Simple Physics – In reality my feather blew up into a tree

Great post Barry. And, it’s not just physics. There’s a wee bit of chemistry and mathematics involved as well, just for starters.
The arrogance of those who claim high degrees of certainty about the integrated discipline that climate science might one day be is staggering.

since CO2 is a GHG it follows that increasing CO2 must increase the temperature (of something).
A more likely scenario, from Reginald Newell (MIT, NASA, IAMAP)
1 minute video

“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
This quote should show up in every post about AGW written. It should be required like that warning on the side of cigarette packs.

The question about the actual concentration of CO2 that is used in the experiment is an interesting one. What, I wonder is the minimum concentration needed to get a measurable difference between the temperature rise in the experiment and that in the control? What result would be gained if the difference between the two was designed to mimic the difference between pre-industrial levels and modern levels of CO2 in the atmosphere?

“Simple physics says that if I drop a ball and a feather they will fall at the same rate.”
I would say that simple physics says that if you drop a ball and a feather they will both fall. I think that’s more analogous to the simple physics that shows a warming effect of elevating CO2.
Simple physics shows that CO2 has a significant warming effect. Complex physics shows that too.
The uncertainty is in how much warming effect. But uncertainty works both ways. If you want to tug out the uncertainty to claim there might not be any warming, then the same added slack also means there could be horrific amount of warming.
So whether you consider the science very certain or very uncertain, there’s no basis to argue that the ongoing CO2 rise is safe. To know it was safe we’d need the science to be very certain that a doubling of CO2 had little effect on the Earth. We can’t conclude that though if we argue that the science isn’t settled and is all very uncertain.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is irrelevant as the whole idea of a greenhouse effect and back radiation from CO2 somehow warming the earth is pure nonsense and goes against the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
You cannot create energy from nothing and heat always moves down hill- i.e. from hot to cold. NEVER the other way round.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-794-page-1.html
and http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/

Mr. Onion says:
“So whether you consider the science very certain or very uncertain, there’s no basis to argue that the ongoing CO2 rise is safe.”
There are a lot of uncertainties in the universe. The earth could collide with an asteroid. We could be invaded by an advanced race of hostile space aliens. Both are more likely to occur than the supposed “harmful effects” of atmospheric CO2.
Where did people like Mr. Onion get the idea that CO2 is “unsafe”? Oh, that’s right – from the same people who stand to profit both politically and financially from promulgating this myth. Please Mr. Onion – follow the money. And for 2011, resolve to put YOUR time, money, and attention towards things that will really make a difference in this world, like helping your neighbor, fighting hunger, and promoting peace.

onion says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:57 am
“So whether you consider the science very certain or very uncertain, there’s no basis to argue that the ongoing CO2 rise is safe. To know it was safe we’d need the science to be very certain that a doubling of CO2 had little effect on the Earth. We can’t conclude that though if we argue that the science isn’t settled and is all very uncertain.”
There is also no basis to argue that a rise in CO2 is dangerous.

onion says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:57 am
Simple physics shows that CO2 has a significant warming effect. Complex physics shows that too.
=========================================================
I thought CO2 had an insignificant warming effect. That the warming would come from feedbacks like humidity and clouds.
And that the small amount of warming from CO2 was logarithmic.

Ric Werme
……..380 ppm of CO can’t possibly have an impact on people. (Exposure limits are 25-50 ppm, 400ppm for 4 hours can kill.)………
Measured CO2 concentration in a forest and cinema have been in excess of 600ppm and no fatalities!
Mind you two Star Trek films end to end might be more than human flesh can stand.
[Reply] CO carbon monoxide, is not co2, carbon dioxide. RT-mod

John says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:05 am
“Simple physics says that if I drop a ball and a feather they will fall at the same rate.” It also says “in a vacuum.” This should help you- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5_dOEyAfk
If you can’t quote simple physics correctly why should, how could, we believe the rest of the article.
John, let me help you. Aristotle (look him up on YouTube, the source of all knowledge) posited that objects fell at rates proportional to their mass. Therefore a feather should fall slower than a canon ball. Galileo (look him up too) proved that light and heavy objects fall at the same rate and demonstrated the effect at Pisa. However, to apply this simple physical fact to the feather you realize it falls slower. Critics in the 16th century would claim the theory was flawed until one realizes that the system is more complex than being driven by a single factor and needs the understanding of air resistance to fully explain what happens. Perfect analogy to the AGW argument. No single factor drives the climate.

I read that a green-house was using levels of 1,500 ppm CO2 to achieve greater growth rates in plants without any harm to humans. But I have a feeling there may not be an upper level for CO2 that poses risks to humans, other than the effects of the dreaded AGW (such as longer winters etc).

edmh says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:34 am
It is utterly futile to think that mankind can affect climate to any worthwhile extent.
=========================================================
edmh, excellent post, thank you
But that is exactly what they are claiming, that they can control the climate.
Put in those terms, it makes them look even more ridiculous.
==========================================================
“”• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = ~0.087 degC being caused by the full emissions of the carbon economies of the whole world””
==========================================================
and they have shot themselves in foot.
By jiggling temp numbers and lying, we are already there.

I once took the evil mercury filled in glass gadgetry and hold it up a few mere inches from an indoors specific flower lamp from the netherworld of oblivion itself even (1000 Watt version.)
And lo and behold, there it was, what every green hippie had been spewing about: rising mercury!
OMG but had I not removed my hand I’d been surly burnt. And since this leettle experiment was done in a make shift greenhouse, talk about greenhouse effect.
Another mysterious thing though, which I at first attributed to the power flower lamp being to close to the poor plants, but must have been tot much CO2, because the plants suffered burns and subsequently died from prolonged heat exposure.

Ric Werme says:
“Don’t fall prey to the trace gas argument lest you forget that reducing CO2 by just a couple hundred ppm will kill plants or that 380 ppm of CO can’t possibly have an impact on people. (Exposure limits are 25-50 ppm, 400ppm for 4 hours can kill.)”
How could exposure limits be 25-50 ppm when our own atmosphere has 380 ppm? OSHA has set the upper limits for a 10 hour exposure at 10,000 ppm, and they normally tack on an uncertainty factor of 100 plus another 3-fold factor for sensitive individuals.

I liked this article until:

Engineers (or economists now, perhaps) will advice climate scientists, model are not reality, reality is often more complicated than any computer model. Take a step back, view with hindsight with respect to risk in the financial markets. At the trouble the cream of the last few decades of science graduates – turned computer modellers – left the world’s economy in, following the modelling of credit risk amongst many other economic assumptions.

I’m guessing ESL had a part in the creation of this, so I didn’t want to make fun. But can this be translated/made to sound less awkward?

Rick Werme:
“Don’t fall prey to the trace gas argument lest you forget that reducing CO2 by just a couple hundred ppm will kill plants or that 380 ppm of CO can’t possibly have an impact on people. (Exposure limits are 25-50 ppm, 400ppm for 4 hours can kill.)”
Some sort of confusion here between CO and CO2?
I don’t think CO, a very chemically reactive compound, versus CO2, a rather “inert” compound, should be confused.
As to the “trace gas effect”, I’d recommend Dr. Walter Elsasser’s “On the Infra-red Heat Balance of the Atmosphere”. (Harvard Meteorological Series, 1942) On page 23 he explains exclusion of the CO2 contribution to the exchange in the “tropopshere” (to about 40,000 feet) due to the fact that 0 to 40,000 feet it’s an equal exchange agent…outflux and influx. (Above 40,000 feet it’s a cooling agent, has to due with “view angle”.)
That tretise also does a good job of explaining how WATER acts as the primary “Greenhouse Gas”.
Last, if we are trying to “clear up misconceptions” I suggest locating Dr. Robert Wood’s 1909 experiment which demonstrates with two solar collecting boxes that greenhouses DO NOT WORK because the glass acts as a one way energy valve (i.e., visible in and no longwave IR out), but rather they work because they are “closed convective boundaries”… SO the PROPER TERM is “the ATMOSPHERIC EFFECT..”
Max

The gas CO² per se will not kill you if you are in an atmosphere with 20% O² Impossible but I think it is probably true. Pure CO² kills animals and Humains and , I think, someone has shown that death has occured at above 7000ppm but the O² content was not measured. And last but not least, a number of celebs in the UK, I think, have died with bags over their heads while performing a sexual act. This occurs because the brain does not ‘see’ CO² as dangerous and you therefore drift gently off to die without suffering the distress of suffocation.

Radiative absorption and emission characteristics of gases are basic physics. “Simple” is a relative term and should probably be avoided.

I smell a red herring here.
I recommend reading the very straigthforward derivation of the zero feedback case of 1.2 degrees C for a CO2 doubling by Nir Shaviv, : http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
The scientific debate is about the magnitude and sign of the feedbacks, not about the basic IR physics.
A doubling of CO2 could raise the global temperature between 0.3 degrees C (Miskolczi, 2007) and 10 degrees C (Andronova and Schlesinger,2001) .
IPCC lead authors decided to ignore the peer reviewed papers that indicate a negative feedback. Hence the IPCC lead authors did not give an objective assessment of the science.

@ Ric Werme
[…]380 ppm of CO can’t possibly have an impact on people. (Exposure limits are 25-50 ppm, 400ppm for 4 hours can kill.) […]
What hogwash. First of all, you’re talking about CO, not CO2. Second, according to OSHA, the continuous exposure limit is 1,000 ppm, although if you work in a office you are routinely exposed to levels of 5,000 ppm (0.5%) or higher with no ill effects. At 10,000 ppm (1%) you might get a headache or feel tired, but levels as high as 30,000 ppm (3%) have been reported.
CO2 levels aren’t considered an immediately threat to health and life till they reach 4%, or 40,000 ppm. At 8% or 80,000 ppm, it will definitely kill you.
They’re more concerned with oxygen. The lowest permissible oxygen content is 19.5%. The outdoor open air percentage is 20.9%. In order for the O2 level to drop to 19.5% (a 6% decrease), CO2 levels would have to rise by 1.4%, to 14,000 ppm.

For those who think the analogy is flawed:
The whole POINT of the analogy is that it’s ridiculous. You and I both know that the feather will fall slower (if at all, it probably will fly away) because of another, FAR more powerful directly acting force.
By simplistic rules of physics, as in the demonstration performed on the moon without air, any two objects will fall at the same rate. The point is that simplistic rules rarely, if ever, apply in the real world.
This is known as “the elephant in the room”… a fact that is so obvious that it’s amazing anyone could possibly avoid seeing it. Other factors in the atmosphere massively overwhelm CO2’s effect, especially at the concentrations we are dealing with.

“Simple Physics?” No such thing. And this problem is not simple. Trust me. That is why we must rely on empirical methods, not models.

Martin Andersen says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:16 am
I’ve been wondering this for a while. How is it possible that trace amounts of CO2 can lead to a measurable increase in atmospherical temperature ?
We are talking about 0,039 % CO2.
Are there any laboratory tests that shows the effect ? There must be something extraordinary with CO2, not seen in other molecules..

Back in the 19th century scientists such as Langley, Arrhenius and Angstrom first noted that “dark rays” (infra-red radiation) were strongly absorbed by “carbonic acid gas” (carbon dioxide). They were able to measure the wavelengths of these emissions (using rock salt prisms etc) and found the CO2 absorption lines that we know today: several grouped between 2-6 microns and a big band around 15 microns.
They also conducted experiments back then that showed IR radiation at these wavelengths was totally absorbed by transmission tube containing pure CO2 only a few feet long.
In trace amounts CO2 still exhibits remarkable absorption properties. Even at 0.039% concentration, the earth’s atmosphere is completely opaque to these IR wavelengths, which is radiated from the surfaces heated by the Sun’s rays. Most of this absorption, from the ground, takes place in the bottom kilometer of the atmosphere.
The following chart shows the amount of UV, light and IR radiation received from the Sun (bell-shaped curve on the left) and the amount re-radiated by the Earth at various black-body temps (bell-shaped curves on the right). Without an atmosphere, the Earth’s black-body temp would be 255K. The mean surface temp is actually 288K (15C) so atmosphere acts like a comforter blanket, provided an extra 33C degrees of warmth, making life as we know it possible.
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/595px-atmospheric_transmission.png
You should also note these facts:
1. Water vapor is doing most of the ‘heavy lifting’ in terms of heat absorption here.
2. There is a “window” at approx 8 to 14 microns which allows about 30% of the thermal radiation to escape, unblocked.
3. Because of the shape of the terrestrial radiation curve, the CO2 band at 15 microns is much more important than the wavelengths between 2-6 microns, because it’s only partially covered by water vapor absorption.
4. Since the atmosphere is totally opaque to CO2 at these wavelengths, adding more CO2 doesn’t make it any “opaquer”!
Water vapor is the main contributor to the so-called “greenhouse effect” (a misnomer because trapping LW heat is not what makes greenhouses hot). It’s hard to see the significance of CO2 here, because water (in all of its physical forms) dominates the heating and cooling effects.
So, getting back to Barry Wood’s idea here of “simple physics”, is it possible to isolate the CO2 effects from the H2O effects?
Answer: Yes, we have an ideal planetary CO2 greenhouse laboratory in place on the planet Mars, whose atmosphere is 95% CO2.
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner, only 1% of Earth, but because it’s almost pure CO2 the actual concentration of CO2 is about 30 times greater per unit surface area than on Earth.
Yet the mean surface temperature is the same as the black body temperature, ~210 K, according to NASA’s “Mars Fact Sheet”:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html

Black-body temperature: Mars 210.1 K Earth 255 K
Average temperature: Mars ~210 K Earth 288 K

Conclusion: Even though CO2 is a powerful absorber of 15 micron radiation, in isolation its contribution to “greenhouse warming” is negligible.

Ric Werme says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:08 am

It blocks some of the long wave infrared radiation from leaving the planet. Retained heat should show up as higher temperatures or increased humidity (which further blocks outgoing IR).

That’s pretty far from accurate. What CO2 does is restricts the flow of LWIR from surface to space which causes an increase in temperature at the surface. The increased surface temperature then accelerates the flow rate. The LWIR all still makes its escape.
It might help to equate temperature to pressure. By restricting the flow of IR the radiation pressure increases at the surface which in turn increases the flow rate through the restriction.

Hans Erren wrote:
A doubling of CO2 could raise the global temperature between 0.3 degrees C (Miskolczi, 2007) and 10 degrees C (Andronova and Schlesinger,2001) .
… Or 16 to 20, according to this guy!
But seriously. Roger Peilke Sr.’s work should be mentioned in this thread. He’s spent many years producing peer reviewed studies that document other probably causes of the warming we have witnessed in the twentieth century, especially land use issues. Of course, his work is routinely denigrated and basically discarded as irrelevant by the hard core warmists / scare-mongers who rule the roost at the IPCC and act as gatekeepers when it comes to information dissemination.

Incidentally, here’s a link to the Apollo 15 demonstration of dropping a hammer and a feather on the moon:
http://videosift.com/video/Physics-Hammer-vs-Feather-falling-on-the-moon

John says: December 28, 2010 at 6:05 am
“Simple physics says that if I drop a ball and a feather they will fall at the same rate.” It also says “in a vacuum.”
Simple physics says that increased CO2 will raise temperatures.
It also says in an enclosed, non open air environment.
Fixed.

stephen richards says:
December 28, 2010 at 7:32 am
The gas CO² per se will not kill you if you are in an atmosphere with 20% O² Impossible but I think it is probably true. Pure CO² kills animals and Humains and , I think, someone has shown that death has occured at above 7000ppm but the O² content was not measured. And last but not least, a number of celebs in the UK, I think, have died with bags over their heads while performing a sexual act. This occurs because the brain does not ‘see’ CO² as dangerous and you therefore drift gently off to die without suffering the distress of suffocation.
This is horribly wrong. CO2 poisoning is quite painful. The cells in your body produce CO2 as a byproduct of metabolism. It is excreted through the lungs and the excretion relies on the concentration in the blood being greater than that in the air. As the concentration in the air rises there is a concommitant increase in blood concentration. To some degree this can be ameliorated by breathing faster. Indeed the first symptoms of CO2 poisoning is increased respiration and heart rate. At some point your heart and lungs can’t pump fast enough and blood CO2 inevitably rises. This causes pH to fall – your cells begin to acidify. Proper pH is critical to all sorts of metabolic chemistry and metabolism eventually halts as a result.
All the oxygen in the world won’t save you once you can’t breathe fast enough to stop rising pH in bodily fluids.
I think you’re confusing CO2 poisoning with CO poisoning. CO is tasteless, odorless, and non-irritating but at a concentration of 1% it will cause unconsciousness in just three breaths followed by death in three minutes. If you weren’t unconscious it would be painful. CO2 poisoning takes quite a lot longer and you stay awake for most of it.

Gaylon says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:18 am
on another thread, James, was it you?) made a comment of such pertinent clarity that it begs reiteration for this thread: “The only definitive statement that anyone can say about Co2 is that it makes plants grow”
=======================================================
Naw, thanks though, but anyone that’s been here for a while knows that I’m much more verbose(I’m sometimes the posting equivalent to a windbag) than that nice, concise and clear statement.
But this is a tenet upon which the CAGW(or nom de jour) rests and usually gets a pass. I’ve read predictions of increased hurricanes to crop failures to sudden sea level rise causing severe flooding (all the while causing droughts) and everything else in between. After a generation of wailing and gnashing of the teeth and prayers to Gaia, nothing has been demonstrated. Brooklyn is still above water, crop productivity is increasing. Obviously, the latest scare of a drought in the SW U.S. was entirely overstated. An entire generation is made to bear witness to the ludicrous prognostications of our alarmist friends. And yet, they still get air time???!!!?? The truest test, observation, shows our alarmist friends to be less than credible.

OMG, Judith Curry might cause the field of “climate science” to return to science! She should be in charge of the IPCC. The sun is rising.

This is why I tell my engineering students, repeatedly, that:
Theoretically, there’s no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.
(Forgot who said it…anyone know the citation?)

When I try to explain (to people who don’t follow the debate) how trace CO2 causes global warming when so many other factors contribute to climate I like to use the following example:
CO2 is like a candle in a house with central air conditioning. The heat from one candle is indeed measurable, but it’s not going to overpower the AC.
Unless the candle is too close to the drapes.
The global warming wingnuts believe the candle is too close to the drapes so we need to bring the garden hose into living room and wet everything down just to be safe. Think of carbon taxes being the hose and all of your wet, soggy belongings as the economy.
(and of course even if the wingnuts are right, the candle is probably in another room so their efforts are wasted anyway)

latitude says: December 28, 2010 at 6:30 amonion says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:57 am
“Simple physics shows that CO2 has a significant warming effect. Complex physics shows that too.
=========================================================
I thought CO2 had an insignificant warming effect. That the warming would come from feedbacks like humidity and clouds.
And that the small amount of warming from CO2 was logarithmic.”
The real issue is that the complexity includes too many exogenous variables for which we do not know all of the interactions and therefore cause and effect cannot be predicted at this time.

I find a better analogy to be that of double glazing. Simple physics says that the wider the gap, the better the double glazing. So why don’t we see 100mm (4″) double glazing?
Because simple physics doesn’t work and when the gap between the glass becomes too big, the air begins to circulate reducing the efficiency of the double glazing. Paradoxically, the way to improve the double glazing is to put a thermally conductive layer in the middle (i.e. triple glazing) and that way the gap can be doubled without reducing the thermal efficiency.
Likewise CO2 only raises temperature if you totally ignore air currents … and ignore the fact that warm air rises after which CO2 increases the rate of cooling of the air because it acts as a vector for heat to be transmitted into the cold sink of outer space.

Dave Springer says: {December 28, 2010 at 8:55 am}
“This is horribly wrong. CO2 poisoning is quite painful. The cells in your body produce CO2 as a byproduct of metabolism. It is excreted through the lungs and the excretion relies on the concentration in the blood being greater than that in the air. As the concentration in the air rises there is a concommitant increase in blood concentration. To some degree this can be ameliorated by breathing faster. Indeed the first symptoms of CO2 poisoning is increased respiration and heart rate. At some point your heart and lungs can’t pump fast enough and blood CO2 inevitably rises. This causes pH to fall – your cells begin to acidify. Proper pH is critical to all sorts of metabolic chemistry and metabolism eventually halts as a result.
All the oxygen in the world won’t save you once you can’t breathe fast enough to stop rising pH in bodily fluids.”
This is why unfit people die of heart attacks during strenuous exercise. CO2 builds up in the blood and their bodies are not efficient enough to remove it causing the blood pH to fall. At pH 6.8 death may occur.
However, I wouldn’t go as far as calling an increase in breathing and heart rate a result of “CO2 poisoning”. It is indeed a result of an increase in CO2 levels in the blood but that is natural during any type of exertion. Only when the body cannot expel the CO2 efficiently and it builds up to dangerous levels would I term it poisoning.
“the excretion relies on the concentration in the blood being greater than that in the air”
I would also like to see what the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would have to be to cause this excretion to stop.

IF water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (as everyone seems to agree), and IF a warmer planet would be such a colossal bummer (a proposition that many disagree with, including me), THEN why all the hubbub about limiting CO2 emissions when water vapor is the chief “culprit”?
Why not limit the emission of water vapor?
Yes, climate fans. It is time to ban the brewing of tea, coffee, and chicken soup. No more hot showers for you! Steam kills! OABTW, no more breathing either. That sort of anti-Gaia behavior produces both catastrophic GHG pollutants.

Steven, I actually agree with your post. I think natural forcing GCMs work should continue and these dynamical models improved. Until then, work on models used to generate anthropogenic forcing is a step ahead of its time, if indeed the results will be used in making policy.

“Carbon dioxide is regulated for diverse purposes but not as a toxic substance.
The U.S. EPA CO2 exposure limits: The U.S. EPA recommends a maximum concentration of Carbon dioxide CO2 of 1000 ppm (0.1%) for continuous exposure.
ASHRAE standard 62-1989 recommends an indoor air ventilation standard of 20 cfm per person of outdoor air or a CO2 level which is below 1000ppm.
NIOSH CO2 exposure limits: NIOSH recommends a maximum concentration of carbon dioxide of 10,000 ppm or 1% (for the workplace, for a 10-hr work shift with a ceiling of 3.0% or 30,000 ppm for any 10-minute period). These are the highest threshold limit value (TLV) and permissible exposure limit (PEL) assigned to any material.
OSHA CO2 exposure limits: OSHA recommends a lowest oxygen concentration of 19.5% in the work place for a full work-shift exposure. As we calculated above, for the indoor workplace oxygen level to reach 19.5% (down from its normal 20.9% oxygen level in outdoor air) by displacement of oxygen by CO2, that is, to reduce the oxygen level by about 6%, the CO2 or carbon dioxide level would have to increase to about 1.4% 14,000 ppm.
In summary, OSHA, NIOSH, and ACGIH occupational exposure standards are 0.5% CO2 (5,000 ppm) averaged over a 40 hour week, 0.3% (3,000 ppm) average for a short-term (15 minute) exposure [we discuss and define “short term exposure limits” STEL below], and 4% (40,000 ppm) as the maximum instantaneous limit considered immediately dangerous to life and health. All three of these exposure limit conditions must be satisfied, always and together.
”
Bryan says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:32 am
Ric Werme
……..380 ppm of CO can’t possibly have an impact on people. (Exposure limits are 25-50 ppm, 400ppm for 4 hours can kill.)………
———
Dude,
It really gets old being called a science denier by someone so non-conversant in the facts that they get Co and CO2 confused and force a poison gas narrative and then advertise their ignorance. I mean, really old.

Steve from Rockwood said:
I read that a green-house was using levels of 1,500 ppm CO2 to achieve greater growth rates in plants without any harm to humans. But I have a feeling there may not be an upper level for CO2 that poses risks to humans, other than the effects of the dreaded AGW (such as longer winters etc).
IIRC the upper limit for humans (and most other mammals) is something over 4%. Which is 40,000 ppm. Otherwise the so called “kiss of life” would be impossible. Really only an issue around certain volcanic vents or in designing systems for submarines and spacecraft.

Ulric Lyons says:
December 28, 2010 at 6:41 am
…..and more than 8000 years ago in Stonehenge, “but those who can hear and hear not”…LOL!!!

vukcevic says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:21 am
No set of physical laws can model climate accurately, but there are number of events with possible links (sometimes with no clear mechanism) which can have an input, but they are often ignored.
For years a ‘60 year climate cycle’ has been favoured by many, but I could not find obvious presence of it in the longest temperature record available (CET – Central England Temperature, Met Office). However there are 40-50 years long undulations, which appear to have some similarity with the simple orbital resonance cycle of the Jovian planets.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETpr.htm
If there is a link, how does it work?
I think it is based on the geomagnetic reaction to the solar storms, whereby origin or the heliocentric longitudinal direction of these events (solar storms /magnetic ropes ) is affected by the magnetic configuration of the ‘nearby’ (inner) heliosphere.
But this may be only one of the factors affecting ‘natural climate oscillations’ as perceived from the CET data.

Heat content is not equal to temperature.
The CET will be strongly influenced by the humidity warmish wet winds from an Atlantic depression will hold far more heat than a dry anticyclonic airmass yet the maximum temperatures with the anticyclone will be higher than in the cloudy wet depression.
So looking for heat energy changes by using the Central England Temperature record will almost certainly be misleading.

CO2 as primary driver is as laughable as the ‘magic bullet’ in the JFK assassination.

Steven Mosher says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:25 am
(a lot)
======================================================
IDK Steven, I think after a human generation, continually and consistently getting it wrong tells me this “best we have” thought is insufficient. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing the science as a question. What is wrong making assertions and misleading people into thinking there are reasonable assumptions. They’ve been proven not to be.
Also, being a veteran of tornadoes, earthquakes, and climate catastrophe predictions predicated on atmospheric CO2 content, lumping them into the same category seems to be quite a stretch to me. Tornado warnings tell of possible imminent danger. Your earthquake predictions tells us you probably will experience an earthquake if you don’t move. Both have demonstrable utility. CO2 climate catastrophe predictions? I haven’t seen one demonstrable utility. Forgive me if I question whether they are engaged in actual science or not. Even with tornado warnings, I don’t see scientists running amok, wildly flapping their arms declaring “the sky is falling”. I think your particular “mischaracterization” was entirely too generous towards the people practicing what you call climate science. I call it a fancy way to read tea leaves while ensuring a Malthusian solution to an imaginary problem. With their generation of errors, they just as well start feeling for bumps on people’s heads.

Dear Mr Mosher……”The results are not called predictions, because they are not.” OK . I’ve got that. A statement of fact.
“The IPCC is being quite accurate in its description of the results as “projections”. I can follow that too. Something that is not a prediction being called something else is very reasonable, even after allowing reservations over the source of the word, “projection”.
“They are predictions, subject to emission scenarios that we cannot fully control.”
Now I’m confused. I am assuming that a prediction consists of a few core statements together with a series of peripheral statements considered of varying likelihood by the originator.
From not being a prediction at all, a projection is now a prediction with bells and whistles which turn it into an uncontrolled prediction, which is not a prediction because it is uncontrolled. What gives?

@Mark says:
‘December 28, 2010 at 10:50 am
Steve from Rockwood said:
I read that a green-house was using levels of 1,500 ppm CO2 to achieve greater growth rates in plants without any harm to humans. But I have a feeling there may not be an upper level for CO2 that poses risks to humans, other than the effects of the dreaded AGW (such as longer winters etc).
IIRC the upper limit for humans (and most other mammals) is something over 4%. Which is 40,000 ppm. Otherwise the so called “kiss of life” would be impossible. Really only an issue around certain volcanic vents or in designing systems for submarines and spacecraft.’
Pending on the stuff you grow it seems most plants fair better between 500-1000 ppm, lest they become too weak, probably due to nutrient deficiency. Of course you can’t just add CO2 and hope for the best you still need water (and usually humidity), sun (or equivalent), and nutrients. Simple rule of thumb the more hours of sunlight (or equivalent) and higher concentrations of CO2, the more nutrient and water you need, otherwise you get weak sodding plants.
And 4% is, I believe, what we humans exhale, so it ought to be way higher ‘an that I should hope. :p

Dave Worley says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:46 am
“Even at 0.039% concentration, the earth’s atmosphere is completely opaque to these IR wavelengths, which is radiated from the surfaces heated by the Sun’s rays. ”
I take issue with the “opaque” statement. Isn’t it really transluscent? The IR scatters but eventually finds its way out at the top.

In the world of “simple physics” , the IR is totally absorbed by CO2, but, yes, in the real worlds (of Mars and Earth) other processes come into play: scattering, diffusion, convection etc, so most of that heat slips away. In the case of Mars, where the CO2 is isolated from water vapor, the warming effect of CO2 is negligible, in spite of the 30 x concentration (per unit area) compared to Earth.

Paul Murphy says: December 28, 2010 at 10:33 amAn odd fact for Mr. Woods
“-As one of your fellow guest column writers I have to admit that I don’t even understand what I don’t know about climate.. however
I do know a little bit about computing and packaged risk simulation.
In particular you mention the financial market chaos that resulted when reality revealed the risk assessments on repackaged financials (mainly 3rd party mortgages) to have been far too optimistic.
These assessments are based on well understood models whose values are estimated using some form of simulation (usually monte carlo). As it turned out.. an unknown degree of error had been introduced into the computations used by many financial houses because the randomization function on Intel processors turned out not to produce results sufficiently close to random to meet theoretical requirements.
One of the fun things about this was that everyone involved knew the risks, many knew that valuations produced on SPARC and PPC equipment were lower than those produced on Intel boxes, but nobody (significant in the industry) did anything about it. The explanation I have from someone directly involved, who claims to have tried to speak up, is the obvious one: his bosses liked the higher values much better – but the bottom line is that no one really knows whether the differences mattered (in terms of triggering the defaults) or what drove senior management’s indifference to warnings from techies.”
No computer models were needed relative to the financial debacle to see what was happening. Banks were forced to make bad loans or be accused od “redlining” by the feds as far back as the 1970’s and the Community Reinvestment Act. The government then created quasi-governmental agencies to buy the bad loans which encouraged the the banks to make more and worse deals. Add to this the continuous redefinition of inflation by the feds to effectively lower reported inflation to allow for lowering interest rates and you get what we got. Carving the loans up into strips etc to sell simply made things even worse. What a surprise! No risk models needed to figure this stuff out. Now we have some of those same governmental functionaries who created the mess “fixing” things for us. God help us.

Well I don’t want to be too critical Barry; we need all the help we can get. But lets talk about this “CO2 in a jar” experiment in a bit more quantitative terms.
Well to be an honest test, they should make up the air samples out of pure Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon, in the correct standard air ratios; and perhaps one sample should contain 280 ppm (0.028%) of CO2, while the other contains 560 ppm (0.056) of CO2 ; AND NO H2O AT ALL !! We can’t have any false effects caused by water vapor can we.
We should also QUIT TELLING PEOPLE THAT THE WARMING IS LOGARITHMIC WITH CO2 ABUNDANCE.
It ISN’T, so get over it. IT MAY BE NON-LINEAR WITH CO2 BUT IT ISN’T LOGARITHMIC.
If the warming (CLIMATE SENSITIVITY) was 3 deg C per doubling +/- 50%, that would mean going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm, would give the same 3 deg C Temp rise, as going from 1 ppm to 2 ppm; or going from one molecule of CO2 in 22.4 litres of standard atmosphere to 2 molecules of CO2 in 22.4 litres of air.
So stop saying it’s logarithmic; it ISN’T; and there’s no data that even hints thatr it is; with a 3:1 uncertainty in CS; you couldn’t possible separate linear from logarithmic; and there is no Physical theory that suggests it should be logarithmic.
But we’ll play along with their mythology.
Our 2:1 ration of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm of CO2 should give us a 3deg C rise; when subjected to irradiation from an LWIR thermal emissions spectrum, at an equivalent Temperature of 288 Kelvins. That source emits 390 Watts per Square metre of radiation with a peak emission wavelength of 10.1 microns; and the CO2 takes out part of the 13.5 to 16.5 range of that spectrum.
BUT !!!! the common lab experiment to demonstrate that, uses a HIGHER TEMPERATURE incandescent light bulb source; which has an effective emission temperature more like 2880 K than 288 K, so it is TEN TIMES HOTTER than it is supposed to be.
So instead of radiating about 400 W/m^2, it is radiating 10,000 times that or 4 MILLION WATTS PER SQUARE METRE.
The sun surface is only about double the temperature of the incandescent lamp, so it only emits 16 times what the lamp does, or about 64 million Watts per square metre. That is attenuated by the distance from the sun down to only 1366 W/m^2 at the position of earth’s orbit.
So the incandescent lamp at 4 million Watts per m^2 is 2930 times the TSI at earth.
So is it any woner those fake experiments show some warming.
REPLACE THE INCANDESCENT LAMP, WITH AN ORDINARY BOTTLE OF DRINKING WATER AND SEE HOW MUCH TEMPERATURE RISE YOU GET FROM THE DOUBLED (560 PPM) CO2 SAMPLE.
That bottle of water is likely at 20-25 deg C temperature so even that is radiating more that the average earth surface is.

The old hippie’s view:
Several hundred million years ago, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was considerably higher than today. It was also a little warmer. The biosphere thrived! In fact, the biosphere went into a sort of “overshoot” condition: plants grew faster than they could decay. Plants fell over on each other, and carbon was buried, cruelly isolated from the cycle of life from which it sprang. Now, human activities have liberated some of this entrapped carbon, re-introducing it to the carbon cycle, where it belongs. Gaia smiles.
Love, peace, and happiness,
Frank

Max Hugoson says:
December 28, 2010 at 7:24 am
As to the “trace gas effect”, I’d recommend Dr. Walter Elsasser’s “On the Infra-red Heat Balance of the Atmosphere”. (Harvard Meteorological Series, 1942) On page 23 he explains exclusion of the CO2 contribution to the exchange in the “tropopshere” (to about 40,000 feet) due to the fact that 0 to 40,000 feet it’s an equal exchange agent…outflux and influx. (Above 40,000 feet it’s a cooling agent, has to due with “view angle”.)
I agree about Elsasser’s paper – it is excellent. If anyone thinks this issue is a matter of simple physics reading 100 pages of data packed theory should put them right!
Amongst the most important findings is that CO2 radiates about 18% of all the energy the earth radiates into space ( i.e. ignoring reflection). So its cooling effect at the tropopause is very important. Simple physics will therefore tell you that if you increase the amount of CO2 you will increase the amount of outgoing radiation and the earth will cool down!
Of course I am joking. There is no such thing as simple physics. There is just simplistic physics which ignores half the variables and most of the interactions.
However there are some simple rules that have to be obeyed. Like the conservation of energy. Because of these simple rules one can be pretty sure that CO2, even in very low concentrations, does reduce the energy lost to space. That 18% of the earth’s energy budget radiated in the 14-18 micron band would be higher if it were radiated directly from the surface (at say 290K ). In practice the energy at these wavelengths is absorbed very quickly by CO2 molecules within a few hundred feet and then re-radiated in all directions. The upward radiation is further absorbed and re-radiated until it reaches the tropopause where the CO2 density is such that the majority of the radiation is lost to space. The temperature of the tropopause is about 22oK and this lower temperature reduces the energy loss at these wavelengths. The earth’s surface thereore warms up (as a consquence of the downward CO2 radiation) until it reaches a temperature at which the radiation at the other wavelengths are enough to ensure that energy-in equals energy-out.
However few effects in nature increase without limit. If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere 14 -18 micron radiation would be emitted from the surface. The addition of a few parts per million would move the 14-18 micron radiating layer from the surface to say 6000 metres. Doubling the concentration would raise this height further and so on until its current level around 14Km. Each doubling would result in an increase in height, a drop in temperature, a drop in energy radiated and a compensating increase in surface temperature. This is the simple logarithmic effect of CO2 concentrations. But it assumes a constant decrease of temperature with altitude. However at the current level it is either within the tropopause or very close to it. By definition the temperature of this part of the atmosphere is constant (it does not vary with height). So as one increases the density of CO2 from current levels why should the amount of energy radiated into space decrease?
I have asked this question on this blog twice before in case one of the experts knows the answer and I have also raised it directly with the Met Office and two professors of climate science. No one has yet given me any explanation let alone a believeable one. One believeable mechanism would be that as the CO2 increases further the temperature of the tropopause drops – that is the height at which it starts increases. However this is eminently measureable so someone should know if this is happening.
I somehow think that if it was happening we would have heard about it.

Frank Kotler says:
December 28, 2010 at 12:21 pm
The old hippie’s view:
Several hundred million years ago, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was considerably higher than today. It was also a little warmer. The biosphere thrived! In fact, the biosphere went into a sort of “overshoot” condition: plants grew faster than they could decay. Plants fell over on each other, and carbon was buried, cruelly isolated from the cycle of life from which it sprang. Now, human activities have liberated some of this entrapped carbon, re-introducing it to the carbon cycle, where it belongs. Gaia smiles.
========================================================
Frank, that is a very good point.
No one brings up the fact that CO2 levels have fallen, and why.
It you compare it to a closed system, they will reach an equilibrium that barely sustains them.

Taking an untested drug is not “dangerous”. The proper term would be “risky”.

James, that’s “here” rotfl

Steven Mosher says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:25 am
‘”The is a gross misunderstanding of the situation. In a controlled experiment we may say “if I increase the concentration of X, then Y will respond like so” Then, as experimenters we are given clear directions. Increase X, observe Y. However, in climate science and in other areas of scientific investigation we cannot control X.’
Right. In astronomy, you cannot control what you study. That means your experiments are passive rather than active. But it does not change scientific method and it does not excuse the use of computer models as substitutes for experiments, whether passive or active. Computer models are good for analytical purposes. They cannot replace reasonably well-confirmed hypotheses or actual experiments that test hypotheses. If you would think about it for a minute, you would realize that if you had reasonably well confirmed hypotheses you would have no desire for a computer model of the very phenomena that the hypotheses explain. On the other hand, if you have collected a lot of observations then programming them into the most advanced computer is not going to produce a hypothesis to explain the salient features of what you observed. Computers do not do synthesis. Only the human mind does synthesis. Of course, y0u can sometimes surprise yourself with the outcomes of a computer program, but that is only because your brain is not powerful enough to see all the implications of its relevant set of assumptions. The surprise you experience is the product of analysis not synthesis.

Steven Mosher writes:
“1. throw up your hands and say it cant be calculated.
2. Run a bunch of GCMs and give a projection. This projection will be imperfect,
it will have a wide range of values. None of them will forecast a cooling. The majority project a future that has an increased risk to life and property as we know it.
It’s limited science, but the best we happen to have.”
It is not a science. It is a collection of really good hunches. The fact that the subject matter of the hunches is really-really-really important does not make it a science. To have a science, you have to have hypotheses that are reasonably well-confirmed; that is, they must have a history of accurate prediction of real events in the real world that we do not control. Climate science does not have them at this time. In some few decades, it will have them. If what you really care about is doing something about your beliefs on climate change, then stop talking about science and start writing books about your really good hunches on climate.

On Craig Loehle’s earthquake analogy.
Many characteristics of earthquakes are very well known… it’s seismology. Some of the aspects of a seismic event are very well know and easy to explain by simple laws of physics – how fast a primary wave travels vs the secondary wave. But, the deeper you get into the science, the more you find you’re dealing with calculus and complicated concepts that are not easy even for scientists to decipher. Take for example the 6.7 Northridge earthquake. Even though the overpass span of highway 14 that goes over I-5 was built to withstand a 7 + on the San Andreas, it came down during this weaker quake. Computer models said it wouldn’t, that it was safe. What was missing from the old model was that the fault that produced this quake was closer to the bridge than the San Andreas, and that, because the Northridge fault is a blind thrust fault, and closer to the surface, the inherent differences in the physics of wave propagation generated by the Northridge even was different than that of the San Andreas. The bridge was built at a time when the existence of blind thrust faults was still not confirmed (the 83 Coalinga quake sealed the deal).
Even more surprising was that the Northridge quake also cracked welds in more than a few high rise buildings in downtown LA. That, according to the models, was absolutely NOT supposed to have happened.

“”””” George E. Smith says:
December 28, 2010 at 11:52 am
Well I don’t want to be too critical Barry; we need all the help we can get. But lets talk about this “CO2 in a jar” experiment in a bit more quantitative terms. “””””
WRT my comment at the above hour; I omitted one further effect.
As a result of the incandescent lamp being ten times the temperature of the typical earth surface emitting LWIR than CO2 intercepts, the emitted spectrum is quite different, adn instead of peaking at about 10.1 microns the lamp peaks at about 1.0 microns.
Now 10.1 micron radiation at 400 W/m^2 is completely undetectable by the human body; we are quite oblivious to its presence.
BUT !! at 1.0 microns, we have an entirely different situation. The human body is mostly water H2O, and H2O has strong absorption bands at 0.94 and 1.1 microns, as well as in the 700 -800 nm range, and also around 2-3 and 3-4 microns; all of which will recieve plenty of power from a 2880 K source emitting 4 megaWatts per square metre.
It is primarily for this reason that the human body reacts toi intense radiation at around 1 micron and gives us the sensation that we call “heat” or “warmth”.
So the popular lab demonstration with CO2 laced air is a total fraud. As I said, try it out with a bottle of water instead of the incandescent lamp, and see if the doubled CO2 sample gets three deg C hotter than the other one.

Sonicfrog says:
December 28, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“On Craig Loehle’s earthquake analogy.”
OMG, stop! You are writing real science! I cannot bear it! It is so full of Humility! Ease up, guy; you’re gonna kill us. ( Really, folks, what Sonicfrog wrote has all the feel of real science. You can’t miss it.)

Barry Woods says:
December 28, 2010 at 11:02 am
“I am well aware of the complexities of computer models and the limitations,the IPCC say ‘projections’ and ‘scenarios’, BUT they know full well they will be claimed by others to be predictions.. The silence of the lambs (scientists) fail to correct the media misrepresentations.”
Actually, the wrong doing is much greater. If the IPCC, Mann, Hansen, and the others would qualify the results that they publish, there would be no climate scare. But they give these “projections,” which they call predictions and CLAIM THAT THEY ARE BASED ON THE BEST SCIENCE. That is demonstrably false and they know it. It might be based on the best hunches of the scientists, but it is based on no reasonably well-confirmed hypotheses at all. There is no science. Look at James Hansen. He struggles constantly to update his temperature data so that he can make the current year the hottest year on record. In other words, he struggles to justify his fundamental data record. That is not science that is worth a hearing. Some day there will be a climate science but today there is none.

“So Galileo Galilei you are a denier! You deny that the Universe orbits the earth?”
The rest is history, education, and science…

Theo… And I’m a geology school drop-out!

“Mike D. says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:30 am
Why not limit the emission of water vapor?”
When compared with the water that evaporates from the oceans, the human contribution is totally negligible. Besides, unlike CO2, any extra amount of water vapor that we add just precipitates out anyway as rain or snow.

There don’t seem to be many physiologists on this thread. Exhaled breath is between 3-5% CO2 or 30-50,000 ppm as I found one boring day in the lab when trying to interface our CO2 meter to the computer. The simple act of holding ones breath will raise the concentration of CO2 impressively and I’ll have to look up exactly how high I got the CO2 percentage after a 4 minute breath hold in a physiology lab where we were collecting exhaled gases and analyzing CO2 and O2 concentrations. I do believe it was over 10% CO2.
The primary effect of CO2 at high levels is to increase respiratory rate as increased CO2 absorption will lower blood pH which is a respiratory stimulant. AFAIK, 5% CO2 with normal O2 levels is tolerated well. High levels of CO2 have CNS depressant effects as we see with people with COPD who have pCO2 on an arterial blood gas of 90 mmHg which works out to about 11.8% CO2. These individuals also seem to lose their respiratory stimulation from high CO2 levels and have respiratory drive controlled primarily by pO2.
I’m wondering what OHSA has to say about the situation of an individual suffering a cardiac arrest at work and a fellow worker giving him CPR and administering a “toxic” level of 50,000 ppm of CO2 in exhaled air?

Cal:
Thanks for the vote of confidence on Dr. Elsasser’s work. I will point out that I’m not “stuck” on CO2 being completely “black body” emitter and absorber in the Tropopshere.
A study done in 1948 from a 307 foot instrument tower in Monro, Texas by a Dr. Cooley (M.S. Thesis, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, 1950) found that the radiative temperature change, heat up and cool down, was responsible for 25% of the radiation balance, and water the other 75%.
In truth, the problem with CO2 is to decide how much it acts as a “perfect” black body absorber (and re-emitter) for the 15 micron band. Also, how it COMBINES with H2O in terms of the overall spectrum response.
Since CONVECTION (turbulant mixing) would be inescapable in the first 300′ of the atmosphere, even if CO2 was a net 25% down flux, (and that increased..say by 25% since WWII, due to the 280 to 390 PPM change of CO2), the actual effect on the overall atmosphere energy balance (presuming it IS more of a black body response the more above 300′ you proceed), would be miniscule.
Again, saying this is “basic physics” is stretching it a bit. I’d say this is one of the more complex “systems” to model that exist in the whole world!
Max

Barry says:
————
case scenarios of the computer model ’projections’ or scenarios (because they know they cannot use the word prediction) latest example, 4C by 2060, are just one result of computer model ‘runs’ programmed with various extreme values of these assumptions.
————–
Are you sure about that Barry. I understood that the scenario results came about as a result of averaging many many runs so as to get some idea of the range of possible outcomes that might arise due to the chaotic nature of the physics.

@george E. Smith
Co2 infrared absorption is logarithmic between 100 and 1000 ppm, the concentrations of interest. This can be calculateted using quatum physics, and was observed in laboratory experiments as early as 1901.
ref: John Koch, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Wärmeabsorption in Kohlensäure., Öfversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens Förhandlinger, 1901. N:o 6 p 475-488
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/Koch_fig1.gif

But as every engineer knows, these simple laws often do not work when reality gets messy, as it usually is.  Simple physics says that if I drop a ball and a feather they will fall at the same rate.
In reality my feather blew up into a tree.
——–
Barry, every physicist knows that feathers will be affected by air resistance. They wrote the book on the subject after all. So stop trying to deceive people into believing that physicists are simple minded.
Physicists also know that only a few objects in this world are feathers. Apparently you don’t know that.
Physicist are expert in capturing the essentials of a physical process and then adding refinements until they have captured enough understanding that is sufficient for the purpose.

We had a fine example of the ‘it’s just simple physics, stupid!’ on a BBC ‘Panorama’ program a few months ago. At the end two climate scientists were on, one a thorough-going AGW man and the other a (relative) sceptic. They were both asked two questions: is there more CO2 in the atmosphere than there used to be, and is CO2 a greenhouse gas. Naturally they both replied ‘Yes’; the program then sat back with a smug smile on its face as if to say : ‘so how can you not believe in AGW then?’. They were not asked further questions like ‘what is the most important greenhouse gas’, or ‘how is heat transferred upwards in the lower atmosphere’, the answers to which would have rather undermined the program’s position.
On a dumbing-down note: Panorama used to last an hour. Now it never gets more than 30 minutes.
As for predicting the future using models, does anyone remember the Club of Rome around 1970? Their model predicted increasing scarcity and starvation followed by a general collapse of civilisation. Well, of course it did: the model assumed an exponential increase in everything from population to pollution, with not a single feedback mechanism included. If you add your assumptions to the input of a model, no matter how many partial differential equations it has or how many teraflops your massively-parallel computer can manage, they come right back at you in the output.
As for pointing out to the MSM that the temperature/CO2 relation is logarithmic: they wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

Boris;
You held your breath for 4 minutes? Isn’t that close to a world record?
Oops! I see not. Just googled, and it’s up around 18 minutes!! I wonder what the exhaled CO2 fraction was after that ….

Brian H says:
December 28, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Actually, I’ve cited Chiefio several times. He asserts that the planet’s flora tend to drive down CO2 to their starvation level, and we fauna are unable to keep up. The supply is typically only fully restored by mega-volcanic events, etc.
=======================================================
Well that and Gates new pet of the week, the hydrological cycle.
When you look at history and how the planet came to be, including us, it’s pretty amazing that it’s doing ok at this low level of CO2.
In another place and time, sensible people would be worried about that.

Barry makes stuff up
————
, the data output or projection of a computer model transmorphs into a scientific fact, the data output of a computer model becomes evidence of CAGW.
———–
Err no. The model output is the consequence of the theory. The consequence of the theory is compared with the observations. If the observations don’t match the consequences an investigation is made to identify what subtle physical mechanism was overlooked in the model or what part of the calculation is not correct.
If all seems fine the model is used to make a projection and an estimate of the uncertainty produced.
But you already know all that don’t you Barry. Unless you have already forgotten the argument you just made in the previous paragraph about projections.

[We prefer that posters don’t refer to skeptics as “deniers,” “denialists,” etc. Your attack is now at the name-calling stage, so I snipped it all. ~dbs, mod.]

Chris Clark says:
“We had a fine example of the ‘it’s just simple physics, stupid!’ on a BBC ‘Panorama’ program a few months ago.” … “As for pointing out to the MSM that the temperature/CO2 relation is logarithmic: they wouldn’t know what you were talking about.”
Of course it won’t be wealthy media people like Jeremy Paxman who freeze to death because of unaffordable energy and over-estimated climate sensitivity, it will be impoverished working-class pensioners.

LazyTeen wrote: “every physicist knows that feathers will be affected by air resistance.”
Yes, every physicist also knows that a planet is not an isolated system, therefore it does not conserve energy. Yet the mainstream climatologist A.Lacis reveals the foundation of his theories:
“Since radiative transfer is a well established and well understood physics process, we have accurate knowledge of what is happening to the global energy balance of Earth. And as I noted earlier, conservation of energy leaves no other choice for the global equilibrium temperature of the Earth but to increase in response to the increase in atmospheric CO2.”
LazyTeen continues: “Physicist are expert in capturing the essentials of a physical process and then adding refinements until they have captured enough understanding that is sufficient for the purpose.”
From the example above, it looks like climatologists are not experts in essentials of physics. Is this the point you were trying to make?

LazyTeenager says:
December 28, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Barry, every physicist knows that feathers will be affected by air resistance. They wrote the book on the subject after all. So stop trying to deceive people into believing that physicists are simple minded.
Physicists also know that only a few objects in this world are feathers. Apparently you don’t know that.
======================================================
Lazy, you’re missing the point of the post. Re-read the first paragraph (I’ll make it easy.)…….All too often the ‘simple physics of CO2′ argument is presented to the public by the media, politicians, climate scientists and environmental advocacy groups, in a way that grossly simplifies the issue of the response in global temperature to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Barry was making the point that often alarmists use the “simple physics” as an argument and Barry pointed out that it wasn’t that simple. In a very angry way, you made his point.
BTW, I’d like to point out that while “very few objects are feathers”, there are many that have the characteristics appropriate for Barry’s example; leafs, dandelion seeds, spider eggs, certain blades of grass, etc….
Sometimes, deep breaths and a different perspective may help prevent these hyperventilations.

James Sexton said:
“while “very few objects are feathers”, there are many that have the characteristics appropriate for Barry’s example; leafs, dandelion seeds, spider eggs, certain blades of grass, etc….”
I think the list must be expanded with the most important (and least studied) stuff like bacteria and plankton-generated DMS microparticles and other particulates that act as seeds of condensation and formation of clouds.

If so, let me recommend activated charcoal (a mechanical mix of C and H2O, very appropriate!)

Smokey says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:45 pm
In a way I sort of agree with them. I think I’ll add to my after dinner carbon footprint with some C2H5OH.☺
========================================================
Heh, already there with you, my friend.
Yeh, you’re right about the carbon and hating all that it involves. Its another manifestation of their autophobia. It must be horrid going through life projecting a self-loathing onto anything attached to the base of their formation.

LazyTeenager says:
December 28, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Third Assessment Report: “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
——————
So Barry, you mean that when certain climate skeptics claimed that the IPCC was exaggerating the certainty, those particular climate skeptics were lying.
So LT, do you now agree that ipcc Climate Science simply cannot predict future climate states, so that there actually is absolutely no future CAGW to predict or worry about?
But, hey, then go read the SPM4 to see the ipcc suddenly increase its certainty infinitely, from the TAR’s flat out impossibility of predicting CAGW “Climate Change” to a level of certainty which in fact even tries to convince us to commit suicide ‘before it’s too late’……or else we will all die from CAGW!

cal, I recommend the online MODTRAN program (e.g. from U. Chicago) to understand why the troposphere profile still dominates the CO2 outgoing radiation as you double CO2. Basically, yes, the center of the band is radiating at the stratospheric temperature which doesn’t change much as you double CO2, as it is fairly isothermal in the lower stratosphere, so the decrease in OLR comes from the sides of the band which still radiate from the troposphere.

Myrrh says:

By the end of that particular discussion I felt as if I had stepped through the looking glass with Alice.

I can pretty much assure you that the person you had the discussion with must have felt likewise.
All models are approximations. However, the ideal gas law is a very good…perhaps even excellent approximation…at atmospheric densities.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that the CO2 is not quite well-mixed in the atmosphere? We now have data from a variety of sites (at various elevations) as well as AIRS data…and while there was a lot of hullabaloo made with the AIRS data about the CO2 concentration not being completely uniform, the fact is that the differences from complete uniformity are irrelevant at the levels of accuracy with which we are currently able to consider.
By the way, I am not even sure that the best answer to your question about why CO2 doesn’t segregate is really the ideal gas law. I would say it comes more from kinetic theory or from statistical physics, at least the part about segregation under gravity. (E.g., one can presumably do a calculation of the entropy vs energy tradeoff for gases to mix vs segregating…I may try to think a little bit more about whether one could easily do this in a way that permits a quick-and-dirty estimate of what controls whether you are in the well-mixed or gravity-segregated regime).

@John Day
>> Conclusion: Even though CO2 is a powerful absorber of 15 micron radiation,
>> in isolation its contribution to “greenhouse warming” is negligible.”
@Mike Borgelt
> John, Lacis et al claim that this is due to the low pressure in the Martian
> atmosphere so there is little pressure broadening of the CO2 lines unlike Earth.
Yes, I’m aware of this claim in their “control knob” paper. The ‘pressure broadening’ is a observational artifact associated with absorption lines under pressure. At the molecular level, where all this photon absorption is going on it’s all about intermolecular collisions. Some of the absorbed energy may be spread by collisions, reseting the CO2 molecules.
There’s a lot of hand waving going on here. The Lacis paper makes this sound like a conjecture that needs to be proven.
Color me skeptical.

Myrrh 12/28 7:41 PM
If you’re right, the atmosphere between ground level and about 1/4 mile up should be almost entirely CO2. Ascending further, we’d pass through many miles of nitrogen, and only then would we reach 5-6 miles of oxygen. So we wouldn’t be here to talk about it.

It’s ironic that ‘simple physics’ is actually on the side of the sceptics. ‘Simple physics’ basically says that CO2-caused warming is a classic law of diminishing returns: if you double the amount of CO2 you will get around one degree of warming. To get another degree, you have to double the CO2 again, which will never happen.
In short, a doubling of CO2 from industrial levels, using only ‘simple physics’, will provide a modest and almost certainly beneficial warming. The logarithmic law provides this welcome warming, while at the same time ensuring that a warming of four or five degrees is completely impossible.
Of course, in reality the amount of warming is probably dominated by other factors, with CO2 having a negligible effect, as demonstrated by the ice cores. Quite likely we can thank our local star for the 20th century warming that we enjoyed. The bad news is that this particular star may be sulking so that our children may live in a colder world.
Yes, we do need to worry about climate change. But in the coming decades it will probably be global cooling that makes the headlines.
Chris

Several people have criticized Barry for the “ball and feather” story, but I am the actual author of it. One can follow the link to see the context of my original comment on Curry’s great blog. Critics are welcome to engage me on my Yahoo! group: http://www.climatechangedebate.org .
For example, LazyTeenager (!) argues above that “Barry, every physicist knows that feathers will be affected by air resistance. They wrote the book on the subject after all. So stop trying to deceive people into believing that physicists are simple minded.”
Barry did not say that bit about feathers, rather I did. But you have missed the entire point of the story, which is that the fact that CO2 is a GHG is the starting point for the scientific debate, not the end point. Many people take this simple fact as decisive, which is wrong.
Sorry to be so subtle, Lazy.
David

David Wojick Ph.D, the link to the Der Spiegel story on glaciers and forests in your suggested readings is wrong. It should be:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,357366,00.html

“”””” Richard Smith says:
December 29, 2010 at 8:02 am
The most pertinent comment I have seen on this thread so far is the one by John of Kent on how the greenhouse gas theory defies the basic laws of physics. Considering the impact it has had, this theory must be the most bizarre pseudoscientific theory every concocted. “””””
Well Richard, I believe you are the first to state that the “GHG Theory” claims that CO2 and other GHGs add to the energy budget of the earth.
There’s much wrong with prevailing views of GHGs and how they act; but claiming to add to the earth’s energy budget is NOT one of them.
“”””” All it can do is slow down radiative cooling. “”””” I believe you also said this.
So let’s look at an analagous situation; an ordinary bathtub, or even a kitchen sink, if you don’t have a bathtub.
So you turn on the hot and cold water faucets; or taps if your bathtub doesn’t have faucets; full bore. This is akin to the sun pouring radiant energy onto the earth. But we left the plug out; or the stopper if your bathtub doesn’t have a plug; so as the water rises in the bathtub, some of it starts to flow down the drain and out of the tub. Initially, just a trickle, but as the water gets deeper, and builds up a bigger “head” or driving force, the outflow increases; and the immediate result of this, is that the rate of rise of the water level slows down.
Eventually at a certain water depth, the rate of outflow exactly equals the rate of inflow from the taps, and the water level stops rising; having reached the (dynamic) equilibrium level.
So this is not unlike the earth’s energy where the LWIR radiant outflow basically reaches a balance with the solar spectrum radiant inflow. Yes other thermal processes help transfer energy around; but in the end a radiative balance is required; the drain empties the water as fast as the faucets fill the tub.
So now we need some GHGs to put in our bathtub: “”””” All it can do is slow down radiative cooling. “””””
Howsabout we sink the metal soapdish, and it slides down towards the drain, and ends up blocking half of the drain area.
Now our soap dish may have contained a few drops of water from some splashes; but nobody would accuse the soap dish of ADDING TO THE INFLOW OF WATER TO THE TUB.
All that it did was; “”””” All it can do is slow down radiative cooling. “””””
But given the reduced outflow rate from the constricted drain, the water level must now rise further, to increase the driving head, until the outflow again equals the inflow rate from the taps. There was a short delay, while the taps added more water to raise the water level; but eventually equilibrium is re-established, and the outflow again equals the inflow; BUT NOW THE WATER LEVEL IS HIGHER !!
That is all there is to the claims for the GHG effect; not any addition to the earth’s energy budget; the sun will supply the extra energy needed to raise the mean temperature which in turn increases the LWIR radiation rate, until energy balance (dynamic) is again achieved; but there was a Temperature increase required to drive that LWIR radiation past the gauntlet of GHGs.
Other effects of course interfere with this picture; and that is where the real argument is.
But it is a lonely hill to die on; trying to claim that the “GHG Theory” violates laws of Physics or Thermodynamics; and it is this constant demonstrably false claim, by well meaning “skeptics”, that leads to the warmistas saying that skeptics are a bunch of kooks.
There’s enough good sources of common sense posting here as guest contributors; and stuff dug up by Anthony and people like Chasmod; and the other nicety police, that WUWT should not be rehashing this GHG argument over and over again, every time some new readers drop in.
Yes we know that real green houses do not operate in the manner that the “greenhouse concept” describes; and we all know what climatists, and skeptics too mean, when they talk about GHGs in the strictly climate sense.
But the Climatists are NOT claiming that GHGs add additional energy to the earth energy budget; and we don’t do anything for a sane view, by trying to paint them with that brush. Their transgressions are in other areas; such as getting the cloud picture completely wrong.