OLR - Outgoing Longwave Radiation
ISR- Incoming Shortwave Radiation
TOA- Top Of the Atmosphere
GCC- Global Cloud Cover
GHG- GreenHouse Gas
CO2- Carbon Dioxide
PDO- Pacific Decadal Oscillation
AMO- Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
IOD- Indian Ocean Diphole
QBO- Quasi Biennial Oscillation
You have probably heard every single part of the upcoming catastrophe that is coming from the media- that it is a fact that has been proven and proven again that humans are driving the current climate, and natural factors are very small compared to the human forcing.
But this is not true.
Let's start off with an indirect proof. If Carbon Dioxide were driving the Climate, then we would see a reduction in overall OLR, since the Greenhouse Gases are poised to create a reduction in OLR- if they are the drivers of the Climate.
However, what we can see from the observational data, is that OLR has actually increased during the time we were warming.
What we can see is that OLR has increased by 11 w/m^2 since the beginning of the satellite era.
According to the Climate Models, we should have seen a reduction in OLR at the TOA, due to GHGs trapping more and more of the OLR. But we haven't. Not at all.
This was seen by Lindzen and Choi's 2009 and 2010 papers. ()()
Here, we can see, as I explained earlier, that climate Models forecasted a downward trend in OLR at the TOA due to increased GHGs trapping OLR. We can see that reality shows that OLR has increased with temperature.
What does this all tell us?
It tells us that the warming is occuring through an increase in ISR, since if ISR were not increasing, and OLR was going up, we would experience cooling, since the energy leaving Earth, would hypothetically be greater than the Energy getting to Earth.
The only possible factor that could cause an increase in ISR and an increase in OLR, is decreasing Cloud Cover.
Decreasing Cloud Cover allows for more ISR to reach the Earth's Surface, but it also allows for more OLR to escape into space.
However, since Cloud Cover overall reflects more ISR than it traps OLR, if all clouds were to be removed, an extra 17 w/m^2 would be added to Earth's Energy Budget.
From
The overall reflectance (albedo) of planet Earth is about 30 percent, meaning that about 30 percent of the incoming shortwave solar radiation is radiated back to space. If all clouds were removed, the global albedo would decrease to about 15 percent, and the amount of shortwave energy available for warming the planet surface would increase from 239 W/m2 to 288 W/m2 (Hartmann 1994). However, the longwave radiation would also be affected, with 266 W/m2 being emitted to space, compared to the present 234 W/m2 (Hartmann 1994). The net effect of removing all clouds would therefore still be an increase in net radiation of about 17 W/m2. So the global cloud cover has a clear overall cooling effect on the planet, even though the net effect of high and low clouds are opposite (see figure above). This is not a pure theoretical consideration, but is demonstrated by observations (see diagram below).So we now know that it is impossible for CO2 to be driving the Climate, because of the reasons expressed above.
But how do the CAGW Proponents reach the conclusions that they do?
Well, often, they will show this graph which depicts a model that is modeling the Anthropogenic VS. Natural Forcings.
Note that according to the model, natural factors could not possibly explain the temeprature increase, because natural factors significantly diverge from observed data in 1979.
But as already shown above, the model got the OLR Vs. Temeprature Component completely wrong, which shows that the models are misinterpreting something. But what is it?
A paper was published in February 2010, that shows that Climate Models may be underestimating Clouds' role as a negative feedback by a factor of 4. ()
Quote:
The implication of this optical depth bias that owes its source to biases in both the LWP and particle sizes is that the solar radiation reflected by low clouds is significantly enhanced in models compared to real clouds. This reflected sunlight bias has significant implications for the cloud-climate feedback problem. The consequence is that this bias
artificially suppresses the low cloud optical depth feedback in models by almost a factor of four and thus its potential role as a negative feedback. The models, which all catastrophic statements are based off of, have gotten the Cloud Feedback completely mixed up. We know that they have gotten mixed up, because they got the Temperature Vs. OLR component completely off.
But is CO2 causing a very small portion of the warming?
Without any Feedbacks, CO2 does cause warming. However, in these next calculations, we will see how much CO2 would have contributed to the current Global Warming, without any climatic feedbacks.
Two Solar Scientists found that Clouds have contributed an extra 7 w/m^2 of energy to Earth's Energy Budget in a 21 year timeframe. ()
According to the IPCC, Carbon Dioxide causes a 1.4 w/m^2 of energy to be added to Earth's Energy Budget over a 104 year timespan.
To get the effect that CO2 has had over this 21 year timeframe, you muliply the 1.4 w/m^2 by .2, since that is the value of 21 divided by 104. You get .28 w/m^2.
Divide that by 7 w/m^2 to get the percentage that CO2 has contributed to the current Global Warming.
You get 4%. Assuming that CO2 and Clouds are hypothetically, the only drivers of the Climate, CO2 contributed only .014 Degrees C to the .35 Degree C warming since 1979.
Factor in Feedbacks, the PDO, AMO, IOD, QBO, Ozone Depletion due to Volcanism, the Solar AA index, and you can see how small of a role CO2 plays on the overall Climate System. It's effects are not even measureable.
With these effects factored in, the effect of CO2 would even be significantly less than 4%.
So in conclusion, Natural Drivers are dominating the current Climate Change, and always will in the future.