Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The CERES data has its problems, because the three datasets (incoming solar, outgoing longwave, and reflected shortwave) don’t add up to anything near zero. So the keepers of the keys adjusted them to an artificial imbalance of +0.85 W/m2 (warming). Despite that lack of accuracy, however, the CERES data is very precise and sensitive.
As an example of what that sensitivity can reveal about the climate system, consider Figure 1, which shows the upwelling (outgoing) longwave (LW) and reflected solar shortwave (SW), month by month, for 13 years (N=156). Since these are individual CERES datasets, their trends and values should be valid.
Figure 1. Upwelling longwave (shades of blue) and upwelling reflected shortwave (shades of red) for the globe as well as the two hemispheres separately. Cyclical seasonal variations have been removed.
Now, there are several very curious aspects to this figure. The first and most surprising issue is that the hemispheric values for shortwave, and also the hemispheric values for longwave, are nearly identical from hemisphere to hemisphere. Why should that be so? There is much more ocean in the southern hemisphere, for example. There is solid land at the South Pole rather than ocean. In addition, the underlying surface albedos of the two hemispheres are quite different, by about 4 watts per square metre. Also, the southern hemisphere gets more sunlight than the northern hemisphere, because the earth’s orbit is elliptical.
So given all these differences … why should the longwave and shortwave in the two hemispheres be the same?
The next thing of interest is the stability of the system. The trends in all six of the measurements are so tiny I’ve expressed them in W/m2 per century so that their small size can be appreciated … if the trends continue, in a century they may change by a watt or two. Note that despite the small spread of the measurements, none of the trends are significant.
The next thing of interest is that in addition to the values being similar in both hemispheres, the trends are also quite similar. All of the trends are very slightly negative.
Finally, despite the great difference in the size of the LW and SW signals (240 vs 100 W/m2, Figure 1), the size of the variations in the two signals are quite similar. Here is a boxplot of the three pairwise comparisons—the anomaly variations in global, and northern and southern hemisphere.
Figure 2. Boxplots of the variations in the longwave and reflected shortwave shown in Figure 1, for the globe (left panel), the northern hemisphere (center panel) and the southern hemisphere (right panel).
Since these are boxplots, we know that half of the data lies inside the colored boxes. This means that half of the time, the longwave and the shortwave are within ± one-half watt of the seasonal value. Plus or minus one-half watt half the time, and within a watt and a half for 95% of the time, for a total of 156 months … this to me is amazing stability.
Given the myriad differences between the northern and southern hemispheres, my explanation of this amazing stability is that a) the temperature of the planet is regulated by a variety of threshold-based processes, and b) the set-point of that regulation is controlled by globally consistent values for the physics of wind, water, and cloud formation.
Now, there certainly may be some other explanation for this amazing stability and symmetry of the climate despite the large differences in the geometry and composition of the two hemispheres. That’s my explanation. If you have a better one … bring it on.
Best regards to all,
w.
NOTE ON DATA AND CODE: I’ve turned over a new leaf, and I’ve cleaned up my R computer code. I’ve put all the relevant functions into one file, called “CERES Functions.R”. That file of functions, plus the data, plus the code for this post, are all that are required to duplicate the figures above. I just checked, it’s all turnkey.
DATA: CERES 13 year (220 Mbytes, has all the CERES data in R format.)
FUNCTIONS: CERES Functions.R (Has all the functions used to analyze the data.)
CODE FOR THIS POST: Amazing Stability CERES (Has the code to create the figures and calculations used above.)
Greg Goodman says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:48 am
“Since most of us at WUWT are conservative leaning libertarian thinkers”
speak for yourself. There is no left / right in a scientific debate.
Those who regard it as a party political issue are probably not arguing the science whichever view they take.
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Greg I didn’t mean to insult anybody.
“There is no left / right in a scientific debate.” Well, I’m with you there.
Here at WUWT, Willis and many others provide very good science and debate.
How about the science of what to do about the earth’s soaring temperature due to CO2?
The president couldn’t believe putting a ‘free market’ price on carbon or creating a carbon tax will cause the temperatures to go down and the seas to recede. He surely couldn’t believe Greenland’s glaciers will stop melting and cat 5 hurricanes will cease if we give the UN $100B/yr.
My point is that it’s not just about the science.
It’s about how can they communicate better to convince us to support their goals.
Destroying eco systems with wind mills and solar panels while making bankers, politicians and their green cronies richer is not science.
It’s about money and power… and climate justice.
The science, like the scientists and the poor, are just collateral damage.
The question is “How can we keep our liberty and change their minds with the science?”
You’re correct when you say it’s not left or right. It’s do we retain our liberty and freedom or not.
Controlling carbon dioxide controls every breath we take, literally.
cn
Jaffa wrote –
“That’s all very well, but how many rotations does the Earth do in 4 years? Does anyone know?”
The consensus in WUWT is 1465 rotation in 4 years which defies experience of the daily temperature fluctuations which respond to the daily rotation of the planet.
The actual 1461 rotations in 4 years follows a specific set of observations which prohibit the introduction of stellar circumpolar motion as a reference and allows the annual motion of the Earth and the apparent motion of the background stars behind the Sun to define the Earth’s orbital position in space and specifically the brightest star out there – the great star Sirius.
We see it like this where Elnath,Castor and Pollux disappear behind the glare of the Sun as the Earth moves along its orbital circumference –
A distant view of the apparent motion of the stars we see from the surface of the Earth as it moves around the Sun is this one –
There is nothing difficult about any of this,Sirius disappears for a few months and then shows up one morning however after 4 years of 365 days it fails to appear for the simple reason that the Earth hasn’t returned to the same position in its orbital circuit for that to happen.As daily rotation is a separate motion and takes time to complete one rotation,the extra day also represents the time the Earth moves back to the same position in space where Sirius is just far enough to one side of the Sun where it can be seen.
The process to create the average 24 hour day from these 1461 days and then transfer it to `15 degrees of rotation in one hour and once in 24 hours is tricky but there is a lot of information on the Lat/Long system and how clocks solved the problem of position at sea –
Anyway,your basic question stands and should the forum change consensus in a decisive way,nobody will be more pleased than I.
steven mosher says:
January 7, 2014 at 4:31 pm
“Konrad. The ERL is pretty simple. It’s the height at which the system radiates to space. The height of the ERL is determined by the concentration of GHGs above it.”
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No there is no effective radiating level for an atmosphere in constant motion. There is however a tropopause below which almost all LWIR is being emitted to space. This is also the level that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation stops. No radiative gases = no strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation.
The “ERL” argument is a mathematical fiction needed to hold the two shell radiative model together. Any air mass rising above the surface emits increasing amounts of IR directly to space as optical opacity diminishes with altitude. Further to this rising air masses are hotter than the air at the altitude they are rising through, and are therefore radiating more strongly than the surrounding air at that altitude.
But what about increasing concentrations of CO2 at altitude? Won’t this “block” out going IR from lower altitudes and force air above to a higher temperature? No. As pressure diminishes with altitude the chance of a radiative gas molecule that has intercepted an IR photon re-radiating before conductive transfer of energy to other gas molecules increases.
The reality is this –
Adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will not reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability.
The net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
Radiative gases will always cool our moving atmosphere. The reason is simple. The amount of energy radiative gases are emitting to space is more than TWICE the net flux of radiative energy entering the atmosphere from surface and solar radiation. Radiative gases are not just radiating intercepted radiation to space, but also all the energy the atmosphere acquired through surface conduction and release of latent heat.
Radiative gases are our atmospheres only effective cooling mechanism.
The “ERL” argument is junk science trying to claim that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability. Given that the atmosphere has no radiative cooling ability at all without radiative gases these claims are clearly ludicrous.
Perhaps you would like to try giving Dr. Pierrehumberts 1995 bafflegab a whirl? –
“Umm, err well of course adding radiative gases to the atmosphere initially causes cooling, but, umm, err, after a certain point the unicorn/rainbow ratio goes negative and then they cause catastrophic warming!”
– But be warned if you try, the hand-waving required for this can cause serious wrist injuries.
Bottom line –
SB equations cannot be used to determine the temperature profile of moving fluids in a gravity field.
Roughly a dozen comments later, Gerald Kelleher demostrates that
Thank you. That answer was needed here.
“Cyclical season variations have been removed.”
I agree with Willis. It’s surprising that the NH and SH results are almost exactly the same. Of course the total SW+LW should be the same, but I would expect the hemispheres to differ in the proportion of SW to LW.
If the LW is the same, that implies that the effective temperature of the hemispheres is the same. This implies a mechanism which sets the global temperature regardless of the forcings, at least within some fairly significant limits. This backs up Willis’ thermostat hypothesis, and is another nail in the coffin of the Evil CO2 religion.
Finally, Willis, RGB (and others): why are you responding to Gerald?
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist….
The question, as stated, does not have a single answer. There are two potentially ambiguous terms in the question.
What is the definition of “rotations”? More precisely, from what perspective are rotations counted? Is this from the perspective of someone on the planet who is counting sunrises, or is this from the perspective of someone in space who is counting the number of times the longitude of Greenwich, England passes under the star Sirius? The two observers can give different results for the same sequence of events (as Einstein demonstrated with his Special Theory of Relativity). This is quite legitimate, because the two observers are not at rest with respect to each other.
What is the definition of “years”? Is it the a calendar year, or is it the time taken for the planet Earth to orbit the Sun once? Again, the two give similar but not quite identical answers. Also, if it is calendar years, which years are we talking about? For example, there are 1460 days in any four consecutive years that include a year that is divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400 (eg. 1900, 2100), but there are 1461 days in any other set of four years. That assumes you’re using the Gregorian Calendar If, however, you’re using some other calendar, different rules may apply.
The simplistic answer for the observer counting sunrises using a astronomical year (one complete orbit) would be 1461 most of the time, but occasionally 1460 (due to the fact that the astronomical year is just under 365.25 days in length).
The simplistic answer for the observer counting the number of times the Greenwich, England longitude passes under the star Sirius using an astronomical year would be 1465 most of the time, but occasionally 1464 (again due to the length of the astronomical year).
I hope this helps….
I may be a little late to the table here but I do have a problem with Mosher’s proclamation that the physics dictates that the atmosphere will cool slower because of the “CO2” regulator. The physics says energy in = energy out or the earth and other planets would have melted down long ago with this continually captured heat.
@Doug Jones
I call it the “Norwegian Blue” syndrome. 🙂
Gerald’s posts….simplified.
AndyG55 says:
January 7, 2014 at 6:36 pm
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Indeed.
And I blame Willis.
He kept nailing the wretched thing back on its perch.
Konrad 5:34pm : “Any air mass rising above the surface emits increasing amounts of IR directly to space as optical opacity diminishes with altitude.”
Willis’ Fig. 1 proves this incorrect. The winds dump all their energy into the atm. bath not “directly to space.” The atm. LWIR as recorded by CERES over time which is coming from that bath is shown the same in NH and SH and in Total. The windiness is not so precisely the same over time in NH and SH weather. Willis’ Fig. 1 LWIR bath emits remarkably the same however.
Konrad 2:39pm:
“You cannot use SB equations alone to solve for the temperature profile of mobile fluids in a gravity field.
Correct. The 1st law needs to be used to compute surface Tmean including measured conductive, convective, AND radiative energy transfer into and out of the balanced control volume at the height of the thermometer field.
And once again Konrad left out Callendar’s reply for some reason:
“In replying (to Simpson), G.S. CALLENDAR said he realized the extreme complexity of the temperature control at any particular region of the earth’s surface, and also that radiative equilibrium was not actually established, but if any substance is added to the atmosphere which delays the transfer of low temperature radiation, without interfering with the arrival or distribution of the heat supply, some rise of temperature appears to be inevitable in those parts which are furthest from outer space.”
To me,it seems to indicate that the suction of the 3k temp of outer space is causing the heat to radiate wherever it has the best chance to radiate which would be uniformly over the surface of the globe/earth. My theory and I’m sticking to it.
Well said Doug! Apparently Gerald Kelleher doesn”t understand that the “extra day” is caused by the sidereal year of which the Astrophysicist’s are quite aware and which is explained quite plainly by NASA’s 366.25 rotations in a year as so eloquently explained by Willis!
Trick says:
January 7, 2014 at 6:48 pm
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And Trick takes the baton from Gerald…
Best drop the baton Trick. You always, and I mean always, lose. Remember that time you argued black and blue that it wasn’t possible to drive convective circulation in a fluid column by removing energy from the top of the column? The Internet remembers.
Trick -“Konrad 5:34pm : “Any air mass rising above the surface emits increasing amounts of IR directly to space as optical opacity diminishes with altitude.” ”
Which is of course 100% correct. Even at ground level some IR emitted by the atmosphere can exit directly to space. As the altitude of an air masses emitting IR increases, the amount of this making it directly to space without re-interception by the atmosphere increases.
Trick -“And once again Konrad left out Callendar’s reply for some reason:”
Why thank you for pointing that out. That gives me the perfect opportunity to highlight this bit of Calledars reply –
“..without interfering with the arrival or distribution of the heat supply..”
And what drives the distribution of energy in our atmosphere? That’s right, tropospheric convective circulation. And what plays a critical role in the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? That’s right, radiative cooling via radiative gases at altitude.
Now most would call that “interfering with the [..] distribution of the heat supply”.
Sir George Simpson called AGW (very politely) junk science in 1938. Nothing has changed. It’s still junk science.
Do you never get tired of losing? 😉
Also the sidereal day is distributed throughout the year so there are still only 365.25 days (turns towards the sun).
“I may be a little late to the table here but I do have a problem with Mosher’s proclamation that the physics dictates that the atmosphere will cool slower because of the “CO2″ regulator. The physics says energy in = energy out or the earth and other planets would have melted down long ago with this continually captured heat.”
Wrong. That’s not what I said.
It is really elementary.
The earth radiates to space at a given height called the ERL. It radiates at this height because the concentration of GHGs ABOVE this height are small enough to permit the free escape energy. That is, there is not enough GHGs to impede the release. At this height the system has a temperature that is a function of the lapse rate. When you add more GHGs the concentration above this altitude changes and increases. Thus the earth will radiate from a higher altitude.
To offset this the temperature below the ERL goes up until balance is reached.
This is all quite simple and well known.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
If you want a cartoon version
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld012.htm
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld015.htm
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld019.htm
Gerald Kelleher,
I’ve taken the time to read every single comment of yours. Can you please be kind enough to state your argument as clearly as possible? I know that you’re disgusted by a general misconception, and I understand that this can be frustrating. But I’m really trying to understand.
Are you saying that both a day and a rotation should simply be defined as the time it takes the earth to rotate between apogee’s of the sun? And are you saying that a calendar merely needs to add an extra day every 4 orbits around the sun at the time when Sirius fails to be visible?
I apologize if I have this wrong. I’m really trying to understand you. Please go easy on me. I haven’t been understanding the point of your quotes and videos. Can you just tell me?
Actually, doesn’t the earth radiate from all heights of the atmosphere as well as the surface? If I’m in space, I think I’d be able to see clouds, aircraft, and surface details using an IR imaging system. I assume this would be evidence that IR waves are originating from those objects and getting to my system. If IR is only radiating from the ERL height, then wouldn’t I only be able to see things at that height with an IR system?
Or is the ERL just the assumed height for mathematical purposes?
Steve Mosher, I apologize. I actually had a much longer comment that actually praised what you had to say other than this comment, “the system loses energy less rapidly as fundamental physics says it must’. I was looking for the sound bite and just had to say what I said however ill advised. What I really should have said is that the system equalizes with both that ocean capacitor and nitrogen/oxygen capacitor to balance energy in with energy out on an instantaneous basis.
I am of the belief that the temperature profile of the earth within TOA can be changed but the actual energy transfer in and out of the system can’t.
In addition, the underlying surface albedos of the two hemispheres are quite different, by about 4 watts per square metre.
“Underlying surface albedoes” may be different then the only albedo that matters, the actual albedo as seen from space (from the point of view of the sun, the point of view that matters). A question, we know what the theoretical albedo should be, assuming no clouds ever, what is the actual albedo, as seen from space, which is strongly effected by clouds? In theory, the sounthern hemisphere having more water should have more evaporation when hit by sunlight, more clouds, and hence an increased albedo which is thus changed to more strongly resemble the northern hemisphere. What we need is a comparison of the theoretical albedo with the actual minute to minute albedo as measured from space (because cloud albedo changes minute by minute). Is there such a measurement of actual data of albedo available? If no such measurement is available, then we are only talking theoretical albedo, and cannot really say what difference there may be in the southern hemisphere as compared to the northern.
rgbatduke says:
January 7, 2014 at 11:55 am
Thanks, Robert, your comments are always interesting. The usual font of misinformation I quoted above says that of the 560 billion tonnes of biomass, only about 10 billion tonnes are in the ocean. This seems reasonable to me, as most of the tropical oceans are blue deserts, almost devoid of life. There’s a reason for the 30 metre underwater visibility … there’s nothing living in the water.
So whatever the numbers are likely to be, my calculations above show that they will be very small.
w.
rgbatduke says:
January 7, 2014 at 1:26 pm
The seasonal correction was to remove the annual cycle, month by month, from the dataset.
I think that the reason the two are so similar is that the set-point of the thermal regulation is set by temperature. The threshold that regulates the timing of the emergence of tropical clouds is ceteris paribus a temperature threshold.
And if so, this could adjust the albedo so that the difference between the two hemispheres would be quite small. In fact, this is exactly the effect we’d expect from an threshold-based, temperature regulated albedo system.
Having said that, however … the devil is always in the details.
w.
wobble says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:11 pm
“Actually, doesn’t the earth radiate from all heights of the atmosphere as well as the surface? If I’m in space, I think I’d be able to see clouds, aircraft, and surface details using an IR imaging system. I assume this would be evidence that IR waves are originating from those objects and getting to my system. If IR is only radiating from the ERL height, then wouldn’t I only be able to see things at that height with an IR system?
Or is the ERL just the assumed height for mathematical purposes?”
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IR imaging systems are typically imaging SWIR rather than LWIR. The atmosphere has a far greater opacity to LWIR, largely due to water vapour in the troposphere. However as maximum LWIR opacity is at the surface level, for any LWIR emission above this direct emission to space increases with altitude.
“ERL” is essentially a mathematical fiction to keep AGW alive. It assumes that gases are radiating at a temperature equivalent to the average temperature of the altitude they are rising through. It totally ignores the heat pulse that occurs in rising moist air masses as they pass dew point and suddenly release latent heat. “ERL” is static atmosphere nonsense. In a moving turbulent atmosphere there is no average altitude at which “50% of radiative gases are above an average radiating level.”
A case in point, the rising moist air column in the ITCZ at the equator would have a higher concentration of radiative gases than areas north and south of this where the main radiative gas H2O uplifted in the ITCZ has precipitated out. More LWIR from far lower in the atmosphere could then make it out to space in these zones.
What the the “ERL” argument boils down to is a crazed claim that “adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability.”
But without radiative gases, the atmosphere would have no radiative cooling ability at all.
This is where you end up when pseudo scientists try to apply SB equations to moving fluids in a gravity field.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 1:28 pm
You may not care, but those of us who are getting your BS stuffed down our throats definitely do care. From our perspective, we’d much rather you stuffed it up your fundamental orifice.
In any case, take it somewhere else, your astronomical comments are way off-topic here. If I ran the zoo, I’d give you a time-out for repeated violation of blog policy. Let me spell out for you the policy that you are boasting about breaking by stuffing your agenda down our throats:
That policy was written especially for jerkwagons like you, who want to lead the thread onto a discussion of astrophysics that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.
So yes, Gerald, you’ve proven you’ll stuff your nonsense down peoples throats whether they want it or not. You just may not get to do it for much longer on WUWT. I’d take a deep breath and take a break if I were you, or you may find yourself out in the cold.
w.
Gerald Kelleher says:
“… I don’t care if I have to shove this down people’s throat but..”
Mate, the only thing being shoved down anyone’s throat, is your own foot down your own throat.
You started with foot in mouth, then just kept going……………… brilliant contortionism. !
But you certainly have the audience laughing, like any good clown. 🙂