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r.pauli at 15:35 PM on 23 April 2011Wakening the Kraken
Great name for the chemical monster about to awaken. Finally we get a suitable name for an ogre greater than any myth or movie could ever deliver. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken_in_popular_culture -
James Wight at 14:08 PM on 23 April 2011Wakening the Kraken
And we can’t expect the negative weathering feedback to save us, because it takes 100,000 years. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:57 PM on 23 April 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
91, Ken Lambert, Sunlight reaching the surface of the earth equates to about an average of 184 W/m2. For 4.4% of the earth's surface, this equates to 184 * .044 = 8.096 W/m2. If the albedo change is from ice (.9 albedo) to open water (.1 albedo), or a change in absorption of 0.8, then 8.096 W/m2 * 0.8 = 6.4768 W/m2. If this change only applies to 3 months out of the year (1/4), that's 6.4768 W/m2 / 4 = 1.6192 W/m2. This does not multiply the number by any factor to account for the fact that the area is under 20-24 hours of high-incidence insolation per day. A forcing of 1.6192 W/m2 is close to one half of the 3.7 W/m2 forcing caused directly by CO2, which would itself cause 1˚C of climate change, and a total of 3˚C with feedbacks. Since those same feedbacks operate regardless of the forcing, we can assume a warming rate of 3˚C / 3.7 W/m2. For our high conservative estimate of 1.6192 W/m2, this translates to an additional warming of 1.3˚C. One could argue that the change in albedo from sea ice (.7 albedo) to open water would be only 0.6, and that the entire Arctic will never (?) melt for an entire 3 month span, so let's make another estimate of only 3% of the earth's surface, and an albedo change of only 0.6, giving 184 W/m2 * 0.03 (%surface) * 0.6 albedo * (1/4 yr) * 3˚C / 3.7 W/m2 = 0.67˚C So with a very conservative estimate, 0.67˚C is still very far from inconsequential when it is being added to other warming that is already at dangerous levels. [Admittedly, this is sort of double counting, since this feedback is already included in the estimated 3˚C of warming from the original 3.7 W/m2 of doubled CO2 forcing. But the point is still the same. This value is not insignificant.] Oh, and please certainly check my math, and my logic. I certainly could have made an error in there. -
adelady at 13:43 PM on 23 April 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
Ken, "Unless heat is transported to the Arctic from elsewhere on the planet ..." Until the last couple of decades, this was the *only* way for heat to affect the Arctic substantially - it's the major source of the heat that has melted the ice so far. -
rhjames at 13:42 PM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
JMurphy - you challenge me to point out incompetence of the IPCC. I doubt you are serious - it's been well documented before, and to go into detail here would be off topic. They have even admitted publicly to many of their errors. -
Marcus at 13:42 PM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Peter said... "All other environmental issues, pollution, over foresting, over fishing, decertification, clean water and ocean destruction have fallen off the table thanks entirely to 'climate science.'" Hmmm, seems that Peter is unfamiliar with the massive amounts of environmental damage which are attributable to the extraction & combustion of fossil fuels-even if you completely ignore global warming. Mining of fossil fuels consumes large amounts of land & water-& frequently leads to contamination of both with toxic by-products. The combustion of coal produces significant amounts of air pollution-such as particulate emissions, as well as cadmium, mercury & radon gas. Combustion of petrol & diesel fuel also produces particulate emissions, along with benzene & nitrogen dioxide. A tendency to rely on raw over recycled materials-which also contributes to increased GHG emissions-is also a source of increased landfill size & resultant pollution. So actually, dealing with the various causes of global warming will have the effect of dealing with *all* of the environmental issues that Peter Wells lists as important. Of course, I could add that, even were this not the case, the last I checked humans were capable of "walking & chewing gum at the same time". To suggest that dealing with climate change somehow makes us incapable of dealing with other social & environmental issues is just another typical straw-man argument. -
adelady at 13:39 PM on 23 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Tom, I'd raise those numbers for Somalia. The UNHCR has the total number of internally displaced people as 1.5 million. Many of these are, of course, fleeing violence, but seeing as a UN official told the BBC about two and a half million people had been affected by drought I'd say a majority would be on the move for basic subsistence reasons. -
Stephen Baines at 13:30 PM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
@ Alec #74 I may have been unclear. I'm not suggesting taking the same path as those who engage in a philosophical scorched earth policy. Quite the opposite. My suggestion is that maybe we need more strict ethical guidelines regarding comunication with the public when scientists are speaking as representatives of scientific institutions. Scientific debate should not be the same as legal or political debate, and that distinction needs to be preserved. There are drawbacks to that approach, however. As is obvious, my opinion is evolving... -
Stephen Leahy at 13:23 PM on 23 April 2011Wakening the Kraken
Great summary of a scary situation. Two experts I interviewed in Feb said +2C globally may lead to large scale thaw of permafrost: Permafrost Melt Soon Irreversible Without Major Fossil Fuel Cuts -
Ken Lambert at 12:31 PM on 23 April 2011The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
Moderators are showing their bias and have snipped two of my reasonable and innocuous comments including the one you have answered Albatross. If that means ridding this site of all contrary opinion - then that is a great pity. Take note John Cook. I will email you privately on this matter again.Moderator Response: Comments snipped were due to inflammatory tone - a violation of the Comments Policy. Deleted comments contained accusations of dishonesty and complaints about moderation - each a violation of the Comments Policy. -
Ken Lambert at 12:11 PM on 23 April 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
You still don't get it Tom. The Arctic cannot absorb any more heat than falls upon it at its Sun angles of incidence and minimum albedo. Let us assume that there is NO summer Arctic ice at all. Unless heat is transported to the Arctic from elsewhere on the planet, the 4.4% of the Earth's surface cannot absorb more heat than any 4.4% patch of open ocean at a lower ice free latitude. I doubled an average cumulative number to 100E20 Joules which is in close agreement with your maximum number viz "That is comparable to the cumulative additional energy flux compared to 1979, or 1.01*10^22 Joules." That is 101E20 Joules. Even at that level to rephrase my prior point: "Even if you **double** the number to about 100E20 Joules for inside the Arctic circle at 66 degrees N, the proportion is still only 2.8% of accumulated heat from 4.4% of the Earths surface area over the last 31 years of official AGW" -
Albatross at 12:04 PM on 23 April 2011The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
Ken, It is not everything that I know, it is information that is freely available out there that I am referring to that those in denial about AGW will not be pleased about. I was, for naught it seems, trying to inject some humour-- I hardly see how that can interpreted/perceived as being inflammatory. -
muoncounter at 11:33 AM on 23 April 2011How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
Dan#247: "we already have all the tech we need to move away from FFs" Yet it's not happening. We're still making things worse. Here is a report of state-by-state CO2 emissions from electric power generation in the US. Carbon dioxide emissions from power plants rose 5.56% in 2010 over the year before, the biggest annual increase since the Environmental Protection Agency began tracking emissions in 1995. Electricity generators released 2.423 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2010, compared to 2.295 billion tons in 2009, ... power plant emissions are still below the high water mark of 2.565 million tons set in 2007. -
RW1 at 11:31 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 143), "We're done. As muoncounter and Alec have pointed out, I've shown way too much patience, and you quite simply don't get it... seemingly because you refuse to. I can't help you with that. Conversation ends." Suit yourself. "Really, the mods should go back and delete every single post, because almost none of them relate in any way to cloud feedback, and where they do, they're tainted by your misinterpretation of Trenberth's simple energy budget diagram." All of the my posts are directly or indirectly related specifically to the cloud feedback issue. If anything, I was the one frequently pushing to keep the discussion on topic, while others digressed. -
Tom Curtis at 11:17 AM on 23 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Albatross @44 Thankyou, and I'm glad you appreciated the comment. I spent much of yesterday trying to narrow down how many environmental "refugees" there are, without a great deal of success. Part of the problem is classification. For example, there are about 50 thousand people currently displaced in Somalia at the moment, but do they count as environmentally displaced people because of the drought, or as traditionaly "internally displaced people" because of the fighting that has broken out between neighbouring villages over water rights? What of the 1.4 million Somali's in refugee camps outside the country who have fled over the last decade? Do they count as traditional refugee's because they have fled the civil wars and break down of law inside Somalia, or as environmental refugees because of the extended droughts which partly caused the breakdown of civil society in Somalia? I would say the former are EDP while the latter are not, but there is no hard and fast distinction. Partly it is a problem of the very loose definition of "Environmental Refugees", which includes both (what I would call) environmentally displaced people, ie, people rendered homeless or forced to live in temporary accommodation by deterioration of their environment including by sudden onset catastrophes, and what I would call Environmental Migrants, ie, people who have migrated either internationally or intra-nationally because of a deterioration of their environment. Myers includes both groups within his definition of "Environmental Refugees", but while a displaced person is only displaced until they find a new home, a migrant is a migrant for the rest of their life. There is nothing wrong per se with this inclusion academically, but for policy debate it does render his figures almost completely irrelevant. Looking at the first group, we can start putting some figure on 2008 (for which I have significant data) though not 2010 (for which I do not). Starting with the iDMC report we have 36 million people displaced or evacuated due to sudden onset natural disasters. To that we should add those displaced by drought, which is likely to be a significant number, but for which I do not have a figure. To that we must add (given Myers' very broad definition) the 10 million plus people displaced annually by dam construction and other infrastructure development. That brings us to more than 46 million environmentally displaced persons alone in 2008. To that we must also add the number of environmental migrants. That is far more difficult to quantify because decisions to emigrate are governed by a large number of factors. One attempt to determine the significance of environmental factors in immigration correlated a variety of factors including environmental factors. The dominant factors by a very large margin were pull factors - ie, factors determining which country is migrated to once a decision to migrate is made. This include contiguity (shared borders), common language, shared colonial history either directly (immigration to a former colonizing power) or indirectly (immigration to a former colony of the nation that colonized the source country). Clearly when people decide to migrate they migrate to nations in which they have some cultural connection. But as regard push factors, factors likely to lead to a decision to migrate in the first place, environmental factors are significant. Some (eg, lack of potable water, soil salinity) are more significant factors than low GDP in the source nation, or high GDP in the target nation. I think this study does not lend itself to a simple interpretation, but it does show that environmental migrants do exist. It is rather less helpful in quantifying how many exist, however. It could be interpreted to support any figure from around a million annually (5% of total immigration) to 3 or 4 times that figure, which in turn would lead to an estimate of around 10 to 40 million environmental migrants world wide, with a significantly larger number of internal environmental migrants. These figures are, however, nothing to go to the press about. Regardless of the insecurity of some of these figures, it is clear if we just consider environmentally displaced people alone (ie, the 46 million plus in 2008) Myers was in the right ball park. If we include environmental migrants alone, he has clearly underestimated the number of "environmental refugees", but whether by 10% or 50%, how knows. What is also clear that those ridiculing his figures have made no serious analysis of what was actually claimed; nor of how many "environmental refugees" actually existed in 2010. However, I am not inclined to give Myers a free pass on this. I think the choice of the term "environmental refugee" invited the misunderstandings that are all to evident in discussions of this issue. It is not that he was academically wrong, as he was clear in his definition. But he should have been aware of the rhetorical impact of the term, and chosen a more neutral one. He also should have, IMO, provided some clear subcategories, and figures for them as well. In this topic, the subcategories are far more interesting (even academically) than the grand total. -
Ken Lambert at 11:16 AM on 23 April 2011The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
Albatross #159 "Those in denial had better be careful what they claim concerning the ARGO data....that is all I'll say for now ;)" No one is claiming Argo is perfect - just there is nothing currently measuring the oceans globally which is any better. We all can only deal with the data which is published and available. ( snip ).Moderator Response: Inflammatory snipped. -
Ron Crouch at 10:56 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
#27 Berényi Péter Would you be happy if I were to have phrased it in the following manner: The way in which Lindzen and others portray the science to the public is of little concern to me (they are after all entitled to their opinions, whether correct or not). -
Bob Lacatena at 10:52 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
RW1, We're done. As muoncounter and Alec have pointed out, I've shown way too much patience, and you quite simply don't get it... seemingly because you refuse to. I can't help you with that. The diagram is very, very simple. It's really not all that hard to understand, and that you ever thought you had the genius to prove all of climate science wrong through your clever re-interpretation of it just astounds me. You should put less time into your clever numbers, and more time into reading up on the physics behind climate science. It would help you tremendously, and the number of misconceptions and misunderstandings you hold now seem enormous -- they're holding you back. Really, the mods should go back and delete every single post, because almost none of them relate in any way to cloud feedback, and where they do, they're tainted by your misinterpretation of Trenberth's simple energy budget diagram. Conversation ends. -
Alec Cowan at 10:41 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
@muoncounter response to #139 Oh! I see (my Goodness). So, why not a Yogi Berra section? For instance, one of the last comments telling something like "a body that emits energy solely due to its temperature cannot be receiving more energy than that" or "if the square doesn't fit the circular hole then take a drop hammer and, smash it!". -
RW1 at 10:25 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 130), "As before, I cannot make heads or tails of those numbers. I can see, though, that you are trying to distinguish clear and cloudy sky in your numbers, and since we have already established that that information is not available in Trenberth's diagram, I can dismiss it as inaccurate." Only the cloudy vs. clear sky percentages don't come directly from Trenberth's diagram. Everything else is taken directly from the diagram, as I've explained (or tried to at least). "That running your calculations in reverse brought you back to these numbers is no big surprise, but doesn't validate the logic behind the calculations. That's true, but the point is all the calculations work out with the all 'logic' I've used, and the criticisms of the 'logic' don't work out, as I've shown. For example, it was claimed the 169 designated as being 'emitted by the atmosphere' was for the clear sky, but that doesn't work because only 131 W/m^2 is actually emitted to the clear sky. Can you find a better way to quantify the relationships in a way that results in the appropriate output power and brightness temperature of 255K? -
Albatross at 10:12 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Rob @76, This is getting OT, and we are debunking quite an old contrarian myth here-- AGW has drawn attention to protecting the rain forests, for example (REDD). So if anything, b/c of AGW, there has been a big push to protect forests. Additionally, ocean acidification is also making people more aware of the many stresses that the ocean ecosystems are facing. The reasons for the seemingly perpetual failure of enforcing reasonable fishing quotas has everything to do with greed and politics, and ignoring the scientists, and has been an ongoing saga for decades now. I could go on about pollution, but I do not want to contribute to derailing this thread. The continued misconduct and failings of Lindzen are what at issue here. -
RW1 at 09:54 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: my 136), "But you are wrong in saying it is returned to the surface. The same goes for the energy absorbed by the atmosphere from the sun. You can't say where it goes versus other energy. The atmosphere is a big pot, and all of the energy is part of the stew. Once it's been added, you can't say "this part of the broth came from here and has to go there." You can derive them with the constraints COE puts on the system. There is only one source of energy - the Sun. You can't count energy twice, which is what Trenberth does in the diagram by designating 78 being absorbed by the atmosphere and also having it part of the 333 of back radiation to the surface. The atmosphere cannot create any energy of its own - the energy either last originated from the Sun or surface emitted. -
Alec Cowan at 09:44 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
@Sphaerica RW1 has made 52 comments to this post, so far. Virtually none of that deserves a reply. He or she went on commenting virtually because you continue to reply to him/her. In my opinion it is most of all off-topic because all those additions and subtractions don't make to "feedback". I don't want to point nothing specifically because I didn't read -nor did nor will, most of the visitors- that ping-pong of some 100 of comment. I'm saying I don't want to point, but I suspect that somebody might try to get some 70W/m2 reflected upwards and some whatever, say, 40W/m2 downwards and "declare" a negative feedback from that when the feedback resides in the change of cloudiness, the type of clouds and the altitude of the clouds so those 70/40 would change maybe to 71/42 or maybe to 72/38 what provides the feedback and its sign. I'm not sure what are you two discussing, but I don't see in Trenberth's figure nor in those finger calculations the feedback that may confirm or falsify the myth subject of this post. If you stop replying I think RW1 messages will end the same way foam vanishes once shaking ceases.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] This is deja vu all over again; by the standards of the Lindzen and Choi thread, its just getting warmed up. -
RW1 at 09:38 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: my 136), "[The kinetic energy isn't part of the equation]. You're right, it's lifted up, and then falls down. What is being transported is the heat. Thermals are bodies of air that are heated by the surface, and rise. The heat doesn't fall back down through the pull of gravity. It stays in the atmosphere until it is radiated away. Evapotranspiration puts the energy into vaporizing the water. When the water condenses in the atmosphere, that energy is released -- to the surrounding atmosphere -- as latent heat. When the rain falls, it's a cool rain, having left its heat behind in the atmosphere." Thermals and latent heat are in the form of kinetic energy. They are totally separate from and in addition to the 396 emitted radiatively by the surface. I do not dispute that some of the kinetic energy moved from the surface to the atmosphere is radiated into the atmosphere and finds its way radiated out to space. Regardless of whether it's most or only a small amount (Trenberth has all of it being returned), it's net effect is still zero on the radiative budget. I think you may not understand that the surface is emitting 396 solely due to its temperature and nothing else. As a result, it cannot be receiving more energy than this. -
RW1 at 09:24 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
(RE: my 134), I wrote: The point is 239 W/m^2 from the Sun gets to the surface and becomes 396 through 157 of back radiation from the atmosphere. 333 - 97 - 78 = 158 coming back from the surface emitted of 396. This should say: The point is 239 W/m^2 from the Sun gets to the surface and becomes 396 through 157 of back radiation from the atmosphere. 333 - 97 - 78 = 158 coming back to the surface for a total of 396 (239 + 158 = 396) (Trenberth purposefully has an extra watt in there). -
Bob Lacatena at 09:18 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
134, RW1,...when in reality most of it returns in kinetic form through precipitation...
No, this is wrong. The kinetic energy isn't part of the equation. You're right, it's lifted up, and then falls down. What is being transported is the heat. Thermals are bodies of air that are heated by the surface, and rise. The heat doesn't fall back down through the pull of gravity. It stays in the atmosphere until it is radiated away. Evapotranspiration puts the energy into vaporizing the water. When the water condenses in the atmosphere, that energy is released -- to the surrounding atmosphere -- as latent heat. When the rain falls, it's a cool rain, having left its heat behind in the atmosphere.In Trenberth's diagram, the latent heat and thermals of 97 are returned to the surface as 'back radiation'.
Okay, so if you got this, what was the "kinetic energy" bit about? But you are wrong in saying it is returned to the surface. The same goes for the energy absorbed by the atmosphere from the sun. You can't say where it goes versus other energy. The atmosphere is a big pot, and all of the energy is part of the stew. Once it's been added, you can't say "this part of the broth came from here and has to go there."239 arriving at the surface from the Sun + 157 arriving at the surface
I have told you repeatedly. You are making the 157 number up. You cannot extract that with the information given. We need to stop discussing this. If you can't interpret the diagram properly, you certainly can't out think all of the climate scientists. Sit down and work this stuff out. Don't start by assuming you're smarter than everyone. Start by assuming you are the student, and there is something here you don't get. Stop trying to second guess it. Work through the numbers. Understand the diagram. If you can do that, and we can move beyond this, we can discuss negative cloud feedbacks. We've already overloaded this threat with analyzing Trenberth's diagram (for the sake of analyzing your numbers on negative cloud feedbacks) and we're getting nowhere. -
RW1 at 09:18 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 128), "Another 78 are absorbed from inbound sunlight, from space, giving a total absorbed by the atmosphere of 531." The atmosphere cannot create any energy of its own. COE dictates this. You can't have 531 absorbed by the atmosphere when only 239 W/m^2 are coming in and the surface is only emitting 396 W/m^2. -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:12 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Peter said... "All other environmental issues, pollution, over foresting, over fishing, decertification, clean water and ocean destruction have fallen off the table thanks entirely to 'climate science.'" I'm really very curious how you come to this conclusion. Do you have any data to support that position? My sense is quite the opposite. I believe the immediate importance of climate change is causing more people to become more aware and engaged in a wide variety of environmental issues. Climate is certainly resulting in more money going into research related to all the issues you list above. -
johnd at 09:07 AM on 23 April 2011More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
KR at 13:10 PM, I don't know how you managed to, or why you've done it, but my comment that you highlighted was patently obviously referring to the sentence immediately prior to it regarding the squandering of essential nutrients, and not as you have misrepresented it. Go back and read carefully and it should become obvious. Despite that, regarding your comments on superplants, perhaps some of the existing varieties do qualify when compared to the earliest varieties in which they have had their origins. Think hybrid vigour, increased resistance to pests and diseases, and the ability to not only survive, but increase production under conditions previously considered impossible. Would that not make some of the existing varieties worthy of consideration as superplants? -
RW1 at 09:06 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 130), "All of the energy entering/leaving from space is radiative. That does not allow you to ignore other energy transfers between the surface and atmosphere. Those are not inconsequential. It's an "energy budget," not a "radiation budget." The diagram covers the movement of energy in a three layer model (surface, atmosphere, space). The only way for energy to get in from and out to space is radiative, but that does not apply to transfers between the surface and atmosphere. All energy transfers must be accounted for. You can't simply choose to ignore some numbers." I'm not ignoring anything. Nor am I claiming the kinetic energy flows of latent heat and thermals from the surface to the atmosphere aren't part of the whole thing. They are. The problem lies in that Trenberth returns the energy from latent heat and thermals to the surface as 'back radiation' when in reality most of it returns in kinetic form through precipitation. The bottom line is it's returned to the surface in equal and opposite amounts, so relative to the radiative budget and COE, its net effect is zero. If any of the kinetic energy moved from the surface into the atmosphere gets radiated into the atmosphere and ultimately radiated out to space, the amount returned to the surface will be less than the amount that left the surface. This will cool the surface and reduce surface emitted radiation by and equal and opposite amount. Again, this seems to be a major source of confusion. In Trenberth's diagram, the latent heat and thermals of 97 are returned to the surface as 'back radiation'. The incoming solar energy of 78 'absorbed by the atmosphere' is also brought to the surface as 'back radiation'. But it's not really 'back radiation' - it's 'forward radiation' yet to reach the surface that last originated from the Sun. The point is 239 W/m^2 from the Sun gets to the surface and becomes 396 through 157 of back radiation from the atmosphere. 333 - 97 - 78 = 158 coming back from the surface emitted of 396. 239 arriving at the surface from the Sun + 157 arriving at the surface from back radiation from the atmosphere = 396 emitted at the surface. From the surface, 70 passes through the atmosphere unabsorbed out to space and 169 is emitted by the atmosphere up out to space. 70 + 169 = 239 leaving at the TOA. -
Clouds provide negative feedback
RW1 - "Look, I can only deal with one thing at a time. ... I can eventually address those things in their appropriate threads. " I would like to point out that this is the "What is the net feedback from clouds" thread - that in fact is the appropriate topic here, not various interpretations of the Trenberth energy budget. Looking up the dynamic feedback numbers in the Trenberth diagram, let's see... Look! Nothing! There is no dynamic information, nothing about net feedbacks, nothing about how various elements change with temperature, in the Trenberth diagram! -
Bob Lacatena at 08:48 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Quick correction. At the end of post 128, I incorrectly said the temp would be 255˚K if the atmosphere radiated heat equally in both directions. The actual temperature would be 262˚K. We'd still be ice-loving creatures living in the ocean depths near geothermal vents, but we wouldn't be quite as ice-loving as I implied. -
johnd at 08:48 AM on 23 April 2011More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Stephen Baines at 13:02 PM, irrespective of flying or otherwise in different circles, your comment on modeling and the FACE trials was merely elaborating on what I noted in post 50,johnd at 10:50 AM on 18 April. Possibly where we differ, certainly where I differ from some others, is rather than using the average results or those results that indicate potential problems to benchmark limitations and feed pessimism, it is the more positive results that will determine the future direction for ongoing research and development. I don't think those involved in conducting such trials have packed up and gone home just yet. On the matter of moisture, again I don't think we differ on it being the ultimate determinate. However given that a warmer world is generally accepted as being a wetter world, then it comes down to how distribution may alter. I believe one of the major factors in changing distribution patterns has been deforestation. The historical removal of forests from around areas of habitation, be it coastal or along river systems, drastically alters how far inland precipitation can penetrate,and where the runoff is subsequently directed, completely altering regional climates. Apart from such human induced changes, the distribution is basically determined by the pattern of differential SST's, both within each ocean basin, and adjoining basins. Given that researchers are only at the stage of being able to reliably forecast SST's 2 years ahead, I am not sure how much faith can be placed in some of the projections looking decades or centuries ahead, especially as the understanding of ocean current circulation is still in it's infancy. -
Bob Lacatena at 08:41 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
126, RW1,Look, I can only deal with one thing at a time.
Apologies, but you cannot one the one hand claim that there is other evidence for negative cloud feedbacks (without producing it), and on the other ignore the contrary evidence (neatly summarized and cited by SS) provided as rebuttal. But I will agree, we should continue to focus on your numbers, and your interpretation of Trenberth's diagram, as I believe that is where you will get the greatest insight into where you are mistaken. Once we get past that, we can revisit your position on the issue by considering other factors. -
Bob Lacatena at 08:38 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
126, RW1,At the end of my post #2.
As before, I cannot make heads or tails of those numbers. I can see, though, that you are trying to distinguish clear and cloudy sky in your numbers, and since we have already established that that information is not available in Trenberth's diagram, I can dismiss it as inaccurate. If you'd still like to explain that set of numbers, you can try, but please be clear. What you have now is not. But to give you a generic answer to your "why do they accurately predict" query, if your numbers come to 239 at TOA (no matter how you got there) you are going to get 255K. If they come to 390-396 from the surface, you're going to get 288K-289K. That running your calculations in reverse brought you back to these numbers is no big surprise, but doesn't validate the logic behind the calculations. -
muoncounter at 08:36 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Chris G#70: "My guess is that MIT is biting their lip" My guess is he didn't get an invite to this lecture and won't be attending this event. It looks like MIT is doing quite well in spite of Lindzen. -
RW1 at 08:32 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 117), "2) Do you have any response to the question that I've posed 3 times (posts 27, 71, 90) and KR once (post 94)? For the fifth time, do you have any response to the fact that multiple studies, using a wide variety of methods, all point to a climate sensitivity of 3 or greater, and so the chance of cloud feedbacks being negative or neutral is slim to none?" Look, I can only deal with one thing at a time. There are many facets to this whole thing - each of which involve a significant degree of complexity. I can eventually address those things in their appropriate threads. -
Bob Lacatena at 08:29 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
126, RW1,All the energy entering and leaving the system is radiative. This seems to be a major source of confusion on a multitude of issues.
All of the energy entering/leaving from space is radiative. That does not allow you to ignore other energy transfers between the surface and atmosphere. Those are not inconsequential. It's an "energy budget," not a "radiation budget." The diagram covers the movement of energy in a three layer model (surface, atmosphere, space). The only way for energy to get in from and out to space is radiative, but that does not apply to transfers between the surface and atmosphere. All energy transfers must be accounted for. You can't simply choose to ignore some numbers. Why do you think things add up properly when they are included, and don't when they are excluded?Where is the surface emitted of 396 W/m^2 in your numbers?
I gave this in post 110, but to repeat and clarify... If you want to consider the atmosphere in total, it gets 79 in from space which is reflected back (a wash). 23 are reflected through from the surface and can also be ignored (a wash), as does the 40 that passes through radiated from the surface. That leaves us with, coming from the surface, 17 from thermals, 80 from evapotranspiration/latent heat, and 356 absorbed through radiation (we've already recognize the 40 that passes through, so we don't work with the whole 396, just the remaining 356), for a total coming into the atmosphere from the surface of 17 + 80 + 356 = 453. Another 78 are absorbed from inbound sunlight, from space, giving a total absorbed by the atmosphere of 531. The atmosphere emits 333 down to the surface as radiation, and 199 (169 from the atmosphere, 30 from clouds) up into space, for a total of 532. So the atmosphere gets 531(532) from above and below, and sends out 532(531) up and down, but not in equal measure (if it did the surface of the planet would be 255˚K, and we'd all be dead, or else we'd be ice-loving lifeforms huddling around geothermal vents in the deep ocean). We can't keep going around and around with this. It's a simple diagram. Sit down with a piece of paper and add the numbers up. It's really not that hard. -
Alec Cowan at 08:19 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
@Stephen Baines #66 Please, don't follow that path. It SEEMS to be the right thing to do. I know it's an off-topic here and I don't want to paste here a long post in other forum (with Poptech) So I provide the link here. The key subject is that being true that they operate that way, one has to avoid following the same behavioural path no matter it is difficult. Don't feed the image, only try to show how they operate and what supine human defects are exploited. -
RW1 at 08:18 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 115), "113, RW1, 'From the ISCCP data, which says that clouds cover 2/3rds of the surface. This means 1/3rd of the surface is clear sky (i.e. cloudless).' No. The ability of clouds to absorb IR is different from "clear sky" (i.e. the atmosphere)." I know - that's the whole point of separating the clear from the cloudy sky, as I did. "One cannot simply take a percentage. It's a meaningless estimation." Relative to the whole of the energy flow from the surface to space, the percentage of clear vs. cloudy sky is what matters. " If my calculations are in error, why do they accurately predict the correct brightness temperature of 255K? Where do you do that, and how?" At the end of my post #2.Moderator Response: [mc] Fixed closing italics tag. -
logicman at 08:14 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
My comment #65 dana1981 - I accept what you say in reply to my comment - with no reservations. -
RW1 at 08:03 AM on 23 April 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Sphaerica (RE: 116), "115, RW1, The surface cannot be "getting" 517 watts in, as it's only emitting 396 W/m^2. You are ignoring the 23 reflected, 17 transported through thermals and 80 transported through evapotranspiration (396 + 23 + 17 + 80 = 516)." No, I'm not ignoring them. The 23 reflected is part of the albedo and not included in the 239 W/m^2 coming in. Latent heat and thermals are kinetic and not radiative, so the net effect they have on the radiative budget is zero. All the energy entering and leaving the system is radiative. This seems to be a major source of confusion on a multitude of issues. The surface is not getting 516 watts in, as if it was, the surface would be radiating 516 instead of 396. "The 239 comes from ignoring the reflected incoming radiation, which for all intents and purposes never affects the system. So 341 in - 102 reflected = 239. Similarly, 341 out - 102 reflected = 239. Everything balances." Where is the surface emitted of 396 W/m^2 in your numbers? You have to show how the surface is receiving this many watts with 239 entering and 239 leaving. All the energy has to be accounted for, and you can't simply create an additional 120 watts out of nothing (516 - 396 = 120). -
Stephen Baines at 08:00 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
CNR "And a basic premise for the public trust in experts is that they rely on the same principles in their public apperances _as experts_ as in their peer-reviewed scientific work..." I get the sense that some scientists think different rules apply in the academy and in the public sphere. If you're going to play by different rules, maybe you should have to state that you are doing so up front. Otherwise all that sweat involved in providing balance in the academy may be for naught. How would that be enforced? Would MIT want bother? I don't know. -
Albatross at 07:57 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
h pierce @46, Really, it never ceases to amaze me the lengths "skeptics" will go to to defend the misdeeds and rhetoric of Lindzen, Christy and Spencer etc., but what you do not realize is that by trying to defend the indefensible you are only further undermining the beleaguered credibility of the "skeptics", and yours too. I suggest you follow the link in NewYorkJ's post @32, and if you are trying to argue semantics on this issue you are on thin ice. Multiple, independent datasets (both from thermometers and proxies) show that Lindzen's claim about the "anomalous minimum near 1880" (he said nothing about 1800-1900 as you claim) is demonstrably wrong. I suggest that you read the full post and look at the figures available here. There are error bars on the graph that I provided-- did you not see see the grey lines? Interesting how Pat Michaels failed to present error bars in one of his key figures in his recent testimony to Congress, and now here we have "skeptics" trying to use error bars to cast doubt. The double standard is telling. As for the Canadian weather station temperatures, data are measured to the nearest decimal degree, not half degree. I have no idea where you sourced that myth. If you do not believe me, go to the Environment Canada web-site and look at the current weather at some of the stations, or look at the historical data. -
Chris G at 07:52 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Regarding Lindzen and MIT: My guess is that MIT is biting their lip because they long ago decided that empowering their employees to express their views without repercussion was more valuable than any damage that those views might cause MIT. -
Chris G at 07:48 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
h pierce at 05:46 AM on 23 April, 2011 I'm not sure where you learned your stats, but you have been misinformed; with enough measurements, you need far less than 1 degree to achieve significance. For practical purposes, thermometers can be considered to generate discrete distributions. For example, if you roll a 6-sided die a million times, and the mean of those rolls was 3.6 instead of the expected value of 3.5, you could tell with near certainty that the die is unbalanced. Look up discrete distributions and do some reading before repeating that mistaken assertion again please. (This feels like something I've covered before.) -
SNRatio at 07:46 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
( - Response to deleted snipped - ) As for the topic here, I have tried to follow Lindzen's climate-related activities for a while, and I can't really find any excuse for what he is doing. It is completely basic to the scientific discourse to represent the different conjectures, hypotheses, theories and results in a way the proponents can accept, and I find Lindzen is constantly violating that principle. Whenever we are reviewing papers and find unfair or misleading citations or representations, we reject, or require it to be corrected. We can not let it pass. And a basic premise for the public trust in experts is that they rely on the same principles in their public apperances _as experts_ as in their peer-reviewed scientific work. The public messages are subject to popularization, but in no way that can imply that competing views are misrepresented or simply suppressed. As I find Lindzen often does, and we get several examples of in this post and the discussion. -
muoncounter at 07:45 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Sphaerica#44: "I personally have lost a great amount of respect for MIT as an institution." Lindzen is a tenured professor; he can say just about anything and there's very little that MIT can do about it. Right or wrong, most universities try to keep hands off the 'free speech' of their faculty. h pierce#35: "Lying to the US Congress is a very serious felony and carries severe penalties. " That's a good one! Like no one's ever done it and gotten away with it before. -
Stephen Baines at 07:40 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Peter Freeman's cameo has actually gotten me to harden my stance somewhat on ethics. A kind of creeping relativism has engulfed almost any discussion of science and policy. It may have started on the politcal left through post-modernism, but it has been adopted by those fighting all science based policy on a number of fronts. When scientists, like Lindzen and Christy, make statements that clearly fly in the face of established research without at least providing a proviso (e.g., "this is not what most of my colleagues think," or "I am not talking with the imprimatur of so-and-so intitution."), they are feeding into that motif. Anything goes and science is simply politics in disguise. That is what makes me rather angry, because it threatens our ability to make any rational decision as a society, no matter what the issue or the values at stake. It's a real philosophical scorched earth policy. -
logicman at 07:38 AM on 23 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
"The models do say you should have seen 2-5 times more" I think the source for that idea can be found in the testimony to Congress of Patrick Michaels: "Ground-based temperatures from the IPCC show a rise of 0.11°C, or more than four times less than Hansen predicted." In his testimony, Michaels showed a graph in support of his claim in which only Hansen's scenario A is shown. B and C were omitted, with B being Hansen's most likely scenario. This cherry-picking on the grand scale was noticed at the time: http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/models-dont-work.htmlResponse:[dana1981] No, Lindzen in the past has been very clear that his numbers are based on omitting aerosols and thermal inertia. I don't think it's accurate to infer he's misrepresenting Hansen et al. 1988 the way Michaels did.
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