2005 hottest ever in Northern Hemisphere 15 December 05

since it’s increasing according to expectations…

I wonder when Americans will wake up and find out GW is happening…and happening according to expectations. Of course, no one will want to admit they’d been in the dark about GW ever since it had assumed it had been disproven in the early 90s (by media silence on the issue since then), so, trying to control and conceal their utter shock & concern, they’ll shrug and say, “Yeah, I knew all about it. It’s all going according to expectation.”

And they place 2005 as the hottest year (globally) recorded to date. The difference between NASA GISS and the UK Met/CRUG figures are apparently down to how they deal with missing data. The NASA GISS statistics raise an interesting point, though – 1998 was a strong El Nino, and 2005 was neutral. El Ninos have a global warming effect, and as we should be due for another El Nino in the next one or two years, they don’t expect the new record to last very long.

See: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

Edited 18 Dec to add link. Thanks, Lynn (see comment below)

the link turns up in the text (I always add the http://)

If I’m wrong, then people can always copy & paste it….

No one disputes the increasing warmth of the climate. The issue is the cause of the warmth. The present IPCC models cannot explain how the climate was as warm then as it is now because the carbon dioxide concentration had not increased.

The current response, see the RealClimate web site, is that the Medieval Climate Optimum did not happen. Personally, I find that hard to believe; there is too much evidence in the history, literature, and art for that to be true.

...that what they said at Realclimate was actually that both the Medieval Warm Period and the subsequent cooler period referred to as the Little Ice Age did happen but that the extent of both has been exaggerated, also that both occured as a result of regional variations over time and not global change as at present.

And the CO2 conc was ~30% lower in the LIA/MWP, and the denialists have no theory why a higher concentration would NOT warm the planet.

Don’t let anyone hand-wave away from that fact, Mark.

Best,

D

of the globe one must believe that the difference between the peak temperature during the Medieval Climate Optimum and the lowest temperature (40-yr smoothed) during the Little Ice Age (LIA) was less than 0.5 C degrees. I do not believe it. I cannot believe that such a small temperature change could account for such large differences in the quantity of food available, the warmth in Greenland and many of the other documented occurrences (such as the painting depicting ice skating on the Thames during the LIA).

There are reports from nearly every corner of the earth of climate states contemporaneous with and in temperatures corresponding to the MCO and the LIA. Neither of those events affected only the North Atlantic region. The claim that they were is nothing but a claim, which appears to be untrue. Add to that the Roman Warm Period, which was as warm as the MCO and you have three occurrences unexplainable by the carbon dioxide-based models in current vogue.

but I am pretty sure that I do not know any of them. My online dictionary responds with “No entry found for denialist.” when I ask it for a definition.

Even if I knew what it means and knew any of them, I would not presume to speak for them.

Speaking for me, I think that a 30% change in the concentration of a minor greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide probably changes the temperature but that the change is too small for measurement by paleoclimate techniques. The change may even be too small to measure by the relatively crude temperature measurements that we have made for the past 130 or so years.

There is a Scottish island called Iona which belongs to the Inner Hebridies. The National Trust Scotland has included it in the list of historic sites most affected by rising sea levels, erosion and flooding.

The beaches around Iona’s ancient abbey are eroding and the building itself is now prone to flooding in high storm tides. The abbey is very ancient indeed: The restored St Oran’s Abbey was completed in the 11th century. There are ruins of an abbey dating back to the 6th century on site – the oldest in Britain – build before the Medieval Warm Period. It so happens that the Inner Hebridies are, geologically, slowly rising and there are no signs of subsidence or erosion from any reason other than rising sea levels.

Now, this seems to be a puzzle for those who believe in the MWP having been a significant global phenomenon. If it had been a global phenomenon, then sea levels should have risen at the time, because of thermal expansion and at least some melting from glaciers. In which case medieval Iona would have been battered by high tides and seen beaches erode perilously close to the abbey, with regular flooding. It seems pretty inconceivable to me that the Church at the time would have done major building work and maintained one of its main abbeys on such a dangerous site. Erosion, rising tides and storm flooding are pretty obvious for all to see, after all, and a lot of wealth would have been tied up there, by medieval standards.

This is the main problem I can see with the MWP as a global phenomenon talk: Where is the evidence of rising sea levels at the time? Everyday observations of historic sites contradict this theory, I would think. If the planet warms, the sea levels must rise, it’s basic physics. Instead, we face witnessing the demise of historic sites which are well over a thousand years old, which should tell us something.

Almuth

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Your crude handwaving is too egregious to ignore. Everyone here with two functioning brain cells notes you distract away from what I said. I hope no one pays you for this tripe, as it’s not good enough to stand the slightest scrutiny:

Speaking for me, I think that a 30% change in the concentration of a minor greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide probably changes the temperature but that the change is too small for measurement by paleoclimate techniques. [emphases added]

Since this increase was during a period of instrumentation, no need for paleoclim techniques.

Why’d you bring it up? Do you want to discredit them? Not germane here so don’t hand-wave. Thanks.

And everyone notes ‘minor’. You should publish so that everyone can stop what they’re doing and move on to something else.

The change may even be too small to measure by the relatively crude temperature measurements that we have made for the past 130 or so years.

No.

It is large enough to be measured, and Lindzen, Lomborg and others cite the change.

[ignore]

Best,

D

Sea level has risen at least meters during the 10,000 years (_{10 mm/yr) since the last glaciation. The rise has not been constant; it accelerates during warm periods and decelerates during cold periods.}

History is full of stories of catastrophes that the rising water has caused. The Biblical flood (Noah) may be the story of the people who lived on the shores of the Black Sea, which was a fresh water lake until the rising sea level broke through at Bosporus. One set of researchers believes that Atlantis is under water in the Strait of Gibraltar. The current sea level rise may be merely a slightly rapid continuation of the historic trend.

I think that the MCO began about 650 AD and continued through the end of the end of the 13th century (1300 to 1350). The abbey would have been built in the middle of the period. The builders may have started work and completed the abbey before they were aware of the rising sea level.

It does not surprise me to hear that Iona appears to be rising from the sea. Apparently, the increasing mass of ice on Greenland is displacing all of northwest Europe upward. I believe that I read that sea level is falling at Stockholm for example. Either Iona is not rising as fast as sea level is rising around it, or erosion is more culpable than rising water levels.

I offer these things as a reasonable alternative explanation of the causes of current climatic changes.

You appear to be having more and more difficulty understanding the meaning of the items posted on this site. Perhaps, you have spread yourself too thin by insulting folks on too many websites at one time.

I wrote that I do not accord too much credibility to the IPCC models that cannot explain the MCO and the LIA. You apparently agreed with me when you posted your note that said, “And the CO2 conc was ~30% lower in the LIA/MWP, . . .”. My point was that the warmth did occur during a period of lower carbon dioxide and that warmth was followed by a period of cold while the carbon dioxide remained unchanged.

You went on to say, ”. . . and the denialists have no theory why a higher concentration would NOT warm the planet. ”, which is true. It appears that no one knows what caused the MCO or the LIA. The carbon dioxide models certainly do not explain it for us.

Furthermore, if you look backward even farther, you find a Roman Warm Period (RWP), followed by the dark (and cold ages), which preceded the MCO by about 1,000 years. The RMP apparently was not quite as warm as the MCO but the period between 200 and 250 AD was probably the coldest in the past 2,000 years, though the 1600s were close.

The temperature record for the past 10,000 years looks like a gradually warming recovery from the glaciation with a superimposed cycle having a period of 1,000 to 1,100 years.

To me, it looks like the present warming began approximately 450 years ago and that it has continued with some peaks and valleys through the present.

When you said, “Since this increase was during a period of instrumentation, no need for paleoclim techniques.” you were assuming that the temperature increase measured since 1880 is attributable solely to the increased carbon dioxide concentration. I do not believe that you know that. Your only evidence for it is IPCC models that assume that the carbon dioxide caused the increase. Do you see any circular reasoning here? My point is that the bulk of the recent increase in temperature is natural and that if there is any component attributable to carbon dioxide that it is too small to be detectable.

Until IPCC can stop denying that the MCO and LIA occurred and figure out what caused them and then explain why whatever caused them is not causing the present warming, I will assume that the present warming is nothing more than continuation of the past. I see no need to blame the sins of mankind and offer human sacrifices to the goddess Gaia.

such as the eastern coast of the U.S. & India slowly sinking into the ocean, or any natural causes of warming. But we can reduce our GHGs, and do so cost-effectively. And, we can even reduce them without having 99% certainty AGW is happening.

So let’s get to it. As the prayer says, “Lord give us the courage to change the things we can, the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I am not sure that we can do anything to reduce or carbon dioxide emissions enough to have a significant effect on the projections of the IPCC models. I understand that full implementation of the original Kyoto Protocol would have reduced the computer projections by less than 0.1 Celsius degrees. That was at full implementation. What is left of Kyoto is a shadow of the original and even that will have some impact on prosperity.

Eventually, we will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels; we will continue extracting them at ever-increasing costs until their costs exceed the costs of alternative energy sources. It may already be cost effective to use solar cells to power remote residences.

We should and will continue looking for alternative energy sources. We should and will continue looking for ways to use fossil fuels more efficiently, which will reduce the emission of carbon per unit of economic activity.

I do not see any reason to pay penalties either to attain increased efficiencies or to produce energy by alternative means. We can wait for economics to entice those changes.

Obviously we wouldn’t even be talking Kyoto, if everyone had gotten involved in reducing their GHGs cost-effectively 15 years ago, and if we could have given as much incentive to alt energy as we do to conventional energy (think of our military costs & external harms costs of these).

Kyoto, it seems to me, is just a way to make countries and people aware there is a problem. I think if the U.S. had not been so pea-willy scared of it, but had embraced its exceedingly modest requirements (not even a blip on our GDP), that would have helped jump start the action & envigorated other nations (many of whom seem to be using our U.S. bad boy behavior as an excuse to do less than they could).

If we’d signed up with Kyoto, then our good ole business acumen would have kicked in, and we’d be down to reducing our GHGs 1/3 to 2/3s cost-effectively by this very late stage in the game. I feel sorry for people & schools & business who have huge energy bills this year, but I think, if they had only been a little concerned 15 years ago, and had started down the energy efficiency/conservation & alt energy path then in an all out effort (or halfway effort as I did), they would singing in the snow & keeping toasty, rather than cursing the cold & dark.

The dangers from AGW in my view are accelerating, so every minute wasted in not pursuing the right path, increases the potential harm geometrically. When people become so poor from the escalating harms (GW + other harms) that they can’t afford compact fluorescent bulbs - I mean, it’s literally food or bulbs - then we’ll really be in trouble. There is the geological point of no return (which some guess to be within 10 years) and the economic-political point of no return. At that point many people (enough to cause havoc) will probably devolve into viciousness, wanting just want to take out at many other people as they can, so they don’t have to suffer or die alone. That seems to the the way people are going—suicide bombing, etc.

If only we had started much earlier, like smart & sensible people…

Erm…. Yes we do Norb.

Take a look at the International Energy Agency Web Site

Kyoto is effectively trying to put some ‘feed forward’ into the economics.

The thinking is Net Present Value of the world is likely to be higher if we spend the money now to address climate issues, and that a global effort is required.

The reason that Kyoto would have reduced climate impact by so little was that targets were set slack to try and get all countries on board (unfortunately didn’t work in round 1).

As technologies are developed, and as fuel prices go up, the cost of climate change mitigation is reduced, however there must be some incentive to use the technologies. Without this, there is no incentive to bring them to market or even to develop them in the first place (unless fully government subsidised).

US policy seems to be to invest money in technology development (there’s no denying that USA is the worlds biggest spender on climate change technology R&D!)

European policy semms to be to put incentives in place for the take up of climate mitigation technologies, with some spending on R&D.

A marriage of these two approaches in both the EU and USA would be the best for all of us.

In terms of having an impact on prosperity, fossil fuel/CO2 is like a credit card. Times are good before you max out. But once you do, life becomes tough.

Best Regards Martin

[/ignore]

This is the last time I waste my time on your BS, since you so blatantly misstated what I wrote.

When you said, “Since this increase was during a period of instrumentation, no need for paleoclim techniques.” you were assuming that the temperature increase measured since 1880 is attributable solely to the increased carbon dioxide concentration.

No. That is bullsht.

You are just spreading BS, hoping some sticks. You are full of sht.

Until IPCC can stop denying that the MCO and LIA occurred and figure out what caused them a

The IPCC doesn’t deny their existence.

I see no need to blame the sins of mankind and offer human sacrifices to the goddess Gaia.

Nobody does except in the agitprop you read and then try to spread. Too bad you weren’t smarter. It might work.

Best,

D

[ignore]

I am not familiar with the tectonic movements of Scotland and England. I accept your assessment that Iona is not subsiding because of tectonic movement. I was under the impression that much of NW Europe was rising from the sea because the Greenland ice sheet is growing heavier and thus sinking. I understood that the sinking of Greenland was displacing NW Europe upward.

The discussion points out the difficulty of measuring sea level rise. You have to know whether the position of your sea level gauge is rising or falling with respect to the center of the earth before you can begin to estimate how much of an apparent sea level change is rising water as opposed to sinking land.

Sea level rise has been quite slow. A total change of 100 meters in 10,000 years is very slow and maybe not noticeable to the persons who built the abbey on Iona.

The temperature change that we are seeing is small compared to the change since the last Ice Age, i.e. 10,000 years ago. It apparently was approximately 20 C degrees cooler then than it is now. The change since humans began keeping records, about 150 years ago has been about 1 C degree. I think that the coldest portion of the LIA was approximately 2 C degrees less than it is now.

Thermal expansion of the water in the ocean is not a huge part of the rise of sea level. The total sea level change since 1955 attributable to thermal expansion since 1955 is about 0.5 mm. Melting ice contributes far more rise.

As I said, sea levels have been rising for at least 10,000 years, since the end of the last glaciation. Whether the observed sea level rise is a continuation of the longstanding rise or a new event is the issue. The rising of sea levels is the result of a warming climate. It does not necessarily follow that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is causing the climate to warm.

You say that IPCC does not deny the existence of the MCO and LIA. Technically, that is true, but IPCC claims the temperature change between the MCO and the LIA was about 0.5 C degrees. That temperature difference is far too low to explain the observed differences in climate between the two periods. Therefore, the IPCC position is tantamount to denying their existence.

The IPCC models cannot explain the difference between the climates during the MCO, the LIA. Nor can they explain the difference between the climate today and the climate during either of those periods. The carbon dioxide concentration did not change between the MCO and the LIA. Yet the temperature change between the MOC and the LIA was more than the temperature change between 1880 and today.

No one has explained why the climate changed so much between the MCO and the LIA, but it is clear that something caused the change. It also is true that the current rise in temperature is approximately on schedule with the cycle of Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages, MCO and LIA.

No one has proven that carbon dioxide contributes a majority or even a significant portion of the ongoing warming. No one has measured the portion of the increase that carbon dioxide caused. IPCC has carbon based, heavily parameterized models that they built after they assumed that carbon dioxide caused the warming of the past 150 years. It is just a likely that the present warming is the next stage in the natural cycle, whose cause remains unknown.

I did not deny that the climate has warmed since 1880. I only said that the carbon dioxide-caused portion of the rise is not discernable, either by paleoclimate or instrumental methods.

It is ironic that you accuse me of spreading agitprop, which is, “political propaganda (especially Communist propaganda) communicated via art and literature and cinema”.

No, Norb, there is no reason for Dano or anyone else to do you the favor of recapitulating the entirety of the last 30 years of climate science just to provide tou with further opportunities for denial. Suffice it to say that there are no credible climate scientists who question the CO2-driven mechanism for the current warming; have a look at, e.g., material from Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen. Even better, you might want to devote the time necessary to read and understand the 2001 IPCC report, but somehow I doubt that will happen.

As to the MWP and LIA business, I recall seeing some paintings by H. Bosch showing that the so-called LIA was quite a bit warmer than can be inferred from your cherry-picked painting. Prove me wrong.

in terms of depiction of the little ice age, but Hieronymus Bosch is a more aposite choice for the kind of nightmarish scenes of judgement that await the complacent.

Damnation, whether it be the present-day scientific visualisation of the greed-induced devastation of our planet or the religiously oriented medieval view of the arrival of demonic legions from the pit, is not a thought to promote a good night’s sleep.

Here’s hoping everyone had a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas.

May I take this opportunity of wishing all the contributors to this blog a New year full of good health for you and those dear to you, prosperity and a better understanding of the challenges that face us.

best to all

Colin

I was at a National Assembly Sustainable Energy Group (NASEG) meeting on 6th December, and heard an inspirational talk from a chemical plant manager.

Keith Agnew, Manager of the Solutia plant in Newport, South Wales, gave a detailed presentation on the way in which he and his staff had turned their business round over the last five years. Solutia is a world-wide industrial and chemicals group with a parent company in the US. The parent company is, I believe, currently in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, and the Newport plant received instructions to improve its productivity dramatically or face closure. The improvements had to be made with a ZERO investment budget.

Keith recounted how he had worked with his management team and with free technical guidance from the Carbon Trust (a UK govt-funded energy advice agency) to reduce their energy consumption per kilogram of product produced, by over 60% by 2004 from a 1998 baseline. This was achieved by a thorough review of plant and equipment, working practices and engaging the whole workforce in an awareness and responsibility programme.

The plant also found buyers for much of their process by-product which had previously had to be dealt with as hazardous waste. In addition, the recent introduction of the climate levy on energy consumption forced a radical rethink of every step of their processes which resulted in enormous savings.

During the 2004/5 tax year, the plant under-shot its CO2 allowance by so much that the profit it made on selling Carbon credits to other EU plants earned them twice as much as the chemicals they sold!

I asked Keith what was the critical factor: The emissions taxation or the threat of plant closure and having to make changes with no budget. His reply was the latter: the threat of closure brought all the workforce together and enabled them to tackle the process of change, usings savings made to generate investment capital for new and better equipment. The carbon trading was a bonus.

Solutia Newport now buys 20% of its power from renewable sources and is planning to put up two wind turbines of its own as an additional income source. The parent co in the US is looking at the Newport case as a way of trading out of its bankruptcy protection.

So don’t take it from me, have a look at their current environmental report at:

http://www.solutia.com/pages/corporate/locations/newport_annual.pdf especially page 11.

What’s good for the environment is good for business.

As Keith Agnew said “the only ones moaning about Kyoto are those too resistant to change that they are going to go out of business anyway: the success stories are keeping quiet and getting on with making money”.

best to all

Colin

it’s gone from being a fluke (due to unusual circumstances of the company) to being a pattern in my thinking. In many cases it’s impending environmental regulations that force businesses to think outside the box & come up with solutions that fulfill the new regs without costing much….only to find they’re saving more money than when they were polluting more. So the regs were the best thing that could have happened to them.

Kyoto is somewhat weaker than traditional regs (which do not permit pollution beyond a point), since businesses can “pay” for their GHG emissions (rather than being found guilty & heavily fined or forced to stop operations). Yes, regs are better than Kyoto in helping them come up with even greater savings. Though, in your example, facing bankruptcy & closure seems to works even better. It’s enough to make me think Bush is actually anti-business. I also heard on Wall Street Week in Review (TV program) that Bush is bad for business, but in a different way. Maybe he’s really working for some secret communist conspiracy…you know, to destroy America from within. Neh. It’s the other explanation.

It’s interesting businesses tend to keep quiet about their savings from energy/resource efficiency…wouldn’t want competition to find out about their new competitive edge…but can’t help bragging about it at meetings.

My ancestors are from Wales. Good to hear how smart they are. Maybe when people crossed the ocean to come to America their brains got salt water logged, or something.

to whom any form of change from the status quo is a threat.

It is no more or less sinister than that.

The same influences operate the world over.

But change, including change for the better will come. As I have said to Norb before now, it is the elegant solution that should be the goal: nature is full of them, a zero-waste system. And I agree with Norb, that wise, responsible and informed private enterprise can be a significant force for good in the world. But the major oil-based industrial complex seems to be locked into a viscious circle of resistance and denial instead of using its wealth to embrace the myriad opportunities for change.

May I be permitted to be a little contraversial? To my mind, there is no contradiction between creation and evolution. If a superior intelligence were to create an integrated ecosystem, including sentient beings, it would make sense to include an evolutionary process in order to make adaptation to changing environmental circumstances as a given.

Those (individuals, groups, structures, systems) that cannot adapt to change in the face of a changing environment firstly ignore the evidence of change, then fight to suppress the need for change, then they become extinct.

Dubya and others are merely the most ostentatious examples of this all too human trait. Let us hope that the growing global awareness sweeps this inertia away. Bush is not anti-business, he’s anti-change, a position based on ignorance and fear.

The rest of us can embrace the challenge ahead with alacrity; because we have no choice, but also because we recognise that it is the path of survival.

hope you have a great new year

Colin

such as the sun, etc., doesn’t rule out the warming caused by CO2—which is well understood for the natural greenhouse effect.

Just found this site:

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

Now just how far would $230bn and climbing by the minute have gone towards creating a wealthy, clean, just and sustainable NON-Fossil Fuel economy for the US?

And why has the oil-based industrial-military complex spent your (and Blair our) taxes for years to come to preserve the status-quo?

Go figure

Colin