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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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?
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
Sturgis, you obviously have not been in my classroom.
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
“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
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.
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.
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?
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.
[snip wildly off topic -mod]
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.
To Mosher
one tree
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
Steven Mosher says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm
One site.
How many trees made up Mann’s hockey stick?
Is CO2 now causing global cooling?
I am easily confused I must confess…
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Does the EPA care which direction CO2 takes a trend, as long as the Agency can attribute a climate impact to the aforementioned molecule?
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?