Guest essay by Ed Hoskins.
Some simple numbers on the effect of CO2 concentration on temperature
As the temperature increasing effect of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish logarithmically with increasing concentration, these notes clarify the actual amount of warming that might result from additional CO2 released into the atmosphere by man-kind and the temperature reduction impact of any policy actions to control CO2 emissions.
To understand exactly what might be achieved by political action for de-carbonisation the table below gives the likely warming, (without positive or negative feedbacks), that will be averted with an increase of CO2 from 400 ppmv to 800 ppmv, a full extra 400 ppmv, assuming that the amount of CO2 released by all world nations in future is reduced in future by 50%.
It shows the impact of the following countries or country groups with the range of both sceptical and alarmist assessments.
So the impact for the whole of the EU (27) is somewhere between 9 -73 thousandths of degree Centigrade and for the UK the range is between 1-9 thousandths of degree Centigrade.
To achieve this irrelevant and miniscule result the UK, European and other free world governments are willing to annihilate their economies to solve a problem that does not exist.
Western politicians should, “Have the courage to do nothing”.
UPDATE: A fuller essay is in this PDF: Ed_Hoskins_CO2_concentrations
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“don’t just do something, stand there” is often the best advice.
I great money scam would be to sell backyard thermometers ‘accurate’ to 1/1000 of a degree so that the average citizen could keep track of the global warming occurring in his backyard.
It is called ‘Masterly Inactivity’
They already have crippled the economy with those green policies. If they would stop subsidizing the green agenda the economy would jump start like a homesick angel.
While I can appreciate this article, it means nothing to the eco fascists – they have accepted the “agenda” lock , stock and you-know-what, so the watermelons would never even consider such ideas or information. The greens will go to their death with the belief in the supreme being ( Gore ) and the devil ( CO2 ). This is the altar they worship at – it’s a war now, people, wake up !
I agree that carbon dioxide is not the root cause of the observed global warming from 1980 to 1996. Even if it were, with China’s carbon dioxide emissions increasing 11% per year (~800 million tonnes per year) there is nothing that can be done to halt the rise global carbon dioxide content, much less reduce the current level. Air pollution in China is probably helping reflect solar energy back into outer space but at some point China will have to clean up their atmosphere. This will allow the global temperature creep up a bit higher.
Not just do nothing but roll back the nonsense already in motion and spend half of that money on getting clean water to everyone on the planet and real sustainable energy via thorium based nuclear reactors (and maybe fusion, though that seems elusive for the time being).
I have an impression that politicians don’t like to do this. I think it’s contrary to their nature. People who think the best thing to do is leave something alone generally don’t become politicians in the first place.
The best place to find the benefits of increased atmospheric CO2
is CO2Science.org Here one finds that crops are growing faster
than 70 year ago, thus helping feed seven billion people
Ed. I’m part of a UK organisation which is questioning the price of power within the UK which has more than it’s fair share of swivel-eyed Greenies in high places. While I don’t question your essay, it’ll need a lot more than one man’s opinion to go to war with. Please can you give references and rationale for your conclusions?
I agree wholeheartedly with your premise of NOT taxing or limiting CO2 (and would go further and say we ought to repeal E.P.A. auto-emissions restrictions, biofuel edicts, and all the other nonsensical CO2 regulations in the U.S. that all currently strangling our economy).
*********************************************************
For persuasive purposes, it might be helpful to include in the chart a column labeled:
“Percent of Global CO2” (e.g., the U.S. % would be .177 times the Total Human CO2, which is some COMPLETELY NEGLIGIBLE number like .005).
Along with a footnote in bold: NON-human (i.e. natural) CO2: 97% or use 96% or 98%, if you prefer.
Steve, you write “it means nothing to the eco fascists ”
I agree. But it OUGHT to mean something to the learned scientific societies. Surely, the Royal Society cannot be considered to be an “eco fascist”. I know this body has, in the past, been an advocate on a scientific issue where they got it wrong; e.g. the question of the design of lightning conductors. But surely, the RS will continue to exist in the future, and will overcome it’s current lack of scientific integrity. And the same goes for the APS as well, and all the rest.
AGW is the worst scientific/economic concept in the history of mankind. I will qualify that with the following observations:
1) Clean cars. Electric cars are only cleaner than petrol cars if their batteries have been charged using electricity from renewables. If the electricity has come from coal or gas fired power stations they are not as efficient as petrol/diesel vehicles.
2) Wind power. These windmills only work when the wind is between two speeds, they each need 800 tons of concrete to stop them blowing over. The windiest places are miles from anywhere so roads need to be built to allow their construction and maintenance. The offshore ones are even worse, I hate the term but their “carbon footprint” is very high and they will have to be working for many years to offset the CO2 produced in their manufacture and maintenance.
3) I accept that during the nineties and noughties our winters in the UK were a lot milder, they haven’t been since 2009. AGW does not stall, there is no mechanism by which for 16 years global temperatures can fall despite the fact that CO2 levels are rising, if, Co2 is the main influence on the climate.
4) I will ask the question again since no-one on this forum has ever answered it before.
How can a gas whose concentration in the atmosphere rises from 0.038% to 0.04% cause a significant rise in temperature?
5) Economically the Western world is in a very bad way. We need cheap plentiful energy to keep prices down and living standards high. I do not wish to sacrifice our living standards for a “theoretical” temperature saving of a few thousandths of a degree!
If people are concerned about CO2, why don’t we plant more trees and stop the destruction of the rainforests of the world? A lot cheaper, more aesthetic and more eco friendly than windmills and solar panels.
Somehow we have got to get the polar bears and the penguins sharing veggie burgers under a shade tree so the smart college kids will jump on board.
Those in Asia just laugh and laugh at the West’s goofy/green energy policies and carry on doing their own thing. This table should make it clear, even to the most rabid ecoloon, that economic reality and having a smug green feeling are mutually exclusive.
There is nothing we could do in the West – even if alarmist ‘science’ was correct – to solve the non-problem of the perfectly natural phenomenon of climate change.
So in the West, we cripple our economies to achieve almost no influence over a non-problem. You just could not make up the logic behind our current energy policies..
JFD says:
“I agree that carbon dioxide is not the root cause of the observed global warming from 1980 to 1996.”
===============================================
Not the ‘root cause’? There is no scientific evidence that CO2 is any cause of global warming.
Of course it is possible that CO2 causes some minuscule warming. However, there is no verifiable and testable supporting evidence that this is so. There are empirical observations showing that CO2 levels are a direct response to changing temperatures. But there are NO such measurements showing that rising CO2 is the cause of rising global temperatures. None.
Within the Scientific Method, the only conclusion to be reached is that CO2 does not matter regarding global temperatures. If that is wrong, anyone is free to post their empirical observations right here, showing that ∆CO2 in fact causes ∆T.
This challenge has been on offer for months. But so far — no takers.
@Andrew Harding
How can a gas whose concentration in the atmosphere rises from 0.038% to 0.04% cause a significant rise in temperature?
The amount of heat radiation that leaves the planet every hour is easily measured by satellites. This heat radiation is also called “longwave” radiation. (infra red)
If the amount of heat leaving the planet is less than the amount that enters the atmosphere by the sun then the temperature goes up.
so, any change in the ability of the earth to lose heat will cause the planet to heat up until the balance between the sun’s energy coming in is equal to the amount of heat energy going out.
In other words, the CO2 doesn’t “heat” the planet, the sun does, the CO2 makes it harder for the sun’s heat energy to leave the planet until the temperature goes up and more infra-red energy gets emitted by the planet.
“As the temperature increasing effect of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish logarithmically with increasing concentration…”
Is the same true of the temperature decreasing effect of CO2?
Worth looking at the latest green madness of the UK government – a forced 27% reduction of electricity usage by 2020 was slipped in as a late amendment to the Energy Bill agreed by UK parliament last week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10107478/MPs-want-to-turn-your-lights-off.-A-shame-no-one-told-you.html
At this rate it won;t be long before we will have to say to all our friends in the US – can you please stop charity giving to other third world nations – with this policy, we’ll be in that category in 7 years and will need all the warm jumpers you can send.
Didn’t we learn last week that CO2 rise wasn’t anthropogenic anyways? It’s so hard to keep up with the fast pace of e-research.
Janice Moore says:
June 8, 2013 at 11:06 am
NON-human (i.e. natural) CO2: 97% or use 96% or 98%, if you prefer.
That is not better than the 97% from Cook & Co. You forget the other side of the balance: the sinks are 98.5% or 98% or 99%, the difference is what doesn’t increase in the atmosphere.
Consider also the Records for Hot & Cold Temps…
Even most skeptics tend to agree that it’s indisputable “established science” that CO2 has a direct warming effect of maybe 1°C per doubling. It’s the feedbacks that are debatable, and indeed considering recent data (non-warming!) if we are going to concede that CO2 has a noteworthy direct GHE, then certainly we can confidently say that in light of the non-warming the feedbacks must be negative. In other words, the feedbacks (as water vapor or?) mitigates the warming, and perhaps nullifies it altogether.
Most would also agree that starting in the 20th century we have seen a sustained rise in CO2 levels, accelerated in recent decades. Another strike against the GHE as postulated by the warmists is not just that temps have stalled recently, but this, take my comment just now in jonava’s unthreaded post:
Steven Goddard reported yesterday that it was -104°F (-75°c) in Antarctica: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/feels-like-146f/
But with the wind chill it felt like -146°f (-99°c). So you could say that it felt like the world record for cold was being broken, as that record is -129°f (-89°c) set in1983. I tend to like to follow Goddard’s reporting of these Antarctic temperatures, rooting for the world record cold, which may be a long shot, but consider that it’s already -104°f and it’s not even officially winter. The world record for cold may be broken this season. Keep an eye on it!
And it’s of more significance than just a spectator’s curiosity.
Because the world record for hot was set way back a century ago in 1913: 134°f (56.7°c) in Death Valley, California. If we had actually been in a century of runaway warming as the warmist’s manipulated urban-biased ground data suggests, it stands to reason that the world record hot temperature should have been broken many times over, but no. And now, the cold record is from 1983. Cold is winning, and further, I understand that in U.S. states and across the globe, the strong tendency is for records for cold temperatures to be set in later years than hot temp records. This is clearly inconsistent with the suspicious data, or should I say “data.”
It is plain stupid to “decarbonize” and further ruin the economy.
saying that there has been no warming since 1998 is a classic case of selection bias. The sea surface temperature was higher at that year than in recorded history. it is basically the equivalent of a lie. So whenever anybody tells you that there has been “no warming for 16 years” they are basically lying to you. If you measure it from 14 years or from 18 years you get significant warming (or if you measure it from 20 years) Just because you pick a start date that was the strongest el nino on record doesn’t make global warming not happening.
jai mitchell says:
June 8, 2013 at 12:18 pm
“saying that there has been no warming since 1998 is a classic case of selection bias. The sea surface temperature was higher at that year than in recorded history. it is basically the equivalent of a lie. So whenever anybody tells you that there has been “no warming for 16 years” they are basically lying to you.”
You’re deluded. The special thing about the interval from 1998 to now is the now.