This article from NASA’s Earth Observatory came up in a reply prompted by one of Gore’s “presenters” who comment bombed a previous thread. I thought it interesting to present here because while Arrhenius is in fact credited with the CO2 LW trapping discovery, he also later went on to say that the end result be beneficial. This is something Gore’s “trained presenters” don’t mention in their AIT presentations. See the last paragraph. – Anthony (h/t to Tom in Florida)
A hundred years ago, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius asked the important question “Is the mean temperature of the ground in any way influenced by the presence of the heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere?” He went on to become the first person to investigate the effect that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would have on global climate. The question was debated throughout the early part of the 20th century and is still a main concern of Earth scientists today.
Ironically, Arrhenius’ education and training were not in climate research, but rather electrochemistry. His doctoral thesis on the chemical theory of electrolytes in 1884 was initially regarded as mediocre by his examination committee, but later was heralded as an important work regarding the theory of affinity. In 1891, Arrhenius was a founder and the first secretary of the Stockholm Physical Society, a group of scientists whose interests included geology, meteorology, and astronomy. His association with this society would later help stimulate his interests in cosmic physics-the physics of the Earth, sea, and atmosphere. In 1903, Arrhenius was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on the electrolytic theory of dissociation. In the years following his international recognition, Arrhenius lectured throughout Europe and was elected to numerous scientific societies.
Arrhenius did very little research in the fields of climatology and geophysics, and considered any work in these fields a hobby. His basic approach was to apply knowledge of basic scientific principles to make sense of existing observations, while hypothesizing a theory on the cause of the “Ice Age.” Later on, his geophysical work would serve as a catalyst for the work of others.
In 1895, Arrhenius presented a paper to the Stockholm Physical Society titled, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.” This article described an energy budget model that considered the radiative effects of carbon dioxide (carbonic acid) and water vapor on the surface temperature of the Earth, and variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. In order to proceed with his experiments, Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists, including Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall.
Arrhenius argued that variations in trace constituents—namely carbon dioxide—of the atmosphere could greatly influence the heat budget of the Earth. Using the best data available to him (and making many assumptions and estimates that were necessary), he performed a series of calculations on the temperature effects of increasing and decreasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. His calculations showed that the “temperature of the Arctic regions would rise about 8 degrees or 9 degrees Celsius, if the carbonic acid increased 2.5 to 3 times its present value. In order to get the temperature of the ice age between the 40th and 50th parallels, the carbonic acid in the air should sink to 0.62 to 0.55 of present value (lowering the temperature 4 degrees to 5 degrees Celsius).”
During the next ten years, Arrhenius continued his work on the effects of carbon dioxide on climate, and published a two-volume technical book titled Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik in 1903; but this work was not widely read, as it was a textbook for a discipline that did not yet exist. A few years later, Arrhenius published Worlds in the Making, a non-technical book that reached a greater audience. In this book Arrhenius first describes the “hot-house theory ”of the atmosphere, stating that the Earth’s temperature is about 30 degrees warmer than it would be due to the“ heat-protection action of gases contained in the atmosphere,”a theory based on ideas developed by Fourier, Pouillet, and (especially) Tyndall. His calculations demonstrated that if the atmosphere had no carbon dioxide, the surface temperature of the Earth would fall about 21 degrees Celsius, and that this cooler atmosphere would contain less water vapor, resulting in an additional temperature decrease of approximately 10 degrees Celsius. It is important to note that Arrhenius was not very concerned with rising carbon dioxide levels at the time, but rather was attempting to find an explanation for high latitude temperature changes that could be attributed to the onset of the ice ages and interglacial periods.
By 1904, Arrhenius became concerned with rapid increases in anthropogenic carbon emissions and recognized that “the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may, by the advances of industry, be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.” He eventually made the suggestion that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels could be beneficial, making the Earth’s climates “more equable,” stimulating plant growth, and providing more food for a larger population. This view differs radically from current concerns over the harmful effects of a global warming caused by industrial emissions and deforestation. Until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the notion as implausible that humans could significantly affect average global temperatures. Today, however, we know that carbon dioxide levels have risen about 25 percent—a rate much faster than Arrhenius first predicted—and average global temperatures have risen about 0.5 degrees Celsius.
Internet References
Svante August Arrhenius, The Electronic Nobel Museum
Print References
Fleming, James Rodger, 1998: Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 194 pp.
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@Nasif,
Arrhenius never calculated that alpha = 5.35 W/m^2. He calculated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5-6 degrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
@Lord Mockton
In his 1906 work, Arrhenius also calculates (on page 6) a water vapour feedback which results in a combined value of 2.1 degrees for CO2 doubling. Although in a footnote he already mentions spectral overlap issues between CO2 and H2O!
Between 1907 and 1917, sixteen of the United States passed involuntary sterilization laws. The number of citizens sterilized was over 10,000. Jonah Goldberg’s book ‘Liberal Fascism’ has lots of info. on H. G. Wells and other progressives who thought it and Fasacism were good ideas. When I found out that centuries of racehorse breeding for faster running had left the speed records for horses on carefully measured racetracks essentially unchanged and that the speed records for human runners had been improving without selective breeding I discarded eugenics without regard to the consensus for or against. DNA studies might produce a faster horse sometime in the next millenium.
Wrong spelling alert. It’s Fascism, fingers, Fascism.
Ahrennius filled that paper with caveats about his estimates being very rough and crude. After it, scholars replied with calculations about how water vapor absorbs heat in the same wavelengths as CO2, so that the CO2 (of much much lower concentration) would have no effect. After that, scholars fine tuned absorption measurements to find that there were some small spaces where the absorptions did not overlap, so CO2 could have some tiny effect, but they determined the warming effect would only be at the very top of the atmosphere–which contradicts the satellite measurements we have today. And so on…
@lord Monckton
I updated the Arrhenius wikipage, I had the 1906 paper lying on my shelf but hadn’t added the values yet, thanks for reminding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
They had no clue about negative feedbacks back then. We barely have a clue even in 2009.
Hans Erren (14:49:55) :
@Nasif,
Arrhenius never calculated that alpha = 5.35 W/m^2. He calculated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5-6 degrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
Check! I don’t know who and when introduced this value.
I’d do prefer another reference to Arrhenius’ work better than Wikipedia.
Adolfo Giurfa says:
No, what he demonstrated was that there was a very good reason why his paper could only see the light of day in an obscure Hungarian journal and that is because his assumptions make no sense at all: http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Miskolczi.html
Perhaps his most amusing assumption is that the atmosphere considered to obey the virial theorem, with no conception of the role of the earth’s surface. That makes as much sense as assuming that we humans obey the virial theorem and are in orbit around the earth without bothering to consider the normal force provided by the ground! And, as Barton shows, it is easily shown to be nowhere near true by direct numerical calculation.
Roger Clague says:
No, you are absolutely wrong, as explained here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf You are correct that the difference between the temperature of the atmosphere at the top vs the bottom is related to the pressure (although some other issues are also involved, since the behavior is not monotonic, with temperature actually increasing with height in the stratosphere).
However, that still can’t explain why the temperature is hotter at the surface than simple radiative balance arguments (for an IR-transparent atmosphere) would predict. You can’t just violate the First Law of Thermodynamics merely because the atmospheric pressure is higher at the surface than further up in the atmosphere.
Just to make my last post clearer, what I am saying is that in the absence of IR-absorption by the atmosphere (and things such as significant heating from the earth’s core), the temperature at the earth’s surface is constrained by energy conservation to be less than a certain value. It can then be colder still when you go up higher in the atmosphere but you can’t make the claim that the atmospheric pressure somehow results in a violation of this thermodynamic constraint.
At the highest desert high surface temperatures, the BB spectral peak is down in the 8.7 micron range; well below the CO2 15 micron band so the warming effect of CO2 is minimised in the very locations that also have very low water content
Interesting. Increased CO2 will warm cold places, but have little effect on hot places. Hot and cold places have low to very low water vapour levels so any water vapour feedback will be restricted to places with (more) temperate temperatures.
We would have to conclude that increased CO2 will in all places have a beneficial or neutral effect on temperatures.
I agree, the idea of climate sensitivity as a global constant is nonsense.
You should expand these ideas into a paper. I have never come across them so clearly articulated before. I also wonder why the climate models don’t show this. More fiddling with parameters to get the desired effect, rather than incorporating know physical principals.
Philip_B says:
Actually, climate models do show that the amount of warming one gets is not uniform across the globe but is greater in some places than others. For example, it is greatest in the arctic and generally greater over continents than over the oceans. And, there are also more complicated effects. So, climate sensitivity is not ASSUMED to be a global constant; rather, it is DEFINED to be a global constant, i.e., it is defined as the change in the global average temperature for a doubling of CO2. Then, a second question becomes how this global average temperature change is manifest on more regional scales.
Note, however, that the issues determining where the warming is greater or less are much more complicated than George E. Smith suggests. That is because the change in radiative balance is due to the change in CO2 is fairly small in percentage terms…and thus where more or less warming occurs is dominated by issues of transport in the atmosphere. I.e., it is a very poor approximation to try to figure out where the warming will occur just by looking at the radiative balance locally while neglecting the transport of heat around the globe.
“Gut feelings are useless until quantified. – Anthony”
…and charted over time, showing the linear least-squares trend, with plus and minus one standard diverticulation lines.
“the issues determining where the warming is greater or less are much more complicated than George E. Smith suggests.”
I agree 100%, however I would very very surprised if even one of the GCMs come close to the complexity suggested by Mr. Smith.
Maybe they should release the code. It would be to laugh.
Note, however, that the issues determining where the warming is greater or less are much more complicated than George E. Smith suggests. That is because the change in radiative balance is due to the change in CO2 is fairly small in percentage terms…and thus where more or less warming occurs is dominated by issues of transport in the atmosphere. I.e., it is a very poor approximation to try to figure out where the warming will occur just by looking at the radiative balance locally while neglecting the transport of heat around the globe.
In all cases heat transport (ie the effect of weather) is from colder to warmer and warmer to colder. Which means, in all cases, heat transport acts to equalize temperatures between locations.
And which means hot places can never get any hotter than the direct effect of CO2, plus (a small amount of) water vapour feedback.
The only effect of heat transport is to moderate temperatures and to look at direct CO2 effects is to look at a worse case.
Therefore my conclusion stands. CO2 and water vapour feedback will make cold places warmer and will not make hot places any hotter, and so would appear to be wholly beneficial, except perhaps for the skiing and snow mobile industries.
For example, it (warming) is greatest in the arctic
Physics says it is greatest in the Antarctic , as the Antarctic is colder and drier than the Arctic. The ‘greatest in Arctic’ claim is to account for the observed (Arctic and Antarctic) temperatures and is aphysical.
Although I’ll note this explains why the climate models have to create a wetter Antarctica, contrary to observations.
Ergo, the observed increase in Arctic temperatures cannot have been caused by increased CO2.
dearieme (09:02:48) :
“Eugenics was all the “consensus” in those days.” More precisely it was the progressive consensus.
…. Yep. Today the word “Progressive” is the new word that replaces the corpse strewn one of Socialism…. So for the term, The American Progressives….. Read it as, American Socialists. It’s the same thing.
When the Wall came down at the end of the 80’s….. It wasn’t that Communism had failed and Socialism was dead. It was just changing tactics.
SteveSadlov (15:39:55),
The term “feedback” enters the U.S. Patents lexicon in 1923, with no previous occurrence, in the identical sense we use now. A trickle of cases use it until 1938, and then it becomes a deluge. All these uses are in radio, electronics and electricity. Later, the range of disciplines it is used for broadens dramatically.
Clearly, though, feedback was an important concept during the 19th C. formative period of modern science. I haven’t yet seen whether the same word was (sometimes) in use then, but the idea & principles of it were fully-formed. Feedback was applied & studied well before & throughout Arrhenius’ productive years.
From early in the Steam Age, ‘control’ – the ability to affect processes & states in both the positive & (especially) negative sense – was a key object of pursuit & study.
Feedback notions & principles would have been second nature to Arrhenius, intellectually, though perhaps referred to by other terms.
See: A Brief History of Feedback Control
Stephen Wilde (13:59:55) : “I would be persuaded by the Svensmark cosmic ray idea if it could be shown to drive the ocean cycles.
In fact the changes in global temperature trend seem to follow ocean cycles rather than solar cycles so the cosmic ray effect on the air seems likely to be a lesser player than the effect of variable ocean cycles.
Ice ages would be caused by a much larger astronomical cycle than oceanic or solar variation as per Milankovitch.
My best guess at the moment is that cooling ocean surfaces reduce the vapour carrying capacity of the overlying air so cloud increases and albedo reduces.
[…]”
You may well be right. And of course it might be a mixture of things. If you would care to read the Jasper Kirkby (CERN) paper that I linked, I would be interested to hear what you think of it :
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf
Mike Jonas,
Yes I’ve seen that but it skates around the ocean/air interface and limits itself to the reaction to GCRs in the air.
I suspect that ocean changes, unless affected in some way by the changes in GCRs are the real driver of air temperatures and responsible for both amplification and suppression of solar variability.
The cosmic ray theory, even if right (especially if right), needs some refinement.
[snip]
From that funpage Wikipedia;
“In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, pre-1960’s Democratic Party, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association and the National Research Council. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.[citation needed] It was taught in college and high school classrooms.”
Exchange “eugenics” with “AGW” and see if it fits.
As a chemist who specialised in the dissociation of water in the acid and alkaline forms, I am sure that Arrhenius knew the difference between carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbonic acid (H2CO3), in the same way he knew the difference between sulphur trioxide (SO3) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4), and meant precisely that combination of water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, when he wrote that treatise.
Dr Seuss may have written it differently:
I am Hoo
Who are you?
Would you like some CO2?
Hoo, I don’t like CO2,
I also don’t think much of you!
So why don’t you just Toodle-oo!
…………..
Would you like it in the sea?
Could you like it for your tea?
In tea or sea I would not care
To taste, or see, or smell it there.
I really don’t like CO2,
Or names like yours that rhyme with poo.
………
How about it in the air?
More each day just growing there?
I do not like it in the air,
I do not like it growing there.
I do not like it in the sea,
I cannot stand it in my tea,
I do not like that CO2,
And Hoo, I really don’t like you!
……….
Could you enjoy it on a plane,
A ship, a car, a tram or train?
Maybe on a tram or train,
But never ship, nor car, nor plane –
There’s so much CO2 you see,
Except on trams or trains for me.
I do not like it in the air,
I do not like it anywhere.
…….
What if I shut you in a box?
Or hole you up with some old fox?
Would you then like the CO2
As it increases around you?
You know I would not like it Hoo,
I’d cough, and gasp and then turn blue –
It’s not a friendly thing to do.
To shut up someone in a box,
Or hole them up with some old fox,
Or send them on a ship or plane
Instead of on a tram or train,
With CO2 up in the air
Growing, growing, growing there
More and more it’s in the sea,
I have to drink it in my tea.
I’d rather not have CO2.
I’m feeling rather warm now, Hoo.
……..
You do not like the CO2?
You’re feeling that it warms you too?
Would it warm you in the rain?
It might warm me on a plane,
But surely not on tram or train.
I do not like the CO2
It warms when I don’t want it to!
………
Could it warm you when you’re cold?
Keep you warm when you are old?
Does it warm you in the dark?
Would you like it in the park?
Try the lovely CO2
You may like it, even you!
Ok! Enough! Agreed! I do!
I will try the CO2.
Inject me gently, make it quick
I faint, I panic, I get sick!
…….
I won’t insult you with a prick –
I wouldn’t hurt or make you sick:
Here is a glass of best Champagne
Of fine vintage and famous name.
And here a simple pint of beer,
Honest, wholesome, full of cheer.
Drink them, drink them, you will see
That CO2 is good, like me!
………
I must admit I like the fizz
It’s tickly, happy, yes it is!
And now the beer, it’s mellow, calm
I haven’t come to any harm!
I rather like the CO2
I even like the look of you!
Thank you Hoo for teaching me
The joy of H2CO3
I’d like to try it on a plane
Or with a vixen, down a drain
It really does agree with me,
This HOCH2CH3!
……….
But never drink and drive a car
Or in a box or jail, you are.
The atmosphere itself tests the greenhouse theory on an annual basis. It does so at the tropical tropopause, where outgoing radiation meets ozone, producing a strong temperature maximum in August at that level. That maximum is in turn due to the seasonal heating of the northern land masses and a loss of global cloud cover. Global near surface air temperature peaks in August, even though the sun is furthest from the Earth at that time. That should tell you something about the importance of clouds in determining surface temperature.
At the surface near the equator the temperature peaks in May as it does in the atmosphere all the way to 200hPa. For those unfamiliar with this way of referring to altitude, the surface has an air pressure of about 1000hPa and the tropical tropopause 100hPa. At the tropopause which varies in height between the surface short of the winter pole and 16km at the equator (average 10km) 75% of the atmosphere is beneath you. So the atmosphere is actually very thin.
I guess the radiation that is absorbed by ozone at the tropopause is coming from the near surface air as it is moved by the trades towards the equator. The surface could not be responsible for the radiation that causes the temperature peak at the tropopause.
The potential for downward transfer of energy from the tropopause, where the maximum is in August, to the 200hPa pressure level where the maximum is in May, is of course there, and if greenhouse theory were valid, we would see it. The maximum at 200hPa would be shifted towards August. But it does not eventuate. I guess that testifies to the strength of the convectional force that cools the troposphere at all levels.
Greenhouse theory is based on a misunderstanding of how the atmosphere works. The nature of the troposphere is apparent in the Greek derivation of the word ‘tropos’. Although I speak no Greek I believe it means ‘turning’.
If one takes the trouble to actually look at the data from 1948 onwards the troposphere has not warmed at any level above the near surface layers that are in contact with a warmer ocean, layers that are warmed by surface contact, the release of latent heat of condensation and no doubt absorption of radiation by susceptible molecules. But, convection eliminates the possibility of downward transfer just as it does beneath the tropopause.
The warming in the tropics, where more energy is received than emitted is slight. Most of the extra energy received has gone into evaporation rather than increased sea surface temperature. So, the increase in temperature at the equator, at cloud level, where the latent heat is released is about three times that at the surface. That energy has not propagated down to the surface either.
The surface warming at high latitudes in winter is strong, amounting to about five degrees in both hemispheres. There has been no warming in summer. In fact Antarctica has cooled in summer. That winter warming at high latitudes, when radiation is at a minimum, should indicate the importance of energy transfer by the ocean.
There is another explanation as to why the Earth warmed strongly between 1976 and 1983, more slowly until 2005 and has cooled since, and you will find it at http://climatechange1.wordpress.com
It is time to consign greenhouse theory to the scrap bin of speculative ideas based on too limited an appreciation of the way things actually work.
Chris,
That is really funny… Something to read to the granddaughter…
Thanks
Philip_B says:
I don’t think that your conclusion follows from your statement about heat transport. The heat transport occurs both in the original case and in the elevated CO2 case. It is, for example, possible that with rising temperatures the heat transport becomes less pronounced and thus less effective in equalizing temperatures. I am not saying it definitely does but just that your reasoning is too simplistic.
Now you have jumped from claiming (without good support) that hot places will only warm due to the direct effects + “(a small amount of) water vapor feedback” to saying that they won’t warm at all. Furthermore, you are neglecting various other effects besides direct warming of hot places that could have ill effects, for example the sea level rise due to the melting of land ice in the cold places (as well as the general thermal expansion of the oceans), the loss of snowpack in the Himalayas and the resulting effects on river flows, issues of droughts and floods, etc.
REPLY: Gut feelings are useless until quantified. – Anthony
Please provide quantifiable data in support of this statement: otherwise, it is useless by your own criterion.
Chris Knight: I vote your poem Quote of the Week. It’s left me running around the house in doggerel rhyme. I must learn it by heart. Perhaps it will catch.
kurt (13:14:11) :My intuition tells me that gut feelings are more often wrong than right. There’s an internal error of logic in that sentence. How can intuition tell you that intuition is wrong? However, what I know from experience (internal data) is that hunches are always worth investigating carefully; and that if you dismiss the hunches as “unscientific” you miss the chance to build real science.
Listen, listen, strange coincidence for those who don’t know! Arrhenius’ grandson Gustav Olov Svante was a colleague of Roger Revelle. Great read here