BOMBSHELL: Study shows greenhouse gas induced warming dropped for the past 14 years

Paper finds a decrease of IR radiation from greenhouse gases over past 14 years, contradicts expected increase – cloudiness blamed for difference.

A paper published in the Journal of Climate finds from 800,000 observations a significant decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains. CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period and according to AGW theory, downwelling IR should have instead increased over this period.

According to the authors, 

“The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”

The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”

The paper also finds a negative trend in precipitable water vapor, as do other global datasets, again the opposite of predictions of AGW theory that warming allegedly from CO2 will increase precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere to allegedly amplify warming by 3-5 times. Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?

Global datasets also show an increase of outgoing longwave IR radiation to space from greenhouse gases over the past 62 years, again in contradiction to the predictions of AGW theory.

Gero, P. Jonathan, David D. Turner, 2011: Long-Term Trends in Downwelling Spectral Infrared Radiance over the U.S. Southern Great Plains. J. Climate, 24, 4831–4843.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1

Long-Term Trends in Downwelling Spectral Infrared Radiance over the U.S. Southern Great Plains

P. Jonathan Gero

Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin

David D. Turner

NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma, and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin

Abstract

A trend analysis was applied to a 14-yr time series of downwelling spectral infrared radiance observations from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) located at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) site in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. The highly accurate calibration of the AERI instrument, performed every 10 min, ensures that any statistically significant trend in the observed data over this time can be attributed to changes in the atmospheric properties and composition, and not to changes in the sensitivity or responsivity of the instrument. The measured infrared spectra, numbering more than 800 000, were classified as clear-sky, thin cloud, and thick cloud scenes using a neural network method. The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site. The AERI data also show many statistically significant trends on annual, seasonal, and diurnal time scales, with different trend signatures identified in the separate scene classifications. Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions. Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.

via the Hockeyschtick with thanks

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sleepingbear dunes
August 5, 2014 4:24 pm

How many ways can AGW predictions be proven wrong. Let me count the ways.
This appears to be one of the most significant findings in a long time. Anticipating the criticisms, what are the holes or weaknesses in the study?

DC Cowboy
Editor
August 5, 2014 4:25 pm

“DENIER”!!!
There, I’ve dealt with this inconvenient research in the most scientific manner possible.

jim Steele
August 5, 2014 4:27 pm

The truth is out there!

bones
August 5, 2014 4:28 pm

It would be very interesting to compare with the previous 14 – 15 year period; especially the strong El Nino year, 1998. But at last we are getting solid data that hits the climate models where it hurts.

pokerguy
August 5, 2014 4:28 pm

The mere fact that the paper was published strikes me as important as its findings. I’m not a scientist…I’m not even all the bright…so I might well have missed it, but I don’t see any of the usual pro forma obeisances to the CAGW party line. .
I really like this part: “Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.”

August 5, 2014 4:29 pm

Enjoy the interglacial, while it lasts……..

August 5, 2014 4:30 pm

More clouds from more condensation nuclei thanks to reduced solar magnetism, or from some other terrestrial or cosmic cause?

Truthseeker
August 5, 2014 4:36 pm

“Greenhouse” gases (CO2) up, “Greenhouse” warming down … hmmm. Maybe, just maybe there is a fundamental problem with using sheets of glass or plastic enclosing a space as an analogy for a free flowing gas of a planetary atmosphere …
Maybe …

August 5, 2014 4:36 pm

these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site
So this has nothing to do with CO2. CO2 is out of the loop. And I submit that CO2 doesn’t do squat.

Theo Goodwin
August 5, 2014 4:38 pm

So, AGW becomes ZombieAGW? Or is it AGWZombie? The first ever theory that is living dead.

ossqss
August 5, 2014 4:39 pm

Ouch!
That is difficult to homoogenize away..

Newly Retired Engineer
August 5, 2014 4:39 pm

Note that AGW is NOT a theory. It is, at best, merely an hypothesis – the AGW proponents have never allowed their hypothesis to be subjected to falsification, nor have their analyses been verified, nor their codes validated. The scientific method has not yet been applied, at least by them.

Rob
August 5, 2014 4:45 pm

None of the Global Warming models have ever been able to accurately account for changes and feedbacks in cloud cover. Nature, not man controls. We presume to know far too much.

Severian
August 5, 2014 4:49 pm

What? Sounds like negative feedbacks…the deuce you say!

August 5, 2014 4:52 pm

One site.

H Grouse
August 5, 2014 4:53 pm

I’m impressed.
This 14 year study shows that over the measuring instrument there is a statistical increase in clouds.
..
Too bad they didn’t locate the instrument in a desert where there would be less clouds.

August 5, 2014 4:54 pm

Troll claiming that the study is just “regional” and therefor meaningless in 3…2….1….

Bob
August 5, 2014 4:59 pm

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
OK Steven, point out a site where IR has increased.

August 5, 2014 4:59 pm

Too late. Mosh already there.

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 5:01 pm

This is hardly a bombshell. The paper was published in 2011.
But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.
REPLY: So because it is from 2011 and was only noticed today, that makes it not significant for you? Oh wait, I forgot, nothing fits the racehorse equation for significance except the latest pony scores.
http://twitter.com/hockeyschtick1/status/496793476168953857
Show something to counter it, then you’ll have an argument. Otherwise, meh. – Anthony

Alec aka Daffy Duck
August 5, 2014 5:05 pm

I saw this earlier this summer:
Entering the Era of 30+ Year Satellite Cloud Climatologies: A North American Case Study
Michael J. Foster* and Andrew Heidinger
“A loss of ~4.2% total cloudiness is observed between 1982 and 2012 over a North American domain centered over the contiguous United States….”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00068.1

cnxtim
August 5, 2014 5:09 pm

What is truly astounding is just how little (ZERO?) all these thousands of so-called climate scientists have achieved whilst spending billions of dollars of other peoples money.
When you think of what astonishing work the likes of Newton, Tesla, Florey and other pioneers achieved mostly alone and with virtually nothing in the way of resources …… the mind boggles at these truly pathetic AGW losers…

PaulH
August 5, 2014 5:10 pm

Whew! It’s a good thing the science was settled years ago.
/snark

August 5, 2014 5:10 pm

Alec aka Daffy Duck says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:05 pm
I saw this earlier this summer:
Entering the Era of 30+ Year Satellite Cloud Climatologies: A North American Case Study
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And yet the GCM’s still have no predictive value? Are they using the wrong control knob?

Steve Oregon
August 5, 2014 5:15 pm

Boy when it rains ………it pours bad news for the Team of Wholesale Liars.
Over the last week or so there’s been many discussions and indications which point to one common gargantuan fact.
That never was there any science showing any capability of human’s relative infinitesimal contribution to the atmosphere to impact anything climate whatsoever.
All things back up that cold blooded certain reality.
All of the layers of piled up fallacious Climate Surmising has produced nothing but
a purposefully mendacious political mission.
The enormity of the unscrupulousness of it all will forever mark history with a dark and dirty patina of institutionalized fraud.

Jean Parisot
August 5, 2014 5:17 pm

One site is better than a thousand models – lets get it replicated and see what we get.

Jimbo
August 5, 2014 5:17 pm

The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”…………………….
The paper also finds a negative trend in precipitable water vapor, as do other global datasets, again the opposite of predictions of AGW theory that warming allegedly from CO2 will increase precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere to allegedly amplify warming by 3-5 times.

It all rested on positive feedback. Poooof! Observations trumps hypothesis (NOT THEORY) every time. Go cry in your cornflakes, it’s nearly over.

Jimbo
August 5, 2014 5:21 pm

Negative feedback. That crappy idea they like to ignore is the reason why we are still here!

August 5, 2014 5:23 pm

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Did any of the climate models predict this particular regional result? Any?

August 5, 2014 5:23 pm

Presumably regional cloud patterns change as the climate changes, so the study doesn’t appear strong enough to say much about AGW. On the other hand, if the findings were the opposite of those actually made, I’m sure this study would be viewed as a pinnacle of warmist science. 😉

August 5, 2014 5:24 pm

Jimbo says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:17 pm
Without the positive feedback from more water vapor assumed in the GCMs, catastrophic man-made global warming or climate change does indeed go poof! The most its advocates could then hope for would be the ~1 K warming from doubling 280 ppm found in the lab. I suspect that in the real world climate sensitivity would be even less than that and possibly even a cooling in some environments or under certain conditions.

H Grouse
August 5, 2014 5:25 pm

Jimbo says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:17 pm

“will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”

Isn’t it true, that a regular old fashioned cloud will block out the longwave infrared emitted from the sun if the cloud happens to get in between the sun and the instrument?

jeanparisot
August 5, 2014 5:28 pm

2011, How was this paper addressed in the last IPCC roll up?

mjc
August 5, 2014 5:29 pm

” Jimbo says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:17 pm
It all rested on positive feedback. Poooof! Observations trumps hypothesis (NOT THEORY) every time. Go cry in your cornflakes, it’s nearly over.”
You’re really willing to bump it up to hypothesis?
Because, where I stand, it may make it to conjecture. Slapping on an agenda doesn’t move something up the scale.

James Strom
August 5, 2014 5:29 pm

The paper Alec cites above seems to be in conflict with the headline paper, as it shows a decrease in clouds. I assume that the headline paper is ascribing the decline in IR to an increase in clouds (“long-term change in the cloudiness”), and I’m puzzled that the lead paper also shows a decrease in at least one form of water vapor. This needs untangling, at least for me.

August 5, 2014 5:29 pm

INteresting! This one CAME from WordPress, not WUWT (I get notifications).
I guess this may be the turning point. UP next – Global Cooling from CO2.

August 5, 2014 5:33 pm

H Grouse says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:53 pm
..
Too bad they didn’t locate the instrument in a desert where there would be less clouds.

The Great Plains are sometimes called the Great American Desert. Desert is relative. Defined by average annual rainfall. And while they do not rival the Atacama, the amount is still relatively low.
So they actually did do it in a desert. Just ask any of the survivors of the dust bowl.

August 5, 2014 5:34 pm

H Grouse says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Depends on the wavelength of the downwelling IR. Some incoming solar IR energies are blocked by clouds & some aren’t.

Jimbo
August 5, 2014 5:34 pm

Is this the same site Mosh? It seems as if this observation was seen before.

December 17, 2013
AGW Falsified: NOAA Long Wave Radiation Data Incompatible with the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming
ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming (AGW) theory claims the earth is warming because rising CO2 is like a blanket, reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. However, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that at least for the last 30 years, Earth’s energy loss to space has been rising. The last 30 years of NOAA data is not compatible with the theory of AGW. It would appear that either 30 years of NOAA data is wrong or the theory of AGW is flawed. This is Michael Hammer’s conclusion following analysis of the official outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) data.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/12/agw-falsified-noaa-long-wave-radiation-data-incompatible-with-the-theory-of-anthropogenic-global-warming-2/

August 5, 2014 5:38 pm

I’m just an average guy, is this as important as it seems to me or am I readign into it incorrectly?

H Grouse
August 5, 2014 5:38 pm

To Jimbo , sturgishooper, philjourdan, et. al
…..
“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”
(Thank you Joni)

Reply to  H Grouse
August 6, 2014 6:46 am

@H Grouse – thank you for sharing the source of your science. She is a great singer. Not so much on the science side however. We do not know if you are a good singer.

August 5, 2014 5:40 pm

philjourdan says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:33 pm
The Great Plains aren’t technically a desert, ie with less than eight inches of precipitation a year. The long grass prairie actually gets quite a lot of rain, hence its abundant unirrigated corn & bean crops. The short grass prairie & high plains get less, but still more than a desert.
The relevant site is in Lamont, OK, with average annual rainfall around 34 inches, maybe more.

Reply to  sturgishooper
August 6, 2014 6:49 am

I believe I did state that the name is a colloquialism and not an actual scientific designation. And OK is usually not thought of when discussing the “great plains”. The exact definition varies by those using the term.

August 5, 2014 5:42 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
“……………But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.”
=============================================================================
You must be kidding I mean this has to be joke, right? Come on Nick, A main tenet of global warming theory is that all or at least the vast majority of Feedbacks are positive. If clouds are a negative feedback then that has smashes a major tenet.

Bill Illis
August 5, 2014 5:43 pm

If reduced cloud cover is responsible, then that is what the theory predicts.
Its just that low clouds produce more sunlight reflection/albedo (reduced downwelling solar) than they provide for increased downwelling longwave, so there can still be an increase in overall downwelling radiation with reduced low cloud cover.
Net cloud radiation forcing is -21 W/m2 with about -51 W/m2 reflected solar/albedo versus +30 W/m2 in increased downwelling long-wave.
The theory predicts a change in these numbers of +0.70 W/m2 per 1.0C increase in temperatures (or a change from -21.0 W/m2 to -20.3 W/m2 per 1.0C increase.

Willybamboo
August 5, 2014 5:44 pm

Mosh says its just one site. What else could he say? He’s trapped in the corner, there is no way out. He’s a desperate man.

August 5, 2014 5:45 pm

Tom Trevor says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:42 pm
Even more destructive would be a negative feedback from water vapor. By destructive, I mean, totally destroying in detail, smashing, obliterating, annihilating and wiping off the face of the earth, plowing salt into the site of its prior existence, the repeatedly falsified, intentional lie of catastrophic man-made global warming.

RobertInAz
August 5, 2014 5:45 pm

Steve Mosher’s cryptic comment “one site” deserves amplification. More sites would be better. In a larger sense, the key dynamics are over the ocean. There are many reasons why the IR response to increased CO2 over oceans would be different.
To summarize:
1. One location
2. The main event is the ocean dynamics
3. Even for land dynamics, the results are difficult to generalize because we cannot model the clouds.
All this said, if the result had gone the other way, it would be trumpeted by alarmists as proof positive of catastrophic climate change. It would not have been. Had the result shown increased down-welling IR, it would only have been a slight confirmation of a point on which most of us agree. increased CO2 has an impact on IR.

Douglas Proctor
August 5, 2014 5:46 pm

Moshey bOy – Only takes one negative case to disprove a hypothesis

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 5:54 pm

davidmhoffer says: August 5, 2014 at 5:23 pm
“Did any of the climate models predict this particular regional result? Any?”

The paper attributes the reduction primarily to cloud reduction, and the drop in clear-sky radiance to a reduction in humidity. And yes, the AR4 projects reduced precipitation for Oklahoma.
REPLY: Precipitation is not the same as precipitable water vapor Nick. Models suggest an increase in water vapor. – Anthony

Claude Harvey
August 5, 2014 5:55 pm

Seems to me this finding takes us back to where I began in all this many years ago, to the fairly old “sunspot – solar wind – cosmic ray – cloud formation” theory. As the theory goes: Fewer sunspots equals less solar wind equals more cosmic rays equals more cloud cover equals cooler temperatures. I would have thought the CERN bubble chamber experimental outcome would have maintained focus on this theory. So why is any of this “new news”?

August 5, 2014 5:56 pm

Claude Harvey says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:55 pm
The execrable GCMs still don’t factor in clouds. They dare not.

August 5, 2014 5:57 pm

This is some interesting news!

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 5:58 pm

Nick and Mosher, time will prove the point. CO2 is an after-affect of oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections that have warmed and greened the Earth since the Little Ice Age. The anthropogenic CO2 portion is too small to consider as part of the trend. Solar variation is too small to consider as part of the trend. The real money is on what the Walker Cells are doing around the equatorial band and Bob Tisdale’s work on discharge/recharge events. My gut tells me that because of less than clear sky conditions due to clouds around the globe along the equatorial band means that we are slowly running out of gas, which explains the pause. But if we begin to sink no need to panic. This is a normal up and down thing in this present interglacial. It is okay for you two to let out your CO2 laden breath. The pause as well as any downward trend is just temporary. We will eventually be back to pleasant warmth. Barring a huge equatorial volcanic explosion we will only be a bit cooler and dryer is all.

August 5, 2014 6:01 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm
Sorry, Nick, but when the next US administration joins Canada and Australia in jumping off the global warming band wagon, your gravy train will have been derailed, to mix vehicular metaphors.
Might even happen in 2015 instead of 2017, when GOP regains solid majority in the Senate. The murderous, impoverishing chicanery and conspiracy can’t end soon enough.

August 5, 2014 6:04 pm

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:58 pm
Sum of all solar variations is more than sufficient to explain observations, although there are probably other modulating factors at work, too. Indeed, climate at all time frames correlates well with solar and other celestial factors.

Marcos
August 5, 2014 6:05 pm

doesn’t it stand to reason that if GHGs reflect IR towards the planet, that they also reflect incoming IR back into space?

August 5, 2014 6:09 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm
And Oklahoma is what % of the lower 48? What % of the Earth landmass. What % of the Earth’s surface? What are the odds that the result is just “random variation” of the models?

August 5, 2014 6:11 pm

Steve Mosher says : “One site.”
Nick Stokes claims “Main tenet not affected,”
Quite a site, I’d say, and I wonder which tenet Stokes is referring to.
800,000 observations over a 14 year period.
And not man-made data.
Of course, the fact that this site’s behavior closely replicates the global behavior lends authority to the study’s findings.
Bombshell-ish enough, for most, but not those suddenly skeptical.

August 5, 2014 6:12 pm

Marcos says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
GHGs absorb photons of specific energies. The mix of IR photons streaming in from the Sun is different from that radiated from Earth’s surface.

August 5, 2014 6:18 pm

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:58 pm
Affect of low and high latitude volcanic eruptions of similar magnitude is different. Prompt effect (one to two years) of big tropical eruptions might be cooling, but longer term is warming. Of course consensus “science” attributes this observation to injection of CO2, but there are better explanations. High latitude eruptions tend not to affect the opposite hemisphere, so are more regional in effect.

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 6:18 pm

M Simon says: August 5, 2014 at 6:09 pm
“And Oklahoma is what % of the lower 48? What % of the Earth landmass. What % of the Earth’s surface?”

That was Mosh’s question.
“What are the odds that the result is just “random variation” of the models?”
What’s your point here? A paper was published three years ago, said to be a bombshell contradicting main tenets of AGW theory. But the paper said that the IR went down because the clouds and humidity went down, quite in line with AGW theory. And in fact, models predict a reduction in precipitation for that region. So where is the contradiction?

August 5, 2014 6:19 pm

For the life of me I can’t see how this would be a bombshell. There is nothing strange about this study. As always, WV and clouds make all the difference.
ONE site has been monitored. In North-Central Oklahoma. And the paper states the following about the trends:
“The seasonal all-sky radiance shows statistically significant decreasing trends in the winter, summer, and autumn, with values greater than 1% yr^-1 in the winter and autumn, and a trend of increasing downwelling radiance in the spring. These trends in all-sky radiance are primarily caused by changes in the fraction of scene types (i.e., cloudiness) over the SGP site. Overall, there are more clear-sky scenes and fewer thick cloud scenes in the winter, summer, and autumn, thus leading to a negative all-sky radiance trend, whereas the opposite is true in the spring. Furthermore, clear-sky radiance is decreasing in all four seasons, which we hypothesize is due to a decrease in the precipitable water vapor in all seasons. Thick cloud radiance is decreasing in autumn and winter. Thin cloud radiance is increasing in spring and decreasing in winter.”
Less clouds and WV in the atmosphere above the study site. Accordingly, less estimated DWLWIR. Go figure!

Richard M
August 5, 2014 6:19 pm

I’ve referenced this paper a few times in the past (more often on alarmist sites). I’ve always thought it kind of funny that it was completely ignored. What I find most interesting is this work was never replicated all over the world. Seems like an easy approach to verifying the science. It’s almost like the scientists don’t want to take a chance on the data coming back with the wrong answer.

August 5, 2014 6:22 pm

philjourdan says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:29 pm
INteresting! This one CAME from WordPress, not WUWT (I get notifications).

Same here. I got a WordPress notification. In addition on other sites I’m now a spammer.

Paul Penrose
August 5, 2014 6:23 pm

Come on Nick, how many times have we been told that the models can’t make regional projections with any accuracy? The models depend on the positive feed back chain that CO2 warms the planet, increases water evaporation, which in turn warms the planet more because H2O is also a “greenhouse” gas. The models also assume that clouds, on balance, also warm the planet, so more water vapor creating more clouds increases the feedback even more (the “Venus” scenario). This paper suggests that these positive feedbacks may not exist, and may even be negative (which is believable to me since systems that are dominated by positive feedback tend to not be wildly unstable, unlike our long term climate). Is this a mortal blow to the AGW conjecture? No, but it does increase the doubt factor considerably. At least for people that are looking at it objectively.

August 5, 2014 6:23 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:18 pm
It is ludicrous to refer to AGW as a “theory”. Gravitation is a theory. Evolution is a theory. The atomic theory of matter and germ theory of disease are, well, theories. AGW is an hypothesis shown laughably false over and over again since first being pawned off on a world soon to be suffering from its baleful effects.

Anymoose
August 5, 2014 6:26 pm

According to the greenhouse gas theory, your tomatoes would frost on an overcast September night, and would be protected on a clear night by the IR downwelling. We know from experience that this is backwards from the real world. The whole greenhouse gas theory is B.S.

Tom In Indy
August 5, 2014 6:26 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm
davidmhoffer says: August 5, 2014 at 5:23 pm
“Did any of the climate models predict this particular regional result? Any?”
The paper attributes the reduction primarily to cloud reduction, and the drop in clear-sky radiance to a reduction in humidity. And yes, the AR4 projects reduced precipitation for Oklahoma.

So your claim is that a CAGW “theory” predicts both an increase and a decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains, given that CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period.
Is that correct Nick?

August 5, 2014 6:26 pm

I have been asking recently if any studies had been done over dry deserts to show that increasing CO2 was increasing the temperature? So far no one has pointed to a study. I wonder why there haven’t been any?

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 6:29 pm

sturgishooper says: August 5, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Nick Stokes says: August 5, 2014 at 6:18 pm
‘It is ludicrous to refer to AGW as a “theory”.’

I’m following the head post:
“The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states… “

August 5, 2014 6:29 pm

sturgishooper says, August 5, 2014 at 6:23 pm Stokes:
“It is ludicrous to refer to AGW as a “theory”. Gravitation is a theory. Evolution is a theory. The atomic theory of matter and germ theory of disease are, well, theories. AGW is an hypothesis shown laughably false over and over again since first being pawned off on a world soon to be suffering from its baleful effects.”
To be fair, that’s HockeySchtick originally referring to it as “AGW theory”.

jeanparisot
August 5, 2014 6:30 pm

I would love to see similar long term studies published in the microwave and millimeter wave bands.

kuhnkat
August 5, 2014 6:32 pm

Hey Nick Stokes, Steven Mosher, and the rest, started working on that CO2 causes Ice Ages paper yet??

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 6:36 pm

Tom In Indy says: August 5, 2014 at 6:26 pm
“So your claim is that a CAGW “theory” predicts both an increase and a decrease”

No. Radiative theory says that total downwelling IR is due to the combined effect of the various GHGs. H2O is the most prevalent. In this case, its reduction exceeded the effect of CO2 increase.

August 5, 2014 6:39 pm

Nick Stokes and Mosher. I would really like to hear your rationalization for the emissivity curves that most engineers use for radiative absorption. These are after Leckner who expanded on Hottel’s work. The curves show that for CO2, there is a point where the absorption flattens out (there is a typo on the label of the Y axis for the CO2 graph). Yes, yes, the curves are never perfectly flat. That doesn’t mean that they are not, nearly perfectly flat for all levels of CO2 that will ever be seen on earth. I have had a back and forth with Science of Doom (excellent site and person) about this. His opinion is that something happens at temperatures below 0. The curves for CO2 and H2O are at my (nearly comatose) blog as “Leckner’s Curves”. The curves are from: Bejan, Adrian; Kraus, Allan D. Heat Transfer Handbook. John Wiley & Sons., 2003 Page 618. I’ve used these curves to derive a forcing curve and it is very similar to that from ΔF = α ln (C/Co) where α=5.35 and Co= 278 ppm, as per Myhre, 1998 and others. The difference is that at high levels of CO2, AT HIGHER TEMPERATURES, we do not see an increase in forcing. This will certainly be true at the elevated levels of CO2 present in earth’s atmosphere. If it is temperature, what is the magic temperature, at which the break occurs? Given that the curves go to 0 C, it has to be lower than this and it has to be a substantial break to account for the increased absorption. If it is due to pressure differential, what is the magic pressure differential. Obviously it can’t be temperature differential as there wouldn’t be a transfer of energy without a differential. Don’t pull that “blanket” stuff. That is accounted for in Leckner’s solutions to the RTE’s (and Ramanathan and those who followed him). At higher temperatures (i.e. 2,000 C), there are a lot more lines to solve, so it isn’t that either. For the sky dragons reading this. CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. It reduces radiant energy transfer. Adding more means the planet surface must get to a higher temperature to maintain thermal equilibrium. This is as well established as gravity. We simplify the explanation of this by calling it the greenhouse effect. For those poor, confused souls who read Wikipedia, I have a number of physics texts etc., that refer to heat as energy, not energy transfer.

August 5, 2014 6:39 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Kristian says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:29 pm
OK, but you, Nick, apparently think that AGW “theory” has tenets not violated by this finding.
Please then state what evidence observed in nature you have discovered to support these tenets. I haven’t found any, so I’d deeply appreciate your trotting out the observations which you have found to support the hypothesis that humans are mainly responsible for whatever climate change has been observed since, say 1950, or another date of your choosing.
In the lab a doubling of CO2 from ~300 to 400 ppm in dry air produces about a one degree C warming, but a closed system is very different from an open atmosphere. Maybe that could happen, but IMO there is no evidence that anything like that being on track for that response has happened during the first ~100 ppm of supposedly measured increase in atmospheric concentration.
So far, as far as I’m concerned, AGW is a baseless assertion. The models designed to show it have shown themselves laughable, miserable failures, at huge cost in human lives and treasure. You and your partners in what I can’t call it without getting moderated have a lot for which to answer. So please start with telling me why you believe in this blatant, errant, murderous garbage?

KevinK
August 5, 2014 6:41 pm

Phil wrote;
“The Great Plains are sometimes called the Great American Desert. Desert is relative.”
I was told that; “Technically” (based on precipitation levels only) Antarctica is a Desert. Lots of frozen moisture there, but very little additional liquid precipitation. It mostly just blows around a lot. Bit of a practical problem that, in “non-desert” climes you can just poop in a hole, cover it with some dirt and it’s gone in a year or so. Poop in the desert and your bad manners are there for everybody else to see for a long time, tisk, tisk, tisk.
Sure sounds like the “Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis” is just a wee bit wobbly…. Not to worry, I expect a full explanation of how this data also PROVES the hypothesis to come along shortly, they just hadn’t figured out this “wrinkle” yet.
/BS on
Let’s see; “The increasing GHG’s cause the backradiation to become optically phase reversed and ortho-normally polarized along the optical axis of propagation, therefore, the sensors on the ground (not designed to be sensitive to ortho-normally polarized light) cannot see it”…. YEAH, THAT’S THE TICKET….. (full credit to “SNL” for the character sterotype).
/BS off
Cheers, Kevin

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 6:41 pm

Sturgis, you obviously have not been in my classroom.

Latitude
August 5, 2014 6:42 pm

And in fact, models predict a reduction in precipitation for that region. So where is the contradiction?
====
and in fact, other models predict an increase in precipitation for that same region…
…and that’s the contradiction

Ulric Lyons
August 5, 2014 6:46 pm

“Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?”
It is usually drier through the Great Plains during a warm AMO:
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~nigam/GRL.AMO.Droughts.August.26.2011.pdf

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 6:47 pm

Nick, more CO2 is proposed to cause more water vapor molecules from more oceanic evaporation due to additional anthropogenic warming (which is where the idea that anthropogenic warming will trigger more/super El Ninos). We should be in a continued cycle of increasing re-radiated longwave infrared warming and more water vapor in the air. Period.
This paper says there is a glitch in that theory. There shouldn’t be according to AGW theorists.

August 5, 2014 6:47 pm

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:41 pm
Nor you in mine.
Please feel free to muster your evidence. I’ll bring mine. You’ll lose.

Vinicius
August 5, 2014 6:51 pm

Hello everybody. I think there is something strange here. Why are they saying that this decrease was probably caused by “long-term change in the cloudiness above the site” if their own graph at Figure 5 (the first posted here) shows a decrease in IR radiation during Clear-Sky conditions?? The blue circles at the graph are responsible for almost all the decrease in All-Sky conditions in most wavelengths. Apparently, their own result contradict their conclusion. I mean, the decrease in downwelling IR radiation during Clear-Sky conditions may have been caused by decrease in water vapor, for example, which also contradict the AGW hypothesis after all. What do you think, Anthony Watts?

MarkY
August 5, 2014 6:54 pm

This was never about science… it was about using pseudo-science to hamstring the developed world.
I’d expect some more of these (studies) soon, with the sudden “revelation” that burning fossil fuels (doing something useful that makes mankind better off) actually will cause drastic COOLING! Thus, to save the planet we still have to do the same things we had to do to save the planet when it was supposed to cause warming.
The theories may change, the players may change, but the end result will be the same… too many people, too much energy being consumed (however it’s consumed), and prosperity equals evil. All the good folks here making rational arguments, because they believe in rational thought. Your adversaries do not.

pat
August 5, 2014 6:55 pm

[snip wildly off topic -mod]

mikef2
August 5, 2014 7:07 pm

only one site? No problem…..we just spread that data around to fill in the bits we don’t have. There you go..uniform coverage. Please send cheque.

tim
August 5, 2014 7:07 pm

To Mosher
one tree

KevinK
August 5, 2014 7:08 pm

John Eggert wrote;
“For the sky dragons reading this. CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. It reduces radiant energy transfer. Adding more means the planet surface must get to a higher temperature to maintain thermal equilibrium. This is as well established as gravity. ”
John, with all due respect, all of the empirical observations are running against the “greenhouse gas” HYPOTHESIS. And all of the empirical observations are (so far) running in favor of gravity.
“Reducing” radiant energy transfer is (sorry) COMPLETE HOGWASH. Energy transfer can be; slowed, accelerated or delayed. Any engineer worth his paycheck knows this. The insulation in the walls of my house slows conductive energy transfer (which causes my furnace to turn on less frequently to “re-fill” my house with thermal energy).. There are NO terms in Maxwell’s equations (which very adequately describe propagation of radiant energy) related to “reducing” energy transfer, NONE.
The “as well established as gravity” Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis has run hard aground against the shoals of reality. I’m sorry if you invested too much of your career in it, perhaps I can interest you in a nice “personnel floatation device” ? I picked some up at a good price (unused of course) from the Costa Concordia a few years back.
Cheers, Kevin

James Allison
August 5, 2014 7:13 pm

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
How many trees made up Mann’s hockey stick?

jones
August 5, 2014 7:16 pm

Is CO2 now causing global cooling?
I am easily confused I must confess…

Gary Hladik
August 5, 2014 7:19 pm

RobertInAz says (August 5, 2014 at 5:45 pm): “More sites would be better.”
They would indeed. So are there no reports from other sites, and if not, why not? This would seem to be a good way for alarmists to justify their fears beyond any possible contradiction. Has all the funding for instrumentation been sucked up by model programmers?
Just for starters, could the required equipment be installed at USCRN stations, where other parameters such as surface temp, precipitation, relative humidity, wind, and solar radiation are already measured? Are the instruments prohibitively expensive and/or delicate?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/us-climate-reference-network-uscrn

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 7:20 pm

Sturgis, be my guest. You say that solar is the driver of this trend, not something else. How so? Peer reviewed only please. And use papers based on current solar indices that have been corrected. Plus please provide your mechanisms in mathematic formula, as in energy needed, energy provided.

steve oregon
August 5, 2014 7:24 pm

Stokes you are dancing after the band has stooped playing.
Like every other alarmist, every time you are challenged to provide any science to support the mother of all tenets you take a pass.
Let’s cut to the chase.
Where’s the beef. How are you convinced the ridiculously small human contribution to the greenhouse effect is capable of impacting the enormity of our atmosphere and climate?
The endless surmising over how fossil fuel emissions are somehow warming our atmosphere, then evaporating water vapor which then produces most of the is not supported by any scientific measurements, evidence or observations. Period.
Don’t change the subject or expand the question or reply with a question.
Just spit out the science you have imagined that shows the theory works.

Andy Krause
August 5, 2014 7:25 pm

It’s okay to rag Mosher and Stokes a little bit. They are not above doing it to others. My question is where is their curiosity about why this result was observed? Contradictory results for a scientist should be endlessly fascinating. I would think Nick and Mosher would want to resolve the physics.

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 7:27 pm

Pamela Gray says: August 5, 2014 at 6:47 pm
“Nick, more CO2 is proposed to cause more water vapor molecules from more oceanic evaporation due to additional anthropogenic warming (which is where the idea that anthropogenic warming will trigger more/super El Ninos).”

Yes, globally. And more precipitation too. But it varies regionally, as Fig 11.12 in AR4 shows. Less precipitation for OK. Which probably means less clouds and humidity, as the paper observes.

PMHinSC
August 5, 2014 7:27 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:18 pm
“What’s your point here? A paper was published three years ago,…”
Michael Mann’s hockey stick paper was published in a previous century and is still being touted (don’t know if that includes you or not: please clarify). Why are you pointing out that this paper was published 3 years ago? Stick to the science or lose credibility.

August 5, 2014 7:32 pm

I would think Nick and Mosher would want to resolve the physics.
—–
You have to have the “intellectual horse power” to resolve the physics. Doubt that in this case.

MarkW
August 5, 2014 7:33 pm

davidmhoffer says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:54 pm
Troll claiming that the study is just “regional” and therefor meaningless in 3…2….1….
—–
Too bad, Mosher posted two minutes before you did.

Kent Gatewood
August 5, 2014 7:38 pm

Does the EPA care which direction CO2 takes a trend, as long as the Agency can attribute a climate impact to the aforementioned molecule?

August 5, 2014 7:39 pm

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2014 at 7:20 pm
Pretty funny that you presume the burden of peer-reviewed proof is mine, when you provided nothing but “your gut” in support of your assertion that climate trends aren’t related to solar activity & that volcanoes are to blame. I’m laughing out loud, literally.
You didn’t bother to present any evidence at all, in response to my request for some, but I’ll go ahead & link to this source, showing the effect of solar cycle on climate not only in the current interglacial but in prior ones:
http://www.clim-past.net/7/987/2011/cp-7-987-2011.html
Sub-decadal- to decadal-scale climate cyclicity during the Holsteinian interglacial (MIS 11) evidenced in annually laminated sediments
A. Koutsodendris1, A. Brauer2, H. Pälike3, U. C. Müller1, P. Dulski2, A. F. Lotter4, and J. Pross1
“Abstract. To unravel the short-term climate variability during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11, which represents a close analogue to the Holocene with regard to orbital boundary conditions, we performed microfacies and time series analyses on a ~3200-yr-long record of annually laminated Holsteinian lake sediments from Dethlingen, northern Germany. These biogenic varves comprise two sub-layers: a light sub-layer, which is controlled by spring/summer diatom blooms, and a dark sub-layer consisting mainly of amorphous organic matter and fragmented diatom frustules deposited during autumn/winter. Time series analyses were performed on the thickness of the light and dark sub-layers. Signals exceeding the 95% and 99% confidence levels occur at periods that are near-identical to those known from modern instrumental data and Holocene palaeoclimatic records. Spectral peaks at periods of 90, 25, and 10.5 yr are likely associated with the 88-, 22- and 11-yr solar cycles, respectively. This variability is mainly expressed in the light sub-layer spectra, suggesting solar influence on the palaeoproductivity of the lake. Significant signals at periods between 3 and 5 yr and at ∼6 yr are strongest expressed in the dark sub-layer spectra and may reflect an influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) during autumn/winter. Our results suggest that solar forcing and ENSO/NAO-like variability influenced central European climate during MIS 11 similarly to the present interglacial, thus demonstrating the comparability of the two interglacial periods at sub-decadal to decadal timescales.”
IOW, MIS 11 shows the same cycles as observed in the Holocene and other interglacials, ie an early climatic optimum, followed by a decreasing temperature trend with fairly regular ups and downs, such as the Old Kingdom, Minoan, Roman, Medieval and Modern Warm Periods, with intervening cold intervals, such as the Little Ice Age, Dark Ages and Greek Dark Ages CPs.
On the time scale of tens and hundreds of thousands of years rather than millennia, centuries and decades, please tell me how you explain the glacial and interglacial cycles if not by solar radiation and magnetism modulated by Earth’s orbital mechanics?
You are very amusing. Your classroom must be a laugh riot, unless your students are unusually dense and slow. I showed you one of mine. Will you show me one of yours, as you should have done at the very least before making your ludicrous, baseless assertion?

August 5, 2014 7:43 pm

Nick –
Why are you quoting AR4? Isn’t AR5 current? What does it say?

Steve in SC
August 5, 2014 7:45 pm

It would seem that Gerlich and Tscheuschner the chaps who falsified the AGW hypothesis by examining the heat transfer were right all along.

August 5, 2014 7:49 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 7:27 pm
Still waiting for a single shred of evidence in support of the hypothesis that man-made CO2 is the primary driver of warming since 1950 or another date of your choosing.
Thanks.

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 7:51 pm

Nick, ENSO processes also affect us globally with fairly typical and opposite patterns regionally, and that create 30 to 60+ year oscillations. Are you saying that the tiny, tiny fraction of anthropogenic CO2 took over these extremely powerful ENSO processes? Kicked it to the curb? Became king of the hill? By what possible mechanism could it do that? Are you going to play the “amplification” card that solar enthusiasts love to use? If you do play that card, why is the Earth not cooperating? And if you say because ENSO processes tagged back in, I will snort my evening tea all over my puter screen.

August 5, 2014 7:52 pm

KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:08 pm
>>John, with all due respect, all of the empirical observations are running against the “greenhouse >>gas” HYPOTHESIS. And all of the empirical observations are (so far) running in favor of gravity.
I was going to argue the physics of this. Then I remembered an old adage. I’ll not repeat it here as it is rude.
JE

KevinK
August 5, 2014 7:59 pm

Andy Krause wrote;
“Contradictory results for a scientist should be endlessly fascinating.”
I admit I am not a scientist (I did stay at at Holiday Inn Express ™ last night, ha ha ha), but as an engineer I have been fascinated how some apparently smart folks have totally convinced themselves that a trivial amount of gases in the atmosphere can “drive”, “control”, “determine”, “force” the temperature of the massive ocean’s into “compliance”. Very interesting phenomenon.
I bet that as a traveling salesman (Ok, old cultural reference) if I showed up at most folks homes a hundred years ago and told them I could sell then a “sugar cube” sized device that would make the water in their bathtub “luxuriously warm” without them having to boil water, they would laugh me off their porch (and probably pull out the shotgun to scare the nutjob away). Yet, we have a whole collection of folks with lots of “education” that are certain that this “sugar cube” sized device exists ???
I bet that with the money they have expended I could have found a unicorn by now (well, at least a “peer reviewed” facsimile of a unicorn).
Yet, they INSIST that the “greenhouse” gases are controlling the temperature, with that logic I think we can all just throw out our furnaces and buy “sugar cubes” (capsules of CO2) to keep us warm…..
I guess in their defense they did read it in a textbook, so it must be TRUE….
Cheers, Kevin.

Leigh
August 5, 2014 8:00 pm

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site
Now if it was ‘one’ tree, that would be far more credible.

Leigh
August 5, 2014 8:02 pm

I now see a few people beat me to the ‘one tree’ reply… I wonder what the reply will be?

S. Geiger
August 5, 2014 8:07 pm

Mosh and Nick. Thanks for keeping things ‘real’, as they say. The findings are interesting, but by no means do they overthrow the current theory, IMO. Certainly shows that (in some areas, at some times) that other ‘knobs’ certainly play an important–and yes sometimes primary–role along with the GHGs. FWIW, I do appreciate papers like this being posted (whether at time of publishing or later), however, in some cases it seems as though the implications are a bit over hyped. Just my own 2 cents.

August 5, 2014 8:09 pm

OK, OK, let’s admit that Stokes and Mosher are right, this is only one site. We can’t rely on this outcome anymore than if we had temperature data from a single weather station for the same 14 year period. Would anyone argue that it would be representative of the entire globe?
But that said, there’s a couple of interesting questions that ought to be asked:
1. According to their web site http://www.arm.gov/instruments/instrument.php?id=aeri there are more of these instruments out there. Alaska has one, there are three in the western Pacific (one of which is in Australia) and some mobile units currently located in places like Germany, China, India and Brazil (among others). So the obvious question is what does the data from the whole bunch say?
2. While Stokes may be correct in quoting AR4 as having projected reduced precipitation for this site, it also projected increased temps for the planet over that time period which didn’t happen. So the reduced precipitation cannot be the feedback from a process that never happened, can it?
3. What did AR4 project for temps in this region, and what happened to actual temps in this region? With a marked decrease in downward LW, one would expect cooler temps, unless the planet acting as a heat pump (which is does) delivered enough extra energy to compensate. Given that the earth has NOT warmed, that becomes problematic to explain as this would imply cooling in the tropics (which pump heat to the mid lats), would it not?

TimTheToolMan
August 5, 2014 8:12 pm

Mosher writes “One site.”
YAD0601. One Tree.

Keith
August 5, 2014 8:12 pm

The Mosher / Stokes response is that this is one site and a main tenet of CAGW is not affected. It would be interesting to see whether local weather stations show an increase or decrease in temperature over the same period. As we know, there is an on-going controversy regarding down-trending raw temperature readings in the US versus adjusted temperature readings on the rise.

milodonharlani
August 5, 2014 8:13 pm

Leigh says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:00 pm
Hilarious.
Or an upside down data set from a single lake in Finland.

AndyZ
August 5, 2014 8:17 pm

I’m waiting for the cloud panic now – CO2 causes clouds which keeps it cooler but soon we will never see the sun!

TimTheToolMan
August 5, 2014 8:18 pm

“tim” writes “To Mosher
one tree”
Damn pipped at the post. And by another tim too!

August 5, 2014 8:20 pm

sleepingbear dunes:
A weakness in the study is that it is based on trend analysis. The predicted trend is compared to the measured trend but the measured trend is based upon untestable assumptions. In legitimate science, the predicted relative frequency is compared to the observed relative frequency and there are no assumptions.

Matthew R Marler
August 5, 2014 8:24 pm

The paper is 3 years old. Why did such an important finding find little publicity during that time?
Is it possible that increased CO2 has caused increased cloudiness AND decreased precipitable water?
It is only one site, but regional effects are known to have measurable global-wide consequences, right? Surely it is now worthwhile to study as many regions as possible.
The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”
Some people do not believe in the effects (or existence, sometimes) of DWLWIR, so for them this changes nothing.
Me? It requires replication, but I am surprised.

Pamela Gray
August 5, 2014 8:25 pm

Sturgis, no dice. Your linked paper cites outdated solar indices in its bibliography and doesn’t provide evidence other than passing reference to cyclomania regarding a solar driver connection. Try again.
As for my proposal, it is well supported in the literature. ENSO processes create 30 to 60 year unequal trends that show up all over the place, first identified in the fishing industry. For one of many land based affects, google Rocky Mountain Elk and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

J.H.
August 5, 2014 8:28 pm

The Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis is falsified right there…… once again. How many times does this AGW hoax have to be falsified before people start to listen…. Oh, when the funding runs out. Silly me. I forgot. They’re doing politics, not science.

KevinK
August 5, 2014 8:28 pm

John Eggert wrote;
“I was going to argue the physics of this. Then I remembered an old adage. I’ll not repeat it here as it is rude.”
John, go ahead and be rude if you like, I have been on occasion, I have a thick skin;
Here’s the “physics” as I see it;
1) If you fill a fixed volume with a “GHG” and illuminate it with a constant light (at the wavelength where it absorbs) it warms, yes indeed it does. This is the classic “greenhouse effect” laboratory experiment, no doubt about that.
2) Well this is where it all goes down the “tube”;
2a) First off if the gas is not in a fixed volume (as in the atmosphere) it expands after warming which as expected changes it’s optical absorption properties.
2b) This gas in the real atmosphere “interacts” with it’s neighbors transferring heat via conduction, convection and radiation.
2c) As the gas’s density changes (from being warmed) it moves upwards.
3) There have been several experiments that clearly demonstrate than building a “greenhouse” with roof materials that transmit or absorb IR radiation has NO EFFECT on the internal temperature, Wood, Nashile, Penn State.
Anyway, no sense beating a dead horse, some folks will always be convinced that a single laboratory experiment (the thermal response of a bit of gas sealed in a tube) can be extrapolated to cover the whole atmosphere of the Earth, and the Ocean’s (with no apparent consideration of the relative thermal capacities of said subsystems).
Do you think that doing the CO2 in a tube experiment in a freezing cold laboratory could make the laboratory reach tropic temperatures ?
The HYPOTHESIS IS DEAD, yes that’s a rude phrasing, but it’s still DEAD. No temperature rise, no “backradiation increase”, no measurable effect of the HYPOTHESIS AT ALL.
As hypotheses go this one had a hell of a life, ulcers causes by stress and anxiety only lasted about three decades, this one made it a whole century before the wheels came off.
Cheers, Kevin.

August 5, 2014 8:30 pm

KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:59 pm
>>but as an engineer I
What field of engineering did you study that you haven’t been exposed to thermodynamics and heat transfer? Because if you have taken an engineering course in heat transfer then you would know why CO2 is indeed a “greenhouse gas”. You may have forgotten the math, but you should at least know the foundations. And if you have thermodynamics, you would know about energy balances and know that “gravity” as a source of warming is . . . Wow. . . Just Wow. As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.
JE

Matthew R Marler
August 5, 2014 8:33 pm

Kristian wrote this on another thread: Again, this has been pointed out so many times to those of you who actually believe DWLWIR (‘atmospheric back radiation’) to be a real, separate working flow of energy to the surface (an extra (and equal) input of energy next to the solar heat flux): If this were really the case, then why aren’t we harnessing this energy flux? It is seemingly twice as intense as the solar flux, evened out globally and across the diurnal cycle. Why aren’t we seeing ‘back radiation’ power plants all over the world?
It was the last in a series on the non-existence of heat transfer via DWLWIR. He has not been the only proponent of that view.

August 5, 2014 8:37 pm

KevinK
1) If you fill a fixed volume with a “GHG” and illuminate it with a constant light (at the wavelength where it absorbs) it warms, yes indeed it does. This is the classic “greenhouse effect” laboratory experiment, no doubt about that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are confusing heat capacity with greenhouse effect and that is not the classic experiment. The rest of your argument rests upon your weak grasp of the physics and goes even further off course from there.

Matthew R Marler
August 5, 2014 8:40 pm

The paper should get a thorough critique, but it is behind a paywall.
davidmhoffer: davidmhoffer says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:09 pm

that was a good post.

Taphonomic
August 5, 2014 8:41 pm

H Grouse says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:38 pm
“(Thank you Joni)”
You left out the most important lyrics as they pertain to this study and AGW:
“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”
And to the “one site” people: teleconnections.

August 5, 2014 8:41 pm

Pamela Gray says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:25 pm
More hilarity!
Please show me sources demonstrating that the 22 and 11 year solar cycles are “outdated”. That’s a real knee-slapper.
The peer reviewed, often cited paper I presented doesn’t cite those cycles “in passing”. It shows that they explain the deposition of the observed layers. Did you read the whole paper? I can produce lots of others to the same effect.
So far you’ve got nothing, zero, zip, nada, peer reviewed or otherwise, to support your baseless assertion of no solar influence on climate.
Your understanding of ocean cycles isn’t even elementary. It’s cartoonish and laughably juvenile. The PDO, reported by a fisheries biologist in 1997, isn’t an ENSO process. The ENSO, PDO, AMO and other oceanic oscillations are all interrelated and ultimately driven by solar activity, modulated by other parameters, perhaps to include undersea seismic activity, itself partially in response to the solar-induced oscillations. What do you suppose causes the observed multi-decadal oscillations in the first place?
How dare you tell me to Google vague references, when I provided the peer-reviewed paper you asked for? Let’s see the Rocky Mountain elk reference, and whatever point you imagine you can make with it in support of your unwarranted assertions. If it shows a PDO influence, big whoop! That wouldn’t surprise me at all. The PDO reflects solar activity, among other influences. It seems I’ve forgotten more about the PDO than you apparently have ever known. Show where and how any of your alleged references justify the conclusion that “it’s not the sun”. You haven’t done so because you can’t.
When are you finally going to make the case you should have in your first comment on the subject? You can’t get away with a totally unsupported assertion. I showed you mine. Let’s see yours. Put up or shut up. And you have the nerve to consider yourself a scientist.

Tim
August 5, 2014 8:42 pm

To TimTheToolMan
Mosher is a drive by shooter and only deserves the same. Hypocrite and future RICO are descriptive.
Tim

rogerknights
August 5, 2014 8:43 pm

pat says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:55 pm
[snip wildly off topic -mod]

Yes, they all are, but they don’t derail threads. Pat’s postings have become almost an institution here–and they’re valuable / newsworthy. They’re like the ribbon news feed at the bottom of a TV broadcast. I hope he’ll be given latitude to keep on posting, under a creative exception license.

August 5, 2014 8:46 pm

And while you’re at it, kindly reply to my question about what you imagine causes the glacial/interglacial cycles if not Milankovitch Cycles, insolation modulated by Earth’s orbital parameters. I replied to your request. When are you `) going to do what you should have in the first place to support your zany, anti-scientific opinion, and 2) do me the courtesy of responding to my question, as I did to yours?

dynam01
August 5, 2014 8:53 pm

OK, now I’m conflicted. Does this mean that we should keep pumpin’ out CO2 to prevent global warming, or continue our expensive and futile efforts to reduce CO2 levels to prevent a coming ice age? Soooo confused!

Reply to  dynam01
August 5, 2014 9:01 pm

dynam01:
What we should do, in my opinion, is fire the folks who led us into a line of research that provides no basis for making public policy and hire folks who will lead us into a line of research that will.
Should we keep pumpin’ out CO2? Currently there is not a scientific basis for answering this question.

Alan Robertson
August 5, 2014 8:55 pm

Leigh says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:02 pm
I now see a few people beat me to the ‘one tree’ reply… I wonder what the reply will be?
______________
I think that I shall never see
a tree as important as YAD 063

August 5, 2014 8:58 pm

sturgishooper says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Pamela,
Here’s a June 2014 paper on a late Holocene (from 4700 to 70 years ago) record of solar influence on the Asian monsoon, to go with the MIS 11 paper I already cited. I could provide them for other interglacials, too, but I’m still waiting for even one peer reviewed paper from you showing no solar influence on climate.
http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140604/srep05159/full/srep05159.html
How much humiliation can you endure before finally making an effort to support your baseless assertion and answer my question about Milankovitch Cycles?

August 5, 2014 9:06 pm

sturgishooper says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:58 pm
How about a 2012 paper finding a strong solar influence on Late Miocene lake sediments, with among other conclusions the fact that “a single-proxy-analysis, as often performed on Holocene records, should be considered cautiously as it might fail to capture the full range of solar cycles”.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617729/
Still waiting for your first paper. Sorry if I can’t go with your gut. Wouldn’t even if you hadn’t asked for my peer reviewed evidence of solar influences on climate.

August 5, 2014 9:08 pm

Looking over posts for the last few months, it looks like we need a “Geiger” counter. 😉

Alan Robertson
August 5, 2014 9:09 pm

CORRECTION
Alan Robertson says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:55 pm
Leigh says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:02 pm
I now see a few people beat me to the ‘one tree’ reply… I wonder what the reply will be?
______________
I think that I shall never see
a tree as important as YAD 063

Everybody who cares about a sustainable future for our children will stand shoulder to shoulder and demand climate justice. Our people are standing at the front lines because of environmental racism. It’s about jobs.
/s <— yes, that's a sarc tag

August 5, 2014 9:15 pm

sturgishooper says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:58 pm
Pamela,
More on solar cyclical influence on Asian climate and the ENSO, from June 2013, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50453/abstract
Solar cycle modulation of the ENSO impact on the winter climate of East Asia
Qun Zhou1,
Wen Chen1,* and
Wen Zhou2
This study examines how the East Asian winter climate response to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) varies with the 11-year solar cycle. The results indicate that the ENSO and East Asian climate relationship is robust and significant during winters with low solar (LS) activity, with evident warming in the lower troposphere over East Asia, which can be closely linked to the decreased pressure gradient between the cold Eurasian continent and the warm Pacific. Moreover, during the LS and El Niño winters, there is a typical rainfall response in Southeast Asia, with wet conditions over South China and dry conditions over the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi, which can be explained by the anticyclone over the western North Pacific (WNP). However, during high solar activity winters, both the surface temperature and rainfall anomalies are much less closely associated with the ENSO. The possible mechanism for this solar modulation of the ENSO-related East Asian climate anomalies may be the change in the tropospheric circulation with the ENSO in both tropical and extratropical regions. Particularly, in the LS cases, an anomalous WNP anticyclone is intensified and a noticeable cyclone occupies northern Northeast Asia, resulting from the changing location and strength of the large-scale Walker circulation induced by the more pronounced sea surface temperature anomalies associated with the ENSO. Further investigation with long historic data confirms that the relationship between the ENSO and the East Asian winter climate anomalies depends on the phases of 11 year solar cycle, with enhanced East Asian climate variation during the LS winters.
Tell me when you’ve had enough. Still waiting for your first peer reviewed paper supporting your assertion of no solar influence on climate in general and ENSO or other oceanic oscillations in particular.

milodonharlani
August 5, 2014 9:33 pm

Alan Robertson says:
August 5, 2014 at 9:09 pm
That’s some funny poetry, there.

mickgreenhough
August 5, 2014 9:36 pm

see http://www.theeuroprobe.org 2012 – 015

August 5, 2014 9:37 pm

John Eggert says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:30 pm
KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:59 pm
>>but as an engineer I
… As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And just to throw a Yamal on the fire, I am just a little sad about the tone of some of the discussion given the code of ethics engineers are supposed to adhere to. (yeah I know, not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but I just are an engingear two, to? too?/three.*)
*Usage note
The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for?
I am a Civil Engineer but that doesn’t make me civil, but we all should try to be, even in court. Well, especially in court. 😉

Alan Robertson
August 5, 2014 9:45 pm

Wayne Delbeke says:
August 5, 2014 at 9:37 pm
*Usage note
The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for?
_______________
Are you saying that those who insist on not ending a sentence with a preposition are up screwing?

crosspatch
August 5, 2014 9:49 pm

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.

You know what this means? CO2 HOLE!

Stephen Wilde
August 5, 2014 9:55 pm

Cloudiness decreased during the late 20th century warming period (more zonal jets) and started to increase again around 2000 (more meridional jets) as this paper points out.
The total amount of evaporation globally is related to the speed of convective overturning in the atmosphere as a whole. Faster overturning draws more vapour from the oceans so if precipitable water vapour is declining that suggests that convective overturning is slowing down.
I have suggested elsewhere that more GHGs would result in slower convective overturning due to the loss of energy direct to space from within the atmosphere which causes less kinetic energy to be returned to the surface in adiabatic descent than was removed from the surface in adiabatic ascent.
AGW theory requires faster convective overturning from a warmer surface doesn’t it ?
Miscolczi’s observation of water vapour declining as CO2 increases would fit the findings of this paper.
However, I think the whole scenario is solar induced unless someone can find a way of getting CO2 to significantly affect jet stream behaviour.
The issue of jet stream behaviour is aslo a problem for the Svensmark cosmic ray hypothesis because to get changes in zonality / meridionality requires more than just changes in the amount of cloud condensation nuclei.
For that, one must also change the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles so that the jets and climate zones can slide to and fro latitudinally beneath the tropopause.
Furhermore, as they point out, this paper associates increased cloudiness with decreased DWIR yet AGW theory tries to tell us that clouds increase DWIR.

JJ
August 5, 2014 10:00 pm

Steven Mosher says:
One site.

Radiative Physics ™

August 5, 2014 10:02 pm

OK, Pamela, it’s 10 PM Pacific Daylight Time. Time’s up. Just as I told you you would, you lose, 5-0. One paper lamely and ludicrously responded to, three papers and one question not answered at all.
You should not imagine that reading posts and comments on this blog, however valuable it may be and is, qualifies you to comment on climatology. It also appears that whatever scientific background you might have has also failed you in grappling with this complex subject. Hope your students aren’t as short-changed as your pathetic performance here suggests they must be. If so, they have a good case for pedagogical malpractice.

Pat Michaels
August 5, 2014 10:11 pm

You may notice, also, that stratospheric cooling–a strong prediction of standard GHG warming theory–appears to be pretty much in remission concurrent with the “pause”. Check the UAH satellite data.
This, along with the findings in the J. Clim. paper, ought to be scaring the hell out of Ben Santer, Mike Mann, and their spawn.

August 5, 2014 10:13 pm

Alan Robertson says:
August 5, 2014 at 9:45 pm
Wayne Delbeke says:
August 5, 2014 at 9:37 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++
😉 zzzzzzzz

August 5, 2014 10:14 pm

Matthew R Marler (quoting Kristian)
Why aren’t we seeing ‘back radiation’ power plants all over the world?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Because photo voltaics have an efficiency approaching zero in that frequency range.

August 5, 2014 10:21 pm

Pat Michaels says:
August 5, 2014 at 10:11 pm
My guess is that Mann is most afraid of the law suit he himself started. Hoist on his own petard would be a fitting end.
He and the others probably also fear the end of federal largesse in coming years. Uncle Sugar should ask for his pig slops back from the fat feeders at the trough.

Nick Stokes
August 5, 2014 10:29 pm

Matthew R Marler says: August 5, 2014 at 8:24 pm
“Is it possible that increased CO2 has caused increased cloudiness AND decreased precipitable water?”

They attribute the DWLW drop to reduced cloudiness.
“Overall, there are more clear-sky scenes and fewer thick cloud scenes in the winter, summer, and autumn, thus leading to a negative all-sky radiance trend, whereas the opposite is true in the spring.”

sinewave
August 5, 2014 10:40 pm

The results are compelling. Why isn’t there an attempt to replicate them elsewhere? Can we crowdfund a research grant to continue this work?

Chris Riley
August 5, 2014 10:52 pm

Sooner or later we will visit this site and read about a paper that later turns out to have been the “last straw”.

Matt L.
August 5, 2014 10:54 pm

It’d be an interesting exercise for the WUWT community to play the “tenth man” on this one and poke holes in the paper.

Jimbo
August 5, 2014 11:08 pm

kuhnkat says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:32 pm
Hey Nick Stokes, Steven Mosher, and the rest, started working on that CO2 causes Ice Ages paper yet??

I think you mean the next glaciation. I make the same mistake sometimes too. Here is a Letter To Nature from way back in the day. Ya see, these CAGW folks predict / project everything. It is a religion and not science at all. I mistakenly called it a hypothesis, please accept my humble apologies.

Letters To Nature – 16 January 1992
“Will greenhouse warming lead to Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet growth?”
http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/355244a0
=============
Abstract – October 1999
Long-Term Global Warming Scenarios Computed with an Efficient Coupled Climate Model
Stefan Rahmstorf et al
We present global warming scenarios computed with an intermediate-complexity atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model which has been extensively validated for a range of past climates (e.g., the Last Glacial Maximum). Our simulations extend to the year 3000, beyond the expected peak of CO2 concentrations. The thermohaline ocean circulation declines strongly in all our scenarios over the next 50 years due to a thermal effect. Changes in the hydrological cycle determine whether the circulation recovers or collapses in the long run. Both outcomes are possible within present uncertainty limits. In case of a collapse, a substantial long-lasting cooling over the North Atlantic and a drying of Europe is simulated.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1005474526406

Is this the same who is the co-founder of the blog Real Climate?

August 5, 2014 11:10 pm

bones wrote
August 5, 2014 at 4:28 pm
……But at last we are getting solid data that hits the climate models where it hurt

True.
Problem is that the models pure existens show gigantic holes in the education systems around the world. Too many students must have been given “passport” to higher studies in too many subjects without elementary knowledge in each subject’s schoolbooks. Not in one country but in many the basic knowledge seems at best to have passed in via one ear and out the other without being understood by the pupil/student.
In other words – many scholars and students of course haven’t understood Archimedes principle nor have they learnt Photosynthesis
As I see it this is a big problem shown when the models of AWG-believers are falling down.

Allen
August 5, 2014 11:23 pm

At this point the only falsifying evidence that AGW alarmists will accept is Hawaii turning into an glacier. For years.

Allen
August 5, 2014 11:24 pm

Or a iceball.

Alan Robertson
August 5, 2014 11:43 pm

M Simon says: August 5, 2014 at 6:09 pm
“And Oklahoma is what % of the lower 48? What % of the Earth landmass. What % of the Earth’s surface?”
________________
Oklahoma is the center of the whirled.

Patrick
August 5, 2014 11:51 pm

“Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm”
Tim says: @ August 5, 2014 at 7:07 pm beat me to it. Indeed, one tree!

phlogiston
August 6, 2014 12:02 am

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
But a lot of sky.

phlogiston
August 6, 2014 12:10 am

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
This is hardly a bombshell. The paper was published in 2011.
So what? An even more significant climate paper in 1963 has still no been read or understood by the majority of climate scientists:
http://www.astro.puc.cl/~rparra/tools/PAPERS/lorenz1962.pdf
and BTW, DNF63 by Lorenz is a nuclear bombshell. For those who have eyes to see.

SAMURAI
August 6, 2014 12:13 am

Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
=================
I think what Mosher actually meant to type was, “Oh shite.”….
I’m just sayin’……
This is an absolutely devastating blow to the CAGW cargo cult, as its entire premise is predicated up on the wrongful assumption that CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 of forcing per CO2 doubling will mysteriously create a mythical “runaway feedback loop”, involving water vapor, which simply isn’t shown to be occurring in any way, shape or form, and this paper is further evidence of CAGW’s complete lack of efficacy.
Skeptics hypothesize that CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 of forcing can only has a GROSS long-term, warming potential of around 1.1C, which is basically halved by the NEGATIVE feedback effects of ocean evaporation and increased cloud cover, which CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 forcing would induce, which would then reduce CO’2 NET global warming effect to around 0.5C.
The skeptics’ hypothesis is reflected in this Gero & Turner et al paper, which shows the negative feedback of increased cloud cover is actually reducing downwelling LWIR…
I can’t believe this paper was even allowed to be published… I’m just waiting for the CAGW grant whores to pounce on the editorial staff of The Journal of Climate, and ask for their resignations…
How dare these editors allow the truth to be seen?!!! It’s,…. It’s…. sacrilegious! utter blasphemy!!! Heads must rolllllll……..

Greg Goodman
August 6, 2014 12:15 am

Pat Michaels says:
August 5, 2014 at 10:11 pm
You may notice, also, that stratospheric cooling–a strong prediction of standard GHG warming theory–appears to be pretty much in remission concurrent with the “pause”. Check the UAH satellite data.
====
And the only downward “trend” over the satellite record was not a trend but two step changes clearly attributable to volcanic events.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=902
NCAR recognise the step nature of the changes, recognise the lack of “trend” since 1995 but stop short of saying what this implies about AGW. I suppose they value their careers.
http://www.acd.ucar.edu/Research/Highlight/stratosphere.shtml
Since stratospheric cooling is the counter part of lower climate warming it implies that the OMG warming at the end of the 20th c. was not “accelerating” AGW but largely due to volcanoes.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=988
Yes, after the initial, temporary cooling the long term effect of those two events was surface warming. About 0.1K per event. ie 0.1K/ decade or 1K/century.
Subtract that and your wild extrapolations outside the data will change beyond recognition.
That is probably why NCAR are not spelling it out. However, to be fair, they are clearly stating the step nature of the changes and the lack of change since. Up to others to fill in the dots.
…..

August 6, 2014 12:18 am

So at this ”one site”, I suppose that CO2 didn’t mix with the atmosphere above this Lamont, Oklahoma site. CO2 must have stayed at about 360 ppm, (from 1996) or even fell to 350 ppm at or above this site, rather than increasing to approximately 385 ppm (in 2010) as the rest of the world atmosphere shows.
From the CO2 page WUWT Ref: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/figures/co2_mm_obs.png

Old England
August 6, 2014 12:24 am

Begs the simplistic question “Do Increased CO2 levels Reduce Cloud Formation” – I wonder if anyone is doing, or has done, any research on the formation of clouds at different CO2 levels. It would be interesting to see if the rate of formation of water droplet nuclei is affected by different CO2 levels and if for some reason higher CO2 levels inhibit this.
I suspect this would also need to involve testing with various levels of the gas molecules which are involved with their formation to understand what if any interaction there may be between them and CO2 in this process.
As a question : Does the fact that down-welling IR is less than expected show that the formulae and any assumptions behind them for calculating the rate of down-welling IR from GHGs are flawed ?

Greg Goodman
August 6, 2014 12:29 am

” Does the fact that down-welling IR ….”
Infra-red radiation does “well” in any direction, it radiates. Hence the name 😉

Kelvin Vaughan
August 6, 2014 1:02 am

That’s strange because I measure the greatest sky radiation when it’s cloudy. This time of the year clear skies are around -20°C and cloudy skies are around +15°C?

Spence_UK
August 6, 2014 1:02 am

Very interesting paper! Personally, I doubt that feedbacks can be diagnosed on our limited understanding of climate – and the non-linear, chaotic nature of climate – whether it be the positive feedbacks touted by climate scientists or negative feedbacks suggested by sceptics.
I suspect the cloud cover variation seen here is natural variability in the hydrological cycle. But what people (especially climate scientists, it seems) forget is that cloud cover is fractal (also known as “long-term persistence”). What does this mean? It means that the natural variability from cloud does not “average out”. This 14-year trend in cloud cover is nothing – if we could make these measurements for a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, even longer, we would see trends like this over these much longer periods, and be unable to ascribe causality (because they are sensitive to initial conditions).
And as anyone over the age of about 8 can tell you, cloud cover has a huge impact on air temperatures.
In the discussion on long-term persistence at climatedialogue.org, I deliberately chose cloud cover as a prime example of something that exhibits unpredictable fractal behaviour with huge impact on temperatures. (Note even though the discussion was after the paper cited above, I was not aware of this paper until now). In this context, this paper does not surprise me at all.

george e. smith
August 6, 2014 1:04 am

Well clouds don’t reflect the “upwelling LWIR”, which could be say 80% diffuse reflectance.
Instead they ABSORB the UWLWIR, and then re-radiate an isotropic LWIR, so no more than 50% can downwell.
It’s tuff when a liquid-solid GHG (H2O) doesn’t give positive feedback like it’s “supposed” to.

Spence_UK
August 6, 2014 1:06 am

Oooh, nearly forgot. Second important observation.
What does “statistically significant” mean in this context? What’s the null, what is the expected variability of cloud cover? AR(1)? 1/f? Exactly the same problems as trying to identify “statistical significance” in global air temperatures – since nobody has really pinned down what natural variability is, nobody knows how to test for statistical significance.

george e. smith
August 6, 2014 1:11 am

“””””…..Kelvin Vaughan says:
August 6, 2014 at 1:02 am
That’s strange because I measure the greatest sky radiation when it’s cloudy. This time of the year clear skies are around -20°C and cloudy skies are around +15°C?…….”””””
Come now Kevin.
So -20 deg C GIVES YOU clear skies, and +15 deg . C GIVES YOU clouds. There’s a lot more evaporation, at +15, than at -20.
So you are seeing exactly what you are supposed to see.
Temperatures drive the clouds. Clouds DO NOT drive the Temperatures.

Matt
August 6, 2014 1:20 am

Is this a ‘respected’ journal? I don’t know what is what when it comes to such journals.

tonyb
Editor
August 6, 2014 1:29 am

Nick Stokes
Scientists find it difficult to change tack once they have established a plausible hypothesis and in the case of AGW which has meant greater esteem and funding for the industry. Whatever the truth of this 2011 study there appears to be some close analogies to those scientists who refuse to believe in observations and evidence ‘on the ground’ in past ages.
This item concerns the scientific establishment refusing to believe that meteorites fell from the skies
—– —–
‘In the afternoon of Sept 13 1768 a meteorite fell at Luce in France. The French academy of science, then the foremost scientific body in the world, sent a commission which received the unanimous testimony of numerous eye witnesses and were given the ‘rock’ itself. But the commission concluded it did not fall. The statement of one of the witnesses was actually altered to make it fit the explanation that the rock was merely a terrestrial body which had been struck by lightning.
A further example of obscurantism was to come. On July 24 1790 a shower of meteorites fell in Southwest France burying themselves in the earth. Some 300 written statements by witnesses were sent to scientific bodies and journals and pieces of the stones were produced. Still official science would not reverse its ipse dixit that ‘stones do not fall from the sky.’ Charles P Olivier said;
“In the face of all this evidence we have an example of stupidity and bigotry, exhibited by the foremost body of scientists of the day -men who doubtless considered themselves, and were so considered by others, the most advanced and modern of their time, which for all ages should stand as a warning to any man who feels that he can give a final verdict upon a matter outside his immediate experience.”
They are words which any scientist would do well to ponder when confronted with evidence running counter to long cherished opinions. ‘
——- ——–
tonyb

Joe
August 6, 2014 1:35 am

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
This is hardly a bombshell. The paper was published in 2011.
But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
So that would strongly suggest that clouds are a negative feedback, no?
Also, the fact that this was published into obscurity in 2011 speaks volumes about “the science”. In what other discipline would such a contrary finding have been effectively ignored, not even given the potential publicity of a rebuttal?

Ian W
August 6, 2014 2:04 am

Matt says:
August 6, 2014 at 1:20 am
Is this a ‘respected’ journal? I don’t know what is what when it comes to such journals.

Matt, the truth is still the truth even if spray painted on a wall. How about checking the reported facts instead of your inverted ‘appeal to authority’ argument?

TimTheToolMan
August 6, 2014 2:53 am

The other tim writes “Mosher is a drive by shooter and only deserves the same.”
Perhaps he can be credited as being a good fisherman in this instance?
He had the right bait.

Nick Stokes
August 6, 2014 3:07 am

Kelvin Vaughan says: August 6, 2014 at 1:02 am
“That’s strange because I measure the greatest sky radiation when it’s cloudy”

Yes. People here seem to miss that the paper is attributing the drop in DWLWIR to reduced cloudiness (and humidity).
Joe says: August 6, 2014 at 1:35 am
“So that would strongly suggest that clouds are a negative feedback, no?”

No. The effect of AGW at this site is to reduce cloudiness, but the global average may well increase. But most people who think of clouds and feedback think first of the competing effect of albedo.

Admad
August 6, 2014 3:17 am

CAGW per IPCC: RIP

August 6, 2014 3:29 am

Clouds.
OK.
Next!

August 6, 2014 3:31 am

Hoist with his own petard. A petard is a bomb.

RoyFOMR
August 6, 2014 3:45 am

100 models agree with Mosher but it just takes 1 fact to prove him wrong!

August 6, 2014 4:10 am

davidmhoffer says, August 5, 2014 at 10:14 pm:
“Matthew R Marler (quoting Kristian)
Why aren’t we seeing ‘back radiation’ power plants all over the world?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Because photo voltaics have an efficiency approaching zero in that frequency range.”

Hehe. Yeah. That’s the reason.

August 6, 2014 4:51 am

Nick Stokes says:
{i}
No. Radiative theory says that total downwelling IR is due to the combined effect of the various GHGs. H2O is the most prevalent. In this case, its reduction exceeded the effect of CO2 increase. {/i}
Thanks Nick, the clue i needed. Clouds set an upper limit on the DWLWR.
It is very clear then, no pun intended, a doubling of CO2 provides 3.7 watts at zero % humidity decreasing as the moisture level increases, until it provides 0 watts under cloudy skies.
That would also explain why there is no tropospheric hot spot.
CO2 only warms under cold, dry conditions, limited by humidity levels.
Oh my, I think we need to increase the CO2 levels as quickly as possible.

August 6, 2014 5:50 am

The sound of the flailing and flapping it pretty awesome, like a fish on land. The mighty shark, with all it’s nation-gobbling ability, has been landed. Now end it!

Neo
August 6, 2014 6:26 am

I was told in 3rd grade that there is a link between “increased water vapor” and clouds

Slc
August 6, 2014 7:00 am

TimTheToolMan on August 6, 2014 at 2:53 am
The other tim writes “Mosher is a drive by shooter and only deserves the same.”
Perhaps he can be credited as being a good fisherman in this instance?
He had the right bait.
———————-
Why are you referring to a scientific study as bait?

ferdberple
August 6, 2014 7:01 am

Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?
=================
only unexpected if you ignore partial pressure of gas law. add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O will be reduced. basic chemistry. adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, increasing pressure, reducing the ability of water to evaporate, reducing water vapor until mass and pressure of atmosphere returns to equilibrium.

Rod Everson
August 6, 2014 7:34 am

This started as a snarky comment, but once I learned that the paper is from 2011 it no longer is. Has anything happened to Gero and Turner’s funding sources since they published? Someone should ask them while this topic is still fresh here.

Rod Everson
August 6, 2014 7:36 am

Added thought to above comment: For example, if their result is as interesting as it would appear, one would think their funding would have been increased so that they could run additional studies at different sites, or that others would have gotten funding so as to test their results at other sites.

August 6, 2014 7:42 am

Kristian;
Hehe. Yeah. That’s the reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There’s enough kinetic energy stored in ocean currents to drives the world;s economy. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy, that’s why. There’s enough energy in lightning strikes all over the world to provide energy for many major cities. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy. There’s enough kinetic energy stored in the moon as it orbits the earth to run the world’s economy for centuries. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy.
All of which you would know if you had the first clue about physics, but you would prefer to continue commenting in this forum and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you not only don’t understand the physics, you don’t WANT to understand the physics. You just want to rant on as if you do.

Steve Allen
August 6, 2014 7:43 am

What was the temperature anomaly data for same location and over same time period? Increasing temps, decreasing temps or stable temps?

Tilo
August 6, 2014 7:46 am

Nick: “And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.”
They measured IR, not cloudiness.

Steve Oregon
August 6, 2014 7:46 am

Mosher or Stokes,
I am a simple man. Please humor me.
If the relatively tiny share of the greenhouse effect, human CO2 emissions, cannot be scientifically measured or shown to have caused any initial warming of the planet or the theorized subsequent increase in water vapor needed for the bulk of AGW, how is AGW not complete crap?
You haven’t many choices for answers.
You can accept the size of the human contribution and attempt to provide something more than conjecture to explain how such an infinitesimal portion can alter our climate.
Or you can dispute the size/percent/proportion of human contribution and provide accurate and reliable data that shows a larger contribution.
Or you can evade the question.
Or you can change the subject.
Or you can talk about the tonnage of fossil fuel emissions in worrisome tones while ignoring the proportion it represents.
“human greenhouse gas contributions add up to about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect”.http://www.geocraft.com/WVFoss
Only ~3.75% of atmospheric CO2 is man-made from burning of fossil fuels.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot….
Water vapor has declined.
http://www.climate4you.com/Gre

Alx
August 6, 2014 7:47 am

John Eggert says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:30 pm
KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:59 pm
>>…As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
you may want to be more concerned with myopia than embarrassment. I am sure you could explain the physics of using a pair of pliers to crack a walnut. The issue is making wild claims as to how the globe is affected the same way as the walnut is.
Put another way, it is not about the engineering, physics, geology, co2, vapor, Solar, etc. it is about the relationships between all those things, in which we understand little in terms of global climate. When we say the physics settles it, or the science is settled, it only serves to keep us ignorant.

Alan Robertson
August 6, 2014 7:48 am

phlogiston says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:10 am
Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
This is hardly a bombshell. The paper was published in 2011.
So what? An even more significant climate paper in 1963 has still no been read or understood by the majority of climate scientists:
http://www.astro.puc.cl/~rparra/tools/PAPERS/lorenz1962.pdf
and BTW, DNF63 by Lorenz is a nuclear bombshell. For those who have eyes to see.
____________________
So what if he showed that it’s mathematically impossible for modelers to make accurate long range predictions, that just means they have to try harder to prove him wrong. GRANTS!

August 6, 2014 8:02 am

This paper is entirely in keeping with the decline in solar activity as seen in the neutron count and the consequent long term cooling forecasts made at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html

Pamela Gray
August 6, 2014 8:08 am

Sturgis, your responses are certainly less than acceptable scientific debate. Respond appropriately. It is none of my concern if you have not read my comments on this blog, including linking to hundreds of papers on intrinsic weather pattern variations with both short and long term affects. Furthermore, the PDO is a description of a set of pools of water in the NH pacific that is a result of and extrapolated from ENSO data. It’s trends are not driven by solar variations such as UV or SSN variations, nor does it follow 11 or 22 year cycles. In addition, you need to update your information on the supposed Gleissberg Cycle. Are you saying it is a real cycle?
Regarding Milankovitch Cycles, I am well aware of that influence as an intrinsic driver due to Earth’s orbital/rotational wobbles. Do you know which wobble is primarily responsible for the Milankovitch Cycle?
And I remind you once again, respond appropriately. Your ad hominem response was out of line and nearly libelous.

more soylent green!
August 6, 2014 8:23 am

Truthseeker says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:36 pm
“Greenhouse” gases (CO2) up, “Greenhouse” warming down … hmmm. Maybe, just maybe there is a fundamental problem with using sheets of glass or plastic enclosing a space as an analogy for a free flowing gas of a planetary atmosphere …
Maybe …

My father went to college in the late 1950’s. He was taught that greenhouses trapped heat because the glass was transparent to the light coming in but blocked the heat from coming out. We now know greenhouses trap heat through convection. But it was once believe otherwise.

Paul R
August 6, 2014 8:32 am

In regards to the stability of the earth’s climate “governor”: Ayn Rand was once asked if the order in the universe was proof of God’s existence. She replied: “What do you think a DISORDERED universe looks like?”
The cAGW crowd believe in an UNSTABLE climate system. It’s obvious that that is false.

Matthew R Marler
August 6, 2014 8:32 am

Nick Stokes: They attribute the DWLW drop to reduced cloudiness.
I got that. It does not answer my question: Could the reduced cloudiness and reduced precipitable H2O have been caused by increased CO2?

Michael 2
August 6, 2014 9:00 am

“the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared back-radiation.”
Seems to me that the downwelling longwave infrared radiation is going to hit EXACTLY the same resistance going DOWN as it encountered going UP, with the result that on a clear sky night NONE of it reaches the ground. A cloud, on the other hand, could essentially reflect (or re-radiate) infrared back to ground through CO2 not dense enough to stop it.

Barry
August 6, 2014 9:06 am

This study was over 14 years, and a 100 km by 100 km box. Hardly a “bombshell” with global ramifications. For more information, please see references here:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/

Joe
August 6, 2014 9:08 am

Nick Stokes says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:07 am
Joe says: August 6, 2014 at 1:35 am
“So that would strongly suggest that clouds are a negative feedback, no?”
No. The effect of AGW at this site is to reduce cloudiness, but the global average may well increase. But most people who think of clouds and feedback think first of the competing effect of albedo.
————————————————————————————————————————
Sorry, let me be more specific. That would suggest that the alteration of cloud cover caused by warming may be (ok, I’ll allow “maybe” instead of “is”) a net negative feedback.
I’d also be interested to know who these “most people” are?
My experience is that most people who actually think about it, rather than trotting out dogma (on either side of the debate) think of cloud changes as a very complex mix of effects involving albedo, radiative properties, convective heat transport, physical movement of latent heat and a myriad other effects depending on location, time of day, season of year and so on.
Perhaps I just hang with smarter people than you?

DirkH
August 6, 2014 9:14 am

This is consistent with the theory of CO2AGW. Because some model runs predicted it.
(Others didn’t. The theory of CO2AGW has many tentacles. No real world measurement can be as mighty as the manifold of possibilities that exist in the supercomputer.)

richard verney
August 6, 2014 9:44 am

Kristian says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:10 am
davidmhoffer says, August 5, 2014 at 10:14 pm:
“Matthew R Marler (quoting Kristian)
Why aren’t we seeing ‘back radiation’ power plants all over the world?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Because photo voltaics have an efficiency approaching zero in that frequency range.”
Hehe. Yeah. That’s the reason.
/////////////////////////////////
The issue is: why is there no research into photo voltaic marterial that responds to the required frequency range?
Theoretically, according to K & T, DWLWIR is a far superior energy source to that of solar, so, surely, it is only a question of finding material that responds to the frequency bandwidth of DWLWIR.
Pyrometers are used to measure IR, and yet, is it not strange that the material in these cannot be scaled up to harvest the IR into real energy?
I find it strange that if DWLWIR is capable of perfoming sensible work in the environ in which it finds itself on planet Earth, that research in to tapping this energy source is not a mainstay of steps taken to combat climate change. It seems to me that 25 to 50% of the total budget spent on AGW/climate change should have gone into that, since it is a win win scenario.
If we can find suitable photo voltaic material then we solve the clean energy issue, and if we do not find suitable material, it is probably because we are proving that DWLWIR is nothing more than a signal incapable of performing sensible work in the environ of planet Earth, and is therefore not a problem.

pochas
August 6, 2014 9:59 am

Since convection is what moves heat in the lower troposphere and the surface temperature is determined well above the surface, at the equivalent emissions height (and not by some fictitious radiation balance at the surface), the current study is interesting, but largely irrelevant.

Joel O'Bryan
August 6, 2014 10:35 am

Whatever happens regarding the asssessed fate of DWLWIR or UWLWIR balances and the climate temp response, rest assured, higher atmospheric CO2 will be blamed by the cognoscenti and the congregation of the Church of Global Warming.
The entrenched political powers pushing the “settled science” ditty are too reputationally and economically invested in acquiring carbon taxes for redistribtive ideologies and more control over capitalist economies, while they abet the ecoterrorists bent on de-industrialization policies.
For substantiation look no further than California, where carbon offset taxes are now being tagged by the governor for high speed rail construction. It’s a construction project where the political left’s main supporter are unions who will be contractually guaranteed the work. Meanwhile the govenor continues to curry favor with ecoterrorists by supporting large fresh water discharges from reservoirs into the San Joaquin delta during an extreme drought in California.

ripshin
Editor
August 6, 2014 10:40 am

Wow, why is it that reading the comments takes an order of magnitude greater amount of time than merely reading the article… 🙂
To summarize this thread, we have the following discussions occurring (abbreviated for conciseness and my own personal amusement):
1.0 Discourse on the Subject of the Article in Question
Skeptics: DWLWIR was measured as less than expected at specific locations, so “suck it trebec!”
Believers: Nah man, it’s the clouds, see, they turn it up to 11, besides, this study is so, like, yesterday, “hey, the 2011’s called and they want their study back.” Oh, and lest we forget, this was only one location, and the physics there are clearly not applicable to the rest of the globe.
Skeptics: Wait, “it’s the clouds” is our argument, and you can’t have it back. But maybe we should see about measuring DWLWIR other places.
2.0 Discourse on the Subject of the Greenhouse Effect
Engineer 1: As my calculations clearly show, concentrations of CO2 above 200ppm cease to have any meaningful additional effect on atmospheric temperature.
Engineer 2: Uh, stupid, there is no greenhouse effect. Our atmosphere ain’t no glass tube in a lab. So, you can take your “greenhouse effect” and shove it up your…
Engineer 1: You’re not an engineer
Engineer 2: No, you’re not.
…and etc…
3.0 Discourse on the Subject of Solar-Driven Climate vs ENSO-Driven Climate
Classroom Lecturer 1: You are all wrong. It’s been the sun this whole time. I switched arguments while your back was turned. That’s what makes this so funny!
Classroom Lecturer 2: This is where you’re mistaken. I’ve built up an immunity to solar arguments. It’s ENSO.
Classroom Lecturer 1: Strong! But I have a confession to make, I have a paper.
Classroom Lecturer 2: ENSO
Classroom Lecturer 1: Stop saying that…look at all these other papers.
Classroom Lecturer 2: Oh my sweet ENSO! What have I done?
Please let me know if I’ve missed any sub-topics, and I’ll be glad to revise the above.
rip

August 6, 2014 10:44 am

Pamela Gray says:
August 6, 2014 at 8:08 am
You began the unscientific as hominem tone, showing totally unjustified sense of certainty and were unwarrantedly condescending. You were out of line. I responded in kind. Where do you get off lecturing me on writing like a scientist? Besides which, how should I react when you dodge the very request you made of me and reply so lamely to my first example, after coming off as so superior, imagining that you could school me in climatology, when all you had was “your gut”?
You have yet to produce a single paper supporting your baseless assertion that the sun plays no role in climate, as you required of me and which request I answered four times over. You present nothing but more unfounded assertions. If you imagine that even one of the supposed hundreds of papers on intrinsic weather patterns supports your view, then let’s see it and your argument for how it offers this support.
Climate is the long term average of weather. If you imagine that climatic patterns just happen without any underlying causes, please show why you think so, based upon peer reviewed papers.
I presented evidence that the ENSO is solar influenced. You have shown nothing to support your claim that the PDO is driven by ENSO. In fact, both oscillations are part of the same system, as you’d know if you had ever actually studied either phenomenon. Nor have you demonstrated that these oceanic oscillations are not under solar influence, among other lesser causes.
What makes you think that the Gleissberg Cycle is not valid? It might or might not be, but you yet again present no evidence for your baseless claim. Show your evidence and reasoning. Some of the papers from the past few years I presented demonstrate that real experts consider it genuine. They’re experts and you obviously are not. The burden of proof is on you.
Here’s another one from the past decade:
Braun, H; Christl, M; Rahmstorf, S; Ganopolski, A; Mangini, A; Kubatzki, C; Roth, K; Kromer, B (10 November 2005). “Possible solar origin of the 1,470-year glacial climate cycle demonstrated in a coupled model”. Nature 438 (7065): 208–11. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..208B. doi:10.1038/nature04121. PMID 16281042
I’m positive I know a lot more about Milankovitch Cycles than you do. Precession could be considered a wobble, and maybe even tilt. I wouldn’t apply that term to eccentricity or inclination, but OK, if you want to. To answer your question, experts disagree over the most important parameter, but IMO it’s eccentricity, which is why the Holocene might be another super (multi-precessional cycle) interglacial. IMO eccentricity controls the 100K glacial cycle, but might not rule interglacials. The parameters must be considered in conjunction.
But once more I respond to your question without your answering mine. So yet again, how can you categorically deny solar influence on climate at the 1000 and 100 years orders of magnitude, when Milankovitch Cycles, which rule climate on the scale of 100K and 10K years, are based upon insolation?

August 6, 2014 11:08 am

Pamela,
Should you wish to educate yourself about the relationship between the PDO and ENSO beyond the misinformation and misconceptions you seem to have acquired on this blog, here’s a good place to start, from U Dub, 2009:
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/pnwc/compensopdo.shtml
It provides data without much in the way of hypothesis as to causes of and relationships between the two oscillations. Note however that El Niños are more common during the warm or positive phase of the PDO (when the west Pacific cools and part of the eastern ocean warms) and La Niñas during its cool or negative phase.
This is not even really a teleconnection, since the temperate North Pacific and tropical Pacific are obviously in direct contact. Hence, I would have thought it equally obvious that the two oscillations are related, such that they can’t be regarded as entirely separate phenomena, with ENSO somehow in control. ENSO was observed in the 16th century and the PDO not until the 20th, but historical priority doesn’t bestow on the tropical oscillation any physical primacy. But if you imagine that it rules, please, as above, provide some evidence in support of this assertion.
Thanks.

August 6, 2014 11:13 am

Alan Robertson The Lorentz paper does indeed show that numerical modelling is impossible.
The modelling approach is inherently of no value for predicting future temperature with any calculable certainty because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions of a sufficiently fine grained spatio-temporal grid of a large number of variables with sufficient precision prior to multiple iterations. For a complete discussion of this see Essex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvhipLNeda4
Models are often tuned by running them backwards against several decades of observation, this is
much too short a period to correlate outputs with observation when the controlling natural quasi-periodicities of most interest are in the centennial and especially in the key millennial range. Tuning to these longer periodicities is beyond any computing capacity when using reductionist models with a large number of variables unless these long wave natural periodicities are somehow built into the model structure ab initio
Interestingly ,however Lorentz does admit the possibility of skillful lomg term forecasting based on quasi-periodicities in analogous states. Since everything only happens once in the real world I would amend that to read quasi-analogous states. For discussion of all this see.
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html

August 6, 2014 11:26 am

davidmhoffer says, August 6, 2014 at 7:42 am:
“There’s enough kinetic energy stored in ocean currents to drives the world;s economy. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy, that’s why. There’s enough energy in lightning strikes all over the world to provide energy for many major cities. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy. There’s enough kinetic energy stored in the moon as it orbits the earth to run the world’s economy for centuries. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy.
All of which you would know if you had the first clue about physics, but you would prefer to continue commenting in this forum and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you not only don’t understand the physics, you don’t WANT to understand the physics. You just want to rant on as if you do.”

You simply don’t have a clue what we’re talking about here, do you David? Why I said “Yeah. That’s the reason.” It’s not because it’s impractical to harvest the atmospheric ‘back radiation’ energy. It’s because it’s impossible. Physically impossible.
You only need to know the laws of thermodynamics to understand this.
What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the heat transferred to it minus the work done by it.
The surface cannot itself perform any work on its surroundings. So more heat in in this case directly gives an increase in internal energy (and thus a rising temperature).
You seem to argue that the DWLWIR is a separate energy flux down to the surface from the atmosphere essentially equal in general properties (an equivalent flux) to the solar flux, only within a different frequency range. You would ADD the two together to get a total INPUT of radiative energy to the surface, wouldn’t you? And thus raise its internal energy more.
Accordingly, following the K&T09 energy diagram, your surface budget would look like this:
INPUT: 161 W/m^2 (solar flux) + 333 W/m^2 (DWLWIR flux, ‘atm back radiation’) = 494 W/m^2
OUTPUT: 97 W/m^2 (convective fluxes) + 396 W/m^2 (UWLWIR flux) = 493 W/m^2
Completely conflating HEAT (energy transferred from hot to cold as a result of the temperature difference) with thermal radiant emittance by a ‘surface’.
For a photovoltaic cell at ambient temperature, how do you suggest we harvest the DWLWIR energy from the atmospere above when there is always more UWLWIR moving out? How do you suggest the DWLWIR in this way will manage to increase the internal energy (U) of the photovoltaic cell? If we don’t first (artificially) cool the cell to become colder than the air above?
DWLWIR isn’t ‘heat’, David. It isn’t ‘work’ either. Hence, it cannot effectuate a detectable increase in the internal energy of anything.
Why isn’t it heat? Because it is simply ONE PART of an integrated, continuous energy exchange between surface and air, the other (opposing) part being the larger UWLWIR. The net of the two is the heat. You cannot just choose to leave the one out to make the other one work as if it were alone in the exchange. They’re inseparable. They make up the same radiation field. You can’t just pick one and pretend it works by itself as if it were a real heat flux. Like the solar flux. Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.
The heat, the ‘net energy’, is the actual, detectable transfer of energy between the two bodies. Decreasing the U of the warmer one, increasing the U of the cooler one.
The kinetic energy of the oceans that you’re talking about can easily do work. The currents move things. There are wave and tide power plants around. Not many, and they’re not incredibly cost-effective. But it is at least being tested and shown to work in principle. This energy is possible to harness. Because we’re talking about real transfers of energy. In this case it’s ALL about the practicality and economics. When it comes to ‘atmospheric back radiation’ it’s all down to pure physical principles. It’s just not physically possible.
Engineers know the difference. You seemingly don’t …

August 6, 2014 11:28 am

RoHa says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:31 am
What makes you think I don’t know what a petard is? While Shakespeare uses “with”, “on” is perfectly acceptable, if you know what a petard looks like and how it was used. So is “by”. “On” is most appropriate if the petardier were leaning over the device when it detonated prematurely. “With” or “by” works if he happened to be close to but not over the charge when it went off.

August 6, 2014 11:50 am

sturgishooper says, August 6, 2014 at 10:44 am:
“I presented evidence that the ENSO is solar influenced. You have shown nothing to support your claim that the PDO is driven by ENSO. In fact, both oscillations are part of the same system, as you’d know if you had ever actually studied either phenomenon. Nor have you demonstrated that these oceanic oscillations are not under solar influence, among other lesser causes.”
Indeed.
Actually, I think people should drop the whole PDO hangup thing and widen their scope to include the entire spectrum of Pacific variability. PDO hasn’t even been the main SSTa pattern in the North Pacific since 1988/89.
The 25 years of modern global warming started abruptly in 1976/77 with the Great Pacific Climate Shift. This shift is definitely best expressed by the marked PDO phase flip occurring at just this time. And the following global warming step of 1979 directly resulted from it. But what caused this Pacific Climate Shift in the first place was the sudden drop in SOI (the pressure gradient from east to west across the tropical/subtropical Pacific basin), flattening the thermocline.
What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO.

August 6, 2014 12:00 pm

Kristian
Ask Bob Tisdale.

August 6, 2014 12:01 pm

The ENSO process does not cause the ocean cycle. But the ENSO process is surely what produces the multidecadal cooling and warming observed during the various up (‘positive’) and down (‘negative’) stages of it. ENSO is the executor. It is a caused cause of global warming (and cooling).

August 6, 2014 12:02 pm

Dr Norman Page says, August 6, 2014 at 12:00 pm:
“Ask Bob Tisdale.”
About what?

pochas
August 6, 2014 12:09 pm

Kristian says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:50 am
“The 25 years of modern global warming started abruptly in 1976/77 with the Great Pacific Climate Shift. This shift is definitely best expressed by the marked PDO phase flip occurring at just this time. And the following global warming step of 1979 directly resulted from it. But what caused this Pacific Climate Shift in the first place was the sudden drop in SOI (the pressure gradient from east to west across the tropical/subtropical Pacific basin), flattening the thermocline.
What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO.”
Might it be solar/lunar tidal effects?
“Possible forcing of global temperature by the oceanic tides”
CHARLES D. KEELING AND TIMOTHY P. WHORF
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf

Resourceguy
August 6, 2014 12:11 pm

Great science news, but I don’t think it will move the needle in the massive donations-for-climate distortion biz.

Gary Pearse
August 6, 2014 12:15 pm

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
“This is hardly a bombshell. The paper was published in 2011.”
A paper like this takes a long time to come to the fore in the holyland. Most were stopped by gatekeepers. I expect the playing field will be tipping the other way now with the pause

August 6, 2014 12:19 pm

Kristian;
DWLWIR isn’t ‘heat’, David. It isn’t ‘work’ either. Hence, it cannot effectuate a detectable increase in the internal energy of anything.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Right, right, and wrong. It isn’t heat or work, it is an energy flux. We can measure it, we can measure the heat it creates and we can measure the work it does. That doesn’t make it practical as a way to generate electricity. Your entire argument is based on a complete lack of understanding of the physics, and as for what engineers know, I know a rather large number of them, and they are in general agreement that you are, as Einstein would put it, “not right, not even wrong”.
But I’ve discovered that explaining facts to you, simple things like pointing out that the earth is warmer than the moon despite getting the exact same amount of insolation, it fruitless. You have a belief system, and you cling to it in a fashion that makes warmists look almost logical. Pretty sad. Goodbye.
Set/Kristian=Ignore

August 6, 2014 12:24 pm

Kristian You say What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO. I said ask Bob Tisdale – he has written at great length on this topic.

August 6, 2014 12:28 pm

Kristian says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:50 am
Agree. It might be OK to claim that “weather patterns” just happen, but regular changes in climate, the 30 year and longer average of weather, have causes which require explanation.
IMO the ultimate cause for changes in SOI (Southern Oscillation Index) and comparable phenomena in other ocean basins is solar activity, but not the sole cause. Only Marxist-minded enemies of humanity like the Climate Change Team believe in the One Great Cause (CO2 and destroying the West). But in as much as there is a primary cause of climate change, the preponderance of evidence in the presently admittedly limited, infantile state of our understanding, it appears to be solar activity.
Confidence is high that this is so on the scale of tens and hundreds of thousands of years, but less so for tens, hundreds and thousands of years, for which orders of magnitude the evidence is nonetheless still convincing, IMO, and growing. Climatology has been set back one or two generations by the CO2 mafia and inadequate at best computer modeling.
Here for instance is just one paper (2008) finding an association between these oscillations and solar activity, to include the SOI.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDkQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F225146810_On_Mid-Term_Periodicities_in_Sunspot_Groups_and_Flare_Index%2Ffile%2Fd912f503cb3c51625e.pdf&ei=coDiU8XYAor3oATTgoHYDQ&usg=AFQjCNFgRe4HQM_2Va_koe5eeolqF98XUg&sig2=oZD3XXzsmVIfTzYMfcdMUQ&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGU
If anything, as I noted, the PDO controls the frequency of El Niños and La Niñas in the ENSO, not the other way around, which I should have thought would be obvious, since there are a number of ENSO swings in any one PDO phase.

August 6, 2014 12:28 pm

Dr Norman Page says, August 6, 2014 at 12:24 pm:
“Kristian You say What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO. I said ask Bob Tisdale – he has written at great length on this topic.”
Not on this particular topic, no.

August 6, 2014 12:35 pm

Dr Norman Page says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:24 pm
Bob has been asked what he thinks causes the ENSO, but in the only responses I’ve seen he talks about proximate “causes”, such as wind shifts, rather than ultimate causes. If I’ve missed that discussion, I’d be happy for him to present his view on what might cause observed atmospheric and oceanic oscillations on the scale not just of years, as with ENSO, but decades (as with the PDO and AMO), centuries (as with the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period, etc) and millennia (as with the Holocene Climatic Optimum), possibly such as solar or seismic activity, or maybe even GHG concentrations.
A recent paper found at high confidence that the AMO was driven by some external forcings, but couldn’t distinguish solar from volcanic on the time scale of the study.

Kevin
August 6, 2014 12:37 pm

ferdberple says:
August 6, 2014 at 7:01 am
Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?
=================
only unexpected if you ignore partial pressure of gas law. add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O will be reduced. basic chemistry. adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, increasing pressure, reducing the ability of water to evaporate, reducing water vapor until mass and pressure of atmosphere returns to equilibrium.
========================
Off the mark somewhat. Add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O OR Air (O2, N2, Ar, etc) will be displaced. Adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, so what? As already pointed out, this molecule of CO2 replaced something else so therefore, has no effect on pressure. Why would this have an effect on the ability of water to evaporate? The pressure hasn’t changed. Mass of atmosphere does not need to reach any kind of equilibrium.

Nick Stokes
August 6, 2014 12:38 pm

davidmhoffer says: August 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm
“Set/Kristian=Ignore”

Unwise. You could learn a lot from his explanation of the impossibility of getting work from DWLWIR at August 6, 2014 at 11:26 am.

August 6, 2014 12:46 pm

Nick – he gets a few things right and a whole lot wrong. I’m not going to untangle the mess for the upteenth time. Been there, done that, on other threads, a waste of my time.

August 6, 2014 12:46 pm

davidmhoffer says, August 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm:
“It [‘atmospheric back radiation’] isn’t heat or work, it is an energy flux. We can measure it, we can measure the heat it creates and we can measure the work it does.”
Wow. Just wow. I’m shaking my head in disbelief here. This is not even funny. This is just sad. A grown up (and – I would expect – a well-educated) man uttering these words in earnest and with a seemingly straight face (well, I can’t actually see it, so one could at least hope he’s just joking around).
Well, goodbye then, David. I’ll leave you to your little bubble world.
Read that quote, people. Just read those words. Take them in. And understand what kind of entrenched, ingrained, warped ideas we’re up against here.

August 6, 2014 1:01 pm

Sturgishooper Bob has written copiously on the ENSO SOI and Pacific climate shift etc.
Like you, I too would like to see a clear presentation of his views on ultimate causes because of his familiarity with the basic data.

August 6, 2014 1:39 pm

Dr Norman Page says:
August 6, 2014 at 1:01 pm
I know he has, but I’ve missed his conclusions as to ultimate causes. I’ve paid attention when people have asked for it, but as I said, have seen only his view about proximate causes for ENSO swings, which are short-term, essentially weather phenomena. The strength and frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas over decades, centuries and millennia would be climatic signals.

August 6, 2014 2:05 pm

There are more El Ninos during warming periods and more El Ninas during cooling times.
These wind,temperature and pressure patterns are the result of the net energy flow into the intra -tropical Pacific ocean – atmosphere interface. This looks like it is the main planetary thermostat.
The energy flow varies depending on the net effect of 2 main groups of factors
a)Orbital factors mainly the relationship between Obliquity and time of year in each hemisphere of the perihelion of the Precession.
b) The modulation of a) by variations in solar “activity” mainly through the cosmic ray flux, the variation in EUV and the variations in TSI
The combined effect of a and b raises causes changes in SST and the pressure patterns and also changes in the daily timing of cloud cover and of the number of tropical cyclones. Trenberth says these latter produce a substantial negative feed back which has not been incorporated into the climate models See Fig 2
at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Its all very simple really so long as you don’t try to model it numerically.

August 6, 2014 2:11 pm

Dr Norman Page says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:05 pm
Agree with everything up to but not including “Trenberth”.

August 6, 2014 2:24 pm

Sturgishooper. Did you actually look at Fig.2 ?. It is from one of his powerpoint presentations. Looks good to me- but surprising coming from him. Could actually possibly be the key thermostat for the whole deal.

August 6, 2014 2:25 pm

More on solar-ENSO connections:
Indian monsoons, ENSO & solar cycles:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1063520310000266
Landscheidt on solar activity controlling El Niño and La Niña, perhaps op cit on this blog, open reviewed, not “peer”:
http://www.john-daly.com/sun-enso/sun-enso.htm

August 6, 2014 2:32 pm

Dr Norman Page says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:24 pm
Great that he’s backing and filling, trying to cover his tracks, but nothing can save the GCMs as presently rigged, IMO. Have to scrap them and wait for better fundamental understanding of the climate system, which requires both more good data and better analysis. Adding ad hoc epicycles isn’t going to save the CO2-based enterprise.
If it were up to me, I’d fire both Kevin and Gavin and close down their gangs, as too compromised ever to be trusted again.
My two cents’ worth, if that.

Trick
August 6, 2014 2:38 pm

David 12:19pm, Nick 12:38pm, Kristian 12:46pm: “…understand what kind of entrenched, ingrained, warped ideas we’re up against here.”
The most confusing twist is Kristian’s ingrained use of the word “heat”. For David & Nick – if you want to have a conversation with Kristian, insert the word “energy” each time Kristian uses the term “heat”. They both have the same units & heat went out of basic science long ago due its lack of existence in nature. Energy exists. This process (though tedious) will instantly point out when Kristian gets confused. Some examples:
1) Kristian 11:26am: “What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the heat transferred to it minus the work done by it.”
The intrepid reader is forced substitute “energy” for “heat” to check if this is good science and once that is done confusion is eliminated, Kristian then does make sense – here:
What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the energy transferred to it minus the work done by it.
OK, got it.
******
2) Kristian 11:26am: “DWLWIR isn’t ‘heat’”
Again, substituting existing energy for non-existing heat in this becomes:
DWLWIR isn’t ‘energy’
OOPS, here Kristian’s confusion becomes immediately apparent & one can insert comment try and show Kristian DWLWIR really IS energy radiating from the atm. gas constituents. The net flow is the one increasing universe entropy.
******
3) Kristian: “Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.”
Parses to:
Energy ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.
OOPS, Kristian confusion apparent again. Energy moves two way in 1st law & many ways in Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, universe entropy increase shows the one way in net reality per 2LOT.
******
Kristian – Once again, please drop the word “heat” from your narrative if you want to communicate effectively – “heat” term adds only confusion for your readers & doesn’t exist anymore; you have demonstrated an inability to make sense using “heat” term to at least David & I. More than likely others too. Many would benefit from this discipline. (Don’t even mention OHC… & pray my tags work.)

August 6, 2014 2:43 pm

Trick says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:38 pm
+1

August 6, 2014 2:48 pm

The fundamental precept of AGW/C^3 is this: Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from around 290 ppm to 400 ppm over the past 150 years. There are no known natural explanations for this, therefore it must be due to industrialized mankind. Because increasing CO2 concentrations cause the climate to heat up, desperate measures are needed. What I refer to as the dog ate my homework theory, “Oh, where did my homework go? Only logical explanation is the dog must of ate it.”
While dredging the internet I came upon this explanation for natural causes that explains it all without mankind’s pitiful 3% contribution in brief, but fascinating paper.
http://www.fauxscienceslayer.com/pdf/missing_geothermal_flux.pdf

DonV
August 6, 2014 3:05 pm

Thank you all. Lots of fun stuff to read here.
Regarding the regional vs global criticism. IMHO climate is by definition decadal or centennial in time scale, and global in scope. However, the actual weather that makes up climate is a highly dynamic, cyclical self-correcting process involving massive redistribution of energy, massive active transport of energy, is highly regional, and actively changes over seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Each of the “variables” being discussed (H2O in all its phases, CO2 concentration, temperature, pressure, wind velocity, solar irradiance, outgoing IR) for both land, and sea, at different elevations/latitudes . . . each of these variables vary by HUGE amounts during the time interval we call “weather”. During these short time periods, NOT ONE of the variables causes a positive feedback, “run-away” condition even though the magnitude of their actual values greatly exceeds the small change in “average” values over decades. So at what time scale do the laws of physics that govern the interraction between these variables suddenly no longer apply. If positive feedback can not be demonstrated to cause catastrophic runaway “weather”, why are we supposed to believe these same variables will cause runaway catastrophic climate?
Storms are regional. There is no such thing as an “average” global storm. Weather is regional. There is no such thing as global “average” weather. Weather varies from location to location and is completely governed by short time factors – NOT decadal average variation. Since storms actively transport energy horizontally across the globe, actively block incoming energy, and actively transport and dump varying amounts of excess energy to outer space, IMHO the static linear equations that have been concocted to attempt to describe “climate” at any point in time are absolutely meaningless! They are neither historically indicative, nor beneficially predictive of anything meaningful.

August 6, 2014 3:08 pm

DonV says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:05 pm
IMO climate can be and is also regional, as in “the climate of Africa differs from that of Europe”. Indeed, this connotation was the original meaning of the term, from the Greek for “slope” or “zone”.

August 6, 2014 3:10 pm

Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

August 6, 2014 3:26 pm

Here is the conclusion of my latest post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
“As to the future, the object of forecasting is to provide practical guidance for policy makers. The rate, amplitude and timing of climate change varies substantially from region to region so that, after accounting for the long term quasi-millennial periodicity, I would then estimate the modulation of this trend by providing multi-decadal climate forecasts for specific regions. This would be accomplished with particular reference to the phase relationships of the major oceanic and atmospheric systems PDO AMO, NAO, ENSO etc, a la Aleo and Easterbrook linked to in section 2.4 above. The earth has been subdivided into tectonic plates. It would be useful to have, as a guide to adaptation to climate change, multi-decadal regional forecasts for the following suggested climate plates, which are in reality closely linked to global geography.
1 North America and Western Europe.
2 Russia
3 China
4 India and SE Asia
5 Australasia and Indonesia
6 South America
7 N Africa
8 Sub Saharan Africa
9 The Arctic
10 The Antarctic
11 The intra tropical Pacific Ocean. Detailed analysis of the energy exchanges and processes at the ocean /atmosphere interface in this area is especially vital because its energy budget provides the key to the earth’s thermostat

August 6, 2014 3:30 pm

Trick says, August 6, 2014 at 2:38 pm:
Sigh. Trick, my reply to you on Monckton’s ‘central climate fallacy’ post:
“It’s been well-established for a long time that you haven’t got the slightest clue what HEAT is and represents in physics. This comment of yours simply acts to underline this recognition.
‘Heat’, trick. Not electromagnetic energy. ‘Heat.’”
It is by not getting ‘heat’ – or refusing to use it – that you let yourself getting confused. Because then all energy is the same and give the same effects. Then all energy is equally available to do work and all energy can heat in all directions. That’s when absurd ideas like ‘back radiation heating’ is allowed to develop.
Only once you understand the difference between ‘heat’ and ‘EM energy’ are you fully equipped to see through all the AGW nonsense.
The palpable phenomenon called ‘Heat’ in physics is a very specific thing. One thing and one thing only. It should in itself be a very simple concept to relate to. Because it brings about an effect that can be sensed (detected) directly.
Still it has a tendency to confound people and the term is therefore misapplied in many fields, and especially in everyday life. Speaking of ‘heat content’, ‘heat capacity’ or ‘latent heat’, all pretty well-established terms in their own right, even in science, even in physics itself, actually only contributes to further confusing the matter. Giving the impression that heat is something that moves spontaneously not only from hot to cold, but also from cold to hot, and that the two opposing ‘heats’ somehow make up a ‘net heat’ between them is frankly a misapplication bordering on the bizarre, considering how crystal clear and well-known the actual physical definition of ‘heat’ really is. There simply should be no room for such confusion.
Here is one pretty standard example of HEAT defined, from “Fundamentals of Thermodynamics” by Borgnakke & Sonntag (2009):
“If a block of hot copper is placed in a beaker of cold water, we know from experience that the block of copper cools down and the water warms up until the copper and water reach the same temperature. What causes this decrease in the temperature of the copper and the increase in the temperature of the water? We say that it is the result of the transfer of energy from the copper block to the water. It is from such a transfer of energy that we arrive at a definition of heat.
Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, heat is transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the heat transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.
Heat, like work, is a form of energy transfer to or from a system. Therefore, the units for heat, and for any other form of energy as well, are the same as the units for work, or at least are directly proportional to them. In the International System the unit for heat (energy) is the joule.”
(My emphasis.)

Further on the subject, from the hyperphysics site, pointing to the directives of the well-known physicist Mark Zemansky:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html
“The First Law identifies both heat and work as methods of energy transfer which can bring about a change in the internal energy of a system. After that, neither the words work or heat have any usefulness in describing the final state of the system – we can speak only of the internal energy of the system.”
(Again my emphasis.)

The same page also stresses:
“(…) the interchangeability of heat and work as agents for adding energy to a system (…)”
(Yup, my emphasis.)

Taken together and in other words: ‘Heat’ (Q) is, like ‘work’ (W ), energy transferred from one system or region to another, directly changing the ‘internal energy’ (U), and thus the temperature, of those systems/regions. And the energy transferred as ‘heat’ ONLY moves spontaneously from hot to cold, as a direct result of the temperature difference.
This clear-cut and unambiguous definition provides us with a very neat distinguishing tool.
What energy falls under the ‘heat’ distinction? And what energy does not? What energy directly causes an observable change in a body’s temperature? And what energy does not?
The warmer body from</em< which heat (Q) moves, loses internal energy (U) and therefore cools. The cooler body to which heat (Q) moves, gains internal energy (U) and therefore warms.
Trick displays an impressive stubbornness in his insistence on staying ignorant on all this, thus also staying forever confused …

August 6, 2014 3:38 pm

Trick says, August 6, 2014 at 2:38 pm:
“3) Kristian: “Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.”
Parses to:
Energy ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.
OOPS, Kristian confusion apparent again. Energy moves two way in 1st law & many ways in Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, universe entropy increase shows the one way in net reality per 2LOT.”

A perfect example of why you can’t just trade ‘HEAT’ with ‘ENERGY’, Trick. You only confuse yourself (and poor David). All heat is energy. All energy is NOT heat. Simple as that. You need to understand that. You need to keep them separate.
I start to feel more and more like a 1st grade teacher. This is not hard, folks. There is nothing mysterious or novel about any of this. It is common knowledge. Or at least it used to be. Before the ‘climate confusion brigade’ came to town.

August 6, 2014 4:39 pm

IIRC, but haven’t checked, a post here covered these papers on the AMO and solar cycles:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-paper-finds-natural-variability-of.html
R. G. Brown IIRC had a lot to say about North Carolinian climate. Could be wrong.

F.A.H.
August 6, 2014 4:44 pm

I am not sure what, if anything this paper says about AGW.
First, I got curious what other measurements like this may have been made at other locations and googlescholared a little bit. I found one paper, Raddatz, et al, “All-sky downwelling longwave radiation and atomospheric column water vapour and temperature over the western maritime arctic,” Atmosphere-Ocean, 2012, 10.1080/07055900.2012.760441. They report shipborne measurements from 2007 through 2009 measuring broadband downwelling IR from 4 to 50 microns and other instruments to measure water vapor density and temperature profiles, ice and cloud backscatter and cloud base height. (It is paywalled so you need a subscription to see the full paper unfortunately.) In any event, they present results, in their figure 2 displaying a fairly good looking log fit of the all sky downwelling IR to measured precipitable water and a slightly less good linear fit of downwelling IR to mean column temperature. The relationships did not explicitly incorporate time trends in any way. The downwelling IR was simply presented as a function of precipitable water and temperature at the time of observation, resolved hourly. I found I could reproduce the logarithmic behavior of IR downwelling with water vapor (in figure 2a) simply by using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation for vapor pressure (i.e. and volatility) of water as a function of temperature (and assuming it gets to equilibrium – not true but maybe close) to get the column water vapor content and multiplying by the integrated Planck function output in the IR band as a function of temperature, treating the water vapor column as a black body with surface roughly proportional to the amount of water. The integrated Planck output alone is roughly linear in temperature over the range measured, which reproduces the other figure (2b) in Raddatz, et al. In any event temperature, and through it water vapor content seemed to explain most of the variance and even simple calculations seem to get ballpark fit slope parameters. CO2 was neither measured nor involved in any significant way, except for the outside community argument about whether CO2 concentration may influence temperature by other means. There are issues with cloud cover, ice clouds, etc, but I ignored those.
So now looking at Gero and Turner, I wondered if the trends seen in the downwelling IR might be explained simply by temperature (and via that the water vapor column) trends at the site used, Lamont, OK and not so much with Worldwide Global Warming. Well the NCDC didn’t have enough data for Lamont, but it does for Enid, which is close and I got that data. I only did a cursory look at the mean monthly temperatures for the period from 1996 to 2008 (this whole thing is just a side interest after all). I simply averaged the mean monthly temps over the three months of spring and the three months of autumn for each of the years and plotted the result as a function of year. Well, those values do show a positive trend for spring and a negative trend for autumn. That suggests to me that the trends seen in the downwelling IR may be more due to the local trends in temperature at that site, and less to do with any global trends, involving CO2 or not. (I admit I stopped at spring and autumn and didn’t fool with summer or winter data. Also, I did not look at any real precipitable water data for Enid since I have already spent too much time on this.) In any event, the downwelling IR data in Gero and Turner seems plausibly related to local conditions and trends that may or may not directly involve CO2 or AGW.
So, it appears to me that the trends reported in GT in the downwelling IR have little to say about AGW one way or another unless one can use AGW to derive the downward and upward seasonal temperature trends in Oklahoma. I did not do any calculation of whether the downwelling IR could somehow contribute enough energy to CAUSE the temperature trends, which then result in the observed water columns etc. The physics views causality working the other way in this case. I presume the former case gets into arguments about forcings and feedbacks.

Trick
August 6, 2014 4:45 pm

Kristian 3:30pm – Many authors do use the word “heat” correctly & can be understood. Read a paper on Ocean Heat Content. Substituting (parsing) “energy” for “heat” and you will find correct use of “heat” in the paper. No befuddlement. You however show befuddlement time and again. Here 3:38pm:
“All heat is energy. All energy is NOT heat.”
Parsing this shows befuddlement: All joules are joules. All joules are NOT joules.
Out.