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.
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Here’s a simple thought experiment regarding a doubling of CO2, that indicates a general range for climate sensitivity. Let’s assume that the general 33C boost the earth gets from greenhouse gases is correct (other theories not withstanding). Let’s be generous on the conservative side, and suggest that about 25% of the 33C temperature boost comes from CO2 and related feedbacks. I suggest this is conservative because of the non-condensing nature of CO2 versus water vapor, such that without CO2 in the mix of greenhouse gases, as the earth cooled, it might well continue to cool as more water vapor is condensed from the atmosphere and lead right back to an ice-house earth state, and thus, losing the 25% part of the 33C rise might actually lead to losing much more. But regardless, let’s be generous and suggest that about 8.25C of warming comes from CO2, and this 8.25C would include any and all fast and slow feedback effects such as might come from diminished ice, and biosphere effects related to plankton etc. As the Holocene Climate has generally been pretty stable when compared to the very large oscillations of the last glacial period, the pre-industrial level of CO2 at 280 ppm has certainly played some role in helping to create the fairly stable Holocene Climate that our species has so enjoyed and has been the springboard of civilization due to that stability. The flourishing of the common grain plants such as wheat need a fairly stable climate and these grains have been so vital for our civilization. Now a doubling of CO2, from the Holocene average of about 280 ppm to 560 ppm could mean up to an additional 8.25C of warming, but let’s be realistic and allow for the logarithmic nature of the purely radiative effects from CO2 (ignoring feedbacks in our conservative estimate), and be extra generous and suggest that we only get 25% of an 8.25C warming from doubling CO2. That would still mean about 2C of warming. But let’s remember that two additional greenhouse gases are also increasing rapidly along with the rise in CO2…namely N2O and methane, and these certainly play some role in the 33C boost that the earth gets from greenhouse gases. Methane in particular could play an even bigger role as its positive feedback effects could see the growth of methane on a percentage basis outstrip even that of CO2 in the coming decades, and of course, methane eventually breaks down into CO2, meaning that its effects can be even harder to quantify over the long run as we get several decades of warming from methane and then many more decades of warming from the CO2 that methane reduces to. The point in bringing up methane and N2O is that if we add their effects to the generously conservative estimate of 2C warming from a doubling of CO2, we are easily in the range of 3C warming from a doubling that seems the most reasonable at the present time. Again, these are all very conservative estimate estimates, and point strongly in the direction that a 1.1C of warming per doubling seems quite on the low side by at least 100% or more. A separate issue to all this of course is what harm might or might not come from a 3C warming. Certainly pronouncements that effects from a doubling will be “low enough to be harmless” appears as more guesswork rather than substantive.
Rosco says:
December 30, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Clearly, if one uses S(1-a) to calculate the maximum temperature the Sun “could” heat the Earth to (minus all other considerations such as evaporation, convection etc etc) you arrive at 360 K or ~ 87 degrees C.
Is this reasonable ?
Don’t know. But 67°C is given as the temp without the dynamics of the water cycle but with the rest of the atmosphere gases in place, practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen, so are you saying that without convection of these gases rising and falling parcels of air but in place the temp would be 20°C higher?
I’m not sure what the ‘picture’ is here but it does appear to make sense as part of the standard description, if the fluid gaseous atmosphere isn’t moving at all so no cooling winds and minus the water cycle.
[The standard descriptions I’ve seen is that the Earth without any atmosphere is -18°C., with atmosphere but without the water cycle 67°C.]
davidmhoffer says:
December 31, 2011 at 12:13 pm
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.
_______
Again, Lord Monckton is asserting that the transient industrial-era sensitivity is nearly equal to the equalibrium sensitivity, yet this can’t possibly be a known quantity, as the system (even at current CO2 levels) has not yet reached an equalibrium temperature yet, and worse still, CO2 levels continue to rise at rates faster than previously seen in the past 800,000 years. The paleoclimate record combined with a consensus of global climate models point strongly to a sensitivity per doubling of CO2 certainly greater than 2C, thus making Lord Monckton’s estimate of 1.1C off by at least 100%. Yes, the climate models are imperfect (as all models are), and the paleodata is also incomplete, but taken as a whole, they provide far more weight of evidence pointing to a higher climate sensitivity than what Lord Monckton would allow for.
Alan D McIntire says:
December 31, 2011 at 10:24 am
“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.”
_____
This is not taking into account the huge difference between condensing and non-condensing greenhouse gases, and the stabilizing effect that CO2 has on the overall greenhouse temperatures due to that non-condensing nature. Removing CO2 would remove that stabilizing effect, such that over a rather short period (certainly less than a century), the earth would gradually cool, more water vapor would be condensed out of the atmosphere and a return to an ice-house planet, globally very dry and very cold, would be the final result. This, by the way, doesn’t even take into account the biosphere effects of higher CO2, such that removing it would kill off plants, which would increase the planetary albedo by an even greater amount, and this, combined with increasing ice and snow coverage, and lower water vapor levels, would also lead inexorably to the ice-house earth of the past.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:58 pm
[SNIP: Phil. – Let’s not go there…. and Joel Shore is more than capable of taking care of himself, although I’m sure he appreciates your support. Take the high road. -REP]
AJStrata begs me to appreciate that the “absorbing and emitting sphere” at the characteristic-emission altitude are not of the same radius. However, Kirchhoff’s radiation law is entirely clear: absorption and emission of radiation from the characteristic-emission surface of an astronomical body are – and are treated by the textbooks and the IPCC as – simultaneous and identical. It is as simple as that.
Kirchoff’s law is clear but unfortunately you have it wrong, ’emissivity equals absorptivity’ is correct not your version.
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:45 pm
.. and the paleodata is also incomplete, but taken as a whole, they provide far more weight of evidence pointing to a higher climate sensitivity
——————-
It is shocking how many pro-AGW people believe this. I’m assuming they have never checked whether that was true or not.
Like say for instance, CO2 was at 240 ppm 15 million years ago and temperature was +4C. All Co2 estimates close to the period. What is the CO2 sensitivity in this case. Or 33 million years ago when temperature was about the same as today and CO2 was 1200 ppm. All CO2 estimates near the period. (Handy/dandy sensitivity formula for checking climate science math).
CO2 sensitivity = Temp AnomC * LN(2) / LN(CO2ppm/280)
Temp AnomC = CO2 sensitivity / LN(2) * LN(CO2ppm/280)
Climate science uses a different formula:
Any data whatsoever = 3C per doubling
Alan D McIntyre says:
I said all the non-condensable greenhouse gases, not just water vapor. That said, a better estimate for the direct (pre-feedback) effect their removal would probably have been about 5 K, not 10 K.
lgl says:
I think your estimates are off-the-mark and it is also not really relevant what the fraction of the total W/m^2 is: The earth is poised at temperatures where a little bit of warming goes a long way toward increasing water vapor in the atmosphere (and, by the way, the most important parts of the atmosphere in terms of the water vapor feedback are not the warm regions but rather high in the troposphere where it is quite cold). I trust actual models that incorporate actual physics into them more than people throwing numbers around off the top of their head as if that proves something.
That being said, it is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether one can invoke a circular argument by ASSUMING the water vapor feedback doesn’t exist in order to derive a climate sensitivity that one claims includes the effects of the water vapor feedback.
Bill Illis says:
December 31, 2011 at 2:30 pm
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:45 pm
.. and the paleodata is also incomplete, but taken as a whole, they provide far more weight of evidence pointing to a higher climate sensitivity
——————-
It is shocking how many pro-AGW people believe this. I’m assuming they have never checked whether that was true or not.
____
Actually, I have checked this, probably far more extensively than many skeptics. Of most interest in the paleoclimate data would be the most recent time period in which CO2 was around current or slightly higher levels, as this would also be the closest in terms of ocean and continent configurations as well as general solar output and insolation levels (i.e. the cool sun issue of the most distant past creates issues as well as the greatly different continent configurations). In this regards, a great amount of interest is of course focused on the mid-Pliocene period as this was the last and most recent period in which CO2 levels were approximately at this level or higher (3.0 to 3.3 mya). While much study of course needs to be done, and a great deal is on-going, a growing amount of paleoclimate data from this time period would indicate that a climate sensitivity of about 3C per a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels is indicated. Most important of course, is the fact that this paleoclimate data would inherently include all fast and slow feedbacks from higher CO2 levels– something of course that the current batch of climate models need continuing improvement on. As the paleoclimate data continues to come in from the mid-Pliocene, and the sum total of feedbacks are better understood, a tightening of the estimate of climate sensitivity will occur, reducing the uncertainty bands. Currently the 3C estimate of warming per doubling of CO2 is holding up quite well.
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Although I’ve never found your arguments here very convincing, in the past i must admit I thought you did at least a workmanlike job of arguing your position. However this comment is so lame that one hardly knows where to begin in addressing it or even whether it is worth wasting my dwindling supply of life to do so.
“Let’s be generous on the conservative side, and suggest that about 25% of the 33C temperature boost comes from CO2 and related feedbacks.”
25% is “generous and conservative”? Even the notoriously skeptical folks at Wikipedia have 25% at the very top of their estimate, In the real world the percent is more likely to be in single digits.
“Now a doubling of CO2, from the Holocene average of about 280 ppm to 560 ppm could mean up to an additional 8.25C of warming…”
8.25C? Really? This last doubling could double the GHE of all the other CO2 in the atmosphere? Got a link for that one?
“But let’s remember that two additional greenhouse gases are also increasing rapidly along with the rise in CO2…namely N2O and methane, and these certainly play some role in the 33C boost that the earth gets from greenhouse gases.”
At the molecular level methane is supposedly 30 time more radiatively effective than CO2, but it exists in the atmosphere, even after a big uptick in the 80s, at 1/200th the concentration of CO2. and the rate of growth has been fairly flat since the 90s. In the real atmosphere, what scant evidence which exists suggests that neither CH4 or N2O are more than negligible contributors to the GHE.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
” Certainly pronouncements that effects from a doubling will be “low enough to be harmless” appears as more guesswork rather than substantive.”
Lord Monckton’s statements may be guesswork, given the current state of the science most statements about the climate are, but his guesses bear at least some relation to reality. Something which can’t be said about your comment.
Dave Wendt said: (regarding R. Gates conservative estimate of the impact of CO2 in the mix of greenhouse gas effects on the climate)
“25% is “generous and conservative”? Even the notoriously skeptical folks at Wikipedia have 25% at the very top of their estimate, In the real world the percent is more likely to be in single digits.”
____
I would simply direct those who question this estimate to the actual measurements and science, and a few an excellent sources can be found at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v344/n6266/abs/344529a0.html
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1943/1891.full
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
I stand quite solidly behind my generously conservative estimate of 25% of the 33C warming being related to CO2– and this didn’t really even address the 15 micron issue (where earth’s LW peaks right where CO2’s LW is strongest, and water vapor is much weaker) nor the non-condensing nature of CO2 and its relative stability when compared to water vapor in the atmosphere. Quite simply- take away the CO2 from the atmosphere and we’d be back to an ice planet in fairly short order, such that the 25% conservative estimate of the contribution to the 33C of warming does not even begin to indicate the full measure and value of the stability that CO2 brings to temperatures from its non-condensing nature.
Joel Shore says:
December 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
…..
I said all the non-condensable greenhouse gases, not just water vapor. ”
I wasn’t aware that water vapor was a non-condensable greenhouse gas.
The earth’s atmosphere has changed dramatically over its 4.6 billion year existence. Solar luminosity has increased roughly 40% over the last 4.6 billion years. Despite these drastic changes, earth has had stable enough temperatures to maintain liquid oceans over nearly the entire span of time. Obviously the water cycle has played a dominant part in maintaining that stability, and obviously the feedback must have been NEGATIVE over geological periods of time.
Monckton is right- these high sensitivity calculations belong in “Creature Feature” type disaster movies, not in scientific papers.
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 3:39 pm
LIFE IS TOO SHORT!
R. Gates;
The paleoclimate record combined with a consensus of global climate models point strongly to a sensitivity per doubling of CO2 certainly greater than 2C, thus making Lord Monckton’s estimate of 1.1C off by at least 100%.>>>
Oh bullsh*t.
Global climate models are just that, models! In fact, they are models based on the assumptions of the people who made them! By definition, they presume feedback values that you have just admitted nobody has any way of credibly quanitfying! So call your estimate a computer model and suddenly it is reasonably accurate? What utter and total bullsh*t!
Then let’s average the utter and total bullsh*t models which can’t hindcast worth beans, failed to predict ANYTHING accurateley since they were dirst written, with the paleo record which equates temperatures to…assumptions made by the exact same researchers in regard to relationship with tree rings. For the few decades in which we have both temperature data and paleo data, the paleo data to totaly and completely wrong for almost 1/2 the temperature record!
So you want to average computer models based on wild guesses that cannot be substantiated by measurements, hindcasting, or forecasting, with paleo models that can’t get the temperature trend right almost half the time, and then claim that the resulting number supports your sensitivity estimate?
Please invite as many of your warmist friends as possible to read what you wrote and the rebuttals in this thread. I dare you.
Alan: Obviously, I meant “carbon dioxide” when I typed “water vapor”.
As for paleoclimate: Those who have actually studied paleoclimate have a different view of the Earth’s history ( http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5697/821.summary ):
It may be true that on long enough timescales, geochemical feedbacks (e.g., the buildup of CO2 that occurs during snowball or slushball earth events, the drawdown of CO2 that occurs during hotter epochs) tend to produce negative feedback. Unfortunately, such feedbacks are unlikely to save us on the centennial time scale.
As I have demonstrated here and nobody has seriously challenged, Monckton’s current pet argument about climate sensitivity is completely and utterly bogus. But, I suppose that won’t stop people from believing what they want to believe.
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 3:01 pm
In this regards, a great amount of interest is of course focused on the mid-Pliocene period as this was the last and most recent period in which CO2 levels were approximately at this level or higher (3.0 to 3.3 mya).
————————–
Well one can cherrypick a short period and make a comment about it but we need to look if the sensitivity applies consistently. Have a look at the last 15 million years. CO2 is playing no role at all.
http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/4995/co2andtempover15mys.png
And here are all of your CO2 estimates from 3.3 Mya to 3.0 Mya when temps were about 1.0C higher than today (excluding some recent CO2 estimates from Pagani which contradicts the Antarctic ice core numbers in the period when they overlap so should be discarded). These are pretty consistently below 280 ppm (indicating it should have been cooler).
3.000 184
3.000 208
3.008 215
3.034 236
3.194 243
3.266 211
3.310 220
3.310 248
3.317 254
3.322 267
3.327 229
3.338 247
3.343 266
3.348 237
3.354 243
3.363 279
3.368 271
3.373 289
3.383 312
3.388 302
3.393 308
3.396 277
Joe Born says:
December 31, 2011 at 8:25 am
I had to strike that out of your statement, for it is you that has mischaracterized what is in Dr. Nikolov & Zeller’s theory as I read it.
You say: “the temperature of a uniform-temperature sphere that radiates the same total power” and that is totally incorrect. Was they are saying is every point on such of a sphere is not, I repeat not at a uniform temperature. Since the relation of radiation on a massless gray body to the temperature at every point is non-linear due to the fourth root you must first compute the effective radiative temperature at each point from the radiation at that point and then average the temperatures across the sphere.
Lord M should very well pay attention to this theory for it’s physics are correct on the ‘mean effective radiative temperature’ and it corrects the slip in logic found everywhere within general “climate science” today. Most of the problem is most of climate science on the radiation side keep insisting on a massless surface without any thermal inertia, they keep assuming all radiation hitting the Earth immediately and totally radiates back to space. This is wrong.
I can’t speak for your program, but I will stand by mine for correctly computing the ‘mean effective radiative temperature’ of a massless gray body as a perfect radiator. Remember, there is no real temperature in such of an example for there is no mass. It takes mass to even define temperature. (but most climate scientist have no problem with it and therefore they are all wrong, sorry)
R. Gates says:
December 31, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Here’s a simple thought experiment regarding a doubling of CO2, that indicates a general range for climate sensitivity. Let’s assume that the general 33C boost the earth gets from greenhouse gases is correct (other theories not withstanding). Let’s be generous on the conservative side, and suggest that about 25% of the 33C temperature boost comes from CO2 and related feedbacks>>>
since any feedbacks you could attribute to CO2 would apply equally to water vapour, and water vapour DWARFS CO2 as a GHG, your numbers are as bogus as the rest of your argument. But hey, let’s put that aside for a moment and use your utterly ridiculous 6 degrees.
That would mean that if 280 ppm = 6 degrees, then 400 ppm which is close to what we have now would result in another +3 (CO2 being logarithmic, plus 40% is about a 50% increase). That in turn would be about 6 degrees for doubling of CO2, TWICE as much as you claim with your utterly ridiculous circular logic based on artificial models being averaged with totaly discredited paleo records.
Nice. You’ve discredited your own theory!
Joel Shore;
I doubt it would be so large as to make the assumption that Nikolov and Zeller make anywhere close to accurate.>>>
My first take on Nikolov and Zeller was that their -100K number was out of the realm of reality. Upon further consideration, I’m no so certain. If you calculate equilibrium temperature based on SB Law and an average of 235 w/m2, you get around 253K.
But there’s no such thing as “average” insolation, and P varies with T^4, not T. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation based on a 12 hour zero insolation followed by insolation rising linearly from zero to 1000 w/m2 in six hours, and then dropping back to zero in the next six hours. Save the fact I used a linear rise and fall, that’s going to be pretty close for the tropics and good enough for a back of the envelope calc. I got 150K as a result. Fudge factor using a linear rise, and call it 160K. Almost bang on N&Z and also bang on the rough average of the moon when you extrapolate from the polar data as well as the equatorial data which results in 150K instead of 250K.
I’ve emailed my calcs to Ira who also thinks I’m off my rocker. Happy to cc you if you’d like to discuss off line, but I think if you catch my drift, that we need to calculate T^4 based on the rise and fall of insolation from day to night, season to season, and across latitude zones with albedo and peak insolation changing as one nears the poles…and THEN average and THEN convert to T, we’re going to see a number in the range of -100K.
Averaging T based on averaging Insolation may well be the most collosal math error in human history.
Joel Shore says:
“As I have demonstrated here and nobody has seriously challenged, Monckton’s current pet argument about climate sensitivity is completely and utterly bogus. But, I suppose that won’t stop people from believing what they want to believe.”
Aside from his usual psychological projection [Joel Shore believes what he wants to believe], Joel Shore’s ‘demonstration’ is debunked by the planet itself. If the global temperature was highly sensitive to changes in CO2, then ΔT would closely track ΔCO2. But it doesn’t.
So who should we believe… Joel Shore? Or Planet Earth, and our lyin’ eyes?
To Joel Shore and R. Gates:
Agenda driven wild guesses using “supercomputer” models to prove your point don’t impress me. I was feeding IBM paper cards to “supercomputers” in the 70’s and I know how they work, right down to the assembler language, which I am well versed on. I can program any computer to offer proof of anything you’d like me to using a computer model, whether it is true or not. Let me know when you have something solid, as in real world physics, to go on.
In the meantime have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Best,
J,
davidmhoffer says:
As I have already explained, the error is definitely quite small (on the order of a degree or two if I recall) for current Earth-like temperature distributions. What it would be like for a hypothetical earth with no greenhouse effect is a little more complex, since it would sort of depend on how the greenhouse gas “disappears”, but I think it is reasonable to calculate the average temperature in the absence of a greenhouse effect based on the assumption that the temperature distribution has similar properties to what it has now, which means the average temperature would be pretty close to 255 K.
At some point, these sort of hypothetical things become like counting angels on the head of a pin…The important thing to note is that without a greenhouse effect, the Earth’s surface would have to emit only ~240 W/m^2 instead of the current ~390 W/m^2 and that the highest possible average temperature it could have and do this is 255 K. If the temperature distribution was much more extreme than currently, then the average temperature would work out to be considerably less than this.
davidmhoffer says:
You’ve made a mistake here: You have somehow managed to figure out what the ratio of log(c)/log(c_0) is when c_0 = 0, which is a neat trick because log(0) is undefined (or negative infinity, if you will). [In reality, what happens is that at lower concentrations, the log dependence breaks down…At low concentrations the dependence is more like linear, but without knowing the details of how that happens, you can’t use the temperature rise from 0 to 280ppm to predict the temperature rise from 280 to 400ppm.]
Joel Shore;
but without knowing the details of how that happens, you can’t use the temperature rise from 0 to 280ppm to predict the temperature rise from 280 to 400ppm.]>>>>
OK fine. That being the case, please explain to R. Gates that his initial assumptions are bogus for the same reason. He’s either wrong for the reasons you’ve stated, or for the reasons I’ve stated. I’m happy to go with yours.