READING THE OCEAN: Around 3,500 robotic buoys have been deployed throughout the world's oceans, delivering unprecedented data on temperature, salinity and other measures.
Image: CSIRO: Alicia Navidad
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Warmer air allows for more water vapor. So scientists have long predicted that global warming will result in a more intense water cycle—the process by which water evaporates from the oceans, travels through the atmosphere and then falls as rain. Now new measurements of the ocean's salinity prove that prediction—and suggest that global warming strengthens the water cycle even more than anticipated.
"What we found is that regions that are salty in the main are becoming saltier" and areas that boast more rainfall are getting fresher, explains oceanographer Paul Durack of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who led the research to be published in Science on April 27. "It's another independent estimate of how the climate is changing as we pump out CO2."
Durack and his colleagues from Australia looked at ocean salinity measurements from roughly 3,500 robot buoys—collectively known as Argo—that have been deployed since 2000. The saltiness of seawater reveals whether, on balance, more rain falls in that region than water evaporates or vice versa. But acquiring a truly global picture of ocean salinity was hampered in the past by weather. "You're quite a lunatic if you go south [in a research vessel] when some of those storms are brewing in the Southern Ocean," Durack notes.
The Argo floats don't have that problem, riding out storms underwater for the five or so years of their useful lives. Using a decade's worth of data from Argo, Durack and his colleagues created an understanding of ocean salinity in all seasons. Extending that knowledge to the millions of historical salinity readings from 1950 to 2000 reveals that, as predicted, evaporation strengthened in drier regions—making the oceans saltier there—and rainfall strengthened in wetter regions—making the surface seawater fresher. In fact, global warming of roughly 0.5 degree Celsius over that span strengthened the water cycle by roughly 4 percent, or around the amount predicted by physicists' equations. "Through a lot of investigation, it provides us with what we would have guessed," Durack says.
But that's not what scientists' computer models predicted. Though various computer models match the actual distribution of saltier and fresher regions quite well, the computer models underestimated the actual rate of water cycle intensification by half. That suggests that impacts on the water cycle of future warming of several degrees Celsius could be substantial, strengthening rainfall and evaporation by as much as 24 percent.
The stronger water cycle will mean stronger rains and intensified droughts over the oceans. And what holds at sea also extends over land, because the oceans cover 71 percent of the globe, hold 97 percent of the world's water, and have already sucked up 90 percent of the extra heat trapped by humanity's greenhouse gas pollution. The increase in warm water vapor as the globe heats will fuel more violent storms, whereas droughts in places like Australia, stuck in the middle of oceanic regions dominated by evaporation, will only grow more severe. Or as Durack says: "wet regions will get wetter and dry regions drier." Given that freshwater availability affects everything from food to energy, this may prove a more difficult challenge for human civilization and natural ecosystems to adapt to than that posed by global warming itself.
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66 Comments
Add CommentHow do these people get away with these lies. There is no drought anywhere in Australia. For three consecutive years rivers have flowed into the usually dry inland Lake Ayre. All the major cities dams are either full or at a healthy level. Unusually, over the whole continent there is no drought. Temperatures at present over much of the country are below normal. Oh, and vast areas of the country are either receiving rain right now or predicted to over the coming weekend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle, looks like reading comprehension is not your strong suit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo jog your memory, see also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/nov/08/australia.drought
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWet 'wetter' and dry 'drier'. I've been in science for 35 years and never head of 'wet' and 'dry' having any meaning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo is San Francisco dry or wet? It's wet vis a vis the Mojave desert but downright parched compared to parts of Maui.
So will San Franisco get wetter or drier?
The global warming industry is akin to quantum mechanics...all states of being are possible at the same time. All results 'prove' imminent doom.
Since my post above regarding droughts in Australia, we are the driest continent & it is normal for parts of the continent to be in drought. For the past three years the area in drought has steadily been decreasing. Just in the past hour I heard a Federal Government minister announce that an official declaration would be made on Monday that the entire continent will be declared drought free for the first time in 10 years. Alarmists know that on average there will be drought somewhere in Australia but they sure stuffed it up this time. The same as the predictions about more frequent & severe storms & many other failed predictions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor shit's sake, Carlyle; The article does not refer to any current drought in Australia. Read the last paragraph again. You write that Australia is "the driest continent & it is normal for parts of the continent to be in drought". The article states that Australia may experience droughts in the future that are more severe. Your logic is warped. By the way, in terms of annual precipitation, Antarctica is the driest continent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have cognitive problems. Quite severe denial. The last 10 years are the severe drought that is being talked about. This isn't happening some abstract time in the future. It's happening now. Right now. The massive shift in the Murray River watershed is anything but normal and plentiful as you grossly mischaracterized. Allow me to repeat for the learning imparied. Those areas that historically have had annual precipitation at or above 30"/yr [characterized as 'wet' or 'wetter'] are now and will be increasingly receiving greater annual percipitation -- or wetter. Thoese areas that historically have had annual percipitation at or below 15"/yr [characterized as 'dry or 'drier'] are now and will be increasingly receiving less annual percipitation -- or drier. Understand it now?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWarmists were predicting that we would never emerge from our previous drought that we were in three years ago. Desalination plants were built on the advice of environmental scientists who claimed that even if we got rain, it would not be enough to run our rivers & most of our major cities would run out of water. Billions were wasted & no major dams have been built in at least a decade despite burgeoning population increases in our cities. The present conditions are directly contrary to all their predictions. What is it you do not understand?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell me where the drought is in Australia. Hint. Nowhere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Murray River has more water in it than it has had for a decade.
You are confusing weather with climate. The massive flood in Australia's north east was a weather phenomenon. The drought for the past decade is a climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would extrapolate more, but I get the feeling you don't listen or comprehend much anyway.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/drought.shtml
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting to note that the official weather bureau in Australia in the link above lists southwest Western Australia as the driest ever recorded in 2010. It also attributes recent rains in southeast Australia to a La Nina event which is typical for that type of weather pattern. Note I said weather pattern. La Nina and El Nino are not climate changes. They are regular oscillations of ocean surface temperatures and La Nina contributed to a lower world wide average temperature last year which matched the highest average temperature of the last century in 1997.
I other words the lowest average temperature of the past 14 years was still no lower then the highest average temperature of the entire 20th century.
Now, tell me, what part don't you understand about this now?
Tell me. What was Australias Federation Drought in 1901, weather or climate?.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissinging flea: "You are confusing weather with climate"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's amusing coming from a global warming groupie. Next cold snap in Wurope in or heat wave in the mid west and the GW groupies will start passing around the purple Kool-ade.
Climate change predicts extreme weather events. Brutal drought followed by massive flooding: Typical Australia weather, Carlyle?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The 2008 rice crop of 19,400 tonnes was the lowest in the Australian rice sector’s history (since 1928), representing just over 1 percent of normal production. This is not surprising given rice is an opportunistic crop, which at the time was in its fifth year of drought."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nff.org.au/commodities-rice.html
What is a global warming groupie? LOL! Now you are confusing science with a rock concert.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe interesting thing about this study is that is is using data from 3,500 testing buoys. It's not like they were taking one region like Australia and forming a conclusion. These buoys are placed world wide and the report was prepared by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That is hardly a rock concert either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate change predicts extreme weather events. Brutal drought followed by massive flooding: Typical Australia weather, Carlyle?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes as a matter of fact. On average about every thirty years.
My Country by Dorothea Mackellar - 1885-1968, written in 1904
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
http://www.lancescoular.com/my-country-by-dorothea-mackellar.html
The article's talking about weather "Where It Rains, It Will Pour--Otherwise, Tough Luck", and specifically says that droughts in Australia will get more severe. As carlyle's pointed out, they're getting less severe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't mind Carlyle too much; this is just more of his thinking that whatever is happening in Australia at any point in time is a better proxy for what is happening in the rest of the world, than, oh, measurements taken from the rest of the world. Earlier he was proposing that a single thermometer with an old beer crate as a cover in Cloncurry provided a better estimate of global temperature than the tens of thousands of thermometers used elsewhere. This is just more of the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study is more confirmation of Hadley Cell expansion, and the shifting of rain bands that go with it. All predicted as a result of global warming. Google 'Hadley cell' if you don't know what it means.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in the UK, and weather hasn't got any more severe here either. Until there's a definition of what marks an extreme weather event for each type of weather event - hurricane, flooding, drought etc., and there is a decent number of years of recording such events, this can be put in the ideological nonsense bucket.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Has the world warmed since 1850 (earliest earth-bound temperature dataset)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes.
2. Has the warming been uniform?
No.
3. Is the earth still warming?
No. According to all dataset providers apart from UAH, the world has been cooling since 2002.
4. Have CO2 levels been going up since the start of the industrial revolution (~1760)?
Yes, and in a much more uniform manner than global temperature.
5. Is the increase in CO2 due to mankind?
Yes.
6. Is CO2 a greenhouse gas?
Yes.
7. By how much does basic physics suggest CO2 increase the global temperature for doubling of levels from 1760?
Most scientists agree that basic physics says there should be an increase of 1.2C once CO2 levels go from 280ppm to 560ppm.
8. What is the current CO2 level?
393ppm (40% increase from 1760, after 252 years).
9. Do you believe that there is any correlation between CO2 levels and global warming?
No. When warmists are challenged on the lack of correlation, they cite natural variability and time lags as reasons why, which at least acknowledges there is no correlation.
10. Are you concerned that increases in CO2 will lead to catastrophic anthropogenic (manmade) global warming?
No. It will take longer than we have economically extractable fossil fuels to reach CO2 levels of 560ppm, at which basic physics says the earth will have only warmed by 1.2C. Scientists have said that there will only be a catastrophic effect when temperatures reach 2 to 3C. Once fossil fuels run out, CO2 levels will gradually drop.
11. Aren't you using the same tactics as the Tobacco industry spreading doubt to delay the inevitable?
No. Most of us are too young to remember the Tobacco causes cancer debate. Looking at the videos of tobacco industry campaigns on YouTube it looks like they acknowledged that there was a correlation between cancer rates and tobacco usage but said that didn't prove causality citing many scientific studies at the time which blamed other potential causes. In the CO2 causes global warming debate, there is no correlation. Scientists had an advantage in that they could compare cancer rates in non-smokers with those of smokers, which can't be done in this case.
jdey123 is wrong at point #3.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn any most-recent time period of limited duration, factors other than CO2 contribute too much noise to the measurements for there to be any statistical significance to a trend, negative, neutral, or positive. This is no secret; it has been well-understood by anyone familiar with the field for several decades.
Up until a year or two ago, deniers used to say that there had been no warming since 1995. After the warming since 1995 crossed the significance threshold, they started saying there has been no warming since 1998.
jdey continues to try to go down the up escalator.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/still-going-down-the-up-escalator.html
At #7, jdey demonstrates that he doesn't understand that feedbacks exist, and physic,s as well as Earth's behavior in the past, indicate that positive feedbacks have a greater effect than negative feedbacks. (Up to the point where an increase in radiative output from the surface and lower atmosphere resulting from an increase in temperature balances things out again.)
jdey123 should stop to consider the possibility that just because he does not understand something, does not mean that everyone else is wrong.
It doesn't appear to have been apparant to James "Father of Global Warming" Hansen that natural variability would still be overcoming the CO2 signal. In 1981, he says that barring major volcanic eruptions which might delay things by a few years, the CO2 signal will have emerged above natural variability noise in the 1990s and this period was irrespective of any emission scenario that he'd considered or the value for climate sensitivity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispage 964 http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal.pdf
So who are these climate scientists that have known for decades that natural variability can overcome the CO2 signal? Hansen's about the most famous climate scientist around.
Looking at the entire temperature record, the vast majority of the record, there's been no warming at all, the longest being 82 years which is more than half of the available record. Perhaps you'd like to ask skepticalscience.com to update their graph to show the entire temperature record?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/to:1932/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1938/to:1981/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl
So given that natural variability is still overcoming the CO2 signal, you could be arguing that it's still too short a time to tell whether the warmist prediction of a 2C rise by 2100 has come true for decades.
I'm quite aware of the hypothesised feedback effect but it's yet to be observed, only appearing in climate models so far.
Indeed, Hansen said it would, and it has.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are thinking that Hansen is wrong, but you are mistaking short-term variability for long-term signal. The long term upward trend is quite clear, despite the fact that you can't see it within a short time period.
You are still assuming that your lack of understanding means that scientists like Hansen are wrong, and you are still going down the up escalator.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/plot/pmod/scale:0.2/offset:-273.6/plot/gistemp/from:1978/trend/plot/pmod/scale:0.2/offset:-273.6/trend/plot/gistemp/mean:396
In 1981, the rise is only marginally above the history up to that point; by the 1990s, it is clearly above.
I'm curious. Earlier you acknowledged that it was getting warmer, and now you are claiming that the warming signal can not be detected above the natural variability. Which is it?
Curiously, the first mention on this page of the work 'extreme' is by you. The article basically says that rain bands are shifting; it does not say 'extreme' anything. You appear to be having an argument with only yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe post #20
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis refers to an earlier post I made to demonstrate how the historic data has been corrupted. For generations Australian school children have been taught that the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia was 127.6ºF in Cloncurry, Queensland on 16th January 1889.
Recently, climate scientists have deleted this reading from their data claiming that as the screen was constructed from old beer crates, the temperature reading could not be regarded as accurate. The screens were commonly constructed on site in remote areas in the early days to specific plans. Where the timber came from is irrelevant. Strangely, the low temperature readings have not been deleated. Another glaring example of data corruption in Australia has been caused by rounding the old data down. Early readings were not usually recorded to closer than about half a degree. Which way do you think they were rounded to before entering the modern database?
You've invented a 33 year mean to 'hide the decline'. What possible scientific explanation can there be for that? The longest natural variability factor is the solar cycle which lasts 11 to 13 years for it's complete cycle, only around 7 of which a solar lull is occurring.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill no explanation as to why there have only been 2 warming periods in the entire temperature record. Do you seriously think that anybody's going to be listening to you if the current trend lasts for 20 years? And looking back it history that's extremely likely There will be a lot of angry citizens when it's obvious that billions of taxpayers dollars have been wasted on a myth.
No real science can be proven or disproven dependent on which dataset or statistical function you use. Without consistent methods, this isn't science.
I think you are confusing being made of an old beer crate with being made from the wood salvaged from an old beer crate. ...because having the sun shine directly on the thermometer through a slat in the crate has more of an effect than not having the sun shine directly on it. Maybe even you can understand that much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What possible scientific explanation can there be for that?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe explanation is that you don't know a thing about statistics or you would not find fault with the idea that a longer average smooths over short-term variability. Or, maybe you have forgotten that CO2 warming is a long-term effect.
A recent update on understanding the most recent years in context, http://www.skepticalscience.com/john-nielsen-gammon-commentson-on-continued-global-warming.html
BTW, I suppose you did not notice that your portrayal of the temperature trend is just about a perfect match for 'how deniers' see it at the link I posted earlier?
"Blair Trewin, from the National Climate Centre, spotted a glitch when he was studying the archives. The temperature was recorded in a beer crate."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The beer crate actually worked quite well as a screen through most of the year, but there's just during the window of six or seven weeks each year when the thermometers were getting overexposed to direct sunshine,..."
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s1015670.htm
Again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEarlier you acknowledged that it was getting warmer, and now you are claiming that the warming signal can not be detected above the natural variability. Which is it?
Well that interpretation of how the screens were constructed just demonstrated your ignorance. You have your own screen. More like blinkers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell that was a blooper. I should have read your post instead of just the first sentence. I have not come across that explanation before. previously they were claiming that the thermometer could have been lose in its frame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI realise now my response was to your post #31 before your further post on the subject that I had not read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBLAIR TREWIN: The highest measured in a standard screen was 50.7, that was at Oodnadatta in 1960.
Note: About 52 years ago. I do not know if that record has also been massaged.
It doesn't really matter about the screen. You are continuing to believe that a single data point should be given equal weight as the hundreds of thousands of measurements taken in other times and places.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is not so. It is symptomatic of the widespread massaging or even total exemption of whole data collection station records & the practice of rounding fractions of a degree down. There was a recent report on this that I have not had time to look for again. I do remember it being pointed out that older records tended not to include less than half a degree Fahrenheit. When the Fahrenheit records were converted to Celsius.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have temperature records going back to 1850 and the trend over that time span is an increase of a little more than 0.7°C. At the same time CO2 has increased by about 40%. If the climate model sensitivity claims of 3.2° per doubling of CO2 were correct, the trend should have gone up about 1.5°C. The models are wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have looked up the data I referred to earlier. I suspect these problems are world wide. Australia is an advanced technology country. When global temperature rise or decline is measured over decades at less than one degree, how can we possibly believe that the figures are accurate given the obvious shortcomings in the Australian records? Take the time to have a look. Particularly the bias towards rounding down in the older data. This has the affect of causing present day temperatures to appear to have risen more over recent times than is the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/near-enough-for-a-sheep-station/
I have looked up the data I referred to earlier. I suspect these problems are world wide. Australia is an advanced technology country. When global temperature rise or decline is measured over decades at less than one degree, how can we possibly believe that the figures are accurate given the obvious shortcomings in the Australian records? Take the time to have a look. Particularly the bias towards rounding down in the older data. This has the affect of causing present day temperatures to appear to have risen more over recent times than is the case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/near-enough-for-a-sheep-station/
Wait a minute, Carlye,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought there was NOT a drought in Australia going on?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21765-australias-decadelong-drought-ends.html
>>"No predictions have been made on the timing of the next drought, but the scientific view is that in the southeast of Australia, we should expect droughts to become more severe and more frequent," says Bill Young, a leading hydrologist at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.<<
There IS NO DROUGHT ANYWHER IN AUSTRALIA. For the first time in a decade. In most areas that were in drought, it began breaking three years ago. The whole continent was declared drought free recently after the remaining small pocket received sustained soaking rain. If you prefer lies to on the ground facts, that is your problem. One good thing has been the exposure of alarmist organisations, usually government funded like the CSIRO for their habit of only reporting things that support their agenda. Ignoring facts on the ground, just like you really.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAustralia to be drought free
27 April 2012
DAFF12/312L
Australia will officially be drought free for the first time in over a decade next week as the final two Exceptional Circumstances (EC) declarations come to an end.
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Joe Ludwig said the expiry of EC declarations in Bundarra and Eurobodalla next Monday marked a major milestone for agriculture in Australia.
“The extended period of drought – which made things tough for many on the land – is finally over,” Minister Ludwig said.
“The seasonal outlook is brighter than it has been for many years and the improved conditions are a welcome reprieve for farmers across Australia. http://www.daff.gov.au/ludwig/media_office/media_releases/media_releases/2012/april/Australia-to-be-drought-free
.
OK, if there is no drought in Australia, fine, and also, I am not acquainted with the CSIRO to be able to gauge how credible they are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe in you, and am glad there is nothing wrong over in your area.
However, I cannot say the same for my own back yard; there was a hurricane in the south of Brazil (Santa Catarina) for the first time ever in recorded history three years ago, and a freak rain two years ago, in which a semester of rain fell in one day and killed over 1000 people, struck not 100 km from Rio (Teresopolis and Região Serrana).
http://www.percepcaoderisco.sc.gov.br/?ver=furacao-catarina
http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/chuvas-no-rj/noticia/2011/02/vitimas-da-chuva-na-serra-comecam-receber-aluguel-social-no-dia-15.html
Australia's Government funded CSIRO has had a wonderful record & has been highly regarded. They were instrumental in developing penicillin & made many advances in things like plant breeding & genetics for agriculture. Most branches of this very large organisation are still highly regarded. It is just the climate section of this organisation that have taken a politically correct line that is bringing disrepute on themselves & this inevitably reflects on the whole organisation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith regard to your local climate, I am an old man & remember hearing about disastrous floods & storms in different areas of the world back to the forties. We did not hear about all the disasters in those days but I remember for example massive floods in Holland in the fifties or sixties that breached their levee banks & caused large loss of life. In Australia whole towns like Kempsey in New South Wales were repeatedly flooded in the late 1940s & early 1950s with much of the town including my family home being flooded plus many others being washed away.
What I am saying is that weather has always been unpredictable & goes through periods of extreme. I am no expert on your region however, especially historically. I do remember stories of massive flooding & hurricanes hitting South American countries from way back though.
And I suppose this bias in thermometer readings is shifting climate zones, melting ice, and changing the timing of the seasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSteve lives in a world where everything happens instantaneously, water immediately warms to a new equilibrium when heat is applied, ice melts instantly, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell us Steve, if there were no lag in the system, would not inbound and outbound energy be equal? What does it mean that they are not, and inbound is greater than outbound?
What does anything you have said have to do with the current topic of shifting rain bands?
No. Nothing man does will have any effect either way, including misrepresenting the facts. The trouble comes when this misrepresentation is used to persuade people to spend billions on projects like bio fuel, wind mills, tidal power & many other ill-conceived projects which rob worthwhile projects of funding. The real agenda is social engineering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou ask Steve Case: What does anything you have said have to do with the current topic of shifting rain bands?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNine of your posts have nothing to do with shifting rain bands. We all understand different criteria apply to the true believers. They tend to say ‘Do as I say, not as I do’. Your high priest Al Gore is one of many who ascribes to this philosophy, in his energy guzzling mansion & life on jet airliners. The head of the IPCC is another.
You can not dispute what Steve Case wrote so you try to attack him. Pathetic.
"Where it rains it will pour" can only occur if more clouds than normal move the extra moisture. Since more clouds will block more sunlight, the Earth's surface will become cooler.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Dry regions drier" can only occur if more clouds than normal move the extra moisture. And thus, more clouds will block more sunlight, and therefore the Earth's surface will become cooler.
Therefore, we will measure cooler temperatures, and thus we will think global cooling is occurring, instead of global warming. We should be measuring cloud cover so that we can predict what is really occurring, instead of measuring only surface temperatures.
Ignoring clouds when measuring temperature results in poor forcasting. Real scientists realize that cloudy weather brings colder temperatures. Real scientists realize that global warming requires fewer clouds instead of more clouds.
I would be more receptive to the findings if the researcher would peer review the data sets built to create the computer model. If they have all that data on the Pacific why can they not even predict el nino and la nina current events. These seem to have a much larger effect on climate than any C02 evidence?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello Scientific American, could we have some clarity on this project, its been ongoing for 10 years and is an international collaboration involving many countries, yet it appears that Paul Durack of Lawrence Livermore is the 'leader' of the project. In this recent video http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2501110.htm of the project his name isn't mentioned at all. In your article, above, other significant researchers aren't mentioned either but Durack pops up constantly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to see your article revised to better reflect the international nature of this global project.
Carlyle,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe your statements concerning the CSIRO. Fine to challenge their work on basis of contradicting evidence but to claim that they are the pawns of a politcal agenda without any evidence is quite frankly offensive.
The work being undertaken worldwide via the argo project is leading edge and is providng a rich source of data for use by all interested parties. It will provide a far more sound basis for understanding the planet's climate that ad hoc recollections of weather (sic) events from our younger days.
An no I am not an employee of CSIRO or even a climate scientist. Just an Australia who recognises and respects professional endeavours.
Mick
Be offended. Their rediculous claims & predictions are self evident if you care to look. If I am wrong, you point out where their predictions with regard to climate have proven to be correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the ground (or in the water) research like this is the ONLY way to make sense of nature. Computer models can NEVER do it. There is nothing wrong with the basic mathematics of modelling but input to a model depends upon empirical data which can deviate from the norm widely. And since the solution of a large (huge) matrix of equations depend upon each other, the cumulative error can grow to render the final output garbage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbit confused here re your challenge "...you point out where their predictions with regard to climate have proven to be correct."
Not sure how to prove today a prediction about the future?
All I know is what they have published which is overwhelmingly research and analysis rather than predictions as below. Refer publication below
http://www.publish.csiro.au/Books/download.cfm?ID=6558
As you made the claim that their work is driven by a political agenda rather than a scientific one I think the burden is with you to demonstrate your claim
regards
Now, play nice, folks. What struck me and immediately rang false was the buzz-word CO2. To claim that man is responsible for global warming because of CO2 is the highth of hubris. No model as present can include, much less process, all of the variables including sun spots, ocean currents, ad nauseum. As CO2 represents but 3/10ths of 1% of the atmospheric gases and blaim man is foolish if not stupid. CO2 is but a marker and only a small one at that. It also ignores that CO2 has fluctuated without and before man walked the earth. So what was responsible before man - dinosaur farts? Earth is going through a natural cycle of fluctuation in temperature and has been since the beginning. How many ice ages in the last two million years? Who/what caused those and the intervening warm periods?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA three-year collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has confirmed what many scientists long suspected: that the 13-year drought is not just a natural dry stretch but a shift related to climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/its-not-drought-its-climate-change-say-scientists-20090829-f3cd.html#ixzz1tsMwLIKO
The snow keeeps refusing to vanish as the CSIRO predicted in 2008:
Scientists say Australian skiers should prepare for shorter ski seasons because of global warming… CSIRO climate change expert Dr Penny Whetton says Australia’s mountain snow cover could be reduced by up to 54 per cent by 2020.
Or how the CSIRO predicted in 2003:
A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that the resorts could lose a quarter of their snow in 15 years, and half by 2050. The worst case was a 96 per cent loss of snow by mid-century.
Instead, just nine years from that skiers’ nightmare Whetton predicted, we again see promise of yet another great snow season:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/if_the_csiros_warming_predictions_are_right_why_does_it_keep_snowing_so_har
How many do you want? Just google failed climate predictions CSIRO or IPCC or TIM Flannery or Al Gore etc.
You appear to have a perception problem. Please give us a definition of "percipitation", and tell us what relation it has to precipitation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article ignores "global dimming". Sunlight is being blocked by smoke generated over India and China. Dimming causes global cooling, which explains the observations. The observations, therefore, prove that global cooling is actually occurring. More clouds block more sunlight. Smoke is part of those clouds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeojellyroll
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou've been in science for 35 years? I've been in Germany, but I don't speak the language. What's your point besides the fact that you are disengenuous?
In repy to Geojellyroll
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou've been in science for 35 years? I've been in Germany, but I don't speak the language. What's your point besides the fact that you are disengenuous?
Not living in Australia I really don't care what is happening to their climate. All I know is that the weather in the Midwest of the USA is harsher over the last couple of years than it has been for decades. Winter came last for the third year in a row and was milder than usual. Spring this year was a month early.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this is global warming I say we go burn some trees and hurry things along.
Put another shrimp on the barbie :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is well understood that a very large part of the world's food is grown using water pumped from aquifers many of which are partly or non replenishing (fossil water). The most famous is under the mid west of USA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPumping this over the last half century has enabled the production of about 30% of the world's grain.
A similar situation exists in both India and China.
All of the aquifers containing fossil water will be pumped dry at some time in the future leaving a large deficit in the world's food supply at the same time as the population is set to grow.
99.7% of the water on earth is either in the sea or locked up in ice.Of the remainder 0.2% is in aquifers both fossil and replenished. A large number of aquifers are saline.
One of the solutions to this looming water crisis is to find a way of taking the salts out of both seawater and saline aquifers in large quantities at very little cost.
In response to this challenge thrown down by Scientific American in the Earth 3 issue 2009 a direct solar powered desalination plant has been created.
It can produce fresh water from the sea in unlimited quantities. It has no moving parts and is made of stainless steel and toughened glass.
The design is called Flostil as it is a constant flow distillation plant.
Details can be seen on SOLAQUA.INFO ... THE SOLUTION.
Hey Bucketofsquid,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal warming does not mean everything will be the same, except N degrees warmer.
Climatic dynamization would be a more precise term. What is happening is the same as when you put a pan of water to boil for noodles. Way before the water boils, it churns vigorously. Weather is becoming harsher and less predictable (undeniably), floods and droughts are likely to increase.
There are also several non climatic reasons to switch to a post oil energy matrix, too. We want to leave some oil for our descendants. Forever is a long time.
Several of the synthetic materials we need for space travel are not synthesizable without oil, and also, civilization may regress to a point where oil is needed again one day.
The only way to do that is to fund as much research into the preposterous green tech that today is unviable as a mainstream. The funny thing is that when it is about putting a gazillion dollars into developing a still nastier weapon, or invading an innocent country and butchering 100,000 civilians, nobody complaints about tax dollars.