Guest Post by Barry Woods
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.
An excellent response to the simple physics argument is to be found in the comments at Climate Etc (Professor Judith Curry’s blog)
In reality my feather blew up into a tree
“….. which is that since CO2 is a GHG it follows that increasing CO2 must increase the temperature (of something). No matter how many times we say that the climate is a system with complex non-linear feedbacks they still love this simple principle of physics.
This is because physics works by isolating simple situations from reality. That was the great discovery of physics, that if you simplified reality you could find simple laws. So far so good.
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.
It is not that the simple law is false, just that there are a number of other simple laws opposing it. In the case of climate we don’t even know what some of these other laws are, so we can’t explain what we see. That is where we should be looking.”
The ‘do you deny the simple GHG physics’ argument is also often an attempt to portray anyone that asks reasonable scientific questions about AGW and the complexity of climate science, as some sort of an ‘anti-science’, ‘flat earther’ denier.
The realities and complexities and unknowns of climate science are described in the IPCC working Group 1 reports, but somehow get ‘lost in translation’ into the Summary for Policymakers, for example (and everyone knows very few politicians even read beyond the executive summary of anything).
IPCC (Chapter 14, 14.2.2.2, Working Group 1, The Scientific Basis)
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.”
Time and time again the media and environment groups ignore this IPCC fact that the climate is a coupled nonlinear chaotic system and that the worst 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.
The low-end ‘projections’ of temperature by model runs with other values and assumptions are ignored completely by CAGW advocates, 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.
Climate Science is often portrayed to the public in simplistic terms as a mature science, narrowed down and focussed onto one primary factor – CO2, assuming all else to be equal, and not the possibilities in this type of system that varying one parameter alone, may vary other parameters in non-linear ways, even potentially flipping some from positive to negative feedback (or vice versa)
At the time of the Copenhagen Cop 15 Climate Conference, stunts on TV, rather than the discussion of uncertainties of ‘climate science’ were the order of the day.
The classic demonstration of the ‘do you deny the simple physics of CO2’ argument is a glass tube filled with CO2, heated and then the TV presenter or preferably a senior government scientist says ‘look it has warmed!’ –
As demonstrated by the BBC in their Newsnight program, Copenhagen Climate Conference time, the BBC’s apparent intellectual response to the climategate emails and documents. Watts Up With That, gave a critique of this particular type of TV experiment and CAGW PR.
I wonder what would have happened if a member of the audience had been able to question their methodology, or even ask simple questions like:
What is the percentage of CO2 in the jar?
ie total atmospheric is ~0.038%, what percentage is in the glass jar – 50% plus perhaps, or more?
[Corrected typo spotted in comments – 0.038% / 380 ppm]
If you were to mention that the CO2 effect is logarithmic, then you are likely to be labelled a ‘climate change sceptic’ or worse a ‘climate change denier’ by any passing MSM media TV presenter, environmentalist group or AGW consensus minded politician, and then they will simply stop listening, because you are obviously a fossil fuel funded denier, such has been the CAGW consensus PR.
I wonder if for a sceptical joke, someone could produce a spoof YouTube video of a feather and a cannon ball in a glass jar experiment (non evacuated) and the TV presenter could say to the audience:
“Proof – The Cannon Ball FALLS faster that the feather – Simple Physics clearly show this”
Someone in the audience could then ask, but you have air in the jar? and then get ridiculed by the group as an ‘anti-science’ denier, the scientist/presenter could even bring out the ‘No Pressure’ red button to use!
The simple and not so simple physics of a number of climate parameters, are programmed into the climate computer models. Many of these parameters, it is acknowledged, are not completely understood or that there is serious contentious debate about in the scientific literature. ie aerosols, clouds, solar pacific and atlantic oscillations, volcanoes, etc,etc
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.
Next time anyone starts on about the simple physics of CO2, remember the feather and a cannon ball in a very large glass jar analogy, or for the classically motivated, atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Politicians could lay trillion-dollar bets, and dozens of competing scientific groups (publically funded) could even attempt to write a computer models to predict when and where the feather would land…………
Thanks again to Anthony for the opportunity to write at Watts Up With That again. There is a little more about me here.
Or maybe you could stop by at my new blog, I hope that the Watts Up With That regulars like the name.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
RockyRoad said:
You have to determine something is “broke” before you “fix” it. Please, don’t go assuming or projecting a broken earth and then be a busy-body running around “fixing” it.
Trying to “fix” something which isn’t “broken” in the first place also runs the risk of “breaking” it too. A complete waste of time and resources is possibly a best case senario.
For pete’s sake, there are more than sufficient REAL problems facing us without inventing a bunch of hypothetical imaginary problems.
Together with the possibility of creating lots of real problems in the attempt to fix imaginary ones. e.g. ethanol from maize as a fuel and so called “green electricity” which turns out to be more expensive and less sustainable than burning coal.
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.
it is only a simplified analogy to make a (I thought humourous) point..
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.
My point is the media/political/lobby group handling of this sceince.
Sea level rises an example, 2m plus, 4m, 20 feet (Gore) received loads of press, since 2007 IPCC AR4. Not in AR4, but IPCC were scientists lobbying and headlines in the media about how the IPCC did not go far enough.
Yet, we had a publication recently by AVOID – Hadley Centre, Tyndall, Walker Institute, Grantham Institute, which say 2m very very, unlikely,(always was), the gulf stream is not shutting down, and the very worst case is 59cm, on a computer model, and most likey is 1-2 feet, observed trends of actual sea level rise, are at the very low end of ‘projections..
Also that old rainforest does absorb CO2, 3 things that were getting headlines amongst alarmist lobby groups.
How many column inches did this get in the UK, pg 19, 1/2 a column.. !!!
You might think the media and lobby groups would welcome headline, front page good environmental news…
This is not about science, it is about the manipulation/presentation of by vested interests, PR, media communications strategies..
I asked an IPCC Working Group 1 editor (a very good friend) of the Summary for Policymakers, etc about sea level pronouncements that were scaring my children (copenhagen time), lots of alarmist videos, tv headlines
My friend said, no worst case 59cm, nothing had changed… Did not feel it their responsibilty to correct the media misrepresentation though… poltics nothing to do with them. We disagree about this.
High profile, media faced scientists that do not correct the Gore, Greenpeaces of the world, get no sympathy from me.
I imagine, if it helped push policy along a little, then blind eyes, good cause, good intentions were used to excuse the alarmism. which in the end has turned out to be totally counter-productive
In the Greenpeace -Angry Kid – video for example, the ‘child’ says (agressively) BOTH polar caps will be gone in my lifetime… A statement (ie includes antartica) which is without any foundation and is ridiculous, yet to challenge it is to be called a denier.
I am characterisisng the politics and media – not the science. I hope the feather analogy was humourous, to show the ridiculousness of it all.
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
That does not mean I reject the science that says I’m more likely to see a earthquake in my lifetime than my sister living in michigan.
===========================================================
SISO – silly in silly out
it also does not mean that the rest of the world should tip toe around either……..
Steve, the odds of predicting earthquakes is a good analogy for predicting global warming, neither ‘science’ can predict anything, both sciences are based on trends, and both sciences are playing the odds……that’s all.
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.
Steven Mosher says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:25 am
Bottom line, if I ask you what will the sea level be in 2100 you have the following choices:
1. Throw up your hands and say it can’t be calculated.
2. Run a bunch of GCMs and give a projection.
—
I choose #1 above, unless you happen know that the coupled, non-linear, partial differential equations and their boundary/initial conditions which “govern” the air-ocean-land climate physics are solvable (i.e. the problem is mathematically well-posed) and that the numerical discretizations and algorithms used to solve those equations are stable and don’t introduce appreciable truncation errors over the range of time scales considered in typical GCM runs.
I have no problem with scientists using GCMs as research tools, but unfortunately Steve, they are now using them as political tools, and the policies that will emerge from their advocacy will have a measurably negative impact on my life. And some are even using their work become publicity hounds and climate heroes, all while increasing their bank accounts at the expense of tax payers. I, for one, will pledge in 2011 to try to reign in the madness that climate science has become by advocating for smarter, cheaper, and more streamlined government climate research efforts commensurate with the (small) risks posed by “climate change,” and channeling the money saved into areas that will have a REAL impact on people’s lives…like cancer research, feeding and housing the poor, etc.
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?
Barry: 2nd word in your article should be corrected to ‘too’. [Fixed, thanx. ~dbs, mod]
@James Baldwin Sexton: ‘tenant’ should be corrected to ‘tenet’.
I’m sure there are many more. Nobody proofreads anymore.
@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
variables to calculate and some of those variable are unknown at this time.
Dave Springer says:
December 28, 2010 at 8:55 am
stephen richards says:
December 28, 2010 at 7:32 am
I have see the experiment done under medical supervision. You are asleep before there is any discomfort.
L. Hampton says:
December 28, 2010 at 7:04 am
Ric Werme says:
As RT noted, I changed to the effects of another trace gas. I was going to call it out better, but forgot in my haste to head out to work. My apologies for not being more clear.
People can handle several percent CO2 without much trouble. Usually in such environments O2 is depleted an equal amount. If you work with dry ice, (I did one summer), then not so much depletion.
Kay says:
December 28, 2010 at 7:50 am
Yes I did, and intentionally to show a close relative gas at similar concentrations could have a significant effect on something. I wouldn’t wash a hog with that, but whatever floats your boat. 🙂
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.
I mentioned economists/banking/computer modelling
This is an interesting comment, found again at Climate Etc
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/#comment-25862
“….One of my biggest surprises is to see people grant GCMs credibility in predicting the future. The ability to hindcast is not the same as the ability to predict. I once bought some expensive software to help me predict the stock market. It had lots of parameters and you could use any subset you chose to hindcast a particular stock or a market index on different timescales. I only needed three or four parameters to create a perfect hindcast. But it had no predictive value and I lost a ton of money. Any software that is “tunable,” as all GCMs are, have zero predictive value. I don’t understand why people do not see this. If validation and verification were done properly, GCMs would be extinct by now.”
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.
Pete Olson says:
December 28, 2010 at 11:14 am
Barry: 2nd word in your article should be corrected to ‘too’. [Fixed, thanx. ~dbs, mod]
@James Baldwin Sexton: ‘tenant’ should be corrected to ‘tenet’.
I’m sure there are many more. Nobody proofreads anymore.
=======================================================
Sure mod, fix your stuff and leave me hangin’!
[Reply: It wasn’t my stuff, it was a main article typo. My apologies for not fixing ‘tenet’ (now fixed). Correcting blog spelling is a Sysiphean task, which I try to do between approving comments when I have time. But there isn’t enough time in the world to fix every spelling error. Can you imagine trying to fix my friend UCLA English Professor Steve Mosher’s grammar and typos? Egad.☺ ~dbs]
Thanks Pete, the problem is, when we write a thought, often when we go back over what we just wrote, it simply appears like what we intended to write, not what we really wrote.
In spite of my heterographic difficulties, I’m hopeful that I was able to convey my meaning.
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.
One of my complaints about the wikipedia articles ran along a similar fashion. They tend not to explain the theory in full and focus on CO2. I believe this is done because that is what is shown on the news and taught in the schools – if you keep it simple then people can understand it and therefore believe it. It doesn’t matter if what they understand is wrong.
This is why the global warming articles don’t talk a lot of about the theoretical positive feedbacks and how the models rely on them. It complicates it, and people can begin to see the flaws in the hypothesis.
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
Rick Werme:
Bollocks. Those are ludicrous numbers. Indoor and household levels are typically over 600 ppm. People work longer than 4 hrs. in greenhouses at 1-3,000 ppm; miners work in as much as 35,000 ppm. Tends, until you are acclimatized, to cause a physiological deep breathing response because rise in blood CO2 is used by the body to determine oxygenation levels indirectly. So you might hyperventilate for a while.
So start to worry about “doubling” when we get to 25,000 ppm, ‘K?
[Reply] Check the difference between CO, carbon monoxide, and co2, carbon dioxide. RT-mod
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.
Rick Werme;
Looking at your figures, I think you’ve slipped a couple of decimal places. Those numbers would be about right if multiplied by 100.
Ulric Lyons says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:55 am
……….
I was surprised by closeness of figure you quoted 44.75 and what I came up with 44.83
since I used rounded year numbers, and even more by the resonance and temperature average periods. My calculations are based on geo-centric reference , I will eventually write a detailed description.
I don’t think AMO has constant periodicity, some different ideas here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
and
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NPG.htm
last graph on the webpage.
The comparison between the use of computers to model earthquakes and the use of computers to model the effect of co2 on the Earths atmosphere is not a good one .We have physical evidence that waves traveling through the Earth damage buildings independently of the models but that is not the case for climate models and co2,there is no physical evidence that co2 causes the Earths atmosphere to warm independently of the models.