Guest post by Frank Lansner, civil engineer, biotechnology.
(Note from Anthony – English is not Frank’s primary language, I have made some small adjustments for readability, however they may be a few passages that need clarification. Frank will be happy to clarify in comments)
It is generally accepted that CO2 is lagging temperature in Antarctic graphs. To dig further into this subject therefore might seem a waste of time. But the reality is, that these graphs are still widely used as an argument for the global warming hypothesis. But can the CO2-hypothesis be supported in any way using the data of Antarctic ice cores?
At first glance, the CO2 lagging temperature would mean that it’s the temperature that controls CO2 and not vice versa.
Click for larger image Fig 1. Source: http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yrfig.htm
But this is the climate debate, so massive rescue missions have been launched to save the CO2-hypothesis. So explanation for the unfortunate CO2 data is as follows:
First a solar or orbital change induces some minor warming/cooling and then CO2 raises/drops. After this, it’s the CO2 that drives the temperature up/down. Hansen has argued that: The big differences in temperature between ice ages and warm periods is not possible to explain without a CO2 driver.
Very unlike solar theory and all other theories, when it comes to CO2-theory one has to PROVE that it is wrong. So let’s do some digging. The 4-5 major temperature peaks seen on Fig 1. have common properties: First a big rapid temperature increase, and then an almost just as big, but a less rapid temperature fall. To avoid too much noise in data, I summed up all these major temperature peaks into one graph:
Fig 2. This graph of actual data from all major temperature peaks of the Antarctic vostokdata confirms the pattern we saw in fig 1, and now we have a very clear signal as random noise is reduced.
The well known Temperature-CO2 relation with temperature as a driver of CO2 is easily shown:
Fig 3.
Below is a graph where I aim to illustrate CO2 as the driver of temperature:
Fig 4. Except for the well known fact that temperature changes precede CO2 changes, the supposed CO2-driven raise of temperatures works ok before temperature reaches max peak. No, the real problems for the CO2-rescue hypothesis appears when temperature drops again. During almost the entire temperature fall, CO2 only drops slightly. In fact, CO2 stays in the area of maximum CO2 warming effect. So we have temperatures falling all the way down even though CO2 concentrations in these concentrations where supposed to be a very strong upwards driver of temperature.
I write “the area of maximum CO2 warming effect “…
The whole point with CO2 as the important main temperature driver was, that already at small levels of CO2 rise, this should efficiently force temperatures up, see for example around -6 thousand years before present. Already at 215-230 ppm, the CO2 should cause the warming. If no such CO2 effect already at 215-230 ppm, the CO2 cannot be considered the cause of these temperature rises.
So when CO2 concentration is in the area of 250-280 ppm, this should certainly be considered “the area of maximum CO2 warming effect”.
The problems can also be illustrated by comparing situations of equal CO2 concentrations:
Fig 5.
So, for the exact same levels of CO2, it seems we have very different level and trend of temperatures:
Fig 6.
How come a CO2 level of 253 ppm in the B-situation does not lead to rise in temperatures? Even from very low levels? When 253 ppm in the A situation manages to raise temperatures very fast even from a much higher level?
One thing is for sure:
“Other factors than CO2 easily overrules any forcing from CO2. Only this way can the B-situations with high CO2 lead to falling temperatures.”
This is essential, because, the whole idea of placing CO2 in a central role for driving temperatures was: “We cannot explain the big changes in temperature with anything else than CO2”.
But simple fact is: “No matter what rules temperature, CO2 is easily overruled by other effects, and this CO2-argument falls”. So we are left with graphs showing that CO2 follows temperatures, and no arguments that CO2 even so could be the main driver of temperatures.
– Another thing: When examining the graph fig 1, I have not found a single situation where a significant raise of CO2 is accompanied by significant temperature rise- WHEN NOT PRECEDED BY TEMPERATURE RISE. If the CO2 had any effect, I should certainly also work without a preceding temperature rise?! (To check out the graph on fig 1. it is very helpful to magnify)
Does this prove that CO2 does not have any temperature effect at all?
No. For some reason the temperature falls are not as fast as the temperature rises. So although CO2 certainly does not dominate temperature trends then: Could it be that the higher CO2 concentrations actually is lowering the pace of the temperature falls?
This is of course rather hypothetical as many factors have not been considered.
Fig 7.
Well, if CO2 should be reason to such “temperature-fall-slowing-effect”, how big could this effect be? The temperatures falls 1 K / 1000 years slower than they rise.
However, this CO2 explanation of slow falling temperature seems is not supported by the differences in cooling periods, see fig 8.
When CO2 does not cause these big temperature changes, then what is then the reason for the big temperature changes seen in Vostok data? Or: “What is the mechanism behind ice ages???”
This is a question many alarmists asks, and if you can’t answer, then CO2 is the main temperature driver. End of discussion. There are obviously many factors not yet known, so I will just illustrate one hypothetical solution to the mechanism of ice ages among many:
First of all: When a few decades of low sunspot number is accompanied by Dalton minimum and 50 years of missing sunspots is accompanied by the Maunder minimum, what can for example thousands of years of missing sunspots accomplish? We don’t know.
What we saw in the Maunder minimum is NOT all that missing solar activity can achieve, even though some might think so. In a few decades of solar cooling, only the upper layers of the oceans will be affected. But if the cooling goes on for thousands of years, then the whole oceans will become colder and colder. It takes around 1000-1500 years to “mix” and cool the oceans. So for each 1000-1500 years the cooling will take place from a generally colder ocean. Therefore, what we saw in a few decades of maunder minimum is in no way representing the possible extend of ten thousands of years of solar low activity.
It seems that a longer warming period of the earth would result in a slower cooling period afterward due to accumulated heat in ocean and more:
Fig 8.
Again, this fits very well with Vostok data: Longer periods of warmth seems to be accompanied by longer time needed for cooling of earth. The differences in cooling periods does not support that it is CO2 that slows cooling phases. The dive after 230.000 ybp peak shows, that cooling CAN be rapid, and the overall picture is that the cooling rates are governed by the accumulated heat in oceans and more.
Note: In this writing I have used Vostok data as valid data. I believe that Vostok data can be used for qualitative studies of CO2 rising and falling. However, the levels and variability of CO2 in the Vostok data I find to be faulty as explained here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/17/the-co2-temperature-link/
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Katlab (20:27:13) :
I’m working on a presentation for a “State of the Climate” report, and I’d like to use your post in the public perception section at the end. Yours is one of the best comments since Lucy Skywalker stuck her head above the propaganda and took a new look at the scene.
Pag48 (22:23:22) :
What I do in Firefox is to keep each article in a separate tab. When I have time to try to catch up (getting harder and harder) I’ll note the time stamp of the last posrt (e.g. your 22:23:22), type Ctrl-R to reload the page, then search (with ‘/’ or Ctrl-F) for the hh:mm part of the timestamp. Works pretty well, though there are a number of things WordPress (not Anthony) could do. If the timestamp had a link to itself, then we could just click on it for an update.
I gotta figure out a way to only read some of the posts for some of the articles, growth here is just swamping my free time.
Looking at the graphs it occurred to a mechanism that might explain them, it relies on heat from the planets core. As the planets core is hot there must be a flow of heat to the planets surface ( including the sea bed ). Given open water conditions this heat flow can probably be considered negligible but if all the sea surface becomes frozen, the ice would act as an insulating layer which would allow the oceans to become warmer. When the water temperature or some outside influence caused the ice to melt this would allow large amounts of water vapour in to atmosphere via tropical storms and create a large green house effect slowing the cooling of the oceans. When the oceans had lost sufficient heat they would freeze over again and the cycle would repeat. The length of the cooling would depend how much heat the oceans contained at the time of melting. Probably far to simple an explanation but worse than AGW.
Steve
Simon Evans
This is the follow up to a post I made in 00 31 16
I tried to post this here early this morning but it seems to have got lost, so here goes again. It relates to Ernst Beck and is the contunation of the discussion on the other thread.
Hopefully Frank and others can comment as well
This reply was in answer to a series of questions from Simon about Becks work. I had composed a reply to your original questions but after checking some details with Ernst Beck I felt his reply was much more comprehensive than mine, so I have posted his reply in full with his permission.
Simon’s very pertinent questions are in speech marks. Becks comments are not
“Ok, I’ll run through my reservations with the Beck paper (E&E 2007) (with apologies to others for this being OT in respect of the original post).
1. Beck refers to 90,000 analyses of C02 since 1812. Of these, 64,000 were taken at Giessen (not Bremen, as I mistakenly said last night) over an eighteen month period. So, some 79% of the data from which he draws conclusions about global C02 concentrations over a 150 year period is from one location over 18 months.”
I have compiled from literature at the moment ~95 000 CO2 data from more than 300 000 analyses because of double to quadruple measurements and then averaging.
I do NOT draw global conclusions. All CO2 measurements near ground are local and also the so called background CO2 data are local for instance in about 4 km altitude (MLO) they differ in latitude and continent or marine location.
If we compare famous ice core data concerning CO2 e.g. Vostok 1999 (petit et al), we have 200 years. They all take them globally!
“2. Beck states that “The longest single time series was determined in Paris’ Montsouris laboratory, and comprises 12,000 measurements over the 30 years from 1876 until 1910″, but we don’t have any detail of these measurements beyond that. He then graphs details for four locations, none of which cover the same periods. I cannot see what validation of one location against another applies.”
Looking to my webpage http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm you can find every resources and information you will find.
I´m writing a large monograph concerning in detail all information on the historic measurements since 2006. At the moment I do statistical analysis of my data using Maximum Entropy Spectral Analysis and Wavelet Spectral analysis. I hope I have finished the discussion about the results soon so that I can implement the results in my monograph.
After that the whole thing will be published. My website, publications and presentations are parts of this work.
The montsouris data had been investigated in detail by Stanhill, please see my website: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literat … ll1-23.pdf.
The four locations in my first paper are examples of very well done measuring series giving all necessary information to evaluate the data. More in my presentations and my second paper and the rest >140 in my monograph. It was not possible to do this in a 23 page paper.
The validation of one location against another is common in modern CO2 measurements. The WDCGG lists the data of the global network. If you compare the different locations you will see mostly the same data. But this is impossible because of very local data. E.g: CO2 on Mauna LOa ( ~4km volcano, no vegetation) or Schauinsland (1200 altitude, forested area, much vegetation) . The graphs are nearly identical. The explanation is a filtering of raw data and a statistical processing at both locations to get the predefined graph . At Schauinsland they had taken only the values at night, by the way. This is data picking to get the graph you want!!! All data are taken as globally important.
“My” historical data are near ground and typical for the vertical profile of CO2 in the atmosphere at that location. Near ground we have about 35-50 ppm seasonal variation on continent and about 12 ppm at an altitude of about 4 km (background). Please see here: http://www.purdue.edu/climate/pdf/Gurney%20Science.pdf
The averages in 4 km (background) and near ground (local influenced) are within about 4 ppm the same. Thats all. I will include a picture out of the chapter in my monograph on that issue. http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/surgut-hom.jpg
“3. Looking at the Kreutz/Gissen record as an illustration, we see very large variations in C02 measurements from one month to the next, e.g. c.300 to 430 between 9/39 and 10/39, and 340 to 550 over two months from 6/40 to 8/40. If such measurements were indeed representative of global CO2 concentration, then how could such quantities of C02 be moving in and out of the atmosphere at such a rate? This is equivalent to between a third and two thirds of all the CO2 contained in land plants globally. He refers to “monthly cycling” and suggests this is evident in Mauna Loa measurements, but not on that extraordinary scale! We have no evidence from ground observation or satellites to confirm such flux – are we to presume this is something that stopped happening in the 1950s?”
(Perhaps the questioner) who asked this has no idea of the daily and seasonal variations of atmospheric CO2 at a real location. Real fluctuations during a day can be more than 100 ppm without human influence. It is simple vegetation or wind. Of course they are not globally representative. We should stop these crazy thinking of a global climate or weather. Neither temperature nor any other parameter locally measured is globally representative. This is the result of the Keeling procedure of filtering data, cutting the outliers and processing the data. Take a look at the temperature data (Giss or HADCRUT). They are processed every month the old and the new one to fit the ideas of rising temperatures because of global warming.
The oceans easily emit such high CO2 every year. A warm water current will release per 1°C warming up to 70 ppm more CO2. This had taken place in the Northern Atlantic ocean during the 30s.
The monthly cycling ( about 28 days) I have observed is the fingerprint of lunar phases and part of the lunar nodal cycle. We can see it in all CO2 series also MLO (see my website)
The only thing we have to do is spectral analysis of the CO2 data. Please ask the guy why nobody has done this? I will give you the answer below.
“4. Seeing, then, the enormous and rapid variations in supposed global atmospheric C02 concentration as measured at Giessen and other locations, he then presumes that this can be fitted to the monotonic annual variation and steady rise in concentrations measured at Mauna Loa from the 1950s. How could this be plausible?”
The answer is given above. The Giessen data are typical for Giessen, latitude ~ 50 on continent. MLO is typical for a volcano at 3800 m altitude in a marine surround. Please ask the questioner why they do not publish raw data from MLO with the volcanic degassing?
1950 there were a sudden drop in atmospheric CO2 which can also seen in other data series. During the 50s the CO2 is rising again, but not as MLO will pretend. CO2 was higher on continent.
“5. Even if the measurement stations were entirely free from any contamination from human influence, and even if they were representative of a geographically ‘averaged’ location (that is, free from natural variability), they would not be able to measure background CO2. You can’t do that reliably close to sea level, owing to variations in atmospheric mixing (consider the build up of smog at certain times), or at least you can’t do it meaningfully without being able to apply corrections for bias.”
No measurement station is free from “contamination”. This is the wrong term and given by the AGW prayers to dismiss typical natural fluctuations. Of course the Giessen data are not free from typical influence of humans, which was clearly outlined by Kreutz. (see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/ … en1939.jpg)
Of course they have not measured “background level” at Giessen. Background CO2 is a special atmospheric concentration on some marine stations and stations at higher altitudes (MLO) or by processing the real measured data to fit the background rules (e.g. Schauinsland, WDCGG). Background is not typical for the world because the atmosphere is not typically well mixed. But we can do a background estimation by the windspeed-CO2 test for not well mixed locations . ( see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literat … approx.gif and for modern stations (Diekirch Lux) see here: http://meteo.lcd.lu/papers/co2_patterns … terns.html.
“Beck is concerned to stress the accuracy of the instrumentation. I have no knowledge of that, so will take his word for it. But accuracy is of no use unless you know that you’re measuring what you want to be measuring.”
I have investigated the chemical methods in detail. If the English word “accuracy” is the wrong term please take the right one. The Pettenkofer method delivers a precision of +-1% of the reading value at it´s best.”
In his reply above Beck makes mention of several documents that I have seen but are not yet in the public domain.
In my experience Ernst Beck is very willing to answer questions. Like me he does not pretend to have all the answers but I certainly believe our understanding of co2 levels and its behaviour is very limited at present and that new information being compiled will question further the established version of events.
TonyB
Frank, one of your volcanic URL’s seems to be a right fraud, we’ve just had some fun exploring here. Upshot is, it’s as I thought, no recent seismic activities increase, rather, the correlation appears to be with solar low activity.
I am sorry if someone has pointed this out before. It is a long blog I may have missed it. To those who argue that temperature and CO2 look as though they peak together I would point out that even if this was true (which is not to my eye) it would not matter. If CO2 was the driver one would expect the peak in CO2 to correlate with the maximum rate of change in temperature, not temperature per se. In other words it would be good to plot a derivative (as has been pointed out already) but only for temperature. For me the killer argument is that the same level of CO2 is consistent with both rapidly rising and rapidly falling temperatures. As was pointed out in the (brilliant) original this proves that any contribution from CO2 is swamped by other factors.
There is one further thought however and it is not impossible. What if CO2 is a coolant? The reason for mentioning this is that CO2 is indeed a coolant in the stratosphere. I believe it is the most important one (but i stand to be corrected). The concept of increasing levels of CO2 contibutiing to warming is based on the concept that higher concentrations reduce the mean free path of photons in CO2’s absorption band and increases the altitude at which molecules can radiate into space. Since higher altitude means lower temperature less is radiated and therefore the surface has to increase in temperature to compensate. However this is only true if the radiating band is below the tropopause. Whilst Hadley state that this is the case I have satellite pictures which seem to show that the radiation is mainly in or even above the tropopause. Can someone put me right on this. If this radiation layer is below the tropopause for low concentrations and above it for higher concentrations one could actually get the forcing changing sign.
Moderator
I have tried twice today to post a long item from Ernst Beck which is a reply to Simon Evans and a continuation of my post-00 31 16
Has it got caught in a spam filter or does it reject items over a certain length? Your help is appreciated.
TonyB
Reply: There are only two people moderating, and at times there is no coverage, so comments remain in the queue. Your comments are now posted. My apologies, I will try to check in more often. ~ dbstealey, mod.
The hypothesis of CO2 “warming” is a bit silly when one considers all the heat transfer mechanisms available to the atmosphere.
Increasing the levels of CO2 has a tiny effect that probably (on balance) enhances the atmosphere’s ability to accept and to transport heat from hot spots to cold ones.
If you look at the cooling system of a car, the coolant moderates temperatures throughout because it is flowing. As does the atmosphere. If you stop the coolant flow, then you quickly get (over-)heating.
Improve the ability of the coolant to accept and to reject heat, and temperatures are moderated even further; hot spots get less hot, and cooler spots would tend to get slightly warmer; but only if the heat hasn’t already been lost before it gets to them; the coolant getting slightly warmer at the same flow rate and therefore able to dissipate heat better to the surroundings.
In the free atmosphere, the flow rates increase because there is more expansion of the “coolant”; the air, whenever it accepts more heat either directly from the sun or by conduction from the ground or the “greenhouse gases”. Greenhouse gases are physically incapable (in our nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere) of producing a “blanket” to keep in the heat. They act more as a coolant enhancer than a blanket.
Robert (22:14:16) :
and Jim Steele (20:35:21) :
“Lets refer to Figure 5 in Frank’s post and look at the horizontal green line for experiment 1 representing 264 ppm. If CO2 is responsible for maintaining the temperature why is the same amount of CO2 only able to maintain a temperature that is 4 degree colder as we approach a glacial minimum? And if, as Hansen claims, that CO2 is he main driver, why at the same amount of CO2 is the temperature rising at A and then again falling at B?”
Please read the article again, Jim. Hansen et al. only claim that CO2 is the main driver when averaged over tens to hundreds of millions of years. For the Pleistocene glaciations, they note that CO2 (plus all the other greenhouse gases) have an influence that is actually slightly less than the albedo effect of the changing ice masses. Makes sense. When you melt back ice that covers half of NAm and much of Eurasia, you’re going to lose a lot of reflectivity (i.e., albedo). So, elevated greenhouse gases can accompany lower temperatures if other drivers are in play (e.g., the albedo is high). There are other things going on in the Pleistocene as well like thermohaline current changes.
Once again, paleoclimatologists do not claim that GHGs are the only way to change climate, just that, for the last 50 years, they’re the only climate forcings that happen to be increasing commensurately. You’re not going to argue that global warming is being caused by ice sheet albedo changes are you? If so, you’d have a hard (i.e., impossible) time showing that the oxygen isotope values changed over the past 50 years like they did in the Pleistocene.
So, the subject of this blog entry, because it ONLY looks at CO2/temperature relationships and ignores all others (especially albedo), cannot invalidate GHGs as an important agent of climate change.
Leif: The pressure corrected data from Oulu Neutron Monitor since 1964 shows the cosmic ray count a good deal higher than Thule, and it’s not coming down.
Both Thule and Oulu show a 6 mo. trend that is headed up. The corner does not appear to me to have been turned yet.
Looking at the last 6 mos. of 10.7 flux is not giving me any concrete indications that the neutron counts will drop 6 to 12 months from now, according to the lag you mention.
If there is an impending ramp to SC24 just around the corner, I do not see it based on 10.7 flux or neutron count.
That makes me a skeptical observer who refuses to be taken in by things that disappoint on a regular basis. I freely admit it.
Excellent and provocative article. Anthony could use some help with the editing for grammatical correctness.
Like other posters, I would like to know just what Mary Hinge means by calling Mr. Lansner’s approach “simplistic.” Without specification, that’s just mud.
I be one of those simple, common, everyday observers who rushes out with his scopes to check on the latest sunspots (while supplies last). The sunspots I now see are every bit as tough as small galaxies in a 16″ scope.
The scintillation had better be as steady as you’re patience.
Don’t try to impress your neighbors with them, they’ll think you’re nuts.
barry moore says:
It is sometimes hard to find the references for things that are such settled science. I would suggest looking here for historical references: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
This is something that even skeptics like Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer seem to accept.
That makes no sense whatsoever. This formula has nothing to do with temperature. To get from it to temperature change, you would have to know the climate sensitivity (or, more precisely, what is called the transient climate response)…And, you would also have to isolate the temperature changes due to CO2 from those due to other causes.
Robert Bateman says:
It is hard to know even where to start with this “hypothesis”! But, I will just point out that I don’t see the mechanism for what would cause this “backing off of solar wind” at the intervals that correspond with the Milankovitch oscillations.
Lance says:
As I noted, the Milankovitch oscillations barely impact the solar forcing at all. They only influence the distribution of sunlight (which is very important because the resulting growth in ice sheets then does caused albedo changes, but that is already accounted for).
If you mean that the sun somehow changes it intensity, there is no evidence to support such large changes…let alone to explain why such changes would happen with the same sort of period as the Milankovitch oscillations.
nobwainer says:
25%, really?!? I don’t suppose you have some sort of reference for that estimate?
Luis Dias (09:39:26) :
“Many things in this post are merely asserted and unproven. Others, simply ignored. “
Name some more since for the ones you pointed out you were wrong.
“Allegedly, CO2 lags temperature by 800 years, but in Fig.2 we see temperature peaking exactly the same time that CO2 peaks. “
The 800 year lag is well know. It’s obvious in the graph. You have to compare slopes of the lines not their heights. The slope at -9 thousand years is upward for temperature and flat for CO2. It’s not until about -5.5 to -5 that CO2 slopes upward. So CO2 lagged temps.
The rest of the upward slope is meaningless for comparison purposes because you can make the blue or red line appear in front or in back merely by increasing or decreasing the scales relative to each other. That changes the height, which, as I said does not show what leads or lags.
Clearly at 0 thousand years the temperatures slope downward. CO2 levels off at that point but does not slope down. Not till ~1000 years later does C02 start dropping. So again temperature is leading the downward trend.
Again at +17.5 thousand years temperatures reverse their slope and CO2 mirrors this around +18.75. Of course by eyeball.
The only point the seems to have synchronized shifts is at 22.
BTW, the degree of slope cannot be used as a base of comparison either because that depends on choice of axis scale.
“The argument is that it slows the curve in the back end. And in every curve drawn in fig 8, the back end curve is in fact slower than the climbing period.”
Absolutely WRONG. The 400,000 ybp line drops significantly faster and farther in temperature, than it rises.
“Notwithstanding, I generally agree with the fact that the Vostok graph is a very weak evidence for AGW. But I also don’t see it as evidence against it.”
That’s because you can’t see the math behind a graph. It’s obvious to the math savvy you need to look at all the peaks and valleys but you only pick one. It’s obvious to the math savvy that leveling off is a delayed trend to sloping downward.
You don’t see the evidence because you are not competent to do so.
How reliable are the CO2 concentration data in the ice cores. I’ve read that CO2 is more soluble in ice than is O2/N2 (air). Can CO2 migrate out of small air bubbles, under pressure, in the long timescales involved?
ccpo (21:32:18) :
The ignorance of the above statement is astounding. That it comes from a non-climate scientist – as so much anti-AGW “science” does – just reinforces the doubt that sentence alone engenders.
I don’t understand what you are trying to say. To believe climate science can only be done by climate scientists is just plain ignorance beyond belief.
Rob (07:20:39) :
Well first you didn’t answer my question, so I am not expecting much more. But I fail to see your logic or Hansen’s, and it won’t matter how many times anyone reads his policy statements. You both mention albedo effects and the lack of albedo ice causing more warming. So lets now follow this crystal clear logic. At the height of the interglacial (you might look at Fig 5 again) where albedo is lowest and CO2 is highest, so that your proposed main warming drivers are both at their peak, yet still the climate plunges into an ice age.
And you really think that makes sense?
Maybe there is another climate driver you have failed to recognize?
OT…
After ice storm in Marion, Ky. people were told, “…Pack a suitcase and head south… We can’t service everyone in our shelter.”
Google “Kentucky ice storm” for numerous articles… At least 42 dead in ice storm.
“2/ On the rising edges, the CO2 edge is about the same steepness as the temperature edge; but on the falling edges, the CO2 fall timing is much slower than the temperature fall timing.”
The steepness is merely because of scaling. You could scale ( and chop) so that the falling edge of the CO2 line was closer in slope to the temperature line. which would make the leading edge of the CO2 much steeper than the leading edge of the temps.
There are a few ways to size the the temperature and CO2 axises of the graph that wouldn’t be completely arbitrary. Two are: 1) Resize so the minimum CO2 concentration aligns with the min temp, and the max with the max. 2) Resize so the the area of deviation from the average temperature on the temp graph matches the area of deviation from the average CO2 concentration on the CO2 graph. It’s clear that Fig. 2 doesn’t use method 1) but it’s close. I’m not sure if it uses method 2. Probably it was done by eye in an attempt at 1).
“Please read the article again, Jim. Hansen et al. only claim that CO2 is the main driver when averaged over tens to hundreds of millions of years.”
Great, then we have nothing to worry about. In fact the opposite is true. Short term during the interglacial the CO2 will have minimal effect but over the very much longer period of the next ice age we will get a moderating effect. Beautiful, bring on the CO2.
It’s easy to tell the global warming folks on this thread. They are the ones who start their post by discrediting somebody else and end by saying the climate is so much more complicated than any scientist could possibly imagine. Except, of course, the all knowing global warming people and the IPCC.
I’ve seen this before with religious zealots. They start by making assumptions for you, and if you protest, you are moved from the “lost and need to be converted” to the “heretic and need to be avoided” class. Facts make very little difference to them, as well.
Robert Bateman (21:00:08) :
Here we are sending up all these probes and satellites for Earth and the rest of the planets. Why not use the other planets to help us get a firm grip on the question of solar forcing via complicated mechanisms?
Do we see changes in other planets recently?
I suspect we do. Let’s solve for Earth.
Good idea:
Mars
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070404-mars-warming.html
Mars, Pluto et al:
http://seoblackhat.com/2007/03/04/global-warming-on-mars-pluto-triton-and-jupiter/
But then, no doubt, this is just “astrological correlation without cause.” All members of the Church of AGW will safely confine their gaze to Gaia.
To deprogram yourself from your condition of stepticism induced by reading the above, visit:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11642-climate-myths-mars-and-pluto-are-warming-too.html
And be bathed in the bliss of absolution from your Carbon footprint.
Robert Bateman (07:32:10) :
The pressure corrected data from Oulu Neutron Monitor
Different stations show slightly different counts for various reasons [geomagnetic activity dependent cut-off, atmospheric conditions, …]. You have to look at an ensemble of stations and not cherry pick the one that matches your thesis. Moscow has had a good stable counter since 1958. Here is that count: http://www.leif.org/research/Moscow-1958-now.png.
But that is not the important point, which is this: all stations show a 15-20% variation [depending a bit on station] decrease from solar minimum to maximum. Some people claim that that makes for a few [one or two] tenths of degrees of warming. The variation at minimum from station to station is at least ten times smaller than that and may [by the same argument] make for, at most, a few [one or two] hundredths of a degree temperature difference. What we need to get away from is the misconception that ‘weaker solar wind’ has had any measurable effect.
idlex (05:06:29) :
First a solar or orbital change induces some minor warming/cooling and then CO2 raises/drops. After this, it’s the CO2 that drives the temperature up/down. Hansen has argued that:
Quite rightly.
It’s exactly the same as with a horse and carriage. Something startles the horse into moving, and this sets the carriage rolling. But once the carriage has got under way, it thereafter drives the horse forward. When you see a horse and carriage careering down a road, you’re not seeing the horse “pulling” the carriage, but instead the horse desperately fleeing from the speeding carriage at its heels.”
Wow, that is great!!! We can get rid of horses and motors all together then! All we need is someone to give our motorless cars a gentle shove and we’re off!!!
Kinda like the Flintstones. 🙂
Brian Macker (07:41:49)
Luis doesn’t see the evidence because he is in denial. MMGW is true, therefore all evidence to the cotnrary is wrong.