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”)
What a great thread! GC and SW and many of the usual suspects with their best work. I’ll digress a bit to say that the major problem in climate science is not atmospheric clouds, but cranial clouds, the cumulonimrod thinking of wannabe scientists.
I’m certain the climate modeling problem will never be solved. When making a GCM, well-understood first principles will only take you so far, then you have to add in empirical phenomena that are NOT well-understood. This can be done in token fashion by using statistics to create a mathy emulation of those climate features. But the result is NOT a true simulation; it merely has climate-like properties.
Weather produces more weather in a cause-and-effect way. But there are random processes that keep us from showing the exact relationship mathematically. Over time, the randomness takes our emulation farther and farther away from reality and its underlying cause-effect processes. Therefore, no climate model will give a valid prediction of climate for more than a few years–by luck. Adding up a bunch (“ensemble,” in science-feller-speak) of flawed climate models will just create another failure-in-progress.
There’s an ancient Greek term that describes the AGW climate scientist mind-set: hubris,. Hubris is overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance. (American Heritage® Dictionary). In Greek tragedy, hubris always results in the sinner’s ruin. We are living out a Greek tragedy, currently in the front seats, soon to be dragged on-stage by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad.
george e. smith says: @ur momisugly February 11, 2014 at 9:33 am
“As soon as the word “clouds” gets mentioned, people forget that the issue is CLIMATE and not LAST NIGHT’S WEATHER !!
So if talking about CHANGES in cloud cover, we have to talk of changes that PERSIST for climatically significant periods of time.”
A decline in 4/5% in global cloud cover from the 1980s to early 2000s is significant and adjusting for this change removes the warming period during it.
.
“Clouds are water vapor, …”
No. Clouds are water droplets.
“Clouds are water vapor, a green house gas …”
No. Clouds are near gray-bodies and radiate in a full spectrum manner unlike greenhouse gases which have areas in the spectrum where they do not radiate little or at all. This is especially true for carbon dioxide which only affects a very narrow band of wavelengths. Between 13 μm and 17 μm co2 at most affects 18.8% of the spectral radiance if totally opaque and if you adjust for the partial sidebands, which you must to get closer, this is but about 12% out of the 391 W/m² at 288.15 K with 5.5% being already totally opaque and immune to any further radiative affects. That central band’s effect has moved into the thermodynamic realm of effect except at and above the TOA (about 14.33 to 15.5 μm).
But just like the clouds slow or stop the cooling underneath the cloud cover because the clouds are near the same temperature as the surface, above the clouds they radiate more easily to space due to a decrease in the pressure broadening as the pressure drops with altitude.
I think most of the eastern U.S. now knows what it’s like with three weeks of mostly cloud cover in the dead of winter! So yes, clouds cool or stop or slow any warming warming that would have occurred without the cloud cover.
“Clouds are water vapor, a green house gas which warms us.”
No. Clouds do not “warm” us which means raising temperatures as clouds move in… no… clouds slow and sometime completely stop the cooling underneath the cloud cover but you have an opposite affect above the cloud cover.
My goodness, seems so many misconceptions, or at best misstatements.
Some may disagree with me above but that is how I see clouds, winter clouds at least, while awaiting just a few days above freezing, but the sun’s out today, it will start to “warm” without the clouds, literally.
Ric Werme says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:48 am
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?
Heinlein was one of the best.
Here is Joan Collins.
“A decline in 4/5% in global cloud cover from the 1980s to early 2000s is significant and adjusting for this change removes the warming period during it.”
except low clouds ( those supposedly effected by GCR) did not decrease from 2002 to 2009.
george e. smith says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:03 am
“Low clouds tend to warm the atmosphere because of their back radiation of IR (Heat) frequencies…..””””””
Lower clouds are usually of the heavy moisture laden kind, that precipitate, and they block a whole lot of solar radiation from the surface; which results in cooling.”
This is not the true picture though because both warming and cooling occur with high and low clouds depending on whether long wave, short wave, day, night, above or below. The overall energy change is what dictates the clouds behavior.
Low clouds only seem to warm by preventing more energy escaping for the time being. Overall the energy balance is a loss due to solar energy prevented reaching the surface, easily outweighs the energy trapped below the cloud. Scientific evidence for this is by observing low clouds usually only warm the atmosphere below the cloud when during night. During daylight low clouds cool the atmosphere below the cloud because the warming from solar energy is much greater. The one exception is in regions where solar energy is very weak in winter and therefore during daylight low clouds may actually increase the temperature of the atmosphere below the cloud. Finally satellites show that a increasing trend in global low clouds cause overall cooling when compared to HADCRUT surface temperatures..
http://climate4you.com/images/TotalCloudCoverVersusGlobalSurfaceAirTemperature.gif
High clouds still allow significant solar energy to filter through because they are very thin compared with low based clouds. High clouds do cause a little cooling compared with clear sky during the day. Solar radiation sensors back these up with the scientific evidence and temperatures very slightly cool with their presence on a hot summers day.. The thin high cloud though is still effective at preventing LWR from escaping through it and the result is slight warming at night. The problem being the little loss of solar energy compared with slightly less effective LWR makes the overall energy balance very difficult to call. Knowing that solar energy is significant even with a little loss, then it maybe possible that high clouds cause cooling too, but being less insignificant compared with low clouds.
“but being less insignificant compared with low clouds.”
Sorry, should read more not less.
Ric Werme says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:48 am
Second your Moon is a Harsh Mistress idea.
Ric Werme says:
February 11, 2014 at 4:48 am
“Joni Mitchell, best sung by Judy Collins.”
Heretic! Joni Mitchell, best sung by Joni Mitchell.
And if you ‘extract’ those pesky CO2 molecules at the source, you can grab them before they make their remarkable voyage to the upper atmosphere and become gg simple really
“The point is that production costs are not likely to be an issue here.” (john Peter 4:58am – re: underground grow-ops).
Really. How is that possible? Is the socialist U. K. government (who style themselves “conservatives”) going to pay part of those costs with confiscatory taxes (thereby preventing jobs in the private sector from coming into being)?
OR
Are there enough “who cares what it costs” restaurant patrons willing to pay a high enough price to break even (much less make a profit)?
There are ALWAYS production costs.
Somebody must pay them.
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Well, if your answer is that it is completely privately funded, then… GO, HIPPIES!
I hope it is a success. I wouldn’t waste my money on their high-priced vegies (no matter how wealthy I were), but, if they can find enough Enviro-guilt (based on the flim flam science re: human CO2/”carbon”) customers, more power to them… .
And that power had better not be from windmills — plants don’t recover well from sudden drops in temperature and light. GO BIG COAL! (until nuclear can replace it, I mean)
#(:))
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Re: clouds — Thank you, Mr. Westgard, for running the gauntlet of the commenters and posting a useful article on WUWT. You make a good, basic, point. Such things need to be said over and over given the constant barrage of Envirostalinist propaganda. You shored up the bulwarks of truth in science. Nice job! (and don’t sweat the nitpickers — it is not important that you spell correctly, not at all — you communicated your message just fine)
Mr. Westgard, I must apologize, on reading Janice’s comment I realized I left one HUGE statement… sir, that was not to pick on your words per se. You didn’t say anything I don’t hear so very regularly and it points to just how far the proponents of AGW have warped the language about the science involved. It was more a statement against those who have made it perfectly normal for you an others to say the same thing, clouds are greenhouse gases, they warm, they are water vapor… which they then pick up to extend to — just as bad as CO2, no, even worse, fed back by CO2 and on and on. that was what I was railing against.
Other than that point, good post! I look forward for more of your thoughts.
I have an IR thermometer and if I point to a clear sky it is normally very very cold, outside it’s range. If I point it at clouds I get the temperature of that clouds surface. Usually close to the same temperature one will find at the same heights in that atmosphere.
Dear Wayne,
I hope that you didn’t think I considered you one of the nitpickers, for I did not. Your post wasn’t nitpicking at all. Hope all that flooring and the hole in the yard, etc… are all taken care of SOON!
You are one of the more conscientiously diligent commenters and always (unlike me!) polite.
Keep warm out there!
(and get a dog — it will keep you company until the cat makes another emergent appearance; and it will be friendly, too)
Your WUWT pal,
Janice
Clouds are not water vapour. Water vapour is a gas and clouds are suspended droplets of water.
A gas emits/absorbs in specific bands and does not act like a blackbody. Water droplets will act as blackbody emitters. The radiation dynamics are totally different.
No, no, Janice, no worries, I didn’t take it that way at all, but the word base ‘nitpick’ did queued me to think of what I had just written and oh no, without those words I added later, and should have been my very first sentence, it does seem like I am nitpicking the author himself! That is even if you didn’t pick up on it. It needed some quick clarification of who exactly I was criticizing!
I even find myself often using AGWese and I hit myself on the head every time do so, and always just after hitting the “Post Comment” button! Cra*, too late, can’t believe I just posted that! Why I always think over what I write after the Submit and not before I’ll never know, many years and I still can’t break myself of that habit.
🙂
[Right the correction note. As soon as you see it. We will see it. No writing, no righting. Mod]
Gail Combs
Hi there
What makes me think the jet stream move south and went zonal is the the sheer extent of the ice sheets. Yes you are right a waving jet pushing down south across the USA does give the USA a cold winter. But as the jet has moved into the Atlantic it has pushed back northwards again and has given Europe a mostly mild and wet winter. Which shows that a waving jet limits the area where the cold winter weather can set in. But as you know during the ice age not only was there ice sheets in the USA but also in Europe as well. So for the cold weather to extend to such a large area the jet must of moved south and went mostly zonal over a large part of the globe.
Thanks, Wayne. Glad to know it. Re: impulsive posting… I do it all the time, too. I think it is because…. we are delightfully humble* (prideful people are SUPER careful) and honest, thus, we merrily write away knowing we aren’t going to be caught in a l1e if we aren’t very careful and with blithe disregard for whether or not we crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s. I like us!
I do admire those who are more self-disciplined, but not if pride is what motivates them. I would rather make mistakes!
#(:))
*Vain (speaking for myself only), yes, lol, but not full of hubris
Oceans are recharged, to a greater or lesser amount, in the equatorial band by solar shortwave infrared light. These recharged waters then meander the globe and affect small and large scale atmospheric weather pattern systems, which in turn affect the equatorial weather band, which in turn allows recharge, to a greater or lesser amount. A case in point, I have a hunch that equatorial cloud measurements may be the only measure needed to eventually predict what will happen to the weather pattern variations marching across the US. Could we have predicted the arrival of that large anamolous warm pool sitting off the coast of Alaska and its ability to move the Jet stream based just on some previous “season” of clouds around the equatorial band?
Steven Mosher says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:51 am
There are so many internal system variables that it would not be possible to predict cloudiness changes at individual levels.
Gail Combs makes my point at Gail Combs says:
February 11, 2014 at 9:56 am
“Jon says:
February 11, 2014 at 3:14 pm
I have an IR thermometer and if I point to a clear sky it is normally very very cold, outside it’s range. If I point it at clouds I get the temperature of that clouds surface. Usually close to the same temperature one will find at the same heights in that atmosphere.”
That is a point I made about IR sensors previously.
Rather than measuring the downward radiation from the sky they measure the temperature along the lapse rate at the height where they focus and that height depends on the optical depth of the atmosphere.
Thus, for a perfectly transparent or non existent atmosphere they measure the temperature of space and for a non transparent atmosphere they measure the temperature of the gases just above or in front of them.
When a cloud passes over they switch from measuring the temperature higher up to measuring the temperature at the height of the cloud because the optical depth in front of them has changed.
For that reason I think their output has been incorrectly interpreted as measuring downward IR when in fact that is not the case.
Instead, they measure the temperature at the height where the optical depth is sufficient for them to focus.
They have been grossly misused in my opinion.
Pamela Gray says:
February 11, 2014 at 8:18 pm
Yes, Pamela, you have it right for the bottom up oceanic effect but to produce events such as the MWP and LIA and all the other longer term historical variability you need the top down solar effect too.
Natural climate change is a result of the interaction between top down solar and bottom up oceanic processes moving the jets and climate zones to and fro latitudinally.
That is way, way bigger than anything that our emissions can achieve.
IR thermometers can be tricky beasts. If you use it outside what it’s designed for, you can get unusual results. The heart of it is a semiconductor, the actual sensor. You need to know who manufactures it and the technical specifications of it ie. the sensitivity values for wavelengths. In actuality , that is a relatively narrow band. You should then compare it to a Wein’s displacement graph for a particular temperature. You will find that you are dealing with a low percentage of available energy. There will then be a ROM which incorporates an algorithm to ‘adjust’ the output to accommodate sensitivity etc.. There will then be an ‘albedo’ control of some sort , which will essentially be an opamp to adjust signal strength.
Now for the optics. Designed to take a large area of emission and focus on a point like a cone with the pointy end on the sensor. There is a possibility of IR filters as well.
I now take this outside and start pointing at the sky. I live in NE China at the moment. Tonight it will be -14 C. My apartment is around 20 C. I am going to get condensation on the lens and components (visible or not). How much energy am I picking up from outside as compared to the blackbody radiation from inside the equipment? How much diffuse radiation is outside?
I wouldn’t bet any part of my anatomy on the accuracy of the reading. It would be just a basic litmus test ie. blue or red. I would just determine that it is cooler on a cloud free night. I could do that without any equipment.
ADDENDUM:
If you want a low tech alternative to an IR thermometer to measure sky temperatures then try this, probably more accurate.
U need a reflective parabolic dish. An old satellite dish with aluminium foil as reflector would do. Place an accurate temperature sensor at the focus. A quick response time would be useful. Without calibration the figures would not be accurate but comparative. A quick calibration method would be to point at a wall of known temperature. Morning and afternoon would give 2 points to decide the offset. The reflective dish would practically eliminate any blackbody radiation from the ground. Being parabolic would also mean that energy gathered would be in a narrow beam.
I came across a paper http://enso.larc.nasa.gov/manuscripts/pdffiles/Harrison.etal.JGR.90.pdf
“Overall, clouds cool the Earth atmosphere by 17 W/m^2. The global mean cooling varied from 14 to 21 W/m^2 between April 85 and Jan 86.”
So just within that little snippet of time, (it could vary much more over a longer period then right?) they detected a cloud induced variation of cloud cooling capacity three times greater than CO2’s warming? Or am I missing something?
In response to George E Smith at 10:03
I stand corrected—- completely.
Not sure Of what I was thinking at the time. That has to do with thickness of the clouds and relative temp difference on the top of the cloud.
In reading g smith, I have to say that I am in complete agreement.