Quite a performance yesterday. Steve Milloy is calling it the “Zapruder film” implying it was the day the AGW agenda got shot down. While that might not be a good choice of words, you have to admit they did a fantastic job of shooting down some of the ridiculous claims made by panelists prior to them. While this may not be a Zapruder moment, I’d say that it represented a major turning point.
Give props to both Roger and Roy.
Marc Morano reported:
‘Senate global warming hearing backfires on Democrats’ — Boxer’s Own Experts Contradict Obama! — ‘Skeptics & Roger Pielke Jr. totally dismantled warmism (scientifically, economically, rhetorically) — Climate Depot Round Up
‘Sen. Boxer’s Own Experts Contradict Obama on Climate Change’ — Warmists Asked: ‘Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama’s statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?’ For several seconds, nobody said a word. Sitting just a few rows behind the expert witnesses, I thought I might have heard a few crickets chirping’
Video link and links to PDF of testimonies follow.
Here is the video link, in full HD:
http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=epw&filename=epw071813
Dr. Spencer writes about his experience here and flips the title back at them:
The PDF’s of each person’s testimony can be accessed by click on their names below:
Panel 1
| Dr. Heidi Cullen
Chief Climatologist Climate Central |
| Mr. Frank Nutter
President Reinsurance Association of America |
| Mr. KC Golden
Policy Director Climate Solutions |
| Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Senior Fellow Manhattan Institute for Policy Research |
| Dr. Robert P. Murphy
Senior Economist Institute for Energy Research |
Panel 2
| Dr. Jennifer Francis
Research Professor Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University |
| Dr. Scott Doney
Director, Ocean and Climate Change Institute Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |
| Dr. Margaret Leinin
Executive Director, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Florida Atlantic University |
| Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.
Professor, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research University of Colorado |
| Dr. Roy Spencer
Principal Research Scientist IV University of Alabama, Huntsville |
Leif,
Still we can’t ignore the high energy particles because they cause actual chemical changes in the atmosphere, the method of action has implications for the climate. It’s not all about energy, it’s also about energy transfer (flow).
A low energy signal can cause a very large change in an energy flow – it happens every time you turn your lights on. It happens every time there’s a temperature inversion over your city. It happens often when you have a cloudless night (ie lack of clouds change radiation enough to cause frost). It happens every time a cloud floats over you during the day. It’s all about flow.
Can the sun affect thermal energy flow on planet earth how, what wavelengths could do that?
You haven’t answered my question, if it isn’t the sun, and it isn’t GHGs then what was the little ice age caused by?
Phil. says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:11 pm
But wait! You’re both right. And wrong.
Remarkably, this important study is only now being accorded the significance it merits:
http://astro.ic.ac.uk/research/solar-irradiance-variation
As with TSI, variability and irradiance increases at solar maximum above atmosphere observations have revealed that the 200-300 nm region varies on the order of a few percent, 150-200 nm by 10-20% and shorter regions by over 50%. However, contribution to TSI is tiny in this region: most radiative energy comes from the visible and near-IR and prior to the SORCE mission was a region not well observed.
PS: SORCE craft was launched in 2003. If nothing else, this again shows how preposterous was the baseless assertion in the ’90s that climate “science was settled”. The PDO was discovered by a fisheries researcher in 1997.
What is a more plausible primary (90%) forcing of the climate system: going from three molecules of CO2 per 10,000 dry air molecules to four in 150 years, or small fluctuations in the spectral composition of an only very slightly varying TSI, plus solar magnetic flux? Or something entirely different?
IMO adherence to the, to say the least, not well supported man-made GHG hypothesis, has short-circuited rigorous exploration of alternative explanations for observed climate change since the end of the LIA, to the extent that observations are real & not anthropogenically “adjusted”.
“””””…..milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:28 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:14 pm
As you must know, albedo of UV-A & UV-B is very low. High energy means high penetration.
Indeed, the Earth is round, but 70% of its surface is saltwater, which UV penetrates farther than visible light & IR. I’d like to see these physical facts studied……….”””””””””””
Dunno who said what here. I believe Dr. Leif did NOT say the latter.
While 70 % of the earth surface IS water (more or less), somewhat more than 70% of solar energy strikes the water, because of the geography.
BUT !! where did this notion arise that UV penetrates deeply into sea water; “”” farther than visible or IR “””
Simply is NOT true.
So let me cite some numbers from THE INFRA-RED HANDBOOK.
Specifically chapter 3 page 103 in Properties of Terrestrial Materials. Fig. 3-113
The actual souce is G. C. Ewing “Oceanography from Space”…Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. WHOI ref No. 65-10 April 1965. Ewing may have been an editor rather than author.
So.
Sea water is MOST transparent at about 470 nm (LED blue) Absorption coefficient is 10^-4 cm^-1.
So 1/e attenuation depth, is 10,000 cm…..100 metres, so 500 metres to 99% absorption.
For visible from 400 nm to 800 nm.
At 400 alpha = ~6 E-4
At 800 nm alpha = ~1E-2 1/e depth = 1 metre
for the same one metre at short end, go down to 300 nm wavelength (UV).
So the entire visible spectrum goes deeper than 300 nm UV.
UV transmission really crashes at about 180 nm, that’s pretty deep UV, maybe vacuum UV. The value of alpha goes from 0.01 to 20 in about 10 nm wavelength.
UV is VERY STRONGLY absorbed in sea water.
At longer wavelengths, alpha increases almost linearly on a log log plot. I say almost linear, it has some bumps starting near 1.50 microns, also at a value of 20 cm ^-1
Maximum absorptance is reached at 3.0 microns; at least 8,000 cm^-1, so 1/e penetration depth is 1.25 microns , only 1% left after 6.25 microns depth. alpha then drops to around 200 at 4 microns, and bumps around til about 7 micron at 800 cm^-1 , increasing to about 5,000 cm^-1 at about 15 microns, the CO2 trouble band.
From there, the alpha value falls roughly linear on log log ; 5,000 at 15 microns down to about 1.0 cm ^-1 at a wavelengthof 300 cm (one foot); that’s also 100 MHz..
I need to find some way to convey this graph to Anthony, it is the most definitive water absorption data I know of.
But it is completely false that UV penetrates deeper than visible or IR. Much of it barely makes it through the atmosphere.
george e. smith says:
July 20, 2013 at 9:15 pm
Sir, I would draw your attention to the study linked below, which analyzed IR & UV penetration of a comprehensive sampling of oceanic water conditions:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16613490
The observed findings are that in open ocean UV penetrates deeply, as one would rationally expect. Also in a wide variety of other seawater conditions. Other studies have found the same, as indeed would be intuitively obvious.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:28 pm
As you must know, albedo of UV-A & UV-B is very low.
The albedo that is important in determining what reaches the surface is that of clouds and that is about the same at all wavelengths. UV does not penetrate a cloud.
Or it could just be the Margaritas talking.
No, it is being imprecise and throwing around numbers without thinking about what they mean.
bobl says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:42 pm
Still we can’t ignore the high energy particles because they cause actual chemical changes in the atmosphere, the method of action has implications for the climate. It’s not all about energy, it’s also about energy transfer (flow).
As usual, people stray. The fact is that there is no good evidence that solar activity [with all what is in it] regulates the climate in a major way. So whatever the implications are they are minor, and hence only of academic [but exciting] interest.
You haven’t answered my question, if it isn’t the sun, and it isn’t GHGs then what was the little ice age caused by?
Try ocean circulation and add in volcanos at various times. Just because we don’t know does not mean that it must be the sun or GHGs. “if the burglar is not Mr. A and not Mr. B, then who else could it be?” implying that it must be either A or B.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:47 pm
contribution to TSI is tiny in this region
As I said. It doesn’t matter that the percentage variation down there is large. It is like variation of the amount of loose change in Bill Gates’ pockets not having a large impact on his total wealth.
While the variation in Mr. Gates’ pocket change would not be large compared to his net worth, to what’s in the pocket it could be huge. That’s my point.
I didn’t throw numbers around with thinking about them. The difference between my approximation & actual is trivial.
Could we please deal with a real world situation. If the energy absorbed by the, say, top 50 m of the world’s oceans due to a doubling in UV of whatever wavelengths at maximum share of UV viz a viz at minimal UV indeed be trivial, then so be it. But it seems to me that this possible climate forcing from solar activity has not been systematically & rigorously pursued, so that it can’t as yet be dismissed.
If the really big fluctuation be at the highest energy wavelengths, however tiny a share of TSI, then please someone more competent than I do the math & physics on that.
“”””””……
X Anomaly says:
July 20, 2013 at 7:35 pm
george,
Negative cloud feedback is an interesting proposition, but no more interesting then any other potential albedo related negative feedback arising from dust, ice sheets, snow, vegetation, etc.
Co2 impacts long wave radiation, and so does water vapor. The question is why the two are in the atmosphere at all (i.e. why is it ocean warm enough to emit the two?). Without an alternative explanation, one is restricted to pulling apart the AGW assumptions such as:…….”””””””
Well X, I’m not greatly interested in “interesting propositions”.
Specially trying to debate against “potential” things.
According to NASA / NOAA, the earth’s (permanent) cloud cover is about 60 % by area, and most clouds are in tropical regions over the oceans, where most of the solar energy arrives. More water/clouds, more solar energy scatter reflected / absorbed, therefore less surface solar energy, and surface cooling, so less water evaporation.
THAT IS NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.
Snow and ice is a small percentage of the earth’s projected area facing the sun.
More snow and ice results in MORE reflected solar energy (not as much as you think), and more reflectance leads to less solar energy absorption, so more COOLING.
THAT IS POSITIVE FEEDBACK Not negative.
The atmospheric absorbed solar energy WARMS the atmosphere; but it COOLS the surface. The laws of thermodynamics work AGAINST the warmer atmosphere warming the surface. “heat” aka THERMAL ENERGY tends to flow from hot to cold. That is UP in the atmosphere, NOT DOWN.
Now yes LWIR radiation goes both ways, but up is favored, because the Temperature and density gradients are negative upwards, so the active spectral lines are narrowed as you go up, so more radiation escapes their net, compared to going down where you encounter greater Doppler and collision broadening, so more recapture.
But X, you are free to believe whatever you find to be “interesting propositions.”
I make it a rule, to not get between anybody, and a cliff they are determined to leap off.
Please correct me if wrong, but IMO cloud albedo, ie reflectivity of water droplets vice vapor, differs substantially for UV v. visible & IR. I know that I can get sunburnt on cloudy days & have done so. I’ve looked for actual observational data. Would appreciate any & all real albedo numbers. Thanks.
With regards to overlap, in the tropics, if you negate the impact of co2 due to water vapor, it reduces co2 impact by around 75%. Co2 does a little better in the polar regions, but again its around a 63% reduction. So that was my original point. Of course if you are an alarmist you can argue the exact opposite, that in the tropics, the contribution of water vapor is reduced by around 30% because Co2 is already there.
So just say your an warming advocate, you believe co2 drives 20% of the GHE directly, and 75% indirectly from water vapor and clouds. There is no empirical evidence which says the opposite isn’t true, that co2 drives a mere 5% at the very most.
Meh.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 9:51 pm
Could we please deal with a real world situation. If the energy absorbed by the, say, top 50 m of the world’s oceans due to a doubling in UV of whatever wavelengths at maximum share of UV viz a viz at minimal UV indeed be trivial, then so be it.
As i showed you, it is indeed absolutely trivial, and that is why UV absorption by oceans is not a driver of climate.
But it seems to me that this possible climate forcing from solar activity has not been systematically & rigorously pursued, so that it can’t as yet be dismissed.
It can be dismissed on account of its trivial forcing. You could also argue that the effect from Jupiter shine has not been pursued, but, again, it is too trivial to consider.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 20, 2013 at 11:08 pm
So, let us assume that all spectra of incoming TSI are equally impeded by clouds, which in the real world clearly is not the case. Still, at the height of the UV ratio v. IR ratio, the oceans are penetrated more deeply by twice as much shortwave radiation. Does it matter how small the total amount may be? Maybe, but maybe not, in a system perched on the edge of stability.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 10:11 pm
I know that I can get sunburnt on cloudy days & have done so. I’ve looked for actual observational data. Would appreciate any & all real albedo numbers. Thanks.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2732/are-uv-rays-really-more-powerful-on-cloudy-days
“Clouds usually block UV rays, particularly UV-B; on a really overcast day they can keep out 70 to 90 percent of the UV-B coming in…”
On partially cloudy days UV may be scattered in from by the clouds to give you some exposure and cause sunburn.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Does it matter how small the total amount may be? Maybe, but maybe not, in a system perched on the edge of stability.
The climate system is very stable and has endured tremendous disasters in the past without run-aways. In addition, there is no evidence that the climate follows solar radiation more than at the 0.1C level, so it does seem to matter how small the variations are. “Size matters”.
@Billy Liar
You miss and ignore the scientific point. The scientific point is, that there is a significant geometric relation between the reconstructed global temperatures Dr. Spencer has shown, and the sum of the real solar tides with a strength of the square root of the inverse frequency of the tides. The scientific way is to check this relation, and if it would be wrong to refute it with scientific arguments, but not with religious personal sceptic. The measured function of the square root of the inverse frequency of the well known FFT spectra from the last 10000 years suggests that there is a physics function in this phenoma.
s.http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/fft_stein_solar.jpg
V.
BlackAdderthe4th …you may not realise this but your comments re ID being uncheckable is also true for ALL the theory of Evolution. Both are theories. None of what is written can be proved. Radiometric dating has certain assumptions. When you look at them and change the beginning assumed value or belief, the whole calculation becomes null and void. So its NOT science. What we have is evidence and all the various groups interpret this through their own filters. Generally to fit their own presuppositions.
Whoever said there are heaps of transitional fossils in the evolutionary tree please post them somewhere and tell us all. ALL evolution believing scientists will be very interested in your data! They will tell you there is no transition fossils and that’s what stumps them all the time.
Thanks Anthony for your time on WUWT.
Re Dr. Svalgaard’s and others comments on the ‘sun & natural variability’
Link between solar activity and the climate changes is tenuous one since there is a geo-catalyst controlling the process The climate change is at the end of the chain, with the Earth in the middle, kind of a ‘dishonest broker’ modifying the solar script within its own time line events.
Hence, we may never have an exact climate mechanism or correlation to the solar activity, but the geomagnetics is useful proxy, it gives an indication to the ‘earth’s factor’.
When the climate scientists realise that the solar and earth’s magnetic data are two constituent ‘colours of the same transparency’, than we may get somewhere.
I do not expect either Dr. Svalgaard or any other scientist with dogmatic or an agenda approach to accept the such ideas as viable
My calculations are on the record and archived by a science depository:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
Atheists crack me up. They can’t even wrap their pea brains around the simple fact that if they can exist so can God! And i thought I was dumb. Meanwhile, that we exist at all, is 99.9% of the argument for an afterlife! Can’t have one w/o the other… Also, that time is not constant leaves open the debate on how old anything is and by whose measuring stick. Anything is possible.
george
http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/gif/segelstein81.gif
Leif
You said
Try ocean circulation and add in volcanos at various times. Just because we don’t know does not mean that it must be the sun or GHGs. “if the burglar is not Mr. A and not Mr. B, then who else could it be?” implying that it must be either A or B.
This is exactly what I was trying to draw out of you, I am not implying A or B, I was trying to draw out of you that there is a C-Z and that C-Z may in fact have something to do with the sun either directly or indirectly through a mechanism that is either currently thought to be minor, or perhaps completely unknown. I think it pays to always accept that there are possibilities that have not yet been explored or maybe we are wrong about, and thus the best statement that can ever be made in science is “To the best of our current knowledge, It’s not the sun”.
I certainly agree the possibilities or climatic coupling minor or not are an exciting prospect for scientific discovery, it certainly fascinates me.
Richard M wrote at July 20, 2013 at 6:55 pm
“E. Swanson … ignore UAH. Use RSS if you don’t like Spencer. The answer is the same.”
RSS uses an algorithm to calculate their Lower Troposphere which is similar to that of Spencer and Christy’s TLT. Their effort was undertaken as a check of S & C findings and thus one might expect that the results would converge, after all the difficulties with the MSU are taken into account. However, they do not claim that their product covers the entire Earth, as do S & C, in fact they specifically exclude measurements poleward of 70S, which includes the most of the Antarctic.
Over many years, Spencer, like most successful salesmen, has overstated the utility of his product. Only this time, he did it before Congress and making false statements in testimony is against the law. I think he could be charged with perjury, the result of which might be that his funding would be eliminated.
Gary Hladik says:
July 19, 2013 at 8:17 pm
“”The testimony of Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Manhattan Institute) is also worth reading.””
Yes, very interesting. Cost based analysis, just like it should be. Doesn’t seem to be holding back either.
E. Swanson says:
July 21, 2013 at 2:31 am
Haha. Very funny. You forgot the /sarc tag.
And you didn’t watch the Cullen bit, did you?
And, if you can’t tell the difference between the Senate and Congress we should believe your complaint(s) because …. ???
The ad homs directed at Mann are different from those at Spencer because they criticize his unscientific behavior in the field of climatology. To have a roughly parallel case, contrarians would have to be criticizing Mann for his political behavior–for appearing at radical rallies and pumping his fist and leading a chant “The people untied can never be defeated,” something he’s done, but tht hasn’t been the gravamen of the charge against him here.
I understand the skeptic side has made a good case but…..
From Spencer’s website:
“All of the senators were moving in an out of the hearing room for a floor vote, so there were only 2-4 senators present at any given time.”
So a most important Senate hearing is undertaken and virtually no Senators are present, let alone listening…..???????
If they don’t attend the hearings, they will not be influenced by the outcome of such a hearings.
Hell, they don’t even read the Bill’s they vote on.
In my humble opinion the entire system is wrecked.
I don’t see how this could end well from any perspective.