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. 😉
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crosspatch
December 21, 2008 4:56 pm
“Pre-industrial CO2 levels were approximately 280 ppm — present CO2 levels are apporximately 380 ppm, the increase “obviously” human induced.”
One main problem the AGW crowd hasn’t addressed is why were temperatures decreasing during the period when CO2 levels increased the most between WWII and the 1970’s? And why have temperatures declined since 2000 while China and India have industrialized adding even more CO2?
I’m still wondering where Hansen took the figure 3 for 2xCO2. If we increase the mass of carbon dioxide, but the heat source remains constant, then the CO2 would act like a cooler, not like a radiator. I think Hansen resorted to the “Solar Irradiance has increased” for making his fantasy sounds more credible from a scientific standpoint. For the carbon dioxide acted like a warmer, the solar irradiance had to increase, but it has happened just in the opposite way… Heh! On the other hand, sandy lands have always existed on Earth. Perhaps Hansen is trying to blame deforestation on global cooling.
PeteM
December 21, 2008 5:01 pm
Mike C (16:31:11) :
“My second point is that PeteM has not thought much through when it comes to comparrisons involving Venus. Not only is Venus closer to the sun, it has a super rotating upper atmosphere of sulphur gases that act like a blanket….”
I think you are attributing to me points that I was not making .
My point ( which it appears you are supporting) is that Smokey is incorrect to suggest distance from the Sun the why Venus is warmer than Earth and Mars
It’s also strongly linked with the atmosphere ( or lack of it) , and the composition of the atmosphere ( including the greenhouse effect ).
To think this through … you only have to wonder about the Earth and Moon which are at very similar distances from the sun to understand the issue .
Lansner, Frank (16:30:07) – interesting charts .
How is the data for the charts comparing various planets generated .
foinavon
December 21, 2008 5:07 pm
David,
No, Hansen certainly isn’t claiming a linear relation between CO2 and T…far from it.
The relationship is logarithmic. I’ve dumped a simple equation in my post above (see 12:52:53), which can be used to calculate the temperature response to enhanced CO2 within a 3 oC climate sensitivity.
Hansen’s analysis is more complex almost certainly. He’s presumably done a full fit of the ice age record incorporating insolation variations (these can be calculated from analysis of Milankovitch cycles), and the known feedbacks (water vapour, albedo), and optimised the climate sensitivty of the CO2 forcing….something like that.
However if one wants to estimate the earth’s temperature response to enhanced CO2 within a particular climate sensitivity, the equation in my post above will allow you to do that (or you can change the climate sensitivity and see what happens)..
Of course that doesn’t means that’s what’s going to happen! It’s possible that the sun might do something funny…or we might enter a weird volcanic/tectonic stage…or we might get hit by an asteroid…but there’s quite a lot of evidence that the earth’s temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing can be estimated to a first approximation using a climate sensitivity value. Hansens’ study reinforces a lot of other data suggesting that this is somewhere near 3 oC of warming per doubling of atmospheric CO2..
Mark Smith
December 21, 2008 5:20 pm
Re; saving/destroying creation.. I thought the issue was global, not cosmic… Anthropogenic Cosmic Warming, anyone?
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 5:27 pm
“but there’s quite a lot of evidence that the earth’s temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing can be estimated to a first approximation using a climate sensitivity value”
Can you demonstrate any such evidence using data other than Hansen’s? Can you show a temperature response that rises in step with CO2 rise? I haven’t seen one yet. I have not seen any temperature response that even remotely resembles the increase in CO2. Again, we had the most dramatic increase in CO2 while global temperatures were cooling. In 1998 we had much more CO2 than we had in 1933 yet temperatures during that PDO/ENSO warm cycle didn’t rise as high as they did in 1933.
Sure there are a lot of theoretical models that demonstrate this relationship but none have shown to be an analog to reality.
Steven Goddard
December 21, 2008 5:34 pm
The thing that I find most troublesome about the updated map is this comment- “The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239
Why would they make a change to the map in the range of 0.3 degrees, when their precision is an order of magnitude lower than the adjustment? There is never any justification for doing that.
Another very troublesome NASA “correction” article came out a few weeks ago. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
What could have motivated a bizarre “science” story like that? I’ve never seen anything like that before.
foinavon
December 21, 2008 5:36 pm
crosspatch,
Atmospheric CO2 levels rose relatively slowly after the war up through the mid 60’s:
1944ish 310 ppm
1962 320ppm
1973 330ppm
So in the 30 post war years CO2 levels rose around 20 ppm.
In the next 30 years they rose 47 ppm (377 ppm in 2003; 386 ppm now).
The earth’s temperature was pretty flat post war ’til the early 70’s. The evidence indicates that the massive release of very dirty fuels that gave us killing London smogs and acid rain and such like was sufficient to counter the small temperature rise expected from the smallish (in the grand scheme of things!) CO2 rise. As various clean air acts kicked in during the 1960’s especially, the “cooling” effect of our diry aerosols was somewhat diminished. We are still “protected” from the full whack of greenhouse-induced warming by a cooling aerosol effect.
The temperatures haven’t really declined since 2000. As the earth’s temperature responds to enhanced greenhouse warming, the temperature trends slowly upwards (there is quite a large inertia in the climate system, and so it takes a considerable time for the earth’s temperature to eqilibrate with a new forcing). During this rising trend stochastic variations in the climate system may dominate for short periods. 2008 is going to be somewhat short of a record year due to the strong early La Nina, and we’re smack at the bottom of the solar cycle.
it wouldn’t be surprising if the next record temperature year will occur at the next El Nino or two!
Smokey,
I don’t think anyone went ballistic over the Beck stuff. It’s clearly nonsense, as a little bit of investigation and clear thinking will illustrate.
You’re new around here, so I’ll disregard your misplaced belief that you are the arbiter of clear thinking.
In fact, there has been some very *ahem*lively discussion regarding Dr. Beck’s paper. You can simply search the keyword “Beck” on this page to find more threads and commentary on his work.
It’s interesting that Beck has been completely open regarding his data and methodology. He answers questions and explains how he arrived at his conclusions.
In contrast, Hansen, Mann and others refuse to publicly archive their taxpayer-funded raw data and “adjustment” methodology, which of course makes their claims highly suspect. How could it not?
Rather than assuming that CO2 [which is entirely beneficial and nothing to get alarmed about] remained right at 280 ppmv prior to the 1900’s, it has been shown that CO2 concentrations can vary by two orders of magnitude in different parts of the ocean [see commentary in the Beck thread]. So by flippantly pretending that Beck’s 90,000 recorded measurements can’t be accurate because they vary widely, even over the open ocean, you have staked out your position and you fool nobody here.
Beck’s work has some problems — which he has satisfactorily addressed to Keeling — but to simply disregard many years of work by numerous esteemed scientists like J.S. Haldane makes it clear that Beck’s new information is very unwelcome to some, as the attacks on him, similar to those on Monckton, clearly demonstrate.
Dr. Beck will answer your questions, his contact information is in the link. But I’ll bet you don’t want to ask him.
davidc
December 21, 2008 5:43 pm
foinavon,
Maybe he did all those things but if his sensitivity is a constant the end result is a linear relationship. If not, he should be saying that the sensitivity is a function of a whole range of parameters and variables, not a constant. For example, with your log relationship you would need to specifying the starting concentration of CO2 to be able to state the effect on T of a doubling. No?
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 5:45 pm
From 1933 to 1975 North America cooled at a rate of 2.5C/century. What was the rate of CO2 increase over that same period? And the cooling was fairly even throughout the period, pretty much a steady cooling while CO2 levels were in a steady rise.
From 1998 to 2008 in the most recent 12 month period (December to November) temperatures in North America have been cooling at a rate of 2.1C/century.
So we had 42 years of cooling, followed by 20 years of warming followed by another 10 years of cooling. In other words, we have had 52 years of cooling temperatures and 22 years of warming over a period of 74 years of monotonic CO2 increase.
As of last month the trend from 1930 to today for the most recent 12 month period is a warming of 0.3C per *century*. I see no relationship between either the amount of warming or the timing of it in relation to CO2 increase.
Leon Brozyna
December 21, 2008 5:49 pm
Whenever this gentleman’s name appears, an image of the muppets intrudes into my consciousness. At least with those creatures there’s an aura of innocence about their silliness.
Did a quick scan of his lecture and one of the first thing I noticed is how he sets up a strawman of solar irradiance to dismiss solar influence on the climate. TSI, as I understand it, is a relatively stable element. Of more consequence is solar wind and solar/earth magnetic field interactions. To use TSI as he does is to place blinders on science.
And the presumptive arrogance of the man — “to preserve creation.” Give me a break!
And the examples he pulls out of his hat.
Rongbuk glacier — probably less about temperature than a disruption of monsoonal precipitation patterns due to dumping of particulate matter into the atmosphere.
Western wildfires — a consequence of repressing natural fires which resulted in an explosive growth of combustible tinder over the decades.
Western drought with that picture of the Lake Mead pier far from any water — the infrastructure in the Western states was developed and built during an unusually wet period. Now that a more normal, drier period is upon us, there’s much hand wringing.
And he goes on and on.
I’ve saved the file so I can read some of it tomorrow morning to get my blood racing so I can shovel some of that +15″ of global warming {it’s still coming down}.
Mike Bryant
December 21, 2008 5:50 pm
NCDC and HADCRUT say:
2008… Coldest Year of the Millenium!!
David L. Hagen
December 21, 2008 5:53 pm
Bobby Lane
Please rethink your characterization.
The one sending out the massive troops to enforce the decree was Sauron.
Aragon was the one upholding the truth.
davidc and foinavon… Yes, it is taken like a log correlation: ln(CO2x2/CO2 standard)
Nevertheless, the question is: what the real standard atmospheric concentration of CO2 could be? Perhaps 280 ppmV is not the natural standard, but 300 or higher. Who knows?
yonsaon
December 21, 2008 5:55 pm
SOMEONE PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG, BUT…
CO2 and temps were both higher in the past, so if the planet’s climate is on hair-trigger, how do we not see this happening in the past, and why once the temps go up due to feedback, do they ever come back down. I would thing that if the climate was so unstable that a slight tip could force it to get hot that it would be locked in at the high end, with cold spells being the anomaly. What reset it in the past when humans weren’t here to sacrifice themselves and their wellbeing for the greater good of Ma Nature?
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 5:55 pm
crosspatch (17:45:13) :
I admire your facts and it’s important to keep presenting them – however the AGW religeous zealots aren’t listening.
I think that it’s going to have to be a very extended cold period before it starts to sink in.
And even then – this may all morph into “Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.”
foinavon
December 21, 2008 5:56 pm
Not really Smokey,
You’ve brought all sorts of extraneous “political” stuuf that’s not really relevant. It’s all about the evidence, I hope we would agree!
i’ve hardly disregarded “many years of work by numerous esteemed scientists like J.S. Haldane”… If you read my post above (16:11:33), you’ll see that i’ve been more than favourable to the early measurers of CO2. And if you read the primary literature on this subject (i.e. the papers of the likes of Kreutz in Giessen or Jules Reiset), you’ll see that they are quite open about the deficiencies of their measurements (Reiset went to great lengths to get relaiable data).
Notice that Beck plays fast and loose with the word accurate. But we need to be clear about what the accuracy refers to. Measurements can be precise but inaccurate. Or they can be inaccurate but not representative of the subject at hand. That’s the case with many of the measurements that Beck complies while removing all reference to the qualifiers of the excellent scientists themselves.
Basically a number of scientists made atmospheric CO2 measurements in heavily contaminated urban environments while developing the methodologies for CO2 collection and analysis. Their measurements were often precise. They were accurate measurements of the CO2 content in the air in the urban locations that they lived. But they were not accurate in relation to the well-mixed atmospheric CO2 levels.
Some scientisits (like Rieset) took great efforts to measure atmsopehric CO2 in uncontaminated settings far from urban centres. Reiset took his apparatus to the windy N. Atlantic coast and obtained atmospheric CO2 values that are pretty close to the ice core data (290-300 ppm) for the late 19th century…
Nobody said that “remained right at 280 ppmv prior to the 1900”
Nobody is trying to “fool” anyone. You’re being overly defensive. It’s all about the evidence Smokey.
Contrary to GCMs, empirical evidence shows that CO2 does not cause temperature rise:
R-squared CO2/temp correlation of just 0.07. They don’t correlate. See?
For a longer term look at CO2/temp non-correlation: click
Please show us unclear thinkers how CO2 caused this.
And an interesting graph on Beck’s work here. [Thanx to Bill Illis].
foinavon
December 21, 2008 6:03 pm
No David you don’t actually need to state the starting concentration of CO2. That’s one of the essential features of a logarithmic relationship. It’s a little like the radioactive half life which is also an independent parameter in relation to the starting radioactivity.
So if the atmospheric CO2 concnetration rises from 180-360 ppm the earth’s temperature response is a warming one equivalent to 3 oC
And to get another 3 oC of warming the atmospheric CO2 concentration would have to rise from 360 ppm to 720 ppm.
Or one could take any arbitrary value. 280 ppm (pre-industrial level) to 560 ppm gives 3 oC of warming within a climate sensitivity of 3 oC per doubling.
…and so on…
Wondering Aloud
December 21, 2008 6:03 pm
Nothing quite like NASA for honesty, integrity, and good honest science in the public interest.
I am very glad nothing else is like them.
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 6:06 pm
Not only that, the cooling over this last 12 month period is the greatest since the Pinatubo cooling. We are 1.49 degrees cooler over the last 12 month period than we were over the same 12 month period ending in November 2007. The Pinatubo cooling was 1.87 degrees in one year. El Chichon cooling was even greater in N. America at around 2 degrees. So we have had cooling in one year that has only been matched in the recent past (since the 1970’s) by major volcanic events. And we have had no such major volcanic events.
foinavon
December 21, 2008 6:06 pm
crosspatch, the earth’s temperature response is assessed globally. Obviously regional variations may be different within an overall warming (or cooling) trend.
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 6:14 pm
The global response is similar. More years of cooling than warming since WWII. The exact numbers differ but the trends are the same. North America accounts for most of the land area in the Western half of the Northern Hemisphere so accounts for about 1/4 of the world. Trends in N America should match global trends, and they do.
The problem is in getting accurate data from the other half of the Northern Hemisphere. The data from China and Russia seem spotty and tends to go “missing”. And there is even less data from the Southern Hemisphere.
The satellite global trends and NOAA’s North America trends match.
MartinGAtkins
December 21, 2008 6:15 pm
Australia Network
Television Program:- Heat
“This 2 part series investigates how big businesses have manipulated the debate over, and response to, global warming in America and around the globe. As the reality and potential impact of a warming climate become increasingly clear, this production examines how pressure from shareholders and other financial partners may have the power to reshape the ways oil-and energy-related businesses approach environmental policies to transform into momentum for change.”
This is scheduled to screen across Asia on Tuesday 23 Dec and Wednesday 24 Dec.
For your regional program scheduled. http://australianetwork.com/guide/
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is Siamese twin of the British Broadcasting Corporation and a publicly funded propaganda machine.
“Pre-industrial CO2 levels were approximately 280 ppm — present CO2 levels are apporximately 380 ppm, the increase “obviously” human induced.”
One main problem the AGW crowd hasn’t addressed is why were temperatures decreasing during the period when CO2 levels increased the most between WWII and the 1970’s? And why have temperatures declined since 2000 while China and India have industrialized adding even more CO2?
I’m still wondering where Hansen took the figure 3 for 2xCO2. If we increase the mass of carbon dioxide, but the heat source remains constant, then the CO2 would act like a cooler, not like a radiator. I think Hansen resorted to the “Solar Irradiance has increased” for making his fantasy sounds more credible from a scientific standpoint. For the carbon dioxide acted like a warmer, the solar irradiance had to increase, but it has happened just in the opposite way… Heh! On the other hand, sandy lands have always existed on Earth. Perhaps Hansen is trying to blame deforestation on global cooling.
Mike C (16:31:11) :
“My second point is that PeteM has not thought much through when it comes to comparrisons involving Venus. Not only is Venus closer to the sun, it has a super rotating upper atmosphere of sulphur gases that act like a blanket….”
I think you are attributing to me points that I was not making .
My point ( which it appears you are supporting) is that Smokey is incorrect to suggest distance from the Sun the why Venus is warmer than Earth and Mars
It’s also strongly linked with the atmosphere ( or lack of it) , and the composition of the atmosphere ( including the greenhouse effect ).
To think this through … you only have to wonder about the Earth and Moon which are at very similar distances from the sun to understand the issue .
Lansner, Frank (16:30:07) – interesting charts .
How is the data for the charts comparing various planets generated .
David,
No, Hansen certainly isn’t claiming a linear relation between CO2 and T…far from it.
The relationship is logarithmic. I’ve dumped a simple equation in my post above (see 12:52:53), which can be used to calculate the temperature response to enhanced CO2 within a 3 oC climate sensitivity.
Hansen’s analysis is more complex almost certainly. He’s presumably done a full fit of the ice age record incorporating insolation variations (these can be calculated from analysis of Milankovitch cycles), and the known feedbacks (water vapour, albedo), and optimised the climate sensitivty of the CO2 forcing….something like that.
However if one wants to estimate the earth’s temperature response to enhanced CO2 within a particular climate sensitivity, the equation in my post above will allow you to do that (or you can change the climate sensitivity and see what happens)..
Of course that doesn’t means that’s what’s going to happen! It’s possible that the sun might do something funny…or we might enter a weird volcanic/tectonic stage…or we might get hit by an asteroid…but there’s quite a lot of evidence that the earth’s temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing can be estimated to a first approximation using a climate sensitivity value. Hansens’ study reinforces a lot of other data suggesting that this is somewhere near 3 oC of warming per doubling of atmospheric CO2..
Re; saving/destroying creation.. I thought the issue was global, not cosmic… Anthropogenic Cosmic Warming, anyone?
“but there’s quite a lot of evidence that the earth’s temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing can be estimated to a first approximation using a climate sensitivity value”
Can you demonstrate any such evidence using data other than Hansen’s? Can you show a temperature response that rises in step with CO2 rise? I haven’t seen one yet. I have not seen any temperature response that even remotely resembles the increase in CO2. Again, we had the most dramatic increase in CO2 while global temperatures were cooling. In 1998 we had much more CO2 than we had in 1933 yet temperatures during that PDO/ENSO warm cycle didn’t rise as high as they did in 1933.
Sure there are a lot of theoretical models that demonstrate this relationship but none have shown to be an analog to reality.
The thing that I find most troublesome about the updated map is this comment-
“The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239
Why would they make a change to the map in the range of 0.3 degrees, when their precision is an order of magnitude lower than the adjustment? There is never any justification for doing that.
Another very troublesome NASA “correction” article came out a few weeks ago.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
What could have motivated a bizarre “science” story like that? I’ve never seen anything like that before.
crosspatch,
Atmospheric CO2 levels rose relatively slowly after the war up through the mid 60’s:
1944ish 310 ppm
1962 320ppm
1973 330ppm
So in the 30 post war years CO2 levels rose around 20 ppm.
In the next 30 years they rose 47 ppm (377 ppm in 2003; 386 ppm now).
The earth’s temperature was pretty flat post war ’til the early 70’s. The evidence indicates that the massive release of very dirty fuels that gave us killing London smogs and acid rain and such like was sufficient to counter the small temperature rise expected from the smallish (in the grand scheme of things!) CO2 rise. As various clean air acts kicked in during the 1960’s especially, the “cooling” effect of our diry aerosols was somewhat diminished. We are still “protected” from the full whack of greenhouse-induced warming by a cooling aerosol effect.
The temperatures haven’t really declined since 2000. As the earth’s temperature responds to enhanced greenhouse warming, the temperature trends slowly upwards (there is quite a large inertia in the climate system, and so it takes a considerable time for the earth’s temperature to eqilibrate with a new forcing). During this rising trend stochastic variations in the climate system may dominate for short periods. 2008 is going to be somewhat short of a record year due to the strong early La Nina, and we’re smack at the bottom of the solar cycle.
it wouldn’t be surprising if the next record temperature year will occur at the next El Nino or two!
foinavon @16:47:55
You’re new around here, so I’ll disregard your misplaced belief that you are the arbiter of clear thinking.
In fact, there has been some very *ahem* lively discussion regarding Dr. Beck’s paper. You can simply search the keyword “Beck” on this page to find more threads and commentary on his work.
It’s interesting that Beck has been completely open regarding his data and methodology. He answers questions and explains how he arrived at his conclusions.
In contrast, Hansen, Mann and others refuse to publicly archive their taxpayer-funded raw data and “adjustment” methodology, which of course makes their claims highly suspect. How could it not?
Rather than assuming that CO2 [which is entirely beneficial and nothing to get alarmed about] remained right at 280 ppmv prior to the 1900’s, it has been shown that CO2 concentrations can vary by two orders of magnitude in different parts of the ocean [see commentary in the Beck thread]. So by flippantly pretending that Beck’s 90,000 recorded measurements can’t be accurate because they vary widely, even over the open ocean, you have staked out your position and you fool nobody here.
Beck’s work has some problems — which he has satisfactorily addressed to Keeling — but to simply disregard many years of work by numerous esteemed scientists like J.S. Haldane makes it clear that Beck’s new information is very unwelcome to some, as the attacks on him, similar to those on Monckton, clearly demonstrate.
Dr. Beck will answer your questions, his contact information is in the link. But I’ll bet you don’t want to ask him.
foinavon,
Maybe he did all those things but if his sensitivity is a constant the end result is a linear relationship. If not, he should be saying that the sensitivity is a function of a whole range of parameters and variables, not a constant. For example, with your log relationship you would need to specifying the starting concentration of CO2 to be able to state the effect on T of a doubling. No?
From 1933 to 1975 North America cooled at a rate of 2.5C/century. What was the rate of CO2 increase over that same period? And the cooling was fairly even throughout the period, pretty much a steady cooling while CO2 levels were in a steady rise.
From 1998 to 2008 in the most recent 12 month period (December to November) temperatures in North America have been cooling at a rate of 2.1C/century.
So we had 42 years of cooling, followed by 20 years of warming followed by another 10 years of cooling. In other words, we have had 52 years of cooling temperatures and 22 years of warming over a period of 74 years of monotonic CO2 increase.
As of last month the trend from 1930 to today for the most recent 12 month period is a warming of 0.3C per *century*. I see no relationship between either the amount of warming or the timing of it in relation to CO2 increase.
Whenever this gentleman’s name appears, an image of the muppets intrudes into my consciousness. At least with those creatures there’s an aura of innocence about their silliness.
Did a quick scan of his lecture and one of the first thing I noticed is how he sets up a strawman of solar irradiance to dismiss solar influence on the climate. TSI, as I understand it, is a relatively stable element. Of more consequence is solar wind and solar/earth magnetic field interactions. To use TSI as he does is to place blinders on science.
And the presumptive arrogance of the man — “to preserve creation.” Give me a break!
And the examples he pulls out of his hat.
Rongbuk glacier — probably less about temperature than a disruption of monsoonal precipitation patterns due to dumping of particulate matter into the atmosphere.
Western wildfires — a consequence of repressing natural fires which resulted in an explosive growth of combustible tinder over the decades.
Western drought with that picture of the Lake Mead pier far from any water — the infrastructure in the Western states was developed and built during an unusually wet period. Now that a more normal, drier period is upon us, there’s much hand wringing.
And he goes on and on.
I’ve saved the file so I can read some of it tomorrow morning to get my blood racing so I can shovel some of that +15″ of global warming {it’s still coming down}.
NCDC and HADCRUT say:
2008… Coldest Year of the Millenium!!
Bobby Lane
Please rethink your characterization.
The one sending out the massive troops to enforce the decree was Sauron.
Aragon was the one upholding the truth.
davidc and foinavon… Yes, it is taken like a log correlation:
ln(CO2x2/CO2 standard)
Nevertheless, the question is: what the real standard atmospheric concentration of CO2 could be? Perhaps 280 ppmV is not the natural standard, but 300 or higher. Who knows?
SOMEONE PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG, BUT…
CO2 and temps were both higher in the past, so if the planet’s climate is on hair-trigger, how do we not see this happening in the past, and why once the temps go up due to feedback, do they ever come back down. I would thing that if the climate was so unstable that a slight tip could force it to get hot that it would be locked in at the high end, with cold spells being the anomaly. What reset it in the past when humans weren’t here to sacrifice themselves and their wellbeing for the greater good of Ma Nature?
crosspatch (17:45:13) :
I admire your facts and it’s important to keep presenting them – however the AGW religeous zealots aren’t listening.
I think that it’s going to have to be a very extended cold period before it starts to sink in.
And even then – this may all morph into “Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.”
Not really Smokey,
You’ve brought all sorts of extraneous “political” stuuf that’s not really relevant. It’s all about the evidence, I hope we would agree!
i’ve hardly disregarded “many years of work by numerous esteemed scientists like J.S. Haldane”… If you read my post above (16:11:33), you’ll see that i’ve been more than favourable to the early measurers of CO2. And if you read the primary literature on this subject (i.e. the papers of the likes of Kreutz in Giessen or Jules Reiset), you’ll see that they are quite open about the deficiencies of their measurements (Reiset went to great lengths to get relaiable data).
Notice that Beck plays fast and loose with the word accurate. But we need to be clear about what the accuracy refers to. Measurements can be precise but inaccurate. Or they can be inaccurate but not representative of the subject at hand. That’s the case with many of the measurements that Beck complies while removing all reference to the qualifiers of the excellent scientists themselves.
Basically a number of scientists made atmospheric CO2 measurements in heavily contaminated urban environments while developing the methodologies for CO2 collection and analysis. Their measurements were often precise. They were accurate measurements of the CO2 content in the air in the urban locations that they lived. But they were not accurate in relation to the well-mixed atmospheric CO2 levels.
Some scientisits (like Rieset) took great efforts to measure atmsopehric CO2 in uncontaminated settings far from urban centres. Reiset took his apparatus to the windy N. Atlantic coast and obtained atmospheric CO2 values that are pretty close to the ice core data (290-300 ppm) for the late 19th century…
Nobody said that “remained right at 280 ppmv prior to the 1900”
Nobody is trying to “fool” anyone. You’re being overly defensive. It’s all about the evidence Smokey.
Contrary to GCMs, empirical evidence shows that CO2 does not cause temperature rise:
R-squared CO2/temp correlation of just 0.07. They don’t correlate. See?
For a longer term look at CO2/temp non-correlation: click
Please show us unclear thinkers how CO2 caused this.
And an interesting graph on Beck’s work here. [Thanx to Bill Illis].
No David you don’t actually need to state the starting concentration of CO2. That’s one of the essential features of a logarithmic relationship. It’s a little like the radioactive half life which is also an independent parameter in relation to the starting radioactivity.
So if the atmospheric CO2 concnetration rises from 180-360 ppm the earth’s temperature response is a warming one equivalent to 3 oC
And to get another 3 oC of warming the atmospheric CO2 concentration would have to rise from 360 ppm to 720 ppm.
Or one could take any arbitrary value. 280 ppm (pre-industrial level) to 560 ppm gives 3 oC of warming within a climate sensitivity of 3 oC per doubling.
…and so on…
Nothing quite like NASA for honesty, integrity, and good honest science in the public interest.
I am very glad nothing else is like them.
Not only that, the cooling over this last 12 month period is the greatest since the Pinatubo cooling. We are 1.49 degrees cooler over the last 12 month period than we were over the same 12 month period ending in November 2007. The Pinatubo cooling was 1.87 degrees in one year. El Chichon cooling was even greater in N. America at around 2 degrees. So we have had cooling in one year that has only been matched in the recent past (since the 1970’s) by major volcanic events. And we have had no such major volcanic events.
crosspatch, the earth’s temperature response is assessed globally. Obviously regional variations may be different within an overall warming (or cooling) trend.
The global response is similar. More years of cooling than warming since WWII. The exact numbers differ but the trends are the same. North America accounts for most of the land area in the Western half of the Northern Hemisphere so accounts for about 1/4 of the world. Trends in N America should match global trends, and they do.
The problem is in getting accurate data from the other half of the Northern Hemisphere. The data from China and Russia seem spotty and tends to go “missing”. And there is even less data from the Southern Hemisphere.
The satellite global trends and NOAA’s North America trends match.
Australia Network
Television Program:- Heat
“This 2 part series investigates how big businesses have manipulated the debate over, and response to, global warming in America and around the globe. As the reality and potential impact of a warming climate become increasingly clear, this production examines how pressure from shareholders and other financial partners may have the power to reshape the ways oil-and energy-related businesses approach environmental policies to transform into momentum for change.”
This is scheduled to screen across Asia on Tuesday 23 Dec and Wednesday 24 Dec.
For your regional program scheduled.
http://australianetwork.com/guide/
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is Siamese twin of the British Broadcasting Corporation and a publicly funded propaganda machine.