Week in review – science edition

by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.

Sun’s impact on climate quantified for the first time [link]
North Pacific 20th century decadal-scale variability is unique for the past 342 years [link]
A reconstructed South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation time series since 1870 [link]
A robust empirical seasonal prediction of winter NAO and surface climate [link]
An interannual link between Arctic sea-ice cover and the North Atlantic Oscillation [link]
Cosmic Rays Increase Cloud Cover, Earth’s Surface Cools [link]
“New Studies Confirm Solar Activity Plays Important Role On Driving Climate” [link …
Removing #mountains from #EarthSystem models affects #ElNino amplitude, frequency & regularity.  [link] 
Melting sea ice may lead to more life in the sea [link]
Lovejoy: How accurately do we know the temperature of the surface of the earth? [link]
Russia identifies 200 lakes “bubbling like jacuzzis” with methane [link]
Deep-water masses in the Subpolar North Atlantic, where do they occur & what are the physics? [link]
New paper: “eastern Medit. experienced wetter-than-present summer conditions during the early–late Holocene.” [link] …
“Influences of temperature &precipitation on historical &future snowpack variability over N Hemisphere in…Model” [link]
“The relationship between wintertime extreme temperature events & large-scale atmospheric circulations” [link]
“Higher Southern Oscillation Index &Pacific Decadal Oscillation trigger increase in frequency of heavy precipitation
Greenland’s Coastal Ice Passed a Climate Tipping Point 20 Years Ago [link]
Climate seesaw at the end of last glacial phase” finds “regional warming in Europe caused COOLING &snow in E Asia [link]
Sensitivity of attribution of anthropogenic near-surface warming to observational uncertainty [link]
Paper finds glaciers have been melting at the same rate since 1850  [link]
Prediction of #AtmosphericRivers may help #avalanche risk forecasts, especially near coasts.  [link] 
Theory: oceanic feedback across Indian Ocean in 70 days triggers new MJO convection. [link 
The main outcomes of the Fourth International Workshop on the Advances in the Use of Historical Marine Climate Data. [link]
The many flavors of #ElNino are traced by model test to coupling w/Pacific westerly wind bursts. [link]
Paper on East Asia summer monsoon  finds extreme rainfall more intense due to climate change [link]
Amplification of AMO by AGW [link]
“Severe testing of climate change hypotheses”, Joel K. Katzav, [link]
Weather/land model of 2012 US #drought shows locally 2-3 deg. cooler air near #irrigation. [link] 
NH midlats haven’t been warming as fast recently due in part to decadal trends in strat polar vortex. [link]
Molecular liquid storage of solar energy [link]
New mesoscale convective prediction study shows #moisture errors matter a lot: [link] 
How Will Earth Respond to Plans for Carbon Dioxide Removal? First Workshop of CDR Model Intercomparison Project [link]
Regional Greenland accumulation variability from Operation IceBridge airborne accumulation radar [link]

US #clouds varied over 15 yrs: frequency up, base heights down, especially in Eastern winters. [link]   
Dynamical reconstruction of the global ocean state during the Last Glacial Maximum [link]
Transient atmospheric response to a reduction of sea-ice cover in the Barents and Kara seas [link]
Precipitation-driven glacier changes in the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains [link]
Enormous volcanoes vomited lava over the ancient Earth much more often than geologists had suspected. [link]
New approach treats missing parameterizations of organized #convection in contemporary GCMs.  [link] 
If climate models have trouble w/internal low freq var (underest amp) their use in attribution studies is limited. [link]
Climate change combines with fishing & nutrients to threaten world’s coral reefs [link]
Comparison of Arctic sea ice thickness and snow depth estimates from CFSR with observations [link]
Automated parameter tuning applied to sea ice in a global climate model [link]
Russian Scientists Predict Global Cooling In The Next Few Decades [link] …
Variations of Northern Hemisphere Storm Track &Extratropical Cyclone Activity Associated w/Madden-Julian Oscillation [link …

How does SST variability over western N Atlantic control Arctic warming over Barents–Kara Seas? [link]
Skill possible for US precip & temp predictions out 3-4 weeks, using #ElNino signal, etc.  [link] 
Ocean State Report [link]
Contribution of natural variability to Arctic sea ice loss quantified [link] …
Hypothesis testing in hydrology – theory and practice [link]
The effect of climate–carbon cycle feedbacks on emission metrics [link]
Soils could release much more carbon than expected as climate warms: [link]
New modeling study in #JClimate demonstrates global effects on #climate of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability: [link] 
New #JClimate study identifies 2 processes that contribute to enhanced Saharan #warming & increased Sahel #rainfall: [link]
Flavors of ENSO and stratospheric polar vortex response: [link …

Role of external forcing and internal variability in regulating global mean surface Temperature [link]

On the Seasonality of Arctic Black Carbon [link]
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Improved estimates of ocean heat content from 1960 to 2015 [link]
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Impact of icebergs on net primary productivity in the Southern Ocean [link]
 .

Decision making under uncertainty
Turning uncertainty into useful information for conservation decisions [link]
Robust decision making in data scarce contexts: addressing data and model limitations for infrastructure planning [link]
Consensus? No, Good Decisions Require “Respectful Disagreement” [link]
Why most reasoning for policy interventions is (possibly) wrong [link]
About science
Comment: Research needs more competence, less ‘excellence’ : Nature  [link]
On being female in science [link]
The suicide of expertise [link]
This is as good an article as you’re going to read on science and innovation policy. [link]
“Expert reviewers spend a lot of time allocating grant money… But the truth is that they’re not very good at it” [link]
The Problem Is Epistemology, Not Statistics: Replace Significance Tests by Confidence Intervals [link]
 
 Filed under: Week in review

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