The problem with existing climate models:
Guest post by Stephen Wilde
Even those who aver that man’s activity affects climate on a global scale rather than just locally or regionally appear to accept that the existing climate models are incomplete. It is a given that the existing models do not fully incorporate data or mechanisms involving cloudiness or global albedo (reflectivity) variations or variations in the speed of the hydrological cycle and that the variability in the temperatures of the ocean surfaces and the overall ocean energy content are barely understood and wholly inadequately quantified in the infant attempts at coupled ocean/atmosphere models. Furthermore the effect of variability in solar activity on climate is barely understood and similarly unquantified.
As they stand at present the models assume a generally static global energy budget with relatively little internal system variability so that measurable changes in the various input and output components can only occur from external forcing agents such as changes in the CO2 content of the air caused by human emissions or perhaps temporary after effects from volcanic eruptions, meteorite strikes or significant changes in solar power output.
If such simple models are to have any practical utility it is necessary to demonstrate that some predictive skill is a demonstrable outcome of the models. Unfortunately it is apparent that there is no predictive skill whatever despite huge advances in processing power and the application of millions or even billions of man hours from reputable and experienced scientists over many decades.
As I will show later on virtually all climate variability is a result of internal system variability and additionally the system not only sets up a large amount of variability internally but also provides mechanisms to limit and then reduce that internal variability. It must be so or we would not still have liquid oceans. The current models neither recognise the presence of that internal system variability nor the processes that ultimately stabilise it.
The general approach is currently to describe the climate system from ‘the bottom up’ by accumulating vast amounts of data, observing how the data has changed over time, attributing a weighting to each piece or class of data and extrapolating forward. When the real world outturn then differs from what was expected then adjustments are made to bring the models back into line with reality. This method is known as ‘hindcasting’.
Although that approach has been used for decades no predictive skill has ever emerged. Every time the models have been adjusted using guesswork (or informed judgment as some would say) to bring them back into line with ongoing real world observations a new divergence between model expectations and real world events has begun to develop.
It is now some years since the weighting attached to the influence of CO2 was adjusted to remove a developing discrepancy between the real world warming that was occurring at the time and which had not been fully accounted for in the then climate models. Since that time a new divergence began and is now becoming embarrassingly large for those who made that adjustment. At the very least the weighting given to the effect of more CO2 in the air was excessive.
The problem is directly analogous to a financial accounting system that balances but only because it contains multiple compensating errors. The fact that it balances is a mere mirage. The accounts are still incorrect and woe betide anyone who relies upon them for the purpose of making useful commercial decisions.
Correcting multiple compensating errors either in a climate model or in a financial accounting system cannot be done by guesswork because there is no way of knowing whether the guess is reducing or compounding the underlying errors that remain despite the apparent balancing of the financial (or in the case of the climate the global energy) budget.
The system being used by the entire climatological establishment is fundamentally flawed and must not be relied upon as a basis for policy decisions of any kind.
A better approach:
We know a lot about the basic laws of physics as they affect our day to day existence and we have increasingly detailed data about past and present climate behaviour.
We need a New Climate Model (from now on referred to as NCM) that is created from ‘the top down’ by looking at the climate phenomena that actually occur and using deductive reasoning to decide what mechanisms would be required for those phenomena to occur without offending the basic laws of physics.
We have to start with the broad concepts first and use the detailed data as a guide only. If a broad concept matches the reality then the detailed data will fall into place even if the broad concept needs to be refined in the process. If the broad concept does not match the reality then it must be abandoned but by adopting this process we always start with a broad concept that obviously does match the reality so by adopting a step by step process of observation, logic, elimination and refinement a serviceable NCM with some predictive skill should emerge and the more detailed the model that is built up the more predictive skill will be acquired.
That is exactly what I have been doing step by step in my articles here:
for some two years now and I believe that I have met with a degree of success because many climate phenomena that I had not initially considered in detail seem to be falling into line with the NCM that I have been constructing.
In the process I have found it necessary to propound various novel propositions that have confused and irritated warming proponents and sceptics alike but that is inevitable if one just follows the logic without a preconceived agenda which I hope is what I have done.
I will now go on to describe the NCM as simply as I can in verbal terms, then I will elaborate on some of the novel propositions (my apologies if any of them have already been propounded elsewhere by others but I think I would still be the first to pull them all together into a plausible NCM) and I will include a discussion of some aspects of the NCM which I find encouraging.
Preliminary points:
- Firstly we must abandon the idea that variations in total solar output have a significant effect over periods of time relevant to human existence. At this point I should mention the ‘faint sun paradox’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox
Despite a substantial increase in the power of the sun over billions of years the temperature of the Earth has remained remarkably stable. My proposition is that the reason for that is the existence of water in liquid form in the oceans combined with a relatively stable total atmospheric density. If the power input from the sun changes then the effect is simply to speed up or slow down the hydrological cycle.
An appropriate analogy is a pan of boiling water. However much the power input increases the boiling point remains at 100C. The speed of boiling however does change in response to the level of power input. The boiling point only changes if the density of the air above and thus the pressure on the water surface changes. In the case of the Earth’s atmosphere a change in solar input is met with a change in evaporation rates and thus the speed of the whole hydrological cycle keeping the overall temperature stable despite a change in solar power input.
A change in the speed of the entire hydrological cycle does have a climate effect but as we shall see on timescales relevant to human existence it is too small to measure in the face of internal system variability from other causes.
Unless more CO2 could increase total atmospheric density it could not have a significant effect on global tropospheric temperature. Instead the speed of the hydrological cycle changes to a minuscule and unmeasurable extent in order to maintain sea surface and surface air temperature equilibrium. As I have explained previously a change limited to the air alone short of an increase in total atmospheric density and pressure is incapable of altering that underlying equilibrium.
2. Secondly we must realise that the absolute temperature of the Earth as a whole is largely irrelevant to what we perceive as climate. In any event those changes in the temperature of the Earth as a whole are tiny as a result of the rapid modulating effect of changes in the speed of the hydrological cycle and the speed of the flow of radiated energy to space that always seeks to match the energy value of the whole spectrum of energy coming in from the sun.
The climate in the troposphere is a reflection of the current distribution of energy within the Earth system as a whole and internally the system is far more complex than any current models acknowledge.
That distribution of energy can be uneven horizontally and vertically throughout the ocean depths, the troposphere and the upper atmosphere and furthermore the distribution changes over time.
We see ocean energy content increase or decrease as tropospheric energy content decreases or increases. We see the stratosphere warm as the troposphere cools and cool as the troposphere warms. We see the upper levels of the atmosphere warm as the stratosphere cools and vice versa. We see the polar surface regions warm as the mid latitudes cool or the tropics warm as the poles cool and so on and so forth in infinite permutations of timing and scale.
As I have said elsewhere:
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that the rate of energy transfer varies all the time between ocean and air, air and space and between different layers in the oceans and air. The troposphere can best be regarded as a sandwich filling between the oceans below and the stratosphere above. The temperature of the troposphere is constantly being affected by variations in the rate of energy flow from the oceans driven by internal ocean variability, possibly caused by temperature fluctuations along the horizontal route of the thermohaline circulation and by variations in energy flow from the sun that affect the size of the atmosphere and the rate of energy loss to space.
The observed climate is just the equilibrium response to such variations with the positions of the air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological cycle always adjusting to bring energy differentials above and below the troposphere back towards equilibrium (Wilde’s Law ?).
Additionally my propositions provide the physical mechanisms accounting for the mathematics of Dr. F. Miskolczi..”
He appears to have demonstrated mathematically that if greenhouse gases in the air other than water vapour increase then the amount of water vapour declines so as to maintain an optimum optical depth for the atmosphere which modulates the energy flow to maintain sea surface and surface air temperature equilibrium. In other words the hydrological cycle speeds up or slows down just as I have always proposed.
3. In my articles to date I have been unwilling to claim anything as grand as the creation of a new model of climate because until now I was unable to propose any solar mechanism that could result directly in global albedo changes without some other forcing agent or that could account for a direct solar cause of discontinuities in the temperature profile along the horizontal line of the oceanic thermohaline circulation.
I have now realised that the global albedo changes necessary and the changes in solar energy input to the oceans can be explained by the latitudinal shifts (beyond normal seasonal variation) of all the air circulation systems and in particular the net latitudinal positions of the three main cloud bands namely the two generated by the mid latitude jet streams plus the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The secret lies in the declining angle of incidence of solar energy input from equator to poles.
It is apparent that the same size and density of cloud mass moved, say, 1000 miles nearer to the equator will have the following effects:
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It will receive more intense irradiation from the sun and so will reflect more energy to space.
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It will reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface compared to what it would have let in if situated more poleward.
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In the northern hemisphere due to the current land/sea distribution the more equatorward the cloud moves the more ocean surface it will cover thus reducing total solar input to the oceans and reducing the rate of accretion to ocean energy content
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It will produce cooling rains over a larger area of ocean surface.
As a rule the ITCZ is usually situated north of the equator because most ocean is in the southern hemisphere and it is ocean temperatures that dictate it’s position by governing the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air. Thus if the two mid latitude jets move equatorward at the same time as the ITCZ moves closer to the equator the combined effect on global albedo and the amount of solar energy able to penetrate the oceans will be substantial and would dwarf the other proposed effects on albedo from changes in cosmic ray intensity generating changes in cloud totals as per Svensmark and from suggested changes caused in upper cloud quantities by changes in atmospheric chemistry involving ozone which various other climate sceptics propose.
Thus the following NCM will incorporate my above described positional cause of changes in albedo and rates of energy input to the oceans rather than any of the other proposals. That then leads to a rather neat solution to the other theories’ problems with the timing of the various cycles as becomes clear below.
4. I have previously described why the solar effect on climate is not as generally thought but for convenience I will summarise the issue here because it will help readers to follow the logic of the NCM.Variations in total solar power output on timescales relevant to human existence are tiny and are generally countered by a miniscule change in the speed of the hydrological cycle as described above.
However according to our satellites variations in the turbulence of the solar energy output from sunspots and solar flares appear to have significant effects.
During periods of an active solar surface our atmosphere expands and during periods of inactive sun it contracts.
When the atmosphere expands it does so in three dimensions around the entire circumference of the planet but the number of molecules in the atmosphere remains the same with the result that there is an average reduced density per unit of volume with more space between the molecules. Consequently the atmosphere presents a reduced resistance to outgoing longwave energy photons that experience a reduced frequency of being obstructed by molecules in the atmosphere.
Additionally a turbulent solar energy flow disturbs the boundaries of the layers in the upper atmosphere thus increasing their surface areas allowing more energy to be transferred from layer to layer just as wind on water causes waves, an increased sea surface area and faster evaporation.
The changes in the rate of outgoing energy flow caused by changes in solar surface turbulence may be small but they appear to be enough to affect the air circulation systems and thereby influence the overall global energy budget disproportionately to the tiny variations in solar power intensity.
Thus when the sun is more active far from warming the planet the sun is facilitating an increased rate of cooling of the planet. That is why the stratosphere cooled during the late 20th Century period of a highly active sun although the higher levels of the atmosphere warmed. The higher levels were warmed by direct solar impacts but the stratosphere cooled because energy was going up faster than it was being received from the troposphere below.
The opposite occurs for a period of inactive sun.
Some do say that the expansion and contraction of the atmosphere makes no difference to the speed of the outward flow of longwave energy because that outgoing energy still has to negotiate the same mass but that makes no sense to me if that mass is more widely distributed over a three dimensional rather than two dimensional space. If one has a fine fabric container holding a body of liquid the speed at which the liquid escapes will increase if the fabric is stretched to a larger size because the space between the fibres will increase.
Furthermore all that the NCM requires is for the stratosphere alone to lose or gain energy faster or slower so as to influence the tropospheric polar air pressure cells. The energy does not need to actually escape to space to have the required effect. It could just as well simply take a little longer or a little less long to traverse the expanded or contracted upper atmospheric layers.
The New Climate Model (NCM)
- Solar surface turbulence increases causing an expansion of the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation reduces, energy is lost to space faster.
- The stratosphere cools. Possibly also the number of chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere increases due to the increased solar effects with faster destruction of ozone.
- The tropopause rises.
- There is less resistance to energy flowing up from the troposphere so the polar high pressure systems shrink and weaken accompanied by increasingly positive Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
- The air circulation systems in both hemispheres move poleward and the ITCZ moves further north of the equator as the speed of the hydrological cycle increases due to the cooler stratosphere increasing the temperature differential between stratosphere and surface.
- The main cloud bands move more poleward to regions where solar insolation is less intense so total global albedo decreases.
- More solar energy reaches the surface and in particular the oceans as more ocean surfaces north of the equator are exposed to the sun by the movement of the clouds to cover more continental regions.
- Less rain falls on ocean surfaces allowing them to warm more.
- Ocean energy input increases but not all is returned to the air. A portion enters the thermohaline circulation to embark on a journey of 1000 to 1500 years. A pulse of slightly warmer water has entered the ocean circulation.
- Solar surface turbulence passes its peak and the Earth’s atmosphere starts to contract.
- Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation increases, energy is lost to space more slowly.
- The stratosphere warms. Ozone levels start to recover.
- The tropopause falls
- There is increased resistance to energy flowing up from the troposphere so the polar high pressure systems expand and intensify producing increasingly negative Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
- The air circulation systems in both hemispheres move back equatorward and the ITCZ moves nearer the equator as the speed of the hydrological cycle decreases due to the warming stratosphere reducing the temperature differential between stratosphere and surface.
- The main cloud bands move more equatorward to regions where solar insolation is more intense so total global albedo increases once more.
- Less solar energy reaches the surface and in particular the oceans as less ocean surfaces north of the equator are exposed to the sun by the movement of the clouds to cover more oceanic regions.
- More rain falls on ocean surfaces further cooling them.
- Ocean energy input decreases and the amount of energy entering the thermohaline circulation declines sending a pulse of slightly cooler water on that 1000 to 1500 year journey.
- After 1000 to 1500 years those variations in energy flowing through the thermohaline circulation return to the surface by influencing the size and intensity of the ocean surface temperature oscillations that have now been noted around the world in all the main ocean basins and in particular the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is likely that the current powerful run of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillations is the pulse of warmth from the Mediaeval Warm Period returning to the surface with the consequent inevitable increase in atmospheric CO2 as that warmer water fails to take up as much CO2 by absorption. Cooler water absorbs more CO2, warmer water absorbs less CO2. We have the arrival of the cool pulse from the Little Ice Age to look forward to and the scale of its effect will depend upon the level of solar surface activity at the time. A quiet sun would be helpful otherwise the rate of tropospheric cooling as an active sun throws energy into space at the same time as the oceans deny energy to the air will be fearful indeed. Fortunately the level of solar activity does seem to have begun a decline from recent peaks.
- The length of the thermohaline circulation is not synchronous with the length of the variations in solar surface turbulence so it is very much a lottery as to whether a returning warm or cool pulse will encounter an active or inactive sun.
- A returning warm pulse will try to expand the tropical air masses as more energy is released and will try to push the air circulation systems poleward against whatever resistance is being supplied at the time by the then level of solar surface turbulence. A returning cool pulse will present less opposition to solar effects.
- Climate is simply a product of the current balance in the troposphere between the solar and oceanic effects on the positions and intensities of all the global air circulation systems
- The timing of the solar cycles and ocean cycles will drift relative to one another due to their asynchronicity so there will be periods when solar and ocean cycles supplement one another in transferring energy out to space and other periods when they will offset one another.
26) During the current interglacial the solar and oceanic cycles are broadly offsetting one another to reduce overall climate variability but during glacial epochs they broadly supplement one another to produce much larger climate swings. The active sun during the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Modern Warm Period and the quiet sun during the Little Ice Age reduced the size of the climate swings that would otherwise have occurred. During the former two periods the extra energy from a warm ocean pulse was ejected quickly to space by an active sun to reduce tropospheric heating. During the latter period the effect on tropospheric temperatures of reduced energy from a cool ocean pulse was mitigated by slower ejection of energy to space from a less active sun.
Discussion points:
Falsification:
Every serious hypothesis must be capable of being proved false. In the case of this NCM my narrative is replete with opportunities for falsification if the future real world observations diverge from the pattern of cause and effect that I have set out.
However that narrative is based on what we have actually observed over a period of 1000 years with the gaps filled in by deduction informed by known laws of physics.
At the moment I am not aware of any observed climate phenomena that would effect falsification. If there be any that suggest such a thing then I suspect that they will call for refinement of the NCM rather than abandonment.
For true falsification we would need to observe events such as the mid latitude jets moving poleward during a cooling oceanic phase and a period of quiet sun or the ITCZ moving northward whilst the two jets moved equatorward or the stratosphere, troposphere and upper atmosphere all warming or cooling in tandem or perhaps an unusually powerful Arctic Oscillation throughout a period of high solar turbulence and a warming ocean phase.
They say nothing is impossible so we will have to wait and see.
Predictive skill:
To be taken seriously the NCM must be seen to show more predictive skill than the current computer based models.
In theory that shouldn’t be difficult because their level of success is currently zero.
From a reading of my narrative it is readily apparent that if the NCM matches reality then lots of predictions can be made. They may not be precise in terms of scale or timing but they are nevertheless useful in identifying where we are in the overall scheme of things and the most likely direction of future trend.
For example if the mid latitude jets stay where they now are then a developing cooling trend can be expected.
If the jets move poleward for any length of time then a warming trend may be returning.
If the solar surface becomes more active then we should see a reduction in the intensity of the Arctic Oscillation.
If the current El Nino fades to a La Nina then the northern winter snows should not be as intense next winter but it will nevertheless be another cold though drier northern hemisphere winter as the La Nina denies energy to the air.
The past winter is a prime example of what the NCM suggests for a northern winter with an El Nino during a period of quiet sun. The warmth from the oceans pumps energy upwards but the quiet sun prevents the poleward movement of the jets. The result is warming of the tropics and of the highest latitudes (but the latter stay below the freezing point of water) and a flow of cold into the mid latitudes and more precipitation in the form of snow at lower latitudes than normal.
So I suggest that a degree of predictive skill is already apparent for my NCM.
Likely 21st Century climate trend:
There are 3 issues to be resolved for a judgement on this question.
i) We need to know whether the Modern Warm Period has peaked or not. It seems that the recent peak late 20th Century has passed but at a level of temperature lower than seen during the Mediaeval Warm Period. Greenland is not yet as habitable as when the Vikings first colonised it. Furthermore it is not yet 1000 years since the peak of the Mediaeval Warm Period which lasted from about 950 to 1250 AD
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/medieval-warm-period-rediscovered
so I suspect that the Mediaeval warmth now emanating from the oceans may well warm the troposphere a little more during future years of warm oceanic oscillations. I would also expect the CO2 levels to continue drifting up until a while after the Mediaeval Warm Period water surface warming peak has begun it’s decline. That may still be some time away, perhaps a century or two.
ii) We need to know where we are in the solar cycles. The highest peak of solar activity in recorded history occurred during the late 20th Century but we don’t really know how active the sun became during the Mediaeval Warm Period. There are calculations from isotope proxies but the accuracy of proxies is in the doghouse since Climategate and the hockey stick farrago. However the current solar quiescence suggests that the peak of recent solar activity is now over.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
iii) Then we need to know where we stand in relation to the other shorter term cycles of sun and oceans.
Each varies on at least two other timescales. The level of solar activity varies during each cycle and over a run of cycles. The rate of energy release from the oceans varies from each El Nino to the following La Nina and back again over several years and the entire Pacific Decadal Oscillation alters the rate of energy release to the air every 25 to 30 years or so.
All those cycles vary in timing and intensity and interact with each other and are then superimposed on the longer term cycling that forms the basis of this article.
Then we have the chaotic variability of weather superimposed on the whole caboodle.
We simply do not have the data to resolve all those issues so all I can do is hazard a guess based on my personal judgement. On that basis I think we will see cooling for a couple of decades due to the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which has just begun then at least one more 20 to 30 year phase of natural warming before we start the true decline as the cooler thermohaline waters from the Little Ice Age come back to the surface.
If we get a peak of active sun at the same time as the worst of the cooling from the Little Ice Age comes through the oceanic system then that may be the start of a more rapid ending of the current interglacial but that is 500 years hence by which time we will have solved our energy problems or will have destroyed our civilisation.
Other climate theories:
Following the implosion of the CO2 based theory there are lots of other good ideas going around and much effort being expended by many individuals on different aspects of the climate system.
All I would suggest at the moment is that there is room in my NCM for any of those theories that demonstrate a specific climate response from sources other than sun and oceans.
All I contend is that sun and oceans together with the variable speed of the hydrological cycle assisted by the latitudinal movements of the air circulation systems and the vertical movement of the tropopause overwhelmingly provide the background trend and combine to prevent changes in the air alone changing the Earth’s equilibrium temperature.
For example:
Orbital changes feed into the insolation and albedo effects caused by moveable cloud masses.
Asteroid strikes and volcanoes feed into the atmospheric density issue.
Changing length of day and external gravitational forces feed into the speed of the thermohaline circulation.
Geothermal energy feeds into temperatures along the horizontal path of the thermohaline circulation.
Cosmic ray variations and ozone chemistry feed into the albedo changes.
The NCM can account for all past climate variability, can give general guidance as to future trends and can accommodate all manner of supplementary climate theories provided their real world influence can be demonstrated.
I humbly submit that all this is an improvement on existing modelling techniques and deserves fuller and more detailed consideration and investigation.
Novel propositions:
I think it helpful to set out here some of the novel propositions that I have had to formulate in order to obtain a climate description that complies both with observations and with basic laws of physics. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Other new propositions may be apparent from the content and/or context of my various articles
i) Earth’s temperature is determined primarily by the oceans and not by the air (The Hot Water Bottle Effect). The contribution of the Greenhouse effect is miniscule.
ii) Changes in the air alone cannot affect the global equilibrium temperature because of oceanic dominance that always seeks to maintain sea surface and surface air equilibrium whatever the air tries to do. Warm air cannot significantly affect the oceans due to the huge difference in thermal capacities and by the effect of evaporation which removes unwanted energy to latent form as necessary to maintain the said equilibrium.
iii) Counterintuitively an active sun means cooling not warming and vice versa.
iv) The net global oceanic rate of energy release to the air is what matters with regard to the oceanic effect on the latitudinal positions of the air circulation systems and the associated cloud bands. All the oceanic oscillations affecting the rates of energy release to the air operate on different timescales and different magnitudes as energy progresses through the system via surface currents (not the thermohaline circulation which is entirely separate).
v) More CO2 ought theoretically induce faster cooling of the oceans by increasing evaporation rates. Extra CO2 molecules simply send more infra red radiation back down to the surface but infra red cannot penetrate deeper than the region of ocean surface involved in evaporation and since evaporation has a net cooling effect due to the removal of energy as latent heat the net effect should be increased cooling and not warming of the oceans.
vi) The latitudinal position of the air circulation systems at any given moment indicates the current tropospheric temperature trend whether warming or cooling and their movement reveals any change in trend
vii) All the various climate phenomena in the troposphere serve to balance energy budget changes caused by atmospheric effects from solar turbulence changes on the air above which affect the rate of energy loss to space or from variable rates of energy release from the oceans below.
viii) The speed of the hydrological cycle globally is the main thermostat in the troposphere. Changes in its speed are achieved by latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems and by changes in the height of the tropopause.
ix) The difference between ice ages and interglacials is a matter of the timing of solar and oceanic cycles. Interglacials only occur when the solar and oceanic cycles are offsetting one another to a sufficient degree to minimise the scale of climate variability thereby preventing winter snowfall on the northern continents from being sufficient to last through the following summer.
x) Landmass distribution dictates the relative lengths of glacials and interglacials. The predominance of landmasses in the northern hemisphere causes glaciations to predominate over interglacials by about 9 to 1 with a full cycle every 100, 000 years helped along by the orbital changes of the Milankovitch cycles that affect the pattern of insolation on those shifting cloud masses.
xi) Distribution of energy within the entire system is more significant for climate (which is limited to the troposphere) than the actual temperature of the entire Earth. The latter varies hardly at all.
xii) All regional climate changes are a result of movement in relation to the locally dominant air circulation systems which move cyclically poleward and equatorward.
xiii) Albedo changes are primarily a consequence of latitudinal movement of the clouds beyond normal seasonal variability.
ix) The faint sun paradox is explained by the effectiveness of changes in the speed of the hydrological cycle. Only if the oceans freeze across their entire surfaces thereby causing the hydrological cycle to cease or if the sun puts in energy faster than it can be pumped upward by the hydrological cycle will the basic temperature equilibrium derived from the properties of water and the density and pressure of the atmosphere fail to be maintained.
A New And Effective Climate Model
The problem with existing climate models:
Even those who aver that man’s activity affects climate on a global scale rather than just locally or regionally appear to accept that the existing climate models are incomplete. It is a given that the existing models do not fully incorporate data or mechanisms involving cloudiness or global albedo (reflectivity) variations or variations in the speed of the hydrological cycle and that the variability in the temperatures of the ocean surfaces and the overall ocean energy content are barely understood and wholly inadequately quantified in the infant attempts at coupled ocean/atmosphere models. Furthermore the effect of variability in solar activity on climate is barely understood and similarly unquantified.
As they stand at present the models assume a generally static global energy budget with relatively little internal system variability so that measurable changes in the various input and output components can only occur from external forcing agents such as changes in the CO2 content of the air caused by human emissions or perhaps temporary after effects from volcanic eruptions, meteorite strikes or significant changes in solar power output.
If such simple models are to have any practical utility it is necessary to demonstrate that some predictive skill is a demonstrable outcome of the models. Unfortunately it is apparent that there is no predictive skill whatever despite huge advances in processing power and the application of millions or even billions of man hours from reputable and experienced scientists over many decades.
As I will show later on virtually all climate variability is a result of internal system variability and additionally the system not only sets up a large amount of variability internally but also provides mechanisms to limit and then reduce that internal variability. It must be so or we would not still have liquid oceans. The current models neither recognise the presence of that internal system variability nor the processes that ultimately stabilise it.
The general approach is currently to describe the climate system from ‘the bottom up’ by accumulating vast amounts of data, observing how the data has changed over time, attributing a weighting to each piece or class of data and extrapolating forward. When the real world outturn then differs from what was expected then adjustments are made to bring the models back into line with reality. This method is known as ‘hindcasting’.
Although that approach has been used for decades no predictive skill has ever emerged. Every time the models have been adjusted using guesswork (or informed judgement as some would say) to bring them back into line with ongoing real world observations a new divergence between model expectations and real world events has begun to develop.
It is now some years since the weighting attached to the influence of CO2 was adjusted to remove a developing discrepancy between the real world warming that was occurring at the time and which had not been fully accounted for in the then climate models. Since that time a new divergence began and is now becoming embarrassingly large for those who made that adjustment. At the very least the weighting given to the effect of more CO2 in the air was excessive.
The problem is directly analogous to a financial accounting system that balances but only because it contains multiple compensating errors. The fact that it balances is a mere mirage. The accounts are still incorrect and woe betide anyone who relies upon them for the purpose of making useful commercial decisions.
Correcting multiple compensating errors either in a climate model or in a financial accounting system cannot be done by guesswork because there is no way of knowing whether the guess is reducing or compounding the underlying errors that remain despite the apparent balancing of the financial (or in the case of the climate the global energy) budget.
The system being used by the entire climatological establishment is fundamentally flawed and must not be relied upon as a basis for policy decisions of any kind.
A better approach:
We know a lot about the basic laws of physics as they affect our day to day existence and we have increasingly detailed data about past and present climate behaviour.
We need a New Climate Model (from now on referred to as NCM) that is created from ‘the top down’ by looking at the climate phenomena that actually occur and using deductive reasoning to decide what mechanisms would be required for those phenomena to occur without offending the basic laws of physics.
We have to start with the broad concepts first and use the detailed data as a guide only. If a broad concept matches the reality then the detailed data will fall into place even if the broad concept needs to be refined in the process. If the broad concept does not match the reality then it must be abandoned but by adopting this process we always start with a broad concept that obviously does match the reality so by adopting a step by step process of observation, logic, elimination and refinement a serviceable NCM with some predictive skill should emerge and the more detailed the model that is built up the more predictive skill will be acquired.
That is exactly what I have been doing step by step in my articles here:
for some two years now and I believe that I have met with a degree of success because many climate phenomena that I had not initially considered in detail seem to be falling into line with the NCM that I have been constructing.
In the process I have found it necessary to propound various novel propositions that have confused and irritated warming proponents and sceptics alike but that is inevitable if one just follows the logic without a preconceived agenda which I hope is what I have done.
I will now go on to describe the NCM as simply as I can in verbal terms, then I will elaborate on some of the novel propositions (my apologies if any of them have already been propounded elsewhere by others but I think I would still be the first to pull them all together into a plausible NCM) and I will include a discussion of some aspects of the NCM which I find encouraging.
Preliminary points:
-
Firstly we must abandon the idea that variations in total solar output have a significant effect over periods of time relevant to human existence. At this point I should mention the ‘faint sun paradox’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox
Despite a substantial increase in the power of the sun over billions of years the temperature of the Earth has remained remarkably stable. My proposition is that the reason for that is the existence of water in liquid form in the oceans combined with a relatively stable total atmospheric density. If the power input from the sun changes then the effect is simply to speed up or slow down the hydrological cycle.
An appropriate analogy is a pan of boiling water. However much the power input increases the boiling point remains at 100C. The speed of boiling however does change in response to the level of power input. The boiling point only changes if the density of the air above and thus the pressure on the water surface changes. In the case of the Earth’s atmosphere a change in solar input is met with a change in evaporation rates and thus the speed of the whole hydrological cycle keeping the overall temperature stable despite a change in solar power input.
A change in the speed of the entire hydrological cycle does have a climate effect but as we shall see on timescales relevant to human existence it is too small to measure in the face of internal system variability from other causes.
Unless more CO2 could increase total atmospheric density it could not have a significant effect on global tropospheric temperature. Instead the speed of the hydrological cycle changes to a miniscule and unmeasurable extent in order to maintain sea surface and surface air temperature equilibrium. As I have explained previously a change limited to the air alone short of an increase in total atmospheric density and pressure is incapable of altering that underlying equilibrium.
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Secondly we must realise that the absolute temperature of the Earth as a whole is largely irrelevant to what we perceive as climate. In any event those changes in the temperature of the Earth as a whole are tiny as a result of the rapid modulating effect of changes in the speed of the hydrological cycle and the speed of the flow of radiated energy to space that always seeks to match the energy value of the whole spectrum of energy coming in from the sun.
The climate in the troposphere is a reflection of the current distribution of energy within the Earth system as a whole and internally the system is far more complex than any current models acknowledge.
That distribution of energy can be uneven horizontally and vertically throughout the ocean depths, the troposphere and the upper atmosphere and furthermore the distribution changes over time.
We see ocean energy content increase or decrease as tropospheric energy content decreases or increases. We see the stratosphere warm as the troposphere cools and cool as the troposphere warms. We see the upper levels of the atmosphere warm as the stratosphere cools and vice versa. We see the polar surface regions warm as the mid latitudes cool or the tropics warm as the poles cool and so on and so forth in infinite permutations of timing and scale.
As I have said elsewhere:
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that the rate of energy transfer varies all the time between ocean and air, air and space and between different layers in the oceans and air. The troposphere can best be regarded as a sandwich filling between the oceans below and the stratosphere above. The temperature of the troposphere is constantly being affected by variations in the rate of energy flow from the oceans driven by internal ocean variability, possibly caused by temperature fluctuations along the horizontal route of the thermohaline circulation and by variations in energy flow from the sun that affect the size of the atmosphere and the rate of energy loss to space.
The observed climate is just the equilibrium response to such variations with the positions of the air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological cycle always adjusting to bring energy differentials above and below the troposphere back towards equilibrium (Wilde’s Law ?).
Additionally my propositions provide the physical mechanisms accounting for the mathematics of Dr. F. Miskolczi..”
He appears to have demonstrated mathematically that if greenhouse gases in the air other than water vapour increase then the amount of water vapour declines so as to maintain an optimum optical depth for the atmosphere which modulates the energy flow to maintain sea surface and surface air temperature equilibrium. In other words the hydrological cycle speeds up or slows down just as I have always proposed.
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In my articles to date I have been unwilling to claim anything as grand as the creation of a new model of climate because until now I was unable to propose any solar mechanism that could result directly in global albedo changes without some other forcing agent or that could account for a direct solar cause of discontinuities in the temperature profile along the horizontal line of the oceanic thermohaline circulation.
I have now realised that the global albedo changes necessary and the changes in solar energy input to the oceans can be explained by the latitudinal shifts (beyond normal seasonal variation) of all the air circulation systems and in particular the net latitudinal positions of the three main cloud bands namely the two generated by the mid latitude jet streams plus the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The secret lies in the declining angle of incidence of solar energy input from equator to poles.
It is apparent that the same size and density of cloud mass moved, say, 1000 miles nearer to the equator will have the following effects:
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It will receive more intense irradiation from the sun and so will reflect more energy to space.
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It will reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface compared to what it would have let in if situated more poleward.
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In the northern hemisphere due to the current land/sea distribution the more equatorward the cloud moves the more ocean surface it will cover thus reducing total solar input to the oceans and reducing the rate of accretion to ocean energy content
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It will produce cooling rains over a larger area of ocean surface.
As a rule the ITCZ is usually situated north of the equator because most ocean is in the southern hemisphere and it is ocean temperatures that dictate it’s position by governing the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air. Thus if the two mid latitude jets move equatorward at the same time as the ITCZ moves closer to the equator the combined effect on global albedo and the amount of solar energy able to penetrate the oceans will be substantial and would dwarf the other proposed effects on albedo from changes in cosmic ray intensity generating changes in cloud totals as per Svensmark and from suggested changes caused in upper cloud quantities by changes in atmospheric chemistry involving ozone which various other climate sceptics propose.
Thus the following NCM will incorporate my above described positional cause of changes in albedo and rates of energy input to the oceans rather than any of the other proposals. That then leads to a rather neat solution to the other theories’ problems with the timing of the various cycles as becomes clear below.
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I have previously described why the solar effect on climate is not as generally thought but for convenience I will summarise the issue here because it will help readers to follow the logic of the NCM.Variations in total solar power output on timescales relevant to human existence are tiny and are generally countered by a miniscule change in the speed of the hydrological cycle as described above.
However according to our satellites variations in the turbulence of the solar energy output from sunspots and solar flares appear to have significant effects.
During periods of an active solar surface our atmosphere expands and during periods of inactive sun it contracts.
When the atmosphere expands it does so in three dimensions around the entire circumference of the planet but the number of molecules in the atmosphere remains the same with the result that there is an average reduced density per unit of volume with more space between the molecules. Consequently the atmosphere presents a reduced resistance to outgoing longwave energy photons that experience a reduced frequency of being obstructed by molecules in the atmosphere.
Additionally a turbulent solar energy flow disturbs the boundaries of the layers in the upper atmosphere thus increasing their surface areas allowing more energy to be transferred from layer to layer just as wind on water causes waves, an increased sea surface area and faster evaporation.
The changes in the rate of outgoing energy flow caused by changes in solar surface turbulence may be small but they appear to be enough to affect the air circulation systems and thereby influence the overall global energy budget disproportionately to the tiny variations in solar power intensity.
Thus when the sun is more active far from warming the planet the sun is facilitating an increased rate of cooling of the planet. That is why the stratosphere cooled during the late 20th Century period of a highly active sun although the higher levels of the atmosphere warmed. The higher levels were warmed by direct solar impacts but the stratosphere cooled because energy was going up faster than it was being received from the troposphere below.
The opposite occurs for a period of inactive sun.
Some do say that the expansion and contraction of the atmosphere makes no difference to the speed of the outward flow of longwave energy because that outgoing energy still has to negotiate the same mass but that makes no sense to me if that mass is more widely distributed over a three dimensional rather than two dimensional space. If one has a fine fabric container holding a body of liquid the speed at which the liquid escapes will increase if the fabric is stretched to a larger size because the space between the fibres will increase.
Furthermore all that the NCM requires is for the stratosphere alone to lose or gain energy faster or slower so as to influence the tropospheric polar air pressure cells. The energy does not need to actually escape to space to have the required effect. It could just as well simply take a little longer or a little less long to traverse the expanded or contracted upper atmospheric layers.
The New Climate Model (NCM)
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Solar surface turbulence increases causing an expansion of the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation reduces, energy is lost to space faster.
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The stratosphere cools. Possibly also the number of chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere increases due to the increased solar effects with faster destruction of ozone.
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The tropopause rises.
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There is less resistance to energy flowing up from the troposphere so the polar high pressure systems shrink and weaken accompanied by increasingly positive Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
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The air circulation systems in both hemispheres move poleward and the ITCZ moves further north of the equator as the speed of the hydrological cycle increases due to the cooler stratosphere increasing the temperature differential between stratosphere and surface.
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The main cloud bands move more poleward to regions where solar insolation is less intense so total global albedo decreases.
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More solar energy reaches the surface and in particular the oceans as more ocean surfaces north of the equator are exposed to the sun by the movement of the clouds to cover more continental regions.
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Less rain falls on ocean surfaces allowing them to warm more.
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Ocean energy input increases but not all is returned to the air. A portion enters the thermohaline circulation to embark on a journey of 1000 to 1500 years. A pulse of slightly warmer water has entered the ocean circulation.
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Solar surface turbulence passes its peak and the Earth’s atmosphere starts to contract.
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Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation increases, energy is lost to space more slowly.
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The stratosphere warms. Ozone levels start to recover.
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The tropopause falls
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There is increased resistance to energy flowing up from the troposphere so the polar high pressure systems expand and intensify producing increasingly negative Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations.
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The air circulation systems in both hemispheres move back equatorward and the ITCZ moves nearer the equator as the speed of the hydrological cycle decreases due to the warming stratosphere reducing the temperature differential between stratosphere and surface.
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The main cloud bands move more equatorward to regions where solar insolation is more intense so total global albedo increases once more.
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Less solar energy reaches the surface and in particular the oceans as less ocean surfaces north of the equator are exposed to the sun by the movement of the clouds to cover more oceanic regions.
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More rain falls on ocean surfaces further cooling them.
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Ocean energy input decreases and the amount of energy entering the thermohaline circulation declines sending a pulse of slightly cooler water on that 1000 to 1500 year journey.
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After 1000 to 1500 years those variations in energy flowing through the thermohaline circulation return to the surface by influencing the size and intensity of the ocean surface temperature oscillations that have now been noted around the world in all the main ocean basins and in particular the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is likely that the current powerful run of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillations is the pulse of warmth from the Mediaeval Warm Period returning to the surface with the consequent inevitable increase in atmospheric CO2 as that warmer water fails to take up as much CO2 by absorption. Cooler water absorbs more CO2, warmer water absorbs less CO2. We have the arrival of the cool pulse from the Little Ice Age to look forward to and the scale of its effect will depend upon the level of solar surface activity at the time. A quiet sun would be helpful otherwise the rate of tropospheric cooling as an active sun throws energy into space at the same time as the oceans deny energy to the air will be fearful indeed. Fortunately the level of solar activity does seem to have begun a decline from recent peaks.
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The length of the thermohaline circulation is not synchronous with the length of the variations in solar surface turbulence so it is very much a lottery as to whether a returning warm or cool pulse will encounter an active or inactive sun.
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A returning warm pulse will try to expand the tropical air masses as more energy is released and will try to push the air circulation systems poleward against whatever resistance is being supplied at the time by the then level of solar surface turbulence. A returning cool pulse will present less opposition to solar effects.
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Climate is simply a product of the current balance in the troposphere between the solar and oceanic effects on the positions and intensities of all the global air circulation systems
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The timing of the solar cycles and ocean cycles will drift relative to one another due to their asynchronicity so there will be periods when solar and ocean cycles supplement one another in transferring energy out to space and other periods when they will offset one another.
26) During the current interglacial the solar and oceanic cycles are broadly offsetting one another to reduce overall climate variability but during glacial epochs they broadly supplement one another to produce much larger climate swings. The active sun during the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Modern Warm Period and the quiet sun during the Little Ice Age reduced the size of the climate swings that would otherwise have occurred. During the former two periods the extra energy from a warm ocean pulse was ejected quickly to space by an active sun to reduce tropospheric heating. During the latter period the effect on tropospheric temperatures of reduced energy from a cool ocean pulse was mitigated by slower ejection of energy to space from a less active sun.
Discussion points:
Falsification:
Every serious hypothesis must be capable of being proved false. In the case of this NCM my narrative is replete with opportunities for falsification if the future real world observations diverge from the pattern of cause and effect that I have set out.
However that narrative is based on what we have actually observed over a period of 1000 years with the gaps filled in by deduction informed by known laws of physics.
At the moment I am not aware of any observed climate phenomena that would effect falsification. If there be any that suggest such a thing then I suspect that they will call for refinement of the NCM rather than abandonment.
For true falsification we would need to observe events such as the mid latitude jets moving poleward during a cooling oceanic phase and a period of quiet sun or the ITCZ moving northward whilst the two jets moved equatorward or the stratosphere, troposphere and upper atmosphere all warming or cooling in tandem or perhaps an unusually powerful Arctic Oscillation throughout a period of high solar turbulence and a warming ocean phase.
They say nothing is impossible so we will have to wait and see.
Predictive skill:
To be taken seriously the NCM must be seen to show more predictive skill than the current computer based models.
In theory that shouldn’t be difficult because their level of success is currently zero.
From a reading of my narrative it is readily apparent that if the NCM matches reality then lots of predictions can be made. They may not be precise in terms of scale or timing but they are nevertheless useful in identifying where we are in the overall scheme of things and the most likely direction of future trend.
For example if the mid latitude jets stay where they now are then a developing cooling trend can be expected.
If the jets move poleward for any length of time then a warming trend may be returning.
If the solar surface becomes more active then we should see a reduction in the intensity of the Arctic Oscillation.
If the current El Nino fades to a La Nina then the northern winter snows should not be as intense next winter but it will nevertheless be another cold though drier northern hemisphere winter as the La Nina denies energy to the air.
The past winter is a prime example of what the NCM suggests for a northern winter with an El Nino during a period of quiet sun. The warmth from the oceans pumps energy upwards but the quiet sun prevents the poleward movement of the jets. The result is warming of the tropics and of the highest latitudes (but the latter stay below the freezing point of water) and a flow of cold into the mid latitudes and more precipitation in the form of snow at lower latitudes than normal.
So I suggest that a degree of predictive skill is already apparent for my NCM.
Likely 21st Century climate trend:
There are 3 issues to be resolved for a judgement on this question.
i) We need to know whether the Modern Warm Period has peaked or not. It seems that the recent peak late 20th Century has passed but at a level of temperature lower than seen during the Mediaeval Warm Period. Greenland is not yet as habitable as when the Vikings first colonised it. Furthermore it is not yet 1000 years since the peak of the Mediaeval Warm Period which lasted from about 950 to 1250 AD
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/medieval-warm-period-rediscovered
so I suspect that the Mediaeval warmth now emanating from the oceans may well warm the troposphere a little more during future years of warm oceanic oscillations. I would also expect the CO2 levels to continue drifting up until a while after the Mediaeval Warm Period water surface warming peak has begun it’s decline. That may still be some time away, perhaps a century or two.
ii) We need to know where we are in the solar cycles. The highest peak of solar activity in recorded history occurred during the late 20th Century but we don’t really know how active the sun became during the Mediaeval Warm Period. There are calculations from isotope proxies but the accuracy of proxies is in the doghouse since Climategate and the hockey stick farrago. However the current solar quiescence suggests that the peak of recent solar activity is now over.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
iii) Then we need to know where we stand in relation to the other shorter term cycles of sun and oceans.
Each varies on at least two other timescales. The level of solar activity varies during each cycle and over a run of cycles. The rate of energy release from the oceans varies from each El Nino to the following La Nina and back again over several years and the entire Pacific Decadal Oscillation alters the rate of energy release to the air every 25 to 30 years or so.
All those cycles vary in timing and intensity and interact with each other and are then superimposed on the longer term cycling that forms the basis of this article.
Then we have the chaotic variability of weather superimposed on the whole caboodle.
We simply do not have the data to resolve all those issues so all I can do is hazard a guess based on my personal judgement. On that basis I think we will see cooling for a couple of decades due to the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which has just begun then at least one more 20 to 30 year phase of natural warming before we start the true decline as the cooler thermohaline waters from the Little Ice Age come back to the surface.
If we get a peak of active sun at the same time as the worst of the cooling from the Little Ice Age comes through the oceanic system then that may be the start of a more rapid ending of the current interglacial but that is 500 years hence by which time we will have solved our energy problems or will have destroyed our civilisation.
Other climate theories:
Following the implosion of the CO2 based theory there are lots of other good ideas going around and much effort being expended by many individuals on different aspects of the climate system.
All I would suggest at the moment is that there is room in my NCM for any of those theories that demonstrate a specific climate response from sources other than sun and oceans.
All I contend is that sun and oceans together with the variable speed of the hydrological cycle assisted by the latitudinal movements of the air circulation systems and the vertical movement of the tropopause overwhelmingly provide the background trend and combine to prevent changes in the air alone changing the Earth’s equilibrium temperature.
For example:
Orbital changes feed into the insolation and albedo effects caused by moveable cloud masses.
Asteroid strikes and volcanoes feed into the atmospheric density issue.
Changing length of day and external gravitational forces feed into the speed of the thermohaline circulation.
Geothermal energy feeds into temperatures along the horizontal path of the thermohaline circulation.
Cosmic ray variations and ozone chemistry feed into the albedo changes.
The NCM can account for all past climate variability, can give general guidance as to future trends and can accommodate all manner of supplementary climate theories provided their real world influence can be demonstrated.
I humbly submit that all this is an improvement on existing modelling techniques and deserves fuller and more detailed consideration and investigation.
Novel propositions:
I think it helpful to set out here some of the novel propositions that I have had to formulate in order to obtain a climate description that complies both with observations and with basic laws of physics. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Other new propositions may be apparent from the content and/or context of my various articles
i) Earth’s temperature is determined primarily by the oceans and not by the air (The Hot Water Bottle Effect). The contribution of the Greenhouse effect is miniscule.
ii) Changes in the air alone cannot affect the global equilibrium temperature because of oceanic dominance that always seeks to maintain sea surface and surface air equilibrium whatever the air tries to do. Warm air cannot significantly affect the oceans due to the huge difference in thermal capacities and by the effect of evaporation which removes unwanted energy to latent form as necessary to maintain the said equilibrium.
iii) Counterintuitively an active sun means cooling not warming and vice versa.
iv) The net global oceanic rate of energy release to the air is what matters with regard to the oceanic effect on the latitudinal positions of the air circulation systems and the associated cloud bands. All the oceanic oscillations affecting the rates of energy release to the air operate on different timescales and different magnitudes as energy progresses through the system via surface currents (not the thermohaline circulation which is entirely separate).
v) More CO2 ought theoretically induce faster cooling of the oceans by increasing evaporation rates. Extra CO2 molecules simply send more infra red radiation back down to the surface but infra red cannot penetrate deeper than the region of ocean surface involved in evaporation and since evaporation has a net cooling effect due to the removal of energy as latent heat the net effect should be increased cooling and not warming of the oceans.
vi) The latitudinal position of the air circulation systems at any given moment indicates the current tropospheric temperature trend whether warming or cooling and their movement reveals any change in trend
vii) All the various climate phenomena in the troposphere serve to balance energy budget changes caused by atmospheric effects from solar turbulence changes on the air above which affect the rate of energy loss to space or from variable rates of energy release from the oceans below.
viii) The speed of the hydrological cycle globally is the main thermostat in the troposphere. Changes in its speed are achieved by latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems and by changes in the height of the tropopause.
ix) The difference between ice ages and interglacials is a matter of the timing of solar and oceanic cycles. Interglacials only occur when the solar and oceanic cycles are offsetting one another to a sufficient degree to minimise the scale of climate variability thereby preventing winter snowfall on the northern continents from being sufficient to last through the following summer.
x) Landmass distribution dictates the relative lengths of glacials and interglacials. The predominance of landmasses in the northern hemisphere causes glaciations to predominate over interglacials by about 9 to 1 with a full cycle every 100, 000 years helped along by the orbital changes of the Milankovitch cycles that affect the pattern of insolation on those shifting cloud masses.
xi) Distribution of energy within the entire system is more significant for climate (which is limited to the troposphere) than the actual temperature of the entire Earth. The latter varies hardly at all.
xii) All regional climate changes are a result of movement in relation to the locally dominant air circulation systems which move cyclically poleward and equatorward.
xiii) Albedo changes are primarily a consequence of latitudinal movement of the clouds beyond normal seasonal variability.
ix) The faint sun paradox is explained by the effectiveness of changes in the speed of the hydrological cycle. Only if the oceans freeze across their entire surfaces thereby causing the hydrological cycle to cease or if the sun puts in energy faster than it can be pumped upward by the hydrological cycle will the basic temperature equilibrium derived from the properties of water and the density and pressure of the atmosphere fail to be maintained.
Leif Svalgaard (18:18:49) :
Gail Combs (18:01:45) :
Scientists discover surprise in Earth’s upper atmosphere
The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely, but what determines the rate of energy transfer is unclear.
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The amount of energy involved is of the order of a million times smaller than what we get from the ordinary light and heat, so is really irrelevant. And the ‘unclear’ bit is simply not the case….
__________________________________________________________________________
Thank you Dr. Svalgaard, I will read those PDFs. You certainly can get a broad science education following this blog. I just wish I had the time to look into all of the info presented.
Leif Svalgaard (07:34:48)
“The hydrological ‘cycle’ is not a driver of the climate, rather it is the other way around.”
I never said it was. It is simply part of the mechanism whereby the system seeks equilibrium when either the rate of energy flow from the oceans or the rate of energy loss to space varies.
I don’t think you have read my stuff properly or looked at real world climate behaviour and until you do there is nothing more I can say to you.
Henry@Leif
So what was your opinion again about the correlations offered by Al Gore in “An inconvenient truth”?
Henry@Stephen Fisher
Sorry, I am not too glued up on the NCM but from what I can understand I can tell you that I am with you. What I can also tell you is that the weather here in South Africa has been extraordinary so far this year. We have had rain and/or overcast conditions almost non stop from the beginning of summer, which is a bit unusual for us. It is still raining now as I speak. If it carries on like this, I predict we will even have snow here during the winter. I am not sure if Fifa is going to like that….(world cup soccer!)
Stephen Wilde (10:53:07) :
I never said it was. It is simply part of the mechanism whereby the system seeks equilibrium when either the rate of energy flow from the oceans or the rate of energy loss to space varies.
You have never said how anything works, so it makes it hard to understand and easy for you to defend [as there is nothing there]. for example: ‘part of the mechanism’. Which part? What mechanism?
Stephen Wilde (10:53:07) :
I don’t think you have read my stuff properly or looked at real world climate behaviour and until you do there is nothing more I can say to you.
Perhaps Roy Spencer can enlighten you:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/23/new-book-from-dr-roy-spencer/
“You see, climate researchers are rather myopic. They think that the only way for global-average temperatures to change is for the climate system to be forced ‘externally’…by a change in the output of the sun, or by a large volcanic eruption. These are events which occur external to the normal, internal operation of the climate system. But what they have ignored is the potential for the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior”.
Leif, I have the utmost respect for you but I think your attacks on me and my ideas are misguided.
You keep asserting that I have said things that I have not said and you insist on failing to understand what I do say.
Your quote from Roy is yet another fine example.
My climate description fully recognises the internal climate variability but from observations I cannot accept that there is not a degree of external forcing from solar variability. That is not an unreasonable position to take.
As I said in a previous post:
“Even if it (the solar effect) is only 0.1C over a solar cycle and a little more over a 500 year period from LIA to date then that’s a good enough starting point for my NCM because all such solar variability needs to do is alter the size, position and intensity of the polar high pressure cells against an opposing force from oceanic variability. The sun doesn’t need to change the Earth’s temperature, merely force a redistribution vertically and horizontally within the system. We can leave oceanic variability to do the heavy lifting implied by an actual temperature change for the entire system.”
If it were an issue of internal variability alone then the oceans would be in absolute control and the climate response from sea surface changes would be clear and direct.
In reality it is not clear and direct so a second force is required. Warmer sea surface temperatures sometimes send the air circulation systems poleward and at other times they fail to do so or the ocean effect is reduced.
The obvious reason is a countervailing force from above which has an effect on the polar high pressure cells. Now I think it’s the sun that is doing it but you do not. So be it. Kindly do not trash everything I say on the basis of that minor difference of opinion.
I have already asked you to explain how a force that is entirely internal to the system could cause the temperature of the stratosphere to move in the opposite direction to the temperature of the higher levels which is what we observe. The only way that can be achieved is by some cause from above altering the rate of energy loss to space. If the cause were solely internal to the system then the upper level temperatures would follow the lead of any temperature trend from below but they do not.
At some variable height in the system there is a disjunction between forces acting from below and forces acting from above. If it is not solar related then I am happy to consider an alternative.
Please limit your comments here to constructive rather than destructive contributions.
An earlier poster referred to ‘hissing and spitting’ from the climate establishment. You are in danger of validating that comment.
Henry Pool (11:09:54)
Thanks for your support Henry. It’s quite difficult to assess how other readers react to a disgreement between me as a mere amateur and a highly skilled professional such as Leif.
As regards your weather report the mid latitude jets in the southern hemisphere clearly continue to be well equatorward just like those in the northern hemisphere so you are getting more weather systems crossing the Cape region.
That is occurring despite the recent El Nino which really ought to have pushed the jets more poleward if one goes by the precedents set by the El Ninos between 1975 and 2000.
During the late 20th Century the El Ninos has a greater effect on the jet positioning than they do now and the only variable to have changed is the level of solar activity which appears to have coincided with a slight warming of the stratosphere (previously cooling) and an intensification of the inversion at the tropopause which then redirects more energy back downward in the polar high pressure cells.
A quiet sun gives stronger polar high pressure cells which reduces upward transmission of energy whereas an active sun gives weaker polar high pressure cells which increases upward transmission of energy.
Observations therefore fit my NCM.
If observations stop fitting my NCM then I will accept defeat but only if a suitable adjustment to the NCM does not solve any such problem.
Stephen Wilde (01:36:21) :
but I think your attacks on me and my ideas are misguided.
Attack is the wrong word. I merely state that you are not convincing me, and that your explanations are too vague to carry weight with me.
You keep asserting that I have said things that I have not said and you insist on failing to understand what I do say.
Simply because it is not clear what you say. I’m trying to make you express yourself better [but failing, evidently].
I cannot accept that there is not a degree of external forcing from solar variability. That is not an unreasonable position to take.
It is unreasonable to state that one ‘cannot accept’ something, when evidence [or the lack thereof] shows you that it is untenable. When the evidence does not go your way, you must accept that.
If the cause were solely internal to the system then the upper level temperatures would follow the lead of any temperature trend from below but they do not.
There are several reasons why there should be opposite trends:
1) depletion of ozone, e.g. by CFCs
2) increased CO2
3) changing of upwards traveling planetary waves [which break and heat the stratosphere]
Please limit your comments here to constructive rather than destructive contributions.
Science progresses not by agreement, but by controversy. If you are seeking back-slapping yes-men, perhaps you should move to other blogs, a la RealClimate.
Leif Svalgaard (07:35:21)
“There are several reasons why there should be opposite trends:
1) depletion of ozone, e.g. by CFCs
2) increased CO2
3) changing of upwards traveling planetary waves [which break and heat the stratosphere.”
Are you referring to opposite trends in troposphere and stratosphere or stratosphere and upper layers ? I referred to the latter.
1) If one ignores anthropogenic CFCs (I am considering natural processes here) the main effect on ozone is solar.
2) Increased CO2 warms the troposphere but cools the stratosphere and should also cool the higher layers but it doesn’t seem to have much effect higher than the stratosphere and the higher one gets the greater the solar effect.
3) I haven’t heard about upwards travelling planetary waves unless you mean Rossby waves but they only deal with troposphere and stratosphere and not stratosphere and higher levels.
Beside, which of those processes went into reverse from 1995 to 2000 to give the observed change in stratospheric temperature trends ?
And note:
i) “Attack is the wrong word. I merely state that you are not convincing me, and that your explanations are too vague to carry weight with me.”
I am not trying to convince you. I am trying to see whether you can convince me. So far you do not. Perhaps you could learn to use language that cannot be ‘miscosntrued’ as an ‘attack’ ?
ii) “Simply because it is not clear what you say. I’m trying to make you express yourself better [but failing, evidently].”
Looking back through the exchanges I do not find that credible. Your erroneous assertions are based on points that I made perfectly clear, often more than once.
iii) “It is unreasonable to state that one ‘cannot accept’ something, when evidence [or the lack thereof] shows you that it is untenable. When the evidence does not go your way, you must accept that”.
I ‘cannot accept’ on the basis of observational evidence which many others have also noted. Your point cuts both ways. My view is that currently the evidence to support either of us definitively is lacking but I and others find solar involvement persuasive. We must agree to disagree.
iv) “Science progresses not by agreement, but by controversy. If you are seeking back-slapping yes-men, perhaps you should move to other blogs, a la RealClimate”.
I have no problem with disagreement which is constructive. That is quite different to your suggestion that because we disagree on one issue then all else that I say is wrong. My NCM is not dependent on the solar aspect as long as an alternative mechanism can be proposed for the variability of the polar high pressure cells over multidecadal time periods. The rest of my NCM would remain in accordance with observations as many others here have acknowledged.
Now, can we please get away from the personal tone. If you address my scientific points clearly and constructively we can make progress.
I really want to know if ALL observations can be FULLY accounted for by internal system variability with NO influence from above via solar variability.
I acknowledge doubt but find that a lot can be accounted for if the sun does have an effect. You do not agree. The burden is on you. To have your contention accepted you need a full climate description which covers all the observations dealt with by my description WITHOUT involving the sun at all.
By all means go for it. That would be truly constructive.
Stephen Wilde (08:25:32) :
Are you referring to opposite trends in troposphere and stratosphere or stratosphere and upper layers ? I referred to the latter.
Another example of your vagueness and inexactitude. So you are saying that stratosphere and upper layers have opposite trends for each other?
I am not trying to convince you. I am trying to see whether you can convince me.
Why should I? The world is full of people believing weird things. One cannot convince them of anything, only point out their errors.
We must agree to disagree.
This is not a question of disagreement. One can only disagree on reasonable things. No disagreement is possible on things that ‘are not even wrong’.
I acknowledge doubt but find that a lot can be accounted for if the sun does have an effect.
You have shown nothing that is accounted for. You have said that ‘if the sun is the cause of this or that then…’ That does not amount to accounting for anything. A tribe in deepest Africa claims that the beating of of tam-tam drums restores the sun when in a total eclipse.
That would be truly constructive.
Valid scientific criticism is destructive, not constructive.
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.”
Stephen Wilde (09:53:36) :
This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.
Sure, the ozone is recovering a bit. My daughter-in-law, Signe, has something on that: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Nature/nature04746.pdf
She is a good source for ‘inside’ info.
Water lies at the heart of all climate discussions. If you want to learn something about its role, here is a good [recent] source:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009RG000301.pdf
Interesting but begs the question.
How do you know that the warming of the stratosphere is caused by the ozone recovery and not by the reduced solar activity after the peak of cycle 23 reducing the rate of energy loss to space ?
Furthermore, how do you know that the ozone recovery is down to the Montreal Protocol and not the reduced solar activity causing reduced ozone destruction ?
The fact is that throughout the period of high solar activity the ozone hole grew and the stratosphere cooled.
As soon as the solar activity weakened from the mid 1990’s onward the ozone started to recover and the stratosphere started to warm.
The issue is whether the temperature and ozone changes in the stratosphere were down to solar variability (my opinion) or anthropogenic CFCs (your opinion).
Your entire climate overview to the effect that there has been no significant solar effect on the climate is down to your belief in the anthropogenic nature of the growth of the ozone hole which allows you to attribute the observed changes in the temperature of the stratosphere to internal variability (albeit anthropogenic).
If we ignore human CFCs what then ? My description must prevail until someone finds an alternative.
Can we ignore CFCs ?
What is the evidence that the increase in CFCs was not simply coincidental with a far more powerful natural process ?
Quite a can of worms.
“The high natural variability in ozone abundances, due in part to the solar cycle.”
“it is still uncertain whether this improvement is actually attributable to the observed decline in the amount of ozone-depleting substances
in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Well well, there’s my answer.
You really have no idea.
Stephen Wilde (11:06:27) :
As soon as the solar activity weakened from the mid 1990′s onward the ozone started to recover and the stratosphere started to warm.
Solar activity is cyclic and decreases every cycle. A similar cycle might be observed in ozone [perhaps, with some good will, but it is weak], but is much smaller than the long-term trend. The ozone response to UV is immediate, no oceans to introduce convenient lags.
What Signe says is that it is still unclear [but likely] that the decline in FlouroCarbons was effective [and indeed it is], but also that “Long-term trends are not expected from solar or volcanic activity”. Total ozone, CO2 emissions,temperatures, and circulation patterns are closely linked. By the end of the century, ozone levels are expected to be dominated by temperature, atmospheric dynamics and the abundances of trace gases, including water vapor [arising from a warmer planet], etc. You may claim ‘that you have no idea’, but Signe does.
If we ignore human CFCs what then ? My description must prevail until someone finds an alternative.
I just gave you a whole slew of ‘what elses’. The notion that ‘my description must prevail until someone finds an alternative’ is just silly [and not worthy of homo sapiens sapiens], apart from the fact that alternatives have been found already.
Stephen Wilde (11:06:27) :
your belief in the anthropogenic nature of the growth of the ozone hole which allows you to attribute the observed changes in the temperature of the stratosphere to internal variability (albeit anthropogenic).
this is not only silly, but worse. As Spencer points out there is a “potential for the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior.”. This has nothing to do with Man, the climate changed due to internal behavior before we were here, and will change after we are gone.
Leif Svalgaard (11:46:54)
In view of the doubts about the ozone destruction process expressed by Signe we should ignore the temperature consequences of more or less ozone for the moment.
You introduced ozone in an attempt to explain away the inconvenient fact that the stratosphere cooled when the sun was more active and is now warming whilst the sun is less active.
When the sun is more active the higher levels of the atmosphere warm up and the stratosphere cools.
When the sun is less active the stratosphere warms as the higher levels cool.
My challenge to you was to explain that on the basis of internal system variability alone.
If internal system variability were the sole driving force then the higher levels of the atmosphere would generally follow the temperature trend of the lower levels. That does not happen.
You mentioned three possible explanations but two of them relate to the troposphere/stratosphere differential alone which misses the point.
The other explanation involved ozone but I pointed out to you that solar influences are paramount there and Signe goes along with that by admitting that it is uncertain whether the Montreal Protocol is the cause of the reducing ozone hole.
You tried to explain away the problem for your theory (insignificant solar influence) caused by the stratospheric temperature trend apparently usually going in the opposite direction to that of the higher levels but so far have failed to do so.
Stephen Wilde (13:18:36) :
If internal system variability were the sole driving force then the higher levels of the atmosphere would generally follow the temperature trend of the lower levels. That does not happen.
As always, by not specifying what you mean, e.g. by ‘higher levels’ it becomes nearly impossible to have a meaningful discussion. You did not answer my question, so now I’ll assume that by ‘higher levels’ you mean the thermosphere.
Signe goes along with that by admitting that it is uncertain whether the Montreal Protocol is the cause of the reducing ozone hole.
This is not a question about ‘admitting’ anything. All she is saying is that it is likely that the Protocol was effective [because the long term trends do match each other, e.g. her figure 1], but that there is no definite proof of that
The thermosphere is most definitely largely controlled by the Sun. No doubt about that. The stratosphere only weakly, and the different variations are not tightly related [long-term trend in stratosphere, but not in thermosphere], and have no bearing on the climate. Because you do not quantify anything, your claims are without basis. If you would say “in the thermosphere since 1950 the long-term trend has been X K/year [citation], while in the stratosphere it has been -Y K/year [citation]” then we could discuss. Now you have nothing. Come back when you can make the above statement.
‘higher levels’ means everything from the top of the stratosphere upwards. I have made that clear previously.
There is now another opportunity for you to be constructive. Are you aware of any data that displays the long term temperaure trends in all the layers above the top of the stratosphere from say 1950 onwards ? Not just thermosphere but also exosphere and mesosphere.
I would not expect to see much of a long term trend in the thermosphere since 1950 because on average across cycles 19,20,21,22 and 23 the level of solar activity was pretty steady overall albeit at a higher level than before 1950 and at a higher level than since 2000.
As one goes downward through the atmosphere I would expect to see a greater long term trend as the sustained historically high levels of solar activity had a cumulative effect on the lower, denser levels which would respond less quickly than the thermosphere to the increased solar activity. Such an effect would have continued for as long as it took for the lower levels to create a new equilibrium with the higher solar activiy levels.
The variations from level to level cannot be tightly related because of the different densities responding differently to the solar input. Higher less dense levels respond faster than lower denser levels.
Differential responses to solar variability at different levels would lead to variable temperature trends from layer to layer and ultimately would affect the rate at which energy moves from layer to layer and from Earth to space.
If that then leads to changes in the strength of the temperature inversion at the tropopause (as it must) then the climate would indeed be affected because the intensity, size and location of the polar high pressure cells would be affected.
Note again that none of this requires us to observe a solar induced temperature change for the system as a whole (though there may ultimately be some).
To achieve the observed climate consequences a mere redistribution of energy in the system both vertically and horizontally is all we need and indeed that is exactly what we do see with the current warm anomalies at poles and in the tropics with cold anomalies in mid latitudes.
My NCM fits real world observations because it was derived from such observations.
Henry@Stephen Fisher
I should tell you an observation that I have made. A few days ago it was clear skies and the max. temp. here (in Pretoria) rose to 27 degrees C which is normal for this time of the year. Yesterday it was overcast and rainy and the max temp. barely reached 14 degrees C.
That difference or “anomaly” is 13 degrees C. I have often made this very same observation here. In summer that difference is even more spectular, maybe even up to 20 degrees C.
Now, considering a global warming rate of 0.6 degree C per century seems quite rediculous to me when I compare this to my own observations that happen during a period of 48 hours or less. My observed ‘anomaly” here is perhaps not the same everywhere in the world but I expect it to be the same or more in the tropics and in terms of sheer surface area and volume the tropics and subtropics must be considered having the biggest impact on the temperature of the planet. In my opinion it is the clouds & cloudiness that determines the warming and cooling of the planet. A small change in any of the parameters that can be linked to the formation of clouds and overcast conditions will have an enormous cooling effect on earth. Since I started my own investigations I am totally not worried about global warming. However, now I have started getting worried about global cooling. My own observations confirm that we are more likely to freeze up then to become toast. I think we must find out exactly all the factors that influence the formation and maintenance of clouds – from the beginning (evaporation) till the end (precipitation). I remember vaguely that they did some research here trying to make clouds (with iodine?) but that was a long time ago. Do you know of any research on this?
Henry, there’s lots of ongoing research on clouds but so far the complexities have defeated even the most advanced computer simulations.
That’s one of several reasons why there is so little in the way of quantities in my work.
Until the data becomes available the best I can do is create a plausible conceptual overview which matches observations without any clear abuse of the laws of physics.
My continuing disagreement with Leif here is becoming centred on one such real world observation which, if substantiated, is contrary to his view but accommodated by mine.
Stephen Wilde (02:05:03) :
‘higher levels’ means everything from the top of the stratosphere upwards. I have made that clear previously.
There are 14 occurrences of ‘higher levels’ in this thread. None of them states that you mean mesosphere and above.
There is now another opportunity for you to be constructive. Are you aware of any data that displays the long term temperaure trends in all the layers above the top of the stratosphere from say 1950 onwards ? Not just thermosphere but also exosphere and mesosphere.
You claim that these layers had an opposite variation than the stratosphere so must have had such data already to make this claim. Show me the data, or withdraw the claim.
historically high levels of solar activity
except that cycle 20 was lower than cycle 23.
had a cumulative effect on the lower, denser levels which would respond less quickly than the thermosphere to the increased solar activity.
No, the air up there is so thin than there is no cumulative effect. To make such a claim you must tell me here, now, what the ‘response’ time is. Numbers.
Higher less dense levels respond faster than lower denser levels.
No. If you disagree, give response times [numbers] for the layers.
My NCM fits real world observations because it was derived from such observations.
If so, show me [numbers, cites, graphs] what these observations are. You started out by implying that you didn’t know of any.
Let me reiterate:
“Because you do not quantify anything, your claims are without basis. If you could say “in the thermosphere since 1950 the long-term trend has been X K/year [citation], while in the stratosphere it has been -Y K/year [citation]” then we could discuss. Now you have nothing. Come back when you can make the above statement.”
Stephen claims “That is why the stratosphere cooled during the late 20th Century period of a highly active sun although the higher levels of the atmosphere warmed. ”
From measurements of the drag on satellites since the 1960 there is compelling evidence that the density and temperature have steadily decreased in the thermosphere [a secular downwards trend], see e.g.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2003JA010176.pdf or http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009JA014102.pdf
Their conclusions:
[2] Increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, especially CO2, are expected to warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. In the troposphere, CO2 is optically thick and traps infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface. In the stratosphere and above, CO2 is optically thin and emits infrared radiation to space, which cools these regions. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are expected to induce temperature decreases and a contraction of the upper atmosphere, resulting in a corresponding density decrease at a given height.
[53] Our results are consistent with theoretical predictions of the response of the thermosphere to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly with respect to the height and solar activity dependence of the density decrease. […]
[54] We conclude that the observed decrease in thermospheric density is probably real and that it is likely caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the lower thermosphere and below. In the thermosphere, there are relatively few (compared to the troposphere) other sources of climate change; our results largely account for the effects of the major source, solar EUV radiation.
This is my destructive comment of the day.
Stephen claims “That is why the stratosphere cooled during the late 20th Century period of a highly active sun although the higher levels of the atmosphere warmed. ”
A more accessible account:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0402/04atmosphere/
“The highest layers of the Earth’s atmosphere are cooling and contracting, most likely in response to increasing levels of greenhouse gases”
“report that the average density of the thermosphere has decreased by about 10 percent during the past 35 years. The thermosphere is the highest layer in the atmosphere, and begins at an altitude of about 90 kilometers [60 miles].”
“Although the atmosphere is extremely thin in this region (the air at the Earth’s surface is a trillion times thicker), it is enough to exert a drag force on satellites, causing their orbits to decay slowly and ultimately resulting in a fiery disintegration at lower altitudes. By analyzing changes in the orbits of the selected objects, the scientists derived the yearly average density encountered by each object. After adjusting for other factors, the data from every object indicated a long-term decline in the density of the thermosphere.
This decrease in density had been predicted by theoretical simulations of the upper atmosphere’s response to increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. ”
——
Now, you can examine your ‘model’ again, and ask yourself: “is the behavior of the ‘higher layers’ really important? If you simply drop that part, does the rest hang together, or is the thermosphere [and solar influence] a ‘do or die’ thing for your model, or can you do without it.