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A CERES of fortunate events…

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The CERES estimates of the top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes are available from 2001 to the present. That is long enough to see that there has been a noticeable trend in the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI), mostly driven by a reduction in the solar radiation reflected by the planet, while the outgoing long wave radiation does not appear to contribute much. But what can be causing this?

A paper last year (Goode et al., 2021) also reported on a two decade estimate of Earthshine measurements which appear to confirm a small decrease in albedo (and decrease in reflected short wave (SW) radiation). While the two measurements are subtly different due to the distinct geometries, they do show sufficient coherence to give us some confidence that they are real.

Comparison of CERES SWup trends (blue) with inferred changes in Earthshine (black).

Similarly, Loeb et al. (2021) show that the trends in the EEI derived from CERES match what you get from the changes in ocean heat content.

Satellite-derived trends in EEI compared to estimates from changes in ocean heat (updated by Schmidt et al, 2023).

A few people have started to interpret the dominance of the SW trends to imply that the overall trends in climate are not (despite copious evidence) being driven by the rise in greenhouse gases (for instance, the rather poorly argued and seemingly un-copyedited Dübal and Vahrenholt (2021)) but these simplistic interpretations are seriously confused.

We can explore the issues and pitfalls of this using the ‘simple model’ of the greenhouse effect we explored back in 2007. At that time, we said:

You should think of these kinds of exercises as simple flim-flam detectors – if someone tries to convince you that they can do a simple calculation and prove everyone else wrong, think about what the same calculation would be in this more straightforward system and see whether the idea holds up. If it does, it might work in the real world (no guarantee though) – but if it doesn’t, then it’s most probably garbage.

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References

  1. P.R. Goode, E. Pallé, A. Shoumko, S. Shoumko, P. Montañes‐Rodriguez, and S.E. Koonin, "Earth's Albedo 1998–2017 as Measured From Earthshine", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 48, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094888
  2. N.G. Loeb, G.C. Johnson, T.J. Thorsen, J.M. Lyman, F.G. Rose, and S. Kato, "Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 48, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093047
  3. H. Dübal, and F. Vahrenholt, "Radiative Energy Flux Variation from 2001–2020", Atmosphere, vol. 12, pp. 1297, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos12101297

Climate impacts of the #IRA

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With the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on Tuesday Aug 16, the most significant climate legislation in US federal history (so far) became law.

Despite the odd name (and greatly overused TLA), the IRA contains a huge number of elements, totalling roughly $350 billion of investment, in climate solutions over the next ten years. This is an historic effort though it falls short of the broader ‘Green New Deal‘ goals that were proposed in 2019, and doesn’t include all of the elements that were in the proposed 2021 reconcilliation package (the American Jobs Plan in “Build Back Better“) that ultimately floundered.

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The CO2 problem in six easy steps (2022 Update)

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One of our most-read old posts is the step-by-step explanation for why increasing CO2 is a significant problem (The CO2 problem in 6 easy steps). However, that was written in 2007 – 15 years ago! While the basic steps and concepts have not changed, there’s 15 years of more data, updates in some of the details and concepts, and (it turns out) better graphics to accompany the text. And so, here is a mildly updated and referenced version that should be a little more useful.

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Unforced Variations: May 2022

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Sorry for delay posting this month, but we’ve been considering how (or if) to go forward with open threads and comments. Looking at the multitude of constructive comments on the “End of blog comments” thread, it’s clear that many people appreciate the possibility of comments here, but that too often it disappoints by devolving into tedious bickering. There were many theories for why! Without necessarily subscribing to any particular diagnosis (there are many that capture some elements of what happens), we have decided to continue with comments for the time being, but with a few modifications.

To encourage people to post less often, but more substantively, we will limit commenters to one comment a day (so make it count!). Additionally, we will try to enforce a ‘one comment, one point’ rule to avoid people just cramming ten comments into one. Moderation of insulting, abusive, or just tedious comments will continue. Think more ‘Letters to the Editor’ than graffiti on the bathroom wall. This will hopefully also allow for more engagement from the RC scientists.

Back in the day, one of the goals of setting up the ‘Forced Variations’ threads was to segregate the more contentious arguments around solutions into one place, but that seems to have run it’s course. Thus we are going to revert to a single open thread, with a slightly broader climate theme than previously. Comments on generic political arguments or other issues that are not directly tied to climate will still be excluded.

We will let this play out for a couple of months and then reevaluate. Let us know what you think.

So with no further ado, let this month’s open thread begin…