Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I have put forth the idea for some time now that one of the main climate thermoregulatory mechanisms is a temperature-controlled sharp increase in albedo in the tropical regions. I have explained that this occurs in a stepwise fashion when cumulus clouds first emerge, and that the albedo is further increased when some of the cumulus clouds evolve into thunderstorms.
I’ve demonstrated this with actual observations in a couple of ways. I first showed it by means of average photographs of the “view from the sun” here. I’ve also shown this occurring on a daily basis in the TAO data. So I thought, I should look in the CERES data for evidence of this putative phenomenon that I claim occurs, whereby the albedo is actively controlling the thermal input to the climate system.
Mostly, this thermoregulation appears to be happening over the ocean. And I generally dislike averages, I avoid them when I can. So … I had the idea of making a scatterplot of the total amount of reflected solar energy, versus the sea surface temperature, on a gridcell-by-gridcell basis. No averaging required. I thought well, if I’m correct, I should see the increased reflection of solar energy required by my hypothesis in the scatterplots. Figure 1 shows those results for four individual months in one meteorological year. (The year-to-year variations are surprisingly small, so these months are quite representative.)
Figure 1. Scatterplots showing the relationship between sea surface temperature (horizontal axis, in °C) and total energy reflected by each gridcell (in terawatts). I have used this measurement in preference to watts/square metre because each point on the scatterplot represents a different area. This approach effectively area-averages the data. Colors indicate latitude of the gridcell. Light gray is south pole, shading to black at the equator. Blue is north pole, shading to red at the equator. Click to enlarge
So … what are we looking at here, and what does it mean?
This analysis uses a one-degree by one-degree gridcell size. So each month of data contains 180 rows (latitude) by 360 rows (longitude) of data. Each point in each graph above is one gridcell.That’s 64,800 data points in each of the graphs. Each point is located on the horizontal axis by its temperature, and on the vertical axis by the total energy reflected from that gridcell.
The main feature I want to highlight is what happens when the ocean gets warm. From about 20°C to maybe 26°C, the amount of solar energy reflected by the system is generally dropping. You can see it most clearly in Figure 1’s March and September panels. But from about 26° up to the general oceanic maximum of just above 30°C, the amount of solar energy that is reflected goes through the roof. Reflected energy more than doubles in that short interval.
Note that as the ocean warms, the total energy being reflected first drops, and then reverses direction and increases. This will tend to keep ocean temperatures constant—decreasing reflections allow more energy in. But only up to a certain temperature. Above that temperature, the system rapidly increases the amount reflected to cut down any further warming.
Overall, I’d say that this is some of the strongest evidence that my proposed thermoregulatory system exists. Not only does it exist, but it appears to be a main mechanism governing the total amount of energy that enters the climate system.
It’s very late … my best regards to everyone, hasta luego …
w.
[UPDATE] A commenter asked that I show the northern and southern hemispheres separately. Here is the Southern Hemisphere
And the Northern. The vertical lines are at 30.75°C, nothing magical about that number, I wanted to see the temperature shift over the year and that worked.
Willis,
Since this is only over 10 year time span I would guess that perhaps the positive feedback shown so far is still in the process of changing which may be what is holding temp steady against another feedback trying to drive temperatures down. While this is showing the overall control mechanism whereby once a temperature is reached the positive feedback may move to negative, much like what happens in your example of cruise control. Just a thought. hehe perhaps you need to add in a computer model to play with history where there is no actual data. Just a thought.. I know a lot of folks hate models but they can help in terms of understanding when there is no other way, you just need to be careful not to put your own biases into the model which is hard to do.
v/r,
David Riser
IMHO,cold is a more natural state in the universe,and we should be thankfull for any heat we can get.I also think that clouds are like visible latant heat(maybe sensible too…).We can see the warmer air/water mass rising and expanding and losing its heat up there where it’s really cold,not very far away either.
Source info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phase_diagram_of_water.svg
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-altitude-temperature-d_461.html
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-psychrometrics-properties-t_8.html
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Physical_Properties_of_Matter/Atomic_and_Molecular_Properties/Intermolecular_Forces/Unusual_Properties_of_Water
I think it’s called ‘miniscus’ (not steam,maybe fog)when at lower levels.And the miniscus is thickening!
Thanks for the interesting articles and comments
That’s a great idea Willis, nice work.
If you pick a month, say September, and made one of your charts for every year of CERES data, you could then draw a vertical line where the limit of temperature is and plot that vs concentration of CO2. That might give you a good idea of climate sensitivity for the oceans. It is probable land would have a different sensitivity since the response to the back-radiation from CO2 would be different there.
People who expect the summer and winter solstice to be mirror images of one another are forgetting that the Earth’s eccentricity places the Earth closest to the sun during the southern hemisphere summer and farthest away on the northern hemisphere summer, thus introducing a very distinct bias in observation. It really should be hotter in summer and cooler in winter in the southern hemisphere.
Very elegant presentation, Willis. Kudos for all the thought and sweat you put into it.
One small nit: can we see the hemispheres individually? Since the high temperature area is the “punch-line” of your hypothesis, it would help to not have the black and red laid on top of each other at the right-hand side.
Thanks, again!
Coldish says:
October 6, 2013 at 9:44 am
Thanks, Coldish. I’ve taken that into account by multiplying the reflected solar (in W/m2) for each gridcell by the area of that gridcell. That’s the units I used in the head post, which allow for the difference in areas …
w.
Paul Linsay says, October 6, 2013 at 8:59 am:
“The observed temperature is the equilibrium point between the solar flux and evaporation. The heat carried away by evaporation just balances the heat input of the solar flux.”
Exactly. But a greater atmospheric weight makes it harder for the surface to rid itself of energy through evaporation as fast as it would with a smaller atmospheric weight and at equal surface temperatures (kinetic level).
If you have two initially identical planetary (oceanic) surfaces, same atmospheric weight on top, same rate of solar input and same mean temperature, what would happen if you increased the atmospheric weight on top of one of them? This surface would no longer be able to maintain your equilibrium between solar flux and evaporation. And hence solar energy would pile up at/below the surface (coming in faster than escaping) until the kinetic level (the temperature) became high enough to propel the molecules leaving the surface as efficient against the stronger downward force of the heavier atmosphere as before, with the weaker opposing downward force of the lighter atmosphere.
Increasing the atmospheric weight pressing down on a heated surface makes it harder for the surface to rid itself of absorbed energy through molecular motion/convective processes (convection and evaporation) at a specific temperature/energy level. That’s why, to maintain dynamic equilibrium, mean temperatures will naturally go up/be higher.
As Stephen Wilde said, “ In itself (Willis’s idea) is not an adequate explanation for global climate variability over centuries.“.
—– ——- —-
Having looked through thousands of British weather records back to 1100AD it is evident that the LIA was not a monolithic deep freeze for 500 years but instead it was episodic with many warm periods interspersed (The decade of 1730 was around as warm as today)
What is very noticeable in the records are long periods of blocking highs, which in winter generally provide freezing conditions and the opposite if they occur in summer.
There is also ample evidence of the jet stream being stuck in the ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ position for extended periods. This caused long periods of cold or warmth although the most notable effect in Britain during the LIA was huge amounts of rain and high winds. These events lasted many months or even years.
Combine Blocking highs with jet stream position, wind direction and the Gulf stream/Pdo/Ao etc being especially active or quiet with the resultant impact on levels of cloudiness and that could explain a large part of the periods we know as the LIA/MWP. Perhaps a quiet or active sun also had an effect . There is some correlation with sun spots during the coldest periods.
tonyb
Explain how this ties into abrupt climate changes and inter glacial versus glacial climate regimes?
This makes perfect sense to any sailplane pilot who knows very well how clouds will proliferate on a sunny day and ultimately liberate their energy in the form of rain. The way they rise and spread out so their shadows cut off the thermals is always in the backs of their minds. The climate scientists should spend less time behind their desks and more time actually within the element they profess to study to see how it actually works.
Wilis keeps trying to say the climate system is always stable , which could not be farther from the truth, so all his studies are in a sense of no value when trying to predict future climatic trends.
Are they correct within a particular climate regime, perhaps.
What? Nature has a thermoregulatory system that helps the planet self-regulate temperature and prevents runaway global warming? We can’t have that. Climate alarmists might lose some funding. Besides, this might lead some people to think that nature was intelligently designed or something. So you had better put a lid on it. There are just some things that science has to take a back seat for. /sarc
Willis, now that shows so very clear what you have said in the past of the ~30C apparent ocean temperature limit. This is one topic I have never doubted that you were exactly correct since you brought that matter up.
I spent some time after your first post quite a while ago looking at the surrounding parameters for those with the power to squelch any further rise in temperatures as ~30C was approached and it seems a set. Wind velocity of drier air coupled with a marked increase in evaporation speeding uplift is the one set of factors that can move that much energy so suddenly. But you know that and those are on you list in the previous post. I am assuming this is only over the oceans but the same effect occurs in my neck of the woods though the limit is at a bit warmer here (mid US).
Now that’s some very important work. (but will the GCMs ever program in that clear non-linearity?)
Paul Linsay says:
October 6, 2013 at 8:59 am
“Stephen Wilde says:
October 6, 2013 at 7:23 am
Dare I say that the factor which determines that maximum temperature is the weight of the atmosphere pressing down on the surface water molecules?”
I think that you are wrong here. If what you say is true it would be impossible to boil water at sea level anywhere.
______
HUH?
At 1 bar, the atmospheric pressure today ±, at sea level, pure water boils at 373.15k (100°C) so the adiabatic lapse rate (~-9°C/1000 M change in elevation) is dependent on the reduction in atmos. press. as one travels higher than sea level. Since warm air can hold more moisture than cooler air and since the molecular wt. of water is 18 and air is 28.8 the warm, moist air is much lighter than the cooler, drier air so it rises. As it rises it cools, because it expands (PV=nRT), until it can no longer can hold the dissolved water vapor. At that elevation clouds start to form. That is why cumulus cloud bases are all at a similar altitude at a given time and location.
In the distant past, the atmospheric pressure was considerable higher than the 1 bar today so, as Wilde points out, this would have had a significant effect on the lapse rate and thus the Eschenbach thermoregulation of the Earth’s temp. (and yes the boiling point of water so Paul Linsay your noodles would have cooked much more rapidly back then).
Willis brilliant! What causes the increased reflected radiation when the ocean temp. is 18 – 21°C? Is it at a narrow range of latitudes?
@Willis,
Re: RC Saumarez 4:32 am
You state that cumulus clouds are relatively short lived. Yet you are, …. using monthly samples of ceres data. …. This suggests that you may be using aliased data….
I want to return to the question of what is it that CERES measures.
From : Motivations of merging geostationary 3 hourly data with the polar orbiters
It seems to me that aliasing is indeed a worry. While the orbit my be sun-synchronous, and therefore consistent month to month, it probably under-samples the diurnal period crucial to the thermostatic dynamics of the clouds. What solar time(s) of the day does CERES measure any given Grid cell? Is there greater overlap at the poles then the equator? Is it full areal coverage at the equator? What if the major influence clouds have on the climate peaks 1, 2, or 3 hours before or after the satellite pass?
The geosynchronous readings are not sun-synched. So they give diurnal based data (how often sampled?) but to what areal resolution?
Willis is making an excellent point. My own experience is that at middle latitudes and over a dry land clouds have a cooling effect during a day, a heating effect during a night. Maybe we should average grudgingly not over months, but over daytimes and nighttimes – over a convenient period. Is the source data available with a time resolution better than a day?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
October 6, 2013 at 11:51 am
If you think I’ve said something like that, please QUOTE MY WORDS. I’m not interested in your fantasies about what I never said.
w.
Looks to me as a nice way for the atmospheric pressure gradient to control temperatures.
Once the surface temp becomes more than the atmospheric gradient can hold, the atmosphere finds ways of getting rid of that heat.
Willis:
Also brings me to one of my “classic conundrums” which I face the “easily fooled” public with all the time. Explain to someone that there is a definite, limited amount of ENERGY in a cubic foot of air.
(Sorry, old time neandrethal here..you’ll see why I use ft^3 in a bit.) I then ask them, “Compare a cubic foot of AZ air, 110 F, at 10% RH, and MN summer air, 86 F at 60% RH. Which one has more ENERGY in it?” They, of course, don’t know…and I tell them that there are Psychometric Calculators on the internet which will give 38 BTU’s (British Thermal Units) for the MN cubic foot, and 33 BTU’s for the AZ cubic foot. Then I note that the question of Global Warming has to do with ENERGY in the atmosphere, NOT the “temperature”, per se. So I propose, say the whole world became 86 F, 60% RH, and it went there from 110 F. and 10% RH, I ask – Would you say you have “Global Warming” or “Global Cooling”? When they say, “Cooling” on the basis of temperature, I patiently explain the CO2/Energy retention problem would cause the HIGHER ENERGY per Cubic foot, thus the LOWER TEMPERATURE represents “Global Warming” in the truest sense.
By this time, there are blown fuses in tiny minds…but it brings me to one of my BIGGEST COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE GLOBAL WARMING WONKS!!! Why does NO ONE even ATTEMPT a “global atmospheric energy” calculation based on Radiosone balloon data and satellite data? It would be FAR MORE SIGNIFICANT than the “average temperature” canard, and the data might actually be there to show NO SIGNIFICANT ATM ENERGY CHANGE over 20, 30, 50, 70 years.
Another assignment for the brilliant Willis! (Sorry, I know…do it yourself. Personal reasons, still working as an Engineer, and some family obligations which soak up 100% of my time these days.)
Max
The thing that I find rather odd is that the CERES satellite system was devised to make radiation imbalance measurements and to measure clouds – in other words this type of analysis.
This whole hypothesis seems to stem naturally from these measurements and many people have suggested it; in fact it has been one of the central issues of debate in climate science for many years.and so I would have expected that this analysis would have been done before. After all, the people who devised the CERES system and are responsible for analysing its data are not completely stupid.
I suspect that the data is not good enough to support this type of analysis. One of the problems in CGMs is that if cloud formation is involved, the model has to be run at short time intervals of ~ 20 minutes to capture the spatial and temporal sampling requirements. I am very suspicious of aliasing effects in the data which would make any calculation of feedback unreliable. Having just made a simple feedback model in which sea surface heating has a time constant of 25 days and the cloud feedback has a time constant of 2 days amd both are regarded as 1st order systems, decimation of the data makes huge errors in the calculated feedback. (Yes, I know this is very oversimplified, it is a back of the envelope calculation to look at the effects of sampling).
Barry Cullen says: “….would have had a significant effect on the lapse rate and thus the Eschenbach thermoregulation of the Earth’s temp.”
Why would it affect the lapse rate at all? Wouldn’t the rate itself have been exactly the same as what it is now beginning back then at some higher altitude ‘X’ on up? (i.e living back then at say 5000′ would be like MSL today) And wouldn’t clouds nonetheless still form at roughly the same differential change of pressure altitude to then reflect solar energy as they do today?
Willis Eschenbach says:
October 6, 2013 at 2:02 pm
Salvatore Del Prete says:
October 6, 2013 at 11:51 am
“Wilis keeps trying to say the climate system is always stable …”
Salvatore, you do not understand “feedback mechanism,” the concept of a governor on a car, or the concept of an automatic thermostat.
The clouds that Willis describes are an automatic response to increased temperature and the effect of the clouds is to lower the temperature. That claim does not mean that the clouds keep the temperature constant or that other conditions cannot interfere with them.
RC Saumarez says:
October 6, 2013 at 2:12 pm
“The thing that I find rather odd is that the CERES satellite system was devised to make radiation imbalance measurements and to measure clouds – in other words this type of analysis.
I suspect that the data is not good enough to support this type of analysis.”
Very interesting. So, what does the government use for reports on changes in Earth’s albedo? Are they no better than this?
I’ve updated the head post with graphics of the northern and southern hemispheres respectively.
w.
Curious George says:
October 6, 2013 at 2:00 pm
That is generally true if you are talking about the net effect. However, clouds provide increased downwelling (and upwelling) longwave radiation both day and night.
Clouds increase downwelling longwave over the condition known as “no clouds”. This occurs at any time there are clouds, 24/7. In the TAO data, from memory it’s about a 20 W/m2 jump whenever a cloud comes over.
During the day, however, when a cloud comes over, it also cuts out the sun. This cooling effect is usually a couple hundred W/m2, an order of magnitude larger than the 20W/m2 of extra energy striking the surface from the increased LW radiation.
You might enjoy taking a look at my post “Cloud radiation forcing in the TAO dataset”, there are views of actual data there …
w.