Since there has been a lot of discussion about Monckton here and elsewhere, I’ve offered him the opportunity to present his views here. – Anthony
Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
At www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org I publish a widely-circulated and vigorously-debated Monthly CO2 Report, including graphs showing changes in CO2 concentration and in global mean surface temperature since 1980, when the satellites went on weather watch and the NOAA first published its global CO2 concentration series. Since some commenters here at Wattsup have queried some of our findings, I have asked Anthony to allow me to contribute this short discussion.
We were among the first to show that CO2 concentration is not rising at the fast, exponential rate that current anthropogenic emissions would lead the IPCC to expect, and that global temperature has scarcely changed since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001.
CO2 concentration: On emissions reduction, the international community has talked the talk, but – not least because China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa are growing so quickly – it has not walked the walk. Accordingly, carbon emissions are at the high end of the IPCC’s projections, close to the A2 (“business as usual”) emissions scenario, which projects that atmospheric CO2 will grow at an exponential rate between now and 2100 in the absence of global cuts in emissions:
Exponential increase in CO2 concentration from 2000-2100 is projected by the IPCC on its A2 emissions scenario, which comes closest to today’s CO2 emissions. On the SPPI CO2-concentration graph, this projection is implemented by way of an exponential function that generates the projection zone. This IPCC graph has been enlarged, its ordinate and abscissa labeled, and its aspect ratio altered to provide a comparison with the landscape format of the SPPI graph.
On the A2 emissions scenario, the IPCC foresees CO2 rising from a measured 368 ppmv in 2000 (NOAA global CO2 dataset) to a projected 836[730, 1020] ppmv by 2100. However, reality is not obliging. The rate of increase in CO2 concentration has been slowing in recent years: an exponential curve cannot behave thus. In fact, the the NOAA’s deseasonalized CO2 concentration curve is very close to linear:
CO2 concentration change from 2000-2010 (upper panel) and projected to 2100 (lower panel). The least-squares linear-regression trend on the data shows CO2 concentration rising to just 570 ppmv by 2100, well below the IPCC’s least estimate of 730 ppmv on the A2 emissions scenario.
The IPCC projection zone on the SPPI graphs has its origin at the left-hand end of the linear-regression trend on the NOAA data, and the exponential curves are calculated from that point so that they reach the IPCC’s projected concentrations in 2100.
We present the graph thus to show the crucial point: that the CO2 concentration trend is well below the least IPCC estimate. Some have criticized our approach on the ground that over a short enough distance a linear and an exponential trend may be near-coincident. This objection is more theoretical than real.
First, the fit of the dark-blue deseasonalized NOAA data to the underlying linear-regression trend line (light blue) is very much closer than it is even to the IPCC’s least projection on scenario A2. If CO2 were now in fact rising at a merely linear rate, and if that rate were to continue, concentration would reach only 570 ppmv by 2100.
Secondly, the exponential curve most closely fitting the NOAA data would be barely supra-linear, reaching just 614 ppmv by 2100, rather than the linear 570 ppmv. In practice, the substantial shortfall between prediction and outturn is important, as we now demonstrate. The equation for the IPCC’s central estimate of equilibrium warming from a given rise in CO2 concentration is:
∆T = 4.7 ln(C/C0),
where the bracketed term represents a proportionate increase in CO2 concentration. Thus, at CO2 doubling, the IPCC would expect 4.7 ln 2 = 3.26 K warming – or around 5.9 F° (IPCC, 2007, ch.10, p.798, box 10.2). On the A2 scenario, CO2 is projected to increase by more than double: equilibrium warming would be 3.86 K, and transient warming would be <0.5 K less, at 3.4 K.
But if we were to take the best-fit exponential trend on the CO2 data over the past decade, equilibrium warming from 2000-2100 would be 4.7 ln(614/368) = 2.41 K, comfortably below the IPCC’s least estimate and a hefty 26% below its central estimate. Combining the IPCC’s apparent overestimate of CO2 concentration growth with the fact that use of the IPCC’s methods for determining climate sensitivity to observed increases in the concentration of CO2 and five other climate-relevant greenhouse gases over the 55 years 1950-2005 would project a transient warming 2.3 times greater than the observed 0.65 K, anthropogenic warming over the 21st century could be as little as 1 K (less than 2 F°), which would be harmless and beneficial.
Temperature: How, then, has observed, real-world global temperature responded?
The UAH satellite temperature record shows warming at a rate equivalent to 1.4 K/century over the past 30 years. However, the least-squared linear-regression trend is well below the lower bound of the IPCC projection zone.
The SPPI’s graph of the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s monthly global-temperature anomalies over the 30 years since 1 January 1980 shows warming at a rate equivalent to 1.4 K/century – almost double the rate for the 20th-century as a whole. However, most of the warming was attributable to a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover that allowed some 2.6 Watts per square meter of additional solar radiance to reach the Earth’s surface between 1981 and 2003 (Pinker et al., 2005; Wild et al., 2006; Boston, 2010, personal communication).
Even with this natural warming, the least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies is below the lower bound of the IPCC projection zone.
Some have said that the IPCC projection zone on our graphs should show exactly the values that the IPCC actually projects for the A2 scenario. However, as will soon become apparent, the IPCC’s “global-warming” projections for the early part of the present century appear to have been, in effect, artificially detuned to conform more closely to observation. In compiling our graphs, we decided not merely to accept the IPCC’s projections as being a true representation of the warming that using the IPCC’s own methods for determining climate sensitivity would lead us to expect, but to establish just how much warming the use of the IPCC’s methods would predict, and to take that warming as the basis for the definition of the IPCC projection zone.
Let us illustrate the problem with a concrete example. On the A2 scenario, the IPCC projects a warming of 0.2 K/decade for 2000-2020. However, given the IPCC’s projection that CO2 concentration will grow exponentially from 368 ppmv in 2000 towards 836 ppmv by 2100, CO2 should have been 368e(10/100) ln(836/368) = 399.5 ppmv in 2010, and equilibrium warming should thus have been 4.7 ln(399.5/368) = 0.39 K, which we reduce by one-fifth to yield transient warming of 0.31 K, more than half as much again as the IPCC’s 0.2 K. Of course, CO2 concentration in 2010 was only 388 ppmv, and, as the SPPI’s temperature graph shows (this time using the RSS satellite dataset), warming occurred at only 0.3 K/century: about a tenth of the transient warming that use of the IPCC’s methods would lead us to expect.
Barely significant warming: The RSS satellite data for the first decade of the 21st century show only a tenth of the warming that use of the IPCC’s methods would lead us to expect.
We make no apology, therefore, for labelling as “IPCC” a projection zone that is calculated on the basis of the methods described by the IPCC itself. Our intention in publishing these graphs is to provide a visual illustration of the extent to which the methods relied upon by the IPCC itself in determining climate sensitivity are reliable.
Some have also criticized us for displaying temperature records for as short a period as a decade. However, every month we also display the full 30-year satellite record, so as to place the current millennium’s temperature record in its proper context. And our detractors were somehow strangely silent when, not long ago, a US agency issued a statement that the past 13 months had been the warmest in the instrumental record, and drew inappropriate conclusions from it about catastrophic “global warming”.
We have made one adjustment to please our critics: the IPCC projection zone in the SPPI temperature graphs now shows transient rather than equilibrium warming.
One should not ignore the elephant in the room. Our CO2 graph shows one elephant: the failure of CO2 concentration over the past decade to follow the high trajectory projected by the IPCC on the basis of global emissions similar to today’s. As far as we can discover, no one but SPPI has pointed out this phenomenon. Our temperature graph shows another elephant: the 30-year warming trend – long enough to matter – is again well below what the IPCC’s methods would project. If either situation changes, followers of our monthly graphs will be among the first to know. As they say at Fox News, “We report: you decide.”





Lord Monckton, thanks for your clarity and perseverance.
It has become increasingly clear to me that our planet’s weather (and climate thereoff) is self-regulated. External influences will cause deviations that will be counteracted and overcorrected and corrected again in the opposite direction in search of equilibrium.
The ecosphere will be responding to these changes and adapting if the time frame is ample enough. But clearly we have more to fear from moderate global cooling than moderate warming.
This is the viewpoint of an electronics engineer that used to work in control systems, so it comes naturally to me (and to other excellent contributors to this blog).
See “Climate Change (“Global Warming”)? The cyclic nature of Earth’s climate” at http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChange.htm
Thanks again, Anthony, moderators
We have direct recorded evidence of what the CO2 levels were before that time way back to the early 1800′s where it was well over 400 ppm.
Vorlak: I’d like to see your direct recorded evidence of this.
@ur momisugly Rick Bradford says:
August 14, 2010 at 5:12 am
Not sure if you were riffing on this or not, but the guy who invented DDT, Paul Hermann Müller, used to do just that–ate a teaspoon a day to show how harmless it was.
My Dear Lord Monckton,
You point out a linear trend of 199ppmv/century based on “January 2000 to January 2010 data” in your 2nd and 3rd charts.
If you had performed the same calculation in January of 2000, based on data from 1/1990 to 1/2000, would you not arrive at a linear trend of about 153ppmv/century?
Similarly, I calculated the linear trend observed at the end of each decade based on Mauna Loa data (subtracting data points 10 years apart, multiplying by 10 to arrive at the century rate of change) :
1960-1970 = 85 ppmv/century
1970-1080 = 128 ppmv/century
1980-1990 = 157 ppmv/century
1990-2000 = 153 ppmv/century
2000-2010 = 193 ppmv/century
Do you think it is reasonable to expect this steady increase in the trend to suddenly stop in 2010? What would the 2100 CO2 concentration be if this trend of increasing trends were to continue?
Thank you, Anthony, for the opportunity to ask questions of our Dear Lord Monckton, and to hopefully receive answers from his most generous Lordship.
Sincerely,
Brad
duckster says @ur momisugly 8:39 am:
“Vorlak: I’d like to see your direct recorded evidence of this.”
Vorlath, may I respond? Thank you: click
That chart is the average of over 90,000 direct chemical measurements of atmospheric CO2 by dozens of [non-government] scientists, including many Nobel laureates who were taking the readings for their own edification and curiosity, not to push an agenda. Their reputations were on the line, and their measurements in general were in good agreement.
The wet chemical methods they used were not as accurate as current methods, but they were within several percent. The measurements were taken on mountain tops, on isolated, sparsely populated shores, and on the windward side of ships sailing across the Arctic, Beaufort, Antarctic, South Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
All trends become linear if the interval taken is small enough – Calculus!
Thr following is quite important so everybody pay attention.
After analysis, the concentration of CO2 or any gas in a sample of local air is reported for purified dry air (PDA) which does not occur in the earth’s atmosphere and is comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, the inert gases and CO2, often called the fixed gases. The composition (i.e, the relative amounts of the fixed gases) of PDA is fairly uniform through out the atmosphere and independent of site, elevation, temperature, pressure, and humidity except for minor local variations in particular with respect to CO2. This the origin of the phrase “well-mixed atmospheric gases”.
In real air, there is no uniform distribution of the masses of the constituents of the atmosphere in space and time as shown by a daily weather maps of the earth. High pressure cells have more mass of the atmospheric constituents than do low pressure cells, and these are always moving and their mass and composition is constantly changing. Real air is the term for local air at the intake ports of air separation plants and includes all types of particulate matter, reactive gases such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, ozone, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, water vapor, fog and the fixed gases. The composition of real air with respect to mass is always site specific but does vary slightly with changing weather.
PDA at STP (i.e., 273.15 K and one atmosphere pressure) is called standard dry air (SDA) and has 393 ppmv, 393 ml, 17.5 mmoles, 772 mg or 0.000772 kg of CO2 per cubic meter. As mentioned above the composition of PDA is fairly uniform through out atmosphere and will usually have 393 ppmv of CO2. However, the mass of the constituents in any unit volume of the atmosphere will depend m0stly on pressure, temperature and humidity. Clouds in any unit volume of the atmosphere will also lower the mass of fixed gasses.
Climate models apparently use the concentration of CO2 in ppmv. Not only is this incorrect but is the fatal flaw which greatly limits the skill and accuracy of climate model scenarios or projections. The metric that should be used for CO2 and the gases including water vapor is mass per unit volume. The mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is much less than is indicated by the current methods of analysis.
Clouds are micro droplets of water and will contain atmospheric gases, the amount of which will depend on pressure and temperature and on the number of droplets per unit volume. Clouds are always moving and can transport atmospheric gases and in particular CO2 in the liquid phase. Depending on the conditions the clouds encounter, they can release the atmospheric gases and in particular CO2 and water as vapor into the atmosphere or transport the gases to the ground in rain drops. This another reason why there is no uniform distribution of the mass of the atmospheric gases in space and time.
After visiting many climate website and blogs over the years, this chemist has concluded that the nearly 100% of the climate scientists and lay people are unaware of the above. Based on the above, climate modeling would be very difficult without making many simplifying assumptions and consequently the various scenarios or projections (i.e., computational speculation and conjucture) from climate models can not be used regulating greenhouse emissions.
After years of reading the horror stories of CAGW…. CO2 Heats world to hell. CO2 Killed the Amazon frogs. CO2 Stole my Baby….. etc.
Reading something from Lord Monckton is like a breath of fresh air…. Comprehensible, reasoned, Scientifically sound information…. Gives one hope for the future of Science….:-)
duckster says:
August 14, 2010 at 7:34 am
So I can assume your failure to mention evidence of past CO2 levels much higher than today isn’t an example of “cherry-picking”, but rather an oversight? Believe it or not, CO2 levels existed prior to 1960. I know, it’s strange, but true nonetheless.
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf and
http://www.junkscience.com/images/paleocarbon.gif
As already mentioned by Brad Beeson, the Lord has taken a tangent to an upward curve, and extrapolated it forwards. If you extrapolate back you get 170 ppm in 1900 (it was nearer 290). These two extrapolations are likely equally valid to do, i.e. not at all valid.
The curve is also not simply exponential. When it was 300 ppm, the rate was 0.1% per year, at 350 ppm it was nearer 0.4%, now at 390 it is nearer 0.55%, and the IPCC projection has this continuing to increase to 0.8% by 2100. An exponential would have this percentage a constant for every year which doesn’t fit past data.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 14, 2010 at 8:33 am
“There are a few people who will see Lord Moncktons picture in a post who will scroll down immediately to the comment box and say, “Ya, but Monckton isn’t a Lord.”
I expected the same, but so far it hasn’t happened, maybe they got tired of being made fun of? Or perhaps they are seizing and stroking and are incapacitated at the moment.
It’s almost as fun as when Monckton speaks of his Nobel prize! While I can’t tell for sure, but given the odoriferous responses to Monckton’s Nobel prize, I think some defecate all over themselves. Christopher, can you do it again please? Its more fun than watching Orcas eat seals!
Let’s eyeball the correlation between CO2 and global temps. Hm-m-m.
Another question: Since the rate of increase in CO2 is not caused by the U.S., why are the eco-alarmists not organizing protests in front of the Chinese embassy? Hm-m-m.
In due respect, your statement:
” In fact, the the NOAA’s deseasonalized CO2 concentration curve is very close to linear…”
Is not correct, for if you do a graph of the actual growth rates of CO2 over a longer time period, the actual nonlinear, exponential growth can clearly be seen in this graph:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/rate.jpg
If the growth rate of CO2 was linear (as you suggest), the line in the above graph would be closer to horizontal. Thus, even though the IPCC does not actually make forecasts in CO2 concentrations, but only emission scenarios:
http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_co2.html
Your suggestion that CO2 growth is linear is incorrect, so event though the IPCC doesn’t make forecasts in CO2 growth, as they clearly state here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/index.php?idp=25
“Scenarios are images of the future, or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts.”
Now, it turns out that the A2 scenario might be close to accurate, given that CO2 growth is and has been exponential for many decades (as the first graph clearly shows), and that your suggestion of a linear CO2 growth, based on only a decade of data where an exponential trend would be hard to spot, is clearly wrong.
So in all due respect, the foundation of your argument seems a bit flawed, and CO2 growth, and thus the projections for temperature increases in the year 2100, might well be closer to the IPCC A2 scenario, than your simple linear extrapolation of 10 years of data would suggest.
J.Bob says: August 14, 2010 at 7:33 am
—————————-
My knowledge of CO2 is pretty rudimentary, but as far as know there is very little of it, if compared to the water vapour; also the CO2 natural cycle appears to contradict AGW.
My interest is in the oceans’ circulation, as the oceans have huge energy capacity, keeping an overall global energy constancy.
What we need to know is: how, when and where that energy is realised and what are natural regulators.
As a bit of a hobby I am perusing my own ideas, regardless of detractors.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-B.htm
vukcevic says:
August 14, 2010 at 3:51 am
The following changes everything where only your theory about climate survives:
http://www.milesmathis.com/atmo.html
http://www.milesmathis.com/uft.html
Smokey says:
August 14, 2010 at 9:36 am
“Another question: Since the rate of increase in CO2 is not caused by the U.S., why are the eco-alarmists not organizing protests in front of the Chinese embassy? Hm-m-m.”
Well, the cynical side of me would state this is an application of Reagan’s principle. He stated that political ideologues shouldn’t speak ill of other political ideologues with the similar ideologies. In his particular case, he was referring to conservatives, but it can be applied to other ideologies just the same. We see it every day in the U.S. I think this is the phenomenon we are observing.
The contention and absolute burden of proof, that the continued artificial alteration of the Earth’s atmosphere is harmless, remains with those who would continue that alteration. Sadly, the changes wrought on this planet in the last half century have rendered that position untenable. Margaret Thatcher herself would agree that we have a duty and obligation, for the benefit of future generations, to end this experiment as quickly and thoroughly as we can.
Smokey says:
August 14, 2010 at 9:36 am
“Let’s eyeball the correlation between CO2 and global temps. Hm-m-m.”
Actually your graph works very well if you halve the gradient of the CO2 line so that 20 ppm corresponds to 0.2 degrees. I wish they would use this scaling on the widget, because it really makes the point. This corresponds to a feedback factor near 3. It would help even more to smooth the temperature with a 3-year running average to eliminate things like El Ninos.
In answer to Brad Beeson, who has expressed a doubt about whether atmospheric CO2 concentration is decaying from the A2 scenario’s predicted exponential growth as my posting said it is, I determined the successive decadal least-squares linear-regression trends on the monthly NOAA global deseasonalized CO2 concentration data, for the ten successive periods 1990-2000 to 1999-2009.
The trend values are 149, 160, 170, 178, 184, 187, 191, 195, 194, and 198 ppmv/century respectively. The differences, which, in an exponential curve, would of course increase successively, in fact mostly decline successively: 11, 10, 8, 6, 3, 4, 4, -1, and 4 ppmv/century respectively. In recent years, as I have said, the curve has been decaying from the exponentiality that would be expected given that aggregate anthropogenic emissions are closer to the IPCC’s A2 emissions scenario than to any lesser scenario.
As always, one should be cautious enough not to put too much weight on a short run of data. However, as my posting made clear, I have also determined the best-fit exponential curve for the data over the past ten years, and it is a curve heading for 614 ppmv by 2100, considerably below the lower-bound curve running up to 730 ppmv by 2100 that the IPCC projects on the A2 scenario.
That, sir, is the elephant in the room: even though CO2 emissions are rising rapidly, CO2 concentration is – to borrow a sporting term – falling behind (or, rather, below) the (exponential) curve. That, as my posting explained, will significantly reduce 21st-century anthropogenic warming compared with the IPCC’s projections, if the current trend continues.
I have not yet investigated the relationship between the slowing (and occasional reversal) of the rate of increase in CO2 concentration and the increase over recent years in estimated global anthropogenic emissions.
” Julian in Wales says:
August 14, 2010 at 4:07 am
Does pumping Co2 into the air increase the total amount of gas in the atmosphere, or does it take the place of another gas. ”
If we look at liquid water that is boiled and escapes into the air, the answer is yes and yes. The water molecules replace others, mainly nitrogen (76%) and oxygen (23%), which makes moist air lighter than dry air; the replaced molecules have to go somewhere else (up).
Robert M –
I focus on those two questions primarily because the lack of a coherent answer, primarily from the alarmists, pretty much kicks the stool out from under their hysterics – well for me, at any rate. As far as whether or not humans make an impact on the climate, as we are “players”, the obvius answer to that one is yes, with what remains being a quibble about degree. Are we the butterflies in the Amazon, of chaos theory fame, or are we actual movers and shakers, as some seem firmly convinced. I’m not really buying in to the belief that mankind has the capability to cause significant, long term, and irreversible systemic change that many ascribe to. We certainly can make one hell of a localized mess from time to time, but I don’t think we’re capable (yet) of truly throwing a monkey into the wrench, so to speak, and certainly not through randomized individual action or mere lifestyle choices, even in the aggregate. Yes, we can shoot most of the Buffaloes. Yes we can kill all of the Dodos or the passenger pigeons. In a longer time scale, this has what effect, exactly? Not much, really. Can we pump all of the accumulated hydrocarbons out of the crust and intensify, for a rather short period, a portion of the carbon cycle? Sure. Does it damage the planet overall, or merely adversely impact us, the humans doing so, when (and if) it runs out? We may be screwed, figuratively, but the planet really doesn’t care, as there will be basically the same number of atoms trapped in the gravity well as when the exercise began, just in a different arrangement and or distribution.
Many seem to be ready to hop behind the wheel and drive, without really having a clue how the car works in the first place. Seems it would be advisable that we do so, before we get into a knock down drag out fight over whether or not fiddling with the car’s stereo will make us run off the road and over a cliff. Which is analogous, from my perspective, to what is going on right now.
Lord Monckton, Anthony, Steve Goddard, et al – they seem to me to be attempting to advocate understanding what’s going on under the hood, whereas Hansen, Gore, Pauchauri, and a long line of politicians seem to be vehement about using the seat controls to put all the passengers in a really uncomfortable position while claiming that will adjust the air conditioning somehow.
Full disclosure – all of this from a non-academic, sitting in the peanut gallery, watching the price for energy head skywards based upon what in most instances has proven to be fabricated bull poop. And, being basically a cheap bastage, this really, really annoys me.
You might want to check out the greening of the globe and agriculture stats. Check out increased land dedicated to crop production world-wide. And we are growing more CO2 gobbling crops and using more land to do it. Some crops are also being genetically engineered to produce several crops in a single growing season (especially in the case of year ground growing season climates).
How about this?
Delta T:
The missing unit still annoys me; Burmese, Liberians and Americans might believe it is in °F.
(As the French say: déformation professionnel.)
GeoFlynx says:
August 14, 2010 at 9:47 am
“The contention and absolute burden of proof, that the continued artificial alteration of the Earth’s atmosphere is harmless, remains with those who would continue that alteration. Sadly, the changes wrought on this planet in the last half century have rendered that position untenable. Margaret Thatcher herself would agree that we have a duty and obligation, for the benefit of future generations, to end this experiment as quickly and thoroughly as we can.”
No, that is backward thinking. First, prove there have been “changes wrought on the planet in the last half century.” Then prove those changes have been detrimental. Then show the said hypothetically detrimental changes have been caused by “artificial alteration of the Earth’s atmosphere”.
The onus isn’t upon anyone to disprove theories and wild speculation. The onus is upon the people postulating these wild speculations to prove their precognitions.
If you want mankind to take a giant step back as to quality of life and life expectancy, you damn well have something better than a fail computer model to present as evidence.