Ptarmigans are Back! Fans of the Sheep Albedo Feedback will remember these little fellows over on the right (photo credit: Ken Tape) from the immortal paper by Squeak and Diddlesworth on the influence of ptarmigan populations on the Laurentide Ice Sheet. 
In Session C33A on Wednesday, Ken Tape of the University of Alaska presented a paper on the influence of ptarmigan grazing on shrubbification of the Alaskan tundra. It seems that when there is deep snow cover, ptarmigan browsing is concentrated on those few willows that stick up above the snow. They eat the buds, which inhibits willow growth. These tall willows are the ones that have managed to benefit most by climate warming, but the ptarmigan provide a stabilizing feedback, up to a point. An interesting thing is the ptarmigan don’t like to perch. 98% of the winter buds within a half meter of the snow surface get eaten, but only 48% of the buds above that browse level. So, if the shrubs grow fast enough to get above the browse level, they can beat the ptarmigans. This seems to be happening more and more.
In between thinking about things like ptarmigans, I have been keeping up with the Mars sessions. Truly spectacular images are coming back from the HiRise instrument flown on Mars Recon Orbiter. A. S. McEwan gave the Shoemaker lecture today, on that topic. Among other things, they have provided a whole new picture of the geology of the ancient crust of Mars.
There was also a talk on Mars that has some peripheral bearing on Earth global warming, though a rather peculiar one. Regular RealClimate readers may remember the
brouhaha over global warming on Mars. This idea has appeared in a few different flavors, mostly in conjunction with a claim that if the climate on Mars is warming, it must be the Sun or something like that, not CO2. One of the flavors of brouhaha (inflamed by this paper, with no fault implied to the authors) has to do with evidence that Mars had systematically darkened between the Viking era (1977) and the Mars Global Surveyor era (circa 2000). Darker Mars = more solar absorption = warmer. Now, since the change was supposedly due to changes in dust distribution on the surface, it’s hard to see how that climate forcing tells us anything about what should be happening on Earth. In any event, Mark Richardson, in a talk archly entitled “Some coolness on Martian global warming” showed that even the supposed albedo trend is spurious. Examining the time course of albedo patterns, he found that they varied rapidly on a yearly basis, and showed in essence that the appearance of a long-term albedo trend came from connecting two points of a more or less random time series, the second of which by chance happened to be lower. Altogether, more revealing about Mars than about Earth, but interesting nonetheless. The fact that the “global warming on Mars” argument was used at all by climate contrarians (Lindzen included) only shows how desperate they have become for arguments, and how unconstrained by reality.
Without naming names, I want to also point out a lot of really fine work in atmospheric dynamics in today’s poster session on idealized general circulation models. There’s a lot of interesting work coming out of Tapio Schneider’s guys at Caltech, on things related to synoptic eddies and the Hadley circulation. There is a lot of consistent picture building towards the idea that in a warm climate, the Hadley cell gets weaker, the cell gets wider, and the jets and storm tracks penetrate further poleward. This all goes under the general rubric of “expansion of the tropics,” and at least the thermal signature has been observed in the real world. It is in line with theoretical concepts of how the atmosphere works. Chalk up one more aspect of climate change which we can say we pretty much understand.
With a bit of time to spare, I sauntered by the Princeton University Press booth to catch up on the offerings. They have a very fine list in Earth science, including Richard Alley’s book, “The Two Mile Time Machine,” and Andy Knoll’s excellent book on the first three billion years of life. Soon they will have Dave Archer’s new book on the long term effects of global warming, which is still in search of a good title. Suggestions welcome.
Moving along, Susan Solomon gave the Bjerknes lecture. This was mostly a review of the history of science and science policy concerning the ozone hole. She contrasted the challenges of controlling CFCs with those of controlling CO2, and showed some similarities and differences. A common thread between the two is that scientific assessments (like IPCC) have played a central role in treaty milestones. It is also worth noting, as she pointed out, that the Montreal Protocol has contributed significantly to climate change mitigation, because CFCs are good greenhouse gases. At the time of peak CFC emission, the CO2 equivalent of CFC emission was equivalent to a third of the actual CO2 emissions. Without Montreal, CFC emissions today would be much higher. By some estimates, Montreal has contributed more to global warming mitigation than Kyoto, and can do more in the future by promoting CFC replacements that are climate-friendly. This is not to say that a Kyoto follow-on is unnecessary. It’s just a reminder that in some areas, we have made some progress in greenhouse gas mitigation.
Moving from high up right down to the surface of the planet, we get back to an issue that was much in evidence in our previous dispatches: climate change in the Arctic. Hansen and Nazarenko (PNAS 2004) resurrected interest in the effect of soot on snow albedo, suggesting that it might account for a good deal of rapid Arctic warming. There was, however, a need for much more data on snow albedo. Steve Warren presented new data from his ongoing snow albedo project (see his project page here ). This involved snow samples from an impressive network of volunteers, including one 4000 km snowmobile trek across the Canadian Arctic, and the first snow samples in restricted areas of the Russian North. Except for the Russian North (where earlier data isn’t available), the soot contents seem to have gone down substantially since the 1980’s, which is in accord with the general cleaning of air samples. Greenland is very clean, but there is some concentration of soot in melting snow, which may accelerate the Spring snowmelt. While emphasizing that soot is still important and needs to be understood better, Steve suggested that insofar as soot forcing seems to be decreasing, it is not a good candidate for accounting for the acceleration of Arctic warming in the past two decades.
Aside from the fact that it’s 2AM and I’m writing this at the end of the AGU honors banquet, I won’t belabor Lonnie Thompson’s Frontiers in Geophysics lecture since it was webcast and I imagine that all of you who were interested have already had a look at it. As one expects from a Frontiers lecture, there wasn’t much new for the folks who were already in the thick of the subject (since it’s for a more broad audience) but it was a great lecture nonetheless. Lonnie gave a general overview of the climate change problem, with particular emphasis on what has been learned from tropical ice core investigations. He had a number of great pictures of the field work, including some indication of the size of the herd of yaks needed to get a 600m ice core down from the Himalayas in insulated core boxes. Some take home points are that 98% of the named Alaska glaciers are retreating, 95% of 612 studied Tibet glaciers are retreating, and 98% of monitored Alpine glaciers are retreating. He also had incontrovertible evidence that there has been massive melt on Kilimanjaro. This included ice cores that showed characteristic elongated air bubbles in the past few decades, whereas earlier parts of the core show intact bubbles. There is obvious ocular proof of melting on Kilimanjaro, and it is baffling that the likes of Georg Kaser and Philip Mote can’t seem to believe the obvious evidence there for anybody to see. It’s not sublimation. There’s lots of melt. Lonnie also pointed out, that with regard to tropical mountain glacier retreat in general, the rapid retreat supports the vertical amplification with height seen in GCMs and in the moist adiabat, suggesting that evidence to the contrary from radiosondes may be more a data problem than a physics problem.
Tonight was the AGU Honors ceremony. Congratulations especially to all of those who have contributed so much to advancing the state of understanding of climate: to Susan Solomon (who was awarded the Bowie Medal), Richard Alley (who was awarded the Revelle Medal) and Amy Clement (who was awarded the Macelwane medal). These and other medalists were feted at a very fine banquet, and needless to say, once more, a good time was had by all. Susan Solomon gave an especially inspiring acceptance speech. “The Nobel prize awarded to the IPCC recognizes unselfish cooperation at its best.” “Never before has there been such a need for society to make good collective decisions [about climate change],
informed by good science.” Susan, needless to say, was chair of the IPCC Working Group I.
Overheard at the banquet: “Richard Alley is a C-Span Rock star!” (referring to Richard’s indefatigable efforts to educate Congress of the reality of global warming)
The Honors Evening was another real inspiration. Look, guys and gals, this is a really, really talented crew. How could you not believe them when they say global warming is a real problem?
A certain V. Courtillot and C. Allegre were also in evidence,though not encountered. What can I say, but that it is fortunate that the custom of throwing down the gauntlet and challenging to duels has fallen out of fashion. Magnetic fields vs. CO2 at 20 paces!
More tomorrow.
To be clear, Richard, are you asking for help understanding the 1200-day number, from p. 237 of the textbook? There Ray writes:
“… one can compute OLR(T) using a radiation model and some assumption linking the temperature and humidity profile to surface temperature, or one can use one of the linear or polynomial fits to the OLR curve discussed in Section 4. For example, with a linear fit to the OLR curve for a terrestrial atmosphere with 300ppmv CO2 and 50% relative humidity, b is about 2(W/m2)/K in the range 250K to 310K. The corresponding relaxation time [] is 1200 days for a 50 meter mixed layer, or 60 days for the 2.4m mixed layer which is equivalent to the thermal inertia of the Earth’s atmosphere. In consequence, the seasonal cycle is expected to be strongly attenuated on the ocean-covered parts of the Earth …”
Guys, I don’t think Mr. Sycamore is for real, in the sense that I don’t think he wants a real answer. He just intends to keep writing that we don’t have any answers or are evading his questions. Ray and others have answered his questions fully and he still insists he’s getting no answer. He’s a dishonest troll. Don’t even bother to answer him from now on.
Richard, I believe that everybody here but you can see that what I’ve said is correct. A commentary in a blog does not lend itself to writing equations. Since you insist on simply repeating “no it isn’t” and refuse to address specifics, let’s go point by point.
I have pointed out repeatedly that you cannot get a sustained increase from an oscillatory input unless the system itself is oscillatory and the input oscillates at the resonant frequency of the input. Do you dispute that?
Barton, I’m starting to think the same thing. The dead giveaway is that fact that there’s no meaningful commentary on anything Hank, I, Raypierre or Phil have sent his way. I’m not even convinced that he would pass a Turing test.
Perhaps the lines I quoted from Ch. 8 that (I think) are where Ray’s ‘1200 day’ number came from answered his question. Time will tell.
#101 I’m aware of the paragraph, Ray. Recall, I was the one who pointed you to it? Where are the error bars on those parameters?
#102 I’ve had how many comments deleted now? Three? Four? And this makes it through?
#104 Your piling on here serves what purpose? Makes you feel good I suppose.
#103 I don’t dispute anything. Stop trying to stuff words in my mouth. I want to see a proof of that which you just asserted. You have not proven you are correct. You simply keep repeating your assertion that you are correct. Inculcation is not a logical proof. Give me your proof in word form if equations are too hard to post. Cite a paper. You wave your hands and say “the proof is in my first year calculus text”. That’s not a citation. That’s not an argument. That’s a dismissal. It’s a dodge. I don’t know of any text on differential equations that makes use of the world’s oceans as an example. Enlighten me.
But talk about failing the Turing test. I think I will wait for raypierre’s return after the break. It is his remark; he should be willing and able to clarify what he meant by it. Please curb your temptation to reply. I doubt it can go anywhere productive as long as you can’t resist the urge to insult and to mob.
[Response: Note, constructive engagement requires paying attention. Hank’s quote is very clear that the 1200d number comes from assuming a mixed-layer depth of 50m. It is not derived from data, though this is a reasonable guess for some purposes. In the real world, it’s clear that there isn’t a single time scale since many different processes play a part in the response (see here for instance). As to whether a linear differential equation with an oscillatory forcing function can have a linear increase through time, it can’t. The particular solution would have to have an oscillatory component (do a fourier transform for instance). In the simplest case, it’s obvious: the general solution of cdT/dt + T = Fcos(wt) is T=Aexp(-t/c) + Fcos(wt-b)/sqrt(1+(cw)^2), where tan(b)=cw. Please move the conversation to something more relevant. – gavin]
Bye.
Richard, I said we are going through step by step. I asked point blank whether you dispute “that you cannot get a sustained increase from an oscillatory input unless the system itself is oscillatory and the input oscillates at the resonant frequency of the system.”
As you replied “I don’t dispute anything.” I will take that as meaning that you accept the premise as stated (and corrected).
Now, step 2: Do you dispute that solar forcing–especially on a decadal scale–is at most quasi-periodic?
If you accept this, then by itself, it is sufficient to show that you will not get a steadily increasing response from climate due to an oscillating (not periodic) input.
Couple to this the fact that there is no evidence for any type of resonant behavior in climate, and your argument is DOA.
As to the mixing of the oceans, our understanding of rates of mixing/relaxation has been pretty much the same since Munk’s estimates using C-14 tracers. You can also use chemical tracers–SF6 for example. The point to understand is that it can and has been measured. Moreover, the rate of relaxation affects how sensitive the Southern Hemisphere is to the seasons vs. the Northern (due to differences in H20/land).
BTW, you might be a little more convincing in your assertions that you have at least perused the references we provide if you at least go the names straight on who was posting which message #. (Hint: #101 was Hank, and he was just trying to figure out what your question was.)
#106 inline reply by gavin. I’m fully aware of where the 1200d number comes from; I was the one who pointed it out. There is no uncertainty estimate on that number. Do you have one? gavin, you are surely not arguing that that one-liner is an appropriate model of the sun-ocean interaction. Have you actually followed the discussion?
#107 bye. And thanks.
#108 My question, one more time, is: where is raypierre’s proof of his assertion that a periodic solar input leads to a periodic temperature response. Do the long integration times involved in ocean fluid dynamics not change the nature of the response?
If you guys are not able to advance the discussion any further, don’t blame me. I’m just asking a question. You are the ones avoiding answering it. Why, I have no idea. If you don’t have an answer, just say so.
[Response: I gave you a relevant equation and there is no caveat that says that when ‘c’ gets large the nature of the response changes. That’s the thing with linear equations. If you want more realistic modelling you have to give up on the idea that there is a single timescale. Your insistence that a statement of consistency (50m => 1200d) is a derivation from data is just silly. But people have tried to estimate this from real world data and end up with timescales that vary enormously depending on what is being looked at – a couple of years to decades. Possibly you can now get to some point? – gavin]
Re 109. Richard, the thing that annoys me as a lay participant here is your arrogance in blaming the scientists on this site for your inability to understand their quite straightforward responses to your questions. This paragraph in particular is plain offensive:
“If you guys are not able to advance the discussion any further, don’t blame me. I’m just asking a question. You are the ones avoiding answering it. Why, I have no idea. If you don’t have an answer, just say so.”
They have answered your questions. Please grow up and do a little homework, as they have suggested. Then come back with appropriately polite (and humble) questions. Otherwise, you give every appearance of simply trolling.
Richard Sycamore said: “If you guys are not able to advance the discussion any further, don’t blame me. I’m just asking a question.”
No, what you are doing is asking a range of questions and then putting your fingers in your ears and saying “La-la-la-la, I can’t here you.” You have avoided reading the references we’ve provided. You have consistently taken an argumentative tone and rejected assistance as inadequate without providing specifics for why you felt it did not help. Richard, I suggest you go back and read over the exchanges. They do not do you credit.
Ray, if you read for tone, as you do, I would be inclined to agree. My comments reveal that I am, exactly as I say, becoming exasperated with your hand-waving. But hopefully one reads for content, not just tone. Gavin Schmidt’s one-line description of the ocean in #106 is hardly satisfying, however “relevant” he claims it to be in #109. His further assertion that the 50m mixing depth etc. is not based on data is absurd. His insistence that there is no one time constant for ocean mixing is not only ironic given his one-liner, but adds unnecessary complexity to the analysis (something he does quite regularly for no apparent reason). I don’t dispute that any parameterizable problem can be split into any number of sub-problems. But this doesn’t change the question. My suggestion, as before, is to leave the subject alone for now, and maybe raypierre will address it in the new year. I’m sure he knows what he meant and can justify it with a proof. As for my tone, maybe he should have answered my question the first time around instead of deleting it.
[Response: Your reading comprehension appears to leave something to be desired. You asked for an equation showing why oscillatory forcings must have an oscillatory component in the solution, I gave it to you. You asked for where 1200d came from, the answer is it comes from assuming a 50m mixed layer depth. I said that was a reasonable assumption (just look at any ocean atlas and do the averaging). You asked for the uncertainty on time constant, and you were told it depends on what you want to use it for but estimates range from months to decades – mainly because a one time constant model does not fit the real world. I fail to see any question that has not been answered. If you don’t like the answers, there’s not much I can do. – gavin]
Sometimes reading several different books adds clarity. See also:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Earth–Atmospheric–and-Planetary-Sciences/12-301Fall-2006/LectureNotes/index.htm
e.g.
Part 5. Ocean and climate (7 lectures) taught by Prof. Carl Wunsch
19-25 Ocean circulation for climate understanding (PDF – 1.7 MB)
Richard, When I look over your posts, the least charitable interpretation I can come up with is that you are a troll. The most charitable one I can come up with is that you do not have the educational background to pose the question you want to know in a way that makes sense to the scientists and engineers. There’s no shame in that. However, you gave the impression that you had some technical background. So perhaps we are answering what we think are the questions you are posing in terms that you do not understand. If you will tell us what your background is, it might help.
Let me take a look at the house air question
Let us assume simply that the fraction of time the furnace is on is a constant over some period, although it may not be strictly periodic.
If we are in Hawaii, and the temperature outside the house is constant, the temperature inside the house follows the steady state solution for a damped aperiodic oscillator but the average temperature does not change.
If we are in Boston and the duty cycle is short compared to the annual climate cycle or even the daily temperature cycle (day night), the temperature inside the house follows the steady state solution for a damped oscillator but the average temperature follows the temperature changes outside the house, with a positive offset. this is an excellent example of external forcing.
So there are two effects, the steady state solution imposed by the furnace which imposes an equilibrium integrated over periods long compared to the average cycle time and the increase/decrease imposed by external (to the house) forcing of the temperature inside the house.
If you doubt me, go play with your thermostat and monitor the internal and external temperature.
WARNING: Your wife and kids will either leave or kill you.
Re # 112 Richard Sycamore: ” His [Gavin’s] further assertion that the 50m mixing depth etc. is not based on data is absurd.”
What Gavin actually wrote was “the 1200d number comes from assuming a mixed-layer depth of 50m. It is not derived from data, though this is a reasonable guess for some purposes.”
As I interpret his response, “It” refers to the ocean heating time constant of 1200 days, which is calculated assuming that the mixed layer extends to a depth 50 m. The depth of the mixed layer is based on hard data, but it varies with wind speed and other oceanographic factors – some textbooks put it at 100 m, others at 300 m. If you are wondering why a value of 50 m was used, why not ask that question directly?
#115 Thank you, Eli Rabett, for contemplating the example that I gave.
Assume Boston. Assume winter. Assume the thermostat is located a little too near the furnace and that there is some distance between the ductwork and the coldest spot in the house furthest from the furnace. Assume the airfield between duct and cold spot is turbulent, i.e. weak teleconnection. Is it impossible that the temperature should rise almost lineraly despite the periodic activity and ouput of the furnace?
Before going off on any tangents, recall this is about the sun-ocean interaction. If you don’t like my analogy, choose another to your liking. Better yet, argue in terms of the actual sun and ocean.
#113 Thank you for the reference, Hank. I have already read some of Wunsch’s papers, but not these lecture notes. In fact, it is in part his work that leads me to question what raypierre meant when he insisted that solar goes up and down and up and down and global mean temperature rises linearly, implying that a driver and and a responder must correlate to one another. I have heard it argued that the thermal inertia of the oceans could be capable of buffering solar input and redistributing the heat in a time-delayed fashion. I want to know if that is a reasonable proposition.
Assume I am a senior undergraduate. I won’t be insulted.
Re: Richard Sycamore and his concern about the ocean mixed layer heating time constant:
The following reference (easily obtained with a Google search) may have the information you are looking for:
HEAT CAPACITY, TIME CONSTANT, AND SENSITIVITY OF EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM
Stephen E. Schwartz
Accepted for publication inJournal of Geophysical Research
[Revised 2007-06-14; minor corrections to 2007-09-17]
[Response: Probably not. Try this instead: http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/comment_on_schwartz.pdf – gavin]
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:QxS_Xn7h_ekJ:www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf+ocean+mixed+layer+heating+constant&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=safari
Hank #113,
Thanks for the link to the MIT lectures.
Wunch’s chapter on ocean circulation finally put in perspective for me observations I made while serving as Navigator on ballistic missile submarines patrolling in the Norwegian Sea, North Atlantic and Mediterranean almost 40 years ago. We patrolled at 3 – 4 knots at depths generally between 50 and 150 meters. Our tracks were randomized over large chunks of the ocean. We would cover 6000 miles at these speeds during a patrol. Our inertial navigation systems continually logged and displayed the difference between inertial velocity (speed with respect to the ground) and the velocity derived from an electromagnetic log (speed with respect to the water). This difference is equivalent to the ocean current accurate to 0.1 knot. On some occasions we crossed the Gulf Stream enroute our patrol areas. This was spectacular; injection (sea water) temperature changes of 10F or more in a distance of a few hundred yards. Even more startling was the change in set and drift (ocean current)—0.5 knot to more than 6 knots over the same distance. These were dramatic but not unexpected. What was unexpected was the variation in ocean current spatially and temporarily in areas remote from the Gulf Stream and its eddies. Currents would vary up to plus/minus 2 knots over distances of a few miles. Returning to areas at a later time would show similar variations temporally.
Wunch put this in perspective:
“Kinetic energy of the ocean is 99.9% in the time-dependent rather than in the steady components.”
We had a submarine saying “Happiness is to be at 400 feet in a state 6 sea”. I have experienced 15 -20 degree rolls at 400 feet during North Atlantic storms. 99.9 % indeed!
Wunch summarizes our state of knowledge:
“Describing the energetic of the ocean circulation remains an unfinished business.”
“The reduction of the complex turbulent flow of the real ocean to a one-dimensional steady flow if useful would represent an astonishing breakthrough in the physics of turbulent fluids that would be landmark in the history of fluid dynamics. Purely verbal arguments about how the ocean circulation must change in the climate system should be regarded as science fiction.”
Richard Sycamore seems to be seeking such a simple model to somehow link a solar insolation varying about an essentially constant mean with the increasing energy of the global system as measured by average surface temperatures.
I don’t think Wunch’s statement should be taken to mean something might be hidden in that complexity that would invalidate the conservation of energy. I have no trouble following the arguments presented by Ray, Gavin and Eli showing that an increasing energy level can’t be induced by a driver varying about an essentially constant mean.
Perhaps Richard could tell us exactly what Wunch wrote that:
“leads me to question what raypierre meant when he insisted that solar goes up and down and up and down and global mean temperature rises linearly, implying that a driver and and a responder must correlate to one another.”
And while he’s at it perhaps he could provide a reference for this:
“I have heard it argued that the thermal inertia of the oceans could be capable of buffering solar input and redistributing the heat in a time-delayed fashion.”
Why would the “redistribution” result in an increase of energy in the climate system?
Paul, great story! I’d love to read more if you blog about submarining, somewhere sometime.
Back on this thread — I went to look up the words Richard’s repeating, and so had 2 windows open, and mistakenly dropped a reply into the first of these two, where the misapprehension began near as I can tell.
Richard, this reply’s for you:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/les-chevaliers-de-l%e2%80%99ordre-de-la-terre-plate-part-ii-courtillots-geomagnetic-excursion/#comment-78006
#118 Thanks for the reference, Gavin. But this paper states that “contrary to the confident estimate in S07 of tau = 5 ± 1, a time scale as high as 30 or even greater is compatible with the S07 analysis of global years surface temperature”. I would think that the longer the time-scale of integration, the more *unlikely* the argument that GMT ought to fluctuate periodically in lockstep response to a periodic input such as 11-year solar radiation. i.e. At any given time, there’s more heat “in the pipe”.
p.s. “autoregressive” is spelled incorrectly.
#120 Following Hank’s lead, maybe it would be better to switch back to “Les Chevaliers”.
Please don’t go to another topic. One is enough. My mistake, posting there where I went to find the ‘up and down/up’ quote as cited.
Where did you get this?
> the argument that GMT ought to fluctuate periodically
> in lockstep response to a periodic input in lockstep
I can’t find that anywhere. If you read it or heard it, where??
What’s observed is a trend, over time, statistically.
Over the time span charted, ‘solar goes up and down’ with a near zero trend. Temperature goes up, an increasing trend.
That’s what he said about the chart.
#122 Hank, you’ve shown that you can’t or won’t answer the question, so why not drop it for now?
I’d rather not have a parsing war. But – as if you didn’t know – I am referring to raypierre’s phrase: “Say it three times every night before going to sleep: Temperature goes up. Solar stuff goes up and down and up and down and up and down. You can no more make a trend out of that than you can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” I promise I’ll follow his instructions religiously once I understand what it means.
You didn’t like the furnace example, apparently. So try this. Suppose a starving man with 3% body fat suddenly comes into prosperity and starts eating 4 huge meals a day, such that his body fat percentage rises gradually to 15%. Periodic input, linearized output, through time-delayed metabolic integration.
I’m obviously not an oceanographer so you tell me why this analogy doesn’t work. Any equations you want to use, by all means. Gavin has shown it is not that difficult. I only ask that you be sure they are applicable for the case of filtered solar radiation striking the ocean surface.
(When you’re finished, let’s wrap up the silk purse for raypierre!)
Richard,
Um, actually you will not get a linear output. Weight will go up on eating and down on elimination. Conversion to body fat will depend on a variety of metabolic factors, but it too, will be periodic, albeit perhaps with a phase shift. Your impression of a linear response will be due to the infrequency of measurement.
Moreover, while the intake of calories is periodic, the increased amplitude is a step function–and hence aperiodic.
You seem to have a tendency to think your examples about half-way through–this is not characteristic of someone who has a lot of experience with quantitative reasoning.
A large heat reservoir like the oceans can damp the response to a periodic input. It cannot take a periodic input and turn it into a monotonically increasing output.
Richard, please think what you are asking us to consider:
First, solar output has always fluctuated. The 11-year solar cycle has been known at least since the time of Galileo (longer, perhaps, if some Chinese historians are right). None of the fluctuations seen to date is sufficient to explain the dramatic rise in temperature. Yet you want us to believe that somehow, right about 1970, this periodic input starts to give rise to a monotonically increasing output.
Gavin has given you the equations. They didn’t help you. We have given you references. They did not help you. We have shown you why your analogies are not applicable. You couldn’t see it. In fact, you’ve given no indication of even having considered what we have provided.
Re #123 Richard Sycamore
Surely, when RP says in ‘Les Chevaliers de l’Ordre de la Terre Plate, Part II’:
what he (and B&D) is referring to is solar output (TSI, or S(t)) is averaged over the cycle (~11, ~22 years or whatever) and, moreover, that since TSI is held to be roughly constant (over the cycles) these last ~50 years that it cannot be used to explain the observed temperature increase (i.e. it ain’t the sun causing the excursion; but temperature increase can be attributed to GHGs).
I’ve missed where this has been conflated with oceanic time constants, so perhaps I have misunderstood where you are coming from in #123 and so will, too, indeed have to await RP’s return to put us all out of our misery.
Yes, Ray posted this picture:
https://www.realclimate.org/BD3.jpg
It charts both solar and temperature.
Draw the trend line through the solar — it’s about zero.
It goes up and down, but stays around the same level over time.
Draw the trend line through the temperature — it goes up over time.
Ray described the lines on that particular chart.
Happy New Year, Ray, wherever you are. Good example, I’m going to do the same thing. Happy New Year all.
#124
1. Respectfully, you have still not proven your case. As before, you are merely repeating yourself.
2. Gavin’s equation is overly simplistic for the case I described, and for the sun-ocean interaction.
3. Your rebuttal of my example is not convincing. I agree that the ouput will oscillate given an oscillatory input, but the longer the time scale of integration, the more the amplitude of the output oscillation will be attenuated. (Is that even in Gavin’s equation?) Finally, if the integrator is noisy – which the ocean is – or if the circuit is driven by other agents then the amplitude of resultant oscillation may not exceed that of the noise.
#125 If you’re miserable, don’t read.
#126 ??? I am perfectly aware of the trend lines, Hank. Please, do not reply any further. You stopped listening long ago.
Re #127
“3. Your rebuttal of my example is not convincing. I agree that the ouput will oscillate given an oscillatory input, but the longer the time scale of integration, the more the amplitude of the output oscillation will be attenuated. (Is that even in Gavin’s equation?)”
Yes it’s c which has the units of time.
Once again, people, I strongly urge you not to respond to Richard Sycamore at all. He’s here to start fights, not to learn. He will reject anything and everything you say no matter how many times you say it or how many ways you put it.
Richard, in 117 you tried to rescue your house model by complicating it beyond recognition. You now introduce a thermostat, but what is the furnace doing? Is it still cycling randomly (your original model) or is it controlled by the thermostat? You are changing furnace controls in mid argument a sure sign that you recognize the errors in your original arguments.
The new version has a simple answer, the temperature in the far room follows the external temperature, the temperature near the furnace stays steady at the temperature set by the thermostat. There is no longer an oscillatory change of anything.
#128 c is in units of time, yes, Phil. I know that already. The issue is *amplitude*, i.e. temperature. It’s not in Gavin’s “proof”.
#129 Your attitude is disappointing, Barton. I’m here for an answer, not a fight.
Richard, in 117 you tried to rescue your house model by complicating it beyond recognition. You now introduce a thermostat, but what is the furnace doing? Is it still cycling randomly (your original model) or is it controlled by the thermostat? You are changing furnace controls in mid argument a sure sign that you recognize the errors in your original arguments.
The new version has a simple answer, the temperature in the far room follows the external temperature, the temperature near the furnace stays steady at the temperature set by the thermostat. There is no longer an oscillatory change of anything.
Eli, thanks for following. Unfortunately my #130 hasn’t been approved for posting. Maybe it will show up yet.
First, It was not me that introduced the thermostat. It was Hank.
Second, I had to make the example more complex because Hank and Ray started burying their heads in the sand with regard to the opener, which was necessarily oversimplified.
Third, you havent refuted my example, just poked at it.
Fourth, when I saw the house analogy wasn’t sticking, I switched model systems. So I readily admit I will abandon any analogy if it is not working to illustrate a point. This is what you do with weaker students.
Fifth – recalling that this is not about furnaces or human metabolismm but sun and ocean, you – like Hank, Ray, Gavin, Barton, Phil, Nick – haven’t proven raypierre’s statement.
I’m willing to accept any rational argument that my concept is flawed. A flogging is not a rational argument.
Richard, try this. Design a heating system for your house that uses the wintertime diurnal cycle to produce monotonic warming inside. Assume any kind of house you want and any technology, but no other heat source than the daytime sunlight.
Then, when you have done that, imagine what features your heating system might have in common with the sun and oceans.
Have fun.
Thermostat? Moi? Look again, the mysterious force turning your furnace on was never explained, others hypothesized a thermostat.
Proof is available in mathematics, not in science.
If you can express your idea as an equation, it might be provable.
A hypothesis can’t be proved; a useful one can be tested, either by experiment or statistically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/07/sun_not_a_cause_of_global_warm.html
If your concept is anything like the published work, consider how that’s turned out. If your concept is unlike anything published so far, you’d want to state it clearly enough that it can be tested.
If your concept is “something might be going on that we don’t know about and you can’t prove I’m wrong” — you could be right.
This may help, it’s simple language with charts:
http://www.quaker.org/clq/2007/TQE158-EN-GlobalWarming.html
As I said before Hank, equations are fine. Just as long as they treat the amplitude as part of the system. Gavin’s considered only periodicity of the output. That is inadequate. Your supplemental links here are interesting, thanks, but irrelevant. Apologies for attributing the thermostatic device to you. Perhaps it was Ray. Point is: my initial example had no thermostat; it wasn’t as Eli suggested, me rejigging the model because the initial one was no good. The model is an open unregulated system without feedback inhibition. A guy shoveling coal. A sun burning hydrogen.
I don’t have a theory. Pierrehumbert has a theory. That periodic inputs can’t be flattened into a trend through integration over time by some inertial process. Proof, please.
#128 c is in units of time,
#138
Yes, that’s what #128 Phil said: c is in units of time. When I speak of “amplitude” I want units of temperature, not time.
Re 82- In order to demonstrate that a proposed explanation for an observed phenomenon is likely to be true, it is only necessary to show that the explanation is consistent with the known laws of physics and that it yields the observed results. It is not necessary to falsify all other possible proposed explanations (which, as we have seen, seem almost limitless!). If two explanations seem to meet this test, then there is an error somewhere that has to be thrashed out.
Thus far, no one has come up with anything to explain the current warming that meets this test that does not include AGW as the primary component. Moreover, since the AGW explanation is so robust in terms of the physics, the observed data, and multiple lines of evidence, any proposed alternative explanation would have to show the error in the AGW analysis. And it would have to do so based, not on expert opinion, but on verifiable scientific analysis published in the peer-reviewed literature.
So what you are getting from the busy scientists here is the real science. It is not realistic to expect them to spend time analysing speculative alternative explanations for global warming. You do it, publish it, and they will be glad to take a look at it.
It charts both solar and temperature.
Draw the trend line through the solar — it’s about zero.
It goes up and down, but stays around the same level over time.
Draw the trend line through the temperature — it goes up over time.
Ray described the lines on that particular chart.
Happy New Year, Ray, wherever you are. Good example, I’m going to do the same thing. Happy New Year all.