Volcanic Eruptions Cause Global Cooling: Man Made Pollution Has a Very Small Effect

Hmmm?

I believe 1990 is the baseline for CO2, CH4 and NOx

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/ern/01jul/98-235.php

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Agreed. It would be just as valid to say "we know what damage AGW will cause, but we would rather profit now than solve a problem we'll have later." That may not be palatable to some people, but is as valid an approach (scientifically at least) as taking action to mitigate the problem now.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

My point: the sharp cliffs in solar transmission seem to be uncorrelated to the almost sinusoidal data in the temperature plot. Look closely at what happens in 1982 in both plots. Look again at 1991. Compare and contrast, as they say. The correlation itself becomes problematic:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Not at all.

That image has a dot for each monthly temperature.

The eruption of Pinatubo occurred in June of 1991.

That's the highest point in June of 1991 at +.28 (my interpretation of where dot is)
July shows a SHARP drop to +.12
Aug is similarly down to +.14
Sept is down to minus .05
Oct is down to -.15
Nov is down to -.21
Dec is down to -.2

A HUGE swing from June of 91.
This downward trend continues until the temperature bottoms out in Sept of 92 at -.48. and then slowly recovers.

Indeed the magnitude of the swing of .76 C is pretty much equal to ALL the warming attributed to AGW in the 20th century.

Which also corresponds quite well with the length and magnitude of the drop in Solar Radiation

 

That's correct 1990, not 1991. Perhaps I was thinking of my HS graduation.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

But the point remains...why chose the seemingly arbitrary year of 1990 when Kyoto was being drafted many years after that? To a person analyzing Global Warming through the lens of political agendas, he may make the following observation:

1990 represents the year of peak greenhouse gas production for the Communist Bloc. Choosing 1990 as a baseline provides cover for those countries because they would be asked to keep emissions below a level which, by the time Kyoto was drafted, they could not exceed even if they wanted to. Another test of the AGW-as-political-agenda theory is to observe how the AGW proponents might handle emerging Communist economies, such as China, today. I'm sure we've ALL heard the talks of waivers on emissions standards for rapidly growing economies because, well, "the Western economies got to reap the benefits of polluting without consequence and it would therefore be unfair to burden others in their infancy"...let me ask this: if the consequences of AGW are truly as dire as the alarmists claim, is this really a time to be worried about being fair?

Twist and turn all you want with nuance and subtlety; take polls of scientists and misrepresent the results; put up graphs and charts; make movies and give out Oscars and Nobel Peace Prizes. In the end, the only thing that matters as far as I'm concerned is the effect of the proposed solutions to the supposed problem, and to this point that effect always seems to have a curious THEME to it.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I wasn't disputing the conjunction of Pinatubo, the reflectance spike in Hawaii, and the temperature dip in 1991.

I was disputing that a parallel effect is seen in 1982 with El Chichón.

I was also disputing that the Hawaii data shows a correlation anywhere except possibly at Pinatubo. One eruption coinciding with a temperature anomaly hardly establishes correlation supporting a trend.

 

First of all the cooling is physically related to the release of massive quantities of soot into the stratosphere and SO2 both of which have known cooling properties.

As the graph shows, the impact is quite large.

Then there are a number of large eruptions in the historical record that coincide with easily seen temperature drops.

http://www.avonhistory.org/jean/tambora.htm

 

I am not disputing any of this.

As I mentioned a couple of times, the model breaks down at El Chichón in 1982, and the overall correlation breaks down everywhere but possibly Pinatubo.

The disparity is striking when you plot the monthly data immediately surrounding El Chichón:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Well you sure seem like you are.

What MODEL are you talking about?

What monthly data are you plotting?

Besides, El Chichon was FAR smaller of an eruption that Pinatabu and so what if it's impact is not such that it's effect is CLEARLY noticeable in the global temperature record?

A more rational way to look at it is that without El Chichon the warming during the El Nino that followed it would have been much greater.

 

I am addressing the lack of a correlation coefficient between the temperature record and the Mauna Loa data in the era of El Chichón, and generally outside the era of Pinatubo.

The model that establishes a correlation coefficient between reflection and temperature based on at Pinatubo but which is not established elsewhere in these two data sets.

The plot is not mine, I found it at http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/760/elchichonks8.png

Here is the data:


-°C---Jan---Feb---Mar---Apr---May---Jun---Jul---Aug---Sep---Oct---Nov---Dec
1981 +0.47 +0.35 +0.44 +0.23 +0.14 +0.21 +0.29 +0.30 +0.11 +0.06 +0.18 +0.28
1982 +0.00 +0.07 -0.12 -0.04 +0.11 +0.01 +0.11 -0.03 +0.01 +0.02 +0.03 +0.34
1983 +0.42 +0.34 +0.36 +0.27 +0.30 +0.14 +0.11 +0.27 +0.34 +0.09 +0.23 +0.10


from:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

The Mauna Loa data shows substantial reflection with both eruptions. I am addressing the apparent lack of correlation between reflection and observed temperature, in the data for El Chichón, from the plots, particularly noticeable from the monthly view. Another aspect of this is seen in the apparent independence of those two data sets everywhere except in the era of Pinatubo.

I was addressing the data, what it reveals locally at El Chichón, and what it reveals beyond Pinatubo. I am specifically addressing the temperature variations which show no correlation to Mauna Loa reflection data, apparently everywhere except in the era of the Pinatubo eruption.

 

You found the graph but don't know what it means?

As in what the red line represents?

Regardless, your issue might be meaningful if the only impact on global temperature was El Chichon.

It's not.

When you have something the size of Mt Pinutabu and it's effect isn't moderated by a large El Nino, then the cooling effect sticks out.

 

I think you are in argument mode, or borderline, where I am (trying to be) in analysis mode.

Since this thread started as a crank diatribe, I was attempting to invite discussion on the particulars of the raw data itself. When I commented (post 32) about the features of the raw temp. data, that the swings do not seem to contain any remarkable features in response to the volcanoes, you answered by showing (post 33) the MLO solar transmission. I noticed that the data is uncorrelated at El Chichón (temp. vs. transmission). On the surface at least, this would seem to defeat the proposition the there is any correlation between transmission and temp. at Pinatubo.

Again, I am only addressing the data, not the realities of global warming, the differences in the eruptions, or the politics, the denial/anti-denial, or any of that. I am just interested in what the raw data actually says, and various perspectives in interpreting it. If both volcanoes dirtied the sky over MLO so very much, then they both should have manifest similar cooling trends. But they didn't. So I'm speaking to that, nothing more.

So when I say it is not correlated, I am not alleging that a volcano did or did not cool the atmosphere. I am merely addressing the question of whether there is or is not a mathematical basis for showing correlation within these two data sets.

It would appear that solar transmission at MLO does not correlate in both volcanoes. It either correlates at Pinatubo, or there is a fluke, some other reason the temp. nosedived. The reason I say this is that a very large transmission loss at El Chichón did not produce the expected dip. And: there is no correlation anywhere else, only the possible correlation at Pinatubo. And: the excursion at Pinatubo is not not hugely different than the almost periodic excursions taking place anyway.

I think there is an underlying explanation, maybe something simple. For example, El Chichón may have dirtied the sky over MLO moreso than it did globally. Or maybe the El Niño in 1982-3 was so huge it masks the correlation. Regardless, I was merely pointing this out: the two plots do not correlate as expected.

I was looking for the two raw data sets so I could experiment with feature extraction. The temp. data is widely available and I retrieved the monthly averages. When I plotted it I saw the utter lack of any response to El Chichón. So I offered a sample plot for you to see what I was talking about. Next I went looking for the solar collector data, seeking monthly averages, but I got a little confused about which sensor is collecting what, and there are a lot of fields in the NOAA data that remain constant, so that threw me off track trying to understand that. I found one field that varies, the green light collector, so I'm assuming that was what they plotted in your post 33 chart. Actually I was hoping to find data in W/m[sup]2[/sup], just to have some confidence that I am reading the right field within the right file.

Basically what I would like to do next is to calculate the correlation coefficient without preprocessing the data, just to see what it looks like. We already know what it looks like between volcanoes - a bunch of swings up and down, in other words, no correlation.

At some point I would I hope learn more about the the other forcing functions' characteristics, just to see if I can extract them somehow. I have it in my mind that the thermal capacitance of the atmosphere will cause a lag, from the first day the sky gets dirty over MLO, until the temperature begins to fall. Obviously there are multiple contributors, but capacitance of the air was the first that came to mind, and I think I can wrap my mind around that one readily.

So I give you this by way of explanation, since you seem to have misunderstood my posts. Again, my goal is to flip this from the OP diatribe into a rendering of the data, with the best explanation for what the data shows.

As a bonus, just for wading through all of this, I wanted to add another question to the bucket. Consider the classic MLO plot below, for atmospheric CO[sub]2[/sub]. I think a 70s version of this was the original data that started scaring people in the first place, before "global warming" was a household term. Notice the ripple. Presumably this is seasonal variation in CO[sub]2[/sub] outgassing by plants. What interests me about this is whether you will see a ripple south of the equator, but 180° out of phase. If not, would this mean one hemisphere drives the global CO[sub]2[/sub] load more than the other?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

The following presents references with page numbers and comments on information concerning volcanic cooling.
Ref. 1. Lavino, John, and Jones, Marie P. Super Volcano, the Catastrophic Event That Changed the Course of Human History, The Career Press, Inc, 2007.
Page 13. The Toba eruption was the biggest super eruption in the last 2 million years. It wiped out most living things on the planet. It created a population bottleneck that shifted genetic foot prints of the human species, and it led to a global climatic change.
Page 37. Toba’s eruption caused global temperatures to drop by 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit and destroyed 80-90% of human life in the northern hemispheres, and perhaps 75% of cell plant life in the northern hemisphere. Toba changed evolutionary history.
Page 116. Finally, 74,000 years ago the unit referred to as the Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) erupted. This was perhaps the largest eruption in 28 million years.
Page 119. On September 26, 2006, PBS presented a program titled Mystery of the Mega-volcano. Seven Earth scientists with different scientific backgrounds and specialties, told how they each uncovered a clue that pointed to something huge that happened 74,000 years ago. When all clues were considered, they all pointed to an enormous explosive volcanic eruption around 74,000 years ago. One clue came from a Greenland ice core. The next clue came from ocean cores. These cores indicated a sudden drop in ocean temperatures about 75,000 years ago. The analysis was based on two oxygen isotopes contained in the shells of tiny ocean creatures called foraminifera. The estimated temperature was about 10 degrees F. The next clue came from the chemical composition of the volcanic ash. It indicated the ash was 75,000 years old. These samples matched the samples from Lake Toba. The last clue came from the walls of the Caldeva. The walls of Lake Toba are very steep with volcanic ash
covering from the bottom all the way to the top. This indicates a tremendous eruption thousands of times greater than those of human history.
Page 121. The volume of material erupted from Toba is estimated to be 670 cubic miles.
Page 125. The Toba aerosol cloud is estimated to have caused temperatures in the tropics to drop to near or below freezing and cause an extended period of global cooling from 5-9 degrees F or more.
Page 130. This study examined the Y chromosomes of more than 12,000 people across Asia there was no trace of non-African influence. The study fully supports the “Out of Africa model”.
Ref. 2. Zeilinga de Boer and Saunders, Donald Theodore. Volcanoes in Human History,
Princeton University Press, 2007
Page 120. In June 1783 enormous quantities of lava began pouring out of 22 volcanic cones from an older volcano named Laki. The eruptions had far reaching effects. The winds spread the gases on much of the northern hemisphere. The temperatures around Philadelphia decreased during the fall of 1784 to the record of minus 4 degrees Celsius. The Mississippi river froze at New Orleans.
Page 155. The 1815 eruption of Tamboria devastated the island of Sumbawa. It probably caused cold weather crop failures, food riots in Europe, and the year without summer in North America.
Page 157. In 1883 Krakatau an island in the Sunda Strait between the Island of Java and Sumatra erupted. Giant sea tsunami waves crashed onto nearby shores, destroying more than 160 towns and villages killing perhaps as many as 40,000 people. This was one of the most devastating natural catastrophes in history. However the eruption of Tamboria was larger than Krakatau. The data is poor because communications were less developed. The Krakatau eruption caused the global temperatures to drop but not as much as the earlier 1815 Tambora eruption which was estimated to be as much as 10 degrees Celsius. (Page 149) More information is avalible in literature

 

And your point is?

Your position was that Al Gore is proven to be a crank by the existence of volcanic climate forcing. But you brought no evidence. You went on to elaborate on a range of issues with no evidence. So you lost credibility.

I ask you, how do you possibly expect to gain credibility by citing the above publisher as your source:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I'm not sure, but I think he indirectly meant that an volcanic eruption causes more climate havoc than anything man has done or is doing-if he meant that than he is correct. But none can't deny man's negative impact on Earth's climate change.

 

The guy came here advocating a tired argument, loaded down with bluster and claims of professional expertise. After being challenged, he finally comes back and offers as proof a dimestore publisher for cheesy salesmanship and self promotion markets.

Anyone with an ounce of sense would allow even a crank to proceed if he had a shred of anything real. But he's all styrofoam.

I disagree. What he stated was not correct. If volcanism were forcing climate moreso than human activity, we would be headed toward glaciation.

Also, his stated purpose is to discredit the climate experts who are raising the flag. In that regard, he is not only incorrect, he's out of his league on this.

Climate and a lot more. I agree.

 

Well, I agree that those small eruptions are pretty much nothing to climate, man does far more than these small eruptions, but I'm talking about super-eruptions, basalt super-eruptions and similar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_basalt#List_of_flood_basalts

 

Well, I'd like to hear your opinions: man does effect climate more significantly, but how much exactly? Could you please give me some more info, because I stopped following news about climate change, 2 years ago, I don't know what are the freshest news. Do you think man will cause the sixth massive extinction? How about science and high-tech, shouldn't that save us?

 

The issue in the OP, in attacking Al Gore et al, is an attack on the past 50 years of fine grain measurements of CO[sub]2[/sub] at Mauna Loa and the network of stations cooperating with that effort.

The OP wants to refute carbon cap and trade based on the bogus claim that recent warming trends are connected to volcanism.

Your point is well taken, just that as far as the OP is concerned, it's more of a look back over the record, with the recognition that we have created a problem.

 

I'm old enough to remember flying eight hours straight over solid virgin rainforest that has since been decimated. The satellite maps of these areas is disheartening. The trend in human development is to postpone consequences even when they are given to us on a silver platter. So I'm not hopeful at all.

Like you, I barely keep up with it. I don't even think about an apocalypse. All I have seen in the last two years is the rise of denialism, in which climate science is one link in a long chain of errors that the other camp is ranting about.

As far as news, it's the status quo: over the past two years the data continues to show a rise in temperature and a rise in CO[SUB]2[/SUB].