This article by Dr. Nicolas Gruber, https://phys.org/news/2023-09-environmental-physicist-discusses-marine.html , talks about how in addition to El Nino there are concurrent marine heat waves in North Pacific and North Atlantic, i.e., maybe we need to look beyond El Nino for answers. He talks about how this appears to be a perfect storm of factors and hard to predict. He goes onto speculate that our climate models need more resolution if we are going to able to predict heat waves like we experienced in 2023.
In 2016, the average sea surface started to cool off in March. Based on the latest data, https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ , the sea surface temperatures do not appear to be cooling off. If this is a leading indicator we could be in for another hot year in 2024.
I'm quite open to the idea of stochastic internal variability happening to line up and create the perfect storm. I just think we'd need to do more analysis to determine what is and is not a forced response here.
"We believe that natural variability in the North Atlantic and other regions is largely responsible for the surge in global mean temperatures in the middle of the year, well before the 2023 El Niño event had gathered strength."
This seems relevant to me and in agreement with the observation by Dr. Gruber. I'm curious why you chose not to include this or emphasize this as part of your discussion. Maybe we don't know why it occurred but at least we have some understanding to what contributed to the warming beyond it wasn't El Nino.
Whether it is stochastic or forced, is not the underlying mechanism similar to the La Nina / El Nino cycle, i.e. heat build up in the ocean during La Nina and then rapid release or exchange with the atmosphere during El Nino? I believe that Dr. Gruber is arguing that in the case of 2023, this effect includes the North Pacific and North Atlantic.
less ice at the polar regions means more warmth in the seas because water reflects fewer of the sun's runs away from the surface than ice does. So of course the el nino will be different. Unfortunately climatologists error in their estimations by calculating past weather patterns to relate similarly to observed patterns, but if the physical makeup has altered then the calculations cannot be judged from past experiences in an environment that is adjusting to alterations. Studies of past "climate" events show peculiar years, 1815 perhaps being one of the last that can be directly timed to a specific event. But what we are facing now is a multitude of events that potentially (over many years) will create great climatic events that is with all probability going to reshape not just the atmospheric conditions of climate formations but the entire patterns and shapes of the land masses. the earth is shaking internally not just up in the sky so our models will not be able to predict this type of climate event until the earth reshapes itself.
There is no separate atmospheric "climate" apart from the internal heat and the tectonic alignments that shape the earth. Fossil fuels are only one factor in limate change, and maybe not the most damaging to the balance of the earth's internal heat, surface heat, and atmospheric. How can we expect that drilling into the internal earth is not damaging or effecting our climate? Well we used to claim fossil fuel emissions couldn't damage the atmosphere. Sewer systems and waste manage effect the environment not just of the surface but seep beneath the surface and effect the internal makeup. A geologist proponent of thermal energies claims that thermal energy may cause earthquakes but can't cause volcanic activity. Where did he get his degree? Tapping into the thermal energy that causes a small tectonic shift here creates a larger tectonic shift across the globe because there is nothing that is not related. That is what we don't want to get into our head. We want to be more powerful, or smarter, than the earth and can therefore design systems to harness energy so some can make money. Natural energy is uharnessed and "clean" cannot mean no carbon emissions. What we have to understand that any human system of energy affects the entire environment of the earth and not just the emission of carbon. Stonehenge effected the environment by moving large parts of the environment to another. Drastically? I don't know. But there are obvious drastic efforts when plant species are introduced into a foreign environment. Because we believe we have more intelligence, or maybe we just think god gave us dominion over the environment, who cares?, the issue the earth changes maximally from external pressure (a large meteor) but also minimally because of every breath we take. If we want less drastic environmental change, the best way to control that is to use the environment as minimally as possible. The more we try to harness the environment the more rapidly it changes.
A perfect example is the large solar farm in California that has ravaged nearly all lifeforms in its vicinity and the discovery that the devastating environmental damage within its vicinity is expanding its reach into still habitable zones and expanding the inhabitable zones.
What man, to prove he is really an intelligent species, is to learn how to reduce his footprint to the size of his foot. But no we are now being led to believe fusion energy will be unlimited. But fusion is not unlimited because burn out their own fusion energy and fusion would require massive amounts of energy to supply the needs to create fusion which would create massive imbalances to the earth to supply the resources necessary for fusion to exist. It is not unlimited energy we need, but to be trained to ration what energy we have.
The climate is already changing and predicting the changes is going to be difficult. I don't imagine we could ever have predicted Africa would crash into Europe and then be crunched into the Alps. The movement may have taken who knows how many years to occur, but once it occurred it was as instantaneous as a meteorite hitting the surface. By altering the balance we have created hanges we are not going to be able to predict, and I nor. anyone can do that. It's not that the earth has not reshaped itself in the past or wouldn't it the future, but our intelligence has made fools of ourselves bt predicting we were smart enough to bend earth to our desires.
And I hate to be so crude but it seems that most environmentalists haven't the goddamndest clue man ain't gods and don't have any dominion over our environment cause there was never a god to give them that dominion, only kings who wanted it and invented gods to give them dominion over other men which was only possible if he had dominion over the environment men needed to survive.
I, pres. of Humane Civilization Worldwide (HCW) WOULD LIKE TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH YOU. We keep hearing how seemingly vicious cycles are spinning out of control, how we 'speed towards climate hell.' Is it not time that influential people show to the people and demand from governments what effective responses to the crisis exist - capitalism or business-as-usual-with-incentives will never work - too little, too late, too slow. We need an effective movement that presents real solutions, governments restricting bank lending and funding/working with public-private partnership nonprofit enterprises (PPPNEs). The PPPNEs could rapidly develop transportation systems other than electric cars and air planes, plant hundreds of millions of trees, start using wood and bamboo to replace concrete and steel, and apply effective ways to sequester enormous amounts of CO2 in all parts of the world (organic material soaked in stagnant water, mainly dead zones in lakes and the sea and 'artificial bogs,' organic material kept dry or in freezing temperatures, etc., etc. Please see https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/
Could methane be a cause of unexpected short term warming? Perhaps large emissions from wetlands and permafrost that aren't being observed or measured? Would this not be evidence for positive feedback loops kicking in?
Are you assuming that methane release cannot be a tipping point, i.e. are you assuming that methane release is linear? Because if it is a tipping point, then to calculate the effect you would have to estimate maximum released methane, plot an exponential growth curve, and see how well that matches observed methane increases. I am not an expert in the field though, so I might be way off.
Thank you for presenting this well-organized summary. My observation tells me that: yes, the average is increasing but so too is the variance. If the precision increases with the new, coming analyses then less uncertainty should follow.
I'd put it differently, but not in contradiction. Did the new data from 2023 shift the parameter estimates of the relationship between net CO2 emissions and other climate outcomes like warming? Do they affect the estimate of the optimal tax on net CO2 emissions?
The CO2 from wildfires certainly contributes to warming (the direct heat from fires is negligible relative to the Earth's energy budget). CO2 from wildfires was higher this year than in the past decade, but was similar to what we saw in the 2000s: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/2023-year-intense-global-wildfire-activity
This article by Dr. Nicolas Gruber, https://phys.org/news/2023-09-environmental-physicist-discusses-marine.html , talks about how in addition to El Nino there are concurrent marine heat waves in North Pacific and North Atlantic, i.e., maybe we need to look beyond El Nino for answers. He talks about how this appears to be a perfect storm of factors and hard to predict. He goes onto speculate that our climate models need more resolution if we are going to able to predict heat waves like we experienced in 2023.
In 2016, the average sea surface started to cool off in March. Based on the latest data, https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ , the sea surface temperatures do not appear to be cooling off. If this is a leading indicator we could be in for another hot year in 2024.
I'm quite open to the idea of stochastic internal variability happening to line up and create the perfect storm. I just think we'd need to do more analysis to determine what is and is not a forced response here.
"We believe that natural variability in the North Atlantic and other regions is largely responsible for the surge in global mean temperatures in the middle of the year, well before the 2023 El Niño event had gathered strength."
https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/
This seems relevant to me and in agreement with the observation by Dr. Gruber. I'm curious why you chose not to include this or emphasize this as part of your discussion. Maybe we don't know why it occurred but at least we have some understanding to what contributed to the warming beyond it wasn't El Nino.
Whether it is stochastic or forced, is not the underlying mechanism similar to the La Nina / El Nino cycle, i.e. heat build up in the ocean during La Nina and then rapid release or exchange with the atmosphere during El Nino? I believe that Dr. Gruber is arguing that in the case of 2023, this effect includes the North Pacific and North Atlantic.
less ice at the polar regions means more warmth in the seas because water reflects fewer of the sun's runs away from the surface than ice does. So of course the el nino will be different. Unfortunately climatologists error in their estimations by calculating past weather patterns to relate similarly to observed patterns, but if the physical makeup has altered then the calculations cannot be judged from past experiences in an environment that is adjusting to alterations. Studies of past "climate" events show peculiar years, 1815 perhaps being one of the last that can be directly timed to a specific event. But what we are facing now is a multitude of events that potentially (over many years) will create great climatic events that is with all probability going to reshape not just the atmospheric conditions of climate formations but the entire patterns and shapes of the land masses. the earth is shaking internally not just up in the sky so our models will not be able to predict this type of climate event until the earth reshapes itself.
There is no separate atmospheric "climate" apart from the internal heat and the tectonic alignments that shape the earth. Fossil fuels are only one factor in limate change, and maybe not the most damaging to the balance of the earth's internal heat, surface heat, and atmospheric. How can we expect that drilling into the internal earth is not damaging or effecting our climate? Well we used to claim fossil fuel emissions couldn't damage the atmosphere. Sewer systems and waste manage effect the environment not just of the surface but seep beneath the surface and effect the internal makeup. A geologist proponent of thermal energies claims that thermal energy may cause earthquakes but can't cause volcanic activity. Where did he get his degree? Tapping into the thermal energy that causes a small tectonic shift here creates a larger tectonic shift across the globe because there is nothing that is not related. That is what we don't want to get into our head. We want to be more powerful, or smarter, than the earth and can therefore design systems to harness energy so some can make money. Natural energy is uharnessed and "clean" cannot mean no carbon emissions. What we have to understand that any human system of energy affects the entire environment of the earth and not just the emission of carbon. Stonehenge effected the environment by moving large parts of the environment to another. Drastically? I don't know. But there are obvious drastic efforts when plant species are introduced into a foreign environment. Because we believe we have more intelligence, or maybe we just think god gave us dominion over the environment, who cares?, the issue the earth changes maximally from external pressure (a large meteor) but also minimally because of every breath we take. If we want less drastic environmental change, the best way to control that is to use the environment as minimally as possible. The more we try to harness the environment the more rapidly it changes.
A perfect example is the large solar farm in California that has ravaged nearly all lifeforms in its vicinity and the discovery that the devastating environmental damage within its vicinity is expanding its reach into still habitable zones and expanding the inhabitable zones.
What man, to prove he is really an intelligent species, is to learn how to reduce his footprint to the size of his foot. But no we are now being led to believe fusion energy will be unlimited. But fusion is not unlimited because burn out their own fusion energy and fusion would require massive amounts of energy to supply the needs to create fusion which would create massive imbalances to the earth to supply the resources necessary for fusion to exist. It is not unlimited energy we need, but to be trained to ration what energy we have.
The climate is already changing and predicting the changes is going to be difficult. I don't imagine we could ever have predicted Africa would crash into Europe and then be crunched into the Alps. The movement may have taken who knows how many years to occur, but once it occurred it was as instantaneous as a meteorite hitting the surface. By altering the balance we have created hanges we are not going to be able to predict, and I nor. anyone can do that. It's not that the earth has not reshaped itself in the past or wouldn't it the future, but our intelligence has made fools of ourselves bt predicting we were smart enough to bend earth to our desires.
And I hate to be so crude but it seems that most environmentalists haven't the goddamndest clue man ain't gods and don't have any dominion over our environment cause there was never a god to give them that dominion, only kings who wanted it and invented gods to give them dominion over other men which was only possible if he had dominion over the environment men needed to survive.
Dear Zeke Hausfather,
I, pres. of Humane Civilization Worldwide (HCW) WOULD LIKE TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH YOU. We keep hearing how seemingly vicious cycles are spinning out of control, how we 'speed towards climate hell.' Is it not time that influential people show to the people and demand from governments what effective responses to the crisis exist - capitalism or business-as-usual-with-incentives will never work - too little, too late, too slow. We need an effective movement that presents real solutions, governments restricting bank lending and funding/working with public-private partnership nonprofit enterprises (PPPNEs). The PPPNEs could rapidly develop transportation systems other than electric cars and air planes, plant hundreds of millions of trees, start using wood and bamboo to replace concrete and steel, and apply effective ways to sequester enormous amounts of CO2 in all parts of the world (organic material soaked in stagnant water, mainly dead zones in lakes and the sea and 'artificial bogs,' organic material kept dry or in freezing temperatures, etc., etc. Please see https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/
Heinz Aeschbach, MD
Could methane be a cause of unexpected short term warming? Perhaps large emissions from wetlands and permafrost that aren't being observed or measured? Would this not be evidence for positive feedback loops kicking in?
Unlikely, the forcing from methane emitted in any individual year (or decade) just isn't that big compared with CO2: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1491507813314535424?lang=en
Are you assuming that methane release cannot be a tipping point, i.e. are you assuming that methane release is linear? Because if it is a tipping point, then to calculate the effect you would have to estimate maximum released methane, plot an exponential growth curve, and see how well that matches observed methane increases. I am not an expert in the field though, so I might be way off.
Ok what about loss of albedo?
Ocean circulation disruption?
Thank you for presenting this well-organized summary. My observation tells me that: yes, the average is increasing but so too is the variance. If the precision increases with the new, coming analyses then less uncertainty should follow.
I'd put it differently, but not in contradiction. Did the new data from 2023 shift the parameter estimates of the relationship between net CO2 emissions and other climate outcomes like warming? Do they affect the estimate of the optimal tax on net CO2 emissions?
Question below about wildfires - I have it too
What about the extensive wildfires? Would't they cause temperature rise? Did I miss them in this post?
The CO2 from wildfires certainly contributes to warming (the direct heat from fires is negligible relative to the Earth's energy budget). CO2 from wildfires was higher this year than in the past decade, but was similar to what we saw in the 2000s: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/2023-year-intense-global-wildfire-activity