With some hubub recently over the 350.org day (designed to highlight the opinion that we must return the Earth to a 350 parts per million atmospheric CO2 level) I thought it might be a good idea to have a look at what the reversal might gain us.
For this, I’m drawing on the excellent guest post made by Bill Illis here on 11/25/2008 titled:
Adjusting Temperatures for the ENSO and the AMO
One of the graphs (along with a model in a zip file) that Bill presented in that guest post was this graph, which I’ve annotated to show the 350 PPM desired by activists, versus the 388 PPM (MLO seasonally corrected value) where we are now:
Here is the same graph, annotated again with intersecting lines and values, and zoomed on the areas of interest.
Depending on whether you believe the models or the actual observations determines what value would be gained from a reduction to 350 PPM.
For belief in the models we’d get approximately 0.5°C drop in temperature.
For belief in the observations (RSS HadCRUT3 data) we’d get approximately 0.3°C drop in temperature.
Split the difference if you don’t like either and call it 0.4°C.
The key point here is that to get to 350PPM, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish. Alternate energy just hasn’t risen to the challenge yet, and the world populace that depends on electricity isn’t likely to tolerate shutting down their energy use to get there.
China and India have said they won’t go along with suggested reductions, and are coming up with their own ideas prior to Copenhagen. Thus is the quandary faced by 350.org supporters.
As a side note, the 350PPM target was Dr. Jim Hansen’s idea:
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
Since Hansen can’t even predict the effect of climate change 20 years out in his own neighborhood, one wonders why some people take the 350 PPM target suggestion seriously.
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The great thing about a single target like this is that it’s SIMPLE. Politicians always say they need something SIMPLE to sell. And they might think that 350ppm would be simple.
Well would it?
1. Who would measure it?
2. Where would they measure it?
3. What people might try sabotaging it or releasing carbon dioxide nearby?
4. What time of year would they measure it?
5. How many instruments would they use?
Well, it’s not that hard in theory.
But the problem lies in how to get there.
Do we have a clue how to do that?
No.
1. If the oceans warm as we do reduction, will we just cause release from ocean into atmosphere, thereby maintaining an equilibrium where we are?
2. If we’re in cooling cycle and we get there, how long before it goes up again with warming oceans?
3. If we keep cutting trees down at a rate of knots, will that prevent any good from anything else we are doing?
All those things are going to require huge, global coordination. Are we capable of such centralised control of our entire global economy??
Do we want to??
350 PPM gives us two things:
1) jack
2) squat
Very expensive “jack squat”!
Facts about CO2:
CO2 it is not black, but trasparent and invisible
CO2 is the gas you exhale. You exhale about 900 grams a day of CO2
CO2 that you exhale is what plants breath to give you back O2 (oxygen) for you to breath. Then it is neither a pollutant nor a poison, it even rejuvenates!!!:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1485258/carbon_dioxide_therapy_carboxy_therapy_pg2_pg2.html?cat=69
CO2 is heavier than air, it doesn´t fly up, up and away CO2 is a trace gas in the atmosphere, it is the 0.038 per cent of it, or 3.8 parts per ten thousand.
The atmosphere, the air you know, does not have the capacity to “hold” enough heat, it only “saves” 0.001297 joules per cubic centimeter, while water , the sea you know, has 3227 times that capacity (4.186 joules).
Would you warm your feet with a bottle filled with air or filled with hot water?
The so called “Greenhouse effect” does not exist, see:
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
But if you have been cheated to the core and still believe in it, think the following:
Svante Arrhenius, the guy of the greenhouse effect, said he thought CO2 acted as the “window panes” of a green-house, but as its concentration in atmosphere it is just 3.8 per ten thousand, you would have a greenhouse with 3.8 window panes and 9996.2 empty holes.
Real greenhouses and carbon dioxide:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
Just a few quotes from that site, which is information for people who grow things in actual greenhouses, and wish to maximize the growth of the plants:
“For the majority of greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases as CO2 levels increase from 340–1,000 ppm (parts per million).” [So perhaps 1000 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere is a better goal for us to get to]
“Ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume. All plants grow well at this level but as CO2 levels are raised by 1,000 ppm photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. Any actively growing crop in a tightly clad greenhouse with little or no ventilation can readily reduce the CO2 level during the day to as low as 200 ppm.”
“As a rule of thumb, a drop in carbon dioxide levels below ambient has a stronger effect than supplementation above ambient.” [In other words, the plants are using a chemical reaction that takes raw materials and produces food products for the plant. As with nearly any chemical reaction, an abundance of the raw chemicals gives a more efficient reaction. In the case of plants: Light, heat, and carbon dioxide.]
icarus:reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 would certainly not “disastrously reduce agricultural productivity”.
No, what would disastrously reduce agricultural productivity is farming without TRACTORS and COMBINES, which run on DEISEL FUEL, which is a fossil fuel, which we can’t use anymore if we’re going to make any kind of serious effort at reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 ppm.
From Vincent
Criticism is easy. Why don’t you show these things you are asking others to do?
—————
It’s easy to show because CO2 isn’t quite a direct correlation to temperature. CO2 does hold in extra energy over a longer time period, but the true effector is the ocean. A simple test is if we totally removed all GHG’s from the atmosphere, the ocean doesn’t instantly freeze up into a snow ball earth the very next day. So there is a delay in connection to CO2 affecting temperature increases. Saying if we go back to 350ppm we will go back to that spot on the graph is false. Over time 350ppm will end up being about 2C increase by 2100. Really both sides of the argument shouldn’t use graphs because the main argument today is about negative and positive feedbacks and they can not be graphed.
For Icarus and Mike McMillan, on CO2 and crop yields:
Neither of you are quite correct. Yes, improved hybrids, irrigation, and genetic modification have played a part in increased crop yields over the past few decades. But Co2 has played a part as well, in the direct sense of fertilizing the crops. But, if you accept the notion that CO2 causes warming, then there is also an additional, INDIRECT, benefit to crop yields. Warmer weather means crops can be planted earlier. Between 1980 and 2006, the date at which corn planting in the US was 50% complete shifted nearly two weeks earlier in the year (based on calculations from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s weekly “Crop Progress” release; the last three years have seen the 50%-planted date shift to later again, in response to the recent cooling). Earlier planting means the crop has more time to grow and produce, and more heat units to do so. It also means less chance of the crop being killed, at the end of the season due to a freeze, because the crop will be more likely to be harvested before the freeze.
As for “excessive” heat hurting crops, that’s just not an issue. Not in a global sense anyway. Agronomists have very reliable formulas for estimating all growth stages of corn based on accumulated heat units. These formulas show positive effects for growth and development from temperature increases throughout the range of 50 to 92 degrees of AVERAGE daily temperature. And though the benefits of additional heat stop at 90 degrees, the formulas show no negative effects at temperatures above 90 degrees. And these formulas are dead-on accurate for predicting crop growth and development. They wouldn’t be if there was some physiological negative effect that kicked in at temperatures above 90 degrees.
Now, if “excessive” heat were accompanied by drought, that could be a problem for crops. And, in some areas of the world, you might have such a bad combination. But on a global scale, increased warmth will mean increased evaporation, which will in turn mean increased rainfall. So, for the planet as a whole, heat accompanied by drought will be the exception, not the rule. For most of the planet, the “excessive heat” will be accompanied by more rainfall. And for those areas where that’s not true, keep in mind that the extra carbon dioxide will enable crops to use the limited water supply more efficiently. And if that’s not enough, there’s always irrigation. And if even that’s not enough, then farmers could simply stop growing corn in those areas that are too dry. The increased rainfall and increased yields in other areas will more than make up for such minimal losses.
Finally, even if high temperatures were bad for crops, that would only be the case during the hottest part of the summer, and in the hottest corn-growing areas. Areas like Illinois and Iowa, where most of the US’s corn crop is grown, are not likely to see very many 100+ degree days, even if temperatures rise 2-3 degrees. We’re talking about areas like Texas. But the thing is, if it really warms enough in Texas that August is too hot for corn, then the spring temperatures will warm even more than the summer temperatures, and planting can begin earlier, and the crop will mature earlier, probably long before the hottest part of the year. Now, although it may not be harvested by that time, as long as it’s mature before the hottest part of summer, it’s golden. You see, after the crop is mature, it’s just a matter of waiting for it to dry down enough to enable mechanical harvesting. Hot, dry weather is actually favorable for that process. You know what? If it really warms up in Texas, it would not surprise me to see farmers planting and harvesting TWO corn crops in one year, effectively doubling the yield per acre. Just plant a crop in February, harvest it in July, then plant again in August and harvest in December. That would be sweet.
Bottom line, global warming, whether it’s due to carbon dioxide or not, is great for agricultural yields. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of acres of land that was previously too cold to grow crops, but will become warm enough if global warming continues. Between the increased yield, increased acreage, and shortened growing seasons, I believe that global potential food production would nearly double if global average temperatures went up 2-3 degrees C. Too bad they won’t, since global warming is over.
seems like someone might have screwed up. I’ve seen they always talk about relative humidity staying the same. Checking some absolute numbers for a reasonableness check there seems to be some serious difficulties. H2O vapor in clear skies is responsible for around 80% of the ghg effect and CO2 around 20%. Given a rise in avg temperature to 288.2k from 255 k one sees a 33 k (or C) value for the ghgs.
80% of that is about 26 deg C. Looking at absolute humidity for a 5 deg rise, one sees an increase of 1.3x – not a doubling from present amounts. This increase – if we make the really gross assumption that there is only 4 doublings starting from 255K, we get about a possible 3 degree rise rather than a 6.6 degree rise for a full doubling. Note too that the h2o has a 0.4 g/m^3 concentration even at -20C so its content is not zero. Judging by the actual radiative calculations for CO2 doublings/halvings, there are about 10 of them in the log area of the scale. Each one is roughly responsible for about the same amount or just under the expected amount for our next potential doubling. That means the very poor assumption about there being only 4 doublings of h2o from the condition of 0 ghg effects for a planet at 255 K is grossly over exagerating the effect of temperature rise for each doubling.
All this leads to the final result that for a relatively constant RH, even a 5 degree C rise in temperature caused by the so-called positive water vapor forcing cannot happen because there is nowhere close to a doubling of h2o vapor in that temperature rise. Since the CO2 is contributing under one degree, the total increase will be under 4 degrees. Also, while not proven here, the number of h2o doublings and the associated effects on temperature make a doubling of h2o which is much less than 3 degrees, not 6.6 degrees.
Note that the supplied chart tries to claim that all atmospheric heating requires a certain amount of CO2 because without it, there is no h2o vapor. This is insultingly, grotesquely wrong! At 255K, the point where a blackbody radiator receiving solar radiation at 1 A.U. with 0.30 albedo will have 0.4 g/m^2 of h2o and that probably represents several doublings worth of ghg effect. That means the temperature would be raised by a number of degrees C due to h2o vapor only, regardless of the presence of any co2 or other ghg.
It would seem that the error is not 2+2 = 5 but rather this error seems to be much more like 2+2 = 550,321.65
Kum Dollison (06:04:47) :
The temperature drop in 2007 was a record drop for a 12 month period. It was a record. There cannot be a record drop in temperatures with a high rise in co2 if the manmade global warming hypothesis is true in the way you present it.
Anomaly wouldn’t apply in the way you are saying. Only the actual rise or fall would mean anything since that is what you wish to portray in your comment. And there was the fastest drop in temperature for 12 months ever recorded while there was this big rise in co2 was happening that you talk about.
The math doesn’t add up.
In the way you present the hypothesis in your comment the actual data in the real world is more proof that the manmade global warming hypothesis is wrong. Wouldn’t you agree?
Trevor (13:05:31) :
Isn’t it funny that anyone would assert that co2 doesn’t help plants grow?!
Only trolls would do that!
Jan 1, 1988 – CO2 was 350.23 ppm
So what’s happened since then? We had less efficient TV, cars, planes etc. The only ‘real’ difference is that there were a lot less people 22 years ago — so maybe H1N1, or H1N5 will help with that problem. Overpopulation is behind every ecological problem on earth, but if we’re not going to terminate people then we just have to adapt as best as we can.
So, the human contribution of CO2 is about 3-4% of the total. To be generous, take the 4%: (388ppm)(0.04) = 15.5ppm.
To get to 350ppm we not only have to stop emitting CO2, we have to somehow get Nature to absorb 22.5ppm more CO2 from the atmosphere.
Ooookaaaaay.
Tamara, really: Some of the CO2 is absorbed out of the air by oceans and plants and the rest just stays there. CO2, while not completely balanced in nature, is far, far, dozens of times more balanced than now, after we’ve started putting excess carbon dioxide into it. The new equilibrium is hotter (and slightly more acidic in the ocean), and takes centuries to reach. This is gross error like mistaking deficit for debt or drawdown for reserve. I don’t think you can even multiply 0.04 by 380 like that. Be glad that we’re only increasing like 2 a year instead of by the full amount that we make.
Everyone: I didn’t read your comments. Has ANYONE mentioned so far that the flaw in this whole piece is that we are not going to stop at 380? We show NO SIGN of even slowing the rate of CO2 rise. China and India, etc. will QUADRUPLE the industrialized population this century, a demographic that currently emits 3/4 of the greenhouse gasses. Every factor in the climate equation changes /very slowly/.
The goal is 350 by 2100 (I think). It would require massive cuts by 2050, at only -1.2% off the top of the +80% GDP growth we’ll have till then (only -0.2% at 2020), to prevent a 5% GDP loss catastrophe. It is true that we would only get about 1 degree more than currently from stopping at 380 (actually 388, whatever)
Ohmygoodness, Adolpho Giufura: You need an emergency science education transplant – now! Your logic (unlike others) sounds like a creationist’s or a flat-earther’s! If anyone is genuinely convinced by this (he might even just be doing satire?), I feel sorry for you.
Jason,
“You need an emergency science education transplant”
Speak for yourself. There is no such thing as equilibrium at any time in Earth’s history. According to the US DOE (2000) 68ppm of the increase in CO2 (288ppm baseline) was from NATURAL SOURCES. 12ppm was the result of anthropogenic emissions. So, if there is such a thing as equilibrium, then we have only displaced 18% of the natural increase of CO2 through our activities. After all, the same proportion would be absorbed by CO2 sinks, would it not?
And, how would you calculate 4 percent of 388ppm?
I suggest you are also math-challenged, if you can’t see that quite clearly.
How do you figure out how much tip to leave?
P.S. The “new equilibrium” couldn’t have taken “centuries to reach” as you stated. Human input of CO2 has only been significant for around a century, and really only since the 1950’s.
It’s used to be much much closer to an equilibrium that the way it is now – and the WHOLE POINT is that the equilibrium (or close enough) won’t be reached until centuries IN THE FUTURE. Even the HUMAN COMPONENT has not leveled off by far. Look up what the population of China and India will be in 2050 (UN estimates). They will be a developed country in the far future and America’s CO2 production has not levelled off yet. Comparing 350 to 380something instead of to double (or worse) is like saying we will never have any national debt growth anymore above the current value. Why would the IPCC graph have the final concentration go up to 900 or 1200 or something if it wasn’t at least theoretically humanly possible (i.e. all the industrializing countries end up just like America instead of like Japan and Europe, the First World gets even more developter, and everyone is too lazy to develop fusion and/or fission?
Really, could you imagine a spacefaring future civilization using 1800s technology (running on burning stuff) Internal combustion engines, power plants; as the central kingpin?
Correction, the graph goes up to 1000ppm.
cba (18:15:53) :
… Note too that the h2o has a 0.4 g/m^3 concentration even at -20C so its content is not zero… At 255K, the point where a blackbody radiator receiving solar radiation at 1 A.U. with 0.30 albedo will have 0.4 g/m^2 of h2o and that probably represents several doublings worth of ghg effect.
hi cba, I’ve seen your stuff before and it seems we are on the same wavelength about a few things. Where did the above statement come from?
And the errors in the above charts are what is built into the climate models – the 3.0C per doubling proposition is really based on GHGs controlling 100% (or 95% actually) of the water vapour as well. If it is only 60% or 70% or less, then 3.0C per doubling is far too high.
Bill,
The absolute humidity is simply from a standard chart – maybe wikipedia, maybe some other internet source as I suspect the wiki article only showed a graph rather than a table of actual values. The 255K is what you get with stefan’s law assuming a heat balance for the averaged solar insolation after removing the Earth’s albedo reflected amount of incoming power.
When (and if) I can get some time to spend on it, I’ll try to do a set of runs for various h2o vapor concentrations to ascertain just how much power it is impacting for outgoing LW in order to find out what a doubling would accomplish. I expect it to be a little more than a co2 doubling – power wise but that’s only a guess at the moment as I’ve never tried to vary the h2o in my model. Since the graph indicates that all h2o vapor is a function of co2 concentration, the 0.4 g/m^3 at 255 clearly disputes that and my guess is that having h2o vapor in the atmosphere prevents the T from reaching that low a value. Knowing how many ‘doublings’ (halvings) exist for the h2o will indicate just how insensitive the climate will be to a fractional doubling increase.
cba,
Okay, I’d like to see the further work.
I’ve normally thought of 11 halvings from 280 ppm puts CO2 at effectively Zero. It might be just slightly higher than that but it is not 12.
Also note that the theory says that once one gets down to about 50 ppm CO2, the effect is no longer logarithmic but is linear. I think whoever put forward that proposition had just done the math and realized that as one gets closer to Zero, the math indicates something that is not logical – ie no water vapour at all. CO2 is never going to be 40 ppm but the theory and the formulae cannot just change mid-stream just because it is not physically logical. The theory has to work backwards and forwards and this is a check I always use in other venues. It has to work over all possible values and backwards and forwards or something is wrong.
Windguy,
“Over time 350ppm will end up being about 2C increase by 2100. ”
Can you cite evidence for this alarmists statement? The IPCC report only cites 1.5 C to 4.5C for a doubling of CO2. The errors are so large it is impossible to say 2C from 350ppm, but I suppose if you cherry pick among all the models you might find one.
BTW, there has been no increase in OHC since 2003 (Pielke, Cazanave), so the predicted radiative imbalance appears not to exist in reality, meaning even the lower estimates seem to be too high.
I did the runs for co2 a year or so back although I don’t start at288, rather more like 384 or so. I’d have to check the results table to verify exactly what it is but seems that it gave a gradually declining value per doubling.
I did something like it for h2o today. I did a run set on the modtran calculator online while I was processing the pathlength data for atmosphere-h2o and for h2o. That took all morning so it’s got a ways to go before i Get mine up and running. I’m not trusting the modtran on this one though as it is a bit strange for what I expect. Each doubling from now for h2o vapor is growing significantly while each halving is not declining all that much. It also whimps out at 0.004 times the current level completely. There should still be an effect but it stops. This isnt the first time I’ve encountered a modtran limit out of the blue.
What I did find was that a doubling of h2o yielded an increase of 10w/m^2 in absorption while a halving was quite a bit less than that. I won’t be believing that until I run mine and it shows something similar.
The modtran calculator did show about 4.x w/m^2 increase for a 1.3x increase in h2o vapor – which corresponds to the increase in absolute humidity with a 5 deg. C rise. However, only a co2 doubling and this increase could attribute to the T is probably under 2 deg. C so there’s 3 deg C rise required that is unaccounted for. At least that’s most of the preliminary information I’ve got at the moment. I can’t provide the modtran results now as it is on the computer at home.
looking at the AH chart, 255k still should have 1/16 the current 288k absolute humidity(assuming fixed RH). There are quite a few halvings below that which produce an incremental result of note. That means that without any other ghg than h2o at a 255k, the Earth would be greater than 255k due to that h2o vapor’s effect.
Bill,
Here is some more detail:
I’m not sure what might be the difference at present time between modtran and my numbers although there are several differences, including different wavelength coverage.
additional absorption additional absorption
h2o fraction modtran olr 70km my olr 70km
4 14.88 W/m^2 8.60 W/m^2
2 10.31 8.37
1.3 3.14 (not a doubling but AH 5 deg C rise
1 (now) 7.87 8.09
1/2 6.88 7.72
1/4 6.12 7.29
1/8 5.47 6.78
1/16 (255K) 4.64 6.20
1/32 3.74 5.55
1/64 3.17 4.84
1/128 2.39 4.10
1/256 1.72 3.38
1/512 1.19 2.72
my outgoing surface radiation
384.5W/m^2 for 288.2K
(note my bandwidth only goes out to 65um, not 100um)
my transmission out from 70km
271.2 W/m^2 (current 1x h2o vapor)
Modtran 258.9 W/m^2
my Power absorbed and not reradiated outward (surface-outgoing from 70km)
113.2 W/m^2
Modtran 132.3 W/m^2
my power absorbed by h2o vapor (none to now)
63.7W/m^2
Modtran 44.9 W/m^2
note that these were all done holding fixed values for all but h2o concentration and that I used 330 ppm for co2 (1976 value) versus the modtran 375ppm roughly current value.
The important thing to bear in mind is that there are quite a few doublings (halvings) such that each contribute within 50% of the most recent in the way of added power absorption.
Because it’s clear skies, the h2o contribution is closer to 60% than to 90% of the total.
Also, each W/m^2 tends to contribute 0.29 deg C to the temperature above that of 255k.
The h2o absorption with constant RH with a 5 deg C rise increase in temperature of the whole h2o column area results in an increase of 1.3 which translates to about 3.14 W/m^2 increase or 0.9 deg C rise.
That indicates in clear skies a doubling of CO2 contributes no more than around 1 deg C (3.6w/m^2) and even a 5 deg C total rise will not permit h2o to reach 3.14 W/m^2 which is under an additional 1 deg C which leaves over 3 deg C unaccounted for by forcing and positive feedback for our assumption of a 5 degC rise.
At the moment, I don’t have a absolute humidity chart with less than 5 deg C resolution so it will take a bit more work to ascertain just what the h2o feedback under clear skies would result in for a co2 doubling.
As for including cloud fractions in the mix, everything I’ve seen indicates that the more clouds present, the lower the temperature will result so that should further reduce the effect.
Hi cba,
Sorry again about the screw-up on my part.
I’m not quite sure what to make of these numbers.
For one, the Stefan-Boltzmann equations are logarithmic (rather than linear as it seems the climate models like to assume). Each extra watt when you are at 255K adds 0.27C to temperature but by the time one gets down to the surface at 288K, each extra watt only adds 0.18C.
The modtran numbers don’t make any sense until you convert them back to a temperature-kind-of effect, then one gets close to a logarithmic response.
I wouldn’t worry about not being able to go below 0.004 since if the global numbers get anywhere close to that, we will all go extinct since no plants will be able to grow either (CO2 and H20 will be too low).
When I use the numbers, I only get a 0.6C increase for a doubled H20 (and as the halvings occur, hardly any temperature response occurs at all so something is wrong there).
Can we convert the data into a Surface scenario like the following which just makes more sense from my perspective (OLR is going to be around 240 watts and some point in the troposphere is going to be emitting 240 watts at 255K but I’m more interested in the Surface response).
Forcing Surface = Solar Forcing (239.7 w/m2) + Greenhouse Effect (150 w/m2) = 390 w/m2
Temp Surface = Solar Temp Only (255K) + Greenhouse Effect (33K) = 288K
Here is a couple of charts I drew to illustrate the idea
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/6840/sbearthsurfacetemp.png
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/2608/sbtempcperwatt.png