How clouds hold the key to global warming

Cumuliform cloudscape over Swifts Creek, Australia
[image credit: Wikipedia]

Do we see a chicken and egg conundrum when reading that there’s ‘a project to study how low clouds respond to climate change’? Accurate data on clouds in general is sparse, making any assertions about future climate questionable.
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One of the biggest weaknesses in computer climate models – the very models whose predictions underlie proposed political action on human CO2 emissions – is the representation of clouds and their response to global warming.

The deficiencies in computer simulations of clouds are acknowledged even by climate modelers, says Science under attack (via The GWPF).

Yet cloud behavior is key to whether future warming is a serious problem or not.

Pick Your A-Team: Arrhenius or Ångström

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Since Arrhenius was mentioned in the ‘conversation with Roger Pielke Senior’ post this week, let’s look at his science efforts a bit more closely — with Ron Clutz.

Science Matters

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana 1905

Interesting that Svante Arrhenius was elevated as the founder of AGW belief system. He was ignored for many decades after Knut Ångström and his assistant Herr Koch showed that reducing CO2 concentrations did not affect the amount of IR absorbed by the air. That’s almost as interesting as discovering that shutting down the global economy over fear of Covid19 has little effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

As a fellow Scandinavian, Ångström agreed with Arrhenius that his projected warming would be a good thing, even in the lower estimates Svante made later on. Still, Ångström had two objections to Arrhenius’ conjecture about global warming from increasing CO2. In 1900, Herr J. Koch, laboratory assistant to Knut Ångström, did not observe any appreciable change in the absorption of infrared radiation by decreasing the concentration of CO2 up to a…

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Another conversation with Roger Pielke Senior : What causes Earth’s Greenhouse Effect?

It’s always good to chat with Roger Pielke Senior. He’s informative, and more open minded than most climate scientists. Here’s a transcript of the conversation we just had on twitter.

 

Rog Tallbloke 

@RogTallbloke

 

Roger. Mt Everest summit winter avg -30C. Base camp -17C. Air pressure difference 20kPa. What really causes Earth’s ‘greenhouse effect’, 1% of water vapour + 0.04% CO2 or 100% of atmospheric MASS. Think man, think! CC @RogerAPielkeSr

 

Roger A. Pielke Sr

@RogerAPielkeSr

 

The LW radiative effect of CO2 and water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere is succinctly summarized in https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/05/05/co2h2o/… and https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/08/24/further-analysis-of-radiatve-forcing-by-norm-woods/…

 

 

Relative Roles of CO2 and Water Vapor in Radiative Forcing

In the second edition of our book “Cotton, W.R. and R.A. Pielke, 2007: Human impacts on weather and climate, Cambridge University Press, 330 pp”, we present a new analysis completed for…

pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com

 

 

Basic Physics of the climate: A short debate with Roger Pielke Sr.

It’s always a pleasure to interact with Roger Pielke Sr. A climate scientist who is open to debate, respectful of honestly held opinion, and willing to concede ground where the facts dictate.

Roger A. Pielke Sr@RogerAPielkeSr·1hNice to see sfc moist enthalpy that we proposed being added to the assessment of heat. “Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur” https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/atmosphere/atmosphere-11-00652/article_deploy/atmosphere-11-00652.pdf… Our paper is https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-290.pdf…

Rog Tallbloke @RogTallbloke·1hMy experiment ended today Roger. It took 25ml of water at 20C at sfc pressure 12 days to evaporate compared to 2.5 hours at 20C in 266 times less pressure. What do you think really makes Earth’s surface ~90K warmer than the moon’s; GHGs or atmospheric pressure?

Still waiting for greenhouse: No response to my last email to Roy Spencer

Before the last time I had to dive deeply into politics to defend the EU referendum result, I had an email conversation with Roy Spencer in an attempt to resolve the conflict between physicists like himself, who believe the radiative greenhouse theory is correct, but it’s effect small, and physicists like Ned Nikolov, who contend that the theory is fundamentally incorrect.

After a couple of to and fro emails I sent this response in Feb 2019, to which I never received a reply. It’s time we got this discussion back out in the open, because Boris’ green reset #netzero plan for the UK post Brexit and post pandemic is set to ruin our economy and cause untold suffering, deprivation, and death.

the lukewarmers have utterly failed to convince the fanatics that although they think their theory is correct (it isn’t, but that’s their misguided opinion), they’ve overestimated the magnitude of the effect.

It’s time they stopped supporting the fanatics by deploying false arguments against better theory which will exonerate CO2 and move the debate away from ridiculous and expensive ‘mitigation’, and forward to adaption to the effects of natural climatic change.

Cold air rises—what that means for Earth’s climate

Tropical beach

Are these researchers proposing a kind of reverse greenhouse effect in the tropics?

Conventional knowledge has it that warm air rises while cold air sinks, says Phys.org.

But a study from the University of California, Davis, found that in the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect—the lightness of water vapor.

This effect helps to stabilize tropical climates and buffer some of the impacts of a warming climate.

The study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is among the first to show the profound implications water vapor buoyancy has on Earth’s climate and energy balance.

A question from Ned Nikolov

This looks self-explanatory, so here’s the graphic…

[click on image to enlarge]

NOAA on water vapor – 2019 edition

[click on image to enlarge]

NOAA’s latest offering on this topic is here. Of course we’re pitched into the world of ‘greenhouse gas’ theory. But it seems to be a world of considerable uncertainty, if the phrases highlighted (by the Talkshop) are anything to go by. Most attention is given to CO2 in the media, but it’s only a very minor player in the atmosphere (0.04%). There’s no accepted figure for ‘water vapor’ (NOAA uses US spelling) as exact data doesn’t exist, although ballpark estimates from various readings can be found. Why do greenhouse gas believers obsess about CO2 when they don’t know a lot about what’s going on with water vapor, which is on the face of it far more important to their theory?

Water Vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is why it is addressed here first. However, changes in its concentration is also considered to be a result of climate feedbacks related to the warming of the atmosphere rather than a direct result of industrialization.

The feedback loop in which water is involved is critically important to projecting future climate change, but as yet is still fairly poorly measured and understood.

Why climate predictions are so difficult

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So climate sensitivity… is likely somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees. This result has not changed until today, about 40 years later. And that’s exactly the problem.
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Maybe the problem lies in thinking that that is the problem.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

An insightful interview with Bjorn Stevens.

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Nikolov & Zeller: Reply to Dr Roy Spencer’s blog article.

Confusing Diabatic and Adiabatic Processes within the Climate Theory:

A Reply to Dr. Roy Spencer’s Blog Article “Giving Credit to Willis Eschenbach”

Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.
Physical Scientist

In a recent blog post, Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attempted to criticize and dismiss the importance of our recent discovery about the physical nature of the atmospheric “Greenhouse effect” (Nikolov & Zeller 2017). I normally do not reply to blog articles, but this one reflects a fundamental generic confusion in the current climate theory that is worthwhile addressing for readership clarification. In his blog, Dr. Spencer demonstrated several misconceptions about our work that could be due to either not having read/understood our papers or perhaps an incomplete grasp of thermodynamics. The fact that Dr. Spencer cites a newspaper article about our research instead of the actual published paper may indicate a lack of familiarity with the technical details of our study. These are some key misrepresentations that I spotted in his article:    

1. Dr. Spencer incorrectly referred to our main finding as a “theory” when, in fact, it is a discovery based on vetted NASA data extracted from numerous published studies. This empirical pressure-temperature (P-T) function emerged from reported NASA measurements in the process of Dimensional Analysis, which is an objective technique employed in classical physics to derive/extract physically meaningful relationships from observed data.

Further conversation with Gavin Cawley about climate models

Rog Tallbloke‏@RogTallbloke23h23 hours ago

Even if Ned and Karl just presented the data points on their Ts/Tna vs Pressure graph without any mathematically defined curve, it’d be obvious to most sensible people that there’s a smooth continuum there which strongly resembles other well known pressure temperature relations.

Gavin Cawley‏@Gavin_Cawley23h23 hours ago

Yes, but they didn’t did they? The smooth continuum is also consistent with the greenhouse effect. The thicker the atmosphere, the more GHG and the greater the temperature difference between the surface and effective radiating layer caused by the lapse rate. So why favour N&Z?

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke 23h23 hours ago

Lol. I’ll take that seriously when you produce your smooth curve plot of Ts/Tna vs [radiative parameter]. Until then, you’re just blustering.

Gavin Cawley explains the radiative greenhouse effect

Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.‏ @NikolovScience Oct 31

Here are 2 key issues that you must address when trying to defend the radiative “Greenhouse” hypothesis:

1. How does 240 W m-2 absorbed solar radiation get converted into 342 W m-2 IR back radiation without violating the Energy-Conservation Law?

2. Why there is such a POOR relationship between #CO2 and global T for past 70 My?

• Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  Gavin Cawley Retweeted eli rabett

  The answer is still the same as the last time you ignored it

  Gavin Cawley added,

  

  eli rabett @EthonRaptor

  As Eli has pointed out many times, the 240 W/m2 is the solar input, not the energy the surface and the atmosphere exchange. 462 W/m2 enters the atm from the surface, 79 from the sun = 541 W/m2. 342…

  Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.‏ @NikolovScience Oct 31

  Gavin, this is not sensible answer to my 1st question, but a CIRCULAR argument! Can’t you see it? The 342 W m-2 IR back radiation cannot be explained by surface LW emissions, because then the question becomes, where does the 398 W m-2 surface LW radiation come from?

  Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  I seem to remember I have already explained this to you at least once. Here is the thought experiment. Imaging a black body in a vacuum containing a 1W constant power heat source. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium temperature at which it radiates 1W out into the (1/n)

  Gavin Cawley‏ @Gavin_Cawley Oct 31

  vacuum. Now put a thin shell surrounding, but not touching the sphere, of the same blackbody material. The outgoing sphere will heat the shell, and it too will begin to radiate heat until it too reaches thermal equilibrium. Now the shell will radiate equally out into the (2/n)

A conversation with Brandon Gates on the causes of the ‘greenhouse’ effect

 

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke Oct 7

Hi Brandon, What is the best estimate of the ratio of radiation to space taking place from CO2 relative to H2O?

Brandon R. Gates‏ @brandonrgates Oct 7

Dunno Rog. MODTRAN could probably get you in the ballpark. This is CO2-only from 70 km looking down, more what I would expect an actual Nimbus retrieval to look like. http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/ 

Rog Tallbloke‏ @RogTallbloke 24h24 hours ago

Although CO2 absorbs thermal radiation from the Earth, it emits more. Carbon dioxide is in thermal deficit in terms of radiative balance. Nitrogen and oxygen constantly feed CO2 with heat so that it maintains a temperature higher than its radiative equilibrium. CO2 is a coolant.

Thermodynamics 101: Compression increases temperature.

Question: If I had a container, full with air, and I suddenly decreased the volume of the container, forcing the air into a smaller volume, will it be considered as compression, will it result in an increase in temperature, and why?

Answer on Stack Exchange by Luboš Motl: Yes, it is compression and yes, it will heat up the gas.

If there’s no heat exchange between the gas and the container (or the environment), we call it an adiabatic process. For an adiabatic process involving an ideal gas (which is a very good approximation for most common gases), pV^γ is constant where γ is an exponent such as 5/3. Because the temperature is equal to T=pV/nR and pV/pV^γ=V^1−γ is a decreasing function of V, the temperature will increase when the volume decreases.

Macroscopically, the heating is inevitable because one needs to perform work p|dV| to do the compression, the energy has to be preserved, and the only place where it can go is the interior of the gas given by a formula similar to (3/2)nRT.

Resolving misconceptions about the Nikolov and Zeller universal theory of climate

We’ve been having a good knockabout on twitter with Patrick Moore concerning Ned and Karl’s Pressure-Insolation theory; their discovery that a simple formula using surface pressure and solar distance will accurately give you the surface temperature on vastly different planets and moons throughout the solar system.

Figure 4: The relative atmospheric thermal enhancement, observed surface T/No -atmosphere T (Ts/Tna ratio) as a function of the average surface air pressure according to Eq. (10a) derived from data representing a broad range of planetary environments in the solar system.

Patrick is a great guy, and a good sport, and has been mostly putting up with Ned’s jibes and arguing his corner. I thought it might help others to understand Ned and Karl’s ideas if we look at a few of the objections Patrick raises and our answers to them.

Worst-case global warming scenarios not credible: study

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

But the researchers are still hooked on the unlikely idea that trace gases alone can ‘determine’ variations in global temperatures, despite lack of correlation in the data and poor results from climate model ‘projections’.

Earth’s surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions, reports Phys.org.

A revised calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature reduces the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half, researchers said in the report, published in the journal Nature.

“Our study all but rules out very low and very high climate sensitivities,” said lead author Peter Cox, a professor at the University of Exeter.

Haze keeps Pluto cool by kicking heat out to space, say scientists

Pluto probe

Uncertainty abounds here. Scientists expected –173° Celsius but ‘the probe found temperatures closer to –203° — with no obvious explanation.’ Perhaps there is a place where enlightenment could be found, if they cared to look.

Meanwhile the ‘gas only’ theory is under pressure [sic] again, as Pluto’s atmosphere apparently defies expectations.

Pluto may be the only place in the solar system whose atmosphere is kept cool by solid hazes, not warmed by gas, says Science News.

Blame Pluto’s haze for the dwarf planet’s unexpected chilliness. Clusters of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere radiate heat back into space, keeping the dwarf planet cool, a new study suggests.

WCC4 Rome: Interview with Nikolov and Zeller

I got back from Rome last night following the highly successful World Climate Conference. Quite a number of CO2 sceptics gave presentations, which were politely received and discussed by all present. We even made a few converts. Here’s a short interview I made with Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller where they give their impressions and some insight into their paradigm shifting discovery of the temperature-pressure relationship which holds good across the entire solar system.

Ned and Karl’s two papers are here:

New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse
Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model

On the average temperature of airless spherical bodies and the magnitude of Earth’s atmospheric thermal effect

They show that the uplift in temperature on Earth’s surface due to the presence of the atmosphere is not 33K as the current greenhouse theory states but 90K, and is due to atmospheric pressure at the surface, not the back radiation from ‘greenhouse gases’.

We’ve been following Ned and Karl’s work since 2010 here at the Talkshop. They are finally getting heard in a wider forum.

NASA admits it hasn’t been accurately measuring Earth’s radiation balance

In order to measure Earth’s radiation balance, accurate measurements of both incoming and outgoing radiation have to be made. NASA has been testing a new prototype satellite to measure outgoing radiation from Earth. Up until now, the error on this measurement is estimated to be around +/- 5Wm^2, which means any ‘global warming’ signal is lost in the error margin. This has meant scientists have had to rely on models for estimates.

IPCC AR6 Won’t discuss radiative forcing: ‘Science is settled’

IPCC obviously thinks 'the science is settled' Piers. A cute way of avoiding discussion of recent literature? e.g. https://t.co/m0XLER0AvS

— Rog Tallbloke (@RogTallbloke) August 9, 2017