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.
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?