Since there has been a lot of discussion about Monckton here and elsewhere, I’ve offered him the opportunity to present his views here. – Anthony
Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
At www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org I publish a widely-circulated and vigorously-debated Monthly CO2 Report, including graphs showing changes in CO2 concentration and in global mean surface temperature since 1980, when the satellites went on weather watch and the NOAA first published its global CO2 concentration series. Since some commenters here at Wattsup have queried some of our findings, I have asked Anthony to allow me to contribute this short discussion.
We were among the first to show that CO2 concentration is not rising at the fast, exponential rate that current anthropogenic emissions would lead the IPCC to expect, and that global temperature has scarcely changed since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001.
CO2 concentration: On emissions reduction, the international community has talked the talk, but – not least because China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa are growing so quickly – it has not walked the walk. Accordingly, carbon emissions are at the high end of the IPCC’s projections, close to the A2 (“business as usual”) emissions scenario, which projects that atmospheric CO2 will grow at an exponential rate between now and 2100 in the absence of global cuts in emissions:
Exponential increase in CO2 concentration from 2000-2100 is projected by the IPCC on its A2 emissions scenario, which comes closest to today’s CO2 emissions. On the SPPI CO2-concentration graph, this projection is implemented by way of an exponential function that generates the projection zone. This IPCC graph has been enlarged, its ordinate and abscissa labeled, and its aspect ratio altered to provide a comparison with the landscape format of the SPPI graph.
On the A2 emissions scenario, the IPCC foresees CO2 rising from a measured 368 ppmv in 2000 (NOAA global CO2 dataset) to a projected 836[730, 1020] ppmv by 2100. However, reality is not obliging. The rate of increase in CO2 concentration has been slowing in recent years: an exponential curve cannot behave thus. In fact, the the NOAA’s deseasonalized CO2 concentration curve is very close to linear:
CO2 concentration change from 2000-2010 (upper panel) and projected to 2100 (lower panel). The least-squares linear-regression trend on the data shows CO2 concentration rising to just 570 ppmv by 2100, well below the IPCC’s least estimate of 730 ppmv on the A2 emissions scenario.
The IPCC projection zone on the SPPI graphs has its origin at the left-hand end of the linear-regression trend on the NOAA data, and the exponential curves are calculated from that point so that they reach the IPCC’s projected concentrations in 2100.
We present the graph thus to show the crucial point: that the CO2 concentration trend is well below the least IPCC estimate. Some have criticized our approach on the ground that over a short enough distance a linear and an exponential trend may be near-coincident. This objection is more theoretical than real.
First, the fit of the dark-blue deseasonalized NOAA data to the underlying linear-regression trend line (light blue) is very much closer than it is even to the IPCC’s least projection on scenario A2. If CO2 were now in fact rising at a merely linear rate, and if that rate were to continue, concentration would reach only 570 ppmv by 2100.
Secondly, the exponential curve most closely fitting the NOAA data would be barely supra-linear, reaching just 614 ppmv by 2100, rather than the linear 570 ppmv. In practice, the substantial shortfall between prediction and outturn is important, as we now demonstrate. The equation for the IPCC’s central estimate of equilibrium warming from a given rise in CO2 concentration is:
∆T = 4.7 ln(C/C0),
where the bracketed term represents a proportionate increase in CO2 concentration. Thus, at CO2 doubling, the IPCC would expect 4.7 ln 2 = 3.26 K warming – or around 5.9 F° (IPCC, 2007, ch.10, p.798, box 10.2). On the A2 scenario, CO2 is projected to increase by more than double: equilibrium warming would be 3.86 K, and transient warming would be <0.5 K less, at 3.4 K.
But if we were to take the best-fit exponential trend on the CO2 data over the past decade, equilibrium warming from 2000-2100 would be 4.7 ln(614/368) = 2.41 K, comfortably below the IPCC’s least estimate and a hefty 26% below its central estimate. Combining the IPCC’s apparent overestimate of CO2 concentration growth with the fact that use of the IPCC’s methods for determining climate sensitivity to observed increases in the concentration of CO2 and five other climate-relevant greenhouse gases over the 55 years 1950-2005 would project a transient warming 2.3 times greater than the observed 0.65 K, anthropogenic warming over the 21st century could be as little as 1 K (less than 2 F°), which would be harmless and beneficial.
Temperature: How, then, has observed, real-world global temperature responded?
The UAH satellite temperature record shows warming at a rate equivalent to 1.4 K/century over the past 30 years. However, the least-squared linear-regression trend is well below the lower bound of the IPCC projection zone.
The SPPI’s graph of the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s monthly global-temperature anomalies over the 30 years since 1 January 1980 shows warming at a rate equivalent to 1.4 K/century – almost double the rate for the 20th-century as a whole. However, most of the warming was attributable to a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover that allowed some 2.6 Watts per square meter of additional solar radiance to reach the Earth’s surface between 1981 and 2003 (Pinker et al., 2005; Wild et al., 2006; Boston, 2010, personal communication).
Even with this natural warming, the least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies is below the lower bound of the IPCC projection zone.
Some have said that the IPCC projection zone on our graphs should show exactly the values that the IPCC actually projects for the A2 scenario. However, as will soon become apparent, the IPCC’s “global-warming” projections for the early part of the present century appear to have been, in effect, artificially detuned to conform more closely to observation. In compiling our graphs, we decided not merely to accept the IPCC’s projections as being a true representation of the warming that using the IPCC’s own methods for determining climate sensitivity would lead us to expect, but to establish just how much warming the use of the IPCC’s methods would predict, and to take that warming as the basis for the definition of the IPCC projection zone.
Let us illustrate the problem with a concrete example. On the A2 scenario, the IPCC projects a warming of 0.2 K/decade for 2000-2020. However, given the IPCC’s projection that CO2 concentration will grow exponentially from 368 ppmv in 2000 towards 836 ppmv by 2100, CO2 should have been 368e(10/100) ln(836/368) = 399.5 ppmv in 2010, and equilibrium warming should thus have been 4.7 ln(399.5/368) = 0.39 K, which we reduce by one-fifth to yield transient warming of 0.31 K, more than half as much again as the IPCC’s 0.2 K. Of course, CO2 concentration in 2010 was only 388 ppmv, and, as the SPPI’s temperature graph shows (this time using the RSS satellite dataset), warming occurred at only 0.3 K/century: about a tenth of the transient warming that use of the IPCC’s methods would lead us to expect.
Barely significant warming: The RSS satellite data for the first decade of the 21st century show only a tenth of the warming that use of the IPCC’s methods would lead us to expect.
We make no apology, therefore, for labelling as “IPCC” a projection zone that is calculated on the basis of the methods described by the IPCC itself. Our intention in publishing these graphs is to provide a visual illustration of the extent to which the methods relied upon by the IPCC itself in determining climate sensitivity are reliable.
Some have also criticized us for displaying temperature records for as short a period as a decade. However, every month we also display the full 30-year satellite record, so as to place the current millennium’s temperature record in its proper context. And our detractors were somehow strangely silent when, not long ago, a US agency issued a statement that the past 13 months had been the warmest in the instrumental record, and drew inappropriate conclusions from it about catastrophic “global warming”.
We have made one adjustment to please our critics: the IPCC projection zone in the SPPI temperature graphs now shows transient rather than equilibrium warming.
One should not ignore the elephant in the room. Our CO2 graph shows one elephant: the failure of CO2 concentration over the past decade to follow the high trajectory projected by the IPCC on the basis of global emissions similar to today’s. As far as we can discover, no one but SPPI has pointed out this phenomenon. Our temperature graph shows another elephant: the 30-year warming trend – long enough to matter – is again well below what the IPCC’s methods would project. If either situation changes, followers of our monthly graphs will be among the first to know. As they say at Fox News, “We report: you decide.”
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There should be a “K” or “°C” or “in Kelvin” added to the line with Delta T
“However, most of the warming was attributable to a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover that allowed some 2.6 Watts per square meter of additional solar radiance to reach the Earth’s surface between 1981 and 2003 (Pinker et al., 2005; Wild et al., 2006; Boston, 2010, personal communication).”
Interesting. The jet streams moved poleward during that period allowing albedo to decline as the angle of incidence of solar energy onto the clouds changed and more ocean areas were exposed to the sky.
Now albedo is rising again and the jets have moved back equatorward.
The poleward shift has been attributed to more CO2. What say alarmists now that they have moved back again whilst CO2 continues to rise (for the time being) ?
Well said, Lord Monckton! The last quote – “we report, you decide” – is indicative of a respect for democracy and the intelligence of the individual that is noticeably lacking in the IPCC’s pronouncements.
Anyone offering an alternative to CO2, e is going to have a hard time.
We have to search not for the alternative but for the truth, one step at the time:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-B.htm
As a non scientist I find the maths hard to follow but the logic of what you write is mostly common sense. I have some very basic questions from a non scientist trying to understand.
Can someone tell me: are all gases greenhouse gases to some degree? For instance my understanding is that in the league of gases Co2 is not the principal player that water vapour is (by a large factor).
Does pumping Co2 into the air increase the total amount of gas in the atmosphere, or does it take the place of another gas. For instance if I put on the kettle, bursta hydrogen filled ballon, or drive a hydrogen car that emits water vapour, am I contributing to green house gases?
How big a hole has discarding Michael Mann’s hockey stick left? Are there other reputable demonstrations of a direct causal relationship between Co2 concentrations and global heating? I know there is a lag effect, but is this accounted for by Co2 being released and absorbed by the oceans? Do warming oceans release Co2 and cold oceans absorb Co2, or is it more complex?
Hard to argue with any of that.
As the Pacific cools over the next decade, there will be a repeat of the 1940-1970 dip in global temperatures.
I would conclude from this that the rate of warming due to increased CO2 levels is less than the amplitude of the PDO cycle. Hence 1940 – 1970 cooling 1970-2000 warming 2000- 2030 cooling. hard to be precise but a figure of around 0.5c/century looks about right?
Though the 0.5C/century increase will also be declining as more CO2 enters the atmosphere.
The CO2 – temperature correlation is simply broken, and no amount of alarmist handwaving can fix it.
Congratulations to Lord Moncton! He has demonstrated an ability to write prose in a manner easily comprehensible to Americans. Not to mention his grasp of climate science and his incredible British ability to stay the course.
Monckton is witty, good-humored, well-informed, well-spoken and erudite.
No wonder, then, that the shrill voices of the hard Left Green (or should that be the other way around?) have declared him Public Enemy No. 1 and have made him the target of some of the most vulgar personal abuse I have ever read, including the person who declared they would like to feed him a teaspoonful of DDT to punish him for his views on how to combat malaria.
I have the impression that Monckton here deals specifically with the exact maths, science, IPCC, and quotation issues behind the commonest detractors’ comments along the line of “Monckton has been falsified by xxxxxxxxxx”.
This post therefore looks like a good resource to refer such detractors to. And to remind other Monckton-has-bad-evidence-asserters of the likelihood that their assertions can also be answered – indeed, the likelihood that they have already been answered somewhere by Monckton.
Excellent article.
I do feel however that we are battling the AGW alarmists on the wrong battle field a lot of the time.
If I were to state that I had a model of the stock market which was so accurate that it allowed me to not only model the market but to actually steer it where I wanted it to go just by adjusting my 5% stake in pork bellies I doubt that many people would bother to investigate my pork belly/FTSE/Dow-Jones corelation.
Most sensible people would realise that my claim to have such an accurate model is absurd and my claim to be able to use that to produce a credible steering mechanism is beyond nonsense.
It would say that the climate is orders of magnitude more complicated and complex than the stock market and our ability to record climate measurements for modelling with computers is negligible.
And yet for some reason people are willing to believe that the warmists have such accurate models of the climate….
I am baffled.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 14, 2010 at 3:45 am
“However, most of the warming was attributable to a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover that allowed some 2.6 Watts per square meter of additional solar radiance to reach the Earth’s surface between 1981 and 2003 (Pinker et al., 2005; Wild et al., 2006; Boston, 2010, personal communication).”
Interesting. The jet streams moved poleward during that period allowing albedo to decline as the angle of incidence of solar energy onto the clouds changed and more ocean areas were exposed to the sky.
Now albedo is rising again and the jets have moved back equatorward.
The poleward shift has been attributed to more CO2. What say alarmists now that they have moved back again whilst CO2 continues to rise (for the time being) ?
“The poleward shift has been attributed to more CO2. What say alarmists now that they have moved back again whilst CO2 continues to rise (for the time being) ?”
More CO2 caused the shift of course.
Get with the program CO2 is the universal causal agent in climatology.
Real Climate had a ‘disproof’ of Lord Monckton’s CO2 claims.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/monckton-makes-it-up/
But if you look at their figure 4, you will see that Monckton’s ‘fantasy IPCC projections’ are almost exactly the same as the IPCC’s projections. So I am not sure what point they are trying to make.
I tried to point this out on Real Climate, but four of my five postings were deleted.
AGW does not brook freedom of speech. You will think what the the Great Comrade tells you to think.
.
Has the measurement of CO2 changed, from one station at Muana Volcano station base line.
Or is it now measured at Latitude stations completely devoid of geospheric influence.
It is so hard to keep track of the CO2 baseline.
People say this is a pure line, as a Math grad I say no.
Yer I know back in the box Jack.
As math CO2 is only a variable.
I never believed CO2 from Maunaoa atoll, was a ref point. POO. (point of origin math, the other term for POO is zero axis point).
If that was baseline, that was mad.
Mr Monckton, thank you for posting this. The fact is that observations show the IPCC as well as Hansen are incorrect in that they understate ability of the earth to recycle CO2, and overstate the climate sensitivity and feedbacks to CO2. This clear lack of understanding in regard to the CO2 lifecycle and climate sensitvity in response to CO2, would have ended the IPCC influence long ago were it not for the politics with which you are so familiar.
You make a very cogent comment about the benefits of CO2 if they were to produce the moderate warming which the current trend indicates. I have long been wishing the “skeptics” could go on the offensive with this. Have you ever seen an economic report on the benefits such a senario would present? Dont you agree it would be helpfull to point out the potential trillions of dollars in savings, not to mention the human misery that could be avoided if these benefits were realized?
Thank you for your service.
I love this statement:
“…since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001.”
Every American and probably most people in the world celebrated the beginning of the third Millenium on Jan 1 2000 – what dos the rabble know. It bothered me, but could not convince anyone that there was no year ZERO, and we had to wait until the end of 2000 to finish the 20th century.
Lord M. knows and is subtly to setting the record straight.
Thank You
Hal
NASA says it can measure all gases, then it can measure CO2.
Indoctrino persideumus ad alquemus per som sim totius al requeoriatus te dac did un de terteius minimixius..
Latin: Bullshit, we don’t even have a CO2 baseline.
As always a very interesting review of the data/science by Lord Monckton.
A tad OT. The whole raison d’être of the UNIPCC & it’s bedfellows within the PDRofEU, is to produce scare stories to frighten us all, especially the gullible & naive, or “green” people, as they used to be referred! It is just a means to an end. The F.E.A.R. or False Evidence Appearing Real, by the “Useful Idiots” within the UNIPCC, was for the purpose of exercising control over others, or Global Governance as it is more correctly named, the end of Democracy as we know it, rather as it is in the PDRofEU. We here in the PDRofEU have a European Parliament, which has no other power than to cede more power to the European Commission, bit by bit until its power is absolute – it’s almost there, & National Governments have none but mere duties to instigate EU Laws & Regulations by the bucket load. Take stock my Colonial cousins, YOU’RE NEXT! The EU Commission has the real power, Commissioners holding absolutge power are appointed not elected, a President has been appointed, not democratically elected in an election standing on particular policies against a political opponent, that would never do! He has no power & is purely decorative, window dressing for the almighty Super-State. Commissioners can be called to Parliament to answer questions on proposed laws & regulations, but can use all 15-16 minutes allowed for such purposes to waffle away about anything & everything, democracy will have been seen to be done as a perfunctory measure. You, my dear friends, are next. After all, the US EPA has similar undemocratic powers to act arbitrarily has it not? Finished! Snip away. I’m off for a pint in my local village pub!
As we enter into the next year and the next decade it will become abundantly clear to Warmists that their IPCC doomsday scenarios are just not panning out re: Co2 and warming. They can dismiss Monckton if they like but the truth will always out with time and their opportunities to spin and ‘adjust’ will become fewer and fewer. A bit like someone painting themselves into a corner or digging a hole. :o)
There is a measurement unit typo just above the last graph “…CO2 concentration in 2010 was only 388 K…” should read “…CO2 concentration in 2010 was only 388 ppmv…”
[Fixed, thanx.]
“CO2 concentration in 2010 was only 388 K”
“K” should be “ppmv”
[Fixed, thanx. ~dbs]
I find the best long term fit of the reported atmospheric CO2 is not exponential or linear, but is a sine function with a cycle wave length of 307.5 years. Following this function, CO2 will max out at the turn of the century at around 500 ppm regardless of what we do to control it. Atmospheric moisture including clouds and rain control the atmospheric concentration of CO2. It also controls the rate of energy lost to space.
Mr Monckton, I do hope you will respond to any comments critical of your presentation. Thanks.