From Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Durban, South Africa
It. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. This is the ghastly secret that almost all the delegates here in Durban are desperate to conceal. Paper after paper, result after result, shows that the “global warming” we can expect from a doubling of CO2 concentration this century is just one Celsius degree or perhaps 2 Fahrenheit degrees, not the 3-4 C° once predicted by the UN’s well-tarnished climate panel.
When a journalist with South Africa’s national broadcaster interviewed me in the conference center, I told him the climate scam was just that – a scam. He replied that that was a merely emotional argument. So I gave him the following scientific argument, and explained to him that – simple though the truth is – it is just complicated enough that the IPCC and the global-warming profiteers have thus far gotten away with confusing the general public, and the average scientifically-illiterate politician, and, with respect, the average journalist.
Take all the greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keep the Earth’s albedo magically the same as today’s. How much cooler would it be? All are agreed that it would be around 33 Celsius degrees cooler. This is climate theory 101. So, how much radiative forcing causes the 33 C° warming that arises from the presence – as opposed to total absence – of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? The answer – again straight out of the usual suspects’ playbook – is around 100 Watts per square meter.
Accordingly, the equilibrium system climate sensitivity parameter is 33/100 = 0.33 Celsius per Watt per square meter, after just about all temperature feedbacks have acted. Multiply this key parameter by 3.7 Watts per square meter, which is the IPCC’s own value for the radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 concentration, and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.
This theoretical value of 1.2 C° is remarkably robust: it uses the IPCC’s own data and methods, applied to the entire history of the atmosphere, to demonstrate just how low climate sensitivity really is. When I pointed out this simple but powerful result to scientists recently at the Santa Fe climate conference organized by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of them said, “Ah, yes, but what evidence do you have that today’s climate exhibits the same sensitivity as the total system sensitivity?”
The answer is that the world is now in a position to verify this theoretical result by measurement. In August this year, Dr. Blasing of the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center in the United States quietly published a bombshell. Few noticed. His detailed estimate is that all the manmade greenhouse gases added to the air by us since 1750 have caused as much as 3 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing between them.
From this 3 Watts per square meter, in line with IPCC data, we must be fair and deduct 1 Watt per square meter to allow for manmade climate influences that cause cooling, such as soot and other particulates that act as helpful little parasols shading us from the Sun and keeping us cooler than we should otherwise be.
How much warming did this manmade net 2 Watts per square meter of forcing cause? Around 0.8 Celsius of warming has occurred since 1750, of which – if the IPCC is right – 50-100% was attributable to us. So the equilibrium climate sensitivity parameter since 1750 (again, most of the temperature feedbacks that the IPCC wrongly imagines will amplify warming hugely will have acted by now) is 0.2-0.4 Celsius per Watt per square meter.
Multiply that key parameter by 3.7 and the warming we can expect from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration is just 0.75-1.5 Celsius. Those estimates neatly bracket the equilibrium system sensitivity of 1.2 C° that we calculated earlier by well-established theory.
So the sensitivity of the climate over the most recent quarter of the millennium is very much the same as the sensitivity of the climate throughout the past 4.5 billion years – at around one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate. Frankly, one Celsius degree of warming this century will simply not be worth worrying about. It will do far more good than harm. Not a cent should be spent trying to prevent it.
As President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic pointed out at a recent climate conference in Cambridge, if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.
But don’t expect any of the delegates here to get the point. They are making far too much money out of the climate scam –at taxpayers’ expense – to want to do anything other than recite that The Science Is Settled. As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.
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Russ R, you have to initially assume a feedback of something. There is little evidence to indicate a feedback that is not close to one. Lord Monckton then compared anticipated warming given the calculation with the observed warming. Now, one point that the Viscount missed was the fact that this comparison demonstrates the feedback as well. As it was within expected range, this is strong evidence that the feedback is close to one.
The simplicity of the argument is its strength. It relies on crude approximations and does not pretend to be anything more than what it is, a crude approximation. Because we have such a crude understanding of the climate system, adding layer upon layer of complexity only causes more potential points for error. It doesn’t really add any precision.
KR says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Matt G – A decade is too short a timeframe – Santer thinks it requires 17 years minimum to establish a trend through variability, I (personally) would prefer ~20.
Humidity? You mean the ~4% increase in specific humidity since the 1970′s? With the relative humidity (which drives cloud formation) remaining fairly constant due to warming air?
And don’t forget Monckton’s bad argument – 33C with forcings and feedbacks, 1.2C with a forcing from doubling CO2, and completely ignoring feedbacks on that.
REPLY
Without the last decade or so (13 years) the value is around 0.5c per 1/3 of doubling CO2. (1.5c per doubling)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1980/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1934/to:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1905/to:1934/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1905/to:1934/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1880/to:1905/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1880/to:1905/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from/to:1880/plot/hadcrut3gl/from/to:1880/trend
Humidity?
Relative Humidity has declined overall.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
Specific Humidity has declined overall.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
33c doesn’t take into account albedo and oceans thermal heat energy. The ocean stores more energy to keep the Earth warmer, than water vapour in the atmosphere. 1.2c per doubling does imply that there is no feedback included.
crosspatch says 1:24 pm; “The worst thing that every happened to our environment was Three Mile Island… the fear that it produced HAS done harm… we must have a national nuclear electrification plan.”
That plus Jane Fonda’s and Michael Douglas’ “China Syndrome.”
Here’s the current “China Syndrome”: China’s 77 nuclear plants planned or under construction versus the USA’s 10; the UK’s 4; Germany’s 0; and Vietnam’s 4.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html
Smokey says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:59 am
My fear regarding this misappropriation of funds applies to the one subject I know something about–that of natural resource extraction.
Sixty to a hundred years ago the economics of most mining ventures were sufficient that a company could bankroll their own mines–whether it be for precious metals, base metals, or some of the more exotic rare earth or platinum-group-element metals. These were relatively rich deposits that required a modest capital investment compared to what we’re now facing, but the situation has changed–mining companies no longer have the necessary capital so they must borrow it from the capital market. And since all the near-surface, relatively high grade deposits have been mined, what we’re now facing is utilization of much lower-grade deposits of much larger size that require a much larger capital investment because economies of scale are an absolute must otherwise these deposits don’t meet the criteria of “ore” and can’t be mined at all. And without a plentiful supply of affordable metals, our economy grinds to a halt.
This is what will happen to our standard of living when all the available capital has been spent recklessly on foolish projects such as the “climate change industry”! From whence do we then get the massive infusions of capital needed to capitalize and supply the metals our standard of living requires? It won’t be there, which results in less of everything for everybody. Our standard of living will decline and the future will be much harder for our children and their children, spurred on by irresponsible capital outlay caused by irresponsible science and irresponsible politics. The future looks bleak, indeed.
(A corollary is: What happens to the expertise needed to put massive low-grade mining projects together when a generation goes by without such projects? It disappears, most likely never to return. Mankind will have reached a real “tipping point”.)
You might notice by reading Tisdale’s stuff that those step changes after El Nino events occur mostly in one place: The Indian Ocean. Take the Indian Ocean out of the mix and there isn’t any global sea surface temperature increase. The increase isn’t “global”, it is very local and it is enough to influence the global average when it is added in. Sort of like taking the average weight of 10 people in a room, then replacing one person with a much heavier person and measuring again, and then doing that again, and trying to tell people that the average weight of everyone in the room is increasing so everyone must be put on a diet to lower the average weight when the culprit is one single measurement.
And for everyone else, this entire discussion is silly. The onus is not on us to prove that the speculation and the models based thereon are false, the onus is on them to prove that it is true. So far there is nothing in the data to indicate that it is.
Apparently my sarcasm wasn’t cranked up to a sufficient degree that you noticed I was being facetious.
Hoser says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Andre says:
December 5, 2011 at 11:56 am
Andre I think you meant “conduction” not convection.
Hoser. A good emitter is a good absorber. It’s been drummed into our head that N2 O2 are not greenhouse gasses therefore they do not absorb longwave radiation. If they don’t absorb, they don’t emit. (This is a paradox the claimants can defend)
If N2 and O2 DO emit radiation, then they also contribute to the greenhouse effect, leaving CO2 as a bit player.
If they DON’T emit, then they can’t lose the energy they gain via conduction with the surface. Therefore the atmosphere (of N2 and O2 predominantly) will continue to heat until such time as it is the same temperature as the equator at noon.
If that is the case, then the argument about an average global temperature of a hypothetical Earth (minus GHGs) of-18DegC is mute.
The proponents of the greenhouse theory can’t have it both ways.
@Richard111 says:
December 5, 2011 at 11:07 am
Well done my friend. keep asking that question until you get a satisfactory answer.
Remind them of Wiens Law. “AT ANY WAVELENGTH, a hotter object radiates more (is more luminous) than a cooler one.”
Wavelengths
crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
[Monckton]”if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received. ”
[crosspatch]”Well, he isn’t seeing the entire picture in this case. We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent.”
No, crosspatch, see Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy. A large part of the money has been spent on wind turbines and PV panels; producing these, and all that comes before it, starting with the air travel of the lobbyists to Brussels, consumes real resources and real labor – labor that could have been spent on more useful things. This is where the waste happens. Now, of course a wind turbine produces energy, but the resources we have expended to make this relatively small production of energy happen are disproportionate compared to the alternatives. The fact that the wind turbine later helps robbing the many and feeding the few (who, in turn, will need some of the many to build them Ferraris) is not where the real waste of resources happens.
I should know, I drive past three wind parks every morning, and every evening again. And see a fourth and a fifth one in the distance when crossing some hills.
Imagine how useful the life of a theoretically talented and intelligent boy could have turned out had he not decided to become a EU lobbyist. We are wasting human potential as well when we turn all our energies towards the solving of nonproblems.
Although C Monckton might not be in agreement with the green army’s response to AGW theory, he clearly believes that we are warming the Earth by using fossil fuels . . . I’m therefore surprised to see so much praise for his position on here . . .? Seems to me that his explanation is as narrow and simplistic as the “scientists” commonly condemned on here. For starters I didn’t see the bit where he factored in natural variability . . . .
There are a few oddities in comments. Some seem not to realise that the ‘per doubling of …’ does actually give you a logarithmic scale.
Some (or perhaps one) seem to think that the oceans can ‘take a while to heat up’ from heat that is being ‘trapped’ today. That is a real mind-bender. Where does this ‘missing heat’ reside while it waist for the oceans to be ready for it? Is it that ‘missing heat’ that Trenbeth (sp?) is still looking for? (let’s ignore the fact it is energy we mean, not ‘heat’.) Can you think of six more impossible things before breakfast?
[And, of course, you would have to come up with compelling arguments about why the physics in the models is wrong and the amount of water vapor would not decrease (or that something else would compensate) when you removed the greenhouse gases.]
No, all I have to do is observe that the models have always failed to predict where the climate is going. They do not predict reality, therefore they are wrong. This is basic scientific method, if a hypotheses predicts “if X then Y”, and you have X but Y doesn’t show up, then the hypotheses is wrong.
crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Agreed, my values were taking into account that all warming was only based on CO2. This was extremely biased and the most dramatic it can be demonstrated using real planet observations. Yet even this is nothing to worry about in future.
I see Joel Shore and KR explaining how the greenhouse effect works.
If your explanations are correct, the models should work, shouldn’t they?
Your explanations must be incorrect.
Jer0me says:
December 5, 2011 at 2:24 pm
There are a few oddities in comments. Some seem not to realise that the ‘per doubling of …’ does actually give you a logarithmic scale.
Seem to be responding to my post.
“This 1.8c doubling for CO2 is based on linear responce, so with CO2 being logarithmic the value will be lower than this.”
You are of course correct, but this 1.8c value is based on the first 1/3 so it’s not a logarithmic scale when projected ahead to make the whole number.
For all these strident claims he forgot the water vapor feedbacks!!
Let us have a look at what all the models say – the water vapor feedback will lead to – a tropospheric hotspot. This hotspot would be formed by the increasing amount of rising humid air cooling at the moist adiabatic lapse rate leading to condensation then freezing with water vapor releasing large amounts of latent heat into the troposphere.
This hotspot IS NOT THERE and believe me the AGW proponents have hunted for it
Therefore, despite all the panic on the warming leading to runaway water vapor feedback it is NOT happening as modeled. Therefore the models are wrong and the forecasts/interpolations/projections based on those models are also incorrect.
crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
…Another thing is we could, right this minute with the technology we already have provide 100% of the US electric power generation without creating hardly a molecule of CO2…..
There are no more excuses. If CO2 is a problem and if access to cheaper energy is desired to spur economic activity, then we must have a national nuclear electrification plan. Otherwise this is simply an exercise in scaring people into subsidizing wind and solar so certain people can make a killing in that market without improving our energy security, reducing energy costs, or reducing CO2 emissions one iota.
___________________________________________
As I said, I normally agree with you but I would prefer to see Thorium nuclear. It seems about 5 to ten years away perhaps less.
INDIA with no Uranium but an abundant supply of thorium…
A couple of USA companies to watch
Lightbridge (thorium)
http://www.ltbridge.com/assets/23.pdf
http://www.ltbridge.com/technologyservices/fueltechnology
KEY UPCOMING FUEL DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES: http://www.ltbridge.com/technologyservices/fueltechnology/keyupcomingfueldevelopmentmilestones
Hyperion Power Generation Inc. (mini self contained uranium nitride)
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/technology/
Medium and Small (25 MWe up) reactors with development well advanced: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html
KR says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
“And don’t forget Monckton’s bad argument – 33C with forcings and feedbacks, 1.2C with a forcing from doubling CO2, and completely ignoring feedbacks on that.”
From the post
“Accordingly, the equilibrium system climate sensitivity parameter is 33/100 = 0.33 Celsius per Watt per square meter, after just about all temperature feedbacks have acted. Multiply this key parameter by 3.7 Watts per square meter, which is the IPCC’s own value for the radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 concentration, and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.”
Rosco says:
December 5, 2011 at 1:48 pm
The calculation of 33 K cooler is based on a quarter of the insolation.
Can anyone please explain how you can calculate the temperature of a sphere which is half illuminated by applying one quarter of the radiative flux to the whole sphere ?….
___________________________________
You do not even have to go to the moon.
The cartoon STARTS with 342 W/sq m and ends up with 168 W/sq m at the ground. http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/images/earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_1997_big.gif
Real Life:
Solar insolation for solar panels numbers from NASA http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-insolation-levels/
They give as an example:
Matt G – I’ll point you to Dessler 2010 (http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler10.pdf) looking at 5 or 6 specific humidity trend analyses. They show positive feedback and rising specific humidity with increasing temperature.
Dave Wendt – I believe you are missing the point. The 3.3C per doubling estimate is with feedbacks. Monckton acknowledges feedbacks in the 33C total greenhouse effect, but completely ignores them when claiming climate sensitivity is 1.2C/doubling – he’s claiming zero feedbacks. And that is just not an honest presentation.
There’s lots of good work and good data out there on climate sensitivity, including actual reasons to discuss what sensitivity levels actually are. Very disappointing that Monckton resorts such chicanery.
I would also point out to those nitpicking Monckton on some of the assumed numbers in his analysis, that he is employing the same technique here that he does in most of his presentations of basing his analysis on the assumptions used by the IPCC. In this or any other of his similar offerings, he refrains from explicitly embracing these assumptions as part of his own beliefs, but argues that even using their own assumptions the IPCC’s positions don’t hold up.
The big error I see here is the assumption by some that the average global temperature change can be correlated directly to the carbon dioxide change over the last one hundred and twenty or so years. To me, this seems to be a rather simplistic assumption that ignores the role of other possible factors and also the fact that radiative forcing (not radioactive forcing as assumed by some) of increasing CO2 is limited to the miniscule fringes around the narrow CO2 absorption band, because almost all of the effect of any new CO2 added to the atmosphere will be masked by the narrow black shadow of that already present.
This whole AGW thing reminds me of an old story science fiction story I read. Venus started broadcasting messages to the US that they were “Coming.” The whole world got together, stopped fighting to deal with the venutian threat. As it turned out, it was a clever scientist and his old wife who had managed to bounce radio waves to make it appear they were from Venus.
AGW is a lot like that. With all this guilt in addition. I think that’s why Al Gore likes it. It has such a biblical ring to it: “The Seas will Rise! Pestilence and Plague will encompass the world! Drought, Famine and war will Rule the day. God is coming, and he brings his wrath with him.”
(All you gotta do is pay me billions for your indulgences.)
Spector says:
December 5, 2011 at 3:50 pm
The big error I see here is the assumption by some that the average global temperature change can be correlated directly to the carbon dioxide change over the last one hundred and twenty or so years. To me, this seems to be a rather simplistic assumption that ignores the role of other possible factors and also the fact that radiative forcing (not radioactive forcing as assumed by some) of increasing CO2 is limited to the miniscule fringes around the narrow CO2 absorption band, because almost all of the effect of any new CO2 added to the atmosphere will be masked by the narrow black shadow of that already present.
______________________________________
Not to mention the elephant in the room casting the HUGE shadow named Water Vapor.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Close up of O2 and N2
http://www.coe.ou.edu/sserg/web/Results/Spectrum/o2.pdf
http://www.coe.ou.edu/sserg/web/Results/Spectrum/n2.pdf
@joel Shore
“However, if you are going to argue this, then what you are arguing is that you don’t believe in the positive feedbacks; you have not shown from real-world data that the earth’s climate system does not have such positive feedbacks”
Right, and neither do “I believe” in fairies living at the bottom of my garden.
In never ceases to amaze me how often the warmista numpties go on about these mythical positive feedbacks that will tip us in to climate disaster. Why should it be for any of us to prove that these positive feedbacks don’t exist? It is blindingly obvious that they do not.
The real world data suggests that the planet is quite comfortably without positive feedbacks, because if they did exist the planet would have gone into its death spin quite a long time ago, when temperatures were higher (and lower) than now, CO2 was higher (and lower) than now.
Do you really not understand the consequences of a system with positive feedbacks, whose effects outweigh negative feedbacks? You have an unstable system. The fact that the planet is still here, several billion years after it was formed must surely suggest to anyone with more than a few brain cells, that the system is fundamentally stable, even in the face of major perturbations that have occurred since its formation.
Get a brain for god’s sake and start thinking….
Dave Wendt says:
Just because Monckton claims that the calculations include the feedbacks, it doesn’t mean that it does so correctly. In particular, in terms of water vapor: He is considering water vapor to be a forcing, not a feedback. See my comment here for further detail: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-819743
And, modulo understanding better where he gets his 100 W/m^2 number, I don’t think he is including ice albedo as a forcing either, because the 33 C number assumes that albedo of the earth remains unchanged.
Ian W says:
Au contraire, the magnification of temperature fluctuations that occur on timescales of months to a few years (due, e.g., to ENSO) as you go up in the tropical atmosphere is well-confirmed. What is still being debated is whether this magnification is present for the multidecadal trends. The truth is that the artifacts in the data and analysis of these trends (in both satellite and radiosonde data) are sufficiently severe on such long range trends that it is very difficult to determine if tropospheric amplification is present over such timescales. However, it is quite difficult to come up with mechanisms by which the tropical tropospheric magnification would occur on a timescale of months to years but not over the multidecadal timescales. In fact, even Richard Lindzen believes there must be a problem with the data (although he prefers to think the problem is with the surface data rather than the higher-altitude data).
“crosspatch says:
December 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.
Well, he isn’t seeing the entire picture in this case. We ARE leaving MORE wealth to our successors because all of this money we are spending on “climate change” actually ends up in the pockets of thousands of different people. It actually does get spent. What we are doing is “redistributing” that wealth from billions of individual “common” citizens into the pockets of people connected to the “climate change” industry. The money isn’t disappearing, it is simply being allocated. We are giving Jones and Mann and CRU and Tyndall and Solyndra, and others and the people that work for and invest in those organizations boatloads of cash now (that they will probably pass along to their successors) which will will take from the future earnings of our children. We are giving them hamburgers today that our children will have to pay for next Tuesday (to use a Popeye analogy). I think it is time to tell Wimpy to take a hike.
This is a global fleecing.”
I have to disagree with you crosspatch. We are in fact leaving our children poorer for the effort.
The difference is this: The redistribution does not go on to create more wealth, as normal commerce does. Government mandated redistribution allocates resources in ways that are far less efficient than the free market would have done. So yes, we are ending up poorer for the effort.
I do agree with your summation, that this is a global fleecing and agree that its time to tell them all to take a hike!
Cheers!