"There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems.

"Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is man made. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty." "

Weird. I keep hearing from our unimpeachable and unbiased news organizations, politicians, and the UN that the science is settled. Barbara Boxer has seen the "devastation" of moving glaciers herself.

I believe the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" is a peer reviewed science journal. As such, this research will be included in the IPCC next assessment.

However, it will require additional more study to see if it applies to all regions of the world other than the tropics. While Global Warming models do forecast an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds, it is not just in the tropics. The arctic in particular is the most sensitive area since the troposphere was very thin in that region. It is getting thicker and warming as measured by the NOAA.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html

So far, the amount of warming in the arctic is exceeding the forecast by models as evidenced by the amount of sea ice decline.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20070430_StroeveGRL.html

So, there is bona fide research coming in all the time on both warming and cooling. This is why the IPCC was formed since a comprehensive assessment is needed to sort it all out.

Here is a link to the IPCC for those interested.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Hope this helps.

A news release that will be ignored by our "unbiased" friends in the main stream media, like the "moderate" Chris Matthews, I am sure. LOL! But that's OK, Dr. Spencer will probably have his reputation and career threatend by the all caring, all loving, all hand holding "mainstream" non-agenda driven "scientists" and "environmentalists" if he doesn't shut up. Can't wait to see the fall out from this one, how about you Mark?...:-DDDDD....

Oh and here's another little tid bit about the lovely Ms. Pelosi's and Ms. Boxer's trip to the "melting" ice caps of Greenland that will probably be ignored by the "unbiased" ones:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/08/10/are-greenland-s-glaciers-expanding-temperatures-cooling

But I guess the Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change is just another part of that "vast right-wing conspiracy." Better repremand them now before it's too late.

The Denier Strikes Again!

WOW! The models got it wrong, yet again. Al Gore needs to rename his book from "Earth in the Balance" to "Earth is in Balance."

In the physical sciences, there is a statement that goes something like, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Sounds like mother earth is handling climate change quite well without any interference from us.

Andrew,

No doubt the heretics will be removed as peers, so as to keep the peer review process on track for bringing in more funding.

Thanks for the link, Andrew; that illustrates my point about how the climate models have drastically underestimated the amount of sea ice loss in the Arctic. Deniers automatically assume -- naively and ignorantly -- that climate models will err on the side of overestimating the warming. No consideration is given to the legitimate possibility that they might underestimate it.

http://nsidc.org/news/images/20070430Figure1.png

Mold (and abuse) the science to fit your politics -- that's what deniers do, just as their brethren in the 1960s did with the whole debate about whether tobacco was carcinogenic.

Andrew what does sea ice have to do with a fault in the modeling of the clouds. Further ... why use sea ice as evidence of warming? Why not use the temp data? Could it be that the warming is localized with the western Arctic showing warming, while the east is cooling?
Why is the Antarctic cooler for the last decade?
Don't want to talk about that do you!!!
BUT THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED HE CLAIMS ... good enough for the Goracle & Andrew what about those GISS temps corrected this week .... the '30s are looking mighty warm, with cooling & then warming again in the last several decades ... model those cycles & I'll give you some credit ... until them you are simply a light weight ... do you even have a science degree?
I doubt it.

Rick.

The wheels are coming off the AGW bandwagon! Here is an article from American Thinker which is well worth a look:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/twisting_science_to_fit_the_gl.html

Ignoring natural variation when constructing climate models is definitely a no-no. And isn't it amusing that factual errors concerning 1998 as the hottest year came too late for the editors at Science magazine.

I love it how every month some new discovery(ies)challenges the status quo of AGW belief. Rather than accept the new data and re-model they instead say it can't be applied on a global scale though apparently you can have a global temperature....

Have you heard that NASA's climate-change models and temperature charts have been revised due to various errors? It now looks as if 1998 was not the hottest year of the past century, nor was 2006 the runner-up. The hottest years were during the 1930s.

What do you make of that?

This theory sounds a great deal like Richard Lindzen's Iris theory. When NASA researcher Bing Lin tested Lindzen's theory using data from the NASA/NASDA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), launched in November 1997, and NASA�s Terra satellite, launched in December 1999, he found that clouds in the tropics do change in response to warmer sea surface temperatures, but that the cloud changes serve to slightly enhance warming at the surface, the opposite of the predicted by the Iris theory. Lin noted that his findings contradicted those of the Lindzen's model, and pointed to different assumptions about the data. I wonder if we have a similar issue with the Spencer findings.

Two citations from the article:

"Fifteen years ago, when we first started monitoring global temperatures with satellites, we noticed these big temperature fluctuations in the tropics," Spencer said. "What amounts to a decade of global warming routinely occurs in just a few weeks in the tropical atmosphere. Then, as if by flipping a switch, the rapid warming is replaced by strong cooling. It now looks like the change in cirrus cloud coverage is the major reason for this switch from warming to cooling." "

and

" There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems."

For years meteorologists have warned that climate science isn't as simple as pegging one variable (CO2 concentrations for example) and then extrapolating future climate signals. Dr Spencer's reasearch reflects the complexity of our atmosphere. What is fascinating is his discovery of tropical interseasonal or even inter-monthly oscillations that mirror tropical decadal oscillations. This underscores the importance of the tropics role in playing a part of our climate regulator or thermostat.

Dr Spencer's research on cirrus clouds may hold true in the tropics, where most cirrus-stratus clouds are associated with either the near-equatorial trough or tropical storms, but may breakdown in the mid-latitudes, where baroclinic zone cloudiness is associated with dynamic advection of air masses. Some people may believe that the occurance of a thick cirrus shield that preceeds a storm or frontal system is the cause of warmer temps, when in fact is low level warm air advection. Not making this kind of disctinction between tropical and mid-latitude cloud systems is a mistake as far as I'm concerned.

Although there were two significant reports were published in Science (AAAS) this week relating to climate,* the one that got posted is from a lesser institution that appears to be ambiguous, though Mark and Andrew have shed some light on it.

Here's a link on pollution obscuring the actual extent of warming:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3589662.stm

Here are the two Science articles:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/317/5839/796
"Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model
Smith et al.
"Previous climate model projections of climate change accounted for external forcing from natural and anthropogenic sources but did not attempt to predict internally generated natural variability. We present a new modeling system that predicts both internal variability and externally forced changes and hence forecasts surface temperature with substantially improved skill throughout a decade, both globally and in many regions. Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record."
Here's more about this from the BBC
"Ten-year climate model unveiled"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6939347.stm

"Soot 'influences Arctic climate'"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6939633.stm
I was unable to turn up the original, not being a subscriber. This is a historical analysis, with lots of stuff about the past.

Notwithstanding contrary assertions, most science is pointing at the reality of climate change, and most weather is confirming those conclusions.

I have switched from GSAC. I tell the truth to the best of my ability based on my association with scientists and scientific training, but this more accurately reflects my real interests.

Andrew,

If you want a true global warming signal (anthropegenic or otherwise) look to the tropics and not the Artic. If global warming occurs it will be seen first in the tropics, with a warming mid-tropesphere and a cooling stratosphere. This hasn't yet occured. The Artic and Antartic just don't magically warm. In past epochs as in the current one, excessive tropical air advects poleward, and over a long period of time warms the polar regions. Since the angle of insolation is so low, and both poles spend several months in complete darkness, the only way they can warm is through advecting tropical air and ocean waters. CO2 in and of itself is not enough to trap what dispersed solar energy there is in these two regions.

Rick

The link between the sea ice decline and modeling of tropical clouds is that they both illustrate problems that have been identified with climate models. They point in opposite directions, but both need to be factored in.

Further ... why use sea ice as evidence of warming? Why not use the temp data?

Both are used. The extent of sea ice is measured by an independant method from temperature. They should agree with each other and they do, thereby providing assurance of the finding of significant warming in the arctic.

Could it be that the warming is localized with the western Arctic showing warming, while the east is cooling?

Yes, it is clear that the arctic is not warming uniformly. Why should it? The direction and intensity of winds are a significant factor in climate change. Winds out of the south are warming areas north of Europe and Asia while the same winds are pushing cooler air towards Canada. Both sides are warming.

Why is the Antarctic cooler for the last decade?

Actually the coastal portions of Antarctic have warmed while the interior has cooled.

There has been a significant loss of ozone above Antarctica due to fluorocarbon pollution. Ozone absorbs UV radiation and warms the stratosphere. So, the loss has cooled the stratosphere which appears to have strengthened the high level winds flowing around the South Pole. The winds acts like an atmospheric barrier, preventing warmer, coastal air from moving into the continent�s interior.

Keep in mind that even though the interior has cooled and is accumulating snow and ice. the coastal areas are melting. The coastal areas are the larger of the two, and the net effect is melting and a contribution to the overall rise in sea level.

Hope this helps!

"But I guess the Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change is just another part of that "vast right-wing conspiracy." Better repremand them now before it's too late."

Oiznop,

Maybe not part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" but hardly unbiased. Take their "Temperature record of the week," for example:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/ushcn/stationoftheweek.jsp

There, they note that since 1930, the temperature trend at a weather station has been downward. Their comment: "Not much global warming here!"

Arbitrarily choosing a date in the 1930s as a base for temperature means is no more realistic than choosing a date from an exceptionally cool period. What we need to do is have a discussion on exactly when we should start counting yearly temperatures into the mean. 1851? 1880? 1920? 1995? What the Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change chose to do was simply go from peak to peak, ignoring all the much cooler years in between. All that does is confuse and distort the issue.

I wouldn't exactly call the Science and Public Policy Institute impartial either. It's recent article describing the recent cooling trend of the Arctic and advancing Greenland glaciers does not incorporate regionwide observations, but rather focuses on data that supports the desired conclusions.

"...in a study of three coastal stations in southern and central Greenland that possess almost uninterrupted temperature records between 1950 and 2000, Chylek et al. (2004) discovered that "summer temperatures, which are most relevant to Greenland ice sheet melting rates, do not show any persistent increase during the last fifty years."

Full article:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_reprint_series/the_role_of_greenland_in_sea_level_rise_a_summary_of_the_current_literature.html

I have a feeling there are more than three weather stations in Greenland. Greenland is such a big place that drawing such a conclusion from that small a data set is akin to saying that the United States is experiencing significantly below average temperatures this year, based on three weather stations in Colorado which have recorded average temperatures 15 degrees below normal. The latter may be true, but the former certinaly isn't.

This doesn't give me much confidence in your sources, Oiznop.

WW,

Good catch on that BBC article. It is very typical of the BBC to be as circular as possible about the bottom line, when the bottom line goes against their left view of the world.

The headline reads "Soot 'influences Arctic climate'" instead of "Soot 'causing Arctic warming'." Had the paper blamed CO2, the BBC would not have hesitated to over-extend the authors conclusions in both the title and body.

In this particular article it requires some digging to come to the realization that past warming in Greenland was caused by soot - not CO2. Typical of the BBC to underplay or ignore opposing points of view.

"If you want a true global warming signal (anthropegenic or otherwise) look to the tropics and not the Artic. If global warming occurs it will be seen first in the tropics..."

JP,

This may not necessarily be the case. I believe you are making the assumption that the source of the warming will also be in the tropics, which again may not necessarily be the case. Given that the most industrialized part of the world is in the Northern Hemisphere, that is where I would expect the warming to manifest itself first, CO2 or not.

Take the studies linking soot to increasing Arctic melt. Perhaps Arctic temperatures are higher because the dirtier snow is absorbing more heat than it used to. As discussed in another post, Arctic SSTs are stable in the winter months due to ice cover, but come summer we see high positive anomalies. Assuming that the tropics have not warmed, why do we see Arctic SSTs so much higher than normal in the summer? If there was as much industrial activity in the southern hemisphere as there is in the northern hemisphere, would we see the same effects manifested in the Antarctic?

But then again, I could be completely wrong about the whole thing. Thoughts?

Andrew - didn't answer the part about the science degree but that is alright since I know the answer.
Lots of nonsense in your post & since I'm on vacation I can't be bothered to reply.
Are you the Revkin I saw referred to in another blog?
Take care & keep spinning the BS.

Rick.

Travis,
The AGW theorists as well as most of the people who study Earth Science realize that it is the tropics that should see AGW signals first. The poles, because of thier placement (the angle of incidence being very low, thus dispersing incoming solar radiation, just cannot generate by and of itself the kind of warming needed to either melt near coastal ice, or inland glaciers. Therefore, one would look to where the angle of incidence is the greatest (near 90 degreess), and the most intense areas of incoming solar raidation (the tropics) to see the AGW signal. CO2 concentrations are greatest in the Northern Hemisphere, but if one considers the global reach of both ocean and hemispheric atmospheric/oceanic circulations, one would conclude that CO2 would be distributed in enough density to affect either the Pacific Northwest and or the North Atlantic Basin- or both. From such conclusions, one would expect to see significant warming of the tropical mid-tropesphere, and significant cooling of the lower levels of the stratosphere. Thus far, this has not yet occured.

One may ask how can the poles warm without significant tropical tropesheric warming; the answer is quite simple, and is one that every 10th grader learns in Earth Science: prolonged warming of tropical SSTs (since the mids 1970s) has resulted in excess heat energy in the tropics, which overtime has advected poleward. Keep in mind, both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Mulitdecadal Oscillation have been synched in a positve mode for over a decade. That is, globally speaking, the tropics have exhausted huge amounts of tropical air poleward, affecting both mid-lattitudes and both poles. The heatwaves of Southern Europe, China (Winter and Sping of 2007), as well as parts of North America are a result of this warming.

Keep in mind, significant cooling of global SSTs since 2005, which are most pronouced in the South Atlantic, South and Central Pacific have caused strange phenomena such as rapid cooling this Summer in the Southern Hemisphere and coastal regions of North America. Also, unseasonably cold air masses have formed over North Central Canada and the North Sea-resulting in strange weather patterns(UK hacving cold wet summer while Souther Europe fries.

How the Pacific can regulate and control so much of our climate is still a mystery. El Nino events are at the most pronounced when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is postive (which it has been since 1976). The near record warmth of 1998 can be attributed to El Nino. However, when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is negative (like between 1943 and 1976), La Nina events predominate, and the poles cool. Again, I would like to point out that it is the tropics that bear watching and not the artic.