This is important because scientists are concerned that unchecked global warming could cause already dry areas to get drier. (Global warming may also cause wet areas to get wetter.) Cao and Caldeira’s findings indicate that reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide could prevent droughts caused by climate change.
Via press release in Eurekalert, from Stanford, and the Carnegie Institution:
Cutting carbon dioxide helps prevent drying
Washington, D.C.—Recent climate modeling has shown that reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would give the Earth a wetter climate in the short term. New research from Carnegie Global Ecology scientists Long Cao and Ken Caldeira offers a novel explanation for why climates are wetter when atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations are decreasing. Their findings, published online today by Geophysical Research Letters, show that cutting carbon dioxide concentrations could help prevent droughts caused by global warming.
Cao and Caldeira’s new work shows that this precipitation increase is due to the heat-trapping property of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.
As a result, an increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to suppress precipitation. Similarly, a decrease in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to increase precipitation.
The results of this study show that cutting the concentration of precipitation-suppressing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global precipitation. This is important because scientists are concerned that unchecked global warming could cause already dry areas to get drier. (Global warming may also cause wet areas to get wetter.) Cao and Caldeira’s findings indicate that reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide could prevent droughts caused by climate change.
“This study shows that the climate is going to be drier on the way up and wetter on the way down,” Caldeira said, adding:”Proposals to cool the earth using geo-engineering tools to reflect sunlight back to space would not cause a similar pulse of wetness.”
The team’s work shows that carbon dioxide rapidly affects the structure of the atmosphere, causing quick changes precipitation, as well as many other aspects of Earth’s climate, well before the greenhouse gas noticeably affects temperature. These results have important implications for understanding the effects of climate change caused by carbon dioxide, as well as the potential effects of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
“The direct effects of carbon dioxide on precipitation take place quickly,” said Cao. “If we could cut carbon dioxide concentrations now, we would see precipitation increase within the year, but it would take many decades for climate to cool.”
Recently, it was found that a reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentration leads to a temporary increase in global precipitation. We use the Hadley Center coupled atmosphere-ocean model, HadCM3L, to demonstrate that this precipitation increase is a consequence of precipitation sensitivity to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations through fast tropospheric adjustment processes. Slow ocean cooling explains the longer-term decrease in precipitation. Increased CO2 tends to suppress evaporation/precipitation whereas increased temperatures tend to increase evaporation/precipitation. When the enhanced CO2 forcing is removed, global precipitation increases temporarily, but this increase is not observed when a similar negative radiative forcing is applied as a reduction of solar intensity. Therefore, transient precipitation increase following a reduction in CO2-radiative forcing is a consequence of the specific character of CO2 forcing and is not a general feature associated with decreases in radiative forcing.
If someone will send me a copy of the paper (willis [at) surfacetemps.org) I’ll be happy to take a look.
The beauty of the paper seems to be that it describes a situation (a quick reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentration) that, as far as I know, hasn’t been observed in nature …
So usually I’d ask “Where’s the comparison of the model with the observations?” But it appears they’ve sidestepped that very neatly.
But heck, I could be wrong, it’s just a press release and an abstract. The paper may say something different.
w.
I heard that global warming might have made the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, worse.
I guess the logic there is that global warming (especially AGW) dehydrates the ocean waters, which makes the tsunami lighter (therefore higher and faster) and also far more able to absorb water (therefore increasing in mass).
The fact is, tsunami destructive force was increased exponentially by AGW[!]
I continue to weep for science – is there anyone currently working in climate science who can speak out and say, “We cannot model what we do not comprehend!”?
It is only a model of course.
If you actually bothered to compare observations over many years you would find a very different answer.
But far be it for me to question this wonderful balderdash.
Kindest Regards
It’s quite simple, really: Global warming has the intrinsic ability to cause humidity to simultaneously increase and decrease in the same place.
On a more serious note, I’l love to see someone who supports both this and the old rubric that global warming causes more severe storms (which are claimed to be more severe due to increased convection!) try to explain themselves.
“… The results of this study show that cutting the concentration of precipitation-suppressing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global precipitation…”
So, increased CO2 causes less precipitation? I wonder how the plant life of the Carboniferous period got by on so little water. At about 800 ppm CO2, it must have been as dry as a bone…
Is this a Tim Flannery correction already? Where is the /sarc tag?
Whoa there
Cao and Caldeira’s new work shows that this precipitation increase is due to the heat-trapping property of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.
Isn’t this where reality differs from “models” – the middle atmosphere is not warming as fast as their models predicted – or have I missed something somewhere
Andy
Modeling and it all MAY
Perhaps we need to excise the month of May to reduce the effect. or, add another month of May to increase the effect. It may/could perhaps happen one way or the other, fifty fifty chance, possibly….thats the way I read it.
This shows that global precipitation is increasing with increasing with increasing CO2 http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/timeseries.cgi?graph=global_r®ion=global&season=0112&ave_yr=0,
then they say that …
“Their findings, published online today by Geophysical Research Letters, show that cutting carbon dioxide concentrations could help prevent droughts caused by global warming.
Cao and Caldeira’s new work shows that this precipitation increase is due to the heat-trapping property of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.
As a result, an increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to suppress precipitation. Similarly, a decrease in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to increase precipitation.”
And Australia’s recent ten year drought was caused by CO2 increase they(AGW scientists) said , and it would get worse and worse they(AGW scientists) said …now we have floods and floods and more floods, which is also now caused by CO2 increase they(AGW scientists) say…and decreasing CO2 will cause more precipitation they (AGW scientist) say……..Excuse me, my mind has become befuddled with confusing contradictions and opposite statements!……what does it cause and what does not it cause?!…….Me thinks they(AGW scientists) have lost the plot!!!
“I guess the logic there is that global warming (especially AGW) dehydrates the ocean waters, which makes the tsunami lighter (therefore higher and faster) and also far more able to absorb water (therefore increasing in mass).
The fact is, tsunami destructive force was increased exponentially by AGW[!]”
Yes, that is probably the logic behind the claim. In a nutshell “since it is lighter, it becomes more heavy”. Clearly on the same line as “since it is warmer it becomes cooler”.
According to recent research, Western Australia is greening up, in part due to the breaking of a decade-long drought. During this period , we are told, the amount of plant food in the atmosphere has been increasing. Using the logic of the authors of this paper, surely then it would follow that increased CO2 in the atmosphere leads to increased precipitation in arid areas?
So let me see if I’ve got this right:
NE Aus is very wet at the moment so more CO2 will make it drier.
But it used to be quite dry there and the extra CO2 made it wetter.
Now I get it; CO2 makes everything happen.
Seems to me this post is just a few days early.
It think the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing climate scientists to become befuddled in their thinking, a bit like Apollo 13.
“The team’s work shows that carbon dioxide rapidly affects the structure of the atmosphere, causing quick changes precipitation, as well as many other aspects of Earth’s climate, well before the greenhouse gas noticeably affects temperature.”
How on earth can a trace gas have this affect? What scientific evidence as compared against a null hypothesis and not a computer model as stated can they make such a statement. A computer model can only give the answer that it is programmed to give.
Yet another model…
Can we just stop funding this crap research?
“Cao and Caldeira’s new work shows that this precipitation increase is due to the heat-trapping property of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.”
This whole article is rubbish! CO2 does not and cannot “trap” heat anywhere in the atmosphere, it just scatters IR in all directions. That is not trapping, that is scattering. And IR is NOT heat, it is electromagnetic radiation, NOT heat. If a CO2 molecule were to convert the IR from the narrow waveband with which CO2 can interact into heat energy (i.e vibration), the gas would heat up and when a gas heats, it rises, the CO2 would then release the heat as IR radiation higher up in the atmosphere until it escapes into space. This is not “trapping” heat at all.
Plus, the so-called greenhouse gas “hot spot” has never been found, it does not exist because the whole CO2 theory and the modelling derived from this idea is utterly false. see here http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/A_lesson_on_basic_physics.pdf
If it looks like a climate scientist
Talks like a climate scientist
Then its a Quack?
ROFLMAO…
and when there were lower levels of CO2, there were never droughts ?
These guys should look at some history !!
Ermmmm… if what they say happened to be true… I mean, a higher temperature up in the atmosphere preventing the rising air that causes thunderstorms by carrying humidity… wouldn’t that destroy the water vapour positive feedback that is claimed by IPCC to support their disproportionately big climate sensitivity estimations? And if it destroyed the water vapour positivew feedback, wouldn’t the temperature increase up in the atmosphere be smaller than modelled? And then, wouldn’t the whole idea be stupid enough not to think about it ever again?
You have to give them credit. Older AGW scare stories only predicted one thing: such as a warmer climate or the disappearance if winter snow. But now they are getting smarter and predicting opposite ends of the spectrum all at once in the same paper! But sadly there’s more that they missed. Drier places can get drier and wetter placed can get wetter… In addition wetter places can get drier and drier places can get even wetter.
‘Trapped heat in the mid troposphere’?
Firstly you can not trap heat or store it because whatever you do it will always flow away. You can reduce the flow by insulation but you can’t stop the flow to trap it or store it.
Secondly this mythical heat in the mid troposphere has yet to be found. The models state that it is there because of the Greenhouse Effect but try as we might we can’t find it. The atmosphere insists on cooling adiabatically as observations show.
Once again we have a claim built upon some model based research which will not/cannot follow the real world. Total rubbish.
What goes up must come down. If it is warmer then there is more evaporation so more water goes up and then more water comes down. What am I not understanding? Or will a giant, ever growing lake form in the sky or maybe more clouds? I’ll be able to save on sunscreen.
And on the question of “Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere” has this hot spot predicted by models now been found? I remember debating with someone who said ‘you can’t trust the balloons and satellites to measure temperature in the troposphere, you have to work it out from wind speed/shear up there’.
Or maybe it’s a different middle of the atmosphere.
I’m seeing the light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Pataphysics
Alfred Jarry, the founder of ‘Pataphysics would be proud of Global Warming science.
In a crazy way, they are right but not how they know it. Look at the weather during the LIA (Little Ice Age). There were droughts (some very bad ones) and there was a lot of rain—it being cold and wet across Europe far more than the Europeans were used to (which is why the witch hunts began and Renaissance paintings show such horribly cloudy skies … when they show the outdoors at all).
And, during the Little Ice Age, the atmospheric CO2 level was lower than it is now: about 280 ppm.
Therefore, reduce the CO2 level and you increase the rain.
Q. E. D.
There were droughts during this period too, but we’ll hide the decline (of the rainfall) as it’s a permissible “trick.”
The predicted hot spot isn’t there, as confirmed by thousands of balloon carried thermometers and millions of satellite readings.
By relying on the predicted hot spot, rather than the measured lack of a hot spot, this is another “postmodern” science, where a researcher examines the models and ignores the reality. It’s the exact opposite of science.
They don’t even bother to discuss the non-existence of the hot spot.
So: “Recent climate modeling has shown that reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would give the Earth a wetter climate in the short term. ”
What if the contrary is?
That is: if Henry’s law works to rain droplets too, it’s more logical to me imagine a CO2 atmospheric depletion due to the wetter climate than vice versa.
But, I’m not a scientist and I’m surely wrong 🙂
The article is the inevitable result of the “publish-or-perish” mandate for attaing tenure or promotion at a university. Like Photoshop, a model can be made to look like whatever the user wishes. These researchers know what side to be on to impress their superiors. I’ve seen it happen before, and I trust the results now no more than I did back in the days when I was a university teacher and administrator. Garbage in, garbage out–people understood that even at the beginning of the computer age, and it’s still true.
It would be so refreshing to see a study based on actual observations! Oh, wait–we have seen quite a few, and they contradict the above-mentioned “study” on just about every statement.
More of the (Un)Intended Consequences of Simplistic Linear Equations allowed to run wild. SLEs are the preferred output of Expert Brains, a belief in the ignorance of which is, per Feynman, the definition of Science.
“The direct effects of carbon dioxide on precipitation take place quickly”
So, 60 years is not quickly? I wonder what they mean by “quickly”. Maybe we need to add slowquick (or is that quickslow) to the ever expanding climate dictionary.
This report begs for the Willis treatment. I look forward to his assessment.
What is most worrisome to me are the repeated calls for some massive intervention in the global system (geo-engineering). We may find the medicine is worse than the (model predicted) disease and then we may find it impossible to undo the damage.
mmmm I get it, the same as Old Seadog above.
The West Coast of New Zealand has up to 6000 mm of rain and is clearly wet. That means it will get dryer. Most Coasters will be glad of that since they wont have to keep all the car doors open on sunny days anymore to dry them out.
The East Coast of New Zealand is often dry with droughts, So it will get wetter, ie borrow a bit of rain from the West Coast.
That is a perfect solution, since only a few years ago there was talk of running a huge pipeline from the West Coast to the East Coast to mitigate the droughts.
These models are just a great way to solve problems with a click of a mouse.
Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.
They seem to be regenerating in their model the hot spot, which has been soundly refuted by data. CO2 has been going up, the hotspot down.
Maybe it is monkeys who do the peer reviews of climate papers.
More ecostrology from ecostrologists…out to help their colleagues, the climastrologists and paleostrologists.
And this went through peer review to get into Geophysical Research Letters?
They allowed a paper that based all its logic on a model prediction of a tropospheric hot spot that has been repeatedly falsified by observations?
This puts Geophysical Research Letters somewhere below The National Enquirer.
I think these lads have the process backwards. They say –
“Carbon dioxide traps heat in the middle of the atmosphere. This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.”
At current CO2 concentrations, the ‘path length’ for nearly complete absorption in the CO2 sensitive wavelengths, is on the order of 10 to 100m. That means that virtually none of the ‘original’ emitted photons from the surface even reach the middle of the atmosphere. More CO2 means the ‘original’ photons are captured closer to the ground surface, not higher up in the ‘middle of the atmosphere’.
What then? Once captured, we are told that, rather than being re-emitted to the middle atmosphere, it is 10,000 times more likely that the CO2 will bump into an O2 or N2 molecule, and the captured photon becomes thermalized – that is, that photon will be converted to heat/kintetic energy in the other atmospheric gasses. At which point, the warm rising thermals take over and typical Lapse Rate cooling occurs.
Right off the bat…
“Recent climate modeling has shown […]”
Look – – – out – – – the – – – window – – – every – – – now – – – and – – – then.
.
.
.
(For some odd reason I keep thinking about CAGW climate science and those old chain letters where you sent a dollar to the name at the top of the list. All sorts of dire things were supposed to happen if you broke the chain. There are some who will do just about anything to keep their name at the top of the list.)
Anthony,
If I did a 2 day graph and said it was climate for all the billions of years would you be gullible to it?
Why not? It is part of the billions of years.
On a brighter note…It is a crisp -15 degrees C here and has been abnormally cold by an average of 4-5 degrees C this winter with many below 10-12 degree C days averages to previous years.
“The team’s work shows that carbon dioxide rapidly affects the structure of the atmosphere”
Does it.
Ken Caldiera in his lab, is heard crying out, “A mid troposphere hotspot, a mid troposphere hotspot – my nobel prize for a mid troposphere hotspot.”
Of course, I just made that up. Ken Caldiera never said it because he lives in a world of virtual electrons that is the world of climate models, and would never have looked at real world data. Had he done so, he would have known that this warming of the mid troposphere predicted by his models does not actually exist. He would have known that the premise of his paper is therefore false.
Too bad. A nother paper that should have been tossed in the garbage.
I think a moratorium on funding studies using climate models would be in order.
CO2 levels are not going to decrease so this is an abstract “what if” paper. One of the authors has done past work on geoengineeering, so maybe that is his motivation. Here is the abstract.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL046713.shtml
It seems confusing at first. You may have to read it several times to get it. I have no idea if the results are correct, but what they are doing is not inherently illogical as some people here seem to think.
Just for anna v:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot.htm
“The team’s work shows that carbon dioxide rapidly affects the structure of the atmosphere, causing quick changes precipitation, as well as many other aspects of Earth’s climate, well before the greenhouse gas noticeably affects temperature.”
Amazing. Co2 now has the ability to affect the “structure” of the atmosphere and “quickly” cause changes to all sorts of climate things…WITHOUT NOTICEABLY AFFECTING TEMPERATURE.
I wonder what physical process they envision that allows that huge mass of CO2, you know, at 380 parts per million, to change things without warming or cooling? Oh, its right there in their article. They postulate both that there will be warming caused by CO2 high in the atmosphere, AND nobody will notice it.
With apologies to Mr. A. C. Clarke.
Any sufficiently advanced total bu**sh*t is indistinguishable from science. If anyone wonders what the three *’s are, they stand for PNS.
I have here further ontological proof for AGW.
Half a bee, philosophically,
Must, ipso facto, half not be.
But half the bee has got to be
Vis a vis, its entity. D’you see?
But can a bee be said to be
Or not to be an entire bee
When half the bee is not a bee
Due to some ancient injury?
Singing…
Are they saying that CO2 causes stalled high pressure areas and what we used to call “heat inversions?” That, supposedly, is what caused the hot summer of 1980 in St. Louis and, a few years later, a similar phenomenon in Dallas. But these phenomena are few and far between. I don’t believe they occurred again in St. Louis or Dallas.
Well, just model something and see whether you make it into the IPCC report. Climate science works like a beauty contest. Millions of young wannabe climatologists prepare their paper, each one trying to find a new and innovative way CO2 yould make everything worse, and Pachauri will later decide who of them will become a famous doom-monger.
Vince Causey says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:01 am
“Ken Caldiera in his lab, is heard crying out, “A mid troposphere hotspot, a mid troposphere hotspot – my nobel prize for a mid troposphere hotspot.”
You took my very words Vince! At what point will they admit that the models just do not work? They ignored the weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up.
The satellites say the hottest recent year was 1998, and that since 2001 the global temperature has levelled off again blowing another hole in their broken theory but hey, lets cherry pick, homogenize and generally bend the data till it squeaks to keep the gravy train on its track.
Sorry Mike @ 5:18 am but the last thing needed right now is a “What If” paper muddying the waters.
““This study shows that the climate is going to be drier on the way up and wetter on the way down,” Caldeira said, adding:”Proposals to cool the earth using geo-engineering tools to reflect sunlight back to space would not cause a similar pulse of wetness.””
I liked this one; it’s rather poetic – “drier on the way up and wetter on the way down” – like “what goes up must come down”… and “Pulse Of Wetness”.
The Pulse Of Wetness
Coming To A Nobel Prize Ceremony Near You Real Soon Now.
Oh what a pulse of wetness. Pulse me wet.
Mike says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:18 am
“It seems confusing at first. You may have to read it several times to get it.”
The moment it stops appearing confusing to you, you know the confusion has seeped into your brain, and confusing things now appear normal to you. From that moment on, your brain will stop processing normal input and become dependent on more confusing input. Until you find yourself craving more warmist modeling papers.
Problem:
if your model finds that CO2 affects jack, you’ve got no paper.
if your model finds that CO2 affects ANYTHING, you’ve got a paper. CO2 will make it hotter/colder, wetter/drier, windier/less windy, cloudy/less cloudy. Now you have a shiny paper. Congratulations. All you had to do was press “GO!” on your computer.
If these guys were modelling aerodynamics they would come up with:
CO2 causes more drag except when we would rather go slow, when it gives a dangerous and unexpected velocity boost eg at take-off or landing.
CO2 decreases lift except at high altitudes when our models show we could be sucked into the vacuum of space.
etc.
I think they have it backwards. Changes in sea surface temperature control the rates of evaporation/condensation in and out of the atmosphere as well as vertical convection. SST changes also control the rates of CO2 transfer between oceans and atmosphere. Cold water in clouds absorb CO2 and returns it to the oceans in rain thus tending to control the concentration of CO2 in air. So SST changes are controlling CO2 levels, not CO2 changes controlling SST. CO2 concentration changes will lag SST changes. They need to introduce different “what ifs?” into their models.
One little factoid is that the turnover of water vapour in the atmosphere is each 9 days.
40 times more precipitation falls each year than there is water vapour in the atmosphere at a specific time.
This turnover rate means that it should just get wetter period. On average, there should be 2% to 7% more precipitation per year.
There is no rationale for it to get dryer anywhere. The last time it was a little warmer at the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago, the Sahara greened up due to the extra rainfall. There were even large lake bodies and Hippos. The deserts of Central Asia were forested and the Australian desert had much more rainfall. When it cooled down about 5,000 years ago, the Sahara dried up and populations were forced south and/or east into the Nile River valley for example.
The last time it was 3C warmer, 10 million years ago, the entire planet was one big forest. Grassland or savanna only occurs where it is dryer and/or cooler and there was hardly any grassland conditions on the planet at all.
Drought schmout! In areas known for low water equivalent snow pack in the past El Nino years, we are now in up to our hoo hahs and tittoos in high water equivalent snow pack.
Looks like yet another set of scientists drunk on grant money.
Must we arm chair coaches always be the stern teacher? Apparently. Let me see the hindcast. There are plenty of great floods in the past century with precip records. Cough it up. And no splicing.
It’s the CO2 placebo effect. It does what you think it does.
this is just nonsense
just more “models”
no actual tests and measurements
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Is there any other branch of ‘science’ that develops so much theory, yet tests so little of it?
The tropospheric hot spots are there. Problem is, they come and go with short-term weather systems and longer term weather pattern variations, but this ground to tropopause layer is not showing an overall long-term relatively faster climate warming trend at its upper reaches compared to its lower reaches. No one has found a permanent and growing hot spot.
Could it be because the heat is escaping through vertical splitting events at the tropopause caused by jet stream perturbations?
“In the higher regions of the tropopause, temperature is about -60 °C. At this heights, relatively small bands with very high wind speeds (up to 500 km/h), the jet streams, occur. In this regions very important processes take place that cause vertical splitting, decomposition and new formation of the tropopause.”
http://www.kowoma.de/en/gps/additional/atmosphere.htm
“The results of this study show that” THIS MODEL INDICATES THAT “cutting the concentration of precipitation-suppressing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global precipitation” IN THE MODELLED VERSION OF THE PLANET.
There, that’s corrected it.
Richard
Recent climate modeling has shown that reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would give the Earth a wetter climate in the short term. . . . Their findings, published online today by Geophysical Research Letters, show that cutting carbon dioxide concentrations could help prevent droughts caused by global warming.
Huh. The results of modeling are not “findings”—they are not evidence. They don’t “show” anything. Now, if they were backed by observations, that would be a different matter. But so far, they haven’t proven that their models accurately depict the real world. I don’t take climate models at face value, too many instances of cosmetic—and wholesale—surgery for that.
Mike says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:22 am
Just for anna v:
The best ‘advanced’ answer ss comes up with is: “the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors”
So when their hypothesis is tested with real-world data and it disproves their hypothesis, it MUST be ‘data errors’, because of course, their models CAN’T be wrong!
Real scientists accept the measured data and adjust their hypothesis. AGW ‘believers’ come up with fantastic tales explaining away contradictory data(or just keep ‘adjusting’ it, again & again).
Points out the difference between skeptics & AGW believers – some believe real measured experimental data and others believe Sim-Climate computer games.
to paraphrase a line from the Dirty Dozen …
Thats a pretty theory you’ve got there, but can it fight ?
Mike says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:18 am
I have no idea if the results are correct, but what they are doing is not inherently illogical as some people here seem to think.
—————————————————————————
Ian Holton says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:32 am
This shows that global precipitation is increasing with increasing with increasing CO2 http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/timeseries.cgi?graph=global_r®ion=global&season=0112&ave_yr=0,
then they say that …
——————————————————————–
Mike, it is illogical to base assumptions made by a model which isn’t grounded in reality. Ian has graciously offered direct refutation to these inane prognostications.
Anthony, I’m getting the feeling that many of your readers still aren’t convinced about the wetdry dynamic. And while the authors of this ……….. study entirely missed the mark, they themselves inadvertently described it perfectly.
“Cao and Caldeira’s new work shows that this precipitation increase is due to the heat-trapping property of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ……………..
an increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to suppress precipitation.”
And that ladies and gentlemen is wetdry! What’s not to understand? This is exactly as Dr. Syme intuitively knew. Apparently, the dept. of lexicography has some spies and others are beating him to publication.
For those that still don’t understand or can’t get their head around this, this post may help, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/25/now-its-climate-change-to-be-killing-the-joshua-trees/#comment-629090
CO2 will cause it to be hot, cold, wet, dry, more violent, responds quickly but takes a long time and so on. It reminds me of the movie where the guy asks the prostitute what’s your name. She says what ever you want it to be, as they, slightly intoxicated, walk into a dark blind alley.
David Stockwell proved that CSIRO’s drought model predictions were backwards. See: Show us your tests: Australian drought models i.e., Australian rainfall was actually increasing, contrary to CSIRO’s predictions of decreasing rainfall.
This is another excellent opportunity for a brilliant statistician to test the validity/incoherence of climate change (aka catastrophic anthropogenic global warming).
Unfair Andrew! You deliberately picked a CAGW hypothesis backed only by flimsy modeling, easily falsifiable by just looking out the window. Try picking on one of the more robust CAGW findings. Wait a minute. There aren’t any. Never mind.
All arguments are about higher temperatures globally, not actually higher CO2. So the questions should be:
In historic times such as the MWP, the Roman WP, the Minoan WP, were dry areas drier and wet areas wetter? At the same time, were moderate areas “more” moderate for life in general? Considering both from the historical records, was there more negative (for man, animal and plant life) areas or positive areas?
All this work by so many people using models when the historical data shows how it was one way and the other!
Oh, right. Never has it been warmer than today. Not in 600,000 years. (Didn’t we get rid of that lie, though?)
Seriously: what “is” going to happen has already happened within recorded times. We do not need to postulate, model and conjecturize. The Chinese, Japanese and Arabs have very long records of what was going on before the Westerners learned to write, let along write computer code. Is this an ego problem – if we didn’t explain it, it means nothing?
Here’s a quote I found on a site about a different topic yesterday that sums this up nicely:
So they are saying that if we decrease precipitation suppressing CO2 dry areas will experience increased drywet and wet areas will likewise experience increased wetdry.
I may have this backwards but that really doesn’t matter since these models definitively without a doubt show that . . . . well, I’m not actually sure what they show, but I am sure these unscientist are trying to call attention to the Climate/Weather Emergency that may or may not happen.
Where are all the AGW believers on this thread?
Its too silly to touch.. isn’t it!?!
Its “intellectuals” like these guys that would put “OMG” and “LOL” in the dictionary.
Apparently the sceptical world has been looking for the wrong item. No hot spot exists because its been masked. One must look for a coldhot spot as in dryerwetter moisture caused by dehydrated water found in oceanic waves of various sizes. Don’t be misled by hotcold spots as they are fairly common and literally found in most atmospheric places along with wetterdryer air conditions.
/sarc as opposed to /nosarc and /unintentionalsarc just to be clear about it.
Thats some catch that Catch-22!
Explanation: Used when talking about the necessity of making a choice that is going to have a negative outcome no matter which decision is taken.
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catch-22
Studies during gelogical periods show drier weather overall where periods of much colder ice ages occur. This is reflected in proxies around the world and in contradiction with this model study. These colder periods had levels of atmospheric CO2 much lower and much higher than nowadays. The latter only occuring going back, when the continental plates were in a much different position to now. These findings also supported wetter poles and tropics when warmer, but drier mid-lattitudes. When cooler had drier poles and tropics, but with wetter mid-lattitudes. The reason for many contridictions in these studies is because not using established facts and making it up as go along.
Ian Holton says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:32 am
“…Excuse me, my mind has become befuddled with confusing contradictions and opposite statements!……what does it cause and what does not it cause?!…….Me thinks they(AGW scientists) have lost the plot!!!”
Like all good communists, they are romantics at heart. As their credibility has tanked, they have switched from prose to poetry.
Mike says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:18 am
“I have no idea if the results are correct, but what they are doing is not inherently illogical as some people here seem to think.”
Inherently illogical? That is a strong standard. How about just illogical? That would be contradictory on its face, right? Well, it asserts that increasing CO2 concentrations cause more precipitation and suppress precipitation. That is “prima facie” contradictory. Check out:
James Sexton says:
March 26, 2011 at 7:30 am
Bob Barker says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:04 am
“I think a moratorium on funding studies using climate models would be in order.”
Except for the purposes of “opera buffa.”
Would like to see more details of said “model” study. It keep referring to “in the short term”, etc. All the evidence points to the exact opposite effect happening “in the long term”, i.e. increasing amounts of CO2 lead to warmer climates, higher humidity, and heavier precipitations.
Also, I am suspicious about such an immediate effect, as it’s taken hundreds of years and a 40% growth in CO2 over that time for some effects to start to show themselves. By how much are they suggesting CO2 be cut? I really need to see the complete details of this study and so lI’m highly skeptical about the validity of this model study until I see other similar studies come along.
****
Article says:
As a result, an increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to suppress precipitation. Similarly, a decrease in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide tends to increase precipitation.
****
By that logic, the glacial periods @ 180 ppm CO2 should have been wetter than the interglacials @ 280 ppm (the Amazon rainforest was a mere shadow of its present extent during the glacial periods). And there must’ve been a vast, global desert in the past when CO2 was many times its current value.
Right……..
Pamela- great explanation. Very uncooperative planet we have .
I’ll be blunt -this explanation of the wet/dry is more like as some
cleric from the Medieval Church trying to explain how many
climate scientists can dance on the head of a pin…
R. Gates says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:08 am
Would like to see more details of said “model” study. It keep referring to “in the short term”, etc. All the evidence points to the exact opposite effect happening “in the long term”, i.e. increasing amounts of CO2 lead to warmer climates, higher humidity, and heavier precipitations.
Also, I am suspicious about such an immediate effect, as it’s taken hundreds of years and a 40% growth in CO2 over that time for some effects to start to show themselves. By how much are they suggesting CO2 be cut? I really need to see the complete details of this study and so lI’m highly skeptical about the validity of this model study until I see other similar studies come along.
This shouldn’t surprise you RG. If you dig deep enough you can find a “peer-reviewed” paper suggesting everything is caused by CO2, on either side of the equation. But you know this.
Also, you do realize your last sentence is logic by consensus. More model studies= validity.
Mike says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:18 am
I have no idea if the results are correct, but what they are doing is not inherently illogical as some people here seem to think.
Mike, you need to get a grip on reality.
In the cold of a La Nina, the Pacific Northwest and Inland Northwest actually become wetter. Why? The Pacific generated weather systems pick up moisture from the swirling mass of warmed left over El Nino oceans, drop into the low pressure cool La Nina waters off our coastline, and dump as snow as it continues into land. All over. Everywhere. Snow on my front porch and blown through the screen of my back porch, blown under roof tiles, and into crevices. Snow under rocks and into the cracks of tree bark, and deep into last fall’s plowed furrows. More snow than I need or want. Been fishing in snow for crisake!
This bit of allegory was brought to you just in case someone attributes our wet Spring to global warming. Or is it our global warming due to a wet Spring. Or is it my dry mouth from last night’s attempt to rid our community of some of its wood fire producing CO2. Did our sudden decrease in CO2 cause yesterday’s sudden white sideways flight of global blizzard warming? Ohmygawd. It was me wut dun it.
Lord I apologize for saying bad things about global warming and for the starving pigmys in New Guinea. She said with a hat-tip to Larry the Cable Guy.
I went to the link provided by Mike for anna v at 5:22 am.
My interpretation of the article there is that . . . ‘if one looks for an increase in temperature in the middle troposphere every day, on some days you will find a higher temperature there than the day before. Then it disappears for a few weeks or months, then recurs at odd times. This seems enough to not falsify the hot spot theory.’
I think that’s about it. And it is not a lot.
The charts here are worth a look:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
By my count the zero line has been crossed 14 times since 1979. If you use Dr. S’s graphic calculator, found here
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
and click ch05 v2 and then 2010, 2011, and Average you can check the current month. (It is not been quality controlled yet; but will be in early April.)
These data validate Anna v’s statement at 3:47 am.
“This warm air higher in the atmosphere tends to prevent the rising air motions that create thunderstorms and rainfall.”
Since there has been a run up of CO2 for 150 years, there should be measured observations. Specific examples please.
They do realize, do they not, that this contradicts the Warmists dedicated mantra regarding severe weather. I. e. that a 2C increase in ground temperature will bring about a multi-fold increase in Thunderstorms as well as intensity iof lightening strikes.
I was wondering when some CAGW team was going to play the CO2 causes “quick changes” long before it affects temperature card. Now doesn’t that nicely explain why CO2 is to blame for so many of the world’s problems when there’s no empirical evidence of the warming part of global warming.
This study is nothing short of CAGW on artificial life support.
No hotspot. Surface doesn’t cool as quickly. By “surface” we’re largely talking about the ocean (71%) and rocks, soil, trees, ice, lakes, rivers, and other dense things (29%). This doesn’t create a hotspot at altitude. It creates a less cool surface with a normal adiabatic lapse rate. Presumably the slightly warmer water evaporates slightly faster which water vapor then does rise until it condenses forming clouds and rain. We should see increased rainfall not decreased. Accelerated evaporation, cloud formation, and rainfall serve to remove heat from the surface and help it along on its way to outer space by lifting it a few thousand feet higher through the densest part of the atmosphere and during the day the increased cloud cover reflects sunlight which reduces surface heating. In effect there is a negative feedback from water vapor that puts a ceiling on maximum surface temperature which is why there has never been a runaway greenhouse in the earth’s history even when CO2 concentration were as much as 20 times greater than today.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas alrighty and when there’s 8x times the amount we have today the earth gets lush and green from pole to pole just like the inside of a busy greenhouse not like the ice age conditions of today when a good fraction of the surface is well below freezing stopping the primary producers in the food chain (green plants) from producing.
AGW boffins write on the blackboard 100 times:
Ice is bad. Actively growing plants are good.
John F. Hultquist says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:49 am
“I went to the link provided by Mike for anna v at 5:22 am.
My interpretation of the article there is that . . . ‘if one looks for an increase in temperature in the middle troposphere every day, on some days you will find a higher temperature there than the day before. Then it disappears for a few weeks or months, then recurs at odd times. This seems enough to not falsify the hot spot theory.’”
I guess you and anna v are not serious. If the relevant hypotheses are about the hotspot then they have been falsified many times over. By contrast, if the hypotheses are about the phenomena described then they are not about the hotspot.
This paper is strong evidence to end the practice of anonymous peer (pal) review. When the stench is this bad, the peer reviewers cannot come away smelling like roses.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/17/peer-review-pal-review-and-broccoli/
Actually, given that the nucleation sites for condensation in cloud formation are limited, more water vapor in the air means that it will have to mix more and farther with air before it can condense out. This means that wetness will more likely spread than simply wet places get wetter. Probably both, to be realistic.
As an AGWer, I had similar concerns to R. Gates, and I found the paper at Cao’s site. What they are looking at is the transient response to steps in CO2. This is my interpretation. If CO2 changes quickly, the atmosphere responds first, followed by the slower and more permanent surface response (mostly the ocean temperature). When CO2 reduces, the atmosphere has to cool to meet the new radiative balance, while the ocean stays warm due to its inertia. This is what results in more convection and precipitation, at least until the ocean catches up. The opposite happens when CO2 steps up quickly, and the atmosphere warms faster than the surface leading to drier conditions in this transient state, which actually lasts decades.
Witchdoctor science. Desperate waving of rattles and references to computer model ju-ju. The devil mask isn’t working anymore. CAGW is dying.
Regarding the “tropospheric hot spot”, I’d invite folks to take a look at my paper on “Tropical Tropospheric Amplification“. If there’s enough interest I’ll open a new thread.
w.
Look! Up a the sky! It’s SUPER MAN! No, – – it’s MAJIC GAS! It wets! It dries! It makes climatologist and computer modelers rich!
/sarc
It use to be that if someone of lesser emotional stability or immaturity would get totally wrapped-up in a “show” you would gently remind them, “It’s ONLY TV” or “It’s ONLY a movie.” Isn’t it a shame on all science that we now have to remind some folks that, “It’s ONLY a model.”
Of course, everyone knows the ENSO controls global water vapour levels (and no climate model can properly simulate this).
ENSO versus total column water vapour up to Feb, 2011.
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8886/ensovstcwv1948feb11.png
If you want to see a mid-month update on whether water vapour levels have continued to decline in March as would be expected with its relationship with the ENSO, one can have a look at the update provided by Dr. Roy Spencer.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/AMSRE_integ_vapor_2002_thru_March_17_2011.gif
Bill Illis says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:29 am
“The last time it was a little warmer at the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago, the Sahara greened up due to the extra rainfall. There were even large lake bodies and Hippos.”
Bill, there still are in Lake Chad, a large lake in the Sahel. This lake got ‘left behind’ in the desertification of the Sahara and is thus a beautiful ‘fossil’ of the Holocene Warm (and wet) Period over the Sahara.
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Lake%20Chad%20animals&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
“….There are many floating islands (in Lake Chad) home to a wide variety of wildlife, including hippopotamus, and large communities of migrating birds (and indigenous) and over 40 species of fish (one the lungfish – known to paleontologists before re discovered in modern times)…..(precis and comment’s author in brackets)… ”
Much has been written about the huge decrease in size (dropped to 1/20th its surface area since 1960s, naturally blamed on CO2 but massive growth in irrigation use is the most likely culprit plus fluctuating climatic factors.
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/the-shrinking-of-lake-chad-cannot-be-blamed-on-anthropogenic-co2/
Chad has been one of Al Gore’s and (I believe Climate Progress’s) poster lakes, but with the return of heavier rains since 2007, we have this kind of “wetdry” thinking:
“The arid lands have refused to suck up rainfall and flooding is occurring. There are hopes that the drought will end by early 2011”:
http://www.ehow.com/list_7457255_nigeria_s-deserts.html
Jim D;
Congrats as an AGW’er for actually reading a paper! 90% when an AGW’er quotes a paper I ask if they read it, they say no, I offer to show it to them, mumble, mumble, they’re not technical enough to read it mumble mumble….but quoted it anyway even though they don’t understand it. By actually reading it do you know what you are? An AGW’er in “transition” mode! But on to the paper:
“As an AGWer, I had similar concerns to R. Gates, and I found the paper at Cao’s site. What they are looking at is the transient response to steps in CO2.”>>>
Giant hole number one. CO2 doesn’t increase in steps it increases by 1 part per million every few months. More accurately it might go up 3, down 2, up three, down 2, etc. for a net of +2 over an entire year. So they modeled something that doesn’t ever happen.
” This is my interpretation. If CO2 changes quickly, the atmosphere responds first, followed by the slower and more permanent surface response (mostly the ocean temperature).”>>>
Giant hole number two. CO2 doesn’t change in steps as per above, and it doesn’t change quickly either. From 1920 until now it went from 280 to 389! They modeled jumps of much larger changes than can actually occur!
“When CO2 reduces, the atmosphere has to cool to meet the new radiative balance, while the ocean stays warm due to its inertia. This is what results in more convection and precipitation, at least until the ocean catches up.”>>>
Giant hole number three. If the theory is that GHG’s retain heat from the increased absorption of LW from the earth’s surface being absorbed and partly re-radiated downward, then the statement above relies on the thermal heat capacity of CO2 at 389 parts per MILLION being high enough to affect the over all temp of the atmosphere. That being ludicrous, decreases in CO2 by the AGW’s own defnitions require that the land surface cool FIRST, the oceans second>>>
“The opposite happens when CO2 steps up quickly, and the atmosphere warms faster than the surface leading to drier conditions in this transient state, which actually lasts decades.”>>>
This statement is comprised of “Giant hole numbers 1 & 2” and the paper quoted “quick” changes in precipitation to changes in atmospheric temps almost unnoticeable. But ignoring that, let’s go with Giant hole number four. The daily heating cooling cycle at surface is (for sake of argument) 15 degrees C and is the primary driver of convection. Let’s suppose The surface temp varies daily from +10 to +25. It warms an almost unnoticeable (their contention, not mine) 0.01 degrees. Now the surface is fluctuating from 10.01 to 25.01 and somewhere in the mid tropopshere it has gone from -19 to -19.01! Yup, there’s a warm air layer that most surely lay a licken on the 1,500 TIMES larger DAILY temperature change that is the PRIMARY driver of convection and tell it to stop. ROFLMAO.
I have asked this question on several sites and it is never even acknowledged: what is the optimal ‘global’ temp and why.
Jim D says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:02 am
During the period of stable temperatures recently where CO2 continues increasing, the only atmosphere responce has been the opposite expected for CO2 retaining it. This is the supposed argument of it causing increasing +AO and +NAO with cooling stratopshere above the Arctic when the opposite has happened since early 2000’s. This is evidence against CO2, where atmospheric natural cycles clearly dominate. This supports why the surface has been stable because the atmosphere has also not responded to it either. This evidence shows that CO2 does not change the atmosphere quickly and must therefore have low sensitivity towards climate. With it having low sensitivity, over periods longer than a decade (as now) should show some responce, yet we still have stable global temperatures. It is clear to most honest scientists that there is nothing to be alarmed about CO2’s affect on climate.
Just more members of “The Team” making unproven projections with computer models.
Climate Science Modelers have No connection to reality. Just more GI GO. Time for them to get real jobs doing real things. Maybe flippin burgers or diggin ditches, you know, something useful that they are competent at. pg
Matt G, it is often said that the warming has stopped when in fact 2010 was one of the warmest years on record, and the early 2000’s were anomalously high, so what we have now is back on the expected curve after an upward detour.
davidmhoffer says:
March 26, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Good work, sir, Thanks. Also, good mentoring.
davidmhoffer, from this I can’t tell whether you read the paper.
I read it because the press summary looked dubious. CO2 does not warm the atmosphere more than the surface enough to suppress convection in the long term, but those statements are limited to transients, as I found by reading what they did. They never had any phrases about CO2 trapping heat in the atmosphere in the paper.
Their study was to learn about the response to step changes, not to suggest such a thing would happen. You can learn a lot by these tests, especially since CO2 is increasing too rapidly for an equilibrium response, which may explain why droughts are expected in the near-term. It is also interesting that geo-engineering approaches that may quickly reduce solar radiation don’t have the same effect of increasing precipitation.
Jim D says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:25 pm
It was only one of the warmest years because there was one of the strongest El Nino’s. If it wasn’t stable the year would have easily had record global temperatures, when it didn’t.
I didn’t make it past the first sentence. Modeling again. Until a model has a proven track record of successful predictions, it is pseudoscience, not science.
“The team’s work shows that carbon dioxide rapidly affects the structure of the atmosphere, causing quick changes in precipitation, as well as many other aspects of Earth’s climate, well before the greenhouse gas noticeably affects temperature.”
In saying the above I think that they have inadvertently hit on a truth.
More CO2 (or more of any GHG) causes more downward IR to immediately increase evaporation rates in a speeding up of the water cycle.
That then prevents (mostly or entirely) any increase in surface air temperatures because the extra energy at the surface has been accelerated faster upward to space to cancel out the effect of more CO2.
However, natural changes in the speed of the water cycle from oceanic and solar variability are so large that the effect of more CO2 would be indiscernible.
They are getting there but don’t see the implications of their own work.
As others have said they look at the model as if it is reality in miniature and fail to acknowledge that reality is not playing ball.
The AGW people sure love their models.
Is it correct to say that an unproven and indeed unprovable model “shows” or proves anything? It might suggest a result, but nothing us proven until the model is proven. I find it troubling that the words they use offer no room for doubt, there is no equivocation. Based on the summary, they offer only a stack of assumptions based on assumptions and try to pass it off as scientific proof. It is closer to Witchcraft, and only shows they have an agenda. Where are those Science Police when you need them?
Jim D says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:39 pm
davidmhoffer, from this I can’t tell whether you read the paper.>>>
There are so many holes in both the abstract and the press release that I see no point in reading it.
“CO2 does not warm the atmosphere more than the surface enough to suppress convection in the long term,>>>
Correct. Although since sensitivity is higher in colder regions, the argument could be made that warming would decrease convection processes, though not by any substantive amount.
” but those statements are limited to transients, as I found by reading what they did.”>>>
Transients driven by step changes that are impossible. Might as well study the effects on precipitation of filling elephants with helium.
“They never had any phrases about CO2 trapping heat in the atmosphere in the paper.”
They point blank said it in the press release and in the abstract it further says ” …is a consequence of precipitation sensitivity to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations through fast tropospheric adjustment processes.” What is the troposphere adjusting to other than temperature?
“Their study was to learn about the response to step changes, not to suggest such a thing would happen.>>>
Read both the abstract and the press release again, that is EXACTLY what they are suggesting. They studied something that that cannot physicaly occur! Then they had the audacity to announce the results as being likely consequence of reducing CO2! So in brief they created a fictitious and impossible event, made up some data to describe the fictitious and impossible event, and then announced results from the fictitious, impossible event with made up data as if it applied to the real world, and without a single experiment of any sort to show that the model in any way mirrors reality. Probably decided not to bother when they discovered they’d modeled a physicaly impossible event which by default means any experiment would also be impossible to do.
“You can learn a lot by these tests,”>>>
OK, help me out here. What do you learn by modeling something that is physicaly impossible, with made up data to describe it, and no testing what so ever to determine if the simulation has any semblance to reality at all? And if by some miracle you happened upon a nugget of truth about that physicaly impossible situation, is would tell you….what? about things that are physicaly possible and may be measured by real data?
“especially since CO2 is increasing too rapidly for an equilibrium response, which may explain why droughts are expected in the near-term.>>>
Read what you just wrote. “expected in the near-term”. Expected by whom? Simulations like the ones I just trashed? Or actual data showing actual trends? You can’t take results from one simulation of something impossible, extract results from and imply that they are valid real world results, and then confirm them via “expectation” of future events. Where did the “expectation” come from? Oh yes, more computer simulations. So now we have new simulations based on impossible events with made up data that confirms the results of other simulations because they both predict something that hasn’t happened and yet and cannot be verified nor an experiment done to show that ANY of them have any basis in reality? Where’s my helium tank, and can I get those elephants in pink?
” It is also interesting that geo-engineering approaches that may quickly reduce solar radiation don’t have the same effect of increasing precipitation.>>>
Yup, and we know those don’t have the same effect because…someone modeled something physicaly impossible, described it with made up data, did no experiments to verify the accuracy of the simulations, published results, and now we have TWO works of total and complete fiction, both about things that are impossible, with no experiments at all to show that either the made up simulations or the made up data have any basis in reality at all for either of them and…
You want to start drawing conclusions about the differences in the real world effects of processes that are actually physicaly possible?
Are these scientists on drugs?
Are you on drugs?
Am I on drugs. Because if I was lying in an ally somewhere with an over dose of heroin, LSD, cocaine and a blood alcohol level of 0.3…that MIGHT explain why I keep seeing total insanity passed off as science. Oh look… there’s a floating pink elephant going by right outside my window… look at the size of the shadow he/she/it casts…omigod! Let’s simulate thousands of floating pink elephants as a global cooling strategy!
davidmhoffer, did you read the part where they said
“We do not
suggest that sudden changes in external forcings represent
realistic possibilities for the future, but they are idealized
mathematical functions designed to illustrate the fundamental
physics that would be operative even at lower rates
of radiative forcing changes.”?
This is just an academic study to help understand the climate system better. I don’t even know why the public would be interested in this. It is similar to the Schmidt et al. paper where they removed all the CO2 to see its effect on cooling the climate.
The other important thing to understand is that the climate is currently also in a transient state that can lead to some effects from the ocean lagging the atmosphere.
Also, as I said before, this study says nothing about CO2 “trapping heat”, and maybe the press release was not written by the scientists, because that is a poor description of a radiative adjustment process, or they realized you can’t say radiative adjustment in a press release and tried to use something simpler.
For a model study, the interpretation is simple and makes qualitative sense. The paper is interesting for that, even if limited to being an academic exercise.
Pat
The link I gave in my post has a measured plot of the mid atmosphere temperatures. They are falling.
Theo Goodwin :
March 26, 2011 at 10:36 am
Of course I am serious. Data always trump models, and there exists no hot spot in the data. Irrespective of what might have produced it if it had existed, it does not exist. The authors propose a model that generates a hotspot, and that has been refuted by data , and the peer reviewers should have known the data.
Jim D says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:17 pm
davidmhoffer, did you read the part where they said>>>
Jim. Right from your very own quoted text:
” they are idealized mathematical functions designed to illustrate the fundamental physics that would be operative even at lower rates of radiative forcing changes”
Reads pretty clear. They built an impossible model to illustrate how lower rates (read “possible”) would operate. Total fantasy being used to predict reality.
“This is just an academic study to help understand the climate system better”>>>
This is a study of an impossible situation with made up data and no testing (not even an attempt) to verify by experiment. What conclusions can you draw about the actual climate from this? NONE! Its only value is to prove that you can fool some of the people all of the time. It has negative value because it cost public money, produced a meaningless result, has no value as science academic or not, confuses the media, the public, and the issues.
“The other important thing to understand is that the climate is currently also in a transient state that can lead to some effects from the ocean lagging the atmosphere.”>>>
Their fake climate or our real one? In our real one, ocean heat content has been in decline. Where the ocean goes, the atmosphere must at some point follow.
“Also, as I said before, this study says nothing about CO2 “trapping heat”, “>>>
The study clearly claimed the creation of a tropospheric hotspot that would dampen convection and affect precipitation as a result. Along with a step function that is impossible, data made up, synthesized by a computer program with no real world verification testing, they used a physical explanation that depends on the existance of a tropospheric hotspot. The one part of their model that is tied to something we can actually test for is that. Tested, doesn’t exist. What are we on now? Strike 7?
“For a model study, the interpretation is simple and makes qualitative sense. The paper is interesting for that, even if limited to being an academic exercise.”>>>
I created a computer program that simulated pink elephants. I created another program that calculated the amount of shadow a floating pink elephant would cast if they all floated at the top of the atmosphere. I then simulated the surface temperature with 1, 1 million, and 1 trillion elephants. Then I instantly doubled the number of elephants in each simulation. Then I instantly cut the number in half again.
In all cases of doubling the number of elephants over the known tax record and extrapolated into the future, the computer concluded that taxes will go up. When the elephants were reduced in number however, taxes went up even faster. However, that adds up to six different scenarios, each of which results in taxes going up. I predict on that basis that taxes will go up as high as double what they are now at some point in the future measured in decades to millenia. I ran the simulation 1,967,888 times and the results were the same every time which is proof. Also, politicians have been promising to cut taxes which is closely correlated with taxes going up, so this corroborates the elephant study.
Jim, I’m not being sarcastic to put you down. You sound like you’ve put some thought into this. Just not enough. My pink elephant study probably sounds absurd to you. It should. Just like a tax payer funded study, based on physical events that are impossible, in turn based on made up data, analyzed with a computer program with no normalization to actual testing, results from which are announced as being indicative of a real world result, and theorized based on an element of climate which has considerable data suggesting it doesn’t exist…should seem absurd to you.
All these replies, and not one has noticed that Al Gore declared the opposite result?
He very clearly said the “Scientists predicted” that increase Co2 would cause an increase in rain, which would explain (well, except for the “cold enough to create snow” part) why we had such insane snowstorms this last winter?
It feel to me like the next IPCC overview is going to have some serious problems, because AGW folks are now predicting both directions at the same time. It’s one thing, and an easy thing, to ignore skeptical contributions in the Peer Reviewed Literature, but it’s going to be pretty hard to acknowledge pro-AGW literature that come to opposite conclusions, and still say that the science is clearly understood.
I just returned from Saudi Arabia – they say climate is getting wetter in recent years, they had flooding in the normally arid Jeddah. There are reports of increasing rainfall in the Sahara also.
Wetdry is to be expected.
UK may get more droughts
UK may get more rain
Temperature higher – soil moisture less
Temperature higher – soil moisture more
Sahel to get less rain
Sahel to get more rain
These people are a bunch of inept scam artists.
davidmhoffer, I am not going to say more about this. Academic studies are useful tests of these models and of our understanding of the climate system. To test things, one technique is to use extreme cases to make the signal clearer. I believe engineers do similar things when looking at responses of complex systems. That is all there is to say.
Interesting discussion between David and Jim. I believe it points out what I’ve come to see over and over again. AGW believers are not very good at critical thinking. That doesn’t mean they are stupid. Quite the contrary, Jim appears to be very bright. However, there is an art to critical thinking. You have to be skeptical by nature and you have to put in some real effort.
I believe that is why you see more skeptics are older. Through experience they have learned that you simply cannot accept anything at face value. Things are more complicated than it seems most of the time.
I also believe we all fall into the trap of simple thinking from time to time. It is difficult to always look deeply into everything we come across, especially when a topic is not that important to us.
Richard M, thanks for the “very bright” compliment. There is not a lack of critical thinking on my part. I was very skeptical of the press statement, which is why I looked further at the paper. Turns out the press statement was badly worded.
In other words, this was a case of a couple of science type old boys playing around with their x-boxes using highly improbable extreme cases.
So why the press release?
I’ll tell you why. All the predictions they’ve been making over the last 20 years or so has been trashed by mother nature. Folks in the suburbs are noticing this. So these old boys are now claiming that their x-boxes did and do predict the very weather we are now experiencing.
But because they are trying so hard, each new paper is becoming more ridiculous than the last. they are becoming laughing stock.
Shoots oneself in the foot.
“Aha you shot yourself in the foot.”
Shoots oneself in the other foot.
“No I didn’t, I shot myself in both feet.”
Jim D says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:08 am
davidmhoffer, I am not going to say more about this. Academic studies are useful tests of these models and of our understanding of the climate system. To test things, one technique is to use extreme cases to make the signal clearer. I believe engineers do similar things when looking at responses of complex systems. That is all there is to say.>>>>
Jim, why give up so easily? Allow me to share some of my background before I answer the statements above. I’m in high end technology, 30 years of it. Half my customers are either bleeding edge researchers or bleeding edge design engineers. Of the latter, about a third are either military or aerospace. I’ve sold to multiple companies producing products that were founded by the researchers I’d sold to when they were just researchers. I’ve even sold some of the products from those companies to military, aerospace, and commercial customers. So now please let me answer your “all there is to say”.
Academic studies are not “tests” of models.
Models ARE academic studies!
You can’t test one academic study by doing another academic study.
The only possible result that can come of doing so is to establish that the two academic studies are founded upon either the same, or else closely correlated assumptions.
The ONLY way to test an academic study for validity is to compare to the results of real world experimentation.
The ONLY way to test a model for validity is to compare to the results of real world experimentation.
“To test things, one technique is to use extreme cases to make the signal clearer.”
There is no such technique. Extreme cases don’t make the signal clearer as they amplify the noise as well. Extreme cases have only one purpose and that is to produce extreme results.
“I believe engineers do similar things when looking at responses of complex systems.”
And in that one sentence you reveal what it is that you don’t understand. Engineers do NO SUCH THING. THEY WOULD BE FIRED INSTANTLY AND HELD PERSONALY LIABLE FOR ANY DEATHS OR DAMAGE THAT RESULTS FROM THEIR WORK.
Engineers design systems based on known parameters and make assumptions upon unknown parameters. They model the expected behaviour of the system against those assumptions. THEN:
They build real working systems and do real world testing on them, THEN:
They compare the ACTUAL test results to the modeled results. THEN:
They investigate what the modeled results imply about what assumptions were correct, what assumptions were wrong, and what that new knowledge might suggest in terms of changing the design to result in a better design. THEN:
They change the design and model the new design, build a new test and compare to the model, and on and on and on until they have a design that does what it was supposed to do, a model of the design’s behaviour under as many circumtances as is reasonable, and actual testing to demonstrate that the design and the modeling of the design are BOTH accurate.
Jim, talk to some real engineers and you will find out I’m correct, you needn’t take my word for it. Your assumption that engineers work in the way you suggest is dead wrong to the point of it being professional misconduct and possibly subject to both civil and criminal law if they did. Once you understand that, you should see as well the absurdity of applying academic testing, of extreme cases or not, to academic models and producing any result at all that is of any use at all.
Here’s what they said in a nut shell:
1. We took a computer model of the real climate. It gets some things right and some things wrong and we don’t know why.
2. We made some changes to the data in the model that we know are physicaly impossible
3. We got results that we claim imply what the real climate would do under completely different circumstances.
4. We publish the results as meaningful for small changes in CO2 levels in the real world.
All they have actually done is to use one computer model, known to have many deficiencies, to produce results from two different data sets, both fictitious, to compare to each other. The value is ZERO because there is no testing to verify anything at any point.
davidmhoffer, yes, the models are tested and verified. You don’t believe civil engineers test stresses beyond what is expected? Do they do this for fun, or to learn something about the complex structures? Climate models are tested and improved by comparing with real data, and with common sense understanding. I don’t see how it differs from your concept of an engineering model. The paper shows an interesting, and not immediately obvious, result that rainfall would increase in the short term if you stepped down CO2. The result is plausible on physical grounds, and is of academic interest, if not yours, because it gives clues about how the climate system may operate. You seem to be saying that the climate system is too complex, and nobody should even be trying to understand it.
The wetdry climate change analogy is pure fantasy.
Most areas of the Earth go through wetter/drier years as a matter of cycles, and have done so for millenia.
How is this wetter/drier climate change conundrum any different than the previous climate disruption stuff? Not one bit.
Even worse, the outlier events currently all have historical counterparts.
The soapbox is stood upon prematurely, as all CO2 based soapboxes are.
Bottom line: AGW promises things that never materialize.
I’m quite sure that areas, that are neither very wet or dry, will be even more not too wet and not too dry if we increase CO2.
Jim D says:
March 27, 2011 at 3:02 pm
davidmhoffer, yes, the models are tested and verified. You don’t believe civil engineers test stresses beyond what is expected?>>>
YES! They test ACTUAL beams and take ACTUAL measurements to determine how much stress they can ACTUALLY take.
Which is the part you continue to not get. There is NO actual testing, verification, real world ANYTHING in this study! Do you really not get it? Or are you now being deliberately obtuse? Do what I suggested, go talk to some engineers. Ask them if it would be OK to simulate some beams and how much stress they can take, compare them at 100 degrees C and at 1,000,000 degrees C, all done with NO ACTUAL TESTING OF ANYTHING and then make recommendations on what size beam to use in a bridge.
“”””” New research from Carnegie Global Ecology scientists Long Cao and Ken Caldeira offers a novel explanation for why climates are wetter when atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations are decreasing. “””””
Does this important research paper happen to mention the ten most recent climate periods, when Atmospheric CO2 levels were decreasing; well how about the three most recent; what was the most recent period (climatic) of atmospheric CO2 level decrease ?
For extra credit; guess what these guys are smoking !
Maybe this was all a computer video game ?
Now I am aware of recent periods when atmospheric CO2 levels were decreasing. Specifically, since about Marxh of 1958, it was observed at mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, that the monthly average carbon dioxide concentration measured there was changing; specifically it was, at about a maximum level round about March give or take a month, and then fell by about 6 ppm in the next 3.5 to 5 months, and then it went back up again to reach a new maximum at about a one year interval. Continued observations of CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory, have shown a fairly consistent repetition of this behavior.
However this sort of short term noise is not generally considered to be signigficant interest in climate studies, which require research grant funding over periods of about 30 years. Otherwise it is just considered weather.
Some observers have suggested that a pattern of this type, 4-5 months down and 7-8 months up is possibly due to the seasons; which recur on about this same 12 monthly cycle; so that is not really of any climate interest, but could affect rainfall patterns; which also is just weather.
“”””” davidmhoffer says:
March 27, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Jim D says:
March 27, 2011 at 3:02 pm
davidmhoffer, yes, the models are tested and verified. You don’t believe civil engineers test stresses beyond what is expected?>>>
YES! They test ACTUAL beams and take ACTUAL measurements to determine how much stress they can ACTUALLY take.
Which is the part you continue to not get. There is NO actual testing, verification, real world ANYTHING in this study! Do you really not get it? Or are you now being deliberately obtuse? Do what I suggested, go talk to some engineers. Ask them if it would be OK to simulate some beams and how much stress they can take, compare them at 100 degrees C and at 1,000,000 degrees C, all done with NO ACTUAL TESTING OF ANYTHING and then make recommendations on what size beam to use in a bridge. “””””
David, reportedly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was designed completely by computer simulation, without any actual engineering drawings being printed; let alone any sort of prototype testing of parts being done.
Of course; that plane has yet to get off the ground; well at least commercially; but it does fly.
George E. Smith;
David, reportedly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was designed completely by computer simulation, without any actual engineering drawings being printed; let alone any sort of prototype testing of parts being done.>>>
No one prints engineering docs anymore (for the most part) as for the rest, here’s some excerpts from the design processes that falsify that report:
During the design phase, the 787 underwent extensive wind tunnel testing at Boeing’s Transonic Wind Tunnel, QinetiQ’s five-meter wind tunnel at Farnborough, UK, and NASA Ames Research Center’s wind tunnel, as well as at the French aerodynamics research agency, ONERA
June 23, 2009, Boeing announced that the first flight is postponed “due to a need to reinforce an area within the side-of-body section of the aircraft
The company expects to write off US$2.5 billion because it considers the first three Dreamliners built unsellable and suitable only for flight tests
In early November 2010, it was reported that some early 787 deliveries may be delayed, in one case some three months, to allow for rework to address issues found during flight testing.
Boeing announced that the first 787 delivery was rescheduled to the third quarter of 2011 due to software and electrical updates following the in-flight fire in November 2010.[
On August 23, 2007, a crash test involving a vertical drop of a partial composite fuselage section from about 15 ft (4.6 m) onto a 1 in (25 mm)-thick steel plate occurred in Mesa, Arizona;[78][79] the results matched what Boeing’s engineers had predicted, allowing modeling of various crash scenarios using computational analysis instead of further physical tests.
A non-flight 787 test airframe was built for static testing, and on September 27, 2008, over a period of nearly two hours, the fuselage was successfully tested at 14.9 psi
On May 3, 2009, the first test 787 was moved to the flight line following extensive factory-testing, including landing gear swings, systems integration verification, and a total run-through of the first flight
On December 12, 2009, the first 787 completed high speed taxi tests, the last major step before flight
In June 2010, gaps were discovered in the horizontal stabilizers of test aircraft, due to improperly installed shims; all aircraft produced then were to be inspected and repaired
Boeing’s schedule called for a 9-month flight test campaign
On November 9, 2010, Boeing 787, ZA002 made an emergency landing after smoke and flames were detected in the main cabin during a test flight over Texas. The electrical fire caused some systems to fail before landing.[114] Following this incident, Boeing suspended flight testing on November 10, 2010. Ground testing has been performed instead
While Boeing had been working to trim excess weight since assembly of the first airframe began, common for new aircraft in development, the company has stated that the first six 787s will be overweight. Substantial redesign work is expected to correct this, which will complicate increases in production rates. Boeing expects to have the weight issues addressed by the 21st production model.[176]
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That’s just a few examples George. Test, model, test again, model again, until they got models that could demonstrate accuracy via testing. Where the rumour came from that the plane was simply designed and it flew is beyond me. Note also, that is just the testing that BOEING did. A tremendous amount of what goes into a product like that is sub assemblies like engines for example. Boeing may have done no more on their side than document weight and horsepower and fitting locations, but that doesn’t mean Rolls Royce didn’t do extensive testing first.
I toured a Boeing composite plant a number of years ago and they were very pleased they’d shipped a prototype wing to another Boeing plant, and had just heard back that it bolted to the fuselage first time exactly as designed, no engineering changes required. It was the first time that had ever happened! No idea what model it was for, but the notion that any aircraft could be designed entirely electronicaly not only doesn’t hold water, but the changes required due to modeling that was wrong are STILL showing up and requiring more testing, modeling, testing, modeling to alleviate issues discovered in production.
“”””” davidmhoffer says:
March 28, 2011 at 1:06 pm
George E. Smith;
David, reportedly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, “””””
“”””” reportedly “””””
“”””” Cindy in San Diego says:
March 26, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I have asked this question on several sites and it is never even acknowledged: what is the optimal ‘global’ temp and why. “””””
Well Cindy, you should never ask a rational question while standing between an otherwise unemployed, and maybe unemployable “researcher”. and his bottomless source of research grant funds; aka the taxpaying profit making segment of society.
But in fact,we have no idea, just what the global Temperature actually is; becasue for one thing, we don’t have anyway of doing so. Well we do know of a way; but we don’t have any where near enough Thermometers to measure it.
Mother Gaia, knows exactly what it is, because she does have enogh thermometers; but she has no way to tell us the answer.
So the most we know is global “anomalies”, which are differences between what things are, and what they are supposed to be.
We also don’t have enough thermometers to figure that out either. The reason why the wagon wheels go backwards in your favorite horse opera, is because the movie film compoany, didn’t have enough film to take enough pictures to show that they really go forwards. Same problem as not having enough thermometers.
But that is the $64,000 question; isn’t it. If you gave the thermostat remote control to the people who complain the most about the Temperature; where do you suppose they would set it; and why ?
Well many in Scandinavia, would want to set it higher; and in Minnesota too. And many in Iraq and Sudan, would like to set it lower. You’d have an even bigger argument than we now have between people who think we are in the midst of man made runaway heating, and people who don’t think that we are.
But keep on asking questions; becasue those who complain the most don’t have any practical answers on what to do either. Well they are not paid to do so; they are paid to complain about what the people who pay their research grants, are doing to help earn the money to pay those grants.
davidmhoffer, HadCM2 is a climate model that has been tested against real climate data in numerous publications. The authors did not have to test it again. I think you misunderstood this point.
Also, civil engineers can use computers these days to test construction designs against stresses like high wind or earthquakes, and don’t always rely on scaled down real models.
Jim D says:
March 27, 2011 at 3:02 pm
… Climate models are tested and improved by comparing with real data …
—————————-
You know Jim, I don’t think this actually happening.
The IPCC AR4 climate models were given the specific instruction to only submit models which had a sensitivity between 2.0C to 4.5C. Actually, the same numbers that Manabe (the low number) and Hansen (the high number) submitted as the sensitivity in 1979 (which when averaged produced 3.25C which is how the original estimate was derived).
In the 32 years since then, nobody has been given the freedom to operate a climate model which differs from this theoritical range.
Even though the sensitivity to date (the real data) obviously indicates a lower number than this.
I just ran through the numbers in detail on the 23 AR4 climate model simulations out to 2100. It is a standard 3.25C per doubling result. The lowest result is 2.0C per doubling and the highest is 4.5C per doubling. It is, in effect, a strictly mathematical calculation, not a climate simulation.
Jim D says:
March 28, 2011 at 6:14 pm
davidmhoffer, HadCM2 is a climate model that has been tested against real climate data in numerous publications. The authors did not have to test it again. I think you misunderstood this point.>>>
Hind casting it can’t reproduce natural variability, nor the LIA or MWP. When results from older runs are compared to current results, it has constantly over estimated increases. The point misunderstood however is by you. The model has NOT been tested against reductions in CO2 in the atmosphere since there are NONE to test against. To compound matters, they created an impossible physical scenario and then extrapolated the results to a scenario a fraction of the size. Tell me, if this idiotic model is so freaking accurate, why not simulate a slow and steady decline in the first place since that is what they claim they wanted to quantify?
“Also, civil engineers can use computers these days to test construction designs against stresses like high wind or earthquakes, and don’t always rely on scaled down real models.”>>>
For starters, they wouldn’t test with scaled down models in the first place. There’s a property of material strength called the “square-cube law” that makes any such testing invalid. What the engineers MIGHT do is use computers to design bridges using components with extensive real world testing in terms of the components themselves and real world testing of how combinations of those components react to various stresses. But the final design might look like it came out of computer, and it did, but ONLY because there was a tremendous amount of real world testing and results for the computer program to draw upon. And under no circumstances would data simulated out of thin air of circumstances impossible to happen be used to make recommendations for possible designs.
I’m being nice here Jim, I really am, because you said you bothered to read. You’ve demonstrated that you can read. Unfortunately you’ve also demonstrated that you’ve made up your mind and don’t really want to understand what you’ve read. You just keep regurgitating things you *think* engineers might do, things you *think* climate models do, testing you *think* might have been done, and when explained why that’s nonsense, you just come up with a new list of things you *think* might be true.
When are you going to actually think?