Thanks to Nature, a Large Atmospheric Sulfur Dioxide Experiment is Now Underway in the Pacific

Last June, WIRED magazine wrote an in depth article that asked:

Can a Million Tons of Sulfur Dioxide Combat Climate Change?

The question arose from research from research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco, by Lowell Wood, a protégé of the brilliant and controversial hydrogen bomb inventor Edward Teller. The idea was simple:  Inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect a portion of the sun’s rays back into space, thus cooling the planet. It also seemed to be within the realm of possibility to some.

Here is how it works:

Graphic and text below adapted from Wired magazine article

1. Make sulfur dioxide
A million tons of sulfur dioxide would be needed to begin the cooling process. Luckily SO2, a byproduct of coal-burning power plants, is a common industrial chemical.

2. Inject it into the stratosphere
Load the sulfur dioxide into aircraft — converted 747s, military fighters, or even large balloons — and carry it up to the stratosphere. This will cost about $1 billion a year.

3. Wait for the chemical reaction
In a series of reactions, sulfur dioxide combines with other molecules in the atmosphere, ultimately forming sulfuric acid. This H2SO4 binds to water to form aerosol droplets that absorb and reflect back into space 1 to 3 percent of the sun’s rays. (The particles also contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer, but scientists are researching alternate chemicals.)

4. Let the planet cool
Results will be quick, especially over the Arctic.

And just a few days ago, over a million tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) was in fact injected into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, here is a satellite sounder derived image of the cloud that has been released:

Source: AVO

The Terra/MODIS satellite snapped a nice image of the release, notice the obvious brown trail as the plume becomes airborne over the Pacific ocean:

 
Source: NASA

Nutty story of the day #5, One more thing to worry about: The Oxygen Crisis!

Trend of atmospheric oxygen (O2) from Cape Grim, Tasmania. This looks serious, right? Read on.

FOREWORD: I had to chuckle at this. This is the sort of story I would expect in the supermarket tabloids next to a picture of Bat Boy. For the UK Guardian to say there is a “oxygen crisis”, is not only ignorant of the facts, but simple fear mongering riding on the coattails of the “CO2 crisis”. Read the article below, and then read the reasons why myself and others are saying this story is worry over nothing.

UPDATE: Physicist Lubos Motl also takes this article and the author to task, here

UPDATE#2: According to the Guardian website: “It is the policy of the Guardian to correct significant errors as soon as possible” For those readers that think this Guardian article needs correction, here is the contact info:

Readers may contact the office of the readers’ editor by telephoning +44(0)20 7713 4736 between 11am and 5pm UK time Monday to Friday excluding public holidays. Email reader@guardian.co.uk, send mail to The Readers’ Editor, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, or fax +44(0)20 7239 9997. The Guardian’s editorial code incorporates the editors’ code overseen by the Press Complaints Commission.

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The oxygen crisis

Could the decline of oxygen in the atmosphere undermine our health and threaten human survival?
  Peter Tatchell guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 13 2008 20:00 BST

The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects.

Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.

Read the rest of the story here.

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Predictably, once again mankind gets the blame in the article:

Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels.

From a mailing list I subscribe to, there’s been a number of comments made about this story. Here are a few:

The O2 concentration of the atmosphere has been measured off and on for about 100 years now, and the concentration (20.95%) has not varied within the accuracy of the measurements.  Only in recent years have more precise measurement techniques been developed, and the tiny decrease in O2 with increasing CO2 has been actually measured….but I believe the O2 concentration is still 20.95%….maybe it’s down to 20.94% by now…I’m not sure.

There is SO much O2 in the atmosphere, it is believed to not be substantially affected by vegetation, but it is the result of geochemistry in deep-ocean sediments…no one really knows for sure.

Since too much O2 is not good for humans, the human body keeps O2 concentrations down around 5% in our major organs.  Extra O2 can give you a burst of energy, but it will harm you if the exposure is too long.

It has been estimated that global wildfire risk would increase greatly if O2 concentrations were much more than they are now.

Here’s one I remember reading about a long time ago:

Arctic Ice Extent Discrepancy: NSIDC versus Cryosphere Today

Foreword: I had originally planned to post a story on this, but Steven Goddard of the UK Register sends word that he has already done a comparison. It mirrors much of what I would have written. There is a clear discrepancy between the two data sources. What is unclear is the cause. Is it differing measurement and tabulation methods? Or, is it some post measurement adjustment being applied. With a 30 percent difference, it would seem that the public would have difficulty determining which dataset is the truly representative one.  - Anthony

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Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

By Steven Goddard UK Register

Published Friday 15th August 2008 10:02 GMT - source story is here

Just a few weeks ago, predictions of Arctic ice collapse were buzzing all over the internet. Some scientists were predicting that the “North Pole may be ice-free for first time this summer”. Others predicted that the entire “polar ice cap would disappear this summer”.

The Arctic melt season is nearly done for this year. The sun is now very low above the horizon and will set for the winter at the North Pole in five weeks. And none of these dire predictions have come to pass. Yet there is, however, something odd going on with the ice data.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado released an alarming graph on August 11, showing that Arctic ice was rapidly disappearing, back towards last year’s record minimum. Their data shows Arctic sea ice extent only 10 per cent greater than this date in 2007, and the second lowest on record. Here’s a smaller version of the graph:

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)’s troublesome ice graph

The problem is that this graph does not appear to be correct. Other data sources show Arctic ice having made a nice recovery this summer. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)

Ice at the Arctic: 2007 and 2008 snapshots

The video below highlights the differences between those two dates. As you can see, ice has grown in nearly every direction since last summer - with a large increase in the area north of Siberia. Also note that the area around the Northwest Passage (west of Greenland) has seen a significant increase in ice. Some of the islands in the Canadian Archipelago are surrounded by more ice than they were during the summer of 1980.

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Overall long term trend remains positive in lower troposphere.

Most often on this forum we have looked at either surface temperature data from surface observations or lower tropospheric temperature data derived from satellite sounders. Today I’d like to point out a short scale trend in global radiosonde data showing cooling in the last year, as well as examine the record back to 1958.

The HadAT2 dataset from the Hadley Climate Center takes in balloon radiosonde measurements taken twice daily from hundreds of points around the globe and compiles it. Here is how they describe it:

HadAT consists of temperature anomaly timeseries on 9 standard reporting pressure levels (850hPa to 30hPa). The data is also available as equivalent measures to the broad MSU satellite weighting functions. The gridded product is derived from 676 individual radiosonde stations with long-term records. Because of the criteria of data longevity the resulting dataset is limited to land areas and primarily Northern Hemisphere locations. Radiosondes are single launch instruments and there have been many changes in instruments and observing practices with time. HadAT has used a neighbour-based approach to attempt to adjust for these effects and produce a homogeneous product suitable for climate applications.

They also go on to add a cautionary note about data uncertainty:

It is important to note that significant uncertainty exists in radiosonde datasets reflecting the large number of choices available to researchers in their construction and the many heterogeneities in the data.

And they go on to suggest alternate data sets for “robustness”. For now, we’ll just stick to HadAT2, but if readers want to do comparisons against the other datasets I’ll post results here. Just visit the HadAT2 page for links.

Here is the plot of all the pressure altitude levels of temperature data since 1958:

Click for a larger image

The source data set in ASCII text is available here

In the graph above, the warmer (redder) colors represent lower tropospheric data closer to the surface (850mb for example) while the cooler blues (cyans) are the high altitude data (100, 50, and 30mb). You can see in the 850mb data, the familiar signature of the 1998 Super El Nino that raised temperatures globally.

You can also see the slow upward trend in temperature in the lower troposphere data since 1958, about 0.6°C.

To give laymen readers an idea of the vertical scope of the plot above, here is a graphic showing pressure versus atmospheric altitude.

The tale of the hockey stick

Or as an alternate title: “Why we find it difficult to trust certain climate scientists.”

This posting by Bishop Hill, telling the tale of the nefarious temperature reconstruction known as the Michael Mann hockey stick, from start to present, is an excellent summation for the layman reader struggling to understand the entire affair and why it is such an amazing pox on the conduct of science and practice of peer review. This sums it up quite well:

That the statistical foundations on which they had built this paleoclimate castle were a swamp of misrepresentation, deceit and malfeasance was, to Wahl and Amman, an irrelevance.  

I highly recommend reading it, and Bishop Hill deserves thanks for condensing this affair into a readable story.

Spotless days: 400 and counting

The sun on 08/12/2008 just before midnight UTC - spotless

As many of you know, the sun has been very quiet, especially in the last month. In a NASA news release article titled What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing) solar physicist David Hathaway goes on record as saying:

“It does seem like it’s taking a long time,” allows Hathaway, “but I think we’re just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last.”

No argument there. But it does seem to me that the purpose of Hathaway’s July 11th article was to smooth over the missed solar forecasts he’s made. Here is a comparison of early and more recent forecasts from Hathway:

Click for a larger image

He also seems intent on making sure that when compared to a grand minima, such as the Maunder Minimum, this current spotless spell is a mere blip.

The quiet of 2008 is not the second coming of the Maunder Minimum, believes Hathaway. “We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle,” he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) “This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally.”

What’s next? Hathaway anticipates more spotless days¹, maybe even hundreds, followed by a return to Solar Max conditions in the years around 2012.

NASA Sees Arctic Ocean Circulation Do an About-Face

NOTE: You may recall a story I posted some months ago titled: “NASA: It’s the wind” regarding Arctic wind circulation patterns and the way it drove sea ice further south into melt zones. Commenter Paul Marek brought this story to attention recently, and given the sea ice trend this summer, I thought it was worth bringing to light again. Then and now, “The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming. ” Given our less than predicted catastrophic sea ice loss this year, coupled with this study, it looks like Arctic ice could be on the mend. - Anthony

Click for Larger image
This shows contours of the trend in ocean bottom pressure from 2002 to 2006 as measured by GRACE along with hypothetical trends that would apply at the circles if ocean salinity reverted from 1990s values to climatological conditions over the same period.

NASA Sees Arctic Ocean Circulation Do an About-Face
November 13, 2007

PASADENA, Calif. – A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.

The team, led by James Morison of the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center Applied Physics Laboratory, Seattle, used data from an Earth-observing satellite and from deep-sea pressure gauges to monitor Arctic Ocean circulation from 2002 to 2006. They measured changes in the weight of columns of Arctic Ocean water, from the surface to the ocean bottom. That weight is influenced by factors such as the height of the ocean’s surface, and its salinity. A saltier ocean is heavier and circulates differently than one with less salt.

The very precise deep-sea gauges were developed with help from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the satellite is NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace). The team of scientists found a 10-millibar decrease in water pressure at the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole between 2002 and 2006, equal to removing the weight of 10 centimeters (four inches) of water from the ocean. The distribution and size of the decrease suggest that Arctic Ocean circulation changed from the counterclockwise pattern it exhibited in the 1990s to the clockwise pattern that was dominant prior to 1990.

Reporting in Geophysical Research Letters, the authors attribute the reversal to a weakened Arctic Oscillation, a major atmospheric circulation pattern in the northern hemisphere. The weakening reduced the salinity of the upper ocean near the North Pole, decreasing its weight and changing its circulation.

“Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,” said Morison.

Mauna Loa to improve CO2 data reporting

Regular readers may recall our conversations this week on the hiccup in CO2 data from the Mauna Loa Observatory. I’m pleased to announce that I received this encouraging email today from Dr. Pieter Tans, who is responsible for the Mauna Loa CO2 data. The data reporting will improve.

—– Original Message —–

From: “Pieter Tans” Pieter.Tans@xxxxx.xxx

To: “Anthony Watts- TVWeather” awatts@xxxxxx.xxx

Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 12:11 PM

Subject: Re: wrap up - again my thanks

Anthony,

I will start a change log with the next update, and the monthly file for
MLO that can be downloaded will have the number of days that went into
each month.  I will also add a description of how we actually make and
quality-control these measurements because I found a lot of
misperception about that.  These descriptions are in the scientific
literature but that’s too far removed from most people.

Pieter

Let me be the first to publicly congratulate Dr. Tans on this. On behalf of myself and others that frequent here, we sincerely appreciate this improvement in data detail and reporting. - Anthony

RSS July Global Temperature Anomaly - up a bit

RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA) RSS Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data for July 2008 was published today and has moved a bit above the zero anomaly line, with a value of 0.147°C for a positive change (∆T) of  0.112°C globally from June 2008.

RSS
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3   0.079
2008 4   0.080
2008 5 -0.083
2008  6  0.035
2008  7  0.147

I rather expected it to go up a bit, given that La Nina has diminsihed, plus the NH has a greater landmass than the SH, and we are in summer. But compared though to July 2007, at 0.363, it is still lower, down 0.216.

Click for larger image

Post mortem on the Mauna Loa CO2 data eruption

As most readers of this blog already know, there has been a posting and revision of CO2 data on the Mauna Loa observatory website in the past day that has generated quite a lot of controversy.Now after having been in touch with Dr. Pieter Tan at MLO through several emails I hope to shed some light on what happened.

It all started Sunday August 3rd when a revision of data was posted that showed a clear drop between January and July of this year.  I did a story on the January to July trend reversal of CO2 at Mauna Loa, The post on that highlighted what the data published by MLO said at that time. What it said was that there was an unusual, never before seen in the history of the dataset lower CO2 PPM value in July than was measured in January.

Then yesterday, Monday August 4th, there was an abrupt change in the MLO data published on their website that very nearly erased the trend highlighted in the previous story, and there was no mention of the change on the NOAA web page for Mauna Loa Observatory. There still isn’t.

So I did another story using a blink comparator to highlight the change in the data and made note of the mystery hoping to get more info from the curator of the MLO CO2 dataset, Dr. Pieter Tans.

Meanwhile, quite a lot of speculation occurred, much of it critical of the entire process MLO used to publish and revise this data. There were also some commenters on this blog that looked at the change in the data to reverse engineer what happened and figure out plausible reasons for it.

Early today, 08/05 8:55AM PST, I received my first communications from Dr. Tans on the subject:

Anthony,

We appreciate your interest in the CO2 data.  The reason was simply that
we had a problem with the equipment for the first half of July, with the
result that the earlier monthly average consisted of only the last 10
days.  Since CO2 always goes down fast during July the monthly average
came out low.  I have now changed the program to take this effect into
account, and adjusting back to the middle of the month using the
multi-year average seasonal cycle.  This change also affected the entire
record because there are missing days here and there.  The other
adjustments were minor, typically less than 0.1 ppm.

Best regards,
Pieter Tans

That left more questions, most notably as to “what happened to the rest of the monthly data” and I followed up with a request for more information:

> Hello Pieter,
>
> Thank you very much for your prompt response. I appreciate you taking
> time from your busy schedule to answer.
>
> Can you elaborate on the problem with the equipment?
>
> And do you keep a public changelog or publish notices of such changes as
> occurred yesterday?
>
> Thank you for your consideration.
>
> Anthony Watts

To which he responded with a blunt one-liner:

From: “Pieter Tans” <Pieter.Tans@xxxx.xxx>
To: “Anthony Watts - TVWeather” <awatts@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: question on ML CO2 monthly mean data change

The computer disc crashed…

When I read that, I was simply floored. Here we have what is considered the crown jewel of all surface based CO2 measurement stations suddenly missing 20 days of data, and it was all due to a hard disk crash. In this day and age of cheap storage and RAID systems it seemed unfathomable that such a thing could happen, especially to something so important as this data.

So I asked again: