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.)
So..Earth has”thermostats” .Some call for heating, some for cooling.Each becomes more effective when the energy level goes farther from the “setpoint” .
The thermostats do not care which “room” (hemisphere) they are located in .They just go to work.
And they do a good job.
As does Mr. Willis E. Thank you, sir, have a great day!
Me thinks Gerald is just a troll, probably a paid troll and not a very good one at that. Perhaps some AGW group thought that this particular post was just too important to leave alone. What they need is for the entire comment thread being overrun with paid troll inanities. Now back to the topic at hand. It certainly seems very impressive to me that LW and SW has been that stable for the period that CERES shows it to be. That certainly looks to me like CO2 levels have close to zero effect on global radiation budget for the last 12 years. Is that a wrong conclusion to make?
Joe Born says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:02 am
Thanks, Joe, always good to hear from you. Sorry for the lack of clarity. Both the stability and the symmetry are a result of the thermoregulation. If there were no regulation, the LW and SW would wander up and down, and would be different in the two hemispheres because of the huge physical differences between the NHem and the SHem. Instead, they are both stable and equal in the two hemispheres.
As I said, if you have a different explanation, I’m all ears.
w.
Stephen Wilde, Conduction is for heat transfer in solids. What about convection (for gases), flow (for fluids)?
Oops! Ought to have read your whole post.
Doesn’t high precision with low accuracy mean you’re wrong all the time? You’re saying they can put all three darts right next to each other every time, just not where they were aiming.
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.
Willis, I don’t have the answer, but here are some thoughts that may prove useful.
1. More and more it appears that the Earth’s climate system is a closed loop system.
2. Your articles on the climate engine show the possibility of gain or amplification in the system. The Earth’s atmosphere absorbs about 17% of the Sun’s energy coming to the Earth. The specific heat of the atmosphere is about 200 times the specific heat of the Earth’s surface and heats and cools more easily that the Earth’s surface. This means that the atmosphere which is driven by temperature differences is the working fluid.
3. Overall temperature changes appear to change in increments and stabilize for periods of time.
4. When you have a closed loop system, you have a control input, gain blocks and a feedback loop. The control input goes into a summing junction, is amplified and the output is fed back through the feedback loop. What is important about this system is that it responds to the control input. Other inputs or disturbances that enter the system after the summing junction are reduced in effect by the amount of system gain that occurs ahead of the point that the disturbance entered the system.
5. I don’t know how you identify the control input or the summing junction; but if you can, I think that you can start putting relative importance on changes that occur in the system.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:16 am
Gerald, you lied about me above. I called you out on it, and asked you to put up or shut up—either provide some kind of proof for your claims about me, or retract them.
It appears you do not have the balls to do either one. Instead, you’ve come up with a new lie. the idea that somewhere I said that there are “more rotations than days”.
Again, I deny your scurrilous claim entirely. As far as I know, I didn’t say anything about there being more rotations than days. And once again, I say put up or shut up.
EITHER PROVIDE PROOF OF YOUR FALSE CLAIMS, OR STAND CONVICTED OF BEING A HILARIOUSLY CHILDISH LYING SACK OF PORCINE EXCREMENT!
Is that clear enough for you, you libelous scumbag?
w.
Kev-in-Uk says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:21 am
I have no clue what you are referring to, and little interest in finding out. QUOTE PEOPLES WORDS that you are agreeing or disagreeing with, I have neither the time nor the interest to play “find the idea Kev is talking about.”
w.
The main question is, “is there a treand in the outgoing LWR”?
Next, “does it correlate with GHG concentrations”?
The next question, addressing feedbacks, “is there a trend in outgoing SW”?
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:40 am
Dear heavens, is that what you are on about? Above, you accused me of saying that … now it’s NASA?
In any case, NASA is right, there is one more rotation than there are days (a “day” being one day/night cycle). I guess you must have skipped that day in school.
To understand it, imagine if the earth always kept the same face to the sun. In a year, it would experience zero days—it would never go from dark to light and back to dark again.
But it would still make one full rotation on its axis each time it went around the sun … net result? One more rotation per year than there are days, duh.
So not only are you an intrusive, unpleasant pest.
You are also 100% wrong, and NASA is right, on the question of days and rotations.
w.
AndyG55 says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:43 am
Eventually, yep. Wind pushes the sand up higher on the beach, storing potential energy. Erosion brings the sand down to the water level again, releasing that energy. But in both directions, part of the energy goes up as heat. Yes, some of it can go into storage, even long-term storage. But eventually, it all comes back out and is converted to heat. Recall that no energy is created when the sand is moved from low to high. We’ve just transformed the energy, and changed some into heat..
Again I say, if you think that the work is NOT converted back to heat and radiated to space … where is it? If there has been even a 5 watt imbalance over the last half-million years, that’s enough energy to blast the planet to smithereens … where is it?
w.
Joe wrote in regards to the NASA sponsored ‘fact’ –
“The Earth spins on its axis about 366 and 1/4 times each year, but there are only 365 and 1/4 days per year.” NASA
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970714.html
Why would there be an uproar at a statement which is patently true?”
Thank you for reminding everyone that when that ‘fact’ expands out to 1465 rotations in 1461 days you have already lost the cause and effect between daily rotation and temperature rises and falls.
No pointing in repeating the full explanation once more which involves the sighting of Sirius to define orbital position over a 4 year/1461 rotational period or the neat trick of converting the 24 hour ‘average’ day into ‘constant’ rotation through 360 degrees through the Lat/Long system. This system has a nobility to it that the mob mentality generally can’t get to grips with and I am certainly not going to chase modelers and shove it down their throats.
When a website built around planetary temperature differences 24 hour/7 days can’t come to a decisive conclusion that yes,there are 1461 rotations for 4 orbital circuits as the anchor and the only way to answer the question as to how many rotations there are in a year along with the association with normal temperature fluctuations within a 24 hour period then so well and good but I wouldn’t want to be associated with such a website. It is nothing personal,just historical and technical competence.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 4:20 am
Gerald, you have demonstrated that you are far from being a “man of integrity”.
If you were, you would answer my questions, you would not post your claims about what I’ve said without evidence, and you would retract your statements when they are shown to be false. That’s what men of integrity do.
Now, I’m happy for you to start doing any and all of those … but instead, you seem to be doubling down on dumb.
Your choice, like I said, if you want people to point and laugh I can’t stop you, and you’re doing a fine job of it.
Finally, you say that people calling you a liar and a man without honor is “nothing you haven’t seen or heard before” … why am I not surprised in the slightest that other people think you are a dishonorable jerkwagon?
w.
Ross McKitrick says:
January 7, 2014 at 5:49 am
Thanks, Ross. Made my morning … ruined my keyboard.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:04 am
AndyG55 is essentially reminding us that there is a finite ‘space’ around the world, technically its called the biosphere, yes? This contains a physical ‘amount’ of energy bound up in all its weird shapes and forms, including you and I. It includes both organic and inorganic energy forms, wind, waves, OHC, biomass, clathrates, airflows, flora and fauna, blah blah, etc, yes? If this zone (the bisosphere) is changing, either growing or shrinking in its ‘net’ energy content – this must have come from the IN/OUT energy budget somewhere, yes?
I am merely further elaborating that no-one can know what this dynamic system is doing in an overall context within the measured IN/OUT energy budget that you describe as miraculously stable, such that any time lags within said dynamic system will be highly likely to mask any small changes in the IN/OUT system, such that you will achieve the stable results as observed. For heavens sake, even a small OHC change takes many decades and hence could (and in my opinion probably is) provide an overall smoothing to the measurements being taken. In short, given the sheer size of the dynamic system (the biosphere), and the energy variation within that system, it seems highly unlikely to actually be able to measure any significant change over anything other than multi-millenial timescales.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:26 am
“…jerkwagon.”
_________________
I’m using that.
Willis
“In any case, NASA is right, there is one more rotation than there are days (a “day” being one day/night cycle). I guess you must have skipped that day in school.”
I suppose when you can’t match the day/night cycle within a 24 hour period with one rotation of the planet and why temperature rise and fall daily at your location you have problems bigger than I can handle. As a self-declared navigator may I direct you the principles of another man who had to stand out on his own against the academics in explaining part of the huge human achievement that ties the 24 hour cycle to planetary rotation and geometry via the Lat./Long system.
Be my guest and commit intellectual suicide to go along with celestial sphere modeling because the guys in the late 17th century were not careful enough in their assertions or conclusions.A star returns in 23 hours 56 minutes of an average 24 hour day within the 365/365/365/366 day framework making its absolutely and totally useless for modeling the daily and orbital dynamics of the planet.
“The application of a Timekeeper to this discovery is founded upon the following principles: the earth’s surface is divided into 360 equal parts (by imaginary lines drawn from North to South) which are called Degrees of Longitude; and its daily revolution Eastward round its own axis is performed in 24 hours; consequently in that period, each of those imaginary lines or degrees, becomes successively opposite to the Sun (which makes the noon or precise middle of the day at each of those degrees;) and it must follow, that from the time any one of those lines passes the Sun, till the next passes, must be just four minutes, for 24 hours being divided by 360 will give that quantity; so that for every degree of Longitude we sail Westward, it will be noon with us four minutes the later, and for every degree Eastward four minutes the sooner, and so on in proportion for any greater or less quantity. Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are,can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment what o’clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered.” John Harrison
They even made a tv series based on the conflict with academics who just don’t seem to get it –
Take some consolation that you have a mob behind you but that is about all.
Gerald, you’re a f-ing idiot.
The clip you’ve just posted has no “conflict with academics” in it – it is purely a commercial negotiation. Jeeze.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 12:29 am
“You really need sensible people who realize that half the planet receives solar radiation at all times and the degree of inclination determines how surface latitudes receive that radiation budget over an annual orbit…”
Gerald, if you think this is a contribution here, or even on a terribly homes and gardens web site, you’re a long way from home. I guess that the effect an elliptical orbit has on the “radiation budgets” of this tilted planet is a little abstract for you.
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 12:29 am
No Gerald. It frightens YOU. The Earth changes velocity as it travels from aphelion to perihelion and back again. As a result, one hemisphere spends longer in the sunshine than the other. Willis knows that. Why don’t you?
I notice that you base your immense and infallible knowledge on a psychic website, and two sites you claim to be “academic” are wiki and wikipedia. You’re not fooling anybody around here, so why not go and torment some demons in hell.
@Steven Mosher January 7, 2014 at 8:18 am
Steven, you seem very knowledgeable regarding CERES. Could you please provide links to why there is a 0.85 W/m2 adjustment, and why there is a 5 W/m2 imbalance in unadjusted data (provided that either of these is true). Thank you.
The people promoting the nonsense of human control over global climate don’t really worry as they control the education system and when you can control the flow of information you can almost rewrite history which most of you are trying doing right now. Dig in your heels if you so wish but from experience,forums never really recover from the shock of a society that won’t promote the rotation of the Earth once in 24 hours nor understand the principles of 1461 rotations across 4 orbital circuits.
Turns out that now only is there a technical deficiency but also a historical one. Btw,Harrison was the first to create a set of Equation of Time tables to take into account Feb 29th which converts the variations in a natural noon cycle into a 24 hour average which in turns transfers into ‘constant’ rotation via the Lat/Long system.
“Now, in the former part of this book, I have treated about matters pertaining to the strictness of measuring time; and have shewn the deficiencies of such means as Mr. Graham had taken or made use of for that purpose; and I have also treated of the improper, troublesome,erroneous – tedious method, which the professors at Cambridge and Oxford would have to be for the longitude at sea:” Harrison
” But indeed, had I continued under the hands of the rude commissioners, this completion, or great accomplishment, neither , nor could, ever have been obtained; but however, providence otherwise ordered the matter, and I can now boldly say, that if the provision for the heat and cold could properly be in the balance itself, as it is in the pendulum, the watch [or my longitude time-
keeper] would then perform to a few seconds in a year, yea, to such perfection now are imaginary impossibilities conquered; so the priests at Cambridge and Oxford, &c. may cease their pursuit in the affair,and as otherwise then to occupy their time.” John Harrison
Willis: Hoo-boy! What a thread! My first question after reading the post would have been: What do the sensors see? Are they looking straight down only? Or do they always read the full angle subtended by the Earth at the satellite’s altitude? If the latter, then are the sensors uniform in output across their field-of-view? After reading Mosh’s comment, I’d like to know how the sensor signal is converted to the final units.
Gerald: Those nice young men at your door in suits and ties were recommending LDS. Got it? L…D…S.
Edim, MAK: Good points.
Ross: Very funny! I’ll get right on it. Right after I read Mosh’s NASA ATBDs. They look like loads of fun. Seriously.
@Slacko: Sorry, both you and Gerald are wrong. Both hemispheres get an equal time of sunlight, but more of Southern Hemisphere sunlight (during the Southern summer) when the Earth is closer to the Sun. It is not a question of a longer time; it is a question of a higher intensity.