Over the last five years we have had flat or even decling sea temperatures, declining atmospheric temperatures and increased IR-radiation to space (at least according to the sources I’ve seen, feel free and invited to correct me if there is other data pointing in other directions). If these data are correct then the IPCC position of a large radiative imbalance cannot be correct, as that would require an accumulation of heat in the climate system.

But even if we cannot thrust the data, I find the IPCCs position untenable: they rely heavily upon GCMc for their analyses, but with so much going on that cannot be deterministically computed such models at least require a strong correlation with data to be thrusted (actually I find correlation to be a necessity but not a proof by itself); if data is poor so is the models. And if models are poor – which I believe, having some experience with other types of deterministic climate models – then assumptions of strong positive feedback is unjustified.

Especially so when the IPCC behaves in stark contradiction to its instructions (e.g. they are supposed to be policy neutral but their chairman publicly denounce policy critics as “ridiculous”). They simply appear to have an axe to grind. And even more so when every assumption tend to be far on the high side, be it future emissions, residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, feedbacks et c.

That said, I certainly hope that the vast majority of climate scientists are persuing truth and I also believe so (with “large parts” I meant something significantly less then the majority, sorry for being unclear). However I find the IPCC to elevate rather, eh, “concerned types”.

(Thanks for the blog by the way, I just found it. You’re a good writer.)

I also think that the overwhelming majority of the climate science community do want to get nearer the truth.

Having looked at this a bit (a while two months!!!) I think calculations to narrow lambda are rather difficult. In fact, what Dr. Pielke’s paper — and this analysis implies is that it is difficult. In my opinion, indentifying the specific difficulties in narrowing the ±1.5K uncertainty in climate sensitivity is the first step to overcoming the difficulties.

(Though, based on some of the reactions to Dr. Pielke’s paper in the climate-blog-o-sphere, it appears some on the pro-AGW side think identifying the specific difficulties, and explaining why the uncertainty range is as great as it is known to be, is somehow a bad thing.

I could speculate why– but readers would likely be surprised by my guess. I think it’s because there are very few real experimentalists blogging! (And by real experimentalists, I mean those who do physical experiments!) What Pielke is doing is a routine first step in designing experiments: you figure out which data you would require to get better accuracy on the issue of interest.

However, given the recent appearant loss of heat of the climate system, and it’s implication that the idea of “commited warming” and a rather large radiative imbalance is suspicious, one wonders wether the IPCC and large parts of the climate science community really want to get nearer the thruth. If you want to keep global warming as a really scarry problem – as opposed to a problem that should be addressed with normal proceedings – then a better definition of lambda might not suit your purposes.

The data sources, the method of analysis and the results are posted.

I believe the work is rather “straight forward”.

While I appreciate the esoteric debates about “surface temperature”, it does seem as though the outgoing IR would be the CRUX of the matter.

Certainly with an average of about 206 watts per meter squared, and a variation of +/- 6 watts per meter squared, with a completely “normal distribution” on a statistical basis, one is hard pressed to argue STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT changes for 33 years.

http://junkscience.com/blog_js.....wave-data/

Tall order, no? It could happen; perhaps if certain members of the climate science community would spend more time doing science? And less time obfuscating, hiding their data, peer-reviewing each others papers, and making excuses for the lack of current archived data, working code, and accurate temperature/humidity/wind-speed stations.

Blog comments can be obscure.

Allocating that imbalance is to the components of the system the whole issue, but you can’t just wave it away because you don’t like it.

fits into the discussions. I do not see where anyone is trying to ” … just wave it away because you don’t like it.”

If his point is that it is insufficient to identify meaningful trends at the surface, Atmoz’ rebuttal suffices.

Because that is not Pielke Sr’s main point (at least as I read his paper), Atmoz’s ‘rebuttal’ appears is misguided. Maybe those at Atmoz didn’t read or understand the paper. (Dr. Pielke suggested as much in his comment.)

Dr. Pielke’s paper makes several points. In my opinion, the overarching point is the issue of calculating the climate sensitivity λ using empirical data. So, as you said in the first bit– that makes him right

The issue of calculating this is the first specific issue he raises in his paper, and is the one he links to the issue of temperature gradients that exist on the surface of the planet. With regard to equation (2) here {1 in his paper) and states.

Of course, it is possible some (possibly those at Atmoz) reading Pielke’s paper assumed the only important issue with respect to T’ is estimating dH/dt using dT’/dt. There is some decoupling, but that is hardly the sole, or even main point of Dr. Pielke’s paper, as I understand it.

I can’t comment on the final two paragraphs in your comment. I have no idea what they relate to. Something I wrote? Something Dan said? If you clarify, I might be able to say if I agree or disagree.

If his point is that it is insufficient to identify meaningful trends at the surface, Atmoz’ rebuttal suffices.

As for the radiative balance time constant it is on the order of weeks; this allows the ocean and ice surfaces to be reasonably approximated as fixed and is a meaningful if imperfect constraint. If you eschew this approximation you are indeed forced back to the adjustment time scale of the upper ocean/sea ice system which is order a couple of years, again approximating land surface and land ice as fixed. If you eschew the latter approximation then the time scale is indeterminate.

An e-folding time order of weeks allows a quasi-equilibrium approximation to be very useful, though, which is why it is used. The actual imbalance is what causes changes in the thermodynamic energy of the atmosphere/ocean system, so you had better hope it is small.

If climate were constant, current forcing would have led to an imbalance on the order of 2 watts per meter squared, built up gradually over a multidecadal time scale. It is not difficult to invert that to a change in heat content of the ocean with a constant land surface or a change in temperature given a constant ocean (assuming constant atmosphere per the previous sentence). Allocating that imbalance is to the components of the system the whole issue, but you can’t just wave it away because you don’t like it.

Sheesh.

The goal of this analysis is to discuss the contribution of only one of them: The difficulty associated with spatial gradients. Roger Sr. provided an order of magnitude estimate of the error associated with not considering those in (1).

Atmoz and Eli Rabbet scoffed at the idea those errors existed, showing a graph that tended to hide their impact.

I’m basically confirming that Pielke is correct about this specific item. My follow on post does the Taylor Series expansion to incorporate those terms into equation (1) which would at least somewhat fix up this specific issue. (Add it does not correct other issues.)

I don’t mean my discussion of this particular issue to imply the other 3 or 4 issues are of lesser importance. I can only look at one issue at a time in any concrete numerical way, and this was the one Atmoz and Rabbet scoffed at. That drew my attention.

Turns out they are wrong; Pielke Sr. is right.

Under these conditions I suspect that a very wide range of numerical values for the parameters can be obtained.

“But everyone does it.” Is that kind of like Scientific Consensus?

Obviously, some parts of the planet will take longer to reach equilibrium because the earth isn’t really a lumped parameter. (The problem of defining a single time constant is qualitatively similar to defining one for cooking a turkey. strictly speaking unless the ‘Biot Number’ for an object is very small, there isn’t a single time constant for all points. (And the earth does NOT have a small Biot Number.)

Still, I’m an engineer. So, I’m willing to attach time constants with suitable caveats, and I think, with regard to GMST, it’s about 8-10 years. I’m also willing to have “quasi-equilibrium” for the planet, just a I would if I were studying the heat response of a solar pond, ignoring diurnal variations compared to seasonal variations etc.

Yes. This is fuzzy. But everyone does it.

—
Update: Corrected because steven moscher wants credit for naming my model “Lumpy”.

“That is to say: If the climate had been in quasi-equilibrium at each of those temperatures, the empirical value of “f”, the forcing or radiative imbalance associated with “T’” would be incorrect.”

I think the radiative-equilibrium concept itself is kind of fuzzy. And now you’re introduced ‘quasi-equilibrium’ into the discussions.

What is the estimated time scale for Earth to return to radiative equilibrium? I think it’s high 100s to the low 1000s of years. If that is correct how can it be assumed that the system is already approaching quasi-equilibrium and the climate feedback parameter estimated. On a practical basis, how does one estimate the parameter when the quantity on which it is based is not monotonically increasing or decreasing?

Thanks.