.. "A new study published by NASA’s Norman Loeb and co-authors examines the CERES satellite instruments’ measurements of how Earth’s radiative energy budget has changed.
The period they study is rather limited, 2005-2019, probably to be able to use the most extensive Argo float deep-ocean temperature data.
The study includes some rather detailed partitioning of what sunlight-reflecting and infrared-emitting processes are responsible for the changes, which is very useful.
They also point out that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is responsible for some of what they see in the data, while anthropogenic forcings (and feedbacks from all natural and human-caused forcings) presumably account for the rest.
One of the encouraging results for NASA’s CERES Team is that the rate of increase in the accumulation of radiant energy in the climate system is the same in the satellite observations as it is when computed from in situ data,
primarily the Argo float measurements of the upper half of the ocean depths.
It should be noted, however, that the absolute value of the imbalance cannot be measured by the CERES satellite instruments;
instead, the ocean warming is used to make a “energy-balanced” adjustment to the satellite data (which is the “EB” in the CERES EBAF dataset).
Nevertheless, the CERES dataset is proving to be extremely valuable, even if its absolute accuracy is not as high as we would like in climate research.
The main problem I have is with the media reporting of these results.
The animated graph in the Verge article shows a planetary energy imbalance of about 0.5 W/m2 in 2005 increasing to about 1.0 W/m2 in 2019.
It can be compared to the estimated natural energy flows of 235-245 W/m2 in and out of the climate system on an annual basis, approximately 1 part in 300.
Secondly, since we don’t have good global energy imbalance measurements before this period, there is no justification for the claim, “the magnitude of the increase is unprecedented.”
To expect the natural energy flows in the climate system to stay stable to 1 part in 300 over thousands of years has no scientific basis, and is merely a statement of faith.
We have no idea whether such changes have occurred in centuries past.
This is not to fault the CERES data.
I think that NASA’s Bruce Wielicki and Norm Loeb have done a fantastic job with these satellite instruments and their detailed processing of those data.
What bothers me is the alarmist language attached to
(1) such a tiny number, and
(2) the likelihood that no one will bother to mention
the authors attribute part of the change
to a natural climate cycle, the PDO.
Willis Eschenbach says: Dr. Roy, here’s the reality of the CERES calculations, from Loeb et al. 2018, emphasis mine.
However, the absolute accuracy requirement necessary to quantify Earths energy imbalance (EEI) is daunting. The EEI is a small residual of TOA flux terms on the order of 340 W m−2.
EEI ranges between 0.5 and 1 W m−2 (von Schuckmann et al. 2016), roughly 0.15% of the total incoming and outgoing radiation at the TOA.
Given that the absolute uncertainty in solar irradiance alone is 0.13 W m−2 (Kopp and Lean 2011), constraining EEI to 50% of its mean (~0.25 W m−2) requires that the observed total outgoing radiation is known to be 0.2 W m−2, or 0.06%.
The actual uncertainty for CERES resulting from calibration alone is 1% SW and 0.75% LW radiation [one standard deviation (1σ)], which corresponds to 2 W m−2, or 0.6% of the total TOA outgoing radiation.
In addition, there are uncertainties resulting from radiance-to-flux conversion and time interpolation.
With the most recent CERES edition-4 instrument calibration improvements, the net imbalance from the standard CERES data products is approximately 4.3 W m−2, much larger than the expected EEI.
This imbalance is problematic in applications that use ERB data for climate model evaluation, estimations of Earths annual global mean energy budget, and studies that infer meridional heat transports.
CERES EBAF addresses this issue by applying an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earth atmosphere system (Loeb et al. 2009).
Thus, the real uncertainty has to be the difference between the standard CERES data products and the actual EEI, which is something on the order of 3.5 W/m2 …"