Steve McIntyre writes:
In the context of IPCC SOD FIgure 1.5 (or similar comparison of models and observations), CW13 is slightly warmer than HadCRUT4 but the difference is small relative to the discrepancy between models and observations; the CW13 variation is also outside the Figure 1.5 envelope.
Figure 1. Cowtan and Way 2013 hybrid plotted onto IPCC AR5SOD Figure 1.5
Next, here is a simple plot showing the difference between the CW13 hybrid and HadCRUT 4. Up to the end of 2005, there was a zero trend between the two; the difference has arisen entirely since 2005.
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Dumb Scientist says:
November 18, 2013 at 5:44 pm
“Anyone who doesn’t like models doesn’t like science”
As an operational meteorologist the past 32 years, that uses/depends on numerous models every day, I know a few things about these models.
I’ll be happy to assist you in understanding them better but it appears that you’ve already decided you know more than me.
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Heat doesn’t slosh, it doesn’t even move. Energy moves, and something that contains heat can drive an energy flux by one of several mechanisms including the ones I mentioned earlier, conductance, evaporation, radiance.
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Warm or cold water can slosh like in a measuring cup or in an ocean current. In either case its heat sloshes with it.
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Yes, the atmosphere would in theory cool more slowly if the ocean warmed. Except that wasn’t your claim. YOUR claim was that the oceans were absorbing the heat which would COME BACK into the atmosphere at a later date.. I challenged you to explain how that could be, how the heat could go from the oceans to the warmer atmosphere, all at once, or any other way, and you have skirted the question.
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On timescales relevant to the climate, the atmosphere isn’t cooling, it’s warming. Even in neutral ENSO years, the long-term trend is warming. But during an El Nino the atmosphere can’t dump heat into the ocean as quickly, so it warms even faster than the long-term trend.
Once visible sunlight is absorbed below the effective radiating level, its heat is trapped by the greenhouse effect. Recent La Ninas have been burying this heat in the deep Pacific. The Pacific heat reservoir is big but not infinite, so this heat can’t be stored perfectly forever.
If we choose to reduce CO2 emissions (and later reduce CO2 back to ~350ppm) so the Earth’s equilibrium surface temperature and sealevel return to its pre-industrial levels, that buried heat will have to pass through the surface to get to the effective radiating level and escape to space.
But that may never be possible if we keep ignoring the scientific community and treating our atmosphere like a free sewer. In that case some of that trapped heat won’t come back into the atmosphere for millenia because it will have converted ice at 0C to water at 0C or raised sea levels because warming saltwater makes it expand.
@Dumb Scientist
wbrozek said:
November 18, 2013 at 4:42 pm
& then
davidmhoffer said:
November 18, 2013 at 5:01 pm
_____
The way one gets a cool ocean to raise the temperature of the warmer air must be similar to the way the reported excess heat content in the upper ocean, i.e. higher temperature, gets transported into it’s hidey hole in the frigid deep ocean.
This process was pointed out in an earlier post here. It’s called immaculate convection. No one has been able to figure out exactly how it works yet, but I know many scientists are working hard to figure it out.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 18, 2013 at 6:31 pm
Which time scales are of interest to you? Consensus, settled “climate science” might be interested in the time scale since 1979, but that’s barely climate at all, arguable still just WX. For climate, centuries & millennia at a minimum are better. On the time scale of the past 3000 years, climate is cooling, quite dramatically & worrisomely. The Holocene shot its warmth wad fairly early on, before 5000 years ago. Since the Minoan Warm Period, if not since the end of the Holocene Climatic Optimum, temperature has been in a secular down trend, with counter-trend fluctuations of course, as during 1977-96. Very worrisome indeed, since cold kills & warmth lives.
milodonharlani says:
November 18, 2013 at 6:52 pm
Which time scales are of interest to you? Consensus, settled “climate science” might be interested in the time scale since 1979, but that’s barely climate at all, arguable still just WX. For climate, centuries & millennia at a minimum are better.
==========================
Depending on the variable in question, a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio can require many decades. For global surface temperatures, the WMO defines climate as a minimum 30 year record. Many mainstream attribution studies go back to 1950 to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio and to take advantage of early satellite and ocean observations. Temperatures before 1950 are less relevant to whether the atmosphere is currently warming or cooling because our radiative forcings skyrocketed after 1950.
==========================
On the time scale of the past 3000 years, climate is cooling, quite dramatically & worrisomely. The Holocene shot its warmth wad fairly early on, before 5000 years ago. Since the Minoan Warm Period, if not since the end of the Holocene Climatic Optimum, temperature has been in a secular down trend, with counter-trend fluctuations of course, as during 1977-96. Very worrisome indeed, since cold kills & warmth lives.
==========================
Marcott et al. 2013 showed a long-term 0.7°C cooling from 5500 to ~100 years before present. Modern records show a warming of ~0.7°C in the last ~100 years, which is about 50 times faster than the previous long-term trend.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract
After scientists weighed the negatives and positives of our rapid warming, the National Academies said that “The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable.”
http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf
Dumb Scientist;
Once visible sunlight is absorbed below the effective radiating level, its heat is trapped by the greenhouse effect. Recent La Ninas have been burying this heat in the deep Pacific. The Pacific heat reservoir is big but not infinite, so this heat can’t be stored perfectly forever.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One more time Dumby. How does the heat get from the ocean to the atmosphere which is warmer than the ocean?
So far you have:
1) Explained ENSO modeling and then admitted that you know little about it, which was evident from your explanation.
2) Claimed turbulent flow in a liquid as an analogy for energy flux, a construct with no basis in physics at all.
3. Proposed heat coming out of the ocean to haunt us, but remain incapable of explaining the physical mechanism by which this occurs other than mumbling something about warm water sloshing around and its heat content sloshing with it.
Are you for real? Or are you a false flag operation with deliberately trying to tarnish the reputation of warmist scientists?
If the latter, good job Dumby, good job.
@ur momisugly David Hoffer — GREAT rebuttals above BOLD IS GREAT! #(:))
Wow, Dumb Scientist, you really ARE (if I can tell, ANYBODY can). You “multiply words without meaning,” i.e., you’re a fool.
“that buried heat” (you at 6:31pm today) — LOL — Analogously speaking (just a little “model,” heh): Just how did you bury that monster without disturbing the surface of the ground?
No body — no murder.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 18, 2013 at 7:06 pm
Of course the thoroughly corrupted National Academies said that. The urgent need is for more funding.
What rent-seekers find urgent doesn’t signify. All that matters is what the unmolested observations show. Which is that nothing at all out of the climatic ordinary has occurred since 1950. Not compared to the Holocene record, that of the Eemian or prior interglacials. Those are the time scales that signify. Decades are largely noise.
Can we call it the “pause nibbler”, then?
Dumb Scientist;
Once visible sunlight is absorbed below the effective radiating level, its heat is trapped by the greenhouse effect.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This is perhaps the most difficult part of the debate in my opinion. The fact that advocates from both sides of the debate have such a weak grasp of the physics. It may please you to know Dumby that I spend as much time quarreling with skeptics about how the greenhouse effect actually works as I do with warmists. It is entirely tragic that in order to have a discussion with you about your side of the argument, I first must apprise you of what your argument actually is. That single sentence of yours has so many errors in it that correcting them takes several paragraphs.
Once visible sunlight
All light, of which visible is only a small part.
is absorbed below the effective radiating level
light that is absorbed and re-radiated CHANGES the effective radiating level
its heat is trapped
The only heat that is trapped is the heat capacity of the ghg’s themselves which at just 400 ppm of the atmosphere is a rounding error form zero.
by the greenhouse effect
The energy flux is redistributed across the atmospheric column such that lower altitudes become warmer and higher altitudes become colder, but the average from surface to TOA remains, at equilibrium, exactly the same.
Please do learn the physics. Here’s some very good links to get you going:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/20/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-a-physical-analogy/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-atmospheric-windows/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-emission-spectra/
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 7:08 pm
How does the heat get from the ocean to the atmosphere which is warmer than the ocean? … something about warm water sloshing around and its heat content sloshing with it.
======================
The heat in the warm water that appears off the west coast of South America during an El Nino slows down the rate at which heat goes from the atmosphere to the ocean. Because we’ve reduced the rate at which heat leaves the atmosphere by raising the effective radiating level, the atmosphere warms.
Dumb Scientist;
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sir, with all due respect, your original claim was that heat was being sequestered in the ocean, and could come back to haunt us. For the 4th time, how?
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Once visible sunlight
All light, of which visible is only a small part.
============================
The Sun is much brighter in visible light than in UV, which is mainly stopped by the ozone layer anyway. The Sun also emits little long-wave IR compared to the Earth. I mentioned visible light because the greenhouse effect is transparent to it but not to the IR that’s emitted after that visible light is absorbed below the effective radiating level.
============================
is absorbed below the effective radiating level
light that is absorbed and re-radiated CHANGES the effective radiating level
============================
The effective radiating level is primarily determined by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Here’s a very in-depth explanation by Ray Pierrehumbert:
http://thiniceclimate.org/blog/details/1907/how-co2-warms-the-climate-ray-pierrehumbert
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its heat is trapped
The only heat that is trapped is the heat capacity of the ghg’s themselves which at just 400 ppm of the atmosphere is a rounding error form zero.
============================
The heat capacity of GHGs are irrelevant. All that matters is the height of the effective radiating level, which is currently ~6km above the surface. If we actually rounded your “rounding error” to zero, the effective radiating level would descend to the surface, and temperatures would plunge to about -18C or even colder.
============================
by the greenhouse effect
The energy flux is redistributed across the atmospheric column such that lower altitudes become warmer and higher altitudes become colder, but the average from surface to TOA remains, at equilibrium, exactly the same.
============================
As Ray Pierrehumbert explained, the greenhouse effect is precisely the warming of altitudes below the effective radiating level, and cooling above it.
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 8:24 pm
Dumb Scientist;
Sir, with all due respect, your original claim was that heat was being sequestered in the ocean, and could come back to haunt us. For the 4th time, how?
============================
Some of the heat which had previously been sequestered in the ocean appears as warm surface water, which reduces the rate at which the atmosphere can dump heat into the ocean. When this happens, like in the 1998 El Nino, global temperatures spike.
Oops, I meant to say “global surface temperatures spike” in that last sentence.
Dumb Scientist;
As Ray Pierrehumbert explained, the greenhouse effect is precisely the warming of altitudes below the effective radiating level, and cooling above it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You finally got something right. You explained it wrong, I corrected you, and you reply with an explanation that matches mine. Seriously dude, you need to learn the physics and then discuss them. You’re just cutting and pasting responses to issues I raise, you clearly don’t understand them, else you wouldn’t be getting it wrong in one cut and paste and then right in another.
Read through posts by Bob Tisdale on this site, or download his book. Perhaps you will learn something about how El Ninos and global temps actually work.
Barry Cullen says:
November 18, 2013 at 6:50 pm
The way one gets a cool ocean to raise the temperature of the warmer air must be similar to the way the reported excess heat content in the upper ocean, i.e. higher temperature, gets transported into it’s hidey hole in the frigid deep ocean. This process was pointed out in an earlier post here. It’s called immaculate convection. No one has been able to figure out exactly how it works yet, but I know many scientists are working hard to figure it out.
=========================
If you’re interested in how wind interacts with the thermocline, you might find this explanation interesting. It also references El Nino events:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 8:51 pm
You finally got something right. You explained it wrong, I corrected you, and you reply with an explanation that matches mine. Seriously dude, you need to learn the physics and then discuss them. You’re just cutting and pasting responses to issues I raise, you clearly don’t understand them, else you wouldn’t be getting it wrong in one cut and paste and then right in another.
=======================
Could you please quote the part where I “explained it wrong”? I’ve been trying to restrict my conversation to the warming beneath the effective radiating level, not the stratospheric cooling.
Dumb Scientist
Could you please quote the part where I “explained it wrong”?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well bud, if you cannot find for yourself the place in our conversation where I corrected you and you responded with an explanation that matched mine, I really don’t see where repeating it again will help you.
Dumb Scientist: “The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable.”
Need for urgency or action are always each disputable in every case. Notwithstanding that the first thing necessary to close a sale is to impress people with the need for urgent action in the manner that lines the salesman’s pockets. Not a knock on salesman, it’s their job.
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 9:04 pm
Dumb Scientist
Could you please quote the part where I “explained it wrong”?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well bud, if you cannot find for yourself the place in our conversation where I corrected you and you responded with an explanation that matched mine, I really don’t see where repeating it again will help you.
===============
You seemed to agree when I said “the greenhouse effect is precisely the warming of altitudes below the effective radiating level, and cooling above it.”
But you were previously dissecting my sentence which said “Once visible sunlight is absorbed below the effective radiating level, its heat is trapped by the greenhouse effect.”
You called one wrong and the other right, but they’re actually compatible. I’ve always been talking about warming below the effective radiating level. Because that’s where people live.
Dumb “Scientist”;
You called one wrong and the other right, but they’re actually compatible.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You began with a physical analogy of turbulent flow of a liquid to heat transport that rises to the level of “that’s not right, that’s not even wrong”. Through this thread, you’ve conflated heat with energy flux on several occasions. You clearly don’t understand how heat, heat capacity, temperature and energy flux are all different constructs, nor do you understand how they are related to each other. I’ve provided links to several very well written articles that you clearly haven’t bothered to read. Until and unless you are conversant in these issues, you are just as hobbled in this conversation as are skeptics determined to prove that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exists by making the exact same errors but in reverse.
I can’t teach a whole first year radiative physics class in a blog post. I can leave you with this:
The effective black body temperature of earth before CO2 doubles is exactly the same as the effective black body temperature of earth after CO2 doubles. The temperature below the ERL rises, the temperature above declines, the average from surface to TOA doesn’t change. The only heat trapped is that absorbed by ghg molecules which have actively absorbed but not yet re-radiated photons. At only 400 ppm of the atmosphere, this amount is miniscule. The process however of absorbing and re-radiating photons at a higher concentration of ghg’s is what results in a higher ERL. It is this process which alters the energy flux at any given altitude which can then be interpreted as a change in temperature in which the energy flux (P) varies with the fourth power of T. These effects must then all be interpreted in the context of the lapse rate.
To understand where you have gone off the rails, you must understand the terms heat, heat capacity, energy flux and temperature and the mathematical relationships between them. You clearly don’t.
davidmhoffer says:
November 18, 2013 at 10:39 pm
Well bud, if you cannot find for yourself the place in our conversation where I corrected you and you responded with an explanation that matched mine, I really don’t see where repeating it again will help you.
=======================
It would’ve been much easier to just cut and paste the place where you corrected me instead of typing all that. Again, this:
“Once visible sunlight is absorbed below the effective radiating level, its heat is trapped by the greenhouse effect.”
matches this:
“the greenhouse effect is precisely the warming of altitudes below the effective radiating level, and cooling above it.”
If you’re saying that my second explanation matches yours, then so does the first.
Which means we agree that adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere warms the surface. Excellent.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 18, 2013 at 10:56 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And despite my earlier admonition, you continue to conflate heat with energy flux, and assume that because I agree that GHG’s result in a warmer surface, that I agree with your explanation of all else. You cry victory while demonstrating the complete failure to understand the terminology and implications that I warned you of.
Back to the topic of the thread.
I’ve been waiting for McIntyre to demolish Way. This is only the opening shot.
We can now say that official IPCC climate science as embodied by Stefan Rahmstorff endorses SkepticalScience and especially SkepticalScience’s Secret Forum members, John Cook and Robert Way; and that official IPCC climate science shares with Robert Way the idea that the time interval from 2005 to now is sufficient to prove the theory of CO2AGW correct, using a tiny percentage of the surface of the Earth with temperatures extrapolated to be there. They have actually been there but we’ll never know as we never measured them.
I think Dumb Scientist with his heat sloshing back and forth and Robert Way both have identified the phenomenon we normal thinking people call weather.
They might actually be the same person or members of the same secret forum.