By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
My commentary written for Remote Sensing on the empirical determination of climate sensitivity, published by the splendid Anthony Watts some days ago, has aroused a great deal of interest among his multitudes of readers. It is circulating among climate scientists on both sides of the debate. Several of Anthony’s readers have taken the trouble to make some helpful comments. Since some of these are buried among the usual debates between trolls on how awful I am, and others were kindly communicated privately, I have asked Anthony to allow me, first and foremost, to thank those readers who have been constructive with their comments, and to allow his readers the chance to share the comments I have received.
Joel Shore pointed out that Schwartz, whose paper of 2007 I had cited as finding climate sensitivity to be ~1 K, wrote a second paper in 2008 finding it close to 2 K. Shore assumed I had seen but suppressed the second paper. By now, most of Anthony’s readers will perhaps think less ungenerously of me than that. The new .pdf version of the commentary, available from Anthony’s website (here), omits both Schwartz papers: but they will be included in a fuller version of the argument in due course, along with other papers which use observation and measurement, rather than mere modeling, to determine climate sensitivity.
Professor Michael Asten of Monash University helpfully provided a proper reference in the reviewed literature for Christopher Scotese’s 1999 paper reconstructing mean global surface temperatures from the Cambrian Era to the present. This, too, has been incorporated into the new .pdf.
Professor Asten also supplied a copy of a paper by David Douglass and John Christy, published in that vital outlet for truth Energy & Environment in 2009, and concluding on the basis of recent temperature trends that feedbacks were not likely to be net-positive, implying climate sensitivity ~1 K. I shall certainly be including that paper and several others in the final version of the full-length paper that underlies the commentary published by Anthony. This paper is now in draft and I should be happy to send it to any interested reader who emails monckton@mail.com.
A regular critic, Lucia Liljegren was, as all too often before, eager to attack my calculations – she erred in publishing a denial that I sent her a reference that I can prove she received; and not factually accurate in blogging that “Monckton’s” Planck parameter was “pulled out of a hat” when I had shown her that in my commentary I had accepted the IPCC’s value as correct. She was misleading her readers in not telling them that the “out-of-a-hat” relationship she complains of is one which Kiehl and Trenberth (1997) had assumed, with a small variation (their implicit λ0 is 0.18 rather than the 0.15 I derived from their paper via Kimoto, 2009); and selective in not passing on that I had told her they were wrong to assume that a blackbody relationship between flux and temperature holds at the surface (if it did, as my commentary said, it would imply a climate sensitivity ~1 K).
A troll (commenter on WUWT) said I had “fabricated” the forcing function for CO2. When I pointed out that I had obtained it from Myhre et al. (1998), cited with approval in IPCC (2001, 2007), he whined at being called a troll (so don’t accuse me of “fabricating” stuff, then, particularly when I have taken care to cite multiple sources, none of which you were able to challenge) and dug himself further in by alleging that the IPCC had also “fabricated” the CO2 forcing function. No: the IPCC got it from Myhre et al., who in turn derived it by inter-comparison between three models. I didn’t and don’t warrant that the CO2 forcing function is right: that is above my pay-grade. However, Chris Essex, the lively mathematician who did some of the earliest spectral-line modeling of the CO2 forcing effect, confirms that Myhre and the IPCC are right to state that the function is a logarithmic one. Therefore, until I have evidence that it is wrong, I shall continue to use it in my calculations.
Another troll said – as usual, without providing any evidence – that I had mis-stated the result from process engineering that provides a decisive (and low) upper bound to climate sensitivity. In fact, the result came from a process engineer, Dr. David Evans, who is one of the finest intuitive mathematicians I have met. He spent much of his early career designing and building electrical circuitry and cannot, therefore, fairly be accused of not knowing what he is talking about. Since the resulting fundamental upper limit to climate sensitivity is as low as 1.2 K, I thought readers might be interested to have a fuller account of it, which is very substantially the work of David Evans. It is posted below this note.
Hereward Corley pointed out that the reference to Shaviv (2008) should have been Shaviv (2005). Nir Shaviv – another genius of a mathematician – had originally sent me the paper saying it was from 2008, but the version he sent was an undated pre-publication copy. Mr. Corley also kindly supplied half a dozen further papers that determine climate sensitivity empirically. Most of the papers find it low, and all find it below the IPCC’s estimates. The papers are Chylek & Lohman (2008); Douglass & Knox (2005); Gregory et al. (2002); Hoffert & Covey (1992); Idso (1998); and Loehle & Scafetta (2011).
I should be most grateful if readers would be kind enough to draw my attention to any further papers that determine climate sensitivity by empirical methods rather than by the use of general-circulation models. I don’t mind what answers the papers come to, but I only want those that attempted to reach the answer by measurement, observation, and the application of established theory to the results.
Many thanks again to all of you for your interest and assistance. Too many of the peer-reviewed journals are no longer professional enough or unprejudiced enough to publish anything that questions the new State religion of supposedly catastrophic manmade global warming. Remote Sensing, for instance has still not had the courtesy to acknowledge the commentary I sent. Since the editors of the learned journals seem to have abdicated their role as impartial philosopher-kings, WattsUpWithThat is now the place where (in between the whining and whiffling and waffling of the trolls) true science is done.
The fundamental constraint on climate sensitivity
A fundamental constraint rules out strongly net-positive temperature feedbacks acting to amplify warming triggered by emissions of greenhouse gases, with the startling result that climate sensitivity cannot much exceed 1.2 K.
Sensitivity to doubled CO2 concentration is the product of three parameters (Eq. 1):
- the radiative forcing ΔF2x = 5.35 ln 2 = 3.708 W m–2 at CO2 doubling (Eq. 2), from the function in Myhre et al. (1998) and IPCC (2001, 2007);
- the Planck zero-feedback climate sensitivity parameter λ0 = 0.3125 K W–1 m2 (Eq. 3), equivalent to the first differential of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer in terms of mean emission temperature TE and the corresponding flux FE at the characteristic-emission altitude (CEA, one optical depth down into the atmosphere, where incoming and outgoing fluxes are identical), augmented by approximately one-sixth to allow for latitudinal variation (IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.);
- the overall feedback gain factor G (Eq. 4), equivalent, where feedbacks are assumed linear as here, to (1 – g)–1, where the feedback loop gain g is the product of λ0 and the sum f of all unamplified temperature feedbacks f1, f2, … fn, such that the final or post-feedback climate sensitivity parameter λ is the product of λ0 and G.
The values of the first two of the three parameters whose product is climate sensitivity are known (Eqs. 2-3). The general-circulation models, following pioneering authors such as Hansen (1984), assume that the feedbacks acting upon the climate object are strongly net-positive (G 1: the IPCC’s implicit central estimate is G = 2.81). In practice, however, neither individual temperature feedbacks nor their sum can be directly measured; nor can feedbacks be readily distinguished from forcings (Spencer & Braswell, 2010, 2011; but see Dessler, 2010, 2011).
Temperature feedbacks – in effect, forcings that occur because a temperature change has triggered them – are the greatest of the many uncertainties that complicate the determination of climate sensitivity. The methodology that the models adopt was first considered in detail by Bode (1945) and is encapsulated at its simplest, assuming all feedbacks are linear, in Eq. (4). Models attempt to determine the value of each distinct positive (temperature-amplifying) and negative (temperature-attenuating) feedback in Watts per square meter per Kelvin of original warming. The feedbacks f1, f2, … fn are then summed and mutually amplified (Eq. 4).
Fig. 1 schematizes the feedback loop:
Figure 1. A forcing ΔF is input (top left) by multiplication to the final sensitivity parameter λ = λ0G, where g = λ0f = 0.645 is the IPCC’s implicit central estimate of the loop gain and G = (1 – g)–1 = 2.813 [not shown] is the overall gain factor: i.e., the factor by which the temperature change T0 = ΔF λ0 triggered by the original forcing is multiplied to yield the output final climate sensitivity ΔT = ΔF λ = ΔF λ0 G (top right). To generate λ = λ0 G, the feedbacks f1, f2, … fn, summing to f, are mutually amplified via Eq. (4). Stated values of λ0, f, g, G, and λare those implicit in the IPCC’s central estimate ΔT2x = 3.26 K (2007, p. 798, Box 10.2) in response to ΔF2x = 5.35 ln 2 = 3.708 W m–2. Values for individual feedbacks f1–f4 are taken from Soden & Held (2006). (Author’s diagram from a drawing by Dr. David Evans).
The modelers’ attempts to identify and aggregate individual temperature feedbacks, while understandable, do not overcome the difficulties in distinguishing feedbacks from forcings or even from each other, or in determining the effect of overlaps between them. The methodology’s chief drawback, however, is that in concentrating on individual rather than aggregate feedbacks it overlooks a fundamental physical constraint on the magnitude of the feedback loop gain g in Eq. (4).
Paleoclimate studies indicate that in the past billion years the Earth’s absolute global mean surface temperature has not varied by more than 3% (~8 K) either side of the 750-million-year mean (Fig. 2):
Figure 2. Global mean surface temperature over the past 750 million years, reconstructed by Scotese (1999), showing variations not exceeding 8 K (<3%) either side of the 291 K (18 °C) mean.
Consistent with Scotese’s result, Zachos et al. (2001), reviewing detailed evidence from deep-sea sediment cores, concluded that in the past 65 Ma the greatest departure from the long-run mean was an increase of 8 K at the Poles, and less elsewhere, during the late Paleocene thermal maximum 55 Ma BP.
While even a 3% variation either side of the long-run mean causes ice ages at one era and hothouse conditions at another, in absolute terms the temperature homeostasis of the climate object is formidable. At no point in the geologically recent history of the planet has a runaway warming occurred. The Earth’s temperature stability raises the question what is the maximum feedback loop gain consistent with the long-term maintenance of stability in an object upon which feedbacks operate.
The IPCC’s method of determining temperature feedbacks is explicitly founded on the feedback-amplification equation (Eq. 4, and see Hansen, 1984) discussed by Bode (1945) in connection with the prevention of feedback-induced failure in electronic circuits. A discussion of the methods adopted by process engineers to ensure that feedbacks are prevented in electronic circuits will, therefore, be relevant to a discussion of the role of feedbacks acting upon the climate object.
In the construction of electronic circuits, where one of the best-known instances of runaway feedback is the howling shriek when a microphone is placed too close to the loudspeaker to which it is connected, electronic engineers take considerable care to avoid positive feedback altogether, unless they wish to induce a deliberate instability or oscillation by compelling the loop gain to exceed unity, the singularity in Eq. (4), at which point the magnitude of the loop gain becomes undefined.
In electronic circuits for consumer goods, the values of components typically vary by up to 10% from specification owing to the vagaries of raw materials, manufacture, and assembly. Values may vary further over their lifetime from age and deterioration. Therefore engineers ensure long-term stability by designing in a negative feedback to ensure that vital circuit parameters stay close to the desired values.
Negative feedbacks were first posited by Harold S. Black in 1927 in New York, when he was looking for a way to cancel distortion in telephone relays. Roe (2009) writes:
“He describes a sudden flash of inspiration while on his commute into Manhattan on the Lackawanna Ferry. The original copy of the page of the New York Times on which he scribbled down the details of his brainwave a few days later still has pride of place at the Bell Labs Museum, where it is regarded with great reverence.”
One circuit parameter of great importance is the (closed) feedback loop gain inside any amplifier, which must be held at less than unity under all circumstances to avoid runaway positive feedback (g ≥ 1). The loop gain typically depends on the values of at least half a dozen components, and the actual value of each component may randomly vary. To ensure stability the design value of the feedback loop gain must be held one or two orders of magnitude below unity: g <0.1, or preferably <0.01.
Now consider the common view of the climate system as an engine for converting forcings to temperature changes – an object on which feedbacks act as in Fig. 1. The values of the parameters that determine the (closed) loop gain, as in an electronic circuit, are subject to vagaries. As the Earth evolves, continents drift, sometimes occupying polar or tropical positions, sometimes allowing important ocean currents to pass and sometimes impeding or diverting them; vegetation comes and goes, altering the reflective, radiative, and evaporative characteristics of the land and the properties of the coupled atmosphere-ocean interface; volcanoes occasionally fill the atmosphere with smoke, sulfur, or CO2; asteroids strike; orbital characteristics change slowly but radically in accordance with the Milankovich cycles; and atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse species, vary greatly.
In the Neoproterozoic, 750 Ma BP, CO2 concentration (today <0.04%) was ~30%: otherwise the ocean’s magnesium ions could not have united with the abundance of calcium ions and with CO2 itself to precipitate the dolomitic rocks laid down in that era. Yet mile-high glaciers came and went twice at sea level at the equator.
As in the electronic circuit, so in the climate object, the values of numerous key components contributing to the loop gain change radically over time. Yet for at least 2 Ga the Earth appears never to have endured the runaway greenhouse warming that would have occurred if the loop gain had reached unity. Therefore, the loop gain in the climate object cannot be close to unity, for otherwise random mutation of the feedback-relevant parameters of vital climate components over time would surely by now have driven it to unity. It is near-certain, therefore, that the value of the climatic feedback loop gain g today must be very much closer to 0 than to 1.
A loop gain of 0.1, then, is in practice the upper bound for very-long-term climate stability. Yet the loop gain values implicit in the IPCC’s global-warming projections of 3.26[2, 4.5] K warming in response to a CO2 doubling are well above this maximum, at 0.64[0.42, 0.74] (Eq. 8). Values such as these are far too close to the steeply-rising segment of the climate-sensitivity curve (Fig. 3) to have allowed the climate to remain temperature-stable for hundreds of millions of years, as Zachos (2001) and Scotese (1999) have reported.
Figure 3. The climate-sensitivity curve at loop gains –1.0 ≤ g < +1.0. The narrow shaded zone at bottom left indicates that climate sensitivity is stable at 0.5-1.3 K per CO2 doubling for loop gains –1.0 ≤ g ≤ +0.1, equivalent to overall feedback gain factors 0.5 ≤ G ≤ 1.1. However, climate sensitivities on the IPCC’s interval [2.0, 4.5] K (shaded zone at right) imply loop gains on the interval (+0.4, +0.8), well above the maximum loop gain that could obtain in a long-term-stable object such as the climate. At a loop gain of unity, the singularity in the feedback-amplification equation (Eq. 4), runaway feedback would occur. If the loop gain in the climate object were >0.1, then at any time conditions sufficient to push the loop gain towards unity might occur, but (see Fig. 2) have not occurred in close to a billion years (author’s figure based on diagrams in Roe, 2009; Paltridge, 2009; and Lindzen, 2011).
Fig. 3 shows the climate-sensitivity curve for loop gains g on the interval [–1, 1). It is precisely because the IPCC’s implicit interval of feedback loop gains so closely approaches unity, which is the singularity in the feedback-amplification equation (Eq. 4), that attempts to determine climate sensitivity on the basis that feedbacks are strongly net-positive can generate very high (but physically unrealistic) climate sensitivities, such as the >10 K that Murphy et al. (2009) say they cannot rule out.
If, however, the loop gain in the climate object is no greater than the theoretical maximum value g = 0.1, then, by Eq. (4), the corresponding overall feedback gain factor G is 1.11, and, by Eq. (1), climate sensitivity in response to a CO2 doubling cannot much exceed 1.2 K. No surprise, then, that the dozen or more empirical methods of deriving climate sensitivity that I included in my commentary cohered at just 1 K. If that is indeed the answer to the climate sensitivity question, it is also a mortal blow to climate extremists worldwide – but good news for everyone else.
References
Bode, H.W., 1945, Network analysis and feedback amplifier design, Van Nostrand, New York, USA, 551 pp.
Chylek, P., and U. Lohman, 2008, Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the last glacial maximum to Holocene transition, Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, doi:10.1029/2007GL032759.
Dessler, A.E., 2010, A determination of the cloud feedback from climate variations over the past decade, Science 220, 1523-1527.
Dessler, A.E., 2011, Cloud Variations and the Earth’s Energy Budget, Geophys. Res. Lett. [in press].
Douglass, D.H., and R.S. Knox, 2005, Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, doi:10.1029/2004GL022119.
Douglass, D.H., and J.R. Christy, 2009, Limits on CO2 climate forcing from recent temperature data of Earth, Energy & Environment 20:1-2, 177-189.
Gregory, J.M., R.J. Stouffer, S.C. Raper, P.A. Stott, and N.A. Rayner, 2002, An observationally-based estimate of the climate sensitivity, J. Clim. 15, 3117-3121.
Hansen, J., A., Lacis, D. Rind, G. Russell, P. Stone, I. Fung, R. Ruedy, and J. Lerner, 1984, Climate sensitivity: analysis of feedback mechanisms, Meteorological Monographs 29, 130-163.
Hoffert, M.I., and C. Covey, 1992, Deriving global climate sensitivity from paloeclimate reconstructions, Nature 360, 573-576.
Idso, S.B., 1998, CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change, Clim. Res. 10, 69-82.
IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell and C.A. Johnson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, NY, USA.
IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: the Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007 [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Avery, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, NY, USA.
Kimoto, K., 2009, On the confusion of Planck feedback parameters, Energy & Environment 20:7, 1057-1066.
Lindzen, R.S., 2011, Lecture to the American Chemical Society, Aug. 28.
Loehle, C., and Scafetta, N., 2011, Climate change attribution using empirical decomposition of climatic data, Open Atmos. Sci. J. 5, 74-86.
Murphy, D. M., S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, and T. Wong 2009, An observationally-based energy balance for the Earth since 1950, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D17107, doi:10.1029/2009JD012105.
Myhre, G., E. J. Highwood, K. P. Shine, and F. Stordal, 1998, New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases, Geophys. Res. Lett. 25:14, 2715–2718, doi:10.1029/98GL01908.
Paltridge, G., 2009, The Climate Caper, Connor Court, Sydney, Australia, 110 pp.
Roe, G., 2009, Feedbacks, Timescales, and Seeing Red, Ann. Rev. Earth. Planet. Sci. 37, 93-115.
Schwartz, S.E., 2007, Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth’s climate system, J. Geophys. Res. 112, D24So5, doi:10.1029/2007JD008746.
Schwartz, S.E., 2008, Reply to comments by G. Foster et al., R. Knutti et al., and N. Scafetta on “Heat Capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth’s climate system”, J. Geophys. Res. 113, D15015, doi: 10.1029/2008JD009872.
Scotese, C.R., A.J. Boucot, and W.S. McKerrow, 1999, Gondwanan paleogeography and paleoclimatology, J. African Earth Sci. 28:1, 99-114.
Shaviv, N., 2005, On climate response to changes in the cosmic-ray flux and radiative budget, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029.
Soden, B.J., and I.M. Held, 2006, An assessment of climate feedbacks in coupled ocean-atmosphere models. J. Clim. 19, 3354–3360.
Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell, 2010, On the diagnosis of radiative feedback in the presence of unknown radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res, 115, D16109.
Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell, 2011, On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in Earth’s radiant-energy balance, Remote Sensing 3, 1603-1613, doi:10.3390/rs3081603.
Zachos, J., M. Pagani, L. Sloan, E. Thomas, and K. Billups, 2001, Trends, Rhythms and Aberrations in Global Climate 65 Ma to Present, Science 292, 686-693.
Terry Oldberg:
The subject of this thread is important. Several posters have pointed out that a CO2 forcing function as defined by the IPCC is unreal. Of course, they are right, but so what? The IPCC defined what it asserts is the forcing function, and Lord Monckton points out that acceptance of that IPCC definition means empirical data denies the possibility of CAGW.
Your post at September 27, 2011 at 11:05 pm is laughable. It begins by saying;
“According to Monckton I am a “troll” for claiming that Monckton has “…’fabricated’ the forcing function for CO2.” In crafting his characterization of me, Monckton erects and knocks down a strawman by misrepresenting what I have actually said.”
Firstly, a troll is a web poster who attempts to disrupt discussion of the subject in hand. Clearly, and on your own admission, you want Lord Monckton to discuss something other than “the forcing function for CO2” which is defined by the IPCC. Hence, it is a fact that you are a troll.
And your post concludes:
“While Monckton’s allusion to trolls is cute, it distracts the audience’s attention from the scientific issue. Is he prepared to address this issue?”
No! You are trolling by attempting to deflect attention onto “the scientific issue” of your choice instead of the subject under discussion. The subject of this thread is too important for the thread to be allowed to be deflected onto a red herring of your choosing.
Richard
lucia says:
September 27, 2011 at 9:36 pm
James–
I don’t know why you think I’ve attacked Monckton.
Your post leads off with this
WUWT reports that Christopher Monckton sent a letter to Remote Sensing providing his musings on climate sensitivity and gave Monkton an opportunity to present his letter to the public. The letter is written in the floridly opaque, obscure prose typical of its author.
and finishes with this
“Thank You
My to the 6 people who skimmed to finding typos, broken latex and obvious grammatical infelicities or suggested inserting a bit more text for clarity. They found plenty; all remaining typos or lack of clarity are my own!
Note on comments
On this particular post, I am going to enforce people focus on the topic which is comments on paragraph 3 only. I am requesting people do not engage notions after paragraphs 3 of Monckton’s letter to RSS nor on political issues. I will created an open thread and you can discuss those issues on that thread. To do so, click here.
Josh asked for clarification. Above, I edited to identify which paragraph in Monckton’s post is “paragraph 3″. What I don’t want is for discuss Monckton his claims or arguments about climate sensitivity, “hot spot” or anything in his letter that appears after paragraph 3, nor to discuss his notions based on the evidence based on the surface temperature record etc. nor to discuss the context with Spencer and Braswell. If you wish to discuss those, discuss them on the other thread.”
When you are putting out literary product like the latter it takes quite a set of stones to be criticizing Monckton, who has a mastery of the language to rival the late great Bill Buckley, for his writing style.
“…This is admirable disputation, and to the complete refutation of the warmists on this subject. Their incompetence is obvious, and their hypothesis is dismissed, categorically and completely…”
(apologies to James Blish)
ΔT = ΔF * NonlinearF(T)
And that, my dear Lord, makes the entire equation unsolvable …
Not so. Not so at all for at least 2 reasons.
1)
Mathematics are not reduced to linear relationships (straight lines). There are non linear ODE (ordinary differential equations) and non linear PDE (partial differential equations).
The former give raise to temporal chaos (f.ex the famous Lorenz “butterfly” attractor) and the latter to spatio-temporal chaos (f.ex weather or crystal growth).
Mathematics deal as well with these non linear cases as with the linear cases, the only difference is that the non linear case is more, sometimes much more difficult. But non linearity never meant that a problem would be “unsolvable” per se.
2)
Taylor expansion. Any function can be expressed as an infinite Taylor series. This is especially simple in the present case where the NonlinearF(T) is function of only one variable T.
Then in a neighbourhood of the temperature T0 (f.ex 15°C what we have now) we have the following relation :
NonlinearF(T) = NonlinearF(T0) + Constant.(T-T0) + ε(T)
The Taylor theorem proves that the unknown function ε(T) is very small as long as one stays rather near to T0.
Therefore it can be neglected and what is left is :
NonlinearF(T) = NonlinearF(T0) + Constant.(T-T0)
And THIS is a linear F(T) !
As long as the T in this equation is considered the global mean temperature then it is perfectly legitimate to use the Taylor expansion and therefore a linear T.
However if one points out that the system is not governed by global averages but by local values of the parameters (all laws of nature are always strictly local) then the whole relation becomes invalid regardless whether it is linear or non linear. Taylor can’t help with invalid relations.
So the right criticism of this relation is not its linearity or non linearity – it is the illegitimate use of averages instead of local values.
In that sense is Willis approach (Thermostat theory based on local laws) more legitimate than IPCC and Lord Monckton approach (global warming theory based on global averages).
I’m confused as to why Lucia would use such an inflammatory title:
“Monckton Planck Parameter: No better than pulling numbers out of a hat.”
Also:
As is often the case with Monckton’s material, one’s first reaction is “that looks wrong”.
Considering the reaction when Trenberth et al said the same kind of thing about Spencer and Christie, I believe this to be inflammatory also.
All Lord Monckton has done here is to use peer reviewed, yes peer reviewed, analyses to point out that the figure for climate sensitivity currently recognised by the consensus is too high.
If Lucia has a problem with that, then surely her problem is with the original analysis, not with Lord Monckton’s (LM) use of it, yet she immediately bashes LM.
I thought science was built on the idea that somebody writes a paper, and then other scientists come along and build on top of that as new knowledge comes along. If the second lot of scientists had to rerun all of the original experiments first before being able to build on it, what would be the point in writing the first paper. Isn’t that what peer review is supposed to do. Yet, LM gets it in the neck for not having done all of the original analysis himself as well.
The impression I get is that Lucia doesn’t like LM, and that is fine. He is a polarising influence, you either love him or hate him (I happen to like him). What is bad about this, is that she has allowed her antipathy towards him to colour her judgment, which is something I will now have take into account any time I visit her site, which is a shame.
Spot on Dave Wendt, about Lucia’s language. One does understand and appreciate that English is not Lucia’s mother tongue. But for her to then criticise Lord Monckton’s language while writing the kind of language seen in her posts, is gobsmacking.
Lucia, when you write poor English, you should not be criticising another person’s writing in the same language, especially when the concerned person is a native english speaker with an excellent command of the language.
And spot on, Richard Courtney, for calling out the trolling.
IMHO opinion the feedback discussions are moot.
Stating without mathematical proof but based on the fact that I can see the sun with my eyes: every molecule in earth’s atmosphere (gas, water vapor, particulates..) has a sight factor that is greater towards space than towards the earth or all other molecules in the atmosphere.
The temperature delta between said molecule and space is much greater that the temperature delta between said molecule and earth or other molecules.
The sight factor between the sun and the earth’s surface is much greater than the sight factor between the sun and and all the molecules in the atmosphere, based on the fact that I can see the sun with my eyes.
Therefore, this is all moot. Man can’t do anything to change the temperature of the atmosphere unless he can change the laws of electromagnetic radiation.
So let me try to straighten this out in my head. Eq. 18 is wrong but the rest of Kimoto’s and Monckton stands, showing a low climate sensitivity from empiric evidence.
Where did Monckton get his implication that Kiehl and Trenberth(1997) assumed a value of 0.18 and where are Trenberth’s updated numbers?
Remember, lucia, that Trenberth is fundamentally unsound.
======================
He doesn’t have the soul of a scientist, lucia. You do.
====================
Next question for lucia. Why aren’t you and Steve Fitzgerald and Carrick and Dewitt Payne in charge of climate science instead of the pack of incompetent magicians now in charge?
Where’s the rabbit of global warming?
===============
The British Royal Society computes the open loop sensitivity at .4 ° C for a doubling of CO2.
“29)
Application of established physical principles shows that, even in the absence of
processes that amplify or reduce climate change (see paragraphs 12 & 13), the climate
sensitivity would be around 1oC, for a doubling of CO2 concentrations. A climate forcing
of 1.6 Wm-2 (see previous paragraph) would, in this hypothetical case, lead to a globallyaveraged
surface warming of about 0.4oC. ”
http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/
By positive feedback the climate scientists do not mean what physics etc does by this term.
The earth is an overall negative feedback system with a negative feedback proportional to the 4 th power of temperature. As it warms the outgoing radiation increases until it balances out the incoming radiation.
What the alarmists call positive feedback is anything which reduces this negative feedback.
It is like “Alice in Wonderland” isn’t it ? “A word means exactly what I say it does, nothing more nothing less.”
Dave Wendt
Buckley’s style was florid but not opaque. Monckton’s prose is opaque: His letter does not provide information that permits a reader to know how the relations he used were derived, and also does not provide citations to the relevant documents. This means the reader has to guess. While we may disagree on the merit’s of Monckton’s prose, I don’t consider it an “attack” to observe that Monckton’s prose is opaque and obscure. I do consider what I write to be a criticism of its flaws– but in my opinion, criticisms are not attacks.
The closing of my post –which you quote– is not even remotely a criticism and I don’t know why you think it is. I merely anticipate that because Monckton’s letter was not limited to paragraph 3 (the topic of my blog post), contained a number of topics interesting in themselves and closed by mentioning Spencer and Braswell, people interested in those topics would wish to discuss those issues. To avoid confusion that would arise from interlacing discussion of those topics with points that were specifically relevant to the discussion in my blog post, I created a separate thread where people are free to discuss those other issues. I wanted people to post their comments on those topics on that thread.
I have found that side-thread useful. The first comment there is a question about solar cookers, and I prefer that sort of thing not to diffuse the technical discussion going on in comments in the post where I discuss the technical issues touching on paragraph 3 of Monckton’s letter to RS. So, the side blog post is functioning as I hoped: it prevents those irrelevant issues from diluting the discussion of the derivation of equations in paragraph 3 of Monckton’s letter to RS, and permits us to focus on those technical aspects specific to the topic of my main blog post.
So it is any surprise that geologists represent the most climate sceptic section of the population?
Caveat: Not government geologists! They are told what to think, so any straying from AGW cult orthodoxy dramatically increases their job insecurity.
lucia’s post at the BB on Monckton’s 3rd paragraph stated off with :
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lucia,
That is negative tabloid prose and phrasing lucia, and you being a well-known blogger you can be expected to know that. Why kick off that way? It looks like you have been emotionally coiled up ready to strike at someone who, from previous experience, you already didn’t like; independent of the current math or science or logic that person presented.
If it were me that you were writing about then I would be quite offended. I do not know if Monckton was offended . . . perhaps he will engage you here at WUWT.
When someone initiates a negative emotional tone like you did, I would not consider that civil.
But it is just me, just John.
John
I don’t have any problem following the English of either lucia or Monckton. They both elegantly expose their reasoning.
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And so does Tom Vonk, whose mother tongue is not English, as is lucia’s.
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Writing down some math doesn’t make you understand it Lucia.
I don’t criticize lucia’s communication style; I like it just fine. She can criticize mine, though, and does.
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Sometimes you realise the internet is a sane place where a discussion although slightly heated is dealt with in a grown up manner so well done everyone on this thread and I’m sure he’s bored of hearing it but our host as well.
And if you would like to know Lord Monckton’s secret he’s British so before doing anything he makes himself a good cup of tea and sits in his garden and enjoys the fresh air while contemplating life, the universe and everything. If you have not tried it pop down to your local store and buy yourself some ‘English Breakfast” and make yourself a good cuppa. Works for me.
davidmhoffer says:
September 27, 2011 at 6:09 pm
So there is the part where the scare mongerers simply stop responding to me. If we start at 400 PPM, where we are now, and produced CO2 increases every 50 years in the same order of magnitude as we did in the last 90 years, the direct effects of CO2 would be, in 50 year increments:
+ 0.3, 0.15, 0.08, 0.04
That’s two HUNDRED years, another 480 PPM, and the direct effects have dropped from 0.6 degrees per 120 PPM to 0.04 degrees per 120 PPM.
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David, excellent post. I hope more people caught it…
If I can add one small condition….
As CO2 levels increase, it becomes easier for biology and chemistry to use more of it….
Simply adding the same amount each time…will not show the same increase in the atmosphere
….it will be less
Kim
I haven’t said whether the rest of Kimoto or Monckton “stands”. I am merely saying that my post is about equation 18. The issue of empirical evidence claimed by Monckton would be a separate matter for a separate post.
I think the issue of equation 18 is important in and of itself. It appears this equation underpins what Monckton wrote in paragraph 3 of his letter to RS: that is, Monckton uses it to obtain the magnitude of Plank Parameter he specifies in that paragraph.
The analysis deriving equation 18 in Kimoto contains unstated assumptions. One can’t really confirm or rebut the validity of an unstated, hidden assumption because we can’t know precisely what they were. But knowing math, we can identify some were made, and detect the general properties of these assumptions. Given that, it appears that the sorts of assumptions made are implausible. That said: Monckton or Kimoto could defend them if they stated the assumption they actually made and provided a reason.
During email interaction, it became clear that Monckton thought my requests that he state call out the assumptions he made was silly, and he cut off conversation. But he still has the opportunity to explain in detail how he derived his version of (18) or what he believes to be the assumptions made by Kimoto. I would be interested in reading these.
For now, given that the assumptions are unstated and appear implausible, it appears that the numerical value of any Plank parameter computed using equation (18) is as likely to be correct as some number pulled out of a hat.
Kim–
Oddly enough, my first language was Spanish. But we moved back to the US when I was 6 and I forgot it. 🙂
@Lucia
Monckton is “floridly opaque”? Perhaps you would benefit by attending a few ESL (English as a second language) sessions.
Much gracious, lucia.
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paulhan says: September 28, 2011 at 5:30 am
When building in science or in the physical world, one is required to detect when the foundation is rotten. Peer review is supposed to detect flaws, but often it does not. This is why papers are discussed afterwards. It happens that even valuable papers sometimes contain weaknesses and lapses. In this particular case, it seem to me the derivation of Kimoto’ eqn (18) is a weak point, and its use to compute a Plank Parameter cannot be justified.
If Monckton is going to rely on Kimoto’s equation (18) to compute the magnitude of the Planck Parameter, he needs to cite Kimoto as a source (which he did not in his letter to RS) and also to explain why he believes the assumptions and derivation in Kimoto are justified and defensible. I believe I have shown that use of Kimoto’s equation (18) is not defensible. Monckton has not explained why its use is valid and, as far as I can tell, has not attempted to do so at this blog, mine or anyother forum. (If you have seen the defense, please link to the source. I would be interested in reading it.)
I would welcome reading Monckton’s response to what I wrote about Kimoto. Or, if Monckton did not rely on Kimoto to obtain the equation he used in the 3rd paragraph of his letter to RS, I would like to read how Monckton developed the equation he used.