RSS MSU LT Global Temperature Anomaly for April 2008 – flat

McGrats / Jack Koenig: As a physicist, I can tell you that the Gerlich & Tscheuschner paper (which I believe is the paper by German physicists that you refer to) is complete and utter garbage. (And, by the way, it not only claims to disprove AGW but the entire greenhouse effect period, which makes me wonder if it is only a matter of time before someone writes a paper arguing not only that CO2 does not cause warming but that the molecule does not even exist.) Actually, a very smart fellow who I went to grad school with, Arthur Smith, has written something that tears most of it apart: http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.4324
In addition, their argument that the greenhouse effect violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics is such nonsense that, if I were in academia rather than industry and taught an undergraduate physics course (maybe even a first year one), I would give my students a simple radiation problem that would lead them through showing how silly this claim is.

Joel Shore,
Did you read page 89? The authors had some choice comments regarding realclimate.org. Apparently, the two parties were in contact with each other prior to the paper being published. I taught radiative heating once in an enginering class. Some of the ideas in the paper don’t seem to square with what I remembered teaching. But, I do remember this (at least for engineering calculations): at low temperatures (such as the atmosphere), conduction and convection are vastly more important for heat transfer than radiative heat transfer. But, I suppose the difference in temperature between the earth and outer space is pretty high, which makes radiative heat transfer important (as it happens on a dry, clear night that cools quickly after the sun is down). Interestingly, the Stefan-Boltzman equation can be used very easily to approximate the maximum surface temperature for the earth (roughly 130-135 F), which does occur in a few places around the world. Anyway, the uncertainties in the climate models regarding cloud cover, convection, etc. are much larger than any forcing effect of CO2, so I have never understand why those guys at RC.org are so smarmy about their models in the first place.

The quote from the paper Joel linked was from the bottom of page 8.

Chris,
As you describe it, sounds like most of the warming took place from 1994 – 1998. Maybe it was all due to the El Nino?

KuhnKat,
You seem to have a lot of confusions about the G&T paper. First of all, let me clarify that when I said that the paper was “garbage”, I did not mean everything in it is wrong. What I meant is that what is in it is either well-known or wrong. (In particular, many…maybe even most…of their mathematical calculations are probably correct but the interpretation of them is wrong, in fact, sometimes bizarrely wrong.) The statement that real greenhouses operate by a different mechanism than the atmospheric greenhouse effect is an example of something that is correct but is also well known (see, for example, the last paragraph in the “Basic mechanism” section of the Wikipedia article on the greenhouse effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect ).
I don’t know how you use the term “RED HERRING” and “strawman” to describe Arthur’s paper where he very specifically notes what part of what they say (which is basically the “meat” of their paper) he demonstrates is wrong. And, you frankly admit to not being able to “parse the math”. G&T are very clear in claiming that they have falsified “the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse effect”, as can be seen from the title of their paper and their abstract. Admittedly, there are lots of different arguments (or unsupported statements) in that very long paper and Arthur did not attempt to address all of them, but he addressed most of the ones that they seemed to emphasize as most important, e.g., in their abstract.
As for your question, “By the way, would you explain to me how CO2 can ADD energy?? Otherwise I think their claim about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics probably holds”: The CO2 does not add energy but helps retain energy in the same way that a heat shield can do so. They claim that it is impossible for this to happen without violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics because they say it involves a flow of heat from a colder place (the upper troposphere) to a warmer place (the earth’s surface). However, their statement is incorrect as the net flow is still from the earth’s surface to the upper troposphere and then out into space. The existence of a radiatively-active troposphere just makes this rate of loss of heat from the surface slower. One can in fact come up with very simple radiative physics problems that demonstrate the same effect. For example, take a blackbody sphere at a constant temperature that represents the sun. Put a concentric blackbody spherical shell around it (that will be analogous to the earth) and then either put or leave out a second larger radius blackbody spherical shell around it (to be analogous to a radiative-active troposphere). Assume this is immersed in empty space (T=0). Then, it is a simple 1st-year physics problem to calculate the temperature of the 1st (earth-analog) shell both with and without the presence of the 2nd shell. One finds that this shell is warmer when the 2nd shell is present even though the 2nd shell is at a lower temperature than the 1st shell. By their arguments, this would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which is proposterous.
As for your question “they can not POSSIBLY mean that the amount of outgoing radiation decreases permanently, can they??? What would be the mechanism??? More CO2 simply means more possible ‘stepping stones’ for the outgoing radiation. That is, it is DELAYED, not STOPPED!!!”: Well, it depends what you mean by “permanently”. It is more than just delaying the outgoing radiation. The net effect of CO2 is to cause the outgoing radiation from the earth to be emitted higher up in the atmosphere where it is cooler. And, as a result, the earth as a whole (including the atmosphere) behaves as a blackbody emitter having an average temperature of around 255 K, rather than the average surface temperature of 288 K. In other words, the surface temperature of the earth is 33 K warmer than its blackbody temperature. This, in the most basic sense, is the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Now, to the question of permanence of a radiative imbalance produced by an increase in greenhouse gases: No, such a radiative imbalance will not be maintained indefinitely. What will happen is that the earth’s atmosphere will slowly heat up until it is at a temperature such that the outgoing radiation again balances the incoming radiation. And, this is how a rise in greenhouse gas concentrations causes an increase in the earth’s temperature. (So, the summary is that the rise in greenhouse gases causes radiative imbalance which causes global warming to restore the radiative balance.) Note, however, that there is a lot of thermal inertia, particularly due to the oceans, so that this warming takes a long time (say a “half-life” on the order of a decade to several decades).
Your statement “We simply do not have enough CO2 to cause significant warming even if it ALL managed to ABSORB heat rather than reradiate it!!” is simply wrong. A doubling of CO2 levels, with no feedbacks is enough to produce about 1.2 C of warming. You are correct that the water vapor feedback (and other feedbacks like the ice albedo feedback) are what then raise the estimate climate sensitivity to doubling from about 1.2 C to about 2 to 4.5 C. As for your speculations about there being extensive negative feedbacks in the water cycle, this is rather far afield from the G&T paper but let’s just say that some such feedbacks have been speculated about but there does not seem to be good evidence for them…and strong negative feedbacks seem incapatible with our current understanding of the oscillations of the earth’s climate in the past, such as the ice age – interglacial cycles.

I do think you should take a serious look at the water vapor feedback being positive as it is in the models. This seems unlikely to me for many reasons but the most obvious one is that if it was true, previous periods of high CO2, much higher than today, would have caused “catastrophic” warming events which they clearly didn’t.
Net feedbacks pretty much must be negative or must change to negative as temperature rises or the entire paleo record is totally wrong. A mighty good case can be made that there is no evidence of any positive feedback in the recent past especially if your temperature data set has not been … (Hansenized?)

Wondering Aloud: Thanks for your response.
Just a couple of further comments:
(1) It is the troposphere (especially the lower and, perhaps, mid-troposphere) that is supposed to be warming at least as much as the surface, not the stratosphere. In fact, the stratosphere should be cooling as it has been, and in fact this is a signature that the cause of the current warming is greenhouse gases rather than, say, solar irradiance changes (which would cause the stratosphere to warm too). Admittedly, interpretation of the stratospheric cooling is somewhat complicated by the fact that ozone depletion also contributes to stratospheric cooling, although I think the best estimates are that there is more cooling seen than can be accounted for purely by ozone depletion. As for the tropospheric warming, the discrepancy between prediction and data from the satellites used to significant but, now, with corrections to the satellite data and a longer record, this discrepancy seems to have disappeared (within error bars) at least on a global scale; in the tropics, some unexplained discrepancy remains.
(2) I am not sure why you think that the paleo record is compatible with a negative feedback. The scientists who study the paleo record, e.g., who have actually tried to use the Last Glacial Maximum or other paleo evidence to estimate the climate sensitivity, come up with estimates compatible with net positive feedbacks. In fact, here is a paper that argues that the climate sensitivity based on paleo evidence suggests the climate models may be, if anything, UNDERESTIMATING the climate sensitivity: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;306/5697/821 Note, by the way, that a positive feedback does not imply an instability, as some seem to think, unless that feedback exceeds a certain value. For feedbacks less than that value, what you get is a magnification of the warming but no instability…and that is what the estimates of climate sensitivity give. (There is a close relation between positive feedbacks and infinite series and an instability corresponds to a diverging infinite series but a magnification occurs for a converging infinite series like 1 + (1/2) + (1/4) + (1/8) + …, which converges to, and thus gives a magnification of, 2 to the effect.)

Joel,
then you agree that we have to have more warming in the upper trop before we can have the enhanced greenhouse effect go catastrophic??
I believe the OBSERVATIONS, even if there is some error still in them, simply do NOT support a large change happening any time soon. In fact, the observations support the Germans in that the temps generally get cooler with elevation. I believe the correct scientific method is to modify your theory when the FACTS contradict it!!
Please do not start the semantic war about Greenhouse Effect. The original Greenhouse Effect was based on preventing CONVECTION, not capturing IR!!! This is a common misunderstanding and causes problems talking about the issue. It is why I try to use Enhanced Greenhouse when referring to the CO2 theory. They ARE NOT THE SAME!!!
The Germans are specificaly correct in that their paper is titled “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects in the Frame of Physics.” In other words, claiming that they claim to falsify the Greenhouse Effect is FALSE. This is the Strawman I am talking about. They do not claim to disprove the Greenhouse Effect or the standard theory for the habitability of the earth, only the IPCC and other warmers Enhanced Theory.
By the way, the reradiation of the IR is so fast there is typically no real time lag in its leaving. Not much of a heat shield if the CO2 doesn’t ABSORB the IR. If it does in appreciable amounts (warming trop faster than surface) then you would have convection and conduction to remove the heat. Also, unless you are over a desert where there is little water vapor the CO2 has little effect as the water vapor gets the energy directly.
I notice that you also used a poor analogy of how GG’s are supposed to work. A heat shield?? Again, poor analogies and labels are part of the problem with conceptualizing the issue!!!
By the way, repeating the arguments do not change them. The GG in the atmosphere is NOT equivalent to a black body sphere (mostly holes in the bandwidth) and they NEVER claim that the atmosphere does NOT keep the earth warm. Again they claim that CO2 and other GG in conditions anywhere approaching the earths atmosphere CAN NOT RETAIN ENOUGH HEAT TO CAUSE A CATASTROPHE!!! The IR is reradiated too quickly for there to be any large temp increase under earth conditions among other reasons.
Basically their paper sticks with known physics and does not ADD to it with poorly conceptualised models of the atmosphere that would require GG to perform in unknown ways.
You state that the doubling of CO2 will cause 1.2 to 2 to 4.5C with other feedbacks. I believe when the Germans wrote the paper the IPCC were still claiming almost twice that amount WITHOUT feedbacks other than CO2 itself. Maybe the IPCC are coming to believe in real physics also??
Would you like to address the question of how much the second doubling will raise the temps?? Personally I would LOVE a 4.5C average warming over the next 200 years for my great great grandkids!!
I will jump into your other discussion about the paleo record. CO2 apparently has been over 1000PPM. If the feedback from GG including water vapor is so strong, how do we explain that their is no record of a disastrous warming?? It would also appear that it has been rather cold with these levels. After the first 2 doublings there is no appreciable effect left. I do not believe there is any paleo record of an earth since the dinos that we could NOT have enjoyed with modern technology.
Another issue with the theory is the lack of Ocean Warming. The unphysical “reflection” of IR from GG to the surface should be warming it. The Aqua system has not found elevated temps. So, no atmospheric signature, no ocean signature. Only SOME indication of melt as both Greenland and Antarctica appear to be gaining mass while melting at the edges. Please, pray tell, where are all the indications of the ENHANCED Greenhouse Theory?? If there is no retained heat in the atmosphere and none in the oceans, apparently there is NONE. Only the original physical model that gives a more linear warming. No catastrophic warming.
By the way, you do know that there are at least 2 other papers in the last year that give a much lower sensitivity to GG???
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf
They are both closer to the Germans than the IPCC. You might also want to take a look at this if you haven’t already:
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973c.htm
It is an article about the second paper and explains the equations including one of the same points the Germans make. The IPCC math includes an INFINITE atmosphere (apparently easier to solve the equations). Here again is a well known scientist showing that the original IPCC math is problematic with energy balance equations.