Climate Sensitivity

Climate sensitivity in light of the latest energy imbalance evidence

My research long ago was done with ERBE data, a precursor dataset to CERES. Investigations using CERES data are interesting to me. Perhaps the quality of the ERBE is not comparable and therefore not used.

If I had the time I would start perhaps with:

A Long-Term TOA and Constrained Surface Radiation Budget Dataset Using Merged CERES, ERBE and ISCCP/SRB Products from the Past 30 Years

Another useful link from ISSI Working Group

Joining the fray

Puzzled by J Currie’s likes on Twitter. Starting with GWPF article about ocean warming. My review:

This paper is a review of published research on ocean heat content. It’s most important point is that the IPCC report relies on a retracted paper https://nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1585-5 . I cannot find this relation in the cited articles (Cheng 2018,2019).

The review of Ocean Heat Content is based on published articles. I do not understand why the Holocene is added at the end. Comparing these two data sets seems odd.

Wordle from Climate Etc Planning Engineer Article

I appreciate the long article written by Planning Engineer.  This Wordle is an attempt to summarize by counting the frequency of words. I do not understand the either/or mentality. Yes, we should have renewables, Yes, we should scale down carbon emissions (I agree that CO2 is not a pollutant, but it is a greenhouse gas) and yes,yes, yes let’s fund alternate energy resources. (But publicly, not in Dept. Defense).  Note the prevalence of the word “Costs”.

IPCC one month later

I have not gotten very far with my reading of reading the IPCC report. I have fractal inclinations. If I come across something that I don’t understand, I look at the referred paper. While reading that, I come across a topic I do not understand and look up the paper that refers to that. There is no end to this process except at some point I stop

Instead, I am trying to contribute to the Climate Etc blog. It occurs to me that I might say something incorrect and stupid. But Dr. Curry seems very tolerant towards stupid remarks so I think it is a safe place. There seems to be a wide range of people who contribute to the blog and I see my participation as a social experiment as well as scientific. Do I trust someone who makes good arguments but then is nasty about it? What to do about someone who is misguided but polite?

IPCC AR5 Chapter 7 Clouds and Aerosols

Reading the executive summary.

I want to understand the following:

• forcing – instantaneous change in radiation budget (RB)
• rapid adjustments- modify the RB indirectly through “fast” atmosphere and surface changes.
• feedbacks- operate through changes in the climate variables that are mediated by a change in surface temperature.

In his paper on climate sensitivity, Spencer commented on the differences between what one defines as a forcing and a feedback. There is a new concept called “Effective Radiative Forcing”, ERF, which does not include feedbacks but does include the concept of rapid adjustments. It looks like feedback is defined only in the context of change in surface temperature (or temperature of the air 2 meters above the surface).

I am disappointed in finding a section on “Solar Radiation Management and Related Methods”? This should be in the mitigation section.

IPCC Working Group I

The Second working group IPCC report comes out today and I have not read even the first. Time to start.  1552 pages. Sigh.

Reading the Preface:

The Working Group I Report is an assessment, not a review or a text
book of climate science, and is based on the published scientific and
Process Understanding (Chapters 6 and 7): These chapters cover all
technical literature available up to 15 March 2013.

Structure of report includes:

An innovation in this Working Group I assessment is the Atlas of Global
and Regional Climate Projections (Annex I) containing time series and
maps of temperature and precipitation projections for 35 regions of
the world, which enhances accessibility for stakeholders and users.

I am curious about the regional predictions. I’ve been out of the research environment for 10 years now and I do not know much about how regional predictions are faring.

For the first time, there is a chapter dedicated to the
assessment of the physical science basis of clouds and aerosols

All material including high-resolution versions of
the figures, underlying data and Supplementary Material to the chap-
ters is also available online: www.climatechange2013.org

I see that this report is dedicated to Bert Bolin. I had a book, edited by him, in my hand, sometime between 1985 and 1991 (when I was a graduate student). The foreward had been written by Al Gore. I recall that the book was about biochemical cycles in the atmosphere.

I am determined to make my way through this report. I have printed out the table of contents.

Workshop summary from Climate Etc

A lot of media energy is spent on whether or not there is a global climate change occurring on earth. This workshop talks about what to do on a regional scale when there are serious changes in the average local climate. This could be more snow, less rain, higher winds.

This is a quote from the “Workshop on Climate Science Needed to Support Robust Adaptation Decisions” discussed on Climate Etc.

The focus is on timescales out to 2050 and regional scales.

Towards bridging the gap between climate information (supply) and decision making (demand) on regional and decadal time scales, the following questions emerge:

Are decision makers asking the right questions related to climate variability and change?
Are climate scientists answering questions of relevance to decision makers?
What questions are we not asking?
What are the institutional structures, decision processes, and modes of engagement among information users and producers that allows us to ask and answer the right questions about actionable climate information?

The objectives of the workshop are to:

Identify strategies that can help bridge the gap between climate information (supply) and decision making (demand) on regional and decadal time scales;
Explore the potential for new collaborations between UK-US;
Identify future research priorities and strategies.

The Hockey Stick and the climate wars.

Here’s my amazon.conm review:

I read this Kindle book because I wanted to hear Dr. Mann’s opinion on the recent “hockey stick” and stolen emails. I believe all that he described regarding the attacks via the media, politicians and denialists. It was indeed an onslaught to which no one should be subject.

Dr. Mann describes his response to errors which other researchers make regarding their work. Some, like Bryden, he treats with respect and others, like Stephen McIntyre, with scorn. He uses “shows” for those he agrees with and the word “claims” for those he does not.

Based on the notes and bibliography, it seems to me that the institution and university press releases are responsible for feeding the media and the media is responsible for spreading it in whichever way their political disposition guides them.

I gave the rating a 4 out of 5 because I would have liked to hear more about the reason for the conflict between Dr. Mann and  Mr. McIntyre. This is technical and, as far as I can determine, not political.

 

IPCC

I did not want to like the new book,”The Delinquent Teenager Who was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert”, written by Donna Laframboise.  I did not like the title and am skeptical of non-scientists writing books about a scientific topic.

Nevertheless, I read a bit on the author’s blog and her previous projects. I decided that if I wanted to comment on the book, I would have to read it. 8 euros (sales tax and such) and I had it on my Kindle.  She stayed focused on the IPCC and maintained a journalist perspective. Once in a while she mentioned something about the science, but I decided not to dwell on it too much. Montford (whose book I did not buy, although I thought long about it) showed up only once and she did not go into the CRU email debate. I like the Citizen Audit which she organized. This was a methodical and scientific  demonstration of how the IPCC chair misled readers. The cases of McIntyre and Landsea are very convincing.

Some things that irritated me a bit. Her use of the words “some of us” treat the reader as if they are, by default, a member of her group. She lumps the A work of the first working group with the remainder of the chapters. The basic evidence of climate change  is presented in this first chapter. I’m not a big fan of reading between the lines.

She seems a bit harsh on graduate students.  Although she gives strong evidence supporting the influence of  Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund, it is possible to be a good scientist and support environment regulation. I do not think that it is fair to be critical of people who genuinely believed what was said by IPCC officials. Al Gore is not a scientist and believed what he was told and was alarmed by it.

Something new, I had never saw some of this as antagonism of the US towards Canada but this is clear from the NSA and Mann’s response to McIntyre.

First Entry

I have started this blog so that I can contribute to discussions in the blogosphere with my own name.

RMD Observations is my, for want of a better word, business. It has one employee, me. I have been out of salaried work for almost 8 years. The internet, Linux and a nice computer have helped me stay up to date in science and allowed me to pursue my own research interests. Day to day activities (well, week to week, really) are documented in my other blog, RMD Observations. My website is RMD Observations.

Rose Dlhopolsky