Climate Letter #1238

An explanation of the causes of red tides off the coast of Florida, and why the one this year is such a nightmare.  Many factors are involved, among them climate change, but climate change is not singled out as a main driver, just an exacerbating factor.  “Warmer air and water give algae the environment it needs to thrive, a point scientists have emphasized.”

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Stefan Rahmstorf explains the link between climate change and wildfires.  This is an especially good story for other reasons because it has much to say about Earth’s energy imbalance and some up-to-date numbers that can be quoted for its measurement—now 0.9 watts of retained energy per square meter.  There is even a chart that pictures the broad outlines of the main components, which I will comment on later.  The 0.9 watts represent a flow of energy that is for the most part disappearing into the depths of the ocean, thus occurring in a way we don’t easily notice.  The imbalance will eventually be corrected by throwing off more heat toward space, and when that happens the atmosphere will be affected by the additional warming, mostly first appearing on the surface of the oceans.

–Comment on the chart in the story:  Take note of the amount of sunlight that is reflected away without being absorbed at all due to albedo effects, equal to about 30% of the incoming total.  About two-thirds of it is reflected off clouds and the other third off other surfaces, like land, water, aerosol particles and so on.  All of those things happen to have great flexibility and are constantly experiencing at least a little bit of change.  Bigger changes are possible, and that is a concern, especially in the case of clouds.  Just looking at the raw numbers, if you make a change of only 1% in total albedo, which is 101.9 watts, that change would be equal to the total existing energy imbalance of 0.9 watts.  That actually happens when volcanoes like Pinatubo erupt and quickly change the Earth’s temperature by one-half degree or more, on the cooling side.  Unfortunately, most studies of how temperature increases will affect Earth’s albedo see results that imply additional warming, as anyone can expect when there is any disappearance of ice or snow cover.

Having come this far, let’s stay on the subject and take a look at another chart, one that is posted and kept updated by James Hansen on his website.  This one records the differences in trend between land surface and sea surface temperatures since 1950, along with the global total which puts the two together through weighting.  These charts use a base period taken from averages for 1951-1980, not a preindustrial base.  Since 1975 ends up on the zero line all you need to do to convert this to a preindustrial base, as explained in my letter yesterday, is to add 0.3C to all of the numbers you see.  http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/—-It looks to me like the global temperature is right where it should be (with the extra 0.3) at 1.1C.  The big story is about how land and ocean surfaces have diverged over the past four decades.  Land has already reached the 1.5C mark that is fully consistent with the gains recently made by CO2, as described in my letter from two days ago, while sea surface has lagged behind.  Why the difference?  This is where the energy imbalance described in the story above comes into play.  When land loses the energy it absorbs that energy has nowhere to go but into the atmosphere.  When sea surface gains energy a part of it is lost to eddies and currents that carry it down to the depths below, and is thus unavailable to add warmth to the air above.  This is an oversimplification, but I believe it may sufficiently explains why the divergence, which was not evident in the early years on the chart, has grown so much over the decades of huge acceleration in the warming due to greenhouse gases.
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The implication of all this is that if greenhouse gas levels were to completely stop growing, under a zero emissions regime, but stay right where they are now, then air temperatures over land should also stop growing in nearly lock-step fashion, which would be most welcome, but the sea air would still have to catch up and finally come back to being equal with land as it was before. That would not happen until the warm surface waters that are pulled down into deeper parts of the ocean are fully replaced by equally warm waters that upwell from below, unlike what is happening today. The global average would of course also be moving up during this time, but at a slower pace.
Carl

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