New atmospheric model says tail wags dog

This goes to the heart of an unresolved aspect of my New Climate Model which seeks to integrate independent (or semi independent) variability in solar and oceanic effects.
I am currently unsure of the relative strengths of the two influences.
Initially I took the view that the oceanic cycles were the more powerful due to the density and heat carrying capacity of the oceans and that the top down solar effects were a relatively minor modulating factor.
However, more recently I have seen how persistently the quiet sun has affected the polar oscillations with the jetstreams having shifted significantly equatorward since 2000.
Furthermore I have noticed that both cloud amounts (thank you Bob Tisdale) and global albedo began to increase at about the same time.
That has coincided with my finding that incoming solar protons have a substantial ozone depleting reaction in the mesosphere and then I came across the data recently produced by Joanna Haigh.
So I’m now inclined to give greater weight to the solar effects operating via changes in global albedo as the jets shift latitudinally in response to variations in the level of solar activity.
The value of such a slab ocean El Nino model is that it provides a starting point in ascertaining how important the albedo and other atmospheric changes might be in affecting the relative intensities of El Nino and La Nina under differing solar conditions.
First, however, they are going to have to resolve that pesky issue of the correct sign for the solar effect on the temperatures of stratosphere and mesosphere otherwise their deliberations will be worthless and probably misleading.

Models & Bottles was a term coined at the top of the stock market boom period. I think it could be used today, for the Weather Wars… They can make the Models say anything… That hasn’t changed… at least back then, the models were a lot prettier, and you didn’t need the bottles to get past the math.

I’m a modeler. What would you like the answer to be? I can get it for you. (The dirty little secret of modeling).

@neil says:
November 2, 2010 at 3:21 pm
The ZX81 does not have a END command, you should use STOP instead.
And line 30 should read like this:
30 PRINT AT 0;0;“GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IN “;YEAR;” IS “;GLOBALTEMP;” ”
To avoid an type 5 Error (out of range)

yet another model which is physically impossible

How about: clouds and wind determine Sea Surface Temperature to a great extend?
The sun heats the sea. Wind cools it down.
Few clouds + weak wind ->high SST.
Many clouds + strong wind -> low SST.
Is it possible that wind patterns are influenced by the Sun’s magnetic field through its effect on the ionosphere? I mean, may that influence the trajectory of the jet stream?
Intuitively it has never made sense to me that ocean currents would cause el Niño. Why would those currents change direction? An ocean current has enormous mass and inertia.

“”””” can account for many of the features of El Niño “””””
AKA;- “is consistent with” and other weasel words. And lemme guess most of that atmospheric cause happens in the Stratosphere where only noctilucent clouds exist ? Do I have that about right ?

Thank you Bob Tisdale for providing the FACTS.
Indeed, there is little surprise here for those who have read Marcel Leroux “dynamic analysis of weather and climate” Springer/Praxis 2010…

Robin Kool, the main ocean currents do not change directions. They may meander a bit within the outer edges of the prescribed path, but they don’t change directions. La Nina waters are the result of mixing from choppy wind-disturbed seas. El Nino waters are the result of a rather still ocean surface (IE no wind). The current sends these warmed, cooled, or neutral waters around the world in the same direction, regardless of their temperature.

I’ll avoid any harshness or exaggeration, and just say this:
100% of models are 100% wrong 100% of the time.

The ENSO is clearly an integrated phenomenon made-up of sub-surface temperatures, subsurface ocean circulation patterns, surface ocean circulation patterns, trade winds, the Walker upper atmosphere circulation pattern, atmospheric pressure differentials, atmospheric angular momentum, the rotation of the Earth, the seasonal change in the tilt of the Earth, cloud frequency, cloud location, tropical convection, solar energy entering, long-wave radiation leaving and just as importantly, the geographic alignment of continents and continental shelves.
That is alot of big features cooperating together in the biggest weather phenomenon on the planet that is both self-reinforcing up to a certain point and then becomes self-limiting.
The subsurface ocean circulation patterns and the relative temperatures in that circulation at any one time are probably the initial driver which causes the other factors to reinforce it in my opinion.
The subsurface temperatures lead the trade winds for example (and all the other factors as well).
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6094/ensoeuhctrades.png

“…He finds that El Niño–like variations in sea surface temperature were produced in the simulations. Although ocean dynamics are a factor influencing El Niño events, the study suggests that atmospheric dynamics may be more important than previously thought in controlling El Niño. The study could change scientists’ understanding of the mechanisms driving El Niño.”
Then again removing ocean dynamics will mean the model is nothing like our complex, non-linear, close coupled climate system. Any conclusions made are certain to be just speculation and thus worthless.
This paper is yet another good example of the cargo cult climate science which favours virtual reality over observation of the real world. It is perhaps no surprise that fewer and fewer people believe this tripe

The late Marcel Leroux had for years claimed atmospheric circulation is what creates the Nino/Nina events, referring to them as a covariance. He was known to use direct observation of phenomena not modeling. I highly recommend his book, Dynamic Analysis Of Weather And Climate, it is the best observational explanation I have come across which makes geostationary satellite imaging all the more comprehensive.

@Robert,

The ZX81 does not have a END command, you should use STOP instead.
And line 30 should read like this:
30 PRINT AT 0;0;“GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IN “;YEAR;” IS “;GLOBALTEMP;” ”
To avoid an type 5 Error (out of range)

I had forgotton that.
And you’re correct; I needed the Print At. Maybe that’s why the simulation ended with an error in 2012. And I thought this was proodf that the Mayans were correct.
Damn you for breaking my model with logic!

Bill Illis says:
November 2, 2010 at 5:20 pm
The ENSO is clearly an integrated phenomenon made-up of sub-surface temperatures, subsurface ocean circulation patterns, surface ocean circulation patterns, trade winds, the Walker upper atmosphere circulation pattern, atmospheric pressure differentials, atmospheric angular momentum, the rotation of the Earth, the seasonal change in the tilt of the Earth, cloud frequency, cloud location, tropical convection, solar energy entering, long-wave radiation leaving and just as importantly, the geographic alignment of continents and continental shelves.
===============================
Yeah, yeah, all of that, Bill, but what about that main driver, CO2?
sarc/off
Chris

I love these sorts of studies.
Researcher; we removed a whole bunch of variables from our model and can now isolate This and show that it is well correlated with That. Since This always follows That, it is clear that there is a possibility for more research to understand how This is caused by That. Send money.
Dipstick; Cool. Hey, what if they have nothing to do with each other? I mean like what if This and That are both caused by Another Thing? Then they’d be correlated with each other but the cause would be Another Thing. Hey, it could be even more complicated than that. What if Another Thing doesn’t actually exist as a Thing, but as any one of 5 combinations of Stuff, you know, Stuff, like those variables you were talking about, maybe there’s 5 different combinations of Stuff that can each cause This and That.
Researcher; You clearly don’t understand science, so shut up and send the money.
Dipstick; You clearly don’t understand money, so shut up and go find some science to show me.
Researcher; You are just a dipstick.
Dipstick; Yes I am. You can even model me. Start by drawing me with my hands in my pockets firmly clenched around my wallet and billfold.
Researcher; You were a lot easier to deal with a couple of years ago.
Dipstick; Yeah, well that was before I read your emails and found out that you made This up, invented That, hid Another Thing, tricked me into believing some Stuff, presented Other Stuff like it was part of Stuff but wasn’t, and now it turns out you can’t find the data you used to calculate Stuff, but there’s tons of data that you Trashed that adds up to Something Else, not Stuff. That’s when I figured out what a dipstick I’ve been.
Researcher; So no money?
Dipstick; Oh lotsa money. Congressional hearings are very expensive.

davidmhoffer says:
November 2, 2010 at 7:21 pm
==========================
Hysterical. And brilliantly put. Did you create this? If so, well done.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

GIGO once again. Thank you America for your vote, please keep the presssure on congress for speedy and well directed hearings. I wait to see Mr Mann take the 5th in defence of his methodology.

Keith says:
November 2, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Using LDI or LDIR? 🙂
BTW: one of the more often used effect in Demo’s is flames, now this poses a problem on computers like the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum wich runs at only 3.25 and 3.75 Mhz clockspeed (yes, thats three point two five). How do you go around this, by lowering the resolution to achieve a realtime effect that might look like the real thing.
And for a Demo that is fine because it is nothing more than a show-off and you greet the other (stupid) demo coders.
Come to think of it, climatologists with their computer-models are bit like demo coders, being it that demo coders usually work with shoestring budget and don’t require addidional funding and that their work is not being taken seriously outside their own circles and the game-industry.

Australian taxpayers have financed this garbage.

Two words say it all. “Monash University”

@ Kev-in-the-UK; very similar to my thoughts. I was never very good at model-making, a major pre-occupation in my peer group when I was in my early teens – cack-handed was not an adequate description for my manual skills then, but some outstanding model-makers among us actually didn’t understand the first principles of whatever we were making models of. They were very gifted in some ways but quite lacking in critical thought in others, which seems pretty much like many current climate modellers.
Only 3% of my generation went on to university, but I have never found any evidence that we were collectively any less intelligent than the current generation of new grads, who saw around 30% of their peers enter university. My point is that subjects seem to have expanded in response to pressure of numbers desiring the commodity of a university education, probably giving us a surplus of university departments dedicated to fluff such as ‘Meeja Studies’ and ‘Environmental Studies’. I am not in awe of such progress, which is little more than expansion to satisfy a market. My generation may not all have a university education but we are frequently castigated by warming enthusiasts for not having the expertise to ‘know’ what they know. But our thought processes, tempered by a few decades of dealing with the real world, are quite good at detecting flaws in theories such as a general lack of evidence.

davidmhoffer says: “Dipstick; Yes I am. You can even model me. Start by drawing me with my hands in my pockets firmly clenched around my wallet and billfold.”
LOL!! Best laugh I’ve had today!

davidmhoffer: enjoyed the Dipstick/Researcher dialogue, can see it as a comedy skit with on going similarly enlightening interviews:D

By using a model that incorporates an a priori flaw that Dommenget knows is there, his exercise becomes meaningless with respect to climatology. It becomes meaningful only in the universe of chaotic models. Unfortunately he fails to explore the consequences of variations of other factors for comparison, so he leaves himself ignorant of the abstract mathematical implications of his exercise in Numerical Analysis.
As a student in the 60’s I learned (the hard way) that one can take N data pairs from an known exact function, round them off to the same number of significant digits (‘modelling’ empirical data), and calculate polynomial regression models of orders 0 through N-1.
Inevitably one finds that improving the sophistication of the regression model beyond a certain point actually introduces error as the model attempts to accommodate the round-off error artificially introduced in step 1.
Bottom line: the regression model cannot exceed in quality the data against which it is tested.
Corrolary: Extrapolation to points outside the range within which the model is ‘fitted’ invites hyperbolic growth of errors.

Why do so many people criticise models simply for not reflecting nature accurately enough? Models have other functions too, e.g. education and entertainment. A good example that is very relevant to this blog is “Fate of the World,” a new computer game that was launched earlier this week.
Climate change challenge for computer gamers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/31/climate-change-computer-game
According to the Guardian, the game puts “players at the helm of a future World Trade Organisation-style environmental body with a task of saving the world by cutting carbon emissions or damning it by letting soaring temperatures wreak havoc through floods, droughts and fires.” It “features data from real-world climate models, anecdotes from the polar explorer Pen Hadow and input from a team of scientists and economists in the US and UK” and has been “welcomed by climate campaigners as a way of reaching new audiences.”
One of the comments posted at the Guardian website points out that the article did not mention that the game allows you to try and save the world by developing new viruses that wipe out a large proportion of the human population. However that point is considered in a review at a computer gaming website which points out that, in real life, killing (or “culling” as some Greenies may prefer to call it) lots of people might possibly create other problems.
Set The World On Fire: Fate Of The World
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/05/07/set-the-world-on-fire-fate-of-the-world/
Perhaps we should all hope that the game suceeds beyond the wildest expectations of its creators. Then they will make so much money that they can pay for their models themselves instead of depending on taxpayers!

This post is titled: “New atmospheric model says tail wags dog”
Somehow it’s quite ironic since meteorologists bias is to believe the 15km high jet stream controls the weather patterns in the lower denser layers…
(half of the atmosphere is located within the first 5500m i.e. pressure above this level falls below 500hPa, or half the sea level pressure, one can wonder about this tail wagging tale and how it does not seem to bother most meteorologists…)

Steve Keohane says:
November 3, 2010 at 7:50 am
Robert of Ottawa says: November 2, 2010 at 4:55 pm
“…let’s consider the thermal mass of the atmosphere versus that of the oceans.
My thoughts exactly…”
Lwt us also consider the residence time of the entire spectrem of TSI which reaches the oceans.

I should explain more about the function of the stratopause which does not show a temperature inversion so it is fundamentally different to the tropopause and mesopause.
Instead it is simply an area of transition between the warming effect of uv on stratospheric ozone and the cooling effect of solar protons on mesospheric ozone. The temperature therefore rises up through the stratosphere but falls away again up through the mesopause.
The position of the stratopause therefore depends primarily on the balance between the uv effects below and the solar proton effects above. Thus it’s height will be sensitive to changes in the mix of solar wavelengths and solar proton numbers coming in from the sun at any given time. According to Joanna Haigh it was around 45Km in 2007 with the then prevailing level of solar activity.
I say primarily but the position of the stratopause also sensitive to ocean behaviour below because if the oceans vary the rate of energy release to the air then the speed of the hydrological cycle changes and the rate of energy transfer to the stratosphere also changes thus adding to or subtracting from the stratospheric uv effects with an inevitable effect on the point of balance between the stratosphere and mesosphere.
Thus the top down solar effect operates via the mesosphere by altering solar proton input and the ozone levels in the mesosphere.
The bottom up oceanic effect additionally modulates the outcome of the primary uv solar effects in the stratosphere.
The stratopause is therefore a sort of fulcrum upon which the entire energy budget of the planet is balanced and movements of that fulcrum (solar and ocean induced) by affecting tropospheric pressure distribution are the sole direct determinant of all observed climate shifts.

David:
Clouds – Cloud quantities (I don’t think types have much effect) appear to increase as the jets sink equatorward and decrease as the jets shift poleward. Albedo follows having declined when the Earth was warming and now increasing again with the jets more equatorward now and Earth now presumably experiencing an underlying cooling from reduced input to the oceans despite the temporarily warm troposphere.
Spectrum – More solar shortwave is generated when the sun is more active amplified at the surface by the simultaneous poleward shift in the jets which effectively draws back the blinds (of cloudiness) over the lower latitudes so that more of the increased shortwave gets into the water probably strengthening El Ninos and weakening La Ninas.