Dr. James Hansen, NASA scientist, advocate, and protestor with a rap sheet released a new paper (non peer reviewed) on his website recently. A video report follows. The paper is titled:
Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications (click for PDF)
Here’s a portion of the abstract:
Improving observations of ocean temperature confirm that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. This energy imbalance provides fundamental verification of the dominant role of the human-made greenhouse effect in driving global climate change. Observed surface temperature change and ocean heat gain constrain the net climate forcing and ocean mixing rates. We conclude that most climate models mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean and as a result underestimate the negative forcing by human-made aerosols. Aerosol climate forcing today is inferred to be ‒1.6 ± 0.3 W/m2, implying substantial aerosol indirect climate forcing via cloud changes. Continued failure to quantify the specific origins of this large forcing is untenable, as knowledge of changing aerosol effects is needed to understand future climate change. A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols and a deep prolonged solar minimum. Observed sea level rise during the Argo float era can readily be accounted for by thermal expansion of the ocean and ice melt, but the ascendency of ice melt leads us to anticipate a near-term acceleration in the rate of sea level rise.
This line is rather odd:
A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…
Well I don’t know what he’s talking about, but the Pinatubo eruption happened in June 1991, and I doubt much aerosol remained after about 3 years. Maybe in his mind 15-20 years ago was “recent”? In 1999 the USGS report on Pinatubo said:
The aerosol cloud spread rapidly around the globe in about 3 weeks and attained global coverage 1 year after the eruption. The SO2 release was sufficient to generate over 25 Mt of sulfate aerosol, and peak local and regional midvisible optical depths of up to 0.4 were recorded. Global values after widespread dispersal and sedimentation of aerosol were about 0.1 to 0.15, with a residence time of over 2 years. This large aerosol cloud caused dramatic decreases in the amount of net radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.
So what’s Hansen thinking when he says “A recent decrease in ocean heat uptake was caused by a delayed rebound effect from Mount Pinatubo aerosols…” ?
But I digress. The good doctor is also talking again about sea level rise, saying that:
…we conclude that the rate of sea level rise is likely to accelerate during the next several years.
And then goes on to talk about Pinatubo aerosols again:
Reasons for that conclusion are as follows.
First, the contribution of thermal expansion to sea level is likely to increase above recent rates. The nearly constant rate of sea level rise since 1993 masks the fact that thermal expansion must have been less in the Argo era than in the prior decade, when ice melt was less but sea level rose 3 mm/year. Solar minimum and a diminishing Pinatubo rebound effect both contributed to a declining rate of thermal expansion during the past several years. But the Pinatubo effect is now essentially spent and solar irradiance change should now work in the opposite sense.
Well…not so sure about that. A recent analysis of tide gauge data published in the Journal of Coastal Research suggests that there’s been no hint of acceleration at all in the past 100 years:
The paper is currently in press at the Journal of Coastal Research and is provided with open access to the full publication. The results are stunning for their contradiction to AGW theories which suggest global warming would accelerate sea level rise during the last century. In fact, the data distribution seems to be slightly towards the deceleration side:
This seem like a perfect time to revisit this story that I did over a year ago that talked about a prediction posted in a salon.com interview where Dr. Hansen said that the “West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 years”. Well Hansen got upset with that report and called up the reporter and told him his memory was wrong, saying that it was actually 40 years.
Willis Eschenbach told me about the disagreement, and I updated the original story about three weeks ago to deal with the shift from 20 years to 40 years. See the corrected title:
The surprise? Even adding 20 years, Hansen’s prediction still doesn’t look promising. Here’s the new additions to that story from October 2009:
=============================================================
UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from Willis Eschenbach, there’s some developing news in that story from Dr. James Hansen. The Salon interviewee and book author, Rob Reiss that I quoted, now admits he somehow conflated 40 years with 20 years, and concedes that Dr. Hansen actually said 40 years for his prediction. However, as the newest analysis shows, it doesn’t make any difference, and we still aren’t seeing the magnitude of sea level rise predicted, now 23 years into it.
See the relevant excerpt below:
Michaels also has the facts wrong about a 1988 interview of me by Bob Reiss, in which Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount. Michaels has it as 20 years, not 40 years, with no mention of doubled CO2. Reiss verified this fact to me, but he later sent the message:
“I went back to my book and re-read the interview I had with you. I am embarrassed to say that although the book text is correct, in remembering our original conversation, during a casual phone interview with a Salon magazine reporter in 2001 I was off in years. What I asked you originally at your office window was for a prediction of what Broadway would look like in 40 years, not 20. But when I spoke to the Salon reporter 10 years later probably because I’d been watching the predictions come true, I remembered it as a 20 year question.“
Source: this update on Dr. Hansen’s personal web page at Columbia University.
In my [original] story, below, I quoted from Reiss here in the Salon interview.
So I’m happy to make the correction for Dr. Hansen in my original article, since Mr. Reiss reports on his original error in conflating 40 years with 20 years. But let’s look at how this changes the situation with forty years versus twenty.
Per Dr. Hansen’s prediction in 1988, now in 2011, 23 years later, we’re a bit over halfway there … so the sea level rise should be about halfway up the side of Manhattan Island by now.
How’s that going? Are the predictions coming true? Let’s find out. Let’s look at the tide gauge in New York and see what it says.
Here’s the PSMSL page http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/12.php
You can see the terrifying surge of acceleration in the sea level due to increasing GHGs in the 20th century. Willis downloaded and plotted the data to see what the slope looked like, and then plotted a linear average line.
Here it is overlaid with the Colorado satellite data. Note the rate of rise is unchanged:
And add to that, the recent peer reviewed paper from the Journal of Coastal Research that said: “worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years”
As of this update in March 2011, we’re 23 years into his prediction of the West Side Highway being underwater. From what I can measure in Google Earth, Dr. Hansen would need at least a ten foot rise in forty years to make his prediction work. See this image below from Google Earth where I placed the pointer over the West Side Highway, near the famous landmark and museum, the USS Intrepid:
According to Google Earth, the West Side Highway is 10 feet above sea level here – click to enlarge
The lat/lon should you wish to check yourself is: 40.764572° -73.998498°
Here’s a ground level view (via a tourist photo) so you can see the vertical distance from the roadway to the sea level on that day and tide condition. Sure looks like at least 10 feet to me.
Image from Panoramio
According to the actual data, after 23 years, we’ve seen about a 2.5 inch rise. There’ s still a very long way to go to ten feet to cover the West Side Highway there.
To reach the goal he predicted in 1988, Dr. Hansen needs to motivate the sea to do his bidding, he’s gonna have to kick it in gear and use a higher octane driver if he’s going to get there.
Thanks to Willis for the two graphs above.
Read the full story here: A little known 20 40 year old climate change prediction by Dr. James Hansen – that failed will likely fail badly
=============================================================
This story I did is also instructive:
Freaking out about NYC sea level rise is easy to do when you don’t pay attention to history
But while Dr. Hansen is looking for acceleration, the ensemble current plot of satellite measured sea level data seems to have a small hiccup in the last year:
click to enlarge – graph by Roman M – more hereAnd finally, to be fair, I want to show this video. Dr. Hansen produced a video where he briefed colleagues on his new paper, I present it here in full:
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Don K says:
April 21, 2011 at 11:11 pm
First of all Don K, It is my swamp! and if the evil climate fairy wants my swamp! she will first have to pry it from my cold dead bare hands…
🙂
Can anyone tell me how much of the “energy imbalance” between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation is a result of the fact that almost every dynamic system on earth, tectonics being the most obvious exception, is powered by this incoming solar radiation? How much of this energy is required to move countless billions of tons of water in ocean currents? How much is used to power almost the entire biosphere, excepting the communities around black smokers and bacteria in the crust etc.? To evaporate all the water to make all the rain? To form all the hurricanes , tornados not to mention mild zephyrs? I’ve often heard it said by CAGW proponents that this energy imbalance is exactly what the climate models suggest they should be to produced the expected warming (although quite a lot of this heat is apparently hiding somewhere in the oceans) but I’ve never been able to get an answer about how many W/m2 does the earth use up in the many various kinds of “work” it takes to make this a living planet.
Hansen said the West Side Highway would be underwater today. If it goes underwater within the next million years or so, will he have been proven right?
Woody, interesting question. It depends on what kind of energy source you are speaking of. Several sources of energy can be taken up by things that radiate a different version of that energy as well as things that use that energy up without anything left over. The part of solar output that is shortwave IR (a very good source of energy that penetrates into the ocean and other surfaces amazingly well) can be deflected without changes (like what happens when it hits snow). So I think your question pertains to just that part of solar output that is taken up by planet Earth. Because once it does, if there is any left over after being used for some purpose, the energy the things of Earth give off is no longer shortwave IR, but longwave IR. This form of energy is a weak sister, with very little ability to penetrate surfaces such that it can be “stored in the pipeline”.
Right now we have freeze warnings in my part of Oregon. Our LW infrawave energy is, right now, leaving for space at such speed I can almost hear the sucking sound. In its place are frosted fields of wheat. And this is happening even without the assistance of snow on the surface of those fields to also deflect shortwave. There is plenty of greenage to use up SW IR, but whatever LW is being given off ain’t sticking around.
Must get ready for work. Now where did I put my long johns and woolly socks.
“Woody says:
April 22, 2011 at 4:15 am
… I’ve never been able to get an answer about how many W/m2 does the earth use up in the many various kinds of “work” it takes to make this a living planet.”
You really need to talk to someone who didn’t detest thermodynamics in college, but I’ll give it a shot. I think you have two things confused. Energy differentials and heat. Energy differences can be used to power things. Processes like winds, evaporation, precipitation, ocean currents, photosynthesis, light bulbs, etc depend on energy differences. But even those that store heat for a while eventually give it up to friction. There are only a few ways that the planet can lose heat. It can radiate it. Or it can be used to launch mass into solar orbit or beyond–which is currently negligible (probably). Conceptually heat could be converted into mass, but no one thinks that is happening in any meaningful way.
If the Earth didn’t dump all the energy that it receives (plus an additional 0.1w/m2 that is created internally by radioactive decay and various frictions), it would just get hotter and hotter and hotter. In the short term, heat can be stored in warmer land and water, stronger currents and winds, etc. In the long and medium term, there has to be balance between incoming radiation plus that 0.1w/m2 and outgoing radiation. If there were not, Earth would have melted about 4 billion years ago and stayed molten ever since.
Its easy for Hansen to ask for $100mil from the “private sector”. They’ll do it the same way they’ve always asked for PS money. Ask the government to take it first. PS for BS…what could go wrong?
In support of the above, New Zealand has some compelling data : http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/04/sea-level-rise-is-normal-my-friends/
“A new analysis finds evidence of a weak deceleration in mean sea level rise in the Australasian region from 1940 to 2000 in four very long-term tide gauge records.”
Ocean Inertia
Heat in the Pipeline
1.67 Watts/Meter squared
Natural Forcing
Sun
Volcanos
Aerosols
Clouds
Climate Sensitivity
Slow Feedbacks
Thermal Inertia of the Ocean
Planetary Energy Imbalance
Ocean Heat Storage
Mt. P. caused a 20 year cooling, suppressing a rebound.
Did I miss anything else, I sort of slept through most of his lecture.
Scottish Sceptic says:
April 22, 2011 at 1:53 am
“Having read up on the history of science in the 19th-20th century I think Hansen et al are the second generation of the “sausage machine” science introduced post WWII. Basically science was no longer “Natural philosophy” which provided a full rounded education including the philosophical basis, but now it was a cut-down application of formulistic procedures and methods with no real understanding of what they mean nor any concept of their limitations. This was great for churning out “worker-drone” scientists to fill all the scientific companies that developed post WWII, but it was a complete disaster for climate “science”.”
Great post! Permit me to add a related point that is rather prosaic. Hansen, along with the rest of the Warmista, does not have the instincts of a scientist. I am willing to weaken that claim a bit and say that Hansen and others do not have the instincts of the scientists who have given us a legacy. Hansen is not interested in scientific explanation. He talks on forever about temperature measurements and such but never delves into explanations of them. His hand-waving about Pinatubo is an excellent example of his lack of interest in explanation. His lack of interest in explanation is coupled with a remarkable lack of modesty. He “knows” that his temperature measurements and forecasts of doom are correct despite the fact that he offers no explanation for either. Finally, the worst of his sins is that he is an antagonist in all matters scientific. He takes the position that in order to criticize him a critic must offer a better set of measurements. As the blogosphere and published articles reveal, this attitude has settled in many students influenced by Hansen. Yet science is criticism. When one puts forth data or a hypothesis, one invites rational criticism on factual, logical, or methodological grounds. Lacking the instincts of a scientist, if Hansen gives us a legacy it will be that of an advocate for his doom laden view of human activity.
Pamela Gray says:
April 22, 2011 at 6:44 am
“So I think your question pertains to just that part of solar output that is taken up by planet Earth. Because once it does, if there is any left over after being used for some purpose, the energy the things of Earth give off is no longer shortwave IR, but longwave IR. This form of energy is a weak sister, with very little ability to penetrate surfaces such that it can be “stored in the pipeline”.”
I think you have answered a question for me. You seem to be saying that LW radiation must return to space because it cannot penetrate surfaces on Earth. If this is true, maybe it explains why buildings in Manhattan’s financial district are not getting warmer indefinitely. I have this question because of the asymmetry between sunlight striking the buildings and radiation leaving the buildings. The asymmetry is that skyscrapers on an east-west street are illuminated all day by direct sunlight but the radiation that they release does not track back to the sun but hits the building next door. So, because the radiation is LW it bounces off the building next door and eventually escapes the canyon and is lost in space?
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750
Battery Park sea level. doesn’t seem to be any acceleration at all-just about constant velocity for many years past to present. Good luck with that 10 foot rise.
It appears James Hansen is unaware of the Svensmark, Shirav, and the late Gerald Bond’s work. The progress in resolving what truly causes ice epoches and the glacial/interglacial cycle and what are the implications of solar cycle 24 is stalled due to the AGW fan club efforts to reduce CO2 which is the basis for life on this planet. (We are carbon based life forms. Where does the carbon come from as there is only trace amount of carbon in the mantel? The late thin veneer theory?)
CO2 during the last interglacial was at the lowest levels in the history of the planet. There is evidence of CO2 starvation of plants on the planet. As atmospheric CO2 levels are reduced plants must increase the number of stomata on their leaves which causes them to loss increasing amounts of water. During the last glacial period roughly 2/3 of the Amazon forest was converted to grass land (savana) due to low levels of CO2.
Galactic cosmic rays are the driver of the ice epochs and the restart of the solar magnetic cycle is the driver of the current glacial/interglacial cycle.
The ice epochs coincide with periods when the solar system passes through the center of the galaxy’s plane at which time galactic cosmic rays increase by a factor of 5 to 7. The increase GCR causes an increase in planetary clouds which causes the planet to cool. In addition, the is a secondary effect that cause a reduction in CH4 that is outgassed from the core of the planet.
At each of the ice epoches, the planet’s temperature drops and then millions of years later atmospheric CO2 drops.
Deep ejection of CH4 from the planet’s core is evident in different geological formations that show an immense unexplained increase in C12. (C14 is created by C12 that is struck by GCR.) The deep earth carbon is mostly C12. Perhaps sometime I will write a post on the science of the development of the early atmosphere and the origin of oil/natural gas. That is an interesting subject.
Hansen’s lecture states that the glacial/interglacial cycle is caused by a few tenths of a watt changes in solar insolation that are caused by orbital changes.
In the paleoclimatic record there are immense cyclic rapid climate changes. The “Younger Dryas” is an example. The Younger Dryas was a 4C cooling period that occurred over 10 years. That is climate change. There is a immense reduction in C14 that coincides with the Younger Dryas. There is a geomagnetic excursion that coincides with the Younger Dryas.
Each of the past interglacial lasted for less than 10,000 years and all ended abruptly. What caused the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling caused the past interglacials to end. There has been 22 glacial/interglacial cycles.
Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?
http://www.juniata.edu/projects/oceans/GL111/celestialdriverofclimate.pdf
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/ClimateDebate/RahmReplyReply.pdf
Detailed Response to “Cosmic Rays, Carbon Dioxide and Climate” by Rahmstorf et al.
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/long-ice.pdf
The following is a link to Bond’s paper “Persistent Solar influence on the North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene”
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Excerpt from the above linked paper:
“A solar influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by our evidence could not have been confined to the North Atlantic. Indeed, pervious studies have tied increases in the C14 in tree rings, and hence reduced solar irradiance, to Holocene glacial advances in Scandinavia, expansions of the Holocene Polar Atmosphere circulation in Greenland; and abrupt cooling in the Netherlands about 2700 years ago…Well dated, high resolution measurements of O18 in stalagmite from Oman document five periods of reduced rainfall centered at times of strong solar minima at 6300, 7400, 8300, 9000, and 9500 years ago.”
Attached are additional two papers by Nir Shaviv:
The first provides an explanation for the faint sun paradox (Solar irradiation was roughly 30% less for a young sun. A reduction in irradiation of 30%, would have, all else being the same as current planetary conditions, meant all liquid water on the planet would have been frozen.) Shaviv’s hypothesis is the younger, faster rotating younger sun had a stronger solar wind and that the stronger solar wind shielded the earth from galactic cosmic rays, which other researchers in addition to Shaviv have shown affect the amount of low level clouds. Less clouds, warmer planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_sun_paradox
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0306477
The second paper by Shaviv provides data from examining iron meteoroids to determine the long term changes in GCR as the solar system moved in an out of the galactic arms. Shaviv makes a case that the ice epochs, correlate with GCR changes, and that the ice epochs were caused by changes in GCR.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0209252
Link: Reduced solar activity as a trigger for the start of the Younger Dryas?
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://dept.kent.edu/geography/GEC/Reduced_solar_activity_as_a_trig.pdf
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
According to the marine records, the Eemian interglacial ended with a rapid cooling event about 110,000 years ago (e.g., Imbrie et al., 1984; Martinson et al., 1987), which also shows up in ice cores and pollen records from across Eurasia. From a relatively high resolution core in the North Atlantic. Adkins et al. (1997) suggested that the final cooling event took less than 400 years, and it might have been much more rapid.
Following the end of the Eemian, a large number of other sudden changes and short-term warm and cold alternations have been recognized; apparently many or all of these occurred on a global or at least a regional scale (Fig.3; Ice core record). The most extreme of these fluctuations are the warm interstadials and the cold Heinrich events. These are most prominent in the ice-core record of Greenland, deep-sea cores from the North Atlantic, and in the pollen records of Europe and North America, suggesting that they were most intense in the North Atlantic region (e.g., Bond et al., 1992; 1993).
Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?
http://www.juniata.edu/projects/oceans/GL111/celestialdriverofclimate.pdf
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/ClimateDebate/RahmReplyReply.pdf
Detailed Response to “Cosmic Rays, Carbon Dioxide and Climate” by Rahmstorf et al.
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/long-ice.pdf
The following is a link to Bond’s paper “Persistent Solar influence on the North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene”
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Excerpt from the above linked paper:
“A solar influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by our evidence could not have been confined to the North Atlantic. Indeed, pervious studies have tied increases in the C14 in tree rings, and hence reduced solar irradiance, to Holocene glacial advances in Scandinavia, expansions of the Holocene Polar Atmosphere circulation in Greenland; and abrupt cooling in the Netherlands about 2700 years ago…Well dated, high resolution measurements of O18 in stalagmite from Oman document five periods of reduced rainfall centered at times of strong solar minima at 6300, 7400, 8300, 9000, and 9500 years ago.”
Attached are additional two papers by Nir Shaviv:
The first provides an explanation for the faint sun paradox (Solar irradiation was roughly 30% less for a young sun. A reduction in irradiation of 30%, would have, all else being the same as current planetary conditions, meant all liquid water on the planet would have been frozen.) Shaviv’s hypothesis is the younger, faster rotating younger sun had a stronger solar wind and that the stronger solar wind shielded the earth from galactic cosmic rays, which other researchers in addition to Shaviv have shown affect the amount of low level clouds. Less clouds, warmer planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_sun_paradox
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0306477
The second paper by Shaviv provides data from examining iron meteoroids to determine the long term changes in GCR as the solar system moved in an out of the galactic arms. Shaviv makes a case that the ice epochs, correlate with GCR changes, and that the ice epochs were caused by changes in GCR.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0209252
Link: Reduced solar activity as a trigger for the start of the Younger Dryas?
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://dept.kent.edu/geography/GEC/Reduced_solar_activity_as_a_trig.pdf
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
According to the marine records, the Eemian interglacial ended with a rapid cooling event about 110,000 years ago (e.g., Imbrie et al., 1984; Martinson et al., 1987), which also shows up in ice cores and pollen records from across Eurasia. From a relatively high resolution core in the North Atlantic. Adkins et al. (1997) suggested that the final cooling event took less than 400 years, and it might have been much more rapid.
Following the end of the Eemian, a large number of other sudden changes and short-term warm and cold alternations have been recognized; apparently many or all of these occurred on a global or at least a regional scale (Fig.3; Ice core record). The most extreme of these fluctuations are the warm interstadials and the cold Heinrich events. These are most prominent in the ice-core record of Greenland, deep-sea cores from the North Atlantic, and in the pollen records of Europe and North America, suggesting that they were most intense in the North Atlantic region (e.g., Bond et al., 1992; 1993).
It just hit me but the climate communist hippie paranormal science parade is nothing but a bunch of slug taking from that flushed away movie going aaahaaaahaaah one millimeter per minute and panzer pants alarmist whip wielding pansy shrieking master Hansen is at the fore front of the whole bunch. Question is though, is he going for the insane lead or is he just trying to be the first one to leave the sinking ship, alarmist style, again?
For those interested, I just published a post about Hansen et al (2011) that shows that Global Ocean Heat Uptake appears to be responses to Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Uptake, which would mean that ENSO is a significant component of Global Ocean Heat Uptake:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/notes-on-hansen-et-al-2011-earths-energy-imbalance-and-implications/
James Hansen notes in his lecture that the earth reaches temperature equilibrium in at most a few 100 years when atmospheric CO2 level changes, based on the IPCC computer models. As Hansen notes an energy imbalance is physically sustainable for at most a few 100 years, even with the very extreme theoretical IPCC models. (It is difficult for the IPCC models to explain the lack of warming.)
What Hansen does not explain, is the paleo climatic data does not support atmospheric CO2 as the primary driver of the planet’s climate. There are paper that discuss this fact.
In the geological past there was been periods of millions of years when CO2 levels have been high and the planet has been cold and periods when the planet has been warm when CO2 levels have drop. Multiple periods of millions of years during at which time there is no correlation between climate and atmospheric CO2 levels are explained by the planet’s response to a change in forcing being strongly negative.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years, Daniel H. Rothman
See figure 4 in Rothman’s paper that shows past ice epochs and the atmospheric CO2 levels. Note CO2 levels for most of the geological past has been between 1000 ppm to 2000 ppm.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167/F4.expansion.html
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/eemartin/GLY6075F10/papers/Kump%2702.pdf
Kump wrote this paper to attempt to bolster the extreme AGW theory in face of obvious observational evidence that disproves the theory. He acknowledges that atmospheric CO2 levels do not correlate with planetary temperature, but notes after the planet cools (millions of years after) CO2 levels drop. (There is by the way no explanation as to why a cooling planet cause the atmospheric CO2 levels to drop.)
Reducing uncertainty about carbon dioxide as a climate driver
Mismatches in the CO2–climate relation
Despite these successes in linking variations in greenhouse gas concentrations to climate change in the geologic past, the oxygen isotope palaeotemperature record from 600 Myr ago to the present displays notable intervals for which inferred temperatures and pCO2 levels are not correlated1. One of these occurred during the early to middle Miocene (about 17 Myr ago), a time well established as a warm interval (relative to today), but with proxy evidence for low atmospheric pCO2 (ref. 2). Moreover, whereas climate models predict tropical warming in response to elevated pCO2, geologic data — in particularly the oxygen isotope record — indicate muted warming or even cooling at low latitudes while higher latitudes warm (the ‘cool tropics paradox’10–11).
The ice epochs are cyclic. The hypothesis that CO2 is the main driver of climate can not explain the ice epochs periodicity. (i.e. What could cause CO2 to change cyclically? The CO2 hypothesis has CO2 levels change due to long term increases of decreases in planetary volcanism for some unexplained reason.)
The alternative hypothesis (which is discussed in dozen of published papers) is that planetary climate is modulated by changes in the magnitude and the intensity of galactic cosmic rays which occur as the solar system moves in and out of the center plane of the milky galaxy. Nir Shaviv has been able to show the timing of large GCR changes matches the timing of the occurrence of the ice epochs by analyzing the isotopes in meteorites.
Nir J. Shaviv
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/Ice-ages/GSAToday.pdf
Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?
We find that at least 66% of the variance in the paleotemperature trend could be attributed to CRF variations
likely due to solar system passages through the spiral arms of the galaxy. Assuming that the entire residual variance in temperature is due solely to the CO2 greenhouse effect, we propose a tentative upper limit to the long-term “equilibrium” warming effect of CO2, one which is potentially lower than that based on general
circulation models.
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/ClimateDebate/RahmReply/RahmReply.html
“RECONSTRUCTING COSMIC RAY FLUXES —The starting point of SV03 is a reconstruction of cosmic ray fluxes over the past 1,000 Myr based on 50 iron meteorites and a simple model estimating cosmic ray flux (CRF) induced by the Earth’s passage through Galactic spiral arms ([Shaviv, 2002; Shaviv, 2003]). About 20 of the meteorites, making four clusters, date from the past 520 Myr, the time span analysed in SV03. The meteorites are dated by analysing isotopic changes in their matter due to cosmic ray exposure (CRE dating [Eugster, 2003]). An apparent age clustering of these meteorites is then interpreted not as a collision-related clustering in their real ages but as an indication of fluctuations in cosmic ray flux (CRF). One difficulty with this interpretation is that variations in CRF intensity would equally affect all types of meteorites. Instead, the ages of different types of iron meteorites cluster at different times [Wieler, 2002]. Hence, most specialists on meteorite CRE ages interpret the clusters as the result of collision processes of parent bodies, as they do for stony meteorites (ages _ 130 Myr) to which more than one dating method can be applied.”
[snip – while I disagree with Hansen’s views, let’s leave the ad hom comments about his appearance out of this discussion – Anthony]
William says: April 23, 2011 at 4:00 pm
(There is by the way no explanation as to why a cooling planet cause the atmospheric CO2 levels to drop.)
Supposedly, colder water holds more CO2 than warm, thus the outgassing and increase in CO2 levels when it warms.
NASA’s Hansen thinks sea level rise will be accelerating – I think not, offering a new paper and updated story on Hansen to show why | Watts Up With That? . LOL, awesome dude.
“As of this update in March 2011, we’re 23 years into his prediction of the West Side Highway being underwater. From what I can measure in Google Earth, Dr. Hansen would need at least a ten foot rise in forty years to make his prediction work.”
No that it matters much, but I think there might be a problem with the difference between Mean Sea Level and Maximum High Water. The latter (plus storm surge perhaps) is the parameter that governs potential flooding of 12th Avenue.
But I don’t think the actual rise of 4 inches in 40 years (plus or minus any local tectonic affects) is going to flood the West Side Highway. And having actually been in that part of NYC in the past year, I think 10 feet is probably an underestimate of the required sea level rise. BTW, many of the world’s most important airports including JFK aren’t much more than 10 feet above msl.