Guest essay by Euan Mearns
In their seminal paper on the Vostok Ice Core, Petit et al (1999) [1] note that CO2 lags temperature during the onset of glaciations by several thousand years but offer no explanation. They also observe that CH4 and CO2 are not perfectly aligned with each other but offer no explanation. The significance of these observations are therefore ignored. At the onset of glaciations temperature drops to glacial values before CO2 begins to fall suggesting that CO2 has little influence on temperature modulation at these times.
As discussed at the end of this post, consideration of the geochemical cycles of CO2 and CH4 in ice, permafrost, terrestrial and oceanic biospheres and in deep ocean water during freeze – thaw glacial cycles suggests that it is inevitable that CO2 and CH4 are going to correlate with temperature in a general way. This correlation shows that CO2 and CH4 are controlled by temperature and so provides no evidence for CO2 or CH4 amplifying temperature signals that are linked to orbital cycles.
Introduction
Figure 1 The location of Antarctica, Vostok and other ice core locations.
The Russian Vostok Antarctic base lies 1300 km from the S pole, close to the centre of the Antarctica continent at an elevation of 3488 m. It currently receives 2.6 mm precipitation per year. Average temperature is -55˚C and the record low is -89.2˚C which is below the freezing point of CO2. Vostok is one of the most hostile places on Earth.
There is a history of drilling various ice cores at Vostok. The main ice core, the subject of this post, was drilled in 1995. The Vostok ice core is 3310 m long and represents 422,766 years of snow accumulation. One year is therefore represented by only 7.8 mm of ice. Vostok is a cold, cold desert and the very slow ice accumulation rate introduces significant uncertainties to the data.
In addition to ice cores, Vostok is famous for the sub-glacial lake that lies beneath that has been mapped as one of the largest lakes in the world covering 14,000 sq kms. It is clearly a lot warmer under the ice than on its surface.
Figure 2 Vostok scenery
Data: Temperature, CO2 and CH4
In comparing the temperature, CO2 and CH4 signals in the Vostok ice core, it is important to understand that the temperature signal is carried by hydrogen : deuterium isotope abundance in the water that makes the ice whilst the CO2 and CH4 signals are carried by air bubbles trapped in the ice. The air bubbles trapped by ice are always deemed to be younger than the ice owing to the time lag between snow falling and it being compacted to form ice. In Vostok, the time lag between snow falling and ice trapping air varies between 2000 and 6500 years. There is therefore a substantial correction applied to bring the gas ages in alignment with the ice ages and the accuracy of this needs to be born in mind in making interpretations. Vostok data can be downloaded here.
Note that in all my charts time is passing from right to left with the “present day” to the left. The present day (year zero) is deemed to be 1995, the year that the cores were drilled. The GT4 time scale of Petit et al is used [1].
The methane concentrations in gas bubbles and temperature variations in Vostok are incredibly well aligned, especially at the terminations and return to glaciation when temperature variations are at their greatest. (Figure 3).
Figure 3 Methane and temperature variations. Note how methane and temperature are particularly strongly aligned at the terminations and during subsequent decline back to glacial conditions.
This shows that the ice age to gas age calibration is good. But does it show that methane variations of ±200 ppbV (parts per billion) are amplifying the orbital control of glaciations?
The fit of CO2 to temperature is actually not nearly so tight as for CH4. There is a persistent tendency for CO2 to lag temperature throughout and this time lag is most pronounced at the onset of each glacial cycle “where CO2 lags temperature by several thousand years” [1] (Figure 4).
Figure 4 CO2 and temperature appear well-correlated in a gross sense but there are some significant deviations. At the terminations, the alignment is as good as observed for methane. But upon descent into the following glaciation there is a time lag between CO2 and temperature of several thousand years. Petit et al [1] make the observation but fail to offer an explanation and to take the significance into account preferring to make instead unsupportable claims about CO2 and CH4 amplifying orbital forcing.
It is therefore no surprise that CO2 and CH4 show significant differences (Figure 5) with CO2 lagging CH4 in a fashion similar to the lag between CO2 and temperature.
Figure 5 CO2 lags methane in a manner similar to the lag between CO2 and temperature. This time lag requires an explanation rooted in the geochemical environments that are both emitting and sequestering these gases. Petit et al [1] devote surprisingly little space to explaining the physical processes behind the CO2 and methane variations at all.
Petit et al [1] appear to have been more eager to emphasise the similarities than to report the important differences…
The overall correlation between our CO2 and CH4 records and the Antarctic isotopic temperature is remarkable (r2 1⁄4 0:71 and 0.73 for CO2 and CH4, respectively). This high correlation indicates that CO2 and CH4 may have contributed to the glacial–interglacial changes over this entire period by amplifying the orbital forcing along with albedo, and possibly other changes.
In fact the high correlation is best explained by CO2 and CH4 both responding to temperature change as opposed to “causing it” and there is zero evidence from this data that amplification of orbital forcing has taken place, which is not to say that it has not happened.
Figure 6 provides an expanded view of the last glaciation where it can be seen quite clearly that there is a time lag of about 8,000 years between temperature falling and CO2 being pumped down. The temperature fell to glacial conditions (-6˚C) with CO2 at interglacial values (265 ppmV). Methane fell immediately with temperature but CO2 did not. This suggets that CO2 has little control over the main structure of the glacial cycle that is controlled by orbital forcing. There are similar time lags at the beginning of each glacial cycle (Figure 4). This is clearly an important and reproducible geological process or sequential combination of processes.
Figure 6 Detail of the last 150,000 years showing how CO2 lags temperature by about 8,000 years following the Eemian inter-glacial. Full glacial conditions were established with inter-glacial CO2 concentrations.
Discussion
The cyclicity of the CO2 and methane needs to be interpreted in terms of flux, sources and sinks. When the concentration rises this shows that the rate of production exceeds the rate of removal and vice versa. Envisaging glacial cycles there are a multitude of processes that one can imagine influencing both CO2 and CH4 flux. For example, sea level rise and fall flooding or draining land, vegetation growth and decay, changes to soils, ice sheets and permafrost melting, changes in ocean bio-productivity, changes in ocean circulation, in particular thermohaline circulation.
CH4 and CO2 rise together with temperature at the terminations and it is tempting to suggest that the source for these two gases is the same. This is likely to be only partly true. The most prominent source for the CH4 is likely to be melting permafrost around and beneath melting northern hemisphere ice sheets. This will also release some CO2. The ice itself also contains small amounts of both gases. The most likely source for most of the CO2 is considered to be the oceans where warming seawater can hold less CO2. It is straight forward to explain the concordant rise of CH4 and CO2 with temperature at a time of rapid warming and ice sheet melting. When the warming halts so does the rise of CO2 and CH4, but then, with greenhouse gases at a maximum things turn colder. This alone suggests that greenhouse gases play a minor role in modulating glacial temperature and climate.
So why do CH4 and CO2 not follow each other down during cooling? There is not actually a sink for CH4. It is destroyed rather in the atmosphere by reaction with sunlight and oxygen to form CO2. The residence time is rather short, about 10 years. And so once added to the atmosphere it is quickly destroyed by conversion to CO2. The rapid warming that marks the beginning of an interglacial is normally followed in short order by rapid cooling. One can imagine the permafrost gradually freezing again, resulting in a reduction of the methane flux, the rate of destruction overtakes the rate of release and the concentration falls.
The large time lag for CO2 is not so easy to explain. At the termination and during the warming phase one has to imagine poleward migration and growth of forests. I can only guess that the mass of the terrestrial biosphere increases. I don’t know what may happen to the mass of the ocean biosphere which is often more productive in cold water? I can also speculate that thermohaline circulation is established or amplified enabling the partial degassing of the deep, carbon rich ocean. It is difficult to fit these pieces together in a quantitative way but suffice to say that warming leads to an increase in atmospheric CO2. So why does cooling not draw CO2 down again immediately?
An obvious thought is that this is linked to thermal inertia of the oceans. That the land and atmosphere had cooled with the oceans lagging a few thousand years behind. A simple way to check this was to compare Vostok CO2 against the ocean temperature record as recorded by the d18O signatures of globally distributed benthic foraminifera [3] (Figure 7). There is a similar time lag in the oceans between temperature (d18O) and CO2 (Figure 7) so the thermal inertia idea does not work.
Figure 7 There is a similar time lag between CO2 from Vostok and the temperature record of benthic foraminifera in the N Atlantic [3] showing that the slow pump down of CO2 has nothing to do with the thermal inertia of the oceans.
So what may actually be going on? A few months ago Roger and I had a series of posts on Earth’s carbon cycle. We never really got to the bottom of it but in the process learned a lot and turned up much interesting data. I made three interim conclusions 1) deep ocean water contains much more carbon than the surface, and because of this 2) the much publicised oceanic CO2 solubility pump cannot exist and 3) most CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis – trees on land and phytoplankton in the oceans [4]. This may help us to understand the CO2 time lag. The deep oceans contain vast amounts of carbon, the product of rotting plankton at depth, and when the oceans warm or overturn, this C can be released to the atmosphere, quickly. But the return trip is not so simple since this depends on photosynthetic rates. In short, it seems that the oceans can exhale CO2 much more easily than it can be inhaled again.
On land, the re-creation of northern hemisphere ice sheets will kill high latitude forests and cause global migration of climatic belt boundaries towards the equator. Killing forests reduces the size of the terrestrial CO2 pump whilst simultaneously adding a source of CO2 – rotting wood. This will tend to offset the oceanic biosphere’s ability to pump CO2 down during the cooling phase.
Conclusions
- Over four glacial cycles CO2, CH4 and temperature display cyclical co-variation. This has been used by the climate science community as evidence for amplification of orbital forcing via greenhouse gas feedbacks.
- I am not the first to observe that CO2 lags temperature in Vostok [2] and indeed Petit et al [1] make the observation that at the onset of glaciation CO2 lags temperature by several thousand years. But they fail to discuss this and the fairly profound implications it has.
- Temperature and CH4 are extremely tightly correlated with no time lags. Thus, while CO2 and CH4 are correlated with temperature in a general sense, in detail their response to global geochemical cycles are different. Again Petit et al [1] make the observation but fail to discuss it.
- At the onset of the last glaciation the time lag was 8,000 years and the world was cast into the depths of an ice age with CO2 variance evidently contributing little to the large fall in temperature.
- The only conclusion possible from Vostok is that variations in CO2 and CH4 are both caused by global temperature change and freeze thaw cycles at high latitudes. These natural geochemical cycles makes it inevitable that CO2 and CH4 will correlate with temperature. It is therefore totally invalid to use this relationship as evidence for CO2 forcing of climate, especially since during the onset of glaciations, there is no correlation at all.
[1] J. R. Petit*, J. Jouzel†, D. Raynaud*, N. I. Barkov‡, J.-M. Barnola*, I. Basile*, M. Bender§, J. Chappellaz*, M. Davisk, G. Delaygue†, M. Delmotte*, V. M. Kotlyakov¶, M. Legrand*, V. Y. Lipenkov‡, C. Lorius*, L. Pe ́ pin*, C. Ritz*, E. Saltzmank & M. Stievenard† (1999) Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. NATURE | VOL 399 | 3 JUNE 1999 |
[2] Jo Nova: The 800 year lag – graphed
[3] Lisiecki & Raymo (2005) A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic D18O records. PALEOCEANOGRAPHY, VOL. 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071
[4] Energy Matters: The Carbon Cycle: a geologist’s view
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In reply to:
gallopingcamel
December 28, 2014 at 8:52 pm
William:
Storks are not where babies come from and insolation at 65N is not what causes the glacial/interglacial cycle (read the link I provided above that provides observations and data to support the assertion that Milankovitch cycle theory is an urban legend.) The planet resists rather than amplifies forcing changes by an increase or decrease of clouds in the tropical region. That is a physical fact which is one of the physical reasons why there has been no warming for the last 16 years. Accepting that physical fact, then requires that what causes cyclical abrupt climate change in the paleo record is a massive cyclic forcing change.
P.S. It appears we will experience the cooling phase of a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle which will be immediately followed by what causes a Heinrich event. There is now evidence of the start of cooling. Significant unequivocal cooling is a game changer. What I am stating in this thread will gain traction, if there is in your face global cooling.
1) How does one explain the observation that the glacial/interglacial cycles started with a cycle periodicity of 41,000 years in duration and then 1.6 millions ago the cycle time changed to a cycle of 100,000 years (90,000 years glacial and 10,000 years interglacial.)
2) Orbital eccentricity is the weakest of the orbital cycle modulation on insolation. Why does it dominate for the last 1.6 million years?
3) The stage 5 glacial was terminated 10,000 years before the insolation change. There is no cause for that change. There is no back up forcing mechanism to terminate glacial periods.
4) There is evidence in the paleo climate data of cyclic abrupt climate change. (Heinrich events, such as the 12,900 years BP Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event.) There is no forcing mechanism that explains the cyclic abrupt climate changes.
5) The glacial and interglacial periods end abruptly. The paleo record supports the assertion that the mysterious cyclic abrupt climate forcing function terminates both the glacial and interglacial period.
6) The cycle abrupt climate change cools both the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern hemisphere synchronously. This does not make sense at the Southern Hemisphere has maximum insolation in the summer when the Northern Hemisphere has minimum insolation in the summer.
The massive forcing change is a change to the sun (when the solar magnetic cycle restarts) that causes an abrupt change (geomagnetic excursion, burn marks on the surface of the earth) to the geomagnetic field.
Do you remember the burn marks on the planet’s surface that correlate with the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change? The planet cooled roughly 4C in less than decade during the start of the Younger Dryas and stayed cold for 800 years. That is abrupt climate change. The planet does not gradually change from glacial to interglacial and then back again from interglacial to glacial.
The eccentricity of the earth’s orbit at the time of the cyclic solar event and the tilt of the earth’s orbit at the time of the solar event amplifies or inhibits the mechanism. The orientation of the planet (where the Southern or the Northern hemisphere is pointing at the sun during perihelion (seasonal timing of the closest point of the earth’s orbit around the sun, perihelion determines whether the massive event ultimately amplifies or suppresses the geomagnetic field. In all cases there is an initial significant reduction in the geomagnetic field intensity as liquid core resists abrupt change.
There is a physical explanation for every that has and will happen. The specialists in each and every field attempt to explain the observations with incorrect mechanisms and theories which generates piles and piles of paradoxes and anomalies. Collect the dang anomalies, look at them as a set, that process points to the correct mechanisms and theory. For example why the heck is the geomagnetic field intensity suddenly dropping at 5% per decade. Little fairies changing the core?
An analogue of the ridiculous process the specialists are following to ‘solve’ scientific problems in each field would be a criminal investigation where the suspect is picked before the crime scene data is available and then keeping the initial suspect regardless of the crime scene data. Insolation changes at 65N is not the reason why there is a 2 mile thick ice sheet that covers all of Canada, the Northern US states, and Northern Europe for 100,000 years.
We assume abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field are not possible as we assume the geomagnetic field is caused by self excitation, where movement in the liquid core creates a magnetic field from nothing. In the last 10 years the geomagnetic field specialists have found the geomagnetic field changes abruptly and cyclically which is not physically possible based on a core mechanism. As there must be and is a physical explanation for everything, the implications is the cause of the abrupt geomagnetic field change is the sun. The implication is the sun and other stars are different that assumed which explains dozens and dozens of cosmological anomalies such as the galaxy rotational anomaly, the photon crisis, and why quasars do not exhibit time dilation. Massive objects resist collapse, classic hairless black holes do not form.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.svg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/pdf/wunsch_2004.pdf
A CH4 release caused the Mississippi, New Madrid earthquake. As I said, there are piles and piles of ignored anomalies that explain what causes long term and short term CO2 changes.
http://www.new-madrid.mo.us/index.aspx?nid=132
In all the graphs looking at the three variable, depending on the time period looked at, either of the variables is a driver. There seems enough in here to formulate a pet theory — in explicable by the eft with the the data presented. Of course then one is “the most plausible explanation” which creates all the arguments. All it says is that when it comes to climate we know as much as we know about sports, maybe a smidgen more or less.
William,
“5) The glacial and interglacial periods end abruptly. The paleo record supports the assertion that the mysterious cyclic abrupt climate forcing function terminates both the glacial and interglacial period.”
That is something that was bothering me. What provides the kick to start the temperature going up or down so rapidly? It is hard to imagine the sun changing dramatically in a decade or two but the work of Nicola Scafetta does show a strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature. (Above my pay grade as my field is electro-optics):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/21/scafettas-new-paper-attempts-to-link-climate-cycles-to-planetary-motion/
Climate proxy studies are not accurate real-time measurements of the average global temperature, so they are only useful for very general conclusions, assuming the data are accurate.
.
The obvious general conclusion from almost all proxy studies is Earth’s climate varies a lot, and most variations had no human influence.
.
I’m not sure proxy data are accurate enough for more specific statements. (one of many analyses of the accuracy of ice core analyses I’ve read is here: http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm)
.
Ice core compression may reduce CO2 levels in older ice, creating an artificial rising CO2 trend,
.
Over 90,000 CO2 measurements, with an accuracy of 1-3% from 1812 until 1961 by the chemical Pettenkofer method are ignored by the IPCC, and others, along with the CO2 peaks they showed in 1825, 1857 and 1942, and
.
Concerning the infra-red spectroscopy at the Mauna Loa (Hawaii) station, the measurements have never been validated against the Pettenkofer method, and over 80% of the raw infra-red CO2 data are “edited”, leaving under 20% of the raw data for analysis — so much “editing” is very suspicious.
.
If a non-scientist like me can dig up so many questions about the accuracy of CO2 levels in the past, and present, then there must be a huge number of open issues … and after skimming all the comments here, I don’t think enough of the concerns about CO2 measurements using ice cores have been discussed.
My Due Diligence:
I favor more CO2 in the air, because I love plants.
I favor more warming, because I can’t afford a second home down south,
Climate computer games are not science, they are climate astrology, and
The slight warming in the past 150 years has given us the healthiest and most prosperous 150 years so far on Earth — I want more of that!
[Snip. Sockpuppetry not allowed. ~mod.]
Richard,
90% of all historical CO2 data with chemical methods were taken at places with huge local contamination: middle of Paris, Baltimore, forests,… They have no value at all for historical CO2 levels in the bulk of the atmosphere. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
CO2 levels at Mauna Loa and many (70 nowadays) stations in the bulk of the atmosphere are not “edited”, some data are “flagged” as unreliable (wind from the volcanic vents and the valley), these still are available as raw (hourly averaged) data. It doesn’t make any difference if you exclude or include all outliers: maximum 0.1 ppmv over a year. See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
Ice cores are very reliable sources of direct measured ancient CO2 levels, be it averaged over 10-600 years. The rest are proxies, with their own specific problems and less reliable…
The late Dr. Jawoworski is not very reliable in his opinions about ice cores:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
this thread is triple A:
A understandable, A plausible, A convince flow of arguments.
Until – MikeB, Brandon Gates and rooter – the sirenes singing is defning reason. vitrious.
brg – Hans
read:
A understandable, A plausible,
A convincing flow of arguments.
Thx – Hans
Someone please explain to me how:
“It currently receives 2.6 mm precipitation per year.””
…and…
“One year is therefore represented by only 7.8 mm of ice.”
Makes any sense at all? Are the numbers backwards? (Since 2.6 x 3 = 7.8)
Once again: it is very difficult to measure precipitation in Antarctica due to drifting snow. The ice-core data are probably more reliable, since they measure the net annual increment to the snowpack, but relate to a period in the past and may not apply to present conditions. Also the net annual increment is not necessarily the same as the actual amount of precipitation at a particular place, since wind will on average remove newly fallen snow from some areas and accumulate it elsewhere. I would also expect the annual increment on average to be slightly on the low side, since there is certainly at least some sublimation going on.
Ruddiman is falsified by this data as presented by Euan.
He claimed that CO2 emissions even of early humans in practicing agriculture, have prevented glacial inception for several thousand years already.
http://ccr.aos.wisc.edu/resources/publications/pdfs/CCR_852.pdf
However if persistent high CO2 levels after previous glacial inceptions repeatedly fail to prevent those inceptions, then his theory is falsified.
Donb on December 27, 2014 at 4:07 pm
Back before the ~100 kyr glacial cycles began about a million years ago, glacial cycles were less intense and on ~44 kyr cycles (another orbital cycle). It is unknown why the change-over.
This changeover is called the mid Pleistocene revolution or MPR. Its overall cause and context is the long term trend of deepening glaciation since the beginning of the Pleistocene. It represents a periodically forced nonlinear oscillator undergoing a transition from simple strong forcing (obliquity, 41 kyr) to complex weak forcing (a mix of precession, 22 kyr with eccentricity, 100 kyr).
If the trend continues then the next transition will be to permanent glaciation uninterrupted by interglacials. It would be interesting to see if the previous major global ice ages lasting tens of millions of years (Huronian, Cryogenian, Saharan-Andean) were also preceded – and possibly ended – with a transitional period of unstable oscillation with interglacials. However they were so long ago that the needed resolution may not be available.
richardscourtney,
I agree.
I agree again.
Still with you 100%.
I could not have stated it more clearly and agreeably myself.
No, that’s a false dichotomy. You’re neglecting cases of co-causality. The canonical biology example is predator-prey population covariance.
Ayup.
Except in cases where one or more variables is both dependent and independent. We can safely assume that orbitally-driven insolation is not dependent on temperature, and use that as the “one” independent variable in the causality chain — the distal cause in medical stats jargon — and trace through the rest of the known variables from there.
I agree. Insolation is mentioned in passing on this thread, few have actually plotted it against temperature alongside CO2, CH4, dust, etc. Also lacking are ocean/atmospheric couplings, which is to be expected going this deep into the paleo record. For modern instrumental data, not so much. The recent 20 year hiatus, like the ~40 year hiatuses preceding it, are easily explained by AMO, PDO, ENSO and other quasi-periodic heat exchange cycles between atmosphere and ocean. Note that easy to explain does not automagically translate into easy to predict; such is quite obviously not the case.
As dbstealey constantly “forgets” it is not true on all time scales. He doesn’t like this chart because it doesn’t come from the Wood for Trees database: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSM0UwRjVZTEwyUVU
This one was “too small” for him to see: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaST3RiNEczdEVGdmc
This one I think he argued was just “a simple overlay”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSYVkyelIyekdnQm8
In this one, I replicate the method in one of his beloved WFT plots in the top graph, and then do a rate analysis in the bottom one to show the magnitude in addition to timing, but he dismissed it as another “simple overlay” not based on “independently verifiable data” which “everyone would accept”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSSm00aTdsQTRWaFU
And finally, a variation on your favorite, which you dismissed as a “daft redefinition of warming”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSOUpZMWViQkZncEk
I especially like the bottom plot in that image, which accounts for the deviations outside of the 1-sigma CO2 prediction envelope by taking into account stratospheric aerosols (most importantly for volcanic eruptions), AMO and ENSO.
If you wish to argue that a jump (in terms of geological time) from 280 ppmv CO2 to nearly 400 constitutes temperature leading CO2 concentration and not the other way ’round, I have some oceanfront property in Bolivia you may be interested in purchasing from me.
This is what happens when people don’t look at all the available relevant data. Summer insolation at high northern latitudes disagrees with this silly CO2 as a surface refrigerant theory, quite definitviely I might add. Downtrending insolation precedes drops in temperature, thence drops in GHGs far more often than not. As well, you need to consider the relative slopes of changes; specifically the planet likes to heat up more rapidly than it cools, which suggests something limits the rate of energy loss while not as effectively limiting the rate of energy gain. Since most energy gain comes from incoming SWR and ALL energy loss is due to outgoing LWR, at the very least parsimony suggests that gasses in the atmosphere which are transparent to visible light and not so transparent to the infrared spectrum might just a candidate for this sort of one-way insulator.
Most thinking people are beyond appeals to Occam because we have observational data consistent with hypothesis upholding 19th century prediction. Rational people call such an animal “confirmed theory”. YMMV.
Thanks for that deliciously ironic parting shot, but I really enjoy running vast quantities of petrol through high-displacement internal combustion engines.
Gates says:
dbstealey… doesn’t like this chart because it doesn’t come from the Wood for Trees database: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSM0UwRjVZTEwyUVU
Wrong, and I’ve stopped counting. I don’t like that chart for two reasons: because it is Brandon’s home-made fabrication that supports his confirmation bias, and because it’s just another overlay; there is no way to tell which is cause, and which is effect. In fact, most T/CO2 charts are simple overlays. The one that Gates introduced with the comment I replicate the method… is not an overlay. But by looking at it closely, it is clear that ∆T causes ∆CO2. And the last linked chart is just another overlay.
If there was a verifiable, testable measurement showing that changes in CO2 are the direct cause of subsequent changes in temperature, there would be dozens of peer reviewed papers breathlessly reporting that fact. But the only so-called “evidence” showing that CO2 is the control knob of temperature are the usual charts wherein a temperature plot is overlaid on top of a plot of CO2. To the untrained eye, it looks ominously as if CO2 has risen fast — followed by global temperature. It looks as if CO2 is truly the ‘control knob’.
But that is simply not the case. The alarmist crowd got it’s causation backward. They assumed that rising CO2 caused rising temperature. But there is no conclusive evidence that is the case. However, there is much solid evidence showing that changes in temperature are the cause of changes in CO2.
Richard Courtney is correct in his analysis. Brandon Gates has a lot to learn, and Mr. Courtney has the requisite knowledge. Brandon should listen to Richard. It is also amusing that Gates is so fixated on my own comments that even after being absent for a few days, it still bothers Gates. The answer is simple, though: just admit that CO2 does not have the claimed effect, and everything falls into place: the real world becomes immediately understandable. And there is no need for an extraneous variable like a ‘magic gas’ to explain the climate. Natural variability is a complete explanation.
dbstealey,
Far from being annoyed by your comments, it’s these unintentionally hilarious things you write that I live for. Oh wait, here’s another one:
And what “training” would that be Mr. Stealey? The ability to miss the obvious when it’s staring you in the face?
Gates says:
it’s these unintentionally hilarious things you write that I live for.
What a sad excuse that is. Want some very good advice? Get a life. Really.
What is ‘obvious’, and staring you in the face, is this: we are living in an excellent world climate regime. Nothing being observed is either unusual, or unprecedented. It has all happened before and to a much greater degree, whether you’re talking global temperature change, or humidity, or sea level rise, or extreme weather events, or CO2 levels, or anything else.
The entire global warming scare is nothing but a giant head fake — and only ignorant chumps buy into it these days. See, there is nothing happening out of the ordinary, despite your constant nitpicking, logical fallacies, and deflecting. What we are observing is a very mild, beneficial global climate. In recorded history there have been very few climate times as good as the present.
You would admit that, if you were an honest guy. But you’re trying to sell us a pig in a poke. A bill of goods, without the goods. And as you can see, it isn’t working. Your “carbon” scare is a flop among folks who know better.
Maybe some day the scales will fall from your eyes. Until then, you will keep trying to persecute skeptics. But Planet Earth has the final word — and she doesn’t agree with your false narrative.
Give it up dbstealey, Brandon has you out classed.
Soxie says:
Give it up dbstealey, Brandon has you out classed.
heh. As if.
And that is the best you can do, alarmistboi?? Pathetic. But consider the source.
When your debate skillz sink to that kind of a low, you not only have lost the debate, but you belong in the back row of the peanut gallery. You didn’t even try to make a credible point.
But then, credibility has never been your strong suit, has it, soxie? So run along now, back to SkS or whatever alarmist blog you get your misinformation from. Because you need new talking points. The ones you’ve been using are old and busted — just like the global warming scare you’re still flogging.
Dbstealey, if you cannot recognize the fact that Brandon has an excellent grasp of the facts, is clear, concise and polite, you might learn from him.
Soxie,
I wasn’t commenting on Brandon, I was commenting on your pointless post.
Really, you add nothing whatever to the conversation. You’ve already lost the debate, now all you can do is deflect, add misinformation, and take cheap shots.
You are indicative of the average climate alarmist: an unemployed know-nothing who has decided to pontificate on a subject that you are far from being up to speed on.
From your posts it is clear that you run back and forth between here and your alarmist blogs for talking points. But you have no real understanding of the subject, and you just clutter up the thereads with your comments that “Brandon has you out classed”, and your other pointless inanities.
My advice: get a job. It will do you good.
“I wasn’t commenting on Brandon”
…
However
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/27/vostok-and-the-8000-year-time-lag/#comment-1826393
…
You post….. “Want some very good advice? Get a life. Really.”
…
Then you say,
” you add nothing whatever to the conversation”
…
Too funny!!
Soxie is very amusing, no?
He is clearly fixated on me. I can just see him in his mom’s basement, popping his pimples and saying, “He will pay! Oh yes, he will pay!
heh. Get a life.
Really.
Better yet, get a credible argument. That would be a first.
Your inability to discuss the realities of science are very entertaining.
..
You are now at the “slur” stage, with your reference to “mom’s basement”
…
I can’t wait for the name calling to start.
..
Don’t let us down
You’re pretty far down already, I wouldn’t hit you now.☺
“rooter”? Who or what is this “rooter” of which you speak? Can he not speak for himself?
…oh. Wait…
Yeah. That guy. He had an interesting comment, no?
How did I manage to miss this entertaining exchange yesterday?
dbstealey, as it happens you’re nearly correct about my Mother’s basement and my employment status.
Socrates, thanks for your compliments on my writing and class. I sometimes think of myself as barely grasping the most interesting (read: complex) of topics at hand, often too wordy, not always clear and snarky to a fault. Once can always improve, but your alternative perspective is appreciated. Do keep up your own good activities here, I enjoy reading someone else who has enough substance to stay on point but isn’t above a few choice barbs from time to time when someone is just begging for it. Cheers.
Brandon,
..
I find most of your posts very good. Looks like you have a much better grasp of the subject matter than I have.
..
I have no idea why you post here, seems that with the general response you get, you might be borderline masochistic. …..but then, I guess birds of a feather…….
Socrates,
Again my thanks. I think you’ve got a fine grasp on things as well, no need to sell yourself short on that note.
As for the flak I get here, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes thrilling, sometimes genuinely hilarious. Most of my online experience is on Usenet (various topics, some AGW), totally unmoderated, always brutal. I don’t like echo chambers, so I do as best I can to stay out of my own and like the challenge of trying to introduce a different resonance in others’. Quite often I get the benefit of having my own assumptions and preconceived notions challenged constructively. Also I often find out how vacuous the other side of the argument really is. But truth be told, I rather like it better when I find out that I am the one who is wrong. [1]
Nearly always is that weird sort of thrill that comes from playing an away game in front of a hostile crowd. When people get upset even when I haven’t overtly goaded them, I think it means they’ve been unsettled. They’re then either going to make a mistake I can capitalize on, or will actually learn something. Regardless, the more they taunt in lieu of substantive response, the worse they look, and I’m all to happy to oblige by looking like a innocuous target drone. Does mean I have to keep my emotions in check and use the backspace key a lot, though …
——————————
[1] I’m one of two people I know who changed their mind because of an Internet debate. As in paradigm shift in worldview sort of change. Reminds me, I need to email that other guy … he popped up in my inbox over New Year’s ….
Brandon
In this quote from Richard Courtney:
In this case, as dbstealey says, at all time scales the coherence indicates that if there is a correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature then the CO2 causes the temperature
You are taking advantage of what was probably a big typo by Richard – I’m sure what he meant to say at the end was
Then the temperature causes the CO2.
not the other way round.
Phlogiston,
I did not spot that typo, my mind translated his true meaning and my response is consistent with what Richard obviously meant to write. I tire of writing this; I agree with dbstealey that CO2 concentration is responsive to temperature. It is undeniably true so far as the extant data amply demonstrate. What I don’t agree with is “always across all timescales”. I will go so far as to say “most”.
Between he and I, one of us accepts what all the available data are telling us, the other one does not.
B. Gates
You keep saying data data data, but you have no data to support your AGW hypothesis.
The late warming trend circa 1977-97 has been shown to be due to natural causes, not CO2.
mpainter,
Thphpthth, “I” have gobs of data supporting AGW theory. I just don’t have gobs of data most denizens of WUWT will accept as evidence. Trying to find some that sticks is like playing pin the tail on the donkey while suspended upsidedown from an oak tree in the middle of an F5 tornado with one arm tied behind my back.
100% completely “natural” causes? Oh, ok, I’m game. Where, when, by whom? Peer-reviewed literature if you please.
” playing pin the tail on the donkey while suspended upsidedown from an oak tree in the middle of an F5 tornado with one arm tied behind my back.” …
….
Poor oak tree……doesn’t stand a chance against the F5
Ayup, pretty much only good for toothpicks.
Hypothesis is the correct term and it is faltering.
See studies on increasing insolation due to reduced cloud albedo since mid-eighties. One posted on WUWT several months ago (John McLean). Many others. Confirmation of increased insolation in higher SST (SST determined solely by insolation).
mpainter,
So is the reduced albedo from the clouds themselves becoming darker, or because there are fewer clouds? Either way, why did clouds suddenly decide to do whatever it is they’re doing? I’m not real big on your brand of magical thinking, and also recall asking for citations to peer-reviewed literature.
Nor are you big on reading comprehension. I provided all you needed to look into the matter. Cloud data shows decrease in cloudiness. This data a public resource. Read referenced McLean study. Be prepared to receive a blow to your faith.
If there is experimentally observed reduction in “cloud albedo” and that is due to “less cloudiness,” either less area, or less density, or less persistence time, then that is evidence for COOLING.
See Frank Wentz et al. “How much More Rain, will Global Warming bring.”
That’s in a July 2007 issue of SCIENCE.
Basically, a one deg. C rise in surface / lower tropo temperature leads to a 7% increase in evaporation, atmospheric water content, and precipitation; and ergo, by inference a likely similar increase in clouds.
So it is evidence that we now have global cooling going on, if cloud albedo is falling.
mpainter,
You don’t really get it that when someone calls for references, standard courtesy is to provide a citation such as: John McLean (2014), Late Twentieth-Century Warming and
Variations in Cloud Cover, http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=50837#.VE9LlFfivOU
Even nicer is to quote a relevant bit from the citation, usually the abstract. But since I’m already doing your own work for you, I’ll go ahead and zero in on the meat of the paper:
The reduction in total cloud cover is significant in the context of the energy budget described by Trenberth et al. [34] , which indicates that cloud reflect 23% of the 341 Wm −2 (i.e. 79 Wm −2 ) of incoming solar radiation.
Interesting. Today we like Trenberth’s cartoon, which some here poo-poo as lacking any predictive power.
The reduction in total cloud cover of 6.8% means that 5.4 Wm −2 (6.8% of 79) is no longer being reflected but acts instead as an extra forcing into the atmosphere, some of which will be lost when it adds to the longwave radiation to space.
No kidding. How much? Have we considered the ofsetting increase in upwelling LWR? Recall that clouds are awfully active at IR frequencies and account for ~25% of the net greenhouse effect.
Of course clouds have many other effects on the earth’s radiation budget many of which are not fully understood, but a change of 5.4 Wm −2 is potentially of considerable significance.
Potentially considerably significant, my foot, that’s good for a 4.2 change in equilibrium temperature. Where is it? Perhaps we should more fully understand clouds’ other effects on radiation budget more fully before jumping to any conclusions.
To put this into context, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report [1], section 8.5.2, states that the total anthropogenic radiative forcing for 2011 relative to 1750 is 2.29 [1.13 to 3.33] Wm −2 for all greenhouse gases and for carbon dioxide alone is 1.68 [1.33 to 2.03] Wm −2.
Indeed, but while we’re trusting AR5, let’s go ahead and read what they have to say about cloud feedbacks: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/drafts/fgd/WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_FinalDraft_Chapter07.pdf
The quantification of cloud and convective effects in models, and of aerosol-cloud interactions, continues to be a challenge. Climate models are incorporating more of the relevant processes than at the time of AR4, but confidence in the representation of these processes remains low. Cloud and aerosol properties vary at scales significantly smaller than those resolved in climate models, and cloud-scale processes respond to aerosol in nuanced ways at these scales. Until subgrid-scale parameterisations of clouds and aerosol-cloud interactions are able to address these issues, model estimates of aerosol-cloud interactions and their radiative effects will carry large uncertainties. Satellite-based estimates of aerosol-cloud interactions remain sensitive to the treatment of meteorological influences on clouds and assumptions on what constitutes pre-industrial conditions.
…
Water Vapour, Cloud and Aerosol Feedbacks
The net feedback from water vapour and lapse rate changes combined, as traditionally defined, is extremely likely positive (amplifying global climate changes). The sign of the net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is less certain, but likely positive. Uncertainty in the sign and magnitude of the cloud feedback is due primarily to continuing uncertainty in the impact of warming on low clouds. We estimate the water vapour plus lapse rate feedback 3 to be +1.1 (+0.9 to +1.3) W m−2°C−1 and the cloud feedback from all cloud types to be +0.6 (−0.2 to +2.0) W m–2°C–1. These ranges are broader than those of climate models to account for additional uncertainty associated with processes that may not have been accounted for in those models. The mean values and ranges in climate models are essentially unchanged since AR4, but are now supported by stronger in direct observational evidence and better process understanding especially for water vapour. Low clouds contribute positive feedback in most models, but that behaviour is not well understood, nor effectively constrained by observations, so we are not confident that it is realistic.
So take this tenuous estimate of +0.6 (−0.2 to +2.0) W m–2°C–1, note that they still have not completely ruled out negative cloud feedback, and multiply that range by the temperature change from 1977-97. Compare that range of answers to 5.4 W/m^2.
Next let’s ask dbstealey about causality:
Is this, or is this not a “simple overlay” plot which the general public would look at and “assume” that clouds “control temperature”? Hmmm?
Hardly. This paper tells me far less than what I already knew from people who do much more thorough research, balance their estimated energy budgets, and are a great deal more honest about uncertainty. Cloud feedbacks have been one of my largest faith-shaking uncertainties for the better part of two decades, something which your uncritical, non-skeptical reading of a poor paper doesn’t even begin to touch.
B. Gates proves that he does not understand climate fundamentals and that a decrease in cloud albedo means increased insolation. Nor does he seem to grasp the significance for climate of increased insolation. It seems to escape him that the albedo effect is the main contribution of daytime cloudiness, far surpassing any any GHE of clouds. He ignores the convective cooling of cloud formation and concludes that a decrease in clouds leads to global warming.
It is often stated that global warming is an intelligence test. See Gates flunk.
Maybe this will help, Gates:
Reduced cloudiness===>reduced cloud albedo—->increased insolation—>?
I’m giving you a chance to show you are not an idiot. All you need is give the right answer. See what a nice fellow I am.
I’ll even go further in helping. Choose one of the three alternatives:
a. increased temp.
b. decreased temp.
c. no change in temp.
What say you Gates?
george e. smith,
As mpainter used the term “less albedo” the implied effect is greater absorbtion of downwelling solar radiation. The smaller the albedo, the more absorption. What mpainter neglected to consider, and which McLean cleverly writes around with only tacit mention, is that clouds are IR absorbers and emitters, so reducing their effective coverage might plausibly be expected to have a net zero effect on radiation budget. The full 5.4 W/m^2 McLean calculates (which I don’t reject out of hand) simply cannot be the net effect. I don’t think the problem here is with that particular math. The fatal flaw of this paper is that he makes no effort to estimate the other side of the balance, which is the expected increase in outgoing LW flux, and presents that 5.4 W/m^2 as a comparative to the estimated increase in anthro GHG radiative effects.
Which is sloppy at best, dishonest at worst. Flat out wrong regardless.
Thank you for providing a proper citation. The paper is open access, I grabbed a copy from here: http://images.remss.com/papers/wentz_science_2007.pdf
Abstract
Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades.
I’m right with you up until the semicolon. It wouldn’t be my first inclination to assume direct linear proportionality to atmospheric water content and clouds. Those kind of assumptions have been an undecided part of the cloud feedback debate since I can remember. An intense debate I might add. If you think about it for a moment, this paper is actually arguing for less cloud coverage than one might have inferred from what the authors consider unrealistically low GCM precipitation predictions. More precip = less cloud seems a plausible hypothesis. Thing is, simple logical reasoning like this doesn’t always cut it in weather and climate, no place is that more true than the water cycle — it’s fiendishly complex with many moving parts that happen to be quite difficult to reliable observe and therefore accurately predict.
Now you’re contradicting McLean, which you should because his conclusions are silly, but I don’t think you disagree with him for the best of reasons. Undeniably surface temps have flatlined since 1998, which flies in the face of McLean’s cloud albedo reduction = more warming than CO2 hypothesis. Let’s look again at the plot from his paper:
McLean writes: The decrease in total cloud cover anomaly is approximately 4.5 percent of sky, against the long-term average (all months 1984-2009 inclusive) of 66.4 percent of sky, which means a reduction of 6.8% of the cover. The reduction in total cloud cover is significant in the context of the energy budget described by Trenberth et al. [34] , which indicates that cloud reflect 23% of the 341 Wm −2 (i.e. 79 Wm −2 ) of incoming solar radiation. The reduction in total cloud cover of 6.8% means that 5.4 Wm −2 (6.8% of 79) is no longer being reflected but acts instead as an extra forcing into the atmosphere, some of which will be lost when it adds to the longwave radiation to space.
Note that the bulk of cloud cover anomaly loss occurrs between 1986 and 2000, hence our increase of 5.4 W/m^2 in radiative forcing from downwelling SWR. McLean is trying to sell us the notion that this is what caused most of the runup in global temperatures from between 1984 and 1998.
Oh dear, look at those dates. The thing you’ve gotten correct here, esp. with your reference to Wentz (2007) is that cloud coverage sure as heck appears to be responsive to temperature, not the other way ’round.
Oops.
B. Gates says:
AGW theory…
Ah, another True Believer. Trying to enhance a mere conjecture shows desperation. And yes, AGW — while it may exist — is still only a conjecture. There are no measurements of AGW. None.
A THEORY must be able to make repeated, accurate predictions. AGW cannot predict anything accurately. In fact, every scary prediction ever made regarding global warming has failed to happen. Every prediction has been flat WRONG.
Therefore, AGW is ipso facto not a “theory”.
Words matter. The alarmist crowd just loves to mis-use words. The reason is simple: they lost the debate a long time ago, so now, only by redefining what “is” is, they try to rescue their losing effort.
Gates’ attempt to elevate AGW to a ‘theory’ is just one example.
dbstealey,
None which you accept.
Plate tectonics is just a hypothesis. Y’all heard it here first.
Every single one? I only need one example to falsify that. Here are two:
Troposphere warms, stratosphere cools. Predicted: Manabe and Wetherald 1967, Manabe and Stouffer 1980. Confirmed: Ramaswamy et al. 1996, 2006, De F. Forster et al. 1999, Langematz et al. 2003, Vinnikov and Grody 2003, Fu et al. 2004, Thompson and Solomon 2005Nights warm more than days. Predicted: Arrhenius 1896. Confirmed: Dai et al. 1999, Sherwood et al. 2005
Bunches more where that came from: http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html
Yo DB, what are monkeys going to evolve into next? When’s the next VEI 6 or better eruption going to occur?
Is Schrödinger’s cat alive or dead? No cheating now!
“Nights warm more than days. Predicted: Arrhenius 1896. Confirmed: Dai et al. 1999, Sherwood et al. 2005”
Except when you compare previous day’s warming to that nights cooling, there is no loss of cooling. So warmer nights probably have nothing to do with an increase in Co2.
As “CH4 and CO2 rise together with temperature at the terminations and it is tempting to suggest that the source for these two gases is the same”
CH4 and CO2 do have the same source.
As the earth gently warms throughout the interglacial period, the heat facilitates a continuous (in the mean) rise in CH4 all around the earth, though it is not evenly disbursed. See “The Deep Hot Biosphere” by Thomas Gold.
Where it rises under the oceans, a portion of it becomes hydrates. In the shallows, it rises as a gas and most of it is oxidized by methanotrophs, and goes into the atmosphere as CO2.
Where it rises on land, in favorable conditions the CH4 again is oxidized by metnanotrophs, becoming topsoil and CO2, again going to the atmosphere.
The CH4 which survives the methanatropes becomes CO2 in the atmosphere in
~ten years.
As the warm period ends, and ice starts to accumulate, the sea level starts to fall.
As the sea level falls, the CH4 which has been stored as hydrates is released as
CH4 zone of stability is breached, and again the CH4 rises as a gas and again most most is oxidized by microbes, reaching the surface as CO2.
This process continues for as long as ice mass continues to accumulate and sea levels continues to fall.
the sea level falls, the CH4 which has been stored as hydrates is released as
CH4 zone of stability is breached, and again the CH4 rises as a gas and again most most is oxidized by microbes, reaching the surface as CO2.
This process continues for as long as ice mass continues to accumulate and sea levels continues to fall.
“CH4 and CO2 rise together with temperature at the terminations and it is tempting to suggest that the source for these two gases is the same”
CH4 and CO2 do have the same source.
As the earth gently warms throughout the interglacial period, the heat facilitates a continuous (in the mean) rise in CH4 all around the earth, though it is not evenly disbursed. See “The Deep Hot Biosphere” by Thomas Gold.
Where it rises under the oceans, a portion of it becomes hydrates. In the shallows, it rises as a gas and most of it is oxidized by methanotrophs, and goes into the atmosphere as CO2.
Where it rises on land, in favorable conditions the CH4 again is oxidized by metnanotrophs, becoming topsoil and CO2, again going to the atmosphere.
The CH4 which survives the methanatropes becomes CO2 in the atmosphere in
~ten years.
As the warm period ends, and ice starts to accumulate, the sea level starts to fall.
As the sea level falls, the CH4 which has been stored as hydrates is released as
CH4 zone of stability is breached, and again the CH4 rises as a gas and again most most is oxidized by microbes, reaching the surface as CO2.
This process continues for as long as ice mass continues to accumulate and sea levels continues to fall.
https://www.google.com/search?q=methane+hydrate+zone+of+stability&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1745&bih=814&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=2OKiVLv5NceLyATrxIKYAw&ved=0CB0QsAQ
In the original post, 4th paragraph, the decimal point is misplaced in the annual ice accumulation estimate (should read .78mm).
Phlogiston,
Thanks for that. Everyone makes a similar mistake occasionally. If arguing about that is all they’ve got, their position is extremely weak.
Gates says:
And what “training” would that be Mr. Stealey?
Mr. Gates, it doesn’t take very much training at all. But most of the general public looks at overlay charts, and assumes that CO2 controls temperature. That is what the chartmakers want them to think. But that’s not what is happening.
We expect readers here to know better. Some do, some don’t. But when you hang your hat on a false argument, it either indicates you need some additional training, or you’re prevaricating. In your case, I’m still not sure which. Help us out.
dbstealey,
Hardly a surprise.
Well then most of the general public have been properly informed since CO2 is among things which affect temperature, as well as vice versa. I doubt you’ll ever get it since you’re the master of arbitrarily deciding for the whole world what sort of charts are acceptable and what are not.
You and your false dichotomies. I rather think you don’t need any of my assistance on this one.
Sorry for the technical repeat in the above.
mpainter,
Sorry old chum, I understand that part of the entire system perfectly. Your selective reading skills are on full display again, however.
Dearie me, right here in this very thread I discuss the import of increased insolation: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/27/vostok-and-the-8000-year-time-lag/#comment-1824420
That post contains a nice little plot showing June insolation at 65N, indicated by an appropriately-colored yellow curve: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSb3VMMWJnZGpMUVE
Note how temperature rises after a rise in insolation, and falls after a fall in insolation. Note that CO2 and CH4 ever so slightly lag temperature. Finally note that CO2 and CH4 don’t fall as quickly as temperature after an insolation peak, but that temperature does not fall as quickly as insolation. It’s almost as if CO2 and CH4 reduce the rate at which energy leaves the system after a falloff in insolation.
Yet you and your buddies think of CO2 and CH4 as surface refrigerants even though the data clearly show otherwise. Truly, well and truly, bizarre.
You forget we’ve discussed this before on the SURFRAD thread where I explained in detail that very effect. Try as I might, I cannot get you to think about what also happens after the sun sets. “Net effect” is a concept which apparently eludes you.
Repeating the same lie again, this time even more garbled. Latent heat of condensation is exothermic, so cloud formation would be expected to warm the surrounding atmosphere, not cool it. Latent heat of evaporation cools the surface, augmented by convective processes. At this point all we’ve done is move latent heat from the surface to some altitude above the surface, so one place has cooled slightly and a different place has been warmed slightly.
Here you remind me of my 6th grade science teacher who tried to convince us that the Moon has no gravity.
Brandon
What was your 6th grade science teacher’s take on climate change? Always good in such cases to look for what you do have in common. I’m guessing he/she was pro-AGW.
Phlogiston, Her views on AGW are unknown to me as it wasn’t a common topic at the time.
mpainter,
Wordpress ate my response to your first post. While waiting for it to surface, let’s deal with this one.
Yes.
Unknown from the information you’ve given. Most I can say is that insolation will increase. Question is: what happens to outgoing LWR? If we were talking ice sheet area reduction here, I’d have a different answer for you, but we’re talking about cloud, not ice, albedo.
Now instead of repeating the same arguments you’ve already made while simultaneously ignoring my original rebuttal, why don’t you actually handle what I’ve already written?
If I understand your rebuttal, reducing clouds means a diminished GHE, hence cooler temp.
You ignore insolation, the source of all UWIR.
What happens when you increase insolation Gates? You increase IR flux, do you not? And what is the GHE?
answer: IR flux. Do we agree?
Its simple. Increase insolation and what happens?
mpainter,
I’m not jumping to conclusions about net effects on average temperature. Can’t do that until we’ve balanced the radiation budget, which means considering all the relevant fluxes.
Nooo, I don’t ignore it. I’ve already written I don’t reject McLean’s calculations of increased DWSR flux out of hand. Even if his calcs are off, that part of the mechanism he proposes is sound.
Upwelling from the surface, yes.
Downwelling from above the surface, yes.
More UWLR from the surface during the day. Now, what happens at night?
Don’t forget the 71% of the earth that retains the insolation : the oceans. Increase insolation, increase SST.
And lo and behold, what do we see?
An increase in SST! How about that, Gates?
Think it over, remembering that the ocean cools mainly by evaporation and the warmer the SST, the greater the GHE. Conclusion: reducing clouds increases the GHE via higher IR flux and more GHG.
Say bye bye AGW.
mpainter,
Ok, we may be getting somewhere.
Mmm hmm, which increases vapor pressure which does …
At long last you recognize that higher water vapor concentration in the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect. That’s progress.
You still haven’t accounted for what happens at night, which is 50% of the planet 24/7/365 except on US Presidential election years.
“You still haven’t accounted for what happens at night, which is 50% of the planet 24/7/365 except on US Presidential election years.”
When you look at the warming/cooling cycle that runs from yesterday’s minimum temp to today’s minimum temp, in general it still cools as well now as it did in the 50’s.
See the R and F values (rise and fall)
http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/updated_temperature_charts-86742
Or you can subtract yesterday’s min from today’s min, or yesterday’s max from today’s max
http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/is_global_warming_really_a_recovery_from_regional_cooling-121820
graphs at the bottom.
Or you can get the slope of the day to day station temp change as it goes from the minimum cooling per day to maximum warming per day, and vice versa, which is the derivative of temp as the length of day changes, and ploy that.
what you see is for the most part a drunkards walk, with what are regional spikes in minimum temp.
All of the data for these are at source forge, at the url in my name.
http://www.science20.com/sites/all/modules/author_gallery/uploads/543663916-global.png
At night the ocean also cools by evaporation. Heat is transferred from depth by overturning (convection). Because 71% of the earth is ocean, evaporative cooling—>latent heat convected aloft—>radiated to space is the primary means of surface cooling.
Also a certain, unquantified amount of evaporation occurs on land via wetlands, soil moisture, and plant transpiration. Radiative cooling is a distant second to evaporative cooling at the surface. It is one of the fundamental errors of climate scientists to assume otherwise.
“Radiative cooling is a distant second to evaporative cooling at the surface. ”
I don’t think this is correct. On clear skies, the lower the humidity is the colder they are. I’ve also noticed that at sunset, the rate of cooling increases until it’s been dark for a while, cools at that rate (5-6F/hr)until rel humidity gets to 80-90%, where the cooling rate decreases to 1-2F/hr till dawn, where it starts going back up.
“At night”…….
mpainter,
Ayup. However, now with fewer clouds in the picture at night, that last outbound pathway is less blocked than it used to be. Question for you is, by how much?
Except they don’t “assume” otherwise, from Trenberth (2009):
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Topics/Fig1_GheatMap.png
Net outgoing due to thermals and evapotranspiration: 97 W/m^2
Net outgoing LWR: 63 W/m^2
Difference: 34 W/m^2
Mi Cro,
What trends you get when you take daily tmax-tmin (diurnal temperature range, DTR)?
“What trends you get when you take daily tmax-tmin (diurnal temperature range, DTR)?”
Don’t know, seems irrelevant.
Really? Seems a pretty obvious metric for evaluating what you were talking about in this post just above: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/27/vostok-and-the-8000-year-time-lag/#comment-1826072
Mi Cro, whoop, posted out of sequence, above comment is for you.
DNR, doesn’t have a physical meaning, what I’ve looked at is comparing incoming energy vs how much of it is lost overnight as expressed by surface temps. What is DNR expressing?
DTR, daily max temperature less daily min temperature. It sure as heck has physical meaning, I can’t think of a more direct measurement of heat loss than that. At least one that’s accessible from the data easily. Best would be to take the difference between temperature at sundown less the min overnight temp, but then you’d need to go to hourly data.
How about yesterday’s min, to yesterday’s max, as rising temp, and then yesterday’s max to today’s minimum as falling temp? All you need is daily min and max temps.
You can also directly compare day to day min and max temps.
You should get something which looks like this …
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icru_dtr_-180-180E_90–90N_n_1p19862005a.png
But that tells you nothing about the evolution of surface temps because it has no relationship to the falling temps after the days warming. That says the days got warmer, what it doesn’t show is it cooled just as much as it Warmed.
Until you go look at the data as I’ve analyzed it, we’ll you just don’t know what’s happening to temps. Most definitely it has more to say than endlessly arguing about global anomalies of a fraction of a degree.
Mi Cro,
I know it says nothing about secular trends in temperatures. That’s not what I’m after with my question.
“I know it says nothing about secular trends in temperatures. That’s not what I’m after with my question.”
So what does it mean then?
I think it doesn’t mean anything to the discussion, and worse still it’s thrown around as if it does.
Mi Cro, I’ve explained already what it means to me, don’t know what I can say differently other than DTR is discussed with interest in literature as a measure of GHE. At least consider the possibility that you not understanding something does not mean it’s being thrown around a discussion for no good reason. Happy New Year, btw.
“DTR is discussed with interest in literature as a measure of GHE.”
Exactly what I think is wrong. Because when you look at it over a 24 hr warm/cool cycle it doesn’t show any GHG effects.
Mi Cro,
The anomaly plot of DTR I posted above shows something happening. The question is “what” because it doesn’t tell the story I would have expected to see from my naive readings of theory. This is an interesting conversation if you give it a chance — I’m wearing my skeptic hat today.
I have the daily station data you use for your analysis, I’m about to fire up the server and have a looksee myself. Will report back with my results.
Excellent!
If you went to source forge and downloaded data, I suggest starting with the newest continents reports This would be in the yearly reports, but the daily reports now include rate of change over the annual temp cycle. Once you have a look at that, lat band, and 1×1 box are good.
Note, this is based on NCDC global summary of days data set, I do no infilling, and minimal filtering. So this is a view of actual surface measurements, and is not a model of surface temperatures. Consider the averages an average of the stations in an area, and not an average field for the area.
Mi Cro,
My database contains the raw unadjusted data from GSOD, no infilling or interpolations and no area weighting. On the import, I did my best to emulate your other calculations based on our previous discussions, but none of them are used here. These are my results from 1950-2014 (prior to 1950 the results look very spurious to me):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSS21QM1JiVXI0NGs
So I think it’s VERY interesting that there’s an inflection point in the DTR trend starting around 1980 right around the time that cloud coverage began to decrease as highlighted by McLean (2014). Between 1950-80, the DTR is decreasing as I would have expected. Hmm. Prior to 1950 DTR was rising, perhaps I dismissed the spuriousness of it too quickly. While you’re looking at this plot I’ll go back and generate plots for the full range of data available.
“So I think it’s VERY interesting that there’s an inflection point in the DTR trend starting around 1980 right around the time that cloud coverage began to decrease as highlighted by McLean”
Clouds showing up in DTR would make sense, and Not showing up in the 24 hr thermal cycle(warm/cool). But I’m looking at the 365 day thermal cycle (seasons) slope from the latest daily reports, and the slope does a good job of matching the CloudCoverTotalObservationsSinse1983.gif I’m comparing it to.
Mi Cro,
Same plots expanded to show all the data back to 1929: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaSNWRlZU4xRk40WHc
Mi Cro,
Could you briefly summarize your calculations for seasonal cycles? In the meantime, I’m finding — not unsurprisingly — that latitude makes a difference. Zonal mean DTR between 30S and 40S, having been essentially flat from 1930, show a marked upturn beginning around 1985, increasing by an average of 2 °C through 2005 before flattening out for the past 10 years. No idea what that might indicate at this point, just reporting.
“Could you briefly summarize your calculations for seasonal cycles? ”
Sure, same my and my day over day difference averaged by day. What you find is in NH peak rates in April for warming(then drops over summer to min rate), and ~Oct for max cooling rate to following spring. So summer the rates dropping, winter the rate is warming. Then calculate a slope of temp change.
“In the meantime, I’m finding — not unsurprisingly — that latitude makes a difference. Zonal mean DTR between 30S and 40S, having been essentially flat from 1930, show a marked upturn beginning around 1985, increasing by an average of 2 °C through 2005 before flattening out for the past 10 years. No idea what that might indicate at this point, just reporting.”
I’ve seen them, when you have a derivative that’s fairly flat, and then has a spike back to flat, isn’t that a step change?
They show up on the different continents at different times, mostly in minimum temps, not maximum temps though.
Mi Cro,
So today minus yesterday, averaged by Julian day of the year? I won’t be able to do that as my import process does a monthly average. Space constraints on my database VM …
Yes one could call that a step change. Two things:
1) I don’t consider DTR a derivative, and I’m not calculating any slopes at this point.
2) I’m generally leery of invoking step changes in the context of climate unless there’s an identified and testable mechansim to explain it. Anything else is magical thinking — events in physcal systems don’t just happen — so I’m not a fan of saying “step change” and leaving things at that.
Go find the various d_ files in the latest version number zips on source forge, now you start to see what I’m doing, use my existing work, if you want to replicate it later, you’ll make space.
The only thing capable of producing a regional step in land surface temps, is a regional step in ocean temps. And it just so happens we know they have various stable surface temperature states.
B. Gates doesn’t like to admit that step changes exist. Here’s why:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
Mi Cro,
Oceans would be the most likely culprit, but I think of a step change as a sudden change to a totally different regime. “Normal” ocean/atmospheric couplings don’t qualify as step changes by the definition I use. AMOC shutting down, that’s a step change. AMO 60 year oscillations are not, as dbstealey would have us believe (see above chart).
For DTR, I’ve gone to 5×5 gridded means, area weighted by the cosine of latitude which cuts down on much of the spurious looking noise I was seeing earlier today, but not all of it. As you mention, different regions behave differently. No clear pattern so far as I have been able to find. As I am most interested in what’s happening over the oceans I think this line of inquiry is a dead end, so I’m giving up on it for the day. May try something different tomorrow.
“Oceans would be the most likely culprit, but I think of a step change as a sudden change to a totally different regime. “Normal” ocean/atmospheric couplings don’t qualify as step changes by the definition I use. AMOC shutting down, that’s a step change. AMO 60 year oscillations are not, as dbstealey would have us believe (see above chart).”
I see them both deserving of being called a step, if down wind land masses take a step in temp.
But, if you see pulses in rate of change in surface measurements and they coincide in time and space in changes in average temp, and the pulses are only in min temps, and they are regional, they sure aren’t caused by a steady increase in Co2 forcing, I’m sure you’d agree with that correct?
Oh, you can trade off less noise from more station, for a better defined location with smaller cell sizes.
I was thinking of selecting strong pulses, and then tracing the events movement.
dbstealey,
Is it a New Year’s resolution for you to trust HADCRUT3GL prior to 1978 or something? I’ll be sure to ring up Al Gore and have him make sure to quash those “step changes” in HADCRUT5. I do think it’s interesting though that between each of those three steps are two 30+ year hiatues. What’s really odd is that the third step is higher than the previous two. So as to avoid any magical thinking here, perhaps you’d be so good as to offer a physical explanation for why that happened. You know, something a little better than “natural variability”. Thanks.
Mi Cro,
I understand your meaning and don’t wish this to be an argument over semantics.
Not sure why you’ve latched on to just min temps, it would seem to weaken your argument. That said, you are certainly correct: CO2 does not explain every rise, dip or wiggle in the temperature record.
Knock yourself out, I’m not feeling up to writing that much code. 🙂 I’ve got other data kicking about, or a download away, that I have been meaning to look at for a while anyway.
I latched on minimum temps because the derivative of min temp shows large regional fluxuations, while the derivative of max temps doesn’t show any major fluxuations (except for periods/locations that were undersampled)
Another example of what Co2 can not be the cause of. And if the major features of GAT series are solely from regional changes to min temp, then most the warming shown has to be natural, not man made.
This is why what I’m doing is so important. I had hoped you saw this as well. Homogenized globally mangled temp series that show a slight rise in temp are a distraction. Global temperatures, if actually defined by regional changes in min temp can not be from a uniform global forcing.
Mi Cro,
As CO2 doesn’t fluctuate widely over decadal periods of time, the default expectation is that significant temperature deviations would be all but entirely caused by something else.
I buy that for intra-annual and decadal timeframes. Not a century.
Your approach is novel in my experience and I enjoy talking with you about it. What I understand so far has shown merit, but I don’t understand all of your calcs. I chip away at it from time to time, especially when you pop up on a thread somewhere like now.
I guarantee you that net energy in the system is defined as the sum of all its parts: no need for ifs. How you get from individual parts of the system interacting with each other locally precluding some global influence on what’s inside the whole enclosure is something which I just don’t follow. No other non-trivial physical system I can think of behaves that way, why the planet?
Anywho, I’ve blown a bit off course here. The point about min temps is that my expectation is that min temps should trend faster than max temps over a sufficiently long period of time. Clouds are one big monkey wrench in those works because they have an albedo effect in addition to their sizable GH contribution — about 25% of the net total.
_Nature_ publishes a lot of cr*p. See Climate Audit and other blogs for details.
McI publishes a lot of cr*p, see _Nature_ and other reputable peer-reviewed journals for details.
See how Gates pursues me.
How about it Gates . The late warming trend circa 1977-97 was due to increased insolation, was it not?
Or do you say the data is unreliable? Or that reduced clouds means reduced GHE and cooling? Your poor, unhappy forehead
The late warming was from the oceans settling into its different state (Lorenz attractor) and altering down wind surface temps.
mpainter,
Some portion of it yes. How much and why is the question the more curious of us here are attempting to figure out.
Always a possibility, but no, I am not saying that the data are a priori wrong. You may have my M.O. confused with some of your buddies.
A possibility. As you’re so impatient for an answer to that particular question, perhaps you could join in the research going on here and actually contribute instead of just badgering me with the same repetitive rhetorical questions.
Science is hard. That’s what makes it so fun and interesting. Try it sometime, you may like it.
Let us know when you figure out a dodge on this one, B Gates. AGW. RIP
mpainter,
As usual, your insightful scientific assistance has been indispensable.