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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i WAITED TWO DAYS TO SEE THIS ON WUWT!
izen says: July 29, 2011 at 4:01 am
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The wavelength of the DWLWIR (whether this be from CO2 or water vapour) is such that it can at most penetrate just a few microns into the ocean. There is no mechanism whereby heat in the top few microns can penetrate to a significantly lower depth so that it becomes well mixed with the real body of the oceans. In fact, the top few microns is nothing more than spray and wind swept spume such that there is in practice no pentetration. Yet further, the effect of the DWLWIR is to evaporate the top few microns to which it penetrates thereby leading to a cooling (not warming).
There is little (if any) diurnal change in air temperature over the oceans. Likewise, the air temperature above the oceans is not significantly affected by cloud cover. This is because, the ocean is a huge heat reservoir constantly heating the column of air above it, thereby maintaining a steady temperature. Since the ocean temperature does not change on a day night basis, neither does the air above it. Likewise, since the temperature of the ocean does not change by the presence of a passing cloud, nor does the air temperature above it. Put simply, if the Pacific Ocean or Indian Ocean (whatever) is at a temperature of 30 degC the air above it is at 30 dec day or night, cloudy or not. If it is at 28deg C. the air above it is 28 deg C day or night, cloudy or not.
The air does not heat the oceans. It has insufficient heat capacity in relation to the huge capacity of the ocean and evaporation and convection would in any event prevent the air from heating the ocean. You cannot heat a cup of coffee simply by placing hot air above it. There is no process whereby it can impart its temperature to the cup of coffee below (as we all know-hot air rises).
I have a swimming pool. In the summer, it gets up to about 34 to 37 degC. At night, the air temperature may be circa 23 to 28 degC. However, the air temperature immediately above the swimming pool will be 34 to 37 deg C because the water in the swimming pool is giving up its heat and heating the column of air immediately above it. Now just imaginne that the swimming pool was not say 100 cu metres of water but was infact the volume of the ocean. It is easy to visualise why the ocean controls the air temperature above it and it is not influenced by anything else since the ocean effectively has a limitless supply of heat with which to be able to heat the air above it 24/7 .
It is for this reason that many people are of the view that the AGW theory is at most a phenomenen that affects the land and cannot impact globally because DWLWIR cannot and does not heat the ocean nor control the air temperature above the oceans.
izen says:
July 29, 2011 at 4:01 am
@- 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?
Just from personal observation, although cloud cover has an appreciable effect on air temperature at sea level at night, it has no noticeable effect on sea water temperature at night. Perhaps my local patch of the Indian Ocean behaves differently to whatever you are familiar with.
Great news, but too bad Roy Spencer went out and showed himself to be biased before it’s release. It will allow the wamrers to dismiss this study completely.
Rúnar re: “unfortunately makes him look like a total nutcase”
John A. re: “about ID, which is creationism-in-disguise”
You commit the logical fallacies ad hominem attacks of Red Herring, Appeal to Ridicule and Guilt by Association. You further fail to address ANY scientific evidence on that issue- either for evolution or on it’s limitations. See Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life; ISBN 978-0-521-80293-2 and
Michael Behe The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism ISBN 978-0743296229
You even expose your ignorance by failing to distinguish between Intelligent Design and “Creation Science”
Can you rise from gutter garbage to grown up professional dialog?
Haven’t you anything constructive or objective at all to say on Spencer and Braswell’s revolutionary scientific evidence and models?
Slashdot comments tended to be quite pro AGW a few years ago. Around about climategate, that began to shift.
Previously it was a one-sided issue of science vs. ignorance. But the leaks made it a multi-faceted issue and engaged their pre-exiting preference for freedom of information and transparency.
Ars Technica is another geek site that covers AGW, but their pieces continue to be framed as “education” about how this or that method in science is very trustworthy and sound, how the public misunderstands the science, and quickly linked to the topic of climate change, kinda like how The Economist and New Scientist continue to write educational pieces questioning whether science gets it wrong, but then reaffirming that science gets it right, and so climate change is real.
Reluctantly, I have to question this. In a nonequilibrium process with a sinusoidal input, or even a noise input, there are time lags that must be considered. Outputs cannot be expected to match inputs instantly. If the input is a sinusoid, the output will be a sinusoid, but with a phase lag. If the input is noise, the output will be noise. Always, the first law governs: heat out must eventually equal heat in, and “heat retained” must be zero. Changing the “greenhouse constant” will cause the equilibrium surface temperature to change, but this does not necessarily mean the system dynamics will change. Phase diagrams and such will still look the same, but with a temperature offset.
@eco-geek
“A qualitative article about a quantative issue! Where are the NUMBERS.”
Explanation and numbers at Roy Spencers site. You are in my opinion absolutely right, though, to ask such questions. Newspaper articles are third rate derivates of actual scientific data.
Friends:
In addition to my above comment, I point out that the actual paper can be read at
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf
It includes this;
“Central to the difficulty of feedback diagnosis is the very different time-dependent relationships which exist between forcing and temperature, versus between feedback and temperature. While there is a substantial time lag between forcing and the temperature response due to the heat capacity of the ocean, the radiative feedback response to temperature is nearly simultaneous with the temperature change. This near-simultaneity is due to a combination of the instantaneous temperature effect on the LW portion of (the Planck response of 3.3 W m−2 K−1), and the relatively rapid convective coupling of the surface to the atmosphere, which causes surface temperature-dependent changes in water vapor, clouds, and the vertical profile of temperature.”
In other words, any arguments concerning relative timescales (such as those of izen at July 29, 2011 at 3:52 am) are specifically refuted in the paper.
Richard
It didn’t take schmidt and trenberth long to get a rebuttal out there.
http://www.space.com/12469-climate-change-debunked-fast.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
Talk of Roy Spencers views on ID is ironic cinsidering Al Gore studied at theological school and in public talks said the earth was only 6000 yeasr old.
My newly minted AirForce weatherman son (I’m so pleased and proud http://coalitionoftheswilling.net/?p=15233 !) sent the link via Yahoo yesterday, so it’s mainstream all the way, baby!
However, as forecast, first thing this morning I find the “Spencer’s a quack” namecalling started via my Twitter stream:
http://twitter.com/#!/USRealityCheck/status/96917066480758784
“Climate Scientists Blow Gaping Hole In ‘NASA Data’ Paper By Ideologue Roy Spencer: The climate denier blo… http://bit.ly/mSLCmu tp #US ”
…leading to this ThinkProgress article:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/07/29/282656/climate-scientists-blow-gaping-hole-in-nasa-data-paper-by-ideologue-roy-spencer/
Not quite as “viral” as Yahoo, but they’re trying. Perhaps in damage control as well, there was a “release” touted of East Anglia papers yesterday, headlined as:
Climate Research Unit Releases All its Data, Depriving Skeptics of a Favorite Talking Point
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/climate-research-unit-releases-data-skeptics.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehugger%2Fbusiness-politics+%28Business+%26+Politics%29&utm_content=Twitter
(In fact, it was “nearly” all.)
@Tom in Indy
It has a lovely quote by Gavin Schmidt:
“Climate sensitivity is not constrained by the last two decades of imperfect satellite data, but rather the paleoclimate record.”
Imperfect satellite data as opposed to perfect paleoclimate records?
I think the recent revelation that the IPCC fiddled with the climate sensitivity number is just as damaging–or ought to be. here’s the WUWT thread on the topic:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/05/the-ipcc-and-high-biased-climate-sensitivity/
Dear Anthony Sorry to post here, Tips and Notes does not allow me to paste links.
The Guardian has a report regading a scientist being suspended. The scientists was involved in creating the alarm about Polar Bears. The Guardians take is that the suspension is due to the US govt wanting to drill for oil?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/28/arctic-scientist-polar-bear-oil
@Tom in indy says: July 29, 2011 at 5:54 am
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Wow, that Stephanie Pappas is a real t[^^]d who obviously didn’t read the paper!
I’ve had enough of this phony physics from oxymoronic ‘climate science’:
There is no ‘back radiation’. There is no energy storage by CO2. The DLR is Prevost exchange energy, a consequence of an object being warmer than absolute zero. It’s balanced by equal and opposite upward radiation. The only work being done is that from the temperature gradient.
The reason why DLR is higher for clouds is that they have emissivity of c. 1 whereas that of moist air is c. 0.1,
The prediction of an energy source from Arthur Milne’s 1922 was a mathematical mistake. It’s time we closed down this bunkum science and put some competent people in charge, you know, a decent physics’ or engineering degree from one of the top 10 World universities, not the UEA.
Remember the missing links found that proved man evolved from lower creatures and birds from dinosaurs and later proven to be false, how long before warming scientists find the missing link to the hockey stick or CO2 or cap and tax and trade and outrageous regulation?
All their predictions have not happened and they have used good weather to promote fear of global disaster by falsifying their reports and hiding their work. And anyone questioning their claims has been vilified and shut out from publication. Warming scientists have produced dictatorial predictions, rather than arguments, that are intended to support legislation of outrageous intent to control and suppress the general population in their normal activities and in the exercise of their freedom.
Scientists are no different than anyone else when it comes to the truth and honesty in their work and as for criticism of a scientist working out of their field of formal training the work should be allowed to speak for itself.
I’ve been a /. member almost since its beginning (4-digit member No. !). Since then I’ve seen it degenerate from a genuinely great News For Nerds site into something which kinda annoys me these days. The reason? It seems to be teeming with AGW alarmists! At the same time, it’s fascinating to watch their reactions to anyone who shows the remotest sign that they’re an AGW sceptic.
Been reading it for just as long. Yes they did get swept up in the AGW thing, but almost everyone did after Al Gore’s self aggrandizement movie came out. That said, They were sane compared to what Digg became. If you remember, there was a time in mid 200’s where people were wonder if /. would even survive, because Digg was eating their lunch. But a funny thing happened. As Digg became more and more radical, especially leading up to the 2008 election, a lot of us tech-head started going back to /., which had mellowed out. Is it perfect? No. But perfect is the enemy of the good, and it’s far better than Digg.
On that note. I think i like the /. version of this story better than the Forbes one. The Forbes version is WAY too over the top. We don’t like it when the press does that with a warmist leaning paper, and we shouldn’t like it when it’s done with a paper that goes to the skeptic side.
CAGW doubt has already gone viral. The people who believe CAGW is happening are simply spread very thin trying to paint over all the holes as soon as they pop up. It’s like a thin skin of belief covering an ocean of doubt, just a matter of time before it all falls apart. I’ve seen articles appear on the front page of Digg that were highly critical of the AGW thesis, of course the CAGW Digg members all flag it as inaccurate so it gets labeled as such, but it still makes it to the front page, with a ridiculous caveat.
There are though, quite literally, people behind the scenes whose only job seems to be to plaster CAGW belief onto Digg, Slashdot, Reddit, etc.. I’m not sure you guys have seen them, but they exist. They post so often, they’re either living off of permanent unemployment or someone is paying them. Either is possible to me. If it’s just highly deceived people who have willingly sacrificed years of their lives defending the indefensible on online forums, I would be quite sad for them.
It looks like Spencer has been shot down once again.
Maybe he should find a new line of work. Like weather forcasting. He shares their level of accuracy.
RU frothing? That’s very hard on spelling competence.
quantative / quantitative
Ken Harvey says: July 29, 2011 at 5:22 am
“…Just from personal observation, although cloud cover has an appreciable effect on air temperature at sea level at night, it has no noticeable effect on sea water temperature at night. Perhaps my local patch of the Indian Ocean behaves differently to whatever you are familiar with…”
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Ken
See my post above (richard verney says:July 29, 2011 at 5:18 am)
I would not join issue with your observation, but I consider that you are describing local events. Near the coast, the weather is different due to different air temperatures between land and sea, diiferent topography, sea breezes etc,
My post is dealing with the condition of the oceans in the middle of the ocean, ie., if you were to go on a deep sea ocean voyage and experience conditions on a ship miles and miles away from the nearest land.
Of course, from time to time, storms will develop and then the air temperature and sea temperature may well be different (very probably will be), or there may be prevailing trade winds carrying air currents 9which may be warmer or cooler). My post is dealing with the position when weather conditions are essentially calm (say not exceeding BF5 or thereabouts).
I have studied hundreds of ship’s logs where ocean and air temperatures and weather conditions are recorded every watch (4 hour intervals), and in the deep ocean areas, there is in practice little if any diurnal temperature change, likewise little if any change between cloudy and open skies.
The air temperature is controlled by the vast volume of ocean acting as a storage heater continually replenishing the air temperature as it gives up its heat.
.
charles nelson says:
July 29, 2011 at 1:04 am
I’m not sure I follow, surely warm air will always rise as it’s less dense, perhaps they “wriggle” as you put it because you don’t make any sense and they are trying to be polite and not call your arguement stupid…
Oceans are heated during the day by shortwave Solar energy, not LW radiation (what the Earth emits back at longer wave lengths). Long wave radiation is captured by greenhouse gases to be re-radiated in all directions, and can temporarily heat air temperatures but only by hardly noticeable fractions. In fact, the oceans are so readily heated by Solar energy that they heat up deeper than land surfaces. At night the oceans begin to cool but very slowly and only slightly, while land surfaces give it up quickly.
For those who question (and I think only one commentor did) these well known phenomena, I recommend any standard 5th grade science text book.