Climatologists should recognize:
The World Is Not Flat.

Post: November 30, 2020

It has been some time since Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) was able to lay the foundations for understanding that placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe, by convincing a few of his ccontemporaries that the Earth was a spinning ball and not flat. Eventually the subsequent generations accepted the view.  Particularly for earth sciences a breakthrough, encouraging all disciplines to keep an eye on the whole picture. However, if it comes to the climate debate, one may could ask, whether science has focused its research and analysis too closely, which could raise the impression that the climate debate is based on view comparable with those before Copernicus: The Earth Is Flat.

 The climate change debate heavily focuses on the atmosphere. That is the domain of meteorology, focusing on atmospheric physics and weather forecasting, since the 19^th Century. In brief, ‘climatology’ emerged much later (since the 1950^th) and process meteorological data statistically. For these camps, the global warming is an atmospheric issue, based primarily on the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. But it is by far too narrow to discuss the undeniable global warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (about 1850) on such narrow terms. The oceans play a very dominate role, and are often ignored with meaningless wording “Natural Variability”.

A recent paper by Indrani Roy  titled: “Major Climate Variability and Natural Factors in Boreal Winter”, (Springer-Link; Jun082020)* concludes:  

• A rising trend of global temperature is noticed during periods of 1860–1880, 1917–1944 and 1979–1997 which suggest that the Sun, explosive volcanos and ENSO(El Nino Southern Oscillation) have roles in regulating global temperature; and

• …..the solar, NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and ENSO relationship needs to be investigated with additional care.

Two of the mentioned sources, sun and volcanos, are non-oceanic, the two others, ENSO and NAO, are practically mere air temperature statistics and explain little to nothing about the oceans internal physical dynamics.

The paper mentions the sun, but is silent on the global mechanism between the sun and the oceanic water masses, and that primarily the ocean temperature structure matter. It says:

The Sun is the main source of energy of the earth, but the level of scientific understanding relating to its influences on climate is still low (IPCC 2013). Regarding energy output, there is only a 0.1% change between maximum to minimum of the solar 11-year cycle (Lean and Rind2001), which is too negligible to influence climate.

The statement clearly misses to acknowledge that the oceans control the atmospheric vapor, due to its volume, extent, and temperatures.  Even during the last two major volcanic events, Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (1883), the oceans vast store of heat, damped the impact of a stark reduced energy input from the sun.

When the author assumes  (Introduction) that: : In understanding climate variability and in interpreting signals of climate change, it is important to ascertain the actual role of natural factors, so that any human influence may be more accurately identified, reference to ENSO and NAO discusses correlations in weather pattern, but not in physical dynamics. Any change in sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean (warmer ENSO), is not a “natural variability”, but a change in the Pacific is based on the law of physics.

Even more distinct from the ‘law of physics” is the reference to fluctuations of atmospheric pressure at sea level (SLP) between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High, known as NAO. Calling it a “weather phenomenon” (see Wikipedia about NAO) or “Natural Factor”, is so close to the point as the forbearer of Nicolaus Copernicus understood their world, as the center of the universe and flat.

Science will fail to understand climate changes if they continue not taking the laws of the ocean more serious. It already starts with any superficial handling of global temperature as noticed during periods of 1860–1880, 1917–1944 and 1979–1997 (see above). The 20^th Century experienced two pronounced climate changes, timely connected to two world wars, already fairly well documented at that time, with abundant observations, fully available to identify human influence on the weather and climate due to activity at sea.
More at: http://www.seaclimate.com/ ; published as Book in 2012.

*(Springer-Link, 08 June 2020) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00024-020-02522-z

Ditto: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342011773_Major_Climate_Variability_and_Natural_Factors_in_Boreal_Winter