By PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER and PATRICK J. MICHAELS
Currently, details are few, but apparently the results of a major scientific study on the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on clouds are going to have large implications for climate change projections—substantially lowering future temperature rise expectations.
In a blog post from the Department of Meteorology of the University of Reading, Dr. Nicolas Bellouin describes some preliminary results from a research study he leads investigating the influence of aerosols on cloud properties. The behavior of clouds, including how they are formed, how long they last, how bright they are, etc., plays a very large role in the earth’s climate system, and is considered the weakest part of global climate models. The climate model cloud deficiency results from a combination of scientific uncertainty about cloud behavior, as well as the modeling challenges that come from simulating the small spatial and temporal scales over which the important processes take place.
When it comes to the influence of human aerosol emissions on cloud properties, the scientific mainstream view is that aerosols modify clouds in such a way as to result in an enhanced cooling of the earth’s surface—a cooling influence which has acted to offset some portion of the warming influence resulting from human emissions of greenhouse gases (primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and natural gas to produce energy). In the absence of this presumed aerosol cooling effect, climate models predict that the earth should warm at a much faster rate than has been observed. A large cooling effect from aerosols was thus introduced in the early 1990s as a way to “fix” the climate models and bring them closer in line with the modest pace of observed warming. Despite that “fix,”climate models continue to overpredict the observed warming rate—which is bad enough news for climate models already.
But the new results, reported by Bellouin, make things much worse for them. His team’s investigations show that the anthropogenic cooling impact from clouds is much less than “assessed” by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also much less than employed by climate models. Less enhanced cloud cooling means that greenhouse gases have produced less warming than the climate models have determined. Another way to put it is that this new finding implies that the earth’s climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s surface will warm from a doubling of the pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration—is much below that of the average climate model (3.2°C) and near the low end of the IPCC’s 1.5°C to 4.5°C assessed range. This result comports with the concept of “lukewarming” (which you can read more about here).
Bellouin summarizes his findings:
Radiative forcing is a measure of the imbalance in the Earth’s energy budget caused by perturbations external to the natural climate system, such as the emission of aerosols into the atmosphere by human activities. Our preliminary [research] estimate of radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions, based on satellite observations of aerosol amounts and cloud reflectivity, is –0.6 W m−2. The negative sign indicates a loss of energy for the climate system. The estimate of climate models for the same radiative forcing is stronger, typically larger than –1 W m−2. What causes that discrepancy? Over the past few months, I have discussed with experts in aerosol-cloud interactions, and there are reasons to expect that aerosol-cloud interactions are weaker than simulated by climate models – and perhaps even weaker than the preliminary [research] estimate.
Bellouin promises a more formal and detailed release of his team’s findings in August.
As they stand, the results of this new study seem to confirm the results of an analysis published last year by Bjorn Stevens of the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology which also showed a much smaller anthropogenic enhancement of the cooling property of clouds.
When the Stevens results were incorporated into a determination of the earth’s climate sensitivity made by Nic Lewis, the result was a best estimate of the earth’s climate sensitivity of 1.5°C with a narrow range of 1.2°C to 1.8°C. This is a significant lowering and narrowing of the IPCC’s assessed range (again, 1.5°C to 4.5°C). The lower the climate sensitivity, the less future warming will result from our greenhouse gas emissions, the smaller any resultant impact, and the less the “need” to “do something” about it. Also, Lewis’ narrow range of uncertainty increases our confidence that climate change will not be catastrophic—that is, will not proceed at a rate that exceeds our ability to keep up.
At the time, we wrote:
If this Stevens/Lewis result holds up, it is the death blow to global warming hysteria.
The findings being reported by Nicolas Bellouin show, in fact, the Stevens/Lewis result to be holding up quite nicely.
Global Science Report is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”
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I fully expect to see something…someday….that says clouds actually make it warmer…and it was the increase in clouds that upped the temp
I mean why not?….
I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about
Are not clouds a two-edged sword when it comes to temperature? Sure, they block out the Sun’s heat, but they also act as a “greenhouse gas” agent by keeping heat in.
No — that’s not how it works. We worry about the net effect and clouds are a net cooling agent.
I’m still waiting for the mitigation proposals that suggest releasing more aerosols to enhance cooling.
According to Joni Mitchell:
“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all…”
So the EPA caused global warming by issuing regs to reduce aerosols? 😉
Yes they are a 2 edged sword as you put it but the amount of incoming solar energy they reflect back out to space is far greater than the amount of surface long wave emission they block. Consider that if there were no green house gases (which includes water vapour and hence no clouds) earth would receive not 253 watts/sqM but approaching 353 watts/sqM (30% albedo of which most comes from cloud reflection) and without any green house effect 353 watts/sqM y9ields an equilibrium temperature of +11C
You are right about clouds being a two-edged sword. At the top, they reflect incoming visible Solar radiation back to space (they have a high albedo, above 0.4, compared to the dark solid & liquid surface with average albedo around 0.1) which means less infrared (IR) emitted from the surface of the Earth is needed for energy balance. This means global cooling at the surface. But depending on the temperature at the cloud tops, there is also less infrared (IR) black body emission (compared to the 288 K Earth’s solid & liquid surface, as given by the Stefan-Boltzmann law), a fraction of which is absorbed in the path length to the TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere), and the rest escapes to outer space at the TOA. For cloud tops in the lower troposphere (e.g. at 1.6 km, T=277 K) the net effect is global cooling. For high clouds in the stratosphere (e.g. thunderstorm anvils, or cirrus clouds), the very low surface temperature at around 215 K or lower means that the IR emission to outer space is low, meaning that for energy balance the emission from the Earth’s surface must be higher (i.e. the net effect is global warming). But thunderstorm anvil and cirrus clouds cover only a small portion of the Earth’s surface, compared to cumulus clouds in the lower troposphere (see any satellite or Apollo photo taken looking down on the Earth), so clouds overall lead to global cooling. So if doubling CO2 leads to global warming, increasing water vapor (which is a greenhouse gas twice as important as CO2), increasing clouds ought to be a negative feedback. Doubling CO2 does not mean a doubling of water vapor (a temperature increase of 0.6 K means a 4% increase in water vapor, which with a weighting factor of 2 means a possible 8% positive feedback, not 200%), so water vapor feedback is likely to be overwhelmed by the negative cloud feedback. The bottom line is that feedbacks are likely to moderate, not amplify the effect of doubling CO2 not including feedbacks. So climate sensitivity is likely to be less than 1 degree on doubling CO2 (I compute less than 0.6 degrees).
Because solids and liquids, including cloud particles, are effectively black bodies at IR frequencies, with emissivity 0.98 or greater, they absorb 288 K IR radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface at all frequencies (not just at resonant band frequencies like gases like CO2 and water vapor). At the cloud tops, they emit 277 K or 215 K Planck black body radiation, which by the Stefan-Boltzmann law is going to be considerably less. The difference in energy (or power/m^2 if you want to be picky) ends up being transferred by molecular collisions to the main gases of the troposphere (N2, O2, Ar) which as non-polar molecules with zero electric dipole moments cannot and do not emit any significant amount of IR radiation. Therefore the troposphere as a whole warms up. This is the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Energy is also transferred to N2, O2 and Ar by vibrationally excited states of the greenhouse gas molecules (water vapor, CO2, ozone, methane) which are formed by net absorption of resonant band frequencies emitted by the 288 K Earth’s surface.
the planet has 2 phases – different as night and day.
daytime, clouds block the sun
any beach basker knows that.
nighttime, they keep you warmer
any gardener knows that
so one would expect a certain outcome to be empirically observable if that is so.
and lo…it is.
Well maybe that’s why it gets warmer on the ground when a cloud passes in front of the sun?
Yes sarcasm
Greenhouse gases do not keep “heat” (noun) in.
The GHG effect is an action on long wave electromagnetic radiation energy, NOT on heat energy. And the same applies to them not letting the sun’s “heat ” in. They block the radiant energy at solar spectrum wavelengths, that otherwise would end up penetrating deep into the oceans where the oceans WILL convert that EM radiant energy into WASTE “heat energy”.
G
But when money clouds scientists’ minds it ALWAYS raises the temperature.
It’s quite obvious that whether clouds ultimately cool or warm matters little in the big picture, water in all of its forms is the great moderator of climate. Without water, the planet would be above boiling in the sunlight and a hundred or more degrees below freezing in the dark.
Lattitude: “I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about.”
I have a blog on the Club of Rome. This was a computer modeling exercise by “brilliant scientists.”
https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/club-of-rome-computer-models-vs-ipcc-climate-scientist-computer-models/
It is so obvious that like the Club of Rome these do-gooders had pre-calculated what they wanted and used science as merely the cudgel.
What you said is what got me 25 years ago. You read the initial report and it says, we don’t know anything about this, that or that or this. Yet we know the result to 95% and 97% of us agree. They said oceans were static. We knew nothing about the oceans. 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, zero knowledge and we’ll just assume they’re static even though we can’t explain any of the history of temperature let’s assume CO2 is the only significant driver of temperature and everything else is static or cyclical over very small time periods with small effects. Why? Why?
Then we’ll use a 20 year time period when temperatures go up and making all these other assumptions about everything else being static let’s calculate that CO2 caused 100% of this and use this as our basis for sensitivity.
Let’s also ignore any possible variation in Undersea volcanoes since we don’t know anything about them. Let’s assume no more volcanoes above ground for the next 100 years. Let’s assume the sun is static and it’s effects are minimal even though we have these correlations with cosmic rays and all kinds of cyclical effects let’s assume the sun has no weather.
Only the Earth’s atmosphere has “weather.” Everything else is small.and static.
The amazing thing is that people have believed this crap for so long in spite of obvious compelling evidence that the models were trash. Finally the Australian government realized that the best strategy was to declare victory and lay off all the buggers. I hope that once it is realized that the whole thing has been overplayed, that the models were trash that a lot of the money is dropped and people are laid off like at Yale. We’ve all been snookered of billions of dollars for them to play and deceive us for 25 years.
They didn’t leave out the unknown crap, they GUESSTIMATED, assumed, unfilled, tweaked all that crap until the models spit out a result they agree with.
Aphan,
‘They’ only guesstimated the known unknowns (the things that they knew they didn’t know) and left out the unknown unknowns (the things they didn’t know that they didn’t know). Of course, no field of study can account for unknown unknowns, but climate alarmists are adamantly convinced that the unknown unknowns are of no consequence.
In my view it would be fine to ignore the unknown unknowns and propose your theory anyway, after all you have to start somewhere. The problem is they didn’t admit the severity of the unknowns. The fact that the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere and we don’t know anything about it should give pause. The fact the sun is the source for almost all energy and we don’t really understand its variations or cycles or why there are correlations of cosmic ray intensity with climate on the earth. The fact they didn’t understand the interaction of the mantle and the oceans. The fact they don’t understand clouds which could be greater than CO2 effect significantly or that moisture / changes in humidity are unknown and could cause 4 or 5 times the effect of CO2.
It’s one thing to say: unknown unnkowns but another to say well, we don’t know anything about all these things and they each could make 10 times the change of CO2 let alone together. But believe me we know with 110% certainty that all the heat from 1975-1998 was caused by CO2 and 97% of all scientists agree.
There is also the fact they knew this aerosol problem 10 or 15 years ago. The fact they have fudged the temperature records. The fact they kept denying the LIA and MWP for so many years and the PDO and AMO too. The fact they never admit error. It’s not science. It’s not the scientific method.
How would one go about including in a model something you know nothing about?
Don’t get me wrong, I broadly agree with what you seem to be implying – that you can’t possibly know what you don’t know. I can therefore criticize the decision to waste resources on computer modeling in the first place, as ultimately being pointless since you simply can’t trust the result. But once someone decides to do the model, you can’t criticize them for only including the processes that they know something about.
The criticisms against the models and modelers runs far deeper than your simplistic allusion that they gave it their best shot, without knowing or understanding all the climate forcings and variables thereof.
Perhaps you never read “harry.readme”.
Kurt; their error is not in doing the modelling but rather in claiming the model outputs have any real world significance and worse, trying to reorder society on the basis of those model outputs. If they know that significant inputs to their models are guesses and then to try to hide that fact and insist the outputs are reliable predictors is unethical.
michael hammer
June 7, 2016 at 6:25 pm
=====
We have a winner…….
Nowhere in my post did I say they gave it their best shot. I simply stated the truism that you can’t include in a mathematical model a phenomenon you know nothing about.
“michael hammer
Kurt; their error is not in doing the modelling but rather in claiming the model outputs have any real world significance and worse, trying to reorder society on the basis of those model outputs.”
Didn’t I say that the model results can’t be trusted? And what precisely is the point of mathematically modeling something that has no real world significance? If you believe that the output of a model has no real world significance (and I for one do) then it seems to follow that you very well can criticize someone for engaging in that pointless exercise.
The point of the model is to test it against reality, to determine if it has some predictive capacity, and if so how much. The gap between empirical data and the model should lead to consideration of what kinds of processes are affecting reality and are not in the model. It should also lead to efforts to collect data with greater accuracy. But, it should never lead to things like Trenberth’s assertion that “the data must be wrong.” That is out right unscientific.
9 out of 10 models were not pointless at all! Their point was to show significant and alarming future warming, which they did. Problem was, when they ran them backward they couldn’t predict the past!
Honest investigators, confronted with this fatal disconnect, would admit that it proved serious flaws with the basic program input assumptions. Not being honest or scientists they did no such thing, and as Winston Churchill said- having stumbled over the truth, they picked themselves up and carried on as if nothing happened.
Lies, exaggerations, politicking and gross conspiracy ensued. But, sadly, no science.
The real point about the models is that despite the CAGW crowd knowing they don’t & can’t reflect reality, they falsely elevated the results as though they were real data, which uncritical, unthinking & greedy politicians then used to divert hundreds of billions of our taxes into useless and catastrophic mitigation schemes.
The models on which this whole scam is based must be fatally destroyed.
Models, and their accuracy…
You build a model with the knowledge you have. You identify as much as possible the things you don’t know enough about, and you exclude them.
Run the model. Observe the process that you are modeling. If they don’t match, one (or more) of these things are wrong:
1) You have a problem in the running of your model (these days, that is a programming bug – you did not create the model that you think you did). Check the program.
2) The things that you know are unknown, and thus did not include in your model, are more significant than you thought they were. Start determining these unknowns with practical research.
3) There are things that you did not know affect the process you are modeling. Here’s where you go back to your wild-haired theory boffins to come up with ideas for what those unknowns are – then you cycle back to (2) to remove those unknowns.
4) The things that you think you know are not actually so. In this case, it’s time to throw out the model, it is incorrect at a very fundamental level.
What we know about climate models – which do not match observations in any way, shape, or form…
Possibility 1) We can reasonably eliminate this one – there are enough different programs, built using different tools, on different systems, that all produce nearly the same results. Unlikely a programming bug that would be so consistent across all of the models.
Possibility 2) There are many things – like clouds – that are not sufficiently known, and are not included in the models (or are, but with guesses about their actual effects, not knowledge). Of course, the modelers continue to deny that any of these could be a problem – they know, somehow, that their guesses about the effects are correct, and that they are insignificant.
Possibility 3) It is completely denied by the modelers that there can be anything they do not know. Even though several things have been discovered (such as cosmic ray flux vs. cloud formation) that were never included in any of the models as either known quantities or guesses.
Possibility 4) The models cannot possibly be fundamentally flawed – or so the modelers claim. But they are. Every one of them is based on a CO2 blocking for IR that is nothing like the actual curve. Every one of them is based on an increase in water vapor with temperature that is nothing like the actual curve. Other things, too many to list; they have all been on this site and explained far better than a short comment can handle. The models are fundamentally flawed – and so are the modelers, as they fiddle with the observations of reality to make them match the models, as a fundamentally flawed model cannot ever be adjusted sufficiently to match the observations of reality.
Kurt, the answer to this is experiment. Measure the effect many times when clouds go by from underneath and up above. You may not know all the things that cause the temperature changes, but you will have an idea of their aggregated effect. The computer, and yes actual computer games and computer special effects added to the arrogance that we know all the first and second order effects pretty much ended actual experimentation – the famous “it’s just physics” rationale. It sounds like the Reading folks are actually out measuring things.
Frankly, the idea that we need multi quantum jumps in computer power to incorporate thunder storms and clouds because their areas are small is a reflection of this lost art of experimentation. They are worried about how to pixelate it all. Get out there and measure actual temperatures, humidities, windspeeds, amount of water involved on hundreds of these things. Then ‘grain count’ these things from earth images until you can get a range of variability. Geologists and mineralogists have been using these techniques for over a century. You can even calculate a chemical analysis for a rock this way. Tedious? Yes. As much fun as a computer game? No. But, like the massive task of digitizing libraries a few decades ago, it can and should be done. I think maybe a geologist should do this. Physicists are not suited for the work.
Gary, I couldn’t agree more. The waste on computer models that were easily demonstrable at being worthless is unconscionable. Australia and Yale were smart to declare victory and lay all them off. That’s what should happen all over. I have an article on the club of rome computer models here: https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/club-of-rome-computer-models-vs-ipcc-climate-scientist-computer-models/ The same problems no lessons learned.
Latitude
re: I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about”
Obviously they were not scientists – they were con artists.
Oh no…they just need much much more money and to keep at it, while insisting that we all act on the basis of their scariest “what if” scenario…the “what if” being what if the worst thing that can happen is warming and we get warming.
More money please!
“””””…… His team’s investigations show that the anthropogenic cooling impact from clouds is much less than “assessed” by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also much less than employed by climate models. …..”””””
So why is THIS report saying that the cooling from clouds is much LESS than previously thought ?
Let’s get it straight: ” Clouds DO NOT ….. COOL …. anything ” They are NOT refrigerators.
What clouds DO do, is to block some sunlight, which thus PREVENTS that lost sunlight from WARMING anything, or everything.
MORE clouds results in LESS warming; NOT LESS cooling.
This report talks about the “aerosols” (just the anthropogenic man made fossil fuelled non renewable energy caused aerosols), as if they are some magic thing that makes different clouds. Izzat different from H2O clouds.
Why not just say they make for MORE clouds ? Yes that means more are coverage more optical density more refractive scatter diffuse reflectance, more time of persistence, more clouds in tropical areas where more sunlight insolation occurs, and where more deep ocean is waiting to absorb and store as heat the solar energy that is NOT blocked by the more clouds.
The clouds are still just water (or ice) and the “aerosols” are just substrates to grow on.
An “aerosol” is the spritz of ant killer that you get when you push the button on the Lysol pressurized can..
G
I can’t believe they got all that money to make all of those wrong climate models. Hay what about me? Oh ya, I’m a Republican…, dinged-no money for me!!! 🙂
A lot can happen to a study, between now and August.
Exactly my thought.
And after November, depending on which way the wind blows.
Agreed. And we shouldn’t be excited about a pre release, when we get so antsy about them coming from the Warmistas.
Imo they should shut up until they release.
Eventually all frauds are revealed. And as some wag once put it, “time wounds all heels.”
More settled science…
Well, as Michael Mann would say just because we screwed up on the models doesnt mean global warming doesnt exist
Just wait until you see the press release.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/armageddon-report-no-5/
Pointman
I doubt anyone will see a press release if this study pans out. :/
Good read that 😀
Yes, a good read and a good analogy I say, Pointman. Thanks.
Stefan-Boltzmann radiation equation: Q = σ * ε * A * T^4 (The whole thang!)
Q – power – Watts or 3.41 Btu / eng h or 3.60 kJ /met h
σ – constant – 5.67 E-8 W/m^2 – T^4 or 19.35 Btu/eng h / m^2 – T^4 or 20.41 kJ / met h / m^2
ε – emissivity – a ratio dependent on surface materials (real world demands one)
A – surface area – m^2 (real world demands more than 1.0)
T – surface temperature, absolute – Kelvin w metric units or Rankine w English units
Some definitions:
Energy is a thermal property. Temperature is a proxy for the energy of an object/surface.
Heat, work, power are thermal processes – energy in motion.
An IR camera, radiometer, bolometer, etc. measures temperature, an indication of energy, not heat, work or power. In order to calculate gray body heat, Btu / h, both the area and emissivity of the surface must be known.
Gases have no meaningful area (like barns. Know what barns are?) and extremely low emissivity. The S-B equation implodes with gases and there can be no S-B down welling or “back” radiation. That is not to say there is no GHE just that GHGs gave nothing to do with it.
Disputing this GHG DWR, down welling, “back” radiation, loop concept is not denying the greenhouse effect/principle/process.
A greenhouse operator can increase thermal mass by installing boxes of rocks, trombe walls, black painted plastic tubes and barrels full of water or eutectic salts, aka the oceans.
If it gets too hot the operator can pull down reflective shades reducing the incoming heat, aka albedo which is more than just clouds. BTW IPCC AR5 credits clouds with -20 W/m^2 of RF and that’s a lot more cooling than CO2’s 2 W/m^2 of heating.
The operator can turn on misting water sprays and evaporative cooling to reduce the air temperature and raise relative humidity, aka storms, rain, snow, etc.
Both IPCC and Trenberth (same as IPCC) admit they really don’t understand the water vapor cycle, clouds, etc. very well. IPCC AR5 in TS.6 and Trenberth et. al. 2011 “Atmospheric Moisture Transports….”
Finally, someone has noted that S-B doesn’t apply to 3 dimensional gasses
the GHE is calculated to be 33C. Yet this is the amount of surface warming predicted by gravity and convection. As the atmosphere circulated, Kinetic energy at the surface is converted to potential energy at altitude. Modified by the condensation of water, this gives rise to the lapse rate 6.5C/km. The center of mass of the atmosphere is 5.5km. Multiply and you get:
6.5C/km x 5.5km = 32.5C
coincidence? hardly.
There are 240 W/m^2 of LWIR leaving the earth which correspond to a S-B BB temperature of 255 K or -18 C. The observed surface temperature is 15 C, 33 C hotter than the calculated temperature. The explanation for this 33 C is the GHG GHE.
But wait!
The surface emitting the 240 W/m^2 is the ToA, 15,000 m above the ground with an observed surface temperature of -80 C not the 15 C surface temperature measured 1.5 m above the land surface.
So the real question is not why is the observed surface temperature 33 C higher than the S-B BB calculation but why is the calculated S-B BB temperature 62 C higher than the observed ToA surface temperature?
As Indiana Jones observed when they discovered that the Nazis’ head piece of Ra had only one side, “Their staff is too tall, they are digging in the wrong location.”
The IR frequency band for CO2 is 50 Times less effective as UV frequency, the latter gives you a sunburn in under an hour. Never known backradiation from greenhouse gases to do that. look to ozone and UV in my MHO.
Sorry Nicholas; I can’t buy your Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
Try J = (sigma)T^4
S-B is the Total Radiant Emittance (W/m^2) of a …. Black Body Radiator …
By definition the emissivity (epsilon) of a BB is 1.0
A ” Gray ” Body which is as fictional as a Black Body would have a CONSTANT emissivity that is less than 1.0, and is independent of wavelength, so it has the same value at ALL frequencies.
No such constant emittance material exists, even at any single Temperature, let alone having the SAME value less than 1.0 at ALL frequencies, and ALL Temperatures.
So nyet on both BB and GB.
So at best one would have to integrate over all frequencies from zero to infinity, or say at least over the 99% to 1% residual radiant emittance frequency range for even one Temperature.
People should stop talking about the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation Law, unless they are referring to an ideal but non existing Black Body, which is what S-B applies to.
And yes; it IS a useful WAG that a lot of common materials do approximately respond to about a fourth power of Temperature law, as a purely seat of the pants approximation.
Reality goes off the rails when we assume that theoretical ideal but non existing models actually apply under conditions that are not in accord with their definition.
There is NO KNOWN MATERIAL that absorbs …. 100 % …. EM radiation at even ONE single frequency, let alone a material that absorbs 100% at EVERY frequency from zero to infinity. Or zero frequency to zero wavelength if you prefer to avoid the infinities. Ergo, …. Black Body Radiation …. is a purely theoretical fiction , but useful, because we can build quite respectable approximations to a BB which do radiate a spectrum that is close to the expected, at least over useful frequency ranges at some useful Temperatures. I prefer to call such radiation …. Thermal Radiation …. as being EM radiation whose properties depend almost entirely on the Temperature of the source, as distinct from radiative or absorptive properties that are a consequence of atomic or molecular structure, rather than Temperature.
G
And PS; No I don’t care if nobody else likes my definitions. So do NOT rely on any of the above in your PhD oral exams, or you will be flunked. Don’t write it down either.
Well, yes S-B BB doesn’t work in real life, but my point was that “they” (ACS toolkit) are using S-B BB and comparing 240 w/m^2 ToA radiation, 255 K, to the 288 K surface temp instead of to the ToA -80 C temp. Peas & carrots.
Absent the 33 C difference there is no need for a GHE theory. Per Trenberth Figure 10 there are only 63 W/m^2 of LWIR rising from the surface surface, not 240.
George
I learn more reading what you write in a minute than all the actual papers of have read combined.
thank you
/OT. You might find Vantablack to come quite close in the visible light frequency ranges.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
The aerosol indirect effect (the aerosol effect on cloud albedo) was almost exactly the same number in the IPCC AR5 report at -0.55 W/m2.
This study is a confirmation of the current estimates not a refutation.
Of course, in years past, the estimate was higher. GISS used to have it at -1.4 W/m2.
Alarmist activists HOWLED when AR5 was released because it was far too conservative about future warming and sensitivity ranges. This study confirms that the low end estimates match reality, whereas the models do not.
Not according to Lewis. Is -0,9 (−1.9 to −0.1) in AR5.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/03/19/implications-of-lower-aerosol-forcing-for-climate-sensitivity/
Another rational conclusion from the lowered estimate of the impact of aerosols on clouds, in conjunction with the climate models’ undershooting of observed temperature rise, is that climate variability is larger than what climate scientists presume. Of course, saying that is tantamount to an admission that climate scientists don’t really know the transient response of climate to an input in the first place, calling into question their ability to accurately model the climate.
The alarmists’ get out of jail free card is the climate tipping point. At some (ill defined) point, the climate will tip from one stable condition to another and we will all die. wiki It doesn’t matter what the present climate sensitivity is because, when we pass the tipping point, it will change.
It was really important that Michael Mann got rid of the MWP. That way we can say that the current temperatures are unprecedented and that surely the tipping point must be just around the corner.
They are admitting that the MWP happened…. NOW. Sort of hard to deny that in the face of overwhelming evidence…. however their out is saying it wasn’t warmer than the CWP… it was warmer. No if, could be or maybe’s about it. They still didn’t address how that happened in the absence of an increase in co2, or how things were different then than now. Or a decrease when it ended.
With cooling on the way adding insult to injury, the Climate Clan will be relegated to Flat-Earther status within 5 years.
So what if the scientific consensus flips to 97% determine GAGW false, but gov’t agencies continue to say it’s true and act accordingly? We know what Pres. Clinton will do, but even a Pres. Trump and R’s may not be able (or willing) to stop an EPA stocked with progressive enviro activists, a NASA tasked with Muslim outreach, and the Department of Muslim Outreach tasked with promoting CAGW as real, happening now, and the biggest threat.
You may as well ask what would happen if the world’s energy were supplied by magical pixie dust. Most of the climate scientists work for some bureaucracy or another so the premise there doesn’t make sense – as long as the government agencies want to push the climate change agenda, most climate scientists are never going to come to any consensus that global warming is overblown. Moreover, the “97% consensus” is fabricated propaganda. The only consensus is that CO2 emissions warm the planet to some degree or another. There is no consensus as to how much, or what effects will be seen on what time scales.
Al Capp asked what would happen if our needs could be supplied for free. He invented the Shmoo. link Shmoos wanted to be of use to people any way they could. They would even jump right into a frying pan.
In the another case, maybe in the Pogo comic strip, someone invented a car powered by the heartbeat of its driver. It, thus, required no gasoline.
In both cases the-powers-that-be put a swift end to these disruptive influences so the greedy could continue to gouge the populace.
If someone finds a way to supply our energy needs (for free) using magic pixie dust, I know exactly what will happen.
CommieBob –
That’s amazing – I present a purely rhetorical question, intended to show the futility of theorizing what would happen if an impossible event occurred, and you take the question literally so you can speculate on what would actually happen if my (rhetorical) impossible event occurred.
My interpretation of “magic pixie dust” is explained by:
Technological breakthroughs are almost impossible to predict. Suppose that someone actually came up with a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor. … The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Having grown up loving both All Capp and Walt Kelly’s fictional universes…
As I remember the temporary end of the Shmoon, was that society itself broke down for sheer laziness with utter dependence on free Shmoon (plural of shmoo). To save society, the people themselves exterminated the shmoon.
I do not remember the Pogo car episode you mention; but many Walt Kelly strips preceded my time.
Can’t flip what doesn’t exist…
” but gov’t agencies continue to say it’s true and act accordingly? ”
Solution?
Dissolve the EPA.
Simples.
Kurt: I’m amazed you didn’t sternly point out that the Dep’t of Muslim Outreach isn’t real. I hope to give you a laugh someday, but I evidently missed you on this one. Didn’t occur to you I’m well aware of the abundance of CliScis at the teat? My point was (I thought obvious) that if the broader science community, as well as the general public, come to agree that CAGW is false, will that be enough to dislodge the bureaucrats (you and I agree) are at the controls of a gov’t so bloated it has rocket scientists tasked with muslim outreach? I know, explaining it doesn’t make it funnier, but I’m amazed my comment led you to your rhetorical question that utterly missed the point.
So, if the admitted heating impact of the increase in C02 is refactored to be about 1.5 C per doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, that is getting very close to what most so-called flat-earth denier scientists believe. This is amusing.
Eventually they HAVE to find a way to make 1 degree of warming into story of a disaster of untold dimensions. That or find something new to scare the world with. They are not going to just give up.
Nah, they’ll just start scaring us with what will happen with a tripling of CO2 and how bad it will be for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. And ocean corals and sea ice will be non existent.
AGW is a logarithmic effect.
A trebling is not as bad as a doubling and a half seems.
Most of the theoretical bad has already happened.
“””””…..
MCourtney
June 8, 2016 at 1:06 am
AGW is a logarithmic effect. …..”””””
Show us some experimental data that demonstrates a logarithmic relationship.
Sometimes the two variables that are purported to be logarithmically related actually change in opposite direction. The logarithm function NEVER ever goes in the opposite direction.
It might be a non linear relationship, but it isn’t logarithmic. That is as regards CO2 abundance, and surface or lower atmosphere Temperature
A logarithmic relationship means going from 280 ppmm to 560 ppmm produces the same Temperature increment, as going from one ppmm to two ppmm, or from one molecule of CO2 to two molecules of CO2. That is if it produces any change at all.
There is NO uncertainty as to what a logarithmic relationship is.
G
Since 2C is now deemed to be “Unsafe” and 1.5C is the new target, I’d say “Watch this space”. Already we can see another repositioning, after “Global Warming” was ditched & “Climate Change” came in, the new mantra of “Ocean Acidification” is being pushed, along with “Extreme Weather”.
Ocean acidification is demonstrably false.
As long as they keep harping on falsehoods, they will be drummed out in the end.
We just need to keep up the drumbeat until that happens.
How come 2C wasn’t considered dangerous or unsafe when the estimate was 3.5-6C?
One problem with clouds is the inconsistency of their influence. Low clouds are dense and block solar radiation but as we move up higher in the atmosphere they let more and more radiation through. Cloud at night blocks long-wave radiation, preventing the surface from cooling as quickly or as much, although again the influence varies with height.
On top of that there’s a regional and seasonal influence with day time cloud in high northern latitudes as winter approaches causing warmer temperatures than would occur without the cloud. The reason is that if there was no cloud there would be a large net heat loss from the Earth’s surface because the solar radiation is striking at such a shallow angle and the W/m^2 is low, lower than the heat being lost. Have cloud and the heat loss is blocked. Studies in northern Scandinavia have suggested a difference of 10 deg C.
Clouds at night mean it was certainly a lot hotter during the day to evaporate all that extra moisture to make those clouds. It was that much hotter day time Temperature that made it hotter at night NOT the clouds, which are a result of the high daytime Temperature and humidity. The high clouds do the same thing as the low clouds, they block sunlight.
And clouds or not it WILL be colder in the morning than it was the night before, and much colder than it was the day before.
Clouds at night are a consequence of the Temperatures, not the cause of those Temperatures.
G
Are the aerosols interaction with clouds is new? They were there even before industrialization and thus it is a inbuilt process but it varies both in space and time just like water vapour and cloud cover.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Especially differences between effusive and explosive volcanoes. The latter has a cooling effect from aerosol s, the former has a net warming effect from destruction of ozone voa anions like Br, Cl,SOx, NOx.
Aerosol is a three dollar word for ” dust “.
G
All of this sudden emphasis on “aerosols” is just a smoke screen to avoid addressing the BASIC interaction, which is simply that ANY WARMING however triggered or caused MUST result in an INCREASE in clouds, which MUST result in a reduction in ground level solar insolation, with its consequent cooling effect; thus a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK temperature regulating mechanism.
It matters not a jot, what the actual cause of the Temperature increase is, the atmospheric oceanic system acts in such a way as to oppose that increase in Temperature AND VERSE VICEA.
It’s called ” Le Chatalier’s Principle ” and it operates in virtually all real physical systems.
G
At some point, it seems to me that folks will have to accept that planet earth resists ANY temperature forcing function with “negative feedback” – period. If that were not true, the planet would long ago have either frozen or smoked life as we know it to oblivion.
Seems to me that is the exact point. It’s intuitive – hence those on the Left cannot see it, they lack Wisdom. always have.
I think you’ll find that the very first sceptics were sceptical because of this common sense and said so (after investigation).
And they were on the left.
Most of my friends and I were skeptical when this first came out. Mostly because of the left wing nut cases who were prominently pushing it.
We then took the time to investigate the science, and found that there wasn’t any.
Yes agreed – but I think you describe here a “positive feedback”, that is to say, a feedback which does not lead to an equilibrium state as would a negative one.
“At some point, it seems to me that folks will have to accept that planet earth resists ANY temperature forcing function with “negative feedback” – period. If that were not true, the planet would long ago have either frozen or smoked life as we know it to oblivion.”
+ a whole big bunch.
This is the crux of the matter.
Lots of people know this to be true.
Just need to get rid of folks who pretend that facts do not matter and we know nothing of Earth history.
Yes! The negative feedback is there! The people with the money are determined not to find it! It’s the only way to fix their models. Refusing to look is scientific dishonesty.
The results certainly won’t be “death blow to global warming hysteria” simply because the hysteria is driven by politics, not science. If it was all about the science, AGW would have died 20 years ago.
Sad but quite likely correct… 🙁
“I thank Graham Feingold, Johannes Quaas, Annica Ekman, Leo Donner, and Ilan Koren for interesting discussions on current understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions. Note that they do not all agree that aerosol-cloud radiative forcing is weak: some argue that a value of up to −1.2 W m−2 remains consistent with scientific understanding.”
Steve
Its over and you know it, stop!
In an article published June 16, 2014 in WUWT which was titled “Nature Abhors a Positive Feedback” I derived a climate sensitivity for CO2 of 0.7. I don’t recall any commentor taking issue with that derivation.
“The behavior of clouds, including how they are formed, how long they last, how bright they are, etc., plays a very large role in the earth’s climate system,…”
Big sunshades made of water affect the climate? Who’da thunk it?
But the science is settled, right? We’re still doomed, aren’t we? Or at least doomedish?
(I’d say doomished ; )
Doom is too gloomy, we’re just dimished.
Remember Rasool and Schneider 1971? In those days NASA was saying that the aerosol effect overcame the greenhouse effect and predicted that fossil fuel emissions would cause an ice age. Then in 1976 the 30-year cooling trend turned into a warming trend and Hansen 1981 came along (also from NASA). He wrote that that the greenhouse effect overcame the aerosol effect and as the warming effect intensified so did the Hansen 1981 hypothesis until the orgasmic Hansen 1988 Congressional testimony and the sensational NYT story about that testimony – melting polar ice caps, rising seas, extreme weather, mass extinctions, social upheaval etc etc. – the old “we’re all going to die” narrative. The primacy of the greenhouse effect over the aerosol effect survived the hiatus era thanks to creative people like Karl 2015 and Nieves 2015. Isn’t climate science fun? Maybe it’s not really science but it’s fun because the more you scare the taxpayers the more money they give you to do even more research so that you can scare them even more. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Here are some relevant links with respect to these comments:
1. Hurst persistence is known to exist in all aspects of nature including surface temperature and this property of temperature can create decadal and even multi-decadal patterns in the temperature time series. A causal theory of changes in temperature must show that the observed changes are in excess of those that can be created by persistence alone. Otherwise scientists will find themselves forever changing and fine tuning their theory to match apparent patterns created out of randomness by the Hurst effect. There are a number of items on this subject at ssrn.com/author=2220942. Here is one of them
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2763358
2. Climate sensitivity is irrelevant to a discussion about fossil fuel emissions until we can come up with empirical evidence that changes in atmospheric CO2 are related to fossil fuel emissions. In fact, if the idea is to attenuate the rate of warming by cutting fossil fuel emissions, empirical evidence must be presented that relates warming to fossil fuel emissions. No credible evidence exists for these relationships. The underlying problem is uncertainty in natural flows. We can’t measure natural flows and changes in the mass of the biota well enough to detect the effect of fossil fuel emissions
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2642639
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
Your #2. is why we are unlikely to see anymore level 3 & 4 CO2 maps from the NASA OCO-2 team until the Democratic president political appointtees who oversee NASA change over to Republican appointtees.
I feel that something essential in such a study is a baseline: how does the current emission of anthropogenic aerosols compare with the peak of the industrial revolution? We cannot answer this
Now peak emission is from Asia, as apposed to Europe and the US in the early 20th century. Satellite imagery shows polluted air sweeping eastwards from Asia. Studies have indicated that this is influencing weather in the Pacific This is unlikely to change within the near future. I do believe that after some inquiry that Japan’s climate has been influenced: it gets hellishingly hot there in summer with a constant hazy atmosphere. Given its latitude and maritime nature it is hotter than one would expect
There is also the question of natural aerosols. I worked in Liberia at one time. At one time of the year dust from the Sahara sweeps south hundreds of KM. After a few hours any parked car has a blanket of the stuff. I have a photo taken from a plane at around 1500 ft where one can barely see the ground. I have also caught fragments of ash in my hand in New Zealand that originated as bush fires in Australia (2000 km away) . Nature is wonderfully resilient
Whatever, one needs hard data before making assumptions in science
It seems like the Shadow is alive and well living among AGW climate scientists. You remember the Shadow from the 30s and 40s radio program. He had the ability to “cloud men’s minds” and become invisible to evil doers. Only this time around, not only is he invisible, so are the clouds.
The introduction of the notion of aerosols as the agent for neutralizing the effect of GHG’s is just another twist in the rear guard action of climate alarmists, now increasingly evident. Of course it has to be anthopogenic? How else to continue the argument for world control, which is the basis of this massive fraud.
Alarmists’ feigned and aggressive ignorance of cloud formation has always been their get-out-of-jail-free card…. (literally)…
Alarmists’ spurious fossil-fuel aerosol feedback was essential to make the CAGW models SEEM plausible, because without this “aerosol fix”, CAGW ECS model projections would soon go “to infinity and beyond!” because the bogus CAGW models had a built in “CO2 runaway positive feedback loop” involving increased water vapor GHG forcing generated by increased ocean evaporation from CO2 forcing…
The problem with “runaway positive feedback loops” is that when the sum of the feedbacks exceed 1.0, the models suddenly go exponential and it’s off “to infinity and beyond!”…. That wouldn’t do…
Sooooo, to prevent the CAGW models projections going to infinity, the modelers added this fossil-fuel aerosol “fix” to keep the sum of the water vapor GHG feedbacks from exceeding 1 and going to infinity… “Neat trick”….
What’s actually happening is that CO2’s logarithmic forcing effect DOES cause some warming and does cause SOME increased ocean evaporation, but this CO2 induced increased ocean evaporation actually has a NEGATIVE cloud-cover cooling effect making CO2’s NET ECS around 0.5C~1.0C, which isn’t very scary… Actually, a net benefit given all the added benefits of increased CO2: warmer winters, increased arable land in northern latitudes, earlier springs, longer growing seasons, CO2 fertilization effect, increased crop yields, slightly more precipitation, plants lose less water from shrinking leaf stomata, etc.
The only way to “fix” CAGW models is to remove the aerosol “fix”, remove the “runaway positive water vapor GHG feedback loop”, and increase the cooling effects of clouds…
The problem is that if CAGW alarmists made these model corrections, ECS projections would be around 0.5C~1.0C, which would be the end of CAGW… They can’t allow THAT to happen…
We’re getting VERY close to the beginning of the end of this CAGW scam.
I assume alarmists’ next plan of attack is to convince political hacks and the aggressively ignorant that 0.5C~1C of ECS is also catastrophic…. I hope they have fun with that….
I thought it was the Alarmists’ plan to waste $76 TRILLION (UN estimate) on CO2 sequestration policies to keep CO2 warming below 2C by 2100… If we don’t waste a dime, we’ll enjoy 0.5~1.0C of beneficial CO2 warming recovery, plus all the positive effects of higher CO2 levels…
What to do… What to do…
I assume alarmists’ next plan of attack is to convince political hacks and the aggressively ignorant that 0.5C~1C of ECS is also catastrophic….
Bingo! In Paris they “agreed” to keeping warming under 2.0 degrees, but to “try” for 1.5. They’re a step ahead of you! Calls for1.0 can’t be far off. Talk about moving the goal posts!
The less developed countries must have thought “hallelujah – let the mitigation funds rain un us”. There are many countries in the receiving end of this political game. These countries have no reasons to be reasonable.
Is it just me or does it seem that the closer Trump looks like being elected ,the more oops we may have overestimated , from the alarmists .