[update from a reader 10/23/2021: Message: Regarding the quotation in Kenneth Richards’ Oct 18 article “2001-2019 Warming Driven By Increases In Absorbed Solar Radiation, Not Human Emissions.” While I am a climate skeptic, it worries me to see that the author quotes the Loed, et al report incorrectly. (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047)
The full statement in the report is “This trend is primarily due to an increase in absorbed solar radiation associated with decreased reflection by clouds and sea-ice and a decrease in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) due to increases in trace gases and water vapor.” Richards left out everything after the word “clouds.” CO2 is one of the trace gases, and according to this report, its heat-trapping propensity in the atmosphere is equally important as a cause of global warming as “decreased reflection by clouds.” I also note that there are theoretical connections between decreased cloud cover and increased levels of CO2.~cr]
Reposted from the NoTricksZone
By Kenneth Richard on 18. October 2021
Three new studies affirm the increase in absorbed solar radiation associated with decreased reflection by clouds (albedo) has been the “root cause” of the positive Earth Energy Imbalance and global warming since the early 2000s.
Scientists (Loeb et al., 2021) have determined the rather uncertain positive trend in Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) from 2005 to 2019, 0.5 W/m² ±0.47 W/m² per decade−1, is “primarily due to an increase in absorbed solar radiation associated with decreased reflection by clouds.”
CERES satellite data indicate clouds and surface albedo account for 89% of the absorbed solar radiation trend in the 21st century, whereas anthropogenic greenhouse gases account for but a tiny fraction of the trends in combined absorbed solar radiation and greenhouse effect forcing (reductions in emitted thermal radiation) during this period.
This very small human emissions/greenhouse gas impact is represented by the red “Other” (“trace gases”) bars in the graph below. In emitted thermal radiation, graph (e) shows the greenhouse gas impact is effectively offset by the cloud influence; both factors are cancelled out by temperature changes. This leaves the increase in absorbed solar radiation shown in graph (d) due to natural variations in clouds and surface albedo (SFC) as the primary driver(s) of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux forcing during the last two decades.
Image Source: Loeb et al., 2021
Other scientists (Dübal and Vahrenholt, 2021) have also concluded that the positive TOA net flux (+1.42 W/m²) from increasing downwelling shortwave (SW) facilitated by a drop in cloudiness has been the “major driving effect,” “dominating influence,” and “major heating cause” explaining the 2001-2019 ocean heat content increase (240 ZJ).
The authors note these CERES satellite observations “conflict with the assumption further global warming originates mainly from the LW [longwave] radiation capture caused by greenhouse gases, i.e., a decline in outgoing LW.” In fact, the LW or greenhouse effect impact has been negative; it has contributed a net cooling influence (-1.1 W/m²) over the last two decades.
Image Source: Dübal and Vahrenholt, 2021
The summarizing text from another new study (Ollila, 2021) bluntly asserts the substantial increase in downwelling SW radiation from 2000-2019 demonstrates “there are natural climate drivers that have rapid and significant temperature impacts exceeding the anthropogenic drivers,” and that any temperature increase since 2015-’16 “cannot be due to anthropogenic reasons.”
Image Source: Ollila, 2021
These newer studies affirming the 21st increase in absorbed solar radiation has driven modern warming are further substantiated by a 2020 Nature journal paper (Delgado-Bonal et al., 2020) extending the positive (+3 W/m²) cloud-albedo SW impact back to 1980.
[S]hortwave radiation is the main driver in the dynamics and plays a major role in the energy balance by affecting the longwave radiation field.”
“Our research supports the idea that clouds and albedo, which ultimately determine the SW radiation, are variables of the utmost importance for current climate change, in agreement with previous research about the changes in stratocumulus or energy imbalance in the last four decades for example. An increase in cloud coverage of 0.1 would, on average, lead to a 7% increase in spectrally integrated global average reflectance of shortwave radiation.”
Thank you, Kenneth 👍
“2001-2019 Warming Driven By Increases In Absorbed Solar Radiation, Not Human Emissions” – OK, I can agree with that statement.
In 2002 we correctly predicted the current cooling and in 2013 I refined that prediction, and also predicted the current energy crisis in the UK in an open letter to the British Undersecretary for Energy and Climate. Our correct predictions were based entirely upon solar activity and an understanding of the failures of green energy due to intermittency.
Not complicated, just correct.
Meanwhile, the radical greens have made more than 90 failed predictions about runaway global warming, wilder weather and the future perfection of grid-connected wind and solar power – nonsense intended to create false alarm, resulting in grid energy failures.
We have been governed by scoundrels and imbeciles – and now we pay the price.
‘DOUBLE-DIP’ LA NIÑA = BRUTAL NORTHERN HEMISPHERE WINTER, + RECORD-BREAKING HAIL POUNDS AUSTRALIA
October 20, 2021 Cap Allon
The first signs of the La Niña cooling pattern are expected to appear next week, but the phenomenon won’t be at its strongest until after January. Prepare.
SCANDINAVIA RECEIVES FEET OF EARLY-SEASON SNOW, FLURRIES HIT SOUTH KOREA AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, + GLOBAL COLLAPSE
October 19, 2021 Cap Allon
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
My new paper will be published soon, entitled
“SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE – THE ABILITY TO CORRECTLY PREDICT”
The ability to correctly predict is the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence.
I agree Alan. The IPCC ‘science’ is 100% incorrect. The warming in the last 25 years has caused by changes in cloud cover, rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2. We are at the end of a Dansgaard-Oeschger warming period, it is going to cool. The IPCC had no scientific explanation for the cyclic past warmings that have the same signature (same regions of the planet warmed.) as this warming period.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The IPCC general circulation models all fail… If the observed, Shortwave radiation increase (due to a reduction in cloud cover) that was observed 2001 – 2020, is used in the models, rather than ignoring the observed change in planetary cloud cover.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353581425_Global_Circulation_Models_GCMs_Simulate_the_Current_Temperature_Only_If_the_Shortwave_Radiation_Anomaly_of_the_2000s_Has_Been_Omitted
This is an excerpt from the abstract of the above paper which is being hidden and suppressed.
“The research article of Gillett et al. was published in Nature Climate Change (NCC) in March 2021.
The objective of the NCC study was to simulate human-induced forcings to warming by applying 13 CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6) climate models. NCC did not accept the author’s remarks as a “Matters arising” article.
The purpose of this article is to detail the original three remarks and one additional remark: 1) the discrepancy between the graphs and reported numerical values, 2) the forcings of aerosols and clouds, 3) the positive water feedback, and 4) the calculation basis of the Paris agreement.
The most important finding is that General Circulation Models (GCMs) used in simulations omit the significant shortwave anomaly from 2001 to 2019, which causes a temperature error of 0.3°C according to climate change physics of Gillett et al.
For the year 2019, this error is 0.8°C showing the magnitude of shortwave anomaly impact. The main reason for this error turns out to be the positive water feedback generally applied in climate models. The scientific basis of the Paris climate agreement is faulty for the same reason.”
Look here
RE: My new paper will be published soon, entitled
“SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE – THE ABILITY TO CORRECTLY PREDICT”
The ability to correctly predict is the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence.
My friend Dr Dave suggested a subtitle for my new paper:
“We are in the midst of the longest, saddest, most excruciating and unsatisfying I TOLD YOU SO in the history of the world.”
It sounds like you are going to hit the alarmists where they hurt, Allan. All their failed predictions make good ammunition.
The ability to predict is the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence.
Climate doomsters have a perfect NEGATIVE predictive track record – every very-scary climate prediction, of the ~80 they have made since 1970, has FAILED TO HAPPEN.
“Rode and Fischbeck, professor of Social & Decision Sciences and Engineering & Public Policy, collected 79 predictions of climate-caused apocalypse going back to the first Earth Day in 1970. With the passage of time, many of these forecasts have since expired; the dates have come and gone uneventfully. In fact, 48 (61%) of the predictions have already expired as of the end of 2020.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/25/the-risks-of-communicating-extreme-climate-forecasts/
By the end of 2020, the climate doomsters were proved wrong in their scary climate predictions 48 times. At 50:50 odds for each prediction, that is like flipping a coin 48 times and losing every time! The probability of that being mere random stupidity is 1 in 281 trillion! It’s not just global warming scientists being stupid.
These climate doomsters have not been telling the truth – they displayed a dishonest bias in their analyses that caused these extremely improbable falsehoods, these frauds.
The global warming alarmists have a perfect NEGATIVE predictive track record – they have been 100% wrong about every scary climate prediction – so nobody should continue to believe them.
There is a powerful logic that says no rational person or group could be this wrong for this long – they have followed a corrupt agenda – in fact, they knew from the beginning of their catastrophic global warming narrative that they were lying.
The radical greens have NO credibility, make that NEGATIVE credibility – their core competence is propaganda, the fabrication of false alarm.
My latest paper – now published:
“SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE – THE ABILITY TO CORRECTLY PREDICT”
by Allan MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng.
https://thsresearch.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/scientific-competence-the-ability-to-correctly-predict/
WordPress has made a hash of the last half of this paper – we’re working on it..
Here is a temporary publication link http://correctpredictions.ca/
13+ DEAD DUE TO HEAVY SNOW IN INDIA, SCOTS SHOVELING, “MOUNT WASHINGTON LOOKS LIKE THE NORTH POLE”, RECORD-SMASHING SNOW HEADED FOR U.S., + THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST OIL HUB IS RUNNING DRY
October 22, 2021 Cap Allon
“This event is shaping up to be one for the record books,” said the National Weather Service re the U.S.’ snow. Plus, the future is looking decidedly Totalitarian, and cold.
Yes Kenneth, thank you, and could you elucidate the term Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) from the Loeb et al studies.
Who authored it? What does it mean? If we are imbalanced then what is balance? Who or what determined/determines what balance is or should be? And finally to add a bit of snark: Does that determination require math or a political science background?
Bill, it’s an easy concept. Balance is when sun’s energy entering the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is equal to energy exiting TOA from the atmosphere to space, as measured by CERES satellite. At balance, earth’s temperature is unchanging. If more energy exits than enters, we have cooling, if less exits than enters, warming. That’s a bulk whole earth measure. The details in the atmosphere, in the oceans and on land of course are wildly variable.
Thanks Gary. So bear with my ignorance, they measure that energy how? Finally to what degree of accuracy can they measure TOA energy in/out.
CERES Sat
Bill,
Short answer: by using calibrated radiometers.
For CERES radiometers flying on several different spacecraft, the accuracy issue is very complicated . . . see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clouds_and_the_Earth%27s_Radiant_Energy_System
The most recent, highest accuracy radiometer instrument for monitoring Earth’ radiation (both reflected and emitted from the atmosphere) is the 22 spectral band, 400 m nadir resolution Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) flying on the Suomi NPP satellite mission . . . see https://www.jpss.noaa.gov/viirs.html
You will have to do additional searching to find this instrument suite’s claimed accuracy in measuring “total energy” in/out Earth TOA. I could not quickly find such.
A couple of others have sent answers. The basic thing to understand is the sun’s energy entering is largely short and very short wave (the latter basically UV, the former visible light). Insolation from the sun has been very well measured for a long time. The atmosphere is tranparent to this so it passes through and heats up the earth’s surface. The heated surface emits the energy in the form of long wave infra red (LWIR) and this is what exits TOA into space and is measured by the CERES sat (same principle as an infrared camera).
This is the bare bones. A lot of other things are happening: 30% of incoming short wave is reflected as short wave from the surface and from clouds back out to space -albedo. Evaporation from the ocean causes rapid convection of warm water vapor up through the trposphere where from where it can emit some energy space.
Re accuracy there is disagreement on this. The diff between in coming and out going is somewhere around -½watt/m^² of earth’s surface. Some argue this imbalance is essentially a measure of error in the instruments, others that the half watt deficit in energy exiting is a measure of the global warming (½ watt is ~0.15% of the energy)
I just posted this comment on another thread which migh be even more relevant here.
In the CET we have 350 year long record, so let see what it shows:
In the northern hemisphere most of the solar input is during the summer months of Jun-July, but the temperature does go higher due to thermal capacity of the land and nearby Atlantic ocean.
The Met office data shows that the June-July mean temperature was rising at 0.1C/century (see trend line on the graph below), i.e temperature rose a mighty 0.3C during the last 350 years from an average of 15C to 15.3C. It is surprising that despite the recovery from depths of LIA rise is not greater.
Looking at spectrum of the data there are two notable peaks of 9 years (N. Atlantic’s AMO) and 22.2 years (Sunspot magnetic cycle).
On the effect of both I commented before, this time attached is the updated graph (click on to see detail)
Thank you Willis Eschenbach for turning researchers in the right direction.
Gary,
A radiative climate hypothesis considering a global warming due to albedo effect,
either it has to consider the theory of climate,
the M. Cycles theory of climate as false and invalid,
or else
has to be considered as a brand new anthropogenic climate hypothesis.
The best radiative theory there, once in the past,
having albedo effect played right in consideration of global warming, was the famous Ranaway Global Warming theory.
As how it supposes to be, with;
A Ranaway Albedo effect.
Else albedo effect has no any relevance in global total sunshine variation, either in the consideration of climatic cooling or climatic warming.
And still the Ranaway Global warming theory was dropped, like it did not even exist.
cheers
Ok, still there happens to be still some albedo “worshippers” outthere!
Why not engaging!
When challenged!
Give it a try.
From the article: “In emitted thermal radiation, graph (e) shows the greenhouse gas impact is effectively offset by the cloud influence”
THIS is the control knob of the Earth’s temperatures.
Always interesting that clouds cover 2/3 of the planet, reflect .4 to .9 of the sunlight striking them, act as shutters above the .1 Albedo heat absorbing ocean below them (also 70% of the planet), form as a result of H20 evaporation subsequently cooled by lofting higher in the troposphere by the very heat that caused the evaporation to start with……yet we have published “scientific” papers claiming clouds are a positive feedback due to their nightime downward IR. Shouldn’t it be clear to a rational thinker that the temperature of the planet’s ocean surface controls the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere….controls the cloud cover, to a nearly zero change in……OK, here’s the hard part….zero change in ocean surface temp, atmospheric temp, surface SW absorbed…?
That is begging the question. What is responsible for the variation in type and areal coverage of clouds?
Long term answer….average sea temperature of the upper mixed few meters…..as it changes over centuries of Earth’s albedo wanderings….short term answer advection of weather fronts which gives the monthly changes you see on the UAH temp graph….
I think people need to realise, it can take some time for a climate to warm up, as from 1850 to the 1920s/30s but cooling as in the early 1940s can happen almost overnight., The strange thing, looking back, is that if Hitler had attacked Russia in the 1930s then he may have actually won. By the time he did, in 1941, it had started to cool off and if you are talking about a cooling Russian winter then you know you are in trouble.
The winters of 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1944 were all very harsh in Europe.
So was 1947. The worst winter of my 85 years on this earth
My parents were married in Feb 1947 in UK. Unbelievably cold day with freezing fog etc. Not sure how they kept warm lol.
I agree with that
It was bitter cold in the Netherlands in 1947.
I said the exact same thing to a Russian grandmother. She replied that I was wrong : the winter of 1941-42 was ordinary (cold as usual) and that it is curious that when the French leave Russia (with Napoleon), we invoke the cold, when the Germans flee Russia, we invoke the cold and, in any case, it is never the courage of the Russian army that scares the enemy … And suddenly, I got yelled at!
She may be assured that it was both: the courage of her father and fortune.
One problem with invading Russia that many historians and the armchair commentators ignore is its huge area. To hold territory the invader needs either collaboration of local population (e.g. Ukraine) or thinly spreading the army which then runs out of manpower and resources. Germans were heading for Baku and its oil about 2200 km from Kiev (Ukraine), while Moscow is just under thousand km in a different direction. Germans reached Stalingrad in the summer of 1942, on the way they cut oil pipeline to deprive Moscow of the fuel, but Russians manage to hold Stalingrad until the winter. Marshal Zhukov who participated in the WWI, was organising defences, as an experienced soldier he realised Germans made number of tactical errors, and in February in 1943 with help of the the cold Russian weather, the Germans were badly beaten marking a ‘tipping point’ of their Russian invasion.
One cunning move by Zhukov was the Germans near Moscow gathered in an area for an assault on the city that he realized was low ground. He breached a reservoir and flooded the encampment with bitterly cold water to add their misery, already cold and hungry.
Re the distances. Did you know the distance from Moscow to Chicago is the same as the distance from Moscow to Russia’s Far East!
A army, with no logistics support is for better word, a dead army.
Especially when it comes to facing battles at such a point.
The German army, same as with the Napoleon’s army, due to uncounted unforseen severe winter conditions, lost almost all logistical support needed at a crucial point in their respective war campaign against Russia.
cheers
Winter was coming then… again…again…
still winter is again coming now…
Russia, still has a very strong hold in consideration of energy security… financial also, versus the dumb stupid stand of the new neo facistic global order!
cheers
Part of the invaders’ problem is they thought they could take Moscow before the weather turned too cold and then winter it out in the city. Both Napoleon and Hitler had egos inflated from success.
Hitler didn’t expect such a fight, even though his General Guderian (sp?) warned him not to invade Russia at that time. Napoleon got to Moscow, but the Russian army and patriots burned the city down. The Grande Armée lost 400,000 of the 500,000 that invaded.
Hy Gary,
Not that bit, but few decades ago I briefly worked with, by then and elderly Polish engineer, with an unpronounceable name (we called him Jimsky) who at the end of WWII at age 19 or 20, by various means took some 9 or 10 months to make it from Russo-Polish border across Siberia, all the way to Vladivostok (Vladar Vostoka, Ruler of the East) and from there onto Hong-Kong by see, and onward to the UK, where he lived till his death some 20 or so years ago.
(Vladimir – ruler of either the ‘world’ or ‘peace’. In case of Vladimir Ilich or Vladimir Putin probably the ‘world’ was the intention )
Vuk, I worked with a Polish Engineer in Nigeria (Polish Technical Aid) in the middle 1960s. He had been captured by the Germans and was used as a road surveyor. He eventually ‘surveyed’ his way up a hill and over it and ran away escaping Germany through the mountains in Bavaria and finally after much adventure joined the British army’s “Desert Rats” at Tobruk, Libya. After the War he studied in England, but returned to Poland. A good book in that story.
The Germans were so full of themselves, that they arrived in Russia with summer gear, because they thought they would wrap up Russia, as rapidly as they did with West Europe; blitzkrieg fantasy.
Much to their ignorant surprise, 1) Mother Nature, better understood by Russians, and 2) knowledge of the local terrain, combined with 3) Russian Herculean efforts, and 4) much loss of lives, resulted in the Russians defeating Germany.
The Russians were fighting 65% of the German war machine, and they won.
After that, they raced to Berlin to finish it off, and stayed until 1990.
The Germans did not have winter gear for a very good reason.
It was a master stroke to mislead Stalin.
Stalin had spies throughout the world, especially in labor unions and movements. For example, during the war, Stalin had excellent information on US war production: planes, tanks, etc. He knew everything that was being built and sent to Los Alamos for the Manhattan project.
Back to Germany. The Germans knew if they began to produce 2 million winter uniforms, Stalin would know about it and be tipped off to the German invasion.
It would be madness to invade Russia without winter uniforms.
Stalin was so fooled by the German misinformation program that he ignored his own military intelligence people, who were warning him that the Germans were preparing to invade.
Success in the invasion depended entirely on surprise, and a quick victory. The Germans took the chance.
The reason why Germany felt the need to risk all on the invasion of Russia was simple: Germany and Western Europe were not a self sufficient economic unit. Germany was dependent on imports from Russia. With a long war, Germany would have to loose. Russia could end its exports of raw material any time it wanted.
This was the exact situation Napoleon found himself in after he failed to invade England.
Actually, Napoleon was interested in wood, tar, other raw materials, etc., to build a much bigger navy to take on the UK.
The trees needed to be at least 2-3 ft in diameter and 100 plus year old, so the wood would have strength and durability.
The UK had access to a vast supply of such wood from Canada, Russia, and the US.
France did not, because of the blockade by the UK navy.
Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, etc., were nearly deforested in the early 1800s
5) American lend lease, which began right after the German invasion, and amounted to about 20% of total Soviet war production.
At Kursk, the Russians suffered very high losses, about 5 times the number of casualties, tanks, airplanes, artillery destroyed, but when the Germans retreated,,,.the Russians still had a million soldiers, plus thousands of tanks and artillery pieces both in the field and being delivered monthly. The German factories, on the other hand, were being bombed daily and had severe supply problems. The German high command realized their losses of men and equipment were unsustainable. They announced a Kursk pullback claiming the need to defend the Western front, but in reality it was a major loss, with the root cause of supply chain failure of the Germans, and supply chain success of the Russians.
Tony — I question your assertion that warming is slow and cooling is fast. All the reconstructions of Pleistocene temps seem to show very rapid rise from glacial stadials to interglacial warmth followed by a slow decline back to deep cold. Some researchers propose that the 6+°C temp rise from the Younger Dryas to the Holocene ~11,750 BP occurred in 25 years or less. In comparison, the 2°C decline from the Holocene Climatic Optimum to today has taken 8,000 years.
There is no hockey stick warming or cooling today, and none is expected. The trend is slow cooling. The next rapid change will be a temp rise at the end of the pending glacial stadial in 100,000 years or so. That’s my assertion, and in 100,000 years we’ll see who’s correct.
Now all we have to do is to get somebody in power to listen, understand and act.
Small to nil chance of that happening.
They didn’t grab that power out of any benevolent interest in the future of mankind. Questioning this religion would be political suicide these days, unfortunately. All we’re ever going to get out of this is less worry that climate will change enough to, for example, submerge California (which might be pleasant, come to think of it) and more worry that energy insecurity will destabilize the world and eliminate any savings we’ve made toward retirement. Honestly, I wish I weren’t “skeptical” these days.
“They didn’t grab that power out of any benevolent interest in the future of mankind. Questioning this religion would be political suicide these days, unfortunately.”
*******
Joe, I would like to believe that questioning the alarmist narrative isn’t necessarily political suicide. If it is, I would like to know why. It would obviously take someone in high office with the intestinal fortitude and will power to buck the status quo and go on offense against the climate scare.
Trump seemed to question it while in office, but didn’t do anything other than that. If the Republicans don’t have the will or guts to challenge the alarmist status quo, they do not deserve my support any more than the Democrats (whom I do not support).
I sign of a truly great leader is someone who is willing to question and challenge group think and common beliefs when there is evidence that is should be done.
The sign of a truly great leader is someone who can convince the populous that he has a viable plan and that they should follow him. Hiding in one’s basement, and reading a teleprompter and refusing to take questions at press briefings, will NOT convince any but the most subservient and gullible to follow.
Absolutely agree.
BRAVO
“Trump seemed to question it while in office, but didn’t do anything other than that.”
I was disappointed by what Trump did on climate change. He could have done so much more, for example to ensure by law the scientific integrity of organisations such as NOAA and NASA.
All his statements about climate change were pretty well spot on and put him squarely in mainstream sceptical opinion. For example, he never denied the reality of climate change, but did say the trend may eventually reverse.
But I have wondered about how well informed he was about the science and the data. Maybe he didn’t realise that the science and data backed him up strongly. For example, he could easily show Biden to be an incompetent liar simply by showing a large graph of the official data, for example showing that wildfires were much worse in the 1930’s or that similarly droughts and heat waves were much worse then (during the Dust Bowl).
When he’s president again, this time I hope he will be more active in showing these scientific frauds and religious nutters for what they really are. (In an interview David Starkey called a certain deluded and ignorant school girl “a religious nutter” – how very true).
Chris
Trump was busy fighting off two bogus impeachment attempts.
Unfortunately, the power in the US today is in the hands of a man who has much in common with the captain of the B Ark in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Given that the B Ark ended up here, well…
And don’t forget that the race on the planet from which the B Ark originated was wiped out by a disease caught from a dirty telephone because they had shipped out all of their telephone sanitisers in the B Ark.
Telephone sanitisers’ lives matter!
You’d think it wouldn’t be that tough a job. But maybe there were stricter union regulations on their planet. “No, civilization must end – telephone sanitizing is a closed shop,” according to their supreme court.
What politician can gain power these days with a, “no, I don’t need to save you from the coming climatapocalypse because it’s just not happening” message? Those who seek power would never give up an opportunity to be a savior.
And, unfortunately, while an extraordinarily high percentage of democrats list climate change as something vital to fight, enough republicans and independents have been converted to the religion to make it political suicide for a politician to take this stand. One who might, the libertarian-leaning Rand Paul, has a support ceiling within his own party that’s so low that his candidacy has become a source of unintentional comedy.
This is happening. Our only hope is that we don’t have to outrun the bear – we just have to outrun our friends also being chased by the bear. I hate rooting for things to get awful in Europe, but I have to admit that I will feel some relief if the predictions of an unusually harsh European winter come true, and the electrical grid fails at the worst time. But hopefully people will at least be able to get warm at shelters.
Cost alone won’t do it. If natural gas prices rise 50% this winter in America, the media and their friends in Washington will only call for home heating to be added to their “infrastructure” bill.
It will convert a lot of condescending, self-righteous Democrats into Republicans.
Three new studies affirm the increase in absorbed solar radiation associated with decreased reflection by clouds (albedo) has been the “root cause” of the positive Earth Energy Imbalance and global warming since the early 2000s.
Clouds? They have a parameter for those.
I had the same thought. This is already addressed in the climate models. These observations and resulting studies must be, by definition, wrong. /sarc
The simple scalar, the global sensitivity, forced by the god molecule. An effect, hiding in plain sight, tuned with a consensus under a layer of brown matter.
And that’s what happens when true scientific analysis is hijacked by false models and experts – disastrous public policies follow. This is the equivalent of accusing a man for murder and imprisoning him for 20 years or more, just to find out that he was ultimately innocent.
From the article: “In fact, the LW or greenhouse effect impact has been negative; it has contributed a net cooling influence (-1.1 W/m²) over the last two decades.”
My, my. What do you know about that. Ole Muller had it right.
This is what physics requires. Since the effective radiation level (ERL) of CO2 is up into the stratosphere then adding more CO2 will raise it even higher in the stratosphere. Since the stratosphere has a reverse lapse rate, that higher altitude is warmer which causes more energy to be radiated to space.
Wasn’t it Mosher who first mentioned the ERL on WUWT about a decade ago? Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that CO2’s ERL was so high.
I guess I should mention, for those who don’t know, that Muller said a two percent increase in clouds would offset all CO2 warming, and I believe he was using an ECS of 3C at the time.
Interesting, thanks for reposting. Although for these papers to pose reduction in cloud cover as the ‘root’ cause is a bit odd. In root cause analysis you keep asking why-why-why?. Cloud cover reduces as a result/consequence of something as well (likely very complex), so the root must lie deeper than this. Are there any hypotheses why cloud cover is reducing (as evidenced by Ceres).
Or this is a correlation, rather than a root cause?
Atmospheric ionization and cloud radiative forcing
Atmospheric ionization produced by cosmic rays has been suspected to influence aerosols and clouds, but its actual importance has been questioned. If changes in atmospheric ionization have a substantial impact on clouds, one would expect to observe significant responses in Earth’s energy budget. Here it is shown that the average of the five strongest week-long decreases in atmospheric ionization coincides with changes in the average net radiative balance of 1.7 W/m2 (median value: 1.2 W/m2) using CERES satellite observations. Simultaneous satellite observations of clouds show that these variations are mainly caused by changes in the short-wave radiation of low liquid clouds along with small changes in the long-wave radiation, and are almost exclusively located over the pristine areas of the oceans. These observed radiation and cloud changes are consistent with a link in which atmospheric ionization modulates aerosol’s formation and growth, which survive to cloud condensation nuclei and ultimately affect cloud formation and thereby temporarily the radiative balance of Earth.
Thanks Krishna, I’ve been a Henrik Svensmark fan ever since his 1980’s, The Chilling Stars and his commitment to galactic cosmic rays. I’m surprised and disappointed that you didn’t get more upvotes. I see the same lack of enthusiasm for his writings elsewhere here on WUWT and on Quora. Seems odd.
Svesmark et al go on to report:
“…liquid clouds are low clouds, and therefore the difference between cloud top temperature and Earth’s surface temperature is relatively small. Thus, a decrease in liquid cloud fraction would manifest as a nearly unchanged LW signal. In contrast, liquid clouds affect SW radiation, which increases NET-absorbed radiation….”
“…Fewer high clouds will lead to less SW radiation reflected out to space (negative SW at TOA). However, since a large fraction of the high clouds are deep convective clouds, there will be a large LW contrast between the cold cloud top and the warm terrestrial surface. A decrease in high clouds will, therefore, increase the LW radiation escaping to space. As a consequence29, the change in SW and LW will approximately cancel each other….”
Same here and for Nir Shaviv and his work.
The above linked paper is written by both, so no question about quality 😀
Could be cosmic rays or ocean currents. The AMO seems most likely to me. We should have a much better idea in another decade or two.
It’s increasing CO2 that’s causing clouds to be reduced and this tiny effect is the ONLY effect. Even though alarmists would jump at the opportunity to blame CO2 for this, it would mean that they must accept the science that makes the connection between clouds and CO2 and that this science tells us that the final effect is far too small to be obsessing about, much less spending trillions to change since the required, predicted and measured sensitivity is less than the IPCC’s lower bound.
The planet wants to maintain approximately constant absorption of surface emissions (about 76%) in order to optimize surface warmth given the available solar input. The reason is that constant absorption means a relatively constant fraction of the surface is covered by clouds and changing this fraction in either direction takes work that’s otherwise not available to heat the surface. In other words, clouds self organize the atmosphere to minimize changes in entropy as the system changes state. Note that relative to the GHG effect, clouds have a larger and far more variable effect on the surface temperature.
It also turns out that the total amount of absorption has preferred values driven by the strange attractor guiding the chaotic self organization of the atmosphere by clouds. Given this, more CO2 means that the minimum atmospheric absorption has increased, so fewer clouds are required to get the average absorption up as high as it needs to be in order to converge to the most preferred of its possible values given the current conditions.
See ‘What System Model Does Work’ which is after the current feedback model is precisely and unambiguously exposed for the junk science it really is.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/docs/newfb.pdf
There are significantly less fat overblown guys named Al running around.
More fat guys named Al in a region means more cloud cover and more cooling.
The bigger the overblown gasbag named Al, the more impact on cloud cover and resultant cooling.
It’s kinda like gravity, no proof, but such a strong correlation to the model that it is accepted as fact.
I’m sure there are multiple theories as to why. I have been proposing one for years.
The oceans have seen a natural increase in salinity as well as increases in pollution. These will reduce evaporation over time. Less evaporation means fewer clouds in addition to keeping the ocean surface warmer..
Interestingly, more CO2 will try to increase evaporation. It has been trying hard to counter some of this natural warming.
So I guess this not only blows up the greenhouse gas warming of the atmosphere as being the control knob of the Earth’s temperatures, but it also blows up the claims of the Global Cooling Club that aerosols are the reason for cooling periods.
Now can we stop wasting Trillions of dollars on trying to regulate CO2, since it doesn’t need to be regulated?
To make up for the loss of the IPCC, maybe the UN can form a new group to study how to control clouds. No, we better not give them any ideas. Look how badly they have screwed up the first time they tried to regulate the Earth’s temperatures.
Except they are not trying to regulate the earth’s temperatures. They are trying to regulate the earth’s humans.
If the IPCC were trying to regulate the earth’s temperatures, they would demand that SO2 be dumped into the atmosphere as quickly as possible.
Less cloud, less oceanic stratocumulus. So why?
A) Oil and surfactant smooths reducing wave breaking and hence salt aerosols.
B) Stratification reduces productivity and hence DMS production.
C) Nitrate run-off alters phytoplankton ecology, less DMS.
D) Dissolved silica run-off altering the phytoplankton ecology.
JF
And…
Phytoplankton are driven deeper into lower light areas as stirring is reduced and nutrients become depleted. By leaking lipids they increase light levels by reducing surface ruffling. CO2 is depleted so CCMs come into play which discriminate less against C13/14. Copepod poop exports proportionately more heavier isotope C.
JF
Interesting to put this with the 99% study. The summary of the papers here shows the complexity of the science when it comes to global climate and causes and influences of trends.
To put it, as the 99% paper does, in terms of for or against some ill defined proposition is a religious or political and not a scientific approach.
The question should not be, are you a believer or a denier. It should be, how does this thing work in all its complexity.
If you understood the complexity, you would be neither a believer, nor a denier, but agnostic.
The only deniers are those that deny the uncertainty.
I and billions of other people don’t care how it works, so long as the one turning the organ grinder don’t stop and the monkey keeps dancing.
Actuality:
They’re Measuring Snow In The FEET Across The Rocky Mountains, Coldest Early-October Day In [At Least] 125 Years Strikes Seattle, as Historic Cold Keeps China Coal Prices High
The Rocky Mountains have received their first big snowfalls of the season, weeks ahead of schedule.
Since Monday, October 11 parts of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah have received well over 2 feet of early-season snow, with higher elevations receiving much, much more.
“Historic cold…”
You’ve been told, global warming causes cold.
So it must be historic warming.
Black is white, up is down, dogs and cats cohabitating, its the end times! 😉
dog and cat, you say?
Wish I could get pics to download to thread, our collie/shepherd mutt is on the bed, Lilbabee is right up under his chin and Jellical is sleeping against his belly. He keeps giving me the “Really? I have to put up with this sh*t?” look. Poor bastard. Gets no respect!
Two feet of snow!
Love it
This is an unsettling report for the science is settled issue of Climate Change. I wonder how much of a discussion it will have at COP26? I am 99.9% certain that will be ZERO.
I’m sure they want to “hide the decline” on this study!
First let me say I am skeptical on most ‘Climate Change’ claims. Because the solutions are ridiculous, and the claims of how the world is going to end is equally foolish, if we had adults i nthe room instead of politicians and fear mongering it would be better.
I am however also skeptical of claims that man, including CO2 emissions are entirely negligible. I would argue that saying a half degree to a little over that since Pre-industrial times being caused by mankind by land-use, CO2 emissions etc and so on is ENTIRELY plausible. Of course additional warming due to CO2 is going to be negligible, in point of fact it is almost impossible short of amplifying the warming from CO2 by a factor of 10 to cause much more warming than we have had already, not only that but anytime I only hear that something is ONLY bad, I sort of find it disingenuous. Science does not measure the VALUE of something in terms of good or bad, People do.
HOWEVER the panic over said increase in temperature is not. Nor is the idea that the temperature is on some kind of amplified feedback loop that is going to take us to 6+ degrees Celsius.
These papers in many ways will still be interpreted by the Climate Change community as evidence of the feedback loop caused by CO2 and not natural… Which is simply the way the world looks at ‘Climate Change’ now.
Interesting reads however.
I’ve heard this spun as increased warming is NOT leading to increased cloud cover so there is no mitigating effect.
Tell that to Willis.
The implication is that atmospheric CO2 is a probable lagging indicator of temperature change.
Forrest, Well said.
The IPCC charter is to only report the bad, not a fair and balanced approach. It’s been agenda driven to promote a carbon tax since day one and it will never change direction IMHO
copy
6 December, 1988
43/53 Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind
The General Assembly, …”Conservatism of climate as part of the common heritage of mankind.”
Concerned that human activities could change global climate patterns, threatening present and future generations with potentially economic and social consequences.
Noting with concern that the emerging evidence indicates that continued growth in atmosphere concentrations of “greenhouse” gases could produce (sea level rise).
You might not be as skeptical if you understood the key effects of CO2 operate almost entirely in the stratosphere. As a result they cannot cause any significant warming.
CERN, the site that operates the Large Hadron Collider, has a long term project to investigate how aerosols in the atmosphere influence clouds behaviour and performance.
It is not only the IPCC who pay scant attention to how the largest greenhouse gas affects the planet. Not many articles come to WUWT readers attention either.
Please, more, more, more, on what the geographers of a century ago referred to as “atmospheric cloudiness”…_
Well, I will be sure to tune in CBS News tonight to listen to Norah O’Donnell breathlessly exclaim that CO2 is not the control knob of global temperature as previously thought, and that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been dissolved, and governments around the world can forget about the 2015 Paris agreement and regulating CO2 and methane, So . . . .
Gildna Radner, gone too soon.
How much of the reduction in cloud reflection is related to the Clean Air Acts over the past 50 years and the reduction of SO2 which is known to cause cloud nucleation? Does anyone know?
Don’t know about that, but I do know that US-48 precipitation has increased since the 19th century:
That would mean more clouds not less.
And as far as I know, NOAA does not manipulate the precipitation data.
I still haven’t seen anything convincing in the comments as to why cloud cover has decreased. Precip over land is probably not going to be the answer. Could it be less evaporation from the oceans due to colder sea temperatures? Since NOAA “adjusted” to the Argos float temps upward to match older “bucket” data perhaps they have missed an important factor in cloud cover formation?
And there’s this:
Correcting Ocean Cooling
In the Loeb et al paper they discuss the PDO and the 2014 timing matches the changes in clouds almost perfectly.
It’s all built into the Gaia Hypothesis see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLAW_hypothesis
in which Dimethyl Sulphide is produced by warming leading to SO2 which causes cooling. So using the work of the doyen of the living planet CO2 leads to warming which leads to SO2 which leads to some cooling as a negative feedback Thus given SO2 was removed by the Clean Air Acts so that would lead to warming. They can’t have it both ways.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Termination-Shock-prescient-bestselling-author-ebook/dp/B08VR9QTD9/ the propaganda continues
Awesome…. thanks. Love it! Solar Variation does impact the Earth’s atmospheric temps. I knew it wasn’t a pristine random dynamic despoiled by the descendants of Adam and Eve. LOL
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
Looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all
Sorry forgot to add songwriters: Joni Mitchell
Both Sides, Now lyrics © Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing, Reservoir Media Management Inc
does that mean Lynas’ number is now down to 99.8% ?
The increase of absorption of solar radiation has a cause. Climate models predicted this, and this is one of the few things they got right. Related to this is something climate models got wrong, was overstated water vapor feedback, due to being tuned to hindcast the past (especially the 30 years before their hindcast/forecast transitions) without considering multidecadal oscillations (during times when upswing of multidecadal oscillations caused some of the warming), which caused overstatement of positive feedbacks especially the water vapor feedback.
The reduction in cloud cover did have an effect on ASR, however it wasn’t the main cause.
These studies miss there is more to ASR than just clouds, so their conclusions are helpful but not definitive. For example there isn’t any connection made in these studies to the state of the solar activity between 2001-2019, or the effect of the solar cycles on cloudiness.
My contention with the authors is they set clouds up to be the independent variable, when my research shows extended low solar activity yields cooler tropical temperatures and fewer clouds, while higher solar activity drives warming and more clouds. This is part and parcel of the ‘solar cycle influence on the ocean’. Clouds are therefore the dependent variable.
The fact of the matter is decadal warming only occurs when TSI is high enough. Lower TSI over time – excluding the solar maximum years, did not increase the temperature. After the 2015/16 El Nino, which my research shows was caused by the solar maximum TSI of SC24, there has been no additional ocean warming (beyond the 2016 peak) during these solar minimum low TSI years.
The last image inset (k) from my 2018 AGU poster says “Cold winters, Hot Dry SW US Summers” for the start of SC24, a concept which also applies to the present time period before the effect of the SC25 solar maximum activity increase. These very conditions have happened again recently, there have been fewer clouds, less rain, more drought, and more land heat as a result of ongoing low TSI during this solar minimum. UV Index (ground insolation) for the same period as these three studies also indicates fewer clouds during solar minima, especially for 2019-2020.
1) Svensmark’s theory is invalidated, as there were fewer clouds during the solar minima when cosmic rays were highest, exactly opposite his cosmic ray climate theory.
2) These authors’ findings are invalidated, as ocean hiatus (or cooling), not ocean warming, occurred during the periods of fewer clouds.
3) Net Decadal ocean warming was driven by solar cycle maximum TSI above the threshold I established in 2014, which in turn drove an cloud cover increase (now dissipated) from the 2015/16 El Nino.
These hypotheses are only invalidated, assuming a one-to-one relationship in time and space.
You may have a look here (to point 2.)
I think you are too wedded to your own ideas. The key here is that added solar energy explains all the warming of the 21st century. Nothing else is required. That alone falsifies any significant AGW. It doesn’t really matter why.
Thank God Sol is in a minimum or there actually would be globall warmining.
This study used earthshine measurements of the moon to calculate earth’s albedo. Steve Koonin is one of the authors.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094888
No one will believe this, even if it subsequently is proven to be substantially correct.
You mean my post above won’t come true? Darn! and I was so hoping.
The fact there are 3 papers all repeating the same message and it is based on observations may be enough to make a difference. Skeptics need highlight these papers everywhere. They essentially falsify any significant AGW.
No alternate theory is required. The warming of the last 7-8 years was caused by added solar energy. When you add that to the previous 17 years of no warming (The Pause) you now have a quarter century with no detectable AGW signal.
How do these papers stack-up with regard to the peer review process? I’m often hit by the “it isn’t peer reviewed” response when people want to defend the “man-made emissions cause climate change” argument.
This is despite my pointing out that the peer review process is pretty broken, p-hacking and a general lack of statistical understanding among those carrying out the reviews let alone the authors themselves.
I’m assuming these are peer reviewed and that the journals are respected?
They are, you should be able to look yourself, they are linked to the publications.
Not sure why your perfectly valid question was marked down. Have an uptick to compensate
Thanks Redge, it seemed pretty reasonable to me, too. Some people, eh.
The Loeb et al paper is in the highly respected GRL. As far as I am concerned it alone falsified AGW. Since the other two papers essentially verify the Loeb paper it would be hard to argue those journals are relevant.
On assignment without time to read the details an comments. Just wondering if any of this cited the recent papers that ascribe up to half warming in Europe was caused by cleaner skies due to sharply reduced emissions and significantly reduced aerosol optical depth from coal burning power plants. My new 30-year paper to be published in December mentions this factor as a likely cause for increased atmospheric transmission over my Texas site.
This paper and your upcoming paper just show that the science is somehow “unsettled”.
Even though i’m sure i heard it was settled.
Probably a combination of both is the right answer in some areas.
Just so? Actually, it’s quite significant.
A Russian friend who follows a guy who counts polar bears in the Chuchki Sea sent me a picture from Ryrkaypiy comparing 2 years ago to today. Open ocean and beach 2 years ago, frozen beach and lots of ice today.
I hate cold winters.
Nice to know, but there were 88,000 papers saying it was us. This is not going to effect the 99.9 % consensus claim from a recent post.
The specific heat of dry air and CO2 say human emissions are not at fault so this paper is probably correct.
Is it not wiser to see the changes in albedo/clouds as a SYMPTOM of the climatic processes, and not a cause? I’ve tried to follow the logic of why these papers might minimise the role of anthropogenic influences and I fail to see the killer point..
However, it DOES surely point to the effect of greenhouse gases being just one input into a very complex and inscrutable system of climate dynamics which does include what is effectively a thermostat, mediated by the hydrological cycle. It might be possible for additions to GHE to alter the level at which the thermostat is set, and the question is the extent to which it is able to do that. IPCC analysis, in summary, denies or avoids the presence of a thermostat, which is to my way of thinking a huge weakness.
By the way, Kenneth Richard is a brilliant collator or non-alarmist climate papers. Would be good to see more of his stuff here, as it seems to get overlooked just how much scientific material there actually is for sceptics to use.
“I fail to see the killer point”
There isn’t one. AGW does not predict an ongoing positive EEI. It predicts a resistance to outgoing IR, which means an increased temperature difference needed to maintain zero EEI. So the surface warms, and outgoing flux is the same. There is some positive EEI while the ocean temperatures adjust to the warmer state.
What *is* that “warmer state”? Is it higher maximum temps? Is Earth going to become a cinder? Or is it higher minimum temperatures? Will lengthened growing seasons and nighttime plant growth provide more food for humans? Or is it a combination of both.
The Climate alarmists claim the Earth is going to burn up. But I have yet to see a climate model publicized that predicts higher maximum temperatures, just higher average anomalies – which can be driven by higher minimums, higher maximums, or a combination of both.
As Freeman Dyson once said, you have to study the Earth in a holistic manner to actually come to any conclusions about its climates. Average nomalies are not holistic, they don’t actually tell you anything useful about the climate.
I am calling out the use of “surface” as a too generic and unscientific term to describe what is warming. Is it the true surface, e.g., the actual land and ocean or is it the lower troposphere, e.g., the atmosphere?
Yes, there is one. You have the EEI more than explained by solar energy. No need for any added energy from AGW. It essentially tells us we’ve gone 25+ years without any greenhouse warming. It’s definitely a killer point.
I think the “killer point” is 3 papers found essentially the same situation. More solar energy is reaching the surface. This energy MUST cause warming and it turns out enough energy reached the surface to produce even more warming than we have seen.
Now add in the correlation with the PDO found in the Loeb paper and there’s a very solid mechanism. The PDO went positive in 2014 which ended the 17 year pause. Looks like the only reason the pause ended was natural and had nothing to do with the AGW.
All those Anti-Fa, BLM, and other terrorists wearing black.
Black absorbs heat.
Of course the Climate Activists will claim that Warming caused the decrease in low cloud cover…that allowed for more direct surface heating.
But the Climate Crisis DEPENDS on a 3 X’s amplification of warming from increased atmospheric humidity.
More humidity leading to fewer clouds seems unlikely to impossible (possible if negative feedbacks exist that I’m not aware of). Warmer more humid air rises faster and clouds are formed by the condensation of rising moist air…which “moister air” Global Warming MUST PRODUCE in order for CO2 Doubling to cause CATASTROPHE (since CO2’s ~1° C contribution alone is insufficient for Catastrophe).
This looks like a back breaker.
That might be difficult as the Loeb paper shows a strong correlation to the PDO.
I am taking it that someone in there has actually measured a change in the amount/number/thickness of clouds?
But again, not especially important because The One Thing you need to make clouds is water
So is it any surprise that city-building and desertification (places with low-to-zero water) have fewer clouds above them.
(Surely Shirley, that’s not the Urban Heat Island Effect is it?)
We know we are making deserts, the recent dust storm in Sao Paulo and the Life at 50 story from the BBC about a goat farmer in Mauritania.
Ask any farmer why he uses a plough and he’ll say that it is ‘warm the soil and dry it out‘
Now see the picture I’ve added – a sattelite image of where I was earlier today in East Anglia
(Thetford= where Boadicea came from apparently)
This is where it all goes counter intuitive when you look at the patchwork of fields.
Beacuse the lighter coloured patches are ploughed/cultivated/tilled ground, the lighter green bits are grasses and growing crops and the really dark green bits are patches of woodland
You would say that the lighter coloured bits have higher Albedo – but they don’t
I’ve measured it.
Wet ploughed soil has an Albedo of typically 0.10
Dry ploughed soil has an Albedo of between 0.20 and 0.15
Green growing crops have an albedo of between 0.35 and 0.45
Very dark green things have an Albedo of 0.45 to 0.50
Is that not just crazy
Run some Sines and Cosines with a Solar Constant of 1370 Watts per square metre and you will find that the Average Annual (24/7/365) Solar Power hitting 52 degrees North (roughly where Thetford is) is about 210 Watts
Now do an Absorbed Power calculation and you get an absorbed solar power (clear sky) of:
189 Watts for wet ploughed land
116 Watts for healthy green growing plant life (forest or crops)
Even worse, within a few days of ploughing, the ploughed land will have dried out and be vastly much less likely to make a cloud and shield itself. ##
Remind me, how many Watts are these folks quibbling about………
## Whie the dessication, heat and not least solar UV will be destroying the soil bacteria that comprise ‘Soil Organic Matter‘ and ordinary bog standard Oxygen will be swooping in to oxidise their frazzled little corpses and carry them away to a Hawaiian Island volcano
what’s not to like
THANKS FOR THE LINKS
If the authors had paid strict attention to the proper display of significant figures, they would have reported “… 0.5 W/m² ±0.5 W/m² per decade−1,” which is inherently more informative than the uncertainty they did display. That is, the claimed decline is nominally between 0 and 1 W/m², presumably with about 68% probability.
Bear in mind that any measured radiative quantities are a consequence of the Earth system thermodynamic properties.
These properties represent partitioning of TOA available solar radiation to different heat reservoirs.
The radiative measurements depict elements of the atmospheric heat engine which is always striving to maximize the dissipation of surface heat to space (radiative equilibrium).
The atmosphere has infinite degrees of freedom to optimize this process. The most significant of which appears to be cloud fraction which serves to maximize the LW cooling to space.
In this view, cloud fraction is in radiative balance to TOA available solar radiation (for the most part).
As opposed to radiative cooling to space, consider that in the troposphere the boundary layer energy exchange with the surface occurs only by non-radiative transfer. For example, an energy perturbation must result in a change to evaporation and convection.
Thus we see that ‘hydrostatic equilibrium’ regulates the transfer of energy and moisture through the boundary layer in such a way that the net amount maintains the planetary ‘radiative balance’ aloft.
This mechanism has direct implications for cloud formation (and by non-trivial circumstance depends on planetary surface pressure or atmospheric mass).
After having filtered through the various thermodynamic reservoirs, both radiatively and adiabatically, geometric albedo is coupled to TOA solar available.
Counterintuitively thus, clouds seem unlikely to act as an ‘external forcing’. Like most other things, clouds appear to respond to changes in integrated TOA solar available.
One must remember that as H2O precipitates and forms clouds, it is bombarded by near IR from the sun and turns back into vapor. At altitude and low temps it will precipitate again releasing energy. In essence it is a form of albedo, but not just reflection.
Your observation supports the hypothesis. A change of SW incoming is related to a change in cloud fraction. Your observation suggests an inverse change of low cloud fraction. Assuming low clouds have greater radiative impacts this would serve to amplify integrated solar changes.
I recall reading way back when that sulpher dioxide from coal burning power plants caused clouds to be brighter with a higher albedo as well as made rain more acidic. Some 25-30 years ago there were changes to allowed power plant emissions, at least in the US, because more acidic rain was killing vegetation and affecting lakes and streams.
If I remember all this correctly, and if SO2 emissions have been reduced around the world due to emission controls or use of nat. gas instead of coal then maybe that’s why solar radiation absorption has increased. Less SO2 makes clouds less bright?
Earth’s albedo is far lower than being claimed. The Himawari satellite shows a much darker Earth than the oft-referenced “pale blue dot”.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/
The Loeb et al. 2021 has some serious shortcomings. Although the graphs presented in the report are accurate, I have found they have serious errors that results in the paper drawing incorrect conclusions.
If you take a close look at the graphs in Figure 2, they all use data from 09/2002 so that the centred 12 month moving average commences 03/2003. Why do they start this graph at this date when the CERES data commenced in 03/2000? It is because the earlier data showed a strong fall in both SW ‘all sky’ and SW ‘clear sky’. If you include all of the available data from 03/2000 to 07/2021, the graphs take on a completely different flavor. The graphs show that clear sky SW radiation nearly matches the all sky radiation in much of the period from 2000 to 2021, only deviating substantially in 2014 before closing again in 2016 and 2018.
Instead of 62% of the change being attributed to all sky cloud changes, the graphs would show over 75% being attributed to clear sky SW radiation and surface albedo changes with only a small percentage associated with clouds. Why is this important? Because they can no longer attribute the problem to the supposed cloud feedback effect. In addition, since the OLR outgoing longwave radiation has increased, not decreased, they cannot blame the albedo changes to this factor. So if albedo change is the driver, what is causing that? It is not temperature change as there is no longer any mechanism for it. They have the cart before the horse. It is the albedo change that is the cause of the ice melt, not the ice melt causing the albedo change! And they have no idea what is causing the albedo change because they have not looked hard enough.
One further point. In a previous 2018 paper, Loeb et al. attribute this SW clear sky change to pollution reduction efforts by the USA and China (i.e. a strong reduction in the Arctic Haze intensity which has been observed). This explanation has disappeared altogether in the 2021 report in favor of their albedo explanation. Why? As it is evident that the clear sky SW radiation is the predominant cause of temperature rise if all of the data is considered, then the only conclusion that can possibly be drawn is that net zero by 2050 would actually increase warming!
Furthermore, the Loeb et al. 2021 report defines a term ETR emitted thermal radiation as the negative of OLR. Outgoing longwave radiation is just that. It is outgoing. How can LW radiation be emitted toward the ground? The emission is upwards, not the negative of that. By defining ETR as the negative of OLR they have given the IPCC and COP26 something they can quote. “Emitted thermal radiation has decreased” rather than what has actually occurred – outgoing long wave radiation has increased!
The Loeb et al. 2021 paper is at best, misleading and at worst? You be the judge.
When you start with the wrong assumption, your data can lead you to misleading conclusions.
There is considerable supporting evidence that the oceans have gained heat in the last 20 years – both deep ocean temperature measurement and sea level rise due to thermal expansion support the proposition.
The problem here is that the ocean surface temperature, as well as the entire ocean temperature over millennium scales, is an inverse function of the heat input. Extra heat speeds up the water cycle pulling cool water to the surface and less heat slows down the water cycle leaving more heat in the oceans. When heat input is at its maximum in January the water cycle turns over the total atmospheric water almost 1.5 times. Some 60mm of water over the entire land area is transferred from oceans to land.
In July the turnover is much slower with only about 20% the atmospheric water being turned over to land; equivalent to just 11mm over the land area.
Now CERES is calibrated against the ocean heat uptake so it is just showing what has been measured in the oceans but with full global coverage.
The oceans have been losing solar input since 1585 so it should come as no surprise that the water cycle is slowing down and reducing the rate of transfer of water to land.
Interesting….
More albedo and the Earth cools.
Less albedo and the Earth warms.
No albedo and the Earth cooks in the 394 K/121 C/ 250 F solar wind much like the Moon.
That is NOT what the Radiative Green House Effect theory predicts.
That is what Nikolov, Kramm and UCLS Diviner say.
Actually, that the albedo cools the earth is sufficient alone to CONTRADICT and NEGATE RGHE theory!
The “extra” warming energy downwelling (violates SLoT) from the so-called GHGs allegedly originates with the surface upwelling as a BB. (tfk_bams90) As demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science,
That
Is
Not
Possible.
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
If either of these points stands, greenhouse theory fails and man caused climate change collapses.
Version 1.0 102021
This is hugely important. The question is, what changed the albedo? Man or some natural cause (actually I think man is part of nature, so all his actions are as natural as a Beavers, or trees creating aerosols).
So, what caused it?
Matthew, the scientists will tell you that a variety of feedback mechanisms to carbon dioxide are at play to cause albedo change (isn’t feedback the most overused term in climate science?). One explanation is increased rainfall but what caused the rainfall to change? The other explanation is ice melt but what caused that?
We need to establish a root cause, a process that some engineers use daily but has never been done by the scientists to my knowledge.
Typically the scientists have assumed that albedo is, by and large fixed, but this is far from the case.
I have undertaken considerable research and have my ideas that need to be confirmed. Unlike the scientists however I will not jump to conclusions nor publish incomplete guesswork.
My current conclusion is natural causes but more work needs to be done.
One further point to stimulate some thought. The CERES data shows the lowered albedo is not just in the arctic. It is found in many areas of predominantly desert and snow covered areas throughout the northern hemisphere including Canada except strangely and importantly the USA which typically shows raised albedo between 2000 and 2020.
Australia and South Africa desert areas have raised albedo too. A brain teaser indeed!
If you go to the paper itself, they discuss changes in the PDO in 2014 that correlate almost perfectly with the decrease in clouds and associated increase in solar energy reaching the surface.
Is there any reason this article crops the net contributions graph from Loeb et al?
The graph simply shows what the article already articulated. The warming is from ASR while net downward IR was reduced. It’s a double hit on the climate cult. This is essentially complete falsification of AGW.
Remember “the pause”? This data show exactly why it ended. It was a shift in the PDO that reduced cloudiness and allow increases in solar energy reaching the surface. It had nothing at all to do with greenhouse gases.
The article claimed that the root cause of recent warming was increased ASR associated with decreased cloud cover, but the graph shows that increased water vapor is the biggest contribution to the net energy imbalance, with clouds being roughly equal to “others” which includes increased CO2. The main reason OLR has increased is due to surface warming over the last couple of decades, with the decrease in cloude cover also playing a part. As the disclaimer at the start of this article acknowledges, Loeb et al, say
I can’t see how any of this falsifies AGW, and this paper certainly doesn’t suggest it does.