Climatologist Roy Spencer Rains on Global Warming Model Predictions
University of Alabama Huntsville climatologist Roy Spencer weighs in as a global warming "moderate" in the New York Post:
Computerized models of our climate have had a habit of "drifting" too warm or too cold. This because they still don't contain all of the temperature-stabilizing processes that exist in nature. In fact, for the amount of solar energy available to it, our climate seems to have a "preferred" average temperature, damping out swings beyond 1 degree or so.
I believe that, through various negative feedback mechanisms, the atmosphere "decides" how much of the available sunlight will be allowed in, how much greenhouse effect it will generate in response, and what the average temperature will be.
Finally, remember that phrase, "the Earth's greenhouse effect keeps the Earth habitably warm?" I'll bet you never heard the phrase that is, quantitatively, more accurate: "Weather processes keep the Earth habitably cool."
Were it not for weather, the natural greenhouse effect would cause the surface of the Earth to average 140 degrees. Wonder why we never hear that fact stated?
I believe that when the stabilizing effects of precipitation systems are better understood and included into the models, predictions of global warming will be scaled back.
Despite current inadequacies, climate models are still our best tools for forecasting global warming. Those tools just aren't sharp enough yet.
UAH climatologists Spencer and John Christy are the principal investigators who have been compiling data from NOAA satellites on global temperature trends since 1978. Their data indicates that global average temperatures are going up at about 0.14 degrees Celsius per decade which is at the lower end of the climate model projections.
See whole Spencer article here.
