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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Nullius in Verba says:
August 2, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Dave W – yes Dr Spencer has published but only for creationist websites.”
Really, a scientific paper? Can you offer a link for that?
Many great scientists have written books which include their theological views, including Einstein and too many others to name.
I don’t recall any of them conducting any related experiments or publishing the results of them, other than the evidence presented in the manner in which they led their lives.
Has Spencer done something different? Please provide a link.
Until I see your evidence to the contrary, his paper stands on its own as real science.
John Whitman says:
August 3, 2011 at 9:16 am
James Sexton & Dave Springer,
In a different setting I would love to pursue your dialog on religion vs. science and creationism vs. Darwinism. I will look forward to it, as I’ve already have enjoyed your present dialog.
However, that discussion has nothing to do with Spencer’s paper. So, let’s do your discussion another time in a sole context of the philosophy of science versus theology. I suggest that you please do not mix it with discussion of Spencer’s paper. OK?
John
====================================================================
John, nothing would give me greater pleasure. However, if you’d note, it was neither Dave nor myself that brought up the issue of ID, creationism or religion. It was, rather, responding to detractors of Dr. Spencer, who somehow draw a connection to the validity of his paper with his personal views of our origins. And, while God needs no advocate, I thought it bad form to leave the detractors of Dr. Spencer unchallenged.
As to the paper itself, the way I see it, about the only way to refute it, would be to refute the satellite data itself. And that, is an undertaking I don’t think anyone like the Kev is up to. Just my thoughts.
Dr Spencer’s paper regarding the delay in Temperature resonse, is not at all surprising; the supporting data of course, puts a scale to the events.
The Principal energy input to the earth climate system, is of course the sun, via the TSI. But as we know, most of that energy lands in the world’s oceans, where it propagates to great depths; tens or hundreds of metres, with very little going past about 3,000 feet.
So the IMMEDIATE response of the surface, and lower troposphere Temperatures to that energy input, is very small, since the greatest energy content portions of the solar spectrum, are exactly those that penetrate to the grteatest depths. (Have the lowest absorption coefficients).
Solar energy deposited at depth in the ocean, will of course following absorption result in a local Temperature rise, and various thermal processes will kick in.
First of all there will be conduction, which generally is a three dimensional diffusion of heat. The Temperature gradient is usually negative with greater depth, so the general direction of conduction would be downwards.
But expansion due to temperature rise, would tend to create an upward convection . Normal hydrodynamic instabilities would prevent this from being a one dimensional laminar flow, but the net direction of energy transport would be inexorably upward, towards the surface. With such a huge mass of overlying water, it is no great surprise that the heating effect of that solar energy on the surface, and lower troposphere, will be delayed from the solar energy arrival.
On the other hand, the atmospheric GHG LWIR radiation processes, are rather prompt,; particularly the tendency of “back” radiation to promote evaporation since the LWIR spectrum, unlike the solar spectrum, is absorbed in the top 50 microns or so, of the oceans, where prompt evaporation quickly conveys it back to the atmosphere, and then convection quickly moves it to high altitudes, in the form of latent heat, to be deposited high up when condensation and freezing occur.
Dr Spencer’s nwork puts the result in quantitative form; but the extensive propagation delay, is not nat all surprising.
And when I was designing feedback systems, propagation delays, in either the forward gain processes, or the usually lossy feedback paths,; and especially thermal delays, generally resulted in wildly oscillating systems.
Vince Causey says:
August 3, 2011 at 9:49 am
Dave Springer,
Your argument about probabilities is an interesting one, and I liked your analogy of the lottery winner who wins 10 times. The problem I see with this, though, is that we can measure the probability of winning the lottery but do not know, I think, what is the probability of developing large, complex human brains – that is, with the ability for abstract thought etc.
Quite true. I seldom venture beyond the realm of molecular machinery common to all living organisms. The complexity at that level is quite sufficient to demonstrate the point and it’s all pretty basic stuff – parts with certain shapes fitting together into little machines that perform easily recognizable jobs. For instance this is one my favorites: the enzymes topoisomerase and topoisomerase II.
http://www.dnatube.com/video/283/Topoisomerases
The are very simple enzymes as opposed to something like ribosomes which are exceedingly complex. The topoisomerases work together with a large number of other enzymes which through coordinated effort accomplish one single larger task called transcription which is basically copying a DNA pattern for a coding gene into an RNA pattern which then migrates to a ribosome where it undergoes another process called translation where the digital code represented by triplets of 4 different base pairs (ACTG) is translated into one of twenty amino acids. Yet more little machines fetch the specified amino acids and bring them to to the ribosome where they are added to growing polymer chain hundreds to thousands of amino acids long which then folds according to a number of factors into a three dimensional shapes. This is almost exactly like a programmable milling machine reading instructions off a paper tape and translating those instructions into commands that attach different cutting or drilling heads and mill a block of metal down into gears and stuff like that and where those individual parts fit then fit together into even larger machines. Eventually the machines can grow to the complexity of a human brain. But you don’t need to go beyond the complexity in the simplest known bacteria to get the point across.
[snip. Comment without all the insults, please. ~dbs, mod.]
Anthony Watts wrote January 13, 2011:
Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) a U.S. publicly funded research center, uses the term “denier” six times in this upcoming talk, which he has submitted as a preprint to the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in full public view. I’m reproducing it in full below, with only one comment: he uses the word “denier” six times in his address, one that will reach hundreds if not thousands of AMS members. I’m disappointed that the AMS embraces this language.
Anthony Watts also wrote on March 2, 2010:
As we all know, the debate over global warming is contentious, often vitrolic. Labels are often applied by both sides. One the most distasteful labels is “denier”.
Anthony Watts reposted a comment from Judith Curry on November 28, 2009:
This comment was sent to me in case it was not posted at all or in it’s entirety over at Climate Progress. It wasn’t, so I’m repeating it here because I think it is relevant to the discussion that Dr. Judith Curry started. From my perspective, the best way to begin to foster understanding is to stop using labels that degrade, and that goes for both sides of the debate.
– Anthony
I see the editor of Remote Sensing has resigned. http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/9/2002/
“Peer-reviewed journals are a pillar of modern science. Their aim is to achieve highest scientific standards by carrying out a rigorous peer review that is, as a minimum requirement, supposed to be able to identify fundamental methodological errors or false claims. Unfortunately, as many climate researchers and engaged observers of the climate change debate pointed out in various internet discussion fora, the paper by Spencer and Braswell [1] that was recently published in Remote Sensing is most likely problematic in both aspects and should therefore not have been published. After having become aware of the situation, and studying the various pro and contra arguments, I agree with the critics of the paper. Therefore, I would like to take the responsibility for this editorial decision and, as a result, step down as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing…”
Louise; Wagner was protecting his day job, where skepticism is verboten. Also, as I posted elsewhere