I’m heading home after giving a public talk, and have a bit of time to write about the recent Armour paper Projection and Prediction: Climate Sensitivity on the rise. It’s basically another attempt to reconcile energy balance estimates for climate sensitivity, with other estimates. Although the ranges for the different estimates do overlap, energy balance estimates (or observationally-based estimates) imply that equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) might be lower than the other estimates suggests.
The basic energy balance calculation is
where 
However, as Armour (2017) says, when using the above to estimate ECS a
key, but often unstated, assumption:[is that] that the global climate feedback in operation when equilibrium is reached,
, will be equal to the feedback in operation at any given time,
There are, however, indications that the feedback response may not be constant over time, possibly due to the pattern of the warming not being constant. This would imply that the above assumption is not correct and that the ECS inferred from a basic energy balance calculation will not necessarily accurately represent the actual ECS. This is illustrated in the figure below. It shows, as a function of time, (for both abrupt CO2 injections and 1% per year CO2 ramping) the ratio of the actual ECS to the ECS inferred using the energy balance approach. Essentially, the inferred ECS is typically smaller than the actual ECS.
Credit: Armour (2017)
Credit: Armour (2017)
A few additional points. We don’t know that these adjustments are correct. However, we do have a situation where there is a mismatch between different climate sensitivity estimates. We also have plausible arguments that can reconcile these estimates. This doesn’t make this reconciliation correct, but does at least provide arguments for why we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility of climate sensitivity being higher than the basic energy balance estimates suggest – especially as these estimates require assumptions that may not be true (constant feedbacks).
There was another point that I wanted to try and make, but may not do very well, as it is getting late. What we’re trying to do is produce a distribution that gives us some indication of what we might expect climate sensitivity to be. There is, however, essentially only one answer; we just don’t know what it is. We want to use these estimates to inform how our climate might responds to future changes in anthropogenic forcing. In some sense, we may never really know which estimates where right, as we would only really regard the energy balance estimates as having been wrong if climate sensitivity turns out to be very high (say > 4K), and the others as being wrong if it turns out to be very low (say < 1.5K).
However, trying to argue for a reduced probability in some region of parameter space, when we can't yet know that this region is actually less likely, seems – to me, at least – a poor way to inform ourselves. Given that these energy balance estimates do not actually rule out (with high confidence) much of the standard ECS range, and given that there are plausible reasons as to why they might be producing a range that is skewed to lower climate sensitivity values, would seem to suggest that we should be careful of using them to strongly influence our assessment of the expected range for climate sensitivity.
Anyway, my train is almost due in, so I'll probably stop there. Hopefully I've explained this fairly clearly (it's been a long day) and if others have comments, feel free to make them.
Link:
Nic Lewis already has a post on how inconstant are climate feedbacks, and does it matter? The answer to the question he poses (according to Nic, at least) is essentially that they are not inconstant and, even if they were, it wouldn’t matter.
...and Then There's Physics 
Hmm, I take Lewis’ post as essentially conceding the point (though he quibbles about the details) and then arguing that what matters in the near term is the transient sensitivity, which is quite true and I think widely accepted – the battles over equilibrium sensitivity have always been about very long term effects that shouldn’t really matter unless we don’t do anything at all about CO2. As to feedbacks being time dependent, there are a lot of ways time enters in here that complicates this sort of simple analysis and it’s never been clear to me what most people mean by time dependency in feedbacks. I think their rigorous definition (Bony st al partial differentials) only works at equilibrium. Outside of that, each feedback process in itself has a time profile for its response, so the distribution of feedbacks in effect at any given time depends strongly on the history of forcing. It’s complicated.
Arthur,
Well, yes, but I think his suggestion below is too strong
I think that the feedback response could change before 2100 and, therefore, if you infer the TCR from observations and then use that to estimate how much we might warm by 2100 (given some assumed change in forcing) the estimate will be wrong if future feedbacks are not the same as they have been in the past.
I’ll make a quick comment about Nic’s TCR argument. If you look at Lewis & Curry, their 90% range for the TCR is around 0.9K to 2.5K. The standard range is also about 1K to 2.5K. They overlap strongly. The main difference is the best estimate, which Lewis & Curry would put at around 1.35K, while other best estimates are more like 1.8 – 1.9K. However, given various uncertainties, trying to argue for one over the other seems a bit much.
However, there’s another interesting factor. A while back I wrote a post arguing that the ratio of Nic Lewis’ TCR best estimate to his ECS best estimate is probably too high. It would suggest that we could never really sustain a large planetary energy imbalance, and yet we do. Our unrealised warming today probably makes such a large ratio unlikely.
However, in his recent post about the new Armour paper, he essentially seems to be arguing that even if Armour’s argument about the ECS has merit, it doesn’t matter because it has no bearing on the TCR and the TCR is what really matter for the near to medium-term future. Well, if he’s arguing for his best estimate (about 1.35K), then he nows has a TCR-to-ECS ratio smaller than 0.5 (assuming Armour’s best estimate of around 2.9K is about right). Well, this too seems a bit implausible given that it would imply a very large amount of unrealised warming; probably larger than our current planetary energy imbalance suggests.
From Realclimate
My bold.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/04/judy-currys-attribution-non-argument/#more-20372
‘The main difference is the best estimate, which Lewis & Curry would put at around 1.35K, while other best estimates are more like 1.8 – 1.9K.’
From 1951 to 2015, TCR is around 1.35 (or a bit less) for Cowtan&Way, Hadcrut4 and Berkeley. Only GISS gives a higher ratio – a bit below 1.6. Not sure about NOAA.
‘Well, if he’s arguing for his best estimate (about 1.35K), then he nows has a TCR-to-ECS ratio smaller than 0.5 (assuming Armour’s best estimate of around 2.9K is about right)’
Apples and oranges. Armour’s 2.9K comes after increasing the TCR from Otto2013 (1.35K iirc) by 24%, following the Richardson ‘adjustment’. This gives TCR of 1.67 or so, but by definition leaves the TCR-to-ECS ratio unaffected.
What affects the TCR-to-ECS ratio is the fact that (in most models) equilibrium sensitivity (called ECS in Armour’s paper) is greater than effective sensitivity (called ECSinfer by Armour). But strictly speaking, this is apples and oranges again. Lewis&Curry had a ratio of TCR to effective sensitivity of 0.8; if equilibrium sensitivity is greater than effective sensitivity, then of course the ratio of TCR to equilibrium sensitivity would be lower. So TCR-to-ECS ratio could be 0.8 if we’re talking about effective sensitivity, or 0.7 about equilibrium, for example.
What actually largely sets it is the rate at which energy can be transferred to the deep ocean (below the mixed layer). If this is very slow, then we will quickly heat the mixed layer/atmosphere very close to equilibrium and then slowly (over many centuries) tend towards equilibrium. The TCR-to-ECS ratio will be high. If, however, it is fast then we rapidly transfer energy into the deep ocean, and we might approach equilibrium more rapidly, but the TCR-to-ECS ratio will be lower. Mosy climate models suggest a ratio of around 0.6. This paper suggests that an intermediate response might better match observations. It could be around 0.8, and could be below 0.5, but these both seem rather inconsistent with observations which might suggest a ratio of around 0.7.
Except I’m talking about actual TCR to actual ECS. I’m suggesting that Nic’s claim that it has no bearing on the TCR (even if the correction for ECS is correct) doesn’t sound right given that it would then imply an implausibly low TCR-to-ECS ratio.
Since I linked to an Isaac Held post above, this one is also relevant.
Except I’m talking about actual TCR to actual ECS.
In that it can be observed, TCR is actual. ECS is hypothetical, not actual.
TE,
Sigh! I was (as I’m sure you realised) trying to distinguish between effective ECS/TCR (those determined using energy-balance methods/observationally-based) and what they would actually be.
I would like to see a check of the Armour paper methodology by comparing modeled period 2002-2009 results with period 1978-1984 periods. First had rising aerosol emissions second had reduced emissions globally. Impacts could be significant but problem with OHC data from the period.
Is, I fear, not correct.
What can be observed is the temperature change, with uncertainty. Forcings can be modelled from observations, some much more accurately than others.
These can then together generate a model from which TCR can be estimated. Internal dynamics of the system means, of course, that it is certain that any two datasets from different time periods of observations will generate different TCR estimates.
So I don’t think it is any more possible to observe TCR than it is to observe ECS. It *might* be the case that uncertainty in TCR is less than uncertainty in ECS.
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
While we continue to slice and dice ECS and related issues, manmade climate change continues to impact all components of the Earth’s total climate system at an ever increasing rate. As to be expected, these impacts are especially noticeable in the Cryosphere. Here’s a summary of recently observed phenomena that should send shivers up and down our spines…
Scientists have discovered vast systems of flowing water in Antarctica. And that worries them. by Chelsea Harvey, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Apr 19, 2017
When it comes to mitigating and adapting to manmade climate change, time is not on our side.
.”..and Then There’s Physics says: “What affects the TCR-to-ECS ratio
What actually largely sets it is the rate at which energy can be transferred to the deep ocean (below the mixed layer). If this is very slow, then we will quickly heat the mixed layer/atmosphere very close to equilibrium and then slowly (over many centuries) tend towards equilibrium.”
If it takes a long time to transfer the energy to the deep ocean would the atmosphere heat up a lot more than the stated near equilibrium? In other words the atmosphere must shoot over equilibrium by quite a lot to actually end up transferring heat to the deep ocean.This should happen sooner rather than later if the heat is that hard to get into the deep ocean.
The basic energy balance calculation is a given. It just seems to be the degree of sensitivity that is the problem. It should be able to be assessed/has been assessed by using recent observations which unfortunately do not seem to agree with the models.
angech,
No, if the atmosphere warms above equilibrium, then we will start losing energy back to space.
Well, no, because on short timescales internal variability can dominate and you can’t accurately assess the externally-forced signal.
Thanks. Covers both points. I will have to think more about about the first one. Seems very sensible. I feel I am missing something there. Probably my bias showing.
There is a complimentary post to yours at JC. Will see if that offers any help.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14856
any thoughts about this study of carbon cycle and the apparent need for large scale CCS success?
smallbluemike: I have serious doubts about CCS ever being viable. You’ll need to find a place on earth where no one has been… build a coal plant there… or a pipeline from a coal plant to there.. . then compress and shove the CO2 down. But we don’t have forever concrete, and the risks of future leaks and explosions are a real concern. (Much bigger if you’ve ever drilled there. Ever.)
We looked at CCS in Alberta and the issues are huge. With so much oil here, you can’t find a piece of ground that won’t leak. Although it can be co-opted into EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery), but the cost for the pipelines to ship the CO2 are expensive.
Saskatchewan has unsuccessfully implemented a CCS system, and they’ve been able to ship some carbon for EOR. Their costs are going to $0.12 per kwh.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskpower-carbon-capture-1.3896487
In other words the atmosphere must shoot over equilibrium by quite a lot to actually end up transferring heat to the deep ocean.
The warmer the surface waters become, the more buoyant and less prone to mixing they become. That might argue somewhat for an increase in sensitivity with time – the oceans take up less heat as surface temperatures rise.
bluemike,
“anthropogenic emissions need to peak within the next 10 years, to maintain realistic pathways to meeting the COP21 emissions and warming targets.”
It appears we may be ahead of schedule.
TE,
Good to see you included a “may” in that.
that would be great if it is true. I want to see more data and longer line. Peak followed by a steep decline would be great to see. I watch one number CO2 ppm per MLO, It’s really hard to spin or obscure the message of that number.
Daily CO2
ALL TIME HIGH >> April 18, 2017: 410.28 ppm
April 18, 2016: 407.80 ppm
Dr Mann said in 2014 that we should keep that number under 405. uh-oh.
Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you!
Mike
I am inclined to agree with you that CCS is not ever going to be viable. I hope we are wrong because the COP climate stabilization plans assume CCS is going to work somewhere somehow. gotta get busy with mousetrap that catches CO2.
@-J H
“While we continue to slice and dice ECS and related issues, man-made climate change continues to impact all components of the Earth’s total climate system at an ever increasing rate. ”
Agreed, climate sensitivity as defined is an arbitrary metric for evaluating GCMs. How it impacts the real world always seems like a pinhead-angel ratio discussion.
Here is another real event that escapes capture by increasing the accuracy of the TCR-ECS ratio.
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/04/08/an-armada-of-ice-bergs-has-just-invaded-the-north-atlantic/
The amount of extra energy, in Joules, that the surface (land and ocean) is absorbing as a result of accumulating CO2 is well constrained by theory and observation.
If climate sensitivity is low, then it means that energy being distributed more rapidly into oceans. But if equilibrium is to be maintained then the extra energy has to be lost to space. Thermal emission seems to be the only way and that will eventually require a temperature rise. The Stephan-Boltzman curve constrains the amount of energy that can be lost, unless you invoke coherent emissions.
I find the concept of a low climate sensitivity at least equally worrying as a high climate response. That at least ensures a rapid return to equilibrium. Low climate sensitivity would mean those Joules are going to do other things than raising temperature. It seems myopic to presume the other effects are more benign that warming.
“Right now, no one wants to make the conclusion that we are starting to enter a Heinrich Event. Or worse — that the present rate of warming at 30 times faster than at the end of the last ice age is rapidly putting us in peril.”
izen: It bears repeating, CS is metric invented by the human mind. It does not exist in the physical world. In this context, much of the discussion about CS on the blogosphere is illusional.
We all can agree that, by definition, CS is a metric related to the behaviour of just one part of one component of the total global climate system, i.e., the temperature of the lower troposphere. Have scientists/modelers created metrics comparable to CS for the other components of the system?
> CS is metric invented by the human mind. It does not exist in the physical world. In this context, much of the discussion about CS on the blogosphere is illusional.
Salaries are expressed in numbers. Just like money and time, they are social constructs. Therefore any discussion of salaries are illusionary.
Does climate really exist?
MattStatt tried to pull the same trick at Judy’s yesterday:
Please don’t do like MattStat.
izen,
I’m not sure I’m following your argument. The amount of energy we accrue will also depend, I think, on climate sensitivity. If it is low, then we would accrue less energy than if it is high.
> . If it is low, then we would accrue less energy than if it is high.
Less energy by some time unit, AT.
Take both ends of the CS span, and pick a threshold: what time difference does it make to reach that threshold?
I suspect that, to borrow NicL’s ringtone, sensitivity issues aren’t that relevant for what needs to be done.
I don’t think so. We will accrue less energy (in returning to equilibrium) if CS is low, than if it is high.
I agree with aTTP, which is not a good sign for aTTP.
Wlliard:
Read my lips, “…much of the discussion about CS on the blogosphere is illusional.”
CS does not exist in the physical world. Many blogopshere discussions of it, would lead one to conclude that it does.
My observation has nothing to do with MattStatt’s comments. (I refuse to visit Curry’s blog out of principle.)
You can bet your sweet bippy that the Earth’s climate system exists in the physical world.
JohnH,
You can bet your sweet bippy that money does not exist in the physical world. Yet it’s quite relevant to us. So now read *my* lips – your argument is invalid.
It’s not because CS does not exist that most sensitivity matters are irrelevant. It’s because whatever central estimate one might fixate on doesn’t matter much for our infrastructure choices. To borrow from JoeR (this may be the only time I do) we’re driving way too fast already:
Source: http://planet3.org/2013/03/08/why-equilibrium-sensitivity-is-not-policy-relevant/
One may argue that CS exists the same way the ideal gas law does, BTW. Unless you’re willing to drop the ideal gas law, JohnH, I suggest you find yourself something else than an ontological argument.
Willard: I have no need to continue to debate with you over the existence or non-existence of CS in the physical world. I do, however, agree with you that we have much bigger fish to fry re the mitigation of manmade climate change. That is why I keep pointing out that the accelerating GHG effect driven by mankind’s activities are impacting all components of the Earth’s total climate system, not just lower troposphere. What’s happening in the cryosphere, for example, is truly scary.
> We will accrue less energy (in returning to equilibrium) if CS is low, than if it is high.
Of course. My point regarding energy per time unit was to hint at something like this:
The sentence emphasized seems to undermine the idea the authors are trying to sell in that paragraph. While a factor of 2 may have a substantial impact on centennial scale, its impact on decadal scale isn’t that great, and below that it’s barely noticeable. Facing the two extremes (1.5K and 4.5K), a city’s five-year plan for 4.5K will at worse be still valid for five more years. The same applies for decadal decisions made by states and corporations: even if the rubber meets the road in 20 years instead of 10, it’d be tough to argue that all these investments would have been thrown out of the window.
Moreover, a ratio of 1:2 represents two extremes we barely consider while we’re debating these sensitive matters. When the debate is about whether we should be over or under 3, the payoff becomes academic. The difference in investment timing is so short we can barely speak of intergenerational justice.
In effect, lowballing sensitivity with the lowest justified disingenuousness money the GWPF and other energy think tanks can buy is more than risky business. From a policy perspective, it is barely rational. It indicates a lack of fortitude to address a problem more than anything.
Willard: I nioticed that you use the term “real world” in your comments and I use the term “physical world” in mine. From where I sit, the two terms do not mean the same thing. Do you agree, or disagree?
John H:
”
I have no need to continue to debate with you over the existence or non-existence of CS in the physical world.
”
Exactly.
“The Earth’s climate system” is exactly as much a human construct, a bunch of labelled abstractions, a denoted set of ideas, as “climate sensitivity”.
Debating whether climate sensitivity exists is like debating whether the orbit of the Earth exists.
Or the ideal gas law.
What you can bet your sweet bippy on is this:
As both you and Willard seem to agree – We have important choices to make that do not depend on the ontological status of our terminology.
JohnH,
First you’re telling me that you have no need to continue to debate with you over the existence or non-existence of CS. Now you’re trying to split hair on the difference between real and physical by putting “real world” in my mouth. Which is it? While you think about what to do with your stack of chips, let me remind you of my counter-argument:
Since you insist, here’s what is said of the ideal gas law:
An ideal gas does not exist, yet we refer to an ideal gas to approximates the behavior of gases with it. Now, compare and contrast:
Sensitivity is thus an idealization of the behavior of surface air temperature when subjected to a change in radiative forcing.
And to shake off a bit your certitude that climate exists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate
Do you think that statistics exist?
Willard: I have never asserted that CS does not exist. From my perspective, it does not exist in the physical world in the same way that a forcing, for example, does. Ditto for equations that describe how components the physical world behaves.
I did not state that climate exists in the physical world. I stated that the climate system exists in the physical world.
My statement verbatim:
You can bet your sweet bippy that the Earth’s climate system exists in the physical world.
> I have never asserted that CS does not exist.
Of course you did not, JohnH:
By the same token, money does not exist in the physical world. Does it mean it’s “illusional” to care about money?
That something does not exist in the physical world is a poor argument to justify the claim that we ought not discuss it. Most of our values do not exist in the physical world. Heck, most of our social reality does not exist in the physical world. Institutions. Decisions. Personhood. Etc.
izen says: April 20, 2017 at 4:17 pm
“Here is another real event that escapes capture by increasing the accuracy of the TCR-ECS ratio.
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/04/08/an-armada-of-ice-bergs-has-just-invaded-the-north-atlantic”
Izen, there are matters of perspective here.
Not every event has to be seen as promoting global warming.
In this context, to my simple brain at least, the presence of increasing numbers of large icebergs presages one of 3 states. Situation normal, situation AGW or situation AGC [cooling].
Now if I think of a really warm world, Greenland loses its ice sheets [glaciers], there are now no icebergs. From now til then I would expect, on average less icebergs.
Situation normal, preferred option, there are decadal and annual fluxations in ice formation and breakup. Larger ice streams this year have broken up at a faster than usual rate at this time of year when they normally breakup [ I guess they break up quicker at this time, growing all winter and now facing rougher seas?? anyone].
In a cooling world the glaciers would be bigger, extend out further and produce more and bigger icebergs as Spring dawns.
Intrigued as to how the TCR-ECS fits in.
As a joke only at least it might improve the polar bears traveling destinations this year.
Willard: OK. I accept your point.
However, my initial comment as repeated by you was my reaction to how I believe CS is misrepresented in much of the discussion about it in the blogosphere. I not did not make the claim that we ought not discuss it. You inferred that from what I wrote.
Smallbluemike – re CCS. By weight we get 2.8 times as much CO2 emitted as “high quality” black coal burned. Less proportionally for lower quality coal, but then more of that needs to be burned for the same energy output and ultimately more is CO2 emitted. That 2.8 to 1 proportion says to me that CCS is never going to be cheap even if it were easy – and it isn’t.
CCS isn’t a solution. A strong commitment to CCS looks to me like a way to continue to delay and avoid strong commitment to replacing fossil fuel energy using the low emissions alternatives that we have.
John
Let me quote from a paper that freed my mind.
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections — the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.
If this view is right, it is misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement — especially if it be a statement at all remote from the experiential periphery of the field. Furthermore it becomes folly to seek a boundary between synthetic statements, which hold contingently on experience, and analytic statements which hold come what may. Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even a statement very close to the periphery can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?
For vividness I have been speaking in terms of varying distances from a sensory periphery. Let me try now to clarify this notion without metaphor. Certain statements, though about physical objects and not sense experience, seem peculiarly germane to sense experience — and in a selective way: some statements to some experiences, others to others. Such statements, especially germane to particular experiences, I picture as near the periphery. But in this relation of “germaneness” I envisage nothing more than a loose association reflecting the relative likelihood, in practice, of our choosing one statement rather than another for revision in the event of recalcitrant experience. For example, we can imagine recalcitrant experiences to which we would surely be inclined to accommodate our system by re-evaluating just the statement that there are brick houses on Elm Street, together with related statements on the same topic. We can imagine other recalcitrant experiences to which we would be inclined to accommodate our system by re-evaluating just the statement that there are no centaurs, along with kindred statements. A recalcitrant experience can, I have already urged, bc accommodated by any of various alternative re-evaluations in various alternative quarters of the total system; but, in the cases which we are now imagining, our natural tendency to disturb the total system as little as possible would lead us to focus our revisions upon these specific statements concerning brick houses or centaurs. These statements are felt, therefore, to have a sharper empirical reference than highly theoretical statements of physics or logic or ontology. The latter statements may be thought of as relatively centrally located within the total network, meaning merely that little preferential connection with any particular sense data obtrudes itself.
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries — not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
A lower climate sensitivity than we currently expect can be good or bad news. It depends what the reason is. If there is a cloud feedback that keeps the sun from warming the Earth as much then that is good news. If the climate sensitivity is low because more energy goes into the ocean, then we would also get more sea level rise. If the climate sensitivity is low because more of the additional energy goes into evaporation (rather than into warming the air) that would mean that we mess up the water cycle even more. That could well be worse than “just” warming.
Anders already cited Lewis & Curry (2014); here’s a relevant quote:
From the abstract of Armour (2017) we read:
(Ref. 2 being L & C (2015))
This crap about TCR mattering more than ECS is nothing less than an attempt to reframe Armour’s argument so as to preserve the perception of L & C (2014/5) as a potent argument against Teh Stoopid Modulz.
Fortunately, we don’t need to go through the brain damage of TCR/ECS calculations at any point in time to read CMIP5 output for a given forcing scenario. Nic provides no such projection, a long-running and glaring omission.
Victor Venema: I wholeaheartedly concur. We must never become so focused on CS that we loose sight of the big picture, i.e., the global climate system in its entirety. One of the strategies of the Climate Scince Denial Spin Machine is, in my opinion, to suck us into endless discussions of CS.
@-“The amount of energy we accrue will also depend, I think, on climate sensitivity. If it is low, then we would accrue less energy than if it is high.”
If climate sensitivity is low because there is a cloud negative feedback reducing the amount of surface absorption then I agree that less energy would be added to the CS.
But otherwise, the amount of energy added is proportional to cumulative CO2.
I can see no way to reach equilibrium without raising temperatures to emit that energy via the S-B curve.
@-Willard.
Of course TCR-ECS is real, like money.
And like money it is an abstract arbitrary definition constructed for its usefulness .
Not its physical accuracy.
Izen,
re. “I can see no way to reach equilibrium without raising temperatures to emit that energy via the S-B curve.”
It’s my understanding that the standard definition of ECS, the Charney sensitivity, does not include heat uptake by the deep ocean, only the “mixed layer”.
So by this definition, deep ocean heat uptake does affect the final “equilibrium” achieved.
ECS is a metric to assess climate response, NOT an expectation as to the final effect of rising CO2 on climate.
At least as I understand it.
vtg,
I don’t think this is correct, because if it was, we’d reach equilibrium within a few years, not centuries. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the TCR-to-ECS ratio is largely set by the rate at which energy diffuses from the mixed layer into the deep ocean.
You’re right. At least I heavily caveated my post 🙂
I think there is some dependence on the very deep ocean, that I’ve never fully understood. Could simply be that the models don’t really incude energy transfer into the deepest parts of the oceans and if this is not negligible, then it will impact the equilibrium sensitivity.
Perhaps Victor could comment re his
or was that only referring to TCR?
If, during the latter years of the observation period, more energy went into the oceans because of intensified trade winds, not seen before, what happens to TCR if the intensified are not seen again?
Steven Mosher: Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. I sincerely apprecite it.
A follow-up question: From your perspective, is there a difference between physics and meta-physics?
@-angtech
“In this context, to my simple brain at least, the presence of increasing numbers of large icebergs presages one of 3 states. Situation normal, situation AGW or situation AGC [cooling].”
By clear implication it will also have periods where it is in transition from one of your three states to the other.
For ~7000 years Greenland has been cooling and gaining ice on its icecap. Around half of the Greenland icecap is snow that has fallen since the Holocene optimum. It is a recent development that Greenland {and now Atarctica} are loosing mass. This is not typical behaviour after a glacial melt.
It may be simplistic to see >400 icebergs instead of the usual 80 as just annual variation. The suggestion this is the start of a Heinrich event is probably premature, but the reversal of the expected pattern of ice mass increase during an interstadial is definitely confirmed.
Willard: My Colombo gambit produced a positive result. We are in agreement. Peace.
@-JH
“A follow-up question: From your perspective, is there a difference between physics and meta-physics?”
Physics is working on the presupposition that there is a discoverable objective reality that is mathematically computable and logically consistent.
Meta-physics is the discussion of whether that is a useful, accurate or misleading presupposition.
”
A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity.
It can be put into three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’
It can be answered, moreover, in a word—’Everything’—and everyone will accept this answer as true.
”
”
…is there a difference between physics and meta-physics?
”
Physics attempts to explain phenomena… Metaphysics attempts to explains physics.
TVRJH:
What atrempts to explain metaphysics? 🙂
Seriously, based on a very cursory review, it appears that scholars are engaged in a very lively debate about the proper definition and application of metaphysics. It’s somewhat similar to our debate over CS.
What attempts to explain metaphysics?
All roads lead to “philosophy”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy
Speaking of definitions, I believe that the scientific community has inadvertently made it more difficult to effectively communicate climate science to the average person by using the word “climate” to describe differing things.
Comparing the IPPC/WMO definitions (courtesy of the handy-dandy SkS Glossary of Scientific Terms) of the word climate and the term climate system illustrates my point…
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. In various chapters in this report different averaging periods, such as a period of 20 years, are also used.
On the other hand, the climate system is defined to be…
The climate system is the highly complex system consisting of five major components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the land surface and the biosphere, and the interactions between them. The climate system evolves in time under the influence of its own internal dynamics and because of external forcings such as volcanic eruptions, solar variations and anthropogenic forcings such as the changing composition of the atmosphere and land use change.
Note: Defintions from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.
> My Colombo gambit produced a positive result.
Nice epithet.
You know, I almost always try to be constructive. Even with contrarians. There would be little point in ClimateBall otherwise. Check my latest:
André’s no dummy, and his many Colombo gambits deserve due diligence. It steers into ethics, morality, politics, and the philosophy of law.
Time to return to Nic’s nits.
“Willard: My Colombo gambit produced a positive result. We are in agreement. Peace.”
Willard would appreciate a Colorado gambit.
” follow-up question: From your perspective, is there a difference between physics and meta-physics?”
Yes. First meta physics has become hard to define. It used to mean the study of being. What is being or substance? What is nothingness? And other such questions. .What are causes…
This sense of metaphysics fades pretty fast after hegel.. and after I suppose you could say the question becomes: Who is asking the question. .that is attention turns to questions about what it means to be human. .what is this thing questioning being.. ah so on the continent at least the questions turn to what is a human. .and so think nietzsche, heidegger..Sartre. so you will see metaphysics turning to questions of free will, what is consciousness, is your mind a physical thing.etc.
In the analytic tradition metaphysics takes a linguistic turn..do universals exist?? Similar questions about mind/body problem, questions about reference bound variables and also free will. Hmm maybe modality..
Metaphysics has a different method. That’s the most important difference. .
The SKS widget –
http://4hiroshimas.com/
claims we are gaining 4 Hiroshimas a second.
I am still unclear whether climate sensitivity, TCR or ECS, has any influence on the rate of energy accumulation.
Or the cumulative total.
:”claims we are gaining 4 Hiroshimas a second.
I am still unclear whether climate sensitivity, TCR or ECS, has any influence on the rate of energy accumulation.
Or the cumulative total.”
You got it backwards.
izen, ECS is straightforward. There are qualitatively straightforward relationships between ECS and rate of energy accumulation and between ECS and cumulative total. Your “cause-and-effect” way of phrasing this “…whether climate sensitivity, TCR or ECS, has any influence on the rate of…” is slightly semantically problematic (and susceptible to smart-aleck one-sentence responses!).[*]
Considering a particular climate system like the Earth’s and the response to a forcing (like enhanced greenhouse forcing including feedbacks), a higher ECS should accompany a faster rate of energy accumulation. If one considers the time-dependence of the surface temperature (or total energy accumulation) response to the forcing, this might appear somewhat hyperbolic as the accumulated energy and the enhanced TOA emission progressively “fills in” the forcing – at equilibrium the forcing is gone. If the climate system has a higher ECS, then we expect the rate of temp/energy accumulation to also be faster.
Reality is a little more complex; the time-dependence of the changes will be a multiple of several time constants as different elements of the system respond with their own characteristic time-dependence (relatively rapid tropospheric response, slower albedo and deep ocean responses etc.). However especially in the early decades of the response to enhanced forcing a larger ECS will be associated with a faster rate.
Note that we must consider this in the context of a particular climate system. One can imagine a climate system such as Earth with much more land and much less ocean where (compared to the real Earth), a lower ECS than Earth’s might have a higher rate of response compared to our real Earth since the damping effect of the oceans would be much less and equilbration with the forcing would occur more quickly.
Cumulatively again ECS and total energy accumulation are related – higher ECS = higher net energy accumulation in the climate system at equilibrium.
Since TCR is some proportion of ECS broadly speaking (see discussion through this thread), I expect the same will apply. On the other hand since the climate response time constants aren’t very well constrained a relatively low TCR might be associated with a high ECS and vice versa. That seems to be a fundamental problem with attempting to determine climate sensitivity from observational data.
that’s how I think of it….
[*] Actually as i think of this again having written my post, your way of phrasing the question is OK
Chris: I believe Steve Mosher’s question should read:
How does the rate of energy accumulation affect TCR and ECS?.
In other words, I agree with the first paragraph of your response to Mosher.
Based on my understanding of climate sensitivity, it is a metric measuring the behavior of the system. It does not drive the system.
Here’s my rather simplistic understanding (happy to be corrected if wrong). The ECS will ultimately determine how much energy we will accrue in total. As a rough approximation, if the ECS is 3K, then we’d expect the entire system to ultimately warm by about 3K. For a given ECS, the TCR will determine the rate at which we accrue energy. If the TCR is close to the ECS, then we will approach equilibrium rapidly, and then continue to accrue energy slowly. If the TCR is quite different to the ECS, then we will remain further from equilibrium and accrue energy more rapidly (most of which will be heating the deeper ocean, rather than the surface ocean).
ATTP: Two questions:
How can a meatric that measures how a sysem behaves also “determine” how it will behave?
Do you believe that ECS is a constant ratio over a long period of time?
John, I think you’re falling into a semantic trap yourself. The climate sensitivity isn’t really “a metric that measures how the system behaves”, although one knows what you mean when you say that.
Rather the climate sensitivity is a fundamental property of the climate system (one might qualify that by saying it’s “a fundamental property of the climate system in its particular state” to account for the likelyhood that the CS is somewhat state dependent). Stated like this it’s acceptable to say that the climate sensitivity ultimately determines how much energy the climate system accrues…
In fact there are lots of phenomena with semantically-similar terms:
e.g. one could say ” how can the heat capacity determine how much the temperature of a body of water will rise given a particular energy input when the heat capacity is a metric that measures how the system behaves”?
climate sensitivity like heat capacity are respective properties of the particular system…having recognised these properties we have to give them a name (and may also determine an equation or two to define them)…
JH,
Yes, it was poorly worded. I was really just trying to point out that the ECS is related to how much energy we will accrue in total, and the TCR (or the TCR-to-ECS ratio) is related to the rate at which we will accrue that energy.
Well, no, it’s really just a model metric that allows us to quantify the sensitivity of the system under certain assumptions (fast feedbacks only). In reality there will be a base temperature dependence (it’s probably non-linear) and there will also be slow feedbacks that will also influence the overall warming.
Chris: Your explanation is a perfect example of why it is so difficult to translate “science-speak” into plain English. Rather than acknowledging this reality, you and others label it to be a “semantic trap.” We need to move beyond this impasse.
Chris & ATTP:
When I am asked, What is climate sensitivity?, I typicall respond with the following:
Climate Sensitivity
In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global 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 usually 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 effective climate sensitivity is a related measure that circumvents the requirement of equilibrium. It is evaluated from model output for evolving non-equilibrium 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. The climate sensitivity parameter (units: °C (W m–2)–1) refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature following a unit change in radiative forcing.
The transient climate response is the change in the global surface temperature, averaged over a 20-year period, centred at the time of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling, that is, at year 70 in a 1% yr–1 compound carbon dioxide increase experiment with a global coupled climate model. It is a measure of the strength and rapidity of the surface temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
Do the two of you consider this to be “gold standard” definition of CS?
ATTP: Thanks for the feedback. My second question was rather poorly worded. I should have asked: Do you believe that the CS of a climate system experiencing a rapidly accelerating greenhouse gas effect will remain constant over time?
Chris: Thanks for the feedback. My initial respnse may have been a tad edgy. If so, I apologize for its tone.
John – thanks for raising this question: “Do you believe that the CS of a climate system experiencing a rapidly accelerating greenhouse gas effect will remain constant over time?” I have wondered about that, but CS is not my strong suit. I am a one trick pony, I just track CO2 in the atmosphere. I am interested in a lot of climate subjects, but I am not a climate scientist, I am social scientist. I track CO2 in atmosphere because that is where the rubber meets the road in terms of human behavior. If the number goes up, we are getting it wrong. If the number goes down, we are getting it right. A lot of humans get fooled by spin about falling emissions, but if our “falling emission” progress does not quickly produce falling atmospheric CO2 levels, then it is meaningless. Like your question abt a time of rapidly accelrating ghg effect, I think that when we are at 410 ppm, slowing the rate of increase is not enough. The number has to go down.
Several folks here have made the point that arguing endlessly about the CS number is pretty meaningless because we know what we need to do, we need to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and we need to do it quickly if we want to reduce human conflict and suffering.
It really is that simple and the US voting population read the handwriting on the wall and lots of them voted to elect folks who deny the basic science of global warming. It’s hard to know what to say or do in response to that. My sense is that the species is failing this test.
per MLO:
Week beginning on April 16, 2017: 409.61 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 407.48 ppm
Warm regards
Mike
Mike: I consider my probing akin to peeling the layers of an onion, not ranting per se. Sometimes, I get frustrated at both myself and others and it affects the tone of my comment.
I think it’s fine to get in rant mode on occasion. We have painted ourselves into a pretty tight corner and it is frustrating so see folks propose that more paint is the solution. We need to cultivate thick skins and a sense of humor in these times. We need to support each other when any of us is so frustrated that they switch to rant mode. I think almost all of us do that on occasion.
I think blog rule number one may be “don’t feed the trolls” and number two might be “don’t take it personally when someone goes off on a rant.”
Mike: During my 32-year profesional carreer, I spent a goodly amount of my time translating “transportation technical speak” into plain English so that the it would be digestable by the general public. I have been doing something similar re “climate science” for over a dozen years now as a member of the Skeptical Science author team. Climate sensitivity is definitely one of the harder nuts to crack.
Mike: Peeling an onion can induce tears. 🙂
Why is this? It is really just how sensitive our climate is to external perturbations/changes. Sensitive, here, normally means how much we will warm for a given external change. I realise that there are complications like, Transient, Equilibrium, Earth System, but from a public perspective these details may not matter all that much.
That’s OK John, There’s clearly a difference of perspective about the term “climate sensitivity”. I consider it to be a fundamental property of the climate system. It’s also very easy to understand –
“double atmospheric CO2 (or an equivalent forcing) – what does the surface temperature eventually re-equilibrate at?”
It’s fundamental in the context of climate science and human welfare. The former, for (at least) two reasons – (i) because it defines the major first-order question (“how much warming will there eventually be”?) and (ii) because the climate sensitivity is something that can be estimated in an informative manner from interpretation of paleo-data. The latter (human welfare), because we live at the Earth surface and we know the second-order effects of moderate to high climate sensitivity are likely to be somewhere on the spectrum between problematic and dire.
The TCR is more of an operational parameter I would say, that incorporates the fact that we may think it’s of more immediate concern to know how much warming there will be on the multi-decadal timescale (rather than some psychologically indeterminate time in the future).
The first sentence of your IPCC paste encompasses ECS to my mind: “In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration.”
TCS is bound to be more problematic because we don’t have a very good handle on the fundamental response times of the relevant parts of the climate system, and these are not amenable to estimation from paleo-data.
Chris: Thanks. Your explanations are most helpful and informative.
Perhaps because I have a BS in Civil Engineering (way back in 1966), I tend to want terms like “climate sensitivity” (and words like “climate” for that matter) to have a singular definition that everyone accepts and uses.
ATTP: It could be that I am overthinking this matter. 🙂
Okay, some of that clarifies…
It help to think of ECS-TCR as reified metrics like heat capacity or thermal conductivity. In fact they can be viewed as the unified metric of the behaviour of the system with a particular heat capacity and thermal conductivity.
The complication is the system has three separate components, land atmosphere and oceans, with very different heat capacities and thermal conductivity. Two of the components can also move energy by bulk motion (convection) as well as conduction, and one component can transport energy without temperature change by two forms of phase change.
So if ECS is low and TCR is similar then that is because the climate system is effectively a low heat capacity object with high thermal conductivity. Therefore it rapidly warms to a temperature sufficient to emit the extra energy and restore equilibrium.
If ECS is high, and TCR low, then the climate system has a high heat capacity and conductivity, if TCR is high, then it is a high heat capacity but low thermal conduction (transport) object. It will rapidly warm close to a temperature at which equilibrium would be restored, but will then slowly approach that higher temperature as the slow thermal transport ‘fills’ the rest of the thermal sinks (deep oceans).
All of this is dependent on the magnitude of the forcing. The Joules accumulated constrain the eventual temperature required to restore equilibrium.
So, if the models, instead of the common conception, are actually running cold, what would the component factors – land, ocean, atmosphere – act like?
Land appears to warm and cool rapidly… April 2017 is cooling rapidly, relative to the first three months, because NH land component of the GMST is suddenly predominately blue instead of mostly red and orange on the maps. Rapid swings… I would call them wide swings.
Oceans, unless there are butt kicking Pacific trade winds, are hot on the surfaces, and warming quickly underneath.
Atmosphere, at the whim of the Matt England’s one off, so far, anomalous trade wind…
So what I have been wondering is, can a sensitivity be calculated by the rapid swings, or other behaviors of the components?
izen,
I’m not sure I agree with your heat capacity suggestion. We essentially know the heat capacity of the system (ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere). As I understand it, there is a direct relationship between the ECS and how much energy will need to be accrued to return to equilibrium after a perturbation. The TCR-to-ECS ratio depends, on the other hand, on the conductivity (or diffusion) – if we can diffuse energy into the deep ocean rapidly, it will be low; if it occurs slowly, it will be high.
In my opinion, this ongoing discussion not only reminds us how difficult it is to communicate the meaning of a complex scientific concept such as climate sensitivity, but also explains why climate science deniers have a field day in tying everyone into knots when the topic is breached.
JH,
Indeed, that’s why it can be tricky. However, given that it is indeed complex, I don’t really see how one can easily address this; it’s worth trying to be as simple and clear as possible, but all we can do is make it difficult for it to be misrepresented by those who wish to do so; we can’t prevent it altogether.
ATTP: One of our goals ought to be to make it harder for climate science deniers to tie us into knots. We can do this better if we are all singing out of the same hymnal. This ongoing discussion brings back memories of similar discussions that occurred in the undergraduate science courses I took more than 50 year ago. You are to be congratulated for conducting a virtual classroom here.
Speaking about the power of words, the following aricle caught my attention yesterday morning as I was perusing the Sunday print edition of the New York Times. It is well worth reading.
Reclaiming ‘Jew’, Opinion by Mark Oppenheimer, Sunday Review, New York Times, Apr 22, 2017
> We can do this better if we are all singing out of the same hymnal.
I doubt it.
First, because contrarians have built a ClimateBall Dutch book. They always win, even when they don’t. Think of it as a whole book of Colombo gambits 😉
Second, we seldom do. We have no universal definition of concepts like function or subsidy, of things like pen or organ, of stuff like mountain or tree, etc. We still work it out most of the time. It would always be possible to miscommunicate if that’s what we want.
Third, concepts evolve. They satisfy needs and needs change. We clarify them, but they also diversify among disciplines. Their linguistic workload sometimes multiplies.
Working definitions with workable citations ought to be enough.
Willard:
Working definitions with workable citations ought to be enough.
“Ought to be” is the operative term.
With respect to defining CS, we appear to be dealing with something akin to situational ethics. In other words, the meaning of the term climate sensitivity depends on the context within which it is used. At least that is one of my takeaways from Chris’s comments.
Speaking of the difficulty of convincing climate science deniers to accept the overwhelming body of evidence validating the reality of manmade climat change, the following caught my eye…
Turkey has long resisted the word genocide, saying that the suffering of the Armenians had occurred during the chaos of a world war in which Turkish Muslims faced hardship, too.
Turkey also claimed that the Armenians were traitors, and had been planning to join with Russia, then an enemy of the Ottoman Empire.
That position is deeply entwined in Turkish culture — it is standard in school curriculums — and polling has shown that a majority of Turks share the government’s position.
“My approach is that as much proof as you put in front of denialists, denialists will remain denialists,” said Bedross Der Matossian, a historian at the University of Nebraska and the author of “Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire.”
‘Sherlock Holmes of Armenian Genocide’ Uncovers Lost Evidence by Tim Arango, New York Times, Apr 22, 2017
My own takeway from Chris’ comments is that technical concepts can be used to refer to stuff in the world or be put to use in a formal and/or empirical apparatus, John.
It’s like the proverbial finger and Moon story, minus the condescension over the finger. Sometimes it makes sense to look at the finger itself, just to make sure it works. Speaking of which, did you know that astronomical degrees were hand based? That’s how we could measure the sky, and use the stars to explore the world.
Willard: Assuming that I am interpreting your words correctly, we appear to be in agreement. 🙂
ATTP: For whatever reason the reserch findings describe below has flown under my radar for a couple of weeks. Since this is the most recent OP addressing CS, I thought i should post this comment here. You may, however, want to create a new OP about it. (One OP re CS per week is about right, eh?)
Yale scientists looked at a number of global climate projections and found that they misjudged the ratio of ice crystals and super-cooled water droplets in “mixed-phase” clouds — resulting in a significant under-reporting of climate sensitivity. The findings appear April 7 in the journal Science.
Equilibrium climate sensitivity is a measure used to estimate how Earth’s surface temperature ultimately responds to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Specifically, it reflects how much the Earth’s average surface temperature would rise if CO2 doubled its preindustrial level. In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated climate sensitivity to be within a range of 2 to 4.7 degrees Celsius.
The Yale team’s estimate is much higher: between 5 and 5.3 degrees Celsius. Such an increase could have dramatic implications for climate change worldwide, note the scientists.
Climate models have underestimated Earth’s sensitivity to CO2 changes, study finds by Jim Shelton, Yale News, Apr 4, 2017
JH,
I don’t remember seeing that one. I’ll look at it when I get a chance.
ATTP: When I posted this article, I mistakenly thought it had been published this year. Alas, it was posted on April 4, 2016. Sorry about that.
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Willard,
I’m not quite getting what you’re arguing here. Is your argument that one short timescales what we would do if we planned for an ECS of 4.5K, would not be very different to what we would do if we planned for an ECS of 1.5K? I suspect that this is probably roughly correct (in the sense that there is probably a limit to what we could realistically do on short timescales) but I’m not quite sure.
Hi, I see the equation for energy balance includes “forcing”, and since this is a physics blog it would maybe be possible to get an answer to my question. What is a “forcing”? In physics we either have a force or we don´t. I have seen “solar forcing” and radiative “forcing”. Solar forcing seems to just be a change in energy from the sun, and then it should be called “change in energy from the sun”, or “increased solar irradiation”, or simply “more sun”. Anyone of those would be more correct to use, since “forcing” is a concept I don´t find in any physics outside the greenhouse.
Radiative forcing, as used in global warming terminology, is not as easily understood. Actually, it has some serious problems. When we talk about solar forcing, or “more sun”, there are no questions about energy and where it comes from, and how it acts on the system. But the radiative forcing from greenhous gases is more tricky. It actually says that the energy in the system increase, without adding any energy. At first, many people don´t react to this, because that is exactly how they have understood the term “radiative forcing”. But when you remind them of the first law, they feel a little sting, and usually aggression and personal attacks follow. Since you are a physics-person, you should not have a difficulty understanding the problem here. There is no question about the term “radiative forcing” is something that is used to increase the amount of energy to the system, without adding energy to the system. There is no question that adding energy to the system without adding energy to the system, is “creation of energy”. Which is what the first law says not can be done.
What are your opinion on this. You must agree that “forcing” is something acting on the system, and it makes the energy inside it increase? And you must agree that “forcing” in climate science is not a force, and it has no energy in itself? How can something act on a system without using any energy, but still increase the energy in the system? You know about work, I´m sure. Then you also know that the change in energy density U is Q-W. “Forcing” is not Q, because that is heat, then it has to be W. But it is not.
Why has this word “forcing” been made up? We already had a term for increasing energy without heat, it is Work. Am I right when I say that “forcing” is not found in physics anywhere else than in climate science? And if it is found elsewhere, it always includes some amount of energy input to the system, and could be called work or heat?
From my point of view, there must have been a lack of physics knowledge involved when creating the term “forcing”, which should have been called “Work” or “Heat”, but since it is not one of those it would have been discarded. Or, someone is being deceptive. Do you agree that this is a unique and very strange term exclusive to climate science? Why don´t we find “forcing” in standard thermodynamics? Is thermodynamics incomplete and in need of this new term “forcing”? And finally, doesn´t “forcing” sound a bit silly? Heat, work, force and “forcing”? It sounds like something a kid made up, trying to say “force”, doesn´t it?
I usually get comments that I should learn about climate science to understand “forcing”, and I know everything I need to know about climate science to understand that this is a problem. I think you can see the problem as well. So I need to know more climate science to understand it, in the same way I need to understand Islam better to understand IS. It is the same problem that religions have when they claim things violating physics. More bible-reading won´t help. More climate science won´t help. We need to understand why the greenhouse theory is allowed to add more energy to a system without it being a force, work or heat. This is radiative physics, it was not incomplete, it didn´t need a new term “forcing” just for “AGW”.
lifeistermal,
It’s true that a force in physics, and a forcing in climate science are not the same thing. In climate a change in forcing (or, more correctly, a change in radiative forcing) is simply some external change that leads to either more energy accruing in the system, or more energy being lost from the system. If the Sun gets slightly brighter, there will be an increase in solar forcing. If a volcano goes off, it will put aerosol particles in the atmosphere that will reflect more sunlight and there will be a negative aerosol forcing.
No, this isn’t correct. If you add GHGs to the atmosphere then you reduce the outgoing long-wavelength flux. If we are losing less energy, then – overall – we must be gaining more energy than we were before adding the GHGs. Hence, the energy in the system increases.
Except this is not what is happening. We can gain energy by increasing the amount of energy coming in or by reducing the amount of energy going out. There is no violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
I don’t know the history, but it’s just a term used to describe something.
I have a feeling this isn’t going to go well (feel free to prove me wrong).
See also:
“In climate a change in forcing (or, more correctly, a change in radiative forcing) is simply some external change that leads to either more energy accruing in the system, or more energy being lost from the system.”
I agree with this, although more energy accruing in the system means a problem. To do that you need certain properties, like reflection of IR which only can be done with a radiant barrier with a reflective surface, which the atmosphere doesn´t have. Or something preventing absorption in the colder absorbing body, which the atmosphere doesn´t have. It is a strange thing that climate science says absorption in a colder body increase the heat in the system, because that is the opposite of what thermal physics say. Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_insulation
“Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body.”
The exact same mechanism you claim to be heating earth, is what needs to be avoided to achive a state of “accruing” energy/heat in the system. It is unquestionable, and it is the reason I worried you with my word “deceptive”. Because, what could the possible reasons be to tell the world that there is a global threat based on a violation of physics? There are only two options, ignorance or deception. I try to avoid ignorance and instead say deception, because I don´t want to call you stupid(I don´t think that), and I don´t think its you that is the one deceiving anyone. Don´t worry, I´m simply interested in the scientific conflict, not to degrade anyone unless I get that first.
“If you add GHGs to the atmosphere then you reduce the outgoing long-wavelength flux. If we are losing less energy, then – overall – we must be gaining more energy than we were before adding the GHGs. Hence, the energy in the system increases.”
Assume I know all the explanations, otherwise I wouldn´t be here asking these questions. What you say, can you give a reference in thermodynamics for that? Not a reference in climate science, because that would be circular, the same goes for “greenhouse” physics. It needs to be thermal physics, the old thermodynamics with blackbodyradiation and all the goodies. I ask for a reference because I want you to have a look yourself, what you say is contradicted in thermodynamics and you can´t find support for it outside the greenhouse theory. Temperature is not caused by the emission, that is backwards. Temperature causes emission. Prevost stated in the childhood of thermodynamics: Emission from a body depends on the internal state solely. It has not been questioned as far as I know, so why do you?
Absorption is also due to temperature only, logically displayed in the stefan-boltzmann equation for radiative heat transfer. The lower temperature of the colder body, the greater rate of transfer from the higher body. Also unquestionable, and 100% consensus physics. What you say, that lower flux density from the atmosphere cause higher temperature of the surface, is contradiction of proven and widely applied physics in the formula for radiative transfer of heat.
You say, reduction of outgoing flux. That is correct, this is what satellites observe. But the foundation of thermal physics says that the emission depends on the internal state of the emitter(temperature). This means that reduced flux from the atmosphere, means reduced temperature of the atmosphere. Try to increase the temperature of something to increase the temperature of the heat source heating it. Do you see the problem?
There is nothing magic about an atmosphere allowing this process to work in the opposite way of proven, established and widely applied physics. Or do you think that the atmosphere can work in violation with the physics of, say, an engine? The engine cools from water circulating to a cooler that cools by air running across the surface of the cooler. Earth has the exact same parts, doing the exact same thing. Cool water, cool air, hot surface. Water circulating carrying heat to air, which is 33C cooler than the surface.
I can illustrate this with the s-b formula easily. First we have 390W from the surface, and 240W from the atmosphere. Then we have the “forcing”, reducing atmosphere flux with -2W. So first:
390W-240W= 150W/m^2 of heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere.
Then:
390W-238W=152W/m^2 from the surface.
So your claim that the system has to increase in emission is not true, it is accounted for in heat transfer. Since the supply of energy is constant and limited, we can even expect a slight cooling to the system, because there are no extra heat sources to replace the 2W of reduction. This is all standard thermodynamics, I expect I don´t need references for this. A sidenote: the s-b equation can not be used to add fluxes like in the greenhouse model, it is only for net-transfer since it is used to balance two, or more, emitting bodies. It is only used that way in the greenhouse model.
“Except this is not what is happening. We can gain energy by increasing the amount of energy coming in or by reducing the amount of energy going out.”
Yes, you are right. The problem is that the ways to increase temperature by reducing emission from the system, are well known. Absorption in a colder body is what you have to avoid to do that. This is clearly shown by insulation, applied physics. You need to provide a reference for your claim that cold air can reduce the energy going out from a hot surface. As you surely realize by now, you won´t be able to find that, because it is the opposite of what happens in reality.
“There is no violation of the first law of thermodynamics.”
I think I made it clear now that a violation is the foundation of the whole greenhouse. Cold air is not what you can use to reduce heat loss, it is the opposite. Reduced emission means increased heat transfer from surface to air, and possibly a cooler surface, if anything.
The thing is, you still haven´t explained where the extra energy comes from. You say the “reduced emission” cause increasing temperature. And since reduced emission is equal to reduced temperature, you are actually saying lowered temperature means increasing temperature. So, “forcing” doesn´t add any energy, your own explanation is that it reduce emission. So the “forcing” is a reduction of energy, which you claim to be increasing the energy. A very good example of a violation of the first law, no question about it.
If I could describe temperature distribution in the system with only the solar constant, geometry and heat transfer, with accuracy, what would you say about that? How would that affect the greenhouse theory, which claims that cold air adds energy to a warm surface?
It should be “try to decrease the temperature of something to increase the temperature of the heat source heating it” not:
“Try to increase the temperature of something to increase the temperature of the heat source heating it. ”
Sorry…
lifeisthermal,
There is no violation of physics. Consider the energy balance figure (which I discussed in this post).
We have energy coming in from the Sun, some of which is reflected, and some of which is absorbed. We ultimately reflect about 100W/m^2, and absorb about 240W/m^2. The surface temperature is around 289K, which means it has to radiate about 396W/m^2 (it also loses about 100W/m^2 via thermals and evaporation). To be in energy balance, the surface has to then be receiving as much energy per square metre per second as it is losing. However, it clearly gets far less energy from the Sun, than it is losing. Where does this extra energy come from? Well, it comes from the fact that our atmosphere has radiatively active gases (GHGs) that prevent some of the energy that is radiated from the surface escaping directly into space. Ultimately the amount of energy radiated back into space matches the amount we’re receiving from the Sun – we’re in energy balance. There is no violation of physics; there is no energy created from nothing. Here’s a good Realclimate post about this.
No, this isn’t what I said. I said GHGs reduce the outgoing energy flux. If we’re in energy balance, then we’re receiving as much energy from the Sun as we’re losing into space. If we add something to the atmosphere that reduces the outgoing energy flux, then we’d be receiving more energy from the Sun than we were losing to space and we’d warm.
I have a feeling that this discussion isn’t going to proceed particularly constructively. Given what you’re saying, I suspect that this isn’t the first time you’ve had such a discussion. If others have been unable to convince you of the errors in what you’re saying, I suspect that I might not have too much success either.
Willard,
Thanks, I was trying to remember where I’d seen the explanation for the term “forcing”.
ATTP, let me just point out that lifeisthermal refers to [Science of Doom]’s blog as “scienceoffraud”.blog as “scienceoffraud”. That should tell you how constructive of a discussion you may have with him…
Marco,
Thanks, that probably tells me all I need to know.
It’s the usual second law confusion amongst those with overheated brains about what a thermal equilibrium is and how blankets work by slowing the rate of heat flow into and out of a system. Ask the guy about whether his head is colder or hotter with a hat on.
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I do a lot of snow camping, and on clear nights I sure miss those icy clouds keeping the heat in. I hadn’t realised they were violating physics.
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