Satellites may have underestimated warming in the lower atmosphere

[raarts]

The actual paper is named: "Using Climate Model Simulations to Constrain Observations"

They seem to claim that they suspect the actual measurements to be biased because they contradict the models?

I may be wrong here but this is what I gather from the abstract.

[ppf]

As a slight tangent - if the greenhouse effect of CO2 is so catastrophic that we need to mandate the destruction of (Western) energy companies, as well as enormous lifestyle changes in the near future, then why aren't we as worried about methane? The US emitted 1/8th the amount of methane as CO2[1], but methane has 30x the greenhouse potential.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

[doikor]

While methane has a much larger effect it also leaves the atmosphere much faster rate.

Methane released to the atmosphere is gone in about 12 years while CO2 takes over 100 years.

So over the lifetime of the gasses methane will have a smaller effect as it just does not stay around for as long.

Also CO2 is mainly absorbed into the oceans acidifying them which is another huge issue we are facing now.

[CorrectHorseBat]

That graph shows CO2 equivalent, so the 30x is already calculated in there. But yes, we are also worried about methane.

[LatteLazy]

We are. Most work focuses on GHG (Green house gases) or Co2E (CO2 equivalent which includes methane and other gases). You'll see methane listed specifically as a reason to cut red meat (because cow farts are a major source of methane) for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

[igravious]

“the findings reflect either a systematic low bias in satellite tropospheric temperature trends or an overestimate of the observed atmospheric moistening signal.”

If two different interpretations are equally likely it's foolish to focus on one over the other (as the title leads us to do).

[omrjml]

From the actual journal article: "Three further points are relevant to the question of whether the model-observed differences in Figs. 10A-C are mainly due to underestimated observed tropospheric temperature trends or to an overestimated satellite WV trend. First, independent estimates of tropospheric temperature change from GPS radio occultation (RO) and radiosondes suggest that over the 2002 to 2018 period of overlap between MSU/AMSU and GPS-RO, tropospheric warming is smaller in microwave sounders than in GPS-RO or radiosondes (Steiner et al. 2020). Second, there is some evidence that observational uncertainties may be smaller in satellite WV data than in satellite tropospheric temperature data (Wentz 2013; see Section 2c). Third, when the individual trend components of our four trend ratios are examined, the agreement between models and observations is better for WV and SST trends than for TMT or TLT trends. These three lines of evidence, taken together with the results of the RSS sensitivity tests, suggest that underestimated observed tropospheric warming is plausible. This inference is predicated on the assumption that the model-based covariance constraints are realistic."

[LatteLazy]

People are very interested in getting their models and data exactly right. Meanwhile we have known this is a serious problem for 50+ years and done nothing net.

[premium-komodo]

Weird, inappropriate wording. "Satellites taking measurements may have underestimated"? What's actually been happening is that satellites take measurements, and then all but a few climate models (around 100, IIRC) run way too hot, i.e., hotter than the actual measurements. It's the models that are estimating, and they're wrong compared to the actual measurements, which are not estimates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-8Nws5wfG0

[bregma]

The point of the paper is that the satellite data may be being misinterpreted.

Satellites do not measure sea surface or tropospheric air temperatures. They measure some voltage variations from sensors that are affected by various frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and, when integrated with location and orientation data, generate a data product that needs interpretation by experts in a way that may or may not correlate with actual sea surface or tropospheric temperature.

The article is pointing at some inconsistencies in some, but not all, satellite data products. It's not quite saying "if the observations do not fit the theory, the observations are wrong" so much as "if the interpretation of the observations do not fit the theory, the interpretation of the observations may be wrong".

[acqq]

The youtube link is to Roy Spencer, the same one who claims "I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism." Really? In the video, speaking for "Heartland Institute" a think tank previously also denying that smoking causes cancer.

https://skepticalscience.com/Roy_Spencer_arg.htm

Denying global warming at least since 1997, using anything he finds most convenient at the moment.

[threeseed]

From the article:

"But our analysis reveals that several observational datasets — particularly those with the smallest values of ocean surface warming and tropospheric warming — appear to be at odds with other, independently measured complementary variables (e.g. tropical temperature and moisture)"

Which suggests that unless all of the physics is wrong there could be anomalies in either the satellites or the ways its data is processed.

[gmueckl]

I don't have access to the full paper, but my reading of the abstract is (in short) that satellite measurements of independent quantities have ratios that are only (sort of) reproduced by models that show a higher warming. This leaves two possibilities: the models are wrong or the measurements are off.