Satellite Temps Hit Bottom: February 2023

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Climate miserablists are no doubt dreaming of a mega El Niño to get their warming scare back on course.

Science Matters

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  Now at year end 2022 and continuing into January 2023 we have again global temp anomaly lower than average since 1995. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

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Why do Earth’s hemispheres look equally bright when viewed from space?

Has the mystery been solved?
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When looking at the Earth from space, its hemispheres – northern and southern – appear equally bright, says EurekAlert.

This is particularly unexpected because the Southern Hemisphere is mostly covered with dark oceans, whereas the Northern Hemisphere has a vast land area that is much brighter than these oceans.

For years, the brightness symmetry between hemispheres remained a mystery.

Greenhouse gas concentrations further increased in 2022, finds analysis of global satellite data

What was the point of all those UN climate conferences again?
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Preliminary analyses of global satellite data by environmental researchers at the University of Bremen show that atmospheric concentrations of the two important greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) continued to rise sharply in 2022, reports Phys.org.

The increase in both gases is similar to that of previous years. However, the increase in methane does not reach the record levels of 2020 and 2021.

The Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) at the University of Bremen is a world-leading institute in the field of evaluation and interpretation of global satellite measurements of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) and other atmospheric trace gases that are of great importance for climate and air quality.

The institute leads the GHG-CCI greenhouse gas project of the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative (ESA) and provides related data to the European Copernicus Climate Change Service C3S and the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service CAMS.

NASA cancels climate change satellite to monitor greenhouse gases

Lift-off [image credit: NASA]

Collecting mountains of data on so-called greenhouse gases was not going to be cost-effective, says NASA. ‘Technical concerns’ played a part in the decision.
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All good things must come to an end, and in the case of NASA’s GeoCarb mission, some good things must end before they really begin, says Space.com.

NASA has canceled the GeoCarb mission, which was a collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and Lockheed Martin that intended to put a greenhouse gas–monitoring satellite into geostationary orbit.

GeoCarb would have measured levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane in the atmosphere about 4 million times per day. The mission was selected by NASA in 2016.

New analysis attempts to reconcile differences between satellites and climate models

Space satellite orbiting the earth

An academic attempt to gloss over some glaring discrepancies between results from theory-based climate models and observed data. The research paper says: ‘Climate-model simulations exhibit approximately two times more tropical tropospheric warming than satellite observations since 1979’. Over forty years of being so wrong, by their own admission, takes a lot of explaining.
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Satellite observations and computer simulations are important tools for understanding past changes in Earth’s climate and for projecting future changes, says Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (via Phys.org).

However, satellite observations consistently show less warming than climate model simulations from 1979 to the present, especially in the tropical troposphere (the lowest ~15 km of Earth’s atmosphere).

This difference has raised concerns that models may overstate future temperature changes.

Sea-level rise in the Mediterranean Sea branded ‘staggering’, due to scientists ‘using a vital new method’

Credit: OH 237 @ Wikipedia

Vastly higher? Enormous? Staggering? – should we be shocked? No, because none of these words from the article below appear in the study itself, which notes: ‘We find that, between 1960 and 1989, sea level in the Mediterranean fell’. It then ‘started accelerating rapidly’. The study also admits: ‘The relative contributions from sterodynamic changes (i.e., changes in ocean density and circulation) and land-ice melting to this recent increase in the rate of Mediterranean sea-level rise remain unclear.’ Looks like the press release resorted to colourful language.
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Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered a substantial rise in sea-levels in the Mediterranean Sea, using a vital new method to measure changes in sea-level, says the NOC.

The study, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, demonstrated that sea levels in the Mediterranean Sea have risen at vastly higher rates over the past 20 years compared to the entirety of the 20th century.

The study revealed that sea level in the Mediterranean Sea increased by about 7cm in the period 2000–2018.

Previous changes in sea-level rise in the Mediterranean Sea have been highly unpredictable due to limited observational data but using this latest method, scientists analysed sea-level data from tide gauges and satellites to reveal an enormous increase as a result of ocean warming and land ice-melt.

Satellite Temperature Data Show Almost All Climate Model Forecasts Over the Last 40 Years Were Wrong

Image credit: livescience.com

Maybe a climate model with no ‘ECS’ factor could do better? But anything that smacks of natural variation inevitably faces resistance from climate alarm promoters.
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A major survey into the accuracy of climate models has found that almost all the past temperature forecasts between 1980-2021 were excessive compared with accurate satellite measurements, says the Daily Sceptic.

The findings were recently published by Professor Nicola Scafetta, a physicist from the University of Naples. He attributes the inaccuracies to a limited understanding of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), the number of degrees centigrade the Earth’s temperature will rise with a doubling of carbon dioxide.

Scientists have spent decades trying to find an accurate ECS number, to no avail.

Seasonal change in Antarctic ice sheet movement observed for first time – but what does it mean?

Antarctica’s George VI Ice Shelf [image credit: CIRES Colorado Univ.]

Assumptions challenged by new data. Talk of “potentially important implications for global sea-level rise estimates”.
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Some estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability, says Phys.org.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Austrian engineering company ENVEO, identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land-based ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf—a floating platform of ice roughly the size of Wales—on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer.

Research shows tropical cyclones forming globally decreased by about 13% during the 20th century compared to the 19th

Landfalling hurricane [credit: NOAA]

A reconstructed record of cyclone activity going as far back as 1850 doesn’t show what climate alarmists, with their assertions of ‘human-induced’ global warming, might have expected. The intensity question is left for future research. The researchers note that ‘For most tropical cyclone basins (regions where they occur more regularly), including Australia, the decline has accelerated since the 1950s. Importantly, this is when human-induced warming also accelerated.’ [Or so they believe.] ‘The only exception to the trend is the North Atlantic basin’. Of course detailed historical records of natural climate variation may also be hard to find.
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The annual number of tropical cyclones forming globally decreased by about 13% during the 20th century compared to the 19th, according to research published today in Nature Climate Change.

Tropical cyclones are massive low-pressure systems that form in tropical waters when the underlying environmental conditions are right, says The Conversation.

These conditions include (but aren’t limited to) sea surface temperature, and variables such as vertical wind shear, which refers to changes in wind speed and direction with altitude.

Antarctic sea-ice expansion in a warming climate confounds model predictions

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

The obvious conclusion would be that the climate models are wrong, due to application of incorrect climate theory. As usual, researchers cast around desperately for other alternatives, only to find natural variation preventing warming from being global.
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Antarctic sea-ice has expanded over the period of continuous satellite monitoring, which seemingly contradicts ongoing global warming resulting from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses, says Phys.org.

In a study, published in Nature Climate Change, an international team of scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and South Korea shows that a multi-decadal swing of the tropical sea surface temperatures and its ability to change the atmospheric circulation across large distances is in large part responsible for the observed sea-ice expansion since the late 1970s.

Arctic winter 2022 sea ice only 10th-lowest on the 43-year satellite record

Sea ice optional [image credit: BBC]

Not an indicator of supposedly dire global warming this season then? Groans from climate obsessives perhaps. Nothingburgers all round.
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Arctic sea ice appeared to have hit its annual maximum extent on Feb. 25 after growing through the fall and winter, says NASA (via Phys.org).

This year’s wintertime extent is the 10th-lowest in the satellite record maintained by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Centers.

The Starlink Incident

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Looks like the risks were seriously underestimated if this was only a minor geomagnetic storm.

Spaceweather.com

Feb. 9, 2022: As many as 40 Starlink satellites are currently falling out of the sky–the surprising result of a minor geomagnetic storm. SpaceX made the announcement yesterday:

“On Thursday, Feb. 3rd at 1:13 p.m. EST, Falcon 9 launched 49 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. … Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday, [Feb. 4th].”

Two days before launch a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field. It was not a major space weather event. In fact, the weak impact did not at first spark any remarkable geomagnetic activity. However, as Earth passed through the CME’s wake, some sputtering G1-class geomagnetic storms developed. It was one of these minor storms that caught the Starlink satellites on Feb. 4th.

Geomagnetic storms heat Earth’s upper atmosphere. Diaphanous tendrils of warming air literally reached up…

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Deep insights into the Arctic of tomorrow

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

One finding was that snow cover variability was more ‘extreme’ than expected, pointing to the need for further research as well as improvements to climate models. Whether the recent Arctic weather/climate history is a reliable guide to future conditions remains to be seen.
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Hundreds of international researchers are currently analyzing observations from the one-year MOSAiC expedition, during which hundreds of environmental parameters were recorded with unprecedented accuracy and frequency over a full annual cycle in the Central Arctic Ocean, says Phys.org.

They have now published three overview articles on the MOSAiC atmosphere, snow and sea ice, and ocean programs in the journal Elementa, highlighting the importance of examining all components of the climate system together.

These results present the first complete picture of the climate processes in the central Arctic which is warming more than two times as fast as the rest of the planet—processes which affect weather and climate worldwide.

Ocean eddies could explain Antarctic sea-ice paradox, say climate modellers

Opposite sea ice trends? [Credits: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng]

Climate modellers need yet more and bigger computers to stand a chance of eradicating faulty sea ice projections in the polar regions, apparently. Meanwhile, they believe there must be some ‘delay’ in their long-predicted but not (yet?) happening Antarctic sea ice decline. Quote: “Our study supports the hypothesis that climate models and projections of the Antarctic sea ice will be far more reliable as soon as they are capable of realistically simulating a high-resolution ocean, complete with eddies”.
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Despite global warming and the sea-ice loss in the Arctic, the Antarctic sea-ice extent has remained largely unchanged since 1979, says Eurekalert.

However, existing climate model-based simulations indicate significant sea-ice loss, contrary to actual observations.

As experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute have now shown, the ocean may weaken warming around Antarctica and delay sea-ice retreat.

Tonga eruption was so intense it caused the atmosphere to ring like a bell

The atmospheric plume from an underwater volcano eruption in the Pacific nation of Tonga is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above the Pacific Ocean northwest of Auckland, New Zealand [image credit: NASA / Kayla Barron @ Wikipedia]

This NASA animation leaves little room for doubt about how powerful the Tonga event was. The very low-frequency sound waves it produced were first predicted by Laplace over 200 years ago, as the article below explains.
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The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption reached an explosive crescendo on Jan. 15, 2022, says Kevin Hamilton @ The Conversation (via Phys.org).

Its rapid release of energy powered an ocean tsunami that caused damage as far away as the U.S. West Coast, but it also generated pressure waves in the atmosphere that quickly spread around the world.

The atmospheric wave pattern close to the eruption was quite complicated, but thousands of miles away it appeared as an isolated wave front traveling horizontally at over 650 miles an hour as it spread outward.

NASA’s James Garvin, chief scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, told NPR the space agency estimated the blast was around 10 megatons of TNT equivalent, about 500 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World Word II.

Study looks at Antarctic sea ice changes since the early 20th century, increases since 1979

Antarctica

The article says ‘The satellite measurements start in 1979’, but the USGS Landsat satellite project has been ‘imaging the Earth since 1972’. The researchers say in the abstract of their paper: ‘In stark contrast to the Arctic, there have been statistically significant positive trends in total Antarctic sea ice extent since 1979. However, the short and highly variable nature of observed Antarctic sea ice extent limits the ability to fully understand the historical context of these recent changes.’ The UK Met Office reported in October 2021: ‘Antarctic sea ice reached a maximum extent (to date) of 18.75 million sq km on 1st September 2021 (Figure 7), which is very close to the 1981-2010 average maximum extent of 18.70 million sq km.’
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A study led by Ohio University researchers shows that the increase of sea ice surrounding Antarctica since 1979 is a unique feature of Antarctic climate since 1905—an observation that paints a dramatic first-ever picture for weather and climate implications on the world’s southernmost continent, says Phys.org.

Dr. Ryan Fogt’s study, published today in Nature Climate Change, is the first to detail sea ice extent surrounding the entire continent though all four seasons over the last century.

Weather, especially winds and temperatures, contribute to sea ice changes. Fogt is professor of Geography in OHIO’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Satellites spot oceans aglow with trillions of organisms

Bioluminescence [image credit: Gov’t. of South Australia]

Such events happen because ‘the microbes can suddenly light up as if a switch were thrown’. Even the smallest occurrence can be ‘100 times larger than Manhattan’.
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The ocean has always glowed, says the NY Times (via bdnews24.com).

The Greeks and Romans knew of luminous sea creatures as well as the more general phenomenon of seawater that can light up in bluish-green colours.

Charles Darwin, as he sailed near South America on a dark night aboard the HMS Beagle, encountered luminescent waves. He called it “a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle.”

A Seasonal Emerald in the Sahel

Credit: geopoliticalfutures.com

A striking example of seasonal climate variation, with detailed images.
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The Inland Delta of the Niger River is one of the world’s most productive wetlands says NASA, even though it is mostly dry for nearly half of each year.

Depending on the abundance and timing of rainfall upstream, the inland delta of the Niger River in Mali typically floods with water from roughly August to December.

The result is a seasonal burst of green vegetation at the intersection of the Sahara Desert and the Sahel.

Gulf Stream and Kuroshio Current found to be synchronized on decadal time scale

Credit: NOAA

Researchers propose another weather/climate cycle.
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A team of researchers with members affiliated with a large number of institutions across Japan has found that the Gulf stream and Kuroshio are synchronized on a decadal time scale, says Phys.org.

In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their study of decades of weather satellite data and the link between the two ocean currents.

Paola Cessi, with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, has published a Perspective piece on the work done by the team in Japan in the same journal issue.

Space-based solar power for the UK?

Credit: NASA

The UK is not alone in what’s billed as a new space race. China for one is in the game. If you think you’ve heard it all before, you probably have. 
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Vast solar power satellites in Earth’s orbit, beaming energy back to Earth. It’s a serious idea for green energy from the UK Space Agency, say insurers MS Amlin.

In one of his early dystopian short stories, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagined a mile-wide space station that could “feed solar energy to the planets”.

Published in 1941, under the title Reason, it described a fantastical “energy converter” that gathered sunlight and beamed it across the entire solar system.

Some 80 years later, Asimov’s flight of fancy is starting to take real shape.