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Kuni at 05:19 AM on 2 June 2015Climate's changed before
Roamernz - Previous causes are not relevant because they are not the cause today.
Yes it has happened before. When it has happened slowly, life adjusted. When it has happened quickly, it was an extinction event.
Now it is happening quickly yet there are no natural causes that anyone can find that are emitting CO2 above their historical normal levels. There are no Deccan Traps being created. There are no Siberian Traps to be found.
Volcanoes continue to emit around 1% of the CO2 that human are currently emitting via the burning of fossil fuels.
No increase in solar radiation has been detected, the solar cycle is sticking to its regular pattern. Cosmic ray collisions in the upper atmosphere have not increased.
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Phil at 04:34 AM on 2 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Tom @19: Similar reasoning obviously applies to wildlife impacts of windmills compared to those from domestic cats, skyscrapers, and so on.
It is not in favour of wind turbines that some arguments with respect to bird deaths from domestic cats are greatly exagerated. This is documented in the book "Cat Sense" by Dr John Bradshaw - the gist of it is that the UK figures were obtained from a volunteer survey for which the original purpose was to map the small mammal population of the UK using "cat-kill" (road-kill is used for similar purposes). Because this was the aim of the survey, no special mention was made of reporting non-kills, i.e. cats that had not killed any animals and so vastly inflates the figure of deaths of all animals by domestic cat predation in the UK.
I believe this is the survey used by Bjorn Lomberg, which was subsequently quoted by David Mackay in "Without the Hot Air", and Bradshaw lists a number of established UK conservation organisations that have swallowed this. Even-handedly, he does then discuss clear cases of extinction by domestic cat such as Stewart Island in New Zealand.
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Bob Lacatena at 03:22 AM on 2 June 2015Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather
William @2,
I think your view of Hadley cells is a bit simplistic. While in general terms the cells can be viewed as spinning wheels, driven by latitudes of rising and falling air, it's not nearly that static. If it were, it would be very easy to measure, and you couldn't possibly have air masses, hurricanes, ENSO events, or the like, because no air mass could ever cross those boundaries intact. The reality is, I think, that the atmosphere is much more fluid and dynamic than that. The locations and "forces" in play with the Hadley Cells cannot be viewed as a "wall of air". It's not that concrete.
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bcglrofindel at 02:27 AM on 2 June 2015Can we trust climate models?
I'm trying to understand model tuning correctly. It seems from most references I can find via the IPCC and papers like that by Mauritsen et al, it is pretty common practice when tuning climate models to adjust cloud parameters to balance TOA energy. It sounds like it is again pretty universal that this is a very necessary step to prevent unrealistic drift of TOA energy balance. Given that TOA energy balance drives everything in our climate, betting that right is pre-requisite to reasonable model behaviour. I've got follow up questions on interpretting this, but am I even correct in understanding things as expressed thus far?
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bcglrofindel at 01:57 AM on 2 June 2015Can we trust climate models?
Sorry if this is the wrong way to ask, this is the closest article I could find though so far. Is there another article that more specifically looks at model tuning? Or is this an appropriate place to ask questions about details like that as well?
Moderator Response:[TD] Thank you for trying to find the appropriate thread! This thread is fine. Another relevant one is Models are Unreliable. Then there is question 6 in Dana's post "Answers to the Top Ten...."
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Daniel Bailey at 01:06 AM on 2 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
"I am not as certain as you or DB (moderator inline above) that windmills have no health impacts, although it is fair to say they have no proven health impacts"
I think we are quite in agreement on this. The sources I cited (paraphrased) sum to the same position (about no proven health impacts), based on the available evidence.
I'm perfectly happy to consider any available evidence, either way, provided appropriate context is given.
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Jim Eager at 23:01 PM on 1 June 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Rob, don't think of them as condos, think of them as storm surge energy dissipation structures.
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CBDunkerson at 22:20 PM on 1 June 2015Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant
longjohn119, actually it is 'not that bad'.
Yes, big donors have a huge influence on politics in the US, especially with the GOP. However, it is simply false that politicians don't care what their voters want. You can be quite certain that if 99% of GOP voters wanted action on climate change that the national GOP candidates would not be loudly proclaiming that it doesn't exist. They do still need those people to vote for them to get elected. Yes, they might then very well turn around and do nothing about the issue once they were in office (c.f. GOP constant screaming about budget deficits... coupled with massive deficit increases whenever they are in power). However, ending the false public 'debate' on AGW would still constitute progress... because if it weren't a litmus test for the support of a large percentage of GOP voters then a few GOP politicians who believe in doing something about the problem could more easily slip through the screening process of the monied interests.
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PluviAL at 15:52 PM on 1 June 2015Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather
William, I am not familiar with this theory. Although I get the AMS' BAMS (Bulletin of American Meteorological Society) regularly, I have not seen any theorizing on this possibility. Perhaps I have just not paid attention. At this point I find it hard to see the Polar, Feral, and Hadley cells turning. The driving force is much larger from the tropics to the North, since there is so much more insolation at the tropics then at the poles. The energy budgets are just too big to see them reversing in a any realistic scenario, no matter how warm the poles get; although, I could be convinced with some evidence.
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Tom Curtis at 14:47 PM on 1 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
chriskoz @18, I am not as certain as you or DB (moderator inline above) that windmills have no health impacts, although it is fair to say they have no proven health impacts. What I am sure of is that health impacts, both proven, and reasonably conjectured if windmills do have health impacts (due to equivalence of infrasound levels) are routinely ignored as standing in the way of progress when it comes to urban residents. It follows that if the claimed health impacts on rural residents from windfarms are indeed sufficient basis to prevent the development of windfarms, then the equivalent or greater impacts on a far larger (due to population density) number of urban residents are sufficient reason to prevent the development of, essentially any industrial plant, or major road or rail network. Conversely, as clearly these sorts of low level health impacts on urban residents are not grounds to prevent development, neither are the claimed low level health impacts on a far smaller number of rural residents grounds to prevent the development of windmills.
Consistent with that position, it is reasonable to further research claimed health impacts, and to research methods to limit them. It is not reasonable to simply ban windmills (as those pushing the health impacts want to do).
Similar reasoning obviously applies to wildlife impacts of windmills compared to those from domestic cats, skyscrapers, and so on.
In fact, given the known health impacts of coal burning, this is unquestionably a case in which the windmill opponents are applying a clear double standard.
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chriskoz at 14:18 PM on 1 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Tom@15,
On top of your link and numbers you provided, I have an anecdotal evidence from a friend who lives ~3km from the generators of Mount Piper Power Station. He told me that during hot summer evening peak hours, he can feel the ground vibrating 60Hz on his property, when the generator is labourring at its full 700MW. I asked him if he would you prefer to live near a wind farm instead. He replied that wind farm in that place would not create so much power. But for his personal comfort, if newer wind turbines would not generate such annoying infra vibrations, yes!
My take on it is: people who talk about "health risks" of windmill noise are not just NIMBYs but simply reality deniers. Those who have experienced it, understand relative impact of renewable vs. FF energy on local environment much better.
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chriskoz at 13:25 PM on 1 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #22B
In US, the emission policies (esp. Hillary's) look promissing. In contrast, australian policies not only ignore climate change impact but literaly wipe out farming country towns in favour of coal mine expansions:
Rio Tinto's coal mine expansion threatens Bulga again
It's hard to believe that the town of Bulga won that battle against Rio Tinto just 2 years ago and new regulations allowed to already revisit that ruling. Note that the article does not even consider climate change impact of the proposed expansion of the coal mine which BTW have almost reached its life end and should have died as inoperable venture. Where is the purported "balance between economic, social and environmental factors" that the lobbyists from NSW Minerals Council are trying to claim?
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:37 AM on 1 June 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Lobstonicus@14... "I just don't see how wind turbines can be the answer to the problem."
Wind turbines are not "the" answer, they're merely one answer. We have an extraordinarily huge challenge ahead of us and it's going to take all available solutions in order to bring carbon emissions to zero over the coming 40 years.
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Tom Dayton at 03:23 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
. . . and then there is Hot Topic's disassembly of Don Easterbrook's abuse of Central Greenland temperatures.
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Tom Dayton at 03:04 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
Don Sage, for more insight to the errors (and "errors"--ahem) in Don Easterbrook's claims, see Dana's other Easterbrook post, "It's PDO," "It's the Sun," and "Climate's Changed Before." Many Skeptical Science posts have Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced tabbed panes; read them all. Also, be sure to post comments only on the relevant threads. You can monitor all comments on all threads by clicking the "Comments" link in the horizontal blue bar at the top of every page.
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Tom Dayton at 02:34 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
Dan Sage, Don Easterbrook's claims are wildly wrong.
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Tom Dayton at 02:21 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
Dan Sage, for attribution of the causes of warming between about 1942 and 1972, see "Why did climate cool in the mid-20th Century?"
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Tom Dayton at 02:19 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
Dan Sage, you should rely on real data instead of "supposedlys." CO2 levels have not been fairly constant until the mid 1950s; the rise got drastically steeper around 1950.
Nobody claims that CO2 is the only driver of climate. (After you read the Basic tabbed pane, read the Intermediate one.)
Attribution of global warming across natural and anthropogenic causes has been studied exhaustively. Relative contributions have varied, with correspondingly varying attributions of human versus natural over different periods.
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Tom Dayton at 01:38 AM on 1 June 2015The History of Climate Science
Dan Sage, regarding the wrongly named "pause" in warming, see the most recent post by Kevin Cowtan, and then the post by Matthew England. Regarding models specifically, in addition to the posts that other people have pointed you to, see the post by Roz Pidcock.
For one of many good demonstrations that the recent slowdown (which, importantly, is "slow" only relative to immediately preceding "fast" warming--that's a hint for you) in no way is evidence against the continuing long term trend, see climate statistician Tamino's recent post "Slowdown Skeptic," and "It's the Trend, Stupid," and "Is Earth's Temperature About to Soar?" Regarding trends in satellite data, see Tamino's "Stupid Is As Ted Cruz Does." For an easy to understand picture, see the Skeptical Science escalator.
Your repeat of the myth that increased CO2 always must cause a corresponding increase in temperature, see "CO2 Is Not The Only Driver of Climate," where you should read first the Basic tabbed pane and then the Intermediate one.
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DAN SAGE at 01:29 AM on 1 June 2015It's El Niño
Maybe someone could explain a problem, I have with this topic. If we conclude that the increase in global temperatures is not due to natural causes, can anyone explain the data contained on the NASA-GISS GLOBAL LAND-OCEAN TEMPERATURE INDEX graph located at the following web address: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif .
This graph shows temperatures for the last 135 years. If you will observe there is an almost "identical" increase in temperature shown for the periods of ~1910 to ~1942 and from ~1972 to ~2002. The problem is that the level of CO2 was supposed to be fairly constant at 280ppm, until maybe the mid 1950's, and from the mid 1950's it was supposed to be increasing from 280ppm to its current value of 400ppm due to anthropogenic causes. If you accept that the two periods of warming depicted on the graph are almost identical in duration and even slope/rate, what caused the first increase before AGW became a factor??? If it was natural causes like the PDO, AMO, NMO, AO, and maybe even changes in the Sun's radiation/magnetic field flux, why couldn't the same thing be responsible for the the period from 1972-2002???
Additionally, If you will notice there is also a period between ~1942 and ~1972, which looks strangely like the current pause we have started to experience. Maybe if you google:
MULTIDECADAL TENDENCIES IN ENSO AND GLOBAL TEMPERATURES RELATED TO MULTIDECADAL OSCILLATIONS
Energy & Environment, Volume 21, Number 5, pp. 437-460, September 2010
by Joseph D’Aleo and Dr. Don Easterbrook
it might shed some enlightenment on this topic and the topic of "CAGW", especially when trying to explain the temperature graph mentioned above from the NASA-GISS website. I presume this is acceptable data to the CAGW crowd. Thank you for your time.
Moderator Response:[JH] The use of "all caps" constitutes shouting and is prohibited by the SKS Comments Policy. In addition, making snarky statements on our comment threads is not acceptable.
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Michael Whittemore at 01:10 AM on 1 June 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
After reading Schmidt et al (2014) from the link above they dont use Ridley et al (2014) data which found a lot more volcanic cooling. If you included his findings I think the models are running low, so more than 3 degrees should be expected..
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Bob Loblaw at 00:49 AM on 1 June 2015The History of Climate Science
"The one thing that I did learn repeatedly was, that if the models didn't agree with reality, that it was the model that was wrong, not reality. "
There is the old saying that all broad, sweeping generalizations are wrong. (Including the one in that old saying...)
Leto has already commented on the phrasing. I'll add the point that Dan Sage's phrasing only is true when you have perfect knowledge of reality. Unfortunately, we never do, which is why Leto makes the comment that (s)he does about error and probability.
Every measurement has errors. I can provide an example of one specific case where a difference between model values and measurements revealed a source of error in the measurements. This had to do with the measurement of diffuse solar radiation. Under very clear skies, some measurements produced values less than that predicted as a minimum using models for Rayleigh Scattering. Rayleight scattering is caused by the molecules of the atmosphere, and no matter how clean the atmosphere is with respect to other scattering particles, you can't stop the molecules from doing Rayleigh Scattering unless you remove the atmosphere entirely.
Were the models wrong? No. The measurements had an offset error related to the infrared radiation flux (a net loss, as the instruments involved emitted more IR than they received from clear skies). Further study of the instrument characteristics revealed the cause of the error and methods to correct for it. The models were right, and the measurements were wrong, because the measurements were not a perfect representation of reality. THe measurement were always a bit low (systematic error).
For further reading on the source of errors in these measurements, a widely-used reference is:
Dutton et al (2001), Measurement of Broadband Diffuse Solar Irradiance Using Current Commercial Instrumentation with a Correction for Thermal Offset Errors, J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 18, 297–314.
Dan Sage's understanding of models and data seems rather limited, despite his claims to authority as having worked with computer models for many years.
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Phil at 23:23 PM on 31 May 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
In addition to Tom's comments, can I add
1. There are, existing operational electricity storage facilities in the UK, most notably (and locally for the OP author!) Dinorwig which was developed in the 1970's to store excess power from the UK's fleet of Nuclear Power stations - which are as unresponsive to the demand curve as Wind.2. There is an existing trial battery storage system in the UK, admittedly fairly small scale currently.
3. Interestingly this article (republished on the Isentropic web site) makes the argument that the issues with grid storage in the UK are not technological but regulatory.
4. Rather more speculative is the proposed "European Super Grid"
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Tom Curtis at 22:47 PM on 31 May 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
Lobstonicus @14:
1) It is simply false that windpower cannot deliver reliable, predictable power. Introduction of such systems as Isentropic's Pumped Heat Electricity Storage (PHES, see video below) and now Tesla's new battery systems mean reliable supply from windpower will soon be a matter of course.
2) Not to put too fine a point on it, the "health risks" of windmills are overblown nonsense by a lot of NIMBYs. Here are the infrasound levels from a variety of sources:
Noise Source Measured Level
(dB(G))
Clements Gap Wind Farm at 85m 72
Clements Gap Wind Farm at 185m 67
Clements Gap Wind Farm at 360m 61
Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm at 100m 66
Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm at 200m 63
Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm ambient 62
Beach at 25m from high water line 75
250m from coastal cliff face 69
8km inland from coast 57
Gas fired power station at 350m 74
Adelaide CBD at least 70m from any
major road 76As you can see, the infrasound levels from windfarms are equivalent to, or less than those found from a variety of urban and industrial sources, not to mention ocean beaches. If infrasound from windmills is such a health problem that their development should be stopped, then clearly merely living in a city represents far greater of a health problem, and we should promptly dissassemble all cities (or perhaps merely ban all road transport). Alternatively, if it is acceptable for urban residents to be afflicted with those levels of infranoise, why are rural residents near windfarms entitled to such special treatment.
That, of course, leaves aside the infrasound from ocean beaches, the effect of which (as we all know) drives down ocean frontage real estate values so much (/sarc).
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Lobstonicus at 21:37 PM on 31 May 2015Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK
The trouble with wind power is that it can't meet our energy needs because it is unpredictable - the wind doesn't necessarily blow when the demand for electricity is high - and we don't have an appropriate technology to store the energy when it is generated.
On top of that, there is a growing body of evidence that industrial wind turbines have their own set of environmental impacts: bird and bat deaths; contamination of water supplies; release of stored carbon during construction; pollution from manufacturing; as well as impact on local residents from noise (especially infrasound) and shadow flicker.
As I write this, wind is accounting for about 18% of our electricity generating capacity. But it's a windy day, and the average over a year is more like 7%. So you need more predictable generating capacity to take over when the wind isn't blowing (i.e. coal, gas nuclear etc.) anyway - the wind turbines don't (and can't) replace other power stations.
It seems to me that the only realistic way of meeting our energy needs without irrevocably changing the climate in the medium term is nuclear power. There's a lot of unfounded scaremongering around nuclear, but I would argue that it's environmental impacts are smaller and more easily contained than the alternatives.
And no, I'm not a climate change denier. I think we're in danger of soiling our own nest to the point of destruction. I just don't see how wind turbines can be the answer to the problem.
By the way, thanks for a good and informative site.
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william5331 at 21:21 PM on 31 May 2015Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather
Implying that the jet stream pushes weather systems around the world is a little like the plumb pudding model of an atom. It was fine until the solar system model explained a few more characteristics of atoms and this was fine until the sub orbital model explained even more. In fact, the jet stream marks the location where Hadley cells come together and the jet streams form at this junction high in the sky. Between the Polar Hadley cell and the Feral cell is a rising wall of air and between the Feral cell and the equatorial Hadley cell a falling wall of air. Surely these walls of air are what is pushing weather systems and the upwhelling and downwhelling is marked by the jet stream. It may sound like nit picking but perhaps we will achieve deeper understandings just as when each atomic model was upgraded. All this is powered by rising heated air at the equator and falling cold air at the pole. What should be interesting is when the Arctic Ocean collects enough heat in the summer due to being open ocean, to reverse the Polar Hadley cell, especially in the fall as the surrounding land quickly cools off and the ocean is relatively warm. That is just when the grain crops of the Northern Hemisphere are ripening. The junction between the Hadley cells is showing deeper and deeper wobbles. It brings to mind a top that begins to wobble as it slows down just before it falls over.
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Phil at 19:58 PM on 31 May 2015The History of Climate Science
Dan Sage @25: "The one thing that I did learn repeatedly was, that if the models didn't agree with reality, that it was the model that was wrong, not reality."
Leto @26: This is phrased in such a way that it sounds almost impossible for a rational person to disagree with it...
Imagine how disappointed Dan Sage is going to be when he buys one of these, and finds he can't actually sit in the cockpit.
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MA Rodger at 19:06 PM on 31 May 2015The History of Climate Science
As well as questioning why the"pause" doesn't get a mention in this post on the history of climate science (the RSS website reference @25 is likely this post by Carl Mears that certainly makes no mention of the “warming hiatus” being "15 to 18+ years" long), DAN SAGE @25 talks of two other topics covered elsewhere by SkS - the CO2-lagging-temperature saga and the controversal lowering of the bottom of the IPCC ECS range in AR5 (which does not justify talk of ECS being "now ... 1degree C, or even a little less", an extremely low value range that has long been proposed by contrarians).
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Leto at 18:46 PM on 31 May 2015The History of Climate Science
Don Sage writes:
"The one thing that I did learn repeatedly was, that if the models didn't agree with reality, that it was the model that was wrong, not reality."
This is phrased in such a way that it sounds almost impossible for a rational person to disagree with it... but it ends up meaning very little. Whatever modelling you did for the government, I'm guessing they kept you away from all the difficult problems that involve error and probability.
If the best backgammon computer in the world tells me that I should do a certain move, and I follow its advice, and the other guy rolls a double six to win, is the model wrong?
If the best oncologist in the world uses the world's best cancer model to plot the probability distribution function of my survival from the lung cancer he has just diagnosed, and I get hit my a bus on the way home from the appointment, is the model wrong?
Climate models give us a range of outcomes, and the Earth gives us just one possible run. They're not perfect, but the issue of their reliability is far more complex than your cheap drive-by shot would indicate. As Rob P notes, the match to models is remarkable if correct input is used.
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DAN SAGE at 15:45 PM on 31 May 2015The History of Climate Science
Thank you for the history review. I worked with computer models for many years in the work, that I did for the Federal Government. The one thing that I did learn repeatedly was, that if the models didn't agree with reality, that it was the model that was wrong, not reality. No mention is made of the "pause" in global warming, that the current models failed to predict for the past 15 to 18+ years, while the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has continued to increase. Even the Remote Sensing Systems website, who regularly works with Dr. Santer to provide accurate satellite based temperature data for his models and papers, has noticed this fact/reality. There is also no mention, that the increase in CO2 always followed the increase in temperature in the geological record, as I understand it. I also believe that even the IPPC has had to reduce its estimate of Global Warming sensitivty for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. I believe that some sceintists now believe it is at 1degree C, or even a little less. This would seem to pose no big threat to the world as we know it, since we may run out of fuel to produce CO2, before we increase the level of CO2 to what some may see as hazardous. Thank you for your time.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - See this SkS post: Climate Models Show Remarkable Agreement with Recent Surface Warming. Climate models aren't omniscient, so once you allow for changes in the solar cycle, natural variability and light-scattering aerosols from volcanic eruptions, the match is quite remarkable.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:10 AM on 31 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
I count at least 83 project in the pre-construction phase in Miami.
http://www.condoideas.com/1004_preconstructioncondosmiami.htm
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wili at 05:45 AM on 31 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Most of the province of Jiangsu in eastern China is underwater or affected by intrusion with just one meter slr. That's about 80 million people just for that province. Some 100,000 people have already been displaced in Pakistan due to salt water intrusion.
In the case of Miami, note that no amount of dams or dikes will hold the sea back since the rock these would have to be built on is itself extremely porous--the sea would just leak through right under the damn.
No one should be building anything new in that area, and we should be starting to plan a gradual evacuation of at least Miami Beach.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:58 AM on 31 May 2015Models are unreliable
Wow. This AlecM guy is a hoot! I love this comment the best...
"PS when I used the old term Emittance instead of Exitance, Wikipedia was altered to remove Emittance! This showed the disinformation process in action. We are being conned!"
It's illuminating in terms of his state of mind.
Moderator Response:[JH] Further discussion of comments posted by AlecM on another website will be deleted for being "off-topic".
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Tom Curtis at 01:13 AM on 31 May 2015Models are unreliable
MA Rodger @934, Houghton's Fig 2.5 is shown in google preview of the 3rd edition of his work. I assume it is the same as that shown in the first edition, given that figs 2.4 and 2.6 are unchanged between the two editions. In addition to plotting the radiative equilibrium temperature, Houghton also plots the convective equilibrium temperature (or an approximation with a lapse rate of -6 C per km). If Alex M thinks that plot "showed why there can be no Enhanced GHE", he merely demonstrates he has no understanding of atmospheric physics (as if we needed further proof of that). Consulting the 3rd edition, published in 2002, ie, one year after the Third Assessment report also demonstrates neatly that Houghton saw no contradiction between the physics he continued to teach essentially unchanged after he joined the IPCC, the physics that he had taught before hand.
The preview of the first edition is also interesting in that it contains on page 10 Houghton's explanation of why climate scientists often (though not in GCMs) treat IR radiation from an atmospheric layer to consist of an upward and a downward flux, rather than as radiating in all directions. The reasoning is simple. As Alex M himself points out, "Standard Physics predicts net unidirectional radiant flux from the vector sum of Irradiances at a plane". But if you have radiation from a sphere with equal temperatures at all points, then at any give point above the surface of the sphere it will have equal radiative flux coming in at φ degrees from all downward directions, for all φ. Thus, for a given φ, with that angle will come equally from a circle on the sphere with a center directly beneath the point. If you sum the vectors of all those fluxes, only the vertical component of those vectors will not cancel out. As this applies to all φ, it follows that the integral of the all fluxes from the surface at any point above the surface consists of a net flux with a vertical component only. Similar reason applies for any point below the surface (assuming it is a transparent region). Because of this, the radiation from a given level of the atmosphere can be treated as consisting of only vertical components for simplicity.
This simplifying assumption does not hold if large temperature differences exist between different regions of the surface. This is not always true in the atmosphere, but is often approximately true so that the simplifying assumption makes a good approximation. Despite that it is not used in GCMs and so is not a necessary assumption for the theory of the greenhouse effect. (Note, any time we express the black body radiation in terms of W/m^2 rather than in terms of W/m^2/steradian; we are making this simplifying assumption.)
So, it turns out that one of the biggest problems Alex M has with climate science is a simplifying assumption that is not necessary for the science, is explained in a book he purports to have read, and as it happens, follows reasoning first developed (in relation to gravity) by that well known alchemist, Isaac Newton.Finally, as a note for PostKey, your most recent comment has been deleted by the moderators. That may only be because you are in effect allowing Alex M to comment here by proxy whilst ignoring the SkS comment's policy, although I can think of a number of comment's policies you are also violating by just posting full quotes. If you want help understanding where Alex M is in error, quote only the relevant text. Explain what you do not understand about the quoted material, and make sure you post on the appropriate thread. The last may take a bit of reading to find the appropriate thread, but that same reading may well answer your question. I and several other commenters here are always glad to help people who are seeking understanding, but we have no interest in carrying on a discussion by proxy with a conspiracy theorist and pseudoscientist such as Alex M.
Moderator Response:[JH] Postkey would do well to follow your advice. If he does not, his/her future posts are likely to be deleted.
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longjohn119 at 00:39 AM on 31 May 2015Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant
Well CB you have to understand that they don't care what most people want, even those people who vote for them
What they care about is the Corporations and Billionaires that fund their propaganda campaigns to the hilt .... What they say goes, it's as simple as that.
I'm here at Ground Zero for Presidential Politics (Iowa) and it's amazing how many GOP candidates are climbing out of the GOP Clown Car this year and they all pretty much sazy the exact same thing excpet for Rand Paul and his only difference is about the debacle of the Iraq War and the debacle caused by it in the Middle East today.
You can cut the Cognitive Dissonence with a knife it's so thick here are on one hand they deny Global Warming and on the other hand must support the most Subsidized energy source in the US today, Ethanol based on it lowering CO2 .... Which doesn't really matter because CO2 doesn't cause Global Warming ... but we still need it anyway because it lowers CO2 (Classic circular thinking)
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MA Rodger at 00:08 AM on 31 May 2015Models are unreliable
The commentor AlecM over at the Torygraph is certainly a blowhard and well out of control. The full post he wrote that Phil @935 quotes from bears being reproduced in full as we get the name of physicists he blames for his pervertion of science. And we also get the name of the scientist he rated as the US top cloud physicist. If GL Stephens did uncover a fatal flaw in climatology in 2010 and been unable to publish, it is not as though he has had problems publishing other works since then.
Houghton's figure 2.5 plots black body radiation against atmospheric temperature/height (unfortunately the actual page is missing from this google preview) but it's probably the IR-induced convection that the blowhard is saying ensures the GH effect is tiny.
And an optical pyrometer? Isn't that a thermometer?
I have measured radiative heat transfer in process plant, made optical pyrometers, done the theory ad nauseum in the days when we used slide rules and Carslaw and Jaeger.
What we now have is a grotesque parody of science based on the 1989 mistake by Goody and Yung where they arbitrarily assumed Schwarzschild's 'two-stream approximation' could translate to bidirectional photon diffusion, forgetting he knew he was dealing with Irradiances.
Houghton, taught standard physics, knew this correct physics and in Fig 2.5 of 1977 'Physics of Atmospheres' showed why there can be no Enhanced GHE. When he co-founded the IPCC he supported the EGHE.
We now have climate models based on 40% more SW thermalisation than reality, the only way the Hansen group could get the numbers to add up in the incorrect physics. The other part of the scam, to use ~double real low level cloud optical depth as a hind-casting parameter to get the right 'positive feedback', was discovered in 2010 by G L Stephens. He hasn't been able to publish this.
PS The Alchemists don't know what an optical pyrometer measures. I do. As for the computer code, I have examined GISS-E and it's not the problem; that is bad physics.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please resist the tempatation to repost the pseudo-science poppycock being posted on the comment threads of other websites.
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Daniel Bailey at 23:36 PM on 30 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Yes, SLR is glaringly impactful, with just the first few meters rendering hundreds of millions areound the world homeless. The many meters after that in the pipeline at present are but dross in comparison.
Miami:
Bangladesh:
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michael sweet at 22:55 PM on 30 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Sgbotsford,
Tens of millions of people and a substantial amount of the world's agricultural land lie within 1 meter of sea level. Your 1% slope is hopelessly naive. Nowhere within 100 miles of Miami is more than 7 meters above sea level. It is common for there to be 1 foot of rise in 10 miles of drain. Where is your 1% slope? The wells in Miami are located at 3 feet, which is below 1 meter. It is not a question of sea water intrusion, it is a question of inundation.
This map from Climate Central shows inundation levels in the USA. At 4 feet of rise they show Miami nearing island status. In Bangladesh and the Mekong delta it is much worse. A 1 meter sea level rise would cause minor storm surges in Miami to destroy tens of thousands of peoples houses. Imagine a hurricane! It seems to me that no-one would insure property in Miami. They would have no insurance and no water. This cannot be defended or reversed. Levees do not work in Florida. At that point the city would be abandoned. Much of the east coast of Florida is the same.
Read sea level rise maps on the internet with care. Many, including the first hit from Google I got, use satalite radar data to demonstrate sea level rise. This data shows when the tops of trees and the roofs of buildings will be submerged. It also ignors storm surges. It is more important to know when the building will be flooded than when the roof will be completely under water.
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Phil at 22:49 PM on 30 May 2015Models are unreliable
Michael, Postkey,
Yes in my reply @928, I suggested that to disprove Climate science, you would need to overturn or reject a large proportion of well established physics; it seems Alec M has had to resort to trying to do just that.
The Climate Alchemists from 1989 have imagined a spurious bidirectional photon diffusion argument for which there hasnever been experimental proof..
This comment (somewhat idiosyncratically phrased) is incorrect, photon emission is omni-directional in gases (due to the fact that molecules in gases are, by the very nature of gases, free to rotate) and this is sufficient to account for downwelling radiation - which has itself been measured. However "experimental proof" can also be gained by looking at a domestic light bulb. It would seem that when it comes to evidence AlecM is confusing "looking but not finding" with "not bothering to look"
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denisaf at 21:57 PM on 30 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Thank you for that contibution of data and understanding to knowledge of the nature of sea level rise, one of the dots supporting the hypothesis of irreversible rapid climate change and ocean acidification.
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Michael Whittemore at 15:14 PM on 30 May 2015Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming
A recently published paper states “we use lidar, Aerosol Robotic Network, and balloon-borne observations to provide evidence that currently available satellite databases neglect substantial amounts of volcanic aerosol between the tropopause and 15km at middle to high latitudes and therefore underestimate total radiative forcing resulting from the recent eruptions.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061541/abstract
Has anyone seen a graph that takes this into consideration?
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sgbotsford at 14:29 PM on 30 May 2015Sea level is rising fast – and it seems to be speeding up
Just what are the impacts of a 1 meter rise in sea level?
Ok, a the block of homes closest to the sea have lowered property values or are remodeled to be on stilts. (Figuring a 1% slope)
In some areas there is saline intrusion into fresh water aquifers.
The effect of storm surges is magnified.
What else?
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Theo168 at 13:27 PM on 30 May 2015A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
I too would like to see an update of this topic, afterall comparing the 'guess' with observation is the foundation of the scientific method.
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KR at 12:26 PM on 30 May 2015Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
Tom Curtis - "...a point I know we will have to agree to disagree on :)"
Fair enough - we do tend to focus on the accuracy of different regimes of the climate discussion. But for completeness an even simpler derivation of effective emissivity to space is the ~240 W/mm2 emitted to space divided by the ~396 W/m2 emitted from the ground, or ~0.601. Which can also be obtained by looking at the integrated emission spectra observed at the top of the atmosphere versus the blackbody thermal radiation at Earth surface temperature - again a ratio of ~0.601.
Overall I'm very glad we're not redundant commentors - I would just feel silly otherwise :)
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Tom Curtis at 09:30 AM on 30 May 2015Models are unreliable
Postkey @931, you should always cleary indicate when words are not yours by the use of quotation marks. In particular, it is very bad form to quote a block of text from somebody else (as you did from point 1 onwards) without indicating it comes from somebody else, and providing the source in a convenient manner (such as a link). For everybody else, from point 1 onwards, PostKey is quoting Alec M from the discussion he previously linked to.
With regard to Alec M's alegations, although Carl Sagan did a lot of work on Venus' climate, Mars' climate, the climate of the early Earth, and the potential effect of volcanism and nuclear weapons on Earth's climate, he did not publish significantly on the greenhouse effect on Earth. The fundamental theory of the greenhouse effect as currently understood was worked out by Manabe and Strickler in 1964. As can be seen in Fig 1 of Manabe and Strickler, they clearly distinguish between lapse rates induced by radiation, and those induced by gravity (that being the point of the paper) - a fundamental feature of all climate models since. So Alec M's "mistake 3" is pure bunk. By claiming it as a mistake he demonstrates either complete dishonesty or complete ignorance of the history of climate physics.
With regard to "mistake 2", one of the features of climate models is that introducing a difussing element, such as SO2 or clouds, will cool the region below the element and increase it above it. The increase in temperature above the diffusive layer would be impossible if the clouds were treated as forward scattering only. So again, Alex M is revealed as a liar or completely uninformed.
The surface excitance (aka black body radiation) was and is measured in the real world with instruments that are very substantially warmer than absolute zero. Initially it was measured as the radiation emitted from cavities with instruments that were at or near room temperature. As it was measured with such warm instruments, and the fundamental formula's worked out from such measurements, it is patently false that the surface excitance is "potential energy flux in a vacuum to a radiation sink at 0 deg K". Indeed, the only thing a radiation sink of 0 deg K would introduce would be a complete absence of external radiation, so that the net radiation equals the surface excitance. As climate models account for downwelling radiation at the surface in addition to upwelling radiation, no mistake is being made and Alex M is again revealed as a fraud.
With regard to his fourth point, I do not know enough to comment in detail. Given that, however, the name gives it away. A parametrization is a formula used as an approximation of real physical processes which are too small for the resolution of the model. As such it may lump together a number of physical processes, and no assumption is made that it is not. Parametrizations are examined in great detail for accuracy in the scientific literature. So, neither Sagan nor any other climate scientist will have made the mistake of assuming a parametrization is a real physical process. More importantly, unlike Alex M's unreferenced, unexplained claim, the parametrization he rejects has a long history of theoretical and emperical justification.
Alex M claims "My PhD was in Applied Physics and I was top of year in a World Top 10 Institution." If he had done any PhD not simply purchased on the internet, he would know scientists are expected to back their claims with published research. He would also know they are expected to properly cite the opinions of those they attempt to use as authorities, or to rebut. His chosen method of "publishing" in comments at the telegraph without any citations, links or other means to support his claims shows his opinions are based on rejecting scientific standards. They are in fact a tacit acknowledgement that if his opinions were examined with the same scientific rigour Sagan examined his with, they would fail the test. Knowing he will be unable to convince scientists, he instead attempts to convince the scientifically uninformed. His only use of science in so doing is to use obscure scientific terms to give credence to his unsupported claims. Until such time as he both shows the computer code from GCM's which purportedly make the mistakes he claims, and further shows the empirical evidence that it is a mistake the proper response to such clowns is laughter.
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Tom Curtis at 08:38 AM on 30 May 2015Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
KR @34, thanks for the link. Part of my reason for placing the comment on this page was the presence of jg very useful figure in the OP:
It shows not only the approximate value of industrial waste heat (red) but also the change in forcing from anthropogenic factors (orange) and the full solar input with no adjustment for albedo. (Note again, the forcing is not literally an energy input to the Earth, although it does represent an increased energy flux at the surface matched at equilibrium by an equal increase in the outward flux.) One advantage of jg's figure is that it includes every energy flux that could reasonably be supposed to have an impact on the Earth's climate, the others being several orders of magnitude smaller. Of course, of the anthropogenic fluxes, only the anthropogenic forcing is large enough to have a measurable impact on GMST.
@35, I agree that the greenhouse effect can be approximated at the simplest level by treating the Earth as having a relatively low emissivity (0.614 rather than the actual value which is greater than 0.9, and probably greater than 0.95). I think that simplicity is bought at the risk at too many potential misunderstandings, a point I know we will have to agree to disagree on :)
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Postkey at 07:58 AM on 30 May 2015Models are unreliable
These are the 4 basic 'mistakes'!
1. To assume surface exitance, a potential energy flux in a vacuum to a radiation sink at 0 deg K, is a real energy flux.
2. To misuse Mie theory to claim that clouds forward scatter when in reality the light becomes diffused.
3. To claim black body surface IR causes a planet's Lapse Rate temperature gradient, when it is caused by gravity.
4. To completely cock up aerosol optical physics by assuming van der Hulst's lumped parameterisation indicated a real physical process. In reality, there are two optical processes and the sign of the Aerosol Indirect Effect is reversed. It is in fact the real AGW and explains Milankovitch amplification at the end of ice ages.
Point 4 has messed up Astrophysics as well.
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KR at 02:18 AM on 30 May 2015Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
The effective thermal IR emissivity of the Earth to space, assuming a balance of 240 W/m2 incoming and outgoing and a surface temperature of ~15C, is about 0.614; that is 61% as effective a radiator as a theoretic black-body.
Varying temperatures are effectively emissivity increases (incorporated in that value), as a warmer region will contribute more outgoing energy (based on the Stephan-Boltzmann equation and the nonlinear T4 relationship) than equally cooler regions will decrease it, radiating more total energy than a thermally homogenous Earth would.
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KR at 02:06 AM on 30 May 2015Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
Tom Curtis - That's an excellent summary of relative energy magnitudes. I'll add that anthropogenic waste heat (link here), another source bandied about sans evaluation as a primary driver of climate, represents a contribution of perhaps 0.028 W/m2. That's 1/4th of geothermal contributions, 1/100th the contributed energy of post-Industrial CO2 emissions, and an even tinier and less significant fraction of the total greenhouse effect.
Numbers are oh so important.
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ryland at 01:08 AM on 30 May 2015Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather
Unfortunately the plight of the Arctic appears to be even more dire due to the Obama administration sanctioning Shell to drill for oil and gas in the region
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