More Wisdom via Solomon: Global Warming Has Passed The Point Of No Return

More insanity from the National Academy of Concerned Scientists as I believe they are now calling themselves.

“It’s irreversible!”
“Just like my raincoat!”

Irreversible? Because no one knows where the norm is perhaps it is in the process of reversing. This idea is non versible!!!!

Good one. Was still chuckling at Willis’s Homer Simpson graphic and now this McClimatologist! Thanks for the laugh.
And thanks for this perspective. The way these folks try to ignore the reality of the past and invent a conveniently skewed image of ‘normal’ is downright Orwellian.
Then again, it is Post-Normal ‘Science’ as they call it.

So what. CO2 never caused warming in the past. CO2 lags warming by 800 years in the ice cores. A rise in CO2 before the warming might be novel, but the earth found a way to reduce CO2 before.
Can’t we just patent oxygen and then license it’s use back to AL Gore & Co.

Steven! Let’s clear this one up once & for all. Has sea ice really “returned to normal”? Just because it has recently touched the 1979 -2000 average, does that mean it’s back to normal? And oh yes I do know the arguement about “what is normal” & that no-one really knows the true extent pre-1979. But, if you’re prepared to use this as your bench mark, then we have to assume that sea ice is far from “back to normal” if all we are actually seeing is current extreme maximums just managing to edge into what was the normal of yesteryear.
In this sense, you are as guilty as anyone of (Dr Solomon included) of misrepresenting the evidence & this alone makes me inclined to mistrust your line of reasoning.

I live and breath. I am a human living on this planet. Been here for 41 years now. Could someone please tell me what adverse effects, what cataclysmic events have changed the world I live in? I live in the same county in which I was born. My father was born in this county. My grandfather was born her. My great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather were both born in this same county. My great-great-great-grandfather is buried in this same county where I was born. His stone is still there in Galatia Cemetery along with the stones of all my fathers leading down. What has changed? Some say it is warmer. I certainly think that it was very cold and snowy in the 70’s. The winters (in my opinion) got warmer and milder for a stretch sometime between the 80’s and 2000. But we’ve had back-to-back record breaking winters, with storms and cold. I’m relishing in this current warm Spring!
Back to my original question. What adverse effects have changed the world I live in? The lake is still at the same levels as when I was a child. All rivers flow much like the did when my great-great-great grandfather lived here. Except, of course, they damned the White River back in the ’40’s. That was a cataclysmic change brought on by man! Indeed! The insurgent lakes swallowed towns! But concrete and steel brought that about – not CO2.
What else? What else has changed my world? We had a tornado that hurt Gassville, AR really bad. That’s in my county. But I remember tornadoes all my life. I remember my dad talking about devastating tornadoes. There are old papers here that talk about tornadoes all the way back to the 1800’s, the days of my gaffers. What’s new?
Weather isn’t climate. Okay. How about 150 years of weather? If my world is going to hell so quickly, I’d like to ask… why are all the people moving to my little hometown? Why can’t I see the cataclysm? Where is the whirlwind? I sit out on my deck and drink in the glory of my world. I see no devastation, no drought, no flood, no nothing. My world is peaceful and serene. The birds sing, the deer run, the snow comes and goes. The sun shines, the clouds roll. It rains. It shines. What’s changed? Can somebody please tell me?

johnythelowery (11:42:16) :
Actually: I think the leadership of AL is commendable and we should all Build a 6,000 Sq. Ft House, drive fleets of Escalades every where you go and get ourselves a couple of private aircraft each.

/signed

Well, heck, since they pirated the term “climate change”, and since earth’s climate has been changing for, oh, 4.5 billion years or so, it’s pretty difficult to refute that argument.
Oh, you say they’re talking about something else? Some sort of anthropomorphic thingy? Since climate has been changing since way, way, way before man arrived on this planet, how can man change climate change?
Their piracy is hard to fight–how does one stop climate from changing?

Ben Kellett (11:41:01) :
My statement is “sea ice area has returned to normal”
And yes it has.

@Hunter,
Apocalypse – “lifting of the veil” or “revelation” a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception.
Works for me, perhaps not in the way intended by others however.

Only Obama the First can reverse Global Warming…

Ben Kellett (11:41:01) :
“Let’s clear this one up once & for all. Has sea ice really “returned to normal”?”
Normal in geological terms is an Ice Age. Personally I’d rather have a 6 meter sea level rise then ‘normal’.

I remember when I was a kid there were tens of millions of people starving in China and India.
Thanks to consumerism, greed, capitalism, electronics, and perhaps some CO2 – the lot of billions of people has improved. The “good old days” kind of stunk.
Good thing Al Gore invented the Internet!

“”” Ben Kellett (11:41:01) :
Steven! Let’s clear this one up once & for all. Has sea ice really “returned to normal”? Just because it has recently touched the 1979 -2000 average, does that mean it’s back to normal? And oh yes I do know the arguement about “what is normal” & that no-one really knows the true extent pre-1979. But, if you’re prepared to use this as your bench mark, then we have to assume that sea ice is far from “back to normal” if all we are actually seeing is current extreme maximums just managing to edge into what was the normal of yesteryear.
In this sense, you are as guilty as anyone of (Dr Solomon included) of misrepresenting the evidence & this alone makes me inclined to mistrust your line of reasoning. “””
Maybe I just haven’t been reading Steve’s stuff close enough.
If it is ice area that is what determines the albedo component (not ice thickness) then it seems to me we are back to normal; I’m prepared to grant that multi-year ice thickness (talking strictly Arctic) is likely less.
But if anyone thinks 2007 minimum was in any way normal; or indicative of the future; I can’t support that reasoning.
We are still exiting from the last ice age; so a decline is not unexpected; but 2007 was quite unexpected.
I don’t agree with everything that Steve Goddard has said on this subject; but I don’t really think he has been deliberately misleading; as you imply.

I sometimes think that if an event like Cyclone Tracy happened today (it occured in 1974) it would automatically be heralded as some dark omen of dangerous climate change. Perhaps this is what is meant by ‘never going back’. Before, weather was just weather- doing it’s own thing, occasionally getting in our way and causing massive disasters. Now all weather is caused by humans and apparently it’s all bad weather now. We can’t make good weather. All weather used to be value free, even the weather that killed you. Now it’s all bad, even the weather which is 20 degrees Celsius and lovely and sunny, in summer. Don’t be fooled say the papers- It’s all evil human weather. We killed the good, neutral, value free weather. We can never go back.

Most intense landfalling Atlantic hurricanes in the United States
based on size and intensity for total points on the Hurricane Severity Index
Rank	Hurricane	Year	Intensity	Size	Total
1	Carla	1961	17	25	42
2	Hugo	1989	16	24	40
Betsy	1965	15	25	40
4	Camille	1969	22	14	36
Katrina	2005	13	23	36
Opal	1995	11	25	36
7	Miami	1926	15	19	34
8	Audrey	1957	17	16	33
Fran	1996	11	22	33
Wilma	2005	12	21	33
Source: Hurricane Severity Index

Ref – Antonio San (11:53:00) :
“Only Obama the First can reverse Global Warming…”
_______________________________
The Noble Peace Prize Committee had an emergency meeting 3 minutes ago (after your tackie comment about one of their Greatest Recipients); they have submitted a declaration for International Approval by all Signatories of the UN Charter and are certain of passage of a resolution declaring Obama the First to henseforth and evermore be known as Obama The Great.
There’s no stopping the Chicago Mob!

George E. Smith (11:50:06) :
Well I agree with her; the arrow of time is irreversible, and there is no going back.
But as to the CO2; we now enjoy the lowest CO2 levels that we have seen in the last 600 million years; and there’s no returning to those days either.
————————————————————-
I’m not going to play Devil’s advocate, but i am going to play ‘AL’s Lawyer’
We can discuss the difference at a different time 🙂 :
So here goes:
Alright you people at WUWT: If the CO2 lags temperature by 800 years, and so temperature apparently initiates the mechanism(s) of CO2 level reversing. CO2 is not lagging temperature now but preceding it, it’s rise in level is before warming, therefore, we can’t wait 800 years for temperatures to rise as by then all there will be left to breath will be CO2. (although, i have my own Oxygen stash in a secret underground gas silo)???? Your honor, I rest my case (full of cash for you under the table!)

I think we need to read this paper before much definitive can said. However, the press release is obviously making so rather strong statements. I suspect more in the lines of propaganda then journalism.

johnythelowery (12:10:29)
If you put a cart in front of a horse, does that make the horse move forwards?

Hmmm
Isn’t normal an Ice Age, there’s been more Ice Age than not Ice Age in the last 100K years.

‘Normal’ in this context means a time when people did not have the temerity to question terrifying predictions designed to scare the masses into handing over their tax money.
As Jon Stewart pointed out – what a shame for the climatologists that Gore invented the internet – those halcyon ‘normal’ days are now long gone.

Climate Scientists need mandatory courses in history, covering at least as far back as the Roman Empire if not further.

Surely, this is excellent news! Even the impossible measure of restricting C02 emissions to pre-industrial levels would take a millenium to bring us back to “normal” climatic conditions. So, there is absolutely no point in trying to “cut carbon”, at great cost to the econmy, lowering living standards worlwide and threatening the lives of millions. The carbon cultists can continue with their shrieking hand-wringing cries of climate armageddon, while the sane, rational people can now get on with their lives. Just think, no more Cap n’ Trade and “carbon taxes”. Wind, solar, and other alternative energies will have to be cost-efficient, not propped up by taxpayers. Yay!
No?

Well, if it’s irreversible then there’s little point in wasting any more time or money on it, yes? “Irreversible” seems a good thing.

Steve Goddard (11:57:44) :
“I remember when I was a kid there were tens of millions of people starving in China and India.”
Exactly! The “2 billions starving” is not 2 billions anymore.
If the socialists of the West stops giving aid to their socialist friends in Africa, for the sustainability of socialism (in Africa),
and instead helps Africa to
-introduce a proper justice system
-introduce free markeds
-introduce democracy
Then the poor in Africa will disappear too. Automatically.
No need to fight poverty anymore. Gone.Finished. Poof.

RockyRoad (12:17:24) :…and, as history shows, takers complain, after the wars they provoked, about how ill they were treated!

It’s deja vu all over again…

NOAA has issued a warning… “Even if the world reduces emissions of CO2 to the level before the industrial revolution, it will take at least 1,000 years to reverse the climate change effect that have already taken hold, AP on Sunday quoted the team as saying. Dr. Susan Solomon of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research laboratory led the study. “People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that’s not true,” she said, adding the effects are well nigh irreversible.”

I literally burst out laughing at this.
In 1970, I lived in Cleveland, which is on the banks of Lake Erie. In the run-up to the Clean Air & Water Act, there were numerous headlines in the local newspapers (the Internet of its day, BTW), claiming things such as

If we don’t put one more drop of pollution into Lake Erie, it will take 10,000 years for it to clean itself up.

This is something I read over and over and over again in the news of the day. Evidently the alarmism of the day worked. The Clean Air & Water Act passed, and we have cleaner air and water now because of it. It was – and IS – a good piece of legislation. The U.S.’ air quality at the time was god awful, and the rivers and streams had previously had no laws with teeth protecting them.
But this comment is not about the law. This comment is about the claims of the environmentalists.
After the law was passed, but it did NOT mandate 100% reduction in pollution entering Lake Erie. Incoming pollutants dropped by only 75%.
In 1980, I saw a report that Lake Erie had cleaned itself up about 90%.
The lake was 90% cleaner in ten years, after pollution had dropped by only 75%.
This versus the environmentalist claims that even a 100% drop would take 10,000 years.
That was the day I began not trusting the environmentalists, because I learned that they would claim ANYTHING, if it suited their purposes. If lying were prosecutable in the courts, and I were a prosecutor, they’d be at the top of my list.
I have one more true story as well, but won’t go into it here.
As to her final line, for her to claim that it is irreversible after 12 years of decline is simply Bizzaro World.

tarpon (12:22:24) :
Climate Scientists need mandatory courses in history, covering at least as far back as the Roman Empire if not further
Why so far back? Following J.H.aka.”coal trains” advice it will be enough back to WWII.

…the effects are well nigh irreversible

I’m sure Solomon meant to scare as all into action, but if she’s saying we can’t undo the damage that’s already been done, is she unintentionally implying it’s too late?
Maybe we shouldn’t worry about carbon emissions, then?

Pachauri was right! there is much Vodoo Science around.

I’ve heard this “it’s irreversible sorry before two years ago, how can it be a new study?
These people are cracked.

I went through both Carla and Camille. Carla was a huge width storm with 155 mph winds and no rogue wave heights while Camille was small width storm with 205 mph winds and at least one rouge wave that took the wave staff of an offshore platform at 85 feet. So one has to use some sort of energy index to determine which was the most intense. There can be multiple answers but I vote with Steve Goddard on this issue.

from Coalition of Really, Really Concerned People, where “the end justifies any means”(tm)

John (12:36:38) :
Look further down the Carla Wikipedia page. They show the hurricane intensity chart with Carla at #1.

Let’s see — I can remember the good ol’ thirties when the dust bowl drove all those poor Okies out to La-La Land in their rickety Model T’s. I even remember the only place we kids could cool off was the local air-cooled cinema with its ten-cent matinee where they showed those new-fangled talkies on a scorching Saturday afternoon in July.
But I’m not quite old enough to remember the Wolf, or the Sporer or the Maunder, or the Dalton minimums — (or is minimae?) — or even the miserable weather after that infamous meteor killed off all the dinosaurs.
Is that the kind of good old-fashioned weather those brilliant infant-scientists say we can’t bring back? Well, thank goodness — they may be right!

GOOD!
Now there’s no reason to bother w/ destroying the economy or our present way of life.
Since we’re all damned anyway, I vote for: Live for the here and now and enjoy it while it lasts.

Back to normal would be an ice age with glaciers reaching into the deep south. That has the been normal far longer than this interglacial period.

PS, check out the image on the menu board behind the guy serving. Looks very much like an image of the Earth on fire. Is that Anthony’s photoshop wizardry or just a strange coincidence?
REPLY: It’s GIMP – Anthony

The truly outrageous part:
Our tax dollars are PAYING for this kind of ”wisdom” (NOT) of Solomon.
I want my money back !!!!

@johnythelowery (11:42:16) :
Actually: I think the leadership of AL is commendable and we should all Build a 6,000 Sq. Ft House, drive fleets of Escalades every where you go and get ourselves a couple of private aircraft each.
– – – – – – –
Don’t forget that part of Reverend Al’s formula is to pay carbon offsets to atone for his sins.

Ben Kellett (11:41:01) :
“Steven! Let’s clear this one up once & for all. Has sea ice really “returned to normal”? Just because it has recently touched the 1979 -2000 average, does that mean it’s back to normal?”
Yet another example of folks who forget to read their own words. How can it be that 1979 – 2000 (21 years out of thousands of millenia) can be so firmly implanted in the mind as “normal” to the point of emotioanl eruption? 6 weeks ….21 years ….30 years….I’m afraid the evidence for “normal” has melted away many hundreds of times. GET OVER IT!

If the Artic nearly all melted a couple of years ago, of course there’s not much multi year ice.
It will take a few years for new ice to get old, won’t it? or should it age itself “quickly”? Maybe Solomon thinks so.
New ice and 2 year ice are on the uptick. They will be multi year ice one day soon, at least where I come from…

This is why I stopped worrying about global warming years ago.
I read lots of Wikipedia entries, the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report was current then, and noted the warming is going to happen regardless, for centuries to come. So why all the talk about having to combat it, we’ll be adapting to the warming no matter what! Let’s get right to it!
And many centuries from now when it does slow down and eventually stop, to our descendants that climate will be their normal. If they could reverse it and cool the planet off, would they even want to return to the cold times of their long-forgotten ancestors?
New from Pachauri Productions, which brought you the best-selling Return to Almora:
Dr. Strangelover or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Warmth

Remember the Arctic death spiral? Arctic positive feedback?
We waited, and waited and got sea ice extent and area back to ‘normal.’
“…back to normal in 100 years…”
What an idiot! I can post numerous examples of extreme climatic conditions prior to 1700, and before the industrial revolution.
Susan SolomonPh.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1981
Research Interests
Atmospheric chemistry and its links to climate
http://cires.colorado.edu/people/solomon/
*************
PHD!!!!! ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK NOW!!!

It’s dolts like Solomon and Serreze who make it difficult for me to be the inherent lukewarmist that I am.
But you can’t let the extremes on either side drive the agenda wagon, even in righteous reaction to their antics. That way lies madness.

“pgosselin (13:03:20) :
The German edition of the Financial Times has revealed that the EU buried an internal study showing damning results on biodiesel. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an English version, and so wrote a summary blurb about it here:
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/eu-buried-devastating-biodiesel-report/
They knew it was bad, and so they buried it!”
FTD URL , german:
http://www.ftd.de/politik/europa/:umweltrisiken-eu-ziele-fuer-biosprit-wackeln/50099403.html
My remarks:
Oettinger didn’t bury it but says the comission will make results public when they are ready (“wenn sie [the comission] fertig ist”, literally, ready with what it doesn’t say, probably with processing the study). Of course this could mean a de facto burying.
The goal to reach 10% fuel by renewables in 2020 can be reached with a mixture of biofuel and electric cars, it’s not an obligation to do it all with biofuel.

Steve Goddard & all those who have challenged my points to Steve.
No I don’t know what the 2010 summer arctic sea ice minimum will be but I will estimate now that it will be below the 1979 -2000 average as it has been for the last several years.
Of course everone assumes that I am passionately nailing my colours to the AGW banner, when in fact all I’m trying (without any success) to establish is a clear bench mark. This is just common sense as well as being one of the foundation stones of basic science.
Yes, of course we can look at arctic sea ice in the context of geology & see no meaningful trend. And of course we can look at global sea ice as a whole & see no meaningful change. And yes we can also say that sea ice has been on a long term decline since the end of the last ice age etc, etc, etc.
But, let’s just stop for a moment & look at the very clear evidence that we have relating to the arctic in particular – not to cherry pick but just to establish this as a our clear bench mark which will be used as one among many bench marks henceforth as a possible indicator of climate change . If we do this, then there is no denying that arctic sea ice extent has recently touched on normal for what constitutes a brief moment in the satellite record that we have available. Not until it has averaged out as normal for a full 12 month period can we truly begin to claim normality – surely. Clearly it is most likely that in order to achieve this, we will also have to see arctic see ice run at above normal levels to compensate for times when it runs below normal levels. Even if this is achieved for a 12 month period, the trend line would remain on a downward incline and of course we would need to see some years with sea ice exceeding normal levels to truly conclude normality had been reached.
And for all those who claim that it’s part of a natural cycle – you may well be right. But equally, you may be wrong because as we all know,,,,,,,”the science is far from settled”!! Natural variability in climate remember is a double edged sword. Just as natural variability might be the main driver behind the recent changes we have seen in climate, well then of course natural variability could also be responsible for the slowing down of CO2 induced temperature rise in recent years. If this is the case, then when the ineveitable happens & the natural variation has the opposite effect, what then?
And to all those who quite rightly point out that a super volcanoe or change in solar output or comets hitting the earth etc, etc all dwarf the AGW issue, well thanks fo pointing out the obvious but so what? We can’t do anything about any of that, so fine, let’s not lose any sleep over it! However, while there remains the possibility that we are causing a problem, surely it is sensible at least to listen & to proceed with caution?

TimiBoy (13:26:45) :
If the Artic nearly all melted a couple of years ago, of course there’s not much multi year ice.
Yup. And notice how we don’t find Arctic ice that’s centuries or even decades old, even over the many decades of assorted measurements and anecdotal reports. That indicates the ice gets “churned” and both old and new ice goes away over time.
It will take a few years for new ice to get old, won’t it? or should it age itself “quickly”? Maybe Solomon thinks so.
I’m still not exactly sure what makes “multi-year” ice so special, other than it survived the summer melt. Thick multi-year, thick new, does it matter much which it is?
New ice and 2 year ice are on the uptick. They will be multi year ice one day soon, at least where I come from…
Technically there is some right now, we’re just waiting for there to be lots more multi-year ice. Which sure looks like it’s on the way.

LOL – and she’s wearing a NOAA badge
There should be a jar on the counter with the label “Tipping Point” : )

Ben Kellett (14:01:02) Hey, you are like my grandaughter: She likes horror stories instead of beautiful ones. BOOOOO!

Well, heck… if it’s irreversible then what’s the fuss and worry? Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we all may… ummmm… cook in the Gore-Bull warming?
Let’s just admit that “climate change” truly is irreversible, that is, it can’t be stopped. It’ll always be with us. And even if “change” could be stopped no one can agree on where the “right” stopping point even might be. I like the summer heat here in TX, my neighbor hates it.
Hey Susan Soloman, did you hug your iceberg today? You twit.

Perhaps we could get Susan Solomon to clarify:
Is global warming irreversible because of C02 or despite it?
As in object in motion continues until acted upon externally by another force. What, if anything, is she advocating here?

Jimbo notes: “Susan SolomonPh.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1981”
Ah, Berkeley 1981. Far out, man.
Like, wow, this bong is just like the atmosphere.

Ben Kellett (14:01:02) :
One thing that has become clear the last few years is that the experts don’t understand the Arctic climate. No one predicted the negative AO this winter and the associated changes in ice conditions.
If the AO remains negative, then we should expect to see increases in Arctic ice volume over the next few years.

I would like to go back to the normal days of the dinos. Then I would bring one back, a meat eating one. A real dinos dino.
Then I’d feed him the hobnobs who thinks the world is over populated. Haha see what I did there.

jeff brown (14:51:26) :
Yes, go ahead Jeff. Please do all that and report to me your progress.
Just dont force me to pay tax to the government projects.

oh those good old days!!! I was a 9th grader in 1968-69. we had such a huge famine in india. people died of hunger and starvation. govt of india did not count all the deaths…. intentionally. so, if someone says “a couple million” people died in india during that time due to starvation, don’t believe it. it was probably an undercount of over 90%. but it was not just 1968-69. we had famine and hunger and death most of 50s and 60s.
the 1990s was the deepest, longest drought in india. but thanks to all the modern techniques, machines and yes, all those carbon based fuels, nobody even noticed we should have been having a serious famine. and we did not. everytime someone says “we have to control CO2”, i remember all those famine and hunger and death.
so, NO, NO, NO. i don’t know what it was like in other countries. But, surely, i don’t want to go back to those “good Old Days”, no matter how hard this nit-wit greenies want us all to go back to those days.

I wish science would get back to normal. This voodoo science BS is getting tiresome.

SomeThoughts on All of This.
I put a lot of time in thinking about how this CO2 global warming works.
I read here from time to time, anecdotal stories from people who live in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest; or someplace else; and they offer that when it is cloudy it is nice and warm and toasty. Ergo clouds warm the surface. What could be easier than that ?
Now Trenberth et al say that the whole earth is at 288 K (15 deg C, or 57 deg F), and therefore it is constantly emitting radiation at about 390 Watts per square metre; which is the Black body radiation total for +15 deg C.
You could actually construct an ersatz “black body radiator” if you got a piece of aluminum tubing about a foot in diameter, and say three feet long. It’s used for making concrete pilings, and also amateur telescope tubes. You could put a bottom and a top on it, to make a sort of bucket out of it. Then you get out yourt belt sander, with a carborundum belt, and you grind a rough surface on the outside, and paint it flat Kodak black; that photographic black that you use for the inside walls of your dark room. That will make a fairly good black radiator.
So now you can fill this up with tap water, which will likely be about 68 deg F, so you need to add a lot of ice to cool that down to 57 F. So now you have a BB radiator; sort of, which is at about 57 deg F or 288 K, and it is emitting 390 Watts/m^2 from that black surface.
When you get out of the shower, you can stand in front of this energy source to keep warm; knock yourself out getting almost free heat out of tap water.
Of course your body temperature is about 98.6 or 37 deg C or about 310 Kelvins.
I haven’t actually tried this but I have stood around in parking lots that were at about 57 deg F, and I don’t remember being warm at any time I did that. I know that thing is emitting strongly at about 10.1 microns peak wavelength; but somehow, that does not fit my idea of “heat”.
I have a quartz radiant heater; and that thing doesn’t look black to me, and yet it does heat me if I stand in front of it. . It actually looks sort of orange red to me.
If you think about a Helium Neon red laser, that is 632.8 nm wavelength and is a decent red. It’s handy to rememebr that a He/Ne laser emits pretty close to two electron Volt photons. My quart radiant heater is a bit more orange than that; maybe around 600-610 dominant wavelength.
I don’t have the foggiest idea what spectral wavelength my body thinks is “heat” but it most certainly is not 10.1 or even 15 microns of CO2 fame.
Have you got that; LWIR emission from CO2 do not make me feel warm.
But let’s assume that Trenberth is correct, and the typical earth surface is typically emitting 390 W/m^2 at 10.1 microns or so. Typically a BB radiator emits in a Lambertian or Cosine angular radiant Intensity pattern. Since the projected area of the source surface, also shrinks as cosine of the angle (off-axis), the Radiance, which is Radiant Intensity per unit area, is a constant. In light parlance we would say it is equally bright in all directions.
We can talk about the etendue of such a source in a medium of refractive index (n) as e = (n.h.u)^2 where (n) is the refractive index, (h) is the source size (height) and (u) is the cone half angle of the radiant emission from the surface. Etendue with a squiggle over the e, is a fancy French word that roughly translates as “throughput”. (h) and (u) are here assumed to be small. In geometrical optical parlance we would describe this as a paraxial region, of small objetcs, and ray angles near the optical axis of some optical system.
The quantity (n.h.u) is also known as the Lagrange invariant (and other names). It is a quantity that is conserved under ordinary optical transformations such as reflection and refraction.
Outside the paraxial region for larger oject sizes, and larger ray cone angles (higher Numerical Aperture, or smaller f/number) this expression is replaced by (N.H.Sin(U)), and this too is conserved in Optical transformations. It is often referred to as the “Optical Invariant”.. The quantity (N.H.Sin(U))^2 is a measure of the total power emitted by the source within that solid angle.
It is a fundamental property of the Optical Invariant, that no Optical system, can form an image that has a higher invariant value than the object being imaged.
This result was reported by numerous early Optical workers; but one of the earliest derivations was by the German Thermodynamicist Clausius; who actually derived it from the Second Law of Thermodynamics; rather than from Geometrical Optics.
I’m rather partial to Clausius’ form of the Second Law. Which roughly translates as :-
“No reversible machine can have no other effect, than to transport heat, from a source at one temperature, to a sink at a higher temperature.”
Clausius imagined an emitting Black body at a certain temperature; emitting radiation in accordance with the above etendue relation; and then assumed some optical system, could somehow increase the value of N.H.Sin(U), and so create an image that was “brighter” than the source. Well if this brightened image was incident on a second black body which absorbed all the radiation; then the BB radiation law, would require that the second black body would heat up to a temperature higher than the source; which the second law says is impossible; thus falsifying the assumption that an image could be made brighter than the object.
Ok so now we have out little plot of ground emitting as a BB into our optical system; which is simply the atmosphere above the ground; maybe including even a high cloud or two. So we now know that it is not possible for the image formed on the cloud, of our ground plot, to have an Irradiance that is higher than the Radiance of the ground which is irradiating it.
It then follows that there is no way, that the ground can raise the temperature of the cloud up to whatever the ground temperature is. Clausius form of the second law prohibits that.
Now if you have been following this; you have probably caught that the energy is being transmitted from the ground to the cloud in the form of electromagnetic radiation; or LWIR thermal photons. It is not being transmitted in the form of “heat” which is mechanical vibrations. There could of course be conduction and convection going on in addition to all of this; but we are not concerned with that right now..
Clausius says that even as radiation, we can’t overheat the cloud. He does not say the cloud can’t absorb the radiation if something else should also heat the cloud so its temperature is higher than the ground..
So the transfer of energy is permitted; even from the earth surface to the surface of the sun; but by itself the earth will not heat the sun up to 6000 K.
Now if the cloud is high, then it is very likely that it is cold up there anyway, and even with direct solar heating it can still be a lot colder than the ground.
The cloud is most likely to be almost totally absorbing of our LWIR from the ground so it will warm a little from our source; but most likely will still be colder than 57 deg F.
The cloud then, will also now radiate much like a black body, so it will emit thermal radiation corresponding perhaps to a BB at some temperature that is lower than 57 deg F, and also at less than 390 Watts per m^2.
This cloud emission is likely to travel in all directions, some upwards towards space, and some downwards towards the ground; retracing our atmospheric Optical system. And the Optical Invariant tells us that the new image it forms on the ground must be no brighter than the cloud (in the LWIR), and consequently it is not likely to make our patch of gound any more comfortable than it was originally as a 288 K black body heater.
So if you really want to believe that those high clouds, is what makes it warmer down at ground level; be my guest; and then build yourself a 57 deg F heater to keep you warm when you get out of the shower.

To Steve Goddard (12:56:25) :
OK, I see what’s going on. The size of the wind field gets the same maximum weight (25) as actual intensity can (25), and in practice seems to get more weight (from the HSI PDF). This makes sense — it isn’t just the brute strength, but also how widely the strength is applied.
This new HSI means that older hurricanes are mostly left out, because (as the text in the PDF says), reliable wind radii data are only available since 1988. Thus estimates for earlier hurricanes are derived from SLOSH data (! where do they get these names?) and must be considered rough estimates (section 5 of PDF, 1st paragraph). And true enough, 21 of the 27 hurricanes in Table 3 are more recent than 1988.
So I understand what you have quoted, but it probably understates the intensity of earlier storms for which we know little about the size of the wind field. Again, your basic point is still good, whether it is Carla (1961) or the Key West hurricane of 1935 which is the most intense.

The AGW folks want to claim that the increase of global temperature is linear with CO2 concentration. Satellite temperature data shows that to be false.
Many skeptics seem determined to prove that there actually hasn’t been any warming at all.
The satellite data shows an amazing correlation between the rate of increase of CO2 and the temperature anomaly. This is a middle ground that irritates the AGW folks because there would be no pending catastrophe, but receives little support from the skeptic community because it admits that temperatures have been rising.
Such is life…

enneagram (14:17:51) :
Do you actually read my posts or do just assume that I represent something that you don’t agree with?
If AGW proves to be a load of hogwash then I’ll join in a collective sigh of relief! But just because I challenge the notion that it is a load of hogwash doesn’t mean that I don’t also challenge AGW. I am a skeptic when it comes to all sorts of science & I try to view all of it with equal impartiality.
I have challenged Steve Goddard here purely on his assertion that sea ice extent has retuurned to normal and our difference I guess ultimately rests on how to define what constitutes “normal”! What is important here is that we come up with a definition and that we stick with it henceforth. Otherwise we will be continually bogged down with moving goal posts & a “get out clause” which relates to lack of pre- satellite data or longer term trends etc, etc.
I am in fact completely astonished by the lack of “best practice” as regards climate science as has been highlighted on this site. But if you live by the sword, you die by the sword – so if you are accusing people of manipulating data etc, you may stand to be accused of the same thing if you make statements like “sea ice area has returned to normal”. It has NOT in arctic for any meaningful period of time.
OK Steve, I agree nobody predicted the -ve AO this year & maybe there will be a reversal of ice loss in the arctic if this continues in future years. But I remember very similar statements being made in 2001, which proved to be a one off. If you’re right – great! But if you’re wrong, how much longer do we have to wait before we agree that climate is changing due at least in part to AGW?

Ben,
In 2005, The Independent declared that the Arctic was “past the point of no return.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/global-warming-past-the-point-of-no-return-507030.html

It’s snowing in ” spring time ” Harbin right now and the city is at a standstill.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/regional/2010-04/13/content_9722339.htm
http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-04/521854.html

Saying something is “irreversible” can backfire on people like Solomon:
If it’s “irreversible”, people are less inclined to want to take any action, since they can’t do anything about it.

It will be interesting to see the 2009 summary of Denali National Park Alaska weather (due soon?) and how fast we are accelerating from “normal” there and how the Park is going this year. Might make up for the “abnormal” conditions of 2008 or is Denali still in denial?
http://www.nps.gov/dena/naturescience/upload/2009-RMUpdatesfinal.pdf
(Page 39)
Weather Notes for 2008:
• The mean annual temperature was 3° F below normal – the coldest year since 1999.
• The mean monthly temperatures were colder than normal for each month except March.
• It was the fourth snowiest April on record with 21.4 inches of total snowfall.
• July was wet; there were 2 inches more rain than normal.
Temperature:
• Maximum temperature 79° F on July 5.
• Minimum temperature – 37°F on February 10.
• Mean annual air temperature 24.6°F (colder than the historical average of 27.2°F).
Don’t think the Park is in too much of a hurry either to change its “normal” opening dates.

Susan,
To gain the wisdom of the ages, repeat the following mantra. Start slowly and gradually increase your speech rate until you realize the wisdom you have gained. Ohwa tagoo siam. Ohwa tagoo siam.

This is actually wonderful news. We no longer need to worry about stopping the warming, since it is unstoppable. Now, we can begin to focus on what needs to be done to prepare for the coming changes.
No need for Cap and Tax. No need to reduce the burning of coal, or to burn our forests for biofuel as Duke Energy is planning to do in North Carolina. No need for windmills that despoil the view and kill birds. No need for subsidies to build solar panel farms to produce outrageously expensive power.
The irony is that climate change is indeed unstoppable, because we didn’t cause it in the first place, or at least not much of it.

jeff brown (14:51:26) :
Jeff, I don’t think you’ll get any objections from WUWT readers on your points.
Your points, however, do not justify the alarmism or cap and trade, which seems to be the end goal of the alarmists.
A trillion (or more) dollars per year not going to cap and trade would go a long way to addressing your points.

Susan gave a lecture at Oregon State that was video-taped. Now the local PBS affiliate shows the lecture at least once a week — late at night. It’s scary, and I don’t mean the subject matter.
In the video Susan rails on and on about how the planet is “burning up”. Her principal anecdote in support of her theory is about an Eskimo village that had to be moved away from the shore because waves from the ice-free Arctic Ocean were causing beach erosion.
Oh the humanity!
She fails to note, however, that Eskimos used to move their villages quite often, before they were ensconsed in government issue trailer homes. And that the trailers were mis-sited. And that the Eskimos are probably happy to get new ones somewhere else. And that the beach erosion, if there really is any, is not caused by global warming. And that if the best ancedotal evidence of global warming she can come up with is translocated Eskimos, she’s pathetic.

DirkH (13:56:10) wrote:
“Oettinger didn’t bury it but says the comission will make results public when they are ready (“wenn sie [the commission] fertig ist””
The main meaning in German of “wenn” is not “when”, but “if”. Should we re-examine the quotation?
IanM

Steve,
Your post is timely. This was the same tired eco-babble I got to listen to on the way home this evening: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/04/13/pm-eaarth-new-reality-q/
Oh if we could only get back to that perfect world of 50 years ago…
They do read letters on air and I think they even record it in the authors’ own voices. So, if you’re interested you might want to fire off a modified version of your post in rebuttal.

re: jeff brown (13:01:38):
Eskimo oral history refers to years when the ice does not return in winter. “Always returns” is not accurate.

There’s still plenty of alamism in the pipeline.

Just for kicks, take a gander at the temperature/CO2 record over the last 600 million years. We’re near record lows. Both have been plunging for the last 50 million years in an in a cold low carbon era. I would think what qualifies as “normal” is what has predominated since the modern phyla emerged in the Cambrian 500mya.
The truth is “normal” has a rather wide range, we’re near the bottom of cold/low CO2 side of it, and at least thousands if not millions of years away from a warm high carbon extremes. We should be worried about colding not warming. We’re one supervolcano away from a global snowball. What sincere people desire (those without political, social, or financial) interests is some kind of semi-safe statsis near about what they’re accustomed to with no weather surprises. Good luck with that. Weather and climate both vary naturally. Keeping the status quo indefinitely is abnormal.

Sweet stuff all that alarmism. The sun giveth and the sun taketh (not giveth) away….energy.

The question is more about whether something is ‘abnormal’ rather than ‘normal’. Low levels of arctic sea ice may not be ‘normal’ but it has happened several times over the past hundred years so is not ‘abnormal’. As such it can not be used to prove AGW. If all ice disappeared and it stayed clear then that would be abnormal and would require an explanation. Even then it does not prove AGW, it would be just one possibility.

Dr. Susan Solomon of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research laboratory is correct. Her world of AGW has past the point of no return. And it is not going to return. Now she and her peers can get real jobs.

I think it obvious – the insightful Ms. Solomon wishes a return to the native state before life polluted the universe – no living “emissions” to disturb the “natural” state of the cosmos. Where do we find these folks?
But, with apologies to those who do not believe, I recall that “God contemplates his universe, magnificent as it is, but who, absent man, contemplates God in return?”
Are you so sure that God would prefer a dead rock, in its “natural” state? Would He? Let us ask Ms. Solomon, who would, not doubt, think the question absurd.

Pearland Aggie (11:39:31) wrote:
“Well, then, I guess there’s no point in implementing carbon taxes or controls if the damage is irreversible. I guess we either get to adapting to the new ‘permanent’ conditions or go cower in the corner of our non-air conditioned house!”
Aggie, that’s a very logical interpretation. However reasonable people are not the target audience of the article. Joe Greenshirt is more apt to reason as follows:
Wow, I sure hope that Susan Soloman is premature about our having reached the point of no return. If we act immediately, and all stop driving cars, stop heating our houses, stop using electricity, substitute rat-burgers for grain-fed meat in our diets, limit ourselves to one child per family, and read up on Pol Pot for inspiration on how implement the above, then the planet may barely squeak through. Thanks for the heads-up, Susan!

Oops – Global Dumbing!
Dang, it’s infectious!

Wren (21:24:43) :
Another year of global warming, and we are further down the death spiral.

Wren (21:24:43) :
One might get the impression from reading the article the Solomon study is new. It’s not. Here is a link to the study.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
REPLY: Nobody implied that it was new, but with Steve McIntyre’s pointing out Solomon’s recent aversion to having a statement in WG1 about measurement, It reminded Goddard of her overblown claims about CO2 residence time, so we decided to have a little fun.
Of course you wouldn’t understand that, being all puffed up with CO2 and all that. Bring on on the wailing, and no I don’t care what you’ll have to complain about next. – A
=====
I probably should have know when the article just said “Tuseday” it didn’t mean today or last week, but some Tusday in 2008.

REPLY: Or you can look at the tag “satire” and laugh along with everyone else or check the date on the linked story and not worry about it. Jeez go to bed and quit your nit picking it’s 3AM in Maryland. -A

“Fusion power is where we should be headed.”
Ha, ha, ha. Another example of socialist science – that is, the kind of science the taxpayer is forced to fund because capitalist science doesn’t see much chance of it ever making money. I wonder why that is? Could it be that 50 years of fusion research hasn’t made one jot of progress?
Since the climate change is now considered irreversible even by its proponents it seems that wasting more time and money on socialist science projects like nuclear fusion and other daft schemes to reduce CO2 would be better spent on building up those flood defences. But we have a hundred years to prepare so I would suggest a “wait and see” strategy for deciding where best to put the barriers up.

irreversible – should try a stick shift (gear stick to us brits) I never have trouble finding reverse.
And a thought just occured to me, in 200 years when they make a family tree of climate scientists (with the invention of the interweb all comments, statements and lies are now recorded electronically (unlesse requested to be deleted before an FOI request) so historians will be able to accurately prove who said what and when) who would be at the top, i’m guessing Susan Solomon and Al gore as mum and dad, with Jones and Mann as the kids?

Now we are manufacturing demons and ghosts. If Susie uses the eskimo stories to season her sermons, so be it. If I were an Alaskan native, I also would ask for a new modular home if claiming the last one was too close to the waves would get me a new one. I notice in NOLA many folks living below sea level recieved FEMA trailors for several years as free housing.

@stevengoddard: plugging my vacuum cleaner into a H-bomb explosion looks a bit anti-social if you ask me.
The Sun has gravity on its side to squash those atoms together – bit difficult to reproduce on earth. H-bombs use a fission reaction to set off an A-bomb to squash the atoms together – also a bit difficult to reproduce in a controlled manner.

In 1895, Nansen took a boat to 83N and a kayak to 86N. Lewis Pugh got stuck at 81N, after completing 1% of his journey.

rbateman (15:05:57)
When did I say that temperature was responsible for ice loss in 2007?? Why make things up like that? Temperature, winds, thin ice, ocean temperatures were ALL responsible for the anomalously low sea ice in 2007. Natural variability = atmospheric circulation, which can bring warm temperatures into a region one year and not the next, which can create strong storms and winds one year and not the next. Again, it seems you conflate weather with climate. Long term trends are what is of interest, not the year-to-year variability. Once the average person understands that, the discussion on climate change will actually be productive.

jeff brown (09:54:59)
As you said, temperature did play a big part in the 2007 summer minimum.

Not A Carbon Cow (17:12:19)
I agree with you. I do not believe cap and trade is a solution that will work, nor is it the right approach. Looking to renewables for energy is the right approach in the long-term, and doing things to curb CO2 emissions today, such as more energy efficiency, carbon sequestration, etc. are good short term solutions.

Mike D. (17:21:57)
Actually Mike, the coastal erosion in the Arctic is caused by (1) permafrost thawing and (2) less sea ice that exposes the coasts to larger ocean waves. So, ask yourself what is causing the permafrost to thaw and the sea ice to retreat in summer? Also ask yourself if you would mind having to move your entire town because your home fell into the ocean. I think it’s one thing to have these changes so external to ourselves, but it’s another thing to have it happening in our own community.
That’s the thing with climate change, if it’s not bothering our lifestyles, why should we care? The scientists would probably make more headway if they could actually tells us what will happen to us if things like the Arctic sea ice cover disappeared in summer. Unfortunately, the models aren’t all that great yet at modeling impacts and we have no other way of knowing.

Phillep Harding (17:39:57)
really? where did you hear that? I would like to read it. Can you point me to the reference for it?

Playing around with Central Greenland temperatures (here), I saw something quite revealing, IMHO.
I have tried to get images to display here, but whatever I am doing doesn’t seem to work. (If anyone could tell me how to do that it would be appreciated; the toolbar icon doesn’t seem to give anything that actually displays.)
The most current temp in the data is 95 years ago and it was -31.59C. At 3300 BP, the temp maxed out at -28.86C, nearly 3C above 1915. There were several times in the Holocene when that -28.86C was approached. At 980 years ago, in the middle of the MWP, with the Vikings farming in Greenland, the indicated temperature was -30.63C, almost 2C warmer than now, but nearly a full 1C below the max. Since the end of the ice age the MWP seems to be about AVERAGE, very much so.

Since the MWP central Greenland has been in its only protracted cold spell since the end of the Younger-Dryas. We are only now beginning to come out of that cold spell.
The real story is in the big picture. The ice core data goes back to 49.98k years ago. The obvious thing about it all is that the several warm periods did not “melt all the ice in Greenland,” since the ice from 50,000 years ago is still there – even after weathering the warm periods. They certainly could not have gotten ice core samples if all the ice had melted.
This is probably a brain-dead observation, but it seemed so obvious I couldn’t not speak up about it:
If the MWP and its warmer predecessors did not “melt all the ice in Greenland,” any belief that we are in danger of having passed the tipping point – or that we are remotely in danger of doing so – is just pathetic.
It is CERTAIN that central Greenland can warm up at least by another 3C without melting down to bedrock, since we have the proof of it. If the MWP or the warmer periods – more than 10 of them since the Younger-Dryas – did not melt the ice in Greenland, we are certainly safe, AND sea level cannot rise if the ice doesn’t melt in Greenland. If the ice had all melted, we wouldn’t be able to measure it now, would we?
Literally, the ice in central Greenland won’t melt until the temperature there gets above 0C, so not only do we have the 3C between 1915’s temperature and 3300BP, but we THEN have the other 28C to go before the ice in central Greenland even BEGINS to melt.
And Antarctica is going the OTHER way, with the greatest ice extent ever recorded. So, where is all this melt water to come from? If not Greenland and not Antarctica, where?
Like I said, this seems a brain-dead observation, but if this is so brain dead, then what does that say for those who claim scores or hundreds of meters of sea level rise?

jeff brown (10:01:59) :
So far, the relationship between temperature and CO2 looks fairly linear, with a extrapolated 2C rise at 550 ppm.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_592d7v6sdf8

stevengoddard (10:27:22) :
ok, if you smooth temperature and CO2 over the past 50 years, it does look linear (btw…that figure you pointed me to was of temperature anomalies, not actual temperature and I don’t know the baseline for the computation of the anomalies). But if you look at the last 150 years, it’s not linear. And this gets to the point of how results depend on the time-period analyzed. Over the long-term it is not linear, but recently it looks to be. But then again, if you plot Arctic sea ice extent over the satellite data record with CO2, it also looks linear, but I don’t think any scientist would say that GHGs are solely responsible for Arctic ice melt.

jeff brown (10:41:41)
The linear trend line I showed was for all GISS data, starting in 1890.

In this link it doesn’t look linear. GISS are modeled temperatures though, right? And
they don’t get the warming it the 1930s/1940s right, or do they?
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFacts-CO2-Temp.gif

Smokey…the more recent results on Antarctica actually show warming everywhere in Antarctica. See the Nature paper by Steig et al. But again, it all depends on your time-period of trend analysis. anyone can make any trend by carefully choosing their start and end points. Of course for the observational record, there isn’t much choice in those start and end points, so you have to go with what you have.

Smokey (11:03:06) :
also, just because natural variability is also a factor, that doesn’t mean GHGs are negligible. solar variation explains less than 10% of the warming since 1850. so where is the other 90% coming from?

On January 17, 1961, in his farewell address to this nation, President Eisenhower warned us about a military-industrial complex gaining control of policy making. Most remember that one. But it appears no one seems to remember his other warning:
<<<>>>
Indeed, domination of this nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project and, in paticular, grant allocations, and the power of money is now evident, and public policy has been taken captive by a scientific-technological elite.

@ stevengoddard (Is that really “Steven Goddard”?) on fusion:
Fusion works good on a brute-force basis. Pressure, heat, light elements in a plasma state, voila. Meanwhile we have attempts at “controllable” fusion like ICF at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) where they are attempting to shatter a boulder with a thousand little chisel blows, when one well-placed stick of dynamite will do the job.
The products of a fusion bomb to note are heat and pressure. We’ve detonated them underground before. So why don’t we just build a large underground chamber that can contain those products, set off a small one, and generate power from those products? At this posting they’re discussing using old mines to store energy as compressed air. Well then, get the siting right and the pressure storage will take care of itself.
Fusion power now that uses existing technology, versus “sometime in the future when we get the details worked out.” What’s not to like?

jeff brown (11:16:40) :
Based on the trends, it appears that another 1.5C warming is possible by the end of the century. Is this a catastrophe?

Jeff Brown
Explain the warming in your graph from 1910 – 1945
Explain the cooling in your graph from 1945 – 1970
What forced it? (it was not the sun)
By the way see a nice picture: http://www.archive.org/details/SVS-3630