CO2, Soot, Modeling and Climate Sensitivity

Lies, damn lies and climate modelling…

I do not buy this aerosols alchemy. Warmists still claim aerosols are responsible for 1940-1978 temperature stagnation/decrease, even the real reason – oceanic oscillations – have been discovered since. The only ample effect of aerosols is for me Pinatubo or El Chichon, causing a temperature drop for few following years.

German (Dr. Heinz Hug) and American scientists already reported about the very little influence of CO2 in the 80’s and 90’s of the past century. Now it becomes true! Why? I think our miserable politicians are fearing the possible coming colder times and are confronted with an ill economy.

When we studied climate models in the late 70s, it was a given that all models were imperfect, we knew we were only human, but it was fun and quite harmless. No individual thought that the models would be able to predict with any accuracy future trends, computers got bigger, Nasa wanted more accurate results, people believed in computers, enter Jim and the rest is history(and now hopefully is the IPCC).
I am no luddite but people and machines should know their limits, or else we start to believe in our own divinity.

Hansen published 3 scenarios (http://www.pnas.org/content/103/39/14288.full). Why show just one which is FAR too high in its CO2 emissions? This tactic has been used before (http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/01/steve_mcintyre_defends_pat_mic.php).
>The absorption frequencies of CO2 are already saturated, meaning that the atmosphere already captures close to 100% of the radiation at those frequencies.
This is wrong.
Harries, J.E., H.E. Brindley, P.J. Sagoo, and R.J. Bantges, 2001: Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature, 410, 355–357.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Finally, the last number on the graph should be +0.62C.
Given 2 of 3 comments have been gagged today – don’t anticipate this one to get through the fact filter.
REPLY: Given that you routinely use a BoM IP address to post comments, I’d suggest that if you want to speak on behalf of BoM use your full name there. See the policy page. – Anthony

Rhys,
We call that soccer. And we have no idea what you are talking about.
(:

“DJ (01:51:27) : Hansen published 3 scenarios (http://www.pnas.org/content/103/39/14288.full). Why show just one which is FAR too high in its CO2 emissions?”
You are wrong, DJ. Scenario A is not FAR too high in its CO2 emissions. In fact, emissions have exceeded the 1.5% growth used as an assumption. However, there are a couple of points that helps your side. First, Hansen underestminated (or ignored), how increased CO2 levels would be mitigated by increased flora. Therefore, actual CO2 levels have been close to his Scenario levels. Second, Scenario A (Business-as-Usua) had high levels of ozone-depleting gases which definitely have exceeded reality. (Hansen emphasized Scenario A in his presentation even though the Montreal Protocol had already been implemented.)

@DJ (01:51:27)
Have you read this post at CA? http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354
Scenario B, according to Hansen, is the most likely case and Scenario C requires “draconian measures”.

I was guessing that the RC crowd would simply say the author was wrong, even though it is published in Science. Lo and behold…..
Now that they have hyposethized that global warming prior to 1998 was the normal AGW rate, “the climate system overshot the target”, we’ll just have to wait another 15-30 years for this new idea to be proven wrong, if it is wrong. I don’t think AGW prophesizing scientists will be convinced of anything other than their own work.

This is fascinating stuff. I have little doubt that the IPCC has grossly exaggerated future global warming for the obvious reasons. However, I think the sceptical case is best served by not exaggerating the truth and by not presenting misleading data. We should leave that to the warmists.
I think Nick Stokes has a point. If, as he says, Hansen Scenario A was for exponential CO2 growth, that plainly didn’t happen and, if so, to display Scenario A in that context was misleading at the very least.
I wonder if WUWT could comment on this and also show the equivalent graph for Scenario B. If Hansen got it right twenty years ago then he should have credit for it. But on the other hand I would be surprised if his model correctly predicted the pause in global warming that started ten years ago.
Overall, I think WUWT does a great job – but, as in all walks of life, occasionally things do go wrong!
Chris

Climate models are a colossal waste of time and money.
Until climatology is a better understood science, research, time and money could be put to better use trying to understand the basic fundamentals of earth’s climate instead of trying to predict something on which we’re basically guessing at.
Shouldn’t there be a basic law of climate science anyways, like the laws of thermodynamics ?
1) The system will stay at equilibrium until an external forcing changes it’s current equilibrium ( or something like that )

If we want real answers, we need to open up to all possibilities and with all, I mean all.
Before this publication we had similar publications about black soot, black carbon, aerosols etc.
I think we should have a much broader perspective and involve much more factors and combine them, where possible with real world observations.
If we look at this season with continuing cold anolomies in the northern hemisphere,
we have experienced at least 4 volcanic eruptions, that started with Mt. Redoubt and ended with Sarychev Peak sending a lot of ash and gases, water vapor and SO2 high into the atmosphere, penetrating the stratosphere. (Sarychev Peak eruption reached an altitude of 21 km)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=12
We also have observed real massive dust storms. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=7
This month for example a gigantic amount of Sahara dust as big as the entire USA
crossed the Atlantic, with a huge impact on Atlantic Storm formation.
Joseph D’Aleo, in his current publication (see http://www.icecap.us) about the sun effecting weather events, tells about the droughts in Africa and Argentina which always seem to happen during a solar minimum. These droughts are a major cause for dust storms, expanding the area’s of source material besides the usual deserts.
At the same time we observe real gigantic forest fires.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/category.php?cat_id=8
Especially impressive the sat image of Central Africa.
Several posters here made simple experiments with their photo camera to conclude
there is a significant dimming of the sun. I believe figures like 18% were mentioned.
This in my opinion is very significant.
Some time ago I read a publication about cloud forming.
The usual condensation nuclei consist of ice but this article described they found bio materials, plant pollen and even spider eggs were found in their air samples the took during several flights at different altitudes.
We know that fine dust and smoke also function as condensation nuclei.
Than we have the theory of Svensmark about the inter galactic particles crashing into our atmosphere responsible for seeding clouds.
Just to make my point, I think there is a trend where scientists tend to compact a very complex climate system, involving the sun, the oceans the land, the atmosphere with single one liners.
I can perfectly understand this because most scientist are specialized and perform long years of research on a single phenomena.
But if we want to understand the huge puzzle that is called climate, we should take good notice of their research but at the same time we must realize that what we are looking at is only a single (small) piece of that puzzle.
We already know that CO2 is not a climate driver and it is a logical step that people
look for arguments to debunk settled science that states the opposite.
The fact that the CO2 argument is blown out of proportion and high jacked by politics dies not make it easy.
But I think we should try to generate a view of the entire puzzle and make a direct link between real world observations and implement (check, test) the available science.
We have to fit the pieces in order to finish the puzzle and see what’s missing.

re DJ (01:51:27) :
Following the Harries, J.E., H.E. Brindley, P.J. Sagoo, and R.J. Bantges link –
The press release for the 2001 paper tells us about the methodology –
“The team examined the infrared spectrum of long-wave radiation data from a region over the Pacific Ocean…”
“The effects of cloud cover were effectively removed by using a cloud-clearing algorithm.”
——
There were a number of related papers by these authors.
In an earlier paper on this same time snapshot comparison (1970 and 1997 data)- H.E. Brindley*, P.J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges and J.E. Harries conclude –
“By comparing spectrally resolved observations from
the IRIS and IMG instruments we have identified clear
signatures due to long term changes in trace gas
amounts. Although these strongly affect the OLR the
atmospheric temperature and humidity response cannot
be unequivocally determined owing to the snapshot
nature of the observations.”
————————————————————————-
And in a later paper, adding 2003 to the 1970 and 1997 data, authors Jennifer A. Griggs and John E. Harries tell us about the percentage of clear sky data over that portion of the Pacific.
“The cloud clearing process removes 99% of IRIS spectra, 67% of IMG spectra and 76% of AIRS spectra.”
—————————
My conclusion from this is:
* They saw a composition change in the atmosphere between 1971 and 1997.
* They were not able to draw conclusions about atmospheric temperature and humidity (they wanted to but the data didn’t support that conclusion)
* What they observed represents only 1% to 24% of a typical day over that portion of the Pacific. What was happening the other 76% to 99% of the time was governed in some way by cloud cover.
Again, from the 2001 press release,
“Professor Harries described the next challenges for the team: “The next step is to assess whether these data can provide information about changes in not only the greenhouse gas forcing, but the cloud feedback, which is a response of the cloud field to that forcing. ”
My comment –
We have good news Professor Harris.
Since water vapor and clouds account for an estimated 90% of the ‘greenhouse’ affect, and it appears that the Pacific had cloud cover more often than not, and more recent studies suggest that clouds have a moderating affect on climate, then the OLR shift in the other 10% of ‘greenhouse gasses’ may not be a climatic catastrophe.

After reading the comments, I think this subject is closed!
In the mean time:
Chain of cold records continues:
http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m7d14-Record-low-temperature-tied-this-morning-another-on-the-way
Observations of noctilucent clouds come in from all over the world (dimming?)
see http://www.spaceweather.com
And it is already five days ago that the last sun spot was seen.
If the sun was a car, it would need a new engine and a new battery.
“Ramp up” becomes an entire different meaning.

A plug for my own analysis of this issue in CHILL: a reassessment of global warming theory (June, 2009, Clairview Books) – I reviewed a number of papers published in Science in 2005 when it was shown very clearly from an assessment of satellite data on the flux of radiation to the earth’s surface that the pollution aerosol explanation for the trough in global temperatures was wrong – the global dimming was a worldwide phenomenon, but it happened also in unpolluted regions of the earth, and hence was a combination of changing atmospheric transparency (aerosols) and cloud cover. I show convincing evidence that the dimming began to reverse BEFORE the major clean-up of sulphur in western Europe or the collapse of the economies of Russia and eastern Europe. In IPPC4 (2007) in amongst the technical reports, they admit this new science BUT do not state the implications for the models – which as Hoffman rightly points out, had been validated by ‘hindcasting’ or replicating this trough. As we know the 30 year trough coincided with the PDO and other ocean cycle phases.
I also pointed out that the models were DOUBLY unreliable because they also relied upon ‘warmth-in-the-pipeline’ as accumulated heat in the ocean surface waters was transferred to land – as we know in WUWT, that heat estimate was cut by half in 2006/2007 by Willis/Lyman/Gouretski’s work, BUT this was not reported in IPCC4.
The UK MetOffice are aware of this latter (if not the former) and have been revising their model projections. BUT they have a separate team, as yet unpublicised, working on the medium-range projections (to 2030) – and they expect cooling. The other team – the long range to 2050/2080 has just received maximum publicity by the government, because of course, the long term trend will be dominated by the unreconstructed models and predicts – wait for it – 4 dgrees C of warming in the UK by 2050 unless we reduce emissions by 80% – which our government has just announced it will do. It is now very busy ‘streamlining’ the planning system to remove ‘bottlenecks’ – a euphamism for people who get in the way of the very destructive wind, tidal and biofuel projects.

it’s easy to see that the only band CO2 has that isn’t covered by the 100 times more plentiful water bands, is the one at 4 microns. Going up to the blackbody curves, that band just doesn’t have much to give.
So, in the bands where water vapor is dominate, does the CO2 concentration even matter? Are those bands already at 100% absorption even without CO2?

Can anyone tell me if solar activity increases, will the energy availible in the band that CO2 absorbs also increase? If so, could *that* be what we’re seeing?

Supercritical (01:03:54) : My question also! Water is the chameleon in the workings of climate, and clouds certainly are aerosols. Who knows how the “climatologists” define aerosols. But clouds are a suspension of liquid water particles in air and meet the definition of an aerosol. No one has explained why a cloud aerosol should behave differently than a sulfate-based aerosol, for example. Of course there are many different kinds of clouds. The bigger ones seem to reflect all visible frequencies. It seems some of the thinner, higher ones would behave as sulfate-based aerosols.

h.oldeboom (00:10:58) :
“German (Dr. Heinz Hug) and American scientists already reported about the very little influence of CO2 in the 80’s and 90’s of the past century. Now it becomes true! Why? I think our miserable politicians are fearing the possible coming colder times and are confronted with an ill economy”.
h.oldeboom
Unfortunately these politicians currently represent a minority.
Everything now depends on the US Senate.
If they reject the new climate bill that is prepared right now, we have a slight chance.
If they pass this bill we are put in “Green Shackles”, see book Vaclav Claus.

There was another recent paper which used actual mass spectoscopy measurements of the atmosphere which showed that soot (which produces slight warming) and sulfate aerosols (which produce cooling) combine quite rapidly chemically in the atmosphere to produce a net warming affect.
This is more consistent with the temperature experience of areas which should have been the most affected by sulfate aerosols. The areas which have been the most affected and which should have seen the greatest cooling effect from sulfate aerosols, have actually increased in temperature at a faster rate than areas not affected.
So generally, I think we need more actual measuring and less made-up theoritical forcings in the models.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/02/0900040106.abstract
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090629200808.htm

Hans Erren (00:08:35) :I think it is more appropriate to graph CO2 the way it is shown here. The concentration is increasing almost linearly with time, it isn’t doubling with time. Therefore the chart makes clear the behavior as a unit of CO2 is added. Anyway, the behavior is the same no matter how you chart it.

Nick Stokes and DJ
Thanks for the criticism of elements of the posting, but please give the courtesy of also addressing the main issue re aerosols. Otherwise some might get the impression that you are merely using a diversionary tactic.

If the cooling effect of aerosols is lowered, then that leads to more warming, not less! Look for climate modelers to move their predictions higher as a result of this.
Also, to use that graph to evaluate Hansen’s model, you need to establish that Scenario A matches what actually happened. Steve McIntyre concluded Scenario B was the most likely(Post 2645).

Remarkable: Despite higher CO2 levels!
Record challenging cool wave, temperatures to drop 23 degree below normal!
The high temperature at International Falls, Minn., Thursday will be a mere 56 degrees; this is an incredible 23 degrees below normal. This very cool air mass will impact the entire Midwest and Great Lakes over the next 72 hours. The turn to cooler weather will be felt as far south as Mississippi and Alabama this weekend. The northern parts of those two states will have highs barely above 80 with sunshine Saturday, which is almost unheard of in July. From northern Tennessee into Kentucky, readings in the upper 70s will be the rule this weekend, and some 50s will show up at night. In both Chicago and Detroit the temperature will do well to reach 70 Saturday afternoon.
The cool wave can attributed to a large southward undulation of the jet stream which is drawing polar air out of central Canada. Normally, the jet stream is much weaker and much farther north this time of year.
Story by AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist John Kocet.
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=rss&article=4

I worked hard to understand this since it struck me as a reasoned and reasonable and very important contribution to this subject. Combined with the Nature Geoscience paper and RealClimate’s less strident stance, as well as Richard Courtney’s comments:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1979/UN-IPCC-Scientist–Global-warming-propagandists-have-recognized-that-their-natural-climate-change-denial-of-the-last-decade-is-not-sustainable-anymore
I saw something that might allow a proper debate between the serious scientists on both sides of the argument.
Unfortunately not. Before we have any chance to consider the implications we have DJ complaining that he is being censored (something I am not aware of happening on this blog) and doing his best to pick holes in Hoffman’s contribution (for which many thanks, by the way).
Is there any possibility that common sense will eventually surface and those who currently take pro- or anti- views on the science can come to a common view at least as to how the research should be carried out?
I realise that fanatics like Hansen, Gore, Holdren, Monbiot et al are probably so deeply mired in their belief systems that they are beyond salvation but there must be some rational scientists left out there who are still prepared to admit that there might be “more things in heaven and earth then are dreamt of in [their] philosophy”.

Nick Stokes (00:44:05) :
Mr Hoffman clearly doesn’t understanding the usage of scenario. It is not another word for prediction. It’s an input that is determined by human decisions, and can’t be predicted scientifically. In Hansen’s 1988 paper, it referred to future CO2 emission. He said CO2 emission might, depending on governments, increase exponentially (scenario A), linearly (B) or tail off (C). He calculated a projection for each scenario.
As it turned out, CO2 did not increase exponentially. It was close to linear (scenario B). It is thoroughly misleading to plot the scenario A case as if it was Hansen’s projection. The projection for scenario B, the CO2 emission that did occur, was very good.

First, The ones who don’t understand the terms ‘scenario’ and ‘projection’ are the global warming alarmists. After all, they are the ones using climate model outputs as they were the word of God. You cannot dictate world politics based on projections, but apparently, you can if you believe they are accurate predictions.
And second, for a good study of Hansen 1988 scenarios A, B and C versus reality, check out Lucy Skywalker’s Blackboard:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/temperature-anomaly-compared-to-hansen-a-b-c-giss-seems-to-overpredict-warming/
You’ll find out that the projection for Scenario B was far from good. Projection C is the closest to what actually happened. It is really simple to figure out by using your link too, actually, since Scenario B projects an increment of temperatures during the last 10 years, increment that didn’t happen.

Supercritical (01:03:54) :
Tell me, does the term ‘aerosols’ include clouds?

You beat me on that.
Clouds are aerosols.

Ooops, the second paragraph also should have been quoted.

DJ said: “Given 2 of 3 comments have been gagged today – don’t anticipate this one to get through the fact filter.”
There are numerous ways of complaining about censorship but it’s interesting that you chose a completely irrational one. Without a computer model I can’t really anticipate something that has already happened. I assume that you didn’t anticipate your comment getting through the fact filter, so, your recommendation that we not anticipate it was addressed to the ether (or the ethereal moderator).
As for scenarios A and B; they are not that far apart at 2010. Observations, on the other hand, are not very close, even when only brought to 2005.

OT — According to weather.com Ann Arbor, MI has set a MONTHLY low temperature record for both the month of June and July of this year:
http://www.weather.com/weather/monthly/48103?month=0
http://www.weather.com/weather/monthly/48103?month=-1
It reached 33 degrees on June 5th and 42 degrees and July 14th, both records for their respective month. It has been a very mild summer so far here, to say the least.
Obviously, file under weather not climate.

One should remember that the spectral absorption lines are much narrower than potrayed in most of these. CO2 absorbs at many discrete wavelengths not just a block for example from 4 to 5 um A more detailed transmissio plot of the atmosphere is given below:
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/278/atmtransmwave.jpg
A research paper showing the narrowness of the bands for water/ch4/co2 is available here:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA039380&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Note that as pressure increases absorption increases (i.e. more nearer ground)
Note that as temp changes from 245 to 310 the absoption peak changes from 13.86um to 13.89um which will mean high level co2 will absorb a different wavelength to ground level. As DJ said in DJ (01:51:27) : CO2 is not saturated. it is nearing saturation!

geo, that was my take exactly. It shows that we don’t in fact, need draconian measures (such as moving the world to centrally planned socialism/communism economies)…

Hansen’s 1988 Abstract…LINK
Hansen’s 1988 Full Text…LINK

I would guess that due to the movements of the air circulation systems and the patchy geographical operation of the hydrological cycle the rate of energy transfer from air to space is irregular.
Put that on top of the longer term irregularity and patchy geographical variation of the rate of emission of energy from oceans to air and there is plenty of scope for discontinuities in the energy flow through the depth of the air.
As per my general climate description the oceans introduce irregularities in the energy flow from sun to ocean to air.
It is then left to the air to try to arrange that energy leaving the system in radiated longwave is much the same as energy coming in as solar shortwave.
Irregularities in the rate of energy transfer from air to space work to smooth out irregularities in the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air.
The mechanism is the latitudinal positions of the air circulation systems which in turn controls the speed of the hydrological cycle. As a fortuitous by product that mechanism also neutralises the climate effect of ANY changes in the composition of the air alone whether it be CO2, water vapour, other GHGs or indeed aerosols.
It must be so for oceans of water on our planet to exist at all. If any significant imbalance were ever to have occurred then the oceans would have long gone.
Nothing in current climatology considers irregular flows of energy between sea and air and between air and space underpinned by another level of irregularity in solar input. The models currently work backwards from meteorolgical observations rather than forward from measurements of net energy flow in and out of the different sections (oceans and air) of the system. It’s like trying to work out how a car engine works by watching the driver.
I am suggesting an entirely new perspective.
I think I’ve nailed it but the Earth will verify or rebut what I say over time now that everyone’s attention is so closely focused on these issues.
The work of Arrhenius, Tyndall et al relates only to the air in isolation. It has no climate significance because the equilibrium temperature is set by the oceans and not by any characteristic of the air. Indeed the air circulation systems always work back towards ensuring that the surface air temperature matches the sea surface temperatures whatever attempts are made by ANY changes in the air to cause a divergence.
Their work has been misapplied to the climate system as a whole so that our models are entirely out of synchronisation with reality.

@geo
Hansen’s Scenario A was expected an ‘exponential’ rise on CO2 levels, (or at least higher rise than what is really happening). Scenario B shows a linear rise on CO2 levels, more or less similar to what really happened (with CO2 rise, not temperature rise) and Scenario C shows stagnant or slow declining CO2 levels.
As a set-up, the experiment was nicely designed, it reminds the Goldilocks tale, one scenario shows what the models say if the CO2 levels rise too much, the other if the CO2 levels don’t go up, and the middle one turned out just right.

The point being that CO2 has continued to grow at “business as usual” levels and tempratures have not. By a long way.

I don’t know why DJ chose an 8 year old paper, so much has been learned between now and then, perhaps some AGW believers just feel like it’s convienent to think it’s just CO2 warming the climate without any other variables.
Since getting CO2 to 1000 PPM (greenhouse levels) isn’t going to cause much of a rise in temps. maybe we should get it there and cap the level there, imagine all the increased plant productivity 😉
It seems like the reported study that aerosols cause much less cooling than believed really does seem to damage the AGW based argument of the 1970’s global cooling scare.
About Sea Level rise caused by man-made water displacement, that may have a grain of truth, considering the ocean being full of stuff like super-tankers displacing the water, it’s like when you put a boat in your bathtub and the water rises.

Methinks the AGW’ers doth protest too much about their ABC’s to make sure we don’t read this little jewel:
“As Dr. David Evans explained in a recent paper: “Yes, every emitted molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2) causes some warming—but the crucial question is how much warming do the CO2 emissions cause? If atmospheric CO2 levels doubled, would the temperature rise by 0.1°, 1.0°, or by 10.0° C?”
—-
OK. so the democrats’ ENTIRE 1.6 trillion dollar global socialist boondoogle for the UN consists of:
Assume a forcing multiplier (a constant) for a doubling of CO2.
Assume a future CO2 trend.
Extrapolate that CO2 trend 1000 years.
Multiply.
Plot a graph for the next 100 years based on an old 30 year trend from 1970 to 1998.
Extrapolate the graph for 600, 800, or 1000 years as required.
Assume xxx or yyy (very bad) effect from the extrapolated temperatures.
Promote assumed zzzz and wwww (very bad) results of the (very bad) effect from the extrapolated temperature based on the extrapolated graph based on the assumed constant for the assumed CO2 extrapolated for 400, 600, or 800 years.
Propagandize the wwww and zzzzz results for all to see, but allow nobody to criticize or debate your process.
Allow 2 hours to pass an incomplete, unread bill regulating the country’s economy for 800 years, because you have to leave for a four week vacation.
—
From his comments, Hansen’s actual “program” merely consists of assigning that single assumed forcing variable for CO2, assigning the assumed constant for aerosols and soot to fit the 1940-1970 downward temperature trend, then printing a temperature rise for the next few years.

Well I’d like to start by giving both Doug Hoffman, and Anmthony a full pardon for the material in both the paper Doug presents,a nd Anthony’s graph.
You two chaps are held quite blameles; and earn kudos for exposing this chicanery.
Lets get rid of that silly CO2 triple graph first. Note that it starts at 255Kelvins at zero CO2 in the atmosphere, and also note that absolutely nobody has ever observed the mean global temperature whent he atmospheric CO2 was 250 ppm or lower; I’m being generous; I could go up to 280 ppm.
So that puts the global temperature at 285K.
Now that 255K for zero CO2 just happens to be the equilibrium black body temperature for an object at earth’s orbital location, with no atmospheric warming. I believe the normal earth 0.357 or whatever albedo is assumed.
So that zero CO2 starting point is also for zero water vapor.
So clearly those three curves, are computations and not observations and they obviously are total Balderdash; because water vapor on its own is going to run the temperature up to that 285Kelvin mark, with no CO2 or any other form of GHG.
The earth is in its present comfortable temperature range because of water vapor; not because of 250 ppm of CO2. If you look at the atmospheric absortion bands; even the Wiki ones at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transm,ission.png you will see that water is alread absorbing in the same spectral locations as CO2, and a whole bunch of other places as well.
So Nyet to that triple CO2 graph; it’s a total phony.
Back to Doug’s SCIENCE paper; I have SCIENCE piled all over my desk looking at other rubbish so I will have to find this paper too.
There’s a lot of information in there; and a lot of information that is not in there but hidden between the lines.
Am I the only one who thinks these “Scientists” are just making stuff up as they go along.
Did you notice how they explained in so much detail, how “aerosols” and particulates such as black soot, and dust, and microbes too, act as nucleation centers for water droplets to form clouds; no they waffle on about how thoise things scatter the sunlight to cause cooling, and then absorb it to cause warming; but nary a word about cloud formation. Now I don’t know a lot about cloud chemistry; I’m not a chemist, and I know it is a complex subject; but just go bacl and take a peek at that beautiful Volcanic eruption cloud of dust and black soot, and aerosols of all kinds; and the beautiful cloud forming right on top of the volcanic muck; not to mention the beautiful fairy circle burnbed in the clouds by the hot gases escaping from the mountain; hey I have it as my screen wall paper.
Every member of the US Congress should be forced to read this paper that Doug has exposed to us; and then they should be asked to write a four page essay, on what they leasnred about the state of “climate science”, or what passes for science in theis weird world where ancient astrology and economic science are close neighbors.
Thanks Doug, and Anthony; it’s a great way to start my day with a great laugh. If it wasn’t such a seriosu matter; it would be hilarious.
I don’t thin ther’s enough room on my hard drive for me to write a full criticism of the gobbledegook in this revelation that doug presents here.
It’s time for some of the big names in “Climatology” like Prof Lindzen, Roy Spencer etc to start screaming for this so-called science discipline to clean up its act, and start creating models that mimic the laws of Physics, instead of curve fitting a bunch of highly suspect and controversial raw “data”
George
PS for those who don’t read Scientific American Magazine; be informed that Anthony Watts hit the big time, and got a whole article written about him and his phony owl box expose.
Sorry I didn’t bring this latest issue in but they are reall y trying to do the CYA job; and failing badly; they try to excuse away the phony ice and temperature data that Anthony has been alerting us too, and essentially vclaim that fudging the data is pretty much normal operating procedure. Way to go Anthony !
REPLY: Hi George. I don’t see anything on the SciAm website. Is this the print edition only? If they wrote an article about me, I’m unaware of it. You’d think if they had any journalism skills they would at least call me and ask a question or two first. – Anthony

Soot it is not an areosol properly, these are carbon particles suspended which as soon as there is enough wind or rain fell down to ground.

I’m not sold that Hansen’s Scenario A isn’t what is happening, or worse. If the rate of increase was ‘exponential’ on the order of 1.5%/yr (doing a quick BOE calculation) — if the amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere (if you are willing to assume 100% of it is anthropogenic in origin) in 1988 was 1.5ppm then an increase of 1.5%/yr means that by 2006 the amount would be around 1.94ppm/yr, which is right about where we were in 2006.
So I think we are closer to scenario A than B.

“”” bill (08:20:57) :
One should remember that the spectral absorption lines are much narrower than potrayed in most of these. CO2 absorbs at many discrete wavelengths not just a block for example from 4 to 5 um A more detailed transmissio plot of the atmosphere is given below:
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/278/atmtransmwave.jpg
A research paper showing the narrowness of the bands for water/ch4/co2 is available here:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA039380&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Note that as pressure increases absorption increases (i.e. more nearer ground)
Note that as temp changes from 245 to 310 the absoption peak changes from 13.86um to 13.89um which will mean high level co2 will absorb a different wavelength to ground level. As DJ said in DJ (01:51:27) : CO2 is not saturated. it is nearing saturation! “””
Bill, are those absorption spectra you linked to actual measured atmospheric transmission spectra, or are they calculated theoretical spectra ?
All the data sources I have on such spectra, which are for military equipment IR purposes, have only calculated spectra, and they say that Doppler and Collision broadening end up smudging the real world spectra into continuous bands.
As for the temperature shift going from 13.86 up to 13.89 microns for CO2, I think you will admit, that that shift of the actual molecular resonance, is totally negligible compared to the very much larger Wien’s displacement shift in the thermal emission spectrum of the atmosphere, with temperature.
For the earth’s surface temperature range from -90C to +60C, the emission specrum peak shifts from about 15 microns down to 8.6 microns; so the CO2 temperature effect is irrelevent.
George

Nick Stokes (00:44:05) :
Have you now been tasked with commenting on non-pro AGW blogs in the run-up to Copenhagen?

“”” MattN (05:55:02) :
Can anyone tell me if solar activity increases, will the energy availible in the band that CO2 absorbs also increase? If so, could *that* be what we’re seeing? “””
Matt, there is very little interraction between CO2 and the solar spectrum.
The lowest CO2 band is at about 1.9-2.0 microns, and the total solar energy longer than that wavelength is only a few percent, and only a small piece of that is taken out by CO2 There’s a 2.9 micron CO2 band bu5t only about 1% of solar energy is longer than that and the 2.9 band is quite narrow so doesn’t get much of that.
Besides, anything that absorbs some incoming solar energy results in cooling, because that energy doesn’t reach the ground; and the higher up in the atmosphere it gets absorbed, the quicker it can be radiatied back into space.

Murray Carpenter (05:33:17) : Jimmy Haigh (07:36:47) :
“half a brick”
Consider too sedimentation from the major rivers. At least in the USA this would have increased with settlement and farming practices. Also, consider levees along the Mississippi and tributaries that send more of the sediment into the Gulf. Then there are the channels cut through the Gulf coastal areas causing additional erosion. Forestry and construction in California, Oregon, and Washington states have added major sediment loads to the rivers flowing to the Pacific Ocean.
Now, maybe, you have a full brick.

This is, on the face of it, a very significant finding. However, the question on my mind is – what’s the bottom line?
I mean, the assumed negative forcing of aerosols has been reduced from
-0.5 W/M2 to -0.3, which has been billed as a 40% reduction. And so it is. But the difference is -0.2. In other words, if the negative forcing is less by 0.2, then the CO2 forcing must also be less by 0.2 to maintain the same model output. But if the CO2 forcing was believed to be 1.7 before, it would now be revised to 1.5.
In my simplistic opinion, this does not seem like a large revision. How much would that effect temperature sensitivity of CO2?

Bobn (10:59:42) :
How come the graph contains only scenario A and not scenario B which was the one the greenhouse forcing followed more closely. Why omit the correct line? Doesn’t this throw the rest of the article into doubt. I can’t trust it now on matters I don’t know much about when a matter I do know about isn’t presented correctly.

Let’s ask Hansen…Jimbo, why should we use Scenario A to evaluate your model?
Hansen said…“Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.”
Based my rough visual estimates…It looks to me like Scenario A grossly exaggerated the increase in atmospheric CO2…But Hansen himself described Scenario A as representing the “continued” trend. Well…the trend of CO2 emissions has actually accelerated since 1988.

“”” tallbloke (23:36:52) :
Nice graph Anthony. Please can we have the equations for each of the three curves. “””
Y = e^(-1/x^2)
That pretty much fits all three; and all three are phony in any case.
In normal Optical absorption in a uniform medium, the transmission follows an e^-az formula, z being the distance covered, and a (alpha) the absortptin coefficient. This result assumes the energy is captured permanently; and not re-emitted due to some liminescence effect. Of course there will still be thermal radiation due to the temperature.
In the case of very low concentrations the absorption is linear with number of absorbing molecules or propagations district.
Remember e^-x = 1-x/1! +x^3/3! -x^5/5! etc
In the case of CO2 or water GHG absorption; the spectrum region being captured by the active molecules, is pretty much in hte same wavelength as the thermal emission spectrum of the atmosphere itself simply due to its temperature, so this thermal IR is constantly being captured; transmitted to the atmosphere in collisions, and the re-emitted as new thermal radiation (so it is not a photon capture to an excited state, followed by a re-emission and return to some ground state, as in atomic spectra)
And since the atmosphere is variable density and temeprature, the biggest effect is near the ground.
But the notion that atmospheric temperture rise is proportional to the log of CO2 concentration, is totally phony; there is simply no physics that causes that. It certainly isn’t linear, and it does follow a curve whose equation is : “It’s gonna take a lot more CO2 to cause the next temperature increment, than the last one; and then wait till you see how much it takes for the following one !” But that equation does not prescribe a logarithmic function.
Every mathematician knows that if you plot anything on a log/log graph paper, you get a nice straight line, which hides what really happens.
And the whole “climate sensitivity” notion is pretty silly anyway, because the “radiative forcing” that allegedly causes the warming due to thermal IR capture by CO2, depends completely on the radiant emittance of the earth surface in the location where the climate sensitivity” is being measured; and that emittance is known to vary by more than an order of magnitude depending on the local surface temperature, from place to place on the planet, and there is no global sampling network for collecting climate sensitivity values to eneble computation of a global average. So “climate sensitivity” is just another part of the ancient astrology that is climate science.
The IPCC view of climate is a house of cards built out of layer upon layer of unsubstatiated mathematical assumptions; and as they say ” assume makes an ass out of U and ME. “

Using a cloud-clearing algorithm is an educated guess, not an experiment. To experiment, use a hydrogen bomb to remove clouds. Timing and placement of your instruments can be important when using this experimental procedure.

The important question about the Hansen scenarios concerns not the rise in the CO2-content of the atmosphere; that in itself is not a problem.
The real question is whether the corresponding RISE IN TEMPERATURE took place, or not.
That is why they used to call it AGW.

There is a crucial error being made here.
The article focuses on the effect of aerosols on the climate. Whereas the real problem is the effect aerosols have on surface temperatures as they are measured, specifically on Tmin.
The surface record (on land) is comprised of Tmin and Tmax measurements with the assumption that these 2 measurement when averaged give an accurate measurement of the average temperature.
Since the late 1800s the average Tmin has been rising and accounts for most of the claimed warming. This is assumed to the ‘signature’ of GHG warming. It isn’t. It is the signature of reduced early morning aerosol pollution (smoke) in the developed world.
Some of you, like me, will be old enough to remember the morning ritual of lighting a fire in winter and how much smoke was produced in the process. This produce a surge in low level aerosol pollution at the the time Tmin usually occured (shortly after dawn) by reducing early morning sunlight and allowing a few more minutes of radiative cooling to bring Tmin down.
When this early morning smoke was removed by various clean air measures and the introduction of gas and electrical heating, Tmin was no longer delayed and consequently rose.
Not only does this explain most of the rise in Tmin. It explains why it has stopped in the last decade or so – early morning smoke has been pretty much eliminated in the developed world, so the effect on average Tmin stopped.
Note that while smoky fires are still widespread in the developing world, the time profile is different because in places like India and Africa they are used for cooking and not heating. Hence the smoke isn’t concentrated in the early morning.

George: “Besides, anything that absorbs some incoming solar energy results in cooling, because that energy doesn’t reach the ground; and the higher up in the atmosphere it gets absorbed, the quicker it can be radiatied back into space.”
But that’s not how I’m under the impression CO2 works. I thought CO2 absorbed radiation coming back from the earth’s surface…..

anna v (11:19:42) : Thank you Anna. I was just doing a sort of mental comparison of the momentum carried by ocean currents vs. momentum carried by wind. I’m (again guessing) that the wind’s momentum is negligible compared to that of the ocean. I can see how wind and waves could impart some energy to the ocean, but how much compared to the total energy carried by the ocean?

AnonyMoose (11:48:52) :
Using a cloud-clearing algorithm is an educated guess, not an experiment. To experiment, use a hydrogen bomb to remove clouds
It seems a bit noisy and disgusting procedure. Why not trying discharging them?. Take a kite, a conductive string and try Franklin’s simple experiment and, please, forget Al..goreetms.

There have of course been other issues highlighted, the observed sensitivity is far lower than the IPCC’s. Evaporation is grossly underestimated in the models. The manner in which clouds cool the earth and help moderate temperature is not replicated in the models, resulting in an incorrect positive feedback and then none of the natural cycles are predicted correctly. Oh and the models only hind cast back to 1850, go back further and they fall over.
So :
a) if the natural is not explained, there is no way of knowing if there is any anthropogenic effect in the temperature record (if thats reliable).
b) the models are pointless unless used instead for sensitivity analysis – which they arnt, they are only used to predict dire warming with stupidly high confidence values that are political spin
c) the IPCC need to be more clear about the uncertainty and try and save some face before the public and policy makers loose trust in them and tarnish science.
As an engineering modeller I know too well you can fudge a model to hind cast well, but it doesnt mean its right or has any predictive ability. Something I have picked up other engineers on before. And it does often happen when modellers are not experianced or just lack common sense.
Having a model that represents the correct operation of a system is more usefull than one that does not but looks nice when hind cast in my opinion.

Phil. (12:40:13) :
[…]
But we followed scenario C as far as methane, CFCs and other trace gases were concerned which were expected by Hansen to have a larger contribution than CO2 over this timeframe, also the CO2 trajectory hasn’t been as high as A. Hansen quite clearly indicated B as the most likely scenario. The graph shown above looks very like the one Michaels used when he erased lines B & C to make Hansen’s calculations look bad.

From Appendix B, pg. 9361 of Hansen’s 1998 paper…
“Specifically, in scenario A CO2 increases as observed by Keeling for the interval 1958-1981 [keeling et al, 1982] and subsequently with a 1.5%/yr growth of the annual increment.”
“In scenario B the growth of the annual increment of CO2 is is reduced from 1.5%/yr today to 1%/yr in 1990, 0.5%/yr in 2000 and 0 in 2010; thus after 2010 is constant, 1.9 ppmv/yr.”
“In scenario C the CO2 growth is the same as scenarios A and B through 1985; between 1985 and 2000 the annual increment is fixed at 1.5 ppmv/yr; after 2000, CO2 ceases to increase, its abundance remaining fixed at 368 ppmv.”
If I take the average annual increment from 1958-1981 and increase it by 1.5% per year until 2008, I get 385.35 ppmv. Keeling’s value for 2008 is 385.57 ppmv.
If my math is right (and that’s often a big if)…Hansen’s scenario A matches the CO2 trend pretty well.

So greatest X factor, or unknown…is?
H20 vapor?
Clouds?
CO2 forcing?
If indeed temperature vs. CO2 graph is close on…than at worse…is our greatest increase of temperature ~2.5*C?
That’s assuming it is more than 95% confidence levels? Hah.
It would be so nice if a climate modeler would consider some of these viewpoints, and lend some credibility to our point of view, rather than feeling as though we are trying to attack them.

Dave, you are right Scenario A is the best match for CO2 trend, however, the other trace gases have a very large effect in scenario A, and overall B could be the better match.

Those who as Adam ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge or the computer model from the processor hardware, got confused be it in words or in binary algorithms.

It’s fun to watch this whole global warming hoax slowly unravel. I’m pretty confident that the AGWer estimates of aeresol cooling will turn out to have been estimated by asking “what do we need to make our models work?”

“”” Jim (10:57:56) :
George E. Smith (10:30:23) : More and more, I appreciate your comments. One difference between CO2 and H2O is the liquification point. CO2 is a gas even at the poles, so it is always in the atomosphere to add some heat. I have wondered if CO2 isn’t like a pilot light on a gas water heater whose function is mainly to keep the air hot enough to keep water vapor in play. I wonder what would happen if there were no green house gasses. Would water liquify, then the entire Earth turn into a Snowball? Maybe we could model it?? 🙂 “””
Jim,
Not to worry, there is always plenty of water vapor in the atmosphere; more than enough to stop us becming an ice ball.
Suppose the whole earth surface were cooled down to zero deg C; except for those places which are now colder than zero; we’d let them stay where they are. Well the oceans are saline, so they won’t freeze at zero, so still plenty of liquid water out there.
The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, gives the vapor pressure of water at zero deg C as 4.579 mm Hg. This is from the copy of the Handbook that I got off Noah’s ark with; so I’ll let you do the conversion to Pascals; in any case it’s about 0.6% of atmospheric pressure; so still vastly in excess of any CO2 vapor pressure.
Let’s drop down to -15 C; and please don’t ask me to explain why we would still have liquid water at -15 C, but we would still have 1.436 mm Hg vapor pressure; about 1/3 of the zero C value, and still way more than any CO2.
Even at -90C over ice at the coldest places on earth, there is 0.00007 mm Hg of water vapor pressure over the ice. Now CO2 is ahead.
The long and the short is that no matter what the earth temperature was at the equilibrium black body temperature or higher, there is more than enough atmospheric H2O to start the water vapor positive feedback warming; even if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere at all. The notion that water vapor needs CO2 to trigger its positive feedback warming (without which CO2 becomes a non-entity); is quite falacious; the water can do it all by itself.

To Anthony.
It’s the latest print edition Anthony; I’ll try to remember to bring it in tomorrow. Maybe that is the August edition; seems too late to be July since I just got it yesterday
The front cover article is about how the Neandertals got extinct; it wasn’t Anthony’s fault. The author is someone I never heard of; which doesn’t mean much; but it is a whole CYA description of how climate researchers are always fudging things, and “weaking” them and how that is all legitimate; and how we ordinary mortals just don’t understand the way it works;
If I were you, I would ask SA to give you a page or two to respond as to how we view this chicanery; well at least how you view it; you’re becoming a Banyan tree Anthony, and just putting down roots in all sorts of places; pretty neat I would say.
George
REPLY: I went out and bought the print copy and yep there it is. Funny, for years as a kid, I tried to get into the “Amateur Scientist” column they used to run and never succeeded with any of the projects I built. Now I get in the magazine and don’t even try or evn know about it. – Anthony

I used Hansen’s CO2 scenarios from Appendix B of his 1988 paper to construct a chart of his projected annual atmospheric CO2 concentrations vs. the actual annual values from Mauna Loa. His scenario A matches the actual values almost exactly…
Hansen vs. Mauna Loa

Skeptics are always quoting ‘research’ from dodgy backdoor journals like Science. 😛

George E. Smith (14:33:01) :
Thanks, George. In that light, it is difficult to see how a snowball Earth could come about. Unless, of course, the Sun is more variable than we know from our limited observation time of it. If the Sun did dim and cause a snowball Earth, it appears from your data that it would have a means to recover. I’m beginning to believe the Sun may be more variable than we think. I know there are proxies for solar output, but there also appears to be doubt about their fidelity.

George E. Smith (10:57:50) :
The plot is a calculated spectrum.
The Paper if you read it is measured transmittance of gasses under varios temps and pressures.

I don’t know the intervening formulas…But I worked as an estimator once…
“In the (IPCC) the direct aerosol effect is reported to have a radiative forcing estimate of -0.5 Watt per square meter…offsetting the warming from CO2 by almost one-third.”
At -0.3 Wm-2, the warming offset is reduced to (3/5 x 33%=) 20%.
So (33%-20%=) the model CO2 warming must be reduced by about 13%.
The resulting sensitivities haven’ been mentioned.
From an estimator’s seat-of-the-pants point of view…this isn’t the end of AGW.

MikeE (15:51:51) : I re-read what you said. So the snowball Earth hypothesis rests on a white surface reflecting incoming radiation – not absorbing it and re-radiating so a greenhouse gas could retain heat. Ahhh …

MikeE (17:35:58) The sun may have an effect on a short term basis(tens and hundred year variability rather than million year era scales). But im not totally sold on it yet…
Thats exclusive of orbital influences obviously!

Snowball Earth has a very good explanation now. All the continents were locked together at the time with the majority of them being right over the south pole. Think Antarctica times 20.
Glaciers build up, spread out over the available land, albedo changes produce more cooling, more glaciers build-up and so on. Soon, the glaciers are 5 kms high in the central area and spread out covering all the available land surface. Sea ice extends right to the tropics.
Snowball Earth ends when the continents split apart and move back towards the equatorial region. The Supercontinent build-up and split apart cycle has happened several times in Earth’s history. The next supercontinent is scheduled for 250 million AD according to Scotese.
Continental positions during Snowball Earth.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/SnowballGeography.gif
Resulting Climate.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/SnowballSimulations.jpg

Phil. (15:34:08) :
‘What in fact happens in the atmosphere is that CO2 absorbs IR and is vibrationally excited and within nanoseconds this energy is collisionally exchanged with other molecules (heating them up) and dropping back to the ground state. In that case of course it does follow Bohr’s description (but not via radiation) but it doesn’t need to.’
I’m I missing something, aren’t the other molecules just as “hot” as CO2 molecule when they collide? And what molecules are you talking about?

Yeah. When I am skeptical about climate change because of emissions of Co2, people laugh. But we will see.
=)

Referring to an earlier comment, there is a difference between water being ionized or in the form of electrically charged particles. Ionization normally refers to liquid water, usually with some contaminant that is acidic or alkaline. The water dissociates to hydrogen ions and hydroxyl (oh) ions. The measurements are referred to as pH, related to the hydrogen ion concentration. In a cloud of water particles, electric charges of static electricity build up on each particle, in the same way that you build up an electrical charge when you shuffle across a nylon rug on a cold, dry day. I’m not an expert on what happens in the upper atmosphere, but ionization of water there would have to be caused by some phenomenon that I am not familiar with.

JET (19:38:03) :
Interglacial’s mostly nicely coincide with the malkovich cycles… wobbles of earths orbit, every 100k years or so.. normally only lasting 10k years, this one is past the 10k mark. But hasnt peaked as highly as recent past interglacials, and seems to be persisting at this stage, which isnt really a bad thing as far as humanity is concerned.

Dave Middleton (14:47:55) :
I used Hansen’s CO2 scenarios from Appendix B of his 1988 paper to construct a chart of his projected annual atmospheric CO2 concentrations vs. the actual annual values from Mauna Loa. His scenario A matches the actual values almost exactly…
Hansen vs. Mauna Loa
Thanks, I had a good laugh. You should have put QED at the bottom.
The way pro AGW are telling it, one picks the temperature prediction from one scenario, and the CO2 curve from another !!
Consistent with their logic and their grasp of physics and statistics ( as in error propagation) of course. I would not mind excusing them, correct science rights itself eventually, if they were not using politicians to stampede the west into self immolation economically.

“George E. Smith
Well Phil, I understand what a log function is; and every log function I’ve ever met was valid for real arguments from -infinity to + infinity, not counting the two end points.”
Didn’t you intend to write 0 instead -infinity ?

@Mike N,
That’s certainly possible…But CO2 is the “Big Kahuna”. Even if CH4 has 20X the greenhouse effect of CO2. 1800 ppb is 0.46% of 390 ppm…20 X 0.46% = 9.2%.
When I get the time, I’ll see if I can reconstruct Hansen’s trace gas concentrations relative to the actual data.

Correction to my post at 6:26:41
I guess I have to add the black carbon and aerosols impact together to be consistent with this paper.
The temp impact from both together would be about -0.35C in GISS Model E while this paper is saying it should be about -0.18C.
So, the models are still off by what would be considered a large amount – 0.2C versus the total temp increase of just 0.6C or so.

@ Phil. (08:09:59)…
I think it really depends on how his aerosol effects compare to the real world data since 1985.
If his aerosol effects projections match the data acquired since 1985… Scenario B would be the best choice. If he over-estimated the aerosol cooling effects… Scenario A or something between A and B might be best.

I’m lost for an explanation of why CH4 is claimed to have 20 times the greenhouse effect of CO2. Based on the CH4 absorption spectra I have been able to find, It would seem that methane is of no consequence.
I have two tiny narrow bands for CH4, one at about 3.5 microns, and one at about 8 microns; and both of those are sitting right on top of big fat water vapor bands.
So I don’t get the methane thing at all, and I was also under the impression that methane doesn’t persist for very long before it becomes just CO2 and water.
Hopefully, someone else can make the case for CH4 ?

DaveM, focus on the CFCs and other trace gases when you do your analysis.
Steve says scenario A had an effect from those that was higher than CO2, due to the exponential growth.

“”” Jim Masterson (09:21:16) :
>>Alexej Buergin (01:47:52) :
“George E. Smith
Well Phil, I understand what a log function is; and every log function I’ve ever met was valid for real arguments from -infinity to + infinity, not counting the two end points.”
Didn’t you intend to write 0 instead -infinity ? <<
I don’t know what George intended to write, but you can take the logarithm (and anti-log) of any number in the complex plane (which includes the real numbers out to minus infinity). """
Slip of the fingers there Jim; and I didn't really intend to venture into the realm of weird numbers; but as you say, if you can live with negative numbers having square roots; then you are primed to tolerate logs of negative numbers via the pi = – sqrt(-1).Ln(-1) relationsship. If we ever needed proof that all of mathematics is pure fiction; and we made it all up in our heads; that definition of pi oughta do it.
I also like the function: y = exp(-1/x^2)
It has the value zero, at x = 0, and so does it derivative; in fact every derivative is zero at x = 0.
So (y) starts out at zero, with zero velocity, and zero acceleration, and zero rate of increase of acceleration; and so on; and yet somehow it manages to claw its way up to 37% at x = 1. Nobody ever started out in life with a bigger handicap, then exp(-1/x^2) !

George E. Smith (09:16:16) :
[…]
Well CO2 isn’t even the little Kahuna; it has to compete with H2O which easily wins the top prize. As for the silver medal, I wouldn’t give it to CO2 either, since CO2 is competing for the same spectrum with water vapor…

George,
I agree… CO2 is next to irrelevant in the real world. I was making the point that CO2 was the Big Kahuna in Hansen’s model.
I’m trying to “reverse engineer” Hansen’s model to see which (if any) of his scenarios matches the actual atmospheric chemistry chronology since 1985.

George E. Smith (09:34:28) :
I’m lost for an explanation of why CH4 is claimed to have 20 times the greenhouse effect of CO2. Based on the CH4 absorption spectra I have been able to find, It would seem that methane is of no consequence…

That’s a good question. I’ve always just accepted the assertion that CH4’s greenhouse effect was about 20X CO2’s… Particularly since CH4, like CO2, competes with H2O over much of its bandwidth.

“”” Phil. (10:31:31) : “””
I’ll take your word for it Phil. I’m totally at the mercy of the people who publish these purported spectra. Given the billions of dollars that US taxpayers have given to “climate scientists”, I would think that the least we could have gotten out of the deal would be some real measured spectra of real world absorption by all these EPA poisons that the government is telling us they are going to tax us up the wazoo to get rid of.
I read a statement that methane is 20 times as potent as CO2, and I can’t find a single piece of data that shows why that is claimed to be true; all I can get is some IPCC table of misery indexes that they seem to have assigned to each of the vermin; with no scientific precedent for those claims.
It can’t be rocket science; you go to Edmunds scientific, and you buy a spectrometer that goes from 0.1 to 100 microns wavelength, and you get some gas cells and you measure the darn absorption, once and for all; and publish the data where people can get access to it.
Instead we get reams of papers on increasingly obstruse statistical mathematics trying to create data out of thin air; and the varmints that are supposed to be responsible for all of this aren’t even examined in detail once and for all to establish exactly how they function.
We can get believable scientific data, from 15 billion light years out into the dim distant past of the far universe, and we can’t seem to compile basic data on important ingredients of our immediate environment.
Somewhere I was reading a peer reviewed paper on somebody doing some “very careful” lab measurments of the absorption of some GHG; maybe it was CO2; and they described how they made up out of pristine isotopically pure gases a sample of standard atmosphere, including the CO2, so they could make some absorption measurments. And then they went and added in some obligatory amount of water vapor, before making the measurments. Seems insane to me; separation of the variables must be the single biggest headache in experimental design.
By the way; if you want to take the earth’s mean surface temperature rise as being proportional to the logarithm of the CO2 concentration; that’s ok with me; but it seems that experimentally, we don’t even have so much as a single octave of observational data to work with, in order to arrive at the IPCC’s value with its 3:1 fudge factor uncertainty; and I would think that you can approximate it just as closely as that uncertainty with straight line segments. I don’t see any virtue in assuming a log function, if it isn’t logarithmic over at least several octaves.
But if CH4 is that obnoxious, and it is spewed out constantly from decaying vegetation; I don’t understand why the arth hasn’t already fried to a crisp.
Clearly something is overriding all of those things; and clouds get my vote; and I absolutely refuse to refer to clouds as aerosols; cloud is a shorter word.
George

George E. Smith (09:26:46)
Thanks for the explanation. I assume (there’s that word again) Phil was talking about the exchange of energy between GHG.
So if water vapor spilled a little coffee, the great coffee server (long wave radiation) would refill the cup before CO2 could make it across the ball room to share his coffee.

George E. Smith:
“Instead we get reams of papers on increasingly obstruse statistical mathematics trying to create data out of thin air; and the varmints that are supposed to be responsible for all of this aren’t even examined in detail once and for all to establish exactly how they function.”
I share your frustration! I recently saw an opinion column written in the Daily Camera, the local paper of record for Boulder, CO., whose author attempted to use a purely statistical analysis to show that CO2 has caused all of the warming we’ve seen since the Industrial Revolution. You (plural) probably don’t remember this, but in an earlier post on this blog I asked about the statements of a “professor” (that was my operating assumption) that were along the same lines. The guy who wrote the column is one and the same. I found out more about him, and I was wrong. He’s not a professor. He’s a blogger “who studies climate change as a hobby”. He is not a scientist, and yes, he has a regular opinion column in Boulder’s paper…
You can read the column I’m referring to here:
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2009/jul/05/global-warming-whodunit/
Get this. He loaded global average temperature and CO2 data sets into Excel, shifted the temperature data set around for a bit and found an AMAZING correlation between CO2 and temperature (I’m being sarcastic). This is the paragraph that got steam rising out of my head. His method was so amateurish I was surprised the Camera let this garbage get in the paper:
“Still not convinced? I loaded as much publicly available data as I could into Microsoft Excel. The result? An 88 percent correlation between global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentration. The temperature correlation peaks about 12 years after the CO2 stimulus, and falls off slowly over decades. This is huge evidence that CO2 drives temperatures, and that the oil we burn today causes the most warming 10 to 15 years from now.”
Yes, you read right. He actually asserts from his statistical analysis alone that there’s a 10-15 year relationship between changes in CO2 levels to a temperature response, and that this entirely explains the temperature fluctuations from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Why are the alarmists playing around with sophisticated computer models when all you’ve got to do is load these two data sets into Excel and SEE the answer right in front of your face?? My goodness, we’ve been wasting billions of dollars studying this! (sarcasm off)
I and others asked the author how he arrived at this conclusion and he gave links in the comments that follow the article to a blog posting of his own which asserts the same thing, and which also shows the charts he generated in Excel, whereby he came to his conclusion. He could point to no scientific source of information for the assertions he made. Talk about an insult to our intelligence. This article isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on!
I’ve been corresponding with the opinion editor of the Camera, complaining about the low quality of this piece. So far she hasn’t been persuaded by my argument… It’s difficult to believe this is happening in the same town where NCAR and NIST are located. Personally I think it’s embarrassing.

@Phil…
It looks like the Spam filter might be holding up your posts because of the links. When I make a post and it doesn’t immediately show up as awaiting moderation, I follow it up with a post like this…
Mod’s – I think the Spam filter grabbed my last post because of the links it included.
It sometimes takes a little while, but the posts are almost always allowed.
It also seems that by using the Href HTML Code, the Spam filter is more likely to allow a post.

Phil. (18:49:51) : These spectra appear to be taken at low pressure. It would be interesting to see a series at different pressures.

Pragmatic:
“Offering computer model projections that fail to meet observations is not even pseudo-science. It is computer gaming.”
I remember Bob Carter saying this about a computer model projection, that it was “Playstation 4 stuff”.
I’ve been wondering though, since I watched Kay’s presentation, about the use of computer models for projections, and this seems to get into a different area. I was talking about a different context because it seems to me the AGW promoters have been using computer models in an attempt to carry out scientific investigation, which is deeply flawed.
Meteorologists use atmospheric models to help them make projections, but they do not use them to make projections. It used to be that economists used computer models of the economy the same way, but given what we learned in the latest economic collapse it sounds like they’ve been used to make economic projections, which is scary, and this situation shows how wrong they were.
It seems to me that it depends on what kind of phenomenon you model. For example, if one were to construct a gravity simulator, one could use it with reasonable accuracy to project the paths of comets and asteroids, with the understanding that some error will be introduced by the model. We can think of the model as a scientific instrument for making projections, and as with all instruments, some error is introduced into observations. It seems to me the reason this can be done is that a gravitational system can be modeled in a linear deterministic fashion, despite the fact that there will be multiple forces acting on any one object. It’s always important, even in a model like this, to inspect its internals for what, if any, assumptions are being made.
The atmosphere (and an economy) cannot be modeled this way, because the element of chaos comes into it. We cannot project exactly the way a clump of molecules will interact, and the error grows, probably exponentially with time.
I think if one is doing projections they are not doing science. They are rather (hopefully) using what science has found in order to enhance our ability to respond to something. I refer to my earlier comments about how climate models have been constructed. If I were to assume the best of intentions behind their methodology it would still be flawed: that they use the assumption that just because they’ve tweaked a model to accurately predict climate in the recent past, even though their model does not contain a complete set of atmospheric influence factors, it will do so in the future. That’s wishful thinking.

Do we remediate soot any differently from C02? I guess we burn fossil fuels more efficiently, turning it into CO2.
Is the heating from soot more or less than CO2?