Our sceptical connection in Germany, Pierre Gosselin, has taken notice of an article in Der Spiegel that speaks of the link to ocean cycles for climate. Of course we’ve known this for some time, but like with the New Scientist catching up to solar recognition, the previous denial of natural variability in climate seems to be weakening. BTW if you want to track the status of ocean cycles, our WUWT ENSO/Sea Level/Sea Surface Temperature Page has a lot to offer. Right now the Niño 3.4 index continues to drop, and looks to rival 2008’s plunge.
Der Spiegel: The Ocean’s Influence Greater Than Thought
By Pierre Gosselin
Alex Bojanowski at Germany’s online Der Spiegel reports here on a new paper appearing in Nature that shows climate change in the 1970s was caused by ocean cooling. Climate simulation models once indicated that the cooling in the 1970s was due to sun-reflecting sulfur particles, emitted by industry. But now evidence points to the oceans.
I don’t know why this is news for the authors of the paper. Ocean cycles are well-known to all other scientists. The following graphic shows the AMO 60-year cycle, which is now about to head south.
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Source: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
Computer models simulating future climate once predicted that it would soon get warm because of increasing GHG emissions, but, writes Der Spiegel, citing Nature:
Now it turns out that the theory is incomplete. A sudden cooling of the oceans in the northern hemisphere played the decisive role in the drop of air temperatures.
The paper was authored by David W. J. Thompson, John M. Wallace, John J. Kennedy, and Phil D. Jones. The scientists discovered that ocean temperatures in the northern hemisphere dropped an enormous 0.3°C between 1968 and 1972. Der Spiegel writes:
A huge amount of energy was taken out of the oceans. The scientists said that it was surprising that the cooling was so fast.
This shows, again, that the climate simulation models used for predicting the future are inadequate. It’s not sure what caused the oceans to cool. But scientists are sure that aerosols were not the cause. Der Spiegel describes a possible scenario how the oceans may have cooled:
Huge amounts of melt water from Greenland’s glaciers poured into the Atlantic at the end of the 1960s, and formed a cover over the ocean. The melt water cooled the ocean for one thing, and acted to brake the Golf Stream, which transports warm water from the tropics and delivers it to the north. The result: the air also cools down.
But, as Spiegel reports, that hardly explains why there was also cooling n the north Pacific. Der Spiegel:
The scientists will have to refine their climate simulations. The new study shows one thing: The influence of the oceans is greater than previously thought.
I’d say that’s a very polite way of saying: Your models have been crap, and it’s back to the drawing board. This time don’t forget to properly take the oceans and every thing else into account. Yes, there’s a quite a bit more to climate than a single trace gas in the atmosphere. Hooray – the warmists are finally beginning to realize it! (Maybe)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jim Clarke says:
There is no other conclusion possible and the models must be re-initialized with a climate sensitivity to CO2 much below the current value.
#############
The climate models are not “initialized” with a climate sensitivity. Sensitivity is an OUTPUT of the models. It works like this: you create a physics model to the best of your ability and within computational constraints. You run that model. You vary C02.
You then have an estimate for the sensitivity. There are many shortcomings in the models, but “initializing’ with the ‘wrong’ sensitivity is not one of them. sensistivity is not an input parameter. So, there are many things to criticize the models for, suggest that you focus on the real issues.
Wind & clouds. (Calling it “oceans” [alone] is misleading.)
Wind enhances evaporation. Clouds don’t always have the opportunity to linger (e.g. it might rain). When some folks get caught up in all this multidecadal “ocean cycles” hype (as if the atmosphere plays no role in that), they appear to be overlooking some very basic components of natural variations – e.g.:
1) the day.
2) the year.
Vukcevic and Steven Wilde
I think both you guys are on to something and I firmly believe we will see more evidence of this soon along with some other things about the sun that have not been explained or known. Each year more and scientific instruments are being used and smarter people are using then and this can only lead to better understanding.
Good work to both of you.
Jim Clarke says:
September 25, 2010 at 10:39 am
” … There is no other conclusion possible and the models must be re-initialized with a climate sensitivity to CO2 much below the current value. …”
Steven Mosher says:
September 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
” … The climate models are not “initialized” with a climate sensitivity. ”
and says “You run that model. You vary C02. …” which seems to indicate
the model is “sensitive” to the input Co2 value???
How “sensitive” the model is to the input Co2 value seems to me to be what Jim Clarke is questioning – and it seems a reasonable question to me.
“Sensitivity” is certainly not an output parameter (whose value depends on the initial settings for the model).
It appears to me that Jim Clarke’s statement is perfectly valid and Steven Mosher’s response is a load of codswallop.
tim
Invariant wrote:
“Another question is whether it is at all possible to develop a climate model without too many assumptions?”
If the answer is “no”, I can guarantee you that few of the more “respected” folks I knew in academia will be admitting it. Peoples’ lives & families are built on such pillars – and untenable pillars are used where necessary to support what is vital. Many of these characters are formidable and it is incorrect to assume they have no primal instincts about survival & politics. Sure, there are some clowns in academia (just as there certainly are elsewhere) but often it takes only one good leader to guide a group to safety.
Great question.
Steven Mosher says:
September 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The climate models are not “initialized” with a climate sensitivity. Sensitivity is an OUTPUT of the models. Sensistivity is not an input parameter.
———————
How sure are you about that.
The GHG forcing temperature impact in GISS Model E follows a trend which looks very much like a built-in parameterization of 3.0C per doubling (with a lag of 30 years which is exactly the IPCC mean projection).
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/6131/modeleghgvsotherbc9.png
Also read this article from Pierre Gosselin:
Arctic Temperatures coincide with AMO NOT CO2
“Obvious conclusion: Trace gas Co2 drives the Arctic climate about as much as a sea breeze drives a loaded freight train”.
http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/25/arctic-temperatures-coincide-with-amo-and-not-co2/
So what caused the cooling? I mean, natural variability, of course, but what natural variability?
Also:
Without it Scotsmen would have had to discover fluorescent orange balls before they could invent the sport.
If there were no Golf Stream, it wouldn’t have taken them long to discover fluorescent orange balls in those Scottish outfits.
First Non Scientist and now Der Spiegel. Ought we to be running odds on which publication makes it a hat trick?
<<>>
Hmmm. Does that mean the science is NOT settled?
.
>>>Now it turns out that the theory is incomplete.
Hmmm. Does that mean the science is NOT settled?
Just one question.
When we talk about oceans cooling, is this an actual cooling of the planet, in total, or are we just shifting the energy around? (Like upper water layers to lower water layers, or north hemisphere to south hemisphere.)
If this is an actual global cooling of the seas, that is a heck of a lot of energy disappearing in a couple of decades. And if this is so, then what mechanism re-heats the planet in the following decades? Surely such a massive reheating mechanism aught to be obvious in one record or another.
.
It is interesting to read what Dr. Spencer is saying about “what is it that cools or heats the earth”? (Or something like that)
Not saying he has all the answers, but he claims all the variations is possible within this planet itself, without any changes from the sun.
I find it very intriguing, and once again, if more people could learn about closed feedback loops in school, we would be spared of many costly mistakes;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/06/millennial-climate-cycles-driven-by-random-cloud-variations/#comment-134
science is never settled. dont be so shocked. math isnt even settled
http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/vienna.html
Vukcevic,
“Most of us have heard or know of oceans and climate 30-60 year cycles.
However, few are aware of geomagnetic pulses of similar period.”
“My case appear to be the opposite, lots of ‘numerical’ but as yet no ‘mechanism’”.
I’ll give you the mechanism: The planets accelerating the Earth. Because it is moving in an arc the outer parts will accelerate relative to the inner parts, (or is it ‘accelerate relatively to’) i.e. the atmosphere relative to the ocean, the ocean relative to the crust, the crust relative to the core, which alters the magnetism.
The same mechanism applies to the Sun, driving the solar cycle, so here you have my ‘unified theory’ for a lot of puzzling things.
I am not a scientist. I have a firm belief that anyone who aspires to “model” something so complex and so variable as climate is not a scientist.
You just can’t be a scientist and believe in modelling. You just can’t. Sorry. Yell and scream, wave your degrees and your Nobel prize, call me a scientific illiterate (which I am). If you believe in the efficacy of a “climate model” you can’t possibly be a scientist. In fact, you have not yet begun to even think.
Bill Illis says:
September 25, 2010 at 5:56 pm (Edit)
Steven Mosher says:
September 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The climate models are not “initialized” with a climate sensitivity. Sensitivity is an OUTPUT of the models. Sensistivity is not an input parameter.
———————
How sure are you about that.
############################################
I guess as sure as several days of going over modelE code can make one.
Plus various presentations I’ve read on the matter.
plus understanding what sensitivity is, an emergent property
I was skeptical so I checked.
Here lets DAFS and spare you the drudgery of looking at all the code and input lists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
For a coupled atmosphere-ocean global climate model the climate sensitivity is an emergent property: it is not a model parameter, but rather a result of a combination of model physics and parameters. By contrast, simpler energy-balance models may have climate sensitivity as an explicit paramter.
Here: read through all this stuff. doesnt take that long. Modele is an ab intio model
( from first principles)
http://www.newton.ac.uk/programmes/CLP/clpw01.html
or watch this.. only takes and hour ( see around minute 9)
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/871991/formats
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/871991;jsessionid=50EF49DB5FB28DC6E75208A58772DBE8?format=flv&quality=high&fetch_type=stream
there are real problems with models, but not setting a sensitivity parameter.
focus on the right problem
The standard modern estimate of climate sensitivity – 3°C, plus or minus 1.5°C – originates with a committee on anthropogenic global warming convened in 1979 by the National Academy of Sciences and chaired by Jule Charney. Only two sets of models were available; one, due to Syukuro Manabe, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 2°C, the other, due to James E. Hansen, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 4°C. “According to Manabe, Charney chose 0.5°C as a not-unreasonable margin of error, subtracted it from Manabe’s number, and added it to Hansen’s. Thus was born the 1.5°C-to-4.5°C range of likely climate sensitivity that has appeared in every greenhouse assessment since…”[13]
I think I wrote about this is my comedy sketch ‘George Parr’, which I lodged at this site at the latter stages of Copenhagen 2009.
I note the lead author of the Nature paper is from Colorado……………………..
WOW! The Sun, and now the Oceans, influence the relatively thin layer of gasses which encapsulate the planet? *Rolling my eyes* Who’d have thought that eh ?
This is interesting:
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
“Variations in terrestrial reflectance derive primarily from changes in cloud amount,thickness and location, all of which seem to have changed over decadal and longerscales (Pall¶e and Butler, 2002). Global compilations from ground-based radiometer data(Liepert, 2002), covering the period 1960-1990, suggest a substantial decrease in solar irradiance reaching the ground.”
then:
“These data, together with newly available surface observations from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network(BSRN) from 1990 to present, show that the decline in solar radiation reaching land surfaces seen in earlier data disappears in the 1990’s.”
then:
“Earthshine and FD analyses show contemporaneous and climatologically significant increases in the Earth’s reflectance from the outset of our earthshine measurements beginning in late 1998 roughly until mid- 2000. After that and to date, all three show a roughly constant terrestrial albedo, except for the FD data in the most recent years.”
So the Earthshine project first reveals the global albedo effects of the equatorward jets in the 60s when there was some global cooling.
Then until the 90s the albedo gradually declined as the jets moved poleward and the troposphere warmed.
Then in the late 90s a sudden recovery of albedo as the jets moved equatorward again and I have often said that I noticed that around 2000.
Then a few years of stable albedo as the jets hovered around about the same position but I would hazrd a guess that just recently the jets moved even more equatorward and albedo has probably now gone up a bit more but we don’t have the up to date figures yet.
I would propose that the jets didn’t move much from 2000 to say 2008 because the residual oceanic effects from the strong late 20th century run of El Ninos were still opposing the tendency of the less active sun to push the jets equatorward.That effect is now fading.
Conclusion:
Global albedo is closely linked to the latitudinal position of the Earth’s clouds and they are mostly found around the jets and the ITCZ. The ITCZ also seems to move along with the jets.
A less active sun pushes the jets equatorward thereby increasing albedo resulting in less energy entering the oceans and net overall cooling.
A more active sun allows the jets to move poleward thereby decreasing albedo resulting in more energy entering the oceans and net overall warming.
The oceans then vary independently as regards the release of energy to the air and thereby substantially modulate the solar effects sometimes offsetting and sometimes supplementing those solar effects.
And all the time the jets are bounced between the solar and oceanic forcings to cause global climate changes.
The above link doesn’t go straight to the paper so once on the Earthshine site:
Go to Projects, click on Earthshine ,scroll down to bibliography and click on ‘here’,
then click on PDF for
Inter-annual trends in earth’s reflectance1999-2007, E. Palle, P. Montanes-Rodriguez, P.R. Goode, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2008, in press. PDF
If one accounts for the impact of these ocean cycles (the ENSO and the AMO);
– Hadcrut3 is only increasing at 0.106C per decade since 1975 (and 0.066C per decade since 1995);
– GISS is increasing at 0.107C per decade since 1975 and 1995.
This is about 50% of that predicted by the IPCC (and less than 50% over the last 15 years).
One can also see that accounting for the ocean cycles produces a much more accurate hindcast of global temperatures than any climate model has come close to (with no need to build in some assumed aerosol load or even volcanoes which do not have the impact that most assume). Hadcrut3 below (with my forecast going out to May, 2011).
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5894/hadcrut3modelaug10.png
Steven Mosher says:
September 26, 2010 at 3:09 am
Bill Illis says:
September 25, 2010 at 5:56 pm (Edit)
Steven Mosher says:
September 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The climate models are not “initialized” with a climate sensitivity. Sensitivity is an OUTPUT of the models. Sensistivity is not an input parameter.
———————
How sure are you about that.
############################################
I guess as sure as several days of going over modelE code can make one.
Plus various presentations I’ve read on the matter.
plus understanding what sensitivity is, an emergent property
I was skeptical so I checked.
Here lets DAFS and spare you the drudgery of looking at all the code and input lists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
For a coupled atmosphere-ocean global climate model the climate sensitivity is an emergent property: it is not a model parameter, but rather a result of a combination of model physics and parameters. By contrast, simpler energy-balance models may have climate sensitivity as an explicit paramter.
Here: read through all this stuff. doesnt take that long. Modele is an ab intio model
( from first principles)
http://www.newton.ac.uk/programmes/CLP/clpw01.html
or watch this.. only takes and hour ( see around minute 9)
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/871991/formats
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/871991;jsessionid=50EF49DB5FB28DC6E75208A58772DBE8?format=flv&quality=high&fetch_type=stream
there are real problems with models, but not setting a sensitivity parameter.
focus on the right problem
The standard modern estimate of climate sensitivity – 3°C, plus or minus 1.5°C – originates with a committee on anthropogenic global warming convened in 1979 by the National Academy of Sciences and chaired by Jule Charney. Only two sets of models were available; one, due to Syukuro Manabe, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 2°C, the other, due to James E. Hansen, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 4°C. “According to Manabe, Charney chose 0.5°C as a not-unreasonable margin of error, subtracted it from Manabe’s number, and added it to Hansen’s. Thus was born the 1.5°C-to-4.5°C range of likely climate sensitivity that has appeared in every greenhouse assessment since…”[13]
———————————————————–
I don’t know why I bother!
Climate sensitivity is a measure of how responsive the temperature of the climate system is to a change in the radiative forcing
Climate sensitivity is the name the IPCC gives to the models output/result. They could have called it Temperature sensitivity, Factor X, Hussanga or whatever – it’s still a totally dependent variable – a result, which your link maintains is dependent on the values given to the radiative forcing.
For a coupled atmosphere-ocean global climate model the climate sensitivity is an emergent property: it is not a model parameter, but rather a result of a combination of model physics and parameters.
—————————————————–
Steven Mosher, you are either being wiflully disingenuous or you’ve imbided too much of the Kool Aid – you’re certainly not the self-confessed lukewarmer you purport to be.
The point being made by Bill Illis and earlier by Jim Clarke, if I am not mistaken, is regarding the “model’s sensitivity” to forcings and feedbacks – not the output/result of the model, which by definition does not affect the model’s sensitivity.
Your contribution is an exercise in smoke and mirrors!
tim
You don’t need a specific parameter in models for “sensitivity” to control it. All you need is to tweak other parameters until you see a value you think is correct. This is where it is easy for group-think to create a bias in the models.
For example, if the “group” think clouds are constant you make them a constant. Now, if heating really does generate more clouds you won’t see any reduction in solar heating and a positive feedback is born.
Corrected post as follows (hoping the Mods delete the earlier version):
This is interesting:
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
The above link doesn’t go straight to the paper so once on the BBSO site:
Go to Projects, click on Earthshine, scroll down to bibliography and click on ‘here’
then click on PDF for
Inter-annual trends in earth’s reflectance1999-2007, E. Palle, P. Montanes-Rodriguez, P.R. Goode, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2008, in press. PDF
“Variations in terrestrial reflectance derive primarily from changes in cloud amount,thickness and location, all of which seem to have changed over decadal and longerscales (Pall¶e and Butler, 2002). Global compilations from ground-based radiometer data(Liepert, 2002), covering the period 1960-1990, suggest a substantial decrease in solar irradiance reaching the ground.”
then:
“These data, together with newly available surface observations from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network(BSRN) from 1990 to present, show that the decline in solar radiation reaching land surfaces seen in earlier data disappears in the 1990’s.”
then:
“Earthshine and FD analyses show contemporaneous and climatologically significant increases in the Earth’s reflectance from the outset of our earthshine measurements beginning in late 1998 roughly until mid- 2000. After that and to date, all three show a roughly constant terrestrial albedo, except for the FD data in the most recent years.”
So the Earthshine project first reveals the global high albedo effects of the more equatorward jets from the 60s when the sun was less active during cycle 20 and there was some global cooling. That setup (with less solar irradiance reaching the ground) continued until the late 80s. Any lag between solar recovery and poleward jet shifting would have been due to the residual effects from the earlier negative oceanic phases which I contend operate to sometimes offset solar influences on jetstream positioning.
Then for the next ten years until the late 90s albedo gradually declined as the jets moved poleward and the globe warmed with more solar irradiance reaching the ground.
Then in the late 90s a sudden recovery of albedo as the jets moved equatorward again and I have often said that I noticed that around 2000. That is when the warming trend seems to have stopped presumably with less solar irradiation reaching the ground again.
Then a few years of stable albedo as the jets hovered around about the same position but I would guess that just recently the jets moved even more equatorward due to the recent long solar minimum and albedo has probably now gone up a bit more but we don’t have the up to date figures yet. The outlying FD data is probably a precursor. If we now start to see true cooling I would not be surprised.
It is proposed that the jets didn’t move much from 2000 to 2008 because the residual oceanic effects from the strong late 20th century run of El Ninos were still opposing the tendency of the less active sun to push the jets equatorward. That effect is now fading.
Conclusion:
Global albedo is closely linked to the latitudinal position of the Earth’s clouds and they are mostly found near and along the jets and the ITCZ. The ITCZ also seems to move latitudinally along with the jets.
A less active sun somehow pushes the jets equatorward thereby increasing albedo resulting in less energy entering the oceans and net overall cooling.
A more active sun somehow allows the jets to move poleward thereby decreasing albedo resulting in more energy entering the oceans and net overall warming.
The oceans then vary independently as regards the release of energy to the air and thereby substantially modulate the solar effects sometimes offsetting and sometimes supplementing those solar effects.
All the time the jets are bounced between the solar and oceanic forcings to cause global climate changes on a region by region basis but the changes in each region are dependent on that region’s location relative to the nearest significant component of the air circulation system.
The more equatorward jets of the LIA and more poleward jets of the MWP display a more extreme longer term cycling of the very same type of changes observed over the past 60 years and of course the variations in solar activity levels from MWP to LIA would equally have been much greater than anything seen so far during our lifetimes