Two media releases from CSIRO show up the WUWT illiterati

Today on WUWT Anthony Watts pasted two press releases from Australia's CSIRO.

1. Aerosol influence on ocean circulation

The first one is about this paper (open access) published in Nature's Scientific Reports.  It's titled: Forcing of anthropogenic aerosols on temperature trends of the sub-thermocline southern Indian Ocean.

The authors, Tim Cowan et al find support for the hypothesis that aerosols influence ocean circulation trends.  Here is the abstract:

In the late twentieth century, the sub-thermocline waters of the southern tropical and subtropical Indian Ocean experienced a sharp cooling. This cooling has been previously attributed to an anthropogenic aerosol-induced strengthening of the global ocean conveyor, which transfers heat from the subtropical gyre latitudes toward the North Atlantic.

From the mid-1990s the sub-thermocline southern Indian Ocean experienced a rapid temperature trend reversal. Here we show, using climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, that the late twentieth century sub-thermocline cooling of the southern Indian Ocean was primarily driven by increasing anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases. The models simulate a slow-down in the sub-thermocline cooling followed by a rapid warming towards the mid twenty-first century. The simulated evolution of the Indian Ocean temperature trend is linked with the peak in aerosols and their subsequent decline in the twenty-first century, reinforcing the hypothesis that aerosols influence ocean circulation trends.

Anthony Watts comments: From CSIRO, but sadly just with modeling, not empirical analysis:

While it's true that the scientist explored the situation using computer simulations, what they are testing for is an explanation for real world observations.  It makes one wonder if Anthony knows what the word "empirical" means.  And he's not the only one.  From the comments:

Anymoose hasn't read the paper and doesn't know that it's all about explaining "actual measured data" and says:

July 23, 2013 at 6:40 pm  Simulation? Model? How about some actual measured data, just like a scientist might provide?

 The other comments are mainly deniers saying "we know more than those dumb scientists" or "we don't believe you".

2. Carbon exchanges in tropical ecosystems are extremely sensitive to temperature

The second one is an interesting analysis of what happens to photosynthesis and respiration in the tropics, particularly during El Niño years, and how it affects the carbon cycle.  In this research, the scientists looked at data on CO2 concentration and global air temperatures for to a fifty-two year time span, from 1959 to 2011.  The press release is not the best one I've read.  As far as I can make out, the gist of it is as follows.

The focus of the study was on El Niño years when it's hotter and drier in the tropics.  What the researchers found was that under those conditions, plants cut down on photosynthesis and increase respiration such that the net effect is an increase in CO2 emissions from the tropical vegetation.  And quite a big increase at that.  A one degree increase in temperature causes a rise in CO2 equivalent to one third of annual human emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation combined.  The money quote seems to be this one:

"Our study indicates that carbon exchanges in tropical ecosystems are extremely sensitive to temperature, and they respond with the release of emissions when warmer temperatures occur".

I couldn't find the PNAS paper itself.  It doesn't seem to listed at PNAS yet, not even as part of the PNAS early edition.  I'd have preferred to read the paper because the press release is not easy to follow.  I don't know if there is a net reduction in CO2 during La Nina years, for example.  One would presume so, otherwise in the past there would have been an accumulation of CO2 over time. But there wasn't - until recently.  But that was from our efforts.

Consistently unstable at WUWT

I notice that Anthony Watts interpreted "consistent" as "stable" - writing a headline "Earth’s self regulation of Carbon Dioxide is remarkably stable".  Can't say I got that from the press release.  It doesn't match with the "extremely sensitive" quote.

The comments at WUWT are the usual mixed bag of denialist denial, conspiracy theorising, "we know better" and other nonsense.  Quite a few comments were debating whether or not a petagram equals a billion tonnes, confusion between tonnes and tons and similar.

Bob Tisdale is Perennially Puzzled about ENSO

Bob Tisdale has another go at his favourite person, Dana, who wrote an article about ENSO, short term variation and long term trends - on Skeptical Science.  Every time Dana mentions ENSO, Bob trots out the same old line.  Each article looks the same as every other piece he writes.  You'd think he'd have cottoned on by now.  But no.  Bob asks a number of questions on WUWT.  I'll paraphrase because it seems to be just the one question:

Why doesn't the earth cool as much from La Niña as it heats from El Niño?  

I'll add another question.  After La Niña and El Niño, when ENSO returns to neutral, why does the earth still get hotter?

Seems simple to me (and to Tom on WUWT).  If there were no global warming, this is a simplified representation of what would happen in relation to ENSO:

If Earth's temperature were rising, like there is global warming, then this is what would happen (simplified):

You can read about the three phases of ENSO at the Bureau of Meteorology.

Bob nearly answers his own question but doesn't seem to know it:

It is blatantly obvious to anyone ... that there would be little to no long-term warming of the lower troposphere temperature anomalies for mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere if lower troposphere temperature anomalies had cooled proportionally during the La Niña events of 1988/89 and 1998-01.

Let's look at this chart from this WMO report showing La Niña and El Niño years.

Yes, both La Niña and El Niño years are getting hotter as are the ENSO neutral years.  Sometimes the simplest answer is the right answer.

I wonder if Bob will ever manage to connect the pieces and have a 'light bulb' moment.

For a more detailed look at ENSO, see related article here, and more here. Not to forget this or this, given Bob's latest article and ensuing comments (archived here). (Sou - Jan 14)

Whither winter weather whether weather or climate

If you think that headline is dumb, how about this one?

Here's the article from which Watts mangled his weird meaningless headline.

(Has anyone else noticed that Watts' blog has gone from very bad to very very bad quality lately?  Seems to have got stuck somewhere between boring, irrelevant and painfully wrongheaded.)

Addendum: Anthony now seems to be saying that the record heat extremes in the USA recently were either or both UHI effect and new weather stations.  (As if one foot in mouth wasn't enough.)

Addendum 2: Below is a chart of USA temperature records from the EPA (data from NOAA), including surface and satellite records.

Anthony's rabble cry "what about the 1930s"? Indeed, the chart shows quite a difference between this century and the 1930s.  (I'll spell it out for people who can't read charts.  There are a lot more hot years since the mid 1980s in the USA.  In the 1930s the hot years were more rare and were interspersed with cooler years.)

Getting tied up in knots over UHI

Anthony is saying the records since the 1950s are wrong because of UHI and new thermometers.  He has to be complaining about the satellite 'thermometers' as well, since going by the chart below, the satellite records support the surface measurements.  A couple of 'lukewarmers' did an analysis demonstrating that the UHI effect is already factored into the adjusted temperature records.  (Needless to say, Anthony poo poos anything that contradicts his spin.)

Oh Watt a tangled web we weave...

In among the comments, Anthony also said you can't count last summer, so I guess he thinks that UHI and new thermometers weren't causing last summer's heat.  Why the difference?  He hasn't explained why he thinks new thermometers and UHI would distort temperature records post 1950s except those from last year.

Wonder if Anthony is deliberately lying or is he just stupid? No, I don't really wonder that.  The fact that he didn't put up a temperature chart to support his silliness suggest deceitful intentions.

PS Anthony's in-line comments are getting to the ludicrous stage.  According to Tony, 90% of new thermometers in the USA are put near 'heat sinks and sources' and can't measure cooler temperatures even relative to themselves ("you don't understand physics, that's not how heat sinks work", he says).  They just keep getting hotter and hotter presumably till they blow!