by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
So, we continue to be treated to news articles (e.g. here, and here.) quoting esteemed scientists who claim to have found problems with our paper published in Remote Sensing, which shows huge discrepancies between the real, measured climate system and the virtual climate system imagined by U.N.-affilliated climate modelers and George Soros-affiliated pundits (James Hansen, Joe Romm, et al.)
Their objections verge on the bizarre, and so I have to wonder whether any of them actually read our paper. I eagerly await their published papers which show any errors in our analysis.
Apparently, all they need to know is that our paper makes the U.N. IPCC climate models look bad. And we sure can’t have that!
What’s weird is that these scientists, whether they know it or not, are denying the 1st Law of Thermodynamics: simple energy conservation. We show it actually holds for global-average temperature changes: a radiative accumulation of energy leads to a temperature maximum…later. Just like when you put a pot of water on the stove, it takes time to warm.
But while it only takes 10 minutes for a few inches of water to warm, the time lag of many months we find in the real climate system is the time it takes for several tens of meters of the upper ocean to warm.
We showed unequivocal satellite evidence of these episodes of radiant energy accumulation before temperature peaks…and then energy loss afterward. Energy conservation cannot be denied by any reasonably sane physicist.
We then showed (sigh…again…as we did in 2010) that when this kind of radiant forcing of temperature change occurs, you cannot diagnose feedback, at least not at zero time lag as Dessler and others claim to have done.
If you try, you will get a “false positive” even if feedback is strongly negative!
The demonstration of this is simple and persuasive. It is understood by Dick Lindzen at MIT, Isaac Held at Princeton (who is far from a “skeptic”), and many others who have actually taken the time to understand it. You don’t even have to believe that “clouds can cause climate change” (as I do), because it’s the time lag – which is unequivocal – that causes the feedback estimation problem!
Did we “prove” that the IPCC climate models are wrong in their predictions of substantial future warming?
No, but the dirty little secret is that there is still no way to test those models for their warming predictions. And as long as the modelers insist on using short term climate variability to “validate” the long term warming in their models, I will continue to use that same short term variability to show how the modelers might well be fooling themselves into believing in positive feedback. And without net positive feedback, manmade global warming becomes for all practical purposes a non-issue. (e.g., negative cloud feedback could more than cancel out any positive feedback in the climate system).
If I’m a “denier” of the theory of dangerous anthropogenic climate change, so be it. But as a scientist I’d rather deny that theory than deny the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.
This is America, the most powerful nation in the world. We landed men on the moon and today we can’t even have that first law repealed? What a travesty.
@Hugh Pepper
But you’re missing the big thing Dr. Spencer is saying: modellers use short time periods to try to “verify” if their model is conforming close enough to reality. No modellers use 100 year cycles. And then, using satellites, we see that on those short, “verification” time scales, the climate’s response to heat is significantly different than the models. It is these short time scales that are used to diagnose feedback, and then the feedback is used to predict 100 year cycles.
It doesn’t matter if others are trying to say “but the models predict for 100’s for years”. The issue of if they conform to reality enough to be an accurate prediction, via short term tests, rather than fooling ourselves about feedback is what’s being discussed by Dr. Spencer.
I thought that “feedback” was debunked by Joe Postma’s theory.
No?
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7457
strawbale says:
August 1, 2011 at 10:04 am
It’s pretty difficult to dumb-down the criticisms put forward by the pro-AGWers on this issue. They’re about as low as they can go (primarily because they don’t do anything one could call objective science).
But hey, the upside is that they can continue to play with their models, burning CPU time until their grants run out. However, nothing substantive will be gained.
Hugh Pepper says:
August 1, 2011 at 9:37 am
“Trenberth and Fasulio contend that the Spenser paper has no merit, that it compares apples and oranges, by comparing 10 year period variations with 100 year cycles used by the modelers. In any event, they argue, observations confirm the modelers’ forecasts.”
Which observations in particular? Are you referring to global temperature datasets or radiation measurements such as CERES? I seem to recall it was a previous analysis of the radiation measurements that was responsible for the ‘missing heat’ conjecture. That fact alone should cast doubt on the accuracy of IPCC models.
Hugh Pepper says:
August 1, 2011 at 9:37 am
Trenberth and Fasulio contend that the Spenser paper has no merit, that it compares apples and oranges, by comparing 10 year period variations with 100 year cycles used by the modelers. In any event, they argue, observations confirm the modelers’ forecasts.Others have made similar comments regarding the Spencer paper.
================================================================
lol, and you asked them for examples of the confirmation….right? I’m aware of no model that predicted the last decade of flat temps. Does the Kev and Fasulio have one that they didn’t tell us about? Further, I wasn’t aware that the models confined themselves to a century prognostication. That doesn’t seem very useful, in that our behaviors are guaranteed to change in the century to come, as is the dynamics of our climate. That’s one of the most ridiculous arguments I’ve heard, yet.
lol, the observation of more heat escaping than the models account for is confirmed? ahahahahahahah!!!!! Someone needs a nice quiet vacation in a small padded room.
“Darren Parker says:
August 1, 2011 at 8:53 am
It’s not just Soros – Maurice Strong is the man”
It is both Soros and Strong and others. They are partners in a global cabal to promote statism as a means to control production and consumption of energy. The UN and NGOs are front organizations that they manipulate to achieve their goals.
Hugh Pepper:
At August 1, 2011 at 9:37 am you say:
“Trenberth and Fasulio contend that the Spenser paper has no merit, that it compares apples and oranges, by comparing 10 year period variations with 100 year cycles used by the modelers. In any event, they argue, observations confirm the modelers’ forecasts.Others have made similar comments regarding the Spencer paper.”
Then at August 1, 2011 at 9:51 am you say;
“You confuse my words Smokey. I didn’t express an opinion at all. I have stated views which are expressed by Trenberth and Fasulio in their paper which appeared in RealClimate. You may disagree with them if you wish, but I think you should have valid reasons for this disagreement, rather than merely engaging in facile ad hominem attacks.”
Say what! Dismissing a paper by an assertion that it “has no merit” is an ad hominem attack on the author(s) of the paper.
Importantly, it is a rejection of the scientific method and it is a falsehood to assert that the Spencer&Braswell (S&L) paper “Compares apples and oranges, by comparing 10 year period variations with 100 year cycles used by the modelers”.
The S&L paper compares measurements to empirical data. It is basic scientific methodology to make that comparison and if a model fails to agree with the data then that indicates a fault in the model unless and until the data is shown to be wrong. This principle that models must emulate reality for them to be valid cannot be dismissed as being comparing “apples and oranges”.
The modelers do not assess any cycles (of 100 or any other years lengths) so it is a blatant falsehood to assert that the S& paper compares “10 year period variations with 100 year cycles used by the modelers”.
The S&L paper demonstrates that the observations of S&L refute “the modelers’ forecasts”. That some other data may – or may not – agree with the modelers forecasts is not relevant.
If that is the best that Trenberth, Fasulio “others” can do to refute the S&L paper then RC should keep quiet because their “comments” confirm the point made by Roy Spencer in his article above.
Richard
As an AGW skeptic (and a former physicist), I am interested in a response to BargHumer’s post. It seems reasonable but, honestly, I haven’t spent a lot of time with thermodynamics except for my undergraduate and graduate courses.
@strawbale:
Hey, just read the paper OK? this one is really simple. Or at least ask specific questions and the folks here will help you out.
I think this paper by Spencer and Braswell will actually break the AGW. I think it will stand over time as the actual paper that broke the camels back. In fact I became a denier (not even a skeptic) 3 years ago, from being a believer believe it or not LOL. THis will put to shame even people like Monckton who are going around calculating that at most C02 will cause a 1C rise per century? absolute drivel we don’t know that. This paper uses REAL data and its showing that probably C02 has NIL effect on global temperatures, BTW…. I said probably…. Its time for skeptics to start completely denying any discernible warming at all due to anthropogenic C02 Haha
@David,
BargHumer’s post is invalid from the start. “If CO2 was the only factor in Warming” is a nonstarter. It is not a factor in Warming. Warming is a net increase in energy pressure for a particular volume of space.
There are Two Factors Warming. Energy In and Energy Out with several dependencies. Dependencies include but are not limited to; Specific Heat Capacity (SHC), Density, Volume of System being measured, Energy transfer mediums available, Emissitivity (based on substance, phase, temp, and shininess), and relation to regions of differing Energy Pressures.
A Thermo System is most basically the Sum of all energy transfers into and out of that system. No closed system exists in nature. Temperature is best viewed as Energy Pressure when observing energy transfers over time if one wants to predict the temperatures of specific regions in a heterogeneous environment. This helps since different substances are able to store more energy per unit volume than others and different phases of matter create differences in the mediums and rates of energy transfers.
Entropy demands that the most efficient means of energy transfer be max’ed out while the next mode be max’ed out as well. This would strongly suggest that Convection influences the rate of Radiation more than the rate of Radiation influences Convection.
CO2 does not Create Energy. CO2 concentration is being hypothesized to influence the temperature of the Atmosphere or Surface, which or both has never been adequately explained. It has been reasonably postulated that CO2 absorbs outgoing IR and that slows the rate of cooling enough to cause an increase in energy pressure (aka Temp) at the surface.
continued below . . .
Too funny, man!
Finally got around to reading the paper in full and I can see why Dr Spencer is nonplussed by the Prof. Trenberth’s criticisms that the model is too simple as it does not include ENSO. As is explained quite clearly in the paper, the monthly data are anomalies and plotted as monthly figures prior to and after temperature maxima – this takes account (and in fact relies on) ENSO variations. In fact, it is stated specifically that since the temperature maxima ARE ENSO-related and the pattern of net flux suggests radiative forcing, this implies that ENSO events have a radiative forcing component. This is presented as a hypothesis which Drs Spencer and Brasswell leave out there for refutation by detailing the data sets on which it is based.
Should people wish to do so, they could refute this by using these data sets, instead of which they appear to have resorted to denigration of the authors.
I don’t have the maths to be able to determine the validity of the work Dr Spencer has done (in particular extracting the flux signatures up to 18 months either side of temperature maxima), but I can read the paper and follow the logic and it seems quite clear that he has identified a serious discrepancy between measured data and the existing models. Whether this is enough to invalidate those models is not clear and no claims to this are made in the paper. With the simple figures included it cannot be stated whether difference is statistically or – more importantly – scientifically significant, but the variability in the experimental data would be based on quite different sources of error than the models to which it is being compared which would make suv=ch a comparison subject to a great deal of controversy in itself.
What is abundantly clear, however, is that the proponents of high sensitivity models are simply not prepared to address the discrepancy between their models and the data and instead are attacking the validity of the paper itself. As a model-builder you simply cannot allow yourself to dismiss criticism in this way – you have to look as critically as possible at your model and when anyone else brings up a point, it has to be addressed because you are never going to be able to fully validate your model yourself. Hubris is the worst possible trait in such a case and this – sadly – is what is being demonstrated here.
This is a note to anyone who doubts (or doesn’t understand) the following statement.
Spencer is absolutely right as long as you can only see the system inputs and outputs. A system with feedback is defined by its transfer function.
where:
A is the system gain
B contains the forward gain
C contains the feedback gain
You really can’t distinguish this system from one where:
As long as you can find
where D has no denominator; which will be true for systems with no delay even if D is complicated. (at least I can’t think of a counter example) It is trivially true if D is a constant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-loop_transfer_function
Dr. Spencer, you have done a great job!
I know many people ask you to look at this and that, and comment on it. I also know this must be quite irritating for you.
But can you please, please have a look at what Harry Dale Huffman has written, showing that there is no greenhouse effect at Venus? I find nothing wrong with it, it just confirms others arguments regarding laps-rate, gravity and distance from the sun;
And give us a comment? Please?
Here;
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
From @The End is Far . . . CO2 absorbs outgoing IR and that slows the rate of cooling . . .
This thought has several fallacies. First it only initially slows the Radiative Rate of cooling. It does not inhibit the Convection Rate which is dependent upon Gravity, the elasticity of air, and varying densities of air due to Energy Pressure (Temp) and Humidity. A reduction in the radiative rate will only result in an increase in the Convective Rate.
Another is the SHC for the varied Surface which is composed of water, soil, and a blend represented by vegetation. Water has a very high SHC (4.186 j/g C and 1,000,000g/m^3) which causes it to warm and cool slowly as compared to other substances such as Dry Air (1.007 and 1300 g/m^3) and Soil (less than 1 and ~2,650,000g/m^3).
Trapping a couple W/m^2 Radiatively when the average cooling rate is 385 to 390 W/m^2 will not be measurable where the surface is water, and extremely difficult to detect over soil or vegetation, especially since Convection being the more efficient of the two mediums for energy transfer will automatically be a means to relieve any increase in localized Energy Pressure. In fact, since the Earth’s Surface’s SHC is highly variable, this causes some areas to cool more quickly than others causing convective currents to form which increases the rate of cooling.
Another is elasticity. Since the atmosphere expands, it automatically has a mechanism to cool simply through expansion. The lower the air pressure the less work that has to be done to expand. Sure the temp drops more slowly with easier expansion, but it is quite cold above 6,500m (~0C) anyway. To see a very good example of the elasticity of the atmosphere, see the height of the Tropopause at the Poles and at the Equator. It is variable depending on the seasons, of course.
Lastly (but there are other issues as well) areas with higher energy densities (i.e. solids & liquids) will typically show energy moving towards areas with lower energy densities (gases & near vacuums) since those areas cool far more quickly (small energy reservoirs deplete faster) than more dense regions. Areas with Higher Pressures but Lower Densities reach equilibrium with areas with Lower Pressures but Higher Densities quickly. Since the Atmosphere also cools towards Space, the net flow is outward.
Being a Physicist (once a physicist, always a physicist), do you see any error with the above?
“Einstein and Bohr disgreed for fifty years but they were adults and did not insult each other with warped minded terms such as Denier.”
Sad to say it did get very heated with some name calling. In fact, not too different from today. Science (physics) models have always provoked serious and sometimes distasteful outbursts but that’s how it moves forward. This is what scepticism does. The difference today is that thousands of politicians have hung their hats on AGW in order to raise their taxation takes. That will make it virtually impossible to change this “science”. However, if it does break, because of the head of water behind the ‘dam’ of scepticism, it will be catastrophic.
At least this paper is getting some public attention from the alarmist camp. Now if they can go into specifics, Dr. Spencer et al can attempt to address them and voila! we have a scientific debate!
Dr. Spencer,
In your recent posts here at WUWT you do look like you are really enjoying yourself. I hope you keep that spirit! Science is indeed fun here at WUWT (thanks again Anthony & team).
I appreciate the singular thrust of your statement, “We [Spencer & Braswell 2011] show it [the 1st Law of Thermodynamics: simple energy conservation] actually holds for global-average temperature changes: a radiative accumulation of energy leads to a temperature maximum…later.” Something to really bite into.
Personal Note: Last week I got the kindle for PC version of your book, ‘Fundanomics The Free Market, Simplified’. I already read it once and now going through it more slowly. It will take its place next to my 40 year old dogged eared paperback copy of H. Hazlitt’s ‘Economics in One Lesson’.
John
@kwik:
Regarding Venus, that’s pretty much where Carl Sagan started. Sagan’s first estimates of the surface temperature of Venus were based only on knowing the temperature of the cloud tops, the rough radar depth to the surface, and the adiabatic lapse rate of various possible atmospheric gases (nitrogen atmosphere, CO2 atmosphere, etc). It was both very accurate and was done before he went all nuts about the greenhouse effect. Also worthy of note was that his surface temperature estimates for a nitrogen atmosphere were far higher than for a CO2 atmosphere, as nitrogen has a much higher adiabatic lapse rate.
He should’ve stopped once he’d given the correct answer, which would’ve saved all sorts of nonsense about a runaway greenhouse effect and other doomsday scenarios.
Interesting that no one answers the question, or seemingly understands the point. Engineers often test systems with a step function. I am exploring the idea of a step function with CO2 input, since it is CO2 that the AGWers are always complaining about. In the book “Slaying the sky dragon” this point is made repeatedly that energy in = energy out + (energy absorbed during a transition up or down).
The fancy footwork and naming lots of mechanisms related to radiation, convection, expansion etc, doesn’t change the basic equation at all.
I am a skeptic, but this argument has not been dealt with properly as I see it. The point is not that CO2 does this, only that many people believe it does and that if they are correct then it doesn’t violate the 1st law of thermodynamics. If it does we need a simple explanation rather than being blinded with science – that is the way of the AGWer.
It’s very easy to deny the theory of anthropogenic climate change since it isn’t an actual theory to boot, secondly because the “hypothesis” is based on anthropogenic global warming which in term is based on man’s effect on the supposed existence of a green house effect blanketing the earth’s emissions to space that so happens to create the open circulatory by-proxy system the hashish communist clowns call the climate.
What is truly anthropogenic though is the hashish hansen smurfs’ geo-engineering fiddling to try and “fix” the climate back to the IPCC preferred 1988’s “climate” in a authoritarian dictatorial communist manner with out democratic regards to what everyone else thinks and wants.
Only communist and doped up morons would spend billions on wasting a perfectly good [pair] of oxygen to each coal by storing it in the ground instead of recycling it back into perfectly usable [pair] of oxygen and a coal by spending mere millions on, say, planting trees and shrubberies and what not. Heck even ganja does a perfectly good job of recycling the CO2, supposed but unproven, menace.
The warmists and the so called expert climate scientists are feeling the heat (or should that be the chill!).
They are becoming more strident in their views whilst providing less and less science to back it up.
They are relying more and more on their consensus argument and on attacking contrarians with ad hom and instant judgement on their evidence and hypotheses again with next to no scientific calculation.
The team at RC (the site that deals with the science!!!!!!) are just conducting an exercise in PR and use censorship to achieve it. They desperately try to keep any evidence that may be an ‘inconvenient truth’ away from their threads.
Just an example from today on the thread they have running about Dr Spencer’s paper.
Quite a bit of the thread is about whether the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is a forcing or a feedback on the climate.
The thread has the usual quota of total ad hom and other nasty attacks ( by Ray Ladbury et al) on individuals who in some cases are asking reasonable questions or trying to make a reasonable point.
I posted this.
“.The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is not a separate forcing, it acts as an amplifier of the radiative forcing effect of the Sun. Take that away that and you are not left with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ forcing you are left with nothing.
For calculation, of the impact of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, it is treated as a separate forcing and this seems a convenient thing to do.
However, the basic axiom of AGW should, more properly, be stated not as “increasing ‘Greenhouse’ gases will cause the Earth to warm” but as “increasing the Radiative Forcing effect will cause the Earth to warm”.
There is only one problem with stating the issue correctly and that it is demonstrably false!
In the last 500 million years the Suns radiative forcing has increased by about 65 WM2 at the TOA. 500 million years ago the Earth was a familiar place the atmosphere was very similar to today’s. Plants, animals and insects were well established we would feel comfortable if we were present then.
(65 WM2 at the TOA is about 17 WM2 of actual forcing about 5 times the 3.7 WM2 due to a doubling of CO2)
However, what has been the Earths response to this very significant increase in radiative forcing? Why it has cooled of course from about 22c to today’s 14c!
Now I am sure people will come up with ‘ah buts’. However, that is not the issue, there surely are reasons why the Earth has cooled, in the face of this increase in radiative forcing.
The truth is though, that the axiom, that the Earth must warm in the face of an increase in radiative forcing, is falsified and that is a fact!”
Now perhaps some of the Warmists out there are prepared to comment here on this falsification of a basic axiom of CAGW as they certainly can’t at RC due to censorship. They can then also comment about why RC censored the post as it is just quoting scientific facts and making an obvious and logical conclusion.
Why would a site ‘devoted to the science’ do this? Any possible reasons you can think of?
Alan
strawbale wrote:
I wish there was someone who could give a simplified summary of the arguments for and against these types of papers for us casual but interested observers who don’t have time to work out the science.
Here you go, in a nutshell.
One group of scientists built some models that predict A will happen. Another group of scientists went out and took some measurements and found that B happened. Now the model group says that their models trump measurements because the measurements do not reflect what the models said should happen.
Basically, it’s the claim that when theory doesn’t match reality, reality is wrong.
Crazy, huh?