From the press package:
The findings confirm that carbon dioxide is the most potent greenhouse “control knob”
This seems like a last ditch effort (in the face of falling public opinion) from Gavin Schmidt et al. to make CO2 more important than water vapor in regulating the temperature of the planet.
Via emailed press package, embargoed until 2PM EST 10/14/2010:
Of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide exerts the most control on Earth’s climate, researchers report. Although carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect has been known for more than 100 years, its primary role in climate warming is still not universally acknowledged.
For example, water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas and is more abundant in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. But, it condenses and precipitates from the atmosphere and thus plays a different role than carbon dioxide and other, noncondensing greenhouse gases, such as ozone, methane and chlorofluorocarbons. Andrew Lacis and colleagues conducted a set of idealized climate model experiments in which various greenhouse gases were added to or subtracted from the atmosphere, in order to illustrate their roles in controlling the temperature of the air.
The findings confirm that carbon dioxide is the most potent greenhouse “control knob” and that its abundance determines how much water vapor the atmosphere contains. Without carbon dioxide, the Earth would plunge into a frozen state, the researchers report, though they caution that increasing levels of this atmospheric gas are also worrisome. “This makes the reduction and control of atmospheric CO2 a serious and pressing issue, worthy of real-time attention,” they write.
[Seems a bit out of balance though.]
- Fig. 1. Attribution of the contributions of individual atmospheric components to the total terrestrial greenhouse effect, separated into feedback and forcing categories. Horizontal dotted and dashed lines depict the fractional response for single-addition and single-subtraction of individual gases to an empty or full-component reference atmosphere, respectively. Horizontal solid black lines are the scaled averages of the dashedand dotted-line fractional response results. The sum of the fractional responses adds up to the total greenhouse effect. The reference atmosphere is for conditions in 1980.
Article #14: “Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature,” by A.A. Lacis; G.A. Schmidt; D. Rind; R.A. Ruedy at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, NY.
Contact: Andrew A. Lacis at alacis@giss.nasa.gov (email).
Here’s the paper: lacis101015 (PDF)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
As most of my scientific knowledge has been gained by blogs such as these. My question to the masses is is this! If CO2 is the control for atmospheric tempurature then can someone please explain how during the Ordovician period of earths history we had an estimated 4400 PPM of co2 in the air and still had an ice age? I believe this is 12 times greater than today. Based on that I would think the thermostat is broke.
Sounds like Gavin is now doing what Schneider did when co-signing the Prall garbage…
It’s interesting that of the first four citations, three are from the 19th century (fourier, tyndall and Arrhrenius.)
There are also two cites to hanson, and one to schmidt.
Even Dick Lintzen is cited.
They note that Earth is unique among terrestrial planets in having a greenhouse affect where water vapor amplifies CO2 greenhouse effects. I wonder how they know this?
Perhaps they were only referring to planets in our solar system, but they didn’t actually state that….
the 1000’s of years residency time is cited from:
Rates of change in natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past 20,000 years, PNAS, 105 (5), 1425-1430, 2008.
Once again GISS phones it in.
“Radiative forcing experiments assuming doubled
CO2 and a 2% increase in solar irradiance
(5) show that water vapor provides the strongest
climate feedback of any of the atmospheric GHGs,
but that it is not the cause (forcing) of global climate change.”
Increase the sun’s input by 2% and the temperature went up. HUH. 1368 x .02= 27.4
27.4/4 = 6.8 W/m2. Yup I agree the temperature will go up without an increase in CO2.
Mike,
It’s too bad you don’t understand that water vapor is more potent than CO2 (which we really can’t control) and that the water vapor content of the troposphere has decreased about 2% since 1950, which is almost exactly enough to offset the entire effect of all the extra CO2 accumulated since then.
The alarmists’ problem is that we do understand the science, and we also understand that whatever they are doing, it is not science.
I regret to say that as soon as I read this: “a set of idealized climate model experiments” my Bovine Excreta Meter pegged at the maximum and I ceased to read further.
Toying with models is NOT experimentation!
An “idealized model” is one that is simplified and does not include variables that are known to exist, but are ignored, or are assumed to have little effect on the modeled system. Without knowing the assumptions used in their climate models, it can be difficult to determine if the simplified model used is realistic or invalid. I would take any such result with a handful of salt.
Mike says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:43 am
The point is…you can’t understand it.
Most of the readers here understand what the press release is saying. We just don’t agree that they used a valid methodology to reach their conclusions. Most of the contention revolves around the direction and magnitude of CO2’s associated water-vapor and cloud feedbacks.
“The reference atmosphere is for conditions in 1980.”
1980s were on Northern hemisphere colder than 1940s or 1740s and comparable with 1850s or 1820s. Where was the climate knob then?
http://www.climate4you.com/CentralEnglandTemperatureSince1659.htm
Oh this one I bookmarked for special opportunity like this one
http://imagebin.ca/img/gq1dgNd.gif
Mike says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:43 am
The point is we do not have control over the amount of H2O in the atmosphere. We do have some control over to amount of CO2.
There’s a BIG difference between “control” and “control knob”. Just because man can slightly control the increase or decrease carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn’t prima facia evidence that it constitutes a “knob”!
Would it be too much to ask the Goddard “climate scientists” to start with a basic white napkin and leave their high-falootin’ computer alone? There’s nothing that can make you look more stupid that a big energy-sucking, number-crunching, head-scratching computer!
Andrew Lacis and colleagues conducted a set of idealized climate model experiments in which various greenhouse gases were added to or subtracted from the atmosphere, in order to illustrate their roles in controlling the temperature of the air.
Like Professor Kelly, I take strong exception to having model runs described as experiments. Do these “scientists” actually believe this kind of exercise “proves” anything? Has it not occurred to them that the CO2 sensitivity they proclaim to have “proven” is an input of the models, rather than a genuine result.The circularity of such arguments appears to escape them.
At least it’s easier than leaving ones office and doing some actual observations of the natural world. You know, like scientists used to do.
Maybe they’re just too busy working on their resumes to do real work.
It’d be a very good thing if the next Congress took GISS’ budget and spent it on an honest organization to – as a first step, and if they do nothing else – openly validate measured temperature data instead.
“The findings confirm that carbon dioxide is the most potent greenhouse “control knob” and that its abundance determines how much water vapor the atmosphere contains.”
I thought that actual real world measurements had shown that the water vapor predictions of those models are wrong. The actual amount of water vapor at various altitudes doesn’t match the model predictions. So if the models don’t ‘model’ water vapor (the major ghg) correctly, then how can they state that CO2 (a minor ghg) has more effect than water vapor?
[sarc]I did see recently that the FBI statistics show that since the 70’s violent crime in the US has decreased. So maybe violent crime somehow cools the planet and thus as violent crime decreases the temperature increases. Bobby Henderson theorized that the reduction in pirates since the 1800’s has caused global warming and since pirates commit violent crimes the FBI data would just extend that theory to all violent criminals not just pirates.
I believe a case can be made that decreased violence causes global warming. [/sarc]
“”” Mike says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:43 am
The point is we do not have control over the amount of H2O in the atmosphere. We do have some control over to amount of CO2.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/330/6002/356
It is good that you are willing to post science research that shows you are wrong. It is too bad you can’t understand it. “””
What total nonsense. Our automobiles exhaust even more H2O molecules than they do CO2 molecules; our own lungs do also; not to mention our perspiration.
We drink gallons of water to replace that lst to the atmosphere by perpiration; and that is over and above our food intake which ritself results in more H2O than CO2 exhaled.
Both H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere are constantly regulated by physical chemistry processes; things like Henry’s Law, and plant metabolism in the case of CO2; but neither one of them is controlled by us.
Mother Gaia, knows where every single CO2 and H2O molecule is; and she knows where they are supposed to be; and she sees to it that they are always where they are supposed to be.
We can mess with her management all we want; and she will still put the molecules where she wants them regardless of what we do.
Can I suggest once more that people go through the mental experiments; that I have facetiously dubbed the “Birdseye” experiment, and the “Venus” experiment. The first named after the discoverer of quick frozen food storage; and the latter after the cloud enshrouded nearby planet.
The aim of the Birdseye experiment is to remove every single H2O molecule from the atmosphere; and to that end, the entire surface temperature is lowered to zero C; unless it is already lower. The H2O moleules are allowed to crash where they are, either as water in the ocean or snow etc on the colder lands.
If you do this; you find yourself with the mother of all solar forcings; because with no clouds, and no solar absorbing H2O vapor, the suface irradiance will increase from about 1000 W/m^2 almost all the way to 1366 W/m^2. you’d still have some losses to O2 and O3, and miniscule loss to CO2. Hey even a 20% increase to 1200 would be an astronomical “forcing”.
The result of course is that you would get immediate and prolific evaporation (remember the oceans didn’t freeze at zero deg C); we just wanted to have a lower saturated vapor pressure to help with the removal. (might have to use tweezers to get the last molecules out.) So follow that sequence with the growing atmospheric water vapor, and eventually even some cloud formation; which both drop the forcing, and slow the surface warming. Eventually you should (if you know how to follow experimental instructions) reach some stable Temperature with some amount of cloud cover, and some amount of water vapor. I call that the “Birdseye Temperature”
The Venus experiment is just the opposite. You heat the surface to maybe +50 or +60 C (pick a number); and you fill the atmosphere with saturated water vapor, and solid clouds of water or ice from the ground to say +20 km; or 50 if you like; (pick a number.)
So measure the ground level solar insolation and if you get a number greater than 10 W/m^2, call 911; well call me too, I’d like to see that !
So even with all that 400 ppm of CO2 and ozone and methane and what have you; I suggest it is going to get cold pretty darn quick, and it’s going to rain and snow, and sleet, and hail; for 40 days and 40 nights; until eventually some of that cloud is going to dissipate and start breaking up and thinning. That is going to let some sunlight reach the surface, so it won’t be cooling quite so rapidly. Well you get the picture; sooner or later, you are going to reach an amount of cloud cover, where there is just enough sunlight getting to the ground, to stop the Temperature from falling any further. Well I call that the Venus Temperature.
From here on out, you are on your own. I leave it to your imagination to consider what is the difference between the cold “Birdseye” Temperature state, and the hot “Venus” Temperature state. What is the Physics that would cause them to be different; and what wopuld happen if somehow we got the earth into some condition that was hotter than the Birdseye Temperature; but colder than the Venus Temperature ?
And for extra credit; where the hell are we now ?
I can tell you this much as a hint. Between the Birdseye Temperature, and the Venus Temperature, is a region of unstable Temperature. If you are anywhere in there; you cannot stay where you are; but must go one way or the other.
So are we at the Birdseye Temperature; or are we at the Venus Temperature; and what would it take to tip us to the other state ?
For first class honors (izzat magna cum laude); write a short paragraph on just what role CO2 played in these experiments.
I’m going to lunch; and I’ll score your papers when I get back.
Once again, NO SCIENCE, just MODELS. These people must work on a cat walk.
Hopefully this is a sign of the anthropogenic climate change industry’s death throes.
Since the “climate change wars” are now almost exclusively political now, I think it’s amusing to note that Joe Romm is the man who started the made-up claims about the Chamber of Commerce which Obama and Axelrod picked up and ran with. (and which are now backfiring spectacularly)
I was most interested to see this description of the source in Politico, a widely read inside-Washington political blog/news source – “The allegations first surfaced on Climate Progress, a White House affiliated blog.”
Yep – those were the exact words they used. Heh.
Btw, CP appears to have abandoned climate science completely now (not that it ever did pay much attention to it) and has gone All Politics, All the Time. Which is fitting, since Politics and Power is all that “climate change” has ever really been about since the beginning.
Wind Rider says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:27 am
And what the heck is an “idealized climate model”
An “idealized climate model” is one that’s dialed into all the CO2-Is-The-Problem algorithms. That’s all.
I have a question. I’m probably just stupid, but here goes…
If we imagine that we have a vacuum chamber outdoors. If we measure the temperature there for a couple of weeks. Will it on average measure approximately 33 k less than the surroundings?
If not – why not?
Nasa Giss scientists are more and more ridiculous …
Do we have to laugh or cry ?
Here in Europe scientists are not doing better …
Wait and see. When temperatures will really plumetting for long time, maybe the reality will be accepted.
Ehmmm… The vacuum chamber in my question should probably be made of plexi glass or similar, so that the sun can get in. 🙂
P.F. says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:30 am
Nils Eckholm (1899) thought so, as did Svante Arrhenius (1896). However, Knut Angström concluded in 1900 that atmospheric CO2 and water vapor absorb infrared radiation in the same spectral region and that any additional CO2 would, therefore have little or no effect on global temperature. In the 1920s, Thomas Chamberlin wrote a letter to Charles Schuchert (Yale’s Peabody Museum) in which he said, “I greatly regret that I was among the early victims of Arrhenius’ error.”
Thank you for this great comment! (my highlighting)
It’s real information such as this which is much needed, 99.9% of the general populace know nothing of such thinks said in the past by real scientists, only what the CAGW crowd broadcast through the media conveniently leaving out the whole truth.
There’s been all this water above me today. Bloody freezing! 🙁
DaveE.