Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I’ve been on a most curious quest this last week.
I wanted to download all of my WUWT posts so I could make them into ebooks on various subjects. Of course, to do that I need to review some of my earliest posts. Bear in mind, this current analysis is the 1,051st post I’ve put up on WUWT, so it’s not surprising to me that I’ve totally forgotten writing some of them. This makes for an interesting journey into the past. Some of them made theoretical conjectures of mine that at the time I didn’t have the data and the computer skills and specialized functions that I have now to both do and display a whole host of data analyses in the computer language “R”.
My first post for WUWT was The Thermostat Hypothesis. A version of it was later published as a journal article named ” The Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis: How Clouds And Thunderstorms Control The Earth’s Temperature.”
It’s available here, just say no thanks to the offers to join. In that post and journal article, I laid out my thoughts about how tropical thunderstorms and cumulus cloud fields worked to thermoregulate the tropical and thus the global temperature. In succeeding years, I realized that this was my first glimpse of what, down the line, I came to see as a much larger variety of individual overlapping “emergent” climate phenomena acting to oppose temperature variations.
And what is an “emergent” phenomenon when it’s at home? Let me auto-plagiarize from my post “Emergent Climate Phenomena“, which I encourage you to take a moment to read.
One common property of emergent phenomena is that they are flow systems that are far from equilibrium. As a result, they need to evolve and change in order to survive. They are mobile and mutable, not fixed and unchanging. And locally (but of course not globally), they can reverse entropy (organize the local environment). Indeed, another name for emergent phenomena is “self-organized phenomena”.
Another key to recognizing emergent phenomena is that they arise spontaneously when conditions are right. They don’t have to be artificially generated. They emerge from the background in response to local conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) passing some threshold.
Next, they often have a lifespan. By a “lifespan”, I mean that they come into existence at a certain time and place, generally when some local natural threshold is exceeded. Thereafter, they are in continuous existence for a certain length of time, and at the end of that time, they dissipate and disappear. Clouds are an excellent example, as is our finite lifespan.
Another characteristic of emergent phenomena is that they are not cyclical, or are at best pseudo-cyclical. They do not repeat or move in any regular or ordered or repetitive fashion. Often, they can move about independently, and when they can do so, their movements can be very hard to predict. Predictions of a hurricane track are an example.
Another feature of emergent phenomena is that they are often temperature threshold-based, with the threshold being a certain local temperature difference. By that, I mean that they rarely emerge below that threshold, but above it, their numbers can increase very rapidly.
Another attribute of emergent systems is that they are often associated with phase changes in the relevant fluids, e.g. clouds occur with a phase change of water.
One final attribute of threshold-based emergent systems is crucial to this discussion—they exhibit “overshoot” or hysteresis. In the Rayleigh-Bénard circulation shown below, it takes a certain threshold temperature difference from top to bottom to cause the emergence of the circulation pattern. But once that circulation is established, it will persist even though you turn the heat down far below the initiation threshold temperature. And this kind of “overshoot” hysteresis is a requirement for successful regulation of lagged systems, system where the response to a change in inputs or conditions doesn’t occur immediately.
So those are some of the characteristic features of emergent phenomena.
• They are flow systems far from equilibrium that arise spontaneously, often upon crossing a critical threshold that is temperature-based.
• Their properties are not predictable from the properties of the condition they emerge from. There’s nothing in the atoms of water and air that would predict that they could spontaneously create lightning.
• They move and act unpredictably
• They are often associated with phase changes, and
• They often exhibit “overshoot” (hysteresis)
• They have a lifespan from their initiation to their dissolution
• Their patterns arise from many small interactions
To me, this is a two-fold explanation of why modern state-of-the-art weather models are only reliable a few days out. First, we’re dealing with emergent phenomena, and by their very nature, their future actions can’t be reliably predicted. And second, modern weather and climate models don’t feature spontaneously emerging tropical thunderstorms. They’re short on spontaneous emergence of any kind.
And that leaves them analyzing something that doesn’t exist, a world without emergent phenomena. And to attempt that analysis, they are using methods unsuited for the world that does exist, a world dominated by emergent phenomena. See my post The Details Are In The Devil for why this simply won’t work.
But I digress … reading some of these early posts, I realized that I now could further test the accuracy and understanding of the claims I made there about clouds and thunderstorms. My hypothesis back then was that clouds act to oppose both upwards and downward swings of the temperature. I said that they are a governor rather than a simple feedback.
Climate scientists talk about “cloud feedback”. But what clouds do is not just simple linear feedback of the type discussed by the IPCC scientists. For example, negative feedback just opposes warming—the warmer it gets, the more it opposes the warming.
But clouds are not like that. Clouds and thunderstorms function as a thermoregulatory governor. They don’t just slow down warming. Instead, they warm the surface when it’s cold, and they cool the surface when it’s warm.
And the reason for this post is that today I thought of another way to show that is true. Let me explain.
The CERES dataset has gridded 1° longitude by 1° latitude data of the “Surface Cloud Radiative Effect”, or “Surface CRE”, hereinafter just “CRE”. The CRE is the difference in radiation hitting the surface between when the clouds are or aren’t present. There are two kinds of cloud radiative effects, shortwave (solar radiation) and longwave (thermal radiation from the atmosphere). The net of the two is the total effect of the clouds, which depending on conditions and type of clouds can either be cooling or warming of the surface..
A negative CRE value in a given area indicates that the presence of clouds cools that part of the planet, and a positive value means the presence of clouds warms the surface.
Let me start with a global look at the surface cloud radiative effect, to determine where clouds warm or cool the surface and by how much.
Figure 1. Global surface cloud radiative effect (net of longwave and shortwave radiation). Negative is cooling, positive is warming.
This shows the net cooling effect of about -19 W/m2. But what it doesn’t show is how the surface net cloud radiative effect varies when the temperature in any location gets warmer or cooler than the average temperature for that area. That’s what the IPCC calls “cloud feedback”. They claim it is positive, meaning that when the surface warms, the clouds change to increase that warming. Me, I’ve always thought that claim was highly improbable for several reasons.
For my new way to show how clouds change with temperature, I looked by latitude at the difference between the seasonal CRE (winter and summer) and the annual average CRE. I took the global maps of mid-summer and mid-winter CRE, and from each of those I subtracted the map shown in Figure 1 above. Then I took averages by each 1° latitude band. The result is below.
Figure 2. Latitudinal by 1° bands of the difference between mid-summer/mid-winter surface CRE and the average CRE for that given latitude.
For me, the greatest joy in science is the moment of seeing graphically the result of some new, unknown analysis method. And in this case, I didn’t expect the outcome. The difference in cloud radiative effect is large, regular, and stark. The difference between mid-summer and mid-winter CRE is up to 110 W/m2 in the northern hemisphere and 160 W/m2 in the southern hemisphere.
In addition, in mid-summer in both latitudes the clouds on average cool the entire summer hemisphere compared to average conditions, pole to Equator. And the opposite is true. In mid-winter, clouds in the entire winter hemisphere show increased warming compared to annual averages.
In other words, compared to the local annual average values, when it is warmer than usual, clouds cool the surface, and when it is cooler than usual, clouds warm the surface.
Encouraged by this finding, I decided to look at those summer/winter changes versus annual averages as maps of the earth.
Figure 3. As in Figure 2, showing summer and winter changes from the average conditions.
This gives us another view of how the surface cloud radiative effect changes with the seasons. In winter it gives extra warming, and in the summer it gives extra cooling.
The scientific test of a hypothesis is whether it makes successful, testable predictions. The figures above verify exactly the testable prediction based on what I hypothesized fifteen years ago, that clouds and thunderstorms warm the earth when it is cool and cool it when it is warm … what’s not to like?
My best to all, and please … no personal attacks.
w.
As I’ve said before … when you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. It avoids endless misunderstandings and disputes.
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Interesting hypothesis. It looks like the thunderstorms could be described with chaotic math.
Chaotic math! My dream at school …
All of my math was chaotic….
Very nice Willis, this makes sense and is easy to understand.
Thanks Willis….good to have this important part of our climate system reinforced in our memories again. Why doesn’t the IPCC get this?
Because their salaries depend on their not getting it.
Another way to look at it is that at night, clouds block outgoing IR (clear nights are colder than cloudy nights) and during the day clouds block incoming solar radiation which can outweigh the blocking of outgoing IR. Nights are longer in the winter, days are longer in the summer.
This is a good way to see it. I think a further refinement is that clouds blocking incoming solar radiation reduces the energy the earth will ever receive and ultimately caps the earth’s accumulated energy and clouds blocking outgoing radiation slows the earth cooling and entering an ice age.
Erik, if that were the major reason, we’d see greater and greater difference as we approached the poles, since that’s where day/night difference is the greatest.
But we don’t see that. The greatest difference is around 60° N/S. So while that may be a factor, it’s likely not the major factor.
Best regards,
w.
I saw Erik’s description as a visualisation of the expected effect rather than explanation of its actual impact which needs to take account of “equilibrium”.
What I was getting at as why clouds would be more likely to warm in the winter and cool in the summer, that is the effects of existing clouds. What I didn’t get into is the difference between rate of cloud formation between winter and summer.
One possible reason for less effect at the poles is that the saturation vapor pressure of water is a roughly exponential function of temperature, so a slight change in temperature will change the physics dramatically. An example is 26ºC being the minimum SST needed to maintain a tropical cyclone.
I am curious about the effects of clouds being much less at the south pole than the north pole. One difference is that the north pole is at sea level, and the south pole at considerable elevation.
The poles have year-round ice.
60° N/S, the Ferrel cells.
“The Ferrel system acts as a heat pump with a coefficient of performance of 12.1, consuming kinetic energy at an approximate rate of 275 TW, exceeding the power production rate of the Hadley system by 77 TW.”
https://dash.harvard.edu/entities/publication/73120378-bf47-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b
Willis,
First, congratulations on 1,051! Second, I’ve always thought your posts on ’emergent phenomena’ made a tremendous amount of sense, which along with many of your other posts, completely shatters the consensus narrative that CO2 is the ‘control knob’ of the Earth’s climate system.
Well done, Willis, and very well explained.
And the expression “emergent climate phenomena” has been hard-coded in my brain for years now. 🙂
Willis, very good.
I wonder if you would be willing to apply your math skills to my hypothesis? I would if I had the math and programming skills, but I don’t.
I call it the ‘rotisserie effect’. It is from the perspective of the sun, looking toward earth. The earth spins, as does a rotisserie. The earth warms when facing the sun and cools when not. When the earth’s tilt changes, the area closest to the sun changes, but nothing else. The point closest to the sun passes under the sun at a rate of 1000 MPH. (24K miles in 24 hours). The axis points have zero rotational speed.
The amazing thing is the nearly perfect repeatable process, year after year, century after century. it is a FANTASTIC thermostat. How can that be?
Imagine the situation as a rotisserie, and the earth is the spinning element. The sun is the heat source. The sun’s power varies little overall, Clouds and storms intervene in this process as you well note. You can think of that as when ‘spritzing’ a rotisserie, which changes its process by cooling the surface.
To me, it seems simple. The earth’s rotation is fixed, the sun’s power is fixed, and the seasons are affected by tilt. What if it was modeled without tilt being a factor in the first cut?
Obviously, the terrain passing under the sun has a great deal to do with the resulting weather. Suppose on the first cut we just stated it was smooth, to eliminate that variable too. Give it a fixed albedo too.
A key point is that it is always happening, warming quickly when the sun comes around but cooling slowly when it is gone. We all know why that is, but it plays into how the seasons work too. The longer the daylight, the warmer the nighttime. The shorter the daylight, the cooler the nighttime temperatures.
One last thing: The jet streams are the barrier between the poles and the equatorial heat. Colder between poles and jet streams, and warmer between them. On the first cut, perhaps make the jet streams a fixed circle to eliminate that part of it.
As the hypothesis advanced, the fixed variables could be added back one by one, and eventually all of them.
Other planets could be used as models, but unless they have an atmosphere that heats and cools, it would not be a good test. We already know what happens with no atmosphere.
The basis of my hypothesis is that earth has an atmosphere that is constantly heated while the sun is facing earth, and which cools when it is not. Weather and climate happen under this umbrella. (Actually climate is an average of weather over x years, and the ‘x’ was a poor choice because it represents less than 1/2 of a typical 70 year cycle, so it is ALWAYS wrong.
Ultimately, the Milankovitch cycles could also be modeled into this concept, but that’s another whole story since they can either add to or subtract from each others’ effects.
The real planet (land, oceans, atmosphere) is already demonstrating its own fully authentic responses to the “rotisserie effect” from incident solar energy. It is best visualized from the geostationary frame of reference. Just a suggestion – take a look at this time lapse video I put together a while back from NOAA Band 16 images from the GOES East platform. A full explanation is in the text description.
https://youtu.be/Yarzo13_TSE
“Rotisserie” – I like it!
j, I stopped at this point:
“A key point is that it is always happening, warming quickly when the sun comes around but cooling slowly when it is gone. We all know why that is, but it plays into how the seasons work too. The longer the daylight, the warmer the nighttime. The shorter the daylight, the cooler the nighttime temperatures.”
Other things being equal, the nighttime cooling is generally equal to the daytime warming within a few degrees, regardless of the season.
w.
Actually, not true. Warming is from the sun which is direct delivery of energy. Cooling is from ouitgoing radiation (which is lower, when it is cooler) and conduction, which requires a warmer atmosphere touching a cooler surtace. They are in NO WAY equal. It takes a lot longer to cool a surface that has been heated by the sun.
Thanks, J.
If the nighttime loss were not ≈ daytime gain, if the daytime gain were greater than the nightly loss as you claim, we’d see constant warming … but we don’t. Instead, as a yearly average, gains equal losses.
w.
You are both right.
When the system is in balance then energy out from the night side equals energy in from the day side.
However, it took time for the atmosphere to form and during that time potential energy which does not register as heat was steadily being stored within the atmosphere and used to support the weight of the atmosphere to keep it permanently suspended off the surface against gravity.
During the period of increasing storage there was less going out than coming in and that led to the increased surface temperature.
Once the system is in overall balance the difference (which jshotsky is referring to) between the speed of energy coming in on the day side and that going out from the night side remains to be dealt with.
It is neutralised by an adjustment in the speed of energy transport between the day side and the night side.
The speed of that transport is determined by the inevitable variations in the lapse rate between the two sides.
Only convection is necessary as we can see from a dry planet such as Mars.
On a water planet the thunderstorm hypothesis supercharges the efficiency of the regulatory process to make the winds less violent.
Mars as a dry planet is much windier than Earth.
And your goose would be cooked.
After four and a half billion years, the surface has cooled in spite of four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight.
Fourier explained this by pointing out that the Earth gives up to space all the energy it receives from the Sun, plus a little of the Earth’s remnant internal heat.
Fourier seems to accept reality. He is remembered for his work on heat, including Fourier’s Law of Heat Conduction. Oh, and of course Fourier Transforms, Fourier series, etc. Do you like my appeal to authority?
Willis won’t, of course. He doesn’t believe in Fourier, or Newtons Law of Coolng, as they conflict with his religious beliefs. <g>
You seem to be keen on placing unnecessary digs towards people in yr posts. It is really a nasty habit of yours. There is NO need for it yet you almost always display this behaviour. People w some knowledge here spend time and effort to write thoughtful articles. Instead of playing the ball you often play the man, or both.
+10
True. The only way climate models will advance is to be based on a deterministic processes for convective cloud formation and the ensuing instability. Parameterising this crucial process is a pathway to pure carp.
The models also do not include any deterministic process for the cloud formation that is retaining heat in the higher latitudes.
Almost all long wave energy departing above a tropical ocean is released from ice. Sometimes the ice is not even visible. The small ice crystals are descending at about 140m/h resulting in slow vertical mass flow but also deflating the atmosphere and limiting its ability to cool further – ever wonder why the tropopause is no colder than about 200K? You cannot parameterise such complex processes and hope to get something meaningful.
Understand ice and you are beginning to understand climate.
https://www.ecmwf.int/sites/default/files/elibrary/2013/9882-ice-cloud-particle-terminal-velocity-parameterizations-temperatures-0-85c.pdf
Instability is cyclic over the oceans while the solar EMR is above the monsoon daily threshold of about 425W/m^2. It takes some 20 days for the atmosphere to reach instability once the solar EMR exceeds 425W/m^2 but it will persist for as long as the 425W/m^2 is maintained and the location is not disrupted by more powerful cells. 15N and 15S get the most sustained solar EMR above 425W/m^2. Bay of Bengall at 15N is the best location on Earth for observing cyclic instability. It even goes into convective overshoot when it kicks in.
My challenge to anyone is to come up with a single column model that can accurately replicate successive radiosondes over warm ocean water.
Its all very well to parameterise and make short term predictions like the weather. That kind of works ok. But it should be blindingly obvious to everyone you cant parameterise through change.
I think most of the problem is simply that the people who ought to know (eg scientists who dont have a dog in the race) dont think about it and the ones who do know (eg climate scientists who work with models), benefit from not accepting it. Human nature 101.
Yes, about the same as a smart 12 year could do, given the same data.
About the same as anyone with a coin could do.
Unless you are a mathematician with a PhD like Gavin Schmidt, who declared that 2014 was the hottest year “ever” (well, maybe since 1880 or something).
Even the MSM didn’t fall for that –
It looks like the “world famous climate scientist” thinks that 38% likelihood means “certainty”! According to me, that’s less than tossing a fair coin – that’s 50%!
Oh dear, Willis is likely to ban me for poking fun at a seemingly less-than-competent formally trained mathematician, masquerading as a “climate scientist”.
For weather, looking out the window, scanning satellite pix, and adjusting a naive persistence forecast based on gut feeling, is hard to beat.
Story tip – The Greta Awakening: The World Stands United, ‘Get a Job, Ya Bum’ – PJ Media
Poor Greta! I hear the Israelis wanted to show her and her shipmates video’s of the murderous Hamas attack on innocent Israeli men, women and children, but Greta didn’t want to look at reality. She wants to continue living in her own personal dream/nightmare world. Like a lot of people.
But, but, she was “abused” by the IDF (allegedly denied water and food).
Except the picture of her wearing her Kermit the Frog hat, smiling as she holds a IDF provided sandwich as large as her face kinda, sorta, disproves the claim.
And her “carbon footprint”? Oh dear. She elected deportation (8 others refused) and was jetted to Europe.
The perception created is (she deleted all of her climate posts) she is all about Greta.
There is a lot more, but I will spare all of you the nonsense.
Does the distribution of land v sea have an effect?
Of course it does.
As I understand it, the Earth has cooled from a molten state, and continues to do so, losing about 44 TW. Four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, atmosphere, oceans, CO2, thunderstorms and so on, have not stopped the Earth from cooling.
If you are trying to say that the overall effect of thunderstorms on the Earth’s cooling balances out to zero, I would agree.
Injecting meaningless scientific sounding word salad like “The difference between mid-summer and mid-winter CRE is up to 110 W/m2 in the northern hemisphere and 160 W/m2 in the southern hemisphere.” tells people nothing. “Surface cloud radiative effect” sounds good, but is just pseudoscientific jargon.
It’s well known that when a cloud passes between the Sun and a thermometer, the thermometer receives less radiation, and its temperature drops. And yes, temperatures at night don’t fall so quickly under cloud cover.
But the planet continues to cool – losing 44 TW. I’m sorry, but I can’t see what new phenomenon, your “hypothesis” relates to.
Your original “paper” contained –
Sorry Willis, but that’s completely irrelevant. The Earth has cooled from a molten state and is still more than 9l% glowing hot, continuing to cool.
There is no “equilibrium” to be found. You may ignore the likes of Feigenbaum and Lorenz, but even the IPCC agrees that the atmosphere is chaotic, and unpredictable.
Your “paper” is just a collection of assumptions, and gullible acceptance of dubious authority (such as Carl Sagan, who implied that the Sun heated the Earth from a cold initial state) resulting in strange statements like –
Well, no, it doesn’t. Four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight has not stopped the Earth from cooling, even when 100% of the Earth’s water was in the form of water vapour – before the first liquid water appeared.
Sorry Willis, but you seem to have created an hypothesis to explain some form of equilibrium that just doesn’t exist.
Pass. You’re a scientific troll just mindlessly repeating the same claims over and over. Go bother someone else. Everyone here is totally familiar with your claims at this point.
We know that you think that because the earth itself is losing 0.09 W/m2 of geothermal heat, that trivial flow completely overwhelms the hundreds of W/m2 of gains and losses of the entire climate system to mean that the earth is continually cooling.
We also know it doesn’t work the way you think.
We know that you think that CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t affect the temperature at all, and that the poorly-named “greenhouse effect” doesn’t exist.
We also know that doesn’t work the way you think either.
We know that you simply repeating those same claims over and over and over and over and over and over is way psst its use-by date.
Finally, we know that nothing we can say will change your mind on these matters. And because of that, the conversation is over.
So please, find someplace else to troll people. Unless you’d prefer to continue to bother people here, in which case I’ll ask the powers that be to have you banned. I’d prefer not to ask them, and they may or may not do so, but I’m fed up with your endless working to undermine and divert every thread you participate in to a discussion of your worn-out nonsense.
TL;DR version. You’re a troll. Go away or straighten up, or you may be banned.
w.
Sorry, Willis, but after four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, and immense amounts of internal radiogenic heat production, the Earth has cooled. You may not like it, but it’s true. Banging on about “gains and losses in the climate system” is meaningless word salad.
Your opinion – is it worth what I just paid for it? Yes, I might be banned because your “feelings” have been hurt, or you “feel” your ego has been bruised. Some might call such action bullying or intimidating – or just the actions of a scared petty religious tyrant who can’t accept reality.
Oh, “we”, is it? You and God, or a secret committee so nobody can be individually accountable?
Willis, you believe that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter, but you won’t say it.
You believe in the existence of a GHE, but you can’t describe it in any consistent and unambiguous way. You threaten and try to intimidate anyone who asks you for experimental support for your beliefs. Just like the delusional “climate scientists”, journalists, politicians, and other anti-“carbon” cultists.
That’s religion, not science. You’re entitled to your religious beliefs, but please excuse me if I don’t want to join your reality-rejecting cult.
I’m only laughing because this whole “climate science” charade has persisted so long. Cries of “Doom, doom, thrice doom!”, and “It’s worse than we thought!”, are best unwittingly summed up by “climate scientist” Kevin Trenberth – “It’s a travesty!”
No, Willis, the “conversation” doesn’t seem to be over just yet.
You are again displaying behaviour of a true arsehole..
Thank you for the encomium. Do you have a particular reason for thinking I should value your opinion more highly than my own?
It doesn’t matter if Willis believes that adding CO2 to air makes it hotter – it doesn’t.
We all know you will value your opinion over everyone else’s.
While there are times you do make relatively useful observations, your tactics cause immediate rejection.
I totally agree. He cant help himself insulting people like yourself time after time. I am not saying he is wrong or right about things but for him diagreeing is weaponised on a personal level. That is just nasty and shows his shite personality. Furthermore, his thinking is totally fossilized yet he accuses other people of holding on to ‘false’ concepts and then ridiculing it. That is beyond idiocy but not uncommon.
Clearly humility and respect is not something he considers worthwhile. Safer to shout from the sidelines in a virtual space..
I take it that you think that others need to comply with your standards, so that your “feelings” won’t be hurt. If you feel “insulted”, that’s your affair – not mine.
Maybe you could throw in the odd fact relating to the religious belief that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter, due to some supernatural GHE (which cannot be described, due to privacy, no doubt).
No, adding CO2 to air does not make thermometers hotter, and there is no GHE.
Willis does not like disagreement with his religious views, or anyone who points out that his knowledge of physics is more imagined than real.Here’s one response “Go away or straighten up, or you may be banned.” Another was “Shape up or ship out”. No facts, just demands and threats.
As you say “That is beyond idiocy but not uncommon.” – for GHE worshippers.
Thanks for your opinion – I will accord it the disdain which it so richly deserves.
He cant help himself
Reminds me of someone else who used to post around here. I guess some people think that insulting others will get them to listen.
He also accuses people of saying the exact opposite of what they post.
He is entertaining himself with engaging in flame warfare.
You beat me to it Willis!
+100
Give me a break. Using the 44 TW sounds impressive, but it does not make a good impression.
Earth surface area is ~509,600,000,000,000 m^2.
44 TW resolves to ~0.0000863 W/m^2.
Losing 44 TW. That’s called cooling. Religious GHE cultists call it heating.
What do you call it?
Willis, great post. Thanks! Some thoughts.
% Ocean
The SH has a much higher percentage ocean surface and so more water molecules. According to fig. 3 this results in:
· a higher cloud cooling effect (more water available) in SH Summer
· a higher cloud warming effect (more water available) in SH Winter
This means that there is a stronger tendency to keep temperatures to ‘their yearly average’ when the percentage water surface is higher.
Therefore, a 100% Water World must have very ‘average’ temperature, in all respects. Contrary, a 100% Land coverage must show extreme temperatures, exactly what we see at the surface of the Moon.
A 100% Water World
On a 100% Water World, it is the water molecule that sets surface temperatures, not radiation.
It does do so, by enabling a high storage of solar energy in the oceans and by regulating (by its temperature) the release of stored energy. In this way, oceans regulate the quantity of energy stored by themselves and so, they set their own temperatures. Which controls their own cooling.
Furthermore, total (!) radiation is regulated by the Cloud Radiative Effect and the exact CRE depends on surface temperatures.
Together, in case of a 100% Ocean World, the ocean’s surface is in full control of:
1. its own rate of cooling (energy output)
2. total radiation (energy input)
Or: by a 100% Water World, the water molecule not only controls its own surface temperature but also controls the total effect of radiation. Including the greenhouse effect.
Emergent phenomena
An extra note for the role of emergent phenomena. Emergent ocean cooling (by convection) is not only extremely strong and exponential by character, it is also activated by surface temperatures (plus by water vapor and by solar absorption by water vapor). This means that below a certain temperature [different for each location] the most important way of surface cooling (convection) is most time asleep. Imagine the huge potential of surface cooling over a 100% ocean world! Cooling that is mostly asleep, but potentially present over large surface areas.
This is why surface cooling dominates surface temperatures: by creating water vapor that creates convection, which creates clouds that control (together with water vapor) total incoming radiation. When surface cooling goes ‘asleep’, surface temperatures are set. If not asleep, emergent super strong surface cooling would have cooled the surface more. And, as shown in another post by Willis, a post about TAO buoys: when ocean temperatures become ‘too low’, later developing tropical clouds enable more sunshine to enter the oceans. The water molecule (when fully available) sets and controls surface temperatures and total radiation. Nothing else.
Thanks, Wim. It’s not clear why you say:
Latent and sensible heat loss from the surface is ~ 100 W/m2. Radiative loss from the surface is about four times that, around 400 W/m2. I’d say radiation is the most important way of heat loss by a factor of four.
w.
Willis: “Latent and sensible heat loss from the surface is ~ 100 W/m2. Radiative loss from the surface is about four times that, around 400 W/m2. I’d say radiation is the most important way of heat loss by a factor of four.”
WR: Indeed, Willis, I know the numbers. But the 400 W/m2 is not ‘net radiation’, not net radiative heat loss. Some 333 W/m2 directly comes back as ‘back radiation. Of the remaining, per Trenberth 2011 fig. 1, only 22 W/m2 directly reaches space by the atmospheric window and the rest, after absorption, continues in the atmosphere as ‘sensible heat’. So, in fact only 22 W/m2 out of 161 W/m2 surface absorbed is lost by the surface as ‘net radiation to space’ and most of the rest of surface absorbed solar has to be transported in the form of latent and sensible heat by convection to what I call ‘launching height’, the level in the atmosphere lacking abundant water vapor, the level from where much more efficient spaceward radiation can take place. Convection is the most dynamic factor and also for this reason the most decisive surface cooler. As you once said: above 26 degrees ‘it’s going through the roof’.The greenhouse effect is that huge (about 95% of surface radiation absorbed) that ‘another factor’ has to bring surface absorbed solar to locations with a low greenhouse effect: to high levels in the atmosphere and (by wind and currents) to the poles.So, I concentrated on the surface solar absorbed 161 W/m2.
Besides most of the 161 W/m2 solar surface absorbed, a lot of the low in the atmosphere absorbed solar energy also has to be transported upwards by convection to ‘launching height’. All atmospheric absorption: 78 W/m2.
“The greenhouse effect is that huge (about 95% of surface radiation absorbed)”. That is an assumption, not a fact. Furthermore, please explain what ‘absorbed’ means in the context of molecular interaction because your statement seems to imply the energy stays there until it is released by other factors. I consider that a rather problematic concept..
Nice post btw. I agree w your take on convection vs radiation.
Radiation is often overplayed..
Ballynally: “The greenhouse effect is that huge (about 95% of surface radiation absorbed)”. That is an assumption, not a fact”. And: “please explain what ‘absorbed’ means in the context of molecular interaction because your statement seems to imply the energy stays there until it is released by other factors.”
WR: Surface radiation (Trenberth 2011) is 396 W/m2. Only 22 W/m2 reaches space directly. The rest, 374 W/m2 or 94.44%, is absorbed, often very close to the surface. As Professor Happer explained, each absorbing gas molecule collides with a billion other molecules every second. It takes about a second for a greenhouse gas molecule to emit another photon, but before it can do so, it loses its absorbed anergy to colliding neighbouring molecules which take the extra energy, use it as kinetic energy and continue as part of ‘warmer air’. Sort of like a billiard ball hitting another ball, losing its energy but energising the ball it collides with.
Of course there is radiation in the air that tries to reach space, but unlike surface radiation and cloud radiation (solids and liquids), greenhouse gas radiation is not ‘full spectrum’ but only of ‘source specific’ wave lengths. In high density situations, almost all outgoing radiation will encounter a similar molecule that absorbs the same spectrum, so that the energy at that location remains almost the same. Only when the ‘density of emitting molecules’ becomes much lower, as happens in the upper air where water vapour has disappeared through condensation and rain and where other molecules are more spread out due to the lower pressure, there is a ‘wider window’ to reach space. To reach that high altitude in the fastest way, we need convection. But convection is an emergent phenomenon, which is only activated by conditions determined by the combination of temperature, moisture conditions and high energizing by absorption of solar near-infrared by water vapour molecules. Below that threshold, there is no substantial convection. In this way, the surface temperatures of open tropical oceans regulate the surface temperatures of open tropical oceans.
In other words, thermal radiation from the surface that is absorbed by GHGs is ‘thermalized’ into sensible heat within meters of the surface via collisions with non-GHG species and then convected aloft to where the opposite process allows radiation to space.
Somewhat ironically, it is this process and not radiant transfer, that favors emergent phenomena in the troposphere, and accounts for the complete absence of evidence in the geological record that CO2 drives climate change.
Frank from NoVA: “In other words, thermal radiation from the surface that is absorbed by GHGs is ‘thermalized’ into sensible heat within meters of the surface via collisions with non-GHG species and then convected aloft to where the opposite process allows radiation to space.”
WR: Frank, well summarized. It is the nearly complete greenhouse atmosphere (in which clouds -fully absorbing- play a mayor role) that causes a huge delay in the surface heat loss to space. To overcome that barrier a ‘shortcut’ is needed. That shortcut (convection) is activated at current temperatures when all conditions are met. For example, you need a temperature high enough plus enough water vapor molecules that absorb intense solar radiation and support convection by their relatively low weight. Dry air also leads to convection, but at much higher surface temperatures. Think about dry deserts that have to heat up to 45 to 55 degrees Celsius or ‘pre-monsoon’ (still dry) continental surfaces like India.
Frank: “Somewhat ironically, it is this process and not radiant transfer, that favors emergent phenomena in the troposphere, and accounts for the complete absence of evidence in the geological record that CO2 drives climate change.”
WR: Correct. Some ‘trics’ are used. One is ‘reversal’. When convection is the already existing solution for ‘initial greenhouse warming’ then only talk about radiation. For example, talk about ‘radiative equilibrium at the Top Of the Atmosphere’ instead of ‘surface absorption and surface heat loss of energy’. Another trick is to point at all scientists’ ‘responsibility to save the Earth’ and tell them the only possibility is, to speak with one voice (‘consensus’), which is the opposite of Science.
Natural variation is well able to cause smaller and larger changes in ‘average temperatures’. If displaced from the tropics (where it leads to convection and so in relatively quick energy loss) to the poles, tropical energy can lead to structural changes like loss of sea ice, more mixing of colder surface water with warmer layers below, more water vapor and more sensible heat and a large scale change in weather patterns (low pressure instead of high pressure over the Arctic) leading to even more import of tropical energy by ‘a train of low pressure areas’ heading to the poles.
On a larger scale, from Ice House to Hothouse state or reversed, it is sufficient to change the dominant circulation of the oceans. Right now cold deep water formation dominates and our deep oceans are ice cold. But 50-100 million years ago warm deep water formation dominated. All upwelling water was relatively warm and therefore no ice on the poles was possible, upwelling deep water already had a temperature of up to 10+ degrees Celsius. Average global temperatures then will rise sharply, compared to actual situation. See this previous post.
Always great to see others making the connection between plate tectonics and past climate regimes! And since we know that CO2 has had no impact on climate notwithstanding significant changes in its concentration over time, we can therefore conclude that the assumed applicability of radiant transfer to the lower troposphere is specious.
Huzzah for plate tectonics! Made the world what it is today!
Yes, but I’m not going to stay awake waiting for cheaper trans-Pacific airfares…
Please do not use thermalize in this way.
It is a word hijacked and redefined by the climate mafia.
IR is electro-magnetic energy. Heat is the flow of thermal energy via kinetic molecular interactions. Eunice Foot discovered this in the mid 19th century.
The CO2 molecule absorbs the electromagnetic energy which causes the C-O bonds to vibrate converting it into kinetic energy, that kinetic energy is then transferred to other molecules (N2, O2) by collisions thereby increasing the translational energy of the gases.
‘Please do not use thermalize in this way.’
Thanks for using the magic word. I’m not a physicist, just using the word ‘thermalization’ as ‘defined’ in Shula-Ott:
‘Non-radiative Deactivation, sometimes called Thermalization, is the process whereby an atom/molecule in an excited states interacts via collision with another atom/molecule, transferring the excitation energy of the excited atom/molecule to the collision partner. This interaction returns the excited atom/molecule to its ground state and the energy is converted to kinetic energy of the collision partner. This increases the velocity of the collision partner which manifests itself as heat in the pool of gas molecules. There are no photons involved in this process.’
Hopefully, that passes muster. As an aside, I’m aware of ‘thermalization’ from my old (oil) well logging days. In that usage, it referred to the slowing down of ‘fast’ neutrons (emitted by an AmBe source) to ‘thermal’ velocities in the formation wherein the neutron flux was determined either directly by a neutron counter or indirectly by the detection of the gamma rays emitted when a thermal neutron was absorbed by a hydrogen or chlorine atom.
True for a flat earth model. The earth is an oblate spheroid.
I take it you disagree with Feynman, who said that all physical processes (with the exclusion of gravity and nuclear processes) can be explained by just 3 things –
Photons are radiation.
Do you have reasons for your disagreement?
A photon does not move since it is not real. The EM wavefront does move, so indirectly one can anecdotally state a photon moves.
A photon is a mathematical construction that defines a relation ship to the absorption and emission of EM by valence and covalence electrons and their valence energy states in molecules. (Bullet 3 is correct). Photons are radiation (also correct).
In a molecule we do not know how electrons move or even if they do. There are a number of hypothesis, but since we can not observe the electrons in a molecule, nothing to verify anything.
There is a reason the covalent electrons are described as a quantum probability CLOUD.
“Therefore, a 100% Water World must have very ‘average’ temperature, in all respects. Contrary, a 100% Land coverage must show extreme temperatures, exactly what we see at the surface of the Moon.”
Speaking of the temperatures on the Moon, I found this factoid from last month’s Astronomy magazine interesting:
The Blue Ghost Lunar Lander observed the March 14/15 total Lunar eclipse, which from its perspective on the Moon, was a total solar eclipse. As the Earth slowly passed in front of the Sun, Blue Ghost recorded that the temperatures plunged from 104 to -274 degrees Fahrenheit (40 to -170 degrees Celsius).
Tom Abbott: “he Blue Ghost Lunar Lander observed the March 14/15 total Lunar eclipse, which from its perspective on the Moon, was a total solar eclipse. As the Earth slowly passed in front of the Sun, Blue Ghost recorded that the temperatures plunged from 104 to -274 degrees Fahrenheit (40 to -170 degrees Celsius).”
WR: Interesting. In how much time did the decline occur?
It is extremely difficult to defend the concept of an average temperature on a spinning globe.
Please do not use the expression “greenhouse effect.”
It is a bogus term created and defined by the Climate Mafia with the express purpose of creating fear.
The more we use their language and definition, the more we increase their credibility and those of us trying to understand how this planet works lose in the process.
Control the language, control the ideas.
— Commonly attributed to 1984, G. Orwell
Sparta Nova 4: “Please do not use the expression “greenhouse effect.”
WR: When it exists, we can use the term greenhouse effect. But we must make clear that most of the greenhouse effect is produced by water vapor, and especially there, where it has most effect on surface temperatures: near the surface, where water vapor is abundantly present. But, it is the cooling effect of water vapor that sets surface temperatures, not the warming [greenhouse] effect. All (!) surface warming effects are capped by temperature induced surface cooling by the H2O molecule which is extremely powerful in the higher (26+C) temperature range. To be clear: also much more powerful than any greenhouse warming.
Man is releasing yearly 39 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere. Nature is releasing 544,000 Gt H2O yearly in the atmosphere, 13,000 times as much and that evaporation is cooling the surface. To add: the very dynamic cooling effects by H2O induced convection and tropical cloud formation/reflection. A bit more evaporation: a lot more convective and tropical cloud cooling. Surface cooling dominates all surface warming factors. All.
Source 544,000 Gt: IPCC AR6 WGI, p.1061, Figure 8.1,
Sparta Nova, you say:
Sorry, not true. Nils Ekholm, a Swedish meteorologist, was the first to create and use the term “greenhouse effect” in 1901, a century and a quarter ago. In his published work, he described the atmosphere as acting like the glass of a greenhouse, allowing sunlight to pass through while absorbing a significant portion of the infrared radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface, thereby raising the mean surface temperature.
And no, back then there was no “climate mafia”.
w.
Willis,
Thank you for a top class article.
Since you have organized the CERES data preparatory to analysis (excellent effort) and applied some analysis to see differences between pairs (such as NH Summer versus NH Winter) this sets the mind going about what other paired variables can be studied. How about daytime versus nighttime, if that does not introduce other complications arising from CERES measurement ability?
Some knee-jerk comments follow.
The association of surface sea temperature SST with hurricane formation is established and used in forecasting, but how much weight is placed on data availability? There is abundant SST data, but is a better variable (say) air temperature at 1,000 m altitude? It seems that we simply do not have enough measurement data to relate some form of temperature to the probability of an emergent phenomenon forming, in a quantitative way.
Next, patterns in colour, ref your global map of NH winter radiative effects, the top one of the pair, where the area of blue at high northern latitudes is larger over ocean than over land. Is this a connection with names like AMOC, NAO etc?
Next, same map, India stands out as a blue land anomaly. Why? Can it help elucidate mechanisms?
Finally, the Equatorial part of your first map, showing annual surface net radiative effects. This shows again a few blues on the west coasts of land masses, especially around Colombia and Ecuador in Sth America, plus the Indonesian warm pool. This pattern looks similar to surface sea temperatures and is seen in relation to El Nino mechanisms. Is an analysis of pairs worthwhile, using El Nino years versus La Nina years?
It is easy to suggest more work for you, but it is beyond me now. I am simply suggesting some ways that you have probably considered already, on the path to better understanding of the science. Geoff S
Or possibly of the GHE religion.<g>
Willis,
That fascinating header photo of murmurations by Albert Beukhof led me to search further as to the origins of who determines the path, so the flock does not pile into the ground or to go ever higher. I found immediate complexity, such as:
“The Sato-Tate conjecture states that the normalized Frobenius traces of an elliptic curve, or more generally, the Dirichlet coefficients ap of an arithmetic L-function, are equidistributed with respect to the Haar measure of a certain compact Lie group, the Sato-Tate group, associated to the L-function. Mikio Sato John Tate This conjecture has been proved for elliptic curves over totally real and CM fields, and for abelian surfaces over Q with extra endomorphisms.”
It sems that some advances in murmuration math in the past year or two have energised the topic and perhaps some spin-off will apply to emergent phenomena physics and math. Geoff S
“The Sato-Tate conjecture states that the normalized Frobenius traces of an elliptic curve, or more generally, the Dirichlet coefficients ap of an arithmetic L-function, are equidistributed with respect to the Haar measure of a certain compact Lie group, the Sato-Tate group, associated to the L-function. Mikio Sato John Tate This conjecture has been proved for elliptic curves over totally real and CM fields, and for abelian surfaces over Q with extra endomorphisms.”
Sounds like something straight out of a book of Vogon Poetry. It’s only missing a “furtled gruntbuggly”.
Or out of the “Transgressing the Boundaries ” article by Alan Sokal, which went through peer review and was published [1996] in the journal Social Text, comparing cultural & social issues & their relationships to quantum gravity. [It was a famous hoax]
Yeah, I was gonna say that but they beat me to it …
w.
Sherro01: “That fascinating header photo of murmurations by Albert Beukhof led me to search further as to the origins of who determines the path,”
WR: Some two kilometers from where I lived during seasons large flocks of starling murmurations gathered. The picture shown could have been made there. Several times I have been watching the group behavior and asking myself: who determines the movement and why? Who is the leader? The best answer I got later was that there isn’t a leader and there is no reason, at least not for the individual. The group acts as one unit with eyes everywhere. Every individual bird doesn’t respond to the whole group, but just tot 6 other birds, the ones above, below, to the left and right and in front and on the back. Apart from that, they use their eyes to look for ‘the danger’ which could be the ground or a predator bird above. I have seen such a predator bird hanging somewhere above the group. Predator birds like the one I saw have a territory, so the whole group only has to do with one predator which diminishes the change that a bird will lose its life. If dispersed over a large area, more predator birds would kill more starlings, hence the common interest of the group during evening and the night. During the day they disperse over wide areas to gather food. For the exact movements of the group there is no reason, They just ‘do what they do’ because of impulses, reacting on their direct environment.
There are similarities with the group behavior of people. We think we have leaders, but those leaders are constantly watching the group behavior as well. And everyone is reacting on impulses, being logical or illogical. ‘Something’ structures the behavior of the group and ‘survival’ seems to be the main driver, both for every individual (during the day) and ‘by the group’ in case of danger.
We can also see water birds like coots, gathering in large groups during low food ‘survival times’, during winter.But in spring time they want to breed, have their own food territory and instead of gathering together they fight each other.
Every situation creates its own behavior. Leaders can only lead when there seems to be common interest. But ‘something’ can change everything, like the close look on a predator by an individual changes the behavior of the whole group of starlings.
Brilliant, Willis. Your hypothesis has always made sense but now you have illustrated it with the math. For me the wonder of our weather system is that it combines infinite, unpredictable contrast and variety with a mind-boggling, relentless, overall stability. All this must be based on the most basic laws of physics.
Good work and in my humble opinion that is part of the story.
The basic regulatory mechanism is convection and the thunderstorm hypothesis is a part of that.
Water, with its phase changes, greatly increases the speed and efficiency of the convective regulatory system but regulation would occur just the same in a dry atmosphere.
Even without water vapour the rate of convective overturning would change as necessary to keep the system stable.
The presence of water vapour and its efficiency as an energy transport mechanism means that the necessary changes in convective overturning can be much less vigorous than they otherwise would be. It makes the environment much less violent and more amenable to life.
Explains why weather forecasts are given probabilities — “There is a 30% chance of rain today.”
Hi Willis. Thank you very interesting and well explained.
Comment/Question:
You say “ I took the global maps of mid-summer and mid-winter CRE, and from each of those I subtracted the map shown in Figure 1 above. Then I took averages by each 1° latitude band. The result is below.”.
I infer by that statement that you looked at specific time data (ie mid summer, mid winter) to created the graph in Figure 2. You then appear to take those values to test your hypothesis. This leaves me a bit confused. Your hypothesis, as I understand your presentation is temporally independent (ie emergent) and catalyzed by temperature. Yet Figure 2 is a snap shot in time? Would it be a more informative test to create a program to basically run the data…ie compare the hypothesized emergent effect integrated over the temporal span of the data…and see what the net change appears to be vs some temperature basis. Your hypothesis suggests that the emergent phenomenon acts to center toward a stable temperature (ie thermostat), while the IPCC seems to conclude that clouds do not act as a thermostat, but rather as linear feedback..ie clouds do not favor a temperature “setting”. Clearly the difference in the behavior is a key element in any climate modeling.
A second part of my comment is how you current comments relate to the emergent thunderstorm element of your hypothesis.
At any rate, you present a compelling discussion. I sincerely hope that some “climate” scientists have enough curiosity and introspection to actually think seriously about your hypothesis. Here’s hoping!
OBTW, my wife and I recently returned from a trans Pacific cruise. We spent 4 days in the Fiji Islands. Beautiful, hot and humid…:)
Regards,
Ethan Brand
Very nice analysis, WE. Extending your previous thermoregulation ‘proofs’ from daily ‘local’ to hemispheric seasonal scales.
Two observations concerning climate model implications.
So the whole climate model ‘industry’ is an exercise in futility and should be DOGEd.
“Another feature of emergent phenomena is that they are often temperature threshold-based, with the threshold being a certain local temperature difference. By that, I mean that they rarely emerge below that threshold, but above it, their numbers can increase very rapidly.”
Something I studied as part of my PhD research in Physical Chemistry. The energy release by an exothermic chemical reaction often has an ‘S’ shape based on temperature the actual temperature reached depends on the heat loss which is usually linear. If you reduce the heat loss rate the resulting temperature gradually goes up but the heat loss can reach a point where it fails to intersect with the heat release curve which causes it ti jump to a much higher temperature. To get the system to return back to the lower temperature requires a reduction to a much lower value of heat loss, termed a ‘hysterisis’ effect.
Willis,
Yet again a most-excellent post, with the rather astonishing graph presented as your Figure 2. Thank you!
If one wants a scientifically credible explanation of all those “squiggles” in the UAH graph of GLAT (reference https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/05/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-may-2025-0-50-deg-c/ ) as well as explanations for the temporal (i.e., irregular) variations in the periods/amplitudes of various ocean “cycles” such as the AMO and PDO/La Niña’s and El Niños, look no further.
However, can you please give the time interval of the CERES data you used to derive your Figure 2 (and the Earth-surface color plots as well). Was this data covering just a single 12-month interval, or data averaged over two or more years?
IMHO, it would very insightful to know the year-over-year variability of Figure 2, given that there’s little reason (right now) to suspect Earth’s annual cloud coverage varies in an annually-repeatable fashion.
Those are the averages over the entire 24-year period of the CERES data.
w.
Excellent . . . a solid, representative data set. Thanks!
Thank you again for showing us how real science is done, God bless you!
Camping for a week or so at the race track in Death Valley in March, and contrasting that with camping for a week at the racetrack in Monterey brings this home. Back in the 80s we could camp in both locations. In March in Death Valley, the daily temperature swings are 90 degrees F, it can be 110F during the day, and 20F at night. In Monterey the daily temperature swings are typically 20 degrees, 50 to 70F.
If you look at the record setting temperature in Death Valley, examine the night before the high record. That night—I surmise—clouds rolled in, trapped the heat, and it never cooled off to the typical 90s, the low was 117F. It wasn’t a great leap from 117 to 134, but if it had cooled off that night to the typical upper 80s to low 90s, that record wouldn’t have been set.
I do think the granularity or range steps of the color plots in figure 3, especially not having a ‘zero color’ obscures what you’re trying to show. If +5 to -5 were white, and outside that range colorized, I think this would show the effect better. As the yellow represents 2 W (basically zero, but perceived as warm), and the next colors are -32 & +36 W respectively.
Thanks, Willis, I know I am not alone in expressing gratitude for your carefully prepared posts.
Forrest, always good to hear from one of my heroes. For those who don’t recognize the name, for a while he wrote my favorite column, “The Amateur Scientist” in “Scientific American”.
Back in the days when Scientific American was still scientific.
The curious story of his tenure is online at his website here.
So I value his opinion highly.
As always, my friend,
w.