Long time contributor to climaterealists.com Stephen Wilde has published a wide ranging paper laying out the framework for a new “top down” climate model. This piece brings together the many articles Stephen has written over the last couple of years and integrates their content in an effort to move towards a better and more realistic understanding of the way Earth’s climate operates.
The system being used by the entire climatological establishment is fundamentally
flawed and must not be relied upon as a basis for policy decisions of any kind.
A better approach:
We know a lot about the basic laws of physics as they affect our day to day existence
and we have increasingly detailed data about past and present climate behaviour.
We need a New Climate Model (from now on referred to as NCM) that is created
from ‘the top down’ by looking at the climate phenomena that actually occur and
using deductive reasoning to decide what mechanisms would be required for those
phenomena to occur without offending the basic laws of physics.
We have to start with the broad concepts first and use the detailed data as a guide
only. If a broad concept matches the reality then the detailed data will fall into place
even if the broad concept needs to be refined in the process. If the broad concept does
not match the reality then it must be abandoned but by adopting this process we
always start with a broad concept that obviously does match the reality so by adopting
a step by step process of observation, logic, elimination and refinement a serviceable
NCM with some predictive skill should emerge and the more detailed the model that
is built up the more predictive skill will be acquired.
That is exactly what I have been doing step by step in my articles here:
Articles by Stephen Wilde
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Readers should not overlook my recent review which updates the Model and accommodates recent findings.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6482
No Data + No Calculations = No Real Model
Stephen Wilde writes: “The secret lies in the declining angle of incidence of solar energy input from equator to poles. It is apparent that the same size and density of cloud mass moved, say, 1000 miles nearer to the equator will have the following effects…”
Really?
First: There’s an assumption in your claim; and that is that the clouds remain at the same size and density as the migrate north and south. You have no data to verify this, I assume.
Second: If the top of the clouds are reflecting the solar radiation, for example, at an 86% angle or 88% angle, it’s still reflected back into space and does not impact the surface.
Hi Bob,
I did introduce Stephen’s piece as “laying out the framework for a new “top down” climate model”. I think we can take it as read that such a broad brush conceptual approach is not going to lay out the specific details or calculations.
I think to be fair, we should be prepared to discuss this on it’s own terms rather than binning it for not being fully elucidated at this stage. On the other hand, your observations about clouds are valid, and point up the difficulties in using deductive logic wthin a limited conceptual framework. That is the same trap the co2 warmists fell into. Nonetheless, I think there is value in considering the new factors Stephen wishes to see included in a more complete model of climate yet to be developed to a quantificatory stage.
tallbloke wrote: ” I think there is value in considering the new factors Stephen wishes to see included in a more complete model of climate yet to be developed to a quantificatory stage.”
Your assumption in that sentence is that Stephen includes additional factors in his model that are not presently included in coupled ocean-atmosphere models being used by climate scientists. or that the factors he presents have not been examined already and been found to have no impact. He provides nothing to verify the existance of or dispute the need to include them, other than assumptions that may or may not have bases in reality.
Hi Bob,
I’m dimly aware that there has been a bit of a spat going on between you and Stephen for a while, so I’m going to stay out of it and let him answer for himself.
However I do think there may be some merit in his idea concerning the north-south shifts of the jet streams and climate cell boundaries, and these are not, so far as I’m aware, included in current climate models. I’m about to publish some work by Jonathan Drake which looks more carefully at latitudinal insolation differences than hitherto undertaken. Watch this space.
Cheers
Bob Tisdale said:
“First: There’s an assumption in your claim; and that is that the clouds remain at the same size and density as the migrate north and south. You have no data to verify this, I assume.”
There is no such assumption. If anything the clouds increase as they migrate equatorward because they have to cover a larger area of the Earth’s sphere. Any such increase would ADD to the increase in albedo as the clouds shift equatorward. To oppose my point you would have to show that the clouds consistently reduce in size or density as they shift equatorward or consistently increase in size or density as they move poleward. Both propositions are highly unlikely.
“Second: If the top of the clouds are reflecting the solar radiation, for example, at an 86% angle or 88% angle, it’s still reflected back into space and does not impact the surface.”
No, what matters is the intensity of solar radiation incoming not the portion of incoming that is reflected. If the sun is at an angle of 88 degrees to the Earth’s surface then a different amount of energy is incoming at a specific location than if it were at an angle of 86 degrees.
Shading a point on the Earth’s surface nearer to the equator blocks more incoming energy than shading a point further from the equator.
Bob, do you not think that your ‘crusade’ is becoming somewhat obsessive ?
Bob Tisdale said:
” or that the factors he presents have not been examined already and been found to have no impact.”
So, Bob, has the proposition that the cooling of the stratosphere might have been a natural effect of an active sun been examined already ?
Likewise the Haigh finding that on the basis of recent observations the models might have the sign wrong for the solar effect on parts of the atmosphere?
Where is data about the contribution of solar protons to ozone depletion above 45Km ?
Where is the data we need about possible temperature discontinuities along the track of the thermohaline circulation ?
Where is there any data about the average net global shifting of the jets on centennial timescales ? Many climate professionals seem unaware that it even happens yet there is plenty of anecdotal evidence.
And there is lots more in my work that has never been adequately addressed.
I think you should stick to your admirable ENSO work.
Thanks to “Magister Ludi” Tallbloke and its post Gravity – the science is not settled
I have discovered that all things are related, as all the parts of the one and only field.
Thus, this is
Total Field= Sin y (gravity field) + Cos y (emission field)
Where the Planck’s equation becomes:
E= (sin y + cos y ) x freq. (C/L)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38598073/Unified-Field
If we know exactly how things change, according to this law, we will know the relations among its different phenomena, like climate, which is a part of the field through temperature.
M.Vukcevic has found its close relation with changes in the GMF:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC19.htm
All elements of the field change in a certain relation, thus in this case magnetism, gravity, etc.,etc.(among these etc. is temperature)
Thus, changes can be observed not only with a thermometer but with a compass or by checking changes in gravity acceleration (which can be done with an Ipod and a ad-hoc software).
Last but not the least, I want to share with you the surprising finding that some members of the Solar System, our Moon among them, have a NEGATIVE emission field, i.e. they SUCK energy from the surrounding environment:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/39599960/Planets-Field
Stephen: There was a TSI solar thread over at WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/15/new-ideas-on-total-solar-irradiance-and-flares/
I injected the ‘Hot-Water-Bottle’ idea of yours into the thread. FYI—–
Considering how important TSI is, wondering why no one showed up over there.
I’ll read this article and thread with interest.
Thanks johnny,
I had a look at that TSI thread but didn’t see a need to contribute.
You will have noticed Dr. Svalgaard’s negative comments on anything that suggests the sun might have a significant climate effect.
In common with everyone else he takes the view that an active sun warms all the layers of the atmosphere together.
If verified, the findings of Joanna Haigh cause him some difficulty.
Adolfo,
I think some of your post makes too much of an imaginative leap but the reference to vukcevic’s work could be relevant.
I’ve made some play of the role of solar protons in apparently depleting ozone above 45Km when the sun is more active.
Those protons are charged particles and follow the Earth’s magnetic field lines so they are directed in at the poles where the ozone holes occur.
I wonder whether that accounts for the correlations that vuk has noted with regard to the magnetic field and climate changes ?
@ Stephen Wilde says:
October 18, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Dear Stephen:
I have had many errors in my perhaps too imaginative ideas in the past, up to now, when I am sure I have found the relation of the elements of the field. This time I am sure. Please take your time to revise the files I gave above.
Our entanglement comes from the fact that we have tried to explain everything by trying to make it every time more difficult; by returning to a simple two dimensional analysis we can find how two opposite forces combine in a triangle of forces, being each one interdependent from each other.
Without commenting on the correctness of Adolfo’s insight, I wonder if he has any idea how we would resolve the forces involved in the climate system to his two component field theory?
For example, how are wind, evaporation, albedo and ocean/air temperature difference going to be reduced to gravity and emission?
Sorry, Adolfo, I didn’t mean to suggest that you were imagining your findings, only that it seemed a bit of a leap to translate them into a significant climate response.
tallbloke raises the right question.
I agree on the ‘entanglement’ issue. Hence my attempt to build something from observations plus first principles.
@ tallbloke says:
October 18, 2010 at 5:14 pm
For example, how are wind, evaporation, albedo and ocean/air temperature difference going to be reduced to gravity and emission?
If , as it seems, we are entering in a solar minimum, a reduction of the emission field is expected, considering in this all the lighter elements, from water, gases (the atmosphere’s already shrinking), to energy reduction (heat), but, as gravity is 180 degrees apart from the rest we should expect proportional increases in its acceleration (which, of course, relates with topics of such relations you have touched here). As Michelle’s work:
http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/?p=11023&cpage=1#comment-31981
And, btw, it has to be analyzed variations in the magnetic and electric fields.
So, gathering data is needed, not only through the use of thermometers.
@Tallbloke:
It is for more educated, more intelligent people, to develop all the possible consequences in each field. I guess I had only a flash of the truth which is out there at the “Topos Uranos” and it was there, ALWAYS before our eyes. However better we do not talk of these things as far as they should be violently rejected by those who preach the supposed chaotic nature of the universe.
Adolfo, I agree with you that chaos is an illusion brought on by a lack of knowledge. It’s the lazy thinkers answer to the unknown. And if the whole of the universe can be explained by two variables then it can probably be explained by one. The tricky bit is to be able to integrate the manifold into the unity.
“Solve et coagula” as the alchemists put it.
tallbloke says:
October 18, 2010 at 6:44 pm
“The alchemical marriage”, where the two opposed forces meet. Anyway, it is for dedicated people who manage to deal with details, the task of applying these principles to, from making a new compound where the opposite reactants engage in an harmonic way, to the big events of gravity, magnetism, and all which are born in this electric universe when every time love reunites opposites.
BTW. I did not get the Sun’s eccentricity (of course in its movement around the barycenter); it is expected to be the highest as it is its emissions’ field. It surprised me also Mercury’s high emission…at the earth we are no so bad.
A lot to play with.
During the last February 8.9 earthquake in Chile, the watchman of a school and his wife survived, thanks to an accelerator connected to an alarm: They went out five minutes before the quake.
Stephen Wilde says:
“The system being used by the entire climatological establishment is fundamentally
flawed and must not be relied upon as a basis for policy decisions of any kind.”
You 100% right, Stephen, the current climate paradigm has many failings. I think your broad ‘top down’ approach to the development of a new climate premise is more likely to bear fruit than trying to build one bottom up, based on scant observations and inadequate theories
The climate system is is driven by deterministic chaos and involves many non-linear over-lapping interdependent mechanisms. Scrutinising each separate bits in detail and hoping to understand the whole is not the way forward.
The basics of climate are simple:-
E in + E stored = E used to do work + E out via turbulence (MEP)
Just keep watching the ball under the walnut shells as they are moved around. Is it where you thought it was, or somewhere else?
Stephen Wilde says: “There is no such assumption. If anything the clouds increase as they migrate equatorward because they have to cover a larger area of the Earth’s sphere.”
Really? Show me data that confirms this. This is simply another assumption on your part.
You wrote, “No, what matters is the intensity of solar radiation incoming not the portion of incoming that is reflected.”
That’s right. But the angle at which the solar radiation is reflected (your angle of incedence) has no bearing on the DSR at the surface.
You wrote, “If the sun is at an angle of 88 degrees to the Earth’s surface then a different amount of energy is incoming at a specific location than if it were at an angle of 86 degrees.”
The angle of the sun to the surface of the Earth is not being discussed here, Stephen. Nice try at misdirection. Your argument is about the engle of incidence with the clouds, not the surface.
You wrote, “To oppose my point you would have to show that the clouds consistently reduce in size or density as they shift equatorward or consistently increase in size or density as they move poleward. Both propositions are highly unlikely.”
Actually, you must provide something that supports your conjecture. It’s not my role to prove you wrong. It’s your role to prove yourself right, and you have not done that.
You wrote, “And there is lots more in my work that has never been adequately addressed.”
Have you looked? I always seem to find papers that contradict your conjectures, but there’s no need for me to do your research for you.
“The angle of the sun to the surface of the Earth is not being discussed here, Stephen. Nice try at misdirection. Your argument is about the engle of incidence with the clouds, not the surface.”
Pardon me ?
It has always been about the amount of energy that would have reached the surface and entered the oceans if the cloud had not been there. A cloud at the equator blocks more incoming energy than the same cloud further away from the equator.
Shading a point on the Earth’s surface nearer to the equator blocks more incoming energy than shading a point further from the equator.
Furthermore simple geography shows that with a higher proportion of land masses in the northern hemisphere a shift in the jets poleward would expose more ocean surfaces nearer to the equator to solar input and it is input to the oceans that matters most.
Unless of course there is a consistent change in the size and density of the cloud at the same time as it moves latitudinally but I see no evidence of that.
“If anything the clouds increase as they migrate equatorward because they have to cover a larger area of the Earth’s sphere.”
Really? Show me data that confirms this. This is simply another assumption on your part”
Are you not familiar with the physical characteristics of a spherical body ?
The circumference increases as one moves latitude from pole to equiator so the amount of cloud required to maintain coverage would increase. Similarly the length of the interfaces between air masses of different types would increase and it is at such interfaces that clouds tend to form due to the temperature and humidity differentials.
The ITCZ is longer than the jets situated poleward of it.
“Actually, you must provide something that supports your conjecture. It’s not my role to prove you wrong. It’s your role to prove yourself right, and you have not done that.”
Have you read my first review here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6482
In which I have moved on to provide links to supporting evidence ?
In any event no one can ‘prove’ oneself right if the data does not yet exist. I have told you several times the data we would need and it is now coming forward but only slowly with more modern techniques.
If verified the Haigh paper would be a large step forward for me as regards what I always felt was really going on in the upper atmosphere in relation to solar variability.
I’ve made my ‘model’ easy to destroy. If the stratosphere does not cool naturally when the sun is more active then I have to go back to the drawing board. I have previously given you lots of examples of real world events that could falsify what I say but I still await something of that nature actuially happening.
Can you show me a time when the jets moved poleward with a warming stratosphere ?
Or the jets not shifting latitudinally in tune with shifts in the ITCZ ?
Or cloud volumes and densities changing to compensate for the changing shading effect of latitudinal shifts in the jets ?
No you cannot, so come back to me when you do have something.
I’ve also told you that the short term events that appear not to fit my scenario are all a result of the fact that in the short term the ever present chaotic variability of the system overrides the background signal and I think that pretty much all of your precious ENSO phenomenon is of that short term nature. One has to go to the multidecadal ocean oscillations to start discerning the underlying truth. That is the timescale at which the link between SSTs and shifting jets starts to override the short term phenomena and become more clearly noticeable.
On centennial timescales it’s pretty obvious to my mind but you admit that you choose not to consider the broader long term picture. That’s your privilege.
Gentlemen, please could I suggest you both take a breather and have a look at this interesting paper by Jonathan Drake:
Click to access Global_Historical_Climatology_Network_5.pdf
There are some nuggets in there concerning insolation at various latitudes which may help inform and refocus the discussion. There are valid elements in both of your views. Please don’t come to blows here unnecessarily.
Stephen: where you say:
“in the short term the ever present chaotic variability of the system overrides the background signal and I think that pretty much all of your precious ENSO phenomenon is of that short term nature.”
I think Bob is fully aware that if a big El Nino is followed by an equally big La Nina, then the result is pretty much a zero sum. He said as much in a comment on WUWT yesterday. So you don’t need to insert inflammatory words like “precious” here.
In Bob’s seminal post ‘Can El Nino explain all of post 1975 warming?” (I paraphrase the post title, and I hope Bob will supply the link), I don’t think he is making strong claims about ultimate causation anyway. Going beyond the data is not his way. 😉
In our theorizing, both Stephen and I have come to the conclusion that solar input is held within and released by the oceans over longish timescales. Our search for the mechanisms involved in the sequestering and release of that solar energy is aided in large measure by Bob’s excellent work in dissecting and presenting the SST and OHC records.
I think Bob’s constructive criticisms of our conjectures and hypotheses are helpful and shouldn’t be taken in a negative way.
Errata: The file above: …..scribd.com/doc/39599960/Planets-Field was wrong. The correct file can be found in:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/39646616/Planets-Field
Stephen Wilde says: “Likewise the Haigh finding that on the basis of recent observations the models might have the sign wrong for the solar effect on parts of the atmosphere?”
Did you bother to read the study? Or did you just skim the abstract for a portion you liked? Did you read the press release in eScience?
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/10/06/study.sheds.new.light.how.sun.affects.earths.climate
They write: “Professor Joanna Haigh, the lead author of the study who is Head of the Department of Physics and member of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said: ‘These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun’s effect on our climate. However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun’s activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly.'”
Three years? You’re falling for a study that examines three years of data?
They continue, “‘We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period and we need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun’s activity.'”
And what do you do? You jump to conclusions.
“And what do you do? You jump to conclusions.”
I would say that I am taking her data, integrating it with other data, interpreting it in the light of observations and finding that I had already created a hypothesis that fitted her data.
The interesting feature being that prior to her report being published I had created a hypothesis that anticipated exactly what she says she found.
Now we just need to wait and see whether her observations are verified. I am comfortable with that because a poleward shift in the jets requires a cooling stratosphere and the jets moved poleward in the MWP when human CO2 and CFCs were not an issue so I am reasonably confident that she has stumbled on to a fundamental truth.
But we shall see.
“I think Bob’s constructive criticisms of our conjectures and hypotheses are helpful and shouldn’t be taken in a negative way.”
I am happy to take constructive criticisms. Perhaps Bob could adopt a milder tone and make less personal assertions and perhaps even note more carefully the difference between what I do say and what I do not say ?
I think his ENSO work is marvellous and have complimented it often.
“tallbloke says:
October 19, 2010 at 6:21 am
Gentlemen, please could I suggest you both take a breather and have a look at this interesting paper by Jonathan Drake:
http://www.trevoole.co.uk/Questioning_Climate/Global_Historical_Climatology_Network_5.pdf”
Thanks tallbloke. I’ve had a quick look and the insolation variations that are noted seem to me to be entirely consistent with latitudinally shifting cloud cover and consequential albedo changes.
It is clear that the amount of variability in the northern hemisphere is greater than that in the southern hemisphere. That is consistent with the greater land area in the north producing more volatile changes in cloud cover as the jets moved poleward during the period in question.
One generally sees much more variability in cloud cover over continents as opposed to over oceans.
The unexplained small increase in insolation during the period could well be down to more sunlight hitting the surface as the cloud bands moved poleward leaving more equatorward regions with less cloud cover.
Now you can play calculating the actual energy emitted by the whole emission system of the Earth, by using the Unified Field equation:
E= (Sin y + Cos y)(V/D)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38598073/Unified-Field
Where Gravity= Sin Y= 0.981
Rest of the Field=Cos Y =0.019, where it is = 0.19 Nm
V=Earth velocity around its axis in m/s
D=Earth Diameter.
And, of course, the result is in Joules/second.
Now, you can have, also in consideration the Moon which “sucks” at perigee and emits at apogee:
Moon (a) at eccentricity=0,026
-2,24915291288904 Nm
Moon (b) at eccentricity=0,077
+9,40962149507112 Nm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/39678117/Planets-Moon-Field
Stephen, I read your paper that was linked above and noticed you said:
“That is why the stratosphere cooled during the late 20th Century period of a highly active sun although the higher levels of the atmosphere warmed. The higher levels were warmed by direct solar impacts but the stratosphere cooled because energy was going up faster than it was being received from the troposphere below.”
..and much else that seems to indicate that you believe tropospheric emissions have to work their way through the upper layers of the atmosphere being absorbed and re-emitted. Is that right? That is not true.
I have a link here to a paper that you should probably read: “A detailed evaluation of the stratospheric heat budget” (!Warning 58Mb pdf!)
Click to access MlynczakEtAl_1999.pdf
In it the authors draw two important conclusions:
1. The stratosphere is in radiative equilibrium on monthly timescales.
2. There is a balance between the total amount of solar radiation absorbed and the infrared energy emitted by the stratosphere.
What that means is that there is no measurable tropospheric contribution to the energy budget of the stratosphere. Outward-bound tropospheric emissions pass right on through the stratosphere and out to space.
You may want to revise your NCM.
Thank you Brego, I’ll have a look at that but in the meantime how, if there is a radiative equilibrium in the stratosphere on monthly timescales, do we manage to observe multidecadal temperature changes in the stratosphere which appear to be of the opposite sign to the level of solar activity. Cooling when the sun was very active and now a cessation of cooling and possibly a warming trend now that the sun is less active.
Until the stratosphere stopped warming around 2000 one could have answered that question in the way that standard climatology does by suggesting that extra CO2 keeps energy in the troposphere for a little longer so that the stratosphere cools but that contradicts your assertion too does it not ?
Or one could say that the action of sunlight on varying amounts ozone in the stratosphere is the primary cause of changes so that our CFCs in depleting ozone unnaturally were responsible for the observed stratospheric cooling but that does not fit well with the recent Haigh data that shows anomalous increases in ozone (and thus warming) above 45Km when the sun is quiet.
So unless you can deal logically with those issues it would be premature of me to alter the NCM.
Brego, I think that the significant point you may be making is that at each level of the atmosphere the temperature at that level radiates directly to space from that level without affecting the temperature of the molecules above.
I can accept that as one moves upward the non radiative processes of energy transfer such as conduction,convection, evaporation and condensation become progressively less significant but even in the stratosphere there are some such processes involved.
Then there is the issue of an upward energy flux which I have often seen mentioned along with the suggestion that there can be variations in the upward progression of such a flux for example from certain types of wave phenomena.
And then again the fact that when the thermosphere warmed from the recent more active sun the mesosphere and stratosphere both cooled whilst the troposphere warmed and the ocean heat content increased showing that even if we limit discussion to solar effects on ozone there are differential effects at different levels and in particular that discontinuity in the ozone reactions that Haigh seems to have found at about 45Km.
Many scientists of repute suggest that virtually all climate variability is a consequence of internal system variability with little or no solar effects needed. Yet we see that the temperature of the stratosphere and the height of the tropopause are fundamental to the air pressure distribution in the troposphere below. Therefore if the stratospheric temperatures responded only to solar effects from above there would be no room for any such internal system variability affecting the stratosphere.
So for lots of reason that paper, though it may be correct in its own terms, does not seem consistent with the variability seen in the real world.
Can you deal with any of those points so that I can decide whether I do need to modify the NCM ?