People send me stuff. Lance Wallace writes:
Anthony, this short “Perspectives” report in Science seems to me to be worthy of a posting in WUWT. Not only is it a very clear indication of crucial problems with the GCMs, it appears in Science magazine, for years a dogged defender of the faith. I’m including the article (paywalled of course) because I think your readers will be blown away by the figure if you can run it.
The authors ran some extremely simplified CMIP5 GCMs, looking only at how they treated water (precipitation, cloud formation), and found extreme differences from one model to the next, as is evident from the figure.
In the final section titled Back to Basics, they make clear that the problem is a fundamental one of not understanding the coupling between water and general circulation. They specifically state it would be better to go towards numerical weather prediction rather than continue to expand the coverage of the GCMs.
By the way, they picked just two aspects–clouds and precipitation–to concentrate on, but they mention a few others, such as sensitivity and arctic amplification of temperature change. Then there are also aerosols, energy balance, and ocean circulation. I could see more examples of models simplified down to each of these aspects in turn and compared to see how they perform. – Lance Wallace
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Science 31 May 2013:
Vol. 340 no. 6136 pp. 1053-1054
DOI: 10.1126/science.1237554
What Are Climate Models Missing?
Fifty years ago, Joseph Smagorinsky published a landmark paper (1) describing numerical experiments using the primitive equations (a set of fluid equations that describe global atmospheric flows). In so doing, he introduced what later became known as a General Circulation Model (GCM). GCMs have come to provide a compelling framework for coupling the atmospheric circulation to a great variety of processes. Although early GCMs could only consider a small subset of these processes, it was widely appreciated that a more comprehensive treatment was necessary to adequately represent the drivers of the circulation. But how comprehensive this treatment must be was unclear and, as Smagorinsky realized (2), could only be determined through numerical experimentation. These types of experiments have since shown that an adequate description of basic processes like cloud formation, moist convection, and mixing is what climate models miss most.
Full text at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1053.summary (paywalled)
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The figure from the article shows how four different models have wide variances on clouds and precipitation.
on the climate model, even in the simplest model confi guration. Shown are changes in the radiative effects of clouds and in precipitation accompanying a uniform warming (4°C) predicted by four models from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) for a water planet with prescribed surface temperatures.
Clouds and water are central to our global atmospheric processes, and clearly, these models aren’t doing much better than dartboards at figuring out what the real atmospheric score is.
With wide variances like that, no wonder climate models can’t model reality, from Dr. Roy Spencer’s recent post: STILL Epic Fail: 73 Climate Models vs. Measurements, Running 5-Year Means
Some day, somebody is also going to tell them that the “non-condensing greenhouse-gas”, carbon dioxide, has significant solubility in the condensing greenhouse-gas, water.
Some day, somebody is also going to tell them that the “non-condensing greenhouse-gas”, carbon dioxide, has significant solubility in the condensing greenhouse-gas, water.
I’m fairly certain they know, since this is taught in high schools.
Perhaps time for a more serious assessment of my New Climate Model and the recent refinements of it ?
It would be great to discuss the “models” (and their usefulness) with warmists, but once I start talking about differential equations, coupling, non-linearity, boundary and initial conditions, numerical methods, and stability, they suddenly clam up.
Konrad says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:05 pm
A logical explanation would be that a common assumption for all the models is in error.
=============
All the models assume positive water feedback. Yet during the period of warmng, atmospheric moisture has been observed to be declining, the exact opposite of what was assumed.
The failure of the models to explore negative water feedback shows clearly that they are not attempting to model climate. Otherwise, why not try adding negative water feedback to the models and see if this helps the models match current temperature?
The simple fact is that without positive water feedback, it is generally agree that climate sensitivity will not exceed 1C. In other words, without positive feedback, the effects of CO2 are likely to be beneficial, not harmful.
Thus, the models do not explore negative water feedback, because their continued funding depends upon funding CO2 harmful. It is the funding that is behind the corruption of climate science. And make no mistake, it is corruption that we are talking about.
Forget about Climate Disruption, the problem is Climate Corruption. The corruption of the scientific method to attract increased government funding for climate science. Started at the end of the NASA moon landing program, when the mission of NASA was changed from studying space to studying “inner space” – the earth, in response from budget pressure to meet “cost benefit” policy requirements.
Once NASA has reached the moon, they had fulfilled the Kennedy legacy. There was no benefit to be gained in further exploration. Those of us alive at the time will recall the political pressure that was applied to NASA to stop the program, even though there were Saturn V’s already built, ready to launch. Spend the money instead to help people back home became the cry.
So, NASA re-tasked itself to “mission earth”, and “Climate Science” was born, using the funds earmarked for lunar exploration. Over the years, to continue the funding, the pressure increased to show the benefits of Climate Science. For there to be a benefit, there had to be a risk, a threat to be defeated. Thus AGW was born. The war on CO2 had begun.
‘Oh warm new world that hath such modellers in it.’ – Tis new to them. To geologists it’s ancient history, written in the stony record.
Here is what the US gave up in return for Climate Science.
The Saturn V (pronounced “Saturn Five”) was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA’s Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload. It remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status and still holds the record for the heaviest launch vehicle payload.
To date, the Saturn V is the only launch vehicle to transport human beings beyond low Earth orbit. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon, three of them more than once, in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
@Ryan Spear
You picture it as “imperfection” yet is that a fair picture? ie. that’s it’s 95% correct and only a few minor problems? The criticisms are that the models go in largely the wrong direction. That cause and effect were mixed up. And that the cause and effect are so closely related that it is very hard for very smart people to figure it out.
Read for yourself whether people are trying to be open minded, and then see whether the creationists you dislike are open minded. Ask yourself whether you are open minded.
Ryan says:
June 10, 2013 at 5:10 am
Half of the posters here doubt the greenhouse effect, a quarter or more seem to think the rise in CO2 is natural.
This statement shows a mind incapable of thinking clearly. Clearly Ryan immediately notices the people who meet his description while discounting others. This is well known confirmation bias. Clear evidence of poor critical thinking skills.
Personally, the existence of the GHE is clear. Simple physics. However, poor thinkers like Ryan discount the overall effect of GHGs. Once again he immediate discounts that which he doesn’t want to believe. GHGs are the coolant of the atmosphere. About 40% of the radiation that is not reflected eventually ends up bouncing around in the atmosphere on its way to space. The cooling effect of GHGs must be figured into the overall effect of GHGs in order to know the complete picture. As yet I have never seen a peer reviewed paper try to make this computation (it is not easy). The bottom line is we don’t know the complete effect of GHGs let alone CO2. Ryan appears to think that is just fine.
As for CO2 the computation of volcanic CO2 is based on Gerlach’s 1991 paper which looked at 10 volcanic sources. Since that time it has been discovered there are nearly 3 million volcanic sources. To understand the total contribution from volcanoes (statistical sample) we’d need to examine over 1700 sources. A reasonable scientific mind would not accept current estimates until that work was done. However, Ryan accepts the statistical uncertainty simply because it fits his beliefs.
Ryan’s support of CAGW is completely faith based like most alarmists.
Master_Of_Puppets says:
June 9, 2013 at 6:05 pm
========================
The downside of unmoderated posts
Jim Brock says:
June 9, 2013 at 5:24 pm
In your report there is much that is new, and much that is true; but what is new is not true and what is true is not new. Dont know where that quotation is from … but it fits.
It is attributed to Samuel Johnson, who is supposed to have said,
“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
Not only that: the premise regarding how CO2 affects temperature has now been disproven and by NASA no less – I wonder what this paper had to do with Hansen’s recent resignation?
Apologies if the paper by Mlynczak et al has been covered extenisvely at WUWT – I think it should be, if not – I’ve been too busy to follow posts in detail lately:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
http://truth11.com/2013/05/22/global-warming-debunked-nasa-report-verifies-carbon-dioxide-actually-cools-atmosphere-yet-ninety-seven-percent-of-scientists-agreeclimate-change-is-real-man-made-and-dangerous-preside/
Meanwhile, the Bilderbergers who just met in Watford, who this time around omitted ‘climate change’ and allied topics from their discussion list, knew two years ago that we were heading for a colling period:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/
Ryan says (June 10, 2013 at 5:10 am): “I once read a thread on Pokemon forums about how these guys just knew that Pokemon were real but just outside of our perception. They ha graphs, complex light equations, data. Someone without any education could probably have believed it if they hasn’t used the work Pokemon.”
Are you sure that wasn’t Realclimate? Those guys have graphs, equations, and data, and they think their Playstation models are real, too. 🙂
Ryan, my observation is that the AGW climatologists don’t seem to use heat and material balances or thermodynamics to draw conclusions. It is hard to tell what is included in courses required to get a doctorate in th climatology option from the course names but they don’t appear to reflect many basic chemical engineering techniques. I suspect they do know that when water vapor condenses and falls back to the earth that it absorbs carbon dioxide. I am less certain that they know that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere causes water vapor to be displaced into outer space, thus creating a sort of indirect temperature relief valve.
The probable reason for this inconsistency re clouds and precipitation ( neither new news) is inherent in the grid scale of all GCMs, itself inherent in supercomputer computational limitations.
So convective processes like tropical thunderstorms cannot be modeled, only parameterized. That is why WE can derive equivalence to a linear difference equation. Which says emergence properties like Lindzen’s adaptive iris cannot emerge. So water vapor feedback is overstated (precipitation understated) and cloud feedback wrong. So Sensitivity too high.
It is all consistent, and amazing that climate scientists pretend it is not clear.
jeanparisot says:
June 9, 2013 at 9:39 pm
Wait, so weather is climate, now?
Apparently. I remember that, not too long ago, skeptics were admonished when they tried to point to a cool weather event as a counterpoint to AGW dogma. The warmists’ reply was always the same: “Weather is not climate.”
Except now, apparently weather is climate due to, I suppose, the failure of models to match observed conditions. I would like to see this rather huge flip-flop highlighted more in the general climate conversation over cAWG. It drives me mad that the warmists are not called on this massive 180 degree change.
@FredBerple
“Here is what the US gave up in return for Climate Science…”
According to http://www.thegwpf.org/how-much-money-are-us-taxpayers-wasting-on-climate-change-try-106-million-a-day/ the US was spending approximately $4 billion on climate science research. Adjusted for inflation, the Apollo program cost $135 billion. That’s $10 billion a year. The Space Shuttle was costing about $450 million per launch and that was mostly reusable. NASA’s budget in 2012 was $17.77 billion (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estimates-508.pdf). On that they couldn’t really have a manned moon landing program and even $4 billion on top would hardly make a return to the moon possible.
On the whole I don’t think the US gave up the moon is return for climate science. And I suspect climate science was already being studied before Werner von Braun persuaded JFK to do the other thing not because it was easy but because it was hard.
Ryan says:
June 9, 2013 at 7:39 pm
“When Science starts covering the success of sceptic models over mainstream models then there is actually a chink in the armor. Until then, jumping on every admission of imperfection as though it is THE END of climate science just makes you sound like creationists have since the ’60′s…..”
Ryan has just expressed his blind faith in the deity of “models”. He appears to be saying ” my god is bigger than your god”. lol
Another false argument revealing your ignorance of science and the scientific method. Skeptics don’t need to create a climate model in order to show the existing GCMs are false. Nobody has to “prove it’s NOT true,” as it were.
The way real science works is the models must prove their models are valid. Not only have they not done that, the actual data shows time and time again that models are invalid, that the rreal climate does not work the way the models hypothesize.
The GCMs are themselves nothing more than hypotheses.
~more soylent green
“Some day, somebody is also going to tell them that the “non-condensing greenhouse-gas”, carbon dioxide, has significant solubility in the condensing greenhouse-gas, water.”
————-
I’m fairly certain they know, since this is taught in high schools.
———————
Pity they forgot to include it in the models then, isn’t Ryan?
If CMIP5 models are now so advanced that they include a carbon cycle, it really does beg the question “then what were they doing beforehand”.
In reply to:
Ryan says:
June 10, 2013 at 5:10 am
…I am not impressed with the dialogue here…. …I once read a thread on Pokemon forums about…
William:
Ryan would you or any of the other warmists like a debate? Please note this is an open invitation to all warmists.
I found it interesting when I presented the below noted papers (roughly 7 years ago) in the Realclimate forum that the Realclimate scientists had not read the papers I quoted. I persisted, presenting additional papers and a connected logical argument to support the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes not increases to atmospheric CO2. At that time I also presented a series of papers that predicted a slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle and planetary cooling. When it became obvious, that the Realclimate heavy weights could not defend the warmists’ theory, I was blocked with the comment, ‘off message’.
The 16 years of no warming is a problem that will not go away. The 16 years no warming is, however, only one of many problems with the warmist manipulated ‘science’, see below for details. In addition to the scientific failure of the warmists’ theory there has been a sudden, unexplained abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle. Based on what has happened before and the mechanisms by which solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary clouds the planet will cool due to this solar magnetic cycle change. There is now the first observational evidence of cooling. It is extraordinarily difficult to defend manipulated incorrect scientific arguments that ‘support’ the warmists’ theory when the planet is cooling.
1) The latitudinal pattern of warming in the last 70 years does not match that predicted by the AGW theory and the general circulation models. There is too much observed warming in the Northern Hemisphere ex-tropics. There is hardly any warming in the tropics. The AGW theory predicts that the majority of the AGW should be in the tropics where there is the most amount of long wave radiation emitted off into space and where there is amply water to amplify the CO2 forcing warming. The latitudinal pattern of warming in the last 70 years supports the assertion that a significant portion of the 20th century warming has caused by something else rather than CO2 or other greenhouse gases. The warmists have ignored the fact that the latitudinal pattern of warming does not match their theory. The pattern of warming matches a different mechanism, solar magnetic cycle change modulation of planetary clouds.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth (William: This paper notes the latitudinal pattern of warming does not match the warmists’ theory)
2) There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record. The regions that warmed in the past are the same regions that warmed during the last 70 years. The planet was warmer than current during the past cyclic warming periods. To help push the warmists’ agenda, the Mann Hockey stick paper tried to make the Medieval Warming period go away and was caught. There are solar magnetic cycle changes that correlate with the past warming and cooling phases. The sun was at its highest activity in 8000 years and was highest for the longest period of time in 11,000 years during the last 70 years.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://rivernet.ncsu.edu/courselocker/PaleoClimate/Bond%20et%20al.,%201997%20Millenial%20Scale%20Holocene%20Change.pdf
A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Persistent Solar Influence on the North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene (William: Holocene is the name for the current interglacial period. The late Gerald Bond was able to track 23 of the cyclic warming and cooling cycles through the current interglacial period and into the glacial period. As he notes in this paper there are cosmogenic isotopes change that correlate with the cyclic warming and cooling which indicates that solar magnetic cycle changes cause the cyclic warming and cooling. Later research determine the sun cause the cyclic warming and cooling by modulating the amount of planetary clouds.
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/1999/QuatSciRevvGeel/1999QuatSciRevvGeel.pdf
“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy, National Solar Observatory
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Atmospheric Ionization and Clouds as Links Between Solar Activity and Climate
3) There has been 16 years of no significant warming. CO2 continues to rise planetary temperature does not. In addition to the fact the latitudinal pattern of the warming does not agree with the warmists’ theory the magnitude of the warming does no agree with the warmists’ general circulation models.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
Even if 100% of the warming was caused by CO2, the amount of observed warming is significantly less than what is predicted by the IPCC used general circulation models. The most recent warmist response is the heat is hiding in the deep ocean. (No one has noticed that if there is mixing of surface water with deep water that will significant reduce/cap the rate of rise of atmospheric CO2. Is there no end to the problems for the warmists?)
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png
3) There is no tropical tropospheric warming and there is no significant warming in the tropics. The IPCC general circulation models predict that the most warming on the planet should be at around 8K above the surface of the planet in the tropics. This predicted warming amplifies the CO2 forcing and is due to increased water vapor in the atmosphere in the tropics. 20 years of measurement by satellites and temperature measurements using over a 100,000 weather balloons supports the assertion that there is no tropical tropospheric warming. Supporting the lack of tropospheric warming in the tropics is Lindzen and Choi’s analysis (2009 and 2011 papers) which found that planetary clouds in the tropics increase or decrease to resist forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space. That result explains why there is no tropical tropospheric warming and explains why there is almost no long term warming of the tropics.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4.gif
4) There has been an abrupt unexplained change to the solar magnetic cycle. In the past the planet cooled when the solar magnetic cycle slowed down. This change appears however to be an interruption to the solar magnetic cycle rather than a slowdown. Based on what has happened in the past and a hundred or so published papers that almost solved the problem of the mechanisms, the planet will now cool.
The magnetic field strength of newly formed sunspots is decaying linearly.
Long-term Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields
http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0784v1
The following graph, a comparison of the past solar cycles 21, 22, and 23 to the new cycle 24 is provided. That graph is update every six months or so. Those counting sunspots have tried to their best to hide the abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycles by counting sunspot groups using magnetic spectrum observations rather than visual using the standard method which enables historic comparison of sunspot numbers.
It appears based on observation that the sun will be spotless by the end of this year..
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
Ryan,
You may be the only person to comment here who has actually gone to a Pokemon blog. Have you also visited Smurf and Cabbage Patch blogs to find correlation with climate science?
pbh
“Ryan has just expressed his blind faith in the deity of “models”.”
That’s actually the opposite of what I said. Are the models perfect? No, and nobody say they are. Are they better than non-existent sceptic models? Yea. Does every paper showing a problem in the models suggest we should toss them out? Lol no. It shows that the science is honest.
Ryan says:
June 10, 2013 at 5:10 am
“No, I am not impressed with the dialogue here. It is childishly awful.”
Well, you do have to discriminate in your reading anywhere. Both sides have gullible closed-minded folks who don’t elevate the discourse one iota. It’s easy to see who are the honestly-thinking and concerned ones. I suggest a daring experiment. I say daring because it’s too easy to go along with the herd. Suspend belief and read serious criticisms of the CAGW positions presented by climate scientists who are tenured professors with important, peer reviewed papers. In addition, ask yourself why these scientists don’t just go along and get the easy gravy train grants and the adulation of the many, but rather tend to be marginalized and pilloried by their peers. You are not a scientist, perhaps, but much of the presentations of these people are easily understood by interested readers.
I, and many others on the skeptical side know whereof we speak. Before looking into the science, I saw no reason not to accept the IPCC position and I wouldn’t have even looked into it if it didn’t become more and more obvious that it was a promotional agenda-driven political activism (plus being a multibillion buck gravy train for proponents). This turned my attention to details for which I can claim expertise – in the field of geology. Pacific coral islands do not get drowned out, they grow with sea level rise and have grown over 120 metres since the 50 million cubic kilometres of ice of the last Ice Age melted. Ditto with deltas, like the Mississippi and the Ganges, they too, grow upwards and outwards with sea level rise (sea rises, moves upstream, creates still water into which the streams silt, sand and gravel settles out thereby building the base up). It is simply dishonest political activism (mixed with ignorance) that has created all the foofoorah about Pacific Island countries and delta dwellers.
This naturally lead me to learn about all the other features of the climate system and hear what experts in these fields had to say – to my surprise, similar objections were being raised by thoughtful specialists (yes, there was no shortage of foaming-at-the-mouth supporters of the criticisms who may also had a political agenda or psychological problems, perhaps – I’ve noted that some unappeasable activists had difficult relations with their fathers, but that’s another story- this is true as I said of both sides of the debate). All in all, I ended up getting a well rounded education in science and a dusting off and upgrade of my math. Also you can walk into what ever depth you want – an understanding of basic, non-mathematical concepts or even over your head if you like.
Hey, what is there to lose. No one has to know. You found yourself here by yourself out of curiosity – that’s a start. Tell me what is wrong with this idea.
“Ryan,
You may be the only person to comment here who has actually gone to a Pokemon blog. Have you also visited Smurf and Cabbage Patch blogs to find correlation with climate science?
pbh”
I spend quite a bit of time reading all kinds of pseudoscience blogs. I think it is fascinating the way people come to believe absolutely in the weirdest things. I think most of the posters here on wuwt could learn a lot about themselves by spending some time in ICR forums.