From The Hockey Shtick, word of a new paper that supports Miskolczi’s theory of saturated greenhouse effect. We’ve seen this before, in the form of this graph.
In 2006, Willis Eschenbach posted this graph on Climate Audit showing the logarithmic net downward IR forcing effect of carbon dioxide relative to atmospheric concentration:
The flatter portion of the graph gradually smooths out, as the effect of CO2 forcing becomes saturated with increased concentration. And this graphic of his shows carbon dioxide’s contribution to the whole greenhouse effect:
What’s more, in this new paper there appears to be some evidence for a negative climate feedback, in the form of slightly lowered relative humidity trend, which makes climate sensitivity lower. Relative humidity (RH) is the ratio of the actual amount of water vapor in the air to the amount it could hold when saturated expressed as a percentage OR the ratio of the actual vapor pressure to the saturation vapor pressure expressed as a percentage. The amount of water vapor the air can hold increases with temperature. Relative humidity therefore decreases with increasing temperature if the actual amount of water vapor stays the same. While the study found a slight increase in specific humidity (the mass of water vapor per unit mass of air), relative humidity (near the surface, 2 meter measurement) decreased by 0.5% per decade, resulting in an overall slightly drier atmosphere.
If a positive water vapor feedback response existed in the climate system, you’d expect both the specific and relative humidity to increase with time. It didn’t. This ends up putting the kibosh on the idea of tipping points, and a lack of positive water vapor feedback pretty much takes all the scare out of CO2 induced climate change.
Of note is the issue with station inhomogeneity which apparently had been masking the signal in earlier studies. This study looked at stations individually to determining where such inhomogeneity existed. Here’s an example in figure 3 of their paper:
From THS:
A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that relative humidity has been decreasing 0.5% per decade across North America during the 62 year period of observations from 1948-2010.
Computer models of AGW show positive feedback from water vapor by incorrectly assuming that relative humidity remains constant with warming while specific humidity increases. The Miskolczi theory of a ‘saturated greenhouse effect’ instead predicts relative humidity will decrease to offset an increase in specific humidity, as has just been demonstrated by observations in this paper. The consequence of the Miskolczi theory is that additions of ‘greenhouse gases’ such as CO2 to the atmosphere will not lead to an increase in the ‘greenhouse effect’ or increase in global temperature.
Journal of Climate 2012 ; e-View
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00003.1
Surface Water Vapor Pressure and Temperature Trends in North America during 1948-2010
V. Isaac and W. A. van Wijngaarden*
Physics Dept., Petrie Bldg., York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON Canada, M3J 1P3; e-mail: wlaser@yorku.ca
Abstract
Over 1/4 billion hourly values of temperature and relative humidity observed at 309 stations located across North America during 1948-2010 were studied. The water vapor pressure was determined and seasonal averages were computed. Data were first examined for inhomogeneities using a statistical test to determine whether the data was fit better to a straight line or a straight line plus an abrupt step which may arise from changes in instruments and/or procedure. Trends were then found for data not having discontinuities. Statistically significant warming trends affecting the Midwestern U.S., Canadian prairies and the western Arctic are evident in winter and to a lesser extent in spring while statistically significant increases in water vapor pressure occur primarily in summer for some stations in the eastern half of the U.S. The temperature (water vapor pressure) trends averaged over all stations were 0.30 (0.07), 0.24 (0.06), 0.13 (0.11), 0.11 (0.07) C/decade (hPa/decade) in the winter, spring, summer and autumn seasons, respectively. The averages of these seasonal trends are 0.20 C/decade and 0.07 hPa/decade which correspond to a specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade and a relative humidity reduction of 0.5%/decade.
The full paper from the Journal of Climate can be viewed at this link.
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Personally I have decided that I will treat with great caution any model that cannot be initialised to the approximate conditions on Earth 20,000 years ago and run forward in time to today (producing broadly similar conditions what we currently have measured) before I take any notice of what it has to say about the future.
I would like to know that the phenomena that cause 10s of degrees of change are well understood before I concern myself with ones that changes 1/10s of a degree per century.
Harry_Dale_Huffman:
You say we need to reeducate ourselves on your “Fundamental Warming of the Atmosphere” hypothesis which claims the Sun mostly just warms the atmosphere (with its near IR radiation) rather than warming the surface (with both near IR and SW radiation) which then warms the atmosphere. (When using “near IR” I refer to that which is higher frequency than any LW IR emitted by the surface.) Fewer still will absorb in the visible spectrum.
Your argument on your website sounds convincing, but I stumble on some points. Relatively few molecules in Earth’s atmosphere are going to absorb Solar infra-red. Spectroscopy does show pockets due to absorption in that part of the spectrum, but by no means all of the IR appears to be absorbed. That which is absorbed by, for example, a carbon dioxide molecule, will not necessarily be shared with O2 and N2, but can be quickly re-emitted and thus go to space just like reflection. Now we do know the Sun warms the surface and we feel the hot sand in the Sun, but not so hot sand in the shade.
We also know the first few meters of the atmosphere are usually a little cooler than the surface, though not much. So the surface is warming the atmosphere by diffusion, not vice versa. There would not be close thermal equilibrium if this were not so.
Then there is evaporation of oceans to form clouds and rain. Where does that energy come from if it wasn’t the result of the Sun warming the oceans? What I cannot accept is any concept of radiation from a cooler atmosphere warming a warmer surface.
So how does any energy get into the surface if none is coming directly from the Sun? We know not all the light is absorbed, or we couldn’t see. We know not all the UV is absorbed or we wouldn’t get sunburnt. Just what percentage of solar insolation did you say is doing all this warming?
So, Willis was right. “It’s turtles all the way down.”
More and more science is convincing more and more people, especially the scientifically minded, that AGW/[CAGW]/or_whatever_it_is_called_now, has failed miserably. Time has proven the models(pseudo-science) wrong. Scientific research is debunking the CO2=global warming theory. Meanwhile, 100 Tory backbenchers (UK parliament) have rebelled against Cameron on the wind turbines scam, a German ex-green scientists has turned cold and wrote a book debunking AGW……….
IMHO, the AGW thing is imploding, fast.
Near 500 the death toll so far in eastern Europe from the severe cold.
Mann should put his hockey-stick where it belongs…
I stand by my contention that the debate is no longer about “how much Co2 warms the atmosphere”. It has now moved on to “whether or not Co2 warms the atmosphere”.
Since I didn’t understand the 250 W/m2 of downward forcing in the graphs I went looking for information. I did not find where the 250 W/m2 came from and remain skeptical of that number. I did find this ftp://ftp1.esrl.noaa.gov/users/cfairall/wcrp_wgsf/pubs/philipona_ASRB_grl.pdf
Maybe some one here can explain the 250 W/m2 downward forcing me.
This bit:
“What’s more, in this new paper there appears to be some evidence for a negative climate feedback, in the form of slightly lowered relative humidity trend, which makes climate sensitivity lower.”
______
Let’s take it that this “trend” is actually there. Why would relative humidity go down? Because temperatures have gone up! It is the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, that matters, as it is the total actual numbers of molecules of water vapor in the atmosphere that will determine the total net greenhouse effect from those molecules. Global atmospheric water vapor has increased over the time period- thus there are more water molecules present.
And then this bit:
“If a positive water vapor feedback response existed in the climate system, you’d expect both the specific and relative humidity to increase with time. It didn’t. This ends up putting the kibosh on the idea of tipping points, and a lack of positive water vapor feedback pretty much takes all the scare out of CO2 induced climate change.”
____
The notion of tipping points isn’t at all related to the logarithmic saturation effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, nor its effect specifically on increase water vapor as a positive feedback effect. Tipping points of course come from the notion of pushing a non-linear chaotic system such as the climate into a new state, such that it seeks a new attractor. One must look at the whole system to see how just a little nudge can cause a big change– this is the essence of Chaos. Simple plotting the well-known and obvious logarithmic saturation effect on a graph proves nothing about the existenc of tipping points that could exist through the interaction of any certain level of CO2 concentration with various other elements of the system. One obvious one is the interaction of just slight temperature increases caused by increases in CO2 with the cryosphere. The cyrosphere is sensitive to these slight increases, and certainly then changes in the cryosphere (i.e. Ice caps, sea ice, glaciers) can have a ripple effect to other parts of the climate system.
Bottom line: to suggest that the radiational saturation effect of CO2 in any way suggests that tipping points can’t exist in the climate system is wrong thinking, and misses the entire understanding of the complexity non-linear chaotic systems. Certainly tipping points do exist in the system, ice core data proves it (i.e. the Younger Dryas event and many others), and a seemingly small nudge to the system can cause these tipping points.
David Ball says:
February 8, 2012 at 7:18 am
I stand by my contention that the debate is no longer about “how much Co2 warms the atmosphere”. It has now moved on to “whether or not Co2 warms the atmosphere”.
____
Maybe the debate has move on to this new area of discussion among the woefully uninformed, or willfully ignorant– but that’s it.
If there’s one parameter that siting a weather station at a water treatment plant will influence more than temperature, this is it. But, if the siting quality was better early in the period, as usual, the effect would be the opposite of a decrease, thus a larger than found decrease in RH is possible, all else being equal.
-or-
This is an expected result if the stations are of the roof top and runway variety. (I think…)
Any notion as to the station quality of in situ data used in this?
Call me consistently skeptical, if you will. I’d like to know more before simply granting this one potentially undue credibility.
Over/Under on how long it is before the ‘Team’ begins it’s ad hominem attacks?
Much as they ‘had’ to get rid of the Medieval Warm period, they ‘have’ to get rid of this paper.
I don’t understand how specific humidity (absolute humidity) can be increasing at 6.5% per deg C rise and yet RH can decrease consistently over the time period. What goes up must come down as precipitation (increased RH). I do understand how there can be localized RH anomallies but doesn’t RH eventually have to normalize to increasing absolute measurements (barring any drastic change in pressure, over the 1 deg rise)?
I refer to a paper submitted to the IPCC in 2007, by Dr. Frank Wentz, director of Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in Santa Rosa, Calif. It was an exhaustive analysis of the data from Special Sensor Microwave Imagers on Earth-observation satellites, over a 20 year period of actual warming (1986 and 2005). Note: These were measured values NOT modeled ones.
Also note that the IPCC and the “team” actively suppressed this data initially because it contradicted their increased desertification meme. It took awhile to work it into a new meme. GK
RGates– you are sad truly sad. There is much to question about this paper; how were measurements made, how was data recorded and then reconciled, all of the questions that ought to be asked about papers based on measured data. But the point is that this paper is based on 1948-2010 data, not model output. Real arguments can be had about real data. Instead, you call us “woefully uninformed or willfully ignorant.” That’s your argument, that’s it. Truly sad.
GKarst– that is a very fair question and I’d love to hear a response from AW.
R. Gates says:
February 8, 2012 at 7:29 am
“Bottom line: to suggest that the radiational saturation effect of CO2 in any way suggests that tipping points can’t exist in the climate system is wrong thinking, and misses the entire understanding of the complexity non-linear chaotic systems. Certainly tipping points do exist in the system, ice core data proves it (i.e. the Younger Dryas event and many others), and a seemingly small nudge to the system can cause these tipping points.”
R. Gates,
I agree that that the abrupt changes in the paleoclimate record hints at “tipping points” between the glacial and the interglacial regimes. What paleoclimatology does not appear to support is abrupt changes from a warm interglacial regime to a much warmer regime. So the system would seem to have 2 attractors, not 3. The idea that man has changed the environment to the extent of creating a third climate system attractor is just a flight of fancy at the present state of our climate knowledge.
OT
Mediterranean diet is the best for a long life!
Oldest living thing on earth discovered in the Mediterranean Sea
G. Karst says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:09 am
“I do understand how there can be localized RH anomallies but doesn’t RH eventually have to normalize to increasing absolute measurements (barring any drastic change in pressure, over the 1 deg rise)?”
It can’t because of the rising CO2 concentration, according to Miskolczi. On one slide he wrote:
“If the system energetically could increase its
surface temperature, it need not wait for our
anthropogenic CO2 emissions, since another
GHG, water vapor, is available in a practically
infinite reservoir, in the surface of the
oceans.”
(My link to his slides doesn’t work anymore so I can’t give you more…)
@R. Gates,
“Bottom line: to suggest that the radiational saturation effect of CO2 in any way suggests that tipping points can’t exist in the climate system is wrong thinking”
IF this paper is correct, then there are no “tipping” points from rising CO2, which is the main premise of CAGW (or whatever the nom du jour is). IF CO2 is saturated, or close to saturated, it cannot significanly add to warming. You’ll also be able to stop the mantra of “CO2 vs. low solar output.” I don’t think ice core data does not prove tipping points. It does prove climate can change fast in either direction (although it appears we warm faster than we cool).
You just have to watch this fantasic documentary about earth magnetic field and cosmic rays!
Fantastic animation and science.of the changing magnetic field on our planet. Svensmark is interwiewed about his hypotesis as competitive to the CAGW anyone hos watch this video realies thats its a far more robust hypotesis than CAGW.
If you want the english speaker. I recommend you to start one window with this swedish public service (HD quality) and turn the sound off.
http://svtplay.se/v/2699834/dokumentarfilm/vad_hander_med_magnetiska_nordpolen
In a second window you open up the best english speaker voice ive found on the WEBB. Low quality but good enough to make you enjoy the documentary and to make it make sense.
For english speaker.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d56GOgmjWOI&feature=related (start at 1m 41 s) part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLbdUMvF0ug&feature=related part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAqFqNIjr5o&feature=related part three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLovEPSop_w&feature=related Svensmark part4
G. Karst says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:09 am
“I don’t understand how specific humidity (absolute humidity) can be increasing at 6.5% per deg C rise and yet RH can decrease consistently over the time period.”
I would guess that it’s because the atmosphere has warmed slightly, and warmer air can hold a lot more water (eg saturation pressure increases from .0234 bar to .0249 bar by about 6% in heating from 20°C to 21°C)
G. Karst says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:09 am
I refer to a paper submitted to the IPCC in 2007, by Dr. Frank Wentz, director of Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in Santa Rosa, Calif. It was an exhaustive analysis of the data from Special Sensor Microwave Imagers on Earth-observation satellites, over a 20 year period of actual warming (1986 and 2005). Note: These were measured values NOT modeled ones.
———————————
Water vapour levels are tightly controlled by the ENSO. A La Nina will drop global water vapour by 5% while an El Nino will raise water vapour levels by 5%. While some of the +/- 5% change is due to the temperature change between a La Nina and El Nino, some of the varibility is also caused by the different evaporation rates and cloud changes that the ENSO produces. It is not temperature only.
So if you start your dataset in a La Nina and end it in an El Nino, you will see a large increase in water vapour levels. All of the pro-AGW studies on water vapour have used this selection criteria in order to say “see, 7% per 1C”. Nope, start and end your dataset in a La Nina and it is 1% (maybe 4%) per 1C.
Wentz has done a few of these studies, do you have a link to the one you are referring to.
This is — to the extent that it is eventually verified and found to be predictive (and assuming no problems surface in the theory) — an example of the best of skeptical climate science, and one that appeals directly to the intuition of most scientists as to what to reasonably expect. I mentally established a saturating curve like that five minutes after I learned about the greenhouse effect and the assertion of “catastrophic” positive feedback (which would make the second derivative in the curve positive instead of negative or flat), at least in the second figure. Not the slope, the curvature. It is simply unreasonable to think that a stable system that has resisted “melting down” for a few billion years doesn’t have numerous negative feedback loops with overall negative feedback, and of course the raw physics of gas radiation predicts saturation at or near the tropopause. The only thing that can significantly alter the GHE with CO_2 concentration is lifting and cooling the tropopause, but there is all sorts of atmospheric dynamics — such as the stratosphere — that oppose that, not to mention the ability of the overall system of heat transfer to re-organize to get of heat more efficiently as the ground or ocean temperatures warm a bit.
rgb
Note that the Fig 3 from the paper is given as an example of the type of data that the authors rejected from their analysis because of inhomogeneities. Also they found the biggest drop in RH occurred in those stations which showed the largest increase in temperature (winter in the north where there is a lack of available liquid water).
@R. Gates,
“Bottom line: to suggest that the radiational saturation effect of CO2 in any way suggests that tipping points can’t exist in the climate system is wrong thinking”
You are, of course, right, as we know that glaciations have begun and ended very quickly. Whether this happened due to a climate tipping point or through an outside influence (Milankovic cycles? Cosmic influences? Volcanoes?) is not known by now. But while we have examples of quick onset of glaciation, we don’t have examples of quick onset of, let’s call it “Hothouse Earth” phases. This does not prove that it isn’t possible. But it reduces the likelihood of it happening.
And when relative humidity drops while CO2 rises, this works against the postulated positive water vapor feedback of the IPCC, so it should reduce the risk; and if we are supposed to buy insurance against the CAGW risk, we should now renegotiate the premium.
Also, just to repeat this: positive water vapor feedback should, if it is possible, be possible on regional scales. So, before the entire globe heats up in a giant feedback loop, we should be able to watch small localized outbreaks of positive water vapor feedback – say, in the tropics, at noon.
It hasn’t been observed by now. And I doubt that it will start in the Tundra.
I suspect that many politicians have realized the truth. Obama has recently said: “We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/26/obama-we-are-saudi-arabia-natural-gas/
T. Boone Pickens has realized that windmills aren’t the way to go and is now pushing natural gas. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/us-navistar-idUSTRE81011H20120201 The rich and powerful aren’t about to admit that they were wrong about global warming and green energy but their behavior will show that that’s what they are thinking.