From the press package:
The findings confirm that carbon dioxide is the most potent greenhouse “control knob”
This seems like a last ditch effort (in the face of falling public opinion) from Gavin Schmidt et al. to make CO2 more important than water vapor in regulating the temperature of the planet.
Via emailed press package, embargoed until 2PM EST 10/14/2010:
Of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide exerts the most control on Earth’s climate, researchers report. Although carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect has been known for more than 100 years, its primary role in climate warming is still not universally acknowledged.
For example, water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas and is more abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. But, it condenses and precipitates from the atmosphere and thus plays a different role than carbon dioxide and other, noncondensing greenhouse gases, such as ozone, methane and chlorofluorocarbons. Andrew Lacis and colleagues conducted a set of idealized climate model experiments in which various greenhouse gases were added to or subtracted from the atmosphere, in order to illustrate their roles in controlling the temperature of the air.
The findings confirm that carbon dioxide is the most potent greenhouse “control knob” and that its abundance determines how much water vapor the atmosphere contains. Without carbon dioxide, the Earth would plunge into a frozen state, the researchers report, though they caution that increasing levels of this atmospheric gas are also worrisome. “This makes the reduction and control of atmospheric CO2 a serious and pressing issue, worthy of real-time attention,” they write.
[Seems a bit out of balance though.]
- Fig. 1. Attribution of the contributions of individual atmospheric components to the total terrestrial greenhouse effect, separated into feedback and forcing categories. Horizontal dotted and dashed lines depict the fractional response for single-addition and single-subtraction of individual gases to an empty or full-component reference atmosphere, respectively. Horizontal solid black lines are the scaled averages of the dashedand dotted-line fractional response results. The sum of the fractional responses adds up to the total greenhouse effect. The reference atmosphere is for conditions in 1980.
Article #14: “Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature,” by A.A. Lacis; G.A. Schmidt; D. Rind; R.A. Ruedy at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, NY.
Contact: Andrew A. Lacis at alacis@giss.nasa.gov (email).
Here’s the paper: lacis101015 (PDF)
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Clearly a case of localised climate model disruption. Local to Cancun perhaps?
didn’t we just have a paper by Doug L. Hoffman, – Estimated CO2 Warming Cut By 65%??
‘ …the most potent greenhouse “control knob” ‘
Oh – there are quite a few candidates for that exalted position…
This just in!
Massive CO2 hole found over the Arctic.
http://www.carbontracker.eu/index.html
We need concerted and immediate action to fill this hole! If we burn enough fossil fuel we may be able to fill it in by 2050.
[/sarcoff]
Just for a second there I thought a climate scientist had performed an experiment. Then I realised it was a climate model.
These are programmed to have CO2 as the main driver so its hardly surprising thats the outcome of the experiment
Using climate models which have been tuned for high sensitivity to carbon dioxide, it has been found that climate models have a high sensitivity to carbon dioxide. That’s SCIENCE!
Boy, is the sun going to be disappointed, all this time it thought it had the most input.
Oh. I always though the main controller of climate was number of mobile telephone calls per annum, since the correlation between temperature and phone use (nay, TV’s if we include the 1930’s – present) has increased since temperatures began to rise as a correlation to the use of these instruments’ increase. Since the ghg’s are an unreliable source of climate forcing, particlarly c02, due to its peripheral-non-existent magnitude on the climate, then by a process of elimination, it MUST be the correlation between temperature and increasing use of TV’s and phones.
Smells like desperation. So, if the GISS gets shut down, will James Hanson chill out about hating his fellow humans if he no longer has to deal with a NYC commute?
Talk about out of control denialism. The alarmists are desperate on the cusp of madness.
This is bordering on outright delusion. CO2 has never, ever been the primary driver of climate change in the entire multi-billion year history of this planet. What is so sad is that there was a veritable bloodbath of really good engineers laid off from NASA over the past year, and yet these alarmist cultists are still in employment.
I am feeling very very sad about NASA’s future.
I’m happy to see they are able to accurately re-create the earths atmosphere in the labratory … I was worried they were simply guessing about alot of things …
too bad the real atmosphere seems to be ignoring the CO2 control knob since 1998 …
stupid atmosphere ….
Yes, our planet would be freezing cold (in the shade) without an atmospheric blanket, but CO2 contributes only 10% or so to that effect. Yes, greenhouse gases (like CO2) trap sunshine as heat and thus exert a positive radiative heat forcing. [But that’s not what makes greenhouses hot (convection!).] Yes, there are feedback effects involving water vapor which, under certain conditions, could amplify this so-called greenhouse effect.
But where is the convincing proof that all of this adds up to out-of-control, man-made, catastrophic warming of the planet?! I’ll settle for a convincing proof that the planet’s temperature responds, in a _causal_ way, to CO2 concentration. (i.e. don’t just show me a correlation. But even those are inconsistent).
Where are these proofs? Ha! Then the issue is not settled.
And what the heck is an “idealized climate model”?
“Although carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect has been known for more than 100 years”
Nils Eckholm (1899) thought so, as did Svante Arrhenius (1896). However, Knut Angström concluded in 1900 that atmospheric CO2 and water vapor absorb infrared radiation in the same same spectral region and that any additional CO2 would, therefore have little or no effect on global temperature. In the 1920s, Thomas Chamberlin wrote a letter to Charles Schuchert (Yale’s Peabody Museum) in which he said, “I greatly regret that I was among the early victims of Arrhenius’ error.” In 1922 Chamberlin thought the role of CO2 had been greatly overemphasized and that not enough attention had been given to the role of ocean in the climate.
These people at GISS don’t even have a reasonable handle on the history of the subject, let alone the science itself.
Great another model that says what every AGW model says. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE. I wonder if the water vapour and clouds feedback value is positive? I already know the answer.
…the most potent greenhouse “control knob,
Do they mean temperature control knob, not in NewZealand it isn`t.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/App3.Graph.pdf
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/new_zealand_niwa_capitulates_on_temperature_record/
For example, water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas and is more abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. But, it condenses and precipitates from the atmosphere and thus plays a different role than carbon dioxide and other, noncondensing greenhouse gases, such as ozone, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.
!!!!!!
It would be funny if it were not so manipulative and insidious.
The people who wrote this are scientists, or minority representatives playing with the hot potato?
Plants and oceans “condense” CO2 constantly and abundantly. What planet are these guys on?
Hmm…they say (eventually):
“To this end, we performed a simple climate experiment with the GISS 2° × 2.5° AR5 version of ModelE, using the Q-flux ocean with a mixedlayer depth of 250 m, zeroing out all the noncondensing GHGs and aerosols.”
So this is a case of the “experiment” actually being a computer model, where, as I think everyone knows, you are likely to get output as good as your input.
The first step should be to demonstrate that the models can predict the past climate of the earth. What would be interesting, for example, would be to see a climate model which can prove or disprove the existence of the MWP and explain its cause, or lack of existence. (If anyone knows of such a model validation, please let me know).
At a more prosaic level – why invent new jargon even e.g. ‘radiative forcing’ is irritating – what is wrong with a normal description of the physics?
Propaganda and sophistry dressed up to look like something scientific.
One word applies: Garbage
Instead of CO2 residing in the atmosphere for a thousand years, it appears that the right number is just a handful of years.
http://www.suite101.com/content/royal-society-humiliated-by-global-warming-basic-math-error-a296746
Not more climate model evidence. These people have just proved that they are not scientists.
The point is we do not have control over the amount of H2O in the atmosphere. We do have some control over to amount of CO2.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/330/6002/356
It is good that you are willing to post science research that shows you are wrong. It is too bad you can’t understand it.
Here they go again using this flawed experiment 100 years ago to justify that CO2 is the most potent GH gas in the atmosphere.
If anything, CO2 is not the temperature knob on the thermostat, but could be that little thermometer.