Climate Change Tipping Points:

[beecee]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-measuring-earths-vital-signs-warns-climate-tipping-points-180978320/

Study Measuring Earth’s Vital Signs Warns of Climate Tipping Points:

The authors say tropical coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets may have passed dangerous tipping points:

This map shows how land and ocean temperatures have changed from June 2021 relative to the 1951-1980 base period. High values (darker red colors) indicate temperatures that are higher than those in the base period. The number in the top right is an estimate of the global mean temperature increase. All temperatures are in Celsius. (NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis)

 

 

In 2019, a coalition of 11,000 scientists declared a global climate emergency along with a paper detailing the worrying trends of the past 40 years across what the authors call the planet’s vital signs. These vital signs are meant to capture Earth’s health and include metrics such as concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans, ice sheet mass and deforestation.

Now, the coalition of scientists who signed the climate emergency declaration has swelled to 14,000 signatures and researchers have released a new study on the health of our planet that suggests many of Earth’s crucial systems are nearing or have already blown past dangerous tipping points, reports Katharine Gammon for the Guardian.

more at link............

[TheVat]

I can remember when climatologists in the early eighties were pushing the notion that scientists must share only conservative projections with media and never appear alarmist.  And that ethos held sway for a long time.  Now I have to wonder if a little more alarm would have been such a bad idea.   

[Peterkin]

They were called fantasists, alarmist and hysterical even at their most restrained. World leaders have had the facts, observations, graphs, calculations, models and projections spread out before them, year after year, international conference after fruitless hot air junket, since the early 1970's. At that time, moderate, sensible action would have averted catastrophe.   

[beecee]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

I can remember when climatologists in the early eighties were pushing the notion that scientists must share only conservative projections with media and never appear alarmist.  And that ethos held sway for a long time.  Now I have to wonder if a little more alarm would have been such a bad idea.   

The line I often used with a couple of conservative mates, was "even if there is any doubt [and I believe in the eighties there was some] that if we were going to err, we should err on the side of caution.

Those conservative mates of mine, are now nearly convinced thankfully, but is it too late? Australia's bush fires and black Summer last year, the Northern hemisphere "on fire" this year...will we, can we, ever convince nuts like the Australian right wing Senator in this clip...

should Idiots like this Malcolm Roberts spewing such nonsensical crap be made responsible? Listen to this fool, only 8.5 minutes long...this is the type of ridiculious conspiracy nonsense that the general public hear and sows the seeds of doubt. Science needs to get the message out there in a more positive and convincing  form...perhaps sadly having another black Summer in Australia maybe benificial? 

[joigus]

On 8/9/2021 at 11:34 PM, beecee said:

The line I often used with a couple of conservative mates, was "even if there is any doubt [and I believe in the eighties there was some] that if we were going to err, we should err on the side of caution.

Exactly my feelings.

Unfortunately there's an army of people like this in high places.  

[beecee]

2 hours ago, joigus said:

Exactly my feelings.

Unfortunately there's an army of people like this in high places.  

Our current PM, the king of spin, is one of them.

[TheVat]

Welcome to the Pyrocene....

https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-wildfires-climate-change/31429880.html

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/24/wildfires-near-russias-nuclear-research-center-spark-state-of-emergency-a74878

 

I hadn't realized that the area burned in Russia is roughly the size of Florida.  That makes the western U.S. wildfires, which have been making us cough and sneeze and have itchy eyes here in the Black Hills, look rather puny by comparison. 

There have been several days when I cancelled my walk, or hike, and settled for bounding up and down the stairs in the house, an alternative form of exercise which is pretty tedious without some good music.  (I was contemplating making a western wildfires playlist....

Marshall Tucker - Fire on the Mountain
Sanford & Townsend - Smoke from a Distant Fire
The Doors - Light my Fire
James Taylor - Fire and Rain
Jimi Hendrix - Fire
Bruce Springsteen - I'm on Fire
The Clash - London's Burning
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire
Talking Heads - Burning Down the House

....but the results were looking to be too whimsical for a situation of such gravity)

 

 

[Peterkin]

Look. It has already happened. Like the man in the video (thx, btw; you're just like us!) said, the 1.5 degree mark was passed in 2016. The evidence was compelling enough by the early 80's (when Reagan had the solar panels removed from the White House) Everything since is corroboration. There is nothing more to prove: it's a matter of watching it play out.

What's not possible:

Halt or reversal of the manifestations.

Retention of low-lying coastlands.

Saving any part of any glacier - and that means a lot of dry riverbeds.

Saving many thousands of animals, bird, insect and plant species.

What's still possible:

Rescue, relocation and protection of vulnerable human populations.

Developing alternate - more efficient - food sources, heating, cooling, lighting, production, transportation and communication.

Developing and expanding high-density, efficient and self-sufficient housing.

Some mitigation of local damage.

Large-scale geoengineering. Some very big concerns there! 

You know the most bizarre, the most surreal thing about these endless panel discussions? The moderator always smiles and says "Now, now, let's all be polite and hear the crackpot out," as if the crackpot and the expert were both there for their equal entertainment value. In a sane world, the moderator, presumably having had the research team's homework handed to him ten minutes before air-time, wouldn't be fairnadbalanced - he'd be hysterical. It's only the end of the frickin world.... 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Peterkin
had to isert rant

[beecee]

33 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

You know the most bizarre, the most surreal thing about these endless panel discussions? The moderator always smiles and says "Now, now, let's all be polite and hear the crackpot out," as if the crackpot and the expert were both there for their equal entertainment value. In a sane world, the moderator, presumably having had the research team's homework handed to him ten minutes before air-time, wouldn't be fairnadbalanced - he'd be hysterical. It's only the end of the frickin world.... 

Crackpots like other undesirables always will exist....They have what I call the "f&^% you I'm alright Jack" mentality...If it aint dramatically affecting, them, their children, their great grand kids, it's not worth their worrying about.  Out of sight, out of mind is another little ditty that comes to mind when speaking with them. It will take a catastrophic world event before they will listen...same ratbags exist under the guise of anti vaxxers.

[LaurieAG]

Beecee, on Thursday the Al Jazeera weather man said that the 11.5 degrees Celsius recorded in Sydney was the second coolest maximum there in the past quarter century while the ABC article on Wednesday said it was the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

The cold southerly winds led Sydney to a maximum of 10.2 degrees Celsius yesterday, the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984. However, the temperature rose to 11.5C at 9am today, which becomes Sydney's official daily maximum temperature for Tuesday.

I am not saying that man made climate change/global warming is not occurring but am saying that official temperatures that can be 1.2 degrees Celsius above the actual daily maximum temperature are evidence of a systematic bias that could cause problems with rates of change calculations.

Incidentally, I was looking for rainfall results in Greenland due to recent reports of record rainfall there and could not find any actual records apart from one site where the details for the 3 days this month were blanked out. I noticed that they also reported their temperatures and rainfall to 9:00am their time so I assume the bias against lower maximums referred to above would be common around the world in similar circumstances to those in Australia.

The reason I was looking for the actual rainfalls is because the articles describing this event only talked about 7 billion tonnes of rain in 3 days. So I decided to calculate the average rainfall in millimeters per square meter.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data-services/content/faqs-elements.html

For every square meter of horizontal surface area, 1 millimeter of rainfall will produce 1 liter of water.

3 day rainfall  = 7,000,000,000 tonnes with 1,000 kilograms per tonne

As the Greenland ice sheet size is slightly larger than Greenland itself I used that.

Area of rainfall = 1,710,000 square kilometers with 1,000,000 square meters per square kilometer

As 1 kilogram is the weight of 1 liter of water and 1 liter of water is equivalent to 1 mm of rainfall for a square meter the calculation is simple.

(7,000,000,000 x 1000)/(1,710,000 x 1,000,000) = 4.094 kilograms/meter or 4.094 mm of rainfall in 3 days averaged for every meter of the Greenland ice sheet.

I understand the point being made in the articles although Crawford Point had 14mm in 2.5 days (image in link below) so the rainfall must have varied quite a bit over the entire ice sheet if the average total rainfall for the 3 days was around 4.0 mm.

http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2021/08/rain-at-the-summit-of-greenland/

[Peterkin]

I don't understand the significance of that ^^^ math; I'm a word nerd. Here's the Guardian article. Quite succinct, as usual. (I'll link it when my internet service resumes. It's been hit-and-miss for a week.)

Quote

Scientists at the US National Science Foundation’s summit station saw rain falling throughout 14 August but had no gauges to measure the fall because the precipitation was so unexpected. Across Greenland, an estimated 7bn tonnes of water was released from the clouds.

That would explain the three days "blanked out".

Quote

I noticed that they also reported their temperatures and rainfall to 9:00am their time so I assume the bias against lower maximums referred to above would be common around the world in similar circumstances to those in Australia.

I don't follow how recording temperature at 9 am forms a bias. I should think accurate charting would absolutely require that data be collected  at the same time from the same place every day.  

You can't assume anything about commonality between places: the wind and ocean current patterns have been changing dramatically and unpredictably; landmarks, such as swamp, rain forest, reef, glacier and snowfield are diminishing or disappearing; the factors we used to count on to figure into our local weather can't be counted-on anymore. The only reliable gauge of trends is a graph of temperature, water depth,  CO2 level, sandfleas per square foot of beach, or whatever local data are under consideration, collected at a specific spot at specified intervals over a period of time.  

News outlets like to report 'record' anythings - coldest, fastest, deepest - rather than show trends: those charts the scientist kept waving are such a yawn, they're afraid the audience will not understand it and tune out. There, BTW, is one of our biggest causes of inaction: leaders and news editors treat us like backward children who can't handle big, complicated facts and must be fed on slogans.

The NSIDC entry is excellent. Thanks for that!

Edited August 28, 2021 by Peterkin
wrong agency attribution

[swansont]

13 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

I am not saying that man made climate change/global warming is not occurring but am saying that official temperatures that can be 1.2 degrees Celsius above the actual daily maximum temperature are evidence of a systematic bias that could cause problems with rates of change calculations.

Where are you getting this?

Quote

I noticed that they also reported their temperatures and rainfall to 9:00am their time so I assume the bias against lower maximums referred to above would be common around the world in similar circumstances to those in Australia.

And this?

You seem to be adding context to the article that’s not actually there. In this case, a plural from a single reported instance. That’s not a valid extrapolation 

Reporting a high temperature at 9AM on a particular day does not mean that the 9 AM temperature is always recorded as the high. I would think it’s unusual, since highs usually occur in the afternoon. But if a massive cold front moved in, then you could get such an anomaly.

[beecee]

14 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

Beecee, on Thursday the Al Jazeera weather man said that the 11.5 degrees Celsius recorded in Sydney was the second coolest maximum there in the past quarter century while the ABC article on Wednesday said it was the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984.

One of the consequences of climate change is an increase in extreme weather events, and while bushfires per se are an integral part of the Australian landscape, [ numerous plant species depend on fire to regenerate....Indigenous Australians used fire as a means of land management] the severity and frequency of them is a cause for alarm. And that without doubt seems to also now being played out in the Northern hemisphere...couple that with the increased number of cyclones/hurricanes etc, some out of season, and the "one in a 1000 year drought" now devastating part of Northern America,  https://phys.org/news/2021-08-year-drought-west-desalination-solution.html and I put it to you that there is a need for concern. 

 

PS: The hazard reduction burns that are now being carried out in and around the Blue Mountains and Sydney, coupled with temperature inversion layers, are causing the smoke to settle over Sydney and playing havoc with the Mrs asthma, but obviously necessary to help avert another upcoming disasterous Summer.

Edited August 28, 2021 by beecee

[LaurieAG]

6 hours ago, swansont said:

Where are you getting this?

And this?

This was at the beginning of my post.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

The cold southerly winds led Sydney to a maximum of 10.2 degrees Celsius yesterday, the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984. However, the temperature rose to 11.5C at 9am today, which becomes Sydney's official daily maximum temperature for Tuesday.

When you use official temperatures for a day, that omit the first 9 hours of the day, and instead use the 9 hours from the next day you get situations like the one described by the ABC above where official maximums are higher than the actual maximum for the day. This will not impact official maximums if the temperature in the next 9 hours of the next day is below the maximum on the day.

I suppose it is some sort of pre electronic anachronism from when people would have had to get up at midnight to take the readings.

 

6 hours ago, beecee said:

PS: The hazard reduction burns that are now being carried out in and around the Blue Mountains and Sydney, coupled with temperature inversion layers, are causing the smoke to settle over Sydney and playing havoc with the Mrs asthma, but obviously necessary to help avert another upcoming disasterous Summer.

I'm glad they are doing it now, especially after the 2004 official report made after the Canberra bushfires highlighted the lack of effective forest management  practices in this respect. Obviously the policy of just "putting out fires" as they occur, adopted by all the different governments until a couple of years ago, just causes untold damage to people, property and livestock.

[swansont]

9 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

This was at the beginning of my post.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

Yes. I don’t see where it says what you claim it says. “Where are you getting this?” is a request for specific passages from your article.

 

9 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

 

When you use official temperatures for a day, that omit the first 9 hours of the day, and instead use the 9 hours from the next day you get situations like the one described by the ABC above where official maximums are higher than the actual maximum for the day. This will not impact official maximums if the temperature in the next 9 hours of the next day is below the maximum on the day.

There’s nothing in that passage indicating that anything was omitted. It gave the max temperature, and the time it was recorded, for that one day.

 

9 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

I suppose it is some sort of pre electronic anachronism from when people would have had to get up at midnight to take the readings.

Your supposition isn’t based on anything said in the article.

 

 

[Bufofrog]

16 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

When you use official temperatures for a day, that omit the first 9 hours of the day, and instead use the 9 hours from the next day you get situations like the one described by the ABC above where official maximums are higher than the actual maximum for the day. This will not impact official maximums if the temperature in the next 9 hours of the next day is below the maximum on the day.

What are you talking about?  It was 10.2 on Monday and 11.5 on Tuesday.  Where were 9 hours omitted?

[Ken Fabian]

20 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

When you use official temperatures for a day, that omit the first 9 hours of the day, and instead use the 9 hours from the next day you get situations like the one described by the ABC above where official maximums are higher than the actual maximum for the day.

No, the actual maximum and actual minimum temperatures are recorded for each day by thermometers that keep a record of what those were, no matter what time of day they occur and irrespective of when the station keepers report those to the record keeping agency (if not automated). In Australia that agency is the Bureau of Meteorology. If daily maximums are recorded as lower than minimums or vice versa they will have been errors. 

From the description of a max/min thermometer suitable for weather stations - (my italics) -

Quote

Small floats are pushed to each temperature extreme by the two columns and stay there until reset with the attached magnet.

 

Rainfall is recorded for each 24 hr period, with a 9am to 9am 24 hr period used in Australia. That was for convenience, so people don't have to do it at midnight. If we were starting now it likely would be automated and could align with a midnight to midnight 24 hrs.

[LaurieAG]

16 hours ago, swansont said:

Yes. I don’t see where it says what you claim it says. “Where are you getting this?” is a request for specific passages from your article.

The entire article goes down to where it says "Posted 25 Aug 2021, updated 25 Aug 2021". Below this are Related Stories so you may have confused the sub headings in the article as these. Read the article down to the sub heading "Snow on central Tablelands" below to find the quote as it succinctly explains this anomaly.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

Quote

Snow on central tablelands

The cold southerly winds led Sydney to a maximum of 10.2 degrees Celsius yesterday, the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984. However, the temperature rose to 11.5C at 9am today, which becomes Sydney's official daily maximum temperature for Tuesday.

 

 

9 hours ago, Bufofrog said:

What are you talking about?  It was 10.2 on Monday and 11.5 on Tuesday.  Where were 9 hours omitted?

Please read the article and note that it was posted on the Wednesday, refers to the weather on Tuesday (yesterday in the article) and states that the Official maximum temperature for Tuesday was that recorded at 9:00am on Wednesday (today in the article) so Tuesday's official maximum temperature was the highest recorded temperature between 9:00am Tuesday morning and 9:00am Wednesday Morning.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

5 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

No, the actual maximum and actual minimum temperatures are recorded for each day by thermometers that keep a record of what those were, no matter what time of day they occur and irrespective of when the station keepers report those to the record keeping agency (if not automated).

The BOM disagrees.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/airtemp-measure.shtml

Quote

 

Observations

The highest temperature over the 24 hours prior to observation at 9 am is recorded as the maximum temperature for the previous day.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by LaurieAG
Add link to ABC article

[swansont]

5 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

Please read the article and note that it was posted on the Wednesday, refers to the weather on Tuesday (yesterday in the article) and states that the Official maximum temperature for Tuesday was that recorded at 9:00am on Wednesday (today in the article) so Tuesday's official maximum temperature was the highest recorded temperature between 9:00am Tuesday morning and 9:00am Wednesday Morning.

That's not what it says.

It says that Tuesday's high was recorded at 9 AM. Nothing more about the time can validly be inferred from that statement.

The article I see also says "Posted Tue 24 Aug 2021 at 4:46pm" so "today" refers to Tuesday, not Wednesday.

[Ken Fabian]

16 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

The highest temperature over the 24 hours prior to observation at 9 am is recorded as the maximum temperature for the previous day.

I suppose it will happen that - following a cold day - it will be warmer before 9am the next morning than any time over the previous 24hrs but that would be rare and unusual. Maybe you should contact them and ask how (or if) they deal with that should it occur. For climate change purposes - averages and trends - it probably doesn't occur often enough to make much difference but it probably does need to be considered. Maybe it is. That any maximum records would be broken when it occurs will be even less likely - not impossible but possibly so rare that it has never occurred. Do you think temperature records and averages/trends derived from them are invalidated by the choice of a 9am to 9am "day" for record keeping purposes? I don't.

 

[LaurieAG]

18 hours ago, swansont said:

That's not what it says.

It says that Tuesday's high was recorded at 9 AM. Nothing more about the time can validly be inferred from that statement.

The article I see also says "Posted Tue 24 Aug 2021 at 4:46pm" so "today" refers to Tuesday, not Wednesday.

That is the time on the east coast of the US when it is Wed 25 Aug 2021 at 6:46am,  updated Wed 25 Aug 2021 at 10:48am on the Australian East coast.

You are currently UTC - 4 and we are UTC + 10 so your local time is 14 hours (8h to midnight + 6h to 6am) before ours and the date and times shown on the ABC website are translated into the local time wherever you are.

 

7 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

I suppose it will happen that - following a cold day - it will be warmer before 9am the next morning than any time over the previous 24hrs but that would be rare and unusual. Maybe you should contact them and ask how (or if) they deal with that should it occur. For climate change purposes - averages and trends - it probably doesn't occur often enough to make much difference but it probably does need to be considered. Maybe it is. That any maximum records would be broken when it occurs will be even less likely - not impossible but possibly so rare that it has never occurred. Do you think temperature records and averages/trends derived from them are invalidated by the choice of a 9am to 9am "day" for record keeping purposes? I don't.

As I said before it is probably an anachronism from pre electronic recording times that they haven't fixed yet.

When the official record is based on the 24 hours to 9am it would impact on low maximums and high minimums. I

It would alter the weather statistics measured by day or month and dates of extreme daily statistics, if they are recorded as extremes at all, in the following link. I couldn't find any BOM reports on this matter so we don't actually know how many situations like this occur in any month or year.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/definitionstemp.shtml

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/

[SergUpstart]

Every year, the warm summer period increases by an average of 10-15 days, respectively, the winter period decreases. Thus, it is impossible to exclude the fact that winter in Ukraine will not be at all soon.

This was warned by the director of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center Mykola Kulbida. According to him, this may happen in 20-25 years,

[swansont]

On 8/31/2021 at 1:35 AM, LaurieAG said:

When the official record is based on the 24 hours to 9am it would impact on low maximums and high minimums.

You still haven't shown anything to indicate that this is true. You are extrapolating from a single data point.

 

if you go here https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/australia/sydney/historic?month=12&year=2019

you'll see that the record high for Dec 19 2019 was set at 2 PM. It wasn't recorded measured at 9 AM. The low was recorded at a different day and time, as were the humidity extremes.

These temperatures are recorded when they happen. If the high is recorded at 9 AM it's because that's when the highest temperature happened.

 

 

[LaurieAG]

16 hours ago, swansont said:

You still haven't shown anything to indicate that this is true. You are extrapolating from a single data point.

While it looks like you have conceded that the dates and times on the ABC article that I cited are correct for AEST you appear to be suggesting that one example does not make it true.

This anomaly can and will occur to the official daily maximum in Australia whenever you have a series of cool days followed by an increase in temperature to 9am on the next day per the ABC article. As the minimum temperature to 9am is recorded against the day of observation (below) this will not impact official minimum daily temperatures.

 http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/definitionstemp.shtml

Quote

Air Temperature:

Air temperature is measured in a shaded enclosure (most often a Stevenson Screen) at a height of approximately 1.2 m above the ground. Maximum and minimum temperatures for the previous 24 hours are nominally recorded at 9 am local clock time. Minimum temperature is recorded against the day of observation, and the maximum temperature against the previous day.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/bom-says-weather-bomb-unlilkely-to-go-off/100403638

Quote

The cold southerly winds led Sydney to a maximum of 10.2 degrees Celsius yesterday, the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984.
However, the temperature rose to 11.5C at 9am today, which becomes Sydney's official daily maximum temperature for Tuesday.

Yesterday refers to Tuesday August 24 AEST which had a maximum of 10.2 degrees Celsius and was reported by the ABC as the coldest maximum daily temperature since 1984.

Today refers to Wednesday August 25 AEST, as in the date stamp on the ABC web address, when the temperature rose to 11.5C at 9am.

Tuesday refers to Tuesday August 24 where 11.5 degrees Celsius was reported by the ABC as the official daily maximum temperature for Tuesday.
 

[LaurieAG]

Here is another data point from the previous month in Sydney.

Please note that the details below are from the monthly summary where the official maximum for the day and the 9am temperature for the next day are both above the 9am and 3pm temps for the day. This was the only way I could identify this anomaly as the complete records of the temperatures recorded every 30mins for Sydney (or all the other 870 BOM weather stations in Australia) are not publicly available after a couple of days.

Sydney Australia 2021
Day    max day  9am  3pm  Next 9am
July
Fri 09   12.5    09.9  12.0     12.5
August
Tue 24   11.5   09.3   09.7   11.5