It is the 19th of April 2017 and there are still people discussing how useful an assumption of climate equilibrium happens to be. Many of the pro equilibrium crew are obviously liberal arts majors.
Equilibrium is very useful if the initial condition assume to be at equilibrium is valid to some degree of precision that is much more accurate than the change one is trying to measure.
At the Top of the Atmosphere you have Ein ~ 240 Wm-2 and Eout ~ 240 Wm-2 if you average both over a reasonable period of time. Both Ein and Eout vary by close to 5% over the course of a year and the change being made will be about 1% of the potential energy at the surface.
The surface energy is roughly 390 Wm-2 based on an average temperature of 288K degrees plus about 88 Wm-2 of latent energy on average plus around 20Wm-2 of energy related to convection. There is another 4 Wm-2 or so of mechanical energy related to ocean and atmospheric currents and several small sources of energy. Just using the bigger guys, you have 390 + 88 + 20 = 498 Wm-2 that will produce the ~240 Wm-2 at the top of the atmosphere. The uncertainty in that 498 Wm-2 is about +/- 17 Wm-2 based on Stephens et al 2015 I believe.
So the answer to is the equilibrium assumption useful question, depends on how many knock on assumptions are based on the initial assumption and how much error there can be because of the initial assumption multiplied by the sensitivity of knock on assumptions to that error.
The simple answer is still maybe it is valid, maybe it isn't. Time will tell.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Thursday, March 30, 2017
But its all so complex!
Theoretical Physics is one of those grand social endeavors to discover the universal truth of nature. Michio Kaku is one of many theoretical physicists who side line as futurists and front men for theoretical science funding. Since the dawn of science, scientists have had to suck up to power and with the rise of democracy and a free press, that means they have to suck up to the people. This isn't a good or bad thing, just the way things have evolved.
There is a lot of competition when you go straight to the people which have pretty diverse levels of education and intellect. Since most people dislike being called, common, uneducated, uninformed or "anti-science", claiming to be scientifically valid works great for raising funds from the common, uneducated and scientifically uniformed masses. Sex up your presentation with futuristic things that will happen long after you are dead and you are on your way to be a great fund raiser.
As Stephen Schneider stated, On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. Since the science isn't being sold to the monarch, dictator or grand poobah, but to the masses, science is politicized.
Scientists need to recognize the degree they have become political prostitutes and become more informed on their social, including political science, responsibilities. All of those billions of masses they are sucking up to, need day jobs so they have money to be bilked out of. If you kill the economy you, kill your funding, and there is a chance that a few of the less ignorant masses might catch on and terminate science or scientists with extreme prejudice.
Now Michio, co-founder of String Theory, likely the deadest of dead ends in theoretical physics, is of course an expert on everything sciency on the television. He always uses the worst of worse cases to keep the masses in awe of the awesomeness of science. Recently he mentioned that extreme weather in the future will be 500% worse that ever recorded in human history. He didn't bother mentioning that thanks to inflation, nearly everything is 500% worse, as in more expensive, than it was previously. Neither did he mention that advances in technology can combat inflation, much like "climate scientists" avoid mentioning that advances in existing technology can combat Carbon Pollution, by more efficiently using "Carbon Pollutants."
To qualify as a real polymath today you need economics, psychology and marketing with a bit of religious training on prophesy and end of days scenarios. You are selling to an extremely diverse audience, some with fundamentalist tendencies. The old ban religion to simplify science sales ploy has lost its steam.
There is a lot of competition when you go straight to the people which have pretty diverse levels of education and intellect. Since most people dislike being called, common, uneducated, uninformed or "anti-science", claiming to be scientifically valid works great for raising funds from the common, uneducated and scientifically uniformed masses. Sex up your presentation with futuristic things that will happen long after you are dead and you are on your way to be a great fund raiser.
As Stephen Schneider stated, On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. Since the science isn't being sold to the monarch, dictator or grand poobah, but to the masses, science is politicized.
Scientists need to recognize the degree they have become political prostitutes and become more informed on their social, including political science, responsibilities. All of those billions of masses they are sucking up to, need day jobs so they have money to be bilked out of. If you kill the economy you, kill your funding, and there is a chance that a few of the less ignorant masses might catch on and terminate science or scientists with extreme prejudice.
Now Michio, co-founder of String Theory, likely the deadest of dead ends in theoretical physics, is of course an expert on everything sciency on the television. He always uses the worst of worse cases to keep the masses in awe of the awesomeness of science. Recently he mentioned that extreme weather in the future will be 500% worse that ever recorded in human history. He didn't bother mentioning that thanks to inflation, nearly everything is 500% worse, as in more expensive, than it was previously. Neither did he mention that advances in technology can combat inflation, much like "climate scientists" avoid mentioning that advances in existing technology can combat Carbon Pollution, by more efficiently using "Carbon Pollutants."
To qualify as a real polymath today you need economics, psychology and marketing with a bit of religious training on prophesy and end of days scenarios. You are selling to an extremely diverse audience, some with fundamentalist tendencies. The old ban religion to simplify science sales ploy has lost its steam.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Global at the expense of regional - Throwing out the baby with the bath water
When you interpolate, you average which can be called smearing if you are looking for detail. I had a client show up with a brand new Kridged version of NOAA ocean bottom charts and wanted me to show him how to bottom fish. My first advice was to throw that smoothed crap away and get a "real" chart, that shows all the warts, wrinkles and bottom "features." The world and the ocean bottom isn't as smooth as a baby's butt. Those "warts" are beauty marks to a bottom fisherman.
Climate products are the same deal Lucile. California for example has paleo, observational and anecdotal evidence of century long variation in precipitation extremes. The winter of 1861 and 1862 is known as the Great California Flood. For a few months there was Lake San Joaquin and quite a few home owners abandoned their first floor and built on top. Cities tried to increase their elevation by 15 feet or so, just in case. Then there are decade long droughts that make the flood wary folks look stupid. Nature is good at that, making people look stupid, often in very cruel ways.
Since "Global" Climate Change is the catastrophic cause of the day, smart people that nature tends to have an affinity for making look stupid, are putting all their eggs in the global basket while neglecting the mundane local and regional baskettes where people tend to live. Using long range interpolation tends to make local and regional pictures of past climate look rosier that reality.
Think about this, "The Little Ice Age was a regional event." Wonderful, "Globally" it didn't exist so all you morons with regional concerns are wasting your time worrying about that kind of stuff happening again, think Global!! Ever wonder why there is a populist movement?
Now that there is a new administration in town, "Globalists" are going to have a lot of explaining to do. I expect to see climate scientist types out there counter protesting natural gas pipelines that reduce emissions and are a bridge to those elusive energies of the future. Perhaps a few fighting for sensational press releases of "it isn't as bad as we thought" research to calm the irritable masses.
Will we actually see any rational leaders emerge? Stay tuned.
Climate products are the same deal Lucile. California for example has paleo, observational and anecdotal evidence of century long variation in precipitation extremes. The winter of 1861 and 1862 is known as the Great California Flood. For a few months there was Lake San Joaquin and quite a few home owners abandoned their first floor and built on top. Cities tried to increase their elevation by 15 feet or so, just in case. Then there are decade long droughts that make the flood wary folks look stupid. Nature is good at that, making people look stupid, often in very cruel ways.
Since "Global" Climate Change is the catastrophic cause of the day, smart people that nature tends to have an affinity for making look stupid, are putting all their eggs in the global basket while neglecting the mundane local and regional baskettes where people tend to live. Using long range interpolation tends to make local and regional pictures of past climate look rosier that reality.
Think about this, "The Little Ice Age was a regional event." Wonderful, "Globally" it didn't exist so all you morons with regional concerns are wasting your time worrying about that kind of stuff happening again, think Global!! Ever wonder why there is a populist movement?
Now that there is a new administration in town, "Globalists" are going to have a lot of explaining to do. I expect to see climate scientist types out there counter protesting natural gas pipelines that reduce emissions and are a bridge to those elusive energies of the future. Perhaps a few fighting for sensational press releases of "it isn't as bad as we thought" research to calm the irritable masses.
Will we actually see any rational leaders emerge? Stay tuned.
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