I’m off this weekend – talk quietly and politely amongst yourselves. Don’t make me come back here.
If you have something worth posting on the front page, flag a moderator. In the meantime I have a couple of stories that will post using the WordPress scheduler. – Anthony
Smokey says:
And, the gravitational force due to my mass has an affect on that plate sitting across the room. But, it ain’t a very large effect and can safely be ignored. At any rate, I am quite sure that if these effects are found to be at all reasonable then they are included in the radiative calculations.
I have no clue what the point you are trying to make is.
Joel Shore (21:08:33) :
Dave Dodd says:
BS^^4 AGW violates the Second law of Thermodynamics: somehow the cooler air forces the already warmer earth to increase its temperature even more?? That would ONLY be possible if CO2 were a one-way mirror at IR frequencies!
You guys really don’t do your reputation in the scientific community any good by perpetuating these crazy claims of Gerlich and Tscheuschner.
Sorry, I don’t claim any “reputation in the scientific community.” I have no idea who Gerlich and Tscheuschner are, but I DO have six decades of empirical evidence that heat ALWAYS flows from the warmer medium to the cooler.
It should be noted that the “greenhouse effect” itself does not exist within a glass greenhouse: no radiation is trapped therein to heat the air, the trapped air is simply heated by convection from the contained solid surfaces (which are heated by absorbing the sun’s IR radiation). That fact is readily discerned since the air temperature can never exceed that of the warmest surface within the “greenhouse”, or closed car, or steel storage tank, for that matter.
If the trapped air were somehow warmer than any of the solid surfaces, our energy worries would be over! That is exactly what you claim atmospheric CO2 does: in your view, there is more heat energy in the atmosphere when the sun shines than there is in the solid structure of the earth. Or put another way, the downwelling IR (from CO2 re-radiation) should show a diurnal cycle.
I say balderdash! Show me the diurnal signal in the downwelling IR for ANY location on the earth — it AIN’T there! Nor is AGW a demonstrable (falsifiable) hypothesis as required by the Scientific Method. AGW is therefore BS to the 4th power!
I’m with Smokey. The Sun irradiates the Earth with an awful lot more 15 micron IR radiation each day than the Earth attempts to emit at night. So the AGW argument says that at night the emitted 15 micron radiation is absorbed by CO2 and because it is emitted in a random direction only half escapes to space and the rest slows night-time cooling.
If this process is climatically relevant, then it’s effect during the day would be to reradiate half the Sun’s incoming 15 micron infra-red straight back to space before it could warm the Earth.
So Smokey is right, Any greenhouse or blanket effect keeping infra-red in at night must be keeping out an awful lot more from the day’s sunlight.
Joel Shore (21:37:59) :
Smokey says:
At any rate, I am quite sure that if these effects are found to be at all reasonable then they are included in the radiative calculations.
——————
Well, are they or aren’t they ??
Phone a friend.
I went fishing on another WUWT thread and didn’t get a nibble. Since this weekend open thread is already touching on ocean/atmosphere exchanges of both heat energy and gases, I’ll try pushing the discussion toward some thoughts that have evolved as I’ve tried to digest the AGW discussion for the past 30 years.
My hypothesis:
a) A graph of the three [best-agreed, 200 year] data sets shows there is no correlation between CO2 increase, atmospheric temperatures, and fossil fuel consumption.
b) The rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 (from a vague value somewhere below 280 ppm, 200 years ago) was steady until ~1965, when the rate increased about 25% and has been steady for the past 45 years. (Why the relatively abrupt change? Someone can get a grant and make a career!)
c) The Vostok core studies tell us that CO2 increases lag temperature increases by 700-800 years.
d) The MWP peaked about 1200 AD.
e) The oceans can, and do, hold far more CO2 than the atmosphere.
f) Warm water retains less CO2 than cold water.
g) Therefore, by undefined and unexamined natural processes, the MWP slowly warmed deeper water allowing release of CO2, which is only now emerging and being noted. Such a release would be so defuse that it would be near impossible to detect, particularly if you were looking at auto tailpipes.
My last physics course was about 50 years ago. I follow WUWT and other sites for continuing education, but some of the math and methods remain beyond my grasp.
Any clarification, even refutation, will be welcome. I don’t believe this process is unique to my brain, yet I’ve never seen it presented or discussed.
Paul Vaughan (20:51:57) : “I’m still working on this, but here’s something to consider:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/DRAFT_VaughanPL2009CO_TPM_SSD_LNC.htm”
It all looks very interesting. When you have finished working on it, please tell us about it in nice simple English! Is some of it in line with Landscheidt?
Smokey (21:19:03) :
Joel Shore (20:59:43):
“The point that you are missing is that the radiation from the sun is mainly…”
Horse manure. If CO2 intercepts some of the incoming solar energy and then re-emits part of it into outer space, then CO2 has a cooling effect.
My understanding of the mechanisms is that Joel Shore has actually got this bit right – the proportion of incoming radiation at the wavelengths that CO2 intercepts is very low, but the proportion of outgoing radiation that CO2 intercepts is higher. Therefore CO2 can theoretically have a net warming effect (ka “climate sensitivity”). Correct me if I’m wrong. But I also understand it is true to say that the total effect is not great. The IPCC puts it at 3.2 deg C per doubling of CO2, but they have a completely unsubstantiated and unjustifiable use of “feedbacks” in that figure. The proper figure, ie. without “feedback”, from a paper by James Hansen (sorry no link) is from memory 1.2-1.3 and from Richard Lindzen (again sorry no link) is from memory 0.5. Given that these two guys are at opposite ends of the debate, it seems safe to expect the true figure to be between about 1/3 and 1/6 of the IPCC figure. Not enough for the burning of fossil fuels to be of any real benefit if the global cooling phase continues.
Joel Shore (10:35:32)
Thanks a lot for your input on this. Obviously I need to keep working on it. I’ll correct the logarithmic stuff and see what’s left. It’s very hard coming up with something short enough that people would be prepared to read and believe. I’m targeting friends who are not prepared to drop their AGW beliefs. You and I know it’s indoctrination by special interests but, boy, is it strong! And most people DO believe authority. I thought I’d try ‘it doesn’t matter much anyway’.
I don’t think saying CO2 doesn’t warm at all or that the warming may not exist (UHI) or there is no positive feedback will fly. The cognitive dissonance will kick in and they’ll just reject it, or it will go over their heads. Most people don’t have a dog in this fight so it’s easier for them to go along with it until they are directly inconvenienced by it.
Anyway, much appreciated, Thanks.
Weather, not climate, episode MMMLLLXCVIII
Had a great day’s spring skiing today at Mount Hutt, NZ.
Field had a massive 50cm powder dump 8/9 October (local headline ‘Freak Storm’), and a clear day today to enjoy both the pow and the views.
philincalifornia (22:54:06) :
Joel Shore (21:37:59) :
Smokey says:
At any rate, I am quite sure that if these effects are found to be at all reasonable then they are included in the radiative calculations.
——————
Well, are they or aren’t they ??
Phone a friend.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00350.htm
“As for the sun, the earth receives the full spectrum. Most of the radiation
above visible light is reflected back by the ozone layer of our atmosphere.
The ultraviolet light that does get through causes sunburn. Radio waves
don’t have enough energy to be noticed: some pass right through the earth.
The two parts of the spectrum that have greatest effect are infrared and
visible. Since visible light is such a narrow range of frequencies,
infrared does provide a great deal of the heat we receive.”
Dr. Ken Mellendorf
Illinois Central College
jimimindy (23:01:57)
I’ve previously said several times that if there is a lag of 800 years between temperature and CO2 trends then that would suggest the MWP as the cause of current rising CO2 levels.
However I’ve never taken that as conclusive for a number of reasons:
The ice core record is not necessarily reliable enough as a CO2 proxy because of all the chemical processes that could have an effect over time and the amount of disturbance involved in their recovery and analysis.
The old chemical based methods of CO2 measurement generally gave much higher and more variable readings than the readings from remote regions now relied upon. The discontinuity between those old readings and the modern readings is suspicious and needs more investigation and explanation.
Above all there is a clear annual variation in the CO2 levels caused by seasonal effects and that is a very strong indication that the residence time of CO2 in the air is very much shorter than the AGW proponents suggest.
On balance I have come to the view that the CO2 level is highly sensitive to ocean temperature and that the observed rise is actually a result of increased ocean heat content which itself arose because of a net positive balance between solar energy entering the oceans and energy then being released from oceans to air during the 20th century.
That idea can be confirmed or rebutted if the current trend in falling ocean heat content continues and then shows up as a pause or fall in CO2 levels.
I think that the rise in CO2 levels appears to have stalled for the moment so we should soon see.
Can I get a hand from every person that thinks that there is actually such a thing as a “global temperature”? And another hand from those that think that we can measure it?
JimInIndy (23:01:57) :
“[…]
b) The rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 (from a vague value somewhere below 280 ppm, 200 years ago) was steady until ~1965, when the rate increased about 25% and has been steady for the past 45 years. (Why the relatively abrupt change? Someone can get a grant and make a career!)
c) The Vostok core studies tell us that CO2 increases lag temperature increases by 700-800 years.
d) The MWP peaked about 1200 AD.
e) The oceans can, and do, hold far more CO2 than the atmosphere.
f) Warm water retains less CO2 than cold water.
g) Therefore, by undefined and unexamined natural processes, the MWP slowly warmed deeper water allowing release of CO2, which is only now emerging and being noted. Such a release would be so defuse that it would be near impossible to detect
[…]
Any clarification, even refutation, will be welcome. I don’t believe this process is unique to my brain, yet I’ve never seen it presented or discussed.”
This has troubled me too, and I’ve not seen it presented or discussed.
I don’t see how the MWP can warm deeper water, or rather I would think that surface water would be warmed more anyway which I think stuffs up the equation.
So let’s try this : Say that at some point after 1200AD peak temperature some surface water sank into the thermohaline circulation. At the time that it sank, it was a bit cooler than water that sank earlier, so had a bit more CO2 in it, but it had a bit less CO2 than water that sank later.
Fast-forward to today, when our bit of water gets to the surface again. The surface is cooler than in the past (it has been cooling since the MWP), so as our water gets to the surface it warms up a bit less than the earlier water did, so it doesn’t want to release as much CO2. OTOH it does contain more CO2 than the earlier water so it wants to release more. The equilibrium point, which maybe has to occur at some time anyway, just happens to be today. ie, yesterday’s water was a bit more influenced by not containing as much CO2, so it released less CO2 than today’s water, but tomorrow’s water will be a bit more influenced by warming up less, so it too will release less CO2 than today’s water.
?????
JimInIndy
At first sight your deduction is correct – given the documented 800 year lag for CO2 after the temperature rise, then, everything else being equal, an increase in CO2 800 years after the MWP should be observed.
But I said everything else being equal. It does not seem that way because the MWP was terminated by the LIA.
The standard model, basically the uniformist one in which we have a static system modulated by variations in solar radiance, and other physical peturbations, assumes that if the earth’s global mean surface temperature (GMST) increased during the MWP, and remained static, then on the data, CO2 in the atmosphere should then rise 800 years later is a valid one.
So what really terminated the MWP? According to the Koreans documented in their Choson Annals, but not duplicated elsewhere at the time, the Earth passed through a meteorite swarm, causing cooling from the blanketing effect of meteoric dust etc. This is an unpredictable cause for the climate system variation.
Other ideas involve the Milankovic cycles, sunspot activity, etc, and these are predictable causes for changes in the climate system.
So I suspect it isn’t discussed, let alone considered, because it falls into the geological time-frame, and that source of ideas about climate seems to be contaminated with the slush payments we get from Bucyrus-Eyrie, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Peabody and all other other fossil fool miners.
Hey Tallbloke:
How were you able to land your comment on big Joe Romm’s planet Progressive?
I think they allowed it to have something to poke fun at.
He tried to poke fun at WUWT a few days ago. Said that it wasn’t a “real” science website. When will he admit that his isn’t either? If his site was any farther left it would fall off of the planet! (now he will say that what I said proves that WUWT posters are flat earthers!!!)
But congrats anyway Tallbloke. At least your address hasn’t been blocked like so many others before you have been.
“Alex Cull (11:02:56) :
I second what Geoff has written: “Except that in Europe it’s ALL the mainstream parties who are wearing green”. Here in the UK, this is definitely the case, with little difference between Conservative, Labour and LibDem policies. The only political party openly sceptical about AGW is, as far as I know, UKIP (not mainstream yet, but gaining ground.)
I don’t think there’s a lack of scepticism here about AGW, just a lack of a focal point to rally round. People have tended to go along with “green” measures as long as they were innocuous and money-saving. For instance, I took advantage of a government discount on loft insulation. To save the planet? No, because it was cheap and to reduce my energy bills. It’s when people become aware that the “greener” way is going to cost them dearly, that they will sit up and take notice.
P Gosselin (02:11:30) : “I don’t see any tea parties in Britain, except the kind you have at 4 p.m.”
We’re a little slow to get going, Pierre, I’ll allow, over here. But when we do get going, it’s certainly a sight to see. Watch this space.
10
10
2009”
Oh yeah, I remember those days, painfully too. This pales in comparison to AGW taxes, but I’d suggest everyone take the French 1790’s approach (Ok the French are good for food, wine, nuclear power plants, and sticking it to the man, King Luis the 15th). Problem is, polliticians (UK, Aus, NZ etc etc) have introduced laws to counter this sort of dissent.
There is only one course of action, are we brave enough to act?
“My understanding of the mechanisms is that Joel Shore has actually got this bit right – the proportion of incoming radiation at the wavelengths that CO2 intercepts is very low, but the proportion of outgoing radiation that CO2 intercepts is higher.”
This is simply wrong. The Sun sends us much more radiation at all wavelengths than we emit. This is the physics of black body radiation and there is no frequency whose intensity goes down with rising temperature. Rising temperature may reduce the proportion of radiation at a given frequency, but always the intensity at every frequency rises with temperature.
So since the Sun is hotter than the Earth it must be sending us more CO2 infra-red than we are attempting to emit.
Any boffins point me towards estimating a day-time/nighttime ratio of 15 micron infra-red say.
gtrip (03:15:02) :
Hey Tallbloke:
How were you able to land your comment on big Joe Romm’s planet Progressive?
I keep using different valid email addresses. 😉
My followup is in moderation though. We’ll see if he wants to try the tougher questions.
===================================
tallbloke says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 11, 2009 at 4:32 am
UPDATE: Yes, I am aware of the recent upper-ocean heat content data on the web. Please note that plots of very recent, highly variable upper-ocean content heat data down to 700 meters from unpeer-reviewed sources
Joe, please explain how the deeper ocean is warmed while the upper ocean cools or stays static if the energy that it is heating it up is (allegedly) coming from longwave radiation from heightened levels of co2 in the atmosphere.
By the way, the KNMI provided data is actually the same series as used by Syd Levitus et al 2009. Let the unpeers know.
Can I point out that the BBC article being referred to is by “Climate Correspondent” Paul Hudson. Anthony will be pleased to know that Paul is a proper weatherman who has a first in Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
He also has a good sense of humour.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWboG2UDxgA&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]
Dear Moderator
Have you picked up on these
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm
Sceptisism on the BBC maybe they are preparing for the new conservative government.
Sorry if it has been picked up above
About 10 days ago cool, drier air came down into Florida. Just prior to that the day time highs had been around 91 with the night time lows around 76. With the influx of that cool, drier air the day time highs were around 88 and the night time lows got down to the upper 60’s. Then the winds shifted and the flow came out of the southwest bringing in much more tropical air with it’s higher humidity. Now the day time highs are again around 91 and the night time lows back around 76. The point being that the drier air allowed the night time temperatures to get into the 60’s and the more humid air prevents that. I am talking about a 7-9 degree temperature difference at night solely due to water vapor levels. Water vapor clearly overwhelms any CO2 effects.
The Goracle ran into a little resistance in, of all places. uber liberal Madison WI.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_dacf39c7-c2f8-5718-a5a0-d0cfb39f80bc.html
Part of the reason may be that it has been below 32 degrees for the last 2 nights which is pretty cold for this time of year. If I had been in town Friday, there would have been 201 protestors.
I’m still trying to find out if he came to town on a broom stick or a high carbon footprint personal jet.
GOP Traitors
Another GOP Turncoat ala Arlen Specter: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) officially endorses Kerry-Boxer Bill! ‘Climate change is real and threatens our economy and national security’
Graham: ‘Yes We Can Pass Climate Legislation’ — ‘Work together to address an urgent crisis facing the world’
Email link for GOP Sen. Graham’s DC Office – Ph. 202-224-5972 – Graham’s SC office 864-250-1417 — SC GOP HQ Ph. 803-988-8440
Give him hell.
If you go here:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
You’ll see that CO2 was at 315.99 in Aug, 1958.
It was 315.86 in Aug, 1959.
It Decreased by 0.13 ppm during that 12 month period.
There are several, such, 12 month periods of decreasing CO2 levels in the “sixties,” and one 18 month period of decreasing CO2 levels.
Without Watts I have no energy. 🙁
Either the LIA wasn’t as cold as we think it was, or the CO2 data from the Ice Cores is completely flawed.
There Cannot be a “straight line” from one thousand years ago, to present.