Alternative theory alert.?

Question

Heads up to everyone, there is a group at UW-Madison that has done some modeling and found that they can explain the warming AND cooling that we have seen the last 100 years.

Here is the reference:

Tsonis, A. A., K. Swanson, and S. Kravtsov (2007), A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L13705, doi:10.1029/2007GL030288.


It is quite the paper. It uses four oceanic oscillation systems and investigates the synchronization and coupling between the systems and the ramifications of coupling.

Answer 1

In conclusion:



"The standard explanation for the post 1970s warming is that the radiative effect of greenhouse gases overcame shortwave reflection effects due to aerosols [Mann and Emanuel, 2006].



However, comparison of the event in the 21st century simulation and the 1910s event in the observations with this event, suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970s event to a different state of a warmer climate, which may be superimposed on an anthropogenic warming trend."



This paper confirms that there is a warming trend due to manmade greenhouse gasses. They have done an elaborate statistical analysis of warming and cooling trends over the past 100 years and found that ocean currents are contributing factors and should be included in the calculations. The effect of ocean currents is known already, but it is nice to see it explained in an accepted paper. With any luck it will cause one less rant against arthrogenic production of green house gasses being the cause of GW.



You should also follow up on one of your previous questions (see comments in link). I have asked the original author to clarify that one. Which is what you should be doing instead of posting questions here where you cannot rely on the expertise of the responders.

Answer 2

Dana - Don't bother to spend the $9.



Marc G will ignore hundreds of articles and thousands of scientists to seize upon any shard of whatever that casts doubt on anthropogenic global warming. When one of his arguments gets refuted, he just goes out and finds another one. The concept of "weight of evidence" seems totally foreign to him. Look at the denier garbage he frequently picks as a "best answer".



Tsonis and colleagues have been doing this for years.



A.G. Hunt and A.A. Tsonis, 2000: The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and long-term climate prediction. EOS, 81(48), 581



Tsonis, A. A. (2004), Is Global Warming Injecting Randomness into the Climate System?, Eos Trans. AGU, 85(38), 361



Basically they're statisticians playing with numbers. From an earlier paper:



"The temperature record for the global surface air temperature indicates that six of the warmest years occurred in the period 1980-1988. Here we address the question on the likelihood that such an arrangement is simply a manifestation of the natural variability of the system. Our results indicate that the probability that such an arrangement will arise naturally is between 0.010 and 0.032."



The present paper tweaks the parameters to input into a complicated model which incorporates a pattern of things like El Nino events, of unknown origin. They then use that to reduce (but not eliminate, contrary to what deniers say) the contribution of man to global warming.



Deniers cite their article as totally disproving anthropogenic global warming although Tsonis and coauthors don't make that claim because they can't eliminate the powerful greenhouse gas signal (note the above (small) probability that global warming is natural), just reduce it. They haven't exactly won over a lot of climatologists with their statistical methods.



EDIT _ What makes 3DM think I hadn't seen it? There's a copy on my hard drive. Is it not clear that I know far more about Tsonis' work than he does? And more than most everyone in the denier community who cites this article as "disproving global warming" when it does no such thing? I encourage everyone to read it and decide if it's convincing evidence that global warming is not mostly man made. The scientific community doesn't think so.



John Walkup - It's not laughable, it's serious work. Maybe useful, my personal guess is most likely partly true. I don't think that ocean currents drive warming, although they strongly affect local effects of global warming. It's just not what the denier community claims it is. And it's pretty funny that the denier community strongly supports this letter, since it's a model and, self described as a "novel approach" at that. That community has a marvelous ability to reject evidence they don't like and accept evidence they do, often with wildly inconsistent reasons.



Marc G - Most all scientists, political leaders, and business leaders think we have enough certainty to start acting now. Certainly enough to start building alternative energy electric plants and cars, and to start conserving energy. The problem with waiting is that global warming is like a rock rolling downhill. You have a chance to stop it while it's moving slowly. Wait and it will crush you like a bug.



The cosmic ray theory has been thoroughly refuted. Proponents have actually been caught misstating data, too.



http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11651

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/#comment-20111

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf



willow - see the paragraph above the starts "The present paper tweaks the parameters..." This is a very complicated idea, and that's the best I can do to put it in simple language.



Marc G - "Over the next 5-10 years..." One of your less intelligent arguments. True enough which is exactly why we need to start now to reduce it. Or it will be, over the next 10-20 years.... Some things like alternative energy plants and conservation are no lose propositions, but often have long lead times. We should be seriously working on them today.



It's not true that there's a lot of uncertainty here. The 80-90% figure for anthropogenic fraction is robust. Small shifts in things like "linear contrails" won't affect it.

Answer 3

Well it's an interesting paper, but not really an alternative theory. As griz points out by quoting the conclusion, they simply superimpose their model on the anthropogenic model. In other words, they still can't explain the warming without a large human contribution.

Answer 4

Here's a link to the FREE download:



http://www.uwm.edu/~kravtsov/downloads/GRL-Tsonis.pdf



Interesting article. I don't know if it THE answer, but it certainly merits research and consideration in assessing the big picture of global climate.



Just seeing Bob's comical rant to dismiss the work, sight unseen, is almost reason enough.



When will some folks realize that REAL science actually invites a healthy skepticism. Proclamations of "consensus" and "the debate is over" only adds to the dubious nature.



Nevertheless, the paper actually presents a mechanism for climate change rather than imparting some magical ability for global average temperature increase to drive the climate change du jour.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Will he be submitting this paper to any of the scientific journals to be considered for publication? Or is he sure peer review would get him laughed under tha table?

Answer 7

Al Gore's gonna get ya. Seriously, anyone who has studied Earth history knows that many cycles have occurred in the past. This is just another one that started at least 200 years ago when certain glaciers were mapped in Canada, but were gone by the 1880s. Oh crap, Al's gonna get me too.

Answer 8

Can you tell me what they explain in simple english?