I recently wrote three posts (first, second, and third), regarding climate sensitivity. I wanted to compare my results to another dataset. Continued digging has led me to the CERES monthly global albedo dataset from the Terra satellite. It’s an outstanding set, in that it contains downwelling solar (shortwave) radiation (DSR), upwelling solar radiation (USR), and most importantly for my purposes, upwelling longwave radiation (ULR). Upwelling solar radiation (USR) is the solar energy that is reflected by the earth rather than entering the climate system. It is in 1°x1° gridded format, so that each month’s data has almost 200,000 individual measurements, or over 64,000 measurements for each of those three separate phenomena. Unfortunately, it’s only just under five years of data, but there is lots of it and it is internally consistent. As climate datasets go, it is remarkable.
Now, my initial interest in the CERES dataset is in the response of the longwave radiation to the surface heating. I wanted to see what happens to the longwave coming up from the earth when the incoming energy is changing.
To do this, rather than look at the raw data, I need to look at the month-to-month change in the data. This is called the “first difference” of the data. It is the monthly change in the item of interest, with the “change” indicated by the Greek letter delta ( ∆ ).
When I look at a new dataset like this one, I want to see the big picture first. I’m a graphic artist, and I grasp the data graphically. So my first step was to graph the change in upwelling longwave radiation (∆ULR) against the change in net solar radiation (∆NSR). The net solar radiation (NSR) is downwelling solar minus upwelling solar (DSR – USR). It is the amount of solar energy that is actually entering the climate system.
Figure 1 shows the changes in longwave that accompany changes in net solar radiation.
Figure 1. Scatterplot of the change in upwelling longwave radiation (∆ ULR, vertical scale) with regards to the change in net solar radiation entering the system. Dotted line shows the linear trend. Colors indicate latitude, with red being the South Pole, yellow is the Equator, and blue is the North Pole. Data covers 90° N/S.
This illustrates why I use color in my graphs. I first did this scatterplot without the color, in black and white. I could see there was underlying structure, and I guessed it had to do with latitude, but I couldn’t tell if my guess were true. With the added color, it is easy to see that in the tropics the increase in upwelling longwave for a given change in solar energy is greater than at the poles. So my next move was to calculate the trend for each 1° band of latitude. Figure 2 shows that result, with colors indicating latitude to match with Figure 1.
Figure 2. Linear trend by latitude of the change in upwelling longwave with respect to a 1 W/m2 change in net solar radiation. “Net downwelling” is downwelling solar radiation DSR minus upwelling solar radiation USR. Colors are by latitude to match Figure 1. Values are area-adjusted, with the Equatorial values having an adjustment factor of 1.0.
Now, this is a very interesting result. Bear in mind that the sun is what is driving these changes. The way that I read this is that near the Equator, whenever the sun is stronger there is an increase in thunderstorms. The deep upwelling caused by the thunderstorms is moving huge amounts of energy through the core of the thunderstorms, slipping it past the majority of the CO2, to the upper atmosphere where it is much freer to radiate to space. This is one of the mechanisms that I discussed in my post “The Thermostat Hypothesis“. Note in Figure 2 that at the peak, which occurs in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) just north of the Equator, this upwelling radiation counteracts a full 60% of the incoming solar energy, and this is on average. This means that the peak response must be even larger.
Finally, I took a look at what I’d started out to investigate, which was the relationship between incoming energy and the surface temperature. I may be mistaken, but I think that this is the first observational analysis of the relationship between the actual top-of-atmosphere (TOA) imbalance (downwelling minus upwelling radiation, or DLR – USR -ULR) and the corresponding change in temperature.
As before, I have used a lagged calculation, to emulate the slow thermal response of the planet. This model has two variables, the climate sensitivity “lambda” and the time constant “tau”. The climate sensitivity is how much the temperature changes for a given change in TOA forcing. The time constant “tau” is a measure of how long it takes the system to adjust to a certain level.
Figure 3 shows the new results in graphic form:
Figure 3. Upper panel shows the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Southern Hemisphere (SH) temperatures, and the calculation of those temperatures using the top of atmosphere (TOA) imbalance (downwelling – upwelling). Bottom panel shows the residuals from that calculation for the two hemispheres.
In my previous analysis, I calculated that climate sensitivity and the time constant for the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere were slightly different. Here are my previous results:
SH NH lambda 0.05 0.10°C per W/m2 tau 2.4 1.9 months RMS residual error 0.17 0.26 °C
Using this entirely new dataset, and including the upwelling longwave to give the full TOA imbalance, I now get the following results:
SH NH lambda 0.05 0.13°C per W/m2 tau 2.5 2.2 months RMS residual error 0.18 0.17 °C
(Due to the short length of the data, there is no statistically significant trend in either the actual or calculated datasets.)
These are very encouraging results, because they are very close to my prior calculations, despite using an entirely different albedo dataset. This indicates that we are looking at a real phenomenon, rather than the first result being specific to a certain dataset.
Now, is it possible that there is a second much longer time constant at work in the system? In theory, yes, but a couple of things militate against it. First, I have found no way to add a longer time constant to make it a “two-box” model without the sensitivity being only about a tenth of that shown above, and believe me, I’ve tried a host of possible ways. If someone can do it, more power to you, please show me how.
Second, I looked at what is happening when we remove the monthly average values (climatology) from both the TOA variations and the temperatures. Once I remove the monthly average values from both datasets, there is no relationship between the two remaining datasets, lagged or not.
However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, meaning that there may well be a second, longer time constant with a larger sensitivity going on in the system. However, before you claim that such a constant exists, please do the work to come up with a way to calculate such a constant (and associated sensitivity), and show us the actual results. It’s easy to say “There must be a longer time delay”, but I haven’t found any way to include one that works mathematically. I can put in a longer time constant, but it ends up with a sensitivity for the second time lag of only about a tenth of what I calculate for a single-box model … which doesn’t help.
All the best, and if you disagree with something I’ve written, please QUOTE MY WORDS that you disagree with. That way we can avoid misunderstandings.
w.
DATA: The Excel worksheet containing the hemispheric monthly averages and my calculations is here. The 1° x 1° gridded data is here as an R “save” file. WARNING: 70 Mbyte file!. The R data is contained in four 180 row x 360 column by 58 layer arrays. They start at 89.5N and -179.5W, with the first month being January 2001. There is an array for the albedo, for the upwelling and downwelling solar, and for the upwelling longwave. In addition, there are four corresponding 180 row x 360 column by 57 layer arrays, which contain the first differences of the actual data.
It was my understanding that NASA doesn’t have direct measure of LW greater than 15.4 micrometers at TOA. How do they calculate the total LW?
“but a couple of things mitigate against it.”
That would be MILITATE, of course,
but ‘argue’ would be less emphatic
because it’s much less metaphoric.
Anyway, great post.
We all know that if your evidence-based calculations
showed any agreement whatsoever with AGW
then we’d have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
When you’ve amassed enough for the paper,
please keep us apprised of your encounters
with the Warmista Pal-Review Barrier.
Hi Willis,
Outstanding work. Your analysis confirms what I’ve suspected but lacked the data/time to work out myself. Albedo increase is overwhelmingly a cooling parameter, as the tropics have a much larger response than the poles, both because of cloud-formation feedback and (I suspect) because of the Jacobean — there’s simply more area at the poles, so even if clouds warm the poles as much as the cool the tropics per square meter, there are a lot more tropical square meters.
Regarding timescales — a five year baseline simply cannot resolve 20 year or longer trends. So rather than saying there are no longer timescales, say that it is impossible to resolve longer timescale behavior than the ones you have observed. Indeed, with timescales that are only half of the length of the data run (for THIS study) the timescales themselves are deeply suspect, although that doesn’t mean I think they are wrong, only that secular variations in random data would be EXPECTED to generate fourier components at the period, half the period, a quarter of the period, etc, as artifacts. You’d have to carefully exclude the possibility of artifacts — not easily done.
It would also be very interesting to turn this into even a crude model of local radiation-equilibrated surface temperature.
rgb
Well written and understandable…. at least I “think” so… Thank you for your efforts!
Sorry to put my question on a thread which is not specifically relevant, but here goes. When we look at the way no-feedback climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is estimated, it is assumed that the lapse rate does not change. Are there, in fact, two different types of forcing, one where the lapse rate changes, and one where it does not change? And if so, what is the difference between the two types of forcing?
In Figure 3, both y-axes are labeled “Residual error”. I think the top one should be “Temperature”.
[You are correct, thanks, fixed. -w.]
Just a nit, but in the 4th paragraph you have “upwelling longwave radiation (∆USR) ” but I believe it should be “…(∆ULR)”.
[Thanks, fixed. My theory is, “Perfect is good enough”, so efforts like yours are always appreciated. -w.]
That Willis, doing real science without the expenditure of wads of taxpayer money, he has some nerve. Hey , we can always hope he will start a trend.
Jim Cripwell says:
June 12, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Jim, I’m not clear about what your question is. The lapse rate changes constantly, both spatially and temporally. So … I don’t even know how to start answering.
w.
The quarter-wave lag for the annual cycle would be 3 months, not greatly different from what you are seeing. Could it be that you are actually looking at local forcing from the annual cycle? Or else, where does the forcing that is producing your observations come from?
If the forcing is from the annual cycle, your sensitivity calculation would still be appropriate as it doesn’t seem to depend on the nature of the forcing.
Willis, keep up the good work. You have the field all to yourself.
Your efforts are appreciated in ferreting out this information. This really makes one sit up and take notice.
Robert Brown says:
June 12, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Indeed. That’s why I have area-adjusted the data in Figure 2. It clearly shows that the strong cooling response in the tropics is much larger than the corresponding response at the poles.
rgb
Robert, thanks as always for your comments. Regarding longer trends, you are correct that at this timescale you can’t resolve e.g. 20 year trends. The difficulty I see is that if there are longer trends, then they need to be much smaller than the trend that I find. This is because if there is a longer timescale involved, and if the sensitivity is of the same order of magnitude as what I find above, the longer trend distorts the shorter results introducing large errors.
At least that’s what I’ve found, but perhaps I’m not looking at it correctly.
All the best,
w.
Thanks for the R file.
Re: Figure 2 Values are area-adjusted, with the Equatorial values having an adjustment factor of 1.0.
I’ve got to ask a dumb question about that adjustment. Y-axis is labeled W/m^2. Is it really?
If there is an area adjustment then are you multiplying the calculated slope by cos(latitude)? Then the Y value is not W/m^2 but proportional to W/sq-degree. W/sq-degree doesn’t add clarity.
The X-axis is linear. True, there are fewer sq-meters at Latitude 80 than at Latitude 8, but the graph Y-axis is labled as alrealy normalized by area.
Better would be to keep Y axis in W/m^2 (unadjusted) since it is a gold standard unit. And plot the X-axis as linear cos(latitude) and re-lable with a variable latitude width.
Interesting observation if you are correct… Willis, you do ask the most intriguing questions that one might have expected to have already been asked by those who are paid to do these things.
Willis-I think there is a serious problem with looking at the seasonal cycle to judge the sensitivity and response time. I am surprised nobody in earlier threads raised this objection (rather, they made arm waving arguments about needing “extra response times”) The problem is:
The system in question (or rather, pair of systems, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere) is reacting to a change in TOA radiation, yes, but the change is not uniform over the globe, and moreover the systems in question are capable of transfering heat horizontally from one to the other, thus it is inappropriate to guage their reaction to just the change in heat flux with space, since-especially considering one Hemisphere will be cool when the other is warm-there is heat exchange not just at the TOA boundary, but across the equatorial boundary.
Jim Cripwell says: “it is assumed that the lapse rate does not change. Are there, in fact, two different types of forcing, one where the lapse rate changes, and one where it does not change? And if so, what is the difference between the two types of forcing?”
Typically in models, the lapse rate is consider to have a “feedback” effect. Typically in models this feedback is negative, albeit incredibly weak, and tied closely with how they handle the water vapor feedback (which, in models, is uniformly positive).
Current atmospheric temperature data indicate that either the model’s lapse rate effect is wrong, or the temperature records are wrong (or some combination of the two). This is the infamous “hot spot” issue.
If you were to heat an infinitesimally thin surface that was over a perfect insulator, the blackbody radiation would be emitted in a cosine distribution with respect to the normal to the surface. However, when you heat a layer that has a finite thickness, the long wave radiation emitted from below the surface can’t escape as readily in directions away from the normal, it has to go through a thicker and thicker layer of material as the angle from the normal gets larger and larger. This results in a cosine-squared distribution of emission – it’s highly peaked toward the normal and falls off rapidly.
It may be that your satellite data wasn’t properly adjusted for the surface radiation angular distribution.
Willis, you write “Jim, I’m not clear about what your question is” Thank you for reading my comment. I am not quite sure either. When the proponents of CAGW estimate the no-feedback climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2, there is an assumption that the lapse rate does not change as a result of the change in forcing caused by a doubling of CO2. This assumption does not seem to have ever been justified. I suspect that if it were to be assumed that the lapse rate does change, then the estimated no-feedback climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 would be considerably less that 1.2 C.
You are looking at total climate sensitivity; no-feedback plus feedbacks. I have seen people claim that all forcings have the same climate sensitivity. Thus if there were a change of solar forcing of 3.7 Wm-2, this would also have a climate sensitivity of 1.2 C. But if a change of solar forcing does, in fact, change the lapse rate, then the climate sensitivity would be less than 1.2 C; as your figures clearly indicate.
So, to repeat my question, are there two types of forcing; those that cause the lapse rate to change, and those that do not?
What happened to the longwave direct from the Sun to Earth? Thermal Infrared, Heat, that which we actually feel as heat direct from the Sun because it is the heat from the Sun which actually heats up land and oceans and us?
Shortwave, mainly visible, and the two shortwaves either side of uv and near infrared, are not thermal energies (they work on electronic transition scale and not on molecular/atomic vibrational which is what it takes to heat stuff up); at best as heat producers will be the light’s part in photosynthesis, which the plants use to convert to chemical energy in the creation of sugars, not until the plant burns the sugars will heat be given off and this is released in transpiration.
I have to correct a detail about my 1:17pm post, without changing the essence.
The Y-axis in Figure 2 is labeled W/m2 ∆ULR per W/m2 ∆DSR.
But you have stated there is an adjustment that I guess is
Y-axis as plotted = (calculated slope by 1 deg Latitude bin) * cos(mid point of latitude in bin)
The cos only affects the numerator (W/m2 ∆ULR) without affecting the denominator. The Y value at Latitude 45 degrees is only 71% of what it should be. The better way of showing the data is not to adjuste the Y value, but to plot the X-axis latitude in proporation to the area of the earth at that latitude X = (cos(latitude of bin)). Then the integral of Y over X will still give an unbiased estimator of the overal W/m2 ∆ULR per W/m2 ∆DSR across all latitudes. Each Y will remain the true slope of the latitude binned data without adjustment.
Jim,
It doesn’t really matter. You can define your “no-feedback” reference climate sensitivity however you like, as long as you are internally consistent in what you then call a “feedback.”
The “1 C per doubling of CO2” is a reference system that warms uniformly in the troposphere, and then holds everything fixed except for the increased emission to space that results from the warming.
You could, of course, create an alternative reference system in which the lapse rate changes in addition to the enhanced blackbody radiation to space. Define this as your “no feedback” value. This would diminish the no-feedback sensitivity, but then enhance the strength of “feedbacks,” since you are no longer including a negative feedback as being a feedback. The net result is of course independent of how one formulates the problem, but in fact there are arguments in the literature for choosing different reference systems (as it is can lead to different ways of conceptualizing the problem).
Willis, this is a plot of the Ocean fraction by latitude
http://www.bridge-9.org.uk/temp/Ocean%20Fraction%20(Web).png
It is available as a xlsx file
http://www.bridge-9.org.uk/temp/Ocean%20Fraction.xlsx
The O/L ratio is almost certainly the thing causing you asymmetry in Figure 2.
Jim Cripwell says:
June 12, 2012 at 1:42 pm
No clue. James Hansen, in “Efficacy of Climate Forcings“, claims that a W/m2 of CO2 has more effect than a W/m2 of solar, but it’s models all the way down, and I can’t see the logic. However, the two types of forcing (longwave and shortwave) do have one very large difference. Shortwave (solar) radiation penetrates a couple hundred metres into the ocean, while longwave (“greenhouse”) radiation only penetrates the very skin.
What effect that has on the lapse rate, however, I wouldn’t begin to guess.
w.
Nothing to do with the science involved here but, as with many graphical representations of mathematical functions, I’d just like to say that figure 1 is visually stunning.
[Thanks. In addition to it being my first light so to speak on CERES, my first graph, its lovely quality is why it is Figure 1. I assure you it is ugly in black and white. In addition to my other foibles, I’m a graphic artist and a cartoonist, I liked the look. -w.]
“Mark from Los Alamos says:
If you were to heat an infinitesimally thin surface that was over a perfect insulator, the blackbody radiation would be emitted in a cosine distribution with respect to the normal to the surface. However, when you heat a layer that has a finite thickness, the long wave radiation emitted from below the surface can’t escape as readily in directions away from the normal, it has to go through a thicker and thicker layer of material as the angle from the normal gets larger and larger. ”
Just how does a molecule know when the photon it is going to emit is going to pass through vacuum or into other molecules?
You think that before there is an electron transition the electron gets out a rule and measures the matter density all around it?
The radiation emitted from a layer of water molecules five molecules below the surface of the ocean and 5×10^10000 is identical if they are at the same temperature.
Now what happens is they play swopsie, energy is emitted and absorbed
W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W
Now if there is a temperature differential then there will be an overall directional flux, as the warm water has a slightly different Stefan-Boltzman distribution; there is slightly more blueish and slightly less redish photons coming from the warmer end of the chain.
Molecules don’t know anything, they don’t know the direction of an energy step, when in tumbling motion they are equally likely to radiate in any dimension.
timetochooseagain says:
June 12, 2012 at 1:24 pm
As far as I know, although there is an exchange of atmosphere from one hemisphere to the other, it is both slow and not all that large. I’m happy to be corrected, but when you look at say the lag between the CO2 concentration in the NH and SH, it has a time scale of years. I find it difficult to believe that the effect would make much difference to what I am considering here.
In particular, it seems that the TOA imbalance for each hemisphere is sufficient to explain almost all of the variation in hemispheric temperatures … which leaves very little for a purported transfer to explain.
All the best,
w.
Mark from Los Alamos says:
June 12, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Mark, you raise an interesting question. The longwave radiation doesn’t come from deep in the ocean, or even shallow in the ocean. It is absorbed in the first tens of microns in the ocean, and thus emitted from the same ultra-thin layer. I doubt that makes any significant difference to the distribution.
w.
Stephen Rasey says:
June 12, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Interesting thought, Stephen. I puzzled long and hard about how to properly adjust it. I’ll take a look at doing it your way and see how that comes out.
w.
Anthony these posts from Willis are excellent. Already comments from Robert Brown and Chris Colose. You should keep them as a sticky at the top of the home page for a few days
Myrrh says:
June 12, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Good question, Myrrh. The thermal infrared from the sun is classed as “shortwave” along with the visible and UV, and are all included in the downwelling shortwave radiation (DSR). Here’s why:
As you can see, the wavelengths of all of the solar radiation are an order of magnitude or more shorter than those of the upwelling longwave …
w.
Willis, we who have too much else to keep up with salute you. Congratulations on, and thanks for, another outstanding piece of work. If there are any senior academics reading these comments, please note that this man is long overdue for an honorary doctorate, at least.
And greetings to SteveC, above!
“Now, is it possible that there is a second much longer time constant at work in the system? In theory, yes, but a couple of things mitigate against it. First, I have found no way to add a longer time constant to make it a “two-box” model without the sensitivity being only about a tenth of that shown above, and believe me, I’ve tried a host of possible ways. If someone can do it, more power to you, please show me how.”
Of course there is also the possibility that sensitivity is a tenth of that shown.
DaveE.
Chris Colose writes “This would diminish the no-feedback sensitivity, but then enhance the strength of “feedbacks,” since you are no longer including a negative feedback as being a feedback.”
Fair enough. However, I have another difficulty after what you have written. Taking the change in lapse rate to be a feedback, as you suggest, this would be a negative feedback. I have only seen references to positive feedbacks in the literature supporting CAGW. Has anyone estimated the size of the negative feedback that would result from the change in lapse rate which would occur if surface temperatures rose by 1.2C? If so, do you by any chance know of a reference as to what the value is?
But Willis, these are different critters, these are shortwave not longwave, these are not thermal infrared which is longwave which is heat which is the thermal energy of the Sun on the move to us which the invisible thermal infrared we feel as heat, that’s why it’s called thermal. We cannot feel shortwave.
Visible light penetrates that deep in the oceans because water is transparent to visible, it does not absorb visible, it transmits it through. Again there, in the ocean, visible light will be used for what visible light is good for, seeing things and in photosynthesis; I’ve read somewhere that 90% of our oxygen is produced by photosynthesis in the ocean.
NASA used to teach that it was longwave thermal infrared which we feel as heat, but now it says this doesn’t reach the surface and, as the AGW energy budget has it, its properties, of being able to heat stuff up, has been given to shortwave which can’t do this.
NASA used to teach: “NASA: “Far infrared waves are thermal. In other words, we experience this type of infrared radiation every day in the form of heat! The heat that we feel from sunlight, a fire, a radiator or a warm sidewalk is infrared.
Shorter, near infrared waves are not hot at all – in fact you cannot even feel them. These shorter wavelengths are the ones used by your TV’s remote control.”
[This is where I discovered what NASA had changed here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711886 It’s now fully pushing this idea that the real direct heat from the Sun doesn’t reach us and shortwaves direct from the Sun heat land and ocean, which is, quite frankly, absurd.]
This is the real missing heat from the KT97 and kin energy budget… 🙂
p.s. are they really measuring upwelling thermal infrared only?
[That’s the only significant upwelling longwave there is, by orders of magnitude. -w]
To explain the fact that tropics have greatest response to change in incoming radiation, you don’t have to speculate about thunderstorms. Just the basic physical knowledge that thermal emission grows with fourth power of temperature is enough. Tropics, the place with highest temperature, has logically greatest response as well.
The thing I don’t understand is, after you identified that tropics are the most sensitive spot, you cut the data right through it and divide them between the two hemispheres. That just makes no sense to me.
Consider the north pole. In summer I would expect the ULR to react quickly to changes in DSR. In winter however I would not expect this for fairly obvious reasons. This factor alone means that averaged over the entire year the ULR at the poles will show up as being far less reactive to changes in DSR than at the equator.
What applies at the poles applies to a lesser extent near the poles. The angle of incidence of incoming radiation varies during the year. This can be conceptualised as changing the size of the window through which DSR must pass to get to various latitudes. You say your calculations are area adjusted. I presume this is an adjustment for the area at each latitude. But the calculations also need to be adjusted with respect to the area of this solar window, an adjustment that changes throughout the year.
Have you contemplated such an adjustment? How much of the difference in reactivity between poles and the equator is accounted for by this mechanism.
Excellent follow on from your earlier articles , Willis. This is building into something more solid.
One word of warning with fitting “linear trends”. Any and all methods of linear regression that you are going to be based totally on an assumption that there is minimal error in the independent variable (x axis to the layman). This is a pre-requisite condition of mathematical derivation of the method and the result is not accurate ( or even mathematically valid ) if that condition is not fulfilled.
This is certainly not the case with this sort of data. In short this will give you invalid results. Read on.
It will not be totally off the wall but it will be wrong, and the slope will always be too small. How much it is wrong depends on the size and relative magnitude of the x and y errors (uncertainties).
Sadly there is no short answer to how to get the “right” answer. It requires detailed knowledge of the nature of the experimental uncertainties that we almost never have access to.
I have looked at this in detail in relation to some of Spencer’s work on TOA and spent a lot of time searching and digging expecting there to be some less used, fancy matrix method, but sadly there’s no magic fix. The fix is to arrange to have control over the independent variable, not to have two independent ones!
What I can suggest is that you do the same thing but invert the axes. This gives you the same problem the other way around. However, this at least gives you two bounding extremes within which the “correct” slope should lie.
Some people then start bisecting the angle or other tricks but none of it is legit without knowledge of the errors. (If both errors are equal you can either bisect or use a method that minimises the mean square error at 45 degrees, instead of the vertical (y) error ). However, if you do the normal method both ways, having a limited range is a good start. How wide it is depends upon the proportion of the errors. With the 1 degree slots it may not be too bad.
This will certainly be better than just knowing one boundary value and believing it is the correct slope.
I would not expect this to change the overall shape of figure two enormously but I think it should affect the heights and hence you bottom line params a bit.
It should be fairly easy to try in Excel , you just need to flip the x and y ranges. I’d suggest you duplicate the chart and just invert the referenced column ranges , that way you can see both at the same time side by side.
BTW I discussed this with Roy Spencer at one stage and he recognised it was an issue but had not found a good solution either (though I got the impression he’d not spent as much time as I had trying to find one).
Hopefully this will enable you to minimise the effects of this problem get an idea of range within which the slope should lie.
Nice work.
Thank you Willis for the great post.
Once upon a time the experts told us we did not know enough, we could not do it , it would not work.
We were so ignorant we went ahead and did it, and it worked.
Jim- something like Fig. 7 in http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/bjs0801.pdf may be a good start, though there are many papers on this.
This is because if there is a longer timescale involved, and if the sensitivity is of the same order of magnitude as what I find above, the longer trend distorts the shorter results introducing large errors.
Unless the short-time scale “trend” you are seeing is short time scale noise on a longer term trend. It is the difficulty of resolving this (without long term data) that I’m commenting on. As always, you should glance at the Koutsoyiannis hydrology paper where he shows the same data at three different timescales to appreciate the point (which he makes far more elegantly in a single figure than I can convey in words).
I agree, however, that since you have two sources of data, one with a longer series, and both give the same numbers it increases the believability of those numbers. But not by much given that both still have a very short timescale overall.
As a single example that could explain the data but confound the assertion “there are no longer time timescales”, consider what might be the case if Svensmark is approximately correct — or oppositely correct, so the albedo response is in opposition to insolation changes (but still of solar origin, somehow). 5 years is basically all in solar cycle 24, which is itself pretty anomalous, and might not reflect at all how solar state, insolation, and albedo were correlated in the “grand solar maximum” decades of the 20th century (allowing for the possibility that Lief’s claim that they weren’t, actually grand maxima to be true).
Our difficulty is twofold. First, our older (pre-satellite) data mostly sucks, on nearly everything. We have maybe 50 years of halfway decent measurements, 30 years of “good” measurements (in varying degree, depending on what is being measured), and I’m not sure we have achieved “great” measurements of climatological parameters and quantities yet. Second, we just don’t have a good, really believable model of global climate that works over as little as a single century, let alone the last hundred thousand, 1 million, 25 million, billion years. So yeah, I’m going to remain skeptical on the question of longer timescales because of the possibility of significant external (non-feedback) drivers or coupling to very long timescale drivers (oceanic heat reservoirs turning over that HAPPEN to have coincided with a pattern).
As you say, lack of evidence isn’t convincing evidence of lack, especially when there isn’t a good reason to think that you COULD resolve certain classes of multivariate dynamics with long time scales with such a short interval of data.
Again, I’m not really arguing. I find your analysis persuasive (brilliant, even:-) but not conclusive regarding the specific question of timescales.
I would recommend that you look at Spencer’s analysis of susceptibilities (he reviewed it in his book on the global warming blunder) designed to address the issue of climate sensitivity. Correlating the fluctuations (as you are doing, if I understand you) is good, but there is information to be extracted not from the lagged correlations but from the slopes themselves.
rgb
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Where’s the 5 to 50 µm Solar Willis?
DaveE
Ignore my previous statement. This mechanism is taken account of in the data itself. So at the north pole in winter I presume the data shows DSR fixed at zero. Hence there IS no change in DSR for ULR to react to. Motto to self. read things twice before leaping to keyboard.
As Homer Simpson would say – “doh”.
Also “nuts”. hmmmmm ………… donuts!
So it would seem that with this simple model, one can arrive at a close estimate of earth’s temps on a gridded basis, can we not? How would it compare to UAH, CRUTEM, GISS, etc. I think this may be the best way to get average global temps without the politics.
“””””…..Mark from Los Alamos says:
June 12, 2012 at 1:40 pm
If you were to heat an infinitesimally thin surface that was over a perfect insulator, the blackbody radiation would be emitted in a cosine distribution with respect to the normal to the surface.
Well there wouldn’t be any black body radiation, since an “infinitesimally thin surface” (your words) wouldn’t absorb any incident radiation so it couldn’t be a black body absorber; and hence in thermal equilibrium, it wouldn’t be a black body radiator either.
Your thick absorber however could be a black body (near) radiator. For example the oceans act as a near black body radiator; earth is actually the black planet; not the blue planet..
And any black body radiator is a Lambertian source. Anyone wh has such a thing can check it for themselves.
“If there are any senior academics reading these comments, please note that this man is long overdue for an honorary doctorate, at least.”
Why honorary? That’s for people who don’t know anything about the subject. I’d say Willis is already ahead of a large number of people with climate related PhDs. ( And I’m not joking or trying to flatter Willis ).
Mind you if someone offered me a PhD in climatology, I’d perforate it into conveniently sized squares.
“””””…..David A. Evans says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Where’s the 5 to 50 µm Solar Willis?
Dave…..”””””
Well Dave, 98% of the solar spectrum energy lise between 0.25 microns, and 4.0 microns, with only 1% residual at each end, so there is no more than 1% of solar energy beyond 4.0 microns, and most of that comes between 4.0 and 5.0 microns, so basically there isn’t much of your 5 to 50 micron solar energy.
“””””…..Gary Pearse says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:08 pm
So it would seem that with this simple model, one can arrive at a close estimate of earth’s temps on a gridded basis, can we not? How would it compare to UAH, CRUTEM, GISS, etc. I think this may be the best way to get average global temps without the politics…..”””””
So why don’t you figure it out and post it here since you seem to know how to do it. ?
Kasuha says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I think your maths is askew.
George E. Smith; says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm
“””””…..Gary Pearse says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:08 pm
“So why don’t you figure it out and post it here since you seem to know how to do it. ?”
George, Willis’s paragraph below is the centrepiece of this article. Did you miss it?:
“Finally, I took a look at what I’d started out to investigate, which was the relationship between incoming energy and the surface temperature. I may be mistaken, but I think that this is the first observational analysis of the relationship between the actual top-of-atmosphere (TOA) imbalance (downwelling minus upwelling radiation, or DLR – USR -ULR) and the corresponding change in temperature.”
When I went to the site http://www-cave.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/cave/dnldavg.cgi you have a link to at the top of your post, and I was scolded for using a free market system produced web browser Microsoft Internet Explore ) and it said I really should be using a Marxists / Leninist * open source browser. What’s up with that?
* I’m paraphrasing a little. I’m using my Windows Phone and it doesn’t support these open source browsers.
This was very distracting and is not helpful on the part of NASA. Shows their left leaning bias.
Jim Cripwell — I don’t know if it answers your question about lapse rate feedbacks, but Isaac Held’s blogpost #24, http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/03/01/25-relative-humidity-feedback/#more-4528 , titled “Relative Humidity Feedback” may be informative. It looks at some AR4 models in terms of fixed relative humidity vs. fixed specific humidity as the no feedbaback or reference condition before feedbacks.
George E. Smith; says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Well Dave, 98% of the solar spectrum energy lise between 0.25 microns, and 4.0 microns, with only 1% residual at each end, so there is no more than 1% of solar energy beyond 4.0 microns, and most of that comes between 4.0 and 5.0 microns, so basically there isn’t much of your 5 to 50 micron solar energy.
Gosh, only 1% directly heating the land and oceans and us? Because shortwave from the Sun doesn’t heat us.
It takes powerful heat energy to heat us, not lightweight light, so:
“NASA: “Far infrared waves are thermal. In other words, we experience this type of infrared radiation every day in the form of heat! The heat that we feel from sunlight, a fire, a radiator or a warm sidewalk is infrared.
Shorter, near infrared waves are not hot at all – in fact you cannot even feel them. These shorter wavelengths are the ones used by your TV’s remote control.”
So, shortwave can be chucked out of the equation? (Except as secondary source via photosynthesis and us eating the photosynthesisers and other eaters of the photosynthesisers).
Oh, rather that would be, how much of the upwelling thermal infrared is from the 1% direct beam heat energy, thermal infrared from the Sun, heating land and oceans and how much from the second step via photosynthesis?
garymount says: This was very distracting and is not helpful on the part of NASA. Shows their left leaning bias.
I’d be much less happy if they told my I had to spend loads of money on a platform that continually broken standards and screwed everyone around when a perfectly good (superior, more secure) product was available free of charge.
The free market of which you seem to be so keen would normally prefer a product with a better price/performance ratio.
Now you have let us all know you have a Wankdose Phone perhaps we can get back on topic.
Atonish me once, astonish me twice. Nice work Willis! Amazing that the 90 million a year poured into Oregon U cannot do something like this.
p.s. Willis, your thunderstorms cooling is then from the 1% direct beam thermal infrared as it’s the land heating which triggers it – the basic Water Cycle, which is missing from the KT97&kin, brings down temps 52°C from the 67°C the Earth would be without water.
For anyone using free Marxist / Lenninist software instead of paying out unnecessarily, I found I could use Willis’ xlsx file in open office with a couple of function replacements:
averageif() => sumif()/countif()
[2]!trendse() => slope()
all the slope() calls need an extra input, use the data from X13:X70
=SLOPE(Y13:Y70,X13:X70)*120*1.96
I can’t find any web reference to TRENDSE , so I think it may be Willis special that was defined in a separate file.
However, Willis , I don’t know if I am getting all that is expected.
I have four “charts”: two that would combine to make figure 3; one that seems to be your earlier Lissajous figures; and one that has labels like “∆SH TOA” that I do not recognise.
Is that all I’m supposed to get from that file?
Also, as a kind of parity check to make sure the above changes have not messed things up could you confirm the following cell results are correct:
AQ24=-77.6872125
Y4=7.66
Thanks.
Good work. I think this is another case where you might be better off with a 3-D graph foro figure 1: x coordinate being latitude, y coordinate being delta NetSun and z coordinate being delta ULR.
Myrrh, before you go on too much, please go and work out what happens to all the energy in the rest of the spectrum once it get past the ocean surface. Assuming it does not come out in Australia, there is the principal of conservation of energy that may give you a clue.
Please also bear in mind that while NASA has lots of really smart people , some of its sections have people that are seriously challenged with basic physics. No names, just saying.
(Due to the short length of the data, there is no statistically significant trend in either the actual or calculated datasets.)
The (time) length of the dataset doesn’t affect statistical significance, except to the extent it determines sample size. It’s always the case that more data (bigger sample) makes statistical significance more likely (assuming there is a real effect). Given the size of the sample here, if you don’t find a trend, then its because there isn’t one or it is very small (over the time period of the dataset).
<i.However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,
Surely, you do have evidence of absence. You have shown the longer term sensitivity can not be more than 10% of the shorter term sensitivity. Therefore, you have evidence of the absence of a greater sensitivity.
I see nothing Marxist at all about using a product freely produced by a group of individuals, not a government, that offer the product free of charge. I especially see nothing Marxist about the fact that this forces the producers of a product that there is a charge for to improve their product or lower their price.
I agree, however, that a US government website (NASA) should not restrict access on the basis of using one browser or another.
> It is in 1°x1° gridded format, so that each month’s data has almost
> 200,00 individual measurements
Is 200,00 a typo for 200,000?
[Thanks, yes it is, fixed. -w.]
“I agree, however, that a US government website (NASA) should not restrict access on the basis of using one browser or another.”
Does it? Where?
Willis, did you use some R code to make fig 1 & 2 ?
give,give 😉
Thank you Willis. I enjoy seeing true science in action. This along with the earlier topics and the comments is fascinating. True climate science is being performed voluntarily on sites like this and CA. Oh, how the internet has brought change we can believe in. You are certainly doing more than your fair share.
One Comment: BRILLIANT, EFFING BRILLIANT!
This pulls everything together. Too bad the data set isn’t longer.
Thanks Willis!
Jim Cripwell, No feedback climate sensitivity is just an approximate value for adding 3.7Wm-2 of insulation to the atmosphere. It depends on the average temperature of the surface and the TOA outgoing radiation. So any forcing that changes the average surface temperature or the outgoing radiation would change the estimate. There is no magic energy. In fact the estimate is pretty easy to do yourself.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-is-sensitivity-08-degrees.html
You may even be able to do a better job:
P. Solar says: “Does it? Where?”
The claim was made that the site in question complained about using EI. I don’t know if it is true. To be honest I doubt it as well. But if such I thing were going on, I’d be opposed to it. Wouldn’t you?
Well, anyway, the main point of my post was that if people want to offer something they have produced for no charge, there is nothing un-capitalist about it. You don’t agree with the assertion that free browsers are “Marxist”, do you?
Sorry Willis, I don’t get the need to do an area adjustment for Fig 2.
Well, anyway, the main point of my post was that if people want to offer something they have produced for no charge, there is nothing un-capitalist about it. You don’t agree with the assertion that free browsers are “Marxist”, do you?
Early open source proponents, such as Richard Stallman, had a clear and stated agenda of undermining software copyright, that is, software property rights. Although, I’d characterize them as anarcho-socialists, rather than Marxists. Otherwise, you are correct. There is nothing un-capitalist about free software competing with commercial software.
Hi Willis: Interesting stuff. I looked a bit into these simple energy balance models when I was looking at the evidence for Lockwood’s claim that the oceans equilibrate very rapidly in response to changes in forcing.
http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2011/03/does-solar-activity-have-to-keep-going.html
That evidence evaporated when a two heat sink model was used instead of a one heat sink model. Without a very long data set, all can be determined with surface temperature data is how long it takes for the upper ocean heat sink to equilibrate to the change in forcing, revealing next to nothing about how long it takes for heat to transfer in and out of deeper ocean depths.
That is the part of the problem I was looking at: what can we say about time to equilibration. Now you are looking at a different part of the problem: the implied climate sensitivity. But perhaps the one can inform the other.
For a given measured time constant tau, the reason the implied climate sensitivity goes up when the heat capacity of the system goes up (as it does dramatically when moving to a two heat-capacity model), is because some of the increase in the net incoming solar radiation would be getting stored in the secondary heat sink, in effect siphoning it off, decreasing the effective increase in forcing that is causing whatever warming is observed. Thus for a given amount of observed warming, the implied climate sensitivity is higher.
But notice how the impact of the second heat sink will vary depending on its history (its initial condition at the time the forcing is changed). If it is very cold compared its long run equilibrium temperature for the new level of forcing then it will suck a lot of heat from the upper ocean. If it is near equilibrium, it will draw very little.
You are only looking at five years of data, creeping down into the profound solar minimum of 2008 and creeping back out. Is the lower ocean heat sink anywhere near equilibrium for that level of forcing? Probably not by long shot. You are looking at a period of historic lows of solar activity after an 80 year “grand maximum” of solar activity (or 80 years of medium-high solar activity at the very least).
The expectation in this case is that the global lower ocean would be divesting stored heat across the entire 5 year period. That tells you on which side your calculations are going to be erring. In general, climate sensitivity is going to be overestimated. There is heat coming into the measured surface temperatures from below as well as above. Once that is accounted, the implied feedback multiplier is reduced.
Am I making sense? If so, ocean heat content data might help to resolve this issue, but that gets us into the thorny problem of whether we can trust that data after our best measure of ocean heat content–the stearic sea level–just had its last several hears of data switched from falling to rising by members of the same “consensus” that is responsible for the hockey stick and the severely manipulated HadCrut GISS etc.
In any case, the relation between tau and lambda might not be so simple after all, once the state of the deeper ocean heat sink is considered.
Kasuha says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I’m sorry, Kasuha, but T^4 is far, far from enough to explain the difference shown in Figure 2. Run the numbers yourself and you’ll see.
w.
Another fine post Willis. Where do you get the time and energy and the great insights? I guess talent will out, huh?
rgbatduke says:
June 12, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Thanks as always for your comments, Robert, always appreciated. The earlier dataset that I used covered 14 years. Surely this would be enough to reveal at least something of a longer-term time constant.
Again, I have to reiterate that in my earlier analysis, when I included a second longer time constant in the equation, I get a slightly shorter short time constant, along with a longer time constant on the order of two years for both hemispheres.
But the sensitivity associated with the longer-term time constant is only about a tenth of the sensitivity associated with the shorter time constant.
Go figure … that’s the problem I have. I have no issue with the possibility of a second much longer time constant. My problem is, whenever and however I include one, the sensitivity comes out much smaller (~ a tenth of the size) than when I use only one time constant.
All the best,
w.
P. Solar says:
June 12, 2012 at 6:12 pm
My bad, I forgot to take out my custom functions. Averageif is does what you say. Trendse, however, actually calculates the trend standard error after adjustment for autocorrelation.
w.
Philip Bradley says:
June 12, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Not really. What I’ve shown is that I personally haven’t been able to find a way to do it that leads to a combination of large sensitivity and longer time constant … but as events have shown me more than once, whether I can do it != whether it can be done.
w.
P. Solar says:
June 12, 2012 at 6:54 pm
OK, my full code is here, but you may regret asking. The code, far from being user-friendly, is overtly user aggressive. In addition, it is NOT designed to be run as a single block of code.
First you need to run the “load” statement to bring in the data, which is assumed to be in your workspace. Then you can start to play. Various chunks of code do various things. I have 8 GBytes of memory in my machine, these blocks of data are large.
Best of luck,
w.
[UPDATE: Well, we’re all out of luck … upon examination, I find that the computer crash I had earlier today wiped out my copy of the program. The R code I posted will open up the data, but that’s all, it’s a previously saved and very early version … GRRRR!. Sorry, P. Solar, and sorry for me too, now I have to start over. I have updated the data file (CERES_albedo_data.tab), and I’m working on rebuilding the program. -w.]
Sorry about my rant earlier about the non Microsoft browser message popping up at that NASA site. You can follow my rant at the following link where I post as Proton2:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Why-is-NASA-scolding-me-for-using-Microsoft/
The solution NASA should have used, in the words of Charles on the MSDN forum is:
“@Proton2: Well, given the error message, the problem has to do more with their browser detection strategy than it does their scientists or some anarchistic philo$ophy.
Send the site admins a note informing them that the way in which they are determining browser version is too limiting. Best to test for modern browser capabilities, not parse user agent strings. Further, tests for browser version are better served with the greater than approach versus the equality one.
This is what the spirits tell me.
C
“
Ed_B says:
June 12, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Good question, Ed_B. It depends on what you are looking for. If you are just looking for the raw slope, you don’t area adjust. If you want the results to be proportional to total watts affected by a given slope, you do. I’ll likely re-do it so it shows total watts (same shape, just different units).
w.
Leonard Lane says:
June 12, 2012 at 10:44 pm
I pound nails for a living, and I do science on my breaks and in the evening and the night, I’m a night owl. During the day, I let the ideas roll around in my head while I’m building, I don’t really work on them, just sort of play with them and let them knock up against each other.
w.
Carpentry is a noble trade.
P. Solar, after my crash mentioned above, here’s the reconstructed code for Figure 1. You’ll need to reload the data, it now contains the net downwelling solar radiation (nsrarray) along with the first difference of that array (nsrdiff). Given those, the code for Figure 1 is:
# ====================================================Figure 1 par(mgp=c(2.2,1,0)) # set the location of the labels color.palette = colorRampPalette(c("blue", "yellow", "red")) # make color palette mycolors=color.palette(180) # break the palette into 180 sections to match latitudes colorlist=array(rep(row(ulrdiff[,,1]),58),c(180,360,58)) # get the latitudes in the form 1:180 plot(ulrdiff~nsrdiff,pch=".",cex=.3,col=mycolors[colorlist]) # plot the resultNote that this program needs to plot some 3,693,600 data points, so it takes a few minutes to produce the graph.
w.
Willis, you may find Roy Spencer’s simple model interesting (in fact it’s not “his” model as he points out) , I mean his work on such a model. It’s done in Excel , so you’ll love it 😉
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/
Depth of ocean involved is a key factor.
Willis:
perhaps you could post the function definition to keep things in sync.
BTW, ignore the warning about slope fitting at your peril. On data with a wide spread like the tropical parts in yellow , it will be quite significant. This is not a knit-picking purist detail. I would not be surprised to see factor of two difference between the two estimates depending upon which way round you plot it.
Clearly the choice of axis can not affect the physics, so you have to look at the two extremes and see what that suggests about where the correct slope may lie.
I find the human eye can quite often see that either OLS fit is not “right” .
I once sat through a 2h meeting of all the PhD’s of an entire maths department in a UK university (about 15 egg heads) while they discussed why just such a scatter plot was producing an obviously wrong slope. Not one of them was aware of this issue !
The next day, I quietly approached the PhD student who was in the final stages of preparing her thesis and handed her two pages of maths showing the derivation of OLS and how it depended upon having negligible errors in x and thus why her OLS slope was so obviously wrong.
She was rather taken aback then said it was too late to redo all here work since she was close to submitting her thesis.
She added a paragraph of hand waving excuses and the need for more study, avoided mentioning the true reason and got herself a PhD in mathematics.
The incident taught me a lot about academia and the value of published science.
Much of Dessler’s criticism of Spencer’s recent papers comes from _exactly_ this error. His climate sensitivity is too high because he does OLS fits to scatter plots. These guys command budgets of millions of dollars but can’t even fit a straight line correctly. Sad but true.
I’m sure you are made of better stuff.
And here is my reconstructed code for Figure 2:
# ======================================================== Figure 2 radians=function(x) x/360*(2*pi) # function to convert degrees to radians lat1=seq(89.5,-89.5,-1) # latitude by row, cosinelat=cos(radians(lat1)) # cosine for weighting answervec=vector(length=180) # vector to hold answers for (i in 1:180) { answervec[i]=summary(lm(as.vector(ulrdiff[i,,])~as.vector(nsrdiff[i,,])))$coefficients[2,1] } # take slope of linear model plot(0~0,xlim=c(-90,90),xaxp=c(-90,90,18),ylim=c(0,1),col="white",xlab="Latitude",ylab="Slope") #setup plot lines(answervec~lat1,type="p",pch=20,col=mycolors) # unweighted lines(answervec*cosinelat~lat1,type="p",pch=21,bg=mycolors,cex=1.5) # weightedw.
Jim Cripwell asked:
“Are there, in fact, two different types of forcing, one where the lapse rate changes, and one where it does not change? And if so, what is the difference between the two types of forcing?”
I think that internal redistribution of energy does change the lapse rate whereas changes to the total system energy content do not change the lapse rate.The atmospheric volume changes in both cases.
Thus as regards CO2 I think that the tendency to absorb more energy is offset by the air circulation response for no gain in system energy content but instead a small change in the air circulation and the lapse rate with it.
As regards a change in solar input at TOA or an increase in atmospheric mass then the total system energy content does change and the lapse rate does not change.
P. Solar says:
June 13, 2012 at 1:22 am
Here you go …
Function averageif(r, s, t) averageif = Application.SumIf(r, s, t) / Application.CountIf(r, s) End Function Function trendse(r) As Double Dim x, c, tn As Double tn = truen(r) c = r.Cells.Count trendse = Application.Index(Application.LinEst(r, , , True), 2, 1) * Sqr(c - 1) / Sqr(tn - 1) End Function Function truen(r) 'calculates the "true" N adjusted for autocorrelation Dim cc, ac As Double cc = r.Cells.Count ac = acdet(r) truen = cc * (1 - ac - 0.68 / Sqr(cc)) / (1 + ac + 0.68 / Sqr(cc)) End Function Function acdet(r) 'detrends and takes the lag 1 autocorrelation Dim cc, m, b, n, d, sumxy, olddata, sumsqr As Double cc = r.Cells.Count m = Application.Index(Application.LinEst(r, , , True), 1, 1) b = Application.Index(Application.LinEst(r, , , True), 1, 2) For n = 1 To cc olddata = d d = r.Cells(n) - n * m - b sumsqr = sumsqr + d ^ 2 If n > 1 Then sumxy = sumxy + d * olddata End If Next acdet = sumxy / sumsqr End FunctionThe trendse function uses a number of samples “N” which is adjusted for autocorrelation using the method of Nychka.
w.
“the longer term sensitivity can not be more than 10% of the shorter term sensitivity”
On a per annum basis maybe.
But how about a large, slow secondary climate response as against a small fast initial climate response.
You could have a multicentennial process going on in the background at the rate of only one tenth of the short term process each year but building up to a much larger effect over the full multicentennial term.
That would produce the observed upward temperature stepping at approximately 60 year intervals too wouldn’t it ?
P. Solar says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:57 pm
I don’t follow this at all. Let me take figure 1 as an example. The dotted line shows the slope of ∆ longwave (vertical axis) with respect to ∆ net shortwave (horizontal axis).
I agree that there are errors in both the x and y axes … but I don’t see why that’s an issue. As long as the error is roughly symmetrical, with nearly four million data points in each of the two datasets that error comes out in the wash.
This is quite bizarre. Invert the axes to get boundaries on a slope? One is the slope of X with respect to Y, and the other (reversed axes) is the slope of Y with respect to X. They are very different things, and the slope of one is simply 1/slope(the other). In no way are those two the “bounding extremes” for one of the slopes.
Near as I can tell, you have just made this up, but in any case it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.
w.
Dear Myrrh,
Please put your hand in front of a working blue laser for a few minutes, and then tell me that shortwave cannot heat. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
P. Solar says:
June 12, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Myrrh, before you go on too much, please go and work out what happens to all the energy in the rest of the spectrum once it get past the ocean surface. Assuming it does not come out in Australia, there is the principal of conservation of energy that may give you a clue.
I’m sorry, but I’ve never understood this repost. What has that got to do with the actual direct heat from the Sun missing from the equation? When you’re standing in the Sun and feeling the heat it is longwave, thermal infrared, you’re feeling. It may well be true that this is only 1% of the Light and Heat energy we get from the Sun at the surface, I find that difficult to think correct, but the 99% Light energy doesn’t directly heat the surface, which is the claim here, “shortwave in longwave out”. So that immediately strikes as BS conservation of energy or not.
Unlike the majority rest of you here I’m not a scientist and I don’t have the time to familiarise myself with the language of maths which you’re all so comfortable with, so I read these posts with interest for the concepts through simple arithmetic. That, I find illogical in these scenarios. Shortwave Light will not give Willis the heat necessary for his thunder clouds, for example, so what figures was he relating to this? But in his post here, is the upwelling thermal being measured a true relation to the shortwave coming in, because, as any thermal camera shows, the secondary heating from photosynthesis, the production of heat energy in life systems, is very small in its outgoing as actual thermal longwave because life actually uses it for growth and survival rather than expending it by radiating it away – (a camera will pick up thermal heat energy radiated out from that being generated by say a man in a forest, it’s not very much and the trees around even less).
So, the majority then of the upwelling must be from that directly generated by the thermal infrared beam heating land and oceans, that’s a lot of energy from 1% (if that one percent is correct). I’m just interested is all here..
Please also bear in mind that while NASA has lots of really smart people , some of its sections have people that are seriously challenged with basic physics. No names, just saying.
It’s not the seriously challenged with basic physics that bother me, it’s those who aren’t but know exactly what they’re doing in manipulating data.
Before NASA and all the other once great science bodies began spouting AGW memes and producing doctored figures and explanations, and teaching these at universities, it was standard well-known physics that it was the direct heat from the Sun which heated up the Earth. Standard physics divided this into categories, Heat which is thermal infrared and did the heating of Earth and Light which is mainly visible which didn’t. The first was, and still is, fully part of the division category thermodynamics and the second went into optics and biology. And biology is not just photosynthesis, which will contribute to the thermal upwelling indirectly, from Life, but such things as uv in the production of vitamin D, for example which will also indirectly contribute to life’s release of heat in living. But, these arguments, and Willis’s considerable and interesting work, don’t take any of this into consideration, so it ultimately is without conceptual meaning for me as there are all these logical disjuncts with the figures. If no one else is bothered by this, fine, I’m just pointing it out because it bothers me.
But also, this classic division into Heat and Light has been lost, which means that older work which would refer to heat and mean thermal infrared and not shortwave can’t now be properly grasped. Also, radiant referred to heat not light in thermodynamics. This AGW produced meme of “shortwave in longwave out” has confused the history of these sciences, besides being physically incorrect because shortwave direct from the Sun does not physically heat the Earth, it’s incapable of physically moving atoms and molecules into vibrational states which is what it takes to heat something up. It cannot heat up the land and oceans to give the great energy of the weather system, for example. It’s only the direct heat from the Sun which can do this and it’s only this which can account for the majority of the thermal upwelling being measured.
The long wave IR radiated from earth is not all necessarily reflected from the surface. Some will be from the reduction of energy states caused by the interaction with the GHG’s. Multiple interactions will lower the energy enough to get into the LW bracket.
P. Solar
I have to agree entirely with w. here. Even your point about minimal error in the independant seems a little forced – as error should, if unbiased, reduces “correlation” not increase it. For a start, in statistics you start with the assumption that any relationship is casual not causal. But I think that in a system (such as this) where we know the input and likely output, without having to state the bleeding obvious, it is fair to assume that with some degree you’re assuming the independant is controlling the output. The argument being made here is by how much and can we quantify it? Autocorrelation within each set makes it difficult to leave it just at that, but cross correlation between the pair should show that they come into phase at a given lag – but this is blindingly obvious from the plots. So we can continue with our assumption of causality – it looks good.
Finally, I’ve always been advised that when defining relationships between variables, and defining causal relationships In particular, that you take the function of XvsY and YvsX in order to remove the issue of drift (data non-stationary with repsect to one another). In short, you cannot play around with the notion of independant and dependant as if they’re an intrinsic property of the subjects you’re acquiring data on.
Willis,
Interesting data and analysis – good presentation – congratulations!
But this“The way that I read this is that near the Equator, whenever the sun is stronger there is an increase in thunderstorms. The deep upwelling caused by the thunderstorms is moving huge amounts of energy through the core of the thunderstorms, slipping it past the majority of the CO2, to the upper atmosphere where it is much freer to radiate to space. “
I’d interpret differently. Higher nett DSR is more likely to mean lower albedo than higher insolation (which doesn’t vary much). And that probably means less cloud, not thunderstorms.
And the related higher ULR could well be that with less clouds, more of the ULR (in frequency band) is able to come directly from the surface via the open atmospheric window. It’s coming from the warmest source.
Sorry last point should be:
Finally, I’ve always been advised that when defining relationships between variables, and defining causal relationships in particular, that you take the average function of XvsY and YvsX in order to remove the issue of drift (data non-stationary about each of the regression lines).
Sorry P. Solar and w.
I see your point now P.:
w. wrote:
“They are very different things, and the slope of one is simply 1/slope(the other)”
That’s not the case if your applying regression to scatter data:
s1 = cov(X,Y)/var(X)
s2 = cov(X,Y)/var(Y)
And unless you have a prefect fit:
s1 != s2
So P you’re right on your last point. Although it is a round-about way of saying it.
My thanks to Charlie and Chris. I am totally unconvinced. I have read all I can about the hypothetical ways that the proponents of CAGW have used to try and convert change of forcings into change of surface temperatures. So far as I can see, there is very little empirical data to support the idea that this process can be performed with any sort of reliability. I simply do not believe the numbers that are suppoosed to show that as we add more CO2 to the atmosphere, surface temperatures are going to rise catastrophically.
‘
What little empirical data we have, all tends to show that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes a negligible rise in temperature. This work by Willis is simply further confirmation that no-one needs to worry about rising temperatures as a result of the burning of fossil fuels.
Willis Eschenbach: “Near as I can tell, you have just made this up, but in any case it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.”
Google “total least squares.”
Nylo says:
June 13, 2012 at 2:27 am
Dear Myrrh,
Please put your hand in front of a working blue laser for a few minutes, and then tell me that shortwave cannot heat. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
==========
What’s ridiculous is the mindless unthinking regurgitation of AGWScience Fiction memes from their meme producing department. The Sun is not a laser, duh.
But maybe you can’t see it because you’ve been blinded by all that blue light in the sky?
Which, by the way, is visible light refracted/reflected by being bounced around by electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen – electronic transition level which is the electrons absorbing visible light.
Thank you Willis, absolutely elegant.
Willis, have you considered using something like DropBox to back up your files? It functions transparently as a normal folder on your machine, but will immediately back everything up to the cloud upon saving. It would avoid you having to go through this pain again.
[RESPONSE: I use Time Machine on my Mac … but it, like DropBox, can only back up what I’ve remembered to actually save. As is often the case, the problem is pilot error … -w.]
“but a couple of things mitigate against it.”
Typo. Make that “militate.”
[Thanks, fixed. -w.]
The graph is interesting – but why is the “change in net sun” greater for the north and south poles and there is relatively little change in the net solar energy received by equator?
One would expect that the equator which receives more than 6 times the radiation of the poles to have a larger absolute change in net solar radiation.
Myrrh,
What’s ridiculous is the mindless unthinking regurgitation of AGWScience Fiction memes from their meme producing department. The Sun is not a laser, duh.
You claim that shortwave light from the sun cannot heat. A blue laser’s light is solely shortwave light, and it heats pretty well. No matter how many baseless and ill-informed insults per second you can write, you cannot change facts. Any electromagnetic wave, of any wavelength (including visible light), can only pass by, be reflected or be absorbed by any substance it encounters, and if absorbed, it becomes heat. Now keep trolling.
Joe Born says:
June 13, 2012 at 4:25 am
No way, that’s a fool’s errand. Give a citation to your claim or go home, I’m not going to chase something only to have you say Sorry, that’s not what I was talking about.
w.
cd_uk says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:27 am
Huh? I just tried it on real data. In this case I’m using the Excel function LINEST to compute the slope of the linear trend. If I calculate
then I find, as I said above, that
So I fear I’m not clear on your claim.
w.
Nick Stokes says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:17 am
Many thanks, Nick, your contribution is always valuable.
Regarding the spike near the equator shown in Figure 2, you say
Actually, since I’ve posted the data and all, before speculating you could take a look at something like this:
Note that Figure 2 relates the month-to-month change in the variables, not the absolute values.
All the best,
w.
Willis Eschenbach: “No way, that’s a fool’s errand. Give a citation to your claim or go home, I’m not going to chase something only to have you say Sorry, that’s not what I was talking about.”
Well, I’m no stats expert, and I confess to being even shakier in that discipline than in others that arise at this site, but I believe I’ve had exactly the same experience as P. Solar: I’ve bounded the slope by first using ordinary-least-squares analysis of one variable against the other to arrive at one slope and then taking the reciprocal of what I got by the same approach with the variables reversed–and the two slopes thus obtained were significantly different in the problem (whose specifics I confess to being unable to bring to mind just now) I applied this to. So what P. Solar said rang true to me. And cd_uk gave what appears to be the explanation.
In any event, the Wikipedia entry for “ordinary least squares”, to which I had thought my suggestion above would directly lead you, deals with an approach different from thus bounding the best slope estimate, but it gives what to this layman is a helpful explanation of the problem P. Solar identified. I particularly commend its second diagram to your attention.
My high opinion of your research skills had led me to believe that locating the Wikipedia entry for that phrase would not overtax them. I’m grieved that you felt imposed upon as a result.
Willis, re your computer crashes and code loss, might I make a suggestion.
Try using a public code hosting service, that way your code is safe, you can
store multiple versions, and it’s easy to point people to your code, and just as
easy for them to utilise it, and even give back to you by fixing errors, or just
making it less “user aggressive”.
There are many such services, as long as your code is open source. For a nominal amount you can have a private and public repository. (It’s cheating a bit, but you can even archive your data)
I can recommend bitbucket for ease of use and flexibility, but github is the big one.
Here is a link to useful info if you do consider it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_software_hosting_facilities
I hope I’m not pointing out the bleeding obvious here 🙂
Joe Born says:
June 13, 2012 at 9:33 am
Joe, if you wanted to refer me to the Wikipedia least squares entry, you just had to say so. Your insults about my Google-fu are nasty and uncalled for. I’ve played that game before, someone says “Just Google X” with the sub-text of “you idiot”. Then when I do and I find something, they say “Sorry, that’s not at all what I was talking about”. So I’ve stopped playing that game, there’s no cheese at the end of the maze. If you have something you want me to look at, just tell me.
Moving on to your point, I looked at the Wikipedia article, I looked at the second diagram, and I found … well … nothing that clears up P. Solar’s point. Look, Joe, TRY P. SOLAR’S CLAIM OUT ON SOME ACTUAL DATA. Everyone always wants to get all theoretical. Give us an example with some real data of exactly what you (or P. Solar) are talking about. That’s what I did, and it confirmed what I said above. The slope of the linear regression of Y on X is simply the reciprocal of the slope of the linear regression of X on Y. It does not bound the error in the first linear regression. So I fear that behind your insults, I find nothing at all.
w.
Oscar Bajner says:
June 13, 2012 at 10:00 am
Oscar, my problem was simple. I got so engrossed in doing the work I forgot to save it … and there’s no code hosting service of any kind that can fix that. As we used to say, the problem is the nut that holds on the steering wheel …
w.
@ Willis Eschenbach June 12, 3:01 pm
re: Stephen Rasey June 12 2:09 pm (adjust the X-axis, not the Y data)
I blundered. You were using (i think) the cos(latitude) to adjust the Y axis of Figure 2.
My suggestion was to apply the cos(latitude) to the X-axis, but conceptually, you want to make the size of the bin the function of the cos(latitude). To do that, you plot your unadjusted Y-axis slopes by the sin(latitude) from -1 to +1 for latitudes 90 S to 90 N. When you integrate to get the width of each bin, the sin() integrates to cos().
Dolphinhead says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Anthony these posts from Willis are excellent. Already comments from Robert Brown and Chris Colose. You should keep them as a sticky at the top of the home page for a few days
_____________________________
MAy I suggest a file of Willis “thermostat” posts as you have the “climategate” files or as a a secondary file under references?
P. Solar says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Excellent follow on from your earlier articles , Willis. This is building into something more solid.
One word of warning with fitting “linear trends”. Any and all methods of linear regression that you are going to be based totally on an assumption that there is minimal error in the independent variable…..
_________________________________________
I am no mathematician but if I recall correctly from my first year calculus class, you can use a straight line to approximate a curve if the distance between the two points on the curve is short.
At this point we know we have a 30 year half cycle of the ~ 60 year ocean cycles and that these cycles effect the weather. Is a five year time period short enough to be considered a “straight line” as an approximation?
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:05 am
When you’re standing in the Sun and feeling the heat it is longwave, thermal infrared, you’re feeling.
Myrrh, I recently watched an episode of “The Universe” and a lady astrophysicist explained just what you said to the viewing public. So you’ve got at least one person on your side about what it is we feel as warmth from the sun.
“””””…..Gail Combs says:
June 13, 2012 at 11:25 am
…………………
I am no mathematician but if I recall correctly from my first year calculus class, you can use a straight line to approximate a curve if the distance between the two points on the curve is short…..”””””
Should have stayed awake Gail, or not passed notes around to the other “Girls”; you can’t approximate a curve with a straight line. As pointed out to me (personally) by a very nice and also very smart Canadian Nobel Physics Prize winner (one of the real, non-ersatz ones), any portion of a circle, no matter how small, has the same finite curvature; and NO straight line however short, has any curvature exceeding |+/- zero|.
We were chatting over a beer, not 20 feet from where I am sitting typing this; but he was quite sober.
“””””…..Nylo says:
June 13, 2012 at 6:49 am
Myrrh,
What’s ridiculous is the mindless unthinking regurgitation of AGWScience Fiction memes from their meme producing department. The Sun is not a laser, duh.
You claim that shortwave light from the sun cannot heat. A blue laser’s light is solely shortwave light, and it heats pretty well. No matter how many baseless and ill-informed insults per second you can write, you cannot change facts. Any electromagnetic wave, of any wavelength (including visible light), can only pass by, be reflected or be absorbed by any substance it encounters, and if absorbed, it becomes heat. Now keep trolling……”””””
A big waste of effort Nylo, Myrrh is the last living specimen of that species that believes we get “heat” (and even “light”) from the sun.
We don’t get either one of course; we make ALL of the heat right here on earth by wasting the sun’s electromagnetic radiation energy mostly in the ocean, instead of collecting it with PV solar cells, and turning it into electricity.
And the “light” of course, we make right in our eyeballs and brain, out of a small sliver of the EM radiation spectrum energy; we even give it a completely new set of units; Lumens and the like, as distinct from Watts and Joules. I’m not even sure we ever bothered to name the “light” equivalent of Joules.
Willis Eschenbach: “The slope of the linear regression of Y on X is simply the reciprocal of the slope of the linear regression of X on Y. It does not bound the error in the first linear regression. So I fear that behind your insults, I find nothing at all.”
Gee, you guys at this site constantly throw around statistics jargon I find hard to follow, so maybe I’m seeing something that’s not there. If so, I’m sorry I wasted your time.
But here’s what I thought I found in the pairs that follow: y = 0.36x + 4.0 and y = 1.5x – 0.5.
1.19421945 4.84266446
1.169281461 5.03766177
2.294703511 5.534849024
1.115321035 4.484476829
2.667609819 3.594026393
1.532614844 3.12160353
2.77529536 3.006381135
2.557049838 4.825775731
2.785710156 6.564167154
2.817737262 3.447464588
2.080464611 3.765876239
4.111601729 3.527566694
4.057893282 5.655552923
2.698540812 6.494516826
3.101522315 4.98722445
3.831531789 4.679177019
3.421675179 5.200428647
3.610477106 6.589079457
4.243898375 7.308141653
4.708463447 5.707350745
5.978687507 5.422677067
5.963371443 7.151352875
5.928046423 7.329831452
4.850960707 5.624223684
5.354640614 7.919432681
5.104124164 6.793141389
7.137547588 4.651621071
7.225532347 5.826935514
7.369925687 4.974631855
7.195873601 7.716728484
I take it you instead get identical estimates independently of whether you regress the right against the left or the left against the right?
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 4:57 am
Nylo says:
June 13, 2012 at 2:27 am
Dear Myrrh,
Please put your hand in front of a working blue laser for a few minutes, and then tell me that shortwave cannot heat. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
==========
What’s ridiculous is the mindless unthinking regurgitation of AGWScience Fiction memes from their meme producing department. The Sun is not a laser, duh.
But maybe you can’t see it because you’ve been blinded by all that blue light in the sky?
Which, by the way, is visible light refracted/reflected by being bounced around by electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen – electronic transition level which is the electrons absorbing visible light.
What is truly ridiculous Myrrh is your continuing to regurgitate the same rubbish when the correct physics has been explained to you many times! By the way your ‘explanation’ of Rayleigh scattering is also wrong, there is no ‘electronic transition’ involved and no ‘electrons absorbing visible light’.
Willis:
Your graph show peak thermal emission from earth at 10 microns. In most graphs this is shown at ca 20 microns. Where did you get this graph?
Light beyond the visible to 2 microns is known as the near IR and there is a lot energy in these photons.
In a real dark room, turn on electric stove, put your hand above element and watch it. Note the amount of heat being emitted before you can just barely see very faint red glow.
Greenhouse gases don’t absorb in the near IR.
When you have a one-box model applied to a cyclical forcing, then the maximum lag you can have is tau. You can test this with the formula: lag = (period * atan(2pi*tau/period))/2pi. So with your averaged tau = 2.35 months, I thought I would test it against the lags for ENSO and the 11 year solar TSI cycle. With a two-box model, I’d expect the lags to be longer than predicted with a one-box model.
When I do a lag analysis of HadCrut3 vs NINO3.4 (both detrended), I get a statistical dead-heat between a 2 or 3 month lag. Given a reasonable error range, this is *not inconsistent* with your tau where I’d expect the lag to be a touch under 2.35 months.
As for the 11 year solar cycle, I actually get the temperature forcing TSI. This just tells me it’s hard to calculate the lag of a relatively low amplitude signal in a noisy environment, but again it is *not inconsistent* with your tau. Grant and Rahmstorf used a 1 month lag (again *not inconsistent*):
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/
Then we could look at the 100,000 glacial cycle. Any detectable lag would refute your one-box model. According to Roe in his “In defence of Milankovitch” paper, the best fit is with a zero lag (again *not inconsistent*):
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
If someone were a “my glass is half-full” type of guy, they’d probably say your one-box model *is consistent* with the observational cyclical evidence.
Willis: The slope of the linear regression of Y on X is simply the reciprocal of the slope of the linear regression of X on Y.
that’s seldom true (that is, the probability of it being true is 0.) If you perform the linear regression of y on x and call the slope estimate b(Y|X), and do the regression of x on y and call the slope estimate b(X|Y), then b(Y|X) =/= 1/b(X|Y).
You can look this up on Wikipedia under the topic “Deming Regression”. I have found Wikipedia entries on statistical topics to be quite good. You can also look it up on Mathematica.
The inverse function of the estimated linear regression does not equal the inverse of the regression estimate taken in the other order (X vs Y VS Y vs X) is the short form, because (to put it briefly) the inverse function is nonlinear.
P. Solar: Any and all methods of linear regression that you are going to be based totally on an assumption that there is minimal error in the independent variable…..
NOT ALL. There are “errors in variables” regression, Deming regression as I mentioned, canonical variables and principal components.
Willis, thank you for the code segments. My skill in R is poor, and I am building some libraries of code to learn from.
“””””…..Harold Pierce Jr says:
June 13, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Willis:
Your graph show peak thermal emission from earth at 10 microns. In most graphs this is shown at ca 20 microns. Where did you get this graph?
Light beyond the visible to 2 microns is known as the near IR and there is a lot energy in these photons.
In a real dark room, turn on electric stove, put your hand above element and watch it. Note the amount of heat being emitted before you can just barely see very faint red glow.
Greenhouse gases don’t absorb in the near IR……”””””
Check again. The spectral peak for Black Body radiation for a source at 288K, the purported average earth surface temperature (about 59 deg F) is around 10.1 microns, when the spectral radiant emittance is plotted against WAVELENGTH, in Watts per m^2 per micron.
Some people plot BB radiation graphs on a wave number (frequency) basis, so they plot Watts per m^2 per wave number against wave number. They do that deliberately, because it puts the spectral peak nearer the CO2 absorption frequency, corresponding to around 15 microns.
But you see that per wavenumber plots exagerate low frequency effects, while per wavelength plots exagerate high frequency effects. Frequency is not one of the SI units, whereas Metres is, so I don’t pay any attention to wave number graphs; frequency is all in our minds; it isn’t real like length. Yes I know E=h (nu).
And you are wrong on GHGs absorbing in the near IR. H2O absorbs prodigiously in the near IR from around 0.7 microns in fact. It has absorption bands around 0.7, 0.77, 0.85,0.9, 1.13,1.3-1.5, 1.75-1.95, all in your “near IR” range. CO2 also has absorption bands around 1.4 microns, and 1.9, then H2O is strongly absorptive, from 2.25 to 3.2 microns, and has its highest absorption at 3.0 microns.
So BOTH H2O and CO2 contribute to global cooling, by absorbing significant portions of the incoming solar radiant energy from the sun, so it never reaches the deep oceans to get stored.
More H2O or more CO2 equals less solar energy capture by planet earth, so a cooler earth.
Data on atmospheric absorption for over 100,000 spectral lines has been compiled by the AFCRL, and can be obtained from NOAA.
Willis, as always very interesting to follow your analysis. I also like your hypothesis about the tropical thermostat. However, I think your one compartment model is incomplete without a coupling to the deeper ocean. From your comments it appears to me that you have just tried to add in parallel another capacitor with a different time constant and a different sensitivity. this is not realistic since the incoming radiation is all absorbed in the surface layer of the ocean. Instead a second capacitor corresponding to the deeper ocean should be added with a heat transfer rate from the first proportional to the temperature difference. Evidence for the presence of two time constants has for example been found in the autocorrelation of temperatures (Stephen Schwartz homepage, Nicola Scafetta J. Geophys. Res. 113, D15104 (2008)). These data can be reproduced very well with such a two-compartment model.
For a physicist it is natural to think of the analogous electrical circuit, a first capacitor with capacitance C1 and Resistance R1 coupled through a resistance R2 to a capacitance C2. the forcing is then a current I to the first capacitor. In equilibrium for constant I the voltage V on both capacitors (analogue of deltaT) is V=IR1, so the analogue of the sensitivity lambda is the resistance R1. However, for a rapidly oscillating current (rapid relative to the time constant R2C2) the voltage on the second capacitor remains nearly constant and the system responds as a single capacitor with resistance equal to a parallel coupling of R1 and R2, i.e., a smaller resistance (or sensitivity).
I am not quite sure how you did the latest analysis with the CERES data. Did you now use the TOA imbalance as the forcing instead of only the short wave part? If so this is inconsistent with the earlier analysis based on only short wave data. The long wave radiation should be the lambda term in the equation – or part of it. In fact, from the CERES data it should be possible to derive the relative magnitude of the energy fluxes to space (LW) and the heat transfer to deeper layers in the two-compartment model.
Phil. says:
June 13, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 4:57 am
Nylo says:
June 13, 2012 at 2:27 am
Dear Myrrh,
Please put your hand in front of a working blue laser for a few minutes, and then tell me that shortwave cannot heat. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
==========
What’s ridiculous is the mindless unthinking regurgitation of AGWScience Fiction memes from their meme producing department. The Sun is not a laser, duh.
But maybe you can’t see it because you’ve been blinded by all that blue light in the sky?
Which, by the way, is visible light refracted/reflected by being bounced around by electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen – electronic transition level which is the electrons absorbing visible light.
What is truly ridiculous Myrrh is your continuing to regurgitate the same rubbish when the correct physics has been explained to you many times! By the way your ‘explanation’ of Rayleigh scattering is also wrong, there is no ‘electronic transition’ involved and no ‘electrons absorbing visible light’.
It’s the mechanism behind Raleigh scattering, well after his time, his calculations hold good; same size dependence.
Look up electronic transition in wiki page I’ve given before on translucency, read it. Scattering is from the the electron of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen absorbing visible light and being taken to higher energy state, which they naturally want to get out of to get back to ground state and in doing so, dropping back to ground state, they emit a photon of light, of the same energy level they absorbed it. These are called elastic because there is no change in the photon/wave length/particle of light, as Raleigh found, (compare Raman scattering).
http://www.physics.isu.edu/weather/kmdbbd/152ems.pdf
“Why Atoms Produce Light
• As light travels through any dense medium it is scattered
• Scattering occurs as the electrons in atoms absorb light, jumping to a higher energy
level, and emit light when they fall back to a lower energy level
• The less dense the medium the more the light is scattered in all directions”
http://www.education.com/science-fair/article/demonstrate-scattering-light/
“How Does Scattering Work?
Scattering is different from refraction. Refracted light is deflected in only one direction. Scattering means the light is deflected in all directions. Scattering happens when light energy is absorbed by a particle or a molecule and causes the electrons to be more energized. When the electrons release this extra energy it is in the form of light energy. The released light energy is scattered. Selective scattering occurs when certain particles are more effective at scattering a particular wavelength of light. If particles are small, short-wavelength light is scattered more than long-wavelength light.
What Does This Have to Do with Demonstrating the Scattering of Light?
Some particles and molecules found in the atmosphere have the ability to scatter sunlight. Air molecules, like oxygen and nitrogen, for example, are small in size and thus more effective at scattering shorter wavelengths of light than are large molecules. The shortest wavelengths of visible light are the colors blue and violet. The scattering of sunlight by air molecules is responsible for producing blue skies. The diagram shows the scattering of blue light in all directions by oxygen molecules.”
So, how much is this heating the atmosphere with all that absorption going on..??
mkelly says:
June 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:05 am
When you’re standing in the Sun and feeling the heat it is longwave, thermal infrared, you’re feeling.
Myrrh, I recently watched an episode of “The Universe” and a lady astrophysicist explained just what you said to the viewing public. So you’ve got at least one person on your side about what it is we feel as warmth from the sun.
=====
Thanks.. 🙂 As NASA used to teach. It’s still standard physics in the real world where such knowledge is kept going – our applied scientists in thermodynamics have to understand it, but, the education of the masses has been deliberately dumbed down to sell AGW. The way they have done this with light and heat is a study in itself, but it begins by stripping electromagnetic waves of their properties and so the processes these particular properties can or cannot effect and then claiming all these create heat when absorbed. Although of course George doesn’t explain the mechanism of how we create heat out of visible light, or how visible light from the Sun heats water.. They never do.
If one actually does know the difference between heat and light, the difference between thermo and photo, one can pick up on the memes produced to create this fictional fisics, and, what is avoided in the telling of their fisics. They are indoctrinated with the meme that “absorption means heat is created”. They use this absorption=heat a lot such as in the ocean “absorbing” light and so heating it, blue light travelling further means the oceans are being heated deeper down”.. So to keep this meme going they avoid putting Raleigh scattering with the later understanding of the mechanism – so effectively denying that the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen absorb visible light.. 🙂 They pick and mix from real world physics. It’s an oddly fascinating world, Lewis Carroll would have had a field day here.
I wrote something a couple of days ago to Gail in another discussion which didn’t appear and after around 12 hours I gave up waiting for it and posted a link to it in Test which I had fortuitously made because it’s a long post, it’s on the background of the “well-mixed” meme we had been discussing and refers back to that discussion in part – if you’re interested the test piece, with typos and missing some edits I did, is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/test-2/#comment-1007003 answering Gail’s post here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/02/what-can-we-learn-from-the-mauna-loa-co2-curve-2/#comment-1006248 Oops, reminds me, I haven’t replied to Ferdinand yet..
Back to this, I’ve been trying to find out how much heat from the Sun we get on Earth, I’ve found this figure 1.4kW/msquared
Willis Eschenbach
We’re talking cross pruposes here.
The linest is not fitting a regression line unless the input arrays have more than one data pair. Your finding the experimental derivative of each point. That is not the same as finding a trend (you need more than one point: at least three covering the spread)!
You say:
“In this case I’m using the Excel function LINEST to compute the slope of the linear trend. If I calculate”
This will only statisfy your assumtion s(y,x) = 1/s(x,y) if your using a perfect trend or single pairs (single point).
This is VERY, VERY bad statistics.
Try just dividing y/x for each data pair and you’ll get the same result as linest.
If this is what you’re doing why on Earth are you doing it? You’d be much better doing smooth.
p.s. Phil – http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~team2004/StephanSteinmann/trash/PC-Praktikum/Raman.pdf
More on the subject, and this:
“As Figure 2 shows, the absorption of a photon from the light source corresponds to a transition to a “virtual state”, as it is often called. [9] The “virtual state” has not to be an allowed energy state according to the time-independent Schrödinger equation. By relaxing from the virtual state, the molecule sends out a photon. In elastic (= Rayleigh) scattering, this photon has the same energy than the incoming one. In Raman scattering in contrary, the photon has an energy which is different by the amount of the energy between two vibrational levels of the molecule.”
Willis
I’ve had a look and can see why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Are you finding the “experimental derivative” for each observation? And then producing your latitude profiles based on an average of these for each latitude bin?
I hope you don’t think I’m being busy here, but it seems you have done some really good work here but are falling at the last hurdle. Can I suggest that you plot all the data pairs along your latitude profile (as two different series) so that we can see the data clouds themselves for each varaible. It might be an idea to make a number of fits to these perhaps using a b-spline/polynomial. Once you’re happy with the fit, detrend the data (residual = observed – predicted), and then do a simple single plot between both detrended series. This will give you a cross-plot of residuals that you will then be able to parameterise irrespective of latitude. You can then add back in the trend to get the proper change in “forcings” with latitude. But DO NOT quote certainties or RMS as you’vre removed some of the uncertainty during detrending. The effective result should be similar but would be the result of a more statitsicially valid approach. Anyways, best of luck.
It’s models all the way down…. Lol….
Gail Combs says: June 13, 2012 at 11:25 am
I am no mathematician but if I recall correctly from my first year calculus class, you can use a straight line to approximate a curve if the distance between the two points on the curve is short.
— — —
You are correct Gail. Circles are mathematical fictions. I have studied a lot of Calculus, but have taken a 6 month break before resuming my studies again on my way to my goal of being a mathematician and am currently studying The Finite Element Method (FEM) for numerical computer calculations. Computers don’t do the continuum very well, what with their finite limitations. I have learned in my FEM studies that all continuum objects, whether they be circles or other curves are essentially approximated with straight lines, also known as lines without curves, also known as linear lines. 🙂
Now, George E. Smith says you can’t approximate a curve with a straight line. However, in the real world that is our only option. For example, what is the circumference of a 1 inch circle? The answer has always got to be approximated, because there is no known last digit for the value of Pi.
Another one of my goals is to be able to create my own climate models. I want to investigate the climate models that the AGW proponents are producing, and to be better at it than Andrew Weaver.
AJ says: “Then we could look at the 100,000 glacial cycle. Any detectable lag would refute your one-box model. According to Roe in his “In defence of Milankovitch” paper, the best fit is with a zero lag (again *not inconsistent*):”
Obviously you don’t understand the equations, because Roe’s work implies that, at least for Milankovitch forcing, the necessary tau is enormous. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be the case that the forcing is about proportional to the derivative of ice volume.
Remember, the model is:
tau times dT/dt + T = lambda F(t)
For very large tau:
tau times dT/dt ~ lambda F(t)
Which is what Roe found.
That being said, there is no way the response time to summer insolation near the Arctic circle is the same as that for a uniform forcing across the entire Earth.
“Myrrh says:
June 14, 2012 at 3:38 am
mkelly says:
June 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:05 am ”
1. Heat is a process. Heat is not a wavelength.
2. Any wavelength of EM radiation (ultraviolet/visible light/infrared) that is absorbed increases the energy of the absorbing object.
3. The object radiates energy according the Wein/Planck law based on its characteristic temperature and spectral emissivity.
4. If the net incoming radiation (assuming zero conductance/convection/evaporation) exceeds the net outgoing (Wein/Planck) radiation the object gains energy (it heats up).
5. Short wavelength radiation has more energy than long wavelength radiation (each photon delivers more energy). A single light photon has more (or much more) than 10 times the energy of a deep infrared photon. There are a lot more upwelling radiation photons than downwelling.
6. A common example of a “hot” object is a piece of steel that is glowing cherry red. The steel is emitting hundreds or thousands of times more infrared photons than visible photons. A light bulb (3000 degrees Kelvin) only emits about 10% of its energy as visible light.
7. At normal earth temperatures (below 800 degrees Kelvin) there is only infrared (and longer) radiation
After all that I researched the difference between infrared and visible light (to find the source of the confusion). The human body (or a sack of water) is opaque to infrared and relatively transparent to visible light. All the infrared is absorbed at the outer layer of skin. Most of the light is absorbed by your blood. Further – far infrared (thermal radiation) directly causes your skin nerves to fire – causing the sensation of heat. A pit viper detects thermal radiation with skin lined pits. Light, near infrared, and microwaves don’t trigger the nerves.
I used to live near Kincheloe Air Force when they did a 10X radar power upgrade. One of the techs was using the radar microwave radiation to keep warm and didn’t understand the effect of the upgrade – and didn’t feel the problem coming. So much for the “only thermal radiation heats” theory.
Poriwoggu says:
June 14, 2012 at 8:28 am
“Myrrh says:
June 14, 2012 at 3:38 am
mkelly says:
June 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Myrrh says:
June 13, 2012 at 3:05 am ”
1. Heat is a process. Heat is not a wavelength.
2. Any wavelength of EM radiation (ultraviolet/visible light/infrared) that is absorbed increases the energy of the absorbing object.
3. The object radiates energy according the Wein/Planck law based on its characteristic temperature and spectral emissivity.
4. If the net incoming radiation (assuming zero conductance/convection/evaporation) exceeds the net outgoing (Wein/Planck) radiation the object gains energy (it heats up).
5. Short wavelength radiation has more energy than long wavelength radiation (each photon delivers more energy). A single light photon has more (or much more) than 10 times the energy of a deep infrared photon. There are a lot more upwelling radiation photons than downwelling.
6. A common example of a “hot” object is a piece of steel that is glowing cherry red. The steel is emitting hundreds or thousands of times more infrared photons than visible photons. A light bulb (3000 degrees Kelvin) only emits about 10% of its energy as visible light.
7. At normal earth temperatures (below 800 degrees Kelvin) there is only infrared (and longer) radiation
After all that I researched the difference between infrared and visible light (to find the source of the confusion). The human body (or a sack of water) is opaque to infrared and relatively transparent to visible light. All the infrared is absorbed at the outer layer of skin. Most of the light is absorbed by your blood. Further – far infrared (thermal radiation) directly causes your skin nerves to fire – causing the sensation of heat. A pit viper detects thermal radiation with skin lined pits. Light, near infrared, and microwaves don’t trigger the nerves.
I used to live near Kincheloe Air Force when they did a 10X radar power upgrade. One of the techs was using the radar microwave radiation to keep warm and didn’t understand the effect of the upgrade – and didn’t feel the problem coming. So much for the “only thermal radiation heats” theory.
====
I had begun to suspect… sooo, you really don’t cast shadows..? How long have you been here? Can we have our real text books back please?
Andrew says:
June 14, 2012 at 5:56 am
Perhaps you are right, but I will stand by my remarks. In a one-box model, the larger the tau, the lower the rate of exponential decay, and the longer the lag. Vice versaly, for a really low tau, your exponential decay is very rapid and there is next to no delay.
Maybe your tau is the inverse of mine?
cd_uk: s1 = cov(X,Y)/var(X)
s2 = cov(X,Y)/var(Y)
That is correct. s1 and s2 are not each others’ inverses.
Joe Born provides some data and the results of fitting them: But here’s what I thought I found in the pairs that follow: y = 0.36x + 4.0 and y = 1.5x – 0.5.
In his examples, first the left column is Y and the right Column is X, then the roles are reversed. Clearly, 0.36 =/= 1/1.5. This is an example of the problem that Deming addressed when he developed “Deming Regression”.
Anyone in doubt on this point can rework Joe Born’s example, but any regression example will do.
“The inverse of the least-squares estimated function is not the least-squares estimate of the inverted function.”
Andrew,
My model is described here:
http://www.math.montana.edu/frankw/ccp/cases/newton/overview.htm
Specifically under “Symbolic Solutions of Some Differential Equations”:
“where tan(phase shift) = -2pi*freq/k”
First I let tau=1/k, period = 1/freq, and phase shift = -2pi*lag/period giving:
tan(2pi*lag/period) = 2pi*tau/period
tau = period*tan(2pi*lag/period)/2pi
or
lag = period*atan(2pi*tau/period)/2pi
My model ignores lambda as I don’t need it to calculate the rate of exponential decay. All I need is the period of the cyclical forcing and the observed lag in the response. Given Willis’s average tau=2.35, I can calculate an expected lag in the annual cycle of 1.7 months. This seems a little short to me. Maybe I’ll do a lag analysis using the same dataset as Willis. The different models might result in an apples to oranges comparison, whereas I assumed exponential decay is exponential decay.
Myrrh says:
June 14, 2012 at 3:38 am
I’ve been trying to find out how much heat from the Sun we get on Earth, I’ve found this figure 1.4kW/msquared
Most of that is visible light…
Poriwoggu says:
June 14, 2012 at 8:28 am
I used to live near Kincheloe Air Force when they did a 10X radar power upgrade. One of the techs was using the radar microwave radiation to keep warm and didn’t understand the effect of the upgrade – and didn’t feel the problem coming. So much for the “only thermal radiation heats” theory.
I still live near what was Kincheloe AFB. But to the point, microwaves cause water molecules to move producing friction which is the heat you get when warming a cup of soup in the radar range. The army has a new crowd dispersal gun using microwaves that cause you feel like your burning so you run away. Microwaves cannot heat the metal in your car, the container you micowave in (or they’d melt), etc.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 14, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Myrrh says:
June 14, 2012 at 3:38 am
I’ve been trying to find out how much heat from the Sun we get on Earth, I’ve found this figure 1.4kW/msquared
Most of that is visible light…
=========
I found it on a thermodynamics page, it said it was the radiated heat from the Sun to Earth.
Leif – all the heat from the Sun is thermal infrared, that is the Sun’s thermal energy on the move to us, radiated out from the Sun to us, it is invisible. I simply don’t see how logically only 1% of the energy from the Sun to Earth is thermal infrared, a simple incandescent bulb gives off around 5% visible to 95% heat, and heat radiated is thermal infrared, even if I didn’t have to do a double take when I first understood what the claim was – that shortwave heats land and oceans – it just doesn’t seem sensible.
And quite honestly, I think when PhD’s who pride themselves on their great learning and experience tell me that the heat I feel from an incandescent bulb is the visible light because the meme is “shortwave in longwave out” and tell me that carbon dioxide is an ideal gas which diffuses rapidly into the atmosphere to mix thoroughly, then, I require something better than “Most of that is visible light…”, when from our previous discussions I have no reason to think that you know what you’re talking about here either.
“mkelly says:
June 14, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Poriwoggu says:”
Well, microwave and radio wave radiation can’t penetrate a metal object or a metal mesh smaller than the wavelength.
The Arecibo Radio Observatory originally used fine chicken wire as its antenna, so the grass would grow and the hillside wouldn’t erode. They upgraded to perforated panels for better performance (the holes are probably 1/2 inch).
To absorb these wavelengths efficiently the antenna has to be a conductor that has an effective length that is a multiple of the wavelength (1/2 wavelength and 1/4 wavelength count).
Further discussion would get into Maxwell’s equations, tensor calculus, and antenna theory (and possibly a discussion of wave guides, strip lines and microstrip lines).
The sun does emit Wein-Planck radiation in the microwave and radio frequencies but it is such a small percentage of the radiation that it gets ignored.
Well now, I had a thought about this after posting to Leif and and spending some more time looking at what the thermodynamic world was saying – I think this figure is allthermal infrared, is all the direct heat from the Sun.
Because, a) I’d noticed before that older generation scientists assumed that was what Trenberth was saying, not that “shortwave in longwave out” AGW meme, and thinking that they’d be shocked if they realised what was actually being said in that now ubiquitous 97KT and kin cartoon energy budget (one has to go to the written spiel to find that the claim is shortwave (Light) heats the Earth, and not the standard classic physics that it’s thermal infrared, Heat, that heats the Earth and
b) this figure with little variation is that used in thermodynamics when calculating how heat from Sun will affect building materials and such.
I think that this is yet another example of the AGWScience Fiction tweaking with properties and processes from real physics to give the impression that the claims in that cartoon scenario are real, and not the junk science it is.
Like the sleight of hand of taking out the Water Cycle completely to create the meme that there’s this thing called the “Greenhouse Effect”; that “greenhouse gases aka carbon dioxide raise the temperature of the Earth by 33°C to bring it from -18°C to 15°C, by the magic trick of taking out the middle processes which is that without water the temperature of the Earth would be 67°C, that is, there is no Greenhouse Effect direct from -18°C to 15°C, only the claim that there is, because the main greenhouse gas water vapour cools the Earth by 52°C, think deserts. How many are going to notice?
The category and therefore science discipline split into Thermodynamics, which means the power of heat, (the power to do work) and Optics, is well established in real world physics – but thermodynamics is by far the bigger and better established and most used in applied science. I’ve often seen the figure 1.67kW/msquared for total, so maybe the difference is what would fall into the category Light, mainly visible.
Clearly there’s something amiss with that figure claimed for “shortwave in longwave out”, no applied scientist in productive work in the field of Thermodynamics would ever think that the direct Heat from the Sun didn’t reach Earth, and would be a total nincompoop and not in the business at all if he thought that Light from the Sun was capable of doing the physical work of direct heat from Sun, which is thermal infrared – the third way that heat is transfered; by conduction, convection and by radiation.
Real science, knows the difference between Heat and Light, it’s standard real world physics. It’s only the strange critter called “climate science” which didn’t exist as a discipline until the selling of the AGW meme that teaches light and not heat has the power to do work.
Problem solved, Willis. Just another example of the fake fisics specially created to confuse the masses – but this has the effect of changing basic science education for the oiks which is much more insiduous and more difficult to show to be fake fisics than the breaking of the Hockey Stick or showing up all the temperature adjustments of records and UHI effects, which are easier for the non-scientist to grasp and see as a con.
AJ says: “In a one-box model, the larger the tau, the lower the rate of exponential decay, and the longer the lag.”
When describing the relationship between the variable (Climate) and the forcing (insolation) a lack of lag between those two would indicate relatively short tau. Except that is not what Roe found. Roe found that the relationship without lag was with the derivative of the climate. This requires a very large tau. Why? because the forcing (times lambda) is the sum of the derivative of the climate variable times tau and the climate variable itself. A very large tau means that the contribution of the undifferentiated term is relatively small, so there should then be a direct relationship between the forcing and the derivative of the climate variable. Which is, again, what Roe found.
The model I’m discussing is essentially functionally equivalent to Newton’s law of cooling, in fact it’s essentially equivalent to an Linear Time Invariant system of first order. You are calculating the expected lag between the forcing as a single wave and the response. That works for the seasonal cycle, I guess, where there is a single sine wave and the response is itself a single sine wave (more or less). But it doesn’t work for Milankovitch. In Roe’s figure one, you can see the climate variable of interest, ice volume, the forcing thought to be causing it. No simple lag is going to make those two look alike, though the best fit was achieved at approximately 7 thousand years. But taking the derivative of the ice volume makes the two line up right.
“Myrrh says:
June 15, 2012 at 12:31 am
Well now, I had a thought about this after posting to Leif and and spending some more time looking at what the thermodynamic world was saying – I think this figure is allthermal infrared, is all the direct heat from the Sun.”
Saw your previous email.
1. The figure for solar radiation (insolation) at 93 million miles from the sun (earth orbit) is 1366.5 +/- 1 W/m2. The Soho satellite monitors it from the sun end and the Sorce satellite monitors it from earth orbit.
2. About 70% makes it through the atmosphere (mostly the ultraviolet is removed). So at the equator the energy is about 1000-1100 W/m2. The energy at other points is cosign of latitude. IE the north pole is cos (90) = 0.
I am trying to do a write-up to describe photon interaction since these discussions contain a number of misconceptions.
For example:
A white car with black upholstery will get up to 160°F in the sun with the windows shut. The “heat” isn’t coming from infrared – glass is opaque to infrared – infrared photodetectors use plastic or fuzed quartz domes because of this. The heat isn’t coming from the car metal – the hood will be cooler than the interior.
As to thermodynamics… This whole discussion gives me heartburn. The radiation balance issue really only makes sense above the stratosphere. Over 2/3 of the energy in the tropics is lost through evaporation not radiation. The semi-tropical deserts emit much more radiation. Equatorial energy is released in the upper troposphere/stratosphere by condensation. Since water is opaque to infrared more CO2 causes more ocean evaporation which reduces the effect of CO2 (50% negative feedback). Radiation is a bit player in the tropics. Evaporation is king.
Andrew,
My understanding of Roe is that the specific summertime insolation correlates best with the rate of change in ice volume. I’m assuming that the rate of change in ice volume is a proxy for the specific temperature. Essentially that there is zero lag between summertime insolation and temperature. As per Newton’s Model, this implies a low tau. You make a good point that this isn’t a single sine wave, but rather the combination of three(?) long cycles. My intuition tells me that if tau is sufficiently high then there should still be a detectable non-zero lag. If tau were “enormous” then there wouldn’t be an amplitude in the signal, which I think is obviously wrong as evidenced by the glacial cycles themselves.
Perhaps my hunch is wrong when applied to Milankovitch cycles, but I don’t think so. In a one-box model the lag will approach tau as the period grows relatively longer. For example, when the period is 20 times tau, the lag is about 97% of tau. Given Willis’s tau=2.35 months, then the lag on each individual solar cycle will be essentially that, 2.35 months. Given the resolution limitations in ice-cores, however, a lag of 100 years (i.e. tau=100yrs) might not be detectable. So there are limitations in using this observation. I simply said the zero-lag in Roe’s paper is *not inconsistent* with Willis’s tau.
All said, I’m still not a big fan of one-box models simply because there are alot of smart people who say otherwise. I just couldn’t refute Willis’s model and tau using simple cyclical analysis. Perhaps a fast/slow response model always looks like a fast one-box model from a lag perspective? I was assuming that the *apparent* tau would grow with the period length.
Myrrh, no offense meant, but do you even understand what a photon is? My superficial overview of your comments gives me the impression you should start your studies there. Heat is energy. A photon is a packet of energy. A gamma photon is essentially the same thing as a photon emitted from a campfire that you feel as heat on you face. The only real difference is that the gamma photon carries MUCH more energy in its packet. UV and visible light fall in between.
Andrew,
To backup my assumption that the rate of change in ice volume is a proxy for specific temperature, I offer the following:
“Physical Basis for the Temperature-Based Melt-Index Method”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0450(2001)040%3C0753%3APBFTTB%3E2.0.CO%3B2
219 Citations. From the abstract:
“The simulation capacity of the temperature-based melt-index method, however, is too good to be called crude and inferior. The author investigated physical processes that make the air temperature so effective a parameter for melt rate. Air temperature has a more profound influence on melt than previously has been acknowledged.”
Nowhere in the abstract does it mention the rate of change in temperature, where as melt rate is used 7 times.
rgb;
This wording seems wrong, reversed:
There is lots LESS area at the poles, as you confirm by saying there are more tropical square meters. The rest of your comment “is consistent with” LESS, not MORE.
Willis, you said:
“TRY P. SOLAR’S CLAIM OUT ON SOME ACTUAL DATA. Everyone always wants to get all theoretical. Give us an example with some real data of exactly what you (or P. Solar) are talking about. That’s what I did, and it confirmed what I said above. The slope of the linear regression of Y on X is simply the reciprocal of the slope of the linear regression of X on Y.”
Did the data set you had a go at reversing have a very high r2? because that could explain the unexpected result that you got, maybe have a try with some less correlated data?
There is a real point at the heart of this though, when the the ‘x’ variable is subject to error then OLS underestimates the underlying slope (often, by roughly, r) and what used to be called ‘Model II’ regression or more often now called ‘error in varables’ (EIV) regression tries to overcome this problem.
To see the effect really convincingly you need a well populated bivariate cloud (n=1000), could I suggest the free Excel addin ‘NtRand’ , which has a multivariate random number generator:
http://www.ntrand.com/ntmultinorm/
Using Ntrand (the tutorial video is helpful) generate a bivariate cloud of points with a known underlying slope and then see what OLS suggests for the slope!
To get a quick feel for what a Model II regression makes of the slope, try the great free statistical software ‘PAST’ that in its Model->Linear ‘output window’ allows you to plot the Model II RMA (‘reduced major axis’ aka ‘ranged major axis’) regression line:
http://folk.uio.no/%20ohammer/past/
-PAST is also really fun if you feel a wave of Cyclomania coming over you (go to Model-> Sinusoidal).
OK I am sure there is something inside you that says; if this is a big deal when doesn’t anyone apart from P.solar bang on about it? Well maybe there are two reasons (I am not a Guru on this)
1] According to a 1964 copy of Sokal and Rohlf there is a special case of Model II when you can use Model I i.e. OLS – The ‘Berkson case’ when the independent variable is measured with error BUT is under the control of the experimenter..
2] If you want to predict a value of ‘y’ given a value of ‘x’ you must use OLS. and in a lot of cases thats what people want to do rather than find an underlying relationship.
The R documentation for Model II is quite usefull:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lmodel2/vignettes/mod2user.pdf
And some history of Model II regressions, known by many other names, here:
https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/2299/689/1/S7.pdf
I apologise that I haven’t given you data to try, but I hope this is somehow useful.
Chas: “OK I am sure there is something inside you that says; if this is a big deal when doesn’t anyone apart from P.solar bang on about it?”
Although P. Solar is the one who brought up the issue of independent-variable error, several others of us, too, have led this horse to that particular water, but apparently none was successful in getting him to drink it.
Now, I would have been grateful to someone who threw me a line when I found myself out of my depth. If my experience is any indication, though, Mr. Eschenbach’s default response is instead to resort to blustering in that situation, telling people trying to help, e.g., that they made up what they were trying to tell him or that following a suggestion of theirs would be a fool’s errand. I tried three different times myself with increasing specificity–the last time, as humbly as I knew how, at the grasp-the-pencil-between-the-thumb-and-forefinger level–to penetrate the barrier of prickliness behind which he dysfunctions–all to no avail.
But maybe you’ll have better luck.
That said, it may not in fact be true that the issue is a “big deal” in this case; I haven’t mastered grabbing the data he’s using, so I haven’t determined how much difference the slope of the line segments between the samples and the regression line makes in his case. Maybe P. Solar or one of the others has. But my guess is it won’t make enough difference to undermine the general thrust of Mr. Eschenbach’s post.
Chas: “I apologise that I haven’t given you data to try, but I hope this is somehow useful.”
I, however, did provide data in my last attempt–with, as I said, no evident success. Still, hope springs eternal, so don’t let me dissuade you from trying further.
Lonnie E. Schubert says:
June 15, 2012 at 11:33 am
Myrrh, no offense meant, but do you even understand what a photon is? My superficial overview of your comments gives me the impression you should start your studies there. Heat is energy. A photon is a packet of energy. A gamma photon is essentially the same thing as a photon emitted from a campfire that you feel as heat on you face. The only real difference is that the gamma photon carries MUCH more energy in its packet. UV and visible light fall in between.
———-
Which is precisely why I made the point I did – AGWScience Fiction’s meme producing department has tweaked real physics and created something fantastical by producing memes such as “all electromagnetic energy from the Sun is the same” – it isn’t. The different wavelengths each have their own properties, these properties do different things on meeting matter.
A gamma ray is not at all the same thing as thermal infrared which is the thermal energy of the fire radiating out to you! Gamma is tiny, atomic nucleus size. It works on the DNA Level. It is not Heat which is thermal infrared, pinhead to finger nail size. Gamma is highly energetic which means the wavelengths are more condensed, the frequency is greater and that means they are smaller than a lower frequency, because they all travel at the same speed. In great amount it will Vapourise you! But that is not the same thing as burning you by moving your molecules into vibration and heating you up too much, cooking you, because it operates on the DNA level, not on the level of moving matter into vibration, kinetic energy.
Visible light from the Sun is even tinier than near infrared which is not hot and is microscopic in size, these cannot move your molecules into vibration to warm you up either. Although we talk of ‘sunburn’, UV doesn’t burn us by heating us up, it isn’t hot, we can’t feel it as heat. It also works on the DNA level and if our melanin production can’t keep up when we not used to being in the Sun, it will scramble our DNA so much it wrecks our skin, but, there’s no heat there. UV also used by us to produce vitamin D, essential to our health and we don’t get enough of it in northern areas which is why our skin got lighter as we spread out from Africa, to enable us to capture more of from the Sun.
These are not heating matter up type of energies. Visible light from the Sun cannot heat the oceans, not least because water is transparent to it, but as with molecules of oxygen and nitrogen absorbing it in the atmosphere, even then it is scattered back out as light, not heat; it doesn’t heat the molecules it just briefly energises the electron.
Near Infrared is classed as Light not Heat, why? Because they just felt like it? Heat is in the category Thermodynamics, thermo meaning heat, dynamics from dynamis, meaning Power. The power of heat energy, thermal energy, to do work. It’s a very practical science field – well known and understood and applied scientists working in it know the difference. It takes concentrated power to do work, this is what we get in the direct heat from the Sun, travelling to us in straight lines and directly heating land and oceans and us. This is not the same as the dissipated thermal infrared radiating up from the Earth into the atmosphere, in all directions, not capable of doing work. Visible light is not in that category because it is Light, not Heat. Why?
The biggest category discipline for Light is Optics, the Greek for light is photo. What happens when you take a photograph? The camera captures the visible light that is reflected off the subject. Also sometimes categorised as Reflective, in contrast to heat as Absorptive in heat/light category differences. A near infrared camera works on the same principle, it captures the near infrared light reflecting off the subject. A thermal infrared camera is compelely different, it captures the heat radiating out from the subject.
This is what it is in basic traditional physics, which is no longer taught generally. I’m sorry, but the general population has been dumbed down in basic physics by this promotion of AGW, by first changing how it was taught at infant/junior level. This brainwashing of an imaginary science has been going on for some decades now, all to set up the great money making and power control opportunity to the agenda of some. This is not an easy thought to come to terms with if you’ve been brought up in it.
AJ says: “I’m assuming that the rate of change in ice volume is a proxy for the specific temperature.”
This is where I think you are going wrong. If you look at the Vostok Ice Core temps, or many other long term proxies for temp in various parts of the world that capture the glacial cycles, they seem to be about (negatively) proportional to the ice volume, not it’s rate of change. It’s kind of hard to see the curve with the insolation on the same plot, but if you can manage to picture it, compare the ice volume to a temperature proxy over the same period (pretty much any one will do) and the are basically directly related. No need for differentiation at all.
I don’t think a long response time to Milankovitch forcing necessarily requires a long response time to CO2 forcing or similar: the forcings in question are very different in important ways. But evidently the response time for Milankovitch is very long.
Willis, here is a link to a text file with 1000 random points that were generated to have an R2 of 0.25 and a slope of 1 ( I havent used this file sharing thing before, so hope it works) :
http://minus.com/lbeprvEZqHgmgQ
-Try it in ‘PAST’
One thing to be wary about if using RMA et al: Whilst the slopes of the fitted OLS regression lines decline to zero when the correlation coeff drops ,model II slopes do not.
timetochooseagain,
You should read:
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2010/07/in-defense-of-milankovitch-by-gerard.html
It discusses the whole sad story of Calder properly understanding the insolation-ice metric relationship back in 1974, then the climate science community getting it wrong for ~30 years until Roe came along.
The relationship between the rate of change in ice volume and temperature I find very obvious. I offered a paper that is cited 219 times to support this. Unfortunately Andrew didn’t pick up on this obvious relationship and argued that I didn’t understand the phase shift between sine and it’s integral. In this case tau would be “enormous”, but there wouldn’t be any amplitude in the glacial cycle (i.e. no glacial cycle), which is obviously wrong from a one-box model perspective.
IIRC, Dr. Hansen also realized what Roe implied and said something to the effect that we’re all doomed because the heat in the pipeline will be realized much quicker than expected. I can’t seem to find the quote right now.
Regards, AJ
This Climate sensitivity, is the sensitivity to forcings that change in opposite direction on each hemisphere. Therefore heat-exchange between the hemispheres would cause lower sensitivies than in a case, where the forcing changes in the same direction on both hemispheres at the same time.
Joe Born “But maybe you’ll have better luck.” Willis probably just needs some time to test the idea/data and roll the conclusions around in his head or alternatively and more likley in my opinion he is working on another new and interesting post 😉
AJ says: “You should read:”
I already have.
“It discusses the whole sad story of Calder properly understanding the insolation-ice metric relationship back in 1974, then the climate science community getting it wrong for ~30 years until Roe came along.”
Sad indeed.
“The relationship between the rate of change in ice volume and temperature I find very obvious. I offered a paper that is cited 219 times to support this. Unfortunately Andrew didn’t pick up on this obvious relationship and argued that I didn’t understand the phase shift between sine and it’s integral. In this case tau would be “enormous”, but there wouldn’t be any amplitude in the glacial cycle (i.e. no glacial cycle), which is obviously wrong from a one-box model perspective.”
You are arguing essentially from authority that temperature should correlate with the rate of change of ice volume. I am arguing that the proxy data show otherwise: the temperature and the ice volume are basically directly related. Other than stating that your assumed relationship is “obvious” you have offered no evidence this is the case. I suggested that you check the data, which would show that the temperature and ice volume are related as I described, not as you have. Apparently you refuse. What you say about their being no amplitude if tau is “enormous” would only make sense if you were correct that rate of change of ice volume is a proxy for temperature. It isn’t, so what you say doesn’t make any sense.
“IIRC, Dr. Hansen also realized what Roe implied and said something to the effect that we’re all doomed because the heat in the pipeline will be realized much quicker than expected. I can’t seem to find the quote right now.”
I don’t give a crap what Hansen said or thinks. From the sound of it he had no comprehension of the paper either. At any rate, I just don’t buy for a second that the Milankovitch response time is the same thing as the global TOA forcing response time.
Chas: “Willis probably just needs some time to test the idea/data and roll the conclusions around in his head”
You were right: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/19/a-demonstration-of-negative-climate-sensitivity/#comment-1014138
Shame on me for the uncharitable thoughts.
Myrrh says:
June 12, 2012 at 3:45 pm
p.s. are they really measuring upwelling thermal infrared only?
[That’s the only significant upwelling longwave there is, by orders of magnitude. -w]
========
Willis, Light and Heat from the Sun as distinct categories are still taught in the real world of traditional physics and understood by applied scientists who know the difference and know the distinct properties and possible effects, so where are the real figures for the real downwelling thermal infrared, heat, direct (beam) from the Sun?
[As used in real world industries, please see my post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/20/lord-leach-of-fairford-weighs-in-on-natures-denier-gaffe/#comment-1014920 ]
Before the advent of photvoltaic cells the visible light from the Sun was insignificant, still is, in the science area of thermodynamics, as the interest is in heat energy which is capable of doing work. Radiation therefore simply referred to that direct heat from the Sun, as one of the three methods of heat transfer, no one who knew anything about thermodynamics confused this with visible light.
On page 19 here is a map of the US showing heat bands of beam energy: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730014021_1973014021.pdf
giving Figure 5 – Solar heat, btu/ft2/average day.
Where is this missing heat?
Myrrh says:
June 22, 2012 at 10:27 am
Thanks, Myrrh. You seem to be under a misapprehension about the CERES data. Their website says (emphasis mine):
SOURCE
In other words, the CERES SW figures include all of the radiation coming from the sun, including the IR.
w.
Please see my posts, the last of which hasn’t appeared yet as I’ve only just posted it, on this subject beginning: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/claim-fates-of-polar-ice-sheets-appear-to-be-linked/#comment-1016040
Myrrh says:
June 23, 2012 at 5:51 am (Edit)
No thanks, not until you answer the issue I raised above. Your claim that I’m not considering or including the thermal radiation is not true, I’ve given references to prove it. Deal with that first, then I may go read something else you’ve written.
w.
I can only conclude, from looking into this further, that it hasn’t included it. It is lying.
For example. What is this actually measuring?:
http://mb-soft.com/public2/energyso.html
First graph – it has excluded all of thermal from the picture and has the measurements in W/m2.
What would happen to that graph if the measurements were all in Btu/ft2?
Shortwave wouldn’t show. Btu is the measure of energy it takes to heat something up, that is what thermal means in the difference in traditional science between heat and light, and light, photo, is not a thermal energy.
Visible light is not a thermal energy. It is not hot. It doesn’t move matter into kinetic energy states to heat it up, how can it be measured in Btu? The graphic which I posted link to showing Btu across the US is not giving shortwave in, it is giving thermal infrared in. Direct heat from the Sun to Earth.
Please now see my post which is where I began discussing this because it was mentioned that the wrong measurements are being used:
dscott says:
June 22, 2012 at 12:41 pm
James Hansen is incompetent. What is the proper unit measurement of Heat? James Hansen doesn’t know because he demonstrated he doesn’t know by using the wrong unit measure.
Myrrh says:
June 23, 2012 at 11:26 am
I’m not sure why I’m trying to counteract such a monumental lack of scientific knowledge, but here goes. We’ll start with a part of the discussion we agree on, which is that visible light is a form of energy. From there we have:
1. Visible light strikes an object.
2. Some is reflected, but in general much of it is absorbed by that object.
Now, we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only converted to some other form. So my question to you, Myrrh, is the following:
Since the absorbed light is no longer in the form of visible light energy … just what form of energy has it been converted to?
I, along with the entire scientific community, say it is converted to heat.
That’s why, for example, a laser can cut steel. Bear in mind that a laser has NO INFRARED OF ANY KIND, it is pure visible light of a single frequency. Yet it can cut steel, which according to your theory is impossible … so my question remains:
Since the absorbed light is no longer in the form of light energy … just what form of energy has it been converted to?
Please don’t change the subject, refer me to a previous post, or cite some web page. Just answer the question—since we know that the energy in the light has not been destroyed, and we know it is no longer present as visible light, what form of energy is it in after absorption? I say it is in the form of heat. What do you say?
w.
Light and Heat act on meeting matter in different ways. Light, for example, when it is reflected/scattered by the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the air giving us our blue sky is absorbed by the electrons of these molecules, are you saying that visible light on being absorbed creates heat so is heating up the atmosphere?
Why isn’t it in the AGW energy budget if this is so?
For example, light when it is absorbed in photosynthesis converts to chemical energy, this is not conversion to heat.
And I have to say Willis, I find the constant meme reference to lasers as one of the set reponses has become very irritating, not having a go at you, just saying. We are talking about the direct, beam, energy from the Sun. The Sun is not a laser. It it were none of us would be here to discuss this..
Then of course, we also have in the real world that visible light is transmitted through water, it is not absorbed – because water is a transparent medium for light, therefore it cannot be heating it up. But, the meme produced by the AGWScienceFiction meme factory has deliberately confused this by its play on the word “absorbed” by using the word to described how light is attenuated in the ocean. So we have the nonsense claim that ‘because blue visible light travels deeper in the ocean before it is absorbed it is heating the water lower down’.
Not all absorption creates heat. Chemical energy isn’t heat, it’s chemical energy. Reflection/scattering isn’t heat, it’s reflection/scattering, the energised electron coming back to ground state emits a like energy it absorbed, so the sky full of visible light being scattered all over the place and blue scattered more because it is more highly energetic … And so also scattering emitting blue light is emitting light, not heat.
All their claims, that I’ve researched so far, are like this, created by tweaking real physics. Taking laws out of context and referring to science history in the past by excluding some, muddling up words, giving the properties of one thing to another, stripping things of all properties and so for example we no longer have distinct entities acting in particular ways on meeting matter depending on their particular set of properties, but we have this non-existant ‘all electromagnetic energy is the same and all creates heat on being absorbed’. So, as I was told only a day or so ago, it is the same energy in a gamma ray as we feel thermal from a fire.. All sense of scale has been lost. The differences have been lost.
All sense of scale and process has been excised by AGWSF – it is not describing the real world around us, which has height and breadth and depth because our gases are real gases in a heavy fluid volume around us, but it is describing an imaginary world of ideal gas in empty space. I’ve just posted something on this here, if you’d like expansion on this theme: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/science-held-hostage-in-climate-debate/#comment-1016345
It is only possible to conclude that this is a deliberately created fisics to support AGW to the agenda of some. They introduced this into the education system and now we have a whole generation who have lost the sense of the world around us, which we have only recently in the scheme of things gained. Again, applied scientists are still taught traditional fisics, and I imagine those who are in some expensive private schools.., but for the majority they’d never be able to understand the difference between photovoltaic and solar thermal and wouldn’t be able to create these from scratch. The thing is that these memes have become so ubiquitous that those in other science fields to a particular meme might well spot something amiss in some aspect of AGW fisics, but will take the meme for granted and use that in their own analyses.
It’s a real dog’s dinner of a mess, well, some dog dinners, my dog like his beef as a steak and not in a stew..
Myrrh says:
June 23, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Stop faffing around and answer the damn question, Myrrh, or go play somewhere else. I’m not interested in the slightest in your miles of circumlocution. Since you obviously have forgotten the question, here is is again.
One or two words of an answer will suffice, a sentence or two will be fine, but don’t bother with another of your long screeds that do nothing but disguise the fact that you are not answering the question. What happens to light when it hits an object, Myrrh, what is it converted to? I say heat. You say … well, nothing so far, but you take a foot and a half of column space to say nothing.
Are you going to answer? If not, I’m through with you. You claim that visible light is incapable of heating an object. And no, I’m not talking about light striking a plant, where it is converted via photosynthesis, and you know that. Nor am I talking about when it hits a solar cell and is converted to electricity, and you know that as well. Stop trying to wriggle out of the question—what is light converted to when it strikes a stone, if not heat?
w.
Stop faffing around and answer the damn question, Myrrh, or go play somewhere else. I’m not interested in the slightest in your miles of circumlocution. Since you obviously have forgotten the question, here is is again.
1. Visible light strikes an object.
2. Some is reflected, but in general much of it is absorbed by that object.
Now, we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only converted to some other form. So my question to you, Myrrh, is the following:
Since the absorbed light is no longer in the form of light energy … just what form of energy has it been converted to?
One or two words of an answer will suffice, a sentence or two will be fine, but don’t bother with another of your long screeds that do nothing but disguise the fact that you are not answering the question. What happens to light when it hits an object, Myrrh, what is it converted to? I say heat. You say … well, nothing so far, but you take a foot and a half of column space to say nothing.
===============
I keep forgetting that I’m sometimes talking to people who have a strange idea about heat from such memes as “all matter above absolute zero radiates heat” when absolute zero is minus 273 degrees Centigrade.., and shown pictures of an ice cube radiating infrared …, or simply that visible light absorbed creates heat. Damn it, Willis, why didn’t those pushing visible light creates heat when absorbed use some of the great charitable funds they have to tell that to the population in need of it? Think how many lives they could have saved in Britain alone of those pensioners who died of hypothermia because they couldn’t afford to heat their room, a great campaign could have been devised to let them know they didn’t need to switch on their electric heaters, all they had to do was turn on their televisions and bask in the warmth of visible light as they sat absorbing it.
A while ago now in a discussion I was told by one young disciple to the AGW apologetics team that backradiation was so powerful, after all it raises the temperature of the whole Earth 33°C, that one could leave a chunk of raw meat in an igloo and go off hunting for a few hours and come back to a backradiation cooked dinner. Gosh, how can people possibly freeze in the Antarctic? All that snow madly sending heat to be absorbed by it being so much over absolute zero and all the backradiating it’s doing. Why would someone even ask a question like this: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99635.htm except the whole sense of scale has been so screwed with by these fake fisics memes that have deliberately confused light and heat?
It’s your claim that visible light is a thermal energy heating land and oceans, perhaps it would be easier on both our systems if we simply concentrated on you providing the detail of how it does this and how much heat it generates when absorbed by different matter…
..let’s keep it simple, how much does blue visible light heat the water of the oceans, that great storehouse of heat for the Earth?
Myrrh, I had said:
Since you have once again refused to answer, as I said, I’m done with you. Go play somewhere else. A man like you who refuses to defend his statements is worse than useless. He is a distraction to honest men.
w.
Shrug.
“Now, we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only converted to some other form. So my question to you, Myrrh, is the following:
Since the absorbed light is no longer in the form of light energy … just what form of energy has it been converted to?”
I answered and you rejected my answers. You can keep moving the goal posts Willis, but all it shows is disingenuousness on your part, not mine.
The problem remains, you support an unproven claim that shortwave from the Sun, Light, is the direct power that heats land and oceans and that the direct Heat from the Sun, thermal infrared, plays no part in heating same. You can keep using the claim as basic in all your analyses, but Willis, I find it very hard to imagine that you, who have shown an amazing volume of interesting nit picking when looking at data, will ever get rid of that nagging thought…
Bye.
Myrrh says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:20 am
Sorry, Myrrh, I must have missed your answer in the flood of words. Perhaps you could repeat it more simply—just what form of energy has light been converted to after it is absorbed by some solid (or liquid) object, say the ocean or the land?
As you know, I say that the absorbed energy is converted to heat. Note the length of my answer. One word. That way, it’s hard to miss.
Please make your answer of some similar length, so I do not once again miss your words of wisdom among the luxurious verdant verbiage that you usually employ. Just answer in one word, a few words, or even one sentence, and that way I won’t miss it this time.
Thanks,
w.
Myrrh says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:20 am
Myrrh, that is palpable nonsense. I make no such claim, nor have I ever made that claim.
In fact, I provided a citation above to show that the CERES dataset that I am using includes both visible and infrared from the sun.
My reward for providing you with the proof that I included infrared from the sun was that you claimed, without a shred of proof, that the authors of the CERES dataset were lying. Not wrong, not in error, but lying!
And now, you once again repeat your bogus claim that I said infrared from the sun doesn’t warm the earth. It does, and it is included in my calculations.
The figure usually given for the amount of energy at the top of the atmosphere is about 1366 watts per square metre. This is called “Total Solar Irradiance”, or TSI. It is the number used in calculating the energy the earth receives from the sun, by the CERES folks and everyone else.
There is a reason for the word “Total” in TSI, Myrrh … it’s “total” because it is not just the visible light, it is the total of the irradiance at all frequencies, including infrared. Or as one source says (emphasis mine)
But heck, don’t believe me, Myrrh. Do your own research on TSI and tell me what you find … you’ll find that everyone (but you apparently) knows that TSI includes all wavelengths from the sun—X-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, and infrared. You’re the only one claiming that I and other climate scientists only consider visible light and ignore solar infrared. We don’t.
w.
Sorry, Myrrh, I must have missed your answer in the flood of words. Perhaps you could repeat it more simply—just what form of energy has light been converted to after it is absorbed by some solid (or liquid) object, say the ocean or the land?
As you know, I say that the absorbed energy is converted to heat. Note the length of my answer. One word. That way, it’s hard to miss.
Please make your answer of some similar length, so I do not once again miss your words of wisdom among the luxurious verdant verbiage that you usually employ. Just answer in one word, a few words, or even one sentence, and that way I won’t miss it this time.
Thanks,
==========
Ocean (water) for all practical purposes, nothing. Water is a transparent medium for visible light.
Land = F*ck knows. And not giving ice as giving off heat…
Question since you say absorption = heat.
Atmosphere = How much is visible light heating the sky? (Because it is absorbed by the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen)
http://www.cps-amu.org/sf/notes/m1r-1-8.htm Some reflection/absorption percentages of shortwave over land.
Myrrh says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:20 am
… The problem remains, you support an unproven claim that shortwave from the Sun, Light, is the direct power that heats land and oceans and that the direct Heat from the Sun, thermal infrared, plays no part in heating same.
Myrrh, that is palpable nonsense. I make no such claim, nor have I ever made that claim.
In fact, I provided a citation above to show that the CERES dataset that I am using includes both visible and infrared from the sun.
My reward for providing you with the proof that I included infrared from the sun was that you claimed, without a shred of proof, that the authors of the CERES dataset were lying. Not wrong, not in error, but lying!
And now, you once again repeat your bogus claim that I said infrared from the sun doesn’t warm the earth. It does, and it is included in my calculations.
The figure usually given for the amount of energy at the top of the atmosphere is about 1366 watts per square metre. This is called “Total Solar Irradiance”, or TSI. It is the number used in calculating the energy the earth receives from the sun, by the CERES folks and everyone else.
There is a reason for the word “Total” in TSI, Myrrh … it’s “total” because it is not just the visible light, it is the total of the irradiance at all frequencies, including infrared. Or as one source says (emphasis mine)
Total solar irradiance is defined as the amount of radiant energy emitted by the Sun over all wavelengths that fall each second on 11 ft2 (1 m2) outside Earth’s atmosphere. Insolation is the amount of solar energy that strikes a given area over a specific time, and varies with latitude or the seasons.
But heck, don’t believe me, Myrrh. Do your own research on TSI and tell me what you find … you’ll find that everyone (but you apparently) knows that TSI includes all wavelengths from the sun—X-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, and infrared. You’re the only one claiming that I and other climate scientists only consider visible light and ignore solar infrared. We don’t.
==========
Please, take some time to read the following.
That is the whole of the AGW claim, Willis. That’s why I call it fictional fisics, through the looking glass with Alice impossible. This is what is now taught in schools. This is what CERES, your link and your opening post, ( Continued digging has led me to the CERES monthly global albedo dataset from the Terra satellite. It’s an outstanding set, in that it contains downwelling solar (shortwave) radiation (DSR), upwelling solar radiation (USR), and most importantly for my purposes, upwelling longwave radiation (ULR)), is saying.
Therefore, Willis, it is your bloody claim. Are you totally unconscious of what you’re saying..?
Access to Monthly Mean CERES AVG Flux Products
AVG Data
Home
Description
Plot Maps
Access Data
Validation
Sites
FSW Global Surface Albedo
Data file format: Files are ascii, written using fortran format ‘(3f8.1)’. Each file contains four header lines defining data source and each column. Data follows in columns, 64800(=360*180) lines. Latitude and longitude are implicit in the line index where:
— line 1 is 89.5N, -179.5W
— line 361 is 88.5N, -179.5W etc. . .
AVG variables grouped together and made available here.
Variable Group Flux Variables(All Wm-2 unless otherwise noted.)
Top Of Atmosphere SW Down SW Up LW Up Albedo(%)
AGW fisics, excludes thermal infrared. Everything is geared to making that disappear.
The meme is SHORTWAVE IN LONGWAVE OUT. CERES SHOWS THIS.
The caps are deliberately to annoy you.. 😉
AGW fisics is the new world paradigm, haven’t you noticed any of this in the discussions?
Picture of the comic cartoon everyone thinks is real world physics:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/26/does-the-trenberth-et-al-%e2%80%9cearth%e2%80%99s-energy-budget-diagram%e2%80%9d-contain-a-paradox/#more-50015
The 100% solar is Shortwave.
At random in the education system: http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/.LWSW
Note in the picture how it is depicted, by a silly glass window.., that the bulk of longwave has been written out; thermal longwave from the Sun no longer reaches Earth’s surface, it is excluded from this fictional fisics energy budget.
Here is an example of the result of this teaching: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-atmospheric-windows/#comment-610576
Shortwave Light has now become the thermal energy. I’ve lost count of the the number of arguments I’ve had about this on WUWT – it is standard teaching in the impossible through the looking glass with Alice fictional word created by those pushing AGW. (In the real world firstly around 95% of the energy radiated from an incandescent bulb is Heat, thermal infrared, and so only 5% visible light, which is not hot. Secondly, visible light is not hot, you cannot feel it.)
Here’s where I discovered NASA is also pushing the fake fisics:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711886
Amusingly, the great Global Warming pages on wiki are doing a disappearing act, here’s one mention of the fictional energy budget that is still gospel – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_models
“All climate models take account of incoming energy from the sun as short wave electromagnetic radiation, chiefly visible and short-wave (near) infrared, as well as outgoing energy as long wave (far) infrared electromagnetic radiation from the earth. Any imbalance results in a change in temperature.”
This change at wiki might have something to do with Connolly (sp?) not being as effective as once was, but anyway, they now link to pages which tell the AGW fictional fisics instead of going into the detail of it themselves, that I can now find:
“INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION
Incoming ultraviolet, visible, and a limited portion of infrared energy (together sometimes called “shortwave radiation”) from the Sun drive the Earth’s climate system. Some of this incoming radiation is reflected off clouds, some is absorbed by the atmosphere, and some passes through to the Earth’s surface. Larger aerosol particles in the atmosphere interact with and absorb some of the radiation, causing the atmosphere to warm. The heat generated by this absorption is emitted as longwave infrared radiation, some of which radiates out into space.
ABSORBED ENERGY
The solar radiation that passes through Earth’s atmosphere is either reflected off snow, ice, or other surfaces or is absorbed by the Earth’s surface.
Emitted LONGWAVE Radiation
Heat resulting from the absorption of incoming shortwave radiation is emitted as longwave radiation. Radiation from the warmed upper atmosphere, along with a small amount from the Earth’s surface, radiates out to space. Most of the emitted longwave radiation warms the lower atmosphere, which in turn warms our planet’s surface.”
http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget.html
OK? That’s the Gospel Truth Fisics according to AGW.
We now have a generation brought up in the education system thinking that light is heat. And that is now 100% of the energy we get from the Sun. And that’s not the least of it, they think the atmosphere is empty space..
Funnily enough, it from one of your discussions that I first began exploring all this – you were looking for the missing heat.. I started reading up on what the cartoon (KT97 and kin) was saying and was horrified, really shocked, to find that they are teaching that shortwave heats the Earth and the direct Heat from the Sun, thermal infrared, can’t get in..
That’s the whole of the greenhouse mnemonic – that thermal infrared can’t penetrate the atmosphere like through the glass of a greenhouse but visible and the near shortwaves can, and that it’s these which heat the ground which then heated up radiates thermal infrared, the upwelling. (Which then backradiates and all that.)
So, Willis, I found some missing heat…
Actually, all of it. Is this what you were looking for…?
Andrew,
I’ll explore the relationship as you described. Maybe, we’ll take it up later. For now, I’ll assume that the accumulate ice volume is a measure of energy in the climate system. I’ll explore the relationship between energy in the system and temperature.
BTW… Offering a paper with 219 citations, I wouldn’t describe as arguing from authority. My overuse of the word “obvious” was a direct result of your statement that I “obviously don’t understand these equations”.
AJ
Here’s how AGWScienceFiction attributes the excised beam heat from the Sun, the real heat which is the great thermal energy of the Sun on the move to us reaching us in around eight minutes, to their meme greenhouse gases backradiating to heat up the Earth, their sleight of hand 33°C.*
From:
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/samson/global_warming_potential/
*Sleight of hand – in the real world standard industry figures give the Earth with atmosphere, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, but without water as 67°C (think deserts), so the Water Cycle takes down temps from 67°C to 15°C.
They have excised the Water Cycle as they have excised the direct beam thermal infrared from this AGWSF energy budget; thereby creating the fictional fisics meme “greenhouse gases warm the Earth by 33°C from the -18°C it would be without them”.
I haven’t checked much further than this, the basic sleight of hand from removing the Water Cycle obvious now, but Ira added that the -18°C was the atmosphere without the greenhouse gases, i.e., the mainly oxygen and nitrogen, while standard industry gives this figure as the Earth without any atmosphere at all. This could be AGWSF simply adding confusion as it does in mixing up explanations for example in explaining their “ideal gas atmosphere” by contradictory out of context real world physics, (where “diffusing into the atmosphere is explained by ideal gas and Brownian motion and wind), but they could be using that -18°C figure which they’ve attached to Earth with atmosphere but without greenhouse gases in some other ‘science’ explanation elsewhere.
These sleights of hand aren’t easy to explain because like all good con tricks they use enough real physics to fools the mind into thinking that the next statement is a continuation of it, and there are various ways in which they do this, and it’s very easy to go off on tangents because of it.. So, keeping it simple re the Water Cycle, the “greenhouse gases raise the temperature of the Earth 33°C is the illusion, because they have missed out completely the whole of the Water Cycle without which the Earth would be 67°C, not 15°C. The Water Cycle around the real Earth cools the atmosphere by 52°C.
And, carbon dioxide is fully part of this in the real world because all pure, clean rain is carbonic acid, water and carbon dioxide have an irresistable attraction for each other in the real world.. But, as AGWSF has it, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide are ideal gases not real so they have no attraction (they have no volume, no weight so not subject to gravity, etc.), and they use this to explain how carbon dioxide gets to be thoroughly mixed and can accumulate for hundreds and even thousands of years.
Phew.. deconstructing these isn’t easy, because the real world physics tweaked takes in many disparate science disciplines. And also it’s all further complicated and given legitimacy, the intention of the agenda which created this fictional fisics to promote AGW, by otherwise knowledgeable in their own field scientists taking memes from other disciplines or that are generally now ingrained as ‘common basic’ ideas, for granted. Why would a scientist in a different field bother checking about the claim “well mixed and accumulates” which requires knowledge of the difference between ideal and real gases if that was completely out of his field? That’s how we’ve ended up with those like Spencer and his thought experiments Yes Virgina which he can’t see and won’t accept is not possible in the real world, in real applied physics? He begins with the fake paradigm and extrapolates from that, as do all those in these arguments who believe these AGWSF fictional fisics memes are real physics because there’s enough real physics terms in them to make them appear real, so they don’t spot the con.
Like the ‘but it says it’s a 100%’ – why would you check? I’ve seen arguments against Trenberth from traditionally trained physicists not brought up or educated in the AGW fantasy who simply assume that Trenberth means the direct heat from the Sun, it wouldn’t even cross their minds that he was not only excluding it entirely but claiming that shortwave, Light not Heat energy, was the driving force..
Yes, it is mind-blowing.. All the great science institutions like NASA and Royal Academy are now fully pushing the AGW fake fisics to the agenda of some, that’s why Hansen gets away with all he does and there’s no comeback for all the raw data manipulations. NASA is a full churn it out fake fisics teacher, with all the fake history like stopping Arrhenius at 1896: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SOLAR/text/text-learning-warming.html
It’s in all the higher education system and that has been built up over the last few decades at each stage in the education levels preceding this, and it’s all well connected. The picture in the link I gave random education is from Penn State and those used in the lecture link I gave are from Michigan University. It is repeated ad nauseum by otherwise rational and logical general population on blogs, example: http://savemyblueplanet.blogspot.com.au/ This is now so thoroughly well established that it is really extremely difficult to find anything on line which still teaches traditional physics. Lots of pages I’ve looked at which are more on the applied science side will often just avoid it, I can only imagine that if they are actually teaching to get people into the real practical applied science industries where it is critical to know the differences, then the real physics would be taught in class..
That’s why we keep hearing of studies where they are ‘astonished to find’ something contradicting the memes. Like the AIRS conclusion that they were shocked to find carbon dioxide lumpy and not well-mixed and concluded it was insignificant in greenhouse gas effect and they needed to go off and learn about wind systems.. And still they won’t release the top and bottom of the troposphere data for carbon dioxide.
George Orwell was savvy about propaganda techniques, we’re here:
In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe136282.html
And that’s difficult for scientists in the real world trying to feed their family and pay the mortgage when the backlash from this well-coordinated attack on science teaching is up and running; people losing jobs, denigrated, not getting into courses. To control the population knowledge and the educated are always the first to be destroyed, this is the middle way of the Fabian, gradual infiltration into all political parties and ideological systems and especially through education avoiding the obvious mass murders and book burning of opportunist dictators, the long con.
Anyway, I’ll leave it there, do with it what you will.
Myrrh says:
June 25, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I give up, Myrrh. You freely admit you don’t know what is happening to light that hits the land, but that doesn’t seem to bother you in the slightest, nor does it push you to find out what kind of energy the light is transformed into. It’s heat, and I suspect you know that, but are simply unwilling to admit it, but instead you just toss the question off with “F*ck knows” … yes, and the rest of the scientific world knows, Myrrh, you are one of the very, very who doesn’t know that when light hits a solid object it is converted to heat.
And you think that water doesn’t absorb visible light??? Clearly you are not a scuba diver, nor are you someone who actually researches things. Look up “Secchi disk” some time.
I can’t fight your combination of insouciance and ignorance, you have the field to yourself, I retire hors de combat. I said when I began this discussion with you:
I see now that I should have just left you alone, that indeed your ignorance was too monumental for a mere mortal like me to defeat.
All the best, please don’t expect to ever get a response from me again. You are uninterested in learning and have nothing to teach.
w.
Oh for goodness sake Willis, why don’t you look up how light reacts on meeting matter, on the electron level, it can’t move the whole atom/molecule into vibration which is what it takes to heat something up.
If some reaction which aren’t chemical or which aren’t non-existant such as in photosynthesis or in water, what piddly little energy it has is OF NO EFFIN SIGNIFICANCE in the greater scheme of things, it does not heat matter, it can’t be the DRIVING force which heats all the oceans and land to create the monsterously huge weather systems we have from the differences in temperatures in volumes of air. Get real.
There’s also the rather significant matter that the whole, the bloody whole, of the thermal infrared direct heat from the Sun has been taken out.
If you can’t get your head around that, sorry, nothing more I can say.
Myrrh, let me say it again, since you obviously didn’t get it the first time:
w.
You can’t get out of is this easily… You still have to prove that shortwave heats land and oceans which is the claim. The majority of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, the oceans are the great heat sinks for planet Earth and this is key in the great weather systems we have – and visible cannot physically heat water. So, duh, what the hell do you think you have to teach me?