questions.

Griggs and Harries. "Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present"

What conclusions do you draw from this paper with respect to AGW?

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI42...

If the link doesn't work, then please search Google for this whole string. The paper is the first item returned.

Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data Griggs-07-IRIS-IMG-AIRS

I'm currently comparing Sea Level trends from satellite vs tide gauges and see a big negative trend for the whole Baltic coast. Does anyone know why this is happening please?

You can see the effect here... (please add http://www)/ psmsl.org/products/trends/

I haven't been able to find the detail.

In particular I'm trying to fnd out;

- What happens in the gap between 2012 and 2015?

- What reductions are the US, China, and India committing to?

- What reductions are current Annex I and Annex II countries committing to?

- What is the end date for achievement of the reductions?

- What are the penalties for not meeting the reduction commitment?

- Who are the beneficiaries of the scheme? (under Kyoto there were very large financial benefits to support developing countries ... like China).

We are closest to the Sun (Perihelion) on Jan 4th, and furthest from the sun (Aphelion) on Jul 4th.

The heat we receive from the sun is in inversely proportion to our distance from it.

When we are closest to the sun, in January, we receive 353.25 w/m2 irradiation (measured over the surface of the earth, not as the earth as a disk). When we are furthest away, Jul 4th, we receive 330.50 w/m2 irradiation.

Yet when we receive the most heat from the sun, the mean global temperature is at its lowest.

Month, mean global temp deg C

Jan 12

Feb 12.1

Mar 12.7

Apr 13.7

May 14.8

Jun 15.5

Jul 15.8

Aug 15.6

Sep 15

Oct 14

Nov 12.9

Dec 12.2

We are coolest when we are receiving most energy. How does this happen?

There is so much about how our climate system works that we don’t understand adequately. If you were allocating climate research funding, what aspects would you most like to see studied further?

Here are a few ideas for starters.

1. What causes PDO, ENSO etc to switch phase?

2. The role of clouds:

- trends in global cloudiness, long term climate impacts of increased/decreased cloudiness,

- What causes regional changes in cloud cover.

3. Non-terrestrial climate controls.

- How the sun (not TSI) influences our climate; magnetic field, solar wind, etc

- GCR’s and cloud formation,

- Gravitational influences of the Sun, Moon and Planets.

4. Quantification of the total climate system heat content and energy movements.

- What’s actually happening re the whole oceans’ total heat content?

- How does the energy captured by greenhouse gasses propogate around the whole globe.

What would you like to see studied further?

What do we need to know (that we don't currently know) in order to properly understand how anthropogenic GHG emissions will change our climate?

... and how do you demonstrate this?

If you'd like to reference measurements in your response, then there are some handy links below.

Just that... I've no caveats, assumptions or examples to add.

I made this statement in response to a recent question and was advised that this was untrue (actually I was told that this was a 'lie', suggesting that I was being deliberately untruthful).

Surely this is one of the fundamental tenets of the AGW hypothesis. Or have I completely misunderstood the AGW position?

Is the warming effect of additional CO2 in the atmosphere instantaneous and then amplified by feedbacks?

A poster recently, when asked to state the AGW hypothesis, offered this.

“Human actions, most specifically our burning of fossil fuels, is leading to significant climate alterations, including but not limited to a significant rise in the average temperatures of the atmosphere, near surface, and oceans. Further, this rise (I believe somewhere between 2 and 5 degrees a century, at present estimates) will cause significant disruptions to both natural systems and human social organizations if unchecked”

Can this hypothesis be falsified?

I posted this a couple of hours ago, but it got deleted. I’m re-posting hoping that it doesn’t happen again.

At the time it was deleted there were excellent responses from Gary F, Trevor and d/dx. If I could prevail on you gentlemen to re-post your responses I’d be very grateful.

A poster recently, when asked to state the AGW hypothesis, offered this.

“Human actions, most specifically our burning of fossil fuels, is leading to significant climate alterations, including but not limited to a significant rise in the average temperatures of the atmosphere, near surface, and oceans. Further, this rise (I believe somewhere between 2 and 5 degrees a century, at present estimates) will cause significant disruptions to both natural systems and human social organizations if unchecked”

Can this hypothesis be falsified?

A poster recently, when asked to state the AGW hypothesis, offered this.

“Human actions, most specifically our burning of fossil fuels, is leading to significant climate alterations, including but not limited to a significant rise in the average temperatures of the atmosphere, near surface, and oceans. Further, this rise (I believe somewhere between 2 and 5 degrees a century, at present estimates) will cause significant disruptions to both natural systems and human social organizations if unchecked”

Can this hypothesis be proven?

... and there was an international law prohibiting anyone from catastrophically changing the world’s climate.

Would a suit taken against this corporation, claiming that they had catastrophically changed the world’s climate by emitting greenhouse gasses, be successful or not?

Given all the evidence that we have available; measurements, observations, projections models etc. Would the Prosecution convince the jury that the corporation was indeed responsible for catastrophically changing the climate?

The judge will instruct the jury that they must reach a decision ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ and that their decision must be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

Who wins this case, and how?

… now it seems to be reading high in comparison with observations. Should I change back to using unadjusted measurements?

UAH data for Feb 2011 shows the global mean temp anomaly is negative. Both poles also negative. A summary is below, full data is at the link.

Feb 2011

Globe -0.01

NH -0.04

SH 0.01

NoPol -0.17

SoPol -0.18

USA48 -0.23

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2l%E2%80%A6

RSS data for Feb 2011 shows Global anomaly at +.051C, with both poles negative.

RSS data for Feb (regions are approximately equivalent to those in UAH summary above)

Globe 0.051

NH -0.012

SH 0.116

NoPol -0.11

SoPol -0.69

USA48 -0.563

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/...

Both of the above sources use the same baseline period : Jan 1979 - Dec 1998

First we had the Australia floods, then the Earthquake in New Zealand, and the Tsunami in Japan, and now the Mean Global temperature anomaly has gone negative!

Feb 2011

Globe -0.01

NH -0.04

SH 0.01

NoPol -0.17

SoPol -0.18

USA48 -0.23

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc....

Does this mean that things are worse that we thought?