By Willis Eschenbach and Anthony Watts
Today at the American Geophysical Union Convention, Willis Eschenbach and Anthony Watts will be presenting at 1:10PM in Moscone South.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Study at AGU 2016 challenges conventional wisdom on climate sensitivity
‘Observational Quantification of Water Vapor Radiative Forcing’
December 14th, 2016 – San Francisco, CA – A new study about the role of water vapor in climate sensitivity is being presented at the 2016 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union today by Willis Eschenbach and Anthony Watts in session A33B: Climate Sensitivity and Feedbacks: Advances and New Paradigms, in Moscone South Poster Hall at 1:10PM to 6PM December 14th, position A33B-0226.
The study, using satellite measured water vapor data obtained from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) of Santa Rosa, CA, suggests that the global climate sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide, and the potential feedback mechanism of increased water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, is actually far less than postulated by the IPCC.
An investigation was conducted utilizing the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) 1°x1° gridded total precipitable water (TPW) dataset to determine the magnitude of upwelling long-wave infrared radiation from Earth’s surface since 1988. TPW represents the mass of water vapor in a 1 meter by 1 meter column from the surface to the top of the atmosphere. As referenced in IPCC AR5 WGI Box 8.1, the radiative effect of absorption by water vapor is roughly proportional to the logarithm of its concentration. Therefore it is the fractional change in water vapor concentration, not the absolute change, that governs its strength as a climate forcing mechanism. A time-series analysis utilizing a Loess decomposition filter indicated there is a clear upward trend in the RSS TPW data since 1988. The observed total change over the period is ~ 1.5 kg/m^2, centered around the long-term mean of 28.7 kg/m^2. Utilizing the observed relationship between water content and atmospheric absorption, the RSS TPW data indicates an increase in downwelling longwave radiation of 3.3 W/m2 over the period 1988 – 2015.
Key finding:
The finding of an observationally measured increase in downwelling radiation of 3.3W/m2 since 1988, in addition to the increase in downwelling radiation over the period as calculated by the IPCC, with little corresponding change in temperature, calls into question the applicability of the concept of “climate sensitivity”.
Corresponding author: Willis Eschenbach willis@surfacetemps.org
The full poster is here: agu16-poster-final (PDF)
Links to data and code: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96723180/TPW.zip (600 MB)
Looking forward to hearing the feedback you get from alarmists in the crowd
The level of TPW seems to differ a lot from other humidity data sets. Both NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and NVAP-M show the average value of about 24 kg/m2 and the RSS data shows the average value of 28.7 kg/m2. What could be the reason for this big difference? Another thing is that the two data sets , what I refer, show practically no trend at all: a slight trend downwards during 1979 – 2004 and a slight trend upward from 2004 onward.
Anthony posted this three hours ago and his stalker has yet to even mention it…she’d probably looking up words like “observational” and “measurement”. I’m hoping to be able to observationally measure the concussive wave of her head exploding from here.
Aphan December 14, 2016 at 12:10 pm
“Anthony posted this three hours ago and his stalker has yet to even mention it”
Hi Aphan Time zones perhaps?
As for head exploding ,, wet firecracker. But modern acoustics should allow you to hear it.
michael 😀
While I find the results interesting, and certainly believe the climate sensitivity is overstated by the IPCC, I have a hard time with the use of the 29.0 kg/m2 “average” TPW value to produce a slope. Given the logarithmic relationship, you need to do an area-weighted average of slopes since the slope varies from almost 10 at the left of the scatter plot to a little more than 1 on the right.
It’s also unclear from Figure 4 where exactly the increase is happening. If the extra 1.5kg/m2 is occurring at the poles (corresponding to the left side of the scatterplot) it will have a much larger forcing effect than it would in the tropics, given the logarithmic nature. In general, unless great care is taken to properly area-weight everything – including deltas over time – it is very difficult to get anything sensical out of averages and trends in temporospatial data that behaves non-linearly.
“as calculated by the IPCC,” , no they don’t ‘calculate’ anything anymore. They fiddle with model parameters to try to get reasonable fit to the late 20th c. warming , more or less ignoring the rest of the record.
It is pretty much like doing a multivariate linear regression by hand: do a few model run ; tweak a few poorly constrained params; do a few more and compare mean square errors over the fitting period.
The whole method is very unscientific and little or nothing is done to ensure that the process converges to the ( mathematically ) global minimum error and not a local minimum. It is necessarily heavy prone to the expectations, preconceptions and biases of the modellers doing the work.
An example of how this is an abandonment of calculated forcing is how volcanic forcing was calculated at around 30 * AOD by Lacis et al in 1992 using observational data then dropped to about 23 * AOD when the emphasis moved to reconciling model output by parameter tweaking.
One of the things that got tweaked was the volcanic forcing. Down by about 30%.
Discussion with full refs here:
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/06/on-determination-of-tropical-feedbacks/
This is hilarious. The actual poster doesn’t mention temperature or climate sensitivity and the key finding on it is : “This leads us to a curious position where we have had a larger change in forcing from water vapor since 1988 than from all the other IPCC-listed forcings since 1750.” Which is to say, they have once again confirmed the water vapor feedback effect (although they wrongly label it a forcing.)
For those who don’t know, the poster session at a scientific conference is basically for those who
weren’t given a slot to talk and is usually primarily for students.
Well, actually at the scientific conferences I go to poster sessions are in addition to talks, and may be either (a) condensations of a talk, (b) different material from a talk presenter, or (c) material from a non-presenter. In this case, Josh, it is (a). Your attempted insult just backfired. You just got Climate Ottered. Although Griff’s polar bear ottering was one for the ages.
Yes, I think that Griff deserves some sort of award as a special recognition for his efforts and abject failure.
Frequently poster sessions are for work in progress in the early stage, helps you establish priority etc.
The conferences with poster sessions I go to are like that too, not all students by any means.
The unfortunate part about such bullgriff is that he moved on from “what are her qualifications?” to “I went to this site and got this information and it says she’s not qualified”. Truly, its like whack a mole if the mole was a particularly uneducated one.
This has even bled over to Bishop Hill’s blog, where the resident Smear King has jumped on board.
Well, actually, I can’t find any indication of Watts giving a talk in the oral sessions, much less a keynote lecture and surely he would have shouted it from the rafters if he had acquired such a slot. So in this case it still seems to be (c), as I said before. Poster sessions generally involve a mass of simultaneous presentations where people wander around to whatever interests them for a few minutes. (Watts kindly shows us that his is #226.) In this case they don’t even have their own timeslot but are parallel to the oral sessions.
Now, since you seem confused by what I’m saying: Poster sessions often have lots of good work represented! Like I said, students often use them as experience interacting with the broader community, and it’s certainly not unheard of for more senior people to have them. The point though, is that they are minimally selective. Watts is a paid-up member of the AGU so they can’t kick him out. And hey, as far as I know the material on the poster is legit. Which brings us back to the point everyone here is loudly avoiding while they try to tell me what an important scientist Watts is: The poster doesn’t say what this blog post claims it does. Far from slaying the dragon of climate consensus, Watts instead stood next to a poster in a room of hundreds and confirmed that water vapor behaves as a greenhouse gas and has increased in the atmosphere, consistent with it’s known feedback role.
My poster paper was used as the proof of concept for what has became your lcd TV and Monitor.
Tonyb
I must add my voice to the others, in correction:
“Because without CO2 there can be no increase in WV content. It cannot increase unless there is a temp increase.”
This is completely untrue. The claim violates several fundamentals of well established physics of gases and vapour pressure.
Water vapour concentration rises and falls all the time whether the air is hot or cold.
Josh,
I’m sure the meant the following as an insult:
“For those who don’t know, the poster session at a scientific conference is basically for those who
weren’t given a slot to talk and is usually primarily for students.”
But from this we can conclude a myriad of things including some hilariously positive ones:
1. Students, and other non-expert/non important/non climate celebrity types who deem “poster sessions” to be a waste of their precious time, will be the FIRST to know about this, instead of the LAST. They get to be the ones who say in the future “Dude….I was THERE in the room when the whole AGW went sideways…”
2. For those who don’t know (and those who don’t want to bring it up because it might ruin their insult) are provided for papers that were finished after the conference schedule was determined and announced, but before the actual conference takes place, so that the newest research doesn’t have to wait until the following year to be given a “talk slot”.
3. So….based upon #2, IF Anthony and Willis DID finish their research and paper in time to request a talk slot, but were refused for whatever reason, the people scheduling the AGU Conference missed the boat and perhaps the biggest reveal in “climate science” since it was discovered that Mickey Mann inserted his data series results upside down.
4. We get to see just how scientifically technical, and mistaken, you are:
“Which is to say, they have once again confirmed the water vapor feedback effect (although they wrongly label it a forcing.)”
A-They confirmed that the “effect of water vapor feedback” is very, very small, by actually MEASURING the difference between the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere from 1988 to 2015 to see if the corresponding temperature change expected by the IPCC and other “experts” (due to water vapor feedback) had occurred. NOPE!
B-The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 report defines radiative forcings as:
“Radiative forcing is a measure of the influence a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system and is an index of the importance of the factor as a potential climate change mechanism. In this report radiative forcing values are for changes relative to preindustrial conditions defined at 1750 and are expressed in Watts per square meter (W/m2).”
Since part of their key findings don’t actually show on the poster PDF due to technical issues, let’s consider both the limited poster wording and the press release wording together.
Radiative FORCING values are expressed in W/m2 right? And we find that they expressed the radiative forcing value for changes relative to conditions defined at 1988 in watts per square meter. 3.3W/m2 to be exact.
You see “The term “forcing” means a change which may “push” the climate system in the direction of warming or cooling.[3] An example of a climate forcing is increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases” wiki
Since there was an increase atmospheric concentration of water vapor (a greenhouse gas), or a change that may “push” the climate system….that increase is labeled a climate forcing.
“Feedback in general is the process in which changing one quantity changes a second quantity, and the change in the second quantity in turn changes the first. Positive feedback amplifies the change in the first quantity while negative feedback reduces it.” wiki
Feedback here then would be the process in which rising temperatures in the ATMOSPHERE (the 1st quantity) changes a second quantity (causes water vapor to increase in the atmosphere) which then in turn changes the first (causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise further) and on and on.
A change in the temperature of Earth, which then increases the amount of water vapor in the air, which then changes the amount of long wave radiation being returned to earth, which then DOES NOT CHANGE the temperature of Earth is not a feedback. See how that works?
Hi Aphan,
I’m going to assume you are amenable to revising your opinions so let me explain where you go wrong in your thinking.
1.,2.) As I explained elsewhere (to ristvan), I’m not insulting poster sessions, just pointing out that they are usually the least selective/prestigious way to present at a conference. That’s why it’s funny that Watts bolded up a “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” line and makes a big deal about this in the blog. Hold the Presses! Anthony Watts just volunteered himself for a poster session! It’s clear some of the people here don’t have a lot of experience with the scientific community so it’s worth pointing out what he actually did. Important new results are usually given a slot to talk and your theory that this was a last minute completion that they just couldn’t make room for (they would if it were important) has no evidence. Do you see any chatter among scientific climate blogs that a poster has overturned global warming? No.
3.) This is all predicated on your belief that this is a “big reveal” in climatology. It ain’t. As I’ve already pointed out, the poster doesn’t even mention temperature or climate sensitivity. It just estimates the water vapor feedback effect and appears to be in line with previous results. Also, FYI, the “upside down” data thing had no impact whatsoever on the field. Last I heard it didn’t even affect the results of that particular paper because the particular algorithm used didn’t assume a correlation orientation to start with. But, regardless, climate science doesn’t depend on a single paper or a single dataset.
4A) Again, the poster says nothing about feedback being small. They find an increase in water vapor and a corresponding increase in downwelling radiation of 3.3 W/m^2. That can be compared to the change in CO2 direct forcing which is less that 1 W/m^2 over the same time period. So WV and CO2 both have a greenhouse effect and WV is significantly larger, as has been known for a long time. Here’s what the poster says: “We note that this is experimental validation of the IPCC’s statement about the underlying physics, of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere…”
4B) You’re right that radiation intensity is measured in W/m^2 and that can be attributed to downward radiation from CO2 and from WV. However, they are not both termed “forcings”. I’m just gonna quote wikipedia here: “In the context of climate change, the term “forcing” is restricted to changes in the radiation balance of the surface-troposphere system imposed by external factors, with no changes in stratospheric dynamics, no surface and tropospheric feedbacks in operation (i.e., no secondary effects induced because of changes in tropospheric motions or its thermodynamic state), and no dynamically induced changes in the amount and distribution of atmospheric water (vapour, liquid, and solid forms).” Forcings are external, like human released CO2, while feedbacks are a response of the system, like WV. If you could take the extra CO2 out the extra WV would quickly drop out as well and wouldn’t by itself cause additional greenhouse effect. This is just a terminology thing and it’s probably not perfect, but it helps to compare correctly with what most climate scientists are using. If humans were pumping a ton of extra WV into the air directly it would be a forcing, but they aren’t compared to the feedback from CO2 and other forcings.
Finally, we get to perhaps your fundamental misconception: the idea that there has been no warming. That’s simply wrong, we continue to see warming in line with the trend over the last few decades. 2016 will be the hottest year on record after all, following the previous hottest year… 2015. If we’re measuring this extra downwelling radiation how on earth would you not expect the planet not to warm up? So what we see is CO2 increases, water vapor increases, downward radiation increases, temperature increases- all consistent with
the standard picture of global warming. Now they don’t all march in lockstep because there are other factors in the system, like ocean cycles that exchange heat with the atmosphere, but the underlying trends are clear and consistent with theory.
Josh,
I hope you are amenable to me differentiating between facts and logical fallacies, and how one’s opinions are often misconceptions due the misuse of both. 🙂
“1,2 :I’m not insulting poster sessions, just pointing out that they are usually the least selective/prestigious way to present at a conference. That’s why it’s funny that Watts bolded up a “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” line and makes a big deal about this in the blog. Hold the Presses! Anthony Watts just volunteered himself for a poster session!”
Your statement that poster sessions are the “least selective/prestigious way to present at a conference” is without corroborative evidence, and as such, is regarded as your personal opinion. Your opinion that using bold lettering is somehow universally “funny” and that he “makes a big deal about this” in the blog equates with nothing more than an appeal to motives, or an inability to accurately express you personal opinions as such.
“Do you see any chatter among scientific climate blogs that a poster has overturned global warming? No.”
Considering that his announcement was made BEFORE the poster session itself even occurred, this is a highly illogical question to even pose.
3. “As I’ve already pointed out, the poster doesn’t even mention temperature or climate sensitivity. It just estimates the water vapor feedback effect and appears to be in line with previous results.”
It doesn’t HAVE to mention temperature or climate sensitivity. Anyone involved in the debate about AGW knows that the results affect the IPCC’s calculations of BOTH automatically. (Hint-it’s why the title of this post is called “Challenging Climate Sensitivity”. Do you not know this or are you just ignoring it because you know it undermines your argument?)
“But, regardless, climate science doesn’t depend on a single paper or a single dataset.”
I never said it did. Appeal to ridicule. Logical fallacy.
“Finally, we get to perhaps your fundamental misconception: the idea that there has been no warming.”
I don’t believe that there has been no warming, thus I would never state such a thing. So my “fundamental misconception” is nothing more than your personal, and incorrect, assumption.
Anthony and Willis, as far as I know, have also never stated that there has been no warming. Their study doesn’t say that either. They are saying that water vapor has increased in the atmosphere, but a fundamental part of the IPCC’s theory on AGW is that a MEASURABLE increase in water vapor-like the one measured by Anthony and Willis (supposedly caused by an increase in CO2 causing the temps to rise and increase evaporation) SHOULD cause BOTH a measurable increase in down welling radiation (measured by Watts and Willis) AND a measurable amount of additional warming (attributable only to that increased water vapor IF increased water vapor IS A “FEEDBACK”!
They found the increased water vapor. They found the increased down welling radiation. But….the point you keep ignoring/forgetting/missing and NOT discussing….they did NOT find a measurable amount of additional warming. Your propensity to post logically flawed statements as if they are actual facts is something, I personally, find funny.
They may have confirmed the WV feedback (perhaps again, perhaps for the first time, plenty just say its there without having the backup) but I thought the main take aways were
1) that it is measured to be much less than the overhyped IPCC value (citation given for that, so it doesn’t need to have been mentioned earlier in the piece)
and
2) despite getting a good handle of the value, the measured temperatures for the same time frame don’t seem to have moved in sympathy with the increase in downwelling radiation. i.e. there’s been a notable increase in a component of downwelling radiation, one that accounts for more than half of the total increases in radiation since the 1750’s and nothings happened; the theorised temperature gains have not materialised.
When theory diverges from observation you need to stand back and take a look at both your experiment and your theory. One of them is wrong. I would start by trying to pick holes in the experiment, then the processing of data as I think they are probably the easier places to start. Plenty of people about who are expert on experimental methods and data analysis who also aren’t necessarily involved in climate science.
If the experimental method is sound then you can turn on the theory….. but that seems to be something that just doesn’t seem to happen in climate science. They never seem to question the original (and so far unproven) theory of “its man made CO2 wot dunnit”, they just come up with increasingly wild additions to explain why the theory hasn’t crystallised.
Besides a lot of climate science stuff seems to fall apart on dubious statistical processing and computer modelling. I know plenty of people who do climate science, most are geography department types. Their idea of statistical analysis is bunging numbers in SPSS and taking the result as golden without any concern for what happened in the middle. But it always gets a pass because the people reviewing it haven’t a clue either.
‘1) that it is measured to be much less than the overhyped IPCC value (citation given for that, so it doesn’t need to have been mentioned earlier in the piece)’
Where are you getting that from? There is no comparison figure given relating to IPCC water vapor feedback. AR5 states that water feedback amounts to +1.1 (+0.9 to +1.3) W m−2/°C. So, the IPCC expected water vapor “forcing” due to observed warming (0.5C) from 1988 to present is +0.55W/m-2. If, as they are arguing, the downwelling IR figure of 3.3W/m-2 is equivalent to radiative forcing then what they have found is actually a much much stronger water vapor feedback than suggested by the IPCC.
‘When theory diverges from observation you need to stand back and take a look at both your experiment and your theory.’
First you need to actually establish that theory is diverging from observation. There is no data provided here indicating what theory suggests for relevant values.
In reply to “josh” above at 12:28PM.
What’s really hilarious is that yet another anonymous coward makes claims that he can’t back up, and ends up with mud on his face.
“For those who don’t know, the poster session at a scientific conference is basically for those who weren’t given a slot to talk and is usually primarily for students.”
Well, despite you claim, reality bites harder.
First, your claim about it being primarily for students is bunk. There were posters there by top scientists from NASA, NOAA, JPL, and many others. You’d know this if you got out more.
For example, one of my primary detractors, Dr. Victor Venema, of the University of Bonn, had a poster right next to ours:
Venema runs a blog called Variable Variability, and routinely attacks me. He’s also the guy almost single handedly responsible for temperature homogenization algorithms, and all the problems that causes.
And, Dr. Carl Mears, chief scientist for RSS, whose data we used, stopped by:
Mears was just one of many career scientists that stopped by. So we were reaching key people with the work.
So, as they see, it’s easy to be a critic, anyone can do it, even you. It’s far harder to get out an actually do the work. You should be able to, given your IP address links to this organization:
American Physical Society
Organization: American Center for Physics
When you do the work, using your real name, I’ll pay attention to your opinion. In the meantime, I’m not much interested in what you have to say, because it comes from emotion, not science.
Victor has nothing to do with pha.
Nothing to do with our adjustments.
Anthony. .
[Sigh…another illegible driveby comment from Mosher – “pha”???? Never said he had anything to do with BEST adjustments. Speak sense man – Anthony]
Anthony,
I don’t think trying to “out” people with a dissenting view is beneficial to discussions here. I saw you also treated Griff recently in the same way. You must understand that you have a ready mob that have hounded people intensely and personally in the past. I’ve heard you rail against groupthink and ad hominem elsewhere. Whether you think the hounding is justified or not, the result will be that people with different views are less likely engage here, or to use their real names if that is the outcome, and you will end up with an even greater echo chamber of a website. I hope that’s not what you want.
Regards
“Josh”
Josh says:
That sentence tells me you don’t know much about scientific conferences. Your comment is a pathetic attempt to insult poster presenters. At all the scientific conferences I attend the organisers go to great lengths to stress that poster and oral presentations have the same status. Your comment is shows your ignorance and is a feeble attempt at an insult.
Often there are too many requests for oral presentations, posters can actually be more efficient, so the overflow may end up as posters. Nothing to do with quality, only capacity.
BTW, simple clear and concise. Good contribution by Willis.
Yes, I agree. Well written.
If I understand this poster from just a quick read, it means that water vapour has increased and so has down welling radiation. Unfortunately for the alarmists, the level of radiative warming is more than explained by the increase in water vapour.
Have I got this correct? If so, and Anthony and Willis have got it correct too, then this is devastating for the alarmist community.
It does, however, pose questions too. If water vapour has increased this century, then why? Normally, we would argue that warmer air can hold more water vapour, but there has been a temperature pause. But then, water vapour is not uniformly mixed, far from it.
Another possibility is a change in the balance between cloud formation and water vapour. Is it an equilibrium or does it vary according to other variables?
Such matters become very complicated very quickly. Who said the science was settled?
Indeed, the balance between cloud formation and water vapor is critical; it depends, inter alia, upon the presence of condensation nuclei, not just upon the dew point temperature alone. Obviously, clouds strongly modulate local insolation in ways that water vapor can not.
That the hydrological cycle is the dominant “control knob” of climatic temperatures has been apparent since at least the.1970s, when evaporative heat transfer from the ocean surface was found to exceed that due to all other mechanisms combined. What is not clear in the present study is whether TPW as measured by RSS is due to water vapor alone, as assumed, or whether it includes the condensed droplets in clouds. In other words, is albedo an unaccounted factor?
The one thing you can say about climate(and hence climate variables) is that it is NEVER in equilibrium. That in itself calls into question such terms such as Total Climate Response and Equilibrium Climate Sensitvity.
I don’t think so. All that was measured was an increased in water vapor (TPW). Remember this is from a satellite. You can’t measure the downwelling IR from space. The IR in this exercise is a computation of the theoretical increase that should occur with the TPW increase based on climate science assumptions. In fact, the value does not agree with other measurements.
Willis, Anthony,
Can you provide a bit more detail on the source of the surface emissions data?
If you blow up the poster the labels to the two global images give the source data. TPW is from RSS, and LWR is from Ceres.
Neither of those are from the surface, correct?
Correct. Both remorse sensing satellites.
Remorse sensing? Lol I hope they both pass over the AGU conference tonight collecting data. :p
I went back and reread the paper, and I’m convinced the active regulation I see from the surface is the cause of the log atmosphere absorption seen from space, as it regulates to dew point which tracks TPW.
Anthony, Willis this would be a good compliment to your work, and together it proves CO2 does not regulate cooling at all.
It would be the end of all of this nonsense, at least the scientific argument, and make it what it really is the Luddites against people who think cheap reliable power is the best general invention of mankind, as it allows use to do so much more with power to augment our muscles.
Downwelling radiation is nonsense as it is cancelled by equal upwelling radiation. Only the radiation due to the (Th**4-TC**4) term has any effect in transferring energy.
“as it is cancelled by equal upwelling radiation”
Probably. But the only way upwelling radiation increases is if the surface is warmer.
Looking at the internet feedback more generally, there are some people out there who believe the science is settled. However, they state it in such obnoxious terms that they do the AGU and science in general, a massive disservice.
This conference should be very interesting. My studies show that water vapor in the Troposphere completely dominates long-wave infrared absorption over CO2 in that sphere. I have found that using “changes” over absolute values can lead to confusion and be misleading, particularly when entropy and thermodynamic issues are involved.
@ur momisugly Michael D Nelson
December 14, 2016 at 1:07 pm: Yes Michael. One of our ‘posting colleagues’, of Polish extraction and skilled in radiative physics, has posited that all other energy transfers are swamped by the day/night cycle of atmospheric water. That is, cloud/mist/fog to and from vapour phase changing and energy absorption/emission. It should be quite overwhelming in scale. I suspect that might be what we are looking at in this Poster.
From the ground, that is the process this shows on 3 consecutive clear nights.
I’m not sure if the paper is the satellite view or not. The graph is from the surface, and the entire global min/max changes support the view that cooling has not been reduced at night, at least at a detectable level.
“since 1988, in addition to the increase in downwelling radiation over the period as calculated by the IPCC, with little corresponding change in temperature”
Trends since 1988:
HADCRUT 1.76 °C/Cen
GISS 1.82°C/Cen
NOAA 1.73°C/Cen
Not so small.
Care to share the sigmas for those trends?
Would Willis and Anthony?
“Care to share the sigmas for those trends?”
σ=0.18°C/Cen for NOAA; others similar.
But the thing is, as Willis and Anhtony find, wv is up, with corresponding forcing. And temperatures are rising. That is a fairly consistent picture.
Thanks Nick, they’re smaller than I expected.
The last panel of fig4 looks a lot like TLT or maybe ( non Karlised ) SST. That should allow a similar scatter plot and a fixed relationship if the two are a similar as it appears by eye.
That should give a simialr W/m^2/K figure for the WV feedback.
It would be interesting to see what this relationship tells us about the constancy of rel. humidity.
Just tried to download Willis’ code and got this. Maybe he could provide an alternative source.
“This account’s links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled! “
“Just tried to download Willis’ code and got this. Maybe he could provide an alternative source.
“This account’s links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled! “
ROFL…I’ll BET! He’s a tad bit busy at the moment Greg. I’m sure you’ll get it as soon as he gets to it. 🙂
Just so happens I put a rel humidity/dew point global chart together.
Helps if I post the like
thanks Mike, interesting.
No one here got Willis’ file before dropbox dropped out?
I suspect the suggestion they’re trying to promote, though this is a very unclear presentation, is that S = T/F means S is very small if water vapor influence on surface downwelling IR is treated as an additional forcing. Something like S = (0.5/4)*3.7 = 0.5K TCR.
The obvious error is that surface downwelling IR is not equivalent to TOA forcing. By comparison the CMIP5 mean increase in downwelling IR from 1860-2016 is about 8W/m2, with temperature increase about 1K. So treating downwelling IR as forcing makes CMIP5 mean TCR also = 0.5K.
Even if this weren’t an error I’m still not sure why any of what they present ‘calls into question the applicability of the concept of “climate sensitivity”’. Very confusing stuff.
PaulS-
Agreed.
Hadcrut4 shows 0.42 C rise from 1988 to 2015, which gives S = 0.42 / 4 = 0.11 C/W/m^2.
Pretty close to what you get by looking at surface temperature differential winter to summer divided by surface TSI differential winter to summer, at the same location.
And if you look just at oceans, then surface temp rise 1988 – 2015 is 0.30 C.
HadCRUT4 = 0.43 C
CRUTEM4 (land) = 0.7 C
HadCRUT4 = 0.33*CRUTEM4 (land) + 0.67*(Oceans)
Oceans = 0.30 C between 1988 and 2015.
That gives a sensitivity of S = 0.3/4 = 0.075 C/W/m^2.
Could you subtract out the natural variation? Lets see.. 1910 to 1940 at 0.15C per decade.. that is 1.5 C/Cen.
That leaves .26 C, 0.32C, .23C over 100 years due to us humans. Hmmm.. very small!
@ur momisugly Nick Stokes
December 14, 2016 at 1:12 pm: Strangely enough, that period is the ‘flood tide’ and peak of the main ocean warming cycles, though still pretty inconsequential when one stops pretending there is a centennial trend proven ie multiplied several-fold..
It might also be worth noting that RSS Water Vapor numbers are already down considerably from the end of the graph shown in the poster at between 0.5 Kg/m2 to 0.6 Kg/m2. In the next 3 months, it is going to fall into negative territory.
I really don’t know what one would say the water vapor feedback or forcing is when it is back to average in Jan/Feb 2017. I guess zero.
Well if I am not mistaken the results Willis and Anthony are presenting is roughly what was expected from the “worse than we expected” upper end models in the IPCC group of models.
Of course, the AGU scientists are probably aware of this. So the focus has been on a wide variety of things to explain it, like errors in the temperature observation record, aerosols and ocean heat absorption, basically everything except examining the link between CO2 and water vapor forcing which I have been led to believe is based on actual warming.
We need to thank Willis and Anthony for taking the time to spoon feed their junk science back to them yet again.
I always thought water vapor is considered one of feedbacks rather than one of forcings. The linear relationship makes sense – it’s more a measure of atmosphere’s thermal conductivity than of its microwave transparency. But it seems to me the linear relationship is actually worse than a logarithmic in terms of the feedback action, isn’t it?
The recent sudden drop (and prior rise) in average land temperatures after the El Nino should provide a good test of many theories Global Warming & Cooling. What is the mechanism that affects global temperatures, if we assume the El Nino heat source is relatively local. (Or is El Nino actually a global mechanism, that just happens to manifest itself mostly in the Eastern Pacific).
If we don’t understand El Nino, we have no hope of understanding the effects CO2 or much else on our climate, (except the sun).
Water Vapor is clearly a “greenhouse gas”. But without the understanding the combined effect of changing cloud cover and cloud types, then we do not understand what H2O in its various forms really does. That seems like the important unanswered question, along with the relative power H2O-driven convection in Cumulonimbus clouds, which rises above >90% (??) of the ambient H2O vapor, others clouds and all that pesky CO2.
“(Or is El Nino actually a global mechanism, that just happens to manifest itself mostly in the Eastern Pacific).”
From what I am learning, ENSO is a hemispheric phenomenon which can influence global temperatures . Am I in error?
Other cooling mechanisms due to Cumulonimbus clouds (and hence water vapor) is ice created after the release of the latent heat in the water vapor (which adds to IR radiation at high-altitudes), then the ice falling into the warmer atmosphere below (where it melts usually) before or after it hits the ground, which cools the lower atmosphere.
Plus the lightning that is created from the convection in these clouds, which emit huge amounts of energy as ultraviolet and visible light, much of which (>40% ??) escapes to outer space directly.
But I have NOT read anything which quantifies either of these mechanisms in terms of “Watts per Average Thunderstorm per Second” (removed from the lower Troposphere and sent to Stratosphere & beyond ). It would be nice to know.
What it does is temperature regulate clear sky cooling based on dew point temperature.
I would think of this as step 1 on what this is about. Now we have a real “forcing” formula for water vapor. Where have you seen that before. Nowhere, that’s where. That is a huge achievement by itself.
But there is a Step 2 in this process and that would be to see how the water vapor levels (or the forcing levels) change with the temperature change.
Then one can actually use the Stefan Botzmann equations to calculate a total temperature increase expected.
And then one could add in the cloud forcing feedback which Willis has also put together already.
And then we have a REAL CO2 sensitivity based on the what the real Earth(tm) actually does.
It is the NEXT step in climate science which the scientists themselves have not been able to understand because they are too caught up in propaganda.
Since day 1, everything has been based on these simple little assumptions about how temperatures go up and then feedbacks kick in and viola, always 3.0C per doubling. But they have never actually done the work to show it actually works. Everything is based on 3.7 W/m2/CO2doubling * 0.81C/W/m2 = 3.0C/CO2 doubling. That is the sum total of climate science today and the sum total of what it was 35 years ago. There has been no progress, just more propaganda.
This process that Willis and Anthony started on can actually answer the climate science questions in a Real way. Several more steps required yet and each one might need to be a paper on its own. The final paper will be hard to publish, but it will be the best answer put forward so far.
So taxpayers can replace the IPCC with WUWT?
Good news. I’ll let The Donald know.
That is exactly what I just wrote.
Heh, ‘have replaced’, and the taxpayers were voluntary donors to the tip jar.
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Water vapour is usually regarded as a postive feedback to other radiative forcings which affect temperature.
The similarity of fig 4 to the various “global mean temperature” indices seems to support that view of things. For this to be a ‘forcing’ rather than a feedback, it would seem that there needs to be an independent cause of the change in TPW other than temperature, otherwise it is just a +ve feedback to other radiative ‘forcings’.
Water Vapor is clearly a “greenhouse gas”. Our Atmosphere acts just like a swamp cooler regardless of the amount of Co2.
A static greenhouse gas is rather different from a greenhouse gas which is itself a function of temperature.
That is what makes is feedback instead of a ‘forcing’.
So many are blind to the change that is now taken place in the climate.
So many just can’t break away from the notion of AGW and the slight warming that took place last century which has thrown the whole climatic discussion into discussions like this which are way off the mark when trying to figure out why /how the climate changes.
If the global temperatures keep going down I wonder if the discussions about why /how the climate changes might change.
AGW theory nonsense has sucked the wind out of any meaningful discussions and research as to why/how the climate changes, except for a few of us.
So much time being devoted to this asinine theory whose basic premises it is base on all have failed to materialize ,not to mention this period of time in the history of the climate is in no way unique ,not to mention CO2 the agent that is always talked about always follows the temperature never leads it.
In addition if one looks at the climate changes over the last 20 or 30 years a clear relationship can be seen between these natural governing climatic factors and the climate those being, ENSO, VOLCANIC ACTIVITY, ATOMSPHERIC CIRCULATION PATTERNS, OCEAN HEAT CONTENT ,all this against a back ground of pretty high solar activity and global cloud coverage in general decreasing.
This is changing,(weakening magnetic fields) things do change believe it or not and calling the turn in the change is paramount and I have the confidence to call it and further stand by it sink or swim.
If wrong I will admit it, if evidence comes in my favor I wonder how the other side will react?
“If the global temperatures keep going down”.
Which planet are you referring to?
https://www.iceagenow.info/record-drop-global-temperatures-2/
Tony they have been trending down the question is how will it evolve from this point on.
The study, using satellite measured water vapor data obtained from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) of Santa Rosa, CA, suggests that the global climate sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide, and the potential feedback mechanism of increased water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, is actually far less than postulated by the IPCC
RIGHT ON WILLIS AND ANTHONY.
“If wrong I will admit it”
When has Sou ever said that?
Video: Tom Messner gives a timeline for the dangerously cold weather coming. 12.14.16
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2016/12/global-warming-update-prepare-for.html
So then we’re left with changes over land, the IPCC bias error, and clouds.
Yes… clouds, and whether CR levels influence their propagation (among other factors) in the CCN scenario. It all complicates the propaganda of eternal CO2 temperature rise to the point of disposal.
from AGU –
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm16/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/190899