From the University of New South Wales and Dr. Steven Sherwood:
“Climate sceptics like to criticise climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect,” said Sherwood. “But what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by the models which predict less warming, not those that predict more.”
Yeah…right:
![CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cmip5-73-models-vs-obs-20n-20s-mt-5-yr-means11.png?quality=75)
Cloud mystery solved: Global temperatures to rise at least 4°C by 2100
Cloud impact on climate sensitivity unveiled
Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced according to new research published in Nature. Scientists found global climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than most previous estimates.
The research also appears to solve one of the great unknowns of climate sensitivity, the role of cloud formation and whether this will have a positive or negative effect on global warming.
“Our research has shown climate models indicating a low temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide from preindustrial times are not reproducing the correct processes that lead to cloud formation,” said lead author from the University of New South Wales’ Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Prof Steven Sherwood.
“When the processes are correct in the climate models the level of climate sensitivity is far higher. Previously, estimates of the sensitivity of global temperature to a doubling of carbon dioxide ranged from 1.5°C to 5°C. This new research takes away the lower end of climate sensitivity estimates, meaning that global average temperatures will increase by 3°C to 5°C with a doubling of carbon dioxide.”
The key to this narrower but much higher estimate can be found in the real world observations around the role of water vapour in cloud formation.
Observations show when water vapour is taken up by the atmosphere through evaporation, the updraughts can either rise to 15 km to form clouds that produce heavy rains or rise just a few kilometres before returning to the surface without forming rain clouds.
When updraughts rise only a few kilometres they reduce total cloud cover because they pull more vapour away from the higher cloud forming regions.
However water vapour is not pulled away from cloud forming regions when only deep 15km updraughts are present.
The researchers found climate models that show a low global temperature response to carbon dioxide do not include enough of this lower-level water vapour process. Instead they simulate nearly all updraughts as rising to 15 km and forming clouds.
When only the deeper updraughts are present in climate models, more clouds form and there is an increased reflection of sunlight. Consequently the global climate in these models becomes less sensitive in its response to atmospheric carbon dioxide.
However, real world observations show this behaviour is wrong.
When the processes in climate models are corrected to match the observations in the real world, the models produce cycles that take water vapour to a wider range of heights in the atmosphere, causing fewer clouds to form as the climate warms.
This increases the amount of sunlight and heat entering the atmosphere and, as a result, increases the sensitivity of our climate to carbon dioxide or any other perturbation.
The result is that when water vapour processes are correctly represented, the sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide – which will occur in the next 50 years – means we can expect a temperature increase of at least 4°C by 2100.
“Climate sceptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect, but what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by those models which predict less warming, not those that predict more,” said Prof. Sherwood.
“Rises in global average temperatures of this magnitude will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don’t urgently start to curb our emissions.
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Hmm. This is very serious indeed.
I believe the only solution is to increase funding to AGW research so that these good people can keep telling us how boned we all are. A wealth redistribution from rich countries to poor countries as a sorry for destroying them as well. No fossil fuels. Invest heavily into green alternatives. You know, those expensive inefficient ones. Ignoring the growing Antarctic ice sheet. Ignore the PDO and AMO, just like the models.
Most of all, we should stop looking at the performance of these models. After all, imagine what kind of trouble we could be in if we looked at the current data and then are told we need to believe the ones currently furthest from reality are actually the realistic ones.
“the models produce cycles that take water vapour to a wider range of heights in the atmosphere, causing fewer clouds to form as the climate warms.”
However the “wider” range of heights means a lot of higher level water vapour from convection moves this heat up to where it will be more easily emitted to space. Oh the desperation! I fear there is high divorce rate in the offing among CAGW types.
it saddens me that the readers over at ars technica fall for this stuff as gospel. the comments are just depressing…http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/nailing-down-climate-uncertainty-hints-at-greater-future-warming/
“Cloud mystery solved: Global temperatures to rise at least 4°C by 2100”
Wrong on so many levels.
The main one is based on political spin in a apparent no science paper. That is If cloud observations have matched this model assumption already, Why has there been no rise in global temperatures after reducing global cloud levels have already happened before? The CO2 sensitivity with this already happening is demonstrated to be very low.
If anything this model backs the idea that there wont be a rise 4c by 2100 because model assumptions and observed observations have shown that despite decline in global cloud levels, there has been no rising global temperatures for years recently. The rise should have already been at a rate to levels matching the higher range of the model expectation 3c to 5c.
The water vapor levels have been drying out at higher atmospheric levels and hydrating at lower atmospheric levels. (opposite to this paper view)
http://climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
“This increases the amount of sunlight and heat entering the atmosphere and, as a result, increases the sensitivity of our climate to carbon dioxide or any other perturbation.”
So more sunlight and heat entering the atmosphere (which reaches beyond ocean surface) only increases the sensitivity to carbon dioxide? (lets not mention the main physical energy source warming the oceans) The reduction in cloud albedo and the increase solar energy reaching beyond the oceans has a massive role compared to CO2 gas.
This has been demonstrated with real world observations showing the rise in global temperatures during the 1980s and 1990s were mainly due to a 4/5 percent decline in global cloud levels.
http://climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverTotalObservationsSince1983.gif
If it was CO2 gas on its own that caused this warming then why did it stop as soon as global cloud levels become stable? Since this period there has been no warming, so if sensitivity to CO2 was the reason there would have been rising global temperatures still because CO2 is apparently not an immediate affect. Therefore this rules out CO2 gas as the cause and it was the higher energy from the sun reaching beyond the ocean surface while global cloud albedo levels were declining.
No wonder these days you need a political science degree to BS you through a paper that has much spin content as possible.
Finally I can demonstrate by adjusting global cloud levels to previous 1980s levels removes the no global warming phase into significant cooling. Overall it removes the warming for the entire period that humans were suppose to be causing CAGW. That is without even taking into account what the major volcanic eruptions had on the planet,before and warms the global temperatures up a little in the early parts of the time period demonstrated.
Therefore my prediction is when global cloud levels reach the early 1980s levels, the planet will cool to similar global temperature levels that were observed in the 1970s. Maybe still a little higher until sea Ice/snow albedo also reach similar levels.
Robert Bissett says:
“63 percent of Americans support “signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050“!
First, Robert, consider the source:
The study, conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication… and the Center for Climate Change Communication…
This is propaganda. Regular alarmist commentator Zeke Hausfather pushes the Yale group [with which he is associated], and of course the other group’s title shows they’ve got the same agenda. They are funded by arch warmist and True Believer Jeremy Grantham. Scientific integrity is absent from any of those NGO’s.
These groups push the CAGW narrative, and they cannot be trusted to put out an unbiased poll. From the Yale website: Most Americans (70%, down 7 points since Fall 2012) say global warming should be a “very high” (16%), “high” (26%), or “medium priority” (29%) for the president and Congress. Three in ten (28%) say it should be a low priority. And so on. They are steadily losing ground with the public, despite their bogus polls.
Belief in CAGW is falling due to sites like WUWT, where people can read both sides of the debate, and make up their own minds.
If you want to befuddle your friends who believe in catastrophic global warming due to “carbon” show ’em this graph:
http://snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
Ask them how many ‘hockey stick’ shapes they can count. Remind them that during almost all of that time, CO2 was very low. Ask them to estimate where we are right now, compared with how warm or cold the planet has been over the past 8,000 years.
Don’t let them wing it with an answer. The fact is, nothing unusual is happening. And there certainly is NO evidence of any “human fingerprint” in the rercent, very mild, natural global warming episode — which seems to have already ended.
People do realise that this is the same Sherwood who in 2008 published a paper claiming that wind speed was a better indicator of temperatures in the troposphere than the thermometers carried by the weather balloons. So far the only methodology that found the “enhanced warming in the Tropical Troposphere” that was predicted by the models. 😉
If the real world data doesn’t say what you want it to, create a proxy measurement that does…
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~joel/g280_s09/recent_atmosphere/allen_sherwood_ngeo08.pdf
As expected, the typical suspects have headlined the story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10546128/Worlds-climate-warming-faster-than-feared-scientists-say.html
Of course that was the purpose for the garbage non science paper, to provide red meat for the ignorant.
4C warming by 2100!?!? That’s 3.4C more than current GSTA of 0.596C (based on Hadcrut4 Nov 2013 data). The year 2100 is 85 yrs from now. Hence the Earth needs to experience a warming of 0.041C/yr starting today. The highest warming rate since 1850 data (Hadcrut 4) was for the 1976-2007 warming period at 0.019C/yr. The future warming will need to be more than double that, starting today. Moreover, the average linear warming trend over the entire hadcrut 4 data is 0.0047C/yr. Future warming will need to be almost 10 fold that, starting today…. That is simply ridiculous, especially and also in light of the the current hiatus/pause/cooling since 1997, arguably since 2007. Simple commonsense needs to be applied here.
Reminds me of a joke I just heard:
Two theoretical physicists are lost at the top of a mountain. Theoretical physicist No 1 pulls out a map and peruses it for a while. Then he turns to theoretical physicist No 2 and says:
“Hey, I’ve figured it out. I know where we are.”
“Where are we then?”
“Do you see that mountain over there?”
“Yes.”
“Well… THAT’S where we are.”
The physicists are perhaps a little more in touch with reality than Sherwood.
That joke well deserves the following response (at end of 21 seconds into the 29 second video).
Someone left the door unlocked at the Funny Farm!
Catcracking says: January 1, 2014 at 7:35 pm
As expected, the typical suspects have headlined the story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10546128/Worlds-climate-warming-faster-than-feared-scientists-say.html
But then they looked into the sack and the kitty got out. From the Telee.
The study comes amid a controversy in Australia over claims by Maurice Newman, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s top business adviser, who said the world had been taken “hostage to climate change madness”.
Mr Newman said the climate change establishment, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, remained “intent on exploiting the masses and extracting more money”.
“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate crusade, is crumbling,” he wrote in The Australian. “Global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years… If the IPCC were your financial adviser, you would have sacked it long ago.”
Mr Newman, a former chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, was criticised by the opposition and pilloried by scientists, who said he was expressing “flat earth” views and should be sacked.
“His piece is a mix of common climate change myths, misinformation and ideology,” said Professor David Karoly, from the University of Melbourne, in an article in The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I would not choose a person who believes that the Earth is flat to advise Australian shipping or airline businesses on how to plan routes to travel around the world. It is clearly not sensible to have a person who believes that climate change science is a delusion as leader of the prime minister’s Business Advisory Council.”
Mr Abbott, who is something of a climate change sceptic, once claimed that “climate change is “absolute crap”, though he later said he accepts it is “real”.
Since winning a federal election last September, he has moved to scrap Labor’s tax on carbon emissions and instead proposes to address climate change by paying polluters to reduce emissions, though critics say the plan is underfunded and will not achieve its reduction targets.
Got to protect those taxes and funding.
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Thanks.
Maybe WordPress is using a computer model? 😎
Sherwood’s piece has hit the NZ newspapers as well: but the timing is significant, surely. It’s just in time for the beginning of the main Australian Parliament budget cycle (1 July 2014 – 30 June 2015), where preliminary estimates are generally put together Jan-March, to-and-fro till May, then finalised and published as the main Budget.
So it boils down (sorry..) to the age old question.
Cui bono?
Full paper is now available at:
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/Sherwood%203c%20from%20mixing.pdf
There is no clear evidence presented in the paper. There may be some reanalysis data but I have no idea what the numbers are. Then we jump through about 4 similarly unclear hoops and arrive at robust warming.
Overall, very similar to Shepherd’s 2008 robust troposphere warming from wind shear papers.
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~joel/g280_s09/recent_atmosphere/allen_sherwood_ngeo08.pdf
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~stevensherwood/sondeanal.pdf
Actually, I think Professor Sherwood has shot himself in the foot.
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/solution-cloud-riddle-reveals-hotter-future
If as he says the models would predict twice as much warming as they now do then that means the models used to date have been over estimating by a factor of 2. These model forecasts have since been trimmed back in IPCC AR5.
But you can’t say the models must now show twice the warming. You must first reduce the model forcing by a factor of 2 as your new model otherwise your historical forcing is wrong. Apply the now twice as much forcing to the new model and you will be back exactly where we are with the current erroneous models.
Therefore no 4c warming expected.