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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37, 2019
Posted on 17 September 2019 by Doug Bostrom
63 articles with 10 freely available as open access
Pitch in!
In the abstract for Unlocking pre-1850 instrumental meteorological records: A global inventory (an open access article), Stefan Brönnimann tells us:
Instrumental meteorological measurements from periods prior to the start of national weather services are designated “early instrumental data”. They have played an important role in climate research as they allow daily-to-decadal variability and changes of temperature, pressure, and precipitation, including extremes, to be addressed. Early instrumental data can also help place 21st century climatic changes into a historical context such as to define pre-industrial climate and its variability. Until recently, the focus was on long, high-quality series, while the large number of shorter series (which together also cover long periods) received little to no attention. The shift in climate and climate impact research from mean climate characteristics towards weather variability and extremes, as well as the success of historical reanalyses which make use of short series, generates a need for locating and exploring further early instrumental measurements. However, information on early instrumental series has never been electronically compiled on a global scale. Here we attempt a worldwide compilation of metadata on early instrumental meteorological records prior to 1850 (1890 for Africa and the Arctic). Our global inventory comprises information on several thousand records, about half of which have not yet been digitized (not even as monthly means), and only approximately 20% of which have made it to global repositories.
Having an inventory in hand, the next logical step is to render these records into a format suitable for computational input. There are ongoing efforts to do this— projects to which all of us may contribute help. For more information and leads to ongoing conversions, visit the ACRE website. The "citizen scientists" approach has proven very successful; in a brief period of time some 3,272 volunteers made thousands of old meteorological observations from the UK available as input to various weather and climate research avenues. Collections in the inventory described by Brönnimann will doubtless become grist for the mill of citizen volunteers.
"Let them eat lobster thermidor"
With yet another week's articles ranging from "concerning" to "dismal," adolescent lobsters finding an expanded habitat in certain areas thanks to a changing climate seem a welcome relief. Unfortunately, close reading of Goode et al's The brighter side of climate change: How local oceanography amplified a lobster boom in the Gulf of Maine reveals that generally warming waters on the larger scale are the reason for otherwise less suitable lobster habitat improving so as to produce a burgeoning boon of deliciousness. As is the case with setting one's house on fire and basking in warmth on a cold winter's evening, local and ephemeral effects are likely not worth the ultimate cost.
Articles:
Physical science of anthropogenic global warming
Indian Ocean warming can strengthen the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
Emergent Constraints on Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedbacks (open access)
Observation of global warming and global warming effects
Changes in mean flow and atmospheric wave activity in the North Atlantic sector
Physical retrieval of sea-surface temperature from INSAT-3D imager observations (open access)
Trends in Compound Flooding in Northwestern Europe during 1901–2014
Large Decadal Changes in Air?Sea CO2 Fluxes in the Caribbean Sea
Hot Summers in the Northern Hemisphere
Nineteenth?century Tides in the Gulf of Maine and Implications for Secular Trends
Upper ocean distribution of glacial meltwater in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
Unlocking pre-1850 instrumental meteorological records: A global inventory (open access)
Contribution of extreme daily precipitation to total rainfall over the Arabian Peninsula
Innovative trend analysis of annual and seasonal rainfall in the Yangtze River Delta, eastern China
Modeling global warming and global warming effects
Tidal responses to future sea level trends on the Yellow Sea shelf
Northern Hemisphere atmospheric stilling accelerates lake thermal responses to a warming world
Quantifying the cloud particle?size feedback in an Earth system model
Deglacial abrupt climate changes: not simply a freshwater problem (open access)
Streamflow response to climate change in the Greater Horn of Africa (open access)
Intensified hydroclimatic regime in Korean basins under 1.5 and 2 °C global warming
Humans dealing with our warming of the planet
Assessing the maturity of China’s seven carbon trading pilots
Adaptive capacity in urban areas of developing countries
Spatiotemporal changes of rice phenology in China under climate change from 1981 to 2010
A policy mixes approach to conceptualizing and measuring climate change adaptation policy
Post?truth and anthropogenic climate change: Asking the right questions
Historical development of climate change policies and the Climate Change Secretariat in Sri Lanka
A global decarbonisation bond (open access)
Building political support for carbon pricing—Lessons from cap-and-trade policies
Cities and greenhouse gas reduction: Policy makers or policy takers?
Biology and global warming
A review of environmental droughts: Increased risk under global warming?
Global warming promotes biological invasion of a honey bee pest
Trait structure and redundancy determine sensitivity to disturbance in marine fish communities
Testing for changes in biomass dynamics in large?scale forest datasets
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The previous edition of Skeptical Science new research may be found here.
The recently published paper that discusses the increased population of lobster without also discussing the now increased population of black sea bass that eat lobsters is clearly not only badly skewed on a large scale but even when it comes to the very species that the paper claims to be concerned with. This isn't "local and ephemeral effects", it's a case of the increased lobster numbers being a blip until their predators increase as well.
LINK
[DB] Hotlinked and shortened the source link.