A new paper published in the Journal of Climate has shone the light on the inefficiency that currently exists in the modelling of clouds in climate models. The authors of the paper presented a new approach that will help in understanding the clouds role in and their response to global warming.
“All the global climate models we analyzed have serious deficiencies in simulating the properties of clouds in present-day climate,” noted lead author Axel Lauer at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at UHM. “It is unfortunate that the global models’ greatest weakness may be in the one aspect that is most critical for predicting the magnitude of global warming.”
Prior to the paper there had been several ineffective methods for modelling clouds, of which no two could agree on the same role and response.
The authors of the study created a model representing only a small portion of the atmosphere over the eastern Pacific Ocean and adjacent land areas in an attempt to successfully simulate the key features of the region’s present-day cloud fields, including its reaction to El Nino.
The successful simulation was then cast a hundred years into the future in an effort to guess at the clouds response to global warming. The end result was a tendency for clouds to thin and cloud cover to reduce, a result that was more pronounced than in any other previous model.
“If our model results prove to be representative of the real global climate,” co-author Kevin Hamilton concludes, “then climate is actually more sensitive to perturbations by greenhouse gases than current global models predict, and even the highest warming predictions would underestimate the real change we could see.”
Source: International Pacific Research Centre
Image Source: vsz
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Joshua S Hill
I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, a liberal left-winger, and believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I’m a 27-year-old author and writer from Melbourne, Australia. My first book is in the "looking for an agent" phase right now while I write my second. I also review fantasy books over at Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk). I love words with a passion, both creating them and reading them.
5 Responses to Cloud Modelling Suggests Greater Global Warming
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Sometimes it is difficult to understand how scientists can be so dumb. Apparently, these IPCC characters just solved the clean energy crisis, they have discovered how to generate heat energy using CO2 and clouds. All those stupid scientists who are trying to create a fusion reaction process to produce cheap heat energy are wasting their time, IPCC has already worked out such a process. Now we know that green gases, clouds and a computer programmer have already solved the problem without fears of radiation. Is one of them a railroad engineer?
So why are we so hell bent on killing our economy over CO2 when the models do not account for something as basic as cloud cover????
Insanity!
Roger, if you haven’t got the word, clean tech is better for the economy than old, dirty energy. more jobs and better economy from tackling climate change
According to IPCC AR4 Section 9.2.2 figure 9.1.f, the theory of AGW, caused by greenhouse gas release, has a particular signature in the atmospheric temperature profile.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
One important aspect of this temperature profile is commonly called the “Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot”.
According to the IPCC, if the currently warming is caused by greenhouse gas release, there must be evidence of it through the “Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot”.
The difficulty for the true believers is that the “Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot” cannot be found.
Radiosonde data does not show it. Satellite data does not reveal it, even when tortured by the Hockey Team.
An attempt to “prove” that it is really there, but hidden using some hocus, pocus about wind shear has been recently debunked and falsified.
Since the signature that the IPCC claims their theory says must be there, there are only a few alternatives-
1. IPCC climate theory is fundamentally wrong.
2. To the extent that IPCC climate theory is correct in predicting a hotspot due to extra carbon dioxide, we know that carbon emissions did not cause the recent global warming.
More information-
http://joannenova.com.au/2008/10/the-missing-hotspot/
http://www.sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
Orkneygal, the science is firm. I love all the random bits & pieces global warming deniers try to pull out of the sky, without really understanding the science. here are some pieces addressing your concerns (but i’m sure they won’t do much to convince you — i’ve been communicating with deniers for long enough):
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/08/the_missing_hotspot_misses_the.php
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/