From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
Estimates of future global temperatures based on recent observations must account for the differing characteristics of each important driver of recent climate change, according to a new NASA study published Dec. 14 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
To quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth. Both values are projected global mean surface temperature changes in response to doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations but on different timescales. TCR is characteristic of short-term predictions, up to a century out, while ECS looks centuries further into the future, when the entire climate system has reached equilibrium and temperatures have stabilized.
There have been many attempts to determine TCR and ECS values based on the history of temperature changes over the last 150 years and the measurements of important climate drivers, such as carbon dioxide. As part of that calculation, researchers have relied on simplifying assumptions when accounting for the temperature impacts of climate drivers other than carbon dioxide, such as tiny particles in the atmosphere known as aerosols, for example. It is well known that aerosols such as those emitted in volcanic eruptions act to cool Earth, at least temporarily, by reflecting solar radiation away from the planet. In a similar fashion, land use changes such as deforestation in northern latitudes result in bare land that increases reflected sunlight.
But the assumptions made to account for these drivers are too simplistic and result in incorrect estimates of TCR and ECS, said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and a co-author on the study. “The problem with that approach is that it falls way short of capturing the individual regional impacts of each of those variables,” he said, adding that only within the last ten years has there been enough available data on aerosols to abandon the simple assumption and instead attempt detailed calculations.
In a NASA first, researchers at GISS accomplished such a feat as they calculated the temperature impact of each of these variables–greenhouse gases, natural and manmade aerosols, ozone concentrations, and land use changes–based on historical observations from 1850 to 2005 using a massive ensemble of computer simulations. Analysis of the results showed that these climate drivers do not necessarily behave like carbon dioxide, which is uniformly spread throughout the globe and produces a consistent temperature response; rather, each climate driver has a particular set of conditions that affects the temperature response of Earth.
The new calculations reveal their complexity, said Kate Marvel, a climatologist at GISS and the paper’s lead author. “Take sulfate aerosols, which are created from burning fossil fuels and contribute to atmospheric cooling,” she said. “They are more or less confined to the northern hemisphere, where most of us live and emit pollution. There’s more land in the northern hemisphere, and land reacts quicker than the ocean does to these atmospheric changes.”
Because earlier studies do not account for what amounts to a net cooling effect for parts of the northern hemisphere, predictions for TCR and ECS have been lower than they should be. This means that Earth’s climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide–or atmospheric carbon dioxide’s capacity to affect temperature change–has been underestimated, according to the study. The result dovetails with a GISS study published last year that puts the TCR value at 3.0°F (1.7° C); the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which draws its TCR estimate from earlier research, places the estimate at 1.8°F (1.0°C).
“If you’ve got a systematic underestimate of what the greenhouse gas-driven change would be, then you’re systematically underestimating what’s going to happen in the future when greenhouse gases are by far the dominant climate driver,” Schmidt said.
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More unproven theories based on other unproven theories and it’s all made to sound like it’s fact. 40 years ago scientific theories would rarely be given the time of day by the MSM but now even mention an AGW connection and you’re published.
I wonder if NASA will ever get back its reputation for cutting edge science? Needs to clean out the stables first.
You just don’t understand. The NASA mission has changed. Now they are supposed to make the Muslims feel good that they have not advanced culturally or scientifically since about 1400 AD.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/charles-bolden-nasas-fore_n_637854.html
Jon Jewett commented: “…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/charles-bolden-nasas-fore_n_637854.htm l….”
This administration has made a complete mockery of science and technology. As well, every facet of our government has hijacked all available resources for agendas contrary to our way of life and beliefs.
Oui!
“in the future when greenhouse gases are by far the dominant climate driver,” Schmidt said.”
Dr. Schmidt offers a prediction that CO2 will dominate over natural causes of climate change, like ENSO and the Sun (I suppose).
That must be because at the present time, after almost 19 years of not warming and CO2 increasing “business as usual”, his greenhouse theory of global warming has not proven capable of predicting it.
AV, the relevant responsive soundbite (and I checked the Keeling curve this morning)
Gavin, how do you explain that 1/3 of the increase in CO2 happened this century, yet in this century there has been no warming? TAR, AR4, and AR5 said there would be a lot. You saying they got aerosols wrong? But Obama promised the science was settled.
I seem to remember the pollution by SO2 being given as the reason that the hole in the ozone layer was smaller in the northern hemisphere despite it being the major source of CFC pollution. Recycling, I suppose.
SO2 is probably why my 73 Ford Gran Torino rusted out. It was heartbreaking; I should of sued big coal.
Gavin needs to learn the Army’s first rule of holes. If you are in one and want out, first thing to do is stop digging. Here he is, furiously digging a deeper hole.
China is in the northern hemisphere. Yet the albedo of both is the same (Webster paper), and the northern hemisphere has not ‘cooled’ relative to the southern according to UAH. Schmidt’s aerosol sensitivity myth is double busted.
Interestingly since 1998 the hemisphere have diverged. Only it is not the Northern one that has cooled.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1997/trend
Interesting plot, CMS! Thank you for that.
Here’s the HADCRUT3 version of the same plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vnh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut3vsh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3vnh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3vsh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut3vsh/from:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3vnh/from:1997/trend
“The assumptions … are too simplistic” then the other side of the mouth is saying “the science is settled.”
I wonder if these guys ever hear what comes out of their won mouths
Correction … correction … own, not won …
Yes, I was struck by “only within the last ten years has there been enough available data on aerosols to abandon the simple assumption and instead attempt detailed calculations”.
So all the panic of the previous twenty-odd years since Thatcher started the ball rolling was based on simplistic assumptions and imprecise calculations.
Yep. “We were wrong before, but NOW we know.”
Dilbert: “I’m almost certain that was nonsense.”
Wally: “Sometimes it’s about the journey.”
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-12-20
Or was I actually reading something from Marvel Comics? Maybe!
So, another “theory” to try and explain the future climate and particularly temperatures. However, yet again in order to test this latest theory, we have to accurately measure average global temperatures, if only to see if the theory gives temperatures and trends that matches past records and the theory’s predictions.
It therefore seems to me, with my relatively simple brain and non-genius intelligence that the world should not be spending massive amounts of money on researching theories, but first we should be establishing an accurate and reliable/consistent method of temperature measurement which, in turn, can be used to test such theories. Otherwise we will get nowhere. Climate change per se is unquantifiable and undefined and has no datum against which we can compare to test any such theories. It is also un-measurable and therefore incapable of being assessed/checked and, I suspect, Climate Change has been substituted for by the warmists and the IPCC following the lack of fit of current records with their various past theories. Climate Change can mean all things to all people making it and ideal dogma for the new religion; substitute faith for science as been done many times before!
Therein lies a difficulty for my simple mind: the warmists are adamant that land/sea level based weather stations be used, if only because the satellite data goes back only 30-40 years at most, doesn’t give the answers and data they need but particularly because the extent of the “data adjustments” needed for their various land and sea level based measurements can, where needed, prove anything to everybody.
Looking at this problem, from the outside there are several types of adjustment and weightings, most if not all of which are independent variables, including:
1. natural effects cycles such as El Nino, volcanic actions etc. etc.
2. the area covered by each separate weather station, needed to arrive at any average temperature value.
3. Elevation of the weather station, the old way of dealing with this for weather forecasts was a drop in temperature of 1 degree C for very 1000 ft. elevation above datum SWL
4. Reliability and accuracy of each temperature measuring devise, the type of measuring device and the frequency of measurement.
5. Heat Island effects which should normally be temperature reductions.
All these variables need a multitude of adjustments which as a single type group has an average value and a standard deviation. If there are 5 such groups then the value of the overall average global temperature ultimately arrived at, itself has a very much larger standard deviation: even for equal group SD’s the system SD is well over twice as much.This renders the 95% ile spread around the calculated average global temperature far, far wider, i.e. a massive reduction in confidence with the outcome.
Yet the warmists are pontificating and winding the world up about a forecast decadal average global temperature rise of only 0.1-0.15 degrees C’s. This is surely a target for the land/sea measurements far outside the reliability, accuracy and adequacy of the methods of measurement adopted, and certainly no basis for any meaningful investment analysis required for the worldwide, and particularly Developed Countries’ £billions being thrown at the CAGW – sorry, Climate Change, projects. The satellite data is massively more useful, if only because many of these adjustment variations do not apply!
Someone please tell me I’m wrong and that I’m missing some critical evidence or basic science/statistics. If its even remotely true the Developed Countries will accelerate even fast into atheism.
Wow! Particles blasted into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes cool the earth! So the brilliant NOAA workers naturally assume that all particles act like upper atmosphere particles.
“…land use changes such as deforestation in northern latitudes result in bare land that increases reflected sunlight…”
Just how much land is identified as deforested in those models?
a) Assuming that deforestation reflected light is just assigning numbers to reduced chlorophyll light capture.
Those brilliant NOAA modelers do allow forest to regrow within a couple of years, of course? Or is land light reflectance an ongoing assumption and another fudge number input?
Simplistic? Incorrect TCR and ECS?
Gavin Schmidt publicly acknowledges that the climate models do not utilize correct TCR and ECS? That these same climate models are bulls***!?
Now that there is enough data to attempt regional calculations, surely this unique regional information will be published and vetted first for regions before assuming that global calculations will be correct?
“…aerosols to abandon the simple assumption and instead attempt detailed calculations…”
Hmmm, the simple calculations are false; so it is time to jump to complex calculations?
Normally it is unwise to attribute motives to maliciousness when simplistic stupidity is so much more likely.
Then again, humble Gavin with his sheer amount of hubris blatantly admits, a) the models are wrong, b) simple bombastic assumptions are wrong, c) then it is time to use complex calculations. Simplistic stupidity is obviously out.
“land use changes–based on historical observations from 1850 to 2005 using a massive ensemble of computer simulations.
Historical observations? Land use changes? Massive ensemble of computer runs?
Oxymoron!
“Analysis of the results showed that these climate drivers do not necessarily behave like carbon dioxide”
Do tell! Well, that is news; imagine that, land use and particles do not follow the laws for gases? And just how long has the climate models been applying gas laws to particles and land?
Since mankind does not force their particles into the upper atmosphere, we do assume that particles are quickly brought back to earth by natural forces like rainstorms and gravity; causing negative impacts to Arctic areas… But Gavin and his workers wouldn’t be that honest, would they?
“The new calculations reveal their complexity, said Kate Marvel”
Reveal? Perhaps a little too much Harry Potter?
“There’s more land in the northern hemisphere, and land reacts quicker than the ocean does to these atmospheric changes.”
So deforested land reflects more light, but sulfate particles reflect even more? Or does the land somehow capture more light when sulfate particles are in the atmosphere?
I am very interested in the matter, as I am very shocked by the rapid changes that climate passes through. I share the opinion that the ocean and, by expanding, the war at sea and the ocean activity, have a great impact on the way the climate changes. In order to determine steps in stabilizing the climate, I guess we must first understand how we got in this situation in the first place. I support an interesting thesis on the matter, available on http://www.1ocean-1climate.com/, where Prof. A. Bernaerts has a synthesis of his booklet on Naval War changes Climate. The idea is that understanding the oceans and their role in climate change, will help us predict the future.
Perhaps they can provide an exact definition of El Niño and predict its effects.
Well, far better to fix the model than “fix” the data. But if their idea of fixing is increasing ECS to CO2…hooboy, cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
This means that Earth’s climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide–….–has been underestimated,
===
Another excuse for the pause…..
How about something really simple…..We’re just in another small up-tic on the way down
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
So Latitude, looking at the graphic, it appears that the earth, or at least the far north of the earth has been beyond the dangerous 2*C at least a dozen times in the last 10,000 years.
My question is, how are we still here?
We learned to take off our jumpers….
I have always liked this graph……ha!
Just when you though it couldn’t get any worse… they substitute hamster vomit for science.
Come on man. It is a fact not a theory that the cult of CAGW’s models are incorrect. What is the mistake in the Cult’s models?
The cult of CAGW’s general circulation models (GCM) are incorrect as the surface warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 0.1C warming without feedbacks, not 1.2C. As 0.1C is very small, the without feedbacks surface warming and with feedbacks warming is the same. The corollary of the assertion that the surface warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is less than 0.1C, is the majority of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes not due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The physical reason why the Cult of CAGW no feedback calculation is too high by a factor of around 15, is the radiation warming of a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is offset by an increase in convection (it is a fact, not a theory that hot gases rise in the atmosphere and which causes cold gases to fall, convection dominates in the atmosphere up to around 11km, there is absolutely no scientific reason to turn off convection for the cult of CAGW’s 1 dimension surface warming calculation). The increase in convection cooling causes there to be a slight reduction in the lapse rate (the term ‘lapse rate’ is the name for the roughly linear change of temperature with altitude in the atmosphere, the reason why the temperature change with altitude in the atmosphere below roughly 11km is linear is the physical process which we call convection) so there is less surface warming.
The cult of CAGW’s so called no ‘feedback’ 1 dimensional warming calculation for doubling of atmospheric CO2 made two known incorrect assumptions.
1) The Cult assumed that there is no increase in convection cooling due the increased CO2. Convection-Radiation equilibrium calculations indicates the surface cooling due to convection pre increase in CO2 is roughly 34C. I repeat there is surface cooling due to convection of roughly 34C. Of course convection processes do not stop based on the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, more CO2 in the atmosphere more convection cooling.
Salby’s text book ‘Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate page 240 includes a graph from a 1967 paper that illustrates the convection cooling.
Figure 8.23 Temperature under radiative equilibrium (solid line) and radiative convection equilibrium (dashed line) from calculations that include mean distribution of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ozone. Adapted from Manabe and Wetherald (1967).
Salby in his text book does a high level first principals analysis (he derives the atmospheric equations for temperature vs altitude below 11 km using first principal physics and then plots radiative equilibrium (temperature in the atmosphere if there was no convection cooling only radiative warming) vs radiative-convection equilibrium (temperature in the atmosphere due to both radiative warming and convection cooling) from the surface of the planet to 20km for different water vapor concentrations. Salby’ first principals calculation confirms Manabe and Wetherald’s 1967 analysis that under radiative convection equilibrium the earth’s surface is 34C colder due to the ‘greenhouse’ gas convection cooling.
Salby pages 237-238 from his text book.
2) The second cult of CAGW’s ‘mistake’ for the 1 dimension no feedback doubling calculation is they ‘ignored’ the spectral overlap of water vapor and CO2. As there is a great deal of water vapor in the lower troposphere particularly in the tropics and as the planet is 70% covered with water, this mistake significantly reduces the surface warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Taking into account the spectral overlap of water vapor and CO2 reduces the total surface forcing by roughly a factor of 4.
If ‘mistake’ 1 and ‘mistake’ 2 are taken into account the SURFACE forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 0.1C warming with no feedbacks. There is no CAGW problem to solve, there is no AGW problem to solve.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2015/07/collapse-of-agw-theory-of-ipcc-most.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B74u5vgGLaWoOEJhcUZBNzFBd3M/view?pli=1
Transcript of a portion of Weart’s interview with James Hansen concerning the assumptions for the 1 dimensional no ‘feedbacks’ surface warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
Check out figure 2 in this paper. Redoing the 1-dimension calculation with taking into account the reduced forcing in the lower atmosphere due to the overlap of water and CO2 reduces the forcing by a factor of 4 which reduces also reduces the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 to around 0.2C.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281982%29039%3C2923%3ARHDTIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2
William I believe you’ve just made a case for CAGW, Computer Aided Global Warming.
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, David. What a sad, pathetic, wasted life. -mod]
I marvel at the authors apparent complete ignorance of when we live. The number 11,718 (11,719 in less than 2 weeks) should be the most ominous number in the first debate on climate change (GHGs) as it is in the other 2 debates (namely the age of the Holocene and the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis). Ignorance is such bliss! It truly is like 2 dogs arguing over who owns the dog they are riding on! You see 7 of the last 8 interglacials (save MIS-11) have each lasted about half a precession cycle. The precession cycle varies between 19,000 and 23,000 years and we are at the 23,000 part right now, making 11,500 half. We should be entering, and may already have entered, glacial inception at our present 11,718 year age.
But the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis of Ruddiman is really what makes the entire discussion of this article/paper, and for that matter the entire first debate, the purest trivial pursuit. The most concise description of this hypothesis was provided by Mueller and Pross in 2007:
“The possible explanation as to why we are still in an interglacial relates to the early anthropogenic hypothesis of Ruddiman (2003, 2005). According to that hypothesis, the anomalous increase of CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the atmosphere as observed in mid- to late Holocene ice-cores results from anthropogenic deforestation and rice irrigation, which started in the early Neolithic at 8000 and 5000 yr BP, respectively. Ruddiman proposes that these early human greenhouse gas emissions prevented the inception of an overdue glacial that otherwise would have already started.”
This is what makes the entire discourse on climate change one of the more definitive intelligence tests ever devised. If one is absolutely right about “carbon pollution”, then you simply could not be more wrong about what to do about it. Strip the heathen devil gas CO2 out of the late Holocene atmosphere and thereby remove the only known speedbump to glacial inception.
And, you know, for those mucho concerned about extreme climate/weather/what have you, heed the advice of Neuman and Hearty (1996):
“Rapid changes in sea level and associated destabilization of climate at the turbulent close of the last interglacial maximum appear to be recorded directly in the geomorphology, stratigraphy, and sedimentary structures of carbonate platform islands in the Bahamas. Considered together, the observations presented here suggest a rapid rise, short crest, and rapid fall of sea level at the close of 5e.
“The lesson from the last interglacial “greenhouse” in the Bahamas is that the closing of that interval brought sea-level changes that were rapid and extreme. This has prompted the remark that between the greenhouse and the icehouse lies a climatic “madhouse”.”
So enjoy the interglacial, while it lasts……….
Thanks!
This could well be the end of it with the advent of the next solar minimum, especially if a Bond event coincides with a grand minimum event. There was an unusual early drop in the upper NH back in early October of this year. No weather site or media site has made any mention of it, but 2/3rds of the upper NH experienced temperature drops of 20F to 37F below average. Most of Siberia is still feeling the effects from that. Take a look at Intellicast’s global view of the freeze line in Eurasia. That line sits close to Bangladesh. Look how much of the land mass Eurasia and North America is covered by the freeze line…http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Temperature/Current.aspx
Then there is this Arctic view which I watch daily for changes. This is where I first noticed the sharp change back in early October…http://www.weather-forecast.com/maps/Arctic?symbols=none&type=lapse
I always thought the sun was by far the dominant climate driver, I must have had a bad teacher.
I’m underwhelmed. 64 comments so far, and only one afaics has picked up on the essental feature of Gavin’s paper : it refers to “recent climate change” yet makes no menton of the oceans other than to say that they react slowly to his precious CO2 forcing. Blind Freddie can see that the ocean oscillations affect climate over the timescale being considered. By not taking ocean oscillations into account, Gavin’s paper is a waste of space.
NB. I’m only pointing out one very important factor that’s missing. There obviously are others (hydrological cycle, clouds, everything in the Stadium Wave, those things in the upper atmosphere that shift latitude, need I go on). Gavin’s paper is a demonstration of stunningly stupid tunnel vision in a desperate and ridiculously pathetic attempt to restore confidence in the appallingly useless climate models.
But today, the comments here have been on a similar level. Please lift your game, everyone, we’re talking about climate and it consists of one hell of a lot more than the very few selected factors that Gavin wants to talk about.
OK, I’ve cooled down a bit and gone through the comments more carefully, and there were several really good comments. My apologies to those commenters. But it really is important to think outside Gavin’s little box.
In the end this paper is Marvel’s Comics… 😉
The simplicity of Gavin’s paper is breathtaking. What 150 years of data can be used to extrapolate the future? Is this the same Gavin that stands in front of audiences extolling the virtues of the models claiming how quickly they are developing and becoming more accurate? You know “….the challenge is one of scale…. 14 Magnitudes of scale… empirical phenomenological approximations…”. Sheesh – all he needed was “historical observations from 1850 to 2005”. He must be seriously ticked off!!
In the introduction it looks like it is question about climate sensitivity (CS) and especially transient CS (TCS). IPCC introduces new definitions in its every report but I have understood that TCR and TCS are the same things in practice. IPCC does not give any accurate value for TCS in AR5 but only the limits: likely in the range from 1.0 C to 2.5 C (average 1.75 C) and very unlikely more than 3.0 C. This is the same old figure from AR4, when the average value of TCS was 1.85 C.
The point is, how IPCC calculates this value. It is simply TCS = 0.5 (K/(W/m2))* 3.7 W/m2 =1.85 C. We should discuss, is this formula correct and what are the assumptions. The first assumption is that there is constant relative humidity (RH) in the atmosphere. But the NOAA provided RH data shows that this is not true. The lambda value of 0.5 means that the increased water amount in the atmosphere doubles the warming effect of CO2. According to AR5, water could increase the warming even by a factor of 3. This number comes out of blue and it means that IPCC’s knowledge about the effects of water is getting more inaccurate –not more accurate. It also look like that IPCC can introduce any numbers and test, if there are any reactions. I have not seen any reactions. If the total water amount is stable – about 2.6 prcm – the lambda value is 0.27.
The lambda value of about 0.27 means that TCR is about 1.1 to 1.2 C. This is a results found in many papers. But these papers have used the formula of Myhre et al. for radiative forcing (RF) of CO2. It looks that hardly anybody has noticed that Shi, who also has calculated and introduced a formula giving practically the results as Myhre er al. writes that he did the calculations in the constant RH conditions. It means that this commonly used formula contains the doubling effect of water. I have calculated this same formula and its form is RF = 3.12 * ln(CO2/280). This formula gives RF for doubling of CO2 concentration is 2.16 W/m2. These figures show that about 2/3 of the TCS value is based on the positive water feedback.
I do not understand why you discuss about aerosols and so on. It has nothing to do with TCS or TCR. It is only question about CO2 and its warming effects.
Try that maths for Venus! Feel free to multiply or divide for solar proximity and albedo. When you realise the maths for CO2 sensitivity just doesn’t add up there, it’s a short step to realising it doesn’t add up here either!
aveollila wrote, ” The lambda value of 0.5 means that the increased water amount in the atmosphere doubles the warming effect of CO2. According to AR5, water could increase the warming even by a factor of 3. This number comes out of blue…”
Such multipliers seem way too high.
I ran some numbers through the U.Chicago’s online MODTRAN interface, and for a tropical atmosphere with cumulus 0.66km-2.7km, and const rel humidity (to account for water vapor feedback/amplification) a doubling of CO2 (from 285 to 570) was calculated to result in just 0.81°C of warming.
I also compared constant H2O pressure (i.e., not taking account of water vapor amplification) to constant relative humidity (i.e., with water vapor amplification). For a clear sky it calculated 0.88°C vs. 0.96°C of warming. I.e., water vapor feedback amplified warming by only 8%.
The same exercise done with an earlier version of U.Chicago’s MODTRAN interface showed 65% amplification. I cannot account for the change.
But, either way, it’s inconsistent with the IPCC’s numbers. Even +65% is much less amplification than the IPCC assumes.
Of course, MODTRAN is just a radiation model. It takes no account of any other feedbacks, positive or negative, besides water vapor amplification. Also, although the tropics get a disproportionate amount of sunlight, so that’s where GHGs matter the most, it is still true that farther from the equator sensitivity should be slightly higher, because the air is dryer, so water vapor amplification should increase. That should increase the globally averaged amplification a little bit, over what MODTRAN tropical atmosphere calculates.
Even so, 2x or 3x (+100% or +200%) amplification from water vapor seems way too high.
Correction:
I wrote: “I.e., water vapor feedback amplified warming by only 8%.”
Actually, it’s more like 9%.
When I read: “when the entire climate system has reached equilibrium and temperatures have stabilized”, my eyes glazed over and I moved on to the comments to gain a better understanding of the nonsense. This is yet another despairing, brain-numbing, attempt to convince people that their climate models are not just pieces of useless, self-serving, grant-earning junk.
Gavin Schmidt continues to prove he is a DOLT. This graphic shows zero sensitivity to CO2:
http://climate4you.com/images/GISS%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
Why is CO2 sensitivity equal to zero? and Why is Gavin Schmidt a dolt?
While CO2 increased since 1958 as shown above, the only direction temperatures should have gone with a POSITIVE valued ECS or TCS is upward, and considering the heavy emphasis given to CO2 by Schmidt et al, there should only be a positive slope upward in the temperature series post-1958.
The reality of the temperature series is there were three different periods where the temp series had 1) a negative slope from 1958 to 1976, 2) a positive slope from 1976 to 2003-ish, and 3) a practically flat slope since then. Logic dictates that a POSITIVE sloped value of ECS/TCS cannot account for three different trajectories of temperature that all go in different directions: one negative, one positive, one flat.
Therefore CO2 doesn’t do anything wrt temperatures.
What the warmists have assumed their correctness and ignored everything and everyone else. What they have done is a crime against science and humanity, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be prosecuted for it.
Gavin Schmidt is a pathetic excuse for a scientist and just TOO DUMB to understand that. He is a DOLT!
What is a dolt?
dolt (dōlt) n. A stupid person; a dunce. [Middle English dulte, from past participle of dullen, to dull, from dul, dull; see dull.] dolt′ish adj. dolt′ish·ly …
Gavin, I know you read these articles. If you weren’t such a coward you wouldn’t hesitate to tell me why I’m wrong, right here, right now. I’m waiting… of course you’ll never show up here… p*s*y!
James Hansen and Stephen Schneider (RIP) were the original perps in this worldwide deception.
They don’t escape this judgement either.
Bob Weber wrote, “Why is CO2 sensitivity equal to zero… While CO2 increased since 1958 as shown above, the only direction temperatures should have gone with a POSITIVE valued ECS or TCS is upward… there should only be a positive slope upward in the temperature series post-1958… Therefore CO2 doesn’t do anything wrt temperatures.”
That’s dead wrong. The fact that temperatures haven’t always gone up with CO2 does not mean that “CO2 doesn’t do anything w/r/t temperatures.” Rather, it means that CO2 does’t do everything w/r/t temperatures.
Many things affect temperatures. Even Gavin wouldn’t say that CO2 is the only thing that affects temperatures.
Bob Weber wrote, “Gavin Schmidt [is] a dolt… [a] coward… [and a] p*s*y!”
That does not elevate the conversation, Bob.
Dave Burton writes: “That’s dead wrong. The fact that temperatures haven’t always gone up with CO2 does not mean that “CO2 doesn’t do anything w/r/t temperatures.””
I doubt anyone reading these pages doubts there are factors other than carbon dioxide that effect temperatures, the point is whatever they are, they aren’t considered in contemporary climate models even as those models are used to set public policy. It’s bad science and bad politics.
This is the sort of rubbish one gets when research is done starting with the answer and trying to work backwards to get to the original premise, which is really the basis of all climate change theory. Start with the answer that is scarier than what’s happened before and work the science so that you get that answer. Unfortunately you end up with fiction not facts.
David S on December 20, 2015 at 1:46 pm
– – – – – –
David S,
You have given a circumspect conception of ‘pseudo-science’.
To a scientist with scientific integrity it represents the negation of science.
John