As in other religions, most Earth worshipers are more or less hypocritical. Spend a day being “good”, spend the rest of the year failing.

Or maybe just fail every day…

Unless you live your life in as Spartan a manner as Ted Kaczynski, you are probably as big a drain on Earth’s resources as anyone else. I wonder how many people will drive to a tree-planting ceremony today, putting many more times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as that single tree will ever remove? (Of course, when the tree dies, it’s mostly all released again anyway).

Some people mistakenly believe the internet has little impact on our resources:

Of course, we could go into the dark side of the environmental movement, which inevitably involves population control of one kind or another (usually forced upon some far-away people of a different skin color…not upon the enforcers):

I mostly find Earth Day just plain annoying for the rank hypocrisy on display. A state-sponsored religious day of worship, along with all of the 1st Amendment-violating regulations to codify it.

Maybe a nice bonfire to celebrate for those so inclined.

But for me,…

I frequently see the assertion made that infrared (IR) radiation cannot warm a water body because IR only affects the skin (microns of water depth), whereas solar radiation is absorbed over water depths of meters to tens of meters.

Before discussing the issue, though, we first must agree that temperature and temperature change of a body is related to rates of energy gain and energy loss by that body. If we cannot agree on the basic concept that temperature changes when energy gain does not equal energy loss, then there is no basis for further discussion.

If the surface of a water body is emitting IR, then IR must be part of its energy budget, and therefore of its temperature. Evaporation only occurs at the skin, and we know that evaporation is the major component of heat loss by water bodies. How is it that evaporation can perform this function, and IR cannot?

The temperature of land clearly is affected by IR, and that only occurs at the surface of the soil. So, how can IR affect land temperature and not ocean temperature?

If you claim that any additional IR (say, due to increasing carbon dioxide) is immediately lost by the water body through evaporation, how exactly does that occur? The surface doesn’t know why it has the temperature it does, it will evaporate water based (partly) on surface temperature, and it does not distinguish where the heat comes from (solar radiation from above, mixing from below, IR from above, sensible heat flux across the air/water interface). To claim that any energy gain from IR is immediately lost by evaporation is just an assertion.

NEVERTHELESS…

It might well be that solar radiation is more efficient (on a Watt per Watt basis) than IR radiation at changing ocean temperature. In other words, that IR warming of a water body is more likely to be lost through evaporation, since its warming effect does occur only at the surface, and so that energy is more likely to be lost through evaporation than absorbed solar radiation would be.

The effect would be greatest during low wind conditions, when vertical mixing of the water is weakest.

From what little I know of ocean modelling, this potential effect – which I presume is what people are talking about — is not taken into account. I suspect it would have to be parameterized, because it occurs on such a small scale. As far as I know, a Watt of IR is treated the same as a Watt of solar in the energy budget of the top ocean layer in a model.

I would like to hear what others know about this issue. I suspect it is something that would have to be investigated with a controlled experiment of some sort.

The title of this post is a purposeful play on the title of a 2010 paper by Lacis, Schmidt, Rind, and Ruedy, entitled Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature.

In that paper, the authors claimed that the existence of CO2 is what provides enough warming to keep the Earth from becoming an ice planet. They also claim that, because CO2 is “non-condensing” (whereas water vapor, Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, does condense) this gives it special status as some sort of primary control knob governing Earth temperatures.

That latter argument has never quite convinced me of anything…both CO2 and water vapor have various sources and sinks, and just because water vapor goes through a phase change and CO2 doesn’t is, in my mind, irrelevant. Yes, the CO2 source/sink processes act more slowly than the water vapor ones (evaporation and precipitation) do, but on the long time scales of Earth’s history, who cares?

But the main point of the current post is to stimulate some thought regarding another possibility regarding how we view carbon dioxide: rather than the existence of CO2 being the primary warming mechanism of climate, maybe it is the existence of life on Earth which provides the primary cooling mechanism.

Think about this: What is the natural state of of the planets closest to Earth? Both Mars and Venus have atmospheres which are nearly 100% carbon dioxide. Presumably, without life on Earth, we too would have a planet with nearly 100% CO2.

So doesn’t it make more sense to use THAT as a starting point for discussion, rather than a hypothetical Earth with NO carbon dioxide?

The small amount of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere (about 4 parts per 10,000) is presumably due to biological processes “sucking on” that “food” source as hard as possible (further evidenced by the fact that our production of CO2 through fossil fuel burning is 50% consumed by natural processes).

So, maybe it is life on Earth that should be viewed as the primary CO2 cooling mechanism for the Earth’s climate system, by reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations from nearly 10,000 parts per 10,000, to only 4 parts per 10,000.

Just thinking out loud…

Now that the CERES radiative flux products from the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites have been updated through October, 2013, I thought I would update the comparison between global average SST variations and CERES to examine forcing and feedback issues.

As in my recent post on SSM/I ocean variables, all plots below are for the global area-average ice-free ocean between 60 deg. North and South latitudes.

Starting with the SST variations, with the anomalies computed relative to the CERES period (March 2000 thru October 2013), we see that global average SST is reasonably well correlated with ENSO activity, which I am representing with the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI). (Linear trend lines are for entertainment purposes only).

The corresponding CERES radiative flux anomalies computed over the ocean also show a response to ENSO activity.

But in order to put the above pieces of the puzzle together, I have found that lag regression between SST and the other variables leads to considerable physical insight. The following plot shows how different variables change before and after SST during the 13+ year CERES period of record.

We see that 12-18 months before peak SST is reached, there is a radiative accumulation of energy, both solar shortwave (SW) and infrared longwave (LW). (Net is close to the sum of the two, but with the sign flipped, so that positive numbers represent energy lost by the climate system).

The curve based upon SSM/I cloud water shows that there is a ~1% decrease in cloud water over the ocean about 9-18 months before peak SST anomalies of ~0.1 deg. C are reached, which probably explains the solar SW curve. This is the “internal radiative forcing” we talk about…the climate system’s cloud cover is not constant, and varies depending on circulation regime (El Nino or La Nina), creating a forcing of later temperature change.

As peak temperatures are approached (at zero time lag), the radiative fluxes change to a net loss, which continues for many months as SSTs then cool.

As long-time loyal readers of my blog are aware, the regression relationships at zero time lag are what are traditionally used to estimate feedbacks in the climate system, a methodology which I (and Lindzen) believe is seriously in error. Since feedbacks determine climate sensitivity, and sensitivity determines how much anthropogenic global warming there will be, this is a critical issue.

I’ve spent years studying this problem in considerable detail, and I don’t see any way yet to diagnose feedback (the radiative response to a temperature change) when there is a simultaneous, unknown, radiative forcing of temperature change going on.

The climate system is constantly out of balance, and without knowing how much internal radiative forcing is occurring, you can’t know the size of the net feedback. Radiative forcing always opposes net radiative feedback, and if forcing is occurring, any estimate of feedback is biased in the direction of positive feedback (high climate sensitivity).

We have three papers published on this (Lindzen has others), and as far as I can tell, the climate community still does not understand the implications of our work.

What we do know is that the climate models we have analyzed show relationships that depart significantly from the observations, and in the direction of high climate sensitivity. Our most significant papers on this, which I fully stand behind, are here and here. (The latter paper is the one that led to the journal editor resigning and apologizing to Trenberth for allowing to be published…even though it was peer reviewed, and never retracted.)

This is a subject on which the scientific consensus, as far as I can tell, is clueless. Attempts to refute our work have been feeble at best. Andy Dessler claims the radiative signals are all feedback (no “internal forcing”) and are a response to previous temperature changes.

Well, if that is the case (as I have asked him), why doesn’t he then use a time lag in his feedback diagnoses? As Lindzen has shown, when this is done you diagnose strong negative feedback. Oops…wrong answer for the IPCC.

To paraphrase Trenberth, we can’t account for the IPCC’s continuing to ignore this issue, and it is a travesty that we can’t. 😉

For those interested in the data which went into the above plots, here is the spreadsheet.

It’s been over 11 years since the late novelist Michael Crichton advanced the hypothesis that aliens cause global warming.

I decided it was time to test his claim with real data.

Well, sure enough, the monthly UFO reports in recent decades are highly correlated with the increase in global ocean heat content. In fact, the relationship is so strong, if this was an epidemiological study it would be time to regulate UFOs.

Between 1979 and 2011 the number of UFO reports has been increasing right along with the average temperature of the upper 700 meters of ocean:

The correlation between UFO reports and ocean temperature is over 0.95, clearly better than the correlation between that boring old carbon dioxide and ocean warming:

In fact, note the tendency for CO2 to follow ocean temperature , suggesting a weak tendency for warming ocean water to outgas CO2 (or reduce the uptake of atmospheric CO2). In other words, warming causes a CO2 increase, versus the common view that CO2 causes warming. In contrast, the peak correlation between UFO reports and ocean temperature is at zero time lag. UFOs visit, the ocean warms.

(And for you alien deniers out there, here’s the spreadsheet with the data and links.)

But correlation isn’t necessarily causation. We need some sort of hypothesized mechanism for how — any maybe why — aliens cause global warming.

My hypothesis is that the extraterrestrials’ spaceships have some sort of powerful heat generators which are dumping energy into the ocean. Maybe an antigravity-based thermogenic flux capacitor technology (that’s just a guess…I’m only a rocket scientist, not a nuclear physicist or movie star).

But why? Why are the aliens trying to warm our oceans?

Do they come from a warm waterworld? Do they want to colonize our ocean after it is sufficiently heated up? Or are we just the proverbial frogs in a pot of water on the stove?

Clearly, aliens like warmer weather, because there is a strong annual cycle in UFO reports, with the peak number of visitations in July, which is when global average temperatures also peak:

This is also consistent with the fact that aliens are known to not have any fur, let alone any clothes, probably because their home planets are so warm:

Or, maybe they just like to people-watch. More people are out and about in the summer. That would make abductions easier, too. A two-fer.

On an unrelated matter, I’ve also been working on a new generalized theory of where straight lines come from. Since they are all perfectly correlated with one another, I believe they have a common origin…maybe a super line that extends to infinity and beyond, which generates all other, lesser lines. But the linear algebra is proving to be kinda messy. Stay tuned.

Finally, I’d like to conclude with a quote from Mark Twain:

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

A Closing Thought I talked with Michael Crichton before his death about his experiences getting involved in the global warming debate through his lectures, his book State of Fear (in which John Christy and I were represented by a lady scientist), and his congressional testimony on the subject of climate change. I think he believed he was doing a public service, but the politicization of the issue (and the way he was treated in congress) took him totally by surprise. That left a bad taste in his mouth, and he said he would no longer be involved in the climate issue. This is a crazy business we work in, and most sane people choose not to get involved in the public debate.

My research field of satellite passive microwave remote sensing took off like a rocket (pun intended) when the first Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I, built by Hughes Aircraft) was launched in mid-1987 on the DoD series of weather satellites (DMSP).

We SO anticipated that first instrument…good calibration, and high frequency channels to estimate precipitation over land. The previous NASA instruments (ESMR-5, -6, and SMMR) were a good start, but had limited channel selection and less than optimal calibration strategies.

The SSM/I instrument series was later redesigned to incorporate the temperature sounding channels (SSMIS, built by Aerojet). (By the way, we don’t use these in our UAH global temperature monitoring work, since we receive very little money to produce the UAH datasets and incorporating an entirely new series of instruments would be a major effort).

But the real benefit of the SSM/I series of satellite sensors was the production of the “ocean suite” of products: integrated water vapor, surface wind speed, integrated cloud water, and rain rate. These continue to be produced by several investigators, and I use those produced by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).

To help interpret the SSM/I measurements, let’s start with the HadSST3 sea surface temperatures (SSTs) measured since July, 1987, which is when SSM/I data first became available. (All of the following time series are monthly global anomalies since July, 1987; some have trailing 6-month averages plotted as well). It shows the well-known warming up until the 1997/98 El Nino, then roughly level temperatures since then.

The first SSM/I field to address is total vertically-integrated water vapor, which closely follows the SST variations:

The water vapor variations lag the SST variations by an average of one month. A regression relationship reveals an average 10.2% increase in vapor per deg. C increase in SST. This is larger than the theoretically-expected value of 6.5% to 7% increase, a discrepancy which can be interpreted in different ways (more evaporative cooling of the ocean stabilizing the climate, or more water vapor feedback destabilizing the climate — take your pick).

Next, let’s examine the surface wind speed variations from SSM/I. These have been compared to literally millions of buoy wind measurements, and are quite accurate. In fact, I would wager these are by far the best estimate of changes in global ocean wind speed we have:

We see there was a slight (1-2%) increase in ocean wind speed from before the 1997/98 El Nino to after, which at least qualitatively might be supportive of Trenberth’s claim of increase ocean heat storage and surface cooling temporarily cancelling out anthropogenic global surface warming. I have not looked into whether a 1-2% change in wind speed could have such an effect, so feel free to comment on this. Note also that the last year or so hints at a reversal of this increase back to pre-1998 wind speeds. If wind speeds remain at the lower level, it will be interesting to see if surface warming resumes. I’m making no predictions on this.

The SSM/I rain rate variations are always quite noisy. Warm conditions tend to show more rainfall, but the strong 1997/98 El Nino curiously shows little effect, and there is a hint of increasing ocean rainfall in recent years:

Finally, let’s look at what I think is the most interesting SSM/I variable from a climate change standpoint, total integrated cloud liquid water (CLW):

The variations in cloud water show some interesting low-frequency behavior. I have previously discussed the fact that these cloud water variations are correlated with CERES-measured net radiative flux, and so provide a proxy measurement for the net radiative imbalance over the ocean which suggest some portion of recent warming was simple due to a natural decrease in cloud cover.

The updated regression relationship I get is 0.24 W/m2 loss in Net (solar plus IR) radiative energy for each percent increase in SSM/I cloud water, a scale factor we can then apply to the cloud water graph to get a Net radiative flux graph:

Why use an SSM/I estimate of CERES Net radiative flux, instead of CERES directly? Mostly because CERES is available only since 2000, whereas SSM/I is available since 1987. But also, the CERES measurements are very difficult, with the reflected solar flux (which dominates the CERES-SSM/I relationship) having a strong angular dependence. The SSM/I measurements are instead thermally-based (microwave emission) and have no such angular dependence. Finally, radiative fluxes are so important (e.g. being the basis for global warming theory) that any independent means of estimating them are worth looking into.

Be careful in interpreting the estimated radiative fluxes in Fig. 6 because they could have an offset. Since the anomalies I compute (by definition) sum to zero over the entire time series, that means the total time-integrated radiative energy flux also sums to zero. So, while the graph in Fig. 6 suggests energy loss by the global oceans over the last 5 years, it could be the whole curve needs to be shifted upward. There is no way to know. The CERES fluxes have already been adjusted to match the increase in oceanic heat content, which was a logical thing for the CERES Team to do since the absolute accuracy of CERES is ~10 W/m2, whereas the increase in ocean heat content in recent years (IF you believe the warming estimates) correspond to only a few tenths of a W/m2 imbalance. The main value in the graph is to identify possible changes over time.

Others might see some relationships in the above plots that I haven’t noticed; I’ve made the Excel spreadsheet available for those who want to play with the data.

(Note that a possible El Nino this year would temporarily dominate everything else, as would any La Nina afterward. I’m instead talking about the longer term evolution of the cloud cover of the global oceans and what it might mean for global temperatures on decadal time scales.)

The Version 5.6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2014 is +0.17 deg. C, unchanged from February (click for full size version):

The global, hemispheric, and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 15 months are:

YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2013 1 +0.497 +0.517 +0.478 +0.386
2013 2 +0.203 +0.372 +0.033 +0.195
2013 3 +0.200 +0.333 +0.067 +0.243
2013 4 +0.114 +0.128 +0.101 +0.165
2013 5 +0.082 +0.180 -0.015 +0.112
2013 6 +0.295 +0.335 +0.255 +0.220
2013 7 +0.173 +0.134 +0.211 +0.074
2013 8 +0.158 +0.111 +0.206 +0.009
2013 9 +0.365 +0.339 +0.390 +0.190
2013 10 +0.290 +0.331 +0.249 +0.031
2013 11 +0.193 +0.160 +0.226 +0.020
2013 12 +0.266 +0.272 +0.260 +0.057
2014 1 +0.291 +0.387 +0.194 -0.029
2014 2 +0.170 +0.320 +0.020 -0.103
2014 3 +0.170 +0.337 +0.002 -0.002

Potential 2014-15 El Nino Discussion

With the possibility of an El Nino developing later this year (still considered a 50% probability in the latest Climate Prediction Center discussion), there is the possibility of a new record high global temperature if the El Nino is sufficiently strong enough. I personally don’t think this is going to happen, because we are in the negative phase of the PDO (which favors stronger La Nina and weaker El Nino).

If El Nino does develop, peak tropospheric warmth as measured by the satellites tends to lag the surface warming. John Christy sent me this summary of past El Ninos during the satellite record:

82-83 peaked in Mar
86-87 peaked in Feb (86-88 was a weird one)
87-88 peaked in Dec
91-92 fouled up by Pinatubo
94-95 peaked in Apr
97-98 peaked in Apr (just above Feb)
02-03 peaked in Jan
04-05 peaked in Apr
06-07 peaked in Jan
09-10 peaked in Mar

Of course, an El Nino at the end of the record will increase the global temperature trend…at least temporarily…but El Nino is often followed by a cool La Nina, which would basically cancel out that effect.

The global image for March should be available in the next day or so here.

Popular monthly data files (these might take a few days to update):

uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt (Lower Troposphere)
uahncdc_mt_5.6.txt (Mid-Troposphere)
uahncdc_ls_5.6.txt (Lower Stratosphere)

For the last few days I’ve been trying to think of some crazy, almost-believable angle to illustrate the absurdity of the current global warming movement.

Post it on April 1st, and say “Ha! Fooled ya! The warmists didn’t really say that…but I made you think they did!”

Alas, the global warming alarmists have already used up all of the crazy ideas themselves. As far as they are concerned, global warming causes everything.

More rain AND less rain. Check.

More snow AND less snow. Check.

More hurricanes AND fewer hurricanes. Check.

You get the idea.

And, once you get journalists’ imaginations involved, it gets even crazier. Earthquakes. Meteor strikes. These are people who actually think the movie Gravity was filmed in outer space.

(OK, so some scientists also are on the warming-causes-earthquakes bandwagon. I guess that makes them as smart as journalists.)

Now, as the new 2014 IPCC report is revealed, we find that a lack of warming for 15+ years has the experts even more concerned than ever. So, the greater the amount of good news on the global warming front, the greater their hand-wringing.

How can we make fun of them when they are already parodying themselves?? It’s disheartening.

So, I would like to add an item to that long list of things that global warming is destroying…

…global warming is destroying April Fools Day.

The latest report of Working Group II of the IPCC, entitled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, was approved yesterday. In it, the concept of the “risks” posed by human-induced climate change figures prominently.

Now, I can understand using terms like “possibilities” when it comes to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). It’s theoretically possible that the average warming of the last 50+ years was mostly human-caused, and it’s possible that the slight sea level rise over this time was more human-caused than natural (sea level was rising naturally anyway). But we really don’t know.

And the idea that severe weather, snowstorms, droughts, or floods have gotten worse due to the atmosphere now having 4 parts per 10,000 CO2, rather than 3 parts per 10,000, is even more sketchy. Mostly because there is little or no objective evidence that these events have experienced any long-term increase that is commensurate with warming. (It’s possible they are worse with globally cool conditions…we really don’t know).

But the main point of my article is that the IPCC has bastardized the use of the term “risk”. Talking “possibilities” is one thing, because just about anything is possible in science. But “risk” refers to the known tendency of bad things to happen as a result of some causal mechanism.

Walking across the street raises your risk of being hit by a car. We know this, because it has happened many thousands of times.

Cigarette smoking raises your risk of lung cancer. We know this because it has happened millions of times (and is consistent with other medical evidence that human tissue exposed to repeated injury, anywhere in your body, can result in the formation of cancerous tissue).

But when it comes to climate change, there is no demonstrated causal connection between (A) an extra 1 CO2 molecule per 10,000 molecules of air, and (B) any resulting observed change in weather or climate.

There are theories of how the former might impact the latter. But that’s all.

You cannot use the term “risk” to describe these theoretical possibilities.

The fact that the IPCC has chosen to do so further demonstrates it is an organization that was political in its intended purpose, with the ultimate mission of regulating CO2 emissions, and operates within an echo chamber of like-minded individuals who are chosen based upon their political support of the IPCC’s goals.

Now, you might ask, “Dr. Roy, are you telling me there are NO known risks to adding more CO2 to the atmosphere?”

Well, I can only think of one. There are abundant controlled scientific studies which suggest that more CO2 will cause most vegetation to grow better, with more drought tolerance and more efficient use of water.

If you want to call that a “risk”, fine. But it doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to me, especially given the life-enhancing benefits of access to abundant, low cost forms of energy.

Sure, why not? I can’t believe this explanation wasn’t near the top of the list from the beginning.

If CNN can entertain the possibility that an errant black hole did it, why not global warming?

Look at all the evidence we had from the TV series Lost…but there never was a good explanation for what happened to that flight, right?

How might global warming be involved? Well, let’s see. There are those mysterious megacryometeors (falls of giant pieces of ice, even out of a blue sky), which Jesus Martinez-Frias, a planetary geologist at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, tried to tell me are due to climate change. Maybe one of those smacked the plane.

Or, what about a rogue jet stream, disrupted by global warming, suddenly arising and causing so much tail wind that the jet loses lift and drops out of the sky?

C’mon folks, lets’ use our imaginations! Surely we can do better than black holes!