Working 9,25 What a way to make a livin (at AGW)

You may wish to add a “continue reading” line in there, the whole article is loading on the main Page.

Hence the need to manufacture warming by playing surfacestation twister, cherrypicking data, and factoring in ‘adjustments’.
It’s not happening, the predicted warming.
What is happening is the wilder side of climate is showing itself once again.
Inquiring younger generations speak with older generations that remember what it was like.
Now you have multiple generations figuring it out for themselves.
It’s not happening, the predicted warming.

Mike Haseler writes: “The truth is that the impact of CO2 is not anything like as simple as the above article suggests”
Agreed. However, the concept that CO2-effect is similar for each doubling is not exactly my idea 🙂
MODTRAN shows this relation (that off course originates from the logarithmich declining effect of CO2) so MODTRAN is “too simple” and many other too.
Mike, if you say that for example the doubling 80ppm to 160ppm does NOT have near the same effect as the doubling 160ppm to 320ppm – (?) please argue for this. Then many scientists has got it wrong.
I do not think that everything i illustrate above is 100% accurate, obviously. I just pinpoint how bad the building blocks of the CO2 hypothesis used today actually fit together.
And the “fact” that greenhouse gasses in the first place should account for the ALL of the 33K insulating effect of the atmosphere is not proven and definetely not likely at all. So when i use the 33K I actually overestimate the effect of greenhouse gasses and thus CO2.
But, Mike Considder this:
How do you think Hansens claim of 6 K warming effect of ONE CO2 doubling match the MAX 33K effect of ALL greenhouse gasses combined?
K.R. Frank

The other greenhouse gases refers primarily to water the concentration of which depends on temperature. So, divide 30 by 10 (or nine if you like) and you get 3C per doubling 😉
Hansen’s 6K is for a strange definition of climate sensitivity including slow feedbacks, ie the icesheets albedo.
For runaway warming you need to consider that we only have poor proxies of past CO2 levels, let alone other forcings, and we know that the sun should have been less bright in the past.

You’ve started way too high! Start with one molecule of CO2. Double it until you get to a single mole. Already – even if we assume CO2 is responsible for 100% of the 33k warming – a half degree per doubling is too high!
I tried starting with zero molecules of CO2, but it kept getting hotter and hotter with no increase of CO2 (it’s worse than we thought!). How’s that supposed to work?
Best,
Frank

”
Heiko Gerhauser says:
September 8, 2010 at 2:01 am
The other greenhouse gases refers primarily to water the concentration of which depends on temperature. So, divide 30 by 10 (or nine if you like) and you get 3C per doubling 😉
”
Njaaaaah 🙂
We live on a globe with 70% water surface. Today there is around 100 times more water in the atmosphere than CO2. This means that the wavelenght for water are saturated mostly, so variation in warming effect from water is tiny tiny tiny.
So, an atmopshere without CO2 will not affect H2O greenhouse effect much.
So your equation:
” divide 30 by 10 (or nine if you like) and you get 3C per doubling ;-)”
demands that without Co2 there would be no more warming effect from water 🙂 I think you see the problem…
More: I calculated from all 6 scenarios used in my article above how much greenhouse effect there would be left without any CO2: 91,1 %
So according to MODTRAN, the total CO2 related warming is MAX 9% of the33 K – but still, to be conservative in my article i used the normally used 15%. So again i have overestimated the CO2 effet in my article to be able to defend it.
K.R. Frank

”
Frank Kotler says:
September 8, 2010 at 2:15 am
You’ve started way too high! Start with one molecule of CO2. Double it until you get to a single mole. Already – even if we assume CO2 is responsible for 100% of the 33k warming – a half degree per doubling is too high!
”
Agreed. my 0,54 K for CO2 sensitiviy demands that ALL insulating effect from the atmosphere is due to greenhouse gasses, and it demands that the CO2 related warming is 15% of total greenhouse effect – while MODTRAN actually says its only 9 %.
(Too say that an atmosphere without greenhousegasses shold not be insulating the planest at all it completely nonsense. ALL planets show atmosphere with similar insulating effect, even Saturn that has mostly just H2 and He2 and then trace amount of other substances…!!)
K.R. Frank

Konrad says:
September 8, 2010 at 2:43 am
“.. this model does not factor in water vapour feedback. ”
No, please understand:
Each CO2 doubling has a warming effect just being a fraction of the total COw warming effect.
So
Each CO2 doubling warming effect WITH feedbacks are just a fraction of the total CO2 warming effect WITH feedbacks.
Each CO2 doubling warming effect WITHOUT feedbacks are just a fraction of the total CO2 warming effect WITHOUT feedbacks.
The fact that there are many CO2-doublings comprised in the total CO2 pool has NOTHING to do with MODTRAN and thus if MODTRAN uses feedbacks. Nick is just missing the core of this problem.
As basis for the discussion, ALL doublings have the same feedbacks , same warming effect – unless otherwise documented or at least suggested and explained.
Hansens 6 K per CO2 doubling includes feedback. But then its his idea that feedbacks did not work for the doublings 20-40ppm? 80-160ppm?
No, ALL Hansens CO2 doubling must lead to feedbacks (!) and therefore a total atmosphere insulating effect of 33K is NOT in compliance with or exmaple Hansens 6K doublings that includes feedback.
Just 5 of Hansens 6 K CO2 doubling including feedbacks equals the whole atmosphere warming! As though the 100 times more abundant H2O had almost no effect was it not for CO2. This is Absurd. Nick and all must see this is a problem.
K.R. Frank

Berniel, Your quote states that IPCC believes that each CO2 doubling incl feedbacks should lead to 3 K warming – just as I said in the article.
So for example 5 CO2 doubling (influding its feedback) should account for around 15 K. This is half the insulating effect of the atmosphere. So if we reduced CO2 by 5 doublings, the atmosphere should only insulate half as much as today? No something IS wrong.
Remember, that Water is by far the strongest greenhouse gas and is 100 times more abundant in the atmosphere than CO2 , and the CO2 effects including feedback appears significantly overestimated by the IPCC.
Each doubling of CO2 without feedbacks just adds a little heat to the atmosphere. Why should each doubling (= each adding of a little temperare from Co2) not lead to the same feedbacks?
No the doublings- unless documented – should have same effect including feedbacks, and therefore Each doubling cannot have these huge warming effects claimed by IPCC and Hansen. These estimates are just not in compliance with the MAX total atmosphere insulating effect.
I have used MODTRAN – but if I had used another model, i would not change, that there are many doublings of CO2 in the total Co2 amount – AND that each doubling incl feedback should lead to nearly the same warm effect. (Unless otherwise documented.)
K.R. Frank

Frank Lansner says:
Mike Haseler writes: “The truth is that the impact of CO2 is not anything like as simple as the above article suggests”
Agreed. However, the concept that CO2-effect is similar for each doubling is not exactly my idea 🙂
Frank, the reason I was a bit pointed in my comment is that this static analysis of the atmosphere is the lynch pin of the warmist camp. Basically, their whole publicity campaign is based on a single STATIC passive heated model of the atmosphere.
The argument everyone knows is as follows:
1. Fossil fuels produce CO2
2. CO2 traps IR
3. Fossil fuels are warming the atmosphere.
4. Any warming/severe weather/changeable weather/plague of frogs is proof that we are burning too much fossil fuel.
This article is basically repeating this stupid train of logic that seems to compel us to believe CO2 has a simple single impact which is to warm the atmosphere as a GREENHOUSE …. at which point most people start imagining the world being as warm as a real greenhouse.
If we want to defeat global warmers, we have to stop trying to argue about the merits/demerits of a numpty static model of the atmosphere, and start showing that the atmosphere cannot by modelled by the Micky Mouse “science” of these numpties.
OR TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, THE DESTROY THE CO2=GREENHOUSE WARMING MESSAGE
That is why, whenever I am able, I mention the cooling effect of CO2 because this destroys this simple message – it is a simple way to introduce some complexity to the model and which totally undermines the apparently compelling argument of the static “co2 warms” model.
It has lovely symetry:
CO2 blocks IR => CO2 emits IR
Therefore:-
More CO2 warms => more CO2 cools.
Therefore:-
More CO2 causes warming => more CO2 causes cooling
For anyone who’s belief is based on badly learnt schoolboy science, as soon as you introduce some complexity and therefore uncertainty by the cooling effect of higher levels of CO2, the whole inevitable logic of global warming falls apart and becomes: “what is the relative cooling and warming impacts of CO2”.
As this can’t be answered by simple waving of the hand arguments, it totally demolishes the foundation of the “CO2=WARMING” message of the propagandists.
But, so long as (well intentioned) people keep engaging with the warmist agenda of “how much warming” does the “CO2 Warming gas” cause, which is the same as saying: “It is right to model the atmosphere as a static unmoving mass”, so long as people keep alive this static analysis of the atmosphere, we will never defeat this propaganda machine.

“… the value range used by IPCC appears unlikely to physically impossible.”
Is this what you mean to say?

Hi Anna,
Most scientist believes that it takes around 4 W/M2 to warm the Earth surface 1 kelvin – you dont agree?
Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
They say:
x = ΔTemp/ΔForcing * (3.7 W/m2)
Looks rather proportional to me.
And why on Earth should the change
355->356 W/m2
not result in a temperature change similar to
358->359 W/m2
??
Of course temperature and effect is proportional to a high degree.
K.R. Frank

Richard Telford
Thanks for interesting input. However if MODTRAN uses feedbacks or not is not relevant as I explained in the comment
September 8, 2010 at 3:13 am .
You see, the problem of each CO2 doubling causing a similar heat effect has nothing to do with the fact that i just used MODTRAN. The whole concept of CO2-sensitivity is based on effect from each doubling to be similar – incl and excl feedbacks.
– So if you are correct about MODTRAN not using feedback – what would that change?
K.R. Frank

I’m afraid my poor little brain cell cannot follow the logic of this article. And I work in a scientific field so I don’t know what non-scientific people will make of it.

How good is the theory correlating CO2 with warming? My point is that it all seeems to be based on computer modeling that, at it’s core assumes a certain warming effect from CO2 (and other factors). If the CO2=warming theory is wrong (like warming causes CO2 increases in the atmosphere, not the other way around), then we have GI-GO in the models….right?
Just askin’.

“So if you are correct about MODTRAN not using feedback – what would that change?”
Everything.
It causes you to make at least two errors, I just want to focus on one of them:
Your argument is predicated on the temperature change is all greenhouse gases were removed being 33k. This is only valid if the albedo is fixed. Since snow and ice cover would increase if the temperature was 33k colder, the albedo would increase, the temperature would drop further. You now need to compare the forcing from a doubling of CO2 with value larger than 33k – the effect of greenhouse gases with ice albedo feedbacks.

“As the total warming effect of all greenhouse gasses is assumed to have a warming effect of approx 33 K…”
This fundamental misunderstanding renders your conclusions invalid. Greenhouse gases would actually warm the surface a lot more than that, if it were not for convective cooling.

I find the article very difficult to follow from a “technical writing form” aspect. The many convention errors are jarring and decreases the overall quality of the science. In the blogosphere as well as in paper journals, conventions count as much as the science does.

There is more involved in Hansen’s 3C long term climate sensitivity then just ice albedo. You also have things like co2 and methane release and trees gowing further north. You don’t see the 3C long term climate sensitivity batted about too much. I suspect the reason is you don’t have to be a climate scientist to grab on to the most logical question: if there is a high long term climate sensitivity then how much of today’s warming can be explained by the long term sensitivity from forcings in the past? Not a question one would wish to answer when you are already missing heat from recent forcings.

I agree with Jeff Id. MMh10 and Spencer clearly have inflicted mortal damage to CAGW.
CAWarmers always talk about feedbacks and such, but apparently haven’t read either paper or just wish they’d go away, but they can’t be ignored forever and should be kept in the spotlight. The data show negative feedbacks dominate in nature as it always has. Spencer made a public plea for all scientists to debunk his paper. For the sake of science, they should respond.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/09/one-the-debunking-spencers-feedback-ideas-an-appeal-to-physical-scientists-everywhere/
The hockey stick has been shattered how many times now? People know the h/s was and still is a complete fraud. Bury the zombie under Giant stadium and be done with it. If h/s worshipers need to build a shrine to mourn their loss, whatever, it’s dead. Get over it.

I like the gist of the article but I think it is a bit more hand waving than the maths would imply. The problem is that the percentage of forcing due to CO2 (as against the other greenhouse gases and convection) is not likely to be constant for every doubling of CO2. For example if there were no CO2 at all the world would be amost entirely frozen since the level of water vapour in atmosphere would be very low and therefore almost all radiation from the surface would go directly into space.
Introducing some CO2 would therefore have a major impact with strong positive feedback as water evaporated. This might even increase with say the second third and fourth doubling as the more powerful water vapour effect began to dominate. In later doublings the effect of increasing water vapour might very well be a strong negative feedback once clouds become possible (reducing incoming radiation) and convection increases the heat loss to the upper atmosphere. At some point this negative feedback might turn positive once more if there were some natural limitation on cloud formation or convection losses. My guess is that no one really knows what the nett feedbacks are today and certainly do not know what they will be in the future.
Therefore it is not possible to use the “CO2 is 15% of the warming effect” which exists today for any scenario in the past or the future. However, Mike’s article makes the strong point that the IPCC are saying that the next doubling with feedback will be far more than the average historic temperature increase for a CO2 doubling. It is not impossible, given the uncertainties of the feedbacks of the past, but extraordinary claims demand extraorinary evidence. I have not seen it!
Mike Haseler wrote
Air heated at the surface rises by convective currents, and then is cooled by IR emission into space. The addition of CO2 to this warm air mass increases the rate of cooling thereby increasing the rate of cooling of the atmosphere.
I have sympathy with your idea and have made the same point myself but it is only part of the picture. You cannot counter the oversimplification of AGW with an oversimplifying of your own.
The upper atmosphere is heated by radiative absortion (mainly by H20 and CO2 molecules) as well as convection. This heat is radiated into space (mainly by H20 and CO2 molecules). The amount of heat radiated is determined by the number of molecules and the temperature of those molecules. As the concentration of H2O and CO2 increases the meanfree path of photons decreases and the average height at which radiation to space takes place increases. In principle the higher one goes the cooler it is so the radiation amount drops. The AGW argument is that since radiation is proportional to the fourth power of abolute temperature the height change dominates the density change and there is a nett reduction in outgoing radiation. Less outgoing radiation from the upper atmosphere means the surface has to warm to maintain the radiative balance.
So your simple argument may persuade the layman but would not influence the AGW atmospheric scientist. The stronger argument I believe is whether the change in height will really lead to a reduction in temperature. As I have stated before the Hadley explantation states that the effective radiation level into space occurs at a point in the troposphere where the 6K per kilometre adiabatic lapse rate still holds. However all the data I have seen suggests that the level at which CO2 emits is very near, if not in, the tropopause where there is no change in temperature with height. In this situation your simple argument becomes true. But to prove it you would have also have to prove that there is no change to the height of the tropopause. A few years ago there were reports that an increase in the height (and therefore a drop in temperature) had indeed been measured but it was then quickly refuted. I have heard nothing since so perhaps the jury is still out.

Nevermind. I see the problem. It’s in the x-axis scaling which deviates from exponential below 5ppm and above 320ppm. It would be less misleading and more informative if the x-axis was uniformly exponential or uniformly linear.

Mike Haseler says:
September 8, 2010 at 12:35 am
“QED too much CO2 will cause atmospheric cooling”
That’s an interesting hypothesis. Milankovich cycles are generally blamed for ending interglacial periods but as warming proceeds during the interglacial CO2 level rises as the warming global ocean releases dissolved CO2. It would be a real laugh riot if the so-called “tipping point” in regard to atmospheric CO2 is runaway cooling instead of runaway warming.

Mike Haseler says:
September 8, 2010 at 12:35 am
“CO2 is not only a warming gas, the same physical properties make it a cooling gas where the CO2 is warmer than a heat sink like outer space. It helps radiate IR from the convective cooling cycle into space, and the higher the level of CO2 the more effective the cooling cycle. QED too much CO2 will cause atmospheric cooling”
I have been looking for a diagram which shows this CO2 cooling effect. That is, a diagram like the familiar breakdown of sun radiation energy into components which are reflected/absorbed/transformed between atmosphere, clouds, and earth’s surface, but doing this for night-time. The daytime ‘forcing’ of CO2 would be shown as a night-time ‘reducing’.
This would be instructive and also publicise the cooling counterpart of the oft quoted sunlight radiative balance diagram. In this way CO2 would be seen correctly as both a warming and a cooling agent, helping to offset the fixed view of CO2 as a warmer-only.

Tenuc says:
September 8, 2010 at 7:39 am
“Ice albedo has only a small effect during climate optimums as the distribution of the relatively small amount of ice is at the poles were the angle of incidence low, and even sea water reflects much of the incoming light at these latitudes.”
It might not be quite so small. Snow is highly reflective and in the winter it reflects a lot of incoming shortwave over temperate land masses. Just a little bit colder can greatly increase the extent and duration of winter snow cover and it’s a positive feedback which, judging by the paleo-record is wicked fast at bringing interglacial periods to an end. By the same token just a little bit colder can greatly reduce the extent and duration of growing seasons (number of days between killing frosts). Any amount of global cooling is a bad thing. We really need the warming to continue for the sake of agriculture but unfortunately that’s probably not in the cards. Hopefully technology (I’m betting on genetic engineering boosting agricultural output) will come to the rescue when the warming turns to cooling.

Francisco, you write
“How do you determine the minimum initial concentration whose doubling will follow the current theoretical assumptions of climate sensitivity, whatever they are?”
BINGO a very very very central question!
Never mind what, there will allways be a number of doublings with similar CO2 effect, and thus it not at all due to my using MODTRAN with or without feedbacks that we can wonder how these doublings each with HUGE supposed warming can occur.
But why not talk about 1000.0000 doublings then?
The “first” CO2 molecules added to a gas will not cover the radiation from other CO2 molecules. Therefore in very low concentraions CO2 effect is simply proportional to the amount. Two molecule has twice the effect of one. But at some point the shadowing starts to dominate and we get a logarithmic curve where each doubling yields same effect.
MODTRAN shows that the doubling effect can be used at least from 5 ppm as i did.
Eventually a model like MODTRAN must have its fundamental data from experiments.
K.R., Frank

Hi Jeff !
Yep, the water is a hot potato
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/feedback-positive-ndash-rdquowhat-makes-co2-heat-dangerousrdquo-29.php
I think it should be called the IPCC water gate 🙂
The thing is: Why dont IPCC CONSTANTLY everywhere show the latest numbers of water content in the atmosphere?
???
If they where actually so sure that greenhouse effect is so massive, its really odd that they just cherry pick the little brother CO2 and seems to forget about water.
In the article above i show the water content in different atmosphere layers, and there is indeed NO increase, if anything a decrease. And this decrease shold obviously be part of all considderations of the claimed warming from greenhouse gases.
Thanks for commenting
K.R. Frank

Are you telling me that this is a planet without much ice?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ARCHIVE/20080321.jpg

Frank,
The empirical evidence from geology and paleontology demonstrates the changes in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and global mean temperatures are generally uncorrelated when observed over the geological periods. In other words, changes in CO2 more often than not have no corresponding change in temperatures. The models therefore fail to hindcast the empirical evidence by mammoth proportions in both gains and losses. If the AGW hypotheses and models were true, confounding factors would not be able to account for such mammoth differences between the predictions of their models and the empirical facts observed in the geological samples. No matter whether the sensitivity range is between 1-6 degrees in Kelvin/Celsius, the model results are nonsensical when compared to the actual broad range of conflicting changes recorded in the geological samples.

This seems rather confused. Could you point me to the reference claiming that the radiative forcing of doubling CO2 alone (holding everything else equal) is much greater than 3.7 W/m2 (of roughly 1.1 C warming)?
Also, this paragraph is a bit off:
“The overall CO2 warming effect is supposed to be around 10-15-2% of the total warming effect of the atmosphere, here we use 15%. Since CO2 is assumed to account for 15% of the total 33K greenhouse effect on Earth, the CO2 total warming effect is around 5 K. So just ONE CO2 doubling of Hansen’s CO2 sensitivity of 6 K has a bigger warming effect than the total warming effect supposed to be possible.”
You can’t simply take a number like 15% and apply it to various concentrations, given overlapping absorption bands and whatnot. For example, with less CO2 concentration, you would have a lower water vapor concentration (absolute humidity generally being a function of temperature).

richard telford says:
September 8, 2010 at 9:02 am
Are you telling me that this is a planet without much ice?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ARCHIVE/20080321.jpg
What he’s saying is little ice relative to an ice age or snowball earth. With increasing ice, sea levels drop reducing evaporative surface area. Humidy drops and the greenhouse effect from H20 is reduced. CO2 has miniml impact.

Hi Zeke!
You write “Could you point me to the reference claiming that the radiative forcing of doubling CO2 alone (holding everything else equal) is much greater than 3.7 W/m2 (of roughly 1.1 C warming)? ”
Help me out, What did i write that made you ask that?
K.R. Frank

Tim Clark, you write to Richard: “What he’s saying is little ice relative to an ice age or snowball earth.”
Spot on!
We are now in an interglacial and you can claim that there is “much” ice now. Much of what is left (on Antarctica) is rather hard to get rid of as that continent has average temperature of around -27 as I remember, so Ice / snow cover loss on Antarctica and change in albedo right now is not really an option/excuse to explain Hansens HUGE estimate of CO2 sensitivity, 6K.
As I wrote in a comment: I show that if all doublings (9,25!) has same effect, each of these must have limited effect for the mathematics to add up. SO! If the present CO2 doubling for some reason shold have a much greater effect than the other doublings, there must be a specific reason. And an interglacial amount of ice on Antarctica that is not likely to change albedo, that just does not do the trick 🙂
K.R. Frank

Tim Clark:
Humidy drops and the greenhouse effect from H20 is reduced
This tells me you have never lived under a cloud cover which lasts more than six months.
It’s just the contrary: No Sol no warm. Common sense, ya know, the less common of all the senses.

Tim Clark says:
September 8, 2010 at 9:57 am
“2nd graph = At ~350ppm [C02], the effect from CO2 is ~ 99% exhausted.”
May be practically true because each fixed increment of additional forcing requires doubling the CO2 concentration. I’m skeptical that there’s enough economically recoverable fossil fuel to get more than two doublings from pre-industrial level.
This indicates the earth has warmed ~all it will from 1st order CO2.
Since you are familiar with MODTRAN, and these numbers are correct disregarding 2nd order feedbacks, are you prepared to suggest that any temperature increase in the future as predicted by IPCC will be 99% associated with feedbacks (ie. somewhat synonomous with sensitivity)? If so, then explain why current global temps are lower than predicted by IPCC using a climate sensitivy of 3? (don’t weasel out on this – see previous post and IPCC graph of scenarios) Also, then are you suggesting that the hypothesized feedback effect is temperature dependent? At what temperature do the feedbacks suddenly appear? Should they not increase in a linear fashion?

Tim Clark:
Humidy drops and the greenhouse effect from H20 is reduced
Enneagram says: September 8, 2010 at 10:54 am
This tells me you have never lived under a cloud cover which lasts more than six months.
It’s just the contrary: No Sol no warm. Common sense, ya know, the less common of all the senses.
Now reread what I wrote. I believe we agree.

Well I have no idea who or what MODTRAN is, but you have to start with the primary source of LWIR radiation (if the CO2 greenhouse effect is what you are studying; and that is the earth surface; which varies in Temperature over an extreme range of from 120 to 150 deg C from the coldest Antarctic midnight highlands; to the hottest midday tropical deserts; and over that range the surface emission varies by over an order of magnitude; from about double the 390 W/m^2 that Trenberth gives (corresponding to a 288 K Temperature, to about 1/6th of trenberth’s number for the coldest regions.
So how can a given amount of CO2 give some fixed “forcing” without reference to the Temperature of the terrain.
Also the “radiative forcing” does NOT vary linearly with the amount of Temperature increase it causes. The required forcing would be proportional to the 4th power of the resultant Temperature ; so you can’t have both the W/m^2 and the Temperature both change the same amount for any doubling.
And the very specification of a fixed Temperature increase per doubling; whether it be 1.5 deg C or 4.5 or even 6.0 automatically defines the Temperature to be a logarithmic function of the CO2; and the proxy data going back 600 million years and covering about 5 doublings; doesn’t show any evidence whatsoever for a logarithmic relationship between CO2 and Temperature. There are millions of years of absolutely constant Temperature while CO2 drops by huge amounts.
And for the modern era of actually measured values for CO2 and Temperature, the still isn’t 1/3rd of one doubling in the records and yest claims for the temperature effect range over more than a 3:1 ratio for a single doubling.
With a 3:1 range in the experimental estimates of the slope of this mythical logarithmic function; how can you possibly declear it to be logarithmic rather than linear. The data contains no respectable evidence for any mathematical relationship; other than both values are observed to change; and not always in the same direction or even the same direction as each other.
Climate Science is going to be forever stuck in the doldrums akin to ancient astrology, so long as practitioners keep on insisting ont eh existence of a mathematical relationship for which there is nore experimental evidence.
And you can’t salvage the claims by taking “feedbacks” into account; those “feedbacks” are themselves not constant throughout the system.
Either the mean global surface Temperature of the earth is proportional to the Logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 abundance or it isn’t; and so far, I have seen no evidence that it is; or is any other well defined mathematical function.
The available literature can’t even seem to agree among authors whether it is the global mean Temperature; or the w/m^2 “forcing” that follows the log of CO2 abundance.
Well it doesn’t much matter, because neither one does; based on the observational evidence. There isn’t even any agreement on what the proper time relationship is or should be, between observations of a mean temperature or a W/m^2 forcing , and the observation of a CO2 abundance; or even which direction that time relationship should point.
If the CO2 lags the Temperature by around 800 years, as the paleo proxy data suggests; why on earth would anybody be comparing the Temperature and the CO2 or the W/m^2 over the last 30 years or even the last 100 years; when there is no a priori reason to believe they are related in any simple way;as the paleo data shows.

I would guess that NASA does not think that observation of the earth’s albedo is important. Any of the lunar landings could have had an instrument permanently measuring the sunlight or moonlight reflecting from the earth. SOHO could have had an earthward sensor too.
But, no the earth does not warm from sunlight, it warms from carbon dioxide that was meant to remain in the fossil layers of the earth’s geology. So be it.

General comment:
MODTRAN suggests that a CO2 doubling has 10,8% the effect of the full CO2 amount. That is, MODTRAN shows that CO2 has a total effect 9,25 times greater than a single doubling.
Feedbacks: There appears – so far – to be no specific reason why feedbacks like water evaporation etc should be more strong in connection with the 160-320 doubling than the 20-40 doubling or any other doubling.
If not, Lets take a NEUTRAL position, and assume that all warming feedbacks are mostly evenly sprespread out over the 9,25 “doublings”.
If so, the 6 K of CO2 warming inclusive feedbacks should pretty much equal the warming + feedbacks from all other doublings.
And with 9,25 this gives 55 K of warming effect in all related to CO2. This is around ten times the global temperature differences over the ice ages. I think its fair to mention this – and if anyone can explain, they are definetely welcome to do so.
K.R. Frank

– And therefore zeke, if Hansen claims 6 K incl feedbacks for this doublings, we must treat other doublings in the same way.
Or?
K.R. Frank

And while we are on the subject of scientists and $$$
((Related News:Health Care · Science .
Swine Flu Found No More Severe Than Seasonal Virus
By Tom Randall – Sep 8, 2010 7:17 AM GMT+1000
Email Share
Business ExchangeTwitterDeliciousDiggFacebookLinkedInNewsvinePropellerYahoo! BuzzPrint Children infected in last year’s swine flu pandemic were no more likely to be hospitalized with complications or get pneumonia than those who catch seasonal strains, according to a study that challenges previous reports.
About 1.5 percent of children with the H1N1 swine flu strain were hospitalized within 30 days, compared with 3.7 percent of those sick with a seasonal strain of H1N1 and 3.1 percent with an H3N2 virus, researchers said today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report compared outcomes in Wisconsin of 545 patients with swine flu versus 853 patients with seasonal strains beginning in 2007.
Approximately 50 million people in the U.S. caught swine flu last year. Children were more likely to get sick than in a typical year, leading previous studies to conclude that the virus not only spread more easily but also was more severe. Today’s study was more in line with CDC estimates that about half as many people died of flu last year as in a typical year.
“The risk of most serious complications was not elevated in adults or children,” the study’s authors wrote. “Children were disproportionately affected by 2009 H1N1 infection, but the perceived severity of symptoms and risk of serious outcomes were not increased.”
Influenza is a rapidly evolving virus, and the severity of the season depends on which strains are circulating and how well a population has been inoculated. About 12,000 people of all ages died in the swine flu outbreak, according to the CDC. Annual deaths associated with seasonal flu ranged from 3,349 to 48,614 during the last 30 years.
Report Limitations
While today’s report was limited by its size and geographic reach, the study was large enough to show that swine flu wasn’t much more severe for kids, according to the researchers.
Comparing outcomes from different flu seasons is difficult, as survey methods vary. The Wisconsin study was set up to examine the same group of people during three flu seasons to reach a more precise comparison. Illness was assessed through interviews and flu tests. Patients’ medical records were reviewed to determine the severity of the illness and outcomes.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net. ))
Twas the same method. Identify a disastrous possibility that could not be morally challenged due to the affects on the young & the helpless. UN steps in as Co-ordinator General using the expertise of ‘scientists’. All repuiring $$$$$$$ by the train load. Doomsday talk of humanity disappearing, blah blah blah.
regards

Zeke: Not 100% linearly but the evaporation as function of temperature is a smooth curve, no sudden jumps.
And by the way, if Hansen had a point with some special evaporation-boom these days, its just too bad that measurements of water in the atmosphere does not support him.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/feedback/e5.jpg
K.R. Frank

Zeke: Here is a diagram of water phases as function of temperature.
Hmm, its pretty much a strait line for temperatures 270-300 K. hard to argue that the present Co2-doubling warming should be able to do something any other doubling should not do:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Water_phase_diagram.svg/400px-Water_phase_diagram.svg.png
K.R. Frank

Also, this is a useful resource for a comprehensive look at water vapor trends over the past few decades: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Staff/Fasullo/refs/Trenberth2005FasulloSmith.pdf

Wayne says: “Radiation in CO2’s bands are completely absorbed low in the troposphere so adding absorber molecules only shortens the path to first absorption”
Is this to some degree explaining why the upper atmosphere has been cooling for decades?
K.R. Frank

“”” mkelly says:
September 8, 2010 at 1:38 pm
George E. Smith says:
September 8, 2010 at 11:31 am
…and that is the earth surface; which varies in Temperature over an extreme range of from 120 to 150 deg C from the coldest Antarctic midnight highlands; to the hottest midday tropical deserts; and over that range the surface emission varies by over an order of magnitude; from about double the 390 W/m^2 that Trenberth gives (corresponding to a 288 K Temperature, to about 1/6th of trenberth’s number for the coldest regions.”
You have again stated much of what I have said many times. If we accept CO2 absorbtion lines at 15 micro that has an associated temperture contained in it. That temperature is 200K, give or take. The earth at 300K (10 micro) does not radiate in the proper band for CO2 to absorb anything let alone radiate back down to heat the ground. “””
Well I take it as a given that at first glance anythermal radiation spectrum is somewhat “Black Body” like; so unless it is a totally weird surface; it radiates roughly proportional to the fourth power of Temnperature; although its total emissivity may not be 1.0 and it may have a spectral emissivity that puts some holes in the BB spectrum. Also the spectral radiant emittance at the wavelength peak out to vary as about the fifth power of the Temperature (Kelvins).
For a BB at 288 K which is about what the mean earth surface is supposed to be; that gives you about 390 W/m^2 and the spectral peak is at 10.1 microns. But in keeping with all BB spectra; about 98% of the energy is contained in the raneg from 0.5 of peak wavelenght to 8 times the peak wavelength.
So realistically a mean earth surface such as a 15 deg C water surface should emit a spectrum from about 5.0 microns to 80 microns; and the CO2 15 micron (13.5-16.5 micron) band is certainly in that range.
But at the coldest Vostok like Temperatures the spectral peak is right at 15 microns; but the total emittance is about six to seven times lower than at 15 C. For the highest desert temperatures; the emittance goes up by from 1.8 to 2.0 times and the peak wavelength drops to around 8.7-8 microns. So even at this temperature (+60 C) there is no more than 1% max to be found anywhere near the other 4.0 micron CO2 line; which basically does much of nothing on earth; since only 1% of sunlight is out that far in the infrared either.
So there isn’t any quastion (in my mind) that CO2 and H2O as well do intercept some fraction of the earth thermal emission; but I don’t see how a 13.5-16.5 band can collect 90% of the total mean temp surface emission which is what Trenberth claims. (only 40 W/m^2 escapes out of the 390 W/m^2 emitted by the surface). There’s no way that a 13.5 to 16.5 window takes out 90% of the energy from a 288 K BB radiator.
Besides that 13.5-16.5 slot is actually many very fine slots that are much narrower than the 3.0 micron band width.
And others here have intimated that Temperature and Collision broadening are not major effects at these Temperatures.
So I guess MODTRAN does an actual Physics calculation of all the absorptions and emissions from the atmosphere with its GHG trace gases. So why is the final result not widely known all over the earth ?
I would presume that Trenberth’s global energy budget cartoon; would be a summary of MODTRAN projections of what the atmosphere does. Is it ??
If MODTRAN is an accurate atmospheric Physical model; then why wouldn’t it be the standard model; so that all these measurments didn’t have to be made.

“They get to have conversations with other scientists because they dont reject known physics.”
ewwww…..
Well, next time you go to your refrigerator or turn on the air conditioning while you chat with the l33t, you can give silent thanks to a real engineer who makes physics work- be very grateful he didn’t try to charge the system with CO2.

Steven Mosher says:
September 8, 2010 at 2:56 pm
“Sometimes you can estimate it from observation, but you need a bunch of data. When you dont have enough observation data you HAVE to build a model.”
HAVE to build a model?
Steven, I apologise for butting in with probably nowhere near the ability to contribute constructively, but can you please explain to an old gnarled and battered engineer, how, if you don’t have enough observational data and therefore justification, you can build a model?
What is wrong with – when we have enough justification and not until then, we will build a model?

Can someone please explain what concentrations of greenhouse components are thought to exist at the tropopause and whether there is any form of layering? The term “well mixed” seems to be bandied about with much abandon. If we skip way up to the thermosphere, it is generally accepted that layering occurs with the various elements sorting by molecular weight (obviously at extremely low densities). Also, a topic that has almost dried up recently, noctilucent clouds; these are now I believe thought to be water ice occurring at the mesopause. What is their increased occurrence of late telling us, there has been little if any follow-up that I’m aware of?

I found this presentation both interesting and confusing.
So I cut out the confusing parts.
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/lansner-reloaded/

Sorry, Mr. Mosher, for not being clear enough and making you waste all that energy chasing the infrared herring that way.
The very shortest way to restate my point, one hopes with better success, is to say ‘Radiation physics of CO2 is not the story of climate physics.’
The physics of climate ARE well represented by a heat pump with a working fluid, convection, phase change, huge amount of enthalpy with NO temperature change at all- and the ideal ‘infinite heat sink’. And temperature isn’t heat. You can’t say a thing about heat without stating something about mass.
Consequently I see CO2 as just another fetish ecstatics use for their unwholesome self flagellation. This whole thing is about self harming, in case you haven’t noticed.

Can it be so hard to do an experiment with differing amounts of co2 in large container using x watts of IR – say using the astrodome or some such? Or fill a bunch of transparent balloons with varying amounts of co2 and the other atmo gases rigged with thermoms or pressure guages or something? Comon you physicists’ if its so important surely you can figure out some way to experiment and not have to guess.

Zeke… thanks for the graph 😉 !!!!
I think the picture is rather complex to say the least. I find it relevant to know the feedback-free CO2 doublings, that pure CO2 effect has a factor 9,25 between total and one doubling effect. I find it relevant to know that its the last 10,8% of the pure Co2 effect (the present doubling) that is supposed to make temperatures go bananas unlike the other doublings.
This concept that the particular doubling around 3-4-5-6-700 ppm CO2 should warm the Earth much more than other doublings (which has not been argued against?) is shown by nature to be unlikely.
Why? Because we are in an interglacial, that is, an unusual temperature max. The last many times we have had this warm temperature, nature has not been able to get any warmer.
Therefore, a little heat from CO2 right now is in fact very unlikely to make temperatures boom. If 1 K more heat should have mad temperature rise 6K – like Hansen suggests – then why have this not happened before at any other interglacial?
With all the warm interglacials we have natures full scale experimental data just in front of our eyes. And never in the interglacials did a temperature lift of one degree celcius lead to 6K temp lift. Therefore Hansens (and IPCC´s) claims appears not supported by data. Or?
K.R. Frank

Zeke: So, what I have shown is perhaps mostly, that the warming effect from the present doubling HAS to be much much greater than for any other doubling. And I think thats a relevant point, because such a claim has to be supported directly like “The present CO2 doubling will warm the earth many times mores than other CO2 doublings because…”.
And as i wrote in my previous comment, all the earlier interglacials shows that a little warming mini-peak of 0,5-1 K has never resulted in a 6K (or 3 K for IPCC) temperature rise before.
K.R. Frank

Mr. Mosher, I’m happy to remember you for your achievements.
Let it rest with that, please. There is no upside.

Frank,
sorry, but your chart is crap. You changed from logarithmic to linear at 320 without apparent reason. I stopped reading there.

Steven Mosher says:
September 8, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Thanks Steven, I will chew that over for a while. I have had a little experience with wing panel design, my bit was taking the design through to manufacture, always understood that all models were based on wind tunnel observations. But I suppose they have to start somewhere.
Thanks for getting back.

Gavin Schmidt and the gang at GISS have a new paper in press which breaks-down the greenhouse effect into its various sources:
Water vapour – 50%
Clouds – 25%
CO2 – 20%
Others – 5%
(these numbers do not take into account the solar reflection or atmospheric interception of solar energy by the same gases but it is what it is – just long-wave radiation – and clouds should be the same as water vapour but nonetheless).
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/inpress_Schmidt_et_al.pdf

Steven Mosher (Sept. 8, 2010 @ 8:13pm)
A couple of questions for you. How does one model a hot source in the sky? Please enlighten me. Details please.
Since when is MODTRAN required to build a jet fighter? At what point do the calculations become important to the final design. Sky mentioned its also good for remote sensing, in what way?
Also do you have any references to modtran back in the early seventies or sixties?

I didn’t want to remember the (heroic) person who broke climategate this way, but you insisted. So much for courtesy, then.
Get back when you figure out you can’t measure heat in degrees.
Get back after your refresher in first year chemistry.
Get back when you figure out the latent heat moved by water in any unit of atmosphere is 50,000 times greater than C02.
Get back when you can focus on a point without pages of resume as diversion.
Get back when you’re not so patronizing and give up the ‘argument from intimidation’
Get back when you become a mature adult, in other words.
I didn’t want to remember you like this, friend.
Let me tell you one of the secrets of life: when you’re really stoked about something- everybody wants to hang out with you. When you have a bad attitude and act stupid- nobody does. Celebrity is so fickle – and google is so indelible.
Top of the day to ya. I just finished putting new shingles on my roof and that will fix all my climate issues for another 10 years or so. I’m smilin. 🙂

A nice history of source.. and you can see all the contributors to IR signature ( like glint which I forgot about, and earthshine etc );
Problem is the calibration is based on primitive and incorrect assumptions ie incorrect sign in say the “atmospheric window” eg Platnick and Fontenla 2006
Satellite measurements at wavelengths of light corresponding to about 3.7
pm have been exploited for almost three decades. Radiation near this wavelength
(which includes both solar energy and energy emitted by the Earth‘s surface and
atmosphere) occurs in a so-called ”atmospheric window” where the atmosphere
is relatively transparent to such light. Applications are primarily related to cloud
studies, including cloud detectio4 cloud thermodynamic phase, and quantitative
cloud particle size retrievals….
….Fundamentally, cloud information is derived by first converting the
measured signal into a reflectance quantity. Conversion of calibrated 3.7 pm
channel measurements (in radiance units) to reflectance requires knowledge of
the incoming solar energy (specifically the irradiance) in this spectral region.
Despite the ubiquity of 3.7 pm channels, absolute solar spectral irradiance data
comes from either a single measurement campaign in 1969 or models that predict
the solar irradiance spectrum.
In this study, we compare historical 3.7 ,um band spectral irradiance data sets
with the new semi-empirical solar model of the quiet-Sun by Fontenla et al.
(2006). The model has expected uncertainties of about 2% in the 3.7pm spectral
region. We find that 3.7 ,um channel-averaged spectral irradiances using the
Thekaekara et al. observations or previous solar models differ from the new
model by -1.5 to +4.1%
As MODTRAN5 included the Fontenla quiet sun spectrum one would think this would improve the spectral resolution,however the sun also showed it is not constrained by deterministic conjecture and the variance (and error) increased in the declining phase of sc23.
The implications are quite clear in say the cloud fraction where no model has any statistical agreement with the annular datasets, or the seasonal amplitude eg Probst et al.2010.
As HadSM3 performed worst in comparison with observations,and has problematic issues with scaling heights and stratospheric humidity eg Shine et al 2010 it is legitimate to question how certain are when uncertainties are certain, or to put it another way does the Irreducibility of Uncertainty, provide evidence of the certainty of Irreducibility.

Thanks Frank,
Other doublings of CO2 could have more or less total temperature impact than the present doubling due to the influence of other gases, as well as various feedback factors (both positive and negative) either entering their effective ranges or reaching their respective limitations.
I don’t have any particular reason that this specific CO2 doubling should have a greater or lesser temperature impact than other prior or subsequent doublings. All I can say for certain is… it’ll be complicated.

Frank Lansner says:
September 9, 2010 at 1:10 pm
…
This makes it legitimate to ask: What is it about the present CO2 doubling that is so very very extraordinar compared to other doublings. With what evidence can you claim the feedbacks for the present doubling is many times bigger than for other doubling? (Because i showed that they have to be).
K.R. Frank
And you did a very fine job of showing exactly that!
That is so preposterous to think there were no (or different) feedbacks last doubling(s), or last century but now has somehow morphed so large that any proper scientists would just bow out at this point and accept the impossibility. But I doubt they will, and so I will continue to refuse to mention them without putting “scientist” in quotes. They probably don’t even deserve so much.
I have taken Dr. Spencer’s simple model and re-written the spreadsheet until I could understand it’s basics and then re-wrote that as a bona fide program so I can easily extend it any amount of time any parameters (even 800,000 years if curious, but it then does crawl) with any feedbacks or lingering effects, radiative and non-radiative as Dr. Spencer points out, and I finally see exactly what you and Dr. Spencer are saying of these feedbacks. The current model are unrealistic, they don’t match the real world data.
I will be curious in the next few years (I hope) to learn what is causing some the effects that are happening as the AMSU data points out, not following co2’s “proven” effects. That very thing keeps haunting me, and I wrote on this above, could it be that co2 has no effect at all after the optical thickness causes all initial radiation from the surface (not inter-atmosphere) to guarantee capture at least once. The warmist sites I visit do not want to even bring up the concept that thermalization and the re-spread across the spectrum every absorption even exists. That seems to be a key. Look very carefully at a spectrum from the surface upward and one from 20 km downward. See the pretty wide “window” where little is interacting. If I’m correct by the second or third bounce the statistical chance of absorption is near zero. Say the initial chance to hit the 13-16.5 µm band of all IR frequencies is 0.30. on second after thermalization and spread the chance of not hitting the “window” is 0.30^2 or 0.09, third is 0.09*0.30 or 0.03. hope you can make sense of that, I’m not very good at conveying my thoughts sometimes.
Now, what if you add a few (co2 doubling) of absorbers. Of course I realize this would apply to h2o too and there is even some crossing from water to co2 in those bands. By that most of a ghg’s effect occurs in the 3-6 or so doublings. That what would cause the double logarithmic that I mentioned above. If you see this as real and can write an article on it, have at it, I would destroy the concept with my words, your much better.
Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed you article!

Steven Mosher (Sept. 9, 7:00AM 2010)
Busy here but your lengthy response deserves a reply. After reading it several times I have to come to the conclusion its made up goobbledygook. Heres why:
1. Your assertion that skin temperature is an issue is nonsense. The F117 was designed from the ground up with radar(radio) in mind. Radar is not IR. The wavelengths used are much longer, reflection is the key. Modtran is irrelevant.
The only concern with IR is heat seekers, so the F117A’s twin GE404 turbofans vent through thin horizontal nozzles that spread out the heat. The engines generate the only concern for heat not the skin! You say “Long ago ( like when the F117 was built) we could only predict the returns from flat surfaces and we could only build flat surfaces ( of RAm material)”. The use of Ram material or radar-absorptive mesh is also used to shield parts of the plane from radio (radar) reflection. So what is this “returns from flat surfaces”? IR is not the issue. IR given off by the skin of a plane is irrelevant to its survivability. When faced with a heat seeker speed and agility may save you but most certainly not MODTRAN (lol).
2. As you state the only reason Modtran is required because the airforce holds some patents on it. Sounds like a business decision. The truth of the matter is that it is NOT required to build a successful jet fighter. The only thing required is good engineers.
3. You say “Well, the calculations are used throughout the design process.” I say baloney.
4. We really go wacky when remote sensing is dealt with. You say “well any sensor in the sky or space needs to understand what the atmosphere does to the signal.” A sensor does not NEED to understand anything! Then you say “If you emit signal X at the ground hows that get modulated by the stuff between the sensor and the source. Going backwards, if you receive a signal that looks like Y, what does the source actually look like? So tell me how does a signal get modulated by the atmosphere and what is this stuff you talk about? If you receive a signal that looks like y? Are you kidding?
5. “Lowtran stuff started in the mid seventies ( as I recall) which was before my watch. in the 70s, the drive to incorporate all aspect broadband stealth became paramount. hence the F117, B2, F22.
Make sense?” I’d like to see proof of this lowtran, and no, Steven Mosher, you do not make sense.

Jim D says:
September 9, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Bill Illis,
Yes, the point was that other factors are too important to neglect, which is what is being done when one assumes each doubling has the same effect. In the case of the doubling from 190 to 380, ice albedo feedback helped raise the effect to 5 degrees. Going from 380 to 760, ice albedo feedback would be less, but water vapor feedback remains. You can’t rule out 3 degrees.
From what I saw, CO2 was declining gradually (possibly due to chemical weathering and natural sequestration) at 5-10 ppm per million years in the 100 million years before the Ice Ages (as earth was coincidentally cooling) , and it wasn’t till 15-20 million years ago that it dropped below 400 ppm, at which time Greenland was not covered with glaciers. [300 km is not even 20% of the size of Greenland, so I doubt that accounts for much.] CO2 finally reached 280 ppm by 2.4 million years ago when the Ice Ages began with Greenland freezing over. 280 was a kind of tipping point for Ice Ages to exist.
Oh come on. The ellipitical orbit of the earth has nothing to do with it? And show me your references for the alledged 5 degree increase. Ice has a significant effect when it covers Canada and Minnesota, but next to nothing at the poles. And if you sum NH and SH polar ice coverage (albedo is unaffected by thickness), it was hasn’t changed, so no effect of albedo over the satellite era when CO2 went up ~[100 ppm].

Several times here (at WUWT) , Phil has offered, that the CO2-Temperature relationship is linear for small amounts of CO2; then logarithmic for medium amounts of CO2; and then square root for large amounts of CO2.
As a physicist ; that leaves me asking; what was it about the Physics that changed, to change the relationship. The answer of course is that nothing about the Physics changed at all; because none of those formulas are tied in to the Physics of why CO2 would raise the surface temperature of the earth; there’s no scientific justification for any of them.
Now that does not mean that you can’t take some sets of data on Temperatures and CO2 and curve fit to try and get some calculated curve to track with the data.
But curve fitting is really only useful to allow estimation of values at (data) locations that have never been measured; by interpolation between points that have been measured.
It certainly seems perfectly reasonable that at small CO2 concentrations, the effects could fit a straight line; and that eventually the data would stray off that straight line; ie the graph becomes non-linear.
But it is a far cry from saying that a relationship is non-linear, to saying that the result is logarithmic. Just because it may take increasing amounts of CO2 to create a temperature change at higher levels; is no justification for saying it is logarithmic; which is a very specific mathematical function. When Physical relationships truly do plot as logarithmic relationships; it is usually a solid clue that some very simple basic Physical (or chemical) process is involved in the effect. A different situation would be the case of the Mauna Loa CO2 data, which shows an upturn in recent years; it has gone non-linear.
That is no cause to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that the relationship is exponential. It might be just a long time constant transition between one linear rate, and another higher linear rate. To call it exponential is to imply that there is a causal process that makes the relationship exponential. There probably isn’t.
But we now have several generations of climate “scientists” who have been taught, and are absolutely convinced, that Temperature (of the earth) is proportional to the logarithm of the atmospheric CO2.
If that were true; then the very smallest amounts of atmopsheric CO2 would have had the greatest effect.
Frank here, has plotted the forcing; which evidently is identical to the Temperature change; despite the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship for CO2 down to 5 ppmv.
So just when did earth have only 5 ppmv of atmospheric CO2; for that matter, when did it have only 160 ppmv.
If we are to believe the logarithmic doubling sensitivity mantra, then the change in atmospheric CO2 from 4 ppmv to 5 ppmv must have created all manner of chaos on earth.
Now I should throw in here the legal disclaimer: I am NOT among those who try to argue that CO2 can’t possibly warm the atmosphere; that is plain silly; as is the argument that CO2 is such a tiny trace amount; so how could it possibly do anything. That too is plain silly. Pure single crystal Silicon has an atomic density of about 5.00 x 10^22 atoms per cc; Germanium is 4.42 x 10^22, so not much in it for those two materials.
It is very common that semiconductor devices; such as CMOS integrated circuits that power our computers, so we can all meet and greet like this; are typically doped in the range of 10^15 to 10^18 atoms per CC of dopant impurities; Boron or Phosphorous often. So that is one part in 50,000 at the 10^18 level, or 20 ppm. Now in contact areas; you might get up into the 10^19 range which is 200 ppm.
So all of modern technology is resting on piddling little trace constituents like that; which make the CO2 laden atmosphere look like a veritable trash heap; compared to silicon semi-conductor devices.
But that said; what is the CO2 really accomplishing. All the books say that high clouds make it warm at night and the higher the clouds the warmer it gets at night; Positive feedback for sure ?
Well there’s two things (at least) we should keep in mind. #1 the LWIR radiation that is intercepted by CO2 or H2O or clouds is NOT detectable by humans, without sophisticated instrumentation. So it most certainly is not capable of warming us.
# 2 ; Anyone who has spent a night in a dry desert; say in Mojave California, knows full well that the temperature plummets at night. Mojave is so dry (the town) that airlines from all over the world have stacked up hundreds and hundreds of perfectly good usable Commerical airliners, at the Mojave airport; because they can store them there out in the open, and they don’t rust away. So when business picks up they can put some of them back into service.
But back to those plummeting Temperatures; what is the message ?
Well the message is that CO2, which is all still there at Mojave isn’t capable of doing a darn thing about stopping the Temperature from plummeting at night; we can’t feel the radiation from the CO2 anyway, so even if it were massively absorbing energy; we would never feel it.
So why do we feel warm on those high cloudy balmy evenings ? IT’S THE WATER !! Those high clouds are there, because during the day, it was even hotter than it is at night and there was plenty of moisture around to both form the clouds, when the moisture rises up to the dew point elevation; and also that humid air is what is stopping us from cooling our skin by evaporation of sweat from our skin; that is why WE feel warm; our cooling system is shut off by the moist air. No we can’t feel the LWIR radiation being sent back by the water vapor either. The heat that we feel was supplied during the day by the sun; it is not supplied at night by the atmosphere.
During the day; the GHG absorption is certainly capturing LWIR emitted from the hot/warm surface, and it delays the exit of that radiation as a result of that absorption and re-radiation (from the atmosphere) process. During that delay time, old sol is continuing to pour in more energy; and it is that solar insolation rate; times the mean propagation delay of the LWIR exit process that creates the GHG warming.
But at night in most places; the sun does not shine; so there isn’t any extra solar input at night to warm the place because of GHG capture delays.
Yes I firmly believe that CO2 is a GHG and that despite its scarcity in the atmosphere it does capture LWIR emissions and tend to allow the sun to warm the surface a bit more. How much as to doublings whether a big doubling from 390 to 780 ppmv or a small one from 5 ppm to 10 ppm; is somewhat irrelevent; because in the end; the water cycle takes over, and clouds simply adjust the net insolation that reaches the surface to warm it; and how much CO2 is present is hardly of any consequence. The effect (that it DOES have) is simply vetoed by cloud variations OVER CLIMATE TIME SCALES.

*******
wayne says:
September 9, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Frank Lansner says:
September 9, 2010 at 1:10 pm
…
This makes it legitimate to ask: What is it about the present CO2 doubling that is so very very extraordinar compared to other doublings. With what evidence can you claim the feedbacks for the present doubling is many times bigger than for other doubling? (Because i showed that they have to be).
K.R. Frank
And you did a very fine job of showing exactly that!
**********
Wayne, thanks! It means a lot that even though i am indeed fumbling a little in the dark here and there when trying to show something new, some people like you can still see where im getting at, and that this is important.
K.R. Frank

DCA engineer says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:44 am
Frank, Thanks for the interesting post.
I was wondering you take on Gavin’s recent paper.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/inpress_Schmidt_et_al.pdf
***
Thankyou, I will look forward to digest this paper! Perhaps i will comment on it on http://www.hidethedecline.eu when I have the chance.
K.R. Frank

Jim D,
IIRC, Antarctica drifted to its present polar position about 25 million years ago. This made it much easier for the earth to go into ice ages because it is much easier to form a thick polar ice cap when there is a land mass at the pole. The CO2 levels declining might be a function of declining temps rather than vice versa.

I strenuously suggest all you people arguing over the physics of GHGs start reading up on the experimental results of longwave absorption by gases conducted by John Tyndall about 150 years ago and written up in his book “Heat a Mode of Motion”.
For his work with gases begin reading on page 321:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3DUJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA321&dq=%22heat+a+mode+of+motion%22&output=text
and take about a half hour to educate yourselves. This is very basic physics which were experimentally discovered 150 years ago, folks.
The very first thing that Tyndall discovered is that in very low concentrations of absorbing gases the absorption increases in direct proportion to the gas concentration. Gradually, as complete absorption is approached, the proportionality becomes exponential.
For anyone who thinks they know enough to describe this by quantum mechanical theory if the result obtained does not approximate the experimental results obtained 150 years ago then your quantum explanation, or any other explanation for that matter, is WRONG and you need to go back to the drawing board until your theoretical results match the experimental measurements. Models of reality DO NOT trump physical reality.
CO2 is present in sufficient concentration in the troposphere to bring its absorptive capacity to near extinction. At this point the proportionality required for incrementally more GHG effect is exponential in nature.

“”” Dave Springer says:
September 10, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I strenuously suggest all you people arguing over the physics of GHGs start reading up on the experimental results of longwave absorption by gases conducted by John Tyndall about 150 years ago and written up in his book “Heat a Mode of Motion”.
For his work with gases begin reading on page 321:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3DUJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA321&dq=%22heat+a+mode+of+motion%22&output=text
and take about a half hour to educate yourselves. This is very basic physics which were experimentally discovered 150 years ago, folks. “””
Well old John certainly wrote a funny strain of English. One thing I did notice in his experimental apparatus is that he evidently did his experiments the same way that “the science guy” does his; and emplyed a source of not very long wavelength “heat” that unfortunately is NOT emitted from the earth’s surface or from the atmosphere (of Planet Earth).

Obviously, I was not saying Ice Ages were due to CO2 changes, but one of the things that goes with AGW is that CO2 is tied on long timescales to temperature. This is what I was referring to. When the earth cools, e.g. due to solar or Milankowitch effects, CO2 follows. Either CO2 or temperature can change first, but the other will follow with a lag. It doesn’t contradict AGW.
Someone asked about the log relation with temperature. As in the original post, the line shows that this relation is just an approximation to what you get out of a full radiative transfer model, no more. Such models do not have a log relation built into them, only individual effects of various absorption bands that saturate to various degrees. Each band or line is just a Beer’s law absorption path calculation which is an exponential decay with concentration, so it is not obvious their integrated effect is going to be a log behavior.

George E. Smith says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:50 am
“Several times here (at WUWT) , Phil has offered, that the CO2-Temperature relationship is linear for small amounts of CO2; then logarithmic for medium amounts of CO2; and then square root for large amounts of CO2.”
“Phil”, whoever that is, is correct and this was first demonstrated experimentally 150 years ago.

Jim D, This is your qoute i meant: “Either CO2 or temperature can change first, but the other will follow with a lag. It doesn’t contradict AGW.
“

re; John Tyndall
Tyndall was one of the greatest physicists of the 19th century and arguably the best physics lecturer and writer of his generation. An experimenter not a model builder. He succeeded Michael Farrady as professor of physics at the Royal Institute. Farraday was a great admirer of his work which played no small part in the succession. Tyndall wasn’t the first to theorize a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere but he was the first to prove it by experiment. He also proved water vapor overwhelms all the other greenhouse gases and did it the obvious way by directing infrared energy through a column of dry air ,a column of moist air, and a vacuum comparing how much infrared energy comes out the other side in carefully controlled delightfully simple but highly ingenius experimental apparatus. He performed thousands of experiments with different gases at varying partial pressures, varying total mass and distance, using many different gases and different heat sources. In the process he discovered more about the longwave thermodynamics of gases than any single person in history.
For those of you not delighted and charmed reading about experimental physics in original mid-19th century British parlance wikipedia has a decent translation of the highlights in 21st century American dialect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall
I suggest everyone get acquainted with it. The proper place to begin is at the beginning. Tyndall is the beginning of longwave thermodynamics of atmospheric gases. He’s essentially also the end of what anyone really needs to know about how greenhouse gases function in the atmosphere. Even 19th century physicists provably knew that atmospheric CO2 is an insignificant greenhouse gas compared to water vapor.

Dave Springer says:
“[Tyndal is] essentially also the end of what anyone really needs to know about how greenhouse gases function in the atmosphere.”
——-
The wikipedia article you link says the following:
“He concluded that water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature. Absorption by the bulk of the other gases is negligible.”
Negligible? So is this “the end of what we need to know”?
You say elsewhere that the current assumptions about the CO2-temperature relationship (linear for low concentrations, then logarithmic, and so on) were “demonstrated experimentally 150 years ago.
Were they, really? Did Tyndell attempt to measure the temperature variations, or just the radiation?
Now, if his experiments regarding the CO2-temperature relation were so simple and conclusive, I imagine their accuracy and illuminating power could surely be improved after 150 years, could they not? And they would have enormous convincing force among the ever growing number doubting Thomases. So why are they not being done? Is anybody else attempting to reproduce these kinds of experiments to illustrate the CO2-temperature relation? If not, why is that, since not they could put so many arguments to rest? Why would Tindall be “all we need to know”? Do physicists still rely on the first measurements of the speed of light done in the 17th century? Do we go read Eratosthenes to find out the dimensions of the Earth?
None of this makes any sense to me, sir.

@frank Lanser
It’s worse than they thought!
As demonstrated by the great experimental physicist John Tyndall who circa 1860 was the first to discover many radiative thermodynamic properties of gases. Through experiment he demonstrated that absorption by GHGs is directly proportional to the number of molecules of gas when the number is below that which will absorb to extinction. Think of it as the gas picking the low-hanging fruit or working like a vacuum pump that can quickly lower the pressure of a high density gas but which has to work harder and harder as the pressure decreases such that it is never able to achieve a perfect vacuum. After the gas has absorbed to practical extinction in its primary absorption frequencies adding more of the gas only serves to increase secondary and tertiary energy absorption modes – for example things like shoulder broadening, scattering, and so forth. These secondary and tertiary modes require exponentially increasing amounts of the gas to be added to get any measurable effect. CO2’s primary absorption band where water vapor doesn’t totally overlap it is at 15 microns and at a partial pressure of 390ppm in a column several miles long there are several times more than enough gas molecules present to absorb 15um radiation to extinction.
I consider it exceedingly generous to concede for the sake of argument that a doubling from present level, absent feedbacks, can raise surface temperature by the IPCC adopted figure of 1.1 degrees Celsius. The only reason I’m willing to concede that is to move the argument forward to the positive feedback argument (which is totally bogus) and then move into arguing that increased CO2 and marginally warmer global average temperature is not only NOT catastrophic but is actually of great benefit to the biosphere and hence to ourselves as we are part of that biosphere.
If someone tries to derail your argument in the future by saying something silly like there must have been a great climate disruption by the doubling from 2ppm to 4ppm just refer them to Tyndall’s work which handily disputes that nonsense. First of all, all life (except perhaps for some extremophiles) would go extinct if CO2 ever fell below about 150ppm and stayed there for long. CO2 is already saturated at 150ppm so discussing what the climate would be like at any lower amount is irrelevant as the earth’s temperature at that point is of no consequence because there’s nothing able to live in it even if the temperature were ideal. Second, the greenhouse effect of CO2 where there isn’t enough of it to completely absorb all the available radiation isn’t exponential but is rather directly proportional to the amount of the gas. I don’t know the exact figure for complete extinction in CO2’s primary absorption region but I’ve seen estimates of anywhere from 20ppm on the low end to 100ppm on the high end as enough for extinction in a column as deep as the troposphere. But even if the greenhouse effect of CO2 was on a logarithmic curve beginning from a partial pressure of zero if we start halving it’s effect after just several halvings we have such a small effect that further halvings are inconsequential as half of a number that’s already close to zero is still close to zero.
Adding insult to injury for “them” is there are many and more powerful variable influences than CO2 concentration at play in the earth’s average temperature from orbital mechanics to solar variability to snow-and-cloud-driven albedo. The whole CAGW charade from end-to-end is hideously flawed. There’s no reason to work on exposing all the small or difficult-to-prove flaws. One should choose one’s battles and only commit to fighting the ones that will decide the war. Two wonderful places to defeat the CAGW scam is in the basic thermodynamic properties of greenhouse gases that were experimentally demonstrated 150 years ago which greatly any additional GHG effect from additional CO2 and in the basic botanical properties of the green plants and cyano-bacteria which benefit greatly from any possible increase in atmospheric CO2 that can be attained from the burning of economically recoverable fossil fuels. These two areas of established fact that have been known since at least the mid 1880’s are enough to derail the CAGW scientific support. Derailing the political support is a different story as it is painfully evident that CAGW proponents don’t let experimentally proven facts get in the way of furthering their agenda.

Francisco says:
September 11, 2010 at 8:11 am
“Is anybody else attempting to reproduce these kinds of experiments to illustrate the CO2-temperature relation?”
Is anyone reproducing Newton’s experiment where he dropped two masses of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that acceleration of gravity is essentially the same regardless of the weight of the falling object? Reproducing Tyndall’s experiments would make a great science fair project for a 12-year old but there’s really no other reason to prove again what’s already well proven.
That’s why the more informed cadre of climate change alarmists have had to invent positive feedbacks to more than triple any possible independent capability of CO2 to raise surface temperatures and that’s also why they had to reframe the argument from “global warming” to “climate change” because the warming story is so hideously flawed. They had to invent a whole host of delicate balances which when perturbed lead to catastrophic changes in local climates, vastly accelerated ice melt or calving in Greenland and Antarctica, vastly increased incidence of floods and droughts, hurricanes, tornados, and assorted other extreme weather events. It’s a huge house of cards built on speculation with almost no grounding in actual experiment or observation – the output of toy climate models that are woefully incomplete.

Hi Dave Springer, thanks for all the comments, ill answer later in the evening 🙂

Frank Lansner: You would be surprised that I agree that at the time of the Ice Ages, orbital mechanics was the dominating mechanism. All that the CO2 was doing at 200-280 ppm was keeping the temperature maybe 6 K warmer than it would have been without any CO2 (probably 15-20 K when you take into account how much less water vapor there would be at those colder temperatures).
So, what I see from your graph is CO2 dropping as the temperature cools due to glaciation. No surprise because the oceans are getting cooler and absorbing it. What would be surprising would be if CO2 was rising when temperature was falling or steady.

Hi Frank,
See the first figure at this link.
http://www.sundogpublishing.com/fig8-2.pdf
It’s from the 2006 textbook “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation” by Grant Petty.
All the figures from the textbook may be viewed at:
http://www.sundogpublishing.com/AtmosRadFigs.html
The first figure is from an infrared spectrometer aimed downward over the arctic (clear dry air). See the big chunk of energy missing from the continuous spectrum at 15 microns? That’s the upwelling energy absorbed by CO2 which is re-emitted in all directions.
It’s this translation of upwelling energy in the GHG absorption bands into energy radiated in all directions which causes the greenhouse effect. In effect they slow down the transport of energy from the surface to outer space. In response to the surface not cooling as quickly it stays a little warmer that it would otherwise. Since the temperature of outer space (3 Kelvins) hasn’t changed but the surface is a bit warmer the larger temperature differential between earth and space speeds up the transport of energy such that a new equilibrium point is reached where energy in equals energy out.
It’s beyond my ability to calculate what the new surface temp equilibrium point is for different CO2 concentrations but there appears to be some genuine and general agreement that it works out to around 1 degree C for a doubling from 350 to 700ppm. I’ve no particular reason to quibble with that as 1C per doubling is no cause for alarm.

@frank (con’t)
I gotta take off at any minute so I’m doing this in chunks.
In Tyndal’s setup he couldn’t see any absorption from CO2 at atmospheric partial pressure. The reasons are threefold. First of all he was only looking at a heat source through a four foot column of gas not a 60 thousand foot column of gas. Second his most stable heat source was boiling water at 100C which has a peak radiation frequency of 7 um where CO2 doesn’t have such a strong absorption band. Third he was using an analog device (galvonometer) which at best had a resolution of no better than a tenth or maybe a hundredth of a degree resolution.
But greenhouse gases all work in the same way and he had no problem seeing absorption by water vapor at typical surface partial pressure which absorbs well at 7 microns and is present in hundreds of times greater quantity than CO2.
In his apparatus the absorption mechanism worked the same as in this spectrometer discussion. The polished brass interior of his sample chamber was a very good reflector of infrared so when he saw the needle dip on his galvanometer when a greenhouse gas was in the sample chamber what he was seeing was energy that was being re-emitted straight back at the heat source which, in the view of the thermopile, then looked cooler than it should have just as when the infrared spectrometer was looking down at the arctic surface in the 15um range it looked 80K cooler than it would if the GHG wasn’t blocking the view.
Hope this helps you and others get a better mental picture of what’s happening and how it was observed by Tyndall 150 years ago and later by airborne infrared spectrometers.