Warmer than Expected Antarctica, & Glacier Support

AvgJoe · Feb 13, 2020

Halbhh said:
Good to hear someone looking at the real thing, and I can tell you will like the short video (link below) showing 5 historical IPCC predictions versus actual observations over time! (very interesting to see exact results, less than a minute)

For me, climate predictions and discoveries of new factors have been a 35 year stream of information over time.

Climate prediction is a very complex task, and under continual construction and revamping, kinda all of the time.

Because various scientists will realize that some new factors may need to be incorporated, because they may have significant effect.

(That careful, conservative view from 2017 will be gradually outdated of course, as you begin to see if you routinely read in the research reports such as just general reading of the short well written reports at phys.org in the "Earth Sciences" section. )

Here's the previous 5 IPCC reports compared to actual observed temperatures! (short, 40 second video, very nice quick look):

(See the short video in the early part of the article
Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming? | Carbon Brief

Thanks for the civil discussion, most of the discussions I've seen on this (from both sides of the issue) are quite vicious. Not so much, on these forums, but on other non-Christian sites, it's pretty bad.

I looked at the IPCC's report list (Reports — IPCC), that report, Global Warming of 1.5° C, is from October 2018. Looked at the reports published, since then, and none of them changed the statements made in this report.

AvgJoe · Feb 13, 2020

Halbhh said:
Looking at a recent IPCC special report, from 2019, notice how in the graphic, if we eventually get to net zero carbon emissions (2055 scenario), and also reduce non-carbon important emissions (by 2030), both, then the grey scenario in the graph is the projected model outcome range at this time.

Reading the graph then, we could be close to 1.5C of total accumulated (could get 0.5C more than now)) warming by 2040.

2040 is only 20 years from now. That's kind a new sense of it. We'll be here (probably), experiencing it ourselves (not only our kids), most of us.

Summary for Policymakers — Global Warming of 1.5 ºC

That's from the same report I referenced, initially. Looking at the graph, yes, what you said could happen or, with the 1.5° being in the center of the purple 'No Reduction' cone, in 2100, we could be at 1.5°.

essentialsaltes · Feb 13, 2020

AvgJoe said:
I wasn't too interested in reading anything past, the copied portion, of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report, that verified the opening statements of the article, that the UN IPCC reveals that their official expectation is of no more than, a negligible, 0.5 degrees rise in global temperatures by the end of this century (2100).

Then I clicked over to the report, on the IPCC's website, to verify the above, and it's exactly as written in IPCC's report~~~> Summary for Policymakers — Global Warming of 1.5 ºC

The problem is that that is not what the report is presenting. This is not the expectation. This is a scenario they wanted to explore. From the introduction:

"This Report responds to the invitation for IPCC ‘… to provide a Special Report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways’ contained in the Decision of the 21st Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to adopt the Paris Agreement"

The report starts with the assumption of a 1.5 degree rise, and sets out to explain what effects that would have on the world. It is a 'what-if' scenario based on that assumption.

As I and others (and the report) have pointed out, this scenario only comes to pass if we stop all CO2 emissions in at most a few decades.

In the 5th assessment report, they spell out all of the different scenarios they've considered.

Anthropogenic GHG emissions are mainly driven by population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use, land use patterns, technology and climate policy. The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), which are used for making projections based on these factors, describe four different 21st century pathways of GHG emissions and atmospheric concentrations, air pollutant emissions and land use. The RCPs include a stringent mitigation scenario (RCP2.6), two intermediate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) and one scenario with very high GHG emissions (RCP8.5). Scenarios without additional efforts to constrain emissions (’baseline scenarios’) lead to pathways ranging between RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (Figure SPM.5a). RCP2.6 is representative of a scenario that aims to keep global warming likely below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures. The RCPs are consistent with the wide range of scenarios in the literature as assessed by WGIII5. {2.1, Box 2.2, 4.3}

So 'business as usual' is somewhere between the 6 and 8.5 scenario. While RCP 2.6 requires a "stringent mitigation scenario".

On p.11 they show the forecasts for temperature rise by 2100 in these scencarios. For RCP2.6 it's about 1.5 degrees. For RCP8.5, it's 4 degrees.

essentialsaltes · Feb 13, 2020

I would also point out that Chapter 2 of the report you cite is:

Chapter 2
Showing how emissions can be brought to zero by mid-century stay within the small remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Again, this report describes the 1.5°C scenario, but this scenario can only occur under a small range of improbable circumstances, e.g. if CO2 emissions worldwide drop to zero.

Halbhh · Feb 13, 2020

AvgJoe said:
That's from the same report I referenced, initially. Looking at the graph, yes, what you said could happen or, with the 1.5° being in the center of the purple 'No Reduction' cone, in 2100, we could be at 1.5°.

It's right that long term weather forecasts won't foresee big cool spells or big heat waves a year or 3 ahead of time, and it's the same way with climate on longer time scales, in my view. But, the fact it's the entire Earth as a whole does give more....inertia and momentum.

Get what I'm saying? In other words, we won't be likely be at the bottom of one of the ranges, or the top, but the odds are a lot stronger more towards the middle regions of the ranges.

So, what is in post#24 just above see isn't just a random guessing, but instead it's about the strong probability.

But there are interesting questions, definitely!

Here's a very key thing: the heat capacity of the world's oceans is up there on the order of something like 800 times as big as that of the Earth's atmosphere(!)....

Therefore, one of the big factors that has to be guesstimated as best possible, but could be different than expected (possible) is just how much heat transfer will be done from above down into the cooler waters in the deep ocean.

An average rate of transfer? More than average? Less than average? That will be interesting to look more at -- how well is that being modeled, and if it is for long, then how well have such models been performing so far?

Halbhh · Feb 13, 2020

Deep Ocean Waters Are Trapping Vast Stores of Heat
A new study shows that much of the heat from global warming is reaching deep into the ocean
Deep Ocean Waters Are Trapping Vast Stores of Heat

More than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas pollution since the 1970s has wound up in the oceans, and research published Monday revealed that a little more than a third of that seafaring heat has worked its way down to depths greater than 2,300 feet (700 meters).

FrumiousBandersnatch · Feb 13, 2020

AvgJoe said:
I wasn't too interested in reading anything past, the copied portion, of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report, that verified the opening statements of the article, that the UN IPCC reveals that their official expectation is of no more than, a negligible, 0.5 degrees rise in global temperatures by the end of this century (2100). Recent wild claims have been as high as 6 degrees, by 2050.

The copied portion of the report, from the article:

A.2. Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts (high confidence), but these emissions alone are unlikely to cause global warming of 1.5°C. (Emphasis added)

A.2.1. Anthropogenic emissions (including greenhouse gases, aerosols and their precursors) up to the present are unlikely to cause further warming of more than 0.5°C over the next two to three decades (high confidence) or on a century time scale. (Emphasis added)

Then I clicked over to the report, on the IPCC's website, to verify the above, and it's exactly as written in IPCC's report~~~> Summary for Policymakers — Global Warming of 1.5 ºC

I'm not sure you're reading that correctly - those sections are referring to the effect of warming from anthropogenic emissions up to the present. In other words, if we stopped all anthropogenic emissions today.

But today we already have approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels and "anthropogenic global warming is currently increasing at 0.2°C ... per decade due to past and ongoing emissions" (A.1.1). This means that at the current rate, we might expect a further 1.6°C of warming, making a total of 2.6°C.

Naturally, it's not quite as simple as just adding those two figures, because they take no account of still increasing emissions and the various tipping-points for natural emissions and warming feedbacks that may occur before the end of the century.

essentialsaltes · Feb 14, 2020

Halbhh said:
T-shirt temperature.

World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, citing figures from Argentina's national weather service, said the Esperanza base recorded 18.3 degrees C elsius ( 64.9 Fahrenheit) on Thursday—topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-antarctica-temperature-high.html

A weather research station on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula registered a temperature of 69.3 degrees (20.75 Celsius) on Feb. 9, according to Márcio Rocha Francelino, a professor at the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil.

The nearly 70-degree temperature is significantly higher than the 65-degree reading taken Feb. 6 at the Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is reviewing that reading to see whether it qualifies as the continent’s hottest temperature on record.

dqhall · Feb 14, 2020

essentialsaltes said:
A weather research station on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula registered a temperature of 69.3 degrees (20.75 Celsius) on Feb. 9, according to Márcio Rocha Francelino, a professor at the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil.

The nearly 70-degree temperature is significantly higher than the 65-degree reading taken Feb. 6 at the Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is reviewing that reading to see whether it qualifies as the continent’s hottest temperature on record.

As sea ice melts less solar radiation is reflected into space and more is absorbed into the oceans. Sea levels may rise faster than temperatures.

Halbhh · Feb 19, 2020

New Thread with video from Thwaites Glacier:
Thwaites Glacier Antarctica Report

essentialsaltes · Feb 24, 2020

A nine-day heat wave scorched Antarctica's northern tip earlier this month. New NASA images reveal that nearly a quarter of an Antarctic island's snow cover melted in that time -- an increasingly common symptom of the climate crisis.

200224121221-02-antarctica-heat-wave-split-exlarge-169.jpg

FrumiousBandersnatch · Feb 26, 2020

essentialsaltes said:
A nine-day heat wave scorched Antarctica's northern tip earlier this month. New NASA images reveal that nearly a quarter of an Antarctic island's snow cover melted in that time -- an increasingly common symptom of the climate crisis.

Coo, that looks like more than a quarter... that central area must be very deep.

Warmer than Expected Antarctica, & Glacier Support

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