by Judith Curry
We can conclude that the evidence provided is sufficient to justify a complete updating and reviewing of present climate models to better consider these detected natural recurrences and lags in solar processes. – Jorge Sánchez-Sesma
In pondering how the climate of the 21st century will play out, solar variability has generally been dismissed as an important factor by the proponents of AGW. However, I think that it is important that scenarios of future solar variability and their potential impacts on climate should by considered in scenarios of future climate change.
I have been cursorily following the literature on this topic. I have recently been in communication with Jorge Sanchez-Sesma. He has new paper that was just accepted for publication in Earth System Dynamics, an interactive open-access journal published by the EGU. I am featuring this paper in a post since it provides important new analysis and insights on this topic, and also provides a useful assessment of the literature and current state of knowledge on this topic.
The significance of this paper is reflected in the EGU metrics link that indicates that this paper has been downloaded 1531 times so far (before it has been formally published).
Evidence of cosmic recurrent and lagged millennia-scale patterns and consequent forecasts: multi-scale responses of solar activity to planetary gravitational forcing [link]
Jorge Sánchez-Sesma
Abstract. Solar activity (SA) oscillations over the past millennia are analyzed and extrapolated based on reconstructed solar-related records. Here, simple recurrent models of SA signal are applied and tested. The consequent results strongly suggest the following: (a) the existence of multi-millennial (9500-year) scale solar patterns linked with planetary gravitational forcing (PGF), and (b) their persistence, over at least the last glacial– interglacial cycle, but possibly since the Miocene (10.5 Ma). This empirical modeling of solar recurrent patterns has also provided a consequent multi-millennial-scale experimental forecast, suggesting a solar decreasing trend toward Grand (Super) Minimum conditions for the upcoming period, AD2050–2250 (AD 3750–4450). Taking into account the importance of these estimated SA scenarios, a comparison is made with other SA forecasts. In Appendixes A and B, we provide further verification, testing and analysis of solar recurrent patterns since geological eras, and their potential gravitational forcing.
The Introduction provides some background information on this topic:
Solar activity (SA) has non-linear characteristics that influence multiple scales in solar processes. For instance, millennia-scale solar oscillations have been recently detected, like those of about 6000 and 2400 years, with important and interesting influences in the near, past and future climate. These millennial scale patterns of reconstructed SA variability could justify epochs of low activity, such as the Maunder Minimum, as well as epochs of enhanced activity, such as the current Modern Maximum, and the Medieval Maximum in the 12th century.
Although the reason for these SA oscillations is unclear, it has been proposed that they are due to chaotic behavior of non-linear dynamo equations, or stochastic instabilities forcing the solar dynamo, leading to on-off intermittency, or planetary gravitational forcing with recurrent multi-decadal, multi-centennial and longer patterns. It should be noted that all proponents of planetary forcing have forecasted a solar Grand Minimum for the upcoming decades, but one of them has also forecasted a Super Minimum for the next centuries. In addition, during recent decades, statistical forecasts (with physically based spectral information of reconstructed records) of solar magnetic activity predict a clear decrease in SA, reaching a minimum around AD2100.
These different cosmogenic radionuclide-based reconstructions of SA present variations for the past millennia, and large uncertainties appear in reconstructions of the solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays from different proxies, 10 Be and 14 C, and of changes in the geomagnetic shielding influence. However, these reconstructed records provide, especially when considered all together, the most objective information as elements for detecting and eventually modeling and extrapolating multi-millennial-scale solar oscillations, trends and absolute levels.
The Discussion summarizes the findings and puts them into context:
Our analysis establishes the following:
- Solar System dynamics generate lateral forces with multi-millennial scale (~9500 years) oscillations similar to those shown by solar activity.
- There is a suggested lagged response of around 67 centuries,of solar activity to the gravitational forcing (lateral force). The maximum forces F precede the maximum solar activity TSI, meaning that increases (decreases) of force F produce lagged increases (decreases) of TSI.
- Taking into account that the Sun’s rotation axis is tilted by about 7.25_from the axis of the Earth’s orbit, the PGF are able to generate meridional forces and consequently meridional circulations in the Sun.
- The lagged response appears to increase with forcing periods with a non-linear logarithmic function that implies temporal-scale influences and possible connections with meridional circulations in different deep layers of the Sun;
- The similarity of the ~9500-year TSI with the average SSN 10.5-year cycle, with scales differing at almost 3 orders of magnitude, suggests a self-similar process with a mechanism possibly linked to recurrent PGF in different scales.
Our experimental multi-millennial-scale analogue forecast of TSI, supported mainly by recurrent oscillations over the last glacial–interglacial cycle, shows a lowering trend toward a minimum for the coming decades. Our forecast also confirms previous efforts by several authors who have forecasted a solar Grand Minimum for the upcoming decades. Although the complete physical basis of this recurrent process is missing, there are several examples of physical and theoretical evidence that also support our findings.
In this work, we have forecasted a continuation of the solar decline for the next decades, which is supported through precursory signals during recent decades:
- A steady and systematic decline in solar polar magnetic fields, starting from around 1995, which is well correlated with changes in meridional-flow speeds..
- A decline in solar wind micro-turbulence levels. Based on extensive interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observations at 327 MHz, obtained between 1983 and 2009, a steady and significant drop in the turbulence levels in the entire inner heliosphere, starting from1995, was detected.
- A significant reduced ionospheric cut-off frequency to radio waves, normally about 30 MHz, to well below 10MHz.
Also, in this work, we have forecasted a Grand solar minimum, with sustained low solar activity for the next 2 centuries, which has been supported through a number of recent studies and their findings:
- The continuation of this decline in solar activity is estimated to continue until at least 2020, and there is a good possibility of the onset of a Grand solar minimum from solar-cycle 26 onwards (2031).
- Based on the S04 SA record, it has been shown that gradual (abrupt) changes in solar surface meridional flow velocity lead to a gradual (abrupt) onset of grand minima, and that one or two solar cycles before the onset of grand minima, the cycle period tends to become longer. It is noteworthy that surface meridional flows over Cycle 23 have shown gradual variations, and Cycle 24 started 1.3 years later than expected.
From the Conclusions:
The tested existence of the ~9.5 kyr period recurrent pattern suggests that SA is characterized by solar dynamics with long-term patterns. Considering that it has been suggested that the modulating oscillations of SA, around 84, 178 and 2400 years, are possibly related to the Sun’s rotation rate and impulses of the torque in the Sun’s irregular motion, our results also suggest that similar mechanisms on the solar dynamo must be proposed for solar oscillations of around 9.5 kyrs.
With all of these recurrent and persistent phenomena, we have presented, tested and verified an experimental multi-millennial forecast technique for SA. We have provided elements and recent supporting studies on precursor signals of an entering into a Grand minimum SA mode. The extreme duration of the last solar minimum is important evidence of longer cycles, similar to those presented before the start of the Maunder and Spörer minima.
We can conclude that the evidence provided is sufficient to justify a complete updating and reviewing of present climate models to better consider these detected natural recurrences and lags in solar processes.
Excerpts from Reviewer #2
One of the reviewers [link] made some good comments about the general significance of the paper:
It addresses an ongoing discussion in the scientific community regarding the current declining solar activity and whether solar activity will die down in the near future to the level and duration, to justify it as being called a “Grand-Minimum.” This paper on the other hand takes and entirely different line of thought in that it looks for long term signatures in solar activity, and identifies, based on empirical modelling of solar activity, a 9500 year solar activity cycle which suggests “Grand Minima” like conditions for the period 2050-2250.
In conclusion, I agree entirely with the author that looking for short term signatures or time scales of practical consequences i.e. in years is in essence “missing the forest for the trees”. One needs to look at long term signatures and this study by the authors has yielded the first multi-millennial scale solar activity oscillation which is modulated, as the author suggests, by solar dynamics, essentially the solar dynamo and helio-seismology, with long term patterns. This is a significant step forward in gaining an overall perspective of the sun climate system and I hope the solar community can now take this forward.
JC reflections
This is a remarkable paper in many ways. This paper has a single author — Jorge Sanchez-Sesma, who is a climatologist (not a solar physicist). I have been in contact with Jorge and will be posting an interview with him in several weeks. He has a remarkable story to tell.
This paper indicates that the case is increasingly compelling for millennial-scale variations in solar activity. The arguments for a forthcoming Grand Solar Minimum are also increasingly compelling.
To what extent a Grand Solar Minimum will influence the Earth’s climate remains uncertain. As discussed on a previous blog post IPCC: solar variations don’t matter, the IPCC AR5 Ch 8 stated:
Nevertheless, even if there is such decrease in the solar activity, there is a high confidence that the TSI RF variations will be much smaller in magnitude than the projected increased forcing due to GHG.
The previous post also describes different perspectives on this from Svensmark and a 2013 NRC report (see also Effects of solar variability on climate; 21st century solar cooling.)
Solar indirect effects on climate remain at the knowledge frontier, and are associated with substantial uncertainty and ignorance. This uncertainty and ignorance is not a rationale for ignoring solar effects on the 21st century climate (and 22nd, 23rd centuries). And anyways, is the solar uncertainty (we understand the sign) really so much more greater than that associated with the effects of clouds on climate (see my recent post The cloud climate conundrum), where even the sign of the feedback is uncertain and the magnitude of cloud forcing swamps greenhouse gas radiative forcings.
But we are starting to see some ideas emerge as to how these solar effects and processes could be included in climate models. Independently of climate models, the statistical forecast technique used by Sanchez-Sesma provides the basis for creating alternative scenarios of the 21st century climate. I find his arguments about lags to be particularly important as we sort out the solar-climate effects.
Tackling the variability of solar activity and solar indirect effects seems more tractable than the cloud-climate problem and untangling the myriad of scales of ocean oscillations, so I would hope to see much more emphasis put on unraveling the solar-climate connections.
The policy significance of this issue is clear: if we are headed to a mid-20th century solar minimum, or a Grand Solar Minimum for the next two centuries, this will offset greenhouse warming to some extent. The extent of the offset depends on whether climate sensitivity to CO2 is on the larger or smaller end of the range of estimates, and the magnitude of the solar impact. But the sign of the solar offset is becoming increasingly clear: towards cooling.
Pingback: Are we headed for a new solar minimum? – Enjeux énergies et environnement
Poulos also projects a solar minimum. He has analysed the physics of solar activity and climate.
“A magnificent new theory on solar activity and climate variability. The author attributes solar wind and solar cycles to tidal forces from orbiting planets. By introducing a new physical property: thermal natural frequency the author has theoretically calculated all solar wind properties (temperature etc.). His calculations match all observations yet. He moreover predicts an equal intencity inwards wind. Having numerically calculated the solar activity variations, he explaines and predicts the derived climate variability. Most of modern global warming is the result of solar activity variations.”
http://opagos.tumblr.com/post/146358209620/documentation-of-the-solar-activity-variations-and
Mmm … I get very nervous when I read something like this:
Sorry, but I fear that detecting a “9390-year” period by such a convoluted method means very, very little. This is particularly true given that there are a number of documented problems with the use of 10Be as a solar proxy.
w.
your comment is interesting. any comment on the Poulos paper?
Pepe Garcia | June 27, 2016 at 1:59 am | Reply
Nope. My comment was on the Sanchez-Sesma paper. Hang on … OK, I took a look. Like many others, he postulates that tidal forces from the planets affect the sun. The problem with that theory is that the tide of Jupiter on the sun raises and lowers the surface by about one centimeter … nowhere near enough for any effects. Also, it’s just another curve-fitting, multi-parameter exercise with a half-dozen parameters. Sorry, not impressed. With that many parameters, the only interesting thing would have been if he could NOT have fitted a curve to his data.
w.
thank you for your answer. the parameters are eliminated by cross-matching to the physical attributes. I think you only had a quick look. what about the theoretical calculation of all solar wind properties?
it’s also not about one centimeter surface raise, it’s about balance braking to the solar mechanism (gravity collapse – fusion expand)
Pepe Garcia | June 27, 2016 at 3:06 am |
Say what? That’s just bafflegab.
What about it?
w.
Pepe Garcia | June 27, 2016 at 3:36 am |
Say what? What is “balance braking”? Google has never heard of it, now you’re just making things up. And why do you think it has something to do with tides? Please provide your calculations of the claimed vector forces involved …
w.
The problem with that theory is that the tide of Jupiter on the sun raises and lowers the surface by about one centimeter … nowhere near enough for any effects.
Umm…
How was this computed? When Saturn and Jupiter are on the same side the Barycenter of the Solar System is outside the Sun.
When the Sun is just another orbiting body in the solar system the displacement has to be greater than that. Further rotating around an external barycenter will distort the envelope relative to the more solid core that rotates slower.
PA | June 27, 2016 at 6:55 pm |
Good questions, PA. Tidal forces are computed using the distances and the masses. However, the location of the barycenter is immaterial. The only gravitational forces that are detectable on objects in free-fall (such as orbiting planets) are the tidal forces. And because the planets are very small with respect to the sun and are also very far away from the sun, the tidal forces that they exert on the sun are minuscule. Tidal forces fall off as distance cubed, so unless an object is either very close (e.g. the Moon) or very large (e.g. the Sun) the tidal forces are very small.
See my post Canute Ponders The Tides for an explanation of how the calculations are done.
Best regards,
w.
ok not brakin” but breaking… search for that
Dimitris Poulos’s answer to the critique that tidal forces from orbiting planets are very weak to produce any visible effect to sun
http://opagos.tumblr.com/post/146837451515/dimitris-pouloss-answer-to-the-critique-that
You will like the 25000 year proxy for MAT and SST for africa even more.
did you catch that reference in his text?
here is the paper
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1126/science.1138131
Thanks, Mosh. I have a rule of thumb that says that anyone whose solar theory can only be proven using proxies thousands of years old desperately needs a new theory …
My main problem with such long-term solar theories is that the secular changes (e.g. the Dalton minimum) are generally speaking an order of magnitude smaller than the 11-year changes … so if the long-term secular changes are said to make some huge difference to surface weather, as many folks claim, why don’t we see the much larger 11-year cycle in the weather records?
Anyhow … onwards, ever onwards …
Best regards,
w.
“I fear that detecting a “9390-year” period…”
Quite so, Willis.
Sounds like a severe attack of False Precision Syndrome to me.
That last “90” just lets the whole thing down.
Poulos is a nuisance as spammer in almost every question in the topic of Climate /Change in Researchgate with this “unique” idea
see
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimitris_Poulos/answers
Where is Willie when he’s needed?
The recent link in week in review showing the sun being in a state of relative inactivity in conjunction with this work makes the next few years worth watching. GHG associated GW vs. solar minima. http://www.vencoreweather.com/blog/2016/6/4/300-pm-the-sun-has-gone-completely-blank
Can only hope that disclosure issues are dealt with so the science can be at the forefront.
“Nevertheless, even if there is such decrease in the solar activity, there is a high confidence that the TSI RF variations will be much smaller in magnitude than the projected increased forcing due to GHG.” Wondering if there are any quantifications especially considering the debate w/r/t anthro vs. natural.
Fascinating.
Are we looking for a backdoor exit; TO BLAME THE SUN FOR THE PHONY GLOBAL WARMING NOT SHOWING UP – instead of admitting that was all 101% LIE / CON?!?!
About 2000 years ago, there was a Roman Warm Period and then it got cold. About 1000 years ago, there was a Medieval Warm Period and then it got cold. That was the Little Ice Age. When Oceans are warm, Polar Oceans thaw, snowfall increases and rebuilds ice on Greenland, Antarctic and Mountain Glaciers. Ice builds, spreads and makes earth cold again. Snowfall decreases and the Sun removes ice every year until it gets warm again. It is warm again now because it is supposed to be warm now. It is a natural cycle and we did not cause it. CO2 just makes green things grow better, while using less water. The alarmists scare us so they can tax and control us.
Earth temperature is very clearly regulated. That is not done with external factors that have no feedback. That is done with snowfall that increases in warm times and decreases in colder times.
“The policy significance of this issue is clear: if we are headed to a mid-20th century solar minimum, or a Grand Solar Minimum for the next two centuries, this will offset greenhouse warming to some extent. ”
Dr. Curry,
You’ve got it upside down. When the Solar Constant decreases, July, surface temperature increases. The same is true for solar cycle. Surface temperature increases with solar minimum and not the other way around. There is a complete misunderstanding of how the climate actually works.
It’s about time real scientists showed up to tried to discredit the “CO2 is the control knob” hypothesis. 30 years late, but better than never.
hmm. science is not about discrediting.
it is about providing the best explanation given what we know.
C02 is not the control knob. it is one control knob.
the gain on the knob is high.
Steven,
“science is not about discrediting.
it is about providing the best explanation given what we know.”
Thank you. Concise, pertinent, and reasonable.
“science is not about discrediting”
Mosher,
So when you go around daily discrediting skeptic ideas, you aren’t being scientific.
I’m glad you finally admit it.
Andrew
yes…lysenko was in no way discredited.
Sure, Lysenkoism was discredited… but it shouldn’t be your goal to discredit some theory.
We’re trying to ascertain the nature of reality, to figure out how things work. If that results in discrediting, fine.
So when you go around daily discrediting skeptic ideas, you aren’t being scientific.
Meh. Yes, debunking things isn’t science. It’s science communication.
“the gain on the knob is high.”
How high is it again?
Stephen Mosher,
Wrong!!!!
I accept my word “discrediting” was not the best word to use, but I am sure you understood the intended meaning without getting too pedantic. A scientist or group of scientists develops a hypothesis. Other scientists do their best to prove the hypothesis is incorrect. That’s how real science works.
However, climate scientists have failed to do proper science. They have been actively participating in advocacy – trying to find evidence to support the hypothesis instead of trying to disprove the hypothesis.
And then there are millions of hanger-on advocates, like you, many of whom are not scientists at all, like you.
“So when you go around daily discrediting skeptic ideas, you aren’t being scientific.”
that would be mere logic, not science.
For example, when a skeptic argues that c02 cant cause temperature increase, because its cold in his back yard, all you need is logic.. not science.
“Wrong!!!!
I accept my word “discrediting” was not the best word to use, but I am sure you understood the intended meaning without getting too pedantic. A scientist or group of scientists develops a hypothesis. Other scientists do their best to prove the hypothesis is incorrect. That’s how real science works.”
actually not.
“However, climate scientists have failed to do proper science. They have been actively participating in advocacy – trying to find evidence to support the hypothesis instead of trying to disprove the hypothesis.”
too funny. have you actually read the history of climate science?
I dont think so.
Lets boil down climate science to its bare minimum.
Starting in 1896.
What was the hypothesis?
If you add c02 to the atmosphere, all other things being equal, the temperature will increase.
That’s it.
Now, who challenged this hypothesis? what did he think? and how long did it take to overcome his challenge?
What department of the defense division supplied the critical data to overcome this objection to the science?
From this simple hypothesis, however, comes an important policy question.
How much will it warm? We have predictions.. anywhere from 1.5C to 4.5C per doubling.
Now of course scientists challenge this every day. Some flakes try to challenge it and some experts try to challenge it.
“How much will it warm? We have predictions.. anywhere from 1.5C to 4.5C per doubling.”
Actually, the predictions range from less than 0.5C to over 10C. The range you quote was based on the average of two swags made nearly 40 years ago which was adopted as an “official” range. I though you were one of those use all the data types.
Peter, the goal of science is to come up with the most solid explanation of reality that we can.
A secondary goal of scientists themselves is to publish new and original work that stands the test of time. To that extent, there’s plenty of incentive to try to disprove your own ideas, to test them as fully as you can, or at least to point out the potential holes in your data so that you don’t get caught flat-footed. Sometimes it happens anyways, of course.
But, back to science, finding the most solid explanation of reality requires looking at both the arguments & evidence for a hypothesis and those against it. Eventually, the evidence converges on an answer; one hypothesis breaks away from the rest and accumulates more and more evidence. It becomes obvious.
At this point, rather few scientists are working on trying to prove global warming. They work on ancillary projects, like nailing down cloud nucleation mechanisms, looking at ecological impacts, or understanding ice sheet melt processes.
Every now and then, someone comes along and pokes at global warming again, with a new idea for how sensitivity could maybe be low (e.g., Lindzen’s Iris Hypothesis). It generates some interest in that particular sub-field, and there’s some back-and-forth, data is collected, and the field comes away with a slightly richer understanding.
There’s really not much of an argument to be made that climate scientists as a whole are engaging in advocacy for global warming. Scientists publish papers with implications of lower sensitivity all the time, and these receive the same analysis by other scientists as the papers implying higher sensitivity. At this point, it’s just accepted that the overall picture points towards global warming, and the scientists are down in the specifics of their own specific sub-fields, working on their own specific problems. Easily the vast majority of them prefer to stay out of the limelight, too. They’re there to do science, not to play politics.
“the gain on the knob is high.”
Clearly it is nothing of the kind.
Stop making stuff up.
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
Charles Darwin
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
Charles Darwin
CO2 is not a control knob.
If it was a control knob someone would have found where the control knob is located and there would be Internet pictures of said control.
There would be scientific studies determining how many radians of turn resolve to 1°C. And whether turning it clockwise or counterclockwise raises the temperature.
Given that there is no evidence of a control knob – there is no control knob.
So, the critical question becomes, is there suffient coal to keep the planet’s climate in the state to which we’ve become accustomed?
If you wanted to warm the planet with a GHG you would NOT burn coal to make c02. You’d just release HFC… Hansen has a discussion on this.
Hansen? Lol! Neither burning coal nor releasing HFC can warm the planet (significantly).
Steven Mosher | June 27, 2016 at 11:31 am | Reply
I don’t understand this claim. CFCs (theoretically) destroy the ozone layer. Ozone is a GHG which is claimed by the IPCC to warm the planet. How, then, would CFCs warm the planet by destroying ozone?
Do you have a link to Hansen’s discussion? Obviously I’m missing something here …
w.
Quit obsessing about global temperature.
What really matters are regional effects on the weather and food and water availability.
HFC doesn’t reduce water stress (other than possibly increasing precipitation over land) and improve food productivity. It doesn’t produce heat where it is needed. Burning coal does.
It just amazes me that anybody tries to take on Mosher. He doesn’t even try and he still destroys all comers. It’s sad. GWP – might as well be Great White Person… but it’ the other GWP.
JCH: He doesn’t even try and he still destroys all comers.
Are you being ironic? It’s always hard to tell on the internet.
Mosh writes a lot of total junk.
If you are not being ironic, what exactly was it in this posting by Steven Mosher that “[destroyed] all comers”?
“I don’t understand this claim. CFCs (theoretically) destroy the ozone layer. Ozone is a GHG which is claimed by the IPCC to warm the planet. How, then, would CFCs warm the planet by destroying ozone?”
Hydrofluorocarbons HFCs replaced chlorofluorocarbons CFCs so they wouldn’t damage the ozone layer.
Willis,
CFC’s absorb IR in portions of the spectrum having no other competitors.
Diversion. Intellectual dishonesty.
HFC, CFCs and others
‘ In general, fluorinated gases are the most potent and longest lasting type of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities.”
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/fgases.html
for Hansen discussion..–Its CFCs, my memory aint what it used to be
“It just amazes me that anybody tries to take on Mosher. He doesn’t even try and he still destroys all comers. It’s sad. GWP – might as well be Great White Person… but it’ the other GWP.”
yes. My memory isnt what it used to be.. Take climategate. I was able to read and memorize a good number of the mails– or at least tell you the dates and authors of the mails if you gave me key phrases or words from them. Long ago it used to be a photographic… ah well,
But you dont even need a photographic memory to read the IPCC and look at which GHG have the highest GWP..
and if you simply skimmed Hansens book you’d quickly find this
“”The size of continental-scale ice sheets is mind-boggling. Although thinner toward the edges, ice over New York towered several times higher than the Empire State building–thick enough to crush everything in today’s New York City to smithereens. But not to worry–even though we sometimes hear geoscientists talk as if ice ages will occur again, it won’t happen–unless humans go extinct. Forces instigating ice ages, as we shall see, are so small and slow that a single chlorofluorocarbon factory would be more than sufficient to overcome any natural tendency toward an ice age. Ice sheets will not descend over North America and Europe as long as we are around to stop them.”
I mean seriously. how can these science types and internet wizrds read the IPCC reports and fail to remember the little bits buried in footnotes!!
shesh.
( Psst there is something they dont know about my educational background… should I tell them? na… too much fun )
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
table 8.7
‘If you are not being ironic, what exactly was it in this posting by Steven Mosher that “[destroyed] all comers”?”
1. ) if you are worried about a coming ice age, you dont have to burn coal to stop it, when other GHGs have much higher GWP
JCH is smart, you should listen to him.
Forces instigating ice ages, as we shall see, are so small and slow that a single chlorofluorocarbon factory would be more than sufficient to overcome any natural tendency toward an ice age.
For all the run he gets, Hansen doesn’t give me warm fuzzies that he actually understands climate. Of course, when one is enamored of CO2 forcing, every problem appears to be one of GAT.
The glacials were not a matter of global net radiance or of global average temperature, but very specifically of net radiance over the ice accumulation regions( ~ N55 to N80 ), very specifically during the melt season(NH summer).
Jim may have to have more than one factory.
Fortunately, the CFC decline, perhaps prudently restricted, means RF from CFCs are coming off the books:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/AnnotatedRF10.png
“It just amazes me that anybody tries to take on Mosher. He doesn’t even try and he still destroys all comers.”
its too funny.
if you are worried about a coming ice age, you dont have to burn coal to stop it,
Should remember that summer insolation @ 65N is about the same this year as it was during the LGM:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/InsolationSummerSolstice65N.png
But still 40W/m^2 more than during the start of the last glacial.
There was never going to be another ( long term ) glacial advance for 120ka with or without 2x CO2. ( The weakest but slowest and longest forcing allows accumulation ). Also, the peaks within the next 120ka mean deglaciation regardless of what happens over the current CO2 levels.
So, in perspective, worrying about AGW is just silliness.
My favorite Mosherism is when articulated the opinion that science doesnt deal with probabilities, this showing that the entire corpus of physics from say, 1910 on didn’t occur.
Sure…abject ignorance about quantum phenomena is so masterful.
it only deals with probabilties.
TE is even funnier
TE. try to stay on topic.
1. If we do “need” to stop and ice age, which will work better
C02 or some other GHG with a higher GWP?
think?
2. Did hansen make the claim I said he did? or not
Bonus points if you ding me for misremembering CFC as HFC
hohum
Steven Mosher: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
Thank you for the link.
1. If we do “need” to stop and ice age, which will work better
C02 or some other GHG with a higher GWP?
The100,000 year problem is that eccentricity is most correlated with glaciation, but is the weakest forcing.
If we’re stopping an ice age, Hansen’s factory will have to run for 100,000 years. Good government program, I guess.
Any more silly hypotheticals?
Hmm. I sometimes find myself in disagreement with Mosh. But I always listen to what he has to say.
Has anyone done an impact assessment on Photoshopped memory?
Whether it is CFC, HCFC, HFC or WXYZ, they all have some warming potential, some “other” environmental impacts, some benefits and some possible complex chain of reactions leading to something else naughty or nice. When you replace one that is well researched with some knee jerk replacement, you are likely going to make life more interesting.
Well, you’re half right. He doesn’t even try. Many of his comments are little more then assertions of ‘no it’s not’ and ‘you’re wrong’, and even when he sullied himself by actually replying to someone he inevitable spends far more effort in being smug and condescending then by ever proving his point.
Now, if you really think that ‘destroys’ anything, it just means you’re not very smart. It’s the same mindset that thinks Sou has ‘debunked’ something when she points out that the IPCC said something else, so it must be wrong.
Now, don’t worry too much about your apparent lack of intelligence. The Climate Faithful always have room for another member who will unquestioningly accept their every groundless assertion. And a willingness to believe people who have been proven to be lying is greatly appreciated by most progressives. Remember, you’re not just an idiot. You’re a USEFUL idiot.
Ignorance is Strength
You are quite right, Steven, you could not warm the planet with CO2. But HFC would work by destroying ozone. The ultraviolet that ozone captures in the stratosphere would then go straight down to the ground level and vwarm the earth.
Glad to see that you’ve amended your precious assertion.
i thought you were just really ignorant…it turns out you we’re merely mistating your position.
Oh well.
@Steven Mosher…
Of course, we don’t really know what effect increased GHG’s have on glaciation. All we have is some totally unwarranted assumptions, and an ice core record that shows pCO2 lagging the proxies for “global temperature”.
But you can substitute HFC’s and get the same effect without the chloride radicals that supposedly eat ozone.
So maybe your memory just made the jump, and fixed Hansen.
@Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)…
What’s “too funny” is how many people come commenting here without bothering to check the science.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that HFC’s have any effect on ozone.
Anyway, if it’s “warming the planet with GHG’s you want”, you don’t need an HFC factory: all you need is the SF6 being currently used to make solar panels (as well as most silicon semiconductor electronics). Once it scales up to making enough solar PV to supply everybody’s electricity.
According to the EPA document (also linked above):”
Somebody better get cracking on fixing that.
“offset greenhouse warming to some extent”. True, but easy to misinterpret. In normal parlance, “to some extent” stops short of 100%. In this context, it needs to be made clear that its possible range also extends very much higher than 100%.
20th century ? – typo
Decreased SC —> lower surface temperature — incredible ! Guess I’ve been conned
We have been told that if humanity stopped all carbon emissions immediately, and CO2 stayed at its present levels, CO2-forced warming would continue for several decades. That’s how long it would take for the climate system to reach equilibrium.
We have been told that TSI has been pretty stable for the last few decades and thus it cannot be related to global warming. Do I detect a logical disconnect here?
The last time I studied oceanography (45 years ago) we were taught that interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere was such that transient effects could take up to 10-15000 years to dampen out (based on the age of sea water sampled in the Pacific Ocean they had derived how long it took for energy and chemistry to “balance out”).
I’m not sure where they get the idea that atmospheric CO2 would remain steady if we stop emitting. A back of the envelope calculation using a simple minded carbon cycle shows that WHEN emissions drop to 1/3 of the peak emissions level, atmospheric CO2 concentration would start decreasing gradually. If the current models don’t show this trend, they must have a carbon cycle set up to choke carbon sinks, and I’m not sure they can support such a slow down in co2 uptake.
Where am I getting this wrong?
Furthermore, whether cornucopians like it or not, it’s evident we will run out of fossil fuel resources. This means emissions will drop. The debate is really about timing, not whether we have infinite resources.
fernandoleanme,
Here: I’m not sure where they get the idea that atmospheric CO2 would remain steady if we stop emitting.
“Solar indirect effects on climate remain at the knowledge frontier, and are associated with substantial uncertainty and ignorance. This uncertainty and ignorance is not a rationale for ignoring solar effects on the 21st century climate (and 22nd, 23rd centuries).”
This quote should be put on a tiny piece of paper and kept in the wallet of every card carrying climatologist so that when their hubris index becomes a little elevated they can read it 12 times and get right with how little they really know.
Not knowing the author of the paper, I wonder if he is psychologically fortressed for the expected onslaught of attacks from the usual suspects for having the temerity to suggest an unpopular idea.
This is indeed at the edge of the knowledge frontier. Thanks for highlighting it.
cerescokid said:
The author is obviously a racist, and is indifferent to the disproportionate catastrophic effects that CAGW will have on Africa.
cerescokid, agreed.
“The extent of the offset depends on whether climate sensitivity to CO2 is on the larger or smaller end of the range of estimates, and the magnitude of the solar impact.”
If it would turn out that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is on the lower end of the range, then it would be quite likely that climate sensitivity to solar forcing is likewise on the lower end of the range. The (already) small solar offset would thus be proportionally (even) smaller.
So the only way to get another gigantic Maunder Minimum would be for there to also be a big darn ACO2 control knob?
PA,
A brick is completely opaque to both.
They’re not, and that’s not what Pierre-Normand and Benjamin said. A key word here is “proportionally”.
… whoops, threading fail …
Straw man.
What proportion of the planet’s surface is like a brick, relative to the portion that acts as described?
Yeah, it is, pretty much.
Given that the planet’s surface system is an enormously complex non-linear system where tiny “perturbations” are perfectly capable of having as much effect as major “forcings”, the differences are potentially enormous.
Which doesn’t rule out the possibility that they might tend to be proportionally similar.
But they also might not. No objective way to estimate the relative probabilities. So most people (including “scientists” AFAIK) go with their intuition, with no real-world justification.
This is basically just throwing up your hands and saying “we can’t know anything”. It’s an anti-scientific attitude.
The fact that warmer air holds more water is pretty damn well settled. If you want to say that there will be ancillary effects that actually negate this known physical law, and moreover that these ancillary effects actually differ significantly for solar and CO2 forcings, then you’d need to provide some evidence.
But you don’t get to say “well, it looks awful complicated, so let’s throw out all of what we do know”.
There is an objective way: it’s called “science”. You buckle down, you try to figure out what mitigating factors there could be, and then you go out and make measurements and run models to try to see if your ideas are correct.
There’s an infinite number of possible evolutions of weather, we don’t have enough computer time to solve them all, and we have yet to figure out how to develop a input-less climate model.
When looking at the surface record there does not appear to be any sort of trend in humidity, or Entropy that is correlated to Co2.
There is one that is inversely correlated between humidity and cooling rate, something that I’ve noticed during nightly cooling, as humidity gets near saturation, the cooling rate decreases, it can go from well over 5F/hr to under 1F/hr. This is also visible when comparing the tropics to deserts.
in the tropics, the average entropy is near 74kJ.kg, and 8.8kJ/kg are lost overnight, While the desert has 28.2kJ/kg, yet lose 14.4kJ/kg overnight. Now compare this amount of energy lost during the night with forcing from C02.
Oh, both daily and seasonal sensitivity to solar forcing changes are less than 1/100th of a degree C/W, I’ll have a more precise figure in the near future.
Benjamin Winchester: “The fact that warmer air holds more water is pretty damn well settled.”
That is so, at the laboratory experimental level at any rate.
But the Earth and its atmosphere is not even close to a nice controlled laboratory experiment.
The following analyses of the NASA NVAP satellite data for atmospheric water vapour show no definable correlation – never mind a causative relationship – between temperature and water vapour content.
http://www.climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052094/full
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
In fact, Solomon et al shows a decrease in atmospheric water vapour of ~10% in the decade post-2000.
So these analyses of the NVAP data suggest that the relationship between temperature and atmospheric water vapour is somewhat more complex than your rather simplistic analysis indicates.
Nope.
It’s more like saying “we don’t know anything yet and your reasoning by analogy is invalid.”
And not particularly relevant.
Nobody’s suggesting that any physical law will be “negate[d]”.
Problem is, that “known physical law” only applies to infinitesimal parcels of air. The assumption that they also apply on average to any more “global” scale, whether planetary or GCM cell, is unwarranted.
But I do get to point out that you don’t really know, never knew, and just assumed that you did because it’s too much work to deal with the complex reality.
Agreed. But you need better models than GCM’s, which means you need to start by recognizing you have the wrong tools for the job.
If it would turn out that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is on the lower end of the range, then it would be quite likely that climate sensitivity to solar forcing is likewise on the lower end of the range.
Huh? No it wouldn’t. Justify your statement.
for there to also be a big darn ACO2 control knob
Global warmers need to quit playing with their knob. The climate isn’t an oven. CO2 isn’t a control knob.
When post 1998 emissions (cumulative) hit 100% of the 1960-1998 emissions the temperature should have increased a similar amount. If it hasn’t there is some ‘splaining that has to be done.
There’s a textbook called Wadiation Works.
Can’t locate your textbook. Please link.
Only 27.5% of carbon emitted in excess of the 1998 6643 MT (“new emissions”) is staying in the atmosphere, unlike the 57% of the 6643 MT of “old emission”. The overall effectiveness (old+new) is 51% and falling. The RCPs assume that about 55% of CO2 stays in the atmosphere. This is bad news for global warming because even if we emit at RCP8.5 the CO2 level will be below RCP4.5. The models don’t care about emissions – only CO2 level. Modeling RCP8.5 for any reason is a pointless exercise.
If it would turn out that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is on the lower end of the range, then it would be quite likely that climate sensitivity to solar forcing is likewise on the lower end of the range.
Huh? No it wouldn’t. Justify your statement.
Both sensitivities depend on the same feedbacks, like water vapor.
Here you go, solar CS based on the change in length of day and it’s effect on actual temperature by latitude band.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
Both sensitivities depend on the same feedbacks, like water vapor.
Say what?
Sunlight warms the ocean down to a couple hundred meters. IR warms nanometers of the surface. The only thing they have in common is they are both EM radiation.
Saying that solar is the same as CO2 IR is like saying swallowing aspirin has the same effect as rubbing it on your skin.
brandonrgates,
You wrote-
Both sensitivities depend on the same feedbacks, like water vapor
You could no doubt tell me why the hottest places on Earth are the arid tropical deserts. The word arid connotes a lack of water, vapour or otherwise.
Is there some sort of reverse greenhouse effect, meaning the less GHG, the hotter the temperature? Or does the reverse greenhouse only work when there’s lots of Sun? The Antarctic is arid, as well, but temperatures are the coldest in the world.
A most excellent Warmist device, water vapour! Heats or cools, depending on your desire!
You still haven’t a clue, have you?
Cheers.
Mike,
I didn’t write that, but I don’t disagree with it.
Fewer clouds to block solar radiation, less evaporative cooling during the day. Oddly, tropical deserts cool more at night than tropical rain forests.
In the high cold desert of the central plateau of Antarctica, it has been proposed that such may actually <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066749/full"be the case.
Funny what relatively low insolation will do to local climate, innit.
Almost as magical as a Thermos bottle … keeps the hot stuff hot and cold stuff cold. How does it know?
Yup, I’m just dumb enough to believe in physical theories that have been tried and tested on the order of a century over willfully ignorant rants on the Internet.
brandonrgates,
It seems that you inhabit a fantasy land.
A thermos bottle doesn’t know or care what it contains. I am surprised that even a Warmist would imply it does.
Warmists don’t seem to understand how insulators work. Insulators merely reduce the rate at which the insulated material attains equilibrium with the environment.
The thermos provides no heat. It impedes the transmission of heat either from the interior to outside, or from outside to the interior. The outside and interior will eventually reach equilibrium. So cold things will warm, and warm things will cool.
No magic, no back radiation, no greenhouse effect. Just physics.
It looks like you agree that the greenhouse effect only occurs outside, in sunlight, and warms hot places, and cools cold places.
It doesn’t seem to work at night at all. As you point out, areas lacking water vapour (a wondrous greenhouse gas, apparently), are hotter during the day, and colder at night. Quite obvious, less insulation allows faster temperature changed – in both directions, unlike the bizarre one-way insulators in Warmist fantasies.
If you need a clue, I’d be happy to provide one.
Cheers.
“Sunlight warms the ocean down to a couple hundred meters. IR warms nanometers of the surface. The only thing they have in common is they are both EM radiation.”
This comment belies a basic albeit widespread misunderstanding of the greenhouse effect. When there is an enhanced CO2 forcing, the surface doesn’t warm up as a result of more downwelling longwave radiation warming up the ocean surface layers. That is not at all what is expected to occur. The surface warming rather is a consequence of the fact that the whole radiative-convective dynamics (including latent heat fluxes), from the skin layer up to the tropopause, needs to adjust in order to restore the energy balance at the top of the atmosphere. Before this adjustment has been achieved, the whole climate system, and hence also the oceans, shed less energy to space than they gain from the Sun. There is no need for any deep penetration of IR energy in the surface ocean layers in order for this to occur.
An what with all this somewhat warmer water vapor, what happens next? Slightly more robust convection perhaps?
PN, I think you missed his point. On the off chance you didn’t let me make a similar point to the one I assumed PA was making. Model studies have been playing around with the depth of solar penetration. Changing the depth of penetration changes the effect on ocean currents in these models. SW and LW radiation have a huge difference in potential depth of penetration and so could have entirely different feedbacks.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00343-015-3343-3
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/view/25313
stevenreincarnated,
I don’t think so.
Interesting papers, both. I have two more for you.
Donohoe et al. (2014):
Significance
The greenhouse effect is well-established. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms. However, climate models forced with CO2 reveal that global energy accumulation is, instead, primarily caused by an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR). This study resolves this apparent paradox. The solution is in the climate feedbacks that increase ASR with warming—the moistening of the atmosphere and the reduction of snow and sea ice cover. Observations and model simulations suggest that even though global warming is set into motion by greenhouse gases that reduce OLR, it is ultimately sustained by the climate feedbacks that enhance ASR.
Reto Knutti and Rugenstein (2015)
The term ‘feedback’ is used ubiquitously in climate research, but implies varied meanings in different contexts. From a specific process that locally affects a quantity, to a formal framework that attempts to determine a global response to a forcing, researchers use this term to separate, simplify and quantify parts of the complex Earth system. We combine new model results with a historical and educational perspective to organize existing ideas around feedbacks and linear models. Our results suggest that the state- and forcing-dependency of feedbacks are probably not appreciated enough, and not considered appropriately in many studies. A nonconstant feedback parameter likely explains some of the differences in estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity from different methods and types of data. Clarifying the value and applicability of the linear forcing feedback framework and a better quantification of feedbacks on various timescales and spatial scales remains a high priority in order to better understand past and predict future changes in the climate system.
Putting the two together, I’m getting that “entirely different feedbacks” isn’t likely but that differences have been previously underappreciated. Nothing I’m reading suggests that sensitivity to LW and SW forcings are NOT roughly proportional.
“An what with all this somewhat warmer water vapor, what happens next? Slightly more robust convection perhaps?”
Yes, and hence also a positive water vapor feedback.
Brandon, I don’t see where the papers you reference address the issue of poleward ocean heat transport as a feedback. I would call anything that can take today’s forcings and produce both an ice free world and an ice covered world a climate control knob not to be ignored.
“A coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice general circulation model (GCM) has four stable equilibria ranging from 0% to 100% ice cover, including a “Waterbelt” state with tropical sea ice. All four states are found at present-day insolation and greenhouse gas levels and with two idealized ocean basin configurations.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JD022659/abstract
Also, potentially, a negative cloud feedback.
Or, even if it’s positive, it may be very different for evaporation that takes place immediately on receipt of enhanced downwelling IR, and evaporation that takes place later, after warmed water has been transported.
IMO that should be the default assumption. Which means any assumption that you can model solar “forcing” with CO2, or vice versa, is completely unwarranted.
You don’t know that it needs to do that. Increased albedo from increased cloud cover could do just as well.
And it could do it very differently in response to solar “forcing” vs. CO2.
stevenreincarnated,
I didn’t see anything in the papers you previously cited which characterized that feedback mechanism as dominant over things like water vapor feedback.
I’ll give you this much, you do find interesting papers. Let’s read more than just the abstract:
1. Introduction
The high shortwave reflectivity of surface ice and snow relative to open water and vegetated surfaces introduces a profound nonlinearity into the climate system. Runaway positive albedo feedback for large ice caps was first discovered as a mathematical principle in simple but physically plausible climate models [Budyko, 1969; Sellers, 1969]. These simple models predict that multiple stable climate states are possible for a given radiative forcing. In particular, a fully ice-covered planet would be stable at present-day insolation and greenhouse gas levels. See North et al. [1981] for a comprehensive review of early work. The stability of the ice-covered Earth has been confirmed in a number of modern comprehensive climate models [e.g., Marotzke and Botzet, 2007; Ferreira et al., 2011; Voigt et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2012a].
The Snowball Earth hypothesis [Kirschvink, 1992; Hoffman et al., 1998] proposes that the global oceans froze over during the widespread glaciations of the Late Neoproterozoic Era, linking the mathematical theory of runaway albedo feedback to the geological record. The simple theories demand a very strong radiative forcing to initiate melting of the tropical oceans in order to exit the fully glaciated state, which is thought to have been provided by volcanic outgassing of CO2 in the absence of significant chemical weathering. Indeed, the post-glacial cap carbonate sequences and other geochemical evidence strongly suggest that Snowball terminations involved a climatic bifurcation and rapid transition to a much warmer climate state (see review by Pierrehumbert et al. [2011]), consistent with the simplest albedo-feedback models.
We probably shouldn’t ignore large initial forcings before drilling into feedback responses.
If you’re really worried about global cooling and are of a mind to look toward ocean heat transport as a mechanism, you might be interested in AMOC shutdown due to large meltwater pulses. However, the jury is apparently still out on the sequence of events:
Two conflicting scenarios have been proposed to link the timing and source(s) of MWP-1A to the climatic history of the last deglaciation. On the basis of the Barbados record’s chronology5,6, it was initially argued that this episode of rapid sea-level rise was caused by a partial melting of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets (NHIS)5,18,19. This ‘Northern’ scenario was consistent with results from a coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model (GCM), in which massive freshwater input to the North Atlantic would result in a weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and, through the reduction of deepwater formation in the Nordic Seas, the rapid cooling of the Northern Hemisphere11. In this scenario, MWP-1A may have initiated the Older Dryas cold event that abruptly ended the Bølling warming about 14.1 kyr ago14,16.
In contrast, an alternative scenario points towards an Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) as the source of MWP-1A17,20 and suggests a causative coupling between MWP-1A and the Bølling warm period21. This ‘Southern’ scenario suggests that MWP-1A coincided with an intensification of the thermohaline circulation at the onset of the Bølling warm period22, rather than with a slowdown during the following cold event as predicted by the ‘Northern’ scenario. The ‘Southern’ scenario was supported by output from a GCM model of intermediate complexity showing that an MWP-1A originating from the West Antarctica Ice Sheet (WAIS) may have triggered sudden reactivation of the AMOC to lead to the Bølling warming12. Although still contentious, this scenario solves the apparent conundrum of the Bølling warming by providing a plausible triggering mechanism for the onset of this event, traditionally considered as marking the termination of the last glacial period.
One thing that’s clear to me: random climate doesn’t just change “randomly” because of “chaos”. Destabilizing it with rapid changes to external forcings is the last thing I’d think prudent to do when facing Uncertainty Monsters about the nth-order effects of a large, geologically-rapid initial forcing.
AK,
Which would imply — all else being equal — that the initial forcings are *more* efficatious.
How much is “very different”? How does this negate the statement that sensitivity to LW and SW forcing are likely *proportional* due to the net of all feedbacks in response to the initial forcing?
You don’t have answers, all you’re doing is asking questions. They’re not bad questions per se, but endlessly raising what-ifs does nothing in and of itself to advance an argument. Or knowledge for that matter.
Who says it isn’t?
Please point out where anyone in this thread has said such a thing — I’m not finding where anyone said that sensitivity is the same for both.
I posed the question, I believe once thermalized, watts are watts.
Nope. You’ve already defined the “initial forcings”, a negative “feedback” would just reduce the value of the final effect.
The “sensitivity” is the final effect. If, for instance, the “feedback” from cloudy air were negative for CO2, but positive for solar “forcing”, similar wattage of “forcing” could have wildly different effects. Thus, very different “sensitivities”.
Here’s what P-NH said in the initial comment above:
That’s tantamount to saying that the “feedbacks” for similar wattage of “forcing” are similar (by assumption) for solar and CO2.
I’m saying the default assumption should be that they aren’t similar (till it’s proven they are), which means his effort to model one with the other is unwarranted.
See above. I would describe {“it would be quite likely” that if one “sensitivity” is on the low end of the scale the other would be} as “modeling one with the other”.
Thermalized Watts are Watts, there is no difference. The absorption characteristics are different, but the worse Co2 forcing could be would be to be as effective as Solar forcing, other wise it’s getting routed to space.
So it’s either equally as effective as Solar Watts, or it’s lost to space.
And Solar CS is less than a couple hundredths of a degree F per Watt hour (it’s a bit higher in some cases than the averages I referenced in other posts, and I had the solar forcing units wrong, I listed it as Watts, where it should be Watt Hours).
But all in all Co2 forcing is trivial compared to the normal daily thermal processes. I have to wonder why we’ve had teams of people making up data to create a GAT, yet they have been ignoring the dynamic processes that are far larger.
There’s no reason to assume you can “thermalize” Watts without turning your model into garbage.
Wrong.
Where/how it’s absorbed determines what “feedbacks” operate against it. After all, all real “feedbacks” operate at a local level. Global “feedbacks” are myths.
No way to know.
Obviously you don’t know anything about science. Who really cares about what somebody says who measures temperature in “degree F”?
I’m sorry, after reading your comments, you obviously know a lot less than I do.
Really, degrees F? I find I can relate better in F, so since I have a choice that’s what I picked.
Brandon, I don’t find it interesting that it is difficult to exit the snowball earth state and I don’t find it new that some hypothosese suggest this was caused by GHG out gassing from volcanoes. Of course that doesn’t mean it was caused by an increase in GHGs only that some hypotheses incorporate that into their version of what it would take. There are other versions of what may have allowed that. It doesn’t change the fact that you can take today’s forcing levels and create everything from an ice free earth to a snow ball earth using that model. The next time you see someone reaching for their calculator and doing a simple forcing/temperature equation perhaps you will tell them they are using a 2 dimensional equation to try and explain a 3 dimensional world. You can’t possibly explain climate without understanding heat transport and we don’t.
I’m somewhat familiar with the YD event. I don’t think we really need to bring such an extreme case into account to explain the changes in modern climate using just ocean heat transport. A simple reconstruction of the Gulf Stream (in this chart accompanied by a few other AMOC reconstructions).
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/fig_tab/ncomms1901_F5.html
Along with a model explaining what a 15% increase in poleward ocean heat transport could do:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91JD00009/abstract
“We investigated the effect of increased ocean heat transports on climate in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) general circulation model (GCM). The increases used were sufficient to melt all sea ice at high latitudes, and amounted to 15% on the global average. The resulting global climate is 2°C warmer, with temperature increases of some 20°C at high latitudes, and 1°C near the equator.”
show that the entire warming of the modern period could be explained by a change in poleward ocean heat transport quite readily.
I’m aware of the hypothesis that melt water could shut down the AMOC. Lucky for us water can and does flow towards the equator without sinking first and the likelihood of half of Greenland sliding off into the sea and causing a YD type event is so remote that only science fiction writers and people that fear the boogyman should pay attention.
That being said the recent measured change of a slowdown of about 15% in the AMOC would put us about where it was during the LIA and may give the people that ridicule the idea of cooling the very cooling that they ridicule should it not pick back up soon.
Maybe you can’t predict the future, but you can quantify the last 50 – 60 years.
Micro, changing heat transport changes the energy budget, at least according to ocean heat transport models. This happens because as ocean heat transport is increased poleward you get less albedo and in the newer models a dynamic increase in water vapor. That is why you can change ocean heat transport while keeping external forcings constant and come up with completely different climates. I just took a cursory glance at what you have done and I don’t see how it could possibly be an accurate depiction of climate sensitivity. This would be especially true if solar is a major driver of ocean heat transport as the very transport that would increase global temperatures and increase the climate sensitivity to solar would also decrease the change from Tmax to Tmin and cause your calculations to come up with a smaller climate sensitivity inversely to what it would actually be doing.
Yes, and in fact this is the cause of the step in temp after the 97-98 El Nino, you can see it here, in my sensitivity analysis.
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/latband_n20-30_sensitivity.png
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
But there’s no evidence that there is a significant change in Tmax to Tmin over time, Here is Rising and Falling temps for the Deserts in the US SW (I didn’t have a global plot handy)
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/us-sw-risingfalling.png
But here is the difference between Rise and Fall for the globe
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rise_fall-temp-differences.png
it does however track well when compared to Tmin to Tmax , but what I’ve done is change my day period to start at Tmin, instead of midnight, so I compare the rise and fall from each solar input. So when I’m calculating sensitivity I’m directly comparing an increase in temperature with the solar forcing calculated at the same location I’m measuring the temperature at. I am doing this on two time scales, the warming portion of my solar day, as well as the rise in temperature as the length of day changes during the year, both come out to about the same value ~0.005F
I also generate a lot of additional information with each of these, the graphs are just a tiny bit of that info. Follow the link to sourceforge and look at the report data.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/evidence-against-warming-from-carbon-dioxide/
Micro, I can’t find support for your claim there has been no trend in the diurnal range in the published literature.
I’ve taken Mosher to heart, and about 8 years ago I (a data professional) downloaded the GSOD data set, it’s data and methods that I’ve published.
And Diurnal range data is the stupidest way you could possibly look at the day night cycle, it’s as if you were intentionally trying to make the data look incomprehensible. It’s half of two different cooling cycles, and makes it meaningless because tonight’s cooling is dependent on todays warming cycle.
All of the report files(sourceforge) all the rise and fall data, and all of the supporting data one could want.
AK,
You’re not thinking. The effects are in the books from paleo data to the instrumental record. If you propose a strong negative feedback — which will tend to damp temperature response — other forcings (or feedbacks) must be more strongly positive to explain the variability.
The only other option is that variability is smaller than the observational estimates suggest. It could be a combination. Bottom line: those who argue for a low-end climate sensitivity implicitly undermine the case for, say, a strong MWP followed by a deep LIA. Many of us here in the warmunist camp are endlessly amused by this.
Yes, understood. A main problem is that it’s not a directly observable quantity because the system is never at equlibrium and forcings are constantly changing.
I read what he said, and you’re putting words in his mouth. He did NOT say sensitivity to LW and SW is the same, only that if one is at the low end of the estimated range, the other is likely also lower. He was silent on the *absolute* sensitivity values, his comment addressed them in *relative* terms.
Your description is wrong. Integrity demands that you rebut what people actually argue, not what you want them to argue. Proper skeptics don’t build strawmen and attack their own made up arguments.
@brandonrgates…
Yeah, I am. Problem is You’re not paying attention to what I’m saying.
Paleo proves nothing. We’ve been over this IIRC. I certainly have.
Your “forcings” aren’t at all necessary to “explain the variability.” The system is non-linear. Likely not just temporal chaos, but spatio-temporal chaos.
Assume no “forcings”, that is constant well-mixed GHG and solar irradiance. How much unforced variation would there be. That’s the baseline. “Equilibrium” (applied to global climate) is a myth.
By analogy (and yes, I know the caveats about reasoning by analogy), given that most such hyper-complex non-linear systems tend to show self-similar unforced variation on all scales, we would expect “climate” to do so as well.
That should be the default assumption, until a good demonstration can be made that the analogy doesn’t apply to the “climate”.
Wrong!
“Implicit” only if you make the unwarranted assumption that such variation couldn’t happen without “forcing”. But that’s begging the question.
Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt.
I am not putting words in his mouth, I’m pointing out an implication of what he said: to say that {if ‘A’ is low, then ‘B’ is probably low} is to say that they are similar, in that respect. Such similarity is tantamount to using one to model the other.
He said if one is low then “it would be quite likely that” the other is low. I’m saying that’s a completely unwarranted statement, except as opinion based on (invalid) intuition.
Given the non-linear nature of the mechanisms involved in “feedback” there’s no good reason to suppose that one couldn’t be high while the other’s low.
stevenreincarnated,
I find it both interesting and quite relevant to the “but chaos” arguments so often peddled in these parts.
The paper intimated evidence suggestive of volcanic outgassing as the causal mechanism. I’m aware other hypotheses exist. The salient conclusion is that the system didn’t “randomly” exit the snowball regime, it was likely forced out of it.
Like I said, it’s an interesting paper and result. I take it that you’re suggesting that a snowball planet is therefore possible in our not so distant future. For context, the snowball earth being discussed here happened in the aptly-named Cryogenian Period of the Neoproterozoic Era between 720 to 635 million years ago. 541 million years of Phanerozoic suggest the implausibility of such an extreme glaciation. I also wouldn’t rule out continental configuration during the Cryogenian as a factor:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/650Cryogenian.jpg
4-dimensional. I’d wager that most climate scientists doing those back of napkin estimates understand their limitations better than you or I do. Hence, teh modulz in all their glorious complexity.
I think you mean we have a poor understanding of heat transport in all the nooks and crannies of the fluid systems which contribute to weather and thence climate. I would tend to agree with you on good authority — climate scientists and even the IPCC say so. That should not diminish from the unambiguous effect of CO2 as an initial forcing over the observed instrumental record, and the paleo evidence for its generally lagging, but efficacious amplifying feedback over glacial/interglacial cycles.
The image from your Wanamaker et al. (2012) citation is worth looking at:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n6/images/ncomms1901-f5.jpg
Both the Gulf Stream transport and Summertime SST temps in Fram Straight show a fairly sharp reversal of the long-term downtrend starting around 1750. I wouldn’t make too much out of the timing, as the caption says: […] the Fram Strait data have an age error of about ±30 to 50 years (see ref. 10 for the full SST record and details); the Gulf Stream data have a possible age error of about ±50 years1. The salient feature is that the rate of change and duration from 1750-present is unprecedented over the interval shown. The paper doesn’t comment on this that I can find, but I have a hard time dismissing the coincidence of rising CO2 levels over about the latter third of that interval.
Let’s keep in mind that you initially described this as a feedback mechanism, which is what Rind and Chandler (1991) are about. Just above you wrote: I don’t think we really need to bring such an extreme case into account to explain the changes in modern climate using just ocean heat transport. Let’s also not forget your confident assertion: You can’t possibly explain climate without understanding heat transport and we don’t.
I don’t think ocean heat transport alone can explain this in the slightest:
https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content2000mwerrpent.png
But don’t explain the observed increase in OHC down to 2000m since 1955. You should also ponder some of the other bits from that abstract:
Resulting hydrologic and wind stress changes suggest that qualitatively, for both the wind-driven and thermohaline circulation, the increased transports might be self-sustaining. As such, they would represent a possible mechanism to help account for the high-latitude warmth of climates in the Mesozoic and Tertiary, and decadal-scale climate fluctuations during the Holocene, as well as a powerful feedback to amplify other climate forcings. […] Colder climates, or rapid climate perturbations, might have been generated with the aid of such altered ocean transports. The large high-latitude amplification associated with ocean heat transport and sea ice changes differs significantly from that forecast for increased trace gases, for which water vapor increase is the primary feedback mechanism. The different signatures might allow for discrimination of these different forcings; e.g., the warming of the 1930s looks more like the altered ocean heat transport signal, while the warming of the 1980s is more like the trace gas effect. The actual change of ocean heat transport and deep water circulation both in the past and in the future represents a great uncertainty.
The phrase “for which water vapor increase is the primary feedback mechanism” takes me back to what I wrote to you in my previous post: I didn’t see anything in the papers you previously cited which characterized that feedback mechanism as dominant over things like water vapor feedback.
As for “great uncertainties” — again, about the best argument I can think of for NOT radically forcing the system into uncharted territory I can think of is that we’re NOT exactly sure what the results will be. Uncertainty Monsters are NOT our friends.
I thought Day After Tomorrow was a fun disaster flick, but totally bogus scientifically.
Keep in mind that an AMOC slowdown comes at the expense of SLR. In the meantime, OHC continues to rise unabated and GMST looks to be more or less oscillating around a similar long-term secular trend in a manner that is entirely consistent with internal variability. Both suggest external forcing from anthropogenic GHG emissions + water vapour feedback as the best explanations for most of the observed warming above and below the surface from the 20th Century to present.
“I don’t think ocean heat transport alone can explain this in the slightest:”
Why would you say that? All that shows is there is a change in the energy budget which is exactly what you would expect from a change in poleward ocean heat transport.
Yes, I’m aware the paper is an older one where they still thought water vapor was a feature more of CO2 forcing than changes in ocean heat transport. I wouldn’t put too much into that since newer models show ocean heat transport has the same warming contribution of water vapor as you would expect, but also a dynamic increase in water vapor above and beyond what you would expect from a well mixed GHG.
Here is a newer model:
http://water.columbia.edu/files/2011/11/Seager2005OceanHeat.pdf
Note that if ocean heat transport were to slow you would expect a negative change in water vapor as you lost the dynamic potion. That could be the case even if there was still warming. You might end up with something like this for your water vapor trend:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012GL052094-pip.pdf
Going back to your implicite assertion that increases in OHC are incompatible with warming caused by horizontal heat transport, here is a study that attempts to explain why the tropics don’t cool:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00192.1?journalCode=clim
There’s a theme here. They aren’t arguing that you must give up OHC in order to change the global temperature. They are arguing things such as albedo and water vapor that would change the energy budget.
Now to get to the interesting question of the recent warming. Here are studies that claim the oceans are warming the land. As you must be aware that is exactly the opposite that you would expect from a well mixed GHG where the oceans should be slowing the warming, ie cooling, the land.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/gilbert.p.compo/CompoSardeshmukh2007a.pdf
http://users.monash.edu.au/~dietmard/papers/dommenget.land-ocean.jcl2009.pdf
So now going to Occam’s razor you have two choices. The well mixed GHGs are selectively warming the ocean which then warm the land against prevailing theory or you have had a change in ocean heat transport which caused the land warming. Ocean heat transport change argument seems pretty straight forward. Have a logical explanation for the GHG method?
AK,
I’m paying attention to what you’re saying. I disagree with it. Big difference.
Thphphtphpt. Tell that to the “climate is always changing” crowd.
Here’s a plot after Petit et al. (1999):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg/1024px-Vostok_Petit_data.svg.png
The sawtooth shape of those curves is entirely consistent with an amplifying feedback due to CO2.
Chaos is not a causal mechanism, AK. Deterministic systems don’t do things magically. If we can’t rule out invisible farting unicorns here, there’s no reason to appeal to physical theory or observational evidence — we can simply believe whatever the heck it is we want.
Well duh. That’s a major reason to do paleo studies in the first place.
Your strawmen are getting tedious, AK.
You know this because climate literature is full of just such discussions. Far be it for you to give credit where it’s due.
Sure, fine. I yield to your superior expertise in these matters.
A third option is something like ocean heat sequestration of a higher magnitude and/or deeper than previously considered, thus mucking up the energy balance calculations. A fourth option is some combination of the three of all I’ve mentioned. A fifth option is something else entirely.
Wake me up when you’ve got more than speculative options. Ability to detect the aforementioned invisible farting unicorns perhaps.
And yet you provide no evidence or alternative model that fully explains observed variability sans external forcing save for “but chaos”. It’s just awesome how you get to make naked assertions while complaining that I’m begging questions.
Scratch one irony meter.
Jeez you’re stubborn. Those of us who can properly parse plain English and know something about what literature says understand the difference between absolute and relative.
What was written was NOT: {if ‘A’ is low, then ‘B’ is probably low}.
Here’s what actually WAS written: If it would turn out that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is on the lower end of the range, then it would be quite likely that climate sensitivity to solar forcing is likewise on the lower end of the range. The (already) small solar offset would thus be proportionally (even) smaller.
Again, I point to that key word “proportionally”.
That’s a different argument, and it does actually address the specific argument made. I look forward to you substantiating it with something other than simply raising possible alternatives.
Now you’re back to mixing up absolutes with relatives. I’m quite sure sensitivity to LW vs. SW forcing are *different*. I’m also quite sure that lowering the estimate of one implies that lowering the estimate of the other is called for.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-i-K7ZBtVYtU/V2wLvEpju0I/AAAAAAAAAqQ/4TVBbTjgrwk8JKpqkKTyzeYg2nAwW3ZoACLcB/s1600/IPPC-pseudo.png
nonlinear = tipping points = worse than we thought
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/files/2012/09/naam-ice-12.jpg
Possibly. Can’t be ruled out.
AFAIK none of the real climate scientists have said that nonlinear=no problem.
The real problem is that many people think if you haven’t conclusively proven a problem exists, they don’t have to worry about it. And rather than deal honestly with the risks, the alarmists cobbled together a social “consensus” pseudo-science based on an obsolete paradigm, then labeled anybody who even questioned a “denier”.
I think it was because they had a (socialist) agenda they were really pushing, and admitting that the climate issue was not certain settled science would give people the incentive to think about other solutions than the one they were after.
But I certainly could be wrong. It could just have been that they didn’t know how to think except in straight lines. Or didn’t understand that science isn’t about certainty, much less manufactured certainty. Or some other explanation I haven’t thought of.
Just the uncertainty argues for slowing down.
Not actually having a viable alternative explanation, AK retreats to political science … this time with a misleading cartoon alleging that the IPCC ignores chaos and non-linearity. Shocker.
micro6500,
Sorry, I missed that. I tend to agree, the question here is about how many watts are being thermalized relative to watts incident. That’s a function of any number of things, but I’d think mainly surface albedo for the relevant wave bands. We know albedo for SW is very different for the ocean vs. ice and snow. Angle of incidence matters a great deal, thus equatorial oceans gobble up solar energy with alacrity relative to polar ice sheets. I think it’s true that LW is less variable between those two surface types, but I’ve not verified that. If true, there’s an argument for sensitivity being higher to LW forcing than SW.
That all aside, AK — and to perhaps a lesser extent, stevenreincarnated — think that SW being absorbed at depth in the oceans translates into a *very* different sensitivity because that thermalized energy is going to tend to come out of the oceans more poleward than it went in. It’s not a terrible argument, but also not one I find terribly convincing either. Wherever that energy pops out, it’s still going to have to get through the atmosphere to exit the system entirely, thus it’s subject to things like water vapor and cloud feedback just like any other outbound LW would be.
Higher latitudes tend to be drier than lower, so there’s another argument for SW sensitivity being lower than LW. The possible negative cloud feedback AK raised would also tend to suggest lower SW sensitivity than LW.
Bottom line, it’s not wildly out of bounds that I can tell to suppose that a SW sensitivity estimate revised higher does NOT necessarily imply a higher LW sensitivity than previously estimated, but I’m seeing more reasons to be dubious than accepting of arguments that one doesn’t imply the other.
So I can provide the answer to the solar forcing mostly here https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
I think I uploaded the data to sourceforge, but I’ve been revising the code, adding entropy, and delta entropy.
Here’s my logic.
Solar is broadband, absorbed by many things, lots of thermalizing going on, the gold standard (though it does not have the same effectiveness across the globe), Co2 on the other hand Co2 is in a small range of narrowband radiation that is absorbed selectively, blah, blah.
But I realized a full day at 100% conversion is ~130kWhr per day, Solar is average 3625 kWhr per day, and entropy is 38kJ/kg (, and with low humidity (52F dew point) it cools 4F/hour, 10 hours at that rate is 40F.
Brandon, I suspect I’m more convinced there may be a large difference in climate sensitivities. Almost all models show CO2 forcing slowing poleward heat transport which would be a negative feedback. The models that I’m aware of that don’t parameterize solar indicate increasing solar would increase poleward ocean heat transport which would be a positive feedback. Unfortunately there aren’t many of those so it will be an interesting field of research to watch. Besides my last comment I noticed I skipped at least one of your questions regarding the rate of change. Take a look at your ice core charts. It isn’t unusual for warming to proceed faster than cooling on longer time scales. I see no reason to suspect shorter time scales should see a different pattern.
“Like I said, it’s an interesting paper and result. I take it that you’re suggesting that a snowball planet is therefore possible in our not so distant future.”
Odd that you would think that. When climate scientists stated that should they take all the CO2 out of the atmosphere they would create a snowball earth, I didn’t assume they thought that could happen in the near future. Did you?
@brandonrgates…
That (“political science”) is what all your empty rhetoric boils down to.
Nothing misleading about it. We’ve been over this before. I just didn’t have the time last night to waste with you.
Your time-wasting straw men are getting as tiresome as Flynn’s blather.
I’ve provided links to references, your subsequent comments show you’ve never bothered to follow them. Those links have been provided here (Climate, Etc.) many times, by many people, including whole posts by somebody who understands the math better than I do. I’ve provided (a few) links to such posts, as well as peer-reviewed literature.
It’s clear you don’t want to address the science. You just want to waste my time demanding new links when the subject comes up again. You’re just playing politics to the crowd. (IMO, but prove me wrong.)
Not naked, see (right) above.
But your whole argument is full of circularity.
Another straw man. Your “magically” is nothing but arm-waving dismissal of something you don’t understand. (See below.)
[…]
First, “sensitivity” is a myth. You haven’t demonstrated yet that it’s anything but a fantasy.
But let’s assume, just for the sake of argument that it’s a real number that stays roughly the same while things change around it. I didn’t say that it “translates into a *very* different sensitivity”, I said that it translates in a very different effect, which might translate into a very different sensitivity.
IOW we don’t know, and IMO our ignorance should translate to a 50/50% probability either way.
Nope.
As I told micro6500:
Energy from above is “immediately” translated to either sensible or latent heat.
I put the “immediately” in scare quotes because, while both SW and LW are both actually translated to “sensible heat” on absorption, LW is absorbed in the skin layer and within microseconds much is translated to latent heat through evaporation.
It never gets past the skin layer into the “ocean” proper, which means that models based on SST (top few meters) driving evaporation are invalid.
OK. Let’s look at that. I’m not going to bother linking to references again, because you’ve given no evidence that you ever followed the links I already gave. Do that first, and maybe (if I can find time) I’ll dig up more detailed stuff.
My cartoon expresses my position clearly. It’s a paradigm thing, to quote another arm-waving peddler of empty rhetoric.
• Paleo proves nothing. (Yes, that’s a good reason for studying paleo, but until then…)
• “Chaotic” systems do all sorts of thing without outside intervention. None of it is “magical”, much might appear so to an observer who imposes the wrong preconceptions. AFAIK the usual term, in real science is “counter-intuitive”.
• The “traditional” paradigm, going back to Arrhenius, imposes assumptions of “equilibrium” on a “global” system it doesn’t apply to, then engages in a great deal of question-begging circularity studying the result.
• Such question-begging circularity isn’t unique to “climate science”, it’s a function of any paradigm. (Read and understand Kuhn for more.)
• Starting with Lorenz, many scientists and mathematicians have studied the implications of non-linear dynamics, making the same sort of progress that, for instance, evolutionary biologists made starting with Darwin.
• Meanwhile, the IPCC and associated “scientists” have been perverting the older, now obsolete, paradigm for their political agenda.
• The result is a “paradigm” (the IPCC “consensus” based on social manipulation) that is full of circularity and unwarranted assumption when viewed from the outside.
• That “view from the outside” is provided by a good science of non-linear dynamics, which provides good reason to question the IPCC “paradigm”.
Arguments over paradigms are essentially political, not scientific. (Again, see Kuhn for more.) I see the same sort of exclusionary, anti-scientific, political behavior in the way Mediterranean archaeology rejects the work of James et al. questioning the chronology of LB/EI transition, and other paradigm shifts/challenges currently under weigh.
As are your empty rhetoric, straw men, and arm-waving (essentially political, not scientific). It’s simple enough. From the outside, you have no warrant to make all the unproven assumptions and circular definitions needed to support your rejection of “but chaos”.
From the inside, you insist that any question of any of your built-in assumptions must be proven. But then, you reject those proofs as “unicorns”, based on circular references to other parts of your “paradigm”. This is typical to most scientific paradigm challenges.
But for “climate science” there are two differences other scientific paradigm challenges:
• There are enormous policy implications.
• It isn’t a “real” scientific paradigm, because it was constructed using social practices foreign to real science.
That’s the essence of my argument, and that’s what my cartoon communicates.
AK,
One then wonders why you’re even talking about it.
Fine, with the caveat that sensitivity to a given forcing is likely not constant across all climate states.
The ultimate result being a different sensitivity. I note *again* that this doesn’t address the argument being made that IF LW sensitivity is to the low end of present estimates, SW sensitivity is probably also to the low end of present estimates. Again note that this does not entail that both LW and SW sensitivity must be the same in *absolute* terms.
Sensitivity estimates are typically given in terms of a two-tailed PDF, with the central estimate being considered most likely.
That’s stevenreincarnated’s argument, which you’ve lifted from my response to micro6500. I think it’s a valid argument because we know *from observation* both the oceans and atmosphere transport absorbed energy poleward. If you would pause a moment and *think*, my statement might tend to support your argument that LW and SW sensitivity are different in *absolute* terms — not that it’s relevant to the arguments Pierre-Normand and Benjamin made in the beginning of this subthread.
I agree with the second sentence.
Noted.
Bullcrap. Your statement is at odds with *observation* that OHC is increasing as GHG forcing has increased, and it demonstrates poor understanding of the physics just as Pierre-Normand indicated.
The part that you are missing is that the SW absorbed at depth needs to get back out at the same rate it was absorbed to maintain a “constant” temperature. “Constant” in scare quotes because we know — in the mixed layer especially — that temperature is anything but constant. That caveat given, by virtue of the fact that LW does not penetrate sea water more than a few microns means that the surface is *only* place that the oceans can shed absorbed energy such that it has a chance of escaping the system entirely. This is very *unlike* the atmosphere which can radiate directly to space by way of the so-called atmospheric windows. In this respect, the oceans are the “ultimate greenhouse” in the system for the very reason that SW penetrates to depths from which LW cannot hope to “immediately” dissipate it.
If you’ll excuse the imagery, what this all boils down to is that the oceans are quite sensitive to surface *net* energy flux. Thus, I think the more correct physical explanation is similar to how I state the radiative theory of AGW in general: the sun warms the system, increasing CO2 impedes the rate of loss, thus causing a downward energy imbalance until a new — warmer — long-term temperature equilibrium is established.
Please spare us the nit-pick that the system is never at equilibrium.
Except the cartoon is misleading about the paradigm. Last time we discussed it, I went through the IPCC ARs and provided direct quotes from FAR, TAR (and on request, AR4) which demonstrate their recognition that climate is full of chaotic behavior and non-linear responses to external forcing. IOW, the exact opposite of arm-waving and empty rhetoric. Your continued strawmanning on this point about paradigms is dishonest. Where’s the Integrity, AK?
I think it’s fair to say that one reason you know as much as you do about weather/climate chaos and non-linearity is *because*, NOT *despite*, what primary climate literature and IPCC reports have to say about them.
The balance of your Gish gallop not directly related to the discussion at hand mercifully snipped.
@brandonrgates…
It’s pretty obvious to me that we’re talking past each other here. I’m not going to address all your points, especially as many of them are repetitions of things I’ve already responded to. It’s pretty clear to me that you’re just playing to your choir here, not seriously trying to address the science.
Indeed. I’ve often contended that one reason “sensitivity” is a myth is that even systems demonstrating only temporal chaos can be highly sensitive to boundary effects, not just initial conditions, and that therefore an event such as the Mt. St. Helens eruption, and loss of its peak, could in principle make a substantial change to it.
In principle, even chopping down one tree in a critical area, say the western Andean Cordillera, could do so.
No.
The ultimate result being a potentially different sensitivity. It’s an important distinction, and interesting that you find it negligible.
It fully addresses it. As anybody who understands chaotic systems will realize. If they are potentially very different they could easily be at opposite ends of the ends of the present estimates.
Or, for that matter, one could be relatively robust to small changes (such as chopping down trees), and the other highly sensitive.
Arm-waving. The question is whether the “sensitivities” to two different “forcings” could be expected to land on similar parts of a PDF. Fine. The PDF for how close they should be should, given our present ignorance, be relatively flat over a wide range.
I know that. But you’re right that it has less chance of placing them on opposite ends of the PDF than the mechanism I’m discussing. Which is why I’m discussing it, rather than poleward heat transport.
No. It’s not. There’s a good explanation how increased downwelling IR can immediately result in increased OHC, it’s part of the standard IPCC “science”, although it’s not a part I have any dispute with.
I’ve discussed it several times. Here, for instance.
Only in your imagination.
First, it’s not physics. It’s a projection of real physics, which acts only at the scale of an infinitesimal parcel, to a global scale. The very fact that such a mechanism is accepted without question by the IPCC-style “science” is proof that my cartoon is correct. (And see below.)
No. I’m not missing it at all. The point you are missing is that the fraction of energy impacting the real surface that goes into the ocean is very different between solar and CO2 “forcing”.
I know you’re trying to say that the impact of CO2 is simply to reduce outgoing LR on a planetary scale, but the problem with that is it says nothing about the relative impacts on outgoing SW at TOA. You appear to be confusing the boundaries of the system between parts of your (mental) model.
It’s much more complex than that, and you’re building in the invalid assumption mentioned at the top of my cartoon. As does the IPCC science, in many places it’s unwarranted.
It’s not misleading. Either about my position, or the IPCC.
Blockquotes of a bunch of boiler-plate arm-waving. And I demonstrated that the people writing those AR’s clearly didn’t understand enough about chaos to have a valid opinion.
And I also demonstrated, or rather you demonstrated and I pointed it out, that you don’t understand enough about chaos to even have a worthwhile opinion whether the IPCC’s boilerplate was more than arm-waving or not.
Go back and read the discussion if your memory is faulty.
This from somebody who doesn’t even bother to read the responses to his comments? Where’s yours?
I continue repeating the cartoon, and the contention, because it expresses what I’m saying about the IPCC pseudo-“science”, and what I’m saying has not been refuted. You certainly haven’t refuted it, not with your blockquotes of what is clearly nothing but arm-waving on the IPCC’s part.
You went wrong on the second word. I think this paragraph is nothing but playing to the crowd: I don’t even believe you really think that.
Anyway, I started my study of “chaos” with Gleick’s book in the early ’90’s, and went from there. Especially Kauffman. With good access to the Internet starting in 1997, I’ve extensively studied several examples of hyper-complex non-linear systems, including the internal behavior of the Eukaryote cell, the epitome of non-chaotic hyper-complex non-linear systems.
And my study of the application of chaos theory to climate has gone far beyond what the IPCC has been willing to include in their politically-driven pseudo-science. If you’d ever bothered to follow the links I’ve provided in the recent previous discussions, you’d know this.
Or perhaps your question WRT my integrity was projection, and you do know and are just saying this for effect.
Thus allowing you to continue evading my primary point. Your previous statement:
…Is a transparent defense mechanism. Evidently you are continuing to deny my central point, refusing to see it or admit it could exist.
stevenreincarnated,
I don’t think so, it’s a common enough argument in these parts and I’d expect the topic of the OP to bring out the ice-age cometh contingent. Looking around at other comment threads, I don’t appear to be too far off the mark.
No, because they’re generally not ambiguous about their position on the prospects of future warming due to increasing levels of CO2.
In your case, I am remiss for presuming your position wrongly. Please accept my apologies. Other than being an interesting finding, perhaps you could elaborate on what you see as their significance and relevance to the present discussion?
stevenreincarnated,
Between LW and SW you mean? I’m not disposed to disagree out of hand, but my appeals to teh Goggle for direct, quantified, answers to that question (that I can understand) have thus far been elusive. ‘Tis frustrating because I like quantification.
Huh? Try Increasing atmospheric poleward energy transport with global warming:
Abstract
[1] Most state-of-the-art global climate models (GCMs) project an increase in atmospheric poleward energy transport with global warming; however, the amount of increase varies significantly from model to model. Using an energy balance model that diffuses moist static energy, it is shown that: (1) the increase in atmospheric moisture content causes most of the increase in transport, and (2) changes in the radiation budget due to clouds explain most of the spread among GCMs. This work also shows that biases in clouds, surface albedo, ocean heat uptake, and aerosols will not only affect climate locally but will also influence other latitudes through energy transport.
Something I should have mentioned earlier is that ocean heat transport is less than atmospheric <a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JAS3695.1"by a wide margin:
1. Introduction
Figure 1a shows an estimate of the atmospheric (HA, black) and oceanic (HO, gray) heat transport from data published by Trenberth and Caron (2001), based on National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) atmospheric reanalyses (continuous and dashed curves, respectively). Both atmospheric products suggest that (Fig. 1b), poleward of about 30°, the atmospheric contribution to the total poleward heat transport amounts to roughly 90% of the total. As one approaches lower latitudes, however, both contribute in roughly equal amounts, although a precise estimate is made difficult by the fact that both HO and HA become small in the Tropics (note the large spread between the dashed and continuous curves in Fig. 1b equatorward of 10°).
The theme I’ve noticed in the sum total of comments I’ve read in this post is arguments leading to the conclusion that solar forcing is more dominant than CO2 forcing by supposing that SW sensitivity is higher than LW sensitivity. I’m dubious of these arguments because many of the feedback mechanisms being invoked are less dominant than water vapor feedback, which increases sensitivity to both SW and LW forcing. One wildcard here is that albedo feedback due to changes in high-latitude snow and ice coverage increases SW sensitivity with warming and decreases SW sensitivity with cooling as ice coverage changes in response.
Speaking of, in my research for this post I dug up an interesting 1984 paper by Spelman and Manabe:
Influence of Oceanic Heat Transport Upon the Sensitivity of a Model Climate
The influence of oceanic heat transport on the sensitivity of climate to an increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration is studied by comparing the CO2-induced changes of two mathematical models. The first model is a general circulation model of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system which includes ocean currents. In the second model the oceanic component of the first model is replaced by a simple mixed layer without ocean currents. Both models have limited computational domain with idealized geography and annual mean insolation. For each model, the sensitivity of climate is evaluated from the difference between the equilibrium climates of the normal CO2 and 4 times the normal CO2 concentrations. The results indicate that the presence of ocean currents reduces the sensitivity of surface air temperature because of the difference in magnitude of the surface albedo feedback effect. The poleward transport of heat by ocean currents raises the surface temperature at high latitudes, shifts poleward the margins of snow and sea ice, decreases the contribution of the albedo feedback effect, and reduces the sensitivity of climate. The equilibrium response of climate is compared with the transient response of climate to a sudden increase of atmospheric CO2 content. According to this comparison, the latitudinal dependence of the equilibrium response of zonally averaged surface temperature is qualitatively similar to the transient response approximately 25 years after the time of the sudden CO2 increase. This result suggests that the distribution of the zonally averaged temperature change in response to a gradual increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide also resembles the distribution of the equilibrium response provided that the characteristic time scale of the CO2 increase is longer than 25 years.
I’m trying to wrap my mind around the bolded bit. Seems to me that shifting snow and sea ice boundaries poleward would actually *enhance* the albedo feedback and make climate more sensitive to LW forcing.
Anyway. Here’s a 2012 paper which may help tie things together, Alexeev and Jackson:
Abstract Surface albedo feedback is widely believed to be the principle contributor to polar amplification. However, a number of studies have shown that coupled ocean atmosphere models without ice albedo feedbacks still produce significant polar amplification in 2 X CO2 runs due to atmospheric heat transports and their interaction with surface conditions. In this article, the relative importance of atmospheric heat transport and surface albedo is assessed using a conceptual 2-box energy balance model in a variety of different model climates. While both processes are shown to independently contribute to the polar amplified response of the model, formal feedback analysis indicates that a strong surface albedo response will tend to reduce the effect of atmospheric heat transport in the full model. We identify several scenarios near the present day climate in which, according to this formal feedback analysis, atmospheric heat transport plays no role in shaping the equilibrium warming response to uniform forcing. However, a closer analysis shows that even in these scenarios the presence of atmospheric heat transport feedback does play a significant role in shaping the trajectory by which the climate adjusts to its new equilibrium.
Basically, poleward heat transport doesn’t have an effect on ultimate ECS, but it does affect the trajectory — timing and therefore shape of the curve as the system works its way toward the new long-term equilibrium state. This makes sense to me since ice albedo feedback is slow relative to the atmospheric response.
The lopsided rate of change (“sawtooth shape”) is the point. It suggests a number of different things, among the most important is that *net* feedbacks are positive. In the paleo record, typically one of those *amplifying* feedbacks is increased CO2 levels (it generally lags temperature, yes?). More salient to discussions in this thread about cloud feedbacks, even if they are negative, they’re very likely not so strongly negative that *net* feedbacks are negative. If that were the case, the sawtooth shape would be in the reverse direction, with cooling episodes tending to be more rapid than warming episodes on average.
Me either. In fact, that’s one of the big concerns about AGW … once warming has occurred, it tends to linger for longer than it took to get there. But I don’t think that’s the point you wanted to make.
By some, I think it’s because of the difference in magnitude, the surface gets a solar forcing input that’s magnitudes larger than Co2, and on average almost all of that energy ends up in space withing 24 hours, and what doesn’t is because of water vapor and nights being shorter than days at that time of year.
Positive albedo feedback in the arctic is not likely, water is a reflector at low incident angles. It’s always amazed me how “scientists” wave around the low albedo of tropical as the reason the arctic is warming or going to “run away”, while a better explanation is that warmer water is melting the ice, and most of the weather station in the arctic are on the coast. Add in that open water radiates far more heat than ice, and the polar sky is going to be very cold, melting arctic ice is a cooling system.
No, it suggest the cooling mechanisms (like the arctic melting) are slow to engage.
Systems dominated by positive feedbacks are unstable, the Earth climate system is anything but unstable.
Brandon, I’m afraid that was sloppiness on my part and should have read ocean heat transport. I’ll wait until you address the issues in my comment prior to that one before commenting further.
stevenreincarnated,
Ah. Not a problem.
Eh, I thought I’d responded to all your points. Lemme check … oops I did miss a post …
There are two ways for the upper 2km of the oceans to show an increase in heat content:
1) Energy in from above
2) Energy in from below
Given the temperature profile of the oceans, I find it highly implausible that (2) is correct.
The salient question here is why OHT changes to begin with … and on that note:
In that paper we read:
ABSTRACT
Observational and modelling evidence suggest that poleward ocean heat transport (OHT) can vary in response to both natural climate variability and greenhouse warming. Recent modelling studies have shown that increased OHT warms both the tropical and global mean climates. Using two different coupled climate models with mixed-layer oceans, with and without OHT, along with a coupled model with a fixed-current ocean component in which the currents are uniformly reduced and increased by 50%, an attempt is made to explain why this may happen.
OHT warms the global mean climate by 1 to 1.6 K in the atmospheric general circulation (AGCM) ML model and 3.5 K in the AGCM fixed current model. In each model the warming is attributed to an increase in atmospheric greenhouse trapping, primarily clear-sky greenhouse trapping, and a reduction in albedo. This occurs as OHT moistens the atmosphere, particularly at subtropical latitudes. This is not purely a thermodynamic response to the reduction in planetary albedo at these latitudes. It is a change in atmospheric circulation that both redistributes the water vapour and allows for a global atmospheric moistening—a positive ‘dynamical’ water vapour feedback. With increasing OHT the atmospheric water vapour content increases as atmospheric convection spreads out of the deep tropics. The global mean planetary albedo is decreased with increased OHT. This change is explained by a decrease in subtropical and mid-latitude low cloudiness, along with a reduction in high-latitude surface albedo due to decreased sea ice. The climate models with the mixed layer oceans underestimate both the subtropical low cloud cover and the high-latitude sea ice/surface albedo, and consequently have a smaller warming response to OHT.
Which is more intuitive to me than what I was reading in Spelman and Manabe (1984): The poleward transport of heat by ocean currents raises the surface temperature at high latitudes, shifts poleward the margins of snow and sea ice, decreases the contribution of the albedo feedback effect, and reduces the sensitivity of climate.
What the paper you cited suggests is that ECS to CO2 is lower than it should be in models that don’t more faithfully reproduce the OHT response to the *initial* forcing.
I need to pack it up for now, will read your other references later this evening and see what else I can see.
Varies with is probably poor wording in that paper. Like I said previously almost all climate models show CO2 forcing slowing ocean heat transport. I am 99.9% sure the GISS model falls into that category.
Steven & Brandon,
May I interrupt and state it has been a pleasure to read your relatively measured interactions.
Regards,
Danny,
Thank you. Much credit to Steven for providing interesting primary literature citations to support his arguments. I’m certainly learning new things from these exchanges.
It’s a rare pleasure to argue with someone that actually reads the arguments.
stevenreincarnated,
Agreed. Having spent most of my afternoon responding to micro6500, I have yet more reading to do.
micro6500,
Indeed, some get hung up on *instantaneous* absolute magnitudes of energy flux when the discussion is about magnitude of *change* over *decades*. Literature doesn’t dispute that solar flux is the dominant energy input, and that water vapor and clouds are the dominant components of the so-called “greenhouse effect” on an *instantaneous* basis. See Table 3 of Kiehl and Trenberth (1997). When reviewing that table, it’s helpful to note this sentence in the abstract …
The longwave radiative forcing of the climate system for both clear (125 W m−2) and cloudy (155 W m−2) conditions are discussed.
… because that table doesn’t explicitly include the 155 W/m^2 LWRF total for the cloudy sky figures.
And that compares to sea ice how?
Try Zhonghai et al. (2004):
Measurements at a sea platform show that the ocean surface albedo is highly variable and is sensitive to four physical parameters: solar zenith angle, wind speed, transmission by atmospheric cloud/aerosol, and ocean chlorophyll concentration. Using a validated coupled ocean-atmosphere radiative transfer model, an ocean albedo look up table is created in terms of these four important parameters. A code to read the table is also provided; it gives spectral albedos for a range of oceanic and atmospheric conditions specified by the user. The result is a fast and accurate parameterization of ocean surface albedo for radiative transfer and climate modeling.
You might also wish to grab the data from these two files …
Upward Solar Radiation Flux Monthly Long Term Means
Downward Solar Radiation Flux Monthly Long Term Means
… from which one can easily compute albedo = upward / downward. Taking the zonal means for latitudes centered on 88.54 to 73.33 degrees north (80% ocean in that range), I calcluate mean albedo by month (weighted by cosine of latitude) thus:
Results suggest plenty of room for sea ice albedo feedback at high latitudes above the Arctic Circle (~66.5 N). Here’s the seasonal picture for 90-80 N (winter months omitted):
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3322/F3.large.jpg
And a timeseries over 1979-2011:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/9/3322/F4.large.jpg
Source: Pistone et al. (2014).
It’s always amazed me how professionals with formally-trained domain expertise and substantial publication histories in refereed literature warrant “scare quotes” encompassing the word “scientists”.
Real experts integrate fluxes.
A sawtooth signal over geological-scale time intervals indicates preference to move in one direction over the other. That screams net positive feedback to me. It’s widely understood that some feedback responses are “instantaneous” whereas others take decades, centuries, millennia. Ice albedo feedback is one of the slow ones, so yes, some of the peak to peak lag is due to time it takes for ice sheets to re-form. Lag in deep ocean response to external forcing is another even longer one. However, it’s abundantly clear that CO2’s tendency to linger in the atmosphere retards the rate of cooling and augments rate of warming over glaciation cycles. It’s in the data; the interpretation of which is backed by long-established and well-described physical theory.
Stability may be in the eye of the beholder. Your comment is somewhat ironic in the context of this thread which is littered with “but chaos” arguments, suggesting climate *instability* and thus unpredictability with respect to responses to external forcing(s).
Net positive feedback does not necessarily imply “instability” in the sense of a runaway response to an initial perturbation — a net feedback gain > 1 does imply that sort of instability.
You don’t have any electronics background? Parallel circuits become insignificant at about 10 to 1, to dissipate the daily forcing from the sun under clear skies can be done in 4 to 5 hours most locations, deserts have a high dissipation, but the cooling slows as it nears the dew point. If it wasn’t for this, it would get a lot colder at night.
My point is a 40 year increase in co2 is less than 4 W/m2 this added to the normal warming flux barely changes cool down time, it still cools quickly until it nears dew point, the Co2 did not effect cooling at all, it’s insignificant in comparison.
You are assuming I didn’t, I did. And clear sky cooling rates north of about 75 lat cool more than they warm for all but maybe part of June and July, and even then it’s only 2 or 3 hours on both side of solar noon, the rest of the arctic is cooling, unless it’s cloudy.
I’d have to understand the context of these numbers, when you measure the LW clear sky temps vs cloudy these numbers don’t make sense to me.
About the same, and water has a distinct advantage for cooling.
I’d have to dig deeper into your calculations as well as the measured albedos, if the are measured overhead they are likely over estimated, they have to be measured from the solar angle. But I have done the flux integration and under clear skies annually open water cools, and there’s only a month or so where it’s close.
Oh, I’ve been using http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwill7SN-dTNAhVr4YMKHaeODGMQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.ametsoc.org%2Fdoi%2Fabs%2F10.1175%2F1520-0493(1979)107%253C0775%253ATAOWAA%253E2.0.CO%253B2&usg=AFQjCNG__VcV9UcQKfpQhSOr7h7VL3F2AA
stevenreincarnated,
Picking up where I left off last night …
I went right to the pretty pictures, second figure from the end is what I zeroed in on: Global Monthly Average TPW Timeseries (from 1988-2011). So it increases over 1988-1999 and then flattens or even slightly declines from there through 2011.
From what I read of the Dommenget paper, that is what I am finding in the data, even the step after the 97 El nino. It likely shows up as a change in atm entropy, tropical where it was polar, and not that there is slightly more energy.
micro6500,
There’s more energy. I make it 0.51e22 J/yr / 3.16E07 s/yr = 1.73E14 J/s / 5.10E14 m^2 = 0.31 W/m^2. Energy imbalance according to Stephens et al. (2012) is ~0.6 W/m^2 so — just on OHC increase for the top half of the oceans alone — we’re in the ballpark.
” There’s more energy. ”
Sorry, not sure the context of the math here.
Brandon
I would be interested to get your take on the ozone hole story on the week in science thread. lots of comments in several places. To me it sums up the wholly inadequate data we have available, which is then used to make all sorts of claims that can’t be justified.
The other interesting point was that Eli admitted that OHC can’t be properly calculated until the time of Argo-after it has settled down. He has gone up in my opinion. This idea we know the OHC or the SST of the globe from 1850 is nonsensical.
tonyb
It doesn’t matter what the purpose of the model runs are, past climate. present climate, climate in Middle Earth, it makes no difference unless you think the concept changes. You will almost certainly get a different result based on initial conditions but I can’t recall seeing a model run based on a past configuration of the continents so unless that were the case they apply at least equally as well to the present configuration as they do to past configurations.
I’m a little confused as to why you stated that a change in heat transport changing the energy budget wasn’t controversial. You pointed me towards ocean heat content charts as though that disproved the idea that the warming was caused by a change in ocean heat transport. I see people all the time saying an increase in OHC disproves the idea that the current warming was caused by a change in horizontal heat transport. I always thought this defied common sense and is why I started looking into it. It seemed pretty obvious to me if you change where the energy is that you are going to change the weather patterns and thus the albedo. It became a fairly interesting line of inquiry over the years. I’m glad you agree with me it shouldn’t be controversial.
The papers that claim the oceans are warming the land are only a problem if you think most of the warming came from adding CO2. The heat capacity of land isn’t that high. A direct radiative forcing should warm the land much faster than the ocean.
Sorry I didn’t repeat your comments this time but it appeared it would stick me into italics.
If you wish to read more about ocean heat transport from people with a bias different than mine then you can find arguments there hasn’t been a positive change in ocean heat transport at Real Climate. They have a couple of posts there backed by literature that it has actually been negative. An argument that the change in ocean heat transport couldn’t have caused the current warming then I suppose your best bet would be a post by Held. I think there is at least one published paper out there that agrees with his post but I haven’t run into it yet.
My first paragraph seems to have been lost in the transfer.
If you are taking energy from the tropics and displacing it poleward, but you are maintaining the energy at the tropics because the albedo changes, it only stands to reason you have a net gain in energy and that would increase the OHC.
micro6500,
The link goes to the NODC OHC data down to 2 km. The first column “WO” is for “World Ocean”.
0.51e22 J/yr is the average WO OHC change per year.
3.16E07 s/yr is number of seconds in a year.
5.10E14 m^2 is surface area of the entire Earth. Thus:
0.51E22 J/yr / 3.16E07 s/yr / 5.10E14 m^2 = 0.31 W/m^2
I’m noting that there’s been more energy in the system, and that it’s been added at a rate over the entire interval roughly consistent with the presently estimated downward energy imbalance of ~0.6 W/m^2. I might add that it’s accelerating. The average OHC change is 0.73E22 J/yr over 1990-present, working out to 0.45 W/m^2.
I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. But your point is based on OHC, that I don’t believe is a knowable value based on the amount of sampling that’s been done.
Now sea level rise, while an equally obtuse value does constraint OHC, and it can’t be both expansion and melt, but you do have to remove subsidence which further reduces the expansion /melt.
climatereason,
I read the NYT ozone article, how you’re getting to this summary from there I don’t understand.
I don’t know about admitted so much as he volunteered something consistent with what he <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/04/we-got-big-trouble-in-ocean-heat.html"wrote back in 2007. It’s also worth noting that his comments come in the context of a long-running debate he, Gavin Schmidt and others have been having having with Pielke Senior about whether THE global warming metric should be OHC in Joules or surface temperature in units of temperature.
If it were my position that we don’t know nuffin’ about long-term temperature trends, I wouldn’t have terribly strong opinions either way about whether GW is happening either way, much less about whether an “A” should be prepended to “GW”. That said, from 1950 on I can still make a pretty good case for both using a combination of OHC, surface temperature records, radiosondes and (from 1980-present) orbiting microwave sounding units. Not to mention SLR as a function of both warming itself and landed ice loss. All backed by well-described, lab-tested physics. But that’s because consilience of multiple independent lines of evidence confirming preconceived theory and prediction is something I find compelling. YMMV.
stevenreincarnated,
The distinction is made in Koll and Abbott (2013):
One might wonder how OHT could deviate much from its present value, especially at low latitudes. The total planetary heat transport (PHT) is roughly fixed as long as absorbed solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) are locally coupled (Stone 1978), and it is difficult to change the atmosphere–ocean partitioning of PHT at low latitudes because the Hadley and wind-driven ocean overturning circulations are closely linked through surface wind stresses (Held 2001). However, this reasoning can break down for climates in the distant past. Changes in continental configuration and especially a circumglobal ocean passageway at low latitudes would have increased OHT in the Cretaceous and perhaps the early Eocene. Coupled global climate models (GCMs) show that an open passageway increases OHT by ~1 PW (Hotinski and Toggweiler 2003; Enderton and Marshall 2009). This occurs because an open passageway prevents a geostrophically balanced equatorward ocean flow at depth, which leads to equatorial upwelling of deeper and colder water (Hotinski and Toggweiler 2003) and weakens equatorial gyres that transport heat equatorward (Enderton and Marshall 2009). OHT could also have changed via tropical cyclones, which affect OHT by mixing warm surface water through the thermocline (Emanuel 2001). The strength of cyclones and mixing increases with SST and suggests that warm climates could be tied to high OHT regimes (Emanuel 2002). Coupled GCM simulations confirm that imposed ocean mixing is capable of significantly increasing OHT (Korty et al. 2008; Manucharyan et al. 2011), although this depends on the location, strength. and timing of the imposed mixing (Sriver and Huber 2007; Sriver et al. 2008; Jansen and Ferrari 2009; Jansen et al. 2010). If the SST–cyclone mixing–OHT feedback (Emanuel 2002) is confirmed it could help explain several observations, including the low temperature gradients in the Pacific during the Pliocene (Brierley et al. 2009; Fedorov et al. 2010, 2013) and the low meridional SST gradient during the Eocene (Korty et al. 2008).
In addition to the above quoted section, again from Koll and Abbott (2013):
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that increases in poleward ocean heat transport (OHT) do not strongly affect tropical SST. The goal of this paper is to explain this observation. To do so, the authors force two atmospheric global climate models (GCMs) in aquaplanet configuration with a variety of prescribed OHTs.
Yes, they had to prescribe the OHTs to get the proposed effect, but it all adds up to the proposition that OHT was different in past climates at least in part due to different continental configurations at present.
Because the mechanisms invoked for the energy budget change aren’t controversial: increased albedo due to cloud reduction (i.e., positive cloud albedo feedback) and increased specific humidity (i.e., positive radiative water vapor feedback).
They do not, and you are correct to point that out. A time series of a single metric only shows an estimate of what happened, not why.
What *is* convincing to me is the *shape* of the OHC curve, which correlates well to the natural log of CO2 over the same interval, and that the math I’ve been doing for micro6500 is within striking distance of current energy imbalance estimates. None of the references you’ve provided challenge that, at best one reference was agnostic to ultimate cause. Others say that either natural variability OR external forcing (inc. but not exclusive to anthropogenic forcing) can drive HT feedbacks. Finally, a few of your references explicitly state their findings in terms of a response to anthropogenic forcings.
I’m more than a bit … curious … about and somewhat frustrated by the fact that you’ve … talked around, I guess? … those passages from your citations when I’ve quoted them.
If horizontal heat transport is all that is mentioned in the argument, that would be my natural response … and indeed, that’s been my knee-jerk reaction thus far. A more careful reading of your references shows your argument to be more complete — and better — than I had initially given it credit.
Indeed. However, it’s not obvious to me how albedo should change in response to heat transport. The subject isn’t my forte, and I’m certainly no expert in any of this stuff.
That it is, and I again thank you for showing me these papers. I’ve learned much I didn’t already know, and some things about which I’d previously been confused are beginning to click into place.
Some things here at least … I’m pretty sure you and I disagree on the fundamental issue of CO2 being the primary post-industrial driver of the overall observed changes.
I warrant it’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but as I tried to explain in my previous post, I don’t think it’s a problem.
True, and I don’t see anything in your references which suggests otherwise. Dommenget (2009) notes that the land is indeed warming faster than the oceans:
1. Introduction
A well-known feature of global warming scenarios is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Several recent studies find that this land–sea contrast is not just a transient effect due to the larger heat capacity of the oceans relative to the heat capacity of the land (Sutton et al. 2007; Lambert and Chiang 2007; Joshi et al. 2007).
The key argument here is that the faster rate of warming over land isn’t *just* due to the relative heat capacities of land vs. ocean. I just don’t, can’t, take issue with that argument. It makes sense to me that there’s not just ONE reason why things do what they do, while at the same time the mechanism they propose doesn’t challenge CO2’s role in the mix.
Perhaps what you’re missing is my understanding that direct forcing from CO2 only contributes about a third of the central ECS estimates after fast and slow feedbacks, with water vapor being the dominant fast feedback and ice albedo being the dominant slow feedback. So a finding that water vapor feedback is greater over land than oceans is an interesting — and to me an unanticipated — finding, but not at all problematic for me, nor to the notion that CO2 is the source of the initial forcing which cause the feedbacks in the first place.
I don’t disagree; however, it’s a question of magnitude and initial cause of the change. Something that has been frustrating me is that these papers you have cited don’t put (that I have yet found) a quantity on contribution to OHC. I’ve also been struggling to find anything which compares the magnitude of OHT feedback relative to other feedback processes with which I’m more familiar.
Dr. Curry,
My (rather lengthy) response to stevenreincarnated at July 2, 2016 at 5:59 pm has not cleared the moderation bin, please release?
Release it? Not always a good idea.
Brandon, I’m not sure it matters so much what could theoretically be the amount of change in ocean heat transport in the present configuration when we have a measured slowdown of the AMOC of ~15% in only a decade. The argument over why it slowed would be much more interesting than if it was possible.
http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/10/1619/2013/osd-10-1619-2013.pdf
“I’m more than a bit … curious … about and somewhat frustrated by the fact that you’ve … talked around, I guess? … those passages from your citations when I’ve quoted them.”
I didn’t talk around the one I saw. I stated the paper had poor wording. I have never seen a climate model that has a positive OHT feedback to CO2 forcing although it is my understanding there is at least one. The GISS model isn’t it and that is where I saw you refer to it. You can look at figure 5 in this paper and see what you would expect from a typical climate model forced with CO2 compared to the Lund reconstruction.
If you think I might be wrong about the GISS model they have had posts regarding ocean heat transport which was one of the reasons I brought it up.That and you’ve seemd interested so I thought I would share more resources from a different perspective.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-016-3111-x
stevenreincarnated | June 30, 2016 at 10:17 pm |
Varies with is probably poor wording in that paper. Like I said previously almost all climate models show CO2 forcing slowing ocean heat transport. I am 99.9% sure the GISS model falls into that category.
There’s some things we won’t agree on and so I’ll skip those. I perfectly happy with what we have agreed on so far.
I suspect that if they run the models to equilibrium that you would have the same change in OHC that you would get from a similar change in surface temperature created by a change in radiative forcing. We are actually talking about a change in radiative forcing when we talk changes in water vapor and albedo.
As a final reference that you may find interesting let me share this one:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~jsmerdon/papers/2012_jclim_karnauskasetal.pdf
Can’t count out internal variability on the centennial time frame even by the models which are notoriously bad at creating ocean oscillations
When I say they have posts, the mysterious they I am referring to is Real Climate.
“If it would turn out that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is on the lower end of the range, then it would be quite likely that climate sensitivity to solar forcing is likewise on the lower end of the range.”
I am going to agree with you.
“A climate that is highly sensitive to radiative forcing (i.e., responds very strongly to increasing greenhouse gas forcing) by definition will be unable to quickly dissipate global mean temperature anomalies arising from either purely natural dynamical processes or stochastic radiative forcing, and hence will have significant internal variability.” – Swanson
The climate is an airplane. It’s either a stable transport plane like an airliner or it’s a fighter. If it is a fighter, it is highly sensitive to many things besides control inputs. Turbulence, airframe damage and low air speeds. As the fighter is so low on stability, small changes have large effects. And I am suggesting, whatever the cause. What might be considered noise is going to introduce variations unless they are mostly damped out by an onboard computer. If climate sensitivity to CO2 is small, then the climate also resists other changes such as solar. Random noise will not result in instability but rather a moderate long lasting effect of perhaps an increase or decrease.
I’d guess the sensitivity to all inputs is small and that that is not inconsistent with a two state climate of glacials and interglacials. Along with the idea that sensitivity at some times is variable and off the chart.
Watts are Watts once they are thermalized.I have calculated sensitivity based on the changes in temperature by day, and divide that by the calculated solar forcing, for most of the planet there is a 5 or 6 thousandth of a degree F/Watt, so Co2 would at most, if all of it was thermalized add about 2 hundreds of a degree.
Let’s then compare this to the average 10.5kJ/kg loss in atm entropy per night, on a 10 hour night, that’s about 1,000W/hour/kg of air (about a cubic meter) compared to the 3.7W rf from Co2.
Now, average atm enthopy in the tropics is ~74kJ/kg, night time loss of 8.8kJ/kg. The deserts in the SW US entropy=28kJ.kg, with a loss of 14kJ/kg.
That is the effect of water vapor on cooling.
This also is in agreement with my observation that once rel humidity nears saturation, cooling rate slows greatly, and that when the rel humidity is low, it cools quickly.
So CS forcing from Solar is very low, and this is based on measurements.
Nightly loss of energy in the atm alone dwarfs Co2 forcing.
Water vapor does act as an iris that closes at higher values of rel humidity, but before closing it also cools at a high enough rate (over 5F/hr) that any forcing from Co2 is insignificant.
I took a quick look at the Sensitivity of temperature to Solar forcing, and it worked out for 75.6 million surface station records to be just under 0.005F/Wm2, quite close to the value for the latitude band from 20N to 30N of ~0.006F/Wm2
Steve, just to be clear I consider those two values to be quite close.
very interesting study and observations
thank you
Now crunch time is coming as the prolonged solar minimum which started in year 2005 in earnest is going to become firmly entrenched and we will see how correct those of us that support solar/climate connections are.
Some of the solar regions are now reaching my criteria FINALLY which I feel will impact the climate if duration is long enough. I expect all my low avg. minimum solar criteria going forward should be met and for quite a long duration of time.
The solar polar fields are way out of sync and I will send some info. on this , along with other solar readings which suggest we are in for some very low solar activity going forward.
The solar wind/ap index still elevated but these items will come into line going forward .
Of course this initial cooling is due to the ending of the recent strong El Nino.
A theory very similar to mine.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/james-maruseks-little-ice-age-theory/
Here are the specifics on solar criteria needed to impact the climate to a colder condition in my opinion. These conditions were likely present during the Maunder and Dalton minimums.
Solar Flux – sub 90 sustained.
Cosmic Ray Counts – in excess of 6500 units sustained.
Solar Irradiance -off by .15% sustained
AP index – 5 or lower sustained via a weak solar wind.
EUV light – 100 units or less.
Solar Wind – 350 km/sec or lower sustained.
How cold I can not be specific because I believe there are climatic thresholds that could be breached if solar conditions are weak enough and long enough in duration which would drive natural climatic drivers to such extremes that climatic thresholds could come about.
These natural climatic drivers being the following:
1. Global cloudiness via galactic cosmic rays tied into the solar wind strength.
2. Atmospheric circulation patters via ozone changes tied into changes in EUV light.
3. Sea surface temperatures via changes in UV light.
4. Volcanic Activity via changes in muons which are tied into galactic cosmic ray intensities.
5. ENSO -tied into overall solar conditions. La Nina I think might occur if a prolonged minimum solar condition came about.
6. Increase in sea ice and global snow cover due to atmospheric changes and lower global temperatures from all of the above.
ALBEDO – this would change if global cloudiness increased along with ice and snow cover which if it only increased by a mere 1% would impact the temperatures of the earth.
Weakening Earth Magnetic Field would compound solar effects and the field is weakening at a fairly rapid clip.
That is my take on it.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/clip_image0101.jpg
Solar field out of line indicates solar weakness.
What if the perfect storm is coming and the current global warming hiatus is its herald: and, it is a solar quietus? Consider this: It’s official: Solar minimum has arrived [March 10, 2006]. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet (Science@NASA: ‘Solar Storm Warning’). Solar Cycle 23 went out with an alarming whimper. Then came Solar Cycle 24: Something is up with the sun… “I would say it is the weakest in 200 years,” said [NASA’s] David Hathaway (Robt. Lee Hotz, WSJ: ‘Strange Doings on the Sun’).
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2006/05/10/10may_longrange_resources/predictions3_strip.jpg?w=600
Source: David Hathaway’s, Long Range Solar Forecast (see Science@NASA, below)
That isn’t the metric you should look at.
http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston%20and%20Penn.png
Umbral magnetic field. When it hits 1500 gauss – no sunspots is the theory.
We are at a minimum and going to a lower minimum.
I am so pleased that solar and CO2 are going mano y mano. We will find out which is stronger. If it cools the mocking of global warmers probably won’t ever stop.
–i.e., in a nutshell: cosmic ray intensity varies and so does the Sun’s magnetic activity and over time higher solar activity means fewer cosmic rays which results in fewer clouds and leads to more global warming because less of the Sun’s energy is reflected away… and, vice versa.
If it cools mocking will be the least of the Climate Faithful’s problems. If significant global cooling sets in all the ‘adjustments’ to the temperature record are going to come under a very bright spotlight. And considering how many people have been saying all along that the potential for cooling this century was high, the question of what the Alarmists SHOULD have been looking into instead of playing celebrity activist will be asked by many, even the Alarmists ‘friends’ in the MSM.
Remember what happened to the Italian seismologists who assured everyone they didn’t have to worry weeks before a big one hit? And those guys were working with the best data they had on hand. They never falsified data, blocked their rivals from publishing or called for anyone who disagreed with them to be prosecuted.
If a prolonged cooling like the little ice age sets in, it’s going to cause death. We’re not prepared for it. We’re not prepared BECAUSE the Alarmists have had the world’s governments focused on decarbonisation and sustainability. And when faced with that fact a lot of people are going to be scared and angry.
And do you know what scared and angry people do to the ones who have gotten them into trouble by lying to them? Here’s a hint, they don’t just mock them.
This is similar to my previous post but with some additional information.
I have not changed my mind and unlike others (agw enthusiast) I will not spin or make excuses it is either going to look correct going forward or not correct. We shall see.
If the cooling is accompanied by an increase in global cloud coverage, a more meridional atmospheric circulation, and a fall in global sea surface temperatures, and an increase in volcanic activity then the case for a solar/climate connection in my opinion will be strengthened. exist.
IF SOLAR RELATED
INCREASE IN CLOUD COVERAGE- related to an increase in galactic cosmic rays when the solar wind is weak.350km/sec or less.
MERIDIONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION – this at the very least would distribute the cold /warm areas of the globe differently. This is related to OZONE concentrations in a vertical /horizontal sense in the atmosphere which is related to EUV light intensity coming from the sun. If EUV light is weak say 100 units or less it should effect the OZONE distribution in the atmosphere in a way that causes the temp gradient between the poles and equator to weaken thus creating a weak polar vortex and a more meridional atmospheric circulation. This kind of atmospheric circulation especially in the N.H. should increase sea ice/ snow coverage and global cloud coverage.
It would likely increase snow coverage due to the fact that Arctic out breaks would be driven further south into areas normally not covered with snow for much of the year while although warmth would be driven toward the Arctic regions temperatures would still be cold enough to maintain snow coverage, giving a net increase in global snow coverage. Higher albedo lower temperatures.
GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES- have been shown to be related to UV LIGHT intensity for the most part just below the visible light wavelengths, since light in these wavelengths penetrates the ocean surface to the greatest depths. When solar activity is weak UV light decreases hence sea surface temperatures should decrease.
VOLCANIC ACTIVITY – according to history over 80% of major volcanic eruptions which have at least a temporary cooling effect on global temperature occur at times of prolonged solar minimums. This is the case at least from 1600 AD- present.
One theory is when solar activity is weak more galactic cosmic rays penetrate the earth ‘s atmosphere and an increase in MUONS a by product of these cosmic rays reaches the calderas of existing volcanos making them more unstable.
y
Interesting comment, thanks.
“Over the last 12,000 years virtually every centennial time-scale increase in drift ice documented in our North Atlantic records was tied to a solar minimum.” ~Henrik Svensmark
In my opinion CO2 /climate connection case is not even close to being proven , this prolonged solar minimum should put this to rest once and for all.
I don’t see how a solar minimum would disprove the CO2/climate connection.
It’s kinda like saying that if you show a heart disease/death connection, then there can’t be a cancer/death connection.
The point is, climate is influenced by both the Sun and greenhouse gases. Proving one doesn’t disprove the other.
Ben, if we see cooling along with a prolonged solar minimum, then where does that put greenhouse warming theory?
“Ben, if we see cooling along with a prolonged solar minimum, then where does that put greenhouse warming theory?
Depends on how strongly the TSI drops, as well as what happens with CO2, aerosols, etc. You can’t determine the outputs (temperature) until you know the inputs (GHG, solar, volcanoes, etc.), even under a perfectly accurate model.
As I’m sure you know, CO2 isn’t the only thing that controls the climate, and a sufficiently large change in TSI or aerosols can counteract the warming effects of this extra CO2 we’re putting in the air. Hell, if the Sun winked out tomorrow, no amount of GHG would save the Earth from freezing over in short order.
… But, sure, if solar drops a little while greenhouse gases keep rising, and temperatures tank as a result, then yes, that’d show a problem with our present understanding of the climate. Climate scientists are saying that even a new solar minimum would only slow global warming by ~0.3C.
Winnie did you know that despite TSI changing little (1%) across high and low solar activity the strength of the various frequency bands changes a lot (10%); For instance during periods of high activity near infrared power drops by 10% while ultraviolet rises by 10%.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to determine what this means in regard to heating/cooling of different layers of the atmosphere.
Good luck.
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It will be difficult to make money from a postulated solar influence. I bet that the well-oiled CO2 financial machine will prevail, making billionaires much richer. As a CO2 business is very likely a zero-sum game, everybody else will be much poorer.
I have long thought that the planets could be affecting the Sun, but after many conversations I’ve cooled to gravity being the cause, but lately I’ve started to wonder if the magnetic field line from the planets with dynamo’s and iron planets like Mercury are impacting the startup of the solar dynamo when it’s switching magnetic poles when it’s cycles restart. And then someone discovered that the earths field lines do connect to the sun, well, I think it’s quite possible.
It’s more possible than monkeys flying out of my butt,
You should look at the Sunspot record for the Solar cycle that started around 1906, the blips are roughly timed to Mercury’s orbit. Being a big iron core, waving it around someplace with a lot of magnetic field lines.
But the qualifier was possibly, I thought you were an English major?
This one
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/1907solarcycle14.png
And you can wind this back and watch Mercury orbit the Sun,
http://www.brightonastronomy.com/solarsystem.html
the qualifier was “quite possible”
Fair enough, but then I did provide the visual evidence that is tantalizing.
For Mosher this is actually a well thought out rebuttal. A bit dated, I’ll admit. Maybe what we need to do to ‘up his game’ is to send him to see some new movies. I’m thinking something Sci-Fi would garner quotes that would go over best with this crowd.
Monkeys or Moshers flying out my butt. Samo samo.
micro6500 | June 27, 2016 at 11:30 am | Reply
I have long thought that the planets could be affecting the Sun, but after many conversations I’ve cooled to gravity being the cause
The sun spot cycle may well be related to the Jupiter 11.8 year orbit. But there should also be a 20 year Jupiter/Saturn conjunction effect.
The money shot is the 1906 cycle, look at the detailed sunspot record, and the orbital period of mercury. I now believe that the connection is driven by magnetic field lines, if there really is a connection.
In all these models, parameters are estimated through iterative or multi-linear regression processes that minimize the RMS values of errors.
So, …, a lot of parameters for a lot of models have been estimated by least squares, and some nice results have been selected for presentation. That only constitutes weak evidence for the models. But he has made his prediction for the future, and we shall in due course see how well his model output fits the data as they become available.
Keep the picture in mind. Be10 and SunSpots are loosely linked.
SS and TSI are correlated, but that’s the weaker of the presumed solar effects.
Be10 would seem to be more directly related to Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) over the tropical oceans, because Be10 is a direct measure of ionization. Solar Cycle 25 bears watching, and we get to observe it.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Solar_Activity_Proxies.png
cycle 25 will probably be bigger than 24.
Upon what do yo base that opinion?
More unsettling of supposedly settled science. Falsifiable predictions, good science. But the time frame is far too long for the political battle between suicidal warmunist policy actions and rational self preservation via adaptation. It is things in the reference frame of just the next few years that matter most in the policy framework.
ristvan,
There’s a difference between knowing an effect is real and constraining its magnitude.
Which part of ΔT = λ * ΔF is not falsifiable?
Sorry, my mistake. I didn’t realize this was a political science discussion.
You can tell Climate is a political science because no matter how many predictions fail the hypothesis is never falsified.
You can tell climate “skepticism” is political science when its proponents chase squirrels instead of directly addressing the posed question.
“Which part of ΔT = λ * ΔF is not falsifiable?”
Given you mean that to be ‘change in equilibrium temperature is equal to climate sensitivity times change in forcing’ there’s nothing to falsify without first assigning a value to λ. Deniers claim λ is equal to zero. Climate scientists can’t seem to make a convincing falsification of sensitivity equal to zero.
Indeed forcing is higher now than in the geologic past due to the sun’s relentless increase in brightness as it burns down its supply of hydrogen. Yet the earth is in an ice age despite the greater forcing. OMG! That tells us that under the right circumstances climate sensitivity can be negative!.
I suspect this is way above the pay grade of someone like you who can do little more than search through skeptical science for how to answer common arguments raised by skeptics. Try finding where they answer the one I just made.
David Springer,
See again: There’s a difference between knowing an effect is real and constraining its magnitude.
In similar fashion, we don’t need to know ‘g’ to umpteenzillion decimal places to understand that “rocks fall when we drop them” is a falsifiable proposition. Heck, we don’t even need to have a theory of gravity to run the experiment.
We could begin with the Hadean and work forward if you’d like. How such dissimilar conditions are relevant to what we might expect over the next century, I’ll never know.
Odd retort from a guy who just implied that we wouldn’t be able to figure out whether it would warm or cool over the next few decades if solar output increased 10% tomorrow.
brandonrgates,
You wrote –
“Which part of ΔT = λ * ΔF is not falsifiable?”
This seems to be a nonsense equation expressed in incomprehensible mathy Warmese, possibly intended to divert, obscure and confuse.
I’ll take the liberty of translating your eminently stupid question into understandable language.
It’s as follows –
“What part of a=b*c is not falsifiable?” Or, “What part of a = b times c is not falsifiable?”
Of course, this a completely meaningless question. Typical Warmist nonsense. Looks impressive, but merely demonstrates the intellectual paucity of its author.
Cheers.
Nice non-answer, Brenda.
It’s maths, Mike — a thing which constitutes good portion of the lexicon of physical sciences. Colour me shocked that you’d describe as incomprehensible even such a simple relationship. I can weasel-word too: “Mistaking” your own wilful misunderstanding for my own is *possibly* your attempt to divert, obscure and confuse. It certainly isn’t mine.
Oooh, burn, like nobody’s ever called me by my female cousin’s name. Brandy was popular as well. In third grade.
Back to the actual topic: falsifiability. I asked a simple and direct question:
Which part of ΔT = λ * ΔF is not falsifiable?
You pointing out that λ was likely different thousands to billions of years ago was the dodge. Ironically, the very fact that you appeal to empirical evidence of the past to “rebut” the question is an implicit admission that the linear relationship expressed by that equation is falsifiable.
You of course don’t dispute that you’d predict warming over the next several decades if solar output were to increase 10% tomorrow. How else could you have dealt with that argument other than to dismiss it as a non-answer?
Specific to CO2-driven AGW, there are several logical ways to falsify it. I give but one example: it could be shown that CO2 doesn’t really exhibit strong absorption in the 15 micron waveband. We might fortuitously discover a way to see the invisible farting unicorns responsible for observed temperature trends since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution … perhaps they have a taste for radioactive dye and will light up like Glow in the Dark My Little Pony if we spread enough of it around.
That wouldn’t falsify ΔT = λ * ΔF (it’s the Sun, stoopid), but it would set the CO2 portion of ΔF to zero and thereby bust the myth. Don’t you think?
No, of course not. The warmunist is always wrong, no matter how trivially demonstrable the point — especially when it’s consistent and logical.
That last sentence is easily falsifiable by the way. I reckon the odds that you’ll actually falsify it are slim.
There’s a difference between “falsifiable” and “hasn’t been falsified”, see. I understand it’s discomforting that Arrhenius’ 1896 and subsequent works have been correct in direction and within striking distance of magnitude. Perhaps you and your pals like schitzree above wouldn’t build so many strawmen if you weren’t already clutching at so many straws in a vain effort to refute the obvious.
I think so, and the data shows its as near zero as can be measured, I’m glad to see you agree the myth is broken.
You’re such an imbecile even Flynn got it right saying what you’d written is not a hypothesis subject to falsification. Flynn compared it to a = b * c.
Substituting an actual value for climate sensitivity would make it subject to falsification provided an experimental means is described.
The lack of falsifiable claims in global warming science is why the controversy has been going on 50 years with no end in sight. It’s why after 50 years the range of climate sensitivity estimates have not been refined. It’s like a religion in that regard and I’m a heretic.
brandonrgates | July 3, 2016 at 4:04 pm |
“Oooh, burn, like nobody’s ever called me by my female cousin’s name. Brandy was popular as well. In third grade.”
I bet. Especially when you were getting your fudge packed, huh?
brandonrgates,
I should point out that any gas can be warmed. Not just CO2, any gas. Foolish Warmists somehow figure CO2 adds heat to an object, increasing its temperature.
This is just silly. A figment of the collective climatological delusion. Radiative transfer equations aren’t restricted to particular gases, or particular wavelengths of EMR (light). The laws of thermodynamics likewise don’t have any special exemptions for climatologists.
No amount of manufactured sciency Warmist Wafflewords will overcome the limitations imposed by physics as it currently known.
Increase the temperature of something just by surrounding it with CO2, in a repeatable scientific experiment, and even I will change my mind.
Until then, I’m right, you’re wrong, and Warmists are an odd lot of assorted scientific second rate wannabes, by and large.
Cheers.
Solar Cycle Progression
Type Web Page
URL http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
Accessed 5/22/2016, 3:03:16 PM
Date Added 5/22/2016, 3:03:16 PM
Modified 5/22/2016, 3:03:16 PM
Attachments
Snapshot
SolarHam.com – Monthly Solar Flux and Sunspot Averages + Trend Charts
Type Web Page
URL http://www.solarham.net/averages.htm
Accessed 5/22/2016, 3:01:19 PM
Date Added 5/22/2016, 3:01:19 PM
Modified 5/22/2016, 3:01:19 PM
Attachments
SolarHam.com – Monthly Solar Flux and Sunspot Averages + Trend Charts
On the other hand, a mandated reduction of CO2 emissions could reduce the surplus population (E. Scrooge et al).
https://www.google.com/#q=excess+deaths+in+UK+due+to+cold
As the votes keep flowing out we are now more likely to see a Super Nova.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum-German-French-European-superstate-Brexit
Don’t stare at the liet the pattern will blind you with enough time.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
It appears most of the Red has nearly ran out. A La Nina appears to be forming in the mid pacific:
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.6.27.2016.gif
So has the two periods during June when there were no sunspots and low activity help cause the ocean to cool?
A solar minimum is much more likely in our lifetime than a Mosher minimum.
Unless, of course, a solar minimum forces a mosher minimum… (☺)
I have looked at past solar activity with great detail. The record is too short to find much evidence for a 9,500 years solar cycle, but the 2,500 years Bray cycle, the 1,000 years Eddy cycle and the 208 years deVries cycle are very evident.
Their configuration does not support a Grand Solar Minimum for the 21st or even 22nd centuries. According to this model, based on solar activity since 1620, solar cycle 25 should be similar to SC24, and from SC26 solar activity will increase again to levels similar to the second half of the 20th century.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Figure-6.png
I submitted an article on this to Climate Etc., but did not get any answer from Dr. Curry.
Periodicities in solar variability and climate change: A simple model
It looks to me that many of these predictions for a Grand Solar Minimum in the 21st century are based in incomplete evidence and little knowledge of solar cycles.
If we are on a true solar cycle the 1000 yr cycle (970) years:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NuOJUXIC050/U9A9WuN2thI/AAAAAAAAAUg/o2nWMaYMBlY/s1600/KernMioHolo.png
https://malagabay.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/carbon14-climate-history.jpg
This will mean we are going into Oort Minimum after 2020.
Ordvic,
Nope, the Oort minimum is part of the 208 year cycle, as the minimum that took place at the end of the 19th century (see filled red dots in figure above). The 208-years deVries cycle is only active during the lows in the 2500-years cycle. This is quite well known. You can look it up in the linked article.
There is no upcoming Grand Solar Minimum, just the favorable configuration that corresponds to the highs in the 2500 and 1000-years cycles. We are facing a period of climate stability similar to the Roman Warm Period. Our solar configuration is similar to the year 80 BC, so we may be looking to three centuries of relative climate stability.
Javier, i still have your essay, will get to it soon. Thanks
Javier, Thanks for the link to your article. I liked figure six. But I don’t read it the same way you do. The period of 80 BC was a peak followed by a drop (in two stages) to a low around 80 AD. The stable periods were the two hundred years before Oort and 80AD?
BTW, Javier, I liked your article a lot and glad I ran into you (and it) today
Thanks Ordvic,
Where do the Bond Cycles fit into your picture? Are they the 970 year cycles?
Bond Cycles and the Role of The Sun in Shaping Climate
http://euanmearns.com/bond-cycles-and-the-role-of-the-sun-in-shaping-climate/
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/bond.png
Peter, Thanks for the link. It looks like Bond cycles are very similar except they take into account oceans and he has them at about 1200 years long. He uses the same periods of reference however. Those look like this:
https://i1.wp.com/i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Solar%20cycles2_zps1va5vqbt.png
http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/warming-in-cycles-carter1.jpg
I don’t understand Javier’s reasoning of it being about 86 Ad Roman Warming as that was also just before a minimum not a stable period.
Ordvic,
Thank you for these two charts, Can you give links to where I can find them and where I can find an explanation of them.
The first has lots of information. I hope it is from an authoritative site (I haven’t seen it before).
Is the top section (Temperature anomaly, OC) consistent with the authoritative, broadly accepted charts of temperature over this period? If it is, then I wonder why more people are not concerned about the long term natural cooling trend and therefore, seeing human caused GHG emissions as being a blessing – i.e. and excellent risk mitigation strategy.
It’s also interesting to see the increasing frequency of global glacier advances (central section).
I don’t understand what is plotted in the bottom section (red, yellow, green, blue, indigo colours). It shows years in the vertical axis and years in the horizontal axis. But what does that mean? And what is the curved white line (it’s shaped like the hull of a Viking ship, with keel at about 5700 years BP :) ?
The curved purple lie at the top shows obliquity has reduced from 24.2 to 23.6 and decreasing faster as time goes on. Where is the trough and when is it projected to occur. What is the effect on global average temperature of the continuing decrease in obliquity?
Tell me a bit of a story about your interpretation of the significance of this chart.
The first chart Javier also uses in his article. The top part is a fairly well known anti-hockey stick from Marcott et al:
http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Economics%207004/Marcott_Global%20Temperature%20Reconstructed.pdf
The other part is from A.K. Kern:
http://usp-br1.academia.edu/AndreaKKern
The lower chart is from Robert Carter well known skeptic from England and Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Carter
The only significance here is I am pointing to the 1000 year cycle. Javier has more information of the cycle at his link.
One final comment. Before each warming peak, as seen on Carters chart, there is a 1000 year period where it bottoms out like a minimum. It then either rises in stages or very quickly like the last 200 year period since Dalton. Then it is usually followed by a fairly sharp decline. This is all related to well known solar cycles that are much different from Milankovich cycles involving orbits
ordvic,
Thank you for the explanations and the links. The last link you gave is to a comment by Javier on WUWT. But again there is no reference to the authors and where it is published. I would like to be able to cite it, but if I am going to cite it I need to know where it is published, who are the authors, is it widely accepted, cited and what critiques have been published and responded to. In short, I don’t waht to refer to something that has been discredited or not published. I need to know if it is authoritative. At the moment I have no idea of that. I would expect the figure caption to fully explain the chart, like this IPCC chart from AR4 WG1 Chapter 6, Figure 6.1
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-6-1.html
Peter I couldn’t find who compiled the charts on photoshop. I’ll try again later. The top part of the Chart is from marcott probably figure 2:
http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Economics%207004/Marcott_Global%20Temperature%20Reconstructed.pdf
The bottom is from A K Kern et al, probably figure 8:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003101821200096X#bb0265
I found this link with lots of charts http://www.rankia.com/blog/game-over/3150008-ciclos-dansgaard-oeschger , but I have not found a link to your charts
Javier also used this chart here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/11/solar-cycle-24-activity-continues-to-be-lowest-in-nearly-200-years/#comment-2142863
Like I said I just showed them as reference to the 1000 year cycle and Javier has as good of an explanation as I’ve seen on his article linked
Peter,
The Bond cycle does not exist. Bond events are a registry of every significant cold event during the Holocene. Some of the peaks correspond to solar minima of the 2500 and 1000 years cycles, while others come from the 1500 years oceanic cycle.
Their spacing is a mixture of the dominant cycle of the period, during early Holocene the 1000 years solar cycle, and during the late Holocene the 1500 years oceanic cycle.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Figure%2036_zpsdazvxzwc.png
Figure from:
Debret M., et al., 2007. The origin of the 1500-year climate cycles in Holocene North-Atlantic records. Clim. Past Discuss., 3, 679–692.
Javier,
Could you please provide an explanation of the chart and a Legend. Perhaps copy the chart caption is it provides sufficient explanation. Also, it would be helpful if you include links to the sources when you post charts and explanations of other’s work.
Peter,
A simple Google search on Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/
Will find for you almost any article referenced, and by clicking on its versions you will very often find a pdf copy hosted somewhere. In this case:
https://hal-ephe.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/33/07/31/PDF/cpd-3-679-2007.pdf
Very few people are interested in going to the references, but for those that are interested, they have this easy way. As I have the articles on my hard disk (and head) I don’t need to run a search over the internet to find a pdf every time I write a comment.
The figure is quite self explanatory. It is derived from figure 2 from that paper and shows the Bond series (the same as in the figure you posted) to which a Gaussian filter of 1000 years has been fitted to the early Holocene, and one of 1500 years to the late Holocene. The red numbers represent the original Bond event numbering by Gerard Bond in his 2001 article. He cheated a little, used the zero and didn’t count some peaks so the spacing would come as 1500 years when in reality is something like 1200-1300 years.
This figure demonstrates that Bond events reflect an admixture of at least two different periodicities.
Correction 80 BC was what Javier said. That still places it just before the first dip of a minimum. If that is true then it would be just like Oort. And that would be the 1000 year cycle
Ordvic,
The Roman Warm period starts after the Greek Solar Grand Minimum (SGM) at about 300-200 BC and lasts until the start of the Migration Period around 350 AD when climate conditions start to deteriorate leading to very bad conditions around 550 AD. It is about 6 centuries of stable warm conditions centered on the millennial (Eddy) solar cycle with lows at ~ 300 BC (Greek SGM) and ~ 675 AD (Roman SGM).
The Eddy solar cycle had it last low ~ 1675 during the Maunder SGM, and the 2500-years Bray solar cycle had it last low ~ 1450 during the Spører SGM. We have had over 3 centuries of climate improvement and we are close to the high in the Eddy cycle that will take place at the beginning of the 21st century.
Provided there are no very big volcanic eruptions we are looking forward to about 3 centuries of climate stability with perhaps a slight cooling trend. Since almost all SGM coincide with the lows in the Bray or Eddy cycles we are probably safe from one for the next centuries. Our solar situation is similar to ~ 80 BC, with several centuries of warming behind and several centuries of stable climate ahead. We are very fortunate of the climate time we are living. The Greek Dark Ages, the Migration Period, and the Little Ice Age were very bad periods for humankind in general outside the tropics.
Javier
Thanks for the information. I had not seen any reference before regarding the Greek Solar Grand Minimum and found a couple of references indirectly on Google. Interesting.
My intent is not to demean anyone’s work but the the entire solar debate at times seems populated by varying home brews with lots of amateur theories but few sources that give reasons to be confident in their scientific legitimacy. I will be spending more time in the future trying to make sense of it all. Thanks.
cerescokid,
The subfield of solar variability and climate change is a fringe subfield. Almost no astrophysicist believes in a sun variability-climate change connection because they mainly look at recent data and see no relation between the 11-years cycle and climate change and the solar irradiation variability appears too small to make significant changes in climate. Besides it has a bad reputation as a career destroyer subfield.
On the other hand most paleo-climatologists accept a significant influence of solar variability on climate change because they take the long view and find a strong correspondence between climate records and solar activity records. There are hundreds of papers published every year where sun variability is used to explain past climate changes.
What makes it a fringe subfield is that there is no known mechanism that can explain physically and with data how such small solar variability can exert such big climatic changes (as the Little Ice Age for example).
I was myself very skeptical of a big solar role up to about a couple of years ago, when I started to check the data myself. The correspondence between past cold periods and low solar activity for the last 10,000 years is astounding. And it is not due to climate contamination of the solar record. The best corrected 14C records for carbon budget models show it very prominently. When confronted between evidence and theory I always go with the data. The theory will end up being incorrect or incomplete.
Given the cyclical nature of solar activity we can start making better predictions of future solar activity and climate change. We are close to the peak of the 1000-years Eddy cycle. We might get a respite from warming during SC 24-25 (similar to SC 15-16 at the start of the 20th century) and perhaps a little cooling, but solar activity between 2050-2100 should be similar to the second half of the 20th century. Climate should be like a long pause with perhaps one or two decades of moderate warming.
We can see very clearly how temperatures are following the 1000 years Eddy cycle following their own internal 60 years cycle that is probably an oceanic component set in lagged motion by solar variability.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Scafetta2c_zpsit66xrpm.png
CO2 is probably enhancing natural warming, but the pause is showing that natural warming is likely to be the main cause for global warming for the past 350 years.
Javier
Thanks for the additional thoughts.
“…there is no known mechanism that can explain physically…”
This has been a pet peeve of mine that since scientists cannot identify a reason for some apparent correlations then it follows there is no causative relationship. Obviously correlations also don’t prove causations but at a minimum it should trigger more inquisitiveness and double down on further research rather than just blow it off as much of the establishment has.
I keep wondering what will future generations know that this generation is clueless about.
I hope you keep digging for more insights.
According to the establishment, no known mechanism implies no causation, which of course is another logical fallacy.
A K Kern explains her chart in the text:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003101821200096X#bb0265
Our analysis is in good agreement with the results of Yin et al. (2007). Both approaches indicate the de Vries cycle with periodicities of 225-years and an unnamed 352-yr-cycle (Fig. 7a and b). In addition to the peak at 225 years, our analysis shows an additional peak at 208 years suggesting slight shifts in the duration of the individual de Vries cycles (Fig. 7a). Peaks at 443 (441 in Yin et al., 2007), 522 and 561 years are also analogous to Yin et al. (2007). All these signals might represent a single quasi-periodic 500-year-cyclicity (Fig. 7a). Although this cycle is constantly expressed in the record (Fig. 8g), the splitting of its signal points to some variation of its frequency (Fig. 8g). The next significant peak occurs at 970 years, indicating the unnamed 1000-yr-cycle. Finally, the Lomb–Scargle periodogram shows a strong peak at 2210 to 2227 years, which represents the Hallstatt cycle (Fig. 7a). The Gleissberg cycle does not appear in the spectral analysis but is expressed by two very significant peaks above the 99% confidence interval at 88 and 151 years in the REDFIT analysis (Fig. 7b). This is explained by the presence of too much noise in the huge data set, which is removed using the REDFIT spectrum (Schulz and Mudelsee, 2002). This solar cycle displays a wide frequency band and temporal variation in power with a lower Gleissberg band of 50–80 years and an upper Gleissberg band of 90–140 years fitting excellently to the two-fold signal in the REDFIT spectrum (Ogurtsov et al., 2002 and Ma, 2009). The REDFIT analysis documents also the presence of a very prominent quasi-210-yr-periodicity of the de Vries cycle (Fig. 7b). Considering the wavelet spectrum, it is obvious, that the very high-frequency solar cycles (less than 60 years of duration) are poorly resolved (Fig. 8i), corresponding to the wavelet analysis of Yin et al. (2007). This may most likely be caused by the presence of noise due to the irregularities in theses solar cyclicities. The lower Gleissberg cycle, however, is still visible with its highest intensity from 5500 to 12,000 years (Fig. 8i). The upper Gleissberg cycle is also expressed with a prominent phase between 2500 and 8000 years.
An important fact is the absence of any 1500-year-cycle (Fig. 7). This is a strong proof, that this periodicity is no solar cycle as suggested by Bond et al. (2001) but might result from other feed-back mechanisms (e.g. Braun et al., 2005, Versteegh, 2005, Bard and Frank, 2006 and Xapsos and Burke, 2009).
The filtered data demonstrate a considerable modulation of the different solar cycles (Fig. 8c to h). The 1000-year-cycle shows a constant decrease in amplitude during the Holocene (Fig. 8h). The filtered quasi-500-yr-component has a comparable trend (Fig. 8g); its amplitude decreased strongly resulting in a moderate minimum around 5000–3500 B.C., then increased slightly again and becomes insignificant during the last 1000 years. In contrast, the expression of the 2210-yr Hallstatt cycle increases throughout the Holocene (Fig. 8f). The filtered 209-yr-component, representing the de Vries cycle, shows a much more complex pattern (Fig. 8e). It strongly alternates between high and low amplitude phases, but is overall steadily strengthening. Two major break-downs occurred around 5700–4500 B.C. and 2200–1500 B.C. The lower and upper Gleissberg cycles are also highly oscillating and display no phase-relation (Fig. 8c). The 151-yr-component develops a phase of extraordinary high amplitudes from about 4000–2500 B.C. and a second weaker phase from 700 B.C. to 200 A.D. (Fig. 8d), roughly coinciding with maxima in the de Vries cycle. The 88-yr-component, in contrast, tends to develop maxima in phases of low amplitude of the de Vries cyclicity.
5.3. Solar cycles in Miocene and Holocene times – a comparison
The close resemblance of the Lomb–Scargle periodograms of the Miocene records and the Holocene ones (Fig. 9) is strongly supporting our interpretation of the detected cycles as expression of variations in solar activity. The appearance of the 1500-yr-cycle as an “Earth-system-immanent cycle” is the major difference between both diagrams. This observation is of substantial importance as this cycle is also known from a Late Miocene lake in Greece (Weber et al., 2010) as well as it was indicated previously for Lake Pannon (Paulissen and Luthi, 2011).
Peter, Javier compiled the graph.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/06/27/are-we-headed-for-a-new-solar-minimum/#comment-792651
Javier,
Sorry, this long reply that does no answer my question. You say:
Rubbish. No legend, no units on the vertical axes and no clarity about what is plotted against what axis.
This unhelpful response together with your failure to answer my question about the chart you posted of the global temperatures over the Phanerozoic Era in a previous exchange, despite many attempts, leave’s me with little confidence you will ever give a straight, clear, concise answer to a question. As a result, I tend to regard your assertions as unsupported statements of your opinion, but you cannot support them.
I have no interest in doing hours of research to try to work out the basis for what you have in your head, especially if you can’t explain it clearly and provide links to support your contentions.
Peter,
I am sorry you are finding trouble with my explanations, but I did provide a link to the original paper. I will copy it again in case you missed it:
https://hal-ephe.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/33/07/31/PDF/cpd-3-679-2007.pdf
If you have read Gerard Bond, et al. “Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene.” Science 294, 2130 (2001), on which the Bond series is based, you should know that Bond events are defined in a stack of several sediment cores where the scale that goes from 0 to 16 measures combined percentage of several petrological tracers (hematite stained grains, icelandic glass, and detrital carbonate). that’s the scale on the right that applies to the Bond series.
The scale on the left is the result of applying the Gaussian filter to the Bond series. The Gaussian filter shows a bigger response when the time domain of the signal (the Bond series) shows a better coincidence with the chosen window for the filter.
I did not fail to answer your question about the phanerozoic temperature graph. I showed you were Veizer’s data could be located, and told you the author of the graph was Billy Illis and that the graph had been published in a WUWT post that I located for you that no longer had it displayed. But since you wanted a peer reviewed published graph, I located a related graph that was not of your liking in one of Veizer’s publications. You are being most ungrateful for all the trouble that I took to satisfy your needs. As of now you can go to hell as I will never answer you again.
Javier,
You clearluy are not understandign what I’ve said to you, repeatedly.
1. your comments are like trying to get a a straight clear answer from Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yse Minister.
2. I am asking for a clear succinct explanation. I am not intending to spend hours chasing whatever you’ve read to form your opinions.
3. provide links to the articles you are quoting.
4. You never did answer my question about whare I could find a clear, authoritative chart similar to the one your first posted, but with out the bias you demonstrated by plotting only the mass extinctions during cold time and not during hot times. I gave up asking you because it was apparent you couldn’t or were not gong to answer.
Oh and you still didn’t explain what the units are on the axes.
If you begin with a blatant statemetn lie this:
without a source and post a chart which you don’t explain and still don’t after being asked repeatedly, clearly I cannot repost it elsewhere. If you can’t explain what you are posting, its reasonable to draw the conclusion you don’t understand it yourself. In that case, I am not persuaded and simply dismiss you opinion on this. That’s the consequence of not being able to answer a simple question with a clear succinct straight answer and avoiding a whole pile of irrelevant waffle.
Javier,
I apologise all me replies. Sorry. Please ignore them.
I concur with the general forecast, and I am sure Jorge would enjoy seeing my findings, as they corroborate a Spörer-Maunder type event through the next 250 years. Though I regard the solar wind as having a direct effect on atmospheric teleconnections, rather than it merely being a precursor to future TSI levels. Which disregards the lag issue too.
I have identified a series which marks all the dominant “Grand (Super) Minimum” episodes since 4700 BC, including the Harappan decline, the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Greek Minimum, the Dark Ages, and the LIA. My solar cycle model, which I will have video of up later in the year, maps a pair of Maunder type solar minima, both roughly four solar cycles long, from the late 2090’s, and from around 2220.
The big Jovian cycle, when including Earth and Venus, is at 4627 years. The past analogue from around 2700 BC, was the first major phase of city building worldwide, and the birth of the classic ancient civilisations, in China, the Indus Valley, Crete, the Near East, the Great Pyramids, the rise of European Neolithic culture, and Peru.
typo.. from around *2200*
Corrigendum: Sánchez-Sesma’s article in Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss. was published 24 July 2015, almost a year ago.
Turbulent Eddy
Frozen Earth, the once and future ice age by Doug Macdougall
Seems to say the coming ice age is closer.
Ruddiman in Earths climate, Past and Future says we already prevented one with agriculture plus general emissions.
So lots of controversy now.
Why do you feel so strongly about ice age xx? off by 100,000 years?
Scott
Judith Curry wrote –
Solar indirect effects on climate remain at the knowledge frontier, and are associated with substantial uncertainty and ignorance. This uncertainty and ignorance is not a rationale for ignoring solar effects on the 21st century climate (and 22nd, 23rd centuries). And anyways, is the solar uncertainty (we understand the sign) really so much more greater than that associated with the effects of clouds on climate (see my recent post The cloud climate conundrum), where even the sign of the feedback is uncertain and the magnitude of cloud forcing swamps greenhouse gas radiative forcings
Sigh. So many uncertainties, so many calls to ban coal, or CFC’s, or something.
The Earth has apparently cooled over the last four and a half billion years – quite a bit. As long as the interior remains hotter than the exterior, it will continue to do so.
In the interim, some places on the surface will continue to be hotter than others. Clouds come and go, the Sun’s output changes, (big chaotic bugger that it is), local albedo changes, and night continues to follow day. Overall, the Earth as a whole is still cooling, albeit very, very, slowly.
Nothing wrong with scientific enquiry continuing. However, strident demands for immediate action, resulting in completely uncertain and unknown consequences, seem a wee bit premature, to say the least.
Are we heading for a new Dark Age? Who knows? Will the Sun shine again? I assume so. At least we’ve still got lots of stuff to burn, to keep warm and well lit, if a temporary time of darkness is nigh!
No point in wasting a good worry, unless it makes you happy. No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Cheers.
Are we heading for a new Dark Age? No. We are there already. The Age of Enlightenment is over.
Back to Climate Speculation, I see.
As “Volcanic eruptions are triggered by cosmic rays” (Ebisuzaki et al 2011), REPELLING those rays with tested Laser Plasma Shields, will stop devastating-cooling electro-eruptions! http://LaserEarthShield.info http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X10001966
It adds more noise to a field already consisting of noise. More data just gives more opportunity for bad statistics work.
You have to reduce the degrees of freedom enormously by doing some actual physics, which in climate is impossible, not to mention now adding the magnetohydrodynamics of the sun.
The speculations are good but ought to lead in the direction of saying how far it is from science in the first place. It’s not a plan for improving results.
the IPCC AR5 Ch 8 stated:
“Nevertheless, even if there is such decrease in the solar activity, there is a high confidence that the TSI RF variations will be much smaller in magnitude than the projected increased forcing due to GHG.”
Fools! The effect is not only TSI but more significant is cloud formation induced by cosmic rays. Don’t they read CERN’s CLOUD experiments? Cloud’s RF is just -18 W/m^2 or 9x larger than CO2 but cooling. The glacial period is coming and we’re running out of fossil fuels to burn. Only the cows can save us or we burn the forests too!
At the surface, the difference between clear skies, and heavy clouds can easily be a swing of 100Wm2
That was the global average cloud RF net of greenhouse effect of water vapor. The whole world is neither clear sky nor heavy clouds
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog.
JCH
You wrote –
“So the only way to get another gigantic Maunder Minimum would be for there to also be a big darn ACO2 control knob?”
I assume you are not really posing a serious question. Are you essaying an attempt at a rhetorical (albeit dim witted) question?
I have a serious question for you. Are you really as clueless as you make out, or are you just pretending to be stupid?
Cheers.
Mike.
Lol. Good one. With a minor health issue a few no golf days for me and no reason for some chuckles.
You just gave me a few.
MIke and the clown… up yours.
Going forward this current prolonged solar minimum if it meets the criteria I have established will have an impact on the climate.
Some are trying to say there is no connection between volcanic activity and solar activity – WRONG.
Also no one is taking into the account the earth’s Magnetic Field Strength which modifies solar activity. The weaker the field the more effectiveness solar activity will have that being both active or inactive solar activity.
No one is really talking about Milankovitch Cycles which are much less favorable for warmth now in contrast to 8000 years ago.
No one is mentioning all the secondary effects which come about from a prolonged solar minimum which I will send again.
All the predictions about solar activity that suggest a Grand Minimum is NOT in the offing are not looking at the data which clearly shows very weak solar activity until at least 2040.
When one looks at the climate data for the past 8000 years (HOLOCENE OPTIMUM) the global temperatures of the earth have been in an overall slow down trend (due to Milankovitch Cycles) punctuated with spikes of warmth(due to active solar periods )with each warm period not quite as warm as the previous one. The climate has been further modified by Volcanic activity /ENSO both tied to solar activity.
The current gradual down trend in the climate is intact and IF this solar minimum is similar in nature to the Dalton or better yet the Maunder solar minimum then I think the possibility of the climate returning to Little Ice Age conditions going forward is possible.
Climate thresholds(which can be driven by extremes in solar activity) are out there which if met can change the climate in an abrupt fashion as has been the case in the past as Ice Core Data clearly shows.
This original message was from Salvatore del prete. My name came on here in error. Thank You
Going forward this current prolonged solar minimum if it meets the criteria I have established will have an impact on the climate.
Some are trying to say there is no connection between volcanic activity and solar activity – WRONG.
Also no one is taking into the account the earth’s Magnetic Field Strength which modifies solar activity. The weaker the field the more effectiveness solar activity will have that being both active or inactive solar activity.
No one is really talking about Milankovitch Cycles which are much less favorable for warmth now in contrast to 8000 years ago.
No one is mentioning all the secondary effects which come about from a prolonged solar minimum which I will send again.
All the predictions about solar activity that suggest a Grand Minimum is NOT in the offing are not looking at the data which clearly shows very weak solar activity until at least 2040.
When one looks at the climate data for the past 8000 years (HOLOCENE OPTIMUM) the global temperatures of the earth have been in an overall slow down trend (due to Milankovitch Cycles) punctuated with spikes of warmth(due to active solar periods )with each warm period not quite as warm as the previous one. The climate has been further modified by Volcanic activity /ENSO both tied to solar activity.
The current gradual down trend in the climate is intact and IF this solar minimum is similar in nature to the Dalton or better yet the Maunder solar minimum then I think the possibility of the climate returning to Little Ice Age conditions going forward is possible.
Climate thresholds(which can be driven by extremes in solar activity) are out there which if met can change the climate in an abrupt fashion as has been the case in the past as Ice Core Data clearly shows.
I would like to see the data that shows an statistically significant connection between solar activity and volcanic activity, please, because I have looked at it and I haven’t found it.
https://i1.wp.com/i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Solar%20cycles2_zps1va5vqbt.png
data from ORDVIC, which is the most accurate data.
Good, because that is my graph. I made it from the data in the three articles referenced in the graph. Marcott et al., 2013, proxy assortment data was averaged by the differencing method and with the original published dates for the proxies as Tamino showed. The interpretation of the solar cycles according to Kern et al., 2012 data (based on Solanki et al., 2004 reconstruction) is also mine.
So we agree on the data and disagree on the interpretation. That is typical. However you are going to be wrong. There is already indication that SC25 is going to be similar to SC24, so no Grand Minimum this time. My solar activity pattern model correctly predicts that current solar minimum is an average century minimum. In about 6 years you will know that you were wrong.
Correction you are going to be wrong. The indications post 2005 show otherwise, not to mention the latest solar data.
As they say time will tell and I expect to be proven correct.
Javier, Thanks for making that graph. It is most helpful.
If the cooling is accompanied by an increase in global cloud coverage, a more meridional atmospheric circulation, and a fall in global sea surface temperatures, and an increase in volcanic activity then the case for a solar/climate connection in my opinion will be strengthened. exist.
IF SOLAR RELATED
INCREASE IN CLOUD COVERAGE- related to an increase in galactic cosmic rays when the solar wind is weak.350km/sec or less.
MERIDIONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION – this at the very least would distribute the cold /warm areas of the globe differently. This is related to OZONE concentrations in a vertical /horizontal sense in the atmosphere which is related to EUV light intensity coming from the sun. If EUV light is weak say 100 units or less it should effect the OZONE distribution in the atmosphere in a way that causes the temp gradient between the poles and equator to weaken thus creating a weak polar vortex and a more meridional atmospheric circulation. This kind of atmospheric circulation especially in the N.H. should increase sea ice/ snow coverage and global cloud coverage.
It would likely increase snow coverage due to the fact that Arctic out breaks would be driven further south into areas normally not covered with snow for much of the year while although warmth would be driven toward the Arctic regions temperatures would still be cold enough to maintain snow coverage, giving a net increase in global snow coverage. Higher albedo lower temperatures.
GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES- have been shown to be related to UV LIGHT intensity for the most part just below the visible light wavelengths, since light in these wavelengths penetrates the ocean surface to the greatest depths. When solar activity is weak UV light decreases hence sea surface temperatures should decrease.
VOLCANIC ACTIVITY – according to history over 80% of major volcanic eruptions which have at least a temporary cooling effect on global temperature occur at times of prolonged solar minimums. This is the case at least from 1600 AD- present.
One theory is when solar activity is weak more galactic cosmic rays penetrate the earth ‘s atmosphere and an increase in MUONS a by product of these cosmic rays reaches the calderas of existing volcanos making them more unstable.
MINIMUM SOLAR CRITERIA NEEDED FOLLOWING SEVERAL YEARS OF SUB – SOLAR ACTIVITY IN GENERAL WHICH STARTED IN EARNEST IN YEAR 2005 TO IMPAC THE CLIMATE.
AP INDEX 5 OR LESS
COSMIC RAY COUT 6500 UNITS
EUV LIGHT 100 UNITS OR LESS
SOLAR IRRADIANCE OFF BY .15%
SOLAR WIND 350 KM/SEC OR LESS.
SOLAR FLUX 90 OR LESS,
If all met and sustained they should drive the natural climatic oscillations to extreme enough change that should impact the climate if not bring the climate to thresholds .
Time will tell.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/04/solar-cycle-update-spotless/
Data that shows a Grand Minimum solar event going forward is likely.
For the record I disagree with just about everything JAVIER has posted.
Well, that just about covers the landscape.
But you really don’t want to be put in the same classification as Mosher do you?
If you rather not go through them in detail, would you prioritize the top 2 or 3 statements that are the most egregious and why?
For those of us who are trying to sort out the debate this kind of analysis would be beneficial.
If you are referring to me I made my positions perfectly clear, and the reasons why.
Salvatore is a sun nut. Listen to Svalgaard.
JC: All of the hubbub about declining solar activity since the beginning of the current cycle reminds me of the AGW around 1990. After a decade of strong warming, everyone was confident that that warming trend would continue or increase. Then came the 2000’s. Now we are experiencing the first weaker solar cycle and skeptics think that will continue even though we know less about the sun than radiative forcing from anthropogenic GHGs.
As far as I can see, there is nothing in the historical record that suggests that the solar forcing can compete with GHG forcing over the next century. Even if it could, we won’t know when it will.
Certainly. Most people get the future wrong because all they know is how to extrapolate the present. Even the business cycle manages to surprise most people when the next crisis triggers despite most people knowing that it exists.
However we know that GHG forcing is a lot smaller that generally accepted because global warming is 350 years old and it has accelerated very little despite a big increase in CO2.
Over the next century solar forcing is not going to decrease much, but is not going to increase either, so the main natural component behind global warming will favor a stabilization of temperatures. At the same time GHG forcing will increase less than expected. Already the decrease in water vapor is compensating most of the increase in CO2. The result should be the end of climate alarmism. i am sure we will find other problems to worry about.
…warming hasn’t accelerated much in the last 350 years? Could you provide a source for that?
I should also add that what you really want to prove is that the forcing from CO2 is negligible, not just that warming has been slow.
I provide all if this, plus the code and the compiled data for the world over about 100 different ways and areas.
And if you don’t understand it and why it means it isn’t co2, I’ll gladly explain it.
Javier we are in a prolonged solar minimum now and this is going to intensify going forward.
It is good we have a difference of opinion and only time will show which one of us is most correct.
Until the data says otherwise I am sticking with my thoughts.
Only in your imagination. Solar cycle 24 has been below average, but similar to solar cycles 12 to 16 between 1875 and 1925, when there was no grand solar minimum.
Leif Svalgaard has said that SC25 will probably have about the same amplitude as SC24, which he was one of the few that correctly predicted beforehand. His prediction coincides with my pattern model. This looks like a typical centurial minimum. It may cause a slight cooling like at the beginning of the past century, but it will not be the grand solar minimum and significant cooling that some are expecting.
Javier I have a question for you.
Do you agree with my criteria that solar activity would have to reach and stay at that would result in a significant impact on the climate?
CRITERIA
SOLAR FLUX SUB 90
AP INDEX 5 OR LOWER
EUV LIGHT 100 UNITS OR LESS
COMIC RAY COUNTS 6500 OR HIGHER
SOLAR IRRADIANCE OFF .15% OR MORE
SOLAR WIND 350 KM/SEC
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Time will tell.
Rather then looking at past history as a guide to future solar activity which does have merit I will not deny that, I think looking at the many solar current parameters which I sent could be more telling.
These parameters have been quite weak and telling since year 2005 and how these solar parameters behave especially over the next year or two should give us clues as to how deep this solar quite period may turn out to be.
Along those lines are the solar polar fields which are out of sync at record levels. Look at that data and all of the data I sent on my post sent at 10:58 am June 28.
For my part this data gives credence that the sun is now in a different mode of operation, the inactive mode post 2005 (very significant) in contrast to an active mode post 1840- 2005.That despite some weak solar cycles around 1900.
The difference was back around then I think the sun was still in it’s active mode. I think now the sun at the very least is gong to be in a mode of activity similar to when it was in the mode of activity that resulted in the Dalton Minimum.
The Dalton Minimum unlike the rather weak solar activity (ex. solar cycle 14) represents the sun being in it’s inactive mode of operation which I believe the sun has entered post 2005.
I say follow the data post 2005 and going forward for the clues of what the sun may or may not do going forward rather then trying to use past history ,although that is a viable way to approach this.
Javier your thoughts are good and your knowledge is extensive , even though we do not agree which is fine because that is what makes this interesting .
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208408298718391&set=a.1285992523260.40669.1633575819&type=3&theater
Solar Minimum starting with Oort
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13507105_10208412947594610_4407460346973125780_n.jpg?oh=6932f5643057635752e91f629b9aa611&oe=57FA2883
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13507105_10208412947594610_4407460346973125780_n.jpg
brandonrgates,
You wrote –
“Deterministic systems don’t do things magically.”
It might appear to be magic to a Warmist, but yes, a deterministic chaotic system does indeed exhibit what Warmists regard as magical behaviour.
By definition, an arbitrarily small input change resulting in chaotic behaviour cannot be quantified. There will always be a smaller value resulting in chaotic behaviour.
To many Warmists, concepts such as the uncertainty principle are unbelievable – or magical, if you will. Foolish climate modellers think that averaging multiple runs of a numerical chaotic system will result in something meaningful. It won’t, as they are slowly finding out.
What looks like magic to a Warmist is ho-hum to people who understand chaos.
Even the IPCC admits that future climate states are unpredictable. Fact might even prevail, albeit slowly.
Cheers.
You may have watched the movie “Butterfly Effect” one too many times. Although a small change in input in a chaotic system may cause a very large reaction the chances are that a small change will have a commensurately small effect. It’s just not assured to be small as it would be in a non-chaotic system.
Ah, but consider how many more small changes there are: every butterfly, every bee and fly, every blade of grass, every leaf of every tree or bush.
How does the average size of the effect vary with smaller changes compared to the average number of changes? How valid is it to use averages in this case?
And what about Brownian Motion?
Remember that for “climate”, we’re not looking at the evolution of the state, but the change to the “attractor” (“scare quotes” because a spatio-temporal system technically doesn’t have an attractor) with changing boundary conditions.
Technically, a change to the elastic modulus of one petiole of one leaf constitutes a change to the boundary conditions of the “attractor”.
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Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
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Evidence that the Sun has always had an important influence upon climate change
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/evidence-that-sun-has-always-had.html
Are we looking in the wrong place for the connection between solar insolation and the world’s mean temperature?
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/are-we-looking-in-wrong-place-for.html
There is a natural 208 year de Vries-like cycle in the Lunar Tidal Forces acting upon the Earth
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/there-is-natural-208-year-de-vries-like.html
There is a natural Gleissberg-like Cycle in the Lunar tidal stresses placed upon the Earth
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/there-is-natural-gleissberg-like-cycle.html
SIDC (SILSO) has just published the June sunspot number, which in the old Wolf numbers is about 14.6, while the Svalgaard number is quoted as 20.9
As it can be seen from the graph below
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN0616.gif
SC24 is nearly done, it may be a weak and a short cycle.
The weak solar activity’s imperative: Cool summers in the N. Hemisphere in the years to come.
The time between peaks and troughs is no more constant in the longer wave than in the 11-year sunspot cycle. Like the shorter cycle the longer variations may have an average duty cycle that’s constant but the individual waves obviously vary from the average. The point is that prediction of a trough centered on 2030 may miss the mark due to that variable duty cycle. The worse problem though is that you’re making a prediction of a continuing, constant long cycle based upon an observation of less than two complete cycles. The sample size is too small to assume you’re looking at an oscillator. That said I’d say your prediction has more chance of being right than anything else but that’s not saying a whole lot.
Vuk we want solar cycle 24 to be long.
Don’t you find it strange that sunspots all of a sudden have gone to 0 for some 11 days just like that?
Its time for folks to predict cycle 25…
http://www.leif.org/research/Press-Conf-Ancient-Telescope-Sunspots.pdf
Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity is not a constant, folks.
Write that down.
I can tell tell you the measured sensitivity to forcing is not equal across different latitude bands.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
ECS varies across space and time when the illuminated surfaces are non-uniform and dynamic. Additionally it also varies by the nature of the forcing. The simple and incorrect view is that a Watt of forcing is a Watt of forcing without regard to the wavelength. Equating a Watt of longwave infrared to a Watt of visible or ultraviolet light will raise grave errors when the surface is non-uniform and dynamic. Absorption characteristics are not uniform for different surfaces nor for the same surface illuminated by different wavelengths. A Watt of so-called longwave back-radiation from greenhouse gases is not equivalent to a Watt of visible light from the sun when on the varied and changing surfaces all over the earth.
I agree, but LW will be less, never more than SW because of the selective absorption.
And SW CS is no more than 0.02F/Whr/m2
as measured from surface data.
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stevenreincarnated,
[posted out of sequence for scroll]
Here’s Fig. 7 from the paper:
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/smeed-fig-71.png
If I’m reading this plot properly, that 15% decline is not unprecedented. In the conclusions they write:
This trend is an order of magnitude larger than that predicted by climate models associated with global climate change scenarios, suggesting that this decrease represents decadal variability in the AMOC system rather than a response to climate change. Further observations from the 26° N array will in time allow a better understanding of decadal variability of the AMOC and its relationship to the climate of the North Atlantic region.
Ah. I didn’t make that connection.
The sense I’m getting is that they wouldn’t show the feedback due to any external forcing.
So the model is in broad agreement with the Lund et al. (2006) reconstruction on long-term trend (slightly declining) until about 1750, at which point Lund reverses sharply upward and the model only shows a shallow reversal. By 1850 the model is out of the Lund uncertainty envelope and moving down more steeply than the Lund curve is continuing to rise.
This is unexplored territory for me, so I don’t know what to think. A linky to an RC post discussing it would be helpful if you have one handy.
I’m a little confused by this statement because that’s what piControl runs are supposed to do. As well, several of the CMIP5 models were run out to 2500 with external forcings held constant at whatever they were at 2100 as prescribed by the RCP assumptions. Reading around, it seems there are some issues with the piControl runs:
1) Since they’re used to set initial conditions for the historical simulations, the implicit assumption is that the climate was in equilibrium at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which may not be a valid assumption (oceans take millennia to equilibrate).
2) Some three odd centuries of unforced simulation may not be enough time to capture the full range of a given model’s modes of internal variability.
Yes, as a feedback process to some upstream physical driver. My own synthesis of all the citations you’ve kept me busy reading (for which I’m ever thankful) is that the upstream driver can be either internal or external. As I’ve pointed out elsethread, IF internal variability can drive such large surface changes, it implies a higher sensitivity to external forcings as well.
That paper could definitely cause some controversy. It makes an appearance over at SoD’s joint. I liked this comment:
December 30, 2014 at 6:39 pm
Meow
If unforced variability is larger than we are assuming, we must entertain not only the idea that it might constitute a positive percentage of the warming since 1880, but also the idea that it might constitute a *negative* percentage of that warming — i.e., that it might be cancelling some of the GHG-forced warming. Given these discussions so far, there is no reason to favor one idea over the other.
For my part, I don’t think we can, or should, count out external CO2 forcing as an initial driver for the kinds of feedbacks the literature you’ve cited describes.
I don’t think it’s unprecedented. Some people seem to believe it is. The purpose of that link was to show ocean heat transport varies despite the present configuration of the continents and, according to this model:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91JD00009/abstract
would cause 2 C warming of the globe if carried to equilibrium.
I’m surprised you aren’t familiar with Real Climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-going-on-in-the-north-atlantic/
“The sense I’m getting is that they wouldn’t show the feedback due to any external forcing.”
Most of the papers I have been linking don’t have a change in external forcing and are what you would expect from a change in internal variability. That doesn’t mean they don’t have implications should there be a difference in the reaction of poleward ocean heat transport between SW and LW radiation.
” As I’ve pointed out elsethread, IF internal variability can drive such large surface changes, it implies a higher sensitivity to external forcings as well.”
It only implies that should you make certain assumptions.
I don’t disagree with Meow’s comment.
I don’t count out the idea that CO2 could increase ocean heat transport but that wouldn’t be a very mainstream view.
stevenreincarnated,
I’m plenty familiar with RealClimate, but I figured you had a particular post in mind and wanted to be sure we were working from the same page. I happened to read both when they first came out. Anyway, there’s this:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/Rahmstorf_2015_3brc.jpg
Fig. 3 Time series of the temperature difference between the subpolar North Atlantic and the entire northern hemisphere, which can be interpreted as an indicator of the strength of the Atlantic circulation.
Which seems to be at odds with Smeed et al. (2014) Fig. 7, but only just. Right or wrong, Rahmstorf & Co. are arguing that the slowdown in Atlantic circulation is unprecedented over the past 1,000 years and that it’s a forced change. I don’t know what else to say about this other than the science on OHT clearly isn’t settled.
This may be a case of me finding what I’m looking for, but my recollection is that none of them rule out changes to OHT due to external forcing … and shall I say a good number of them specifically allow for it.
I don’t doubt that there are differences.
Such as? Let’s keep in mind that I was replying to your specifics: We are actually talking about a change in radiative forcing when we talk changes in water vapor and albedo.
It would be my naive assumption — all else being equal — that increasing energy to the system would result in greater poleward heat transport, both oceanic and atmospheric. But my naive assumptions have been known to get me into trouble, especially on this topic — I used to think that the oceans transported more heat poleward than the atmosphere.
I didn’t say external forcing couldn’t change ocean heat transport. I was responding to your comment that they wouldn’t show feedbacks to external forcing. That is clearly the case if they aren’t changing external forcing and if you want to explore how much the change in ocean heat transport matters you wouldn’t change external forcing since that would just compound the problem of trying to figure out what was causing what.
Feedbacks are regional. To say you can take an external forcing spread fairly equally worldwide to a forcing that takes energy from one region to another means you have to assume the regions will balance out to close to the global average. I don’t see any reason to make that assumption.
I’m not talking about total transport. I’m talking about ocean heat transport. The models seem to care what the mode of transport is or they wouldn’t be arguing that ocean heat transport matters.
I just went to Real Climate and grabbed the first post on ocean heat transport I saw, so no, I didn’t have one in particular in mind. They would all come across as the same regarding what the models say about CO2 and ocean heat transport.
Steven Mosher | June 27, 2016 at 11:29 am |
Mmmm … at least presumably, you are correct that at any given instant, science provides the best explanation given what we know.
However, for science to progress, some part of the current understanding needs to be falsified, demonstrated to be wrong, or shown to be incomplete or incorrect in some manner.
This is sometimes called”discrediting” the existing science, although the term “falsifying” is more common … and it is as much a part of science as is finding the new scientific ideas that will replace the old incomplete or incorrect previous ideas.
w.
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