Guest post by Erl Happ
This post was generated in response to the Christopher Monkton thread. It is not a criticism of Christopher Monkton but of our tendency to imagine that artful mathematicians (I am not one) are sufficiently sophisticated to deal with complex problems. Indeed the debate as to the value of feedback processes illustrates the lack of utility of mathematics when unconstrained by observation of the real world. Climate Science is full of it.
As I understand it the proposition goes like this:
Enhanced GG composition, more back radiation, enhanced evaporation, more cloud and IF cloud enhances back radiation, the surface warms. The enhancement of cloud density depending upon the IF supposedly represents the feedback.
But cloud reflects incoming energy. The feedback notion requires that the loss of energy to the surface due to cloud reflection of incoming short wave radiation is outweighed by the increase in energy trapped in the ‘below cloud level system’ due to cloud returning OLR to the surface. That’s the IF factor again.
The IF proviso requires that evaporation from the surface not only keeps pace with the increase in surface temperature. It must exceed it for cloud density to be enhanced as the surface warms.
There is a little logical problem here. If the feedback from long wave radiation exceeded the value of the reflected short wave, the oceans would soon boil. That problem is sidestepped by suggesting that it is only the high ice cloud that is important in the feedback. So, in the end the result depends upon the mix in the categories of clouds that provide net reflection versus those that provide net surface warming and whether the moisture supply to the atmosphere keeps up and somehow tips the balance towards those clouds that are supposed to provide a net warming effect .
This is already too complex and includes unknowns that are unquantifiable.
Now, lets look at the real world. Consider:
A
Do clouds warm the surface? Logically, if clouds had that effect, with more clouds the surface should warm. But near surface clouds arrive in warm tropical air. It’s warm because of its origin. The warmer and wetter it is the more the precipitation. This warm moist tropical air produces cloud and precipitation strictly in proportion to the chilling it receives. Warm that same air and the cloud disappears. (The Foehn effect). Precipitation enhances the supply of moisture at the surface cooling the surface. The air is in constant movement and the system is mind bogglingly dynamic. But one constant is the decline of surface temperature as we move from equator to pole. Satellites show that warm moist tropical air travels all the way but is dried as it moves. Hence the polar latitudes are cold deserts with the air in these regions containing little moisture that remains to be precipitated producing a gradually accumulating mass of ice in perennially sub freezing temperatures. Lesson: The presence of low clouds reflect very recent change in air temperature and is unrelated to the supply of moisture to the atmosphere from the surface. The presence of these clouds depends upon the supply of energy to the tropical ocean and the direction of the wind.
B
In mid latitudes the atmosphere between 600hpa and 100hpa (where the ice cloud called cirrus and stratus is located) responds in terms of its cloud cover to a moisture supply from places remote to the point of observation. (tropical convection, polar frontal action). Supply is relatively invariable and as a result cloud comes and goes according to flux in the temperature of the upper troposphere. Temperature in this zone is a function of ozone content and depends upon stratospheric processes. In the mid latitudes the troposphere above 300hPa contains appreciable ozone and peaks in temperature in mid winter when outgoing radiation peaks. At this time the surface reaches its seasonal minimum temperature. Radiation peaks in winter due to the enhancement of the high pressure cells of descending warming air in the winter hemisphere. The temperature of the cloud bearing layer does not relate at all to change in surface temperature. If radiation increases the presence of ozone ensures that the air warms and the cloud disappears.
C
For cloud to increase as the atmosphere warms it requires that evaporation is enhanced as the surface warms so as to enhance relative humidity promoting enhanced cloud cover. This proposition is tested once a year in the northern hemisphere. Because of the preponderance of land which is opaque to short wave radiation (unlike the sea) near surface air temperature increases strongly. In effect the surface returns warmth to the atmosphere by conduction and radiation. The convective process of heat loss via decompression (that we see in the tropics) is inoperable because of an insufficiency of moisture supply to the atmosphere. Transfer by conduction and radiation is therefore enhanced and the entire troposphere warms.
We see here that vvaporation fails to promote the addition of sufficient moisture to the atmosphere to maintain cloud cover. So, cloud falls away and global air temperature peaks in July in conformity with this strong seasonal influence driven by the accident of geography which is the northern hemisphere. A potential runaway feedback system that is the exact opposite of that posited above (warming surface more cloud) is curtailed by the passage of the Earth around the sun while it spins on its tilted axis.
In January, when the suns irradiance is 7% stronger due to orbital considerations global near surface air temperature reaches its minimum because global cloud cover peaks. Taken in its entirety, cool the Earth’s atmosphere and cloud increases. The surface cools. It will cool in the face of enhanced radiation.
Summarizing: Does the presence of cloud result in surface warming? No. In January, global cloud cover is 3% greater than July. Irradiance 7% greater. Surface temperature 4° cooler. Will a warmer sun heat the Earth? Not necessarily. It depends upon what happens to the cloud. If there were less land and more sea the ocean would gradually warm.
D
The proposition that cloud is enhanced as the near surface atmosphere warms is also testable by looking at historical data for precipitable water as the globe has warmed. Reanalysis tells us that it actually falls away.
E
The Earth system also demonstrates what happens when additional greenhouse gas is added to the troposphere. This happens in the coupled circulation over Antarctica. The system waxes and wanes according to the activity of the night jet in modulating the ozone content and temperature of the upper stratosphere. The convection that results involves warmer ozone rich air (10ppm) ascending. Relatively ozone poor stratospheric air (say 7ppm) descends into the troposphere (naturally containing ozone at the ppb level) that in consequence becomes ozone rich. The consequence is gross warming of the troposphere on the margins of Antarctica and the generation of the lowest surface atmospheric pressures on the planet. The flux in pressure in this zone depends simply upon the rate of ozone churn into the troposphere. Ozone is carried towards the equator by the counter westerlies destroying cloud as it moves by virtue of its greenhouse gas property. It absorbs at 9.6 micrometers.
As this greenhouse gas is added to the troposphere cloud cover falls away. The surface temperature feedback is due to enhanced shortwave radiation, not longwave retention. This too is a potentially disastrous feedback scenario that is limited by the fact that the ozone content of the stratosphere varies within limits and the Earth’s surface is mainly water which soaks up energy without adding a lot of moisture to the atmsophere. Given enough time, the feed rate of ozone peaks and shortly after atmospheric moisture and cloud cover recovers.
F
The prime source of long wave radiation emanating from the Earth system is the high pressure cells of the winter hemisphere where the air warms by compression as it descends, a cloud free zone promoting surface warming when it is most needed…………..despite the abundant long wave radiation streaming out to space.
Conclusion : Cloud cools.
Andy the answer is simple- take ideal cooling conditions low dewpoint temperatures and combine that with clear skies end result cool temperatures- now at the same take clouds over that same area higher dewpoint temperatures only add clouds the clouds act as a blanket and doesn’t allow for ideal cooling conditions threw the night you may cool 2-3 degrees from the night before
DCC says: “GG and hpa escape me”
GG = greenhouse gas
hpa (more properly, hPa) = hectoPascal, a measure of pressure. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is in the neighborhood of 1000 hPa, and the pressure decreases with altitude. E.g. 600 hPa corresponds to around 4 km above sea level. This is not an exact equivalence, as it varies with temperature and humidity (at least).
Andy Mayhew says: September 28, 2011 at 3:27 am
If clouds only cool, why are cloudy nights warmer than clear nights?
Hot off the press: Allen 2011
Clouds have a big cooling effect during the day, roughly 17 times that of a doubling of CO2. Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall, so I can’t say how big the night warming effect is by comparison. But it looks by inference from the abstract that it is smaller.
One effect of H2O you didn’t touch on is that gaseous water is itself a greenhouse gas; in fact, far and away the most important one. As I understand it, the models all use this fact to make up the gap between the theoretical greenhouse effect of enhanced CO2 and observed temperature (more positive feedback).
However, when the water vapor re-condenses into clouds, that heat of vaporization is re-released higher in the atmosphere, bypassing the greenhouse gasses below (negative feedback). So you have another pair of competing processes: enhanced greenhouse effect due to the increase in absolute humidity of in warmer air, and heat energy being transported through a large layer of greenhouse-gas-laden air to be released higher up, thus bypassing some of the potential greenhouse effect altogether.
The papers describing the climate models constantly use the phrase “well-mixed greenhouse gas”, but water vapor is certainly NOT well-mixed. Yet, it seems they treat it as “well-mixed” to produce the postulated greenhouse effect.
My brain is starting to hurt.
Carl Bussjaeger says:
September 28, 2011 at 12:08 am
“With one minor modification, I’d say that nails it: [Consensus] Climate Science is full of it.”
_______________________________
Nailed it.
In other words, weather and address trumps climate change, and meteorologists trump climatologists. That must really bite. And to be sure, I really cleaned up my little pithy post.
@Andy,
Clouds don’t warm they only insulate. They are not a source of energy.
How about let’s turn that around. If clouds mostly warm, why are cloudy days cooler than clear days?
I think you’ve missed the point of the article–that the relationship is not simple at all. Certainly not as simple as the climate models assume. And therefore, they are necessarily wrong.
Thank you Earl for this so obvious and straight forward post.
One only have to look at the atmosphere to realize what you wrote here.
I think the bottom lines should be this:
Clouds cool by reflecting incoming radiation.
Clouds DELAY cooling by absorbing outgoing long wave radiation.
It is as simple as that.
Anyone want to hazzard an attempt at a controls system diagram? It is beyond my abilities to attempt one. Surely someone has attempted it?
I mean this kind:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Control_Systems/Block_Diagrams
I don’t understand this, Erl, but my intuition tells me you are on the right track. The system is too complex even for supercomputers, but I’m not sure it’s beyond the grasp of the human mind. You seem to be closer to holistic understanding than any other. I wish you and Robert Ellison and Stephen Wilde and Bob Tisdale and a few others would collaborate.
====================
“If the feedback from long wave radiation exceeded the value of the reflected short wave, the oceans would soon boil.”
Whether positive or negative, clouds are not the only feedback. There are many others, including a well understood powerful negative feedback, black body radiation. Radiated heat is proportional to the fourth power of absolute temperature.
WOW.
Mr. Happ, I don’t know you, but I deeply appreciate that you can explain something so complicated in a way that even I can understand it. Thank you.
I would just like to posit a question (to anyone willing to answer), because of something I know which runs counter to this, and it is fairly common knowledge.
Upper Midwest-latitude, Winter night; if it’s crystal clear, it is guaranteed to be cold. Very cold. If it is cloudy, it is most certainly 20 – 30 degrees warmer. The consensus is that this is because the clouds act as a blanket, trapping the Earth’s heat nearer to the ground, whereas the lack of clouds allows that heat to escape.
My understanding of the article is that this has more to do with the origin of the air which happens to have clouds in it than any ‘blanket’ effect. (i.e. a clear sky means a high pressure front from Canada, whereas cloudy means low pressure from the gulf)
Is my understanding correct?
Thanks for anyone who responds.
I’m dazzled at the comprehensiveness of this presentation. I was particularly please to see a rational explanation for why the annual rise and fall of global average temperature at the higher altitudes is approximately 180 degrees out of phase with those at the earth’s surface. It was much more satisfying than simply hearing “the preponderance of land mass resides in the northern hemisphere”.
@Andymayhew: “If clouds only cool, why are cloudy nights warmer than clear nights? Maybe it’s not QUITE as simple after all? ”
Befuddled by the description of the cloud forming mechanism, the reader misses the entire point..
Dear Andy.. Start with the concept ALL Surface energy is inevitably lost to space. Energy lost to space never comes back.
Cloud reflected energy never makes it to surface in the first place thus cloudy day is cooler, night is warmer due to reradiation, not reflection. AIr still cools as night goes on, doesn’t it; if morning never comes {sun doesnt rise}, cooling continues as reradiation is in all directions, mostly toward space because earth is a ball.
Contrails are nothing but clouds.. same thing applies, they reflect/reradiate solar, reradiate surface radiation. MOSTLY TOWARD SPACE! Why even bother to bring them up other than to protect your world view?
RR Kampen says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:51 am
RR, I hope you are being facetious.
This IS the state of climate science. The net effect of clouds is very much in debate, and as we are studying a chaotic system it is likely that different clouds produce different effects given different atmospheric conditions.
If you are somehow thinking modern climate science has advanced much beyond this, I would direct you to CERN’s recent CLOUD experiment where they attempt to learn about what causes (influences) cloud formation. Yes, we have that much to learn.
In short, there is so much we really don’t know or fully understand that anyone caught claiming the science is settled should be asked to shut up so real scientists can get on with discovering what really goes on in our atmosphere. If your post is intended denigrate the discussion here, you are likely incapable of understanding the issues of climate science in the first place.
If I misunderstood the nature of your post, then I apologize in advance for the terse nature of my response.
I haven’t read your piece yet Erl, but could you please at least spell Lord Monckton’s name correctly.
“”””” F
The prime source of long wave radiation emanating from the Earth system is the high pressure cells of the winter hemisphere where the air warms by compression as it descends, a cloud free zone promoting surface warming when it is most needed…………..despite the abundant long wave radiation streaming out to space.
Conclusion : Cloud cools. “””””
Well I agree with your conclusion, I’ve been making that statement for some years now, to little or no avail.
But I would suggest that the hot dry deserts of the middle East and north Africa are the source of a lot more LWIR and it is shorter wavelength than the cool zones, so it escapes CO2 easier. Remembert hat T^4 effect, and Wien’s law.
Increased cloud cover on balance causes cooling. At least low cloud in the tropics during the day cause cooling.
But as mentioned cloud cover is NOT directly corellated with temperature or humidity, the interactions are a little more complex and dynamic than that…
On the other hand increased temperatures DO increase water vapor/humidity levels as direct observation confirms, so warming from any cause gets a positive feedback from increased water vapor.
Only if that increase in water vapor causing wearming ALSO increases low cloud coverage during daylight in the tropical region will the cooling from cloud cover negate the warming from water vapor increases.
“”””” Andy Mayhew says:
September 28, 2011 at 3:27 am
If clouds only cool, why are cloudy nights warmer than clear nights? “””””
th that results in the clouds; NOT the other way round.
You got it wrong Andy. Warmer nights are more cloudy than colder nights. It’s the surface warmth that results in the clouds; NOT the other way round.
Any paper that suggests cloud feedback is negative will not be allowed to stand. Any such paper is held up by publishers until the Team has a rebuttal written. The only slip up recently was SB11 at RS, and the publisher resigned and publicly apologized to Trenberth.
It seems quite evident that The IPCC conclusion has already been written by Trenberth and the IPCC. Cloud feedback is positive and any scientific paper that says otherwise will by suppressed by the Team. This strategy was publicly laid out in the Climategate emails.
This isn’t about science, it is about religion and money. The Team believes that fossil fuels are bad. The way to end the use of fossil fuels is to tax them out of existence, using fear as the motivator. Funding the Team are the greedy individuals that intend to get their hands on the tax money. How to get filthy rich 101 – tax the poor in the name of saving the world.
Climate Science is the religion. Carbon taxes are the collection plate. Global warming is the fire and brimstone of Hell. Al Gore is the savior. We are the sinners than need to be punished.
kim says:
September 28, 2011 at 6:19 am
“….. I wish you and Robert Ellison and Stephen Wilde and Bob Tisdale and a few others would collaborate.”
That is sort of what they are doing here at WUWT, but I understand what you mean. Take all the bits and pieces and meld them into a whole. And do not forget Willis’ Thermostat theory.
I noticed that as you move along the east coast of the USA the number of afternoon thunderstorms per month during the summer decreases as you move north. They pretty much “stop” when you hit mid North Carolina and the prevalence of very hot (>90F) afternoons become less. – just another bit of support for the Thermostat theory.
Thanks for the comments. This is a complex topic and I must admit I had no immediate inclination to get involved.
BargHumer says: September 28, 2011 at 12:50 am
1) Are you saying that the land mass is just the perfect size to keep a stabilized climate? This is an interesting point all by itself if that is what you mean.
My main point is that geography and the geometry of the seasons matters. When the atmosphere cools more cloud appears and the surface cools, precipitation falls further cooling the surface, cooling the air which forms more cloud………..but there are natural limits to the extent of feedback processes because of orbital and tilt considerations. And those natural limits work to prevent excessive warming or excessive cooling even in situations where the feedbacks are strongly positive. But the evidence is that cloud per-se is a cooling influence in that it reflects short wave radiation. When you think of it, night and day represent different systems like summer and winter.
The system is never static, it moves from phase to phase and the parameters vary accordingly. I don’t think the mathematical equations represent the real world properly when its basic nature is changing continuously.
how could anything but the absence of clouds cause the sea to boil?
If the hypothesized radiation trapping property of cloud were to be more influential than its short wave reflective property the energy in the below cloud environment must increase continuously. Winter would be warmer than summer.
Philip Bradley says: September 28, 2011 at 1:58 am
Outgoing radiation from the surface reaches a minimum in mid-winter.
For sure. But the radiation from the mid latitude atmosphere (as distinct from the surface) peaks in winter because the high pressure cells of descending air warm by compression and they are always stronger in the winter hemisphere. That radiation peak delivers a winter maximum in the temperature of the stratosphere and the upper troposphere. There is sufficient ozone in the upper third of the troposphere to make it behave like the stratosphere and warm when radiation increases.
whether clouds cause heat gain or loss will be determined by the amount of incoming solar radiation versus OLR and that will vary by lattitude, season and time of day.
Excellent point. And perhaps we should map the way the balance changes by latitude and time of year and we could resolve this question.
Darkinbad the Brightdayler says: September 28, 2011 at 2:12 am
You didn’t have to add the biographical details?
That’s Anthony introducing his guest author and pointing out that there have been other articles.
Stephen Wilde says: September 28, 2011 at 2:17 am
reflected energy is energy lost forever
Look s like excellent reasoning.
DCC says: September 28, 2011 at 2:42 am
GG- greenhouse gas. hPa =hectopascals a measure of atmospheric pressure equivalent to millibars.
TerryS says: September 28, 2011 at 2:54 am
If cirrus (or water vapour if you like) did not reflect short wave energy at all but effectively raised surface temperature due to its supposed ability to mimic the warming role of the sun, and if the warming at the surface promoted an increase in cirrus (or water vapour) we have a double feedback. And if we were dealing with a constant level of solar radiation over time, no day and night and no seasons then how does that play out?
In the real world the increase in the water vapour content of the atmosphere would result in convection and therefore decompressive cooling rather than radiative cooling and as radiation fell away at this place it would increase in another place. Then in that other place due to the fact that the air warms by compression as it descends there would be no cloud at all. Those cells of descending air would form in cool places like the winter hemisphere where the extra warmth from greater sunlight would be appreciated. Meanwhile back at the ranch, there is less radiation and the modeled feedbacks would be all awry. The ranch would not have warmed in the manner expected.
The equations need to be solved for latitude, the nature of the surface, day and night, the seasons and the influences from the stratosphere that determine high altitude cloud cover. The relationship between energy incident at the surface and the agent causing the surface to become warmer must be quantified. Can it be done?
Andy Mayhew says: September 28, 2011 at 3:27 am
why are cloudy nights warmer than clear nights?
Because the air containing cloud is warm having come from a warm place.Its a gloriously diverse world that we live in and the air is in constant movement. Ah, the scent of frangipannis from the tropics. Bit of cloud about? Air is warm isn’t it. Humidity is up too.
@Bob Kutz. I don’t think that the blanketing effect of clouds have anything at all to with where they were formed although how thick the cloud cover is does. It isn’t really much different from how real blankets work. A real blanket traps heat from escaping it doesn’t provide any heat (unless it is an electric blanket). Clouds work the same way, holding heat in, but not creating heat. But a blanket doesn’t hold all heat in, it just slows the rate at which heat escapes. That is the way clouds work, they slow the rate at which heat escapes to space, they don’t stop it 100%.
During the day clouds slow the rate that incoming warm sun light reaches the earth . At night they slow the rate at which the warmed air below them escapes.
Cloud cools. Period
And the entire subject of enhanced GG back radiation where infra red warms the earth and generates more evaporation is total nonsense.
No “if”s, just bad science.
Nasif S. Nahle: Observations on “Backradiation” during Nighttime and Daytime
Abstract
Through a series of real time measurements of thermal radiation from the atmosphere and surface materials during nighttime and daytime, I demonstrate that warming backradiation emitted from Earth’s atmosphere back toward the earth’s surface and the idea that a cooler system can warm a warmer system are unphysical concepts.
http://climaterealists.com/?id=8402
I also ask your attention for this article about thermometers published at Climate Realists
http://climaterealists.com/?id=8401
I can’t judge if the claims made in the article are correct so I throw it to the WUWT wolves:
“John O’Sullivan: Thermometer Manufacturer Destroys Greenhouse Gas Warming Myth
Monday, September 26th 2011, 4:29 PM EDT Co2sceptic (Site Admin)
An independent climate science think tank produces evidence from a leading infrared thermometer manufacturer proving that climatologists were mistakenly taking incorrect readings of atmospheric temperatures. Latest findings are set to trigger a paradigm shift in climate science”.
Researchers from Canada, USA, Mexico and Britain this week announce a startling discovery that destroys 20 years’ of thinking among government climatologists.
Climate scientists had long believed infrared thermometers measured thermal radiation from the atmosphere and assumed it was ‘proof’ of the greenhouse gas effect (GHE). Their assumption was that infrared thermometers (IRT’s) were measuring ‘back radiated’ heat from greenhouse gases (including water vapor and carbon dioxide). But damning new evidence proves IRT’s do no such thing.
Now a world-leading manufacturer of these high-tech instruments, Mikron Instrument Company Inc., has confirmed that IRT’s are deliberately set to AVOID registering any feedback from greenhouse gases. Thus climate scientists were measuring everything but the energy emitted by carbon dioxide and water vapor.
One of the researchers involved, Alan Siddons, has analyzed the GHE for over six years. He has long condemned the practice of using IRT’s as a means of substantiating the increasingly discredited hypothesis.”