Thermal radiation balance at Chilbolton Observatory

Figure 1

Since mid February 2013 I have been capturing high time resolution data from the Chilbolton Observatory web site, done for the previous day. This is processed from .PNG files into numeric data here. [1]

Data exists for about 23 hours a day at a few minutes between samples, data currently amounts to about 56,000 readings.

Ben Pile: Lewandowsky, Institutional Science, and Politics

Ben Pile has posted a long and well written piece about l’affaire Lewandowsky at his blog. It will soon be published on Spiked, but I thought a preview to be in order. The paragraphs below are from the concluding section, since most here are familiar with the story so far. If not, you should read the whole thing.

Extract from: The Lewandowsky Papers
Posted by Ben Pile on May 21, 2013

Scientists such as Lewandowsky are better at self-justification than scientific research. Rather than being an investigation into the workings of the material world, Lewandosky’s ‘research’ — a poorly executed and error-prone online survey, seen through dodgy statistical methods and bogus categories — is a naked attempt to explain why people dare challenge scientific authority. But there are good reasons for challenging it. Science has turned its gaze on the public as politicians have sought to remedy their diminishing public support by recruiting the academy. It is not a coincidence that the scientific agenda increasingly reflects the prejudices and problems of elite politics.

Nenana Ice Classic 2013

FAIRBANKS – The ice went out at 3:41 p.m. in Nenana on Monday and there was only one winning ticket holder in what was the latest breakup on record in the 97-year-old Nenana Ice Classic.

The official winning time was 2:41 p.m. Alaska Standard Time because the contest uses standard, not daylight, time to determine the winner(s).

– KTVA

The date and time was 2013, May, 20th, 2:41 PM AST, day 139.612 day 140.362  [correction]

The existing record 1964, May 20th, 11:21 AM AST, day 140.487   140.104  [correction], 1964 was a leap year.

This is a repost of an existing article with updates.

Twinkling clouds, insolation higher than normal

Sometimes the sun shines through, reflects off and other optical effects of cloud. This does lead to insolation well in excess of the maximum for the time of year. An instance is shown above complete with an hourly sky thumbnail which almost caught one at the time, the effect comes and goes very quickly.

Emil A.Røyrvik: The Debate on Man Made Global Warming

This is a sensible document: H/T to Gabe Rychert at Climate Realists

Consensus and Controversy

The Debate on Man Made Global Warming
Emil A.Røyrvik

SINTEF
Technology and Society

Conclusions:
To illustrate the way that scientific, political and ethical concerns are mixed in the debate on Anthropogenic Global Warming this report used the by now famous quote from Gro Harlem Brundtland , that ”doubt has been eliminated”, and that it is ”irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the situation ” as a point of departure. The goal of the report was to enter this debate and “ battlefield ” of arguments and take stock of the debate about anthropogenic (man – made) global warming. Based on the present review of this debate there are several conclusions to be drawn. The first and simplest one is that considered as an empirical statement, the assertion that “doubt has been eliminated” on AGW is plainly false. Although as documented the level of agreement in the scientific literature that AGW is occurring is quite extensive, the magnitude of dissent, questioning and contrarian perspectives and positions in both scientific discourse and public opinion on the question of AGW evidently contradicts such a proclamation.

Nicola Scafetta: Major new sea level study – finds C21st rise likely to be less than a foot.

Congratulations to Nicola Scafetta, who has successfully published a new paper on sea level rise Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level recordsversus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes in the  journal Climate Dynamics. This is a major paper, which undertakes a comprehensive review of recent studies, which diverge widely in their findings. He finds that the main reason for divergence is the length of records used in studies, and shows that the quasi-cyclic oscillations of the major ocean basins largely account for the differences in those studies conclusions. Developing a powerful analysis technique with strong visualisation, it is shown that the periodicity of the major oscillations, being 60 to 70 years, require a minimum record length of around 110 years in order to prevent polynomial fitting of long term secular trends being contaminated with shorter term quasi-cyclic variation. Using tide gauge records going back as far as 1700, Nicola compares the trends in sea level rise acceleration at widely spread geographical locations once the quasi-cyclic components are removed and finds the long term global average to be very small – around 0.01mm/yr. Very little difference is found between acceleration rates between the pre and post industrial eras. It is suggested the acceleration is a natural variation due to the recovery from the little ice age as part of a quasi millennial cycle which may continue until the mid C21st. In conclusion the study suggests that sea level rise during the C21st will be around 277+/-7mm, or about 9 inches.

Fig. 10 a Global sea level record (Jevrejeva et al. 2008) (left) and its
MSAA colored diagram (right).

Chilbolton Observatory unofficial dataset, numeric and plots

Example data. Lidar is useful in identifying cloud layers, clear sky, it cannot though see multiple layers, where radar images if available are more useful. Click to open full size.

[UPDATE 2013/05/05,  archive release with corrections] An unofficial high resolution dataset has been derived from web published graphs running from 16th February 2013 to 20th April 2013 (less 23rd Feb), just over 60 days of data at about 2.3 minutes resolution for about 23 hours a day. The data includes atmospheric water parameters and thermal radiation parameters, all measured from surface level. Archive period includes the exceptionally cold March 2013. The weather hereabouts was cold but unlike most of the rest of the UK there was little snow, nor was the temperature very low.

Roger Andrews: A New Climate Index – The Northern Multidecadal Oscillation

My thanks to Roger Andrews, who sent me this guest post a little while ago and has been very patiently waiting for me to publish it. I had a good look around Bob Tisdale’s site before deciding to go ahead, to check he hadn’t already done the same thing. I can’t find anything directly comparable, so here it is. Hopefully Bob will join us in comments and let us know. Nicola Scafetta and others have shown a ~60-70yr pattern the motion of the solar system’s planets which we suspect is linked to this natural cyclic variation. It hasn’t been taken into account by climate models. The positive, warming phase of the oceanic cycles coincides with ‘global warming’ attributed to the increase in co2 by the IPCC. Ignoring the natural oceanic cycles amounts to something which in commercial law is known as ‘omitted variable fraud’.

A NEW CLIMATE INDEX – THE NORTHERN MULTIDECADAL OSCILLATION
Roger Andrews – March 28-2013

It’s widely recognized that weather and climate are strongly influenced by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) in and around the North Atlantic Ocean and by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in and around the North Pacific Ocean, if not globally. But as illustrated below the AMO and the PDO show quite different trends, giving the impression that North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean cycles march to the beat of a different drummer:

http://www.eoearth.org/files/111301_111400/111389/AMO_-_USGS.jpg

Pinker et al: Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?

Errrmm, why I have not heard of this 2006 paper before? 1.6W/m^2 per decade is  a not insignificant trend. Did the IPCC ignore this?

Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?
R. T. Pinker,1 B. Zhang,2 E. G. Dutton3

Abstract
Long-term variations in solar radiation at Earth’s surface (S) can affect our
climate, the hydrological cycle, plant photosynthesis, and solar power. Sustained
decreases in S have been widely reported from about the year 1960 to
1990. Here we present an estimate of global temporal variations in S by using
the longest available satellite record. We observed an overall increase in S from
1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year; this
change is a combination of a decrease until about 1990, followed by a sustained
increase. The global-scale findings are consistent with recent independent
satellite observations but differ in sign and magnitude from previously
reported ground observations. Unlike ground stations, satellites can uniformly
sample the entire globe.

An important post from Doug Keenan at Bishop Hill

This is an important post:

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/4/9/questions-to-ministers.html

Questions relating to the work of the Met Office on global warming are being put in the UK parliament, and the Met Office is refusing to answer them. Parliamentary Questions have a history going back centuries. Giving answers, or giving a valid reason for not answering, is required. The stand-off is yet to be resolved.