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)
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Johannes Rexx says:
October 14, 2010 at 6:39 pm
“Some posters have lamented that most of the others are not addressing the main point of the Gavin paper; rather they are making jokes, knob jokes no less, and otherwise engaging in ad-mominem attacks. It would be helpful if someone with skill in the craft would post a link to a definitive analysis showing why Gavin’s model is wrong.”
The Gavin Schmidt et al. model does not predict real world conditions, therefor the model is in error. and no matter how many times it is run with individual atmospheric constituents deleted it yields the same answer.
The model was created to prove CO2 was the cause of global temperature change and that is what it does. There is no science here, just a computer program and a poor one at that, doing that it was created to do. pg
Hint, models are not experiments. The paper goes downhill from there.
What an uninteresting paper. Significant changes in water vapor are due to ocean cycles. Go look at the Aqua data.
That’s what the data show, and although co2 has at least some role in the grand scheme of things, to entirely rob the ocean of any significant cause is disturbing. And to argue that without co2’s role we’ll go into an ice age, is even more disturbing, because guess whats been happening for the last million years, glacial cycles!!! lol
How did we get to this point? It’s kinda sad.
Following up on Girma’s post at 7:13 pm, relative to the warming and cooling periods of the last decade: IF CO2 is, ‘ . . the most potent greenhouse “control knob” ‘, then with CO2 constantly increasing since the 1900s (or before), WHY HASN’T THE TEMPERATURE FOLLOWED IT CLOSELY ?
That in itself (in my opinion) renders this paper NONSENSE. Let alone that fact (as pointed out by so many) that these are computer runs, and not validated by real world situations.
I would be ashamed if I were one of the authors, to have my name associated with this paper . . .
. . . that is, unless it is supposed to be propaganda for the ‘general public’ who may not take time to investigate the issue, as most here have, and hoping they call their congressmen . . .
Part of me sure hopes that the shift in the PDO/AMO, and the latest low solar cycle, does in the next year what some theorize it might . . . we could use some good hard freezes to kill a lot of the bugs here in the Arizona desert.
A few random thoughts re some comments above:
Brego – continuous IR emission from CO2, water vapor, and other gases is easily demonstrable as a function of temperature. You can probably do the experiment at home with a simple apparatus.
Bill Illis – changes in tropospheric water vapor are not merely matters of speculation or model estimates but have been accurately measured since the inception of advanced SSM/I and HIRS technology (earlier radiosonde measurements were beset by problems of instrumental bias). Absolute humidity has risen in concert with temperature, with relative humidity remaining approximately constant.
JPeden – the “tropospheric hot spot” is not a fingerprint of AGW but a consequence of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, and is an expectation from warming due to any cause – solar, GHGs, etc. Although the issue is not yet completely resolved, disparities between predictions and observations have diminished as instrumentation has improved.
Andy Lacis and Roy Spencer – Regarding my own earlier questions as to the cited 1.2 C warming for a “no feedback” CO2 doubling, vs a calculated 1 C warming simply from the value of an “effective radiating temperature (Te)”, an additional possibility that does not require a lapse rate change is that Te can in theory increase by only 1 C even if temperature at every layer uniformly increases by 1.2 C. This paradoxical result would ensue if the weighting of different altitudes in determining Te shifted to afford greater weight to higher, colder altitudes. Even if these warmed by 1.2 C, their greater weight would bring down the weighted average somewhat to yield a value of 1 C. For exact quantitation, one would need a model rather than back of the envelope calculations.
Pamela Gray says:
October 14, 2010 at 6:55 pm
So, in a nut shell, “Andrew Lacis and colleagues conducted a set of idealized climate model experiments” and discovered…knobs. These men have to get out more.>>
No! No! No! They might meet someone and wind up having children. Children inherit traits from their parents and these guys have traits the gene pool could do without.
On that basis, I think it to the advantage of our species’ long term survival that they remain in the lab and focus on their own knobs as much as possible. They can eat, sleep, and play in the lab with their knobs. If they tire of their own knobs, I understand that there are such things as virtual knobs that they can download from the internet until they get interested in their own knobs again.
As for your wise crack about “climate interruption”, please be advised that the coffee went up my nose and I’ve managed to spatter the keyboard, screen, and the laser printer. Thanks. Another reason, BTW, for them to stay in the lab. Virtual knobs are never attached to a person with a pair of disappointed eyes. Their egos are fragile enough as it is without that stress as well.
A Lacis says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:27 pm
“It is discouraging that most of the commentators here appear to be lacking enough of a basic physics background to comment intelligently on the global warming problem. The world that we live in operates according to the laws of physics, you know. You will do better in understanding global warming if you pay attention to the physics involved.”
Mr. Lacis – why don’t you tell us what physics your stupid Model E code is simulating – really, as someone who has worked in computational science for over 20 years, it is THE WORST documented (and written) codes I’ve ever encountered. What differential equations are you solving? What models? Why don’t you have a comprehensive manual describing the numerical methods in a coherent manner?
We really need to start thinking about defunding this kind of research and centralize the climate modeling at places like NCAR, where they know what they’re doing…
Oh dear me! How to communicate with the cow eyed dense and stupid childlike masses so they can understand it?
This is what these scientific Gods really think of you and me, it really is. You see these elites believe that we ordinary Joes cannot hope to understand the complex models and scientific principles so a Jack &Jill nursery version filled with easy to understand catchy simple words must be used hence the control knob terminology.
They really do have a low opinion of our intellectual abilities when they feel they must treat us a drooling kiddies. The good news is that they are too arrogant to notice that their irritating condescension makes enemies not friends.
Fred Moolten says:
October 14, 2010 at 9:12 pm
JPeden – the “tropospheric hot spot” is not a fingerprint of AGW but a consequence of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, and is an expectation from warming due to any cause – solar, GHGs, etc. Although the issue is not yet completely resolved, disparities between predictions and observations have diminished as instrumentation has improved.
Therefore, even accepting that the “disparities” are being correctly resolved and the “fingerprint” was not a specifically AGW prediction, it still remains that the atmosphere has shown no definite sign of warming!
I found this quote from a summary of a Richard Alley talk, which I found by searching for “CO2” and “control knob”.
“lthough he characterizes himself as not being an atmospheric scientist, except perhaps by default, but as he looks more and more at paleo-geology, it becomes clear how important CO2 is. He has found that CO2 makes a great organising principle for his class on the geology of climate change at Penn State, because CO2 keeps cropping up everywhere. So, he’s going to take us through the history to demonstrate this. His central argument is that we have plenty of evidence now (some of it very new) that CO2 dominates all other factors, hence “the biggest control knob” (later in the talk he extended the metaphor by referring to other forcings as fine tuning knobs).”
AGU Day 2: The role of CO2 in the earth’s history
It doesn’t surprise me that the climate modelers and the paleoclimatologists are locked in a self-reinforcing cycle. Somebody needs to find a lever that moves the scientific world off the CO2 – climate forcing paradigm, or we’ll keep seeing these self-confirming research reports. There’s lots of candidates but I don’t see the big stick yet.
Gareth – 1:23pm
A study was made at a university(U of Chicago, I believe), where co2 was injected into a dry nitrogen filled container in 20ppm increments,and the stabilized temperature was recorded. A crude diagram of that experiment can be found at page 4 of
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hertzberg.pdf
Pamela Gray says:
October 14, 2010 at 8:03 pm
JPeden, if they are just now discovering the knobs, it is no wonder they haven’t found the elusive Tropical Tropospheric Hot Spot.
Yes, they must be really really blind.
u.k.(us) says:
October 14, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Classic. Good job I didn’t have a drink or any other extraneous substance such as food in my mouth or you would have owed me mate.
A Lacis.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful but this study is a load of codswallop!
Do you seriously think that the oceans have less overall effect than CO2? If so I suggest you re-take your degree course except you’d probably pass as the professor is probably equally blind to reality.
The evaporation, & subsequent convective movement of the energy involved is huge in comparison to CO2 radiative absorption & re-radiation, witness the total inefficacy of IR absorption coatings in double glazing in comparison to another layer of air-gap & glazing.
DaveE.
Z
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/14/nasa-giss-in-science-express-co2-climates-main-control-knob/#comment-507753
You’re having way to much fun with this 😉
DaveE.
Louis Hissink says:
October 14, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Subtle but accurate.
DaveE.
Stephen Wilde says: October 14, 2010 at 3:08 pm “In 1922 Chamberlin thought the role of CO2 had been greatly overemphasized and that not enough attention had been given to the role of ocean in the climate.” Good for him. What happened ?
reply: The statement came towards the end of Chamberlin’s career. He was 79 in 1922. Not much happened in climate science in the roaring twenties and the Great Depression didn’t foster much research either. In 1938, Guy Callendar, building on the work of John Tyndall and Arrhenius, proposed an effect fossil-fuel sourced CO2 has on global climate. Although neglecting Chamberlin’s concerns, Callendar’s “Effect” revived interest in the question of CO2 greenhouse warming. WW II distracted climate research. Interest got going again in the 50s with Maurice Ewing, Wm. Donn, Gilbert Plass, Roger Revelle, and Hans Seuss.
You do know that with the atmosphere having a static optical thickness to infrared as laid out in a peer-reviewed paper complete with empirical supporting evidence, carbon dioxide can have no effect on temperature in a planetary atmosphere which also contains a tri-state infrared active chemical such as water in high (here on Earth basically unlimited) concentration.
GISS knows this and are simply lying again for the money. This is actually a crime committed once again.
“”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.””
Amazing! Water vapour sure does play a different role. When it condenses it releases energy. 1 gram of water vapour holds enough energy to raise the temperature of 620 grams of water 1 degree celsius and there is in the order of 13 million million tons of it in the air no matter how much it rains anywhere on the planet.
Isn’t it about time that NASA showed some leadership and moved the Kennedy Space Center to higher ground, say Colorado, so they don’t get swamped in the next few years?
David A. Evans says:
October 14, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Damn. Meant IR mirroring not absorptive.
DaveE.
What a load of c–p! Water vapour is the atmospheric thermostat by latent heat. Do these people live in a dream world? Oh I forgot we decided before that they do.
@TerryS
Beat me to it (by a very long way).
I held out slender hope that this used some sort of idealised *physical* setup and then extrapolated from that to the ever-so-slightly more complex real world.
At least that represents *something* to warrant the headline claim.
But no. At what point am I supposed to accept that running a simulation is an experiment? I dare say we could “prove” a *lot* of very novel and apparently contentious theories in other fields using that method.
So we’ve had that infamous female teacher pressing her 10:10 Red Button… closely followed by the guys from GISS playing with their Control Knob… so I get the message that climate science has no gender bias… and I get the idea that it is getting a bit hot and steamy down there in the greenhouse at the bottom of the garden… it must be all that CO2 running rampant in the hot house.
Now I am pleased that they have been enjoying themselves… but unfortunately all this mental [/snip] is at our expense… so dare I say it… but its time to put your heads down and do some real science…
[REPLY: Lets try to keep the dialog a bit cleaner,,, K? …. bl57~mod]
I’m curious
since when are model runs “experiments”? It’s certainly not what I think of as an experiment.
It’s infinitely sad to see science debased like this. Just a few days ago we saw a study that ‘proves’ a more active sun means a colder world. Apart from the fact that it flies in the face of a vast amount of evidence it was based on – wait for it – three years of data. No doubt the three year period was carefully cherry-picked.
And now we have this nonsense. First, they build climate models that have the CO2 assumption built in. Then they use the models to ‘prove’ that the CO2 assumption is correct. This is a perfect example of circular reasoning. It has nothing to do with science. It’s pure propaganda.
Why do they use models and not empirical data? The answer is obvious. In the natural, real world there’s not a shred of evidence that supports their theory. The ice cores show that CO2 follows the temperature. As far as I’m aware the ice cores show no sign of a CO2 change triggering a temperature change.
It does begin to look like the whole thing is slowly, slowly falling apart. It’s noticeable that over the last year there seem to be more of these demonstrably nonsensical studies emanating from the establishment. Deep down, they probably realise they’re losing and that the only ammunition they have left is a pile of duds.
Chris