blizzard1024

I will be reporting you to the MODs. This is uncalled for.

That is very interesting. Pielke has a lot of research on how changes in land-use can alter regional temperatures. I wonder what the net change in climate for the northeast U.S is related to the large scale abandonment of farms and the resurgence of forests. If you look at a visible satellite image in the midwest and plains in winter, snow leads to almost complete whiteness and very high albedo. In the northeast, after a snowstorm you still see a lot of forests which are very efficient at absorbing solar radiation. 100 -120 years ago much of the northeast was farmland and fields so after a snowstorm the albedo was higher. Did this lead to colder winters? Once the forest returned, like present day, our albedo is lower and theoretically we should have warmer winters. This would be an excellent research project for a PhD candidate.

okay! That is what I thought. thank you.

I will agree to disagree. It is not even close to being settled. We don't know enough about natural climatic forcings. You can't hide behind literature or IPCC. The literature or peer reviewed papers do not cover anything else because they use models to determine whether the forcing is natural or not. When you have an incomplete knowledge of natural forcings and cycles how can you make models that cover this? There is nothing convincing (except for models) that points to CO2 as the main driver of climate. We are in a warming trend now. It is pretty small. 1-2C/century if it continues. That is pretty small considering the rapid changes that occured during the glacial-interglacial cycles, younger dryas and the 8.2 ky cooling event. These were drastic changes. What we are seeing now is benign warming. Of course coastal communities will continue to see sea level rise so living on the coast is a problem. But for most of us, any warming is beneficial. Once the oceans go back to a cooling cycle we will see a drop in temperature.

Wait a minute. 87 w/m2? It was around .6w/m2. Now its 87? that's dramatic. where is this paper? that has to be a mistake. do you mean .87?

Nothing is atmospheric science is a settled one. Science is NOT settled especially for a highly non-linear chaotic system. There is no way anyone can say "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant driver of the ongoing observed warming. " with certainty. CO2 has one small absorption band between 13 and 17 microns in the IR. It is a small part of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas by far as it has a much wider absorption signature in the IR. The warmth we are seeing now could be do to a variety of natural effects as well as CO2 increases. What about the amazingly high record temperatures in the 1930s when many states broke all-time record highs around 110-120 degrees F? Places in NY, PA, OH and NJ hit around 110F or even into the low 110s. That probably is a once in a millenium event too and this occurred without CO2 increases like we see today. There are other factors that affect our climate that we don't understand. For CO2 to be driving the climate now, you need strong positive feedbacks related to increasing water vapor in the upper troposphere where it counts. We just don't know enough about how water vapor is changing at these high levels. Desser and Soden have tried to show this. But Soden's work basically correlates well with ENSO. He showed that after Pinatubo global temperatures declined and global high level water vapor declined too. BUT what he failed to do was look at ENSO. After Pinatubo there was an El Nino which correlates to more water vapor high up from increased tropical convection. His analysis ended a few years later in La Nina conditions. So in effect you can't rule out that the changes in water vapor occurred because of ENSO. Desser comes from Texas A and M. This is the institution that makes faculty sign a document that states that climate change is a certainty. Not good science here when you shut down creative thinking. https://atmo.tamu.edu/about/faculty-statement-climate-change/index.html This leads to more group think and academic fraud. Texas A and M meteorology department is pretty much toast now... Then this brings me to cloud cover. Cloud cover variations modulate the climate dramatically. There is an inverse relationship between cloud fraction and temperatures. This is well known. GCMs do NOT handle cloud cover explicitly. Cloud fraction is added in to stabilize a GCMs output. That is faulty and unrealistic. Then we get to convection which is a major factor in the global energy balance. GCMs also do not handle convection explicitly either. Without convection the global average temperature would be 71C instead of around 15C. The greenhouse effect is typically stated to be +33C since the Earth's black body temperature is 255K or -18C. But this is WITH convection. Without convection the Greenhouse effect is 89C!! So convective overturning of the atmosphere is critical in maintaining the Earth's energy balance. So if we increase CO2 and add 1.5K to the Greenhouse effect how can you prove that convective overturning won't compensate for that? Furthermore, the TOA outgoing long wave radiation is around 239 W/m2. A doubling of CO2 leads to an decrease of 3.7 W/m2 which is only 1.5%. Since we have not reached a doubling, you can say we probably have increased the Greenhouse effect by 1%. 1%? That is very small and it is hard to imagine that such small changes would be unstable enough to spiral the Earth's climate out of control. If the climate was that sensitive life on earth would not exist as it does today. Plus there was a time 6000 to 8000 year agos where the Earth was warmer than present by as much as 2-4C in the Arctic. This was with far less CO2. The plant and animal species we have today survived this. Humans flourished. This also was natural. So to make a statement that CO2 is the dominant force in the climate system is not on solid ground unless you fully believe that climate scientists have figured out how to model the Earth's climate with precision. I don't think they can. That is my scientific opinion. And yes it is my opinion based on 30 years of using atmospheric models and studying weather and climate. I do appreciate the passion many of you bring to make for a better planet. I agree with this. We shouldn't be polluting the atmosphere. We need to go to renewables at some point BUT it can't be forced. I would love to see solar panels on all buildings, not solar farms that take up a lot of land. I would like to see bird friendly wind turbines if that is possible. I would not like to see energy prices rise so much that poor people resort to deforestation and other environmental calamities that comes with poverty for basic survival. I would like to see climate accords that phase out fossil fuel use for ALL countries. What is the point if some countries are allowed to pollute? That is ridiculous. It also needs to be phased in slowly as technology advances. Anyway, it is my nature as a scientist to question everything.

What hubris. They have it all figured out. That's like a meteorologist who claims that they have it all figured out. Models, its all about models. Models help us understand but they aren't the be all end all in most sciences. Their GCMs don't even handle convection or cloud cover explicitly and they feel that they fully model the climate? I am skeptical of all atmospheric models. It is just my training and experience. I would like to see a real-time measure of the greenhouse effect with updates to high level water vapor monthly. Then you can calculate a real-time greenhouse effect. But only NCEP provides monthly vapor pressure at 300 mb. That shows a decline which goes against the mainstream climate science so we ignore that variable but we use NCEP for temperatures in papers all the time. smh

Yes the climate is warming. But how can you rule out that natural forces such an ENSO (stronger El Ninos since the late 1970s) doesn't play a big role? Yes CO2 has some role but paleorecords from the Pleistoscene suggest it is minor. The pliocene was a warmer epoch because the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were not seperate. The Isthmus of Panama was open. Once this closed around 2.6 million years ago we went into glacial-interglacial cycles because of the development of the AOMC. This led to more moisture reaching high latitudes and much more snowfall which in turn began the glaication process. The pliocene is a different epoch completely. We didn't have the moisture and snowcover/ice age cycles. This really suggests ocean currents are a major driver of the climate system. Not CO2.

When looking at the ice core data, any unbiased scientist would easily conclude the CO2 doesn't drive climate. There are many instances where temperatures fall in the ice core record for centuries with rising CO2 and vice versa. Since the long wave absorption effects of CO2 are logarithmic in nature it is these lower values of CO2 concentration, theoretically should have more of an effect than the rapid rises we see today. Even so, you see the ice core records CO2 level passively follows the temperature curves. The oceans outgas CO2 when it is warmer and suck CO2 in when the oceans are colder. CO2 didn't drive the climate in the past. So what changed? Why now? Changes in insolation around 65N is generally thought to kick off a glaciation. The insolation gets too weak up there to melt the winter's snow in the summer and there is sufficient land mass in the NH to lead to the building of glaciers. Once this begins, the albedo feedback likely becomes important further cooling the land. The oceans will lag due to thermal inertia. This explains the lag in CO2 levels. CO2 will remain the same as the temperatures plunge. As the glaciers build they pull out water vapor from the atmosphere which is the primary GHG. The Earth gets very dry and cold. The dryness means less of a Greenhouse effect so that is a feedback too. CO2 just follows along and eventually drops as the oceans finally cool. That should end the debate on whether CO2 drives the climate. Its doesn't. There is such a close correlation of CO2 and temperature with in these ice cores with a ~ 800-1000 year lag, that it is close to a linear relationship. The climate system is highly non-linear. This is because Henry's law is pretty much a linear temperature vs solubility. So if you believe CO2 is a control knob on the climate system you are basically believing the climate system is linear. We all know this is wrong.

Yay. These folks just re-discovered the Arctic oscillation. It was negative in the 1960s and 70s too... a cold global period. Papers are non-sense. Can't believe what gets published these days.

The zonal wind anomalies show a stronger westerly jet and are twice as large as the meridional wind anomalies at 250 mb suggesting a less wavier jet stream at 250 mb in the last 10 years. This whole "wavier" jet stream is unfounded and a convenient excuse when cold air comes farther south. You can still blame it on global warming. This is laughable. see:

IR back radiation doesn't warm the ocean below the first micrometer. It is the sun. Ref: The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JC013351 "gases in the atmosphere resulting from human activities. At the ocean surface, most of the incoming infrared (IR) radiation is absorbed within the top micrometers of the ocean's surface where the thermal skin layer (TSL) exists. Thus, the incident IR radiation does not directly heat the upper few meters of the ocean" The sun's radiation in the UV penetrates the oceans to several meters. That is what has caused the warmth of the oceans. We are still feeling the effects of the 20th century grand solar maximum, largest in the last 1000 years. Ocean currents can take a long time to recycle energy through the Earth and stabilize shocks to the system. The oceans will begin to cool in the next several decades.

see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323644914_Examination_of_space-based_bulk_atmospheric_temperatures_used_in_climate_research Also UAH agrees with radiosondes and reanalysis temperatures much better. Hmmm. Totally different datasets, especially the radiosondes. RSS retains NOAA-14 which is warming compared to NOAA-15, for some reason RSS, NOAA and UW use it. HMMM I wonder why. This led to the major change in RSS data to much warmer in 2015. RSS probably was feeling the pressure to make its data conform to the flawed and adjusted(upward) surface temperature data or they would be ostracized. So they caved. Spencer/Christy are already ostracized and considered fringe but ironically they are the real scientists IMO. They stick to the science and question the consensus GCM model based view. Dr. Curry is another hero. I knew her when I was in grad school. Brilliant women. Here is an excerpt from Dr Spencer's blog... "From late 1998 through 2004, there were two satellites operating: NOAA-14 with the last of the old MSU series of instruments on it, and NOAA-15 with the first new AMSU instrument on it. In the latter half of this overlap period there was considerable disagreement that developed between the two satellites. Since the older MSU was known to have a substantial measurement dependence on the physical temperature of the instrument (a problem fixed on the AMSU), and the NOAA-14 satellite carrying that MSU had drifted much farther in local observation time than any of the previous satellites, we chose to cut off the NOAA-14 processing when it started disagreeing substantially with AMSU. (Engineer James Shiue at NASA/Goddard once described the new AMSU as the “Cadillac” of well-calibrated microwave temperature sounders). Despite the most obvious explanation that the NOAA-14 MSU was no longer usable, RSS, NOAA, and UW continue to use all of the NOAA-14 data through its entire lifetime and treat it as just as accurate as NOAA-15 AMSU data. Since NOAA-14 was warming significantly relative to NOAA-15, this puts a stronger warming trend into their satellite datasets, raising the temperature of all subsequent satellites’ measurements after about 2000. But rather than just asserting the new AMSU should be believed over the old (drifting) MSU, let’s look at some data. Since Scott Denning mentions weather balloon (radiosonde) data, let’s look at our published comparisons between the 4 satellite datasets and radiosondes (as well as global reanalysis datasets) and see who agrees with independent data the best:

There are parts of the world that had a very warm above normal summer, I am no doubting that. Parts of Siberia this year have had exceptional warmth. That has been measured. But what does that prove? The Earth has warmed since the 1970s. What does that prove? The Earth has warmed since the 1800s the end of the LIA. Natural warming cycles with some CO2 induced warming is likely what is going on. UHI no doubt is part of why records are being smashed in the southwest. That is pretty well known. But this has been a warm summer in many parts including the northeast U.S and others. It likely has to do with the transition from El Nino to a strong La Nina...ala 1988, 1999 both warm summers. Look I am not saying that CO2 increases are not causing the Earth to warm some, I am skeptical of the doomsday hyped-up scenarios that's all. I am very skeptical of the extreme weather arguments. A little warmer Earth is not going to cause extreme cold outbreaks in the mid-latitudes because of an "erratic" jet stream. People are getting PhDs on this stuff. Its called the negative AO/NAO.

Thanks Chubbs. This is a neat tool.

So the warmth of the MWP and cold of the LIA was local? That makes no sense. How can you keep warm and cold anomalies in one area and not the rest of the globe for centuries? That is against fundamental fluid dynamics of the Earth;s atmosphere. The uneven heating of the rotating planet eventually mixes to the far reaches of the globe. This is pretty elementary stuff. Amazing it was not accepted. Shows profound lack of understanding of how the atmosphere works... And MBH98 has been disproven so many times. its amazing the alarmists still hold onto this ship that sunk a decade ago.

Thanks for the papers Chubbs. Where can I find the latest specific humidity q for the upper troposphere from these other datasets? This is really needed. It assess the greenhouse effect in real-time. More q at 300 mb worldwide means more warming. Why is NCEP the only dataset available? I can see NCEPII also. But none of these other datasets are easily available. I would love to see a real-time comparison. Also where can I look at the AIRs data curves for q at 300 mb? NVAP is available until 2001 and it shows drying just like NCEP. So why are these other datasets so hidden? they would be smoking guns in the positive water vapor feedback controversy. Thanks again for your assistance. This is at the root of the climate sensitivity issue. I wish it was easier to find said data. That is the main reason why I started this topic....

BillT, CO2 and H20 redirect photons back to the Earth and also to space. Alone they wouldn't lead to a positive feedback and scorch the Earth. It is natural. It cools above the troposphere and warms the troposphere. Balance is maintained by convection and weather which redirect enormous amounts of heat to space. So in effect, the greenhouse warming is offset from thunderstorms and weather. The amount of outgoing long wave radiation(OLR) is around 239 W/m2 or so averaged over the globe. That keeps us from frying since we get roughly the same amount of energy from the sun. If greenhouse gases increase (mainly H20), the effective radiating level of the planet increase to colder temperatures leading to less OLR and this will warm the planet until OLR increases back to 239 w/m2. CO2 is a weak GHG. Doubling only leads to a theoretical increase in temperature around 1.2-1.5C or so. Not much. Its the so called runaway positive feedbacks employed by the climate models that lead to the amplification of this modest warming which I thing are way overdone. You have to believe in the climate models to believe in these extreme scenarios. I don't.

I don't personally know him. I know he built an empire on the CAGW theory so if he was wrong his life's work is wrong. That would sting anyone's ego. But I don't think scientists try to use bad data or methodology on purpose. Maybe he just didn't know?

What is the something else? How can CO2 remain constant or keep rising slowly when temperatures fall in ice core records? So at first something begins the process of cooling CO2 doesn't do anything and then after 1000 years or so it becomes dominant? That doesn't doesn't make any sense at all. Its a thorn in the sides of alarmists. CO2 has stayed steady or even risen and temperatures plunge during glacial inception. Makes no sense. If CO2 was such a powerful control knob on climate that wouldn't happen. Plus the whole positive CO2-H20 feedback makes no sense either. So there is a little warming from ANY forcing, this warming leads to more water vapor which then leads to more CO2 from the oceans outgassing. Then the CO2-H20 feedback kicks in and you have an unstable climate system. It doesn't happen. CO2 does not drive the climate system. It never did in the past and it won't in the future. We may see some minor warming 1.5C (or less)...but that is all. If there is a positive feedback it would be unstable and go out of control. What is the breaking mechanism? No one can answer that. Not even PHD climate "scientists".

That's because the 20th century has a stronger sun and the heat is taking is time to cycle through the oceans still. The 21st century just began the drop in solar activity. It takes time.

why does the upper tropospheric specific humidity fall on the NVAP and upper air sounding data? They just swept this under the rug. I want to see specific humidities and also compare it to ENSO. Are you saying NCEP/NOAA is unreliable? climate4you is taking their datasets.

Sorry they can't erase the Medieval Warm Period or LIA. They happened. Tons of evidence. This is just plain wrong.

The oceans are a store house for energy and damp any forcings. So a quieter sun would take a while to get into the climate system.

IR active gases do not TRAP radiation. That is flawed science. My radiative transfer professor would got nuts when people said that. It absorbs and re-emits radiation in all directions. That is not TRAPPING.