[Note: Jim sent me this in response to an group email pointing out yet another hopeless alarmist website climatetruth.org. He says it is his stock response, written somewhat like a poetry or haiku, and some of you may find it handy – Anthony]
By Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist
It is hard to disagree with receding glaciers.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 is undeniable.
Yet as skepticism survives it is not about facts – but about cause.
There are those who would interpret facts to fit their agendas.
The Smithsonian Intuition initialized a solar constant measurements project
In about 1910 using the finest pyranometers available
They were not able to measure solar variation closer than 1%
The variation due to atmospheric water vapor was close to 2%
Thirty years of solar constant numbers were not usable for that objective
Solar constant measurements were made from orbiting satellites starting in 1978.
Measurements were made normal to the suns rays.
They were corrected for the mean Earth Sun distance
The resulting solar constant measurements were made to an accuracy of 0.1%.
They were found to vary as the historic Sunspot Numbers.
Sunspot numbers are available since 1700.
Sunspot numbers are cyclic and repeat every eleven years.
Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average
Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years
The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record
The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar
The effect of rising SST is lower solubility of dissolved CO2
The increase in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with rising SST
Where there is a need to support a conservation ethic.
The increase in CO2 was attributed to tailpipe emissions perhaps in error.
Some say that a skeptic is a thing of evil
Some should not consider alternatives.
If your job depends on a specific interpretation
Perhaps you should ignore the solar evidence.
Our lives are filled with self-delusion it is handy to deceive others
“Aside from skeptics in the history of philosophy
Others were strangers to the first principals of intellectual honesty”
Objectivity is the goal. Skepticism is a tool.
I don’t want to seem dumb but how does CO2 warm planets ???
As I think it goes, solar radiation warms the Earth. The Earth emits infrared. Water vapour and CO2 absorb this infrared and when their energy state is changed enough they re-emit infrared radiation and part of that warms the surface again. That is the theory isn’t it ?
But surely as the Earth radiates infrared (lets ignore conduction and convection) it has lost energy and therefore cooled a bit. Then when the “greenhouse gases” absorb this IR their energy level goes up and similarly when the emit the IR their energy level goes down and 50 % of what they absorbed is lost to space.
So the Earth heats up, radiates IR and cools as a consequence, the IR is absorbed by GHGs which heatup and emit IR – 50% of which is lost – and as a consequence the GHGs also cool down.
So to my way of thinking increasing energy by “trapping” IR is impossible because they seem to have ignored energy loss with emission of IR.
Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and there fore radiating IR.
Compared to the almost 99% of the atmosphere emitting IR the amount directly attributable to water vapour is of the order of ~2% maximum and CO2 – well it is negligible.
Jim D says:
December 9, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Man has already increased the atmosphere’s CO2 by 40%.
It may be 100% by about 2060.
Doubling CO2 has the radiative effect of a 1% solar intensity increase.
This is five to seven times the solar intensity increase since the Maunder Minimum.
That is at the basics of failed climate models. All models take the effect of all forcings as equally important. Thus a 1 W/m2 change in solar radiation over time (as may be the case) is incorportated in the models as equal to 1 W/m2 change in radiative effect of a CO2 increase. That can’t be right. The main effect of CO2 is in the troposhere and more polewards (due to high water vapor near the equator, no equatorial hot spot in the higher troposphere) and backradiation of IR from CO2 only warms the upper fraction of a mm of the sea surface (most is re-emitted again or lost as evaporation). The main effect of solar is double: a direct temperature change in the lower stratosphere, changing the ITCZ and jet stream position (and cloud/rain patterns) due to poleward air flow changes and a direct heating of the ocean surface until several tens of meters deep.
There is an inverse correlation between solar amplitude and (low) cloud cover, whatever the mechanism involved. The change in cloud cover over a solar cycle is as high in W/m2 amplitude as a doubling of CO2. The same for “global dimming” and “brightening”: little to do with aerosols, but probably a matter of overall cloud cover (whatever its cause): that effect is larger than the total effect of all CO2 increase since the start of the industrial revolution…
Erinome says:
December 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Here you go:
there is 50 times more CO2 in the oceans than the atmosphere.
there is 19 times more CO2 in the oceans than the land.
How much CO2 is in the oceans is not important at all, as long as it stays there. Only if the oceans release some amount of CO2 more than absorbed, that will increase the amounts in the atmosphere…
The atmosphere contains about 750 Pg C, and about 100 Pg C is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere.
How much is exchanged between the oceans and the atmosphere is not of the slightest importance. Even if it was 100% or 1000% of what resides in the atmosphere within a year. Only the difference between what is released by the oceans and what is absorbed is important: that makes that the amount in the atmosphere increases or decreases. We know with reasonable accuracy that the oceans absorb about 2.5 PgC more than they release, so the total of all oceans on earth is a net sink for CO2 and not the cause of the measured increase. That is reinforced by the 13C/12C ratio of the (deep) oceans which is higher than of the atmosphere, thus a huge release of CO2 from the oceans should give an increase of the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio, but we see a sharp decline, in ratio with fossil fuel burning…
ERINOME Says:
180 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet by about 30 C (Stefan-Boltzmann law).
Why, then, shouldn’t another 110 ppm warm it more? (Let alone another 300-500 ppm in our future…?)
WRONG! It’s the atmospheric greenhouses gases ALL TOGETHER that are (supposed to) heat the planet to around 30degC higher than would be the case without them. And the overwhelming proportion of that warming effect is due to the water vapour which is ever-present in the atmosphere ANYWAY due to the physics of the vapour pressure balance that must be maintained between the atmosphere and the oceans.
If you took away ALL the CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans (but do remember we are talking physics here not biology!), the drop in temperature would be minuscule. So the opposite follows: if you DOUBLE CO2 from its present value, the increase in temperature will also be miniscule.
No serious sceptic would deny climate change. Climate always changes and this will continue. Glaciers always flow downhill, under gravity, to warmer areas and melt. It is what they do. The glaciers that sculpted the U shaped valleys in Scotland, Switzerland and America as well as many other countries, are no longer there so had to have melted. Non of this is a sign of impending doom only that we live on a dynamic planet.
Robert Brown says:
December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Have a look at this website for some realistic greenhouse gas numbers
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Also:-
1. CO2measured at Mauna Loa Volcano Hawai shows a steady increase for 100 years but has increased by only about 80ppm over that period i.e. .008%. (Warmists quote this as a 30% increase in CO2)
2. H2O is 95% of Greenhouse gas CO2 only 3.6%
IPPC reports and other AGW claims ignore H2O as a greenhouse gas.
Sorry, correction to my previous post:-
1. CO2 measured at Mauna Loa Volcano Hawai shows a steady increase for 100 years but has increased by only about 80ppm over that period i.e. .008% of total greenhouse gases. (Warmists quote this as a 30% increase in CO2)
Ferdinand Engelbeen @1:22 am:
” All models take the effect of all forcings as equally important. Thus a 1 W/m2 change in solar radiation over time (as may be the case) is incorportated in the models as equal to 1 W/m2 change in radiative effect of a CO2 increase.”
AOGCMs deal with each cell individually. Therefore, if there is a difference in response to different forcings due to the different distribution of the effect, that will show up in the AOGCMs. Assuming that the theory of AGW is based on simple one dimensional models in the face of all the evidence is beneath you.
What is more, because the AOGCM’s do handle the differences of distribution of various effects directly, they in fact do show up the differences in forcing effects. Contrary to your assumption, therefore, 1 W/m^2 of CO2 forcing is not assumed to be directly equivalent to 1 W/m^2 of solar forcing. You would do well to read that little known document, the IPCC AR4 on the subject, and in particular section 2.8.5 of WG 1:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-8-5.html
” Efficacy (E) is defined as the ratio of the climate sensitivity parameter for a given forcing agent (λi) to the climate sensitivity parameter for CO2 changes, that is, Ei = λi / λCO2 (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen and Nazarenko, 2004). Efficacy can then be used to define an effective RF (= Ei RFi) (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen et al., 2005). For the effective RF, the climate sensitivity parameter is independent of the mechanism, so comparing this forcing is equivalent to comparing the equilibrium global mean surface temperature change. That is, ΔTs = λCO2 x Ei x RFi Preliminary studies have found that efficacy values for a number of forcing agents show less model dependency than the climate sensitivity values (Joshi et al., 2003). Effective RFs have been used get one step closer to an estimator of the likely surface temperature response than can be achieved by using RF alone (Sausen and Schumann, 2000; Hansen et al., 2005; Lohmann and Feichter, 2005). Adopting the zero-surface-temperature-change RF, which has efficacies closer to unity, may be another way of achieving similar goals (see Section 2.8.3). This section assesses the efficacy associated with stratospherically adjusted RF, as this is the definition of RF adopted in this chapter (see Section 2.2). Therefore, cloud-aerosol interaction effects beyond the cloud albedo RF are included in the efficacy term. The findings presented in this section are from an assessment of all the studies referenced in the caption of Figure 2.19, which presents a synthesis of efficacy results. As space is limited not all these studies are explicitly discussed in the main text.”
and:
” Solar changes, compared to CO2, have less high-latitude RF and more of the RF realised at the surface. Established but incomplete knowledge suggests that there is partial compensation between these effects, at least in some models, which leads to solar efficacies close to 1.0. All models with a positive solar RF find efficacies of 1.0 or smaller. One study finds a smaller efficacy than other models (0.63: Gregory et al., 2004). However, their unique methodology for calculating climate sensitivity has large uncertainties (see Section 2.8.4). These studies have only examined solar RF from total solar irradiance change; any indirect solar effects (see Section 2.7.1.3) are not included in this efficacy estimate. Overall, there is medium confidence that the direct solar efficacy is within the 0.7 to 1.0 range.”
“Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average
Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years”
No it does not – if this statement is a blatant lie, why would anyone believe the rest of the post?
Rosco says:
December 10, 2011 at 1:04 am
“Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and therefore radiating IR.”
Yes they are. Only the ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb and emit infrared radiation. The main constituents of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, do not. It is the radiation from the greenhouse gases that make the Earth’s surface warmer than it would without greenhouse gases.
Robert Brown December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“The amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere/oceans produced by mankind is tiny in comparison to the amount found naturally”
Just curious, but what are the actual numbers, there. Anyone?
Most CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year comes from natural sources (about 97%). Humans contribute the remaining 3%.
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Reported here by the US Energy Information Administration, Table 3, Page 26. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf
So, if we stopped our emissions completely, 97% of CO2 would still be ‘pumped’ into the atmosphere from natural sources.
However, we also know that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have risen from pre-industrial levels of about 280pp to about 390ppm today – and are continuing to rise by about 2ppm per year. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
The current level is significantly higher than levels experienced in any previous interglacial period, where CO2 levels were consistent with our pre-industrial levels. So, perhaps, human kind are responsible for this.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
Notice however, although our current CO2 levels are much higher than in other interglacials, the temperature is not. In the previous interglacial, the Eemian, it was generally warmer everywhere than it is today (according to the IPCC).
Not bad Jim
not bad at all.
In my humble opinion it is pointless trying to persuade the zealots, they never were interested in the facts anyway. But there is a whole section of middle-ground people out there who will be persuaded by a simplistic sound bite like the above.
mine is even simplistic-er
Yeah we believe in climate change all right, but we dont swallow the scaremongers reasons
The author says, “There are those who would interpret facts to fit their agendas.”
That’s funny.
Tom Curtis says:
December 10, 2011 at 3:01 am
Tom, as I said, the models assume that the 1 W/m2 of change in solar strength is equal to 1 W/m2 change in forcing by greenhouse gases. That is in fact confirmed by what the IPCC wrote. No matter how the different models come to that conclusion, the endresult is what I said, with some spread. Hansen e.a. (and the models) have some “wiggle room” by using the “efficacy” of the different forcings. See:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_2.pdf
where solar changes have an efficacy of 0.9-1.0 compared to CO2.
But that simply is what is incorporated in the models. If one tests the HADCM3 model with increased (10x) solar strength, then the “optimal” fingerprint for solar amplitude is 1-4 times stronger at the cost of the GHGs strength (0.60-0.85). See:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf
That is within the constraints of the HadCM3 model, like a fixed forcing/efficiency for aerosols. Without such constraints, the solar effect could go even further. Besides that, the implementation of highly uncertain aerosols (not even the sign is sure), gives all freedom for the modellers to implement any enhanced effect of CO2. The basic radiation effect is not more than 0.9°C for 2xCO2; 1.3°C including water vapour. All the rest is modelwork, where aerosols and clouds can have positive and negative effects at will… As the models fail the test of time (95% of all model runs now are above the observations), the “enhanced” greenhouse effect is clearly far too high.
Tom Curtis, in addition:
During high solar activity, the ITCZ and the jet stream position is more polewards, at low activity more equatorwards. That is observed during the 11/22 year solar cycle, but also plays a role in the overall activity between the long term minima and maxima (Maunder Minimum, last halve 20th century maximum). The main origin: solar UV maxima and minima are far more pronounced (10%) than the overall solar energy (1%) changes over a solar cycle. Solar UV is largely absorbed in the lower startosphere, leading to ozone formation changes and heating up of the lower stratosphere, mainly in the tropics. That causes more poleward air flow from the equator to the poles in the stratosphere and shifts in ITCZ and jet stream position. The latter causes shifts in clouds and rain patterns. Including a reverse correlation between (long term) sun cycles and cloud cover. Some literature:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL024393.shtml
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030926070112.htm
http://www.nwra.com/resumes/baldwin/pubs/SolarCycleStrat_TropDynamicalCoupling.pdf
Rainfall:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023787.shtml (Portugal)
http://ks.water.usgs.gov/pubs/reports/paclim99.html (Mississippi delta)
This is the base of many to claim that the effect of solar is underestimated in current climate models and the effects of GHGs and aerosols are overestimated…
Bomber_the_Cat says:
December 10, 2011 at 4:10 am
Most CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year comes from natural sources (about 97%). Humans contribute the remaining 3%.
You forget the other side: 98.5% of all CO2 that enters the atmosphere every year disappears into natural sinks. Thus the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources and the 1.5% that remains is what gives the extra increase in the atmosphere. Only the 3% of human origin is what causes the increase, not the 97% natural CO2…
“180 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet by about 30 C (Stefan-Boltzmann law).
Why, then, shouldn’t another 110 ppm warm it more? (Let alone another 300-500 ppm in our future…?)”
I’ll have to look at the numbers on this site — this is part of what I was asking, but what I was REALLY asking was also — presuming various increases or decreases in the depth of the thermocline (increased thermocline depth is expected in a warming phase) and the lowered solubility of CO_2 in water, how much of the surplus over the ~280 ppm pre-industrial level is due to warming of the ocean (basically shifting the quasi-equilibrium point in an OPEN system) and how much is due to humans?
To put it another way, we know CO_2 levels track temperature. Indeed, they oscillate annually, and the ocean is a massive dynamical sink, buffering (absorbing) and releasing CO_2 with temperature all the time. Indeed, it removes CO_2 altogether over time as it is bound up and falls to the ocean floor in the constant rain of bodies that drift down to the cold silt in the great dark (and eventually gets subducted and perhaps turned into oil, although that’s only one plausible explanation for oil, if maybe the most plausible one).
So what “should” the CO_2 level be?
rgb
Gail Combs says on December 9, 2011 at 6:00 pm:
“This explains why we can never ever win an argument with a Warmist. To them there are no objective facts.”
=========
You Forgot to mention “the fact of human overpopulation” as pontificated by The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) but never mind that. – For now, at least.
If we ever wish to “win an argument with a Warmist” – then all those who call themselves “Skeptics” while at the same time believe that CO2 is a “Greenhouse Gas” (GHG) must ask themselves: “Why, oh why – do I believe CO2 to be a GHG?” –
Soon, very soon – those “skeptics” will find there is no proof for that hypothesis whatsoever.
Then, and only then, can we “Call the Warmists out” and ask them to prove that CO2 is indeed a GHG. I can assert you “The Greenhouse Effect” rests on falsehoods, misunderstandings and false assumptions.
please show the graphs. hearsay is inadmissible.
“Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average
Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years
The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record
The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar”
What you hear depends on who and what you listen to.
What you see depends on who and what you watch.
Everything is relative,
Especially since we can only be in one place at a time.
Life’s a beach.
Get used to it.
“Bomber_the_Cat says: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
December 10, 2011 at 4:10 am
Rosco says:
“Besides GHGs are not the only gases in the atmosphere which are heated and therefore radiating IR.”
Yes they are. Only the ‘greenhouse gases’ absorb and emit infrared radiation. The main constituents of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, do not. It is the radiation from the greenhouse gases that make the Earth’s surface warmer than it would without greenhouse gases."
———————————————–
no, bomberthecat, they are NOT. what do you think a thermometer measures- radiation?
does nitrogen disobey stefan bolzman? can oxygen never be warm?
are you familiar with avogadro? ever hear of conduction? how about convection?
how do you think temperature is defined – joules?
i am wondering where the radiation fetish comes from? was that your first date with thermodynamics imprinting on you like tinbergen duckling?
“Yeah we believe in climate change all right, but we dont swallow the scaremongers reasons”
See here is the problem.
Climate change is a fact, not a religion.
You either accept the fact, or deny it, not “believe” in it.
Part of climate change is warming, some is cooling. Climate changes has happened over millions of years on the earth.
We have seen warming recently, as measured by thermometers. This is a fact. You can accept the fact or deny it. If you deny it, then you need to challenge the measurement process (which was done by BEST) which IMHO affirmed the fact.
CO2 in the atmosphere has increased. This is a fact. you can accept the fact or deny it. If you deny it you have to challenge the measurement process (this has not been done). But I have not seen any evidence to refute this fact.
Is the increased CO2 in the atmospher a contributer to the warming. There have been many experiments that have been done that point to the FACT that this is true. Dr. Pielke Sr. and many others have affirmed this fact. You can either accept the fact or deny it.
Now whether the warming is good or bad is a POLITICAL or RELGIOUS “belief”.
Libertarians (hello Chistopher Moncton, George Monbiot, James Delingpole, Jo Nova, Thomas Fuller, and our friend Willis Eschenbach … http://www.libertarian.to/author/index.php) “BELIEVE” that there should be no governmental interference, no laws that impede an individuals/businesses choice of action, ie laissez-faire Capitalism. (ah good old Ayn Rand’s Objectivism)
Others worry about the effects of this warming .. what will happen to the food output of the world, what will happen to coastal city erosion, what will happen to weather.. What will be the cost of these changes? To some it is important to do “something” to mitigate this warming by reducing CO2 output EVEN IF it is not the main cause of the current warming, it is still a partial one. The COST of doing nothing is of a concern to the U.S. Navy (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12897) and to many countries with sea level coastal cities.
So there you are. You can BELIEVE we should do nothing about the warming, or you can BELIEVE we should. All other hand waving is MOOT.
Taking the sunspot numbers since 1900 and plotting an 11-year running average
Results in a graph showing an increasing sunspot trend for 110-years
No it doesn’t.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/from:1900
The Hadley Center has a 110-year sea surface temperature record
The trends in sea surface temperature and sunspot trends are similar
No they are not.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:132/from:1900/offset:-80/scale:0.01/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:132
The increase in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with rising SST
It is wildly inconsistent. The increase in sea surface temperature can account for no more than about 5ppm of the observed 110ppm rise since pre-industrial times.
“Objectivity is the goal.”
Your shot went way into the stands.
“Soon, very soon – those “skeptics” will find there is no proof for that hypothesis whatsoever.
Then, and only then, can we “Call the Warmists out” and ask them to prove that CO2 is indeed a GHG. I can assert you “The Greenhouse Effect” rests on falsehoods, misunderstandings and false assumptions.”
You mean, aside from the mountains of proof including tabletop experiments that anyone can do in a decently equipped physics lab? You mean, instead of all of the rather solid spectroscopy involved, plus models that no reasonable person could call completely wrong?
The disagreement here is in the details of the models — the relative strengths of different terms in a complicated equation that governs thermal balance in the open system that is the earth, not on “whether CO_2 is a greenhouse gas”. It is remarks like this that permit the “warmists” — quite rightly, in some cases — to accuse all skeptics of being batshit crazy as opposed to being “reasonable” about the issue.
rgb
Robert Brown says:
December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm
re; numbers for CO2 emission, ppm, etc.
A strange but true correlation is that near as anyone can tell exactly half of annual anthropogenic CO2 emission is sticky i.e. it remains in the atmosphere indefinitely. The average annual increase in CO2 lately is 1.5ppm which works out to about a half of a percent. So human emission is about 3ppm now or about 1% of amount that’s resident in the atmosphere. This 1/2 ratio holds true no matter how much or how little anthropogenic CO2 is emitted as far back as can be determined.
Natural annual emission is a far higher number as must be the various sinks. It’s difficult to argue that the increasing amount in the atmosphere is not due to human emission. The natural sources and sinks appear to be well balanced with glacial vs. interglacial atmospheric equilibrium point changing from 200ppm to 280ppm respectively.
It’s difficult to argue that if there were no anthropogenic emissions there would still be an increase. It appears to me as if there’s a natural equilibrium point of 280ppm and that the faster human activity emits CO2 the harder the natural sinks work to bring it back down to 280ppm. My hypothesis is that if human emission stopped entirely atmospheric CO2 would decline at the same rate that it rose, quickly at first then slower and slower as the natural equilibrium point was approached.
There’s certainly a good case to be made for average ocean temperature to be an overwhelming factor when there’s a large enough change but the fact of the matter is that the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9C and no one knows how much or little the average temperature has changed. It’s fairly well established that in normal, pre-ice age conditions atmospheric CO2 was far higher than today and average surface temperature was 8C higher with the lion’s share of that being expansion of temperate zone all the way to the poles. Antarctica was covered by temperate forest. The water cycle appears to put a cap on regional high temperature and as greenhouse effect increases the tropics don’t get warmer as the retained energy is shuffled to the poles more quickly. The whole system can be roughly thought of like a auto engine and a radiator where the tropics are the engine and the poles are the radiator. As the engine speeds up and temperature rises so too does the flow of cooling water moving from tropics to poles so that the tropical temperature doesn’t go up but the polar temperature rises by a whole lot. The position of the continental plates is thought to have a lot to do with enabling or disabling ice ages as they can both throttle and change oceanic conveyor belt shuffling water in a circle from tropics to poles and back and can also either cover or expose the pole. An exposed pole (open water) can dump heat far faster than a pole where a plate blocks the conveyor belt from reaching the sweet spot for heat removal.
The extent and duration of sea ice on the north pole is also a factor. Sea ice is a wonderful insulator as it blocks all but conductive heat loss from the ocean beneath. When there’s no ice heat escapes far faster as the primary method of oceanic heat loss, evaporation, is enabled and the secondary method, radiation, is also enabled. Conduction is a tertiary means of ocean heat loss. So you can think of the arctic ice cap as being like a thernostat in an automotive liquid cooling system – as the amount of heat in the water arriving from the increases it causes a decrease in sea ice cover which allows the heat to escape faster. It’s a perfect example of a negative feedback.
The bottom line is that we live on a water world and water, in all its phases, is the big kahuna. Non-condensing greenhouse gases play a very minor role so long as most of the ocean is free of ice. Ice cover inhibits the water cycle and as it moves farther toward the equator reflects increasingly more energy which in turn fosters even more ice formation in a runaway cooling. It is widely assumed that when that happens non-condensing greenhouse gases from volcanism and dark ash accumulation on the ice growing and growing over millions of years eventually tip the scales and create a runaway melt.
Fascinating stuff. The bottom line for me is that current CO2 level is anemic compared to most of the earth’s history and the biosphere is anemic by consquence since ice and low CO2 concentration inhibit plant growth. Plants are the primary producers in the food chain so the more plants prosper the more the animal kingdom prospers. The earth has been in an ice for several million years with a cyclical partial thaw happening about once per 100,000 years and persisting for 10,000 years. The current thaw has lasted longer than 10,000 years already and any human actions that would serve to end the thaw are not sane actions. Therefore, drill baby drill and burn baby burn – it’s good for industry and good for the biosphere – a win-win situation.
harvey says:
December 10, 2011 at 7:58 am
“If you deny it, then you need to challenge the measurement process (which was done by BEST) which IMHO affirmed the fact.”
They affirmed the record. Unfortunately the record is of only a small fraction of the northern hemisphere land surface (Europe and the continental United States) and the instruments used were never meant to measure changes as small as a tenth of a degree.
The FACT is that the raw instrumental temperature record shows no overall warming trend since 1880. Most of the warming trend comes from the “adjustments” applied to the recorded temperatures with so-called Time of Observation Bias being the primary source of warming trend. To say that the warming is man-made is quite true but it appears that it is made by pencil whipping the instrument record rather than by increasing CO2 emissions. BEST did not abandon the TOB adjustments so they really only confirmed that no one in the past made any basic arithmetic errors. They did nothing to increase the abysmal spatial coverage, the inability to read the thermometers to sub-degree precision, nor prove the series of adjustments to the raw data are justifiable and, once again, without those adjustments there is no warming to be found.