Explaining different results for climate sensitivity and the low bias

This was a month late at WUWT but better late than never I suppose.  WUWT's current leading blog writer, Eric Worrall, has written about a paper published last month in Nature Climate Change (archived here). The authors, Mark Richardson, Kevin Cowtan, Ed Hawkins and Martin B. Stolpe, had a look at how temperature records are sampled. They found that slower warming regions are preferentially sampled, which means that observations are biased low.

The authors reported that after adjusting for biases, and using observations, the transient climate response (TCR) is 1.66 °C with a 5% to 95% range of 1.0 to 3.3 °C. This is consistent with that derived from climate models considered in the AR5 IPCC report.

A sensitive climate workshop - and freebies from the Royal Society

Some of you will know about the workshop on climate sensitivity that's taking place this week at Ringberg in Germany. The participant list includes some big names in the science world, and will ensure a wide range of views on the subject.

You can read about the workshop at realclimate.org, or visit the website.  You can also follow what's happening on Twitter, by searching #ringberg15. (There are some nuisance denier tweeters, but if you're on Twitter, you can just block or mute them and read what the scientists are tweeting.)

The workshop aims to get a better handle on climate sensitivity (and transient climate response), though I'm not all that optimistic that there'll be agreement on all counts. Here are the questions posed on the website:

Anthony Watts has found another insignificant paper on climate sensitivity

Anthony Watts has found an insignificant and wrong paper on climate sensitivity. He thinks it's significant because it claims that climate sensitivity is only 0.43°C. But what would he know?

It wasn't really Anthony Watts who found the paper. It was one of Anthony's blogging denier mates, "hockeyschtick", who he turns to when he needs to fill a space at WUWT. (WUWT article is archived here.)

This insignificant and wrong paper is in some new (insignificant?) journal that calls itself "Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Change" and so far (since May 2014) has published two issues with a total of eleven papers. It has one "paper in press", which is the one that Anthony Watts likes.

To be certain sensitivity is still uncertain...

This is a follow-on from my earlier article about a new paper on climate sensitivity. It isn't a critique or analysis of the paper itself. Maybe other people will look at the work and how it differs from other sensitivity analysis. This is more about the reaction in the deniosphere with some of my meandering thoughts rolled in. I've been in two minds about whether to publish this because there are no firm conclusions. It's rather long-winded and a bit repetitive. But I don't feel like spending any more time editing it down. You can make of it what you will.

As you may know, the denialati are all over a new paper in Climate Dynamics by Nic Lewis and Judith Curry, who have taken a shot at estimating climate sensitivity. You can download a pre-publication pdf version here, together with supplementary information zipped here, courtesy Nic Lewis.

It's not at all odd that deniers would latch on to it when you think about it, even though the WUWT crowd variously "believe":

• Climate change isn't happening
• Climate change is always happening
• If the world is warming, it's not because of CO2 (ie climate sensitivity to CO2 is zero)
• There is no such thing as a greenhouse effect. The world is warmed by magic.
• The world is cooling
• We're heading for an ice age
• The increase in CO2 is not caused by humans (ie burning hydrocarbons doesn't release CO2)
• Atmospheric CO2 hasn't increased

One reason I say this isn't surprising is because even though the paper suggests the world is about to get a lot hotter, the authors argue a likelihood, or at least a possibility, that the surface may not get quite as hot, with a doubling of CO2, as a lot of other research suggests. This paper suggests that when CO2 hits 560 ppm later this century, Earth will at first be somewhere between 0.9°C and 2.5°C hotter than it was in the mid-1800s. And even if we stopped adding any more CO2 to the atmosphere at that point, temperatures would continue to rise, settling at between 1°C and 4°C hotter as the system approaches medium term equilibrium. None of which is by any means comforting. While these numbers extend almost to the same range as stated in the latest IPCC report (1.5°C to 4.5°C), it goes below the lower end of the IPCC most like range and doesn't hit the high end.

That's not quite an apples to apples comparison though. Lewis and Curry were looking at "effective" climate sensitivity which is not quite the same as equilibrium climate sensitivity. The difference as far as I can make out is as follows. "Effective" is on a centennial time scale whereas equilibrium is on a millenial time scale. "Equilibrium" refers to after the ice sheets stop melting and maybe even after the ocean circulation has stopped responding to climate change. The deep ocean circulation has a cycle of around a thousand years. Ice sheets can take several millenia to settle down after a climate forcing.

So all in all, the difference between Lewis and Curry and other estimates is one of a few tenths of a degree at most.

Sensitive to sensitivity at WUWT

The latest article at Anthony Watts' denier blog is about climate sensitivity. (Archived here.)

The author is Jeff L., which I guess means that he is only half an "anonymous coward" by Anthony's standards and is therefore half okay. The half that Anthony is okay with, when it comes to Anonymous Cowards.  The Anonymous half.

Jeff wrote about how he went about estimating what he thought was the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). It wasn't.  He was estimating transient climate response.

Some definitions from IPCC AR5:

Climate sensitivity In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity (units: °C) refers to the equilibrium (steady state) change in the annual global mean surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration. Due to computational constraints, the equilibrium climate sensitivity in a climate model is sometimes estimated by running an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a mixed-layer ocean model, because equilibrium climate sensitivity is largely determined by atmospheric processes. Efficient models can be run to equilibrium with a dynamic ocean. The climate
sensitivity parameter (units: °C (W m–2)–1) refers to the equilibrium change in the annual global mean surface temperature following a unit change in radiative forcing.

The effective climate sensitivity (units: °C) is an estimate of the global mean surface temperature response to doubled carbon dioxide concentration that is evaluated from model output or observations for evolving nonequilibrium conditions. It is a measure of the strengths of the climate feedbacks at a particular time and may vary with forcing history and climate state, and therefore may differ from equilibrium climate sensitivity.

The transient climate response (units: °C) is the change in the global mean surface temperature, averaged over a 20-year period, centred at the time of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling, in a climate model simulation in which CO2 increases at 1% yr–1. It is a measure of the strength and rapidity of the surface temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing.

Jeff claimed he came up with a number that was less than the IPCC estimate.  He didn't.  His number was slap bang in the middle of the IPCC estimate.

Read on.

What Jeff L. did was take the HadCRUT4 surface temperature anomaly and the CO2 record.  He spliced the Law Dome CO2 measures to the Mauna Loa record to get a series back to 1850.

Then he created a bunch of temperature plots using the equation:

 ∆T = ECS* ln(C2/C1)) / ln(2)

where :

∆T = Change in temperature, ° C

ECS = Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity , ° C /doubling

C1 = CO2 concentration (PPM) at time 1

C2 = CO2 concentration (PPM) at time 2

He did this at intervals of one year. He plotted the resulting temperature anomalies on a chart together with HadCRUT4. Here is his result:

Source: WUWT



Based on the above and, after discussing and doing some "goodness of fit" calculations on each of the "ECS" plots, Jeff settled on what he called an "ECS" of 1.8°C.

It's a simplistic approach but it's got some appeal as a quick and dirty estimate.  (An even simpler approach using Jeff's numbers and formula, would be to say that temperature rose by 0.86°C, with a 40% rise in CO2, which also gives the result as 1.8°C.)

However there are a few wrinkles.  Most of these will be obvious to the reader.



Transient climate response and equilibrium climate sensitivity

Firstly, Jeff L. isn't calculating equilibrium climate sensitivity because he hasn't allowed time for the earth system to reach equilibrium. Not even short term equilibrium.  He is attempting to calculate the transient climate response. The surface temperature at the time of CO2 doubling.

To my way of thinking that's the biggest thing wrong with what he's written.  As a rough estimate and making assumptions that other forcing are negligible, you could argue that it's okay.  Especially when you compare it to other estimates - it's in the ball park.

Other forcings in the first half of the twentieth century aren't negligible though, particularly the rise in solar radiation and pollution.  And it's likely that some forcings in more recent years aren't negligible either. I'm thinking about the drop in solar radiation and pollution (aerosol forcing).  But as long as you aren't wanting any more than a rough estimate, it's okay.

The IPCC AR5 WG1 report states:

With high confidence the transient climate response (TCR) is positive, likely in the range 1°C to 2.5ºC and extremely unlikely greater than 3°C, based on observed climate change and climate models (see TFE.6 for further details).

So, despite what Jeff claims to the contrary (see below), Jeff's number is slap bang in the middle of the IPCC estimate.

If you read his article, you'll see he's made other assumptions as well as misrepresented the IPCC report.

For example, Jeff reported that the AR5 report estimated ECS as 3.4°C. In fact the IPCC estimate is that ECS is "likely" between 1.5°C and 4.5°C, while not giving a "best estimate", unlike previous reports.  But as I've just said, Jeff didn't work out the ECS.  He worked out the transient climate response and got an estimate in the middle of the IPCC estimate.

Another thing.  Being WUWT it's no surprise that Jeff divides people into "alarmists" and "sceptics". Early on he writes:

All potential “catastrophic” consequences are based on one key assumption: High ECS (generally > 3.0 ° C/ doubling of CO2). Without high sensitivity, there will not be large temperature changes and there will not be catastrophic consequences. As such, this is essentially the crux of the argument : if sensitivity is not high, all the “catastrophic” and destructive effects hypothesized will not happen. One could argue this makes ECS the most fundamental quantity to be understood.

 Jeff is wrong in a number of ways.  For one thing, the consequences depend on the amount of emissions as well as on climate sensitivity.  If sensitivity were, say, 2°C but we ended up with four times the amount of pre-industrial atmospheric CO2, then temperatures would rise by 4°C.  This would have very big consequences and is a huge risk to take.  If sensitivity were 4°C and we quadrupled CO2, then we'd be looking at a rise of 8°C.  That would render a lot of currently inhabited land uninhabitable.


Thing is, for safety's sake we've got to keep total emissions under 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon.  We're almost halfway there already and annual emissions are increasing each year.  Some people argue that 1,000 gigatonnes will take us above the safe level.

Adapted from Figure SPM.10: Global mean surface temperature increase as a function of cumulative total global CO2 emissions from various lines of evidence. Source: IPCC AR5 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers

Jumping to wrong conclusions for all the wrong reasons

You'll not be surprised to read Jeff's conclusion because it's probably the whole reason for his article.  He wrote in part:

Furthermore and most importantly, any policy changes designed to curb “climate change” are also unsupportable based on the data. It is assumed that the need for these policies is because of potential future catastrophic effects of CO2 but that is predicated on the high ECS values of the IPCC.

Most deniers don't want to shift to clean energy.  Whether it's because they fear change or because they know it requires actions by governments and changes in some industries it all boils down to the same thing. They just don't want change and will fudge and misrepresent evidence and reject science to try to justify their stance.

From the WUWT comments

There was a mixed reaction at WUWT.  There were people who said, variously:

• Jeff's workings were wrong
• Jeff is right and the science is wrong  
• HadCRUT4 isn't reliable
• The physics of CO2 is wrong so Jeff's work is meaningless
• Jeff needs to compute things in a different way
• Law Dome CO2 data is faked
• James Hansen has used paleo data to estimate ECS
• James Hansen hasn't used paleo data to estimate ECS
• The rise in CO2 is caused by warming, it doesn't cause warming
• There is no warming
• It's all too hard and there are too many unknowns so we shouldn't even try to understand climate
• It's cycles
• The pause proves that climate sensitivity is low
• Temperature is caused by gravity
• Everybody is wrong about everything
• Jeff is right and has proved we don't have to cut CO2 emissions and that climate science is a giant hoax committed on we, the sheeple, by greenie, nazi, Lysenkoist, commie, warmist, alarmist, eco-tard, cultist, watermelons. So there.

Okay, I threw in the last one myself :)  It's the sort of thing you'll read any day of the week on denier blogs.

Here is a sample of comments from the archived article.


Alex Hamilton says (excerpt):

February 13, 2014 at 3:13 pm
Continuing from my comment at 2:16pm, the inevitable conclusion is that it is not greenhouse gases that are raising the surface temperature by 33 degrees or whatever, but the fact that the thermal profile is already established by the force of gravity acting at the molecular level on all solids, liquids and gases. So the “lapse rate” is already there, and indeed we see it in the atmospheres of other planets as well, even where no significant solar radiation penetrates.

cnxtim says:

February 13, 2014 at 2:22 pm
The simple fact is this; warmists believe that traces of CO2 generated at ground level by the burning of so called “fossil fuels” make the implausible journey to the upper atmosphere and cause CAGW – they have NO other position whatsoever, and since despite their mantra and models, recent GW has ceased for 17.5 years, they have NO position whatsoever.
Case proven and closed, time to get a real job and stop wasting the taxpayers money!

albertalad says:

February 13, 2014 at 2:42 pm
I always suspect calculations based on 100 plus years which eliminates the historical earth climate. Other warm periods in time plus the various ice ages. However I do understand in the AGW camp CO2 as THE factor. What I don’t get is why we always fall into the AGW trap and only concentrate what the AGW camp wants us to talk about, CO2. Something melted each ice age long before man ever existed. I know, I know – trying to prove man is entirely responsible is the buzz words. With respect – I don’t trust any temperature massaged so many times none of us know what real temperature were or supposed to be anymore. Even the different data collected by different device cannot agree with each other and have to be massaged.

Dr Burns says:

February 13, 2014 at 2:53 pm
Here’s Siple vs Mauna Loa. I wouldn’t be surprised if Law Dome has also been faked.

Dr Burns says:

February 13, 2014 at 2:55 pm
The article ignors the fact that CO2 changes are a result of warming rather than a cause.

Stevek says:

February 13, 2014 at 3:09 pm
The most significant evidence we have of low sensitivity is the pause. The alarmist need the heat to be in the ocean. They need it or they know it is game over.
If we have perfect measurements from satellites of the input and output heat radiation budget then we will know if heat is in ocean.
My guess is that there is a big negative feedback mechanism we do not fully understand. There is some type of release valve , throttle as Willis says. It has to do with water cycle or wind in my opinion.

Leonard Lane says (excerpt):

February 13, 2014 at 4:29 pm
Thank you for your research and publication.

I feel that if the HADCRUT, and other temperature records, including the satellite data, have been so grossly adjusted to reduce warming periods before CO2 started its rapid increase and to increase warming as the atmospheric CO2 levels increased, that they are false. This dishonest and criminal tampering with the data to suggest global warming that just never happened means that accurate and true measured temperature to compute global temperature simply do not exist.

Thus, we have no measured data to compare with modeling results. Unless something like another little ice age (which I hope does not occur) cools to the extent that future data cannot be adjusted upward without it being obviously and criminally altered, then we are stuck with adjusted data.

Wondering Willis Eschenbach is uncertainly sensitive at WUWT

Wondering Willis Eschenbach's sensitive side

Wondering Willis Eschenbach has returned from his hot but remote airports and brings great news (archived here).  He has done an about face and is no longer an insensitive lout, but extremely sensitive when it comes to climate.

No more figuring out feedbacks.  We no longer need to wonder what impact the disappearing Arctic sea ice will have over what time frame, or whether clouds will have a net positive or negative feedback effect.  Wondering Willis has pronounced (in a convoluted post using a circular argument, in which he misses the point of a six year old paper) that climate sensitivity is as follows:

Climate Sensitivity = Climate Sensitivity

No need to worry any more.  Problem solved.  Willis says all the climate models can be dismantled.  There is no need for climate modellers to puzzle any more.  Just ask Willis.  Don't ask Jeffrey Kiehl.  Though Willis does give Dr Kiehl a pat on the head for effort:

Note that Kiehl’s misidentification of the cause of the variations is understandable. .... But as a first cut at solving the paradox, as well as being the first person to write about it, I give high marks to Dr. Kiehl.

(Kiehl attributed differences between the models in regard to climate sensitivity to uncertainty in aerosol forcing.  Willis argued Kiehl was wrong.  As far as I can gather, Willis attributed the difference between those same models in regard to climate sensitivity to differences in climate sensitivity!  These days differences between models in regard to climate sensitivity is attributed to uncertainty in cloud feedback.)

Kiehl, Jeffrey T. "Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity." Geophysical Research Letters 34.22 (2007).

Willis is uncertain about uncertainty (very high confidence)

Despite being certain about climate sensitivity, I can say with very high confidence that Willis is uncertain about uncertainty (same article).  So much so that he "laughed because crying is too depressing".  He thought that when the IPCC report stated:

The model spread in equilibrium climate sensitivity ranges from 2.1°C to 4.7°C and is very similar to the assessment in the AR4. There is very high confidence that the primary factor contributing to the spread in equilibrium climate sensitivity continues to be the cloud feedback. This applies to both the modern climate and the last glacial maximum.

...that it contradicted the fact that there is a degree of uncertainty in cloud response.  But of course he got it all wrong (again).  Willis foolishly writes:

How can they have “very high confidence” (95%) that the cause is “cloud feedback”, when they admit they don’t even understand the effects of the clouds?

What was meant in the report was that there was very high confidence that the difference in estimates of climate sensitivity can be attributed to different estimates of the effect clouds will have on the radiation balance. The authors have high confidence that there is large uncertainty in regard to cloud feedbacks. Higher sensitivity would mean that clouds exert a stronger positive feedback, while lower climate sensitivity would be expected if changes in clouds exerted a less positive or maybe dampen the forcing with a slightly negative feedback.   This is from page TS-54 of the WG1 Technical Summary (my paras and bold italics):

The water vapour/lapse rate, albedo and cloud feedbacks are the principal determinants of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the equilibrium change in annual mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration). All of these feedbacks are assessed to be positive, but with different levels of likelihood assigned ranging from likely to extremely likely. Therefore, there is very high confidence that the net feedback is strongly positive and the black body response of the climate to a forcing will therefore be amplified.

Cloud feedbacks continue to be the largest uncertainty. The net feedback from water vapour and lapse rate changes together is extremely likely positive and approximately doubles the black body response. The mean value and spread of these two processes in climate models are essentially unchanged from AR4, but are now supported by stronger observational evidence and better process understanding of what determines relative humidity distributions.. Clouds respond to climate forcing mechanisms in multiple ways and individual cloud feedbacks can be positive or negative.

Key issues include the representation of both deep and shallow cumulus convection, microphysical processes in ice clouds, and partial cloudiness that results from small-scale variations of cloud-producing and cloud-dissipating processes. New approaches to diagnosing cloud feedback in GCMs have clarified robust cloud responses, while continuing to implicate low cloud cover as the most important source of intermodel spread in simulated cloud feedbacks.

The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive. This conclusion is reached by considering a plausible range for unknown contributions by processes yet to be accounted for, in addition to those occurring in current climate models. Observations alone do not currently provide a robust, direct constraint, but multiple lines of evidence now indicate positive feedback contributions from changes in both the height of high clouds and the horizontal distribution of clouds. The additional feedback from low cloud amount is also positive in most climate models, but that result is not well understood, nor effectively constrained by observations, so confidence in it is low.

It all goes to show that no matter how much effort one takes to clarify meaning, there will always be someone who gets it all wrong.

Denier weirdness: Wondering Willis Eschenbach builds a strawman out of volcanic dust

Update: New material added below.

---

Wondering Willis Eschenbach writes another post about volcanoes, which he's done before on Anthony Watts' fake sceptics' blog, wattsupwiththat.  When he's not speculating that occasional landings at remote airports are causing global warming, Willis is a proponent of a type of Gaia hypothesis.  I believe he calls it his "thunderstorm hypothesis" or "thermostatic hypothesis".  He thinks that the earth is self-regulating when it comes to climate and that it's regulated by tropical thunderstorms or some such thing. I won't go into the detail of his mathturbations in his article (archived here - updated WUWT archive here), but I will make a few observations.

Wondering Willis builds a strawman

First up Wondering Willis builds a strawman.  He talks about an urban legend.  He doesn't state which urban area has this legend but anyone who has read climate science would know that it's not a city in which climate research is carried out. He writes:

The amazing thing to me is that this urban legend about volcanoes having some big effect on the global average temperature is so hard to kill. I’ve analyzed it from a host of directions, and I can’t find any substance there at all … but it is widely believed.

The only volcanoes that have "some big effect on the global average temperature" or indeed any effect that's discernible enough to be measured are quite big volcanic eruptions, especially those that occur closer to the equator (but see update below).  But from what I've read - in the main it takes a lot of detailed analysis to separate the signal of a single volcano from the noise in the temperature record.  Dr Hansen and his colleagues on Pinatubo:

With a single volcano it may be hard to identify a climate "signal" among the large amount of weather and climate "noise", that is, the unforced chaotic fluctuations of the atmosphere and ocean. So the Pinatubo team first looked at the average climate response after the five largest volcanos this century. They found (Figure 1) that there was a small cooling, about 1/4°C (1/2°F), which peaked 1-2 years after the eruption. This tends to confirm that volcanos do cause a small global cooling.

Even so, the effect of a single volcano is temporary because aerosols eventually dissipate.

Willis' inexplicable weirdly low "climate sensitivity"

Another weird thing Wondering Willis writes is this - that climate sensitivity is 0.2 degrees Celsius.  He says:

 ...At the end of the day, what we have is a calculated climate sensitivity (change in temperature with forcing) which is only about two-tenths of a degree per doubling of CO2.

Now that is truly weird.  It's even odder because Willis himself in the very same article put up a chart of global temperature anomalies.  He showed monthly anomalies of HadCRUT4.  I'll show annual anomalies:

Data source: UK Met Hadley Centre

Over that period, global temperatures rose by around 0.8 degrees Celsius while carbon dioxide rose by around 40%.  It has a way to go before it doubles.  Willis inexplicably leaves a rise of around 0.7 degrees Celsius unexplained!

My question to Willis is - what has caused global surface temperature to rise by 0.8 degrees Celsius well before CO2 has doubled, if the climate sensitivity is only 0.2 degrees?  (Willis has stated he is using climate sensitivity to mean the rise in global surface temperature from a doubling of CO2.)

The weirdest thing of the lot (not really, given it's WUWT) is that no-one at WUWT asks him this question.  Not a soul.

How does Willis Eschenbach explain ice ages?

Short answer? He doesn't!

In the comments someone asks a good question.  How does Willis Eschenbach reconcile glaciations and deglaciations with his "thermostatic" hypothesis:

Thomas says:

September 22, 2013 at 10:30 am
Jim S, the emissions from individual eruptions is pretty much negligible. Overall volcanoes emit around 1% of the amount from fossil fuels.

Maybe Eschenbach has written about it before, but I’m a bit confused on how he can reconcile “I hold that changes in forcing only marginally and briefly affect the temperature. Instead, I say that a host of emergent thermostatic phenomena act quickly to cool the planet when it is too warm, and to warm it when it is too cool” with the existence of ice age cycles. Whatever thermostat the Earth has doesn’t seem all that good.

In WUWT-land ice ages are caused by a "snap" and "flip" called "hits the rails"?

Greg Goodman comes to Willis' aid with a sciency explanation (WUWT-style): "we don't know" - but says it could be caused by a magic "snap" and "flip" called "hits the rails":

September 22, 2013 at 10:43 am
Thomas: ” Whatever thermostat the Earth has doesn’t seem all that good.”

what happens at glaciation and deglaciation is clearly different from what happens in between.

There is apparently two stable states ( attractors ) for the climate system. A positive feedback seems to make it snap form one state to the other. We don’t really know what triggers the change-over.

Assuming Willis is basically correct there are limits to the tropical storms range as a feedback mechanism. It cannot go beyond totally clear skies or fully cloud covered tropics. May be when it hits the rails the climate state flips?

I don’t see glaciation as being a major argument against what Willis is proposing.

Greg says that the pseudo-scientists at WUWT "don't really know" what causes ice ages!

In other words, Greg is saying that Wondering Willis' "thermostatic" or Gaia hypothesis is bunkum.  Either that or he thinks that there is some huge sudden impact that has happened at the start of a glaciation and deglaciation.  He doesn't know what this is.

Later in the thread, Willis directly responds to Thomas' question by avoiding it - and in the process shows he can't read his own chart.  Willis says, after quoting Thomas' comment above:

The planet’s temperature varied by ± 0.3°C over the last century. This is a regulation to within about ± 0.1% … on a free-running system which is regulated by nothing more substantial than wind and water.  If you know anything about heat engines, you’ll agree that that is a fantastic governor …September 22, 2013 at 1:10 pm

Willis has shrunk the observed temperature range in his own chart, which is a rise of 0.8 degrees Celsius to a mere ± 0.3°C.  Wondering Willis has a very severe case of confirmation bias!

Climate scientists do know what precipitates an ice age

Although WUWT-ers don't know what precipitates ice ages, climate scientists do.  Climate scientists have found that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt and precession of the Earth's orbit, when combined in a certain way, affect earth's energy balance with resulting feedbacks.  A drop in surface temperature will cause atmospheric CO2 to fall which causes a further drop in surface temperature leading to an ice age; while a rise in surface temperature will cause CO2 to rise, which in turn affects global surface temperature causing the ice to melt. (Milankovitch cycles).

We might get another ice age no sooner than 50,000 years from now, depending on how much longer we use our air as a rubbish dump for waste CO2.

Willis' thunderstorms "when the globe cools"

Here is an insight into Willis' thunderstorm hypothesis - if you can call in an insight.  This is what Willis reckons happens "when the globe cools"!

When the globe cools, the tropical clouds form a few minutes later, the thunderstorms form a few minutes later … and that brings the global temperature back up. September 22, 2013 at 2:19 pm

WUWT-ers might think that Willis invented the notion that the hydrological cycle plays an important part in moderating the weather on earth, but of course he didn't.  It's basic thermodynamics.  When water evaporates it cools the surface. When it condenses into clouds the heat is moved to the atmosphere.  But that's no more than an exchange of energy within the system.  It doesn't explain the extra energy being stored on earth as evidenced by the recent very rapid warming.  The only thing that explains that is the huge increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Still, I expect the WUWT-ers will be relieved by Willis telling them that the earth won't have any more ice ages and that David "funny sunny" Archibald has it all wrong!

Update - Willis is "not even wrong" about Super-Volcanoes

Willis Eschenbach shows he doesn't keep up with the latest science when he says "temperature has always recovered" from supervolcanos and that his "hypothesis" explains this but "models" don't.

September 22, 2013 at 6:15 pm
Jim G says: September 22, 2013 at 5:10 pm A true super eruption of a super volcano might be at odds with your “self regulating” surface temperature hypothesis.

We’ve had supervolcanoes in the past, and the temperature has always recovered. Under the models’ view, that wouldn’t happen … with my hypothesis, it would.
w.

Willis is not even wrong!

From the Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie (see especially the last point compared to Willis' "a few minutes later" - my bold italics):

The “Super Volcano Project” is a  crosscutting science projects of MPI-M in cooperation with the Univ. of Cambridge. At present the project involves ca 25 scientists from the MPI-M and 7 external scientists.

The major goal of this MPI-M Earth System Modelling (ESM) project is the investigation of the effects  that volcanic super eruptions have on the climate system, employing the coupled MPI-M Earth System model. ...

• Climate effect of larger volcanic eruptions are weaker and smaller than previously thought. 

• The global temperature signal is determined by the strength of the SO2 emission and not by the latitude of the eruption. 

• Post-eruption oceanic and atmospheric anomalies describe a decadal fluctuation in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system. 

• Improved description of processes acting on multidecadal timescales is pivotal to constrain the climate response to the 1809 and Tambora tropical eruptions. 

• Radiative heating from volcanic ash cause rotation of volcanic cloud, which influences the transport in the first days on local scale. 

• Eruption season has a significant influence on aerosol optical depth and clear-sky shortwave (SW) radiative flux anomalies and for large volcanic eruption also on the all sky SW flux anomalies. 

• Annular mode response after volcanic eruption increases logarithmically with increasing eruption magnitude. 

• Deposition of sulphate to the Antarctic polar ice sheet is strongly dependent on eruption magnitude 

• Mt. Pinatubo eruption causes the observed delay of the QBO cycle in 1991/1992. 

• Post-eruption sea ice anomalies show strong hemispheric differences dependent on the magnitude of the eruption. 

• Bare soil coverage is strongly increasing after a very large volcanic eruption with  fewer trees and more grass. 

• Post-eruption atmospheric CO2 anomalies are explained mainly by changes in land carbon storage in the initial phase. In the longer term, the ocean compensates for the atmospheric carbon loss.

You can also read more on the impact of super-volcanoes here at New Scientist.


Here again is the link to the archived WUWT article that Anthony Watts posted - updated here.

Wondering Willis Eschenbach visits Dunning Kruger Land and adopts his own Gaia hypothesis

Update: There's still more from Willis in the comments - see below

As climate hawks know, every time there is a new report from the IPCC or other important event relating to climate change, the denialati go a bit crazy.  We've seen silliness from David Rose  - here and here, Matt Ridley, Anthony Watts and others.  Now Willis Eschenbach has joined the party exhibiting an advanced case of Dunning Kruger Effect. (Archived here with the latest update here, still more archived here.)

Wondering Willis (he who thinks that rare landings on a remote airstrip has caused global warming) sets the scene writing this:

You see, back around 1980, about 33 years ago, we got the first estimate from the computer models of the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS). This is the estimate of how much the world will warm if CO2 doubles. At that time, the range was said to be from 1.5° to 4.5°.

I think Willis is probably referring to what is known as Charney sensitivity which, according to Gavin Schmidt assumes the land surface, ice sheets and atmospheric composition (chemistry and aerosols) stay the same. (There are many different meanings to "climate sensitivity".)

Broadly speaking, regardless of what is being referred to, the ranges for climate sensitivity are fairly well accepted - depending on the context: the upper and lower limits for a doubling of CO2 are between about 1.5 degrees and 6 degrees and most likely between 2 and 4.5 degrees, although the upper limit is considerably less certain than the lower limit in regard to equilibrium climate sensitivity.  It's not thought to be, for example, from 20 to 25 degrees or from minus 10 to minus 20 degrees.

Deniers claim to want greater precision - but they really don't.  If there were greater precision it would have to be in a very specific context - and deniers would both disregard the context (it's a habit of theirs) and still complain it's not been specified to two decimal places.  Deniers (as opposed to disinformers) don't understand climate science or climate sensitivity - and I doubt that any greater precision would have any meaning for them.  (Many deniers, for example, think that an increase in global surface temperature of two degrees means only that the temperatures where they live will be two degrees warmer - and that's it! They cannot comprehend the notion of an average global surface temperature anomaly or what it signifies.)

Having said that the range of climate sensitivity hasn't changed much over the years, Willis goes on to write:

Can anyone name any other scientific field that has made so little progress in the last third of a century? Anyone? Because I can’t.

Making such a dumb statement goes to prove what any regular reader here knows already - Willis doesn't read science.  He thinks that climate science is only about narrowing the range of climate sensitivity.  (Wondering Willis, you might recall, also thought that excel spreadsheets should be included in papers published in Science.  No, he didn't mean published as supplementary information - he meant that it should form part of the published paper itself!)

To prove his ignorance, Willis writes this (my bold italics):

The wrong path is the ludicrous idea that the change in global temperature is a simple function of the change in the “forcings”, which is climatespeak for the amount of downward radiation at the top of the atmosphere. The canonical (incorrect) equation is: ∆T = lambda ∆F

Willis has taken a simplified equation and assumed that is what climate scientists use to model climate.  I have no idea where he got this notion from.  It's not from the literature.  Maybe he read, or should I say half-read, Wikipedia and decided "that'll do me. I'll adapt the equation for a simple energy model and mis-portray that as being what's used for earth system models."  (I mentioned a good general interest article on climate models in ArsTechnica.  Page one of that provides a conceptual diagram of earth system models.)
Willis wanders around a second hand car yard, talking about gas (petrol) and cruise control and arguing that when cruise control is on that there is no longer any relationship between the speed of the vehicle and petrol consumption.  (He doesn't know my car.)  After that, Willis wanders off onto his favourite topic of thunderstorms and ends up with something strikingly similar to the popularised concept of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis (which deniers love to mock).

The exact same thing is going on with the climate. It is governed by a variety of emergent climate phenomena such as thunderstorms, the El Nino/La Lina warm water pump, and the PDO. And as a result, the change in global temperature is totally decoupled from the changes in forcings. This is why it is so hard to find traces of e.g. solar and volcano forcings in the temperature record. We know that both of those change the forcings … but the temperatures do not change correspondingly.

To me, that’s the Occam’s Razor explanation of why, after thirty years, millions of dollars, millions of man-hours, and millions of lines of code, the computer models have not improved the estimation of “climate sensitivity” in the slightest. They do not contain or model any of the emergent phenomena that govern the climate, the phenomena that decouple the temperature from the forcing and render the entire idea of “climate sensitivity” meaningless.

From the comments on WUWT

Does anyone take Wondering Willis seriously?  Here are some responses to his article (archived here, updated archive here, and here and here).  I notice that some of the commenters saw what I did - but I wrote the above before reading any of the comments.  I hope that doesn't mean I've been spending too much time in WUWT's Dunning Kruger Land :(

Update (16 Sept 13): I've added the latest archive.  Willis' article now has 275 comments and if anyone is studying cognitive science there are some great examples of the Dunning Kruger effect, cognitive bias, mental models etc in the thread.  Plus in layman's terms, Willis' reaction to critique is to bluff and bluster and get quite angry.  Given he doesn't have the necessary knowledge to properly respond to the arguments posed, that's not an abnormal reaction from certain types of characters.  His other choice would have been to acknowledge his lack of expertise and the greater expertise of others.  But that isn't Willis' style.  He's displays what I believe is termed passive-aggressive behaviour (as he did here).


RoyFOMR also thinks that speed and petrol consumption are unrelated and says:

September 15, 2013 at 4:17 am
Your cruise control analogy is excellent.

However Bloke down the pub doesn't accept Willis' cruise control analogy and says:

September 15, 2013 at 4:19 am
But suppose we turn on the governor, which in a car is called the cruise control. At that point, the relationship between speed and gas consumption disappears entirely—gas consumption goes up and down, but the speed basically doesn’t change.

I don’t think this is a suitable example Willis, as the cruise control controls the speed by controlling the flow of petrol. Admittedly an automatic gearbox would also play a part but that’s a separate issue.

Bob Young also saw similarities with Lovelock's Gaia, though he calls him "Lovelace" and says:

September 15, 2013 at 4:20 am
I seem to recall Jame Lovelace making the same point in his book ‘GAIA’ that the Earth’s climate is governed by a control system. This is a concept that is second nature to any engineer. A well designed process control system (using proportional, integral and derivative drivers) will tamp down any process upsets and adjust the process to maintain a consistent output from the process. When I read the book in the late 80′s/early 90′s, that one point was so obvious to me. In the absence of a massive process upset (asteroid strike, CME), the Earth will regulate itself with its own control system to maintain a consistent temperature.

Nick Stokes says:

September 15, 2013 at 4:27 am

“The wrong path is the ludicrous idea that the change in global temperature is a simple function of the change in the “forcings”, which is climatespeak for the amount of downward radiation at the top of the atmosphere. The canonical (incorrect) equation is:
Δ T = lambda ΔF
where T is temperature, F is forcing, lambda is the climate sensitivity, and Δ means “the change in”.”

You’ve said this before, but again not quoting anyone. Whose ludicrous idea is it? Whose canonical equation? What did they say?

There’s a proposition that if CO2 is doubled, then one can try to quantify the eventual rise in temperature. That’s very different from your “canonical” equation. And the range that you ridicule is partly a recognition that the relation is indeed complex.

Julian in Wales says:

September 15, 2013 at 4:46 am

“This is why it is so hard to find traces of e.g. solar and volcano forcings in the temperature record. We know that both of those change the forcings … but the temperatures do not change correspondingly.”

Does that mean that you are optimist that the present state of the sun will not produce another cold period like the ones we experienced during the Maunder and Dalton minimums. I fear another cooling period far more than warming, I would like to be optimistic that it will not re-occur in my lifetime. The thought of mass starvation and food shortages during my old age is something I do not want to see.

lemiere jacques hasn't ever read an IPCC report either, and "guesses":

September 15, 2013 at 4:48 am
well, computer speed or memory doesn’t help much, they are still unable to give an error bar… as a result you just don’t know if a “newer ” simulation with much greater number of cells and so on is closer to reality than an “older” one….It is newer, more complex may be more sexy but…you just don’t know if it is more “real”..

It may be possible estmate error bar can be estimated .but i guess that the complexity of the estimation of error bar is one order of magnitude greater than the complexity of simulation. But it is only a guessing.

KevinM says, of Willis' complaint that no progress has been made in climate science (in regard to climate sensitivity):

September 15, 2013 at 5:23 am
One would expect the same result if they were right the first time. A million variable monte carlo simulation of the apple and the tree would not have much effect on gravity.

AlecMM has probably lived in Dunning Kruger Land for many years and says:

September 15, 2013 at 5:42 am
Climate Alchemy is not a science because the models, based on wildly incorrect physics are the same as the old alchemists repeating an experiment time after time in the faint hope that they will find the philosopher’s stone. It’s lunacy on a gargantuan basis and corrupt politicians are paying them our money to do it.

Okay - that's enough.  The rest are pretty well all in the same vein.  If you want more, they are archived here, latest archive here and later still here and here.

There is more...

One last next to last comment to illustrate the extent of Willis' ignorance - which he's demonstrated in the past. He describes his "model" and how he mistakenly thinks "GCMs" are constructed (my bold italics):

It seems to me that you’ve missed the point of my model. It does not have any independent predictive values. It just shows the limitations of the GCMs, which turn out to be very simplistic. They just take the inputs, scale them, and lag them … bozo, huh? Millions of lines of code and the output can be totally emulated by a one-line equation. Go figure. September 15, 2013 at 8:50 am

I can't help myself, Willis keeps on giving.  Here is an exchange between Willis and Pamela Gray who, if I recall correctly, is another science denier.  In this instance she is acting more like a sceptic than a fake sceptic.

Pamela Gray directs Willis to specific sections of the IPCC AR4 report in which models are discussed and says:

September 15, 2013 at 10:01 am
Richard I draw your attention to AR4 chapter 8. Their description of climate models appears to differ from both yours and Willis’. It may be useful to read it and to speculate on what this section may look like in AR5.
http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf

I'll point out that the Chapter 8 Pamela refers to is devoted to climate models.  It's called: Climate Models and Their Evaluation

Willis Eschenbach replies basically says that he can't be bothered following links to read the description - he says:

Huh? What is my “description of climate models”? Some specificity would be very useful, at present I haven’t a clue what “description” you’re talking about.
w.

PS—Citing an entire Chapter of an IPCC report? Is that your idea of a proper citation? My high-school chemistry teacher would have thumped me with her red pencil if I tried that nonsense. If you have a point you wish to back up, you need to cite chapter and verse.

As it stands, you’re no better than the Bible-thumpers of my childhood, who would stand up in the tent and when someone asked a question would hold up the Bible and shout “The answer’s right here” … perhaps the answer is somewhere in the entire chapter you just cited, but I’m not going to try to guess just which paragraph you’re talking about. September 15, 2013 at 10:13 am

So Anthony Watts isn't the only person with a bad memory.  I'll repeat Willis' description of climate models, since he's forgotten what he wrote in the same thread less than one and a half hours earlier (my bold italics):

It just shows the limitations of the GCMs, which turn out to be very simplistic. They just take the inputs, scale them, and lag them … bozo, huh? September 15, 2013 at 8:50 am

Appendix: Climate sensitivity

There are some good articles on realclimate.org on climate sensitivity - Part 1 and Part 2 and many more.  And here is just some of what is in the different IPCC reports:

From IPCC AR4

Progress since the TAR enables an assessment that climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. Values substantially higher than 4.5°C cannot be excluded, but agreement of models with observations is not as good for those values. {WGI 8.6, 9.6, Box 10.2, SPM}

And here:

Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a most likely value of about 3°C, based upon multiple observational and modelling constraints. It is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. {8.6, 9.6, Box 10.2}

The transient climate response is better constrained than the equilibrium climate sensitivity. It is very likely larger than 1°C and very unlikely greater than 3°C. {10.5}

From IPCC TAR (Third Assessment Report)

Climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C. This estimate is unchanged from the first IPCC Assessment Report in 1990 and the SAR. The climate sensitivity is the equilibrium response of global surface temperature to a doubling of equivalent CO2 concentration. The range of estimates arises from uncertainties in the climate models and their internal feedbacks, particularly those related to clouds and related processes. Used for the first time in this IPCC report is the Transient Climate Response (TCR). The TCR is defined as the globally averaged surface air temperature change, at the time of doubling of CO2, in a 1%/yr CO2-increase experiment. This rate of CO2 increase is assumed to represent the radiative forcing from all greenhouse gases. The TCR combines elements of model sensitivity and factors that affect response (e.g., ocean heat uptake). The range of the TCR for current AOGCMs is 1.1 to 3.1°C.

Matt Ridley loses the plot, falls back on "CO2 is plant food"

I've been watching WUWT waiting for an article on the amazing and appalling one in a hundred year flood in Colorado.  But despite claiming to be an ex-tele weather announcer, and despite living close by in California, Anthony isn't interested in such things.

Instead, joining the list of crank articles on WUWT, Anthony favours a Matt Ridley "CO2 is plant food" bit of idiocy (archived here).  Here is a video from Peter Sinclair that hits that old denier meme on the head:

A spate of silly articles on WUWT - but what's new?

As usual there is a spate of silly articles coming out in advance of the new IPCC report later this month.  Anthony Watts is putting up all sorts of nonsense and it's hard to tell which is worse.

First - Tim "slayer" Ball can't read a simple chart

Yesterday he had Tim Ball, who denies the greenhouse effect, claiming it's been cooling for the past seventeen years (archived here). If Tim was interested in facts, he'd be saying that the average global surface temperature hasn't gone up in two years - not since the record high in 2010.  Instead he tries to bluff and bluster about 17 years.  Here's a chart showing 1995 (2012 minus 17) and 1996 (2013 minus 17) that demonstrates how woefully wrong is serial disinformer and greenhouse effect denier, Tim Ball.

Data source: NASA

Next it's Matt "CO2 is plant food" Ridley

Now the latest spin on WUWT is from Matt Ridley, who has gone completely nuts claiming that global warming will be "good".  All this would be laughable, if it weren't so sad.  What is it that addles people's brains to the extent that they can't accept reality?

Anthony thinks he has "BREAKING: IPCC AR5 report to dial back climate sensitivity" (archived here).  Whether that is true or not (see Justin Gillis NYT article), the article itself shows that Ridley has lost the plot completely. Matt tries to claim: (there is a) very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.

Good grief.  Remember, that's coming from a self-labelled "rational optimist".  Irrational is more like it.  Ridley makes a ludicrous appeal to an "authority" that he pulled out of thin air - unnamed "experts":

Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. 

Matt has a habit of making up stuff.  His "most experts" probably include deniers like Anthony Watts.  No rational person thinks that "less than two degrees" will result in "no net economic or ecological damage".  Governments picked 2 degrees to aim for as a cap because they figured that we might just survive that - albeit at great cost to the economy and the environment.

Matt's "most experts" are not climate scientists, that's for sure.  Not only is his claim about "most experts" not true, but at present we are on track to well exceed a doubling of carbon emissions this century which, even with the most conservative estimates of sensitivity, means that we are heading for very serious climate change with dire consequences.  If Matt Ridley and Anthony Watts and other science deniers have their way, we won't be worried about what damage a doubling of CO2 will bring, we'll be facing damage that a trebling or quadrupling of CO2 will bring - or worse.

I had to go to the Wall Street Journal (archived here) to read the rest of his silliness.  For example:

Warming of up to 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth—because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher.

"Extend the range of farming further north" - does he seriously imagine that farming is going to suddenly sprout up on the Greenland ice sheet?  I wonder if he thinks that the sun will stay up for longer as the world warms?  And what about all the farming south that will go under?

"Improve crop yields?" - what about the reduction in crop yields as marginal areas extend further, as places like south western USA and south western Australia become even drier and hotter?

"Slightly increase rainfall in arid areas"? Not so.  Dry areas are generally expected to become drier and wet areas wetter.  Rainfall intensity will continue to increase.  Downpours aren't good for topsoil.

As for his silly "CO2 is plant food" argument - if everything else is equal, C3 plants (wheat etc) do respond to an increase in CO2.  But if there's no water or too much water it won't help the crop.  And it doesn't matter how much extra CO2 there is when it's too hot and dry.

Then Matt goes into full-on - "people in low lying coastal areas can go hang":

Up to two degrees of warming, these benefits will generally outweigh the harmful effects, such as more extreme weather or rising sea levels, which even the IPCC concedes will be only about 1 to 3 feet during this period.

Matt Ridley dismisses the sea level rise as "only 1 to 3 feet over this period".  "Only"? I'm almost lost for words with that one.  That means he cares little about places like Miami, much of which would be seriously damaged with a one foot rise in sea level.  Just look at the damage that Sandy wrought with a much smaller rise in sea level.  From Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone:

With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. And the waters won't just come in from the east – because the region is so flat, rising seas will come in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.

Not that Matt Ridley cares, he lives in England.  So what will happen to his little island after he's departed it? Here is one estimate - with a rise of one metre, the risk that the Thames Barrier is breached goes to one in ten years.  Bye bye London:

"With 50cm of sea level rise we would expect that level of protection to go down from 1 in 1,000 years to about 1 in 100 years, so under that scenario in every year there would be a 1 per cent chance of flooding. If you have a metre rise you go down from 1 in 1,000 years to 1 in 10 years," Professor Vaughan said.

We can expect more ludicrous articles like this one over the next few weeks as the people who don't want to mitigate harmful global warming deny the latest IPCC report of the science.

And to think that Anthony Watts complains about being lumped in with all the other deniers.  If he doesn't want people to think he rejects climate science, he will need at the very least to stop posting any and all contributions from "guest denialist authors" like Matt Ridley, perennially puzzled Bob Tisdale, Tim Ball, Christopher Monckton, Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham, David "funny sunny" Archibald and others.  And he'd have to stop making silly claims like he did yesterday, with his "it's natural" and other denier memes.

From the WUWT comments

As usual the fake "skeptics" at WUWT regulars aren't the least bit sceptical.  Here is a sample of the reaction:

Lanny says:

September 14, 2013 at 12:23 am
So basically the whole “Global warming thing” has been a tempest in a teapot.

Steve Jones is an uber conspiracy nutter who says:

September 14, 2013 at 12:39 am
They are putting an awful lot of effort into calculating these temp rises v. probability and none of it is via the scientific method. Their concern is to keep their gravy train rolling whilst distancing themselves from the more ridiculous projections that real world data is falsifying right now.
Let’s hope the IPCC falls off this tight-rope and soon.

JustMEinT Musings thinks global warming is one big joke and says:

September 14, 2013 at 12:41 am
so does this mean that Dr. Train Driver/engineer will be out of a job now :-)

Birdieshooter is completely ignorant of climate science and says:

September 14, 2013 at 12:42 am
Since earlier projections of increases in extreme weather,ie, hurricanes and tornadoes etc, have not come to pass, I wonder how they will address that aspect.

ConTrari is another deluded conspiracy nutter who says:

September 14, 2013 at 12:54 am
The basic question for IPCC in a world that is cooling not only in temperature but also in attitudes towards them, is how to preserve their status and funding. So they must backpaddle a bit, to avoid the danger of being called activist alarmists. It is, however, a razorthin edge to walk along, with the abyss of oblivion and insignificance on the other side of the knife’s edge.
They may adopt the practical view that in order to keep themselves clothed, warm and well-fed, the vision of a boiling globe and a starving humanity must be pushed a bit into the background.

Anthony Watts doesn't want to be thought of as a "denier" - ha! He and his blog are a joke!

Feeling sensitive at WUWT

After the fiasco with his 'iostatic' paper, Anthony Watts, science illiterate extraordinaire, must be feeling a tad sensitive.  That may be why he thought to post an article supposedly about climate sensitivity. Click here for an archived copy.

I say 'supposedly' because the author seems to be putting all the different types of sensitivity into one basket. I'm no expert so perhaps others will chip in.

There are many ways to represent climate sensitivity.  There is Charney sensitivity, equilibrium climate sensitivity (long term), transient climate response (very short term), earth system sensitivity - exceedingly long term.  So it can all get confusing and makes it difficult to compare different estimates if you aren't careful to check just what is being discussed. Climate sensitivity types are discussed in realclimate.org here. For example:

We need to start with some definitions. Sensitivity is defined as the global mean surface temperature anomaly response to a doubling of CO2 with other boundary conditions staying the same. However, depending on what the boundary conditions include, you can get very different numbers. The standard definition (sometimes called the Charney sensitivity), assumes the land surface, ice sheets and atmospheric composition (chemistry and aerosols) stay the same. Hansen’s long term sensitivity (which might be better described as the Earth System sensitivity) allows all of these to vary and feed back on the temperature response. Indeed, one can imagine a whole range of different sensitivities that could be clearly defined by successively including additional feedbacks. The reason why the Earth System sensitivity might be more appropriate is because that determines the eventual consequences of any particular CO2 stabilization scenario.

There are more recent articles on the topic at realclimate, for example here and here.  Dana Nuccitelli wrote a good article on climate sensitivity in the UK Guardian recently, too.

What the WUWT article is claiming, surprise surprise, is that sensitivity is overstated.  The author, Barry Brill, has cherry picked a number of papers from among the many that discuss the subject, and makes ridiculous claims, such as:

These new papers devastate the IPCC orthodoxy that current and future global temperatures are mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, and will reach dangerous levels later this century. On the other hand, all older papers are blindsided by their apparent failure to take account of the recent data (standstill).

Devastate IPCC orthodoxy? Nothing but wishful thinking on the part of a science denier.  What about these equally ridiculous claims:

• It is quite conceivable that natural variability (including natural forcing) has historically dwarfed anthropogenic effects and will persistently do so in future.
• ...warming may not resume until mid-century. (I hope someone will tell Barry that warming hasn't stopped!)
• 2013 is ushering in a long-delayed revolution in climate science. A new paradigm is demanded which recognizes that AGW is but one non-determinative component in a ‘non-linear chaotic system’.
• The draft SPM apparently fails to mention that 30-year warming trends have declined each year since peaking in 2003. Or that the latest 10-year period (2003-12) is the coolest decade since satellite records began in 1979.

What is he on about - a thirty year trend declining since 2003? Might as well say that "it's been cooling since 2010! And "2003-2012" is the coolest decade since records began in 1979? In fact it's been the hottest!

From the WUWT comments

There are some classic denierisms in the WUWT comments, too.  (Archived here.) Here is a sample.

Brad says:

August 31, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Lets not be naive, it is likely reviewers and editors actually held papers until after the March 15 deadline just so they would NOT be included. This is not paranoia, see Judith Curry’s blog for actual suppression of anti-AGW papers that have excellent science

Philip Bradley refers to the more than 830 IPCC authors reporting the work of thousands of scientists as a "small clique" - conspiracy ideation plus - and says:

August 31, 2013 at 8:00 pm
I’d question whether the ‘normal science’ of anthropogenic GHG warming was ever real. IMO it was merely the view of a small clique that captured the IPCC and all the rest of the AGW apparatus, and the large revenue streams that ensued, enabled them to control the narrative and subvert opposing views.

RockyRoad decides name-calling is the answer to science he doesn't like and says:

August 31, 2013 at 9:20 pm
DAGW?

These folks are “Deceitful Anthropogenic Genocidal Warmistas”. More personal and accurate than my previous “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Genocidal Warmista” expansion of the old acronym CAGW. 

Wondering Willis, Volcanoes and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Update: I've added a chart below.


Wondering Willis Eschenbach is wondering again.  This time he has written a very long article on WUWT and concludes by writing:

A. Either the climate sensitivity is around half a degree per doubling of CO2, and the time constant is under a year, or

B. The current paradigm of climate sensitivity is wrong and forcings don’t determine surface temperature.

Based on the actual observations, I hold for the latter.

They don't make sense to me.  A. seems like gobbledook.  Can anyone explain what he means by 'the time constant is under a year'?  B. seems very odd because he is using a definition (climate sensitivity) to contradict that same definition.  That can't be done. Leaving aside the inexplicable meaning of them - on what does he base his conclusions?  On his strange analysis of the impact of volcanoes.  It looks to me that he has taken the short term impact of different volcanoes on global surface temperatures and drawn conclusions about the long term impact of all forcings, including the very long-lived forcing of carbon dioxide.  He writes:

Unlike the situation with say greenhouse gases, we actually can measure how much sunlight is lost when a volcano erupts.

Let's not wonder why Willis thinks sunlight is lost by greenhouse gases and focus on his wonderings about volcanoes.  He goes on to talk about:

...the huge reductions in global forcing that volcanoes cause, the global temperature has steadfastly refused to cooperate. The temperature hasn’t changed much even with the largest of modern volcanoes.

Well, that's not quite so.  But modern volcanoes have only had a very short term impact globally.  The cooling effect disappears in a matter of months to years, depending on the nature, composition and location of the eruption as well, one would imagine, as the prevailing weather conditions at least in regard to smaller eruptions.

Willis builds a strawman

Willis makes a logical fallacy known as the strawman fallacy here, when he says:

The current climate paradigm says that the surface air temperature is a linear function of the “forcing”...Change in Temperature (∆T) = Change in Forcing (∆F) times Climate Sensitivity

What he seems to have done is taking an equation relating to a simple energy balance model (probably from this Wikipedia entry) and applied it to the much more complex climate system.  Dunning and Kruger at work.

What is climate sensitivity?

Climate sensitivity is the term used to denote a change in temperature for a given forcing, generally used to describe the expected rise in global surface temperature to a doubling of CO2.  That does not imply a linear function of the forcing.  Does this seem "linear" to you?

The climate sensitivity depends on the type of forcing agents applied to the climate system and on their geographical and vertical distributions (Allen and Ingram, 2002; Sausen et al., 2002; Joshi et al., 2003). As it is influenced by the nature and the magnitude of the feedbacks at work in the climate response, it also depends on the mean climate state (Boer and Yu, 2003). Some differences in climate sensitivity will also result simply from differences in the particular radiative forcing calculated by different radiation codes (see Sections 10.2.1 and 8.6.2.3). The global annual mean surface temperature change thus presents limitations regarding the description and the understanding of the climate response to an external forcing. Indeed, the regional temperature response to a uniform forcing (and even more to a vertically or geographically distributed forcing) is highly inhomogeneous. In addition, climate sensitivity only considers the surface mean temperature and gives no indication of the occurrence of abrupt changes or extreme events.

What about this:

Note, however, that because of the inherently nonlinear nature of the response to feedbacks, the final impact on sensitivity is not simply the sum of these responses. The effect of multiple positive feedbacks is that they mutually amplify each other’s impact on climate sensitivity.

The very fact that some feedbacks act more quickly than others plus the fact that feedbacks act on each other should be sufficient to demonstrate that surface air temperature is not a linear function of forcing. After building his strawman, Wondering Willis proceeds to chop it down, writing:

In lieu of a more colorful term, let me say that’s highly unlikely. In my experience, complex natural systems are rarely that simply coupled from input to output.

By demolishing his own strawman, he's starting to sound more reasonable.

Willis invokes Gaia

It doesn't last.  Willis quickly shifts back to the unreasonable when he writes:

I say that after an eruption, the climate system actively responds to reductions in the incoming sunlight by altering various parts of the climate system to increase the amount of heat absorbed by other means. This rapidly brings the system back into equilibrium.

If I've understood him correctly than that's just plain weird.  Where is the extra heat coming from?  As Willis has already said, the aerosols from the volcanic eruption have temporarily reduced the amount of incoming radiation.  There is no other source of 'heat' for the climate system to absorb.

Applying a long term equilibrium sensitivity to short lived event

Willis does some number crunching and draws some coloured charts and says:

To properly judge the response, however, we need to compare it to the expected response under various scenarios. Figure 3 shows the same records, with the addition of the results from the average models from the Forster study, the results that the models were calculated to have on average, and the results if we assume a climate sensitivity of 3.0 W/m2 per doubling of CO2. Note that in all cases I’m referring the equilibrium climate sensitivity, not the transient climate response, which is smaller.

Why would he use the equilibrium climate sensitivity of an assumed 3° Celsius on a transient effect lasting only a few months or years at most and apply it in the same way to eruptions at different locations and of different magnitudes and chemical composition? The equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3° Celsius refers to the temperature after a doubling of CO2, all other feedbacks have run their course and the climate is at a new equilibrium.  Willis does not appear to have calculated just how much incoming radiation was reflected back out by any of the volcanoes, so it doesn't seem to me that he's showing anything of value at all.

Leaving out inconvenient data

Willis leaves out inconvenient data.  First to get the chop is El Chichon eruption, which Willis calls an 'outlier' - but not giving any reason for doing so.  Later on he drops Krakatoa as another 'outlier'.  That's two out of six dropped from his analysis or one third.  Did they spoil his yarn?

Not considering differing impacts of different volcanoes

Willis seems to assume that each eruption will have the same impact on incoming solar radiation.  Consider this - the top three were part of Willis' analysis, the bottom one was a real beauty, but earlier in time:

El Chichon - released an unusually large volume of aerosols (7 Mt of SO2 compared to 1.0 for Mount St. Helens).  El Chichon produced some climate effects. The temperature of the stratosphere increased by 4 degrees C. ...Impact on ground temperatures is harder to quantify but temperatures in the Northern hemisphere may have been 0.2 degree C less about 2 months after the eruption.

Pinatubo - produced the greatest volume of SO2 ever measured, 20 Mt, about three times more than El Chichon (McCormick, 1992). It is estimated that the gases caused a global temperature decrease of 0.5 degree C for about 2 to 4 years after the eruption.

Krakatau - Although Krakatau erupted a large volume, the magma was relative poor in sulfur, and the eruption had less climate impact compared to some small volume eruptions that were sulfur rich (e.g., Agung in Indonesia). ...Rampino and Self (1982) estimated that the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere decreased 0.3 C due to the eruption.

Toba - The eruption of 2,800 cubic km of magma at Toba caldera 75,000 years ago was the largest eruption in the last 2 million years. The eruption may have release as much as 10E12 kg of sulfuric acid, an order of magnitude more than Laki in 1783 and Tambora in 1815, two of the greatest Holocene eruptions. The Toba eruption may have caused about 3 to 4 degree C cooling at the surface but this impact is hard to detect because of concurrent glacial conditions (Sigurdsson, 1990).

This is from NASA, which suggests that Willis might need to dig a bit deeper: 

With a single volcano it may be hard to identify a climate "signal" among the large amount of weather and climate "noise", that is, the unforced chaotic fluctuations of the atmosphere and ocean. So the Pinatubo team first looked at the average climate response after the five largest volcanos this century. They found (Figure 1) that there was a small cooling, about 1/4°C (1/2°F), which peaked 1-2 years after the eruption. This tends to confirm that volcanos do cause a small global cooling.

It's not the sun?

I've just picked up this in the midst of Willis' article.  If you take what he writes to it's logical conclusion, he seems to be arguing "it's not the sun".  That is, if there is a drop in temperature as a result of less incoming radiation (either because it's reflected back by volcanic aerosols or because of a reduction in incoming solar), it will be offset by thunderstorms, clouds and oceans deciding to oppose it and heat the world back up again by ...magic?  What do you think?  It doesn't seem consistent with theories relating to energy.

I say that the temperature is regulated, not by the forcing, but by a host of overlapping natural emergent temperature control mechanisms, e.g. thunderstorms, the El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the timing of the onset of tropical clouds, and others. Changes in these and other natural regulatory phenomena quickly oppose any unusual rise or fall in temperature, and they work together to maintain the temperature very stably regardless of the differences in forcing.

More on volcanoes

Willis put up some charts saying, "look see no impact".  I can't tell what he did, so I plotted GIStemp and marked the volcanic eruptions.  Click the chart to enlarge it.

They all seem to show the drop in temperature that has been associated with them (see above).  Of course you can't tell just from a chart.  You'd have to account for other things that affect surface temperature, like ENSO.  (Further up I've added a quote from a NASA website, which also emphasises this point.)

Anyway, the standout is Novarupta, which is in the Arctic.  The others are closer to the equator and their impact was spread through both hemispheres.  Click here for a discussion of Novarupta and how its impact was contained because of where it is located.

Willis' magical ocean

While I'm here, I'll add a comment that caught my eye.  It's about Willis saying how the oceans and clouds and thunderstorms all gang up and win a war against the laws of physics to offset a change in climate forcing - my bold and italics for emphasis:

David Longinotti says: May 25, 2013 at 4:17 am  I think this is a strong challenge to the orthodoxy regarding climate sensitivity, but the posited correction mechanism doesn’t appear to cohere with the data shown. The claim is that “When the reduction in sunlight occurs following an eruption, the Pacific starts storing up more energy.” But the timing seems to challenge this assertion – in Figure 6 the change in the slope of the cumulative Best Index occurs about 20 months BEFORE the eruptions, and there is no change in slope around the time of the eruption. Is the implication that the Pacific starts storing energy in anticipation of the eruption, or have I misunderstood the proposed correction phenomenon (or its measurement)?

Good to see it's not just me who wonders what prompts the Pacific to start 'storing up more energy' and where that energy could possibly come from, given there is less incoming energy.  I hadn't bothered to check just when the ocean took it into it's head to 'store up more energy' to make up for the lack of incoming.  Seems it can not only decide to create energy out of nothing, it can do so in advance of the event that prompts it to do so.  What a clever little ocean, eh?

Update: In the comments Ashby alerted me to the fact that Willis is basing his assertion for oceans storing energy on an apparent association with El Nino.  Problem is the ocean releases heat in its El Nino phase, it doesn't store it.  So bang goes another bit of Willis' wonderings.

My conclusions

1. Willis has read very little climate science and understands less.
2. Willis suffers from the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
3. Willis enjoys holding the floor.
4. Willis has a veneer of 'hail fellow well met' but it's very thin. He can't take criticism or even polite questions from real sceptics and loses his cool easily - in fact he gets downright nasty.  Supported by his patron when the going gets tough. 

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Update

Here's a chart from the AR4 IPCC report that shows the then current state of understanding (2007) of different forcings over the past 1,000 years and the temperature response for the northern hemisphere. Note the different scale for the volcanic forcing.  Click the chart to enlarge.

Figure 6.14. Simulated temperatures during the last 1 kyr with and without anthropogenic forcing, and also with weak or strong solar irradiance variations. Global mean radiative forcing (W m–2) used to drive climate model simulations due to (a) volcanic activity, (b) strong (blue) and weak (brown) solar irradiance variations, and (c) all other forcings, including greenhouse gases and tropospheric sulphate aerosols (the thin flat line after 1765 indicates the fixed anthropogenic forcing used in the ‘Nat’ simulations). (d) Annual mean NH temperature (°C) simulated by three climate models under the forcings shown in (a) to (c), compared with the concentration of overlapping NH temperature reconstructions (shown by grey shading, modified from Figure 6.10c to account for the 1500 to 1899 reference period used here). ‘All’ (thick lines) used anthropogenic and natural forcings; ‘Nat’ (thin lines) used only natural forcings. All forcings and temperatures are expressed as anomalies from their 1500 to 1899 means; the temperatures were then smoothed with a Gaussian-weighted filter to remove fluctuations on time scales less than 30 years. Note the different vertical scale used for the volcanic forcing compared with the other forcings. The individual series are identified in Table 6.3.