Bishop Hill Chivers on cosmoclimatology
Feb 11, 2012 Climate: Models Climate: solar Tom Chivers says he enjoyed his foray into climate a couple of days ago and has returned to the subject with a piece about Svensmark's cosmoclimatology theory.
...it's an interesting piece of research which adds to our understanding of atmospheric behaviour. As always, it's been leapt upon by "sceptics" who think all climate scientists are charlatans until those scientists say something they agree with, whereupon they're modern-day Galileos being placed under house arrest for heresy by the Church of AGW.
So let's look at what the research actually found. It did, as Svensmark predicted, find that cosmic rays could cause aerosol particles to form. But what it didn't find was that this leads to cloud formation; nucleation may lead to cloud formation if the particles are large enough, but it has not, yet, been shown that they are. As the Cern authors say themselves in the paper: "The fraction of these freshly nucleated particles that grow to sufficient sizes to seed cloud droplets… remain open questions experimentally.
The sceptic-bashing aside, this is pretty much a fair representation of my understanding of where Svensmark's work has got to. There is now some experimental evidence to support it, but more work is required to show that you can go from cosmic ray to cloud and also to demonstrate the size of the effect. If I recall correctly, Svensmark reckons that the effect is big enough to knock the CO2 hypothesis on the head.
We know that there is nothing in the temperature record itself to distinguish the recent warming from what has gone before - the claim that man has warmed the Earth depends on computer models whose temperature predictions are not validated. More relevantly to this posting,to the extent that the cosmic ray effect turns out to be real, the influence of CO2 will be less than previously thought. This is a potentially very big "known unknown" to go alongside the "unknown unknowns" that cannot be ruled out because of the lack of any validation of the models. It seems to me that sceptics are therefore correct to draw attention to Svensmark's work.
One other thing about Tom Chivers' posting:
...if [cosmic rays] did lead to cloud formation, that would not necessarily lead to cooling. Clouds don't only cool the planet: they reflect sunlight, but they also prevent heat from escaping from the Earth. Higher clouds and clouds further from the equator have a cooling effect; lower ones and ones near the equator tend to warm the planet.
The effect of low level clouds was touched on the Hockey Stick Illusion, where I briefly discussed a review paper by Bony et al (2006) looking at the low-level clouds (boundary layer clouds, in the jargon). I was struck by how different Bony's story on the effects of low level clouds is to Tom Chivers'. Here is what she said in her paper:
Boundary layer clouds have a strongly negative [feedback effect] . . . and cover a very large fraction of the area of the Tropics . . . Understanding how they may change in a perturbed climate therefore constitutes a vital part of the cloud feedback problem.
So my understanding of the scientific literature is that low level clouds actually cool the planet. In Tom Chivers' defence, it's easy to get confused in this area because as readers of the Hockey Stick Illusion know, when the IPCC came to discuss boundary layer clouds in the Fourth Assessment Report, they lifted Bony's text almost word for word, but making one rather important alteration:
Boundary-layer clouds have a strong impact . . . and cover a large fraction of the global ocean . . . . Understanding how they may change in a perturbed climate is thus a vital part of the cloud feedback problem.
Not all climate scientists are charlatans, and those who suggest they are are wrong. That said, I hope Tom will concede that there is a real problem with charlatanry among some scientists working on the IPCC assessments.
[Please note: I don't want this thread to turn into a Chivers-bashing session. I will snip comments that are not civil.]
Reader Comments (27)
Personally, whoever wrote that section of the IPCC report is scientifically dishonest..
Removing NEGATIVE is dishonest.
As is the plausible deniability, oh look it does say strong impact
(not my fault guv, if you didn't realise it actually says negative in the literature, I left that out because.... I didn't want to confuse a policmaker?)
I don't think you can seperate skeptic bashing from the stuff that follows it. A scientifc-minded person would never bash someone as a prelude to saying something serious about science. I mean, if you think about it, it just ridiculous on it's face.
Andrew
If the boot was on the other foot would we see something like this in an beleiver blog:
In Bishop Hill's defence, it's easy to get confused in this area because as readers of the My Book know, when the IPCC came to discuss boundary layer clouds in the Fourth Assessment Report, they lifted Bony's text almost word for word, but making one rather important alteration:
I seriously doubt it.
Blimey Bishop, it's only a T. Chivers blog post and therefore nothing of real import, it's a 'howling at the moon' thing and never mind the sun.
Bish, he's a poet parroting skepticalclimate, and environmental NGOs. He believes we believe there is a vast conspiracy involving tens of thousands of brilliant scientists. He's preaching to scientist, mathematicians and engineers from the poet's handbook of climate science. It's your blog, but I don't believe he adds anything to our understanding, except perhaps just how unscientific the followers are, but we know that.
It's like me saying "The helmets in the NFL are inadequately padded and therefore there are too many concussions. This allows cheap shot artists like the Pittsburgh Steelers to ruin the game of football."
Obviously I'm declaring out loud that I'm not exactly objective in thinking about the issue if I link helmet padding and particular group of cheap shot artists. They are two seperate issues.
Andrew
Actually, I think the best statement is that clouds reflect photon energy. During the day, clouds reflect solar energy, thus reducing the temperature of the Earth's surface under them. During the night clouds will reflect radiated heat from the surface back down there by keeping it a bit warmer under them. And since the solar energy load is so much greater, the net effect is cooling.
This, of course, has nothing to do with the CO2 levels.
My reasons for asking for a bit of decorum are twofold. Firstly because the yelling is not very interesting, and secondly because I thought he reacted rather well to my last post. We want him to listen to us and, where we point out errors, to have that reflected in his journalism. If we rant at him, I think he will be less inclined to do that.
I agree with Don Pablo. Low level clouds both heat and cool, depending on time of day and season, altitude and latitude. But, the net effect is cooling, as the solar heat source is so much greater. High altitude clouds, on the other hand, generally enhance warming. Contrail events tend to reduce diurnal temperatures ranges.
Also, while looking for info on this subject, I re-found a paper by Dragic et al in my data base. Forbush decreases (reduction in cosmic rays) increases the diurnal temperature range within days.
http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/315/2011/astra-7-315-2011.pdf
geronimo
See my post on the other Chivers thread.
You've got the wrong Chivers!
I'm with the Bishop in seeking to engage with Tom Chivers and as it happens I'm much happier with what he says about sceptics in this instance:
It's overstatement but there's some truth in this, for me. But it's not been true of Steve McIntyre's reaction to Svensmark. Someone like Chivers would do well to study such critics who prefer not to be known as sceptics at all. The "unknown unknowns" still predominate for me, though I'm impressed by the progress made by Svensmark's theory through the CLOUD experiment. That's real science.
I agree with some portions of Chivers' comment. It also annoys me that "skeptics" are so biased in favor of cosmic rays, when there are many issues and uncertainties with such theories. As Richard Drake says above, I haven't advocated cosmic ray theories at Climate Audit. Nor is it central (or even peripheral) to Lindzen's "lukewarmer" position.
Oceanic related cycles do seem to be very interesting. 5-10 yrs in negative part of the cycles should settle that hypothesis.. to some degree
The work of Svensmark (and Kirkby, also) is in perfect accord with scientific method. The work of the AGW crowd depends crucially on models and various other speculations which have no place within scientific method, except as analytic tools.
The Bishop writes:
"There is now some experimental evidence to support it, but more work is required to show that you can go from cosmic ray to cloud and also to demonstrate the size of the effect."
Right, that is how genuine science proceeds. If anyone thinks that what causes Earth's climate can be cracked in the next few decades or, as some AGW folks believe, has already been cracked then they simply have no looked at the existing research. AGW people have not even begun to create physical hypotheses that can explain cloud behavior yet such hypotheses are fundamental building blocks of the theory that they might produce someday.
I've had it up to here with the term "skeptic" used as a pejorative or otherwise. It detracts from meaningful debate (that was the original idea, presumably). At least Svensmark is now being discussed even-handedly by some in the media. That's all to the good, and seems to reflect a major shift. As opposed to the monochromatic Warmist drivel that has been on the menu for a decade.
The work of G L Stephens, an unsung hero of cloud physics, is key here, At the same time as I, a newbie in this area but effing mad at the corruption I saw in CG1 AND 20 years in global warming related areas because these scum had deceived me, saw that real low level clouds behaved very differently to the theory, he saw the same: www.gewex.org/images/feb2010.pdf
This is page 5 of this Trenberth stronghold. Low level clouds with 'drizzle' have 25% higher optical depth [about 10% greater albedo], hence they are darker underneath when the theory says the opposite. What he didn't realise is the mechanism and the effect becomes proportionately greater the physically thinner the cloud.
Rain clouds get very dark/high albedo. The satellite algorithms are wrong so the derived data are incorrect. The climate models use double real optical depth and the net AIE is the wrong sign. A paper is ready but like Stephens', it will be resisted by the team because it proves the models are bunkum. It explains the end of ice age amplification of delta tsi and much modern warming without CO2.
More ways of killing a cat.....
Changing 'strongly negative' to 'strong impact' is marching determinedly down the primrose path. Now, it's getting thorny but there's no turning back for such as these. How much blood, please?
===============
Excellent post, Your Grace.
I praise Svensmark and Kirkby for the excellence of their scientific work. In the same breath, I say that their work does not yet amount to a position on AGW. Neither of them has said anything more than that work shows that the Sun could be more of a factor than now believed by AGW people.
Chivers is obsessed with the end point, whether AGW is real, and insists on evaluating the science in terms of where it stands regarding the end point. That just shows great ignorance of both science and scepticism. The correct sceptical position, which is the same as the position held by the reflective scientist, is that our scientific work is nowhere near determining whether the AGW thesis is true.
Science is not going to guide us on the truth of the AGW thesis for decades to come. Because the only reason to believe the AGW thesis comes from supporters of AGW who have grossly exaggerated the completeness and reliability of the science, what we must do is make no decisions about the AGW thesis until the science has become much more complete and reliable.
The CERN report was deliberately under-extrapolated to avoid CAGW implications. The key element, the growth potential (rate and size) of aerosol particles, was deliberately left out of the initial research, and proposed for some later, unidentified project. The initial positive results of the cloud experiment are so startling and literally world-important that you would think the researchers would jump all over the next phase.
They have not.
CAGW is a three-legged table balanced by carefully positioned weights on top. All the players know this. The strategy now is "Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt". All it needs is someone new, someone without ties to the status quo to pick up one of those weights. He or she is probably working on his/her doctorate right now, looking at his/her professor and thinking, "My, your office is a lot bigger than mine."
Doug Proctor - Feb 11, 2012 at 8:11 PM
"CAGW is a three-legged table balanced by carefully positioned weights on top. All the players know this. The strategy now is "Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt".
Doug I think those feasting at the table may well be perched upon one-legged stools:-
"A nitroglycerine plant 100 or so years ago in Australia. An operator had to constantly watch the thermometer during the critical stage of nitration of glycerine to prevent it overheating and exploding. The one-legged stool prevented the operator from becoming drowsy."
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/nitroglycerine/nitroc.htm
Tom Chivers presents a graph purporting to display 'global temperature change' v 'cosmic ray count'.
Nigel Calder, perhaps a tad more au faut with the cosmic hypothesis, blogging on the BEST results, commented thus:
'Scientifically grotesque was the blurring in the Berkeley press release, as well as in the media, of the meaning of Muller’s main graph, shown in my previous post. Invited to comment by New Scientist, I said:
“What do they mean by ‘global warming is real’? The graph of global land temperature changes associated with BEST’s announcement neatly confirms by their independent method that the warming stopped about 15 years ago. The Sun’s recent laziness has apparently cancelled any effect of ever-increasing man-made greenhouse gases.”
The interviewer commented:
“I take your point about the reduced warming trend over the last 15 years, but this study is focused on the long-term warming trend which covers a century. How do you account for this long-term warming trend?”
My reply (which wasn’t reported by New Scientist) was:
“Increased activity of the Sun, of course, from 1950 to the early 1990s as signalled most strikingly by the decline in ionizing cosmic rays at the Earth’s surface. See the red curve (ion chamber) in the attached figure.”
He included a graph illustrating an oscillating but distinct overall decline in ionising cosmic ray count over the latter half of the C20th.
It is presented in his post titled 'Hoodwinked by Berkeley Earth'. I could give the direct link but it would probably send me into moderation, so I would appeal to those interested to find it from the Nigel Calder link on the Bishop's sidebar.
So far as savaging the alarmists goes, I'll treat their views with as much respect as they treat mine. OK?
That gives me plenty of scope but, in defernce to the Bish, I'll try to be emollient today.
I try to keep an open mind on lots of stuff I don't fully understand.
Including cosmic ray theories.
Including all the stuff Willis has been posting on WUWT about black body radiation and all that.
Including whether or not shale gas is a complete game changer or just something to buy us a decade or two of time.
But when someone tries to give me the "egg under the hat" treatment with stuff that is demonstrably incompetent and very probably fraudulent (hokey schticks, whirligig power generation, ocean 'acidification', poley bears, solar power in Scotland, the Wit & Wisdom of Bob Ward, the Goracle, Buffhuhne, Milipede, Lord Stern, Moonbat, Dave boy and all the rest) then they can expect to get a very dusty response.
The full paragraph taken from Bony et al 2006
ibl.colorado.edu/Bony.pdf
Longer unedited extract of sixth paragraph from the IPCC discussion on boundary layer clouds in the Fourth Assessment Report -
ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-3-2.html
Explicitly stated in the FIRST paragraph of the IPCC report:
Further references to negative feedback from clouds:
8.6.3.2.4 Conclusion on cloud feedbacks
Hmm. A balanced assessment or charlatanry?. The IPCC explicitly state that clouds exert a negative feedback in CURRENT climate conditions which, if my reading comprehension is up to scratch, is what Bony et al says. They both then go on to describe the uncertainties in the FUTURE effects of cloud cover under different climatic conditions.
The sixth paragraph of the IPCC report is talking about possible FUTURE changes from the current state.
I would also point out that boundary-layer clouds are not all clouds. Even if boundary layer clouds remain negative in their forcing this does not mean that total cloud feedback is negative.
In fact since 2006/2007 there has been a lot of intensive research on the feedback effects of clouds -
Chang and Coakley (2007), Eitzen et al. (2008), Clement et al. (2009), Lauer et al. (2010), Dessler (2010).
This research, although still uncertain, points towards a positive, or at most a small negative, feedback from total cloud cover.
Just saying.
Frank O'Dwyer reckons i have this wrong. See here.
http://www.frankodwyer.com/blog/2012/02/12/bishop-hill-on-charlatanry/
He discusses the IPCC's citing of a paper by Klein & Hartmann as follows:
He suggests that the IPCC is being open about negative feedbacks from boundary layer clouds.
I think the answer is,"not entirely". The Klein and Hartmann paper is discussed in Bony et al and I cover it in Hockey Stick Illusion too:
I just read the Frank O'Dwyer piece you refer to. His point about CRF/feedbacks is important.
In my previous posting here i said:
This should read:
I don't think this changes the thrust of what I was saying (which is also the thrust of the O'Dyer article).
With reference to your extract from the Hockey Stick Illusion:
I think you are misinterpreting what Bony et al say.
The FULL paragraph from Bony et al:
The Klein and Hartmann paper showed an empirical correlation between mean boundary layer cloud cover and lower-tropospheric stability. When used in SOME climate models it "leads to a substantial increase in low cloud cover in a warmer climate...and produces a strong negative feedback". This is not an "unequivocal case". Also as you can see from the remainder of the paragraph there are further uncertainties. So there never was a "firm conclusion" and this is reflected in the IPCC report.
Who cares whar Chivers thinks?
I note with interest that Bishop Hill has not responded to any of the points I make above regarding his interpretation of Bony et al. and subsequent criticism of the IPCC report on clouds.
Some might say that the word "misinterpretation" is too mild a description, and that in fact, Bishop Hill has cherry picked phrases to suit his own agenda.
I look forward to seeing them proved wrong.