New paper finds another problem with global carbon-cycle models: plant respiration is 'as different as night and day'

Just a few days following publication of a paper finding global carbon cycle datasets may be significantly biased, a paper published today in Nature finds carbon-cycle models do not take into account that the effects on plant growth of rising night-time temperatures are opposite to those of increasing daytime temperatures.

Biogeochemistry: As different as night and day

• Christopher Still

Nature

 

501,

 

39–40

 

(05 September 2013)

 

doi:10.1038/501039a

Published online

 

04 September 2013

An analysis of northern ecosystems shows that the effects on plant growth of rising night-time temperatures are opposite to those of increasing daytime temperatures — a finding that has implications for carbon-cycle models. See Letter p.88

An under-appreciated aspect of climate  change is the fact that Earth is warming at a higher rate at night than  during the day: over the past 50 years, daily  minimum temperatures have increased about  40% faster than daily maximum temperatures1.  This asymmetric warming may have impor- tant biological consequences, particularly for  fundamental ecosystem metabolic processes  that are strongly sensitive to temperature vari- ations, such as photosynthesis and respiration.  On page 88 of this issue, Peng et al.2 document  regionally significant, and in many cases  opposing, effects of year-to-year (interannual)  variations in daytime and night-time temperatures on plant growth and carbon cycling in  land regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Photosynthesis is driven by light and thus  happens only during the day, whereas plant  and microbial respiration occurs continu-

 ously. Therefore, faster night-time warming  presumably affects respiration more than it  affects photo  synthesis, and this could have far- reaching implications for how ecosystems react  to expected increases in warming in coming  decades. But remarkably little research has been done on how asymmetric warming influences  ecological function, especially at large scales.  To address this issue, Peng and colleagues have  analysed satellite-derived data sets of plant  greenness, which is a proxy for plant growth. The authors found that ecosystems in cool,  wet temperate and boreal regions such as  northwestern North America and Japan, and  those in cold regions such as Siberia and the  Tibetan plateau, seem to have benefited most  from daytime temperature increases over the  period considered (1982–2009). By contrast,  ecosystems in dry temperate regions, such as  central Eurasia and western China, showed the  opposite effect: increasing daytime tempera- tures correlated with decreasing plant green- ness. These contrasting responses broadly  agree with expectations for ecosystems in  which plant growth is limited primarily by  temperature (cool, wet climates) or moisture  (warm, dry climates).  More intriguingly, Peng and colleagues  found that ecosystems in many of the boreal  and wet temperate regions grew less well in  response to increases in night-time minimum  temperatures — the opposite effect to their  response to increasing daytime maximum 

 temperatures (Fig. 1). Conversely, in many  arid and semi-arid regions, such as the grass- lands of China and North America, increasing  night-time minimum temperatures correlated  positively with plant greenness. Peng et al. used a statistical approach to control for other contributing environmental vari- ables, such as solar radiation and precipitation.  This allowed them to isolate the interannual  greenness responses to daytime maximum and  night-time minimum temperature variations.  The authors confirmed the statistical validity  of their findings using other techniques, and  also analysed the sensitivity of the greenness  response to alternative interpolated climate 

 data sets and at individual weather-station  locations. Importantly, the different analyses  all confirmed the same broad conclusions. 

 A strength of this study is that the research- ers explored ecosystem responses to asymmet- ric warming using a variety of other large-scale  data sets, and found similar patterns. One data  set was for the net exchange of carbon between  land and the atmosphere — a quantity that  integrates photosynthesis and respiration, and  which was inferred from a multi-year analysis3.  Peng and co-workers found that this quantity  correlated positively with daytime temperature  variations for cool and wet boreal ecosystems,  but negatively with night-time temperatures  for these ecosystems. They also observed that  the amplitudes of the seasonal cycles of car- bon dioxide levels measured at Point Barrow,  Alaska, and Mauna Loa, Hawaii, vary in the  same way with daytime and night-time tem- perature variations in boreal regions, but not  in temperate areas. Peng et al. focused only on boreal and  temperate  ecosystems.  The response to  asymmetric warming of tropical and subtropi- cal ecosystems, which account for most CO2  exchange between the land and the atmos- phere, is not clear and merits further investiga- tion. Previous work4 at a well-studied tropical 

 forest revealed a negative correlation between  tree growth and annual mean daily minimum  temperatures, a response broadly similar to  Peng and colleagues’ findings for boreal forests. 

 Tropical forests are thought to be vulnerable to  warming5, with some evidence6 suggesting that  they are already near high-temperature thresh- olds above which growth could be restricted.  Future research could help to fill major gaps in  our understanding of thermal tolerance and  acclimation in tropical and subtropical plant  species, and thus their response to warming5,7. So what are the physiological mechanisms  that drive large-scale correlations between  temperature variations and ecosystem metabo- lism? The commonly discussed mechanisms  involve biochemical responses to temperature,  but with some interesting twists. For example,  the positive correlation found between night- time minimum temperatures and greenness in  semi-arid grasslands is puzzling, but might be  related to greater night-time plant respiration  that stimulates increased daytime photosyn- thesis8. Increases in night-time respiration  have also been invoked in a pioneering study9  of nocturnal warming that documented differ- ent plant responses in grassland: the dominant  grass species declined in response to increases  in night-time temperature during spring,  whereas other plant species that use a different  photosynthetic pathway increased in number. A research agenda to investigate these  mechanisms further should include manipu- lative field and mesocosm experiments (in  which small parts of a natural ecosystem are  enclosed and warmed). Experimental warm- ing studies are lacking for many ecosystems.  Even fewer night-time warming experiments  have been conducted so far, with most being  in shrublands10 or grasslands and croplands8;  warming experiments that truly impose asym- metry between day and night warming are  rare11. There is a particularly urgent need for  warming studies in forests, which dominate  the global carbon cycle and climate feedbacks.  However, there are substantial technological  challenges to conducting such experiments in  large-statured ecosystems. Forest mesocosm  experiments would require exceedingly com- plex and expensive facilities. Despite these  limitations, Peng and colleagues’ results argue  strongly for an increased focus on the dif- fering ecological impacts of night-time and  daytime temperatures, to improve our ability  to understand and predict how warming will  affect Earth’s ecosystems. ■

Asymmetric effects of daytime and night-time warming on Northern Hemisphere vegetation

• Shushi Peng,


• Shilong Piao,


• Philippe Ciais,


• Ranga B. Myneni,


• Anping Chen,


• Frédéric Chevallier,


• Albertus J. Dolman,


• Ivan A. Janssens,


• Josep Peñuelas,


• Gengxin Zhang,


• Sara Vicca,


• Shiqiang Wan,


• Shiping Wang


• & Hui Zeng

• Affiliations


• Contributions


• Corresponding authors

Nature

 

501,

 

88–92

 

(05 September 2013)

 

doi:10.1038/nature12434

Received

 

15 October 2012 

Accepted

 

04 July 2013 

Published online

 

04 September 2013

Article tools

Temperature data over the past five decades show faster warming of the global land surface during the night than during the day¹. This asymmetric warming is expected to affect carbon assimilation and consumption in plants, because photosynthesis in most plants occurs during daytime and is more sensitive to the maximum daily temperature, Tmax, whereas plant respiration occurs throughout the day² and is therefore influenced by both Tmax and the minimum daily temperature,Tmin. Most studies of the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate warming, however, ignore this asymmetric forcing effect on vegetation growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes^{3, 4, 5, 6}. Here we analyse the interannual covariations of the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, an indicator of vegetation greenness) with Tmax and Tmin over the Northern Hemisphere. After removing the correlation between Tmax and Tmin, we find that the partial correlation between Tmax and NDVI is positive in most wet and cool ecosystems over boreal regions, but negative in dry temperate regions. In contrast, the partial correlation between Tmin and NDVI is negative in boreal regions, and exhibits a more complex behaviour in dry temperate regions. We detect similar patterns in terrestrial net CO2 exchange maps obtained from a global atmospheric inversion model. Additional analysis of the long-term atmospheric CO2 concentration record of the station Point Barrow in Alaska suggests that the peak-to-peak amplitude of CO2 increased by 23 ± 11% for a +1 °C anomaly in Tmax from May to September over lands north of 51° N, but decreased by 28 ± 14% for a +1 °C anomaly in Tmin. These lines of evidence suggest that asymmetric diurnal warming, a process that is currently not taken into account in many global carbon cycle models, leads to a divergent response of Northern Hemisphere vegetation growth and carbon sequestration to rising temperatures.

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Biochemistry professor explains why the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 14 years

Dr. Gösta Pettersson, Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and specialist in reaction kinetics, further explains why the computer model ["The Bern Model'] used by the IPCC to predict CO2 lifetimes of over 100 years is highly flawed and is strongly contradicted by observations from both atomic bomb testing and atmospheric levels of CO2 [the Keeling Curve]. 



Dr. Pettersson finds "the IPCC extremely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide" by natural sinks. The assumption of the "IPCC Bern model that 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years." 



"Paper 2 shows the bomb curve estimated value of the CO2 relaxation time (14 years) and concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength."

"The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made."


Bomb Test curve - nature's simple answers to complex relationships

31/08/2013  156 Comments  Guest Post by Gösta Pettersson  [Google translation from Swedish + light editing]

Figure 1.   Time course (black data points) for the relaxation of the excess of 14C-carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests showed, indicating a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of CO2 than assumed by the IPCC [blue line of the Bern Model].

Peter Stilbs and Pehr Björnbom have in TCS messages noticed my book False alarm and my conclusion that bomb test curve (figure above) falsifies the underpinning for climate models projections of future carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. The inserts gave rise to a rather intense debate. Many commentators stressed the complexity of the carbon cycle, and hinted that I underestimated this by basing my conclusion solely on bomb test curve. "There's more to it" was one comment. "Gösta makes it too easy for themselves," was another.

I can understand the doubt. Kolcykelproblematiken a whole is very complex. Hydrosphere uptake of carbon dioxide is dependent on wind, temperature, rainfall, etc. according to little-understood relationship (eg. Revelle effect). The spread of the absorbed carbon dioxide from the surface waters to deeper water layers can be made according to several different mechanisms and span time scales from the second level to centuries. The yield of carbon dioxide between the air and the biosphere is likewise by a variety of processes of widely different time scales. Are you interested in what happens to the carbon value after it has been transferred from the air to the outdoors in general, then you can be served by kolcykelmodeller who, like Bern model looking observe and describe the effects of the present heterogeneities and other mechanistic complications in the total carbon dioxide exchange .

The situation is completely different if you have the limited objective of ascertaining the extent to which anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (and hence an increase in the greenhouse effect). Then you only need to know the kinetics of an atmospheric CO2 relaxation (equilibration), ie. knowing how quickly and to what extent an excess of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Bomb Test curve provides just such information to more than 95% of the relaxation of the excess pulse of 14C-labeled carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests resulted. The graph shows the net result of the disparate events that helped to remove the anthropogenic input excess C14 emissions by transferring it from the air to the outdoors in general. The curve represents the empirically determined response that nature has given us the carbon cycle all complex relationships.

C14 carbon is carbon dioxide. The relaxation processes which reduced the excess air of C14 emissions are identical to those that continuously reduces such excess carbon dioxide as the atmosphere is supplied by human activities such as the use of fossil fuels, land use change and cement production. Because of the kinetic kolisotopeffekternas small size can be also as a good approximation to assume that C14 carbon disposed with the same speed and in the same degree as carbon dioxide with different isotope composition.

These simple facts provide bomb test curve an outstanding informative weight. It tells us that the air at the end of X should contain about 91% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in the year X-1, approximately 85% of emissions in the year X-2, and so on back in time. Based on available historical data for the amount of emissions since the industrial revolution, one can on the basis of the appearance of the bomb curve calculate how much human activities contributed to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration up to an arbitrary subsequent years. Likewise, the curve us exactly the information we need to analogously calculate the likely future emissions of fossil carbon dioxide will contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide future.

So what these climatological fundamental calculations is concerned, it is not me who makes it too easy for me, but others that make it too difficult for them. One does not know why the bomb test curve looks the way it does. Suffice it to say how it looks and to base their calculations on this look. One need not resort to models that consider what happens to the carbon dioxide after it entered into the biosphere and hydrosphere. It is a mathematical model that provides an acceptable description of the bomb test curve, nature's answer to the critical question of how quickly and to what extent the excess carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

And in that respect, it is clear from Figure 1 that the [IPCC] Bern model triphasic description of curve (blue graph) is substandard and unfit for the calculation. Statistical regression analysis shows that bomb test curve is best described as enfasiskt exponential (red graph), with a relaxation time in many consistent experimental studies found to be in the order of ten years rather than the hundred years that the IPCC states on the basis of the Bern model. The bomb curve appearance gives us ample information to enable us to conclude that the IPCC extremely severely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess.

Why bomb test curve looks like it does is another question of mechanistic nature.The answer may, however, also a fair indication of the kinetic analysis of the curve. The IPCC states that the relaxation of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess is highly controlled by carbon dioxide slow transport from the ocean surface to the deep sea. I have commented on this by saying that I only need to glance at the bomb test curve to realize that the IPCC's claim is incorrect.

It is needed is not more than a glance to see that bomb test curve goes towards a final value which is close to zero and certainly less than 0:05. The information is all I need to be able to classify the kinetics disposal of excess air of carbon dioxide as a virtually irreversible process. Thus, the process must essentially have the same kinetic behavior as a completely irreversible process, ie. be more than 95% controlled by the air concentration of carbon dioxide according to law of mass action. There is not even a theoretical possibility that the slow processes in the ocean can influence more than, at most, 5% of the relaxation process.

This insight is likely only to specialists with good knowledge of the relaxation kinetics theory and practice. But for non-specialists, there is an easy alternative way to arrive at the same conclusion, since bomb test curve is found to follow an exponential progression.

Exponential decay of an excess concentration may be namely for purely mathematical reasons, then, and only then, the corresponding reaction rate is proportional to the concentration variable in question. The observation that bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide removal in an exponential progression tells us, then, that the removal occurred at a speed which was proportional to the air concentration of the C14-labeled carbon dioxide. The observed part (95%) of the relaxation process has therefore been guided by the air content of C14-carbon dioxide, in accordance with the law of mass action applied to a completely irreversible process. Slow processes in the ocean can at most affect the removal of the remaining 5% of the excess carbon dioxide, ie. the final stage of the relaxation process that we have not yet had the opportunity to observe.

The conclusion that airborne carbon surplus raised virtually irreversible by natural sinks, one might also benefit from the IPCC, the data presented for the equilibrium distribution of carbon between the atmosphere (1.5%), and nature in general (98.5%). Bomb Sample curve only confirms that nature behaves as it theoretically might expect in such a case. In addition to consolidating the Uppsjön of published experimental measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide retention (which invariably fall within the range 2-14 years) in principle is fully acceptable as estimates of carbon dioxide relaxation. IPCC lacks any any theoretical justification for its idiot explanation of climatic pioneers Bolin, Revelle, Suess et al. the ground that they measured the wrong kind of retention, one that is not relevant to the relaxation of excess carbon dioxide.

A scientific presentation of my kinetic analysis of the bomb test curve can be found in Paper 1 on the English-language website False alarm . There is also the scientific arguments showing that Bern model is in conflict with the present empirical data. From a theoretical aspect, Bern model grossest error prescribing the equilibrium distribution of carbon between air and nature in general is 22%: 78% ie. that the model makes natural uptake of carbon dioxide around 15 times reversiblare than what we know it is under the IPCC kolcykeldata.

Bern model's designers actually suggest that preindustrial atmospheric equilibrium concentration of carbon dioxide was about 5000 ppm, but apparently lack sufficient kinetic skills to realize that their model has this absurd consequence. Neither have the skills enough to realize that the reaction system equilibrium constants are fixed by the thermodynamic relations and not with a custom size in the construction of a kinetic model. Bern model of the IPCC accepted and utilized instruction to 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years.

Paper 2 on the above website shows that in order it from the bomb cvurve estimated value of the relaxation time (14 years) concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength.

The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made. How can that be? My own answer to this question, I came to when I found that the corresponding section in the IPCC reports had Bern model two constructors as head writer (Siegenthaler in the first report and Joos in the subsequent three reports). The probability should be zero to those IPCC experts would realize his model shortcomings and persuade annul it. Something I with different slant cover in Chapter 15:5 - 6) of my book False alarm.

Other related posts

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Settled science update: New reaction described that is 'important' to production of climate-affecting aerosols

New Low-Temperature Chemical Reaction Explained

enlarge

Diagram illustrates the newly-discovered reaction that transforms molecules of ketohydroperoxide into acids and carbonyl molecules, after going through intermediate stages. (Credit: Illustration courtesy of Jalan et al)

Sep. 4, 2013 — In all the centuries that humans have studied chemical reactions, just 36 basic types of reactions have been found. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at MIT and the University of Minnesota, a 37th type of reaction can be added to the list.

The newly explained reaction -- whose basic outlines had been known for three decades, but whose workings had never been understood in detail -- is an important part of atmospheric reactions that lead to the formation of climate-affecting aerosols; biochemical reactions that may be important for human physiology; and combustion reactions in engines.



The new analysis is explained in a paper by MIT graduate student Amrit Jalan, chemical engineering professor William Green, and six other researchers, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.



Stephen Klippenstein, a senior scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois who was not involved in this research, says, "I think this may be the best paper I have read this year. It uses a multitude of theoretical methods … to explore multiple aspects of a novel discovery that has important ramifications in atmospheric chemistry, combustion kinetics and biology."



The reaction's details sound esoteric: a low-temperature oxidation that results in the decomposition of complex organic molecules known as gamma-ketohydroperoxides. When he first described the reaction in the scientific literature 30 years ago, Stefan Korcek of the Ford Motor Company proposed a hypothesis for how the reaction might take place. The new work shows that Korcek had the right concept, although some details differ from his predictions.



The original discovery was the result of analyzing how engine oils break down through oxidation -- part of an attempt to produce oils that would last longer. That's important, Green points out, since waste oil is among the largest hazardous waste streams in the United States.



In analyzing the problem, Korcek realized that "there were fundamental things about the way even simple hydrocarbons react with oxygen that we didn't understand," Green says. By examining the products of the reaction, which included carboxylic acids and ketones, Korcek outlined an unusually complex multipart reaction. But for the next three decades, nobody found a way to verify whether the reaction or the steps he outlined could work.



Jalan says that the MIT researchers' analysis came about almost by accident. "I was looking at that paper for a different study," he says, "and I came across [Korcek's] work, which hadn't been verified either theoretically or experimentally. … [We] decided to see if we could explain his observations by throwing quantum mechanical tools at the problem."



In collaboration with the Minnesota researchers -- including Donald Truhlar, a co-author of the new paper and a leading expert in such calculations -- Jalan and Green were able to demonstrate exactly why the reaction works as it does. But they also found that part of the process must differ slightly from Korcek's original hypothesis.



Green says that understanding how this "very important reaction" works could be significant in several fields. 



The researchers' initial impetus was, in part, a colleague's exploration of biofuel combustion. The new understanding of the degradation that can take place as different fuels oxidize -- sometimes producing toxic or corrosive byproducts -- could help narrow the choice of fuel types to pursue, he says.



The process is also related to oxidations that take place in the body, contributing to the tissue damage and aging that antioxidant vitamins seek to combat, Green says.



Green points out that because this is an entirely new type of reaction, it opens the door to research on other variations. "Once you discover a new type of reaction, there must be many similar ones," he says.



"It's very odd to have so many reactions at once in such a small molecule," Green adds. "Now that we know that can happen, we're searching for other cases."



Anthony Dean, dean of the College of Applied Science and Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who was not involved in this work, says, "A particularly nice aspect of this work is to then consider how this finding might be applicable to other systems. In a broader context, this combined effort by two very prominent research groups illustrates the power and potential for electronic structure calculations [in] quantitatively important problems in chemical kinetics."



Klippenstein adds, "As a result of this clear exposition and the high level of theory that was applied, I believe this work will be widely accepted immediately. I certainly am already convinced by their conclusions."



The research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, and used computing facilities at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.

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New paper finds natural ocean oscillations explain southwest US drought & half of the warming of the latter 20th century

A paper published today in Climate Dynamics finds the natural Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) was responsible for half of the warming of the Southwestern US during the late 20th century. 

According to the authors, "We find that in the early twentieth century the warming was dominated by a positive phase of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) with minor contributions from increasing solar irradiance and concentration of greenhouse gases. The late twentieth century warming was about equally influenced by increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and a positive phase of the AMO. The current southwestern US drought is associated with a near maximum AMO index occurring nearly simultaneously with a minimum in the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) index. A similar situation occurred in mid-1950s when precipitation reached its minimum within the instrumental records." 

The authors also find, "the current climate models have not been able to predict the behavior of the AMO and PDO indices. The regression model does support the climate models (CMIP3 and CMIP5 AOGCMs) projections of a much warmer and drier southwestern US only if the AMO changes its 1,000 years cyclic behavior and instead continues to rise close to its 1975–2000 rate. If the AMO continues its quasi-cyclic behavior the US SW temperature should remain stable and the precipitation should significantly increase during the next few decades."

Climate Dynamics

September 2013,

Open Access

Imprint of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation and Pacific decadal oscillation on southwestern US climate: past, present, and future

• Petr Chylek, 


• Manvendra K. Dubey, 


• Glen Lesins, 


• Jiangnan Li, 


• Nicolas Hengartner

Full paper available here as open access:

Download PDF (933 KB) View Article

Abstract

The surface air temperature increase in the southwestern United States was much larger during the last few decades than the increase in the global mean. While the global temperature increased by about 0.5 °C from 1975 to 2000, the southwestern US temperature increased by about 2 °C. If such an enhanced warming persisted for the next few decades, the southwestern US would suffer devastating consequences. To identify major drivers of southwestern climate change we perform a multiple-linear regression of the past 100 years of the southwestern US temperature and precipitation. We find that in the early twentieth century the warming was dominated by a positive phase of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) with minor contributions from increasing solar irradiance and concentration of greenhouse gases. The late twentieth century warming was about equally influenced by increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and a positive phase of the AMO. The current southwestern US drought is associated with a near maximum AMO index occurring nearly simultaneously with a minimum in the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) index. A similar situation occurred in mid-1950s when precipitation reached its minimum within the instrumental records. If future atmospheric concentrations of GHGs increase according to the IPCC scenarios (Solomon et al. in Climate change 2007: working group I. The Physical Science Basis, Cambridge, 996 pp, 2007), climate models project a fast rate of southwestern warming accompanied by devastating droughts (Seager et al. in Science 316:1181–1184, 2007; Williams et al. in Nat Clim Chang, 2012). However, the current climate models have not been able to predict the behavior of the AMO and PDO indices. The regression model does support the climate models (CMIP3 and CMIP5 AOGCMs) projections of a much warmer and drier southwestern US only if the AMO changes its 1,000 years cyclic behavior and instead continues to rise close to its 1975–2000 rate. If the AMO continues its quasi-cyclic behavior the US SW temperature should remain stable and the precipitation should significantly increase during the next few decades.

Related: Sunspot integral and ocean oscillations explain 96% of climate change

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Report: Rising oil & gas production is adding $1,200 per year in discretionary income to average US family

Finally, the warmist claim that climate skeptics benefit from the oil industry finally has some merit! lol

U.S. energy lifting economy more than expected

Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY12:03 a.m. EDT September 4, 2013

Rising U.S. oil and natural gas production is having a bigger impact on the U.S. economy than estimated a couple years ago, according to a leading economic consulting firm.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• New energy sources account for 2.1 million jobs, report says


• Natural gas production up 58%, prices down by three-fourths since 2007


• Jobs include drilling, transport, and some manufacturing, especially in chemicals

Newly found sources of domestic oil and natural gas are having an even bigger impact on the economy than first projected, adding more than $1,200 last year to the discretionary income of the average U.S. family, a new study says.

The explosion in domestic energy production now supports 1.2 million jobs, directly or indirectly, says consulting firm IHS, in a study released Wednesday. That number will grow to 3.3 million by 2020, and new energy's contribution to U.S. families' disposable incomes will hit $2,000 per household per year by 2015, said IHS.

IHS' numbers are larger than findings by other economists, which also point to a major impact from shale oil and gas. The introduction of technologies like hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, which made it practical to recover previously unused oil reserves, has helped drive a 58% increase in natural gas reserves since 2007, cut the price of natural gas by nearly three-fourths, and sparked more than $120 billion in U.S.-based investment last year, IHS said. Its study was partly financed by a number of energy and manufacturing industry groups.

"Anyone who doubts the reality of this is not paying attention,'' said John Larson, vice president of IHS and co-leader of a team of 13 contributors from the firm's energy, economics and manufacturing-industry consulting groups. "You're seeing the production numbers in both gas and oil to support it.''

The biggest impact on many U.S. households is lower electricity and heating bills, accounting for about 75% of the average household's gains, Larson said. About $800 of that represents lower prices for natural gas-fueled heat and cooking, and $100 to $150 is from electricity rates lower than they otherwise would be, he said.

Government data back up most of this analysis. Residential natural-gas prices, which vary widely by state, have fallen between 12% and 32% since 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Electricity prices, however, have risen slightly on average. IHS' numbers were based on assumptions about what households would have spent if U.S. natural gas prices stayed near 2008 levels, Larson said.

Natural gas prices in much of Europe are three times U.S. levels, and Asian prices are even higher, reflecting the lack of new supplies there, he said.
Cheaper electricity also shows up in the price of other manufactured goods, and some families get a paycheck from producing oil and gas, or working for companies that ship petroleum or make supplies for drilling and pipelines, he said.

Earlier, IHS had only estimated the impact of new gas supplies, without attempting to quantify the effects of new oil supplies pouring out of places such as North Dakota and the Eagle Ford shale in Texas. In December 2011, it had said the shale gas industry was supporting 600,000 jobs by 2010.

Moody's Analytics, another leading economics consulting firm, estimates that 1 million of the 2.7 million jobs gained in the U.S. between 2002 and 2012 were related to shale oil and gas drilling, Moody's economist Chris Lafakis said.

Growth in shale-related employment since 2008 was almost four times as much as Moody's forecast in 2009, and is growing twice as fast as the overall economy despite a hiring lull caused by lower natural gas prices, Lafakis said.

'It's difficult to overstate the shale revolution's profound contributions to the US. economy,'' Lafakis said.

More domestic production is also slashing crude oil imports, which fell 19% in the first half of this year, according to the Census Bureau. That shaved $31.6 billion off the nation's trade deficit.

In 2011, U.S. oil and gas companies added almost 3.8 billion barrels of crude oil and related reserves, an increase of 15%, the biggest jump since the U.S. Energy Information Administration began publishing proved reserves estimates in 1977, the government said last month.

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New paper appears to corroborate Spencer & Braswell's paper on misdiagnosis of climate feedbacks

A paper published today in Theoretical and Applied Climatology appears to corroborate Spencer & Braswell's 2011 paper concluding that "atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations." 



The new paper also finds a problem of misdiagnosis of climate feedbacks due to "noise" from natural variation, stating, "we see that the [natural] non-feedback variation plays the most significant role in distorting the curve in the lagged correlation graph, thus obscuring the exact value of climate feedback" and "The estimated noise levels in both CERES (>13 %) and climate models (11–28 %) are found to be far above the critical level (~5 %) that begins to misrepresent climate feedback." Spencer & Braswell had suggested that the misdiagnosis of climate feedback meant that the "missing heat" at the heart of global warming theory had instead been lost to space:

Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecasts of global warming 

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (July 26, 2011) — Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.” 

The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. 

The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades. 

In research published this week in the journal “Remote Sensing” http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf, Spencer and UA Huntsville’s Dr. Danny Braswell compared what a half dozen climate models say the atmosphere should do to satellite data showing what the atmosphere actually did during the 18 months before and after warming events between 2000 and 2011. 

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.” 

Not only does the atmosphere release more energy than previously thought, it starts releasing it earlier in a warming cycle. The models forecast that the climate should continue to absorb solar energy until a warming event peaks. Instead, the satellite data shows the climate system starting to shed energy more than three months before the typical warming event reaches its peak. 

“At the peak, satellites show energy being lost while climate models show energy still being gained,” Spencer said. 

This is the first time scientists have looked at radiative balances during the months before and after these transient temperature peaks. 

Applied to long-term climate change, the research might indicate that the climate is less sensitive to warming due to increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere than climate modelers have theorized. A major underpinning of global warming theory is that the slight warming caused by enhanced greenhouse gases should change cloud cover in ways that cause additional warming, which would be a positive feedback cycle. 

Instead, the natural ebb and flow of clouds, solar radiation, heat rising from the oceans and a myriad of other factors added to the different time lags in which they impact the atmosphere might make it impossible to isolate or accurately identify which piece of Earth’s changing climate is feedback from manmade greenhouse gases. 

“There are simply too many variables to reliably gauge the right number for that,” Spencer said. “The main finding from this research is that there is no solution to the problem of measuring atmospheric feedback, due mostly to our inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in our observations.”

Paper published today:

Theoretical and Applied Climatology

September 2013

Influence of non-feedback variations of radiation on the determination of climate feedback

• Yong-Sang Choi, 


• Heeje Cho, 


• Chang-Hoi Ho, 


• Richard S. Lindzen, 


• Seon Ki Park, 


• Xing Yu

Recent studies have estimated the magnitude of climate feedback based on the correlation between time variations in outgoing radiation flux and sea surface temperature (SST). This study investigates the influence of the natural non-feedback variation (noise) of the flux occurring independently of SST on the determination of climate feedback. The observed global monthly radiation flux is used from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) for the period 2000–2008. In the observations, the time lag correlation of radiation and SST shows a distorted curve with low statistical significance for shortwave radiation while a significant maximum at zero lag for longwave radiation over the tropics. This observational feature is explained by simulations with an idealized energy balance model where we see that the [natural] non-feedback variation plays the most significant role in distorting the curve in the lagged correlation graph, thus obscuring the exact value of climate feedback. We also demonstrate that the climate feedback from the tropical longwave radiation in the CERES data is not significantly affected by the noise. We further estimate the standard deviation of radiative forcings (mainly from the noise) relative to that of the non-radiative forcings, i.e., the noise level from the observations and atmosphere–ocean coupled climate model simulations in the framework of the simple model. The estimated noise levels in both CERES (>13 %) and climate models (11–28 %) are found to be far above the critical level (~5 %) that begins to misrepresent climate feedback.

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