By Andy May
The Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) is also called the Southern Annular Mode or SAM. It is defined as the difference between the zonal (meaning east-west or circumpolar) sea level air pressure between 40°S and 65°S. That is the sea level pressure at 65°S is subtracted from the sea level pressure at 40°S (Gong & Wang, 1999). As the difference increases and SAM becomes more positive, the Southern Hemisphere circumpolar westerly (clockwise as viewed from above the South Pole) winds move closer to Antarctica and generally increase in intensity.
SAM has the third strongest 1950-2021correlation with HadCRUT5, after the AMO and WHWP, of all the oscillations discussed in this series. The R2 that SAM, by itself, has with HadCRUT5 is 0.55. Only the AMO (R2 = 0.58) and WHWP (R2 = 0.56) have higher correlations, all three together achieve an R2 of 0.77 as shown in post 1, figure 3.
When the SAM is positive in winter the persistent westerly winds and the Southern Ocean current that surround Antarctica intensify and allow less Antarctic cold air to escape to the mid-latitudes. The mid-latitude areas, mainly Patagonia, New Zealand, and Southern Australia warm as a result and often become drier. However, in the summer a positive SAM can also draw tropical moisture south causing northern and eastern Australia to get more precipitation. The effects of SAM on the southern mid-latitudes are dependent upon the season and the effects are often opposite in summer and winter. A negative SAM, during the summer, can cause heatwaves in Southern Australia.
When SAM is negative, the belt of circumpolar winds move toward the equator and weaken. Figure 1 illustrates the difference between a positive and negative SAM or AAO. Also, this video from the Bureau of Meteorology of Australia is informative.
Antarctic temperatures are always cold and don’t vary much (see figure 2), but when SAM is negative it has a big effect on the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude temperatures and precipitation. The positive SAM occurs more frequently during La Niña events and the negative is often associated with El Niño events.
The Southern Annular Mode is a function of air circulation around Antarctica and not ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) or SST distribution, thus it is not directly connected to global mean surface temperature (GMST). However, through its outsized influence on Southern Hemispheric weather it does seem to influence the HadCRUT5 GMST or at least correlate with it as shown in figure 3.
As noted in Turner (2019), the phase of the SAM “exerts the greatest control” over Antarctic temperatures. Compare the pre-2000 to post-2000 trends in figure 2 to the shift from a negative to a positive SAM in figures 3 and 4 to observe this. The western Antarctic Peninsula shows more of a change in temperature trends than East Antarctica.
The GMST is not a very good measure of global climate, the real climate state on Earth is too complicated to describe with any one number but none-the-less, it has become the climate indicator that nearly everyone uses to attempt to measure the impact humans have on climate. As figure 3 shows, the changes in SAM track the changes in GMST as measured by the Hadley Centre.
Figure 3 suggests that Southern Hemisphere wind circulation patterns affect global climate or that both are influenced by some common force. The common forcing could be changes in the Sun, Earth’s orbit, or additional atmospheric CO2. Thus, it could be that global circulation patterns are not just moving heat around in a random fashion, it could be that as they change, regardless of the cause, they affect global climate over the long term.
Unlike most climate oscillations, the CMIP6 climate models do a fair job modeling SAM and collectively they also reproduce the positive trend since 1925 (see figure 3) pretty well (IPCC, 2021, pp. 71, 113, 115, 491). The IPCC believes that the recently increasingly positive SAM is due to CO2-fueled warming (IPCC, 2021, p. 114) & (Lee, Petersen, & Lin, 2019). But it is hard to determine cause and effect in this case.
AR6 admits there is a “lack of consistency in links between increasing greenhouse gases,” the Southern Annular Mode and drought in Cape Town as an example (IPCC, 2021, p. 110). Lee, et al. did a comprehensive model study (using E3SM) of the annual and seasonal SAM and found that while historical and standard model test data (AMIP) created a statistically significant positive trend in recent years, their CO2-based model experiments did not, in fact their 4 times CO2 (4xCO2) model trends opposite (negative) to observations. This casts considerable doubt on the idea that CO2-based warming is affecting the SAM as claimed by the IPCC. Neither their 4xCO2 nor their 1pctCO2 model runs were statistically significant, and neither compared well to observations annually or by season (Lee, Petersen, & Lin, 2019).
The SAM trends positive with time since the early 20th century as shown in figure 3. This suggests that the southern polar vortex is increasing in strength on average. It also suggests more frequent La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific. The SAM, the polar vortex strength, and the ENSO are all affected by stratospheric circulation patterns, which, in turn are influenced by the solar cycle (Haigh, 2011). Haigh also reports that solar activity appears to affect SAM, this can be seen, in a rough way, in figure 4.
The general correspondence in positive SAM trends and solar activity is fair. SAM shows a strong positive trend from 1925-1945 in the first part of the Modern Solar Maximum and from 1970 to 2000 in the second part. But the correspondence from 1945 to 1975 is not very good. After the end of the Modern Solar Maximum in 2005, the SAM trend levels out. The pentadecadal decrease in solar activity from about 1963-1977 in solar cycle 20 and the solar cycle minimum between solar cycles 18 and 19 (1952-1956) may account for some of the interruption in the positive SAM trend from 1945 to 1975, but some other unknown factors are needed to fully explain it.
Discussion
The Southern Annular Mode or Antarctic Oscillation is defined as the sea level air pressure difference between 40°S and 65°S. It is positive when the SLP in higher at 40°S than at 65°S. The climate response varies by season and location, but generally a positive trend means warming in the mid-latitudes and a movement of the strongest surface circumpolar winds poleward (Lee, Petersen, & Lin, 2019). This accounts for much of the good correlation between SAM and HadCRUT5 shown in figure 3.
As Joanna Haigh and others have pointed out there does appear to be a connection between solar activity and SAM, but it is not perfect since solar activity was high during most of the mid-20th century cooling period from 1945 to 1975. Specifically, the 1945 to 1960 portion during solar cycles 18 and 19. Thus, if solar activity influences SAM, something else contributed to the mid-20th century cooling. That period of cooling was global and can be clearly seen in Southern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions (Brönnimann, Brugnara, & Wilkinson, 2024).
The introduction of more CO2 in the E3SM model studies by Lee, et al. produce a negative trend or no trend in SAM which is contrary to observations, making CO2 an unlikely cause of the recent positive SAM trend. Another possible influence on SAM may be trends in other oscillations or changes in the stratosphere as proposed by Wallace (2006). There does appear to be a strong connection between SAM and the stratospheric polar vortex.
The SAM has a powerful influence on global climate and can affect weather in the Northern Hemisphere (Lin, Yu, & Hall, 2025), in particular the Warm Arctic-Cold Eurasian weather pattern that causes a lot of extreme winter weather. The SAM also affects the Indian summer monsoon and other eastern Asia weather phenomena.
The next post will discuss the Atlantic Meridional Mode or AMM.
Works Cited
Brönnimann, S., Brugnara, Y., & Wilkinson, C. (2024). Early 20th century Southern Hemisphere cooling. Climate Past, 20. doi:10.5194/cp-20-757-2024
Gong, D., & Wang, S. (1999). Definition of Antarctic Oscillation Index. Geophysical Research Letters, 26(4), 459-462. doi:10.1029/1999GL900003
Haigh, J. (2011). Solar Influences on Climate. Imperial College, London. Retrieved from https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/grantham-institute/public/publications/briefing-papers/Solar-Influences-on-Climate—Grantham-BP-5.pdf
IPCC. (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. In V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, . . . B. Zhou (Ed.)., WG1. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
Lee, D. Y., Petersen, M. R., & Lin, W. (2019). The Southern Annular Mode and Southern Ocean Surface Westerly Winds in E3SM. Earth and Space Science, 6(12), 2624-2643. doi:10.1029/2019EA000663
Lin, H., Yu, B., & Hall, N. (2025). Link of the Warm Arctic Cold Eurasian pattern to the Southern Annular Mode variability. npj Climate & Atmospheric Science, 8. doi:10.1038/s41612-025-01102-z
Turner, J., Marshall, G. J., Clem, K., Colwell, S., Phillips, T., & Lu, H. (2019). Antarctic temperature variability and change from station data. International Journal of Climatology, 2986-3007. doi:10.1002/joc.6378
Wallace, J. (2006). On the Role of the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations in Polar Climate. ECMWF Seminar on Polar Meteorology (pp. 75-88). ECMWF.
Looking at figure 3 I would guess the main reason there is any correlation between SAM and global temperatures is the big rise in both after the 1970s.
Which raises the old correlation does not imply causation chestnut. Is it more likely that an unexplained rise in SAM caused a major change in global temperatures, or that SAM increased because if a rise in temperatures?
Or, the 95+ billion gallons of water vapor commercial aviation is exhausting into the Tropopause is the cause of everything from the 1970’s to present. Stop it, and global temps will plunge at least 0.9 degrees within a couple of years and the growing season throughout the grain belts will be shortened considerably.
There is no one single cause. There is no control knob. The energy system that is spaceship Earth is very complex, chaotic, dynamic, and involves several coupled energy trnasfer systems.
Certainly the water vapor has a role, but it is not exclusive.
If one plots a long series of random numbers from 1 to 10, the trend line will rise and fall semi-periodically. The only cause of the rising and falling trends is the statistical fluctuations of random events.
Global air temperature is a terrible and useless proxy for the heat content of the ocean/atmosphere system. First, temperature of atmospheric air is not related to heat content (enthalpy is) and second the air temperature can go up when the over all system is cooling.
During an El Niño, heat trapped in the Pacific Warm Pool sloshes back across the Pacific and is vented to the atmosphere as it radiates to space. The system lost a large amount of heat (it cooled), but the global average surface-air temperature got warmer as the heat flowed to deep space.
If the system loses heat, but your heat-metric shows more heat, you are using the wrong metric.
Well there is this.
That is quite a useful chart. What is the source?
Yes, there most certainly is a single cause. I have substantial evidence that aviation exhaust is the sole cause of the linear warming trend that started in the mid 70’s. There is also substantial evidence of spurious warming around the Korean War, WWII and two different wet eruptions in the 1800’s. And let us not forget the great HT experiment, and the Texas killer freeze, to name a few recent experiments that more than validate MY postulation.
Aviation exhaust is the Anthropogenic control knob for the temperature of this planet, everything else is irrelevant (from a forcing standpoint), except for Albedo changes from CO2 fertilization.
I guess I should publish it.
I agree to a point. Autocorrelation is a factor in this and all serial correlation statistics. If we were talking about my 1978 dataset, I would totally agree. Everything is monotonic after 1978 and statistics from 1978 to today tell us nothing. But, in figure 3 all three curves change slope together in 1925, 1944 and about 1965. This plays a huge role in boosting confidence. These reversals of slope are seen in the AMO, WHWP, AMM, and in SAM. See the previous posts.
Andy, the slope changes are the long-term integral response to solar forcing. Earth has two distinct responses: a fast response (atmosphere and SST), and a slow response (ocean integration). To my eye, SAM is a combination of those responses.
The two responses are easiest to see in the frequency domain.
The blue-dashed line is my 99-year moving average model’s frequency response to sunspot data. It does not have a fast response. The moving average only has an integral-like response which follows the 20dB/decade attenuation line. The 0.09yr^-1, or 1/11 year notch in the middle occurs because the moving average is a multiple of 11-years in length. To the right of the notch, the MA model continues to further attenuate solar activity.
The red line is the response between GSAT and sunspot data. It too has a 20dB/decade response up to a notch in the middle. The notch in the middle shows that, globally, the earth doesn’t respond to the 11-year cycle. Sunspots are not solar activity, they are a response to changes in solar activity and should be treated as a proxy.
For periods shorter than 11 years, i.e. above the notch, the Earth’s response to solar activity is level. Weather adds a lot of noise, but with more coherent averaging (bottom plot) I was able to uncover cycles that appear to correlate with temperature.
The moving average model with added attenuation for the 11-year notch.
Robert,
What a great analysis, thanks.
I especially like:
#1: This has been the bane of all climate scientists who favor a dominant solar influence on climate. Of interest, it is not hard to show a solar influence on many of the oscillations, La Nina/Neutral is one. There are others.
‘Earth has two distinct responses: a fast response (atmosphere and SST), and a slow response (ocean integration)’
Yes! Excellent!
A couple of comments:
My question was more about how to tell if something like SAM is a cause if global warming or an effect.
That is a valid question that does not yet have a verifiable answer.
I don’t know, perhaps neither. SAM is easily seen in the data and has existed for a very long time. Also rare among oscillations it can be modeled. It is real.
The globe is getting warmer, but perhaps not significantly, it may be just random variability. And regardless of what you may have heard, global warming cannot be successfully modeled.
I believe that some thermometers are responding positively to increased anthropogenic heat, but that the Earth is losing 44 TW currently – cooling slowly in other words.
I might be wrong, but I doubt it.
As has been shown on multiple occasions you are wrong!
Rubbish. You’re dreaming. The contents of your fantasy are not reality.
So sad, too bad.
none-the-less, it has become the climate indicator that nearly everyone uses to attempt to measure the impact humans have on climate
Nearly everyone parrots the tired old mantras – or else. We’re having – alarmism aside – a really lovely day here (32C); somewhere, somebody is probably having a terrible winter’s day. Climate scientists use averages as a crutch to lean on. Especially where their pet models are concerned. Note that they refer to a model run as… an experiment. That it is most certainly not.
“Here we focus on a control simulation, and four climate change experiments. The four climate change experiments following the A2 (two experiments), A1B, and B1 scenarios all incorporating CO2 forcing, direct effect of sulfate aerosols, and ozone depletion. For more details about these projections, readers are referred to http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/089.htm. Each of the four experiments starts from a different time of the control experiment, and together they provide an ensemble strategy. The ozone forcing incorporates a full recovery of the ozone content by 2048. Despite this, in all warming experiments the SAM shows an increasing trend. In what follows, we show changes of a 31-year mean over the period of 2055–2085 averaged over the four climate change experiments from a control climate. Although we show only the averaged pattern, each individual experiment produces a change pattern that is similar to the average, highlighting the robustness of the change.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2005GL024701
A control climate? Another model run apparently.
Thanks for an informative article, Andy.
Temperature is not heat. Heat is the important factor in climate, not temperature. The models will never work properly until climate science changes their approach and begin using enthalpy instead of temperature. Temperature doesn’t explain the difference in climate between Las Vegas and Miami.
Temperature is but one stick to beat non-believers with. The models, to my mind, are programmed to ensure certain policy choices follow on from their “projections”. And funnily enough, they do.
So temp went down slightly from 1945 to `1980 while CO2 went up 15% and commercial aviation began dumping H2O into the upper atmosphere?
Total global surface and ocean heat content is important, but it isn’t the whole story either. The point of this series and why I am writing it is that global atmospheric and oceanic circulation doesn’t “just move heat about.” As global circulation patterns change, the global temperature and heat content changes as a result. Thus, global circulation affects global total heat storage.
The circulation changes in a repeating pattern. We can’t really see the global pattern, but we can see pieces of it, like the SAM, AMO, AMM, and WHWP. Of those, only SAM is roughly duplicated by the climate models. They cannot claim to have made “climate change” “settled science” until they can duplicate all the observed oscillations.
People need to stop talking about thermodynamics and radiation in and out, they are not the whole story. As Paul Harvey would say we need to see “the rest of the story!”
Sooner or later radiation in and out *are* the whole story. The issue is how that radiation in (from the sun) is processed internally to get to radiation out. If in and out don’t balance over time then you wind up with a frozen ball or a molten ball. The “rest of the story” is that internal processing – that climate science is far, FAR, from actually modeling properly. Thermodynamics and radiation analyzed at a point in time simply can’t properly model that internal processing over time. Ultimately heat transport is a time function.
I agree with your comment, except this bit:
This should be modified to read:
This whole radiation in and out scam (and that is what it is) is meant to distract us from what really matters, residence time, the Earth’s orbit, and solar variability. The overall climate system is a huge air conditioner, designed by nature, to keep us between two critical temperatures, freezing and boiling. It works through the climate oscillations and the most important of these oscillations are the AMO, SAM, WHWP, and AMM. I’m surprised the Pacific Oscillations and the Arctic Oscillations are not showing up as important. But they aren’t – maybe the Pacific is too big to organize, and the Arctic Oscillations simply repeat information already in the AMO? I don’t know.
That’s why I said “don’t balance over time”.
Residence time is what I term a short-timeframe issue. Sooner or later heat in has to equal heat out. Storage time becomes part of the variation in the system. It all has to be analyzed over a long enough time period to take storage time into account. Glacial periods are when heat out is greater than heat in. Inter-glacials are when heat in is greater than heat out.
Tim,
You are being led by irrelevant physical principles. Physics tells us that energy-in has to equal energy-out or a system eventually gets out of control, but this has nothing to do with climate, it is just abstract physics. You might as well say what goes up must come down, true, but everyone knows that already.
Climate and climate change are driven by varying energy storage in the system, how fast it varies, and by how much. That is driven (in the generational time-frame) by circulation patterns and their changes. Look past the obvious is all I’m asking.
Physics tells us that energy-in has to equal energy-out or a system eventually gets out of control, . . .
Not so, Andy.
The Earth is an example – more energy out than in, for four and a half billion years, resulting in – cooling!
No offense intended, but anybody saying “Physics tells us . . .” does not understand what “physics” means.
This whole “energy in has to equal energy out” is just nonsense. All matter above absolute zero is constantly emitting and absorbing energy. The chance of any object absorbing exactly what it is emitting over any measurable time scale is extremely small.
You are correct when dealing with planets in the real Universe. I get so tired of hear energy in has to equal energy out, when everyone should know it never happens with Earth or any other planet with an atmosphere, it doesn’t even happen on the Moon.
You seem to be basically saying that glacial and inter-glacial periods are not climates because they are so long. I disagree. They are the boundary conditions of natural variation.
You seem to be saying that glacial and inter-glacial periods are not climate because they last so long and are so far apart. They are the boundary conditions for the natural variation of climate and are a part of the long term energy-in and energy-out balance.
The energy-in and energy-out function does have time as an independent variable. Yes, there will be short-term variations but those variations are also part of the long-term variation. Trying to add up the energy in and the energy out fluxes at the point in time two seconds from now simply doesn’t cover the waterfront.
One other minor detail is that energy from EM travels much faster than thermal energy (heat).
That’s for conduction and convection. Radiation propagates at the same speed.
Electro magnetic energy (radiation) travels at the speed of light.
Thermal energy (kinetic) travels at much less than the speed of sound.
Whatever point you are attempting is not communicated clearly.
Energy is energy. The mode of propagation is irrelevant. The term “thermal” is just a descriptor similar to the color “blue”. It describes energy propagating as the random motion of particles (KE) rather than propagating as an E and H field. An EM wave propagates energy. The diffusion of energy in a material propagates energy. Saying that an EM wave doesn’t propagate heat energy just isn’t accurate, energy is measured in joules whether it is being propagated as an EM wave or as diffusing energy in a material.
“If in and out don’t balance over time then you wind up with a frozen ball or a molten ball.”
Speaking of whichI don’t a chance to reply to your last comment about the greenhouse effect, before they were closed.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/16/physics-demonstrates-that-increasing-greenhouse-gases-cannot-cause-dangerous-warming-extreme-weather-or-any-harm/#comment-4088243
I don’t want to drag this out here, but I have s couple of points. I think you are very close to understanding it, but you just won’t make the final step. Your problem is you only see heat loss in terms of out going radiation, and not about the net change. You need to understand that by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, the more heat a body is losing, the hotter it is. You want to think that the faster the heat loss the faster the cooling, but that isn’,t the case when the body is in equalibrium.
You say
“GHG: heat in – heat loss – heat-reflected + heat-reflected = heat in – heat loss (conservation of energy)”
Which is tru, but don’t see that this is saying
Heat_in_sun + heat_reflected_in = total heat out.
And the implication is that with GHG the Earth’s surfCe is “losing” more heat, so must be at a higher temperature than without GHGs.
You claim
“You just want to add up all the fluxes in while ignoring the fluxes out.”
That’s not true at all. All my equations and graphs are based on the assumption that there is energy out. It would make no sense to talk about the fluxrs being in equalibrium if there was no energy outand that the energy out is related to the temperature by the SB equation. My time series graphs specifically factor in both energy out and in.
Bellman,
I don’t have a comment in that thread, it was all other people quoting me.
With regard to your comment:
There is probably some period of time that we could find where radiation flux in = radiation flux out, but it is rare and irrelevant. We know this because Earth’s global average surface temperature is always changing on all time scales. Also, we really don’t have a starting point.
Further the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is inappropriate for Earth because it assumes no surface heat storage or that the surface heat storage is constant, neither assumption is true.
I’m skeptical of any analysis of Earth’s energy flux that relies on Stefan-Boltzmann, it is an oversimplification of a complex system and generally inappropriate.
More on this subject here and in the links in the post. Pay particular attention to the essays by Heinz Hug, they are excellent:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2025/02/01/energy-and-matter/
Any heat that CO2 sends earthward is heat that has already been lost by the Earth. CO2 is not a source of heat, it isn’t “on fire”. At best CO2 can only replace heat that earth has already lost. But convection upward insures that’s not going to happen. The only way to raise the temperature of the Earth is to add heat beyond what the sun provides, at least over the long term. And since CO2 is not a source but just a reflector, it can’t *add* heat.
Planck talks about reflected heat and says that, for a black body at least, it is compensated for by “new rays”. Slower cooling is that compensation, slower cooling dumps more heat via radiation than faster cooling – Planck’s compensation.
The earth isn’t a black body, it is primarily a heat sink. But even a heat sink has to compensate for reflected heat (think a CPU in a PC) or it will eventually melt down.
Somehow climate science wants to believe that slower cooling means a temperature rise. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just means what it says, slower cooling. There is no such thing as “trapped heat” from CO2, just slower cooling.
It seems that much of climate science doesn’t even recognize that heat in is greater than heat out for less than 50% of the day, at least for much of the globe. Heat in only exceeds heat out when the temperature is rising. That is typically only 9-10 hours of the 24 daily temperature curve. For much of the year it is less than that even that.
“I don’t have a comment in that thread, it was all other people quoting me.”
Sorry, that comment wasn’t addressed to you. I was just trying to finish a long argument with Tim Gorman. But for some reason the message was even more garbled then usual.
“There is probably some period of time that we could find where radiation flux in = radiation flux out, but it is rare and irrelevant.”
True, but I was trying to explain how a greenhouse effect works using the simplest most abstract way possible. The argument was against those saying it was physically impossible.
Totally agree about the SB equation
“Your problem is you only see heat loss in terms of out going radiation, and not about the net change. “
The *only* way to analyze the system is to look at both incoming and outgoing radiation as a time function. YOU only want to look at the incoming radiation at a single point in time while ignoring the outgoing radiation.
“You need to understand that by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, the more heat a body is losing, the hotter it is.”
Slower cooling *IS* dumping more heat. The amount of heat dumped is related to the delay factor, 1/λ. Slower cooling doesn’t mean the temperature is going UP, it only means it is going down slower. The slower it cools the lower the decay factor and the greater 1/λ becomes, i.e. more heat dumped.
*YOU keep wanting to define slower cooling as the temperature going up. It doesn’t mean that at all.
“ou want to think that the faster the heat loss the faster the cooling”
You can’t even get this one correct after I’ve told you multiple times that the cooling rate is λ and the amount of heat dumped is related to 1/λ. If the temperature profile is (cT)e^(-λt) then the integral is the amount of heat that is dumped. The integral of (cT)e(-λt)dt is (cT)(1/λ)e^(-λt).
A smaller λ is NOT faster cooling, it is slower cooling. Reflected heat slows cooling. How many times have I stated this to you? The slower cooling is the compensation that Planck talks about with regard to reflected heat – that reflected heat gets re-emitted if it is absorbed.
You don’t understand simple algebra and calculus and yet you come on here and try to tell people they are wrong with their math. You do it continously!
“And the implication is that with GHG the Earth’s surfCe is “losing” more heat, so must be at a higher temperature than without GHGs.”
NO, NO, NO! Slower cooling dumps more heat. That does *NOT* mean the temperature is going up. It means the temperature is not falling as fast! If the temperature doesn’t fall as fast then you are dumping more heat!
How many times am I going to have to repeat Planck’s statement on reflected heat and compensation via new rays before it sinks into your brain? He doesn’t say that reflected heat raises temperature, he says that compensation is provided by new rays dumping the reflected heat. It’s a TIME FUNCTION.
“It would make no sense to talk about the fluxrs being in equalibrium if there was no energy outand that the energy out is related to the temperature by the SB equation.”
It makes all the sense in the world if you just accept that slower cooling is *NOT* the same thing as temperature going up! It’s just slower cooling!
“The *only* way to analyze the system is to look at both incoming and outgoing radiation as a time function.”
This is why it’s pointless arguing with you. I provided graphs showing temperature changes over time.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/16/physics-demonstrates-that-increasing-greenhouse-gases-cannot-cause-dangerous-warming-extreme-weather-or-any-harm/#comment-4087863
“YOU only want to look at the incoming radiation at a single point in time while ignoring the outgoing radiation.”
Try to argue your case without lying about me. Everything I’ve said involves balancing incoming radiation with outgoing radiation. Why do you think the equations and graphs reach an equilibrium if I’m only looking at incoming radiation?
“Slower cooling *IS* dumping more heat.”
If you still can’t understand that “dumping more heat” is only possible if the temperature is higher, and that when a body is in equilibrium it is not cooling at all, then I really don’t think you understand thermodynamics as well as you claim.
“How many times am I going to have to repeat Planck’s statement”
You can repeat it till you are blue in the face, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s just become a religious mantra to you.
“reflected heat and compensation via new rays before it sinks into your brain”
My brain accepts the fact that you cannot create additional heat rays without first raising the temperature.
“It’s just slower cooling!”
I’m sure I’ve asked before, but do you think the Earth is actually cooling at the moment, and what temperature do you expect it to cool down to, and how long will it take?
“This is why it’s pointless arguing with you. I provided graphs showing temperature changes over time.”
Your lack of understanding of basic physics is atrocious. Temperature is not heat. I’ve given you the formula for enthalpy of moist air a dozen times and you refuse to accept it.
“Try to argue your case without lying about me. Everything I’ve said involves balancing incoming radiation with outgoing radiation. Why do you think the equations and graphs reach an equilibrium if I’m only looking at incoming radiation?”
No, it isn’t. The very first formula your proposed had no factor for heat loss at all! You refuse to believe that reflected heat replaces heat that has already been lost. Heat transport is a *time* function yet you refuse to internalize that just like you refuse to internalize that measurement uncertainty is not random, Gaussian, and doesn’t cancel. You claim otherwise but it *always* comes through in every assertion you make.
The earth is about 4 BILLION years old. If heat accumulated in the biosphere because heat in is greater than heat out the earth would have become a molten rock millions of years ago. There would have never been any glacial periods.
You are fixated on trying to analyze a radiation budget at a point in time and won’t even admit that the daily temperature profile has a longer period of heat loss than it does of heat gain! What is the area under the curve of temperature rise and what is the area under the curve of temperature stagnation and fall? THAT will tell you what is happening and it is TIME function, not a static radiation budget based on averages or mid-point temperatures. At latitude 40° north during the summer, heat gain time is greater than heat loss for only about 1/3 of the 24 hour day. The other 2/3rds of the day heat loss is greater than heat gain. The two are only equal for about an hour per day.
“If you still can’t understand that “dumping more heat” is only possible if the temperature is higher”
You keep trying to use the argumentative fallacy of Equivocation hoping no one will notice. Slower cooling doesn’t mean the temperature is higher, it only means that it falls more slowly. it is the compensation factor Planck speaks of. You say you believe Planck is correct and then turn around and ignore what he says, just like you do with measurement uncertainty.
Dumping of heat IS A TIME FUNCTION. When is that going to sink into your head? (-1/λ)e^(-λt) NEVER GOES positive. Temperature never goes higher!
“My brain accepts the fact that you cannot create additional heat rays without first raising the temperature.”
That’s because you have *NEVER* been able to relate math to the real world. (-1/λ)e^(-λt) when evaluated over the same time period is LARGER when λ gets smaller, i.e. slower decay. But it NEVER goes positive, Temperature never goes up! There is no “raising the temperature”.
“’m sure I’ve asked before, but do you think the Earth is actually cooling at the moment, and what temperature do you expect it to cool down to, and how long will it take?”
If the sun doesn’t expand and subsume the earth first then all of the universe, including the Earth, will eventually assume the same temperature. It will approach 0K asymptotically. I’m not sure that it will ever reach 0K because residual quantum statistical fluctuations may prevent it. My guess is that the next glacial period will have a global average temperature of around 5C to 10C. Of course I don’t recognize that the earth even has an “average” temperature. You can’t average an intensive property. The poles will get much colder while the equatorial regions will remain warm. Water vapor in the atmosphere will be less so the enthalpy will go down correspondingly but daily temperature variation will be greater.
I just love how those who don’t believe that over time heat out has to equal heat in. If, over time, heat in doesn’t equal heat out then the earth will reach one of two boundary conditions – a frozen ball or a molten ball. You can’t accumulate heat forever without an impact. And your assertion that CO2 traps heat means an accumulation of heat forever.
Not arguing this any further if you continue to make stuff up. Read what I said, try to understand it and then explain why you think what I said is wrong. Don’t just keep arguing with what you think I’m saying.
“I just love how those who don’t believe that over time heat out has to equal heat in.”
The entire point about everything I’ve said is on the basis that an equilibrium point will be reached when energy in = energy out.
“And your assertion that CO2 traps heat means an accumulation of heat forever.”
Read and reread my initial equation. Look at the graph based on heat transfer. Look at my explanation about how a geometric series with a ratio that is less than 1 will not accumulate heat forever.
“The entire point about everything I’ve said is on the basis that an equilibrium point will be reached when energy in = energy out.”
Then why do you always ignore energy out?
“Look at my explanation about how a geometric series with a ratio that is less than 1 will not accumulate heat forever.”
A geometric series with a ratio that is less than one means you have energy out greater than energy in. Which you deny happens since reflected heat from CO2 is “new” heat which adds to the sun’s heat.
You still refuse to accept Planck’s statement that reflected heat is just re-emitted – net zero. You deny that compensation occurs.
“Then why do you always ignore energy out?”
You just keep demonstrating that you either don’t understand what I’m saying, or you are lying.
“A geometric series with a ratio that is less than one means you have energy out greater than energy in.”
No. It’s an increasing series that converges to a finite value.
“You still refuse to accept Planck’s statement that reflected heat is just re-emitted – net zero.”
Net zero when it’s in equilibrium. That equilibrium has to be at a higher temperature if the Earth is emitting more radiation. It’s a simple as that.
“You just keep demonstrating that you either don’t understand what I’m saying, or you are lying.”
You don’t have a clue as to what you are saying.
Heat is measured in joules. Flux is measured in joules/sec-m^2. You keep bouncing around equating the two. If CO2 reflects the flux it receives then it reflects a factor of 1. The flux from CO2 would be the same in ALL directions. If it reflects half the flux it receives then it sends out 1/2 in all directions. You then have to integrate that flux over the area involved to get the total power. If the reflected flux is the same as it gets then it is in equilibrium. If the sending body only gets back PART of the flux it sent then the originating body still cools since the area receiving the flux is the same as the sending area and the power returned is less than the power sent. The difference between the power sent and received determines how fast the sending body cools.
The power sent and received when integrated over time determines how much heat in joules is involved.
My equations have always been in terns of heat (joules). But you can’t understand that because you don’t understand the difference between flux, power, and joules. You just willy-nilly mix them up.
Once again, CO2 is not a source of heat. It can only reflect what it receives, i.e. what the sending body has already lost. CO2 can’t send back more than it receives so it can’t raise the temperature of the sending body. It can only slow cooling which provides Planck’s compensation.
“Heat is measured in joules. Flux is measured in joules/sec-m^2. You keep bouncing around equating the two.”
Every time I say energy in equals energy out, it should be obvious I mean per unit of time. And the simplifying assumption of the simple model is that the surface area of the Earth and the atmosphere are the same.
“If CO2 reflects the flux it receives then it reflects a factor of 1.”
It doesn’t reflect the flux. that’s just your fantasy.
“If the sending body only gets back PART of the flux it sent then the originating body still cools since the area receiving the flux is the same as the sending area and the power returned is less than the power sent. ”
Unless, and I’m sorry if this is a new concept to you, there was some sort of heat source that keeps hitting the Earth’s surface, regardless of the additional energy coming from the atmosphere.
“My equations have always been in terns of heat (joules).”
Your equations have always just been for a single object cooling.
“It can only reflect what it receives, i.e. what the sending body has already lost.”
You still can’t understand that all the energy “lost” is equal to the energy gained from the sun in the first place. When it receives some of the energy it lost back, that is in addition to the energy from the sun. Thus there is a net profit.
“And the simplifying assumption of the simple model is that the surface area of the Earth and the atmosphere are the same.”
You *still* don’t understand the relationship between flux, power, and energy.
The surface area of the atmosphere and the atmosphere is irrelevant to total energy. The total energy doesn’t change as the sphere expands. The flux will change but not the total energy.
“It doesn’t reflect the flux. that’s just your fantasy.”
What in Pete’s name do you think Planck is speaking of when he speaks about a reflecting body?
Planck: “For example, if we let the rays emitted by the body fall
back on it, say by suitable reflection, the body, while again absorbing
these rays, will necessarily be at the same time emitting new rays, and
this is the compensation required by the second principle.”
How does CO2 provide heat to the earth if it isn’t reflecting heat already emitted by the earth? In order to provide heat to the earth it has to *radiate* it, i.e. a flux is involved. Convection would carry the heat up and away from the earth. Conduction through a gas back to the earth would be miniscule.
You are back to throwing crap against the wall hoping something will stick.
“Unless, and I’m sorry if this is a new concept to you, there was some sort of heat source that keeps hitting the Earth’s surface, regardless of the additional energy coming from the atmosphere.”
Pure malarky! Word salad. There is no *additional* heat from CO2. There is only a return of already emitted heat. CO2 is *NOT* a source of heat, it is a reflector of heat.
It *is* the sun that drives the heat-in/heat-out equation, not CO2. Over time CO2 only modulates the amount of heat dumped by the earth per unit time by modulating the decay factor.
Do you deny that the earth radiates heat even during the day? Do you have a clue as to when the earth is radiating maximum heat? It’s been given to you multiple times.
“What in Pete’s name do you think Planck is speaking of when he speaks about a reflecting body?”
A body that reflects some or all of the rays that hit it, the opposite of a black body.
“How does CO2 provide heat to the earth if it isn’t reflecting heat already emitted by the earth?”
By absorbing the radiation coming from the Earth, heating up, and radiating heat by virtue of having a temperature. And you really need to shed the delusion that it is only CO2 doing this. It’s the atmosphere as a whole, including all the greenhouse gases.
“Pure malarky! Word salad. There is no *additional* heat from CO2. ”
The mental contortions you have to go through to avoid seeing what is obvious is truly impressive. The Earth receives a constant amount of energy from the sun, that never changes, it it also receives energy from the atmosphere, that has to be additional heat. Energy has to be conserved. It’s simply not possible for the Earth to decide it doesn’t want the energy from the atmosphere, just because it’s energy it previously lost.
“It *is* the sun that drives the heat-in/heat-out equation, not CO2.”
You’re equivocating on the word “drive” now. Do you mean it’s the only energy that affects the Earth’s temperature, or do you mean without the sun there would be no greenhouse effect?
“A geometric series with a ratio that is less than one means you have energy out greater than energy in.”
Wrong.
“Wrong.’
But you just can’t quite show how it is wrong, can you?
If you can’t see why it’s wrong and never listen to what I say, why do you expect me to explain it yet again. Here are a couple links to all the explanation you have forgotten.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/16/physics-demonstrates-that-increasing-greenhouse-gases-cannot-cause-dangerous-warming-extreme-weather-or-any-harm/#comment-4085543
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/16/physics-demonstrates-that-increasing-greenhouse-gases-cannot-cause-dangerous-warming-extreme-weather-or-any-harm/#comment-4087771
At no point do I need to assume energy out > energy in. The Earth is warming and constantly catching up, compensating for the extra energy in by warming up and releasing more rays.
Cooling is NOT a geometric function. That implies a constant rate of loss which doesn’t apply. Heat loss diminishes as two bodies approach equilibrium.
Here is a site from byjus that explains Newton’s Law of Cooling.
byjus.com/jee/newtons-law-of-cooling/
As you can see, the cooling is an exponential function based a cooling loss rate based on time.
T(t) = Ts + (To – Ts)e⁻ᵏᵗ
And here is another site, that shows the same thing in case you need extra convincing.
Newton’s Law of Cooling: Statement, Formula & Example Problems
Tբ = T₀ + (Tᵢ – T₀)e⁻ᵏᵗ
Keep in mind this is not a total solution to how the earth acts. Ts (T₀) are not constant and requires a function of its own that is based in time. Imagine T₀ increasing towards Tᵢ. The point is that one must deal with exponential functions.
“Cooling is NOT a geometric function.”
Why do you two find it so hard to follow any conversation. I’m not talking about cooling but warming.
The specific claim Tim keeps repeating is that if heat received from the atmosphere adds to the energy of the Earth, it will lead to the Earth warming to infinity. I’m saying that is not true because the ration of heat returned is always less than 1 – hence it’s a geometric series which sums to a finite value.
“Newton’s Law of Cooling”
You still don’t get why that is not applicable here. That describes a body cooling to it’s surrounding temperature. But looked at from the Earth’s surface the atmosphere acts as a two way mirror, it let’s energy in but reduces it going out. You’ve got a three body problem where energy is not flowing between each body. The sun gives energy to the Earth’s surface. The Earth’s surface radiates to the atmosphere. The atmosphere half radiates back into space, but half radiates towards the surface.
If heat returned is less than heat sent then how can temperature go up? You *still* won’t recognize heat transfer as a stateful time function. Nor will you admit that Planck’s “compensation” exists.
CO2 does *NOT* reduce HEAT OUT. If it did then you would have trapped heat that would accumulate over time.
And you *still* haven’t figured out the difference between flux, power, and energy. There is no half flux up and half flux down.
“If heat returned is less than heat sent then how can temperature go up?”
It’s going to be the same answer I’ve given the previous 10 times you’ve asked – becasue the sun is still shining.
Reflected heat is heat that has already been lost. Heat out = heat in is the best you can do. It doesn’t matter what the sun is doing. CO2 reflects the heat from the earth even at night. But it doesn’t cause the temperature of the earth to go up, the earth’s temperature still goes down, it doesn’t even stay the same! It just goes down at a slower decay rate – Planck’s compensation.
You’ve been shown Planck’s statement on a three body system with A (sun), B (earths surface), C (atmosphere). A is a hot source, B is a medium heat, and C is cold. He says A warms B and that C cools B. You have yet to show any math or a reference that refutes it. You simply say that the addition from both A and C MUST warm B. That refutes Planck.
I have shown you references discussing the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics. You refute that by saying fluxes from two bodies add at the third one. That implies that there can never be thermodynamic equilibrium between three bodies which violates the Zeroth Law.
I have shown you references about Newton’s Law of Cooling. That law also has an inverse that covers heating. You can see that discussed here.
History and applications – Newton’s law of cooling
As I said in the previous post, these are time functions. They must be equated properly in order to find the equilibrium temperature. This is made harder because you refuse to recognize that A and B can’t reach equilibrium until B and C reach equilibrium where C is cooling B.
Your geometric sequence of half up and half down from body C is insane. A body radiates based on its temperature with the same flux IN ALL DIRECTIONS. The proof is that one does not need to measure the flux from each surface of a body with an IR thermometer and add them together to get the bodies temperature. YOU ONLY NEED TO MEASURE ONE SURFACE. Half up and half down in a sphere means there would be 1/6th radiating from each side of a cube. Ridiculous.
You can keep blathering like this all you like – you are still avoiding doing the one thing that could demonstrate your argument; actually work out your model, and show what temperature you think the Earth’s surface should be according to your model.
“You’ve been shown Planck’s statement on a three body system with A (sun), B (earths surface), C (atmosphere).”
Your quote made no mention of the sun etc. It’s just describing three objects, and you still don’t seem to understand the point Planck uis making.
“I have shown you references discussing the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics.”
And you still don;t understand what it says. It does not say everything is always in thermal equilibrium. It says if two things are in equilibrium with a third thing they must also be in equilibrium with each other. And As I explained to you multiple times, it does not apply to the sun earth atmosphere system, because they are not in thermal equilibrium. If they were the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere would both have the same relative temperature as the sun, i.e. about 255K.
“That implies that there can never be thermodynamic equilibrium between three bodies which violates the Zeroth Law.”
Of course there can be thermal equilibrium between three bodies, it’s just not the case on a planet where the atmosphere let’s more energy in from the sun then it lets out from the Earth’s surface.
“I have shown you references about Newton’s Law of Cooling.”
And yet again this is not describing the Earth’s surface. Newton’s law is just describing how an object cools to the ambient temperature of it’s surroundings (and is only an approximation when talking about radiation). Consider the Earth’s surface as the object. It’s environment is a combination of the temperature of the sun, and of the atmosphere. It all keeps coming down to the simple fact that the surface is receiving radiation both from the sun and from the atmosphere.
“They must be equated properly in order to find the equilibrium temperature.”
Still waiting for you to actually do that.
“A body radiates based on its temperature with the same flux IN ALL DIRECTIONS.”
As I said, the half up half down is one of the many simplifications. But the fact remains that energy being radiated in all directions can ultimately either go back to the surface or out into space. The only way for it all to go back to the surface is if the atmosphere really was a perfect mirror reflecting heat.
“The proof is that one does not need to measure the flux from each surface of a body with an IR thermometer and add them together to get the bodies temperature.”
Because as Tim keeps pointing out the emissions are energy flux (energy per unit time per unit area). The bigger the body, the more energy in total is emitted, but flux is the same.
“Half up and half down in a sphere”
The simple model is treating the atmosphere as a plane, not a sphere.
“there would be 1/6th radiating from each side of a cube.”
Again, you are mixing up flux with energy. If a cube is emitting x joules per second from one side, the total emissions are 6x joules per second.
“let’s more energy in from the sun then it lets out from the Earth’s surface.”
CO2 does *NOT* trap heat. It merely slows the cooling rate. If GHG’s actually trapped heat the earth would have stayed a molten ball after it’s formation billions of years ago.
Whine, whine, whine.
I do understand what Planck is saying. I am sure you have not spent the time to obtain his thesis or to study it. Here is another quote from his thesis.
It is an approximation for radiation. The question is, do you know why? Think about “k” being a constant or a trig function. Please tell us what that does to the equation. Then you can tell us why Newton invented calculus.
You keep repeating an incorrect assumption, I assume so that you can continue using your own derivation of a geometric process rather than an exponential as I have given you references for.
You claim to be the math whiz that criticizes my ability of doing partial derivatives. Why don’t you show how to equate an exponential cooling and an exponential warming to find the equilibrium value.
The simplification is created by you and climate science. Radiation flux is EQUAL in all directions. The incorrect simplification is where you get your geometric series and it is incorrect because of an incorrect simplification.
You never show a reference from a textbook or accepted scientific source that the flux emitted is divided by half in each reflection. That simply defies the law that flux is related to T⁴,
Do you think a plane does not have two sides? You are using the same incorrect assumption as Eli Rabbet’s blue plate scenario.
LOL! You just verified what I said afterward.
If each side of a cube radiates 1/6th of the flux, then you do need to measure all sides and add them together.
“Whine, whine, whine. ”
I’ll take that as a “no”.
“Here is another quote from his thesis.”
And still irrelevant as the sun and Earth and atmosphere are not in thermodynamic equilibrium.
“…criticizes my ability of doing partial derivatives.”
When you say the derivative of x/n is 1, yes I do.
“Why don’t you show how to equate an exponential cooling and an exponential warming to find the equilibrium value.”
You’re the one claiming the greenhouse effect is impossible – despite everyone telling you you are wrong. It’s up to you to provide the evidence, rather than all this hand waving.
“Radiation flux is EQUAL in all directions.”
Hence why the flat surface gives of equal flux in both directions.
“The incorrect simplification is where you get your geometric series and it is incorrect because of an incorrect simplification.”
Tell us what you think the correct ratio should be. It won’t stop this being a convergent geometric series. The only way it isn’t is if you were right about the atmosphere reflecting 100% of all earths energy back on itself. This is impossible – even if you did surround the Earth with a mirror, it would still not be 100% reflective. Though it would make the Earth a lot hotter.
“You never show a reference from a textbook or accepted scientific source that the flux emitted is divided by half in each reflection.”
The flux isn’t divided by two. The total energy is.
“LOL! You just verified what I said afterward.”
Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say. You said
That’s not what I’m doing. The equation simply balances total energy emitted by each body (taken over a constant period of time).. In this case the energy from the atmosphere has to equal the energy received from the Earth. And the energy the Earth radiates to the atmosphere has to equal the energy it receives both from the sun and the atmosphere.
Calculating the temperature is done afterwards, and that just requires the flux. Hence the Earth’s flux is twice that of the sun’s, and the atmosphere’s is equal to the sun’s. From this we can say that the Earth’s surface is about 20% warmer than the sun or the atmosphere.
In the equation A is the flux from the atmosphere. 2A is the total energy emitted.
It’s possible I may have made a mistake somewhere and claimed the atmosphere would have the same temperature as the Earth’s surface, mixing up the 2A with the A, in which case I apologize. But it doesn’t affect the result, for the temperature of the Earth’s surface.
As you always ask for references which you can ignore, here are few which do the same thing in slightly more detail
https://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/brose/classes/ATM623_Spring2015/Notes/Lectures/Lecture06%20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealized_greenhouse_model
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/acmg/files/intro_atmo_chem_bookchap7.pdf
“It’s possible I may have made a mistake somewhere and claimed the atmosphere would have the same temperature as the Earth’s surface, mixing up the 2A with the A, in which case I apologize.”
Following on from that, I realized I’ve made a mistake in my time series models. This doesn’t change the Earth’s surface temperature, but does change the atmosphere’s temperature.
Here’s the corrected graph for the 100% opacity atmosphere.
Surface temperature is still 303K, but the atmosphere is only as hot as the sun, not the Earth.
And here’s the graph with 80% absorption.
Earth converges to 290K, but the atmosphere is now colder than the sun at 230K.
“Your lack of understanding of basic physics is atrocious. Temperature is not heat.”
I’m talking about temperature – not heat.
Rather than keep using these pathetic insults, just try to understand what I’m saying, or do what I keep asking and actually provide your own model and say what you think the equilibrium temperature of the Earth’s surface should be. So far all you do is keep spouting an equation for how something will cool over time, with no regard to the incoming energy.
You can’t tell the difference between flux, power, and joules. You have no idea what you are talking about. Flux is joules/sec-m^2. Power is joules/sec. Heat is joules. Power is flux integrated over area. Heat is power integrated over time. Temperature isn’t in any of these relationships, at least not directly. Yet you keep saying TEMPERATURE goes up while equating flux with power, flux with heat, power with temperature, power with heat. A radiating body almost always radiates the same flux in all directions. There is no half-up/half-down. Power changes as area changes, no change in area then no change in power. Heat transport is a stateful relationship, you have to know what happened before in order to determine where you are. That means time is involved.
There are of course limits of the SB equation in regards to planet Earth. It is a bit em…fuzzy. Or grey if we are talking blackbody radiation.
“People need to stop talking about thermodynamics and radiation in and out, they are not the whole story.”
Okay, but the only way the plant can lose heat is by radiation to space. I can see how oscillations can change the amount of heat that radiates, by changing cloud cover for example, but end of the day heat content comes down to radiation.
Which every part of the surface does at night, for example. In some cases, temperatures drop rapidly to below freezing, causing radiation frost, even though the air above is above 0 C.
“Oscillations” are merely perceived patterns occurring within a chaotic temperature field. The planet also loses about 44 TW continuously by radiation to space, as well as all the heat received by the Sun. Oscillations have no effect on the continued cooling of the Earth.
Measuring temperatures doesn’t affect anything, and does not enable the future to be predicted any better than a smart 12 year old (or me, if anyone feels offended being compared to a child).
Oh well, some people need a hobby.
“Which every part of the surface does at night”
The surface radiates the entire 24 hour period. Most of that 24 hour period (greater than 50%) it is either equal to or greater than the radiation in.
Temperature is also pretty useless when half the planet is night and other half is day. Nothing in equilibrium at all. There is no meaningful value in a metric that uses an average in a system with a simultaneous range from -40 to +40C. Equally tho, radiative theory is a poor proxie for climate ( long term weather) . IMO.
In Software Engineering, those are called use cases, not experiments.
“SAM has the third strongest 1950-2021 correlation with HadCRUT5, after the AMO and WHWP, of all the oscillations discussed in this series. The R2 that SAM, by itself, has with HadCRUT5 is 0.55. Only the AMO (R2 = 0.58) and WHWP (R2 = 0.56) have higher correlations, all three together achieve an R2 of 0.77 as shown in post 1, figure 3.”
Is that based on annual or monthly data?
Using annual data I get an R2 of 0.90 for the correlation between CO2 and HadCRUT5 over that period.
Even a straight line has an R2 of 0.85.
I can’t help but wonder if you are filling in for Nick Stokes.
You mean someone who actually checks things?
No, nit picking. But then, you knew that.
Final bore strikes again.
Maybe, someone who doesn’t rely on stupid nickname or personal insults.
Show me the nicknames and insults:
“I can’t help but wonder if you are filling in for Nick Stokes.
TFN
You mean someone who actually checks things?
Me
No, nit picking. But then, you knew that.
My use of the term final bore is hardly unusual here. You have to be honest and I was. Some call it fungal etc. I experienced the boredom alarmists exude.
A very lame objection. Would you like a tissue?
“Show me the nicknames and insults:X
Followed by
“My use of the term final bore is hardly unusual here. You have to be honest and I was. Some call it fungal etc. I experienced the boredom alarmists exude.
A very lame objection. Would you like a tissue?”
Lacking any comment I take it you accept Fungal as an appropriate name. That still doesn’t incline me to use it.
The tissue offer stands.
Thanks, but no – I’m very much my own person.
Good for you.
How well does CO2 duplicate the slope changes in 1925, 1945, and 1970? R2 is all well and good, but it isn’t the whole story. The CO2-based CMIP6 models always fail between 1900 and 1960. Anyone can fit almost anything between 1970 and today. Even your plot shows the mismatch between 1950 and 1970 clearly. These are key points in this series.
“Anyone can fit almost anything between 1970 and today”
Yes, as I said a straight line gives s pretty good fit. It’s more interesting to look at the whole series from the 19th century, as that dies fit the overall curve quite well, whilst not accounting for the minor fluctuations during the early 20th century. I’ll post some more graphs when I get a chance.
Here is one of my favorite plots, it is from AR6 WGI, page 507. The brown curve is the model ensemble and the black observations. Pay particular attention to 1935-1960, they try hard to hide the mismatch, but it is huge and telling.
That mismatch is not there when one plots AMO, WHWP, SAM, and AMM observations. Yet the models do not match AMO, WHWP, or AMM at all, and they do not do a very good job with SAM either.
CO2 probably has some impact, but it clearly is not everything, nor is it the dominant influence on climate.
“That mismatch is not there when one plots AMO, WHWP, SAM, and AMM observations.”
That’s comparing two very different types of model.
Of course, that is the point.
OK, a bit late but here’s the fit for CO2 for the entire HadCRUT5 data set.
It doesn’t explain the warm 40s or colder early 20th century too well, but overall it’s a reasonable fit. The R² is 0.89, and the rate is equivalent to 2.4°C / doubling of CO2.
I don’t feel it’s a problem that CO2 doesn’t explain everything, no one would expect it to. It’s the old adage about all models being wrong but some are useful.
Here’s the multiple variable regression, using CO2, ENSO, AMO and the optical depth. This only goes back to 1880.
It still doesn’t completely match the peak in the 40s, but it’s somewhat closer. R² is 0.96, and all the variables are significant, with CO2 being the most significant. In this model the rate per doubling of CO2 is slightly higher at 2.5°C / doubling.
Not bad. So, you accept that CO2 is not the only significant variable, but it is part of the solution. Pretty much what I think. In these types of studies, it is impossible to compute the contribution of each variable, there are interactions between the independent variables of course, and CO2 is not independent of the others. But using your variables you found something significant.
The visual comparison in the CO2 only fit is pure crap, too many details are wrong, so the R2 is misleading. The second regression which incorporates ENSO and AMO is much better, it captures some of the important details.
Ho did you compute optical depth?
“So, you accept that CO2 is not the only significant variable, but it is part of the solution.”
Other variables are statistically significant, but in terms of explaining the warming trend you need CO2, or something that has a similar upward climb.
“The visual comparison in the CO2 only fit is pure crap, too many details are wrong, so the R2 is misleading.”
To me it looks reasonable. I don’t expect CO2 to explain every up or down, but I would expect that as CO2 rises so do temperatures, and that’s what appears to happen.
“Ho did you compute optical depth?”
I copied the data from here
https://github.com/ClimateIndicator/forcing-timeseries
Specifically the annual Volcanic_ERF value found in the output directory.
Following on from Andy’s comment, that certainly improves the temporal fit, but it misses the WWI trough, and attenuates some of the later peaks and troughs.
As a matter of interest, if it isn’t too much effort, what effect will adding the SAM to the regression have?
“Following on from Andy’s comment, that certainly improves the temporal fit, but it misses the WWI trough, and attenuates some of the later peaks and troughs.”
I’m not sure why anyone expects a simple model like this to match every peak and trough. There are many other variables that could be affecting the global temperature, and it’s going to be a simplification to assume that all responses are linear. Then there are going to be questions about the quality of the data, both temperature and all of the other variables going back to WWI and II.
A rather standard analytical approach is to add / substitute factors to see if the fit to the observations improves.
ln(CO2) is a reasonable fit from about 1965 on, but rather poor prior to that.
Adding ENSO (PDO), AMO and optical depth improves the fit in the earlier period. I suspect optical depth was only a minor factor in the earlier period. It would be interesting to see each factor in isolation.
The question is “does adding SAM improve the fit?”. If it does, we have an improved fit to observations, thus a possible contributing factor. If not, we know that it can be safely disregarded.
Similarly, does the percentage cloud cover per the graph macha posted improve the fit for the period during which it is available?
Thanks, Andy for your always interesting posts. One comment brings up a point: “The GMST is not a very good measure of global climate, the real climate state on Earth is too complicated to describe with any one number but none-the-less, it has become the climate indicator that nearly everyone uses..”
The climate, at least on the time scale of the Milinkovic cycles, has inputs that indicate transfer of heat from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere without necessarily any loss of energy input, and vice versa. It would seem that three different temperature mean values would be appropriate: 1 the thermally regulated (per WE) Temperate Zone, 2 the Southern Zone below that, and 3 the Northern Zone above that. Are there any common indices that track these individually?
They are components of the TPI and the AMM, both will be discussed in future posts. The AMM is statistically significant, the TPI is not. I’m very disappointed that the Pacific indexes are not showing up as important and I don’t understand why.
Story tip:
Ofgem: Net Zero Will Add £104 to Household Energy Bills by 2031
This massive spend will be funded through levies on household energy bills, with Ofgem confirming an added £104 to network charges by 2031. Of that increase, £30 relates to depreciation off the gas network, and £74 to upgrading the electricity grid to shift toward clean power. Ofgem warned this figure could balloon even further thanks to payments to wind farms for switching off when there’s too much wind. Remember when Ed Miliband promised bills would go down by £300?
https://order-order.com/2025/07/01/ofgem-net-zero-will-add-104-to-household-energy-bills-by-2031/
Since Labour came to power bills have gone up ~600 quid. So in real terms they now have to come down 900 quid.
They just keep coming
Miliband to Cover Britain’s Lakes in Floating Solar Panelshttps://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/01/miliband-to-cover-britains-lakes-in-floating-solar-panels/
Make it stop, Mommy! Make it stop!
Sue them….there is a snail darter – an endangered species in the lakes………the latitude is too far north for efficient solar.
For the record, I was not maligning strativarius’ post.
I was maligning the concept of covering lakes with solar voltaic panels.
Story tip: A lovely day calamity
The Met Office has blamed man-made climate change for the heatwave.
Amy Doherty, a climate scientist at the forecaster, said it was “virtually certain” that the searing temperatures were caused by global warming.
However, she made the claim while admitting “we’ve not conducted formal climate attribution studies into June 2025’s two heatwaves”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/nhs-warning-britain-hottest-day-2025/
Step forward Freddie fake model Otto…