From this NASA press release I’ll have more on this later. The timing of this release is interesting.
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WASHINGTON – Researchers studying carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas and a key driver of global climate change, now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide in a key part of our atmosphere. The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft.
Moustafa Chahine, the instrument’s science team leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., unveiled the new product at a briefing on recent breakthroughs in greenhouse gas, weather and climate research from AIRS at this week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The new data, which span the seven-plus years of the AIRS mission, measure the concentration and distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere–the region of Earth’s atmosphere that is located between 5 to 12 kilometers, or 3 to 7 miles, above Earth’s surface. They also track its global transport. The product represents the first-ever release of global carbon dioxide data that are based solely on observations. The data have been extensively validated against both aircraft and ground-based observations.
“AIRS provides the highest accuracy and yield of any global carbon dioxide data set available to the research community, now and for the immediate future,” said Chahine. “It will help researchers understand how this elusive, long-lived greenhouse gas is distributed and transported, and can be used to develop better models to identify ‘sinks,’ regions of the Earth system that store carbon dioxide. It’s important to study carbon dioxide in all levels of the troposphere.”
Chahine said previous AIRS research data have led to some key findings about mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide. For example, the data have shown that, contrary to prior assumptions, carbon dioxide is not well mixed in the troposphere, but is rather “lumpy.” Until now, models of carbon dioxide transport have assumed its distribution was uniform.
Carbon dioxide is transported in the mid-troposphere from its sources to its eventual sinks. More carbon dioxide is emitted in the heavily populated northern hemisphere than in its less populated southern counterpart. As a result, the southern hemisphere is a net recipient, or sink, for carbon dioxide from the north. AIRS data have previously shown the complexity of the southern hemisphere’s carbon dioxide cycle, revealing a never-before-seen belt of carbon dioxide that circles the globe and is not reflected in transport models.
In another major finding, scientists using AIRS data have removed most of the uncertainty about the role of water vapor in atmospheric models. The data are the strongest observational evidence to date for how water vapor responds to a warming climate.
“AIRS temperature and water vapor observations have corroborated climate model predictions that the warming of our climate produced as carbon dioxide levels rise will be greatly exacerbated — in fact, more than doubled — by water vapor,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.
Dessler explained that most of the warming caused by carbon dioxide does not come directly from carbon dioxide, but from effects known as feedbacks. Water vapor is a particularly important feedback. As the climate warms, the atmosphere becomes more humid. Since water is a greenhouse gas, it serves as a powerful positive feedback to the climate system, amplifying the initial warming. AIRS measurements of water vapor reveal that water greatly amplifies warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide. Comparisons of AIRS data with models and re-analyses are in excellent agreement.
“The implication of these studies is that, should greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course of increase, we are virtually certain to see Earth’s climate warm by several degrees Celsius in the next century, unless some strong negative feedback mechanism emerges elsewhere in Earth’s climate system,” Dessler said.
Originally designed to observe atmospheric temperature and water vapor, AIRS data are already responsible for the greatest improvement to five to six-day weather forecasts than any other single instrument, said Chahine. JPL scientists have shown a major consequence of global warming will be an increase in the frequency and strength of severe storms. Earlier this year, a team of NASA researchers showed how AIRS can significantly improve tropical cyclone forecasting. The researchers studied deadly Typhoon Nargis in Burma (Myanmar) in May 2008. They found the uncertainty in the cyclone’s landfall position could have been reduced by a factor of six had more sophisticated AIRS temperature data been used in the forecasts.
AIRS observes and records the global daily distribution of temperature, water vapor, clouds and several atmospheric gases including ozone, methane and carbon monoxide. With the addition of the mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide data set this week, a seven-year digital record is now complete for use by the scientific community and the public.
Animation of the 3-D transport and distribution of water vapor as measured by AIRS from June through November 2005. Image credit: NASA › Play animation (Quicktime) | › Play animation (Windows Media Player)
enlarge imageFor more on AIRS, see http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/ .
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Anything that is presented so close too this attempt to radicalize the West can not bee taken seriously!
The time is just to short to find out if its correct or again just propaganda to push the radical change of society further.
OT: Something odd going on with the Oulo Neutron Monitor ? malfunction?
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/01/01&starttime=00:00&enddate=2010/01/01&endtime=00:01&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
That’s funny, because I know I’ve heard several AGW people tell me that CO2 is dangerous because, unlike water vapor, it is evenly distributed and because of that it’ll make water vapor at the poles and destroy us all through the horrors of feedback loops.
If CO2 is distributed where we already have water vapor then I imagine its greenhouse effect would be negligible in comparison.
Any system with positive feedback is inherently unstable. If thsi were the case with the Earth’s atmosphere, we wouldn’t be here now, after 4.5 billion years of much warmer temperatures and all that positive feedback.
They’ve maybe got some interesting data, but I don’t buy their interpretation of that data.
Clarification to my previous post on what NASA means by “2 ppm accuracy”:
In About the AIRS Global Carbon Dioxide Data of Earth’s Mid-Troposphere
NASA’s describes AIRS as “Better than 2 ppm accuracy”. From NASA’s graph this appears to be 2 ppm out of 385 ppm.
i.e. the relative standard deviation for CO2 data is 0.5%.
Allan M (13:07:22) :
It’s not clear what your point is, but it’s pretty straightfoward that water vapour partitions into the atmosphere according to the atmospheric temperature (and pressure)…a warmer atmosphere contains higher levels of water vapour on average. This can be measured in the real world.
So as the atmospheric temperature rises as a result of enhanced radiative forcing (solar, greenhouse, albedo or whatever), so the atmospheric water vapour concentration rises. Since water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, the effect of the primary forcing (solar, greenhouse, albedo or whatever) is amplified.
AIRS temperature and water vapor observations have corroborated [failed]; climate model predictions
ReadMe file for gridding a la Mark New 2000
Tim Mitchell, 30.3.04
The main program for gridding is quick_interp_tdm2.pro
This program is based on one of Mark New’s called quick_interp.pro
This program takes as inputs the outputs from anomdtb.f90 option 3 –
see ~/code/linux/cruts and the readme file there. The location of
these files is identifed as pts_prefix. There may be an additional input
required of synthetic data, to augment sparse grids for secondary
variables – see the published literature for the reasoning here. The
synthetic files are in binary format and are identified to the program
through synth_prefix. Both identifiers are only prefixes, not full names,
because the program itself supplies the year-specific file endings.i Use
anomfac and synthfac as appropriate.
Use year1 and year2 to specify the range of years to process.
Use out_prefix to specify the location of the output files.
Use dist to specify the correlation decay distance for the climate
variable being interpolated – necessary information to determine where
to add dummy or synthetic data.
Use gs to specify the grid size – 0.5 for half-degree
Use dumpbin to dump, Mark New style, to unreadable IDL binary files
Use dumpglo to dump, Tim Mitchell style, to .glo files (suite of processing
software for .glo files under ~/code/linux/goglo)
Don’t bother with dumpmon
Use binfac and actfac as appropriate
If creating primary variables, don’t bother with synthetics.
If creating secondary variables, create (or find) primary variables, grid
at 2.5deg resolution, and store as IDL binary files. Then use
frs_gts_tdm.pro
rd0_gts_tdm.pro
vap_gts_anom.pro
to create synthetic grids for the correct variables. Then use quick_interp_tdm2.pro
on the secondary variable, with synth_prefix supplied, to create the new grids.
Bear in mind that there is no working synthetic method for cloud, because Mark New
lost the coefficients file and never found it again (despite searching on tape
archives at UEA) and never recreated it. This hasn’t mattered too much, because
the synthetic cloud grids had not been discarded for 1901-95, and after 1995
sunshine data is used instead of cloud data anyway.
To convert the output .glo files into the grim formatted files supplied to users:
1. convert these land+ocean files to land-only files using globulk.f90 option 1
(globulk.f90 is under ~/code/linux/goglo)
2. convert the land-only files to grim using rawtogrim.f90 (~/code/linux/grim)
Of course, we were insinutating out of jest…. But good mathematical response, foinavon.
Somebody help me. As I read this they are saying that warmer air holds more water. Who does not know that? The satellite gives them the ability to measure in more detail which I am sure is a good thing.
Where is the cause and effect of CO2 to temperature? They have 7 years of data during which time the temperature has not risen while CO2 has. It seems to me that this indicates there may be negative feedbacks.
Are they saying that water vapor rises with CO2 regardless of temperature??
What gives?
I think the science of Man’s contribution to climate change, (if any) is compromised beyond redemption. The science of climate is in its infancy and may give us some interesting new insights but the political investment in this particular branch of it has killed it as a legitimate topic forever. Not just since climategate. Politics and science don’t mix. It would be rather like extending the current legislature on road speed to the world of F1 and still expecting a meaningful outcome from the racing. Can’t happen.
This looks to me like “proof by smiling, waving of hands, and analogy” – in other words, nothing.
Isn’t it patently obvious that, on balance, water vapor feedback is negative?
Otherwise, the earth would have overheated millenia ago.
Scientists must reconcile their findings with what is known to be true.
Is this the satellite that crashed on takeoff recently? I was thinking maybe they reconstructed the data that it would have measured had it survived.
I am not a Lay person and corroboration of this type most certainly does not mean the models are correct.
Foinavon: 13:44:37:
“So as the atmospheric temperature rises as a result of enhanced radiative forcing (solar, greenhouse, albedo or whatever), so the atmospheric water vapour concentration rises. Since water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, the effect of the primary forcing (solar, greenhouse, albedo or whatever) is amplified.”
What in the world do you mean “as” temperature rises. It’s IF temperature rises, THEN water vapor rises and that still does address other feedbacks.
Your problem is obvious.
foinavon (13:44:37) :
Earth to foinavon:
The temperature isn’t rising. If it was, your argument that water vapor [as measured by relative humidity] would be correct.
But since the climate has generally been cooling, relative humidity has been declining: click
This is one more piece of evidence that the numbers showing global warming have been fudged. If the planet was warming, then R.H. would be increasing.
I’ll go with empirical evidence over computer based conjectures any time.
AK
Even the faked and flawed temperature data shows far less warming than the models. Please don’t “correct” things with deliberately mendacious statements.
Hi there
As someone with limited scientific knowledge I was wondering how the atmosphere responds to differences in pressure, temperature and volume. Does altering one of these parameters have any effect on interactions of greenhopuse gases, cloud formation etc.
How did NASA come up with that?
This NASA page on AIRS findings shows 3 papers finding that the models disagree with AIRS observations w.r.t. water-vapor, and 2 papers (including Dessler’s) finding that the models agree well with observations:
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/science/major_findings/climate/
It also has another paper finding that “the apparent good agreement of a climate model’s broadband longwave flux with observations may be due to a fortuitous cancellation of spectral errors.”
The most comprehensive seems to be Pierce et al. 2006, which finds that the models significantly overestimate upper-tropospheric water vapor, and underestimate it for the lower troposphere.
Preliminary results have been reported for Japan’s GOSAT satellite:
T. Yokota, Y. Yoshida, N. Eguchi, Y. Ota, T. Tanaka, H. Watanabe and S. Maksyutov; “Global Concentrations of CO2 and CH4 Retrieved from GOSAT: First Preliminary Results”, SOLA, Vol. 5, pp.160-163 (2009) . PDF
My 14:01:09
“does NOT address….”
I couldn’t help but notice the strong concentration of C02 over the US which has had a decade of declining temps. OMG! C02 causes global cooling! And we just had a below normal amount of storms in the Atlantic this year! Someone better inform the UN IPCC so they can tax the crap out of us for this phenomenon as well! /sarc
Smokey (14:02:14) :
Not really Smokey. As atmospheric temperatures rise the absolute humidity should rise. The relative humidity may or may not rise. Direct measurement and theory indicate that the relative humidy might stay roughly constant in a warming (or cooling atmosphere). However there is very clear evidence that the water vapour content of the atmosphere is rising as the earth’s temperature rises.
The earth may not have warmed during the last few years (2005 was the post 2008 max in all the surface data sets), but that doesn’t negate the rather well established increase in atmospheric water vapour during the last couple of decades:
Santer BD et al. (2007) Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 15248-15253
Soden BJ, et al (2005) The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening Science 310, 841-844.
Buehler SA (2008) An upper tropospheric humidity data set from operational satellite microwave data. J. Geophys. Res. 113, art #D14110
Brogniez H and Pierrehumbert RT (2007) Intercomparison of tropical tropospheric humidity in GCMs with AMSU-B water vapor data. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, art #L17912
Gettelman A and Fu, Q. (2008) Observed and simulated upper-tropospheric water vapor feedback . J. Climate 21, 3282-3289
and so on…
I have lost all trust in government controlled groups such as NASA. I would not trust any of their modeling work. We need complete transparency so that scientists around the world can verify the findings.