Wondering Willis Eschenbach looks for sunlight in the Arctic winter - yeah, really!

Anthony Watts posted a press release from AGU14. That's all the "scientific" reporting he's capable of I'd say. The articles he's written himself are science-free, but he has managed a couple of press releases (he didn't have to go to any AGU meeting to copy and paste a press release).

Anyway, one of the press releases was from NASA, which you can read in full here. Or if you prefer, you can read it on the archive of Anthony's blog here. Here's an extract (my emphasis):

NASA satellite instruments have observed a marked increase in solar radiation absorbed in the Arctic since the year 2000 – a trend that aligns with the steady decrease in Arctic sea ice during the same period.

Finally - another WUWT article on the drought in California

Maybe the niggling from here has paid off. Anthony Watts has finally posted another article on the California drought. Well, WUWT has mentioned it a couple of times before already, in an article about Daniel Swain's recent research paper, and back in January this year, when he proclaimed it had nothing to do with global warming.

Today he's wanting to downplay it again in an article by Robert Moore (archived here).  He's not downplaying it quite so much this time. The top lot of images he's used don't help his argument much. It shows how the drought emerged over the past 3 years. Here's what it looks like now - a very small improvement from the worst of it three months ago (click to enlarge):

Source: US Drought Monitor

NASA has-beens seek "an orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels to alternatives"

A small bunch NASA has-beens who call themselves "the right climate stuff" want us to "keep on burning" till we're toast.  Well, not quite, as it turns out.  Read on...

Burning all the carbon dioxide!

Here is some of what they say, according to Anthony Watts at WUWT (archived here) who copied and pasted it from James Delingpole, interpreter of interpretations from the denialati:

Even if we burn all the world’s recoverable fossil fuels it will still only result in a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.

Given that deniers like to work in kelvin, I expect they are arguing that global surface temperatures will rise by  3.5K or 3.5 degrees Celsius.  On the other hand, they might be working with the Celsius scale and arguing surface temperatures will rise by 0.18 degrees, which would be odd, given that the temperature is now 0.8 degrees higher than it was a century or so ago.

The wrong interpretation - again, and again

James Delingpole, interpreter of interpretations, gave the wrong interpretation, further down he wrote:

Using calculations by George Stegemeier of the National Academy of Engineering, they estimated the total quantity of recoverable oil, gas and coal on the planet. They then used 163 years of real world temperature data to calculate Transient Climate Sensitivity (ie how much the world will warm as a result of the burning of all the carbon dioxide in the fossil fuel). The figure they came up with 1.2 degrees C which is considerably lower than the wilder claims of the IPCC, whose reports have suggested it could be as high as 4 degrees C or more.

So, is it 1.2% or 1.2 degrees?  And what's that about "burning ... carbon dioxide in the fossil fuel"?  In any case, when you read what the NASA hasbeens write, it's not 1.2 degrees C all up.  What they are arguing is that there will be an additional 1.2 degrees Celsius - which is a rise of 2 degrees Celsius overall.  And that's just in the short term.

Wrong again!

The NASA has-beens are headed by a chap named Harold Doiron.  According to Anthony / James:

Doiron was one of 40 ex NASA employees – including seven astronauts – who wrote in April 2012 to NASA administrator Charles Bolden protesting about the organization’s promotion of climate change alarmism, notably via its resident environmental activist James Hansen.

James Delingpole and Anthony Watts can't even get that right - the April 2012 letter was signed by 49 people, only three of whom didn't list themselves as being "ex-NASA" employees, making it 46 not 40 ex NASA employees.  And the list contained signatories from eight astronauts, not seven.

The fact that they probably tried but couldn't make 50 signatories - out of all the tens of thousands of ex-NASA employees, says a lot.  It wouldn't come close to the 8% mark, which is roughly the proportion of "dismissives" in the general population.  Heck, it's only 0.275% of the current NASA workforce!

Models predicted 2160 kelvin in 35 years time? I don't think so...

Moving away from James' wrong interpretations, here is some of what the NASA has-beens themselves said. In their top twenty list, these NASA has-beens searching for a new mission go on about CO2 is plant food and other denier memes.  At one point they said:

After a 35 year simulation the models over-predicted actual measured temperatures by factors of 200% to 750%. 

Over-predicted actual measured temperatures by a factor of 750%?  Hmmm.  Again, using the scale preferred by deniers, this would mean that the models predicted a temperature for earth of 2160 kelvin in 35 years.  I don't think so.

How about using the Celsius scale - a prediction of around 112 degrees Celsius in 35 years? - again, I don't think so.

Perhaps they meant to write "actual measured temperature anomaly" but they didn't specify a baseline.  Let's say instead of predicting a one degree rise, they predicted a 7.5 degree rise in 35 years time?  Again, I don't think so.

Maybe they were just talking about the rise over 35 years.  So, say, a 2.25 degrees rise over 35 years instead of 0.3 degrees? Or 3 degrees instead of 0.4 degrees? Again, I don't think so.

In any case, how do these NASA ex-whatevers know that the models have over-predicted anything?  35 years from the report is still around 34 years from now.

An orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels

The NASA has-beens are promoting "an orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels" - whatever they mean by that, writing:

12. A market-driven transition from fossil fuels to alternative fuels must begin by 2055 just to meet energy demand as dwindling reserves of economically recoverable fossil fuels drive up their costs. (Feb 2014)
13. Assuming an orderly market driven transition from fossil fuels to alternatives that do not emit CO2, atmospheric CO2 will remain below 600 ppm. (Feb 2014)
14. The maximum CO2 level of 600 ppm is expected to occur after 2100, probably about 2130, and will begin to decline thereafter. (Feb 2014)

But they seem to be happy enough for more than double CO2, which is extremely dangerous.  These ex NASA has-beens don't think so.  They reckon that the transient climate sensitivity is 1.6 degrees, which is in the ballpark of the IPCC estimate. The IPCC AR5 WG1 report states:

With high confidence the transient climate response (TCR) is positive, likely in the range 1°C to 2.5ºC and extremely unlikely greater than 3°C, based on observed climate change and climate models (see TFE.6 for further details).

They go on to talk about transient climate response and argue that we shouldn't worry about anything after that.  Let their children's children put up with our legacy and like it or not survive it (or both).

From the WUWT comments

As usual, some of the WUWT crowd didn't bother reading the article, they just used it as an opportunity to write crass comments.  The ones who did were not all that happy with the NASA has-beens.


Fabi says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Glad to see their response, although I hate to see them adopt the language of the cAGW crowd, especially terms such as the Social Cost of Carbon.

Damian is a bit upset that the ex-NASA mob didn't provide any facts or accompanying data (did I get that right?) and says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:52 pm
WOW. Reality + common sense. These guys should expect the vitriol and personal attacks to begin any minute now. And as always it will happen without any facts or accompanying data.

Aphan says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm
They are using the EPA and DOE’s terminology.

Speed, like me, doesn't know what they are basing their percentages on and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:00 pm
… a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.
What’s that in degrees?

NZ Willy can't have ever seen a scientific paper because he says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:03 pm
I like this very much, but can they, or will they, submit to a peer journal?

They just did - it's called WUWT!



garymount noticed the bit about burning carbon dioxide and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:13 pm
The article mistakenly says the burning of carbon dioxide.

That's what you get when you rely on an interpreter of interpretations for your "science".


garymount and I got the same answer to the 1.2% and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:31 pm
1.2 percent would be about 3.5 C (or K). Remember, temperatures start at 0K not 0C, or 0F.

715 new planets orbiting 305 stars just like ours

With science deniers like Roy Spencer and Anthony Watts losing it. After all their slimy innuendos over the years these nutters have the effrontery to play the victim, with Roy Spencer even going to far as to imply climate science is causing world poverty.

Anyway, rather than getting spattered by the muck they are throwing about, I thought I'd treat HotWhopper readers to something exciting and uplifting.

Let's look to the stars.  Or I should say, to the planets. From NASA:

The artist concept depicts multiple-transiting planet systems, which are stars with more than one planet. The planets eclipse or transit their host star from the vantage point of the observer. This angle is called edge-on. 

Image Credit: NASA

NASA's Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system.

Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.

"The Kepler team continues to amaze and excite us with their planet hunting results," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "That these new planets and solar systems look somewhat like our own, portends a great future when we have the James Webb Space Telescope in space to characterize the new worlds."

Since the discovery of the first planets outside our solar system roughly two decades ago, verification has been a laborious planet-by-planet process. Now, scientists have a statistical technique that can be applied to many planets at once when they are found in systems that harbor more than one planet around the same star.

To verify this bounty of planets, a research team co-led by Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., analyzed stars with more than one potential planet, all of which were detected in the first two years of Kepler's observations -- May 2009 to March 2011.

The research team used a technique called verification by multiplicity, which relies in part on the logic of probability. Kepler observes 150,000 stars, and has found a few thousand of those to have planet candidates. If the candidates were randomly distributed among Kepler's stars, only a handful would have more than one planet candidate. However, Kepler observed hundreds of stars that have multiple planet candidates. Through a careful study of this sample, these 715 new planets were verified.

This method can be likened to the behavior we know of lions and lionesses. In our imaginary savannah, the lions are the Kepler stars and the lionesses are the planet candidates. The lionesses would sometimes be observed grouped together whereas lions tend to roam on their own. If you see two lions it could be a lion and a lioness or it could be two lions. But if more than two large felines are gathered, then it is very likely to be a lion and his pride. Thus, through multiplicity the lioness can be reliably identified in much the same way multiple planet candidates can be found around the same star.

"Four years ago, Kepler began a string of announcements of first hundreds, then thousands, of planet candidates --but they were only candidate worlds," said Lissauer. "We've now developed a process to verify multiple planet candidates in bulk to deliver planets wholesale, and have used it to unveil a veritable bonanza of new worlds."

These multiple-planet systems are fertile grounds for studying individual planets and the configuration of planetary neighborhoods. This provides clues to planet formation.

Four of these new planets are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone, defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for life-giving liquid water.

One of these new habitable zone planets, called Kepler-296f, orbits a star half the size and 5 percent as bright as our sun. Kepler-296f is twice the size of Earth, but scientists do not know whether the planet is a gaseous world, with a thick hydrogen-helium envelope, or it is a water world surrounded by a deep ocean.

"From this study we learn planets in these multi-systems are small and their orbits are flat and circular -- resembling pancakes -- not your classical view of an atom," said Jason Rowe, research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and co-leader of the research. "The more we explore the more we find familiar traces of ourselves amongst the stars that remind us of home."

This latest discovery brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar system to nearly 1,700. As we continue to reach toward the stars, each discovery brings us one step closer to a more accurate understanding of our place in the galaxy.

Launched in March 2009, Kepler is the first NASA mission to find potentially habitable Earth-size planets. Discoveries include more than 3,600 planet candidates, of which 961 have been verified as bona-fide worlds.

The findings papers will be published March 10 in The Astrophysical Journal and are available for download at: http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/digital-press-kit-kepler-planet-bonanza

The histogram shows the number of planets by size for all known exoplanets. The blue bars on the histogram represents all the exoplanets known, by size, before the Kepler Planet Bonanza announcement on Feb. 26, 2014. The gold bars on the histogram represent Kepler's newly-verified planets. Image Credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel

The histogram shows the number of planet discoveries by year for roughly the past two decades of the exoplanet search. The blue bar shows previous planet discoveries, the red bar shows previous Kepler planet discoveries, the gold bar displays the 715 new planets verified by multiplicity. Image Credit: NASA Ames/SETI/J Rowe

There's a good presentation from NASA's Kepler team here as a pdf file.

The big plus about this article is that you don't have to read any dross from the WUWT comments :)

Unbalanced at WUWT: Earth's Energy Budget

Note: Greig's Thread has been moved to here.

This week WUWT's Serengeti Strategy is aimed fairly and squarely at Kevin Trenberth.   (Archived here.) Anthony Watts targeted Dr Trenberth earlier this week in his recent article about ENSO and the PDO and the impact on global surface temperatures. Now he's decided to have a shot at him over the Earth's energy budget.

I don't imagine Anthony or his followers have much of a clue about how the energy budget is calculated. Anthony posted a link to the Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl (2009) paper on the subject, but I imagine his eyes glazed over when they got to the first paragraph.  That's if he even started to read it.  I know my mind went a bit fuzzy trying to work through and remember all the different sources of data and the corrections and adjustments that were made.

In his article, Anthony discusses the differences over time between versions of the Earth's energy budget.  He compares a poster on the NASA website with the budget in the 2007 AR4 IPCC report and Trenberth09.  The AR4 diagram was from Kiehl and Trenberth 2007.

Now I don't have any problem with comparing different energy budgets over time.  It's an interesting exercise.  What Anthony does, though, is try to make out there is something shonky going on (using the word "revisionist") and that Kevin Trenberth at best made mistakes or was deceitful.  All of which is a deliberate disinformation tactic to stir up his loony science denying fans.  And, presumably, to make any normal person who strays to WUWT by accident, doubt the science.  (No normal person would venture to WUWT on purpose if they were seeking information.)

About the differences between AR4 (2007) and Trenberth09 Anthony wrote:

Note that in Trenberth’s 2009 paper, the energy from “back radiation” (from GHG action) value went up from 324 w/square meter cited by the IPCC in 2007 to 333 w/square meter. The net effect of that is increased energy back to Earth’s surface, making it warmer.

It seems odd that would increase so much, so quickly in two years. 

Of course it's not so much that the long wave downwelling radiation increased so much in two years, it's more that in the later paper the data were revised.  Other data were revised too, like the thermal radiation leaving the surface.  What it means is that the net absorption at the surface wasn't anything like 9 W/m² difference. Anthony continues, comparing the two earlier diagrams with the NASA poster:

Even more surprising, is that now, the value has been revised even higher, to 340.3 w/square meter, while at the same time, the “Net Absorbed” value, that extra bit of energy that we get to keep from the sun on Earth, thanks to increased GHG action, has gone DOWN.

Anthony speculated:

Perhaps the recent published works on climate sensitivity, coupled with observations of “the pause” have had some affect on these numbers as well. 

I'd say he's got that backwards.  Observations would help inform estimates of climate sensitivity not the other way around. He got one thing right, though.  Scientists will undoubtedly continue to work on refining estimates of the different components of the energy budget.

The latest IPCC energy balance

For some reason, Anthony didn't refer to AR5.  The diagram there is based on a still newer paper, by Martin Wild, Doris Folini, Christoph Schär, Norman Loeb, Ellsworth G. Dutton, and Gert König-Langlo, which I'll refer to as Wild12.  That paper draws on the work of a whole heap of people, including Kevin Trenberth and his colleagues.  Here is the energy balance diagram from Wild12 as presented in the IPCC report. Click it for a larger version:

Figure 2.11: Global mean energy budget under present day climate conditions. Numbers state magnitudes of the individual energy fluxes in W/m2, adjusted within their uncertainty ranges to close the energy budgets. Numbers in parentheses attached to the energy fluxes cover the range of values in line with observational constraints. Figure adapted from Wild et al. (2013). Source: IPCC AR5 WG1 page 2-127

Here is the chart from the NASA poster for comparison. (Click to enlarge.)

Source: NASA

For the nitpicker, here are the main differences between the NASA poster and the Wild12/IPCC diagrams.  First up, the NASA poster expresses the energy fluxes to one decimal place, but has no ranges.  The IPCC chart expresses the fluxes in whole numbers but includes ranges.  As for the numbers, here is where the diagrams agree (to the nearest whole number):

• Incoming solar TOA 340 W/m². 
• Solar reflected at the top of atmosphere 100 W/m². 
• Thermal up at the surface 398 W/m². 
• Net absorbed at the surface 0.6 W/m². 

And here is where the numbers differ (rounding to whole numbers in the case of the NASA poster):

• Total thermal outgoing 240 W/m² (NASA) vs 239 W/m² (IPCC)  
• Solar absorbed by the atmosphere - 77 W/m²  (NASA) vs 79 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Solar absorbed at the surface - 163 W/m²  (NASA) vs 161 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Solar reflected at the surface - 23 W/m² (NASA) vs 24 W/m² (IPCC)
• Solar reflected by clouds and the atmosphere - 77 W/m²  (NASA) vs 76 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Thermal down at the surface - 340 W/m² (NASA) vs 342 W/m² (IPCC)
• Latent heat of evaporation - 86 W/m²  (NASA) vs 84 W/m²  (IPCC)
• Sensible heat at the surface (conduction and convection) - 18 W/m² (NASA) vs 20 W/m² (IPCC)

When the numbers are summed, the NASA poster has a 0.6 W/m². difference at the top of atmosphere and a 0.6 W/m². net absorbed at the surface.

The IPCC diagram has ranges and uses whole numbers so it sums to 1 W/m² difference at the top of atmosphere.  At the bottom of the IPCC chart it shows 0.6 W/m². net absorbed at the surface.

The energy numbers at the top of atmosphere are the same for both, allowing for rounding. The main difference between the charts is how energy is apportioned.  That is, the apportioning of the energy absorbed and reflected within in the atmosphere vs that absorbed and reflected at the surface. Yet the differences are not that great.

Settled vs Unsettled Science

Like all fake sceptics, Anthony doesn't know what is meant by "settled science". Most particularly not when it comes to climate science but I don't expect he would understand it when it comes to any branch of science.  And like all disinformers, Anthony pretends that if science changes it means that either "all the science is wrong" or the "science is a hoax" or scientists are just making stuff up.  You'd think he'd have figured out by now that the reason people do research is to refine and add to knowledge.  And there will always be new things to learn.

The "more settled science" is the energy flux at the top of atmosphere.  The satellites do a good job of monitoring this.

The "unsettled science" is how energy is apportioned within the atmosphere and between the atmosphere and the surface.  Not only is it difficult to get measurements and use them to calculate the various parts, but I would expect values would vary over time.  Not just on a minute by minute, hour by hour, season by season basis.  It will undoubtedly change as the climate changes - there may be more or less clouds in the future.  Different types of clouds may predominate in future climates. Vegetation patterns change over time.  Ice is certainly melting.  And so on.

Where do the measurements come from?

The source of data used to calculate the various components of the energy budget has changed quite a bit over the years, going by the papers.  Here is what Wild12 states:

In the present study, we do not only rely on satellite observations, but make extensive use of the information contained in radiation measurements taken from the Earth surface, to provide direct observational constraints also for the surface fluxes. Such observations become increasingly available from ground-based radiation networks. We use these observations to assess the radiation budgets as simulated in the latest modeling efforts performed within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) for the upcoming 5th IPCC assessment report (IPCC-AR5) (Sects. 3, 4). We further combine the surface observations with these models to infer best estimates of the global mean surface radiative components (Sect. 4). 

Anthony and his deniers wouldn't like that much, combining surface observations with models to infer best estimates.  Many of them would prefer their models to come in glossy magazines or perhaps matchboxes (surprisingly, these still exist).

One of the important constraints commonly used is ocean heat content, for example.  Another thing worth noting is that CERES doesn't have a thermal channel (outgoing longwave radiation).  Wild12 states that at the top of atmosphere, "thermal daytime radiances are determined from the difference between the total and solar channel radiances".

There is a lot of detailed explanation in all the papers of just how the energy budget is put together.  It makes for heavy reading, but it's not hard to follow if you take the time and concentrate. The main difficulty I had, not being familiar with the subject, was keeping track of all the components and data sources.  There is a lot of jargon to learn, but the acronyms and terms are well explained in each of the papers.

From the scientists - the ones who work out the energy budget

In regard to working out the details of the energy budget, here are some quotes just from the three papers I've referred to here.

The first quote is from Kiehl and Trenberth (2007), to show that people have been considering this matter for some time - like almost a hundred years.  Also where the biggest hurdles lay at the time.

There is a long history of attempts to construct a global annual mean surface–atmosphere energy budget for the earth. The first such budget was provided by Dines (1917). Over the years improvements in estimating the global annual mean energy budget have resulted from satellite observations. In particular, the narrowed uncertainty in the planetary albedo and outgoing longwave radiation (e.g., Hunt et al. 1986) have greatly improved our understanding of the earth’s energy budget. Recently, global satellite-derived estimates of precipitation have also aided (through conservation of moisture) in determining the annual global mean surface latent heat flux. Despite these important improvements in our understanding, a number of key terms in the energy budget remain uncertain, in particular, the net absorbed shortwave and longwave surface fluxes.

This next one is from Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl (2009). I chose this particular passage because it gives a glimpse of the complexities.  There are a lot of things to account for when working out the energy budget in the detail. That's why so many different sources of data are required - including data from satellites and measurements taken at the surface. (My paras).

Weather and climate on Earth are determined by the amount and distribution of incoming radiation from the sun. For an equilibrium climate, OLR [outgoing longwave radiation] necessarily balances the incoming ASR [absorbed solar radiation], although there is a great deal of fascinating atmosphere, ocean, and land phenomena that couple the two.

Incoming radiant energy may be scattered and reflected by clouds and aerosols or absorbed in the atmosphere. The transmitted radiation is then either absorbed or reflected at the Earth’s surface. Radiant solar or shortwave energy is transformed into sensible heat, latent energy (involving different water states), potential energy, and kinetic energy before being emitted as longwave radiant energy.

Energy may be stored for some time, transported in various forms, and converted among the different types, giving rise to a rich variety of weather or turbulent phenomena in the atmosphere and ocean. Moreover, the energy balance can be upset in various ways, changing the climate and associated weather.

The final quote is from Wild12. I've left the references in deliberately to give some idea of the amount of work done over the years and the number of different people doing the work:

Despite the central role of the global energy balance in the climate system, substantial uncertainties exist in the quantification of its different components, and its representation in climate models, as pointed out in numerous studies published over the past decades (e.g., Hartmann and Short 1980; Hartmann et al. 1986; Ramanathan et al. 1989; Gutowski et al. 1991; Ohmura and Gilgen 1993; Pinker et al. 1995; Li et al. 1997; Gleckler and Weare 1997; Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Wild et al. 1998; Gupta et al. 1999; Hatzianastassiou and Vardavas 1999; Potter and Cess 2004; Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Trenberth et al. 2009; Trager-Chatterjee et al. 2010; Ohmura 2012; Qian et al. 2012; Wild 2012; Stephens et al. 2012a, b). This becomes also evident when comparing different schematic diagrams of the global energy balance published in text books or in the peer-reviewed literature, which often vary greatly in the numbers given therein representing the magnitudes of these energy flows in terms of global means (e.g., Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Trenberth et al. 2009; Wild et al. 1998; Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Wild 2012; Stephens et al. 2012b).

Anthony Watts thinks that all the data comes from CERES instruments.  (Willis Eschenbach at WUWT plays with CERES data a lot, and because he doesn't understand it makes all sorts of fundamental errors.)  Anthony wrote, for example (my bold italics):

Note that somehow, between 2009 and the present, it was decided (presumably based on CERES measurements) that the Net Absorbed value (which is the extra energy absorbed that would result from increased GHG’s) would go DOWN from 0.9 w/square meter to 0.6w/square meter – an decrease of one third of the 2009 value.

Actually, that figure is the same as that derived by Wild12.  If Anthony wanted to, he could read the paper and see how it was derived. With satellites, the derivation of top of atmosphere energy fluxes is getting very accurate.  It's in the atmosphere and at the surface (including, probably, within the oceans) that it's very difficult to get measurements that can give meaningful numbers at the global level.  Here is how Wild12 explains it:

Knowledge on the energy exchange between Sun, Earth and space has recently been improved through new satellite missions such as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES, Wielicki et al. 1996) and the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE, Anderson and Cahalan 2005). These allow the determination of the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiative flux exchanges with unprecedented accuracy (Loeb et al. 2012).

Much less is known, however, about the energy distribution within the climate system and at the Earth surface. Unlike the fluxes at the TOA, the surface fluxes cannot be directly measured by satellites. Instead, they have to be inferred from the measurable TOA radiances using empirical or physical models to account for atmospheric attenuation and emission, which introduces additional uncertainties. Uncertainties in the components of the surface radiation budget are thus generally larger and less well quantified than at the TOA. Debated are, for example, the partitioning of solar energy absorption between the atmosphere and surface, as well as the determination of the thermal energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface (e.g., Raschke and Ohmura 2005; Wild 2008, 2012; Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012b).

The above highlights again just where there is "unsettled science".  Notice particularly how Wild12 refers to the thermal energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface.  Also the reference to how much solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere before it reaches the surface.

Countering the Serengeti Strategy

Now go back to Anthony Watts mockery of the work that people have been able to do.  He says of the latest changes to the energy budget that: "It seems to be a clear case of observations trumping Trenberth".

There's the Serengeti Strategy in action.  Anthony doesn't mention Kevin Trenberth's co-authors, John Fasullo or J. T. Kiehl.  He doesn't give a hint of all the other people who've worked on this subject over the years, including the team that wrote the paper featured in the IPCC AR5 report.  He doesn't mention the fact that even on the NASA poster itself there is another paper referenced, that of Loeb et al (2009), which has a whole other team.  Nor does he mention the fact that there are papers relating to the energy budget being published all the time.  Some look in depth at different components, other at the global picture all up. Here's a Google search just since 2013.

And since Anthony is just another denier who doesn't even know where the observations come from or anything else about the data, who thinks that all the data for the Earth's energy budget comes from CERES, Anthony comes across as just another nutter when he talks about "observations trumping Trenberth".

---

Kiehl, J. T., and Kevin E. Trenberth. "Earth's annual global mean energy budget." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78, no. 2 (1997): 197-208.

Loeb, Norman G., Bruce A. Wielicki, David R. Doelling, G. Louis Smith, Dennis F. Keyes, Seiji Kato, Natividad Manalo-Smith, Takmeng Wong, 2009: Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth's Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget. J. Climate, 22, 748–766. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1

Trenberth, Kevin E., John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl. "Earth's global energy budget." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 90, no. 3 (2009): 311-323.

Wild, Martin, Doris Folini, Christoph Schär, Norman Loeb, Ellsworth G. Dutton, and Gert König-Langlo. "The global energy balance from a surface perspective." Climate Dynamics (2012): 1-28.

---

From the WUWT comments

Here is a selection of comments from WUWT (archived here). The first comment is amazingly reasonable. Rob Long says, presumably referring to Anthony scoffing at the changes over time and maybe to his pointing that at the surface, the net absorption changed from 0.9 W/m² to 0.6 W/m²:

January 17, 2014 at 12:22 am
This is not surprising given the tiny fraction of the “imbalance” relative to the total incoming energy.

It would be remarkable if reliable measurements could be made to this level of accuracy given all the variables involved.

Expect to see this number changed again and again.

PetterT hopefully asks if CO2 has stopped working:

January 17, 2014 at 12:24 am
What is the uncertaity of these figures +/- ? Maybe net absorbed due to CO2 is zero?

jim asks, quite a reasonable question - he could find the answer in the papers if he was so inclined:

January 17, 2014 at 1:04 am
How accurate are those measurements?
The result is 0.2% of the measurements.
If each had a 0.1% accuracy, the error could be up to 0.7 w/m2

phillipbratby is a greenhouse effect denier of the "slayer" type and says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:10 am
Yes, and you would have thought by now that they would have realised that recycled radiation (back radiation) cannot add heat to the surface from which it originated in the first place.

Frank adds some value and says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:21 am
Anthony wrote: “Note that somehow, between 2009 and the present, it was decided (presumably based on CERES measurements) that the Net Absorbed value (which is the extra energy absorbed that would result from increased GHG’s) would go DOWN from 0.9 w/square meter to 0.6w/square meter – an decrease of one third of the 2009 value.”

Since most of net absorbed heat ends up warming the ocean (supposedly 93%), the Net Absorbed Energy is probably calculated from the amount of warming of the ocean. Increasing amount of ARGO data has allowed a more accurate calculation for Net Absorbed Energy.
Net Absorbed Energy can not be calculated from the other values shown in these diagrams because the uncertainty in these values is far too high to say whether the net is positive (warming temperature) or negative (cooling temperature). DLR and latent heat have changed by 7 and 6 W/m2 – a changes that are 10-fold the net absorbed energy.

SWR, reflected SWR, and escaping LWR are measured from space reasonably well (+/1 W/m2?).

Downward LWR is being measure at some locations, but we don’t have reliable planet-wide coverage. The value shown probably comes from re-analyses made with climate models forced to fit observations, not direct observation. Latent heat can be easily calculated from precipitation (rain and snow). We have more data on precipitation from satellites which probably accounts for the 8% increase in latent heat. There is relatively little information about the amount of energy leaving the surface via thermals. In his 2009 paper, Trenberth chose this number so that there would be a net +0.9 W/m2 imbalance at the surface. He probably did the same thing here.

Gail Combs decides what the "warmists" do and says (excerpt):

January 17, 2014 at 2:35 am
...The warmists always leave out TIME (nanoseconds) and day and night. As another commenter said they live on a flat earth with the sun always shining at 1/4 energy. They should be careful not to fall of the edge.

I've absolutely no idea what notion johnmarshall has rattling around in his noggin when he says:

January 17, 2014 at 2:41 am
Total rubbish AGAIN.
So NASA believes in a NON rotating planet, seems funny given their experience in space, and insolation at a level that would not drive the water cycle. TOTAL NON-REALITY which means a model that assumes an impossible process, the GHE, and no process to actually start that impossible process or any feedback to control it at the levels claimed.
See me after school Kevin.

timspence10 suffers from personal incredulity and says:

January 17, 2014 at 3:38 am
Maybe it’s just me but these graphics appear to made of ‘wishful thinking’, it’s nice to see their thinking sketched out in that format but the rest (the science part) leaves me with the impression that they are stabbing in the dark. Too many variables are treated as constants and also, the incoming energy is a fuzzy composite of IR, UV and visible spectrum, all of which vary and have different absorption and reflection properties. Too much averaging going on for me.

Joe Chang wants to include photosynthesis.  (He doesn't mention ocean waves or animal metabolism or bacterial growth or insects.) He says:

January 17, 2014 at 8:35 am
I am still curious as to why the energy balance diagram does not show photosynthesis? Is the net absorbed heat go to global warming or to support plant growth? If 186W/m2 of sunlight reaches the surface, say for example if 20% of the surface is involved in photosynthesis (including stuff that grows in the water/ocean) with a conversion of 3-6%, that would work out to 1-2W/m2. Does the global warming model assume no plant growth?

Michael Moon is another "slayer" and "ilker" too, he says:

January 17, 2014 at 8:48 am

“Back Radiation!”

This is a figment of the imagination. The atmosphere does not heat the Earth’s surface, as the atmosphere is cooler than the Earth’s surface virtually everywhere and always. And, more importantly, the atmosphere does not heat itself.

A Pyrgeometer is a very dangerous instrument in the hands of a “Climate Scientist.” Point it at the sky, read some Watts/M2, and conclude that the atmosphere heats the Earth’s surface because you are measuring a flux. Apparently Trenberth and his ilk are ignorant of the Second Law. How they got themselves these jobs, not knowing that, is a failure of our society.

CO2 does absorb and thermalize IR in the 15-micron band. This is not strictly speaking Heat Transfer, but an electrical effect, same way a microwave oven works. The entire atmosphere absorbs and radiates heat, as does all matter above absolute Zero.

I hope everyone on here understands all this, not just one or two of you which is what seems to be a fair assumption after reading these comments…

Which is a suitable note on which to end the comments from the WUWT Illiterati Society.

Plume of water ejected from Europa

Another welcome diversion from the HW usual (which has been getting dreadfully dull of late).

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected water being ejected from Europa.  NASA posted a terrific artist's impression:

This is an artist's concept of a plume of water vapor thought to be ejected off the frigid, icy surface of the Jovian moon Europa, located about 500 million miles (800 million kilometers) from the sun. Spectroscopic measurements from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope led scientists to calculate that the plume rises to an altitude of 125 miles (201 kilometers) and then it probably rains frost back onto the moon's surface. Previous findings already pointed to a subsurface ocean under Europa's icy crust.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWRI

Here's the picture showing where it was detected - click to enlarge it:

From NASA:

This graphic shows the location of water vapor detected over Europa's south pole in observations taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in December 2012. This is the first strong evidence of water plumes erupting off Europa's surface. 

Hubble didn't photograph plumes, but spectroscopically detected auroral emissions from oxygen and hydrogen. The aurora is powered by Jupiter's magnetic field. This is only the second moon in the solar system found ejecting water vapor from the frigid surface. The image of Europa is derived from a global surface map generated from combined observations taken by NASA's Voyager and Galileo space probes.
Image credit: NASA/ESA/L. Roth/SWRI/University of Cologne

You can read more about it here.

The ozone hole and the scientific illiterati @wattsupwiththat

This article has been prompted by a copy and paste of a press release at WUWT, and the reaction to it. The NASA press release is about how the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is not yet showing any signs of recovery. Since the 1990s it has stopped growing but there is not yet any sign of recovery.  AFAIK, this is not unexpected, given the long-lived nature of CFCs.  The research is useful in that it explores the situation in much more detail than has been done before now. (Anthony Watts didn't link to the actual press release as usual.  I don't know why he doesn't.  However he did link to the Ozone Hole Watch website of NASA, which is really good.)

Click here for the archived WUWT article.

The ozone hole should shrink measurably after the mid 2030s

The article is about research by Susan Strahan and Natalya Kramarova (reported at the AGU Fall Meeting), uncovering the complexity of the ozone hole over Antarctica.  Wind in the upper atmosphere is moving the ozone around.  From the NASA press release:

This work shows that the severity of the ozone hole as measured by the classic total column measurements does not reveal the significant year-to-year variations in the two factors that control ozone: the winds that bring ozone to the Antarctic and the chemical loss due to chlorine.

Until chlorine levels in the lower stratosphere decline below the early 1990s level – expected sometime after 2015 but likely by 2030 – temperature and winds will continue to dictate the variable area of the hole in any given year. Not until after the mid 2030s will the decline stratospheric chlorine be the primary factor in the decline of ozone hole area.

"We are still in the period where small changes in chlorine do not affect the area of the ozone hole, which is why it's too soon to say the ozone hole is recovering," Strahan said. "We're going into a period of large variability and there will be bumps in the road before we can identify a clear recovery."

Full recovery by 2070

Based on the slide presentation from Anne Douglass, Natalya Kramarova and Susan Strahan, after around 2035 the ozone holes should be smaller than they are today, although in the intervening years there will be some holes that are smaller than others.  By around 2070 there should be full recovery.

Ozone hole science - a simple view

Jeff Masters at Wunderground has a good summary of the history of the science and response to finding the hole in the ozone layer. He also describes the tactics used by "ozone hole deniers".

Way back in the 1970s, scientists warned that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could cause serious harm to the ozone layer.  The hole was first observed in 1985 and prompted immediate attention, resulting in the Montreal Protocol which came into force in 1989.

Most ozone (around 90%) is in the stratosphere.  It acts as a UV shield.  There are oxygen reactions in the stratosphere that absorb UV and require O3 to do so.  Until we began to add CFCs to the air, ozone was constantly being formed and destroyed with these reactions in balance:

O2 --UV radiation---> 2O

O + O2 ------> O3

O3 ----UV radiation ---> O2 + O

CFCs in the stratosphere have their chlorine atoms split off, which then react with ozone, producing O2 and reducing the amount of ozone.  This upsets the balance.  With less ozone more UV gets through to the surface.

There is a simple explanation of the reactions on the Bureau of Meteorology website here - with diagrams and an animation.

The thing is, CFCs are very long-lived and they aren't water soluble, so they don't get washed out when it rains.  If you're wondering how they get into the stratosphere, this article in Scientific American explains it in simple terms.  The CFCs we put into the air before the Montreal Protocol are still having an impact.  While we won't start seeing a real impact for a couple more decades and will have to wait for another 60 years for full recovery, if we hadn't acted when we did, we'd all be in deep trouble.

The ozone hole and climate

The ozone hole doesn't just cause damaging UV radiation to get to the surface, as David Karoly explains, it's also affecting the wind winds in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica and thereby affecting southern currents.  It therefore has an indirect impact on climate.  Where I live in south eastern Australia, the climate is being affected by CO2 warming as well as by shifts in climate zones as a result of the ozone hole over Antarctica.  It is making much of Antarctica colder than it would otherwise be but warming the Antarctic Peninsula.  It's also probably a contributing factor to sea ice around Antarctica.  (Does this mean that the land ice in Antarctica will melt faster when the ozone hole mends? I don't know the answer to that.)

Here's a diagram from the article by David Karoly.

The climate system is complex, meaning that the ozone hole does indirectly alter the surface temperature and climate of the Earth.

Source: The Conversation

Credit: WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2010

From the WUWT comments, with a preamble

Climate science deniers reject climate science relating to human emissions of carbon dioxide. They have a tendency to reject any science that finds that human activity is having an impact.

Today at WUWT, many science deniers are rejecting the well-established science explaining the hole in the ozone layer.

This highlights the "reasoning" of science deniers.  For many of them I imagine that when they face any problem, not just a huge problem faced by all of humanity, their first reaction is: "it wasn't my fault".  The first reaction of a mature person, by contrast, would be "Let's fix it" or "What can I do to help fix it".

That's why I view science deniers as being basically self-centred, immature, instant gratification-seeking sooks.  I don't see different views about climate science as primarily an ideological divide. I think the divide is one of character and maturity. Personal maturity is a bigger indicator of a reaction to problems than education, intelligence or ideology.  I don't know if there have been studies that show this.  It might even be that emotional maturity is not correlated with acceptance that there is a problem. It could be that it is correlated with the reaction to the problem, regardless of whether the problem is accepted as real or not.

Whatever - science deniers at WUWT are a distinctly immature lot in this regard as you can see from the comments below. Interestingly, the illiterates at WUWT don't deny the holes in the ozone layer, they just deny what's caused them.  A bit like how many (most?) of them don't deny that CO2 has increased hugely, they just deny the greenhouse effect or the extent of it.

Doug Proctor says "scientists don't know nuffin'":

December 11, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Or CFCs were not the primary driver of the OBSERVED ozone hole: meaning that even without CFCs, there would still be a significantly large hole in the ozone layer. CFCs could make an ozone hole worse, but no-CFCs won’t make the hole completely collapse.

Like CO2 and the thermal regulation of the planet, the assumption is that CFCs control the size of the Antarctic ozone hole. Why? Because “we” don’t have any other idea about what might cause large variations in its size.

The obsessive drive for a Unique Solution is everywhere politicians, scientists and laymen want or need simple solutions easily and cheaply put in-place.

el gordo says "it's a conspiracy":

December 11, 2013 at 3:35 pm
There was a multinational that did very well out of this scam, but its name eludes me.

scarletmacaw combines the two and says "scientists don't know nuffin'" and "it's a conspiracy":

December 11, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Chlorine in the atmosphere has natural sources. The ocean releases far more chlorine into the atmosphere than CFCs. It was always about control, never about science.

Brian H makes an irrelevant and meaningless comment and says:

December 11, 2013 at 3:43 pm
All based on another failed presumption of attribution.

Jimbo, like a lot of WUWT-ers asks (excerpt):

December 11, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Is it just possible that the Ozone hole has always been there?

So does Quinn who says (excerpt):

December 11, 2013 at 4:21 pm
The first satellites that specifically went looking for ozone depletion found the hole, but for all we know the hole has been there for hundreds, thousands, or millions of years or longer. As far as I know, there is no conclusive data indicating that the hole was not there prior to the widespread use of CFC’s. 

Answer: No.  It's not possible that the ozone hole has always been there, regardless of how little Jimbo and Quinn know.


William Mason is ignorant of the fact that the hole has stopped growing as a result of our actions, and that CFCs are long-lived and that the hole is acting on the time frame expected and says:

December 11, 2013 at 4:30 pm
If you suspect that something is causing a problem and you apply the fix for that but somehow it doesn’t cause a recovery would you at some point conclude that you were mistaken about the cause in the first place? Why do they stick to their original theories so adamantly? I think it’s time to reevaluate.

There is more of the same at WUWT - boring, boring same old scientific ilterati nonsense as you'll find on global warming topics at WUWT. (Archived here.)

WUWT comes full circle - will this be the last of Anthony Watts' Typhoon Haiyan protests?

I notice that Anthony Watts has come full circle.  He's posted the NASA article (archived here) that he slammed in his first WUWT article, in which he showed such callous indifference to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

Even now I'm not sure whether he even realises that is what he's done.   I bet Anthony Watts doesn't even know that it was this very same article that Heidi Cullen tweeted when he chose to ridicule her and (by default) NASA.

His latest article is by Bob Tisdale, who probably got the item from HotWhopper, because there was no sign that anyone at WUWT followed the link in Heidi Cullen's tweet, which Anthony mocked in his original article.  Not Anthony himself and not any of his readers.  (Or if a reader did, I missed it.)

All Anthony's typhoon articles come across as a knee-jerk reaction in protest at extreme weather. This time, in an apparent afterthought (it's an Update), he's decided to add a link to the Red Cross.

Typhoon Haiyan is "global-warming-alarmist hype"?

Anthony Watts and/or Bob Tisdale are still, even now, calling the reports of the typhoon "global-warming-alarmist hype".

I'm lost for words.

While thousands may have died in Typhoon Haiyan, be prepared to "throw up in your mouth" at this article on WUWT

Update: Anthony Watts cannot help himself - see below

---

Greg Laden has written an article about Super Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda, as it's called in the Philippines.  I've already written a comment about the first reaction from deniers at WUWT.  Anthony Watts has surpassed that denial and now posted an article (archived here and here) about which Greg Laden writes (h/t MikeH):

Watts needs to take this offensive and absurd post off of his site. Homewood needs to apologize, and to do so sincerely. But before they do that, go have a look. It will probably make you throw up a little in your mouth.

Maybe 10,000 dead in the province of Leyte

Now that more reports are coming in, there could be as many as 10,000 people who have been killed by the typhoon so far.  And that's just in the Philippines.  According to reports, the typhoon has weakened to the equivalent of a Cat 2 cyclone and is heading for Vietnam.

Anthony Watts chastises "alarmist" media

Paul Homewood makes a token acknowledgement to those killed, but is more concerned about "unsubstantiated claims", writing as his opening paragraph:

Sadly it appears that at least 1000 1200* lives have been lost in Typhoon Yolanda (or Haiyan), that has just hit the Philippines. There appear to have been many unsubstantiated claims about its size, though these now appear to start being replaced by accurate information.

The slant taken by Paul Homewood is bad enough.  What's worse are the opening sentences at the very top of the article, which were written by Anthony Watts himself. What is Anthony Watts concerned about?  He's concerned about "alarmist" reporting.  Here is Anthony Watts' headline and opening lines (archived here and here):

Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda – another overhyped storm that didn’t match early reports

Here is the sort of headlines we had Friday, for example this one from Huffington Post where they got all excited about some early reports from Andrew Freedman:

Super Typhoon Haiyan Could Be One Of The Strongest Storms In World History

Super Typhoon Haiyan — which is one of the strongest storms in world history based on maximum windspeed — is about to plow through the Central Philippines, producing a potentially deadly storm surge and dumping heavy rainfall that could cause widespread flooding. As of Thursday afternoon Eastern time, Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Yolanda, had estimated maximum sustained winds of 195 mph with gusts above 220 mph, which puts the storm in extraordinarily rare territory.

Ah those estimates, they sure don’t always meet up with reality later – Anthony

"Overhyped storm?" and "They sure don't always meet up with reality"?  Well, Anthony, it looks to me as if Huffington Post got the numbers from NASA and the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center.  Not real enough for WUWT?  I'd say the people in the Philippines don't regard one of "Earth's strongest storms ever" as "overhyped" and they certainly met up with reality.

Arguing over numbers and getting it wrong

Anthony and Paul go on to try to argue that everyone got the wind speeds wrong, writing that it really wasn't all that bad:

So at landfall the sustained wind was 235 kmh or 147 mph, with gusts upto 275 kmh or 171 mph. This is 60 mph less than the BBC have quoted.

The maximum strength reached by the typhoon appears to have been around landfall, as the reported windspeeds three hours earlier were 225 kmh (140mph).

Terrible though this storm was, it only ranks as a Category 4 storm, and it is clear nonsense to suggest that it is “one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall “

"Only ranks as a Category 4 storm when it hit land"!!

Paul Homewood is writing to complain to the UK Press Commission about this headline in the Daily Mail (which paper deniers usually love because of it's frequent disinformation on climate science.)  This is the headline that Paul Homewood complained about:

NASA JPL: One of the most powerful storms ever recorded on earth

Paul Homewood objected to the headline describing the typhoon as 235 mph.  But according to NASA that's exactly right.  This is from NASA JPL:

November 08, 2013

New satellite images just obtained from NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft and the Indian Space Research Organization's OceanSAT-2 ocean wind scatterometer provide a glimpse into one of the most powerful storms ever recorded on Earth. 

According to the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Typhoon Haiyan had maximum sustained winds of 195 mph (314 kilometers per hour), with gusts up to 235 mph (379 kilometers per hour) shortly before making landfall in the central Philippines today. That would make it one of the strongest storms ever recorded. Weather officials in the Philippines reported the storm, known locally as Typhoon Yolanda, came ashore with maximum sustained winds of 147 mph (235 kilometers per hour) and gusts of up to 170 mph (275 miles per hour). 

I'm finding it hard to imagine winds of 235 kph let alone gusts of 379 kph.


Anthony Watts is also objecting to these lines from newspaper reports, writing:

UPDATE4: Kent Noonan writes in with this addition -

CNN has had several articles stating the same numbers for wind speed as BBC and Mail. I saw these numbers first last night at 10PM Pacific time.

Today’s story: “Powered by 195-mph winds and gusts up to 235 mph, it then struck near Tacloban and Dulag on the island of Leyte, flooding the coastal communities.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/philippines-typhoon-haiyan/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews

If these “news” agencies don’t issue a correction, we will be forever battling the new meme of “most powerful storm in world history”.

Notice the "it then struck", which shows that it is entirely consistent with what NASA JPL reported.


(If any reader wants to play the numbers game, here is a list of tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons.  Typhoon Tip led the scoreboard in terms of wind speed until Haiyan, with sustained wind speeds at its maximum of 305 kph, a bit less than Haiyan, which is reported to have had sustained wind speeds of 314 kph.  But Tip was much weaker than Haiyan when it reached land.)

What is really disturbing...

Anyway, what I think is really disturbing is that while maybe 10,000 people perished in the Philippine province of Leyte, all Anthony Watts is worried about is whether the newspaper reports have the wind speed right.  He is so focused on denying global warming that he cannot lift his brain out of the slime.

Thing is that, despite what Anthony Watts would have his readers believe, the science is not yet clear on what global warming will mean for tropical cyclones.  It is expected that the proportion of fiercer storms will rise but whether there will be more tropical cyclones or not has not yet been clearly established.

Vietnam is next in its path

Here is the current image from the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center (click to enlarge):

The winds are currently at 85 knots (157 kph) gusting to 105 knots (194 kph) and expected to weaken to 60 knots (111 kph) as it approaches Vietnam, with gusts to 75 knots (139 kph).

From the WUWT comments

Tim Walker says it's sad, but people die in cyclones all the time:

November 9, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Trying to correct (mistakes – SARC) after the MSM informs the public will make very little difference. The public’s perception is made by the first news articles. It is a very sad situation we are in. The deaths and trouble in the Philippines are sad, but this kind of thing happens each year in different places of the world. What the MSM does in creating false perceptions is worse, because the clowns the public elect based on the false perceptions are causing worse problems. The future is very grim. Good luck to one and all.

albertalad says he's busy telling the Canadian media they are over-reacting:

November 9, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Thanks for the information – I used your info to correct two newspapers in Canada – The National Post,m and the CBC – which of course wen crazy as usual with hopes of the Philippines themselves being wiped off the face of the earth as THE global warming event they all desperately needed to be that destructive. It never ceases to amaze me how excited the global warming ghouls are with something like this – they really cheer for death and destruction.

Jimbo says back in 1882 there was one tropical cyclone that was as bad.  (Jimbo's link is bad - try this one.):

November 9, 2013 at 2:33 pm
But what about the past? [H/t Steven Goddard]

Oct 22, 1882
“Observatory says lowest barometer at 11.40 a. m., 727.60 ; highest velocity wind registered, 144.4 miles an hour. Unable to measure greatest velocity of typhoon as anemometer damaged.”

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/38278695
more typhoons from the past in the Philippines.

Paul Homewood says the wind speed reported was "strangely exact".  Well, Paul - maybe that's because they reported "exactly" what the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported:

November 9, 2013 at 3:01 pm
The “mistake” of the Mail seems apparent, but I wonder if it is their source of information that is to blame? The BBC are well known for attempting to convert everything into metrics to make us “more European”.

Their “379 kmh” seems strangely exact. Have they also seen the “235″ figure and assumed it is mph (just as the Mail did) and then decided to convert it to kmh to get to 379kmh? Indeed, it suggests the original source, whatever it may be, is where the original error crept in.

Stuart Lynne says it's because they are poor:

November 9, 2013 at 3:31 pm
As always this disaster is based on the poverty of the area. Populations living in areas that are inadequately prepared for whatever natural events that may occur where they live because they do not have adequate financial resources to do so (or like Katrina) where the resources are misapplied.

eric1skeptic comes up with all sorts of "reasons" and builds a straw man in the process:

November 9, 2013 at 4:04 pm
The satellite presentation was basically perfect at landfall. There is little doubt this was the strongest possible storm given the physical limits of storms that size. Typhoon Tip in 1979 was much larger but did not have such good symmetry. Tip only brushed land and many similarly strong storms never hit land or weakened before landfall.

The point that will be lost on the alarmists is that the near-perfect symmetry of Haiyan is only possible with nearly perfect weather conditions surrounding the storm. If anything isn’t perfect then the storm becomes asymmetric and can’t achieve top strength. That kind of weather will have no correlation to warning. Furthermore the (theoretical) decrease in the lapse rate will work against any increase in SST’s The SST’s provide better evaporation but the lapse rate provides the condensation which releases latent heat and causes the convection.

Anthony Watts has convinced people like pokerguy who, being misled by Anthony Watts, complains:

November 9, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Meanwhile, someone competent ought to get into Wikipedia and fix things…Currently they’re saying this in first sentence:

“Typhoon Haiyan of November 2013, which is known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda, is one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded.”

Rob Honeycutt calls them out and says that WUWT "should be ashamed":

November 9, 2013 at 5:14 pm
This is a particularly callous post, even for WUWT. Fatality numbers are just starting to come in and the latest are now saying over 10,000 have perished.

You people are playing silly number games in the face of real human suffering. You should be ashamed.

gregladen says:

November 9, 2013 at 5:57 pm
“Check reuters for the latest numbers,” is a citation of a source. Please do not add stupidity to your callousness. One locality is now citing 10,000 via the governer’s office.

Let me ask you this but you better answer quick because the ground is sliding from underneath you as I type this. How important is 1,200 vs. tens of thousands? If it turns out to be tens of thousands instead of 1,200 will you STFU forever? Please?

Let me know right away, I want to watch.

To which Anthony Watts, underlining his callous self-serving attitude, piously replied with the pathetic excuse "the problem with early estimates is what this post is about".

No it wasn't Anthony.  You posted it in "Alarmism":

Your article was about "alarmism" and news outlets getting "over-excited":

REPLY: its an estimate from a meeting last night. Since it was too hard for you to make a link, I searched. See here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/10/philippines-typhoon-casualty-idUSL4N0IV00F20131110

“We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said based on their estimate, 10,000 died,” Soria told Reuters. “

The problem with early estimates is what this post is about. We’ll wait until something more concrete than an estimate from a late night meeting is given.

The Red Cross in the Phillipines says 1200, I trust them more than government officials making estimates. If it turns out the number is higher, I’ll report it. In the mean time feel free to be as upset as you wish.- Anthony

And in true conspiracy ideation, Anthony writes that he trusts the Red Cross more than "government officials".

And true to his policy of censoring posts from those he regards as "warmists", Anthony Watts is now busy deleting comments (latest archive here).

Update

Now Anthony Watts has trotted out his third article making light of the super typhoon.  He's picked up a comment by Bjorn Lomborg arguing that global warming means that while cyclones may get more fierce with global warming, they might not happen as often.  And by the end of the century people will be able to better afford the worsening tropical cyclones. (Archived here.)

All while people are still in turmoil in the Philippines and Vietnam is waiting.

Sickening and bizarre behaviour at WUWT.

11:39 pm 10 November 2013

Anthony Watts sez an ice age cometh while Europe melts and the Arctic burns

No, Anthony - it's not the sun!

What did I say about Anthony rarely writing anything himself?  Here he is crowing about an article that a denier wrote for a Danish newspaper, saying:

Major Danish Daily Warns: “Globe May Be On Path To Little Ice Age…Much Colder Winters…Dramatic Consequences”!

Not "scientists warn" or "NOAA warns" or "solar experts warn".  No, Anthony's picked up a blog article from another crank conspiracy theorist (of the climate science is a hoax variety) who goes by the name of Pierre Gosselin.  Pierre is reporting an article in a Danish newspaper that apparently features a couple of climate science denying skeptics.

Anthony Watts of WUWT gets weirder every day.  While a heat wave grips part of Europe and Asia and fires rage in Northern Siberia, he reckons an ice age is coming! Anthony's gone barmy alright.

Meanwhile, in Europe and China, it's very hot

Anthony isn't reporting this.  I wonder why? (My bold italics)

A historic heat wave is underway in Central Europe, where both both Austria and Slovenia set all-time national heat records on August 8. Three locations in Austria passed the 40°C (104°F) mark, beating the former national record of 39.9°C (103.8°F) set just last week, on August 3rd at Dellach im Drautal.

According to the Austrian met service, ZAMG, the hottest spot was Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, with a 40.5°C (104.9°F) reading. Slovenia also surpassed its national heat record on August 8, with a 40.8°C (105.4°F) reading at Cerklje ob Krki (former record: 40.6°C (105.1°F) at Crnomelj on July 5, 1950.) Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, has broken its all-time heat record five of the past six days, with each day hotter than the previous record. The newest record is the 40.2°C (104.4°) recorded on August 8th. Records go back 150 years at this station. 

China's most populous city, Shanghai, broke its all-time record for hottest temperature on record for the second time this summer on August 7, when the mercury topped out at 40.8°C (105.4°F). The previous record was set just the day before (40.6°C/105.1°F), and also on July 26th.

Read more from Jeff Masters at WeatherUnderground

Northern Siberia Wildfires

Nor is he reporting the fires in Northern Siberia (my bold italics):

This unique summer for Northern Siberians brings Mediterranean temperatures but also 'out of control' blazes. Norilsk - one of Russia's coldest cities - basked in temperatures of 33C, as locals stripped off to catch a genuine Arctic tan, as we reported earlier. 

As NASA noted, the cause was a 'blocking high' - a persistent high pressure weather pattern over the Russian Arctic. 

For a few glorious summer days, the temperatures doubled from an average of 16C, but this also dried the land and led to wildfires, for example in the mainly Arctic autonomous district of Yamal-Nenets.  

'The fires are burning in an unusual area. Most summer wildfires in Siberia occur south of the 57 degrees North latitude line, along the southern edge of the taiga. The July 2013 fires are significantly north of that, raging in woodlands near the 65 degrees North line,' said one report.

'High temperatures play an important role in promoting wildfires.

'Warm fuels burn more readily than cooler fuels because less energy is required to raise their temperature to the point of ignition. With temperatures soaring in northern Russia, it was easier for previously active fires to continue burning and for lightning to spark new ones.'

Read more in the Siberian Times.

And more here from NASA:

The summer of 2012 was the most severe wildfire season Russia had faced in a decade. 2013 might be headed in the same direction after an unusual heat wave brought a surge of fire activity in northern Siberia in July.

A persistent high-pressure weather pattern in the Russian Arctic—a blocking high—contributed to the heat wave, which saw temperatures reach 32° Celsius (90° Fahrenheit) in the northern city of Norilsk. For comparison, daily July highs in Norilsk average 16° Celsius (61° Fahrenheit). Blocking highs are so named because they block the jet stream from moving rain-bearing weather systems along their normal west-to-east path; this leads to “stuck” weather patterns with long periods of stable air and exceptional heat.

Source: NASA