Here’s an interesting paper that breaks with consensus. The only problem is that it is being ignored for the most part by the mainstream climate community, even going so far as to having a debate over the paper’s source of data (NCEP reanalysis of radiosonde data) and declaring the data to be too “iffy”. You can read all about that debate at Climate Audit called “
A peek behind the curtain“. It is a firsthand account of the attempt at publishing from one of the authors, Garth Paltridge. Here is how he characterized the debate at a conference:
Those ‘against’ (among them a number of people from GISS) simply said that the radiosonde data were too ‘iffy’ to report the trends publicly in a political climate where there are horrible people who might make sinful use of them. Those ‘for’ simply said that scientific reportage shouldn’t be constrained by the politically correct.
Since most of the objections seemed to be coming from GISS, who has a surface data set that one could also describe as “iffy”, I find their argument rather humorous.
What is really interesting though is this graph presented in comments at CA by Ken Gregory:
Ken writes:
“The relevant discussion of the water vapour effect from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (Chapter 8 page 632):
The radiative effect of absorption by water vapour is roughly proportional to the logarithm of its concentration, so it is the fractional change in water vapour concentration, not the absolute change, that governs its strength as a feedback mechanism. Calculations with GCMs suggest that water vapour remains at an approximately constant fraction of its saturated value (close to unchanged relative humidity (RH)) under global-scale warming (see Section 8.6.3.1). Under such a response, for uniform warming, the largest fractional change in water vapour, and thus the largest contribution to the feedback, occurs in the upper troposphere.
This means that changes in specific humidity in the upper troposphere (300 – 700 mb) may be very significant even though the amount of water vapour there is low due to the cold temperatures.
If relative humidity remains constant, CO2 induced warming would cause increasing specific humidity and a strong positive feedback. But if relative humidity is actually falling (due to water vapour being displaced by CO2 as per Miskolczi) then water vapour may cause a negative feedback. The specific humidity has declined dramatically in 2008 at ALL levels in the troposphere.
I do not know the accuracy of the NCEP reanalysis data on upper tropospheric humidity, but the direct measurement of humidity by weather balloons seems preferable to the very indirect determination from satellite data.”
I agree. Here is more on the paper and it’s conclusions. – Anthony
New Paper Suggests Long-Term Water Vapour Feedback is Negative
(1) Environmental Biology Group, RSBS, Australian National University, GPO Box 475, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia
(2) Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
(3) Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Hobart, TAS, Australia
The Abstract states:
The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data on tropospheric humidity are examined for the period 1973 to 2007. It is accepted that radiosonde-derived humidity data must be treated with great caution, particularly at altitudes above the 500 hPa pressure level. With that caveat, the face-value 35-year trend in zonal-average annual-average specific humidity q is significantly negative at all altitudes above 850 hPa (roughly the top of the convective boundary layer) in the tropics and southern midlatitudes and at altitudes above 600 hPa in the northern midlatitudes. It is significantly positive below 850 hPa in all three zones, as might be expected in a mixed layer with rising temperatures over a moist surface. The results are qualitatively consistent with trends in NCEP atmospheric temperatures (which must also be treated with great caution) that show an increase in the stability of the convective boundary layer as the global temperature has risen over the period. The upper-level negative trends in q are inconsistent with climate-model calculations and are largely (but not completely) inconsistent with satellite data. Water vapor feedback in climate models is positive mainly because of their roughly constant relative humidity (i.e., increasing q) in the mid-to-upper troposphere as the planet warms. Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2. In this context, it is important to establish what (if any) aspects of the observed trends survive detailed examination of the impact of past changes of radiosonde instrumentation and protocol within the various international networks.
The paper concludes:
It is of course possible that the observed humidity trends from the NCEP data are simply the result of problems with the instrumentation and operation of the global radiosonde network from which the data are derived. The potential for such problems needs to be examined in detail in an effort rather similar to the effort now devoted to abstracting real surface temperature trends from the face-value data from individual stations of the international meteorological networks. As recommended by Elliot and Gaffen (1991) in their original study of the US radiosonde network, there needs to be a detailed examination of how radiosonde instrumentation, operating procedures, and recording practices of all nations have changed over the years and of how these changes may have impacted on the humidity data.
In the meantime, it is important that the trends of water vapor shown by the NCEP data for the middle and upper troposphere should not be “written off” simply on the basis that they are not supported by climate models—or indeed on the basis that they are not supported by the few relevant satellite measurements. There are still many problems associated with satellite retrieval of the humidity information pertaining to a particular level of the atmosphere—particularly in the upper troposphere. Basically, this is because an individual radiometric measurement is a complicated function not only of temperature and humidity (and perhaps of cloud cover because “cloud clearing” algorithms are not perfect), but is also a function of the vertical distribution of those variables over considerable depths of atmosphere. It is difficult to assign a trend in such measurements to an individual cause.
Since balloon data is the only alternative source of information on the past behavior of the middle and upper tropospheric humidity and since that behavior is the dominant control on water vapor feedback, it is important that as much information as possible be retrieved from within the “noise” of the potential errors.
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Bob S. Thank you for the Chilean paper… perhaps those who are familiar with Marcel Leroux work are not so surprised by this observation “In central and northern Chile (17_–37_S) the most notable feature is a strong contrast between surface cooling at coastal stations (_0.2_C/decade) and warming in the Andes (+0.25_C/decade), only 100–200 km further inland. Coastal radiosonde data imply that the coast-Andes variation is largely due to strong vertical stratification of temperature trends in the atmosphere west of the Andes.”
“data to be too ‘iffy’.”
As the climate models clearly show.
Regarding “problematic” radiosonde data due to difference in methodology and countries over time, surely it should be possible to sample a few of the best cases against themself to see if they support the overall trend or not?
Sounds like a perfect case for Steve McIntyre to ply his skills on to me.
Re the above, by “best” I mean most internally homogeneous and best understood as to what/how it was done and over what time frames, and preferably minimizing local contamination over the history.
Does anybody have a brief description of why the radiosonde data is considered iffy? There seems to be a “consensus” that the data is flawed.
I hope they didn’t send them aloft with the bar-b-que attached.
See here where in I try to make a comparison between what models tend to do in this regard and what the radiosonde reanalyses say:
http://timetochooseagain.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/modelshumiditydata.docx
You can have a pair of system, water/hot dry air and water/cold damp air that have IDENTICAL heat contents. A classically trained physicist will hate the former and conclude that it is a disequilibrium; but that is the point. The Earth is not an equilibrium it is a whole set of quasi-steady states. If air temperature is up, but water content is down, the system is thermally the same.
George E. Smith (14:20:59) :
So I’ll bite !
Just what the blazes is 300-700 mb ? Millibars, George. Same as hectoPascals. Unit of pressure in MKS system. 1 bar approximately is standard atmospheric pressure. Actually 1.01325 bar.
Interesting, the Michael Pook who is one of the co-authors seems to be the same as the bloke who was my predecessor as base meteorologist at RAAF Pearce in 1972.
For the sensible people here, ignore chriscolose. He’s an utter troll who made a lot of noises over at Jennifer Marohasy’s blog a while back.
Gary P (17:20:19) : “Does anybody have a brief description of why the radiosonde data is considered iffy? There seems to be a “consensus” that the data is flawed.”
As far as I can tell, it is because the measured data doesn’t find a ‘hot-spot’ in troposphere near the tropics as predicted by warming theory. More than 200,000 radiosonde reports over several decades from various countries fail to show it.
For those who want to know more about how radiosondes actually measure the atmosphere, and what they measure and report, google “FMH3” to find and download the Federal Meteorological Handbook 3. All you want to know, and more is right there.
By the way — these RAOBS are not produced by untrained volunteers — this is professionals doing a job, not the joke that USCHN is.
From the spreadsheet linked above which covers almost the entire troposphere,
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/Ken/Optical%20Depth%20Data.xls
I calculated the weighted average water vapour numbers and there is more-or-less constant Specific Humidity over the period for every year – ie. there is NO water vapour feedback AT ALL (either positive or negative).
The weighted average relative humidity numbers show a decline of 4.0% (percentage points) about the same as the temperature increase of 3.5% – ie constant specific humidity.
This is for the surface at 1050 MB all the way up to near the top of the troposphere where the vast, vast majority of the water vapour is. And the numbers are not very far off the figures from Andrew Dessler’s paper for the changes from 2007 to 2008.
That means the global warming models are not correct with respect to relative humidity and specific humidity and the increase in temps from a doubling of CO2 is back to the basic physics calculations of 1.2C per doubling (with no water vapour feedback and closer to what the actual temperature trend to date also indicates).
Again, no wonder they don’t want these numbers shown.
DocMartyn (17:50:02) :
in complete agreement,
….The Earth is not an equilibrium,,,
Radiosonde data is iffy. Nearly as iffy as RegEm PC 3 and Bristle Cones. Give it another three years and there may be justification for a cooling trend. Then there can be a more concrete conversation. Bad thing about trends is that they are a lot like predicting a bottom in the market. 7800 Dow I thought was a bottom. Now 6500 looks more like the real deal. How high is your confidence level, based on rational reasoning, not the mind numbed BS of the parrots? Remember, the fate of the world rests on your decision. Can you evaluate things without allowing personal bias?
That is my problem. There are a few real points of intelligent contention and there are thousands of red herrings. While the web is a wonderful thing, too many dumbasses spoil the debate. It is time to narrow the discussion to real points worthy of debate.
Bill Illis
I don’t understand
HELP ME:
Citation: Paltridge, G. W., G. D. Farquhar, and M. Cuntz (2007), Maximum entropy production, cloud feedback, and climate change, Geophys. Res. Lett.,34, L14708
Garth W. Paltridge
Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
A steady-state energy-balance climate model based on a global constraint of maximum entropy production is used to examine cloud feedback and the response of surface temperature T to doubled atmospheric CO2. The constraint ensures that change in zonal cloud amount necessarily involves change in the convergence KX of meridional energy flow. Without other feedbacks, the changes in , KX and T range from about 2%, 2 Wm−2 and 1.5 K respectively at the equator to −2%, −2 Wm−2 and 0.5 K at the poles. Global-average cloud effectively remains unchanged with increasing CO2 and has little effect on global-average temperature. Global-average cloud decreases with increasing water vapour and amplifies the positive feedback of water vapour and lapse rate. The net result is less cloud at all latitudes and a rise in T of the order of 3 K at the equator and 1 K at the poles. Ice-albedo and solar absorption feedbacks are not considered.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029925.shtml
sorry
Bill, your averaging is not appropriate. Different levels have different expectations of change and where the changes occur gives weight to there significance, as different levels of the atmosphere have different levels of humidity, and GHE is log of concentration. It looks to me like, difficulties with the data not withstanding, the feedback is suggested to be negative by the balloon data.
Rod Smith: It is my understanding that there are serious in inhomogeneities in the radiosonde data due to change overs in the instrumentation and other problems for example:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3062
I’ll believe the adjustments are done correctly when there seems to be some kind of agreement between various groups about how to fix the data sets. For now, I cannot just take the data at face value without be aware of and noting the caveats. Radiosondes seem to be better set up for weather rather than climate monitoring at the moment.
Its an interesting study. An overlay of the mean temperatures would be interesting.. I think too turn youre back on something because it dosnt fit into youre preconceived ideas is ludicrous. Obviously an area that needs further study. Id also be curious too know if the figures for wind intensity/persistence etc show much variation in relation to climate and what effect that could have on RH.
It’s the Sun, stupid!
New direct evidence demonstrate that changes in solar activity influence climate
Willie Soon
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Willie_Soon-Its_the_Sun_Stupid.pdf
We have known for nearly 80 years that small changes in solar activity can cause large climatic changes. Where sunlight falls, for how long, and with what effect, determine how climate will respond.
The most recent scientific evidence shows that even small changes in solar radiation have a strong effect on Earth’s temperature and climate.
I recently discovered direct evidence that changes in solar activity have influenced what has been called the “conveyor-belt” circulation of the great Atlantic Ocean currents over the past 240 years. For instance, solar-driven changes in temperature, and in the volume of freshwater output from the Arctic, cause variations in sea surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic 5-20 years later.
These previously undocumented results have been published in the journal Physical Geography. They make it difficult to maintain that changes in solar activity play an insignificant role in climate change, especially over the Arctic.
There are several papers (journal papers, poster sessions, and conference presentations) that are talking about the interconnections of Earth’s orbit, rotation, trade winds, and SST showing some predictability and correlations with atmospheric temperature trends. If you google “pacific sea surface temperatures” you will find lots to read in terms of abstracts but if you want to read the whole thing you have to fork over.
Nature, Not Human Activity,
Rules the Climate
Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change
Edited by S. Fred Singer
http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf
Our concern about the environment, going back some 40 years, has taught us important lessons. It is one thing to impose drastic measures and harsh economic penalties when an environmental problem is clear-cut and severe. It is foolish to do so when the problem is largely hypothetical and not substantiated by observations. As NIPCC shows by offering an independent, non-governmental ‘second opinion’ on the ‘global warming’ issue, we do not currently have any convincing evidence or observations of significant climate change from other than natural causes.
We donated our time and best efforts to produce this report out of concern that the IPCC was provoking an irrational fear of anthropogenic global warming based on incomplete and faulty science. Global warming hype has led to demands for unrealistic efficiency standards for cars, the construction of uneconomic wind and solar energy stations, the establishment of large production facilities for uneconomic biofuels such as ethanol from corn, requirements that electric companies purchase expensive power from so-called ‘renewable’energy sources, and plans to sequester, at considerable expense, carbon dioxide emitted from power plants. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with initiatives to increase energy efficiency or diversify energy sources, they cannot be justified as a realistic means to control climate.
“…policies have been developed that try to hide the huge cost of greenhouse gas controls, such as cap and trade, a Clean Development Mechanism, carbon offsets, and similar schemes that enrich a few at the expense of the rest of us.
NIPCC is what its name suggests: an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. Because we are not predisposed to believe climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, we are able to look at evidence the IPCC ignores. Because we do not work for any governments, we are not biased toward the assumption that greater government regulation is necessary to avert imagined catastrophes.
Mike Bryant
Thanks for the reference to the UAH satellite data and for pointing to the Chilean coast. Perhaps, even if we take nothing more from the Chilean paper, it is good to see a nice correspondence between the temperature trend numbers from the satellite data and those from the upper air measurements for the region.
” Michael D Smith (11:05:19) : …If it’s negative and we can prove it, we might be able to stop the madness and ward off the economic carnage that is about to happen through CO2 regulation.”
If record cold, record snow, and a cooling trend in the earth won’t change a politician’s mind I don’t think a graph in a journal will do the trick either.
But maybe I’m jaded.
Ed Scott, I’m a little underwhelmed by Soon’s essay. I have read his papers so I expected that he would present the evidence to back up his claims, but as it stands, its just an abstract/polemic. Mind you, I do think that the sun is a key element in climate change.
0.1 PERCENTER
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif
about 2W/m^2, which is
0.15% higher irradiation, or
about 2 joules/(m^2*s)
Now estimate how much reaches the Earth in a day…
(exclude poles)
2/3 Earth surface area is about 131,293,600 miles^2
= 340,048,861 km^2
= 340,048,861,000,000 m^2
Flux = 680,097,722,000,000 joules/sec
assume hottest part of day, from 10 to 3, or 5 hours, which is 5*(60^2) seconds
= 12,241,758,996,000,000,000 joules
to get an idea of how much energy that is, lets see how much water that could evaporate, with the energy to vaporize water at 2443 joules/g
that’s about 5,010,953,334,424,887 grams of water, or….
= 5,010,953,334 tonnes (= 5.0 gigtonnes of water a day)
compare that with the alleged carbon added to the atmosphere a day…
assume 25 gigatonnes per year…
68,493,150 tonnes carbon per day, or…
273,972,602.tonnes of CO2 =( 0.27 gigatonnes of CO2 per day)
Thus, if my assumptions aren’t far off, and my math is correct, the extra energy impinging on earth could, in theory, add 18 times as much water to the atmosphere per day as humans allegedly add CO2. So, if we can’t ignore the CO2, why do we have to ignore the iddy bitty extra energy?
All this for the dumbest idea ever invented: regulating CO2. Like that will somehow remove it from Earth’s atmosphere. One could conceivably come up with an affordable way to scrub the particualte, catalyse the S02 and trap the mercury emissions… maybe. If you stop burning fossil and natural fuels in one country, the industries will flee to one where they can, and they will.
Until the day comes when the fossil fuels are gone, it’s business as usual, folks. If we do somehow manage to remove all CO2, plant life will cease as will animal life dependent on it in the food chain. Never mind about going into an ice age, with zero C02 it’s game over for life.
No C02=No Plant Life=No Animal Life
Pragmatic,
//”It is an interesting choice of words “mainstream science…” since by all appearances, discussion and understanding of climate feedbacks of all manner, especially water vapor is at its infancy. Your argument strikes me as the equivalent of statements like, “because of global warming, it is less cold.”
It seems somewhat straight forward – if RH declines so must the GH effect.”//
On your first statement, the hotly disputed feedback generally pertains to clouds. I’m not aware of any real challenge to the water vapor feedback that is still alive today, so I think “mainstream science” is an appropriate term and is summarized well in the Dessler and Sherwood Science paper, by the IPCC, NAS, and others. The evidence is not at all “emotional” as the title of this thread suggests.
It is not true that if RH declines, the GH effect declines. All that *necessarily* changes is the magnitude of the total water vapor feedback, since it no longer rises proportionally to the saturation pressure.
REPLY:I see that you just could not stay away from the very blog you write off. If there was no “emotional” component to the argument, you would not have reacted the way you did, and opened your own blog post with ad hominem attacks on me. My point is that these hotly debated issues over data often fall prey to the very thing you’ve so aptly demonstrated. Thanks. – Anthony
PS – Also, I think you missed the pun. But that’s normal, I find that very strong believers in AGW often can’t see humor, and as you pointed out about yourself on your blog “I’m a grumpy guy”. May hope and happiness find you. – Anthony
I got the pun, actually. I’m just much less receptive to your data analysis than others, but I don’t mind commenting here, even though you successfully have most of your readers rather confused.
Ad Hominems are insult arguments which stand on their own. I think I firmly demonstrated that your arguments are bogus scientifically, and yes, I did throw in my own words into the mix. I think my remarks are rather nice given the attention your blog gets, and the citation it receives, despite the fact that most of your posts are in large error.
REPLY: I suppose its a matter of opinion then, that we differ. – Anthony