Vice-Regent

It has been an incredible spring from the parade of LPs to the tight temperature gradients and thick fog banks. Incredible stuff. I never liked spring but I am quickly becoming a fan. It's about to dethrone our winters for me.

Roughly 0.80" or so in South Jerz. Much more to my south over Cape May Point.

Leesburg04 is that you?

DC is the new Louisiana. You guys thought I was done just yet.

Getting some sea-breeze interaction with the front-running stuff. Interesting event. It's got all of the signals of being a sub-historic severe wx outbreak.

There is your hard-earned tax dollars at work.

It's that cloud feedback. The ocean profile is the canary in the coal mine for climate change over land regions. I am skeptical of outdoor agriculture being tenable in CFA and DFA zones in the coming decades.

Now we Morch ...

The Roles of Cloud Radiative Feedbacks and Ocean Heat Transport in Climate Variability Eleanor Middlemas, University of Miami https://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3225&context=oa_dissertations Abstract Contributions from dynamical ocean heat transport and cloud radiative feedbacks to internal variations in sea surface temperature (SST) are explored using various climate modeling configurations in conjunction with intermodel comparison. The experimental modeling configurations include those with ocean heat transport and/or cloud radiative feedbacks disabled, resulting in a different, freely-evolving climate. By comparing the variability between experiment and control simulations, it is determined that the influence from either ocean dynamics or cloud feedback depends on the region and timescale. To begin, global-scale decadal changes in temperature do not require dynamical ocean heat transport, but instead, low-frequency variations in global mean temperature (GMT) may arise from atmospheric noise interacting with the mixed layer of the ocean. This contradicts numerous studies suggesting that anomalous deep ocean heat uptake is responsible for decadal cooling in GMT that led to the global warming hiatus. On the other hand, it is well- known that El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is driven by ocean dynamics and may lead to decadal variations in global climate. We find that around half of model disagreement in the magnitude of decadal variability can be explained by model spread in ENSO magnitude, which suggests other processes are contributing to decadal variability in climate models, like cloud radiative feedbacks, for example. Cloud radiative feedbacks as a source of decadal variability is largely overlooked in the literature and could explain some of the low frequency SST variability produced in a climate model configuration without ocean dynamics. To understand cloud radiative feedbacks’ impact on SST variability, we implement cloud-locking in the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5). This method disables cloud radiative feedbacks by prescribing clouds in the radiation module, preventing them from interacting with their environment, but allows the climate to evolve freely and, therefore, enables analysis of the variability without cloud radiative feedbacks. There are many practical uses for cloud- locking, but this is one of the few studies that utilizes the tool for understanding the relationship between cloud radiative feedbacks and internal variability. SST variability changes in the tropics and subtropics due to cloud-locking are the focus of half of this dissertation. Disabling cloud radiative feedbacks produces the largest changes in global SST variability via ENSO. Without cloud radiative feedbacks, the periodicity of ENSO events shifts from 2-7 years to approximately 10 years. Damping by negative shortwave feedback, which aids in the termination of ENSO, is not active in the cloud-locking configuration, so each ENSO event continues to grow unabated until the ocean “discharges”. Furthermore, in the northeastern subtropical ocean basins, a region important for decadal modes of variability, we find that positive cloud radiative feedback enhances SST variability by up to 40%, but that the magnitude depends on the role of the ocean. In the Atlantic Ocean, dynamical ocean heat transport enhances positive SST anomalies, leaving a smaller role for positive cloud radiative feedback. In the Pacific Ocean, ocean heat transport damps positive SST anomalies, so positive cloud radiative feedback competes with heat flux from the ocean. Altogether, the results of this dissertation suggest that more attention should be paid to the role of cloud radiative feedbacks when examining mechanisms of variability. The climate is very sensitive to cloud radiative feedbacks in the model used in this study, and different models and configurations exhibit diverse sensitivities. The spatially varying contribution of ocean dynamics further complicates the importance of cloud feedbacks. This study motivates an intermodel comparison of cloud-locking experiments to better constrain the role of cloud radiative feedbacks on the climate system. Conclusions Intermodel spread in low-frequency SST variability confounds our projections of future climate change and requires deeper understanding of mechanisms of variability. Through the use of different configurations of a state-of-the-art model, this dissertationclarifies the respective roles of two potential contributors to SST variability: dynamical ocean heat transport and cloud radiative feedbacks. The main finding of this dissertation is that cloud radiative feedbacks can significantly enhance or damp SST variability and that their role can be modulated by ocean dynamics. Their corresponding contributions depend on the region. This is one of only a few studies to consider both roles of ocean dynamics and cloud radiative feedback at once. In chapter 2, we pose that dynamical ocean heat transport is not required in order to produce decadal-timescale swings in global mean temperature. Numerous studies suggest that the global warming hiatus was caused by enhanced oceanic heat uptake by anomalous ocean heat transport (Balmaseda et al. 2013, Chen and Tung 2014, Meehl et al. 2011, Meehl et al. 2013, Watanabe et al. 2013, Trenberth et al. 2014, Trenberth and Fasullo 2013, Palmer et al. 2011, Lee et al. 2015). We find that an AGCM coupled to a slab ocean model without ocean dynamics can produce changes in GMT of the same magnitude of the hiatus, albeit less frequently than a fully-coupled model. Also, many assume that ENSO drives decadal variability and that intermodel spread in ENSO may explain the disagreement among models in decadal variability. We find that the spread in ENSO variance only explains half of the spread in decadal variance across CMIP5 models. These two findings together motivate further investigation into atmospheric processes that may contribute to decadal variability and the intermodel spread in decadal variability. We hypothesized that cloud radiative feedbacks may contribute to models’ decadal variability based on the fact that cloud radiative feedbacks dominate intermodel spread in climate sensitivity and are tied to low-frequency variability in eastern ocean basins. We isolate their role in SST variability by turning them off with cloud-locking, or prescribing clouds in the radiation module of an AGCM. Chapter 3 describes the implementation of cloud-locking for the first time in NCAR’s AGCM, CAM5. Here, we test the model’s responsiveness to different ways of cloud-locking in the radiation module of CAM5. We find that cloud-locking induces a systematic -2 W/m2at the top of atmosphere (TOA), which leads to climate drift in model configurations with interactive sea ice and SST. Due to the large changes in climatological SST along the sea-ice lines with cloud-locking, we focus on understanding cloud feedbacks’ role in SST variability in the tropics and subtropics where the drift was less than one degree Celsius. We subsequently discovered that, by locking CLDFSNOW in addition to the eight cloud parameters locked for experiments in Chapters 4 and 5, we eliminate the TOA imbalance and, thus, the climate drift in the fully-coupled simulation as well.Chapter 4 shows that cloud-locking in CESM results in an enhanced ENSO on decadal timescales. This is a completely different ENSO response than cloud-locking in a different fully-coupled model, MPI-ESM-LR of the Max Planck Institute. In MPI-ESM-LR, cloud-locking reveals a weaker ENSO due to a lack of positive longwave cloud feedback on circulation. Cloud-locking in CESM, on the other hand, reveals a stronger ENSO because negative shortwave cloud feedback was not able to damp SST variability. Shortwave feedback is the largest source of intermodel spread in ENSO magnitude among atmospheric flux feedbacks on ENSO, and CESM produces one of the most realistic shortwave feedbacksamong climate models. This means that shortwave damping is probably important for damping ENSO in reality, but the role of shortwave feedback in climate models depends on other ENSO feedbacks, like the Bjerknes feedback and convection scheme. The results of this chapter call for further investigation of cloud-circulation feedbacks and their impact on ENSO variability across models. The fact that we obtained a completely different result using a different model highlights the vast differences in ENSO atmospheric feedbacks that exist among models. Accounting for these intermodel differences may lead to improved ENSO predictions.In Chapter 5, we investigate another region where observations show a role for cloud radiative feedback in SST variability: the northeastern subtropical ocean basins. Here, we find that ocean dynamics can alter the role of cloud radiative feedback. Positive cloud radiative feedback from low-lying stratocumulus cloud decks is well-documented in observations and has been identified in climate models, though the extent that SST variability depends on cloud feedback is unknown. We cloud-lock in an AGCM-slab configuration and compare to a cloud-locked fully-coupled simulation to find that the role of cloud feedback on SST is modulated by dynamical ocean heat transport by mixing or advection. The influence from ocean heat transport depends on the region, and the differences result in a slightly different magnitudes of cloud radiative feedback. In the Pacific, the ocean damps SST variability, while in the Atlantic, ocean heat transport enhances SST variability. Therefore, positive cloud radiative feedback is a larger contributor to SST variance in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. The atmospheric feedbacks are analogous, but the role of the ocean differs between basins. Given the importance of the northeastern subtropics in connecting the extratropics to the tropics, the mechanisms presented here may shed light on understanding low frequency modes of variability.With every experiment comes some limitations. In this body of work, we only analyze results from one climate model out of tens of other state-of-the-art CMIP5 models. The role for ocean dynamics and cloud radiative feedback for SST variability that we find using different versions and configurations of the NCAR model may be unique to that model. We know that CAM produces more realistic cloud radiative feedbacks with respect to ENSO compared to other models (Lloyd et al. 2012, Bellenger et al. 2014, Ferrett et al. 2018), but the accuracy ofNCAR model’s representation of ocean dynamics is unclear. Furthermore, decadal variability is difficult to study due to the limited length and spatial coverage of the observational record. Additional coverage of observations of the deep ocean (below 700 meters) is limited, so decadal changes in the deep ocean are inferred through energy estimates rather than directly measured (Trenberth et al. 2014), leaving the precise role of ocean heat transport an open question. Though, even with more complete ocean observations at shallower depths in the Atlantic, for example, there is still debate about the role of ocean dynamics in the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (Clement et al. 2015, Zhang et al. 2015). Based on the simulations conducted, ocean dynamics and cloud radiative feedbacks are likely both contributing to variability on interannual-and-longer timescales. On interannual timescales, ENSO is certainly driven by ocean dynamics, but negative shortwave cloud feedback is important for maintaining the oscillation’s magnitude and timescale. The balance between cloud feedback and ocean dynamics on sea surface temperature probably depends on the strength of other feedbacks which vary among models. But the spread in ENSO only explains half of intermodel spread in decadal variability, suggesting that other processes are important for decadal variability in climate models. Positive cloud radiative feedbacks in northeast subtropical ocean basins enhances SST variability by up to 40%, but its precise contribution depends on the region. SST in the Pacific, hosting the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, is merely damped by ocean processes, and so positive cloud radiative feedback is very important for low-frequency variations in SST there. In the Atlantic, on the other hand, ocean dynamics drive SST variations, so clouds have less of an impact on SST variability. More work is required to understand respective contributions of ocean and atmosphere to extratropical variability, but this dissertation elucidates atmosphere-ocean processes that can result in internal variations in SST.The work put forth in this dissertation has resulted in an additional useful tool for understanding cloud radiative feedbacks as well as highlighted the importance of simplifying climate models to understand mechanisms. A grand challenge in climate modeling is to understand the relationship between cloud radiative feedbacks and circulation (Bony et al. 2015), and cloud-locking provides an opportunity to pursue this challenge. This new implementation in widely-used CESM can open many doors for research concerning cloud radiative feedbacks and circulation. Furthermore, this dissertation demonstrates the significance in using simpler modeling configurations to understand mechanisms of climate change and variability. By deactivating various climate system components, one can clearly see the function that these components fulfill, which, in some cases, provides a different answer than a multimodel analysis could reveal. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Future Work Upon completion of this work, questions still remain about the role of cloud radiative feedbacks in climate sensitivity and climate variability. This chapter outlines the unanswered questions and proposes a few suggestions that utilize cloud-locking as a tool to tackle these questions. First and foremost, now that we understand that the source of the TOA imbalance induced by cloud-locking described in Chapter 3 is due to not locking CLDFSNOW, our next step is to reproduce the presented experiments with that additional parameter locked. The climate drift in the presented experiments is a limitation for potential users because they cannot separate whether their results are due to cloud-locking or due to climate drift, unless they focus their analysis on regions that have small drift, like the tropics and subtropics (as in Chapters 4 and 5). Furthermore, there are additional cloud-locking experiments to be conducted to understand the sensitivity of CESM’s climate to cloud radiative effects: (1)Prescribing various cloud levels individually to determine if a certain type of cloud leads to drift (2)Prescribing individual cloud fields as an extension of section 3.3.3 to isolate the contribution of processes associated with each cloud field to climate drift(3)Shuffling cloud fields from multiple years in time to account for potential bias introduced by selecting a particular cloud year as well as decorrelating cloud fields in time. For example, maybe the year selected for cloud may be a particularly stormy one. No radiative impacts from storms will be included if cloud fields have no temporal autocorrelation.(4)Directly prescribing atmospheric shortwave and longwave cloud radiative heating rates instead of cloud fields. This circumvents any potential perturbations that may be introduced by prescribing individual fields in the radiation code, since cloud radiative heating rates is the output from the radiation module that the rest of the climate model utilizes for other calculations.Considering the fact that cloud-locking in different ways and in different climate models results in varying magnitudes of drift (both positive and negative) suggests that intermodel comparison of cloud-locking may be useful in determining the contribution of cloud feedback on circulation to climate sensitivity. Previous cloud-locking experiments in other climate models exhibit similar climate sensitivities and drift (Zhang et al. 2010, Mauritsen et al. 2013, Radel et al. 2016), but each model resulted in different climate drift. Cloud-locking in the GFDL model, version 2.1, results in a warming in the poles actually warm by around +1-2ºC, while the rest of the planet cools by about 0.5ºC. There is no report of the global mean climate drift. Cloud-locking in the MPI-ESM-LR model also results in a warming of around +1ºC over the course of 250 years. Cloud-locking in CESM1.2, the model used in this dissertation, results in a global cooling of around 1ºC over the course of 400 years. Furthermore, an intermodel comparison of cloud-locking simulations would behugely beneficial in isolating other climate model biases. Preliminary results in CESM2 show that cloud-locking actually alleviates biases in precipitation, wind, and temperature over the western warm pool (personal communication with Jim Benedict). Furthermore, the large signal in the Southern Ocean leads to shifts in the ITCZ, suggesting that cloud-circulation feedbacks may impact models’ ITCZ bias. Both of these examples further motivate the use of cloud-locking as a tool for understanding the role of cloud radiative feedbacks in climate model biases and intermodel spread in climate sensitivity.There is also large climate sensitivity to cloud-locking in the extratropics and polar regions. AGCM-slab models produce significant decadal variability in extratropical and polar regions (fig. 2.3) mainly over land in the northern hemisphere and over ocean in the southern hemisphere, and these regions are large contributors to global-mean decadal variations (Brown et al. 2015). Internal atmospheric variability significantly contributes to decadal variability in these regions (Brown et al. 2015). Due to the increase in sea ice concentration in response to cloud-locking in the AGCM-slab configuration, a sea-ice-cloud-albedo feedback may be impacting the climate sensitivity. Also, the Southern Ocean is one of the locations where negative TOA imbalance induced by cloud-locking is largest in the configuration with prescribed SSTs (fig. 3.11), suggesting that some cloud feedback interact may interact with sea ice to enhance the global cooling in AGCM-slab and fully-coupled simulations. The other regions of largest TOA imbalance include the land in tropical regions. This raises questions about the importance of cloud-circulation feedbacks for land surface temperature, and given the prominence of convection in those regions, cloud-circulation feedbacks are probably important for precipitation as well. An approach to investigate the importance of cloud-circulation feedbacks for the climate in these regions is to limit cloud-locking to certain regions. Mechanisms of internal variability and the sign and magnitude of cloud radiative feedbacks depend on the region. Already, one study has cloud-locked according to latitude in various idealized models (aquaplanet configurations) to understand cloud radiative feedbacks’ impact on atmospheric circulation and the resulting impact on the global warming response (Voigt and Shaw 2016). These authors found that the magnitude of the atmospheric circulation and mean climate response dependson the model. One could apply cloud-locking in various regions to identify which regions lead to largest climate sensitivity, and then motivate future investigations into cloud feedbacks’ impact on climate sensitivity. Ultimately, the goal of understanding mechanisms of internal variability is to better constrain our limits of climate predictability and improve predictions. Some uncertainty in predictions due to internal variability may be irreducible due to the chaotic nature of the climate system, but given intermodel spread in internal variability, we may reduce some of this uncertainty. Applying cloud-locking in different models, for example, may aid in locating climate model biases regarding cloud-circulation feedbacks. Also, I did not have the chanceto pursue questions regarding cloud radiative feedbacks’ direct influence on climate predictability. How does the models’ representation of cloud feedback impact climate predictability? Does the intermodel spread in cloud radiative feedback impact projections of climate change? For example, a positive cloud radiative feedback with increased greenhouse gases would suggest that global mean temperature would warm faster with warming due to cloud radiative feedback. But if positive cloud radiative feedback also means greater SST persistence, and thus, greater SST variability, does this translate to larger ensemble spread in single-model projections of climate? How would this change the signal-to-noise ratio? We have just scratched the surface of the breadth ofknowledge regarding cloud feedbacks and their role in climate projections and related uncertainty.

Ocean... the irony.

Luke-warm democrats versus progressives and the fringe core of the remaining environmentalists. The former is big-monied up the you know what. We need some sort of state change or paradign shift. I haven't seen any evidence of a subjective increase in quality of life. You can conclude completely from the position of Sophism that most people lead unhappy and unfulfilling lives. This is all holistically built-in to the system such that climate change is one of many symptoms of the dysfunctional world order.

Get rained on at this rate from the WAA. Enjoy it guys as I'm burned out on this winter.

Sure the 1950s had an exceptionally warm AMO also had a AGW component albeit without the build up of oceanic inertia. A modern cold phase will show as cooler in raw SSTs for awhile longer versus past warm phases. That was also before we started filling the atmosphere with particulate pollution (which is a negative forcing). You can make convenient arguments but the road still leads to the same end result. The oceans being 30k feet deep can also work against you. By the time we want to decide on moving forward with a functioning world we will have to deal with millennia of heat inertia in the oceans. I have been pondering this predicament for so long and It just becomes frustrating when people get absorbed in macro-scale phenomenon and/or they confuse weather with climate. Other times they are not being faithful to themselves because they have invested their life into a system which will soon be abandoned by necessity. I empathize with you but I need to be precise on this matter. Rather than live in denial you should exact compensation from the power structure of civilization. Use the reparations to build something functional. It's never too late. That may not necessarily be effectual but we are adamant on ending generational injustices which will likely persist into the deep future (perhaps as far as 12-24 human generations). Mitigating their effects as much as possible on behalf of posterity.

We lucked out. That kind of anomaly is not likely to occur again. Take a look at the global average and deep ocean heat content. The AGW signal is about to burst through the background noise in a big way. This is the kind of data that ends civilizations. The change is so abrupt and unexpected. Most of that cooling on the ocean surface was AGW forced in the first place. Due to the tripole pattern configuration and increased trade winds (due to hadley cell expansion) Remember that if you have no sun or sustained cloud cover global warming cannot do it's work. You might as well be bouncing the heat into the stratosphere which is already cooler than before due to GHGs. There are several tipping points outside the scope of this particular subject. The most prominent ones are always cloud feedbacks.

The AMO signal is usually defined from the patterns of SST variability in the North Atlantic once any linear trend has been removed. This detrending is intended to remove the influence of greenhouse gas-induced global warming from the analysis. However, if the global warming signal is significantly non-linear in time (i.e. not just a smooth linear increase), variations in the forced signal will leak into the AMO definition. Consequently, correlations with the AMO index may mask effects of global warming.[5] A 2017 study predicts a continued cooling shift beginning 2014, and the authors note, "..unlike the last cold period in the Atlantic, the spatial pattern of sea surface temperature anomalies in the Atlantic is not uniformly cool, but instead has anomalously cold temperatures in the subpolar gyre, warm temperatures in the subtropics and cool anomalies over the tropics. The tripole pattern of anomalies has increased the subpolar to subtropical meridional gradient in SSTs, which are not represented by the AMO index value, but which may lead to increased atmospheric baroclinicity and storminess."[3]

There's no way you could ever have a cold AMO in a world with global warming at the ocean current level (deep ocean). At least relative to a 20th century baseline your water temperatures would never show up as anomalously cold. The cold AMO would appear more readily if we picked a hypothetical selection of years based on GHG simulations and used them as analogs. I note however that the AMO is based on temperature differentials between two regions and not the temperature of the water. This is all assuming the AMOC remains stable and functioning.

So is the AMO atmospherically driven or ocean current driven? The data would seem to suggest the former. Perhaps a combination of both.

If true. There will be a near-term acceleration/increase in sea level contribution from the Southern Hemisphere. I agree with your sentiment it's more about downplaying the Adapt 2030 crowd who think we are about to go into an ice age or perhaps there is a negative feedback that will come and save us from ourselves.

Without bottom water formation there is no known mechanism to cool the southern ocean. The situation is dire and warrants a closer examination. Forget 2100.

When freshwater injection on the Southern Ocean is halted, global temperature jumps back within two decades to the value it would have had without any freshwater addition (Fig. 10a). Quick recovery is consistent with the Southern Ocean-centric15picture of the global overturning circulation (Fig. 4, Talley, 2013), as the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC), driven by AABW formation, responds to change of the vertical stability of the ocean column near Antarctica (see Sect. 4) and the ocean mixed layer and sea ice have limited thermal inertia.Global cooling due to ice melt causes a large increase in Earth’s energy imbalance20(Fig. 10b), adding about+2 W m−2, which is larger than the imbalance caused by in-creasing GHGs. Thus, although the cold fresh water from ice sheet disintegration pro-vides a negative feedback on regional and global surface temperature, it increases the planet’s energy imbalance, thus providing more energy for ice melt (Hansen, 2005).This added energy is pumped into the ocean. Southern Ocean Upwelling North Atlantic Deep Water is primarily upwelled at the southern end of the Atlantic transect, in the Southern Ocean.[8] This upwelling comprises the majority of upwelling normally associated with AMOC, and links it with the global circulation[1]. On a global scale, observations suggest 80% of deepwater upwells in the Southern Ocean. [28] This upwelling supplies large quantities of nutrients to the surface, which supports biological activity. Surface supply of nutrients is critical to the ocean's functioning as a carbon sink on long timescales. Furthermore, upwelled water has low concentrations of dissolved carbon, as the water is typically 1000 years old and has not been sensitive to anthropogenic CO2 increases in the atmosphere.[29] Because of its low carbon concentration, this upwelling functions as a carbon sink. Variability in the carbon sink over the observational period has been closely studied and debated[30]. The size of the sink is understood to have decreased until 2002, and then increased until 2012.[31] After upwelling, the water is understood to take one of two pathways: water surfacing near to sea-ice generally forms dense bottomwater and is committed to AMOC's lower cell; water surfacing at lower latitudes moves further northward due to Ekman transport and is committed to the upper cell. [8][32]

How is it 32 at Salisbury and 39 in Georgetown? That is bizarre for sure. 31 at KWWD. Heavy snow burst but now dryslotted.

Que the crimes against Earth becoming crimes against Humanity but only when it's far too late. I have concluded that climate change is not included in the umbrella of progressive causes. Why I am so adamant when criticizing democrats who have used this topic as an election platform. Therefore doing even more damage by souring climate change by affiliating themselves with the problem without careing much about the dire implications.

It's not good news. It reduces the urgency for change and action. Keep in mind that the immediate effects of fossil fuel emissions are not matured for at least 30-50 years after the initial release. However the rate of emissions alone will function to diminish the lag time function. https://skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html Guest post by Alan Marshall from climatechangeanswers.org Following the failure to reach a strong agreement at the Copenhagen conference, climate skeptics have had a good run in the Australian media, continuing their campaigns of disinformation. In such an atmosphere it is vital that we articulate the basic science of climate change, the principles of physics and chemistry which the skeptics ignore. The purpose of this article is to clearly explain, in everyday language, the two key principles which together determine the rate at which temperatures rise. The first principle is the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and other gases. The second principle is the thermal inertia of the oceans, sometimes referred to as climate lag. Few people have any feel for the numbers involved with the latter, so I will deal with it in more depth. The Greenhouse Effect The greenhouse effect takes its name from the glass greenhouse, which farmers have used for centuries, trapping heat to grow tomatoes and other plants that could not otherwise be grown in the colder regions of the world. Like glass greenhouses, greenhouse gases allow sunlight to pass through unhindered, but trap heat radiation on its way out. The molecular structure of CO2 is such that it is “tuned” to the wavelengths of infrared (heat) radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface back into space, in particular to the 15 micrometer band. The molecules resonate, their vibrations absorbing the energy of the infra-red radiation. It is vibrating molecules that give us the sensation of heat, and it is by this mechanism that heat energy is trapped by the atmosphere and re-radiated to the surface. The extent to which temperatures will rise due to a given change in the concentration of greenhouse gases is known as the “climate sensitivity,” and you may find it useful to search for this term when doing your own research. Most principles of physics are beyond question because both cause and effect are well understood. A relationship between cause and effect is proved by repeatable experiments. This is the essence of the scientific method, and the source of knowledge on which we have built our technological civilization. We do not question Newton’s laws of motion because we can demonstrate them in the laboratory. We no longer question that light and infrared radiation are electromagnetic waves because we can measure their wavelengths and other properties in the laboratory. Likewise, there should be no dissent that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, because that too has been demonstrated in the laboratory. In fact, it was first measured 150 years ago by John Tyndall using a spectrophotometer. In line with the scientific method, his results have been confirmed and more precisely quantified by Herzberg in 1953, Burch in 1962 and 1970, and others since then. Given that the radiative properties of CO2 have been proven in the laboratory, you would expect them to be same in the atmosphere, given that they are dependent on CO2’s unchanging molecular structure. You would think that the onus would be on the climate skeptics to demonstrate that CO2 behaves differently in the atmosphere than it does in the laboratory. Of course they have not done so. In fact, since 1970 satellites have measured infrared spectra emitted by the Earth and confirmed not only that CO2 traps heat, but that it has trapped more heat as concentrations of CO2 have risen. The above graph clearly shows that at the major wavelength for absorption by CO2, and also at wavelength for absorption by methane, that less infrared was escaping in to space in 1996 compared to 1970. After 150 years of scientific investigation, the impact of CO2 on the climate is well understood. Anyone who tells you different is selling snakeoil. The Thermal Inertia of the Oceans If we accept that greenhouse gases are warming the planet, the next concept that needs to be grasped is that it takes time, and we have not yet seen the full rise in temperature that will occur as a result of the CO2 we have already emitted. The Earth’s average surface temperature has already risen by 0.8 degrees C since 1900. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing at the rate of 2 ppm per year. Scientists tell us that even if CO2 was stabilized at its current level of 390 ppm, there is at least another 0.6 degrees “in the pipeline”. If findings from a recent study of Antarctic ice cores is confirmed, the last figure will prove to be conservative [ii]. The delayed response is known as climate lag. The reason the planet takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 is the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consider a saucepan of water placed on a gas stove. Although the flame has a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C, the water takes a few minutes to reach boiling point. This simple analogy explains climate lag. The mass of the oceans is around 500 times that of the atmosphere. The time that it takes to warm up is measured in decades. Because of the difficulty in quantifying the rate at which the warm upper layers of the ocean mix with the cooler deeper waters, there is significant variation in estimates of climate lag. A paper by James Hansen and others [iii] estimates the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years. The mid-point of this is 37.5 which I have rounded to 40 years. In recent times, climate skeptics have been peddling a lot of nonsense about average temperatures actually cooling over the last decade. There was a brief dip around the year 2000 following the extreme El Nino event of 1998, but with greenhouse emissions causing a planetary energy imbalance of 0.85 watts per square metre [iv], there is inevitably a continual rising trend in global temperatures. It should then be no surprise to anyone that the 12 month period June 2009 to May 2010 was the hottest on record [v]. The graph below from Australia’s CSIRO [vi] shows a clear rising trend in temperatures as well as a rising trend in sea-level. Implications of the 40 Year Delay The estimate of 40 years for climate lag, the time between the cause (increased greenhouse gas emissions) and the effect (increased temperatures), has profound negative consequences for humanity. However, if governments can find the will to act, there are positive consequences as well. With 40 years between cause and effect, it means that average temperatures of the last decade are a result of what we were thoughtlessly putting into the air in the 1960’s. It also means that the true impact of our emissions over the last decade will not be felt until the 2040’s. This thought should send a chill down your spine! Conservative elements in both politics and the media have been playing up uncertainties in some of the more difficult to model effects of climate change, while ignoring the solid scientific understanding of the cause. If past governments had troubled themselves to understand the cause, and acted in a timely way, climate change would have been contained with minimal disruption. By refusing to acknowledge the cause, and demanding to see the effects before action is taken, past governments have brought on the current crisis. By the time they see those effects, it will too late to deal with the cause. The positive consequence of climate lag is the opportunity for remedial action before the ocean warms to its full extent. We need to not only work towards reducing our carbon emissions to near zero by 2050, but well before then to begin removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere on an industrial scale. Biochar is one promising technology that can have an impact here. Synthetic trees, with carbon capture and storage, is another. If an international agreement can be forged to provide a framework for not only limiting new emissions, but sequestering old emissions, then the full horror of the climate crisis may yet be averted. Spreading the Word The clock is ticking. All of us who understand clearly the science of climate change, and its implications for humanity, should do what we can to inform the public debate. I wrote the original version of this article in February 2010 to help inform the Parliament of Australia. The letter was sent to 40 MPs and senators, and has received positive feedback from both members of the three largest parties. To find out more about this information campaign, and for extensive coverage of the science of climate change and its technological, economic and political solutions, please visit my web site at www.climatechangeanswers.org. https://skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html

Common tactic used to discredit scientists. While I am not a scientist or academic I would wager that we live in dire times. I would wager my life savings. Live in illusion if you want but don't blame anyone else for the end result.