Roles of Earth’s Albedo Variations and Top-of-the-Atmosphere Energy Imbalance in Recent Warming: New Insights from Satellite and Surface Observations
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper adopts a universal method to study the driving factors of global warming under long time series from the perspective of Earth's Energy Imbalance, including the role of Earth's albedo and TSI. The study has certain research significance.
Specific comments:
1. Lines 93. 'The timeseries of monthly anomalies were smoothed by computing 13-month running means for each series.' Why 13 months? Would different time intervals affect the final results? Please provide your explanation.
2. The section structure has issues. Section 2 contains only one subheading. It is suggested that the data introduction be separated into its own section.
3. What is the accuracy of these data used in this study? Please provide relevant references about the data accuracy.
4. Equation 4 seems to be incorrect. Please verify.
5. The discussion is too long. Can some of the content be moved to the results? The structure of the discussion also has similar issues as mentioned in point 2.
Author Response
Comment 1: Lines 93. 'The timeseries of monthly anomalies were smoothed by computing 13-month running means for each series.' Why 13 months? Would different time intervals affect the final results? Please provide your explanation.
Response: Our goal was to study the climate behavior on annual and longer time scales. A 13-month running mean smooths out the high-frequency monthly observations while preserving at the same time the interannual variability of the data sets. A proper calculation of running means requires data averaging over an odd number of points, because this allows the use of equal number of points on both sides of a target point. So, for annual values, the averaging window must be either 11 or 13 points. We picked 13. The results of our analysis do not change for averaging windows of 11 points or bigger. We added a clarification about the smoothing procedure on p. 3 of the revised manuscript.
Comment 2: The section structure has issues. Section 2 contains only one subheading. It is suggested that the data introduction be separated into its own section.
Response: We agree with this suggestion. We added additional subsections to Sections 2 and 4 in the revised version of the manuscript.
Comment 3: What is the accuracy of these data used in this study? Please provide relevant references about the data accuracy.
Response: Our study uses well-known international datasets, whose accuracies have been documented extensively elsewhere (i.e. in published references we site in the manuscript and, in some cases, on the public websites we linked to for data downloading in Table 1). For the sake of simplicity, our analysis only utilized the central (best) estimate of each dataset as suggested by the custodians of the data. This also simplified the plotting of the data and made the generation of the 19 Figures in the manuscript much easier. We added a clarification about this on p.3.
Comment 4: Equation 4 seems to be incorrect. Please verify.
Response: We see no problem with Eq. 4. Please, provide a more specific comment, if possible. For information about total derivatives and how to calculate them analytically, please see this Wolfram Mathworld webpage: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/TotalDerivative.html
For a discussion about the chain rule of calculus, please visit this page:
https://byjus.com/maths/chain-rule/
Comment 5: The discussion is too long. Can some of the content be moved to the results? The structure of the discussion also has similar issues as mentioned in point 2.
Response: The Discussion Section deals exclusively with issues related to the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI). Specifically, it describes the implications of key results obtained in our study and presented in Section 3 for a new understanding of EEI. Hence, the Discussion section is in a sense an extension of the Results Section 3. However, none of its content can be moved to Section 3 without breaking the logic of the narrative. Yes, Section 4 is long, but this is required (justified) by the need to properly explain our novel concept about EEI.
We improved the structure of Section 4 by adding additional subsections as advised by the reviewer.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors present a quantification of the role of variations in the solar irradiance and Bond albedo in the variations of global surface temperature (GST) on the Earht surface.
They claim that their results prove that the greenhouse gases play no role in the evolution of GST. To do so, they study how the GST depends on the solar irradiance and on the Bond albedo.
They ignore the role of greenhouse gases concentrations in the variation of the Bond albedo.
The model they use is too simple to account for all the processes taking place in the Earth atmosphere. In fact, what they use is just a correlation between the temperature and the pressure, which can not be taken as a model of the Earth's atmosphere.
They seem to ignore that the variation of Bond albedo is a consequence of the variation of greenhouse gases concentration. Many studies have recently pointed that the positive energy imbalance is caused by greenhouse gases, the effect being amplified by a decrease of Earth's albedo. The authors must address this issue.
Regarding the references, the authors of one of the references is the same authors with their names changed. This is quite weird. Can they explain this?
Author Response
Comment 1: The authors present a quantification of the role of variations in the solar irradiance and Bond albedo in the variations of global surface temperature (GST) on the Earth surface. They claim that their results prove that the greenhouse gases play no role in the evolution of GST. To do so, they study how the GST depends on the solar irradiance and on the Bond albedo.
Response: This is not a theoretical claim, but a result (conclusion) from our numerical analysis presented in the manuscript.
Comment 2: They ignore the role of greenhouse gases concentrations in the variation of the Bond albedo.
Response: We are not aware of any published study providing empirical evidence that non-condensing greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4 have direct effect on the cloud albedo. There are studies based on climate model simulations, which claim that the albedo decrease is a feedback response to an initial warming caused by rising greenhouse gases. However, our analysis of the CERES satellite data unequivocally demonstrated that the observed decrease of Earth’s albedo explains 100% of the surface warming leaving no room for any action by theoretical (model-generated) GHG radiative forcing or positive feedbacks suggested by the climate models. The CERES data also show that changes in sunlight absorption by Earth generally precede changes in GSAT, which indicates that albedo variations are the primary driver of global temperature rather than being feedback to a GHG-induced warming as claimed by the climate models. Please review Section 3.1 of the manuscript for details.
Comment 3: The model they use is too simple to account for all the processes taking place in the Earth atmosphere. In fact, what they use is just a correlation between the temperature and the pressure, which cannot be taken as a model of the Earth's atmosphere.
Response: The simplicity of our planetary-temperature model is strictly dictated by the NASA data subjected to a Dimensional Analysis as explained by Nikolov & Zeller (2017). The fact that a model is simple does not mean it’s wrong. Accurate yet simple models are always preferred in physical sciences to complex, multivariate models. The reviewer is probably familiar with the Occam's razor principle, which recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. The Dimensional Analysis (an objective technique to discover physical laws) produced this model. Also, Nikolov & Zeller (2017) explain, why the new pressure-temperature planetary model is NOT just a correlation, but instead represents a new macrolevel physical law. There are 3 criteria that an empirical relationship must meet in order to be considered a physical law: high accuracy, broad environmental range of validity (applicability), and statistical robustness. Nikolov & Zeller (2017) demonstrated that the new pressure-temperature relationship across celestial bodies in the Solar System (shown in Fig. 6 of the manuscript) meets all 3 criteria. Furthermore, the shape of the P-T curve derived by Nikolov & Zeller from NASA planetary data is very similar to well-known pressure-temperature curves observed in smaller systems on Earth. This is discussed in our 2017 paper. Finally, the dependence of gas temperature on gas pressure is fundamental to classical Thermodynamics. In this regard, we would like to remind the reviewer that, in the context of the Ideal Gas Law, PV = nRT, which governs all atmospheres, the product PV (Pressure x Volume) defines the thermal kinetic energy of a gas that gives the gas its temperature T. This is yet another reason for treating our cross-planetary P-T relationship as a meaningful physical phenomenon rather than just a “correlation”.
Comment 4: They seem to ignore that the variation of Bond albedo is a consequence of the variation of greenhouse gases concentration. Many studies have recently pointed that the positive energy imbalance is caused by greenhouse gases, the effect being amplified by a decrease of Earth's albedo. The authors must address this issue.
Response: We addressed the question about the effect of greenhouse gases on Bond albedo above. The Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) is discussed in gory details on 10 pages in Section 4 of the manuscript! This section explains that EEI is not caused by greenhouse gases, but arises as a result of adiabatic cooling of convecting air parcels moving vertically though the troposphere. This new insight about the physical nature of EEI is a key contribution of our study to climate science. The reviewer is encouraged to carefully read Sections 3 and 4 in order to understand our new concept about EEI.
Comment 5: Regarding the references, the authors of one of the references is the same authors with their names changed. This is quite weird. Can they explain this?
Response: Yes, we published one of our papers (Volokin & ReLlez 2014) under pseudonyms, where we spelled our names backwards, in order to ensure an unbiased evaluation of our work. We were forced to hide our identities due to an unjust censorship we’ve experienced by editors and reviewers with our prior submissions to other journals. Our approached worked and the paper was accepted for publication by SpringerPlus after passing a normal review. We revealed our true identities to the journal staff after the paper was published, and they added an Erratum to clarify the situation: https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-016-3755-3
Publishing under pseudonyms is not an unusual practice in science. See this 2013 paper for some famous historical examples of this approach: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661313000661
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper titled 'Roles of Earth’s Albedo Variations and TOA Energy Imbalance 2 in Recent Warming: New Insights from Satellite and Surface 3 Observations' focused on the effect of the observed albedo decrease on GSAT. This paper is well constructed and is very interesting for readers. It is recommened for acceptance for publication.
Author Response
Comment 1: This paper titled 'Roles of Earth’s Albedo Variations and TOA Energy Imbalance 2 in Recent Warming: New Insights from Satellite and Surface 3 Observations' focused on the effect of the observed albedo decrease on GSAT. This paper is well constructed and is very interesting for readers. It is recommended for acceptance for publication.
Response: Thank you for grasping our study and realizing its significance for climate science
