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.
With regard to the caustic opening comments about publication time, it is worth noting that GRL is a rapid publication journal. I pulled 5 papers off their “popular” tab on the web site and got the following:
Received 8 June 2011; accepted 4 July 2011; published 16 August 2011.
Received 6 July 2011; accepted 19 July 2011; published 30 August 2011.
Received 14 July 2011; accepted 31 July 2011; published 2 September 2011.
Received 5 July 2011; accepted 29 July 2011; published 2 September 2011.
Received 7 July 2011; accepted 27 July 2011; published 30 August 2011.
So Dessler’s publication time is not unusual, and there is no need for all those comments inferring scientific bias.
Might I suggest you inform yourself about GRL, and change your inflammatory introduction to the posting?
Words, fail me … how anyone could think that this conclusive proof that the whole corrupt system of peer review is biased to the alarmists is going to reassure anyone except a complete moron is beyond me.
It’s like some sadistic Nazi showing the world a bruised and beaten prisoner reading out a statement: “I’ve been treated very well”.
What on earth do they thing this could possibly achieve?
The conclusion reads:
“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.”
//////////////////
Such a statement (specifically the comment “…nor do they provide evidence that clouds are causing climate change.”) is meaningless without defining what is meant by climate and without defining what amounts to climate change.
The question is whether clouds can cause a warming or a cooling, and if so whether this can lead to a trend on a long time scale basis. It is entirely a different issue whether such change in temperature may lead to a change in climate.
I can just see the cartoon:–
There is a big raging bull labelled “Press”, and there is a climate “scientist” in a very tight fitting matador costume. He is furiously waving a very small handkerchief labelled “Dessler” trying to distract the bull.
The bull is heading straight for the latter.
Anthony,
There’s some faulty logic right there in the “Introduction”.
“The usual way to think about clouds…” appears to be an absolute
proven “truth” and a scientfic “given” in the Dessler paper since it is the “reality” the
Spenser and Braswell paper has allegedly “reversed”.
All else in the Dessler paper flows from this logical premise.
That should be: I can just see the cartoon:–
There is a big raging bull labelled “Press”, and there is a climate “scientist” in a very tight fitting matador costume. He is furiously waving a very small handkerchief labelled “Dessler” trying to distract the bull.
The bull is heading straight for [snip] — its too painful to say!.
Lucy Skywalker said: “A paper this important to AR5 has no right being behind a paywall. ”
Due to the policy implications this ought to be a requirement for all papers cited in AR5.
9/11 did allow a study on vapour trails and their effect on climate.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/contrail-effect.html
Ongoing debate
In a study published in 2004, for example, Minnis and colleagues reported that contrails are capable of increasing average surface temperatures sufficiently to account for a warming trend in the U.S. between 1975 and 1994. But some climatologists believe Minnis and his colleagues may have overestimated the contrail warming effect.
@- tallbloke says:
September 6, 2011 at 1:34 am
“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… ”
Bzzzzzzt Logical fallacy of the excluded middle. these are not the only two possibilities. Spencer is saying its a mixture of the two which confounds the quantification of cloud feedback.
I am afraid you are the one guilty of a logical fallacy.
The issue here is causation.
Either A causes B that may then amplify or reduce the effects of A on events ENSO…
Or B causes A which modifies the effect of B on ENSO.
It IS a logical impossibility that there is a ‘middle’ excluded in which A causes B AND Bcauses A. That IS nonsensical, it would be like saying that a cough causes a lung infection as well as a lung infection causing a cough…
CAUSES the ENSO events and the subsequent cloud/wind variations, it is silly to claim that a fast, reactive system like clouds could cause the much larger energy movements over much longer timescale of ENSO events.
The CLOUD/CERN result indicates negligible influence from GCR on low altitude cloud – the component Svenmark, Lindzen and Spencer invoke as a cloud forcing.
Those complaining of the paywall – blame capitalism, scientists think all data should be free – publishing companies and meterological organisations look to make money…
Keith says:- . . .
“It’s not the sun that I can see and feel when it shines on me.”
You’re right it’s not Kieth, direct solar radiation only provides 161 W.m2 according to Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl’s (TF&K) “Earth’s Energy Budget” Figure 1.
“It’s not the clouds that I can see and feel when they block the sun or rain on me.”
Correct again, there’s no diffuse solar in TF&K’s Fig 1.
“It’s CO2 that I can’t see or feel”
Wrong here Kieth, you should be able to feel the 333 W.m2 GHG DLR (with a little help from WV) in TF&K’s Fig 1, there’s much more of it than direct solar. It’s crazy, in Real World diffuse is added to direct for solar collector calculations and GHG DLR completely omitted – all that free energy going to waste.
I guess in Real World spectral range and energy-per-photon matter – strange, not like that in Warm World.
So Dessler’s publication time is not unusual, and there is no need for all those comments inferring scientific bias.
So it appears the publication time wouldn’t be unusual if he submitted his paper the day S&B11 was published. Yeah I could see that!
Jimmy Haigh chants: (September 6, 2011 at 1:05 am)
Hey, Jimmy. Any chant you can chant I can chant better…
fredb – are all those examples related to climate in any way? The introduction is suggesting that it is climate science that is being politicised not necessarily all branches of science.
““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.””
Is it conventional for a scientific paper to refer to other papers specifically to refute those other papers when it is clear from the refutation that these other papers have not even been read by the team refuting those other papers?
I thought those other papers claimed that cloud feedback is bidirectional.
izen says:
September 6, 2011 at 3:27 am
Either A causes B that may then amplify or reduce the effects of A on events ENSO…
Or B causes A which modifies the effect of B on ENSO.
It IS a logical impossibility that there is a ‘middle’ excluded in which A causes B AND B causes A. That IS nonsensical,
It is not a logical impossibility that clouds are causing temperature change and temperature change is causing cloud change simultaneously. The world is a big place, there are many different processes going on in it. A change in cloud cover caused by (say) GCR’s near the poles might be causing temperature changes there, at the same time as the release of ocean energy is causing cloud cover change near the east Pacific. The single global average will reflect an addition of these two separate processes but it says nothing about the singularity or otherwise of their causation. You can have many A’s and many B’s on a planet the size of Earth.
it would be like saying that a cough causes a lung infection as well as a lung infection causing a cough…
No it wouldn’t. It would be more like saying the cough causes irritation and inflammation as well as the irritation and inflammation causing the cough.
If you paid for the course in logic you took, ask for your money back.
it is silly to claim that a fast, reactive system like clouds could cause the much larger energy movements over much longer timescale of ENSO events.
Depends if there’s a reason why they might quickly and quasi-consistently act in a particular way for an extended period of time doesn’t it?
The CLOUD/CERN result indicates negligible influence from GCR on low altitude cloud – the component Svenmark, Lindzen and Spencer invoke as a cloud forcing.
Interesting assertion, which you haven’t backed up with any argumentation here. Anyway, GCR’s are not the only way cloud might be affected by another factor other than temperature.
I posted the following comment also at Bishop Hill:
They are all wrong. Clouds are part and parcel of weather, a merely transient and naturally recurring overlay upon the stable atmosphere, and are neither a cause of long-term climate change nor a “feedback” (which, like all of the consensus concepts, is pure gobbledygook masquerading as substantial scientific thinking). My humble, but competent, analysis of a proper comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth shows this very simply and clearly:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
The temperature-vs-pressure curves of Venus and Earth, when just their different distances from the Sun are taken into account, are essentially the same, over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures (from 1,000 mb down to 200 mb), EXCEPT WITHIN THE CLOUDS OF VENUS (between about 600 and 300 mb), where the temperature is about 5°C lower than it would be without the clouds. The only effect of the thick, planet-wide clouds of Venus is within them, they do not affect the overall temperature-vs-pressure curve, or the temperature in the atmosphere well outside of the clouds. The transient and scattered clouds on Earth likewise cannot affect our atmosphere’s temperature-vs-pressure curve. This is a planet-sized experimental fact, definitive for climate science, that trumps all current climate theories and demolishes them. Dessler, like all of the silly consensus purveyors, is an incompetent idiot, but then the whole of climate science is shackled by incompetent theories and miseducation about the truth, which my Venus/Earth comparison, which should have been done by them 20 years ago, simply dissolves and resolves.
@- anna v says:
September 6, 2011 at 2:49 am
“Sometimes I think that only the onset of the next Little Ice Age will shut up these deluded “scientists”.”
Sometimes I think that even the succession of the next decade always being warmer than the previous one will NOT shut up these deluded “skeptics”.
(not to mention the shrinking ice, glaciers, moving wildlife/plants, increasing DLR, increasing extreme events, sea level rise….)
Another Gareth says: September 6, 2011 at 3:26 am
“Lucy Skywalker said: “A paper this important to AR5 has no right being behind a paywall. ””
Due to the policy implications this ought to be a requirement for all papers cited in AR5.
Despite what people here sometimes think, the IPCC is not all powerful. They can’t by citing a paper wave away the publisher’s rights.
However, I have always been able to find copies of commonly cited climate papers through Google Scholar.
There are several viable links to the Dessler paper on this thread. I already have a copy.
rbateman says:
September 6, 2011 at 2:24 am
tallbloke says:
September 6, 2011 at 1:47 am
I am quite certain, and I am sure that you are too, that there does not exist 100% global cloudiness on Earth, unlike Venus. The uncertainlty of how much open sky vs cloudiness is a good question.
How many years of data (reliable) do we have?
We have ISCCP data agglomerated from weather sats from ~1980. How reliable it is depends on your definition of reliable, and your bias in relation to data which shows a drop in low tropical cloud cover 1980-1998. 🙂
“Question …where did Lindzen, Choi, Spencer and Braswell write that “significant revisions to mainstream climate science are required”?”
Dressler just built up his own strawman argument.
Linzen & Choi took two years to get published. Their conclusions challenge the alarmist and catastrophic conclusions of some climate change scientists.
This paper took a few short weeks from the first key typed on a keyboard to publication. Then there was the recent paper that concluded that we were at threat from alien invasion because of the change in CO2. Both are alarmist papers.
And they claim that there is not a bias in climate science publications. The key to getting published is simple. Start with the conclusion and work backwards and ensure that the conclusion states that climate change is caused primarily by man’s emissions of CO2. Then the work will be published easily, regardless of the rubbish that is peddled within the actual paper.
Layman’s Guide to Climate Science:
AGW theory says we’ve recently gone missing some serious heat, so it must be hiding from us.
The satellites report it isn’t hiding in the atmosphere.
The ARGO buoys say it isn’t hiding in the oceans.
Spencer and Braswell say it isn’t hiding. It has left the building via cloud-trampoline-launch.
Dressler says Spencer and Braswell are full of feathers.
So where’s the missing heat?
ENSO is a physical Earth system involving winds, currents and clouds.
‘El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon to cause global climate variability on interannual time scales. Here we attempt to monitor ENSO by basing the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) on the six main observed variables over the tropical Pacific. These six variables are: sea-level pressure (P), zonal (U) and meridional (V) components of the surface wind, sea surface temperature (S), surface air temperature (A), and total cloudiness fraction of the sky (C). These observations have been collected and published in ICOADS for many years.’ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
ENSO doesn’t cause clouds – ENSO is clouds. Less low level cloud in El Nino and more in La Nina. Unforced natural cloud variability with significant interannual and decadal changes in the radiative flux. Bizarro world.
fredb says:
September 6, 2011 at 3:14 am
“it is worth noting that GRL is a rapid publication journal.”
Is that not a problem in itself. How can a rapid publication journal operate in a properly constructed and operated peer review environment?
The answer is that it can’t.
How many more papers have been published post haste in GRL that short-circuited the proper peer review process of maintaining high standards, improving performance and retaining scientific credibility?
Any self respecting editor-in-chief would have resigned over such shoddy practices.
@Truthseeker: yes, 4 of the 5 papers whose publication timing results I cited were explicitly climate papers.