Nobel-prizewinning geophysicist: climate change contributed "as much as 10%" of Sandy's energy

[wtmusic]

"Kevin E. Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said that natural variability very likely accounted for the bulk of that temperature extreme. And many of Sandy’s odd features derived from its origin as a “hybrid” storm — a merger of several weather systems, including a hurricane and a midlatitude storm that had earlier dumped snow in Colorado.

'My view is that a lot of this is chance,' Dr. Trenberth said. 'It relates to weather, and the juxtaposition of weather systems. A hybrid storm is certainly one which is always in the cards and it’s one we’ve always worried about.'

But, he added, human-induced global warming has been raising the overall temperature of the surface ocean, by about one degree Fahrenheit since the 1970s. So global warming very likely contributed a notable fraction of the energy on which the storm thrived — perhaps as much as 10 percent, he said."

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/did-global-warming-contribute-to-hurricane-sandys-devastation/?ref=nationalcenterforatmosphericresearch

[NYC_SKP]

1. "10%"? Seems a bit conservative...

...But appropriately so, I suppose, where systems and climate models are concerned.

My impression is that not only were the effects significantly greater due to the present state of the climate, but that the discrete systems that conspired to create this "hybrid" event would have been less likely to even exist were our greenhouse gas levels closer to those 50 or more so years ago.

Or even 30 years.

[RobertEarl]

2. Fascinating picture

See the clouds off Florida? Those are formed by dry cold air over warm water. Those clouds are moving from the west under Florida then turning left and being pulled north into Sandy's circulation.

See the clouds on the west side of Sandy? Those are high altitude clouds flowing north after rising from Sandy. Those are clouds of warm moist air and that is why it is snowing over the mountains here.

[Iggy]

3. Uhhhhhhh... Sorry

10% is not earth shattering enough to get the naysayers/contrarians on board with climate change.

forget it.

[RobertEarl]

4. Eh?

Here is a way to describe the 10% in terms they can not argue:

10% return on an investment beats nearly any other on the market.

[Iggy]

5. A for Effort

However, what you're forgetting with the naysayers is they are looking at the financial transaction
from THEIR end only.. i.e. "oh, it's going to cost me $10 million to put scrubbers on those smokestacks?
that is outrageous!! I am not going to do it!"

again, forget it.

[RobertEarl]

6. So... try this

The message is that we know, we fucking KNOW that the oceans are warming. The science of that is indisputable even by the idiots.

That is the lowest common denominator, so that is what I use to beat down the idiots and get them to at least STFU and get out of the way. Try it, it works.

[AverageJoe90]

7. May be a tad conservative, IMO.

Last edited Wed Oct 31, 2012, 04:44 PM - Edit history (1)

I definitely agree with Dr. Trenberth on one thing above all else: Likely, a lot of this was indeed chance, just like the Tornado Super Outbreak of 2011, the heatwaves of 2011 + '12 and the Arctic ice melting faster than projected.

But we do know that anthropogenic activities ARE affecting the climate. By how much, exactly? That isn't quite settled at the moment. But, again, we do know that we are pumping excess Co2 into the environment(that is, if the pre-industrial estimate of 280 ppm were the 'norm') and it needs to be removed ASAP.

[GliderGuider]

9. If what you say were to be true,

how would we know it's "excess"? What defines that term in your benign, linear view of events? Why on earth would "ASAP" action be justified in such a situation?

What you say is not true though, but instead is the inevitable result of applying linear logic to a non-linear system. This is a fundamental error, one that has been made by most human beings throughout history. It's a very large part of what got us into this situation in the first place. Such thinking is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[AverageJoe90]

14. How is my logic 'linear', exactly?

I'd like to hear your views as to why that might be.

[GliderGuider]

16. As far as I can tell you don't believe at least one of the following propositions:

either a) that major climatic tipping points are possible; or b) that we are either near or at such a tipping point.

Your resistance to the concept of sudden tipping points in climate is notable. When confronted with this you claim otherwise, but then your own comments give you away: "Likely, a lot of this was indeed chance, just like the Tornado Super Outbreak of 2011, the heatwaves of 2011 + '12 and the Arctic ice melting faster than projected." Your use of the word "chance" implies that you think that the normal course of world climate events does not support such disturbances. That's linear thinking.

Your attitude reminds me of geologists before Alfred Wegener's theories about tectonic plates were validated in the 1950's. Die-hard gradualism was the only game in town:

In his work, Wegener presented a large amount of very strong evidence in support of continental drift, but the mechanism remained elusive. While his ideas attracted a few early supporters such as Alexander Du Toit from South Africa and Arthur Holmes in England, the hypothesis was generally met with skepticism from largely conservative scientists, who were resistant to any change in the status quo. The one American edition of Wegener's work, published in 1925, was received so poorly that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists organized a symposium specifically in opposition to the continental drift hypothesis. Its opponents could argue, as did the Leipziger geologist Franz Kossmat, that the oceanic crust was too "firm" for the continents to "simply plough through", a suggestion which ignored the plasticity of all rocks at depth and at high temperatures and pressures. The comment also ignored the vast time-scale over which continental drift has occurred, effectively the total age of the earth of about 4.5 billion years.

[AverageJoe90]

18. Paul, the problem with this is......

We don't truly know if we're near any major climatic tipping points yet, and in fact, whatever little evidence I've seen suggests that we may not be.

And the truth is, whether we like it or not, there is indeed such a thing as pure chance, and it is indeed more than somewhat possible that it played a role in events such as Hurricane Sandy, the heatwaves of 2011 + '12, etc., as well helping to explain why Arctic ice is melting faster than predicted.

Note that I have never said that AGW doesn't play any role at all. I'm sure most on here will agree with me that it certainly is playing a notable role. But you cannot totally remove pure chance from the equation....and in fact, wouldn't this be in agreement with Chaos Theory, btw?

[GliderGuider]

19. We don't?

What little evidence you've seen suggests to you that we may not be.

OTOH, the major amount of evidence I've seen suggests strongly to me that the tipping points have come and gone. Our problem is that our time horizons are so limited it makes sudden change (that happens over the course of 100 years or so) very hard to detect.

[AverageJoe90]

20. Tipping points, yes. But not on the scale some have imagined, though. n/t

[wtmusic]

11. The chance that Arctic ice disappearance is directly related

to anthropogenic global warming is very close to 100%.

Storms present a complex set of parameters which are difficult to quantify. Satellite measurements of sea ice are easy, and there is nothing in the statistical record which even comes close.



http://earthdata.nasa.gov/featured-stories/featured-research/arctic-sea-ice-wane-now-what

[AverageJoe90]

12. Yes, but again, what I was trying to say......

Is that the Arctic ice melt occurring significantly faster than projected(2030) is likely at least in part due to chance.

I never said anthropogenic activities weren't behind the ice melt, btw.

[GliderGuider]

8. People look at that 10% as part of a linear process, and dismiss it.

"Oh, you mean without global warming the winds would have only been 81 mph instead of 90? Big deal."

What virtually no one in the lay population understands is the operation of threshold effects in complex, dynamic, self-organizing systems. In such systems a 10% change can mean the difference between something happening and nothing happening. Like a drought, say, or a wildfire outbreak or a financial collapse.

Such things are very hard to understand, because they don't accord with our ordinary experience. A 10% raise means we'll be able to buy a bit more of the stuff we buy already - it doesn't mean the difference between eating and starving to death. A 10% rise in temperature means we take off our sweaters, not that we'll die of heatstroke. A 10% rise in gasoline prices means we drive a bit less, not that the banking system will collapse.

It's very hard to convince people of the fact that we are already on the threshold of a phase change in our way of living, because they have no way of extrapolating their ordinary, daily experience to include such inflections.

[wtmusic]

10. "a 10% change can mean the difference between something happening and nothing happening."

Last edited Wed Oct 31, 2012, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Absolutely, and a critical distinction to make.

It's possible Sandy wouldn't have happened at all with 10% less energy behind her. This is posted in E&E because (most of) the people here are able to understand these are non-linear relationships.

[AverageJoe90]

13. Did you mean would, or wouldn't happen? n/t

[wtmusic]

15. Wouldn't. Thanks for correction. nt

[AverageJoe90]

17. Sure.

Now that that's cleared up......I can't agree with your thesis because there is no scientific evidence that indicates that a Sandy-like storm couldn't happen without AGW, at the moment. If you may remember the 'Perfect Storm' from 1991, it was already pretty bad as it was, but under the right circumstances it could have instead have made landfall somewhere just as Sandy did on Monday.