Estimated CO2 Warming Cut By 65%
Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman, Resilient Earth via ICECAP
Any competent researcher involved with the science behind climate change will admit that CO2 is far from the only influence on global climate. It has long been known that short-lived greenhouse gases and black-carbon aerosols have contributed to past climate warming. Though the IPCC and their fellow travelers have tried to place the blame for global warming on human CO2 emissions, decades of lies and erroneous predictions have discredited that notion. For anyone still clinging to the CO2 hypothesis, a short perspective article on the uncertainty surrounding climate change in Nature Geoscience has put paid to that notion. It states that not only did other factors account for 65% of the radiative forcing usually attributed to carbon dioxide, but that it is impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity given the state of climate science.
In “Short-lived uncertainty?” Joyce E. Penner et al. note that several short-lived atmospheric pollutants – such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols – contribute to atmospheric warming while others, particularly scattering aerosols, cool the climate. Figuring out exactly how great the impacts of these other forcings are can radically change the way historical climate change is interpreted. So great is the uncertainty that the IPCC’s future climate predictions, which are all based on biased assumptions about climate sensitivity, are most certainly untrustworthy. As stated in the article:
It is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity (defined as the equilibrium warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations) from past records, partly because carbon dioxide and short-lived species have increased together over the industrial era. Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change.
All truthful climate researchers know these facts, yet publicly the party line is that catastrophic changes are in the offing and CO2 emissions are to blame. The perspective authors argue that only by significantly changing the amounts of these other pollutants and carefully measuring the impact on global climate over a period of several decades will science be able to figure out what is going on. “Following this strategy, we will then be able to disentangle the warming and cooling contributions from carbon dioxide and short-lived pollutants, hence placing much tighter constraints on climate sensitivity, and therefore on future climate projections,” they state. See chart below, enlarged here.
And they said it was all carbon dioxide’s fault.
Most of the factors under discussion have relatively short lifetimes in the atmosphere, several less than two months. We do not know how the relative influences of these various substances (referred to by climate scientists as “species”) may change in a warming climate. It is also not clear how to reduce short-lived species under present conditions but the uncertainties in atmospheric chemistry and physics must be resolved if Earth’s environmental system is to be understood. Again quoting from the paper:
Of the short-lived species, methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon are key contributors to global warming, augmenting the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide by 65%. Others – such as sulphate, nitrate and organic aerosols – cause a negative radiative forcing, offsetting a fraction of the warming owing to carbon dioxide. Yet other short-lived species, such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, can modify the abundance of both the climate-warming and climate-cooling compounds, and thereby affect climate change.
Quantifying the combined impact of short-lived species on Earth’s radiative forcing is complex. Short-lived pollutants – particularly those with an atmospheric lifetime of less than two months – tend to be poorly mixed, and concentrate close to their sources. This uneven distribution, combined with physical and chemical heterogeneities in the atmosphere, means that the impact of short-lived species on radiative forcing can vary by more than a factor of ten with location or time of emission. The situation is further complicated by nonlinear chemical reactions between short-lived species in polluted areas, as well as by the interactions of clouds with aerosols and ozone. These processes add further uncertainty to the estimates of radiative forcing.
Unfortunately, climate models neither accurately deal with local effects of these pollutants nor are the complex interactions among these substances understood. That not withstanding, the report is clear – CO2 does not account for even a majority of the warming seen over the past century. If other species accounted for 65% of historical warming that leaves only 35% for carbon dioxide. This, strangely enough, is in line with calculations based strictly on known atmospheric physics, calculations not biased by the IPCC’s hypothetical and bastardized “feedbacks.”
Of course, the real reason for the feedbacks was to allow almost all global warming to be attributed to CO2. This, in turn, would open the door for radical social and economic policies, allowing them to be enacted in the name of saving the world from global warming. The plain truth is that even climate scientists know that the IPCC case was a political witch’s brew concocted by UN bureaucrats, NGOs, grant money hungry scientists and fringe activists.
Now, after three decades of sturm und drang over climate policy, the truth has emerged – scientists have no idea of how Earth’s climate will change in the future because they don’t know why it changed in the past. Furthermore, it will take decades of additional study to gain a useful understand climate change. To do this, climate scientists will need further funding. Too bad the climate science community squandered any public trust it may have had by trying to frighten people with a lie.
Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. Read full post here.
Icecap Note: Whatsmore, this totally ignores the other external and internal global factors like solar, ocean multidecadal cycles related to variations in the thermohaline circulation or ocean gyres.
=============================================================
Here is the paper at Nature Geosciences:
Short-lived uncertainty?
Joyce E. Penner1, Michael J. Prather2, Ivar S. A. Isaksen3,4, Jan S. Fuglestvedt4, Zbigniew Klimont5 & David S. Stevenson6
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2143, USA
- University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
- University of Oslo, PO Box 1022, Blindern, 0315 Oslo, Norway
- Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, PO Box 1129 Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria
- School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JN, UK.
Correspondence to: Joyce E. Penner1 e-mail: penner@umich.edu
Abstract
Short-lived greenhouse gases and black-carbon aerosols have contributed to past climate warming. Curbing their emissions and quantifying the forcing by all short-lived components could both mitigate climate change in the short term and help to refine projections of global warming.
Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century. But rolling back anthropogenic emissions of several short-lived atmospheric pollutants that lead to warming — such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols — could significantly reduce the rate of climate warming over the next few decades1, 2, 3.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“To do this, climate scientists will need further funding. Too bad the climate science community squandered any public trust it may have had by trying to frighten people with a lie.”
I so agree with this point. These Co2 induced CAGW obsessed pseudo-scientists have dragged the reputation of science, all science, into the gutter. I am not a scientist but I feel passionately about this, I cannot understand how so many mainstream scientists have been able to ignore such obvious abuse of their proffession and it really annoys me that it has been allowed to go on for so long without more scientists standing up and telling the world not to trust the likes of Michael Mann and Phil Jones. At last you have someone of stature, Hal Lewis, saying enough is enough, but it is already too late to repair the damage that has been done.
You people, and I know I am preaching to the choir, must stop covering your heads and stand up.
Found in previous post:
Thanks. I seem to remember from the PNAS Blacklist comments that the piece was allegedly “slipped in” as commentary and missed any formal review, therefore (it was argued) PNAS shouldn’t be blamed. (That and five cents will get you a ton of carbon offsets on the CCX.) I wanted to know if this was “official” before we get our hopes up, and the site gets slammed for getting it wrong.
😉
E.M. Smith has a really great article about CO2. Certainly opened up my eyes.
Quote from the paper : “Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols.”
Is it also possible that the warming could also be attruibuted to NEGATIVE climate sensitivity to CO2, small effect from aerosols and A LARGE POSITIVE CLIMATE EFFECT FROM SOMETHING ELSE ?
I mean this paper basically says the warming could be due to anything. We don’t know.
Steven Mosher says on October 12, 2010 at 3:33 pm:
Its simple: C02 warms, how much is the question.
As a matter of fact, CO2 does not cause warming of near surface air.
Go to the late John Daly’s website “Still Waiting for Greenhouse” at:
http://www.John-Daly.com.
On the home page scroll down at click on “Station Temperature Data”
On the world map click on the USA. In the Pacific section click on Death Valley. The temperature data is from the weather station at Furnace Creek.
A desert is an aired region with low relative humidity, low biomass of plants and animals , little or no free standing or running water, and cloudless skies. After sunrise, the land and air heats rapidly because there are few plants to block sunlight. The air heats mostly by conduction and convection. Some heat is lost from the surface by emission of IR.
After sunset the temperature falls rapidly because the land cools mostly by conduction and convection and there is little water vapor to absorb IR or clouds which can confine warm air and absorbed IR.
If increasing concentration of CO2 has any efffect on warming the air near the weather station, we would anticipate a small but descernible increase in mean temperature over time. The graph shows that the trend lines for the four seasons are essentially flat. Thus we can conlude that CO2 does not cause warming of the air.
We do not know the actual atmospheric concentraion of CO2 in Death Valley only that it will increase over time as indicated by data from Mauna Loa. Since the air is densier in the winter than the summer, we would anticipate that the trend line for former should have a slightly greater slope than the later. The trend lines for these two seasons are flat and this is additional evidence that CO2 has no detectable effect on warming the air.
You should check the graphs for Tombstone and Dodge City and for weather stations in Utah.
Smokey wrote: “The commonly employed Argumentum ad ignorantium is used to try and blame CO2 for the approaching tipping point — which has zero evidence supporting it. […and then a lot of fluff and puff – when in doubt cite Feynman]…”
Actually Smokey my point was not an Argumentum ad ignorantium. Far from it. nor does it involve any tipping points. Perhaps you are unclear concerning the difference between forcing factors and climate sensitivity? If your point is that we do roll the dice every day – then I can agree with you about that…
“The conjecture that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming has been falsified, not least by the planet itself.”
I agree. But then again I never made that point, nor would I use a straw man word like “runaway” nor do I need to use such a concept to make my point. If you had read Penner et al, rather than simply stopping at the contrived and unsupported Hoffman “piece” you would realize this.
How about you stay on topic and try to defend this unsubstantiated post by Hoffman (which you claim is “very good”) against the other charges I have lodged against it, rather than hiding behind a latin Smokey screen. Please cite Penner et al in your comments. ‘k?
Here is the weather forecast from GFS
theweatherland
@Phil Clarke RE: Dessler 2008
Dessler did not quantify anything.
How can any “peer reviewed” article get away with such tripe as saying what Dessler did? Not one mention in the entire paper on cloud dynamics. None. Zero. Apparently Dessler must have known cloud cover and behavior is static and has no effect on weather or climate.
Observational evidence indicates negative feedback. See Spencer 2010.
The evidence is climate models are wrong. See MM 2010.
Both above were vehemently opposing by biased reviewers, but eventually the truth won out.
Despite this incredible good news a massive energy tax is looming:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/another_massive_energy_tax_loo.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm
———————————————————————————————————–
All the models and evidence confirm a minimum warming close to 2°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with a most likely value of 3°C and the potential to warm 4.5°C or even more. Even such a small rise would signal many damaging and highly disruptive changes to the environment. In this light, the arguments against mitigation because of climate sensitivity are a form of gambling. A minority claim the climate is less sensitive than we think, the implication being we don’t need to do anything much about it. Others suggest that because we can’t tell for sure, we should wait and see.
————————————————————————————————————-
Obviously most people here are AGW skeptics. As one commenter said its better to talk about how sensitive climate the climate is to GHG’s. As said in the article aside from the hype, its the whole range of GHG’s (positive forcing) minus (negative feedbacks).
————————————————————————————————————-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-intermediate.htm
Climate sensitivity from empirical observations
There have been a number of studies that calculate climate sensitivity directly from empirical observations, independent of models.
•Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
•Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
•Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
•Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
•Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
•Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
•Bender 2010 looks at the climate response to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption to constrain climate sensitivity to 1.7 to 4.1°C.
============================================================
We will increase temperature for the rest of the century. When co2 is finally stopped in our emissions the earth will continue warming for several decades after that.
Smokey says: (October 12, 2010 at 11:53 am) CO2 is a minor player. It is too small to have a measurable effect on temperature. But taxing “carbon” is the easiest and most convenient way to transfer enormous wealth from individuals to governments…
To governments, Smokey? I suspect “from individuals to other individuals” would be more accurate; noting that it is from many, many individuals to very, very few individuals; with of course a cut to government on the way through. Beats hard work.
Yuba,
Sorry I didn’t make it clear in my post above, but the argumentum ad ignorantium is the usual knee-jerk reaction by climate alarmists to blame natural climate variability on human emitted CO2 – because they can’t think of another cause.
But if you accept that argument, then naturally it follows that we can’t roll the dice, and we had better stop emitting CO2 right this minute. So I assume you do not accept that failed argument.
Nobody but a truly wacked-out minority of eco-nuts wants to stop emitting CO2, because it wouldn’t make any difference. The U.S. is already emitting less CO2, while China and a hundred smaller countries are ramping up their CO2 emissions. Clearly scientists in all those other countries reject the argument that CO2 is the primary driver of the climate. None of them are giving up their cars. Same here, eh?
According to The Economist China is building 2 – 4 new coal-fired power plants every week, and plans to continue at that rate until at least 2024. Yet we rarely see anyone protesting that China must stop, or even slow down its CO2 emissions. The same with India, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc., etc. This makes it clear that it is politics, not science, that is behind the demonization of CO2 and the demand that America must act unilaterally, even if no other countries do.
Further, climate sensitivity to CO2 must be very low, if it even exists in any measurable way. Currently, its effect is too small to measure. If the sensitivity number was high, then the temperature would tend to track increases in atmospheric CO2. But it doesn’t. There is a better correlation between temperature and U.S. postal rates. [Facetious, but it shows that temperature only appears to track CO2, when both are coincidentally rising.]
As the article notes:
The IPCC is now completely untrustworthy. It began with a lukewarm attempt to be somewhat evenhanded in its assessment reports, but by AR-4 the IPCC had lost all credibility. Mann’s debunked chart attempted to erase the MWP and was featured prominently by the IPCC, which threw its original chart by Dr Hubert Lamb down the memory hole; the existence of higher temperatures during the Holocene is very strong evidence supporting the climate null hypothesis – and against the alternative CO2=CAGW hypothesis.
Unless the alarmist crowd vents as much hate and anger toward the countries that continue to ramp up their emissions, and shows some appreciation that U.S. private industry has voluntarily reduced its emissions, they will have no more credibility than eco-hypocrite John Travolta with his five personal airliners, über-hypocrite Al Gore with his 7 mansions, and the rest of the eco-hypocrites constantly traveling the globe to tell us how bad we, the proletariat, are. When they walk the talk they will begin to have some credibility. I’m sure you agree, no?
I think there should be a “not” in the first sentence, based on the wording of the second sentence:
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
Rocky & Latimer @ur momisugly 4:16
It’s all a very neat little system.
No Kidding! CO2 is the thing that triggers your breathing:
http://www.gayyoga.gn.apc.org/Respiration.htm
Hoffman does not even quote the article. I doubt – call me a skeptic – that he even read it. He obviously did not read the abstract! But Hoffman is not interested in science. He is a propagandist. He grabbed the title, added mounds on speculation and innuendo to frame the “science” in the minds of those who cannot read the article. Read Hoffman carefully. Does he actually document anything he claims? He says “Though the IPCC and their fellow travelers have tried to place the blame for global warming on human CO2 emissions, decades of lies and erroneous predictions have discredited that notion.” Evidence? Why bother? He it aiming the true believers (or disbelievers) who want to think they are seeing another example of why scientists do not get it. These scientists say clearly, “Earth’s climate can only be stabilized by bringing carbon dioxide emissions under control in the twenty-first century.” But the true disbelieves will now roll their eyes at this as yet another example of scientists distorting their work. Yet, the work, this article, has not been examined at all. This is a confirmation bias feedback cycle. Nothing new has been revealed, but gullible readers feel this is one more nail in the AGW coffin.
Alas, that’s the commentary by Doug Hoffman of Resilient Earth. The confusion is the result of the lead-in that say,s “quoting from the paper:’ and then fails to indent or quote-mark the quoted two paragraphs. The result is that there’s no indication where Hoffman’s commentary resumes.
Mods — Please fix this. (And insert the “not” I mentioned above while you’re at it.
ImranCan says:
October 12, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Is it also possible that the warming could also be attributed to NEGATIVE climate sensitivity to CO2…
Don’t even think that. I got the same dread when I read a recent Spencer post.
We may possibly be facing a 20-30 year cooling period. The new meme becomes:
The only way to stop (or slow) our pending icy slide out of the interglacial is to reduce our CO2 emissions.
This contention has been responded to on other threads here, in the past. I hope someone will repeat what was said. My vague recollection is that these are lab experiments, mostly, that can’t take convection and other effects of a chaotic atmosphere into account.
Renewable Guy,
You seem to have somehow omitted the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department from your list: Prof Richard Lindzen. Must have been an oversight, huh?
Dr Lindzen says:
“2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C.”
“If one assumes all warming…” That means doubling of CO2 will actually result in much less than 1°C warming. That warming is something we can really use, because the natural state of affairs for the planet is very cold temperatures.
[Snip. Calling other posters here a “denialist” is against site Policy. Also, Mr “Yollabolly”. Or “Yolo”. Or “skeptical”. Or “arch stanton”, using numerous different identities in a thread is not up to the standards of the internet’s “Best Science” site. Please use one identity, preferably your real name. Thanks in advance. ~dbs, mod.]
As Einstein once said, all it takes is one:
On the Debunking of Spencer’s Feedback Ideas: An Appeal to Physical Scientists Everywhere
Smokey says:
October 12, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Correct you are. I would offer a twist.
The drivers behind the AGW scam are (not necessarily in order of magnitude)
1. Psychotic Malthusian fear of scarcity of resources- And the cult Church of Gaia – which seeks to turn the planet into an untouchable shrine.
(Thus causing an obsession to stop all consumption- even among developing nations – who complain the western world is pressuring them to forego the same growth and prosperity enjoyed by developed nations)
2. Socialist and Communist desires to implement a global Marxist government- and carve America up like a Christmas turkey. (Using the “global” nature of the “problem” of CO2 driven warming – Global Government, Giant Taxes, redistribution)
3. Greed – Which (together with Envy) is partially the underlying motive of #2. Collectivists openly covet the wealth of private enterprise. Western governments fed this monster with their pet climate notion, and now it’s grown out of control and demands to be fed the entire treasury.
This is truly a global religious cult working in concert with a criminal element to enslave citizens and drain the treasury. It’s a 12 headed monster of great proportions. It won’t die easily. But in any event, this explicates that Science is just a cover. The SOLUTIONS to this imaginary problem give away the true underlying reason for its existence.
Fortunately, the GOP reads this blog, and many others laying this out. They now know, and they intend to stop it.
Even McCain and Lindsey Graham have been pulled aside and had a talking to.
This is why it was so critical to remove Castle. We need to give conservatives the sword with which to kill this demon,
or we are royally screwed.
Henry@PhilClark
Thanks Phil. I will get back to this when I got some time to study the Dessler paper.
Augmenting something by 65% means that you increase that something by 65%. I’m a big fan of Doug’s but he seems to have misinterpreted the meaning of the 65% in this article. The diagram in the link below seems to confirm this: http://xweb.geos.ed.ac.uk/~dstevens/publications/penner_ngeo10.pdf
From the paper;
“Of the short-lived species, methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon are key contributors to global warming, augmenting the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide by 65%.”
The important word in that sentence is? Augmenting.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/augmenting
So that gives us 100% from CO2 ( or a value of 1) and an additional augmentation of 65% from all other short-lived species
So CO2’s total contribution is 100%/(100% + 65%) = 61% not the 35% claimed here.
Also, CH4, N2O, and CFC’s are already modelled with those darn GCM’s.
Finally, CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of a few hundred years (e. g. centuries).
So, in the short term you may be able to rob Peter to pay Paul, but eventually Peter will be amply awarded no matter how much Paul takes.
Also note that the Nature article was published on 8/1/2010.