Non-Barking Dogs

Lucia's The Blackboard has an guest post by "Paul_K" on "Pinatubo Climate Sensitivity and Two Dogs that didn’t bark in the night":

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Summary of Conclusions

Allowing for uncertainties in the temperature and flux datasets, the response from Pinatubo is compatible with a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of between 0.9 and 1.7oC, with a ML value around 1.4 oC. Outside this range from 0.9 to 1.7oC, it is not possible to obtain simultaneous matches to temperature and energy balance data within a temperature excursion range of 0.5 to 0.7oC. (Note that the actual measured temperature excursion was somewhere between 0.4 and 0.5 deg C. My allowed range here already incorporates maximum correction for ENSO. For comparison, Soden’s estimate for ENSO corrected temperature excursion reaches a maximum of 0.65oC. A reduction in the allowed temperature excursion would reduce the upper bound on my estimated range of climate sensitivity.)

The DK2005 estimate is unequivocally too low because of underestimation of ocean heat transfer and a deficient model.

The Wigley2006 central estimate of 3.03oC is impossibly high because of overestimation of ocean heat transfer; it can only match temperature data if the flux information is ignored.

I suspect cynically that these results explain why quantification of the sensitivity is notably absent from the Soden2002 paper, and the flux data are notably absent from Wigley2005.

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