Tuesday, June 4, 2013

'Global warming will cause more air turbulence'

More from the global warming junk science circus:

Flights across the North Atlantic could get a lot bumpier in the future if the climate changes as scientists expect. 
Planes are already encountering stronger winds, and could now face more turbulence, according to research led from Reading University, UK. 
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests that by mid-century passengers will be bounced around more frequently and more strongly. 
The zone in the North Atlantic affected by turbulence could also increase.
Reading's Dr Paul Williams said comfort was not the only consideration; there were financial consequences of bumpier airspace as well. 
"It's certainly plausible that if flights get diverted more to fly around turbulence rather than through it then the amount of fuel that needs to be burnt will increase," he told BBC News.
"Fuel costs money, which airlines have to pay, and ultimately it could of course be passengers buying their tickets who see the prices go up."

Dr Williams was presenting his research here in Vienna at the European Union Geosciences (EGU) General Assembly. 
It was undertaken with Dr Manoj Joshi from the University of East Anglia.
The scientists concentrated their investigation on the North Atlantic corridor, which some 600 flights cross each day to go between the Americas and Europe. 
They used a supercomputer to simulate likely changes to air currents above 10km in altitude, such as the fast-moving jet stream. 
There is evidence to suggest this has been blowing more strongly, and under some scenarios could be prone to more of the instabilities associated with turbulence as the Earth's climate warms. 
Williams and Joshi compared what was essentially an unchanged ("pre-industrial") climate with one that contained double the carbon dioxide. This could happen in the 2050s on present trends. 
The modelling suggested the average strength of transatlantic turbulence could increase by between 10% and 40%, and the amount of airspace likely to contain significant turbulence by between 40% and 170%, where the most likely outcome is around 100%. In other words, a doubling of the amount of airspace affected. 
"The probability of moderate or greater turbulence increases by 10.8%," said Dr Williams.
"'Moderate or greater turbulence' has a specific definition in aviation. It is turbulence that is strong enough to bounce the aircraft around with an acceleration of five metres per second squared, which is half of a g-force. For that, the seatbelt sign would certainly be on; it would be difficult to walk; drinks would get knocked over; you'd feel strain against your seatbelt." 
The Nature Climate Change study is said to be the first to examine the future of aviation turbulence. 
Figures are hard to come by but the costs of air turbulence in terms of injuries, plane damage and post-incident inquiries are thought to be in the region of $150m (£100m) a year.

Global warming is an inexhaustible fount of junk science.  To wit: why do the authors merely predict increases in turbulence? They can already test their "prediction". According to AGW loons, we've had manmade global warming for a half-century. Where's the evidence for an increase in turbulence already? Certainly airlines and regulatory agencies keep records of passenger injuries, flight diversions, etc due to turbulence. Why not test this "prediction" against the evidence we already have?

The answer: because these people are incompetent scientists, and the work in which they are engaged is not actual science anyway. It is a criminal enterprise, designed to secure funding and accomplish political and ideological goals.

For climate loons, the less this crap is tested against reality, the better. 

37 comments:

  1. Apparently you didn’t cough up the $32 to read the article. Neither did I, but the caption for one of the teaser diagrams reads “The quantity shown is the median of variant 1 of Ellrod’s turbulence index, computed from 20 years of daily-mean data in December, January and February at 200 hPa. The top two panels are from pre-industrial and doubled-CO2 integrations”.

    You apparently didn’t notice the “computed from 20 years of daily-mean data” and “pre-industrial”. You should read the paper before making claims about what it doesn’t contain.

    -KW

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    1. @KW:

      How, pray tell, was turbulence at 35,000 ft measured in the pre-industrial period?

      And for 15 of the past 20 years there has been no net warming.

      Junk science.

      Delete
    2. Michael,

      Henrik Svensmark, who came up with cosmoclimatology - a new theory for climate change (which had many AGW denialists wetting themselves at the thought that there might be some other cause for global warming other than humans dumping 9 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of CO2 each year from the burning of fossil fuels and land clearing each year) - has noted that there are 4 factors driving climate:

      1. Solar output.

      2. Greenhouse gases.

      3. Volcanic activity.

      4. Cosmic radiation - affecting the formation of clouds - his theory, and still unverified.

      To which can be added Milankovich cycles and the exact arrangement of continents (the joining of North and South America 3 MYA ago changed ocean currents and precipitated the current ice age) in the long term.

      In the past 15 years, solar output has been lower. Humans have been mimicking increased volcanic activity by burning large quantities of dirty coal in China and India - as a result of their rapid industrialisation - increasing atmospheric particulates. Both of these have a global cooling effect.

      In addition, 1998 was a strong El Niño year (which cause stored heat in the oceans to be dumped into the atmosphere) and 2012 was a moderate la Niña year (which causes heat from the atmosphere to be absorbed by the oceans). Ergo, 1998 was warmer and 2012 was cooler.

      AGW doesn't forecast that the global temperature will be increasing all the time - it just forecasts that the global temperature will be higher than it would otherwise be.

      If AGW wasn't true, then the 15 year 'pause' should actually have been statistically significant cooling. If you look at global temperatures over the past 60 years there has been two similar 'pauses' in a background of increasing temperatures.

      Only an idiot insists that AGW claims that greenhouse gases is the only factor driving climate. And AGW is based on the well known and well understood physical properties of greenhouse gases, not fancy statistical analyses of a huge amount of temperature data. Without greenhouse gases, according to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, the average global temperature would be minus 18 degrees Celsius. The Earth should be frozen over.

      Delete
    3. bach:

      Pseudo-science jargon is of no interest to me.

      Climatology is all about modeling. Predicting. Climate models based on AGW presumptions failed to predict the 15 year global temperature stasis despite substantial increases in CO2.

      It's called a theory going down in flames. I have no interest in AGW excuses, spin, "yes buts", etc. You guys are dishonest frauds and incompetent scientists, and the proper response to your ideas is ridicule and contempt.

      Delete
    4. Michael,

      No. 'Jargon' is words which are technical, conveying meaning not easily understandable by the common population. I did not use any technical words idiot, unless your reading comprehension skills are so substandard, to go along with your self diagnosed attention deficit disorder.

      Climatology isn't just about producing models predicting future temperatures. It's also about teasing out the factors involved in driving climate.

      Strictly speaking, it's not 'prediction', it's 'forecasting'. You forecast the weather and forecast the climate. It's impossible to forecast climate over the short term, because there are no predictive models of the Sun and its output. And forecasting India's and China's economies and their use of coal is impossible, even over a year, let alone over 10 to 20 years.

      Trumpeting your ignorance of science isn't something to be proud of.

      Delete
    5. backfire, CO2 is the result of global warming not the cause and 98% of global warming is natural, 2% is man made. Read all about it here. This is from an engineer who knows how to read charts not from some crazy climatologist craving for money!

      1. Climate science is very complicated and very far from being settled.

      2. Earth’s climate is overwhelmingly dominated by negative-feedbacks that are currently poorly represented in our Modeling efforts and not sufficiently part of ongoing investigations.

      3. Climate warming drives atmospheric CO2 upward as it stimulates all natural sources of CO2 emission. Climate cooling drives atmospheric CO2 downward.

      4. Massive yet delayed thermal modulations to the dissolved CO2 content of the oceans is what ultimately drives and dominates the modulations to atmospheric CO2.

      5. The current spike in atmospheric CO2 is largely natural (~98%). i.e. Of the 100ppm increase we have seen recently (going from 280 to 380ppm), the move from 280 to 378ppm is natural while the last bit from 378 to 380ppm is rightfully anthropogenic.

      6. The current spike in atmospheric CO2 would most likely be larger than now observed if human beings had never evolved. The additional CO2 contribution from insects and microbes (and mammalia for that matter) would most likely have produced a greater current spike in atmospheric CO2.

      7. Atmospheric CO2 has a tertiary to non-existent impact on the instigation and amplification of climate change. CO2 is not pivotal. Modulations to atmospheric CO2 are the effect of climate change and not the cause.

      Delete
    6. Pépé,

      I scanned the article. It's very ignorant. It makes Monte Hieb's error of only considering the processes that put CO2 into the atmosphere, without considering the processes that take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Humans are still responsible for most of the increase in CO2 levels.

      The lag in atmospheric CO2 following global warming in previous cycles is well known. There was an article in 'Science' this year using higher quality ice cores noting that the lag period is actually much shorter than previously measured - almost simultaneous.

      The engineer author also wonders how the Earth managed to go back into glaciations. As a commentator noted; he has heard of Milankovich cycles, hasn't he?

      Delete
    7. backfire, for good topic comprehension scanning an article is not recommended. You should also seek help about your Idée fixe on CO2.

      Delete
  2. As I have explained before, the “no net warming since 1998” mantra is based on cherry picked data. Only one of the data sets that track global temperatures show 1998 to be the warmest year, others show it second or third.

    -KW

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    Replies
    1. @KW:

      There has been no net warming for at least 15 years. Everyone agrees, including the warmists (Hansen, Jones).

      Warming "science" is based on the ability of models to predict climate. No AGW model predicted this stasis, which occurred despite a substantial rise in CO2.

      End of your theory. Move on.

      Delete
    2. Michael,

      There are no models predicting solar output or China's and India's economic growth, so climate models can't 'predict' global temperatures in the short term. They can only forecast global temperatures, assuming that solar output and atmospheric aerosols from burning of coal are at average levels.

      'End of your theory. Move on'. No, it's the end of your idiotic and erroneous interpretation of AGW theory. It's time for you to learn some facts. AGW states that with increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, global temperatures will be higher than they would otherwise be.

      Delete
    3. @bach:

      It's the models we have, not the ones we don't have, that have failed.

      Twenty years ago your models made specific and sensationalist predictions about imminent warming. You. Were. Wrong.

      Persistence merely demonstrates that your motives aren't scientific, but ideological. An honest scientist would admit "our theory failed" and move on.

      But you guys aren't honest.

      Delete
    4. Michael,

      You. Are. Still. Wrong. You don't have a clue as to what honesty is.

      I'll try another approach. CO2 levels go up at night, right? Because photosynthesis stops. The temperature drops, because the Sun is no longer shining. Greenhouse gases aren't the only driver of global temperature.

      But temperatures at night are warmer than they would otherwise be, because of greenhouse gases. The Earth is radiating the heat it absorbed from the Sun during the day - in the infrared band - towards the rest of the Universe, with a temperature of 2.7 Kelvin, but most is absorbed by the greenhouse gases acting as a heat retaining blanket.

      Without greenhouse gases, the global temperature would be minus 18 degrees Celsius. 400 ppmv CO2 causes at least 33 degrees Celsius warming, and increasing CO2 levels must increase warming and temperatures over the temperatures that would otherwise apply.

      It's just basic well known and well understood physics of greenhouse gases.

      Delete
    5. Of which the most important and potent retainer of heat is water vapor. And there is bugger all nothing you can do to control the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

      Delete
    6. David,

      Water vapor precipitates as rain and snow. You can control the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by limiting the amount of global warming by reducing the amount of other greenhouse gases. That's more than 'bugger all'.

      Delete
  3. Bach - We are now going to 'control the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere'. Right. If your model was accurate our little contribution to the increase in the trace gas CO2 (0.038 percent of atmosphere) would have set off an unstoppable positive feedback (more CO2 = more water vapor = more warming = more water vapor = more warming = more water vapor = and on and on and on) resulting in weather like that on Venus. The earth has very resiliant negative feedback mechanisms. Better to worry about resource depletion and improper waste disposal. Those are real problems and something we can actually affect. Unlike trying to control evaporation over a planet with 70 percent water surface.

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    Replies
    1. David,

      Water vapor doesn't stay in the atmosphere long. It precipitates due to 'weather'. Due to greenhouse gases. Temperature in the troposphere, the low atmosphere, falls with increasing altitude. Warm air rises and cold air sinks. So you get up draughts and down draughts. In up draughts laden with water vapor as the air cools, the water vapor precipitates and falls - if it reaches the Earth's surface as rain or snow.

      At the tropopause, temperature stops falling (because the density of greenhouse gases has fallen to such a level that infrared radiation is no longer being blocked) and the next layer - the stratosphere - has increasing temperature with increasing altitude, which makes it more stable (which is the reason why we like to fly close to there for the lack of turbulence)

      Another reason why the water vapor doesn't stay long because the Earth has regular night/day and seasons. With a marked difference in temperatures.

      Water vapor doesn't persist. CO2 does.

      Anyway, the history of the Earth's climate isn't one of stability. It's actually one of wild swings from icebox conditions to hothouses. Largely due to the Milankovich cycles.

      If you think that there are resilient negative feedback mechanisms, then you need to explain why in the current ice age (which started 3 MYA) there have been around 50 glaciations (which covered Manhattan Island for example with an ice sheet several kilometres thick) and a similar number of interglacial periods.

      And what are the negative feedback mechanisms?

      Delete
    2. bach:

      Using your calculations, when will the current 15 year stasis in global temperature end, and will temperature go up or down when it ends?

      Delete
    3. David,

      Who knows? The current solar cycle is still weak. The number of sunspots is still low (sunspots correlate with solar output; the more sunspots, the higher the solar output). We don't have a model for the Sun which predicts future solar output.

      We also can't predict what India's and China's future economic growth will be, and whether atmospheric particulates from the burning of dirty coal will increase, decrease or stay the same.

      If the solar output returns to average and China and India clean up their electricity generation (as America and Europe has done) or goes into recession, then I'd expect global warming to return, as it had after two previous 'pauses' in the past 60 years.

      Also there's a timing issue. The 15 year 'pause' started in 1998, a strong El Niño year which is warmer than average due to the ocean dumping heat into the atmosphere, and finished in 2012, a moderate La Niña which is cooler than average for the opposite reason.

      It's similar to the incidence of malaria, which varies widely from year to year. Private philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, who fund malaria control programmes, want to see that their money is being well spent. They've complained that the statistics start with a low malaria year and end with a higher malaria year, giving the impression that their money is causing increasing malaria!

      I can easily cherry pick a recent period finishing today with a warming trend if I'm allowed to pick my starting point.

      You still haven't come up with resilient negative feedback mechanisms which will stop global warming. There are plenty of positive feedback mechanisms.

      Delete
    4. bach:

      Using your calculations, when will the current 15 year stasis in global temperature end, and will temperature go up or down when it ends?

      Delete
    5. bach:

      Using your calculations, when will the current 15 year stasis in global temperature end, and will temperature go up or down when it ends?

      Delete
    6. Michael,

      Sorry, my previous answer to 'David' should have been addressed to you.

      The answer's there. The final question doesn't apply to you, though.

      No one sensible thinks that greenhouse gases is the only thing driving climate.

      Delete
    7. bach:

      You don't even do the rudimentary thing necessary for real science: you can't even make a prediction. You don't have a clue.

      You and your warmist buddies are frauds.

      Delete
    8. Michael,

      No, you don't have a clue as to what science is. 'Prediction' in science isn't about defining what would confirm a theory. It's about predicting what would disprove it.

      If 1998 had been a La Niña year, 2012 an El Niño year, the Sun had been of average output (instead of being below average over that period) and both India and China been in recession with low electricity generation from coal burning plants, and the 'pause' in global temperatures was still there, then that would disprove AGW.

      Confounding factors are important.

      As an analogy, whenever you operate on a patient you're predicting that the patient will survive and have a good result. If not, then you should have second, third thoughts... If the patient dies, contrary to expectations, that doesn't make you a bad surgeon. There might have been a rare unpredictable anaesthetic complication. The patient might have a rare difficult to diagnose second condition. You want to examine the death of course to ensure that it wasn't preventable.

      If you have a whole series of postoperative deaths in otherwise straight forward cases, then that does mean you're a bad surgeon, and should retire.

      You're demanding the standard of proof applying in the second case (a whole series of uncomplicated cases with bad results - and no reasons) to the 'pause' in AGW, whereas you should be applying the same standard as the first case.

      If not, then to be consistent, the next time one of your patients has a bad result, you should quit.

      Delete
    9. Michael,

      I'd thought of a better example of prediction in science, but I'd been reluctant to use it, since not only are you an AGW denialist, but also an evolution denialist too.

      But here it is. When a palaeontologist predicts that if evolution is true, he'll find a fossil of a certain type of species in a certain type of sedimentary rock of the right age and right location - if he looks long and hard enough. If he doesn't find it, it doesn't disprove evolution. Most dead animals don't fossilise. Even if they do, most will erode away before being found. Not finding the predicted fossil doesn't disprove evolution. Nor does it prove it either, although its consistent with it.

      What would disprove evolution is finding a fossil in completely the wrong sedimentary rock. A fossil rabbit in Precambrian sedimentary rock for example.

      Scientific theories are disproved, not proved. And in advance, you have to define what would disprove the theory, not after the event, by cherry picking data sets. If in 1998, scientists had given a concrete prediction that global temperature would definitely increase by a certain amount - then you might have a case. But they didn't. In forecasts of global temperatures from around that time, a range of possible temperature curves were generated, making assumptions about economic growth.

      Even if the models turn out to be wrong, it doesn't mean that AGW is false. It just means that the models are incomplete, not being able to include a model of solar output or economic growth over time.

      And AGW is based on the well known and well understood physical properties of greenhouse gases - which has been known for over a century - which you've never had the courage to challenge.

      Ignorance isn't something to be proud of.

      Delete
    10. @bach:

      You are engaging in science chatter, science fiction really, not science.

      You need to make a prediction to make your theory testable. I don't give a shit about your grade-school climate babble. The past predictions of your batshit theory-- multiple degrees of temperature rise, inundated cities and nations, 50 million climate refugees, yada yada have all been slapstick.

      When will global temperature stasis end, and will temperatures rise or drop thereafter? Everything else is bullshit and not any kind of science.

      Delete
    11. Michael,

      OK, my prediction, and it's been my prediction all along. Global temperatures will increase when the current 'quiet' Sun ceases and the Chinese and Indians clean up their current dirty coal electricity production.

      Predictions are made in advance, not cherry picking data sets after the fact.

      Delete
    12. Michael,

      Actually, I've realised my prediction is as dishonest as your comments.

      I'll change my prediction. Average global temperatures will increase from NOW, regardless of what happens to solar output or China's and India's economic growth.

      We won't know whether my prediction is true for 10 years though.

      I'm 99+% certain of it. The 1% is to cover unpredictable events, such as the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupting.

      Delete
    13. You've got a 50-50 chance of being right. Cutting edge science, bach.

      If you are right, it will be the first time in human history that a global warming monger got a global temperature prediction right. None of you predicted the current stasis.

      Delete
    14. Michael,

      You're as ignorant of probability maths as you are of science and logic.

      Only an idiot would assume that if there are two possibilities, then the probability of either is exactly 50%. And anyway, you're completely moronic, because there's a third possibility. That is, global temperatures don't change in the next 10 years.

      If you want to be a simpleton, then you should be asserting that I have a 33% chance of being right. I stand by my prediction, with 99% confidence.

      I don't know whether you're stupid or just dishonest in thinking that if you start with a warm strong El Niño year in 1998 and finish with a cool moderate La Niña year in 2012 that it indicates no warming trend.

      That's just cherry picking the data. I think you're both stupid and dishonest.

      Delete
    15. [I don't know whether you're stupid or just dishonest in thinking that if you start with a warm strong El Niño year in 1998 and finish with a cool moderate La Niña year in 2012 that it indicates no warming trend.]

      If you start with a Little Ice Age that ended in the 19th century, you'll get a warming trend. All depends on your epoch of choice. Compared to the Medieval Warm Period, we're in a long period of global cooling.

      What actually counts is the predictive power of models that are based on theories. Your record-- crash and burn. You didn't predict the most important climate feature of this century-- no warming for a decade and a half.

      Maybe you can discuss it with all of those 50 million climate refugees you predicted.

      Delete
    16. Michael,

      The 50 million climate refugees was a prediction by the United Nations University, which doesn't have any official standing.

      It's also impossible to quantify. Their definition of a climate refugee included Inuit villages being relocated a kilometre away from the coast, due to coastal erosion from summer storms with loss of protection due to the loss of sea ice.

      It's also difficult to know whether a person is an economic migrant or a climate refugee. A Bangladeshi farmer moving to the big city for a better life or because his fields no longer support his family as a result of increased salinity from increased tidal surges from raised sea levels, for example.

      Delete
    17. The only refugees AGW has caused is science refugees, who are fools like you who flee from actual science into ideologically motivated junk science.

      It's modernity's gnosticism, a very strange cult.

      Delete
  4. negative feedbacks? things such as the increase in water vapor resulting in an increase in cloud cover resulting in an increase in albedo, resulting in less solar energy input into the weather system. the negative feedbacks are there, which should be logically obvious. otherwise the positive feedbacks would have resulted in thermal runaway.

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    Replies
    1. David,

      The effects of clouds on climate is complex. Low clouds, such as cumulus ones, cause global cooling. High ones, cirrus clouds, cause global warming (one of the suggested geoengineering measures involves injecting bismuth salts into the cirrus clouds to destroy them).

      Water vapor isn't a strong positive feedback. It only ranges from 0 to 100% saturation, is transient and disappears readily as a result of rain or snow precipitation.

      Its concentration drops with increasing altitude, so no matter what its level at sea level, it's zero at the tropopause, the level at which greenhouse gases stop blocking heat loss, and the atmosphere begins to warm with increasing altitude.

      CO2 is long lasting. It can have any concentration from 0 ppmv upwards, the sky's the limit.

      Positive feedbacks don't kick into effect gradually. Otherwise, the transition from glaciations to interglacial periods over the past 3 million years would have been gradual, not abrupt as they were - with kilometre thick ice sheets disappearing over a few centuries.

      You're putting too much faith in negative feedbacks to keep the climate comfortable. The history of the Earth has been for violent and abrupt climate swings.

      Runaway global warming can't occur, because at the Earth's distance from the Sun, the average global temperature - without greenhouse gases - should be minus 18 degrees Celsius. Which it was at periods in the Precambrian (the 'snowball' Earth).

      The worry is that conditions might just be 'uncomfortable' for humans, with perhaps a 6 degree increase. So our experience in growing our crops with the current climate will become useless. And rainfall will be less predictable.

      Delete
  5. six degrees? that is what has got everybody all hot and bothered? better more warm than a new glaciation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Global warming or client change can also be a factor for an economic decline. We should learn how to take care of our environment.

    ReplyDelete