Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) definition of climate change was drafted so the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could direct the focus to CO2. It was equally important to prevent disclosure that natural variation in water vapor (WV) far exceeds the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It likely exceeds it in total and certainly more than any human-induced increase in CO2. IPCC displayed duplicity when they ignored WV until it became necessary to maintain demonization of CO2.
The 2007 IPCC Report explains why the human production of WV is insignificant to their work.
“Water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, human activities have only a small direct influence on the amount of atmospheric water vapour.”
Look at the vagueness. They can’t define “small” in the direct human portion or even its actual volume. They can’t even compare it with the natural variability in the total amount of atmospheric WV? In 2002 a NOAA article said
“The total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is about 13 x 1015 kg.”
What is “about”? Natural variation in total atmospheric WV is the greatest for any gas and especially for any greenhouse gas. WV ranges from almost zero in polar regions to four percent in the tropics. It is also extremely difficult to measure. Does a two percent variation in WV equal the human production of CO2 effect? Historically, the only meaningful measures began with satellite derived Microwave Measurements that determine the absolute amount dissolved in a column of air.
Interestingly, in 2007, two years before Climategate, a paper titled “Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content” appeared using this type of measure. In the article, they use the notorious phrase lead author Ben Santer introduced when, as lead author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Report, he rewrote portions of his committee’s text. The agreed sentence
“While some of the pattern-base discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”
Santer’s insertion.
“The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence (my bold) on the global climate.”
In the 2007 paper the phrase (in bold) that the media picked up, as Fred Singer predicted, was repeated.
‘‘Fingerprint’’ studies, which seek to identify the causes of recent climate change, involve rigorous statistical comparisons of modeled and observed climate change patterns (1). Such work has been influential in shaping the ‘‘discernible human influence’’ conclusions of national and international scientific assessments (2–4).
The 2007 article conclusion conflicts with the latest IPCC Report Technical Summary of Working Group I.
The magnitude of the observed global change in tropospheric water vapour of about 3.5% in the past 40 years is consistent with the observed temperature change of about 0.5°C during the same period, and the relative humidity has stayed approximately constant. The water vapour change can be attributed to human influence with medium confidence (My bold: IPCC definition is “About 5 out of 10 chance”)
How does the natural variation in greenhouse effect of WV compare with the effect of human produced CO2 or even CO2 in total? They don’t know. They can’t answer any of these questions because adequate data does not exist.
The magnitude of the WV greenhouse effect is large. Ken Gregory notes that,
An analysis of NASA satellite data shows that water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas, has declined in the upper atmosphere causing a cooling effect that is 16 times greater than the warming effect from man-made greenhouse gas emissions during the period 1990 to 2001.
This indicates that the question about the warming effect of CO2 is more than offset by what can be described as the evaporative cooling of the upper atmosphere by WV.
The IPCC chose to protect their claims about CO2. The response was forced because evidence showed that an upper limit to the warming effect of CO2 contradicted their anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (Figure 1).
Figure 1
There was disagreement about the amount, but the differences were small. One of the first graphs to show this appeared on Junkscience in 2006 (Figure 1). The IPCC decided that WV provided the explanation. It is like the frequent use of aerosols to cover contradictions.
They followed Santer et al., 2007 paper with further justification. A 2008 NASA article titled “Water Vapor Confirmed a Major Player in Climate Change” says,
Water vapor is known to be Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.
In fact, it has not been debated. The article sounds like a promising approach to the necessary questions about global warming and accurate determination of the role of water vapor. It isn’t. The article confirms this in an ill-informed public relations article.
Climate models have estimated the strength of water vapor feedback, but until now the record of water vapor data was not sophisticated enough to provide a comprehensive view of at how water vapor responds to changes in Earth’s surface temperature. That’s because instruments on the ground and previous space-based could not measure water vapor at all altitudes in Earth’s troposphere — the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth’s surface to about 10 miles in altitude.
The article tries to justify the IPCC hypothesis that a positive feedback mechanism exists to make CO2 more effective as a warming agent by using WV.
This led to the ongoing debate about climate sensitivity as estimates declined (Figure 2).
Figure 2
This diverts from the question of how much a variation in atmospheric water vapor affects global temperature and how that compares with the CO2 effect. It is critical as the IPCC explains.
The latent heat contained in water vapour in the atmosphere is critical to driving the circulation of the atmosphere on scales ranging from individual thunderstorms to the global circulation of the atmosphere.
Remember that because of grid size, their computer models cannot include the approximately 10,000 thunderstorms operating at any given moment. They can’t even include the stratocumulus in Figure 4 each transferring heat.
Figure 4; Illustrates the sensitivity of water vapor to temperature with clouds forming from evapotranspiration and condensation over forests, but not over relatively cooler rivers.
But these types of vague, unsubstantiated claims litter the IPCC Reports making them defy logic and common sense. A brief analysis determines the illogic of their claims. The latest (2014) Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers says,
Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.
Highest in history? It depends on how you define history. All climate change has had widespread impacts, not just recent.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.
This is unequivocally false. The observed changes are not unprecedented.
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever.
There is no evidence to support these claims. Besides, the increase is a false increase because the “economic and population growth” drivers are created by the IPCC with their Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). The physical data doesn’t exist or has a wide margin of error making such statements untenable, as other portions of the IPCC Reports that few read, show.
One part of the IPCC claims that change due to human activities became evident after 1950. Another part, that there is virtually no data before 1950. The inadequacy of the water vapor data alone proves this claim false.
For example, The Technical Summary of Working Group I says (my added bold),
Confidence in precipitation change averaged over global land areas is low (About 2 out of 10 chance) prior to 1951 and medium afterwards because of insufficient data, particularly in the earlier part of the record.
substantial ambiguity and therefore low confidence remains in the observations of global-scale cloud variability and trends.
The spatial patterns of the salinity trends, mean salinity and the mean distribution of evaporation minus precipitation are all similar (TFE.1, Figure 1). These similarities provide indirect evidence that the pattern of evaporation minus precipitation over the oceans has been enhanced since the 1950s (medium confidence). Uncertainties in currently available surface fluxes prevent the flux products from being reliably used to identify trends in the regional or global distribution of evaporation or precipitation over the oceans on the time scale of the observed salinity changes since the 1950s.
The most recent and most comprehensive analyses of river runoff do not support the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) conclusion that global runoff has increased during the 20th century. New results also indicate that the AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in droughts since the 1970s are no longer supported.
There is low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall), owing to lack of direct observations, dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice and geographical inconsistencies in the trends.
In several periods characterized by high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, there is medium confidence (50%) that global mean temperature was significantly above pre-industrial level.
Anthropogenic emissions have driven the changes in well-mixed greenhouse gas (WMGHG) concentrations during the Industrial Era (see Section TS.2.8 and TFE.7). As historical WMGHG concentrations since the pre-industrial are well known based on direct measurements and ice core records, and WMGHG radiative properties are also well known, the computation of RF due to concentration changes provides tightly constrained values.
The problem is CO2 is not well-mixed as the OCO2 satellite data indicates.
Before you even get to say, ”It’s the Sun stupid” you can say, “It’s the water vapor stupid.”
Two comments provide a context for the IPCC scientific tunnel vision on water vapor.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).
A few observations and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.
Alexis Carrel (Surgeon, Biologist 1873-1944).
Vapor, Schmapor, the most important fact is that Water Vapor has to other phases that easily happen at Earthly temperatures and Pressures… Water AND ice. Moving to and from these phases releases or absorbs Vast, Vast amounts of heat energy. CO2 is not even a player. CO2 cannot do liquid. CO2 goes Directly to or from a SOLID (Dry Ice) that is called Dry because there is no intermediate liquid state, AND it occurs at a temperature of MINUS 209 degrees Fahrenheit that NEVER OCCURS AT EARTHLY TEMPERATURES AND PRESSURES.
Water vapor aT 97% of the Earth’s greenhouse gas can saturate with heat , just as CO2 does. However when cooking and releasing heat, CO2, at 3% of earth’s greenhouse gas, simply stays as a gas, while Water vapor changes to water with vast heat release, then goes on to Ice, with another Vast heat release. The gas phase that is Greenhouse is puny compared to phase change heat transfer. Finally, when water vapor cools and condenses into clouds, the CLOUDS REFLECT 97% of the Suns heating energy back out into space! How, yes how can any serious scientist insist that the human portion (let’s be generous and say 10%} of the 3% of greenhouse gas that is Carbon Dioxide, (that makes 0.3% of greenhouse gas) control the 97% Water vapor, and it’s phases water and Ice? It’s Preposterous!
Dry ice sublimes at -109.3 F or – 78.5 C …. sorry to pick that nit but it should be corrected.
Thank you
During a hiatus atmospheric carbon dioxide keeps increasing but global temperature does not. This is not allowed by the Arrhenius greenhouse theory used by the IPCC. Since the Arrhenius theory has made a wrong prediction about this it is now invalidated and must be cast into the waste casket of history. The only theory that correctly handles the situation during a hiatus is MGT, the Miskolczi greenhouse theory. It is real sciencfe and can handle the IR absorption by both carbon dioxide and by water vapor simultaneously. Arrhenius totally ignores water vapor and thereby makes wrong predictions that invalidate it. According to MGT, carbon dioxide and water vapor form a on optimal absorption window in the infrared whose optical thickness is 1.87. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb in the IR just as the Arrhenius theory predicts. But this will increase the absorption window. And as soon as it happens, water vapor starts to diminish, rains out, and the original absorption window is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course continue to absorb but the reduction of water vapor has reduced the total absorptivity of the atmosphere to the background level and no warming predicted by Arrhenius is possible. And that explains why the greenhouse effect is impossible in the earth atmosphere. An observer looking from the side at this point will see the carbon dioxide increasing while temperature does not – exactly what we expect to happen during a hiatus.
Also, didn’t Arrhenius think that space was aether? [The roof for his GHG Theory, which was debunked by Mickelson Morley]
Correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.
The top picture (Figure 1) is mislabeled; left-to-right, it’s Ben Santer, Phil (Jones?) and Tom Wigley (looking like V. I. Lenin, as David Legates has observed)
Pat,
Phil Jones is on the left.
Youth . . . Thanks Jan 🙂
Dr. Tim Ball writes: “This indicates that the question about the warming effect of CO2 is more than offset by what can be described as the evaporative cooling of the upper atmosphere by WV.”
My question then is, where is this water vapor going? Typically evaporative cooling occurs at the top of the troposphere and the tropopause forms a “closed system”, recycling water after it’s exchanged energy with the stratosphere. But in this example, water vapor seems to be boiling off the planet?
Simply put the process goes something like this. Water Vapour laden air is lighter than the surrounding air and therefore it rises, as it rises the atmospheric pressure drops. The individual molecules of vapour have a lot more empty space around them, in this rarefied atmosphere heat loss by radiation occurs.
The (by now falling) water vapour molecules then coalesce as ice or remain as supercooled liquid until nucleated by dust or some other particle and become clouds.
So the water itself is not lost. It simply conveys the heat to the top of the atmosphere and sheds it to space.
Charles, I’m aware of that cycle, which occurs in the troposphere. It doesn’t cool the stratosphere.
Why is the stratosphere cooling?
@Bartleby:
The stratosphere & above do NOT cool, at least not the way you’re thinking: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#/media/File:Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg ] Once into the mesosphere, nearly all heat is transferred by radiation, rather than by conduction or convection due to the rarity of the air up there.
As an aside, it is this non-linear temperature curve that cause me to dismiss claims of lapse rate as an effective tool for plotting temperatures in a given planetary atmosphere using the temperature taken at a single given height as a starting point. As one can see from the link above, Earth’s atmospheric lapse rate is NOT a linear one from surface to space, and as any half-decent storm chaser (let alone meteorologist) can tell you, it changes based on insolation and moving air & moisture masses on an hourly basis.
Sorry, that should have read “transferred to space by radiation.” The whole reason the temperature of the aptly named “thermosphere” climbs into the hundreds and even thousands of degrees Celsius is because of the interactions — many of which involve direct collisions — of the constituent atoms & molecules of the air with solar wind, cosmic rays, the Earth’s magnetic field, and so on. This results in much of the remaining “air” at that height actually maintaining an ionized plasma state, rather than that of a gas (hence the colloquial term “ionosphere”).
However, the actual heat content (as distinct from “temperature” which is simply the average energy of the constituent particles) does continue to taper off with height, as there’s less and less material the higher one travels. At a certain altitude, the individual particles might have an energy consistent with those in the lower atmosphere of Venus, but since there are only, perhaps, a few dozen of them in a given cubic meter, the term “temperature” eventually ceases to have a useful meaning for most applicaions.
Temperature verses altitude
http://scied.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/images/long-content-page/%3Cem%3EEdit%20Long%20Content%20Page%3C/em%3E%20Change%20in%20the%20Atmosphere%20with%20Altitude/tempprofile.gif
Now look at this graphic ->
http://wotzup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/512px-Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg.png
Sure looks to me that with the proper scaling that the temperature and the speed of sound lines would be almost identical. WHY?’
Looks to me that this is just like the thermoclines in the ocean. Are these thermoclines the REAL roof of the greenhouse? If so then WATER VAPOR is the REAL GHG.
Bartleby asks (at July 16, 2016 at 10:21 pm): “Why is the stratosphere cooling?”
Actually, it is not cooling. The stratospheric temperature has been quite flat since 1995/1996. It cooled before that due to major low-latitude volcanic eruptions. We have gone over 20 years without a major low-latitude volcanic eruption; If we have another one, we would expect more cooling after that.
Couldn’t it spread the heat? At any given moment, it seems to me a relatively small portion of the globe is actually being heated by the sun, enough to more than maintain it’s current temperature(s), while it all radiates heat into the big black freezer it exits within.
Yes, IMHO. There are rivers of water vapor in the atmosphere carrying hundreds times more water than the Amazon River. These rivers will move the heat of vaporization from one point on the earth to another to be released when it rains. Now, consider the effects when it changes to snow, changes locations, turns into water, rains, and even evaporates again befor it hits the ground. Or even inside the multi mile high clouds as it cycles from the top to bottom over and over.
I think the majority of evaporative cooling occurs in the lower troposphere below cloud base unless the cloud is slanted. Rh within cloud is saturated and often super saturated with low evaporation. Some sublimation or evaporation will occur at the cloud top as it encounters dry air but the much lower temps here will mean lower tropospheric evaporation far exceeds anything up high.
Regarding stratospheric cooling, there has been no significant cooling here since 1994 and prior to this most of the cooling occurred in conjunction with volcanic eruptions.
If the stratosphere is cooling it’s because there is less ozone in the atmosphere, or there’s a change in solar output=less infrared energy heating the ozone layer directly. Global warming or cooling should not have a direct effect on stratosphere warming or cooling.
The most important thing to note about water vapour is not that is a ‘greenhouse gas’ from a radiative stand point. It is a physical transporter of heat.
I once had a Warmist teetering on the edge of understanding simply by showing him the CIMSS Tropical Cylones Page (water vapour).
The vast amount of energy being transported high into the atmosphere and onwards to the frigid winter polar regions quite simply dwarfs the preposterous Watts Per Meter Squared guesswork of the Warmists.
I wish we could hit ‘like’ as the case for Facebook. In any case, thank you all for the discussion so far, I like. And you’re on the mark. The question that no one knows is the relationship between forests and water vapour, which came up in a paper recently on WUWT, where clouds rise where there is a disconnect after deforestation occurs. Farmers and agronomists have known this for centuries in the former and 100 years in the latter. Trees create wind turbulence and water vapour hangs around with forests.Clear the scrub for wheat farming and you’ll get less rain.
“The vast amount of energy being transported high into the atmosphere and onwards to the frigid winter polar regions quite simply dwarfs the preposterous Watts Per Meter Squared guesswork of the Warmists.”
No.
WV is precipitated out and cannot accumulate in the atmosphere beyond it’s saturation point …. which is determined by atmospheric temperature.
WV condenses to clouds and said cloud both retains outgoing LWIR and reflects incoming SW.
The recent EN did all that and what happened …. GMT’s went through the roof (no pun intended).
For your hand-waving to be correct – then why didn’t the earth cool??
Globally atmospheric absolute humidity is a constant – mitigated by local temperature, rising in the long term only as GW proceeds.
Aerosols will affect cloud formation in terms of hydrophilic nuclei abundance but there cannot be more H2O present than the environmental temperature profile of the troposphere allows.
Would you like to provide some calculations regarding this W/m^2 of heat expelled to space via moist convection in excess of that that the WV lifted into the high troposphere negates via the GHG effect?
BY the way, moist convection is far from being ubiquitous around the globe – try finding much over NH land masses in winter.
Cutting and pasting Tone?
When it comes to your trollery and ignorance of science that is the most revealing post yet!
Yeah Tone the WV precipitates out and returns to earth…. and then it revapourises and starts another cycle. The WV is just an energy transport vehicle. It may maintain some sort of range of content in its various forms in the atmosphere but the essential feature is that it cycles over and over carrying energy up to the stratosphere on each iteration.
BTW, moist convection is likely low over the NH land masses in winter but you should see it romping along in the tropics all year round and just take a look at the SH land masses summer and winter and then there are this SH oceans, all year round. Sooo, your point would be….???
Over simplification re El Nino cloud. Look at OLR anoms and you can see the cloud did increase over the tropical Pacific but deceased over the maritime continent, tropical Atlantic, tropical Africa and Amazon basin. Warmth came from a much larger area of warmer SSTs than normal. This would be equivalent to something like raising land surface temps of N and S America combined by 1-3 deg C. This will raise global temps
Tony says, “For your hand-waving to be correct – then why didn’t the earth cool”
==========================
Tony, it did cool. The atmosphere warmed as heat was released from the oceans. That released ocean heat meant more outgoing radiation to space. Something heat energy beneath the ocean surface cannot do.
Tony, consider the seasons. In the SH summer the earth receives massively more energy (about 70 watt per sq M as I recall) yet the atmosphere cools.
“WV is precipitated out and cannot accumulate in the atmosphere beyond it’s saturation point”
Rubbish.
Tone — Look at a Lava Lamp. You might learn something.
The claim is that relative humidity will stay constant as the temperature increases.
Actual science finds this to not be the case.
PS: Even the IPCC claims that increasing temperatures will cause more evaporation and more rainfall.
“It’s the water vapor stupid.”
Best piece yet on making that point.
Water vapor “…has declined in the upper atmosphere causing a cooling effect…” Doesn’t this directly contradict the claim that increasing CO2 will result in greater evaporation as a result of increasing temperatures and result in a positive feedback loop?
Yes.
“Water vapor “…has declined in the upper atmosphere causing a cooling effect…” Doesn’t this directly contradict the claim that increasing CO2 will result in greater evaporation as a result of increasing temperatures and result in a positive feedback loop?”
A question I see, rather than an assertion. Good.
The answer depends on where exactly in the atmosphere is the reduction of WV content occurring.
This article doesn’t say, but I believe it is in the Stratosphere – which is above the level of max outgoing LWIR emission to space, and where AGW theory says there should be cooling.
So the answer is no.
Currently a 22 year pause in stratospheric cooling.
ToneB, you believe? Well that settles it then.
Perhaps Tim Ball would care to weigh in on exactly what he meant by “upper atmosphere.”
What is the deal with a 2/10 chance being “low confidence”?
This is tampering with the English language. 20% chance is not “low confidence”, it’s zero confidence. More unlikely than likely means “no confidence”. 5-7/10 would be “low confidence”, 8/10 would be “medium confidence” and 9.5 / 10 would be “high confidence”.
These people are frauds.
Yes.
Leaving aside the ‘greenhouse effect’ of water vapour as well of clouds and also the cloud albedo effect of clouds…. there is the small issue of the latent heat of vapourization of water which is sufficient to cool more than 2000 kg of adjacent air by 1˚C, i.e about two olympic swimming pools of air, per kg of evaporated water. All that water vapour and clouds got into the atmosphere by being vapourised from the planet surface.
You call the greenhouse effect a mechanism? Vapourization… now THATS a mechanism.
“natural variation in water vapor (WV) far exceeds the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It likely exceeds it in total and certainly more than any human-induced increase in CO2”
that would explain the absence of a correlation between fossil fuel emissions and warming
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2662870
and why climate science relies on a correlation between cumulative values
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
Thanks. I had seen your the second of your papers linked here, but had missed the first one.
Nice one. Thank you Dr Tim Ball. I still don’t understand how a radiative gas traps heat, does it stop radiating when it gets hot?
A fine question ……. but don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer.
DUH, the only known entities in the universe that are capable of “trapping heat” are the Black Holes at the center of galaxies.
Richard, the AGW mechanism is that CO2 absorbs IR radiation emerging from the warm surface, and becomes vibrationally excited.
That vibrational energy is quickly off-loaded into the kinetic energy of the surrounding air by collision between the excited CO2 and nitrogen/oxygen molecules. This kinetic energy is heat.
The original CO2 molecule, now back in its vibrational ground-state, can absorb another IR photon and go through the entire process again. So CO2 acts to turn radiant energy from the surface into kinetic energy (heat) in the atmosphere.
Climate models pretty much assume this extra kinetic energy stays as heat in the atmosphere, i.e., that nothing happens except that the atmosphere heats up.
They ignore the fact, however, that the climate has many very rapid alternative responses to this extra energy, other than merely heating the atmosphere. The most important include evaporation/condensation of water and thermal convection. Very small adjustments in the amounts and/or rates of these processes can remove all that extra kinetic energy (heat).
The result could be small increases in cloudiness or in precipitation (mostly in the equatorial region), likely in the thunderstorms that are central to Willis Eschenbach’s model of equatorial thunderstorms as engines of negative temperature feedback.
At the end, there’d be little or no detectable change in air temperature no matter that CO2 injects kinetic energy into the atmosphere.
Climate models are entirely unable to include these effects. They essentially model a crippled climate that cannot respond properly to the small increase in atmospheric kinetic energy from increased CO2.
PF,
Your reply overlooks the fact that ALL atoms at a temperature above absolute zero will radiate energy.
Clyde, no it doesn’t.
Megha-Tropiques satellite’s S.A.P.H.I.R. measurements might interest some; it reveals there is not a constant water vapor that climate models can simply plug into a prediction. See Moradi, et al. (2016) “Diurnal variation of tropospheric relative humidity in tropical region”, open access 28 journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions is available on-line as free full pdf.
I have long been convinced that water vapour is fully capable of providing the necessary negative feedback to offset whatever warming we might have to deal with. And CO2 is still meaningless!
How does the water vapor story match with the movement of the monsoons? How much energy does it take to shift the monsoon bands?
Recently, a nanoscale photo of an emerald found water in the spaces between the molecules of emerald. It had disassociated in a new form of water. So would it be possible that other rocks and materials have water trapped in them? Do they release this water, at a nanoscale, with mining and crushing and refining? Does this happen with tectonic plates moving? Would it be significant anyway?
The water vapor story has a very long way to run before climate can be understood.
“Look at the vagueness. They can’t define “small” in the direct human portion or even its actual volume.”
You could try reading it. That cited AR4 sets this out on detail, in sec 2.5.6″
Stokes,
I’m surprised that AR4 gives the credit to Asia as the primary locality of irrigation. What is at issue is irrigation water converting to water vapor. If irrigation water is simply diverted from steams and rivers to flood rice fields, then the only anthropogenic effect is to increase the surface area and promote more evaporation. However, in the US, huge reservoir projects started in the 1920s, basically doing the same thing. Additionally, with the invention of pivotal irrigation, both surface, and more commonly ground-water, were applied over large areas where the high temperatures and aridity were guaranteed to rapidly evaporate significant proportions of the sprinkler outputs.
Anecdotally, an Aunt and Uncle that moved to NW Nebraska about 60 years ago, related to me that when they first made lemonade with ice cubes, nothing would condense on the sides of the glasses. After the widespread introduction of pivotal irrigation, that changed dramatically. Now if the models show a change in RH of up to 1% in the humid areas of SE Asia and Southern China, I would expect an even larger increase for the arid and semi-arid regions of the US.
Back to the famous unvalidated & unverified computer models again?
Re Clyde Spencer’s post at 9:39 pm: yes, infrared (IR) spectra such as the one available at http://climateaudit.org/?p=2572 (see Fig. 3) , which is replicated quite well by MODTRAN computer calculations such as the one available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing , show that water vapour is twice as important as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. This might be thought to provide a 200% positive feedback, boosting a climate sensitivity on doubling CO2 of 1 degree (not including feedbacks) to the long-accepted 3 degrees. The fatal flaw in this reasoning is that doubling CO2 does not double water vapour. A climate sensitivity of 0.6 degrees (not including feedbacks) would increase water vapour by only 4%, so even including a weighting factor of 2 would mean a positive feedback of only 8%, not 200% [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius-Clapeyron_relation , where near the end it says that a 1 degree rise in temperature increases water vapour by 7%. Because water vapour is roughly an exponential function of temperature, this 7% rise is true for any starting temperature. The rise is also true if we consider all water vapour at 50% relative humidity rather than 100% at saturation.] Since increased water vapour is likely to increase cloud cover, and the net effect of increased clouds is a negative feedback, we can see that the assumption of a 200% positive feedback is all wrong. This is one reason that all computer calculations of projected warming have proven to be way too high, when compared with actual temperatures, especially during the last 16 years of hiatus (even as CO2 has continued to increase to 400 ppmv).
Re: heat transfer by water vapour. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is -9.8 K/km, which means that for every km rise in altitude, the tropospheric temperature drops by 9.8 K if we ignore water vapour and heat transfer between layers of the atmosphere. The actual lapse rate in the troposphere is about -6.8 K/km (a drop from 288 K to 220 K in 10 km). This moderation of the lapse rate is due to transfer of heat from the surface to upper layers in the troposphere by (1) radiative exchange of resonant frequency photons between greenhouse gas molecules CO2 and water vapour, (2) by convection currents (especially over intensely heated cloudless land during the daytime), (3) by condensation of gaseous water vapour to liquid droplets or sublimation to ice crystals in clouds, and (4) by exchange of continuous Planck black body photons between warm droplets at the base of clouds to colder droplets or ice crystals at the tops of clouds. The %CO2 does not change much with altitude, so eventually photons at CO2 central frequencies escape to outer space at 20-30 km altitude in the stratosphere, when the gas molecules are at pressures hundredths of that at the surface. This explains the “220K” emission that truncates the CO2 absorption ditch in the IR spectra. Jack Barrett has run the MODTRAN program to 70 km altitude instead of stopping at 20 km (as in the Wikipedia article on Radiative forcing) and has shown that doubling CO2 means that the truncation then occurs at higher altitudes, where the stratosphere temperature is higher (due to the temperature inversion caused by heating due to ozone which absorbs incoming Solar UV and visible radiation). [See the section “The hard bit” at http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/ ] Water vapour, however, decreases drastically as the temperature decreases. The MODTRAN spectrum shows that below 200 cm^-1 the emission to outer space at the TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere) follows roughly a 220 K Planck black body curve, as the rotational energy states of water vapour differ by the average translational energy or less. This means that collisions between water molecules can activate higher rotational states which can emit 200 cm^-1 photons, or less energetic photons. So continual exchange involving emission and absorption of these photons produces the Planck black body curve below 200 cm^-1. The photon is a boson with a spin of 1, which means that it follows Bose-Einstein statistics (many photons can be in the same energy state, for example, in a laser beam), and it carries one unit of angular momentum (in units of h, Planck’s constant, divided by 2pi). In order for total angular momentum to be conserved, water molecules can change in rotational quantum number, J, by only 1 unit on emission or absorption of a photon. From 200 to 600 cm^-1, the difference in rotational energy states becomes too large for random collisions between molecules to produce the higher energy state with J value 1 above the lower [the energy levels vary as J(J+1) ]. So emission becomes less probable, and what the observed spectra show is net ABSORPTION of the 288 K Planck black body emission from the Earth’s surface by the rare water molecules in high rotational energy states (i.e. with high values of J). The net ABSORPTION (downward bite out of the 288 K Planck black body emission curve due to transitions between water vapour rotational levels in the ground vibrational state) peaks at around 400 to 500 cm^-1, and the AREA between the 288 K curve and the actual spectrum is proportional to the decrease in IR emission from the surface that makes it all the way to outer space. However, water vapour can also absorb outgoing IR in a transition from the ground bond-bending vibrational state (vibrational quantum number v = 0 ) to the first vibrational excited state (with v = 1), in a band centered at 1595 cm^-1. This band extends from about 1100 to 2200 cm^-1 [see Fig. 3 at http://smsc.cnes.fr/documentation/IASI/Publications/ClerbauxACP2009.pdf ], with P- and R-bands roughly 550 cm^-1 wide each, on either side of 1595 cm^-1. Note that the 200-600 cm^-1 water vapour absorption due to transitions in pure rotation (no change in vibration) is part of an R-branch, where J increases by +1. In the 1595 cm^-1 absorption band, the P-branch (from 1595 to 1100 cm^-1) forms when J changes by -1 (e.g. from J=5 to J=4); this can occur because the rotational energy change is still smaller than the 1595 cm^-1 jump in vibrational energy. However, even 1100 cm^-1 corresponds to such a high energy that very few molecules are formed in the excited state due to collisions, so emission is low, and the net spectrum is essentially an ABSORPTION spectrum. I have emphasized ABSORPTION with capitals, because the literature talks about these spectra as if they were EMISSION spectra, totally missing the point. You can see this staggering lack of understanding even in the truncation of the horizontal axis in these spectra, at around 1500 or 1600 cm^-1, instead of extending them to 2400 cm^-1 to include the R-branch absorption due to water vapour bond-bending vibrational transitions. So the correct interpretation for water molecules is that they result in net absorption of the 288 K Planck black body emission, which is almost total above 1500 cm^-1 (like CO2, most of the central frequencies have reached saturation). And a 4% increase in total water vapour in the path length will result in only a very small additional amount of absorption (positive feedback).
Note that at 15 Celsius, the saturated vapour pressure of water is 12.788 mm Hg (16,826 ppmv, or 42 times that of 400 ppmv CO2). By 223 K (-50 Celsius), water vapour pressure is only 0.03 mm Hg , or 39 ppmv, or 10 times smaller than 400 ppmv CO2, so even central H2O frequencies below 200 cm^-1 can escape to outer space at 10 km altitude. It should also be noted that the rotational constant B, which tells us the spacing between adjacent lines in the rotational spectrum, varies inversely as the moment of inertia. Because the center-of-mass of the H2O molecule is buried inside the heavy O atom, the moment of inertia is due mainly to the light H atoms, so the 3 rotational constants for H2O are considerably higher than B for the linear CO2 molecule, with heavy O atoms at the ends. This means that the vibration-rotation lines for CO2 are much closer together, and random collisions at 288 K or 220 K can boost CO2 molecules to quite high rotational states (with J values as high as 40 or 50). It is these rare high-energy molecules that are involved in the enhanced greenhouse effect, for they can still absorb some of the Planck black body photons emitted from the 288 K Earth’s surface in lines that are not yet saturated, and that follow a modified Beer-Lambert absorption law. In fact, the slight difference between the green and blue absorption CO2 MODTRAN spectra at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing is due mainly to two absorptions by rare molecules in the first excited vibrational state (which constitute only about 3% of the number in the ground state). These occur in the sloping flanks of the CO2 absorption ditch, centered at 618 and 721 cm^-1. For their place in the CO2 vibrational energy level diagram, see Diagram 3 in the section “Spectral transitions” at http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com . You may not totally understand the quantum mechanics of vibrational-rotational energy levels of molecules, but rest assured that the literature and the “experts” to date have not even understood the difference between absorption and emission spectra. For a crash course, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_lines and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_line .
What are the chances that they got this right in climate models?
“The fatal flaw in this reasoning is that doubling CO2 does not double water vapour. A climate sensitivity of 0.6 degrees (not including feedbacks) would increase water vapour by only 4%, so even including a weighting factor of 2 would mean a positive feedback of only 8%, not 200%”
No, the denominator is different. The flux may be 8% as a fraction of wv radiative heat flux. But as a fraction of CO2 flux, it’s much higher. This is a consequence of wv being the major GHG. CO2 is smaller, and needs to be changed by a lot to have an overall effect. We’re doing that. Water is big, but pretty much fixed by temperature. The feedback, small as a % of wv, still has a relatively large effect.
The AR5 has an FAQ 8.1 on all this.
Hi Nick! Yes, I understand that a small increase in water vapour can still amount to a lot of climate sensitivity since w.v. is itself the most important greenhouse gas. However, I would be a lot more confident of your argument if the literature did not talk about “emission spectrum” rather than “absorption spectrum”, and in particular showed infrared (IR) spectra obtained by satellites looking down on the Earth with wavenumbers extending to 2400 cm^-1 instead of truncating at 1500 or 1600 cm^-1. The reason is that the water vapour bond-bending band has origin at 1595 cm^-1, and the R-branch of the band extends from 1595 cm^-1 to about 2200 cm^-1. Combined with the decreasing exponential nature of the Planck black body radiation curves in this region, the net result is almost complete absorption in the R-branch (seemingly interpreted in the literature as “zero emission”). This means that water vapour lines are severely saturated, so that linear absorption with increased concentration is not valid. For example, the 288 K Planck curve in the MODTRAN spectrum available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing , when extended to 2400 cm^-1 shows that the 383.3 – 260.1 = 123.2 W/m^2 net absorption can be partitioned into 38.1 W/m^2 for CO2 absorption (which warms the troposphere), 80.4 W/m^2 for water vapour (which shows that it is twice as important a greenhouse gas as CO2 in warming the troposphere), and 4.7 W/m^2 for ozone absorption. The Clausius-Clapeyron relation says that a 0.6 degree increase in temperature raises the saturated water vapour by 4%, and 4% of 80.4 W/m^2 = 3.2 W/m^2 which is comparable to the 3.39 W/m^2 “forcing” on doubling CO2 which without feedbacks would produce 0.6 degrees warming (not the 1 degree quoted in the literature). But this 4% calculation assumes a linear relation for the entire water vapour absorption which we have already shown is not valid due to saturation. The comparable situation for CO2 is that the forcing of 3.39 W/m^2 shown on the MODTRAN spectrum is only 8.8% of the 38.1 W/m^2 effect of absorption at 300 ppmv, so doubling CO2 produces a lot less than a 100% increase (the difference in areas of absorption between the green and blue curves in the MODTRAN spectrum, which I accept as accurate, is slight). So the 3.2 W/m^2 estimate of the effect of positive water vapour feedback (which would be 94% of the CO2 forcing, not 200%) is going to be way too high, perhaps by as much as a factor of 10. So positive feedback due to water vapour absorption has been exaggerated. Since net cloud feedback is strongly negative, the non-zero positive feedback due to increased water vapour absorption is likely to be overwhelmed. This means that climate sensitivity, including water vapour and cloud feedbacks, is likely to be around 0.5 degrees, a factor of 6 smaller than the accepted value of 3 degrees. And due to saturation effects (diminishing returns on increasing CO2), estimates of future warming on increasing CO2 are likely to be a factor of 8 or so too high. I must say, Nick, that I do respect your arguments, for you provide quantitative reasons, not just hand-waving qualitative issues like the majority of sincere warmists.
Hi Nick! I have recalculated the effect of increasing water vapor by 4% on the MODTRAN spectrum available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing , including corrections for saturation effects. The bottom line result is a decrease in TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere) flux by as much as 1.21 W/m^2 (which means a requirement that for energy balance, surface flux must increase by 1.78 W/m^2, assuming a transmission factor of (383.34 – 123.22)/383.34 = 0.6786 ). This translates directly to a positive water vapor feedback by as much as +0.33 K at the Earth’s surface, which is a factor of 6 smaller than the 2 degrees quoted in the literature. I used 4% rather than 7%, because the MODTRAN spectrum showing a radiative forcing of 3.39 W/m^2 at the TOA is for a cloudless 288.2 K surface of the Earth, and the TOA forcing is smaller from a colder cloud top with a smaller number of ground state CO2 molecules in the path length to outer space, and with a smaller % of molecules in the first vibrationally excited state (from which the sideband absorptions centered at 618 and 721 cm^-1 occur, explaining the enhanced greenhouse effect). Basically, I calculated Planck black body emission values for a 288.2 K curve at 100 cm^-1 intervals from 0 to 2400 cm^-1, and normalized values to match a printout of the MODTRAN curve at 900 cm^-1, the center of an IR window from 800-1000 cm^-1. Then I measured the heights of the water vapor spectra at 100 cm^-1 intervals from 0 to 600 cm^-1 (the pure rotation spectrum with no change in the vibrational quantum number from the ground state), and from 1200 to 2400 cm^-1. The difference from the 288.2 K Planck curve gives the amount of absorption, assumed above 200 cm^-1. [Below 200 cm^-1, the spectrum closely matches a 220 K Planck black body curve, which indicates that at 220 K the average translational kinetic energy of gas molecules, 3kT/2 , is about the same as the energy of a 200 cm^-1 photon (hcf, where c is the vacuum speed of light in cm/s, and f is the wavenumber in cm^-1), so the upper rotational state is constantly being created during intermolecular collisions, so an emission spectrum is produced when the small amount of water vapor molecules at 10 km altitude emit photons that escape directly to outer space without being further absorbed.] From 200 to 600 cm^-1 I assumed that the spectrum is a pure absorption spectrum, with net absorption of 288.2 K black body photons being absorbed in the path length to outer space. This is not strictly true, because the Schwarzschild Equation says that the signal measured by the satellite looking down from outer space sees not only Beer-Lambert absorption of surface emission, but a small amount of atmospheric radiation (if we approximate this by calculating the absorbance relative to the difference between the 288.2 K and 220 K Planck curves, the positive water vapor feedback is reduced to +0.21 K, with the truth somewhere between this and +0.33 K). The areas of water vapor absorption were then calculated by dividing the 0-600 and 1200-2400 cm^-1 regions into trapezoids 100 cm^01 wide. The total area of both regions was equated to 80.4 W/m^2, the portion of the 123.2 W/m^2 total absorption due to water vapor. The correction factors for saturation effect were calculated by first making a table of values for each doubling of CO2 concentration, starting with transmittance T = 0.99 (99%) which means absorbance A = 1-T = 0.01 (1%). Because concentration appears in the exponent of the Beer-Lambert transmittance function, each doubling means squaring the previous value of T. E.g. after 4 doublings, T = 0.8515 and A = 0.1485 (14.85%, a little smaller than 16% due to the onset of saturation). After 7 doublings, T = 0.2763 and A = 0.7237 (72.37%, a lot smaller than 2^7 %= 128 %). A graph of (delta A)/A vs. A shows a straight line which can be used to read the % change at each value of A. This is the correction factor for saturation effects (e.g. at A = 0.01 = 1%, the correction factor is 0.99 = 99% to get the value of (delta A ) after 1 doubling of CO2 ; at A = 0.7237, the correction factor is 0.276 = 27.6%). The areas of extra water vapor absorption on doubling CO2 were then calculated using trapezoids 100 cm^-1 wide, as before, and then multiplying the total by 4% = 0.04 to get the water vapor feedback in W/m^2, which can then be used in the Stefan-Boltzmann law backwards to calculate the new equilibrium surface value of T, and therefore of (delta T). Hope this procedure makes sense (I’m sure you’ll tell me if and where I’m wrong), as the ultimate goal is to get at the truth (“the limit of converging probabilities” – Cardinal Newman). I haven’t yet calculated what this means about net cloud feedback, but I know that it is negative, and will be slightly larger than 0.2 K in magnitude, which means that it basically cancels the positive water vapor feedback, leaving the climate sensitivity (including water vapor and cloud feedbacks) at around 0.6 or 0.7 K, way below the literature’s “best value” of 3 degrees. I have to go now for a previous engagement….
Roger,
“This translates directly to a positive water vapor feedback by as much as +0.33 K at the Earth’s surface”
I’m not sure how you do that conversion. But it seems to me the simplest is to relate it to the forcings, as given in SPM 5, AR5. Net total forcing 2.29 W/m2, so far. Your 1.21 W/m2 seems quite significant on that scale.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_FigSPM-5.jpg
Hi Nick! This is in reply to your courteous reply on July 19, 2016 at 5:35 pm. I deeply respect your willingness to read further and question. Yes, 1.21 W/m^2 really is significant relative to a net forcing of 2.29 W/m^2, but it is only 52.8% positive feedback, not the 200% which boosts a climate sensitivity of 1 K to the long-accepted 3 K. So in the past the positive feedback assumed was at least a factor of 4 too high.
To convert an extra TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere) flux of 1.21 W/m^2 to the equivalent extra surface flux, divide by 0.6786 (which is the transmission factor when 260.12 W/m^2 escapes to outer space when the 288.2 K Earth’s surface at emissivity 0.98 emits 383.34 W/m^2. This gives 1.21/0.6786 = 1.78 W/m^2 which is the extra flux that must be emitted at the surface for energy balance. For the new surface flux of 383.34 + 1.78 = 385.12 W/m^2, we use the Stefan-Boltzmann Law backwards for a surface of emissivity 0.98 to get the new temperature = the 4th root of (385.12/[0.98(5.67 x 10^-8)]) = 288.53 K. Therefore the positive water vapour feedback = 288.53 – 288.2 = +0.33 K, but not 2 K, which is a factor of 6 too high. Your value of total anthropogenic Radiative Forcing of 2.29 W/m^2 at the TOA may be directly converted to a climate sensitivity following the same steps: The TOA forcing plus water vapor feedback of 1.21 W/m^2 is then 2.29 + 1.21 = 3.5 W/m^2. Dividing by the transmission factor of 0.6786 gives 5.16 W/m^2 extra which must be emitted at the surface for energy balance. The total surface flux emitted must be 383.34 + 5.16 = 388.50 W/m^2. This means a new surface temperature of the 4th root of (388.50/[0.98(5.67 x 10^-8)]) = 289.16 K. Therefore climate sensitivity on doubling CO2, other anthropogenic greenhouse gases AND water vapour feedback is 289.16 – 288.2 = 0.96 K, not 3 K. If we add a net negative cloud feedback of around -0.2 K, climate sensitivity on doubling CO2, including water vapour and cloud feedbacks, is around 0.76 K, a factor of 4 smaller than the long-accepted value of 3 K. Because temperature rise varies as the logarithm of the CO2 concentration, the error in predictions of future warming will be even higher. For example, as CO2 increased from 280 ppmv in 1850 to 400 ppmv in 2015, the Earth warmed by 0.8 +/- 0.1 degrees. The mathematical question “What is x, if 2^x = 400/280?” is solved by taking logs of both sides. Then, x.log2 = log(400/280), so x= [log(400/280)]/log2 = 0.515 , on using a basic scientific calculator. You can check this, using the y^x button: 2^0.515 = 1.429 , and 400/280 = 1.429. This means that 0.515 doublings has occurred in that time period, so 0.515(0.76 K) = 0.39 K of the 0.8 K temperature rise can be attributed to anthropogenic gas emissions plus feedbacks. On the other hand, if we use the value of 3 K for climate sensitivity, 0.515(3 K) = 1.55 K warming must have occurred from 1850 to 2015; this is a factor of 2 too high, way outside the error bars of 0.8 +/- 0.1 K, explaining why all the computer calculations modelling global warming have been way too high. It gets worse if we calculate the warming due to anthropogenic gases, as CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppmv. The number of doublings this corresponds to is [log(600/400)/log2] = 0.585, so our value of 0.76 for climate sensitivity (including water vapour and cloud feedbacks) predicts another 0.585(0.76 K) = 0.44 K. Since the 0.8 +/- 0.1 K temperature rise includes the CO2 increase from 300 to 400 ppmv, if climate sensitivity is 3 K, then the predicted warming as CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppmv must be at least 3 – 0.8 = 2.2 K. This is 2.2/0.44 = 5 times too high. Since my value of 1.21 W/m^2 is a maximum, assuming no infrared (IR) emission from water vapour from 200 to 600 cm^-1 , but only Beer-Lambert absorption of the flux emitted from a 288.2 K surface, this factor may still be too low. If we use +0.21 K for positive water vapour feedback instead of +0.33 K, and reduce the required surface flux to be decreased by 0.88 W/m^2 due to extra CO2 emission from the stratosphere because of the temperature inversion there (which is equivalent to -0.16 K at the surface) , climate sensitivity (including feedbacks) will be 0.48 K . Then the expected warming due to anthropogenic causes as CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppmv in the future will be 0.585(0.48 K) = 0.28, a factor of 8 times smaller than the 2.2 K that MUST occur if the long-accepted value of 3 K is correct.
IPCC provides the following central estimates In AR5; WGI:
Central estimate for current global energy imbalance:
( 0,71 W/m^2) / 0.93 = 0,76 W/m^2
(Ref.: IPCC;AR5;WGI; Section TS.2.3 Changes in Energy Budget and Heat Content )
Central estimate for water vapour, lapse rate and cloud feedbacks:
(1,1 W/m^2 °C ) * 0.85 °C = 0,94 W/m^2
(Ref.: IPCC;AR5;WGI; Section 7.2.6 Feedback Synthesis and B.1 Atmosphere)
Thus the hypothesized central estimate for water vapour, lapse rate and cloud feedbacks is 0,18 W/m^2 – or 25% higher – than the central estimate for for current global energy imbalance.
Hence, It can be seen that the central estimates provided by IPCC are inconsistent. The central estimates provided by IPCC cannot be true when central estimates for vapor, lapse rate and cloud feedback = 0,94 (W/m^2) are 0,18 W/m^2 or 25% higher than central estimates for Current global energy imbalance = 0,76 (W/m^2).
The central estimates provided by IPCC are inconsistent, and hidden for Policy Makers!
“Hence, It can be seen that the central estimates provided by IPCC are inconsistent.”
No, there is no inconsistency. The wv feedback is actually just a component of the overall warming fluxes – radiative forcing is larger. They are part-balanced by the increased OLR produced by warming. The global energy imbalance expresses the shortfall, which is mainly heat going into the oceans. There is no expectation that this will match any part of the warming fluxes – and at equilibrium it will b zero.
Pure and simple physics:
Current global energy imbalance (W/m^2) = Anthropogenic forcing (W/m^2) + Water vapor, lapse rate and cloud feedback (W/m^2) – Planck response (W/m^2) +/- All other things (W/m^2)
Yes, and Planck response is in there. So why should feedbacks not exceed imbalance?
You are right. I cannot tell that there is an inconsistency from the figures I provided.
What I can tell however is that the water vapor, lapse rate and cloud feedbacks is a response to surface temperature increase since preindustrial times and that the central estimate for water vapor, lapse rate and cloud feedbacks is of comparable size to the current global energy imbalance. Hence the current warming is highly sensitive to this feedback.
The Planck feedback is certainly showing up in the energy imbalance and the missing energy – we are measuring it with the extremely low ocean heat content numbers.
But Planck feedback is NOT counted in the 3.0C per doubling calculation or theory. Show me where it is incorporated. The IPCC did NOT even include it in the feedback tables until AR5.
Planck feedback will reduce global warming to 1.0C per doubling and since the missing energy is there one could assume the feedbacks have been calculated wrong because Planck was not there.
Add up the direct forcing right now and add in what the water vapor/cloud feedbacks should be to date and it is 6.3 W/m2.
Yet only 0.6 W/m2 is showing up. 5.6 W/m2 is MISSING.
Is Planck -9.0 W/m2/C (supposed to be -3.2) or are the water vapor/cloud feedbacks exaggerated or is the entire theory exaggerated from square one.
Take your pick because it is one those explanations.
I should have known that since IPCC did neither provide a central estimate for the equilibrium climate sensitivity nor the climate feedback parameter – my claim that their central estimates was inconsistent could not be true:
“The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multi-century time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1°C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6°C (medium confidence) Note16.”
“Note16: No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”
– IPCC;AR5;WGI; D.2 Quantification of Climate System Responses; Page 16
“TFE.4, Figure 1 | The Earth’s energy budget from 1970 through 2011.
(b) The cumulative total energy inflow … is balanced by the sum of the energy uptake of the Earth system … and an increase in outgoing radiation inferred from changes in the global mean surface temperature.
The sum of these two terms is given for a climate feedback parameter of 2.47, 1.23 and 0.82 W m–2 °C–1, corresponding to an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 1.5°C, 3.0°C and 4.5°C, respectively; 1.5°C to 4.5°C is assessed to be the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity. The energy budget would be closed for a particular value of if the corresponding line coincided with the total energy inflow.”
Hence, It seem to me that IPCC got all bets covered.
The problem is that increasing the water vapor content in air cools it. To prove it is a positive feedback you need to use a psychrometric chart (or calculator), figure out how much the air cools for a given change in humidity ratio, and then see if the IR absorption is capable of overcoming this effect.
Bill Illis,
“But Planck feedback is NOT counted in the 3.0C per doubling calculation or theory. Show me where it is incorporated.”
Climate sensitivity is basically the ratio of observed warming to forcing. Feedback is not part of that calculation. And it is the same if you observe with a GCM – you still just apply forcing and estimate the temperature response. The model incorporates radiation laws (effectively Stefan-Boltzmann) so there is Planck feedback, but you don’t need to calculate it directly. It’s just forcing and response. Just as you don’t need to know about feedback when you adjust the volume knob.
Nick Stokes, please show me a calculation of the imbalance [W/m^2] from the energy fluxes at Earth’ surface.
Frans Franken,
The usual calculation is that the imbalance is just equal to the rate of heat accumulation in the oceans. There is really nowhere else for the heat to go.
Nick “There is really nowhere else for the heat to go.”
How do you know or measure it is going there?
“How do you know or measure it is going there?”
Nowadays by ARGO. Before, it wasn’t possible.
Mr. Stokes states, “The global energy imbalance expresses the shortfall, which is mainly heat going into the oceans.” There is a huge area of disagreement about LWIR heating the oceans. Top physicists say your statement is tantamount to the proverbial tail wagging the dog.
“There is a huge area of disagreement about LWIR heating the oceans.”
I don’t believe so. But anyway, there is no need for LWIR to heat the oceans. Sunlight provides the heat, which then returns to the atmosphere and above. DWLWIR allows the surface to sustain a higher temperature than it otherwise could. A little more sun heat is retained.
Mr. Stokes, other than your leading sentence, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Anyhow, something seem to be warming the oceans, I got a post, including a spread sheet, showing step for step how the current global energy imbalance can be calculated from the reported ocean warming:
How to estimate current global energy imbalance from NODC´s ocean temperature record 2005 – 2015
As mentioned above IPCC cannot possibly miss, as they don´t provide central estimates, but provide a range of values and say that the energy budget would be closed for a particular value of the feedback parameter which closes the energy budget. Their central estimate seems to be whatever might close the energy budget:
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_FigTS_TFE.4-1.jpg
” TFE.4, Figure 1
(b) The cumulative total energy inflow from (a, black) is balanced by the sum of the energy uptake of the Earth system (blue; energy absorbed in warming the ocean, the atmosphere and the land, as well as in the melting of ice) and an increase in outgoing radiation inferred from changes in the global mean surface temperature. The sum of these two terms is given for a climate feedback parameter alpha of 2.47, 1.23 and 0.82 W m–2 °C–1, corresponding to an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 1.5°C, 3.0°C and 4.5°C, respectively; 1.5°C to 4.5°C is assessed to be the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity. The energy budget would be closed for a particular value of the feedback parameter if the corresponding line coincided with the total energy inflow.”
Luckily we got the climate model predictions which formed part of the basis for their assessment – and the model results does not fit observations very well as discussed here: Controversy over comparing models with observations
What I would have liked to see was that the ocean warming (observed energy accumulation) and surface temperatures was unknown to the modelers. I would have liked to see what happens with their models when they don´t know the answer upfront.
Nick Stokes:
“The usual calculation is that the imbalance is just equal to the rate of heat accumulation in the oceans. There is really nowhere else for the heat to go.”
So the surface flux imbalance, if any, is held fully accountable for alleged ocean heating?
How about undersea volcanic activity, can that heat really go anywhere else but in the oceans?
SoF
“Luckily we got the climate model predictions which formed part of the basis for their assessment”
What you are describing is not based on predictions, GCM or otherwise. Look at the dates on the axis. It is an empirical energy budget based on observations. And so of course they should require it to be consistent with observed ocean heat content.
FF,
“How about undersea volcanic activity, can that heat really go anywhere else but in the oceans?”
Yes, the Earth is slowly emitting heat from its interior, which creates a small discrepancy term. It has been doing it for billions of years, and there is no reason to expect that it is currently changing.
So I don’t doom the Earth when I boil the kettle for tea?
Your tea would drive civilization as we know it to its knees only if you use a “super-strength kettle”:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-pauses-plans-to-ban-super-strength-kettles-out-of-fear-it-would-drive-tea-loving-britons-towards-a6899551.html
Obviously the EU plan didn’t work.
I am not familiar with the details of tea brewing, because out here in the hinterlands coffee is the preferred alkaloid delivery system. We have cowboy coffee, where the grounds are boiled until a horseshoe floats; and we have railroad coffee, where the grounds are boiled until a tie plate floats.
So the IPCC start with weasel-word definitions which are absurd to any ordinary person and use these to bolster its case.
Would any normal person think that tossing a coin – with a 50-50 chance of it landing heads or tails – would properly be described as ‘medium confidence’ it would land head up ?
Of course ‘medium confidence’ should mean mid point or a 50% chance – so it is not inherently wrong but what is, to my mind, deliberately misleading is the use of the word ‘Confidence’. That implies you are confident of something but have some doubts – and is a deliberate and calcuated use of weasel words.
The IPCC could as, or even more, easily used the phrase “50% chance”, and which any reader can immediately understand, but instead chose to state ‘medium confidence’ which has a very different connotation to most people.
But of course 50% chance or 50 – 50 means that you simply don’t know, have no certainty and can’t tell or predict…..
Presumably the IPCC decided not to use that shorter and more accurate phrase because it would not have created the impression they sought.
Old England July 17, 2016 at 1:49 am
The IPCC could as, or even more, easily used the phrase “50% chance”, … but instead chose to state ‘medium confidence’
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
That was great (-:
“But of course 50% chance or 50 – 50 means that you simply don’t know”
No, it doesn’t. If you say horse A has a 50% chance of winning, it doesn’t mean you don’t know. It means you think A is the favourite. If the Met says there is a 50% chance of rain, it means (here at least) that there is a much above average chance of rain today. They don’t say it every day.
Nick, saying that I had medium confidence that the horse was going to lose would not convey the same message as saying that I had medium confidence that the horse was going to win.
Trouble is, Nick.. Your horse has bolted..
Never really made it to the starting gate.
And yet, you are still betting on it..
DOH !!!
“Your horse has bolted.”
There it goes!
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
It depends on the number of horses. In the IPCC’s case, there are two — one horse is called “True,” and the other one is “False.” Estimating a chance of 50% for either horse is the very minimum of “confidence.”
@ur momisugly Nick Stokes:-
Only a fool, or a player with weasel words, would suggest that to ‘think’ is the same as to ‘know’. If you give something a 50% chance it is because you DON’T KNOW – if you knew then it couldn’t be a 50% chance – could it.
Reply to: Nick Stokes July 17, 2016 at 2:45 am
That is the fundamental problem with probability, nature it seems, has conspired to hide the future. When I was taught it, we learned that “experimental probability” is all we actually have. In science lab we ran the simple 50:50 experiments, actually flipping a coin and counting the results. And of course as you probably know, the result only ever approaches the theoretical prediction, if you do it many, many times! To be clear the more you do the experiment the closer it approaches 50:50; hence the name “Experimental Probability”.
“Experimental” and “theory” have been dropped and now there is only probability in common parlance. However, long strings of heads or tails in a row happen and are not miraculous and do not disrupt reality or the theory. And that is the problem with even very simple observation like this. We have forgotten the philosophical underpinnings of science. We have forgotten how to really think. If we can get such a simple thing as the difference between Experimental Probability and the – probabilities of reality – wrong; what hope is there for more complex problems?
You obviously haven’t spent much time at a Sports Book desk betting on the horses. Under no circumstances does saying that horse A has a 50% chance of winning mean that you think A is the favorite. It means what it says: horse A has a 50-50 chance. The odds are 1 to 1, or “even money” either way, win or lose (payout odds). ‘True odds’ are the actual chances of winning, using past horse and track info, but you still won’t know for certain until the race is run. You’re guessing based on your best estimate using variables and formulas that have worked for you in the past, just as the odds-setting professionals do right up to the time of the race.
Horses B, C, D, E, and F will have different odds. You might think horse B has a 90% chance of winning. No reflection on what you think about horse A’s chances. You might bet on a 15 to 1 longshot because you have a hunch, or you know something about the condition of the track and a particular horse’s ability to handle it under adverse conditions without injury.
The odds, whether true or payout, are estimates using known variables gleaned from the past, not the future. What you think about the horsie’s chances are immaterial to the outcome. It’s up to the horse and its rider.
Old England is right. Thinking ain’t the same as knowing.
As usual, Nick, you’ve left out the error bars. Your graph is physically meaningless.
And let me add that the proper error bars are not the negligent (+/-)0.2 C of GISS/UKmet/UEA. They’re the (+/-)0.5 C (minimum) of systematic sensor measurement error.
At the 95% confidence interval, your graph, Nick, is physically meaningless, error bars or not.
The standard format way you’ve presented it is a monument to the incompetence that perfuses the field.
“In the IPCC’s case, there are two — one horse is called “True,” and the other one is “False.””
Will horse A win? 50% true, 50% false. Will it rain today (rainy day forecast)? Same. The reason why saying a coin has 50% chance of heads is uninformative is that you have an a priori theory that that should be so. For these other events you don’t, so saying the probability is 50% gives you information.
“As usual, Nick, you’ve left out the error bars.”
Bolting horses leave the error bars behind.
You brought up the racehorse analogy. With only two horses, a 50% winning chance obviously doesn’t make either horse a favourite. Also, there is of course no theory that says that all horses should be equal; two horses are not two sides of a coin. A best guess of 50% simply means that, though it is likely that one horse is superior, we just don’t know which one. No information.
But this discussion is irrelevant anyway, because the 50% figure has obviously been extracted from someone’s posterior. The only “information” it conveys is that the IPCC people are ready to make it up as they go along.
Regarding the temperature record, how do you know that the temperature record isn´t biased?
https://youtu.be/Gh-DNNIUjKU
“how do you know that the temperature record isn´t biased”
I calculate the monthly global average myself, using unadjusted GHCN. I have been doing it for five years; I publish before the majors. My results agree with theirs, both currently and in the past. I can use their adjusted GHCN; it makes very little difference. A fuller account is here.
Nick Stokes: I would have more confidence in your graph if the numbers for the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s were the same now as they were twenty years ago. I understand the desire in climatology to adjust historical records, but that does not mean that any adjustments are accurate. According to currently adjusted records, the greatest retreat in glaciers happened at the lowest point in the temperatures in the last 100 years. The below-normal temperatures for the Great Lakes in recent years have been adjusted to near normal — despite record ice on the Great Lakes. . . . . And the list goes on. I have no problem believing that the GMT has risen since the LIA, but your graph is not convincing because of adjustments.
if the numbers for the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s were the same now as they were twenty years ago”
“your graph is not convincing because of adjustments”
You seem to have missed the point there. GHCN unadjusted, which I use, does have the same numbers as they were 20 years ago. In fact, GHCN v1 was issued on CD. And whether you use adjusted or unadjusted makes very little difference.
+1
Nick, comment to your graph.
How was the temperature measured on Artactica up to 1920?
How was the average temperature arrived at over oceans?
How many thermometers used to be in Africa in the same time period?
Please advise.
“How many thermometers…”
For land, the full story is here. You get the earth average temperature by sampling. You can’t sample every point. That doesn’t mean you know nothing.
How much do you know when the measurement uncertainty is larger than the quantity of interest, Nick?
We both know that’s the case with the surface air temperature record. You’re apparently unable to admit it. Why’s that, Nick?
And nice job avoiding any meaningful reply.
Thanks old England, but we must remember the agenda is to redistribute wealth not proper science. So in their mind misleading the “folks” justifies the means.l
@ur momisugly catcracking – I think the agenda goes far beyond wealth re-distribution – it is towards the unelected and unaccountable global government that the UN has long sought. (At least in Britain a majority has now woken up and spoken about the unelected and unaccountable EU – which I have long believed has been a ‘dry run’ for achieving its counterpart global government. EU president Jean Claude Juncker is firmly convinced, and has stated publicly many times, that the truth of their ambition for the EU must be protected by lies. He seems to believe that being prepared to lie in that way is a ‘virtue’ as opposed to being anti-democratic and dishonest.)
In my view the idea of ‘wealth re-distribution’ is simply the bait to bring the undeveloped and frequently less, or even un-, democratic countries into the fold of a global government to control their lives. Using a combination of fear of, and guilt trip for, ‘global warming’ has, in my view, been designed to be the driver to create acceptance of an unelected and anti-democratic global government.
The absurd subjective confidence terminology was invented by IPCC. In my opinion IPCC messed up on both qualitative and quantitative measures of uncertainty. What´s even worse is that the reviewer of IPCC, InterAcademy Council (IAC), endorsed and recommended use of this subjective terminology. I have (at least) two post at my site about IPCC´s expression of uncertainty:
– IPCC was misled by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) on “Qualitative expression of confidence”!
– Both IPCC and it´s reviewer, InterAcademy Council, messed up on “Quantified measures of uncertainty”!
Unadjusted GHCN is already badly contaminated. It is simply not a sound basis for establishing global trends to the accuracy of fractions of centigrades.
The endless exegesis of bad, old climate data somehow reminds me of the endless quibble over the true meaning of everybody’s favourite holy book. The theologians and mathematicians involved seem to have the same kind of mindset; some miracle filter can sift the grain from the chaff, or even turn lead into gold. This is naive and futile.
Thank you Tim for another worthwhile essay.
We have known since about 1985 that global warming alarmism was scientifically wrong – a false crisis.
We have known with greater certainty since about 2002 that it was a deliberate fraud.
Regards to all, Allan
WHAT WE KNEW AND WHEN WE WROTE IT:
2002 DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
Here is our predictive track record, from an article that Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Tim Patterson and I published in 2002 in our debate with the Pembina Institute on the now-defunct Kyoto Accord.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Our eight-point Rebuttal includes predictions that have all materialized in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then was wise enough to ignore it.
[Our 2002 article is in “quotation marks”, followed by current commentary.]
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
NO net global warming has occurred for more than 18 years despite increasing atmospheric CO2.
2. “Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SOx, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.”
Note the extreme pollution of air, water and soil that still occurs in China and the Former Soviet Union.
3. “Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.”
Since the start of global warming mania, about 50 million children below the age of five have died from contaminated water, and trillions of dollars have been squandered on global warming nonsense.
4. “Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.”
Canada signed Kyoto but then most provinces wisely ignored it – the exception being now-depressed Ontario, where government adopted ineffective “green energy” schemes, drove up energy costs, and drove out manufacturing jobs.
5. “Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.”
Note the huge manufacturing growth and extremely polluted air in industrial regions of China.
6. “Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the Former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.”
Our government did not pay the FSU, but other governments did, bribing them to sign Kyoto.
7. “Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.”
If one believed the false climate models, one would conclude that we must cease using fossil fuels.
8. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Governments that adopted “green energy” schemes such as wind and solar power are finding these schemes are not green and produce little useful energy. Their energy costs are soaring and many of these governments are in retreat, dropping their green energy subsidies as fast as they politically can.
IN SUMMARY:
All the above predictions that we made in 2002 have proven correct in those states that fully adopted the Kyoto Accord, whereas none of the global warming alarmists’ scary warming projections have materialized.
***********************************************************
CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING:
THE FUTURE CAN NOT CAUSE THE PAST
I stated in my January 2008 paper:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
The rate of change of atmospheric CO2 (dCO2/dt) correlates closely and ~contemporaneously with global temperature, and its integral atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by about nine months in the modern data record. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale. Therefore, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
Consider the implications of this evidence:
CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, so the global warming (CAGW) hypothesis suggests that the future is causing the past. 🙂
See Figures 1 to 4 in my 2008 icecap paper or this plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
Warmists want to ignore this compelling evidence, or wave it off with the following specious claims:
“We KNOW that CO2 primarily drives temperature (that is a fundamental tenet of warmist religion), therefore:
1) The observed lag of CO2 after temperature must be a feedback effect; and/or
2) “There must be a time machine somewhere that causes this lag.”
Sorry folks, but I do not like your logic – although I do enjoy your time machine fantasy. 🙂
***********************************************************
COLD WEATHER KILLS 20 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS HOT WEATHER
June 13, 2015
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Cold weather kills. Throughout history and in modern times, many more people succumb to cold exposure than to hot weather, as evidenced in a wide range of cold and warm climates.
Evidence is provided from a study of 74 million deaths in thirteen cold and warm countries including Thailand and Brazil, and studies of the United Kingdom, Europe, the USA, Australia and Canada.
Contrary to popular belief, Earth is colder-than-optimum for human survival. A warmer world, such as was experienced during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, is expected to lower winter deaths and a colder world like the Little Ice Age will increase winter mortality, absent adaptive measures.
These conclusions have been known for many decades, based on national mortality statistics.
***********************************************************
EVIDENCE SUGGESTING TEMPERATURE DRIVES ATMOSPHERIC CO2 MORE THAN CO2 DRIVES TEMPERATURE
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, Calgary
I want to thank Allan for his extensive comments.
They are just as useful as the article.
You two Canadians are adding a lot of knowledge to refute the ‘CO2 is evil’ fantasy.
If you can get rid of that fool Trudeau, you’d have a good country
… at least in the summer.
Thank you Richard for you kind worlds.
Canadian winters are long and brutal. I was hoping global warming would solve this problem, but no chance. 🙂
I (we) predicted global cooling would start by 2020-2030, in an article published in the Calgary Herald on 1Sept2002. That prediction is still looking good, although cooling may actually start sooner, by about 2017. This is my last remaining prediction that has not yet materialized, and I really would like to be wrong about it.
I’m getting old and hate the cold.
Best personal regards, Allan
P.S. Young Trudeau is very inexperienced, and like his father may do more harm than good to Canada – we will see. However, compared to Dalton McGuinty and now Kathleen Wynn in Ontario, and Rachel Notley in Alberta, Trudeau looks like a moderate. Dalton, Kathleen and Rachel are from the loony far-left, and their extremist energy policies will cause an increase in Excess Winter Mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor. Look at the Excess Winter Mortality Rates in the UK, which are far higher than those of Canada or the USA. I suppose it makes economic sense for governments to preferentially kill off the elderly and the poor, but I suggest there are better ways to save money. Just my 3 cents worth…
SHORT-TERM, NINO3.4 SST LEADS GLOBAL TEMPERATURE BY ~4 MONTHS
The Nino3.4 area Sea Surface Temperature (SST) appears to be a good leading proxy for global temperature, as evidenced by this plot.
Nino3.4SST leads UAHLT (Global Lower Tropospheric temperature, as measured by UAH) by about 4 months.
The cooling impact of the two major volcanoes is apparent for about five years after the eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mt. Pinatubo 1991:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1030751950335700&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Replotting for the period after the influence of these two major volcanoes had abated:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1033112303432998&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
My formula is: UAHLT Calc. = 0.20*Nino3.4SST +0.15
where
Nino3.4 is the temperature anomaly in degrees C of the SST in the Nino3.4 area, as measured by NOAA in month m. Nino3.4 comprises about 1% of the Earth’s surface area.
UAHLT is the Lower Tropospheric temperature anomaly of Earth in degrees C as measured by UAH in month (m plus 4);
Note that in both plots UAHLTCalc (a function of Nino3.4 SST) has been moved forward 4 months in time to show alignment – in reality it leads actual UAHLT by about 4 months.
The R2 for the two plots after 1Jan1996 is 0.55.
Note how well the two plots track each other in detail – according to the global warming alarmists, this must be mere coincidence or spurious correlation – they all KNOW that CO2 primarily drives temperature. 🙂
A similar relationship has been published before:
Nature, Vol.367, p.325, 27Jan1994, byJohn Christy and Richard McNider.
They used the total Nino3+Nino4 area and found a lag of 5 months vs. my 4 months.
John sent me the paper and wrote:
“The tropical Pacific is very much a player in global temps. Attached is a paper we did in 1994 that used this fact.” An updated paper is in the works…
Regards, Allan
Forget something?
You stated “The R2 for the two plots after 1Jan1996 is 0.55.”
This value is impossible from the plots you are showing.
Slippery comments above. Does TonyL = rd50 = WD40? 🙂
Proof that R2 = 0.5544
File: Nino Regions Sea Temperature 1Jul2016 Eqn3bTrend
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1039682059442689&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
@ur momisugly Allen:
Very nice. I grabbed a copy of the NOAA NINO 3.4 data set so I can take a closer look. Your eqn. for UAHLT Calc. looks to be simple and effective. Should be a fun little plot up.
Summary:
The Nino3.4 Index leads Lower Tropospheric (LT) temperature (and atmospheric water vapour) by ~4 months (see proof below).
In 2008 I proved that LT temperature leads atmospheric CO2 by ~9 months,
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
So the Nino3.4 Index leads atmospheric CO2 by ~13 months in the modern data record..
Atmospheric CO2 lags global average temperature at all measured time scales, from ~9 months after UAHLT in the modern data record to ~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale. CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, so the global warming (CAGW) hypothesis suggests that the future is causing the past.
Many people just want to ignore this compelling evidence, or wave it off with the following specious claims:
We KNOW that CO2 primarily drives temperature (that is a fundamental tenet of warmist religion), therefore:
1) “The observed lag of CO2 after temperature must be a feedback effect”; and/or
2) “There must be a time machine somewhere that causes this lag.”
Sorry folks, but I do not like your logic. I am reasonably confident that “the future cannot cause the past” (at least in this space/time dimension). 🙂
Regards to all, Allan
__________________
This is interesting: Others have published on it, notably John Christy in 1994 and Bob Tisdale circa 2009-2010.
Nino3.4 Index leads UAHLT (Lower Troposphere) global temperature (and +/-20degreesN-S Precipitable Water – see second plot) by ~four months.
The Nino3.4 area, which is about 1% of the global surface area, apparently drives (or at least predicts) global temperature.
The relationship changed due to major volcanoes in 1982 and 1991, where up to 0.7C of global cooling occurred and then abated.
In the first plot, UAHLT is lagged by 4 months (after UAHLTcalc. from Nino3.4 Index) to show the strong correlation.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1041547122589516&set=pcb.1041548565922705&type=3&theater
From 1996 onwards after the effect of the volcanoes had abated, R2 = 0.55 between UAHLTactual and UAHLTcalc. from Nino3.4 Index
and R2 = 0.46 between UAHLTactual and Scaled Precipitable Water (+/-20 degrees N, 0-360 degrees W).
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1041547895922772&set=pcb.1041548565922705&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1041548175922744&set=pcb.1041548565922705&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1041548405922721&set=pcb.1041548565922705&type=3&theater
CAGW has put out pictures showing water vapour as co2. Just look at all that co2 stuffing the atmosphere!
Wonder if any sporty members of the IPCC or students of climate change have noticed the affects of “global warming” on British summer golfing attire during this year’s British Open? Like double hats and beanies, body lycra, ski fleeces, arm covers, rashies and all sorts of fashionable gear to keep the players warm and dry.
Yesterday Phil Mickelson looked as though he was about to undertake a trek to the South Pole.
Energy is neither created nor destroyed and temperature is not a measurement of energy. Yet, everyone insists on using it to measure the energy content of the atmosphere.
How does el Nino raise the planets temperature? Moving energy from one place to another by itself does not work. Gas law states everything else being equal temp don’t change. Adding or subtracting water vapor would. But all this is based off of wind patterns. So maybe it is not climate but weather. Temp changes based on the way the wet wind blows.
I do not understand much of the argument – my physics does not stretch that far.
I do understand when Nick Stokes has lost the argument. He posts a chart with no attribution. {Nick Stokes July 17, 2016 at 4:26 am}
It’s a familiar graph. The link goes direct to GISS; here is the page.
And, it doesn’t have any error bars which would surely show that the increase in temperature since 1880 is within the standard error. And, far more importantly, it doesn’t show just EXACTLY what temperatures were doing BEFORE 1880. Claiming a human effect on surface temperatures is non-rigorous. It continues to surprise me that such an august figure as yourself would ruin your formerly excellent reputation by associating yourself with such chicanery.
You must need the money…
Thanks.
I suspect it might be short sighted to speak of the variation of the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere while ignoring the distribution of water vapor from one location to another which, due to the logarithmic nature of any GHG’s affect on the GHE, makes me think such introduces a much larger difference with no change in the total WV at all.
Consider a clear air grid with two squares, #1 & #2, at high noon at the equator. For scenario “A” we’ll say that both have the same WV concentration at say 3%. For scenario “B” move WV from one square to the other so that #1 is now at only 1/2% WV and #2 is increased to whatever higher concentration that would calculate out to be.
From my novice view, the overall GHE of #1 + #2 can only decrease as the differential of WV between them goes up for a given fixed net amount of WV. So wouldn’t it be fair to say that, for a given amount of WV in a cloudless condition, that increasing the concentration of WV in any one place to be greater than the average will tend to LOWER the overall GHE?
If so, in addition to the latent heat transfer effects already mentioned and given that storminess is in part the result of the difference of WV between two air masses, couldn’t it be claimed that a reduction of stormy weather contributes to global warming?
“for a given amount of WV in a cloudless condition, that increasing the concentration of WV in any one place to be greater than the average will tend to LOWER the overall GHE? ”
TOMM, ….. Mother Nature really doesn’t care one twit about your specified or defined WV “average(s)”.
The ppm quantity of atmospheric H20 vapor is constantly changing.
Samuel C Cogar, “Mother Nature really doesn’t care one twit..”
Exactly right and I didn’t remotely suggest that she did. The whole point of my comment was to illustrate how an increase of the variability lowers the GHE. Given that WV distribution is changing chaotically moment to moment makes the idea of long term “modeled” predictions appear ludicrous.
TOMM, ….. “ludicrous” was right on.