New paper demonstrates that climate responds to short and long-term changes in solar activity

The case against AGW just gets stronger and stronger. Love it.

Wasn’t the CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere at 100 years dropped/debunked to something closer 5, maybe 10?
According to who? There are many models that can fit the data (including the Bern model with its long lifetime). The problem is once again the difficulty of resolving the models. Fluctuation-dissipation is really the only possible way to do so, and sadly global CO_2 increases like a very nearly smooth function with a small annual/seasonal sawtooth. To get good measurements one would have to do something like inject a huge bolus of CO_2 into the atmosphere all at once and then watch how long it takes to decay back to quasi-equilibrium, or introduce in some other way a large enough fluctuation that the dissipation information would tell you something about timescales of the underlying equilibration ODEs.
Bart and Richard have done something of that (and I dabbled with it too, using octave to generate simple model fits) on another thread a year or so ago. I’d say that it is fair(er) to say that the Bern model is neither verified by any particular set of observations nor falsified by others; it remains a candidate, but there are indeed other models that make a fair bit of physical sense that would produces a much shorter equilibration time and indicate a much shorter effective lifetime.
Part of the difficulty is knowing exactly how to set the parameters that indicate what the ocean is doing. as it is the great CO_2 source/sink that keeps CO_2 levels roughly stable. It is assumed that it takes a very long time for CO_2 absorbed in the warmer surface waters to be transported to the colder waters underneath and/or biologically or chemically sequestered, but I’m not sure how much experimental evidence there is for the rates that they assign. It is a problem of the same sort as plagues the GCMs (and indeed, is an implicit plaguey component of the GCMs). If you assume that you know what is going on, you can probably find a model that works decently because CO_2 is monotonically and smoothly increasing, so that many systems of ODEs describing CO_2 uptake and release can reproduce the base shape of the increase within reasonable ranges of their parameters. But the lack of uniqueness or even similarity of the models that can reproduce the observations, and the very different interpretations of the important physics and chemistry of those models, complicate the confirmation or rejection of any of them.
rgb

RHS says:
January 2, 2013 at 11:39 am
Wasn’t the CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere at 100 years dropped/debunked to something closer 5, maybe 10?
No. There is, however, a great deal of confusion on this issue. It is true that the average lifetime of an individual molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 5 or so years but that is not is not really the point of interest. The key statistic is the time taken for the atmospheric CO2 concentration to return to a previous level following a ‘pulse’ of increased CO2 such as that we have seen over the past 100 years or so. The basic relevant question is: how long would it take for CO2 concentrations to return to pre-industrial levels (280 ppm) if human contributions ceased.
Peter Dietze provides a reasonable estimate on the John Daly site. He finds the half lifetime of the pulse is ~38 years and that around 37% would remain in the atmosphere after 55 years. Theoretically, some of the added CO2 (see ** below) could still be present after 100 or even 200 years but this will only be a few ppm above the pre-industrial ‘equilibrium’ level.
** the “added CO2” won’t necessarily be human produced CO2. It may well be naturally emitted CO2 which hasn’t been re-sequestered because the natural uptake limit has been ‘satisfied’ by the human (+ natural) contribution.

Re: rgbatduke
There is a problem with the bern model and that is CO2 mixing. The model assumes that CO2 is well mixed to begin with (no problem with that), but from then on there is no mixing of CO2 whatsoever. According to model the CO2 stays with whatever sink it happens to be at at the start. This leads to the ridiculous situation whereby 13.7% is supposed to remain in the atmosphere forever. (see http://unfccc.int/resource/brazil/carbon.html).

To get good measurements one would have to do something like inject a huge bolus of CO_2 into the atmosphere all at once and then watch how long it takes to decay back to quasi-equilibrium

Everything you need to know is already there. You know approximately how much CO2 enters the atmosphere from natural sources every year (about 770Gt), and what the equilibrium point is (278ppm or 2173Gt). From these two numbers you can calculate the half life:
2173 * ln(2)/770 = 2 years.
Of course the 2 year half life will be affected by temperature and probably many other factors but it shouldn’t vary much from the 2 years.
One final point, if you use the equations from the bern model to calculate how much CO2 is left after 1 year and then feed that back into the equations as a starting point (in other words remix the CO2 every year) you get a half life of about 6 years.

If you want to be taken seriously, don’t name your model SATIRE.

Stevo says:
January 2, 2013 at 11:35 am
The case against AGW just gets stronger and stronger. Love it.
This does nothing to negate the case for AGW. It merely suggest that there is a noticable solar influence on global temps, maybe.

Doug Proctor says:
“To date, there are no unique TSI or (as I suspect) heat redistribution or other, non-CO2 signs we can point to for the skeptical defense.
What? How about the missing hot spot? How about a inexplicable warming pause while CO2 increases? How about stratospheric cooling pause? How about ocean heat content increase pattern not matching the CO2 increases causing warming pattern? How about the warming pattern matching PDO cycles? How about warming matching solar spectral variation patterns (not just TSI, i.e.: Bond Cycles)?

Ferdinand – How does a molecule of CO2 know whether it is governed by the first case or the second?

Tom in Florida says:
January 2, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Looking at the scale, are we really talking about a difference of just over 1 w/m2?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is a lot of sleight of hand going on in the climate debates.
Paraphrased from WUWT link
Take a look at the radiative forcing table from the IPCC reports, where the explanatory variables that get included in the IPCC computer models are laid out. You will see that the only solar forcing effect listed is “solar irradiance.” In AR5 this table is on page 8-39:
The Graph
Also take a look at the water forcing effect compared to that of CO2. In actuality the forcing of water is rolled into that of CO2 because of the assumption that
1. CO2 causes warming.
2. Warming causes increased water vapor
3. Water vapor causes more warming.
But the evidence shows this is not what is happening. A graph and a WUWT link
Then look at CO2 vs Solar. Again there is sleight of hand. Look at these graphs:
The relative strength of the energy of a specific wavelength from the sun vs earthshine: graph 1
The absorption of various wavelengths of sun energy at TOA, surface and under the ocean: graph 2
A closer view of the energy absorbed by the ocean at various depths: graph 3
Oceans cover 70% of the earth’s surface and earthshine reflected back to earth by CO2 has no real effect on the ocean heat content. Ocean Heat Content from 1955 to 2011 (Joules 10^22) graph 4
The other bit of information that is left out is although TSI may remain relatively constant over the short term the distribution of energy among various wavelengths does not and neither do other attributes of the sun. Despite claims to the contrary science really has no idea what the various changes might cause.
The fact we see all sorts of papers about the sun’s effect on the earth from Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman and Yuk Yung’s Does the Nile reflect solar variability? and The pattern of northern hemisphere surface air temperature during prolonged periods of low solar output (“We show that the reconstructed sensitivity of the sea level temperature to long term solar forcing in the Northern Hemisphere is in very good agreement with the empirical temperature pattern corresponding to changes of the North Annular Mode (NAM). This implies that long-term variations of solar output affect climate predominantly through the NAM that extends throughout the stratosphere and troposphere.)
To the “Shiva Hypothesis” show just how active this area of research really is despite the IPCC’s efforts to shut down this avenue of research with TSI is constant, nothing to see here move along, CO2 explains Climate Change and YOU are to blame.

lsvalgaard says
“Yes, but remember that the faithful invoke an unknown mechanism to amplify the impact of that tiny difference by ten times in their attempts to make it fit the observed temperature fluctuations.”
The CO2 faithful just ignore that components of TSI can vary 10 times more than TSI itself. Varying the area under the curve is not the only way solar activity can effect climate, see Bond Cycles.
We’re all about to find out one way or the other anyway. Obviously, if CO2 dominates then global average temperature will resume it’s rise, if solar spectral variation that sunspots proxy dominate then global average temperatures will begin to decline, but if neither dominates (ie: close to 50/50) then global average temperatures will continue this sideways trend.

“lsvalgaard says:
January 2, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Tom in Florida says:
January 2, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Looking at the scale, are we really talking about a difference of just over 1 w/m2?
Yes, but remember that the faithful invoke an unknown mechanism to amplify the impact of that tiny difference by ten times in their attempts to make it fit the observed temperature fluctuations.”
Yes well the unknown mechanism is not TSI but some of the obvious known affecting solar outputs of such as, proton flux, UV, magnetic, etc with react with ozone, upper level areas, earths magnetic structure, electric fields. pressure patterns, jetsreams, yes unknown, but plenty of papers setting out the effects that occur…and if they regularly occur, then they are real, njo matter if we know the real connections or not. If the solar different outputs change andn the weather-climate changes at the same time always then there is a true connection, whether we know it or not yet.
If we waited for all things to be fully proven, then mankind would never have advanced. We used fire, elecrocity, bread mold,, gravity, etc etc etc well before we really understood them. I use solar outputs every day and month and year to predict weather, together with the ussual oceans etc, and they work every time, so I know that the solar weather/climate connections are real. The mechanisms, well they may be many years off finding,, but if I wait that long I will never get to use them all very successfully. So why wait, if it works, it works, if I said they did not I would be lying.
People get so hung up on having to know exactly how something works. If it works well and consitently then use it. The truth will eventually come out and be found. We still are only scratching the surface of all knowledge and science.

lsvalgaard says:
“The spectral variation has only been measured [with large error bars] for about a decade”
So, you’ve excluded it as a potential cause or even a significant contributor of recent warming (that happened over a decade ago) based on this paltry data?

Overlaying the 11.5K year TSI reconstruction, Fig. 11, on the GISP2 temperature reconstruction doesn’t do much for me. Didn’t see an obvious offset in x-axis either.
http://i49.tinypic.com/oji4b7.jpg

lsvalgaard says: Hockey Schtick says: January 2, 2013 at 2:32 pm
The above paper is reconstructing solar activity at the Earth surface and shows a change of ~1.2 Wm-2 over the same period, even without any amplification.
and that 1.2 W/m2 yields a temperature of less than 0.1 degree. That I can endorse.
1. According to the IPCC, a doubling of CO2 results in an increase of 3.7 Wm-2 at the TOA and about 1 Wm-2 at the surface, allegedly resulting in 3C global warming at the surface. So which is it Leif:
a. An increase of [1.2 Wm-2]/4 = 0.3 Wm-2 at the surface causes an increase of surface temperature of << 0.1 degree as you claim
or
b. An increase of 0.3 W/m2 at the surface causes an increase of surface temperature of ~ 0.9 C
2. I see you prudently avoided answering my question #2 above, so I'll restate it again:
What is the “unknown mechanism” that the faithful believers of the “Solar activity doesn’t change” religion you subscribe to that accounts for the climate change shown in the 1st paper above and countless others showing a link between solar activity and climate change over relatively short timescales? So Leif, what is the “unknown mechanism”?
3. Leif also says:
countless others showing a link between solar activity and climate change over relatively short timescales?
Equally many invoke the great thermal inertia of the oceans to explain why there are no short time scales involved.
a. Only shortwave solar radiation can heat the oceans, not changes in IR from GHGs
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/09/realclimate-admits-doubling-co2-could.html
b. Many papers have demonstrated a link between solar activity and ocean oscillations, which brings us back to question #2 above.

lsvalgaard says:
January 2, 2013 at 2:47 pm
“Hockey Schtick says:
January 2, 2013 at 2:32 pm
The above paper is reconstructing solar activity at the Earth surface and shows a change of ~1.2 Wm-2 over the same period, even without any amplification.
and that 1.2 W/m2 yields a temperature of less than 0.1 degree. That I can endorse.”
With a natural trend in place of 0.5-0.6º C per century since the LIA, this extra 1.2 Wm-2 gives us the 0.7º C for the last hundred years.
Its the Sun, stupid!

BTW Leif, weather is not climate except that climate expresses itself through the succession of weather events over the years. Thus explaining these weather variations within a season is key in deconstructing the various elements at work rather than plastering CO2 everywhere.

Anthony, I don’t know why you just don’t tell people the truth!
The real reason for 20th century global warming is actually CCF (Cricket Chirp Frequency). Yes, CCF slightly lags temperature but this is merely because CCF is both a feedback and a forcing. You get a little bit of warming and that increases CCF, which increases temperature, which increases CCF and so on and so forth. Luckily for us there’s a limit to how fast and how long crickets chirp or they would have boiled away the oceans long ago. Also, different species of crickets have different chirp frequencies as well as varying stamina and season (as in mating, etc.) frequency variations. For example, the snowy tree cricket of the north has a slower chirp frequency than his more southerly cousins. This is actually why we have daily, seasonal, and geographic temperature variations; it has absolutely nothing to do with the Sun or Earth’s rotation or tilt or any of that fictional stuff they teach in school, it’s simply the average CCF of the crickets in the area. The 20th century simply saw an expansion of higher frequency chirping crickets. To combat this all we have to do is institute programs that retards expansion of faster chirping crickets and aids expansion of slower chirping crickets. But we have to be careful, slow chirping cricket population explosions cause ice ages.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~genchem/0102/spring/6winn/cricket.html
In order to develop and implement the best possible program before it’s too late I’ll need funding right away.
[Just in case ….. /sarc]
In case you haven’t been following the “debate” long, the standard CS (BS) answer to why CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years in the ice core records is basically because CO2 is both a feedback and a forcing. You get a little bit of warming and that increases CO2, which increases temperature, which increases CO2 and so on and so forth. Apparently, that explanation works for CO2 or CCF. Actually, it works a little better for CCF, at least CCF has a mechanism to keep it from going to runaway global warming.

LKMiller says:
January 2, 2013 at 2:01 pm
We know that CO2 is used to enhance growth in commercial greenhouses, and controlled studies have shown that higher CO2 increases tree growth. However, most of the increases of
the last 80+ years are due to breeding and culture, not CO2.
Correct as the level of CO2 has not materially risen until the last few decades.
The 1st large scale test of yield increase was in the USA during the 2012 production year. Current production models indicated the drop in yields should have been over 1/3 more than that observed. The only variation of substance in 2012 was the level of CO2 verses the level of CO2 during the drought of 1988.
This was probably the 1st recordable function on a large scale of the benefit of additional CO2.

Leif says “Ian Holton says:
January 2, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Yes well the unknown mechanism is not TSI but some of the obvious known affecting solar outputs of such as, proton flux, UV, magnetic, etc with react with ozone, upper level areas, earths magnetic structure, electric fields”
All of which vary the rhythm of TSI.”
Yes, they do but do you use the total atmosphere to see what Co2 does? nNo of course not, so why use bulk TSI, when there are so many individual solar outpuits that have different known consequences?!
Leif says “Ian Holton says..”I use solar outputs every day and month and year to predict weather,”
Some people consult their daily horoscope to decide what to do or expect
Yes, but they are not correct! My forecasts have a high success rate. Otherwise I would not be in business helping farmers, etc, they would not stay if the forecastys did not have a high success rate…..There is a marked difference…not a valid comparison at all, ortherwise we could say your solar forecasts are like horoscopes but they are not, neither are mine…and I use all ocean data in addition and I am a qualified weather forecaster by trade.

Steven Mosher says:
“Therefore, we conclude from this ignorance that changes we see in the climate must be caused by the things we dont understand.”
No!
Therefore we conclude from this ignorance that it is premature to draw a conclusion.
This is not that difficult to understand.

Well I rely on the Mauna Loa data since 1957/8 IGY to estimate the CO2 lifetime.
That data shows a p-p annual oscillation of 6ppm due due natural causes. The detail shows that th CO2 climbs 6ppm in about 7 months, and falls about 6ppm in five months.
Assuming the present level is 395ppm, and for some unknown reason taking 280 ppm as a stable equilibrium level, then the CO2 excess driving the re-absorption natural processes is 115 ppm. which is (115/6)x5 months to remove ALL of the excess at the rate of 6ppm in 5 months, and that comes to 95.83 months. If the process of removal is a normal exponential decay process, then 95.83 months is the decay time constant (to 1/e of the starting excess).
Then 95% of the excess is removed in three time constants, or 99% in five.
So that is 24 years and 40 years respectively; BUT!!
At the north pole, and for virtually all of the arctic, the annual p-p CO2 cycle amplitude is 18 ppm; not 6 as at ML.
So at least in the arctic, where the oceans are colder, the uptake rate is three times what it is at ML, so those time constants may be as short as 8 and 13.3 years respectively.
So no way is the residence time 200 years as some claim, or even 100. Natural processes are much faster than that, and if the atmospheric CO2 addition stopped, that 115 ppm excess would be cleared out in less time than it has been since we last had any significant global warming.
In any case, I consider both CO2 and H2O to be PERMANENT COMPONENTS of earth’s atmosphere, and an H2O/CO2 molecule I just made in my body and exhaled, is just as good as one that Noah exhaled when he was building his ark.

@ Gail Combs
I didn’t notice Mosher was commenting @ 7:42 pm on your excellent comment @ 2:22 pm until I got off the mobile, and now that I’ve read it I simply can’t resist using a tiny bit with a bit of WW (Willis Wisdom):
@ Steven Mosher and Lief Svalgaard
Are you really so confident in the conclusion that because TSI is constant(ish), CO2 explains Climate Change and humanity is to blame in light of all the predictive shortcomings of that model that no additional data should be evaluated or other explanations explored before taking action that in all probability will increase current suffering in a likely futile attempt to avoid future suffering?

lsvalgaard says:
“In my view some, X, of the climate change is due to CO2, some, Y, is due to the Sun, and some, Z, is due to internal, random fluctuations. The only question is how much of each.”
Don’t have a heart attack but I agree with that 100% and most of the broader comment except for solar activity as whole being constant(ish) and the implication that I’m saying it must be 100% this or 100% that and 0% the other thing. I don’t know what the likely percentages are but I’m pretty darn sure solar activity isn’t as low as the models incorporate nor CO2 as high judging by their RF component chart.
Also, you didn’t answer the question. Yes or no, in your opinion do we have enough information to act knowing that we cause suffering by acting and possibly suffering by not acting?

Leif, yet again I’m very impressed by your patience. Thanks for perservering.

“The reconstruction indicates that the decadally averaged total solar irradiance ranges over approximately 1.5 W/m2 from grand maxima to grand minima.”
“What I find interesting is that the 1.5 W/m2 isn’t far from the value for CO2 forcing reported by CDIAC here:”
Yes, while also cloud cover changes (GCR influenced) amount to much more W/m^2 than the TSI change alone (since TSI is far closer to constant in terms of percentage variation albeit varying somewhat), with both adding up to allow a substantial temperature effect despite Earth’s low climate sensitivity, as in such as http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/indirect-solar-forcing-of-climate-by-galactic-cosmic-rays-an-observational-estimate/
“TSI weighted reconstruction since approximately 9500 BC.”
In that plot, 20th century solar activity is substantially higher than the average in the 19th century. A simple but effective illustration, sidestepping the bulk of opportunities for obscuration and revisionism, is the particularly straightforward metric of solar cycle length, where shorter solar cycles tend to be more intense: the average solar cycle length over 1901 to 1996 was 10.5 years, compared to slower weaker cycles averaging 11.5 years each over the prior century from 1798 to 1901 ( ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/docs/maxmin.new )
Then there is my usual set of illustrations (a majority posted before but with only a very small fraction of site visitors ever having seen such, most just ignorant, judged from pageview counts on related links, so I keep up the opportunity for new viewers from time to time):
http://s10.postimage.org/l9gokvp09/composite.jpg
http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif
(click to enlarge)
which relate to
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/svensmark_2007cosmoclimatology.pdf
while also particularly nice is
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg707/scaled.php?server=707&filename=kirkby1.jpg&res=landing
which is from
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS134/Sources/03-Cosmic-rays/more/Kirkby_cosmic_rays_and_climate_2007.pdf

LKMiller says:
January 2, 2013 at 2:01 pm
=======================
“Corn Yields Have Increased Six Times Since 1940”
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/05/corn-yields-have-increased-6x-since.html

After remaining flat between 1866 and 1939 at about 26 bushels per acre, corn yields started increasing dramatically in the 1940s due to the introduction of hybrid seeds, and the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides (source).

Nitrogen fertilizer production converts nitrogen from the atmosphere into urea, the main macronutrient used by plants. Doesn’t the natural gas used to generate it give off CO2 when combusted?

lsvalgaard says:
[Whether we have enough info to act] ”Is not a scientific question, so has no good answer.”
That’s the point; the scientific question in this case is not divorced from the policy question. If we were talking about what killed the dinosaurs (except birds) or some detail of human evolution then academics could extrapolate and conjecture until the cows come home without much notice from outside academia, but this question has policy significance therefore there’s a heightened responsibility to Truth, the whole truth. Scientists sometimes get their favorite theories and blind themselves to contrary evidence like in the case of the water ape hypothesis. There’s a responsibility to say we think this or that but this other thing and whatnot isn’t well understood and we could be wrong with a realistic estimation of uncertainties, unknowns, and error ranges. This is what I find missing from “The Team”, the IPCC reports (esp. exec sums), and most (but not all) advocates of action on climate change.
From my POV it is too soon to make policy decisions based on what we know and what we don’t know. The best course of action IMHO is to continue gathering and analyzing data and evaluating potential future courses of action. If the balance of knowledge should turn in favor of action I would be the first to advocate against “analysis paralysis” and not over analyze before deciding on and implementing a course of action, but we are not there yet and mitigation still has issues even if CO2 turns out to be a problem.

@Mosher, to put in context 9 billion people on Earth by 2050, if they were all living on the continental US, the density of population would be equivalent to that of the Paris suburb region now, that is 966h/km2 [Ref: Dumont, Professor Sorbonne]

Doug Proctor says:
January 2, 2013 at 11:35 am
“An article of great interest, but not useful in the CAGW debate, unfortunately.
Variations in TSI as noted are sufficient but not necessary for the late 20th century warming: this is the problem of combating CAGW. It’s the “many roads to Mecca” problem. CO2 by IPCC narrative is sufficient to account for modern warming. Other possible means of warming, even if of historical importance, once discounted for the present, are not considerations in the argument.”
When you say “not useful” you are arguing that the world has now accepted Steve Schneider’s Null hypothesis switch and that it is the job of skeptics to refute CO2AGW. I’d call that going into Schneider’s trap. Of course, journalists willingly do so as they hope that warnings of the end of the world will boost their sales; but I don’t see scientific evidence that makes CO2AGW an acceptable Null hypothesis (CO2 rise and temperatures don’t correlate well and the models failed.)
Your “usefulness” criterion reminds me of Schneider’s call to the CO2AGW scientists to be either honest or efficient. It has nothing to do with truth or science.
If you want to win “the debate”, you can only do so with the means of politics and propaganda, because that’s where “the debate” (and “the cause”) is.
Schneider’s Null hypothesis switch was a political trick, not a scientific one.

lsvalgaard says:
January 3, 2013 at 11:03 am
TomRude says:
January 3, 2013 at 10:02 am
The polar front????
Educate yourself: http://paoc.mit.edu/labguide/fronts_polar.html and http://www.kids-fun-science.com/polar-front.html
==
I am surprised you did not quote Connolley’s Wikipedia Dr. Svalgaard… LOL Kids fun?
Now, update your references:
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
No need to reply.

Who cares what the IPCC thinks about CO2. I showed the minuscule effect of 1.2 W/m2 increase due to the Sun.
Who cares? LOL
Thanks for conceding that the IPCC exaggerates global warming from CO2 by a factor of 11
Perhaps you are confusing cause and effect. Why omit the 2000s?
The whole thesis of Roy Spencer’s book is that climate science has indeed confused cause and effect, especially with respect to clouds.
c. you obviously still don’t have an answer for what caused the climate change in the 1st paper above.
Why do I need to?
Because you constantly berate skeptics for pointing out mechanisms both known and unknown by which small changes in solar activity can cause climate change. Here’s yet another paper published today debunking your claim that small variations in solar activity cannot be amplified to have large effects on climate:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-paper-finds-another-mechanism-by.html
Totally wrong – read the post from Realclimate to understand why IR from GHGs only penetrates a few microns, with all heat generated lost to the evaporative phase change of water.
IR from the Sun is more than half of the total solar output. I don’t know why you are hung up on CO2 and GHGs.
Uhhh, I’m “hung up” on CO2 and GHGs because, as previously explained 3 times now, they only emit LWIR which cannot heat the oceans. The Sun on the other hand is the only source of UV and visible, which can penetrate and heat the oceans by up to 100 meters. Therefore, only the Sun controls ocean temps [other than geothermal sources].

George E. Smith says:
January 2, 2013 at 8:59 pm
That data shows a p-p annual oscillation of 6ppm due due natural causes. The detail shows that th CO2 climbs 6ppm in about 7 months, and falls about 6ppm in five months.
Assuming the present level is 395ppm, and for some unknown reason taking 280 ppm as a stable equilibrium level, then the CO2 excess driving the re-absorption natural processes is 115 ppm. which is (115/6)x5 months to remove ALL of the excess at the rate of 6ppm in 5 months, and that comes to 95.83 months.
Some problems with this reasoning: The fall and rise of CO2 over the seasons is from a quite different process than the removal of an excess amount of CO2. The seasonal swings over a year are caused by temperature: increased emissions from the oceans and increased uptake by vegetation in summer and reverse in winter. The flows involved are quite impressive: resp. 90 GtC in/out the oceans and 60 GtC in/out vegetation. The largest variability is visible in the NH, but globally it is only 5 ppmv/°C (10 GtC/°C), mainly caused by NH vegetation. That – again – is turnover and has nothing to do with the excess decay… What temperature does is changing the CO2 level setpoint within a year (and over the years).
The removal of the excess CO2 of 210 GtC above equilibrium is of a complete different order: only 4 GtC/year is effectively removed per year after a full seasonal cycle. To remove the extra 210 GtC thus needs 210/4 = 52.5 years e-fold time or ~40 years half life time. The seasonal temperature and following CO2 level swings reduce the speed of CO2 removal somewhat in summer and increases it in winter, as the equilibrium setpoint changes over the seasons…

In addition, almost all IR from the Sun is near IR with a wavelength below 2 microns. The shorter the wavelength, the further the penetration into water. There is almost no longwave IR from the Sun, whereas radiation from CO2 is all LWIR with a wavelength of about 15 microns, which only penetrates water by a few microns.

You are the party that conflated near IR from the Sun with LWIR in your question above. You will note above I specified LWIR when I said “Uhhh, I’m “hung up” on CO2 and GHGs because, as previously explained 3 times now, they only emit LWIR which cannot heat the oceans.” And the chart of penetration depth above shows the difference between near IR and LWIR .
Once again:
Why omit the 2000s?
I’m not: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/20/spencers-cloud-hypothesis-confirmed/
A claim is not ‘has been shown’ [and there are many, including some of mine:
OK fine I’ll restate it:
Many many papers have claimed the Sun drives weather patterns and climate independent of temperature [including papers by Dr. Svalgaard], but these claims are baseless and impossible according to Dr. Svalgaard.

Check from “Etudes de Cas” page 149 on… or from page 295 on… All these real cases show how NOAA models did not read the synoptic situation while the MPH concept made it logical and explained what happened.

JP Miller says:
January 4, 2013 at 7:06 am
I’d be curious, Leif, to get your views of the current possibilities for those modulators — i.e., what data or theory are you aware of that should be directing research efforts to get a better understanding of climate modulators if not for sunspot (etc.) variation, CO2, and Milankovitch?
In my view Milankovitch is not in doubt, although there still are unexplained details [as with anything]. Solar activity also has an effect on the order of 0.1 degree, but we do not have good evidence that the Sun varies enough to explain any larger effect. CO2 clearly also has an effect, but probably small. ‘Ocean circulation’ has been used as a catch phrase for all the poorly understood interactions between ocean and atmosphere. Actual measurements of temperatures and flows at various depths are underway and may shed some light, but this is a long-term proposition [as also the ‘ocean cycles’ themselves are – the short-term ENSO conditions are not climate]. So, a partial answer to your question is “more data”. On the other hand chaos may be too prevalent to allow for predictability, just as it is for weather beyond a couple of weeks. On a personal note, I have been involved in sun-weather research for a long time and know the lure of such and the beauty of cycles and the satisfaction of finding an ‘effect’. I also know, of personal experience, of the frustration that ensue when the beautiful correlation fails. I take a dim view of armchair ‘researchers’ with the proverbial ‘open mind’ [has the brain fallen out?] who discover breakthrough science on a weekly basis.

@ Leif Svalgaard
If an “armchair researcher analyst” could take another minute of your time, I think we’ve been talking past each other.
Seemingly, there’s an overriding assumption that there is a linear relationship between heat flux (W/m^2) and global average temperature regardless of frequency. If we were discussing any other process that involves the conversion of radiant energy into some other form of energy, frequency would indeed be of utmost concern; i.e. a significant if not critical variable.
Three examples:
Temperature gradient above the tropopause where temperature increases with increasing altitude; radiant energy is converted to thermal energy, but the frequency of the radiant energy is a critical variable not just the total heat flux.
Photosynthesis; radiant energy is converted to chemical energy, but the frequency of the radiant energy is a critical variable not just the total heat flux.
Vitamin D production in human skin, where radiant energy is converted into molecular energy, but the frequency of the radiant energy is critical, not just the total heat flux.
So, my question is why wouldn’t frequency matter in the conversion of radiant energy into thermal energy as “revealed” in the global average temperature metric? (In other words: Why would 1 W/m^2 IR have the exact same effect on global average temperature as 1 W/m^2 UV?)
Or perhaps my perception of the “assumption” is wrong; please explain if this is the case.

lsvalgaard says:
“Because once that 1 W/m2 is absorbed the absorber radiates the same.”
That would be assuming 1) it’s absorbed in the first place since real materials have different albedoes to different wavelengths for example snow would reflect most of a 1 W/m2 exposure while absorbing most of a 1 W/m2 IR exposure, 2) the absorber is in thermodynamic isolation since an absorber radiates in relation to it’s temperature (S-B Law) and the Law of Conservation of Energy requires a temperature gradiant to initiate a flow through convection/conduction such that only a thermodynamically isolated body could increase in temperature to match emission to an absorbed heat flux, and 3) absorbtion “mode” is in solid or liquid molecular motion i.e. not a conversion from radiant energy to some other energy that isn’t reflected in temperature, such as visible light being absorbed and converted to chemical energy in photosynthesis.
Let’s just talk about something no one (except a few of us nerds) cares about for a second; the stratosphere.
The stratosphere absorbs aprox. 100 W/m2 UV and is warmed from around -60°C to around 0°C while IR has little effect at all on stratospheric temperature (hardly any GHG’s), therefore one could say that stratospheric temperature “sensitivity” to UV is much higher than stratospheric temperature “sensitivity” to IR.
Back to Earth:
So, around 30 W/m2 UV reaches the surface and solar UV varies by about 10%; giving us an easy 3 W/m2 variance which is awfully close to the 3.7 W/m2 increase from 2XCO2.
But I’m not just talking about UV, I’m talking about the entire solar spectrum variation. A variation of components that is not well reflected in TSI variation.
Let me put it an entirely different way. In the broader sense of climate sensitivity (CS) I have a very difficult time accepting it as a value as apposed to a function. That function IMO should include frequency and some sort of “absorbtion” clarifier. Take the extreme case of snowball Earth for example; obviously, UV reflects more while IR is still absorbed. So, if we defined climate sensitivity as the change in global average temperature to a change in heat flux @ frequency @ condition.
(Just making up some conditions: S=snowball, G=glacial, I = interglacial, H=Hothouse)
(just making up values here)
Perhaps: CS@IR@G=2°C/W/m2 while CS@UVa@G=0.1°C/W/m2.
But maybe: CS@IR@H=0.5°C/W/m2 while CS@UVa@H=1°C/W/m2.
I don’t know, it just seems that sort of approach would make more sense.

I’ll take your word on the solar stuff, but I tend to disagree with “what matters in the end is simply how much energy is available” there’s a qualitative difference among forms of energy, having the same units does not make them identical. Depending on the energy forms being compared the same quantities of energy may not be able to accomplished the same amount of work. I’ll go back to the armchair analyzing and come back when I can put some quantitative physics around it.
Have a good weekend! And thanks!

Willis Eschenbach says:
January 2, 2013 at 5:37 pm
DocMartyn says:
January 2, 2013 at 3:22 pm
rgbatduke, we did the bolus addition of 14C using the atmospheric H-Bomb tests. The pseudo-first order decay is approximately a decade.
What you are looking at there, Doc, is the “residence time” of a molecule. How long does the average CO2 molecule stay in the atmosphere? You are right, it’s short, about 5-8 years.
That’s not the measurement Robert Brown (rgbatduke) is discussing. He is looking at what is called the “e-folding time”, or perhaps the half-life…
The relation between half life and mean residence time is very simple.
half-life = 0.693 x mean residence time
0.693 is Ln2.