Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
David Rose has posted this , from the unreleased IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5):
‘ECS is likely in the range 1.5C to 4.5C… The lower limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2C in the [2007 report], reflecting the evidence from new studies.’ SOURCE
I cracked up when I read that … despite the IPCC’s claim of even greater certainty, it’s a step backwards.
You see, back around 1980, about 33 years ago, we got the first estimate from the computer models of the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS). This is the estimate of how much the world will warm if CO2 doubles. At that time, the range was said to be from 1.5° to 4.5°.
However, that was reduced in the Fourth Assessment Report, to a narrower, presumably more accurate range of from 2°C to 4.5°C. Now, however, they’ve backed away from that, and retreated to their previous estimate.
Now consider: the first estimate was done in 1980, using a simple computer and a simple model. Since then, there has been a huge, almost unimaginable increase in computer power. There has been a correspondingly huge increase in computer speed. The number of gridcells in the models has gone up by a couple orders of magnitude. Separate ocean and atmosphere models have been combined into one to reduce errors. And the size of the models has gone from a few thousand lines of code to millions of lines of code.
And the estimates of climate sensitivity have not gotten even the slightest bit more accurate.
Can anyone name any other scientific field that has made so little progress in the last third of a century? Anyone? Because I can’t.
So … what is the most plausible explanation for this ludicrous, abysmal failure to improve a simple estimate in a third of a century?
I can give you my answer. The models are on the wrong path. And when you’re on the wrong path, it doesn’t matter how big you are or how complex you are or how fast you are—you won’t get the right answer.
And what is the wrong path?
The wrong path is the ludicrous idea that the change in global temperature is a simple function of the change in the “forcings”, which is climatespeak for the amount of downward radiation at the top of the atmosphere. The canonical (incorrect) equation is:
∆T = lambda ∆F
where T is temperature, F is forcing, lambda is the climate sensitivity, and ∆ means “the change in”.
I have shown, in a variety of posts, that the temperature of the earth is not a function of the change in forcings. Instead, the climate is a governed system. As an example of another governed system, consider a car. In general, other things being equal, we can say that the change in speed of a car is a linear function of the change in the amount of gas. Mathematically, this would be:
∆S = lambda ∆G
where S is speed, G is gas, and lambda is the coefficient relating the two.
But suppose we turn on the governor, which in a car is called the cruise control. At that point, the relationship between speed and gas consumption disappears entirely—gas consumption goes up and down, but the speed basically doesn’t change.
Note that this is NOT a feedback, which would just change the coefficient “lambda” giving the linear relationship between the change in speed ∆S and the change in gas ∆G. The addition of a governor completely wipes out that linear relationship, de-coupling the changes in gas consumption from the speed changes entirely.
The exact same thing is going on with the climate. It is governed by a variety of emergent climate phenomena such as thunderstorms, the El Nino/La Nina warm water pump, and the PDO. And as a result, the change in global temperature is totally decoupled from the changes in forcings. This is why it is so hard to find traces of e.g. solar and volcano forcings in the temperature record. We know that both of those change the forcings … but the temperatures do not change correspondingly.
To me, that’s the Occam’s Razor explanation of why, after thirty years, millions of dollars, millions of man-hours, and millions of lines of code, the computer models have not improved the estimation of “climate sensitivity” in the slightest. They do not contain or model any of the emergent phenomena that govern the climate, the phenomena that decouple the temperature from the forcing and render the entire idea of “climate sensitivity” meaningless.
w.
PS—I have also shown that despite their huge complexity, the global temperature output of the models can be emulated to a 98% accuracy by a simple one-line equation. This means that their estimate of the “climate sensitivity” is entirely a function of their choice of forcings … meaning, of course, that even on a good day with a following wind they can tell us nothing about the climate sensitivity.
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M Courtney says:
September 16, 2013 at 7:11 am
All I really know is that, thanks to Willis, I don’t look at clouds like I used to–especially big piles of clouds like hurricanes.
They all remind me of big refridgerators now.
Willis,
a) You’re supposed to be on holiday!
b) If you are not already in York then have a look at the the A171 (SE out of Middlesbrough).
Staithes, Whitby and (my favourite) Robin Hoods Bay.
Not a big diversion if you are heading down the East coast from Scotland. Stay on the A171 into Scarborough and then there is one road (A64) into York.
Don’t forget “The Kings Arms” once you get to York. No idea which thread it came up on some years ago (probably UK flooding in 2008/9?) but I seem to remember you finding a picture of the place for your write up. Now you can have the physical (drinking) experience.
RockyRoad, it was not the original post that I found was not a pleasant read.
It was the comments thread.
All this discussion of cruise control, governors, and limiters, and it occurs to no one that the proper analogy is to a thermostat?
Gail Combs says:
September 16, 2013 at 5:48 am
Gail, thanks for your post. You quote “an engineer, John Kehr” as saying:
The temperature at the global effective radiation height is about 0°C, and the surface is at about 14°C. This gives a downwelling radiation of about 315 W/m2 and an upwelling radiation of about 390 W/m2 … hardly a “small” difference.
However, the real question is “small compared to what”? In this case the proper comparison is “compared to no GHGs at all”. If there were no GHGs, the downwelling radiation from the ~ 3K temperature of outer space is only about zero …
Which means that the presence of the GHGs adds about 315 W/m2 to the surface of the earth … and that is a very important difference. The surface ends up absorbing about 315 W/m2 MORE than it would if there were no GHGs.
In other words … engineer John Kehr hasn’t thought this issue all the way through to the end.
w.
From day one the people involved with this CO2 scam have been selling, not solving.. This is why they haven’t made a inch of progress.. This is also why they never will..
The politics and money got out in front of the baby step science (the models).. The scientists became artists more interested in the art gallery than what they were putting on display.. Rave reviews and held over for another week because so many people could co-op this white lie with their political identities and all the grievances that go along with it..
This is why the supportive media always presented the BELIEVERS in a one dimensional way..
Never ever giving us a full picture of who these people are, or more importantly who their friends are..
Running cover and protecting their co-opted friends because they have a ticket to the global warming gallery in their back pocket..
Its so dirty I cant even see the clean..
So dont scratch your heads and wonder what happened in Germany in 1934.. What, how and why is sitting on top of the dirt, blinking at you.. People are suckers if you pick the right villain and press the right buttons.
M Courtney says:
September 16, 2013 at 12:15 pm
I concur. But clouds have much more to do with climate than the IPCC dares admit. And I credit Willis for opening that front in this battle and my eyes.
I have nothing negative to say about the original post–it’s very thought provoking.
Willis,
From the UK ‘Mail Online’: “A rare moment of calm on Earth: Stunning satellite image reveals strangely clear skies above the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean” ……
This may be another example of an ‘Emergent Phenomena’ I suppose it could cool radiationally, or warm by way of reduced Albedo……
Interesting graphic of Tropical Cyclone history and track overlap in that Mail Online article.
Willis, you bring up a very good issue on modeling. If you try to build a model from observations of the inputs and outputs of a dynamic system, many methods fail when feedback is present. For example, MOESP and N4SID are techniques for building linear models from observations. However, these methods fail when feedback is present because inputs, outputs, and noise become correlated with the presence of feedback. Negative feedback would make both regression based models and open loop physics based models inaccurate.
David Riser says:
September 15, 2013 at 8:45 pm
” I still don’t think you’ll see a flying car any time soon as its just too difficult politically.”
Politically? Hahah! If you had ever worked behind a Cash Register you would know that it will never work because . . . (wait for it) . . . 60 % of the total population are abysmally stupid, irresponsible, lazy, Cud-Chewing Cows. They kill too many of the 40% as they act out their role in the Darwinian Drama.
As Idiot-Proofing technology improves and becomes embedded in the fabric of Humanity, it is not unreasonable to assume that over time the ‘average’ level of physical and intellectual fitness will decline, and that the cost of ‘adapting’ to that decline will be prohibitive as opposed to letting nature do as it would have.
Gail Combs says:
September 16, 2013 at 5:48 am
If you look at water, it becomes clear that more H20 in the atmosphere (without clouds) still moderates temperature by making daytime temperatures lower and night time temperatures higher. This is seen in the difference between deserts and tropical jungles.
I’m afraid you are wrong Gail. I live on the outer limits of the monsoonal zone (Perth). We get a few days of monsoonal humidity every 3 or 4 years, but never enough for convection to form significant clouds, never mind rain. Those high humidity days are around 5C warmer than adjacent lower humidity, but equally sunny, days. Northeast of here where they get enough humidity for clouds and rain. The difference between cloudy and sunny days is dramatic. Cloudy, rainy days are around 20C cooler than sunny days.
Water vapour has a powerful greenhouse warming effect that reverses to a cooling effect as clouds condensate. In addition rain, transports cold water to the ground lowering the surface temperature.
In the tropics, WV GH warming and cloud cooling are in a minute by minute equilibrium, which why tropical temperatures are so stable. And incidentally, why I say the humid tropics can never get any warmer, except through factors that affect the phase changes of water.
Aside from the initial point that IPCC et al have not achieved anything significant in over three decades of effort, this governor analogy has been discussed before in this forum.
Willis and critics need to do a better job of making their points.
My understanding is that various processes are either self-limiting or mutually limiting. E.G.:
– processes that create clouds which either reduce heat loss to space, block heat from space (from the sun), or radiate heat to space (depending on altitude of the clouds).
– movement of heat in the oceans (currents) and the air (winds both horizontal and vertical (thunderstorms)), and exchange between water and air.
(By mutually limiting I mean that a change in one affects another in a way that acts in the opposite direction.)
However there is also variation in solar influx of heat, due to earth orbit variation and the sun’s output variation. And variation in particles from the sun that may affect processes, for example seeding high altitude clouds.
History shows that any governing effect is imprecise at the level of concern – a couple of degrees increase in the mind of alarmists, more decrease of concern for an ice age, much more at times in the distant past (different time spans in history, such as a 60 year period apparent in the last century). Governors in general have some fluctuation in their design and ability to control to the set point, depending on sensitivity of the parameters used as input to the governor, response time of the restoring function, and device considerations. For example, the temperature of a forced air home heating system may be set somewhat broad (min-max) to avoid frequent cycling of the combustor and fan, and there is a lag from turn-on to heat being produced where the thermostat will sense it. There are lags affecting climate, such as wind and thermal inertia.
Talking of feedback gets confusing to many people, off-the-top I see a governor using feedback in a negative sense (to restore to the set point), but an uncontrolled fire as positive feedback because it creates air movement that intensifies and spreads the fire. Your automotive speed governor responds to small speed changes resulting from the effect of gravity and wind on the car’s mass, achieving its control through varying the motive force by varying the fuel supply.
There’s also “equilibrium”. Simple case is water in two tanks goes to same level when interconnect to empty one is opened, but likely some oscillation in the immediate time after. If a big change like addition to or removal of water from tank occurs, a new equilibrium results.
I take the point of Willis and other defenders of humans as being that the earth’s climate is relatively stable, whereas alarmists predict runaway warming.
Keith Sketchley:
I am responding to your post at September 17, 2013 at 1:45 pm.
I agree with you that the terms “feedback” or “governor” are not precise for the effect Willis is trying to illustrate. But I would welcome a suggestion of something better that “governor”.
A feedback either reduces or increases an effect.
A governor limits the magnitude of an effect.
Thermostats constrain temperature within limits.
But some of the climate responses reverse an effect.
For example, in 1991 Ramanathan & Collins (R&C) first discovered that tropical sea surface temperature is limited to a maximum of 305K. Hence, it could be thought that they had merely discovered a governor, but not so.
Their paper is Ramanathan v & Collins W, ‘Thermodynamic regulation of ocean warming by cirrus clouds deduced from observations of the 1987 El Niño’, Nature 351, 27 – 32 (02 May 1991) doi:10.1038/351027a0
Its Abstract says
Observations made during the 1987 El Niño show that in the upper range of sea surface temperatures, the greenhouse effect increases with surface temperature at a rate which exceeds the rate at which radiation is being emitted from the surface. In response to this ‘super greenhouse effect’, highly reflective cirrus clouds are produced which act like a thermostat shielding the ocean from solar radiation. The regulatory effect of these cirrus clouds may limit sea surface temperatures to less than 305 K.
In other words, the effect they found is that increased heating of tropical ocean increases evapouration to increase cover by cirrus clouds which shield the surface from solar heating. This shielding sets a limit of 305K to maximum surface temperature.
But clouds don’t stay in one place. Therefore, when a region of the the surface has temperature of 305K, then additional heating (from any cause) increases cirrus clouds which spread to shield surrounding regions. Thus, the effect does not merely set a maximum temperature: it induces a drop in surface temperature of the surrounding ocean regions when surface heating is increased.
A governor merely sets a maximum temperature. The R&C Effect can induce a fall in surface temperature when surface heating is increased. And the Eschenbach Effect does that, too.
These effects – and any similar effects which possibly exist – are not merely governors.
Richard
So perhaps the global temperature for Sept. will rise (?).
“Can anyone name any other scientific field that has made so little progress in the last third of a century? Anyone? Because I can’t.”
I could, but then you would start calling me names, wouldn’t you Willis? So to avoid such unpleasant treatment I rather abstain.
Tony Mach says:
September 20, 2013 at 3:32 am
Tony, uncited and unreferenced accusation like that will almost always earn you derision on this site, from me or someone else. You present no evidence that what you say is true.
Start by finding somewhere in this thread where I’ve called someone a name for answering that very question, and we might have something to talk about. I just looked back and I can’t find one, but maybe I missed it.
Absent that, however, you’re just flinging feces at the wall and hoping they’ll stick …
w.