Planet Earth's Air Conditioner System Part 3

Sense and Sensitivity by Willis Eschenbach is a must-read essay on the quest to restore falsifiable science to climatology. Mainstream climatology has sunk to unbelievable depths of defiant deceit. If someone does not come along soon to knock some sense into climate science, the public backlash will damage all of science -- not just the climate weasels such as Jones, Mann, Hansen, et al.

It is important for anyone wishing for a deeper understanding of climate to follow the cutting edge of logic in the science of climate. That cutting edge does not reside within mainstream climatology any longer, but instead rests firmly within the camp of the skeptics:

My new falsifiable predictions from my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis were as follows:

1 The climate sensitivity would be less near the equator than near the poles. This is because the almost-daily afternoon emergence of cumulus and thunderstorms is primarily a tropical phenomenon (although it also occurs in some temperate regions).

2 The sensitivity would be less in latitude bands which are mostly ocean. This is for three reasons. The first is because the ocean warms more slowly than the land, so a change in forcing will heat the land more. The second reason is that the presence of water reduces the effect of increasing forcing, due to energy going into evaporation rather than temperature change. Finally, where there is surface water more clouds and thunderstorms can form more easily.

3 Due to the temperature damping effect of the thunderstorms as explained in my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis, as well as the increase in cloud albedo from increasing temperatures, the climate sensitivity would be much, much lower than the canonical IPCC climate sensitivity of 3°C from a doubling of CO2.

4 Given the stability of the earth’s climate, the sensitivity would be quite small, with a global average not far from zero...

[Discussion of results supporting above 4 hypotheses...]

...Clouds, thunderstorms, and likely other as-yet unrecognized mechanisms hold the climate sensitivity to a value very near zero. And a corollary of that is that a doubling of CO2 would make a change in global temperature that is so small as to be unmeasurable.

In the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the hemispheric average temperature change winter to summer is about 5°C. This five degree change in temperature results from a winter to summer forcing change of no less than 155 watts/metre squared … and we’re supposed to worry about a forcing change of 3.7 W/m2 from a doubling of CO2???

The Southern Hemisphere shows the IPCC claim to be even more ridiculous. There, a winter to summer change in forcing of 182 W/m2 leads to a 2°C change in temperature … and we’re supposed to believe that a 3.7 W/m2 change in forcing will cause a 3° change in temperature? Even if my results were off by a factor of three, that’s still a cruel joke. _WillisEschenbach

The orthodoxy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming continues to suffer damage to its public image and credibility on a daily basis. The ability of alarmist politicians and "scientists" to control public policy by leading a gullible public by the nose, is diminishing.

The science of climate does not support the alarmist predictions of climate doom. But without doom, climatology has no clout to demand large research grants and to influence public policy. Things are coming to a head, and it is increasingly likely that heads will roll.

Planet Earth's Air Conditioner System Part 2

Over at WUWT, Willis Eschenbach adds to the "Global Air Conditioner" hypothesis in a guest post. Willis provides the image above, which models the planet Earth as a "heat engine." Incoming heat energy from the sun is absorbed, reflected, convected, and circulated in a large number of ways.

Here are Willis' conclusions after a long, detailed line of reasoning:

1. The sun puts out more than enough energy to totally roast the earth. It is kept from doing so by the clouds reflecting about a third of the sun’s energy back to space. As near as we can tell, this system of cloud formation to limit temperature rises has never failed.

2. This reflective shield of clouds forms in the tropics in response to increasing temperature.3. As tropical temperatures continue to rise, the reflective shield is assisted by the formation of independent heat engines called thunderstorms. These cool the surface in a host of ways, move heat aloft, and convert heat to work.

4. Like cumulus clouds, thunderstorms also form in response to increasing temperature.

5. Because they are temperature driven, as tropical temperatures rise, tropical thunderstorms and cumulus production increase. These combine to regulate and limit the temperature rise. When tropical temperatures are cool, tropical skies clear and the earth rapidly warms. But when the tropics heat up, cumulus and cumulonimbus put a limit on the warming. This system keeps the earth within a fairly narrow band of temperatures.

6. The earth’s temperature regulation system is based on the unchanging physics of wind, water, and cloud.

7. This is a reasonable explanation for how the temperature of the earth has stayed so stable (or more recently, bi-stable as glacial and interglacial) for hundreds of millions of years. _WattsUpWithThat

You will need to read the entire posting to understand the conclusions excerpted above.

There is a good reason why climate models are held in such low regard by scientists who understand the complexities involved. If you are on the inside of the scam, however, you may be willing to overlook a few deficiencies in the models for the sake of job advancement and some name recognition. Unfortunately for the scammers, this little play is approaching its expiration date. They have to work very fast or the gig is up.



Planet Earth's Air Conditioner System Part 1

Planet Earth's Air Conditioner System

If you want to understand why negative feedbacks predominate in global climate, check out this posting from Anthony Watts.Planet Earth has its own negative feedback climate control that keeps the sun from overheating the planet -- regardless of what humans do or don't do.Climate models have not yet caught on to this dominant feature of global climate, but give them a few more decades and trillions of dollars in research grants, and they might. Of course, by then the developed economies will be wrecked by Obama / Gore / Pelosi / Boxer style energy starvation. But that's politics, right?
Images courtesy of Wattsupwiththat climate blog