Reposted from Dr. Judith Curry’s Climate Etc.
by Fritz Vahrenholt and Rolf Dubal
The warming of the last 20 years has its essential cause in the change of the clouds.
We have investigated the Earth’s radiation balance over the last 20 years in a peer – reviewed publication in ” Atmosphere”. The net radiation flux, i.e. the difference between solar irradiation and long- and short-wave radiation, determines the change in the energy content of the climate system. If it is positive, the Earth is heating up; if it is negative, it means cooling. The NASA-operated satellite-based CERES project has been providing such radiation data for two decades now, as well as data on the development of cloud cover in temporal and spatial resolution. These data are determined both in relation to an altitude of approx. 20 km (TOA = “Top of Atmosphere”), and also in relation to the Earth’s surface.
Our new publication “Radiative Energy flux variation from 2001 – 2020″ has brought to light a surprising result for climate science: the warming of the Earth in the last 20 years is mainly due to a higher permeability of clouds for short-wave solar radiation. Short-wave radiation has decreased sharply over this period (see figure), equally in the northern and southern hemispheres (NH and SH). With solar radiation remaining nearly constant, this means that more shortwave radiation has reached the Earth’s surface, contributing to warming. The long-wave back radiation (the so-called greenhouse effect) contributed only to a lesser extent to the warming. It was even largely compensated for by the likewise increasing permeability of the clouds to long-wave radiation emanating from the Earth. The authors come to this clear conclusion after evaluating the CERES radiation data.
NASA researcher Norman Loeb and collaborators [link], as well as the Finnish researcher Antero Ollila [link], had already recently pointed out that the short-wave solar radiation increased from 2005 to 2019 due to the decrease in low clouds. Our latest publication has examined TOA and ground-level radiation fluxes for the entire period and related them to changes in cloud cover. The net energy influx was positive throughout the period, increasing from 0.6 W/m² to 0.75 W/m² from 2001 to 2020. The 20-year average was 0.8 W/m². The bridge chart shows the drivers of this change and these are clearly in the area of shortwave radiation in the cloudy areas, which make up about 2/3 of the Earth’s surface (SW Cloudy Area, +1.27 W/m²).
This contrasts with the assumption made by the IPCC in its most recent report that the warming caused by the increase in long-wave back radiation was due solely to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. The IPCC attributes 100% of the warming to this effect and justifies this with model calculations. However, the analysis of the measured data by Dübal and Vahrenholt shows that the warming due to the decrease of 1.4 W/m² short-wave radiation and the – 1.1 W/m² increase in long-wave radiation is mainly attributable to the cloud effect.
We also considered the effect of this radiative excess on the heat content of the climate system for a longer period since 1750, where “enthalpy” means the sum of heat, work and the latent heat, i.e. heat of evaporation of water, heat of melting of ice, energetic change of the biosphere (plant growth), etc. Since about 90% of this enthalpy remains as heat in the oceans, conclusions about enthalpy development can also be drawn by looking at long-term ocean heat content (OHC). Good agreement was found between these two independent data sets for the period 2001-2020, and existing OHC data were evaluated for earlier, longer periods to provide an overall picture. This shows that warming since 1750 has not been continuous, but has occurred in heating episodes, designated A, B and C, during each of which a high net radiative flux (0.7 to 0.8 W/m²) acted for 20-30 years, interspersed with milder phases. The onset of these heating episodes coincided with the change of sign of another known natural climate factor, the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation). The crucial question of whether the present heating phase C will soon come to an end as in cases A and B, or whether it will continue, can only be decided on the basis of longer observations and must therefore remain open.
In order to investigate the beginning of phase C around the year 2000, further data sets were used, including the cloudiness measurements of EUMETSAT, a European satellite project. Here it can be seen that the onset of phase C is accompanied by a decrease in cloudiness, coinciding with the above-mentioned change in sign of the AMO. From the radiation measurements it can be deduced that 2% less cloud cover means about 0.5 W/m² more net radiation flux, which could explain most of the 0.8 W/m² mentioned above.
This result is also corroborated by the analysis of the near-surface radiation balance. Here an increase of the greenhouse effect is found, which correlates well with the increase of the greenhouse gases water vapour and CO2, but only for the cloudless areas (“clear sky”). This correlation, however, does not apply to the cloud-covered areas, which make up about 2/3 of the earth.
We could prove the increased greenhouse effect of the sum of all greenhouse gases (water vapour, CO2 etc.) under “Clear Sky” conditions with 1.2 W/m² increase in the last 20 years. However, this increase is overcompensated on an area-weighted basis by the increasing radiation of long-wave radiation in the cloudy zones (“Cloudy Areas”) amounting to -1.48 W/m².
The time span of 20 years is still too short to be able to decide conclusively whether the current heating phase is a temporary or permanent development. In the former case, climate forecasts will have to be fundamentally revised. The physical mechanism that led to the cloud thinning is discussed differently in the literature. Vahrenholt: “The cloud changes can be caused by a decrease in aerosols, by atmospheric warming due to natural causes (e.g. the AMO or the PDO), by anthropogenic warming due to CO2, or by a combination of these individual factors. However, one thing can already be stated: the warming of the last 20 years has been caused more by change in the clouds than by the classical greenhouse effect.
They left out changes in cosmic rays brought on by changes in solar activity. 😉
I keep hoping I see cracks in the CAGW wall. Recently we had the admission that the models run hot. Now we have this paper. If it’s as consequential as it looks at first glance we can expect that it will be intensely scrutinized for any tiny errors. We’ll know if/when it starts drawing flak.
Here is another unpredictable contributor to cloud formation (live webcam streaming)
https://youtu.be/INvrtMg5tSQ
Vahrenholt is a prominent skeptic (of die kalte Sonne fame), so the paper is auto-cancelled and ignored I suppose.
It is a major advance in understanding in my opinion, possibly pointing to the emergent homeostatic processes that Willis so often discusses.
Or, there won’t be a reasonable counter argument so either the authors will be attacked because they are infected deniers or it will be ignored in hopes that the general public doesn’t become familiar with its arguments and conclusions.
How could ignoring very important natural radiative variations, could lead and account for correct and valid conclusions about climate?
How could a proposition or a conclusion about climate can be reached and/or considered as valid in consideration of ‘the net radiation flux’, when the ‘total radiation variation’ is ignored’. i.e the variation of total sunshine!
cheers
“…where “enthalpy” means the sum of heat, work and the latent heat,”
Much like the misuse of entropy (NOT about order/disorder!!!), tossing out an incorrectly defined, esoteric word they do not understand.
For those unfamiliar with this, enthalpy is defined as h = u + PV.
H is the symbol for enthalpy, u is for internal energy and PV is pressure and volume.
Nick, kindly provide a clear explanation of how you think that Vahrenholt’s layman’s definition of enthalpy is flawed and invalidates his conclusions. In other words, how is it wrong to describe the sum of internal energy and the product of pressure x volume as the sum of (sensible) heat, latent heat, and work (=pv)?
A Btu is a Btu is a Btu.
There is no such thang as sensible Btu and/or latent Btu.
Consulting the psychrometric properties of moist air (Trane commercial has an interactive graph.) and reviewing USCRN temperature/humidity data it is obvious that dry air and moisture pass the same Btu’s back and forth during the diurnal cycle.
As the dry bulb Btu rises through the day RH/grains Btu falls and during the night as dry bulb decreases RH increase but the energy content sum is relatively constant.
Pierrehumbert says climate models hold RH constant cause it’s too complicated choosing instead to parametize. Well, no surprise, that’s as wrong as saying the surface radiates BB.
Which is all very nice and moot BBBBEEEECCCCAAAAUUUUSSSEEE:
Remove the Earth’s atmosphere or even just the GHGs and it becomes much like the Moon, an airless, arid, barren rock ball with no water vapor, clouds, snow, ice or oceans, no more 30% albedo and hot^3 on the lit side, cold^3 on the dark.
That is NOT what greenhouse theory says.
It is what Nikolov, Kramm and UCLA Diviner say.
The K-T diagram (TFK_bams90) counts 63 W/m^2 upwelling LWIR twice: 160 – 17 – 80 = 63 once and 396 – 333 = 63 second. LoT1 allows only one, the real one from the sun. Erase the 396/333/63 from the graphic, the balance is unaffected and the GHG warming loop disappears.
342 arrives from the sun, net albedo 70% or 240 makes it into the atmosphere, net/net 160 arrives at the surface. Per LoT1 160 is ALL!! that can leave. The 396 is “extra” appearing out of nowhere.
The 396 is a theoretical “What if?” calculation for a BB at 16 C that serves as the denominator of the emissivity ratio: 63/396=0.16. IR instruments do not measure power flux, they measure temperature and infer W/m^2 by assuming emissivity and assuming 1.0 or .95 is assuming wrong.
As demonstrated by experiment the surface cannot and does not radiate as a BB and as such there is no “extra” energy for the GHGs to warm whatever.
For the experiment write up see:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
No RGHE, no GHG warming, no CAGW or CO2 driven climate change.
You’re nuts Nick
No such thing as latent heat. How can anybody waste a further second if valuable time after reading that?
Had to find this and jpeg it.
But enthalpy is the sum of the internal energy (heat, latent heat) and the work term, which is PV for gasses. As a parcel of gas rises, it does work on the rest of the system and cools. As a parcel of gas descends, work is done on it and it heats. H = U + PV is the formal definition, although the differential form is more often used. For the ocean, H is close to U since the PV term is small due to the relative incompressibility of water and there is no latent heat of water vapor.
Schroeder,
You really should go back to playing your toy piano because you appear to know little about Thermodynamics.
Your post combines ignorance with the desire to discredit anything that goes against your phony climate alarmist narrative.
And hence the haste to conduct a policy surge on all fronts before the evidence catches up and moves so much in an opposite direction as to over-strain the climate communications consultants. The AMO will bury them eventually, but the speed of adjustment is so slow that all the policy systems will be in place by then so the truth won’t matter.
It’s like documenting the early weird writings of Joseph Smith in the Latter Day Saints Movement–once fully established it does not matter to the religion.
Lol – “documenting the early weird writings” Actually we in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints LOVE the early weird writings of Joseph Smith and collect them like crazy. So I do not think you understand what you think you understand in regards to that 😉 P.S. Joseph Smith was just a man – he messed up just like everyone else, only one perfect person based on my religion – 😉
However on the policy surge front – it is overextended for sure. Herein lies the problem – CO2 SHOULD cause warming hence I do not think the AMO will bury them all, rather this will persist for an additional half century with warming waning more and more and more until a tipping point of slight cooling begins.
But this is probably a LONG time away and by then it will be like cloth mask mandates, the surge will have already occurred and the claim will be the intervention was what saved the world. Never mind the natural processes would have done what they would do regardless of what was going to occur.
Do not forget that the temperature measuring sites have been warmed by the loss of many rural and remote sites and the unban heat island (UHI) effect on those that are left. There should be an annual adjustment for UHI, but they did one ever 20 years ago and failed to do any since, while the UHI effect continues to grow. If you look at only real rural, well-sited sites, we have no warmed since 1989 and been cooling since 2006.
Didn’t the siting project (1st class rural sites only) calculate 1/3 less warming than the (at that time) NOAA results — not zero warming.
“The AMO will bury them eventually”
The AMO buries the bogus Hockey Stick chart.
The AMO chart shows the *real* temperature profile of the Earth. The AMO chart shows no unprecedented warming since the 1880’s. The 1880’s would be long before human-derived CO2 became an issue. So CO2 has not bumped temperatures up to unprecendented levels in recent decades, as the authors of the bogus Hockey Stick charts claim.
Here’s a link to a NASA webpage that shows the US surface temperature chart (Hansen 1999) along side a bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart.
The U.S. chart has the same basic profile as the AMO chart with a warm period in the 1880’s, then a cold period in the 1910’s, then a warm period in the 1930’s, then a cold period in the 1970’s, then a warm period to today, and now it is starting to cool off from the highs of 1998 and 2016 and 2020.
The US chart shows no unprecendented warming (using the UAH satellite chart to extend Hansen 1999).
Every unmodified regional chart from around the world shows the same basic temperature profile as the US regional chart, where the temperatures warm for a few decades and then they cool for a few decades and this process repeats, with the highs and lows being equal in magnitude and temperature, with no unprecedented warming or cooling (since 1910) shown.
None of the unmodified regional charts from around the world have the same “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile of the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart. The Hockey Stick chart is all by itself in portraying the Earth as experiencing unprecendented warmth today.
Throw the bogus Hockey Stick chart in the trash and the CO2 “crisis” goes away.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research//briefs/1999_hansen_07/
Note in the text Hansen’s lame explanation for why the two charts have such different temperature profiles.
When released, energy that has been extracted from the atmosphere with wind turbines, or collected with solar panels at one period of time, causes anomalous heat energy spikes at another point in time that registers as global warming. The supposed solution is causing data anomalies that feeds back on the erroneous political agenda to use wind and solar.
The entirety of human energy consumption per year is equal to 1 hour’s worth of sunlight falling on the earth. Your “data anomalies” don’t even rise to the level of background noise.
Here are some quotes from my paper at
https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
” Abstract
This paper begins by reviewing the relationship between CO2 and Millennial temperature cycles. CO2 levels follow temperature changes. CO2 is the dependent variable and there is no calculable consistent relationship between the two. The uncertainties and wide range of out-comes of model calculations of climate radiative forcing arise from the improbable basic assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the major controller of global temperatures. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between the phases of cyclic processes of varying wavelengths and amplitudes. At all scales, including the scale of the solar planetary system, sub-sets of oscillating systems develop synchronous behaviors which then produce changing patterns of periodicities in time and space in the emergent data. Solar activity as represented by the Oulu cosmic ray count is here correlated with the Hadsst3 temperatures and is the main driver of global temperatures at Millennial scales. The Millennial pattern is projected forwards to 2037. Earth has just passed the peak of a Millennial cycle and will generally cool until 2680 – 2700. At the same time, and not merely coincidentally, the earth has now reached a new population peak which brought with it an associated covid pandemic, and global poverty and income disparity increases which threaten the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. During the last major influenza epidemic world population was 1.9 billion. It is now 7.8 billion+/. The establishment science “consensus” that a modelled future increase in CO2 levels and not this actual fourfold population increase is the main threat to human civilization is clearly untenable. The cost of the proposed rapid transition to non- fossil fuels would create an unnecessary, enormously expensive. obstacle in the way of the effort to attain a modern ecologically viable sustainable global economy. We must adapt to the most likely future changes and build back smarter when losses occur. ”
……………………………..
Most importantly the models make the fundamental error of ignoring the very probable long- term decline in solar activity and temperature following the Millennial Solar Activity Turning Point and activity peak which was reached in 1990/91 as shown in Figure 5. The correlative UAH 6.0 satellite TLT anomaly at the MTTP at 2003/12 was + 0.26C. The temperature anomaly at 2021/9 was + 0.25 C. (34) This satellite data set shows that there has been no net global warming for the last 17 years. As shown above, these Renewable Energy Targets in turn are based on model forecast outcomes which now appear highly improbable. Science, Vol 373,issue 6554 July2021 in “Climate panel confronts implausibly hot models” (35) says “Many of the world’s leading models are now projecting warming rates that most scientists, including the modelmakers themselves, believe are implausibly fast. In advance of the U.N. report, scientists have scrambled to understand what went wrong and how to turn the models…… into useful guidance for policymakers. “It’s become clear over the last year or so that we can’t avoid this,” says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”
The global temperature cooling trends from 2003/4 – 2704 are likely to be broadly similar to those seen from 996 – 1700+/- in Figure 2. From time to time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South. Local weather in the Northern Hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with, in summers occasional more northerly extreme heat waves droughts and floods and in winter more southerly unusually cold snaps and late spring frosts”
The whole Net Zero campaign is founded on the self delusions and confirmation bias of the of the academic establishment consensus model forecasts . The main stream Media notably the BBC ,Guardian, NBC ,ABC, CBS,PBS have been the greatest sources of false news. They have produced a generation of scared and psychologically disturbed teenagers and green fanatics who believe that the world has no future if fossil fuels continue to be used. The effect of C02 on temperature is immeasurably small. There is no CO2 caused climate crisis. It is left to sites like WUWT and the Blogosphere in general to question and discus the basic science on which the disastrous Net Zero policies are based.
The net zero campaign is being pushed for political reasons that have nothing to do with any claimed climate change benefit. Like conditioning people to accept mandates from authoritarians, net zero is about people control and Not emissions controls.
The Left’s political power grabs are right in front of our eyes everyday now: Control energy, condition people to accept limits on their freedoms, reduce the middle class to welfare dependent serfdom. The mechanisms are centered around scaring people with endless hobgoblins and skyfalling stories to enable endless power grabs.
Net zero campaigns will last only as long as they are politically useful to the Authoritarians.
Knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door….
NOAA SST-NorthAtlantic GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979 With37monthRunningAverage.gif (880×481) (climate4you.com)
I’m still fairly sure the wax and wane of Arctic sea ice is the driver of the AMO.
Levitus’ data from the Barents Sea would seem to support this – check out figure 2
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2009GL039847
Or does AMO cause the wax and wane of Arctic sea ice as currents change locations like the giant fluidic oscillator that is the North Atlantic ?
“The warming of the last 20 years has its essential cause in the change of the clouds”
No.
The “essential cause” is what caused the change in clouds.
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/47/16700
“Abstract
In response to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, high-end general circulation models (GCMs) simulate an accumulation of energy at the top of the atmosphere not through a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)—as one might expect from greenhouse gas forcing—but through an enhancement of net absorbed solar radiation (ASR). A simple linear radiative feedback framework is used to explain this counterintuitive behavior. It is found that the timescale over which OLR returns to its initial value after a CO2 perturbation depends sensitively on the magnitude of shortwave (SW) feedbacks. If SW feedbacks are sufficiently positive, OLR recovers within merely several decades, and any subsequent global energy accumulation is because of enhanced ASR only. In the GCM mean, this OLR recovery timescale is only 20 y because of robust SW water vapor and surface albedo feedbacks. However, a large spread in the net SW feedback across models (because of clouds) produces a range of OLR responses; in those few models with a weak SW feedback, OLR takes centuries to recover, and energy accumulation is dominated by reduced OLR. Observational constraints of radiative feedbacks—from satellite radiation and surface temperature data—suggest an OLR recovery timescale of decades or less, consistent with the majority of GCMs. Altogether, these results suggest that, although greenhouse gas forcing predominantly acts to reduce OLR, the resulting global warming is likely caused by enhanced ASR.”
And, also no, it’s not “new” at all ….
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094888
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-earth-dimming-due-climate.html
“Specifically, there has been a reduction of bright, reflective low-lying clouds over the eastern Pacific Ocean in the most recent years, according to satellite measurements made as part of NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project.
That’s the same area, off the west coasts of North and South America, where increases in sea surface temperatures have been recorded because of the reversal of a climatic condition called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with likely connections to global climate change.
The dimming of the Earth can also be seen in terms of how much more solar energy is being captured by Earth’s climate system. Once this significant additional solar energy is in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, it may contribute to global warming, as the extra sunlight is of the same magnitude as the total anthropogenic climate forcing over the last two decades.
“It’s actually quite concerning,” said Edward Schwieterman, a planetary scientist at the University of California at Riverside who was not involved in the new study. For some time, many scientists had hoped that a warmer Earth might lead to more clouds and higher albedo, which would then help to moderate warming and balance the climate system, he said. “But this shows the opposite is true.”
“In response to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, high-end general circulation models (GCMs)” are wastes of untold trillions of computer cycles.
You’re trying to argue that if the upper troposphere were to warm slightly from its -63C average that water vapor will no longer condense?
No, Anthony fancies himself as a “climate” scientist so is following the usual modus operandi of: The conclusion proves that it is the conclusion. Throw some model guff in between the conclusion and the conclusion and as ever:
Any discussion of clouds that assumes infinite nucleation particles and so can ignore the clean air acts is going to be somewhat flawed.
Incredible how so many people confuse cause and effect. Liberals do consistently.
That is correct but the paper you reference has it all wrong. What caused the change in clouds is reduced evaporation due to the increasing salinity and pollution of our oceans. This allows more solar radiation to heat the oceans along with a lower cooling rate due to reduced evaporation. That process has been ongoing since the depths of the LIA.
See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02846-4/figures/2
The AMO and PDO do affect the long term warming trend and both are now set to demonstrate this very clearly. The PDO has already set up into a negative structure as a result of the recent La Nina episodes, while the AMO is set to change within 5 years.
Oil pollution smooths the ocean, reducing albedo and aerosol production by wave breaking.
Nitrate etc encourages phyto blooms which exhaust themselves and release lipids which act like the above.
Dissolved silica from mechanised farming lengthens diatom competition, delays phyto DMS production.
Stratified oceans force phytos deeper to get nutrients and dissolved CO2, altering isotope fractionation.
Gaia does not rule. Oceana rules.
JF
“The time span of 20 years is still too short…
” “The cloud changes can be caused by a decrease in aerosols, by atmospheric warming due to natural causes (e.g. the AMO or the PDO), by anthropogenic warming due to CO2, or by a combination of these individual factors. However, one thing can already be stated: the warming of the last 20 years has been caused more by change in the clouds than by the classical greenhouse effect.”
Too early to tell… but anyway, cloud changes did it, but not our CO2 that changed the clouds.
Nothing to see move along.
More dishonest trolling by our usual suspects. Varenholt—the skeptic, remember?—is the one who included GHGs in the list of potential causes.
“Potential”? Still a bit unclear on the physics are you?
It’s natural causes and/or our CO2. So an SO that oscillates around zero, a PDO that does the same and flips every few years these days, an AMO which is so imperceptable there is debate as to whether it even exists, oh, left out volcanoes, y’know that extra 4/5 of fa makes all the difference… and/or an elephantine 2000Gt of anthropogenic CO2?
“No, no, anyfink but CO2.”
You’re tiresome Loydo. CO2 plays a role. Probably a very small role. It is not the control knob. At the same time it’s the gas of life. And there’s no viable alternative to fossil fuels at least until the roadblocks to nuclear power can be cleared.
“there’s no viable alternative to fossil fuels”
Not for BAU, unfortunately that doesn’t refute the fact of AGW.
What fact? I think you are assuming too much.
Nobody is trying to refute AGW, but it is abundantly clear that the effect is small and in fact probably beneficial. What is being refuted is that there is no C in AGW and there for no need to alter the structure of the entire world to deal with it. Loydo you are afraid and because of that you flail around like a child, grow up and start really paying attention and you might learn find that the world is not something to fear.
As I’ve said many times before, just because something is real doesn’t mean that it’s significant. I don’t need to refute a mild and beneficial AGW to categorically deny CAGW.
Maybe they could develop some models to describe how temperature reacts to changes in CO2, then compare the results to real world data. Oh wait…
Perhaps someone’s a bit unfamiliar with the scientific method. It doesn’t matter if the specifics of the natural causes haven’t been worked out, the idea that CO2 is the primary driver has been tested and failed.
Natural cloud cover is decreasing, while high altitude artificial cirrus cover is increasing, for obvious reasons.
The point is that cloud cover is naturally self-limiting. It takes direct insolation for effective evaporation. The more clouds, the less evaporation, which leads to less clouds, which leads to more evaporation and so on.
An unnatural cloud cover on top of that will put an additional limit this process, so that evaporation will diminish while natural cloud cover does as well. And that is what we see. An increase of cirrus clouds, due to contrails, and a decline in natural clouds underneath, combined with a warming of the whole system.
One time, while driving home from a long trip to Georgia, I noticed that the light level seemed unusually low for the time of day. I looked up at the sky and saw a patchwork of crisscrossing contrails. I was astounded by the density. It was worse than what the image above shows. It must have a contribution to changes when it is so noticeable that my uncalibrated eyeballs register it when not even looking for it.
Since clouds have an Albedo of as high as 0.9….thinking some….they can reflect 90% of the incoming solar locally….plus they cover 2/3 of the planet’s surface….yet our best measurements indicate clouds are a slightly positive or slightly negative feedback…..thinking some more….that means that a strong feedback mechanism is in place to make cloud cover exactly compensated by some other factor. This can only be water vapour, a greenhouse gas that radiates to the ground, but also readily turns water vapor into a SW sunshine reflector should the lower atmosphere have too much greenhouse back radiating gas in it.
That sounds like what Willis is saying.
Willis is more into tropical thunderstorms on a daily basis…I am more into a balance due to water vapor back radiation and SW cloud “reflective shutters” on an hourly basis….
That’s interesting.
Excellent analysis. Clouds are clearly the “stone that the [model] builders rejected which has become the cornerstone”.
The reply from the establishment will be something like “this is what we’ve been saying all along “.
Why no one is talking about the Earth’s diminishing magnetic field is beyond me.
You are free to talk about it, so why aren’t you if you think it’s relevant.?
How is it important? Can you make the case that it isn’t a spurious correlation?
So recent warming is linked to reduction, not increase in high level cloud and water vapour content?
There are elements of this important finding that cohere with what Miscolczi (remember him?) was saying.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi’s-2010-controversial-greenhouse-theory/
For one thing, he also looked at total energy content of air not just temperature (associated with Virial theory) and was roundly ridiculed for it. Now it turns out he was right in this.
Also Miskolczi showed from balloon data as well as modeling that upper atmosphere water content (and thus cloud) would decrease in compensatory response to CO2 increase. This would cancel out the increased opacity of the atmosphere that otherwise would be caused by CO2 increase, and therefore negated any change to the emission height.
Emission height change is the core of the greenhouse argument. It is supposed to result from increased atmosphere opacity to IR from CO2. But a compensatory decrease in high level water vapour would cancel this out. Cancel both the opacity change and the associated emission height change.
So does this mean Miscolczi was right and there is no CO2 radiative greenhouse effect?
Climate/weather is changing due to cloud changes which in turn are caused by the complex system as a whole.
Is this what the authors meant by this paragraph:
We could prove the increased greenhouse effect of the sum of all greenhouse gases (water vapour, CO2 etc.) under “Clear Sky” conditions with 1.2 W/m² increase in the last 20 years. However, this increase is overcompensated on an area-weighted basis by the increasing radiation of long-wave radiation in the cloudy zones (“Cloudy Areas”) amounting to -1.48 W/m².
Yes, that’s how I read it
I suppose that you meant to ask “Does this mean that Miscolczi was right and that there is little to no net effect of CO2 on the energy balance because the radiative greenhouse effect is countered by cloud effects?”
What you actually asked implies that there is no greenhouse effect even in theory. What I proposed you should say is that the effect is real but is countered by another effect opposing the change.
I would say the same as you – this is what I believe Miscolczi is saying – that a potential CO2 effect in changing IR opacity is cancelled by an opposite change from water vapour. I.e. emergent thermal homeostasis as per Willis Eschenbach and also Bartlett et al:
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2021/07/08/emergent-thermal-homeostasis-a-new-paradigm-for-ex-pluribus-unum-climate-stability/
And also, contrary to greenhouse theory – emergent thermal homeostasis obeys (rather than contradicting) the principle of least action (related to Noether’s law and Fermat’s theorem etc.). That a system will adapt to a changed parameter in the way exerting the minimum energy.
This could cause the M. Mann excuse research to go into overdrive.
“by anthropogenic warming due to CO2″ lost any credibility right there. Next.
Talking about clouds and temperatures, I always have that in mind since years:
source
Absolutely right, the clouds did it.
Not the clouds you think
The clouds you want are in this picture
See that dry dirt. See that low albedo.
There is your Climate Change
Actually from a very interesting piece from Auntie Beeb
I did respect James Burke, still do, but in this one, it is impossible to be any more wrong.
here
If you are addicted to sugar, who ain’t these days, your mileage will vary.
Not for too long though. Diabetes, Type 2 and thereafter Type 3 will end your confusion.
Who will change your nappy/diaper in the final 10 years of life is a whole other matter – they’ve all left.
Go eat a popcicle and chill, Peta. Farming and diet are not the causes of all the world’s ills. No matter the topic, you almost always reduce it to farming and diet. Engage in the topic at hand, or stay quiet.
Anyhow, you chronically overstate the farming influence, which runs counter to all of the modern advances in agricultural production (precision agriculture, drip irrigation, no till farming, crop rotations, grassed swales, improved pest control, conservation of soil organic matter, development of improved cultivars, etc.). Land use change and poor farming practices are serious issues in the developing world, and these contribute to environmental degradation. However, the developed countries are continually improving on already effective practices. One benefit of higher yields per acre is reduced pressure on marginal lands. Unfortunately, the somewhat recent biofuels frenzy due to the “catastrophic” climate change hoax has caused a lot of damage for no gain.
You do have some good points about diet, but those are more due to the disintegration of the nuclear family, feminist extremism, and the development of the welfare state.
If farming had not been discovered (impossible for intelligent beings, but still …) there would have been no large population growth, no complex cultural development, no technical civilization, no chance for humans to be blamed for much of anything.
So just to be clear it is acceptable to state that the earth has been warming consistently for the last few decades just as long as you don’t claim that it is due to rising CO2 levels. Normally any article that claims long term warming gets attacked by the usual suspects claiming that temperature records can’t be trusted, global warming is a scam and in fact the earth is cooling etc etc.
Not a slight warming is attacked, but the wrong explanation.
While I’m receptive to an alternative explanation, I’m disappointed that once again there are no error bars shown, or estimates of uncertainty cited. What is it about climatologists that they all seem to have an aversion to acknowledging uncertainty in measurements?
They are too uncertain about it to make a statement.
strawman much?
These are not mutually exclusive critiques of your catechism, Izaak.
Most of us acknowledge the satellite evidence of a modest and beneficial warming in fits and starts over the past two plus decades. That doesn’t prevent us from doubting the validity of your team’s data torturing algorithms that only seem to cool the past making the warming trend seem alarming.
Most of us also think that there is a radiative “greenhouse effect” which contributes to that warming. All of us reject the exaggerated claims of dangerous warming or a climate crisis. Empirical evidence indicates that ECS, if it is at all a valid concept, is much lower than the majority of GCMs would predict.
Unlike in your faith, we understand that the climate is extremely complex and not driven by a simple (CO2) master control knob slightly moderated by an aerosols fine adjustment knob. We observe that there are emergent phenomena that cause highly non-linear effects. We are able to imagine a world where there is a greenhouse effect that is real but that is counteracted by other phenomena.
Apparently you are not.
Anything but CO2 is acceptable.
Evidence is what is acceptable. For anything, CO2, or otherwise.
I infer that you think skeptics blindly reject anything to do with CO2. It’s not true. Skeptics accept the facts when presented. No facts have been presented showing that CO2 is the control knob of the Earth’s temperatures.
What is unacceptable is substituting assertions for evidence.
If you have some evidence showing CO2 is the control knob, present it here.
“So just to be clear it is acceptable to state that the earth has been warming consistently for the last few decades just as long as you don’t claim that it is due to rising CO2 levels.”
Yes, it is acceptable to say the Earth has been warming for the last few decades, because that’s the truth.
You can claim that CO2 is causing this warming, but a claim is not evidence of anything, so to be acceptable in making this claim, you would have to have some evidence to back up this claim. That’s all you need to be acceptable here: Evidence to prove your claim.
Assertions are not evidence.
“Short-wave radiation has decreased sharply over this period (see figure), equally in the northern and southern hemispheres (NH and SH). With solar radiation remaining nearly constant, this means that more shortwave radiation has reached the Earth’s surface, contributing to warming. “
This statement is nonsense without a few more nouns that say where…..
Trying to make sense of this.
Short-wave radiation has decreased.
Solar radiation constant.
more short-wave radiation.
Is it just me or am I thoroughly confused about what solar radiation is doing. It sounds like solar has gone down, but clouds are more permeable so let more of the lesser amount gets through?
True, one has to make a number of grammer assumptions to find any path between that verbiage and the article’s conclusions.
The net energy input to the oceans ranges from 1.1W/sqm in July to 49W/sq.m in January.
The ocean temperature (excluding sea ice covered) peaks in July and is minimum in January. They are completely out of phase.
The idea that the oceans can be warmed by surface radiation is utter nonsense. The surface temperature responds to the evaporation rate. Higher evaporation means cooler surface as cool deep water is drawn upward. Lower evaporation rate means warmer.
Ocean surface temperature is essentially stuck between hard limits. The deep ocean temperature is a function of the rate of evaporation. More heat is retained at depth when the net evaporation rate is low.
Each year the land gets 400mm net precipitation that ends up as river runoff. Any additional heat uptake of the oceans just adds to speeding up the water cycle from ocean to land and cooling the ocean surface temperature. Deep ocean heating by surface radiation is nonsense.
Spencer is very clear on satellite measurement of the energy imbalance by satellite.
Clouds, the very things that Fritz Vahrenholt and Rolf Dubal bang on about render satellite estimation of outgoing IR radiation impossible to quantify accurately.
I repeat
Satellite estimation of outgoing IR radiation is impossible to quantify accurately.
What this means is that there is no true estimate of energy imbalance, if it exists possible.
Worse different people then make theories based on the cloud properties that they wish to use , even though they cannot be accurately assessed for precisely the reasons given and claim that the inaccuracies in the estimations are proof that their theory works.
It is double dipping, select an outcome Gerghis style manipulation of data.
Spencer has said, I presume along with a lot of others
“Satellite estimation of outgoing IR radiation is impossible to quantify accurately”.
We have lost this paper already. It is now established that political requirements trump actual science, so if a finding appears which does not fit the narrative it will be ignored…
There has been a perfect correlation between PDO warm/cool ocean cycles and global warming/cooling temperature cycles:
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1913/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1913/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1913/to:1945/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1913/to:1946/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1946/to:1978/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1946/to:1978/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1978/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1978/trend
The abnormally long PDO warm cycle we’ve been in since 1978 will very soon reenter its 30-year cool cycle.
Moreover, the AMO will also soon reenter its 30-year cool cycle which will add to the PDO global cooling cycle.
Leftists will have a hard time explaining the coming 30 years of global cooling.
“Leftists will have a hard time explaining the coming 30 years of global cooling.”
That would be fun, if it were to happen! Even a couple of years of cooling would be a lot of fun, although not scientifically definitve. 🙂
From the article: “From the radiation measurements it can be deduced that 2% less cloud cover means about 0.5 W/m² more net radiation flux, which could explain most of the 0.8 W/m² mentioned above.”
That’s about the same result Muller found. He said a two percent change in cloud cover could negate all the CO2 warming.
The Earth sees a 90 W/m^2 swing in ISR from perihelion to aphelion.
A 1% variation in the 30% albedo, which defies actual measurement, is worth 10 W/m^2.
ToA at 40 N latitude sees a 700 W/m^2 swing from summer to winter.
Decimal point variations in “radiative forcing” (akin to phlogiston and luminiferous ether) are meaningless hallucinations of computer simulations.
Given Earth’s planetary history, permanent seems a long shot whatever the factors.