This is how Slashdot breaks the news from Forbes article: “New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism”. When it hits Slashdot, you know it has gone viral.
New NASA Data Casts Doubt On Global Warming Models
from the but-scientists-love-models dept.
bonch writes:
“Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere than is assumed in current models. ‘There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,’ said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama.”
Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.
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The finding in Spencer and Braswell’s new paper 2011 paper “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” that the earth’s atmosphere resists forcing changes (loses more heat or less heat to stabilize planetary temperature rather than to amplify forcing changes) makes sense physically (positive feedback does not occur in natural systems as it makes the system unstable and is purposely ensured to not occur in manmade systems.) and is consistent with the paleo climatic record (planetary temperature is stable except when the galactic cosmic ray changes by the sun or the geomagnetic field changes sensitivity of the cloud mechanism), it is also consistent with previous findings by Lindzen and Choi.
Extreme warming (3C and greater for a doubling of atmospheric CO2) only occurs if the earth’s atmosphere has positive feedback to amplify rather than resist a increase forcing change due to increased atmospheric CO2 or due to any other forcing change.
If the earth’s atmosphere respond to a change in forcing is neutral (i.e. not positive and not negative) the models predict a very conservative (on the high side) warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 of 1.2C. As it appears the feedback response is negative the actual warming will be less than 1C for doubling of CO2.
The IPCC’s safe warming for the planet is 2C. It appears we have already won the war on global warming. The US and other Western Countries do not need to spend trillions of dollars on a bureaucracy to monitor and police CO2 emissions, on a bureaucracy to control trading of CO2 credits, on a bureaucracy to tax CO2 emissions, on bureaucracy to hand out money without control to corrupt third world governments, and so on.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf
On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data
By Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.
The back peddling by those who predicted extreme global warming has started.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/j/global_temperatures_09.pdf
Do global temperature trends over the last decade falsify climate predictions?—J. Knight, J. J. Kennedy, C. Folland, G. Harris, G. S. Jones, M. Palmer, D. Parker, A. Scaife, andP. Stott
Way to go Dr. Spencer! Measure and analyse. Keep at it! Your approach is the only way to go.
We will win the scientific discussion in the end.
Unfortunately it wont happen until all CO2 taxes are in place. I discussed this with a colleguae here in Norway. His take on it was;
Relax. They will keep all their existing tax’es anyway. Some of them will just change name, and increase. Look at the name on a tax as a text-string that just keeps changing its content. In one election it will be called Horse-Power tax. (Yes, we have that in Norway) After the election, if the new government is “green’ish red”, or “conservatively green’ish”, it might be called “Carbon tax”. Or whatever. The crux is that the total amount of tax must either stay the same or slowly increase to follow the inflation.
Why? Well, you have a certain percentage working for the Government.
They have a budget, every year. It doesnt decrease. So, there you have it.
CO2 is a nice tax-increaser.
But in Norway there is a logical fallacy. Oil and gas is a very, very important income source for these budgets. If they decrease their oil/gas activities due to CAGW the whole system will get into financial problems. Statoil. Remember?
Before oil / gas in Norway, we had progressive income tax.This was back in the 70’ties. I remember my father complained that if he worked extra, he would keep only 10 percent for himself.
How / why do they go along with CAGW, since oil / gas is so important as a source of income for all employed by the government?
My take on it is that not even the Prime Minister, Mr.Stoltenberg, goes along with CAGW privately.
But they agree officially. Don’t want to loose votes. But when it comes to signing anything in Copenhagen that would hurt the government finances, they would never sign.
Not even close. Check out http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com and http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/slashdot.org . Slashdot has much more traffic.
The good thing is that the story on slashdot gets an audience gets a general audience. Wattsupwiththat is preaching to the converted. The slashdot story has more than five hundred comments. That’s a lot even for slashdot.
The bad thing is that the comments that are ranked highest tend to be negative on the story. There are some alarmists over there and they are very aggressive. Still, it’s impressive that the story was carried at all.
It was just a matter of time until some climate scientists produced some interesting empirical research. Empirical research is truly the death knell of global warming. Warmista have been locked inside their Gaia models no less completely than Spinoza was locked inside his conception of God.
I followed a link to climatecrocks. I wish I hadn’t. I had no idea that such ignorant philistines still trolled the web.
It is good to see that the paper is getting some publicity.
The problem for the ‘warmists’ is that there is undeniably a divergence between model projections and recent current temperature measurements and this divergence requires an explanation.
The Spence paper provides a reasonable explanation for the divergence. If the ‘warmists’ do not like that explanation, they need to come uip with their own explanation. Presently they cannot do this. Hence, there are difficulties in attacking the paper on grounds of principle. Ad Homs attacks is only hand waving and most mature (is there such a thing) warmist will no that that does not carry any real weight.
Accordingly, their best strategy is to hide the paper, after all they have previosu experience in hiding the decline and they have the MSM on their side. I bet the BBC does not report on this paper.
Here in Australia we have once again witnessed blatant examples of the double standards that the MSM applies to AGW advocates and AGW sceptics.
In the last week or so we have seen former UK PM Tony Blair helping Julia Gillard to sell her carbon dioxide tax. Now you might think he’s doing this because they are good Labor mates, but could it have anything to do with the fact that Blair is trousering millions of dollars as part of his job selling greenhouse snake oil for billionaire, venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla?
But did the Australian MSM raise the question of Bliar’s blatant conflicts of interest? As you might guess, naught but obsequious fawning.
Contrast this meek acceptance with the puerile nit-picking dished out by the MSM when it came to visiting sceptics Lord Christopher Monckton and the incumbent president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus. In this instance we had the MSM making bizarre assertions about “Big Oil” payments, and the supposed “theft” of a Biro, when both received nothing more than modest expenses.
We also witnessed Julia Gillard’s display of what could be described as gushing hero worship towards Tony Blair, but she totally ignored the Czech president.
Amazing cant isn’t it?? If you’re a scientist with a religious belief then you are subject to public venom. But if your religious beliefs are based on voodoo science then you are deemed to be a superior person.
regards.
(the AGW scam will not fall over willingly. too much ‘face’ at stake for too many egos.)
Dale says: July 28, 2011 at 11:24 pm
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
This confirms what I have been saying for years, that you cannot get a proper grasp on how the climate works (and in particular how the oceans behave) whilst dealing with averages. Averages only conceal what is truly going on.
It is obvious that there are fundamental floors with the models as is conclusively confirmed by the divergence between their projections and real temperature measurments. If the temperature data record has become inaccurate due to problems with station quality, sitings, station drop out, UHI, adjustments etc, the divergence problem may be even greater.
In the end, reality will catch up. Eventually, Mother Nature will prove her case.
I nice summation article in Forbes can be found: http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/07/27/new-nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-in-global-warming-alarmism/
Shorter Spencer and Braswell.
We could not match ten years of real world data with significant ENSO events with model data that makes the assumption that over longer timescales the ENSO effect is neutral.
Over a ten year period ENSO variations were larger than AGW forcings so it was impossible to measure the positive feedback effects that might amplify the radiative forcing from higher CO2.
David Falkner – I’m stealing “neener neener” ha ha ha! Well said! Now THAT’S a great comment! LOL!
Looks to me the AGW crowd is at least a bit snookered now.
Don’t need any satelites to tell me that the increase in CO2 does nothing.
You can all find that for yourself in the area where you live::
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
@- Konrad says:
July 28, 2011 at 10:35 pm
“We know that back scattered LWIR from CO2 cannot heat the oceans accounting 70% of the Earths surface, which invalidates the case for CAGW.”
Could you provide some evidence for this claim? WHY does downwelling LWIR not warm the oceans when it is from CO2 but does when it is from clouds – or are you claiming that cloud cover has no effect on ocean temperature at night?
What would be most valuable would be a suitable dispassionate technical expert to translate the paper into everyday language, flag up the key things which have to be true for the paper to hold water and then invite others to shoot it down in everyday language also.
I suspect this paper is a watershed, but if you want the political establishment to treat it thus, it needs to be translated into less technical language.
Slashdot commenters still firmly on the warmist side, no surprise there – liberal urban geek population; strongly UHI-affected.
re: “… In this instance we had the MSM making bizarre assertions about “Big Oil” payments, …”
I have read that “Big Oil” (or industry) has given skeptics several million dollars over the years. I see this fact (?) mentioned often. On the other hand I have read that governments, mainly the USA, has given out many tens of Billions of dollars to the CAGW side but that never seems to get mentioned.
“Billions” is more than “millions” is it not?
izen says:
July 29, 2011 at 4:01 am
“Could you provide some evidence for this claim? WHY does downwelling LWIR not warm the oceans when it is from CO2 but does when it is from clouds – or are you claiming that cloud cover has no effect on ocean temperature at night?”
LWIR does not penetrate beyond a skin layer.
Kevin Cave says:
July 28, 2011 at 11:43 pm
“My point being should I discount everything Dawkins has to say about religion and evolution just because he appears (in my opinion) to have the cognitive dissonance to have complete /faith/ that humans are causing planet Earth to overheat due to a minuscule additional release of a trace gas?”
Dawkins has replaced blind faith into a religion with blind faith into the political religion of AGW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voegelin
It worries me how anyone could believe .0.0039% of the atmosphere could heat up the other 99.9961%.
izen says at July 29, 2011 at 3:52 am:
“Shorter Spencer and Braswell.
We could not match ten years of real world data with significant ENSO events with model data that makes the assumption that over longer timescales the ENSO effect is neutral.
Over a ten year period ENSO variations were larger than AGW forcings so it was impossible to measure the positive feedback effects that might amplify the radiative forcing from higher CO2.”
Clearly, Izen has not read the release or he/she/they has reading difficulties. The release says;
“Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.
“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.””
So, Spencer and Braswell compared empirical data to indications of “the climate models”.
Either the model indications approximate reality or they don’t. The fact that Spencer and Braswell have observed “there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show” proves the model predictions don’t approximate reality.
And excuses or armwaving about ENSO are plain silly.
Richard
Or even .039% could heat up the other 99.961%
Hello! The same article was on Drudge Report as of late afternoon yesterday. Drudge is on someone’s laptop in every major newsroom in America. He’s far more important than /. It’s the overall effect you get here when Yahoo News+Forbes+Drudge+a cascade of popular sites brings a meme into the world. That’s how millions of people begin to form a new opinion by osmosis. A few months from now it’s the combination of stories: reputable paper+impending Maunder-type minimum+results of CLOUD experiment. Wait till you see the opinion polls on climate change next spring. Heh.
Paul Deacon @ur momisugly July 29, 2011 at 12:49 am
Paul, the positive feedback part of the AGW argument is exactly why it is a load of carp. Any engineer (I am one) will tell you that a system with positive feedback is unstable. If there were spositive feedback in the Earth’s climate, then it would have hit the rails billions of years ago. There clearly is no positive feedback; there isn’t any evidence for positivie feedback; positive feedback exists only in the minds and computer models of those with a political or financial or religious need for anthropogenic warming.
@ur momisugly Rúnar
> … would be very helpful if Dr. Spencer (and others) would refrain from
> writing nonsensical articles in unrelated fields which …
> makes him look like a total nutcase, …
I fail to see how that article makes him into “a total nutcase”.
He’s actually right, at a very high level. Evolution and Climatology _are_ the same in this sense: researchers must make observations and inferences from sparse evidence about systems which are mostly “hidden”.
And mainstream evolution, though successful in many ways, can’t explain some fairly simple stuff, such as: ‘how did human brain evolve big enough to build spaceships to other planets?’ [when slithering under a rock or climbing a tree are much more ‘practical’ mechanisms for enhancing surviva]l?
I’m an evolution skeptic myself, and also an ID skeptic. I believe there is a yet undiscovered “life principle” which will explain life (and consciousness too) and a lot of these unanswered questions. It’s not a religious belief, but merely a statement of faith about science.
Dr. Spencer isn’t spouting religion either, but merely suggesting that we shouldn’t demonize folks for being skeptics about evolution. You shouldn’t either.
Sound familiar?