From the AGU Highlights on Eurekalert, how to make models do what you want by removing important portions of the natural system:
Atmospheric dynamics, not ocean, could drive El Niño features
Scientists generally believe that ocean dynamics are the primary factor controlling El Niño sea surface temperature variability. However, new simulations show that atmospheric dynamics can account for many of the features of El Niño that were previously thought to be controlled by ocean dynamics. Dommenget uses a series of atmospheric model simulations coupled to a simple ocean model that contained no ocean dynamics.
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.
Title: The slab ocean El Niño
Author: Dietmar Dommenget: School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
Source:
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2010GL044888, 2010
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL044888
================================================
Stay tuned for models that produce global heating without containing any earth-solar dynamics, like that pesky dirunal variation or seasons.
Two words say it all. “Monash University”
By the way, who else is waiting for a research study to be based on the effects of increased hurricane frequency caused by CAGW on the population of SimCity?
@ur momisugly 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.
Strictly speaking, any attempt to describe reality is a model, not the real thing. You get into trouble when you forget that “The map is not the territory” (Alfred Korzybski).
/Mr Lynn
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!
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…
davidmhoffer: enjoyed the Dipstick/Researcher dialogue, can see it as a comedy skit with on going similarly enlightening interviews:D
I have never quite grasped how it all works anyway. The records show first it gets warmer, then the CO2 goes up. But somehow the CO2 causes the warming.
So I’m not surprised they don’t need the oceans to model the climate. It’s all so little understood, it would probably just muddle things up anyway.
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.
Jason, Beth, Savethesharks et al who enjoyed the Researcher and the Dipstick, I gave up trying to debate science with the hardcore warmists some time ago because they just flail the arms, make silly claims and then go all arrogant when you show them to be wrong, though it doesn’t change their minds. But they can’t rebutt cutting sarcasm. You might also enjoy Global Warming Settled by Poker (though you need to know the names of the leading warmists and what they do to understand the dialogue), the Climatologist and the Physicist, and the Oil Tycoons and the Climatologist.
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/climate-humour-page-the-climatologist-and-follow-the-money-series/global-warming-settled-by-poker/
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/climate-humour-page-the-climatologist-and-follow-the-money-series/the-physicist-and-the-climatologist-follow-the-money/
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/climate-humour-page-the-climatologist-and-follow-the-money-series/the-oil-tycoons-and-the-climatologist-follow-the-money/
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!
I have had a similar thought as yours. However my thinking is that as a fellow model builder I strived as best I could for accuracy in my model. You can go so far as to make a working model like a model airplane that replicates all the major functions and a few of the minor ones. In those cases the models were delicate things which must not be handled roughly or they would break and be useless.
On the other hand, as a youngster I also had toys. Toys were also scaled down replicas but they were built to be stronger and less likely to break. As a result usually only a couple of the major functions worked and rarely did any of the minor functions work.
In other words…
A person who builds something to accurately relect reality under defined conditions to the best of their ability = making Models
A person who cludges things together just see what happens to it in unrealistic situations = playing with toys
So to me this paper did not use climate “models,” it used climate toys.
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…)
How can the atmosphere at 100,000 feet transfer heat to the surface. It can’t. Tell me where I am wrong.
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.
There are a few misapprehensions in this thread.
It is clear that energy cannot be transmitted downward in NET terms. The energy flux (other than from solar input) is forever upward from warm surface to cold space.
It is also clear that the oceans are so dense with such a huge heat capacity that nothing that happens in the air alone is going to have much effect on the equilibrium of the system. ALL the energy in the oceans apart from some geothermal comes from the solar shortwave input that gets past the evaporating layer at the top. What happens to that incoming energy then is down to internal ocean behaviour and not events in the air.
However that is not the whole story because anything that has to come in has to go out again and so the energy flux from surface to space comes into play and that involves the atmosphere (though the oceans determine the amount of energy that the atmosphere needs to ‘process’ at any given moment).
What the atmosphere does do is vary the rate of upward energy flux differentially at different levels so as to alter the air pressure distribution within the troposphere and it is the variations in that distribution of pressure latitudinally (because the Earth is spinning) around the globe that changes regional climates.
From observations we see that when the sun is more active the thermosphere and troposphere both warm up yet the stratosphere and mesosphere both cool down. That alters the upward temperature profile thereby changing the heights of both tropopause and mesopause where there are temperature inversions.
It is the changing of those heights that alters the pressure distribution in the troposphere for a change in climate.
Heretofore it has been assumed that a more active sun warms the entire atmosphere and that the observed cooling of stratosphere and mesosphere was human induced through CO2 and CFC emissions and therefore unnatural.
I have pointed out elsewhere why that cannot be correct. The process is entirely natural because the jetstream shifts that we have observed as the sun became first more active and then less active within our lifetimes also occurred in the Mediaeval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period. At those times the jets moved poleward just as they did during the late 20th Century.
The reason is down to ozone reactions in the upper atmosphere.
More incoming uv does increase ozone and cause warming in the stratosphere but only below 45Km as Joanna Haigh has recently shown.
Above 45 Km the primary process is ozone destruction from more incoming solar protons and thus cooling of the mesosphere. That cooling of the mesosphere by increasing the downward temperature gradient as one goes upward then induces an increased energy flux out of the stratosphere which then also cools despite the warming effect of more uv at the lower levels.
It is the change in the temperature of the stratosphere that changes the height of the tropopause by increasing the temperature differential between surface and stratosphere so that the pressure distribution in the troposphere then changes for regional climate shifts.
The reverse process occurs when the sun is less active as now.
Now if anyone can fault the logic or the observations please say so now since I hate wasting my time.
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.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 4, 2010 at 2:03 am
Steven, as these swings occur what is the effect on cloud formation, both type of cloud and latitude, and the TSI spectrum which reaches the surface?
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.
Re Neil and Robert comments:
Brand new Sinclair (Timex) ZX81 kits are still available.
From here which goes to here, £199.99.
From here, $200 plus shipping.
Go ahead, buy one. Do It For (climate) Science!
Christmas is coming up, these would make great gifts for grandkids and great-grandkids. It’s always fun to make the young ones marvel at how their ancient ancestors managed to survive such primitive times. ☺