Guest post by Ira Glickstein PhD.
We had joy, we had fun, we had Seasons of the Sun.
But the mountains we climbed were but whimsies of our minds.
That song (apologies to Terry Jacks) could well be the theme for the official climate Team as they hike to the airy peak of Mt. Hansen on the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880, only to look out at the bleak prospect, for them, of level ground, and the possibility of some cooling over the coming decades.
This is the third of my Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series where I allocate the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880 to: (1) Data Bias, (2) Natural Cycles, the subject of this posting, and (3) AGW, which will be the subject of a subsequent posting. Click Tiger’s Tale and Tail :^) to see my allocation and read the original story.
NATURAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES
This posting is about how natural processes and cycles have dominated the global warming experienced since 1880. The base chart for the above graphic is the NASA GISS Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index that indicates the official climate Team estimate of about 0.8ºC net warming, the majority of which they allocate to human activities. In contrast, according to my annotations, the actual net warming is closer to 0.5ºC (0.8ºC – 0.3ºC Data Bias), and most of that, 0.4ºC, is due to natural cycles and processes over which humans have no control or effect.
The violet curve in the graphic is my estimate of the effect of natural cycles from 1880 to the present. There are many natural processes that affect the surface temperature of the Earth, but nearly all of them gain their energy from the Sun which is why I call them Normal Seasons of the Sun. In the following three sections, they are divided into three groups, according to their time scales and effects.
GRADUAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES LESS IMPORTANT ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
Biological life is thought to have existed on Earth for about 3.5 billion years. Over that enormous time period, natural processes and cycles have affected the evolution of life. Absent those processes, we would not be here, or at least not in our current condition. However, some of these processes and cycles operate ponderously slowly, to the point they are barely noticed on the time scale of an individual human life or even on the time scale of ten lives. Therefore, they are of virtually no concern:
(a) Brightening Sun The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old, and about halfway through what is called the main sequence evolution for a star of its type. It has been getting brighter, but very slowly and nearly imperceptibly. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a Red Giant, and life as we know it on Earth will no longer be possible. However, the rate of brightening is so small that we may ignore it.
(b) Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is affected by slow, cyclic variations in eccentricity (100,000 years), axial tilt (41,000 years), and precesssion (21,000 years). Changes in the Earth’s orbit do not affect the quantity of average yearly solar radiation, but the distribution between equatorial regions and polar regions is affected. This may be the cause of the approximately 100,000 year cycle of ice age glaciations. However, the contribution of these effects over a period as short as that from 1880 to the present is so small we may ignore it.
(c) Heat from Earth’s Core. About 0.01% of the energy responsible for heating the surface of the Earth is due to energy from the decay of radioactive materials in the Earth’s core. This source has a half life measured in billions of years. This is such a tiny fraction of the Earth’s heat budget that we may ignore it.
PROCESSES AND CYCLES OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
(d) Normal Seasons of the Sun. The nominal 11-year Solar Cycles, during which Sunspot counts vary from low numbers to a peak and then down again, may be as short as 9 years or as long as 14. Magnetic polarity changes for every pair of cycles, so there is an 18 to 28 year magnetic cycle. Often there are series of three or more cycles, spanning periods of 30 to 150 or more years where solar activity may be very low (below 50 spots per month) and series of similar lengths where activity may be very high (above 100 spots per month).
Low Sunspot series are historically associated with decades of unusually cold climate and vice-versa for high Sunspot series. Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) does not change much during a single Sunspot cycle, but, over a series of high (or low) cycles, it may change enough to result in an increase (or decrease) of 0.1ºC. This TSI effect of Solar Cycles accounts for about a quarter of the of 0.4ºC I have allocated for natural cycles.
(e) Henrick Svensmark’s Global Cosmic Ray (GCR) Theory. GCRs have a positive role in the formation of clouds. Low-lying daytime clouds tend to cool the surface of the Earth. Therefore, all else being equal, the more GCRs, the more clouds, and the cooler the surface of the Earth. Increased solar magnetic activity, which coincides with higher Sunspot numbers, may divert some portion of GCRs from reaching the Earth, thereby reducing cloud formation and thus lessening their cooling effects.
Via this mechanism, a series of high Sunspot cycles may indirectly cause surface temperatures to rise, and a series of low cycles may cause them to fall, which is consistent with the historical record. Svensmark’s theory, if correct, could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.
(f) Multi-Decadal Ocean Oscillations. There are a number of ocean oscillations, with periods of from less than a decade to multiple decades, that affect sea surface temperatures and therefore have climate impacts worldwide. These include the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and others. The ENSO, for example, has a warm phase, called El Niño, Spanish for “the boy”, and a cool phase, called La Niña, “the girl”. The El Niño that started in 1998 caused global warming of 0.1ºC to 0.4ºC for a couple years.
While the net effect of any cycle on temperature anomalies is zero, they have significant effects during their high and low durations. Given the existence of several, somewhat independent ocean oscillations, their high and low times may tend to reinforce or cancel each other out, and that may explain multi-decadal episodes of positive and negative anomalies. There may be some correlation of these cycles with solar activity, which is, of course, the main source of their energy. Thus, ocean cycles could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
(g) ATMOSPHERIC GASES (net positive feedback). Long-wave radiation from the Earth extends from about 4 to 25 microns, with maximum energy around 10 microns. See the absorption spectrum for “greenhouse” gases. Note that the absorption spectra for water vapor (H2O) in the range of interest extends from about 5 to 8 microns and from around 12 to 25 microns. Note also that the absorption spectra for other atmospheric gases, such as methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (NO2), and oxygen/ozone (O2/O3), partially overlap H2O such that the atmosphere absorbs (and re-emits) nearly 100% of 4 to 25 micron radiation, except for two nearly transparent windows in the 8 to 9 and 10 to 12 micron regions.
Nearly all the carbon gases in the atmosphere are from natural sources, mostly respiration and digestive gasses of living animals and the decay of dead plants and animals. (The small proportion of carbon gases due to human activity, mainly burning of previously sequestered coal, oil, and natural gas, will be discussed in a future topic here on WUWT. For the purposes of this posting, only natural carbon gases are considered.)
When an atmospheric gas absorbs longwave radiation in its spectrum, that radiative energy is re-emitted in a broader spectrum and in all directions, about half towards the Earth and the other half out towards space.
When atmospheric CO2 absorbs 4 to 5 micron radiation from the Earth, or CH4 absorbs 7 to 8 micron radiation, and that energy is re-emitted, some will fall into the nearly transparent windows and head out to space nearly unimpeded. About half of the remaining energy will be re-emitted back towards the Earth’s surface and will add to warming.
The same is true for H2O, NO2, O2, and O3. Thus, increases in any of these gases will tend to increase warming of the Earth, all else being equal. That means, should the surface of the Earth experience a temperature increase, due to natural solar effects or any other cause, and if that increases emission of carbon gases from equatorial and summer temperate oceans, and reduces absorption of carbon gases by the polar and the winter temperate oceans, that will consititute a positive feedback. The inverse is also true. Should surface temperatures decrease, and if this reduces the amount of CO2, CH4, or H2O gases in the atmosphere, that will reduce the “greenhouse” effect, and tend to further cool the surface. Thus carbon gases and water vapor represent a positive feedback to surface warming.
(h) CLOUDS (net negative feedback). Short-wave radiation from the Sun extends from about 0.2 microns (ultraviolet light) to 2 microns (near infrared light), with maximum energy around 0.5 microns (green light in the visible spectrum). Moderate warming of the surface has a net effect of increasing the extent of cloud cover. Daytime clouds reflect much of the short-wave radiation back out to space, which is a powerful negative feedback. However, both day- and nightime clouds also absorb long-wave radiation from the Earth and re-emit about half of it back down, further warming the surface, a positive feedback. There is disagreement over whether the net effect of clouds is warming or cooling. Most of the official climate Team models assume the net effect is positive, others, including me, assume it nets out as negative.
(i) SURFACE ICE (net positive feedback). Ice, having a high albedo (reflective quality of white or light-colored surfaces), reflects much of the short-wave radiation from the Sun back out to space, which has a cooling effect. Warming of the Earth’s surface may thin and ultimately melt the ice and expose the underlying sea water or land. Water and land are less reflective. Thus, warming that causes melting has a net positive feedback.
(j) THUNDERSTORMS, HURRICANES, ETC. (net negative feedback). These tend to mix the atmosphere and, since the surface is generally warmer than the lower air masses, storms and other disturbances of the atmosphere tend to be a cooling influence. Thunderstorms, in particular, tend to lift warmer air from the surface to higher elevations where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space.
Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more thunderstorms and hurricanes, or makes them more intense, they have a negative feedback effect.
(k) PRECIPITATION (net negative feedback). Water vapor in the atmosphere cools by radiation of its heat energy in all directions, including out to space. The vapor condenses, forming liquid (rain) and solid (snow) water precipitates. Since the radiating tends to take place high in the atmosphere, where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space, this precipitation constitutes a net cooling effect. Rain and snow tend to be cooler than the surface, and that is also a net cooling effect. Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more precipitation, that is a negative feedback effect.
(l) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. These spew hot gases, liquids, and solids from the bowels of the Earth onto the surface and into the atmosphere. In the short-term, this tends to heat the surface. However, the aerosols from the volcano, basically sulphur and other mineral compounds, are driven high into the air and tend to remain for years, which tends to reflect Sunlight back into space, which, in the longer-term, tends to cool the surface. The net effect is cooling. For example, the eruption at Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 cooled global temperatures 0.1ºC to 0.3ºC for a few years thereafter.
CONCLUSIONS AND REQUESTS
I believe I have hit on and briefly described all the major natural processes and cycles that affect average global temperatures. However, if readers have additional information or corrections to what I said about any of them, or if there are some I missed, I would appreciate detailed comments to improve my summary.
It seems to me that my estimate of 0.4ºC for Normal Seasons of the Sun is fully justified, but I am open to hearing the opinions of WUWT readers who may think I have over- (or under-) estimated this component of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880.
In my first and second postings in this Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series, I asked for comments on my allocations: to: (1) Data Bias 0.3ºC, (2) Natural Cycles 0.4ºC, and (3) AGW 0.1ºC.
Quite a few readers were kind enough to comment, either expressing general agreement or offering their own estimates.
Some commenters claim that the actual Data Bias is larger than my estimate of 0.3ºC. Some think Data Bias may be responsible for the entire amount of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880, meaning that net warming over that period is ZERO. I accept that Data Bias may be 50% more (or less) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.15ºC and 0.45ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.
Others commenters claim that AGW is ZERO. In other words, they believe that rising CO2 and land use changes due to human activities have no effect on temperatures or climate. They believe the lack of effect is due to the negative feedback from cloud albedo and other natural negative feedback processes. I agree clouds have a net negative feedback (most official models assume a net positive feedback) but I do not believe this cancels out all the effects of CO2 on the Earth’s surface absorption of Solar radiation nor of albedo changes due to land use. I accept that AGW may be 50% less (or more) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.05ºC and 0.2ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.
What do you think? I have been keeping a spreadsheet record of WUWT reader’s opinions, which I appreciate and value greatly, along with their screen names, and I plan to report the results later in this series.
This is what you may look forward to:
Some People Claim There’s a Human to Blame – Yes, human actions, mainly burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, are responsible for some small amount of Global Warming.
Is the Global Warming Tiger a Pussy Cat? – If, as many of us expect, natural processes lead to stabilization of global temperatures over the coming decades, and perhaps a bit of cooling, we will realize the whole Global Warming uproar was like the boy who saw a pussy cat and cried tiger.
Dr. Glickstein — now wait just a minute …. you say
“When atmospheric CO2 absorbs 4 to 5 micron radiation from the Earth, or CH4 absorbs 7 to 8 micron radiation, and that energy is re-emitted, some will fall into the nearly transparent windows and head out to space nearly unimpeded. About half of the remaining energy will be re-emitted back towards the Earth’s surface and will add to warming.”
That is not possible. That radiation you are speaking of just cooled the surface by the same amount when it radiated into the atmosphere and was absorbed. You must mean “the cooling of the surface was cancelled” by the same amount. Now that would be a true statement.
This is AGW proponents douuble speak, they forget or hide the fact the same radiation they are saying warms the surface just got through cooling the surface when it left. You can’t have it one sided, true physics will not left that occur.
Nice graph but we do not know what all the natural cycles are so this will be wrong possibly by a large margin. Remember both the Medieval and Roman warm periods were warmer than today and they were driven by natural cycles. This makes the guessed gap between natural and AGW warming on the graph just that- a total guess.
The latest research is showing a greater input from solar physics that was ever thought possible and according to Peter Taylor’s book Chill these were enough to cause what was considered to be the CO2 warming. This warming, based on a false premiss, assumes that CO2 levels have been level at 285ppmv. A simple internet search proves that this figure is total rubbish. The actual action of atmospheric CO2 levels varied by a considerable amount from this guessed figure of 285. Over 450ppmv was apparently the norm back in the 19th cent, as measured across Europe at the time. See:- Beck 2007 ‘180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods. 25 pages of interesting research and an easy read.
Often there are series of three or more cycles, spanning periods of 30 to 150 or more years where solar activity may be very low Grand minima.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MagAn.gif
Very nice summary of a number of other processes that have been willfully ignored by the AGW machine. And I would agree with the authors view that many of these may likely have been influential on the temperature record. However, the quantification is a strawman – which serves to make a good discussion – but without observational evidence and without falsifiable theory, the strawman is no better that the AGW story. As much as I also think it is ‘more likely’ and forms a much more well rounded story, care needs to be taken with presenting numbers like this.
Please replace above link with:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MagAn.htm
[Perhaps you might like to do that]
What, imho, seems most relevant is the compounded uncertainty. Very little of the information leading to even the range of temperatures attributed to a specific cause is “iffy” along with what one might call compounded gradients. Suppose, for example, you measure a discrete area and 100% resolve accuracy of temperature impact for that one area. You have a specific gradient, high and low, for a specific time. There’s little, if any, serious analysis of how one contributing factor’s gradient interacts with another other than a series of assumptions and all based upon further assumptions based upon even further assumptions. Of the lot, only Svensmark’s theory is specific enough to be provable, in the human time scale, and, even then, it’s impact will be debated until all these gradients are resolved. In short, unlikely in my personal human time scale.
Dear Ira. Excellent summation which could double as an executive summary. As long as you have no objection, I’ll be sending this to my MP for his consideration.
Ira
Interesting in terms of the numbers but there are far too many assumptions and not enough proofs.
Als, correct me if I’m wrong, but you say ‘max energy at 0.5µ (green light) but is that true? E = h . mu in joules where mu is wavelength.
“(i) SURFACE ICE (net positive feedback). Ice, having a high albedo (reflective quality of white or light-colored surfaces), reflects much of the short-wave radiation from the Sun back out to space, which has a cooling effect. Warming of the Earth’s surface may thin and ultimately melt the ice and expose the underlying sea water or land. Water and land are less reflective. Thus, warming that causes melting has a net positive feedback”
Open water loses more heat than ice-covered water. It’s not as simple as albedo, especially since a lot of the places where ice exists are at latitudes that don’t receive sunlight when ice is at its highest extent.
I don’t think negative feedback could cancel out a forcing entirely. That would require infinite negative feedback. For example, if a forcing changed a variable by 1 unit, then negative feedback of -1/9 would reduce the change by 0.1 of a unit to 0.9 of a unit, since -1/9 * 0.9 = 0.1 Negative feedback of 1 would reduce the change by 0.5 to 0.5, since -1 * 0.5 = 0.5 Negative feedback of -999,999 would reduce the feedback by 0.999999 to 0.000001, since -999,999 * 0.000001 = 0.999999.
Another way to think of it is that the feedback needs some of the original change to be left for the feedback to work on.
My guess is that negative feedback of -2 reduces the change in temperature to 1/3 of what it would be without feedback. So if doubling CO2 would raise the temperature by 1.2 Celsius, then that’s 0.4 degrees after negative feedback.
Ira,
Good presentation!
The Global Warming hype is all natural from Ice Age to Ice Age slow warming.
Climate science missed watching the precipitation and evaporation patterns as they are not temperature numbers.
So now the ocean currents have shifted the ocean heat and changed the weather on climate science.
Hi Ira!
I think you covered most of it, but you did forget a few.
1) There is also cooling caused by the gases in the atmosphere due to the re-radiation of sunshine 0-5 um coming from the sun e.g. see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
they measured this radiation as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So this radiation was : sun-earth – moon /. Clearly, as it must have left earth it must have caused cooling. For the CO2, follow the green line in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um. You will find it back in fig 6 top.
2) There is also cooling caused by CO2 due to its participation in photo synthesis.
I noted that in the early mornings here, if you enter a forest, it is cool from the bottom up. You can feel that the trees and foliage drains energy from its surroundings. This is obviously also the reason why there is no forests growing at higher- altitudes and latitudes. So note that all the green you see, even that in the sea, extracts this energy from earth and without the CO2, this would not happen.
By not acknowledging this oversight of these two cooling factors, you would be making the same mistake as Svante Arrhenius and a whole herd of people who kept following his theories.
As for me, I think I have proven that the net effect of the cooling and warming of the carbon dioxide is probably close to zero, or possibly,
if I look at my own results in this report:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/assessment-of-global-warming-and-global-warming-caused-by-greenhouse-forcings-in-pretoria-south-africa
it could even be that the net effect of more CO2 is (very, very) slight cooling.
Please remember you all that carbon dioxide is good for life. Pity global warming has stalled because that is not bad for more greenery and better crops either.
Sorry Ira,
may be you should also read what I wrote here,
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
because it seems you are a bit confused about what causes radiative cooling and what causes radiative warming.
They talk about climate change as if it’s a bad thing.
Thank God for climate change.
Otherwise it would be really boring, decade in and decade out.
Excellent analysis, Ira. I think an AGW effect of 0.1C is probably too generous, but in any case it’s small enough to be of not much consequence, and that consequence would be primarily a positive one anyway. The issue of land use change is a bit of a red herring, because while there certainly are environmental effects to consider, whatever warming it causes would be primarily local, and its contribution to overall warming miniscule.
Ira: You wrote, “The El Niño that started in 1998 caused global warming of 0.1ºC to 0.4ºC for a couple years.”
The 1997/98 El Nino actually started in 1997 and it shifted global temperatures up for more than a couple of years.
A few more notes.
The North Atlantic SST-based dataset that best describes the impact of the natural variations in the North Atlantic on global temperatures is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The North Atlantic Oscillation is a sea level pressure-based natural mode of variablility. Since Sea Level Pressure and Sea Surface Temperature are closely coupled, there are North Atlantic Oscillation datasets that are based on SST anomaly data at two different locations; in other words those datasets use SST data as proxies for sea level pressure.
The PDO, as calculated and presented by JISAO, in and of itself, cannot be used directly as a proxy for the impact of the North Pacific (north of 20N) SST anomalies on global temperatures. In fact, the PDO data and the North Pacific SST anomalies are inversely related on decadal timescales:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/09/inverse-relationship-between-pdo-and.html
For those new to natural sea surface temperature variations, the following series of posts are introductions to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO):
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-1.html
And the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO):
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-2.html
And the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO):
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/09/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-3.html
I see climate change as genus.
It pushes the human race forward.
I guess I just see things different.
Think Different
Ira,
First I want to respond to the distribution of causes. I think data bias is about 0.1 C. I think natural cause is about 0.4 C. Thus human cause is about 0.3 C, of which farming, deforestation, and building (cities and roads) are about 0.1 C, and burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacturing (CO2 production) are about 0.2 C.
I like most of your write up, but have a few disagreements.
1) Biological and other causes are short term contributors that make the CO2 level go up and down fairly rapidly, but the average natural CO2 level is caused by volcanoes emitting and rock weathering and long term biological trapping. Ocean absorption or out gassing of CO2 becomes a major cause if the average temperature shifts.
2) Back radiation does not cause heating of the Earth. Back radiation is a consequence of the fact that greenhouse gases caused the Earth to be warmer than otherwise. The mechanism is that the absorption of much of the long wave radiation, and eventual transport of that energy by radiation is combined with the transport of energy from the ground by evaporation and convection. The energy eventually is transported to an altitude high enough to radiate to space. The altitude of radiation to space (it is actually spread out) is the average location where outgoing radiation to space matches the Earths absorbed solar radiation, and thus determines the effective temperature of the air at that average location. The convective mixing of the atmosphere cause an adiabatic lapse rate to form and be maintained, with a wet lapse rate when the water vapor condenses, and a dry lapse rate otherwise. The lapse rate, combined with the effective altitude of radiation to space, determine the lower atmosphere and ground temperature. For a couple of more complete descriptions, see:
http://climateclash.com/2010/11/25/g1-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect-and-its-effect-on-agw/
and also:
http://climateclash.com/2010/11/28/g2-greenhouse-gas-effect/
At absolute zero (0*K) nothing moves. Temperature does not reflect the total energy in a system as complex as our little issolated piece of the Universe (at least not the simple way ‘temperature’ is currently measured). Is it getting warmer or cooler? Nobody knows, we haven’t really measured the actual temperature once, much less twice to compare.
Ira, I think when the dust finally settles, man will have been responsible for much less than 0.01C.
“Climate change” is the main driver of evolution. It’s a natural process and the planet is programmed to do every bit of it “naturally”. If it wasn’t for “climate change” we would not be here.
I do not see where evaporation of water, which is temperature neutral as far as heating the atmosphere, the convection of warm humid air to altitude, the release of the heat of condensation, and the loss of this high altitude heat to space is included in this discussion. This also leads to the clouds that are discussed.
Convection has been estimated to account for 92% of energy transfer to altitude, while most people like to only talk about radiation fluxes. The water cycle is ignored nearly totally b the IPCC and handles the missing heat that Trenberth agonizes over in his e-mail.
Shouldn’t it be included?
Wow Ira it doesn’t seem you have a lot of support from the skeptic crowd. Most think you should massage your figures to give greenhouse gases a zero effect.
A couple of points from the AGW side.
Isn’t the total solar irradience at a minimum stage at the moment? Would that not mean that we should be cooling? http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/01/19/improved-measurements-of-sun-to-advance-understanding-of-climate-change
You say nearly all the carbon in the atmosphere is from natural sources, and I do not disagree, but then isn’t all the natural CO2 emitted balanced by the Earths take up of the CO2 and that burning from fossil fuels pushes it into the area of imbalance causing slight warming, which causes evaporation of water vapor etc, which causes warming that causes etc. you can see where I am going with this.
Wayne Says: “That is not possible. That radiation you are speaking of just cooled the surface by the same amount when it radiated into the atmosphere and was absorbed. You must mean “the cooling of the surface was cancelled” by the same amount. Now that would be a true statement.”
This is a typical skeptic mistake and misunderstanding. Is it not true that Earth is not a closed system, the sun is adding heat all the time, if the heat coming in heats the surface and is radiated into the atmosphere but then half of it is bounced back then you have increased the heat in the system by the amount bounced back. Your understanding of ‘True Physics” is seriously flawed.
Other than that I do not see where the 0.4 of natural heating comes from? Most seems fairly balanced and if anything we should be cooling, so then why are we still heating up?
“Carl Chapman says:
January 23, 2011 at 4:55 am
I don’t think negative feedback could cancel out a forcing entirely. That would require infinite negative feedback. For example, if a forcing changed a variable by 1 unit, then negative feedback of -1/9 would reduce the change by 0.1 of a unit to 0.9 of a unit, since -1/9 * 0.9 = 0.1 Negative feedback of 1 would reduce the change by 0.5 to 0.5, since -1 * 0.5 = 0.5 Negative feedback of -999,999 would reduce the feedback by 0.999999 to 0.000001, since -999,999 * 0.000001 = 0.999999.
Another way to think of it is that the feedback needs some of the original change to be left for the feedback to work on.
My guess is that negative feedback of -2 reduces the change in temperature to 1/3 of what it would be without feedback. So if doubling CO2 would raise the temperature by 1.2 Celsius, then that’s 0.4 degrees after negative feedback.”
Reference the last paragraph; my recollection is that a lot of socalled “sceptics” including Dr Spencer and Prof. Lintzen are of the opinion that the net forcing of man made CO2 is probably in the region of 20-25% of the warming recorded since 1880 so that is not a mile away from the above estimate of 33%. Such individuals also seem to agree that gross temperature forcing of a doubling of CO2 is 1C which is also close to Chapman’s 1.2C.
I know that “weather is not climate”, however as a golfer residing in the Atlanta area, I want the warming back. December ’09 ran 3 – 4 degrees F below “normal” and December ’10 around 7 below. January 10 ran several degrees below “normal” and preliminary data for Jan. ’11 and the forecasts for the remainder indicate it will follow the same trend. This has cut into my golf by at least 50 percent and I find this very disconcerting. It really is too bad we couldn’t put enough CO2 into the atomosphere to change this trend even if we wanted to.
Here’s to the crazy ones at WUWT.
The misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers, the round pegs in a square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them , glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
see: I can spell genius.
Goodbye, my friends; I closed my eyes, but still could feel the sun.
==============
There are several other solar cycles which impact on scale of human lifetimes.
There are 1500 year solar cycle ‘Bond’ Events in interglaicials which correlate with Dansgaard-Oeschger events in glacials. These may account for much of the warming since 1750. They have been traced in ice cores going back 800,000 years.
The 1500 year cycle is a superpooisiton of several smaller cycles, their effect is greatest when the several cycles converge, and their effect also seems to be greater within glacials, although this is probably a function of both proxy data and greater measureability during glacial periods, not actual T change.
It is likely the Medieval Warm period, and Little Ice age, as well as warming since 1750 are correlated with these solar cycles. They are virtually completely ignoied within AGW literature for obvious reasons.
That was a very good summary.
a. The sun’s slow warming is an indicator of strong negative feedback by water vapor and clouds- see
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C2976%3APBOTES%3E2.0.CO%3B2
g. As for atmospheric gases, volcanoes pour enough CO2 into the atmosphere to
double our CO2 levels every 10,000 years, yet CO2 remains relatively stable. thanks to negative feedbacks.
http://www.phys.lsu.edu/faculty/cjohnson/climate.html
“The climates of the terrestrial planets are different because of dramatic differences in their atmospheric composition. But why do Venus, Earth, and Mars have such different atmospheres? In particular, why are there such huge differences in the amount of CO2 in their atmospheres? To answer that, we must look at something called the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle acts as a huge, planetary thermostat: when working properly, it cools a planet when it gets too warm, and heats it up when it gets too cold.
On Earth, atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by precipitation- –by rain—and forms a very weak solution of carbonic acid, a very mild form of acid rain. This acid rain falls on surface rocks, many of which contain calcium, and the carbonic acid dissolves a tiny bit of the calcium. Eventually the water, containing both carbonic acid and calcium ions, washes down to the ocean. In our oceans tiny plants and animals, plankton, incorporate the calcium and carbonic acid into shells of calcium carbonate. When the animals die, their calcium carbonate exoskeletons drift to the ocean floor. When enough of these carbonate deposits build up, they form carbonate rocks, such as limestone, which are composed of the skeletons of trillions of dead plankton. In short, the action of water removes CO2 from the atmosphere and puts it into the crust of the Earth. The Earth has roughly the same amount of CO2 as does Venus, but it is nearly all locked up in the crust as carbonate sediments.
(The fact that plankton play a role in precipitation carbonates out of water is used to bolster the so-called Gaia hypothesis, the idea that life is an integral part of Earth’s climate. Other scientists dispute the necessity of life to the carbon cycle, for even without plankton calcium carbonate at sufficiently high concentration would precipitate out of ocean water.)
While most of the Earth’s CO2 is locked in her crust, it doesn’t stay there forever. The action of plate tectonics, the motion of the Earth’s surface, can subduct carbonate sediments; that is, as chunks of the Earth’s crust gets pushed together, some of the rocks gets pushed deeper into the interior, where it is subjected to heat and pressure. Such heat and pressure initially changes limestone to marble. But under even greater heat and pressure, the CO2 is released from the rock, and makes it way back to the surface where it is emitted into the atmosphere through volcanic action. Hence volcanoes are a source of CO2.
This is the complete carbon cycle: rainwater removes CO2 from the atmosphere and puts it in the crust, and volcanic action releases CO2 from the crust and puts it back in the atmosphere.
What happens on Venus? Venus has no water! Early in its history Venus may have had water, but it is too close to the Sun to retain it. When water molecules rise high in an atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation split the water molecules into its component gases, oxygen and hydrogen, and the lighter hydrogen molecules escape into space. While Earth’s lower atmosphere is about one percent water vapor (although it seems much higher in the humid Louisiana summers), the upper atmosphere, where ultraviolet radiation can penetrate, is very dry: a cold trap, a combination of pressure and temperature, prevents water vapor from rising high in the earth’s atmosphere. Venus has a cold trap, too, but because Venus is closer to the Sun its cold trap is much higher in the atmosphere and any Venusian water molecules rise high enough to be broken apart by ultraviolet radiation.
Therefore the carbon cycle is incomplete on Venus: without water, CO2 cannot be removed from the atmosphere. Venus does have volcanoes, however. Radar mappings of Venus by interplanetary probes indicate volcano-like mountains, and there is other evidence for volcanoes as well. The atmosphere of Venus is full of sulfur dioxide and sulfur particulates. Sulfur and sulfur dioxide is highly reactive and cannot remain long in an atmosphere; therefore something (volcanoes) must be regularly replenishing the sulfur. This theory is bolstered by data from interplanetary probes, which have detected large fluctuations in the sulfur content of the Venusian atmosphere, as well as radio signals reminiscent of lightning–and lightning is often found in volcanic plumes.
And Mars? The carbon cycle is also broken on Mars, but opposite to Venus. Mars has no active volcanoes to replenish the CO2 in its atmosphere. We know Mars once had running water—we can still see billion-year-old river beds where water once ran—and the water may still be there, locked up in the ice caps and in permafrost beneath the surface. And it seems likely that Mars has CO2 still locked up in its crust, deposited there billions of years ago by the action of water. If you could release that CO2 you could warm up Mars again. Indeed this is a major premise of science fiction stories about terraforming Mars; an excellent example is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.
A fully active carbon cycle acts as a thermostat, regulating a planet’s climate. In your thermostat at home, two strips of dissimilar metals bends one way or the other depending on the temperature. If it gets cold in your house, the metal strip bends one way and switches on the heater; if it gets warm, it bends in the opposite direction and switches on the air conditioning. The carbon cycle has similar negative feedback. Suppose the Earth gets too warm. Then more water will evaporate from the oceans, and the additional precipitation will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, moderating the Greenhouse effect and cooling the planet. If the planet cools too much, less water will evaporate and there will be less precipitation to remove CO2; the CO2 will build up, warming the planet.
This carbon cycle thermostat helps to explain a mystery about Earth’s long term climate. Computer models of our Sun show that it has gotten progressively brighter over its five- billion lifetime, by about twenty-five percent. Since a mere two percent change in the Sun’s luminosity would (all other things being equal) plunge the Earth into a deep ice age, one might expect the surface to have only recently defrosted. But two hundred million years ago the Earth was in fact warmer than it is today. So all things were not equal. (For one thing, continental drift affects climate; the formation of deep oceans tends to cool the planet, whereas shallow oceans warm it.) The carbon cycle explains how the Earth’s climate can compensate for changes in the Sun’s luminosity. It seems likely that the Earth’s atmosphere had somewhat more CO2 half a billion years ago than today; as the Sun slowly grew brighter, the carbon cycle deposited more CO2 in the crust, keeping the temperature ‘just right.’ ”
i. As for surface ice, there would have been a very strong albedo feedback at the end of the last ice age, leaving little room for much of an effect by CO2. In comparison to the last ice age, not much of the earth’s surface exposed to the sun is covered by ice, so any additional feedbacks from melting ice must be very small in comparison to the effect 10,000 years ago.
I suspect that additional clouds in the arctic atmosphere balance any additional melting of arctic ice leaving the current albedo relatively stable. If it wasn’t stable, the Greenland icecap would have melted millenia ago.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15830942/ns/world_news-world_environment/
So, does this mean I can make the Team the butte of future jokes?
Moreover, to add to my comment above, the 1500 year solar cycles have shown a time lag of about 20 years on average over the last 10,000 years between max solar activity and earth T, but up to about 50 years after longer cycles, due to normal time heat time lag properties, and the warming from ~1750-1950 from the sun would be expected to have a time lag of about 50 years with ocean heat absorption and transfer, meaning peak T shoud from warmign from the Little Ice Age in the 1700s should be around the early 2000s, which is what we observe.
This should mean the earths atmosphere is approaching equilibrium (heat out = heat in) after 50 years of solar stability/decline. Several papers have attempted to address eg the equilibrium of the earths atmosphere (heat out versus heat in ) and what I have found is that they have invariably ‘inserted’ some kind of mysterious constant ‘n’ to account for the lack of inequilibrium expected from AGW theory, and to dismiss the idea that the earths atmosphere is now approaching equilibrium. Hansen is amongst the mix-and displays the usual lack of understanding of natural earth dynamics.
We started measuring temperature during the end of the Little Ice age when the sun was dormant. When the sun resumed it’s normal state it warmed slowly at a rate of 1/2 ° C per century. This warming continues today. DID ANYONE THINK IT WOULDN’T WARM ?
On top of this there is a 60 year sine wave which frightens the alarmists but does nothing . It is caused by ocean currents, most notably the PDO.
When this cycle was at it’s bottom we read stories of global cooling [1978] when it was at it’s peak we signed the Kyoto treaty. Just a coincidence ? I doubt it.
The sine wave is caused by the PDO being positive and negative for [approximately] 30 year cycles. When it is positive the earth warms when it is negative it cools.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/img/pdo_latest.jpeg
As of 1998 we were just rounding the top of the sine wave so temperature went flat as you would expect. Since around 2005 the temperature has gone down as you would expect. Except for an El Nino blip in 2010.
The good news is that 2011, 2012, 2013 out to 2030 will all be colder on average than 2010.
At some point the alarmists will become aware that their doom and gloom prediction of 3 ° C warming by 2010 is unreachable.
The alarmists will hate it because it will expose their fibs. Even if the long term 1/2 ° C warming is caused by CO2 [which I doubt] it will be benign and we will convert to alternative fuels naturally because we will run out of the other.
The quantitative uncertainties identified by several responders exemplify the true nature of the “Scientific Method” – as compared with the proponents of AGW who proclaim uncertainties as “facts”.
Michael,
“burning from fossil fuels pushes it into the area of imbalance causing slight warming, which causes evaporation of water vapor etc, which causes warming that causes etc. you can see where I am going with this.”
I can see where you are going – into a glass flask. This sort of naive simplification of physical systems is what’s gotten climate science into the position it’s now in – having to constantly reinvent itself to try and stay credible.
It is not what is in the climate models that is the problem – it is what is left out, the same kind of stuff that leads to absurd glass flask models. Warming doesn’t just lead to increased water vapor, it causes convections cells – rising columns of air carrying sensible heat aloft, evaporation, precipitation, cloud albedo and winds. That is why your glass flask Earth will never work.
Sam Glasser says:
January 23, 2011 at 7:36 am
– as compared with the proponents of AGW who proclaim uncertainties as “facts”.
==================================================
When scientists have to resort to lying and fudging data, and get caught at it,
and continue to do it….
…there’s no science involved at all.
They’ve had over 1/2 century to prove their ‘pet guess’.
The fact that they haven’t, the fact that they are still arguing it……
Truth is, no one knows enough about what causes, or doesn’t cause, any of this.
Ira, if you are not aware of this paper:
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/2007GL030288.pdf
Random variation of different cycles also plays a role leading to shifts in the direction of the over all trend.
Thanks for the interesting and informative summary. You asked what we think, so here goes for me:
1. The answer can only be a guesstimate – if we knew for sure, further debate would be unnecessary!
2. Data bias: on the basis that this is applied as the first correction to the 2010 anomaly chart (that there is a continuous correction curve, starting from zero in 1880, which, if applied to the Nasa Giss 1800-2010 anomaly figures would reverse the effect of all post-1880 urbanisation, thermometer biases and post hoc raw data adjustments), my estimate would be *at least* 0.3C in 2010 (being 0.2C for data adjustments applied only by Nasa Giss broadly accounting for the excess over the Hadcrut figures, plus at least 0.1C for urbanisation effects and thermometer biases not fully accounted for);
3. Natural cycles: taking these at their original 1880 values (so after the “correction curve” as above is applied) and inclusive of all feedback effects (other than any in the pipeline not yet apparent from the 2010 temperature anomaly figures), I would agree that approximately 0.4C is “natural cycles” (causes over which humans can have nil or negligible effect);
3. My guesstimate of true AWG since 1880 is therefore *not greater* than 0.1C, inclusive of all feedback effects (other than any in the pipeline), including the effect of the AGW coming on top of what is already a natural cycle maximum, being itself a type of positive feedback due to the oceans de-gassing.
Look forward to the results summary!
Ira,
I nominate Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides (Clouds) as the Team’s theme song.
Or maybe not. 😉
Alan McIntire,
an interesting summary of the carbon cycle, although it ignores the biological cycle completely. If I understand your thesis, the biosphere cannot add any extra co2 to the atmosphere, it can only recycle what’s already there.
However, you then make a leap of faith in arguing that the co2 acts as the planetary thermostat. Yet this is only possible if the climate has an even greater sensitivity to co2 than postulated by the ipcc. And there have been periods when co2 and temperature have moved in opposite directions, such as the late Ordovician, when co2 levels rose to 5000 ppm whilst the planet entered a glaciation. Or one could ask, considering the large fall in co2 levels since the paleocene, why todays temperatures are not a lot colder than they actually are? As regards warming of mars by releasing co2, mar’s atmosphere is already 98% co2 and is still very cold.
The question as to why co2 levels on earth have gradually declined over the tertiary could be because of a diminishing occurrence of volcanic activity. Maybe the Earth is not as geologically active as it was in the Mesozoic and earlier, leading to an imbalance between sequestration and release.
Other than that I do not see where the 0.4 of natural heating comes from? Most seems fairly balanced and if anything we should be cooling, so then why are we still heating up?
Except in spite of increasing CO2, we have not been “heating up” since 2002. Add to this that summers have NOT been increasing in temps since 1900, globally. What has been happening during this warming phase is winters have been getting less cold. There is no evidence of any more “heat waves” now, the 1920’s still hold those records.
Very good discussion both in the article and the comments.
I wonder however how much heat is added to the oceans through deep ocean vents (which are hundreds of degrees F). Deep ocean vents were discovered only relatively recently. We certainly don’t know how many there are, where they may be, and whether their output varies or is constant.
What contribution the deep sea vents in the Caribbean may have to circulation in the Atlantic is unknown to me, however obviously the heat will flow to the cooler polar regions.
Similar comments can be made regarding undersea volcanoes. As such, I’m not certain it is so easy to dismiss the heat from the core as negligible.
Focusing strategically on just one section of the article:
1) “[…] somewhat independent ocean oscillations […]”
I would suggest calling them neither “independent” nor “ocean”.
2) Notably, I see no mention of Semi-Annual Oscillation, Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, North Pacific Index, Southern Annular Mode, & Earth Orientation Parameters.
3) Lumping all natural oscillations into a category labeled “multidecadal” is misleading.
I will leave comment on other sections to others.
—
A more general comment, not specific to this article:
Natural variations are absolutely fascinating, but climate discussions that degenerate into politics are almost without exception an ugly waste of time. I sincerely thank all those who are able to succinctly share stimulating comments on natural climate variations. I encourage everyone else to step back from the edge & sober up.
Ric Werme says:
January 23, 2011 at 7:24 am
Ric Werme says:
So, does this mean I can make the Team the butte of future jokes?
There’s no time like the prescient.
Thanks, Wayne, for being the first to comment in this thread. Let us agree, without any “douuble speak” that, absent the “greenhouse” gases (in this case CO2 and CH4), all the energy radiated by the Sun-heated Earth in the CO2 spectrum of 4 to 5 microns and the CH4 spectrum of 7 to 8 micron radiation would pass, unimpeded, out to space. The presence of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere causes that energy to be absorbed and part of it gets re-emitted back towards the Earth.
OK so far? So, we both agree the Earth is a bit warmer due to those gases than it would be absent them. I consider that will, as I wrote, “add to warming”.
If you do not accept as “true physics” that gases in the atmosphere add to the warming of the Earth, I suggest you take a vacation on the Moon. Good luck.
Can you provide some refs on this aspect (any real-time satellite imagery we have access to (e.g. LWIR @ 10 um or WV imagery) seems to indicate the bulk of IR energy is from the surface, not the airmass above it; pls note that WV imagery temps zero to sub-zero C temps and WV has limits as to heights (not as well mixed as CO2 in the atmosphere for instance))?
I assert this is a very low-order effect compared to surface radiation (a bulk of it thru the atmospheric near and about the 10 um window and a ‘peak’ in the Wein curve for most of the warmer parts of earth) ‘out to space’ …
Ref http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/wien.html
.
Many people here comment on your physics of this situation, but I think your best contribution is to the “economic sociology”, for lack of a better term, of “climate change.” The devout, the insiders, have pushed the estimated mean temperature trend as high as possible, including all sorts of biases, to prove their point (gain grants maybe), but they may have pushed it too high, and soon will suffer a return to a more truthful level. It’s a lot like the growth, and then bursting, of a speculative investment bubble–no matter how great one’s belief in a continued rise of prices, fundamentals eventually force prices down to a reasonable level again.
Thanks Stephen, but if there were proofs one way or the other, we would not have to make assumptions, would we? In terms of making decisions and living our lives and helping direct public policy along rational lines that do not wreck our economies on false assumptions such as CAGW, we need more rational assumptions that admit the uncertainty but argue that Global Warming is nearly all natural and not subject to much human control or effect and that it is more of a pussy cat than a tiger.
As for your point on the maximum energy point in the spectrum of the Sun, according to this diagram, the “Spectral Irradiance (W/m^2/nm)” peaks at 500 nm (.5µ), thus the maximum energy would be at a slightly different wavelength. Good point!
Michael says:
January 23, 2011 at 6:34 am
“You say nearly all the carbon in the atmosphere is from natural sources, and I do not disagree, but then isn’t all the natural CO2 emitted balanced by the Earths take up of the CO2 and that burning from fossil fuels pushes it into the area of imbalance causing slight warming, which causes evaporation of water vapor etc, which causes warming that causes etc. you can see where I am going with this.”
This appears to be a definition. Can you restate it as one or more physical hypotheses? Otherwise, I can only conclude that your statement embodies the pro-AGW meme that Earth has a natural balance and that man’s activity is the only source of imbalance. If you make such universal assumptions, you will never get to the level of empirical investigation, aka science.
A worthwhile discussion which leads to two questions.
1. What is the earth’s optimum surface temperature, and
2. What is the optimum atmospheric carbon dioxide level?
When these questions are answered we can then have a rational discussion on Anthropogenic Climate Modification.
Bernd Felsche says:
January 23, 2011 at 8:10 am
I second the nomination.
Thanks Leonard for your estimated allocations and I have added them to my Excel spreadsheet and plan to report the results in a subsequent posting. Thanks also for the details on how “greenhouse” gases contribute to the surface temperature of the Earth. I’m just a system engineer and only need to understand the simple explanations. (They say a domain expert knows more and more about less and less until he or she reaches the ultimate point, knowing everything about nothing. At the same time, the system engineer knows less and less about more and more until he or she reaches the ultimate point, knowing nothing about everything. I admit to being closer to the latter ideal :^)
Those effects are included in the following subsections:
“(j) THUNDERSTORMS, HURRICANES, ETC. (net negative feedback). These tend to mix the atmosphere … Thunderstorms, in particular, tend to lift warmer air from the surface to higher elevations where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space.” and “(k) PRECIPITATION (net negative feedback). ..”
Ira, I think the 0.8 degrees warming is fro[m] ca 1910, at a min., rather than 1880 which was relatively warm. That would knock at least another 0.2 degrees from your warming. Also given all of the biases in play, it is likely that the bias is closer to (or more than) 0.5 degrees. We have many examples of no trends in the raw data from 1880 to now. following are just 2. I can provide nearly 2 pages of links to biases.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Rate_of_Temp_Change_Raw_and_Adjusted_NCDC_Data.pdf
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/ne_tem p_history_trends.pdf
An excellent summary. I have not seen Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) mentioned. Most things that are cyclical have positive and negative effects. The interesting thing about SSW is that it only acts one way; it cools the earth. We dont know a lot about it.
Should be seasons IN the sun. That song came out when I was in Middle School, and I hated it. 😉
Ira,
Looks analysis looks right to me. The next 5 to 10 years will prove Henrik Svensmark’s GCR theory right I think. Obviously, the assumption is for a weak cycle 24 and a weak(er) cycle 25.
The brightening sun is an important point though. This is strong evidence that the Earth’s climate is controlled by clouds, which are a negetive feedback on termperature. There has been liquid water on Earth for most of it’s 4.5 billion year history, yet the sun has increased in brightness (25%) during this time. This fact is crucial. I wonder what would happen to the GCMs if the sun was 25% less bright. Snowball Earth is the answer, the GCMs have the feedback the wrong way round.
Leonard Weinstein
Then you’re maybe just about in agreement with the IPCC when they say that it’s very likely that most of the warming since the mid-20th century is due to human activity. It’s said that much of the warming of the early 20th century was down to an increase in solar irradiance, but solar irradiance has not increased over the past three decades whilst temparatures have been rising, suggesting that a large proporation of the recent warming is due to human activity.
I just have one question Ira.
Do you have confidence in the “raw” temperature data?
I object to any form of apology being offered to Terry Jacks. He owes us an apology for inflicting that song on the world, just as Al Gore owes us an apology for ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
Hello Ira
I think this is a very valuable exercise. I am working on a similar front, though I am trying to route each climate variable back to its root cause/s. I’ll post my summary towards the end of this thread, as to not distract attention and comments from yours, but in the interim, here are my thoughts on how you can develop yours further:
Firstly, I agree with Bob Tisdale comments above on the inclusion of the AMO, and differentiation of the NAO as an Atmospheric Oscillation versus versus an Oceanic Oscillation. In my research I’ve come across 4 “Major” Oceanic Oscillations: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Atlantic Decadal Oscillation (AMO), Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO) and El Nino/La Nina, and 7 “Major” Atmospheric Oscillations: The Arctic Oscillation (AO), Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), North Pacific Oscillation (NPO), the Madden / Julian Oscillation (MJO), Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO) and Southern Oscillation (SO). Here is a summary of each of these Oscillations:
Oceanic Oscillations:
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO):
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PDO.htm
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_egec.htm
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/REPORTS/PDO/PDO_cs.htm
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
The Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO):
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AMO.htm
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/timeseries/AMO/
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
The Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO), which is closely associated with the Atmospheric Oscillation the Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO) and is the Oceanic component of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO) is also closely connected to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO): (Note, took some liberty in naming the Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO) as it does not appear to have a well established name within the literature. It might be better as the Indian Ocean Interannual/Decadal Oscillation (IOIDO), but time will sort that out.)
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/28816.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/51n8664436045952/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Dipole
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-10/04/c_13542305.htm
El Nino/La Nina, which are closely associated with the Atmospheric Oscillation the Southern Oscillation (SO), is the Oceanic component of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO);
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ENSO.htm
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/el-nino-southern-oscillation-enso
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/26/enso-update/
Atmospheric Oscillations:
The Arctic Oscillation (AO):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.shtml
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/arctic-oscillation-ao
(The following is a good animation of the Northern polar circulation and Arctic Oscillation over the last 30 days);
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
The Antarctic Oscillation (AAO):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao.shtml
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/antarctic-oscillation-aao
(The following is a good animation of the Southern polar circulation and Antarctic Oscillation over the last 30 days):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_sh_anim.shtml
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.shtml
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/north-atlantic-oscillation-nao
The North Pacific Oscillation (NPO), which is closely associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_Oscillation
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~nigam/Linkin-Nigam.JCLIM.May.2008.pdf
The Madden / Julian Oscillation (MJO):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjo.shtml
http://wwa.colorado.edu/IWCS/archive/IWCS_2008_May_focus.pdf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/22/the-madden-julian-oscillation/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden%E2%80%93Julian_oscillation
The Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO), which is closely associated with the Oceanic Oscillation the Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO), and is the Atmospheric component of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The Equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation (EQUINOO) is also closely connected to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO):
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.74.9668%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=%22EQUINOO%22%20atmospheric&ei=7WIfTcPBOcL78AbX8YDhDQ&usg=AFQjCNFiWHVPF-KYx7ifdVbB3HKEcdcCBg&sig2=KPCUfkXR89b-GN1vTVp9ZQ&cad=rja
http://www.springerlink.com/content/51n8664436045952/
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/28816.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Dipole
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-10/04/c_13542305.htm
and the Southern Oscillation (SO), which is closely associated with the Oceanic Oscillation El Nino/La Nina and collectively referred to as (ENSO)
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/southern-oscillation-soi
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/el-nino-southern-oscillation-enso
The lack of volcanoes since Pinatubo likely contributed to warming…due to a clear stratosphere. http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/19/study-shows-half-of-warming-since-1980-due-to-clean-skies/
Michael says:
January 23, 2011 at 6:34 am
Not quite so fast Michael, you are the one who is making a joke of “True Physics”. Get out your trusty Kiehl & Trenberth energy budget. Got it? You try to take that 168 Wm-2 shortwave coming in from the sun and say “Look, that energy is radiated to the atmosphere and is absorbed and half comes back and that increased the heat of the system”. Right? Isn’t what you just said above? You did the same thing I was pointing out to Ira. I’m sure it was just a slip on his part. You left out the portion of the cooling just as he explained it, that’s not that whole story. You are attempting to pull the same AGW trick I mentioned in the very first comment of this article. Lets me go over it in much more detail… the part I assumed he would understand but you just blindly picked up:
168 Wm-2 * 0.961 emissivity = 161.5 Wm-2 + half of the 67 Wm-2 absorbed by the atmosphere.
That’s 161.5 + 33.5 = 195 Wm-2 from the sun to the surface.
That is always received here on the ground every second of every day, the constant solar input.
But that’s only half enough to account for the 288K average temperature here on the surface. OK.
To limit the decimals I’ll borrow one Wm-2 for a minute…
196 up 98 down
98 up 49 down
49 up 24.5 down
24.5 up 12.25 down
12.5 up ….. and so on to the last Wm-2.
Tally all of the Wm-2 that comes down and what do you have, well I’ll be, 196 Wm-2 and
196 (give back the borrowed one and say 195) + the original 195 that is always here is the 390 Wm-2 in trenberth’s graphic that creates the environment that we live in. Convert it to Celsius and you get 15 ºC which IS the accepted figure for the mean temperature of the earth.
But wait, by my method of explanation, which is really the true physics method to explain this, and the statement of Ira I was complaining about, has one HUGE, HUGE difference. The way most AGW proponents word it more GHG’s in the atmosphere will cause more to be radiated downward somehow. That cannot happen by the true physics accounting. The only way for something more to come down is for more to be there to go up and there is no more ‘there’ unless we receive more every second. That is the radiation field that is set by the solar irradiance level that hits the earth.
That now brings me to Ferenc Miskolczi’s paper. There’s some great insight there, physics wise. By my explanation above you should see with the radiation going up and ½ down that goes back up and ½ down that goes up and ½ down to the last photon and is an integration of what is here and what is here is 288K equivalent to 390 W/m2 and that, by physics is all there is. No Kiehl & Trenberth doubletalk in the way the graphic is draw and arrows drawn, no mysterious 324 W/m2 magically coming down from the co2 laden atmosphere. That my friend is the true physics of it. Ferenc describes it in equations as Au = Ed which is the up and down of the close to ½ of the resonating LWIR that occurs here in the lower troposphere and it is equal (well not exact for due the geometry of the earth and very slight directional component in re-radiation it’s less than half down) and so K&T’s figures are off a bit.
If I bruised your ego, didn’t mean to.
—
Ira:
I’m sorry if I jumped all over your statement but standing alone it brings the wrong view into the minds of so many people, I just had to say something. When you isolate energy and it leaves the surface, do mention the cooling that does actually occur. I know it is so much easier to say such a simple statement that going into what I laid out above in response to Michael but it’s better to give them the whole truth, believe me.
Dr. Glickstein,
Good “fair and balanced” summary of climate change issues!
I am skeptical of the CO2 contribution to warming the Earth. Yes, Earth’s atmosphere does provide a “comfort blanket” of about 33C above the black-body temperature of 255K. And, yes, CO2 is a powerful absorber of IR energy in the bands you mentioned above (although I think the 15 micron band is more important here, because it’s closer to the terrestrial thermal radiation peak).
The question is, how much warming effect does CO2 alone have on terrestrial warming? (Leaving aside “H2O feedback” effects for argument’s sake).
Answer: We have an ideal planetary CO2 greenhouse laboratory in place on the planet Mars, whose atmosphere is 95% CO2, with no other GHG’s to complicate the anlysis. Virtually no warming due to CO2 is observed.
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner, only 1% of Earth, but because it’s almost pure CO2 the actual concentration of CO2 is about 30 times greater per unit surface area than on Earth.
Yet the mean surface temperature is the same as the black body temperature, ~210 K, according to NASA’s “Mars Fact Sheet”:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
Black-body temperature: Mars 210.1 K Earth 255 K
Average temperature: Mars ~210 K Earth 288 K
Conclusion: Even though CO2 is a powerful absorber of 15 micron radiation, in isolation its contribution to “greenhouse warming” is negligible.
Whenever I bring this up, someone invariably mentions that “pressure broadening” may play a role here. Pressure broadening refers to the apparent thickening of aborption lines under high pressure. But is there any conlusive evidence or experiment that proves that this effect actually produces warming, without any help from other feedback mechanisms?
And, getting back to Mars, why is it that CO2 doesn’t produce a lot warming. I have to admit I am surprised too that the much more abundant CO2 (compared to Earth) doesn’t warm the planet up.
Secondly, in terms of estimating the impact that Earth’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Oscillations on Earth’s temperature the following sources might be helpful:
Abstract to a presentation by Wang, Y.; Yao, T. at the American Geophysical Union’s 2010 Fall Meeting on the influence of the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere-ocean couple systems on the 20th century warming on the Tibetan Plateau.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMGC41A0875W
Their “REOF analysis suggests that the 20th century warming revealed by the Malan ice core was remarkably influenced by the summer NAO and AO indices, and winter AO and PDO indices. A multivariate linear regression shows when combined, the summer NAO and winter PDO and AO account for 63.2% variations of the total variance in δ18O over the past century. ”
Also in this paper on the “empirical evidence for interannual and longer period variability in Thailand surface air temperatures”;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V95-4PBDPT6-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1616888763&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c21e8ba8600e4dcbfd5d2bb32a80b4e4&searchtype=a
“The spatio-temporal variations of monthly averaged maximum, mean and minimum surface air temperatures (Tmax, Tmean, Tmin) in Thailand for the period between 1951 and 2003 have been examined using Principal Component Analysis. The objective of this study was to determine the dominant patterns of interannual and longer period variability and illustrate their connection to large-scale climate variability.
The results reveal that the dominant variability in Tmax, Tmean and Tmin can be explained in large measure by the first principal component (PC1), which accounts for 60%, 61% and 62% of the total variance, respectively. The coefficient time series associated with PC1 appear to have oscillated in relation to the primary global climate variability. There are significant indications that El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events are an important source of interannual/interdecadal variability in Thailand surface air temperatures.”
It’s obviously only two points of reference, and they are both from the same geographic neighborhood, but 60ish% seems to be an interesting recurring theme…
Thanks for your comment, Michael, I think it always useful to hear from the other side, in your case a fairly reasonable Warmist.
In a contentious argument there are always strong partisans who think you’ve got to fight fire with fire so, if they think their opponents are exagerating one way, they exaggerate the other way. For example you write about the “skeptic crowd” that “Most think you should massage your figures …” Most? As I read the comments in this thread, I find lots of general support, much good scientific clarification and details to illuminate and, where necessary, correct my points, and some small amount of AGM is ZERO reasoning, but, even that is generally accompanied by science-based argument, even if you and I think it is an incorrect conclusion.
I believe it is best to fight fire with water, by which I mean science-based truth, or at least as close to the truth as well-meaning humans can get.
The Solar Cycle #23 ended in 2009 and SC#24 began in that year, so, you are correct that Sunspots have been at a low level for the past several years. However as I wrote in the main Topic, “Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) does not change much during a single Sunspot cycle, but, over a series of high (or low) cycles, it may change enough to result in an increase (or decrease) of 0.1ºC.”
So, we have experienced, over the past decade or so, a stabilization in average global temperatures, despite the continuing rapid rise in CO2 levels. Statistically significant cooling may come later if, as appears nearly certain, SC#24 peaks at a low level (below 60, as NASA’s Hathaway now predicts, revising his predictions for SC#24 down from as high as 180 in 2006) and, less certain, when we get a couple more low-count cycles. Be patient.
All that appears certain is that we are not in any kind of “tipping point” or “runaway” situation as the Alarmists claimed several year ago and some still claim.
I agree, and that is why I included “(g) ATMOSPHERIC GASES (net positive feedback). …” in my main Topic, specifically mentioning water vapor as part of that positive feedback. The question is how much warming is caused by human-activities, including carbon gases and land use, and I will get to that in a subsequent posting. Preview: It is small.
I agree with your reply to Wayne. You are correct.
Please look again at my figure. Most of the net heating between 1880 and the present came during periods of moderate to high Sunspot activity and was also affected by ocean oscillations and other natural effects as I described.
When an overweight person starts eating in a healthy manner (not starvation dieting, he or she just stops over-stuffing themselves) his or her weight first stabilizes and then, after some time, a slow decline in weight follows. Therefore, it would not be surprising if most of his or her highest-weight months are among the most recent ten. That result would be even less surprising if his (well-intentioned :^) spouse was continually “adjusting” the scale to show higher-than-actual weight and also modifying the historical record of his or her weight to reduce the numbers from the past.
That is exactly what some of us have good reason to believe the official climate Team has been doing, see The PAST is Not What it Used to Be (GW Tiger), my earlier posting in this series. Also please see my Do We Care… posting that includes a copy of a NASA GISS email to James Hansen where his trusted aid Makiko Sato details how they had to re-analyze the US Annual anomaly data for 1934 and 1998 SEVEN times before they were able to change the result from 1934 being 0.5C WARMER than 1998 to getting them equal. That was not good enough, so, after the date of that email, they did another re-analysis of the same data, that had been in hand for over a decade, to get 1934 COOLER and thereby give 1998 a small lead. (But, I think their re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-analysis was well-intentioned :^)
Carl Chapman says:
January 23, 2011 at 4:55 am
I don’t think negative feedback could cancel out a forcing entirely. That would require infinite negative feedback. For example, if a forcing changed a variable by 1 unit, then negative feedback of -1/9 would reduce the change by 0.1 of a unit to 0.9 of a unit, since -1/9 * 0.9 = 0.1 Negative feedback of 1 would reduce the change by 0.5 to 0.5, since -1 * 0.5 = 0.5 Negative feedback of -999,999 would reduce the feedback by 0.999999 to 0.000001, since -999,999 * 0.000001 = 0.999999.
Another way to think of it is that the feedback needs some of the original change to be left for the feedback to work on.
My guess is that negative feedback of -2 reduces the change in temperature to 1/3 of what it would be without feedback. So if doubling CO2 would raise the temperature by 1.2 Celsius, then that’s 0.4 degrees after negative feedback.
You are making the mistake of a lot of mathematicians treating the world as static so the formulae are simple and fit on the back of an envelope.
Take a tropical area – the day warms up and as it does so clouds start to form shading the surface – negative feedback(1) by albed0. However, the clouds formed as the water from the surface was evaporating – negative feedback(2) due latent heat. The humid air is less dense than dry air – so will rise increasing the convection currents carrying it latent heat up until the lapse rate results in condensation into more cloud radiating the latent heat at a higher level – a negative feedback(3). The air currents in the convection start increasing in strength and the rate at which the air cools due to the lapse rate is slower than the rate which it is carried upward (air currents in the ITCZ can be up to 100kts upward) warm air and liquid water may be carried as high as 30,000 feet or more before they finally cool enough to freeze,. The result is a towering cumulonimbus that shields a huge area of the surface from the sun -increased negative feedback (4) with rain falling to the surface at a high rate – some was hail before melting on the way down a large very negative feedback (5) at the surface as sensible heat is absorbed by the cold precipitation.
Then the sun starts to set and there is no more incoming radiation but the negative feedbacks from convection currents continue the cooling as they are driven by the heat content of the surface and the evaporation rate – negative feedback to an energy supply that stopped perhaps hours previously. Eventually the convective cooling (negative feedback) results in a balance and the convective weather calms there will be some positive feedback as the clouds evaporate back to humid air but this radiation is not scattered back to the surface it is absorbed as latent heat of evaporation.
Some of the energy has been converted into kinetic energy leading both to updrafts and to surface winds as air is ‘drawn in’ under the cloud – negative feedback (6). The air drawn in will cause more evaporation to take place than would have otherwise occurred in still air – leading to more negative feedback (7). These winds tend to continue longer than the input energy due to momentum of the air flow so they carry on into the night. It is quite conceivable that the clouds formed by a previous day’s input are still in existence the next day. Their albedo is not a feedback to _the current day’s_ input but they are actually stopping the current day’s input energy
Large swirls of air form due to strong convection (see Hadley and Ferrel Cells) leading to cold polar pushing under warm ex-tropical air which rises and cloud forms at ‘the cold front’. These clouds are a long term negative feedback (8) from the sun’s energy that caused the convective uplift that caused incoming air to become the winds driven by Coriolis force to become the swirls and cyclones.
Do you still think that your simple everything-else-held-static negative feedback equation can adequately describe what happens in nature?
Good post Ira. A couple of thoughts that spring to mind.
You are talking global mean temperature, global averages. However, each of us experiences local and regional climate (and weather), not global averages. At a local and regional level, land use factors (as well described by Roger Pielke Sr) can have very significant effects, particularly if desertification is involved. People experiencing such conditions can convince themselves that it is global warming causing it, but in fact it is much more likely to be the land use factors (desert bowl in the US during the 1930s for example).
My second point is that the components of the aggregate number can be rather greater than you suggest, with large negative feedbacks cancelling out the large positive contributors.
So in my world, I suggest that data bias of various kinds can contribute perhaps 1 deg (or more) positive to the mean, with natural factors contributing perhaps 0.5 deg, but with the negative factors you describe offsetting those factors to give the net “observed” result of around 0.8 degrees.
The reality is that we don’t really know very much about the complex climate system.
I recall NASA, or some other major climate organization, once saying that half or .4 C of the temp. record (the earlier warming) was due to solar influences, but I can’t seem to find the link.
Back in 2001 Hansen did admit that the urban influence on the GISS dataset was around .1 C:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20011105/
If he admits that then I suspect it is actually higher since his admitted method for correcting UHI does not seem terribly accurate to me.
I give.
TimC, your estimates are entered into my spreadsheet. Thanks for your general agreement with mine, and -especially- for your well-reasoned explanations that I think are worth reading by all here.
“If, as many of us expect, natural processes lead to stabilization of global temperatures over the coming decades, and perhaps a bit of cooling, we will realize the whole Global Warming uproar was like the boy who saw a pussy cat and cried tiger.”
So, the world’s leading experts think the tiger is real, but we should ignore this because bloggers with no training in the relevant fields are “skeptical”? If we act now and it turns out the bloggers were right, we will look silly and will have wasted a good bit of money. If the bloggers are wrong and we do nothing we get eaten alive.
If case you have forgotten your childhood stories, in the “Boy who cried Wolf,” there really was a wolf!
JR Wakefield says: What has been happening during this warming phase is winters have been getting less cold.
not exactly what I have been finding in the SH?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/23/normal-seasons-of-the-sun-gw-tiger/#comment-581093
Thirdly, I am not sure where, possibly in your “(j) THUNDERSTORMS, HURRICANES, ETC. (net negative feedback).” but I think you should cover Polar Vortices;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
which “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes [very cold] air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.universetoday.com/973/what-venus-and-saturn-have-in-common/
Key measures in accessing polar vortices appear to be if/when they coalesce into a single funnel during the Winter and when in the Spring the coalesced funnel breaks-up. For example, this year the Arctic Polar Vortex does not appear to have coalesced yet;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
and thus the multiple lobes of the uncoalesced Polar Vortex appear to be reaching further down to lower latitudes this year, similar to what occurred in 1985:
” The January 1985 Arctic outbreak[1] was a meteorological event, the result of the shifting of the polar vortex further south than is normally seen.[1] Blocked from its normal movement, polar air from the north pushed into nearly every section of the eastern half of the United States, shattering record lows in a number of states.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1985_Arctic_outbreak
This paper summarizes some of the differences between having a coalesced and uncoalesed polar vortex:
http://www.ace.uwaterloo.ca/publications/Manney-ExtremeArcticWinters_ACP.pdf
“The first three Arctic winters of the ACE mission represented two extremes of winter variability: Stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) in 2004 and 2006 were among the strongest, most prolonged on record; 2005 was
a record cold winter.”
“Temperature and vortex evolution was very similar in the two years [2004 and 2006], with the vortex breaking down throughout the stratosphere, reforming quickly in the upper stratosphere, while remaining weak in the middle and (especially) lower stratosphere.”
“2005 was the coldest winter on record in the lower stratosphere, but with an early final warming in mid-March.”
“Disparate temperature profile structure and vortex evolution resulted in much lower (higher) temperatures in the upper (lower) stratosphere in 2004 and 2006 than in 2005. Satellite temperatures agree well with lidar data up to 50–60 km, and ACE-FTS, MLS and SABER show good agreement in high-latitude temperatures throughout the winters. Consistent with a strong, cold upper stratospheric vortex and enhanced radiative cooling after the SSWs, MLS and ACE-FTS trace gas measurements show strongly enhanced descent in the upper stratospheric vortex in late January through March 2006 compared to that in 2005.”
Here a couple videos to help visualize the process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-avwKDhXIrQ&feature=related
Ira said:
“Biological life is thought to have existed on Earth for about 3.5 billion years”
It is difficult to see this fact as anything but evidence that the net feedback in all forms is negative. If it were positive this number would be much smaller and we very likely would not be here to discuss it.
The climate record also suggests that there are multiple conditions of stability, or climapauses, where a change happens but which is followed by another change, and that these changes are stable over long periods of time. Ice ages, for example. Some of these changes can be associated with physical phenomena (Milankovitch cycles, for example).
What is missing from the climate record are climate drifts and climapauses that have as their origination events that transpire as a consequence of eruptive biomass activity (CO2 released by humans being a notable alleged example) .
A worthwhile exercise for a simple overview, though I agree with other posters who would like you to include other oceans cycles, especially the AMO, as it does have a significant influence as a longer term cycle. Also of course, you are treating the climate as though it were a linear system that can be easily laid out, and your discussion seems void of any in-depth discussion of positive feedbacks between anthropogenic GH gases and other natural cycles.
As a dynamical energy system existing on the edge of chaos, the climate certainly is subject to rapid change with the seemingly smallest of nudges, and this is born out in the paleoclimate record. These tipping points are created when some small change creates a cascading effect of positive feedbacks as the system quickly tries to find a new balance and enters a new regime. Your underlying assumption then, is that the 40% increase in CO2 is not affecting these other natural cycles. This assumption is not that of many climatologists who are studying the potential feedbacks that might exist between CO2 and the PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc. These are not trivial questions, and relate directly to how sensitive the climate may be to CO2 levels, and what level of nudge it may take to send the system into a new regime via a tipping point being crossed.
In short, your analysis, while appropriate for a simple linear discussion of the climate, is not accurate, and can’t be, for the real-world nonlinear, dynamical, and edge-of-chaos nature of the earth’s climate, where small nudges in one area can have repercussions that are deterministic but quite unpredictable throughout the whole system.
Yes and no.
The “raw” data, by which I assume you mean the actual data sheets where observers used to read thermometers and write the readings down are, of course subject to error. The thermometers were not that accurate, the enclosures may have added to warming when they were re-painted with latex unstead of whitewash, there may have been transcription errors, and some lazy observers may have done the readings at times different from those recorded or even skipped a hike out in the snow and ice and just made up the data. To that we may add encroachment by development and relocation of the thermometers from the local newspaper office to the radio station to the airport, etc.
The errors that are more or less “random” (transcription, calibration of the thermometers, etc.) may result in records that are either higher or lower than actual, but these will tend to cancel out over the very long run. The errors that are systematic (system-wide changes in brand of thermometer, painting of enclosures, encroachment from development, change in time of reading if those changes are to a later time in morning, change of location, etc.) are more problematic.
The most problematic is when those “raw” data are “adjusted” and re-“adjusted” by people who appear, to me, to have an agenda of demonstrating CAGW.
So, in general, I would trust the “raw” data more than the “adjusted” data, unless *I* got to do the adjusting :^)
If I understand you correctly, it appears around 60% of the total variance may be due to Earth’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Oscillations, which would be about 0.24C of my 0.4C allocation to natural cycles. Another 0.1C is accounted for by TSI variations over several high-count Solar Cycles, so we can leave about 0.06C to other natural processes, or an error in my estimates. I’ll buy that!
R. Gates says:
“Your underlying assumption then, is that the 40% increase in CO2 is not affecting these other natural cycles.”
No. Your assumption is that CO2 is affecting natural cycles. It is not.
As the null hypothesis has repeatedly shown, there is no measurable global climate or temperature difference between pre- and post-industrial CO2 levels. Current metrics [temperatures, trends, etc.] are well within past parameters. So necessarily, the alternate hypothesis [CO2=CAGW] is falsified.
Sorry, Gates, but the real world does not agree with your assumptions.
Smokey says:
January 23, 2011 at 11:28 am
R. Gates says:
“Your underlying assumption then, is that the 40% increase in CO2 is not affecting these other natural cycles.”
No. Your assumption is that CO2 is affecting natural cycles. It is not.
_____
Hmmm. Didn’t realize you had done extensive study on this Smokey. Please site the peer-reviewed research papers that show that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s has not affected the natural ocean cycles (i.e. the PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc.) in any way. Since this is an area of intense interest and study by many scientists worldwide, they apparently aren’t aware of these studies that you are privy to, and they can then move on to other things and not waste their time.
Ira Glickstein, PhD
For example Smokey, tell these guys to stop studying the changes they have found in the Labrador current, unique in the past 2000 years, and may be related to AGW:
http://www.eawag.ch/medien/bulletin/20110104/index_EN
Why are they wasting their time? They should just listen to what Smokey knows for certain…
Smokey
Ira Glickstein puts the temperature difference between 1880 and now at 0.8C. You think he’s wrong?
Thanks Mike for your comment, and I generally agree that we should respect the established experts in any given field and accord their scientific statements more validity than those of amateurs.
But, who are the experts in the field of Global Warming? The folks at the Climategate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK? Our NASA GISS? Their credentials and official positions entitle them to the benefit of the doubt, but their actions have gone well beyond any doubt (IMHO :^)
I read all the Climategate emails as well as the NASA GISS FOIA emails and it is clear to me the official climate Team:
(1) Really believed their theory of Catastrophic human-caused Global Warming, at least when they first thought it up a couple devades ago, and they really believed they were saving the world (more like Chicken Little, who was really deceived than the Boy Who Cried Wolf, who knew, the first 75 times he was exaggerating, and, only at the 76th time, when there really was a wolf was he telling the truth)
(2) Despite all evidence to the contrary, many of them still believe it and even wish, in CRU-head Phil Jones words, “If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.” (Old theories never die in the minds of their creators, we have to wait for the old professors to die off and then the new ones correct their errors)
(3) Some of them, I believe (though I have only circumstantial evidence), realize the jig is up but they have good-paying careers and families to support, so they slant their science in a direction that bends but does not break the facts, and they (mis)use their credentials and positions to prevent or at least delay the publication of conflicting views, etc.
(4) Others have agendas that are more political than scientific, and knowlingly misuse their science to push political views that they genuinely think will benefit mankind.
Thanks R. Gates, for your comment, and I agree my posting is a relatively “simple overview” that lacks depth in several areas. I was attempting to answer: What time is it? rather than explain How to build a clock. At that level of explanation I do not believe that any particular ocean oscillation deserves more particular mention than when I said, after mentioning three by name, “and others”.
I will attempt to cover “…positive feedbacks between anthropogenic GH gases and other natural cycles” in my next posting in this series.
As holder of a PhD in System Science I am well aware of Chaos Theory and the possibility a small change in initial conditions in a dynamical chaotic system can drastically change the later conditions. I know climate is not a linear system, and that, as I noted in my main Topic, the relatively minor and slowly developing Milankovitch cycles may be the cause of the approximately 100,000 year cycle of ice ages. But, the fact that a butterfly flap in Africa may cause a hurricane to veer over Florida months later does not mean we should wreck our economy over every butterfly in Africa or try to modify their behaviors!
OOPS, there goes the tipping point! LOOK OUT BELOW !!!
As a matter of fact, as a conservative and a system engineer, I am concerned about the rapid increase in CO2, part of which is due to human activities, because it is unprecedented (in human times – CO2 was way higher during the period when plant life evolved and adapted, see my CO2 is Plant Food (Clean Coal Say WATT?)).
I, along with James Hansen (pardon the expression) happen to be in favor of a carbon tax and I even said so here at WUWT and am still a Guest Contributor. I drive a Prius and bicycle 40-50 miles a week and recycle and moderate my use of A/C and heating and so on.
However, I see absolutely no firm or even middling al dente evidence that CO2 rise will be harmful to human life up to levels of 1000 ppmv, or that temperature increases of even a few degrees will make life worse. I moved from New York to Florida and I survived nicely despite a rise of a heck of a lot more degrees. Therefore, while I continue to pay attention to it, I see absolutely no evidence that would lead me to support economy wrecking public policy changes.
On the other hand, I am not a professional climatologist whose job depends upon a climate crisis.
Sorry Roger, you mis-stated my estimates. I put the temperature difference between 1880 and now at 0.5C (not 0.8C). My estimate of 0.5C is that about 0.4C is due to natural cycles and the remaining 0.1C is due to human activities. The difference between the supposed rise of 0.8C and my 0.5C estimate is Data Bias, see The PAST is Not What It Used to Be (GW Tiger).
(b) Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is affected by slow, cyclic variations in eccentricity (100,000 years), axial tilt (41,000 years), and precesssion (21,000 years). Changes in the Earth’s orbit do not affect the quantity of average yearly solar radiation, but the distribution between equatorial regions and polar regions is affected.
It also has impact on the DIFFERENCE between the two poles. During an interglacial, we have the North Pole closest to the sun in June (both precession and orbital eccentricity putting the north pole toward the sun at closest orbital approach when summer tilt is toward the sun) and when the “tilt” is at a maximum for the most heating. Only then does the north pole melt and we get an interglacial.
The flip side of this is that the South Pole is having it’s coldest summers then (and warmest winters). But the south pole is always frozen, so the impact is mostly on winter sea ice.
So two of the “major O.M.G.” worries of the AGW folks (melting arctic, loss of sea ice) are THE two things most important to have in order to keep our interglacial. As soon as the sea ice does not shrink in the Antarctic and the north pole keeps it’s “multiyear” ice for one too many years, we’re headed into the next Ice Age Glacial.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/arctic-melting-is-good/
And where are our historical thermometers? Substantially in the Northern Hemisphere. Over time, we’ve added thermometers in the Southern Hemisphere.
Starting about 6000 years ago, all the ‘cycles’ were passing their peak of perfect alignment (for us to have our maximum warmth) and we’ve been cooling off ever since. (Sea level was higher then too)
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/ostia-antica-and-sea-level/
So what happens in that “cooling off”? The North Pole will get cooler summers but warmer winters and the south pole will get cooler winters but warmer summers .
And what are the Warmers all hot and bothered about? Warmer winters in the Arctic and more summer ice loss in Antarctica. A 21,000 year cycle has a 10,500 year half cycle. That makes us about 6,000/10,000 or 60% of the way away from the ideal conditions. The only reason we are not presently in a Glacial is that it takes time for the ice to form and stay at the North Pole and the albedo feedbacks to get a hold. But, until that day, we still get changed distribution of cold between the two poles.
Where did all that sea level drop go, if not into the North Pole? Look south. Even now the South Pole is known to be gaining ice. The process is already begun. We’re just waiting for that one moment when “multiyear” Arctic ice turns into “multidecade”…
So the thermometer period is about 200 years, give or take. We hit peak temperatures about 6000 years ago. that’s a 2/60 or 1/30 ratio. About 3.3% of the time period of orbital change toward cooling. That ought to be enough time to see some single digit percentage changes in things like “northern winter warmth”. But our Antarctic record is much shorter and more sparse. Much of that was measured in the summer when ships could approach the land. Only recently have we had full time south pole stations. So we’ve got a sampling bias toward measuring the part of the year when the South Pole ought to be warming.
IMHO, the net result of this is excessive panic over “warmer winters” in the north and a more generalized assertion of ‘warmer’ in the south, but based on a sample that can not adequately tell you what has happened in the winters for 200 years. While all the time the ice is bulding up down there.
So I would not be quite so quick to dismiss the precession cycle as having a role to play in our temperature record.
Also, on the sun, it’s not the TSI that matters, IMHO, it’s the crash of UV and that this has let the atmosphere decrease in height. The virtical mixing component is changed and we’ve suddenly got the Rosby wave “loopy jet stream” back with an AO / AMO that’s freezing Europe. So putting a spotlight on TSI is the wrong place to look (at least, an exclusive spot light) and we ought to at least have a ‘follow spot’ on the UV ratio…
Per CO2 impact: We could aways run an experiment where we hold the air still, remove water vapor from the air, and see if IR blocking from CO2 can hold the heat in. Oh, wait, nature did that for us:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/frostbite-falls/
R Gates
“for the real-world nonlinear, dynamical, and edge-of-chaos nature of the earth’s climate, where small nudges in one area can have repercussions that are deterministic but quite unpredictable throughout the whole system.”
For a minute there I thought you were describing the problems with GCMs 🙂
A natural cycle that is known to have occurred within the Little Ice Age is responsible for the Wolf, Maunder and Sporer Minimums. Because the present lull in solar activity has not been equaled since about a hundred years ago, and because these minimums were roughly one hundred years apart, it looks as though the same cycle is in operation during an underlying warming trend now. The Dansgaard-Oescher cycles are the ones responsible for the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age and provide this underlying trend. For professional info, please see: Weather Cycles: Real or Imaginary Second Edition by William Burroughs Cambridge University Press c2003.
Dr. Glickstein, Michael,
Something’s kept bugging me on first Michaels strong response and later yours, twice. This morning I was reading your great article, going section by section, nodding my head in agreement thinking what a great article, but, after getting interrupted twice in the middle I totally misread you, no doubt about it, can’t understand how I so missed what you were saying right there in that section. I thought you were speaking of ground based radiation emitted to the atmosphere (right there, no cooling) and as you normally read being so often backwards re-radiated back to the ground therefore adding even more heating the ground.
That’s clearly not what you were saying there, at all, you were speaking of incoming, man, how did I do that?
Sorry to both you and Michael for that slip.
Only in that isolated light would I stand by everything I said.
It was a very good post, thanks for it again.
I am broadly in agreement with the theme of the post but I have problems with….
“When atmospheric CO2 absorbs 4 to 5 micron radiation from the Earth, or CH4 absorbs 7 to 8 micron radiation, and that energy is re-emitted, some will fall into the nearly transparent windows and head out to space nearly unimpeded. About half of the remaining energy will be re-emitted back towards the Earth’s surface and will add to warming”.
I think this is wrong in detail and also misleading in terms of process.
The 4-5 micron band of CO2 is not really important since the energy radiated by the earth at these wavelengths is small. The major impact of CO2 is in the 14-18 micron band which is well away from the atmospheric window. Radiation in this band is absorbed within a few hundred feet of the earths surface. Half of this is radiated back down to earth and half is radiated upwards. The upward radiation is then reabsorbed by CO2 which again radiates up and down. This multiple absorption and re-radiation occurs until a height is reached where the density of CO2 is so low that any upward radiation is lost to space. This height is around 16km according to the satellite pictures that I have seen although the met office suggests it is lower. Because the temperature is only about 210K at this altitude the energy lost to space in this energy band is only about 40% of what it would have been if the energy had been radiated directly from the earth at 290K (proportional to the fourth power of absolute temperature). Since the energy absorbed by the sun has to be balanced by the energy lost to space this reduction in energy in this band has to be balanced by an increase in energy radiated at all other wavelengths. To achieve this the earth’s surface has to increase to a higher temperature than it would if it need to be if there were no CO2. It is equally valid to talk about the downwhelling radiation from the CO2 heating the earth but I find the energy balance argument easier to validate and quantify.
Regarding the Milankovitch cycles: I believe the 100K cycle is a periodic cooling that has been observed in the last million years. Whilst the 21K and 41K have foundation in measureable variations in the earths orbit and tilt the 100K period is not so easily explained. I do not personally think this is a big issue since the 100K cycle is clearly real. It is just that we do not understand the mechanism yet. Incidentally the first signs of the 100K cycle becoming dominant emerged when the North and South Americas joined and transformed the ocean currents and dramatically influenced the polar ice caps. This might be a clue.
Roger Otip,
I am not quite in agreement with IPCC. They claim most of the claimed 0.8C is due to human activity. I claim 0.3 C of which only 0.2 C is due to CO2 and Methane. This includes the entire period from 1880, and includes all causes. If you look at 1970 to 2000, the IPCC claim is about 0.5 C increase. I would guess less than 0.15 C in that period due to CO2 and Methane, which is only 30% of the increase, and would result in only about an additional 0.25 C by 2100 (a bit below IPCC claims).
Ireland Government Crumbles As Green Party Pulls Out Of Ruling Coalition
“It has been a while since we had one of those “before Asia opens” kind of Sundays. Today just may be one. BBC has just reported that the Irish Green party has pulled out of the ruling coalition with Fianna Fail which is “expected to bring forward the general election from 11 March.” In other words suddenly the entire Irish “rescue”, taken for granted for over a month, will have to be reexamined, once the new ruling party, which will certainly be from the current opposition reevaluates the terms. Elections are now expected to come some time in mid-February. Look for peripheral bond spreads to go whooosh tomorrow.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ireland-government-crumbles-green-party-pulls-out-ruling-coalition
Ira Glickstein, PhD
The experts are the world’s climate scientists, not just those of NASA or CRU, who publish their work in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This work has been summarized in several IPCC reports, the latest of which concluded that most of the warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to human activity. Given that, you would presumably agree that we ought to be making major efforts to bring the rise in global emissions to a halt and to then begin reducing those emissions.
Roger Otip says:
January 23, 2011 at 11:56 am
Smokey
there is no measurable global climate or temperature difference between pre- and post-industrial CO2 levels.
(R. Otip says): “”Ira Glickstein puts the temperature difference between 1880 and now at 0.8C. You think he’s wrong?””
.
It’s obvious that Roger Otip has no understanding of the null hypothesis.
Leonard Weinstein
But some of that 0.8C is from early 20th century warming, isn’t it? The IPCC claim is that most of the warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to human activity (which would include methane emissions from agriculture and landfill, deforestation etc.).
What forcings do you think are responsible for the remainder of the observed warming.
Ira Glickstein, PhD
Ah yes, I forgot about your data bias idea. Sorry. Can’t say I’m at all convinced by it. It seems more likely that you’re mistaken. Look at the global temperature records, not just those of NASA GISS, but also the NOAA and HadCRUT along with the satellite records and you’ll see a pretty consistent warming trend and a pretty consistent degree of warming. To claim all of these are out by as much as 40% you need to show some extremely solid and compelling evidence and you haven’t done anything like that.
Roger Otip says:
January 23, 2011 at 2:03 pm
“The experts are the world’s climate scientists, not just those of NASA or CRU, who publish their work in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This work has been summarized in several IPCC reports, the latest of which concluded that most of the warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to human activity.”
Oh please Roger, the IPCC is done by volunteers, and the same people in the Climategate emails have heavily volunteered and used their positions to promote their own work while keeping out work which contradicts their own “even if we have to redefine what peer review is.” The critical reviewers in the IPCC are ignored in favor of producing more alarmist reports, which is entirely natural since the IPCC would not exist without a climate threat.
Honestly, are you just intentionally ignorant of what these people have done and said? Do you not realize how small, determined and insular these fanatics are?
I’m not sure why I bother since I can’t believe you aren’t aware of some of this stuff – you must intentionally be keeping the blinders on.
You asked for comments on allocations to (my guesses):
(1) Data Bias 0.15+-0.1ºC,
(2) Natural Cycles 0.25+-0.2ºC, and
(3) AGW 0.4+-0.3ºC.
Why bother with NASA or NOAA temperature charts? They are all cooked starting from the late seventies as I have shown. Simply use satellite temperatures that are easily available for the last 31 years. A superposition of UAH and RSS temperatures is just about the best base for that and when you get hold of others on the same scale you can see how the cheating is done. Check out my “What Warming?” for that. A new edition of it should be out by the end of the month and it will give you the details need. And one more thing: don’t do any averaging, use the magic marker when working on temperature curves.
As I, Ian W, E.M.Smith and others have said before. This is the wrong metric anyway!
Let’s take an example. End of Feb. 1983 We were flying back to the UK from Nevada. We had a birdstrike on the C130 which meant an over-night stop at Gander, Newfoundland. I’m pretty sure the temps were sub-zero C if not F. All my warm clothes were on the kite so I was walking around at 22:00 in shirtsleeves! It was cold but not uncomfortably so! Little or no moisture meant the air couldn’t remove much energy from my body. Even an increase of 5°C wouldn’t have made a big change to the energy content of the air!
Where I live now, 10°C is uncomfortably cold!
DaveE.
Steve Reynolds says:
January 23, 2011 at 2:44 pm
You asked for comments on allocations to (my guesses):
(1) Data Bias 0.15+-0.1ºC,
(2) Natural Cycles 0.25+-0.2ºC, and
(3) AGW 0.4+-0.3ºC.
_____
Seems quite plausible.
Dave Andrews says:
January 23, 2011 at 1:02 pm
R Gates
“for the real-world nonlinear, dynamical, and edge-of-chaos nature of the earth’s climate, where small nudges in one area can have repercussions that are deterministic but quite unpredictable throughout the whole system.”
For a minute there I thought you were describing the problems with GCMs 🙂
______
Seems like a reasonable assumption. GCM’s (including ensemble) will never be good at getting the details right, but they seem to be getting better at telling us about trends, though no amount of computer power can predict tipping points, and we certainly know from the paleoclimate record that there are indeed tipping points.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
January 23, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Thanks for that. Nearly fell off my chair. 😉
DaveE.
Heck. Meant to bold al dente in my prior post. Perhaps a kind mod may be so kind. 😀
DaveE.
[ Like that? -ModE ]
Dave Andrews says:
January 23, 2011 at 1:02 pm
R Gates
“for the real-world nonlinear, dynamical, and edge-of-chaos nature of the earth’s climate, where small nudges in one area can have repercussions that are deterministic but quite unpredictable throughout the whole system.”
For a minute there I thought you were describing the problems with GCMs 🙂
______
Seems like a reasonable assumption. The GCM’s (including ensemble) are not good at looking at a dynamical system on the edge of chaos such as the climate system is. They might be able to describe trends, but not tipping points (as no amount of computer power can spot them), and once those tipping points are past, the new regime created needs to be put back into a new model and a new series of scenarios issued. Every GCM struggles with the fact that they are trying to model a dynamical chaotic system, and even have been developing strategies just for dealing with that, but ultimately, GCM’s will be constantly readjusting scenarios after tipping points are passed and new dynamics are evident, giving out new trends, but never specific timing of events.
DaveE,
Isn’t it interesting when someone expresses a rational thought, that it appears astonishing? The Big Lie of CAGW has been so pervasive that the truth comes as a surprise.
Warmer is better; cold kills.
During the Holocene it has been 2° – 3° warmer, and during those warmer times civilization and the biosphere flourished.
And CO2 levels have been up to 8,000 ppmv [compared with the current extremely low 390 ppmv]. Very high CO2 levels have occurred as the planet plunged into a deep Ice Age – debunking the notion that CO2 can lead to runaway global warming.
The entire CO2=CAGW canard is based on deliberately false misinformation disseminated by the IPCC and its crony organizations. Credulous people then buy into the globaloney, and the result is people like R Gates trying to scare people.
Please wake me when anyone can show verifiable global harm as a result of the increase in a harmless and benficial trace gas.☺
Ira – I have to add a few words about natural cycles etc. First of all I am a skeptic about cycles like the PDO or NAO whose definitions are still too nebulous to be useful. NOAA has a list of forty one of these, most of which I had never heard of. The only real cycle that can be observed in all temperature curves is the ENSO cycle of alternating warm El Ninos and cool La Ninas. This has been going on ever since the Isthmus of Panama rose from the sea. It involves the Pacific equatorial currents, the trade winds, and the equatorial countercurrent but its influence is global. Specifically, an El Nino will raise global temperature by half a degree and the La Nina that follows it will lower it by the same amount. This temperature swing is very precise as satellite temperatures preceding the 1998 super El Nino show. The super El Nino itself does not belong to ENSO, is much bigger than others, brought a huge amount of warm water across the ocean to South America, and raised global temperature by a full degree. This warm water lingered and suppressed the a La Nina that should have appeared in 2004. In the wake of the super El Nino there was a a short spurt of warming from 1998 to 2002 that raised global temperature by a third of a degree and then stopped. A third of a degree is fully half of what has been attributed to the entire twentieth century and is the reason for the unusual warmth of the first decade of this century. That step warming is the only actual warming within the last thirty one years. To calculate averages you have to exclude the periodic ENSO swings but not by editing the global temperature curve as so-called “climate” scientists have been doing. The proper way to average a sequence of ENSO oscillations is to put a dot in the center of every line connecting an El Nino peak to its neighboring La Nina valley and connect the dots with a smooth curve. This cannot be done with the super El Nino of 1998 which must not be included in any temperature curve. The center points of ENSO cycles that precede it line up in a straight horizontal line. After the step warming another straight horizontal line begins – the twenty-first century high. The two straight lines do not meet and must not be forced together by any averaging procedure. The twenty-first century high itself ended with the 2008 La Nina cooling which signified resumption of the ENSO oscillations interrupted by the super El Nino of 1998. It was followed by the El Nino of 2010 and the next La Nina is already well under way. Expect these oscillations to continue and do not expect a climate catastrophe promised by the IPCC modelers.
Smokey said:
“Credulous people then buy into the globaloney, and the result is people like R Gates trying to scare people.”
____
Please provide any evidence that shows I was trying to “scare” anybody. There are a lot more scary things in the world than AGW, and if I was of the mind to scare people I’d choose something else, thank you kindly.
OK. For someone who is 75% alarmist and 25% skeptic, you’re only trying to scare 75% of the folks.
That makes at least as much sense as the 25/75 claim☺
Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but loss of sea ice in particular could be a negative feedback as the sea will not be insulated and will thus lose far more heat to be radiated out to space. This is particularly true when there is little or no sun such as the poles in autumn (before ice reforms). On land it may have a similar effect, but possibly not as much, since permanently covered land tends to be much cooler than similarly covered sea (there being no movement).
In any case, as much of the sea ice is only there when there is no sun, the effect cannot be great.
Smokey says:
January 23, 2011 at 4:24 pm
OK. For someone who is 75% alarmist and 25% skeptic, you’re only trying to scare 75% of the folks.
____
Correction…I’m 75% “warmist” and 25% skeptic. It is possible to believe that AGW is likely happening without being “alarmed” by it. And though I am not trying to scare anybody, if I was, it wouldn’t be the “warmists” but rather, I’d be trying to scare the skeptics, but of course, only 75% scare them, which means I’d be trying to scare the 25% of myself that is skeptic, and so I’d be trying to make myself .75 x .25 scared, which would mean I’d be trying to make myself 18.25% scared by AGW…hardly worth posting about I would think and so much easier just to rent a good Netflix horror film…
Thanks Wayne, it takes a big man to admit an error. (For example, back in 1952 I thought I made an error, but it turned out I had been right all along :^). Good to have you here on WUWT. Ira
Actually, Terry Jacks owes an apology to Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen for having taken their quiet, sensitive song and turned it into a skittery, hop-pop travesty.
Anyhow, carry on.
R. Gates says: January 23, 2011 at 3:46 pm
“The GCM’s (including ensemble) are not good at looking at a dynamical system on the edge of chaos such as the climate system is. They might be able to describe trends, but not tipping points (as no amount of computer power can spot them), and once those tipping points are past, the new regime created needs to be put back into a new model and a new series of scenarios issued. Every GCM struggles with the fact that they are trying to model a dynamical chaotic system, and even have been developing strategies just for dealing with that, but ultimately, GCM’s will be constantly readjusting scenarios after tipping points are passed and new dynamics are evident, giving out new trends, but never specific timing of events.”
Per my comment on the MET thread;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/21/what-sort-of-forecast-does-the-met-office-supercomputer-make/#comment-580953
I don’t understand your assertion that flawed GCMs generate accurate long term trends. Can you provide any relevant research to support this assertion?
Roger, please have a look at what NASA GISS (1999) says about NASA GISS (2007):
Look at internal NASA GISS email (the background in my graphic) where SEVEN re-analyses are recounted, resulting in a 0.5C adjustment to published data, a decade to six decades old.
Roger, now please have a look at what NASA GISS (1999) says about NASA GISS (2011):
The diagram below is the US Annual mean from 1880 t0 2010 as plotted and published by NASA GISS in 1999 and then in 2011. Notice the delta of more than 0.3C? Is it not obvious someone was cooking the books to make the old data cooler and the more recent warmer, to support CAGW fears?
I look forward to your explanation. Note that this is US-only data, where NASA GISS has the best knowledge of the sources.
NASA GISS, NOAA, HADCRUT and others share the same data sets and their analyses share the same bias towards the Warmist side.
Steve: Noted and entered into my spreadsheet, but I am not tracking individual error bounds, so your data went in as 0.15, 0.25, and 0.4. THANKS!
R. Gates says:
January 23, 2011 at 4:13 pm
====
You are on the wrong thread, for these comments.
Give the author his due.
R,, the way you sometimes talk I always thought you were at least 18.25% scared by AGW. Gee, with such progress you might be A free soon. Has it been a year already? ;o)
R. Gates says:
January 23, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I note you jumped on Smokey but totally ignored what he was commenting on: ie my experience in Gander, February 1983, where I walked in sub zero, certainly °C & probably °F, in shirt sleeves, finding it cold but not uncomfortably so. This indicates the energy the air could absorb was insignificant. If such air were to warm 5°C it would significantly affect the temperature anomaly but not the energy anomaly!
DaveE.
Ira Glickstein, PhD
The answer appears to be on this NASA GISS page from 2007:
So no cooking the books, no fraud, no conspiracy, just an honest mistake that’s been spotted and corrected and, as you can see, with an utterly insignificant effect on the global temperature record since this error only related to the US data.
Oh. Thanks ModE 😀
DaveE.
Ira Glickstein, PhD
The answer may be on this NASA GISS page from 2007:
So no cooking the books, no fraud, no conspiracy, just an honest mistake that’s been spotted and corrected and, as you can see, with an utterly insignificant effect on the global temperature record since this error only related to the US data.
[Note: “Arthur Pooty” is Roger Otip. ~dbs, mod.]
I read through the article, and my reaction is “Where is the beef?”. The descriptions of the various phenomena which impact surface temperature are should not be news to anyone who follows the controversy regarding global warming.
The question,that was supposed to be addressed is, how much of the temperature change in the last century or so is related to the anthropogenic influences? I don’t see any credible quantitative analysis of this question. I only see the author’s opinion expressed as “my estimate”. There is no reference to the scientific literature, and no discussion of the author’s methodology in making his estimates. This illustrates the difference between a true scientific publication and a blog post on the internet.
Actually. I’ve fallen into the trap of using the word anomaly. It’s NOT an anomaly, it’s a change! A change is only anomalous if it’s never happened before and there’s plenty of evidence that it has!
DaveE.
[Reply: An anomaly is a variation from the average. ~dbs, mod.]
Roger Otip to Ira Gliclkstein at 2:29 pm: “Look at the global temperature records, not just those of NASA GISS, but also the NOAA and HadCRUT along with the satellite records and you’ll see a pretty consistent warming trend and a pretty consistent degree of warming.”
***
Well, I did look and this is what I found: both NOAA and HadCRUT3 show a warming trend in the eighties and nineties which according to the satellites does not exist. And it is an important base period for global warming because in 1988, right smack in the middle of it, James Hansen testified that global warming had started and that we were to blame because of the carbon dioxide we were releasing into the air. Both claims were false. I checked to see what IPCC had to say about it and their 1990 report indeed has a global temperature chart for policymakers. It shows that there was no warming from the fifties to the seventies and that in the late seventies warming suddenly started. Assuming that the same chart was available to Hansen in 1988 this leaves only a ten year period he could call warming when he testified about it. But if you check his written report to the Senate you find that he is talking about a twenty five year period of warming, not ten as IPCC has it. How is this possible? It turns out that he came to the Senate presentation with his own private temperature chart that he and Lebedeff had published just before the meeting. If this isn’t a Deus ex machina manufactured just for the meeting I don’t know what is. The temperature curve shown in the 1990 IPCC report is the ancestor of the curve that NOAA still uses today. I am discounting the existence of this warming entirely but suppose you allow it to the extent that the 1990 IPCC report shows. What you have then is a warming that starts suddenly after a thirty year absence of warming. It was well known then that carbon dioxide had been slowly and linearly increasing since 1958 when Keeling started measuring it. The absorptivity of carbon dioxide in the infrared is a physical property of the gas and cannot be changed. If you now want to increase its absorption of radiation for the purpose of starting a warming the only way you can do it is by increasing its concentration in the air at the same time and this did not happen. Laws of physics simply do not allow such a sudden warming to begin in the late seventies if we go by the temperature curve that IPCC uses. Furthermore, as soon as Hansen announced that the warming was anthropogenic he was criticized in the peer-reviewed literature [Andrew R. Solow and James M. Broadus, “On the Detection of Greenhouse Warming” Climate Change 15:449-453 (1989)] about it. But all such criticisms were simply pushed aside by the political establishment that was already then pushing the global warming agenda. The establishment included senator Wirth of Colorado, chairman of the committee that called Hansen to testify. He chose June 23rd as the date of the hearing because the Weather Bureau had told him that this was the warmest day of the year in Wahington, D.C.. And to make sure that the air conditioning did not work he sent his staff out the night before to open all the windows in the hearing room. I am not making this up because he said all that in a Frontline interview on January 17th, 2007. It worked: the TV crews, the audience and the star witness all sweated profusely and global warming was on every TV screen that night. To Senator Wirth it was “bliss” to see TV cameras in double digits in his hearing room. And that is the foundation upon which the present global warming movement rests. But there is one more thing, and that is the origin of the warming in NOAA and Met Office curves. Satellites show nothing but a temperature oscillation, up and down by half a degree until the super El Nino of 1998 arrives. There were five such temperature peaks in the eighties and nineties that belonged to El Ninos of the ENSO system, and the valleys between them were cool La Nina periods. Put HadCRUT3 on the same graph with the satellite curve and you will see what is going on. They have retained the first El Nino peaks all right but the La Nina valleys in between the peaks have been made shallow and that gives entire curve an upward slope they call warming. This does not work too well on the right side of the curve so the entire fourteen year segment gets lifted up and floats above the satellite curve. NOAA is worse. While HadCRUT3 at least retained the token La Nina valleys NOAA jettisons them completely and also raises the right side of the curve. The only part of NOAA’s curve that bears any resemblance to reality is where the peaks of the first four El Ninos coincide with their curve. And what do you get when these fake curves are extrapolated by supercomputers to make climate predictions? In computer lingo it is called GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Hi,
I have not read all the comments so may have missed one relating to my topic. All discussion, comments etc. seem to be aimed at explaining the ‘warming’. But is it actually warming? Anthony Watts, in particular, has looked in depth at the actual measurement of temperatures and found many, many problems. There was an excellent article on metrology the other day, confirming again in my mind that
there are huge issues with both the siting and reading of thermometers.
I used to believe the world was warming, but not due to AGW. After the dreaded Climategate appeared on my horizon I started to read a broad range of blogs, both ‘believers’ and ‘sceptical’. Now, after over a year of reading I think the world is probably cooling, due to influences such as a low solar cycle, PDO, ENSO etc.
In Australia, it is quite scary when you look at the ‘real’ historical temperatures and then see what comes out of the Bureau of Meterology. Blatant changes, all about lowering older temperatures and raising recent ones. All to fit the models which now seem biased towards warming and drought, no matter what is fed in.
I would be interested to see what other folk think.
Thanks for the article Dr. Glickstein. Very interesting. 🙂
My own thoughts regarding what warming is natural vs. CO2 driven is as follows. I’d be very surprised if cloud/vapor feedback is positive. Say 99% confident that feedback is negative. Even if it is positive, I’m not that worried. I look back on the temps for the last million years and what really scares me is another ice age. Given a choice of dropping 10 degrees vs raising 2 to 4 and I’ll take the temperature increase in a heartbeat. Taking a WAG at the allocations i’d say …
(1) Data Bias 0.2 ºC,
(2) Natural Cycles 0.45
(3) AGW 0.15 ºC.
Arno Arrak, how in the world did you gather that, I have much to learn in searching. Fantastic, I’ve already saved a copy. That’s the first time I’ve seen the whole timeline so well put together with many many missing details filled in.
Everyone knows it has happened to one degree or the other.
You should put a note on Tips & Notes for Anthony when he gets back to put it in a formal post. I’m sure everyone would like to know those missing gaps too.
Mods … maybe the note should be passed along by you.
Ira
Below is the summary of climate variables/drivers that I am developing, it is still a work in progress. Please let me know if you have an suggestions/corrections/additions, etc.:
1. Earth’s Rotational Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
which results in day and night;
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night
influences Oceanic Gyres;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre
helps drive and direct the Thermohaline Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
especially around Antarctica;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conveyor_belt.svg
which is also called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
and the Arctic:
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=441&cid=47170&ct=61&article=20727
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/flows.jpg
Earth’s Rotational Energy also influences Earth’s Polar Vortices;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
which “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.universetoday.com/973/what-venus-and-saturn-have-in-common/
Here’s an animation of the Arctic Polar Vortex in Winter 2008 – 09;
here’s an animation of the currently uncoalesced Arctic Polar Vortex and;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
and here’s an animation of the currently uncoalesced Antarctic Polar Vortex;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_sh_anim.shtml
2. Earth’s Orbital Energy, Elliptical Orbit around the Sun, and Tilt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_orbital_energy
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
creates seasons;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season
which drives annual changes Arctic Sea Ice;
and Antarctic Sea Ice;
the freezing and melting of which helps to drive the Thermohaline Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
On longer time frames in which changes to Earth’s orbit, tilt and wobble called Milankovitch cycles;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
which may be responsible for the periods of Glaciation (Ice Ages);
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
that Earth has experienced for the last several million years of Earth’s climatic record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
3. Gravitational Energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_energy
The Moon and Sun have significant influence on Earth’s tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force
http://www.themcdonalds.net/richard/astro/papers/602-tides-web.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide
as well as the Moon, Sun and Earth’s gravity influences Earth’s Thermohaline Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection#Gravitational_or_buoyant_convection
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=205
which influences Oceanic Oscillations including El Nino/La Nina;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o-Southern_Oscillation
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Decadal_Oscillation
the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Multidecadal_Oscillation
and Indian_Ocean_Dipole (IOD)/Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Dipole
4. Solar Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
varies slightly based upon cycles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
causes evaporation;
creates clouds;
results rain;
that transfers large amounts of moisture;
and results in rivers, etc.;
and evaporation and condensation may help to drive changes in atmospheric pressure:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/24015/2010/acpd-10-24015-2010.pdf
Solar – Coronal Mass Ejection:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDZj1CmsJ64&feature=related
Solar – Magnetosphere Breach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVqWH5Qlg8Y&feature=related
UV
5. Geothermal Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
especially when released by volcanoes;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano
which have been shown to influence Earth’s climate;
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/climate_effects.html
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
including in the infamous Year Without a Summer;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
which was partially caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora
and is called a Volcanic Winter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
6. Cosmic Forces,
Cosmic Rays;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/04/a-link-between-the-sun-cosmic-rays-aerosols-and-liquid-water-clouds-appears-to-exist-on-a-global-scale/
X-ray Pulsar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=007-R6yVngU
7. Magnetic Forces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiCBrXKIH_0&feature=related
Solar – Magnetosphere Breach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVqWH5Qlg8Y&feature=related
8. Atmospheric Composition
Aerosols
Particulates
Greenhouse Gases
9. Albedo
tba
10. Anthropogenic
Increases in carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide,
changes in ozone concentrations and distribution,
increases in particulates and aerosols,
soot, land use changes,
urban heat islands, etc
General summaries of the potential variables involved in Earth’s climate system;
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/pd/climate/factsheets/whatfactors.pdf
Roger: Stephen McIntyre runs the skeptic blog http://climateaudit.org/ and the errors he found were in the other direction.
In any case, as your quote from the NASA GISS site indicates, it was a one-time correction of 0.15C in US data. How then to explain the SEVEN corrections of more than 0.15C in US data detailed in the NASA GISS 2007 email reproduced in my graphic posted above , and the additional correction that finally gave 1998 a lead over 1934 which was made after 2007? See my account here
Please look at my “see-saw” blink graphic posted above, using actual screen captures of NASA GISS published US Annual Mean charts published in 1999 and 2011. Do you see how the more recent temperatures jump 0.3C, which is twice as much as 0.15C? Do you see how the older temperatures jump in the opposite direction, making the supposed warming even greater than 0.3C?. Absolutely none of that is explained by the corrections made due to the heroic efforts of Stephen McIntyre. See my account here
I’ll be here awaiting your explanations. Good luck!
Noted and recorded, thanks much Eric!
Arno, thanks much! In the future, please leave a line space to divide your comments into paragraphs for WordPress. Makes it easier for us old guys to read your excellent information. advTHANKSance.
Terry Jacks didn’t write that, Rod McKuen did, with music by Jacques Brel.
http://www.musicnotes.com/images/productimages/large/scorch/SC0014888.gif
Thanks for article Dr Glickstein, it is time to watch the team wriggle as their forcasts of doom fail and I will have popcorn ready for the congressional hearings. I suspect data bias is worse than your guess, because every time I learn more about the instrumentation ,the locations and the operators I am profoundly saddenned by how much worse the errors and or ineptitude is than I ever expected.I once worked in govt and I am aware how competence drifts with time in those offices, but the kind of laziness and arrogance shown ,by Environment Canada wrt to their raw data, in the CRU emails and in the systemic over selling of climate science, its certainty, the name calling by all AWG parties, is too much of a pattern to have much faith in the purity of the numbers used for weather data. Sorry longwinded way of saying next few years will be most interesting.
Thanks for the correction. Wikipedia gives Jacques Brel credit for the original song, with English lyrics by Rod McKuen. Terry Jacks is credited with making it a worldwide hit in 1974.
For purposes of this posting, I changed the lyrics from:
to
It’s great that two (or three) giant holes are provided in the spectrum for 1/2 the absorbed energy from the various GHG’s. But what happens to when this space bound energy is re-radiated? What frequencies are these GHG re-radiated energy re-radiated at? Does the half headed to space also get trapped with half going toward the earth and the other half headed for space is again trapped with half going to earth and the other half being absorbed again and repeated endlessly?
There is another temperature adjustment coming.
HadISST3 is coming out this year and will adjust all the historical ocean temperature records.
The cycles will mostly dissappear and we will be left with a line going up (almost the same as the climate models say should have happened). Hard to tell at this point, but the post-1975 trend will probably be bumped up as well.
Along with Hadcrut, GISS will quickly adopt it and the NCDC will probably change their ocean measures to match.
So, … we won’t be able to tell what actually happened to global temperatures in the last 150 years. They can always go back and adjust everything every time there is a new global cooling cycle. It didn’t happen – your freezing cold is actually warm.
[Reply: An anomaly is a variation from the average. ~dbs, mod.]
a·nom·a·ly (-nm-l)
n. pl. a·nom·a·lies
1. Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.
2. One that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify: “Both men are anomalies: they have . . . likable personalities but each has made his reputation as a heavy” (David Pauly).
It’s re-definition of language to create an impression of abnormality. That’s why I don’t like the use of anomaly.
DaveE.
Bill Illis says:
January 24, 2011 at 4:00 am
“There is another temperature adjustment coming.
HadISST3 is coming out this year and will adjust all the historical ocean temperature records.
The cycles will mostly dissappear and we will be left with a line going up (almost the same as the climate models say should have happened). Hard to tell at this point, but the post-1975 trend will probably be bumped up as well.
Along with Hadcrut, GISS will quickly adopt it and the NCDC will probably change their ocean measures to match.
So, … we won’t be able to tell what actually happened to global temperatures in the last 150 years. They can always go back and adjust everything every time there is a new global cooling cycle. It didn’t happen – your freezing cold is actually warm.”
The reasons for this adjustment have been given and appear to be valid. The method of measurement changed. Instead of using buckets dipped in the ocean, engine intake temperatures were measured. This is a result of changes in nationality of the worlds ocean fleets as a result of WW2. This phenomenon has been written about and it seems to justify a change in SST records, contrary to what Illis is implying.
DaveE,
I think definition #1 is most commonly used in scientific circles.
eadler says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:05 am
———–
Instead of just accepting all the spin everytime, why don’t you challenge the spin and check into things first.
For example, the Land temperatures (not affected by bucket and engine intake measuring I assume) also has the same up and down cycles (which the ocean will no longer have).
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html
David A. Evans said:
The difference between the coloquial and the scientific jargon is useful to the propagandists.
Most people will read “amomaly” as “abnormality”. “Scientists” can casually and “innocently” use the term while causing alarm amongst the general population; with the nodding approval of those who seek to benefit from the misunderstanding.
Anomalies are normal. As are day and night; and the seasons of the year.
First of all, the portions of the long-wavelength spectrum where the atmosphere is nearly transparent are far from “giant”. Have a look here and you will see those regions are from about 8 to 9 microns and from about 10 t0 12 microns. Most radiation from the Sun-warmed Earth is in a larger spectrum, from about 4 to 25 microns.
Whatever radiation falls into these almost transparent regions and that happens to be in the direction of space, passes out of the Earth’s atmosphere and travels through space forever, because space is a vacuum and does not re-radiate. Now, a tiny portion of that spacebound long-wave radiation from the Earth will fall on the Moon, or Mars or Venus, or back to the Sun, and very, very, slightly warm them.
The same is true for space-bound long-wave radiation from the Earth that is not in the nearly transparent bands. Nearly all of it will strike and be absorbed by carbon gases or water vapor molecules in the atmosphere and then get re-emitted in all directions and in a broader spectrum. But, bottom line, all the radiation energy from the Sun that falls on the Earth eventually bounces around and gets absorbed and re-emitted and so on until it finds its way back out to space.
Dave,
I think you’re entirely missing the point here. Nobody’s trying to “create impressions” or “redefine words” here. “Temperature Anomaly” is firmly ingrained in meteorology/climatology, as the way temperature trends are usually analyzed: a deviation (plus or minus) from the expected value (mean).
Natural languages are ambiguous because most words tend to have multiple meanings. The context in which the word is used is usually sufficient to disambiguate.
In this case “temperature anomaly” in the context of meteorology or climatology needs no further elaboration.
You are trying to apply one of the other meanings of ‘anomaly’, which is incorrect in this context.
There’s a good reason for this practice: temperature differences are more easily observed than absolute baselines. For example, ice cores clearly show temperatures have changed. But getting the actual dry bulb temperature 500 years ago is a much more difficult problem, filled with greater uncertainty.
So reporting ‘anomalies’ is the way to go, don’t you agree?
Bill Illis says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:48 am
eadler says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:05 am
———–
Instead of just accepting all the spin everytime, why don’t you challenge the spin and check into things first.
For example, the Land temperatures (not affected by bucket and engine intake measuring I assume) also has the same up and down cycles (which the ocean will no longer have).
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html
The reasons for the coming change have been well documented. There is no spin involved at all.
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0807/full/453601a.html
During WW2 SST’s were measured by US ships. This changed abruptly after 1945. The US measurements were via engine intake. British measurements which became part of the mix after 1945 used buckets. You can see the change in nationality mix in the following figure.
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0807/fig_tab/453601a_F1.html
Without seeing the results, I don’t understand how you can conclude that the adjustments are illegitimate.
Ira
I suspected your allowance for UHI and other data-related issues is too low. So I did my own quantification, with data – using studies reporting rural stations, etc. Have a look. Moderators, if you think this is fit for raising to a guest post here, I would be happy.
Data-related (illusory) ~ 0.5 degrees
Natural warming ~ 0.3 degrees
AGW in the wild ~ effectively zero
Ira I can believe co2 could have contributed around 0.3 deg C due to the 1.7 w/m^2 increase without feedbacks and that with feedbacks, it could be ‘responsible’ for a tiny amount more. In other words, it appears the real Earth deals with power changes on average with about 0.21 deg C per W/m^2 . This is less than the straight radiative result so it should include other effects like convection.
Lucy, thanks, recorded in my spreadsheet.
Ira Glickstein, PhD
Have you tried asking NASA? It’s quite likely that you’re simply mistaken and the scientists there will be able to put you right, or it may indeed be that some corrections were made and there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for them. To assume, on the basis of a few things you don’t understand in one country’s climate record, that there has been some deliberate distortion of the global temperature records (not just NASA’s but also the NOAA, the Met Office and the satellite records) is completely ridiculous is some might say libellous.
eadler says:
“The reasons for the coming change have been well documented. There is no spin involved at all.”
Do you even know how crazy you sound??
“The reasons for the coming change…” …The Great Spinzini sees all!
And Roger Otip probably has a belief system that explains why all of NASA’s recent “adjustments” are in the same upward direction from the raw data – while the past adjustments are lower, making the apparent rise appear steeper.
I don’t think it’s libelous to point out how crooked those NASA/GISS shenanigans look. Money and organizational growth [the Peter Principle] is the motivation for cooking the temperature books, and only a fool would believe there is no incentive for GISS to prop up Hansen’s sadly inaccurate 1980’s prediction record.
Henry@otip
there has not been any warming here where I live, not for a long time
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/assessment-of-global-warming-and-global-warming-caused-by-greenhouse-forcings-in-pretoria-south-africa
Henry@lucy
It seems your life’s story after starting to look into this global warming hoax is quite similar to mine..
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
The SEVEN alterations are clearly listed in an internal NASA GISS email from Dr. Makiko Sato to Dr. James Hansen that no one doubts is authentic because it was released under a FOIA request. Please look at it again (an image of the email is embedded in the graphic I posted above at: January 23, 2011 at 5:04 pm).
This is a well-known email that has been discused widely on the internet, so NASA GISS has had ample notice and opportunity to post an explanation, as they did for the 0.15ºC error discovered by McIntyre that you mentioned earlier. I did a Google search and there is absolutely no NASA GISS explanation for why they had to recalculate 1934 and 1998 SEVEN times as listed in the Sato email, and an additional adjustment, after the date of the Sato FOIA email, that finally got 1998 warmer than 1934. If you can locate a NASA GISS explanation, please post a link.
There is absolutely no scientific explanation (other than sheer incompetence, and I do not believe they are that incompetent) for the series of SEVEN plus one changes, made over a period of nine years, that progressively reduced a 0.5ºC lead for 1934 over 1998 for US Annual Mean Temperature to a 0.012ºC lead for 1998 over 1934.
The reason it is significant is that 0.5ºC is almost as large as the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880. If your measuring stick is nearly as noisy or erroneous as the thing you are measuring, or if your analysis and re-analysis has almost as much wiggle room as the thing you are measuring, then why should anyone trust your conclusions? Why should we base public policy on this type of rough science?
Ask yourself, if this was a corporation, and, in 1999 they said that profits in 1934 had been $5M more than in 1998, and a year later they re-analyzed their 1934 and 1998 data and modified both to conclude that 1934 was only about $1M more profitable than 1998, you might get suspicious someone was cooking the books to make recent profits look better than they were, compared to the past. If a year after that they re-analyzed, and five years later they re-analyzed and a year after that they finally got 1998 to be more profitable than 1934, to back up their claim that profits were rising and would soon hit a tipping point and reach runaway levels of profitablity, would you believe anything they said or any predictions they made?