Weather in NW Europe

[partlyscot]

I'm with crfriend on this. For myself, I do what I can, and am thankful that I live in an area which has the highest chance of being in a liveable condition when the fecal matter hits the rotary air impeller.

The theory you linked to Tor, I didn't read. I did look up some of the guy's links. When I got to this one,

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Messages- ... 56&sr=11-1

I stopped reading.

What I find important, is that the majority of accredited scientists today, and almost all of them who work in climate fields, say humans are having a significant impact on global climate change. More important than that, they are now not simply calling for corrections to our behaviour, they are saying it's too late to head off some of the worst of it. We now need to find ways to change, AND, starting building the dikes, figuring how to grow crops with less water, how to grow crops in new places, developing, or finding crops that are more temperature resistant. (cold or hot)

My own sense that I get from reading news reports and articles on water supplies, weather patterns, etc, is that we are very close to an inflection point, and it is in fact occurring in some places. We read of natural disasters in the 3rd world, and for the most part go on about our days. Very soon (5 years?) I fear, there will be a weather disaster in NA that will make people sit up and take notice.

[crfriend]

Very soon (5 years?) I fear, there will be a weather disaster in NA that will make people sit up and take notice.

We've already had one in very recent memory -- Hurricane Sandy. Even though the storm was severely weakened by the time it made landfall take a look at the damage that storm did to low-lying areas and heavy urban infrastructure. It took weeks for one of the richest cities on the planet to recover its subway system to anything near normal and there are still large areas that remain devastated. As ocean levels rise, we can only expect more of these events as it'll take even less weather to drive a storm-surge over the area.

Many of the coastal cities are in the same boat. Boston has one subway line with portals only 6 to 8 feet above mean high water. If that line floods to the roof, the water'll get most of the way to downtown. Boston doesn't have a good history of things like this, either. In 1996 the Muddy River topped its banks and sent a torrent into the Green Line tunnel portal near the Fenway stop completely filling the tunnels to the roof and several feet of he mezzanine; the tunnels were out of commission for two months. That also happened in 1962, but things were better then and they got it all pumped out and back in service in 5 days -- we're getting worse at dealing with infrastructure calamity, not better, which is another worry with the sea-level rising.

Even though I love sailing, I'm glad I live about 600 feet above sea level. Even then, I'm not immune to the occasional flood; if the power quits -- as it did during the big ice storm in 2008 -- we're hosed because we need power to run the pumps. In that event, the water in the basement was up to my knees -- and I'm 6'4" tall.

My personal suspicion is that we're already beyond the tipping point and as a species we're just going to have to do our best to ride the thing out. In the grand scheme of things, the planet will continue to cycle and the gradual heating that's underway now will, in terms of geological time, start to cool off again. Whether homo sapiens will be around is a matter of conjecture. I am known for "taking the long view".

[Kirbstone]

.......and as Noah sailed by Ireland in his ark there was just one Kerryman left sitting on top of the tip of Carrauntuohil (3414 Ft), the only bit of ould Ireland left visible above the floodwaters.
He hailed Noah and asked if he would take him, the only surviving Irishman on board, whereupon Noah flatly refused, saying that only he & his immediate family, plus selected breeding pairs of animals were allowed on board &c &c.
The Kerryman uttered a few expletives and added that 'Shure, it's only a shower, anyway!'

Tom.

[crfriend]

.'Shure, it's only a shower, anyway!'

Cue Monty Python: "It's only a flesh wound!" {snicker}

(I actually had a chance to use that line after having a tree fall on me.)

[Tor]

The theory you linked to Tor, I didn't read. I did look up some of the guy's links. When I got to this one,

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Messages- ... 56&sr=11-1

Last I checked, scientific history has not been particularly kind to those who shoot messengers rather than taking the trouble to shoot the message. That said, having been curious enough to purchase not only that book (a fine summary reminder if you've read his magnum opus, but not a good introduction), but both volumes of Run to the End of the Mystery, I have found his arguments, extraordinary as they are, a great deal harder to dismiss than modern science would like - or for that matter, modern theology. I'm still pondering, and have further independent verification on my lower priority list of things to do.

As for the specific argument I referenced, we have two oceans of gas, both heated by differing degrees of the same continuous source. Both exhibit (down to about 200mb) a constant (though naturally different with differing conditions) decrease in temperature with increasing altitude. Over a long enough time, both oceans (if I'm not much mistaken) will assume a temperature dependent upon the incoming energy and stabilize until incoming and outgoing match. In case the day/night cycle drives it from your mind, both have the same (for the ocean) portion receiving energy, and the same portion facing a heat sink at all times. If we bother to compare points of equal pressure, we find that the difference in temperature is exactly proportional to the energy received from source.

Here is a different look (and Big and Bashful, you might remember my mentioning a gas heated by a solid heating said solid?). Take a look in particular in the lower right corner. What is with all that energy coming from the ground and all that energy going from the air back to the ground? If I'm not much mistaken, this is the very ludicrous proposition you rightly denounced being put for to explain global warming by Trenberth and Kiehl in 1997.


Earth's Energy Budget, from Trenberth and Kiehl, 1997

I will admit that the "solutions" put forth tending to profit a few folk and curtail liberty tends to make me suspicious of the problem to begin with, and more willing to look at other claims, but I hope I'm still capable of recognizing bad arguments. Since I can understand (I'm fairly sure, at least) the science behind this, and it is an elegant, simple argument (last I checked simplicity is usually regarded as (lower grade) evidence of rightness, or at least approaching the fundamentals), I find it hard to let go of without seeing the message shot through.

[crfriend]

Caution. There is some sarcasm in the post below. Consider yourself informed.

At least the sums add correctly, but it's not a zero-sum game. The earth has its own internal heat as evidenced by various forms of volcanism. Iceland heats its homes that way almost entirely, and it's harder to get more "green" than that! Note also that those processes both add to the "greenhouse gas" concentration and subtract from the available solar radiation by putting ash and clouds into the atmosphere; that's not zero-sum unless it balances, and that is highly variable.

What the simplistic diagram doesn't get to is that there are a very large number of variables in play, only a few of which get shown -- and the devil, as always, is in the details. Given the "glacial" rate of change, we may be talking of a few thousandths of a watt per square meter accreting over time.

On the topic of the power per square meter received at the ground from the sun: I have seen no concrete evidence that we're in a higher-energy solar phase than we were two or even a 100 centuries ago. The sun also fluctuates in power output, and if I'm not mistaken it's roughly correlated with the sunspot cycle which is very noticeable and is fast by most standards at about 11 years. Too, if solar radiation varied over long periods of time we'd have picked it up in the fossil record, and I've not seen any work referring to that.

So, we're back to comparing what's observable in the fossil record versus what we're seeing in the current time-frame. What we see now is that the rate-of-warming looks faster than it does in previous cycles that we can observe based mostly on gas-chemistry of ice-cores taken from Antarctica. What makes this time 'round different? Without a compelling alternative source of energy inflow from outside we're left with what's going on in the atmosphere, and all other things being equal the only thing that stands out is anthropogenic activity.

Science has rather widely been decried in recent years by various vested interests, to the point where it's almost as shameful to be a scientist as it is to be a liberal. This is entirely unfortunate, as the practice and methodology of science are entirely blind to politics and profiteering. Politics and profiteering, however, have a very large bearing on the problem facing the species -- and both have very short horizons and attention-spans as well as their own self-interests.

My own interpretation of the problem -- and it is one -- stands as:

1) The planet is currently warming and this will cause problems for humanity in the not-too-distant future.
2) Is human activity the sole cause of this?
3) Is human activity accelerating the pace of change?
4) What can be done to mitigate the inevitable consequences of a warming planetary ecosystem?

Item 2 above is clearly false as we have more than ample evidence that the system quite naturally cycles. Item 3 is the crux of the argument, over which much ink and spleen have been spilt over the past 40-odd years (perhaps 50). Item four, however, is the arbiter. We cannot arrest item 1 above -- even if we reverted to pre-industrial culture (which would bring about the downfall of civilization as we know it). The very best we can do as a species is to just perhaps slow the rate a bit, and even that's in question, but to not do something would be stupid in the extreme.

Ultimately, we'll just have to ride it out. Or not. Exxon will go extinct before the last human takes the last breath -- and all those profits will have been for naught. But, they will have made the prior quarter's goal.

[Tor]

At least the sums add correctly, but it's not a zero-sum game. The earth has its own internal heat as evidenced by various forms of volcanism. Iceland heats its homes that way almost entirely, and it's harder to get more "green" than that! Note also that those processes both add to the "greenhouse gas" concentration and subtract from the available solar radiation by putting ash and clouds into the atmosphere; that's not zero-sum unless it balances, and that is highly variable.

What the simplistic diagram doesn't get to is that there are a very large number of variables in play, only a few of which get shown -- and the devil, as always, is in the details. Given the "glacial" rate of change, we may be talking of a few thousandths of a watt per square meter accreting over time.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post. I posted that diagram as an example of an error in global warming theory. As I mentioned, the chart shows a large amount of energy coming off the surface of the Earth - and most of that energy returning from the atmosphere by one means or another back to the Earth's surface.

What Harry Huffman's analysis of comparing equal pressure points in Earth's and Venus' atmospheres indicates to me is that it is probably possible to draw a simple three-axis chart (temperature, pressure, solar insolation/m2), with a single line running through it.

Remember, three observable facts can be considered proven by modern scientific observation:

1. Earth's atmospheric temperature decreases at a constant rate with increasing altitude through the troposphere (about 200mb)
2. Venus's atmospheric temperature does likewise, to about the same pressure (my recollection from the graphs is that Venus remains stable to a somewhat lower pressure - possibly CO2 related)
3. For a given matching pressure point the temperature of Venus' atmosphere is 1.176 times the Earth temperature - exactly as basic physics dictates for the 1.91 times more energy per area that Venus receives from the Sun than Earth.

This in spite of great differences in planetary reflectivity, and most notably a CO2 "greenhouse gas" concentration of 96.5% on Venus, as opposed to Earth's fraction of a percent. Earth may not be Venus, but last I checked modern science would (rightly) scoff and anyone who claimed physics works differently on the two planets - at least if put in those terms. Venus, at least, has been "stable" for umpteen million years, even if Earth has not - and yet, only relative distance from the Sun is required to explain their relative temperatures. I believe Occam's razor dictates from this data that the only valid assumption is that only atmospheric mass and solar insolation determine atmospheric temperature - unless and until someone can take this data and show that it is incomplete. So far as I know, the Standard Atmosphere, from which the Earth temperature values used here were taken, is still considered valid, if ignored by climatologists.

If climatologists want to take a stable atmospheric temperature and show how the surface of the Earth is changing temperature due to human activity in spite of that, I'll take it - but that is an entirely different claim from anything I've seen out of any of them.

Too, if solar radiation varied over long periods of time we'd have picked it up in the fossil record, and I've not seen any work referring to that.

Or would we - except as plants and animals moved with changing temperature? Is it only a mass the size of the Earth that would be visibly affected by that change? Would we in fact see only evidence of changing temperatures over time as the mass of the Earth responded to variations in solar insolation? I suspect that but for modern scientific instrumentation even intelligent folk as us could only detect the change as it happened by observing the change in temperature over time. Then too the current politicalized science might have tended to bury such research and be reluctant to hand out grants to follow that thread.

[crfriend]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post. I posted that diagram as an example of an error in global warming theory. As I mentioned, the chart shows a large amount of energy coming off the surface of the Earth - and most of that energy returning from the atmosphere by one means or another back to the Earth's surface.

Well, it fails in either case -- either proving or disproving heat-retention and climate change. We're not a zero-sum game totally reliant on external radiation to keep us warm. Yes, external radiation is a very large component of the system but it's not the only one.

Atmospheric "blanketing" is both easily observed and felt -- ever notice how cloudy winter nights tend to be warmer than nights that are crystal clear. That's the action of the clouds reflecting heat back at the surface; on a clear night, that radiates pretty well out into space. Now, that's a local event, but it shows the power of what the atmosphere can do. If that can be globalized -- even to a miniscule degree -- then we'd see what we're seeing now.

This in spite of great differences in planetary reflectivity, and most notably a CO2 "greenhouse gas" concentration of 96.5% on Venus, as opposed to Earth's fraction of a percent.

The other issue here is that it's not just CO2 that's in play. We also have methane and several others to contend with -- and methane is a more potent "greenhouse gas" than carbon dioxide. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens when the Arctic permafrost starts thawing out and resumes decomposition; that'll release even more methane and CO2.

Too, if solar radiation varied over long periods of time we'd have picked it up in the fossil record, and I've not seen any work referring to that.

Or would we - except as plants and animals moved with changing temperature?

We might not pick it up directly, but we could pick it up indirectly through botanical fossils that retain their growth-rings -- which have been a rich source of data in the past.

I suspect that but for modern scientific instrumentation even intelligent folk as us could only detect the change as it happened by observing the change in temperature over time. Then too the current politicalized science might have tended to bury such research and be reluctant to hand out grants to follow that thread.

I'm going to leave the political ranting out of it, for that clouds the issue needlessly. Suffice it to say that there's lots of money to be made no matter which way the wind blows.

As far as it being only observable due to more precise instrumentation, we have too many people who -- irrespective of how many fancy toys they have in their arsenal -- have long enough memories and can compare what the place looks like now versus how it did in yesteryear. Recall my commentary about opossums -- those were an incredible rarity when I was young; now they're common. They're moving in as things warm up. My mariner friends have related that the high tides are noticeably higher now than they were a few decades ago; coastal flooding is now more severe and frequent than it was in the past. Despite the 4th-coldest winter on record, much of New England has had its expected growing-season extended allowing us to now safely grow species that we couldn't 25 years ago without a lot of work. These observations do not require thermometers; all they need are memory and an observation of the natural world around us.

All too sadly, most folks don't spend as much time out and about in nature as they should. If they did, there'd be more awareness. I recall an interesting volume I found when we were cleaning out my grandparents' place following their and my father's death -- it was a journal of weather observations taken in the 1800s in New England. The author/observer, who lacked a thermometer for much of the duration of his observations, kept exquisite notes, and from those it was immediately apparent to me that things were quite a bit colder then than they are now -- warm and cold winters aside. I never did really figure out what constituted "good sleighing weather" mainly because that technology has been dead for many decades, but I know it needed to be cold and for the snow to pack properly -- and we don't see that now. The book was gifted to a meteorologist friend of mine; I may ask if I can borrow it back for a bit for some research.

Speaking of wildlife, I saw what was either an otter or a sable today near downtown Framingham, MA when I was on my way back from getting lunch. I'm frequently amazed at how close-in some of these species actually coexist with humans.

[Tor]

Well, it fails in either case -- either proving or disproving heat-retention and climate change. We're not a zero-sum game totally reliant on external radiation to keep us warm. Yes, external radiation is a very large component of the system but it's not the only one.
[/quote

True, but we still have to contend with an observed difference matching that of external radiation.

Atmospheric "blanketing" is both easily observed and felt -- ever notice how cloudy winter nights tend to be warmer than nights that are crystal clear. That's the action of the clouds reflecting heat back at the surface; on a clear night, that radiates pretty well out into space. Now, that's a local event, but it shows the power of what the atmosphere can do. If that can be globalized -- even to a miniscule degree -- then we'd see what we're seeing now.

I have indeed felt the difference between cloudy and clear - and yes, it can affect localized temperature. However, what I have not seen anywhere is anyone claiming global temperature change that takes into account the direct observations of Venus' temperature made in 1991.

The other issue here is that it's not just [closing tag added where I think it belonged] CO2 that's in play. We also have methane and several others to contend with -- and methane is a more potent "greenhouse gas" than carbon dioxide. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens when the Arctic permafrost starts thawing out and resumes decomposition; that'll release even more methane and CO2.

However, when comparing sections of atmosphere that are as alike as possible but for atmospheric composition (about 2^11 times greater concentration of CO2), we see on a temperature ranging from statistically insignificantly higher (within the limits of the data used), to a few degrees Celsius (or Kelvin) colder than predicted by the difference in solar insolation alone. This invalidates the claim that increased CO2 will increase temperature and invalidates the test that claim is based upon. Are you saying that there is a different test used to determine that methane (etc.) is a "more potent greenhouse gas?" Well, let me qualify that properly: It invalidates the claim unless and until such time as someone can produce results that can explain the observed difference, as well as showing changes from increased "greenhouse gas" concentration. I think it highly likely the reason no one has done so is because it is impossible.

We might not pick it up directly, but we could pick it up indirectly through botanical fossils that retain their growth-rings -- which have been a rich source of data in the past.

Point taken. I'd be curious if anyone has actually looked specifically for this. Of course, effective solar intensity also varies with distance from the equator, depending on how far back the fossils being looked at go.

As far as it being only observable due to more precise instrumentation, we have too many people who -- irrespective of how many fancy toys they have in their arsenal -- have long enough memories and can compare what the place looks like now versus how it did in yesteryear. Recall my commentary about opossums -- those were an incredible rarity when I was young; now they're common. They're moving in as things warm up. My mariner friends have related that the high tides are noticeably higher now than they were a few decades ago; coastal flooding is now more severe and frequent than it was in the past. Despite the 4th-coldest winter on record, much of New England has had its expected growing-season extended allowing us to now safely grow species that we couldn't 25 years ago without a lot of work. These observations do not require thermometers; all they need are memory and an observation of the natural world around us.

Agreed that this shows changes - though on tides I'd be curious if lower low tides would be as noticed as higher high tides, though if any would note both evenhandedly it would be mariners and shore fishermen.

All too sadly, most folks don't spend as much time out and about in nature as they should. If they did, there'd be more awareness. I recall an interesting volume I found when we were cleaning out my grandparents' place following their and my father's death -- it was a journal of weather observations taken in the 1800s in New England. The author/observer, who lacked a thermometer for much of the duration of his observations, kept exquisite notes, and from those it was immediately apparent to me that things were quite a bit colder then than they are now -- warm and cold winters aside. I never did really figure out what constituted "good sleighing weather" mainly because that technology has been dead for many decades, but I know it needed to be cold and for the snow to pack properly -- and we don't see that now. The book was gifted to a meteorologist friend of mine; I may ask if I can borrow it back for a bit for some research.

That does sound like interesting reading. I suppose sled dog fora (haven't looked, but I'd wager they exist) might be a place to start looking for modern translations of "good sleighing weather."