Too many variables like clouds to model future climate with precision
Guest essay by Rolf Westgard
A new United Nations report suggests an imminent danger from global warming. It states that without drastic action we may have “to develop the ability to suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and store them underground”.
Minnesota already has millions of devices which do that. They are called trees and plants. They take in carbon dioxide(CO2), store the carbon(C), and return the oxygen(O) for us to breath.
It is actually not clear that our fossil fuel burning CO2 emissions are a serious global warming threat. There are many poorly understood ocean temperature variables which have a bigger impact on earth temperatures. These include the El Nino cycle and the Pacific Decade Oscillation. Confusion over how those work helps to cause the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) to regularly over estimate temperature warming trends.
Undeterred, federal and state legislatures are spending billions in response to guesses about our climate future. In addition to ocean cycles, there are several other poorly understood natural climate feedbacks. These act as natural thermostats, keeping the earth’s average temperature during inter glacial periods within a fairly narrow range. One of the most important is the action of clouds. Clouds are water vapor, a green house gas which warms us. Clouds reflect the sun’s light, cooling us. Clouds produce rain which removes CO2 from the atmosphere, etc.
A few lines from a popular song about clouds, “Both Sides Now”, pretty much sums up where we are with clouds and other climate variables:
“But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clouds at all.”
At this point, no one knows how to accurately plug the impact of clouds or other climate variables into climate forecasting models.
(Westgard is guest faculty on energy subjects for the U of MN Lifelong Learning
program. He recently taught class #17016 “America’s Climate and Energy Future: the Next 25 Years”)
We know clouds here in the UK. They’re full of water. For a while.
(BTW, breath is a noun, breathe is the verb.)
More clouds, less energy into the oceans to drive the climate system.
Less clouds, more energy into the oceans to drive the climate system.
Solar variations appear to change global cloudiness by expanding and contracting the polar vortices thereby making the polar air masses change the extent to which they encroach across middle latitudes.
A quiet sun gives more equatorward / meridional jets and more clouds whereas an active sun gives more poleward / zonal jets and less clouds.
The mechanism appears to involve changes in stratosphere temperatures via changes in the net ozone creation / destruction balance which cause tropopause heights to rise or fall in higher latitudes relative to the heights above the equator.
The effect is to greatly amplify the scale of the initial solar variations by altering Earth’s albedo to affect energy amounts taken up by the oceans.
That mechanism is not proved yet but looking more likely as more data comes in.
Earth’s average cloud cover has changed by multiple percent over recent decades*, let alone compared to further back, and the impact of the corresponding albedo change is large in context (when, for perspective, all of global warming over the past century was merely <=~ 0.6 K or thus <=~ a 0.2% change in an average absolute temperature near 298 K).
* (As illustrated along with much else in http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg )
Not only total cloud cover can have an influence on global climate – change in latitudinal distribution of clouds will have an influence, even at constant average cloud cover.
I have been informed by a doctor that they will not take there medication please take it for they no not what they a doing
Edim: Yes, and also variation in average cloud altitude.
I would have thought the radiation from a cloud depends on its height. The higher a cloud is the colder it is. The colder it is the less the energy it is radiating down. So if CO2 warms the atmosphere the clouds will warm, rise higher, get even colder and radiate back less energy.
NASA states clouds on average cause cooling.
There is no empirical data showing that CO2 causes temperature increases. In fact empirical data shows the exact opposite.
Clouds, well we do not understand them. 90% are caused by convection which disproves IPCC claims that latent heat is not an important sink for heat. Convective cloud is full of heat that is lost to space. That is where Trenberth,s missing heat is not the oceans.
“So if CO2 warms the atmosphere the clouds will warm, rise higher, get even colder and radiate back less energy.”
I would go further and say that if GHGs do have a net warming effect within an atmosphere then that simply causes more and larger parcels of air to rise higher, become colder and radiate less energy back to the surface.
Thus does a change in the vigour of convection apply an equal and opposite thermal response to any GHG effect.
The presence of water vapour low down and condensate higher up simply lubricates the process by converting KE near the surface to latent form and releasing it from the condensate higher up for radiation to space from that greater, colder height thereby accelerating radiative loss to help offset any net warming from GHGs that would have occurred in the absence of increased convection.
Note that increased convection does not need a warmer surface, merely warmer parcels of air within the vertical column.
However such an effect on convection from GHGs appears to pale into insignificance compared to the changes in convection caused by solar and oceanic variability.
The thermostatic response of global convection (and the clouds generated by it) is simply a global expression of the tropical thunderstorm hypothesis promulgated by Willis Eschenbach and others but carried to the logical conclusion in a global context.
The physical purpose of convection (lubricated by the water cycle) is in providing a mechanism whereby conduction and radiation within the Earth system are balanced as necessary to ensure the long term maintenance of radiative balance with space.
Clouds are NOT water vapour. Water vapour is an invisible gas. You can see clouds, so they are NOT water vapour.
In a field where there is so much misunderstanding already, I think it is important to avoid adding to the confusion by using loose, inaccurate or incorrect statements [where possible].
Fossil fuels already are trapped and stored underground carbon.. So why do they want to re-bury it along with our oxygen this time?
I have the answer.. TO TAKE MONEY OFF THE SCHMUCKS!
Seriously, anyone and everyone who proposes or implements this [snip].
[OTT – mod]
in line with the “underground” theme, what to make of this?
30 Jan: UK Independent: Jamie Merrill: Growing Underground: Michel Roux Jr reveals plans for subterranean farm in the depths of empty south London tunnels
Thanks to advancement in LED lighting technology, the plant-friendly temperature found 100ft below ground and some support from celebrity chef Michel Roux Jr, the damp Second World War air raid shelter is being transformed into the capital’s first underground farm.
The brainchild of foodie entrepreneurs Richard Ballard and Steven Dring, and their firm Zero Carbon Foods, the project, which covers 2.5 acres has already harvested some of its first crop of peashoots, micro radish and mustard redleaf.
Mr Roux, the two-star Michelin chef behind Le Gavroche and one of the stars of “Masterchef: The Professionals”, was an early fan and is now a director of the company…
The site has been leased by Zero Carbon Foods from its owner Transport for London for 25 years but trials have been running for 18 months already. Now the firm is expand production and is seeking £1m in crowd-sourced funding to bring its subterranean herbs, shoots, miniature vegetables, edible flowers and other delicacies to Britain’s high-end restaurants and food stores…
Ballard: “The advancements in LED lighting technology mean we can do this more affordably and efficiently and because we’re underground at a constant temperature we don’t need to add a lot of heat, which they often have to do in conventional farming.”….
According to the farm’s creators the project will be carbon neutral and use low-energy LED bulbs and an integrated hydroponics system…
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/growing-underground-michel-roux-jr-reveals-plans-for-subterranean-farm-in-the-depths-of-empty-south-london-tunnels-9096184.html
VIDEO: 31 Jan: UK Telegraph: Growing Underground: London’s subterranean farm
Harry Wallop visits a futuristic market garden that lies a full 100 feet under the streets of central London
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10607635/Growing-Underground-Londons-subterranean-farm.html
…30 Jan: UK Independent: Jamie Merrill: Growing Underground: Michel Roux Jr reveals plans for subterranean farm in the depths of empty south London tunnels…
Presumably using similar technology to that used by the drug gangs to grow cannabis plants in basements and attics…
What do I make of the underground farm? This is what I think of the underground farm :
http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/921946/vancouvers-first-vertical-urban-farm-goes-bankrupt/
Pretty poor form to quote the song without creditting the writer.
steveta_uk says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:33 am
>> A few lines from a popular song about clouds, “Both Sides Now”
> Pretty poor form to quote the song without creditting the writer.
Joni Mitchell, best sung by Judy Collins.
Its about time someone looks at climate science from both sides, now.
Oh what the heck, this isn’t a major post, I can go off on a tangent and not feel apologetic.
Heinlein wrote the best SF novel that should be a movie, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Judy Collins sang a song of the same title that would be a wonderful opening scene. Between the CGI in Titanic and the vomit comet in Apollo 13, would someone please make the movie?
“garymount says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:04 am
What do I make of the underground farm? This is what I think of the und11erground farm :
http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/921946/vancouvers-first-vertical-urban-farm-goes-bankrupt/”
garymount could have missed the point.
“Now the firm is expand production and is seeking £1m in crowd-sourced funding to bring its subterranean herbs, shoots, miniature vegetables, edible flowers and other delicacies to Britain’s high-end restaurants and food stores…”
The point is that production costs are not likely to be an issue here.
l don’t think its so much that clouds are a big game changer in climate. But rather the size and the movement of the weather patterns that help to cause them. Because l think that a cause of ice age was that the weather patterns became larger in surface area and so became much slower moving and stable, so as to let cold winter weather bed in year after year. Because a waving jet stream will not form a ice age because it makes the weather to changeable for that to happen. What’s needed for a ice age to form is for the jet stream to push south and go zonal over a large area of the globe so as to allow huge area’s of high pressure to form in the NH and set up huge pools of cold air. Because of this growth in the size of the area’s high pressure it means the area’s of low pressure also become larger and much slower moving, and because of this the whole weather patterns in the NH starts to grind to a halt and become stable. Which is just what is needed for a ice age to form.
Apology on breath vs breathe. I’m a geologist, not an English major. Rolf
John Peter says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:58 am
– – –
If you read my link, you would see that the technologies are similar.
The problem is that what we do know about clouds is not incorporated into IPPC models. If the processes that occur in clouds were included in those models, there would very likely be no CO2 “sensitivity”. From what I have observed, clouds are controlling both the atmospheric concentration and distribution of CO2. CO2 concentration changes lag temperature changes.
I’m sorry, guys…
I couldn’t resist; it’s such a beautiful song by Joni:
http://youtu.be/bcrEqIpi6sg
Cheers!
Distribution of atmospheric water is uneven, fractal like, in a scale invariant manner. Therefore, even under clear sky conditions, average optical depth in a water vapor absorption band is pretty independent of average specific humidity, the latter providing only an upper bound. Higher moments of distribution, necessary to calculate radiative properties, are neither measured nor represented in computational models.
Clouds are roughly defined by regions, where relative humidity exceeds 100%, this is why they are fractals as well.
Atmospheric lifetime of moisture is restricted, it is 9 days on average. Absolute humidity of an air parcel depends on its history, that is, on its temperature the last time it got saturated, not on its immediate surroundings. Shape of this parcel gets distorted with time into a fine mesh due to turbulent flows, described by mathematically intractable Navier-Stokes equations. Unfortunately neither Reynolds averaging nor large eddy simulation can offer help in this case, because in the real atmosphere the parameter regime needed for closure is never covered with experimental data. With a submillimeter mixing length scale, the 100 km resolution of general circulation models is somewhat ridiculous.
As none of the water vapor feedback effects can be modelled computationally using first principles, neither experimental control is possible in the atmosphere, only unverified &. unverifiable guesses are available to incorporate them into models by parametrization. Still, with no large positive “water vapor feedback” all dire predictions (projections!) evaporate.
[snip – chemtrails junk, policy violation -mod]