Feedback about feedbacks and suchlike fooleries

The working definition of “troll” that Monckton seems to be using is someone who actually injects science into his posts. I will respond to this latest piece of nonsense once I am back home with access to a reasonable computer.

The 33 K claimed GHG warming is an elementary mistake. It’s obtained by imagining that if you remove all the atmosphere the surface temperature of the Earth would be the same -18°C it is at present for radiative equilibrium of the composite emitter at the top of the atmosphere with space.
Wrong: the albedo of the Earth would fall from 0.3 to 0.07 because there’d be no clouds or ice. Redo the radiation calculation and the equilibrium radiative solution is close to 0°C.
That means the maximum present GHG warming is 15°C. Redo the calculation for the remaining aerosols and realistic convection and it falls to ~9°C. So you scale all IPCC claims by 9/33. But there’s more. Because the net AIE is slightly positive [incorrect aerosol optical physics], you lose at least another 44% [median AR4]. So, the real scaling factor is 1/6.7 =~ 0.15.
That means maximum CO2 climate sensitivity =~0.45 K. I’ll leave the other major errors until later so as not to upset oxymoronic climate science too much before the end of 2011….;o)

I am very interested to see how the Unified Climate Theory folks back up their 100k greater figure since as Christopher Monckton points out, till that little change in conventional wisdom is explained the rest of the UCT may just be added whimsey.
Yet, since this earth with no atmosphere temp figure is so far different from conventional wisdom, I would think the authors would have realized this and not published unless they a good basis for challenging that bit of CW.
Still, even if the UCT is wrong, their points of CO2 levels being an effect of temp rather than a cause will finally have to be addressed as the team and others critique their coming papers.
Personally I hope the lower 100k figure is right. Wouldn’t that rock climate science to the core!

We do the math backwards and forwards and in various different forms and it always comes out the same. We look at the actual observations of the climate so far, backwards and forwards and in various different ways and it provides the same answer.
Either the low sensitivity value is right or the climate has magical properties that will be revealed later.

The army of light and truth, however few we be, will quietly triumph over the forces of darkness in the end: for, whether they like it or not, the unalterable truth cannot indefinitely be confused, concealed, or contradicted. We did not make the laws of science: therefore, it is beyond our power to repeal them.
A real and literal “apocalypse”: A Revelation from above: The darkest hours of night are those which precede dawn.
This is why some “photophobic” creatures are so scared 🙂

Lord Monkton,
Thankyou for pointing me in the direction of the Joanne Nova post on the subject. I shall duly examine it.
May I take it that the use of the word “fragrant” perhaps heralds a change of career, into the Judiciary ?

“CFL bulbs are a genuine improvement on those small glowing electric fires for most uses.”
Until they fail or break. Then you have a situation that, normally, would have Greens demanding government action.

Mydogsgotnonose says:
December 30, 2011 at 9:24 am
“The 33 K claimed GHG warming is an elementary mistake. It’s obtained by imagining that if you remove all the atmosphere the surface temperature of the Earth would be the same -18°C it is at present for radiative equilibrium of the composite emitter at the top of the atmosphere with space.”
Fact: The earth and the moon are made of the same rocks.
Fact: The measured average temperature of the moon is 250K.
The above observations were obtained by Apollo missions to the moon.
So if we strip the earth of its atmosphere and ocean its albedo and distance from the sun will be the same as the moon and it should therefore have the same average temperature. This is pretty close to the calculated value of 255K for the earth sans greenhouse gases and ocean.
The problem I have is that the ocean is neglected as a source of greenhouse warming. Water is transparent to shortwave and opaque to longwave. It is that combination of transparency and opacity at incoming and outgoing radiative frequencies respectively that makes a greenhouse gas a greenhouse gas. Water is a greenhouse fluid. Moreover, unlike the combination of GHGs in the atmosphere, liquid water’s opacity to longwave infrared is complete across the LWIR spectrum. As well, just the first 10 meters of the ocean has as much mass and twice the heat capacity as the entire column of air above it. Furthermore the ocean’s albedo is far lower than rocks and when the sun is directly overhead and the water calm its albedo is nearly zero. All these factors combine to make the ocean, so long as it is liquid, the major source of greenhouse warming.
The greenhouse gases above the ocean have little effect because so-called back-radiation is completely absorbed in a skin layer just a few microns thick. This does little more than raise the evaporation rate. Indeed if one examines ocean heat budget studies in the literature one finds that fully 70% of ocean heat loss is latent (i.e. evaporation), 20% is radiative, and 5% is conductive. This is quite unlike how land surfaces heat and cool where greenhouse gases do have a significant effect on surface air temperature.
Once a person understands the great difference between how land and water heat and cool then all the observations start making perfect sense.
“Wrong: the albedo of the Earth would fall from 0.3 to 0.07 because there’d be no clouds or ice. Redo the radiation calculation and the equilibrium radiative solution is close to 0°C.”
Albedo would only fall that low if the ocean was still there but if you’re subtracting clouds and ice it seems you must also subtract surface water too otherwise you will have clouds and ice. Absent clouds, ice, and oceans the earth’s albedo would presumably be the same as the moon which is 0.16 since they’re made of the same materials.
“That means the maximum present GHG warming is 15°C. Redo the calculation for the remaining aerosols and realistic convection and it falls to ~9°C. So you scale all IPCC claims by 9/33. But there’s more. Because the net AIE is slightly positive [incorrect aerosol optical physics], you lose at least another 44% [median AR4]. So, the real scaling factor is 1/6.7 =~ 0.15.”
Actually I’d tend to agree that’s the amount of greenhouse warming that comes from greenhouse gases. The other 24C of greenhouse warming comes from the global ocean.
“That means maximum CO2 climate sensitivity =~0.45 K. I’ll leave the other major errors until later so as not to upset oxymoronic climate science too much before the end of 2011….;o)”
That’s about right for the mean value over the earth’s surface. Over land it’s still going to be the oft cited 1.1K which is why, as Monkton points out, this value is both calculated by well established 19th century experimental physics and by 20th observation of land-based surface thermometers in conjuction with atmospheric CO2 partial pressure history over that time. Everything makes sense once you understand or at least accept that the global ocean does most of the greenhouse warming over the 70% of the earth’s surface that it covers and greenhouse gases only have a large effect over land surfaces because of the difference in the way land heats and cools versus how water heats and cools.

Another most interesting and even entertaining post by Lord Monckton. But even if CO2 levels froze at todays ~390 ppm, we’ve not yet reached the equalibrium temperature for this 40% additional amount of CO2 since 1750, and wouldn’t until all feedbacks fast and slow, bio, ice, clouds, etc. have run their course. As the nature and interactions of these feedbacks are not entirely understood, anyone making a claim to know what even the current equalibrium temperature would be is of course, simply making a guess, but one thing is certian– we’ve not reached it yet, even if CO2 levels stayed where they are today– which is of course unlikely. In regards to what the climate sensitivity is to a doubling of CO2, up to 560 ppm, that would be even more of an educated guess at best. But some confidence can be taken from the fact that both paleoclimate data and GCM’s seem to be converging on a reasonably consistent range in the area of 3C, with error bars of about 1C on either side at a 95% confidence level. Thus, by 2100, it is not at all unreasonable to suppose global temps could increase at least 2C. Whether or not these globally higher temps will present a problem or a benefit in feeding what is likley to be be something in the order of 12+ billion humans in another issue entirely, but the the high level of certainty that Lord Monckton states that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 by 2100 is “low enough to be harmless” is both scientifically and logically unsupportable.

Wayne,
if an atmosphere-less earth would have an average temperature of 154K, why, does the atmosphere-less moon have one of 250K? Both would receive about the same energy from the sun.

@Mike G
Here in Minnesota in the winter, I find that little electric fires heat my house and also give light. An incandescent light that offers heat in the winter works for me. Where do you live?
@neil
“adidact” took me aback at first. A person can be didactic and could be called a didact. One who is not didactic would be an adidact.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 12:22 pm
“Neither the best climate models nor the paleodata support his position.”
________________
LOL

“My earlier posting explained how the textbooks establish that if albedo and insolation were held constant but all greenhouse gases were removed from the air the Earth’s surface temperature would be 255 K. Since today’s temperature is 288 K, the presence as opposed to absence of all the greenhouse gases – including H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O and stratospheric O3 – causes 33 K warming.”
So, what if the calculation is actually wrong? The whole issue might be a chimera.

“the vaunting ambition of a grasping, talent-free, scientifically-illiterate ruling elite of world-government wannabes”
Ouch, that’s got to hurt. Well said!

I would love to see how Christopher Monckton of Brenchley and other climate sensitivity experts respond to this excellent paper:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/#more-53850

My grandchildren? My grandchildren! For heavens sake what I wouldn’t give to be born into the world my grandchildren are being born into… and thank goodness I wasn’t born into the world of my grandparents – no telephone, no air conditioning, no indoor plumbing, but plenty of horses to feed and harness. Progress is real and solutions to any problems from global warming (if it be real) will be engineered.

Lord Monckton,
Thank you for your calculation of climate sensitivity. I only want to add one thing you chose not to mention. Your statement that the lapse rate will not change significantly over the next few hundred years, with which I agree, carries the implication that no tropical tropospheric “hot spot” exists. That is, tropospheric temperatures will warm at the same rate as the surface. Most of the GCMs predict otherwise, of course, and the issue of WHY they predict otherwise cuts to the heart of the matter. High sensitivity is only physically possible if the effective blackbody surface of Earth (at ~5 km, as you say) is rapidly expanding. Earth’s surface would then be warmed by the greater distance of fall in the gravitational field by the molecules starting at the effective surface (i.e., exactly what the lapse rate describes). Fortunately, satellite and balloon data all agree that the hot spot is not in evidence, providing further confirmation that Earth’s climate sensitivity is nothing more than that of a blackbody, the usual 1.2K per doubling of CO2.

Lord Monckton.
As a keen observer with a thirst for the truth. I finally get it! I am a layman to the science, But I do want to thank you and WUWT for shining a light on a very dark period of science. I find that WUWT and most skeptical Sites and Blogs are filled with fact laden science, information and discussion. As apposed to the warmist elitism their panicked breathless never ending alarmism. The nasty put downs and their junk manipulated science, they editing out of anything unfavorable to the CAGW /Climate disruption cause put out by the warmists sites and blogs and their glassy eyed watermelon Troll army’s. No wonder they are losing the belief and interest of the people.
I wish to thank Anthony, Lord Monckton, and the fantastic contributors and commentators who keep me coming back to the greatest open university in the world.
A Happy New Year to All.
David.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 11:33 am

… but the the high level of certainty that Lord Monckton states that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 by 2100 is “low enough to be harmless” is both scientifically and logically unsupportable.

I’m afraid I’ll be perhaps the 10th person to ask for scientific substantiation of your above claims, R., and I’m also afraid I’ll be just as disappointed as the other 10.
But let me add what I’m beginning to understand, which is that sensitivity is so low that it is indeed “low enough to be harmless”. We haven’t seen appreciable warming for a dozen years now even against increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, and somehow that’s supposed to keep hidden heat at bay and release it at some future date? Stay tuned for another 5 until we reach the magic “17 year” mark to determine if we’re really seeing something climatically significant or not.
So the bottom line is that your arguments are just a bunch of conjecture, R. They sound plausible, but so are a lot of things that don’t happen because the laws of nature prevent them from happening. It seems just as logical to blame warming on the lagging 800-year bounce of CO2 found after major changes in the earth’s temperature–it is tempting to apply “Back to the Future” concepts but we all know that’s not even true in Hollywood.
And “low enough to be harmless” completely destroys your political (and probably professional) objectives, doesn’t it, R, so obviously you’d push back. It just isn’t working.

Lord Monkton – Truly appreciate your providing prompt and detailed feedback here. It is a testament to your intellect and drive to engage ‘the masses’.
But I implore you to not assume the absorbing sphere and emitting sphere are identical in radius.
If my assumptions are right, the primary energy absorption layer is the oceans surface – not the atmosphere! Given the incidence angle issue, the solar flux per square meter would be much smaller than the total surface divided by 4. If you averaged the total inbound flux of one hemisphere across the total surface area of the globe it would be similar to comparing a sphere with half the surface area – would it not? With your quarter sized equation it is a sphere one fourth in surface area. This is a dramatic difference when you compare inbound verses outbound fluxes.
I agree the emission layer is very high up in the atmosphere, and covers an area 4pi-squared-r. It is also uniform in emission capacity.
So, if you compute the emissivity rate per metre-squared at a high altitude and the absorption rate which is modeled by a sphere with much less than a 4th of the surface area of the emission layer – you realize altitude does matter.
Also, do not forget the fact the Earth’s core is also warming things up, and the flux from the core to the oceans is not steady either.

The feedback factors treated on WUWT are physical mechanisms. The dimethylsulfide feedback from the oceans is a major factor that is ignored by those who only study or think about physics. The Idso group has a nice summary of such research:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/dms.php
— and the concluding paragraph is:
In conclusion, it is unfortunate that in light of the overwhelming empirical evidence for both land- and ocean-based DMS-driven negative feedbacks to global warming, the effects of these processes have not been properly incorporated into today’s state-of-the-art climate models. Hence, the warming they predict in response to future anthropogenic CO2 emissions must be considerably larger than what could actually occur in the real world. In fact, it is very possible that these biologically-driven phenomena could totally compensate for the warming influence of all greenhouse gas emissions experienced to date, as well as all those that are anticipated to occur in the future.
As usual, one concludes that the so-called climate models are just political propaganda.

J Martin says: (to R. Gates)
“What I want to know from you is what temperature drop would convince you that co2 caused global warming is a load of nonsense, and it’s the sun that is the major player. In say ten years. What would it take ? A Dalton size drop or perhaps a Maunder size drop ? Less perhaps. Do you have a view on where temperatures will be in ten years ? Go on, commit yourself, make a prediction.”
_____
I would anticipate that we’ll see at least 2 record setting warm years (warmer than any in the instrument record) in the next 5, however, the current quiet sun, extended La Nina periods, and higher aerosols certainly help to balance out the forcing from CO2.
I do expect at least a Dalton type solar minimum, and even think a Maunder type is possible. These will provide a very good opportunity to compare the strength of CO2 and other greenhouse forcing to the cooling caused by the solar slowdown. We could even see a 20 year period of flat temps, though I think this is highly unlikely.
What would it take for me to no believe that anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas increases are not affecting our climate? In addition to some huge revolution in science that refutes basic radiative theory, I suppose if by 2030 if we see Arctic Sea ice return to the levels we saw in the mid 20th century and long-term global temps continue in the pattern downward we saw generally after the Holocene climate optimum, I might begin to suspect that the feedbacks related to CO2 increases were not as strong as the models indicated.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 1:00 pm
“In short, I’ll trust the unncertainty and range of estimates from the supercomputer models and paleodata…”
We all know that you are a spokesman for the CAGW camp, but in light of the complete ineptitude of all known climate models at predicting anything and the frequently dishonest, yet widely heralded inanities emanating from those studying paleodata, why do you even bother?
Games aren’t won by the noisiest cheer leaders, but those without proper underpinnings are certainly a distraction, just like you: that’s the extent of your success.

TerryC says:
December 30, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Sorry if this is somewhat off topic, but the statement that the temperature of the moon is -18C has appeared repeatedly in this and other recent threads. Where does this number come from and how was it calculated. My perusal (admittedly brief) of NASA sources indicate daytime temps of >100C, nighttime temps of < -150C and polar temps of -240C. These temperatures are also those of equilibrated objects since there is no effective atmosphere and therefore no possible atmospheric temperature.
_____
if you were to integrate the surface temperatures of the moon's surface, broken down into as small of regions as possible, at any given point in time the "average" of that integration would be about 250K or about -23C. This comes from:
http://ode.rsl.wustl.edu/moon/

mkelly says:
December 30, 2011 at 11:28 am
“If I control the price of, how much, and what kind enegy you can have, I can control you.”
This is EXACTLY what drives this ‘scientific’ fiasco. It is all about control. Taking from the producers and giving to the parasites.

Kohl P. et al;
Yes, stop trashing CFLs!! After all, once you put them in the trash they’re illegal hazardous waste.
And since they conk out so fast, the only way to not trash them is not buy them. That’s the solution I’ve long since adopted.
LOL

@richard
Yep, supercomputers do calulations REALLY FAST,
That means that any errors in the programming, inputs, assumptions etc get reproduced REALLY FAST !!

Lord Monckton. I hesitate to say this, but it seems to me that you may have made an error when you say: “Rosco is surprised by the notion of dividing the incoming solar irradiance by 4 to determine the Wattage per square meter of the Earth’s surface. I have taken this textbook step because the Earth intercepts a disk-sized area of insolation, which must be distributed over the rotating spherical surface, and the ratio of the surface area of a disk to that of a sphere of equal radius is 1:4.”
Your calculation would be correct if the disc-sized area of insolation was spread over the entire surface of the earth, but I think that actually that insolation is being spread only over the hemisphere facing the sun (and not the other hemisphere), thus the ratio used should be 2, not 4.

Gingrich moves closer to Lord Monckton !
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/gingrich-kills-chapter-on-climate-change-in-upcoming-book-20111230

If a block of ice is placed in a warm room, will the room cool slower or quicker? The Trenberths of this world, who believe that back radiation from CO2 in the troposphere can create heat on the surface or at least ‘slow down’ heat loss from the surface, tell us that the radiating ice block will help keep the room warmer for longer. The idea really is that dumb.

Great post Monckton.
I’m no scientist, and claim no skill at maths, but I do have Excel..! Plugging in -19c at 0ppm CO2, +14c at 280ppm, and +14.7c at 390ppm plots a very nice log curve, with the formula:
Temp=2.11.ln(CO2)+2.09
So for a doubling of CO2, plugging in 580 ppm CO2, gives a temp of 15.5c: a rise of a 1.5c. Slightly more than M’lord, but substantially less than the IPCC’s “super”computer.
Do I win a prize?

Here is the analogy that makes it very clear how Monckton’s calculation of climate sensitivity is in error:
Suppose that Bill Gates makes an offer that for every dollar the public contributes to fight hunger, he’ll throw in a certain amount of money that he does not disclose. Now, let’s suppose that this program operates for one year: The public contributes a certain amount, Bill Gates does his matching and the total amount of money that goes to fight hunger is $100 million. Suppose that with this $100 million, 1 million people can be fed.
How much would the public have to contribute in order to feed 5 million hungry people the next year? What Monckton would say is the following: Since we have found it takes $100 million to feed 1 million people, it costs $100 to feed one person. Therefore, you should multiply the 5 million by the $100 and the conclusion is that the public has to contribute $500 million.
What I am arguing is that Monckton is ignoring the “Bill Gates” feedback. For example, let’s imagine that the actual fact is that Bill Gates is matching public contributions at a 4-to-1 match. This means the first year, of the $100 million dollars that was spent, $20 million came from the public and $80 million from Bill Gates’s match.
So, in fact, to feed 5 million people, the public only has to contribute $100 million because Bill Gates will throw in $400 million for a total of $500 million and hence 5 million people will be fed.
What Monckton seems to be thinking is that his calculation included the Bill Gates feedback because he calculated the result that it costs $100 per person to feed the poor using both the amount that the public had contributed ($20 million) and the amount from the Bill Gates feedback ($80 million). [In fact, he was not even able to separate them because he did not know how much Gates contributed vs. how much the public had.] However, by including the “Bill Gates feedback” as a “forcing” rather than a “feedback”, we see that his calculation fails miserably: the amount that it predicts the public must contribute is correct only if the Bill Gates feedback were completely absent.
Really, this “forcing” vs “feedback” stuff is not that hard to understand. The terms may seem unfamiliar to people, which is why mistakes such as Monckton’s can be made so easily. (Willis Eschenbach has made the same error.) But, I think if one works with analogies it becomes possible for anyone to understand it.

Bob Fernley-Jones said @ December 30, 2011 at 2:24 pm
“I’m curious to know how meaningful any calculation of the so-called average temperature of the moon is…”
Temperature is the measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles of a substance in Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE). Or at least it was when I studied physics these many long years ago. It’s far more likely that the moon is made of green cheese than it being in LTE.

“Rosco is surprised by the notion of dividing the incoming solar irradiance by 4 to determine the Wattage per square meter of the Earth’s surface. I have taken this textbook step because the Earth intercepts a disk-sized area of insolation, which must be distributed over the rotating spherical surface, and the ratio of the surface area of a disk to that of a sphere of equal radius is 1:4.”
I am not surprised in the slightest by this method of calculating the so-called “effective” temperature of the Earth – what I am surprised about is the use of an average outgoing IR over the sphere of the Earth to calculate the maximum temperature the Sun can heat the Earth to is accepted by anyone as reasonable.
In the radiative balance equations I see all the time – (Insolation) S(1-a)x pi r^2 = sigmaT^4 x 4 pi r^2 (outgoing IR) – which by removing pi and r reduces to
S(1-a) = sigmaT^4 X 4.
Surely this simply says:-
1. Radiative balance is achieved if the Earth radiates one quarter of the insolation. Incoming = outgoing x 4.
2. The temperature of 255 K is clearly associated with the outgoing radiation, not the insolation.
3. This construct does not justify this statement from Kiehl & Trenberth :-
“Here we assume a “solar constant” of 1367 W m-2 (Hartmann 1994), and because the incoming solar radiation is one-quarter of this, that is, 342 W m-2, a planetary albedo of 31% is implied.”
Clearly, if one uses S(1-a) to calculate the maximum temperature the Sun “could” heat the Earth to (minus all other considerations such as evaporation, convection etc etc) you arrive at 360 K or ~ 87 degrees C.
Is this reasonable ?
That this is so is easily verifiable – let’s use the moon with an albedo of 0.12. We have 1367 x 0.88 = sigma T^4 which gives T as about 381 K or about 107 degrees C.
Is this reasonable ? Especially as Wikipedia state a “If an ideal thermally conductive blackbody was the same distance from the Sun as the Earth is, it would have a temperature of about 5.3 °C.”
Well the moon is certainly less than “an ideal thermally conductive blackbody” therefore if this divide by four stuff is right it should be less than 5.3 degrees C.
In the spirit of “you can’t argue with verifiable facts” the moon does indeed reach temperatures in excess of 5.3 degrees C – 107 degrees C with a maximum of 123 degrees C quoted by NASA and numerous other sources.
So the paradox that climate “scientists” need to explain is why the Sun can heat the moon, sans magical greenhouse gases, to > 107 degrees C but can only manage a pitiful minus 18 degrees C on Earth.
If you really believe that when the temperature in places like Death Valley approaches 60 degrees C the Sun is responsible for minus 18 C while the remaining 70 plus degrees C is provided by greenhouse effect you have been completely conned.
There is evidence the theory of quartering the solar constant to determine the greenhouse effect is wrong (actually I believe it is a deliberate con dressed up as plausible).
If the radiation from the sun is capable of heating the Earth’s surface to temperatures approaching 87 degrees C then the anomaly that needs examination is why is it so cool ?
I think convective heat distribution and evaporation of water can help explain this.
So I do not buy the theory that Solar radiation is not responsible for heating Earth and that the cooling at night is moderated by warmed oceans, a warmed atmosphere and a fortunate coincidence that before it all goes to pieces and freezes the Earth spins and the warming begins again.
Call me simple but this seems far more likely than less than 2 % of the atmosphere – water vapour and CO2 et al creating energy to warm the Earth.
The whole thing becomes laughable when considering < 0.04% of the atmosphere for CO2 or even tinier fractions for other greenhouse gases.
And of course they ignore IR from Nitrogen and Oxygen which MUST emit IR unless they are not at an equilibrium temperature with the "GHG's". Can anyone prove Nitrogen and Oxygen in the atmosphere are not at equilibrium temperature are therefore emitting IR?
If they can I will recant and donate heavily to all NGO's in attendance at Durban.

“So I do not buy the theory that Solar radiation is not responsible for heating Earth and that the cooling at night is moderated by warmed oceans, a warmed atmosphere and a fortunate coincidence that before it all goes to pieces and freezes the Earth spins and the warming begins again.” should be
So I do not buy the theory that Solar radiation is not responsible for heating the Earth more than climate “scientists” claim. The cooling at night is moderated by warmed oceans, to a lesser extent by a warmed atmosphere and a fortunate coincidence that before it all goes to pieces and freezes the Earth spins and the warming begins again.

Here is the implied CO2 sensitivity over the last 50 million years. +/- 40C per doubling ?
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/8312/co2sensitivitylast50my.png
Obviously, there are a huge number of factors that must be taken into account. The global temperature is most likely influenced by:
– Albedo which has changed over this timeframe from 27.6% to 34.0% (based on the amount of the highly reflective ice that develops).
– GHGs which strongly absorb/slow down long-wave energy from escaping from the Earth surface through the atmosphere to space in certain specific wave-lengths.
– Water vapour which has varied considerably from about 20 mms per given area to 30 mms per given area over this timeframe. This will have a large impact in terms of precipitation, cloud cover and the GHG impact of water vapour.
– Changing continental positions. Greenland would not have glaciers if it was just 200 kms farther south – like it was 20 millionm years ago. Antarctica would have few glaciers if South America was still attached to it (or if the Drake Passage was shallow).
– Changing ocean currents which depend mostly on the continental positions which can alternatively move warmth from the equator to the poles, move sea ice rapidly away from the poles to melt at lower latitude and/or isolate a region in a polar/equatorial climate.
– Milankovitch Cycles which can drop the summer solar insolation at 75N/75S for short periods so that the winter snow does not melt in the summer (just a 30 W/m2 drop in summer insolation can build up glaciers that take 100,000 years to be broken up).
– Atmospheric pressure. The higher the pressure, the slower is the escape of energy from the surface to space. This is simple physics and noone should dispute it.
– Solar variation. The Sun would need to vary by more than it currently appears to but the fact that the Land lags behind the solar irradiance in the seasons (the solstices) by 35 days, the freshwater lakes by 40 days and the ocean surface by 70 days, means that solar energy accumulates in surface energy levels. Therefore any change in solar irradiance will be fully absorbed into surface temperatures within a short period of time. 4 W/m2 worth of variance in total solar irradiance would be required to make a measureable change.
GHGs make it to Number 2 on my list, but it is a very long list.

@jimbojinx from that link about Gingrich.
“Hayhoe, whose husband is an evangelical pastor, recently wrote a book about climate change from an evangelical perspective.”
I have often wondered how anyone who believes that God is in control, can side with the AGW bretheren.
If He created man, and the planet, then He also created the coal and the oil, and He made it so that it was available at just the right time for human kind to use it for their advancement. Therefore, without doubt, He intended us to be using it.
The fact that it is also highly beneficial for plant growth, thus making it easier for mankind to feed themselves, also backs up this arguement… (so long as we don’t go against his wishes and start using the increased cropping for fuel instead of using the oil and coal as intended.)

As regards climate sensitivity, we need observations to show us how it is expressed in nature as more carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere. We know, for example, that carbon dioxide has been increasing essentially linearly ever since the Mauna Loa observatory went on line in 1954. Theory would require that global temperature should follow suit, just like Al Gore told us. It is a fact, however, that temperature has behaved quite differently. The best and most accurate temperature records come from satellites and these data have been available since 1979. But NASA, NOAA and the Met Office have refused to use satellite data because they have their own ground-based data that can be manipulated. Let’s see how they differ. Starting with the eighties and nineties the satellite record shows a series of ENSO oscillations consisting of El Nino peaks and La Nina valleys. (1) Their average is a straight horizontal line, meaning no warming. The ground-based data, on the other hand, show a steady warming in this time slot which they call “late twentieth century warming.” But the only warming during the entire satellite era is a short spurt that began with the super El Nino of 1998, raised global temperature by a a third of a degree in four years, and then stopped. It was oceanic, not greenhouse in origin. This leaves us without any proof that greenhouse warming has even existed since 1979. Undoubtedly greenhouse fans will now point to the existence of Arctic warming as proof of greenhouse warming. Arctic warming is certainly real and has existed since the turn of the twentieth century when it suddenly began. Before this there was nothing but slow cooling for two thousand years. It took a break in mid-century, then resumed, and is still going strong. But a sudden warming requires an equally sudden cause. We know that the amount of carbon dioxide did not suddenly increase when the warming began and this rules out the greenhouse effect as its cause. Laws of physics simply do not allow it. What started it was a rearrangement of the North Atlantic current system at the turn of the century that started bringing warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic. Direct measurements of water temperature reaching the Arctic in 2010 indicate that it exceeds anything seen within the last 2000 years.(2) All this leaves us without any proof whatsoever that greenhouse warming even exists. But this is exactly what should be expected from the work of Ferenc Miskolczi, a Hungarian scientist who worked for NASA. Using NOAA weather balloon database that goes back to 1948 he was able to show that the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared where carbon dioxide absorbs had been constant for 61 years. During this same period of time the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of this amount of carbon dioxide to air had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. This is in accord with the inability of satellites to detect any actual greenhouse warming in nature, and also in accord with lack of greenhouse warming in the Arctic.It also follows that climate models using the greenhouse effect to predict dangerous warming ahead are all dead wrong. And it also tells us that the vaunted sensitivity of climate to doubling of CO2 concentration is exactly zero.
Ref.: (1) “What Warming?” available on Amazon; (2) Energy & Environment (2011) 11(8), pp. 1069-1084.

“an atmosphere-less earth would have an average temperature of 154K, why, does the atmosphere-less moon have one of 250K? Both would receive about the same energy from the sun.”
if this earth had 28 day duration day, would affect blackbody temperature?
Would it warm, cool or have no effect upon average temperature?

Luther Wu says:
December 30, 2011 at 1:45 pm
“Games aren’t won by the noisiest cheer leaders, but those without proper underpinnings are certainly a distraction, just like you: that’s the extent of your success.”
____
Yet I should believe Lord Monckton who is certain that he has figured out that climate sensitivity is “low enough to be harmless” when we haven’t even seen an equalibrium point reached from the current level of CO2, and have no idea exactly where that point is as we are not sure exactly the full nature of all the feedbacks? Case in point, Arctic sea ice, which a huge factor in feedbacks to global warming seems to be diminishing faster than models forecast just a few years ago. This alone shows that models are doing a poor job at understanding the dynamics of all the feedback processes, and without a understanding them, projections of climate sensitivity are equally poor. So how can Lord Monckton be so certain of a sensitivity “low enough to be harmless”?

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:23 pm
“This alone shows that models are doing a poor job at understanding the dynamics of all the feedback processes, and without a understanding them, projections of climate sensitivity are equally poor. ”
You seem to be the only warmist that can at the same time
– admit that the models are junk
– still believe in the IPCC’s climate sensitivity exaggerations (which they derived from model runs).

R Gates – you invoke Judith Curry on one hand, but cite that “paleoclimate data and GCM’s seem to be converging on a reasonably consistent range in the area of 3C, with error bars of about 1C on either side at a 95% confidence level.” Your (unsubstantiated) claim would not please Ms. Curry, who has a much clearer idea of the uncertainty inherent in the GCMs (regardless of whether they are run on a supercomputer or not), nor would she be impressed by any unsubstantiated claims of certainty (or “convergence”) of the paleoclimate data (particularly some paleoclimate “data” that even the team finds difficult to stomach). Monckton has proposed a theory: either expose the flaws in it, or stand back and let the adults deal with the issues.

R. Gates @ December 30, 11:58 am
@ Bob Fernley-Jones says:
December 30, 2011 at 2:24 pm
R. Gates @ December 30, 11:58 am

[Wayne], if an atmosphere-less earth would have an average temperature of 154K, why, does the atmosphere-less moon have one of 250K? Both would receive about the same energy from the sun.

I’m curious to know how meaningful any calculation of the so-called average temperature of the moon is, and just how it is integrated. Can you advise please?
One source gives a T range of 260K, which is greater than your average. BTW, three major differences between the moon and an airless & ocean-less Earth, (with current geology), are the regolith thermal factors, and rotation speed, together with speculation on albedo, which I guess would vary much more on Earth for very different regional geological reasons. It would be interesting to study the thermodynamics of heating and cooling on the moon, (at the surface and at depth), over its 4-week cycle.
Wayne, sorry for interjecting, but I found it hard to resist.
>>
Hey Bob, no problems matee. Unlike some ‘people’ here I do have to sleep every day at some point. I say ‘people’ for it sure seems some must be entire sleepless organizations, I find no time period when they are not always there, posting dribble.
R. Gates, do you not retain anything. This has been answered many times before. This is using KT07 and TFK09’s radiative computations. In their case they used a perfect, mass-less, black-body flat disc within their calculations to get the 33 K GHE.
Nikolov’s case is staying parallel but using a perfect massless gray-body sphere. Neither have any thermal inertia properties.
You see, even the concept is not real, it is not calculating a real temperature for there is mass. You must have some mass to even define a temperature. These calculations in all three cases are computing an effective radiative temperature. Big difference.
But on the moon, you have real mass, real specific heats and conductivity, real absorption and dispersion of that energy, stored to release at a cooler time, so the temperatures from the lit side to dark side are modulated to a huge degree. (but I was wrong in assuming that all readers here knew that)
There R. Gates, that is why.
Also you are talking about the temperature on the moon of 250K. That is assumed near the maximum and on a real body with mass but since there is no atmosphere, this temperature must be taken in the top layer of the dust. Right? Well, in Nikolov case that I integrated, there are also locations where the effective temperature is 250 K. In fact there is one location, directly under the sun, where it is receiving 1198 Wm-2 and at an emissivity of 0.955 the effective radiative temperature is 386K… at that one maximum point, but there is no thermal inertia, it is perfect massless radiator. It is just a fact that most of that sphere receive MUCH less on the average due to pure geometry and that’s right, it averages to a mean of 154.3 K, giving the “GHE” of 133 K.

Well I believe the earth is warming; and has, off and on for the last 8-10 thousand years as we emerge from the last ice age; and I agree that anecdotal evidence of this or that glacial field or ice back receding now and then, indicates that long term warming trend.
I also believe that CO2 (for example) captures a narrow band of LWIR radiation from the earth surface (13.5 to 16.5 microns ?) for the degenerate bending mode of oscillation, as well as the (3.25 to 4.75 microns ?) that excites the assymmetrical stretch mode of CO2. Of course 98% of that earth emitted LWIR which Trenberth et al say is the 390 W/m^2 corresponding to a 288 K black body spectrum; lies between about 5.0 and 80.0 microns; most of which, is entirely oblivious of CO2.
But ! I do NOT believe the claims that CO2 is “well mixed” in earth’s atmosphere. My idea of “well mixed”, would mean that ANY statisticaslly valid sample of earth atmosphere, taken from any ordinary place on earth at any ordinary time, would assay as having the same molecular abundance of the common atmospheric molecular species; at least down to the 390 ppm of present day CO2.
It would not be statistically valid to take 2500 molecules of atmosphere, and declare it correct to have one CO2 molecule. But 25 million atmospheric molecules, should yield 10,000 CO2 molecules, and the shot noise in that should be 100 molecules of CO2, or about 1% of the mean number. Well, I’m sure the professional statisticians, would put a factor of three in there somewhere or other; and climatists seem to like that fudge factor. Well one cubic mm of STP air contains about 3 x 10^13 molecules, so it would seem that I only need a 10 micron cube of STP air to be valid as a sample.
Now NOAA in a famous three dimensional pole to pole plot (which is now apparently hidden from view) showed that at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, there is an annual CO2 abundance cycle of about 6 ppm peak to peak; but simultaneously at the North Pole, and over essentially all of the arctic, that cycle is 18 ppm, while at the south pole it is -1 ppm being out of phase with ML.
So the NP and the SP differ by about 19 ppm peak to peak over an annual cycle, out of a mean 390 ppm.
That’s a 5% difference in composition; or five times the shot noise RMS for a 25 million molecule sample. So no I don’t believe CO2 is even approximately well mixed in the atmosphere.
As to the effect of that CO2, or changes in it, I blieve CO2 is a rapid, virtually instantaneous moderator of the atmosphere energy.
For example, let’s say a new CO2 molecule emerges from the tailpipe of an SUV, at say one third of a metre above the ground. Now a photon of that at risk LWIR radiation at say 15 microns wavelength, can travel 300 km in just one millisecond, and essentially escape from the atmosphere. Well it can go 300 metres or about 1,000 feet in one microsecond; so it can get to my new tailpipe CO2 molecule in just one nano-second, and be absorbed; well unless it got absorbed in one picosecond by an already existing CO2 molecule just 0.3 mm from the ground.
So yes I think it is fair to say, that in the climate scale of things, 30 years for example, CO2 is virtually instantaneous, in its effect on the earth emitted LWIR radiant energy.
Now at STP near my SUV tailpipe, that CO2 absorbed energy is rapidly thermalized, by molecular collisions with atmospheric gas molecules, and results in an almost instantaneous local warming of the atmosphere AKA a rise in atmospheric Temperature. Yes; I believe all of those things happen all the time.
What happens next, seems to be less certain. The air is warmer so it ought to radiate more energy, and in an isotropic distribution pattern, so about half of that radiation should be directed earthwards, from whence the energy came, and about half should be directed to space and eventually escape, to cool the planet.
There is nothing much up there that could reflect that upward radiation, heading to space, certainly not the atmospheric gas molecules. Well of course there are clouds occasionally, but they don’t reflect LWIR; they ABSORB it due to the water content of clouds. Those water molecules can of course radiate LWIR radiation themselves, in an H2O specific spectrum.
The upward atmospheric emission of LWIR is; according to some people, only at GHG specific wavelengths, many of which will not be absorbed by the H2O molecules of clouds, since not all GHG spectral lines, match for all GHG species.
But in any case, it seems to me, that at least the earth’s atmosphere should react instantaneously in climate terms, to changes in CO2 molecular abundance. I’ve not seen or read much peer reviewed research papers that show this immediate response of the atmospheric Temperature to the obvious and well documented changes in CO2 in the atmosphere. In particular, the atmospheric Temperature seems to exhibit, absoluterly no response at all, to a 5% cyclic change in the molecular abundance of CO2, that takes place annually on earth.
Apparently, something else far more significant, is controlling the earth’s atmospheric Temperature. I have no idea what that is; but it seems that CO2 is not cutting the mustard.

@ Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Christopher, I started to say no, but you are right, I am attracted to Dr. Nikolov’s “Unified Climate Theory”. I am just trying as hard as possible o stay strictly in proper science. I just feel like a lightning bolt hit me and I feel so foolish. And I can trace my misunderstanding back to, guess who, Joel Shores some years ago. I have been lied to and manipulated while getting acclimated to atmospheric physics. My forte has always been more in astronomy and astrophysics, and mainly there in gravitational effects, not thermodynamics though I have taken courses in it.
I have not verified N&Z’s work past the first column on the poster but you know, everything is checking out perfectly so far. Your integration must have a problem in the particular way your bands you used and I’m assuming latitudinal bands. Be sure to reduce the radiation field over each higher latitude band for their ever decreasing area at each latitude. That might be your mistake if being too high. I went to great effort to make sure the distribution was perfectly even. So, no error from bad distribution here. Triple checked and agrees with there figures given to the fourth digit. So, until I can find some great flaw, I will give them the benefit of the doubt as any good scientist deserves.
I also realize this negates many points and conjectures that I have commented on over the last few years, and it seems will negate huge swatches of other people’s understanding, maybe even yours. I keep asking how I could have discarded the aspects of pure thermodynamics so very easily, and I learned one good lesson, never, ever listen to a known troll.

Larry Goldberg said:
” has proposed a theory: either expose the flaws in it, or stand back and let the adults deal with the issues.”
—
I would hardly call what Lord Monckton has proposed a “theory”. A conjecture perhaps, but hardly a theory. But regardless of what you choose to call it, it fails at the very start in assumptions made about the equalibrium temperature from even the current amount of CO2 (~390ppm). The Earth has not reaced that even yet as all feedback processes have not yet fully responded. Furthermore, it is unlikely that we will find out what the equalibrium temperature is of the Earth at 390 ppm of CO2 as we are adding approximately 2 ppm additional CO2 every year. These increases, along with increases in other greenhouse gases such as N2O and methane means we are chasing a currently moving target. In light of all this, it seems highly unlikely that Lord Monckton can possibly know what the sensitivity of the Earth is to a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial levels– certainly not well enough to assert that it will be “low enough to be harmless”.

I would suggest that R. Gates proposed a reasonable benchmark prediction at 1:43 Dec 30
R Gates
~~I suppose if by 2030 if we see Arctic Sea ice return to the levels we saw in the mid 20th century and long-term global temps continue in the pattern downward we saw generally after the Holocene climate optimum, I might begin to suspect that the feedbacks related to CO2 increases were not as strong as the models indicated.~~

R. Gates said @ December 30, 2011 at 9:41 pm
“I would hardly call what Lord Monckton has proposed a “theory”. A conjecture perhaps, but hardly a theory. But regardless of what you choose to call it, it fails at the very start in assumptions blah, blah, blah…”
R Gates, it’s neither theory, nor conjecture. The Good Lord takes as his assumptions the very same assumptions your Lords and Masters promulgate and then deduces from them. It’s called *logic*. I highly commend you study the subject. It’s difficult and will keep you out of mischief for a while.

AndyG55 said @ December 30, 2011 at 10:22 pm
“PLANTS LOVE CO2.. please don’t starve the plants !!!”
I won’t, promise! Pompous Gits like making plant food. Don’t tell the greenie-weenies, but making compost entails converting lotsa cellulose into CO2 (carbon perlewshun). And Pompous Gits like burning firewood in the cookstove to make even more carbon perlewshun (plant food).

Dennis Ray Wingo: ‘In the absence of atmosphere the albedo of the Earth would range between that of Mercury and the Moon, from about 0.12 to 0.14, depending on the amount of iron on the surface.’
Wrong: the oceans, 80% of the surface would still remain in the ice and cloud free World so hypothetical albedo would be ~0.07!

I commend the noble Lord to read:-
Unified Theory of Climate. by Ned Nikolov PhD and karl Zeller PhD 2011.
And forget about the theory of GHG’s.

Monckton of Brenchley says:

irst, the troll. Joel Shore says he thinks I define a “troll” as someone who injects science into his comments. Yet I had specifically stated that a “troll” is one who cannot keep his argument civil and polite, but resorts instead to hate-speech, of which Shore is serially guilty. Besides, the only “science” he “injected” was a repeated misstatement to the effect that Kiehl & Trenberth’s greenhouse-gas forcings total of 86-125 Watts per square meter included feedbacks consequent upon the forcings. It doesn’t. Get used to it.

You are mischaracterizing my argument. What your argument shows is that you don’t understand what a “forcing” or a “feedback” even mean and the fact that whether something is a forcing or a feedback depends on context. Why don’t you try answering my actual arguments ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848206 and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848211 ) rather than just engaging in misdirection? (No, that’s not hate speech; it is an accurate description of what you are doing.)

thepompousgit says:

The Good Lord takes as his assumptions the very same assumptions your Lords and Masters promulgate and then deduces from them. It’s called *logic*.

No he doesn’t and no it isn’t. He just gets things wrong, pure and simple.

Joel Shaw says:
“If you have a block of ice there in place of something warmer, then it will not keep the room warmer for longer. If you put a block of ice in place of a vat filled with liquid nitrogen then it would indeed cause the room to stay warmer for longer.
“All that the greenhouse effect says is this: If you have the Earth emitting all its radiation out to space (at ~3 K), it will cool faster than if some of that radiation is being absorbed by the atmosphere, which is then because of its temperature then emitting some radiation back to the Earth.”
Granted my ice block is not a very good analogy: it has considerable Thermal Capacity. CO2 et al have negligable thermal capacity. They absorb LFIR and instantly re-radiate it. No heat loss from the ground is ‘slowed’ by their presence in the troposhere or elsewhere. This is why the computer models predict a warming troposphere, but reality shows no warming at all. The effect is purely imaginary: Cartesian rather than Newtonian scientific methodology.
Further, these same so-called ‘GHGs’ absorb LFIR from insolation and re-radiate it in all directions – ie just over half back out into space, cutting off more than half reaching the ground in the first place. Any LFIR absorbed from the gound is also re-radiated in all directions, and those downward have zero heating effect on the ground as the troposphere is usually between 50-100deg C colder than the ground.

Monckton of Brenchley says:

Besides, the only “science” he “injected” was a repeated misstatement to the effect that Kiehl & Trenberth’s greenhouse-gas forcings total of 86-125 Watts per square meter included feedbacks consequent upon the forcings.

To put it another way than I did in my last post, you have no idea what part of what you and they call the “forcing” due to water vapor is in fact a feedback. That is, this calculation of the “forcing” due to water vapor calculates the radiative effect of water vapor without dealing with the issue of how the water vapor got into the atmosphere. When you use this along with the 33 K temperature increase associated with the greenhouse effect, you are just making the assumption that none of the water vapor got into the atmosphere as the result of the feedback that occurred when the non-condensable greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. In other words, you are assuming that the water vapor feedback is zero. That is why your argument is completely circular, i.e., you are calculating the climate sensitivity under the assumption that the feedback is zero.

Joel Shore says:
December 31, 2011 at 9:16 am
@lgl: Without the non-condensable greenhouse gases, the first-order effect would be a drop in temperature on the order of 10 C
Based on the gospel according to realclimate,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/
the removal of CO2 would decrease Earth’s greenhouse effect by 9%. The net greenhouse effect is about 250 watts- 100 latent heat of vaporization and 150 sensible heat. Multiply by 0.91 and you get 91 watts latent heat and 136.5 sensible heat over the 240 watt no greenhouse effect. That would reduce temperatures to about (376.5/390)^0.25 =0.99+, from about 288 K to about 285,5 K, a drop of 2.5 K, NOT your absurd 10K. The actual sensible drop in temperaturs would be less than 2.5 K since a smaller fraction of the decreased wattage would go into the latent heat of vaporization, and , there would be a drop in albedo due to fewer clouds, .

Nice work, m’Lud!
I particularly appreciated your last paragraph:
“The army of light and truth, however few we be, will quietly triumph over the forces of darkness in the end: for, whether they like it or not, the unalterable truth cannot indefinitely be confused, concealed, or contradicted. We did not make the laws of science: therefore, it is beyond our power to repeal them.”
You are indeed a wordsmith of the first order, if I may say so.
Furthermore, it is truly heartening that your logical approach to the scientific method is impenetrable, even to the likes of the battle-hardened warmist RGates.
It will be with great interest that I observe and support the progress of your action against the climate crank shysters in 2012 and beyond. More power to your elbow!
Happy New Year!

“”””” David Walton says:
December 30, 2011 at 11:33 am
Re: “It is a shame that the politicians took a stand on this issue, but as Churchill observed, even a fool (and presumably many fools) can be right sometimes.”
Au contraire. Thanks to politicians and the legions of ignorant, feel good eco-fools GE’s breakthrough incandescent that had nearly the efficiency of CFLs and none of the associated disposal hazards was canned and never brought into production. “””””
So how would that “efficient” incandescent bulb work David ?
Existing incandescents emit a lot of their radiant energy in the near infra-red, and those photons can’t easily be up converted to visible light; well ALL light “by definition” IS visible.
So presumably the efficient incandescent would have to have its Temperature raised. A 3,000 K filament would have its spectral irradiance peak at about 1.0 microns, twice that of the 6,000 K sun, and about 98% of the radiant energy would lie between 0.5 microns and 8.0 microns; but only 25% of it is below 1.0 microns, which is IR.
Well you can try raising the Temperature to get more high energy photons, that you could then shift to other visible (but lower) frequencies, with various “phosphors” and the various “halogen” lamps are effectively in this category; but you still end up generating more heat (waste) than light.
Even at 6,000 K the sun doesn’t provide a spectrum at earth surface, which can be efficiently converted to a better white light source.
Down converting phosphors used in either fluorescents (or CFLs) , have their problems; and moreso with “warm white” lamps, than with “daylight” lamps that have 4-5,000 K color Temperatures.
Last night, I was drinking a glass of Cranberry juice, while reading in bed using a 5,000K daylight LED lamp. The Cranberry juice was dark chocolate brown; about the same color it would look outside at night with low pressure Sodium patrking lot or street lights. Neither one of these lamps put out any red light to speak of, so you get brown instead of red.
Warm white LEDs (2700-3,000 K) or fluorescents, (CFLs) do not contain a red phosphor, just a broad yellow phosphor or a mix of yellow and green with fluorescents, that are all UV pumped so they emit no visible light without the phosphors.
And the problem with all red phosphors, as Television makers know, is that they are quite inefficient in energy conversion to visible light, because red light has very low luminosity, and all red phosphors put out a very broad red spectrum, so too much radiant energy is put into the near IR, rather than visible red.
So warm white CFLs or LEDs will always be less efficient than daylight ones, at least until multicolor RYGB LED lamps are developed, and that will be too expensive for general lighting.

Rosco says:
December 30, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Clearly, if one uses S(1-a) to calculate the maximum temperature the Sun “could” heat the Earth to (minus all other considerations such as evaporation, convection etc etc) you arrive at 360 K or ~ 87 degrees C.
Is this reasonable ?
Don’t know. But 67°C is given as the temp without the dynamics of the water cycle but with the rest of the atmosphere gases in place, practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen, so are you saying that without convection of these gases rising and falling parcels of air but in place the temp would be 20°C higher?
I’m not sure what the ‘picture’ is here but it does appear to make sense as part of the standard description, if the fluid gaseous atmosphere isn’t moving at all so no cooling winds and minus the water cycle.
[The standard descriptions I’ve seen is that the Earth without any atmosphere is -18°C., with atmosphere but without the water cycle 67°C.]

Alan D McIntire says:
December 31, 2011 at 10:24 am
“The removal of CO2 would decrease Earth’s greenhouse effect by 9%. The net greenhouse effect is about 250 watts- 100 latent heat of vaporization and 150 sensible heat. Multiply by 0.91 and you get 91 watts latent heat and 136.5 sensible heat over the 240 watt no greenhouse effect. That would reduce temperatures to about (376.5/390)^0.25 =0.99+, from about 288 K to about 285,5 K, a drop of 2.5 K, NOT your absurd 10K. The actual sensible drop in temperaturs would be less than 2.5 K since a smaller fraction of the decreased wattage would go into the latent heat of vaporization, and , there would be a drop in albedo due to fewer clouds.”
_____
This is not taking into account the huge difference between condensing and non-condensing greenhouse gases, and the stabilizing effect that CO2 has on the overall greenhouse temperatures due to that non-condensing nature. Removing CO2 would remove that stabilizing effect, such that over a rather short period (certainly less than a century), the earth would gradually cool, more water vapor would be condensed out of the atmosphere and a return to an ice-house planet, globally very dry and very cold, would be the final result. This, by the way, doesn’t even take into account the biosphere effects of higher CO2, such that removing it would kill off plants, which would increase the planetary albedo by an even greater amount, and this, combined with increasing ice and snow coverage, and lower water vapor levels, would also lead inexorably to the ice-house earth of the past.

R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:45 pm
.. and the paleodata is also incomplete, but taken as a whole, they provide far more weight of evidence pointing to a higher climate sensitivity
——————-
It is shocking how many pro-AGW people believe this. I’m assuming they have never checked whether that was true or not.
Like say for instance, CO2 was at 240 ppm 15 million years ago and temperature was +4C. All Co2 estimates close to the period. What is the CO2 sensitivity in this case. Or 33 million years ago when temperature was about the same as today and CO2 was 1200 ppm. All CO2 estimates near the period. (Handy/dandy sensitivity formula for checking climate science math).
CO2 sensitivity = Temp AnomC * LN(2) / LN(CO2ppm/280)
Temp AnomC = CO2 sensitivity / LN(2) * LN(CO2ppm/280)
Climate science uses a different formula:
Any data whatsoever = 3C per doubling

lgl says:

I certainly do not believe that scenario. Most of the vapor originates in the tropics, and table 8 here http://www.cccma.ec.gc.ca/papers/jli/pdf/puckrin2004.pdf says 295 W/m2 from H2O and 5 W/m2 from CO2 so clearly the very most of water vapor is solar driven (even if you add 10 or 20 W/m2 to the 5 from the combined effect). Adding 400 W/m2 solar we get at least 700 W/m2 non-CO2 in total, so removing the 10-20 or so W/m2 from CO2 would not change the temperature in the tropics significantly.

I think your estimates are off-the-mark and it is also not really relevant what the fraction of the total W/m^2 is: The earth is poised at temperatures where a little bit of warming goes a long way toward increasing water vapor in the atmosphere (and, by the way, the most important parts of the atmosphere in terms of the water vapor feedback are not the warm regions but rather high in the troposphere where it is quite cold). I trust actual models that incorporate actual physics into them more than people throwing numbers around off the top of their head as if that proves something.
That being said, it is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether one can invoke a circular argument by ASSUMING the water vapor feedback doesn’t exist in order to derive a climate sensitivity that one claims includes the effects of the water vapor feedback.

R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Although I’ve never found your arguments here very convincing, in the past i must admit I thought you did at least a workmanlike job of arguing your position. However this comment is so lame that one hardly knows where to begin in addressing it or even whether it is worth wasting my dwindling supply of life to do so.
“Let’s be generous on the conservative side, and suggest that about 25% of the 33C temperature boost comes from CO2 and related feedbacks.”
25% is “generous and conservative”? Even the notoriously skeptical folks at Wikipedia have 25% at the very top of their estimate, In the real world the percent is more likely to be in single digits.
“Now a doubling of CO2, from the Holocene average of about 280 ppm to 560 ppm could mean up to an additional 8.25C of warming…”
8.25C? Really? This last doubling could double the GHE of all the other CO2 in the atmosphere? Got a link for that one?
“But let’s remember that two additional greenhouse gases are also increasing rapidly along with the rise in CO2…namely N2O and methane, and these certainly play some role in the 33C boost that the earth gets from greenhouse gases.”
At the molecular level methane is supposedly 30 time more radiatively effective than CO2, but it exists in the atmosphere, even after a big uptick in the 80s, at 1/200th the concentration of CO2. and the rate of growth has been fairly flat since the 90s. In the real atmosphere, what scant evidence which exists suggests that neither CH4 or N2O are more than negligible contributors to the GHE.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
” Certainly pronouncements that effects from a doubling will be “low enough to be harmless” appears as more guesswork rather than substantive.”
Lord Monckton’s statements may be guesswork, given the current state of the science most statements about the climate are, but his guesses bear at least some relation to reality. Something which can’t be said about your comment.

Joel Shore says:
December 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
…..
I said all the non-condensable greenhouse gases, not just water vapor. ”
I wasn’t aware that water vapor was a non-condensable greenhouse gas.
The earth’s atmosphere has changed dramatically over its 4.6 billion year existence. Solar luminosity has increased roughly 40% over the last 4.6 billion years. Despite these drastic changes, earth has had stable enough temperatures to maintain liquid oceans over nearly the entire span of time. Obviously the water cycle has played a dominant part in maintaining that stability, and obviously the feedback must have been NEGATIVE over geological periods of time.
Monckton is right- these high sensitivity calculations belong in “Creature Feature” type disaster movies, not in scientific papers.

R. Gates;
The paleoclimate record combined with a consensus of global climate models point strongly to a sensitivity per doubling of CO2 certainly greater than 2C, thus making Lord Monckton’s estimate of 1.1C off by at least 100%.>>>
Oh bullsh*t.
Global climate models are just that, models! In fact, they are models based on the assumptions of the people who made them! By definition, they presume feedback values that you have just admitted nobody has any way of credibly quanitfying! So call your estimate a computer model and suddenly it is reasonably accurate? What utter and total bullsh*t!
Then let’s average the utter and total bullsh*t models which can’t hindcast worth beans, failed to predict ANYTHING accurateley since they were dirst written, with the paleo record which equates temperatures to…assumptions made by the exact same researchers in regard to relationship with tree rings. For the few decades in which we have both temperature data and paleo data, the paleo data to totaly and completely wrong for almost 1/2 the temperature record!
So you want to average computer models based on wild guesses that cannot be substantiated by measurements, hindcasting, or forecasting, with paleo models that can’t get the temperature trend right almost half the time, and then claim that the resulting number supports your sensitivity estimate?
Please invite as many of your warmist friends as possible to read what you wrote and the rebuttals in this thread. I dare you.

Monckton is right- these high sensitivity calculations belong in “Creature Feature” type disaster movies, not in scientific papers.

As I have demonstrated here and nobody has seriously challenged, Monckton’s current pet argument about climate sensitivity is completely and utterly bogus. But, I suppose that won’t stop people from believing what they want to believe.

Joe Born says:
December 31, 2011 at 8:25 am

What my code–and yours–computes is not, as I characterized it, “the temperature of a uniform-temperature sphere that radiates the same total power.” That value would be the 280 Kelvins or so everyone has been citing.

I had to strike that out of your statement, for it is you that has mischaracterized what is in Dr. Nikolov & Zeller’s theory as I read it.
You say: “the temperature of a uniform-temperature sphere that radiates the same total power” and that is totally incorrect. Was they are saying is every point on such of a sphere is not, I repeat not at a uniform temperature. Since the relation of radiation on a massless gray body to the temperature at every point is non-linear due to the fourth root you must first compute the effective radiative temperature at each point from the radiation at that point and then average the temperatures across the sphere.
Lord M should very well pay attention to this theory for it’s physics are correct on the ‘mean effective radiative temperature’ and it corrects the slip in logic found everywhere within general “climate science” today. Most of the problem is most of climate science on the radiation side keep insisting on a massless surface without any thermal inertia, they keep assuming all radiation hitting the Earth immediately and totally radiates back to space. This is wrong.
I can’t speak for your program, but I will stand by mine for correctly computing the ‘mean effective radiative temperature’ of a massless gray body as a perfect radiator. Remember, there is no real temperature in such of an example for there is no mass. It takes mass to even define temperature. (but most climate scientist have no problem with it and therefore they are all wrong, sorry)

Joel Shore;
I doubt it would be so large as to make the assumption that Nikolov and Zeller make anywhere close to accurate.>>>
My first take on Nikolov and Zeller was that their -100K number was out of the realm of reality. Upon further consideration, I’m no so certain. If you calculate equilibrium temperature based on SB Law and an average of 235 w/m2, you get around 253K.
But there’s no such thing as “average” insolation, and P varies with T^4, not T. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation based on a 12 hour zero insolation followed by insolation rising linearly from zero to 1000 w/m2 in six hours, and then dropping back to zero in the next six hours. Save the fact I used a linear rise and fall, that’s going to be pretty close for the tropics and good enough for a back of the envelope calc. I got 150K as a result. Fudge factor using a linear rise, and call it 160K. Almost bang on N&Z and also bang on the rough average of the moon when you extrapolate from the polar data as well as the equatorial data which results in 150K instead of 250K.
I’ve emailed my calcs to Ira who also thinks I’m off my rocker. Happy to cc you if you’d like to discuss off line, but I think if you catch my drift, that we need to calculate T^4 based on the rise and fall of insolation from day to night, season to season, and across latitude zones with albedo and peak insolation changing as one nears the poles…and THEN average and THEN convert to T, we’re going to see a number in the range of -100K.
Averaging T based on averaging Insolation may well be the most collosal math error in human history.

To Joel Shore and R. Gates:
Agenda driven wild guesses using “supercomputer” models to prove your point don’t impress me. I was feeding IBM paper cards to “supercomputers” in the 70’s and I know how they work, right down to the assembler language, which I am well versed on. I can program any computer to offer proof of anything you’d like me to using a computer model, whether it is true or not. Let me know when you have something solid, as in real world physics, to go on.
In the meantime have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Best,
J,

davidmhoffer says:

That would mean that if 280 ppm = 6 degrees, then 400 ppm which is close to what we have now would result in another +3 (CO2 being logarithmic, plus 40% is about a 50% increase). That in turn would be about 6 degrees for doubling of CO2,

You’ve made a mistake here: You have somehow managed to figure out what the ratio of log(c)/log(c_0) is when c_0 = 0, which is a neat trick because log(0) is undefined (or negative infinity, if you will). [In reality, what happens is that at lower concentrations, the log dependence breaks down…At low concentrations the dependence is more like linear, but without knowing the details of how that happens, you can’t use the temperature rise from 0 to 280ppm to predict the temperature rise from 280 to 400ppm.]

davidmhoffer says:

OK fine. That being the case, please explain to R. Gates that his initial assumptions are bogus for the same reason. He’s either wrong for the reasons you’ve stated, or for the reasons I’ve stated. I’m happy to go with yours.

I don’t see the place where R. Gates has made the mistake that I pointed out that you made. Could you direct me to it?

Joel Shore says:
December 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm
“As I have demonstrated here and nobody has seriously challenged, Monckton’s current pet argument about climate sensitivity is completely and utterly bogus. ”
With an average temperature of 288 K, the earth would radiate at about 390.7 watts Supposedly a doubling of CO2 would increase that by an additional 3.8 watts, That would result in an increased temperature to 288 * (394.5/390.7)^0.25 = 288.7, or an increase of 0.7 K, hardly catastrophic The assumed 3K warning is all smoke and mirrors
You have asserted that Monckton is wrong, but you haven’t DEMONSTRATED anything,
I think you’re using Lewis Carroll logic
The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll
Fit the First – The Landing
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true.”
Arguing about a non-greenhouse earth earlier, some have pointed out the average temperatue of the moon, about 250 K. Note that the average fluctuation over a lunar day is on the order of 100 to 300 K, as opposed to earth’s diurnal fluctuaton of more like 10 K.
Even if average temperatures on earth went up by 4.5 K, about 2/3 of that would be increased nighttime and winter temperatures, making the planet much cozier for us creatures who originated in the tropics. – and for life in general.

R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 3:39 pm
… such that the 25% conservative estimate of the contribution to the 33C of warming does not even begin to indicate the full measure and value of the stability that CO2 brings to temperatures from its non-condensing nature.
————————————-
I seem to be picking on you lately but it is not on purpose.
CO2 might be non-condensing, but it cycles through the atmosphere on the order of just 4 to 5 years. Its lifetime is just 4 or 5 years.
Each 4.5 years, CO2 gets converted into C6H12O6 + 6O2 (vegetation) and H2CO3 (ocean) amongst hundreds of other molecules.
There is balance of CO2 in the atmosphere but it can turn around and get cut in half in short order by just more rainfall or more ice-sheet formation.
So let’s not have anymore of that CO2 controls 90% of the water vapour. It could easily be the other way around.

Alan D McIntyre says:

With an average temperature of 288 K, the earth would radiate at about 390.7 watts Supposedly a doubling of CO2 would increase that by an additional 3.8 watts, That would result in an increased temperature to 288 * (394.5/390.7)^0.25 = 288.7, or an increase of 0.7 K, hardly catastrophic The assumed 3K warning is all smoke and mirrors

You have omitted feedbacks…and done the no-feedback calculation incorrectly by looking at the surface energy balance (which is hard to work with because much more than radiation affects it) rather than the top-of-the-atmosphere energy balance.

You have asserted that Monckton is wrong, but you haven’t DEMONSTRATED anything,
I think you’re using Lewis Carroll logic

I have provided detailed explanations and a very nice analogy here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848206 and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848211
Nobody has made any coherent challenge to them because they are clearly correct.

Joel Shore says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:23 am
……
“You have omitted feedbacks…and done the no-feedback calculation incorrectly by looking at the surface energy balance (which is hard to work with because much more than radiation affects it) rather than the top-of-the-atmosphere energy balance.”
Yes, I omitted feedbacks. The original effect is small- about 0.7 K as Monkton asserted , based on simple calculations. It’s up to you to DEMONSTRATE that there will be a positive feedback fo a factor of 4 or greater- to increase temperatures by 3K as you assert. Over the aeons of earth’s history, feedback has generally been negative- else we wouldn;t have had oceans lasting for aeons.
As to surface energy balance see
http://www.geo.utexas.edu/courses/387H/Lectures/chap2.pdf
specifically sections 2.3 through 2.5 and figure 2.12
Ultimately, the amount of radiation leaving the earth has to equal the radiation approaching the earth for the situation to be in equilibrium If an instant doubling of CO2 would .decrease the outgoing wattage from 240 to 236.2 watts, the earth would warm up until the outgoing wattage reached 240 again. From figure 12, you’ll see that once the earth is in balance again, the surface flux would also have increased by 3.8 watts ( or less since CO2 is not equally transluctant in all frequencies). My assumed 3.8 watt increase for the surface was actually CONSERVATIVE.
You continue to misspell my name- so much for your powers of observation.

Alan D McIntire said:

Yes, I omitted feedbacks.

Then your calculation is not relevant to the issue at hand.

You continue to misspell my name- so much for your powers of observation.

Sorry about the misspelling…but snide remarks like this about what it does or does not indicate might care a little more weight if you hadn’t misspelled Monckton’s in the very same comment.

Monckton of Brenchley says:

Using the IPCC’s own data and methods, it is not difficult to establish that climate sensitivity is low. One can do it by numerous methods, of which these postings have outlined two: the equilibrium system sensitivity and the transient industrial-era sensitivity, which are near-identical, suggesting that temperature feedbacks may be net-zero or thereby.

Anybody can take data and methods and use them incorrectly to produce results that happen to be more in line with what they would like to think the truth is. The actual facts are these:
(1) Your “equilibrium system sensitivity” is simply wrong because you don’t understand the distinction between forcing and feedback and how it depends on context. In particular, you are assuming no feedbacks in computing your sensitivity because you are considering the radiative effect of all the water vapor that is in the atmosphere, without determining to what extent it is there only because of the additional warmth produced by the non-condensable greenhouse gases and to what extent it would be there anyway. It is trivially easy to see how it is wrong with an analogy as I have presented: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848211
(2) The actual fact is that the industrial era data can be used to support a high sensitivity or a low sensitivity depending on assumptions made, even staying with assumptions that are reasonable. IN OTHER WORDS, THE INDUSTRIAL ERA DATA DOES NOT PROVIDE A TIGHT CONSTRAINT ON THE CLIMATE SENSITIVITY. This is why this piece of empirical data is used in concert with other empirical data in order to establish the best constraints on climate sensitivity (and, admittedly, even with all the data together the constraints are not as tight as one would ideally like them to be…but they are better).
P.S. – I agree with you about the “Slayers” and how they are hurting your cause more than helping it, at least among scientists. I think, however, that the Slayers may well have made the calculation that this is worth doing because they are not trying to appeal to scientists, but rather to the public. Your refusal to budge on your clearly wrong notions about point (1) above makes me wonder how seriously you are really trying to win over knowledgeable scientists…Your argument may fool a few more people than the Slayers’ arguments do, but ultimately nobody who really understands about forcings and feedbacks.

Monckton of Brenchley says:
January 1, 2012 at 4:01 pm
I read your comment, two times, and see your points very clearly, but if I was going to be any real help to you, it would take me a while to carefully compile. It would have to do with the various ‘flavors’ of people here on WUWT, and there are many. You seem to be speaking to WUWT as a whole entity but you are going to find you will never get the expected resonse, as a whole, and I’m not talking of the counter commenters, if you don’t also pay attention to who and why each commenter is here to accomplish, or just for the argumentative entertainment. See my point, it took me the first year to come to that realization and the next to try to sort the personalities so I myself did not go starking mad! It made no sense.
If you want my help, I will not name names, but I just might help you to know why certain groups, even though they wholly support your efforts and see ecactly where you are coming from and try to aid when possible, might seem against you in some respects if you are not aware of exactly where their effort are lying. A very few, like myself, have move way past where you might we are and are moving on into the future, past the low sensitivity, you have convinced me, for that is where it is, low, maybe even so small ignorable, and I am personally trying to answer the next layer of questions that already seem to present themselves as Dr. Nikolov seem also to do. But keep up with your efforts for yours is hugely more than mine in the actual “today” with the politics the way they are.
Maybe that gives you a little insight when you might seem one of my comments, it is not counter to you, your point has already been accepted and I’ve moved down the scientific road. I’m not very good at either arguments or politics.
If you want it any deeper thoughts on that matter, let me know. Either a comment back here or Anthony or the mods have my email address and I give permission for you to have it and please excuse my terrible handling of words, that is one more of my weak points.

I agree with Lord Monkton that for tactical reasons, it is sensible to use IPCC whenever possible data even if that data is questionable.
I consider that observational data establishes what Lord Monkton has to say about low sensitivity UNLESS there is a significant delay in the effects of net feedbacks being felt in the climate system. If net feed back takes place on a century scale (or even 30 to 50 years), we have not yet seen the effects of net feedback and therefore the conclusions drawn from more recent observational may not be sound and may be over stated.
I should state that I am one of those who is sceptical to the claims of the IPCC and I consider it likely that net feedbacks to CO2 are neutral or even negative. I merely point out that there are arguments of certainty surrounding the point being made by Lord Monkton.

Wherever my previous post refers to GHGs I actually mean non condensing GHGs.

I can’t speak for your program, but I will stand by mine for correctly computing the ‘mean effective radiative temperature’ of a massless gray body as a perfect radiator. Remember, there is no real temperature in such of an example for there is no mass. It takes mass to even define temperature. (but most climate scientist have no problem with it and therefore they are all wrong, sorry)
I’d like to chime in and support this statement, without necessarily endorsing the results of the computation (since I’d have to look at code and results directly to do that:-). Let’s just think about scaling for a moment. There are several equations involved here:
P = (4\pi R^2)\epsilon\sigma T^4
is the total power radiated from a sphere of radius R at uniform temperature T. \sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant and can be ignored for the moment in a scaling discussion. \epsilon describes the emissivity of the body and is a constant of order unity (unity for a black body, less for a “grey” body, more generally still a function of wavelength and not a constant at all). Again, for scaling we will ignore \epsilon.
Now let’s assume that the temperature is not uniform. To make life simple, we will model a non-uniform temperature as a sphere with a uniform “hot side” at temperature T + dT and a “cold side” at uniform temperature T – dT. Half of the sphere will be hot, half cold. The spatial mean temperature, note well, is still T. Then:
P’ = (4\pi R^2)\epsilon\sigma ( 0.5*(T + dT)^4 + 0.5(T – dT)^4)
is the power radiated away now. We only care how this scales, so we: a) Do a binomial expansion of P’ to second order (the first order terms in dT cancel); and b) form the ratio P’/P to get:
P’/P = 1 + 6 (dT/T)^2
This lets us make one observation and perform an estimate. The observation is that P’ is strictly larger than P — a non-uniform distribution of temperature on the sphere radiates energy away strictly faster than it is radiated away by a uniform sphere of the same radius with the same mean temperature. This is perfectly understandable — the fourth power of the hot side goes up much faster than the fourth power of the cold side goes down, never even mind that the cold side temperature is bounded from below at T_c = 0.
The estimate: dT/T \approx 0.03 for the Earth. This isn’t too important — it is an order of magnitude estimate, with T \approx 300K and dT \approx 10K. (0.03^2 = 0.0009 \approx 0.001 so that 6(0.03)^2 \approx 0.006. Of course, if you use latitude instead of day/night side stratification for dT, it is much larger. Really, one should use both and integrate the real temperature distribution (snapshot) — or work even harder — but we’re just trying to get a feel for how things vary here, not produce a credible quantitative computation.
For the Earth to be in equilibrium, S/4 must equal P’ — as much heat as is incident must be radiated away. I’m not concerned with the model, only with the magnitude of the scaling ratio — 1375 * 0.006 = 8.25 W/m^2, divided by four suggests that the fact that the temperature of the earth is not uniform increases the rate at which heat is lost (overall) by roughly 2 W/m^2. This is not a negligible amount in this game. It is even less negligible when one considers the difference not between mean daytime and mean nighttime temperatures but between equatorial and polar latitudes! There dT is more like 0.2, and the effect is far more pronounced!
The point is that as temperatures increase, the rate at which the Earth loses heat goes strictly up, all things being equal. Hot bodies lose heat (to radiation) much faster than cold bodies due to Stefan-Boltzmann’s T^4 straight up; then anything that increases the inhomogeneity of the temperature distribution around the (increased) mean tends to increase it further still. Note well that the former scales like:
P’/P = 1 + 4 dT/T + …
straight up! (This assumes T’ = T + dT, with dT << T the warming.) At the high end of the IPCC doom scale, a temperature increase of 5.6C is 5.6/280 \approx 0.02. That increases the rate of Stefan-Boltzmann radiative power loss by a factor of 0.08 or nearly 10%. I would argue that this is absurd — there is basically no way in hell doubling CO_2 (to a concentration that is still < 0.1%) is going to alter the radiative energy balance of the Earth by 10%.
The beauty of considering P'/P in all of these discussions is that it loses all of the annoying (and often unknown!) factors such as \epsilon. All that they require is that \epsilon itself not vary in first order, faster than the relevant term in the scaling relation. They also give one a number of “sanity checks”. The sanity checks suggest that one simply cannot assume that the Earth is a ball at some uniform temperature without making important errors, They also suggest that changes of more than 1-2C around some geological-time mean temperature are nearly absurdly unlikely, given the fundamental T^4 in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Basically, given T = 288, every 1K increase in T corresponds to a 1.4% increase in total radiated power. If one wants a “smoking gun” to explain global temperature variation, it needs to be smoking at a level where net power is modulated at the same scale as the temperature in degrees Kelvin.
Are there candidates for this sort of a gun? Sure. Albedo, for one. 1% changes in (absolute) albedo can modulate temperature by roughly 1K. An even better one is modulation of temperature distribution. If we learn anything from the decadal oscillations, it is that altering the way temperature is distributed on the surface of the planet has a profound and sometimes immediate effect on the net heating or cooling. This is especially true at the top of the troposphere. Alteration of greenhouse gas concentrations — especially water — have the right order of magnitude. Oceanic trapping and release and redistribution of heat is important — Europe isn’t cold not just because of CO_2 but because the Gulf Stream transports equatorial heat to warm it up! Interrupt the “global conveyor belt” and watch Europe freeze (and then North Asia freeze, and then North America freeze, and then…).
But best of all is a complex, nonlinear mix of all of the above! Albedo, global circulation (convection), Oceanic transport of heat, atmospheric water content, all change the way temperature is distributed (and hence lost to radiation) and all contribute, I’m quite certain, in nontrivial ways to the average global temperature. When heat is concentrated in the tropics, T_h is higher (and T_c is lower) compared to T and the world cools faster. When heat is distributed (convected) to the poles, T_h is closer to T_c and the world cools overall more slowly, closer to a baseline blackbody. When daytime temperatures are much higher than nighttime tempratures, the world cools relatively quickly; when they are more the same it is closer to baseline black/grey body. When dayside albedo is high less power is absorbed in the first place, and net cooling occurs; when nightside albedo is high there is less night cooling, less temperature differential, and so on.
The point is that this is a complex problem, not a simple one. When anyone claims that it is simple, they are probably trying to sell you something. It isn’t a simple physics problem, and it is nearly certain that we don’t yet know how all of the physics is laid out. The really annoying thing about the entire climate debate is the presumption by everyone that the science is settled. It is not. It is not even close to being settled. We will still be learning important things about the climate a decade from now. Until all of the physics is known, and there are no more watt/m^2 scale surprises, we won’t be able to build an accurate model, and until we can build an accurate model on a geological time scale, we won’t be able to answer the one simple question that must be answered before we can even estimate AGW:
What is the temperature that it would be outside right now, if CO_2 were still at its pre-industrial level?
I don’t think we can begin to answer this question based on what we know right now. We can’t explain why the MWP happened (without CO_2 modulation). We can’t explain why the LIA happened (without CO_2 modulation). We can’t explain all of the other significant climate changes all the way back to the Holocene Optimum (much warmer than today) or the Younger Dryas (much colder than today) even in just the Holocene. We can’t explain why there are ice ages 90,000 years out of every 100,000, why it was much warmer 15 million years ago, why geological time hot and cold periods come along and last for millions to hundreds of millions of years. We don’t know when the Holocene will end, or why it will end when it ends, or how long it will take to go from warm to cold conditions. We are pretty sure the Sun has a lot to do with all of this but we don’t know how, or whether or not it involves more than just the Sun. We cannot predict solar state decades in advance, let alone centuries, and don’t do that well predicting it on a timescale of merely years in advance. We cannot predict when or how strong the decadal oscillations will occur. We don’t know when continental drift will alter e.g. oceanic or atmospheric circulation patterns “enough” for new modes to emerge (modes which could lead to abrupt and violent changes in climate all over the world).
Finally, we don’t know how to build a faithful global climate model, in part because we need answers to many of these questions before we can do so! Until we can, we’re just building nonlinear function fitters that do OK at interpolation, and are lousy at extrapolation.
rgb

Monckton of Brenchley says:

Negative feedbacks (whose history is given at the beginning of Roe’s paper, and it is a rattling good yarn), are consistent with the remarkably temperature-stable climate of the past 60 million years, during which global temperatures have not varied by more than 3% either side of the mean. Though even these small changes in temperature can bring us ice ages at one moment and a hothouse Earth the next, they are too small to be consistent with high climate sensitivity.

Not according to the scientists who actually study this ( http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5697/821.summary ):

Climate models and efforts to explain global temperature changes over the past century suggest that the average global temperature will rise by between 1.5º and 4.5ºC if the atmospheric COconcentration doubles. In their Perspective, Schrag and Alley look at records of past climate change, from the last ice age to millions of years ago, to determine whether this climate sensitivity is realistic. They conclude that the climate system is very sensitive to small perturbations and that the climate sensitivity may be even higher than suggested by models.

Sure, no problem. Hopefully I did the algebra all correctly — it’s a pain to do algebra at a keyboard when you can’t run latex on the result to look at it. But then, it is pretty simple algebra. I think that this is one of NZ’s most interesting points — I’m not convinced that “pressure” per se is responsible for heat trapping as there is a bit of question begging in there that confuses cause and effect (as noted in a post a few days ago) but I’m very firmly convinced that neglecting effects on the order of dT/T or (dT/T)^2 in BOTH spatial AND temporal averaging is a capital mistake. I also do think that there is very probably a pressure effect, but I’m guessing that it has more to do with convection rates than with ideal gas laws. In any event, the correct rules should involve temperature dependent bulk moduli, not PV = NkT per se, or if you prefer, Navier-Stokes solutions of chaotic complexity.
What I think that they got right is that there is a strong and largely ignored coupling between contact cooling of the surface via convection (including evaporation and conduction) and radiative cooling and trapping. Convection moves heat up through the bulk of the greenhouse gas column to where it can be efficiently radiated; I suspect that it is favorably driven as long as the surface is differentially warmed and cooled (as it is) to create those colorful, often wet, convection rolls called “the weather”. The weather and the wind are evidence that bulk transport of energy is rather important in the Earth’s dynamic energy balance. Not to mention the fact that northern Europe isn’t one big ice-pack. You’d think that people would learn from the fact that Scandinavia isn’t big ball of ice (but Greenland pretty much is, at about the same latitude). Good old Gulf Stream. Then there is the hypothesis that the Younger Dryas was caused by the interruption of the Gulf Stream when a huge freshwater ice dam broke during the original warming phase of the Holocene.
Here’s another one. I make beer. On part of making beer is boiling the wort for some hours to reduce the fluid volume of the barley-sugar-water to the right specific gravity to ferment to the desired target alcohol level (and do things to proteins and sugars and at the right point to bitter and flavor it with the hops). Big pot, lots of fluid, hot on the bottom, cool on the top (even before the boil). The otherwise reasonably clear liquid is full of little chunkies of coagulated proteins as well, so the liquid has a clearly visible “texture” that lets you see the movement of the fluid.
As any good fluid physicist should understand, the heating on the bottom relative to the top creates instability. Warm water is much less dense than cold water, from 4C right up to 100+ C (beer/syrup boils a bit over 100C). Conduction is slow. Radiation is very slow. Rather than heating the water in a stratified way, bottom to top, as the bottom water heats, it expands and experiences a buoyancy force from the denser cooler water above and around it. It is pushed up. Of course at the top there is nowhere to go (it’s in a pot, bound by gravity) so it just displaces the cooler water there, which sinks, is heated at the bottom, rises to the top, gives off its heat via evaporation and conduction and radiation, cools a bit, sinks, picks up more heat, iterate indefinitely.
But the rising and falling are not uniform. The wort creates convection rolls of warmer lower pressure lower density rising liquid and cooler higher pressure higher density falling liquid, heating at the bottom, transporting the heat to the top, giving it off there, and going back to the bottom for another load all while the liquid itself gradually warms. When the convection is obstructed, one can quickly build up a much higher temperature differential, and it actually takes MUCH longer to reach equilibrium — you can actually boil off all of the liquid on the bottom in local patches and scorch things in contact there because the bottom of the pan isn’t COOLED by the convection rolls.
In a pot, the convection rolls are clearly manifest — usually it goes up on one half of my pot and down on the other, unless I stir it or have it really perfectly aligned on the heat. On the earth, the same process occurs in a very irregularly shaped, heated, and cooled “pot”. Heat is dumped in from the sun, but in a constantly varying pattern as clouds move around reflecting a large fraction of incident energy from some areas and not others. It is differentially absorbed by the ground and the water. Some of that heat is differentially released immediately into the air (which is itself also directly warmed by the light that passes through it). Some causes evaporation of water, cooling the surface of land or water but carrying away absorbed heat into the air. Air, too, rises when warm and falls as it cools and this creates huge masses of air that are just as trapped as the beer in my pot, rising over here, falling over there, and running along the ground or upper troposphere in between in both vertical rolls and in horizontal cycles as well. This air all moves in a rotating frame that causes it to deflect as it moves, creating large scale patterns of circulation around low and high pressure systems. All of this is driven by thermal differentials that move energy around, carrying it from where there is a lot to where there is less as an approximate rule, carrying it from where it is relatively hot (down low) up to where it is relatively cool (above) as an approximate rule.
Radiation is what ultimately removes the energy picked up from the sun, but it is not all radiation from the solid ground that does it, nor is it all, or even mostly, CO_2 in dry air responsible for obstructing that heat transport. This is why, in the desert where the humidity is very low, on a quiet night it can freeze by morning where the temperature rises to close to 100F during the day. Not much of a “greenhouse” effect there, I’d say (and the best possible measure of true greenhouse effect cooling, one that is unfortunately not generally directly studied).
When the heat is transported up by convection, it goes through the greenhouse reflector. The stronger the greenhouse trapping, the greater the thermal pressure differential, the comparatively stronger the convective transport process becomes and the more efficient the cooling becomes. The “stratified” reflective blanket is penetrated by the cooling holes of convective rolls, by the active transport of heat from where it is trapped to where it is not. All of this favors smaller sensitivities.
If there is a real lesson in this, this is it. It is a simple principle of very elementary thermodynamics that all perturbations away from the simple radiative model of cooling obstructed by greenhouse gases will increase the cooling rate compared to the purely radiative baseline. It will do this because the greater temperature differentials are a source of free energy that is begging to do work. The system will nearly invariably self-organize to do work, and in the process reduce the temperature differential between the lower and upper troposphere. This, in turn, will increase the efficiency of the radiative cooling by lifting the heat to be lost up above the greenhouse blanket. I don’t know why this simple argument is ignored so often in climate studies when it is the source of the very instability that produces the convective rolls in my heating beer, the wind in my hair, the rain on my garden, and the seasons. Heat trapping is never improved by a heat-differential instability — that would just make the system even more unstable!
Hence the full expectation that the climate sensitivity and feedback should be expected to be negative and cool the earth compared to what one might expect from “pure” CO_2 greenhouse trapping even before one looks at its details. This is just the “fluctuation/dissipation theorem”, and the climate models that postulate egregiously high climate sensitivity are egregious because they violate it. Given the existence of multiple modes (e.g. radiation and convection) for non-equilibrium energy transport, blocking one will increase the rate of others, not vice versa. Sometimes so well that it is difficult to see any effect of the blockage.
This argument doesn’t really depend much upon water, but the evaporative cycle in general is a perfect example. It cools down low and warms up high, with a very, very few exceptions brought about by peculiar geography (e.g. Santa Ana winds) because in general the warmer moist air rises, gives off its heat, condenses as (cooler) water, and falls. Yes, the clouds and water vapor modulate albedo and greenhouse trapping, but most of this modulation is random compared to improved transport as the temperature differential increases. Again one expects the overall effect of water to be negative to neutral, not positive feedback, because it will in general consume free energy to move water around relative to static stratified models, energy seeking equilibrium with outer space at 3K far overhead, energy that wants to move vertically (on average) from the warm surface to the cold overhead and horizontally from hot places to cooler places.
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Robert Brown says:

The system will nearly invariably self-organize to do work, and in the process reduce the temperature differential between the lower and upper troposphere. This, in turn, will increase the efficiency of the radiative cooling by lifting the heat to be lost up above the greenhouse blanket. I don’t know why this simple argument is ignored so often in climate studies when it is the source of the very instability that produces the convective rolls in my heating beer, the wind in my hair, the rain on my garden, and the seasons.

It is not ignored. A near as I can tell, what you are describing is called the “lapse rate feedback” and it is a negative feedback included in all of the climate models that comes about because, indeed, the higher altitudes of the troposphere are expected to warm a little more than the surface…and, since it is these high altitudes that are mainly important in determining how much temperature rise has to occur to re-establish energy balance, the surface warms less.
[Your description is vague enough that one could also interpret your argument as being that the greenhouse effect is smaller once convection comes into play than before it. That would be a statement that corresponds not so much to the lapse rate feedback but to the fact that the greenhouse effect is indeed of a smaller magnitude in models that include convection than in purely radiative analyses. Again, this is why all quantitative calculations of the effect include the effect of convection…i.e., it is what essentially does not allow the lapse rate to exceed the adiabatic lapse rate.]
However, there are other feedbacks that come into play that are positive. In particular, much of the same physics that controls the lapse rate feedback also controls the water vapor feedback, i.e., the fact that more water vapor in the atmosphere leads to more absorption of terrestrial radiation. Because these two processes are controlled by similar physics, it turns out that the spread amongst the climate models that is seen for the combined effect of these two feedbacks is much smaller than the spread for each individually. (I.e., models with a positive water vapor feedback that is larger in magnitude also tend to have a negative lapse rate feedback that is larger in magnitude, and models with a positive water vapor feedback that is smaller in magnitude also tend to have a negative lapse rate feedback that is smaller in magnitude.)
The fact that the net feedback due to water vapor and lapse rate feedbacks are reasonably well-simulated by the models is confirmed by satellite data for fluctuations that occur (and, for the long term multidecadal trends too, although here the data is a little less trustworthy because of artifacts that can affect these trends). See, for example, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/841.abstract