Actualité climatique du mois passé dans laquelle j'entrepose pêle-mêle les articles que j'ai trouvés intéressants (mais j'ai pu, et dû, en louper un certain nombre) ; comme je n'ai pas toute la journée à dédier à la tenue de ce blog je me dispenserai de traduire les articles en français, à chacun donc de se débrouiller avec la langue de Shakespeare en fonction de ses capacités (il y a au demeurant des outils de traduction en ligne assez performants...)
Comme je ne ferai aucun commentaire (sauf pour les dessins humoristiques), me contentant de reprendre quelques extraits ou graphiques des articles en question, les lecteurs qui m'accuseraient de cherry-picking verraient leur prose automatiquement envoyée à la poubelle sans forcément une explication de ma part ; je donnerai à chaque fois les liens donc toute personne n'ayant pas de poil dans la main sera capable d'aller consulter les sources dans leur totalité.
Comme je ne ferai aucun commentaire (sauf pour les dessins humoristiques), me contentant de reprendre quelques extraits ou graphiques des articles en question, les lecteurs qui m'accuseraient de cherry-picking verraient leur prose automatiquement envoyée à la poubelle sans forcément une explication de ma part ; je donnerai à chaque fois les liens donc toute personne n'ayant pas de poil dans la main sera capable d'aller consulter les sources dans leur totalité.
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Le 22 décembre 2017 : Asylum applications respond to temperature fluctuations
Abstract
International negotiations on climate change, along with recent upsurges in migration across the Mediterranean Sea, have highlighted the need to better understand the possible effects of climate change on human migration—in particular, across national borders. Here we examine how, in the recent past (2000–2014), weather variations in 103 source countries translated into asylum applications to the European Union, which averaged 351,000 per year in our sample. We find that temperatures that deviated from the moderate optimum (~20°C) increased asylum applications in a nonlinear fashion, which implies an accelerated increase under continued future warming. Holding everything else constant, asylum applications by the end of the century are predicted to increase, on average, by 28% (98,000 additional asylum applications per year) under representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenario 4.5 and by 188% (660,000 additional applications per year) under RCP 8.5 for the 21 climate models in the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP).
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Le 12 janvier 2018 : The influence of internal variability on Earth's energy balance framework and implications for estimating climate sensitivity
Abstract.
Our climate is constrained by the balance between solar energy absorbed by the Earth and terrestrial energy radiated to space. This energy balance has been widely used to infer equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from observations of 20th-century warming. Such estimates yield lower values than other methods and these have been influential in pushing down the consensus ECS range in recent assessments. Here we test the method using a 100-member ensemble of the MPI-ESM1.1 climate model simulations of the period 1850–2005 with known forcing. We calculate ECS in each ensemble member using energy balance, yielding values ranging from 2.1 to 3.9 K. The spread in the ensemble is related to the central hypothesis in the energy budget framework: that global average surface temperature anomalies are indicative of anomalies in outgoing energy (either of terrestrial origin or reflected solar energy). We find that assumption is not well supported over the historical temperature record in the model ensemble or more recent satellite observations. We find that framing energy balance in terms of 500-hPa tropical temperature better describes the planet's energy balance.
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Le 17 janvier 2018 : Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability
Abstract
Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) remains one of the most important unknowns in climate change science. ECS is defined as the global mean warming that would occur if the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration were instantly doubled and the climate were then brought to equilibrium with that new level of CO2. Despite its rather idealized definition, ECS has continuing relevance for international climate change agreements, which are often framed in terms of stabilization of global warming relative to the pre-industrial climate. However, the ‘likely’ range of ECS as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has remained at 1.5–4.5 degrees Celsius for more than 25 years1. The possibility of a value of ECS towards the upper end of this range reduces the feasibility of avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, as required by the Paris Agreement. Here we present a new emergent constraint on ECS that yields a central estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius with 66 per cent confidence limits (equivalent to the IPCC ‘likely’ range) of 2.2–3.4 degrees Celsius. Our approach is to focus on the variability of temperature about long-term historical warming, rather than on the warming trend itself. We use an ensemble of climate models to define an emergent relationship2 between ECS and a theoretically informed metric of global temperature variability. This metric of variability can also be calculated from observational records of global warming3, which enables tighter constraints to be placed on ECS, reducing the probability of ECS being less than 1.5 degrees Celsius to less than 3 per cent, and the probability of ECS exceeding 4.5 degrees Celsius to less than 1 per cent.
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ENSO
17/01/2018 : climate.gov/enso
Forecasters believe the ongoing weak-to-moderate La Niña is currently peaking and will weaken into the spring. The strength of an event isn't strongly linked to the strength of the impacts in the U.S., but strength does increase the likelihood that at least some level of the typical impacts will be felt. The next update will be on February 8.
Visualisation du phénomène ENSO sur le Pacifique Est en décembre 2017. |
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GISS L-OTI anomalies de températures vs 1951-1980
22/01/2018 : data.giss.nasa.gov
Note: Gray areas signify missing data. Note: Ocean data are not used over land nor within 100km of a reporting land station. |
Note: Gray areas signify missing data. Note: Ocean data are not used over land nor within 100km of a reporting land station. |
Anomalies de températures de l'année 2017 selon la latitude. |
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Data Snapshots
22/01/2018 : climate.gov
climate-change-global-temperature
climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide
climate-change-spring-snow-cover
climate-variability-oceanic-niño-index
climate-change-global-temperature-projections
climate-change-global-temperature
Average surface temperature in 2016 compared to the 1981-2010 average. NOAA Climate.gov map, adapted from Plate 2.1a in State of the Climate in 2016. |
History of global surface temperature since 1880 ; source noaa |
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in parts per million (ppm) for the past 800,000 years, based on EPICA (ice core) data. The peaks and valleys in carbon dioxide levels track the coming and going of ice ages (low carbon dioxide) and warmer interglacials (higher levels). Throughout these cycles, atmospheric carbon dioxide was never higher than 300 ppm; in 2016, it reached 402.9 ppm (black dot). NOAA Climate.gov, based on EPICA Dome C data (Lüthi, D., et al., 2008) provided by NOAA NCEI Paleoclimatology Program. |
Carbon dioxide concentrations. The bright red line (source data) shows monthly average carbon dioxide at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawai'i in parts per million (ppm): the number of carbon dioxide molecules per million molecules of dry air. Over the course of the year, values are higher in Northern Hemisphere winter and lower in summer. The dark red line shows the annual trend, calculated as a 12-month rolling average. |
(left vertical axis) The heating imbalance in watts per square meter relative to the year 1750 caused by all major human-produced greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons 11 and 12, and a group of 15 other minor contributors. Today's atmosphere absorbs about 3 extra watts of incoming solar energy over each square meter of Earth's surface. According to NOAA's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (right axis) the combined heating influence of all major greenhouse gases has increased by 40% relative to 1990. NOAA Climate.gov graph, based on data from NOAA ESRL. |
This graph (source data) shows average area covered by snow in the Northern Hemisphere during March and April as the difference from the 1981-2010 average. |
This graph shows monthly values of the Oceanic Niño Index from 1950 through present. |
Location of the Niño regions for measuring sea surface temperature in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. The sea surface temperature in the Niño3.4 region, spanning from 120˚W to 170˚W longitude, when averaged over a 3-month period, forms NOAA’s official Oceanic Niño Index (the ONI). NOAA Climate.gov image by Fiona Martin. |
Maps of sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean during a strong La Niña (top, December 1988) and El Niño (bottom, December 1997). Maps by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data provided by NOAA View. large versions La Niña | El Niño |
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Coral Reef Watch
22/01/2018 : coralreefwatch.noaa.gov
This figure shows the regions currently experiencing high levels of heat stress that can cause coral bleaching. |
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Climate Prediction Center
22/01/2018 : cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
Global Tropics Benefits/Hazards |
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Polar Science Center
22/01/2018 : psc.apl.uw.edu
Average Arctic sea ice volume in October 2017 was 6100 km3 a 1100 km3 above the record of 2012 ( 5000 km3) and almost the same as 2010. October 2017 volume was 65% below the maximum October ice volume in 1979, 50% below the 1979-2016 mean, and very close to the long term trend line. While 2017 started well below prior years and remained so through May, ice loss during June through October was less than previous years with July and August accounting for most of the “catch up”. This is shown in Fig 8 which compares daily ice volume anomalies for several recent years (base period 1979-2016). The difference between 2012 (the previous record) is notable. While 2017 started out with much lower sea ice volume, 2012 had a much more rapid sea ice loss through May and June. Both 2012 and 2017 have very similar anomaly progression through July. August and September 2017 by comparison was a months of reprieve relative to 2012.
Average ice thickness in October 2017 over the PIOMAS domain increase a bit relative to September and is 10 cm above to the lowest on record (Fig 4.). Note that the interpretation of average ice thickness needs to take into account that only areas with ice thickness greater than 15 cm are included so that years with less total volume can have a greater ice thickness. That’s why the average ice thickness can increase late in the year as thin regrown sea ice is added into the average.
Fig. 2 Total Arctic sea ice volume from PIOMAS showing the volume of the mean annual cycle, and from 2010-2017. Shaded areas indicate one and two standard deviations from the mean. |
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Arctic Data archive system (ADS)
22/01/2018 : ads.nipr.ac.jp
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C'est si vrai, en riant avec What on earth? comics !
En arrière toutes ! (traduction libre) |
C'est vrai quoi, assez de fake news comme ça ! |
The Trump administration has prohibited the CDC from saying "fetus" and "evidence-based" among other words ( http://fxn.ws/2kAIwdO ). The Environmental PROTECTION Agency is tearing up environmental regulations at an unprecedented pace ( http://bit.ly/2BixLbu ), and hired an oppo research firm to dig for dirt on the EPA's own staff ( http://nyti.ms/2BGmH76 ). Please tell me our country's current slide into Third World Dictatorship is only a bad dream. |