By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Responses to my post of December 28 about climate sensitivity have been particularly interesting. This further posting answers some of the feedback.
My earlier posting explained how the textbooks establish that if albedo and insolation were held constant but all greenhouse gases were removed from the air the Earth’s surface temperature would be 255 K. Since today’s temperature is 288 K, the presence as opposed to absence of all the greenhouse gases – including H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O and stratospheric O3 – causes 33 K warming.
Kiehl and Trenberth say that the interval of total forcing from the five main greenhouse gases is 101[86, 125] Watts per square meter. Since just about all temperature feedbacks since the dawn of the Earth have acted by now, the post-feedback or equilibrium system climate sensitivity parameter is 33 K divided by the forcing interval – namely 0.33[0.27, 0.39] Kelvin per Watt per square meter.
Multiplying the system sensitivity parameter interval by any given radiative forcing yields the corresponding equilibrium temperature change. The IPCC takes the forcing from a doubling of CO2 concentration as 3.7 Watts per square meter, so the corresponding warming – the system climate sensitivity – is 1.2[1.0, 1.4] K, or about one-third of the IPCC’s 3.3[2.0, 4.5] K.
I also demonstrated that the officially-estimated 2 Watts per square meter of radiative forcings and consequent manmade temperature changes of 0.4-0.8 K since 1750 indicated a transient industrial-era sensitivity of 1.1[0.7, 1.5] K, very much in line with the independently-determined system sensitivity.
Accordingly. transient and equilibrium sensitivities are so close to one another that temperature feedbacks – additional forcings that arise purely because temperature has changed in response to initial or base forcings – are very likely to be net-zero.
Indeed, with net-zero feedbacks the IPCC’s transient-sensitivity parameter is 0.31 Kelvin per Watt per square meter, close to the 0.33 that I had derived as the system equilibrium or post-feedback parameter.
I concluded that climate sensitivity to the doubling of CO2 concentration expected this century is low enough to be harmless.
One regular troll – one can tell he is a troll by his silly hate-speech about how I “continue to fool yourself and others” – attempted to say that Kiehl and Trenberth’s 86-125 Watts per square meter of total forcing from the presence of the top five greenhouse gases included the feedbacks consequent upon the forcing, asserting, without evidence, that I (and by implication the two authors) was confusing forcings and feedbacks.
No: Kiehl and Trenberth are quite specific in their paper: “We calculate the longwave radiative forcing of a given gas by sequentially removing atmospheric absorbers from the radiation model. We perform these calculations for clear and cloudy sky conditions to illustrate the role of clouds to a given absorber for the total radiative forcing. Table 3 lists the individual contribution of each absorber to the total clear-sky [and cloudy-sky] radiative forcing.” Forcing, not feedback. Indeed, the word “feedback” does not occur even once in Kiehl & Trenberth’s paper.
In particular, the troll thought we were treating the water-vapor feedback as though it were a forcing. We were not, of course, but let us pretend for a moment that we were. If we now add CO2 to the atmospheric mix and disturb what the IPCC assumes to have been a prior climatic equilibrium, then by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation the space occupied by the atmosphere is capable of holding near-exponentially more water vapor as it warms. This – to the extent that it occurred – would indeed be a feedback.
However, as Paltridge et al. (2009) have demonstrated, it is not clear that the water vapor feedback is anything like as strongly positive as the IPCC would like us to believe. Below the mid-troposphere, additional water vapor makes very little difference because its principal absorption bands are largely saturated. Above it, the additional water vapor tends to subside harmlessly to lower altitudes, again making very little difference to temperature. The authors conclude that feedbacks are somewhat net-negative, a conclusion supported by measurements given in papers such as Lindzen & Choi (2009, 2010), Spencer & Braswell (2010, 2011), and Shaviv (2011).
It is also worth recalling that Solomon et al. (2009) say equilibrium will not be reached for up to 3000 years after we perturb the climate. If so, it is only the transient climate change (one-third of the IPCC’s ’quilibrium estimate) that will occur in our lifetime and in that of our grandchildren. Whichever way you stack it, manmade warming in our own era will be small and, therefore, harmless.
A true-believer at the recent Los Alamos quinquennial climate conference at Santa Fe asked me, in a horrified voice, whether I was really willing to allow our grandchildren to pay for the consequences of our folly in emitting so much CO2. Since the warming we shall cause will be small and may well prove to be beneficial, one hopes future generations will be grateful to us.
Besides, as President Klaus of the Czech Republic has wisely pointed out, if we damage our grandchildren’s inheritance by blowing it on useless windmills, mercury-filled light-bulbs, solar panels, and a gallimaufry of suchlike costly, wasteful, environment-destroying fashion statements, our heirs will certainly not thank us.
Mr. Wingo and others wonder whether it is appropriate to assume that the sum of various different fourth powers of temperature over the entire surface of the Earth will be equal to the fourth power of the global temperature as determined by the fundamental equation of radiative transfer. By zonal calculation on several hundred zones of equal height and hence of equal spherical-surface area, making due allowance for the solar azimuth angle applicable to each zone, I have determined that the equation does indeed provide a very-nearly-accurate mean surface temperature, varying from the sum of the zonal means by just 0.5 K in total. In mathematical terms, the Holder inequality is in this instance near-vanishingly small.
Dr. Nikolov, however, considers that the textbooks and the literature are wrong in this respect: but I have deliberately confined my analysis to textbook methods and “mainstream-science” data precisely so as to minimize the scope for any disagreement on the part of those who – until now – have gone along with the IPCC’s assertion that climate sensitivity is high enough to be dangerous. Deploying their own methods and drawing proper conclusions from them is more likely to lead them to rethink their position than attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Mr. Martin asks whether I’d be willing to apply my calculations to Venus. However, I do not share the view of Al Gore, Dr. Nikolov, or Mr. Huffman that Venus is likely to give us the answers we need about climate sensitivity on Earth. A brief critique of Mr. Huffman’s analysis of the Venusian atmospheric soup and its implications for climate sensitivity is at Jo Nova’s ever-fragrant and always-eloquent website.
Brian H asks whether Dr. Nikolov is right in his finding that, for several astronomical bodies [including Venus] all that matters in the determination of surface temperature is the mass of the atmospheric overburden. Since I am not yet content that Dr. Nikolov is right in concluding that the Earth’s characteristic-emission temperature is 100 K less than the 255 K given in the textbooks, I am disinclined to enquire further into his theory until this rather large discrepancy is resolved.
Rosco is surprised by the notion of dividing the incoming solar irradiance by 4 to determine the Wattage per square meter of the Earth’s surface. I have taken this textbook step because the Earth intercepts a disk-sized area of insolation, which must be distributed over the rotating spherical surface, and the ratio of the surface area of a disk to that of a sphere of equal radius is 1:4.
Other commenters have asked whether the fact that the characteristic-emission sphere has a greater surface area than the Earth makes a difference. No, it doesn’t, because the ratio of the surface areas of disk and sphere is 1:4 regardless of the radius and hence surface area of the sphere.
Rosco also cites Kiehl and Trenberth’s notion that the radiation absorbed and emitted at the Earth’s surface is 390 Watts per square meter. The two authors indicate, in effect, that they derived that value by multiplying the fourth power of the Earth’s mean surface temperature of 288 K by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (0.0000000567 Watts per square meter per Kelvin to the fourth power).
If Kiehl & Trenberth were right to assume that a strict Stefan-Boltzmann relation holds at the surface in this way, then we might legitimately point out that the pre-feedback climate-sensitivity parameter – the first differential of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer at the above values for surface radiative flux and temperature – would be just 288/(390 x 4) = 0.18 Kelvin per Watt per square meter. If so, even if we were to assume the IPCC’s implicit central estimate of strongly net-positive feedbacks at 2.1 Watts per square meter per Kelvin the equilibrium climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling would be 3.7 x 0.18 / (1 – 2.1 x 0.18) = 1.1 K. And where have we seen that value before?
In all this, of course, I do not warrant any of the IPCC’s or Kiehl and Trenberth’s or the textbooks’ methods or data or results as correct: that would be well above my pay-grade. However, as Mr. Fernley-Jones has correctly noticed, I am quite happy to demonstrate that if their methods and values are correct then climate sensitivity – whichever way one does the calculation – is about one-third of what they would like us to believe it is.
All the contributors – even the trolls – have greatly helped me in clarifying what is in essence a simple but not simpliste argument. To those who have wanted to complicate the argument in various ways, I say that, as the splendid Willis Eschenbach has pointed out before in this column, one should keep firmly in mind the distinction between first-order effects that definitely change the outcome, second-order effects that may or may not change it but won’t change it much, and third-order effects that definitely won’t change it enough to make a difference. One should ruthlessly exclude third-order effects, however superficially interesting.
Given that the IPCC seems to be exaggerating climate sensitivity threefold, only the largest first-order influences are going to make a significant difference to the calculation. And it is the official or textbook treatment of these influences that I have used throughout.
My New Year’s resolution is to write a short book about the climate question, in which the outcome of the discussions here will be presented. The book will say that climate sensitivity is low; that, even if it were as high as the IPCC wants us to think, it would be at least an order of magnitude cheaper to adapt to the consequences of any warming that may occur than to try, Canute-like, to prevent it; that there are multiple lines of evidence for systematic and connected corruption and fraud on the part of the surprisingly small clique of politically-motivated “scientists” who have fabricated and driven the now-failing climate scare; and that too many who ought to know better have looked the other way as their academic, scientific, political, or journalistic colleagues have perpetrated and perpetuated their shoddy frauds, because silence in the face of official mendacity is socially convenient, politically expedient, and, above all, financially profitable.
The final chapter will add that there is a real danger that the UN, using advisors from the European Union, will succeed in exploiting the fraudulent science peddled by the climate/environment axis as a Trojan horse to extinguish democracy in those countries which, unlike the nations of Europe, are still fortunate enough to have it; that the world’s freedom is consequently at immediate and grave risk from the vaunting ambition of a grasping, talent-free, scientifically-illiterate ruling elite of world-government wannabes everywhere; but that – as the recent history of the bureaucratic-centralist and now-failed EU has demonstrated – the power-mad adidacts are doomed, and they will be brought low by the ineluctable futility of their attempts to tinker with the laws of physics and of economics.
The army of light and truth, however few we be, will quietly triumph over the forces of darkness in the end: for, whether they like it or not, the unalterable truth cannot indefinitely be confused, concealed, or contradicted. We did not make the laws of science: therefore, it is beyond our power to repeal them.
Some questions about what Lord Monckton meant by “adidact”.
It could just have been a typo, but I suspect he means a-didact, where a didact is a teacher. So, as someone who is amoral lacks a moral sense an a-didact lacks a teaching sense or ability.
Would love to know the actual intent for sure.
Joe Born says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:53 am
Wayne,
Would it be possible for you to supply your program? My experience is that verbal descriptions of calculations–such as yours above–usually contain latent ambiguities readily dispelled by viewing the actual code.
…
>>>
Of course I would. You are the first to ever ask for the actual science proof! Glory be! I must admit I had a bit of trouble at first, never allowing for the latitudes decreasing area, and probably took the harder of two possible tacks, direct or monte carlo. The later might have been even easier.
It’s a bit messy and I have squished it but here is the function, place it in a simple c++ console application then call it. It’s quite simple. BTW, the un-lit side is never calculated for all points on it would be zero anyway. That is it only integrates the lit side and divides by two to account for the half un-lit. Make sense?
#include #define _USE_MATH_DEFINES #include void integrateMeanTperUTC() { int divisions = 2048; double init = (90.0/2/divisions)*M_PI/180; double step = init*2; double accum = 0, weight = 0; for (double lon=-M_PI/2+init; lon<M_PI/2; lon+=step) { double cos_lon = cos(lon); // pre-calc for (double lat=-M_PI/2+init; lat<M_PI/2; lat+=step) { double cos_lat = cos(lat); // pre-calc double F = (1362.0+ 13.25e-05)*(1-0.12)/0.955 * cos_lon * cos_lat; // cos_lat below is to correct for decreasing area with latitude accum += sqrt(sqrt(F/5.6704e-08)) * cos_lat; weight += cos_lat; } } printf("T: %.1f K\n", accum/weight/2); printf("GHE: %.1f K\n", 288 - accum/weight/2); }Monckton of Brenchley says:
You are mischaracterizing my argument. What your argument shows is that you don’t understand what a “forcing” or a “feedback” even mean and the fact that whether something is a forcing or a feedback depends on context. Why don’t you try answering my actual arguments ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848206 and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848211 ) rather than just engaging in misdirection? (No, that’s not hate speech; it is an accurate description of what you are doing.)
Utter and complete nonsense. Claes has not “proven” anything as I have discussed before: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/#comment-847777 . You make additional claims that even he wouldn’t make since they violate Conservation of Energy.
I won’t even get into Nahle’s nonsense. He makes Claes look like a genius by comparison.
thepompousgit says:
No he doesn’t and no it isn’t. He just gets things wrong, pure and simple.
Lord Monckton said:
“R. Gates says the Earth has not yet reached its equilibrium temperature, in that not all of the feedbacks consequent upon the greenhouse-gas forcings of 2 Watts per square meter that we have added to the system since 1750 have acted. However, these feedbacks are a very small fraction of the total feedbacks generated by the presence as opposed to absence of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In that context, very nearly all the feedbacks have acted, and the remaining feedbacks (even if they are as net-positive as the IPCC would wish) will have little influence on the determination of the equilibrium system sensitivity of 1.2 K per CO2 doubling.
Of course, R. Gates’ argument is correct as far as the transient sensitivity calculation since 1750 is concerned: but I had already pointed this out in my postings, drawing the legitimate conclusion that if the transient industrial-era sensitivity (1.1 K) is near-equal to the equilibrium system sensitivity (1.2 K) then it is likely that temperature feedbacks are net-zero or thereby. I submit, therefore, that I have not made an “error of logic” here.”
——-
First of all, I appreciate that we can have an actual exchange of ideas here, and once more tip my hat to Anthony for providing this opportunity. I have a few questions about your reply and some underlying assumptions that you seem to be making. Perhaps you have a good reason for making them, but as the form the cornerstone of much of the uncertainty surrounding sensitivity, and are far from settled even among the supposed experts, I am curious as to how you can be so certain of them.
1. We are concerned with the climate sensitivity to the change in greenhouse gases since 1750, and given that the change, in percentage terms, of CO2, N2O, and methane, have been between 30 and 40%, how can be certain that the feedbacks generated by these changes are a “small fraction” of the total feedbacks, when in fact feedbacks clearly are not linear in nature at all, especially when dealing with a system as complex as climate existing as it does, at the edge of chaos, where a seemingly small nudge can send the system into a new state seeking an entirely new state of equalibrium? A perfect example of this is the melting of ice, where the small percentage change in energy added to ice just below 0C can initiate a change which was not predictable if one simply looked at the effects that adding similar amounts of energy from say -10C up to 0C. If we know anything for certain about our studies of paleoclimate it is that it is not as stable as once imagined, and that there are tipping points where it can suddenly shift into a new regime, forced by the smallest of nudges (but not random in the least). So again, on what do you base your presupposition that the feedbacks even initiated by the changes in greenhouse gases that we’ve already seen since 1750 will be a small fraction of the total feedbacks generated by the existence of greenhouse gases when feedbacks are not linear in nature?
2. On what do you base what you call a “legitimate conclusion” that the transient industrial-era sensitivity of 1.1K is near-equal to the equalibrium sensitivity of 1.2K? Making such a conclusion would require that you had complete knowledge of all fast and slow feedback processes, and given that these are the very crux of much on-going resenarch, I must politely suggest that you can’t possibly draw this conclusion. For example, before the rather surprising drop in arctic sea ice in summer 2007, which has caused all climate models to readjust their projections as to when the arctic will be ice free in summer, did you predict such an acceleration downward to the already diminishing arctic sea ice? As this acceleration in the loss of arctic sea ice will have an impact on equalibrium sensitivity, you would have had to have foreseen this steepening of the curve downward in order to make the conclusion that the transient industrial-era sensitivity is near-equal to the equalibrium sensitivity. Point of fact– no one is certain or can be certain that these two are anything close to being equal as the system is still undergoing change and the feedbacks to the increases we currently have in greenhouses gases since 1750 are still active and the system has not yet found a new equalibrium point. Moreover of course, the amounts of these greenhouse gases continue to increase and likely will for several decades to come at the very least, pushing out any future equalibrium point far into the future and given the nonlinear nature of the feedbacks, making predictiion of what that temperature will be quite difficult at best, but causing me great suspicion in the validity of your certainty that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 will be “low enough to be harmless” given the dynamic changes already underway.
Alway respectful of your keen intellect,
R. Gates
Joel Shaw says:
“If you have a block of ice there in place of something warmer, then it will not keep the room warmer for longer. If you put a block of ice in place of a vat filled with liquid nitrogen then it would indeed cause the room to stay warmer for longer.
“All that the greenhouse effect says is this: If you have the Earth emitting all its radiation out to space (at ~3 K), it will cool faster than if some of that radiation is being absorbed by the atmosphere, which is then because of its temperature then emitting some radiation back to the Earth.”
Granted my ice block is not a very good analogy: it has considerable Thermal Capacity. CO2 et al have negligable thermal capacity. They absorb LFIR and instantly re-radiate it. No heat loss from the ground is ‘slowed’ by their presence in the troposhere or elsewhere. This is why the computer models predict a warming troposphere, but reality shows no warming at all. The effect is purely imaginary: Cartesian rather than Newtonian scientific methodology.
Further, these same so-called ‘GHGs’ absorb LFIR from insolation and re-radiate it in all directions – ie just over half back out into space, cutting off more than half reaching the ground in the first place. Any LFIR absorbed from the gound is also re-radiated in all directions, and those downward have zero heating effect on the ground as the troposphere is usually between 50-100deg C colder than the ground.
davidmhoffer says:
December 30, 2011 at 9:48 pm
R. Gates;
The Earth has not reaced that even yet as all feedback processes have not yet fully responded.>>>
Since you keep referring to the many unknowns which you admit to regarding feedbacks, how can you assert with any degree of confidence that the feedback responses have not yet fully responded?
——–
We may not know all the feedbacks, nor where tipping points are, but we are seeing some already in play that strongly indivcate that feedbacks to even the currentl level of greenhouse gases are still responding and a new equalibrium point has not been reached. My response to Lord Monckton is specific on this point. He’s made what he calls a “legitimate conclusion” that the transient industrial-era sensitivity is near-equal to the equilibrium industrial- era sensitivity, yet as we don’t yet know what the industrial- era sensitivity is as the game is still afoot, this conclusion he makes is far from legitimate.
Wayne,
Thanks a lot; it is indeed clear–and it appears that, as I would have, you declined to integrate with respect to mu, as Nikolov did in his Equation (2).
Now that I’m sure what you (and, presumably, Nikolov) did, I’ll have to figure out whether it means anything.
By the way, here’s my attempt to place into a reply some code (R, in this case), which largely (but not quite) does the same thing. As you’ll see if this ends up being readable (I don’t know how to enter a scrollable window the way you did), the code emphasizes exposition over efficiency, and, since I’m using a scripting language, I only used about 68,000 points. The answer I get with the default parameter values is 158 Kelvins.
NikolovEqn2 = function(nLat = 180, nLong = 360, S_0 = 1366, c_s = 1.325e-4,
a_gb = 0.125, epsilon = 0.955, sigma = 5.670373e-8){
# A unity-radius sphere of emissivity epsilon is irradiated by (1) essentially
# planar radiation whose power density is S_0 (W/m^2) and (2) isotropic
# backgraound radiation whose power density is c_s. The (imaginary)
# sphere has zero thermal conductivity and zero thermal inertia, so the
# temperature at each point on its surface at every instant assumes
# precisely the temperature that places it in equilibrium with the radiation
# it receives at that instant. Find the temperature of a uniform-temperature
# sphere that radiates the same total power
#
# Solar radiation at noon GMT on an equinox as a function of location on the
# earth’s surface :
S = function(phi, theta) {S_0 * max(0,cos(phi)) * cos(theta);}
# Positional increments:
dLat = 180 / nLat; dTheta = pi * dLat / 180;
dLong = 360 / nLong; dPhi = pi * dLong / 180;
# Grid-cell centers:
lats = -90 + dLat/2 + 0:(nLat – 1) * dLat; thetas = pi * lats / 180;
longs = -180 + dLong/2 + 0:(nLong – 1) * dLong; phis = pi * longs / 180;
# Initialize total area scanned and cumulative area-weighted temperatures
A = 0; sumT = 0;
# Turn the crank:
for(phi in phis){
for(theta in thetas){
dA = cos(theta) * dTheta * dPhi;
# Tot up the area for debugging purposes; it should add to 4 * pi at the end
A = A + dA;
sumT = sumT + ((S(phi, theta) + c_s) * (1 – a_gb)/epsilon / sigma)^(1/4) * dA;
}
}
T = sumT/A
#
return(c(T, sumT, A));
}
Arno Arrak says, Dec 30th 2911
Arno, What a breath of fresh air you bring to this debate.
Your book “What Warming” on the satellite temperature data record should be read by all balanced, non-doctrinaire people who want confirmation that there is absolutely no hint of significant man-induced global warming in the real-world scientific data. You have shown beyond reasonable doubt that the alarmism of the last decade has been fuelled entirely by smoke and mirrors.
In fact, even the highly suspect (and apparently easily ‘adjustable’) surface instrumental record, whilst showing more warming than the much more reliable satellite data, still does not give any cause for alarm if properly interpreted.
See: http://www.TheTruthAboutClimateChange.org/tempsworld.html
I have been updating this annually since around 2005. Year after year it has consistently shown the same linear upward trend since 1850 of a distinctly un-alarming 0.41degC/century. Superimposed on this is a plus or minus 0.25degC oscillation with a periodicity of around 65 years which, being oscillatory, is assumed by most authorities to be entirely due to natural ocean cycles. (It correlates particularly well with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.).
What I find astonishing is that even with this clearly un-alarming data record, plain as a pikestaff for all to see for at least the last 6 years, the warmist bandwagon still keeps rolling on and on.
Keep up the good work everyone (including, especially of course, the good LM) in 2012.
And a Happy New Year to all.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
To put it another way than I did in my last post, you have no idea what part of what you and they call the “forcing” due to water vapor is in fact a feedback. That is, this calculation of the “forcing” due to water vapor calculates the radiative effect of water vapor without dealing with the issue of how the water vapor got into the atmosphere. When you use this along with the 33 K temperature increase associated with the greenhouse effect, you are just making the assumption that none of the water vapor got into the atmosphere as the result of the feedback that occurred when the non-condensable greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. In other words, you are assuming that the water vapor feedback is zero. That is why your argument is completely circular, i.e., you are calculating the climate sensitivity under the assumption that the feedback is zero.
Joe Born says:
The differential area is sin(theta) d theta d phi and Nikolov’s equation is “correct” in that sense. However, his equation calculates the Earth’s average temperature under the assumption that (in the absence of a greenhouse effect) the temperature of the Earth’s surface is simply determined by the local insolation. This is a very naive assumption that neglects any heat storage or transport. I think a more realistic assumption is what the climate science community generally makes: One calculates what the average temperature would be under the assumption that the Earth’s surface temperature is uniform and then notes that to the extent that the surface temperature were non-uniform, Holder’s Inequality implies that the average surface temperature would be lower. This correction is actually pretty small for the sort of temperature distribution that occurs on the Earth in its current state. While it would probably be somewhat larger in the absence of a greenhouse effect (i.e., the absence of a greenhouse effect would result in larger surface temperature variation), I doubt it would be so large as to make the assumption that Nikolov and Zeller make anywhere close to accurate.
Wayne:
I don’t mean to be a pen pal here, but I realized (as I was taking my quarterly return to the post office) that the comments in my code above betray a misconception under which I briefly labored as I was commenting the code. What my code–and yours–computes is not, as I characterized it, “the temperature of a uniform-temperature sphere that radiates the same total power.” That value would be the 280 Kelvins or so everyone has been citing.
No doubt this comes as a surprise to very few people. (I heard you saying “Well, duh.”). I bring it up, though, because it makes me believe that Nikolov’s Equation 2 value really doesn’t mean much. Yes, under highly fictional conditions the average temperature could theoretically be much lower than what now prevails on earth, but, as you observe, those conditions are ones that would not prevail on earth even in the absence of an atmosphere. So I have difficulty in perceiving what it is Nikolov et al. can logically infer about the atmosphere’s effects from that equation’s result.
I’m therefore inclined like Lord M not to devote much more thought to Nikolov et al. until they have revised their presentation considerably.
A couple of years ago I read a article stating that Earth had a rouglhy 10% denser atmosphere during the Permian Period than it does now , which helped make it warmer than it is now. From that article I thought I could apply the PV =nrT law to get the additional greenhouse effect from an Earth with a denser atmosphere, and Venus’s; surface temperature, in effect Dr Nikolov;’s calculation. I quickly found a snag in my reasoning,
M, and R are determined constants, P is an input for an atmospher of a given density, but RHO is not determined by initial conditions,
If P is 10% larger and Rho is ALSO 10% larger, you get the same temperature as before.
Venus has a P of roughly 90. What determines Rho? If Rho was 130, Venus would have
a temperature of 370 K.
I am underwhelmed by Dr Nikolov’s calculations.
Joel Shore
How much water vapor from solar forcing and how much from CO2 forcing?
You write “you would lose much, if not most, of the radiative effects due to water vapor.” (without non-condensable gases). Based on what?
@lgl: Without the non-condensable greenhouse gases, the first-order effect would be a drop in temperature on the order of 10 C and because the saturation vapor pressure is a strong function of the temperature, this would cause a significant drop in water vapor, which would lead to more cooling and more water vapor condensing out, … In the end, according to the computer modeling of Lacis et al., the temperature drops by roughly the 30-35 K due to the greenhouse effect. (On the one hand, not all the water vapor is gone but on the other the albedo of the earth’s surface increases.)
Even if you do not believe this scenario, just assuming it doesn’t occur in order to derive your climate sensitivity and then claiming that this sensitivity includes the water vapor feedback is a completely circular argument. Nobody serious disagrees about the climate sensitivity in the absence of feedbacks…The question is how feedbacks modify the result. Monckton’s calculation sheds zero light on that question.
Joel Shore says:
December 31, 2011 at 9:16 am
@lgl: Without the non-condensable greenhouse gases, the first-order effect would be a drop in temperature on the order of 10 C
Based on the gospel according to realclimate,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/
the removal of CO2 would decrease Earth’s greenhouse effect by 9%. The net greenhouse effect is about 250 watts- 100 latent heat of vaporization and 150 sensible heat. Multiply by 0.91 and you get 91 watts latent heat and 136.5 sensible heat over the 240 watt no greenhouse effect. That would reduce temperatures to about (376.5/390)^0.25 =0.99+, from about 288 K to about 285,5 K, a drop of 2.5 K, NOT your absurd 10K. The actual sensible drop in temperaturs would be less than 2.5 K since a smaller fraction of the decreased wattage would go into the latent heat of vaporization, and , there would be a drop in albedo due to fewer clouds, .
“Venus has a P of roughly 90. What determines Rho? If Rho was 130, Venus would have
a temperature of 370 K.”
It seems to me that is Venus had 92 atm of nitrogen, it would a lot cooler, but not as cold as 370 K.
I think it would much cooler, because my impression is CO2 is more transparent than Nitrogen.
On Venus with 92 Atm of CO2 sunlight reaches the surface, if instead it was nitrogen, it seems the
surface would be completely dark.
Picture of Venus surface:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Venera_Perspective.jpg
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm
Venus has 3.5% Nitrogen- or about 3 earth atmospheres of nitrogen, if instead
Venus had say 5 times more nitrogen it seem it could cool the planet significantly.
The Sun has large component of it’s solar energy as visible light, it seems to me the coolest
a planet at distance from the sun could be is if had gases which inhibited almost all
of the Sun’s spectrum from reaching the surface.
It seems that ocean depth is difficult on earth is hard penetrate- need sonar to find subs
under the ocean. Therefore enough water vapor may function as liquid water does in a ocean.
So instead adding nitrogen to Venus to cool it, putting lots water which become water vapor.
10 atm of water vapor, roughly equals 100 meter liquid water. Visible light can penetrate 100 meters of water, but if added to the existing Venus atmosphere, it seems as an addition it would block all light reaching it’s surface and in addition block other spectrum of sunlight.
Of course, simply energy needed to vaporize water that much water would at least temporarily cool the atmosphere
Nice work, m’Lud!
I particularly appreciated your last paragraph:
“The army of light and truth, however few we be, will quietly triumph over the forces of darkness in the end: for, whether they like it or not, the unalterable truth cannot indefinitely be confused, concealed, or contradicted. We did not make the laws of science: therefore, it is beyond our power to repeal them.”
You are indeed a wordsmith of the first order, if I may say so.
Furthermore, it is truly heartening that your logical approach to the scientific method is impenetrable, even to the likes of the battle-hardened warmist RGates.
It will be with great interest that I observe and support the progress of your action against the climate crank shysters in 2012 and beyond. More power to your elbow!
Happy New Year!
Dave Wendt says:
December 30, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Dave,
Thanks for the reply! 0.088 W/m2 as the global contribution of planetary cooling. Non-intuitive, low number. Means both heating mechanisms and thermal conductivities of rock very low. The earth’s rocks are like blankets and the oceans and atmosphere, like radiators.
I appreciate the feedback. There are many things that you don’t think about, that you take for granted, that when you stop to consider them appear odd. All these things that are “settled” and “certain” that are then found to be undetermined, unsettled and, their implications, uncertain.
Where have we heard that before.
The answer seems weirdly low if, as in Calgary, you can simply put 300′ of pipe 40′ in the ground and have some significant impact on heating/powering your house. I will check further with these Green Technology Guys about the power output of their pipes. If the recharge power is really 0.088 W/m2, my (again) intuitive sense is that their heating system will fail quickly as the energy is drained away.
Oh, and the new Google Earth map of 6km deep temperatures across the USA: only very rich corporations could get into geothermal energy at those depths. Makes you wonder if that is the purpose: if you could actually heat cities with depths of a few hundred meters, anyone could do it (called “water well” drilling).
Joel
I certainly do not believe that scenario. Most of the vapor originates in the tropics, and table 8 here http://www.cccma.ec.gc.ca/papers/jli/pdf/puckrin2004.pdf says 295 W/m2 from H2O and 5 W/m2 from CO2 so clearly the very most of water vapor is solar driven (even if you add 10 or 20 W/m2 to the 5 from the combined effect). Adding 400 W/m2 solar we get at least 700 W/m2 non-CO2 in total, so removing the 10-20 or so W/m2 from CO2 would not change the temperature in the tropics significantly.
Wrong: the oceans, 80% of the surface would still remain in the ice and cloud free World so hypothetical albedo would be ~0.07!
Such confidence! Without an atmosphere, we would not have any oceans either. A kinda goes with B there.
To me this whole modeling thing is a farce, no matter how you apply it. This is the problem with the current generation of scientists in many respects in that they have replaced actual experimentation and fact finding with assumptions and computer models. The truth about GHG’s is out there if someone just put up the money to actually do the experiments rather than all this arm waving.
I like Chris M and I know that his heart is in the right place here but without actual experimental evidence his arm waving is no more conclusive than Mike Mann’s or James Hansen’s.
As a physical scientist and test engineer this is what first has to be established.
1. What is the desaturation altitude of the principal absorption spectra of CO2 in the wavebands where it is saturated at the ground?
2. Have the Lorentz transformations of the linewidths of individual absorption lines broadened for CO2 that has increased from 0.028% of the atmosphere to 0.039% If so, how much?
3. What exactly is the effect of a 1 degree k increase in temperature on the absorption lines of CO2. It is well known that there is a temperature dependency with regard to the absorption lines. Measure the lines in the tropics, subtropics, and polar regions to see how this effects the desaturation altitude for not only CO2 but for CH4 and N2O and H2O.
All of the computer modeling that I have ever seen does simplifications of the characteristics of absorption and emission of CO2. In my opinion this is why you are not seeing the mid troposphere warming predicted in the tropics by Hansen and others.
Quit arm waving and start measuring, we might learn something.
“”””” David Walton says:
December 30, 2011 at 11:33 am
Re: “It is a shame that the politicians took a stand on this issue, but as Churchill observed, even a fool (and presumably many fools) can be right sometimes.”
Au contraire. Thanks to politicians and the legions of ignorant, feel good eco-fools GE’s breakthrough incandescent that had nearly the efficiency of CFLs and none of the associated disposal hazards was canned and never brought into production. “””””
So how would that “efficient” incandescent bulb work David ?
Existing incandescents emit a lot of their radiant energy in the near infra-red, and those photons can’t easily be up converted to visible light; well ALL light “by definition” IS visible.
So presumably the efficient incandescent would have to have its Temperature raised. A 3,000 K filament would have its spectral irradiance peak at about 1.0 microns, twice that of the 6,000 K sun, and about 98% of the radiant energy would lie between 0.5 microns and 8.0 microns; but only 25% of it is below 1.0 microns, which is IR.
Well you can try raising the Temperature to get more high energy photons, that you could then shift to other visible (but lower) frequencies, with various “phosphors” and the various “halogen” lamps are effectively in this category; but you still end up generating more heat (waste) than light.
Even at 6,000 K the sun doesn’t provide a spectrum at earth surface, which can be efficiently converted to a better white light source.
Down converting phosphors used in either fluorescents (or CFLs) , have their problems; and moreso with “warm white” lamps, than with “daylight” lamps that have 4-5,000 K color Temperatures.
Last night, I was drinking a glass of Cranberry juice, while reading in bed using a 5,000K daylight LED lamp. The Cranberry juice was dark chocolate brown; about the same color it would look outside at night with low pressure Sodium patrking lot or street lights. Neither one of these lamps put out any red light to speak of, so you get brown instead of red.
Warm white LEDs (2700-3,000 K) or fluorescents, (CFLs) do not contain a red phosphor, just a broad yellow phosphor or a mix of yellow and green with fluorescents, that are all UV pumped so they emit no visible light without the phosphors.
And the problem with all red phosphors, as Television makers know, is that they are quite inefficient in energy conversion to visible light, because red light has very low luminosity, and all red phosphors put out a very broad red spectrum, so too much radiant energy is put into the near IR, rather than visible red.
So warm white CFLs or LEDs will always be less efficient than daylight ones, at least until multicolor RYGB LED lamps are developed, and that will be too expensive for general lighting.
R. Gates;
We may not know all the feedbacks, nor where tipping points are, but we are seeing some already in play that strongly indivcate that feedbacks to even the currentl level of greenhouse gases are still responding and a new equalibrium point has not been reached. My response to Lord Monckton is specific on this point. >>>>
You cannot assert that Monckton’s sensitivity estimates are wrong on the basis of the feedbacks being unknown, while also asserting that your sensitivity estimates are credible because you lack the exact same data you criticise Monckton for not having.
You cannot both suck and blow.
one should keep firmly in mind the distinction between first-order effects that definitely change the outcome, second-order effects that may or may not change it but won’t change it much, and third-order effects that definitely won’t change it enough to make a difference. One should ruthlessly exclude third-order effects, however superficially interesting.
I like this statement, but what are the first order effects on temperature of the Earth? This would be my list.
1. Solar Distance (inverse square law of the radiative flux from the sun)
2. Ocean (the big heat sink)
3. Atmospheric pressure
4. Gross Atmospheric Composition (Oxygen/Nitrogen/Inert gasses/water vapor)
5. Albedo variances from plants, land use, ice,
6. Earth Rotation
7. Altitude variations (mountains, altitude variations)
8. Internal heat and heat flow to the surface (volcanos and standard heat flow)
Using the hierarchy that Chris lays out here GHG’s are all secondary effects.
Until you take into account 1-8 above, it is of little use to worry about GHG’s.
For example it is a known fact of paleoclimatology that our current ice age (we are in an interglacial period within a larger 3-5 million year old ice age) began pretty much with the uplift of the Hindu/Kush mountains and the closure of the Isthmus of Panama. Before that temperatures were considerably higher than today, oceans were tens of meters higher with CO2 only slightly different than today. Therefore it should be quite clear that CO2 is of a lesser import than the variations in altitude of the planet and the differences in ocean circulation.
You can go farther back into the past to see differences in continental configurations coupled with CO2 as low as today but with global temperatures far different than what we see today.
Therefore to make wide ranging statements about some major effects of a secondary influence without measuring to actually understand it within the context of the major influences (Chris I am not claiming that you are), obscures more than it illuminates.
This is why we need a program of taking actual spectral measurements around the world so that we can actually quantify the effects of CO2 as a secondary influence (CH4, N2O, and H2O as well), so that we can accurately quantify these secondary effects and then see what happens when more or less of them are put into the mix.