UK climate scientists say oceans hold key as global warming slows

[ScienceRocks]

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. UK climate scientists say oceans hold key as global warming slows - FT.com




UK climate scientists say oceans hold key as global warming slows
By Pilita Clark, Environment Correspondent

As the UK basked in the results of its latest record – its longest heatwave for 18 years – climate scientists, for their part, were presenting details about the recent slowdown in global warming.

Scientists from the Met Office’s Hadley climate centre and some UK universities said on Monday that the oceans appear to hold the key to one of the biggest puzzles in climate change science.

1. Oceans are taking up the heat
2. Aerosols like the 50s-70's from Europe and America are now occurring from India and China. This is having a big effect.

 

[Old Rocks]

And, like what occurred after the cleanup of our smokestacks in the 70's, when the people of India and China force the same kind of laws into being for their own health, we will see one major spike in the increase of temperature. That will probably be about the same time that the Arctic Sea will be free of ice for a period in the summer. Should be a nice double whammy.

 

[IanC]

As always, it is up to individuals to decide what makes sense. Trenberth and his crew say that the heat has gone beneath 700 metres and increased the temp by one or two hundredths of a degree. Can we measure that amount even in the ARGO era? How about back in the 50,s or 70's?

Arctic sea ice finishes up its melting just about the time when sunlight is so low it doesn't have much impact. The arctic Ocean is warmer than ice and radiates more heat until it is once again insulated by ice. The last few decades have seen conditions conducive to sea ice being blown out of the Arctic, if condition change again the ice will build up.

No harm befell the planet during the MWP and it was a boon to civilization.

 

[Old Rocks]

The MWP, worldwide, was much cooler than the present temperatures. Here is where you can find the results of many studies, all of which show the MWP much cooler than the present world.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

 

[skookerasbil]

The newest ruse.......


Nothing more than a theory.


These climate predictions have an obscene track record. The models are worthless for predicting future trends and serve only for helping us understand our climate a little bit better.

http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/the-models-are-wrong

 

[IanC]

The MWP, worldwide, was much cooler than the present temperatures. Here is where you can find the results of many studies, all of which show the MWP much cooler than the present world.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

Old Rocks- written history records the MWP as at least as warm as now. paleo records would show the present as cooler than it is, that is why there was "hide the decline'. cherry picking proxies and distorting records in the direction that you want may be considered 'science' in climate science but I wouldn't bet a trillion dollars on it.

 

[flacaltenn]

The MWP, worldwide, was much cooler than the present temperatures. Here is where you can find the results of many studies, all of which show the MWP much cooler than the present world.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

Extreme BS.. THe MWP was global and it was comparable to today's warming. Over 40 proxy studies say that..

NOAA has no cred on this topic anymore.. Their SCIENTISTS might.. Their PR dept --- no....

Of course if you want to argue with the felonious hero Mann --- please do...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period#cite_note-32

The 2009 Mann et al. study found warmth exceeding 1961–1990 levels in Southern Greenland and parts of North America during the Medieval climate anomaly (defined for this purpose as 950 to 1250) with warmth in some regions exceeding temperatures of the 1990–2010 period. Much of the Northern hemisphere showed significant cooling during the Little Ice Age (defined for the purpose as 1400 to 1700) but Labrador and isolated parts of the United States appeared to be approximately as warm as during the 1961–1990 period.[8]

http://www.canadafreepress.com/inde...er-in-roman-medieval-times-than-now-new-study

A new study measuring temperatures over the past two millennia has concluded that in fact the temperatures seen in the last decade are far from being the hottest in history.—Lewis Page, The Register, 10 July 2012

“We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low,” says Professor-Doktor Jan Esper of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, one of the scientists leading the study. “Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy.”

What you got there from NOAA is selective propaganda --- not the science..

THIS is the SCIENCE....

 

[orogenicman]

The MWP, worldwide, was much cooler than the present temperatures. Here is where you can find the results of many studies, all of which show the MWP much cooler than the present world.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

Old Rocks- written history records the MWP as at least as warm as now.

Not true. There were no modern thermometers during the MWP. ALL of our data from that time period comes from proxies, not written history.

 

[orogenicman]

Folks, the difference between the MWP period and what were are experiencing today are numerous. Among the differences are the fact that the warming today is occurring much more rapidly and is due to anthropogenic GHGs, while the MWP was due to long term changes in ocean currents. Flacaltenn claims there are 40 studies that show the MWP to be worldwide. I've never seen 40 studies that make this claim. Perhaps you could provide us with your list. What I know about it is that there isn't consensus on how widespread it was, but there does seem to be some evidence in a very limited number of locations. Whether those locations actually show the footprint of the MWP or something else altogether is open to speculation.

 

[Old Rocks]

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf

A number of studies that have attempted to produce very large spatial-scale reconstructions have come to the same conclusion:that medieval warmth was heterogeneous in terms of its precise timing and regional expression (Crowley and Lowery, 2000; Follandet al., 2001; Esper et al., 2002; Bradley et al., 2003a; Jones and Mann, 2004; D’Arrigo et al., 2006).

The uncertainty associated with present palaeoclimate estimates of NH mean temperatures is signifi cant, especially for the period prior to 1600 when data are scarce (Mann et al., 1999; Briff a and Osborn, 2002; Cook et al., 2004a). However, Figure 6.10 shows that the warmest period prior to the 20th century very likely occurred between 950 and 1100, but temperatures were probably between 0.1°C
and 0.2°C below the 1961 to 1990 mean and signifi cantly below the level shown by instrumental data after 1980.

In order to reduce the uncertainty, further work is necessary to update existing records, many of which were assembled up to 20 years ago, and to produce many more, especially early, palaeoclimate series with much wider geographic coverage. There are far from
suffi cient data to make any meaningful estimates of global medieval warmth (Figure 6.11). There are very few long records with high temporal resolution data from the oceans, the tropics or the SH.
The evidence currently available indicates that NH mean temperatures during medieval times (950–1100) were indeed warm in a 2-kyr context and even warmer in relation to the less sparse but still limited evidence of widespread average cool conditions in the 17th century (Osborn and Briff a, 2006). However, the evidence is not suffi cient to support a conclusion that hemispheric mean
temperatures were as warm, or the extent of warm regions as expansive, as those in the 20th century as a whole, during any period in medieval times (Jones et al., 2001; Bradley et al., 2003a,b; Osborn and Briff a, 2006).

 

[flacaltenn]

The MWP, worldwide, was much cooler than the present temperatures. Here is where you can find the results of many studies, all of which show the MWP much cooler than the present world.

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

Old Rocks- written history records the MWP as at least as warm as now.

Not true. There were no modern thermometers during the MWP. ALL of our data from that time period comes from proxies, not written history.

Historical anecdotes are just as valid as a snail shell or a tree..

 

[CrusaderFrank]

So what?

The world is filled with cities now under the ocean, there's not a fucking thing we can do about it

 

[ScienceRocks]

Build sea walls!

 

[flacaltenn]

Folks, the difference between the MWP period and what were are experiencing today are numerous. Among the differences are the fact that the warming today is occurring much more rapidly and is due to anthropogenic GHGs, while the MWP was due to long term changes in ocean currents. Flacaltenn claims there are 40 studies that show the MWP to be worldwide. I've never seen 40 studies that make this claim. Perhaps you could provide us with your list. What I know about it is that there isn't consensus on how widespread it was, but there does seem to be some evidence in a very limited number of locations. Whether those locations actually show the footprint of the MWP or something else altogether is open to speculation.

I could actually get you cites to about a dozen of those saying MWP was GLOBAL and warmer.. But because I have to make money today.. Let's just go with the Wiki...

The MWP has been noted in Chile in a 1500-year lake bed sediment core .[35]

Adhikari and Kumon (2001), whilst investigating sediments in Lake Nakatsuna in central Japan, finding a warm period from AD 900 to 1200 that corresponded to the Medieval Warm Period and three cool phases, of which two could be related to the Little Ice Age.[36] Another research in northeastern Japan shows that there is one warm/humid interval from AD 750 to 1200, and two cold/dry intervals from AD 1 to 750 and 1200 to present.[7] Ge et al. studied temperatures in China during the past 2000 years; they found high uncertainty prior to the 16th century but good consistency over the last 500 years, highlighted by the two cold periods 1620s–1710s and 1800s–1860s, and the warming during the 20th century. They also found that the warming during the 10–14th centuries in some regions might be comparable in magnitude to the warming of the last few decades of the 20th century which was unprecedented within the past 500 years.[37]

A 1979 study from the University of Waikato found that "Temperatures derived from an 18O/16O profile through a stalagmite found in a New Zealand cave (40.67°S, 172.43°E) suggested the Medieval Warm Period to have occurred between AD 1050 and 1400 and to have been 0.75 °C warmer than the Current Warm Period."[38] The MWP has also been evidenced in New Zealand by an 1100-year tree-ring record.[39]

A reconstruction based on ice cores found the Medieval Warm Period could be distinguished in tropical South America from about 1050 to 1300, followed in the 15th century by the Little Ice Age. Peak temperatures did not rise as high as those from the late 20th century, which were unprecedented in the area during the study period going back around 1600 years.[40]

Ugh --- the tyranny of proxy studies.. But the SIGNAL is found WORLD-WIDE... How 'bout Venezuela??

Black, D. E., Thunell, R. C., Kaplan, A., Peterson, L. C. and Tappa, E. J. 2004. A 2000-year record of Caribbean and tropical North Atlantic hydrographic variability. Paleoceanography 19, PA2022, doi:10.1029/2003PA000982.
Description
High-resolution d18O records generated from seasonally representative planktic foraminifera were obtained from two ocean sediment cores extracted from the Cariaco Basin off the coast of Venezuela (~ 10.65°N, 64.66°W) to produce a temperature/salinity reconstruction in this region of the Caribbean/tropical North Atlantic over the last 2000 years. Results indicate a general trend toward cooler and perhaps more saline waters over the length of the record. Because of this trend, the authors describe discussion of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as "complicated," but they nonetheless acknowledge their record reveals "an interval of warmer [sea surface temperatures] prior to ~ A.D. 1600-1900" where the d18O data "correctly sequence the relative temperature change between the so-called MWP and LIA." In viewing the authors' graph of G. bulloides d18O (25-year mean, reproduced below), and their stated relationship that a d18O change of 1.0‰ is equivalent to a 4.2°C change in temperature, we calculate the difference in peak warmth between the MWP and CWP to be 1.05°C, with the MWP being the warmer of the two periods.

Pretty cool eh? Is it REAL? or just more proxy nonsense??

LARGER QUESTION !!! Is TODAY'S warming TRULY GLOBAL? Or are our grandkids gonna back here arguing about whether "global warming" in the 20th century was REALLY GLOBAL?? That's how stupid it truely is to distill the discussion down to a SINGLE FUCKING NUMBER like Global Annual Mean Surface Temperature.. That's climate studies for dummies..



GTG design some stuff today...

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Build sea walls!

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

Cuban underwater city - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[flacaltenn]

Build sea walls!

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

Cuban underwater city - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't have any objections to improving flood control and storm surge.. But literally "sea walls" is not always the best answer.. Sea walls instead of dunes and salt marsh will just make erosion and coastal loss accelerate..

 

[orogenicman]

I have to agree with flacaltenn on that one. Natural wetlands and natural dunes and barrier islands are the best defense against sea flooding and storm surges. Of course, the best defense is not to live in the areas prone to flooding, but people do stupid things over which we have but little control.