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. 😉
I see that James Hansen is using that well-known form of scientific reasoning called “Proof by vehement assertion”.
Kum Dollison
December 21, 2008 9:53 pm
Another interesting factoid (I think) is that CO2 in the atmosphere increased by about 2.80 ppm in 1998, but only by about 1.30 ppm/yr in 1999, and 2000.
And, only by about 0.95/yr in 92′, and 93′.
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 10:11 pm
crosspatch (18:38:58) :
“And even then – this may all morph into ‘Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.’” Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
The technique of morphing the ideology to fit the available data – when swamped by that data – has been used once before. We can expect it to be used again in the future.
In all three (2 past, 1 proposed Future) cases the target of restricting CO2 output as a means of constraining the development of Western Civilization remains invariant.
I’ve googled bill illis and all I can find is his posts on the various denialist sites. Any credentials? Expertise? Why is there no professional information on Illis?
I Googled ccpo and the best match seems to be http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/ccpo/index.html . Do you represent them? Do they approve?
You can Google me – here’s a challenge: What’s the oldest reference to me on the web? Hint – it predates the Internet.
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 10:20 pm
Retired Engineer (20:50:19) : Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
Is that the reason that the curve is a logarithmic one – i.e as the absorption spectra for CO2 gets saturated – CO2 faces a diminishing returns relationship for forcing warming?
Just asking?
Mike Lawley
December 21, 2008 10:20 pm
The fact that Hansen refers to “Robber Barrons” in todays age says it all. The man is warped. He obviously is driven by politics, not science.
Kum Dollison
December 21, 2008 10:26 pm
This year looks pretty similar to 1981 when we did about 1.60 ppm CO2, so it seems likely we’re looking in the 1.50 to 1.60 range this year.
If we averaged adding 1.50 ppm/yr, for the next 30 years (which seems reasonable) we could be looking at flat to lower temps for the cycle with 90 – 100 ppm CO2 added to the atmosphere. That would be roughly 90/340 or an addition of 26% increase in CO2 for the cycle with flat, to slightly lower temps.
How does THAT fit in with 3o C for a double?
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 10:36 pm
ccpo (20:50:41) : apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious
How so? I know of no peer review that says so. Link?
Check http://www.climateaudit.org for an extensive review of Michael Mann’s (MM) work.
Foinavon,
“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.”
I’ve read all this before on the Realclimate website. What you’re saying may all be true of course, but certainly it is very convenient isn’t it? When the Earth isn’t warming, its due to the cooling effects aerosols. When the Earth is warming, the aerosols have apparently disappeared from the atmosphere? Are places like China and India burning very ‘clean’ fuels now as opposed to what was being burnt in Europe back in the 60’s? Could be so, I don’t know. But it’s a reasonable question to ask I think.
You state: “the evidence indicates..”. If there is evidence and the research is pretty solid I’m happy to accept it as credible. Could you provide links please?
One wouldn’t want to be lead to the conclusion that the aerosal claim is an ad hoc assertion used to save AGW. It seems to me that without invoking aerosols as a massive atmospheric coolant, AGW is in a lot of trouble. So presumably there has to be a lot of very solid science behind aerosols and their effects on the atmosphere and good data on historic atmospheric content. I would also expect that the data would tend to be showing significantly more cooling in those areas of the globe where aerosols were being mostly expelled? And all the empirical data supports this and is (reasonably) consistent with this?
(One of the frustrating thing I find about reading Realclimate is that very very critical points such as this example tend to be lightly skipped over.)
Thanks.
CJ
December 21, 2008 10:39 pm
I’d always thought that the largest two factors regarding Venusian temps were the total mass of the atmosphere (it has far, far more atmosphere than Earth, hence the far greater surface pressure, around 90 times that of Earth as I recall) and thus a far thicker, heavier “blanket”. The other is total solar insolation (just under twice that or Earth for a given surface area), due to being nearer to the sun. As for the CO2, on Venus it makes up 95% of the atmosphere, while on Earth it makes up a few hundred parts per million, a tiny fraction of one percent, which makes it a trace gas. Yet, Hansen seems to disregard all that and cites just the CO2?? Even to a layman like me, that sounds absurd in the extreme.
I’ll admit it, I used to be a AGW believer. But then, I started looking into it, and found far, far to many holes in the theory. I think the biggest red flag for me was that the polar caps on Mars were seen to be retreating during the period when the earth was warming. Now, to be clear, I do believe that, until a few years ago, the Earth was getting warmer. I even think that mankind is responsible, via various activities, for one or two percent of it. When it comes to polar ice melting, I’ll go even further; I beleive that mankind’s activity accounts for some of the retreat. I’ve personally seen soot layers in Alaskan and Canadian glaciers (reportedly in large part from China’s very unclean coal plants). However, CO2? I think that has been pretty much shown to be a crock.
My dark suspicion is that it’s seen by politicians as a lucrative new way to rob the taxpayers, and that’s the main driving force in official circles for this baseless hysteria.
I hate to say it, but I’m rooting for a new Dalton minimum or similar. I know it would bring great hardship, but it would serve to debunk the CO2 hysteria, hopefully before the insane “carbon cap and trade” raid on our wallets is in place (or at least to get it repealed).
eric anderson
December 21, 2008 10:45 pm
1. The graphic of Antarctica illustrates the period 1982-2004. What would the graphic look like if the period was ’82-’07? What will it look like in January, when we could include data from ’08???
2. The problem with Hansen “nailing” his conclusions by including aerosols, albedo, and water vapor — the IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers rates our “Level of Scientific Understanding” (LOSU) for aerosols as “medium-low” for direct effect and “low” for cloud albedo effect. The LOSU is rated “medium-low” for surface albedo forcings. The chart I’m looking at in the report does not quantify the LOSU for water vapor forcing.
My point is that if you have low or medium-low understanding of major components in the final calculation of anthropogenic radiative forcing, how can you claim to have “nailed” anything until you understand all the major factors with reasonable certitude? You can’t. It’s a logical impossibility. Even granting for the sake of argument that understanding of the CO2 factor is very good, you cannot approach certainty by adding in other uncertain factors. Duh!
Dr. Hansen, sit in the corner and put on the dunce cap.
Mike Lawley
December 21, 2008 10:47 pm
Guys, this is off topic, but I m trying to gain a better understanding of what is going on. Based on what I have read, common sense and my gut instincts, I don’t believe the man caused global warming theory but I am not a scientist. I asked someone named Gavin a question on the RealClimate website after reading his comment that many if not most of the 650 scientists that Imhoff refers to in a senate report are not scientists. My questions and his answers follow. His answers are at odds with what I have read and heard elsewhere. On his website he maintains that he is objective without bias, but it is obvious from reading the questions and his answers that this is not true, – one doesn’t need to be a scientist to see that. He skirts my question regarding non scientists as members of the IPCC and seems to dance around the rest of my question. What do you think of his answers and comments concerning my questions.
Lawley Says:
21 December 2008 at 7:02 PM
Gavin, With respect to comment 47, I have heard the same thing about IPCC. That many of the \scientists\ listed as members of the IPCC are not scientists and that some of the scientists listed have left the IPCC as a result of their disagreement with IPCC findings. The same source goes on to say that there is substantial disagreement among the scientists that remain members over the conclusions of IPCC studies.
[Response: None of this is true in substance. I am aware of only two people (over 3 working groups and over the last two reports) who left the IPCC chapter they were involved in. That is not overwhelming. There is I think only one person on the IPCC author list who is also on Inhofe’s sceptics list (who hasn’t been horribly misquoted) (J. Christy). As for ‘disagreement’ where is it? Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted. The basic fact is that IPCC is the mainstream – go to the AGU website and check the abstracts of last weeks meeting. Out of thousands dealing with climate, you’ll find maybe half a dozen that go against the ‘consensus’ with the vast majority trying to move beyond what’s already been found in order to tackle the remaining uncertainties. – gavin]
anna v
December 21, 2008 11:08 pm
I’d like to encapsulate some conclusions I have from looking at CO2 data, old and new.
CO2 was decided by the present gurus that it should be measured where it is “stable” and at the specific time of day when it is the lowest.
Why so? because it can vary enormously from location to location and height to height and time to time. The AIRS animation maps that show the CO2 bands and the earth breathing with the seasons are the tip of the iceberg, literally, since they are over 5000 meter high. Most of the biosphere is below 1000 meters. In data shown in http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html we can see variations of 100ppm depending on updrafts etc. Thus it is not surprising that the Beck compiled figures show all this diversity.
What is surprising is why the “stable” choice is considered scientifically robust.
Why not measure as one measures temperatures? hi/low average and thousands of locations avraged, as with temperatures? Because the rise would be smaller?
Of course one might say that temperatures are not robust either. Maybe they should be measured like CO2, on top of Mauna Loa on the cooler time of day and 100 other sites hand picked for stability, all shown independently as confirmations of Mauna Loa temperatures. But then maybe the temperature rise, even when it does rise , would be less dramatic.
There is a smell coming from the whole field as cultivated by AGW.
crosspatch (18:38:58) :
Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
Actually you’re wrong, at the time you’re speaking of Hansen was working on a light scattering model for use in a project studying the Venusian atmosphere. Rasool needed a scattering model for aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere, which Hansen gave him.
By the way foinavon why did you have to use that name, it brings back bad memories! 😉
Katherine
December 21, 2008 11:25 pm
Retired Engineer wrote: Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
Check this post: A Window on Water Vapor and Planetary Temperature – Part 2 The graphs there look like what you describe.
My 2c worth:
“Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted.”
At the end of the day, because the empirical data is sketchy at best, and the prediction of 2-6C of warming of the IPCC is ultimately dependent on computer models, this means that the only people qualified to assess the validity of the warming claim are the atmospheric physicists.
Everyone else – the “thousands” referred to – are not being asked to assess the validity of those scientific claims – they are just not qualified. What they are being asked to do is try to determine things such as: what is the impact on water resources if AGW is true? What is the impact on disease if AGW is true? What is the impact on hurricanes if AGW is true? In other words, AGW is assumed to be true for the vast majority of working scientists.
Now I would like to know how many atmospheric physicists worked on the theory. (I think we should reasonably exclude computer programmers, etc., as they are plugging in the calculations, not working them out.) Are we talking about 10? 30? 300? That is the size of the real consensus, whatever that size is. Does anyone have the number handy?
paminator
December 22, 2008 12:17 am
correction- That should have been “Venus receives almost 2 times higher solar insolation due to its closer proximity to the sun”.
Anna V
Agree with you that we should take min/max readings on Co2
I know that poor mixing makes a difference of 20ppm but where are the variations of up to 100ppm mentioned on Ferdinands site?
TonyB
Phil. (23:17:26) :
Actually you’re wrong, at the time you’re speaking of Hansen was working on a light scattering model for use in a project studying the Venusian atmosphere. Rasool needed a scattering model for aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere, which Hansen gave him.
Do you have a citation?
The IBD original is at: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275267681833290 Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, “could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
Aiding Rasool’s research, the Post reported, was a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen,” who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
I’d say a more accurate description would be that “a research associate provided the computer programs that lead to the claim of global cooling.”
All is see is Hansen backpedaling from his earlier model to a newer model.
J.Peden
December 22, 2008 1:23 am
“Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted.”
That doesn’t mean they agreed with the “reports” and/or the ipcc’s main hypotheses, predictions, and alleged solutions. Instead of hiding behind vague hand waving statements such as the above one, “scientists” should be asked whether they agree or disagree with specific statements involving the ipcc’s major contentions, including “don’t know”, and should sign their hands to it. Otherwise their numbers shouldn’t be mentioned. The fact that the ipcc honchos did not do it this way is telling.
In addition, some substantial disagreements were either summarily dismissed or not given a full discription and documentation in the reports, in contradiction to the ipcc’s own operating rules – according to Steve McIntyre’s meticulous dissections.
And need I point out again what happened when Steve McIntyre wanted to review Mann’s Hockey Stick data, as an official ipcc peer reviewer himself? Mann first said he didn’t have/couldn’t find the data, then finally gave data which excluded one very important proxy study, all of which McIntyre finally got hold of and then – along with Ross Mckitrick – managed to debunk Mann’s whole study.
And, btw, if Mann couldn’t find his data and algorithims – the latter which Mann never did release, iirc – no one else had gotten to them either: no one else within the ipcc had actually reviewed his critical study.
So much for ipcc Peer Review and the alleged “consensus” by hundreds of ipcc scientists!
[“Peer Review” itself doesn’t really mean anything specific. Peers usually can do anything they want in doing their “reviews” and are rarely testifying as to the “truth” of the studies and papers they ok for publication. Many papers are actually published simply because they are “controversial”, not because they are “true”, and usually the authors themselves admit that further study is needed. Moreover, where I come from, Medicine, the real Peer Review starts after the paper or study is published.]
Freezing Finn
December 22, 2008 1:35 am
If there is – according to Hansen – a “runaway global warming” on Venus, what “on earth” (English is a funny lanhuage 😉 caused it – and again according to Hansen?
Seems like the sun has nothing to do with anything anymore – oh, except with cancer, “of course”…
Tallbloke
December 22, 2008 1:40 am
REPLY: That was a tongue in cheek reference to Steve McIntyre’s “he who must not be named” issue. My name is “Watts” which is sprinkled throughout the radiative forcings section.
Following up on another suggestion, and in view of your wordpress page view figures, maybe you should adopt the middle name “Giga”. 🙂
Bing
December 22, 2008 1:52 am
@Grant I’ve been watching that as well and wondering what to make of it, but it’s not entirely unusual. If you examine the chart, the 2004 data stepped sideways for a bit around the same time last year, as well as the 2003 data later in the month. The 2008 sideways step is lasting longer, however, than the other years depicted.
What I find curious is that NSIDC hasn’t heralded the change in a new press release. They really like to point out warming changes whenever they can. Cooling changes are either ignored or downplayed as far as I’ve observed. If you look at the NSIDC chart (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png) you’ll see that the growth has not only slowed, but lost mass by a degree.
Anyone have an explanation for why this may be occurring? I was under the impression that this was a colder winter. Is that not the case up north?
Steve
December 22, 2008 2:05 am
Using foinavon’s equation
T = (3.0/log(2))*(log(C))-9.39
and Total global warming, on a decadal average, is 0.8 °C since 1900 (IPCC 2007)
We have
Pre-Industrial (read: 1900) CO2 concentration @ur momisugly 280 ppm:
T(280) = (3/log(2)) * (log(280)) – 9.39 = 15
Today’s CO2 concentration @ur momisugly 380 ppm:
T(380) = (3/log(2)) * (log(380)) – 9.39 = 16.31
Delta(T) = T(380) – T(280) = 1.31 C > 0.8 C
(God I hope I got the maths right and please correct my assumptions if they are wrong 🙂 )
So doesn’t that mean that the (3/log(2)) is likely to be biased too high or there must be some negative feedback at work here. Apparently we can’t use aerosols to explain the negative feedback required[1] so some other unexplained force would have to be at work here. [2] also come up with a much lower climate sensitivity than foinavon seems to imply.
Further can we even assume that CO2 caused all the warming over the last 100+ years. I’m not sure the IPCC even claim that. In any event [3] claim that most of the warming since the 1970s can be explained by the oceans. This to me is the crux of the issue as the IPCC claim most of the warming is due to increases of atmospheric CO2. The reason they give is because they cannot think of any natural variation that could have caused the warming. Well now they have something … the oceans. Therefore, to me, the null hypothesis should still be most of the observed warming is due to natural causes with CO2 only playing a minor role
[1] Chylek et. al. [2007]: Limits on climate sensitivity derived from recent satellite and surface observations
[2] Douglas and Christy [2008]: Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth
[3] Compo and Sardeshmukh [2008]: Oceans a main driver of climate variability.
Hey CP30…
Science should be driven by generic desire for accuracy, not by ideology.
I see that James Hansen is using that well-known form of scientific reasoning called “Proof by vehement assertion”.
Another interesting factoid (I think) is that CO2 in the atmosphere increased by about 2.80 ppm in 1998, but only by about 1.30 ppm/yr in 1999, and 2000.
And, only by about 0.95/yr in 92′, and 93′.
crosspatch (18:38:58) :
“And even then – this may all morph into ‘Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.’”
Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
The technique of morphing the ideology to fit the available data – when swamped by that data – has been used once before. We can expect it to be used again in the future.
In all three (2 past, 1 proposed Future) cases the target of restricting CO2 output as a means of constraining the development of Western Civilization remains invariant.
ccpo (20:41:58) :
I Googled ccpo and the best match seems to be
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/ccpo/index.html . Do you represent them? Do they approve?
You can Google me – here’s a challenge: What’s the oldest reference to me on the web? Hint – it predates the Internet.
Retired Engineer (20:50:19) :
Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
Is that the reason that the curve is a logarithmic one – i.e as the absorption spectra for CO2 gets saturated – CO2 faces a diminishing returns relationship for forcing warming?
Just asking?
The fact that Hansen refers to “Robber Barrons” in todays age says it all. The man is warped. He obviously is driven by politics, not science.
This year looks pretty similar to 1981 when we did about 1.60 ppm CO2, so it seems likely we’re looking in the 1.50 to 1.60 range this year.
If we averaged adding 1.50 ppm/yr, for the next 30 years (which seems reasonable) we could be looking at flat to lower temps for the cycle with 90 – 100 ppm CO2 added to the atmosphere. That would be roughly 90/340 or an addition of 26% increase in CO2 for the cycle with flat, to slightly lower temps.
How does THAT fit in with 3o C for a double?
ccpo (20:50:41) :
apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious
How so? I know of no peer review that says so. Link?
Check http://www.climateaudit.org for an extensive review of Michael Mann’s (MM) work.
Foinavon,
“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.”
I’ve read all this before on the Realclimate website. What you’re saying may all be true of course, but certainly it is very convenient isn’t it? When the Earth isn’t warming, its due to the cooling effects aerosols. When the Earth is warming, the aerosols have apparently disappeared from the atmosphere? Are places like China and India burning very ‘clean’ fuels now as opposed to what was being burnt in Europe back in the 60’s? Could be so, I don’t know. But it’s a reasonable question to ask I think.
You state: “the evidence indicates..”. If there is evidence and the research is pretty solid I’m happy to accept it as credible. Could you provide links please?
One wouldn’t want to be lead to the conclusion that the aerosal claim is an ad hoc assertion used to save AGW. It seems to me that without invoking aerosols as a massive atmospheric coolant, AGW is in a lot of trouble. So presumably there has to be a lot of very solid science behind aerosols and their effects on the atmosphere and good data on historic atmospheric content. I would also expect that the data would tend to be showing significantly more cooling in those areas of the globe where aerosols were being mostly expelled? And all the empirical data supports this and is (reasonably) consistent with this?
(One of the frustrating thing I find about reading Realclimate is that very very critical points such as this example tend to be lightly skipped over.)
Thanks.
I’d always thought that the largest two factors regarding Venusian temps were the total mass of the atmosphere (it has far, far more atmosphere than Earth, hence the far greater surface pressure, around 90 times that of Earth as I recall) and thus a far thicker, heavier “blanket”. The other is total solar insolation (just under twice that or Earth for a given surface area), due to being nearer to the sun. As for the CO2, on Venus it makes up 95% of the atmosphere, while on Earth it makes up a few hundred parts per million, a tiny fraction of one percent, which makes it a trace gas. Yet, Hansen seems to disregard all that and cites just the CO2?? Even to a layman like me, that sounds absurd in the extreme.
I’ll admit it, I used to be a AGW believer. But then, I started looking into it, and found far, far to many holes in the theory. I think the biggest red flag for me was that the polar caps on Mars were seen to be retreating during the period when the earth was warming. Now, to be clear, I do believe that, until a few years ago, the Earth was getting warmer. I even think that mankind is responsible, via various activities, for one or two percent of it. When it comes to polar ice melting, I’ll go even further; I beleive that mankind’s activity accounts for some of the retreat. I’ve personally seen soot layers in Alaskan and Canadian glaciers (reportedly in large part from China’s very unclean coal plants). However, CO2? I think that has been pretty much shown to be a crock.
My dark suspicion is that it’s seen by politicians as a lucrative new way to rob the taxpayers, and that’s the main driving force in official circles for this baseless hysteria.
I hate to say it, but I’m rooting for a new Dalton minimum or similar. I know it would bring great hardship, but it would serve to debunk the CO2 hysteria, hopefully before the insane “carbon cap and trade” raid on our wallets is in place (or at least to get it repealed).
1. The graphic of Antarctica illustrates the period 1982-2004. What would the graphic look like if the period was ’82-’07? What will it look like in January, when we could include data from ’08???
2. The problem with Hansen “nailing” his conclusions by including aerosols, albedo, and water vapor — the IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers rates our “Level of Scientific Understanding” (LOSU) for aerosols as “medium-low” for direct effect and “low” for cloud albedo effect. The LOSU is rated “medium-low” for surface albedo forcings. The chart I’m looking at in the report does not quantify the LOSU for water vapor forcing.
My point is that if you have low or medium-low understanding of major components in the final calculation of anthropogenic radiative forcing, how can you claim to have “nailed” anything until you understand all the major factors with reasonable certitude? You can’t. It’s a logical impossibility. Even granting for the sake of argument that understanding of the CO2 factor is very good, you cannot approach certainty by adding in other uncertain factors. Duh!
Dr. Hansen, sit in the corner and put on the dunce cap.
Guys, this is off topic, but I m trying to gain a better understanding of what is going on. Based on what I have read, common sense and my gut instincts, I don’t believe the man caused global warming theory but I am not a scientist. I asked someone named Gavin a question on the RealClimate website after reading his comment that many if not most of the 650 scientists that Imhoff refers to in a senate report are not scientists. My questions and his answers follow. His answers are at odds with what I have read and heard elsewhere. On his website he maintains that he is objective without bias, but it is obvious from reading the questions and his answers that this is not true, – one doesn’t need to be a scientist to see that. He skirts my question regarding non scientists as members of the IPCC and seems to dance around the rest of my question. What do you think of his answers and comments concerning my questions.
Lawley Says:
21 December 2008 at 7:02 PM
Gavin, With respect to comment 47, I have heard the same thing about IPCC. That many of the \scientists\ listed as members of the IPCC are not scientists and that some of the scientists listed have left the IPCC as a result of their disagreement with IPCC findings. The same source goes on to say that there is substantial disagreement among the scientists that remain members over the conclusions of IPCC studies.
[Response: None of this is true in substance. I am aware of only two people (over 3 working groups and over the last two reports) who left the IPCC chapter they were involved in. That is not overwhelming. There is I think only one person on the IPCC author list who is also on Inhofe’s sceptics list (who hasn’t been horribly misquoted) (J. Christy). As for ‘disagreement’ where is it? Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted. The basic fact is that IPCC is the mainstream – go to the AGU website and check the abstracts of last weeks meeting. Out of thousands dealing with climate, you’ll find maybe half a dozen that go against the ‘consensus’ with the vast majority trying to move beyond what’s already been found in order to tackle the remaining uncertainties. – gavin]
I’d like to encapsulate some conclusions I have from looking at CO2 data, old and new.
CO2 was decided by the present gurus that it should be measured where it is “stable” and at the specific time of day when it is the lowest.
Why so? because it can vary enormously from location to location and height to height and time to time. The AIRS animation maps that show the CO2 bands and the earth breathing with the seasons are the tip of the iceberg, literally, since they are over 5000 meter high. Most of the biosphere is below 1000 meters. In data shown in http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html we can see variations of 100ppm depending on updrafts etc. Thus it is not surprising that the Beck compiled figures show all this diversity.
What is surprising is why the “stable” choice is considered scientifically robust.
Why not measure as one measures temperatures? hi/low average and thousands of locations avraged, as with temperatures? Because the rise would be smaller?
Of course one might say that temperatures are not robust either. Maybe they should be measured like CO2, on top of Mauna Loa on the cooler time of day and 100 other sites hand picked for stability, all shown independently as confirmations of Mauna Loa temperatures. But then maybe the temperature rise, even when it does rise , would be less dramatic.
There is a smell coming from the whole field as cultivated by AGW.
crosspatch (18:38:58) :
Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
Actually you’re wrong, at the time you’re speaking of Hansen was working on a light scattering model for use in a project studying the Venusian atmosphere. Rasool needed a scattering model for aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere, which Hansen gave him.
By the way foinavon why did you have to use that name, it brings back bad memories! 😉
Retired Engineer wrote:
Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
Check this post: A Window on Water Vapor and Planetary Temperature – Part 2 The graphs there look like what you describe.
My 2c worth:
“Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted.”
At the end of the day, because the empirical data is sketchy at best, and the prediction of 2-6C of warming of the IPCC is ultimately dependent on computer models, this means that the only people qualified to assess the validity of the warming claim are the atmospheric physicists.
Everyone else – the “thousands” referred to – are not being asked to assess the validity of those scientific claims – they are just not qualified. What they are being asked to do is try to determine things such as: what is the impact on water resources if AGW is true? What is the impact on disease if AGW is true? What is the impact on hurricanes if AGW is true? In other words, AGW is assumed to be true for the vast majority of working scientists.
Now I would like to know how many atmospheric physicists worked on the theory. (I think we should reasonably exclude computer programmers, etc., as they are plugging in the calculations, not working them out.) Are we talking about 10? 30? 300? That is the size of the real consensus, whatever that size is. Does anyone have the number handy?
correction- That should have been “Venus receives almost 2 times higher solar insolation due to its closer proximity to the sun”.
Anna V
Agree with you that we should take min/max readings on Co2
I know that poor mixing makes a difference of 20ppm but where are the variations of up to 100ppm mentioned on Ferdinands site?
TonyB
Phil. (23:17:26) :
Actually you’re wrong, at the time you’re speaking of Hansen was working on a light scattering model for use in a project studying the Venusian atmosphere. Rasool needed a scattering model for aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere, which Hansen gave him.
Do you have a citation?
The IBD original is at:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275267681833290
Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, “could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
Aiding Rasool’s research, the Post reported, was a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen,” who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
I’d say a more accurate description would be that “a research associate provided the computer programs that lead to the claim of global cooling.”
All is see is Hansen backpedaling from his earlier model to a newer model.
“Thousands of scientists reviewed the reports and were able to make as many critiques as they wanted.”
That doesn’t mean they agreed with the “reports” and/or the ipcc’s main hypotheses, predictions, and alleged solutions. Instead of hiding behind vague hand waving statements such as the above one, “scientists” should be asked whether they agree or disagree with specific statements involving the ipcc’s major contentions, including “don’t know”, and should sign their hands to it. Otherwise their numbers shouldn’t be mentioned. The fact that the ipcc honchos did not do it this way is telling.
In addition, some substantial disagreements were either summarily dismissed or not given a full discription and documentation in the reports, in contradiction to the ipcc’s own operating rules – according to Steve McIntyre’s meticulous dissections.
And need I point out again what happened when Steve McIntyre wanted to review Mann’s Hockey Stick data, as an official ipcc peer reviewer himself? Mann first said he didn’t have/couldn’t find the data, then finally gave data which excluded one very important proxy study, all of which McIntyre finally got hold of and then – along with Ross Mckitrick – managed to debunk Mann’s whole study.
And, btw, if Mann couldn’t find his data and algorithims – the latter which Mann never did release, iirc – no one else had gotten to them either: no one else within the ipcc had actually reviewed his critical study.
So much for ipcc Peer Review and the alleged “consensus” by hundreds of ipcc scientists!
[“Peer Review” itself doesn’t really mean anything specific. Peers usually can do anything they want in doing their “reviews” and are rarely testifying as to the “truth” of the studies and papers they ok for publication. Many papers are actually published simply because they are “controversial”, not because they are “true”, and usually the authors themselves admit that further study is needed. Moreover, where I come from, Medicine, the real Peer Review starts after the paper or study is published.]
If there is – according to Hansen – a “runaway global warming” on Venus, what “on earth” (English is a funny lanhuage 😉 caused it – and again according to Hansen?
Seems like the sun has nothing to do with anything anymore – oh, except with cancer, “of course”…
REPLY: That was a tongue in cheek reference to Steve McIntyre’s “he who must not be named” issue. My name is “Watts” which is sprinkled throughout the radiative forcings section.
Following up on another suggestion, and in view of your wordpress page view figures, maybe you should adopt the middle name “Giga”. 🙂
@Grant I’ve been watching that as well and wondering what to make of it, but it’s not entirely unusual. If you examine the chart, the 2004 data stepped sideways for a bit around the same time last year, as well as the 2003 data later in the month. The 2008 sideways step is lasting longer, however, than the other years depicted.
What I find curious is that NSIDC hasn’t heralded the change in a new press release. They really like to point out warming changes whenever they can. Cooling changes are either ignored or downplayed as far as I’ve observed. If you look at the NSIDC chart (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png) you’ll see that the growth has not only slowed, but lost mass by a degree.
Anyone have an explanation for why this may be occurring? I was under the impression that this was a colder winter. Is that not the case up north?
Using foinavon’s equation
T = (3.0/log(2))*(log(C))-9.39
and Total global warming, on a decadal average, is 0.8 °C since 1900 (IPCC 2007)
We have
Pre-Industrial (read: 1900) CO2 concentration @ur momisugly 280 ppm:
T(280) = (3/log(2)) * (log(280)) – 9.39 = 15
Today’s CO2 concentration @ur momisugly 380 ppm:
T(380) = (3/log(2)) * (log(380)) – 9.39 = 16.31
Delta(T) = T(380) – T(280) = 1.31 C > 0.8 C
(God I hope I got the maths right and please correct my assumptions if they are wrong 🙂 )
So doesn’t that mean that the (3/log(2)) is likely to be biased too high or there must be some negative feedback at work here. Apparently we can’t use aerosols to explain the negative feedback required[1] so some other unexplained force would have to be at work here. [2] also come up with a much lower climate sensitivity than foinavon seems to imply.
Further can we even assume that CO2 caused all the warming over the last 100+ years. I’m not sure the IPCC even claim that. In any event [3] claim that most of the warming since the 1970s can be explained by the oceans. This to me is the crux of the issue as the IPCC claim most of the warming is due to increases of atmospheric CO2. The reason they give is because they cannot think of any natural variation that could have caused the warming. Well now they have something … the oceans. Therefore, to me, the null hypothesis should still be most of the observed warming is due to natural causes with CO2 only playing a minor role
[1] Chylek et. al. [2007]: Limits on climate sensitivity derived from recent satellite and surface observations
[2] Douglas and Christy [2008]: Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth
[3] Compo and Sardeshmukh [2008]: Oceans a main driver of climate variability.