Friday, August 26, 2016

Louisiana: The Latest on Flood Recovery, by the Numbers


1) Number of Houses So Damaged That Residents Are Displaced: 60,646

2) Number of People in Shelters: 2,634

3) Number of People Rescued: 30,000

4) Number of Pets Rescued: More Than 3,300

5) Number of State Highways Closed: 40

6) Number of Federal Emergency Management Agency Registrants: 110,509

7) Number of FEMA Home Inspections Completed: 3,100

8) Number of National Flood Insurance Program Claims Filed: 25,636

(Source)






Thursday, August 25, 2016

On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 4

Fig. 1
The graph at Fig. 1 is composed from World Ocean Database (WOD) data from all around the coast of Antarctica.

Those zones are listed on the Fig. 1 graph, and shown by the red line on Fig. 2.

Like the Greenland graph (Databases Galore - 15) the Antarctica graph at Fig. 1 shows a lot of temperature volatility over the years.

For example, the surface temperature actually becomes colder than the temperature of the deepest water levels (see Fig. 1 @ "0-200m" vs. ">3000m").
Fig. 2

As with Greenland, atmospheric warming, melt-water, and subsurface currents cause temperature dynamics that seem anomalous (cf. video 1 below).

This volatility is noticeable from satellites in orbit if the proper instruments are on board:
"On the basis of the GRACE data, we conclude that most of the change in ocean mass is caused by the melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers. This contribution of ice melt is larger than previous estimates, but agrees with reports of accelerated ice melt in recent years",
(Nature: GRACE evidence). In addition to the melt-water and icebergs, ghost water flows away from the coast of ice sheets when those ice sheets lose mass and, as a consequence of losing mass, lose gravitational power (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

Fig. 3 Stockholm then and Stockholm now
Thus, that generally cold ghost-water will have an impact on water temperatures where ever that ghost water ends up.

If we remember what Professor Mitrovica pointed out: if sea level in parts of Europe is falling or is less than its surrounding areas elsewhere, Greenland is melting - paraphrased (see Fig. 3, and 2nd video below at 20:20).

I have argued that since sea level fall has been happening for a long time in certain areas of Europe:
"The indication is that the Industrial Revolution of 1750 began to have an impact on the oceans earlier than previously thought" (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 54); "This sea level fall and sea level rise dynamic is a reality that has been happening since circa 1775" (Questionable Scientific Papers - 6).
Which means that Greenland has been melting for a long time (Proof of Concept - 5).

New research bolsters this (to me) obvious dynamic:
The evolution of industrial-era warming across the continents and oceans provides a context for future climate change and is important for determining climate sensitivity and the processes that control regional warming. Here we use post-ad 1500 palaeoclimate records to show that sustained industrial-era warming of the tropical oceans first developed during the mid-nineteenth century and was nearly synchronous with Northern Hemisphere continental warming. The early onset of sustained, significant warming in palaeoclimate records and model simulations suggests that greenhouse forcing of industrial-era warming commenced as early as the mid-nineteenth century and included an enhanced equatorial ocean response mechanism. The development of Southern Hemisphere warming is delayed in reconstructions, but this apparent delay is not reproduced in climate simulations. Our findings imply that instrumental records are too short to comprehensively assess anthropogenic climate change and that, in some regions, about 180 years of industrial-era warming has already caused surface temperatures to emerge above pre-industrial values, even when taking natural variability into account.
(NATURE, Early onset of industrial-era warming, August 25, 2016). I have also written about my agreement with the notion in that quote concerning climate sensitivity.

As it turns out, and will continue to turn out, the climate system is more sensitive "than previously thought" (The Damaged Global Climate System, 2, 3, 4, 5).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.





Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Databases Galore - 15

Fig. 1 Greenland Subsurface Temperatures
The waters around Greenland dramatically show the changing temperatures I have been writing about lately (Fig. 1).

The contrast from area to area is shown by the contrast in temperature volatility between Fig. 3 and Fig. 1.

The map at Fig. 2 shows the WOD Zones where the data used to generate the two graphs originated.

In Fig. 1 it appears as though the layers are moving up and down, mixing or crossing paths, as well as being impacted by external influences.

Some of it is caused by the dynamic of both colder and warmer waters that are flowing in from elsewhere.

That "elsewhere" is well known surface and subsurface currents (The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR? - 4).

Fig. 2  WOD Zones - Greenland & Australia
Other phenomena may also play a part in the strange temperature behaviors there.

At any rate, the less volatile water temperatures at various depths around Australia may have misled the scientist who wrote the scientific paper I criticized recently (The Warming Science Commentariat - 8).

On another subject, as you can see, the module that processes a list of zones is a handy tool.

Fig. 3 Australia Subsurface Temperatures
As in the case of Fig. 1 and Fig. 3, I can make a list of any WOD zones and it will generate the CSV files with which to graph the subsurface ocean temperatures that have been measured and recorded over the years.

IMO that is a better way to deal scientifically with subsurface temperatures and other features, since the same module will do that for the many other ocean-content measurements in the World Ocean Database (WOD Depth Dependent Variables).

Surely, those scientists will not repeat the folly and urge is to believe that mathematical formulas are a way of detecting a host of temperatures and chemicals found at various depths?

If a researcher has to go to those depths with submersibles anyway, why not gather all the data while there, rather than speculating with mathematical guesswork?

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Monday, August 22, 2016

The Warming Science Commentariat - 8

Fig. 1
I added a module to the World Ocean Database (WOD) system.

It reads a plain ASCII file which contains a list of WOD zones.

It then reads data from SQL tables where measurements in those zones are stored.

It then makes a CSV file of mean averages for each depth and for each year contained in the SQL table.

Fig. 2

As it turns out, it is helpful in the exercise of debunking some of the Oil-Qaeda funded, or otherwise encouraged, anti-AGW propaganda they have gleefully created (Humble Oil-Qaeda).

Fig. 3
I am in reference to the propaganda spread for decades by the warming science commentariat, concerning among other things, the thermal expansion myth (The Warming Science Commentariat, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

To test the new module, in the file with the zones I listed the WOD zones outlined in red lines and shown on Fig. 2.

I did those two areas to show the contrasts between and among temperatures at ocean depths in different WOD zones.

The graph at Fig. 1 shows the mean average temperatures in those WOD zones spanning all the way from the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska area, way down to the San Diego, California area.

The graph at Fig. 3 shows the mean average temperatures in utterly different WOD zones, spanning from the coast of West Africa across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea, just off the east coast of Florida.

Remember, that a scientific paper suggested that it is a waste of time to actually do the scientific work of carefully measuring the characteristics of water at the many depths scientists now meticulously record that data.

We owe our gratitude to scientists who are working hard at it all around the world.

Here is what was suggested to them:
With recently improved instrumental accuracy, the change in the heat content of the oceans and the corresponding contribution to the change of the sea level can be determined from in situ measurements of temperature variation with depth. Nevertheless, it would be favourable if the same changes could be evaluated from just the sea surface temperatures because the past record could then be reconstructed and future scenarios explored. Using a single column model we show that the average change in the heat content of the oceans and the corresponding contribution to a global change in the sea level can be evaluated from the past sea surface temperatures.
(Ocean Science, 6, 179–184, 2010, emphasis added). Yep, why do all that measuring work when you can simply make up the numbers with "Latin Math."

"Latin Math" like the priests ("Latin Mass") in some religions used to use religiously, so that the trustful laity would not know what was going on.

And don't forget the res ipsa loquitur speaking lawyers who also still practice that nomenclature (Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death).

Yep, they simply make it up and pass it on to the warming science commentariat, who will in turn pass it on to the public they claim to serve with truthful observations.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.