Cloud forecasting and Cosmic rays
Despite the extent of our knowledge on clouds, and how powerful the computer is that helps us formulate our forecasts, we still do not seem to be able to forecast cloud amounts with any reasonable consistency.
Sometimes the computer models are wrong only six hours ahead! And there can be no doubt about it, cloud has an enormous role to play in calculating temperature levels, and forecasting its extent correctly is at times a major challenge.
Most scientists believe that greenhouse gases are largely responsible for temperature rises particularly during the second half of the last century. But if cloud is so important in predicting global temperature levels, how can we have confidence in projections fifty years ahead when cloud detail for short term forecasts can often prove elusive?
Thinking about clouds reminded me of a seperate, relatively poorly understood and controversial branch of climate change science; cosmic rays.
It's thought by some that cosmic rays can cause changes in cloud cover, by creating condensation nucleii, the very seeds of clouds around which water molecules are attracted to form clouds.
When the sun is active, so the theory goes, its magnetic field is stronger and so better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. High solar activity means fewer condensation nucleii and so fewer clouds and, if the theory is correct, a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. By regulating the Earth's cloud cover, it's thought the sun may turn the temperature up and down.
As the sun's magnetism increased in strength (higher sunspot activity) during the twentieth century, its thought that this natural mechanism may be responsible for at least some of global warming seen during the last century, as a result of decreased cloud cover.
But successive pieces of research has failed to find any link between cosmic rays and cloud. Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, found no link in the last forty years.
More recently a University of Lancaster team found no significant link between cosmic rays and cloudiness in the last twenty years.
But in a paper by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, at the Danish National Space centre, they claim that there is a link between cosmic rays and global temperatures. See diagram below.
So the arguments go on as to what effects cosmic rays have on temperature levels. There is very little in the IPCC report on the subject, but its difficult not to conclude looking at the above graph that there is an obvious link between temperatures and cosmic rays - even if the mechanism is poorly understood.
The idea that cosmic rays do impact us on earth by affecting our climate has been recently given a boost by research conducted last month into tree growth. The researchers tried to correlate tree growth to solar activity (hence cosmic rays) - and found a link.
According to them, an increase in cloud cover and haze would diffuse the amount of solar radiation reaching the trees. As diffuse radiation penetrates forest canopies better than direct light, it would increase the amount of radiation that plants capture, and increase photosynthesis by trees, boosting growth.
It would seem that it may well be in everyone's best interests to conduct more research into this intriguing branch of solar and climate science.
(Please note: Text highlighted in blue links to relevent research)
Hello, I’m Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for BBC Look North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I've been interested in the weather and climate for as long as I can remember, and worked as a forecaster with the Met Office for more than ten years locally and at the international unit before joining the BBC in October 2007. Here I divide my time between forecasting and reporting on stories about climate change and its implications for people's everyday lives.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~20~RS~)
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Implicit in your blog is the notion that increased cloud cover caused by cosmic rays are going to save of from man-made climate change, even though incoming cosmic rays and greenhouse gases are (if I understand correctly) completely independent of each other.
Even if we were to accept at link between cloud cover and incoming cosmic rays, what reason is there to expect cloud cover to increase in future and negate changes driven by increased levels of greenhouse gases?
Clarification anyone?
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As Paul says there is little in the IPCC 4AR about cosmic rays. They are mentioned in chapter 2 and they are shown in the table at 2.11. This is one of the areas where I had, and still have, difficulties with 4AR. Table 2.11, I believe, is a summary of known forcing agents and shows certainties and uncertainties. It also shows a level of scientific understanding (LSU). There are 16 forcing agents and the LSU range is : high, medium, low and very low. Only one scores high – long lived green house gases. There are 4 medium (if you include 2 medium/low), 6 low and 5 very low. Cosmic rays fall into the very low category.
On the face of it, it is difficult to reconcile these scores with the IPCC 90% confidence level.
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"But if cloud is so important in predicting global temperature levels, how can we have confidence in projections fifty years ahead when cloud detail for short term forecasts can often prove elusive?"
But, but, but ... if we can't predict the waves at the seashore, how can we predict the tides!!! Obviously we know nothing of the future and prediction of anything is impossible! (Unless, perhaps there's a difference between "weather" and "climate", just as there's a difference between short term hard to predict random waves, and long term tide driven by known external forcings.)
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Paul, LCarey already notes one problem with your analysis. Let me add another one: however 'good' the correlation between GCR and temperature may look, especially in the 'corrected' version (R=0.47...mwah), it also notes that a "linear trend" was removed. Where does that linear trend come from? In other words, at best GCR may explain the variation around a trend. The trend itself? Unexplained. And a 1.4 degrees trend per century isn't something we should just neglect.
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"but its difficult not to conclude looking at the above graph that there is an obvious link between temperatures and cosmic rays - even if the mechanism is poorly understood. "
Scientists don't make such conclusions by eyeballing graphs and finding correlation. Correlation is not causation. For example, cosmic rays changes are a product of solar sunspot changes, and changes in TSI has some correlation and effect on temperature.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
although note that solar activity has had a downward trend since mid-century, while global mean temperature has risen rapidly.
"It would seem that it may well be in everyone's best interests to conduct more research into this intriguing branch of solar and climate science. "
I agree, although note that most research has refuted the Svensmark hypothesis. Be skeptical in particular of how they "adjusted" global mean temperature in your lower panel. Note also that the conclusion derived from the lower panel is that cosmic rays have actually had a cooling effect on climate since mid-century, and thus it's "other" mechanisms that explains the warming, contrary to public assertions made by Svensmark. This is actually quite in line with the views of most scientists on solar variation and global warming since mid-century.
A good summary of the issues with the cosmic ray hypothesis:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/still-not-convincing/
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Lcarey:
Surely your point is far too simplistic. But if forecasters cant forecast cloud amounts now, what makes you think they can do it at the end of the century? If it is cloud amounts that are the problem, even if the external forcing is known (debatable to say the least but lets not get into that argument again), those same errors will be there. But if forecasters dont know those errors, (and if they did they would be able to eliminate errors in current cloud forecasts) then you can't strip the forecasts of those errors in decades to come. So future temperature levels must be open to considerable uncertainty.
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JohnH:
"But if forecasters cant forecast cloud amounts now, what makes you think they can do it at the end of the century?"
Actually, then can forecast cloud amounts fairly accurately, otherwise the forecasts of other weather elements which are modulated to some extent by cloud amount (e.g., temperature) would not be as accurate as they are. What is correct to say is that the forecast skill of cloud amounts is not as high as that of other elements such as T. Also, one has to keep in mind that verifying cloud forecasts is in itself is tricky and not nearly as straight-forward as verifying other weather elements.
That said, no we cannot dismiss the important role of clouds and the role of the WV feedback, and that research is receiving much attention and funding. However, GCRs are likely not going to improve the forecasts of current weather or future climate. A far bigger problem in predicting cloud amounts in the future is impact on cloud opacity and rainfall efficiency (of precipitating) stemming from anthro and natural aerosols. See the work by Dr. Daniel Rosenfeld and others on this front. Model grid spacing is also an issue when forecasting clouds and convection in particular, and the grid spacing will continue to improve with time. The new generation of coupled AOGCMs now include atmospheric chemistry, so there is hope on that (more important) front.
One must keep in mind that much of the uncertainty in the future projections of global SATs also arises from uncertainty in the projected levels of GHGs and aerosols (natural and anthro).
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Up to ten unsubstantiable claims, 150% more than the prior blog post. (And a fairly blatant failure to spellcheck.)
And yet, I like this post much more.
It seems I'm getting used to Paul's use of Star Trek Physics and Dr. Who logic, and once I've accepted a post as literary fiction, much less offended by it.
Cosmic rays, in the final months of the Year of Astronomy, are an apt topic, after all.
Also, I'm glad to see a non-temperature climate topic like cloud formation given such prominence. Not happy to see the illicit syllogism that follows, but it would be like expecting Mulder and Scully to visit without a two-headed dead body popping up to expect our host to miss a chance for prosleptic argument.
So, for moving the blog clearly into the class of pop sf, I'd have to say this post too is part of an improving trend.
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Paul, read 'The Chilling Stars' by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder ( ex New Scientist editor) and the evidence in this book shows that the frequency of ice ages corellates very well to the times that the sun, with its planets, tranel into and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Cosmic rays increase in the arms. Nucleation has been questioned ut explain how a cloud chamber works and you explain nucleation. And, Paul, you still remain quiet about the greenhouse effect theory and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Don't tell me, like the Met. Office did, not to ask any more questionsand that after this question they refused point blank to answer any. So much for my tax pounds and they being Public Servants.
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John Marshall:
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/research/39616
(where Svensmark is coming with poor excuses: Shaviv's model was shown to be based on too simplified premises, so he just claims the new model is based on faulty premises, without showing any evidence).
Oh, and care to tell us what you mean with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the Greenhouse Effect? I hope you are not one of those who claim the two contradict each other. That howler has been debunked even by several 'skeptics'.
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A proposed answer to any question of Thermodynamics and climate:
A) the Laws of Thermodynamics apply exclusively to closed systems.
B) The climate is a system that isn't closed.
C) The Laws of Thermodynamics do not apply to the climate.
D) The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a Law of Thermodynamics.
E) The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to the climate.
Full stop on any question of violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics with regard to any climate issue.
Any such question would be meaningless due to lacking context.
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Thought to further "cloudy" the subject matter a bit.
I was listening to a BBC podcast from Discovery (October 22nd) titled "Bioprecipitation - Airborne bacteria could play an important role in our weather. Some bacteria can turn water to ice at relatively warm temperatures, and this could increase rainfall. Richard Hollingham investigates..."
This was a fascinating study and well presented. Early results are encouraging enough to kick of a mayor study. Worth a listen for anybody with an interest in this topic.
It just amazes me how science tells us how much we do not know. It keeps me humbled and in awe at the universe we live in.
Have a great weekend....
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Boleslas_Broda #11
"Full stop on any question of violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics with regard to any climate issue."
Your post did'nt gell with my high level understanding. The following link is closer.
http://itg1.meteor.wisc.edu/wxwise/museum/a5/a5descript.html
Happy to hear your rebuttal as I'm no expert and may be missing your point.
Thanks
Tim
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I'm no expert, too.
When has that ever stopped someone in the blogosphere?
To paraphrase a better expert, first of all the question doesn't specify that the climate must obey the Laws of Thermodynamics, secondly, the Laws only apply to closed systems, and the climate isn't one, and thirdly, they aren't Laws so much as guidelines.
While the link you connect to sets parameters to allow the Laws to be somewhat useful in understanding what goes on, by defining the system, the boundaries and the surroundings.. and that it is meant only as a simple model.
Violating the Laws of Thermodynamics is not a unique, or even rare, uncommon or unexpected outcome under such a situation. Almost everything, if looked at closely enough, will no longer be simple enough for a simple model, and will at some point run into the problem of ill-defined boundaries and poor initial assumptions.
For instance, the link calls the planet the closed system. Very nice, but unless one accurately and completely measures both the heat and the temperature (not the same thing) of the entire planet and all its parts, not terribly useful.
In the simplest analysis AGW theory predicts the equilibrium heat (not temperature) of the planet (at which radiative balance is restored) increases as GHG emission increases.
You don't need any of the Laws of Thermodynamics to get there, but the language of Thermodynamics is handy, and since it's just lying around doing not much useful anyway, apparently has been purloined for the sake of this discussion.
Anyway, an increase in the equilibrium heat of the planet has been demonstrated to a remarkably high statistical degree of confidence in experiment and observation over the past decades.
However, that's really as far as Thermodynamics goes, or needs to, in climate science.
This doesn't mean many don't insist on going further, and they may have some valid points between them.
Just not valid Thermodynamic points.
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Thanks Boleslas_Broda. I'm encouraged that I'm not too far off the point.
My understanding of this is old and rusty but I remember the basics that you need to define boundaries to use these laws. The trick is, as you imply, to have a degree of confidence that you can do this and from what you say this is hard in many/most areas.
You say about thermodynamics: "it's just lying around doing not much useful anyway". Einstein will be turning in his grave!!
Thanks
Tim
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We're maybe thinking of different Einsteins.
No gravedigger had a hand in Albert Einstein's final rest; anyway, he may be closer on thermodynamics to what I said than some expect.
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Marco, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics ststes that heat can only flow from hot to cold and never the other way. The greenhouse effect has, in the back radiation, heat flowing from cool troposphere to warm surface. Can't happen. The troposphere is cooler than the surface because of adiabatic expansion as the warm surface rises due to convection. This has not been debunked and is now claimed by others, some of them climate scientists, to be why the greenhouse effect is false. It has been measured by Dr Richard Lindzen, of MIT, as a higher heat flow to space than shown by the models. Models also show heat in the troposphere but sondes or satellite fails to find this model heat. The models are wrong.
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@17 Oh. That 2nd Law. So many ways to say it.
If some handwaver at some time claimed the main mechanism of the greenhouse effect due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is heat flowing from cold air to warm surface, then they were wrong.
Unfounded assumption: 1) the troposphere is always cooler than the surface. Patently untrue in the case of warm air masses settling over cooler surfaces, such as happens sometimes. (Albeit a decent generalization.)
Unfounded assumption: 2) the warming of the surface is the issue. Patently untrue. A warmer atmosphere is a warmer atmosphere, in and of itself not a good thing. At some point some part of this warmer troposphere will come into contact with a cooler surface, or a warm surface that loses heat more slowly, or a cool air mass with increasingly violent reaction, or a warm surface that heats the troposphere more, loop back to start and repeat. All of these are bad things.
Unfounded assumption: 3) higher heat flow to space than shown by some models is a full answer that counters AGW. Rather, behaviours that cannot be well-modeled describe a state of Uncertainty. Models that are wrong don't disprove theories, they disprove that the subject is susceptible to modelling. In any case, how much higher this heat flow is, if it is, compared to what it would need to be to reduce the equilibrium temperature resulting from the GHG increase, remains in question. At some point the heat flow to space would return to pre-Industrial levels, with the dynamic equilibrium at a higher than pre-Industrial heat within the biosphere. Is there going to be a linear progression to that new equilibrium? Clearly not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge admirer of Dr. Lindzen's knowledge, originality, skill and tenacity. He's often completely right, and at least ten percent right about almost everything he says, which puts him far ahead of me, for one.
I still disagree with his conclusions, because like Johnny Knoxville, Dr. Lindzen should come with the warning "Don't try this at home." Unlike Johnny Knoxville, Dr. Lindzen's extremely careful and subtle, in ways that frequently escape the observer. I'm just not careful or subtle enough to figure out how non-cumulative small effects will be the answer for cumulative effects on the same or greater order of magnitude, like he apparently can.
If AGW is wrong and there's nothing to worry about, there's no cost other than that sound conservative emission practices (arguably best to adopt for no other reason than to avoid unknown consequences) might be embraced that otherwise would not be. Some place these costs at high levels, out of context or without detailed accounting. I have no confidence in such estimates, considering how much more money many governments bleed for what I consider absurdities. Choose your lawmakers well, if you want the costs to be lower; which would tend to recommend lawmakers who are numerate, honest and rational. Should this upset disbelievers in AGW?
The models may be wrong. I don't put much stock in climate models, but I'm certainly not jumping up and down to embrace dangerous generalizations, vague speculation and unfounded assumptions because climate models aren't right.
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B-B, the troposphere can be warmer than the surface? The surface is heated by direct radiation from the sun, this in turn heats the atmosphere in contact by conduction and convection, but, the air, as it convects WILL cool by adiabatic expansion by 3C per 1000m or so depending on water content. Water holds more heat than dry air so the lapse rate is greater. Whatever you do you cannot get round the adiabatic lapse late! This means that the higher you climb the colder you get and heat will not flow from cold to hot as stated by the 2nd Law which a physics fundamental law.
So my unfounded assumptions are not based on arm waving but science.
As a test of greenhouse effect go live in the middle of the Sahara for a few days and notice how fast the temperature drops as soon as the sun sets, so no back radiation at all. Our soldiers in Afghanistan have complained that kit is OK during the 50C days but unsuitable for the -10C nights. I have lived in such an area and can testify to their complaints.
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The whole troposphere vs the whole surface? Without a doubt, no question, the surface is generally warmer.
To use your Sahara as our example, suppose that 50C daytime air has been trapped in an inversion layer, and the temperature of the neighbouring surface falls to -10C during the night.
Warm air spreads, cold night temperature in its path soars. This isn't an unheard-of event. There are well-known recurring events with similar traits, like the Chinook winds of Alberta. It's just not the dominant situation.
'Cool troposphere/warm surface' is a good generalization, and it's the weakest of the arguments against the claim that the 2nd Law is violated.. but it still holds up as far as it goes.
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.. and when did the Sahara move to Afghanistan?
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B-B there is no inversion in the world that could contain a 60C temperature difference. Adiabatic expansion will win and the air will cool and therefore CANNOT radiate heat to the warmer lower layers/surface. And I know where Afghanistan is thank you!
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J.M.
Thank you.
Absolutely no inversion layer tolerates such a significant air temperature difference, I agree. But I don't need such a temperature difference.
Inversions do exist at lower temperature differences. The differences climb until the bubble of warm air bursts out of its confines. The warmth normally might spill into an adjoining area of cold rather than travel up and away from the surface immediately. I grew up in a region with a strong seasonal tendency to such inversion.
Your claim is that no heating of the surface by the troposphere could ever happen.
Your claim needs that no heating of the surface by the troposphere ever happens, to be true in the absolute terms you state it.
I only need one counterexample to show that claim to be incorrect. By only one degree, somewhere in the world, even once, if there is such a phenomenon, then this mechanism is demonstrated.
I gave the example of inversion.
I gave the example of the Chinook, the famous Snow-Eater, which might happen anywhere from New Mexico to the Yukon.
Since you mentioned the Sahara and Afghanistan, let me also provide the examples from these areas and their neighbouts of the bora, jugo, ghibli, khamsin la calima, leveche, marin, monsoon (some of them, there are many), simoom, siroc (also Sirocco), and xaloc -- many of these different names for the same phenomena, known in dozens of cultures for bringing moderating, warm, hot or notoriously deadly high temperatures to cooler surface areas throughout human history.
This is generally accepted evidence of a mechanism for parts of the troposphere to sometimes heat some of the surface.
I have stood in the South of France and felt the Marin's warmth. I have felt the Chinook's heat and seen it erase inches of snow in an hour so far as the eye could see. There are billions of people who have experienced at least one of the winds named above and can testify that they are real. They are a matter of historical record.
And this is all the weakest possible counterargument to the claim that GHG violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
It even misses the point of what's really wrong at the heart of your 2nd Law argument.
Is it enough to persuade you there is an error in your claim?
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John Marshall, I can see you are one of those that fails to see the difference between the greenhouse effect in a greenhouse, and the somewhat incorrectly named greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. But more problematic: you do not understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics properly. It really is not that difficult: the NET heat flow is from cold to warm, but the RATE of heat loss depends on the temperature difference. Greenhouse gases reduce the rate of heat loss from the atmosphere, and therefore will reduce heat loss by the surface. End result: warming. And please stop referring to Lindzen. His latest paper with Choi is a huge embarrassment, and falls into two possible categories: deliberate lie or major and basic error.
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Paul write: "There is very little in the IPCC report on the subject" on evidence surrounding cosmo-climatology. The same goes for LUC/UHI effects on surface temperature data, according to the massive peer-reviewed research associated with Roger A. Pielke, Sr., including the summary textbook "Human Impacts on Weather and Climate" (with William Cotton, 2007, 2/e, CUP). But the IPCC ignores this.
The IPCC was organized for a political goal - not scientific one. But its manifest effects have been to corrupt massively funded climate science, as MITs Richard Lindzen and University of Winnipeg's Tim Ball have long maintained.
"Most scientists believe that greenhouse gases are largely responsible for temperature rises particularly during the second half of the last century." Yes, as Dr. David Evan - former head of Australia's Carbon Accounting Office - says, if you are in the pay of the state funded science - or like Paul, benefit from it.
But No if you are not, like this Boulder, Colorado, based environmental scientist - then you aren't so gullible. If one takes at the raw data (not "adjusted" by dubious "authorities"), how can one? Factor in the most reasonable adjustments,
eg, http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.jpg
and ACO2 is scientifically indistinguishable from historic natural temperature increase. Time for Paul to fess up his sucking up to corrupt sources, what with sitting on all those CRU emails, code and data for - how many weeks?!?!
CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL.
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