I received this presentation of the “Bjerknes Lecture” that Dr. James Hansen gave at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 17th. There are the usual things one might expect in the presentation, such as this slide which shows 2008 on the left with the anomalously warm Siberia and the Antarctic peninsula:
Source: James Hansen, GISS
Off topic but relevant, NASA has recently “disappeared”updated this oft cited map showing warming on the Antarctic peninsula and cooling of the interior:
There is also some new information in Hansen’s presentation, including a claim about CO2 sensitivity and coal causing a “runaway greenhouse effect”.
Hansen makes a bold statement that he has empirically derived CO2 sensitivity of our global climate system. I had to chuckle though, about the claim “Paleo yields precise result”. Apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious, or that trees are better indicators of precipitation than temperature.
In fact in the later slide text he claims he’s “nailed” it:
He adds some caveats for the 2xCO2 claim:
Notes:
(1)
It is unwise to attempt to treat glacial-interglacial aerosol changes as a specified boundary condition (as per Hansen et al. 1984), because aerosols are inhomogeneously distributed, and their forcing depends strongly on aerosol altitude and aerosol absorbtivity, all poorly known. But why even attempt that? Human-made aerosol changes are a forcing, but aerosol changes in response to climate change are a fast feedback.
(2)
The accuracy of our knowledge of climate sensitivity is set by our best source of information, not by bad sources. Estimates of climate sensitivity based on the last 100 years of climate change are practically worthless, because we do not know the net climate forcing. Also, transient change is much less sensitive than the equilibrium response and the transient response is affected by uncertainty in ocean mixing.
(3)
Although, in general, climate sensitivity is a function of the climate state, the fast feedback sensitivity is just as great going toward warmer climate as it is going toward colder climate. Slow feedbacks (ice sheet changes, greenhouse gas changes) are more sensitive to the climate state.
Hansen is also talking about the “runaway” greenhouse effect, citing that old standby Venus in part of his presentation. He claims that coal and tar sands will be our undoing:
Hansen writes:
In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty.
That would be the ultimate Faustian bargain. Mephistopheles would carry off shrieking not only the robber barons, but, unfortunately and permanently, all life on the planet.
I have to wonder though, if he really believes what he is saying. Perhaps he’s never seen this graph for CO2 from Bill Illis and the response it gives to IR radiation (and thus temperature) as it increases:
It’s commonly known that CO2’s radiative return response is logarithmic with increasing concentration, so I don’t understand how Hansen thinks that it will be the cause of a runaway effect. The physics dictate that the temperature response curve of the atmosphere will be getting flatter as CO2 increases. Earth has also had much higher concentrations of CO2 in past history, and we didn’t go into runaway then:
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya — 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
There’s lots more in this paper to behold in wonderment, and I haven’t the time today to comment on all of it, so I’ll just leave it up to the readers of this forum to bring out the relevant issues for discussion.
I’m sure Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit will have some comments on it, even though his name is not mentioned in the presentation. My name was mentioned several times though. 😉
John Philip: your (from Dessler) The only way that will not happen is if a strong, negative, and currently unknown feedback is discovered somewhere in our climate system.
What justifies anyone characterizing Venus as having once had an atmosphere like earth’s, but losing it due to some runaway greenhouse warming situation? A more likely scenario is the opposite, that Earth was once like Venus but developed a unique atmosphere due to the action of life processes over billions of years.
Venus really should not be used as an object lesson in the global warming debate. It’s far too great a stretch. Earth’s carbon cycle or carbon system has a tremendous tendency to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and the fact is that sometime in earth history there has been a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere. We are justified in saying this because of the tremendous amount of sedimentary material of organic origin in earth’s rocks. Not only in coal and petroleum but more significantly in limestone and dolomite rock.
It seems reasonable to say that the reason earth has so little carbon dioxide in its atmosphere is because through the course of time it has been removed by biological activity to such an extent that only a tiny percentage remains. Furthermore, the demands both of plants and shell producing organisms continues to extract sufficient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to regard it as a limiting nutrient in life’s carbon system (consider the meaning of seasonal oscillations in David Keeling’s graph of rising carbon dioxide)
If humankind were extracting energy and releasing carbon dioxide from a significant portion of anciently sequestered carbon, perhaps one should feel alarm. The fact that most ancient carbon carbon dioxide has been chemically locked into carbonate rock and continues to do so, should give pause to any hysterical speculation on earth “running away” to an atmosphere like Venus’s.
Certainly, atmospheric carbon dioxide is responsible for some degree of atmospheric warming just on theoretical principles, and the data on rising levels of carbon dioxide from David Keeling’s work at Mauna Loa bears consideration. To proclaim, though, that Venus gives us an example of what could happen to earth is wrongheaded, simple and misleading.
The difficult task at hand is to judge the degree and significance of warming to expect in the future due to human influences. If James Hansen is telling us that Venus in any way signifies the magnitude of that degree, then I remain skeptical that he could have “nailed” anything.
old construction worker
December 22, 2008 5:39 pm
foinavon (14:20:28) :
‘Abstract: “Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from radiosonde data,…………………………’
Yea… rigth, the old wind chill factor in reverse.
It’s -10 degree c outside but with the wind chill, it’s really – 5 degree c?
Since when do temperature instruments measure wind chill?
BTW foinavon
I maybe wrong but the last time I checked oceans temperatures have either cooled or remained flat for the last 6 years.
Maybe the ocean’s Hot Spot ran off with the troposphere’s Hot Spot and the heat trapping coulds went to look for them.
Pamela Gray
December 22, 2008 5:51 pm
There are times when I wax scientific in my postings here. But this isn’t one of those times! I just got through shoveling more global warming than I care to again anytime soon. But alas, more global warming is on the way and I will likely get to shovel about 9 more inches of it by Wednesday. It almost seems that the more the AGWers spread their Hansenized BS around, the more mother nature is spreading hers around. Can we put this to the test? If the GW BS gets toned down, maybe the global warming that is falling on my just shoveled sidewalk would decrease.
Joel Shore
December 22, 2008 5:52 pm
Uncle Larry says:
Considering the “man made” increase in carbon dioxide (from the burning of fossil fuels and tuna casseroles), shouldn’t we be seeing a corresponding 2-to-1 reduction in oxygen levels in respect to current carbon dioxide levels?
I’m at a loss to find any long-term data on the subject. Does anyone have any sources for such data?
Here is an article that talks about an on-going study to look at that: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/12/14/205855.php Presumably, with a little more work, you could track down more information on this study…and perhaps any papers that have come out of it.
As for whether the expected ratio is 2:1 or 8:3, that would depend on whether you measure in terms of the number of atoms of the substances or the weight of the substances.
John Philip,
You have a great set of papers linked. I didn’t notice the new paper on the Arctic releasing the same amount of methane during winter as summer though. How does that fit with the theory that warming permafrost is going to release MORE methane?? Another inconvenient fact for your AGW collection.
You should be able to find it easily, or, do you only depend on RC and similar sites for your info??
The study was led by christensen and was published in nature.
Makes you wonder how many other Assumptions scientists have that are not really true…
Joel Shore
December 22, 2008 6:35 pm
So your citation is a personal reference to Hansen himself… I thought so…
Nice waving of hands, though. So I repeat, got a citation? You know, published, paper, words on it, publisher, that kind of thing?
What do you expect? You want a published paper describing what Hansen actually gave to Rasool and Schneider that they acknowledged him for?!?! Does that make any sense at all? And, what about your citation for the original charge? It is to a nutty political publication. And, in fact, Hansen’s statement does not even contradict any of the facts that the IBD diatribe actually presents: They admit that what Hansen aided them with was a computer program. Hansen just expands on what the computer program did. And, in fact, if you actually know something about the science involved, you would know that Hansen’s explanation makes perfect sense.
But, okay, if you want a more specific indication of Hansen’s contribution, here is the original Rasool and Schneider paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;173/3992/138 (If you can’t access the full text online, you can get it in the library.) The full reference that they make to Hansen in their references says:
J. E. Hansen, personal communication. We are indebted to Dr. Hansen for making these Mie scattering calculations for us, for suggesting the use of the two-stream approximation, and for checking the fluxes obtained by the two-stream approximation against some exact solutions (which agree to within about 5 percent) to the multiple scattering problem [see, for example, J. E. Hansen, Astrophys. J. 155, 565 (1969)].
It indeed sounds like Hansen did what he says he did…i.e., that he helped them with some scattering calculations and that “the computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen” that your IBD cite talks about is the computer program to perform Mie theory calculations.
Joel Shore
December 22, 2008 6:47 pm
Roy Sites says:
If you assume that the temperature change is the result of CO2 and then compute the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 and then using that result to prove the temperature change is the result of doubling the CO2 then this is circular reasoniong.
Yes…That would be circular reasoning. However, that is not what Hansen did. What Hansen did was computed the total difference in forcings in W/m^2 between the last glacial maximum and now due to various effects (the two largest being the difference in albedo because of the ice and the difference in CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels, although I believe there is also a small contribution due to a difference in aerosol loading in the atmosphere). He also used the available estimates for the difference in average surface temperature between then and now. So, he has a total forcing in W/m^2 and a total temperature change; dividing the first by the second gives him the temperature change per W/m^2 of forcing, which turns out to be about 0.75 C per (W/m^2). Then, using the well-accepted value for the forcing in W/m^2 due to a doubling of CO2, which is about 4 W/m^2 (even Richard Lindzen accepts this value), he multiplies the 0.75 C per (W/m^2) sensitivity by the 4 W/m^2 forcing to get the result that a doubling of CO2 produces approximately 3 C of warming.
(As Hansen has pointed out elsewhere…don’t know if he does here…this is actually a sensitivity to warming that assumes that changes in ice sheets and the resulting change in albedo is a forcing, not a feedback. In the current “climate experiment” that we are embarking on by raising CO2 levels, it is actually a feedback…a fact that will tend to increase the climate sensitivity from the value that you get by assuming that it is a forcing. I believe that Hansen has argued that this could actually significantly increase the sensitivity still further from the 3 C value to something like 6 C, although other scientists feel that there are not enough ice sheets to melt to produce an albedo change large enough to increase the sensitivity by that much.)
Pete
December 22, 2008 6:49 pm
foinavon (14:20:28) :
‘Abstract: “…….. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend….”
I don’t know about you, but when an abstract of a scientific paper uses a word like “surprisingly” it raises red flags on my objectivity meter. Without the word, the sentence sounds quite “matter of fact”.
I almost wonder if that word was included to mitigate any flak the writers are expecting from their peers?
foinavon
December 22, 2008 6:52 pm
John S:
you assert: There are no credible in situ measurements to support your claims. Pointing to model-based papers (e.g., Dessler) is an exercise in circular reasoning that can only persuade the inexperienced true believers.
except that Dessler is an experimental paper comprising “in situ measurements”, and one of several that “supports my claim” (actually I’m not “claiming” anything. I’m pointing out the science that informs our understanding…)
why not read it before making inappropriate assumptions about it?
A.E. Dessler et al (2008) Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L20704,
(a summary can be found here: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html)
And of course CO2 can be both a “forcing” and a “feedback”. In the context of climate science and the earth’s energy budget and greenhouse influences, CO2 can variously satisfy the terms “forcing” and “feedback”.
If we pump CO2 directly into the atmosphere by digging up and burning fossil fuels, the raised CO2 levels constitute a “forcing”. They are not a “feedback” in the accepted sense of the word. Nor would they be a “feedback” if they were released in a catastrophic tectonic event.
If insolation changes arising from Milankovitch cycles result in warming that induces the recruitment of CO2 from ocean or terrestrial sinks, then CO2 can be considered a “feedback” to the primary (MIlankovitch-induced) warming , which it amplifies.
kuhnkat
December 22, 2008 7:09 pm
Actually I was being misleading in my previous post to jerk Philips’ chain. What the study actually stated is that methane is forced out of the soil by the refreezing of the permafrost during the fall with methane forced release rates peaking as high as during the summer. This is still an unexpected finding.
This does, to a large extent, explain the increase in atmospheric methane during the Northern Hemisphere fall that was known. It does NOT indicate substantially more atmospheric methane. This DOES require rebalancing the Assumed sources of methane as a rather large chunk with a new source has been reasonably identified now and must be subtracted from the previous accounting.
Here is another interesting article on methane production under the arctic ocean that increases the known period of methane production: http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/highlights/2006/arctic_ocean_methane/index.php
kuhnkat
December 22, 2008 7:16 pm
Foinavon,
“Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from…”
You DO know what INFERRED means don’t you?????
Chris V.
December 22, 2008 7:22 pm
Bill Illis (16:29:13) :
How did you determine the “original models global warming trendline” in this graph that you made? http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2626/tempobsrvvsco2ct4.png
That “original models” trendline looks to me like the EQUILIBRIUM temperature for a CO2 sensitivity of 3.25C per doubling.
We are not at temperature equilibrium now; that will not happen until CO2 levels stabilize for some years/decades.
As long as CO2 levels continue increasing, temperatures will never reach that equilibrium line, but will increase along a line that lies below it- just as they are doing.
I think this has all been pointed out to you before (several times).
J. Peden
December 22, 2008 7:25 pm
foinavon, apparently the Dressler study contradicts previous studies in regard to atmospheric specific humidity changes over time? Well, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the Dressler study is the correct one as to its empirical[?] finding of increased humidities with increased temperatures over some recent time interval.
But then, concerning the untethered theoretical statement in the NASA/Katherine Hansen summary of the study, “Warming and water absorption increase in a spiraling cycle, ” what is causing the warming, which seems to have stalled, and where is the “spiraling”?
Simply ignoring solar input and oceanic oscillation changes and claiming that this “warming” is due solely to CO2’s effect only manages to bring the number of scientific issues which are not anywhere close to being settled to at least six contained in this very post alone.
And, of course, we still have the “temp. change/doubling of CO2 concentrations” issue hanging around , not to mention a lot of other very important issues, including, for example, the issue of whether GW will result in a net Global disaser – which was in effect not actually studied by the ipcc – and whether any alleged cure to this alleged “disease” would perhaps be worse than the “disease” itself – which was also intentionally not studied by the ipcc, according to its own statement regarding “costs” in the TAR.
E.M.Smith
Editor
December 22, 2008 7:27 pm
John W. (13:57:47) :
2. Share the raw data and most especially the algorithms used to process it. I have an open mind with regard to whether the global climate is warming, cooling or holding steady. I have an extremely suspicious mind when it comes to “hidden” data or “secret” equations to “adjust” it. There isn’t any good justification for it. And I think I can speak for all of us when I assert that repeatability, one of the touch stones of the scientific method, demands it. Besides, based on experiences I’ve had in previous jobs, that’s always been a key indicator of fraud.
Indeed. Most recent case? That $50 Billion that seems to have evaporated in the care of Mr. Madoff. Key factoid? Many hedge funds walked away when he declined to show his books and share something, anything of merit, about his method. Those who succumbed and decided to not do the due diligence got fleeced.
Bottom line: No due diligence, fraud is to be assumed until proven otherwise. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. (Those ‘Fund of Fund’ managers who skipped the due diligence are now consulting with their lawyers about their liability… and they will lose the class action against them.)
So count me on the side that says “No pasteurized processed data food product” for me, just straight natural data, minimally processed and organically certified…
“If CO2 engenders Positive feedbacks – why hasn’t the worlds climate system already moved to a massive and catastrophic stable greenhouse given that very large amounts of CO2 (relative to today) have been present in past atmospheres.
In any system with positive feedbacks it will move towards a stable state as driven by the positive feedbacks.
Systems with inbuilt negative feedbacks will oscissilate within a stable set of boundaries as the negative feedbacks work against each other.
A relatively stable climate system as per the Earth would require strong negative feedback systems to maintain what has been inferred for past climates.”
It is my understanding that given sufficient time CO2 dissipates from the atmosphere. It is absorbed by the oceans and animal and plant life. That’s why so much carbon is locked up in the crust. So this is a nonsense argument. [snip, use of this as a pejorative will not be tolerated ~ charles the moderator]
E.M.Smith
Editor
December 22, 2008 7:35 pm
jeez (14:18:57) :
E. M. Smith. Please check
Done.
Bill Illis
December 22, 2008 7:52 pm
The Dessler humidity study found a decline in relative humidity as temperatures declined. This is not consistent with global warming theory in which relative humidity is supposed to stay generally constant.
Read the study and see where it does not agree. http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2008b.pdf
E.M.Smith
Editor
December 22, 2008 7:54 pm
John Philip (15:54:27) :
Again, I am surprised a genuine sceptic would rely on reports of a media interview as a primary source, but still…
Why? A ‘warmer’ just did the same thing above (radio or tv interviewer report of an interview). I’d be happy with knowing what attribution was given to Hansen in the papers published using his software to claim ~’ice age soon’ in the ’70s, but those were not given, just a pointer to a media interview…
Goose, meet gander.
Tim Groves
December 22, 2008 8:04 pm
Pete M: “Venus is suffering from a strong green house effect”
At least it isn’t infected with pesky carbon-based lifeforms polluting the air and chewing away at the rocks. There’s no point in empathizing with other planets or anthropomorphizing them. They really don’t suffer that much.
kuhnkat
December 22, 2008 8:08 pm
Joel Shore:
” What Hansen did was computed the total difference in forcings in W/m^2 between the last glacial maximum and now due to various effects (the two largest being the difference in albedo because of the ice and the difference in CO2 …”
So, Hansen already knew back then the exact size and sign of all the forcings and contributing issues??? Why have we spent billions of dollars on weather, climate, environmental, and Paleoclimate research since then??
No, what Hansen did was make a semi-educated GUESSTIMATE that was biased to his agenda of activism. A certain respected scientist during the cold war PROVED Nuclear Winter and how it would kill everyone to scare the Politicians away from the use of nukes. It was BULL. Similar equations are used to PROVE there must be other intelligence somewhere in the universe. More BULL.
Would you like to tell us when he received his letters in Climatology or Atmospheric Chemistry or…??
B.A., Physics and Mathematics, 1963, University of Iowa
M.S., Astronomy, 1965, University of Iowa
Ph.D., Physics, 1967, University of Iowa
Darn, only somewhat related. Yet, when we deniers bring up someone with a similar background, their education and experience are laughed at by AGW types.
Here is U of Iowa’s page: http://www.uiowa.edu/
State supported research and teaching university with a broad curriculum that has a strong liberal arts emphasis.
Just for the heck of it I did a search on “University of Iowa cutting edge”. Apparently they are pretty good in biotech and health care.
Now, I would like to say that this is not definitive. Many excellent scientists come from humble backgrounds and do excellent work in fields in which they were not directly trained. It is just that James Hansen isn’t one of them!! http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
E.M.Smith
Editor
December 22, 2008 8:19 pm
Joel Shore (18:35:27) :
And, what about your citation for the original charge? It is to a nutty political publication.
Investors Business Daily a ‘nutty political publication’? A national non-political newspaper that is the main competitor to The Wall Street Journal.
Sorry, you’ve just completely blown any shred of credibility possible. The rest of whatever you have to say is of no interest at all. If you can’t tell a real reputable paper from your fantasies then there is no hope for veracity.
John S.
December 22, 2008 8:22 pm
Foinavon,
I have read Dessler et al. several times and my characterization of it stands unshaken. Their Eq. 1(which is nothing more than a crude empirical “sensitivity” calculation misrepresented as “feedback”) is taken as a given and is applied to a year’s worth of data–a cooling year at that–without any critical reflection upon system dynamics. By that token any covariation between two variables would constitute proof of “feedback.”
By claiming that this is an “experimental” study and insisting that thermalized energy is amplified by CO2, you’ve convinced me that any further discussion with you would be scientifically fallow. Better luck in modern academia!
John Philip: your (from Dessler)
The only way that will not happen is if a strong, negative, and currently unknown feedback is discovered somewhere in our climate system.
You mean like Lindzen’s Infra Red Iris effect?
Lindzen et al., 2001: Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 82:417-32.
http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=875
Also, the NOAA data suggests that humidity has fallen over the last century.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=1&var=Specific+Humidity+(up+to+300mb+only)&level=300&lat1=90&lat2=-90&lon1=-180&lon2=180&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&iarea=0&typeout=2&Submit=Create+Timeseries
Click here for NOAA humidity
What justifies anyone characterizing Venus as having once had an atmosphere like earth’s, but losing it due to some runaway greenhouse warming situation? A more likely scenario is the opposite, that Earth was once like Venus but developed a unique atmosphere due to the action of life processes over billions of years.
Venus really should not be used as an object lesson in the global warming debate. It’s far too great a stretch. Earth’s carbon cycle or carbon system has a tremendous tendency to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and the fact is that sometime in earth history there has been a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere. We are justified in saying this because of the tremendous amount of sedimentary material of organic origin in earth’s rocks. Not only in coal and petroleum but more significantly in limestone and dolomite rock.
It seems reasonable to say that the reason earth has so little carbon dioxide in its atmosphere is because through the course of time it has been removed by biological activity to such an extent that only a tiny percentage remains. Furthermore, the demands both of plants and shell producing organisms continues to extract sufficient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to regard it as a limiting nutrient in life’s carbon system (consider the meaning of seasonal oscillations in David Keeling’s graph of rising carbon dioxide)
If humankind were extracting energy and releasing carbon dioxide from a significant portion of anciently sequestered carbon, perhaps one should feel alarm. The fact that most ancient carbon carbon dioxide has been chemically locked into carbonate rock and continues to do so, should give pause to any hysterical speculation on earth “running away” to an atmosphere like Venus’s.
Certainly, atmospheric carbon dioxide is responsible for some degree of atmospheric warming just on theoretical principles, and the data on rising levels of carbon dioxide from David Keeling’s work at Mauna Loa bears consideration. To proclaim, though, that Venus gives us an example of what could happen to earth is wrongheaded, simple and misleading.
The difficult task at hand is to judge the degree and significance of warming to expect in the future due to human influences. If James Hansen is telling us that Venus in any way signifies the magnitude of that degree, then I remain skeptical that he could have “nailed” anything.
foinavon (14:20:28) :
‘Abstract: “Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from radiosonde data,…………………………’
Yea… rigth, the old wind chill factor in reverse.
It’s -10 degree c outside but with the wind chill, it’s really – 5 degree c?
Since when do temperature instruments measure wind chill?
BTW foinavon
I maybe wrong but the last time I checked oceans temperatures have either cooled or remained flat for the last 6 years.
Maybe the ocean’s Hot Spot ran off with the troposphere’s Hot Spot and the heat trapping coulds went to look for them.
There are times when I wax scientific in my postings here. But this isn’t one of those times! I just got through shoveling more global warming than I care to again anytime soon. But alas, more global warming is on the way and I will likely get to shovel about 9 more inches of it by Wednesday. It almost seems that the more the AGWers spread their Hansenized BS around, the more mother nature is spreading hers around. Can we put this to the test? If the GW BS gets toned down, maybe the global warming that is falling on my just shoveled sidewalk would decrease.
Uncle Larry says:
Here is an article that talks about an on-going study to look at that: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/12/14/205855.php Presumably, with a little more work, you could track down more information on this study…and perhaps any papers that have come out of it.
As for whether the expected ratio is 2:1 or 8:3, that would depend on whether you measure in terms of the number of atoms of the substances or the weight of the substances.
Here is a page with links to 2 PEER REVIEWED papers on the problems with the Hockey Stick
http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354
Here is a link to the Wegman report that also calls into doubt the hockey stick:
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
John Philip,
You have a great set of papers linked. I didn’t notice the new paper on the Arctic releasing the same amount of methane during winter as summer though. How does that fit with the theory that warming permafrost is going to release MORE methane?? Another inconvenient fact for your AGW collection.
You should be able to find it easily, or, do you only depend on RC and similar sites for your info??
The study was led by christensen and was published in nature.
Makes you wonder how many other Assumptions scientists have that are not really true…
What do you expect? You want a published paper describing what Hansen actually gave to Rasool and Schneider that they acknowledged him for?!?! Does that make any sense at all? And, what about your citation for the original charge? It is to a nutty political publication. And, in fact, Hansen’s statement does not even contradict any of the facts that the IBD diatribe actually presents: They admit that what Hansen aided them with was a computer program. Hansen just expands on what the computer program did. And, in fact, if you actually know something about the science involved, you would know that Hansen’s explanation makes perfect sense.
But, okay, if you want a more specific indication of Hansen’s contribution, here is the original Rasool and Schneider paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;173/3992/138 (If you can’t access the full text online, you can get it in the library.) The full reference that they make to Hansen in their references says:
It indeed sounds like Hansen did what he says he did…i.e., that he helped them with some scattering calculations and that “the computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen” that your IBD cite talks about is the computer program to perform Mie theory calculations.
Roy Sites says:
Yes…That would be circular reasoning. However, that is not what Hansen did. What Hansen did was computed the total difference in forcings in W/m^2 between the last glacial maximum and now due to various effects (the two largest being the difference in albedo because of the ice and the difference in CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels, although I believe there is also a small contribution due to a difference in aerosol loading in the atmosphere). He also used the available estimates for the difference in average surface temperature between then and now. So, he has a total forcing in W/m^2 and a total temperature change; dividing the first by the second gives him the temperature change per W/m^2 of forcing, which turns out to be about 0.75 C per (W/m^2). Then, using the well-accepted value for the forcing in W/m^2 due to a doubling of CO2, which is about 4 W/m^2 (even Richard Lindzen accepts this value), he multiplies the 0.75 C per (W/m^2) sensitivity by the 4 W/m^2 forcing to get the result that a doubling of CO2 produces approximately 3 C of warming.
(As Hansen has pointed out elsewhere…don’t know if he does here…this is actually a sensitivity to warming that assumes that changes in ice sheets and the resulting change in albedo is a forcing, not a feedback. In the current “climate experiment” that we are embarking on by raising CO2 levels, it is actually a feedback…a fact that will tend to increase the climate sensitivity from the value that you get by assuming that it is a forcing. I believe that Hansen has argued that this could actually significantly increase the sensitivity still further from the 3 C value to something like 6 C, although other scientists feel that there are not enough ice sheets to melt to produce an albedo change large enough to increase the sensitivity by that much.)
foinavon (14:20:28) :
‘Abstract: “…….. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend….”
I don’t know about you, but when an abstract of a scientific paper uses a word like “surprisingly” it raises red flags on my objectivity meter. Without the word, the sentence sounds quite “matter of fact”.
I almost wonder if that word was included to mitigate any flak the writers are expecting from their peers?
John S:
you assert:
There are no credible in situ measurements to support your claims. Pointing to model-based papers (e.g., Dessler) is an exercise in circular reasoning that can only persuade the inexperienced true believers.
except that Dessler is an experimental paper comprising “in situ measurements”, and one of several that “supports my claim” (actually I’m not “claiming” anything. I’m pointing out the science that informs our understanding…)
why not read it before making inappropriate assumptions about it?
A.E. Dessler et al (2008) Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L20704,
(a summary can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html)
And of course CO2 can be both a “forcing” and a “feedback”. In the context of climate science and the earth’s energy budget and greenhouse influences, CO2 can variously satisfy the terms “forcing” and “feedback”.
If we pump CO2 directly into the atmosphere by digging up and burning fossil fuels, the raised CO2 levels constitute a “forcing”. They are not a “feedback” in the accepted sense of the word. Nor would they be a “feedback” if they were released in a catastrophic tectonic event.
If insolation changes arising from Milankovitch cycles result in warming that induces the recruitment of CO2 from ocean or terrestrial sinks, then CO2 can be considered a “feedback” to the primary (MIlankovitch-induced) warming , which it amplifies.
Actually I was being misleading in my previous post to jerk Philips’ chain. What the study actually stated is that methane is forced out of the soil by the refreezing of the permafrost during the fall with methane forced release rates peaking as high as during the summer. This is still an unexpected finding.
This does, to a large extent, explain the increase in atmospheric methane during the Northern Hemisphere fall that was known. It does NOT indicate substantially more atmospheric methane. This DOES require rebalancing the Assumed sources of methane as a rather large chunk with a new source has been reasonably identified now and must be subtracted from the previous accounting.
Here is another interesting article on methane production under the arctic ocean that increases the known period of methane production:
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/highlights/2006/arctic_ocean_methane/index.php
Foinavon,
“Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from…”
You DO know what INFERRED means don’t you?????
Bill Illis (16:29:13) :
How did you determine the “original models global warming trendline” in this graph that you made?
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2626/tempobsrvvsco2ct4.png
That “original models” trendline looks to me like the EQUILIBRIUM temperature for a CO2 sensitivity of 3.25C per doubling.
We are not at temperature equilibrium now; that will not happen until CO2 levels stabilize for some years/decades.
As long as CO2 levels continue increasing, temperatures will never reach that equilibrium line, but will increase along a line that lies below it- just as they are doing.
I think this has all been pointed out to you before (several times).
foinavon, apparently the Dressler study contradicts previous studies in regard to atmospheric specific humidity changes over time? Well, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the Dressler study is the correct one as to its empirical[?] finding of increased humidities with increased temperatures over some recent time interval.
But then, concerning the untethered theoretical statement in the NASA/Katherine Hansen summary of the study, “Warming and water absorption increase in a spiraling cycle, ” what is causing the warming, which seems to have stalled, and where is the “spiraling”?
Simply ignoring solar input and oceanic oscillation changes and claiming that this “warming” is due solely to CO2’s effect only manages to bring the number of scientific issues which are not anywhere close to being settled to at least six contained in this very post alone.
And, of course, we still have the “temp. change/doubling of CO2 concentrations” issue hanging around , not to mention a lot of other very important issues, including, for example, the issue of whether GW will result in a net Global disaser – which was in effect not actually studied by the ipcc – and whether any alleged cure to this alleged “disease” would perhaps be worse than the “disease” itself – which was also intentionally not studied by the ipcc, according to its own statement regarding “costs” in the TAR.
John W. (13:57:47) :
2. Share the raw data and most especially the algorithms used to process it. I have an open mind with regard to whether the global climate is warming, cooling or holding steady. I have an extremely suspicious mind when it comes to “hidden” data or “secret” equations to “adjust” it. There isn’t any good justification for it. And I think I can speak for all of us when I assert that repeatability, one of the touch stones of the scientific method, demands it. Besides, based on experiences I’ve had in previous jobs, that’s always been a key indicator of fraud.
Indeed. Most recent case? That $50 Billion that seems to have evaporated in the care of Mr. Madoff. Key factoid? Many hedge funds walked away when he declined to show his books and share something, anything of merit, about his method. Those who succumbed and decided to not do the due diligence got fleeced.
Bottom line: No due diligence, fraud is to be assumed until proven otherwise. It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. (Those ‘Fund of Fund’ managers who skipped the due diligence are now consulting with their lawyers about their liability… and they will lose the class action against them.)
So count me on the side that says “No pasteurized processed data food product” for me, just straight natural data, minimally processed and organically certified…
“If CO2 engenders Positive feedbacks – why hasn’t the worlds climate system already moved to a massive and catastrophic stable greenhouse given that very large amounts of CO2 (relative to today) have been present in past atmospheres.
In any system with positive feedbacks it will move towards a stable state as driven by the positive feedbacks.
Systems with inbuilt negative feedbacks will oscissilate within a stable set of boundaries as the negative feedbacks work against each other.
A relatively stable climate system as per the Earth would require strong negative feedback systems to maintain what has been inferred for past climates.”
It is my understanding that given sufficient time CO2 dissipates from the atmosphere. It is absorbed by the oceans and animal and plant life. That’s why so much carbon is locked up in the crust. So this is a nonsense argument. [snip, use of this as a pejorative will not be tolerated ~ charles the moderator]
jeez (14:18:57) :
E. M. Smith. Please check
Done.
The Dessler humidity study found a decline in relative humidity as temperatures declined. This is not consistent with global warming theory in which relative humidity is supposed to stay generally constant.
Read the study and see where it does not agree.
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2008b.pdf
John Philip (15:54:27) :
Again, I am surprised a genuine sceptic would rely on reports of a media interview as a primary source, but still…
Why? A ‘warmer’ just did the same thing above (radio or tv interviewer report of an interview). I’d be happy with knowing what attribution was given to Hansen in the papers published using his software to claim ~’ice age soon’ in the ’70s, but those were not given, just a pointer to a media interview…
Goose, meet gander.
Pete M: “Venus is suffering from a strong green house effect”
At least it isn’t infected with pesky carbon-based lifeforms polluting the air and chewing away at the rocks. There’s no point in empathizing with other planets or anthropomorphizing them. They really don’t suffer that much.
Joel Shore:
” What Hansen did was computed the total difference in forcings in W/m^2 between the last glacial maximum and now due to various effects (the two largest being the difference in albedo because of the ice and the difference in CO2 …”
So, Hansen already knew back then the exact size and sign of all the forcings and contributing issues??? Why have we spent billions of dollars on weather, climate, environmental, and Paleoclimate research since then??
No, what Hansen did was make a semi-educated GUESSTIMATE that was biased to his agenda of activism. A certain respected scientist during the cold war PROVED Nuclear Winter and how it would kill everyone to scare the Politicians away from the use of nukes. It was BULL. Similar equations are used to PROVE there must be other intelligence somewhere in the universe. More BULL.
Would you like to tell us when he received his letters in Climatology or Atmospheric Chemistry or…??
B.A., Physics and Mathematics, 1963, University of Iowa
M.S., Astronomy, 1965, University of Iowa
Ph.D., Physics, 1967, University of Iowa
Darn, only somewhat related. Yet, when we deniers bring up someone with a similar background, their education and experience are laughed at by AGW types.
Here is U of Iowa’s page:
http://www.uiowa.edu/
State supported research and teaching university with a broad curriculum that has a strong liberal arts emphasis.
Just for the heck of it I did a search on “University of Iowa cutting edge”. Apparently they are pretty good in biotech and health care.
Now, I would like to say that this is not definitive. Many excellent scientists come from humble backgrounds and do excellent work in fields in which they were not directly trained. It is just that James Hansen isn’t one of them!!
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Joel Shore (18:35:27) :
And, what about your citation for the original charge? It is to a nutty political publication.
Investors Business Daily a ‘nutty political publication’? A national non-political newspaper that is the main competitor to The Wall Street Journal.
Sorry, you’ve just completely blown any shred of credibility possible. The rest of whatever you have to say is of no interest at all. If you can’t tell a real reputable paper from your fantasies then there is no hope for veracity.
Foinavon,
I have read Dessler et al. several times and my characterization of it stands unshaken. Their Eq. 1(which is nothing more than a crude empirical “sensitivity” calculation misrepresented as “feedback”) is taken as a given and is applied to a year’s worth of data–a cooling year at that–without any critical reflection upon system dynamics. By that token any covariation between two variables would constitute proof of “feedback.”
By claiming that this is an “experimental” study and insisting that thermalized energy is amplified by CO2, you’ve convinced me that any further discussion with you would be scientifically fallow. Better luck in modern academia!