North Atlantic Blow-Hards

When a couple of strong low pressure systems blew through the British Isles recently, apocalysts were quick to point out that, for an enhanced greenhouse effect, climate models predicted "increasing storminess" in the sea that separates us.

Specifically, this allegation refers to a 1995 climate model published by J.M. Murphy and J.F.B. Mitchell, which says "The increased westerlies which coincide with an increase in the strength of the Atlantic storm track (emphasis added) are associated with an increase in the south-to-north temperature gradient [difference] between 30°N and 60°N."

Mark Serreze and three coauthors recently published an analysis of North Atlantic storms in the Journal of Climate.   Our graph, adapted from their report, shows the significantly decreasing number of cyclones over the Atlantic between 30°N and 60°N.

Figure 1. Despite models that indicate an "increase in the strength of the Atlantic storm track" from 30°N to 60°N, the frequency of storms there is declining.

Reference:

Serreze, M.C., et al., (1997) Icelandic Low Cyclone Activity: Climatological Features, Linkages with the NAO, and Relationships with Recent Changes in the Northern Hemisphere Circulation, Journal of Climate, 20, 453–464.

Biggest Greenhouse Whopper Yet!

Now the same J.F.B. Mitchell and T.C. Johns have published a new paper that balances the greenhouse warming with cooling by sulfate aerosols and, as they say, a whole lot more!

The new Journal of Climate paper produces a global warming of 1.6°C by the year 2050. Looks bad. But wait! This is the same model that produced only 2.5°C of warming for doubled carbon dioxide without the cooling from sulfates. When that was described in Nature two years ago, the authors wrote that their model predictions were "lower than most GCMs [climate models]." Even so, it predicted too much warming in the last three decades: "From 1970, the difference between [this model] and observations is significant in each decade" (Mitchell and Johns, 1995).

How on God's getting-greener (Myneni et al., 1997) Earth can dramatic warming be predicted by a model that doesn't warm up very much for doubling carbon dioxide? Simple. Unrealistically jack up the carbon dioxide so the model warms! So we find, in Table 1 of the new paper, that the effective concentration in the year 2050 is a whopping 859 parts per million (ppm).

This is so far outside the Consensus of Scientists it makes us look like U.N. High Commissioners. The most likely value, according to the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is 534 ppm.

This makes the change from the technologically primitive "natural" background (275 ppm) effectively 259 ppm. Mitchell assumes the increase is 584 ppm. That's right. Mitchell more than tripled the natural CO₂ greenhouse effect by 2050. Fact is that we could switch all the electric production in the industrialized democracies to 100 percent coal and it wouldn't get that high!

Climate models like this are surprisingly "linear" in their behavior, meaning that warming is proportional to the change in the greenhouse effect. Thus the real proportion is somewhere around 259 divided by 584, or 44 percent.

How much warming do you get if you make everything realistic instead of destroying reality to create a politically appropriate warming? Our graphic gives the answer: 0.7°C by the year 2050, and 1.6°C by 2100.

Figure 1. DOTTED LINE: Predicted global temperatures with the combined sulfate-greenhouse effect in the new Mitchell and Johns paper which uses a CO₂ concentration of 859 ppm 55 years from now. The concentration shoots up to 1414 ppm by the year 2100. Phew, that's hot! SOLID LINE: Estimated global temperatures from the Mitchell and Johns model if we use the IPCC midrange effective CO₂ values of 534 ppm by the year 2050 and 842 ppm by 2100. Not much warming.

Except for one thing. Mitchell et al. (1995) claimed that their sulfate-greenhouse version correctly tracked the climate "after the 1930s and 40s." Let's be charitable and agree. It warmed 0.4°C in the ground-based record since then.* That leaves a grand total remaining of 1.2 degrees to 2100, and precious little to 2050.

When you tell the truth, the greenhouse party's over. Time to get a day job.

*Anyone want to wager that there is any climate model that said there would be no warming in the last decade in 1) the surface temperature record, 2) balloon-measured temperatures between 5,000 and 30,000 feet, and 3) the lower atmospheric layer as measured by satellite? Those are the facts.

References:

Mitchell, J.F.B. and T.C. Johns, (1997) On Modification of Global Warming by Sulfate Aerosols. Journal of Climate, 10, 245–266.

Mitchell J.F.B., et al., (1995) Climate Response to increasing levels of greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. Nature, 376, 501–504.

Myneni, R.B., et al., (1997) Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991. Nature, 386, 698–702.

State of the Climate Report

Our annual summary of events climatic is out and causing no end of trouble. The new report features an article by the esteemed Sylvan Wittwer, who, in more than 750 scientific publications, proved that carbon dioxide makes plants grow better. Also check out the essay by Roy Spencer, author of the most famous scientific paper on global temperature ever published. Call the number on our masthead for your copy.