The Spencer-Braswell & Dessler papers

Please also pay attention to the Lindzen and Choi papers which are also criticized in Dessler (2011), because they are discussing basically the same problem, the cloud feedback using observational data. With Trenberth himself facing Lindzen, and Dessler assigned to scuffle with Spencer, this is really a spectacular fight.
References:
Lindzen, R. S., and Y.‐S. Choi (2009), On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705, doi:10.1029/2009GL039628.
Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, C. O’Dell, and T. Wong (2010), Relationships between tropical sea surface temperature and top‐of‐atmosphere radiation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03702,
doi:10.1029/2009GL042314.
Lindzen, R. S., and Y. S. Choi (2011), On the observational determination of climate
sensitivity and its implications, Asia Pacific J. Atmos. Sci., 47, 377-390, doi: 10.1007/s13143-011-0023-x.
Dessler, A. E. (2011), Cloud variations and the Earth’s energy budget, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2011GL049236, in press.

Anthony this is a wonderful innovation and it makes WUWT the leading education center for climate science blogs. Hats off to you, Sir.

What follows is a recap of three posts I made on on Dr. Spencer’s blog, concerning computation of the left-hand side of the main equation. You may recall that Dr. Spencer obtained 2.3 Wm^-2 and Dr. Dessler obtained 9 Wm^-2 for the LHS. The obvious differences between these papers were (a) Spencer used quarterly data, while Dessler used monthly data; (b) Spencer used a mixing layer depth of 25 meters while Dessler used a mixing layer depth of 100 meters.
In his blog, Dr. Spencer recommended use of Levitus when computing the LHS. Levitus appears to be the World Ocean Atlas (WOA) which is available online in updated form, here:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA09/woa09data.html
I found that mixing layer depth has already been computed by Levitus on a global grid, and available from NOAA, here: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA94/mix.html
There are three criteria for ML in use: A) (most common definition) depth at which temp is .5 C lower than the surface; B) depth at which the density is .125 standard deviations greater than the surface; and C) depth at which the density is equal to what the density would be with a .5 C change. These three definitions give rather different results.
After downloading all the data and running global weighted averages (weight = cosine[latitude]), the global average mixing layer depth for each definition was:
A. 71.5 meters
B. 57.2 meters
C. 45.9 meters
These numbers fall neatly between the depths used by Spencer and Dessler.
Downloading quarterly data for temperature (objectively analyzed means) from WOA allows you to compute a weighted mean SST for the globe. The four weighted means thus computed were: JFM=18.293; AMJ=18.1672; JAS=18.128;OND=17.935, with a global annual mean of 18.130 C.
The four differences between quarters are then ,358, -.131, -.034, and -.193, with a standard deviation of those values being .247 C.
To compute heat capacity (and change thereof) I used the mean temp of 18.130 as a “before” value and a changed temp of 18.130+.247=18.377 as an “after” value. I computed density and heat capacity for both using a salinity of 35 g/kg and the equations of Sharqawy et.al. 2010. For a 1m x 1m x 25m column, I get mass=25634.58 kg (before), 25633.14 kg (after); HC=29854059 kJ (before), 29878463 kJ (after) for a quarterly change of 24404 kJ. The rate of change per quarter is therefore 2440384 J / 7889400 seconds = 3.1 Wm^-2. This is a bit higher than the 2.3 value given by Dr. Spencer. Note also that this value may be wrong; one could argue that we should be operating on a constant mass of water rather than a constant volume. Computing on that basis, the result would be 3.3 Wm^-2.
But note that this was computed using a 25m ML depth. Using the Levitus ML depths gives for the LHS of the equation energy change rates of (A) 8.9 (B) 7.1 and (C) 5.7 Wm^-2 respectively. In other words, Dr. Spencer’s 2.3 Wm^-2 seems too low.
Using monthly (rather than quarterly) WOA data, I find the global weighted-average SSTs by month: 18.176, 18.347, 18.357, 18.282, 18.147, 18.057, 18.134, 18.173, 18.078, 17.950, 17.871, 17.984 giving the same 18.13 average as in quarterly data.
This gives Delta-Ts of: .192, .171, .010, -.075, -.135, -.090, .077, .038, -.094, -.128, -.078, .113, and the standard deviation of these is .117°C. Already we notice a major difference: if the SST is changing by typically .117 C in a month, we might expect it to change by .117 x 3 = .35 C per quarter. But the actual quarterly change is .25, which means that monthly data is more variable than quarterly data. Not a surprise, but here it is quantified.
Now let’s repeat the same computations, but using Dr. Dessler’s assumptions. In this run I added a slight improvement: I also downloaded and used salinity data from WAO, which is a little less than the 35 I had been using (mean=34.586).
Using T=18.130 as the “before” temp and 18.130+.117=18.246 as “after”, I find a “before” density of 1025.0639, and for a column 1×1×100 meters a mass of 102506.4 kg, specific heat of 4.001219 KJ/kg/K and heat capacity of 119468525 KJ. “After” density is 1025.0369, specific heat is 4.001262, and heat capacity is 119514517 KJ. The change over time is therefore 45991.5 KJ in 2629800 seconds, for 17.5 Wm^-2.
Using the Levitus ML depths gives for the LHS of the equation energy change rates of (A) 12.5 (B) 10.0 and (C) 8.0 Wm^-2 respectively. In other words, Dr. Dessler’s use of 9 Wm^-2 seems about right, if used with a corrected ML depth, while Dr. Spencer’s LHS values are substantially too low.
Frankly, I’m new at these equations and perhaps I’ve made a mistake somewhere. If so, I hope Dr. Spencer (or someone else) will correct me.

in his own resignation that the scitfeinic process including peer review was followed, why should he apologize to Trenberth for allowing SB11 to be published? Why would Trenberth publicly gloat about it? What does Wagner fear from Trenberth so much that he would resign and apologize to Trenberth for allowing a paper to be published despite it being scitfeinically sound and properly peer reviewed according to Wagner himself? What power does Trenberth yield that he can publicly gloat about forcing the Editor-In-Chief of an academic journal to resign AND apologize to Trenberth PERSONALLY for daring to allow a paper based on actual measured observations to be published for the one, and only reason, that it disagreed with artificial computer models.4. Upon investigation, it became apparent that Wolfgang Wagner heads up a program at the Vienna University of Technology where he is responsible for the intersection of remote sensing with climate modeling. His resignation in that context is clearly an apology to the climate modelling community in general for allowing SB11 to be published at all, as was his personal apology to Trenberth. Further investigation turned up this little gem: Wagner heads an effort to create a database of soil moisture on a global basis that is dependent upon a larger UN initiative called WEGEX for data, and that organization’s science committee is chaired by none other than Kevin Trenberth. Question Buzz: Does preventing actual data from being published because it disagrees with computer models that don’t even agree with each other sound like science to you?5. In his glee about forcing Wagner’s resignation and apology, Trenberth bragged that a soon to be published paper by Dessler would discredit SB11. Desller’s paper was published, and in a day or so Spencer had documented the clear errors and assumptions in it, as well as the fact that much of it was ad hominem attacks rather than an actual rebuttal of SB11 s science. Dessler soon backed down, agreed to remove the disparaging (and irrelevent) remarks, and to correct any errors in data analysis between their two papers which for the most part turned out to be errors in Dessler’s work, not SB11.6. So now Trenberth HIMSELF (Dessler having failed miserably) take up the battle and writes a comment to Remote Sensing that is published the same day. He opens his critique of SB11 with the most astounding comment:“Numerous attempts have been made to constrain climate sensitivity with observations.”Trenberth’s non peer reviewed comment asserts, as did Wagner in both his resignation and hisw apology to Trenberth, that actual data has no right to displace the conclusions of artificial computer models. He complains that Spencer is just modeling ENSO, carefully ignoring the fact that if so, 18 of the 22 models published by the IPCC as being factual don’t model ENSO at all, not even close. In his rebuttal , Trenberth chooses data that is contaminated by other factors instead of the data that Spencer and Braswell used which was based on the PREVALENCE of the data signal they were measuring in the first place.So my dear friends KR and Buzz, does any of this sound like science to you? Can you justify in any way one scientist resigning and apologizing to another for allowing properly peer reviewed measured data to be published just because it disagrees with the all mighty, all knowing, Travesty of the Missing Heat Trenberth? For publishing actual data in the face of results from mostly wrong artificial computer models?I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me. It sounds like prostitution has been displaced as the world’s oldest profession.