From the abstract of the lead paper by Martin Wild: Recent evidence suggests that solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface has not been constant over time but has undergone substantial variations on decadal timescales. The available observations suggest a widespread decrease in surface solar radiation between the 1950s and 1980s (popularly referred to as “global dimming”), with some more recent evidence for a partial recovery (“brightening”).
From ETH Zurich News
“Global dimming and brightening” – The role of solar radiation in climate change
A special volume of the “Journal of Geophysical Research” reviews the growing research field of “global dimming” and “global brightening” in over 20 articles. These phenomena, supposedly human-induced, control solar radiation incident at the Earth’s surface and thus influence climate.
Special instruments have been recording the solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface since 1923. However, it wasn’t until the International Geophysical Year in 1957/58 that a global measurement network began to take shape. The data thus obtained reveal that the energy provided by the sun at the Earth’s surface has undergone considerable variations over the past decades, with associated impacts on climate.
Research focus at ETH Zurich
Investigating which factors reduce or intensify solar radiation and thus cause “global dimming” or “global brightening” is still very much a nascent field of research in which especially scientists from ETH Zurich became renowned. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has now published a special volume on the subject which presents the current state of knowledge in detail and makes a considerable contribution to climate science. “Only now, especially with the help of this volume, is research in this field really taking off”, stresses Martin Wild, senior scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science of ETH Zurich, who is a specialist on the subject.
Decrease in solar radiation discovered
The initial findings, which revealed that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is not constant over time but rather varies considerably over decades, were published in the late 1980s and early 1990s for specific regions of the Earth. Atsumu Ohmura, emeritus professor at ETH Zurich, for example, discovered at the time that the amount of solar radiation over Europe decreased considerably between the 1950s and the 1980s. It wasn’t until 1998 that the first global study was conducted for larger areas, like the continents Africa, Asia, North America and Europe for instance. The results showed that on average the surface solar radiation decreased by two percent per decade between the 1950s and 1990.
In analyzing more recently compiled data, however, Wild and his team discovered that solar radiation has gradually been increasing again since 1985. In a paper published in “Science” in 2005, they coined the phrase “global brightening” to describe this new trend and to oppose to the term “global dimming” used since 2001 for the previously established decrease in solar radiation.
Only recently, an article in the journal “Nature”, which Wild was also involved in, brought additional attention to the topic of global dimming/brightening.
Air pollution favors photosynthesis
In this study, for the first time, the scientists examined the connection between global dimming/brightening and the carbon cycle. They demonstrated that more scattered light is present during periods of global dimming due to the increased aerosol- and cloud-amounts, enabling plants to absorb CO2 more efficiently than when the air is cleaner and thus clearer. According to the scientists, this is because scattered light penetrates deeper into the vegetation canopy than direct sunlight, which means the plants can use the light more effectively for photosynthesis. Consequently, there was around 10 percent more carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere between 1960 and 1999.
The special volume, which appears in the AGU’s renowned “Journal of Geophysical Research”, provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Almost half of the publications in the volume were either completely or partially written by ETH Zurich scientists. Wild is the guest editor, and author or co-author of ten of these articles.
The articles provide the first indication of the magnitude of these effects, how they vary in terms of time and space and what the possible consequences might be for climate change. They also discuss in detail the underlying causes and mechanisms, which are still under debate.
Many questions left open
It is particularly unclear as to whether it is the clouds or the aerosols that trigger global dimming/brightening, or even interactions between clouds and aerosols, as aerosols can influence the “brightness” and lifetime of the clouds. The investigation of these relations is complicated by the fact that insufficient – if any – observational data are available on how clouds and aerosol loadings have been changing over the past decades. The recently launched satellite measurement programs should help to close this gap for the future from space, however.
“There is still an enormous amount of research to be done as many questions are still open”, explains Wild. This includes the magnitude of the dimming and brightening effects on a global level and how greatly the effects differ between urban and rural areas, where fewer aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Another unresolved question is what happens over the oceans, as barely any measurement data are available from these areas.
A further challenge for the researchers is to incorporate the effects of global dimming/brightening more effectively in climate models, to understand their impact on climate change better. After all, studies indicate that global dimming masked the actual temperature rise – and therefore climate change – until well into the 1980s. Moreover, the studies published also show that the models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fourth Assessment Report do not reproduce global dimming/brightening adequately: neither the dimming nor the subsequent brightening is simulated realistically by the models. According to the scientists, this is probably due to the fact that the processes causing global dimming/brightening were not taken into account adequately and that the historical anthropogenic emissions used as model input are afflicted with considerable uncertainties.
“This is why at ETH Zurich we are working with a research version of a global climate model, which contains much more detailed aerosol and cloud microphysics and can reproduce global dimming/brightening more effectively”, says Wild. For him, the studies so far constitute “initial” estimates that need to be followed up with further research.
Link to these papers in JGR here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I have an ability to see a little more into the UV part of the spectrum than most people (I call the shade that I see “bluish white” or “ultramarine white”), and I routinely noticed that the sunlight in the end of 1990s was much harsher, and much more suffused with the UV radiation than the sunlight of my childhood years (1960s). Especially harsh “bluish white” Sun even made me worry about my eyesight in Arizona in 1998.
But who would pay attention to the observations of an obscure Russian poet? “Experts” know it all, don’t they.
OT Michael Mann was obviously stung by Christopher Booker’s comments about the hockey stick graph. The Sunday Telegraph UK has just published this letter:
The case for man-made climate change
SIR – Christopher Booker has a clear history of biased reporting on climate change, including multiple misunderstandings of the current state of the science.
He has specifically made unfounded attacks against my own research on the reconstruction of past climate variability. Mr Booker ignores the endorsement of the US National Academy of Sciences of our original findings (see “Academy Affirms Hockey Stick Graph”, Nature, Jan 29 2006) and independent research teams have subsequently extended our findings, concluding that global temperatures in recent decades are likely to have been unusual for at least the past 1,200 years.
However, the focus on the “Hockey Stick” is a distraction. Paleoclimate data provide just one of numerous lines of evidence that the significant climate changes taking place are very likely due to human-caused increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
For readers interested in the actual science, there are many accessible, expert sources of information, including the website RealClimate.org and recent books including my Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming and Climate Change: Picturing the Science by Schmidt and Wolfe.
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Meteorology
Earth System Science Centre
Penn State University, USA
* Professor Mann has asked us to make clear that the article did not intend to suggest any scientific wrongdoing and we are happy to do so.
“For readers interested in the actual science…including the website RealClimate.org…” Groan, only if you can stomach the unpleasant condescending and belittling raving of some of the nastiest ‘Internet bullies’ on-line. Reading the posts at real climate is akin to how I imagine smearing faeces all over my face would feel.
I suppose a cooling world could produce differing atmospheric qualties to those of a warming world.
I have noticed the changes in quality of light referred to but have always regarded it as a trick of my own perceptions.
Currently, in August, I am certainly aware of less power to the light than for many years past and oddly the leaves on plants and trees are deteriorating early this year.
I’m not yet prepared to draw a scientific conclusion from it though.
Denis Hopkins (01:31:39) :
“* Professor Mann has asked us to make clear that the article did not intend to suggest any scientific wrongdoing and we are happy to do so.”
Yeh, Mann is a great scientist who is finally published by The Sun, one of the most respected scientific newspapers, a highlight in his career.
Whining about his hockey stick, attacking Christopher Booker, who’s sharp pen and objective journalism must have driven Mann into a corner with no arguments to defend his semi science lunacy.
BS (Bad Science) and personal attacks have become the trade mark of Mann.
What a reputation!
But Mann’s smear campaign against Christopher Booker does not intend any scientific wrongdoing!
It’s the world upside down.
Wild and his team discovered that solar radiation has gradually been increasing again since 1985
I’d like to see that data by time of day. I strongly suspect the increase is most pronounced in the early morning due to haze and clouds near the horizon at that time previously blocking sunlight.
More early morning sunlight would account for much of the increase in minimum temperatures (which occur in the early morning typically), which consitute most of the observed global warming over the last 30 years.
Denis Hopkins (01:31:39) :
“OT Michael Mann was obviously stung by Christopher Booker’s comments “…………………………………………
This is not Michael Manns writing, This is Fenton Communcations writing.
I find it very disturbing that the WUWT search function gives zero hits for “Fenton”. After all, it’s the one and only enemy.
“”The results showed that on average the surface solar radiation decreased by two percent per decade between the 1950s and 1990.””
But the IPCC say solar variation was only 0.1% !! Somebody is wrong !
A quick scan at abstracts of 3 papers shows different times and trend directions (up vs down) for alleged dimming/brightening.
Also, timing seems somewhat out-of-phase with observed warming-cooling, with temperature leading rather than lagging dim-bright phases.
These are rather hasty comments – have not time to do a proper job now.
Example – Ohmura:
The record of observed global radiation begins with an increasing phase from 1920s to late 1940s/early 1960s. This brightening period (first brightening phase) is followed by the decreasing trend lasting to late 1980s, known as the global dimming, which finally translates into the second brightening phase in many regions of the world.
But global cooling extended from ~1940-1975. then warming to about 2000, then more cooling.
Comments?
________________
Observed decadal variations in surface solar radiation and their causes
Atsumu Ohmura
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
Long‐term variations of global solar irradiance at the Earth’s surface from the beginning of the observations to 2005 are analyzed for more than 400 sites. Further, likely causes for the variations, an estimation of the magnitudes of aerosol direct and indirect effects, and the temperature sensitivity of the climate system due to radiation changes are evaluated. The record of observed global radiation begins with an increasing phase from 1920s to late 1940s/early 1960s. This brightening period (first brightening phase) is followed by the decreasing trend lasting to late 1980s, known as the global dimming, which finally translates into the second brightening phase in many regions of the world. These decadal variations are to great extent caused by aerosol and cloud fluctuations. The total aerosol effect as well as its direct and indirect effects were evaluated mainly on the basis of the observations. To meet this goal, simultaneous observations of global solar radiation and zenith transmittance are necessary. Five such regions/sites in Europe and Japan satisfy these conditions. By using the 20‐year dimming phase from 1960 to 1980 and the 15‐year brightening phase from 1990 to 2005, it was found that the aerosol direct and indirect effects played about an equal weight in changing global solar radiation. The temperature sensitivity due to radiation change is estimated at 0.05 to 0.06 K/(W m−2). The first brightening phase lasting to 1940s/early 1960s does not show a compatibility with the variation of transmittance of the atmosphere and originated probably from a different cause.
And why do I not see the word “albedo” in all of this?
I was going to post a similar comment. I wonder if Michael Mann’s “However, the focus on the “Hockey Stick” is a distraction. Paleoclimate data provide just one of numerous lines of evidence that the significant climate changes taking place are very likely due to human-caused increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations” represents the start of a recantation? Has he ever before admitted that the significant changes may not be caused by human-caused increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration?
Re Mann Letter
Does anybody know where to find the NAS paper? I’ve tried searching the NAS site but can’t find it.
They don’t have a heading called Junk Science.
Paul
These series of papers are a considerable advance in understanding climate, although they also introduce even more complexity and uncertainty.
The big ramp up in temperatures in the 1990s coincided with the largest decrease in sulfur dioxide emissions and thus sulfate production. The fall of the FSU and Eastern Europe caused the very polluting factories of these regions to cease operations. In addition, the US and Europe both introduced acid rain control programs (“Two-decadal aerosol trends as a likely explanation of the global dimming/brightening transition” by Streets, D., Wu, Y., and Chin, M., 2006, Geographical Research Letters). Similarly, there has been a partial reversal, an increase since circa 2002 due to a huge increase in Chinese SO2 emissions in the last 7 or so years. As the Wild et al papers say, the regional patterns make understanding all the more difficult.
Qualitatively, the pattern of brightening in the 1990 decade, with high temperature increases, followed by flat temperatures in the post 2002 time frame, fits this pattern of SO2 emission changes. But we really don’t know how influential this pattern of SO2 emissions is on temperatures. The PDO has a temperature pattern similar to what we have seen since the 1990s, too. And to the extent that solar influences may be responsible for the lack of temperature increases in the last 2 or 3 years, and the lack of warming in the upper 700 meters of the ocean since mid-2003, that also comes into play.
How much of the temperature changes over the last half century, in the end, are due to greenhouse gases? To know that answer, we have to have a better idea of the integrated effects of these other factors, natural and man-made. And, as Roger Pielke, Sr., always reminds us, land use changes themselves affect albedo, rainfall, and rainfall patterns, all of which enter into the mix of temperatures.
Greenhouse gases increase warming. But how much? Maybe not that much…but maybe more. We are still far from knowing whether the increase might be quite modest, but we can’t rule out more problematic temperature increases completely, either.
OT: After an “unprecedently” hot August in Switzerland, last night temperatures in many parts of Switzerland fell below freezing. In a place called La Brevine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Br%C3%A9vine), also nicknamed “the Little Sibiria of Switzerland”, the night’s low was at -3.6°C.
“Air Pollution Favors Photosynthesis”? My suspicious genes went on alert. Since the case clearly has been made that the increase in CO2 has helped plants grow mightily, I guess the AGW/GCMers must take this one down, too, i.e., move the goal posts yet once again. Two statements really got my attention: “Only recently, an article in the journal “Nature”, which Wild was also involved in, brought additional attention to the topic of global dimming/brightening.” And “After all, studies indicate that global dimming masked the actual temperature rise – and therefore climate change – until well into the 1980s.”
I also agree with Anna V. Where is that scientifically defined term “albedo” in relationship to dimming, brightening? “Albedo is the fraction of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected from the Earth back into space. It is a measure of the reflectivity of the earth’s surface.” Does albedo only “go back” directly without any “scattering” among aerosols (and gases)?
They state that there are almost no measurements over the oceans. Isn’t 70% of Earth’s surface and the one that absorbs “heat” (yes, a noun) better than any other more important? If they only have land sensors, then they need to read Dr. Pielke, Sr’s paper on Land Use Land Cover.
Does GD/GB get the IPCC off the hook because they know almost nothing about clouds and therefore cannot model them in their GCMs?
Final question: Is the AGU a “real” scientific organization, or do they practice pseudo-science, too? I guess this must be another grumpy morning.
The NOVA “Global Dimming” program started with the 9/11 grounding of airplanes over the United States. The absence of contrails led to temperature changes, as measured by the difference between the daytime high and the nighttime low.
Changes over time were found by analyzing evaporation rates (with weather conditions) around the world. These were from standardized agricultural “evaporation pans”.
anna v and pyromancer,
Discussion of albedo is verbotten in climate science (unless one is talking about the positive ice-albedo feedback).
Even though it is one of the most important variables in the climate, it has changed so little through time that it is effectively ignored (unless one is trying to account for the decline in temperatures from 1945 to 1975).
The Earth’s current albedo is 0.298 but you cannot find one single estimate for how it has varied over time. Consider ice age Earth (when ice covered one third of the land versus Cretaceous Earth (when shallow oceans covered one third of the land) (just a little primer).
I have been thinking about all these “ing” endings:
forcings, brightenings, dimmings
“-ing” denotes continuous action in the present, present continuous.
One can define scientifically force.
One can define brightness
I suppose one can define dimness.
Actions should be the realm of solution of equations, except “t”, the time variable. does not have a present continuous mode.
OT Re: John Silver (03:30:18) :
This is not Michael Manns writing, This is Fenton Communcations writing.
—
Scientists with their own PR? Who’d have thunk it. I thought that kind of crass commercial behaviour was what evil oil did. That’s what the warmists tell us anyway. Liked the book plugs for the RC team at the end though, another Fenton product.
Closer to topic, I’d wondered what effect changes from domestic coal fires to gas/electric heating would have given the clear air effect on TSI and plant/land response to harsher, more direct light.
Veering off topic again, looks like UCLA’s solar observatory & JPL made it through the night, but demonstrates strong localised dimming-
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~obs/towercam.htm
and a view from a different direction here-
http://www.westphalfamily.com/wxdata2.html
But they’re probably better linked to Dr. Pielke’s land use, or land misuses by poor planning/zoning and fuel management. Can’t do controlled burns because that’ll harm the sacred trees, even though some of the pines need burns to seed. Come the rains, they’ve now got 8000+ hectares of changed runoff to deal with.
I read the ‘Mann’ letter as well and I’m inclined to agree that the name at the bottom my be Mann but the body of the text is quite likely Fenton.
One thing I did notice was the (partial) admission that current temperatures might be the highest “for at least 1,200 years” which does seem to suggest that at last we are dragging some sort of admission out of him that there might possibly have been a Medieval Warm Period. Of sorts. Perhaps.
Since there is more than enough historical evidence to confirm the existence of both the MWP and the LIA one wonders why there they are do resistant.
There is also enough in the way of research hypotheses (with this thread highlighting another) for any reasonable person to admit that they might just not have all the answers neatly wrapped and all tied up with a pink bow.
I don’t want them to dump all their precious theories; I’d just like them to open their minds a small bit.
John (06:25) These series of papers are a considerable advance in understanding climate, although they also introduce even more complexity and uncertainty.
Chaos-rich systems, for example climate or stock markets, invite mortals like us to proclaim that we finally understand the system based on a new model that explains its behavior over some limited time period, at some selected scale.
Then when some other mortal adds to our model or (worse for our ego) debunks it with a different and better model, we are usually tempted to defend our model and diminish the importance of others’ findings rather than thank them for their insights. Our natural human tendency is to focus on our feeble explanations rather than on the marvelous complexity and uncertainty that we are attempting to model, denying that we are inevitably doomed to be passed by a better model.
The whole AGW debate has, in my view, been sidetracked into a debate about what to do as a result of the predictions of a generation of models. We forget that all models intrinsically have fatal limits as to scale and time period. This memory lapse is convenient if it supports the agendas of some and touches on the psyche of others, which can certainly be said about the Green movement in general these days.
The latest research on solar radiation feels to me like a step towards greater understanding of reality. But I am sure that CO2 felt to many others like a step towards greater understanding of reality too, so it is not time to proclaim that the tide has turned and the latest model is finally comprehensive enough to be believed by all. As noted, typically what happens now is intense defense of previous models, not gratitude for new insights.
Just as with the stock market, climate will assert its own complexity and uncertainty, and honest people will come to regret their allegiance to a wrong model.
I have one prediction: three years from now, we will all be less confident in our beliefs about our abilities to understand complex systems. It will be a kind of “scientific agnoticism” and will be part of a societal movement away from being swept up in the expensive collective, moving instead towards individual rights and obligations. We can thank the Green movement for reminding us of our obligation to sustainability; we need not thank them for Cap & Trade.
“It is particularly unclear as to whether it is the clouds or the aerosols that trigger global dimming/brightening, or even interactions between clouds and aerosols, as aerosols can influence the “brightness” and lifetime of the clouds.”
I’m thinking this is a big problem for them. But anyway…
“Another unresolved question is what happens over the oceans, as barely any measurement data are available from these areas.”
Oh dear… They haven’t got the oceans factored in either. So much for the theory! After all, thats most of the surface of the planet, as well as a huge percentage of the atmosphere that they haven’t got a handle on yet!
“However, it wasn’t until the International Geophysical Year in 1957/58 that a global measurement network began to take shape.”
This last bit is clearly false by their own admission. Although interesting, I find this paper quite premature and speculative. Without the oceans they don’t even come close to anything that is global in scale. Without clouds they miss a large and very important chunk of the atmosphere as well. They are publishing this now for what reason again? Are we seeing scientific “rent seeking” in action?
1) NAS: according to Ian Plimer (everything you need to know about Mann is in the second chapter) it should be
http://www.nationalacademies.org/oninews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676
but the link seems to be outdated
2) La Brévine is NOT high up in the Alps
3) Why do ETH not use their English name when they publish in English, which would make them S F I T Z ?
Just to clarify for those readers who may be confused, global dimming/brightening is an endogenous (Earth) source of variation. Variation in the Sun’s ability to shine on us is very tiny, very very tiny, in relation to the Earth’s ability to reflect (bounce back) the Sun’s shortwave radiation. Increased reflection means a brighter planet. Under clear sky conditions, we “look” brighter if we were standing on the moon. Under dusty, cloudy, murky conditions, we “look” dimmer if we were standing on the moon. Most of the solar shortwave radiation is absorbed but a fraction is not, it is reflected back into space (which happens at all layers of our Planet, from the outer atmosphere to the sands of Africa). In summary, this dimming and brightening refers to the Earth, not the Sun, and the paper’s focus in on the Earth, not the Sun.
Alexander Feht (01:26:32) :
I have an ability to see a little more into the UV part of the spectrum than most people (I call the shade that I see “bluish white” or “ultramarine white”), and I routinely noticed that the sunlight in the end of 1990s was much harsher, and much more suffused with the UV radiation than the sunlight of my childhood years (1960s)
Thanks for saying that. I just felt it like a more “aggresive” sunlight; in the 90’s going to the beach was really a burning experience, quite different than in the 50´s or 60´s, now it has turned to be “normal”.
Here, 12 degrees south of the equator, in el Nino 1+2 are, a thousand and more years ago, the Moche culture lived here and they made this fresco of an “Angry Sun” : http://www.giurfa.com/theangrysun.jpg