From the “it’s worse than we modeled department”, a case of “head in the clouds” thinking:
From the University of Hawaii at Manoa via Eurekalert press release:
Study could mean greater anticipated global warming
Current state-of-the-art global climate models predict substantial warming in response to increases in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The models, though, disagree widely in the magnitude of the warming we can expect.
The disagreement among models is mainly due to the different representation of clouds. Some models predict that global mean cloud cover will increase in a warmer climate and the increased reflection of solar radiation will limit the predicted global warming. Other models predict reduced cloudiness and magnified warming.
In a paper that has just appeared in the Journal of Climate, researchers from the University of Hawaii Manoa (UHM) have assessed the performance of current global models in simulating clouds and have presented a new approach to determining the expected cloud feedbacks in a warmer climate.
Lead author Axel Lauer at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at UHM notes, “All the global climate models we analyzed have serious deficiencies in simulating the properties of clouds in present-day climate. It is unfortunate that the global models’ greatest weakness may be in the one aspect that is most critical for predicting the magnitude of global warming.”
To study the clouds, the researchers applied a model representing only a limited region of the atmosphere over the eastern Pacific Ocean and adjacent land areas. The clouds in this region are known to greatly influence present climate, yet current global models do poorly in representing them. The regional model, developed at the IPRC, successfully simulates key features of the region’s present-day cloud fields, including the observed response of clouds to El Nino. Having evaluated the model’s simulation of present-day conditions, the researchers examined the response of simulated clouds in a warmer climate such as it might be in 100 years from now. The tendency for clouds to thin and cloud cover to reduce was more pronounced in this model than in any of the current global models.
NOTE: Believe it or not, but this pathetic little graph is all that was provided with the press release, I have found no larger versions – Anthony
UPDATE: Author Axel Lauer kindly sends me the paper link here
and from that I have a larger version of the graph below:
Co-author Kevin Hamilton concludes, “If our model results prove to be representative of the real global climate, then climate is actually more sensitive to perturbations by greenhouse gases than current global models predict, and even the highest warming predictions would underestimate the real change we could see.”
This research was supported by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), by NASA through Grant NNX07AG53G, and by NOAA through Grant NA09OAR4320075, which sponsor research at the International Pacific Research Center. This research was also supported by NOAA/CPPA Grant NA07OAR4310257 and DOE Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RCGM) Program Grant ER64840.
Citation: Lauer, A., K. Hamilton, Y. Wang, V. T. Phillips, and R. Bennartz (2010), The Impact of Global Warming on Marine Boundary Layer Clouds over the Eastern Pacific – A Regional Model Study, Journal of Climate, Vol. 23, No. 21, 5844�.
Researcher Contacts: Axel Lauer (808) 956-3631; email: lauera@hawaii.edu
Kevin Hamilton (808) 956-8327; email: kph@hawaii.edu
IPRC Media Contact: Gisela Speidel, (808) 956-9252; email: gspeidel@hawaii.edu IPRC/SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1680 East-West Rd., POST Building 401, Honolulu, HI 96822.
The International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is a climate research center founded to gain greater understanding of the climate system and the nature and causes of climate variation in the Asia-Pacific region and how global climate changes may affect the region. Established under the “U.S.-Japan Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective” in October 1997, the IPRC is a collaborative effort between agencies in Japan and the United States.
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True, the press release isn’t exactly convincing but I think you can be confident that Louise Gray – the Environment Correspondent of the Telegraph, the “Queen of the Press Release – will be forwarding it to the Telegraph printroom
“The researchers applied a model representing only a limited region of the atmosphere”
I have also made a limited model for a limited region of the atmosphere, presuming a constant influx of thermal energy and availibility to water, here’s the code:
if clouds then hot++, end
if hot then clouds++, end
My observations support it quite well, though I think there’s some negative feedback involved too, but considering I usually leave the Sauna before i sear my skin we can conclude the warming would be catastrophic before any such mechanism gets significant.
Alrighty then.
Roy Spencer published opposite findings about cloud feedback in 2007 Geophysical Journal.
I guess they’ll have to duke it out. May the better theory win.
One thing remains clear – the science isn’t settled.
You know, every few weeks/months there’s another new study….
…that shows that all of the previous models were wrong
More GIGO …ad nauseam.
George E. Smith says, at 9:52 :”I get sick of hearing about models that were made up on a computer. ”
I feel the same way. I think that most climatologists could accurately model a bouncing ball, but modeling a global climate is a little more complicated and intractable. Maybe they can give up on imaginary computer models and change their favored method of “prediction.” My preference would be for them to take up acrylics or watercolor. I can just see the headlines… “University of Hawaii scientists today released a 2 by 3 meter watercolor representation of what they expect the world’s oceans to look like in the year 2035. Art critics and graphic designers are united in declaring the painting to be one of the best creative works of the Maui Apocalyptic School.”
Watercolors give the same index of reliability that their computers do, but the angst factor is soooooo much lower.
From experiance, I also know that the climate models are totally incapable of getting current rainfall patterns right either, which is worrying – if you cant get current rainfall patterns right, how can you make forecasts???
So if it is worse than we thought, why hasn’t warming acclerated since 1995, as they predicted?
It should have accelerated even more than they predicted it would accelerate.
The only thing that is certifiably worse than we thought is the ability of the models to accurately predict anything.
….like here in Reno….
I’ve got +4″ of recreation-grade global warming since 6am this morning that I have to go shovel.
Awareness of the need to see past foggy assumptions appears to be increasing:
“It is unfortunate that the global models’ greatest weakness may be in the one aspect that is most critical for predicting the magnitude of global warming.”
Clouds are now on the radar, but I see this not as a sign that climate science has suddenly acquired clear vision overnight, but rather as a sign that climate science has become more aware of the existence of obstacles to its vision.
I see no evidence from this press release that they have a handle on decadal variations. From the limited info released, they appear to simply have tweaked their model to mimic interannual variations over a short period …and then made a grand monotonic extrapolation (something any half-aware Stat 101 student will know is foolhardy). Question for anyone with access to the full article: Have they made a convincing case that they have a mastery of decadal variations? If the answer is “yes”, then this line of questioning is just getting started…
“Deviations from the average low-level cloud amount simulated in the IPRC model (red) compare well with satellite observations (black)”
First of all, i would make that “remotely resemble”; second, it would be interesting to find out whether their model simulates the latitudinal distribution of clouds better than existing models.
Here we go again – (doesn’t every new study threaten a ‘worse’ outcome than the last one..?) – the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP – who the hell are THEY, now..?) – has now said (BBC News Science/Environmental section) that, due to CO2 having ‘only’ reduced 1.3% in the last year, the global temperature ‘COULD’ rise by 4C by the end of the century…
Yeah – it could – it could also rise by forty degrees – or decrease by forty degrees… Don’t know about you folks, but I’m getting really tired of these figures being picked out of thin – or CO2-laden – air….
Is it possible to post a link to raw global temp data sites. I am tired of looking at adjusted data.
If the models show extreme warming for a minor Greenhouse gas (CO2) they will go ballistic with the real engine of climate. (H2O)!.
I wonder if they will refund you for your taxes spent in wrong models. 🙂
“no significant warming for 15 years” – phil jones
so their models, which are already wrongly overestimating increases, are now increasing the estimated increases?
Looking at that great, full detail and overall informative plot two things stand out:
#1 The extremes are larger in the model.
#2 The trend in observed values (black) seems to be near zero, while the modelled trend (red) seems negative.
I’d really like to see something as simplistic as a residual plot of the difference between observed and modelled values.
Vince Causey says:
November 23, 2010 at 10:12 am
IF WWF is right we are about to enter the sixth great extinction.
That partially happened in your last election.. 🙂
The folks in Seattle are praying these doofuses are right.
The clouds in this region are known to greatly influence present climate, yet . . .
The clouds in this region are known to greatly influence present weather,
yet . . .
There is a lot of wiggly room with this but in my mind clouds are not the primary driver of climate, they are just an intermediate link in the system. That they don’t have a clue . . .
The disagreement among models is mainly due to the different representation of clouds.
Some models predict . . . warming.
Other models predict . . .
. . . is pathetic (to use one of Anthony’s words).
[I notice someone keeps referring to Anthony as Andrew (not this posting); is that intentional, with meaning, or just sloppy writing?]
———————————————————————–
ZT says: at 9:42 am
10 PRINT “GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSED BY CO2″
20 GOTO 10
~~~~~~~~~
I did something like the above loop back about 1966 or 67. I also had inserted the character used to advance the paper to the top of the next sheet. When the print started 3 of us were standing about 20 feet from the printer (wide fan fold). The paper arced out into the room because we did not have the cover closed. I think the computer was an IBM 7094 (?) and the printer stood about as tall as a refrigerator.
Modeling of models is simply substituting real sex with masturbation. It all amounts to the same thing much to do about nothing of any lasting value.
Reality is that Earth is entering on a 70-year “dead sun” Maunder Minimum similar to that of 1645 – 1715. Conjoined with a cyclical chill-phase due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) plus an overdue end of the current 12,250-year Holocene Interglacial Epoch (which if not for the 1,500-year Younger Dryas “cold shock” would likely have terminated about AD 450, coincident with the Fall of Rome), odds are that Gaia faces a recurrent 102,000-year Pleistocene Ice Time just as she has for the last 2.6 million years.
Given overtly politicized projections, demonstrably irrational perversions of measured fact, climate cultists’ lack of context and perspective is as scientific as End Times proclamations by Anabaptists of Munster. By c. 2020 – 2030, after ineluctable Reality intrudes, this Warmist schtick will have become worse than laughing-stock– a cautionary tale of what occurs when Big Government handouts drive research projects as propaganda exercises.
Co-author Kevin Hamilton concludes, “If our model results prove to be representative of the real global climate..”
Shouldn’t that already have been tested and confirmed? The real global climate exists now and could have been tested against the model’s output before the paper and press release.
Just more frantic garbage from the few passengers left behind on the Titanic!
latitude said at 10:21 am
… there’s another new study….
…that shows that all of the previous models were wrong.
Of course! The “How to get and justify Grants” manual specifies the process:
1. Find a Gov’mnt agency with funds (they’re printing it so fast, they all do)
2. Write a request (called a Grant) for it, being sure to tell them in your writings, you will come to the conclusion they want.
3. Hire some post-docs, collaborate, travel, do some research, get the money.
4. Write a report, which shows all previous studies and models to be generally wrong AND specific to the original requirements, being sure to extensively use the words; if, probably, mostly, may, might, could, perhaps, possibly, generally, typically, can, provided, often, seldom, conditionally (without specifying) and but – all for the purpose of justifying the need for more funds to “clarify” the uncertainties.
5. ALWAYS remember: No uncertainties, no future funds!
I’d give them an A- for following the prescribed process very well.
More Playstation “science.”
That’s the first time I’ve used the expression, but have seen it bandied around elsewhere. I’m beginning to believe it is an apt moniker. I’m actually beginning to derive some amusement from study after study relying on little more than computer models — these people actually believe they’re doing science, and that models can offer proof. I guess this is what they call post-modern science.