There are three main points/opinions/issues I’d like to explore, which are all interrelated:
- The traditional way in which feedbacks have been diagnosed from observational data has very likely misled us about the existence of positive feedbacks in the climate system.
- Our new analyses of satellite observations of intraseasonal oscillations suggest negative cloud feedbacks, supporting Lindzen’s Infrared Iris hypothesis.
- I am increasingly convinced that understanding precipitation systems is the key to understanding climate sensitivity.
Unfortunately, the three of these represents too much material to present today. Since the second (Infrared Iris) results were just published by us in GRL (August 9, 2007), it would seem to be the logical one for me to discuss before the others. But the first issue is, in some sense, much more important and fundamental, and will help us put the newly published results in a more meaningful context.
So, for now, I’m going to discuss just the first issue (potential biases in feedback diagnosis) and then maybe Roger will have me back to continue with the second and third issues.
What you are about to read is, I believe, more than a little alarming. And maybe someone here will even point out the obvious error in my analysis that will render my conclusions silly and meaningless. After all, that would save me the effort of writing and submitting our next journal article, wouldn’t it? So, let’s forge ahead with the first, feedback diagnosis issue.
The Feedback Concern
Feedbacks are at the heart of most disagreements over how serious man-induced global warming and climate change will be. To the climate community, a feedback is by definition a RESULT of surface temperature change. For instance, low cloud cover decreasing with surface warming would be a positive feedback on the temperature change by letting more shortwave solar radiation in.
But what never seems to be addressed is the question: What caused the temperature change in the first place? How do we know that the low cloud cover decreased as a response to the surface warming, rather than the other way around?
For awhile, a few people had me convinced that this question doesn’t really matter. After all, cause and effect are all jumbled up in the climate system, so what’s the point of trying to separate them? Just build the climate models, and see if they behave the way we observe in nature, right?
Well, that’s true – but I think I can demonstrate that the way we have been doing that comparison is seriously misleading.
Feedbacks from observational data have traditionally been diagnosed by plotting the co-variability between top-of-atmosphere radiation budget changes and surface temperature changes, after the data have been averaged to monthly, seasonal, or annual time scales. The justification for this averaging has always remained a little muddy, but from what I can gather, researchers think that it helps to approach a quasi-equilibrium state in the climate system.
The trouble with this approach, though, is that when we average observational data to seasonal or annual time scales in our attempts to diagnose feedbacks, it turns out that there are a variety of very different physical ways to get the very same statistical relationships. (Be patient with me here, I’ll demonstrate this below).
In particular, ANY non-feedback cloud variations that cause surface temperature to change will, necessarily, look like a positive feedback — even if no feedback exists. And the time averaging that everyone employs actually destroys all evidence that could have indicated to us that we were misinterpreting the data.
I am not the first one to discuss this issue, although the way I am expressing it might be different. Graham Stephen’s 2005 J. Climate review paper on cloud feedbacks (if you read carefully) was implying the same thing. Similarly, Aires and Rossow (2003 QJRMS) presented a new method of diagnosing feedbacks, arguing that one needs to go to very short time scales in our diagnostics to have any hope of providing meaningful validation for climate models.
But the issue has not been well articulated, and I fear that many climate scientists simply haven’t understood what these few investigators were trying to get across to us. For instance, Stephens spent a lot of time discussing how clouds are very dependent upon aspects of the atmospheric circulation, not just upon surface temperature, but it took me a while before I realized the practical importance of what he was saying.
Stephens was pointing out that our diagnosis of what has caused a certain relationship in observational data depends entirely upon on how we view the climate “system�. In other words, it matters a lot what we think is causing what. Again, once you have averaged the data to seasonal or annual time scales, you have destroyed most of the information that would have allowed you to diagnose what kind of system you are looking at.
More recently, a 2006 J. Climate paper by Forster and Gregory presented equations to allow us to discuss individual terms in feedback analysis; theirs is the most thorough treatment I’m aware of in this regard. But they made a critical assumption – a claim – that sounded good at first, but upon a little reflection, I find it can not be supported. In fact, it was a single sentence that ends up totally changing the analysis of feedbacks.
Forster and Gregory included a term to represent internal variability – appropriately called an “X� term – but they claimed that, to the extent that any internal variability was uncorrelated to surface temperature change, it would not corrupt the regression slope when plotting radiation changes versus temperature changes. In other words, we’d still diagnose a good feedback number, even in the presence of internal variability.
Well, while that statement is literally true, the assumption that any internally-caused fluctuations in the radiation budget would be uncorrelated with surface temperature is not true. It is the radiation changes that CAUSE temperature change – the two cannot be uncorrelated!
So far, what I have presented is admittedly hand waving, and all of the above-mentioned investigators also addressed the problem in a hand-waving fashion. So, what to do? How do we quantitatively demonstrate something in simple terms that is also physically realistic?
I know! Let’s build a model!
A Simple Model Demonstration
So, Danny Braswell and I built a simple energy balance model based upon the global-average vertical energy flux diagram that is famously attributed to Trenberth. But our model has some enhancements. It has three time-dependent temperature equations, for (1) the ocean surface, (2) a lower atmospheric temperature that radiates downward, and (3) an upper atmospheric temperature that radiates out to space. We gave it a swamp ocean with ten times the heat capacity of the atmosphere (about 190 m deep). We found that the model equilibrates to a new energy balance state in about 5 years after an imbalance in any of the terms is imposed.
In order to demonstrate elements of the problem, we need up to three sources of temperature variability. We chose the following: (1) daily random non-cloud SST forcing (e.g. from evaporation), (2) daily random cloud forcing, and (3) cloud feedbacks on any surface temperature changes.
With these three sources of variability, we discovered we could get a wide variety of model behaviors, so I decided that we had to constrain our simulations to physically realistic ranges.
To do this, I computed from 6 years of Terra CERES tropical radiation budget data that the standard deviation of 30 day anomalies in tropical oceanic reflected shortwave (SW) was about 1.3 W m-2. So, we made model runs where the SW variability (from all cloud variations, no matter the source) produced similar 30-day statistics.
The following is a 30 year plot from one run, forced only with daily random cloud variations, and no cloud feedback. Note that yearly, and even decadal, variability in the surface temperature occurs in a random walk fashion, but one that is constrained to meander around the equilibrium SST value of 288 K (the value which is consistent with Trenberth’s energy balance numbers).
Now, when we plot this model run’s output of SW variability versus surface temperature variability (365 day averages), we get a diagnosed “feedbackâ€? parameter of -1.4 W m-2 K-1. This is very close to the average of what the IPCC AR4 models produce for their SW cloud feedback — even though we haven’t yet imposed a feedback in the model!
Furthermore, note that the explained variance is relatively low. This is just like what has been reported for “feedbacks� diagnosed from observational data (Forster and Gregory, 2006 J. Climate). In contrast, when the source of the SW variability in the model is specified to be through cloud feedback, the explained variance is always very high.
In other words, it appears that low explained variance is evidence of non-feedback cloud forcing, as opposed to cloud feedback.
Finally, we also find that there is NO WAY to get anywhere near a 30 day s.d. of 1.3 W m-2 in SW variability out of the model with only cloud feedback. You must invoke non-feedback sources of cloud variability.
In other words, the large amount of variability in the CERES SW data argues for a non-feedback cloud source of SST variability.
After running many different combinations of model forcings and feedbacks, we concluded the following: To the extent that non-feedback cloud sources of SST variations occur, they ALWAYS lead to positive bias in diagnosed “feedback�. The bias is especially strong if the real cloud feedback is negative, and can easily obscure a negative cloud feedback with a diagnosed “false positive�. Note that the reason the bias is always in the direction of positive feedback is because the alternative is energetically impossible (you can’t force an SST increase by reducing SW input into the ocean).
This is indeed the general behavior I expected to find, but I needed a simple model demonstration to convince myself.
Pinatubo: A Negative Feedback “Unmasked�?
Now, what we really need in the climate system is some big, non-cloud source of radiative forcing, where the cloud feedback signal is not so contaminated by the obscuring effect of cloud forcing. The only good example we have of this during the satellite era is the cooling after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
And guess what? The SW cloud feedback calculation from the Pinatubo-caused variability in Forster and Gregory was – surprise, surprise! – anomalously negative, rather than positive like all of their other examples of feedback diagnosed from interannual variability!
Conclusion
I think it is time to provoke some serious discussion and reconsideration regarding what we think we know about feedbacks in the real climate system, and therefore about climate sensitivity. While I’ve used the example of low cloud SW feedback, the potential problem exists with any kind of feedback.
For instance, everyone believes that water vapor feedback is positive, and conceptually justifies this by saying that a warmer surface causes more water to evaporate. But evaporation is only half the story in explaining the equilibrium concentration of atmospheric water vapor; precipitation is the other half. What if a decrease in precipitation efficiency is, instead, the cause of the surface warming, by not removing as much water vapor from the atmosphere? Then, it would be the water vapor increase driving the surface temperature change, and this would push the (unknown) diagnosed water vapor feedback in the positive direction.
Of course, researchers still have no clue about what control precipitation efficiency, although our new GRL paper suggests that, at least in the case of tropical intraseasonal oscillations, it increases with tropospheric warming.
What I fear is that we have been fooling ourselves with what we thought was positive cloud feedback in observational data, when in fact what we have been seeing was mostly non-feedback cloud “forcing� of surface temperature. In order to have any hope of ferreting out feedback signals, we must stop averaging observational data to long time scales, and instead examine short time-scale behavior. This is why our GRL paper addressed daily variability.
Will this guarantee that we will be able to observationally estimate feedbacks? No. It all depends upon how strong they are relative to other non-feedback forcings.
It seems like this whole issue should have been explored by someone else that I’m not aware of, and maybe someone here can point me in that direction. But I think that a simple model demonstration, like the one I’ve briefly presented, is the only way to convincingly demonstrate, in a quantitative fashion, how much of a problem this issue might be to the observational determination of climate sensitivity.
I’ve always been dubious about the fact that the climate system seems to only have positive feedbacks (wrt warming) and no negative ones. I don’t know much at all about the climate system, but there is one reason to suspect that negative feedbacks are stronger than the positive ones. Generally, systems with strong positive feedbacks are very unstable. OTOH, the climate system seems to be very stable.
If there really were all of these positive feedbacks, then one anomalously warm year might have caused runaway heating. And even if not, you would expect several years for the warming to subside. Instead, we see fairly moderate, almost random walk, changes in temperature.
Maybe my lack of /real/ knowledge of the climate system allows me to believe something so simple, but it’s what makes sense to me.
–t
Comment by Tim G — August 14, 2007 @ 7:58 am
I am trying to read this very carefully because I think in large measure the argument is distilling much of the commonsense skepticism about global warming: namely intraday variability, interday variability, interseason variability are all driven by the sun, i.e., radiation - at least to us laymen. Moreover the scope of this variability is extraordinarily large compared to interyear variability. Hence all models surely need to start with variations in radiation and if this occurs, as it does, by the hour then the models need to reflect this. Moreover, given the role that humidity and cloud cover play and the fact that these have significant intraday variability, Roy seems to have put his finger on a key issue: the unit of analysis makes a difference and interyear analysis may be leading us to a complete misread of the dynamics.
Do I have this right?
Now I need to go back and read the article more carefully.
Comment by Bernie — August 14, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Hi Dr. Spencer, this is indeed fascinating. A few observations I’ve made over the years which seem to be in synch. Firstly, in seeming complimentarity with the noted demise of tropical cirrus, an increase in low and mid level cloudiness in the wet dry tropical places I am personally most familiar with. This is anecdotal, personal observation, not peer reviewed. Seemingly an area to properly explore further via scientific study. Secondly, the revelation that the oceans in general feature vast semi persistent coverage by stratocumulus, which may be increasing as a result of aerosols and dust. All of these, if true, would seem to be negative feedbacks or wide band filters.
Comment by SteveSadlov — August 14, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Roy,
I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of years now from a latent heat perspective, and although it seems obvious to me, maybe I’m off track. Average global rainfall is about a meter per year. According to Trenberth, latent heat removes 77 w/m^2 from the surface. That’s evaporation of 1 meter per year. So far so good. Assuming cloudiness is directly proportional (I know it’s not linearly) to precipitation, a one percent increase in low clouds gives about a one (0.77, but who are we kidding with the extra precision?) percent increase in latent heat removal from the surface, which equals, all other things being equal which of course they’re not, one percent change in sensible heat at the surface.
This is all without albedo effects.
Then, we need to consider that the more water vapor (molar weight 18) the more convection, correct?
Does this make sense?
Comment by Steve Hemphill — August 14, 2007 @ 10:52 am
Use 911 to test feedback
Recommend using the step function change of grounding all US planes on 911 to test climate models for upper atmospheric vapor and dust feedback loops.
Comment by DLH — August 14, 2007 @ 11:00 am
My goodness yes, this really is more than a little alarming. Congratulations, you’ve managed a combination of logic, insight and empirical understanding which is very rare. You might be refuted, but this must set the agenda in modelling for quite some time until its either proved or disproved. We may one day remember what we were doing the day we first read this.
Comment by anon — August 14, 2007 @ 11:08 am
A very thought provoking post. I noted in Science mag a couple of weeks ago - Wentz, F.J., Ricciardulli, L., Hilburn, K. and Mears, C. 2007. How much more rain will global warming bring? Science 317: 233-235, the claim was again made, that over the past 20 years, evaporation has equalled preciptation. How does that fit in with a large positive feedback from water vapour?
I’ve often wondered about a balancing negative feedback that has prevented run-away warming throughout the earth’s geological history. As Nir Shaviv has pointed out:
“It turns out that the CO2 temperature correlation (from ice cores) can be used to say one thing about the temperature effects of CO2 variations. It can be used to place an upper limit on the temperature sensitivity to CO2. The reason is that if CO2 has a large effect, the positive feedback from any temperature change would drive an additional temperature change which could render the climate system unstable, something which luckily isn’t the case. We can calculate this critical feedback relatively easily, and thus place an upper limit on the temperature sensitivity….Since we know that the climate system is stable (we don’t get runaway conditions like on Venus, nor did we ever have them)….”
http://www.sciencebits.com/IceCoreTruth
Comment by Paul Biggs — August 14, 2007 @ 11:13 am
I don’t know whether you’re “right” or not, but the modeling exercise is a very useful way to explore what things would look like if you were. Good job.
Comment by TCO — August 14, 2007 @ 11:27 am
P.s. I’m very concerned that the politicized and defensive nature of the Gavin Schmidt types will not allow them to consider your exercise freely, as the sort of thing worth thinking about. They will just view it as a threat. Something to counter-attack or dismiss or say it’s already been considered. Rather than as a useful thought starter for deeper consideration of the system’s possible characteristics.
Comment by TCO — August 14, 2007 @ 11:30 am
Bernie: I think that part of the confusion has to do with the use of the term feedback. Perhaps using the terms direct and indirect would be better. When I travel faster in my car, there is a direct impact on fuel efficiency from the increased air friction. But there are also indirect effects from the tuning of the engine to work best at a certain RPM, from the division of other loads (lights, etc.) over more or less time, from increased cooling of the air conditioner condenser, etc. etc. These effects can be positive or negative or even have maxima on their own (or certainly in combination).
Comment by TCO — August 14, 2007 @ 11:35 am
TCO:
Thanks for the comment. I guess my attention was drawn to the unit of analysis Dr. Spencer seemed to focus on and its implications for the specificity of the model - in addition to the feedback/direct/indirect effects.
IMO, the unit of analysis issue that Spencer raises here is more akin to measuring fuel efficiency on an annual basis and ignoring the fact that the air conditioner being on reduces fuel efficiency. The latter as a significant contributor will jump out at you as soon as you measure mileage on a month by month basis. Once you have changed the period of measurement, further analysis will then reveal a discontinuity when gas stations change over from winter to summer fuel mix! The breaking the mileage data to a day by day basis, you will have a chance to spot the difference of city and highway driving (your speed variable). Second by second analysis and you can see the effects of acceleration (your RPM variable). The model based on an annual assessment of mileage has important missing variable(s).
I have still to work through the model to understand the notion of feedback that is being described.
Finally, I think you are right that many like Gavin will react first and consider much later. The discussion should be interesting.
Comment by Bernie — August 14, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
One would have hoped that these important, basic issues were sorted out before everyone started crying wolf.
Comment by jae — August 14, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Have you ever seen the work done by Kacser, H. & Burns, J.A. (1973)(1973). “The control of flux.” Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol. 27, 65-104.
Then all the subsequent work on (metabolic) control theory?
I find it odd that after more than three decades flux control theory has not been applied to climate research. The concept of “elasticities” and using steady state analysis should apply to climate changes very nicely.
Comment by DocMartyn — August 14, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
Testability of external forcing functions?
As a non-climatologist, is this another way of describing phase changes between components of a larger system vs noise and the impacts of averaging systems over various times?
Does this mean that an outside forcing function that is not included in your simple model equations would behave as such a “non-feedback cloud source of SST variability”?
Could you use this to test for the occurrence of an external forcing function by its impact on your variability measures?
If so, would this be a method to check for structural possibility of Svenmark’s Cosmoclimatology vs sun spot cycle and distinguishing between them?
e.g. Initially try an external function of sun spot/solar wind regulation of cosmic rays which in turn control clouds? - Then for the long term variation of clouds with cosmic rays?
See:
title=”Cosmoclimatology”>
title=”Svensmark: Cosmoclimatology a new theory emerges”>
Comment by DLH — August 14, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
Yesterday, with regard to aerosols, I wrote:
Is this not what is being proposed here… that there are offsets [negative feedbacks] as well as the positive feedbacks so often cited by those who predict runaway global warming?
Of course, the question was greeted by this:
Insinuate that any questioning of “proper thinking” is a result of being old, feeble-minded, and anti-scientific.
Comment by Bruce Hall — August 14, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
Steve
More water vapor will decrease the air density but increase its specific heat capacity and change the thermal diffusivity.
Svensmark notes major differences in high vs low level clouds, and consequently on the temperature changes and trends at different altitudes as well as different latitudes and between the northern and southern hemispheres. The differences in these trends should be able to distinguish between different types of forcing, their magnitude and whether they are “positive” or “negative”.
Comment by DLH — August 14, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Re #15: Yes, Bruce, and we can be confident that Roy gets his full quota of “rational discussion” in his capacity as Rush Limbaugh’s (volunteer?)house climatologist. This article by RP Jr. may be of interest. The headline is poignant, no?
On the science, clouds are tricky and I don’t claim to have the expertise to fully understand what Roy is proposing, let alone critique it. There are people who frankly are understood to know a lot more about this stuff than Roy does (e.g. Fu and Wielicki), and I’m confident we’ll be hearing from someone like that soon. Short of that sort of formal response (which will probably require at least a few months to get published), I’m going to ask Andrew Dessler to have a look at this. Hopefully he’ll be willing to blog something.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 14, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Re: #17
Whether or not someone has a particular political bias should be irrelevant. If Roy Spencer’s analysis is faulty, then the proper response is an analysis to refute… or improve… it. This is supposed to be climate science, not political science, so further comments about politics are really nothing more than juvenile attempts at distraction.
It would be enlightening to hear from any others who can move away from model suppositions and demonstrate “real world” observations and analysis that clarify and verify positions.
Comment by Bruce Hall — August 14, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
Re #15: Yes, Bruce, and we can be confident that Roy gets his full quota of “rational discussion� in his capacity as Rush Limbaugh’s (volunteer?)house climatologist. This article by RP Jr. may be of interest. The headline is poignant, no?
I take it that you reject Newton’s work, since it is reported in Wikipedia that:
If Roy starts claiming expertise in Evolutionary Biology or proposing mechanisms for the existence of life on Earth, then I will take note of his creationist views, but they do not seem relevant to Climate Science and they do not preclude him from being able to do good work in that area.
Your mentioning it has the smell of an ad hominem attack to me.
Comment by Richard Sharpe — August 14, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
How large was the impact of the 1991-1992 Kuwaiti Oil Fires in terms of soot and CO2 emissions? Was the magnitude large enough that the forcing could be modelled in a similar fashion?
Comment by Bill F — August 14, 2007 @ 4:51 pm
RE 17: Thank you, Steve B., for making such relevant comments. It demonstrates so clearly your understanding of climate issues and your level of intelligence. Was it by design?
Comment by Darwin — August 14, 2007 @ 4:51 pm
This is a good place to remind people that Karner also deduced the climate system is dominated by negative feedbacks. His abstract:
On nonstationarity and antipersistency in global temperature series
O. Ka¨rner
Tartu Observatory, ToËœravere, Estonia
Received 19 December 2001; revised 1 April 2002; accepted 10 April 2002; published XX Month 2002.
[1] Statistical analysis is carried out for satellite-based global daily tropospheric and stratospheric temperature anomaly and solar irradiance data sets. Behavior of the series appears to be nonstationary with stationary daily increments. Estimating long-range dependence between the increments reveals a remarkable difference between the two temperature series. Global average tropospheric temperature anomaly behaves similarly to the solar irradiance anomaly. Their daily increments show antipersistency for scales longer than 2 months. The property points at a cumulative negative feedback in the Earth climate system governing the tropospheric variability during the last 22 years. The result emphasizes a dominating role of the solar irradiance variability in variations of the tropospheric temperature and gives no support to the theory of anthropogenic climate change. The global average stratospheric temperature anomaly proceeds like a 1-dim random walk at least up to 11 years, allowing good presentation by means of the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models for monthly series.
Full paper at http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/2001JD002024u.pdf
Comment by Douglas Hoyt — August 14, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
Re: 17
Steve Bloom
Your default use of the ad hom and drive-by smear is revolting and getting very tiresome.
Why so very, very afraid that just like Svensmark, Spencer may have come up with an experimental model that actually demonstrates something? Is it because it’s a model that is repeatable, with its inputs and formula there for all to see and verify? Is it because that’s the way we were taught to practice science, before cherry picking proxies and withholding archived data came into vogue?
Comment by tetris — August 14, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
One thought jumped out at me. There’s an old joke:
“If you have one foot on a block of ice and one in a hot frying pan, on the average your comfortable”.
Given the use of average temperatures on even a daily basis how would a model predict thunderstorms, or any circulation driven by surface heating during the day? I would think this would have a large effect on heat transport from the surface to the upper atmosphere.
Comment by BarryW — August 14, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Re #17: Steve Bloom. You struck a low blow to Dr. Spencer. Why don’t you criticize Sir John Theodore Houghton or Al Gore’s religious beliefs? The last time I checked, both held themselves out to be devout religious people.
Your attach smells. RP2’s editorial on Dr. Spencer was written because he realized some of your ilk would use the public expression of Spencer’s religious faith as fodder to discredit his very important scientific contributions. What ashame Pielke Jr. was right.
Comment by Bryan — August 14, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
Today 8/14/07 near Boston.
At 9am 66F and absolutly clear (no clouds).
At 4pm 75F and many low level bright white clouds (more than 50% of the sky).
At 7pm 70F and an almost clear sky (less than 2% clouds).
This seems to me to be negative feedback. Water evaporates - forms clouds - clouds reflect sunlight - earth heats less - then when sun is less intense the clouds disipate
It doesn’t prove that negative feedback predominates but it is a good example of negative feedback in climate.
Comment by jim w — August 14, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
My suggestion is that every person has to make a deliberate decision to ignore Steve Bloom - period.
Don’t reply to anything he writes - ever.
You might have to check first to see who a comment is by, if it’s him bypass it.
He’s toxic, shun him. It’s been honestly earned. And everyone will have better discussions without him.
On the specific topic of this thread, I applaud Mr. Spenser for his work.
Comment by Robert in Calgary — August 14, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
Steve B. – The Prometheus weblog that you list with respect to Roy Spencer’s views on a religious issue was made since it was recognized that detractors of views on climate science that do not conform to their particular views would use his religious perspective to inappropriately dismiss his scientific research rather than discuss its merits. You have confirmed that weblog’s view of the consequences of making such a religious statement.
I hope you, and all others; however, will instead discuss the merits of Dr. Spencer’s weblog, as it is a very valuable contribution to the scientific discussion of climate science. We look forward to two further weblogs on Climate Science from this excellent internationally respected scientist.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 14, 2007 @ 7:05 pm
I find the Creationism worrying. Of course if he’s got a point, then he’s got a point. But if I’m rushed for time and need to do an evaluation, then the reputation of the scientist comes into my decision-making calculus. And, well…a creationist? Doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy.
Comment by TCO — August 14, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
Hi all:
Interesting comments, I must say. Good thing I’ve developed a thick skin in recent years.
I presented some of my recent work at a NASA team meeting here in Missoula today…about 50 in attendance. No one faulted my analysis, so I’m still waiting.
I’ve discussed our Infrared Iris results on several occasions with Bruce Wielicki, who I consider a friend. His main objection on the Iris results is that I should be averaging to long time scales. This is partly why I have pursued this issue about time averaging, as it just did not sit well with me, and it led to the results that I posted here (in greatly abbreviated form).
What’s interesting in this business is that most of the modelers and thosewho defend high climate sensitivity are not meterologists, but physiciasts of various flavors. While physicists are usually better computationally that meteorologists, it seems they think in overly simplistic terms about the climate system. Meterorologists are more open to the idea of restoring forces (negative feedbacks) that dominate the system.
We also had a discussion here today about the fact that climate people have only been “dabbling” in feedbacks. There are whole journals devoted to feedbacks, and yet climate researchers still think in the simplest of terms on the subject.
These are just some musings after a busy day.
-Roy
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 14, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
Re #22: Be serious, Doug. Even you know that Karners’s stuff was a dead end, and why. Did he ever update his stuff to account for the most recent major correction in the UAH MSU material, and did he ever solve the problem of not being able to account for abrupt change (as in, e.g., the present behavior of the Arctic sea ice)? In fact, it’s a little difficult to reconcile something so basic as deglaciations with his ideas, isn’t it?
Re #28: Roger, saying he’s internationally respected doesn’t make it so. His history of scientific errors combined with his political advocacy of AGW denialism lead me to the opposite conclusion. Add to that the CCSP report bait-and-switch (announced at the Marshall Institute of all places), the Limbaugh association and now this attempt to revive the thoroughly discredited “iris” idea (an endeavor in which I suspect he’s technically out of his depth), and I begin to have a hard time imagining what more he could do to lose respect. Regarding your son’s post, I think the part of the message you missed is that the ID column was Roy’s way of saying he no longer cares what the mass of his scientific colleagues think of him. Don’t blame me for pointing it out.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 14, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
//”For instance, everyone believes that water vapor feedback is positive, and conceptually justifies this by saying that a warmer surface causes more water to evaporate. But evaporation is only half the story in explaining the equilibrium concentration of atmospheric water vapor; precipitation is the other half. What if a decrease in precipitation efficiency is, instead, the cause of the surface warming”//
Wouldn’t we have seen a significant decrease in precipitation over the last few decades to account for this, or are you referring to possible future trends? The NOAA here (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#Q5) show precipitation trends increasing since 1900 along with temperatures. What in turn is causing decreased precipitation? What implications does this have for, say, Soden et al (2005), Wentz et al. (2007)
Comment by Chris — August 14, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
Wouldn’t we have seen decreased precipitation over the last few decades if this is true? What implications does this have for, say, Soden et al (2005), and newer studies showing increased precipitation for future trends (ie Wentz et al 2007)? What in turn would be causing the precipitation trend changes?
Comment by Chris — August 14, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
I was coming to a similar conclusion from a different point of view while thinking of how to instrument the climate system to get real data quickly. I have been running it as a thought experiment for the last few days.
I came to the conclusion: lots of correlated sensors reading out at high frequency (once or twice a minute).
Then try to make sense of short term correlations (days). Once we understand those go on to longer time scales.
I came to this conclusion before running in to this piece.
Comment by M. Simon — August 14, 2007 @ 11:44 pm
Re #29 TCO: What I find worrying is the condescention and ad hominem attacks you and Mr. Bloom display here and elswhere seem to have become a staple of pro-AGW science. Frankly, if this is the best defence the AGW side can muster… it doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy.
Comment by Barry B. — August 14, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
Let me add that I have blogged it:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/08/feedbacks-misdiagnosed.html
and
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/08/feedbacks_misdi.html
and
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2007/08/feedbacks-misdiagnosed.html
I greatly simplify the science (suitable to my audience) and have a coda of politics.
Great bit of detective work! Pinatubo! Outstanding.
And just to keep every one honest - I am a believer in Something myself - however I think Creationism is without foundation. That alters not one whit my estimation of this work.
Simon
Comment by M. Simon — August 15, 2007 @ 2:09 am
Chris:
No, a decrease in precipitation efficiency leads to an equilibrium increase in total precipitation, like Wentz recently published (BTW, he’s at our meeting here in Missoula, too…he’s very intriqued by my results and he says he’s had the same reservations about feedbacks).
A decrease in precipitation efficicncy, by definition, leads to a more humid atmosphere, which is a warmer atmosphere, which has more precipitation/evaporation.
-Roy
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 15, 2007 @ 5:56 am
On another site, TCO has a habit of refering to anyone who doesn’t have a couple of climate science degrees as being part of the Hoi Polloi.
Comment by MarkW — August 15, 2007 @ 6:33 am
It is commonly said that, as we only have one climate, it is impossible to do experiments on it. However, one has been done and might well tie in with this feedback model.
20% of the earth’s surface is covered in stratocumulus cloud, albedo around 40. The albedo of the ocean is very low, not far from 0 at a decent angle of incidence. The Earth’s albedo is falling. If one removes Folland and Parker’s bucket correction then NH SSTs show a steady rise of about .14 deg/decade from 1910 except for the WWII blip which, I contend, is caused by the spilling of millions of tons of oil onto the Atlantic and, to a lesser extent, the Pacific.
Lighthouse data should enable us to correct the 20th century NH SST record. Smoydzin and Glasow on sea salt aerosols and organic surface films can be combined with another recent paper (I’ve lost the reference) which studied droplet production from bubbles in seawater (they used natural and artificial seawater and I’d love to ask them what they did to clean up their samples and what happened when they didn’t — however, climate scientists must get very weary with global warming nutters e-mailing them) and Salter, Latham et al’s paper on albedo enhancement. Combining this data will give a ballpark figure for SST warming caused by oil film pollution of the ocean surface and consequent stratocumulus reduction.
An idea of the results of adding CCNs (cloud condensation nuclei) to a deficient area can be found if you search NASA’s images for ship tracks. It is easy to imagine the reverse, starving the atmosphere of CCNs.
Palle/’s study (EOS 2006, sorry, can’t do accents) suggests that solar forcing increase caused by albedo drop in the 20 years from 1983 to 2003 is 7 watts/m^2. 7 watts! What’s CO2 forcing for the last century again? 2? 3?
The numbers should fall out if the Kreigesmarine effect is real. If it is, Alf’s your Nobel*.
Oil spills reduce cloud cover. Even the sump drips from the car parked on your drive end up on the ocean surface. You would do more to save the planet by driving an oil-tight SUV than any amount of switching off televisions or boiling water by the cup. Oil-covered seas produce fewer salt particles and thus less stratocu. The ocean warms.
Prediction: in areas where gyres concentrate organic oil and surfactant films, the ocean will have warmed faster.
Prediction: the Kreigesmarine effect will break down at a certain windspeed, meaning that the warming will not occur in areas with continuous high windspeeds.
JF
*I’d like an invitation to the ceremony, please.
Comment by Julian Flood — August 15, 2007 @ 6:40 am
I am confused I thought almost all forcings could be either positive or negative (like water vapour forming clouds, can be either). I thought that the whole point of AGW was that CO2 (and maybe some other ghg’s) were ONLY positive, and this is what was freaking people out, they were worried because we were increasing the amount of positive feedback components. Am I wrong in this understanding?
Comment by Nathan — August 15, 2007 @ 6:44 am
As an analytical chemist I learned that there is always a danger in “conditioning” data before performing the calculations that provide the results. This essay reiterates the point that such pre-conditioning introduces biases that often (actually, ‘usually’) go unrecognized. I am glad to see this observation applied to climate modelling. The best data regressions apply a theoretically justifiable mathematical relationship (not just a simple multivariate parametric equation) to the actual raw observations (not some post-processed ‘average’ or logarithm or whatever).
Comment by tadchem — August 15, 2007 @ 8:10 am
RE #32/33, also keep in mind that there are other factors which can significantly affect precipitation, such as irrigation and aerosols.
Comment by Michael Jankowski — August 15, 2007 @ 8:35 am
Hi Nathan:
You are confusing the direct effect of CO2 increase (about 1 deg. C of warming at doubling), with the feedback effect (the 1 deg. direct warming causes OTHER changes that either reduce (negative feedback) or amplify (positive feedbacks) that 1 deg. warming.
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 15, 2007 @ 8:46 am
There is absolutely no doubt about it that all cloud cover is a negative feedback. This thread has been brought to my attention and I haven’t been in this part of the ether for a long time so forgive me if I cross-post:
DOVER SEZ:
GMB, I hope you’ve noticed the recent work of Spencer, et al that suggests that clouds may possiblly be negative as opposed to positive feedbacks which contradicts the assumption of most climate modelers….
SO I SEZ:
No I didn’t notice it. But they DEFINITELY are. I worked it out inductively last year.
You see it was thought that the higher ones were coolers and the lower ones were warmers but thats quite wrong.
All clouds are net coolers as soon as you shift your focus to the oceanic heat budget and away from the atmospheric temperature.
See at the moment we are between solar cycles and there’s no sunspots. So we expect that there will be more cloud cover right now.
So the milder winter here down South is a false indication. Since the cloud cover at night and in the mornings will make the average temperature of the lower troposphere warmer.
But all the time its draining the heat budget out of the ocean. Since we assume around about the same cloud cover at night as during the day.
The ocean is giving up its warmth and yet the clouds are letting that warmth tarry in the lower troposphere a little longer.
But the imbedded heat within the ocean is being drained.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THE LITTLE ICE AGE.
At the outbreak of the little ice age there were months and years of heavy rains. But it wasn’t cold though the suns activities had receded some years before that.
Those were the years when the clouds rained like they were in a hurry. Like they just wanted to do what they had to do and go home.
But then came the cold and the drought. Only in transition are these two lesser horsemen not correlated together.
First the clouds came and they washed away all the crops and robbed the heat from the ocean.
Then the cold and drought came and nothing would grow. People dead on the roads. Piled up like Auschwitz. Thieves hung outside the towns walls.
Heads on sticks and flies walking across sightless eyes. And the peasant-farmers… they’ve eaten all the seeds two winters ago.
A warm earth is a good thing despite what these taxeaters are telling you.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But the damage is done when its raining yet warm at nights.
The rain is where water vapour turns to ice and radiates latent energy in all directions but since the air is thin up there most of it will escape the troposphere.
Once the warmth is lost to a new strata its as good as lost in space.
So the climate scientists had it all wrong.
Water vapour is the oceans sweating. And the amount of it coming off the oceans is due to the heat-energy-budget of the upper oceans.
When there is much cloud formation there will be more rain hence more energy radiated into space. And less punched into the ocean because the clouds block out the sun.
We need to forget the greenhouse effect and start thinking about real greenhouses.
Real greenhouses work independent of CO2.
They work on principles of strata and heat budgets:
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/venus-post-part-ii-greenhouse-effect-versus-actual-greenhouses/
Comment by Graeme Bird — August 15, 2007 @ 8:49 am
What Gerlich and Tscheuschner has found is little bit different:
“It is shown that this effect neither has experimental nor theoretical foundations and must be considered as fictitious,” the report states, adding that “The claim that CO2 emissions give rise to anthropogenic [manmade] climate changes has no physical basis.”
Noting that “there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects” the report adds “there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet,” disproving the contention that a fictional average global temperature proves that the planet is warming.
The report is based on hard facts, written by scientists for scientists: “The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with, but radiatively equilibrated to, the atmospheric system.
“According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation”
Comment by Antero — August 15, 2007 @ 8:57 am
Nathan,
If CO2 forcing does not get amplified by the water vapor amplifier it is still real. It is just small. If the feedback is negative it will be reduced.
So you have roughly 3 areas to look at
1. Amplified by positive feedback
2. Not amplified
3. Reduced by negative feedback
For all you engineers out there I am using amplified in its common not engineering sense.
Comment by M. Simon — August 15, 2007 @ 9:00 am
Mr. Bloom,
You appear to feel readers should be aware of Mr. Spencer’s beliefs/background/affiliations etc.
Fair enough. I think Mr. Spencer has nothing to hide and believes his work will stand or fall on it’s own merits.
How about you? Are you willing to provide readers with a full disclose of your beliefs/background/affiliations etc.
My understanding is that you are a paid manager of a large environmental group. Is this true? What is your compensation? Is it fair to say your compensation is related to the environmental groups revenue? Do you think the groups revenues are related to the public perception of a AGW crisis?
Comment by charlesH — August 15, 2007 @ 9:34 am
“Noting that “there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effectsâ€? the report adds “there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet,â€? disproving the contention that a fictional average global temperature proves that the planet is warming.”
Antero.
This is the first time I’ve seen a quote which suggests that these guys are looking at this science fraud from virtually the exact-same angle I am.
Some of those statements look a little bit too sweeping. But these here are crazy times and one need not place all caveats and clarifications on ones rap every time one goes to speak out against this energy-deprivation-crusade.
You got a link to these guys?
Comment by Graeme Bird — August 15, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Forget 49. I found it. And the cool thing is that from the date its clear that I can’t be accused of plagiarism on my blog.
Comment by Graeme Bird — August 15, 2007 @ 11:39 am
Below is an interesting posting on one possible postive feed-back and “rapid climate change”:
The thawing of vast stretches of Canadian permafrost — widely seen as a “ticking time bomb” of climate change because of its expected liberation of billions of tonnes of pent-up methane and carbon dioxide — may be much less of a threat than previously believed, according to a new U.S. study of freshly unfrozen peat lands across Western Canada’s northern frontier.
Although the melting of underlying permafrost will release huge amounts of the greenhouse gases blamed for fueling global warming, researchers who sampled three sites in boreal Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have discovered that the warmer, softer, wetter soil that results also promotes the growth of new mosses that capture and store about as much carbon from the atmosphere as the thawed ground releases.
PAPER ABSTRACT - Blackwell Synergy, Global Change Biology
The disappearance of relict permafrost in boreal north America: Effects on peatland carbon storage and fluxes
* M. R. TURETSKY**Departments of Plant Biology and Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA, ,
* R. K. WIEDER††Department of Biology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA, ,
* D. H. VITT‡‡Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA, ,
* R. J. EVANS§§National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA,
* K. D. SCOTT††Department of Biology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA,
*
*Departments of Plant Biology and Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA, †Department of Biology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA, ‡Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA, §National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA
Correspondence: Merritt Turetsky, tel. +517 353 5554, fax +517 353 1926, e-mail: mrt@msu.edu
Abstract
Boreal peatlands in Canada have harbored relict permafrost since the Little Ice Age due to the strong insulating properties of peat. Ongoing climate change has triggered widespread degradation of localized permafrost in peatlands across continental Canada. Here, we explore the influence of differing permafrost regimes (bogs with no surface permafrost, localized permafrost features with surface permafrost, and internal lawns representing areas of permafrost degradation) on rates of peat accumulation at the southernmost limit of permafrost in continental Canada. Net organic matter accumulation generally was greater in unfrozen bogs and internal lawns than in the permafrost landforms, suggesting that surface permafrost inhibits peat accumulation and that degradation of surface permafrost stimulates net carbon storage in peatlands. To determine whether differences in substrate quality across permafrost regimes control trace gas emissions to the atmosphere, we used a reciprocal transplant study to experimentally evaluate environmental versus substrate controls on carbon emissions from bog, internal lawn, and permafrost peat. Emissions of CO2 were highest from peat incubated in the localized permafrost feature, suggesting that slow organic matter accumulation rates are due, at least in part, to rapid decomposition in surface permafrost peat. Emissions of CH4 were greatest from peat incubated in the internal lawn, regardless of peat type. Localized permafrost features in peatlands represent relict surface permafrost in disequilibrium with the current climate of boreal North America, and therefore are extremely sensitive to ongoing and future climate change. Our results suggest that the loss of surface permafrost in peatlands increases net carbon storage as peat, though in terms of radiative forcing, increased CH4 emissions to the atmosphere will partially or even completely offset this enhanced peatland carbon sink for at least 70 years following permafrost degradation.
Comment by Dr Gareth John Evans — August 15, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
I am not a scientist, but I like to read all I can on the ‘global warming/climate change’ situation. This includes cyphering through articles that make no sense when relating to watts per meter or the albeido effect, among many others.
What I can make sense of, however, is that there are clearly many factors that drive our planetary systems, indeed, many of which you scientists have still to work out or discover–for instance newly dicovered and released information about ocean currents and effects of aerosols on planetary warming or cooling.
That people say the ’science is settled’ reflects on their own ignorance of science, which is to continually recheck and reprove.
That there are Steve Blooms of the world does not suprise me, and further it does not surprise me that people like Steve Bloom will attack not just the issue, but the person.
What I find difficult to understand though is why, in the many millenia in which warming has been taking place, and glaciers have been receeding, and habitats have been changing, and extinctions have been occuring, and new life has been forming, and sea levels have been rising, and deserts have been forming, and so on…, why are we attributing these changes to human activity in the present sense.
The answer comes not from scientific research into the climate(which has been and will continue to change, no matter what we do), but into scientific research into the human ego. All of us, as egocentric humans need to grasp our own insignificance in this scheme and realize that nature has been very effective at killing and creating, without us present and with us present, with us gone it will continue.
Now, it is very apparent that we have much to learn from open debate and not snide sophmoric rants into hidden agendas.
Thank you Roy Spencer, and thank you to the rest of the scientist that keep open the debate.
Shame on you Steve Bloom who wants to limit this discussion, and who will obviously not open himself to the scrutiny that he insists upon others.
Comment by Gaelan Clark — August 15, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
Mr. Bloom,
Is the the political advocacy or the political advocacy in opposition to the AGW viewpoint that makes one’s view suspect. If it is the former, then most AGW advocates, particularly Hansen, are suspect. If it is the latter, then it says more about the critic than it does about the “denier.”
Your posts consistently take the personal attack and broadly trash the science. Others on this website, in particular, often disagree with the scientific views put forth, but they are able to do so with specificity and in a professional scientific manner. As a layperson I find those views far more informative than broad comments such as “it is widely accepted or the science is solid,” that you have made. Claims that one can “only” understand climate models if one spends years with them on a daily basis suspect. Science requires openness and repeatability.
Comment by Frank R — August 15, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
RE: #50 - For that matter, I would be most interested to see any accurate, overall, metric, either globally or regionally, depicting non seasonal permafrost thawing in non disturbed ground. Most of what I have seen is strictly anecdotal “evidence” consisting of photos showing thawing at road cuts, excavations or under pavement and buildings. Naturally, all of these things cause permafrost to locally recede, and when it becomes dramatic, all I can say is “doh!”
Comment by SteveSadlov — August 15, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
The religous convictions of the investigator certainly matter in this case, because his religious convictions (Intelligent Design) have already driven him to deny established science (Darwinian theory). This speaks to his judgement on matters of science in a way that being a
Protestant do not.
Comment by bigcitylib — August 15, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
Big City Lib- What “Big City” would that be? Smeartown? Adhomville? Your choice to evaluate peer-reviewed science by the religious views of one of the authors is about as bad as it gets. You and Steve Bloom give us progressives a giant black eye. Big city? Big something, that is for sure!
Comment by Chet Atkins — August 15, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
I do not deny that my worldview affects how I approach problems, but so does the worldview of those who think the climate system is fragile. We all aprroach problems with our biases and preconceived notions.
But my worldview has never overridden anything that I think has been convincingly demonstrated from science. The problem is, there are some sciences that depend a great deal on imagination, and in which alternate models are possible explanations for what is observed.
Rejection of the possibility a designer is an emotional position, and I think that the practice of science should lead us wherever it will. I know I was convinced based upon the science, but it took about a year of near-daily study on the subject for me to reach that point.
There are even famous evolutionists who also admit that both evolution and ID are belief systems, neither of which can be proved.
To claim otherwise only reveals the ignorance of the one who claims it, for they either (1) have not investigated BOTH sides of the issue, in depth, for themselves, or (2) have their own religious bias that they can not get beyond.
This is the last I will comment on this issue on this blog, because the debate just goes on forever…been there, done that.
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 15, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
Re #54: bigcitylib:
“Christians and other religious people believe that we’ve been put on the earth to look after it. Creation is not just important to us, we believe also it is important to God and that the rest of creation has an importance of its own…”
Sir John Theodore Houghton
Now please inform us bigcitylib, how the religious views of Sir John differ from those of Roy Spencer. Why do Houghton’s religious beliefs not also disqualify his science arguments? By your logic, since he also believes in intellegent design, his ideas on human-caused global warming theory are all suspect. That is just plain post modern intellectual garbage.
Your attempt to bring this up is a very ugly and bigoted smokescreen because you (an others) cannot and will not engage in a rational discussion of the important scientific merrits of Dr. Spencer’s ideas. You seem more interested in perpetuating a certain propaganda than really learning about the science. Your comments amount to slander.
Please be advised however, that science is a methodology which allows us to search for truth (often different truths from those searched for in theology). So regardless of your personal opinions, the best evidence and most well-reasoned ideas usually win the day in science. Dr. Spencer’s scientific ideas form a very sound hypothesis.
Comment by Bryan — August 15, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
The religous convictions of the investigator certainly matter in this case, because his religious convictions (Intelligent Design) have already driven him to deny established science (Darwinian theory). This speaks to his judgement on matters of science in a way that being a
Protestant do not.”
of course the above statement is silly. What is important is whether his analysis presented above is correct or not. If it is correct, then it doesn’t matter whether his judgment in other areas of science is correct or not.
Comment by pPaulD — August 15, 2007 @ 2:57 pm
Roy Spencer,
is it possible there is a false dichotomy here in that both feedbacks are allowed? a decrease in precipitation efficiency leads to warming which can amplfy the traditional amplification of water vapor. I had thought Lindzen’s main contention was that that atmospheric circulation patterns in the tropics could dry, rather than moisten the upper troposphere which was rejected by Brian Soden and colleagues and NOAA.
Based solely on paleoclimatology I think the idea CO2 increasing 3x or 4x can’t lead to drastic changes in absurd (PETM, end cretacious, etc) as well as other feedbacks (ice-albedo) and decline in natural sinks (saturation of the ocean, see Le Quere et al 2007, and deforestation).
Comment by Chris — August 15, 2007 @ 3:26 pm
Intelligent design was proven to be false twenty three years before it was even postulated. Now, you might be convinced that Intelligent design was a modern discovery - although the Discovery Institute that came up with Intelligent Design see it as a way of getting Religion taught in Schools. Anyway, Intelligent Design or “The Argument for the Existence of God From Design” as it has been known for the past few hundred years was put forward by Archbishop Paley to prove god exists. Unfortunately it after Locke had put forward and demolished the same argument. Intelligent Design is a strategy of the radical religious right wing fundamentalists to prevent education. This is a discredited theory that they thought was so old that people had forgotten about it. It points at a thing and says oh look I recognise a pattern therefore the pattern must have been designed. The same theory can be applied as follows: oh look I see no pattern therefore there is no designer. The existence of random numbers disproves the existence of intelligent design.
It is an absurd theory.
Comment by Chris — August 15, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
Don’t confuse well-supported theory with scientific law, bigcitylib; don’t assume the incompatibility of evolutionary evidence and intelligent design; and never confuse scientific refutation with ad hominem attack. Dr. Spencer put forward a hypothesis and begged for someone to poke holes in it because he’s not sure it holds together. Many have made intelligent scientific (or lay) comments, questions and suggestions in response. Two have ignored the merits of the hypothesis and gone straight for the throat of the hypothesizer. Which approach advances the understanding of the obviously *not* settle science?
Comment by Danno Farrington — August 15, 2007 @ 3:46 pm
simply BRILLIANT retort, Chris.
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 15, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
What is truly absurd, is that CO2, which comprises
Comment by Gaelan Clark — August 15, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
This essay draws on the experience of using “models” in semiconductor processing. Although it does not address the specific topic addressed by Dr. Spencer, it does point to the danger of relying solely numerical models without verifying experimental evidence.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/numerical_models_integrated_ci.html
Comment by Frank R — August 15, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Excellent look at the “feedback gap” in climatology! Many unscrupulous scientists will publish whatever brings in the big grants, and we certainly see that in big “rockstar” climatology these days.
Too many people such as Chris look at intelligent design as a backdoor attempt to prove creationism. To the contrary, nothing would disprove conventional monotheistic religion and creationism more thoroughly than true intelligent design!
The problem is that humans are not intelligent enough to detect traces of true intelligence in the universe–which would almost certainly not be caused by anything resembling a biblical god. But if we could detect such, we could disprove all of the world’s god-requiring religions in one fell swoop!
Comment by Steffan de Blum — August 15, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
Re 60: So you don’t believe in God. I’m an agnostic and I really don’t care, at least when it comes to a discussion on this thread. I do resent how Steve B, BCL and now you want the debate to devolve into a discussion of religious belief. And on that score I have only one thing to add, and this is that man was conceived in sin and born in corruption so there is always something. RP Warren novel attacked McCarthyism, which it would be wise for you youngsters to become acquainted with. Anything about ID or my namesakes “Theory,” (not law — we have no laws in science since Einstein blew up some of Newton’s) seems to me to be off topic. The question I am concerned with here is the nature of the negative feedbacks from warmth — natural or CO2 induced. Somebody says precipitation efficiency and I think more rain; they say Iris and I see hurricanes. In layman’s terms, what do positive feedbacks for temperature increase and negative feedbacks counteracting such increase amount to?
Comment by Darwin — August 15, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
#57 As far as I know, Mr. Houghton has not suggested that time be given over in American classrooms to teach American children that Evolutionary theory and the theory that a bearded sky-monster did it all should both be taught as a matter of faith.
#58 You’re right, but there are only 24 hours in the day and if I am going to try and wade through papers filled with graphs and etc. I am going to avoid those written by people who are willing to argue that a bearded sky-monster and etc. because I would judge them a likely waste of time. That’s just common sense. There are all sorts of people advancing all sorts of theses these days.
Comment by bigcitylib — August 15, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
Steffan,
there is a distinct difference between creationism/ID and the existence of God(s). God is crucial for creationism/ID but Creationism/ID is not crucial for God. Evolution is a simple fact of biology: things change. There is not a lot to understand but it comes with a vast array of details. For example, when the niche changes, those living things that are best adapted to the changed niche will survive. Unfortunately, much like Copernicus and Tyco Brahe and Bruno and Gallileo, the concept of change is anathema to many who believe in a certain kind of religion.
I have no problem with the existence of God. I have a big problem with the ID movement such as Behe et al., the discovery institute, on pandas and people- all of which have a much different take on what ID is than you do. Behe would have no problem with astrology and alchemy and such as being called science- he said so at the Dover Trial. ID is the same thing; it is unfalsifiable, it does not give us observations and assessments of reality and cannot be experimented or give us predictions as to future phenomena. It is simply not science. It is as good as scientology. Even if it is true, it isn’t science, but it isn’t true because it falls apart logically. Science can evidence against it and philosophy can disprove it- whichever approach you wish.
and the whole irreducibly complex stuff…no
Comment by Chris — August 15, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
All - please focus on the science issue that Roy has presented in his weblog.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 15, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
Re#40 etc.
Thanks Roy I think I understand. So you are proposing that the feedback system is dominated by negative feedbacks? What does that look like long-term? Does it mean that the Earth trends towards colder climate or that any ‘attempt’ to change the climate is quickly reduced by these feedbacks? If say the Earth were to start to get colder would positive feedbacks kick in to ’stop it’.
How does this account for the speed at which the climate has left ice-ages during the current cycle? It seems there is rapid warming warming leaving an ice-age followed by slow cooling, would we have had that rapid warming if negative feedbacks dominated?
Very interesting discussion though, and am surprised that there aren’t any studies on the magnitude of the various feedback systems.
Comment by Nathan — August 15, 2007 @ 7:02 pm
Roy,
“Note that the reason the bias is always in the direction of positive feedback is because the alternative is energetically impossible (you can’t force an SST increase by reducing SW input into the ocean).”
Have you tried introducing a lag in your model between the SW and cloud formation? That way you can have for a while at least increasing SST while reducing SW input into the ocean, though it would not be the cause. The amount of lag appropriate would need to be experimentally determined and I expect in a weather system it will also be variable.
It has been to long, for me, to present it mathematically but personal (I might add uncomfortable) experience has been that unless this lag due to thermal inertia and feedback delay is properly dealt with in a control system the customer’s product gets burnt rather than cooked or dried.
Comment by Jan Pompe — August 15, 2007 @ 7:07 pm
Yes, the science please. Discussing Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design is beyond the scope of life on Earth. They can coexist, despite pigheaded arguments to the contrary. We can’t even put all physics together.
It could be like my dogs arguing over whether or not I am the greatest hunter that ever lived when I get back from the grocery store…
Comment by Steve Hemphill — August 15, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
While we’re on the subject of feedbacks we should also consider ice-albedo and deforestation and saturation of CO2 in the ocean, etc. I see no reason to doubt water vapor exerts a positive feedback and also that under specific conditions with respect to precipitation and changes in cloud cover, and generally at a regional scale, cooling can occur. Another feedback to consider now-
Apparently there has been little study thus far to the effects of increased tropospheric ozone on plants, which in turn has implications for land-carbon storage. The new study by Sitch et al. (2007) shows the impact of the biosphere from increased O3 could double the effective radiative forcing as CO2 accumulates and the land-carbon sink is suppressed.( Nature 448, 791-794 )
With respect to observation, as I continue to see reports coming in current “projections” which are off seem to be replaced by more alarming rather than more conservative estimates. See here for example-
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5825/709
Antarctic ice melting faster than predicted-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html
Arctic ice retreating more rapidly-
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml
Comment by Chris — August 15, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
In post # 55, Chet Atkins asked:
=”Big City Lib- What “Big Cityâ€? would that be? Smeartown? Adhomville?”=
It’s even worse then that Chet. bigcitylib is from Toronto.
And in post # 67 bigcitylib said:
==”As far as I know, Mr. Houghton has not suggested that time be given over in American classrooms to teach American children that Evolutionary theory and the theory that a bearded sky-monster did it all should both be taught as a matter of faith.”==
As far as you know bigcitylib, neither has Roy Spencer advocated ID classroom instruction.
As for the “bearded sky-monster”, Newton, Galileo and Einstein amongst others believed it existed.
Comment by Paul G. — August 15, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
RE #43
I also thought that CO2 acted as a positive feedback as increasing CO2 lead to more CO2 (from other sinks).
Is this not true?
Comment by Nathan — August 15, 2007 @ 9:32 pm
At the risk of directly disobeying our kind host, I wish to speak in defense of Dr. Spencer, who has been subject to unfair ridicule and insult here and in the years following the correction to the C & S satellite analysis research. Will Hansen and Schmidt suffer a relentless personal smear campaign after the GISS error correction? At worst they will be accused by the skeptics of bias and lack of scientific rigor and will enjoy one ringing defense after another from their fawning legion of Starbucks slurpers.
The cosmological views of Dr. Spencer are entirely irrelevant to the scientific inquiry and thesis he proposes. The insipid and small-minded commentary in lieu of debate here has been pulled directly from the totalitarian’s crude toolbox. When a visceral reaction arises in response, it isn’t a chorus of oil company stooges. Its just that we despise the Goon Squad.
Lastly, I will not go off topic to describe the my sense of wonder in 11th grade bio upon opening a foetal pig and seeing the grand architecture therein revealed, my curiosity about the organizing force behind such structured complexity and the mechanism whereby the random and entropic universe reduced itself to perfection. I see nothing inconsistent in believing in natural selection and the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower”. If you are incapable of sustaining this dichotomy, you might want to ask when exactly the flame of curiosity got snuffed out in your life.
Comment by hswiseman — August 15, 2007 @ 11:44 pm
#70,
You are confusing the sign of the feed back with the direction of the response.
Negative feed back - if the system goes above the set point the feed back will tend to pull it back
if the system goes below the set point the feed back will tend to push it up.
With positive feedback a system going above the set point will be driven farther above the set point. etc.
Negative feedback systems tend to be stable. Positive feedback systems unstable.
It is also possible to have a positive feed back subsystem in an overall stable system. We call those oscillators. However, since this is not control theory in one easy lesson, I’ll stop before I get into more trouble.
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 3:06 am
#73 Nathan,
Did you read the article? Roy thinks it is negative and provides evidence.
You know, like start at the top of the page and work your way down. There are some nice colored pictures at the top of the page. Another way to recognize it is to scroll up until you can’t go any farther.
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 3:10 am
#77 should refer to #75 Nathan,
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 3:12 am
#73 Chris says:
I see no reason to doubt water vapor exerts a positive feedback
Read Roy’s article again.
Explain the stability of the system.
The stability of the system and your positive feedback hypothesis are not commensurate.
For the last few million years we have seen that the system is stable at a warm level and then trips to a cool level. Followed by a tripping to a warm level.
Wouldn’t it be good to find out what causes those shifts?
BTW the water vapor in the atmosphere acts like the vapor in a heat pipe. Vaporization and condensation is a very efficient way to conduct heat.
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 3:29 am
re 75:
The “CO2 boilingeffect” is only 10 ppm per degree C, so it isn’t a runaway effect.
Comment by Hans Erren — August 16, 2007 @ 4:11 am
Re #73,
You have to consider that “under specific conditions” could give a larger feedback than the basic water vapor forcing (or “feedback”, if you want to temporally restrict definitions artificially). Consider the limit - if the entire earth was covered in clouds. Would the surface be cooler or warmer then?
Before you go off about Venus, remember your thermodynamics that the lapse rate on Venus is the same as on Earth - and any other planet for that matter. It’s just a question of how much atmosphere there is. We’re talking about albedo.
On a side note, one of the best illustrations I’ve seen is the question of what would happen to the temperature of the surface of Earth if the mass of the atmosphere suddenly doubled?
Comment by Steve Hemphill — August 16, 2007 @ 5:18 am
Paul G.
Now you know better:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/080805I.html
Comment by bigcitylib — August 16, 2007 @ 6:09 am
Ref #71:
This sounds reasonable to me, and could be likened to inertia in a moving object- if the force is removed (or lessened), it takes time for the object to decelerate or stop. In this case, the ocean’s stored heat energy would be the majority of the inertia for the climate when the SW radiation is lessened.
My question for Dr Pielke / Dr Spencer is whether this contradicts the hypothesis put forth that there is no delay reference earlier “pipeline” comments in this weblog. Perhaps I am remembering this out of context, but thought I would ask…
Comment by Rejean Gagnon — August 16, 2007 @ 7:10 am
The long-term history of the climate suggests the feedbacks are, indeed, stabilizing factors. Despite widely varying forcings and albedo over the past 500 million years, Earth’s climate seems to stay in the +/- 6C range (from today) with the majority of the period being about 2C warmer than today.
All that water on the planet, with it’s ability to store heat, move heat and cold, evaporate, produce clouds, reflect the sun’s energy, form ice, and precipitate is most likely that stabilizing factor.
Comment by John Willit — August 16, 2007 @ 7:31 am
Rejean – When scientists refer to warming that is still in the “pipeline�, they are referring to temperature. Warming is used imprecisely in the vernacular. Temperature increase to a new equilibrium takes time after a radiative or other heat input is changed. The lag (i.e. the pipeline) depends of the mass of the object in which the heat is being added. However, warming is actually defined as an accumulation of Joules. There is no lag (and no pipeline) when using this measure of heat.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 16, 2007 @ 7:49 am
re: 76
I agree with you. I try to follow the science to best of my ability, and Spencer’s looked an interesting viewpoint and I was looking forward to an interesting debate.
Then it seems the thread was hi-jacked for an ad hominem attack that comes down to the mind-boggling claim that if a scientist believes in a God figure, his/her research is not to be taken seriously.
If you believe in a God figure, you are not likely to believe that random chance created life on earth, it would be inconsistent.
Such an attack is cheap, insulting and completely out of place. Should we be surprised that it was Steve Bloom who brought it up?
When you can’t beat the argument, try to beat the man? I fear we could see more and more of that in the future, on a more general level. I think it was in Pielke Jr’s blog (linked above) where it was quoted how realclimate have already used this ad hom “argument” twice against Mr. Spencer.
(apologies for another off-topic post)
Comment by Buddenbrook — August 16, 2007 @ 8:13 am
The feedback and “warming in the pipeline” clarifications of M. Simon and Roger are correct.
It ssems to me that in the climate sensitivity business it is difficult to prove anything. All we have in the real climate system during the period of the instrumental record is short-term variability, and we are trying to figure out long-term sensitivity to increasing CO2.
Keeping this in mind, our negative feedback results in the GRL study (I’ll submit a blog entry on that work to Roger soon) are intriguing, but don’t prove a net negative feedback on global warming.
But I do believe the behavior IS contrary to climate model behavior, and the only way I know of to see how it MIGHT affect global warming is to get the models to behave in the same way for short-term variability, then see how much global warming they produce.
Comment by Roy W. Spencer — August 16, 2007 @ 9:31 am
That the earth has exhibited climate stability over a certain range of oscillations through its history suggests that the feedbacks sum to negative. But that does not prove that they would stay negative if they passed some critical point. It makes a lot of sense to me to try to learn more about the details of each of the feedback mechanisms so that we can better understand if there is a “tipping point” and where it might be. The (IMO irrational) fear of further studies must stem from the idea that any suggestion that we don’t know everything we need to know will undermine the objective of drastic global immediate political action.
If we ever accept the idea that we already know everything we need to know science will be dead.
Comment by allanj — August 16, 2007 @ 9:40 am
73. Lets go through this one at a time.
“While we’re on the subject of feedbacks we should also consider ice-albedo and deforestation and saturation of CO2 in the ocean….”
1. ICE ALBEDO.
My contention is that the oceanic-atmospheric system would be almost perfectly dominated by negative feedbacks but for two factors . And this is the position of Antarctica and the fact that the North Pole is surrounded by land.
You see I see sea-ice as the NEGATIVE feedback par excellence. Its the great insulator. The wind blows hard along the water and can assist evaporation even when the water is cold. That has a refrigerant effect and if the water vapour gets to one day be rain the act of going from vapour to ice will transport much heat out into space.
Only when the Northern Ice gets so far as to inhibit the Gulf Stream would I consider that oceanic ice is about the most magnificent negative feedback there is.
Sea ice stops all that wind-assisted evaporation. Insulates warmth. The thinner ice even lets the suns warmth through and locks it in. Perfect negative feedback.
Its a magnificent planet we are on really. Way too cold in this time period. But truly magnificent.
As to positive feeback via melting ice on the very high mountains I would see that as small potatoes. Because its high up. And so the extra energy that the mountain absorbs… Well thats not going to make much difference in terms of the extra energy retained making it all the way down and lodging itself in the oceans. A bit like lighting a candle on the top of the Empire State Building and worrying that the basement will overheat.
But ice accumulating on land is an whole other matter. This is a heat regulation fault with Gaia I think. Simply that the land is so near the Poles.
2. Deforestation.
Let not your heart be troubled. We are REFORESTING. Such is the power of CO2 that as much forests as we bulldoze and burn in the tropics far more is growing back elsewhere that the total weight of biota is growing at a magnificent clip.
3. Saturation of CO2 in the oceans.
I’ve never seen this mentioned in terms of greenhouse before. But liquid water is such a groovy greenhouse substance that I cannot imagine it making a difference. But what good news if true that CO2 is saturating the oceans. So much more life. The tropics particularly are starved of life since the water is usually too warm to hold that much CO2 and O2. I’d be interested in anyone coming up with information as to whether extra CO2 in the water can have some sort of enhanced warming effect. A wonderful thing if true for our typically frozen planet. But since liquid water is itself a magnificent greehouse substance I just cannot see the extra CO2 absorbed in it making any difference. Am willing to be turned around on this.
” I see no reason to doubt water vapor exerts a positive feedback and also that under specific conditions with respect to precipitation and changes in cloud cover, and generally at a regional scale, cooling can occur. Another feedback to consider now-”
Well in the immediate sense water vapour is the chief warmer of the lower troposphere. But in terms of heat accumulating over decades IT TOO is a negative feedback. Short-term its positive yes. But long-term it has to be negative since when it rains all that latent heat released when water vapour turns to ice…… well much of it will be radiated up and will be lost in space.
Its halfway out of the troposphere already. Its up where the air is thin. So one just has to assume that though the latent heat radiates in all directions most of it will quickly be lost to space.
This is why I see water vapour as the oceans sweating. And the positive feedback being short-term only… so that long-term extra water vapour is not an accumulator of energy but a dissapator.
“Apparently there has been little study thus far to the effects of increased tropospheric ozone on plants, which in turn has implications for land-carbon storage.”
Thats not a big problem. We can reduce ozone release from industry without destroying industrial civilisation. Its restrictions on CO2-release that are crazy and unnaceptable since CO2 is a postivie externality and its production is central to wealth-creation.
“The new study by Sitch et al. (2007) shows the impact of the biosphere from increased O3 could double the effective radiative forcing as CO2 accumulates and the land-carbon sink is suppressed.( Nature 448, 791-794 )”
Just not relevant to what we are talking about. A conflation of issues to confuse people.
“With respect to observation, as I continue to see reports coming in current “projectionsâ€? which are off seem to be replaced by more alarming rather than more conservative estimates. See here for example-
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5825/709”
Yeah. Just leftist energy-deprivation-crusade crazy-talk. Science-mag is notorious for this. Its science is so bad you wonder if its even a magazine.
“Antarctic ice melting faster than predicted-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html”
The Antarctic is ACCUMULATING ICE. Antartica is such a drain on the energy of the planet entire.
That we have been systematically cooling for 55 million years makes me think that the position of Antarctica is actually robbing the earth of heat and probably all the way down to the core.
“Arctic ice retreating more rapidly-
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml”
True enough. Sadly its not going to last. Its related to the systematic increase in the oceanic heat budget throughout the twentieth century thanks to the most active period of solar activity for likely 8000 years.
But its also related to the oceanic rythms. You can trace the Northern ebb and flow of ice on the decadal level by sussing out which PHASE the North Atlantic Oscillation or alternatively the Pacific Decadal oscillation is in.
And its a very sad thing but once this changes phase again the hurricanes will die down in the Gulf and the ice will thicken and expand up North.
It would be good if we were rid of that North Pole ice for quits.
Comment by Graeme Bird — August 16, 2007 @ 10:30 am
Re #50: Bear in mind that this study was limited to boreal (forested) areas. Would those mosses grow that way out in the open tundra? OTOH, the forested areas will tend to expand northward into those open areas as things warm. On the yet other hand, the boreal forest is itself very vulnerable to disease and fire under warming temperatures.
Re #65: Roger and Dallas, is the use of sock puppets (I assume by Sadlov in this case) acceptable on this blog? I have no problem with anonymity, but IMHO contributors should stick with a single name.
Re #76: Starbucks? I don’t think so. Peet’s, of course!
BTW, hs, if you would pay the tiniest bit of attention to the facts, you would know that Gavin has never worked on the temperature data. The particular mistake wasn’t made personally by Hansen, for that matter, although he is certainly in charge. Bear in mind that GISS is a rather large organization (as these things go), with on the order of a hundred scientists.
Re #80: We know what causes the shifts, that being orbital changes (Milankovitch cycles). The question is more one of figuring out what changes occurred to allow the orbital changes (which have been ongoing) to tip us into the Pleistocene glacial cycle some 2 million yerars ago. Likely the change was something rather subtle, the ocean current shift resulting from the closure of the Central American seaway probably being the best candidate. The GHGs we are adding to the atmosphere are rather less subtle by comparison. (And see my response to #84 below.)
In general, I think what Chris and Nathan are trying to point out is that it’s a little odd to make an argument for a mechanism that will maintain climate in something like the present state since that state is very unusual. If it’s too weak to resist Milankovitch cycles, why would it be able to oversome GHG forcing? Speaking of Milankovitch cycles, there are more subtle ones as in the Holocene thermal maximum or the less-extensive Little Ice Age. Roy and his co-authors need to explain why the proposed effect didn’t damp those off.
Re #81: The larger concern regarding ocean CO2 isn’t the outgassing of what’s already been absorbed so much as that the absorption of emissions will cease. IIRC something like half of anthropogenic emissions have been taken up by the oceans.
Re #85: “Despite widely varying forcings and albedo over the past 500 million years, Earth’s climate seems to stay in the +/- 6C range (from today) with the majority of the period being about 2C warmer than today.” I don’t think that’s at all right. While some interglacials have been 2C warmer than the present one, recall that at least 75% of that 500 million years has been ice free. Temps in the range of 10C greater than present have been extensive. The last 2 million years of the Pleistocene glaciations have been a unique or nearly unique period in the Phanerozoic. This raises the question of whether it’s reasonable based on the paleo evidence to think of the present glacial climate regime (either 800,000 or 2 million years, depending on how it’s considered) as stable in any sense.
Re #86: I don’t understand what you’re saying here,, Roger. Since Joules also accumulate until the system reaches equilibrium, why wouldn’t that be considered a lag?
Re #89: Of course during the Phanerozoic there has been stability within some very broad parameters, but that’s involved temperature swings on the order of 30C.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 16, 2007 @ 10:56 am
RE: #77 - RE: Oscillators. ENSO, AMO, AO, PDO, etc.
Comment by SteveSadlov — August 16, 2007 @ 11:16 am
Also see this article regarding near-term climate tipping points.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 16, 2007 @ 11:21 am
RE; #85 - Here is a thesis. The various oscillators / clocks in the system play a key role in keeping the system from dying (e.g. assuming a much lower overall energy state). I seriously doubt that the system has a runaway bias. I strongly suspect it’s the opposite. Instead of debating about the negatives, whatever they are, from having CO2 at 400, 500 or even over 1000PPM, we should be debating how low it can go before we reach a crisis. That is the big, big, long term picture. We must either figure this out, and at somepoint, perhaps intervene, or, get serious about intragalactic migration. These are the debates we need to have, right now, we are wasting our time and energy as a species arguing over the petty and insignificant. Don’t think Venus, think Mars. Mars may be a portent of our future.
Comment by SteveSadlov — August 16, 2007 @ 11:22 am
Steve B. – Re #86, there is no lag with Joules since if the radiative imbalance goes to zero, no further Joules accumulate. We just need to monitor the amount of Joules at any time. With temperature, diagnosing the radiative imbalance is much more difficult since the mass of the system accumulating the heat determines the lag, and water vapor can confound the interpretation.
Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. — August 16, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
allanj — August 16, 2007 @ 9:40 am,
Yes. It is way more important to find out what trips (electrical terminology) us into an ice age rather than worrying about a few deg C from CO2.
The idea of a rainy period that lasts a long time (40 days and 40 nights - LOL) once the energy input declines is a very interesting one. It makes sense if you consider water vapor and not radiation the major outgoing heat transfer mechanism.
Vapor heat transfer is very efficient. Its equivalent conductivity is hundreds of times better than the best metals. In fact if our atmosphere didn’t vary pressure with altitude I’d bet that on a vertical scale (esp above water) it would be nearly isothermal.
It is probably one of the reasons you can count on the lapse rate.
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
#93 Steve B.,
That article was really scary.
Twenty-three feet rise in seal level? Catastrophic. At the current rate of rise that will take over 4,500 years.
BTW I note that the article was based on guesses by
entrail readersclimate scientists.Lots of guesses on what the tripping point might be in the positive direction. No mention of what it might be the other way. Fair and balanced.
As one commenter put it - funding guaranteed for another year.
Comment by M. Simon — August 16, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
Re #97: And we can be confident that rates will not increase as we add energy to the system? Interesting. Similiarly, it takes some real creativity to imagine that under present circumstances we should worry as much about negative tipping points as positive ones. Do you have any basis for thinking either of these is true aside from an appeal to your own incredulity?
As many commenters have put it — unfettered fossil duel sales for another year.
Comment by Steve Bloom — August 16, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
I am in total agreement this is far too complex a subject for anyone to treat it as simply as we do. Just looking at one aspect of the system (clouds, seas, glaciers, atmosphere, sun, etc) and just that one thing is incredibly complex, then you start blending them? Sheesh! I think I came up with 16 factors for amount of glacier mass, just on its own as a topic. I wouldn’t be surprised of anything, and I think Roy is on to something here, for sure.
If you trace everything back, there’s two possible answers for “where everything comes from in the first place” and neither can be proven or explained. So which one you pick and for what reasons is a non-issue.
Comment by Mike Nee — August 16, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
RE 90
//”My contention is that the oceanic-atmospheric system would be almost perfectly dominated by negative feedbacks but for two