Why "a clique of climate scientists" who allegedly usurped the media, might not be ready to accept Dr. Hansen's conclusions about accelerating global warming, and why the biosphere is what matters.
Thanks for this excellent analysis. As for the use of the word "core," core implies embeddedness, something central, while the group Dr. Hansen is referring to seems more above and detached than central and core. They operate as though at some sort of pinnacle, gained I guess by their facility with models and math. If Hansen is an outlier, he is just a step or two beside them, but in the same elite strata, which sees a purely physical, mechanistic climate system. It's a group, I'd say, more than a core, and it's main feature is that it is elite, above the rest. And purely physical in outlook.
Dr. Hansen is also the one who gave us, in 1998, the climate graph that assesses "vegetation and other surface alterations" 1850-2000 as causing a mild cooling of .2C. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.95.22.12753 (unfortunately, I can't figure out to display that graph in this comment.) Could this assumption be at the root of ignoring the biosphere? After all, if that assessment is wrong, it would seem to make a mess of the entire structure.
One is a collage of graphs: The flow of the Zambezi (at the Victoria Falls) from 1908 to about 2022 (Source, Zambezi River Authority) Above that I have El Nina/La Nina data from 1950 onwards (Source NOAS) and I included Sunspot data for the same period (I cannot remember the source)
The second is an estimate of rainfall based on Tree-ring Data from an area just south of the Victoria Falls, called Hwange. Sadly the data from about 1900 to 1930 contradicts the Zambezi flow at Victoria Falls. (Wet according to the trees, dry according to the river).
The 3rd is an estimate of the flow of the Limpopo (south and west of Hwange) from 1180 to 2000 based on C13 isotopes.
I include these three data sets because (a) there is quite a lot of disagreement between them as to what was happening, but (b) because there was quite a lot of variation - which needs an explanation, other than rising CO2 levels.
BTW, if Anastassia has found the time to read this far, I have obtained the catchment figures for the 3 measuring stations on the Zambezi. The top one (Chivuma) is 79,281km2 the middle one (Ngonye/Sioma Falls) is 315,500km2 and the bottom one (Victoria Falls) is 517,900km2 - considerably smaller than the figure she used (for the entire Zambezi). I bring this up, because I am trying to understand the effect of Land Use on the regional rainfall, as well as within the region on a catchment and sub-catchment scale.
And now I really must get back to my plans for the day!
Aerosols includes cloud formation and cumulus cloud formation that includes small water cycles that is not as reductionist as the carbon-focused talk. Aerosols are part of more holistic processes that people must also act to defend and preserve.
Thank you for this exciting discussion which stretches my ability to fully understand all the nuances. And thank you for that link to James Hansen's paper! You suggested something along the lines that the ocean gave up some of it's stored heat. I've read the solar imbalance heat (which is accelerating alarmingly) is stored in the top 200 meters. I remember reading in my formative years about Beebe and Barton in their Bathesphere 1930-1934 discovering that it it completely dark at an ocean depth of 500 ft (152 meters). Is the temperature (and therefore density) flux well mapped today? Could this lowering of density imply that the vast ability of the deep ocean to moderate surface temperatures won't be available for a long time, time we do not have? Perhaps these are fuzzy concepts but it seems we need to have some way to model how the increasing solar energy imbalance gets "stuck" in the top layer of the oceans leading to rapid increase in tropical air temperatures and storms. Who is studying this?
I suppose it is important to understand how our Oceans interact with the Climate, but I suggest we focus on our Land Use, because that is something over which we have more immediate control. The wordsmiths among us can argue, but I am thinking that the "Small Water Cycle" should be renamed the "Terrestrial Water Cycle" which gives it the importance it deserves - it is the rain that falls over land, the amount, the intensity and the distribution (in both time and space) that is critical to human (and other terrestrial) life. We can do a lot more to enhance this Terrestrial Water Cycle than we can do to tweak the Oceans.
I've been thinking the same thing, Bruce. The fact that the cycle is land-driven seems it's key characteristic. By the way, I'm aware of work showing how such cycles can carry moisture great distances, such as across the northern boreal forests into China, but am more interested in shorter, more local precipitation recycling. How quickly and how near the source can the emissions of vapor/ccn rain out again. Any links appreciated.
Ah, but Bruce and Rob, most of the solar energy imbalance (which may have doubled in the last 10 years is absorbed by the oceans (we do live on a water planet) and that is driving extreme weather storms as the biosphere tries to equilibrate across latitudes. It is these storms that will eventually decimate global food production and lead to mass malnutrition because food, although still available, will become unaffordable by more and more people. Watch per capital food production which is difficult to track.
One feed back loop not counted for in past extrapolations on top of land clearing is mans use of fire and although this produces a short boost to some bioaerosols (which may enhance smog rather than rain) they also have a longer term effect of reducing the higher temperature ice nucleating particles effecting not only temperatures of cloud formation but also rain. This may also lead to the reduction in ocean algae based bioprecipitation nuclei from reduced rainfall loop with decreased land based nutrient runoff, I say this as areas of southern Australia are experiencing flow on droughts in an ocean moving direction along the bottom of the Australian continent, Last year the Western Australian drought dried up river outflow and one assumes less marine based algae in this nutrient poor region , this may have lead to the flow on effect of little winter rain in South Australia which now are experiencing some of the worst conditions in decades. We have the perception that controlled use of fire is beneficial but I believe if used inappropriately then it just moves the whole system further from a point of stability. To lose the higher temperature ice nucleating particles in a warming world drives a greater divide creating greater climatic instability toward warmer and dryer conditions. Many thanks again for such important work.
I share your skepticism of Fire in our modern world. It may have been useful to ancient communities who did not have the mechanical technology that we have at our disposal, but I believe in a world trying to feed at least 4 billion city dwellers, we just cannot afford the wasted resource which our soil workers (that's the soil microbes, not the farmers!) so desperately need.
HI Bruce, how did you go with the spreader levees info? . they would have been useful in the recent flooding in Somalia. A main concern with fire for me is the loss of the rot ie decaying vegetation that has the ability to be a host for not only so much life but also the ability to create high temperature ice nucleating and precipitation particles. As far as I see it the daily thermal expansion from the sun allows an updraft every day and the ability for rain creation at various altitudes is determined in part to the temperature of nucleation ability of fungus and microbe detritus. They had a trial on wheat of certain types of fungus with one of the highest at just above freezing point but it also degraded their crop but in a diversified system these higher temperature nucleating particles are kept in check and have the ability to form a cooling through cloud creation that may help trigger the rain cascade on a greater number of days, hence afternoon rain in the tropics. We remove this from the system and we trigger a warming and drying feed back loop. We have the ability to distinguish the best fungus and microbes which offer minimal damage with this benefit so Hopefully in the future we can spray a crop or orchard with a mixture for rain creation as well as currently spraying to protect from certain fungal pathogens.
Have you noticed the Forster pre-print: Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence...
Aerosols? This intuitively feels too reductionist to be correct.
Thanks for this excellent analysis. As for the use of the word "core," core implies embeddedness, something central, while the group Dr. Hansen is referring to seems more above and detached than central and core. They operate as though at some sort of pinnacle, gained I guess by their facility with models and math. If Hansen is an outlier, he is just a step or two beside them, but in the same elite strata, which sees a purely physical, mechanistic climate system. It's a group, I'd say, more than a core, and it's main feature is that it is elite, above the rest. And purely physical in outlook.
Dr. Hansen is also the one who gave us, in 1998, the climate graph that assesses "vegetation and other surface alterations" 1850-2000 as causing a mild cooling of .2C. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.95.22.12753 (unfortunately, I can't figure out to display that graph in this comment.) Could this assumption be at the root of ignoring the biosphere? After all, if that assessment is wrong, it would seem to make a mess of the entire structure.
Dear Rob,
Like you, I would like to share data, but cannot find any other way than to put it in a folder and to share the link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BDWr7fAAOlDWLbZepJB3XzU25d49w8kE?usp=sharing
One is a collage of graphs: The flow of the Zambezi (at the Victoria Falls) from 1908 to about 2022 (Source, Zambezi River Authority) Above that I have El Nina/La Nina data from 1950 onwards (Source NOAS) and I included Sunspot data for the same period (I cannot remember the source)
The second is an estimate of rainfall based on Tree-ring Data from an area just south of the Victoria Falls, called Hwange. Sadly the data from about 1900 to 1930 contradicts the Zambezi flow at Victoria Falls. (Wet according to the trees, dry according to the river).
The 3rd is an estimate of the flow of the Limpopo (south and west of Hwange) from 1180 to 2000 based on C13 isotopes.
I include these three data sets because (a) there is quite a lot of disagreement between them as to what was happening, but (b) because there was quite a lot of variation - which needs an explanation, other than rising CO2 levels.
BTW, if Anastassia has found the time to read this far, I have obtained the catchment figures for the 3 measuring stations on the Zambezi. The top one (Chivuma) is 79,281km2 the middle one (Ngonye/Sioma Falls) is 315,500km2 and the bottom one (Victoria Falls) is 517,900km2 - considerably smaller than the figure she used (for the entire Zambezi). I bring this up, because I am trying to understand the effect of Land Use on the regional rainfall, as well as within the region on a catchment and sub-catchment scale.
And now I really must get back to my plans for the day!
Aerosols includes cloud formation and cumulus cloud formation that includes small water cycles that is not as reductionist as the carbon-focused talk. Aerosols are part of more holistic processes that people must also act to defend and preserve.
Somehow, I find this statement appealing and revealing:
"I should emphasize that the heat anomaly of 2023 and 2024 was not predicted by any climate model, either hot or cold."
"Depauperacy": A reduction in diversity of natural forms.
Thank you for this exciting discussion which stretches my ability to fully understand all the nuances. And thank you for that link to James Hansen's paper! You suggested something along the lines that the ocean gave up some of it's stored heat. I've read the solar imbalance heat (which is accelerating alarmingly) is stored in the top 200 meters. I remember reading in my formative years about Beebe and Barton in their Bathesphere 1930-1934 discovering that it it completely dark at an ocean depth of 500 ft (152 meters). Is the temperature (and therefore density) flux well mapped today? Could this lowering of density imply that the vast ability of the deep ocean to moderate surface temperatures won't be available for a long time, time we do not have? Perhaps these are fuzzy concepts but it seems we need to have some way to model how the increasing solar energy imbalance gets "stuck" in the top layer of the oceans leading to rapid increase in tropical air temperatures and storms. Who is studying this?
I suppose it is important to understand how our Oceans interact with the Climate, but I suggest we focus on our Land Use, because that is something over which we have more immediate control. The wordsmiths among us can argue, but I am thinking that the "Small Water Cycle" should be renamed the "Terrestrial Water Cycle" which gives it the importance it deserves - it is the rain that falls over land, the amount, the intensity and the distribution (in both time and space) that is critical to human (and other terrestrial) life. We can do a lot more to enhance this Terrestrial Water Cycle than we can do to tweak the Oceans.
I've been thinking the same thing, Bruce. The fact that the cycle is land-driven seems it's key characteristic. By the way, I'm aware of work showing how such cycles can carry moisture great distances, such as across the northern boreal forests into China, but am more interested in shorter, more local precipitation recycling. How quickly and how near the source can the emissions of vapor/ccn rain out again. Any links appreciated.
Ah, but Bruce and Rob, most of the solar energy imbalance (which may have doubled in the last 10 years is absorbed by the oceans (we do live on a water planet) and that is driving extreme weather storms as the biosphere tries to equilibrate across latitudes. It is these storms that will eventually decimate global food production and lead to mass malnutrition because food, although still available, will become unaffordable by more and more people. Watch per capital food production which is difficult to track.
One feed back loop not counted for in past extrapolations on top of land clearing is mans use of fire and although this produces a short boost to some bioaerosols (which may enhance smog rather than rain) they also have a longer term effect of reducing the higher temperature ice nucleating particles effecting not only temperatures of cloud formation but also rain. This may also lead to the reduction in ocean algae based bioprecipitation nuclei from reduced rainfall loop with decreased land based nutrient runoff, I say this as areas of southern Australia are experiencing flow on droughts in an ocean moving direction along the bottom of the Australian continent, Last year the Western Australian drought dried up river outflow and one assumes less marine based algae in this nutrient poor region , this may have lead to the flow on effect of little winter rain in South Australia which now are experiencing some of the worst conditions in decades. We have the perception that controlled use of fire is beneficial but I believe if used inappropriately then it just moves the whole system further from a point of stability. To lose the higher temperature ice nucleating particles in a warming world drives a greater divide creating greater climatic instability toward warmer and dryer conditions. Many thanks again for such important work.
I share your skepticism of Fire in our modern world. It may have been useful to ancient communities who did not have the mechanical technology that we have at our disposal, but I believe in a world trying to feed at least 4 billion city dwellers, we just cannot afford the wasted resource which our soil workers (that's the soil microbes, not the farmers!) so desperately need.
HI Bruce, how did you go with the spreader levees info? . they would have been useful in the recent flooding in Somalia. A main concern with fire for me is the loss of the rot ie decaying vegetation that has the ability to be a host for not only so much life but also the ability to create high temperature ice nucleating and precipitation particles. As far as I see it the daily thermal expansion from the sun allows an updraft every day and the ability for rain creation at various altitudes is determined in part to the temperature of nucleation ability of fungus and microbe detritus. They had a trial on wheat of certain types of fungus with one of the highest at just above freezing point but it also degraded their crop but in a diversified system these higher temperature nucleating particles are kept in check and have the ability to form a cooling through cloud creation that may help trigger the rain cascade on a greater number of days, hence afternoon rain in the tropics. We remove this from the system and we trigger a warming and drying feed back loop. We have the ability to distinguish the best fungus and microbes which offer minimal damage with this benefit so Hopefully in the future we can spray a crop or orchard with a mixture for rain creation as well as currently spraying to protect from certain fungal pathogens.
you are gaining traction. Keep going!!
Have you noticed the Forster pre-print: Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence...
https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2025-250/
this is always a major influential document, which now includes global LAND precipitation which they admit is highly uncertain.