As Climate Worsens, a Cascade of Tipping Points Looms

Scientists say they have found the hot spot.

https://phys.org/news/2015-05-climate-scientists-elusive-tropospheric-hot.html


Researchers have published results in Environmental Research Letters confirming strong warming in the upper troposphere, known colloquially as the tropospheric hotspot. The hot has been long expected as part of global warming theory and appears in many global climate models.

"Using more recent data and better analysis methods we have been able to re-examine the global weather balloon network, known as radiosondes, and have found clear indications of warming in the upper troposphere," said lead author ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Chief Investigator Prof Steve Sherwood.

"We were able to do this by producing a publicly available temperature and wind data set of the upper troposphere extending from 1958-2012, so it is there for anyone to see."

The new dataset was the result of extending an existing data record and then removing artefacts caused by station moves and instrument changes. This revealed real changes in temperature as opposed to the artificial changes generated by alterations to the way the data was collected.

No climate models were used in the process that revealed the tropospheric hotspot. The researchers instead used observations and combined two well-known techniques—linear regression and Kriging.

See Skeptical Science - Tropospheric Hot Spot https://skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm

"A great deal of the confusion surrounding the issue of temperature trends in the upper troposphere comes from the mistaken belief that the presence or lack of amplification of surface warming in the upper troposphere has some bearing on the attribution of global warming to man-made causes.

It does not. "

"Tropospheric amplification of warming with altitude is the predicted response to increasing radiative forcing from natural sources, such as an increase in solar irradiance, as well."

So, both natural warming and human-caused warming produce tropospheric amplification of warming such as a hot spot. Only stratospheric cooling is observed with an

enhanced greenhouse effect.

"There is a good theoretical basis for this expectation of amplification in the upper troposphere relative to the surface. We expect that an increase in radiative forcing would result in a moist adiabatic amplification of warming with altitude, i.e. that the troposphere would warm faster with height. This also appears as an emergent property in climate models, which show a similar vertical profile of warming to that expected under the moist adiabatic lapse rate.

Unfortunately, actually determining what is happening in the real tropical troposphere has proven to be quite difficult. Perhaps the largest reason for this is the quality of data from the main source of our information from this region for long time periods- radiosonde networks."

"However, the tropics, especially at higher altitudes, are a notorious problem area for most if not all of the older radiosonde networks. And attempts to stitch together longer records from multiple networks (and integrate them with newer satellite records) have introduced problems as well. There have been many attempts to quantify and remove these biases (e.g. Randel 2006, Sherwood 2008). Although these attempts have managed to reconcile the observational data with theoretical and model expectations within overlapping uncertainty intervals, the real world behavior of the troposphere is still unclear (Bengtsson 2009, Thorne 2010)."

"Allen and Sherwood sought to side step the problems associated with the radiosonde data entirely, and examined the “dynamical relationship known as the thermal-wind equation, which relates horizontal temperature gradients to wind shear”. Thermal wind speed data, in contrast to the temperature data, lacked many of the systematic adjustment issues and other errors, and were used as a proxy for temperature. Allen and Sherwood found that the troposphere appeared to be warming in reasonable agreement to theoretical and modeling expectations"

 

Not so much.

On model-satellite differences in tropical tropospheric warming trends – its natural variability [link]

 

.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/22/stratospheric-cooling/


The stratosphere has been cooling since mid-20th century. The cooling of the lower stratosphere leveled off in the early 20th century as the amount of ozone depleting
substances in the stratosphere declined; more ozone means more warming because ozone absorbs UV and IR light. This complicates the picture.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JD028901

Abstract:

Since the mid‐twentieth century, radiosonde and satellite measurements show that the troposphere has warmed and the stratosphere has cooled. These changes are primarily due to increasing concentrations of well‐mixed greenhouse gases and the depletion of stratospheric ozone. In response to continued greenhouse gas increases and stratospheric ozone depletion, climate models project continued tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling over the coming decades. Global average satellite observations of lower stratospheric temperatures exhibit no significant trends since the turn of the century. In contrast, an analysis of vertically resolved radiosonde measurements from 60 stations shows an increase of lower stratospheric temperature since the turn of the century at altitudes between 15 and 30 km and over most continents. Trend estimates are somewhat sensitive to homogeneity assessment choices, but all investigated radiosonde data sets suggest a change from late twentieth century cooling to early 21st century warming in the lower stratosphere, which is consistent with a reversal from ozone depletion to recovery from the effects of ozone‐depleting substances. In comparison, satellite observations at the radiosonde locations show only minor early 21st century warming, possibly due to the compensating effects of continued cooling above the radiosonde altitude range.

This study found that the cooling of the middle and upper stratosphere from 1979 to the present is mostly driven by changes in GHG concentrations (predominantly CO2). In the lower stratosphere, cooling from 1979 to the end of the twentieth century is primarily driven by increases in ODS concentrations. They concluded that over the full satellite era, the middle and upper stratosphere is still expected to cool and that after 2000 the lower stratosphere should show only minor cooling or even warming trends in response to the combined effects of GHG and ODS forcing.

The reversal from ozone depletion to ozone recovery is likely an important driver for the lower stratospheric temperature trends to switch from cooling to warming, as also emphasized by Maycock (2016) and Solomon et al. (2017

 

The Source Jack gave you at post 624 (LINK HERE) is quite reputable since it is the official agency for such information.

Jack gave you the answer I knew about already, how come you didn't know that you were being lied to?

How come you reply me but ignore Jack for his generous answer?

 

This is very embarrassing since Sherwood ignores the satellite data for ...... wind data to generate temperature data. It is an amazingly bad paper, it has been addressed thoroughly as garbage HERE

Desperation — who needs thermometers? Sherwood finds missing hot spot with homogenized “wind” data

Excerpt:

Twenty-eight million weather balloons had shown by 1999 that the key assumption in the climate models was wrong. Without feedbacks, the models only produce 1.2°C of warming with a doubling of CO2. With feedbacks the simulations ramp that up to a dangerous 3 – 4 degrees C, and water vapor was the most important feedback. It’s just no fun for the Global Worriers without it.

No hotspot = no water vapor feedback like in the models = no danger from CO2

The fingerprint test of the water-vapor feedback is the “hot-spot”, a warming of a band of the upper troposphere 10 km over the tropics. (See the reasons below at the end). The weather balloons were designed and calibrated to measure temperature and humidity as they rise through the sky and right through the hot-spot. Their results are unequivocal: red was not yellow; the spot was not hotter. Supporting this, the specific humidity was also supposed to rise, but fell instead. If the computer models worked on everything else, we might wonder if the millions of observations were biased, but the models didn’t predict the pause, were wrong about humidity, rainfall, drought, and clouds too. They didn’t work on regional, local, or continental scales and can’t explain long term historic climate either. At this point, a scientist would throw out the theory. The weather balloons independently agreed with each other, the humidity results fitted the temperature results, the whole lot was loosely supported by satellites. The data doesn’t need homogenising or kriging or obscure numerical witchcraft.

Instead Steven Sherwood and Nidhi Nishant of UNSW revisited their 2008 technique of homogenizing temperature data by using wind data as well. They homogenised it again. They have iterated the iteration? They’ve also extended it from 2005 to 2013 and changed the “wind shear” component to “vector wind”. Their new homogenized-temp-wind data is below (left). The model predictions of 2005 are centre, and the radiosonde temperature results (before homogenisation etc) are on the right.

=======

It is a very stupid paper since they played stupid statistical games with the data.

Here is what the SATELLITE data shows:


Diagram showing observed linear decadal temperature change at surface, 300 hPa and 200 hPa, between 20oN and 20oS, since January 1979. Data source: HadAT and HadCRUT4. Click here to compare with modelled altitudinal temperature change pattern for doubling atmospheric CO2. Last month included in analysis: December 2012. Last diagram update: 4 May 2013.

LINK HERE

======

I will take Satellite data over a stupid paper that even most warmist scientists do not care for.

 

All three cooling drops coincides with large eruptions that reaches the stratosphere, otherwise it is flat, it is right there in YOUR chart, how can you miss it?

 

Agreed but there is no mass global extinction from any climate effects.

 

Please read the reference I provided to you.

 

Definitely true, as climate is well within the limits of natural variability. There might be a few isolated desert species that can't hold on as CO2 turns deserts green, but that's about it.

 

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here where I live this year, we've seen more record cold weather this year. Simple statement. We've seen more record cold temps, more record cold high temps than in any other year recorded. And we are just 4 months in this year.

It seems weird. We aren't just approaching and slightly eclipsing previous records, we're smashing existing records, with new records being 5-10 F colder than ever before. On one particular day, the record was smashed by almost 20F. The record is now the coldest temp ever for our state. It wasn't long ago that folks in the alarmist camps were touting hottest temps ever were the harbinger of doom. So, is this the new harbinger of doom? Hard to say.

 

New report reviews the state of extreme weather in 2020

• Date: 22/04/21
• Global Warming Policy Foundation

Observational data contradicts claims of worsening weather events
London, 22 April: A new report published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation reviews extreme weather trends around the world in 2020 and finds little evidence of deterioration.

The report, by physicist Dr Ralph Alexander, also looks at how extreme weather has been reported by others and finds much more to be concerned about.

For example, Dr Alexander says that 2020 saw a number of socio-economic studies that attempted to link extreme weather to global warming. But the conclusions of these papers were contradicted by their own data, which showed a reduction in climate-related disasters, and in the number of people killed by them.



Dr Alexander concludes by noting that 2020, just like any other year, saw a series of weather extremes. These included a heatwave in Siberia, a cold summer in the Northern Hemisphere, an active hurricane season in the North Atlantic, and wildfires in the US and the Arctic. But he observes that there is little evidence of any long-term worsening of these events, and indeed that most can be linked to natural climatic cycles.

Dr Alexander said:

“It doesn’t matter what extreme weather phenomenon you look at, evidence of long-term worsening is sketchy at best and in many cases non-existent.”

Dr Benny Peiser, GWPF director said:

“Ralph Alexander’s data-driven report gives valuable perspective on the common media narrative of climate doom. Scares sell, but the interested public needs the full context of observational data and long-term trends to make informed judgements.”

Full report: Extreme Weather in 2020 (pdf)

 

Why is this a stupid paper?

You presented something from a blog that would never be published in a reputable journal. No Hotspot does does not equal no water vapor feedback - that is a flawed conclusion. . There is empirical evidence of
water vapor feedback and theoretical reasons for a positive water vapor feedback. Your JoNova page doesn't present any scientific evidence refuting the paper's methodology. If you have a scientific paper
that was published in a reputable journal that refutes the results of Sherwood's paper then present it. Sherwood's paper has 53 citations, Steve Sherwood has an impressive resume:

Professor Steven Sherwood received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. He was awarded a Master of Science in Engineering Physics from the University of California in 1991 and a PhD in Oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, in 1995. He carried out postdoctoral research at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) from 1996-1997 and was a research scientist at the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Centre from 1998-2000. In 2001 he joined the faculty of Yale University, reaching the rank of professor in 2007. He moved to Australia at the beginning of 2009 where he is currently ARC Laureate Fellow and Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales.
Prof Sherwood has co-authored over 90 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Some of these papers have been covered extensively by the international media; for example, his 2005 paper in Science on atmospheric warming, which was named as one of the top 100 scientific discoveries of the year by Discover magazine, and his 2014 study on climate sensitivity, published in Nature. He has won numerous awards.


https://skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm

"The amplifying effect of water vapor has been observed in the global cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Soden 2001). The cooling led to atmospheric drying which amplified the temperature drop. A climate sensitivity of around 3°C is also confirmed by numerous empirical studies examining how climate has responded to various forcings in the past (Knutti & Hegerl 2008).

Satellites have observed an increase in atmospheric water vapour by about 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988. A detection and attribution study, otherwise known as "fingerprinting", was employed to identify the cause of the rising water vapour levels (Santer 2007). Fingerprinting involves rigorous statistical tests of the different possible explanations for a change in some property of the climate system. Results from 22 different climate models (virtually all of the world's major climate models) were pooled and found the recent increase in moisture content over the bulk of the world's oceans is not due to solar forcing or gradual recovery from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The primary driver of 'atmospheric moistening' was found to be the increase in CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Theory, observations and climate models all show the increase in water vapor is around 6 to 7.5% per degree Celsius warming of the lower atmosphere. The observed changes in temperature, moisture, and atmospheric circulation fit together in an internally and physically consistent way. "


Here are graphs showing a close correlation of the middle troposphere using remote sensing group ((RSS version 4) that analyzed satellite data and CMIP5 climate model results.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/study-why-troposphere-warming-differs-between-models-and-satellite-data



Top panel shows stratosphere-corrected RSS TMT compared to the CMIP5 multimodel average TMT. Bottom panel shows the difference between the two over time. Source: Santer et al. (2017)

 

When I think I'm getting too afraid of climate change to walk outside and sniff the flowers then I'll go ahead cash in my chips. And you know what I mean by that. I wish I had other people's sense of caring for hundreds of generations coming down the pike but I just don't.

 

You are blind to your own chart, here it is again:



See where the Volcano eruptions are?

They line right up with the initial jump up warming then a decline to a lower value then go flat until the next eruption does it again, in the first chart box The flatness in BETWEEN the eruptions actually show no visible cooling at all.

Will ignore the second chart box as it doesn't help you at all.

The VOLCANO eruptions are causing all the up and down temperature changes!

Since 1992, ZERO cooling trend which is now 29 years running.

You should stop here because you are making a fool of yourself.

But he also doesn't support YOUR silliness at all, from YOUR link:

"We conclude that no evidence is found in the observational data to indicate that either tropospheric warming or lower stratospheric cooling is responsive to changes in LN(CO2) or that stratospheric cooling is responsive to tropospheric warming, at an annual time scale. These data do not support the theory of causation that links stratospheric cooling to tropospheric warming or the causal effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration on either of these temperatures. Two related posts on the effect of atmospheric CO2 on temperature are relevant to these findings [LINK] [LINK] ."


======


This is the VALID measure of the tropical troposphere as they are based in Satellite data, not from unverifiable models that you do love.so much:



Diagram showing observed linear decadal temperature change at surface, 300 hPa and 200 hPa, between 20oN and 20oS, since January 1979. Data source: HadAT and HadCRUT4. Click here to compare with modelled altitudinal temperature change pattern for doubling atmospheric CO2. Last month included in analysis: December 2012. Last diagram update: 4 May 2013.

LINK HERE

 

I asked you why Sherwood's paper was a stupid paper and to provide a scientific rebuttal from a reputable source. You didn't do that. You responded to a different set of authors who are on
the same page as the graph that I presented who are climate contrarians. That was the first graph of lower stratospheric and upper tropospheric temperature that I found. I knew nothing about
the authors who you quoted. The graphs do show some modest warming in the upper troposphere and some cooling of the lower stratosphere. The effect of the volcanic eruptions is no more
than 3-4 years on those 2 temperature graphs.I did present other scientific data on upper tropospheric warming and lower stratospheric cooling. As the Carbon Brief paper that I linked to
discusses, accurate temperature measurements of the upper trop. and lower strat. are difficult to obtain. There has to be much correction of errors ot get accurate results. JoNova glosses
right over that and seems to accept uncorrected data that disagrees with theory. I don't know how you present a stupid article from JoNova and at the same time call Sherwood's article stupid.

 

I haven't been posting on climate for the past 4 months and I don't intend to post anymore about climate on this site or any other. This issue is too politicized by climate contrarians. They
don't seem to realize that they are guilty of what they criticize others to be - prejudiced. It probably is a subconscious bias.

 

As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"

 

"too politicized" = marketplace of ideas
“If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

― Harry S. Truman

 

Because it substitutes a modeled proxy for actual instrumental data.

Being tiny.

When the temperature and humidity are very low.

Post hoc fallacy.

It is hypothesized.

Nope. Post hoc fallacy again. Temperature governing CO2 is very different from CO2 governing temperature, but those "empirical studies" simply assume the latter when the former is the reality.

Such claims are absurd.

No, only to justify claims of the assumed cause.

Post hoc fallacy on steroids.

Except that the temperature data were fabricated, not observed.
[quote]


Top panel shows stratosphere-corrected RSS TMT compared to the CMIP5 multimodel average TMT. Bottom panel shows the difference between the two over time. Source: Santer et al. (2017)[/QUOTE]
The top panel shows the models leave much to be desired, and the bottom panel just shows that the smoothed series follows the original series it is a smoothed version of.

 

Did you actually read YOUR link at all?

Chaamljamal is a SKEPTIC and his thread YOU linked from was NOT supporting your position at all.

I quoted him from the link YOU posted with those two charts. why do YOU keep ignoring it?

"We conclude that no evidence is found in the observational data to indicate that either tropospheric warming or lower stratospheric cooling is responsive to changes in LN(CO2) or that stratospheric cooling is responsive to tropospheric warming, at an annual time scale. These data do not support the theory of causation that links stratospheric cooling to tropospheric warming or the causal effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration on either of these temperatures. Two related posts on the effect of atmospheric CO2 on temperature are relevant to these findings [LINK] [LINK] ."

Meanwhile you just keep ignoring the satellite data I showed you twice now, you do it because you can't address it.

"Diagram showing observed linear decadal temperature change at surface, 300 hPa and 200 hPa, between 20oN and 20oS, since January 1979. Data source: HadAT and HadCRUT4. Click here to compare with modelled altitudinal temperature change pattern for doubling atmospheric CO2. Last month included in analysis: December 2012. Last diagram update: 4 May 2013."

bolding mine

=====

You write:

"The effect of the volcanic eruptions is no more than 3-4 years on those 2 temperature graphs .I did present other scientific data on upper tropospheric warming and lower stratospheric cooling."

Why do you keep ignoring what YOUR link said about it, and that in between those volcanic peaks and decay is a flat trend, you have serious ocular problems?

You also ignored the FACT that there has been ZERO cooling since 1992, the trend is flat since then., that is now 29 years long trend.

I ignored the other SS link because they used a LINEAR trend for something that only VOLCANOES created the small cooling trend, it is dishonest when the cooling drop is essentially one year after the Volcanic effect dissipates. running mean would have been appropriate.

The Sherwood paper used BOGUS wind data to create a..... temperature profile. The Satellite data for the Troposphere region in question makes clear that Sherwood is full of ****!

 

S. Mike who foolishly chose to use Chaamjamals post (LINK HERE) ignored what he says in all three links over this chart Mike so badly read and see.



Link one he says at the end:

"We conclude that no evidence is found in the observational data to indicate that either tropospheric warming or lower stratospheric cooling is responsive to changes in LN(CO2) or that stratospheric cooling is responsive to tropospheric warming, at an annual time scale. These data do not support the theory of causation that links stratospheric cooling to tropospheric warming or the causal effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration on either of these temperatures. Two related posts on the effect of atmospheric CO2 on temperature are relevant to these findings"

Link two he says at the beginning:

"SUMMARY: The testable implication of the GHG theory is that surface temperature should be responsive to atmospheric CO2 concentration such that a detrended correlation exists between the logarithm of atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature at the time scale of interest. This test is carried out for five temperature series in eight calendar months for the sample period 1979-2018 using comparative analysis to test observational data against the theoretical series. The comparison does not show evidence of the existence of GHG forcing by atmospheric CO2 in the observational data."

Link three he says at the end:

Conclusion #3: The general state of uncertainty and confusion in empirical climate sensitivity research outside of climate models and in the world of observational data may imply that the hypothesized warming effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration, though programmed into climate models, is not supported by observational data and that therefore there is no empirical support for this theory. This conclusion is supported by related posts at this site that may be found at the links that follow: [LINK#1] , [LINK#2] [LINK#3] [LINK#4]. The source paper for this post may be downloaded from [ACADEMIA.EDU] or from [SSRN.COM]

======

Stop ignoring the evidence!

Chaamjamal doesn't support your dishonest narrative, you misused his charts, shame on you!

You have been roasted, broiled and baked, suggest that you drop your nonsense..

 

Sunsettommy enjoys attacking me but can't explain or provide any peer reviewed evidence from a scientific journal to support his claims about Sherwood's paper.

How am I being dishonest to present a peer-reviewed article by a well respected climate scientist that refutes your claim about there being no tropospheric hotspot?

I admit that I don't understand the techniques that he used. I don't think you know anything about them either.Where are the refutations by well respected climate

scientists published in peer-reviewed journals? I don't think they exist so I am asking you for a source. I did read most of his 2008 paper which was much easier to

understand. I don't believe that the JoNova site article of yours shows any evidence that the author of the article has any grasp of what Sherwood did.

 

[
skepticalmike: There is empirical evidence of water vapor feedback
Bringiton: Being tiny

What peer-reviewed scientific journal supports the view that water vapor
feedback is tiny? Why should I trust the opinions of someone on
a political forum, even if that person has a college background in atmospheric science?

Science Magazine -Perspectives "A Matter of Humidity" a strong and positive water vapor feedback from observational evidence agrees with models


http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler09.pdf


T he water vapor feedback is the process whereby an initial warming of the planet, caused, for example, by an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, leads to an increase in the humidity of the atmosphere. Because water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, this increase in humidity causes additional warming. The water vapor feedback has long been expected to strongly amplify climate changes because of the expectation that the atmosphere’s relative humidity would remain roughly constant— meaning that the specific humidity would increase at the rate of the equilibrium vapor pressure, which rises rapidly with temperature. However, observational evidence has been harder to come by, and the effect has been controversial. Much of that controversy can now be laid to rest, thanks to new observations and better theoretical understanding.

later on in the paper

Despite these advances, observational evidence is crucial to determine whether models really capture the important aspects of the water vapor feedback. Such evidence is now available from satellite observations of the response of atmospheric humidity (and its impacts on planetary radiation) to a number of climate variations. Observations during the seasonal cycle, the El Niño cycle, the sudden cooling after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, and the gradual warming over recent decades all show atmospheric humidity changing in ways consistent with those predicted by global climate models, implying a strong and positive water vapor feedback (9–13). A strong and positive water vapor feedback is also necessary for models to explain the magnitude of past natural climate variations (14). Both observations and models suggest that the magnitude of the water vapor feedback is similar to that obtained if the atmosphere held relative humidity constant everywhere. This should not be taken to mean that relative humidity will remain exactly the same everywhere. Regional variations of relative humidity are seen in all observed climate variations and in model simulations of future climate, but have a negligible net impact on the global feedback (12)[/QUOTE]

 

To be clear, I am talking about the 6th extinction more properly named at this time as the "holocene extinction" or the "anthropocene extinction", an ongoing extinction event as a result of human activity. The included extinctions include numerous species of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and invertebrates. According to scientists(not me)it is not a worry for the future as it is occurring now, at a rate 100 times greater than naturally occurring extinctions and it is entirely our fault. Is it unreasonable that rapid climate change could be a contributing factor? If you have an argument with that it is not with me. Go argue with the scientists.

 

A journal supporting a view is politics, not science.

Trust no one.

If the original temperature and humidity are very low, as in the "snowball earth" climate hundreds of millions of years ago.

No, that's garbage, because the greenhouse effect is logarithmic. So water vapor feedback cannot be strongly positive.

If you like post hoc fallacies.

I.e., it has to be assumed to make the models' assumption that CO2 governs temperature tenable.