Wood Romances

I saw a s hort presentation  by R.B. Alley a while back that did a marvelous job of explaining why geologists have overwhelmingly concluded that greenhouse gases (and in particular CO2 ) are the primary drivers of climate changes on geologic time scales. This presentation was given prior to the publication of Judd et al 2024 ,[1] so I thought it might be fun to show how his argument would be enhanced even more with the more recent data we now have about Phanerozoic temperature and CO2. But let me set the stage. GMST is set by a balance between incoming absorb solar radiation (ASR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). ASR is affected by changes in how much sunlight reaches the earth ( solar variability ), where and when sunlight reaches the earth ( orbital cycles ) and how much is reflected vs absorbed ( albedo ). Outside influences can also at least theoretically play a role in affecting process on earth ( galactic cosmic rays ) that could change how much incoming solar is a...

Every year I try to think of a way to update my simple calculations for ECS and TCR. My methods don't really change that much; they reflect updated data and become a little more complex. Make no mistake, they are simple calculations based on estimates of forcings, temperature and EEI using the energy balance equation. It doesn't compete with peer-reviewed studies by Sherwood[1] or the assessments of the IPCC. My intent with this is to show that the central estimates of the IPCC (and most climate models) are very consistent with empirical data.   The first step in the calculating ECS and TCR values is assessing the earth's energy imbalance and collecting the relevant forcing data. Earth's Energy Imbalance There are several estimates for EEI to choose from, but I think the most conservative approach is to use an average value for the full time frame between 2005 and 2019, when observations become much  more reliable. One study, Loeb et al 2021[2] estimated EEI to be 0.77 ...

In a previous post , I pointed out that I find the notion of quantifying "consensus" to have limited value, but one value I admit it can have is to show areas of climate science about which practicing scientists no longer in actively debate in the literature. This allows us to understand what debates in popular discourse do not translate into debate among climate scientists. One of the most common objections to AGW I hear in popular circles is that warming is caused by the Sun, rather than human activity. The most common way I see this claim is with reference to solar variability in terms of total solar irradiance (TSI). Variability in TSI can be caused by two things: changes in solar output, like the 11-year solar cycle, or changes in the distance between the earth and the Sun. Variability in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, often referred to as orbital cycles, do not change the total amount of energy the Earth receives in a year, but they can change the distribution of...