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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
Doug Proctorsays
Looking back at the records to 1860 or earlier is useful if you believe that “normal” temperature rises and consequent sea-level rises are still occurring: you will get the minimum, non-AGW trend. If you think that at some point the “normal” processes stopped and became AGW/A-CO2 now causes 75% or more of global temperature and sea-level rise, then the prior history is useful for showing when the break occurred and the deviation from (say, 25%) the normal processes still in-place.
AGW has as its premise that the majority and an increasing proportion with time of both global temperature and sea-level rises are anthropogenically caused by A-CO2 emissions, specifically fossil fuel burning. Thus the last 16 year average of 3.1 mm/yr, (ignoring the more recent, 9-year average of <2.0 mm/yr rise)must have at least a 2.5 mm/yr anthropogenic component if AGW is happening. The question to be answered for the skeptics is "when" the current heating and sea-level rise stopped being natural.
I had thought the initial IPCC/Hansen work suggested an anthropogenic signal would not be evident until the 1980s, which would make sense as it was about 1979 that GISTemp shows a marked shift in the rate of global temperature increase. If this is the case, then in the AGW science-as-understood there MUST be an acceleration of sea-level as well as temperatures in the pipe. The forecasts are fixed by established science and mathematics to have severe outcomes by 2050, not just 2100. If we are to see those forecasts occur in the next 39 years, the increases must begin right away. Every year they are held back – by whatever means, natural or Chinese coal pollution – there is a greater rebound building in.
If, by 2015, the sea-level has not risen by 15.5mm, to 45.5mm in total, a serious re-working of mechanisms operating must take place. At the same time the GISTemp global temperatures must be in excess of 0.17C greater than today (to get another 2.2C by 2100). The rise to disaster cannot be postponed much as the science is pretty much determined; only details remain not understood.
The next 4 years are critical for the progress of dangerous growth in temperatures and sea-levels. The calculated power of CO2 is greater now than it was in the post-WWII days when aerosols are calculated to have been able to reduce planetary temperatures. The industrial West is no longer the smogland it was; I understand you can see the volcanoes near Mexico City as well as the mountains outside L.A. these days, and the green fogs of London are gone. Nowhere have we seen evidence that China, India and Indonesia are generating the level of aerosols that the industrial West used to.
By 2015 the difference between what the skeptics say is going on and the IPCC calculations will be too significant to be controversial. The Archibald/WUWT skeptics just yesterday proposed a Canada-US Border temperature decline of 1.2C in the next few years. So the skeptics say it is going to get cooler as AGW theory says, just as CO2 will go up by a certain amount (8 ppmv by 2015), the global and sea temperatures will rise. And cause the sea-level to continue to rise. The telling is almost upon us.
The most difficult case will be if the trends of post-1979 continue. Then either the minimum case of AGW is happening – which means we cannot really stop the rise (low CO2 sensitivity means a massive reduction in CO2 emissions to be effective) or – horrors! – natural processes are stronger than understood. Which could mean that if now natural cooling is tempering the situation, in 2050 or so when the cycle turns and natural warming occurs again, the last half of the century will be a potboiler. And beyond the help of "preventative" measures.
Immystillcansays
@Gavin
Fair point … maybe over the last 50 years, sea level has risen faster on average than the previous 50. If thats what you want to use an analysis period then fine. But if you take a longer period like 10,000 years, its obviously decelerated, and if you look satellite period of measurements (last 17 year) its clearly decelerating.
As you say, it all depends when you pick your start date.
[Response: If this was just about data analysis or sound-bites then this would be relevant, but rather it is about inferring what is going to happen in the medium/long term future. That requires an understanding of the what has happened and why and then judging whether those causes will continue/accelerate/change in the future. Short term features associated with ENSO are very relevant, and neither is the deglaciation since the Laurentide and Fenno-Scandanavian ice sheets are all gone – though the residual impacts of that (local and global isostatic adjustments) are important to factor in. The key causes for the residual changes currently are thermal expansion (which will continue and get slightly larger as global surface temperatures continue to increase), net ice melt (which is clearly accelerating), groundwater mining/irrigation/reservoir and river management which are difficult to quantify and hard to predict. Thus absent dramatic changes in water resource management the long term prognosis is clearly one of acceleration – albeit at an uncertain rate. – gavin]
ferd berplesays
This war/climate connection is nonsense – orders of magnitude too small to have global impacts.
Is this an assumption or is supported by research? References? One of the main effects of warfare is increased burning. Coincidentally there is a hypothesis that AGW and climate change is related to increased burning and the CO2 and aerosols that result.
ferd berplesays
If there was an instrumentation problem after 1945, then the climate models using data up to 1945 should have predicted unexpected warming/cooling after 1945 as compared to the instrument records.
Why wasn’t any unexpected warming/cooling reported by the climate models after 1945? This should have alerted climate scientists to a likely data error.
vukcevicsays
Chris R
That is case only for the incomplete work. Here are some more in brief details on hydro-magnetic loop you can see that correlation ends in 1980’s (tamino blocked 2 attempted answers again). http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HmL.htm
TheGoodLocustsays
So why was the sea level rise accelerating so much from 1940 to 1970 when global temperatures were going down?
Also, can you please post the full chart to 2010 so I can look at the trend better. It looks like it may be a sine wave.
Thanks.
vukcevicsays
Andy Revkin says: 20 Jul 2011 at 9:21 AM It’s important, while pondering a single year, to keep in mind long-term trends.
Indeed it is, but then you discover an unexpected correlation: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Science far off unravelling the Arctic’s temperature secrets.
Kruddlersays
Looks to me like Houston and Deans’ reply to your terrible rebuttal has put the nail in the coffin of your hysteria. It’s great when fools like you guys get shot down in flames.
Kruddler, PhD.
John Doddssays
The Greenhouse Effect is proven to be WRONG
FINALLY some reasonable progress on Climate Change.
First we have the Wood/Nahle experiments that show that theClimate change Greenhouse Effect does NOT EXIST (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8073&linkbox=true&position=3)
Second we have the Doug Cotton thermodynamic explanation at http://earth-climate.com that preventing convection in the real greenhouse or Nahle’s box & the actual transmission of heat by convection in the atmosphere is the real reason that warming happens and the climate change greenhouse effect does NOT EXIST and
Third we have the John Dodds alternate Wobble Theory of Climate Change” at www,scribd.com or at http://earth-climate.com which shows that the Arrhenius claim that more Greenhouse Gases means more warming (ie the Greenhouse Effect) does not work every night when Mother Natures nightly experiment shows that more GHGs actually result in cooling contrary to the Arrhenius /IPCC theory.
This then leads to the” Gravity causes Global warming” summary (at http://www.scribd.com) conclusion of Wobble Theory that when you add more energy into the Earth because of planetary eccentricity and more energy from gravity from Jupiter etc you get the observed warming effect cycles of 60 years 1998, 1940, 1880 back to 1400 in GISP2 ice Core data and the 935 year warming/cooling cycles back to 3000BC in the Vostok ice core derived temperature data formerly attributed to the Greenhouse effect.
CASE CLOSED. More energy causes more warming. DUH! doesn’t the sun do that every morning! The energy comes from changes in gravity, which comes from outside Earth and is beyond Man’s control. There is no AGW since Man does not control gravity. There is no justification for a carbon tax, or Cap & Trade or any action against carbon or CO2.
John Doddssays
Question: how soon (pun intended) will there be an update to GISS Model E to calculate realistic climate projections accounting for the warming due to changes in the variable gravity from the planets that is responsible for climate changes? It should be relatively simple to get distance projections and hence the force and energy of gravity changes by planets from JPL’s Horizons, & insert these into GISS Model E to correct the model’s deficiencies by not accounting for gravity and hence energy changes over time. Maybe we can really get some correlation to actual sea ice measurements?
Second we have the Doug Cotton thermodynamic explanation at http://earth-climate.com that preventing convection in the real greenhouse or Nahle’s box & the actual transmission of heat by convection in the atmosphere is the real reason that warming happens and the climate change greenhouse effect does NOT EXIST and
Third we have the John Dodds alternate Wobble Theory of Climate Change” at www,scribd.com or at http://earth-climate.com which shows that the Arrhenius claim that more Greenhouse Gases means more warming (ie the Greenhouse Effect) does not work every night when Mother Natures nightly experiment shows that more GHGs actually result in cooling contrary to the Arrhenius /IPCC theory.
This then leads to the” Gravity causes Global warming” summary (at http://www.scribd.com) conclusion of Wobble Theory that when you add more energy into the Earth because of planetary eccentricity and more energy from gravity from Jupiter etc you get the observed warming effect cycles of 60 years 1998, 1940, 1880 back to 1400 in GISP2 ice Core data and the 935 year warming/cooling cycles back to 3000BC in the Vostok ice core derived temperature data formerly attributed to the Greenhouse effect.
CASE CLOSED. More energy causes more warming. DUH! doesn’t the sun do that every morning! The energy comes from changes in gravity, which comes from outside Earth and is beyond Man’s control. There is no AGW since Man does not control gravity. There is no justification for a carbon tax, or Cap & Trade or any action against carbon or CO2.
Titussays
Peter Ellis @89. Thank you for that explanation. That makes sense
Another question that pops into my head when I see these graphs is in a perfect world: ‘what should the ice extents be’.
I know from recent history that the ice has been down as far as the Bay of Biscay and up far enough that folks made hay in Greenland.
Titussays
Didactylos @126. You ask for evidence.
Not sure what you’re asking for. The last ice age was about 18k years ago when pack ice was down to Bay of Biscay. You can get that info form a huge pile of historical data. I don’t see much problem with that.
On the Greenland bit it was certainly more accommodating when they arrived and got steadily worse. We can see their infrastructure revealed as the current ice pack has receeded. So it must have been less than it is now.
So not following your line of reasoning here.
Johnsays
Gavin, do some work your paid to do rather than wasting tax payer money.
Very interesting comments here.
As we all know, climate science is evolving with greater instrumentation and a better understanding of the air and ocean currents, including satellite sensors, sounding of molecular activity in the troposphere and analysis of the atomic mater/plasma above and beyond. Interactions through the spheres (tropo, strato, meso, ionosphere, thermo and magneto)from molecular to atomic, including the magnetic influences are poorly understood. Our planets ever-changing magnetosphere (declination/inclination) along with its shape and strength are not fully understood, nor is the impetus’s for cloud formation.
Any scietist that claims they have all the modelling inputs with the correct weighting applied is delusional or worse.
Our planets plate boundaries are alive and well and although they are unpredictable, we know for example that a 105 day rift changes everything quickly. From solar influence weighting to % of white ground cover to when are clouds on the dayside VS lack of clouds on the nightside, we have miles to go before gaining a good understanding of cause and effect with climatology.
What geological condition are we in right now? it’s called an interglacial period and it is the shorter portion of our planets two-part history, so I believe we should enjoy it while we can.
Also, does anyone think mankind will delay or stop the next glaciation period?
Take care & All The Best!
Titussays
Addition to 161.
You got me questioning my memory and I have just dug out my old encyclopedia (The Book of Knowledge by Waverley). It tells of the Russians, in the early part of 20th century, building towns along the northern sea board and ships sailing and establishing a sea trade. Flax and sugar beet were being grown in the Arctic circle. It then started to turn around in the 60′ and 70’s.
So I’m not imagine it. I feel better now!!. Also the Baltic sea was another measure of increasing ice.
Titussays
Addition to 161.
Wanting to check out my memory and just dug out my old encyclopedia from the 50’s (Book of Knowledge by Waverley). It talks about the Russians setting up towns and establishing a sea trade on the north coast of Siberia in the early part of 20th century. They grew flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle. That all started to turn around in the 50’s and 60’s when the ice came back. So I was not dreaming it!!
Also I remember similar stories about the Baltic and the road that went across.
Titussays
My previous comment appears to have been lost so I’ll try again. It was an addition to my comment at #161.
To check my memory last night I consuluted one of my old encyclopedias (Book of Knowledge by Waverley 1950’s edition). It talked about Russia building out towns on the north caost of Siberia and setting up a sea trade along the route for the ice free months. It also talked of growing flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle.
Then I remember the ice came back in the 60’s and 70’s and put a stop to this expansion. Similar type stories for the Baltic Sea.
Your data does not seem to identify this.
So my memory was not to far out. Our current extents seem pretty similar to what they were back in the 1940’s and 50’s having receeded since about the 80’s. Looks more of a cyclical process to me.
Titussays
My previous comment appears to have been lost so I’ll try again. It was an addition to my comment at #161.
To check my memory last night I consuluted one of my old encyclopedias (Book of Knowledge by Waverley 1950’s edition). It talked about Russia building out towns on the north caost of Siberia and setting up a sea trade along the route for the ice free months. It also talked of growing flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle.
Then I remember the ice came back in the 60’s and 70’s and put a stop to this expansion. Similar type stories for the Baltic Sea.
Your data does not seem to identify this.
So my memory was not to far out. Our current extents seem pretty similar to what they were back in the 1940’s and 50’s having receeded since about the 80’s. Looks more of a cyclical process to me.
AR5 should be held off until at least March of 2013, as 2000-2010 being uneventfull as it was, will certainly look like day from night in this current decade.
All the Best!
AntonyIndiasays
So Godot has finally shown up. And late it is: years after various governments created new policies and redirected a lot of money on the prediction that temperatures are busy rising alarmingly, explained by the assumption that this is due to excess anthropogenic CO2 output, this buildings foundations are being finished. Not very reassuring.
jasonsays
Well I am sure someone will process it, so let’s see what happens. Anyway the sceptics position (in the main) is not that warming has occurred, but if its down to mans activities or natural variation.
vongollumsays
Para 2: “Moreover the description of methods of what was done is not sufficient to be able to replicate results. As a first step, some quick checks have been made to see whether results can be replicated and we find some points of contention.”
Para 3: “One could and perhaps should treat the 100 years as 10 sets of 10 years and see whether the observations match any of the ten year periods, but instead what appears to have been done is to use only the one hundred year set by itself.”
Para 4: “We have done exactly this and the result is in the Figure. What this figure shows is the results for the observations, as in Spencer and Braswell, but with the EBAF dataset in black.”
The reasoning appears confused, given that you open stating an inability to utilize methods, you then proceed to do so, illustrated with your unlabelled ‘Figure’.
Something about glass houses springs to mind.
Slabadangsays
How many comments deleted so far?
83% from what I can tell so far. But focus there might be a comanet from some old friend that pretends to belive in you still.
ZTsays
Hi Ken,
In your professional opinion, is the Spencer paper a travesty?
John Finnsays
Has Kevin Trenberth found the “missing heat” yet?
Alexsays
I was under the impression (from a quick read of the paper) that the paper showed that IPCC models and real satelite observations don’t match because IPCC models are wrong. I very much doubt the satelite data is wrong.
Jaap de Vossays
Since 2005 global warming has stopped. So, there is time to wait till 2050. Than we can judge. Was it the sun or CO2?.
John Doddssays
Re Forcing vs Feedback
Can you explain why 390ppm of CO2 can result in a forcing/warming, and yet 20,000 ppm of H20 already in the air does not? but yet when 390ppm of CO2 increased the temperature and we get even more (feedback)H2O airborne ALL of this is a feedback causing warming, totally ignoring that any of the original 20,000ppm of water vapor just might have interacted with a photon to cause some of the warming? Just how does a random photon differentiate between a CO2 caused water vapor molecule(feedback) and one that was there originally?
Then after you explain that please explain why Arrhenius in his 1896 paper can conclude that more GHGs cause more warming when they absorb a photon, when every night shows that the temperature goes down in spite of Man adding more GHGs/CO2? Doesn’t the Arrhenius conclusion make more sense if you conclude that adding more energy photons in the greenhouse effect, not adding more GHGs, causes more warming? Sure seems that the sun/earth rotation adds more photons to get warmer every morning, and then when the rotation reduces the number of photons it gets colder every night in spite of the number of CO2s increasing?
Doesn’t the amount of warming energy dictate the temperture? Or are we claimng that GHGs can create energy by themselves?
John Doddssays
And to follow on with the forcing feedback question, if more GHGs causes more warming why doesn’t it get warmer when the the humidity increaes when it rains? Could it be that Arrhenius was wrong in his conclusion that more GHGs means more warming?
James of the Westsays
I think if Spencer has tweaked a model incorrectly then the real world data should be able to falsify his assumptions behind the tweak over time as the data points better match the untweaked models projections….. He will need to admit he is wrong if that happens.
If future changes align better with Spencers model than other climate models then….? I dont think people should get too excited by models (either for or against) unless the models have proven to give a good decade by decade prediction over a timescale of 30 to 50 years. Until a model can do that I’m going to take every model prediction with a very large grain of salt.
We will refine our models over time, some changes will improve the model and other changes wont.
Alan Millarsays
The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is not a separate forcing, it acts as an amplifier of the radiative forcing effect of the Sun. Take that away that and you are not left with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ forcing you are left with nothing.
For calcuation, of the impact of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, it is treated as a separate forcing and this seems a conveniant thing to do.
However, the basic axium of AGW should, more properly, be stated not as “increasing ‘Greenhouse’ gases will cause the Earth to warm” but as “increasing the Radiative Forcing effect will cause the Earth to warm”.
There is only one problem with stating the issue correctly and that it is demonstrably false!
In the last 500 million years the Suns radiative forcing has increased by about 65 WM2 at the TOA. 500 million years ago the Earth was a familiar place the atmosphere was very similar to todays. Plants, animals and insects were well established we would feel comfortable if we were present then.
However, what has been the Earths response to this very significant increase in radiative forcing? Why it has cooled of course from about 22c to todays 14c!
Now I am sure people will come up with ‘ah buts’. However, that is not the issue, there surely are reasons why the Earth has cooled, in the face of this increase in radiative forcing.
The truth is though, that the axium, that the Earth must warm in the face of an increase in radiative forcing, is falsified and that is a fact!
Alan
orsonne brownsays
Arctic Sea Ice extent at the end of July, 2011 is ABOVE the June , 2007 extent .
That means that for 4 straight years the Arctic Ice extent is been larger. In fact as of the last week the melt rate has slowed dramatically to almost no melting.
Funny how the media never reports increases in Arctic Sea Ice.
Also funny how the Antarctic Sea Ice gets no attention as it’s extent has been trending upward since 1979:
“The bottom line is that there is NO merit whatsoever in this paper. It turns out that Spencer and Braswell have an almost perfect title for their paper: “the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in the Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” (leaving out the “On”).”
There’s no merit to your terrible analysis, which relies, as usual, on your own horribly flawed models. Or maybe they aren’t horrible, maybe only that applies to the models you are still using today that totally failed to predict the stagnancy in warming from 1998 until now.
Real Climate is as usual very eager to jump all over any skeptical work, but rigorous analysis of their own? Not so much. Another reason no one will ever, ever, implement their ideological preferences as policy.
Alan Millarsays
RW
You are absolutely correct in the points you are making about the likelihood of positive feedback to an increase in Radiative Forcing.
However, you will continue to be obfuscated and deflected on here, you will never get a direct, pointed and reasoned response because it goes to the heart of CAGW.
Clearly the Earth’s climate feedbacks must be biased towards the negative over reasonably significant time periods or the Earth’s climate could not have maintained such a narrow range of temperature over millions of years.
The basic axiom of AGW that the Earth must warm in the face of an increase in Radiative Forcing is false and demonstrably so.
During the last 500 million years, with the Earth basically in its current atmospheric and biosphere configuration, the Suns Radiative Forcing has increased by about 5 times the estimated forcing for a doubling of CO2. However, the Earth has not warmed in the face of this, it has cooled significantly from about 22c to about 14c.
It doesn’t really matter what the reasons are for this, it just shows that statements that the Earth will automatically warm in the face of rising Radiative Forcing is false.
Mind you, I doubt that you will be able to respond to this, as it likely that my post will be censored. All in the cause of science though!
Alan
Davesays
Ut oh, northern polar sea ice melts have slowed considerably. And the 2007 ice melts were 100,000 a day in early August. A new minimum record looks very unlikely.
Ray, Charles, Radge: Ray & Charles you are missing my point or I’ve failed to make it well. Personally I’m in general agreement with much of the “consensus model”, though I think the changes in temps and SL will not prove catastrophic or even hard to manage for that matter. I’m simply suggesting the RealClimate environment is not a pristine, unbiased community that treats incoming data and papers without any prejudice, and that’s too bad given the brilliance and qualifications of many posting here regularly. Radge challenges me very reasonably to provide a testable hypothesis of bias. One approach would be to review how research papers are treated here at RC by both post authors and by the commenters, perhaps with an eye to comments that do not address anything scientific and thus arguably reflect bias such as calling people “ignorant food tubes” and such. Another interesting approach would be to look at peer reviewed predictions to see how they line up compared to observations.
Radge I have looked (though not extensively) for papers testing climate model predication bias and climate model accuracy. However I have not found very much research addressing the reasonable question of whether current climate models provide the high accuracy that a rational person should agree is needed to justify large scale social and economic adjustments.
Few here would dispute that we find plenty of bias in the skeptic community where peer review quality is even more lacking than in the mainstream climate community. Yet most here seem to think it’s disingenuous to suggest bias may also be present here at RealClimate.
cosisnotevilsays
You have one thing right. Clouds can’t be considered ‘forcing’. In a strict control theory sense, only power from the Sun can force the system. I don’t agree that this specific objection falsifies S & B, in fact, this specific objection is why the S & B hypothesis is correct, that is, there’s a misdiagnosis.
What it boils down to is the definition of radiative forcing. From control theory, only the power entering the system is considered forcing, which differs from the IPCC definition. Changing CO2 levels. aerosols, cloud coverage, etc, change the system, affecting its response, but don’t change the stimulus forcing the system to respond.
This gets more complicated because the characteristics of the system dictating it’s response are surface temperature dependent, while the physical system itself is not a hypothetical system controlling surface temperatures, but a real, physical system controlling the planets energy balance. Of course, to deny the attribute of forcing to the effects S & B says should have them, means that you can’t have it both ways and claim that the effects of incremental CO2 and aerosols are forcing.
nvwsays
While Gerlach’s paper is well argued and convincing, it is a minor detail over whether volcanoes emit more or less CO2 than humans.Discussion of Murry Salby’s recent talk and upcoming paper suggests the contribution of anthropogenic CO2 is in itself insignificant in comparison to the flux of CO2 from natural sources. If Salby’s paper stands, then it will make discussion of whether volcanoes emit more or less CO2 than humans to be an irrelevant detail akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
While you are gathering ad hom ammunition for your assault on Salby, spare some time to consider the paper about the past sea ice
extent in the Arctic. If sea ice cover was 50% less 5,000 years ago and polar bears were very much alive and well, it is hard to see how claims of their extinction are credible from future ice loss.
Good-bye to using the EPA and ESA lawsuits to control CO2 emissions from US power plants if past sea ice was 1,000 km north of its present position.
RWsays
Chris Colose,
“RW, among many of your confusions, 3.7 W/m2 is the reduction in OLR at tropopause, not the forcing at the surface. In fact the TOA forcing controls the surface temperature more than the surface forcing.”
I asked this before, but no one answered. Explain to me how the 3.7 W/m^2 of ‘forcing’ turns into +6 W/m^2 at the surface for a 1.1 C rise in temperature. Where is the +6 W/m^2 flux into the surface coming from?
Girmasays
The Effect of CO2 on Global Mean Temperature
The IPCC compared the recent global warming rate with global warming rate for a longer period that has a combination this recent warming and previous global cooling phase and declared to the world “accelerated warming.”
When the IPCC and the mainstream make such obviously false claim, they must be dismissed, ridiculed or otherwise attacked until they retract their false claim.
The correct interpretation is that the global mean temperature (GMT), for the last 130 years, from 1880 to 2010, has oscillated like a pendulum between the upper and lower GMT boundary lines, with the global warming trend line as the neutral position of the pendulum, as shown in the following graph.
At the moment, the GMT is near its upper boundary line, and like a pendulum will swing to the lower GMT boundary line in the next decades.
No explanation is required because that was what happened after 1880s and 1940s.
To claim continued warming of 0.2 deg C per decade by the IPCC, when the GMT (the pendulum) is near its upper boundary line is to violate physics and nature.
Jamessays
The paper has been published in a journal called Remote sensing which is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should not have been published.
Projection is such a funny thing. Perhaps this is the type of proper peer-review that you are talking about?
Charles Monnett’s wife ‘peer-reviewed’ his polar bear paper!
This must be what Phil Jones menat by changing the peer-review process.
RWsays
Chris Colose says:
“RW, among many of your confusions, 3.7 W/m2 is the reduction in OLR at tropopause, not the forcing at the surface. In fact the TOA forcing controls the surface temperature more than the surface forcing.”
A 1.1 C rise in temperature requires the surface to emit about an additional 6 W/m^2. Can you explain to me where this +6 W/m^2 flux into the surface is coming from? If the 3.7 W/m^2 is not incident on the surface, as you seem to be claiming, then how much of it?
Dan Csays
It appears a sudden downturn has happened on the two charts referenced in the intro to this thread.
It is much sharper than any other year in those graphs.
Did some ice dam break opening a channel for ice to exit the arctic?
ay, Charles, Radge: Ray & Charles you are missing my point or I’ve failed to make it well. Personally I’m in general agreement with much of the “consensus model”, though I think the changes in temps and SL will not prove catastrophic or even hard to manage for that matter. I’m simply suggesting the RealClimate environment is not a pristine, unbiased community that treats incoming data and papers without any prejudice, and that’s too bad given the brilliance and qualifications of many posting here regularly. Radge challenges me very reasonably to provide a testable hypothesis of bias. One approach would be to review how research papers are treated here at RC by both post authors and by the commenters, perhaps with an eye to comments that do not address anything scientific and thus arguably reflect bias such as calling people “ignorant food tubes” and such. Another interesting approach would be to look at peer reviewed predictions to see how they line up compared to observations.
Radge I have looked (though not extensively) for papers testing climate model predication bias and climate model accuracy. However I have not found very much research addressing the reasonable question of whether current climate models provide the high accuracy that a rational person should agree is needed to justify large scale social and economic adjustments.
Few here would dispute that we find plenty of bias in the skeptic community where peer review quality is even more lacking than in the mainstream climate community. Yet most here seem to think it’s disingenuous to suggest bias may also be present here at RealClimate.
Edimsays
So, Professor Salby claims that temperatures drive atmospheric CO2, not the other way around. Finally, the mainstream is catching up.
RWsays
Gavin,
How does the system ‘gain’ of about 1.6 NOT include the combined dynamic effects of water vapor and clouds?
What then is controlling the net surface flux of 390 W/m^2 if not primarily the combined effects of water vapor and clouds? Isn’t it obvious that the atmospheric water cycle (ground state water -> evaporation -> water vapor -> clouds -> precipitation -> ground state water) is the thermostat controlling the planet’s energy balance and ultimately the surface temperature? Is it just a coincidence that the water vapor condenses to form clouds and as the clouds form they reflect sunlight? Is it just a coincidence that water precipitated out of the atmosphere emanates from clouds?
If water vapor is the primary amplifier of warming, what then the controller? If not clouds via there ability to reflect incoming solar energy and precipitate out the water from the atmosphere, then what?
co2isnotevilsays
Gavin,
Yes, the system is quite non linear, especially regarding the relationship between temperature and power. It’s odd that you would bring this up since the IPCC metric of sensitivity assumes that temperature and forcing power are linearly related. For what it’s worth, I can assure you that the more comprehensive analysis I do in my climate model fully accounts for the non linearities in the system.
While the average gain is simply the emitted surface power divided by the received solar power, the first watt of solar power has a far larger influence on the surface temperature than the last watt. The reason is the T^4 relationship between emitted power and temperature which makes each additional degree of surface temperature harder to sustain than the last. Can you see the negative feedback as temperature rise and the positive feedback as they fall that results from this? Keep in mind that if surface temperatures increase by 3C, the emitted surface power must increase by 16 W/m^2 and that this 16 W/m^2 must be replaced or else the surface will cool as the planets thermal mass looses energy faster than it’s replenished.
Your supposition seems to be that 3.7 W/m^2 of forcing eventually results in an extra 12.3 W/m^2 recirculated between the surface and atmosphere and that this is the source of your temperature boost. Of course, this is nonsense and completely unsupportable by the data. If this were the case, why doesn’t the post albedo 240 W/m^2 received by the Earth result in 800 W/m^2 of additional recirculated power resulting in an emitted surface power of 1037 W/m^2, or 94C?
The only linear relationship between temperature and energy is that 1 calorie warms 1 cc of water by 1C. However, this is based on energy, not a power flux. As the water warms, it looses energy faster owing to the T^4 relationship, thus even more input flux is required to sustain the higher temperatures and greater output flux.
Since the average gain is 1.6 and the gain drops as temperatures rise ( look at the data), the resulting non linearity doesn’t help your case, in fact it hurts it since the 1.6 becomes an upper bound on the incremental gain and doesn’t leave any wiggle room to achieve the gain of 4.3 required for the CAGW hypothesis. One of the reasons many estimates from paleo data overestimate the global sensitivity is because the sensitivity at the poles is much larger than that at the equator. In fact, the sensitivity in Greenland or Antarctica is close to the 4.3 claimed, but globally it’s far lower.
I also agree that I define sensitivity/gain differently from the IPCC. In fact, the IPCC doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that sensitivity and dimensionless power gain quantify the same thing. In this case, the IPCC has the incorrect definition, at least relative to a metric with any correspondence to physical reality and I’ve explained in detail how this incorrect definition arose.
George
co2isnotevilsays
Looking at the ‘bore hole’, it seems to contain mostly comments from skeptics, especially when they point out glaring inconsistencies with CAGW ‘science’ that can not otherwise be addressed without capitulating or looking foolish. I realize that asymmetric moderation policies are the norm for warmist blogs which is not suprising considering the asymmetric peer review applied to climate research publication, but that doesn’t make it right. One can not learn the truth when it’s being suppressed and RC has a long history of suppressing skeptics arguments and/or attempting to dispute them by violating posting rule 6. When the best argument against a skeptic is to insult them, it just reinforces the fact that the skeptics are right.
If this continues, RC and it’s benifactors stature will suffer irreparable harm once the truth eventually replaces the CAGW fantasy. This reality is preordained as the truth can not be suppressed indefinitely and the truth is that the sensitivity to doubling CO2 has an upper bound of about 1.1C, which is far from being catastrophic. In light of the preponderance of data and physics that disputes CAGW, is RC willing to accept irrelevance in the very near future and damage the integrity of science, just to support a political opinion?
BTW, according to posting rule 6,
“No flames, profanity, ad hominem comments are allowed. This includes comments that (explicitly or implicitly) impugn the motives of others, or which otherwise try to personalize matters under discussion.”
Are warmist posters subject to the same rule?
Posts 248, 247, 246, 244 and almost every response to anything any skeptic has posted violates this policy, as do many of the moderators comments. My last post which was sent into oblivion was pure science and did not violate any rule, it just posed a question whose answer invalidates CAGW. As I’ve known all along, the hidden rule is that you are not allowed to challenge consensus science with real science.
I extended my url to a website that encourages democratic action by journalists and it’s sustainable energy partners. Maybe you let me comment. Maybe not. Who knows anymore.
I want to ask you a straight forward question.
Its not a troll question.
Its not a baited question.
It not even a question that throws ‘climate change’ under a bus.
Having said that, lets see how far this goes before ‘I’ end up in the bore hole.
This thread you’ve written has all the makings of wild west dash to stake claim in new territory.
Bright.
Bustling.
New frontiers.
I like it.
But before these innovators are let lose to discover new lands, they would first have to come from an established paradigm you would think.
What I mean is, before we just clamour to make noise about new innovations, shouldn’t the predecessors have first found themselves firmly established in its surroundings?
What I am getting at is this.
I’m referencing the models you suggest as, “Regardless of terminology, the 20th Century historical simulations in CMIP5 will use a much more diverse set of model types than did the similar simulations in CMIP3”.
Of which, these models were the staple of the AR4 and countless other notable work.
But having said that, have these models proved anything?
To the best of my knowledge(correct me if I am wrong), but no Earth System Model has correctly predicted or supported any evidentiary findings since their inception.
We have three to four years of odd and peculiar weather behavior around the world, yet these models never saw them coming.
Yet, we can cite hundreds of climatologists, meteorologists, hydrologists, etc. that all suggest these anomalies are a product of climate change.
Mind you, I know you can’t speak for the total population of like minded individuals, but I know you can speak on behalf of the models that were instrumental in creating the hypothesis of AGW as we know it.
The point I am trying to make, is that how can you promote a new series of climate models, before we can actually grade the effectiveness of their predecessors, namely, the models used in the AR for policy and preparedness to world leaders.
Should’t we grade how accurate these models where, rather than how effective they were implementing these policies?
Because main stream media doesn’t seem to have a clue when it comes to suggesting if current weather events are a product of climate change or just a weather event.
What we do know is that since 2007, the global weather around us, in different localities, other nations, our seas and oceans are not performing as predicted by these previous Earth System Models.
So please, help me understand how you can promote these new models without first grading the validity of their predecessors.
If I missed something, I really want to know what you know.
That way I can explain it to the hundred or so other scientists and professionals that don’t seem to know what you know.
co2isnotevilsays
So, it seems you blocked my responses to questions raised about my earlier post. For some reason, it didn’t even end up in the borehole. You must stop censoring science. It’s a sad state of affairs when your primary methods to support the seriously flawed CAGW hypothesis is by insulting those who would dispute it, hiding the science that disputes it, preventing a rational discourse and pushing ever more ludicrous explanations for why the science is wrong and you are right. Even if the science didn’t support the fact that CAGW from CO2 is an impossibility, the censoring actions employed by this site are enough to convince me that you’re exceptionally insecure in your own beliefs.
George
Looking back at the records to 1860 or earlier is useful if you believe that “normal” temperature rises and consequent sea-level rises are still occurring: you will get the minimum, non-AGW trend. If you think that at some point the “normal” processes stopped and became AGW/A-CO2 now causes 75% or more of global temperature and sea-level rise, then the prior history is useful for showing when the break occurred and the deviation from (say, 25%) the normal processes still in-place.
AGW has as its premise that the majority and an increasing proportion with time of both global temperature and sea-level rises are anthropogenically caused by A-CO2 emissions, specifically fossil fuel burning. Thus the last 16 year average of 3.1 mm/yr, (ignoring the more recent, 9-year average of <2.0 mm/yr rise)must have at least a 2.5 mm/yr anthropogenic component if AGW is happening. The question to be answered for the skeptics is "when" the current heating and sea-level rise stopped being natural.
I had thought the initial IPCC/Hansen work suggested an anthropogenic signal would not be evident until the 1980s, which would make sense as it was about 1979 that GISTemp shows a marked shift in the rate of global temperature increase. If this is the case, then in the AGW science-as-understood there MUST be an acceleration of sea-level as well as temperatures in the pipe. The forecasts are fixed by established science and mathematics to have severe outcomes by 2050, not just 2100. If we are to see those forecasts occur in the next 39 years, the increases must begin right away. Every year they are held back – by whatever means, natural or Chinese coal pollution – there is a greater rebound building in.
If, by 2015, the sea-level has not risen by 15.5mm, to 45.5mm in total, a serious re-working of mechanisms operating must take place. At the same time the GISTemp global temperatures must be in excess of 0.17C greater than today (to get another 2.2C by 2100). The rise to disaster cannot be postponed much as the science is pretty much determined; only details remain not understood.
The next 4 years are critical for the progress of dangerous growth in temperatures and sea-levels. The calculated power of CO2 is greater now than it was in the post-WWII days when aerosols are calculated to have been able to reduce planetary temperatures. The industrial West is no longer the smogland it was; I understand you can see the volcanoes near Mexico City as well as the mountains outside L.A. these days, and the green fogs of London are gone. Nowhere have we seen evidence that China, India and Indonesia are generating the level of aerosols that the industrial West used to.
By 2015 the difference between what the skeptics say is going on and the IPCC calculations will be too significant to be controversial. The Archibald/WUWT skeptics just yesterday proposed a Canada-US Border temperature decline of 1.2C in the next few years. So the skeptics say it is going to get cooler as AGW theory says, just as CO2 will go up by a certain amount (8 ppmv by 2015), the global and sea temperatures will rise. And cause the sea-level to continue to rise. The telling is almost upon us.
The most difficult case will be if the trends of post-1979 continue. Then either the minimum case of AGW is happening – which means we cannot really stop the rise (low CO2 sensitivity means a massive reduction in CO2 emissions to be effective) or – horrors! – natural processes are stronger than understood. Which could mean that if now natural cooling is tempering the situation, in 2050 or so when the cycle turns and natural warming occurs again, the last half of the century will be a potboiler. And beyond the help of "preventative" measures.
@Gavin
Fair point … maybe over the last 50 years, sea level has risen faster on average than the previous 50. If thats what you want to use an analysis period then fine. But if you take a longer period like 10,000 years, its obviously decelerated, and if you look satellite period of measurements (last 17 year) its clearly decelerating.
As you say, it all depends when you pick your start date.
[Response: If this was just about data analysis or sound-bites then this would be relevant, but rather it is about inferring what is going to happen in the medium/long term future. That requires an understanding of the what has happened and why and then judging whether those causes will continue/accelerate/change in the future. Short term features associated with ENSO are very relevant, and neither is the deglaciation since the Laurentide and Fenno-Scandanavian ice sheets are all gone – though the residual impacts of that (local and global isostatic adjustments) are important to factor in. The key causes for the residual changes currently are thermal expansion (which will continue and get slightly larger as global surface temperatures continue to increase), net ice melt (which is clearly accelerating), groundwater mining/irrigation/reservoir and river management which are difficult to quantify and hard to predict. Thus absent dramatic changes in water resource management the long term prognosis is clearly one of acceleration – albeit at an uncertain rate. – gavin]
This war/climate connection is nonsense – orders of magnitude too small to have global impacts.
Is this an assumption or is supported by research? References? One of the main effects of warfare is increased burning. Coincidentally there is a hypothesis that AGW and climate change is related to increased burning and the CO2 and aerosols that result.
If there was an instrumentation problem after 1945, then the climate models using data up to 1945 should have predicted unexpected warming/cooling after 1945 as compared to the instrument records.
Why wasn’t any unexpected warming/cooling reported by the climate models after 1945? This should have alerted climate scientists to a likely data error.
Chris R
That is case only for the incomplete work. Here are some more in brief details on hydro-magnetic loop you can see that correlation ends in 1980’s (tamino blocked 2 attempted answers again). http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HmL.htm
So why was the sea level rise accelerating so much from 1940 to 1970 when global temperatures were going down?
Also, can you please post the full chart to 2010 so I can look at the trend better. It looks like it may be a sine wave.
Thanks.
Andy Revkin says: 20 Jul 2011 at 9:21 AM
It’s important, while pondering a single year, to keep in mind long-term trends.
Indeed it is, but then you discover an unexpected correlation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Science far off unravelling the Arctic’s temperature secrets.
Looks to me like Houston and Deans’ reply to your terrible rebuttal has put the nail in the coffin of your hysteria. It’s great when fools like you guys get shot down in flames.
Kruddler, PhD.
The Greenhouse Effect is proven to be WRONG
FINALLY some reasonable progress on Climate Change.
First we have the Wood/Nahle experiments that show that theClimate change Greenhouse Effect does NOT EXIST (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8073&linkbox=true&position=3)
Second we have the Doug Cotton thermodynamic explanation at http://earth-climate.com that preventing convection in the real greenhouse or Nahle’s box & the actual transmission of heat by convection in the atmosphere is the real reason that warming happens and the climate change greenhouse effect does NOT EXIST and
Third we have the John Dodds alternate Wobble Theory of Climate Change” at www,scribd.com or at http://earth-climate.com which shows that the Arrhenius claim that more Greenhouse Gases means more warming (ie the Greenhouse Effect) does not work every night when Mother Natures nightly experiment shows that more GHGs actually result in cooling contrary to the Arrhenius /IPCC theory.
This then leads to the” Gravity causes Global warming” summary (at http://www.scribd.com) conclusion of Wobble Theory that when you add more energy into the Earth because of planetary eccentricity and more energy from gravity from Jupiter etc you get the observed warming effect cycles of 60 years 1998, 1940, 1880 back to 1400 in GISP2 ice Core data and the 935 year warming/cooling cycles back to 3000BC in the Vostok ice core derived temperature data formerly attributed to the Greenhouse effect.
CASE CLOSED. More energy causes more warming. DUH! doesn’t the sun do that every morning! The energy comes from changes in gravity, which comes from outside Earth and is beyond Man’s control. There is no AGW since Man does not control gravity. There is no justification for a carbon tax, or Cap & Trade or any action against carbon or CO2.
Question: how soon (pun intended) will there be an update to GISS Model E to calculate realistic climate projections accounting for the warming due to changes in the variable gravity from the planets that is responsible for climate changes? It should be relatively simple to get distance projections and hence the force and energy of gravity changes by planets from JPL’s Horizons, & insert these into GISS Model E to correct the model’s deficiencies by not accounting for gravity and hence energy changes over time. Maybe we can really get some correlation to actual sea ice measurements?
FINALLY some reasonable progress on Climate Change.
First we have the Wood/Nahle experiments that show that the Climate change Greenhouse Effect does NOT EXIST (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8073&linkbox=true&position=3)
Second we have the Doug Cotton thermodynamic explanation at http://earth-climate.com that preventing convection in the real greenhouse or Nahle’s box & the actual transmission of heat by convection in the atmosphere is the real reason that warming happens and the climate change greenhouse effect does NOT EXIST and
Third we have the John Dodds alternate Wobble Theory of Climate Change” at www,scribd.com or at http://earth-climate.com which shows that the Arrhenius claim that more Greenhouse Gases means more warming (ie the Greenhouse Effect) does not work every night when Mother Natures nightly experiment shows that more GHGs actually result in cooling contrary to the Arrhenius /IPCC theory.
This then leads to the” Gravity causes Global warming” summary (at http://www.scribd.com) conclusion of Wobble Theory that when you add more energy into the Earth because of planetary eccentricity and more energy from gravity from Jupiter etc you get the observed warming effect cycles of 60 years 1998, 1940, 1880 back to 1400 in GISP2 ice Core data and the 935 year warming/cooling cycles back to 3000BC in the Vostok ice core derived temperature data formerly attributed to the Greenhouse effect.
CASE CLOSED. More energy causes more warming. DUH! doesn’t the sun do that every morning! The energy comes from changes in gravity, which comes from outside Earth and is beyond Man’s control. There is no AGW since Man does not control gravity. There is no justification for a carbon tax, or Cap & Trade or any action against carbon or CO2.
Peter Ellis @89. Thank you for that explanation. That makes sense
Another question that pops into my head when I see these graphs is in a perfect world: ‘what should the ice extents be’.
I know from recent history that the ice has been down as far as the Bay of Biscay and up far enough that folks made hay in Greenland.
Didactylos @126. You ask for evidence.
Not sure what you’re asking for. The last ice age was about 18k years ago when pack ice was down to Bay of Biscay. You can get that info form a huge pile of historical data. I don’t see much problem with that.
On the Greenland bit it was certainly more accommodating when they arrived and got steadily worse. We can see their infrastructure revealed as the current ice pack has receeded. So it must have been less than it is now.
So not following your line of reasoning here.
Gavin, do some work your paid to do rather than wasting tax payer money.
Very interesting comments here.
As we all know, climate science is evolving with greater instrumentation and a better understanding of the air and ocean currents, including satellite sensors, sounding of molecular activity in the troposphere and analysis of the atomic mater/plasma above and beyond. Interactions through the spheres (tropo, strato, meso, ionosphere, thermo and magneto)from molecular to atomic, including the magnetic influences are poorly understood. Our planets ever-changing magnetosphere (declination/inclination) along with its shape and strength are not fully understood, nor is the impetus’s for cloud formation.
Any scietist that claims they have all the modelling inputs with the correct weighting applied is delusional or worse.
Our planets plate boundaries are alive and well and although they are unpredictable, we know for example that a 105 day rift changes everything quickly. From solar influence weighting to % of white ground cover to when are clouds on the dayside VS lack of clouds on the nightside, we have miles to go before gaining a good understanding of cause and effect with climatology.
What geological condition are we in right now? it’s called an interglacial period and it is the shorter portion of our planets two-part history, so I believe we should enjoy it while we can.
Also, does anyone think mankind will delay or stop the next glaciation period?
Take care & All The Best!
Addition to 161.
You got me questioning my memory and I have just dug out my old encyclopedia (The Book of Knowledge by Waverley). It tells of the Russians, in the early part of 20th century, building towns along the northern sea board and ships sailing and establishing a sea trade. Flax and sugar beet were being grown in the Arctic circle. It then started to turn around in the 60′ and 70’s.
So I’m not imagine it. I feel better now!!. Also the Baltic sea was another measure of increasing ice.
Addition to 161.
Wanting to check out my memory and just dug out my old encyclopedia from the 50’s (Book of Knowledge by Waverley). It talks about the Russians setting up towns and establishing a sea trade on the north coast of Siberia in the early part of 20th century. They grew flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle. That all started to turn around in the 50’s and 60’s when the ice came back. So I was not dreaming it!!
Also I remember similar stories about the Baltic and the road that went across.
My previous comment appears to have been lost so I’ll try again. It was an addition to my comment at #161.
To check my memory last night I consuluted one of my old encyclopedias (Book of Knowledge by Waverley 1950’s edition). It talked about Russia building out towns on the north caost of Siberia and setting up a sea trade along the route for the ice free months. It also talked of growing flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle.
Then I remember the ice came back in the 60’s and 70’s and put a stop to this expansion. Similar type stories for the Baltic Sea.
Your data does not seem to identify this.
So my memory was not to far out. Our current extents seem pretty similar to what they were back in the 1940’s and 50’s having receeded since about the 80’s. Looks more of a cyclical process to me.
My previous comment appears to have been lost so I’ll try again. It was an addition to my comment at #161.
To check my memory last night I consuluted one of my old encyclopedias (Book of Knowledge by Waverley 1950’s edition). It talked about Russia building out towns on the north caost of Siberia and setting up a sea trade along the route for the ice free months. It also talked of growing flax and sugar beet inside the Arctic Circle.
Then I remember the ice came back in the 60’s and 70’s and put a stop to this expansion. Similar type stories for the Baltic Sea.
Your data does not seem to identify this.
So my memory was not to far out. Our current extents seem pretty similar to what they were back in the 1940’s and 50’s having receeded since about the 80’s. Looks more of a cyclical process to me.
AR5 should be held off until at least March of 2013, as 2000-2010 being uneventfull as it was, will certainly look like day from night in this current decade.
All the Best!
So Godot has finally shown up. And late it is: years after various governments created new policies and redirected a lot of money on the prediction that temperatures are busy rising alarmingly, explained by the assumption that this is due to excess anthropogenic CO2 output, this buildings foundations are being finished. Not very reassuring.
Well I am sure someone will process it, so let’s see what happens. Anyway the sceptics position (in the main) is not that warming has occurred, but if its down to mans activities or natural variation.
Para 2: “Moreover the description of methods of what was done is not sufficient to be able to replicate results. As a first step, some quick checks have been made to see whether results can be replicated and we find some points of contention.”
Para 3: “One could and perhaps should treat the 100 years as 10 sets of 10 years and see whether the observations match any of the ten year periods, but instead what appears to have been done is to use only the one hundred year set by itself.”
Para 4: “We have done exactly this and the result is in the Figure. What this figure shows is the results for the observations, as in Spencer and Braswell, but with the EBAF dataset in black.”
The reasoning appears confused, given that you open stating an inability to utilize methods, you then proceed to do so, illustrated with your unlabelled ‘Figure’.
Something about glass houses springs to mind.
How many comments deleted so far?
83% from what I can tell so far. But focus there might be a comanet from some old friend that pretends to belive in you still.
Hi Ken,
In your professional opinion, is the Spencer paper a travesty?
Has Kevin Trenberth found the “missing heat” yet?
I was under the impression (from a quick read of the paper) that the paper showed that IPCC models and real satelite observations don’t match because IPCC models are wrong. I very much doubt the satelite data is wrong.
Since 2005 global warming has stopped. So, there is time to wait till 2050. Than we can judge. Was it the sun or CO2?.
Re Forcing vs Feedback
Can you explain why 390ppm of CO2 can result in a forcing/warming, and yet 20,000 ppm of H20 already in the air does not? but yet when 390ppm of CO2 increased the temperature and we get even more (feedback)H2O airborne ALL of this is a feedback causing warming, totally ignoring that any of the original 20,000ppm of water vapor just might have interacted with a photon to cause some of the warming? Just how does a random photon differentiate between a CO2 caused water vapor molecule(feedback) and one that was there originally?
Then after you explain that please explain why Arrhenius in his 1896 paper can conclude that more GHGs cause more warming when they absorb a photon, when every night shows that the temperature goes down in spite of Man adding more GHGs/CO2? Doesn’t the Arrhenius conclusion make more sense if you conclude that adding more energy photons in the greenhouse effect, not adding more GHGs, causes more warming? Sure seems that the sun/earth rotation adds more photons to get warmer every morning, and then when the rotation reduces the number of photons it gets colder every night in spite of the number of CO2s increasing?
Doesn’t the amount of warming energy dictate the temperture? Or are we claimng that GHGs can create energy by themselves?
And to follow on with the forcing feedback question, if more GHGs causes more warming why doesn’t it get warmer when the the humidity increaes when it rains? Could it be that Arrhenius was wrong in his conclusion that more GHGs means more warming?
I think if Spencer has tweaked a model incorrectly then the real world data should be able to falsify his assumptions behind the tweak over time as the data points better match the untweaked models projections….. He will need to admit he is wrong if that happens.
If future changes align better with Spencers model than other climate models then….? I dont think people should get too excited by models (either for or against) unless the models have proven to give a good decade by decade prediction over a timescale of 30 to 50 years. Until a model can do that I’m going to take every model prediction with a very large grain of salt.
We will refine our models over time, some changes will improve the model and other changes wont.
The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is not a separate forcing, it acts as an amplifier of the radiative forcing effect of the Sun. Take that away that and you are not left with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ forcing you are left with nothing.
For calcuation, of the impact of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, it is treated as a separate forcing and this seems a conveniant thing to do.
However, the basic axium of AGW should, more properly, be stated not as “increasing ‘Greenhouse’ gases will cause the Earth to warm” but as “increasing the Radiative Forcing effect will cause the Earth to warm”.
There is only one problem with stating the issue correctly and that it is demonstrably false!
In the last 500 million years the Suns radiative forcing has increased by about 65 WM2 at the TOA. 500 million years ago the Earth was a familiar place the atmosphere was very similar to todays. Plants, animals and insects were well established we would feel comfortable if we were present then.
However, what has been the Earths response to this very significant increase in radiative forcing? Why it has cooled of course from about 22c to todays 14c!
Now I am sure people will come up with ‘ah buts’. However, that is not the issue, there surely are reasons why the Earth has cooled, in the face of this increase in radiative forcing.
The truth is though, that the axium, that the Earth must warm in the face of an increase in radiative forcing, is falsified and that is a fact!
Alan
Arctic Sea Ice extent at the end of July, 2011 is ABOVE the June , 2007 extent .
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
That means that for 4 straight years the Arctic Ice extent is been larger. In fact as of the last week the melt rate has slowed dramatically to almost no melting.
Funny how the media never reports increases in Arctic Sea Ice.
Also funny how the Antarctic Sea Ice gets no attention as it’s extent has been trending upward since 1979:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
“The bottom line is that there is NO merit whatsoever in this paper. It turns out that Spencer and Braswell have an almost perfect title for their paper: “the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in the Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” (leaving out the “On”).”
There’s no merit to your terrible analysis, which relies, as usual, on your own horribly flawed models. Or maybe they aren’t horrible, maybe only that applies to the models you are still using today that totally failed to predict the stagnancy in warming from 1998 until now.
Real Climate is as usual very eager to jump all over any skeptical work, but rigorous analysis of their own? Not so much. Another reason no one will ever, ever, implement their ideological preferences as policy.
RW
You are absolutely correct in the points you are making about the likelihood of positive feedback to an increase in Radiative Forcing.
However, you will continue to be obfuscated and deflected on here, you will never get a direct, pointed and reasoned response because it goes to the heart of CAGW.
Clearly the Earth’s climate feedbacks must be biased towards the negative over reasonably significant time periods or the Earth’s climate could not have maintained such a narrow range of temperature over millions of years.
The basic axiom of AGW that the Earth must warm in the face of an increase in Radiative Forcing is false and demonstrably so.
During the last 500 million years, with the Earth basically in its current atmospheric and biosphere configuration, the Suns Radiative Forcing has increased by about 5 times the estimated forcing for a doubling of CO2. However, the Earth has not warmed in the face of this, it has cooled significantly from about 22c to about 14c.
It doesn’t really matter what the reasons are for this, it just shows that statements that the Earth will automatically warm in the face of rising Radiative Forcing is false.
Mind you, I doubt that you will be able to respond to this, as it likely that my post will be censored. All in the cause of science though!
Alan
Ut oh, northern polar sea ice melts have slowed considerably. And the 2007 ice melts were 100,000 a day in early August. A new minimum record looks very unlikely.
Ray, Charles, Radge: Ray & Charles you are missing my point or I’ve failed to make it well. Personally I’m in general agreement with much of the “consensus model”, though I think the changes in temps and SL will not prove catastrophic or even hard to manage for that matter. I’m simply suggesting the RealClimate environment is not a pristine, unbiased community that treats incoming data and papers without any prejudice, and that’s too bad given the brilliance and qualifications of many posting here regularly. Radge challenges me very reasonably to provide a testable hypothesis of bias. One approach would be to review how research papers are treated here at RC by both post authors and by the commenters, perhaps with an eye to comments that do not address anything scientific and thus arguably reflect bias such as calling people “ignorant food tubes” and such. Another interesting approach would be to look at peer reviewed predictions to see how they line up compared to observations.
Radge I have looked (though not extensively) for papers testing climate model predication bias and climate model accuracy. However I have not found very much research addressing the reasonable question of whether current climate models provide the high accuracy that a rational person should agree is needed to justify large scale social and economic adjustments.
Few here would dispute that we find plenty of bias in the skeptic community where peer review quality is even more lacking than in the mainstream climate community. Yet most here seem to think it’s disingenuous to suggest bias may also be present here at RealClimate.
You have one thing right. Clouds can’t be considered ‘forcing’. In a strict control theory sense, only power from the Sun can force the system. I don’t agree that this specific objection falsifies S & B, in fact, this specific objection is why the S & B hypothesis is correct, that is, there’s a misdiagnosis.
What it boils down to is the definition of radiative forcing. From control theory, only the power entering the system is considered forcing, which differs from the IPCC definition. Changing CO2 levels. aerosols, cloud coverage, etc, change the system, affecting its response, but don’t change the stimulus forcing the system to respond.
This gets more complicated because the characteristics of the system dictating it’s response are surface temperature dependent, while the physical system itself is not a hypothetical system controlling surface temperatures, but a real, physical system controlling the planets energy balance. Of course, to deny the attribute of forcing to the effects S & B says should have them, means that you can’t have it both ways and claim that the effects of incremental CO2 and aerosols are forcing.
While Gerlach’s paper is well argued and convincing, it is a minor detail over whether volcanoes emit more or less CO2 than humans.Discussion of Murry Salby’s recent talk and upcoming paper suggests the contribution of anthropogenic CO2 is in itself insignificant in comparison to the flux of CO2 from natural sources. If Salby’s paper stands, then it will make discussion of whether volcanoes emit more or less CO2 than humans to be an irrelevant detail akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
While you are gathering ad hom ammunition for your assault on Salby, spare some time to consider the paper about the past sea ice
extent in the Arctic. If sea ice cover was 50% less 5,000 years ago and polar bears were very much alive and well, it is hard to see how claims of their extinction are credible from future ice loss.
Good-bye to using the EPA and ESA lawsuits to control CO2 emissions from US power plants if past sea ice was 1,000 km north of its present position.
Chris Colose,
“RW, among many of your confusions, 3.7 W/m2 is the reduction in OLR at tropopause, not the forcing at the surface. In fact the TOA forcing controls the surface temperature more than the surface forcing.”
I asked this before, but no one answered. Explain to me how the 3.7 W/m^2 of ‘forcing’ turns into +6 W/m^2 at the surface for a 1.1 C rise in temperature. Where is the +6 W/m^2 flux into the surface coming from?
The Effect of CO2 on Global Mean Temperature
The IPCC compared the recent global warming rate with global warming rate for a longer period that has a combination this recent warming and previous global cooling phase and declared to the world “accelerated warming.”
http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
When the IPCC and the mainstream make such obviously false claim, they must be dismissed, ridiculed or otherwise attacked until they retract their false claim.
The correct interpretation is that the global mean temperature (GMT), for the last 130 years, from 1880 to 2010, has oscillated like a pendulum between the upper and lower GMT boundary lines, with the global warming trend line as the neutral position of the pendulum, as shown in the following graph.
http://bit.ly/nicmt9
At the moment, the GMT is near its upper boundary line, and like a pendulum will swing to the lower GMT boundary line in the next decades.
No explanation is required because that was what happened after 1880s and 1940s.
To claim continued warming of 0.2 deg C per decade by the IPCC, when the GMT (the pendulum) is near its upper boundary line is to violate physics and nature.
The paper has been published in a journal called Remote sensing which is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should not have been published.
Projection is such a funny thing. Perhaps this is the type of proper peer-review that you are talking about?
Charles Monnett’s wife ‘peer-reviewed’ his polar bear paper!
This must be what Phil Jones menat by changing the peer-review process.
Chris Colose says:
“RW, among many of your confusions, 3.7 W/m2 is the reduction in OLR at tropopause, not the forcing at the surface. In fact the TOA forcing controls the surface temperature more than the surface forcing.”
A 1.1 C rise in temperature requires the surface to emit about an additional 6 W/m^2. Can you explain to me where this +6 W/m^2 flux into the surface is coming from? If the 3.7 W/m^2 is not incident on the surface, as you seem to be claiming, then how much of it?
It appears a sudden downturn has happened on the two charts referenced in the intro to this thread.
It is much sharper than any other year in those graphs.
Did some ice dam break opening a channel for ice to exit the arctic?
ay, Charles, Radge: Ray & Charles you are missing my point or I’ve failed to make it well. Personally I’m in general agreement with much of the “consensus model”, though I think the changes in temps and SL will not prove catastrophic or even hard to manage for that matter. I’m simply suggesting the RealClimate environment is not a pristine, unbiased community that treats incoming data and papers without any prejudice, and that’s too bad given the brilliance and qualifications of many posting here regularly. Radge challenges me very reasonably to provide a testable hypothesis of bias. One approach would be to review how research papers are treated here at RC by both post authors and by the commenters, perhaps with an eye to comments that do not address anything scientific and thus arguably reflect bias such as calling people “ignorant food tubes” and such. Another interesting approach would be to look at peer reviewed predictions to see how they line up compared to observations.
Radge I have looked (though not extensively) for papers testing climate model predication bias and climate model accuracy. However I have not found very much research addressing the reasonable question of whether current climate models provide the high accuracy that a rational person should agree is needed to justify large scale social and economic adjustments.
Few here would dispute that we find plenty of bias in the skeptic community where peer review quality is even more lacking than in the mainstream climate community. Yet most here seem to think it’s disingenuous to suggest bias may also be present here at RealClimate.
So, Professor Salby claims that temperatures drive atmospheric CO2, not the other way around. Finally, the mainstream is catching up.
Gavin,
How does the system ‘gain’ of about 1.6 NOT include the combined dynamic effects of water vapor and clouds?
What then is controlling the net surface flux of 390 W/m^2 if not primarily the combined effects of water vapor and clouds? Isn’t it obvious that the atmospheric water cycle (ground state water -> evaporation -> water vapor -> clouds -> precipitation -> ground state water) is the thermostat controlling the planet’s energy balance and ultimately the surface temperature? Is it just a coincidence that the water vapor condenses to form clouds and as the clouds form they reflect sunlight? Is it just a coincidence that water precipitated out of the atmosphere emanates from clouds?
If water vapor is the primary amplifier of warming, what then the controller? If not clouds via there ability to reflect incoming solar energy and precipitate out the water from the atmosphere, then what?
Gavin,
Yes, the system is quite non linear, especially regarding the relationship between temperature and power. It’s odd that you would bring this up since the IPCC metric of sensitivity assumes that temperature and forcing power are linearly related. For what it’s worth, I can assure you that the more comprehensive analysis I do in my climate model fully accounts for the non linearities in the system.
While the average gain is simply the emitted surface power divided by the received solar power, the first watt of solar power has a far larger influence on the surface temperature than the last watt. The reason is the T^4 relationship between emitted power and temperature which makes each additional degree of surface temperature harder to sustain than the last. Can you see the negative feedback as temperature rise and the positive feedback as they fall that results from this? Keep in mind that if surface temperatures increase by 3C, the emitted surface power must increase by 16 W/m^2 and that this 16 W/m^2 must be replaced or else the surface will cool as the planets thermal mass looses energy faster than it’s replenished.
Your supposition seems to be that 3.7 W/m^2 of forcing eventually results in an extra 12.3 W/m^2 recirculated between the surface and atmosphere and that this is the source of your temperature boost. Of course, this is nonsense and completely unsupportable by the data. If this were the case, why doesn’t the post albedo 240 W/m^2 received by the Earth result in 800 W/m^2 of additional recirculated power resulting in an emitted surface power of 1037 W/m^2, or 94C?
The only linear relationship between temperature and energy is that 1 calorie warms 1 cc of water by 1C. However, this is based on energy, not a power flux. As the water warms, it looses energy faster owing to the T^4 relationship, thus even more input flux is required to sustain the higher temperatures and greater output flux.
Since the average gain is 1.6 and the gain drops as temperatures rise ( look at the data), the resulting non linearity doesn’t help your case, in fact it hurts it since the 1.6 becomes an upper bound on the incremental gain and doesn’t leave any wiggle room to achieve the gain of 4.3 required for the CAGW hypothesis. One of the reasons many estimates from paleo data overestimate the global sensitivity is because the sensitivity at the poles is much larger than that at the equator. In fact, the sensitivity in Greenland or Antarctica is close to the 4.3 claimed, but globally it’s far lower.
I also agree that I define sensitivity/gain differently from the IPCC. In fact, the IPCC doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that sensitivity and dimensionless power gain quantify the same thing. In this case, the IPCC has the incorrect definition, at least relative to a metric with any correspondence to physical reality and I’ve explained in detail how this incorrect definition arose.
George
Looking at the ‘bore hole’, it seems to contain mostly comments from skeptics, especially when they point out glaring inconsistencies with CAGW ‘science’ that can not otherwise be addressed without capitulating or looking foolish. I realize that asymmetric moderation policies are the norm for warmist blogs which is not suprising considering the asymmetric peer review applied to climate research publication, but that doesn’t make it right. One can not learn the truth when it’s being suppressed and RC has a long history of suppressing skeptics arguments and/or attempting to dispute them by violating posting rule 6. When the best argument against a skeptic is to insult them, it just reinforces the fact that the skeptics are right.
If this continues, RC and it’s benifactors stature will suffer irreparable harm once the truth eventually replaces the CAGW fantasy. This reality is preordained as the truth can not be suppressed indefinitely and the truth is that the sensitivity to doubling CO2 has an upper bound of about 1.1C, which is far from being catastrophic. In light of the preponderance of data and physics that disputes CAGW, is RC willing to accept irrelevance in the very near future and damage the integrity of science, just to support a political opinion?
BTW, according to posting rule 6,
“No flames, profanity, ad hominem comments are allowed. This includes comments that (explicitly or implicitly) impugn the motives of others, or which otherwise try to personalize matters under discussion.”
Are warmist posters subject to the same rule?
Posts 248, 247, 246, 244 and almost every response to anything any skeptic has posted violates this policy, as do many of the moderators comments. My last post which was sent into oblivion was pure science and did not violate any rule, it just posed a question whose answer invalidates CAGW. As I’ve known all along, the hidden rule is that you are not allowed to challenge consensus science with real science.
George the CAGW slayer
I extended my url to a website that encourages democratic action by journalists and it’s sustainable energy partners. Maybe you let me comment. Maybe not. Who knows anymore.
I want to ask you a straight forward question.
Its not a troll question.
Its not a baited question.
It not even a question that throws ‘climate change’ under a bus.
Having said that, lets see how far this goes before ‘I’ end up in the bore hole.
This thread you’ve written has all the makings of wild west dash to stake claim in new territory.
Bright.
Bustling.
New frontiers.
I like it.
But before these innovators are let lose to discover new lands, they would first have to come from an established paradigm you would think.
What I mean is, before we just clamour to make noise about new innovations, shouldn’t the predecessors have first found themselves firmly established in its surroundings?
What I am getting at is this.
I’m referencing the models you suggest as, “Regardless of terminology, the 20th Century historical simulations in CMIP5 will use a much more diverse set of model types than did the similar simulations in CMIP3”.
Of which, these models were the staple of the AR4 and countless other notable work.
But having said that, have these models proved anything?
To the best of my knowledge(correct me if I am wrong), but no Earth System Model has correctly predicted or supported any evidentiary findings since their inception.
We have three to four years of odd and peculiar weather behavior around the world, yet these models never saw them coming.
Yet, we can cite hundreds of climatologists, meteorologists, hydrologists, etc. that all suggest these anomalies are a product of climate change.
Mind you, I know you can’t speak for the total population of like minded individuals, but I know you can speak on behalf of the models that were instrumental in creating the hypothesis of AGW as we know it.
The point I am trying to make, is that how can you promote a new series of climate models, before we can actually grade the effectiveness of their predecessors, namely, the models used in the AR for policy and preparedness to world leaders.
Should’t we grade how accurate these models where, rather than how effective they were implementing these policies?
Because main stream media doesn’t seem to have a clue when it comes to suggesting if current weather events are a product of climate change or just a weather event.
What we do know is that since 2007, the global weather around us, in different localities, other nations, our seas and oceans are not performing as predicted by these previous Earth System Models.
So please, help me understand how you can promote these new models without first grading the validity of their predecessors.
If I missed something, I really want to know what you know.
That way I can explain it to the hundred or so other scientists and professionals that don’t seem to know what you know.
So, it seems you blocked my responses to questions raised about my earlier post. For some reason, it didn’t even end up in the borehole. You must stop censoring science. It’s a sad state of affairs when your primary methods to support the seriously flawed CAGW hypothesis is by insulting those who would dispute it, hiding the science that disputes it, preventing a rational discourse and pushing ever more ludicrous explanations for why the science is wrong and you are right. Even if the science didn’t support the fact that CAGW from CO2 is an impossibility, the censoring actions employed by this site are enough to convince me that you’re exceptionally insecure in your own beliefs.
George