 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||
Posted on 10/04/2005 8:27:20 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou
"A warming signal has penetrated into the world's oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and volcanic forcing,
At least until one takes into account that Solar Radiation incident at the surface is acutually increasing sufficiently to account for the all the above and more. The problem being that the atmosphere appears to be reflecting less solar energy back into space allowing surface and ocean temperatures to rise.
To claim it is of Human origin is fine that being a rather general tag all for anything imaginable, cleaning up the air might even have a bit to do with that, but to attribute the rise in CO2/Greenhouse gas concentrations, is a real stretch.
but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences. Changes in advection combine with surface forcing to give the overall warming pattern. The implications of this study suggest that society needs to seriously consider model predictions of future climate change."
Which models? Those associated with clearing the atmosphere of particulate pollution as opposed to sensitivity to greenhouse gases? Or merely just more coincidence because rising global temperature has been going on since the Maunder Minimum of the solar cycle.
Lets get out models and causes straight here why don't we?
Which are we to address? Make clean air more dirty so the atmosphere goes back to reflecting more solar radiation back into space, or play with CO2, that has a squat 0.2oK per doubling of concentration, not having much to do with any substantive in global temperature since the little ice age.
Data Show Earth's Surface Is Brighter and Scientists Study Climate Link
Refering to three papers ( Pinker et al., Wild et al., Charlson, R., et al.) in the May 6, 2005 issue of Science
- Pinker, R.T., et al., 2005. Do satellites detect trends in surface solar radiation? Science, 308, 850-854,
- Wielicki, B., et al., 2005. Changes in Earth’s albedo measured by satellite. Science, 308, 825,
- Wild, W., et al., 2005. From dimming to brightening: decadal changes in solar radiation at Earth’s surface. Science, 308, 847-850,
which indicate the amount of incoming solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth has increased dramatically in the last two decades, attributable to clearing of the atmosphere reducing the reflection of solar (aldebo) radiation away from the earth's surface.
Here are the wattage changes reported in the may Science articles associated with that increasing solar component at the surface as opposed to your graphic of top of the atmosphere solar incidence:
Change in solar radiation absorbed by the earth from 2000 to 2004, estimated from low-orbiting satellite data, reported by Wielicki et al.: 2.06 W/m2.
Change from 1983 to 2001 in solar radiation absorbed by the earth, estimated at the surface by satellites, reported by Pinker et al.: 2.7 W/m2.
Change from 1985 to 2000 solar radiation absorbed at the surface, as measured at the surface, reported by Wild et al.: 4.4 W/m2.
If we average the results of Pinker et al. and Wild et al. for the period 1985 to 2000 we get 3.55 W/m2;
then adding the results of Wielicki, B., et al. from 2000 to 2004 of 2.06 W/m2 we get a total of 5.61 W/m2.
That is nearly 10 time the change in direct radiation effects reasonably attributable to greenhouse gas concentrations from 1985 to 2004.
The added forcing from increased solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface has contributed nearly 10 times as much energy as predicated for greenhouse changes. When compared to the overall forcing greenhouse be attributed all (natural and anthropogenic) increases in greenhouse gas concentrations since pre-industrial times, it’s four times larger.
Is it the solar component we need to worry about or the CO2 gas concentration component.
Do we now curtail our attempts to clean up the air of its particulate contaminates and burn more polluting fuels in less efficient manner, so we can worry over the 0.2oKC per CO2 doubling of greenhouse gas factors instead?
I didn't realize you were quoting Doug Hoyt. It's the Journal of Geophysical Research, by the way. It'd be nice if you or him provided the actual title of the paper and the year of publication! Furthermore, I think it's actually "Ramanathan", and not "Ramanthan" -- you propagated Hoyt's error. Awfully hard to do fact-checking when the references aren't trackable.
I'm guessing that Ramanathan is this person:
and it turns out that the paper is this one:
Ramanathan, V., M. S. Lian and R. D. Cess, 1979: Increased Atmospheric CO2: Zonal and Seasonal Estimates of the Effect on the Radiation Energy Balance and Surface Temperature. J. Geophys. Res. Atmospheres, 84: 4949-4958.
which is available ONLINE (at least to read). I'll have to take a closer look at this.
And I'll also give you a heads-up:
I recommend at least reading the abstract.
I'll respond more in the feedback vein in reference to the posting featuring the Hansen and Barnett papers (post 79).
It appears that we have to go over the water vapor feedback mechanism again. Fortunately, RealClimate provided a recent discussion of this, which I'll utilize. (And that 1998 Inamdar and Ramanathan paper.)
One final question for today:
The problem is measurement does not support anything near the presumed magnitude or even sign of feedback processes hypothesized and implemented into the fabric of the GCMs.
Are you referring to a specific set of measurements here, or a paper(s) describing those measurements? I may be mistaken, but I think we've gone over a recent water vapor feedback paper awhile ago, but I'd like to know if you have anything in particular in mind as a basis for the above comment.
I tell you what, I let you do the purchasing of said pdf for 9 bucks. My budget is already spoken for.
I notice you have overlooked the solar factors increasing incident surface solar radiation that forces the IPPC folks to severly reduce their feedback associated with green house gas concentration sensitivities.
The nasty in all this is the simple fact that ignoring the direct solar components as they are incident on the surface continually causes the reassessment with reduction of the estimated impact of CO2 contributions to initiate heating of the Earths atmosphere.
In the bottomline of the politcal debate of globlal warming, it is afterall the drive to curtail fossil fuel burning that runs the political show.
As the greenhouse gas component of any warming taking place withers away, the less political control can be justified in exerting on this or any nations economy in the name of such wrong headed environementalism.
The core issue is not changing or controlling effects on climate at all. Climate is merely an emotional lever in use for aquiring political control in the international arena and establishing beach heads for expanding the empowerment of international government.
Too bad you are so grabbed up in the detail of models and arguments and totally miss the strategic goals and real danger that exists at the political level. Or maybe you do see international government as the way to go and are cool with that. If so please let us know if that is part of your agenda therem if you even bother taking those factors into account as to what is driving this debate.
Bottomline it is dollars and political control of resources and nations at stake here, not the Climate at all.
It appears that we have to go over the water vapor feedback mechanism again. Fortunately, RealClimate provided a recent discussion of this, which I'll utilize. (And that 1998 Inamdar and Ramanathan paper.)
If you really want to waste you time I suppose you could.
Unfortunately with rising solar radiant input at the surface due to changing atmospheric adebo plus increasing solar activity as well. There is not much room left to account for global warming beyond that component due to incidence of solar radiation at the surface.
Increasing CO2 concentrations continue to look even more coincidental than causative in any climb in global temperatures, which is the primary crux of all the bruhaha to begin with.
Kyoto (and all the current political postureing so far) has been about curtailing carbon emmissions through mechanisms that are clearly not effective, and may actually be counter productive. Even if that were a reasonable thing to do where there are strong arguments against taking any such deliberate act in the face of the potential for heading into the next inevitable major ice age as a consequence of astronomical factors driving the main show.
NUKE CARTER!!! /sarc(maybe)
I predict that within a half-century we will have the technological ability to regulate the earth's energy budget cost effectively.
adebo = "albedo" on better days when I take time to look at what my fingers are typing :O/
That said -- I was nonplussed when I first read your reply, because though I'd read about the global dimming "reversal", it hadn't occurred to me -- nor apparently in anything else written about it -- that the increase in surface incident solar radiation was an adequate alternative to GHG forcing.
The Hansen, Nazarenko et al. paper (BTW, for some reason my direct link to the PDF in FR doesn't work, but you can get to it via the Earth's Energy Imbalance article) is mentioned in the NYTimes article you linked. The NYTimes article says:
"Dr. Wielicki said his data supported a report last month by a team led by Dr. James E. Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. In a paper published on Science's Web site, Dr. Hansen and his colleagues said that much of the excess heat generated by global warming so far had been stored in the oceans. Even if no more greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere, they said, the Earth will continue to warm by 1 degree Fahrenheit, as the heat in the ocean is released into the air.
Dr. Wielicki said the amount of energy coming from the Sun matched the gain in heat in the oceans reported by Dr. Hansen. "They should actually match and they do," Dr. Wielicki said. "It is consistent with the ocean heat storage that the oceanographers are seeing, and it is consistent with the climate models predictions of what the heat storage should be."
Reading that does not give the impression that the forcings in the Hansen Nazarenko et al. paper were highly inaccurate. But that didn't completely illuminate what the effect might be, so I also went back to this article:
Global dimming may have a brighter future
which also discussed the articles you cited. While the actual article text didn't add a lot to my understanding, some of the commentary did. The key is -- the measurements indicate an increase in sunlight reaching the Earth surface -- they don't indicate a change in solar radiation incident on the Earth. (There are still some cloud/aerosol/albedo effects that have to be evaluated.) Here are the relevant comments:
"There is no such increase in solar radiation ,which has remained fairly constant, as the satellite obs show. What is happening is more likely an aerosol effect, which redistributes the radiation. The changes are so large that they cannot represent forcing directly, or we would be seeing obvious temperature responses, and would have seen obvious coolings before then.
"The point is, the effect is too large for it to be a direct loss/gain of radiation to the climate system - that would be obvious. So the incoming solar is not just being reflected out to space (at least, not totally or even largely - it may be partly) it must be being redistributed - either scattered and being absorbed somewhere above the surface, or some other effect."
"BUT these results have only just been published - they need to be digested and considered by the experts. Happily, they are about in time to feed into the next IPCC report AR4"
"Changes in daytime solar radiation reaching ground due to changes in atmospheric albedo by anthropogenic (short-lived tropospheric) aerosols are large, but they are compensated quite a lot by more thermal insulation (working day and night, for longwave infrared radiation}: clear sky insulates much worse. Amount of compensation is difficult to compute."
There's a subsequent point (which I won't provide in its entirety) that indicates change in the surface solar incident radiation would only warm the surface ocean because IR and visible only penetrate a few meters. Increasing surface radation would not warm the entire water column, so the heat storage in the ocean is a result of the climate warming process and not simply a result of increase solar insolation at the surface.
So -- while the changes are intriguing, and while there may be related cloud effects that have a climate impact, it doesn't appear that these results require a large-scale reassessment of the forcings used in the Hansen Nazarenko et al. paper or the Barnett paper. Moving on:
quoting Barnett et al.: "but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences. Changes in advection combine with surface forcing to give the overall warming pattern. The implications of this study suggest that society needs to seriously consider model predictions of future climate change."
to which you responded: "Which models? Those associated with clearing the atmosphere of particulate pollution as opposed to sensitivity to greenhouse gases?"
The models used in the study are: the Parallel Climate Model and the Hadley Centre Model (HadCM3).
Further research would be required to determine the full atmospheric aspects of the PCM, but the HadCM3 page says this:
"A penetrative convective scheme (Gregory and Rowntree, 1990) is used, modified to include an explicit down-draught, and the direct impact of convection on momentum (Gregory et al 1997). Parametrizations of orographic and gravity wave drag have been revised to model the effects of anisotropic orography, high drag states, flow blocking and trapped lee waves (Milton and Wilson 1996; Gregory et al 1998). The large-scale precipitation and cloud scheme is formulated in terms of an explicit cloud water variable following Smith (1990). The effective radius of cloud droplets is a function of cloud water content and droplet number concentration (Martin et al 1994). ... The atmospheric component of the model also optionally allows the emission, transport, oxidation and deposition of sulphur compounds (dimethylsulphide, sulphur dioxide and ammonium sulphate) to be simulated interactively. This permits the direct and indirect forcing effects of sulphate aerosols to be modelled given scenarios for sulphur emissions and oxidants."
Now, to answer this question:
Do we now curtail our attempts to clean up the air of its particulate contaminates and burn more polluting fuels in less efficient manner, so we can worry over the 0.2oKC per CO2 doubling of greenhouse gas factors instead?
I'd say both. Hansen has written that reductions in the black soot aerosol are still desirable because this is still a positive forcing -- he doesn't seem to consider the accruing increase in solar radiation resulting from such a reduction as a problem. However, he also believes that we (collectively) will reduce CO2 via technology improvements (which I think will accelerate in the wake of the KatRita storms), which he also views as an eventual necessity.
(I want to pursue the water vapor feedback more, if only to make sure that we understand the current state of the art. And I don't feel like typing in the abstract to the other paper until next week. Feel free to reply to this.)
The key is -- the measurements indicate an increase in sunlight reaching the Earth surface -- they don't indicate a change in solar radiation incident on the Earth. (There are still some cloud/aerosol/albedo effects that have to be evaluated.) Here are the relevant comments:
Correct which is in line with the apparent effect on low level cloud cover as consquence of the reduction of cosmic ray flux linked to rising solar activity.
On the relationship of cosmic ray flux and precipitation
Dominic R. Kniveton 1 and Martin C. Todd 2
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mtodd/papers/grl_2001/grl_total.pdfAbstract
This paper evaluates whether there is empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that solar variability is linked to the Earth’s climate through the modulation of atmospheric precipitation processes. Using global data from 1979-1999, we find evidence of a statistically strong relationship between cosmic ray flux, precipitation and precipitation efficiency over ocean surfaces at mid to high latitudes. Both precipitation and precipitation efficiency are shown to vary by 7-9% during the solar cycle of the 1980s over the latitude band 45-90....S. Alternative explanations of the variation in these atmospheric parameters by changes in tropospheric aerosol content and ENSO show poorer statistical relationships with precipitation and precipitation efficiency. Variations in precipitation and precipitation efficiency potentially caused by changes in the cosmic ray flux have implications for the understanding of cloud and water vapour feedbacks.
Related ongoing projects regarding the links between Cosmic Ray Flux & Clouds:
Cosmic rays and clouds project
Svensmark and Friis-Christensen (Journal of Atmospheric, Solar and Terrestrial Physics, 1997) have shown that there is a strong correlation between the cosmic ray flux and the fraction of earth covered by clouds, as measured by satellite (see Figure). Over a sunspot cycle the cloud fraction varies by 3% absolute fraction, compared with a globally averaged coverage of about 65% (i.e., a 4.8% relative variation). The cosmic ray flux on earth is strongly modulated by magnetic disturbances of the solar wind, whose strength varies with the sunspot cycle. Strong solar magnetic activity occurs at times of high sunspot number and leads to a partial shielding of the earth from cosmic rays.
If this correlation were to be confirmed and substantiated by a causal mechanism, it could have profound consequences for climate. This is because the cosmic ray flux has decreased by as much as 20% over the last 100 years, which would translate into a 3% decrease in global cloudiness. This, in turn, would imply an increased radiative forcing of 1.2 W m-2.
Which falls right in line with:
The the three papers ( Pinker et al., Wild et al., Charlson, R., et al.) in the May 6, 2005 issue of Science
- Pinker, R.T., et al., 2005. Do satellites detect trends in surface solar radiation? Science, 308, 850-854,
- Wielicki, B., et al., 2005. Changes in Earth’s albedo measured by satellite. Science, 308, 825,
- Wild, W., et al., 2005. From dimming to brightening: decadal changes in solar radiation at Earth’s surface. Science, 308, 847-850,
which indicate the amount of incoming solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth has increased dramatically in the last two decades, attributable to clearing of the atmosphere reducing the reflection of solar (albedo) radiation away from the earth's surface. The essential effect attributable to variation in cosmic ray flux that arises from the variation in solar activity (in magnetic flux), not to be confused with variation with solar radiance which is a smaller though not inconsequential change of incident solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere that is coincident with solar activity as well.
-- he doesn't seem to consider the accruing increase in solar radiation resulting from such a reduction as a problem.
Then he must not figure CO2 greenhouse gas accumulations much of a problem as regards heating of the Earth either. As any thermal related factor has to be multiplied by the same feedback factors.
However, he also believes that we (collectively) will reduce CO2 via technology improvements (which I think will accelerate in the wake of the KatRita storms), which he also views as an eventual necessity.
I don't disagree, as I perceive we must ultimately turn to nuclear and fusion related technologies to derive the energy necessary to maintain our economies in the end anyway, substantially more benign technologies as regards thermal pollution in any case.
However, using global warming hype as the driver for a stealth clean air program is economically and physically counter-productive and enherently error ridden. The fallacies tied to the present arguments over greenhouse gas emissions are such as to create backlash against any programs tied to those fallacies.
Funny! Now you accuse scientists of praying that their conclusions are right. Very funny.
It is also soluble in water.
Until we know how much of the man-made CO2 is actually lingering in the atmosphere, and at the proper height in the atmosphere to preferentially absorb sunlight, the link between increased emissions and global warming is incomplete.
And it doesn't help when the environmentalists say that fluctuations in the Sun's output account for "10-30 percent" of the temperature rise. Those error bars are too big for dogmatic pronouncements.
Add to this the overwhelming historical tendency for liberals to lie to get their way, and the "global cooling" scare of the 1970's, and you have the fraud just about boxed in.
The clincher is that the answer is always the same--the EEEVIL white heterosexual patriarchical Christian West had better bend over and drop its pants, and turn over power, technology, and money to the Third World--despite the fact that China and India contribute just as much to environmental woes as the US ever did. And don't even get me started on environmental woes in the old Soviet Union and its cohorts.
Cheers!
George W was born in 1946, thus he was gestating throughout 1945 initiating the plateau in global warming.Throughout his young life, W was able to tame the menace of global warming. In 1975, after graduating, W returned to Texas and began his energy company. His looking for oil caused global warming to resume in 1976.
Wetter atmosphere linked to warming
(It's that danged water vapor feedback thing again.)
Greenland Ice Cap Is Melting, Raising Sea Level
Source: The Associated Press
Published: Jul 20, 2000 - 04:05 PM Author: By Paul Recer
Posted on 07/20/2000 14:37:50 PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3977712e1941.htm
Dennis Prager is interviewing these guys now.
|
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||
|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
Blast from the Past. |
|
|
|
|
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.