UPDATE: Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has a comment on the paper here: Comments On The Dessler 2011 GRL Paper “Cloud Variations And The Earth’s Energy Budget also, physicist Lubos Motl has an analysis here. The press release from TAMU/Dessler has been pushed to media outlets on Eurekalert, see update below.
UPDATE2: Dessler has made a video on the paper see it here And Steve McIntyre has his take on it with The stone in Trenberth’s shoe
I’ve been given an advance copy, for which I’ve posted excerpts below. This paper appears to have been made ready in record time, with a turnaround from submission to acceptance and publication of about six weeks based on the July 26th publication date of the original Spencer and Braswell paper. We should all be so lucky to have expedited peer review service. PeerEx maybe, something like FedEx? Compare that to the two years it took to get Lindzen and Choi out the door. Or how about the WUWT story: “Science has been sitting on his [Spencer’s] critique of Dessler’s paper for months”.
If anyone needs a clear, concise, and irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is biased for the consensus and against skeptics, this is it.
I’m sure some thorough examination will determine if the maxim “haste makes waste” applies here for Dessler’s turbo treatise.
Cloud variations and the Earth’s energy budget
A.E. Dessler
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
Abstract: The question of whether clouds are the cause of surface temperature changes, rather than acting as a feedback in response to those temperature changes, is explored using data obtained between 2000 and 2010. An energy budget calculation shows that the energy trapped by clouds accounts for little of the observed climate variations. And observations of the lagged response of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy fluxes to surface temperature variations are not evidence that clouds are causing climate change.
Introduction
The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback — as the climate warms, clouds change in response and either amplify (positive cloud feedback) or ameliorate (negative cloud feedback) the initial change [e.g., Stephens, 2005]. In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi [2011, hereafter LC11] and Spencer and Braswell [2011, hereafter SB11] have argued that reality is reversed: clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature. If this claim is correct, then significant revisions to climate science may be required.
…
Conclusions
These calculations show that clouds did not cause significant climate change over the last decade (over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming). Rather, the evolution of the surface and atmosphere during ENSO variations are dominated by oceanic heat transport. This means in turn that regressions of TOA fluxes vs. ΔTs can be used to accurately estimate climate sensitivity or the magnitude of climate feedbacks. In addition, observations presented by LC11 and SB11 are not in fundamental disagreement with mainstream climate models, nor do they provide evidence that clouds are causing climate change. Suggestions that significant revisions to mainstream climate science are required are therefore not supported.
Acknowledgments: This work was supported by NSF grant AGS-1012665 to Texas A&M University. I thank A. Evan, J. Fasullo, D. Murphy, K. Trenberth, M. Zelinka, and A.J. Dessler for useful comments.
h/t to Marc Hendrickx
=============================================================
UPDATE: Here is the press release from Texas A&M via Eurekalert:
Texas A&M prof says study shows that clouds don’t cause climate change
COLLEGE STATION, Sept. 6, 2011 — Clouds only amplify climate change, says a Texas A&M University professor in a study that rebuts recent claims that clouds are actually the root cause of climate change.
Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M atmospheric sciences professor considered one of the nation’s experts on climate variations, says decades of data support the mainstream and long-held view that clouds are primarily acting as a so-called “feedback” that amplifies warming from human activity. His work is published today in the American Geophysical Union’s peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Dessler studied El Niño and La Niña cycles over the past 10 years and calculated the Earth’s “energy budget” over this time. El Nino and La Nina are cyclical events, roughly every five years, when waters in the central Pacific Ocean tend to get warmer or colder. These changes have a huge impact on much of the world’s weather systems for months or even years.
Dessler found that clouds played a very small role in initiating these climate variations — in agreement, he says, with mainstream climate science and in direct opposition to some previous claims.
“The bottom line is that clouds have not replaced humans as the cause of the recent warming the Earth is experiencing,” Dessler says.
Texas is currently in one of the worst droughts in the state’s history, and most scientists believe it is a direct result of La Niña conditions that have lingered in the Pacific Ocean for many months.
Dessler adds, “Over a century, however, clouds can indeed play an important role amplifying climate change.”
“I hope my analysis puts an end to this claim that clouds are causing climate change,” he adds.
For more information about Dessler’s research, go to http://goo.gl/zFJmt
About Research at Texas A&M University:
As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represents an annual investment of more than $630 million, which ranks third nationally for universities without a medical school, and underwrites approximately 3,500 sponsored projects. That research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.
The problem with cloud reflection is it doesn’t show up in radiative imbalance immediately over the ocean. The tropical oceans store heat in the summer from the sun and release it in the winter when air is dryer and evaporation rate is higher. Evaporation is the primary way the ocean releases absorbed solar energy. So the radiative imbalance at TOA shows up months later which is exactly what Spencer found in regression analysis. The immediate imbalance from a cloud is “greenhouse” trapping which Dessler 2010 quantified as a 0.5W/m2 additional surface forcing. Regression analysis in Spencer 2011 found a negative feedback of twice the magnitude 4 months later which is, not unexpectedly for anyone who understands the tropical ocean heat budget, the difference between the end of summer and the beginning of winter.
This is a big black eye for the climate boffins. They’ve been using just the immediate positive radiative feedback from greenhouse forcing in GCMs from a cloud and missed the much larger negative feedback that occurs months later. Dessler was quite right this means that global circulation models need a serious overhaul. It might even make them accurate enough to be useful but the usefulness is going to be in predicting that global warming from anthropogenic GHGs is no great concern. In a world where science is honest and not biased by political and ideological agendas this is a good thing. Science moves forward as it should. But in a world where huge vested political, ideological, and financial interests depend on a certain result which then proves to be wrong it’s not a good thing. What the climate boffins have done by advertising their science as “settled” when they knew it wasn’t is undermine public confidence in all science. The climate boffins are actually the anti-science brigade, not us skeptics who knew all along the science was tentative and nowhere near ready to be used for massive policy decisions. We are actually the heroes and protectors of science but still weren’t able to protect public confidence in science against the destructive anti-science activities from the bandwagon consensus bullshit pseudo-science foisted on the public by Trenberth, Hansen, Jones, Mann, and the rest of the usual suspects.
TimTheToolMan says: September 6, 2011 at 7:37 pm
“The only way the Dessler paper could possibly have produced his paper in that time is if it was largely pre-written.”
I think it was. I think he had written a response to Lindzen & Choi, which required fairly minor extra work to cover S&B.
I run a childcare at my farm, and occasionally the children get involved in debates. One thing I have learned is that I cannot learn what the debate is about by observing the sticks flying to and fro.
The three postings involving the reaction to Spencer’s paper have resulted in an amazing 1136 comments, as of around 6:30 EST on Wednesday. I have somehow managed to read most of them, though my wife is starting to roll her eyes and mention chores I am neglecting.
What I am hungry for, at this point, is an overview. An overview regarding the politics of peer review might be interesting, however most interesting of all would be to get back to what this is all about: Clouds.
(I always knew clouds were important, which is why I studied them so much during
Algebra classes.)
Winston Churchill used to demand various departments send him overviews of certain important topics. He didn’t want a lot of equations he couldn’t understand, and furthermore insisted the reports be no longer than a single page.
I am no Winston Churchill, and lack the power to demand anything, but it sure would be nice to get a succinct summery of both Dressler’s ideas and Spencer’s ideas, and how they conflict.
Can anyone recommend a paper, article, (or even one of 1136 comments I may have overlooked,) that does a good job of showing both sides of this issue?
evanmjones quotes: (September 7, 2011 at 3:16 am) “These calculations show that clouds did not cause significant climate change over the last decade…”
Then adds: “You can go further than that. … Nothing caused significant climate change over the last decade. There hasn’t been any significant climate change over the last decade. The trend is as flat as a pancake.”
Very, very nice, Evan.
davidmhoffer says:
September 6, 2011 at 11:47 pm
“I think your example is too simple. Anyone from a high latitude climate can tell you from direct experience that cloud cover in the dead of winter has a pronounced warming effect, and that cloud cover at the height of summer has a pronounced cooling effect. It isn’t a matter of total cloud cover alone, it is also a matter of distribution over the seasons.”
Doesn’t have to be a high latitude. I observe this in south central Texas in the winter with the formation of hoarfrost. A really well insulated flat roof that I look over on from higher deck (can actually step out onto the flat roof) gets covered with frost when the temperature never dropped below about 35F. I can actually see the differences in the underlying roof structure when that happens including lines in the frost where roof beams are located, where side vents are located, and where heat sources in the daylight basement below are located. It’s strange and fascinating to look at in the morning having coffee on the deck.
Anyhow it takes a very clear, dry night for the hoarfrost to show up. Normal frost from subfreezing temperature happens a lot but hoarfrost is a bit rare because it takes a special set of circumstances of low temperature several degrees above freezing and exceptionally clear dry atmosphere. The exceptionally clear dry atmosphere lets radiative cooling of the roof reach a maximum that drops it below the air temperature immediately above it. It’s a white mineral covered flat roof with an unobstructed view of the sky above. Hoarfrost forms on that roof when there is no frost anywhere else in sight which is what makes it so interesting to observe and ponder what makes frost form there and nowhere else at times.
@Ian W
Thanks for that. Much of that information is behind paywalls (Elservier!!). The rest seems to be using fractals in computer modeling to whizz up some approximation of actual (or imagined) cloud structures. Doesn’t entirely address my contemplations. It seems to me, that no matter the mass structure of these clouds, the reflective upper surface look fractal on a macro scale (ok fractal implies micro also).
Can’t get it out of my mind.
“over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change [..] clouds can indeed cause significant warming” – Professor Andrew Dessler
To which I believe the appropriate response is – “What are you blithering about, you snivelling idiot ?! What would surface temperatures be like after a year of 100% cloud cover? I bet you could ice skate from Sydney to LA!” (moderators – snip if you must, but Dessler’s dross is beyond belief!)
The very existence of clouds is evidence of the greatest surface cooling force on earth in operation. The water cycle is a vast vapour / condensate heat pump moving heat from the surface of the planet to the upper troposphere where it radiates to space. Radiative cooling is not the major cooling process in the troposphere, therefore if you see more clouds, you see more cooling.
Then you can add increased albedo radiative cooling (reflection of incoming short wave radiation) to this phase change cooling. Any “warming” or reduced rate of cooling due to cloud cover can be safely dismissed as irrelevant. Backscattering of long wave infra-red radiation cannot slow the cooling of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool (wavelength too long). That would be about 71% of Earth’s surface (the oceans) immune to backscattered LWIR.
Give it a rest Dessler, CLOUDS COOL!
As far as I can tell, JC is not a ‘rat’.
Manfred says:
September 6, 2011 at 10:04 pm
“Attempts over the last few years to stage a debate in Texas about the science of climate change have required flying a skeptic in from out of state.
In one case, they had to import one from Canada.”
“That sounds like a very rare statistic. How would a student asking a sceptical question be treated at A&M ?”
Outside the atmospheric physics dept. I’d imagine it would be met with cheers. TAMU has one of the most conservative student bodies and faculty in Texas. It’s where all the rednecks go to get a degree. Governor Perry is a TAMU graduate, for instance, and he’s on record saying castrophic anthropogenic climate change is nothing but political bullshit.
I highly encourage everyone to watch tonight’s GOP primary debate. The question of climate change is going to come up and Perry is going to tell it like it is when he answers it. I’m curious about how Romney will respond.
George E. Smith says:
September 6, 2011 at 10:02 pm
“If the average global cloud cover should increase to 62% for the next 30, 60, 90 years or so, will the earth get warmer, or cooler, as a result of that change ?? What if the average cloud cover should drop to 60% for the next 30, 60, 90 years or so; will the earth get warmer or cooler as a result ??”
I asked Leif Svalsgaard that exact same question in McIntyre’s thread on this topic at climateaudit.com
He seems to believe that GCR modulation of cloud formation can’t have any significant climate effects so I asked him what would happen if there was a very slight increase or decrease in earth’s average albedo that persisted for 50 years. The modern solar maximum lasted for approximately 50 years and remained, during all that time, at its highest recorded level ever. Sunspots have only been counted for the past 400 years but still, the most recent 50 years have seen the most active sun during all that time.
Agree w/Roger Carr: Evan Jones is exactly right. We have fortunately been in a “Goldilocks” climate – not too cold, not too hot, but ju-u-ust right.
All the wild-eyed, red faced, spittle-flecked emanations from the alarmist crowd have absolutely zero basis in reality. We are extremely fortunate to be living in such a benign climate, which will not last forever. Interglacials are temporary, and we are at the tail end of the current one.
The best thing we can do is to prepare for a much colder planet. And if the planet warms by a benficial degree or two, it’s all good. The current alarmism is being promoted for two reasons: to extract much more taxes from the already overtaxed citizens, and to gain political control based on a complete lie. Science has nothing to do with it.
right- perspective!
it was never about science.
it was about looting – taxes and 40 trillion $ in derivatives.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2011 at 9:05 pm
William says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:07 pm
The late 20th century warming correlates with very low overall GCR
Leif: Not at all.
Absolutely does correlate. You’re entitled to you own opinion, Leif, but not to your own facts.
The fact is the sun in the past 50 years has been more active than anytime in past 400 years. It’s called the modern maximum. You aren’t entitled to deny that fact.
The fact is the climate has been in a warming trend during that time. You aren’t entitled to deny that fact either.
You are entitled to somehow demonstrate the two things are not interlinked. Have at it.
Galileo Galileo knew all about this sort of treatment.
He won in the end – “it moves”.
I think the end for Trendberth & Co will be much much quicker. I cannot see AR5 lasting for more than the period between when they announce it release the conclusions and when they release the complete document. In fact I am having great difficulty imagining what they will have to say which will further their overt political aims and in any way match the science. A “crowd-sourced” response will surely laugh them out of court.
BA says:
September 6, 2011 at 4:25 pm
“Other scientists are writing about what they see in the paper. Dessler will not have the last word any more than Spencer did, but watch and see … his analysis will prove much more robust in the harsh light of day.”
Hardly. Dessler f*cked up by failing to employ proper regression analysis. That’s a problem with climate boffins in general. They need to employ some real statisticians before coming to conclusions about data sets. Steve McIntrye, the statistician who famously debunked the hockey stick after years of persistent chasing after of the datasets behind it, has already done the same to Dessler. See climateaudit.com and McIntyre’s renewed his call that statisticians be involved in climate data analysis *before* publishing not after the fact.
Spencer pointed out a flaw in cloud feedback assumptions used by climate boffins. Get used to it.
Dave Springer :
September 7, 2011 at 4:25 am
and George E. Smith :
September 6, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Info on albedo.
The effect of albedo on the energy budget has been estimated in a 2006 Palle et al publication, fig 2.
Fig. 2. Globally averaged reconstruction (black)
of albedo anomalies from ISCCP cloud amount,
optical thickness, and surface reflectance
(following Pallé et al., 2004).The observed
Earthshine albedo anomalies are in blue.All
observations agree with the reconstruction to
within the 1 σ uncertainties, except for the year
with sparse ES data, 2003.The shaded region
1999 through mid-2001 was used (as in Pallé
et al., 2004) to calibrate the reconstruction and
is the reference against which anomalies are
defined.The vertical red bar indicates the estimated
size of the forcing by greenhouse gasses
since 1850.
bold mine. The red bar corresponds to 2% change in albedo.
So it is estimated that a 2% change in albedo can compensate for all the warming seen since the industrial revolution, except we do not have data from those times since satellites are a recent invention.
There exists a later preprint, 2008, but does not have the nice red bar.
For some reason I have not found anything more recent.
I refer to the comment “If anyone needs a clear, concise, and irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is biased for the consensus and against skeptics…”.
Shouldn’t that be “… irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is corrupt”?
Steve McIntyre has posted up some of the data from Spencer and Braswell 2011 and Dessler 2010 (not Dessler 2011).
I’ve plotted the Cloud Forcing numbers from CERES versus Temperature (not in lag fashion but just the Forcing versus Temperature which I think is easier to understand).
This shows a Negative Cloud Feedback this time (around -1.0 W/m2/K).
(I’m not sure I’m using Dessler’s data properly here since the data sources are not clear so perhaps just the Spencer chart is the best one).
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4664/cloudforcingspencer2011.png
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7103/cloudforcingdessler2010.png
Nick Stokes writes “I think it was. I think he had written a response to Lindzen & Choi, which required fairly minor extra work to cover S&B.”
Indeed. Too minor by far.
Plagiarism is a proprietary issue… It is not an error issue! (whether Wegman actually is guilty or not). It is a science community academic credit issue.
How does plagiarism equate with error in facts? Critical thinking is a useful tool. Get some! GK
Anthony Watts, “If anyone needs a clear, concise, and irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is biased for the consensus and against skeptics, this is it.”
But Mr. Dessler was a skeptic, a skeptic of several recent climate papers. Perhaps it would behoove you to be a skeptic as well instead of accepting these papers without thought.
(Updated)
Steve McIntyre has posted up some of the data from Spencer and Braswell 2011 and Dessler 2010.
Spencer’s data shows a small negative cloud feedback from the CERES satellite (from Feb 2000 to June 2010). As expected, assuming that cloudiness increases as temperature increases (which is what should happen according to the Classius Clayperion relation, there is a negative SW trend and a positive LW trend as temperatures go up but a net negative overall.
About -0.21 W/m2/K versus global warming theory for clouds of about +1.0 W/m2/K.
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4664/cloudforcingspencer2011.png
The Dessler 2010 data is only comparable at a Reanalysis model level (ERA) versus just the cloud values from CERES.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7103/cloudforcingdessler2010.png
With every team publication, especially something as gratuitously political as this, my respect for science, scientists and the scientific method shrinks a tiny bit. I’m now not only a sceptic, but also a cynic. What a result!
Dave Springer says:
September 7, 2011 at 4:37 am
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2011 at 9:05 pm
William says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:07 pm
The late 20th century warming correlates with very low overall GCR
Leif: Not at all.
Absolutely does correlate. You’re entitled to you own opinion, Leif, but not to your own facts.
The fact is the sun in the past 50 years has been more active than anytime in past 400 years. It’s called the modern maximum. You aren’t entitled to deny that fact.
The fact is the climate has been in a warming trend during that time. You aren’t entitled to deny that fact either.
You are entitled to somehow demonstrate the two things are not interlinked. Have at it.
Lol. Keeping up with Leif’s spin is a full time job.
Keeps us on our toes I suppose. 🙂
Why do I get the premonition that the models that come closest to matching the observational data in S&B11 when configured with reasonable functions for reflectivity and lag are going to show a climate that is not sensitive to CO2 forcing; and additionally the inclusion of models that dont fit the S&B11 observations will have biased the IPCC like YAD061?