Category Archives: Sensitivity & feedbacks

There is much hype and debate surrounding Spencer and Bradwell’s new paper “On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in earth’s radiant energy balance.” So lets sort through all this.

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Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Climate sensitivity follow-up

Posted on July 7, 2011 by curryja | 370 comments

by Nicholas Lewis

JC note: Pursuant to Nic’s post on “The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results,” he has sent a letter to Gabi Hegerl, who was coordinating lead author on chapter 9 of the IPCC AR4.

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Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results

Posted on July 5, 2011 by curryja | 651 comments

by Nicholas Lewis

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 (AR4) contained various errors, including the well publicised overestimate of the speed at which Himalayan glaciers would melt. However, the IPCC’s defenders point out that such errors were inadvertent and inconsequential: they did not undermine the scientific basis of AR4. Here I demonstrate an error in the core scientific report (WGI) that came about through the IPCC’s alteration of a peer-reviewed result. This error is highly consequential, since it involves the only instrumental evidence that is climate-model independent cited by the IPCC as to the probability distribution of climate sensitivity, and it substantially increases the apparent risk of high warming from increases in CO₂ concentration.

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Posted in IPCC, Sensitivity & feedbacks

Lindzen and Choi Part II

Posted on June 10, 2011 by curryja | 501 comments

by Judith Curry

Lindzen and Choi have published a new paper entitled “On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications.” This paper is pursuant to a previous paper on the same topic that was discussed by me on a thread at ClimateAudit. The paper is receiving substantial attention in the blogosphere owing to the unusual attention that the paper received by the editors at PNAS.

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Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Earth’s Energy Imbalance

Posted on April 18, 2011 by curryja | 306 comments

by Judith Curry

Jim Hansen has just posted his latest draft paper, entitled “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications.” This is quite a meaty paper, and will be of particular interest to those of you wondering “where’s the missing heat?”

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306 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds

Posted on February 3, 2011 by curryja | 138 comments

by Judith Curry

Juoakola spotted an interesting paper, that I missed when it was originally published:

NONLINEARITIES, FEEDBACKS AND CRITICAL THRESHOLDS WITHIN THE EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM

JOSÉ A. RIAL , ROGER A. PIELKE SR., MARTIN BENISTON , MARTIN CLAUSSEN, JOSEP CANADELL , PETER COX, HERMANN HELD , NATHALIE DE NOBLET-DUCOUDRÉ , RONALD PRINN, JAMES F. REYNOLDS and JOSÉ D. SALAS

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138 Comments

Posted in climate models, Sensitivity & feedbacks

Probabilistic(?) estimates of climate sensitivity

Posted on January 24, 2011 by curryja | 144 comments

by Judith Curry

James Annan (with Hargreaves) has a new paper out, entitled “On the generation and interpretation of probabilistic estimates of climate sensitivity.” Here is the abstract:

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144 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks, Uncertainty