James Taylor
Forbes
Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:26 CDT
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satellite view of ice
© Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife
NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.


surprise, surprise...

Yes... but but but.. NASA is government and government..... conspiracy conspiracy..

lol.. but i would still trust our government over the UN anyday...

well, al gore would say nasa's full of crap and he invented the internet. so there.

This article is horribly written. If I read "far less" or "alarmist" one more time, I was ready to scream. No details or data are given to actually inform the reader. It is just generalization and judgment meant to lead the reader along. Then I noticed that the article was from Forbes. Surprise, surprise!

That said, I do believe the basis of the article is true, and that it is important. I just want to see some real info and some real quotes so I can reach my own conclusions, even if they still agree with the author's point of view.

NASA is not the almighty authority on climate issues. All the journals I have read and magazines such as Scientific American and Smithsonian don't share NASA's findings. I'm not saying is full of idiots but possibly the person who took their findings and interpreted to fit their agenda most likely is. After all it is Forbes magazine, and Steve Forbes is all about big business.

None of which changes the fact that we should be cleaning and protecting the planet we all need to live.

Dito.

Gee... I'm so 'alarmed.'

I don't buy into all those alarmists claims that humans are causing global warming. The whole solar system is heating up, not just the earth. We don't have hairspray and SUV's on Pluto.

And for those that don't know, Forbes is a business-oriented, mostly op-ed magazine (read: Republican). Amusing that I see nothing about this on the NASA site itself ... in fact, the only place I CAN find it is from right-wing propagandist machines and most of them are quoting the article in Forbes.

Can anyone else find a less biased source for this information?

I think even if more heat is being released into space as this article claims, it doesn't alleviate our responsibility (not to the planet, it'll ultimately be fine ... but to the generations that follow us) and we should do more to lessen our impact on the environment, regardless.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

http://terra.nasa.gov/Publications/

can anyone find any 'source for this informaion' that is not biased one way or t'other.

That would be the NASA site, I'd assume, but still nothing there about the conclusions of a ten year study and discredit of previous information.

The other link seems to be the man who actually came to this conclusion ... who is a long-time nay-sayer of climate change and has books to sell on the subject.

I'll judge this "not enough info" until I see something from NASA itself.

I got a bunch of highly prized Carbon Credits for Sale or Trade

These are the real McCoy, personally issued by Al Gore and Tipper

Where is the data? We can have a discussion on what it means if we get the actual data.

The real problem with this article is that is talks about alarmist models, but never provides examples of what it means, it also does not provide citations, or links to the data. ie this article is meaningless.

that link above shows the satellite data,and the dr.s work on this, but i never looked for the UN data to compare it to.

Well, it is important to take it all into account, many of the models I have seen have 50 year durations, not 10 years. They scale up at a faster rate as the forcings gather steam so to speak.

I just have no confidence in this article, it did a poor job of explaining the data and comparing it to the "alarmists".

You have to remember that much of the information, data, and charts used to promote awareness is actually 20 years old. I have a bunch of that info, charts and maps, and they are from books I bought in 1990.

Back then, the science was relatively new although Greenhouse Theory had been around for almost 20 years even then. It wasn't until the 1980s when scientists began studying it more, and even then it was relatively few people until a group approached the UN sponsored by Norway. This is what Our Common Future is about, and I own a copy of it. This is also what makes the book important because it brought Climate Change and Global Warming onto the international stage for research and discussion.

Most real research on Global Warming has taken place during the 1990s and 2000s. Prior to 1990, computer models were very poor, and the projections ran all over the place creating a huge margin of possibilities. After 1990, computers improved greatly, becoming more sophisticated and capable of running much more sophisticated software. So, improvement in computers has been of vast important to research on climate change.

These newer computers also allowed us to add much more variables into the equation: warmer oceans, glacial melt, cooling of oceans due to glacial melt, increased deforestation, increased population, greater water evaporation, reduced reflection of sunlight due to fewer snowcaps and glaciers, etc. Computers could now handle all this data and see how they interacted so that new computer models could be created for forecasting. Just think about some of the improvements we can see in meteorology just by watching the evening news. Much of this is from the past 20 years because of improved computer technology.

So, new information is still being found and analyzed. Sometimes it may take 5 years before the info is ready to be released to the public. More often than not, it never reaches the public. That's because those who shout loudest are not scientists. They are activists and environmentalists, and some of them may not have read real scientific data in 10 or 20 years. They still read, but it depends upon who or what they are reading to gain new info. If the info is flawed or presented with a bias, then these people will be misled. It's a cascade effect, a pyramid of bad information. To be informed, one really has to read data from source, or read authors known for their objectivity.

As far as Al Gore....yeah, I can show you some of the same exact info he used....from 1990. He literally used some of the same photos, graphs, and charts published in my books. I would think they might be a bit outdated now.

what 'article' can you have confidence in? how about a documentary staring al gore? that give you confidence?

"He has books to sell on the subject.."

That is what I mean by always look for agenda when evaluating information.

Thanks for this post!
Great information!