Posts Tagged ‘National Center for Atmospheric Research’

Sea level dropped in 2010/11 but only because it rained in Australia!

August 19, 2013

Wonders will never cease! If we just make sure that more moisture is trapped in clouds and that it rains more over land we can prevent sea level rise and even cause sea level to fall

Sea level is rising to catastrophic levels because of global warming and that, of course, is due the our using fossil fuels – or so the global warming theology would have us believe. But sea levels dropped by 0.7mm in 2010/2011. But not to worry. The catastrophe theory remains intact. This was just due to it raining too much over land in Australia and the tropics that year.

A new paper but an old tired song:

John T. Fasullo, Carmen Boening, Felix W. Landerer and R. Steven Nerem, Australia’s unique influence on global sea level in 2010–2011, Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50834

Abstract: In 2011, a significant drop in global sea level occurred that was unprecedented in the altimeter era and concurrent with an exceptionally strong La Niña. This analysis examines multiple datasets in exploring the physical basis for the drop’s exceptional intensity and persistence. Australia’s hydrologic surface mass anomaly is shown to have been a dominant contributor to the 2011 global total and associated precipitation anomalies were among the highest on record. The persistence of Australia’s mass anomaly is attributed to the continent’s unique surface hydrology, which includes expansive arheic and endorheic basins that impede runoff to ocean. Based on Australia’s key role, attribution of sea level variability is addressed. The modulating influences of the Indian Ocean Dipole and Southern Annular Mode on La Niña teleconnections are found to be key drivers of anomalous precipitation in the continent’s interior and the associated surface mass, and sea level responses.

PhysOrg recites the dogma:

When enough raindrops fall over land instead of the ocean, they begin to add up. New research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows that when three atmospheric patterns came together over the Indian and Pacific oceans, they drove so much precipitation over Australia in 2010 and 2011 that the world’s ocean levels dropped measurably. Unlike other continents, the soils and topography of Australia prevent almost all of its precipitation from running off into the ocean. 

The 2010-11 event temporarily halted a long-term trend of rising sea levels caused by higher temperatures and melting ice sheets. 

Now that the atmospheric patterns have snapped back and more rain is falling over tropical oceans, the seas are rising again. In fact, with Australia in a major drought, they are rising faster than before.

“It’s a beautiful illustration of how complicated our climate system is,” says NCAR scientist John Fasullo, the lead author of the study. “The smallest continent in the world can affect sea level worldwide. Its influence is so strong that it can temporarily overcome the background trend of rising sea levels that we see with climate change.”

….. As the climate warms, the world’s oceans have been rising in recent decades by just more than 3 millimeters (0.1 inches) annually. This is partly because the heat causes water to expand, and partly because runoff from retreating glaciers and ice sheets is making its way into the oceans.

But for an 18-month period beginning in 2010, the oceans mysteriously dropped by about 7 millimeters (about 0.3 inches), more than offsetting the annual rise.

Fasullo and his co-authors published research last year demonstrating that the reason had to do with the increased rainfall over tropical continents. They also showed that the drop coincided with the atmospheric oscillation known as La Niña, which cooled tropical surface waters in the eastern Pacific and suppressed rainfall there while enhancing it over portions of the tropical Pacific, Africa, South America, and Australia.

But an analysis of the historical record showed that past La Niña events only rarely accompanied such a pronounced drop in sea level. ….

When sea level rises it is due to global warming. But when it falls it is due to too much rain over Australia. Nothing to do with the standstill in global temperatures for the last 17 years of course!

As I posted a month or so ago

Sea levels in the past have been 10 m higher than today and 150 m lower than today.

Alarmism will have us believe that +5 cm ±15 cm in sea level that may actually happen by 2100 will threaten the very existence of humanity!

A new paper from Nils-Axel Mörner.

SEA LEVEL CHANGES PAST RECORDS AND FUTURE EXPECTATIONS

……. The Earth’s rate of rotation records a mean acceleration from 1972 to 2012, contradicting all claims of a rapid global sea level rise, and instead suggests stable, to slightly falling, sea levels.Best estimates for future sea level changes up to the year 2100 are in the range of +5 cm ±15 cm

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Clouds, Oceans | Comments Off on Sea level dropped in 2010/11 but only because it rained in Australia!

New computer simulations to find new excuses for recent lack of global warming

September 19, 2011

The lack of any global warming over the last decade while carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing is extremely worrying to the global warming orthodoxy. Recently “peer-reviewed” papers have attempted to find excuses for this lack of warming. Sulphur emissions from coal plants in China it has been suggested have been cooling the earth! The effects of soot in the atmosphere have also been blamed for reality and measurements not corresponding to the (sometimes fanciful) results of climate models. Needless to say it would not be politically correct to accept that solar influences – through clouds for example – may be so powerful as to make any anthropogenic effects quite insignificant with regard to climate.

One school of global warming believers believe that the missing heat is being hidden like some Loch Ness monster in the deep oceans and will come back to haunt us in due course. Of course measurements can not find this “hidden” deep ocean heat. It is far too well hidden for that. But the “unhidden” measurable ocean heat content (upto a depth of 700m) also confirm the flattening out of global warming.

As Bob Tisdale had pointed out in WUWT: Global Ocean Heat Content Is Still Flat

Figure 1 is a time-series graph of the NODC Global Ocean Heat Content Anomalies from the start of the dataset (1st Quarter of 1955) to present (2nd Quarter of 2011).

Figure 1: Global Heat content

And as many are aware, Climate Model Projections of Ocean Heat Content anomalies did not anticipate this flattening. Figure 2 compares the ARGO-era (2003 to present) NODC Global Ocean Heat Content anomalies to the GISS Model-E Projection of 0.7*10^22 Joules per year. The linear trend of the observations is approximately 7% of the trend projected by the model mean of the GISS Model-E.

Figure 2 - Ocean heat content:measurements compared to models

But the heat cannot hide from the speculative computer models of our intrepid global warmers. And since they cannot find this heat they have instead programmed a super-computer to tell us that it exists and will appear again in a decade or two. A new paper entitled Deep oceans can mask global warming for decade-long periods is to be published online on September 18 in Nature Climate Change. The title itself illustrates the defense. The  National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research has issued a press release which states:

Yet emissions of greenhouse gases continued to climb during the 2000s, and satellite measurements showed that the discrepancy between incoming sunshine and outgoing radiation from Earth actually increased. This implied that heat was building up somewhere on Earth, according to a 2010 study published in Science by NCAR researchers Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo. 

The two scientists, who are coauthors on the new study, suggested that the oceans might be storing some of the heat that would otherwise go toward other processes, such as warming the atmosphere or land, or melting more ice and snow. Observations from a global network of buoys showed some warming in the upper ocean, but not enough to account for the global build-up of heat.

And when there are no measurements to back up some speculation a new computer model is deployed:

The study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the “missing heat” during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend. The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues.

“We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future,” says NCAR’s Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study. “However, these periods would likely last only about a decade or so, and warming would then resume. This study illustrates one reason why global temperatures do not simply rise in a straight line.”

The simulations, which were based on projections of future greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, indicated that temperatures would rise by several degrees during this century. But each simulation also showed periods in which temperatures would stabilize for about a decade before climbing again. For example, one simulation showed the global average rising by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) between 2000 and 2100, but with two decade-long hiatus periods during the century.

During these hiatus periods, simulations showed that extra energy entered the oceans, with deeper layers absorbing a disproportionate amount of heat due to changes in oceanic circulation. The vast area of ocean below about 1,000 feet (300 meters) warmed by 18% to 19% more during hiatus periods than at other times. In contrast, the shallower global ocean above 1,000 feet warmed by 60% less than during non-hiatus periods in the simulation.

“This study suggests the missing energy has indeed been buried in the ocean,” Trenberth says. “The heat has not disappeared, and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”

This is plain speculation. And it looks to me that these simulations are only done for the sake of rescuing previous computer models which are beginning to be shining examples of GIGO. Even super-computers can only produce rubbish when the models are developed by zealots. And as Bob Tisdale comments:

An explanation for why Global Ocean Heat Content Is Still Flat. … I’d like to see some supporting observations, otherwise this is just speculation for something that Trenberth is doggedly trying to explain away. My question is; show me why some years the deep ocean doesn’t mask global warming. It’s not like that big heat sink was suddenly removed.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | 1 Comment »

%d bloggers like this: