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.)
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:24 am
“I wouldn’t want to be associated with such a website.”
Gerald, this is an absolutely brilliant insight. I recommend that you fully implement this insight and immediately all association with the website in question.
“Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:16 am
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.”
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I’m even more confused at Jerry’s rantings.
Since most of us at WUWT are conservative leaning libertarian thinkers and would agree it’s nonsense of human control over global climate and would also agree the educational system is indoctrinating the children by trying to control the flow of information you can almost rewrite history.
What I don’t get still is the part about which most of you are trying doing right now.. What’s his beef with Willis’ science and WUWT?
Was he responding to an article at SkS or something at 350.org?
cn
Willis wrote –
“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.”
Again,forums generally don’t survive when one of the principle contributors can’t begin with the normal experience that waking up each day he is also waking up to all the effects of one rotation coincident with a 24 hour period. and for a website so concerned about temperature fluctuations to promote a 1465 rotation/1461 day imbalance is not really concerned about climate or anything else.
Really sorry about the poor proofreading but the description of technical issues are more or less accurate in how the average 24 hour day transfers to constant rotation via the Lat/Long system,how the second surface rotation to the central Sun combines with daily rotation at lower latitudes to explain the seasons and variations in the noon cycles and other good stuff.
patrioticduo says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:54 am
Stephen Wilde, Conduction is for heat transfer in solids. What about convection (for gases), flow (for fluids)?
Convection in a gas isn’t a heat or energy transfer mechanism. It simply relocates energy and in the process It changes kinetic energy to potential energy on the ascent and the opposite on the descent.
A flow in a fluid isn’t an energy transfer mechanism. It just relocates existing energy.
To get energy from one molecule to another it has to be via contact or near contact as in conduction, or across an empty space via radiation. Conduction occurs between a solid surface and the mass of any overlying gases.
Mr. Kelleher,
Your ramblings are the ramblings of a disturbed mind. You speak in gibberish, or tongues. Even if what you said were accurate, how would anyone know? Get some help.
“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.
S Wilde: Convection in a gas isn’t a heat or energy transfer mechanism. It simply relocates energy and in the process It changes kinetic energy to potential energy on the ascent and the opposite on the descent.
A flow in a fluid isn’t an energy transfer mechanism. It just relocates existing energy.
===
And why should this energy decide to “relocate”.
As always, systems do this in order to end up in a lower energy state. So it is not an energy neutral “relocation” as you suggest.
I agree that it very curious that both SW and LW are almost identical in north and south. It is so curios that it makes me suspicious of error, so if you have the patience for a perhaps silly question Wills; I looked into the code and just wonder what this code do:
Do you get the data for just the latitudes 0.5 North and 0.5 South, or do you get the data for all the hemispheres?
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.
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or its relevance to anything being discussed here. Are you simply being a troll or do you have some point you are trying to make? If you don’t want to be “associated” with WUWT (and that’s the website you are referring to) then last time I looked association was voluntary and please go away. If you are worried that WUWT readers aren’t aware of sidereal vs synodic day definitions (as if this is somehow relevant to climate science) you could be right in some cases, but the simple fix is to post a link like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synodic_day
and encourage individuals who are puzzled to click through and read the related page on the sidereal day, while noting carefully that the conclusion on this page, that the “day” cannot be properly related to the rising and setting of any celestrial body per se, is the best way to view things. At this point a “day” is 86400 times 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom, period. We can define the period of the Earth’s absolute rotation in space in terms of this second, and we can similarly define the period of the Earth’s absolute revolution around the sun in terms of this second, recognizing that neither one will precisely be a constant because the Earth is not a perfectly rigid mass orbiting another pointlike mass in the absence of all other masses. None of which has anything meaningful to do with climate as far as I know.
If you have some connection you wish to make between somebody or other’s ignorance of technicalities in the definitions of things like “a day” or “a year” and the actual topic being discussed, please state them clearly. If you are simply bemoaning general ignorance in the world, perhaps you could start a thread devoted to that purpose. I encounter plenty of that every day and will likely not participate in an online whine about it, but perhaps someone will.
rgb
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 9:24 am
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?”
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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.
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What?????
Sun comes up, it gets warmer. Sun goes down, it gets cooler again. Sun comes up, that’s one day finished – which is not exactly one rotation of the Earth on its axis.
If we’re considering astronomy, that difference can matter. If we’re considering when the sun heats the planet it doesn’t.
Now the tricky bit (may be a little advanced for you)…..
This thread is [b]NOT[/b] considering astronomy.
A flow in a fluid isn’t an energy transfer mechanism. It just relocates existing energy.
Talk about pure oxymorons.
rgb
Joe wrote –
“What?????
Sun comes up, it gets warmer. Sun goes down, it gets cooler again. Sun comes up, that’s one day finished – which is not exactly one rotation of the Earth on its axis.”
You mustn’t have gotten the memo that the Sun doesn’t do anything -the Earth does !.
Look, I value the brilliant and intricate feature which converts the average 24 hour day into constant rotation via the Lat/.Long system and the 1461 days/rotations that fit inside an orbital circumference with the great star Sirius as the original astronomical marker for the Earth’s position in space.
Sorry,I can’t take this website seriously so good luck to you all and I mean that.
AndyG55 raises an interesting point about the influence of the biosphere on climate. The biosphere is capable of storing energy ( coal, gas, oil, timber). All jolly useful for provding heat during winters, polar vorticies, and ice ages etc..
It would be ironic if Trenberths missing heat was due to a flourishing forest in Yamal.
P.s. Dear Teacher Gail Coombs,
unable to provide a proof as this requires the full solution of the Navier-Stokes equations which have not yet been acheived ( to my knowledge)
rgbatduke says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:59 am
A flow in a fluid isn’t an energy transfer mechanism. It just relocates existing energy.
Talk about pure oxymorons.
rgb
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The farce is strong with this one, Duke
(with sincere apologies to Mr Lucas)
Gerald Kelleher says:
“Sorry,I can’t take this website seriously…”
Gerald, you’re giving up? So far I’ve stayed out of this debate. But…
Your choice is to either:
a) Go to another site, which will completely agree with you, or
b) Go to an alarmist blog, which will censor what you write
Here, you get arguments. What’s wrong with that? You have made some good points. Even better, you have remained polite in the face of adversity. There’s a lot to be said for that.
If you believe what you write, then I would advise you to hang in there. Quitting isn’t a good option.
What I would advise is to answer specific points raised by others. Otherwise, you tend to be talking past them. Debate the specific issues. That way, maybe we can all learn something.
rgbI 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.
Gerald, why are you stuck in the 17th or 18th century? I find this as irritating as the PSI claim that the work of Arrhenius or Fourier is still relevant to the question of whether or not there is a GHE. There is absolutely nothing you are saying that is not perfectly well understood and taught in any high-school or better astronomy class. There is an entire governmental organization devoted to standards (NIST). Time has never, ever, been more precisely measured — my watch (with its built in radio) keeps time within milliseconds at all times; my phone ditto, my cable box ditto, my computer shaves that to considerably less than a millisecond, and if I cared do, I could use the orbital GPS signal to track time to a few tens or hundreds of nanoseconds, without even investing in a personal atomic clock. Kids today don’t even remember what it was once like to be lucky to know the exact time to within a few minutes — only household electromechanical clocks are that inaccurate these days.
I reiterate — instead of continuing some sort of personal vendetta against Willis, which serves no useful purpose, why not take it for granted that we all do understand the difference between synodical and sidereal time and that we do not see any particularly good reason to care because you have not shown us one. If you wish to assert that GCM’s, for example, use synodic time instead of sidereal and hence make a systematic error, please defend that assertion by referencing the lines in the code or the documentation for the code that make the error. I’m perfectly happy to believe you, even — it seems like the kind of error that could easily be made — but I have no particularly good reason to think that it actually is being made, and even if it is made in one GCM there is no reason think it is being made in them all (or that it would have any meaningful effect over a span of 20-30 years if it is being made in any of them).
In the meantime, could you please stop flogging this dead, straw horse? He isn’t going to go any faster because, you see, a) he’s not living; b) he’s made of straw.
If you disagree, please show some actual connection. Don’t just repeat yourself. Otherwise I’m going to think you are a demon sent from PSI hell to torment us with non-sequitors until we run screaming from the room.
rgb
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 11:08 am
Joe wrote –
“What?????
Sun comes up, it gets warmer. Sun goes down, it gets cooler again. Sun comes up, that’s one day finished – which is not exactly one rotation of the Earth on its axis.”
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You mustn’t have gotten the memo that the Sun doesn’t do anything -the Earth does !.
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That’s not only entirely facetious, it’s also scientifically wrong on at least two counts.
First: Since you’re determined to involve the “fixed stars”, the sun does an awful lot because it’s far from fixed.
Second: The convention that the earth moves round the sun rather than the other way round is nothing but a mathematical convenience. It’s entirely possible to define the entire universe with the earth as it’s stationary centre. It’s just that the equations get a little more complex that way.
Given your donkey-like insistence on denying other perfectly accepted (and useful) conventions you have no right whatsoever to rely on the one that says “the earth moves round the sun”.
Jan Kjetil Andersen says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:52 am
Good question, Jan. The answer is in the file called “CERES Functions.R” linked to in the head post. The “getmonths” function takes a 3-d array and two latitude/longitude points as arguments, and returns the monthly area-weighted averages of the region enclosed by the lat/long points.
getmonths=function(x, lat1 = 89.5, lat2 = -89.5, long1 = -179.5, long2 = 179.5){ themask=makemask(lat1,lat2,long1,long2) #make the mask maskarr=array(rep(themask,dim(x)[3]),c(180,360,dim(x)[3])) #convert it to an array ts(apply(x*maskarr,3,getweightedmean),start=c(2000,3),frequency=12) # return answers as time series ("ts") }The function defines a mask using the lat1, lat2, long1, and long2 input variables. Note that these input variables are assigned default values which they will take if they are not specified. These default values cover the total surface, so if nothing is specified, that’s what we get. The mask contains the value “NA” for any unwanted areas, so it gets left out of the calculation.
Now, if I call “getmonths(toa_lw_all, lat2 = .5)”, the specification of lat2 as being half a degree north latitude, in combination with the default values of the other three location variables (lat1, long1 and long2), means that the mask only includes the northern hemisphere. As a result, that call returns the monthly averages, but only for the northern hemisphere.
Note that my “getmonths” function calls two other functions I wrote, “makemask” and “getweightedmean”. See the file for details.
All the best,
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 7, 2014 at 2:49 am
AndyG55 says:
January 7, 2014 at 2:04 am
“I have to say I would be amazed if there was a balance of zero.”
Willis, in the long run, you are correct – hey we’re now burning carboniferous age coal that had been trees and bogs, releasing this sequestered sun’s paleo-energy. But, as I understand it, we are apparently in a period of regreening and speeded up tree-growth. This has to require surplus, stay-behind energy over and above the incoming – (SW + LW) accounting of Ceres. This would be true simply because the data is short term. Whether the magnitude of the measured difference is comparable to this “use” is another question. Probably someone has an reasonable estimate of this.
Gerald, quite early on, perhaps not early enough, you said “Apologies for the poor proofreading,spelling and grammar but time to move on”. What a pity it is that you didn’t.
patrioticduo says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:50 am
“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. ”
No real answers to Willis’s question, but isn’t this a reasonable conclusion?
Willis:
Your very fine observations call for serious discussion which has sadly been inhibited by a troll.
I write with serious intent to help you get the thread back on-track although I recognise that what I am about to say is likely to make you ‘blow your top’.
As he often does, in this thread Robert Brown has made an excellent post. His contribution at January 7, 2014 at 6:42 am concludes saying
I could not agree more.
And the issue certainly is “how do the SH clouds + surface know how to match the NH clouds + surface?”
Unless, of course, the hemispheres behaviours don’t match to each other but each matches to something else.
I hesitate to make the obvious point I am now about to make, but I think it cannot reasonably be ignored.
There would be no puzzle if the Jelbring Hypothesis (JH) were true.
I dispute the JH and I know you reject it completely. I am not introducing the JH to cause trouble: I think it is necessary to admit that a logical rejection of the pertinence of the JH is needed in the context of your observation.
For the benefit of those who don’t know, the Jelbring Hypothesis says the surface temperature of a planet with significant atmosphere is fixed by its gravity and the density of its atmosphere. According to this idea, all radiative, conductive and convective effects of an atmosphere adjust to provide the planet’s surface temperature such that the proportion of GHGs in the atmosphere is not relevant. This is a link to his original paper
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/FunctionOfMass.pdf
Clearly, some variation of the JH would explain your surprising observation. Hence, I think it important to introduce this possibility although I think the JH is unlikely and I know you think is impossible.
Personally, I think your observation demonstrates error in LW and/or SW measurement method(s). But the possibility of some kind of JH effect should not be ignored.
Sorry, if this post ‘angers your blood’ but it is seriously intended to be helpful.
Richard
Gerald Kelleher says:
January 7, 2014 at 3:29 am
Gerald:
Take your extra day and celebrate your birthday twice/year. maybe you’ll eventually grow up.
To Ross’ comment that it is not simple physics, I will add that it is not simple statistics either. If you have a regulated output variable, trying to correlate input variables with it just leaves it to Willis to find out how the system really works.
“rgbatduke says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:59 am
A flow in a fluid isn’t an energy transfer mechanism. It just relocates existing energy.
Talk about pure oxymorons.”
A flow in a fluid moves energy one from one location to another but does not transfer energy from one molecule to another.
I was referring to an energy transfer mechanism as one which moves energy from one unit of mass to another.
There was no oxymoron.