UPDATED: This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Originally the translation was from Google translation with some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases by myself. Now as of Sept 12, the translation is by Nigel Calder. Hat tip to Carsten Arnholm of Norway for bringing this to my attention and especially for translation facilitation by Ágúst H Bjarnason – Anthony
Translation approved by Henrik Svensmark
While the Sun sleeps
Henrik Svensmark, Professor, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable,” writes Henrik Svensmark.
The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance that has for us on Earth.
If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.
Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.
But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger.
It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age.
The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.
You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.
Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.
When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.
That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.
Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.
First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.
Then came the criticism that the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically.
It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in space.
So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.
That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”
In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.
The outcome may be that the Sun itself will demonstrate its importance for climate and so challenge the theories of global warming. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable. A forecast saying it may be either warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, and science is not yet able to predict solar activity.
So in many ways we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting. I think it is important to accept that Nature pays no heed to what we humans think about it. Will the greenhouse theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate challenges will be quite different from the greenhouse theory’s predictions. Perhaps it will become fashionable again to investigate the Sun’s impact on our climate.
–
Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book The Chilling Stars has also been published in Danish as Klima og Kosmos Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508)
Sponsored IT training links:
Interested in CISA certification? We offer complete collection of dumps questions to successfully pass NS0-163 and 642-566 exam.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Mike Bryant:
Well, they don’t have to keep quiet but they might try coming up with actual scientific arguments rather than just repeating the same old tired scientifically-untenable talking points!
And, I think you last part about “worldwide socialistic government” really just re-enforces my point that most “skeptics” doubt global warming because they don’t like the policy implications (although I am sure that they believe that they doubt it for legitimate scientific reasons, just as the doubters of evolution do).
Smokey says:
On that point, we may agree. By failing to distinguish real science from junk science, you guys are making yourselves completely irrelevant to both the scientific and policy discussion about climate change…so maybe I should just leave you be!
Joel, please don’t leave us!
You provide lots ‘n’ lots of hits, keeping the traffic so far ahead of the alarmist blogs that they’ll never catch up; you convince no one here because the planet is laughing at your global warming hubris, and it’s so much fun thinking about all the time you’re cheating your boss out of.
So stick around. Write an article, even.
Joel Shore (12:39:23) :
Phlogiston: I don’t know what to say about your diatribe
Joel Shore (17:28:00) :
…so maybe I should just leave you be!
——————————-
I know what to say.
Joel, he just handed you your ass, so leaving him/us be would be an appropriate response.
Having said that, however, many readers are waiting for you to give us a de novo article (not a collection of links) explaining carbon dioxide-induced global warming, that is based on empirical evidence. In other words, the article should not include the words “model” or “models”.
….. and then when you’re done with that, can you also give us a molecular mechanism for how that portion of carbon dioxide that is anthropogenic can also cause climate change ??
Pretty, pretty please
Smokey, that link was not a very good resource. Here’s why:
Pluto – it’s moving to its outside orbit. If the sun was producing the warming observed during this period, it would have to be pretty intense to affect a planet that far out. We’re much closer. We’d be dead.
Jupiter – the article says that heat is being transferred from one part of the planet to another. There is no mention of overall heat increase of the planet itself
Mars – link no longer works, and I believe that has been explained without dramatic increase in the sun’s output.
Storm On Saturn – Again, link doesn’t work.
Titan – See Pluto.
Only the last two articles, the ones about the sun’s output, can be valid. But the warming planets… not very useful to the debate..
Sonicfrog,
I was just trying to help, so I gave you the one link I had. You said “I have never been able to confirm that those planets are warming at all. Looked everywhere for confirmation. Even asked some here to provide the evidence of the other planets warming.”
At least that link provides evidence of some of the planets [and the moon Titan] warming.
You’re right, it could be just a coincidence. But I notice they didn’t show the planets cooling.
Also that link was from three years ago, when the Sun was still active. Look at what’s happened since: click. The Sun is very quiet now.
Try doing a search in the WUWT search box for “sun”. Go back a few pages, and you’ll start to see the pattern. The Sun has a huge influence over the Solar System. And something switched off in the Sun a few years ago. Outer planets may no longer be warming. But several years ago the Sun was much hotter.
Sonicfrog: Glad to see you are skeptical about the other planets argument.
And, of course, the problem with claiming that other planets are warming for the same reason as the Earth is that the solar output is quite well-measured recently. That is why people who want to hold the sun responsible for terrestrial climate change have had to appeal to exotic mechanisms like the sun’s modulation of intergalactic cosmic rays on the nucleation of clouds. And, such mechanisms are unlikely to play the same role on planets (or moons) with very different atmospheres than Earth.
philincalifornia says:
What…Do you think that the molecules of carbon dioxide that are anthropogenic in origin somehow behave different than the others? The understanding of how CO2 absorbs infrared radiation dates back a long ways…and the basic radiative effect for the atmosphere has been understood for decades. (See http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm for a historical introduction.) The only part really remaining to be fully understood is the effect of feedbacks in the climate system.
Smokey says:
Interesting that you think it was MUCH hotter. Here is a plot of the variations in solar irradiance due to the solar cycle: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Solar-cycle-data.png Since you seem to feel that plots of rising CO2 levels are deceiving if you don’t start the y-axis at 0ppm, you presumably would feel similar about this and might try replotting this with the y-axis going down to 0. I can guarantee you that, if you do that, you may not think the sun was MUCH hotter several years ago. The irradiance was less than 0.1% higher.
Joel,
Tornadoes increasing?…. Nahhhh
Hurricanes?……. Nahhhh
Global sea ice disappearing?…….. Nahhhhhh
The Himalayan glaciers shrinking?…… Nahhhhhh
Earth warming?………….. Nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
We’re not children… Run along and peddle your doomsday scenarios elsewhere…
Mike
Joel Shore:
And hence, our perturbation to the atmospheric concentrations will persist for thousands of years
That is clearly not correct. The rate of increase of CO2 is currently around 2PPM/yr, yet the slope of greatest monthly increase or decrease is on the order of 10x that fast. So the fast components of the carbon cycle have the ability to completely overwhelm the slower reacting components. Any perturbation we may cause will be balanced by the faster reacting components extremely quickly. The lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 9 years, though you can pick any study you like, there are 20 or 30 showing 9±4 years. The notion of a thousand year effect is technically correct I suppose, but the effect will be something on the order of e^(-1000/9), or about 6E-49.
That would be something like the mass of 60 hydrogen atoms compared to the mass of the earth, just so you know. Some perturbation that’s going to cause, (it’s worse than I thought). Here’s an interesting graphic depicting a (laughable) 100 year residence time compared to peer reviewed studies:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi
Joel Shore (19:03:46) :
philincalifornia says:
….. and then when you’re done with that, can you also give us a molecular mechanism for how that portion of carbon dioxide that is anthropogenic can also cause climate change ??
What…Do you think that the molecules of carbon dioxide that are anthropogenic in origin somehow behave different than the others?
——————————-
Joel, just so you know, I’ve been a professional scientist for 32 years, and people like you don’t fool people like me.
So no, unlike the idiots who do think there’s a difference, and published that the half-life of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is over 1000 years, I do not think that there is any difference (possibly because I got a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry – and that would relate to carbon, at age 23).
So do you think you could stop evading the question ….. ??
To help you, let me phrase it in more simplistic terms:
YOU tell us what the carbon dioxide levels would be on September 22nd, 2009 without any anthropogenic carbon dioxide (a), then tell us what it is with the anthropogenic component (b). Then subtract (a) from (b) and tell us how that difference causes “anthropogenic climate change” …
… at the molecular level please.
Please, pretty please.
Get your numbers right, because if you don’t, there will be more than just me lining up to rip your head off (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Joel,
You may be interested in this map that shows mid-tropospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide worldwide. It shows that excess concentrations of carbon dioxide are localized to the area where they are produced. Almost all of the anthropogenic CO2 is gone after its first pass over an ocean. Note that the CO2 produced in California is used up by plants before it reaches the Ohio valley. This shows that anthropogenic CO2 production is minor compared to natural sources and sinks and that residence times in the atmosphere are short.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_833.html
Smokey, I’m very much in tune with the latest research suggesting the sun has a bigger role than models suggest. I’m not arguing that variation in solar output couldn’t contribute, but not in a way that could warm the outer planets. As I said, if solar radiation were responsible for the warming on Pluto, or even Jupiter, we would fry. Joel may dismiss the more complex theories of solar forcing in climate, but there is an awful lot of new research that indicates more solar forcing than there is on the models.
That said, it makes no sense to cling to easily disproved meme’s such as the warming planets thing.
Joel Shore
OK my last post was a bit too long, I got carried away.
But I dont “belittle the science because I dont like the policy implications”. I already said earlier I am in favour of reducing atmospheric and other pollution, effectively (but sensibly). Many others here agree. We’re criticising science where we dont like the science.
I take the meaning of “inductive” and “deductive” as Karl Popper used them. If the words have drifted in meaning since then I dont recognise a drifted meaning of these words, at least concerning epistemology. (Smokey also takes something very close to the original Popperian meaning of these words.)
Let the old man speak for himself:
“I am of a different opinion. I hold with Hume that there simply is no such logical entity as an inductive inference; or, that all so-called inductive inferences are logically invalid – and even inductively invalid, to put it more sharply. We have many examples of deductively valid inferences, and even some partial criteria of deductive validity; but no example of an inductively valid inference exists.
…The belief that we use induction is simply a mistake. It is a kind of optical illusion. What we do use is a method of trial and the examination of error; however misleadingly this method may look like induction, its logical structure, if we examine it closely, totally differs from that of induction. Moreover, it is a method which does not give rise to any of the difficulties connected with the problem of induction.
…Let me point this out first for the best kind of human knowledge we have; that is, for scientific knowledge. I assert that scientific knowledge is essentially conjectural or hypothetical.
Take as an example classical Newtonian mechanics. There never was a more successful theory. If repeated observational success could establish a theory, it would have established Newton’s theory. Yet Newton’s theory was superseded in the field of astronomy by Einstein’s theory, and in the atomic field by quantum theory. And almost all physicists think now that Newtonian classical mechanics is no more than a marvellous conjecture, a strangely successful hypothesis, and a staggeringly good approximation to the truth.
I can now formulate my central thesis, which is this. Once we fully realize the implications of the conjectural character of human knowledge, then the problem of induction changes its character completely. …We can explain all our achievements in terms of the method of trial and the elimination of error. To put it in a nutshell, our conjectures are our trial balloons, and we test them by criticizing them and by trying to replace them – by trying to show that there can be better or worse conjectures, and that they can be improved upon. The place of the problem of induction is usurped by the problem of the comparative goodness or badness of the rival conjectures or theories that have been proposed.”
Leif Svalgaard (16:33:25) :
Gerry (14:48:35) :
The first paper of Session 4 in the upcoming SOHO23 conference (http://www.soho23.org/) looks especially relevant to Dr. Svensmark’s findings
I don’t think so, as the cosmic ray intensity is not markedly different this minimum from all previous minima where we have data [back to 1952]. When comparing cosmic ray stations, remember that different stations show slightly different variations and one must look at many to see the correct pattern. It is like measuring temperature, you cannot just look at one place and say that is representative of the whole globe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edward Smith of JPL wrote
“Compared to the previous four minima that took place since continuous measurements by spacecraft began, the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) strength and solar wind pressure have decreased to new lows. The field is about 20 % weaker than in the previous minimum and the solar wind pressure is correspondingly low principally as a result of a decrease in density.”
Granted, the cosmic ray data is quite variable from station to station. Are you saying, Leif, that the low HMF strength and low solar wind pressure are not, either theoretically or actually, causing any discernible increase in cosmic ray intensity compared with other minima? Or is it that the cosmic ray measurements have so much scatter and variation from station to station that any increase is masked by the data noise?
Joel
I’m not convinced that other planets are warming-the data for this planet is scarce enough, let alone for ones millions of miles away.
you said;
“I think you last part about “worldwide socialistic government” really just re-enforces my point that most “skeptics” doubt global warming because they don’t like the policy implications (although I am sure that they believe that they doubt it for legitimate scientific reasons, just as the doubters of evolution do).”
Earlier in this thread we had quite a discussion about ‘motives’ and each one of us contributing disagreed and cited the reasons. I think you are revisiting your old stereotype (despite my unpaid tutelage) and am still not making a distinction between a ‘sceptic’ and a ‘denier.’
You also said;
“And hence, our perturbation to the atmospheric concentrations will persist for thousands of years.”
I had not expected you to say that without a heavy qualfication, in as much only a tiny fraction of the co2 contribution will remain for thousands of years.
We have been having a long dscussion with Ferdinand on this (on another ‘dead’ thread!) -search this site for “NSIDC still pushing..”
Perhaps you might like to confirm where Ferdinand has gone so wrong-the number of studies that support your contention is tiny.
Needless to say Joel, I certainly would not want you to leave the site. We all enjoy our discussions with you even though some are more forthright of their opinion of your information than others.
tonyb
Phlogiston, I can suggest that designers, on the whole, use trial and error. They have an inspiration, a wild conjecture, that the building could be L-shaped, or the kettle could be powered wirelessly, or the garment could be made of fluff collected from washing machines, and then they spend the week trying to figure out the details. After a week they discover 50 reasons why it won’t work, and so they dream up a new idea, a new conjecture, using what they already learnt in the previous week about the problems. The good designers are the ones who will throw out ideas that other designers would have been satisfied with. The mediocre products, the ones that don’t quite work or feel right, are the products approved by lesser designers who didn’t notice the faults, or ran out of time.
It is a highly uncertain process, but it really helps to have an eye for what should be thrown out.
The mediocre and bad designers are the ones who can’t see the faults, or just stand there defending their work by dismissing criticisms as “nitpicking”.
Anyway, that’s one example of trial and error. Perhaps that’s why I find the narrative of “a gradual accumulation of evidence by experts in the field” such a strange idealized notion. I mean, it sounds more like a gradual accumulation of credentials for gradual career advancement… same sort of story. But invention? Discovery? Those are innovations. They can’t be predicted.
Michael D Smith says (and TonyB and philincalifornia make similar points):
This is not correct. The fate of a slug of CO2 released into the atmosphere is much more complicated than can be accounted for by a single lifetime because of the buffering chemistry in the ocean. As a result, the process of the decay of the CO2 concentration back to its original value after the release of a slug of CO2 is highly non-exponential. The book to read about this is David Archer’s “The Long Thaw”.
Basically, it works like this: Some of the CO2 released invades the oceans but eventually, the ocean waters become more acidic to the point where they no longer absorb the CO2 (in net). At this point, 20-40% of the initial release of CO2 remains in the atmosphere. Then, one has to wait around on the order of 2000-10000 years, the timescales associated with dissolving enough CaCO_3 out of rocks in order to neutralize the oceans and allow further absorption of CO2. Even that does not get rid of all of the CO2 perturbation (somewhere on the order of 10-15% remains), with the rest having to wait for reaction with igneous rocks, which has a timescale on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.
philincalifornia says:
The current level of CO2 is approaching 390ppm, which is 110ppm above the pre-industrial baseline. So, the anthropogenic component is 110ppm (and would be higher if the oceans and biosphere hadn’t absorbed about half of our emissions). This difference causes anthropogenic climate change because the radiative forcing due to CO2 is approximately logarithmic in atmospheric concentration with a value of ~4 W/m^2 for each doubling of CO2 levels.
By the way, if you don’t want to find Archer’s book, a brief summary of how the CO2 decays is given here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/ with plenty of references into the scientific literature.
Joel Shore,
Please don’t link to that pathetic no-account, George Soros-funded science fiction site. If you think you’re credible, write your own article.
To bring you up to speed on CO2, this will assist you: click.
Smokey,
Whatever. You are welcome to just ignore the accepted science in the field if it doesn’t strike your fancy. Just don’t expect anyone in the field or any policymakers who want to know what the science says to take you seriously.
By the way, how is that plot of the irradiance over a solar cycle coming (you know, the one with the irradiance starting at zero so it is not deceptive as you seem to believe all plots that don’t start at zero are)? Does it show that “several years ago the Sun was much hotter” as you claimed?
“Joel Shore:
This difference causes anthropogenic climate change because the radiative forcing due to CO2 is approximately logarithmic in atmospheric concentration with a value of ~4 W/m^2 for each doubling of CO2 levels.”
Reply:
I’ve not come across that one before !!!
The effect of more CO2 DECLINES logarithmically and it is suggested by some that we are already at the limit of the warming that CO2 can achieve.
No, the AGW theory relies on amplification of the CO2 effect from more water vapour in the air.
However the oceans fail to change the Earth’s temperature when they try to change the amount of water vapour in the air on a hugely greater scale so why would CO2 in tiny amounts be more successful ?
In fact the variable speed of the hydrological cycle keeps global humidity in a narrow band and so prevents the consequences that have been proposed.
The oceans rule in tandem with the sun. The air is just along for the ride but in the process of riding the oceanic roller coaster it can rapidly slough off the variations in energy flow emanating from the oceans by changing the rate of energy transfer from surface to space.
Joel Shore
The IPCC models use the Bern and ISAM models (but other models are in use too), see for the Bern model: http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/model_description/model_description.html
This from Ferdinand Engelbeen;
“The Bern model uses a mix of half life times, depending of the type of sink and as the longest gives a remainder of thousands of years for the last 10% of excess CO2 in the atmosphere, that gives extremely long average half life times. Even if that is so, what the IPCC does forget to tell you is that the extreme long life times are only for the last 10% and that 80% of the excess CO2 is already gone in less than 150 years
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/17/nsidc-still-pushing-ice-free-arctic-summers/#more-10921
You provided a link to Real Climate and I have read all the papers (that were still live)
Much of it seems to revolve round highly theoretical studies by David Archer in which he does a Mann and quotes his own previous articles as references.
The RC article evoked comments;
“A quick read of your paper (reference 7) brought up some questions.
The statement is made that “Atmospheric pCO2 approaches equilibrium on a time scale of ~300yr”. In none of your model scenarios involving realistic near-term Carbon releases (1000 gigatonnes or less, based on the consideration that the 1990-1999 release is estimated in IPCC TAR to be 6.3 gigatonnes per year) does more than 20% of the injected CO2 remain in the atmosphere for 1000 years. It is based on these considerations that reasonable people consider the bulk of the CO2 to have a century scale life cycle in the atmosphere.
Your model seems not to take into account the terrestrial sinks for CO2. When your model neglects the Calcium Carbonate processes and silicate weathering, it predicts that there will be *NO* change in atmospheric CO2 after the ~300y ocean uptake is complete. Is this a reasonable assumption?
While it is a very important point for the lay person to know that the acidification of the ocean by CO2 (it combines with water to produce dilute Carbonic Acid) can reduce the effectiveness of the Calcium Carbonate processes at sequestering Carbon (and can even reverse it, by dissolving Calcium Carbonate), your model chemistry seems quite simplistic. No mention is made of the myriad of other processes (some of which operate on short time scales) whereby the acidity of the ocean is neutralized without involving CaCO3. How robust is your ocean chemistry model?”
And
“Your finding of a “long tail” to the remaining 7 to 20% of the CO2 seems to hinge entirely on the ocean-acidity/CaCO3 argument and a neglect of other chemical and terrestrial sequestration processes which operate on short time scales”.
David Archer then spends much time defending his findings, including against Ferdinand and Hans Erren who said;
“I don’t think it is justified, given the noisy data to assume a mechanism other than a first order Fick’s diffusion.
Using a simple first order Fick’s law diffusion fit on the emissions and concentrations
1958-2002 yieds – with an equilibrium value of 280 ppm – a diffusion constant of 0.98135.
The 2002 level is 373 ppm (excess of 93 ppm above 280 ppm)
1) Stopping emissions completely in 2002 gives values of 320 ppm in 2050 and 297 in 2100, which is a decimation of already 82% in 98 years.
2) reducing emissions with 2% per annum gives a peak of 391 ppm in 2028 and a reduction to 348 ppm in 2100
3) holding emissions at 2002 level gives a growth to 428 ppm in 2050 and 453 in 2100
4) increasing emissions annually with 1% gives 463 ppm in 2050 and 596 ppm in 2100
The emission trend of the last 55 years shows an unintentional decreasing emission growth. No SRES scenario assumes a continuation of the current decreasing trend.”
see:
http://hanserren.cwhoutwijk.nl/co2/co2fick.xls
In short, David Archer was given a hard time defending his speculative theory which you have cited as fact. Why not follow the WUWT link given above and make a contribution, as the Real climate link you posted is not as definitive as you believe.
best regards
Tonyb
Joel
With respect, having read a lot more of his work, I think you have taken too much notice of David Archers theory which Real Climate has enthusiastically latched onto . I really think you are wrong on this one.
tonyb
Stephen Wilde:
Really? Even Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen accept that a doubling of CO2 produces ~4 W/m^2 forcing.
Your last statement makes no sense at all. There is no limit to a logarithmic function. The function y = A log(x) + B has the property that each time you double x, you change y by the same amount. That is why scientists talk about the forcing or temperature change due to doubling CO2 rather than, say, due to increasing CO2 by a given additive amount (like 100ppm). A fractional change (of which a doubling is one particular example) is the natural thing to talk about when you have a logarithmic dependence.
What stays approximately constant is relative humidity, not the absolute humidity. So, as warming occurs due to the CO2, it causes the evaporation of more water vapor which then causes further warming. This is what climate models predict and this is what the empirical data in fact show to be happening. (See, e.g., http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;323/5917/1020 and http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;310/5749/841 )
TonyB: I don’t see where anything in what Ferdinand Engelbeen says in that WUWT thread contradicts what I have said. In fact, the main point that he makes is that Smokey’s 5.3 year residence time is an entirely incorrect number to use to estimate how long the perturbation will remain in the atmosphere.
This is the statement that I made (based on David Archer’s book):
and this is what Ferdinand says:
I don’t see any contradictions. Ferdinand seems to have taken the lower estimate of ~20% rather than my number of 20-40% that survives after the ocean invasion. And, he talks about the last 10% whereas I put it at 10-15%. But, otherwise, we basically agree and we both disagree strongly with the claim that Smokey made there and here and Michael D Smith made here that the relevant decay time is only 5-10 years.