Guest post by Joe Bastardi, WeatherBell
With the coming Gorathon to save the planet around the corner ( Sept 14) , my stance on the AGW issue has been drawing more ire from those seeking to silence people like me that question their issue and plans. In response, I want the objective reader to hear more about my arguments made in a a brief interview on FOX News as to why I conclude CO2 is not causing changes of climate and the recent flurry of extremes of our planet. I brought up the First Law of Thermodynamics and LeChateliers principle.
The first law of thermodynamics is often called the Law of Conservation of Energy. This law suggests that energy can be transferred in many forms but can not be created or destroyed.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume those that believe CO2 is adding energy to the system are correct. Okay, how much? We have a gas that is .04% of the atmosphere that increases 1.5 ppm yearly and humans contribute 3-5% of that total yearly, which means the increase by humans is 1 part per 20 million. In a debate, someone argued just because it is small doesn’t mean it is not important. After all even a drop with 0.042 gm of arsenic could kill an adult. Yes but put the same drop in the ocean or a reservoir and no one dies or gets ill.
Then there is the energy budget. The amount of heat energy in the atmosphere is dwarfed by the energy in y the oceans. Trying to measure the changes from a trace gas in the atmosphere, if it were shown to definitively play a role in change (and it never has), is a daunting task.
NASA satellites suggest that the heat the models say is trapped, is really escaping to space, that the ‘sensitivity’ of the atmosphere to CO2 is low and the model assumed positive feedbacks of water vapor and clouds are really negative. Even IPCC Lead Author Kevin Trenberth said “Climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is…the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
We are told that the warming in the period of warming from 1800 was evidence of man-made global warming. They especially point to the warming from 1977 to 1998 which was shown by all measures and the fact that CO2 rose during those two decades. And we hear that this warming has to be man-made with statements like “what else could it be?”
However, correlation does not mean causation. Indeed inconveniently despite efforts to minimize or ignore it, the earth cooled from the 1940s to the late 1970s and warming ceased after 1998, even as CO2 rose at a steady pace. Some have been forced to admit some natural factors may play a role in this periodic cooling. If that is the case, why could these same natural factors play a key role in the warming periods too.
Ah, but here is where the 1st law works just fine. After a prolonged period of LACK OF SUNSPOT ACTIVITY, the world was quite cold around 1800. The ramping up of solar activity after 1800 to the grand maximum in the late twentieth century could be argued as the ultimate cause of any warming through the introduction of extra energy into the oceans, land and then the atmosphere.
The model projections that the warming would be accelerating due to CO2 build up are failing since the earth’s temps have leveled off the past 15 years while CO2 has continued to rise.
Then there is a little matter of real world observation of how work done affects the system it is being done on. When one pushes an empty cart and then stops pushing, the cart keeps moving until the work done on it is dissipated. How is it, that the earth’s temperature has leveled off, if CO2, the alleged warming driver continues to rise?
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper. These use real world observations not tinker toy models nor an 186 year old theory that has never been validated.
Finally, as to the matter of LeChateliers principle. The earth is always in a state of imbalance and weather is the way the imbalances are corrected in the atmosphere. Extreme weather occurs when factors that increase imbalances are occurring. The extremes represent an attempt to return to a state of equilibrium.
The recent flurry of severe weather – for instance, record cold and snow, floods, tornadoes,, is much more likely to be a sign of cooling rather than warming. The observational data shows the earth’s mid levels have cooled dramatically and ocean heat content and atmospheric temperatures have been stable or declined. Cooling atmospheres are more unstable and produce greater contrasts and these contrasts drive storms, storms drive severe weather. A warmer earth produces a climate optimum with less extremes as we enjoyed in the late 20th century and other time in history when the great civilizations flourished.
Time will provide the answer. Over the next few decades, with the solar cycles and now the oceanic cycles changing towards states that favor cooling, there should be a drop in global temperatures as measured by objective satellite measurement, at least back to the levels they were in the 1970s, when we first started measuring them via an objective source. If temperatures warm despite these natural cycles, you carry the day. We won’t have to wait the full 20-30 year period. I believe we will have our answer before this decade is done.
UPDATE: I’m told that a follow up post – more technically oriented will follow sometime next week. Readers please note that the opinion expressed here is that of Mr. Bastardi, at his request. While you may or may not agree with it, discuss it without resorting to personal attacks as we so often see from the Romm’s and Tamino’s of the nether climate world. Also, about 3 hours after the original post, I added 3 graphics from Joe which should have been in the original, apologies. – Anthony
Chris Colose says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm
This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.
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Well, now that you announced it the world, I fear your test has been corrupted.
Maybe next time.
Chris Colose says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm
“This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.”
Your sentence is incoherent. Being skeptical of one’s own skepticism? Is that like a double negative? Are you asking if WUWT readers will be skeptical of the skeptical position that they take toward science, especially climate science? What does that mean?
Whatever you mean, Mr. Bastardi is not a good choice to test our skepticism. For several years now, skeptical discussion of climate science, CAGW, and Warmista has been far deeper, broader, and more ramified than the points made by Mr. Bastardi.
By the way, ‘skeptical’ is the Brit spelling while ‘sceptical’ is the American spelling.
Wow! So you’re saying there’s still a chance. For the simple common sense approach?
Dear mr. Bastardi,
Keep spreading the word. co2-levels follow semperature and cooling is expected. Do you think we may even see a decline or levelling of of Co2-levels?
Kind regards,
Scarface
In the end there is a simple test. Why cant all you folks that get your kicks out of chipping away at arguments to hide this reality see that. Temps are supposed to be rising, they are not! Co2 is rising. If the earths temperature cools the next 20 to 30 years, then its not co2. As it is what is so darn hard about using observational data that shows that the co2 is going up, the temps have leveled off ,and the resulting hypothesis that it is not co2! This can be tested since the major drivers of solar and natural cyclical cooling of the oceans can now be tested against the temperatures. Just what do you have to see, to see you are wrong? Please tell us all so we now what we can hold YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR, since my side is getting blamed for every disaster that is occurring. That is what is maddening. You chop apart all I say, say I am wrong, yet I have the test to prove right or wrong that you cant and wont accept. The fact is the ideas I have used are simple and basic in concept.. we all know they are much more complex when put into a classroom situation. But that is the darn problem. Alot of you think this is a darn classroom, and its not. And because of that, the simple message of the concepts is the best, without having to write thesis on it. Though if that is the way you get paid, of course that is the field you wish to fight on. Fine. But alot of us that are out there making forecasts every day live in the real world of the weather and understand a heck of alot more about bottom lines than what people who theorize, but never actually do, understand. There are bottom lines when taking a stand.
You and I cant run away from the truth. Global temps have leveled off. CO2 is rising. If the temps fall back to where they were in the 70s at the start of the satellite era, will you admit you are wrong or not? I will admit I am wrong if it rises, but all I hear is chopping of this and that to hide the fact YOU ARE BUSTING AND HAVE BEEN FOR 15 YEARS NOW and trying to drive an agenda down the throat of the American people while doing it.
But is there anything that can happen, that you will admit you are wrong on. Of course not, because of the holier than thou attitude of many of the AGW crowd. Never wrong about anything. Its always something caused by someone who disagrees with them.
Perhaps if your livelihood depending on whether you were right and wrong and people paid you for the actual result you would understand. Anyone 15 years ago, predicting the earth would be as warm as all the IPCC projections would not be getting paid a thing now, because they were plainly wrong. Yet I dont get a nickel for sticking my neck out on this issue ( contrary to the nonsense that is printed about guys like me being in the pocket of this group or that), except fighting for what I believe is the right answer. Thats my agenda, get it right. And if I am right, then people will remember who fought for what was right, and who simply just swam with the tide because it seemed convenient and everyone else was doing it, and making a buck off it at that. Its That simple. Its just a big weather forecast to me, and I am sorry if that insults the intelligence of those who want it to be something that is so complex, so tough, that no one else need apply but those intelligent enough to understand that they know better than everyone else, and because of that are entitled to force everyone else to their position. Which in reality, is what this is all about.
So to all my detractors, will you actually admit you are wrong if the temps stay steady or fall? Or will you find yet another way to attack people that dare question your authority. You know hide behind the shield of “natural variability” saying it could account for this. Yet where were you with that forecast 15 years ago, or 20, when this hysteria started building. How do you know the natural variability wont, because of the sunspot cycles, return us to where we were 200 years ago. What will you say then after panicking the entire planet? You are currently BUSTING, and busting bad with the forecast as the Hadley Center records show, and people have every right to offer their ideas before you drive us all off a cliff that turns back progress and thwarts improvements that dealing with reality, not fantasy or virtual climate, can lead to for all of us.
That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
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The ice core data tell us how things behaved a few thousand years ago. They do not tell us that things behave in the same way now. We are well on the way to consuming a significant fraction of the coal deposits that took 100 millions or so to accumulate. Therefore it is well worth considering that the rules of the game have changed.
The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.
Oh dear me, Matt.
I expect that Mr. Bastardi has taken more physics courses than you have.
Your ‘simple’ back-of-the-envelope calculation needs some huge simplifying assumptions. One such is that each CO2 molecule almost immediately transfers its absorbed energy to the adjoining molecules of other gases in the atmosphere. Otherwise, the CO2 saturates and no extra energy is absorbed.
Actually, now that I think about it, your simple equation probably assumes that all energy is absorbed at a certain wavelength. Using that particular equation means that the concentration of CO2 doesn’t matter.
The calculation that correctly models the back radiation produced by CO2 is anything but simple. You could, of course, prove me wrong by producing what you think to be the relevant simple back-of-the-envelope equation that you think Mr. Bastardi doesn’t understand. I’m waiting (but I’m not holding my breath). While you’re at it, tell us all what simplifying assumptions your equation relies on, just to prove that you know what you’re talking about.
yes, Matt, lets see your equation, you say its simple and can be ( evidently ) written on the back of an envelope ( business ) !
please post it now.
Last comment.
Someone is right and someone is wrong. The coming years will show that, and its that simple. A bottom line. But the amount of effort trying to squelch the chance to even see what right and wrong is, when right now my side of the argument is carrying the day, should raise suspicions among any fair minded individual interested in this debate.
Let reality decide what was right and wrong. That is fine with me, but one has to wonder if its something many on the other side wish to avoid, given their insistence that the issue is settled.
You have eyes, you be the judge
LazyTeenager says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:50 pm
The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.
Which could be due to increases in oceanic vulcanism.
Isn’t it interesting that you make only a half hearted attempt to understand the situation. As soon as you can think of a potential problem with a thesis you stop thinking. Pretty much SOP for warmists.
None of us really knows and it’s that uncertainty that SHOULD keep true scientists on their toes. Not so much for lazy teens.
commieBob says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
The calculation that correctly models the back radiation produced by CO2 is anything but simple. You could, of course, prove me wrong by producing what you think to be the relevant simple back-of-the-envelope equation that you think Mr. Bastardi doesn’t understand. I’m waiting (but I’m not holding my breath). While you’re at it, tell us all what simplifying assumptions your equation relies on, just to prove that you know what you’re talking about.
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You beat me to it cB. So …… Matt, back-of-the-envelope, eh ??
That should not take too long to type (or cut and paste), or even link to an Imageshack jpg of the back of your envelope.
While you’re at it, could you do another envelope back that takes into account tropical humidity ??
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:36 pm
OK, sweetheart, you asked for it. I dare you to produce one reasonably well confirmed physical hypothesis about forcings such as cloud formation created by Warmista. You cannot do it. Warmista have none and do not care to research them. Warmista are locked within their Radiation Only Gaia Models.
I’d also like to see this simple back of the envelope equation please.
Matt said;
“CO2 driven climate change (natural and otherwise) does not contradict the first law of thermodynamics. Warming of the earth from increased greenhouse gases is just a trapping of more thermal energy from the sun. This is not the creation of energy.”
Well, in fact some descriptions of the “AGW” effect that describe it in terms of “net energy gains”, “extra energy”, or “energy amplification” do indeed VIOLATE the first law of thermodynamics.
Also, in fact this whole terminology of “trapping heat” is currently, has been and always will be a VIOLATION of the laws of thermodynamics. It is impossible to trap heat…………… If I could “trap” heat I would be the wealthiest person in the history of the world (for reasons that those with just a superficial understanding of the laws of thermodynamics will probably NEVER understand).
Matt also wrote;
“It is just a change in the (“direction of the” (clarification suggested by this author)) flow of energy.”
Agreed, the “GHGs” do indeed redirect a VERY SMALL portion of the IR energy attempting to leave the Earth so that it takes another trip (or maybe ten more trips) though the atmosphere. Each time the energy is redirected something more than 50% is lost to space (fixed by the geometry of a sphere). So after as few as 10 “re-directions” the energy becomes much less than 1% of the departing energy. Does the term “diminishing returns” strike a bell here at all?
Each time the energy is redirected it travels as IR radiation at the speed of light (quite speedy last time I checked). So yes the “Greenhouse Effect” does indeed slow the flow of energy through the system, but due to the speeds involved it is only capable of delaying the release of heat by something like a few milliseconds to maybe a few hundred milliseconds. For a “higher equilibrium” temperature to result the delay must be greater than the period of the arriving energy (i.e. once every 24 hours (at the equator)).
A good analogy of this is the concept of “banking” your campfire at night so some of the coals are still warm enough to restart your campfire the next morning. The “GHE” shows no capacity to accomplish this feat. For reference each day contains ~86 million milliseconds, so a delay of tens/hundreds/thousands or even millions of milliseconds is not going to affect anything.
The “GHE” only changes the response time (how long it takes for the temperature to change after the energy input changes (i.e. sunrise and sunset)) of the gases in the atmosphere.
Please note that is is totally separate from the observations that higher average temperatures of the Earth are postulated to cause higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, both effects can indeed occur in parallel without any significant causation being involved.
Although Mr. Bastardi has arrived at his conclusions via a different path than the one I took, I concur.
Cheers, Kevin.
Actually, LeChatlier’s principle states that as you add CO2 to the atmosphere, the equilibrium reaction between the CO2 in the air and the CO2 dissolved in the water goes in the direction to reduce the amount initially added, thus the CO2 continues to dissolve into the oceans, and the oceans are a sink for the CO2 produced from the burning of fossil fuels.
Joe B has accountability. He sells long-term weather forecasts. If he is less accurate than the free service there is no point in paying him. The same cannot be said for all participants in the debate.
I would like to ask a serious question. I have asked a few times before, but with no responses. This is a real question. I am not trying to be a pain.
It seams to me that the contribution of CO2 to forcing is logarithmic to the the total forcing of all greenhouse gasses. That is give:
atmosphere A) with x PPM CO2 and y PPM of CH4, and
atmosphere B) with x PPM CO2 and 2y PPM of CH4,
the change in forcing from doubling the CO2 in A would be greater then the change in forcing from doubling the CO2 in B.
Is this correct?
I tend to agree with Joe Bastardi’s premise that reality will show us the way, regardless of why it did so. Of course he has not simply pulled this view out of the air. And I have done some of my own regional studies of temperature in New Mexico and can see a 60 year cooling and heating trend over a period of about 140 years (PDO related?). We are now well into the cooling trend of that cycle so the next 10 to 20 years will show us whether this is a recurring natural cycle or not. My money is on Mr. Bastardi but maybe we are both wrong.
Scientifically, in my personal research, I have found that the significant gas is H20 (clouds and humidity) but that is a long and torturous academic battle with some specific data still missing. Mr. Bastardi has mostly circumvented this battle in his posting. So with the challenge posed and with what I have learned over the past several years, I would expect that he and I will win the argument. The other side is betting billions and ultimately trillions of $ of our money on their certainty that they will win the argument. I would not be so bold.
Bernie
Joe, let me just say that 100’s of us support you and are huge fans of your openness, transparency, and courage to actually make a falsifiable hypothesis. I don’t know who is right – I do have my opinion at this point, but I can say one thing for certain: I trust you way more than any of the big names on the CAGW side of things.
_MichaelM
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
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C’mon Joe, you can’t honestly believe this, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels? I mean, it’s one thing to suggest that the Earth’s global temperature may not be as sensitive to the rise in CO2 as some would suggest, and I might even agree with that, but it is another thing entirely to suggest that human activity has not been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.
For the past 800,000 years, as Milankovitch cycles have come and gone, we know that increased NH summer insolation sets off a series of positive feedback loops, one of which includes the outgassing of CO2 from the oceans, which in turns causes more warmth etc. But in all these 800,000 years or more, during interglacials, many of which were warmer than our current interglacial, CO2 never got over 300 ppm at the very most. Now we’re approaching 400 ppm in this interglacial. Gosh, what could the difference be? It is not that this interglacial is warmer than the others, but rather, that one particular species has found a way to release even more ancient carbon stored in fossil fuels. Humans are the difference this time Joe, not warmer oceans. The net cause of the rise in CO2 beyond what is typical in an interglacial is the human release of that carbon through the burning of fossil fuels.
Agreed wholeheartedly with MichaelM
Damn straight!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Scarface says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Dear mr. Bastardi,
Keep spreading the word. co2-levels follow semperature and cooling is expected. Do you think we may even see a decline or levelling of of Co2-levels?
Kind regards,
Scarface
____
Not likely Scarface. The rise in CO2 beyond what is typical for an interglacial period has not been due to warmer temps, but the release of billions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. This interglacial is different in 2 significant respects from past interglacials over the past 800,000 years:
1) CO2 levels are higher
2) A species has learned how to release billions of tons of CO2 from fossil fuels.
Give ’em hell, Joe ! And I fully agree with you, let’s just see what happens in the next 10 years or so ( . . . or maybe less . . !) with the sun, the PDO/AMO and other ocean cycles.
R. Gates says….
“….perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying.”
You should start all your posts with that gem.
Where’s Matt and his equation?
Can’t find any envelopes on a Friday night…..?