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May132016
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill How low can ECS go?
May 13, 2016 Climate: sensitivity A new paper in a journal called Earth and Space Science says that effective climate sensititivity could be as low as 1°C. Here's the abstract.
Estimates of 2xCO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity (EqCS) derive from running global climate models (GCMs) to equilibrium. Estimates of effective climate sensitivity (EfCS) are the corresponding quantities obtained using transient GCM output or observations. The EfCS approach uses an accompanying energy balance model (EBM), the zero-dimensional model (ZDM) being standard. GCM values of EqCS and EfCS vary widely [IPCC range: (1.5, 4.5)°C] and have failed to converge over the past 35 years. Recently, attempts have been made to refine the EfCS approach by using two-zone (tropical/extratropical) EBMs. When applied using satellite radiation data, these give low and tightly-constrained EfCS values, in the neighbourhood of 1°C. These low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values have been questioned because (a) they disagree with higher observational EfCS/ZDM values, and (b) the EfCS/two-zone EBM values given by GCMs are poorly correlated with the standard GCM sensitivity estimates. The validity of the low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values is here explored, with focus on the limitations of the observational EfCS/ZDM approach, the disagreement between the GCM and observational radiative responses to surface temperature perturbations in the tropics, and on the modified EfCS values provided by an extended twozone EBM that includes an explicit parameterization of dynamical heat transport. The results support the low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values, indicating that objections (a) and (b) to these values both need to be reconsidered. It is shown that in the EBM with explicit dynamical heat transport the traditional formulism of climate feedbacks can break down because of lack of additivity.
Predictably, our scientivist friends don't like it, but it's interesting to see that there are still a few hardy souls who are willing to say what they think.
Reader Comments (142)
How can this explain the warming?
May 15, 2016 at 10:57 PM | Entropic man
Was it just a simple adjustment that put it there, in the first place? Perhaps you could explain the lack of warming?
Entropic man says:
"Numbers please."
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/toafluxesfdvserbs_zps3489ddec.png
Entropic man says (to NCC 1701E):
"From the abstract.
We find two modest decadal scale cycles in the albedo, but with no significant net change over the 16 years of accumulated data.
How can this explain the warming?"
The current imbalance was established before 1998.
Kristian, ,NCC1701E
Thanks for the numbers. Unfortunately they are TOA, not surface figures. They are also rather noisy. It is difficult to see trends.
Warming by increasing insolation as the global brightening hypothesis suggests would increase Summer and daytime temperatures most. It increases incoming energy at those times, but would not change night and Winter temperatures much.
Warming by insulation, reducing OLR by strengthening the greenhouse effect would have less effect in daylight and in Summer as the effect is swamped by insolation. The insulating effect is the main factor slowing cooling at night and in Winter, so warming would be most visible then.
In practice night and Winter temperatures, especially in the Arctic where the difference is most extreme, are warming faster, supporting the decreaseing OLR rather than the increasing insolation.
Note how winter temperatures (when insolation is zero for weeks at a time) average several degrees warmer than the long term average. Summer temperatures have hardly changed.
More power to you both. I am glad to see sceptics looking for alternative hypotheses to explain the warming, rather than the usual negativity.
aTTP seems to believe " the system was in balance in pre industrial times" I wonder why and what he uses for evidence- there does not seem to be any paleo evidence which requires it.
EM wonders where all the energy has come from- has he ever considered the Sun as o possible source?
EM
Rabett
Lindzen and Choi didn't fail. That is just your own misdirection. A number of criticisms were raised by alarmists; one fair and the rest just petty nitpicks, and these were all addressed in a new L&C paper which has had zero criticisms. Bates only assumes L&C by providing a mechanism by which the models could be closer to the observational results of L&C. Desslers criticism is as invalid as yours because he just ignored the further validation work done in L&C 2011. As far as I can tell the only person who thinks Desslers scattergraph plots with easily-reversible trends (by including more data) have any value, is Dessler himself. Spencer & McIntyre showed you can reach opposite conclusions with largely the same data - unsurprising for scattergraphs of course.
As for Lindzend Iris hypothesis - hello - that was recently validated too by Stevens ie if the Iris hypothesis is put in the models then suddenly the models can better explain reality. That is how science is supposed to work! I'm sure Lindzen is rather more highly regarded by the bulk of climate scientists than by the alarmist fringe who don't even agree with the IPCC.
EM, so you are still lacking an explanation for the LIA, MWP, and current lack of warming., but want to stick to your original hypotheses?
I'm unsure why EM seems to think there has been an increase in temperature in the last five years that needs to be explained. there was a very hot el nino affecting 2014 & 2015 but we need to wait to see the la nina effect. If it is like post-1998 then the plateau will continue unabated. What happened to the Santer 17 years and the IPCC 30 years of data before we declare a significant change in temps? What happened to the alarmist bleating about skeptics cherry-picking an el nino hot year?
JamesG: every warm event that happens, no matter how briefly (“Last March was the hottest March, like, evah!”) is yet more “proof” that the alarmists/Believers are right; anything – absolutely anything – that suggests they might be wrong is “cherry-picking” weather events. Thus, El Niño is “proof”; La Niña is “cherry-picking”. The 17 years (despite already having passed) or the 30 years will be extended until someone is brave enough to shout, “Enough!”
Radical Rodent, early indications are that 2016 will be a great season for picking cherry tomatoes. Home grown tomatoes were one of the great success stories in 1976 for those that used bathwater to keep them growing, during the drought.
1977 was one of the great years for green tomato chutney, as millions of unripened tomatoes evaded the compost heap of meteorological predictions.
Glebekinvara
Ultimately almost all the energy driving Earth's climate comes from the Sun, Unfortunately for your viewpoint temperatures have increased while solar insolation has not. Thus some other factor is causing the warming.
James G
I drew the GISTEMP data from 2010 to present , with the linear trend.
The SD of the data is +/- 0.45C, so a statistically significant trend would show a change exceeding 4SG, 0.18C. Normally the 20th century long term trend of 0.6C/century takes 30 years to demonstrate significance.
Starting in 2010 the linear trend has increased by 0.4C, statistically significant after only five years.
Regarding cherrypicked El Nino years, both 2010 and 2016 were El Nino peak years, so ENSO should not be the prime cause of the temperature rise seen since 2000.
Entropic man: at what point does the varying rise and fall of temperatures cease becoming “noise” and start becoming an event that is sure to lead to catastrophe? You condemn sceptics who use short time periods for “cherry-picking” then use a mere 7 years (though it is into the future) to prove …erm… something. I decided to do something similar , but over a longer period – 20 years (though 2017 hasn’t actually arrived, yet). Hey! The trend is less than 0.04K! Ooooh, not so scary…
If you use an even longer period – say, 1,000 years – the trend becomes negative. However, that does not suit your beliefs, does it, EM?
EM
Well for a start if you are going to include the 2015 el nino you have to include the 1998 one which is rather more comparable than 2010. Starting from a la nina and finishing on an el nino is just plain naughty!
And it may be better not to use the extreme outlier, Gisstemp that includes baseless & wild extrapolations across the Arctic and the NOAA 'pause-buster' tampering of SST which are still subject to review.
While folk can select data to reflect what they want to see/sell that is one of the reasons so many objective observers are sceptical.
EM, you can't explain the MWP or LIA using your theory can you? Nor could anyone else in climate science, so Mann erased the MWP and LIA with his magic Hockey Stick, that disintegrates as soon as anyone looks at it.
If climate science could come up with a new hypothesis, you might have something to discuss. Meanwhile all you can do is repeat the same failed dogma, and challenge anyone else to do better. Are you accepting that no current theory explains the MWP and LIA, and therefore the current warming that has stopped?
EM, you can't explain the MWP or LIA using your theory can you? Nor could anyone else in climate science, so Mann erased the MWP and LIA with his magic Hockey Stick, that disintegrates as soon as anyone looks at it.
If climate science could come up with a new hypothesis, you might have something to discuss. Meanwhile all you can do is repeat the same failed dogma, and challenge anyone else to do better. Are you accepting that no current theory explains the MWP and LIA, and therefore the current warming that has stopped?
GC
An elementary point but very relevant.
Here we are, nearly twenty years on from Mann's strenuous efforts to remove the MWP, but it won't go away. nor will the quandary that it poses for the alarmists.
In fact, looking over this whole thread, we could well be having the same argument twenty years ago.
Capell
In your terms, the MWP cooled into the LIA. The LIA bottomed out around 1850. Temperatures remained stable for 50 years then increased rapidly past MWP levels in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Sounds like a hockey stick to me. Why are you still denying a 20 year old paper when your own description of post-1000AD temperatures is the same shape?
I did a quick calculation of observed and expected temperature changes for your chosen 1915-1945 and 1965-1995 periods.
I used the basic IPCC method.
5.35ln(C/CO) calculation for CO2 forcing,
Multiply by 3 to allow for the climate sensitivity.
Multiply by 0.66 to go from ECS to TCR.
Divide by 3.7 to change from W/m^2 to temperature change.
I used GISS annual anomaly temperatures.
For 1915-1945 the observed temperatures went from -0.11C to 0.12C, an increase of 0.23C.
The expected change is 5.35ln(315/302)*3*0.66/3.7=0.12C
For 1965-1995 the observed temperatures were -0.1C to 0.45C, an increase of 0.35C.
The expected change is 5.35!n(360/320)*3*0.66/3.7=0.34C.
You reckoned earlier that there must be other forcings at work. For comparison, could you calculate expected temperature changes over the same periods using your forcings.
Capell
Sorry, that iobserved ncrease from 1965 to 1995 should have been -0.1C to 0.45C, an increase of 0.55C.
(apologies for repeating myself above)
Capell, the same arguments could have been had 20 years ago, and I would have sided with the "experts" in climate science.
20 years on, and the public are waking up to the fact that the "experts" in climate science are really starting to panic, as their false attributions, predictions, projections, claims, and now accusations, are revealed to be (politely) false.
EM wants to blame those that cast doubts from the outset (not me obviously, because 20 years ago, I was one of those gullible idiots who trusted the "experts" in climate science), and demands an alternative theory from anyone with the nerve to question his expertise.
My personal theory is that all the climate science facts and proofs that have got the world into this mess, should be declared unfit for service, until re-evaluated by those not claiming to be experts in climate science, who should be on unpaid gardening leave, during which time, they may learn about the weather. This year's weather could then be regarded as the standard for judging future years, as it seems ok.
Entropic man says:
"Thanks for the numbers. Unfortunately they are TOA, not surface figures. They are also rather noisy. It is difficult to see trends."
The global radiative imbalance is defined at the ToA, not at the surface. Didn't you know?
Also, you do see how reflected SW at the ToA goes significantly down from the 80s to the end of the 90s (top panel). Not particularly "difficult" to see that trend, is it? What does such an obvious reduction entail? An obvious increase in ASR.
"Warming by increasing insolation as the global brightening hypothesis suggests would increase Summer and daytime temperatures most. It increases incoming energy at those times, but would not change night and Winter temperatures much.
Warming by insulation, reducing OLR by strengthening the greenhouse effect would have less effect in daylight and in Summer as the effect is swamped by insolation. The insulating effect is the main factor slowing cooling at night and in Winter, so warming would be most visible then."
Couple of problems with this "theory" of yours. Firstly, OLR at the ToA hasn't been reduced. It's increased. In step with global temps. Just as ASR has gone up. Secondly, you appear to take for granted that nights and winters have warmed faster than days and summers over the last few decades. Well, not according to available data:
Global DTR (land), 1978-2014: https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/dtr.png
NH summer vs. winter anom (land), 1978-2015: https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/crutem4-nh-win-vs-sum.png
NH summer vs. winter temps (ocean), 1983-2015: https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/sst-nh-win-vs-sum.png
Also, consider the energy storage capacity of the ocean. More heat in from the sun during the summer and days will store up and make the winter and nights warmer as well ...
"In practice night and Winter temperatures, especially in the Arctic where the difference is most extreme, are warming faster, supporting the decreaseing OLR rather than the increasing insolation."
No, evidently (from the data), winters and nights are not warming up faster than summers and days. Bringing in the Arctic just goes to show that you don't get how this works - the Arctic is a region which gets heat in from other regions. Movement of energy. You need to look at full hemispheres (or, better still, the world as a whole).
EM: yet another serious flaw in your argument is that of average temperature (or mean temperature, or median temperature … whatever…). It is a figure that means absolutely nothing – a concept that you will never be able to accept, though I shall leave it to others more eloquent than I to explain.
You follow your obsession with numbers, in your desperate attempts to give some sort of pseudoscientific credibility to your posts, yet do not even attempt to explain the drop from 0.12C to -0.1C from 1945 to 1965 (i.e. -0.22C on your figures), evident in your post, above. Surely CO2 was still rising in those 20 years? Do you have any explanation for this disparity?
You are also fixated on the idea of “forcings”, an idea I find odd, as it makes it sound that whatever is involved with the change is somehow not natural. What if there are “forcings” out there that have yet to be identified, let alone measured?
**sigh**
I don’t know why we bother – like anything that challenges your tightly-held beliefs, I have little doubt anything and everything we have presented to you will be discarded without a second thought. While I have no wish for it to happen, it would be interesting to see how you wriggle should there be an undeniable drop in temperatures.
Entropic man says:
"Ultimately almost all the energy driving Earth's climate comes from the Sun, Unfortunately for your viewpoint temperatures have increased while solar insolation has not. Thus some other factor is causing the warming."
Say what!? You have just been provided with data showing how solar input (ASR) has indeed increased while the OLR has not been reduced, but rather increased as well, rather countering the positive radiative ToA imbalance.
And still you manage to regurgitate this warmist talking point as if it were still an empirically established fact. It is ASR that matters, not TSI. You do know that, don't you?
Kristian
See the problem. You are emphasising ASR, but since all the data you gave is for TOA the insolation must be TSI.
NOAA agree with me regarding faster Winter and night warming
The energy imbalance is increasing temperatures. Increasing temperatures would be expected to increase black body radiation and OLR. If we stabilised CO2 tomorrow OLR would continue to increase until the imbalance disappeared at equilibrium. Looking at your data OLR and albedo have changed by the same amount. Increased albedo has cancelled out increased OLR, thus the imbalance has stayed constant.
Go back 50 million years and there was free circulation of ocean water across the North Pole and no ice. Then the continents moved. Now the Arctic is frozen because it is an ocean surrounded by land. This limits heat transfer by ocean currents, the main mechanism. Thus the Arctic temperatures are controlled by insolation, albedo and OLR like anywhere else on the planet, but the high latitude makes the Summer/Winter difference more extreme.
Look at the world as a whole and you find that 93% of the incoming energy ends up as increased OHC. If you want to monitor the overall energy balance globally, OHC is probably the best measure.
Radical Rodent
Fraud would show as unexplained inconsistencies in financial accounting. In the same way unknown forcings would show as unexplained inconsistancies in the energy accounting. Since there are no such gaps I cannot take your claims of unknown forcings seriously. In any case, if you want to invoke unknown forcings the onus is on you to demonstrate their existance, rather than expecting me to disprove Russell's teapot
This is off topic. I was providing the figures Capell requested, which did not include 1945-1965. Since you ask, the prolonged 1940-1942 El Nino raised temperatures way above the long term trend. Temperatures remained above the trend until the CO2 forcing caught up about 1970. A similar effect pushed temperatures above the trend in 1998 and it took until 2010. for the trend to catch up. IIRC this is known as regression to the trend.
Having admitted your ignorance, I know that you have no alternative hypothesis. This the ongoing weakness of the sceptics. You have nothing which would allow you to demonstrate quantitatively that the observed record can be explained without AGW. All you can do is blather.
In science the best way to disprove a theory is to provide a better one. Think of land bridges and plate tectonics, Newtonian gravity and General Relativity or Maxwell's equations and QED.
I don't believe in AGW. I regard it as the best paradigm available. If you want me to become a sceptic, show me a better paradigm.
I don't believe in AGW. I regard it as the best paradigm available. If you want me to become a sceptic, show me a better paradigm.
May 16, 2016 at 8:48 PM | Entropic man
You are the expert. If you don't believe in AGW, what is the problem that you do believe in, that requires a manmade solution?
Sceptics believe in their position, "especially without proof".
Scientists do not need to believe, they follow the evidence.
EM, is that supposed to be a justification or excuse?
You are making so many assumptions and presumptions in this that are just wild guesses. Not that this is a bad thing, but you then ascribe these wild guesses an incontrovertibility that cannot be questioned. Sorry, but science only works with the first part of that – guesses are allowed, but must be subjected to rigorous testing and scrutiny. Alas, for you, “the truth” has been discovered, and any who doubt this are just the lowest of the low. That this should all boil down to the only part of the atmosphere that is perceived that humanity might be able to have some influence over is a suspicious coincidence that you seem utterly unable to see.
Yes, I am ignorant, but, unlike you, I have no shame in admitting that, and, recognising that many others are also ignorant, but I do not ridicule them for it. It is those who admit no ignorance, that they know all that needs to be known (if not all that there is to know), who justify the taunts, such as one who is unable to comprehend that YOU DO NOT NEED AN ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS FOR ANY HYPOTHESIS OR THEORY TO BE WRONG! (However, and as an aside, there really are alternative hypotheses around, but you have already summarily dismissed them, so I will not bother offering them for your perusal, again.)
Once again, you show your incredible ignorance – sceptics are not believers in a position; they are sceptical of any “position”, they prefer strong evidence – that is why they are called sceptical. You are asked, time and time again, for evidence to support your daft maths, and, time and time again, you fail. You offer the utter pompous, arrogant tosh you have typed at 10:41PM, with the implication that you are one who is a “Scientist”, despite offering plenty of evidence that you really have no understanding at all about science. Then you expect us to respect you and your opinions.
Entropic man says:
"See the problem. You are emphasising ASR, but since all the data you gave is for TOA the insolation must be TSI."
Hehe, TSI minus reflected SW equals ASR. Less reflected SW equals increased ASR. Simple as that. Sorry, man.
"NOAA agree with me regarding faster Winter and night warming"
'Page not found.' Also, I provided you with data from CRU and NOAA. It refuted your claim. Live with it.
"The energy imbalance is increasing temperatures."
Yes, caused by more solar input, not by less OLR. All natural. Live with it.
"Increasing temperatures would be expected to increase black body radiation and OLR."
Er, no. Not in the real world. In the real world, CO2 isn't doubled overnight. There's a gradual rise, hence OLR is supposed to stay flat with parallel warming. We see no such thing.
"If we stabilised CO2 tomorrow OLR would continue to increase until the imbalance disappeared at equilibrium."
Do we live in a model world where atmospheric CO2 all of a sudden doubled 100-150 years ago? What planet are you living on?
"Looking at your data OLR and albedo have changed by the same amount. Increased albedo has cancelled out increased OLR, thus the imbalance has stayed constant."
Er, no. ASR increased considerably more than OLR. Hence, the imbalance in the lower panel. Are you willfully blind!?
"Look at the world as a whole and you find that 93% of the incoming energy ends up as increased OHC. If you want to monitor the overall energy balance globally, OHC is probably the best measure."
Yes. And the cause is increased ASR. Not an "enhanced GHE". As shown in the real-world data :-)
The hypothetical "greenhouse" warming mechanism:
http://www.climatetheory.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/greenhouse-effect-held-soden-2000.png
Notice what it says in the caption: "Note that the effective emission temperature (T_e) remains unchanged."
Unchanged T_e means unchanged OLR. During warming. That's the supposed mechanism.
And it's nowhere to be seen ...!
Still waiting for aTTP to provide the evidence on which he bases his assertion that the [climate] system was in equilibrium in "pre industrial" times
Perhaps he meant this sort of equilibrium?
Radical Rodent, coming from the South Downs, I have noticed they go up, as well as down, but tend to remain much the same. This must be the sort of 'Equilibrium' that Climate Scientists refer to. If the South Downs remained flat and level, there would be no scenery, and nothing for anyone to remark upon, least of all, Scenery Scientists.
The only way climate scientists can justify their salaries is by maintaining the climate has always been flat and level. See Mann's Hockey Stick for more falsified information.
golf Charlie. The unmitigated arrogance of some people who falsely believe a few metres of topography constitutes scenery. Consider John Constable and his country.
Admittedly Pieter Breuegel had to import the Alps to liven up his dutch landscape masterpiece The Hunters in the Snow.
Alan Kendall, you wouldn't be part of the Elite Norfolk Mountain Rescue Team, would you? Desperately looking for a mountain in need of rescuing, and rehoming somewhere flat and level, to give local moles some ambition in construction?
Obviously East Anglia has a track record of building mountains out of molehills, assisting the ascent of Mann to the peak of climate science, but this seems to have piqued those in the lowlier fields of conventional science.
golf Charlie. A good joke was erected as a roadsign sign at the eastern border of the notoriously flat state of North Dakota. It read." US Corps of Engineers Mountain Removal Project - Completed! "
However low ECS does go, Climate Science must by definition, sink lower.
It is better than anybody previously thought possible.
Alan Kendall, I found this quite amusing:
"Michael E. Mann
Distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center
Penn State University"
Kristian
The emission temperature is unchanged, but the emission altitude has increased. The emitting surface area has therefore increased, and the total OLR has increased.
ATTP posted on this here
The key passage is
golf Charlie, not amusing at all, it's sad. I wonder how you achieve a Distinguished Professor status? (I'm sure you are capable of suggesting something). Penn State must have head-hunted him for his prestige value (vomit) and for his ability to attract large streams of research monies. Isn't it a pity that he wasn't head-hunted by Papua New Guinea? (Too strong perhaps? Verging on trolldom? I have to be so careful these days.)
EM, the key word is "if". Twice in the first 2 lines.
IF only computer generated climate science was more realistic, it might have some relevance.
Entropic man, you say:
"The emission temperature is unchanged, but the emission altitude has increased. The emitting surface area has therefore increased, and the total OLR has increased."
Please don't try to play me for a fool.
OLR is measured in W/m^2. That's a power density flux. A quantity already with a set area included. The OLR goes out through the ToA, the exact same altitude level as where the ASR comes in.
Earth's "effective radiating level" (Z_e) is equal to our planet's hypothetical blackbody surface in space, meaning, since the earth absorbs a mean flux from the sun (the ASR) of ~240 W/m^2, and since it is expected that earth has reached and maintains a dynamic state of equilibrium with this heat input from our star, so that the earth system as a whole emits a similar power density flux back out to space on average, then this flux would correspond directly (through the S-B equation) to a blackbody surface temperature of ~255K.
IOW, the mean power density flux emitted into space from earth's conceptual ERL - equal to the OLR out through the ToA - is FULLY determined by its blackbody temperature in space (T_e) alone. Which means, if the T_e remains unchanged, then the OLR stays unchanged as well.
And that is, after all, the whole idea behind the "anthropogenically enhanced GHE". That's the postulated "greenhouse" warming mechanism. The raising of the ERL. Z_e moves higher, but the T_e does not. And so all altitude-specific layers from the tropopause down to the solid/liquid surface itself have to warm accordingly, because of the natural lapse rate tying them all together:
http://www.climatetheory.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/greenhouse-effect-held-soden-2000.png
So according to this "theory", OLR cannot be observed to increase during warming. IF that warming is to be caused by an "enhanced GHE".
In fact, we are not supposed to see an imbalance at the ToA at all. IF observed warming is caused by an "enhanced GHE". Simply because what we expect is a rising Z_e and a constant T_e, not a rising Z_e and a dropping T_e.
But we DO see an imbalance. And that imbalance was caused by an increase in ASR, not in a reduction in OLR! According to the data ...