by J Storrs Hall
In my previous post, I argued that sea-surface temperatures hadn’t shown an inflection in the mid-twentieth century, and that the post-50’s rise was essently a land-based phenomenon. To take the analysis further, I thought I could try to find just what the climate signal from CO2 was. The method is to find a fit to the temperature record that included the CO2 forcing signature as a component, and see how big its contribution was compared to the other components of the fit.
First, the CO2. To get a curve since 1850, I got the estimated emissions from here, integrated for accumulation, scaled by matching to the Mauna Loa measured CO2 (red), and took the log for forcing. (No arguments, please; this is the bog-standard story. Let’s assume it’s true for the sake of argument.)
There’s clearly a knee in the curve ca. 1960. Also note that it’s been essentially straight since the 70’s — it’s the log of an exponential.
For components of the fit function, I used a cosine to capture the cyclicity we already know is in the record, a quadratic, and the forcing curve. I had used a second cosine before, and we know it produced two inflections in the result. The quadratic can only produce one, so the forcing curve has a better chance of matching the other one.
The idea is to find the overall best match and then look at the components to see how big the signal from the forcing is in comparison with the other components, which we will assume represent natural variability. We’ll plot each curve with the amplitude the optimizer gives it. Here’s what we get:
The blue line is the overall fit. Cyan is the 61-year oscillation, as before. No surprises here. Magenta is the quadratic, looking a lot like the sinusoid of the previous fit. Red is the CO2 forcing.
The CO2 forcing is upside down.
I gave the optimizer an initial guess for the forcing coefficient of 1; it came back with -1.67. This was, frankly, unexpected. I had seriously thought I would find some warming contribution from the forcing component.
So what on earth is going on? Here’s what we get if we add just the quadratic and the forcing curve:
For comparison, I’ve also plotted the second sinusoid from last time (green). It seems that the secular trend that the optimizer really, really wants is the shape of a Nike swoosh. If given only a quadratic to work with, it has to subtract the forcing curve to straighten out the twentieth-century rise. And it really, really wants the knee of the curve to be in 1890.
Does this mean that CO2 is actually producing a cooling effect? Absolutely not. It simply means that the secular rise in the twentieth century was a straight line, and the fit would do whatever it took to produce that shape. (This is why Pat Frank’s linear fit worked so well. As he noted, the linearity of sea-level rise would tend to confirm this.) What it does mean, though, is that there is no discernable CO2 warming signal in the HadSST temperature record. The (very real) twentieth century warming trend appears to have started about the time Sherlock Holmes was investigating the Red-Headed League.
@HenryP
I have no financial interest in AGW in any way, other than in the ways that we all do. My interest in the subject is as a rational, science-literate individual, whose last foray into online forums was arguing with creationists.
I wish you well with your study. If it amounts to anything, publish it. I’m serious, that is how real science is done.
John
Thanks John.
I am not interested in publishing as this is just a hobby of mine. One must have hobbies to fill in some of the “dead” times in your life….
If someone wants to pay me for it or if it becomes “work” again, I will re-consider this.
Maybe you should read my book, “Jesus is God”.
You will find a link somewhere to this book in this letter:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/open-letter-to-radio-702
God bless you.
Henry
BTW, John, if you are interested to know as to why you won’t see me anymore on any of the other “forums”:
it is because they kept on erasing my responses if they did not like the truth as I saw it,
– or even if one goes slightly off topic – like here
just because the conversation leads us that way.
I don’t want to spend my time to type an answer only to find it censored or removed the next day or week/
God bless Anthony Watts & Co for free speech and all of that!!!
Dave Springer,
Antarctica is about as far from major anthropogenic sources as you can get and would be expected to have fewer spikes. There are more spikes in the early flask data for the South Pole (C-130 taking off ?). Look at Grifton NC that is 7km North East from a coal fired power plant and observe the spikes when the wind is blowing from the South West. There are a lot of coal fired power plants in NC but the monthly averages there are not significantly different from any other stations at the same latitude.
Dave,
The URL is http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/catalogue.cgi?category=Stationary&map=world_map&mposi=?511,92. The MET data can be obtained from the Kinston, NC airport.
Smokey says:
June 10, 2011 at 7:59 am
“The test apparatus used has been replicated and validated.”
Yup, they have. And the exercise revealed that the chemical CO2 test results prior to 1950 cannot be repeated.
Experimental repeatibility is a cornerstone of science. If the experimental apparatus and methods used prior to 1950 show different results to what is obtained today then the previous experiments are impeached by lack of repeatibility. The results today are definitely different. Neither chemical nor electronic CO2 measurements in well-mixed atmosphere today can replicate the fluctuation in the pre-1950 experimental results. If you’re adhering to the tenets of the scientific method then you have no choice but to throw out the data obtained by unreplicable experiments. Either that or you can impeach the post-1950’s measurements (not much possibility of that) or you can explain why the nature of CO2 in the atmosphere radically changed circa 1950 such that the pre and post 1950 experimental data are accurate.
So far you have done nothing in the way of impeaching post-1950’s measurements nor offered any explanation of why the nature of CO2 in the atmosphere changed. Given that I can’t do either of those things I’m left with no choice but to follow the scientific method and throw out results obtained from unrepeatable experiments. Given how easy it is to spoil a flask experiment with contaminated samples, non-representative samples, and/or contaminated reagents it shouldn’t be so difficult to accept the conclusion that CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere and doesn’t vary radically or quickly at any reasonable distance from active sources and sinks.
Fred H. Haynie says:
June 10, 2011 at 11:04 am
“Dave Springer,
Antarctica is about as far from major anthropogenic sources as you can get and would be expected to have fewer spikes. There are more spikes in the early flask data for the South Pole (C-130 taking off ?). Look at Grifton NC that is 7km North East from a coal fired power plant and observe the spikes when the wind is blowing from the South West. There are a lot of coal fired power plants in NC but the monthly averages there are not significantly different from any other stations at the same latitude.”
This just seems to confirm what I already knew. Once you get away from active CO2 sources and sinks near the surface the spikes dissappear and you get consistent readings from samples obtained many thousands of miles apart in different hemispheres. There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that Beck’s survey of past flask data includes local fluctuations not representative of well mixed atmosphere, samples contaminated by a stray breath exhaled air, and/or contaminated reagents. Under carefully performed flask experiments today in well-mixed atmosphere the fluctuations observed in the past cannot be replicated. The lack of replicability cannot be ignored without abandoning adherence to the scientific method.
Dave Springer,
I’m not sure I follow your post. Are you saying that the same measurement apparatus that has shown to be accurate to within ±3% when compared with current instrumental CO2 readings did not hold in the 1800’s?
There were over 90,000 CO2 readings taken, and as Beck et. al show, the vast majority were in very close agreement. Now, I understand that there is a question of why current readings do not show spikes like the ones in the early 1800’s and in the 1940’s. But I reject the likelihood that almost every measurement showed a spurious reading, all in the same direction and with the same amplitude.
Those readings were taken during mid-ocean crossings from the Arctic and Antarctic to the tropics; on mountaintops, on isolated shorelines, etc. They were taken by numerous internationally esteemed scientists and Nobel laureates who cared greatly about their reputations, and who knew that their work would be scrutinized by their peers. And their independent results are in close agreement with each other.
There is a dilemma here, but that certainly does not mean the measurements taken by those scientists were wrong. The question is, why were there spikes from a 280 ppmv baseline, and why are there not similar spikes from a 390 ppmv baseline?