‘No, climate sensitivity is not smaller, it is higher than we thought’ – because organic aerosol feedbacks mask warming

Says an international research group led by Gothenburg University.

organic aerosols climate sensitivityIt serves to show individual climate sensitivity studies are never conclusive but add up bits of fresh understanding to an already enormous pile of data and knowledge.

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No White Christmas over the European plains – we are sorry we were right

In the last two or three years high pressure blockades dominated the West European December months and many countries including the UK, the Netherlands and Germany could enjoy White Christmases.

Dutch White Christmas 2010 snow
Christmas Day 2010: some lovely sunshine over a frozen and snow-covered Dutch landscape. In the Netherlands people had been iceskating [national sport and cultural tradition] on lakes since the last days of November, exceptionally early on in the season.

Although different meteorologists had predicted a similar scenario for December 2011 our regulars knew better – as for 2011-2012 there is no scientific reason to assume another cold European winter.

And indeed science seems to show a connection to that complex reality we have outdoors. It’s mild and if anything else rainy. So there may be little news in predicting a wet and a green Christmas for Europe – but we still feel we have to, as we’re entering the reliability range of normal meteorological models – and these confirm your fears.

As we are saddened ourselves and because we feel it hurts the general Christmas spirit we’ll refrain from claiming the forecast victory. Instead we’ll do something else. We’ll elaborate the situation for those countries most disappointed – and we’ll try to make things up with you by searching for some good news on the sidelines. But first some general background to this winter weather:

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Strong re-emergence of La Niña off northern Queensland coast – SST anomalies again up to 2-3 degrees – above average rains for weeks to come

With the current La Niña strongly in place at the onset of the Australian monsoon and reaching predicted optimum strength at the height of the rainy season the risk of experiencing a repeat of the Queensland floods of 2010-2011 is theoretically possible, but in practice will depend on the actual position of the ITCZ and related storms and depressions escaping to the south, possibly dragging weather fronts over the Australian mainland. Models show the current 7 day period (December 14-21) is still quite dry for SE Queensland and much of coastal New South Wales – whereas some North Queensland coastal areas can already expect up to a maximum of 250 mm (10 inches) of rain.

Christmas is still of the charts but judging by current sea surface temperature anomalies, which for Northeast Queensland are close (+2, +3 degrees Celsius) to resembling those around the same time last year, very likely the year will end wetter than normal in Northwest, North, Northeast and perhaps East Australia.

The current La Niña will stay in place for the rest of the Australian rainy season, but as several models show is likely to weaken by February.

La Niña ITCZ monsoon rains Australia
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CDR geoengineering challenge: low-carbon cement, high-carbon concrete

CDR geoengineering cement concreteCurrent practice is to grind and burn enormous amounts of limestone, releasing equally enormous amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. But isn’t there some way to reverse the chemical process and still end up with building material?

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