Both the analysis and Jaime's comments show the complexity of the issue, and good to see that the cause is not given to one item.
There are also 3 other important issues which have not been addressed:
1. If there is less cloud cover, then what has happened to the water vapour that has not condensed out? Was it not there to form the low cloud, or has it increased back-radiation and further increased the warming?
2. What has happened to the wind during this period? El Ninos for example reduce wind speed, with the result that less evaporation form the oceans takes place. It also results in less mixing of the upper ocean, which greatly effects the temperatures that are measured.
3. A positive phase of ENSO results in a rise in temperatures, a negative phase in reduced temperatures. But does that mean that a neutral phase will mean no warming or cooling? The assumption is that it does, but is that actually fact? Can it really be true that the both actually cancel each other out, or has it been the case over the last decades that El Ninos have led to more warming than La Ninas' cooling?
Coincidentally, I have just come across this paper which backs up my comments above, maybe in part explains the loss of cloud cover, lack of mixing and also less cooling by evaporation.
Yes, by altering global circulation patterns/atmospheric dynamics. Global circulation can in turn affect the planetary albedo. I've been saying for a while now that it's not just the direct radiative forcing attributable to the stratospheric water vapour we should be considering when assessing the potential for HTHH to raise global temperature, it's also the indirect affects via the disruption to global circulation patterns.
You would think that the sudden injection of massive quantities of water vapour high into the stratosphere would, if anything, cause increased global cloud cover, the opposite of what this study is based on.
I was lost at the abstract frankly. No error bars and just turtle references all the way down from there. "Soaring" really? The actual average temperature data set has at least 2 degrees irreducible uncertainty if you are including boat inlet temperatures and that's not even doing the extrapolation/interpolation game.
This is the epitome of shapes in the clouds. Which is fine in academia world. But this is truly abject nonsense in the real world.
The period 1980 to 2000 was a period of steadily-ratcheting global warming (almost certainly nothing to do with man-made CO2) whereas the period from 2000 to 2020 was a period of global temperature net flatlining (despite steadily-rising man-made CO2). These periods are shown by the Multivariate ENSO Index to be respectively a preponderance of warming El Ninos versus a preponderance of cooling La Ninos, extending into 2023: https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/.
It is grasping at non-existent straws to claim that a surface albedo effect could have caused the massive and prolonged global warming spike which occurred just after the Hunga Tonga undersea eruption, a spike totally unlike any previously-recorded El Nino event and far too sudden to be due to man-made CO2.
I'm continually amazed at the towering arrogance, ignorance and chutzpah of the "experts" in most academic fields, not just climate "science". They seem to have refined the methodology to convince a gullible public, through an entirely corrupted and compliant legacy media, to accept that their pockets need to be picked in order to "save the planet."
Leveraging guilt (a luxury condition) is the biggest scam yet invented.
Humanity is nothing. A storm in a teacup. Sound and fury signifying nothing. An inconsequential sliver in geologic history. Nothing we do has any significance beyond our massive collective ego.
We are but a weak punchline in a vast cosmic joke.
Both the analysis and Jaime's comments show the complexity of the issue, and good to see that the cause is not given to one item.
There are also 3 other important issues which have not been addressed:
1. If there is less cloud cover, then what has happened to the water vapour that has not condensed out? Was it not there to form the low cloud, or has it increased back-radiation and further increased the warming?
2. What has happened to the wind during this period? El Ninos for example reduce wind speed, with the result that less evaporation form the oceans takes place. It also results in less mixing of the upper ocean, which greatly effects the temperatures that are measured.
3. A positive phase of ENSO results in a rise in temperatures, a negative phase in reduced temperatures. But does that mean that a neutral phase will mean no warming or cooling? The assumption is that it does, but is that actually fact? Can it really be true that the both actually cancel each other out, or has it been the case over the last decades that El Ninos have led to more warming than La Ninas' cooling?
Coincidentally, I have just come across this paper which backs up my comments above, maybe in part explains the loss of cloud cover, lack of mixing and also less cooling by evaporation.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL114256
Ah, the joys of non-linearity!
Is there some mechanism by which the Hunga-Tong explosion could have facilitated the change in cloud cover?
Yes, by altering global circulation patterns/atmospheric dynamics. Global circulation can in turn affect the planetary albedo. I've been saying for a while now that it's not just the direct radiative forcing attributable to the stratospheric water vapour we should be considering when assessing the potential for HTHH to raise global temperature, it's also the indirect affects via the disruption to global circulation patterns.
You would think that the sudden injection of massive quantities of water vapour high into the stratosphere would, if anything, cause increased global cloud cover, the opposite of what this study is based on.
I was lost at the abstract frankly. No error bars and just turtle references all the way down from there. "Soaring" really? The actual average temperature data set has at least 2 degrees irreducible uncertainty if you are including boat inlet temperatures and that's not even doing the extrapolation/interpolation game.
This is the epitome of shapes in the clouds. Which is fine in academia world. But this is truly abject nonsense in the real world.
I don’t buy this analysis at all. Here is a global cloud cover/temperature inverse correlation covering the period from 1980 to 2020 that I can believe in: https://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCover_and_MSU%20UAH%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage%20With201505Reference.gif.
The period 1980 to 2000 was a period of steadily-ratcheting global warming (almost certainly nothing to do with man-made CO2) whereas the period from 2000 to 2020 was a period of global temperature net flatlining (despite steadily-rising man-made CO2). These periods are shown by the Multivariate ENSO Index to be respectively a preponderance of warming El Ninos versus a preponderance of cooling La Ninos, extending into 2023: https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/.
These global temperature trends are clear on the un-doctored UAH satellite temperature series: https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_November_2024_v6.1_20x9-scaled.jpg.
It is grasping at non-existent straws to claim that a surface albedo effect could have caused the massive and prolonged global warming spike which occurred just after the Hunga Tonga undersea eruption, a spike totally unlike any previously-recorded El Nino event and far too sudden to be due to man-made CO2.
I'm continually amazed at the towering arrogance, ignorance and chutzpah of the "experts" in most academic fields, not just climate "science". They seem to have refined the methodology to convince a gullible public, through an entirely corrupted and compliant legacy media, to accept that their pockets need to be picked in order to "save the planet."
Leveraging guilt (a luxury condition) is the biggest scam yet invented.
Humanity is nothing. A storm in a teacup. Sound and fury signifying nothing. An inconsequential sliver in geologic history. Nothing we do has any significance beyond our massive collective ego.
We are but a weak punchline in a vast cosmic joke.
? None of the possible explanations explain the unprecedented spike in ocean T, or the rapid cooling.
Hunga Tunga, along with greatly increased geo thermal could possibly explain it.
And yes, such a one year spike cannot possibly be explained by CO2.
Prolix twaddle.