Global Air Temps

Dude, Antarctica developed its thick ice over the last 6 million years or less. If volcanic/geothermal melting is happening now, but did not prevent its prior growth, should not we look for (and find) some recent dynamic signal? Polar ice core slices present narrow bands of sulfuric acid whenever volcanoes get frisky, so yeah, look there.

Meanwhile Antarctic ice is growing in some areas and falling in others. I think we have gone through this before. Climatological explanations for these spatial patterns seem reasonable to me, but you know, that could all be wrong. Maybe the sub volcanoes are in just the right places to look like climate signals. It could happen. All we need is data. Dude.

I think we are discussing all this wrongly though. All the usuals (myself included) are happy to chip in, but PCers at large either read quietly or just ignore. While waiting around for 2014 Ts to come in, I think we might benefit from a more inclusive, friendly envtl thread.

Something like, based on what seems very likely now, how (if at all) should we revise plans for energy production and fossil C emissions over the next few decades? We'll need more energy, water and food, and thermal power generation competes for water, and some forms of it put stuff in the air (other than CO2) that appear to shorten human lives. Renewable E could be Deus ex machina but they are coming on line too slowly so far. So, what is the optimal plan?

It seems like just the thing for a PC discussion, but not led by mojo. Swinging the liars and hoaxes scimitar is just too threatening. Not led by me either, 'cause my read the literature mantra is just too tedious. Y'all got your great jobs by deciding not to spend your lives thataway.

So, somebody else. Meanwhile we few will keep stimulating each other here

 

Here are 3 I found on the subject:

Dustin M. Schroeder, Donald D. Blankenship, Duncan A. Young, and Enrica Quartini (2014) Evidence for elevated and spatially variable geothermal flux beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. PNAS 111(25): 9070–9072.

E. Rignot J. Mouginot M. Morlighem H. Seroussi B. Scheuchl (2014) Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011. Geophysical Research Letters 41(10):3502–3509.

Ian Joughin, Benjamin E. Smith, Brooke Medley (2014) Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica. Science 344(6185): 735-738.

Schoeder found localized geothermal heat sources between 100-130 milliwatts per sq meter, so it's my guess to be what was highlighted in WUWT. The other two suggest that geothermal sources in general are not adequate to explain observed melt patterns. It is possible that WUWT would not have led you to those.

Anyway all 3 would seem appropriate reading for anybody who wants to improve their own understanding of the subject. Last time around I only offered a perspective based on a long-term view of the continent. It did accumulate a lot of ice over a few million years. For that to occur, the geothermal heating would have had to be more recent and well, deftly placed. Surely such basic ideas could be improved with study. Mojo, are you volunteering to lead us here?

 

Interactions between seawater and ice melt at Antarctic edges is addressed here

Underwater 'storms' may hold key to melting Antarctic ice

The following may be a good starting point for discussion of Greenland geothermal:

Heat flow from Earth's mantle contributes to Greenland ice melting

Overall it does not look to me that potential geothermal roles in these areas have been overlooked. Our path to understanding them here at PC may be based on the published literature as a whole, or on a 'drive by' from an affinity website. Either one works for me, I guess. Which one would you prefer, mojo?

 

Apologize for what? Once again, we are led to an interesting topic area. May or may not lead to further investigation and insights. Totally up the level of interest and time available by PC participants.

Mojo may not have interest in putting in the time required, but that does not constitute villany. He has led we two (at least) to take a closer look at the subject. So, now I'm going to click 'like' on his WUWT link post. So there.

 

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Antarctica has two big volcanoes, Sidley and Erebus (probably many others...). Per photos on wiki pages, summit of Sidley is snow-free and Erebus is white all the way to the top. Only a casual observation that a lot of heat may be required to keep the snow/ice away. It's Awfully Cold There.

 

Fl, I only see published papers relating ozone hole to Antarctic sea ice, and they are modeling studies, and they point in opposite ways. Not much to go on. Anybody else?

 

Bob my friend, you and I see science as the sharpest tool in the box to figure stuff out. But other people have conclusied that climate scientists are money-grubbing liars, happy to trash the world in search of wealth redistribution in favor of - heck I don't even know. And there are others stuck in the middle objecting to both extremes. It is a mess.

Let us take this 5 or 10 years at a time. Based on what we can all agree on now, is there any reason to change the fossil vs. renewable energy mix path? If so it needs to be defined. Maybe the governmental $$ subsidies need also to be reconsidered. Those are big for fossil E and small for renewable E. They are what they are.

The fossil E enterprise is the financially largest on earth and undeniably it made 20th century better for a lot of people. Yet for it to define the 21st century, the emission/health issues and water conflict issues need to be examined.

I am seeing all sides appealing to their bases, in lazy ways. Not good enough. We need to take control of this thing and DEFINE best path options. Then we can choose among (perhaps using science) best options.

 

According to NOAA, October 2014 was also a warm month globally. I still don't think 2014 can beat 2010 and 1998, but we'll see soon enough.

How much does it matter? If you prefer to consider decades than years like me, then it's just another 1/10. However this year ends, we will stay on the familiar recent track of each decade warmer than the previous.

Meanwhile, carry on with whose ideas and predictions don't look so good in recent years. I mentioned Salby and urban heat island earlier. At least one person here will remember this:

Nicola Scafetta (2010) Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 72: 951–970.

He compared resonances between planetary orbital periods with global air temperature records. I attach Fig. 12B. The ‘noisy’ gray is air T. The dashed (mostly between 0 and 0.5) is his empirical planetary effect on air T. The dotted (increasing as quadratic) is a fit to the air T, also projected into the future. The heavy black curve is Scafetta’s air T. You can see that it fits nicely the historical data. Because he projects it into the future, we can look at more recent T data.

The heavy black curve goes down from 2003 to 2014 (if we zoom in on years). Did global air T do that? No. Rather it has bounced around very near to 1998. It would be too strong (too soon) to say Scafetta's projection is falsified, but it was looking so good until 2000 or so. Good for him to have gotten that paper published before the data started to diverge. He did not propose a mechanism for planetary resonance to affect air T, rather asked us to appreciate the goodness of fit. Which was good.

But now isn't.

 

Bored waiting for final Ts of the year. Made a graph of decadal T anomalies, last symbol is average of 120 months ending 2014 Oct. Symbol before that includes 1998 (should be obvious?). So you can see how the recent decades have done. Earlier decades (back to 1854), when T trends were less directional. In any such 10-year approach, the last 2 months of 2014 are not going to move that last mark perceptibly. Each recent decade warmer than the previous trumps 'no warming since 1998'. But that is not news.

I suppose the cooling times (labeled) had most to do with ocean dynamics, although other factors have been considered. Mostly related to aerosols of one form or another. Mojo and I have not found a smoking gun related to solar activity.

Future decades (seems to me) will relate to whether ocean dynamics have been bested by infrared trapping in the atmosphere. There are two hints in the graph that suggest they may have been. The first cooling time was longer and steeper than the second. Hard to predict based on such, so (as always) what we need are better ocean models.

The two warming times have similar slopes (you may have noticed). To make sense of that, it will help to remember that energy absorption by gases is related to the logarithm of their concentrations. not linear.

PROBLEM

I have tried to upload the graph, but it won't go. Maybe related to my internet connection. Anyway, I cannot now show you. Probably can be fixed. If not, just chose an instrumental T and make 10-year averages. They all show the same thing.

 

PC reboot -> graph posted

 

If these 120-month averages look weird to you, go even deeper! Yes, do. Base your averages on the (about) 11-year solar cycles. Now we are about 1/4 down from peak on SS cycle 24. Go back using this cut point and you will find that the latest 4 cycle averages present strictly linear increases. Weird. Seems to suggest that even the current weak solar cycle has not chipped away at air T increase rates.

It might even suggest that solar and ocean-slosh modulations, important as they have been in the past, can no longer prevail over IR energy absorption by gases that we are happily adding to the atmosphere.

We have contributors here sure that air T will stop increasing, any year now. Any decade now Perhaps it shall, and that would a wonderful, unexpected thing. It would give us more time to transition to renewable E.

If you still suppose that compilations of surface air T differ, please visit Judith Curry's site. She participates in BEST, and informs us that all global records show the same patterns.