The First Climate Model Turns 50, And Predicted Global Warming Almost Perfectly | Forbes Mobile

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/

Geostorm: Another Crazy Climate Movie

Here we go again: another climate-goes-amuck movie that ends up looking like Venus smashes into Earth. This one checks off all the boxes: catastrophic climate change, the hubris of geoengineering, people freezing in place, lasers shooting out of satellites, smart-alecky but brilliant scientist-hero, airplanes freezing solid, crashing to the ground, and skyscrapers toppling like dominoes. Did I miss any other cliches?

Opens this Friday, October 20th.

US Coal Production is Rebounding

Yet Trump still wants to socialize it, bypassing the free market and requiring US ratepayers to pay more for a dirty, polluting, less efficient electricity.

Data via EIA.

My Slate Article on Measuring Hurricanes

I have an article in Slate tonight:

We need a better way to measure hurricanes. Categories just aren’t cutting it: https://t.co/8PsOj0fZMU pic.twitter.com/5I0DY4hKgf

— Slate (@Slate) September 21, 2017

Lessons on Scientific Prefixes

10⁷² = yotta yotta yotta

This Year's Accumulated Cyclone Energy is Far Above "Normal"

Here's an interesting graph of this year's ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy) for the North Atlantic, compared to the 1981-2010 average:

Another hockey stick! 😉

The IPCC on Hurricanes: What It Says

Perhaps just a short note about what the science actually says about hurricanes, as oppose to what many people are assuming it says:

In Oregon

It Seems Like Half of Oregon is On Fire

It seems like half of Oregon is on fire right now. From the Oregonian:

Here it's smoky -- you can see it clearly and smell it too. The most prominent fire, the Eagle Creek Fire, is in the (incredibly beautiful) Columbia River Gorge, east of Portland. The only highway through there, I-84, is closed and they've ordered some evacuations near the Bridge of the Gods. About 10,000 acres are on fire, and it's jumped the river into Washington. The fire is 0% contained, as they say. There are lots of trails and waterfalls on both sides, especially the Oregon side -- someone called it "Portland's playground." And it's now all being burned. And it was probably started by a teenager playing with fireworks.

Plus there's ash falling in Portland. Here's a picture of my sister's car early this morning:

Not any in Salem at the moment. There are health advisories all over the place, and Portland schools are letting out early. It's not helping that we're having another heat wave -- highs of 98°F in Salem both last Saturday and Sunday. Normal high for those days is 80°F.

August in Salem was 5.4°F (3.0°C) above the 1981-2010 average.

Richard Muller on Moving From AGW Skeptic to Believer

From an Q&A with Richard Muller in Physics Today (2/10/17; paywalled):

PT: When talking about global warming, you’ve described yourself as a “converted skeptic.” What persuaded you to move from skeptic to believer? Does your experience suggest strategies for talking to current climate skeptics?

MULLER: I was a skeptic because there were five major issues that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was not adequately addressing. My daughter Elizabeth and I formed the nonprofit Berkeley Earth to examine those, and remarkably, we were able to address all five issues. We enlisted some great team members who were experts at objective analysis of big data, including [Nobel-winning astrophysicist] Saul Perlmutter and [the late Berkeley physicist] Art Rosenfeld.

All of the issues legitimately raised by skeptics were potential biases: data selection, temperature-station siting, data adjustment, and heat island. The fifth was potential bias from the large number of adjusted parameters that were used in the global climate models, and from the instability of those enormous simulations. We came up with a solid analysis of each of the biases and were able to conclude, using our independent work, that global warming was real and caused by humans. We can go farther than the IPCC by attributing 90% of the warming of the past 260 years to humans. We’ve kept our work open and transparent.

I get along very well with skeptics, largely because I respect them. Most of their complaints against climate change are legitimate. Most headlines and most comments made by politicians―and by many scientists!―on this subject are either exaggerated, misleading, or false; that’s why there are so many skeptics. I’ve talked privately to very prominent scientists who admitted to me that they exaggerate on purpose to garner public concern and action. But I think such exaggerations are counterproductive; they lead to a mistrust in science.

All well and good. Separately, I still remember when Muller wrongfully scorned the Michael Mann and the hockey stick, and as far as I know he never corrected himself on that, or apologized. He should.

There's more about this in Wikipedia.

Trump Picked a Climate Change Denier to Head NASA

On Friday Trump indicated he will nominate Representative James Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma, to be the next administrator of NASA.

But Bridenstine is a climate change denier, pure and simple:

 

There's some opposition, but only because he's a "politician" and not a space person, not because his views on climate science are completely whacked.

Added 7:24 pm - Amazingly, the New York Times did not mention Bridenstein's climate denial.

How Fast Is the Probability of Extreme Temperatures Increasing?

So awhile back I hypothesized that the probability of extreme temperatures increases exponentially when global temperatures increase linearly.

Recently the NY Times posted some data that I think lends some qualitative support to this contention. It's in a graphical form, not numerical, so I can't really analyze it statistically -- only by eyeball. They're the changing probability distributions of summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere:

I don't know -- is the forward tail increasing outward (leftward) faster than the leftward movement of the the distribution peaks? It kind of looks like it, to me....

How Climate Change is Making the Houston Situation Worse

One way climate change is certainly making the Houston flooding is because because sea level is rising. That increases the height of storm surges and brings more water inland.

NY Times:

"Exacerbating the situation, said Hal Needham, a storm surge expert and founder of the private firm Marine Weather & Climate in Galveston, Tex., was that the storm surge elevated Galveston Bay, blocking drainage of the rain that pummeled coastal and inland areas."

Galveston, which is a barrier island, has seen 0.75 meters of sea level rise since 1900. Much of that is due to the island’s subsidence, but sea level rise is making this worse than where the land isn’t sinking. And, with small-slope beaches and relatively flat land, the inland extension of the water is increasing too.

inland extension ~ sea level rise/sin(coastal slope)

And the storm surge of a hurricane is much more dangerous than the winds.

According to a 2013 article in the Houston Chronicle

A 2007 study underwritten by the city of Galveston that anticipated rising sea levels would cover the coastal highway on the west of the island within 60 years appears to have been overly optimistic.

The $50,000 geological hazard report was prepared for the city by geologists from the University of Texas, Rice University and Texas A&M University but then shelved. The report based its calculation on historic sea level rise and failed to include climate change. Sea levels are rising much faster than previous estimates that accounted for climate change, according to reports released in December by U.S. government scientists and in November by the World Bank.

So right there is an example of how political influence in a climate report (which is why I assume the Texas university's report left out climate change) is dangerous.

A 2016 article from the Houston Chronicle about the land subsistence shows that it is large all over the region.

Parts of Harris County have dropped between 10 and 12 feet since the 1920s, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

State and local officials have made various efforts over the past 40 years to stabilize the ground, but some areas continue to sink - by as much as 2 inches per year.

And why is this happening? Humans. People are drawing too much groundwater out of the aquifers, and the land above is sinking.

There is little mystery to why this is happening: The developing region draws an excessive amount of groundwater to keep itself quenched. Over the last century, aquifers here have lost between 300 and 400 feet, leaving the land to collapse.

The science behind this phenomenon is called subsidence.

Houston sits in one of the nation's largest subsidence bowls, so-called because of the crater effect that happens when the ground caves.

The Sun's Changing Obscuration During the Eclipse

Sorry, but there's one more eclipse-related topic I need to get out of my system.

As we were watching last Monday's eclipse, from the moment the Moon's disk was first noticeable over the Sun, we were trying to figure out how fast the Sun's light was diminishing. First it starts at 0 (0%), of course, and at totality it's 1 (100%).

But how fast does it proceed between the beginning and totality? It's a calculation of how much one disk (the Moon) obscures the other (the Sun).

I had actually tried to calculate this before the eclipse, and while it's just geometry it's a bit tricky, especially for someone who rarely calculates anything anymore. My brother-in-law is a laser physicist, and he said he once had to calculate this once regarding two laser spots (or some such), and only found it after a few hours of work.

Eventually I started hunting around the Web, and found this nice derivation from ​Adrian Jannetta, a math instructor in England. He also built this interactive calculator (at the page's top) to calculate the Sun's obscuration for different radii of the Sun and Moon.

Eclipse astronomers classify how far along the eclipse is by the magnitude M, which is how much of the Sun's diameter is covered up, at any given time, by the Moon. Also, the algebra simplifies considerably if you take the Sun and Moon to have the same radii -- remember, this is the radii as seen in the sky, not in actuality, and the very reason a solar eclipse happens is because the angular diameter of the two is very nearly equal.

(Actually for Monday's eclipse I read the Moon, at totality, obscured 103% of the Sun's area, so its angular radii was just a bit bigger than the Sun's, but I'm going to ignore that here.)

So setting the Sun and Moon radii equal in Janetta's equations gives

where

where again, M is the magnitude, and α is just an intermediate parameter to make the math look simple.

M is going to be proportional to time, assuming the Moon glides uniformly across the Sun's disk. (Probably not exactly true, but close enough for this example. At our location it took 1 hr 11 m 55 s from beginning to totality.)

Then I get the following for the obscuration as a function of magnitude:

The eclipse banana

This is a lot more boring than I was hoping for. The obscuration starts out relatively slowly. At M=0.5 it's only 39%, and then it proceeds almost linearly to totality. The it reverses as the Moon starts past the Sun.

I guess I thought there might have been a quickening, nonlinear obscuration closer to totality -- when the "banana" shows up, then continually shrinks. But we were all too excited to really judge it objectively.

Anyway, I spent some spare hours working on this because I couldn't get it out of my head. Now's it's gone.

Final Thoughts on Today's Eclipse

I've seen three things in my life that didn't look real -- the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Oregon, and today's total solar eclipse from Salem, Oregon.

Of the three, the eclipse is the least describable. Words don't exist. It was as if the entire world suddenly turned into a giant dream, where all rules were suddenly turned off and you instantly realized you were someplace you'd never been before. I can't exactly remember what I expected to see -- except, in my mental image, I stupidly pictured myself in this park looking to the west. (I know the sun rises in the east, but my pre-image had it backwards, because the eclipse started at the coast and went west-to-east, and perhaps also because the sky from the park I knew we would be in is much larger to the west.)

Still this was nothing like I could have expected. By that I mean, I don't think I'm capable -- or anyone is capable -- of imagining this in any way like it actually happened. It's a relatively simple astronomical event to grasp, but the actuality of it is not.

About 20 minutes before totality we started to notice the day was getting darker. Subtly at first. Not so much the sky as the grass and trees around the park -- they were tinged in a more muted shade of green. The last few minutes before totality were very exciting -- in fact the entire hour and 6 minutes was exciting -- but then suddenly darkness seemed to come out of nowhere.

It didn't get completely dark, but more like a night with a full moon. The rest of the sky turned to dusk on the horizon (see below for a few pictures). For the two minutes of totality here, I wasn't aware of anything else going on in the world, of anything else even existing in the world -- it was a deep immersive experience that took me over at my core. And then, at the end of the quick two minutes, the diamond ring appeared -- and the entire park of maybe 300 people erupted in even louder cheers and whooping. The ring only lasted 2-3 seconds, but it was the most amazing sight of all.

I now understand why you have to be in the path of totality to experience this fully. Even the last 30 seconds of pre-totalilty, when obscuration was 98-99%, was nothing like totality -- the sun is just too bright even at one or two percent. At totality everything suddenly changes. The world collapses. I can understand why the ancients might have thought the world was ending. The sun's corona was very clear, and seemed to extend several solar diameters -- three or four? -- but still it was too much for my unfiltered iPad camera (see below).

Ten minutes after totality we were already Googling to see where the 2024 U.S. eclipse will happen -- it's a swath from Texas up through the Ohio valley to Cleveland and Buffalo. Today's event was so absolutely amazing that I am
definitely going try and travel to the path of totality to see that eclipse.

Today here couldn't have been more perfect. It was a completely clear, blue sky -- not a cloud to be seen. It was at a nice time of the day, a refreshing morning still hanging in the air. It was in August, when the Williamette Valley usually sees very clear skies. And it was Monday, easy to take off, and you still have the week ahead of you. I got lucky.

Below are some pictures I took today. The pictures during totality aren't good -- I was using my unfiltered iPad. Also, as I only realized later, I had it set to Video and not Photo, so every click was a 1/2-second video. (Here I've included screen shots of those clips.) I now wish I had not attempted to take any pictures at all -- especially without a filter -- and instead just looked at the eclipse and felt it even more; as it was I forgot to look for stars coming out, or planets (my sister said she clearly saw Venus), or pay attention to the temperature and the winds. I was barely aware of myself. My sister wept during totality; I got goosebumps. It seemed like a dream, and it still feels like it was a dream. I can't convey what I felt. I can't even convey it to someone who also saw totality, it was that unique.

The best my unfiltered camera could do at totality.

Looking west during totality

Totality, looking east

#eclipse2017

This was the best I could do with my unfiltered iPad. Totality was almost dreamlike.... The whole park cheered at the diamond ring.

A Solar Eclipse As Seen From the Moon

A painting of a solar eclipse as seen from the moon, from space illustrator Pat Rawlings, was published at TheAtlantic.com. Rawlings painted this almost 30 years ago; from his tweet:  “I actually thought 28 years in the future tourists might watch the eclipse from the Moon. Sigh.”

A Nonvertical Ice Spike

From the mysterious confines of my refrigerator's freezer:

Getting Ready for the Eclipse

The eclipse is only two and a half days away, and the weather forecast for Salem, Oregon is looking good for Monday.

My biggest stressor is that my sister and her family are coming down Sunday morning -- they're saying traffic is going to be a serious mess -- and they'll tent in my back yard. (I only have one bed. But at least I arranged to turn off the 5:15 am water sprinklers.) It's stressful because, let's just say, her and I have different standards of housekeeping. So I'm trying to clean up things I should have cleaned up months ago. This is actually what worries me the most about this grand celestial spectacle.

We're going to watch the eclipse from a park just across the street. Here, the Moon starts to obscure the Sun at 9:05:25 am PDT, and totality begins at 10:17:21 am PDT. Totality here lasts for 1 minute, 54 seconds.

I haven't detected any increased traffic here yet, despite some claims I've read around the Internet that grocery store checkout lines are out the door. They are not. But people are already arriving out in the sticks of central Oregon. Those poor small towns just aren't prepared for an influx of visitors -- an Oregon tourist administrator told me that they're expecting one million people to travel into the path of totality, a 25% increase in the population of the state. Salem is allowing people to sleep in its parks, no permit required. My sister is hoping to beat traffic by coming down Sunday morning, when hopefully the traffic won't be too bad, and they'll try to get home Monday evening. I hope we don't have an argument about housekeeping.

I wrote a couple of blog posts for Physics World magazine: "America counts down to the big eclipse," and "The American eclipse: wonder, science and festivities." There are a lot of eclipse-related activities going on here and in Corvallis (and elsewhere across the U.S.), but I'm wary of traffic. Truth is, I'll be happy if there are no serious discussions about the housekeeping. (Hey, she has a maid who comes in weekly to clean!)

I'm not planning on taking any pictures. I may shoot a couple with my iPhone at totality, without any filter, but there will be pictures galore. I'm more interesting in how the eclipse will feel, how the temperature will drop, winds pick up, and the general strangeness and grandeur of it all.

I've been looking forward to this since I first learned of it six years ago. I have this picture in my head, surely not realistic, that it's going to be a massive bacchanalia, something like the 5-year end-of-the-world party in Ian Banks' The Hydrogen Sonata.

If only.

Now, back to the cleaning. Yikes.

Some Things I Noticed Today

GISS's global temperature anomaly for July was the warmest July in their record, albeit only by 0.01°C, so technically it's a statistical tie. (But global warming is only preceding at about 0.02°C/yr, by itself a statistically insignificant. Short-term comparisons are really just numerology.) Also, they've changed their ocean surface data from ERSST v4 to the newer ERSST v5.

Still, it's rather surprising July was so warm. The El Nino has been over for a year now, and the most recent season, 2016-2017 that just ended with May/June/July, was a weak La Nina, according to the ONI.

JFK, upon Accepting the Liberal Party Nomination for President, New York, New York, September 14, 1960: "What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, "Liberal"? If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But, if by a "Liberal," they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties - someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say that I'm a "Liberal.""

Rich Lowry, Politico: "Trump’s sensibility is highly unusual for a politician—let alone for the leader of the free world—but very familiar from the internet or social media. As his news conference showed, his level of argument is at the level of a good Breitbart blogger, or of a Twitter egg of yore. He would absolutely kill it in the comments section of a right-wing website or trolling a journalist."