On Dec 4, 11:44 pm, Eric Swanson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sure enough, Real Climate posted an article last evening about the op-
> ed piece.
>
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-scien...
>
> I suppose I should read Lindzen's GRL paper, mentioned in an earlier
> thread.
The point is that Lindzen is wrong and he is right!
Clouds do drive the climate but not just cirrus clouds in the
tropics.
As everyone knows that CO2 is saturated. What this means is that if
the surface temperature increases then the planet cannot return to
balance by emitting more radiation in the CO2 band. But the water
vapour bands are saturated too, so almost OLR is fixed! The way the
climate can gets into balance is not by altering the OLR to space, but
by changing the net incoming radiation with alterations in albedo
through cloud cover. But loss of the Arctic sea ice will alter the
albedo, so the planet will not return to balance until global climate
is such that the albedo lost by the melting of the Arctic ice is
replaced by additional cloud cover.
How high will the global temperature have to go for this to happen?
Cheers, Alastair.
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