Monckton on sensitivity training at Durban

: )
I hope they air the complete interview.

if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.

Well, he isn’t seeing the entire picture in this case. We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent. What we are doing is “redistributing” that wealth from billions of individual “common” citizens into the pockets of people connected to the “climate change” industry. The money isn’t disappearing, it is simply being allocated. We are giving Jones and Mann and CRU and Tyndall and Solyndra, and others and the people that work for and invest in those organizations boatloads of cash now (that they will probably pass along to their successors) which will will take from the future earnings of our children. We are giving them hamburgers today that our children will have to pay for next Tuesday (to use a Popeye analogy). I think it is time to tell Wimpy to take a hike.
This is a global fleecing.

I would also bet that the 3 watts of forcing assume a completely clear sky over the entire Earth every day. A small change in the amount of clouds could completely swamp that 3 watts, particularly at the places on Earth where the sun is directly overhead. Heck, a few (relatively speaking) roofs painted white would swamp out that change!

Would be be lucky enough to see the interview streamed from the broadcaster’s Website?

“…and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.”
~1.1 to 1.2°C warming for a doubling of CO2 is exactly what the science says – prior to feedbacks! The feedbacks are what are expected to take matters to 3.3°C – and while the exact magnitude of feedbacks can be discussed, Monckton is simply ignoring them here.
As to current warming versus forcings and falsely derived low sensitivities, don’t forget that not all changes have caught up yet – oceans are big, and do take a while to warm, just for example. This particular canard (which I thought originally came from Lindzen) is just nonsense, refuted by Beck 2006 and Rahmstorf 2008, among others. Given a 3°C sensitivity to CO2 doubling, we should see a warming of around 1°C – and what we’re observing is 0.8 to 0.9°C.
This bit by Monckton is complete and utter nonsense.

crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
“We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent.”
Do not fall prey to the money myth. Money is merely a medium of wealth. It has little intrinsic value of its own (the paper on which it is printed).
Money is used to allocate resources to create wealth, in the form of goods and services people can consume. Money invested wisely facilitates the creation of wealth. Money spent poorly diminishes the amount of wealth that could have been created and bequeathed to our successors.

I read this with hope but find I do not understand. It seems like hokus-pokus, I cannot pin down any figure and relate it to any given change that makes sense.
If you remove all greenhouse gases you still get the same adiabatic lapse rate, the start of which will be defined by the temperature at the surface. That is why the tropopause is higer at the equator than at the poles. Same lapse rate, different surface temperatures. All to do with gravity, not imaginary feedback from so called greenhouse gases.
Try this question: is the Earth brighter than the sun in the near infrared? What about the far infrared? The answers will define greenhouse gases as coolants or warmants (? 🙂 )
Okay, initial solar radiation starts out from 5,800K source and is down to less than 400k at TOA. But which is brighter ? The surface at 288K ? I wonder.

Politically there’s a powerful argument. Rather than the absurdity of a worldwide conspiracy we might be all victims of scheming climate change crooks ready to take advantage of the bandwagon and of its more innocent proponents

KR, the oceans are cooling.

“There’s really nothing new under the sun.”
Same old games we’ve seen for 6000 years or more. It’s one thing for willing fools to be parted from their money, But this is an out right attempt to steal.
The mention above: “scientifically-illiterate politicians”, perhaps many of them see the near unconditional transfer of power into their hands? It’s their playfield, and few in the scientific community know their game as well.

@KR
“Given a 3°C sensitivity to CO2 doubling, we should see a warming of around 1°C – and what we’re observing is 0.8 to 0.9°C. ”
No, given 3C sensitivity we should see 3C of warming with a doubling of CO2 –‘by that very definition’! If we don’t see 3C of warming, then the sensitivity of the climate with all feedbacks already considered, is less than 3C per century.
How much warming have we seen over the past century? ~1C.
The oceans are cooling, their heat content has flattened, and despite the large upward increase in CO2 production in the last decade, global temperatures have largely flattened as well. What does that tell you KR?
Science is about facts, not the mythical. Saying “but we will see feedbacks, eventually!” without any evidence of what they are, or any sign of them preparing to occur (as we would see by now!), you are acting on FAITH, no science.

KR says:

“…and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.”
~1.1 to 1.2°C warming for a doubling of CO2 is exactly what the science says – prior to feedbacks! The feedbacks are what are expected to take matters to 3.3°C – and while the exact magnitude of feedbacks can be discussed, Monckton is simply ignoring them here.

Just to clarify what KR says here: Some might argue that, for example, the calculation includes the water vapor feedback. After all, Monckton imagined removing the water vapor too. However, this point-of-view is incorrect. In order to correctly account for the water vapor feedback, you have to treat it as a feedback and not a forcing as Monckton has done. (Willis Eschenbach came up with a similar argument to Monckton’s, which had the same sort of error in it.)
To look at it another way: What the numerical modeling study of Lacis et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract? ) showed is that, in the climate models, if you remove all the non-condensable greenhouse gases from the atmosphere then the cooling causes most of the water vapor to be removed too and you get a temperature drop not much different from 33 K….perhaps even a bit more if I recall. (There is no reason why it has to be exactly 33 K because you aren’t necessarily keeping the albedo from clouds and ice the same in this simulation and you are not getting rid of the greenhouse effect due to clouds [or whatever greenhouse effect remains due to water vapor].) So, you just have to remove the non-condensable greenhouse gases and then you get approximately the full temperature drop due to losing the greenhouse effect as a consequence.
Admittedly, people can argue that the models are wrong…and this is not what is going to happen in the real world. However, if you are going to argue this, then what you are arguing is that you don’t believe in the positive feedbacks; you have not shown from real-world data that the earth’s climate system does not have such positive feedbacks (which is what Monckton is essentially claiming to have shown).
[And, of course, you would have to come up with compelling arguments about why the physics in the models is wrong and the amount of water vapor would not decrease (or that something else would compensate) when you removed the greenhouse gases.]

About the 33 degrees model without greenhouse gasses is the most fatal error in the whole thermageddon business. If the earth would have had an atmosphere without greenhouse gasses, the atmosphere would have still warmed with convection, considering that at noon directly under the sun there is 1365 W/m2 warming it to values close to the light side of the moon – close to boiling. That hot air convection heats up the atmosphere at daytime. But at night time there is no negative convection and there is no outradiation, since we have no greenhouse effect. Hence the atmosphere does not lose heat in a significant way, other than via direct conduction in the boundary layer with the earth surface (maybe a few inches).
So with a non-radiating atmosphere no greenhouse gas, the atrmosphere would be a lot hotter, not colder.

Ged: “No, given 3C sensitivity we should see 3C of warming per doubling of CO2…How much warming have we seen over the past century? ~1C.”
And given the ~100ppm increase from 280 to 390, or roughly 1/3 of a doubling, a 1C increase is just about what we should expect.

KR says:
December 5, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Ged: “No, given 3C sensitivity we should see 3C of warming per doubling of CO2…How much warming have we seen over the past century? ~1C.”
And given the ~100ppm increase from 280 to 390, or roughly 1/3 of a doubling, a 1C increase is just about what we should expect.

I thought the temperature rise to CO2 increase was logarithmic? On that basis, 280 to 390 is an increase of approximately x1.39, and according to my quick calculations, that should be approximately 50% of the total increase of a doubling. Unless I’ve made a mistake (quite probably), which should be expecting to see a 1.5-1.6C increase if the IPCC’s sensitivity figure is correct, and we’re only seeing 0.8-0.9C.
What have I done wrong?

Graeme W – Quite correct, I was doing very quick back-of-envelope numbers there. Just don’t forget the accompanying aerosols produced by fossil fuels (cooling things).
Take a look at the total numbers as per this chart: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/figure-2-4.html
That’s a total, including aerosols, CO2, methane and other GHG’s, surface albedo, insolation, etc., showing 0.6 to 2.4 W/m^2, mean estimate of 1.6 W/m^2. Or, roughly 43% the effect of a CO2 doubling. Add lag (the oceans will take a while to warm, after all), and 1C warming is just about right.

Folks, there is a very clear discussion of this issue at: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/06/observations-show-climate-sensitivity.php
This dates from 5 years ago, and was not the first time this particular mistaken idea of climate sensitivity was corrected. 1C is about right for the ~35% increase of CO2 since the industrial age, logarithmically 43% of a doubling influence, along with the fact that it takes _time_ for the Earth to change average temperature.
Monckton should certainly know this. He’s either spouting things he knows to be incorrect, or just not up on the science.

And given the ~100ppm increase from 280 to 390, or roughly 1/3 of a doubling, a 1C increase is just about what we should expect.

But there is a major problem with that thinking. Most of the warming that has come since the end of the LIA happened well before there was any significant increase in CO2 emissions. Basically CO2 emissions started when we did two things: 1) Large scale coal fired blast furnaces producing loads of steel in the post WWII economy, 2) Large scale building of coal fired power plants to produce electricity as the countryside was being electrified.
In 1935 only 68% of homes were even wired for electricity and only 13% of farms were. And even with 68% wired for electricity, many used electricity only for lighting and maybe a radio and an iron and that was about it. Refrigerators, such as they existed, were mainly gas and people didn’t have freezers or electric ovens or dryers.
So one major problem is that we should see, if AGW theory is correct, we should see that we have temperatures today that are significantly higher than the temperatures we experienced in the 1930’s. But we don’t. There was a fall in temperatures from the 1940’s to the 1970’s and a rise in temperatures from the 1970’s to 2000 but temperatures never rose higher than those seen in the 1930’s by any significant degree. Sure, there’s a lot of hoopla if a year’s annual temperature average exceeds the 1930’s by a few hundredths of a degree, but it isn’t really significant unless you want to say that all of this CO2 warms climate by a few hundredths of a degree.
We just have not seen the warming that we should see if the AGW speculation is correct. Not a single model projection has been correct. Not for ocean temperatures:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-4.png
Not for land surface temperatures:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CherriesAppliesOranges.png
Not for sea level rise:
http://climate4you.com/images/UnivColorado%20MeanSeaLevelSince1992%20With1yrRunningAverage.gif
And the question is, as has been asked by so many people: For how long must the models and the observations diverge before the models are declared invalid?

Andre says:
December 5, 2011 at 11:56 am
Non-radiating atmosphere… What? Ya gotta be kidding.
Everything made of matter radiates depending on its temperature and other physical properties. If you don’t have matter in the atmosphere that absorbs outgoing IR emitted from the Earth’s surface, then there are no collisions with the absorbers and the temperature doesn’t rise. That means N2, and O2 emit radiation and the atmosphere cools. Remember, in your gedanken experiment there are no IR absorbers to prevent that radiation from escaping into space. Ergo, don’t expect a warm atmosphere or Earth. Yep, it will get pretty frosty at night.

I trust those models about as far as I can throw a midget.
Latest scientific studies say the models fail. (D. Koutsoyiannis et al 2010) Other scientists like Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. say same thing.
From 2.0 emails IPCC author Jagadish Shukla:
“I would like to submit that the current climate models have such large errors in simulating the statistics of regional [climate] that we are not ready to provide policymakers a robust scientific basis for ‘action’ at a regional scale. .  .  . It is inconceivable that policy-makers will be willing to make billion- and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.”
What’s the point arguing about various feedbacks or a W/m sensitivity here and there, when the underlying science for the models is a failure?

Another thing is we could, right this minute with the technology we already have provide 100% of the US electric power generation without creating hardly a molecule of CO2. If CO2 is the real problem, then lets get rid of it right now with technology we know to work and that is much safer in its current implementation than the installed base we have of that same technology that is currently producing roughly 10% of our power with a 50 year old version of that technology.
The worst thing that every happened to our environment was Three Mile Island. Not because the event harmed the environment in any way, but because the fear that it produced HAS done harm and driven up energy costs which has a direct impact on jobs. There are no more excuses. If CO2 is a problem and if access to cheaper energy is desired to spur economic activity, then we must have a national nuclear electrification plan. Otherwise this is simply an exercise in scaring people into subsidizing wind and solar so certain people can make a killing in that market without improving our energy security, reducing energy costs, or reducing CO2 emissions one iota.

Willis,
“Where in the “usual suspects’ playbook” is that 100 w/m2 found?”
I’m not sure where this came from either, so I tried a simple calculation. Using the Stefan Boltzman equation I took the ratio of blackbody radiation that would occur between surface temperatures of 255k and 288k and get 1.63. I assume this means that the Earth must be receiving an additional forcing of 63%.
Then I took the average insolation at the Earths surface as 260 watts per metre squared allowing for albedo. But, if we are saying that this is AFTER the 63% greenhouse gas forcing, then dividing 260 by 1.63 gives 160 – ie 160 watts per sq m without greenhouse gases. In that case we actually have an extra 100 watts due to the greenhouse gases.
This does agree with Moncktons figure, but it could be a coincidence.

Russ R, you have to initially assume a feedback of something. There is little evidence to indicate a feedback that is not close to one. Lord Monckton then compared anticipated warming given the calculation with the observed warming. Now, one point that the Viscount missed was the fact that this comparison demonstrates the feedback as well. As it was within expected range, this is strong evidence that the feedback is close to one.
The simplicity of the argument is its strength. It relies on crude approximations and does not pretend to be anything more than what it is, a crude approximation. Because we have such a crude understanding of the climate system, adding layer upon layer of complexity only causes more potential points for error. It doesn’t really add any precision.

crosspatch says 1:24 pm; “The worst thing that every happened to our environment was Three Mile Island… the fear that it produced HAS done harm… we must have a national nuclear electrification plan.”
That plus Jane Fonda’s and Michael Douglas’ “China Syndrome.”
Here’s the current “China Syndrome”: China’s 77 nuclear plants planned or under construction versus the USA’s 10; the UK’s 4; Germany’s 0; and Vietnam’s 4.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html

Matt G says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm

You might notice by reading Tisdale’s stuff that those step changes after El Nino events occur mostly in one place: The Indian Ocean. Take the Indian Ocean out of the mix and there isn’t any global sea surface temperature increase. The increase isn’t “global”, it is very local and it is enough to influence the global average when it is added in. Sort of like taking the average weight of 10 people in a room, then replacing one person with a much heavier person and measuring again, and then doing that again, and trying to tell people that the average weight of everyone in the room is increasing so everyone must be put on a diet to lower the average weight when the culprit is one single measurement.
And for everyone else, this entire discussion is silly. The onus is not on us to prove that the speculation and the models based thereon are false, the onus is on them to prove that it is true. So far there is nothing in the data to indicate that it is.

Richard G says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:41 pm

Apparently my sarcasm wasn’t cranked up to a sufficient degree that you noticed I was being facetious.

crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
[Monckton]”if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received. ”
[crosspatch]”Well, he isn’t seeing the entire picture in this case. We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent.”
No, crosspatch, see Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy. A large part of the money has been spent on wind turbines and PV panels; producing these, and all that comes before it, starting with the air travel of the lobbyists to Brussels, consumes real resources and real labor – labor that could have been spent on more useful things. This is where the waste happens. Now, of course a wind turbine produces energy, but the resources we have expended to make this relatively small production of energy happen are disproportionate compared to the alternatives. The fact that the wind turbine later helps robbing the many and feeding the few (who, in turn, will need some of the many to build them Ferraris) is not where the real waste of resources happens.
I should know, I drive past three wind parks every morning, and every evening again. And see a fourth and a fifth one in the distance when crossing some hills.
Imagine how useful the life of a theoretically talented and intelligent boy could have turned out had he not decided to become a EU lobbyist. We are wasting human potential as well when we turn all our energies towards the solving of nonproblems.

There are a few oddities in comments. Some seem not to realise that the ‘per doubling of …’ does actually give you a logarithmic scale.
Some (or perhaps one) seem to think that the oceans can ‘take a while to heat up’ from heat that is being ‘trapped’ today. That is a real mind-bender. Where does this ‘missing heat’ reside while it waist for the oceans to be ready for it? Is it that ‘missing heat’ that Trenbeth (sp?) is still looking for? (let’s ignore the fact it is energy we mean, not ‘heat’.) Can you think of six more impossible things before breakfast?

crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
…Another thing is we could, right this minute with the technology we already have provide 100% of the US electric power generation without creating hardly a molecule of CO2…..
There are no more excuses. If CO2 is a problem and if access to cheaper energy is desired to spur economic activity, then we must have a national nuclear electrification plan. Otherwise this is simply an exercise in scaring people into subsidizing wind and solar so certain people can make a killing in that market without improving our energy security, reducing energy costs, or reducing CO2 emissions one iota.
___________________________________________
As I said, I normally agree with you but I would prefer to see Thorium nuclear. It seems about 5 to ten years away perhaps less.

….From the early 1950s to the mid-1970s, an active R&D program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tenn. came up with a promising way to use thorium for making large amounts of energy cleanly and safely. It was based on a revolutionary kind of nuclear reactor that uses liquid rather than solid fuel. Liquid fuel has significant theoretical advantages in operation, control, and processing over solid fuel, but a basic question had to be answered: “Will it work?”
To that end, Oak Ridge engineers built four liquid-fueled reactors. Two used water-based liquids, and two were based on liquid fluoride salts. The water-based reactors had to operate at high pressures to generate the temperatures needed for economical power generation. They could also dissolve uranium compounds, but not those containing thorium, which made fuel reprocessing as complicated for the water-based rectors as it is for solid-fueled versions.
The fluoride reactors had neither of these drawbacks. They could operate at high temperature without pressurization. They could also dissolve both uranium and thorium in their fluoride-salt mixtures, and the mixtures were impervious to radiation damage due to their ionic bonds. Therefore, Oak Ridge engineers opted to concentrate on the technically superior liquid-fluoride-salt approach in future R&D.
In the late 1960s, however, the director of Oak Ridge National Lab, Alvin Weinberg, was fired by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for his advocacy for this type of reactor and his efforts to enhance the safety of conventional light-water reactors, a design he had patented. With Weinberg’s departure, the AEC squashed research in liquid-fluoride reactors….
Recent efforts to resurrect the thorium-fluoride reactor technology has focused on a new variant of the concept called the Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, pronounced “lifter”). …..
http://energyfromthorium.com/about/

INDIA with no Uranium but an abundant supply of thorium…

…In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. It is expected to start up in late 2011, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (the reactor-grade Pu being from its existing PHWRs). It will have a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile U-233 and plutonium respectively, taking the thorium program to stage two, and setting the scene for eventual full utilisation of the country’s abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Six more such 500 MWe fast reactors have been announced for construction, four of them in parallel by 2017. Two will be at Kalpakkam, two at another site…. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/default.aspx?id=338&terms=thorium%20india

A couple of USA companies to watch
Lightbridge (thorium)
http://www.ltbridge.com/assets/23.pdf
http://www.ltbridge.com/technologyservices/fueltechnology
KEY UPCOMING FUEL DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES: http://www.ltbridge.com/technologyservices/fueltechnology/keyupcomingfueldevelopmentmilestones
Hyperion Power Generation Inc. (mini self contained uranium nitride)
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/technology/
Medium and Small (25 MWe up) reactors with development well advanced: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

Rosco says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:48 pm
The calculation of 33 K cooler is based on a quarter of the insolation.
Can anyone please explain how you can calculate the temperature of a sphere which is half illuminated by applying one quarter of the radiative flux to the whole sphere ?….
___________________________________
You do not even have to go to the moon.
The cartoon STARTS with 342 W/sq m and ends up with 168 W/sq m at the ground. http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/images/earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_1997_big.gif
Real Life:
Solar insolation for solar panels numbers from NASA http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-insolation-levels/
They give as an example:

For comparison, consider the average annual insolation levels of these two extreme locations:
* Oslo , Norway = 2.27 kWh/m 2/day (very low)
* Miami , Florida = 5.26 kWh/m 2/day (very high)

A month of Jun average of 7.7 kWh/m 2/day for Phoenix AZ (year 5.38)
Latitude 33 ‘ 26″ N
A month of Jun average of 5.24 kWh/m 2/day for Montpelier VT (year 3.43)
Latitude 44′ 16″ N
A month of Jun average of 4.58 kWh/m 2/day for Anchorage AK (year 2.09)
Latitude 61’ 10″ N
NOT EVEN Alaska’s yearly average is as low as 168 W/sq m

I would also point out to those nitpicking Monckton on some of the assumed numbers in his analysis, that he is employing the same technique here that he does in most of his presentations of basing his analysis on the assumptions used by the IPCC. In this or any other of his similar offerings, he refrains from explicitly embracing these assumptions as part of his own beliefs, but argues that even using their own assumptions the IPCC’s positions don’t hold up.

This whole AGW thing reminds me of an old story science fiction story I read. Venus started broadcasting messages to the US that they were “Coming.” The whole world got together, stopped fighting to deal with the venutian threat. As it turned out, it was a clever scientist and his old wife who had managed to bounce radio waves to make it appear they were from Venus.
AGW is a lot like that. With all this guilt in addition. I think that’s why Al Gore likes it. It has such a biblical ring to it: “The Seas will Rise! Pestilence and Plague will encompass the world! Drought, Famine and war will Rule the day. God is coming, and he brings his wrath with him.”
(All you gotta do is pay me billions for your indulgences.)

@joel Shore
“However, if you are going to argue this, then what you are arguing is that you don’t believe in the positive feedbacks; you have not shown from real-world data that the earth’s climate system does not have such positive feedbacks”
Right, and neither do “I believe” in fairies living at the bottom of my garden.
In never ceases to amaze me how often the warmista numpties go on about these mythical positive feedbacks that will tip us in to climate disaster. Why should it be for any of us to prove that these positive feedbacks don’t exist? It is blindingly obvious that they do not.
The real world data suggests that the planet is quite comfortably without positive feedbacks, because if they did exist the planet would have gone into its death spin quite a long time ago, when temperatures were higher (and lower) than now, CO2 was higher (and lower) than now.
Do you really not understand the consequences of a system with positive feedbacks, whose effects outweigh negative feedbacks? You have an unstable system. The fact that the planet is still here, several billion years after it was formed must surely suggest to anyone with more than a few brain cells, that the system is fundamentally stable, even in the face of major perturbations that have occurred since its formation.
Get a brain for god’s sake and start thinking….

“crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.
Well, he isn’t seeing the entire picture in this case. We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent. What we are doing is “redistributing” that wealth from billions of individual “common” citizens into the pockets of people connected to the “climate change” industry. The money isn’t disappearing, it is simply being allocated. We are giving Jones and Mann and CRU and Tyndall and Solyndra, and others and the people that work for and invest in those organizations boatloads of cash now (that they will probably pass along to their successors) which will will take from the future earnings of our children. We are giving them hamburgers today that our children will have to pay for next Tuesday (to use a Popeye analogy). I think it is time to tell Wimpy to take a hike.
This is a global fleecing.”
I have to disagree with you crosspatch. We are in fact leaving our children poorer for the effort.
The difference is this: The redistribution does not go on to create more wealth, as normal commerce does. Government mandated redistribution allocates resources in ways that are far less efficient than the free market would have done. So yes, we are ending up poorer for the effort.
I do agree with your summation, that this is a global fleecing and agree that its time to tell them all to take a hike!
Cheers!

At my comment at 2:56pm it seems my link to a chart titled wavelengths didn’t quite work.
the link is HERE
wavelengths

We are in fact leaving our children poorer for the effort.

OUR children, yes, but not THEIR children. Who is more important, you or them? Why, them, of course! We must sacrifice our children’s future so that theirs will be a much richer future. We can’t have the families of well educated progressives actually having to work for a living, can we? That would be just horrible. They might get a blister or something at some point and have to go to a doctor.

In fact, even Richard Lindzen believes there must be a problem with the data

Can’t be a problem with the hypothesis, must be a problem with the data. Satellite data can’t find it, radiosonde data can’t find it, nothing can find it. So it must be hiding.

Joel Shore says:
December 5, 2011 at 4:39 pm
“Just because Monckton claims that the calculations include the feedbacks, it doesn’t mean that it does so correctly. In particular, in terms of water vapor: He is considering water vapor to be a forcing, not a feedback. See my comment here for further detail: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-819743”
Perhaps you can provide me a link to some evidence that suggests that even when the planet was at its coldest i.e. the “snowball Earth”, water vapor ever came close to disappearing from the atmosphere.

Sorry, folks, can’t resist:
Could the FACT that temperatures are going DOWN (instead of UP), when OCO emissions are going UP somehow demonstrate that the notion of an “atmospheric greenhouse effect” is pure nonsense? Is it remotely possible, you consensus skeptics??
ps: there are other facts that suggest the same thing, not the least of which is that there is STILL no empirical evidence of some “radiation-induced greenhouse effect.”

JT – The issue (and misrepresentation by Monckton) is that the 33C he mentioned is defined as GHG forcings plus feedbacks. Not just forcings.
Forcings include non-precipitable gases such as CO2, methane, ozone, etc. Water vapor, which changes concentration over a period of maybe 8-10 days from changes in temperature, is a feedback. Albedo, glaciation, etc., are not considered here, as per Monckton.
Now if a forcing (CO2, for example) changes, then the total climate response will also include feedback. Which Monckton flatly does not include, making his argument nonsense. He doesn’t incorporate it at all, and from this mis-representation he tries to claim climate sensitivity is extremely low.
Bad rhetorician – no donut.

crosspatch says:

I noted that idea a couple of weeks ago. If we have burned half the fossil fuel on earth, we can’t possibly add any more than we have already added. That would be the absolute limit.

Rhoda Ramirez says:

Crosspatch – I remember now that someone else also brought up the issue. But it’s important enough to repeat. The idea that mankind can double the amount of CO2 in the air is absurd and it needs to be repeated.

Ah…You do realize, I hope, that scientists have done this calculation and do not agree with you. There is an awful lot of carbon stored in coal reserves, and quite a bit also available in tar sands and other less conventional sources.

Around 0.8 Celsius of warming has occurred since 1750, of which – if the IPCC is right – 50-100% was attributable to us.

The IPCC cannot be right about this:
Most of the man-made CO2 was made after 1950.
Most or all of the warming since 1750 occurred well before 1950, in fact, much of it before 1900.
Therefore most of the warmth cannot have been caused by man-made CO2.
Unless it can be shown that most of the difference in temperature between now and 1750 occurred post 1950, than most of the rise in temperature between then and now must be caused by something other than man-made CO2.
Of course, I realize that you are talking to the usual Durban conference goer/journalist type. They claim to be on the side of science, while knowing almost nothing about it. Thus they are completely clueless in regards to past events such as the Little Ice Age, they don’t really even know much about radiative forcing. Thus, they may say they “believe” in climate change (and since when did belief have anything to do with it?) while knowing almost nothing about it. I realize that you are merely using what they have heard, and think they understand, and showing them that even if that is true, the rise in temperatures are now seen to be too small to worry about. However, after you use your argument, you might then use my argument, and show them that the 1C rise is also far to large, since something other than CO2 caused most of the rise in temperature between 1750 and 1950. Basically, you first use their own argument to tear down their argument, by showing that, using their own logic and figures, it cannot be true, and then show them real world data of the change in temperature between 1750 and 1950 to show them that even this is far to much, and thus prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that warming since 1750 cannot have been caused by man-made CO2. Basically, first tear down their belief, then replace it with another, otherwise they will simply bring the old belief back in to fill up the vacuum.
In other words, don’t just hit them with one punch, hit them with the ‘ol one-two.
Remember, they have been subjected to, and will continue to be subjected to, a ceaseless stream of warmist propaganda. You only get one shot, make it count. Otherwise, what you said will be lost and forgotten in the ceaseless chatter of continued propaganda from everyone around them.
A second thing is that you may believe that they believe in climate change intellectually, that is, they rationally decided that it was true. Wrong. They don’t think like that, they Buh-Leeeeve, they have faith, it is emotional. They hear The Great Leader tell them how they to can help “save the world” and this feels emotionally good to them, they feel that they are part of something good and useful, and they do not want to give up that feeling. You may not understand that because you decide whether something is true or false based on reason, they do not. They were not raised that way, they never grew up learning (by spanking) that actions have consequences, and that they need to control their passions and desires and subordinate them to reason (“I want to do it, but if I do it, I will get a spanking”). Thus, the way they think is almost alien to you. If you understand the way they think, it will be easier to convince them. You have taken from them their holy crusade to save the world, which feels good to them, they want that feeling back. You can give them another crusade to replace the one you took away from them, the crusade to help the poor of the world by saving the economy of the world from the collapse that must happen if we try to implement the controls that the climate crusaders demand. You can use their own words, and paint the climate dictators (which is what they are) as “the man” and use phrases like “fight the power”. All you need do is point out that they must use force on almost everyone if they are to achieve this draconian level of control, and those phrases instantly become the only appropriate ones. If they are a journalist, you can use the phrase “speak the truth to power”, painting the IPCC as “the power”, and it will hit home to them, as that is probably why they wanted to become a journalist in the first place. Now they have a new crusade, a new belief to feel good about, that heady feeling of “fight the power”, only this time, it is about something that is both true and actually useful.
Also, since these people are often not too much into logic or reason, which are verbal, take to carrying around some pictures, say, small reproductions of the many paintings made during the Little Ice Age which center on ice and snow. That will involve their right brain, the seat of their emotions, they may not remember (or understand) reason, but emotional pictures they will remember and understand.
If you don’t completely destroy, even crush, their old belief, and then replace it with a new belief, one that feels good, they will just return right back to their old belief the minute you are gone. They will hear the old propaganda, and it will stir the old good feelings in them again, and they will gravitate right back to it.

There is an awful lot of carbon stored in coal reserves, and quite a bit also available in tar sands and other less conventional sources.

But is there as much as we have already burned going back 3000 years when we first started using it to smelt copper in China? Think about all the coal and oil that has been extracted and burned going back to at least the 1700’s. The Romans were mining coal in every major coal field in England (according to Wikipedia). China’s annual coal consumption is about 3.5 times that of the US and still climbing. I am not convinced that we will produce as much CO2 as we already have.

There is an interesting powerpoint from a seminar I attended in 09 from James Murry at U Washington. It is updated and at this location: http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/faculty/jmurray/jmurray.html “Peak Oil Talk – Smith School Oct 2011”. I haven’t looked at the updates vs what was said in 09, but I recall the key elements were that none of the 40 or so CO2 emissions scenarios were supply limited and that the IPCC was using older and perhaps exaggerated resource estimates. Slide 54 in this ppt displays atmospheric CO2 concentration with time peaking at 460ppm in 2100 (MAGICC, Tom Wigley at NCAR) using updated fossil fuel estimates. Worth a look.

Ben of Houston says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Russ R, you have to initially assume a feedback of something. There is little evidence to indicate a feedback that is not close to one. Lord Monckton then compared anticipated warming given the calculation with the observed warming. Now, one point that the Viscount missed was the fact that this comparison demonstrates the feedback as well. As it was within expected range, this is strong evidence that the feedback is close to one.
The simplicity of the argument is its strength. It relies on crude approximations and does not pretend to be anything more than what it is, a crude approximation. Because we have such a crude understanding of the climate system, adding layer upon layer of complexity only causes more potential points for error. It doesn’t really add any precision.

I agree completely with your comment. Lord Monckton understands this perfectly well. We are fortunate to have such a man speaking the real inconvenient truth at Durban. Who else is there, at Durban, who will speak of realism, empirical science and the scientific method? Who else will bring up the leaked emails? Who else will expose the propaganda for what it is? We all owe LM, a debt of gratitude, for attending and voicing our concerns.
KR is just trying to confuse the issue, but it’s very simplicity shines through such argument. GK

Gail Combs,
Your trenberth cartoon analysis is faulty, see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/02/ncars-dr-kevin-treberths-ugly-intolerance-of-dissenting-views-from-other-scientists/#comment-818316

Has the earths temperature equilibrated yet with the year of 1940 contribution of extra CO2 compared to just natural contributions? How about 1941? 42? Do you see where I am going here. How long does 2 ppm of additional CO2 each year take for equilibrium to be reached? The extra CO2 now in the atmosphere assumed to be from human contributions from pre-industrial times wasn’t just dumped into the atmosphere all at once.
Has the extra CO2 from the single year of 1940 to now, that’s 70 years, reached a point where we can say the temperature with that extra years contribution of CO2 has now equilibrated? Is it less than 100 % ? if its 100%, when did it become 100% ? I guess I am asking, what’s the lag time, or what’s the mathematical formula or function for additional CO2 before temps have equilibrated.
Sorry to explain it in different ways twice, but there seem to be assumptions that there is a large amount of missing heat that the global warming theory says should be there, and it is being explained away as not showing up yet because the earth hasn’t equilibrated yet to the extra amount of CO2.
How can you use this excuse without showing any math. It isn’t science without that math.
Just to be sure you get my meaning. I don’t expect last weeks extra CO2 to have reached equilibrium, or last years, but surely the CO2 from many years ago must have most if not all of its contribution equilibrated by now.
This question is not directed to Monckton of Brenchley, but to those who use equilibrium excuses to explain away the missing heat. In other words this is probably just a rhetorical question, as I don’t expect an answer.

Nothing makes a better model of the Earth than the Earth itself. Nothing is left out and everything is to scale. The Earth has been much warmer according to the physical record and at times has had an atmosphere with a far greater proportion of carbon-dioxide. The experiment has been run repeatedly. Despite being given such assistance it, the Earth, has not tipped into irreversible thermal runaway.
(The changing position and shape of the continents should not affect the question. Continents are nothing to the mighty molecule that holds the whole Earth in its sway. Some say.)

KR [December 5, 2011 at 12:06 pm] says:
“And given the ~100ppm increase from 280 to 390, or roughly 1/3 of a doubling, a 1C increase is just about what we should expect.“

That is no doubt what *you* would expect in your CO2 obsessed fantasy world. Why do I say that? It’s simple. I say that because in that one short sentence you took not one, but *two* gigantic leaps of faith for your religious cult …
[1] You just assigned 100% (not 99% or 50% or 30%) of that alleged CO2 100ppm increase to the human industrial revolution, and nothing at all from volcanoes or LIA warmup or the 800 year lag.
[2] You just assigned 100% (not 99% or 50% or 30%) of that alleged (~average~) temperature rise to CO2 increase and nothing at all from the warmup since the LIA.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that your religion obviously implies that the Little Ice Age never even happened. We are still in the same climate as the ‘Little Ice Age’ but for man’s horrible activities which cranked up the temp a whole degree or so.
I might ask if you and your comrades would really prefer to live in the climate of the 17th or 18th or 19th centuries but you would pass it of as rhetorical and not answer anyway. Likewise I might also ask if you and your comrades would really prefer to live in a pre-industrial society with it’s dramatically shorter lifespan and complete lack of comfort. But I won’t.
This is why so many people see your green religious cult as an amalgamation of Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown (suicide) with a side order of Scientology (cash scam) thrown in.
The only way to achieve this fossil fuel-less fantasy world is to go back to candles, animal oil lamps, fur coats and fireplaces. Yeah, that’ll work well. Hundreds of millions of homes and apartment complexes in the USA, *each* with candles burning and fireplaces in use. What could possible go wrong! Entire cities will burn to the ground once again. And there’s this, consider what happens when we cut all the forests down to get wood (forests that have benefited immensely by the sane and logical move to *fossil* fuels), CO2 levels will increase anyway because we will destroy more natural carbon sinks. Congratulations!
The only other possible scenario involves liquidating more people than Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot ever dreamed by several orders of magnitude. Is that where green takes us? Of course it is.

Monckton of Brenchley:
We have your back. Do not be overly concerned by trolls and detractors here. We will deal with them. Concentrate on your Durban mission. The world is being slowly strangled, not by CO2, but by evil, corrupted men, who have designs on the very freedoms they are exploiting.
I may be an old man, but when I grow up, I want to be just like you… fearless and wise. GK

KR/Vince Causey– you 2 may have started a polite discussion let me add this I am a skeptic of C-AGW. Catastrophic — AGW. I find the most credible skeptics Lindzen, Crichton and –yes– good Lord Monckton. The physics of AGW is sound, and so is the 1.2C limit of temp increase from doubling CO2. That’s AGW theory. Where does “C” come from? Feedbacks. Where does the the 3.3C runaway global warming come from? MODEL OUTPUT! KR, you have to admit these facts, so your belief structure is based on model output. So, where does model output come from? Depends. Does the model take real data and make logical sense of it? Those models do exist– because of engineering models planes fly and bridges stand without having to use trial and error. Other models are suspect– take for example the Mortgage Backed Securities risk model ca. 2005 — how did that end up? So KR, since your belief structure is tied up in these feedback models, you may want to examine their validity. We know Mann’s dendrothermometer model suffered from dubious data and fraudulent cherry picking data. You’ll find that the IPCC models do the same with regard to positive feedback assumptions to get to 3.3C, in order to get to CATASTROPHIC GW, because if it isn’t Ctastrophic, no one will give them any money or power. Carry on.

rep49 says:
December 6, 2011 at 8:43 am
Jack Greer says: December 6, 2011 at 8:16 am “…well-reasoned critic…”
Jack, in a masochistic half-hour last night I viewed “Potholer”‘s videos. The man is a dishonest hack playing “gotcha” with a sincere sounding, plummy voice (and as they say, “once you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made”). It constantly amazes me how folks like you can swallow drivel like that with relish and then congratulate yourselves on your critical thinking skills. Potholer is a professional journalist, Jack. Does that give you a clue?

Drat! I neglected to include the link, above. Here it is- in fact, here THEY are, as the debate technique is featured in part 2:
1 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyk3rSqjgsY&feature=related
2 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxCRtGMB-A&feature=related
3 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arkBsZTO_0w&feature=related
4 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW1HR8zU0MU&feature=related
5 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGiWy0DGJ9s&feature=related
Yes, Monckton has a degree in journalism and therefore should know better – I think that’s addressed in clip 5.
rep49, and I mean this in the most serious way, if the skeptics here at WUWT can view these videos and not clearly see Monckton’s technique of, in my opinion, intentional deception, my goodness, there’s no hope for you as reasonable, thinking individuals. Seriously.

View from the Solent. Great link to the Guardian article. CO2 increased by half in 20 years.
Question: If CO2 causes AGW because of man. And the scientist at the CRU tell us the earth is going to heat up. We should have seen same warming in the last 20 years, if CO2 has increased by half in 20 years.
Where is the warming?
My conclusion: CO2 does not cause AGW.

“As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.”
Hear, hear… Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley !

John Marshall says:
December 6, 2011 at 2:42 am
Even Lord Monkton has it wrong.
Take all the ‘greenhouse gasses’ out of the atmosphere and the temperature WOULD REMAIN THE SAME. Because the extra temperature that alarmists accuse GHG’s to supply comes from adiabatic compression. Why does a ‘fridge work? Adiabatic compression and contraction. Why does a bicycle pump get hot when pumping up a tyre? Adiabatic compression.

John,
You included your own counter-argument. Touch a bicycle tire a few minutes after pumping it up. It has the same pressure as the gas in the pump at the last stroke. But it isn’t hot. It’s the act of INCREASING the pressure in the pump that causes the temperature increase, not the pressure itself. Pumping requires work, and that work gets converted into heat energy that can be felt on the bicycle pump walls, and gets radiated away quickly by the tire walls. Therefore the adiabatic compression argument does not work because the pressure at each altitude is approximately constant and not changing (no energy expended).

@Robert E. Phelan says:
December 6, 2011 at 9:36 am
The videos document cold, hard facts and techniques that I have witnessed first hand in live interviews with Monckton. It’s not confirmation bias, it’s blatantly obvious to reasonable people, Robert. Fabricated quotes, constantly misrepresenting scientific articles, being corrected fabricated quotes or by article authors re: misrepresentations but then proceeding with continued offenses, complete misunderstanding of fundamental climate scientific findings, and on infinitum. I’ve heard him make statements in radio interviews on a given scientific topic that is designed to generate a specific impression. Invariably when a knowledgeable listener calls and challenges Monckton’s claim he backtracks with a knowing comment that leaves a different, more accurate impression. In other words, he misleads with absolute intent. He does it continually and you folks are like zombies oblivious to damning evidence that expose Monckton for what he is … a showman and charlatan with a mission.

Joel Shore,
“However, if you are going to argue this, then what you are arguing is that you don’t believe in the positive feedbacks; you have not shown from real-world data that the earth’s climate system does not have such positive feedbacks (which is what Monckton is essentially claiming to have shown).”
No, it has nothing to do with “belief” in positive feedbacks or not, Monckton could just be showing that the earth does not have NET positive feedback, which is the key scientific dispute. Even though water vapor is a positive feedback, there is no evidence that the net feedback of the water cycle taken as a whole is positive rather than negative in the current climate regime. ALL the AR4 climate models under represented the increase in precipitation associated with the warming by more than a factor of two, see Wentz’s publication in Science (2007). A couple more turns of the water cycle can transport a lot of heat higher in the troposphere. The surface albedo feedback is positive too, but ALL the models are correlated in under representing that as well, while allegedly “matching” the climate doubling the error with some other component (thinking linearly). (Andreas Roesch 2007). The models eventually catch up with the surface feedback and run wild after 2050 or so. Just about every other significant feedback in the climate system is negative, it is a heat engine after all, transporting heat to higher altitudes and poleward to radiate it into space. Clouds are probably the biggest area of uncertainty, the albedo of the earth without them is much lower 0.09 to 0.14, giving a planck temperature of just below freezeing globally average. So the much warmer tropics would be liberating a lot of water vapor even without CO2, snowball earth is not a forgone conclusion.
If you have any conclusive model independent evidence that the NET feedback to CO2 forcing in the current climate regime is positive rather than negative then you know something the rest of the climate community doesn’t, and we would all hope that you would share it.

Juraj V. says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:37 am
Take all the greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keep the Earth’s albedo magically the same as today’s. How much cooler would it be? All are agreed that it would be around 33 Celsius degrees cooler.
————————
I do not agree.
1/ That 33K is non-physical nonsense, calculating Earth without “greenhouse gases” but still considering albedo of 0.3, which is made mostly by clouds (=condensed greenhouse gas).
Of course the removal of greenhouse gasses without affecting albedo is impossible. But Monckton’s argument still works. Its like the mathematical device of the values i and j – i.e. the square root of minus one etc. Impossible. But used in mathematical derivations they produce valid results.

Joel Shore,
If evolution loses to creationism in a debate, it is probably because the person supporting the evolution side assumed the other person was stupid, and so didn’t prepare. People who believe in creationism are modern humans just like the rest of us, if evolution and anthropology have taught us anything, it is don’t underestimate a modern human.

@ John Marshall (December 6, 2011 at 2:42 am):
I agree. It is all in the atmosphere’s mass, therefore pressure. Vastly different molecular species of the other planet’s and moon’s atmospheres with vastly different mean molecular weights but the temperature is per the pressure and especially if you apply the density-at-pressure-level correction (mass attenuation coefficient).
Thanks for highlighting that “inconvenient” fact from the astrophysics side. C. Monckton is correct on the political and policy side, shut them all down, but still off on the science side explanation, he’s still hanging out that “carbon dioxide warms planetary atmospheres” notion (really, any GHG).
GHG’s only speed energy transfer by high emissivity radiation lines across space (distance) compared to conduction, convection and/or state changes of matter and in the end, all energy leaves by it. All matter radiates when above absolute zero depending solely on its locally corrected emissivity. All gases absorb energy by mass extinction coefficient even if there are no emission lines present in a molecular species. There are so many hidden truths being totally ignored by both sides.
On Christopher’s side though I think he clearly placed bounds on what he was explaining above. Explicitly no GHG’s but the albedo remaining identical. That is the key (and rather nonsensical).
With no GHG’s there would be no clouds, so up the TSI reaching the surface. Also if no GHG’s, no evaporation/transpiration, so decrease energy leaving the surface by the hydro cycle. Thermals would still occur, leave that in. Yes more would radiate directly to space (390-239) but that does not immediately imply cooler for the increased solar radiation and decreased movement by the water cycle would more than compensate that 151 Wm-2, offset by the 79+80 or 159 Wm-2 per TKF(2009) graphic, I see most likely a bit warmer with no GHG’s, not cooler. (I hear rumbles, heresy! Ok, how about no change at all)
Real physics is so symmetrical !! (maybe that’s why I always see these pesky equal signs everywhere, darn them. Could conjure up one scary universe without them.☺)

KR says: December 5, 2011 at 12:45 pm
quote
But – a big part of that 33C is water vapor and clouds, which change concentration in the atmosphere as feedbacks (as a rough approximation, relative humidity remains close to constant with long duration temperature changes, while relative/absolute humidity increases with temperature).
unquote
It is entirely possible that we have altered the way that water vapour is controlled by natural processes — for example, altering the number and/or composition and size of aerosols may change the precipitation regime, with concomitant effects on humidity. Removing hygroscopic particles, for instance, slows the uptake of water vapour. This means that water vapour might well be a forcing (in the ghastly parlance of climate change) and as such would invalidate your calculations above. Not only water vapour, of course, the effect on clouds would be even more pronounced.
Interesting graphs earlier with humidity at low level remaining steady (no slope on the grapph, I’d guess a very slow rise) while higher up humidity is falling. WTH is going on there?
One of the more unconvincing aspects of climate science is how capacious it is — if a paper appeared tomorrow showing a large forcing from e.g. agricultural dust, then by nightfall the new forcing would be incorporated into the scheme and the calculated sensitivity would remain unchanged. It’s like some mysterious and mystic bag which the conjurer can fill with anything and still pull out the same tired old rabbit.
JF

KR,
Ben Santer is an a$$. He say he needs 17 years to predict trends. Nonsense. Did anyone ask why? The reality is the temperature actually stopped climbing in 1995 except for the “Super Nina” year of 1998. That is weather NOT climate, as even the charlatans of EAU and PSU freely admit.
So we have temperature stasis or decline since 1995. 2012 -1995 equals 17 years, Mr. Santer.
Match. Set. Game!!.
I look forward to Mr. Santer entering unsubsidized retirement and doing Science as was done for Millenia by disinterested and unsubsidized true Scientists, post november 2012. I’d actually like to see what he says when he is not induced by money to say one thing.

Vince Causey says:
December 6, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Jack Greer,
“In other words, he misleads with absolute intent. He does it continually and you folks are like zombies oblivious to damning evidence that expose Monckton for what he is … a showman and charlatan with a mission.”
And what is your mission here, Jack?
Apart from a litany of ad hominem attacks you have not given even one example of these “Fabricated quotes”, or that he is “constantly misrepresenting scientific articles.” […etc.]

Hey Vince, I made it easy enough for you already. I posted 5 videos worth of actual examples, above. Take a few minutes and view them.
The mission is to expose a fraud so that attention can be refocused toward constructive examination of climate issues.

Martin Lewitt says:

No, it has nothing to do with “belief” in positive feedbacks or not, Monckton could just be showing that the earth does not have NET positive feedback, which is the key scientific dispute.

You can’t demonstrate something by assuming it to be true, which is what Monckton’s argument here is doing…It is completely circular.

If you have any conclusive model independent evidence that the NET feedback to CO2 forcing in the current climate regime is positive rather than negative then you know something the rest of the climate community doesn’t, and we would all hope that you would share it.

The subject of this thread is not to prove to your satisfaction whether or not the net feedback is positive. There is plenty of evidence that it is, as discussed in the IPCC report, but the subject of the current discussion is something much more basic, which is whether Monckton has succeeded in showing that it isn’t. And, the answer is that he hasn’t…He has just made some major blunders.

Joel,
Thanks for the link. I can see from Trenberth’s radiation budget that there is about 360 watts per metre squared of back radiation due to greenhouse gases. This, I presume, is what they call “forcing” of greenhouse gases.
The problem is, this gives a climate sensitivity of 33k/360watts or 0.091k per watt of forcing, which gives an even lower sensitivity than Monckton is claiming.

Jack Greer,
“Hey Vince, I made it easy enough for you already. I posted 5 videos worth of actual examples, above. Take a few minutes and view them.”
I have viewed the first one. Interesting points were made, but the overall impression I came away with is mostly nit picking, although the cynic in me would say “pot is calling the kettle black.”
What have we got here then? Monckton cherry picked start and end points to support a conclusion of cooling? You don’t say! Can we apply the same even handedness to Michael Manns hockey stick and other studies? No, thought not. None of this however will alter the fact that there has been no temperature increase since 1998.
He also launches into righteous indignation about misquoting from a scientific report on Greenland ice. To see such righteous indignation from him is amusing, because he says nothing – I mean nothing – about the raft of misquoted papers that have been published in the IPCC.
See the thread on WUWT “IPCC Brand Science™ – extrapolating 10 himalayan glaciers to speak for 54,000 – meanwhile Himalayagate 2 is evolving over the Stern Report” to see how the Asia group misrepresents the Stern report which in turns misrepresents the Barnett paper on Himalayan glaciers. They are other examples too, including Amazon rainforest.
The rest of the video seemed to consist of some general muck raking over Monckton’s past, or his qualifications.
Well, people are entitled to their opinion. If you like to think of Monckton as a showman and charlatan, that’s your privilege. However, please remove the plank from thine own eye before trying to remove the speck from mine.
And nobody here is sceptical of AGW because they have seen Monckton give a lecture and have suddenly “seen the light.” We have been following debates here at WUWT for quite a while and looking at the evidence from all sides, and the evidence on the AGW side has been found wanting. If you want to change peoples minds, I would suggest spending more time presenting the science, and less chasing after Monckton. I guess the same goes for that pothole bloke who seems to be suffering from some kind of obsessive disorder.
All I want to say is just open your mind and apply your criticisms even handedly to both sides of the debate, if you can.

Joel Shore says:
December 6, 2011 at 1:09 pm
True, but you have to add the w.a.g. IPCC feedbacks to the direct CO2 forcing, and the historical record does not support that, as Monckton pointed out. Hell Joel we do not even know how long at what levels CO2 forcing is lograrythmic, 1 ppm to 2 ppm? 5 ppm to 10ppm?, 500 to 1000?. It truly is a WAG and nothing to base global policy on, as the world is not conforming to the predicted disasters.

Joel Shore,
“the climate response to the Mt Pinatubo eruption or the temperature diference between the LGM (last glacial maximum) and now” don’t give you a sensitivity to CO2 forcing in the current climate regime. Aerosols and solar are coupled quite differently to the climate system than a well mixed greenhouse gas like CO2, and there is climate mode change between the LGM and now. The IPCC just doesn’t have any evidence for a high sensitivity to CO2 relevant to the next century or two.

Here it is for you Vince, you also Jack if you wish to be fair. It is after all 83 pages of on point and detailed answer to every accusation you have publicly made, so in fairness you owe it to the man to read it, and perhaps your anger will be redirected to tha accusers.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/monckton-warm-abra-qq2.pdf

Martin Lewitt says:

“the climate response to the Mt Pinatubo eruption or the temperature diference between the LGM (last glacial maximum) and now” don’t give you a sensitivity to CO2 forcing in the current climate regime. Aerosols and solar are coupled quite differently to the climate system than a well mixed greenhouse gas like CO2, and there is climate mode change between the LGM and now.

There is no evidence from the known physics that there is any dramatic climate sensitivity change between going up from the current climate and going down. It is true that ice albedo feedbacks may be a bit stronger in the cooler climate; however, working the other way is the fact that water vapor feedback tends to get stronger in a warmer climate and that most of the calculations of the difference between the LGM climate and now consider the much of the ice-albedo effects as forcings, not feedbacks.
There is also not much evidence that one sort of radiative forcing (such as solar) is much more effective than another sort of radiative forcing and good reason to believe that they act fairly similarly. One of the ironies in these sorts of discussions is that you often have AGW skeptics make comments to the effect of “Why do the climate scientists attach positive feedbacks to CO2 and not to other mechanisms” when the truth is that it is the climate scientists who treat the mechanisms equally and some skeptics who are desperately looking for ways to selectively magnify any forcing other than that from CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
There are certainly uncertainties associated with the grand climate experiment that we are currently carrying out, but these uncertainties cut in both directions. Maybe it will miraculously turn out to be less severe than we are expecting…but maybe it will be worse.

@Vince Causey says: (and David)
December 6, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Vince, watch the remaining videos with a critical, fair eye – it won’t take that long. It shouldn’t be someone like me pointing out the rubbish – It’s people like you who should be taking out your own trash. Trying to justify Monckton’s actions with the “oh yeah, did you see what they did?” defense is itself a dishonest exercise.
I have seen Monckton’s replies to Abraham. I think that after viewing the videos you should judge for yourself if Monckton directly, accurately, and persuasively addresses the actual core points levied against him.

Lord Monckton’s argument is scientifically invalidated from the impossibility of refuting an assumption that is a premise to his argument by reference to empirical data. Monckton’s “climate sensitivity parameter” is the ratio of the rise in the equilibrium temperature at Earth’s surface to the rise in the radiative forcing. Monckton assumes this ratio to be a constant but there are other possibilities. One is that the ratio is variable. Another is that the equilibrium temperature varies independently with respect to the radiative forcing. In the latter case, the magnitude of the radiative forcing provides no information about the magnitude of the equilibrium temperature.
Were we to try to refute Monckton’s assumption of a constant ratio, we would find this impossible, for the equilibrium temperature is not an observable feature of the real world. Monckton’s assertion of a constant value of 0.33 Celsius per Watt per square meter for the climate sensitivity parameter is not a scientific hypothesis from its lack of refutability.

“As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.”
NICE! Repeated here for effect.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Terry Oldberg,
“Monckton assumes this ratio to be a constant but there are other possibilities. One is that the ratio is variable.”
There isn’t a time element in Monckton’s calculation. Since no one is claiming that we started from a no GHG data point, the calculation should be taken as a gross assessment or argument, a common sense argument appealing to linear thinking. Obviously, while it may be unsettling because it perhaps coincidentally lines up with the consensus direct effect of CO2, it doesn’t settle the matter, as you note, the ratio may be variable. We are in a very interesting part of the Clausius–Clapeyron relation for water as Wentz reported in the journal Science (2007). The observations and the models both agree that the water vapor increased 15% during the recent warming. However, the models only had precipitation increasing 7%, while the observed increase was 15%. Such a proportionate speedup in the water cycle and the failure of the models leave wide open the plausibility that the “variable” ratio will be in the net negative feedback direction. We don’t know what the net feedback to CO2 forcing is, but null hypothesis probably should be that it is negative or minimally positive, since the main mechanism for any feedback to CO2 is from its temperature effect, and we’ve had temperatures sampling warmer parts of the Clausius–Clapeyron relation in both this and past inter-glacials. The diagnostic literature shows the models are not yet ready, and the model independent analyses of scientists like Lindzen and Spenser suggest that the feedback is negative.

Joel Shore,
“Sorry, Vince, but you still aren’t accounting for the water vapor feedback.”
Yes, I am well aware of that, but this thread was about Monckton’s original thesis – that if the total greenhouse forcing was 100 watts and the temperature rise is 33k, then the sensitivity due to the ghg’s is 0.33k per watt. You argued that that 100 watts included feedbacks, and then linked to the Trenberth paper. Table 3 showed that the clear air forcing was around 150 watts instead of 100. The table makes no reference to feedbacks, only forcings.
To redo the calculations, I used the portion of ghg forcing due to co2 – 29 watts, and apportioned accordingly. Admittedly the real situation is more complicated, and would include feedbacks. But that wasn’t the basis of Monckton’s argument – only to compare forcings. You say that my results are incorrect because I have left out feedbacks. But that is the limitation of this type of back-of-envelope calculations. We don’t know what the feedbacks are, or what their function of non-condensable ghg’s are.
You can assume that the forcing due to water – 71watts according to Trenberth – is entirely a result of the presence of co2, in which case feedbacks make a huge amplification. Or you could say that the water vapour would be there without co2, in which case my calculation has left out a non-existent feedback. Either way, it is an open question, and probably proves the futility of these types of calculations.

“”””” Joel Shore says:
December 5, 2011 at 11:50 am
KR says:
“…and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.”
~1.1 to 1.2°C warming for a doubling of CO2 is exactly what the science says – prior to feedbacks! The feedbacks are what are expected to take matters to 3.3°C – and while the exact magnitude of feedbacks can be discussed, Monckton is simply ignoring them here.
Just to clarify what KR says here: Some might argue that, for example, the calculation includes the water vapor feedback. After all, Monckton imagined removing the water vapor too. However, this point-of-view is incorrect. In order to correctly account for the water vapor feedback, you have to treat it as a feedback and not a forcing as Monckton has done. (Willis Eschenbach came up with a similar argument to Monckton’s, which had the same sort of error in it.) “””””
Come on Joel; I don’t know about KR; but I DO know that ypou are a lot smarter than that.
The ONLY “feedback” that is of any consequence, is the feedback from changes in atmospheric GHGs, and the primary climate “forcing” which drives the whole system; namely the direct solar energy input from the sun.
Wentz et al proved (SCIENCE July 7, 2007) that a one degree rise in mean global surface Temperature results in a 7% increase in total g;lobal evaporation, total global atmospheric water content, and total global precipitation; (which of necessity must equal total evaporation). Well proved in the sense that that is what was observed on planet earth. The GCMs; well at least some of the 13 or so you can take your pick from to get the result you want, agreed on the total water content, but only “predict”/project/ guess/whatever, the evap/precip to be 1-3%; not the observed 7%.
That’s as much as a factor of seven error between the guesstimates, and the observed; but of course preserves the obligatory climatism 3:1 fudge factor.
So the principal result of a Temperature change (upwards) is a massive infusion of H2O, into the atmosphere; which is well known to absorb copious amounts of incoming solar energy, and lead to the loss of at least half of it back to space.that is a massive negative feedback regulation of the earth surface Temperature.
Between more water vapor and more clouds (which for some reason seem to go hand in hand with precipiitation), the earth extremes of Temperature are likely to remain within the comfortable range from -90 deg C to +60 deg C that we presently enjoy.

@ Dave Wendt:
December 6, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Very good information there Dave. That E&P extended abstract has supplied me with some missing relations and hard numbers that I had been searching for. Thanks for that link. Your thoughts, as you said, so logical that much truth lies there, and if only they could extend that research across many latitudes so a curve could be plotted per season, and then integrated, not merely an average. The view of global parameters would surely be different than those currently held by the ‘consensus’.

Monckton says:
December 6, 2011 at 12:12 am
Finally, I understand that someone called “Potholer” has produced some sneering videos about me. I have looked at a few minutes of one of these, which seems rather intellectually dishonest. “The pothead takes me to task, inappropriately, for having said (correctly) that I had given advice to Margaret Thatcher on various scientific matters, including climate change, on the ground that “my supporters” had in his view mischaracterized the position by referring to me as her “science advisor”.
The potboiler also said that I had claimed in 2009 that global cooling since 2001 had been statistically significant, but that I had rebutted myself the following year by saying the cooling since 2001 had been insignificant. To 2009 the cooling had indeed been significant, but the rapid warming of 2010 meant that the trend from 2001-2010 was insignificant: both my statements, therefore, were correct, and they were not incompatible with one another.
I was disinclined to look any further at that drivel. Given the amount of time the pinhead seems to devote to such nonsense, one wonders who is paying him. Perhaps he is convincing the usual suspects, but on the little I have seen he is unlikely to convince anyone else.
==========================================================================
The comment regarding significant cooling from Jan 2001 relates to the graph shown at 0.36 on the video here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNI19Z-LUjo&feature=related
Please note that the graph finishes at Dec 2009. The comments were made at a presentation he gave in Melbourne on 1 February 2010.
The comment regarding insignificant cooling from Jan 2001 relates to the graph shown at 2.21 on the video here : http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#p/a/u/1/9K74fzNAUq4
Please note that the graph finishes at July 2009. The comments were made at a presentation he gave at Bethel University on 14 October 2009.
Monckton states in his reply above that both comments are correct as the rapid warming of 2010 meant that the trend from 2001 to 2010 was insignificant.
What he has failed to realise is that both graphs do not include any data from 2010 and that both statements were made well before data from 2010 was available. What magical powers does Monckton possess that enables him to see twelve to fifteen months into the future?
I get the impression he is just making it all up or he does not have a clue about the subject. His response above indicates he is just trying to bluff his way out of it.
Also “potholer54” in his video refers to him as simply “Monckton”. Monckton’s response refers to “potholer54” as “the Pothead”, “the potboiler” and “pinhead”. Says a lot really.
Monckton should watch the whole video. Potholer54 makes him an offer. Given Monckton’s predisposition towards threatening such actions I would hope he follows through.

Joel Shore says,
“…George, these things can be calculated and the effect of water vapor on outgoing longwave radiation is larger than the effect on incoming shortwave radiation. So no, water vapor is not a negative feedback.
Clouds are admittedly more uncertain but your simplistic views of how cloudiness will change are just that…Way too simplistic. Besides which, the details turn out to be important: Low clouds have a net cooling effect on the earth because the albedo effect on shortwave is greater than their effect on outgoing longwave radiation, whereas high clouds have a net warming effect because the opposite is true…”
Joel as this post showed you,( David says: December 7, 2011 at 5:47 am ) we do not know the residence time of the SW spectrum modification of energy entering the ocean, which up to 1% of TSI can penetrate up to 300 meters deep in the oceans, so the short term feedback can be positive, the long term negative. So a smaller reduction in a longer residince time energy can, over time, have a greater affect then a larger change which primarily affects the atmosphere. The oceans are a far more potent GHG then the atmosphere. Also watervapor feedback may vary. In the tropics TSI at the surface can be reduced 20%, over 200 WsqM. As for clouds we certainly do not know, but Lindzen makes a convincing case of negative feedback overall using observations.

David says:

As for clouds we certainly do not know, but Lindzen makes a convincing case of negative feedback overall using observations.

Last time I checked, his analysis was so unconvincing that even Roy Spencer didn’t buy it.
@george E Smith: You have really gone off the deep end with your claims. The high cloud / low cloud stuff is accepted by ever serious scientist, including Spencer and Lindzen. And, when you say GHGs “simply delay the exit of that LWIR energy” as an excuse for ignoring the radiative forcings this produces, you are getting into territory of the SkyDragon Slayers, which is even nuttier. I’ve pledged to myself in this thread that in this thread I would ignore those who deny the existence of the greenhouse effect (like wayne, jae, and John Marshall as they are beyond hope and I think most people here know they are spouting nonsense).
At any rate, as I said, I am glad to see that we seem to have arrived at a consensus that Monckton’s post here presents a hopelessly-flawed analysis…At least nobody seems to be defending Monckton’s original arguments. That, at least, is progress.

Sorry about the typos, especially plant instead of planet!!

Joel Shore says:
December 7, 2011 at 4:42 pm
David says:
As for clouds we certainly do not know, but Lindzen makes a convincing case of negative feedback overall using observations.
Last time I checked, his analysis was so unconvincing that even Roy Spencer didn’t buy it.
Roy Spencer is an honest scientist, unlike some of your heros. Last I checked he answered his critics, accepted some of the criticism and adjusted accordingly, like an honest scientist, made no attempt to excomunicate anyone from the scientific community, and his main conclusions based on observations, not failed models (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/07/tisdale-schools-the-website-skeptical-science-on-co2-obsession/ ) hold as valid.

“”””” @george E Smith: You have really gone off the deep end with your claims. The high cloud / low cloud stuff is accepted by ever serious scientist, including Spencer and Lindzen. “””””
Well Joel, that statement is false; because I am a very serious scientist and I don’t accept it.
The thesis as presented in well known climatism text books (that have beed referenced several times at WUWT) is that clouds either cool the surface or warm the surface, depending on their altitude. The lower the clouds are, the more they cool the surface, and the higher the clouds are, the more they warm the surface, so there is a magic altitude at which clouds neither cool, nor warm the surface.
That is what ever serious scientist believes as you put it.
Simple geometrical optics puts the lie to that thesis. Because the sun is a near point source (0.5 deg divergence), ANY cloud at ANY height casts a shadow on the ground that is a rough image of the cloud, and yes it will have a penumbral edge that varies with cloud height, because of that divergence.
But the outgoing LWIR radiation is not a point source; it is at least Lambertian (cosine intensity distruibution), and likely to be closer to isotropic, since the surface is not an optical surface.
So the inverse square law works fully, and the energy intercepted by a cloud drops off with the square of the altitude. The cloud itself, as an LWIR emitter (as a consequence of its Temperature), is also an isotropic source, and the irradiance of the ground from that source also drops off with the square of the cloud altitude, so the higher the cloud is, the smaller the LWIR energy it intercepts, and the colder it gets, so it radiates at a lower intensity in the IR, and that is spread over an increasingly large surface area, the higher the cloud is. The higher the cloud, the lower its density specially of H2O molecules, so the less LWIR it can absorb and also emit.
If your theory was correct, then the high noctilucent clouds should be frying all of us.
Add to that the simple fact, that even you Joel can’t deny, that the Temperature ALWAYS drops in the shadow zone, whenever a cloud passes in front of the sun; it NEVER increases under those conditions.
Yes Joel it IS true, that high clouds and warm balmy nights go together; that old saw has been reported here ad nauseum.
BUT !! it is the heat and humidity during the previous day, that RESULTS in the formation of that cloud at night, when the daytime evaporated moisture rises, and cools, until it reaches the dew point and forms a cloud. And it was that heat during the day, that resulted in the balmy night; not the cloud. The high cloud is the result of the surface warmth; it is NOT the cause of it,
And the hotter it is during the day (so the night will be warmer), the higher the water vapor has to rise before it cools to the dew point so the cloud that forms at night will be higher.
I know that even you can understand this Joel; the heat and humidity of the day, results in the cloud at night; it ALWAYS cools down after sunset; it NEVER heats up after sunset, and the hotter the day is (with some water) the higher will be the cloud formed at night, and of course the warmer the evening will be.
The cloud DOES NOT heat the surface; the surface heat forms the cloud.

Aggggh..
the Water Cycle cools the Earth by 52°C, from 67%deg;C it would be without the water cycle, but with the rest of the atmosphere in place, to Earth as we have now 15°C., which is 33°C difference between Earth without any atmosphere at all, -18°C, and Earth with the atmosphere as we have it, 15°C.
Sorry, I’d written that in my mind, and surprised to find it wasn’t typed… 🙂

RE: Main Article
“When a journalist with South Africa’s national broadcaster interviewed me in the conference center, I told him the climate scam was just that – a scam. He replied that that was a merely emotional argument.”
I think this is an indication of how easy it is to assume that it should now be obvious to everyone that the danger of anthropogenic carbon dioxide has been grossly overstated, when full belief in that danger is still alive and well in the press, and with many otherwise well informed people. Political candidates are still characterized as right-wing ideologues if they do not accept this flawed belief.

George E. Smith said: “The cloud itself, as an LWIR emitter (as a consequence of its Temperature), is also an isotropic source, and the irradiance of the ground from that source also drops off with the square of the cloud altitude, so the higher the cloud is, the smaller the LWIR energy it intercepts, and the colder it gets, so it radiates at a lower intensity in the IR, and that is spread over an increasingly large surface area, the higher the cloud is.”
That’s right. The downwelling longwave radiation spreads over a larger surface. But it contributes the same amount of flux over this larger surface. The *totality* of the downwelling radiation still reaches the ground, doesn’t it (neglecting non-cloud GHG effects, and Earth curvature effects)? So, while the warming effect sensed (or measured) by an observer located below the cloud would diminish if that cloud were moved up to an higher altitude, a larger area would be affected. And the effect integrated over the whole surface area will be the same. You observed also that the warming from an overcast cloud never exceeds the cooling effect in the shadow zone. But this is irrelevant to determining which one of the two effects is largest overall. That’s because the cooling effect is restricted to the shadow zone while the warming effect must be integrated over (1) a much larger zone and (2) over a whole 24 hours period. After sunset, the cooling effect drops to zero and the warming effect only diminishes slightly.