Reposted from Dr. Roger Pielke Sr’s blog
New Paper “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” By Spencer and Braswell 2011
There is a new paper published which raises further questions on the robustness of multi-decadal global climate predictions. It is
Spencer, R.W.; Braswell, W.D. On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance. Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613.
The University of Alabama has issues a news release on it which reads [h/t to Phillip Gentry]
Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecasts of global warming
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (July 26, 2011) — Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”
The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades.
In research published this week in the journal “Remote Sensing” http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf, Spencer and UA Huntsville’s Dr. Danny Braswell compared what a half dozen climate models say the atmosphere should do to satellite data showing what the atmosphere actually did during the 18 months before and after warming events between 2000 and 2011.
“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”
Not only does the atmosphere release more energy than previously thought, it starts releasing it earlier in a warming cycle. The models forecast that the climate should continue to absorb solar energy until a warming event peaks. Instead, the satellite data shows the climate system starting to shed energy more than three months before the typical warming event reaches its peak.
“At the peak, satellites show energy being lost while climate models show energy still being gained,” Spencer said.
This is the first time scientists have looked at radiative balances during the months before and after these transient temperature peaks.
Applied to long-term climate change, the research might indicate that the climate is less sensitive to warming due to increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere than climate modelers have theorized. A major underpinning of global warming theory is that the slight warming caused by enhanced greenhouse gases should change cloud cover in ways that cause additional warming, which would be a positive feedback cycle.
Instead, the natural ebb and flow of clouds, solar radiation, heat rising from the oceans and a myriad of other factors added to the different time lags in which they impact the atmosphere might make it impossible to isolate or accurately identify which piece of Earth’s changing climate is feedback from manmade greenhouse gases.
“There are simply too many variables to reliably gauge the right number for that,” Spencer said. “The main finding from this research is that there is no solution to the problem of measuring atmospheric feedback, due mostly to our inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in our observations.”
For this experiment, the UA Huntsville team used surface temperature data gathered by the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Great Britain. The radiant energy data was collected by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
The six climate models were chosen from those used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The UA Huntsville team used the three models programmed using the greatest sensitivity to radiative forcing and the three that programmed in the least sensitivity.
==============================================================
Dr. Spencer has a pdf available. He discussed the findings here.
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Zilla, the 97% number includes all those that believe that CO2 causes some warming. That includes Lindzen and about 95% of all skeptics. That’s right, most of the people who post here also fall into the 97% number. The number you fail to understand is that ONLY 41% believe in the “C” in CAGW. And, the survey itself was taken before ClimateGate so I’d expect that number would be less today.”
May I ask where you got this from?
“4. If they were skeptical and did enter the field, they would be unlikely to get grants, and so would be hard up for material to publish. If they nevertheless did write skeptical critiques of warmism, they’d have a hard time getting them published. (See the recent trouble Spencer had getting his paper published, or McIntyre et al.) OTOH, an alarmed alarmist is going to churn out all sorts of unlikely doomsday scenarios and get them published. (E.g., warming is causing bats
to die off–a now-debunked thesis published twice in Nature, while papers skeptical of that idea were rejected.)”
McIntyre shouldn’t have anything published. As far as I know, he is not a Climatologist. He doesn’t have the qualifications to stand next to scientist like James Hansen and Gavin S. If Spencer can’t get his papers published it’s because he’s found to not be credible.
I also should know that there is nothing wrong with being an environmentalist. It appears that being one is a bad thing according to republicans/skeptics.
Friends:
Dear oh dear! So much fuss! And so much confusion!
Let us get a few facts clear.
Although there is nothing that is agreed by all people, the following facts are agreed by almost all ‘warmers’ and almost all ‘AGW skeptics’.
1.
An increase to surface temperature of a planet induced by the planet’s atmosphere is called the planet’s greenhouse effect (GHE).
2.
Greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere increase mean global temperature and this effect is the radiative GHE.
3.
Water vapour is the main GHG in the Earth’s atmosphere and causes about half of the Earth’s radiative GHE.
4.
GHGs other than water vapour in the Earth’s atmosphere are called ‘trace GHGs’.
5.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the major trace GHG: it causes about half of the GHE from ‘trace GHGs’ that cause about half of the Earth’s radiative GHE.
6.
The GHE of CO2 is subject to a ‘law of diminishing returns’ in that almost all the IR absorbtion that CO2 can achieve in the atmosphere is achieved.
7.
An increase to CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere would slightly increase the Earth’s radiative GHE but the effect would not be direct because of ‘feedbacks’ that amplify (positively or negatively) the effect.
8.
If the ‘feedbacks’ are net positive then discernible and possibly harmful global warming may occur from increased atmospheric CO2, but if the ‘feebacks’ are net negative then any global warming from increased atmospheric CO2 would be too small for it to be discernible.
The following points are matters of dispute between almost all ‘warmers’ and many ‘AGW skeptics’.
A1.
‘Warmers’ think the radiative GHE is so dominant that all other contributions to the Earth’s GHE can be ignored.
A2.
Many ‘AGW skeptics’ think ‘warmers’ over-state the importance of the radiative GHE because other contributions to the GHE (notably the hydrological cycle) are significant.
B1.
‘Warmers’ think an increase to CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere would significantly increase the Earth’s radiative GHE with resulting significant increase to the Earth’s surface temperature mostly because the net ‘feedbacks’ are positive.
B2.
Many ‘AGW skeptics’ think an increase to CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere cannot significantly increase the Earth’s radiative GHE with resulting significant increase to the Earth’s surface temperature because the net ‘feedbacks’ are negative.
THE IMPORTANT POINT
The paper by Spencer and Braswell (which is the subject of this thread) provides strong empirical evidence that the net feedbacks are negative.
Hence, the paper by Spencer and Braswell is empirical evidence that an increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration above existing levels would not induce global warming which is sufficiently large for it to be discernible.
Richard
A late comment from a confused layman. CO2, carbon dioxide, is identified by its spectral signature, specifically three bands at 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micron wavelengths. If we examine these three wavelengths with Wein’s Law we find the peak temperature at the 2.7 micron band is ~800C and the 4.3 band is ~400C and the 15 micron band is -80C. Yes, MINUS 80 celsius. Since the average global surface temperature (entirely due to global warming of course [/sarc) is 15C, it is highly unlikely that CO2 in the 2.7 and 4.3 bands is absorbing anything at all. The 15 micron band will, of course, be working fine.
Therefore, it would seem, CO2 absorbs more infrared radiation from the sun than it possibly can from the surface but is extremely unlikely to radiate at any temperature above 60C. It appears to me that CO2 actually helps keep the daylight side cool while reducing temperature loss through the atmosphere at night.
On examing the wavelengths for H2O, water vapour, the same argument applies. Only with knobs on! How these two gases are classified as “greenhouse” gasses is beyond my understanding.
Somewhere there must be a spectrum of sunlight showing the DARK absorption bands of CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere. This alone should show that CO2 is not a “greenhouse” gas.
@richard S Courtney,
While I doubt that everyone agrees entirely with your analysis, it is pretty close to “consenseus”. Sadly the skeptic camp is also populated with people who do not undertand or accept the basic physics, hence comments like “This alone should show that CO2 is not a “greenhouse” gas” (above). With friends like that, you don’t need enemies. 🙂
One important distinction I think you should have made is between condensing and non-condensing greenhouse gases. Water vapour is a powerful GHG, but “excess” water vapour will condense out, so it can be a powerful feedback but not a “forcing”. CO2 does not condense out, so will persist and can act as a forcing.
As you say, the serious argument is about the sensitivity to that forcing.
John B:
The purpose of my post (at July 29, 2011 at 2:25 am) was to explain why the Spencer and Braswell paper is important to the debate of AGW. The above discussion seemed to have lost sight of that subject, and my post was a brief summary of the issue in an attempt to get the discussion back to its real subject.
.
Your post at July 29, 2011 at 4:06 am is a response to my brief summary of the importance of the Spencer and Braswell paper.
Please note that my brief summary says;
“Although there is nothing that is agreed by all people, the following facts are agreed by almost all ‘warmers’ and almost all ‘AGW skeptics’.”
Hence, it provided a majority view (which, incidentally, I share).
But science progresses by overthrow of majority views: it always has and it always will.
So, it is important to always be aware that every one of us (including you and including me) could be wrong.
Hence, I strongly disagee with your statement saying;
“the serious argument is about the sensitivity to that forcing”.
In fact, one serious argument is about the sensitivity to that forcing, and other arguments should NOT be dismissed as being not serious.
Richard
It’s from a WUWT thread; here’s the link to the comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/05/the-guardian-climategate-was-a-game-changer/#comment-424978
I assume you’re objecting to the claim, “ONLY 41% believe in the “C” in CAGW.” I regret to concede that you have grounds for skepticism, because I couldn’t find backup for that claim when I Google-searched, but instead found this (on American thinker). (It looks to me that Richard M, author of the quote above, probably got mixed up.)
Anyway, there’s a WUWT thread on this survey, here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/02/scientific-consensus-on-global-warming-sample-size-79/
Here are some plums I’ve picked out of it:
Smokey says @ur momisugly “That is simply front-running the markets. It isn’t a program that predicts future price movements. ”
No – you are wrong Smokey. Trading off know data isn’t an advantage – I work in this sector and believe me there are predictions being make. Short time horizon – but modeling none-the-less.
“Dr. Ben Santer:
I just wanted to add to Mikes very nice explanation there, that science is about facts and testing theories, not about eminence of position, or assertions. Professor Lindzen has, as Mike mentioned, had a number of hypotheses. He’s said that the climate sensitivity, as Mike mentioned, is very small, so that the amount of warming that one would get for doubling of pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide would be very small. There’s virtually no support in the science that has been done, either on the modeling side, or the observational side, for that extreme position.
This Iris hypothesis has not been dismissed by the scientific community. It was rigorously examined by many scientists: at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, at the University of Washington; they said well okay, does this hypothesis fit the available data?
The bottom line is, no. It is not a convincing explanation of the available data that we have. And that’s how science should work, not by assertion, or eminence of position, but by testing theories and facts.”
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/richard-lindzen
Brian says:
“I also should know that there is nothing wrong with being an environmentalist. It appears that being one is a bad thing according to republicans/skeptics.”
I am not a republican. I am a scientific skeptic – the only honest kind of scientist, which does not include climate charlatans like Mann and Schmidt, who run and hide from transparency, debates, and the scientific method like Dracula runs and hides from the dawn. Your assumptions are the result of being fed alarmist propaganda, and they are completely off-base. Sad for you that you are a slave to enviro talking points. But you have plenty of company.
And Bystander, you can say anything like alarmists always do, but the putative financial model you’re trying to defend is just front running the markets. If you disagree, post the model that you believe accurately predicts the future market moves and we’ll deconstruct from there. No financial model can predict future market fluctuations. If it could, the programmer(s) would own the world.
And Lindzen’s iris effect, showing that cloud cover moderates global temperature, has never been falsified. It’s not a perfect hypothesis because it’s relatively new. But you misrepresent the situation. Better run along now to Skeptical Pseudo-Science for some new talking points.
Meanwhile, your homework assignment:
R.S. Lindzen, M.-D. Chou, and A.Y. Hou (2001) Does the Earth have an adaptive infrared iris? Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 82, 417-432.
Chou, M.-D., R.S. Lindzen, and A.Y. Hou (2002b) Comments on “The Iris hypothesis: A negative or positive cloud feedback?” J. Climate, 15, 2713-2715.
208. Bell, T. L., M.-D. Chou, R.S. Lindzen, and A.Y. Hou (2002) Response to Comment on “Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?” Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 83, 598-600.
Yawn. There is no such thing as non-thermal EM radiation. It all degrades to heat when stopped, and it can all be stopped by something. An ocean will handle any and all of it.
Brian H says: July 29, 2011 at 11:24 am
“Yawn. There is no such thing as non-thermal EM radiation. It all degrades to heat when stopped, and it can all be stopped by something. An ocean will handle any and all of it.”
Your lack of interest does not change the fact that there are commonly accepted names for various types of EM radiation. The name “thermal IR” has nothing to do with what happens to the energy when it gets absorbed. The name relates to the fact that “warm” objects radiate mostly in the “thermal IR” range.
“Thermal IR” starts around 3-4 µm (depending on who exactly you talk to) and ends around 1000 µm. IR of shorter wavelength (0.7 – 3 µm) is called “non-thermal IR” or “reflected IR”. This distinction is very handy for climate discussions, because the earth receives a lot of “non-thermal IR” from the sun and almost no “thermal IR”. Conversely, the earth emits a lot of “thermal IR” and almost no “non-thermal IR”.
Wikipedia has several other ways to break down the IR spectrum. For example, “near IR” is typically considered 0.75-1.4 µm. These other designation are not as germane to climate discussions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared
Philip Plait of Bad Astronomy blog fame puts his foot into the attack against Dr. Roy Spencer’s new paper. I chastise Philip Plait for the use of unprofessional ad hominem personal attacks and get viciously counter attacked. Par for the course. You might be interested. If you wish you might indicate your support for higher standards of conduct between professional scientists in the Google+ comments or the blog article. Thanks.
https://plus.google.com/108952536790629690817/posts/MGqXjz6xicG
Sorry Roger… But americanthinker is a conservative daily internet publication and not a real source. I can’t take anything that comes from that site with any sort of legitimacy.
“Sorry Roger… But
americanthinkerrealclimate is aconservative dailyalarmist propaganda internet publication and not a real source. I can’t take anything that comes from that site with any sort of legitimacy.”There. Fixed it for you.
Sorry Smokey, but I don’t see how you fixed anything. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Brian’s unwillingness to accept anything from a cite simply because of it’s politics is a poor policy, especially since all he seemed to be objecting to was the results of an opinion pole.
You, on the other hand, claimed earlier in this thread to be a scientific skeptic. This implies an objective, open-minded look at evidence to see what is correct and what is wrong. Yet here you are claiming a priori that anything presented at RealClimate is illegitimate. If Brian was wrong in his post, then you were equally wrong in yours.
Not only that, but what did RealClimate have to do with anything to begin with? You are the only one who has mentioned it in this thread, and always with loaded rhetoric — “bozos”, “propaganda”, “alarmist”. You simply stirred the waters, rather than “fixing” anything.
I cited it only to show where Richard M had drawn polling data from–data that he mistakenly (apparently) confused with data from a different survey. I wasn’t asking you to accept American Thinker’s say-so on anything.
Tim Folkerts says:
July 29, 2011 at 12:16 pm
The name “thermal IR” has nothing to do with what happens to the energy when it gets absorbed. The name relates to the fact that “warm” objects radiate mostly in the “thermal IR” range.
Otherwise known as Heat.
“Thermal IR” starts around 3-4 µm (depending on who exactly you talk to) and ends around 1000 µm. IR of shorter wavelength (0.7 – 3 µm) is called “non-thermal IR” or “reflected IR”. This distinction is very handy for climate discussions, because the earth receives a lot of “non-thermal IR” from the sun and almost no “thermal IR”. Conversely, the earth emits a lot of “thermal IR” and almost no “non-thermal IR”.
You began so well and then the same old nonsense that the earth doesnn’t receive thermal infrared.. The heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR. We can’t feel non-thermal infrared because it is not hot. Thermal IR is hot even if we aren’t around to experience it…
We experience Heat because heat flows from hotter to colder, always. If we’re colder than the invisible Heat reaching us it will warm us up, it works on the molecular level, Thermal IR is a powerful energy.
The old page http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html was captured here:
http://www.webcitation.org/5y68yeeRD – it is no longer available [Anthony – this is the one you did for me, to show me how it could be done, and the one I put in isn’t coming up either http://www.webcitation.org/5y6Any4VA (which is from the new world encyclopedia and states that in tradition science it is taught that it is Thermal Infrared which heats the Earth.)]
However, Webcite still has the original pages saved on the old URLs…
Because it is true.
It, NWE, follows this by saying:
Prove that visible light from the Sun accounts for 50% of the heating. You cannot make such a bold claim overturning traditional physics knowledge without any eff*n proof!
And, intensity is not proof that visible light accounts for 50% of the heating – a laser of blue visible light directed at a small area is not describing the blue visible light we get from the Sun which is scattered all over the placeby the bigger molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere, which collisions do not create heat but emit non thermal light on electron scale, and, which passes through water, the oceans, without interacting even on this scale, transmitted through. Visible Light is incapable of heating the Earth’s land and oceans, and us.
To be continued:
Continued/2
From the NASA page:
There’s no sense of scale in AGWScience fiction…
Visible Light might knock an electron and emit a bit of light, when it’s not being used for not heat producing chemical changes as in photosynthesis, but it doesn’t have the power to move molecules. It gets bounced around by molecules, so we have a blue sky. This is bog standard traditional physics. Light is reflective, it is not the powerful Heat energy of Thermal Infrared.
Near Infrared is also reflective, as Tim said, that’s how such cameras work, by capturing the near infrared reflected off objects, just as normal cameras do.
Real traditional physics as still taught. All the heat we feel from the Sun is thermal Infrared.All that thermal infrared is what is heating the Earth’s lands and oceans and atmosphere.
It is powerful, without the Water Cycle the Earth would be 67°C.
And, we feel the heat because it warms us up. When we get too heated up from the thermal infrared from the Sun our bodies work to get rid of some of it, we sweat. Water is a great absorber of Heat, and its high heat capacity means that it holds on to the heat longer – our bodies are around 20% carbon and the rest mainly water, we are great absorbers of thermal infrared.
The non-thermal electromagnetic waves of the AGWScience fiction’s energy budget claim, that it is these converting land and oceans to heat, is a joke. It’s physically an impossible nonsense. Whoever first came up with the idea of saying this must be laughing socks off that’s it’s been so easy to infiltrate this meme even into science teaching. As ludicrous as heavier than air carbon dioxide ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’. Brainwashing on a grand scale..
Anyway, I’m done with this aspect. Your choice to believe the science fiction that is claimed to be real science from the AGW magisterium churning out such rubbish, or sticking with traditional physics which is internally coherent, rational.
{Sigh} I see Murrh is trying to highjack yet another post with his thermo-illiteracy.
There’s no driving nails into that concrete. Just ignore him.
@John B says: July 29, 2011 at 4:06 am
“”While I doubt that everyone agrees entirely with your analysis, it is pretty close to “consenseus”. Sadly the skeptic camp is also populated with people who do not undertand or accept the basic physics, hence comments like “This alone should show that CO2 is not a “greenhouse” gas” (above). With friends like that, you don’t need enemies. :-)””
You do yourself no favours by using my post as an indicator of the standards of physics used by skeptics.
The term for that is arrogance. I stated in the first sentence I am a layman and confused.
In the light of your implied superiority on the physics of heat transfer and the effects of infrared radiation in the upper troposphere if you would be so helpfull as to point me to any links that might explain to a layman how much energy is absorbed by CO2 molecules at a pressure of 0.54 bar and temperature of 255K at the specific IR band of 2.7 microns. An understanding of how much of that energy is thermalised and how much is isotropically re-radiated is required. Thank you in advance.
Richard S Courtney says:
July 29, 2011 at 2:25 am
Friends:
Dear oh dear! So much fuss! And so much confusion!
Let us get a few facts clear.
Although there is nothing that is agreed by all people, the following facts are agreed by almost all ‘warmers’ and almost all ‘AGW skeptics’.
1.An increase to surface temperature of a planet induced by the planet’s atmosphere is called the planet’s greenhouse effect (GHE).
2.Greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere increase mean global temperature and this effect is the radiative GHE.
3.Water vapour is the main GHG in the Earth’s atmosphere and causes about half of the Earth’s radiative GHE.
4.GHGs other than water vapour in the Earth’s atmosphere are called ‘trace GHGs’.
5.Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the major trace GHG: it causes about half of the GHE from ‘trace GHGs’ that cause about half of the Earth’s radiative GHE.
6.The GHE of CO2 is subject to a ‘law of diminishing returns’ in that almost all the IR absorbtion that CO2 can achieve in the atmosphere is achieved.
7.An increase to CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere would slightly increase the Earth’s radiative GHE but the effect would not be direct because of ‘feedbacks’ that amplify (positively or negatively) the effect.
8.If the ‘feedbacks’ are net positive then discernible and possibly harmful global warming may occur from increased atmospheric CO2, but if the ‘feebacks’ are net negative then any global warming from increased atmospheric CO2 would be too small for it to be discernible.
Based on what? The classic idea is that all the gases of the atmosphere comprise the Earth’s Greenhouse, and therefore are greenhouse gases, and like a real greenhouse work together to keep the atmosphere benign for life generally in the combination of properties and processes under gravity, including convection. The main greenhouse gases are nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour, for all practical purposes, 100%, the rest is trace.
How has water come to be split away from its main role in the greenhouse, which is to cool the Earth? Without the water cycle in the greenhouse, the atmosphere, the Earth would be substantially hotter than it is now, 67°C. As our deserts.
Just what possible ‘warming’ effect can a trace gas have against the considerable power of the Water Cycle to bring down Earth’s temperature by around 50°C?
As it is, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere combines with water in the greenhouse and comes down in the rain, all rain is carbonic acid. Why are carbon dioxide’s processes also cherry picked to exclude its in tandem role, together with water vapour, in cooling the Earth?
Oops–I should have mentioned above that the A.T. article referred to a survey of the public, so obviously that’s not relevant to a survey of climatologists. (I guess that only 2/3 of them are catastrophists.)
The so-called greenhouse effect on a water world is predominantly done by liquid water not gases in the atmosphere.
Think about it. Greenhouse gases distinguish themselves from non-greenhouse gases by two things – they are transparent to visible light and opaque to infrared light. Liquid water is transparent to visible light and opaque to infrared light. The big difference is that the ocean has over a thousand times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Just the first 10 meters of the ocean weighs as much as the entire atmosphere above it and pound for pound water has 4 times the heat capacity of air. The atmosphere is a bit player on a water world like ours when it comes to greenhouse effect. The lion’s share of the greenhouse warming is done by the ocean not the atmosphere. At least so long as the ocean presents a liquid surface. When it’s covered by ice all bets are off.
Fun fact: How Alternative Energy Creates Jobs
We double the cost of electricity for your home and fuel for your car which forces you to get a second job to pay for it.
Flawless plan, eh?
Smokey says “I am a scientific skeptic – the only honest kind of scientist, ”
And them proceeds to only cite two refuted / specific point of view sources
That is not the behavior of a skeptic…