And the series continues, poking another hole in the models, with bigger holes to come.
See the larger version in the post below
What if CO2 caused more greenery, which produced more volatile organic gases, which increased rainfall and changed cloud cover? The models would be blind to it. They’re “supercomputer-complicated”, but miss many of the feedbacks on Earth. The only feedbacks the models consider are ones that occur because of changes in temperature. And worse, it’s not just changes in temperature, but specifically, changes in surface temperature.
If, say, cosmic rays caused a change in cloud cover, or the Sun influenced ozone which in turn caused the jet streams to shift closer to the equator, there are no feedbacks worth mentioning according to the large GCM models. The conventional basic model assumes, is built on the idea that nothing causes changes to Earth’s climate unless it works through surface heating — and the GCMs have the same architecture. Cloud cover does not change ice cover. Ocean currents don’t change cloud cover. Changes in biology don’t change clouds. Only changes in surface temperature changes cloud cover.
It’s a good place to start looking for missing negative feedbacks (though, technically, “feedback” means a “feedback to surface warming” in much of the climate literature). Funny how the language matters isn’t it?
This architectural feature is inherited by the GCMs. Here David shows how the conventional model could be structured if feedbacks were introduced systematically. Baby steps…
— Jo
—————————————————————-
5. Error 2: Omitting Feedbacks that are not Temperature-Dependent
Dr David Evans, 27 September 2015, David Evans’ Basic Climate Models Home, Intro, Previous, Next, Nomenclature.
The second error in the conventional basic climate model is an architectural error, a systematic error in structure: it omits all feedbacks that are not responses to surface warming.
In a general sense, a “feedback” is a response to a change that affects whatever caused the change in the first place. For example, surface warming causes more evaporation from the oceans and thus more water vapor, but water vapor is the main greenhouse gas so this might in turn cause more surface warming — so water vapor is a feedback (and the biggest feedback to surface warming; see the components of the total feedback f before Eq. (10) of post 3).
The architecture of the conventional model is a radiation balance. For each climate driver and the surface temperature, it computes the forcing (or radiation imbalance, the increase in net TOA downward flux) — and of course these forcings sum to zero in steady state.
This arrangement is symmetric in the climate drivers and the surface temperature (that is, in each element of the set {climate driver 1, …, climate driver n, surface temperature}). (There is a computational asymmetry in the status of these variables, because the surface warming is unknown while the forcings for the other variables are known — as illustrated by the arrows in the diagram of the conventional model (Fig. 2 of post 3), which indicate what is computed from what. That is, the forcing from surface warming must be exactly opposite and equal to the combined forcings from the other climate influences.)
When feedbacks were introduced to the conventional model (see post 3), they are applied to the surface temperature but not the climate drivers: all the conventional feedbacks are in response to surface warming. This makes the architecture fundamentally asymmetric.
The symmetric but unconventional introduction of feedbacks is shown in Fig. 1 below, where each driver, not just the surface temperature, has its own feedbacks (which always go in the opposite direction to existing information flow, because they feed back).
Figure 1: The symmetric application of feedbacks to the symmetric radiation–balance architecture: each driver as well as the surface temperature has its own specific feedbacks. The conventional model (Fig. 2 of post 3) only has feedbacks in response to surface warming — it omits the dashed feedbacks. (The no-feedbacks-ASR has no feedbacks, so fA is zero — it is just shown for completeness.)
In the conventional model all “feedbacks” are in response to surface warming: they are directly dependent on the surface temperature, but not on the climate drivers or other feedbacks.
If there exist feedbacks that respond weakly to surface warming but respond strongly to changes in a climate driver, or if there are feedbacks to climate drivers that are not also feedbacks in response to surface warming, then the conventional model overlooks them.
One might argue that any climate driver will affect the surface temperature, at least indirectly, so modeling all feedbacks as responses to surface warming is adequate. But this implies the feedbacks to any type of influence are the same — that feedbacks do not “know” which driver caused them: for example, a surface warming of 0.2 °C could be due to extra CO2 (which leaves outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) constant, ignoring albedo feedbacks) or an increase in TSI (which increases OLR), but in the conventional model the feedbacks are identical in both cases. Physically, this risks serious over-simplification — surely the feedbacks to different climate influences might be different.
These omissions would be remedied by adding feedbacks to each driver, as in Fig. 1 above. A driver’s feedbacks might then significantly change the ultimate forcing due to the driver. This would make the conventional basic model much more difficult to solve (there would be a lot of extra terms in Eq. (3) of post 3, which could become an intractable mess).
A feedback that responds much more strongly to changes in CO2 than to surface warming is proposed in the post after next, corresponding to a negative value of fC in Fig. 1.
Would EDA be a big oversight of the conventional GCM also David?
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Huge. We’ll get to that later in the series.
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EDA = externally driven albedo (for the benefit of those who otherwise would have to look for the list in Part 2).
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Unable to comment
KK
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Why?
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Good question. I can’t follow it with any surety that I understand each step and what factors are involved.
eg. I fully understand the asymptotic effect of the absorption of ground origin IR by CO2 , reportedly all done within the first 10 metres above ground, but can’t relate that to the Log function shown n the outline.
That’s one example.
Just saying I can’t follow it. It is very complex.
Look what the warmers did to get the public IN. They produced labelled diagrams with pictures of clouds, Earths surface etc and gave amounts for Heat IN and Heat Out.
All wrong but very impressive.
That wasn’t a proper Mass, Heat and Momentum transfer analysis.
KK
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KK
I agree it is complex but I think it is done right.But I see this as being aimed squarely at Trenberth, Mann, Schmitt and all the other highly funded model believers. Because one day, hopefully a brave, prominent politician will ask one of them to defend the errors being pointed out by David and Jo.
Just imagine if Trump got into power and went on USA TV and asked one of them to “please explain”
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If what you outline actually happened, that would be our dream run.
🙂 KK
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You have to aim high KK!!
Basically I think the idea of persuading the public and then hoping they will pressure the politicians etc. takes too long, even if it proves to be effective, for any issue. So that is why I fully support any attempt to turn the process on its head.
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That is precisely what Environmental and Warmist devotees did: they spent a lot of effort on infecting with their ‘science’ prominent and influential people first; the Pope is the latest such example IMHO.
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Our day dream Ross 🙂
If the critique in this blog series finds sufficiently wide support in the skeptic community, and those supportive skeptics can agitate and keep drawing attention to it, then eventually the establishment will have to answer it in public. Then they will look silly — “approximations”, “waffle GCMs different fud”, “mistakes were made, but that was in the past”, etc etc. Remember, in the first post, we made the case that the basic model is why most establishment scientists truly believe, so just drawing attention to major problems in the basic model will affect them. These are all longer term effects however.
In the shorter term, as you note, this blog series provides specifics and inspiration for any country or company wishing to deviate from the climate establishment line — something seems amiss, could you explain these errors please?
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The climate establishment line.The politburo more like.
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I have to agree – this is too complex to be communicated easily to those without math – and with our Education system that means almost everybody with a B.Sc. or better. (and even many of them 🙁 )
To expect a politician to use something s/he can'[t even read is pie-in-the-sky. This series is great reading for those who can deal with the concepts and math (& yes I know it is being kept as basic as possible) but it needs the equivalent of the hockey schtick or it will simply be discarded.
Likewise, expecting the public to use any of this to put pressure on the legislators is asking way to much of Joe Public.
Svensmark and CLOUD have shown a perfectly valid way in which the Sun controls surface temperature but it has never hit the mainstream awareness, while CO2 is still seen as a major factor in Anthropogenic Global Warming. (sorry, I refuse to give them their redefinition to CLimate Change 😀 )
You have to remember, the public is still mostly convinced that the warming is continuing and they filter/discard any info that says it is not, because the MSM keeps feeding them the kool aid.
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MarkMcD, the communication problem is not quite that difficult.
We can boil this series down to some bumper-sticker messages (we already have some), but before they can have credibility there needs to be a source where they are backed up, in detail, in public. So we present the critique in sufficient detail on this blog, then we (or others) can launch the simpler messages.
There is a pyramid of messages. A detailed base upon which everything rests, then a series of increasingly simple messages to fit the attention span and interest level of those we are trying to communicate it to. The papers undergoing peer review and this blog series are the base layer.
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David, this is terrific! I only have a basic degree in agricultural science, so the depth in which you are going in the maths area is beyond me, although I do understand the principle of feedback, in an electronic sense. However, I can understand the thrust of what you are saying, particularly in the first two and this post and I am finding it exquisitely interesting. I agree with previous bloggers that we will need what you call “bumper stickers” and less technical articles to get the message out, but “Global warming models – essential information missing in action creates false fears” is going to be a great place to start. I look forward to the rest of what you have to show us.
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We have to fight the communication battle on many levels. We need to be able to do the bumper stickers for the busy crowds, and also do mainstream-news, university level debate, and peer reviewed publications.
Obviously new ideas, and advances are aimed at the leading thinkers.
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KK,
For me it’s just unwilling to comment at this point. I tend to look for basic principles first and then look at details. Without needing to understand all of the diagram the principle here is dirt simple — non surface temperature feedbacks, some of which should be obvious guesses to look at, are left out of the current model altogether, thus making it even more questionable.
And here I go commenting in spite of myself. But maybe you can get some benefit from doing what I do, Keith.
David, feel free to jump on me if I’m wrong.
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You need to investigate this urgently. Isn’t Turnbull a major share holder in Goldman Sachs? It would seem from the article that Abbot was forced out by Goldmann sachs interests(indirectly) a complete conflict of interest. He needs to go ASAP
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/28144/52/
Eliza, this belongs on another thread. I could move it to Unthreaded, or the Rent seekers thread? – Jo
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Everybody seems to be unaware of the weekends penmanship on our behalf of our esteemed Judas in a dress Bishop.
All else pales into insignificance.
What she’s just sighned in the lead up to the Paris robbery confirms we are now ruled with no opposition voice in our parliment.
Move this one there to Jo.
http://pickeringpost.com/story/-julie-quickly-into-bed-with-un-warmists/5377
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So far this series of posts has highlighted the fact that the computer models used to tell of of the coming doom are all set up to see only warming. The models see warming and only warming. Even if it is cooling the models see only warming. The models are useless for science but very useful for politics.
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Precisely, see the note below that I was typing while you were posting.
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Basic Scientific Error number 1.
“For example, surface warming causes more evaporation from the oceans and thus more water vapor, but water vapor is the main greenhouse gas so this might in turn cause more surface warming — so water vapor is a feedback (and the biggest feedback to surface warming; see the components of the total feedback f before Eq. (10) of post 3).”
Surely Water Vapour aids cooling not warming during the solar heating phase and only aids the slowing of cooling in the nighttime cooling phase for a very short time.
Comparing Tropics to Deserts shows this clearly.
Water is a “regulating feedback” providing a more stable surface temperature not just a warming feedback that GCMs use.
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“…might in turn…”. Yes, we’ll have a lot more to say about water vapor later in the series.
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Precisely the counter-argument that I’ve seen. Your point that this is a scientifically dangerous over-simplification is accurate, in my view. And I’m looking forward to the analysis of water vapour
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” a surface warming of 0.2 °C could be due to extra CO2 (which leaves outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) constant, ignoring albedo feedbacks) or an increase in TSI (which increases OLR)”
This seems illogical for the CO2 scenario, if you have the same input of energy TSI and same output OLR how can you have an increase in surface temperature which would require an absorbtion of energy Ignoring feedbacks surely it is the amount of energy trapped that determines temperature. Surely an increase in CO2 would trap more OLR unless it was saturated. Also how can you say the increase of 0.2C is the result of CO2 if there is no reduction in OLR.
Not a critic as such just trying to understand.
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Increased ASR (absorbed solar radiation): ASR = OLR so OLR increases.
Increased CO2: ASR does not change (ignoring minor surface albedo feedbacks), OLR = ASR, so OLR constant.
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DE: ”a surface warming of 0.2 °C could be due to extra CO2 (which leaves outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) constant”
“Increased CO2: ASR does not change (ignoring minor surface albedo feedbacks), OLR = ASR, so OLR constant.”
Your claim then is that some increase in surface temperature, and of the whole atmospheric column, does “not” also increase exit flux. How can this be? Do you also claim that that extra CO2 increases lapse rate? Why claim OLR = ASR, wnen temperatures are changing?
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While CO2 is increasing there is an imbalance = ASR – OLR. The Earth is “storing” the energy. But once the Earth system has adjusted (surface temperature increases), there is no more imbalance. So once the system has reached steady state again ASR = OLR. Energy input (ASR) equals energy output (OLR). Since the incoming sunlight hasn’t changed (ASR constant) the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) will also be the same as it was before, which is what David is referring to when he says “OLR constant”.
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Will, the basic model is for changes between steady states. In steady states ASR = OLR.
The reasoning here is important. Between two steady states where the only change in climate influences is that the CO2 concentration is increased, the ASR is constant — the TSI is the same, and the albedo is essentially the same (for this broad purpose, ignore the minor albedo feedbacks that occur). Therefore there is no change in OLR either.
This contrasts with a warming due to an increase in ASR (say an increase in TSI) — which increases OLR.
Thanks Nicholas.
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“Will, the basic model is for changes between steady states. In steady states ASR = OLR.”
I understand. And I agree that every atmospheric molecule is peddling as fast as can be in the direction of your steady state, swerving around trees and rhinoceroses! But the CAGW claim is that CO2 somehow ‘insulates’, increasing surface temperature. There is no evidence of such, only disgraced models.
All the best! -will-
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Will, there is ample evidence that greenhouse gases act effectively “like a blanket”. The general idea is explained in the next post.
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On a chemically inert, dead planet. 😉
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Thumbs-downers don’t have the courage to identify themselves or (the ability?) to argue their case rationally.
The “surface sequestration” of incident energy into chemical bonds has the capacity to store the energy for periods of days to hundreds of millions of years. How much is stored for how long is substantially guesswork.
We observe that e.g. lipids produced from e.g. algae can be burnt to recover around 2% of the energy of the initial, incident solar radiation. It’s a small proportion of the total incident radiation but nevertheless the order of magnitude of the “radiative imbalance”.
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It was: “No, we don’t alter temperature records!”
Now it’s: “Yes, we do alter temperature records. You’re an idiot if you think we don’t need to.”
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/the-cyclone-tracy-of-ideological-battles-does-the-weather-bureau-tweak-data-or-is-our-government-paranoid/story-fnjwvztl-1227545670243
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So what causes increase in surface temperature?
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You mean like UV warming of the stratosphere, or changes in ozone concentration or solar wind charging the ionosphere.
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Or even feedbacks like vegetation responding to higher CO2, which has nothing to do with warming?
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On this topic, if there are any chemists about here, in the process of photosynthesis, not only is Carbon Dioxide absorbed but the process is endothermic, exactly how endothermic is it, IE for each kg of carbohydrates produced how much energy is required, I ask because in addition to compensating for CO2, vegetation also lowers the amount of shortwave energy available for surface warming AND through transpiration increases evaporation. The more vegetation the more energy absorbed, and because CO2 only potentiates growth it is possible that the amount of energy absorbed in the process exceeds the energy accumulated by CO2. Vegetation could theoretically turn CO2 effect from warming to actual cooling.
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Molecular Cell Biology. Section 2.4 Biochemical Energetics
Have fun!
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Photosynthesis- in a rough draft, chlorophyll absorbs a photon, orange/red and/or blue/violet which excites an electron to a higher energy level. The excited electron is transferred from the absorption site into an enzyme cascade that generates ATP(adenosine triphosphate) which is used to reduce CO2 and H2O into sugars. Another enzyme cascade converts water into hydrogen(to add the electron back into the chlorophyll molecule and O2. The overall energy efficiency is around 1-2% .
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bobl:
You could also try the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change’s Biological Impacts report. It might be in there somewhere. There’s a PDF for each section.
Caveat: I haven’t read it all myself by any means, so I don’t know if what you’re wanting is in there. What I have read is very interesting, though.
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What exactly is the first error, can you provide an example of it in a IPCC GCM?
With regard to the second error, I believe you might have fallen into a common trap, mistaking a simple ANALYSIS model or description of GCM outputs for the real thing. GCMs do not link everything to the surface, though they may do for some specific parameterizations of things (such as clouds) that are too small scale for the coarse sampling used. GCMs “solve” equations based on LOCAL (to each block of matter) variables, including temperatures throughout the ocean and atmosphere.
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First error is in post 4 (this is a series of blog posts). Note that the Planck sensitivity is a partial derivative, and note this comment.
Second error: I don’t think so. We’ll be going into this more in later posts, but for now note that GCMs have the same response to extra ASR as they do to extra CO2, which thus includes the feedbacks, and those feedbacks are in in response to the surface warming produced by extra ASR. Note that non-temperature feedbacks are omitted from the basic model (post 3).
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What about the various CO2 limiting promises, is that a feedback, and to what.
10
David:
I have read on other blogs that we are at the saturation point of CO2’s impact on warming.
So doubling or tripling of CO2 does not have impact on warming.
Could you clarify?
Thank you for all of your efforts. Wish I had studied math more in high school/College.
40
ItsgettinghotinhereSo,
Most of the effect of CO2 occurs in the first 50ppm. As we add more CO2 and hit 400ppm we are on the flatter end of the log curve. Each additional molecule still has an effect but it is a smaller effect. See this post that explained the log graph of the warming effect of each extra 20ppm of CO2 .
Cheers, I hope that makes sense.
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” Most of the effect of CO2 occurs in the first 50ppm.”
Just what is the effect of CO2 that is already above the temperature required for radiative equilibrium, per Dr. G. Kirchhoff (1824-1887)?
Are you claiming that meteorology, atmospheric physics, has ‘any’ physical science in it? Has any part of it been physically verified? All fantasy! All gives Astrology, with much more science, a bad name!
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Do you know if the GCM models use those calculations in their models or do they use another set of calculations?
00
They only talk of a doubling of CO2.
That removes the logarithmic effect.
The only measurable effects of more CO2 are higher tree lines and slightly lower stratospheric temperature. All near surface effects can never be repeatably traced to higher atmospheric CO2 levels.
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ItsGettingHotinHereSo:
Broadly speaking, the GCMs follow the calculations as per the basic model that we are critiquing in the posts. Naturally they go into more detail and distribute the calculation spatially and temporally (the basic model is 0-D and only between steady states), but they follow the same “architecture”, or general means of doing things. Most importantly, they make the same errors (presumably because the GCMs were made by taking the basic computations and distributing them spatially and temporally). We will demonstrate this later in the series.
Recall also from the Intro (post 1) that the real reason establishment scientists believe is because of the basic model: “… many climate scientists remain firm in their belief in the danger of carbon dioxide essentially because of this [basic] model, rather than because of huge opaque computer models. The basic model ignited concern about carbon dioxide; without it we probably wouldn’t be too worried.”
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“ItsGettingHotinHereSo:
Broadly speaking, the GCMs follow the calculations as per the basic model that we are critiquing in the posts.”
David,For your consideration:
At CO2 100ppmv,12km,10kpa Optical depth @ 14.6 microns is 40 meters.
At CO2 200ppmv,12km,10kpa Optical depth @ 14.6 microns is 20 meters.
At CO2 400ppmv,12km,10kpa Optical depth @ 14.6 microns is 10 meters.
At CO2 800ppmv,12km,10kpa Optical depth @ 14.6 microns is 5 meters.
Using a 14.2-15.2 micron bandwidth, how much did EMR exit flux @14.6 microns to space change from a 100 to 800 ppmv CO2? How much did broadband EMR exit flux to space change going from a 100 to 800 ppmv CO2? How much did temperature anywhere change? Is that amount even measureable? The basic Climate Clown Model (CCM) represents fantasy, not anything connected with this Earth’s atmosphere.
All the best! -will-
07
Now THAT is possibly one of the most damning graphs I have seen. It’s the reverse hockey stick.
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.. the hockey stick for LEFT handers.
30
No left handed hockey sticks are far as I know.
00
As the old saying goes “A Picture tells a thousand words!” Works for me. Tks Jo
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Great series and I can’t wait for each new post.
May I suggest that you start preparing a journalist friendly summary. It would require more explanation of the consequences of the errors in layman’s terms. I was going to say along the lines of the IPCC “summary for policymakers” then I remembered that the PFPM bears no relation to the technical stuff!
This series is hugely important. Well done.
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SC
Or better still, submit it for peer review like everyone else does, end of argument.
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Frank, from the first section of the introduction (post 1):
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Thanks David, good luck
20
Geez Frank,
At least read the article instead of responding to the headline.
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Schrodinger’s Cat:
There are only two of us (Joanne and me), and it’s still a bit premature (let’s roll out a bit more first). That said, we do have some material ready to roll, but may need help from skeptics pressuring media to let it see the light of say.
Generally speaking, it is only interest and pressure from large numbers of skeptics that can give a voice to this material in public, in the media.
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Perhaps you can initially release the material through Andrew Bolt and Allan Jones?
30
Not being a scientist at all but aware of the peer review (revue in their case) issues that have arisen over this I must ask, can you be sure you will be treated fairly and without prejudice or bias?
20
Suggestions:
Dellingpole @ Brietbart
Chris Horner @ Daily Caller
Sean Thomas @ UK Telegraph
20
It would also make a pivotal book for the history of climatology.
30
I am really enjoying this series! As someone with a more casual interest in the subject, I didn’t know that these climate models ignored so much. It’s understandable, given the complexity. I have a friend that retired from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory a few years back (his background is in atmospheric physics), who was emphatic to me how ridiculously simplified the climate models are in reality. IIRC, part of his job at JPL was dealing with PhDs looking for funding. He would always give the AGW people a hard time saying, “I see you’re boiling the ocean again.”
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Escovado, I wish people like your JPL friend would get more involved in this debate. They sense that the modeling is too simplistic and something is wrong, and they have the heavy hitting background to make their voices count for a lot. Perhaps this series will help crystallize the critique for them, make it specific.
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David, I passed a link to this series to my JPL friend. I haven’t contacted him for his opinion yet. As a matter of fact, since he was in management at JPL when I met him, I didn’t know that atmospheric physics was his educational background until I showed him some of the videos from the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (2014). He watched the entire conference and thought their presentations were great. I’ll make it a point to ask for his feedback on this series.
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David there is this group too:
The Right Climate Stuff
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A good rule by which to operate. But the AGW crowd has had data by the mile, the ton, the terabyte and every other measure you want and has flubbed the whole exercise.
I wish Jim Peacock and his engineers greater success.
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This is so much like where I was educated/learned/worked. If you ai’n’t doing at least three major ‘aw shits per hour’, you are sluffing off. Mistakes are easy to fix, beliefs not so much! 😉
20
Sorry about the acronym typo. It should of course have been SPM, Summary for Policy Makers and not PFPM (Propaganda For Policy Makers).
I’ll stick to TLAs in future. (Three Letter Acronyms).
60
Plants appear to have another hat trick up their bows. Relative to soil they emit very little LWIR. By example,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660928/figure/fig1/
There’s more. They throw shadows that can cover bare soil which prevents that soil from energizing the trace gas CO2 with IR. No matter how short or tall they throw shadows and most of the time the area they shade is far larger than the plant itself. The response of plants to rain is immediate – they plump if dehydrated, and raise their limbs and leaves to capture as much light as possible and this creates shade. Nature’s little thermostat working every day, all around us, unnoticed. This is nothing new to thermal soaring pilots.
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David Evans,
The math is above my pay grade, but the concept of more CO2, more greenery, more water vapour etc etc is the cycle I argued a while ago on a local bedwetter FB dialogue group – I was accused of trolling because, despite all the graphs and temp charts they threw back, they still couldn’t answer the basic common sense of the science and that had me banned off that dialogue as well as FB altogether.
Even though I don’t understand the math, I and many others understand the common sense of basic science.
Keep on it, keep pushing, keep moving.
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Thanks for pushing back against them James. Never underestimate how effective this is, even just being seen to oppose their nonsense.
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While I can’t follow the maths, I can follow the logic. I’m confident your work will be a significant climatology (though it may not be officially recognized for years [decades] to come).
If you can compile all this into a book, you’ll recoup some of your efforts in the short term at least (while we wait for that elusive Nobel).
40
David it would appear science has become Orwellian in the sense of “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
As for the establishment some will come back, some will tiptoe back, some may never, but the basics must be dragged back from the void into the light to show us the path once again.
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Congratulations Jo and David on this great series of articles. I cannot follow all the workings but I can see that the IPCC/CO2 climate models ignore so much of the mechanism. The system is so complex that we are a long way from modelling and predicting it. In the face of this complexity, the IPCC/Co2 models are ridiculously simplistic. It will be hard to get this truth through to the political level as the IPCC/CO2 false slogans are simplified to the level of inaccuracy that politicians can understand.
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I am not sure if the partial derivatives are the real problem as such.
Radiation versus CO2 and versus H2O and clouds is ok, and also temperature versus radiation and so on. The problem is more in the connections between the variables, so that it is all boiled down to dependency of CO2 by some ad hoc defined “feed back” from temperature.
The funny thing is, that all those feed backs from temperature would work no matter what caused the temperature change.
More or less sunshine would also be multiplied by three or more or less clouds.
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Sven,
It’s precisely “the connections between the variables” that makes the use of partial derivatives so dodgy.
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Svend, “I am not sure if the partial derivatives are the real problem as such.”
Nor are we. That’s the problem. No one knows, no one can know. There are no tests.
But we do know that there is no 95% certainty.
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At least that part could be construed as ‘settled’!
Fabulous work David & Jo. Thank you. It takes a substantial measure of digestive effort, not always with perfect success. The true math brain is an enormous asset. For those of us lesser mortals, the reward for effort is a little more valuable insight.
The reductio ad absurdum that the core climate model represents is astonishing, in the sense that such simplistic treatment of an infinitely complex, lightly understood non-linear chaotic system has become a global policy lynch pin.
Without doubt this fact alone betrays other very toxic agendas at work.
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Well put Manfred
40
The way I see it is the models miss the ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’ sort of thing.
The climate models ASSUME a rise of CO2 as the driver yet if you look at geologic time CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years. So isn’t it warmer ocean temperature that drives the reduction in dissolving rate of CO2 and thus the increase in CO2?
Then there is the whole complicated water cycle. To think downward LWIR drives ocean temperatures is really laughable. Aside from the specific heat of water, the effect of LWIR gets drown in the noise from the variable sun. And that is before you get to latent heat of vaporization and the effect of clouds on albedo.
http://www.klimaatfraude.info/images/sverdrup.gif
20
The biggest hole I see is that CO2 seems to me like (I’m still trying for more proof) it physically can’t warm the atmosphere, let alone the surface. My argument is:
1 – In the atmosphere CO2 can only adsorb IR at 15um which based on standard radiation physics happens only at -80C. -80C is only found at around 90-110 Km high in the atmosphere. Given CO2 is a heavier atom than O2 or N2, I’m not sure how many parts per million there are of CO2 up there.
2 – Temperature is only a measure of the kinetic energy of molecules. The amount of radiation blasting through any cubic metre is irrelevant. If you don’t believe that then look at the temperature at the top of Mt Everest on a clear sunny day when there are large amounts of short and long wave radiation. Ditto there is no deep cold of space. Space has very few molecules so no kinetic energy so no temperature.
3 – Brushing the boundaries of Quantum mechanics, electrons have specific orbits around molecules. Each increase in orbit requires a minimum amount of energy. If a photon doesn’t have enough energy, it either passes through or bounces off the molecule. No temperature change. A photon from a molecule 100Km up is never going to have enough energy to be adsorbed by any molecule at 0C plus on the surface. Which is why the 2nd law of thermodynamics effectively applies to radiated energy as well as heat passed by conduction.
So no matter how much IR is bouncing around the atmosphere, there can’t be any
temperature change from more or less CO2 100Km up. CO2 at the surface can’t affect temperature because it is transparent to all IR at surface temperatures except maybe in parts of the Antarctic in Winter.
I don’t think the models handle this. As an Engineer this explanation seems logical, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to be 100% on it. Happy for feedback to improve my “model”.
Good blog series David, I’m enjoying it.
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I don’t think it works that way, CO2 absorbs energy because the photon reasonates with one of the bond energies in the molecule. The bonds begin to vibrate, but it’s relativistic, if CO2 is moving away the wavelength it “sees” depends on the relative motion of the source ( earth and the CO2 molecule) and is lower, it thus will absorb a slightly higher energy photon so that the doppler shifted wavelength matches the bond (electron state) energy. Each CO2 molecule will only absorb 1 frequency while a bunch of them will absorb in a narrow band depending on velocity distribution.
So the width of the “wings” ends up really dependent on the range of “kinetic velocities” of the CO2, Venus has wide CO2 bands not because of CO2 concentration but because different parts of the atmosphere have CO2 at different temperatures. Slow where its cold and fast where it’s hot, mediated by the density of the atmosphere and the fact it gets twice as much sunlight. I’d be really surprised if this wasn’t the case. Mars on the other hand is cold, it’s CO2 is at a temperature in a much smaller range of velocities than earth of venus, thus it has narrow absorbtion bands despite having 10x the partial pressure of CO2 as earth.
Broadening of CO2s absorbtion spectrum can’t happen unless the density of the atmosphere is unconstrained.
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Very nicely put Rod
I have never gone into that depth because I have always been able to see that CO2 cant be the main item, or even a significant item even IF it is able to absorb ground origin IR at NTP of about 20 deg C and 1 atm.
Was in an aircraft recently and the temp outside at 10km altitude was minus 38 C.
KK
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Interesting thoughts, how does this behaviour of incoming solar radiation at TOA levels affect not just CO2 but solid objects?
I ask as remembering the Greek myth of Icarus no one questions how his wings of feathers and wax are able to melt in such a cold environment, it sounds a bit silly but sometimes the simple questions can evoke greater questions and answers.
20
Wow
We got ourselves a problem to think about here!
10
Re BoM: This is the information that supporters of climate change con now rely upon to refute any claim that BoM records do not match the media releases on climate change;
https://www.environment.gov.au/minister/baldwin/2015/mr20150618.html
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I remember a lecture by a visiting physicist whose life’s work was raindrops, drops of water generally. It may not seem much but he could establish so much of the sea/air boundary was dependent on droplets, from waves and turbulence generally. Consider a fish tank with a still surface. Everything in steady state equilibrium, except that the fish drown.
It is the very turbulent nature of the air, water, droplets, storms, currents in both air and water which so dramatically alter the environment and effect the rapid exchange of O2, CO2 in our atmosphere. Look at the bubbler in the fish tank. So all this steady state stuff does not represent the real world because water has such extraordinary properties. 400x as massive as the thin air above, the interface is critical to our understanding of tempeature and climate. Droplets have enormous surface area, like the 40m2 area of alevoli in your lungs which are kept wet to facilitate very rapid exchange of CO2. It goes in at 0.04% and comes out at up to 25%.
So with modelling. This physicist was grappling with the dynamics of the exchange in droplets. This one area alone brings into question all models about climate and I doubt anyone has the models to deal with this and the fact that turbulence is essential to understand climate and that is the one thing people avoid as they cannot model it. Climate is about water, not CO2 but with 98% of all CO2 in the water, not the air, without a turbulent model for the sea/air interface, we do not have a hope of a realistic model.
Shanghai last year, 37C and 100% humidity and the temperature dropped to 32C suddenly. The droplets hung in the air like a fog, rain which would not fall. Our models are inadequate. As for understanding CO2 levels, until the IPCC comes clean about the fact that fossil fuel CO2 does not hang around for long, they have no credibility.
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David, I saw your earlier post about partial derivatives and think you may be inaccurately portraying this aspect of differential equations. If w = x^2 + y^2, then partialw/partial x = 2x. If y is a function of x then the total derivative of w, dw/dx = 2x +2ydy/dx. In the Navier Stokes equations for example, the partial derivatives are rigorously derived from the conservation laws. There is no inconsistency or inaccuracy in this derivation.
Perhaps what you are getting at is that the sub grid models for clouds for example in GCM’s may neglect some of the dependencies and that may well be true, but its a different issue altogether. The models are simply wrong if that is true.
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David Young — So why not comment on that post? This is the wrong post.
Please read the post 4 on PDs, and put it in the context of the conventional basic climate model (post 3), noting that the real reason most establishment climate scientists believe in the CO2 theory is because of the basic model (“basic physics”) — post 1.
My portrayal was perfectly accurate, as you would find if you merely read the post and followed the MIT link I put into address your simplistic query. There was no mention of Navier-Stokes, and at this level it is not relevant. You really haven’t been following this series, have you?
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If all feedback goes via surface temperature then you cannot make a chaotic system (requires a minimum of three independent continuous variables to be able to describe a chaotic locus).
I’m pretty sure at least some of the GCM’s are capable of showing chaos, for example, otherwise you don’t get ENSO cycles and stuff like that.
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Thankyou David and Jo,
Lifting the veil on the modelling.
For decades I have had a healthy scepticism of the CO2 claims made by climate modelers. Trying to model vast multiple interactive chaotic systems over time is folly no matter how many data points you have.
Thanks for laying out the maths in bit size pieces. I’m astounded at the simplicity of the pitfalls highlighted to date in the series….not at all surprised that rigor was lacking; surprised at the basic levels you have been able to reveal it. Congratulations on the series.
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I’ve left this until late in the Comments section for this Thread, because I don’t want to detract from the main intent here, but this is a comment in general about water vapour.
I’m absolutely astonished at the almost total ignorance in everybody I’ve ever raised this matter with.
I (purposely) ask one question first and I always know what the response is.
When it comes to this Global warming/climate change debate, the problem is greenhouse gas causing the warming, and which gas would that be?
The answer I always get, always, is CO2, which in truth, is the correct answer
The next question is this.
Is there a greenhouse gas larger in concentration than CO2, and still, to this day, I have never received the correct answer, water vapour. That word never could be taken as a case of my perhaps embellishing things, but believe me, no one has ever responded correctly.
When I then mention that water vapour is larger, and for emphasis, I always mention that it’s almost 50 times larger, (48.75 times larger) which again, no one believes, the most common response is that it doesn’t count anyway, because the only problem is with CO2, and most believe that water vapour is not a greenhouse gas anyway.
Very few people even know the concentration of CO2, 400PPM, and again, very few even understand what 400PPM actually means, and here I use the $100 bill analogy, asking them that if the $100 was the whole Atmosphere, then what fraction of that is the CO2 content, that 400PPM, and again, no one has correctly given me the answer, 4 cents, and even after I tell them, they don’t believe that either.
Then I refer it back to the water vapor, and I use the same $100 analogy, for a $1.95 answer, and still I get that water vapor is of no consequence at all.
The average person would not even read something like what we have here at this Thread, and that’s not meant to belittle what is here, but it’s because this means nothing to them, and again, that’s also not meant to lessen what is said here, because this is not specifically targeted towards the average person.
When people cannot understand the most basic things about greenhouse gas concentrations, water vapour, and CO2 content, then those of us who read Dr. Evans conclusions are struggling uphill.
We can tell people about this, but until we can make them understand even the basics, then we may be in fact losing the battle.
I have even distilled it down further by explaining that the other 23 gases only total a quarter of CO2, and that is so tiny as to barely register.
I find it immensely frustrating that I’m looked upon as a Kook who has got it all wrong.
Sometimes, I even get game enough to mention that the Atmosphere is 76% Nitrogen, and almost to a person the response is ….. Bull$hit!
I’m almost convinced that people want to believe catastrophe, and that the truth is just absolute fantasy.
Tony.
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TonyfromOzSeptember 28, 2015 at 5:29 pm
“I’ve left this until late in the Comments section for this Thread, because I don’t want to detract from the main intent here, but this is a comment in general about water vapour. I’m absolutely astonished at the almost total ignorance in everybody I’ve ever raised this matter with.”
Tony,
It is not just WV but airborne H2O in all 5 phases of water. Average atmospheric column water is 2.7 cm. This is enough for 9 days of average rainfall. This cannot all be WV at temperatures less than 35 Celsius. The atmosphere carries this around with itself. Daytime some evaporates, just to re-condense to airborne water condensate at nighttime. This wholly atmospheric effect is never considered by any so called atmospheric physics.
If even 6 mm of that 27 mm column water is continuously cycling between night airborne water condensate, and day WV, this would account for how 2/3 of total insolation gets re-radiated to space via atmospheric EMR, while not coming close to Earth’s surface. Perhaps some concerted effort explaining the actual measurable action of the atmosphere, rather than the unobservable fantasy, will have some effect. Crossed fingers!!
All the best! -will-
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Brilliantly said Will.
KK
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Good article, very well explained. I can see that there is a lot wrong with the so-called ‘physics’ that are claimed to underlie the hypothesis of man-made global warming, but I do not see how the concept of greenhouse effect is an artefact of wrong physics or mathematics.
Sceptics shouldn’t be making life hard for themselves by trying to refute the foundations of AGW, when the CAGW-superstructure that warmists have built upon those foundations is so obviously wrong-headed and easy to refute. As one guy said:
“Unfortunately, few people seem to realise that the greenhouse theory actually exists on two conceptual levels at once – a fundamental level which is perfectly sound and in accordance with well-established physical laws and principles, and a conceptual superstructure that has been built by the modellers and which is irrational and divorced from reality. The alarmists claim that the superstructure is supported by the foundation but that is not true. The ‘positive feedbacks’ that comprise most of the superstructure are apparently quite fictional and unrelated to the laws and principles of radiative physics, thermodynamics and chemistry that comprise the fundamental level. I think this implies that it is only the irrational superstructure that needs to be discarded while the basic foundations of the theory are good and can be retained. However, some people seem to think that we need to discard the foundations too. They are mistaken in my view”.
You’re far from being a kook Tony and I think you’re just pointing out the obvious. Here is one such argument you could make:
• CO2 composes about 0.04% of the atmosphere by volume (or ~4% to the overall greenhouse)
• The rest of the atmospheric greenhouse by volume is made up mainly of H2O – according to NASA’s ‘Earth Fact Sheet’ it makes up on average 1% of the atmosphere by volume, or ~96% to the overall greenhouse (with other gases such as CH4 existing in negligible trace amounts) and molecule for molecule water vapour is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 as it absorbs radiation over a far wider energy-wave spectrum, from infra-red to visible light
• The atmospheric greenhouse from all sources is estimated to raise the surface temperature of Earth 33C above its effective blackbody temperature of 255K
• Therefore the maximum possible greenhouse effect of 4% CO2 in relation to that of the whole greenhouse would be 4% of 33C and that comes out to about 1.2C. However the IPCC’s logarithmic formula which relates CO2 to radiative forcing estimates that the CO2 greenhouse of 400ppmv contributes about 32W/sq.m which comes out as 8C above Earth’s effective temperature of 255K
• Since CO2 is meant to behave logarithmically doubling the concentration should therefore give us half the warming, or around 0.6C (which is in close agreement to Sherwood Idso’s estimates of 0.4C from the effect of doubling CO2 alone without feedbacks)
• Now this 0.6C from doubling CO2 is a small temperature increase in itself, but it is only an estimate of the maximum possible warming from CO2 that is theoretically possible and this estimate is based on two favorable assumptions: 1) That CO2’s potency is as great as water vapour and 2) That increments of radiation due to the greenhouse effect produce corresponding increments of the global mean temperature in a linear manner when we know this is not the case because as temperature increases it requires higher amounts of radiation to produce the same temperature increments according to the S-B law. When the S-B law is taken into account the effect is to reduce the size of the possible human component to 0.5C. For these two reasons the actual amount of global warming produced from doubling CO2 is bound to be less than 0.6C, and in my view probably closer to Sherwood Idso’s estimates of 0.4C
21
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Chocolate fireguards sprout from coast to coast
Where’s Don Quixote when needed most,
Great tricorn’d sticks poking nature’s eye
Cruciform’s proving the global lie
Promgulated as ‘man-made warming’
Junk science which is the real warning,
Naked emperors must one day heed
Cries to dress their naked funding greed.
The new inquisition denies any
Contrarian views of the many,
Opposed to the Gospel of Al Gore
Stake burnings to rival those of yore;
Censored scientists striving to be heard
Voices drowned by the stampeding herd
Of sycophantic media hacks
‘Publish and be damned’ – but wont print facts.
David Bellamy and Johnnie Ball
Scientists of repute before their fall,
‘the truth is out there’ but you can bet
It’s only found on the internet;
Joe Stalin and Goebbels taught them well
Ostracise opponents who might tell
The story behind the propaganda
Of the tax gathering agenda.
So-called experts daily dose of doom
Shepherding sheep to the fold in gloom,
Each outrageous global warming claim
Printed as fact to apportion blame;
The drip feed gets more inedible
As the claims get more incredible,
Canutists ministers do not know
That Carbon Dioxide makes plants grow.
Unimpressed cats fed a vegan dish
To ‘Save the Planet’s’ declining fish,
A U N panel recently vows
To tax the emissions of dairy cows;
Science purporting to verify facts
Subsumed by powers to generate tax,
Sinister canards will only die
With seekers of truth like you and I.
Jan 2, 2014 at 9:41 AM | patrick healy
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Will someone please show how temperature can possibly be an independent variable on any planet or planetary atmosphere?
Can: This partial ever exist?
26
There have been numerous references to lapse rate changes, and what I suspect is an eventual destination for this series of claiming that negative lapse rate and cloud feedbacks cancel out CO2 sensitivity, and make climate change a very small concern.
Quoting from IPCC AR5 Chapter 7, Clouds and Aerosols:
The evidence seems to demonstrate that water vapor is a strong positive feedback, with clouds a smaller but likely positive feedback as well. References are given here.
The amount of work done on this topic is quite large, and includes evidence such as radiosonde probes, satellite spectroscopy, etc. This is the very evidence that drives the sensitivity estimates of around 3 °C per doubling of CO2. I would find arguments for a significant negative feedback from _either_ water vapor or clouds far-fetched, unless accompanied by some serious evidence and data.
12
My apologies to all, I intended the previous comment to go on the section 6 post.
00
KR,
Is the origin of that WWF gray literature or Greenpeace Grey literature?
10
KR, “I suspect is an eventual destination for this series of claiming that negative lapse rate and cloud feedbacks cancel out CO2 sensitivity”. Nope, that’s not where we are going. We accept the feedback values in AR5.
“I would find arguments for a significant negative feedback from _either_ water vapor or clouds far-fetched, unless accompanied by some serious evidence and data.” I agree.
From post 1: “Carbon dioxide increases, the surface warms which causes feedbacks, but critics have not been able to demonstrate any omitted feedbacks of significance, despite searching for over 30 years. Perhaps there aren’t any. In any case, in this series we are going to proceed as if all such significant feedbacks are known and furthermore that they are correctly quantified as per the latest IPCC Assessment Report (AR5).”
Yet, we think we have found a resolution between this and the empirical evidence for a significantly lower ECS.
20
Ok. so can we start a page to list ALL ideas for variables which may influence temperature and next to them sources for the data for those variables (if available)? So a brainstorm of ALL possible climate influencers. No need to debate just dump a list. Then we can decide how to approach modelling such complexities.
00
David wrote above: “If, say, cosmic rays caused a change in cloud cover, or the Sun influenced ozone which in turn caused the jet streams to shift closer to the equator, there are no feedbacks worth mentioning according to the large GCM models. The conventional basic model assumes, is built on the idea that nothing causes changes to Earth’s climate unless it works through surface heating — and the GCMs have the same architecture. Cloud cover does not change ice cover. Ocean currents don’t change cloud cover. Changes in biology don’t change clouds. Only changes in surface temperature changes cloud cover.”
Is it possible that you don’t fully grasp the difference between forcing and feedback? Forcing is measured in units of W/m2 (and sometimes converted to the equivalent in CO2 doubling, where each doubling is 3.7 W/m2). Feedbacks are measured in W/m2/K, where K is the change in surface temperature. All of the phenomena you discuss in the above passage don’t depend on surface warming and therefore are forcing, not feedback! The increase in emission of thermal radiation with temperature is measured in W/m2/K and is sometimes called Planck feedback. Unfortunately, this “feedback” is the reciprocal of the “no-feedbacks” climate sensitivity. So, I find the term Planck RESPONSE more useful and say that the Planck response is modified by feedbacks (all measured in terms of W/m2/K).
David also wrote: “When feedbacks were introduced to the conventional model (see post 3), they are applied to the surface temperature but not the climate drivers: all the conventional feedbacks are in response to surface warming. This makes the architecture fundamentally asymmetric.”
In W/m2/K, K by convention refers to surface temperature – the temperature that is most relevant to us. However, the average photon escaping to space is emitted from about 5 km above the surface and only about 10% of the photons escaping to space were emitted from the surface. To correct for this problem, we calculate pdG/pdT – the reciprocal of the no feedbacks climate sensitivity – using the S-B equation and T = 255 degK instead of T = 288 degK. Since the lapse rate is expected to shrink on a warmer, more humid planet, 1 degC of warming at about 5 km will be less than 1 degC of warming at the surface. Lapse rate feedback corrects for the fact that the surface is expected to warm less than the upper atmosphere. The change in lapse rate with rising surface temperature in AOGCMs is an emergent property of the model, not a parameter that is entered into the program.
The effectiveness of water vapor as a GHG and its competition with CO2 depends on altitude. This problem is properly addressed by the radiative transfer calculation modules of GCMs. We know that saturation humidity rises 7% per degK of surface warming, but GCMs don’t calculate the rise in relative humidity using such shortcuts. The transport of moisture into and out of each grid cell is calculated. When a parcel of air rises and temperature drops due to adiabatic expansion, clouds form and precipitation falls, leaving 100% relative humidity. When that parcel of air later descends and warms from compression, its absolute humidity remains the same and its relative humidity drops. (One of the big uncertainties in AOGCMs is how much turbulent mixing occurs in convective towers that are often much smaller than the size of a grid cell. Such sub-grid processes must be handled by parameters.)
The average water molecule remains in the atmosphere only about 9 days after it evaporates, so water vapor is usually considered to be a feedback that responds to surface warming. This works well for convective regions, but not the poles, tropopause, or stratosphere, where water vapor doesn’t change rapidly with surface temperature. AOGCMs aren’t bothered by this forcing/feedback dilemma, – they calculate its behavior in every grid cell from fundamental principles and some parameters.
I’m glad to hear that you are trying to get this material published. I hope you will consider my long comment here and for Part 4 to be part of your peer review. When skeptics get confusing or flawed work published, it distracts attention from the fundamental weaknesses in the consensus position. If your work can survive and be improved by challenging comments, then it could be extremely valuable. (I don’t claim to have all of the answers, just some issues that may need to be resolved.)
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Frank,
“David wrote above: “If, say, cosmic rays…”
Joanne wrote that, not me. Notice the “- Jo” underneath the introduction, then the author byline with my name that begins underneath.
“Is it possible that you don’t fully grasp the difference between forcing and feedback?”
No. See post 3, especially fig.2 of post 3.
“All of the phenomena you discuss in the above passage don’t depend on surface warming and therefore are forcing, not feedback!”
And what is the post about Frank? About the lack of feedbacks (post 6: “In a general sense, a “feedback” is a response to a change that affects whatever caused the change in the first place.”) other than surface-temperature-dependent feedbacks in the conventional climate models. See, the conventional models omit them, so these are examples of phenomena that in contexts other than a conventional climate model would be classified as “feedbacks”.
“…and is sometimes called Planck feedback…”.
Frank, at least read the posts properly before time wasting with huge comments, please! From post 2, we are calling it the Planck feedback, as per AR5. You are just rewording what has already been said in the posts.
“In W/m2/K, K by convention refers to surface temperature”
Stop time wasting Frank. See, for instance, fig. 2 of post 3: see how the input to the feedbacks is labelled “surface warming”?
Sorry Frank, but the rest of this comment seems to just say well known stuff, stuff in the posts, or makes questionable, unbacked assertions about GCMs. This is the second one of your huge comments today; you haven’t comprehended simple stuff from the posts so it appears you haven’t read them carefully, you’re not asking for clarification but merely casting doubt things without good reason, meanwhile you make simple mistakes and unbacked but questionable assertions.
Please write smaller comments, and read the posts properly first. If you have something pertinent to say we’d love to hear from you.
10
David, I’m sorry I confused what you and Joanne wrote. However, the first sentence you wrote is: “The second error in the conventional basic climate model is an architectural error, a systematic error in structure: it omits all feedbacks that are not responses to surface warming.” This appears to be another example of confusing forcing and feedback. By definition, there are NO feedbacks that aren’t a response to temperature change. All feedbacks have units of W/m2/K, where K is the change in surface temperature. Lapse rate feedback deals with the problem that surface warming can differ from warming at higher altitudes.
If there is something publishable here, it will be clearer if readers can’t be confused by what you mean when you use the term feedback.
“Planck feedback” is the reciprocal of the “no-feedbacks climate sensitivity”. AR5’s terminology is confusing when you are discussing both concepts.
11
Frank, there are two “definitions” of “feedback” here:
1. In general, widespread technical use: In a general sense, a “feedback” is a response to a change that affects whatever caused the change in the first place.
2. In conventional climate models: As per definition 1, but can only be in response to surface warming.
The conventional climate models omit “feedbacks” satisfying the first definition that are not in response to surface warming. I reckon that is pretty clear from the post.
One might regard the second “definition” as really just a statement that the conventional climate models omit non-temperature-dependent feedbacks, then pedantically insist that when they use the word “feedback” it means “temperature-dependent feedbacks”. (C.J. Lewis. etc.)
I will continue to use the word “feedback” mainly in the general technical sense, and continue to point out that “non-temperature-dependent feedbacks are omitted by the conventional climate models”, because the meaning is clear enough from context. In the unusual cases when I use the word “feedback” in the narrow sense employed by conventional climate models, I flag it.
10
David: You may use whatever definition you feel is appropriate and won’t lead to confusion. However, you obviously must avoid adding things measured in W/m2 (usually called forcing in climate science) to things measured in W/m2/K (usually called feedback in climate science). Other fields may use other terminology.
[Frank, please be aware that there is another “Frank” that posts here. It would be helpful if you could alter or append your screen name so that there isn’t confusion. The other “Frank” is not very popular. Thanks.]ED
00
I just noticed comments by another “Frank”. At WordPress, I’m known as Franktoo, a handle I got when I was in a hurry one day. I’ll try to remember to use that in the future. In any case, any Frank who mentions the Schwarzschild eqn at least once in every post (or provides a reference link supporting factual claims when not handicapped by the browser on my phone) is the one who has left the technical comments on later posts. I am interested in seeing if anything substantial important arises from this series of posts, so I will be “kicking the tires” before I consider buying what your say. (Do Aussies “kick tires” before buying a used car?)
[Frank, Note also you have the triangle face gravatar. He has an Octagon. You were first to use Frank on this site, but he’s put up more comments. — Jo]
00
let’s be Frank… the gravitar could do with an upgrade too. Can I suggest this http://www.yetiswithoutborders.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/maxresdefault1.jpg
00
DE writes: “What if CO2 caused more greenery, which produced more volatile organic gases, which increased rainfall and changed cloud cover? The models would be blind to it.”
No, they wouldn’t. Or at least not a state-of-the-art model. Modern AOGCMs have atmospheric, ocean, land/vegetation, and sea-ice modules. Each of these is coupled so that a change in one will affect the others through relevant variables.
One of the modules used for this purpose is the MEGAN BVOC model which the CCSM uses. As it says on their website:
“
”
Rather than assuming models don’t do something, you should pick an *actual* model and show where it’s incomplete or incorrect. The code and equations behind many models are available on the web. Instead you seem to be attacking a strawman – some nebulous climate model that doesn’t actually exist.
22
Kevin, actually Joanne wrote that (see the “- Jo” at the bottom of the intro, before my article begins).
This series of blog posts is about basic climate models, the application of “basic physics”. The importance of this is described in post 1, and the conventional basic climate model is fully described, as per the leading textbook and papers, in posts 2 and 3. This is the “actual model” discussed in these posts; no straw man involved.
The conventional basic climate model does indeed omit this feedback, because it is not a response to surface warming.
Since there is obviously so much interest in the GCMs, I might do a post later on the GCMs and the architectural problems they share with the basic model. But as you point put, the GCMs are a mixed, diverse bag.
A more significant example is proposed in post 7, which AFAIK is not included in any GCM.
10
DE – there are thousands of simple, basic, incomplete models of climate around. From the 19th century we can find Fourier’s first analysis of what the earth’s temperature would be without an atmosphere, Tyndall’s realization that water vapor played a dominant role in retaining heat at night, Croll’s recognition that the earth is warmer at aphelion instead of (intuitively) at perihelion, and Arrhenius’ energy budget that recognized CO2 as the control knob that through feedbacks raised or lowered water vapor in the atmosphere.
The twentieth century has seen thousands of different climate models – some intended only to look at the effect of one or two variables and/or their interplay.
Every model (simple or complex) is intended to serve a purpose. If it serves that purpose it’s useful. Without you actually stating which *specific* climate model you’re talking about – your entire series really serves no purpose. Which model are you talking about? Where can I read about what it’s intended purpose was, the equations within it, and the model results? I still think you’re arguing against a strawman of your own creation.
This is especially unclear when you refer to climate models – since in today’s parlance just about everyone understands climate models to be GCMs.
22
This series of blog posts is about basic climate models, the application of “basic physics”. The importance of this is described in post 1, and the conventional basic climate model is fully described, as per the leading textbook and papers, in posts 2 and 3.
Kevin, please read those introductory posts — the model described is the conventional basic climate model, and it is fully described and derived. This post starts “The second error in the conventional basic climate model…”, so not GCMs. As it happens the GCMs do (with minor exceptions) have this architectural flaw, but that’s a topic for a later post, not part of this series.
10
DE – I have read your earlier posts, and that is where you start to err.
“First, no conventional model predicted the pause ….
Second, all mainstream climate models predict a “hotspot” …
Third, changes in temperature did not follow changes in carbon dioxide over the last half million years …”
Let’s start with a simple one – you claim every conventional model predicts a tropical tropospheric hotspot. You give no references for this claim. Not one.
*Most* GCMs do show a tropospheric tropical hotspot. But this series isn’t about GCMs – so you say. If your series isn’t about GCMs, then where is the relevance of the tropospheric hotspot to non-GCM models?
So, from the very first post you’ve conflated *your* idea of a basic/simple/conventional/non-GCM climate model with actual GCMs. You cannot point to an actual model used by someone that uses the same equations you’ve put forth. You’re arguing against a strawman of your own creation.
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Kevin, both the conventional basic model and the GCMs predict a hotspot. It is intrinsic to the water vapor amplification, without which the feedback amplification is vastly lower. Most people already know something about this, and it will become a topic of a later post, so it hasn’t been discussed much so far. Just search on this blog for “hotspot” — like this index entry.
The hotspot is implied by post 3, where, in the discussion on feedbacks in conventional the basic model, the value of the water vapor feedback is given — it provides most of the positive feedback; remove that from the total feedbacks f and see how much lower the ECS estimate becomes, later in the post. The hotspot is caused by the water vapor feedback. This is mentioned already in post 7: surface warming increases evaporation which raises the WVEL which causes the hotspot — its the water vapor feedback in the basic model.
No conflation: the conventional basic model implies a hotspot.
The conventional model presented in posts 2 and 3 is the conventional basic climate model as per the leading textbook and papers. I point to them. They are in the references on post 2, and mentioned in the text. It is widespread throughout the climate literature and texts. See post 1 for why it is relevant and important. So, not a straw man.
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Since Dr Evans has already said this ad nauseum, I will say it for him.
“…the conventional basic climate model is fully described, as per the leading textbook and papers, in posts 2 and 3. This is the “actual model” discussed in these posts; no straw man involved….”
Yet you keep saying in multiple ways “…So, from the very first post you’ve conflated *your* idea of a basic/simple/conventional/non-GCM climate model with actual GCMs. You cannot point to an actual model used by someone that uses the same equations you’ve put forth. You’re arguing against a strawman of your own creation….”
SInce you are TOO DARN LAZY to go LOOK, I will repost what Dr Evans used as references.
I suggest you go BUY that leading textbook and compare it before you post again and continue looking like a troll.
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Forster and Taylor 2006 includes the following quote;
“Imagine, for example, that the atmosphere alone (perhaps through some cloud change unrelated to any surface temperature response) quickly responds to a large Radiative Forcing to restore the flux imbalance at the TOA (Top Of Atmosphere), yielding a small effective climate forcing. In this case the ocean would never get a chance to respond to the initial Radiative Forcing, so the resulting climate response would be small and this would be consistent with our diagnosed “Effective Climate Forcing” rather than the conventional “Radiative Forcing.”
Non temperature related responses to the various climate forcings can clearly have a large effect on energy movement in and out of the earth’s system. As you say they are not accounted for by the GCMs and can likely explain the failure of these models in the real world.
The most significant of these, in my opinion, is likely to be the opaqueness of the oceans to long wave GHG energy compared to short wave solar energy. The GHG energy is returned to the atmosphere and space far more quickly and, by implication, a given GHG forcing should have a lower climate sensitivity than a similar solar forcing change.
This is discussed in the following paper; http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-engineering-sciences/83/27156
David, do you think this is relevant?
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Bob, this sounds very relevant. The abstract to your paper at the link looks interesting — can we see the paper? I see you have an article at WUWT.
Have you seen post 7, on the rerouting feedback, yet? It is another possible mechanism for different efficacies of solar and CO2 warming — there may be several.
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The paper can be downloaded for free at the Wit Press e-library. Do an advanced search for “A comparison of the efficacy of greenhouse gas forcing and solar forcing” by R.A. Irvine. You will have to log in unfortunately.
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Bob, how do I log in? I’d like to read it. There are probably a bunch of these omitted feedbacks, and it would be nice to point to them all (like the rerouting feedback) as they offer a means of correcting the basic model (and the GCMs).
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I’ve sent you an updated version of the paper along with reviewer comments to the email address you used to notify me that my first post had been replied to. If this email address is not acceptable could you send your preferred address.
The paper can be difficult to access through Wit press. You must use the “advanced search”. It is in the “heat transfer x111” book if that helps. The website should walk you through the log in process but it can still be a bit hit and miss. Be sure to read the paper as revised in July 2015 not the 2014 version.
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Citing details are;
WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 83, ©2014 WIT Press
http://www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line),
doi:10.2495/HT140241
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I’ve been bouncing around from one chapter in this series to another and wanted to let you know how much I enjoy these posts! I’m a computer modeler by profession (not climate thankfully!) and this is great, it really helps me. The computer is slow today so I have a lot of time between runs, its nice to be able to learn something while I’m waiting on our damn network (pardon my words).
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