[✔️] April 2, 2024 Global Warming News | Sea level rise, huge currents, Circumpolar current strength, cloud conundrum, 2002 seeking ouster

[Richard Pauli]

/*April *//*2, 2024*/

/[  Global sea level is up 3/10ths of an inch in the last year  ]/
*NASA Analysis Sees Spike in 2023 Global Sea Level Due to El Niño*
March 21, 2024
A long-term sea level dataset shows ocean surface heights continuing to 
rise at faster and faster rates over decades of observations.

Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) 
from 2022 to 2023, a relatively large jump due mostly to a warming 
climate and the development of a strong El Niño. The total rise is 
equivalent to draining a quarter of Lake Superior into the ocean over 
the course of a year.

This NASA-led analysis is based on a sea level dataset featuring more 
than 30 years of satellite observations, starting with the U.S.-French 
TOPEX/Poseidon mission, which launched in 1992. The Sentinel-6 Michael 
Freilich mission, which launched in November 2020, is the latest in the 
series of satellites that have contributed to this sea level record.

The data shows that global average sea level has risen a total of about 
4 inches (9.4 centimeters) since 1993. The rate of this increase has 
also accelerated, more than doubling from 0.07 inches (0.18 centimeters) 
per year in 1993 to the current rate of 0.17 inches (0.42 centimeters) 
per year.
“Current rates of acceleration mean that we are on track to add another 
20 centimeters of global mean sea level by 2050, doubling the amount of 
change in the next three decades compared to the previous 100 years and 
increasing the frequency and impacts of floods across the world,” said 
Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, director for the NASA sea level change team 
and the ocean physics program in Washington...
*Seasonal Effects*
Global sea level saw a significant jump from 2022 to 2023 due mainly to 
a switch between La Niña and El Niño conditions. A mild La Niña from 
2021 to 2022 resulted in a lower-than-expected rise in sea level that 
year. A strong El Niño developed in 2023, helping to boost the average 
amount of rise in sea surface height.

La Niña is characterized by cooler-than-normal ocean temperatures in the 
equatorial Pacific Ocean. El Niño involves warmer-than-average ocean 
temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. Both periodic climate phenomena 
affect patterns of rainfall and snowfall as well as sea levels around 
the world.

“During La Niña, rain that normally falls in the ocean falls on the land 
instead, temporarily taking water out of the ocean and lowering sea 
levels,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “In El Niño years, a lot 
of the rain that normally falls on land ends up in the ocean, which 
raises sea levels temporarily.”
*A Human Footprint*
Seasonal or periodic climate phenomena can affect global average sea 
level from year to year. But the underlying trend for more than three 
decades has been increasing ocean heights as a direct response to global 
warming due to the excessive heat trapped by greenhouse gases in Earth’s 
atmosphere.
“Long-term datasets like this 30-year satellite record allow us to 
differentiate between short-term effects on sea level, like El Niño, and 
trends that let us know where sea level is heading,” said Ben 
Hamlington, lead for NASA’s sea level change team at JPL.

These multidecadal observations wouldn’t be possible without ongoing 
international cooperation, as well as scientific and technical 
innovations by NASA and other space agencies. Specifically, radar 
altimeters have helped produce ever-more precise measurements of sea 
level around the world. To calculate ocean height, these instruments 
bounce microwave signals off the sea surface, recording the time the 
signal takes to travel from a satellite to Earth and back, as well as 
the strength of the return signal.

The researchers also periodically cross-check those sea level 
measurements against data from other sources. These include tide gauges, 
as well as satellite measurements of factors like atmospheric water 
vapor and Earth’s gravity field that can affect the accuracy of sea 
level measurements. Using that information, the researchers recalibrated 
the 30-year dataset, resulting in updates to sea levels in some previous 
years. That includes a sea level rise increase of 0.08 inches (0.21 
centimeters) from 2021 to 2022.

When researchers combine space-based altimetry data of the oceans with 
more than a century of observations from surface-based sources, such as 
tide gauges, the information dramatically improves our understanding of 
how sea surface height is changing on a global scale. When these sea 
level measurements are combined with other information, including ocean 
temperature, ice loss, and land motion, scientists can decipher why and 
how seas are rising.

/Learn more about sea level and climate change: https://sealevel.nasa.gov//
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-analysis-sees-spike-in-2023-global-sea-level-due-to-el-nino

- -

/[   huge currents ]/
*On the Vital Importance of Southern Ocean Antarctic Circumpolar Current 
(ACC) in our Climate System*
Paul Beckwith
Apr 1, 2024
A fascinating peer-reviewed scientific paper was just published on how 
the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) has changed over the past 5.3 
million years.

This massive and profoundly important ocean current system transports 
between 165 and 182 Sverdrup’s of water which is over 100 times more 
than the combined flow rate of all the rivers on our planet. One 
Sverdrup is a million cubic meters of water per second, so the ACC is of 
vital importance for heat flow on our planet.

Basically, the ACC flow has increased as our planet continues to warm at 
accelerated rates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4umstGoqaNY
/- -/
/[ PDF file carries a 20 page article - and Earth Null School  ]/
*Five million years of Antarctic Circumpolar **Current strength variability*
Published online: 27 March 2024
Frank Lamy, Gisela Winckler, Helge W. Arz, Jesse R. Farmer, Julia 
Gottschalk, Lester Lembke-Jene, and many more...
*Abstract*

    The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) represents the world’s
    largest ocean-current system and affects global ocean circulation,
    climate and Antarctic ice-sheet stability. Today, ACC dynamics are
    controlled by atmospheric forcing, oceanic density gradients and
    eddy activity4. Whereas palaeoceanographic reconstructions exhibit
    regional heterogeneity in ACC position and strength over Pleistocene
    glacial–interglacial cycles, the long-term evolution of the ACC is
    poorly known. Here we document changes in ACC strength from sediment
    cores in the Pacific Southern Ocean. We find no linear long-term
    trend in ACC flow since 5.3 million years ago (Ma), in contrast to
    global cooling9 and increasing global ice volume10. Instead, we
    observe a reversal on a million-year timescale, from increasing ACC
    strength during Pliocene global cooling to a subsequent decrease
    with further Early Pleistocene cooling. This shift in the ACC regime
    coincided with a Southern Ocean reconfiguration that altered the
    sensitivity of the ACC to atmospheric and oceanic forcings. We find
    ACC strength changes to be closely linked to 400,000-year
    eccentricity cycles, probably originating from modulation of
    precessional changes in the South Pacific jet stream linked to
    tropical Pacific temperature variability. A persistent link between
    weaker ACC flow, equatorward-shifted opal deposition and reduced
    atmospheric CO2 during glacial periods first emerged during the
    Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). The strongest ACC flow occurred
    during warmer-than-present intervals of the Plio-Pleistocene,
    providing evidence of potentially increasing ACC flow with future
    climate warming.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07143-3#Abs1



[ from Phys.org  - DTFM -  "*D*o *T*he *F*undamental *M*ath " ]
*Simple equations clarify cloud climate conundrum*
by University of Exeter

APRIL 1, 2024

A new analysis based on simple equations has reduced uncertainty about 
how clouds will affect future climate change.
Clouds have two main effects on global temperature—cooling the planet by 
reflecting sunlight, and warming it by acting as insulation for Earth's 
radiation. The impact of clouds is the largest area of uncertainty in 
global warming predictions.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Exeter and the 
Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique in Paris created a model that 
predicts how changes in the surface area of anvil clouds (storm clouds 
common in the tropics) will affect global warming.

By testing their model against observations of how clouds impact warming 
in the present day, they confirmed its effectiveness and thereby reduced 
uncertainty in climate predictions.

The model shows that changes in the area of anvil clouds have a much 
weaker impact on global warming than previously thought. However, the 
brightness of clouds (determined by their thickness) remains 
understudied, and is therefore one of the largest obstacles to 
predicting future global warming.

"Climate change is complex, but sometimes we can answer key questions in 
a very simple way," said lead author Brett McKim.

"In this case, we simplified clouds into basic characteristics: either 
high or low, their size and the temperature," McKim explained. "Doing 
this allowed us to write equations and create a model that could be 
tested against observed clouds."

"Our results more than halve uncertainty about the impact of the surface 
area of anvil clouds on warming.

"That's a big step—potentially equivalent to several years' difference 
in when we expect to reach thresholds such as the 2°C limit set by the 
Paris Agreement.

"We now need to investigate how warming will affect the brightness of 
clouds. That's the next stage of our research."

The paper, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, is titled, "Weak 
anvil cloud area feedback suggested by physical and observational 
constraints."

More information: Weak anvil cloud area feedback suggested by physical 
and observational constraints, Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 
10.1038/s41561-024-01414-4

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-simple-equations-cloud-climate-conundrum.html

- -

/[ Journal information: Nature Geoscience ]/
Published: 01 April 2024
*Weak anvil cloud area feedback suggested by physical and observational 
constraints*
Brett McKim, Sandrine Bony & Jean-Louis Dufresne
Nature Geoscience (2024)Cite this article
*Abstract*

    Changes in anvil clouds with warming remain a leading source of
    uncertainty in estimating Earth’s climate sensitivity. Here we
    develop a feedback analysis that decomposes changes in anvil clouds
    and creates testable hypotheses for refining their proposed
    uncertainty ranges with observations and theory. To carry out this
    storyline approach, we derive a simple but quantitative expression
    for the anvil area feedback, which is shown to depend on the
    present-day measurable cloud radiative effects and the fractional
    change in anvil area with warming. Satellite observations suggest an
    anvil cloud radiative effect of about ±1 W m−2, which requires the
    fractional change in anvil area to be about 50% K−1 in magnitude to
    produce a feedback equal to the current best estimate of its lower
    bound. We use quantitative theory and observations to show that the
    change in anvil area is closer to about −4% K−1. This constrains the
    area feedback and leads to our revised estimate of
    0.02 ± 0.07 W m−2 K−1, which is many times weaker and more
    constrained than the overall anvil cloud feedback. In comparison, we
    show the anvil cloud albedo feedback to be much less constrained,
    both theoretically and observation ally, which poses an obstacle for
    bounding Earth’s climate sensitivity.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01414-4



/[The news archive - "seeking the ouster" ]/
/*April 2, 2002 */
April 2, 2002: The New York Times reports:

"After a year of urging from energy industry lobbyists, the Bush 
administration is seeking the ouster of an American scientist who for 
nearly six years has directed an international panel of hundreds of 
experts assessing global warming, several government officials have said.

"The specialist, Dr. Robert T. Watson, chief scientist of the World 
Bank, is highly regarded as an atmospheric chemist by many climate 
experts. He has held the unpaid position of chairman of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since the fall of 1996. Now 
his term is expiring and the State Department has chosen not to 
renominate him to head the panel, which is run under the auspices of the 
United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization.

"Dr. Watson is an outspoken advocate of the idea that human actions — 
mainly burning oil and coal — are contributing to global warming and 
must be changed to avert environmental upheavals.

"Last night, a State Department official said the administration was 
leaning toward endorsing a scientist from India, which along with other 
developing countries has been eager for a stronger role in the climate 
assessments.

"But many influential climate experts say they have written to the 
department supporting Dr. Watson."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/02/science/02CLIM.html
http://youtu.be/6NcSOUJUBfY


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