muso wrote on Oct 8^th, 2010 at 9:01pm:



If you know a senior anything that tells you about 'after 2100' - fire him.  He is talking sh!t on somone else's money.

muso wrote on Oct 7^th, 2010 at 9:07am:


To summarise, what I'm saying is that we have more immediate concerns than methane releases from Siberian tundra.

If atmospheric methane is going to have a significant effect, it will be way into the future.

Happy now?

2009 - 2nd hottest year on record while sun is coolest in a century

The skeptic argument "It's the sun" is both the most used skeptic argument and the most visited page on this website. So with NASA GISS updating the surface temperature record with completed 2009 data, I've updated the comparison between sun and temperature. While 2009 is the second hottest year on record (tied with 2007), solar activity has fallen to its lowest level in over a century.

To compare sun and climate, the temperature data was taken from the NASA GISS global land-ocean temperature index. To plot Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), I borrowed a technique from Kelly O'Day's Climate Charts & Graphs. Satellite measurements of TSI only began in 1978 while reconstructions of TSI from sunspot numbers go back to 1611 but end at 2004. As the two datasets show good correlation when they overlap, I've used Solanki's reconstruction from 1880 to 1978 and satellite data from 1979 to 2009.

Of course, I'm being a bit cheeky in comparing single data points - a technique often criticised here. Of more significance is the long term trend which is shown by plotting 11 year moving averages. As the solar cycle is roughly 11 years, using an 11 year average effectively filters out this cycle, giving us the long term solar trend. For the temperature record, an 11 year average also filters out short term variations from ocean cycles such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation. This enables us to directly compare the long term trends of Total Solar Irradiance and Global Temperature Change.



Figure 1: Annual global temperature change (thin light red) with 11 year moving average of temperature (thick dark red). Temperature from NASA GISS. Annual Total Solar Irradiance (thin light blue) with 11 year moving average of TSI (thick dark blue). TSI from 1880 to 1978 from Solanki. TSI from 1979 to 2009 from PMOD.

There is some controversy about the degree that the sun affects climate. As TSI shows little variation, the direct influence from changing solar energy is modest. However, phenomena such as cosmic rays (which are modulated by solar activity) may enhance the sun's impact. However, an increased effect from cosmic rays would only serve to magnify the effect of the cooling sun over the last few decades. Since 1975, global temperature has shown long term warming while at the same time, the sun has shown long term cooling.
Link -
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2009-2nd-hottest-year-on-record-sun-coolest-in-a...
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muso wrote on Oct 19^th, 2010 at 1:03pm:


One of the few rock solid certainties that will always be the same, is that change will always be there!

However, we (humans) are often under the impression that change is one dimensional, whereas what we see as "a final result", is almost always the result of the interaction of many factors and often much more time than we relate to.

For now, more rain in the East, more & more powerful cyclones in the North and less rain & more heat in the West.

And yes, when the cycles turn again, when solar activity, El nino's & increasing GHG's combine, what then?

Scientists warn of more rain, heat and hurricanes

WASHINGTON — Hungry polar bears gathering along the tundra, twice as many record-breaking temperatures and stronger hurricanes are among the latest signs of climate change, scientists say.

And we can expect more rain, more drought and fiercer storms in the future if the world continues on its fossil-fuel gobbling track, they told reporters on a conference call Wednesday to discuss the year in global warming.

Michael Mann, a leading US scientist, said he just returned from a trip to Churchill, Manitoba, the Canadian shore town famous for its polar bears, where the sea ice they depend on for hunting seals has not yet formed because of warm temperatures.

"When you go up there you see the bears all along the coast on the tundra awaiting the sea ice to form and it hasn't formed yet," Mann said.

"This was for me a very tangible and personal opportunity to see the impacts of climate change firsthand," he said. "The Arctic is in many respects a harbinger of things to come on our planet."

Mann also pointed to research being presented on Capitol Hill by another climate scientist, Jerry Meehl of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), showing the number of record-breaking hot days is twice as high as the record cold days.

"Heat records are outpacing cold records at a factor of two to one now. That number is expected to increase to 20 to 1 by late this century if we continue on the course that we are on with fossil fuel burning," Mann said.

Some events, such as the 2003 European heat wave which killed about 35,000 people and this year's heat wave in Moscow would be "extremely unlikely to happen in the absence of climate change," he added.

Hurricane expert Greg Holland said the fiercest storms are already showing an uptick in frequency, and more powerful hurricanes lie ahead.

"If you just look at the Atlantic in the last 10 years, we have experienced three times as many Category 5 hurricanes as have occurred in previous history on a relative basis," he said.

"We now have consensus statements coming out from the scientists and indeed a lot of regional research is pointing all in the same direction. There is nothing going in the other direction," he said.

"And that is the very intense hurricanes, the very intense (Category) fours and fives are going to increase and they could be doubling or tripling."

Holland also predicted more rain and drought in the coming years.

"As the earth warms up the atmosphere can hold more water, if there is more water available there will be more rain. Paradoxically of course there is as a result of that more drought because the land dries out quicker."

According to Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the reduction of sea ice in the Arctic will have a growing impact on temperatures in the rest of the world.

"What we have seen is a rather pronounced reduction in the extent of sea ice. At the end of summer now we have 40 percent less sea ice than we had say during the 1970s," Serreze said.

"We are losing that insulator so what we are seeing now are big fluxes in heat from the ocean to the atmosphere," he said.

"Since everything is connected together in the climate system what happens up there can influence what happens down here and I am talking about in the middle latitudes."

The other thing that the scientists said is changing, along with climate, is how they confront skeptics who question the reality of climate change and the extent of humans' role in causing it.

"There are still many of us who like to sit in our office or go into the field and just do our science and not enter into the fray, but I think that is changing," said Serreze.

"We have to become more involved," he added. "We have to become better communicators. Scientists are not always good communicators of the issues but this is part of a learning curve and we have got to face that."

Mann, a Nobel-Prize winning scientist who was cleared of allegations of misconduct this year stemming from a series of leaked emails between scientists about climate change, said he too has learned from his experiences.

"One lesson is that if you're a climate scientist and you are willing to play a prominent role in the public discourse on climate change then you'd better have a thick skin," he said.
Link -
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jt_1CnGZk73na9-dtmgaWQ2qBrAA?...
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Well, the Eastern states of OZ have been getting the rain and WA is getting the heat (forecast today 39c).

Let's see if this La Nina event is as  bad as 1974 for the Northern Cyclones?  

perceptions_now wrote on Nov 19^th, 2010 at 4:23pm:


Well so far it's a more intense La Nina than 74, but it peaked in September with a figure of +25 so we're on the way down. The last time we saw anything like that was around 1917.

Cyclones are always a hit and miss affair, but they are not easy to form with this weather pattern.

As to exactly where the wettest parts will be, it's a matter of luck. With all its major dams full, Brisbane is looking a bit vulnerable.

You can't link one event to global warming though. This is just a very intense La Nina, probably intensified partly because of the solar minimum that we just passed. It's like a mini version of the Maunder minimum.

Actually a cyclone forming in the coral sea would be very welcome right now - as long as it mops up all the moisture and heads off the NZ or Fiji.

Latest SOI figures:

Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov
20.5	18.8	25.0	18.3	16.4

They are expecting the La Nina to last well into the end of the second quarter next year. In my part of the world, we have had 4 times the average annual rainfall.

The pattern of high precipitation continues throughout Europe and the US eastern seaboard, with record snowfalls in many of the Eastern states of the US, and figures look likely to topple last Northern winter's record snowfall in Germany.