Tag Archives: Feedbacks

feedbacks, runaway, and tipping points

Posted on February 1, 2020 by ...and Then There's Physics

There’s been some discussion on Twitter about feedbacks, runaways, and tipping points. The issue is that some seem to confuse these and sometimes imply that we could cross thresholds where we’ll undergo a runaway. I thought I would briefly try … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Severe Events, The scientific method, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 215 Comments

A bit more about clouds

Posted on October 7, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

A few years ago I posted a video by Andrew Dessler that was discussing whether or not Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity could be less than 3oC. The bottom line was that the best estimate for ECS is about 3oC. Given that … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Global warming, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Water vapour and climate

Posted on January 23, 2016 by ...and Then There's Physics

Peter Sinclair has video interview with Andrew Dessler about water vapour and climate. The video doesn’t really say anything all that surprising. We are now reasonably sure that relative humidity remains roughly constant as we warm. This then allows us … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming | Tagged , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Feedbacks, climate sensitivity and the limits of linear models

Posted on November 18, 2015 by ...and Then There's Physics

Since I’ve discussed climate sensitivity here quite a lot, I thought I would highlight a recent paper, by Knutti & Rugenstein, called feedbacks, climate sensitivity and the limits of linear models. It’s a very nice, and readable, summary and – … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Science | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Forcings and feedbacks

Posted on May 24, 2015 by ...and Then There's Physics

After my lengthy exchange with Roger Pielke Sr, I thought I might write a quick post about forcings and feedbacks. I thought I might also comment on this tweet from Roger “I also don’t think that the term forcing in … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Science | Tagged , , , , | 204 Comments

Nonlinear feedbacks

Posted on November 14, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’ve written a number of posts about the energy balance models (EBMs) used by Nic Lewis and thought I might write one more (sorry SB 🙂 ). In a previous post, Victor asked what I thought the reasons were for … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 70 Comments

Back to basics

Posted on October 25, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics

Although I didn’t really think through starting this blog, one motivation was that I was aware that quite a lot of what was said about climate science in the blogosphere was simply wrong. I thought that if I could point … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Gavin Schmidt, Global warming, IPCC, Judith Curry, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 58 Comments

Are feedbacks operating?

Posted on June 20, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’ve been pondering today if being anonymous means that others think it’s okay to be rude and unpleasant, or if they are simply rude and unpleasant. I’m tending towards the latter and have seen nothing to convince me otherwise. A … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, IPCC, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | 271 Comments

Energy budget estimates explicitly using feedbacks

Posted on March 24, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics

This post was partly motivated by Michael Tobis’s recent post in which he rebuts a doom-monger by pointing out that feedbacks can’t really produce some kind of runaway process in the next few decades, and by my uncertainty as to … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Energy budget constraints

Posted on February 19, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics

To follow up on my post about Understanding Lewis (2013), I thought I might highlight a recent paper called The dependence of transient climate sensitivity and radiative feedbacks on the spatial pattern of ocean heat uptake, by Rose et al. … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ENSO, Gavin Schmidt, Global warming, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments