Aug 18, 2017 at 11:16 AM | Entropic man
You warn of dependency on oversimplified models. That is what Rob Burton pointed out to you. It does not matter how simple or complex, cheap or expensive, models are. If they cannot be used to explain past climate, they should not be used for forecasting future climate.

Aug 18, 2017 at 11:54 AM | Schrodinger's Cat
If the IPCC, Mann and his Hockey Team were right, why is so much money spent trying to "prove" the "Hockey Stick"? Gergis being the latest failure, that Climate Science has yet to retract.

Newton does not need endless proofs to ensure detached apples won't fly upwards, to infinity, and beyond.

EM, a few comments earlier:

"DLWR is absorbed by the top few mm, warming the surface and the air immediately above it.
This warm film then acts as a barrier slowing heat loss from below the surface.

The ocean ends up warmer, not because DWLR warms much but because it slows cooling."

I don't know where you got that idea. The first bit is correct. The IR energy is absorbed by the surface. The resulting kinetic energy enables the faster moving water molecules to overcome surface tension forces and escape from the surface. In other words, evaporation takes place. The resulting water vapour takes with it the considerable energy of latent heat of evaporation. This water vapour rises and at some stage, probably high in the atmosphere, it will condense, releasing the latent heat.

So the minor warming by DWIR actually leads to evaporation which is a cooling mechanism. This is why the sea remains as cool as it does even in the tropics.

With regard to the sea heating the atmosphere and not the other way round, of course it does. The atmosphere is transparent to solar (visible) radiation which warms up the land and the sea. Both surfaces warm the "surface atmosphere" by conduction. The land does not retain its heat very well and cools down at night. The sea is better at retaining heat. The sea not only gives the atmosphere its temperature, the sea acts as a temperature buffer reducing extremes of hot and cold. The GHG effect is a minor influence. Have you ever tried heating up your bath water by using a heater to warm the air in the bathroom?

This does not mean that Trenberth's missing heat is being stored in the deep oceans, ready to leap out at some stage. The visible light only penetrates tens of metres depending on the clarity/transparency of the water. The less dense warmer water does not mix with the colder more dense water so only the top 50-100 metres is warmed.

Aug 18, 2017 at 11:16 AM |Entropic man Increased CO2 increases the number of IR photons circulating in the troposphere. This increases the number of IR photons absorbed by the surface, increasing its temperature. Evidence for both of these is a measured increase in DWLR.

Aug 18, 2017 at 10:29 AM | Entropic man The ocean ends up warmer, not because DWLR warms much but because it slows cooling.

To summarise your reasoning: DWLR warms the surface, but it doesn't warm it much, but it slows cooling.

RR. Start by looking up changes in the distribution of northern and southern barnacles on British shores. Try mba.ac.uk/marclim/pdf/Hiscock_et_al_2004.pdf · PDF file
Ignore projections, just read for background.

Ignore projections, just read for background.

Aug 18, 2017 at 2:28 PM | Supertroll

They were commissioned to assess what might happen . They noted what had previously been recorded to happen, and tied it in with changes in temperature, up and down, noted by HH Lamb. They identified species susceptible to changes in water temperature.

It is valid observational science.

By contrast, endless reports of the unprecedented death of the Great Barrier Reef, ignore the historic evidence of it happening on a regular basis.

Barnacles are like cherries, they can be picked and discarded.

RR "Barnacles are like cherries, they can be picked and discarded".

W R O N G on three counts

1.people risk their lives in Northern Spain to pick goose barnacles. They are an expensive delicacy and would never be discarded.
2. acorn barnacles are stuck on fast so cannot be picked
3. barnacles accurately reflect changing sea water temperatures and this evidence should not be discarded. What are you - a denier?

As you say, Supertroll, too many questions and I have a wedding to attend.

Briefly

Mother Nature is bullshit. What drives the climate system is cause and effect, energy flows and, of late, human interference. It is complex, too complex for Radical rodent to understand, but to suggest that it is too complex for humanity to understand is an insult to humanity.

On oceans, not of the heat entering the system is taken up by the oceans and radiated by the oceans. Since they take-up 70% of the planet's surface it could hardly be otherwise. RR might care to look up the effect of increased salinity in the Greenland Sea on the thermohaline circulation.

For ssat, a reminder that the temperature of systems which have energy coming in and going out depends on the balance between them. If incoming and outgoing energy are equal the temperature stays constant.

You get warming when incoming energy exceeds outgoing energy. This may be because incoming energy has decreased or outgoing energy has decreased (sometimes both).

The increasing greenhouse effect is decreasing outgoing energy from OLR. Increased DWLR is decreasing the rate of heat loss from the oceans. Hence both ocean warming and system warming.

You should forget the "missing heat" straw man. It was found in increasing ocean heat content. Nor do you only measure it by thermometer. Thermal expansion due to increased temperature accounts for half of sea level rise.

Sigh. Cue the measurement deniers.

Sigh. Cue the measurement deniers.

Aug 19, 2017 at 9:37 AM | Entropic man

Is Mann turning up to explain how he denied all previous measurement of the MWP and LIA?

Ravishing Rattie. Barnacle studies have been ongoing since before the 1950s and I did one of the original surveys in Pembrokeshire (so we already have decades of observations). Changes match (with a lag) surface temperature changes so it might be difficult to find any alternative. Actually, barnacles being intertidal might be responding to average air, not water temperatures. You seem unwilling to fully accept this evidence, one might even accuse you of squirming a little.

I believe the multiple questions addressed to EM were coming not just from you but from all and sundry.

You asked "When, throughout the history of the planet, has there been a time when temperatures have been constant for significant periods of time?" I presume 1) you mean an average annual temperature and you might accept an annual evaporation rate as a proxy for this, 2) you would accept tens of thousands of years as an acceptable length of time. Then there are many evaporite deposits around the world composed of annual layers of calcium sulphate (somefimes with rock salt) of near uniform thickness that imply a uniform amount of seawater evaporated in each year and thus very uniform climatic conditions existed for thousands and thousands of years. The best, and most studied of these deposits is the Permian Castile Fomation of West Texas and New Mexico. If you go looking for it, you may find my name.

Aug 19, 2017 at 6:45 AM | Supertroll

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/what-is-el-nino-la-nina

The impact on local coastal communities of a slight change in sea temperatures caused them to be named in Spanish. I think the phenomena has been going on for a bit longer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt was the first to think about ocean currents a bit more, off the Pacific west coast of South America, and I am sure Darwin and his shipmates must have wondered why the Galapogos sea was so flippin cold.

Sea temperature does vary around the planet, with time of year, and is generally predictable. Ocean currents cause weather variations, that for centuries were unpredictable.

The flap of millions of sardine fins off South America does not cause UK weather to change, but is a good indicator that it will.

Monitoring of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation gets wonderful publicity when it indicates a warmer forecast for the year,

Barnacle pickers on the west coast of Europe are relying on optimum conditions for barnacle breeding over previous seasons and years, and then the right growing conditions.

Out of curiosity, (I have no idea at all!) do "good" years for Spanish barnacles correlate with "good" years for Spanish wine? Is there a lag of a year between the two?

As a yottie and former scuba diver, with an interest in historic seafaring, I do have some practical experience of tides and ocean currents. The power/energy/storage capacity of the oceans and their depths, plus the ability to move this stored energy around the planet has been largely ignored by Climate Scientists, UNLESS it gives the answers they need.

Aug 19, 2017 at 12:13 PM | Supertroll

Historical/geological/archaeological evidence confirms rises and falls in temperature.

Evaporite levels are an important part of that, but what is the accuracy of the stability in degrees centigrade that they can record?

Dendrochronolgy is a wonderful technique for dating timber, by comparing growth rings. With very careful picking, trees can be used to "prove" temperature records, but the reliability of the pickers is questionable.

RR, Gwen. Evaporation rates vary with temperature, the difference between the activity (salinity) of the brine and atmospheric humidity and the average wind speed. Evaporation pan rates also seem to have declined recently as a result of "global dimming". So I cannot affix any temperatures. The simplest explanation, however, is that the rate of evaporation did not vary over long time periods and this suggests (but does not prove) similar annual temperatures. I don't think I want to go further than this. Other than to suggest that Earth's climate, outside of glacial periods, could be remarkably stable. Some of these deposits were deposited during glacial episodes implying climate stability even at those times.

Entropic man wrote, Aug 19, 2017 at 9:37 AM:

You get warming when incoming energy exceeds outgoing energy. This may be because incoming energy has decreased or outgoing energy has decreased (sometimes both).

Er, no. This may be because incoming energy INcreases (+ASR), or because outgoing energy DEcreases (–OLR). And as the real-world observations show, it is the FORMER that has happended, NOT the latter. As shown in my comment above.

Will you soon start relating to this fact?

The increasing greenhouse effect is decreasing outgoing energy from OLR.

Only it isn't. According to the real-world observations. As shown in my comment above. Will you soon start relating to this fact?

Increased DWLR is decreasing the rate of heat loss from the oceans.

Only it isn't. According to real-world observational estimates:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/net-lw-1.png

Will you relate to this fact?

You should forget the "missing heat" straw man. It was found in increasing ocean heat content.

Aug 19, 2017 at 9:37 AM | Entropic man

Trenberth's missing heat is not a strawman. It confirms that Climate Scientists did not do their sums right. Did any of the Climategate Climate Scientists explain to Trenberth that he was wasting millions looking for it in the air?

If it was "found" in ocean heat content, what does that prove about the unchanged rate of sealevel rise?

Aug 19, 2017 at 1:53 PM | Supertroll

I think it is important evidence of changes in the level of water level to land level.

Raised Sea Beaches are the same.

Both have obvious connections to ice ages, but do not help with causation. Or perhaps they do help with causation, and it is not helpful to Climate Scientists?

GolfCharlie. Sea level and barnacles is a quite different matter, one which we discussed some time back. I pointed out that old photographs incorporating views of intertidal rocks or pier supports could be very useful. Changes in the vertical position of biota could be used to evaluate relative sea level changes whereas increasing vertical range of the various zones (especially the uppermost) might be responses to increased storminess. The latter might be confirmed by reference to nearby sandy beaches where interruptions in the growth of burrowing species, would record the storms themselves. To my knowledge this type of analysis has not been attempted. I was fully intending to do this, but the illness of my wife intervened and after she died the funding and motivation dried up. If I lived closer to the sea, I would take it up as a retirement project, but I don't.

Aug 19, 2017 at 4:10 PM | Supertroll

Sea levels and barnacles are a different matter, agreed, but identical if looking for evidence to prove something, just like tree rings in fact.

The Hiscock report did not start with a conclusion that needed to be reached.

Egyptology was messed up in the 19th Century, and well into the 20th, by those seeking chronological, and other evidence to prove Biblical Scriptures.

From Geology, there is academic (?) fraud http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/us/scientist-accused-of-faking-findings.html I have no idea whether Gupta's "work" is still corrupting Science.

I am interested in changes in sea level, having been taught at school that the original Cinq Ports "silted up". South East England is a great place for Land Level Rises, that seem to be continuing, but Climate Science remains uninterested.

WW2 caused quite a lot of construction around European coastlines. I have never visited U-Boat pens along the French Atlantic Coast, but have been inside one on the Dalmation Coast. There are changes in sea level due to the Moon in the Mediterranean. Air pressure also causes variations. I would be interested to know whether the last 75 ish years of sea level are recorded on reinforced concrete. I do not doubt that sea levels have been rising, but do doubt figures quoted by Climate Scientists in headline grabbing Press Releases.

The problem seems to be that Climate Science can direct research funding to find "evidence" required by Climate Science. EM's comment about Trenberth's "missing heat" having been found, without an admission that Climate Science had got its sums wrong, rather neatly makes the point.

I am sorry you have been unable to pursue your scientific fieldwork in retirement. Too much research money seems to be wasted on reinterpreting data with the aid of computer models, to achieve the result required by the funding.

Measuring the temperature of the world is about averaging the uncertainties, according to Gavin Schmidt

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/19/climate-science-double-speak-update/

The oceans are warmed by solar radiation to a depth of around 50 metres depending on the radiation energy and water clarity. We know that mixing with the colder, deeper water just does not happen. The sea heats the atmosphere directly and also radiates IR. However, the warmed layer retains its heat pretty well. Part of the reason must be that IR radiation is absorbed by water and therefore traps that heat.

In other words, the GH effect operates in the sea. The sea is good at retaining heat and since water covers about 70% of our planet, this heat controls our climate.

Carbon dioxide controlled climate is a construction of the climate scientists. It might happen in a bell jar but in an unconstrained atmosphere convection means that trapped heat does not happen. Also, collisions and transfer of energy means that the water vapour present can help radiate energy to space.

The heated layer of water does drive lateral currents and warms the entire planet but is also fairly stable in a vertical axis.The warm water cannot sink to colder water beneath and the water above is even warmer.

The oceans cannot overheat either, since evaporation would increase leading to more cloud production, increased albedo and less solar heating. The oceans are the thermostatically controlled warming blanket,. The GHG theory is, well, just hot air.

Climate scientists have been obsessed with carbon dioxide and have honed the alleged mechanism to the nth degree but they seem to have completely ignored the fact that this is a water planet and the water controls our climate.

SC. Does the sea absorb IR? I was always taught that IR only penetrates a millimetre or so and causes evaporation (being converted into latent heat. Has this changed?

You are correct. I don't think I mentioned the DWIR from the atmosphere because I previously argued that it only penetrates a few mm and raises the kinetic energy of the water molecules leading to increased evaporation.

However, the sea does act like a black body and does radiate IR from its surface.

What I am saying above is that heat that arrived in the sea as visible light is now heat/kinetic energy but because water molecules absorb IR it is useless at transmitting it (except from the surface). So the sea is good at retaining heat.

Strangely, about 20 minutes after posting that WUWT posted an article about salt affecting the vertical circulation of water.