NOTE: This post is important, so I’m going to sticky it at the top for quite a while. I’ve created a page for all Spencer and Braswell/Dessler related posts, since they are becoming numerous and popular to free up the top post sections of WUWT.
UPDATE: Dr. Spencer writes: I have been contacted by Andy Dessler, who is now examining my calculations, and we are working to resolve a remaining difference there. Also, apparently his paper has not been officially published, and so he says he will change the galley proofs as a result of my blog post; here is his message:
“I’m happy to change the introductory paragraph of my paper when I get the galley proofs to better represent your views. My apologies for any misunderstanding. Also, I’ll be changing the sentence “over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming” to make it clear that I’m talking about cloud feedbacks doing the action here, not cloud forcing.”
[Dessler may need to make other changes, it appears Steve McIntyre has found some flaws related to how the CERES data was combined: http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/
As I said before in my first post on Dessler’s paper, it remains to be seen if “haste makes waste”. It appears it does. -Anthony]
Update #2 (Sept. 8, 2011): Spencer adds: I have made several updates as a result of correspondence with Dessler, which will appear underlined, below. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether it was our Remote Sensing paper that should not have passed peer review (as Trenberth has alleged), or Dessler’s paper meant to refute our paper.
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
While we have had only one day to examine Andy Dessler’s new paper in GRL, I do have some initial reaction and calculations to share. At this point, it looks quite likely we will be responding to it with our own journal submission… although I doubt we will get the fast-track, red carpet treatment he got.
There are a few positive things in this new paper which make me feel like we are at least beginning to talk the same language in this debate (part of The Good). But, I believe I can already demonstrate some of The Bad, for example, showing Dessler is off by about a factor of 10 in one of his central calculations.
Finally, Dessler must be called out on The Ugly things he put in the paper.
(which he has now agreed to change).
1. THE GOOD
Estimating the Errors in Climate Feedback Diagnosis from Satellite Data
We are pleased that Dessler now accepts that there is at least the *potential* of a problem in diagnosing radiative feedbacks in the climate system *if* non-feedback cloud variations were to cause temperature variations. It looks like he understands the simple-forcing-feedback equation we used to address the issue (some quibbles over the equation terms aside), as well as the ratio we introduced to estimate the level of contamination of feedback estimates. This is indeed progress.
He adds a new way to estimate that ratio, and gets a number which — if accurate — would indeed suggest little contamination of feedback estimates from satellite data. This is very useful, because we can now talk about numbers and how good various estimates are, rather than responding to hand waving arguments over whether “clouds cause El Nino” or other red herrings. I have what I believe to be good evidence that his calculation, though, is off by a factor of 10 or so. More on that under THE BAD, below.
Comparisons of Satellite Measurements to Climate Models
Figure 2 in his paper, we believe, helps make our point for us: there is a substantial difference between the satellite measurements and the climate models. He tries to minimize the discrepancy by putting 2-sigma error bounds on the plots and claiming the satellite data are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
But this is NOT the same as saying the satellite data SUPPORT the models. After all, the IPCC’s best estimate projections of future warming from a doubling of CO2 (3 deg. C) is almost exactly the average of all of the models sensitivities! So, when the satellite observations do depart substantially from the average behavior of the models, this raises an obvious red flag.
Massive changes in the global economy based upon energy policy are not going to happen, if the best the modelers can do is claim that our observations of the climate system are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
(BTW, a plot of all of the models, which so many people have been clamoring for, will be provided in The Ugly, below.)
2. THE BAD
The Energy Budget Estimate of How Much Clouds Cause Temperature Change
While I believe he gets a “bad” number, this is the most interesting and most useful part of Dessler’s paper. He basically uses the terms in the forcing-feedback equation we use (which is based upon basic energy budget considerations) to claim that the energy required to cause changes in the global-average ocean mixed layer temperature are far too large to be caused by variations in the radiative input into the ocean brought about by cloud variations (my wording).
He gets a ratio of about 20:1 for non-radiatively forced (i.e. non-cloud) temperature changes versus radiatively (mostly cloud) forced variations. If that 20:1 number is indeed good, then we would have to agree this is strong evidence against our view that a significant part of temperature variations are radiatively forced. (It looks like Andy will be revising this downward, although it’s not clear by how much because his paper is ambiguous about how he computed and then combined the radiative terms in the equation, below.)
But the numbers he uses to do this, however, are quite suspect. Dessler uses NONE of the 3 most direct estimates that most researchers would use for the various terms. (A clarification on this appears below) Why? I know we won’t be so crass as to claim in our next peer-reviewed publication (as he did in his, see The Ugly, below) that he picked certain datasets because they best supported his hypothesis.
The following graphic shows the relevant equation, and the numbers he should have used since they are the best and most direct observational estimates we have of the pertinent quantities. I invite the more technically inclined to examine this. For those geeks with calculators following along at home, you can run the numbers yourself:
Here I went ahead and used Dessler’s assumed 100 meter depth for the ocean mixed layer, rather than the 25 meter depth we used in our last paper. (It now appears that Dessler will be using a 700 m depth, a number which was not mentioned in his preprint. I invite you to read his preprint and decide whether he is now changing from 100 m to 700 m as a result of issues I have raised here. It really is not obvious from his paper what he used).
Using the above equation, if I assumed a feedback parameter λ=3 Watts per sq. meter per degree, that 20:1 ratio Dessler gets becomes 2.2:1. If I use a feedback parameter of λ=6, then the ratio becomes 1.7:1. This is basically an order of magnitude difference from his calculation.
Again I ask: why did Dessler choose to NOT use the 3 most obvious and best sources of data to evaluate the terms in the above equation?:
(1) Levitus for observed changes in the ocean mixed layer temperature; (it now appears he will be using a number consistent with the Levitus 0-700 m layer).
(2) CERES Net radiative flux for the total of the 2 radiative terms in the above equation, and (this looks like it could be a minor source of difference, except it appears he put all of his Rcld variability in the radiative forcing term, which he claims helps our position, but running the numbers will reveal the opposite is true since his Rcld actually contains both forcing and feedback components which partially offset each other.)
(3): HadSST for sea surface temperature variations. (this will likely be the smallest source of difference)
The Use of AMIP Models to Claim our Lag Correlations Were Spurious
I will admit, this was pretty clever…but at this early stage I believe it is a red herring.
Dessler’s Fig. 1 shows lag correlation coefficients that, I admit, do look kind of like the ones we got from satellite (and CMIP climate model) data. The claim is that since the AMIP model runs do not allow clouds to cause surface temperature changes, this means the lag correlation structures we published are not evidence of clouds causing temperature change.
Following are the first two objections which immediately come to my mind:
1) Imagine (I’m again talking mostly to you geeks out there) a time series of temperature represented by a sine wave, and then a lagged feedback response represented by another sine wave. If you then calculate regression coefficients between those 2 time series at different time leads and lags (try this in Excel if you want), you will indeed get a lag correlation structure we see in the satellite data.
But look at what Dessler has done: he has used models which DO NOT ALLOW cloud changes to affect temperature, in order to support his case that cloud changes do not affect temperature! While I will have to think about this some more, it smacks of circular reasoning. He could have more easily demonstrated it with my 2 sine waves example.
Assuming there is causation in only one direction to produce evidence there is causation in only one direction seems, at best, a little weak.
2) In the process, though, what does his Fig. 1 show that is significant to feedback diagnosis, if we accept that all of the radiative variations are, as Dessler claims, feedback-induced? Exactly what the new paper by Lindzen and Choi (2011) explores: that there is some evidence of a lagged response of radiative feedback to a temperature change.
And, if this is the case, then why isn’t Dr. Dessler doing his regression-based estimates of feedback at the time lag or maximum response? Steve McIntyre, who I have provided the data to for him to explore, is also examining this as one of several statistical issues. So, Dessler’s Fig. 1 actually raises a critical issue in feedback diagnosis he has yet to address.
3. THE UGLY
(MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF THESE OBJECTIONS WILL BE ADDRESSED IN DESSLER’S UPDATE OF HIS PAPER BEFORE PUBLICATION)
The new paper contains a few statements which the reviewers should not have allowed to be published because they either completely misrepresent our position, or accuse us of cherry picking (which is easy to disprove).
Misrepresentation of Our Position
Quoting Dessler’s paper, from the Introduction:
“Introduction
The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback… …In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi [2011] and Spencer and Braswell [2011] 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.”
But we have never claimed anything like “clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature”! We claim causation works in BOTH directions, not just one direction (feedback) as he claims. Dr. Dessler knows this very well, and I would like to know
1) what he was trying to accomplish by such a blatant misrepresentation of our position, and
2) how did all of the peer reviewers of the paper, who (if they are competent) should be familiar with our work, allow such a statement to stand?
Cherry picking of the Climate Models We Used for Comparison
This claim has been floating around the blogosphere ever since our paper was published. To quote Dessler:
“SB11 analyzed 14 models, but they plotted only six models and the particular observational data set that provided maximum support for their hypothesis. “
How is picking the 3 most sensitive models AND the 3 least sensitive models going to “provide maximum support for (our) hypothesis”? If I had picked ONLY the 3 most sensitive, or ONLY the 3 least sensitive, that might be cherry picking…depending upon what was being demonstrated. And where is the evidence those 6 models produce the best support for our hypothesis?
I would have had to run hundreds of combinations of the 14 models to accomplish that. Is that what Dr. Dessler is accusing us of?
Instead, the point was to show that the full range of climate sensitivities represented by the least and most sensitive of the 14 models show average behavior that is inconsistent with the observations. Remember, the IPCC’s best estimate of 3 deg. C warming is almost exactly the warming produced by averaging the full range of its models’ sensitivities together. The satellite data depart substantially from that. I think inspection of Dessler’s Fig. 2 supports my point.
But, since so many people are wondering about the 8 models I left out, here are all 14 of the models’ separate results, in their full, individual glory:
I STILL claim there is a large discrepancy between the satellite observations and the behavior of the models.
CONCLUSION
These are my comments and views after having only 1 day since we received the new paper. It will take weeks, at a minimum, to further explore all of the issues raised by Dessler (2011).
Based upon the evidence above, I would say we are indeed going to respond with a journal submission to answer Dessler’s claims. I hope that GRL will offer us as rapid a turnaround as Dessler got in the peer review process. Feel free to take bets on that. 
And, to end on a little lighter note, we were quite surprised to see this statement in Dessler’s paper in the Conclusions (italics are mine):
“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).”
Long term climate change can be caused by clouds??! Well, maybe Andy is finally seeing the light! 
(Nope. It turns out he meant ” *RADIATIVE FEEDBACK DUE TO* clouds can indeed cause significant warming”. An obvious, minor typo. My bad.)
I should add that the conversion to HTML doesn’t look all that great, but at least it’s readable. Sorry about that.
-PSO
Enough of the BS, R. Gates:
“The predictive skill, or lack thereof, of models is not the only rubric by which their usefulness should be judged. As we don’t have a separate or control earth with which to use to conduct experiments, models allow testing of individual parameter changes to identify dynamical relationships. As the climate is a system existing on the edge of chaos, it is taken as a given that no model will be able to predict those inherently unpredictable tipping points exactly. What we can do though, and this gets to the usefulness of models, is look at past periods in earth’s history in which climate parameters were similar to today, and see how well the climate models were at simulating that climate and use that a general guide to what we might be able to expect during our current period.”
The predictive skill of said models was used as a fear bludgeon to unleash funding of billions upon billions of research in order to bring about the ultimate folly of a re-structured, “clean”
global economy. Solyndra, anyone?
You’re too cute by half.
Posted: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/bill-illis-clouds-account-for-most-of-the-variability-in-net-radiation-at-toa/
I’ll return you to the usual trolling from R. Gates…
Gatesy (aka, the smartest man on the planet) says:
Wow Marc, this sounds like a religious treatise. Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot…it is.
Cute and entirely non-responsive, and irrelevant. The fact you can’t understand what I am talking about testifies that you are exactly in the category I describe.
By the way, mine is a scientific argument. I could go into what is going on at the molecular level — synaptically, neuronally, genetically, evolutionarily, chemically, etc. with you. The science of your psychological, chemical, molecular phenomenon is well-defined and articulated and much more precise than the “so called” science that you love to promulgate on these and other pages.
But the bottom line is you are delusional, and part of your delusion is your belief that those who don’t go along with your delusion are delusional themselves. The brain chemistry of such a state
There is a way to reorder your chemistry to become non-delusional, however, it is not easy because there needs to be a catalytic event, that may or may not ever occur. There are no responses, no facts, no science that can penetrate your delusions. It would require a true family intervention followed by a medical course of treatment. I hope your family can recognize and help you overcome your delusional disorder, it will be better for everyone around you and for the world at large.
I hope your contribution to these pages is a broader recognition — by the rational folks reading your delusions here — is that delusion is impervious to rationality and that other approaches than simply arguing the rational need to be employed to prevent the idea of CAGW from becoming a lever by which liberty is destroyed by pathology. The pathology itself must be looked at, understood and addressed in some effective way. The answer to what is effective is forthcoming, though the outlines are understood.
While I watch others get frustrated at your delusional assertions, I submit that you are serving a highly useful purpose in teaching good folks the true nature of what drives beliefs like yours. While your words deserve to be ignored, your phenomenon bears response.
Only when we have cleansed climate science of the dogmatic, delusional and pathological can we make rapid progress toward its understanding. You and your ilk largely stand in the way, but science has always struggled to overcome the biologically induced superstious nature of human thinking.
So oddly, the success of climate understanding goes through the understanding of human superstition at all levels — molecular, biological, chemical, psychological, etc. That is what I hope others will more broadly realize.
For all of us, I hope you can overcome your condition someday.
Lastly, you know nothing of whether I have any religious beliefs or not. However, your belief that you do is consistent with your condition. You must dismiss me to protect your own psyche, however, that is not the path to a healthy and enjoyable life, or an understanding of the climate or the broader phenomenae important to human existence.
R. Gates says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:39 pm
“Trust me, for those humans living during the onset of the Younger Dryas, it didn’t take more than a year or two for them to realize that the climate was changing fast. For those in northern latitudes, if they were smart enough and able to, they headed south in a hurry.”
================
If they were smart enough, the FBI would not have seized their records.
An Inquirer says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:41 am (Edit)
Concerning Dressler’s modifying his paper per Spencer’s comments, let me see if I have got this straight: In the peer review process, nobody caught the inadequacies and the numerical shortcomings of the Dressler paper, But when someone whose scientific abilities the journal disses sees the papers for a few hours, Dressler finds that he must rewrite and recalculate his paper.
####################
you miss the real possibility of the following.
1. Spencer objected to some language and some numbers in Dessler.
2. Dessler looked at Spencer’s numbers, did a few calculations, and determined that changing the numbers
A. didnt make a difference
B. made his case stronger
C. made is case a wee bit weaker.
Then Dessler decided that he could really take the gas out of spencer by agreeing to some of the
objections and by fixing the obviously incorrect first paragraph.
He gets to claim the high ground by listening to spencer and the get’s to take the gas out of a possible spencer reply.
Steven Mosher says:
September 10, 2011 at 4:18 pm
——–
Mosher,
Or it is just the simple view that through it all Spencer was on a more gentlemanly high road. Which is inherently nice for the scientific discourse. N’est ce pas?
John
Regarding Gates says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:14 pm
David Springer:
“Very interesting post, but of course, wrong on many counts. If you run global climate models without CO2 in the ATMOSPHERE, guess what, you get the ice planet, even if you started with a nice warm ocean.
But this quote is exceptionally funny (and wrong headed):
“It takes a greenhouse effect from a liquid ocean to do that.”
Wow, I think you’re the first person to look down into the LIQUID ocean, rather than up, where the LW radiation interacts with greenhouse GASES, for the greenhouse effect.
Yep, atmospheric moisture (note: up in the sky, not down in the ocean) is a powerful greenhouse contributor, but sadly my friend, it is a condensing greenhouse gas, and without CO2 and the other NON-CONDENSING greenhouse gases in the ATMOSPHERE, the oceans surface waters would quickly lose all their heat right out into space, all the water would condense from the atmosphere, and we’d quickly return to ice-house Earth.”
Gates, only two things can affect the energy content of a system in radiative balance, either a change in the input, or a change in the residence time of the energy in the system. Got it? So a question for you. Does the eneregy entering the oceans have a longer residence time then the energy in the atmospher? I hope you say the energy in the oceans. Does it not then follow that a change in the SWR entering the oceans can have a greater affect on the energy balance of the earth then a like change of LWIR in the atmosphere? Think hard on this one, and I await your answer.
@Bill Illis (September 10, 2011 at 10:11 am)
Would appreciate a response if you (or another straight-shooter with the right knowledge) can spare the time — my concise question is posted here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/bill-illis-clouds-account-for-most-of-the-variability-in-net-radiation-at-toa/#comment-8597
tallbloke says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:17 am
Bill Illis says:
September 10, 2011 at 10:11 am
“Over on Climate audit, Bart has found some tight relationships too…
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/#comment-302767“
I do hope people will go take a look. I believe I have found something very significant.
“”””” David A says:
September 10, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Regarding Gates says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:14 pm
David Springer:
“Very interesting post, but of course, wrong on many counts. If you run global climate models without CO2 in the ATMOSPHERE, guess what, you get the ice planet, even if you started with a nice warm ocean.
But this quote is exceptionally funny (and wrong headed):
“It takes a greenhouse effect from a liquid ocean to do that.”
Wow, I think you’re the first person to look down into the LIQUID ocean, rather than up, where the LW radiation interacts with greenhouse GASES, for the greenhouse effect.
Yep, atmospheric moisture (note: up in the sky, not down in the ocean) is a powerful greenhouse contributor, but sadly my friend, it is a condensing greenhouse gas, and without CO2 and the other NON-CONDENSING greenhouse gases in the ATMOSPHERE, the oceans surface waters would quickly lose all their heat right out into space, all the water would condense from the atmosphere, and we’d quickly return to ice-house Earth.” “””””
Well without any water vapor (or clouds) you would have the mother of all Radiative forcings, and you would have nothing but the Raleigh blue scattering to drop the ground level sunlight below its 1362 W/m^2 external value. The surface sunlight would be closer to 1200 W/m^2, than to its present 1000., and at least 75% of that increased solar energy at the surface, would go into the deep tropical oceans.
As for H2O being a “condensing” Greenhouse gas, what on earth does that have to do with anything. Just when was the last occasion (within your memory) that the average lower troposphere atmospheric H2O abundance dropped below the average CO2 abundance ?
H2O is a permanent component of the earth’s atmosphere. At ANY instant of time, the effect of greenhouse absorption effects, depends only on the current abundances of all of those gases. It is of no consequence how often one molecule, is replaced by an identical molecule. Only Mother Gaea knows the serial number of each atmospheric molecule, and she doesn’t care which ones are present, only how many of them there is at any time.
The air over Antarctica is quite often below the 255K Temperature that climatists say it would be without the greenhouse 33 deg C warming, and yet there seems to be plenty of clouds remaining over the continent. It is a myth, that greenhouse warming by H2O requires a CO2 trigger to start it up. H2O in the atmosphere is perfectly capable of doing so, without any help from CO2. A little more CO2 simply means a little more clouds on average, and a reduction in CO2 would simply result in a little less cloudiness.
R. Gates says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:14 pm
In response to David Springer:
“Very interesting post, but of course, wrong on many counts. If you run global climate models without CO2 in the ATMOSPHERE, guess what, you get the ice planet, even if you started with a nice warm ocean.”
Gates,
Did you ever consider the real possibility that the ‘global climate models’ are wrong? That they are human constructions, with programming based on human assumptions, and deliberately or inadvertently distorted by human bias and prejudice? Your responses consistently illustrate your own biases and prejudices, as your asserted faith in ‘global climate models’ so aptly illustrates. You are ‘wrong on many counts’, but of course your ARROGANCE combined with your biases blinds you and prevents balanced reasoning… let alone any small measure of humble wisdom.
We have had many ice age advances of massive, continent spanning glaciers. We will have more. The presence of 200, 400, or 1000ppm atmospheric CO2 has been, is, and will continue to be irrelevant to these advances and recessions. The 40% addition of CO2 to the atmosphere you claim is currently ‘man made’ only adds an additional 40% to its irrelevancy. Much like most of your posts here…….
George E. Smith says:
September 10, 2011 at 7:33 pm
“”””” David A says:
Thanks George, I agree with your comments. My comment to Gates was only the last paragraph hoping he would see some very simple concepts,
“Gates, only two things can affect the energy content of a system in radiative balance, either a change in the input, or a change in the residence time of the energy in the system. Got it? So a question for you. Does the eneregy entering the oceans have a longer residence time then the energy in the atmospher? I hope you say the energy in the oceans. Does it not then follow that a change in the SWR entering the oceans can have a greater affect on the energy balance of the earth then a like change of LWIR in the atmosphere? Think hard on this one, and I await your answer.”
Bart says:
September 10, 2011 at 6:43 pm
………………………
“Over on Climate audit, Bart has found some tight relationships too…
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/#comment-302767“
“I do hope people will go take a look. I believe I have found something very significant.”
Bart, if you would be so kind as to translate these findings for the less mathy/scientific among us, it would be much appreciated.
You see? Enough of you were joking around that R. Gates and friends weren’t around for this thread and now look what happened.
But if he toed the line, he wouldn’t issue a rebuttal at all, just a humble retraction! 😉
Just to remind everyone, GRL is the first major success the Hokey Team had in dumping a chief editor who had dared to publish a dissent. It was planned in the Climategate emails, and subsequently succeeded.
R. Gates:
At September 10, 2011 at 6:35 am you say to Richard Verney:
“As the climate is a system existing on the edge of chaos, it is taken as a given that no model will be able to predict those inherently unpredictable tipping points exactly.”
Please state the nature of each such ‘tipping point’ that could/may/will be triggered by AGM.
I do not know of any such ‘tipping points’, and the models do NOT predict any such ‘tipping points’ “exactly” or otherwise.
Richard
Steven Mosher:
Your suggestion at September 10, 2011 at 4:18 pm would make sense if there were a clear and significant flaw in Spencer’s paper. But nobody – including you – has determined and openly stated any such flaw in Spencer’s paper.
Hence, your explanation does not make sense.
Of course, somebody may have spotted such a flaw (Dessler is not bright enough to have done it) and may have secretly informed Dessler of it. That possibility is up among the ‘pigs might fly’ considerations.
Richard
neill says:
September 10, 2011 at 9:33 pm
“Bart, if you would be so kind as to translate these findings for the less mathy/scientific among us, it would be much appreciated.”
Basically, clouds exert a negative feedback of about -9.5 W/m^2 per degree C of increased temperature (and, vice versa, +9.5 W/m^2 per degree C of decreased temperature). Which means they contribute at least partly to a climate thermostat mechanism such as Willis Eschenbach has proposed here at WUWT from time to time.
[Reply] Bart, I’ve corrected a typo from +0.5 W/m^2 to +9.5W/m^2 – let me know if that’s right -TB-mod
R Gates
If I build a model that assumes that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere causes neither warming nor cooling (ie., it is completely neutral – perhaps this is because I also program an assumption that CO2 + water vapour = a radiative constant which is at all times maintained in the atmosphere), and then I play around with various model runs in which I alter the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. When I increase CO2 concentrations, in the atmosphere guess what happens to temperature. Zilch. It does not increase, nor decrease. When I reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, guess what happens to the temperature. Zilch. It does not increase, nor decrease. So can I conclude from this that CO2 concentration has no effect on temperature. Obviously, I can not.
If in contrast I build a model that assumes that temperature increases with increased concentrations of CO2 and then I play around with various model runs in which I alter the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. When I increase CO2 concentrations, in the atmosphere guess what happens to temperature. It increases. When I reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, guess what happens to the temperature. It decreases. So can I conclude from this that CO2 concentrations have an important affect on temperature. Obviously, I can not.
The only conclusion I can draw from these model runs is that I can build a model that responds in accordance with the assumptions that I programmed into it. The model tells us nothing about real life. It merely demonstrates the effect of the assumptions that have been programmed into it.
If any of the assumptions made are wrong, or if there are other factors at play which are not accounted for in the model, or if the input data is wrong, the projection of the model will be off target.
Presently, we do not have sufficiently accurate data, nor knowledge and understanding of the system and how each factor interplays and works to be able to construct a useful and reliable model. Period.
I remain of the view that models presently are next to worthless and rather than simply playing around with them, they should be defunded and funds transferred to other areas that would enable us to gain more accurate empirical data and research into areas enabling us to get a better understanding how in the real world (not model world) the atmosphere and climate works. Lets do some proper empirical science and then perhaps in 10 or 20 years time, we can revisit models when we might be able to improve their usefulness.
R. Gates says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:14 pm
In response to David Springer:
“Very interesting post, but of course, wrong on many counts. If you run global climate models without CO2 in the ATMOSPHERE, guess what, you get the ice planet, even if you started with a nice warm ocean.”
No, it’s right on all counts. If it was wrong you could have pointed out where.
We get an ice planet WITH CO2 you dolt and you don’t need to run a model. You just need a fifth grader’s knowledge of the most recent ice age. Duh. The only tipping point the planet is near is tipping out of the Holocene interglacial back into a glacial period. So what I want to know is not whether there’s too much CO2 in the atmosphere but rather whether there’s enough CO2 in the atmosphere.
The average temperature of the global ocean is 3.9C.
Until one accepts that fact and understands how it is possible one does not have the perspective needed to understand where the real danger of catastrophic climate danger lies. It isn’t catastrophically warm. It’s catastrophically cold.
There’s only one possible way the average temperature of the global ocean could be 3.9C.
Surely there must be someone here aside from me who can explain and appreciate that fact.
Bart says:
September 11, 2011 at 2:40 am
“Basically, clouds exert a negative feedback of about -9.5 W/m^2 per degree C of increased temperature (and, vice versa, +0.5 W/m^2 per degree C of decreased temperature). Which means they contribute at least partly to a climate thermostat mechanism such as Willis Eschenbach has proposed here at WUWT from time to time.”
OK, it would be wonderful to be able to establish that this is so.
What is it about this approach you’ve taken that has everyone so seemingly excited over at CA? Does the represent, or possibly so, a ‘holy grail’ that skeptics have been seeking that would somehow establish negative feedback for clouds, a sort of brake on the climate system, under both increasing and decreasing temperatures?
Can somebody point me in the right direction, I’m trying to find reliable and accurate data regarding the amount of Co2 and oxygen in the atmosphere, I’m also trying to find out which gases are reducing in response to increased C02.