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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Excellent video Mr. Wendt. As a Canadian who loves the winter, I find this video absolutely hilarious!!! I am curious as to insurance companies who have put a lot of stock in the “coming warming”, whenever that is supposed to happen. Shades of financial models accuracy. The hubris is sickening. Do not bank on warming, State Farm !! P.S. – what do you think our chances of hearing from Mr. Hamilton are?
The study covers a slice of 30 degrees North to 30 degrees South, THE TROPICS. It has been somewhere around a year since I read an opinion of Dr Lindzen when he said that the evidence suggests AGW may result in some warming of the tropics. I believe for exactly this reason. The models also say that most warming occurs in the coldest regions at the coldest times. Understanding cloud feedbacks in the tropics isn’t near enough to tell us what we need to know.
This new model simply appears to be supporting what was already suspected.
Perhaps a service for science but useless to further warmest mania or answer the important questions.
tallbloke says:
November 23, 2010 at 12:42 pm
“Aldous, We mean no harm to your planet.”
Well, we didn’t. Now the ecoloons? – that’s a diferent story.
Here is a whole bunch of this data charted in one place.
Hadcrut3, Nino 3.4 Index, Cloud Cover anomalies, Column Water Vapour anomalies and Outgoing Longwave Radiation anomalies.
They are all tied to the ENSO and they mostly lag a little behind it.
There is an El Nino, cloud cover goes way up, water vapour goes way up, OLR goes way down, Hadcrut3 goes up.
But there is no trend in any of these numbers. They are flat (except for Hadcrut3 which is going up of course) .
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5413/ensocwvolrcloud.png
So, let’s think about what is happening here. First of all, all these numbers are closely tied to the biggest weather phenomenon on the planet, the ENSO. That means that any analysis of these measures needs to take this into account and the period chosen should try to minimize any ENSO-induced trend.
Second, as as El Nino starts to get going and, especially just after it has peaked, the tropical convection storm activity goes way up, global cloud cover goes way up. This will block more sunlight and, on average, clouds block about 28% of the sunshine, thunderstorms even more, so, a slight rise in cloud cover results in a large reduction in solar “forcing”.
Third, that extra cloud cover also results in less longwave thermal radiation escaping to space. The ENSO swings these numbers by huge amounts.
Fourth, all that extra heat and evaporation and cloud cover and storms of an El Nino results in a large increase in the total water vapour content in the atmosphere. A La Nina will do the opposite of course.
Fifth, an El Nino will raise Hadcrut3 temperatures. More cloud, less OLR, less solar forcing but temperatures rise a small amount lagging about about 3 months behind the ENSO.
That is alot of number crunching to tease out what is the net effect of all these changes in forcing. Given there is no trend in Nino 3.4, cloud cover numbers in these datasets, OLR, water vapour numbers in this NCEP dataset, One could not conclude the extra CO2 is having any effect on them. Ocean cycles, however, obviously do.
So, global warming leads to less clouds AND more storms and floods?
I see.
It must be due to a big reduction in environmentally-friendly fluffy white clouds and a smaller increase in horrible nasty black clouds. Black like carbon. That damned stuff gets everywhere…
Their graph looks like the inverse of temperature anomalies.
That tends to support Mr Illis’s position (and I think Dr Spencer’s)
No discussion of trade winds except that another study referenced them. What is really bizarre is that sensitivity is now local. Used to be that sensitivity was a magic average number that ignored weather and held worldwide (assumptions of constant RH and other averaged physics). Now they have a sensitivity for each little block being simulated and then average them for the whole thing.
That sort of recognizes that local weather is important but of course local weather is not modeled. Instead the weather is parameterized, there is insufficient resolution to model the convection that controls the clouds. So the result is merely a function of the inputs, the model parameters. Comparison with cloud measurements says nothing about cloud changes in a world with CO2 warming since it won’t have the same parameters as the current world, particularly since El Nino warming is going to be different from CO2 warming in several aspects like the winds.
Wow, this is Garbage Science. The model is based on 25 years of observations but is used to forecast 90 years into the future. Cool. Rots a ruck with that forecast.
Another thing – if you look at the chart [Anthony, thanks for going through the trouble to post], you can easily see that between the beginning of the time series and about 1997 the model’s residuals are negative about 80% of the time while from 1997 to the end of the time series the residuals are positive about 90% of the time. This means that there is some type of time related behavior in nature that the model is not capturing. In other words, the model’s results appears to be drifting upward relative to the actual observations over time. This is a model that needs fixing to correct this residual problem, either the use of dummy variables or a time variable. Unfortunately, using either approach poses a big problem for any forecast coming out of the model.
Amazing that such stuff gets published and even more amazing that the “results” are used provide a potentially catastrophic narrative. The world has way, way too many climate scientists.
“The world has way, way too many climate scientists.”
If you want pigeons, throw out bird seed. If you want climatologists, throw out grant money.
I recommend the authors modify their text as shown in [brackets].
“…To study the [model] clouds, the researchers applied a model representing only a limited [model] region of the [model] atmosphere over the [model] eastern Pacific Ocean and adjacent [model] land areas. The [model] clouds in this [model] region are known to greatly influence present [model] climate, yet current global models do poorly in representing them. …”
Otherwise the study seems pretty robust.
anna v, good notes – and this is hilarious.
>>
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.
>>
Sorry , I can’t see any correlation to the red and blue bands , neither for the satellite data or the model. If there is an “observed response to El Nino” this is not the right graph to show it.
I would say that it does a reasonably good job of following the ups and downs, apart from being a bit too sensitive but also shows a steady drift downwards w.r.t the satellite data: c 1985 is it consistently above, after 2000 consistently below.
[Speculation: unwarranted “sensitivity to CO2 => more GW => less cloud cover ?]
However, glossing over the downward trend and then talking about what this means for 100 years hence and rolling out the “worse than we thought” mantra is not science.
What this graph clearly shows is a defect in the model that will presumably continue for the next 100 years of simulation and be very badly off. When your model does not fit the control period it is an amateurish mistake (or a fraud) to extrapolate almost FIVE times the control period into the future and start to make claims about what it means. It means NOTHING.
Their model seems to have some “skill” so there maybe some good science in there despite the flaws but it seems they are part of the growing trend of putting the obligatory AGW spin on their work in order to get published and ensure funds for next year.
After scientology came climatology. G.I.G.O never left us.
Good gawd amighty. Let’s get real. Send these AGWing scientists to Wallowa County. I’ll host them. I have bedrooms upstairs they can use. Tell them to send flowers to their spouses before they get here. In all likelihood, they will not survive the night. I can just see it now, “HELP ME” signs desperately scratched in the frosted windows. And just to be clear, the frost is on the INSIDE of the window.
Axel Lauer : ” 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.”
Well , that and not even attempting to model periodic variations in ocean currents. Having not taken account of ocean currents , failing to understand water vapour transport and cloud formation and precipitation (ie climate), it is indeed “unfortunate” that these same climate models are taken as being relevant in the slightest.
The disconnect, the irony, the completely illogical: Many of them froze to death protesting ‘global warming.’
F. Ross (6:33 PM):
If the study is robust, then the model must be robust. But since the model has systematic errors in the residuals, then the model is likely missing one or more (likely time based) variables. Therefore the model is not robust. The model may provide insight into the nature of cloud cover and climate variation but the systematic errors in the model means it likely has little ability to forecast. No econometrician would use a model with systematic residual errors to make economic forecasts but climate scientists seem not to be bound by such restrictions and seem happy to make forecasts with flawed models that have great potential economic impact.
My post was with tongue in cheek sarcasm; sorry if that was not clear.
Sorry about this, but it does cover the area….
https://windows2universe.org/vocals/results.html&edu=elem
is a rather elementary link about VOCALS, a study of just the sort of cloud this paper is about. I’m really looking forward to their results, even though it involves scientists working really hard! And long hours! And maybe saving the planet!
I suspect the key to AGW is just this, the stratocumulus. There’s a hell of a lot of it and it’s easily influenced by the ocean surface only a few hundred feet below.
JF
F Ross:
Sorry, you seemed to be arguing the opposite. My apologies.
Pamela Gray says:
November 23, 2010 at 7:21 pm
………… And just to be clear, the frost is on the INSIDE of the window.
Snicker
Sounds like my first apartment near Buffalo New York (1975). The house was build in the early 1800s and never had heat added to the upstairs bedrooms. – Thank Gawd for electric blankets, fluffy quilts and flannel PJs. You learn WHY the old Christmas poem starts with MA in her kerchief and me in my cap, had just settled down for a long winter’s nap.
Stocking caps are for sleeping in!
But do not expect these keyboard punchers to leave their nests. They would not know REAL world research if it bit them on the rear.
Aldous Tenpenney 2082 says:
November 23, 2010 at 9:28 am
Citizens of year 2082
Please continue to make confident forecasts of assured doom, we find them quaint and hilarious.
————–
That’s because Aldous is a dolphin.
@Anna V and @Paul Vaughan
I would like to see the measured atmospheric CO2 on this graph – any chance?
From the cited paper;
“The prognostic model variables are nudged to the NCEP
FNL analysis data within a 108 buffer zone along the
lateral boundaries. The buffer zone is not in the analyses
of the results shown here.”
Am I imagining it or does this sound a bit like an email I once read from one climatologist to another?
As I read this paper I could not get the image out of my head of John Conways game of “Life”. Three simple rules in a computer program give a myriad of “organisms” with totally unpredicatable “behaviours”. Aren’t computers wonderful ;-)?
Give them a tranquilizer and ask them to call Dr. Roy Spencer.
He can help them.