Bishop Hill Nature and the Sunday Sport
Jan 2, 2014 Climate: Models Journals The paper by Steven Sherwood has been agitating those of a green disposition in recent days, with all sorts of wailing on Twitter about how we're going to hit four degrees of warming by the end of the century. This is certainly the story that Nature gave out in its press release:
Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced according to new research published in Nature. Scientists found global climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than most previous estimates.
The research also appears to solve one of the great unknowns of climate sensitivity, the role of cloud formation and whether this will have a positive or negative effect on global warming.
As readers here know, climate models all run far too hot. As far as the latest CMIP5 generation go, this is at least partly because they use estimates of aerosol forcing that are much higher than observations suggest is the case. And if the latest hypothesising about the hiatus in surface temperature rises is correct, the models are all missing a key climate subsystem too, namely transport of heat to the deep oceans.
I haven't got hold of a copy of the Sherwood paper as yet, but from what I have been able to glean from the abstract, the press release, and from conversations around the web, he and his colleagues looked at climate models to see how well these reproduced observations of clouds, finding that the best match came from the models that ran hottest.
In other words, the models that had the most realistic simulations of clouds had the least realistic representations of temperature changes.
If I've understood what was done correctly, this is an interesting conundrum for climate scientists to explore. What it is not is any reason to think that the output of such models is policy-relevant or reason to think that we will warm by 4°C by the end of the century.
Nature really has sunk to the level of the Sunday Sport.
Reader Comments (129)
Over at WUWT Steve Mosher dropped by and indicated that the cloud cover was based on the MERRA reanalysis, not actual observations. He didn't have kind things to say about MERRA. One can infer that he likewise isn't impressed by this paper.
This is part of Biography of David Sullivan
"A millionaire by 25, with his partner, David Gold, Sullivan moved into the adult entertainment industry; his business empire encompassing sex shops, adult magazines and several low-budget blue movies.[6]
By the mid-1970s, Sullivan was in control of half of the adult magazine market, including major titles such as Playbirds and Whitehouse.[16] In the late 70s eight of his films were showing consecutively in the West End. Sullivan commanded 50% of the entire men’s magazine market, 80% of the adult mail order market and ran 150 shops.
In the late 1970s he produced several low-budget British sex movies including Come Play with Me (1977) (directed by Harrison Marks).
This was followed by The Playbirds (1978), Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979) and Queen of the Blues (1979), all starring his then-girlfriend Mary Millington. After Millington's suicide in August 1979 he continued with Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions (1980) and Emmanuelle in Soho (1981).
In 1982 Sullivan was convicted of living off immoral earnings and after a successful appeal was released after serving 71 days in prison.[17] Sullivan explained that he did not feel embarrassed about the initial source of his early fortunes. "I've made a lot of people happy,” he said. “If I was an arms manufacturer or a cigarette manufacturer, and my products killed millions of my clients, I'd have a bit of doubt about the whole thing. I was a freedom fighter. I believe in the right of adults to make their own decisions."
Although Sullivan is continuing to develop his business interests elsewhere he still owns a chain of 100 Private Shops, with many staffed by the same workers who helped launch them."
Chairman of West Ham man who built his major fortune on pornography.He owns the Sunday Sport which is a weekly newspaper platform that Sullivan uses for promoting his porn empire.
The Sunday Sport is Porn subverted as mainstream media
Climate Change is Porn subverted as mainstream Science.
Do call it Climate Porn after all.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/aug/03/theproblemwithclimateporn
The problem for the alarmist same with Climate Porn as with usual Porn people get bored and grow out of it.
Out of interest, Bishop, when you say, "... climate models all run far too hot", do you actually know this to be true? I'm not saying you are wrong, I would just like to know the strength of this assertion. For example if you took the models and put in the actual, as opposed to estimated, El Niño/La Niña, volcanic activity, solar activity, emissions etc since 2005 (from which point they are projecting), how far out are they? I'm not aware of anyone having done such a study, so maybe the question is unanswerable. But in that case your assertion is weaker than it appears.
Oh Chandra...you are about to get an education (assuming if course you have the mental capacity to be able to learn something goes against your cultist beliefs:).
Regards
Mailman
@Jan 2, 2014 at 11:41 PM | Chandra
If you look at the spaghetti graph from the second draft of the fifth assesment you can clearly see this is true. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/31/climate-craziness-of-the-week-only-the-cooler-models-are-wrong-the-rest-say-4oc-of-warming-by-2100/
More to the point, if you have to "correct" the models every three years or so with real world inputs, what possibly utility can they have for planning a response to supposed effects that are 30 or 40 years out?
@Chandra, Happy New Year again!
Yes
Yes, you are
With each and every passing month the assertion is confirmed
Why did the models not predict the actual?
As far as they
can beare.TerryS
Best read the paper.
Jan 2, 2014 at 8:16 PM | Mailman
I find it heartening that we can rely on ectopic man to drop by and correct all the minor errors that appear on this blog with such certainty.
What would we do without him?
Chandra
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12534.html
Losaka and Xie (2013) describes runs of a recent climate model using the La Nina tendency of recent years rather than random ENSO behaviour. .They came out much closer to the Earth's actual behaviour than the average for model runs overall.
Jeremy -
"Sherwood [Snip - manners]..."
====================================================================
Ok, I admit to being a little testy last night. But what have you got against calling a spade a shovel?
How else can you describe anyone who in effect says "I have studied the models and the wrongest ones are right"?
Chandra
Sorry, that's Kosaka and Xie.
I find it heartening that we can rely on ectopic man to drop by and correct all the minor errors that appear on this blog with such certainty.
What would we do without him?
Jan 3, 2014 at 12:36 AM | Billy Liar
End up buried even deeper in bullshit? :-)
@Entropic man
Nay lad, thou has cornered the market as the proven purveyor of prime BS!
One of the things I like about the Bishop Hill blog is that it is populated by intelligent scientists and engineers with backgrounds in solving problems in the real world. As a result the discussions are nearly always enlightening. In contrast most of the pro CAGW blogs dismiss sceptic viewpoints resorting to poorly formed arguments and invective.
I think the recent contributions by Chandra and Entropic Man are reasonable and do not deserve to be summarily dismissed. The Kosaka and Xie paper is of interest but their model does not represent any ability for forecasting as it is based on observed sea surface temperatures. A perfect hindcast if you will. No wonder climate models are so flawed if they cannot simulate even sea surface temperatures let alone deep ocean temperatures. I thought that CGCMs were supposed to be coupled ocean and climate models? At least that has always been the claim. Here is a quote from the paper:
" Here we show that accounting for recent cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific reconciles climate simulations and observations. We present a novel method of uncovering mechanisms for global temperature change by prescribing, in addition to radiative forcing, the observed history of sea surface temperature over the central to eastern tropical Pacific in a climate model. Although the surface temperature prescription is limited to only 8.2% of the global surface, our model reproduces the annual-mean global temperature remarkably well with correlation coefficient r = 0.97 for 1970–2012 (which includes the current hiatus and a period of accelerated global warming). Moreover, our simulation captures major seasonal and regional characteristics of the hiatus, including the intensified Walker circulation, the winter cooling in northwestern North America and the prolonged drought in the southern USA. Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La-Niña-like decadal cooling."
I'd love to see the hindcasts of their "clouds in" model.
4 degrees is pretty much impossible - see John Kehr - The Inconvenient Sceptic.
End up buried even deeper in bullshit? :-)
Jan 3, 2014 at 12:57 AM Entropic man
No EM. That's where you seem to have the edge.
Bullshitting is saying what you wish to be believed without being bothered whether it is true or not
EM passed the test with his "Pauling was completely wrong that vitamin D cures colds".
Sorry EM, I am disappointed.
@Entropic man
"End up buried even deeper in bullshit? :-) ."
Nay lad, thou has cornered the market as the proven purveyor of prime BS!
Jan 3, 2014 at 1:11 AM | Green Sand
------------------------------------
Hahahhaha...it's even funnier if you say the above to yourself in a Scotish accent! :)
Regards
Mailman
Funny how a paper comes out to claim, predictably, it is even worse than previously thought, just when reality is telling us that things are not really any different at all.
This contrived paper, allegedly showing clouds don't do what they do, is really designed to help us ignore the clouds and focus on the AGW dogma.
Who should we believe, the AGW promoters or our lying eyes?
Potentilla
The problem with ENSO is that it can be approximately forecast in the short term, but is effectively random over decadal or longer timescales. Since the difference between an El Nino and a La Nina year can be several tenths C, ENSO variations can have a big effect on model output.
The real world has had a lower than average decade for El Ninos with, not surprisingly, lower temperatures than would otherwise have been expected
Chandra apparently believes the Earth's surface can emit to the adjacent ~30 m atmosphere a real IR energy flux equal to that of a black body of the same temperature to the zero point energy of a vacuum, also that this IR energy is thermalised in the gas phase and half returns to heat up the surface.
Any person claiming to be a scientist who promotes this perpetual option machine is being unprofessional.
Mydogsgotnonose
Wrong conceptual model. Think of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as an insulator, slowing the rate of outward energy flow by redirecting a portion of the outward IR back towards the surface.
The silvered Mylar blankets given to finishing athletes work in a similar way, though rather more efficiently.
Let me see if my logic is correct.
1. Models which incorporate better cloud processes predict warming a long way above the observations.
2. Models with the wrong cloud processes predict lower warming which is still well above observation.
So 1 lacks a major cooling process. 2 also lacks this cooling process, but this is partly compensated for by the poor cloud simulation.
What am I missing? How does this paper prove anything?
JF
The volcano gods must be deafened by the prayers of the faithful. "Give us, oh great and fiery one, a huge eruption in mid latitudes, one that sends aerosols round the earth three times before breakfast, because otherwise we are toast."
Green Sand, I have seen the sort of half-informed cluelessness, which the Bishop encourages in his daily venting and which you gleefully echo, described as "weaponised ignorange". I think it fits well. If you know a way of predicting El Niño/La Niña, volcanic eruptions, solar cycle intensity or even global emissions you are indeed a genius.
MyDog..., woof.
Reverting to the original comparisons: I note (no, make that I'm told) that a lot of the 'climate models' in The Sunday Sport don't have many clothes..
I can only assume that the staff at this newspaper have read the Sherwood paper and advised the girls, who are now way out in front of the rest of us..!
Chandra (Jan 2, 2014 at 11:41 PM): "when you say, "... climate models all run far too hot", do you actually know this to be true? I'm not saying you are wrong, I would just like to know the strength of this assertion."
Lucia at the Blackboard does an excellent job at comparing models and observations. For example, take a lot at the graph in this post.
As for re-running models with observed solar & volcanic forcings, and emissions, I'm not aware of any such effort. It would be interesting, but I rather doubt that the runs would be statistically dissimilar from those done for AR4 (say). There haven't been any large volcanic explosions recently, and while TSI is down, it's a relatively small drop in terms of W/m2. Emissions are pretty much on track with predictions, as I understand it. And ENSO is not an exogenous factor to the models that it can be just thrown in as a forcing -- it is part of the climate system. The paper by Kosaka & Xie was mentioned upthread as an attempt to introduce ENSO into a model. While the experiment was generally successful in being better able to predict the short-term evolution of temperature patterns, the process of ENSO imprinting added and subtracted heat to/from the terrestrial system (as necessary). So one can not then use those results as a validation of the ability of climate models to simulate long-term energy flows -- the system is continually being forced back into alignment with observations.
Julian Flood
Sherwood's paper is about troposphere mixing. He suggests that the amount of lower troposphere air mixing into the upper troposphere has been underestimated. This leads the models to predict too much low level cloud and too little high level cloud.
Low level cloud has a cooling effect; high level cloud has a warming effect. If Sherwood is correct, the overall warming effect of clouds has been underestimated, with a similar underestimation of climate sensitivity.
Haven't we got the "climate sensitivity" problem sorted yet?
Correct me if I've gone wrong somewhere but climate sensitivity has been defined (by whom, I don't know) as the response to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Unless this sensitivity is something that happens in a flash, like lightning, then we must be able to say to what extent we are approaching that figure, given that CO2 levels have increased (according to most but not all climatologists) from ~280ppm to ~400ppm since ... 1750? 1850? 1900?
And the temperature has increased by how much in that time? So by now and given that the effect is logarithmic we ought to be pretty close to stating fairly unequivocally what the climate sensitivity actually is, no?
Sorry about the vagueness but since dates and times and figures tend to be a bit movable, depending presumably on what the current message is supposed to be, it's hard to keep up.
@Entropic man: i went through that phase too**: However, the physical argument is wrong.
It all comes down to where the extra energy is thermalised, defined as its conversion to kinetic energy in matter. It cannot happen in the gas phase for a GHG mixture with non GHG gases (in great excess) because of the Law of Equipartition of Energy, which means the thermally-activated IR density of states is solely a function of Thermodynamic Temperature. Therefore it is at the optical heterogeneity with condensed matter, either clouds, bare aerosols or matter in Space.
**This argument is based on the radiative impedance to Space. It only applies to part of the real energy transfer***, the 'atmospheric window', for which there is about 10% absorption of IR.
***There's a second part associated with th reduction of humidity with altitude.
Entropic man says;
Afraid not EM, reflection of electromagnetic radiation as against absorption and re-radiation are two entirely different phenomena. Misunderstanding of physics, such as confusing potential energy with kinetic energy, is however, a staple of Cli-Phy.
what is amazing is the Antarctic Edpedition spokesman, Alvin Stone, sent out the Press Release for the 4 degrees' story, leaving out ARC from the Climate Centre he mentions. no MSM felt it necessary to point out Stone was involved in these two stories, or that Sherwood & Chris Turney are connected:
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 31-Dec-2013
Contact: Alvin Stone
University of New South Wales
Cloud mystery solved: Global temperatures to rise at least 4°C by 2100
“Our research has shown climate models indicating a low temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide from preindustrial times are not reproducing the correct processes that lead to cloud formation," said lead author from the University of New South Wales’ Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Prof Steven Sherwood...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/uons-ncs121913.php
ABC: Helicopter rescues passengers onboard stranded Antarctic ship Akademik Shokalskiy
Sydney-based expedition spokesman, Alvin Stone, says the group is relieved...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-02/rescue-helicopter-arrives-at-stranded-antarctic-ship/5182632
Nature: Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing
Received 16 May 2013; Accepted 05 November 2013; Published online 01 January 2014
Affiliations: Steven C. Sherwood: Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html
UNSW Climate Change Research Centre Team
Professor Steve Sherwood
Director, Climate Change Research Centre
Professor Chris Turney
Adjunct, Climate Change Research Centre
http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic.html
Mailman
Entropic Man and I had a civilised discussion a thread or two back where we agreed not the post references to short term trends such as rising sealevels (specifically mentioned). I only post such references in response to people like him and Chandra. The sealevels thing goes back about 6 months when Entropic Man did post a link to the University of Colorado, and we had a discussion at that time. Naturally the rise reverted to mean as you'd expect.
Sandy S
Mydogsgotnonose
How does your hypothesis explain
a) downwelling infra-red radiation mostly at the spot frequancies of greenhouse gases?
b) How does it generate the OLR absorbtion spectrum observed by satellites, with reductions of up to 50% at the absorbtion frequencies of greenhouse gases?
c) Why is the downwelling radiation around 15 micrometres around 50% of the energy leaving the troposphere at that wavelength?
All of the above are consistent with the greenhouse effect as conventionally understood. Your hypothesis would also need to generate them.
ssat
I was not suggesting that the mylar acts in the same way as a greenhouse gas. The latter are certainly not reflecting the radiation.
The point I'd aimed to make was that both the mylar and the greenhouse gases are redirecting existing energy, rather than getting something for nothing. There is no perpetual motion effect.
With a new sceptical government in Australia lightweights like Sherwood are running scared and respond with loud alarmist publications in the hope of maintaining public funding.
According to this shyster all the hundreds of his alarmist pals contributing to the IPCC, including our own Met Office, have got it completely wrong, and his own well self publicised work far surpasses the 'consensus' opinions of these lesser mortals.
EM
In the former, yes, in the latter, no. That is why they are entirely different phenomena. It is not possible to redirect existing (I assume you mean radiative) energy against its flux unless by reflection, and then it is only a diversion. It is only Cli-Phy that won't accept this fact.
SandyS
Thank you.
Unfortunately we've come back to the short term/long term discussion by another route.
Whoever invented the "models cannot predict short term trends" meme missed that point, as have those regurgitating it.
In the short term a model cannot predict unless the real state of parameters such as ENSO is included, as Kosaka and Xie demonstrated. This tightly constrains the outcome.
The longer range models use repeated runs with different randomised variations in ENSO etc to generate a representative range of outcomes. Variations in ENSO etc average out over decades and multiple models to constrain the range of probable outcomes. Over the short term the model ensemble overpredicts the temperature change as the average conditions have greater positive forcing than the actual conditions the world has seen fit to throw at us lately.
Jan 3, 2014 at 5:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man>>>>>
How exactly does this 'supposed' ir back radiation, to which water is opaque, supposedly heat up the ocean depths without first raising the temperature of the atmosphere?
So far nobody has demonstrated that less total energy is exiting Earth's atmosphere than that supplied from the Sun. Any supposedly back radiated ir will radiate to space in pretty short order - how long - milliseconds? And how does the atmosphere become warmer without additional energy being provided?
The short 22 year of warming in the late 20th century followed a period of global cooling and has been followed by 17 years of static temperatures. In fact the planet warmed for JUST a disputed maximum of 22 years [some statistics show a shorter warming period] out of the past 72 years. Hardly unusual and definitely not alarming let alone accelerating as some try to portray.
former, yes, in the latter, no. That is why they are entirely different phenomena. It is not possible to redirect existing (I assume you mean radiative) energy against its flux unless by reflection, and then it is only a diversion. It is only Cli-Phy that won't accept this fact.
Jan 3, 2014 at 6:12 PM | Unregistered Commenterssat>>>>?>
How right you are.
If I use a mirror to reflect 100% of radiated ir back to an electrically heated black radiating plate will it get hotter?
Of course not, so how is supposed back radiation going to increase the temperature of the Earth's surface emitting the ir in the first place?
As with the surface of the oceans, heat is removed almost instantly by convection currents and general air movement. The thin atmosphere does NOT heat the oceans. The dense oceans always transfer heat to the atmosphere - It's how storms and hurricanes are created. The only heating of the oceans is by short wave Solar energy which can penetrate the water by 100m or more. Infra red 'back radiation' cannot penetrate more than a few microns of the oceans surface with any heat generated being instantly transferred to the atmosphere which would, of course, result in atmospheric warming which is not, as admitted even by the IPCC, not happening.
ssat
I think you oversimplify. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb and reradiate at their absorbtion wavelengths in all directions.
Any photons contacting the surface are reabsorbd. Any photons gaining a free path to space end up in the OLR.
If the greenhouse gas concentration is high enough, the overall effect of multiple interactions is that half the energy radiated from the surface at the absorbtion wavelengths finds its way back to the surface eventually.
Thus, if you measure the surface radiation, DWIR and OLR at 15 micrometres (the main absorbtion wavelength for CO2 ) you find that under a clear sky-
1) DWIR=OLR
2)DWIR + OLR = surface radiation
1) DWIR=OLR
2)DWIR + OLR = surface radiation
Jan 3, 2014 at 6:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man>>>>>>>
Sorry but that's just a simplistic mind game.
To this day the warming of the atmosphere by supposed ir back radiation REMAINS an UNPROVEN hypothesis which a 17 year stasis in global temperature while CO2 levels continue to increase falsifies.
Mike Jackson (4:42 PM): "we ought to be pretty close to stating fairly unequivocally what the climate sensitivity actually is, no?"
See Otto et al.'s paper from earlier this year. "The most likely value of equilibrium climate sensitivity based on the energy budget of the most recent decade is 2.0 °C, with a 5–95% confidence interval of 1.2–3.9 °C." More relevant to the short- and mid-term is "The best estimate of TCR [transient climate response] based on observations of the most recent decade is 1.3 °C (0.9–2.0 °C)."
Entropic man (6:13 PM) -
You seem to think that ENSO accounts for a significant portion of the recent discrepancies between models and observations. But see figure 3 of Fyfe et al., which shows ENSO as relatively minor in this context.
RKS
These are quantities you can calculate from observations. I' afraid it,s genuine.
HaroldW
Fyfe et all make the same point as my 6.13 post to SandyS, that the model ensemble method of forecasting only becomes reliable over a long enough timespan for short term variations to average out.
Kosaka and Die showed that ENSO was important enough to significantly improve the short term accuracy of their model.
It's actually one effect of several which seem to be creating short term noise in the long term trend. There are also short term varations in solar insolation and aerosols ( both volcanic and industrial ). ENSO is also part of a larger redistribution of heat flow between ocean, ice and atmosphere.
To unravel all this can only really be done in hindsight. Fyfe et al's last sentence reflects this too.
"Ultimately the causes of this inconsistency will only be understood after careful comparison of simulated internal climate variability and climate model forcing with observation from the past two decades, and by waiting to see how global temperature responds over the coming decades"
ES says
"Sherwood's paper is about troposphere mixing. He suggests that the amount of lower troposphere air mixing into the upper troposphere has been underestimated. This leads the [old] models to predict too much low level cloud and too little high level cloud."
So the old models cool too much with too much low level cloud. But the observations show that the old models are already running too warm.
"Low level cloud has a cooling effect; high level cloud has a warming effect. If Sherwood is correct, the overall warming effect of clouds has been underestimated, with a similar underestimation of climate sensitivity."
So Sherwood thinks the new models should predict even more warming than the old models which are already showing more warming than is actually taking place.
So Sherwwod has shown that the new models, corrected for getting cloud wrong, are even worse at matching reality.
This is good?
I must have made some mistake here. He's not really saying that, surely, not in a widely publicised paper. Or did he just ignore observations?
Help me out here, someone. Go through the logic really slowly.
JF
Harold W
Otto's estimate of climate sensitivity is only valid if 21st century temperature records represent the norm. If they are a transient period of reduced warming rate Otto's estimate of sensitivity will be too low. Oh for a time machine! :-)
EM
Not according to Trenberth's 'Global Energy Flows' which have DWIR at 139% of OLR. If you are going to be wrong then be consistently wrong.
Julian Flood
Combining both recent threads, the models are running too warm in the short term and too cool in the long term.
In the short term they are running warm because in the real world ENSO etc are behaving like a model at the cool end of the range.
In the long term the models are running cool because they generate the wrong balance between low and high cloud.
ssat
I did say "under a clear sky". Clouds and aerosols would change the proportion of DWIR and OLR, as your reference describes.
It's always a problem finding the balance between clarity and pedantry. Ideally it should be matched to ones respondent.