I`m a bit surprised that no one has troubled themselves to point out to Gary Crough and Allan M R MacRae that this postulating is obviously wrong; for the time being, the oceans remain a net large sink of atmospheric COW, as demonstrated by the fact that the oceans are becoming increasingly acidic (viz., the reverse Coke effect: the fizz is being forced INTO solution in the oceans, by an increasing atmospheric partial pressure).

What about the IR radiation from water vapor in the air? Won’t that keep the water liquid?

Were Erwin Schrodinger, Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Maxwell, Lorentz, and the Curies nuts? I don’t think so.

3. The theoretical relation between ΔF/ΔT and sensitivity is very flat for sensitivities greater than 2°C. Thus, the data does not readily pin down such sensitivities. This was the basis for the assertion by Roe and Baker [2007] that determination of climate sensitivity was almost impossible [Allen and Frame, 2007]. However, this assertion assumes a large positive feedback. Indeed, Fig. 3c suggests that models should have a range of sensitivities extending from about 1.5°C to infinite sensitivity (rather than 5°C as commonly asserted), given the presence of spurious positive feedback. However, response time increases with increasing sensitivity [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998], and models were probably not run sufficiently long to realize their full sensitivity.

That seems to be saying that the GCM models that yielded the very large CO2 sensitivities were probably in fact tending to much higher values. If that’s right, it would follow that by running them again, for longer, we could test the prediction: If by simply running them for longer, and higher and higher sensitivities were yielded, we could surely settle this matter once and for all: the models would be shown to be obviously flawed. Otherwise, Lindzen would be shown to be wrong.

I am a little concerned that the last time that Dr Lindzen referenced the ERBE data on a WuWT guest post, there were a number of questions raised about the validity of the data. These questions were not answered fully apart from a very brief reference to the lack of credibility of some of the adjustments. On scanning the full paper here, I still cannot find a rebuttal of the proposed data adjustments which would have the effect of reducing the OLR and hence the validity of the conclusions of the paper.

If you go to the ‘method’ section, p.4, you’ll find:

The observed data used in this study are the 16-year (1985–1999) monthly record of the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and the earth radiation budget from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) [Barkstrom, 1984] nonscanner edition 3 dataset. Note that the ERBE nonscanner data are the only stable long-term climate dataset based on broadband flux measurements, and they were recently altitude-corrected [Wong et al., 2006].

I can’t help wondering if Lindzen was just stirring by using the uncorrected data in that guest post, or claiming that he was using the uncorrected data. It seems to me that his argument has been based upon the Wong et al. 2006 corrections to that data all along. I could be wrong.

Otherwise, disappointing to see how few comments there are here actually discussing the paper.

Tesla says thank you. Three times. Why three? He was nuts by the account of most who he spoke to.

Actually, your post talked about sea ice, and not oceanic oscillation. It may very well be that greenhouse gases are the largest contributor to our current scenario, but I remain unconvinced. I accept the theoretical possibility that it could happen, but the part I remain unconvinced about is that we can actually override natural processes.

I always think of freak weather events when thinking of climatic shifts, like the tornado outbreak that leveled Xenia, Ohio. It was early for the Pacific Ocean shift, for sure, but could it have been an indicator had we been able to look at it with the technology we now have available? Perhaps such a freak event is the harbinger of a turning point, and perhaps (I really hope not, as I live in OH) it will happen again soon, and be ignored again. Actually, last year we had the leftovers from a hurricane come through and flatten local crops and infrastructure with hurricane force winds, some of us were without power for 2 weeks, and this year we have what can be charitably described as a cool summer so far. And how does the jet stream compare to last year’s?

I know, you will say this is weather, but perhaps not every weather event is so easily written off. I have been through two hurricanes in my lifetime, and what hit us last year in Ohio was definitely the wind from a hurricane, but the rain left the wind behind and visited Chicago for the weekend instead. Freak event, sure. More important, maybe.

People who advance science in larger steps usually are “pretty far out on the edge of scientific thinking.”

I don’t disagree with you in terms of regulation of the variations in temperature, which is why my post listed the oceanic effects. However, the question as to why the **average** surface temperature more than 30 C higher than what basic physics says ought to be the upper bound for an IR-inactive atmosphere (and the present albedo of the earth) is that it is due to the greenhouse gases, with the biggest contribution coming from water vapor and CO2 being the next most significant contributor.

I wouldn’t think it is attributed solely to gases. The moon does get hotter than Earth, so how would heat-trapping gases prevent heat? What about the oceanic effect on climate? I doubt very much that ocean oscillations of today are the same, or maybe not even similar, to the processes present in an ice age. It seems that the evidence points to the oceans as our main climate regulator.

There is a larger range on the moon, thank you Dr. What is it that regulates Earth’s temperature to avoid such a range?

Well, I would point to a number of different effects off the top of my head (and I am not sure what their relatively quantitative contribution is):

(1) Having a significant atmosphere period, since the mixing of the atmosphere and its thermal inertia both help to keep the temperatures more uniform.

(2) The greenhouse gases. In fact, I believe Venus has an extremely uniform temperature.

(3) The thermal inertia provided by all of the liquid water…i.e., the oceans.

However, my point of pointing you to Arthur Smith’s paper is that he shows that a planet without IR-active gases in the atmosphere will have an average surface temperature at or below a certain value (its blackbody radiating temperature).

Also, why would the climate respond the same way now that it did in the glacial maximum?

I can’t say I can give you a great answer on this…It would be a good question to ask an expert in the field (rather than just a physicist who reads climate science stuff in his spare time). However, I believe that both the theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that the sensitivity is not going to vary too much over such a range.

The one thing that you could argue could vary most significantly is ice-albedo feedbacks since there was more ice to melt between going from the LGM to now than there would be going from now to a warmer climate. Unfortunately however, the estimate of 3 C per doubling from the LGM to now is derived from considering the ice albedo changes to be a forcing, not a feedback. If you considered them to be a feedback (as they are in our current “experiment” of raising the levels of greenhouse gases), then you get a number more like 6 C per doubling! James Hansen has actually recently been arguing that this 6 C per doubling value may be more realistic although it seems like other scientists such as James Annan are skeptical. (I think the skepticism comes from questioning how fast the ice will melt…and also the issue that I mentioned that it seems like there is less ice that would melt in going from current conditions to a warmer climate than there was going from the LGM to now.)

Paul Linsay says:

This is as it should be. The incident radiation flux on the sunward side of the moon is 1360 W/m^2. The incident radiation flux on the dark side of the moon is approximately zero. Outer space is really, really cold, actually at 2.7 K, the leftover radiation from the Big Bang.

Yes…But, my point just is that the average temperature of the moon is lower than the earth and the reason that this is so (despite the fact that the earth has higher albedo) is the presence of greenhouse gases. (Another contributing factor that makes the average temperature even lower than it would otherwise be is the fact that the temperature is so non-uniform since the blackbody bound that I spoke of above is met in the limit of a uniform temperature and the average temperature deviates lower as the temperature becomes more non-uniform. This is because the radiative balance imposes a constraint on , not .)

Anyway, my larger point in all this is that you can’t start talking about the moon and the desert and conclude that CO2 doesn’t have an effect. The relative radiative effects of water vapor and CO2 are well-understood (and, yes, the effect of water vapor is larger but that of CO2 is still significant…even ignoring the fact that without the CO2, it would be colder and hence there would be less water vapor in the air). You are going to find yourself really lonely in the scientific discourse if you choose to try to argue about them. There is more room to argue about the feedbacks, and hence the resulting climate sensitivity as Lindzen does in this latest paper (although, needless to say, his view of such a low sensitivity puts him pretty far out on the edge of the scientific thinking).

I’m wondering if an average temperature for the moon is unhelpful. It is either hot or cold and there is no average. Earth on the other hand does have a whole series of average temperatures depending on where you are.
There are a couple of other characteristics used for theoretically calculating earth’s temperature that I think are incomplete or incorrect.

One is Albedo. The highest albedo is of course snow, and the lowest is water. The reason water is the lowest is because it’s very dark. However, I don’t think this is correct as water is clear and it is the absence of light within it’s depths that makes it look dark. Water is highly reflective. Accordingly, forest, bare soil and cities share the same albedo rating, which to my experience is not the case. Any glider pilot will tell you that the best places for thermic lift is built up areas followed by bare soil / farmland. If a glider pilot wants to find thermals the worst place is over forest or water.

The other is calculating the average solar flux as it strikes the Earth as a sphere. Theoretically, if it is as simple as that then having a brick floor exposed to the sun at the equator and a brick wall at the North pole, so solar radiation strikes both at the same angle, will heat both equally. What is missing from attempts to understand and calculate this is the amount of atmosphere the suns radiation has to travel through, which can weaken the effect of the sun considerably.

I may be completely wrong but my experience is telling something different. Of course for hundreds of years it was the common understanding that the Sun went round the Earth, because that is how it looks. But at the same time there were plenty of calculations, models and measurements that showed that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

” While the surface of the moon facing the sun may be hot, the other surface is very cold…and the average is well below the average temperature of the earth.”

This is as it should be. The incident radiation flux on the sunward side of the moon is 1360 W/m^2. The incident radiation flux on the dark side of the moon is approximately zero. Outer space is really, really cold, actually at 2.7 K, the leftover radiation from the Big Bang.

You can test this for yourself on a warm night when the air is dry and still. Put a little bit of water at the bottom of a tall thermos bottle and point it at the sky. It will freeze because the incident radiation flux from outer space is much less than the outward radiation from the water, which will turn to ice as a consequence of the radiative imbalance.