Estimated CO2 Warming Cut By 65%
Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman, Resilient Earth via ICECAP
Any competent researcher involved with the science behind climate change will admit that CO2 is far from the only influence on global climate. It has long been known that short-lived greenhouse gases and black-carbon aerosols have contributed to past climate warming. Though the IPCC and their fellow travelers have tried to place the blame for global warming on human CO2 emissions, decades of lies and erroneous predictions have discredited that notion. For anyone still clinging to the CO2 hypothesis, a short perspective article on the uncertainty surrounding climate change in Nature Geoscience has put paid to that notion. It states that not only did other factors account for 65% of the radiative forcing usually attributed to carbon dioxide, but that it is impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity given the state of climate science.
In “Short-lived uncertainty?” Joyce E. Penner et al. note that several short-lived atmospheric pollutants – such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols – contribute to atmospheric warming while others, particularly scattering aerosols, cool the climate. Figuring out exactly how great the impacts of these other forcings are can radically change the way historical climate change is interpreted. So great is the uncertainty that the IPCC’s future climate predictions, which are all based on biased assumptions about climate sensitivity, are most certainly untrustworthy. As stated in the article:
It is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity (defined as the equilibrium warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations) from past records, partly because carbon dioxide and short-lived species have increased together over the industrial era. Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change.
All truthful climate researchers know these facts, yet publicly the party line is that catastrophic changes are in the offing and CO2 emissions are to blame. The perspective authors argue that only by significantly changing the amounts of these other pollutants and carefully measuring the impact on global climate over a period of several decades will science be able to figure out what is going on. “Following this strategy, we will then be able to disentangle the warming and cooling contributions from carbon dioxide and short-lived pollutants, hence placing much tighter constraints on climate sensitivity, and therefore on future climate projections,” they state. See chart below, enlarged here.
And they said it was all carbon dioxide’s fault.
Most of the factors under discussion have relatively short lifetimes in the atmosphere, several less than two months. We do not know how the relative influences of these various substances (referred to by climate scientists as “species”) may change in a warming climate. It is also not clear how to reduce short-lived species under present conditions but the uncertainties in atmospheric chemistry and physics must be resolved if Earth’s environmental system is to be understood. Again quoting from the paper:
Of the short-lived species, methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon are key contributors to global warming, augmenting the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide by 65%. Others – such as sulphate, nitrate and organic aerosols – cause a negative radiative forcing, offsetting a fraction of the warming owing to carbon dioxide. Yet other short-lived species, such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, can modify the abundance of both the climate-warming and climate-cooling compounds, and thereby affect climate change.
Quantifying the combined impact of short-lived species on Earth’s radiative forcing is complex. Short-lived pollutants – particularly those with an atmospheric lifetime of less than two months – tend to be poorly mixed, and concentrate close to their sources. This uneven distribution, combined with physical and chemical heterogeneities in the atmosphere, means that the impact of short-lived species on radiative forcing can vary by more than a factor of ten with location or time of emission. The situation is further complicated by nonlinear chemical reactions between short-lived species in polluted areas, as well as by the interactions of clouds with aerosols and ozone. These processes add further uncertainty to the estimates of radiative forcing.
Unfortunately, climate models neither accurately deal with local effects of these pollutants nor are the complex interactions among these substances understood. That not withstanding, the report is clear – CO2 does not account for even a majority of the warming seen over the past century. If other species accounted for 65% of historical warming that leaves only 35% for carbon dioxide. This, strangely enough, is in line with calculations based strictly on known atmospheric physics, calculations not biased by the IPCC’s hypothetical and bastardized “feedbacks.”
Of course, the real reason for the feedbacks was to allow almost all global warming to be attributed to CO2. This, in turn, would open the door for radical social and economic policies, allowing them to be enacted in the name of saving the world from global warming. The plain truth is that even climate scientists know that the IPCC case was a political witch’s brew concocted by UN bureaucrats, NGOs, grant money hungry scientists and fringe activists.
Now, after three decades of sturm und drang over climate policy, the truth has emerged – scientists have no idea of how Earth’s climate will change in the future because they don’t know why it changed in the past. Furthermore, it will take decades of additional study to gain a useful understand climate change. To do this, climate scientists will need further funding. Too bad the climate science community squandered any public trust it may have had by trying to frighten people with a lie.
Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. Read full post here.
Icecap Note: Whatsmore, this totally ignores the other external and internal global factors like solar, ocean multidecadal cycles related to variations in the thermohaline circulation or ocean gyres.
=============================================================
Here is the paper at Nature Geosciences:
Short-lived uncertainty?
Joyce E. Penner1, Michael J. Prather2, Ivar S. A. Isaksen3,4, Jan S. Fuglestvedt4, Zbigniew Klimont5 & David S. Stevenson6
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2143, USA
- University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
- University of Oslo, PO Box 1022, Blindern, 0315 Oslo, Norway
- Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, PO Box 1129 Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria
- School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JN, UK.
Correspondence to: Joyce E. Penner1 e-mail: penner@umich.edu
Abstract
Short-lived greenhouse gases and black-carbon aerosols have contributed to past climate warming. Curbing their emissions and quantifying the forcing by all short-lived components could both mitigate climate change in the short term and help to refine projections of global warming.
Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century. But rolling back anthropogenic emissions of several short-lived atmospheric pollutants that lead to warming — such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols — could significantly reduce the rate of climate warming over the next few decades1, 2, 3.
ok…so the abstract works very hard to keep this within the current AGW orthodoxy. how can we get some quotes from the actual paper?
It isn’t worse than we thought? 😉
[Please provide a legitimate email address. ~dbs, mod.]
“Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.”
Gotta put that in there, even though the entire article appears to show how the CO2 menace has been vastly overstated.
It’s about time those yahoos admitted their ignorance. Please note that there is nothing wrong with ignorance, only incompetence, which by my definition is not admitting your own ignorance.
I salute the authors of the paper for their genuine humility as scientists. I haven’t read the paper and do not know the details at this time, but the authors’ frank admission of what is not known is exactly what has been needed in debates on climate change. These authors are moving the discussion of climate change onto a scientific basis and away from the hysteria that has fed into IPCC reports and other efforts to influence policy decisions.
It must just be coincidence that the other “species” are mostly of human origin. /sarc
I’m betting that this is just the start of a massive campaign of “It’s worse than we thought.” If it wasn’t, the real climate unknowns would have figured more prominently in the paper. This one came out of the chute spinning… <= rodeo term for those curious few
About time that some real science was applied to climate research. I knew that with the massive influx of money going into climate research, that eventually some real scientists would apply their disciplined craft to climate and show clearly that CO2 is not the sole driver of climate change.
Very good article. The money quote:
CO2 is a minor player. It is too small to have a measurable effect on temperature. But taxing “carbon” is the easiest and most convenient way to transfer enormous wealth from individuals to governments, so they are forced to demonize a harmless trace gas essential to all life on Earth.
The reason the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 proves so elusive to find is simple: the climate has NO sensitivity to CO2.
As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish to heck, he’d go away!
It’s worse than we th…..
Oh wait.
Well said Smokey,
One of the first factors that led me to my skepticism was the emphasis on CO2 to the exclusion of all other factors. Great article as well; too bad we won’t see it on the MSM.
Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century. But rolling back anthropogenic emissions of several short-lived atmospheric pollutants that lead to warming — such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols — could significantly reduce the rate of climate warming over the next few decades
Guesswork. Don’t know how it will play out in the future due to unknown why it changed in the past means a crap shoot.
Do I feel lucky about an attempt to cut back on the energy that sustains the world population?
No, I do not feel lucky about the chances of getting it right at the expense of world stability over a climate that appears to be beyond man’s ability to control.
The risk is unacceptably high and the gain tenuous at best.
Even if intially correct and it works, the climate can change once again, destroying both the temporary gain and collecting our technological infrastructure as payment.
As I have said before:”they have no idea…”
If you check out the IPCC report you will see that the radiative forcing from species such as methane, NOx, halocarbons and black carbon do indeed add up to about 65% of the radiative forcing of CO2. This is not new.
Focussing on gases other than CO2 is also not new. Obviously methane, tropospheric ozone and NOx cannot be reduced to zero, but it may be possible to reduce them more easily than reducing CO2.
I would say The Resilient Earth blog is one of my top 5 favorites (of which this one is as well).
So where are all the AGW folks with their emotional spin and never-say-die Hockey Stick horse hockey? The Mashey Mistake can’t be the only fun this week on the blogosphere.
If this paper survives the firestorm of hatred that is no doubt being plotted deep in the bowels of Real Climate et al at this very moment, then it will prove to be as much of a game changer as Climategate.
For it attacks the very basis of climate alarmism and CO2 based ‘interventions’.
Previously ‘bad’ fuel sources become less so if alternative causes like soot and methane are shown or even suspected to make a big difference to climate. Western governments have bet the farm on C02 as the unequivocal bad guy …and will have to backtrack. The IPCC will fall yet further into disrepute. There are so many implications to be worked out.
Do we know if these guys reputations (and personalities) are robust enough to stand up to their imminent roasting by Mann et al? I very much hope so, as they may be the new leaders of sensible climate research…the generation to replace the discredited charlatans now in place.
[Please provide a legitimate email address. ~dbs, mod.]
Someone believes in all this Globaloney:
Google invests in $5 billion wind farm project
Google is investing in an extensive network of deep-water transmission lines for future wind farms off the east coast of the USA.
The transmission lines, which could cost up to $5 billion over the next 10 years, would run as far as 20 miles offshore from Virginia to New Jersey. The initial phase of the project would be capable of delivering 2,000 megawatts of wind energy – enough to power about 500,000 homes.
Google, which will own more than a third of the project, has teamed up with other technology companies and investment firms. “This will have a dramatic impact on accessing offshore wind, and we think it’s one of the things that’s almost required to take advantage of all of that potential,” said Rick Needham, Google’s green business operations director.
Also buying into the project is investment firm Good Energies, Japanese industrial conglomerate Marubeni and Maryland transmission company Trans-Elect. Robert L. Mitchell, Trans-Elect CEO, said the first phase is expected to cost $1.8 billion and run 150 miles in federal waters from New Jersey to Delaware and be complete by early 2016. Google and Good Energies will each own 37.5% of the project. Marubeni will own 15%. A group led by Trans-Elect will own the remaining 10%, Mr Mitchell said.
Google hasn’t disclosed how much money the company has devoted to the project so far.
The US is only beginning to develop projects to tap strong wind currents blowing along the Atlantic Coast.
The network will tie into PJM’s electrical grid, which serves 13 states and Washington D.C. The energy is expected to cost several times more than conventional electricity, but Mr Needham said Google still sees offshore wind as an attractive a long-term investment.
In May, Google made its first direct investment in clean energy, buying a $38.8 million stake in two North Dakota wind farms. Google has also been trying to rely on renewable energy sources for its data centers, whose demands for power are increasing as the company sets up more computers in its bid to index all of the world’s online data.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8059780/Google-invests-in-5-billion-wind-farm-project.html
Further to the above does anyone remember this from December 2009?
“Amplification of Global Warming by Carbon-Cycle Feedback Significantly Less Than Thought, Study Suggests”
See also Nature
I cannot believe that no mention is made about the increase in humidity that may have an effect and which seems to be happening on a worldwide scale (although I have no figures for this – can anyone help me out here?)
It is to be expected that water vapor would increase, as all of humanity’s energy- warming- and cooling processes produce water vapor. But most of all it is the increase in the building of shallow water reservoirs for irrigation and water consumption.
I noticed an evaporation rate of 2500 liters per week in my 50m2 swimming pool (clear blue skies, max temp. 31-34 C, water temp. 25-26 C)
1 mole water vapor (18g) releases 40.7 kJ when it condenses to water.(=rain)
I am thinking that perhaps 50% of that heat is lost to space, but the rest is directed to mother earth. So there is your most probable reason for global warming. If it continues and if it becomes a problem.
Note that when all that water vapor
The paper appears to confirm what the blogosphere has known for years, which is that one of the weakest point of the AGW movement is its assumption of scientific certainty (never mind right/wrong).
There seems to be a thrust in the paper, however, towards government control of “pollutants” other than CO2 (methane, for example). And the argument seems to be so that we can play experiment with the planet:
“The perspective authors argue that only by significantly changing the amounts of these other pollutants and carefully measuring the impact on global climate over a period of several decades will science be able to figure out what is going on.”
Perhaps not a winning line with Joe Public.
All the best.
For God’s sake, how many go’s do they need at this.
We had a paper co-authored by Gavin Schmidt saying that CO2 makes up 45% of the warming effect of GHGs. Now it’s 35%. By the time the cold phase of the ocean cycles fully kick in, they’ll be telling us um no, actually it cools the planet. When I think of the amount of times I’ve been called a liar, a moron, a d****r, etc, etc, it makes my blood boil.
If we go back to 1850, we find we’ve had 3 warm phases and 2 cold, with every indication that bang on cue, we’re going to have another cold phase. At the end of that, sometime in 2030, we’ll have a better idea of how much the planet has actually warmed, assuming again that there isn’t some other cycle, like the deVries, in play.
The likelihood is that it will have warmed by 0.5C since 1850 in 2030, if the past is any guide to the future and CO2 will be at 420ppm for a 50% increase or half a doubling.
0.5C * 0.35 = 0.175C attributable to half a doubling of CO2 or 0.3C per doubling, remembering that the effect is logarithmic.
At the same time, we find that the extra CO2 causes a big increase in vegetation. Did I say already it makes my blood boil :).
rbateman says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Rbateman, you hit the quote which prompted my first response. This has everything to do with a continuing attempt to control the economies of the world.
People with a need to control others don’t quit easily, and there are lots of others out there, some not as benevolent. Think Philip of Macedonia, Caesar(s), Tamerlane, Ghenis Khan, Musselini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Putin, the list goes on and on.
We should never think that centrists will give up. They want power, they’ve proven time and again, they’ll go over bodies to get it. There are those who post to this forum, who might be considered, umm, slightly paranoid. Just because you think they’re after you, doesn’t mean they aren’t.
I for one, will continue to fight deception, fraud, power grabs, by every ethical means available to me. Let’s keep watch.
I wonder how these guys got their research grants ?
Telling the truth is not a good way to get paid !
I would like to see a graphic similar to the one above; with 1) the water surface represented in a more realistic ratio – the entire ground representation on the right could go, 2) a representation of heat instead of the space taken up by the aircraft, 3) the water vapor column represented in the same color/linear path up to stratosphere instead of two separate events, and 4) s0me allusion to accuracy in the ratio of sizes (ie: the CFC input should be significantly smaller then the rest.
Didn’t you know, we are switching back to the ozone hoax now.
Climate of DOOM now 65% Less Doomy peer review study says. See what have we been telling ya all doomsayers, not as bad as you’ve been claiming… now if you could still provide the actual hard evidence for the remaining 45% of soothed doom we’d all get along just fine.
Here’s a reminder about the effect of soot on snow and ice from our man James Hansen:
Still, have to reduce those CO2 emissions because it’s possibly WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!
Just a short question. What gives man – any man – the arrogance to believe that MAN can stabilize that which has never been stable in the history of the planet?
I’m still not sure that everyone understands that CO2, even with positive feedbacks added, can’t trap any heat in the atmosphere directly, as witnessed by it cooling down by 10-20 degrees (or more in certain areas) easily every night. The only significant place energy could be trapped is the ocean, hence why Argo ‘is it’ for longer term temperature trends, and why El Nino/La Nina influence things so much. I assume when people have blamed a recent hot (or cold) spell on Global Warming they have measured the sea surface temperature nearby to explain why…
I’m from the UK where the sea is obviously a very important factor in our weather, I do always wonder what explanation people come up with to relate say, hot (or cold) temperatures in Alice Springs to CO2 as I can’t see how it could influence anything without warming the entire ocean by a lot all around Australia.
“CO2 warming effect cut by 65%”
Actually the Penner et al commentary (Nature Geoscience 3, 587 – 588 (2010) ) does not say this, nor does it even support this statement. Anyone that thinks that it does has obviously not read the paper, or is trying hard to hide their spin behind some kind of ignorance of what “augment” means, or possibly they can’t do basic math.
I wonder which it is?
Most of you would do well to read the paper, not just the post. One clue is the airplane in the troposphere, this isn’t a “hey, it’s not man after all” paper. It really is a “Hey, it’s worse than we thought!” paper. Anytime the word polutants is used, pay attention. Rarely does that mean that Mother Nature is messing with us.
From Kate on October 12, 2010 at 12:31 pm:
Keep it in perspective. Google has a lot of hip young users who were formally educated in personally loathing The Hideous Demon CARBON DIOXIDE.
One one hand, “Do no evil” Google makes a large group of users happy with their commitment to the environment. On the other hand, they might just make money off of it, and in any case with their revenues a good tax write-off can’t hurt.
This is business, not passion, although Google knows how to pass off business as passion quite well. Renewable energy investments? Beats shipping out the cash for some third-world aid everyone’s going to forget about in a few years.
I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2. Maybe a huge plastic greenhouse in which various amounts of CO2 could be added. There must be someone here that can advise on what kind 0f practical experiment might be devised. Delta T would be determined from delta P. Lack of imagination is not a healthy scientific trait.
Furthermore: The estimate that methane, troposphere ozone and black carbon contribute another 65% radiative forcing on top of (augmenting) CO2 seems to be completely in line with (if not taken from) the IPCC AR4: Figure SPM.2.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-human-and.html
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
Lower!
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
Higher!
“My Baby does the Hankie Pankie, Yeah!”
I saw her walking down the line. Yeah!”
Same hold song, just different words.
Climate lag time on greenhouse gases 5 to 14 years.
Stack the wood high and buy more canned food.
I found this:
http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
Same names, title, says at bottom of pages:
NATURE GEOSCIENCE | ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION | http://www.nature.com/naturegeoscience
Last page says:
Published online: 1 August 2010
Same words as in the quoted parts above.
It’s a page and a half long, page headers says it’s commentary.
Is this the “study” or is it related material?
Gary Pearse says: “I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2….”
Experiments have been done to determine this for over 100 years now. Relativly precise values are well known for radiative forcing factors. Unfortunatly “climate sensativity” is more difficult to pin down and the only valid experiment that will ever pin it down (“prove it”) involves risking our planet.
You wanna roll the dice?
Gary Pearse says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2
That’s common sense, that nasty sense common and despicable people who need to work for a living have. Aahrrg!
So after we totally suppress methane for, say, 10 years, then suppress NOx compounds for the following 10 years, then black carbon for 10 until we get through all the contributing compounds, would we really have sufficient data considering the state of our measuring devices coupled with the natural variability of certain species to really understand the problem, and hence apply solutions? I’m guessing by then this current interglacial will have come to an end and we’ll be completely unprepared for what undoubtedly comes next. It’s all so vexing!
Hurray! At last some real scientists who will admit that they don’t know something but want to find out.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Third world’s cartel lords won’t accept carbon shares as a pay for their white stuff: That’s for sure 🙂
We folks are totally wasting our treasure on computers and computer models which can’t and never will predict the future, instead of storing it up to when it will really be needed.
I would have thought that the relatively small erruption of the unpronouncable name volcano in Iceland would have taught “climate scientists” some simple lessons, but greed outpaces sanity every time. When the volcano Katla in Iceland erupts in a large way, which it will, perhaps enough people in Europe will die to make an impression on “scientists” who don’t seem to have learned much in the way of the basic fundamentals of chemistry and physics.
@Gary Young Pearse
Wash your mouth out please. It is a fundamental tenet of the AGW religion that no predictions should ever be made that are experimentally verifiable, nor any observations taken that are capable of demonstrating its physical reality or not. We call this the Nostradamus Principle of Climatology and it is at the heart of the ‘science’
Instead ‘experiments’ conducted using computer models are encouraged. These have the useful characteristic that any unfortunate results can be disappeared by tweaking the model to eliminate the unwanted behaviour. It also saves on travel and accommodation costs as nobody need ever leave the lab.
And please do nothing to cast doubt on AGW at all. As you well know if you stop believing that fairies can fly they will fall out of the sky and be eaten by hungry polar bears. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience would you?
If CO2 was any good for us, why would we breathe it out – and not in?
Therefore CAGW exists. QED.
They seem to forget the most important; Water vapour / Clouds……
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: October 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm
“From Kate on October 12, 2010 at 12:31 pm:
Someone believes in all this Globaloney:
Google invests in $5 billion wind farm project”
Google can afford to spend that on their own wind farm. I’m sure people would still even use them lots even if the speed of response varied on how much wind they had in their own wind farm and therefore how many data centres they could power.
I’m not sure why Google get so much flack, despite all the ‘Free’ really cool things they have provided to the world. Even if they are slightly misguided here, I’m sure energy independence is high up on the important list of things for them to tackle.
Gary Pearse says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:12 pm
If CO2 has a less than “theoretical” effect, perhaps the reason is that near-ground heating causes greater convection and heat escapes the planet by air lifting to an altitude where the IR can make it out.
It would take a really big, and really tall greenhouse to test that.
OK, so CO2 causes only 35% of global warming, but it causes 100% of climate disruption, so there!
And the seas are turning to acid! Crops will wither! The atmosphere will boil! The–
(have to stop; foaming at the mouth now)
“Maybe a huge plastic greenhouse”
That is a box.
How about a circle 5 miles in radius in the middle of the Sahara desert.
During a calm week.
With a 30 three mile high tethered balloons evenly spaced around the perimeter, and connected by lateral cables.
With a temperature, wind speed and direction system every 500 feet up each of the 3 mile high tethers.
Wait and measure from when the rising thermals start till midnight.
Next day, in the morning when the rising thermals start.
Then slowly release 1/2 cubic mile of CO2 from the center of the circle.
Wait and measure till midnight.
Next day, 1 cubic miles of CO2.
Etc.
The earth is not a closed box.
This could actually be done, today, without computers.
Is this paper one more example of the body of science drifting slowly away from the AGW by CO2 settled/consensus science?
Paper by paper, blog by blog, step by step, inch by inch, slowly it turns . . . . .
(apology to the Three Stooge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yJBhzMWJCc )
John
This Abstract
does not, to my ignorant eyes, jive with this comment from Hoffman
IOW to me, the paper looks as rabidly CO2-AGW as ever
Kate says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Someone believes in all this Globaloney:
Google invests in $5 billion wind farm project
That’s why they (google ) regularly visit my website and have tried to take it down ( they did for a few days recently saying the blog was withdrawn). There are powerful interests at work here and we have to defeat them.
http://www.palmerston-north.info
Gary Pearse says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2. Maybe a huge plastic greenhouse in which various amounts of CO2 could be added. There must be someone here that can advise on what kind 0f practical experiment might be devised. Delta T would be determined from delta P. Lack of imagination is not a healthy scientific trait.
————-Reply:
What you’d be seeing with a huge plastic greenhouse would be the effects of the plastic enclosing the structure, not the variable amounts of CO2. And while all sorts of experiments have been devised, so far they’ve done a very poor job of modeling the real world. (“Climate scientists” have pretty much given up on that and that’s why computer models have become their predictive mainstay.)
Gary Pearse says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2.
We’re in the midst of one such experiment….
The paper: http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
“Maybe a huge plastic greenhouse”
and add a CO2 detector at each temperature station.
HenryP… I cannot believe that no mention is made about the increase in humidity that may have an effect and which seems to be happening on a worldwide scale (although I have no figures for this – can anyone help me out here?)
Henry – Very odd, especially as the increase in humidity has been observed, quantified and the associated feedback is as predicted by the models…
“The existence of a strong and positive water-vapor feedback means that projected business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions over the next century are virtually guaranteed to produce warming of several degrees Celsius. The only way that will not happen is if a strong, negative,
and currently unknown feedback is discovered somewhere in our climate system.”
Dessler et al 2008 GRL.
Like I said, you do not have to deny that C02 warms the earth. That position just puts you against known science. The strongest scepticism accepts the warming properties of C02, and focuses instead on the sensitivity.
This is an argument WITHIN their camp. tactically, its best to attack a position from within. just saying.
That way you do not have to appeal to speculation about about the sun, the oceans, galactic gremlins. Its simple: C02 warms, how much is the question.
“Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by…” turning Earth into a dead planet.
The only ‘stable’ climate is the climate of a dead planet.
The same goes for life. ‘Stable’ life is ex-life, life wot has shuffled off this mortal coil, life wot has f***(etc) snuffed it.
Living life is continually growing, dying off, regrowing, propagating etc. It is not ‘stable’.
It changes and changes continually.
It is only when it stops changing, can we recognise that it is dead.
From this it follows that advocates of unchanging stability are members of a death cult.
Correction:
It is only when it stops changing, that we can recognise that it is dead.
The “65%” value cited in this peer reviewed paper is attributed to:
Forster, P. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) 129–234 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).
It “augments” (or is in adition to) the established forcing values of CO2
In other words: to conclude that the value of CO2 as a climate forcing factor has been “effectively cut by 65%” or even 0.0001% for that matter, is total fiction.
Doug L. Hoffman’s “piece” does accurately reflect many valid points about the current state of climate science, but to conclude that the relative effect of CO2 as a climate forcing factor has been reduced by anything more than 0% by Penne et all is 100% without merit.
Please adjust your BS detectors accordingly.
——————-
Steven Mosher,
I do not think that is quite right. In the total picture of all processes in the Earth System, you cannot say what you just said. Only by you theoretically isolating an element (CO2 effect) can you say that. What you said does not mean the total effect of all processes in the Earth System must be the same as CO2 effect in theoretical isolation.
NOTE: Incidentally, someday soon we should delve into the Popperian realm. He wasn’t quite correct on his philosophy of science thingy; his idea of the falsifiability thing was in the wrong sequence within the broader scientific process. It is an important part but not the definable part of science and he put it in the wrong place within the scientific process. I look forward to that at a good moment in the future.
John
I don’t think “augmenting by 65%” means that 65% of the effect is due to non-CO2 factors. Mathematically, it would mean multiplying the effect of CO2 by a factor of 1.65. This would mean that CO2 still is the dominant factor.
I don’t drink the AGW koolaid, but it’s a good idea to be accurate when discussing these things.
Latimer Alder says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:47 pm
If CO2 was any good for us, why would we breathe it out – and not in?
Therefore CAGW exists. QED.
Too feed the plants, of course. And their waste (oxygen) in turn is what we need to live. It’s all a very neat little system.
Well they are certainly correct that it is impossible to measure climate sensitivity; its seems that it is almost impossible to even define it. A straight forward mathematical definition; that agrees with the climatism 101 dogma of “Climate Sensitivity” (cs) would be:-
T2 – T1 = (cs).log2(CO2,2/CO2,1)
Now isn’t that Climate Sensitivity exactly as was apparently invented by the late Dr Stephen Schneider of Stanford University; a fellow traveller of Paul Erlich and the equally enignmatic John Holdren.
The Ts of course are some rather fuzzily defined mean global temperatures (why not some real place like the surface); and we start off by realizing it is inherently impossible for us to measure that correctly; well at least not on Obama’s science budget; even with Holdren and Chu both voting for it.
And who knows where one is supposed to measure the CO2 abundance; since it is now known to be not well mixed in the atmosphere.
Well it is all somewhat moot anyhow; yes we know that GHGs even including CO2 can transfer energy from the surface to the atmosphere by way of well understood (not necessarily by me) LWIR EM radiation absorption and thermalization. The atmosphere in turn has really no knowledge of the source of that thermal energy. If you are a (serial numbered) N2 molecule of any isotopic persuasion; after you have banged around and nudged elbows with just a half dozen of your nearest neighbors; you have no earthly remembrance of just where that extra thermal energy came from and who brought it to you; nor do you care.
So ok we have the atmosphere a bit warmed. That Nitrogen molecule doesn’t even know; or care whther it was the sunlight that brought that radiant energy to the atmosphere or whether it was a GHG transaction with LWIR from the ground; or whether it was the fruits of conduction and convection from the ground itself.
But getting from a slightly warmed atmosphere; given that somewhere on earth it could be anywhere from as low as -90 deg C to as high as perhaps + 60 deg C to explaining why the sky should be falling is a totally different kettle of fish.
But no; it couldn’t possibly be clouds that control the whole thing could it.
I just got back from a week on Oahu; so flying down and back I actually did some pro bono climate research. Yes it was qualitative to be sure; mostly by eyeball, with only point and shoot camera instrumentation to log data. I took about 300 cloud and sky photographs going down and back in daylight covering about 14-15 dgrees in Latitude change; going from prevailing Westerlies around San Jose CA, to prevailing Easterlies at Oahu; so I must have interracted with one of those Hadley cell gizmos.
We flew at 36,000 feet ; which puts me in outer space just like Dr Roy Spencer’s Satellite cameras that are looking down at 14,000 feet (or izzat 14 km).
I did make one amazing discovery. The sky looks about the same looking down as it it does looking up. At night when you look up you see (scattered) clouds surrounded by space (which is black and doesn’t emit visible light) and embedded in the black space are stars.
In the day time, you can still see the clouds; but you can’t see the space since it doesn’t emit visible light; which is why we call it black. And you can’t see the stars either (naked eye) but you can see Venus, Jupiter and Saturn at times; (IF) you know where to look (exactly; more or less). The problem is the blue scattered sunlight is so bright during daylight looking up, that you can’t see space or the stars; they are simply washed out.
Well it turns out that when you look down from 36,000 feet at night you can see the clouds , but you can’t see the ocean which like space is black and doesn’t emit visible light. The ocean also has stars but they are not self luminous like out in space, so they need to be illuminated; they are wind blown whitecaps.
Well who’d a thunk it; in daylight looking down from 36,000 feet you can see the clouds; but you can’t see the ocean or the stars. The problem is the blue scattered sunlight which is so bright that it washes everything else out. You see exactly the same blue colored sky as you see looking up; and I now have photographic proof of that.
Well my lab technician (AKA the Pilot) was able to adjust our altitude; and when we got near Oahu, I had her go down to a lower level; and she expertly swept our altitiude all the way down to pretty close to zero. The very first ocean star that I saw, I thought might be an offshore fishing boat trolling form Tuna or Marlin; but eventually as the Technician brought us lower the number of stars increased to where they couldn’t possibly be fishing boats; but I still couldn’t see the ocean; the sky blue still washed it out and we maybe were down to under 10,000 feet before I could definitely say I could see the ocean; but of course I was still seeing that blue skylight partially reflected off the ocean; it never ever did go quite black like it really is.
So I can say with some degree of incontrovertibility that the deep ocean truly is black; light goes in and never comes out; but about 2% of the blue skylight reflects back so brightly that you never see the black. My digital P&S recorded this all on silicon; and as soon as I can get it into Photoshop, I can read some pixel numbers to get some highly suspect real data; since my camera has been programmed to make up its own mind about what to show. But I fully expect to beat the 3:1 ratio obligatory Climate Science fudge factor for data collection.
Now I got gazillions of cloud pictures too; but not too many varieties; i’d guess a good mixture of cumulus, and cirrus; but I’m not a Meteorologist like Anthoiny is; so I’ll have to look up the identifications of what I saw and photographed.
Short story is that the thicker the cloud layer or puff ball was; the brighter was the sunlight reflection off the tops. And the very thin diaphanous layer clouds were a dull grey; and completely obscured the blue skylight; even thoguh I could see right through them. Well the often hung just over the top of the powder puffs whcih I could see through the whispy layers; and both of them simply over rode any scattered blue skylight. Maybe I can Photoshop out some ersatz cloud brightness values to get a feeling for albedo shifts; but as I said; more seat of the pants, than precision; but I expect to get at least as good a results as Mann’s tree boring data.
Anyone know if it is possible to apply for a Government research grant post facto or do I have to eat this one by myself.
And it solidified my absolute conviction that there is no type or sort of cloud that can occur anywhere on earth at any altitude and have any kind of morphology; whereby the presence of such cloud, raised the amount of sunlight that reached the earth surface or ocean compared to the amount in the absence of that cloud. I am close to declaring that incontrovertible.
So there it is for you AGW types; given that clouds cannot increae the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth’s surface; and given that the very existence of H2O vapor that is a precursor of clouds, also absorbs a certain amount (maybe up to 20%) of the incoming solar energy (that strikes the water vapor); which then also does not reach the ground (as sunlight); your task is simple should you choose to accept it. How does that same increase in cloud coverage percentage world wide; that persists for some climatically significant period of time; result in a net (positive feedback) surface warming; while it lowers the net solar energy reaching the surface ?
That might have to be a fifth grade science question instead of a fourth grade.
That picture is stupid. On my screen the dimensions of the world are about 1.5 inches by 5.5 inches. To be more accurate, the whole earth’s land surface should be a square about 1.55 inches square and all of our human activities crammed onto half of that square.
Sun. Ocean. That’s about all you need to know and we’re a long way from parameterizing those two factors.
Anthony,
If I really did find the “paper” per my previous post, which someone else also linked to as the paper, which is labeled “Commentary” on its pages, and following the paywall link in the reposted article you find it clearly labeled as “Commentary”, then how can the headline say it is a peer-reviewed study? Is it peer-reviewed commentary which is a study?
(Just trying to get that cleared up soon in case something is off.)
REPLY: When “comments” are submitted to a journal (in lieu of a full paper) it is my understanding that they are also peer reviewed. – Anthony
From 1650 to 1700, the Sun’s output stabilized at approximately 80 Flux. This caused the Earth’s temperature to decline by about 2C. From 1700 until 2005, the Solar output increased (check the Sun Spot number peaks); this is what caused the apparent CO2 warming. Note that the warming also existed before 1850 (pre-industrial).
Note that in the article, the Sun is not mentioned; this is due to the still overall consensus that the Sun’s output is Constant.
This Solar Cycle is proving NOAA wrong. The average Flux is about 80 again. One can figure a drop in temperature (first indication is more ice at the pole) of about 0.1C/2.5 years. Since this Solar minimum has been going on for about 5 years, we have already experience a 0.2C drop in overall temperature. Of course, this has been covered up by the measurement of the Earth’s temperature in Urban Heat Islands (at airports, etc.).
How can ice in the poles increase unless there is less heat? Maybe less heat transport to the poles; not a chance, there is more transport.
Since every Class G2V Star observed is variable, we must be very fortunate that ours is not a variable Star (sarcasm).
Look -> No Sun, no heat! Too much Sun, too much heat!
Several experiments involving recording the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water took place in the 19th century. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but his intact frogs attempted to escape the water.[4][15] “Wikipedia”
So the real problem is brain removal!
Yuba Yollabolly says:
“You wanna roll the dice?”
The commonly employed Argumentum ad ignorantium is used to try and blame CO2 for the approaching tipping point — which has zero evidence supporting it. It is rank speculation based on pseudo-science. As Prof Feynman stated, if it doesn’t agree with experiment or observation, it is wrong. That’s why the alarmist crowd shies away from the scientific method like Dracula avoiding sunlight.
The conjecture that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming has been falsified, not least by the planet itself. It should be kept in mind that the anthropogenic contribution to the planet’s natural CO2 emissions is quite small. And CO2 has been almost twenty times higher in the geologic past with no ill effects on the biosphere, and without triggering a climate catastrophe.
Instead of worrying about a harmless and beneficial trace gas, we should be preparing for an event that will happen with almost total certainty: an asteroid or large meteorite hitting the Earth. But it seems that NASA would rather squander its budget to pay for jaunts to fun vacation spots and new supercomputer toys than to prepare for an inevitable, avoidable catastrophe.
Worrying about a tiny trace gas while ignoring absolutely real threats seems more than a little crazy, no?
A paper’s abstract normally contains the gist of the research findings. That being said, this appears to be another “it’s worse than we thought” paper
_____________________________________________________
Abstract
“Short-lived greenhouse gases and black-carbon aerosols have contributed to past climate warming. Curbing their emissions and quantifying the forcing by all short-lived components could both mitigate climate change in the short term and help to refine projections of global warming.
Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century. But rolling back anthropogenic emissions of several short-lived atmospheric pollutants that lead to warming — such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols — could significantly reduce the rate of climate warming over the next few decades 1, 2, 3. ”
______________________________________________________
Mr. Hoffman states further:
The perspective authors argue that only by significantly changing the amounts of these other pollutants and carefully measuring the impact on global climate over a period of several decades will science be able to figure out what is going on.
“Following this strategy, we will then be able to disentangle the warming and cooling contributions from carbon dioxide and short-lived pollutants, hence placing much tighter constraints on climate sensitivity, and therefore on future climate projections,” they (the paper’s authors) state.
It’s neither worse than we thought nor better than we thought, because we never thought about it in the first place.
“To do this, climate scientists will need further funding. Too bad the climate science community squandered any public trust it may have had by trying to frighten people with a lie.”
I so agree with this point. These Co2 induced CAGW obsessed pseudo-scientists have dragged the reputation of science, all science, into the gutter. I am not a scientist but I feel passionately about this, I cannot understand how so many mainstream scientists have been able to ignore such obvious abuse of their proffession and it really annoys me that it has been allowed to go on for so long without more scientists standing up and telling the world not to trust the likes of Michael Mann and Phil Jones. At last you have someone of stature, Hal Lewis, saying enough is enough, but it is already too late to repair the damage that has been done.
You people, and I know I am preaching to the choir, must stop covering your heads and stand up.
Found in previous post:
Thanks. I seem to remember from the PNAS Blacklist comments that the piece was allegedly “slipped in” as commentary and missed any formal review, therefore (it was argued) PNAS shouldn’t be blamed. (That and five cents will get you a ton of carbon offsets on the CCX.) I wanted to know if this was “official” before we get our hopes up, and the site gets slammed for getting it wrong.
😉
E.M. Smith has a really great article about CO2. Certainly opened up my eyes.
Quote from the paper : “Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols.”
Is it also possible that the warming could also be attruibuted to NEGATIVE climate sensitivity to CO2, small effect from aerosols and A LARGE POSITIVE CLIMATE EFFECT FROM SOMETHING ELSE ?
I mean this paper basically says the warming could be due to anything. We don’t know.
Steven Mosher says on October 12, 2010 at 3:33 pm:
Its simple: C02 warms, how much is the question.
As a matter of fact, CO2 does not cause warming of near surface air.
Go to the late John Daly’s website “Still Waiting for Greenhouse” at:
http://www.John-Daly.com.
On the home page scroll down at click on “Station Temperature Data”
On the world map click on the USA. In the Pacific section click on Death Valley. The temperature data is from the weather station at Furnace Creek.
A desert is an aired region with low relative humidity, low biomass of plants and animals , little or no free standing or running water, and cloudless skies. After sunrise, the land and air heats rapidly because there are few plants to block sunlight. The air heats mostly by conduction and convection. Some heat is lost from the surface by emission of IR.
After sunset the temperature falls rapidly because the land cools mostly by conduction and convection and there is little water vapor to absorb IR or clouds which can confine warm air and absorbed IR.
If increasing concentration of CO2 has any efffect on warming the air near the weather station, we would anticipate a small but descernible increase in mean temperature over time. The graph shows that the trend lines for the four seasons are essentially flat. Thus we can conlude that CO2 does not cause warming of the air.
We do not know the actual atmospheric concentraion of CO2 in Death Valley only that it will increase over time as indicated by data from Mauna Loa. Since the air is densier in the winter than the summer, we would anticipate that the trend line for former should have a slightly greater slope than the later. The trend lines for these two seasons are flat and this is additional evidence that CO2 has no detectable effect on warming the air.
You should check the graphs for Tombstone and Dodge City and for weather stations in Utah.
Smokey wrote: “The commonly employed Argumentum ad ignorantium is used to try and blame CO2 for the approaching tipping point — which has zero evidence supporting it. […and then a lot of fluff and puff – when in doubt cite Feynman]…”
Actually Smokey my point was not an Argumentum ad ignorantium. Far from it. nor does it involve any tipping points. Perhaps you are unclear concerning the difference between forcing factors and climate sensitivity? If your point is that we do roll the dice every day – then I can agree with you about that…
“The conjecture that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming has been falsified, not least by the planet itself.”
I agree. But then again I never made that point, nor would I use a straw man word like “runaway” nor do I need to use such a concept to make my point. If you had read Penner et al, rather than simply stopping at the contrived and unsupported Hoffman “piece” you would realize this.
How about you stay on topic and try to defend this unsubstantiated post by Hoffman (which you claim is “very good”) against the other charges I have lodged against it, rather than hiding behind a latin Smokey screen. Please cite Penner et al in your comments. ‘k?
Here is the weather forecast from GFS
theweatherland
@Phil Clarke RE: Dessler 2008
Dessler did not quantify anything.
How can any “peer reviewed” article get away with such tripe as saying what Dessler did? Not one mention in the entire paper on cloud dynamics. None. Zero. Apparently Dessler must have known cloud cover and behavior is static and has no effect on weather or climate.
Observational evidence indicates negative feedback. See Spencer 2010.
The evidence is climate models are wrong. See MM 2010.
Both above were vehemently opposing by biased reviewers, but eventually the truth won out.
Despite this incredible good news a massive energy tax is looming:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/another_massive_energy_tax_loo.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm
———————————————————————————————————–
All the models and evidence confirm a minimum warming close to 2°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with a most likely value of 3°C and the potential to warm 4.5°C or even more. Even such a small rise would signal many damaging and highly disruptive changes to the environment. In this light, the arguments against mitigation because of climate sensitivity are a form of gambling. A minority claim the climate is less sensitive than we think, the implication being we don’t need to do anything much about it. Others suggest that because we can’t tell for sure, we should wait and see.
————————————————————————————————————-
Obviously most people here are AGW skeptics. As one commenter said its better to talk about how sensitive climate the climate is to GHG’s. As said in the article aside from the hype, its the whole range of GHG’s (positive forcing) minus (negative feedbacks).
————————————————————————————————————-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-intermediate.htm
Climate sensitivity from empirical observations
There have been a number of studies that calculate climate sensitivity directly from empirical observations, independent of models.
•Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
•Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
•Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
•Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
•Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
•Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
•Bender 2010 looks at the climate response to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption to constrain climate sensitivity to 1.7 to 4.1°C.
============================================================
We will increase temperature for the rest of the century. When co2 is finally stopped in our emissions the earth will continue warming for several decades after that.
Smokey says: (October 12, 2010 at 11:53 am) CO2 is a minor player. It is too small to have a measurable effect on temperature. But taxing “carbon” is the easiest and most convenient way to transfer enormous wealth from individuals to governments…
To governments, Smokey? I suspect “from individuals to other individuals” would be more accurate; noting that it is from many, many individuals to very, very few individuals; with of course a cut to government on the way through. Beats hard work.
Yuba,
Sorry I didn’t make it clear in my post above, but the argumentum ad ignorantium is the usual knee-jerk reaction by climate alarmists to blame natural climate variability on human emitted CO2 – because they can’t think of another cause.
But if you accept that argument, then naturally it follows that we can’t roll the dice, and we had better stop emitting CO2 right this minute. So I assume you do not accept that failed argument.
Nobody but a truly wacked-out minority of eco-nuts wants to stop emitting CO2, because it wouldn’t make any difference. The U.S. is already emitting less CO2, while China and a hundred smaller countries are ramping up their CO2 emissions. Clearly scientists in all those other countries reject the argument that CO2 is the primary driver of the climate. None of them are giving up their cars. Same here, eh?
According to The Economist China is building 2 – 4 new coal-fired power plants every week, and plans to continue at that rate until at least 2024. Yet we rarely see anyone protesting that China must stop, or even slow down its CO2 emissions. The same with India, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc., etc. This makes it clear that it is politics, not science, that is behind the demonization of CO2 and the demand that America must act unilaterally, even if no other countries do.
Further, climate sensitivity to CO2 must be very low, if it even exists in any measurable way. Currently, its effect is too small to measure. If the sensitivity number was high, then the temperature would tend to track increases in atmospheric CO2. But it doesn’t. There is a better correlation between temperature and U.S. postal rates. [Facetious, but it shows that temperature only appears to track CO2, when both are coincidentally rising.]
As the article notes:
The IPCC is now completely untrustworthy. It began with a lukewarm attempt to be somewhat evenhanded in its assessment reports, but by AR-4 the IPCC had lost all credibility. Mann’s debunked chart attempted to erase the MWP and was featured prominently by the IPCC, which threw its original chart by Dr Hubert Lamb down the memory hole; the existence of higher temperatures during the Holocene is very strong evidence supporting the climate null hypothesis – and against the alternative CO2=CAGW hypothesis.
Unless the alarmist crowd vents as much hate and anger toward the countries that continue to ramp up their emissions, and shows some appreciation that U.S. private industry has voluntarily reduced its emissions, they will have no more credibility than eco-hypocrite John Travolta with his five personal airliners, über-hypocrite Al Gore with his 7 mansions, and the rest of the eco-hypocrites constantly traveling the globe to tell us how bad we, the proletariat, are. When they walk the talk they will begin to have some credibility. I’m sure you agree, no?
I think there should be a “not” in the first sentence, based on the wording of the second sentence:
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
Rocky & Latimer @ 4:16
It’s all a very neat little system.
No Kidding! CO2 is the thing that triggers your breathing:
http://www.gayyoga.gn.apc.org/Respiration.htm
Hoffman does not even quote the article. I doubt – call me a skeptic – that he even read it. He obviously did not read the abstract! But Hoffman is not interested in science. He is a propagandist. He grabbed the title, added mounds on speculation and innuendo to frame the “science” in the minds of those who cannot read the article. Read Hoffman carefully. Does he actually document anything he claims? He says “Though the IPCC and their fellow travelers have tried to place the blame for global warming on human CO2 emissions, decades of lies and erroneous predictions have discredited that notion.” Evidence? Why bother? He it aiming the true believers (or disbelievers) who want to think they are seeing another example of why scientists do not get it. These scientists say clearly, “Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.” But the true disbelieves will now roll their eyes at this as yet another example of scientists distorting their work. Yet, the work, this article, has not been examined at all. This is a confirmation bias feedback cycle. Nothing new has been revealed, but gullible readers feel this is one more nail in the AGW coffin.
Alas, that’s the commentary by Doug Hoffman of Resilient Earth. The confusion is the result of the lead-in that say,s “quoting from the paper:’ and then fails to indent or quote-mark the quoted two paragraphs. The result is that there’s no indication where Hoffman’s commentary resumes.
Mods — Please fix this. (And insert the “not” I mentioned above while you’re at it.
ImranCan says:
October 12, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Is it also possible that the warming could also be attributed to NEGATIVE climate sensitivity to CO2…
Don’t even think that. I got the same dread when I read a recent Spencer post.
We may possibly be facing a 20-30 year cooling period. The new meme becomes:
The only way to stop (or slow) our pending icy slide out of the interglacial is to reduce our CO2 emissions.
This contention has been responded to on other threads here, in the past. I hope someone will repeat what was said. My vague recollection is that these are lab experiments, mostly, that can’t take convection and other effects of a chaotic atmosphere into account.
Renewable Guy,
You seem to have somehow omitted the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department from your list: Prof Richard Lindzen. Must have been an oversight, huh?
Dr Lindzen says:
“2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C.”
“If one assumes all warming…” That means doubling of CO2 will actually result in much less than 1°C warming. That warming is something we can really use, because the natural state of affairs for the planet is very cold temperatures.
[Snip. Calling other posters here a “denialist” is against site Policy. Also, Mr “Yollabolly”. Or “Yolo”. Or “skeptical”. Or “arch stanton”, using numerous different identities in a thread is not up to the standards of the internet’s “Best Science” site. Please use one identity, preferably your real name. Thanks in advance. ~dbs, mod.]
As Einstein once said, all it takes is one:
On the Debunking of Spencer’s Feedback Ideas: An Appeal to Physical Scientists Everywhere
Smokey says:
October 12, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Correct you are. I would offer a twist.
The drivers behind the AGW scam are (not necessarily in order of magnitude)
1. Psychotic Malthusian fear of scarcity of resources- And the cult Church of Gaia – which seeks to turn the planet into an untouchable shrine.
(Thus causing an obsession to stop all consumption- even among developing nations – who complain the western world is pressuring them to forego the same growth and prosperity enjoyed by developed nations)
2. Socialist and Communist desires to implement a global Marxist government- and carve America up like a Christmas turkey. (Using the “global” nature of the “problem” of CO2 driven warming – Global Government, Giant Taxes, redistribution)
3. Greed – Which (together with Envy) is partially the underlying motive of #2. Collectivists openly covet the wealth of private enterprise. Western governments fed this monster with their pet climate notion, and now it’s grown out of control and demands to be fed the entire treasury.
This is truly a global religious cult working in concert with a criminal element to enslave citizens and drain the treasury. It’s a 12 headed monster of great proportions. It won’t die easily. But in any event, this explicates that Science is just a cover. The SOLUTIONS to this imaginary problem give away the true underlying reason for its existence.
Fortunately, the GOP reads this blog, and many others laying this out. They now know, and they intend to stop it.
Even McCain and Lindsey Graham have been pulled aside and had a talking to.
This is why it was so critical to remove Castle. We need to give conservatives the sword with which to kill this demon,
or we are royally screwed.
Henry@PhilClark
Thanks Phil. I will get back to this when I got some time to study the Dessler paper.
Augmenting something by 65% means that you increase that something by 65%. I’m a big fan of Doug’s but he seems to have misinterpreted the meaning of the 65% in this article. The diagram in the link below seems to confirm this: http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
From the paper;
“Of the short-lived species, methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon are key contributors to global warming, augmenting the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide by 65%.”
The important word in that sentence is? Augmenting.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/augmenting
So that gives us 100% from CO2 ( or a value of 1) and an additional augmentation of 65% from all other short-lived species
So CO2’s total contribution is 100%/(100% + 65%) = 61% not the 35% claimed here.
Also, CH4, N2O, and CFC’s are already modelled with those darn GCM’s.
Finally, CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of a few hundred years (e. g. centuries).
So, in the short term you may be able to rob Peter to pay Paul, but eventually Peter will be amply awarded no matter how much Paul takes.
Also note that the Nature article was published on 8/1/2010.
On another note;
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/authors/content_types.html
“Commentary
Commentary articles focus on policy, science and society or purely scientific issues related to the geosciences. Single-author articles are preferred as this is an ‘opinion’ section of the journal. Commentaries are usually commissioned by the editors, but proposals are welcome. They should be of immediate interest to a broad readership and should be written in an accessible, non-technical style. Figures and diagrams are encouraged, but are not a requirement. Commentaries are typically no longer than 1,500 words and include up to 15 references. Article titles are omitted from the reference list.
Commentaries may be peer-reviewed at the editors’ discretion.”
So we don’t even actually know if this 1+ page commentary was ever even peer-reviewed, since it’s at the editors’ discresion.
Zorro says:
“That’s why they (google ) regularly visit my website and have tried to take it down ( they did for a few days recently saying the blog was withdrawn). There are powerful interests at work here and we have to defeat them.
http://www.palmerston-north.info”
Your web address is http://palmerstonnorth.blogspot.com/ which is a Google-hosted blog. Try using another host such as WordPress or set up your own website. That will end Google’s interest in you.
I am a little molecule
My name is CO2
I get the blame for warming
That makes me very blue
I need some brainy human
To help me with my case
And tell Dr Pachauri
I love the human race
HenryP says:
October 12, 2010 at 1:03 pm
“…I noticed an evaporation rate of 2500 liters per week in my 50m2 swimming pool (clear blue skies, max temp. 31-34 C, water temp. 25-26 C)
1 mole water vapor (18g) releases 40.7 kJ when it condenses to water.(=rain)
I am thinking that perhaps 50% of that heat is lost to space, but the rest is directed to mother earth. So there is your most probable reason for global warming. If it continues and if it becomes a problem…”
Not so. The enthalpy of condensation is equal to that of evaporation, but has the opposite sign. So it takes the same amount energy to convert water in a swimming pool to a vapour (cooling), as is released to the atmosphere when water vapour condenses back to a liquid (warming) – no net energy loss or gain.
However, as evaporation removes heat from the surface and moves it higher in the atmosphere where it can be more easily lost to space, the combined cycle has a net cooling effect.
Atmospheric Cooling by H2O Condensation Radiation
One effect that I have not seen discussed in estimating the overall heat budget of the upper atmosphere is the emission of photons that must occur whenever any two H2O molecules bond by the mutual attraction of their polar electric fields.
Each H2O molecule has two hydrogen atom ‘pins’ off to one side and an oxygen atom ‘socket’ on the other. This gives the water molecule a polar electric field much like the polar magnetic field around a magnet. Thus any pin-to-socket collision between two H2O molecules is likely to result in the pair being locked together. As this is a result of electric attraction, the energy lost by combining should result in the emission of a photon.
If there are so many water molecules in a given volume of the atmosphere that these water-molecule clumps can accumulate faster than high velocity collisions with other molecules can break them apart again then these clumps should grow until they fall out of the atmosphere. Otherwise, I believe we should have a condition that might be called ‘incipient condensation’ where these H2O molecule aggregates are broken up as fast as they form.
I note that the net heat of condensation water vapor to ice is about 46.66 kJ per mol. By Avogadro’s constant, this works out to be about 7.75E-20 joules per water molecule or 3.87E-20 joules per hydrogen bond. Using Planck’s constant and the speed of light, I calculate that the formation of a single H2O hydrogen bond should create a photon having a wavelength of about 5.13 microns. These photons would have three times the energy of the 15 micron CO2 photons. It looks like CO2 is largely transparent at 5.13 microns.
Perhaps this is a well-known and insignificant effect that is routinely included in all models of the atmosphere, but I have seen little or no mention of continuous H2O collision condensation radiation as a factor in cooling the upper atmosphere. I have found only one reference on the internet that refers to near 5.13 micron hydrogen bond radiation of water. I assume there may be rotational and other considerations that may spread this radiation over a wider range of wavelengths or affect this calculation in the upper atmosphere.
This paper relies on the premiss that the theory of GHG’s is true. Let’s get some research based on the fact that it is not. The theory of GHG’s uses several incorrect assumptions, some based on assumptions of what is being measured. Water vapour moves heat around the planet using latent heat, which cools and warms depending whether evaporation or condensing is taking place. Cloud cover also reflects radiation and acts as an insulator to radiation leaving the planet. So it cools and ‘warms’ (in a sense) which will confuse when relying on the GHG theory.
I can find no attribution for the pretty picture of ‘long range transport of aerosols and gases’. Please correct it if it’s an in-house production to include salt aerosols produced by the ocean.
Perhaps someone could post the relative amounts of, say, human SO2 compared with salt aerosols?
JF
And then we can wonder if we’ve altered that figure at all by polluting the ocean surface.
we should demand thay pay all the grants thay recieved over the years back to us
Henry@Tenuc
Your argument is correct – the heat of evaporation is the same.
But, if you had followed my argument, I am saying: man is interferring with the surface of the planet by creating more and more surfaces where there is SHALLOW water. Deeper water with lower SST’s causes much less water to evaporate.
Shallow water easily obtains higher temp. whereby more water is evaporated than otherwise would be the case. We also have massive planes and rockets that bring loads and loads of water vapor in the air. Have you ever seen a big factory that does not have a (water) cooling plant? All that extra water vapor has to condense. Must be a lot more than the CO2 increase (ca 80- ppms increase in the last 50 years)
Water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 and traps earth’s heat.
I am saying: there is your real reason for global warming (if it is or becomes a problem)
Doug L. Hoffman’s post on WUWT is yet another attempt to discredit scientific consensus by misinterpreting a short commentary in Nature Geoscience. His claim that ”figuring out exactly how great the impacts of these other forcings are can radically change the way historical climate change is interpreted.” is quite the opposite of what the authors of the commentary mean.
The Penner et al. commentary is not about historical climate, but about future climate predictions!
The authors of the commentary fully agree that CO2 and other anthropogenic emissions are responsible for global warming. They state: “warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide”. However the effect of short-lived aerosol pullutants are still poorly understood. The major question is whether the warming effect of greenhouse gases is surpressed by (1) ”cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants” or (2) ”a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols”.
These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change…, which is clearly illustrated by their Figure 1.
The authors also argue that these short-lived compounds that induce warming need to be brought under control within a timescale of a few decades to alleviate health impacts or damage to crops and natural ecosystems. In doing so we will be able to better constrain climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
Better read the article in stead of Doug’s reinterpretation: http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
Looks like paulhan has provided his own proof of global warning
—————-
At the same time, we find that the extra CO2 causes a big increase in vegetation. Did I say already it makes my blood boil :).
Gary Pearse says
—————-
I can’t accept that an experiment can not be done to quantify the affect of increasing CO2. Maybe a huge plastic greenhouse in which various amounts of CO2 could be added.
—————-
Its not as easy as you would think. It would be necessary to reproduce the change in atmospheric pressure with height and the change in temperature and H2O percentage as well. Maybe a scaled experiment with fluorescent dye in water?
Enneagram says
————–
That’s common sense, that nasty sense common and despicable people who need to work for a living have. Aahrrg
—————
There is no such thing as common sense. There is only uncommon sense.
I could test you on a dozen things from every day life that would be provably correct but which would violate your common sense. And that’s before I even start in the weird quantum mechanical and relativity stuff.
“If CO2 was any good for us, why would we breathe it out – and not in?
Therefore CAGW exists. QED.”
You must be joking(I hope)! hehehe!
You would not be breathing if not for CO2, ALL living creatures are alive because of it, for nutrients, building their exoskeletons/skeletons, respiration or living off organisms that depend on it.
You need to ask yourself where did this CO2 come from to start this life cycle on earth? Or maybe where did the other HUGE amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere come from on other planets, and where is the over 96% natural CO2 on earth coming from right now?
“Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change.”
Hooray for common sense, now we just need some more comprehensive and conclusive science (5th IPCC report), and a consequent policy response untainted by ideological activism (thank you climategate).
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/at-the-gates-of-climate-hell-%E2%80%93-the-fifth-ipcc-report-will-hold-the-answers/
Just wait. The no-meaters will get worse now. Cows produce methane therefore it’s a sin to eat meat and all that baloney.
Henry@Phil Clarke
I think the Dessler paper assumes too much and brings little.
I cannot check their maths and physics from the other papers quoted here.
But from (23) I would also say that they assumed that the increase in water vapor is due to the increase in CO2 –
which is illogical and completely contrary to my own beliefs as stated before, e.g.
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
If you followed what I have said earlier on this threat it is rather the increase in water vapor caused by human activities that can be singled out as a cause for global warming.- The Co2 increase does little or nothing (I have not been convinced by actual test results that the nett effect of CO2 is warming rather than cooling).
This is also supposing that you live in a country that does not appreciate the extra warming of earth by 1 degree C or K warming during the past 100 or 150 years or so.
Family and friends of mine living in the NH have expressed great joy at this warming trend.
Regards.
Henry
dbs (mod): I did not do either of the things you accuse me of. I did however use the term “denialist” and I see that alone is a violation, so, for that I apologize.
I would think the “best science site on the internet” might concern themselves a little more with the factualness of their thread titles rather than (passively) encouraging folks to employ proxy servers to avoid being falsely accused.
But hey, it’s your ball.
Flavio, thanks for the link.
Now that you can all read Penne et al you can see that implication of the paper is that the effects of CO2 have not been decreased by 65% or 61% even 35%, but %0. You can’t subtract an effect that was never included in the calculation of the effects of CO2.
Once again see fig SPM.2:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-human-and.html
dbs, mod: “arch stanton”
Interesting choice of names. It was the name on the grave next to the unmarked one where the gold was buried in the movie “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.
Flavio says:October 13, 2010 at 2:48 am
The authors of the commentary fully agree that CO2 and other anthropogenic emissions are responsible for global warming. They state: “warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide”.
Flavio’s post on WUWT is yet another attempt to sidetrack intellegent scientific reasoning by cherry picking fragments and by misinterpreting a short commentary in Nature Geoscience.
The full sentence is as follows:
Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols.
It says nothing about suppression of warmth. It states a dichotomy with equal chances of being correct:
Is the aerosol effect high or low?
Is sensitivity high, or low?
We don’t know.
Tim Clark says:
October 13, 2010 at 11:07 am
Flavio’s post on WUWT is yet another attempt to sidetrack intellegent scientific reasoning by cherry picking fragments and by misinterpreting a short commentary in Nature Geoscience.
Is the aerosol effect high or low?
Is sensitivity high, or low?
We don’t know.
No, I’m sorry. You are cherry picking. If you read my post you can see that I address the aerosols as well as the sensitivity. You are right, we don’t know… yet.
And I did not write about suppression of warmth, but about suppressing the warming effect of greenhouse gases.
And it is not a dichotomy either, since aerosols and climate sensitivity are not mutually exclusive…
Flavio says: October 13, 2010 at 11:48 am
Reduced to arguing semantics, are we? My post stands. Find another strawman.
Tim Clark says:
October 13, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Reduced to arguing semantics, are we? My post stands. Find another strawman.
No, I am not arguing semantics. I am just pointing out that you are accusing me of cherry picking and misinterpreting and why I think you are wrong in doing so.
The cherry picking is mostly done by Doug Hoffman.
If half the radiation from the sun is IR, I don’t understand how this in itself doesn’t “saturate” atmospheric CO2 IR capture on the way in, causing the IR that is irradiated from the earth/sea surface largely to escape.
“”” Gary Pearse says:
October 13, 2010 at 1:50 pm
If half the radiation from the sun is IR, I don’t understand how this in itself doesn’t “saturate” atmospheric CO2 IR capture on the way in, causing the IR that is irradiated from the earth/sea surface largely to escape. “””
Well Gary, you did say “if”, so your question is moot, since half the radiation from the sun is NOT IR. But maybe 40% is if you put the visible IR boundary at 800 nm.
Unfortunately, CO2 does not become significantly IR active until about 2.0 micron wavelength (weakly) ; and we can show that only about 7% of the solar radiation is at wavelengths longer than that. It is somewhat more active at around 2.7 microns, but by then there is only about 3% of the energy. Then at 4.0 microns CO2 has a fairly strong band which is one that is active on Venus; but at 4 microns and beyond there is less than 1% of the total solar energy; and at the 15micron main CO2 GHG band; the fraction of solar energy is quite negligible, and even the spectral emittance is about 3 x 10^-5 of the peak value at 0.5 microns. So CO2 interracts very little with incoming sunlight.
H2O on the other hand does become active even in the visible, at about 750 nm, and has respectable absorption bands at about 0.85, 1.0, 1.2, 1.8, 2.3-3.2, 4.5-7.0 and 10.5-100 microns, and it would appear thatwater could absorb about half of the total spectral energy in that range (750 nm to 100 microns) and maybe 45% of the total solar energy is in that range; so H2O vapor could absorb perhaps as much as 20-25% of the total incoming solar energy.
And that is good high quality photonic energy that DOES NOT reach the earth surface or oceans, where about 98% of it (oceanic) would be stored in the deep oceans as heat; so that is a very large surface cooling effect.
And the maybe 20% that the water vapor absorbs, will of course be converted into thermalized heat in the atmospheric gases themselves; and when subsequently re-radiated as a thermal LWIR spectrum; isotropically, only about half of that will reach the surface (and is delayed in doing so). The other half is lost to space; whcih is another net surface cooling effect; and then to add insult to injury; that LWIR downward radiation gets absorbed in the top 50 microns of the ocean surface (70% of the surface), and that results in rather prompt evaporation of the selectively heated surface water; which then transports huge amounts of latent heat into the upper atmospere where it too will be deposited for loss to space.
In short; the interraction with atmospheric water vapor and incoming solar energy results in a massive cooling of the surface; over the case without water vapor; meanwhile CO2 has very littel interraction with the solar energy; BUT !!! If it did, THAT TOO would be an additional SURFACE COOLING EFFECT.
Yes absorptive atmospheric gases like H2O, CO2, O3, are very beneficial in cooling the surface by intercepting incoming solar energy and preventing it from reaching the surface.
EFS_Junior says:
“CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of a few hundred years (e. g. centuries).”
That statement is not true. On average, a CO2 molecule is re-absorbed by the oceans and biosphere in probably less than ten years, not “centuries.” That residence time has a direct bearing on the climate’s sensitivity to CO2: the faster a CO2 molecule is absorbed, the lower the sensitivity number.
Also, the IPCC’s models are abysmal. They can not produce accurate predictions. CO2 has an effect, but it is insignificant. That fact trumps any claim that we must spend $Trillions on a non-problem.
By trying to make 0.039% of the atmosphere the central culprit, and generally disregarding all the other factors, both known and unknown, which cause the planet to warm and freeze, the alarmist scientists and their political enablers have painted themselves into a corner. Now they can’t get out without messing up their CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Well it looks like I was wrong.
Carbon is forever;
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html
REPLY: Forever? Yeah sure right whatever uh huh. This is nothing more than another tweaked model. Even worse, they reference “Tim Flannery” aka Mr. “drought down under that ain’t happening” in the references. Yeah that’s the ticket, reference an Australian mammalogist slash palaeontologist writer of a best seller fiction book for a modeling study. Such rubbish I’ve never seen. These guys are clueless. So are you.
But you’ll defend it because it fits your belief system. – Anthony
Has anyone ever seen the estimated value for the total amount of CO2 forcing that is currently happening?
I could really put such an estimate to good use. I am guessing that it is proposed by the warmist crowd to be 50-100 W/m2. I could really, really use a reference on this proposed total. Using their dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co) I can get a reasonable -42 W/m2 as CO2 gets into the ppb, but that isn’t really what I need.
A reference would be EPIC if you can find it. I am also asking the warmist sites if they can provide such info. I am so very curious about the answers I get on this.
Be Prepared!
John Kehr
LarryOldtimer says:
October 12, 2010 at 2:44 pm
We folks are totally wasting our treasure on computers and computer models which can’t and never will predict the future, instead of storing it up to when it will really be needed.
I would have thought that the relatively small erruption of the unpronouncable name volcano in Iceland would have taught “climate scientists” some simple lessons, but greed outpaces sanity every time. When the volcano Katla in Iceland erupts in a large way, which it will, perhaps enough people in Europe will die to make an impression on “scientists” who don’t seem to have learned much in the way of the basic fundamentals of chemistry and physics.
Bingo!
There’s a whole host of big erupters besides Katla, like Elbrus (which really concerns me) and the VEI-5+ companion to Pinatubo, Cerro Hudson in Chile. Just to name a few. We’ll be lucky to get out of this likely 30 year cooling that’s coming. It could get a lot worse.
RE: Gary Pearse: (October 13, 2010 at 1:50 pm)
“If half the radiation from the sun is IR, I don’t understand how this in itself doesn’t “saturate” atmospheric CO2 IR capture on the way in, causing the IR that is irradiated from the earth/sea surface largely to escape.”
That all depends on what you mean by ‘half.’ The solar energy output spectrum as nominally given by Planck’s law formula includes a factor (multiplier) proportional to the frequency cubed. The peak solar spectrum energy is around 0.5 microns. At the 15 micron, CO2 absorption/emission band, one would expect this factor to be 27,000 times less than the factor at peak solar output. I assume this is why Robert Clemenzi in his paper “How Greenhouse Gases Work” says that that CO2 can cool the atmosphere at the mesopause level, 85 to 100 km up to around minus 100 deg C. Clemenzi attributes this to CO2 radiation finally becoming transparent to outer space at this level. The mesosphere is that level of the atmosphere just above the stratosphere.
He also states that the tropopause temperature, 11 to 17 km up, cools to around minus 60 deg C because radiation from H2O molecules can finally make it to outer space from this altitude as condensation prevents the uniform distribution of H2O in the atmosphere. From the standpoint of our general climate, I think the tropopause temperature is the very important because it sets an upper limit on how hot surface temperatures can be without adiabatic convection. It would seem that CO2 has little role in setting the temperature of this natural thermostat.
Mr. Watts, you are misleading everyone here.
First of all: this is not a “study”. It is a “commentary”. Download the pdf and look at it: nothing has been “studied” at all by these people.
Secondly: the arcticle starts off with saying: “Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.” .
So, since you put value on some numbers mentioned in the article, I guess you put equal value to this first statement as well? Or not, secretly? Since in your text, you use the article to ‘prove’ the *exact oppposite* of the statement I quote above. Ever heard of ‘cherry-picking’ mr. Watts?
Thirdly: ‘CO2 warming cut by 65%’, the title of your blog post. This statement is just a hundred percent false and incorrect. The article cuts nothing off CO2 warming, you just took a percentage you liked from the text, completely turned the whole context around and there you are. With my congratulations.
Smokey says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:35 pm
“EFS_Junior says:
“CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of a few hundred years (e. g. centuries).”
“That statement is not true. On average, a CO2 molecule is re-absorbed by the oceans and biosphere in probably less than ten years, not “centuries.” That residence time has a direct bearing on the climate’s sensitivity to CO2: the faster a CO2 molecule is absorbed, the lower the sensitivity number….””
Although partly true, your reply is just wrong enough to be very misleading. Your link (to a source I dare not mention the name of) compares apples and oranges. The IPCC actually agrees that the average time spent in the atmosphere by a CO2 molecule is about 4 years. CO2 is constantly being exchanged with the biosphere and particularly the upper ocean. Although a lot of it passes in and out of the upper ocean the net flow (ocean absorption) is rather small because the upper ocean becomes more saturated. In the big picture the exchange rate between the upper ocean and the lower ocean which indeed is in the realm of centuries is more important to determining how fast the ocean can remove large quantities of carbon from our atmosphere.
See the definition of “lifetime” and the discussion of response time in the IPCC AR4 glossary. The significant term here is “adjustment time”(or “response time”) not “ lifetime” or “turnover time” (“residence time” on your graph). http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/annexessglossary-e-o.html
Gary Pearse says:
October 13, 2010 at 1:50 pm
“If half the radiation from the sun is IR, I don’t understand how this in itself doesn’t “saturate” atmospheric CO2 IR capture on the way in, causing the IR that is irradiated from the earth/sea surface largely to escape.”
GHGs don’t “saturate” in this way. The more IR (in the appropriate wavelengths) they absorb, the more they either reradiate or pass on as thermal energy (primarily to O2 and N2).
I suppose there may be some theoretical maximum where the atmosphere gets so warm that virtually all the IR energy absorbed is almost instantly reradiated, but even then only part of it would continue “out”, and I doubt we are even close to that point in the troposphere.
The political bandwagon may switch track within a couple of years, to global cooling. It will for sure need large intelligent PR efforts, but when that is done, in the late 2010 and 2020s a large part of young people is assumed to contribute to weaken the West economy. Everything’s fine! Wind power is still used to “not disrupt the climate”, where fossil fuel emissions is claimed to be responsible for periods of unprecedented cool temperatures.
Hoffman grossly mischaracterizes Penner’s paper, which can be found (without sensationalism) at: http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
1) The paper doesn’t say anything like: “Estimated CO2 Warming Cut By 65%”; it says that short-lived GHGs “[augment] the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide by 65%”. This means that the short-lived GHGs contribute 39% of the positive radiative forcing and CO2 contributes 60%. (100% forcing from CO2 + 65% more from short-lived GHGs; 65%/165% = 39%.) This anthropogenic positive forcing is countered by negative forcing from short-lived aerosols.
2) NOTHING in the paper contradicts IPCC dogma: Penner says the warming associated with 2X CO2 could range from 2-5 degC, the IPCC usually says 1.5-4.5 degC. Penner is proposing that we reduce emission of short-term GHGs to mitigate short-term climate change and permit observations that will enable scientist to accurately determine how much warming will occur from 2XCO2.
IMO, Penner’s proposal seems ludicrous. a) In the SAR, the IPCC said that warming up to 2 degC could be a net benefit, so we certainly don’t need to “mitigate” whatever short-term climate change may be occurring right now. If things get desperate in the second half of the 21st century, we can try reducing short-live GHGs and/or increasing aerosols. b) Even if we could magically eliminate anthropogenic aerosols and short-lived GHG’s, it would be at least 30-50 years before we had a long enough temperature record to accurately determine the long-term rate of GHG-induced temperature change against the background of natural variability (1890’s warming, 1910’s stabilization, 1930’s warming, 1960’s cooling, 1980’s warming, 2000’s stabilization; not to mention the larger changes associated with the LIA and MWP). If CO2 were a real problem, definitive results of Penner’s experiment will arrive far to late to be of value.
Frank-
To Hoffman’s credit I see that *he* has updated his “Resilient Earth” site to bring his calculations into line with yours. (Points for him).
I still contend you are both wrong however. (Folks that have read my comments up to now can stop here; I am being redundant)
Penner cites:
6. Forster, P. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) 129–234 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).
for the (original) “65%” number. Looking at the graph FAQ 2.1 fig 2: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html it would appear that the new “39%” is only accurate if one is talking about ONLY THE SUM OF THE ANTHROPOGENIC POSITIVE forcings. If one is actually referring to the effects “CO2” (*as the headline claims*), the real effect is 0.00%.
Frank, I agree with you that Penner’s proposal seems ludicrous, but I would still contend that it is a theoretical point still worth making. What’s 2C anyway? My house is more than a couple meters above sea level…
Thoughts?
I believe it is a mistake to get hung up on this notion of a saturation (of the CO2 absorption.
Suppose that there is sufficient CO2 to absorb every single photon having an energy in some spectral range; surely that could be said to be saturated. So what if we double the amount of CO2.
All that happens is that all those photons now get absorbed in an atmosphere layer about half as thick as previously. The warmed atmosphere ultimately radiates its own thermal spectrum; whcih should be near to the surface spectrum given approximately the same temepratures. That atmospheric thermal emission slits about half up and half down. So a higher layer also containing CO2 will now grab the same energy photons from that emission, and warm that air layer too; and that process will keep on going. So the process of a cascade of absorption; thermalization; thermal emission; and recapture simply replicates in thinner layers if more CO2 is added (or any other GHG.
So the saturation argument is a bit of a red herring; and not a good place to stand and defend. To the extent that this multiple cascaded capture process further delays the escape of LWIR radiation, then during daylight hours, that delayed escape simply results in more sunlight coming in and a slight increase in the Temperature to balance with the further delayed emission.
But it is all moot anyway; since the H2O cycle simply re-adjusts the amount of cloud coverage to compensate.
The sooner that climatists dispense with this concept of a “Climate Sensitivity”, and the unsupportyable notion that it is somehow a logarithmic function; even though we can’t peg down the slope of the best fit line to better than a 3:1 ratio; how can they continue to claim it is logarithmic when a simple linear fit works with equal uncertainty for its slope. I’m sure you could fit the same data to the function y = exp(-1/x^2); with some similar uncertainty of parameters.
The cognoscenti of course will recognise this function as similar to the tortoise and the hare “paradox”; only more so.
At x = 0, the function has zero value; and so does its derivative; and so does the second derivative. In fact every single derivative of the function is zero at x = 0.
So if we start off at zero, with zero velocity, and zero acceleration; and zero rate of increase of acceleration and so on; how the hell does the function ever get to any other value ? like 37% for x = 1 .
What amazes me about this story is just how many congratulatory posts there were before anyone realized that there was a basic arithmetic mistake in the commentary, and that the paper was NOT suggesting that the effect of CO2 had been reduced by 65%.
I really think everyone should be obliged to read the original paper before commenting, and should go for all the papers discussed.
Jimmi-
I’ve wondered about that too.
Another funny thing…Gary Pearce asked an interesting question above concerning the “saturation” of GHGs by solar IR. I am aware of 3 other folks that have addressed it, and of them (all of which gave learned sounding responses) none of them addressed the most basic error in Mr. Pearce’s understanding of the issue. They did not hesitate however spin their answers to imply some kind of problem with the conventional wisdom.
Hi You All
I think that the real problem that we have here is not understood. Everybody has always assumed that there must be some truth in S.Arrhenius postulation that CO2 is a GHG. But he did not know at that time that CO2 also causes cooling. He made the same mistake as what currently everyone makes in schools and colleges by doing that stupid test with 100% CO2 and a light bulb….
See also: http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
We first need to determine (from actual tests) whether the net effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is cooling or warming.
If you people want to see some more science, here it comes:
here is the famous paper that confirms to me that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
they measured this radiation as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction of this radiation was: sun-earth-moon-earth. Follow the green line (for CO2) in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um. You see these peaks all back in fig 6 top.
This paper here shows that there is absorption of CO2 at between 0.21 and 0.19 um (close to 202 nm):
http://www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/atom/Publications/pdf/DUV-CO2.pdf
There are other papers that I can look for again that will show that there are also absorptions of CO2 at between 0.18 and 0.135 um and between 0.125 and 0.12 um.
We already know from the normal IR spectra that CO2 has big absorption between 4 and 5 um.
So, to sum it up, we know that CO2 has absorption in the 14-15 um range causing some warming (by re-radiating earthshine) but as shown and proved above it also has a number of absorptions in the 0-5 um range causing cooling (by re-radiating sunshine). This cooling happens at all levels where the sunshine hits on the carbon dioxide same as the earthshine. The way from the bottom to the top is the same as from top to the bottom.
So, my question is: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results? (I am afraid that simple heat retention testing will not work here, we have to use real sunshine and real earthshine to determine the effect in W/m3 [0.03%- 0.06%]CO2/m2/24hours). I am doubtful of just doing analysis (determining surface areas) of the spectral data, as some of the UV absorptions of CO2 have only been discovered recently. Also, I think the actual heat caused by the sun’s IR at 4-5 may be underestimated, e.g. the radiation of the sun between 4 and 5 may be only 1% or 2% but how many Watts does it cause? Here in Africa you can not stand in the sun for longer that 10 minutes, just because of the heat of the sun on your skin.
Anyway, with so much at stake, surely, you actually have to come up with some empirical testing?
If this research has not been done, why don’t we just sue the oil companies to do this?? It is their product afterall.
I am going to state it here quite categorically again that if no one has got these results, then how do we know for sure that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Maybe the cooling properties are equal to the warming properties. In fact, I suspect that it is indeed pretty much evens between the cooling and warming of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Henry P,
Yes of course CO2 and other gases are cooling as well as warming i.e they emit infra-red as well as absorbing it. In fact the net effect over the whole of the earth’s atmosphere must be zero (assuming the atmosphere is in equilibrium – at the moment it is probably slightly out of equilibrium). The reason for this is that all of the sun’s energy which falls on the Earth must eventually leave again – if it did not we would have fried long ago. The only way the energy can leave is by radiation, and the molecules which radiate in the infra red are the same as those that absorb i.e. the GHG’s. However you are not correct that the absorption and emission is the same at all parts of the atmosphere – in the lower part some of the absorbed energy is passed to other molecules, N2 and O2 mainly, by collisions, where it is held for a while i.e they get warmer. In the upper part of the atmosphere where the density is lower and collisions between molecules are are rarer, then re-radiation (emission) dominates and the energy passes out of the atmosphere.
Jimmi said
“However you are not correct that the absorption and emission is the same at all parts of the atmosphere”
Hi Jimmi
I did not exactly say that. I am saying that the path for earthshine to get from the bottom to the top is the same as for sunshine to get from the top to the bottom.
Light has the same properties, no matter what the wavelength, and it moves in straight lines.
Jimmi says: i.e they emit infra-red as well as absorbing it.
Henry@Jimmi
Remember: it is not only infra red I was talking about here. Look carefully at my post again. Ozone blocks a lot of UV light and without that earth would be lot warmer because the intensity of the sun in the UV is very high. CO2 also absorbs in the UV at a few places meaning it blocks some UV here. It also absorbs in the near infra red and infra red meaning it blocks the sunshine there as well. (some people prefer the term “re-radiated” instead of “block”, you can fill in what you like, I don’t care much about that – the point is that you can understand and describe what is happening if you look at that radiation coming back from the moon.)
When we talk of CO2 warming or cooling, I think we should be specific about the primary site where these comments apply. I think it is fair to say that CO2 can only have a direct cooling effect when CO2 molecules can leave the planet without further absorption.
According to Robert Clemenzi in his article “How Greenhouse Gases Work” and other sources I have checked, CO2 appears have a primary cooling effect above the stratosphere in that portion of the Earth’s atmosphere known as the mesosphere. Since CO2 is the best absorber of its own radiation, those photons emitted from CO2 will only heat the surrounding atmosphere at levels below the mesosphere.
According to Clemenzi, the troposphere is cooled by photons radiated from H20 which can escape the Earth’s atmosphere at the tropopause level and thus allow the tropopause to cool to minus sixty degrees C. I suspect that the cooling capacity of H2O at the tropopause may, by convection, offset surface heat trapping by CO2.
Clemenzi also points out that upper air temperature measurements indicate that close to 100 percent of all surface heat that ever will be absorbed by the atmosphere is, in fact, absorbed in the first 800 meters, as temperatures above this level do not change from day to night. (In calm weather)
“How Greenhouse Gases Work”
http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/EPA_Comments/TheGreenhouseEffect.doc
Hi Spector
Give me some time to study this paper.
But have you understood what I said in my previous posts and here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/12/peer-reviewed-study-co2-warming-effect-cut-by-65-climate-sensitivity-impossible-to-accurately-determine/#comment-508922
??
Essentially I am saying that this cooling is caused by the CO2 blocking or re-radiating or bending away (some) radiation that otherwise would have hit on our heads. Hence we can measure as it bounces back to us from the moon. So, this cooling is caused by the same principle that applies to the greenhouse effect, i.e. this is the trapping of heat on earth when earthshine of wavelength 14-15 is deflected (or re-radiated) back to earth…
RE :Spectors: (October 17, 2010 at 7:03 am )
“When we talk of CO2 warming or cooling, I think we should be specific about the primary site where these comments apply. I think it is fair to say that CO2 can only have a direct cooling effect when CO2 molecules can leave the planet without further absorption.”
Correction: “when photons emitted by CO2 molecules can leave the planet without further absorption”
To answer Henry P, the effect of CO2 on incoming solar radiation is very small. It is a distant fourth place behind ozone, aerosols and water vapor, even if doubled, and these other effects are, for sure, taken into account. Even what effect it has is absorption leading to warming of the atmosphere, at the expense of cooling the surface.
Henry-
I think you are forgetting that GHGs also reemit IR photons that are leaving the earth. Since there is more IR trying to leave the earth than trying to get in (visible light is converted to IR) the net effect is to increase the IR that hits your head. Specter is right that the net cooling effect takes place in the upper stratosphere and above.
Henry@jim D
I believe you. But how much cooling is it (in W/m2/m3 {0.03-0.06 CO2} /24hrs)? And how does it compare with the warming of CO2 (by trapping earthshine 14-15 um)?
Same dimensions please. Actual test results please. No more “calculations” or models.
Now if we knew that, I suppose i would not be here trying to find out if anyone knows…
Henry@Spector
No doubt the study from Robert Clemenzi brings some valid points that I have not considered before. He does mention the problem of more water vapor, which I have also identified as a major cause for global warming (if this is or becomes a problem).
e.g.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/14/dammed-if-you-do-dammed-if-you-dont/#comment-507090
As far as CO2 is concerned, I always thought that we must keep it simple and that we must try to measure the radiation (from earth) being trapped and the radiation (from the sun) being deflected to outer space and compare the results. I was hoping that we could do some reasonable measurements of this from above earth with satellites.
By measuring on top of a volcano (where the CO2 might be a bit higher) we could compare the results at slightly differing CO2 concentrations and so determine if there really is a warming or cooling effect caused by CO2.
I think Robert forgot to take a careful look at the difference between the incoming radiation (above the atmosphere) and what we measure at sea level (non-cloudy day)
The observation I made is that the ozone cuts away a large portion of the incoming sunshine, where the sun’s intensity is at its highest. I estimate that at least ca. 15% of the surface under curve is being cut away by the ozone.
Lower ozone (as in the past, before CFC’s were banned) would therefore cause a bigger ozone hole, which in my opinion would lead to a significant portion of UV reaching earth, which then has to leave here as radiation of higher wavelengths. So that must cause warming. The opposite, i.e. increasing ozone, as observed in the past 10 years, must then lead to cooling. Because of the % of radiation involved (if you look at those graphs of incoming solar radiation), I actually suspected that this may become a real problem, if the ozone gets too much.
In Robert’s postulation about the ozone, UV is being converted by the ozone to IR heat in the top layers of the atmosphere, and this heat is transported by CO2 to the tropopause.
It seems like there is no room for a bigger or smaller ozone hole due to less or more ozone, causing respectively either more or less UV reaching earth.
I am not sure about that. I think this is not following the principles of light. Light has to keep moving. It cannot stand still to convert to heat. My idea has always been:
light hits on the molecule from a certain direction (either sun or earth), is absorbed at certain wavelengths until filled (if the spectra of the molecule shows absorptions or absorptive regions), and is then re-emitted in all directions, including (50 -62,5%) back in the direction where it came from. So once filled it seems to me the molecule acts like a little round mirror, at that specific wavelength where it absorbs. This is what I see is happening. This is why we can measure the CO2 peaks of photons as it bounces back from the moon. (the path of that radiation was: sun-earth-moon-earth)
Eitherway, we need to find some measured proofs.
> “measured proofs”
Henry, you really should consider reviewing the IPCC’s discussion on ozone. You can evaluate for yourself the evidence they provide in the AR4 for how they arrive at the numbers and the error bars for both its heating and cooling effects. Unfortunately the depth of the questions you have will not be addressed in the easily linkable summaries, but the appropriate level of discussion (with research evidence cites) can be found in the PDF download.
In the case of ozone the appropriate discussion is in Section 2.3.6.(1&2) appropriately named “Ozone”. You will find it here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf
(PDF warning: Chapter 2 is about 100 pages although the ozone discussion is only a few pages long.
“I am not sure about that. I think this is not following the principles of light. Light has to keep moving. It cannot stand still to convert to heat. My idea has always been:
light hits on the molecule from a certain direction (either sun or earth), is absorbed at certain wavelengths until filled (if the spectra of the molecule shows absorptions or absorptive regions), and is then re-emitted in all directions, including (50 -62,5%) back in the direction where it came from. So once filled it seems to me the molecule acts like a little round mirror, at that specific wavelength where it absorbs.”
This a bit too simple. Firstly light can easily convert to heat (hold your hand in front of an electric radiator for proof). Secondly molecules can act like little mirrors, but they do not always do so. You are dealing with quantum mechanics here – the same event (the arrival of a photon) can have several different outcomes. The photon could simply be reflected (elastic scattering), or it could absorbed and a photon of a slightly different frequency emitted (inelastic scattering) , or it could be absorbed and transformed into thermal energy. The latter occurs because when IR is absorbed it activates the vibrational modes of the molecule i.e the nuclei move about with greater kinetic energy. If another molecule collides with this activated molecule then the energy can be transferred into kinetic energy of the first molecule i.e it gains thermal energy. This delays the ultimate radiation of energy out of the atmosphere and is an important part of the greenhouse effect – it is called collisional deactivation if you want to look it up.
You are asking for quantitative information, but you have to get the qualitative description correct first so you know what the real questions are.
>>”The latter occurs because when IR is absorbed it activates the vibrational modes of the molecule i.e the nuclei move about with greater kinetic energy.”
Cool animation for the 4 vibrational modes of CO2 (scroll past the SO2 animation):
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEWWW/articles/www0001/index.html
Jimi:
Firstly light can easily convert to heat (hold your hand in front of an electric radiator for proof).
Henry@jimi
Well, let us stop right there. I think that is not correct. Heat is light but just at a higher wavelength. That is why we built infra red ovens to dry paint. Here in Africa you cannot stand in the sun for longer than 10 minutes because of the heat on your skin. This is because the sun also emits infra red (heat).
Wait for a very damp, moist morning and watch the sun come up. Look around you and see how the light just seems to be everywhere. Then you can see what is really happening when absorption takes place. (because water vapor also absorbs a bit in the visible area)
Just for reference: Light consists of photons. I believe photons transfer most of the energy emitted from the surface of the sun. Heat is kinetic or motional energy primarily manifested as random high-frequency (extreme extra-sonic) vibration in solids and liquids. In each case we are talking of interchangeable forms of energy.
The energy of a photon is equal to the product of Planck’s constant, h, and the frequency of the photon. Thus the high frequency photons of visible light carry more effective heat energy per photon that infra-red photons. A 0.5 micron photon of green light has 30 times the energy of a 15 micron CO2 emission photon.
So:
It seems all the clever guys are here now. I appreciate your comments and your patience. But it is now up to us. Together.
We may differ of opinion slightly as to the exact processes involved
which probably may have something to do with the fact that I was educated 40 years ahead of you
but the 2 real questions remain:
how much warming is caused by CO2 by the trapping of radiation from earth between 14-15 um
and how much cooling is caused by CO2 by the re-radiating of sunshine at various wavelenghts between 0 and 5 um, as per the evidence of that whole absorption spectrum of CO2 coming back from the moon
I am probably the only scientist in South Africa sceptical of global warming being caused by CO2
See
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
but I cannot prove anything without some actual results from measurements.
Now, let us say you were in charge to design an experiment that would prove conclusively that the net effect of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is warming or cooling, how would you do it?
MODTRAN raw CO2 effect results seem to indicate that the 350 org people might have a point if they changed the name of their organization to 3500 org or 6800 org which would set their limit of concern at the point where 31 to 64 times more anthropogenic CO2 has been added to the atmosphere as we have just added in the last 100 years. I believe these MODTRAN results are based on out-going surface radiation absorption only and do not account for the convective and reflective cooling capacity of H2O in the troposphere.
Spector says:
“Thus the high frequency photons of visible light carry more effective heat energy per photon than infra-red photons. A 0.5 micron photon of green light has 30 times the energy of a 15 micron CO2 emission photon.”
I thought it was the opposite: the longer the wavelength, the hotter (on your skin).
If this (what Spector says) is true then in my mind the balance would shift towards an increase in CO2 causing cooling rather warming. At best warming and cooling could be more or less equal. But the final test has to give us results in Watts/m2/m3 (relevant conc. CO2 in 80/20 nitrogen/oxygen)/24 hours or month
In our test method, I think we must try and keep water (vapor) out if it, as water is not distributed equal in the atmosphere as is CO2 and so it just confuses everything.
oh, come on you guys! Surely the first part of the problem (experiment),
that is to determine how much warming is caused by CO2, (in the relevant range),
is not that difficult?
How about a 5000 liter vessel, which has a circular bottom (exactly 1 m2), which can be heated via electrical heating below, so that measured amounts of energy can be released into the vessel. Convection in the vessel is provided by a small blower, engine outside the vessel. Temperature outside the vessel must be kept very constant. We have calibrated probes at various places inside the vessel connected to temp. recorders outside the vessel. You flush the vessel with pure 80/20 N2/O2. Your base (blancs, blanco) is the increase in the area in your temperature curves when succesive measured amounts of energy are released into a pure 80/20 nitrogen/ oxygen medium.
We now add 100 ppm CO2 and do our first series of tests and carry on adding lots of CO2 at a time untill we reach 1000 ppm or even more. Obviously we now look at the differences in the curves when compared to the blancs that are caused by the succesive additions of CO2 (when the same amounts of energy were released).
In the end, I’m sure that from such a range of experiments we must be able to get a result of the warming caused by CO2 in W/m2/100ppmCO2/m3/24hours that approximates the reality?
What do you think?
Henry,
Respectfully, You are reinventing the wheel here. This kind of experiment was first done in 1859 by Tyndall (shining a light through various gasses in cylinders and measuring the change in temperature). His lab was very crude but others improved upon his techniques and by 1896 Arrhenius had discovered the warming effect was logarythmic (not linear) and that the effects of GHGs were best calculated based on halving or doubling the gas quantities.
These kinds of experiments have been done many times. The problem is that in the real world there are many feedbacks and it is very complex. Your experiment (although basically valid) will only reconfirm facts long known. It does not include changes in humidity, clouds, convection, latent heat distribution, ocean and ice feedbacks, lapse rates etc. etc. etc. that determine what the outcome will be in the real world. Much research has been done in all these areas. Unfortunately the only conclusive proof for the big picture will come in hindsight after the experiment has been run using the earth (or an identical planet). Gotta spare planet?
The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart is a good place to learn about these early experiments. You can get it through your favorite book vender, or you can read it for free on line (the free version is even annotated).
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm
Hope that helps,
Yuba
(I think I invented a new dance step for geeks.)
Yubha
I found out that Weart is useless. He was also very impolite with me. He could not accept the fact that I did not agree with him on more CO2 being bad for us.
If you already have recent results on the warming of CO2 in W/m2/100ppmCO2/m3/24hours(time),
or that can be converted to the above,
why not just give them to me?
What I have been trying to explain here, is that we need to determine the radiative warming of CO2 (by trapping earthshine) versus the radiative cooling of CO2 (by sending sunshine out to space). What is the net effect?
All the other factors, including wheather and water, must be kept out. We just want to see the net effect of the radiative warming and cooling of CO2.
If you did not catch my earlier post, see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/12/peer-reviewed-study-co2-warming-effect-cut-by-65-climate-sensitivity-impossible-to-accurately-determine/#comment-508922
Now, the real question is: how are we going to measure the radiative cooling caused by CO2, as evidenced by the whole spectrum of CO2 coming back from the moon?
Henry,
I’m sorry I don’t have the numbers you want. Even if I did they would be close to irrelevant.
First off the absorption/ reemission properties of CO2 are not linear – they are logarithmic. Adding 100 ppmv is only relevant if you specify the starting concentration. The response will be very different (by about an order of magnitude) depending upon whether you start from 10 ppmv or 100 ppmv. This is why the effects of adding CO2 are usually calibrated in CO2 “doublings” You should get roughly a similar temperature rise by changing the total CO2 from 10 ppmv to 20 ppmv as you do from 100 ppmv to 200 ppmv.
Second – I don’t see why you specify 24 Hrs. Depending upon the mass of the gas, the containment vessel and the sensing devices, and the amount and type of energy you apply you may or may not see a new equilibrium in you system in 24 hours.
Thirdly since the absorption spectrum of CO2 overlaps with that of H2O to get any kind of useful number you can’t just add and subtract values for H2O and CO2. H20 content of the gas needs to be specified. Even doing this does not give you a relevant number because CO2 content of the troposphere/stratosphere is much more evenly distributed than that of H2O. (This is why you need to have different layers/values/concentrations in your experimental atmosphere to get any useful values)
I could go on but I think a more relevant number than the one you are looking for is:
***About 1 degree C temperature rise in the earth’s climate per doubling of CO2***.
This number includes both the incoming cooling effects of CO2 and the outgoing warming and cooling effects of CO2. It does not include any feedbacks and assumes absolute humidity and all other parameters remain unchanged. It is generally accepted in the climate community.
Yuba
1) we need to determine whether the hysteria on adding 100ppm Co2 to the atmosphere (as happened during the past 50 years) has a significant and measurable effect and whether such hysteria is justified. Our personal opinions are not relevant, we need tests + measurements, not models based on what?
2) the problem we have is that the (radiative) warming (by re-radiating earthshine) carries on for 24 hours a day whereas the radiative cooling (by re-radiating sunshine) takes place for only 12 hours a day. Not so?
3) we had agreed to leave water and weather out. We need to determine the net effect of the cooling and warming of CO2. I don’t see how anyone could have obtained the results you are quoting when they did not even consider the radiative cooling effect of CO2; in fact it was never even tested. If it was, can you direct me to those results?
I don’t even know how we are going to test it, I was hoping someone here could shed some light on that!
Henry,
The most often cited source for forcing values is Ramaswamy, V., et al., 2001: Radiative forcing of climate change. (IPCC, TAR) available here: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-06.pdf
Like everything the IPCC puts out is a summary of the research. It provides sources for where the basic numbers are derived.
Your claim that researchers do not take into effect the cooling of CO2 is in error. Ramaswamy, in his chapter summary for the TAR makes the following statement:
>>”The short-wave effect results in a negative forcing contribution for the surface-troposphere system owing to the extra absorption due to CO2 in the stratosphere; however, this effect is relatively small compared to the total radiative forcing (< 5%).”<<
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/212.htm
I realize that what you are asking for is the raw data for how these numbers are derived. I suggest you review the multiple sources cited in Section 6.3.1 (my first link) before you make any claims about these numbers not existing however. I suspect that they have been derived multiple times. The implication of your claim that such a basic and well established fact that the cooling effect of CO2 has been ignored by researchers is quite extraordinary and would indeed be significant if it were true, but it is up to you to provide the evidence. I have provided you with evidence that it is untrue. You might want to take your question to ClimateAudit. If anyone would care to champion your cause (and be qualified to do so) I suspect they would be there.
Yuba
RE: HenryP : (October 20, 2010 at 6:03 am)
“I thought it was the opposite: the longer the wavelength, the hotter…”
I think you may have been confused by the description of infra-red radiation as ‘heat waves.’ What this means is that infra-red radiation is coming from relatively ‘hot’ objects on the Earth such as your body at 37 degrees C. when the temperature around you is ten degrees C. By contrast, visible light is being emitted from the surface of the sun at a ‘white hot’ temperature of 5505 degrees C. The Earth is not vaporized by this radiation because its energy has been spread or thinned out over a huge sphere the diameter of the Earth’s orbit by the time it reaches us. Nonetheless, most of the energy we that we do receive from the sun is concentrated in the visible wavelength band of ‘white hot’ light.
Henry
If you have not already done so, you should review:
PLASS, G. N., 1956: The influence of the 15 micron carbon dioxide band on the atmospheric infra-red cooling rate.
Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc.
Unfortunately do not find it for free online (I didn’t look very hard perhaps you can find it).
I do find “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change
By GlLBERT N. PLASS (1956)” online however:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956.tb01206.x/pdf
Since this is well respected and seminal work I think you should be familiar with it to defend your point that the cooling effects of CO2 have been ignored.
Yuba
I do find “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change
By GlLBERT N. PLASS (1956)” online however:
Yuba
I had a quick look at this. Read it carefully. They only looked at the 12-18 um range.
This is where earthshine is at its highest intensity…
They all made the same mistake as S.Arrhenius because they only looked at the heat (radiation) being trapped. Nobody ever thought to look at the sun’s radiation being deflected by CO2 to outer space, never mind measuring it, as to how much cooling it causes. Believe me, I have spoken to the experts. They all went blank when I ask them by how much it cools.
And I am talking here about several absorptions in the 0-5 um range of CO2.
There are even UV absorptions of Co2 that have been only discovered recently (in fact this is one way why they now can look at the planets to see if there is CO2.)
There are weak absorptions at around 1,6 and 3 strong absorptions around 2 um. There is very, very strong absorption at 4-5 um. So how can anyone claim that this or that is only 5%, when nobody tested it, and when they did not even know all of this?
Look at the peaks of the whole spectrum bouncing back from the moon and tell me again that CO2 does not also have a significant cooling effect.
People saying that it is or must be less than 5% must bring me that proof. I want to see those test results. Unfortunately, I already looked everywhere and found these results do not exist. So, really, like I said before, it is just us.
At the moment I am still trying to figure out if there is a way how we can measure it.
Line analysis will not work. You have to come up with an actual experiment that will use sunshine and give a result (of the radiative cooling) in W/m2/m3 ppm CO2/24 hours.
I was hoping you people might have some ideas.
Henry,
You are the one making extraordinary claims (“the entire field of climatology has been overlooking something very basic which they have been claiming for years that they have not overlooked”). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to prove. Something more than “my amateur efforts on line and at armature blogs have not turned up anything” (known as an argument from ignorance). The ball is in your court
There is quite a bit of material that you should be familiar with at the Ramaswamy link I provided you with that you seem to be ignoring. Don’t expect others to do your work for you.
I would not be surprised if the experts that have gone blank when you asked them have done so because they have not understood your question or why you are asking it.
There is currently a very rare “open thread” over at RC. This would be a chance for you to ask your off- topic question there. I suggest to you that you keep your question very basic such as “can anyone here tell me how the values used in the models for the heating and cooling effects of CO2 are derived. Original citations would be appreciated.” or something to that effect. Don’t clutter the question or make it accusatory and leave “earthshine” out of it.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/10/unforced-variations-3-2/
BTW, beware of using terms like “you people”.
yuba
Ok. Have not been at RC yet. I don’t have high hopes…
RE: Yuba Yollabolly: (October 22, 2010 at 2:31 pm)
“…and leave ‘earthshine’ out of it.”
‘Earthshine’ is *not* a standard scientific term. I have used it myself at times as a simple way to explain a concept. Perhaps ‘terrestrial thermal radiation’ would be more correct (but less convenient) as it insures that reflected solar energy is not included.
Spector,
Fair enough,
Henry’s basic concept -that they have all missed something so basic- is one naturally rather offensive to professionals, particularly when posed by amateurs. Henry has already demonstrated that he can be patient and polite; the problem is that he is trying to ask a complex question using imprecise terms – leading to misunderstandings. Folks at RC also appreciate people having done their homework before allowing any hint of accusing come in.
Of course Henry is free to ask what he wants, and some times it is actually the more accusatory comments that get the personal attention from Gavin, but in general, it seems the polite questions of clarification are the ones that often get the most helpful responses there. Keeping it simple and build a dialog; is my advice (for what it is worth).
I would also spend some time with Google Scholar tracking down the places the earthshine paper has been cited so I would be aware of general criticisms about it (if any).
I’m not personally qualified to address Henry’s questions. I want him to get honest answers. I am not trying to set him up.
HenryP,
Thank you for taking your questions to RC and for persevering there. Obviously some responses were more helpful than others, but I think a couple were useful.
I have noticed that your “Basic effects of CO2 as a GHG (in isolation – exactly)” is a Judy Curry question. Is that where you got it from? Since you are a chemist I can see how you might expect “exactly” in an answer, but your question is not a simple chemistry question. Even “exactly” has its limitations. It is always possible to go out another order of magnitude beyond “exactly”. Therefore to expect “exactly” in an answer will always smell like a red herring to folks that deal with reality.
Henry@Yuba
I am sorry for the guys who tried to answer me, but the problem on RealClimate is the censorship. I do not take lightly to my “inanities” being wiped by a “gavin”.
I told them that if they wanted to see my whole point of view, i.e. the results of my own investigations, they can go to my blogg site. It is regularly updated with new information that fits in with my observations.
You have to put everything together to see the whole picture.
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
They will probably throw that comment off as well.
Henry@Yuba
As indeed they did. No reference to my blogg site allowed. What is so “dangerous” about my blogg site? In all honesty now, what does that tell you about RealClimate?
Like the others, they are really worried about a simple chemist like me uncovering the whole global warming scam.
Henry@Yuba
As indeed they did cut my final remarks. They would never allow a link to my blogg. So what does that tell you about RealClimate?
I suspect most everyone that posts much at RC has had posts that did not make it through. I have (and I don’t even post there much). You likely never would have gotten your initial question through if they had not had an “open thread” for you to post it. I too have been criticized by Gavin for the quality of my hypothesis.
The thing is that your theories are not new or unique and that they have been gone over many times at RC. Repeats of the same claims do not make it through the censors there.
You started out with a reasonable question: “How do we know the overall (warming/cooling) effects of CO2 (in isolation) on the planet? (Show me the data).” You want to verify for yourself that “they” thought of the potential pitfalls that you have. This is reasonable and is reasonable skepticism. The thing is until you track down where the numbers came from you are premature to criticize them (this is not being skeptical). You must be willing to go to the library track down obscure paywalled sources before you can make any claims as to what they do or do not include. Start with the footnotes for the AR4.
Your “70% H20>warmer water>more water vapor>more clouds> more cooling (either through radiant energy blockage or through greater convection of latent heat)” hypothesis has been around for a long time. Currently it’s most prominent champion is Dr Roy Spencer. Spencer has his own blog and I suggest you might find support there. http://www.drroyspencer.com/ Dr Lindzen (probably the best credentialed skeptical climate scientist) published a related paper a few years about his “Iris” hypothesis that is somewhat related to this theory. It has generally been discredited in the journals however.
Back to your original question about CO2 effects (in isolation). You are right we don’t know *exactly*. We do know within a couple percentage points and the in the end that is good enough because of the feedback effects of water vapor and clouds are so great. This point came up in the recent Scientific American article about Dr. Judy Curry. If you have some time it is worth a read since it is basically about the problems of political polarity in the climate issue – something you seem to be affected by as much as anyone. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-heretic
“What does that tell you about RC?”
It tells me that they think your hypothesis is raw and green and lacks credible scientific backing. (I would have warned you not to post it there but to limit your posts key technical questions concerning it). It really has been addressed there many times and would likely come up in most every thread if they did not censure the topic. Seriously, if you want to pursue it – first read the “feedback and forcing thread” at RC (and the following discussion) and limit yourself to key technical questions concerning it (unfortunately I suspect that thread is long closed, but I bet they would let an articulate question through from you in the open thread if it were about some aspect of the topic that was unclear or not addressed in the feedback & forcing thread). If what you want is the scientist’s response to technical questions (that is what you were asking originally) then RC is a good place for it, if you want to post your musings or links to them, then RC is not.
dear Yuba
you really have to take some time to look at the overall picture. I had my brother here from Holland and we had some long late night discussions. I remember telling him about Al Gore and his stories (the so-called glove that”fits”, :::but remember: smoking causes cancer but cancer does not cause smoking). Then I told him about actual global warming: 0.7 C during the past 100 years and that what is projected into the future (worst case scenario): ca. 1 C at the end of the next 50 years. Then I asked him if he was worried about that? (Generally in the NH they would love to have it a bit warmer). So we laughed and laughed, and laughed…..
Henry,
I have and continue to look at the big picture.
Consider that the 1C in 50 years is a global average and that it is expected to be more or less in various areas. Consider that the effects on rainfall changes are also considered to be very (if not more) significant. Consider that the effects of the Business As Usual scenario that forecasts a >1C change in the following 50 years.
Henry, I don’t want to argue how we should discount future generations. I have tried very hard to present you with sources that would both support and challenge your hypothesis. I have seen little evidence that you have followed through with questioning your and your brother’s own gut feelings (beyond your posting at RC – but then again you were very quick to play the “look – they censored me at RC” card, which is little evidence of anything in particular).
The fact that you start out with a reasonable scientific question and then resort to a “me and my brother” comment is not encouraging me to think that you are looking for a valid scientific discussion, but that you are looking for any evidence at all, no mater how indirect or valid, that will support your hypothesis (which itself is far from new).
The science is indeed complex and if you can poke a hole in it I wish you all the best, but it takes more than hand waving some wavelengths around. That is why I presented you with so many sympathetic sources. You can’t go to RC with hypothesis however; you have to have to be at least a theory and you have to be able to discuss its scientific support.
Henry, I respect your patience. I sincerely wish you and yours all the best.
Yuba, I am finished with my investigations. Look carefully at the point where I started doubting that global warming is an unnatural problem. Study those graphs in my blogg that show there have been many warm periods in the past. Why would the current warm period be different to the natural warmer! period 1000 years ago?
And what about all the periods in the past where it was warmer still? It is not up to me to provide test results of the cooling and warming properties of the CO2, O2 and H2O, and to determine their interactions, overlaps and differing concentrations. But I can antipicate that it must be near impossible to do any accurate testing or calculations if you do not even know the exact total water vapor concentration in the atmosphere.
It is people like Al Gore, M.Mann, Spencer Weart and Grant Petty who make the claims that the warming is man made due to the CO2 increase to come up with that evidence. But when you ask those people directly you find they do not have the answers. They always do know that somebody has got the results. It is hidden in sonewhere, in copyrighted papers. But when I looked carefully at the IPPC report (2005) I found they rely heavily on the assumption that they know 100% for sure what is causing the warming (i.e. more greenhouse gases) because what they did is take the year 1750 as a zero point for the gases in the atmosphere as being before the industrial revolution started. Then they looked at the increases in the various gases versus the actual observed warming and then they allocated or correlated the forcings of each GHG. But that is looking at a solution for a problem from the wrong end. This is the worst mistake a scientist can make.
Based on my further observations (various tipping points around 2003, also in earth’s albedo), I predict global cooling for the future, not global warming, especially for the next 6- 7 years.
Unfortunately I am not good at maths. But you are welcome to take on those guys with their maths. In the end you will also find what I found. It is going to get cooler. Enjoy the global warming while it lasts.
Blessings!
Henry
Don’t miss this!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/30/new-peer-reviewed-paper-says-there-appear-to-have-been-periods-of-ice-free-summers-in-the-central-arctic-ocean/#more-27209
Well Henry, It’s obvious that you only select the information that agrees with what you want to find and discard the rest. The article you wrote about CO2 is filled with so many long debunked talking points and tenuous leaps of logic that it is clearly pointless to discuss it with you. I don’t know what 2005 IPCC report you refer to but it would appear that you haven’t spent much time with their latest 2007 report which devotes many pages to discussing uncertainty, and I don’t recall any major area of discussion that was assigned 100% certainty. I find it curious that you consider yourself such an expert on IPCC methodology when you actually seem so unfamiliar with the report (and appear to wish to remain so).
Concerning the Jakobsson et al paper; I wouldn’t draw any conclusions until I had read it, or at least read more than the abstract. I don’t find it all that surprising though since best evidence indicates that the climate has cooled over the last 10,000 years (if ever so slightly), and we also know other factors such as changes in regional wind patterns can have dramatic short term effects on the arctic ice cover.
Sorry Yuba, but clearly:
1) we have no evidence that CO2 is warming more than it is cooling
2) we know that CO2 increases as it gets warmer (remember the first smoke from a kettle).
3) We have clear evidence that these increases in CO2 in the atmosphere lagged the warming periods by quite a few hundred years.
4) We have clear evidence that warmer periods have been around due to natural causes, e.g
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/
Did you study these graphs? There are other sources if you don’t trust WUWT…
Ergo, the conclusion is that global warming is most probably not caused by an increase in carbon dioxide.
Anyways, yes, the saying goes that you can take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. I suppose that from each other’s point of view that applies both ways.
Henry, clearly:
1) You are denying considerable evidence and you are assuming facts that have not been substantiated.
2) Yes, CO2 levels have risen post glacial. This is well understood. It is not the cause of recent atmospheric rise in CO2 levels however so what’s your point?
3) Yes they have. The theory of Milankovitch glacial cycles relies on this CO2 level rise to provide the feedback necessary to warm the climate as much as it has. The changes of solar insolation alone cannot do it by itself (and apparently neither would water vapor feedback without the CO2 feedback).
4) We know that there were forest fires long before humans ever appeared. That doesn’t mean humans can’t cause them.
Unlike you I have spent considerable time reading opinions from both sides (and I continue to). As for the graph from Watts; why do I need to remind you that central Greenland is not “the globe” and it is well known that the two hemispheres don’t always respond in unison?
My mind is not closed and unlike you I have not stopped examining the evidence (from both sides). This is why I could provide you with the links that I did that were sympathetic to your position. I would like to see you prove your point and I would stop worrying. Your arguments so far fall very short of intriguing let alone convincing. Most of them are from ignorance. Your talking points are commonly known as “zombies” that no informed climatologist (even contrarian) would use because they have so long been shown to be untrue or irrelevant – they simply keep rising from the dead on internet sites that cater to the uninformed. If you spent much time researching these things you would know this.
I’m not sorry to tell you this and I don’t feel sorry for you. I think you are a smart guy, you’ve just got a bad case of confirmation bias.
I repeat:
1) It is not up to me to provide test results of the cooling and warming properties of the CO2, O2 and H2O, and to determine their interactions, overlaps at 14-15 um at differing concentrations. But I can antipicate that it must be near impossible to do any accurate testing or calculations without messing up something here or there. Never mind the fact that we cannot ever be sure of exactly how much water vapor floats around in the atmosphere. It up to the people who make these claims to provide this information.
2) Surely you can distinguish between cause and effect? Are you saying that Al Gore & company did not make it look like it was the other way around? Whether it was deliberate or not, I am deeply disappointed that he has (not yet) clarified it.
3) What is the ice age trap? Lucky enough there are already people like me looking into the future to provide answers when global cooling starts. An idea that I thought of is throwing black carbon dust on the snow to prevent the sun’s rays being sent back into space.
4) I am glad we agree on something…
Henry, I am well aware of cause and effect (and the difference between correlation and causation) you might want to review the role of “feedbacks” as used in climate change discussions.
Never having read or seen anything by Al Gore I don’t know what he said on the topic but since the rise of CO2 is integral with the warming at the end of the last glacial maximum, if he implied that CO2 had a role in warming of the atmosphere at that point – he was right. (An 800 year lag is not much considering it took ~10,000 years to warm up after the last glacial maximum. Such is the role of a feedback. Milankovitch cycles – changes in Northern hemisphere (land mass) insolation was the trigger).
SkepticalScience does a pretty good job of explaining the science in simple terms. http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
Take care
BTW, the one answer from a Patrick 027 @ RC did not mention the problem I foresee with the oxygen. It seems they never classified oxygen as a GHG. Although the absorption of O2 at 14-15 is very weak, the percentage oxygen is very high, so this must have an influence and may well account for most of earth’s missing radiation in the 14-15 um band. You may want to check up on that, make sure they did not “cook” the books and all that. Be faithful to the truth.