More on global warming

[shadowmaster]

Shadowmaster discovered the following charts of CO2 and temperature on the internet. Temperature is for USA. Recent article says that NASA revised charts such that 1930's were hottest.
It seems out of line with general statements about the "hockey puck" and that the USA is the largest contributor to CO2

Any explanations?

[DukeOfEastaboga]

I dont have any explanations but, why was it so hot in the 1930's????????

[FreezBee]

Shadowmaster discovered the following charts of CO2 and temperature on the internet. Temperature is for USA. Recent article says that NASA revised charts such that 1930's were hottest.
It seems out of line with general statements about the "hockey puck" and that the USA is the largest contributor to CO2

Now, that's just what I was trying to say: there is no relationship between CO₂ outlet and global warming. Heck, there may not even be a global warming

Any explanations?

Nope


- FreezBee

[SteveF]

This refers to a recent kerfuffle regarding a chap called Steve McIntyre, a global warming skeptic who has published stuff regarding the hockey stick and a few other things. Basically, what he turned up was an anomaly in the NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) for the United States. To cut a long story short, the weather station records up to 1999 were replaced by a corrected version for 2000 onwards. The change between the two had the effect of creating an artifical leap in the year 2000. This leap also had the secondary impact of making 1998 the warmest year on record.

McIntyre picked up on this and informed the GISS people who acknowledged the problem and fixed it. The key question is how significant this change is. Firstly, the correction resulted in a change of only a couple of hundreths of a degree; previously, 1998 had an anomaly of 1.24 degrees, compared to 1.23 in 1934, now it has an anomaly of 1.23 compared to 1.25. Moreover, though the 1930s now have the hottest year, the recent decade or so does remain warmest. Furthermore, it is worth reiterating that this is an error in the US record; the global record remains the same (and 2005 is the warmest year in the GISS analysis)

[shadowmaster]

This refers to a recent kerfuffle regarding a chap called Steve McIntyre, a global warming skeptic who has published stuff regarding the hockey stick and a few other things. Basically, what he turned up was an anomaly in the NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) for the United States. To cut a long story short, the weather station records up to 1999 were replaced by a corrected version for 2000 onwards. The change between the two had the effect of creating an artifical leap in the year 2000. This leap also had the secondary impact of making 1998 the warmest year on record.

McIntyre picked up on this and informed the GISS people who acknowledged the problem and fixed it. The key question is how significant this change is. Firstly, the correction resulted in a change of only a couple of hundreths of a degree; previously, 1998 had an anomaly of 1.24 degrees, compared to 1.23 in 1934, now it has an anomaly of 1.23 compared to 1.25. Moreover, though the 1930s now have the hottest year, the recent decade or so does remain warmest. Furthermore, it is worth reiterating that this is an error in the US record; the global record remains the same (and 2005 is the warmest year in the GISS analysis)

Thanks


That corresponds to the article that Shadowmaster read. Based upon your reference he found http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/. In that text, it is clear that new global measurements have been recently added and that the USA curve is not typical. Most warming is north and east/west of the USA. Also Africa shows the hottest "temperature anomalies". That seems very confusing if the source is carbon dioxide which is mostly blamed on the USA. Is there an explanation for this?

[SteveF]

That corresponds to the article that Shadowmaster read. Based upon your reference he found http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/. In that text, it is clear that new global measurements have been recently added and that the USA curve is not typical. Most warming is north and east/west of the USA. Also Africa shows the hottest "temperature anomalies". That seems very confusing if the source is carbon dioxide which is mostly blamed on the USA. Is there an explanation for this?

To be honest, I'm not terribly familiar with the patterns in the US record and what exactly explains the trends. I'll see if I can look something up later, but I'll be offline for a while (moving house) so I'm not sure if I can get round to it. As to the source of CO2, yes a lot of it comes from the states, but it won't preferentially affect it's source location as the CO2 becomes mixed in the atmosphere gobally.

[shadowmaster]

To be honest, I'm not terribly familiar with the patterns in the US record and what exactly explains the trends. I'll see if I can look something up later, but I'll be offline for a while (moving house) so I'm not sure if I can get round to it. As to the source of CO2, yes a lot of it comes from the states, but it won't preferentially affect it's source location as the CO2 becomes mixed in the atmosphere gobally.

It seems starnge that CO2 being mixed globally has different effects in different parts of the world. USA results were discussed in NASA references. One article's abstract is as follows:

ABSTRACT
Hansen et al. 1999

Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, J. Glascoe, and Mki. Sato, 1999: GISS analysis of surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 30997-31022, doi:10.1029/1999JD900835.

We describe the current GISS analysis of surface temperature change for the period 1880-1999 based primarily on meteorological station measurements. The global surface temperature in 1998 was the warmest in the period of instrumental data. The rate of temperature change was higher in the past 25 years than at any previous time in the period of instrumental data. The warmth of 1998 was too large and pervasive to be fully accounted for by the recent El Nino. Despite cooling in the first half of 1999, we suggest that the mean global temperature, averaged over 2-3 years, has moved to a higher level, analogous to the increase that occurred in the late 1970s. Warming in the United States over the past 50 years has been smaller than in most of the world, and over that period there was a slight cooling trend in the eastern United States and the neighboring Atlantic Ocean. The spatial and temporal patterns of the temperature change suggest that more than one mechanism was involved in this regional cooling. The cooling trend in the United States, which began after the 1930s and is associated with ocean temperature change patterns, began to reverse after 1979. We suggest that further warming in the United States to a level rivaling the 1930s is likely in the next decade, but reliable prediction requires better understanding of decadal oscillations of ocean temperature.

* Download PDF (Document is 15.5 MB)
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Attached is a diagram showing the distribution of anomalous warming from the NASA website. As can be seen almost all of the warming is near the North Pole. Areas of the ocean and South Pole actually show cooling. The actual areas of the poles is much smaller than implied in that projection. The middle of the planet does not really show much increase (except for a spot in Africa) and shows areas of decreased temperatures .

Shadowmaster wonders if the simulations of CO2 effects show this type of distribution.


Shadowmaster

[SteveF]

It seems starnge that CO2 being mixed globally has different effects in different parts of the world.

Not really, since climate change isn't a neat simply linear response to rising CO2, all over the globe. There will always be spatial heterogeneity.

Shadowmaster wonders if the simulations of CO2 effects show this type of distribution.

Models do predict that temperate change will show regional complexity. The models aren't perfect at higher spatial resolution though; it's an area they need to improve in.

It's also worth pointing out that it probably isn't appropriate to take a single years worth of anomalies (such as 2005) and compare them to projections for the next few decades. Having said that model predictions as summarised in the IPCC report do look grossly similar to the 2005 surface temperature anomaly (scroll down to page 766):

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch10.pdf

[shadowmaster]

Thanks

[Peptide]

Most warming is north and east/west of the USA. Also Africa shows the hottest "temperature anomalies". That seems very confusing if the source is carbon dioxide which is mostly blamed on the USA. Is there an explanation for this?

Wind.

CO2 doesn't stay where it's produced.

[shadowmaster]

Wind.

CO2 doesn't stay where it's produced.

But it's temperature effects do?

Do you have any data on where the CO2 collects? Last shadowmaster saw, it was primarily in the USA where it is manufactured -- not at the North Pole.


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