"Even the climate deniers admit CO{2} heats the earth but ignore the amplification of water vapor. Nothing like a warm ocean to make water vapor, another greenhouse gas. Nature doesn't care what humans think as the machinery of God ticks on. Bob Wilson" Talk about jumping to conclusions. Bob Santa Claus doesnt really fly around bringing gifts. Science has not the ability to predict the behavior of water vapor in the atmosphere. So how can you know that it will increase warming? If water vapor results in increased cloud formations,that could be a vastly negative temp forcing. This is the climate science which you believe is settled. Duh. CO2 levels follow temp variation.
Well um, yes you keep calling people deniers, but you are denying half of the climate science. We are talking about the reduced percipiation in california. If the snow melts, or rain instead of snow falls, then net water is the same, or higher (older frozen water is available. How can you claim water eveaporates more in california because of ghg not agriculture, when we have all these papers talking about how much evaporation is coming from california agriculture. What rose colored glasses? from my last post Report: Evaporation from California Irrigation Adds Enough Water to Colorado River to Supply 3 Million People | Circle of Blue WaterNews which included these two http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Irrigation-in-Californias-Central-Valley-Strengthens-the-Southwestern-US-Water-Cycle.pdf Groundwater Depletion in Semiarid Regions of Texas and California Threatens U.S. Food Security | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin from previous posts NOAA: Researchers offer new insights into predicting future droughts in California which points here. Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective - American Meteorological Society I also included the standford study that thought this was 3x more likely because of ghg. Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California Well that is not what I or the studies said. I said it is an exteme drought but well within natural historic drought patterns. This is what the study that had ghg attribution said about rainfall So you need to address that. That paper found attribution in droughts being more likely to occur in warmer weather than in the past, giving some attribution. It did also say it did not like PSDI. We have two mechanisms for future droughts to be worse. More evaporation because of agriculture, second from more evaporation over california because of heat (made worse because of the agriculture. This was written in the paper taling about the previous drought That seems to give you a mechanism. who said that? If this drought was caused entirely by ghg, what caused to worse megadroughts in the past? Evil spirits? I don't see how you are explaining the past. You seem to be just spouting jiberish. I am only saying you need to look at natural variation before jumping to conclusions. Excellent. Then read the studies, instead of the affinity sites. You seem to be reading them, and putting false words in my mouth. If you think ghg will cause more evaporation then perhaps you would stop flood irrigation that increases evaporation. From that UT study. Suggestions from posts here are to move some dairy farming to other states, reduce thirsty export crops of alfalfa, rice, corn, and almonds for crops that need less water. There is not that easy solution to the texas panhandle and kansas.
Curious, link did not work: UQx DENIAL101x 5.2.2.1 Water vapor amplifies warming - YouTube Bob Wilson
Thank you: from my last post Report: Evaporation from California Irrigation Adds Enough Water to Colorado River to Supply 3 Million People | Circle of Blue WaterNews which included these two http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Irrigation-in-Californias-Central-Valley-Strengthens-the-Southwestern-US-Water-Cycle.pdf Groundwater Depletion in Semiarid Regions of Texas and California Threatens U.S. Food Security | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin from previous posts NOAA: Researchers offer new insights into predicting future droughts in California which points here. Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective - American Meteorological Society I also included the standford study that thought this was 3x more likely because of ghg. Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California We can agree that neither of us have metrics made by modern technology from the past to analyze those long since gone 'megadroughts.' This absence of data should not be used as an excuse to ignore or dismiss modern observations and technology by claiming past megadroughts were natural. Modern climate models include orbital and other forcing functions. Without facts and data, 'megadroughts' happened but explain to us how? What where the currents in that area? What were the particulates in that area? Where is the equivalent metrics? It is nonsense to claim 'natural' as an excuse to ignore modern science. That is what 'liar-liar mojo' does. For example, polio used to be 'natural' as once were childhood diseases. We might as well close the pools to prevent polio and stop vaccinations. I'm always going to be OK with bringing facts and data to the discussion. Whether they are first identified in 'Google News', 'Watts nonsense' or 'Deniers are doo-doo heads' is less important than posting to the source so we use our eyes and training to see if there is merit. Bob Wilson
What a lame nice person reply that is. Bob if you cant defend your position just admit you are wrong or at least shut up .
So just because water was heated in kettle, it cannot be re-heated in microwave? The same climatic mechanism could be triggered by different cause, but it would still work in similar way. Don't matter what set off an avalanche. IMHO you and bob arguing weather glass half full or half empty, but it is still the same glass with the same amount of water. Due to human presence, overpopulation, human activity and general legislative unpreparedness this is unarguably worse drought in California state history.
The video explaining water vapor is a greenhouse gas was news to me. Once I learned H{2}O vapor has the ability to absorb and re-radiate IR, it explained why a desert has such extreme temperature ranges between day and night. For example, the atmosphere absorption spectrum: Source: 5 - Spectroscopy The amount of water vapor depends upon temperature. It is CO{2} warming that triggers more H{2}O that amplifies the greenhouse effect. Now the Internet is full of 'false experts' who make claims not evident in their work. When they run out and are shown to be the fool, they fall back to invictive: The 'liar-liar mojo' lives in a hell of ignorance and bile of his own choosing. But like the kid with the 'kick me' sign on his back, he can be useful. Continuing the discussion about water vapor as a greenhouse gas. So this video introduces the role of H{2}O as a greenhouse gas, something I was not aware of before: Bob Wilson
As Earth science goes this video also tells incomplete truth. Water vapor is a double edge sword and under specific conditions it could also be a cause for global cooling. The cycle works this way: More water vapor -> more precipitation -> more snow coverage -> staying on longer -> more light reflected back into space If you look at historical data the climate has been stable for last ~3mil years. The graph looks like a saw a rapid sequence of warmings and icings. Water either in a form of vapor, snow or as thermohaline circulation largely responsible for these changes. Another parts of this amplification circle is permafrost/methane cycle and slower but also important re-forestation at higher latitude (and altitude). EDIT: and another point on water vapor: it is not as simplistic as this 101 presents. Clouds also reflect light back and prevent it from reaching surface. The banning of use of raw oil in shipping industry resulted in drastically reduced SOx emissions. As SOx is a catalyst in cloud forming, this actually increased warming.
The course ran for seven weeks with 3-4 video lectures, quizes, and bonus materials in each week. They claimed 2-3 hours but I found it took more like 4-5 hours. I looked over the syllabus and student progress outline but it was too high level without the details showing the leaf subjects. The course had a video lecture on clouds covering how they can have both a heating and cooling effect as well as covering polar climate effects. Wxman and I briefly discussed the cloud lecture earlier: Denial 101x incorporated an introductory course on climate from pole-to-pole and all points in between. As an introductory course, there were some areas that were touched on for a lay audience without diving into the real math and thermodynamics. However, the course bonus material and references included pointers to more detailed source papers and reports. That water vapor is a greenhouse gas was new to me only because I hadn't considered it. Bob Wilson
There was a formatting error so I couldn't really see all of the text in the original post. It happens. bwilson4web said: Thank you: We can agree that neither of us have metrics made by modern technology from the past to analyze those long since gone 'megadroughts.' This absence of data should not be used as an excuse to ignore or dismiss modern observations and technology by claiming past megadroughts were natural. No excuses here. I thought the recent papers on past megadroughts in California were using the best of todays science. Yes I agree tree ring data is suspect, but it's the best they have. The evidence is very clear that there were megadroughts. I couldn't easily read your original post but barely made out "tree ring data" and had to smile since that was mole-hill inflated to a mountain in the stolen e-mails. It is a characteristic of the paleorecords which while enlightening lacks the precision and details we have with modern instruments and modeling tools today. Bob Wilson
Well if you are trying to study the science of avalanches, and a group of people start shouting its mexicans, that's why we are having these avalanches. And you look and there are more mexicans and avalanches, and people start calling you names because you don't think its all the mexicans fault, you try to tell them to look at what is really causing the avalanches. Ok, bottom line, I remember being at a party in Southern california and yes the people were blaming the recession and the bad schools and crime all on those Mexicans. Then they went on to say all those red states are why we had global warming and all the bad weather. So I hope you can understand why maybe we should look at the science which is what I was trying to post here, and not the text book from denial 101, which IMHO is trying to push half the story, and group factions to not think for themselves. How we analyse problems helps formulate how we come to solutions. I think it would be great if bob latched onto the stanford grouops interpretation that ghg made this more likely, but in no way could be established as a cause. You can then look at how much worse ghg may have made this drought. Let's we can also then look at California agricultural policies, which everyone that has studied them, has said they have made the drought worse, including that stanford group. In terms of bad droughts for the US this is pretty minor. In terms of airplay though it gets a great deal, as the poster boy of global warming of the day. Katrina was the first global warming extreme weather poster boy. Both are pretty sketchy when it comes to science and attribution. We do know that much dryer places use a lot less water on agriculture, and if california is going to become dryer, either naturally or because of ghg, AB32 is not going to change anything. On the other hand, no matter what the cause changing agricultural policies will make future droughts less severe. If you don't understand what is emptying the glass, your solutions are not likely to keep more water in it. I guess we could throw out science and just go to advocacy sites like skeptical science and watts up with that, it is easier than thinking. Of course Well that and the dust bowl, yep. Dust bowl has been shown to be made a worse drought by human activities. Dust storms in the 1930s Dust Bowl This is in direct contrast to the most recent Texas drought (2011-2014), which really does have a ghg attribution in the scientific studies. Here human mitigation efforts from the decade without rain drought (1950-1957) made it less severe to the state. The state was able to manage the drought much better because it had leaned from previous droughts.
I think we need to cut down on analogies, b/c this is not getting us anywhere. Just because there is no direct connection btw California drought and GHG had been established in scientific publications, it doesn't mean it does not exists. If you look at what we know about Medieval Warming, we know that during MWP a) Arctic ice retreated, b) East Coast was very wet (historical floods) c) West was dry. I cannot find reliable sources on NAO/Gulfstream correlation of the same period but it wouldn't be far fetched to assume that the high pressure ridge off west coast, moisture flow over North Am, Arctic Ice, Gulf stream and NAO may show some level of correlation. MWP was not caused by GHG and it is believed to be a result on increased solar activity. At least two off this list Arctic Ice and Gulf stream slowdown are presently blamed on GHG. Of cause fools at King Arthur's court could not believe that gun could have killed anyone; it was too small for that. If you look at posts #11 and #34 you will see that despite all the horrors of "Dust bowl" California was wetter in 30s then it is now. It is actually drier now then it was in 1860s, and the only drier it had been was back in 13th century. California drought | PriusChat California drought | Page 2 | PriusChat EDIT: a couple points which seem to support the hypothesis: - Vikings abandoning Greenland ~1500 due to cooler climate (West becomes wetter) - Moscow heatwaves (blamed on NAO) of 2010 and back in 19th century seem to somewhat correlate with west drought
This is why I prefer data from the modern era: thermometers, chemical assays, satellites, and computer-based models. These are things that are open to inspection and improvements in both precision and calibration. These technologies did not begin until the Age of Enlightenment. In contrast, paleo-records require less reliable and precise proxies. Let's assume some future intelligent species is looking for evidence of the current California drought. Will they find sunken forests showing in 2015 California was in the third year of a drought? Of course not because it takes time to grow a tree. Then there is problem of tree-ring data that shows we are in a cold period: Proxies are useful but suffer from precision and calibration issues compared to modern instruments. What weatherman says,"We cored the tree at noon and the temperature is 88 F and we are 3" behind in rain." Woolly caterpillars anyone? The time scales and accuracy of paleo-records and related folklore can not compete with modern instruments. In fact, we have to use modern instruments to see what the proxies reveal. So I am amused to see AGW deniers depending upon paleo-records yet not surprised because the modern era instruments show AGW is real. We don't know all of the answers which is why deployment of modern instruments like Argo and OCO-2 are important. Modern instruments let us see what is going on today and correct our understanding. In contrast, the paleo-record is closed and at best a fuzzy image of what once happened. Bob Wilson
If you actually talk to Cook of Columbia about the drought atlases (I know of N. America and Asia; there may be others), you will understand that the tree-ring-width proxies generally stop tracking climate around 1960. This called 'the divergence' and is well known in the literature. However, it does not seem (to me) that causality has been worked out. I'd be surprised if +CO2 were not somehow involved, but maybe that's just me. Until/if it is resolved, there will be a temptation to 'splice' more recent instrumental T records on to earlier proxy records. Some people won't like that I suppose.
That remains the problem with proxies when compared with modern instruments. I have no idea what led to 'divergence' and though curious, can't be distracted from what modern instruments and analysis tells us and not because the modern methods are infallible. Rather modern methods can be calibrated and corrected to minimize the error. They also provide insights about how the world works that go far beyond the paleo-record. The modern world looks at what is while the paleo-record looks at shadows. Let's do a 'Gendankenexperiment' using say the American Chestnut tree. If tree ring data were derived from this one species, North America ended in the 1930s with the Chestnut blight. Because we live in the modern era, we know it was an extinction event from a tree disease but shows the problem with proxies. In contrast, modern instruments including satellite data is under constant review and not infrequent updates: Source: http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2015/april2015/AprilGTR2015.pdf “After three years of work, we have (hopefully) finished our Version 6.0 reanalysis of the global MSU/AMSU data,” said Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. “Many procedures have been modified, or completely reworked, and most of the software has been rewritten from scratch. Version 6 of the UAH MSU/AMSU global satellite temperature dataset is by far the most extensive revision of the procedures and computer code we have produced in more than 25 years of global temperature monitoring. I am no friend of Christy for reasons having nothing to do with the data. But I bring this up to compare and contrast with how modern methods are different from proxies. I wish Cook of Columbia luck in his efforts but I can't walk away from the modern world to what sometimes looks like reading entrals. Bob Wilson
Tree records are correlated to moisture, temperatures, but also to sun exposure. Some of the slowest growing trees are located in Amazon rainforest. Poor soils and lack of sunlight are blamed for it.
