Condensed Monckton

Moderator, I’d be surprised if this goes more than a couple of iterations, if it does then perhaps a new thread would be in order, but I think with good faith discussion, a couple iterations may be all that is needed to lay out areas of disagreement and uncertainty. Let us know if you decide to move us to a more another location.
Barton Paul Levenson,
BPL: “The causation is established by solid radiation physics. The correlation is merely confirmation”
The solid radiation physics only gets us to the 1.2 degrees C that I think we are agreed upon. Anything more requires net positive feedback, and the AR4 model sensitivities require quite a significant net positive feedback.
BPL: “You can’t have a high, steady input that results in a low, steady output and then an increasing rise starting almost halfway through the period. Or rather, you could, but you’d need an incredibly elaborate equation to relate the two, and it would be fudging, not science.”
Yes you can with the addition of aerosol and/or internal variability. The response to the logarithm of the CO2 concentration has the same problem. The models with different sensitivities are documented to match the climate with different aerosol scenarios. Models don’t do the multi-decadal climate oscillations that were in the negative phase for the middle part of the century and in the positive phase during the most rapid warming. Aerosol changes and mode changes in the oscillations can be rapid enough to explain the shape of the temperature curve. With oceans accounting for nearly all the heat capacity of the climate system, there is huge energy source and sink available for internal variation to impact global temperatures, which are a mere surface effect. Ocean heat content probably should be the true focus and measure of any climate trend.
“Now, we’ve warmed 0.8 K since 1880. You can see that to get that much from solar variation, you’d need S = 1380.1 W/m^2, an increase of 13 W/m^2. That’s way more than we’ve ever seen. Annually averaged S has been between 1363 and 1367 for the past 400 years.”
Let’s accept the 13W/m^2 of solar variation as a working figure. Given the 4W/m^2 of solar variation and the factor of two uncertainty in solar variation acknowledged by the IPCC we have 8W/m^2 and with the remainder of 5W/m^2 we are within shooting range of the portions that might be attributed to CO2 forcing and black carbon forcing. However, even in the modern record, we are seeing 5W/m^2 and with the SORCE satellite and an interesting solar cycle we might learn more. “There are two important findings from SORCE. First, the high accurate TIM (Total Irradiance Monitor) on SORCE reveals a much lower TSI of ~1361 W/m2 as compared to ~1366 W/m2 from earlier observations [Kopp et al., 2005]. ”
http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/solar_radiation.php
We also know that solar variation in in the UV range is several percent, not a fraction of a percent, and that the coupling to the climate in the UV range is not strictly radiative, but also chemical, producing the greenhouse gas ozone and modulating the coupling of solar and earth originated infrared to the climate as well. With greenhouse gas forcing, at equilibrium, there is no change in Top of Atmosphere temperature or outbound radiation. The factor of two uncertainty acknowledged by the IPCC may well be real. Foukal reports that a model based upon sunspots and bright areas only explains 80% of the solar variation observed by the satellites. These observations are from just the recent solar grand maximum and the models may do even more poorly when the solar activity is in other modes like a dalton or maunder minimum. Going back 400 years, we only have the sunspot data and the nucleotide proxies, we don’t have bright area data, so the models would necessarily have less information to work with and would be in regimes for which they have not be validated. Solar variation has other nonlinearities and differences from CO2 in its coupling to the climate: the vertical and geographical distribution of its radiative forcing, including penetrating 10s of meters into the ocean, its coupling to biosphere via photosynthesis, its bleaching of materials, etc. There there are the hypothesized and poorly understood non-radiative coupling to the climate via the solar wind, magnetic field and cosmic rays. The argument that the solar grand maximum is not just a coincidence cannot be rejected.
BPL; “Lindzen’s many “iris effect” papers are consistently shot down by other researchers as soon as he publishes them. The 2009 paper with Choi was as well. I’m not at home, but when I get back on Saturday, or as soon as possible after that, I’ll shoot you the references.”
I will be curious to see if the papers dispute his data or just his arguments and conclusions. If his radiative imbalances from the observations are correct, then the models have another serious diagnostic issue that suggests their positive feedback is too high at tropical latitudes. You didn’t address the Wentz work that showed that the models reproduced less than half the increase in precipitation observed in the recent warming, some more negative feedback they are missing, or perhaps this is the feedback responsible for Lindzen’s data.
BPL: “If you use a climate sensitivity below 2 K you can’t reproduce the ice ages accurately no matter how you tweak the other parameters. There’s virtually no chance of the figure being below 1.5 K or about 6 K, with 3 K the best estimate.”
That would be a climate sensitivity to solar, in this case variation due to orbital parameters. The sensitivity to solar variation may well be that high when crossing the tipping point between an inter-glacial and an ice age. There is no reason to assume that sensitivities to CO2 forcing, coupled so differently to the climate, are that high in general, although perhaps they are when near a tipping point. The climate sensitivities of relevance to AGW alarmism are those in the warming direction for the climate we will have for the next century or two. Absent a tipping point in the warming direction and on that time horizon, the possibility of net negative feedback and a climate sensitivity under 1.0 K is open and the science is undecided. I look forward to more data and better models to help resolve the issue. A weak solar cycle in the modern instrument era would be particularly helpful to the progress of the science.
BPL: “The fraction of Earth’s land surface in severe droughts is growing like crazy, as predicted by the GCMs. That will kill us a lot quicker than sea-level rise, which is a fairly long-term danger.”
There are alternative hypotheses to explain desertification, and GCMs documented to produce less than half the observed increase in precipitation have no credibility when it comes to drought alarmism. Global warming may well be beneficial in a world thirsty for fresh water.

Martin Lewitt, you wrote:

Moderator, I’d be surprised if this goes more than a couple of iterations, if it does then perhaps a new thread would be in order, but I think with good faith discussion, a couple iterations may be all that is needed to lay out areas of disagreement and uncertainty.

Well good luck in your endeavours, but here is an example of how difficult I‘ve found it to be with BPL over at RC:
I pointed out to him the fact that in the Earth’s Energy Budget diagram as used in the IPCC reports of 2001 and 2007, that the greatest proportion of HEAT loss from the surface was from evapo-transpiration. (78*) He counter asserted that no, the greatest HEAT loss was from radiation (390*). However, although the units (* = watts/m^2) were the same, the depiction was for EMR (electro-magnetic radiation), which is a different form of energy to HEAT, with quite different behaviour. In fact, without questioning the numbers, HEAT loss from the surface would be (390 – 324) = 66*.
Here is a quick visualization of the fundamental difference in energy types;
Consider an elemental parcel of air in a typical small regional layer of air. The most intensive radiation flux is laterally in an infinite number of directions, back and forth. (not straight up and down). However, the temperature does not change…. There is no heat transfer.
Here is just one diagram from an impeccable source, (NOAA), which typically shows the net HEAT losses rather differently to BPL’s assertions.
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/ess/Units/Unit2/u2L5aimage.jpg
However, when trying to communicate such explanations at RC, as the facts progressively became “more inconvenient“, my later comments were deleted in moderation
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Notes: If you click BPL’s name it takes you to his website, where he illustrates his novels and claims to be a computer programmer. (elsewhere, he claims climate programmer).
I find it amazing/disturbing that he claims that upwelling EMR is HEAT loss, supported by Gavin et al at RC! (denying the standard literature on HEAT transfer)

BobFJ: I find it amazing/disturbing that he claims that upwelling EMR is HEAT loss, supported by Gavin et al at RC! (denying the standard literature on HEAT transfer)
BPL: Adding energy adds heat, losing energy loses heat. You’re using the wrong definition of heat. You were corrected on that point by a number of scientists and continued to dispute it, which is why they finally started deleting your posts. There’s a difference between expressing a different opinion and stubbornly defending a mistake.
The Earth gains energy largely from the following sources:
333 W/m^2 back-radiation from the atmosphere.
161 W/m^2 sunlight
(Total: 494 W/m^2).
It loses energy largely from the following sources:
Thermal IR radiation: 390 W/m^2
Latent heat: 80 W/m^2
Sensible heat: 24 W/m^2
(Total: 494 W/m^2).
Because input equals output, the Earth’s surface temperature is stable over the long term (say, a year or more). Global warming is happening primarily because atmospheric back-radiation is increasing, which is in turn due to the increase in greenhouse gases. The Earth’s surface absorbs more IR, which heats it up. It must then radiate more, proportionate to the fourth power of the absolute temperature by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which will bring it back into balance if the increase in input stops.
ML,
When I regress temperature anomaly against both ln CO2 and solar intensity measures, the CO2 consistently accounts for three quarters of the variance at a very high level of confidence. Solar accounts for no more than 2.5%, and is never statistically significant. I’ve tried Lean’s TSI, Svalgaard’s TSI, Wolf sunspot number, years since solar minimum, and years since solar maximum. Nothing works. The recent global warming cannot be ascribed to the sun. Let me know if you want to see the time series data and run the analysis yourself.

Barton Paul Levenson,
“I’ve tried Lean’s TSI, Svalgaard’s TSI, Wolf sunspot number, years since solar minimum, and years since solar maximum. Nothing works.”
That is not quite an exhaustive search. You should try using twice the solar variation to account for some of the uncertainty, include aerosols, multi-decadal climate modes, the variation of the heat content of the oceans in response to the forcings, surface albedo feedback, precipitation, clouds, etc.
Just to make the sure the correlation isn’t just due to coincidence of a period of warming temperatures with a period of rising CO2, perhaps you should extend your analysis back to the Medieval warm period or alternatively include some other quantity that was rising over the period from 1880 to the present such as population or the ln of the population.
I’ve addressed the points you raised, are you stating that all you have left is your own regression analysis? The science has moved far beyond mere correlation.
The IPCC appealed to their own inability to reproduce recent warming with natural forcings alone as evidence that GHGs were responsible. But at least they used models. “Inability” is not a very strong argument, especially when the models have been shown to be lacking in many relevant abilities, such as the ability to reproduce the signature of the solar cycle seen in the observations or the increased precipitation or the surface albedo feedback, or the multi-decadal climate modes. The modelers also groups aerosols which are key to reproducing the recent climate with GHGs. Sorry, the the greenhouse gasses don’t get to own the uncertainty in anthropogenc aerosols which allow models with a wide range of sensitivities to “match” the climate. Some combination of solar and aerosols also might be able to “match” the climate, especially if the models are fixed to better represent observed solar influence on the climate. The shape of the recent temperature curve might well be anthropogenic but the warming might be solar, just as it has been a solar grand maximums of the past.
Frankly we need to understand the climate and the sun better, but we may not have good enough data to ever attribute the 20th century warming, we just didn’t collect good enough data to nail down aerosols, and the modelers have shown that by exploiting that uncertainty they can make just about any climate sensitivity work. None of the forcings need to work in isolation, probably all are contributing.
I hope you aren’t implying that your correlation analysis eliminates the need for better models and better understanding of solar variation and solar coupling to the climate.

Martin Lewitt Reur July 29, 2010 at 6:14 pm
There are a whole bunch of energy budget diagrams around that all broadly agree with the net numbers in the IPCC (Khiel and (Kevin) Trenberth) diagram once adjusted for different parameterizations/ percentages/ units/ definitions. Here are three more, that are conveniently compared at Wikipedia. I think that the most popular is the second one from NASA. Notice that K & T does not get a mention. Oh BTW, the one I posted earlier as from NOAA, I notice in the link for the first time that it is also used by GSFC.
I’ve not read Andrea Roesch, but agree with you that albedo is funny stuff, with many associated complications making accurate integrations a bit tricky. I think it might be more complicated with insolation at low Sun elevations including over water etc, but I’d better stop there to avoid broadening the topics here.

Gail Combs,
“Are you trying to tell me the earth GAINS twice the energy from “back radiation” as it does from the sun ???????”
Hopefully BPL doesn’t mean that. A better way to think of it is that the surface and atmosphere “exchange” radiation at that rate. If you beamed a 1W laser off of two parallel mirrors and it bounced off of each 5 times before exiting the other side, each mirror would be experiencing a flux of 5W before just 1W leaves the system. Now if instead of mirrors the two surfaces were perfect white scatterers, the average number of bounces and flux at each surface might be less before the energy is bounced or scattered out. The total flux leaving the system would still be 1W. Now if instead the two parallel surfaces were black body radiators the 1W would come in and hit one surface and not reflect at all. That surface would warm until it started radiating a 1W. Some of that would be escape but some of that would hit and warm the other surface which would then start radiating, some of that would escape but some would hit the original surface, which now must warm a little more and radiate more than 1W because it must continue to radiate the original 1W plus the new incident energy. Still while the original surface is warmer than it would have been if the second plate wasn’t there, there is only 1W entering the system and 1W leaving the system.
O2 and N2 are poor absorbers and radiators of infrared radiation, so a warm surface radiating infrared would see most of that radiation escape to space. Add in greenhouse gases such as CO2 and H2O and some of that infrared is absorbed and re-radiated in all directions, that hiting the warm surface which is absorbed will slow the cooling of that surface. The surface will be warmer than it might have been otherwise. Most land surfaces are fair approximations to black bodies in the infrared. The greenhouse gasses will be radiating in the neighborhood of their characteristic infrared bands, the black body surface will absorb that radiation incident upon it. Even though the surface absorbs the greenhouse gas wavelengths it radiates as a black body, so some of the energy being exchanged is leaking out infrared windows in the greenhouse gas coverage of the spectrum. Of course, even radiation in the greenhouse gas parts of the spectrum is making its way eventually to the top of the atmosphere and being radiated into space. The warm surface is also losing heat in the usual ways conduction, convection, evapotranspiration, etc.
A surface such as snow which has a high albedo in the infrared part of the spectrum, will reflect or scatter much of that greenhouse gas radiation directly without increasing in temperature. Its albedo is not quite as high as in visible part of the spectrum, so a higher proportion is absorbed and keeps the temperature higher than without GHGs than would happen with visible light. So the snow will radiate a little more infrared than it would have without GHGs in the atmosphere.
Hopefully, you can see why the fluxes are greater and how no additional energy is really involved, but higher temperatures result. At equilibrium total radiation out is no greater than radiation in.
I’m not sure how the reported fluxes are arrived at or averaged over the whole surface of the earth in a meaningful way. It would seem difficult to calculate from first principles. Radiative transfer through the atmosphere would be well understood, but with the actually flux varying with surface temperature and other characteristics and the water vapor content so variable and with CO2 levels varying seasonally, how would a scalar average be arrived at and how useful would it be?

As indicated in my July 31, 2010 at 7:17 am, here are links to comments on an RC thread involving BPL’s various HEAT transfer arguments that conflict with the scientific literature. (e.g. ignoring that EMR has quite different behaviour to HEAT, even to the point that equally opposing EMR, which is a common situation in the atmosphere laterally, results in no HEAT loss or gain, and thus no change in temperature via EMR)
Perhaps gain access to the thread at the highlighted comment number 763, and then scroll up by comment number.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-132829
516
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-132873
536
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-132898
546
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-132948
554
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-133027
557 I’ve [BPL] been writing RCMs since about 1998.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-133038
580 No response to this comment
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-133482
737 You’re [Bob_FJ] seriously confused, dude.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-133570
759
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=606#comment-133618
763 (typical comment number)

Martin Lewitt: You should try using twice the solar variation
BPL: Multiplying by a constant of any size (other than zero) would have no effect on the correlation.
ML: I hope you aren’t implying that your correlation analysis eliminates the need for better models and better understanding of solar variation and solar coupling to the climate.
BPL: Not at all. I write RCMs myself.

Barton Paul Levenson Reur August 1, 2010 at 7:17 am

Bob_FJ: Hmm, free energy eh? Interesting, but see Gail Combs’ comment above.
BPL: I don’t understand what you’re asking here. The radiation from the atmosphere comes about because the atmosphere is warmer than absolute zero and contains greenhouse gases.

Well actually I was not asking anything, but making a slightly sarcastic throw-away comment, which perhaps I should have left for Gail, since she raised it.
Hint about my sarcasm:
In analogy, if we are cold at night, and we throw an extra blanket over the bed, does our body become heated by the blanket? Answer; no, the blanket does not provide a GAIN in energy, but slows down the rate of escape of HEAT, via its several transport processes. In other words, the potential difference between the energy in one’s body and the energy in the original sink above, is reduced by virtue of insulation. No free energy is added…. That’s why houses are insulated more nowadays, to reduce energy bills through reduced energy loss.
As I write this, you have not responded to the more substantive issues in my July 30, 2010 at 8:20 pm but I trust you will do so later.

Barton Paul Levenson, you wrote in your July 24, 2010 at 3:22 am:

I sincerely apologize if I was offensive. It’s hard to remain calm over issues like this, but of course that’s no excuse for bad conduct.
Several posters take me to task for ignoring the science. If anyone would like to specify what science I got wrong, I will try to respond directly to the issue(s) involved, and without reference to personalities.

I notice that you were courteous and pledged to offer advice to us sceptics if we indicate where we think you might be in error. Upon re-reading my last post (August 1, 2010 at 4:03 pm ), I realize that I could have been more courteous, without sarcasm, and perhaps explained better, so I edit part of what I wrote to you; (added bits are in bold):
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Well actually I was not asking anything, but making a slightly sarcastic throw-away comment, which perhaps I should have left for Gail, since she raised it.
Hint about my sarcasm:
In analogy, if we are cold at night, and we throw an extra blanket over the bed, does our body become heated by the blanket? Answer; no, the blanket does not provide a GAIN in energy, but slows down the rate of escape of HEAT, via its several transport processes. In other words, the potential difference between the energy in one’s body and the energy in the original sink above, is reduced by virtue of insulation. No free energy is added.
Also, the blanket will contain more heat, originating from one‘s body, than it did beforehand, and, amongst other heat transport processes, will back-radiate EMR towards that heat source wherever there are air-gaps.
unnecessary: That’s why houses are insulated more nowadays, to reduce energy bills through energy loss.
As I write this, you have not responded to the more substantive issues in my July 30, 2010 at 8:20 pm but I hope you will do so later. look forward to your advice. I apologise if you thought I was rude before.
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BTW, I accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and understand its nominal effect, but disagree that it is potentially catastrophic.