The supposed additional (missing) heat from the GHG is 0.6W/M^2, with the TOA incoming heat at 344W/M^2, (Wild et al 2103), this has been used by the IPCC for AR5. The retained heat is 0.17% of the total heat at the TOA. Clouds, according to Wild et al. reflect 100W/M^2, around 29.4% of the incoming heat, so the retained heat is 0.6% of the heat reflected by clouds.

I happen to think these calculations are bollocks, but don't discourage the model used, notwithstanding it trying to calculate the annual retained heat over a year with what are clearly 7, or 8 variable, and largely unmeasurable, parameters, but who can say with any certainty that the albedo produced by clouds over the course of a year is 100W/M^2? If it was 101W/M^2 the earth would be cooling by 0.4C/annum.

If we can't find the heat, then it's clearly not there, and as Martin A has suggested, and others before him, cloud cover is the key to whether we get runaway warming, or not. And there is simply no science available about how clouds form in depth and quantity to extra heat and water vapour.

Martin A. Nice article from SoD, I've always regarded being called a "denier" as a reflection on the intellectual incapacity of the caller to present a persuasive argument - not withstanding all the peudo-scientific gobbledegook available on SkS to call on.

I don’t want to disrupt the thinking here and I’ve not read the many pages of the debate, but I think I get the drift of the topic. Here is my pennyworth and if it is a distraction just ignore it.

I believe there are things wrong with the current theories but these things are difficult to prove either way. They become a little bit more convincing when you link observational evidence.

Positive Feedback – This is the warming > more evaporation > more water vapour > more GHG > more warming. The models predict it together with the famous hot spot in the troposphere and the higher humidity. The predicted observations have never been found.

Catastrophic Warming – This is the alleged consequence of the positive feedback. Thankfully, we are not seeing evidence for this either. Also, positive feedback is a characteristic of an unstable system. Our climate is remarkably stable, suggesting negative feedbacks instead. Furthermore, the earth has had huge CO2 concentrations in its history without runaway warming.

More Water Vapour? – Logically we should have more water vapour. For a start, downwelling IR on the oceans should be evaporating the surface very efficiently. Yet, the humidity observation does not support this.

More Water Vapour GHG Effect? – This part does not seem to be happening. As mentioned above, no hot spot, no increased humidity, no runaway warming, in fact a pause.

Conclusions and possible explanations – I can’t resist mentioning that observations are usually ignored, but if we draw conclusions from the above, it would look something like this:

1. Warming causes evaporation of water vapour. (It usually does)
2. The water vapour does not increase GHG concentrations or related effects.
3. The water vapour does not cause expected hot spots or increased humidity.
4. The warming does not therefore cause an increase in water vapour.

Where does water vapour go? – Living as we do in these parts, I think we know the answer to this one. It forms clouds and it rains.

Trying to be more scientific, the water vapour remains fairly constant which suggests that liquid water (clouds) increases rather than increasing GHG, humidity and warming.

Now, this provides a thermostat mechanism and agrees with observations but does not explain why it happens. However I shall stop here since it is a good place to do so.

Martin A, Geronimo

If I recall, overall cloud area is increasing, both at high and low levels.

Increasing high level cloud increases albedo less than IR reflection. Increasing high cloud is a week positive feedback

Increasing low level cloud increases albedo more than IR reflection. Increased low level cloud is a weak negative feedback.please

So far low level cloud is increasing faster than high level cloud, with a small net negative feedback effect.

Judging from the progress of the current El Nino we've found the missing heat coming back out of the ocean. It is doing interesting things to the temperature.

EM, El Nino is a weather phenomena involving a section of the equatorial pacific Ocean. A phenomena involving surface waters heated directly by solar radiation. It is nothing to do with Trenberth's missing heat. Get a grip.

"If there was a strong negative forcing from water vapour it would probably be
obvious by now."

Yep, just ridden the Sunrail through a torrential storm in Orlando Florida. Incredibly humid high 80's F when I got on and max low 70'sF when I got off after the storm 40 minutes later, obviously a very strong negative forcing on surface temperature there with the water vapour becoming liquid.

Those were street shown temps. Here is a temp graph from the region. I would think it is obvious that water is a strong negative forcing in the day. Humidity at night will prevent
cooling though

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KORL/2015/7/17/DailyHistory.html?FULLALMANAC=KORL

" Increasing high cloud is a week positive feedback"

No it isn't. Are you saying that 100% coverage of high level cloud would warm the Earth?

SC. I think you put your finger on it when you make the point that positive feedback is a symptom of an unstable system. A point I once made to Richard Betts, late of this parish, was that there are already four or five times in the Holocene when temperatures have risen above 1C, without a follow on 1.5 -4.5C increase in temperature. Observations being a no-no in climate science Richard didn't understand the point I was making.

I could have made that last post considerably shorter by saying that if the Earth's climate is inherently unstable we'd see evidence of it in the paleoclimatology records. And we don't.

Hunter

You base your claim for the pause on RSS. Unfortunately it is the only dataset showing a temperature decline. All the others, including the other troposphere dateset (UAH) show warming since 1998.

Michael hart

Actually we are both oversimplifying.

Under La Nino conditions cold water rises in the East and moves, west, warming as it goes. It then sinks and carries some heat down with it into the deep ocean.

Under El Nino conditions water moves Eastwards. It warms, but does not sink. This generates relatively high surface and air temperatures.

The high temperatures associated with El Nino are because the ENSO heat sink switches off.

Rob Burton

When that rain formed it was several thousand feet higher and cooler. The latent heat it released at altitude warmed the atmosphere at that altitude, which convected. The rain fell back with no time to warm again. It was cooler than the surface when it arrived and cooled the surface..

100% cirrus cover would have a net warming effect.

100% cirrus cover would have a net warming effect.

Rowlocks. You called me a denier earlier as I don't accept your explanation that there is no pause. Now we have this utterance drawn out of the hat of non-falsifiability. Your mates don't agree there is no pause nor that clouds are understood. So I doubt any of your posts here are other than argument for argument's sake. So what do we actually know when we dig our way through this EM obfuscation?

Some radiant energy from the sun, not directly reflected, passes through the Earth's system and in doing so, raises its temperature. It does this by being converted into heat by by the process of absorption. The average temperature is steady when as much energy is being re-radiated as is absorbed.

Changes within the planet cannot upset this dynamic balance unless they affect reflection of incoming sunlight or cause a retention or time-lag in re-radiation. But:-

Any description of a mechanism that increases temperatures by other than those two mechanisms is incorrect. For example, a description of energy being thermalised more than once being additive to temperatures as it requires the creation of energy from energy. An example of that thinking can be refuted by imagining energy arriving at a point in the planet from east and west horizons (as it must) and noting that the temperature there is not affected by the addition of the two but by the difference between them. The same will apply to energy flowing normal to the surface in both directions. In equilibrium, all radiant energy within the system sums to zero.

The argument that radiative gasses in the atmosphere cause surface warming by radiation is therefore false unless in the dynamic situation of increasing their concentration, radiation in the system sums to other than zero.

If there were no radiative gasses present, absorption and radiation would occur at the surface. With some radiative gasses present, that process would occur both at the surface and in the atmosphere: the bottom of atmosphere (not the surface) becoming warmer in the process. That phenomena is called 'greenhouse effect' and its magnitude is the height from bottom of the atmosphere to the height of average radiating temperature multiplied by the lapse rate. Greenhouse effect exists with radiation energy within the system summing to zero.

A dynamic situation of changing concentration of radiative gasses, if it is to change bottom of atmosphere temperatures (and 'global warming'), has to modify the lapse rate or raise the height of emission from the atmosphere. It is not necessary for it to alter the zero sum equilibrium.

Climate science disregards this and expects other than a zero sum. It looks for that by examination of top of atmosphere energy flows in and out of the system. As currently we have a dynamic change in greenhouse gasses when surface temperatures are not changing then what climate science should expect is a dynamic change at top of atmosphere where flow out would be diminishing. But it is not: it is steady, just as surface temperatures are.

If it were to be diminishing, then what would we see in the atmosphere that led to a non-zero sum? Climate science states that the additional radiative gasses in the atmosphere would cause radiation, on average, to escape from a higher altitude where temperatures are lower. This, even though there would be an area increase, would be the change to the zero sum situation. We would now have a situation where there is more energy within the atmosphere as less is escaping. What we don't have with this explanation is a mechanism for a temperature increase: lapse rate and height of average temperature are unchanged.

What is more likely is that more radiative gasses raise the height of average radiating temperature. In so doing, they increase its area. The difference in radiating area from the atmosphere is compensated for by a reduction of radiating temperature at the surface. The bottom of atmosphere temperature increases due to the greater distance between there and the height of average radiating temperature. The system is zero sum and there is no trend to measurements of outgoing radiation at top of atmosphere.

AGW is therefore real but with no accumulation of energy. The only reason to look for missing heat is to avoid humiliation and pay the rent.

"Martin A, Geronimo

If I recall, overall cloud area is increasing, both at high and low levels."

EM, I have no idea why you'd thing the opinion of a "denier" like myself would be of any interest to you.

Geronimo

There are two main types of denier.

One group is in denial, unwilling to recognise that there is a problem.

The other type is deliberately presenting a false reality for political, ideological or financial reasons.

I do you the courtesy of assuming that you are in the first group.

Geronimo

There are two main groups of denier.

One group is in denial, unwilling to recognise that there is a problem.

The other type is deliberately presenting a false reality for political, ideological or financial reasons.

I do you the courtesy of assuming that you are in the first group.

I disagree that 100% cirrus would warm things during the day. What albedo are you using for your example?

If there is a lot of wispy cloud around I don't think at the start of the day that it is going to make it a scorcher...

I disagree that 100% cirrus would warm things during the day. What albedo are you using for your example?

If there is a lot of wispy cloud around I don't think at the start of the day that it is going to make it a scorcher...

Rob Burton

Increased albedo operates only during daylight Increased IR reflection operates 24 hours a day.

Over a full diurnal cycle the amount energy retained by IR reflection exceeds the reduction of shortwave insolation due to albedo.

Relative to a cloudless sky cirrus reduces daytime insolation and increases IR reflection. The insolation reduction is larger, so daytime temperature is depressed.

At night IR reflection alone acts, so the nights are less cold.

Overall more energy is retained by IR reflection than is deflected as albedo, hence the positive feedback with increased high cloud.

Martin A

Indeed. Neutral terms are better.

Shall we say that Geronimo has an active Morton's Demon?

Michael hart

Actually we are both oversimplifying.

Under La Nino conditions cold water rises in the East and moves, west, warming as it goes. It then sinks and carries some heat down with it into the deep ocean.

"Under El Nino conditions water moves Eastwards. It warms, but does not sink. This generates relatively high surface and air temperatures.

The high temperatures associated with El Nino are because the ENSO heat sink switches off."

Jul 18, 2015 at 4:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

The point of my post was to highlight your ridiculous claim to have found Trenberth's missing heat.
You have evaded the issue.

" The insolation
reduction is larger, so daytime temperature is
depressed."

So you agree with us deniers in that the water cycle is a negative feedback. It suppresses TMax in the day and raises TMin at night, the very definition of a negative feedback. This is trivial to see by comparing deserts and steamy jungles.

As you say though the main thing water does is depress daytime temperatures. Therefore no runaway or large feedback is possible here.

"There are two main types of denier.

One group is in denial, unwilling to recognise that there is a problem.

The other type is deliberately presenting a false reality for political, ideological or financial reasons.

I do you the courtesy of assuming that you are in the first group."

EM you should be aware someone has the password to your computer and is writing posts with the intention of making you look a complete arsehole. Succeeding too.

And while I am at it, this denier would like to point out the fallacy of the 1 degC temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 which is a pillar of the climate sensitivity malarkey. Just as we are asked to accept that the temperature does not follow the increasing height of radiation in the dynamic scenario, we are informed that once a new equilibrium is achieved the lapse rate will still have remained the same. The resulting increase at bottom of atmosphere (or surface if you're a climate scientist) is 1 degC for a doubling. There are no measurements to support this conjecture. If you look at temperature profiles from weather balloons you would find no evidence to show that anything had occurred and this would support both the AGW theory and the null hypothesis. But the atmosphere has been changed by the addition of a doubling of CO2: why would that not affect the lapse rate just as additional water vapour does? A change of only 3% in the lapse rate would reduce that 1 degC per doubling to zero. A bit hard to spot in lapse rates that can vary by up to 100% but we are expected to believe the 1 degC to be true and 0.1 degC not to be!