Some people cite scientists saying there is a “CO2 control knob” for Earth. No doubt there is, but due to the logarithmic effect of CO2, I think of it like a fine tuning knob, not the main station tuner. That said, a new data picture is emerging of an even bigger knob and lever; a nice bright yellow one.
A few months back, I found a website from NOAA that provides an algorithm and downloadable program for spotting regime shifts in time series data. It was designed by Sergei Rodionov of the NOAA Bering Climate and Ecosystem Center for the purpose of detecting shifts in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Regime shifts are defined as rapid reorganizations of ecosystems from one relatively stable state to another. In the marine environment, regimes may last for several decades and shifts often appear to be associated with changes in the climate system. In the North Pacific, climate regimes are typically described using the concept of Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Regime shifts were also found in many other variables as demonstrated in the Data section of this website (select a variable and then click “Recent trends”).
But data is data, and the program doesn’t care if it is ecosystem data, temperature data, population data, or solar data. It just looks for and identifies abrupt changes that stabilize at a new level. For example, a useful application of the program is to look for shifts in weather data, such as that caused by the PDO. Here we can clearly see the great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976/77:
Another useful application is to use it to identify station moves that result in a temperature shift. It might also be applied to proxy data, such as ice core Oxygen 18 isotope data.
But the program was developed around the PDO. What drives the PDO? Many say the sun, though there are other factors too. It follows to reason then the we might be able to look for solar regime shifts in PDO driven temperature data.
Alan of AppInSys found the same application and has done just that, and the results are quite interesting. The correlation is well aligned, and it demonstrates the solar to PDO connection quite well. I’ll let him tell his story of discovery below. – Anthony
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Climate Regime Shifts
The notion that climate variations often occur in the form of ‘‘regimes’’ began to become appreciated in the 1990s. This paradigm was inspired in large part by the rapid change of the North Pacific climate around 1977 [e.g., Kerr, 1992] and the identification of other abrupt shifts in association with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) [Mantua et al., 1997].” [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/regimes/Regime_shift_algorithm.pdf]
Pacific Regime Shifts
Hare and Mantua, 2000 (“Empirical evidence for North Pacific regime shifts in 1977 and 1989”): “It is now widely accepted that a climatic regime shift transpired in the North Pacific Ocean in the winter of 1976–77. This regime shift has had far reaching consequences for the large marine ecosystems of the North Pacific. Despite the strength and scope of the changes initiated by the shift, it was 10–15 years before it was fully recognized. Subsequent research has suggested that this event was not unique in the historical record but merely the latest in a succession of climatic regime shifts. In this study, we assembled 100 environmental time series, 31 climatic and 69 biological, to determine if there is evidence for common regime signals in the 1965–1997 period of record. Our analysis reproduces previously documented features of the 1977 regime shift, and identifies a further shift in 1989 in some components of the North Pacific ecosystem. The 1989 changes were neither as pervasive as the 1977 changes nor did they signal a simple return to pre-1977 conditions.”
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V7B-41FTS3S-2…]
Overland et al “North Pacific regime shifts: Definitions, issues and recent transitions”
[http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/publications/2008/overN667.pdf]: “climate variables for the North Pacific display shifts near 1977, 1989 and 1998.”
The following figure from the above paper show analysis of PDO and Victoria Index using the Rodionov regime detection algorithm. A regime shift is also detected around 1947-48.
The following figure shows regime shift detection for the summer PDO, showing shifts at 1948, 1976 and 1998.
[http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/data/Images/PDOs_FigRegime.html]
(For detailed information on the 1976/77 climate shift,
see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/The1976-78ClimateShift.htm)
Regime Shift Detection in Annual Temperature Anomaly Data
The NOAA Bering Climate web site provides the algorithm for regime shift detection developed by Sergei Rodionov [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/regimes/index.html]. The following analyses use the Excel VBA regime change algorithm version 3.2 from this web site.
The following figure shows the regime analysis of the HadCRUT3 annual global annual average temperature anomaly data from the Met Office Hadley Centre for 1895 to 2009 [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual].
The analysis was run based on the mean using a significance level of 0.1, cut-off length of 10 and Huber weight parameter of 2 using red noise IP4 subsample size 6. Regime changes are identified in 1902, 1914, 1926, 1937, 1946, 1957, 1977, 1987, and 1997. Running the analysis based on the variance rather than the mean results in regime changes in the bold years listed above.
Regime Shift Relationship to Solar Cycle
The NASA Solar Physics web site provides the following figure showing sunspot area.
[http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml]
The following figure compares the Hadley (HadCrut3) monthly global average temperature (from [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/]) overlaid with the regime change line (red line) shown previously, along with the sunspot area since 1900. The sunspot cycle is approximately 11 years. The sun’s magnetic field reverses with each sunspot cycle and thus after two sunspot cycles the magnetic field has completed a cycle – a Hale Cycle – and is back to where it started. Thus a complete magnetic sunspot cycle is approximately 22 years. The figure marks the onset of odd-numbered cycles with a vertical red line, even-numbered cycles with a green line.
From the figure above it can be seen that the regime changes correspond to the onset of solar cycles and occur when the “butterfly” is at its widest. The most significant warming regime shifts occur at the start of odd-numbered cycles (1937, 1957, 1977, 1997). Each odd-numbered cycle (red lines above) has resulted in a temperature-increase regime shift. Even-numbered cycles (green lines above) have been inconsistent, with some resulting in temperature-decrease regime shifts (1902, 1946) or minor temperature-increase shifts (1926, 1987).
An unusual one is the 1957 – 1966 cycle, which in the monthly data shown above visually looks like a temperature-increase shift in 1957 followed by a temperature-decrease shift in 1964 but the regime detection algorithm did not identify it. This is likely due to the use of annually averaged data in the regime detection algorithm.
The following figure shows the relative polarity of the Sun’s magnetic poles for recent sunspot cycles along with the solar magnetic flux [www.bu.edu/csp/nas/IHY_MagField.ppt]. The regime change periods are highlighted by the red and green boxes. Each one occurs on as the solar cycle is accelerating. The onset of an odd-numbered sunspot cycle (1977-78, 1997-98) results in the relative alignment of the Earth’s and the Sun’s magnetic fields (positive North pole on the Sun) allowing greater penetration of the geomagnetic storms into the Earth’s atmosphere. “Twenty times more solar particles cross the Earth’s leaky magnetic shield when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth compared to when the two magnetic fields are oppositely directed” [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/news/themis_leaky_shield.html]
The following figure shows the longitudinally averaged solar magnetic field. This “magnetic butterfly diagram” shows that the sunspots are involved with transporting the field in its reversal. The Earth’s temperature regime shifts are indicated with the superimposed boxes – red on odd numbered solar cycles, green on even.
[http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrsp-2010-1&page=articlesu8.html]
The Earth’s temperature regime shift occurs as the solar magnetic field begins its reversal.
Solar Cycle 24
Solar cycle 24 is in its initial stage after getting off to a late start. An El Nino occurred in the first part of 2010. This may be the start of the next regime shift.
Climate Regime Shifts
[last update: 2010/07/04]
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“The notion that climate variations often occur in the form of ‘‘regimes’’ began to become appreciated in the 1990s. This paradigm was inspired in large part by the rapid change of the North Pacific climate around 1977 [e.g., Kerr, 1992] and the identification of other abrupt shifts in association with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) [Mantua et al., 1997].” [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/regimes/Regime_shift_algorithm.pdf]
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Pacific Regime Shifts
Hare and Mantua, 2000 (“Empirical evidence for North Pacific regime shifts in 1977 and 1989”): “It is now widely accepted that a climatic regime shift transpired in the North Pacific Ocean in the winter of 1976–77. This regime shift has had far reaching consequences for the large marine ecosystems of the North Pacific. Despite the strength and scope of the changes initiated by the shift, it was 10–15 years before it was fully recognized. Subsequent research has suggested that this event was not unique in the historical record but merely the latest in a succession of climatic regime shifts. In this study, we assembled 100 environmental time series, 31 climatic and 69 biological, to determine if there is evidence for common regime signals in the 1965–1997 period of record. Our analysis reproduces previously documented features of the 1977 regime shift, and identifies a further shift in 1989 in some components of the North Pacific ecosystem. The 1989 changes were neither as pervasive as the 1977 changes nor did they signal a simple return to pre-1977 conditions.” [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V7B-41FTS3S-2…]
Overland et al “North Pacific regime shifts: Definitions, issues and recent transitions” [http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/publications/2008/overN667.pdf]: “climate variables for the North Pacific display shifts near 1977, 1989 and 1998.”
The following figure from the above paper show analysis of PDO and Victoria Index using the Rodionov regime detection algorithm. A regime shift is also detected around 1947-48.
The following figure shows regime shift detection for the summer PDO, showing shifts at 1948, 1976 and 1998. [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/data/Images/PDOs_FigRegime.html]
(For detailed information on the 1976/77 climate shift, see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/The1976-78ClimateShift.htm)
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Regime Shift Detection in Annual Temperature Anomaly Data
The NOAA Bering Climate web site provides the algorithm for regime shift detection developed by Sergei Rodionov [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/regimes/index.html]. The following analyses use the Excel VBA regime change algorithm version 3.2 from this web site.
The following figure shows the regime analysis of the HadCRUT3 annual global annual average temperature anomaly data from the Met Office Hadley Centre for 1895 to 2009 [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual].
The analysis was run based on the mean using a significance level of 0.1, cut-off length of 10 and Huber weight parameter of 2 using red noise IP4 subsample size 6. Regime changes are identified in 1902, 1914, 1926, 1937, 1946, 1957, 1977, 1987, and 1997. Running the analysis based on the variance rather than the mean results in regime changes in the bold years listed above.
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Regime Shift Relationship to Solar Cycle
The NASA Solar Physics web site provides the following figure showing sunspot area. [http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml]
The following figure compares the Hadley (HadCrut3) monthly global average temperature (from [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/]) overlaid with the regime change line (red line) shown previously, along with the sunspot area since 1900. The sunspot cycle is approximately 11 years. The sun’s magnetic field reverses with each sunspot cycle and thus after two sunspot cycles the magnetic field has completed a cycle – a Hale Cycle – and is back to where it started. Thus a complete magnetic sunspot cycle is approximately 22 years. The figure marks the onset of odd-numbered cycles with a vertical red line, even-numbered cycles with a green line.
From the figure above it can be seen that the regime changes correspond to the onset of solar cycles and occur when the “butterfly” is at its widest. The most significant warming regime shifts occur at the start of odd-numbered cycles (1937, 1957, 1977, 1997). Each odd-numbered cycle (red lines above) has resulted in a temperature-increase regime shift. Even-numbered cycles (green lines above) have been inconsistent, with some resulting in temperature-decrease regime shifts (1902, 1946) or minor temperature-increase shifts (1926, 1987).
An unusual one is the 1957 – 1966 cycle, which in the monthly data shown above visually looks like a temperature-increase shift in 1957 followed by a temperature-decrease shift in 1964 but the regime detection algorithm did not identify it. This is likely due to the use of annually averaged data in the regime detection algorithm.
The following figure shows the relative polarity of the Sun’s magnetic poles for recent sunspot cycles along with the solar magnetic flux [www.bu.edu/csp/nas/IHY_MagField.ppt]. The regime change periods are highlighted by the red and green boxes. Each one occurs on as the solar cycle is accelerating. The onset of an odd-numbered sunspot cycle (1977-78, 1997-98) results in the relative alignment of the Earth’s and the Sun’s magnetic fields (positive North pole on the Sun) allowing greater penetration of the geomagnetic storms into the Earth’s atmosphere. “Twenty times more solar particles cross the Earth’s leaky magnetic shield when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth compared to when the two magnetic fields are oppositely directed” [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/news/themis_leaky_shield.html]
The following figure shows the longitudinally averaged solar magnetic field. This “magnetic butterfly diagram” shows that the sunspots are involved with transporting the field in its reversal. The Earth’s temperature regime shifts are indicated with the superimposed boxes – red on odd numbered solar cycles, green on even. [http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrsp-2010-1&page=articlesu8.html]
The Earth’s temperature regime shift occurs as the solar magnetic field begins its reversal.
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Solar Cycle 24
Solar cycle 24 is in its initial stage after getting off to a late start. An El Nino occurred in the first part of 2010. This may be the start of the next regime shift.
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Alan Cheetham says: July 5, 2010 at 2:10 pm
There is also a (approx.) 60-year cycle with as yet unknown cause.
Any astronomer will tell you that the every third conjunction of two largest planets with strongest magnetospheres happens every 59.577 years at approximately the same heliocentric longitude (actually back-shifted by 5 degrees).
If you for some reason think that solar activity is caused by an electro-magnetic feedback between the sun and the magnetospheres, than intensity of this feedback will vary due to asymmetry of heliosphere.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC11.htm
You are welcome to browse through some of the formulae and graphs :
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm
Stephen Wilde says:
July 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm (Edit)
tallbloke said :
“Now, if Steven Mosher or Leif Svalgaard or Anna V ever actaully angaged in a reasonable discussion about how it is ocean heat content has been rising since the fifties when the sun got really active, and started dropping again when it got quiet, I might be a bit more respectful.”
I’ve already done that.
And I’ve responded to your posts. None of the big hitters have though. We’ll have a nip of grog and sing some shanties to while away the loneliness.
Comparison of the current with previous cycles suggests that sunspots are forming at lower latitudes than previously. Has anyone done an analysis of this?
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Adding another 100-150 ppm C02 to the previous level has no more effect than counting Tiny Tim Sunspots does to the Sunspot Area Measurements. I do not say that either addition has no effect, just that the effects of those additions are not significant.
Stephen Wilde says: July 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm
When the sun is more active the energy flux from stratosphere to space increases so that the stratosphere cools, the inversion at the tropopause weakens, the polar oscillations turn more positive…
There is one more literally ‘down to earth’ explanation (with 150 year of data track record and strong correlation) for the polar oscillations:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Thank for the Eschenbach videos! Willis, great lecture.
The next generation of climate models will have spatial resolutions of <10km and this will allow them to simulate thunderstorms:
http://www.physorg.com/news180371126.html
This might render the projections of older climate models invalid. (Hmmmm… science settled, eh, BBC?)
Rich says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:25 am
It makes me happy to see another fan of R here. It always hits me as bad science to see scientific software that depends on the proprietary, expensive, and not very reliable Microsoft Excel.
For your pictures, you can output them to files with “png()” or “pdf()”, and then upload them to a site for image sharing.
KBW says:
July 5, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Comparison of the current with previous cycles suggests that sunspots are forming at lower latitudes than previously. Has anyone done an analysis of this?
_________________________________
Check out the Layman’s sunspot count website towards the bottom of the page: http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Gail Combs says: July 5, 2010 at 8:24 am
Despite Willis’s faith in the CO2 data, I do not believe CO2 is homogeneous through the atmosphere, that the rise is linear, or that the measurements in the early days at Mauna Loa (1950′s thru 1970′s) are accurate.
Unless you are calling all data gatherers liars or incompetents then this plot shows a world wide level of CO2 which is more or less homogeneous.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3694/co2manytrends.png
Amino:
“This explanation has a different feel to it then just calling it numerology. I think it was 1:30 am when you posted the numerology comment so at that hour you may not have wanted to expound. But now with this comment I can see I agree with you much more than I did last night.”
ya sorry, I’m assuming that most people are going to get my shorthand for things we have discussed many many times.
tallbloke:
“Now, if Steven Mosher or Leif Svalgaard or Anna V ever actaully angaged in a reasonable discussion about how it is ocean heat content has been rising since the fifties when the sun got really active, and started dropping again when it got quiet, I might be a bit more respectful. But since they avoid the subject like the plague, I’ll just giggle a bit at their display of rank hypocrisy when they throw other peoples ideas out because of “no mechanism”.”
For people to have a reasonable discussion the first prerequisites would be a clear statement of the issue. “the sun got really active” is not a clear statement. the sun got “quiet” is not a clear statement. When we look at our understanding of how the Sun provides energy to the earth that clear understanding is reflected in TSI data.
The units are kw/sqmeter. Think on that.
WRT throwing other peoples ideas out. Without a mechanism there is no IDEA to throw out. there is only this: a mere observation about numbers. This set of numbers is like that set of numbers. That’s not an explanation. It’s not even an idea.
It’s an observation.
Steven mosher says on July 5, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Unless the Yellowtail Merlot has gotten the better of me, I think you mean W/m^2, ie watts per square meter.
@Steven Mosher
‘For people to have a reasonable discussion the first prerequisites would be a clear statement of the issue.’
The first prerequisite will always be a proper forum. That’s why the Greek made ’em, and the Roman made use of ’em, and the church banned ’em.
The Internets, only, mass-produced ’em, what ever. :p
We already know that the sun influences global temp as it has been shown that the temp does change in a measurable way as sunspot lows, versus sunspot highs. If this si true, as is shown in this paper:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827141349.htm
THEN, eve larger changes, like those pointed out here, or as occurred in the Maunder Minimum, will lead to even greater changes. You papers stating otherwise are just wrong in my opinion.
Dr. Leif Svalgaard, July 5, 2010 at 10:00 am, wrote: “The past ten years have been the warmest recorded…”
In your opinion.
There is a lot of data that contradicts that assertion.
But hey…keep pitching for those invites to conferences where the organizers want “cover” for the AGW propaganda.
In that sense, you’ve been a good little lap dog.
Maybe, they’ll give you an award for peddling “the Sun doesn’t matter” hogwash.
AGW is a hoax.
And there are many folks who drank the Kool-Aid…or did their part to get other people to drink the Kool-Aid.
Most of us, here, were smart enough to drop the Kool-Aid cup in the waste basket…a long time ago.
Alexander Feht says:
July 5, 2010 at 1:17 am
“If I remember correctly, there is a self-appointed “world’s foremost Solar scientist,” very popular among some people frequenting the WUWT site, who repetitiously proclaimed that anybody asserting any connection between Solar cycles and climate changes is not worthy of any consideration, since the Sun cannot affect climate, period.
I also recall that one of the moderators, residing in San Francisco, has been very supportive toward this prominent scientist, to the deplorable extent of certain editorial bias in his favor. ”
Actually, the moderators of WUWT are for the most part agreed that nonsense like “Iron Sun” theories are phlogiston and don’t belong here. That is distinctly different from discussions about the solar influence on Earth climate. We welcome Leif here and his comments because unlike most AGW scientists, he is generally civil and happy to answer questions about his discipline, for the same reason we welcome Judith Curry here. We can disagree with their opinions about solar influence on climate (and I and others do) without attacking them or resorting to nonsense.
WUWT tries to help educate the layman and the interested professional without attacking or demeaning either. The systemic problems that led to the arrogance and elitism behind the CRUtape Letters email authors, and part of that is the politicization of science on both ends of the spectrum. Modern politics seeks to force change via dialectical conflict of polarization and alienation of the opposition. That isn’t how science is supposed to work, and when it does we all are harmed.
We are as skeptical of claims of AGW as we are of long disproven theories like the geocentric universe, steady state universe, spontaneous generation, phlogiston, Piltdown Man, Lamarckianism, Lysenkoism, and yes, iron sun and electric universe. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
One obvious problem with the algorithm is that it insists on interpreting everything as regime change. It does not allow for concurrent steady trends. So, suppose we accept that the correlation implies a tendency for higher temperatures when the sun’s field is one way up and lower when it’s the other way. The next step would be to extract the long term average of that relationship and subtract that as appropriate from the temperature graph. This should produce a clearer picture of the long term trend.
The smoking gun. Wow. Do a cross correlation between the datasets and see what that number it – it must be very close to 1.0
BBk wrote: “The implication is that temperature is an indirect effect. He correlated with PDO, implying that the sun drives PDO (changes in upper atmosphere causing shifting weather patterns, etc) which in turn changes temperature.”
Please supply a paper that describes the mechanism(s) by which the PDO changes global temperatures. As far as I’ve found, there are none. The PDO lags ENSO and is dependent of ENSO on all timescales, according to Newman et al. The reason for the periodic difference between ENSO and the PDO appears to be a shift in Sea Level Pressure, in the form of the North Pacific Index (NPI):
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-difference-between-nino34-sst.html
idlex :The photon is absorbed, and then shortly afterwards it’s re-emitted in some random direction.
There’ll also be collisions with other molecules, which will lead to a kinetic redistribution of the absorbed energy – a rise in the gas temperature.
The mean free path of air at sea level is about 0.1 μm, increasing linearly with the inverse of atmospheric pressure. At the same time, air molecules possess speeds of ~100-500 m/s. Therefore on average a collision will take place every half a nano-second or so.
I haven’t found a reference for the IR absorption-to-emission time(s) for CO2 yet – if they’re longer than half a nano-second, and assuming the above calculations are correct, there’ll be a significant number of these collisions.
@ur momisugly richard sharp.
Thanks for the sharp eyes
This is interesting, but (leaving aside the issue of the accuracy of adjusted/homogenised temperature records):
1) The temperture “regime shifts” appear to happen before the increasing sun spot numbers manifest themselves in general. This implies a very high senstivity of the temperature record to the mechanism which generates sun spots.
2) The sun spot number maxima do not seem to correlate to the tempertature maxima/minima or curve shape. This implies that there is little sensitivity of the temperature record to sun spot number. If we accept that sun spot number is dependent on the sun spot generating mechanism in 1), then 2) contradicts 1).
3) The magnitude and direction (positive or negative) of the “regime shifts” with respect to the last “regime shift” value is not predicted by the sun spot data. Sometimes the shift is greater than the previous shift, sometimes less and sometimes the same.
4) The senstivity of “regime shift” to sun spot cycle alluded to in 1) appears to suggest an almost “instantaneous” effect on temperature in the time-frame of solar cycles which makes the data look too good to be true.
For these reasons Willis et. al. who require some mechanism as well as the observed correlation are correct.
On a final note. The temperature graphs look like absolute temperatures rather than anomalies but I couldn’t tell from the article. Maybe I missed it.
There’ll also be collisions with other molecules, which will lead to a kinetic redistribution of the absorbed energy – a rise in the gas temperature.
Not sure I agree about that. CO2 only captures photons of a particular wavelength/frequency. I think the same is true of the oxygen and nitrogen which make up most of the atmosphere.
The model I’m imagining is one in which there’s effectively only CO2 in the atmosphere, because all other gas molecules are transparent.
Furthermore, I’m not sure whether the absorption of a photon results in a rise in temperature. If the absorption of a photon by a CO2 molecule just kicks an electron into a higher orbit, or ‘stretches’ bonds between atoms, I don’t see that this necessarily entails a temperature rise. Not all gains in energy translate into gains in temperature.
But that’s just my guess.
And I’ve been wondering too how long CO2 holds onto a photon, and haven’t seen a figure for it yet.
If anything, that graph (though it only covers a few years) proves Gail’s point. While all the sites show a similar overall trend, the absolute levels shown at the various sites vary at any give time vary. They are certainly not homogeneous — there’s too much variance between them to say they are.
Anthony:
Many others conclude that they are talking about Rajenda Pachauri. 🙂