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.”
One more time, just in case it might help those still sitting on the fence – the level of co2 in the air is an effect of temperature rise and NOT a cause. The warmer the more. The colder the less.
DL says:
There is confusion based on the fact that when most climate scientists talk about a net positive feedback, they do not mean that in the same sense that it is used in systems theory (or control theory or whatever you want to call it). Climate scientists often call it net positive feedback if the feedbacks are such that the temperature change is amplified from what would be predicted based on the radiative forcing due to CO2 and the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation alone. However, from the systems theory point-of-view, the response of the system specified by the Stefan-Boltzmann is itself a strong negative feedback (radiative imbalance -> temperature rise -> reduction in radiative imbalance). So, what these climate scientists are referring to as net positive feedback is, from the systems theory point-of-view, a net negative feedback but with the net feedback less negative than applying the S-B Equation alone to the original radiative forcing would predict.
There are some climate scientists who have used the terminology in line with the systems theory view. For example, Dennis Hartmann in his book “Global Physical Climatology” (starting on p. 231) http://books.google.com/books?id=Zi1coMyhlHoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=global+physical+climatology+hartmann&hl=en&ei=uuhnTKjSDsX_lgfKhNSfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false where he clearly calls the response implied by the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation “the Stefan-Boltzmann feedback”.
It is somewhat unfortunate that the usage by most climate scientists has evolved in the way that it has since it seems to confuse engineers familiar with systems theory to no end. However, such differences in the usage of terms in different fields are not unusual and the way that climate scientists use it does not change the physics of what one gets…as long as one understands this terminology difference.
response to Henry Galt 08/14/2010 12:39 pm et al
PLOT the annual CO2 increase!
First, one can see that the data is all over the place and appears cyclical. Does anyone see any apparent correlations w/ known environmental events?
Second, the best sic fit is linear, which leads to a pseudo-exponential increase in CO2.
=============================================
Great article by Monckton but using only the past 10 yrs of CO2 data as a basis for an argument is falling into the same trap as the believers.
DDT has a very low order of toxicity but long half life, w/ the decomposition product DDE having a higher order of toxicity and longer half life. The problem w/ DDT was the massive over usage by the 60’s because it seemed (at the time) that every manufacturer jumped into production it due to the patent expiring, and no one was making a profit. Therefore, when St. Rachel’s book was published the industry was happy to switch to patented and much more profitable (and toxic) organophosphates.
The suggestion that Munckton be made to eat a teaspoon of DDT is typical cult/religious invective . The dogma must be preserved at any cost.
I am surprised that more of the people here who call themselves “skeptics” are not skeptical of Monckton’s bogus comparisons here. He says with flowery language:
What this flowery language hides is the fact that what he calls the IPCC projection zone has nothing to do with the IPCC’s own projection of global temperatures…and in fact is in direct contradiction to what the IPCC actually projects. Instead, he has decided that he understands what the IPCC ought to be projecting for the temperatures better than the IPCC themselves (on the basis of some very hokey assumptions that he makes) and shows those inflated projections instead.
Or (as detractors of Fox News have noted might be a more accurate slogan and I believe applies here too), “We distort: you decide.”
In response to Monckton of Brenchley’s posting of
August 14, 2010 at 9:54 am:
My Dear Lord Monckton,
Thank you for your kind and prompt reply to my inquiry. It is a pleasure to be able to discuss your findings in a civil and respectful forum such as this, and exponentially more so to receive your detailed explaination of your calculations in person. I don’t post often here, but I try to read everything in hopes of learning more about climate and weather.
One thing I have learned here is that drawing trend lines through cyclical oscillations, especially for trend lines through only part of a sinusoidal cycle, or from a peak to a trough, is somewhat risky. I believe Steve Goddard can fill you in on the details if you missed that post.
Another lesson hammered home here is that solar and ENSO cycles are important sources of variation in the climate system. Yet here you have drawn a long-term 90-year extrapolation, based on 10 years of trend calcuations – less than one solar cycle (and this last cycle has been unusually long), and your ten year evaluation period starts near the peak of the biggest ENSO event in recent history (1998 El Nino).
Taking your method of calculating trends for ten-year periods, applying it the longer Mauna Loa database (which matches quite closely to the NOAA database you cited where they overlap), I found that extending your evaluation period to twenty years gives the opposite result from your conclusion. The 20-year trend in the 3rd derivative of CO2 is positive, instead of negative as you found for the ten-year period. In fact, any period except very short ones show essentially zero slope for the 2nd derivative.
Why is the 20-year slope strongly positive, you may ask? It is strongly influenced by the Pinotubo volcano in the early 90’s, and the 1998 El Nino. If we exclude those obvious extremes, there does seem to be an 11 year solar cycle in the data. There are dips in the 2nd derivative at 1976, 1987, 1997, and 2008. These correspond almost exactly with solar minimums.
It would be interesting to do a similar analysis for the ENSO cycle, don’t you think?
So I would like to ask my question again, slightly modified and extended, thanks to your more detailed explaination of your methods:
Can we safely extrapolate for 90 years the growth rate of CO2 based on the recent trend of its 2nd derivative, when the beginning of that trend encompass a high point of the ENSO cycle, and it ends near a solar minimum?
We had a fellow here in the colonies who had a way with words (although a very different style from your’s), who once said it’s tough to make predictions, expecially about the future. If we take the easier task of making hindcasts, using historcal data, what would your method have predicted about the present?
In other words, using data from 1960 to 1980, applying your calculation of ten 10-year trends, what would your method hindcast for the subsequent decades?
and repeat for 1965-1985, 1970-1990, etc…
I think you would find that your method has little predictive value, even for a few years into the future, much less 90.
Thank you again for your consideration and kindness in answer our questions here,
Sincerely,
Brad
duckster:
At August 14, 2010 at 8:14 pm you ask:
“Wouldn’t global atmospheric CO2 content be determined largely by what Co2 we are adding to it? And the ability of carbon sinks to absorb the difference?”
And the answer to that is possibly but not certainly. Your suggestion would only be true if the reason for the rise is the probably indignificant anthropogenic emission.
However, that is a subject for other threads on this blog (where it is discussed), so there is no proper place on this thread for your prejudice that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is induced by the small anthropogenic emission.
On this thread the only pertinent discussion of atmospheric CO2 change is whether it is reasonable for Lord Monckton to have adopted a near-linear model of the change. And that model is a very reasonable representation of the data.
Richard
The projections you call “hockey” are based on the a2 IPCC projections and sensetivity math as applied to real world observations. The fact is that observations show the IPCC as well as Hansen are incorrect in that they understate ability of the earth to recycle CO2, and overstate the climate sensitivity and feedbacks to CO2
I meant “hokey”, somehow hocky comes to mind discussing climate science.
[snip]
They then proceed to describe modeling uncertainties in the scenarios:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/index.php?idp=25
So, a proper, or better critique of the A2 scenario, rather than just saying it’s wrong (of course it’s “wrong”) would be to compare the observed emission rates with the modeled emission rates and re-run the scenario based on those observations.
Alexej Buergin says:
“Depends on whether the clouds a high or low. You might want to look into the newest book by Spencer.”
This was to my comment about Lindzen and Willis needing to look at their ideas in light of Monckton’s assertion that natural cloud variation can lead to warming.
Since these two say the net effect of clouds in global warming is negative feedback (and I think Spencer believes it too), they would have to modify it to say: Clouds lead to negative feedback, except for periods when they don’t.
So you see the conundrum for Monckton. On the one hand he can’t admit to a feedback factor of 2.5 from his own numbers, but on the other he can’t say this warming is just due to cloud changes, because that hurts his friends’ theories about net negative cloud feedback.
If the warming is not CO2 plus H2O feedback, not reduction of clouds or aerosols, not solar, what is it? Doesn’t leave much. AGW has an explanation, anti-AGW not so much.
Duckster,
The point is that what is being reported in monthly averages is not influanced by anthropogenic emmisions because their exponential changes are statistically insignificant compared with the natural changes of both sources and sinks. It behooves us to better understand the causes of those changes rather than believing that reducing anthropogenic emmisions will have any significant effect on them.
Jim D:
At August 15, 2010 at 9:39 am you say:
“If the warming is not CO2 plus H2O feedback, not reduction of clouds or aerosols, not solar, what is it? Doesn’t leave much. AGW has an explanation, anti-AGW not so much.”
Having “an explanation” is very dangerous when the “explanation” is wrong. It is much better to admit that you do not know the true “explanation”.
Climate has always changed everywhere and always will: this has been known since the Bronze Age when it was pointed out to Pharaoh by Joseph (the one with the Technicolour Dreamcoat). Joseph told Pharaoh to prepare for the bad times when in the good times, and all sensible governments have adopted that policy throughout the thousands of years since then.
That tried and tested policy is sensible because people merely complain at taxes in the good times, but they will revolt if they are short of food in the bad times.
But now the AGW “explanation” is being used as an argument to displace that tried and tested policy that has stood the test of time for millennia. And that “explanation” is the logical error of ‘argument from ignorance’.
This error isn’t new.
In the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be caused by witches so we must eliminate them.”
Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be caused by emissions from human activity so we must eliminate them.”
Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an anthropogenic effect is included. But evidence for this anthropogenic effect is no more than the evidence for the effect of witches.
Richard
Re: Richard S Courtney: August 15, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Obviously we are in a better position with observations and science than in the Middle Ages, and what we have now can quantify the AGW effect, matching observations to known science in a consistent way. If we had these observations in the MWP, I would bet we would have understood that too in terms of the science we now know.
I expect we will see at least 0.2 degrees C per decade through this century, just extrapolating a fairly solid trend from 1979. I don’t take a position on the broader effect of warming, or whether and how to mitigate it, as it is beyond my knowledge of the environment to judge that, and I leave it for other people to argue alarmist or non-alarmist points of view on its effect, but to me the effect is a given (barring major volcanoes, or something unpredictable of that kind, of course).
Here are two simple Excel charts of that data. The top one shows a linear fit and the bottom an exponential fit. To my 20×20, 70-yeae old eyes, I can’t tell them apart. But, hey, its just climate science.
Since the post’s awaiting moderation and the chart aren’t displaying, use this URL for the charts:
or
http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad87/baltwo2/CO2-2.png
What’s up with that missing portcullis?
Given that Canute gave his sycophants an object lesson in nature’s indifference to lordly words it’s bizarre of Monckton to denigrate erstwhile opponents as “ bed-wetters, hand-wringers, and wolf-criers who populate the Church of Canutism … mesmerized by my status as a member (albeit non-sitting and non-voting) of the House of Lords”
Having four times failed to find a single peer sitting in The House of Lords to vote for his admission, he’s earning a Parliamentary reminder that being a lord no more makes him a member of the upper house than being a white man makes him a member of White’s Does the missing ironmongry reflect his rebuke by Buckingham palace for lese majeste in purloining its armorial portcullis to add to his pink House of Pseuds logo ?
Scientists tend to be indifferent to this rontonomade because like intelligent laymen they can recognize cant when they hear it and cartoons when they see them.
Monckton may stretch the envelope of rubber graph paper performance to limits Yosemite Sam and Albert Gore might envy, but he cannot deflect the course of climate‘s interaction with human history. Just as a rising tide lifts all thrones, rising levels of infrared opaque CO2 raise all temperatures.
This is not to say that peers should hold their peace in public policy debates. Perhaps Mister Watts can arrange comment from some others in the same cohort of scientific competence as Viscount Monckton. The Duchess of York somehow springs to mind.
BTW, the previous posts refer to duckster’s comments.
[play nice Smokey ~ ctm]
I think the IPCC motto is ‘We decide, you report’!
Jim D:
In response to my pointing out (at August 15, 2010 at 3:20 pm ) that you were using the logical fallacy of ‘argument from ignorance’, at August 15, 2010 at 5:29 pm you respond with:
“Obviously we are in a better position with observations and science than in the Middle Ages, and what we have now can quantify the AGW effect, matching observations to known science in a consistent way. If we had these observations in the MWP, I would bet we would have understood that too in terms of the science we now know.”
That is ‘argument by assertion’.
It is NOT “obvious” that we can “quantify the AGW effect” at all (or, if you prefer, better than in the Middle Ages). In reality that magnitude is highly disputed so it cannot be claimed that we can “quantify” it.
Furthermore, my illustration of ‘argument from ignorance’ was:
“In the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be caused by witches so we must eliminate them.”
Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be caused by emissions from human activity so we must eliminate them.”
Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an anthropogenic effect is included. But evidence for this anthropogenic effect is no more than the evidence for the effect of witches.”
Your post does not dispute the accuracy of my analogy in any way.
And the remainder of your post is unsubstantiated twaddle, too.
So, it seems you are an expert in the use of logical fallacies.
Richard
[SNIP]
I’ve been voting against Al ever since he ran for student council the year I organized Harvard’s symposium on the coevolution of British and American conservatism
Since then I’ve taken time off from science to devote an entire blog and a half dozen Forbes columns and Wall Street Journal op-eds to lambasting its politicization right and left
here for the benefit of more literate readers is a link to my last offering on the other side of the pond :
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB116252563441412312.html
This might have been covered but I don’t see any exponential graphs, only linear. Also there is insufficient info regarding baselines. This is not to aportion blame anywhere just saying.
” Russell Seitz says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:09 am ”
Do I understand you correctly? You offer yourself and the Duchess of York to debate against Monckton? Are you sure that the Duchess agrees with you (we all know she could use some money)?
anticlimactic says:
August 15, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“I think the IPCC motto is ‘We decide, you report’!”
Brilliant!
The WSJ article linked by Russell Seitz says:
<>
I like that. I was recently reading the account of a trip that Samuel Johnson took through the Hebrides in 1773. His witty skepticism at the existence of a number of writings in the Erse language and other things that he is told are supposed to exist, reminds me a bit of the Truman quote above and is perfectly applicable to the endless portents that are attributed to small variations in CO2.
——–quotes—-
Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur. The faculty of seeing things out of sight is local, and commonly useless. It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit. It is ascribed only to a people very little enlightened; and among them, for the most part, to the mean and the ignorant.
[…]
The foresight of the Seers is not always prescience; they are impressed with images, of which the event only shews them the meaning. They tell what they have seen to others, who are at that time not more knowing than themselves, but may become at last very adequate witnesses, by comparing the narrative with its verification.
[…]
We heard of manuscripts that were, or that had been in the hands of somebody’s father, or grandfather; but at last we had no reason to believe they were other than Irish. Martin mentions Irish, but never any Earse manuscripts, to be found in the Islands in his time.
I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian is already discovered. I believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor, or author, never could shew the original; nor can it be shewn by any other;
***to revenge reasonable incredulity, by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence, with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to shew it if he had it; but whence could it be had?***
[…]
***To be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.***
But this is the age, in which those who could not read, have been supposed to write; in which the giants of antiquated romance have been exhibited as realities. If we know little of the ancient Highlanders, let us not fill the vacuity with Ossian. If we had not searched the Magellanick regions, let us however forbear to people them with Patagons.
—end of quote—
–Samuel Johnson: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.