Foreword: Dr Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, authors of a new controversial skeptic book now hitting German bookstores, have asked me to post their response to comments made by climate scientist Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in an interview by NTV television. Feulner insists that CO2 plays the major role in climate change and that the sun has little impact.
You can read about the new book just published in Germany that is causing an uproar in the German green establishment here. The response is so vitriolic that one is newspaper (TAZ) is headlining “Skeptics are like viruses“. Greenpeace Germany has now gotten into the act, denoucing Lüning and Varrenholt (formerly a champion of the global warming cause) as an Ice Cold Denier.
The website (in German) for the new book (that has become a bestseller on three outlets) from Lüning and Vahrenholt is here. An English version is also planned which I will announce at WUWT. Sincere thanks to Pierre Gosselin of notrickszone.com for translation. -Anthony
Georg Feulner of the PIK runs in circles
Guest post by Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt
On the Germany television website Georg Feulner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research comments on our recently published book “Die kalte Sonne”. As we have criticized his work in our book, we are not at all surprised by his rejection of our position.
First he disputes global warming has stopped for the time being. To do this he uses a special chart from a blog depicting a stepwise temperature development, which makes no sense for the particular topic at hand. The temperature plateau that we’ve had since the year 2000 is disputed by Feulner. However, the missing warming of the last 12 years is no fabrication made up by the authors of “Die kalte Sonne“. Anybody can plot it by going over to Woodfortrees.org. Or you can read up about it up in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, e.g. Kaufmann et al (2011). Even Prof. Ottmar Edenhofer of Feulner’s own Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research seems to see it the same way. Climate researcher Prof. Jochem Marotzke of Hamburg just confirmed it once again in a recent interview with the German TAZ daily (9 February 2012).
Next, Feulner tries to score points by using the 30-year climate rule. In some official definitions, climate is defined as the 30-year mean of weather. While this makes sense for some considerations, this rigid rule obstructs the discussion on the mechanisms that are involved in climate. It’s becoming increasingly clear that natural decadal cycles have been greatly under-estimated in the past. For example the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is characterized by a warm and a cold phase, each lasting 20 to 30 years. They have a significant impact on global temperature. Should that 30-year-climate window unfortunately get placed between both phases, then the trends get mixed up and we end up comparing apples and oranges. The corresponding “climate“ results end up depending more on the choice of the start point of the 30-year window and less on the real, shorter-scale temperature trends. Consequently, looking at 10-year temperature trends is not only legitimate, but it also makes sense.
In discussing the sun, Feulner attempts to show that in the event of an impending significant drop in solar activity to Dalton or Maunder Minimum-levels, which he foresees as well, no considerable cooling is to be expected. Here he fails to mention that he forgot to include any solar amplification in his climate models. This is essential because it is only with such solar amplifiers that one is able to explain the synchronicity between the sun and the temperature, with at least a 1°C pulsating climate development, over the last 10,000 years. The climate model used by Feulner cannot explain the past, and therefore naturally is not suitable for projecting the future. To explain the Maunder-Minimum 300 years ago, Feulner resorts to the dubious volcano joker. But this still does not explain the overlying fundamental problem that there is a good sun-climate coupling over the other well-documented millennial cycles of the last 10,000 years.
When it comes to the Svensmark solar amplification effect, whose existence is supported by much evidence in peer-reviewed literature (see Chapter 6 and Svensmark guest contribution on page 209 in “Die kalte Sonne”), Feulner simply pushes it off the table without providing a good argument. Not a word on the independent confirmations of the important sub-processes of the effect (e.g. Usoskin et al. 2004, Laken et al. 2010, Kirkby et al. 2011).
The NTV interview illustrates just how much Georg Feulner runs in circles with his arguments. The arguments he presents are weak. When will the Potsdam Institute get around to addressing the millennium cycles of the last 10,000 years? On page 68-75 of our book (“The sun’s impact over the last 10,000 years”) we find one of the most important keys to the climate discussion. Strangely not a single media report following publication of our book has looked into this. Day eight and counting.
Example for millennial climate cycles: Studies of dripstones in Oman for the period 7500-4500 BC show a high degree of synchronicity between solar activity and temperature development. Figure modified after Neff et al. (2001)
Related articles
- ‘Germany’s George Monbiot’ turns climate sceptic (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
- Two more scientists change sides in the AGW debate (hotair.com)
- Spiegel: ‘I Feel Duped on Climate Change’ (junkscience.com)
- Germany’s Top Environmentalist Turns Climate Sceptic (junkscience.com)
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Since there have been a number of resplies I will respond to them consecutively here.
I did not say that CO2 directly causes the 30C or so decrease if it is removed. I said that CO2 would cause around 10 C decrease. But that this temperature decrease would then cause are sufficient decrease in Water vapour levels that the reduction in water vapour then supplies most of the rest of the cooling. So CO2 removal DIRECTLY causes around 10 C then indirectly via its impact on whater vapour levels causes the rest. Water vapour levels in the atmosphere are constrained bt air temperature. The water vapour feedback that is a part of the AGW theory suggests a 2-3 fold multiplication of the warming from CO2 due to wter vapour levels increasing, and some question this.
However what cannot be questioned is that as air is cooled it is unable to hold as much water vapour. The Clausius Claperon eqn requires this and all the science and technology used in Refrigeration & Air Conditioning confirms it. To de-humidify air as part of an Air-Conditioning plants operation the air is cooled to a low enough point to force water to condense. In humid environments AC equipment often includes chillers to drive the moisture out of the air and then heaters to partially re-warm the drier air.
So while hypothetical mechanisms might be suggested that inhibit the water vapour feedback role in a warming world, no mechanism is possible that can prevent colder air from drying out. The approximate figure used for the relationship between temperature and water vapour content is that a 1 DegC change in temperature will cause a 6.5% change in water vapour content.So a 10 DegC cooling would drop water vapour levels by around 2/3rds. And this drop in water vapour levels in turn has a further cooling effect.
So the point of the oft quoted 30 (or 33) DegC cooling in a GH free world is that CO2 contributes part of that and declining water vapour levels contribute the rest.
This 30/33 figure is only approximate however. In a much colder & drier atmosphere clouds would diminish markedly since there is much less evaporation to support their existence. Since different cloud types have warming or cooling effects, what the net impact of cloud cover changes would be is hard to gauge. So mayber more than 30/33 cooling, maybe less. However, since it only takes a 6-8 DegC cooling to constitute a full Ice Age, cooling of 20-30- DegC would involve the spread of Ice Sheets to much lower latitudes than anything seen during a simple Ice Age. And with somuch more reflective ice at lower latitudes, covering a larger proportion of the Earth, with a more front on aspect to the Sun, reflection of Sunlight from the surface would increase substantially, adding a further cooling effect. The 30/33 figure is very much an ‘All Else Being Equal’ number. In reality the real GH free Earth would probably be much colder again.
And CO2 ( and the other non-condensing GH gases to a lesser extent) is the driver of this. Not because of its direct effect. But because of its impact on other factors that magnify its impact. This is why it is referred to as the Biggest Control Knob for the Climate. It’s smaller level effects impact on other things that act as positive feedbacks.
Now you may dispute whether these positive feedbacks will occur in the context of warming. But the positive feedbacks in a reduced CO2 world cannot be disputed, not unless you want to explain to every Air Conditioning and Refrigeration technician in the world how they actually know nothing about their profession.
“The data that really matters to a discussion about surface temperature trends is … surface temperature data.”
I completely disagree. When we are looking at data and trying to draw conclusions from it, we cannot simply say – ‘this bit of data says X, therefore we can reach conclusion Y”
We have to apply our understanding of how the system we are looking at works. We may not know everything about that system but what we do know has validity. So if we are interested in what is happening to surface temps, and what might happen to them in the future we need to look at all the data that has a bearing on why surface temps are doing what they are doing. Just looking at what surface temps are doing doesn’t automatically tell us anything useful about why they are doing it. If we don’t bring even a basic understanding of the underlying mechanisms that are the cause of the surface temps, every bit of data we have is worthless because we aren’t using it to inform our understanding.
So when the amount of accumulated heat from AGW over the last 1/2 century has gone 90% into the oceans and only 3% into the Surface Temps, we REALLY REALLY REALLY need to consider the 90% before draw any conclusions about the 3%. You cannot understand the Dog just by considering its Tail
So when discussing Surface Trends. We can look back at past surface trends as a rather dry and dusty exercise in record keeping. But if we want to look at the possible future surface trends, which presumably is the whole point of why we are blogging rather than drinking beer, watching sports and discussing the endless trivialities of celebreties lives, we need to ask what drives these future trends. Just looking at numbers and projecting them out is given the unflattering but all to accurate label of Mathturbation. Real discussion is always about the why questions.
Put simply, if the Tail has stopped wagging, what does that mean? Has the dog died? Is it exhausted? Has it seen a cat? Has it seen a rabbit? Has it seen a bitch dog on heat? Has it seen a rival? Is it afraid of being hit for chewing the slippers? Sadly we can’t make any conclusions about this by just looking at its tail. If you are interested in what the tail might do in future, you need to look at the whole dog.
So back to the point. The discussion isn’t about surface temperature trends. Thats just dusty history. The discussion is about what we can conclude about likely future surface temperature trends based on what we can see now. And current surface temperature trends tell us diddly-squat about future trends unless we ask the WHY questions. You can’t predict what the tail will do tomorrow based just on what the Tail did today unless you underestand why the tail did what it did today. To do that you need to understand the Dog.
Anything else is Mathturbation
“Yes, look at that flat spot in the 0-700m ocean data. Ponder how much it resembles the flat spot in surface and atmospheric temps.” Well spotted. They are actually well linked. Thats Thermodyamics. Flat upper ocean equals flat SSt’s equals flat Air Temps. Tails and Dogs again.
“Then compare it against the steeply rising prediction for 0-700m of the IPCC models.” Could you give me a citation for this specific prediction for 0-700M from the models? And how much does it matter if the models are a little bit wrong. The predict so much for 0-700 and so much for 0-2000 and they are WRONG!!! A little bit. That is like arguing that although most pieces in a jig-saw puzzle suggest a farmland scene, just like it shows on the box, a fiew pices make it look like a picture of an Apollo Launch. So its ALL WRONG!!!
Then this: “Then look at the 700-2000m data. Ponder how little of it there is. “!!
Do you mean time span, coverage, what? Very vague. How little of what? If I assume that you mean time span, so what? The point is that during the period where Argo gave us 0-700 & 0-2000, the net of 0-2000 (which just happens to include and thus subsumes 0-700) continued warming. And given that the average depth of the oceans is around 3800 metres, Argo is giving us about 1/2 the ocean.
Then this: “main game in the climate” is deeper than that, where there is effectively no data at all.”
NOT TRUE! Although there is nothing like the continuous coverage given by ARGO or the Earlier XBT’s, sampling of the deep ocean continues. Its expensive and slow – ship stops, lowers instrument platform over the side to the sea bottom, not just 2000 metres, recovers instrument platform, moves on, repeat process. Oceanographic research vessels from many nations are doing this all the time. Enough to get an approximate sense of what is happening down deep, below the range of Argo. What do they see? A bit of warming, particularly in the bottom waters around the Antarctic. But no indication of some vast deep pool of warming that could be coming up from the deeps.THe abyssal ocean has warmed, but not enough to be the source of the mid level warming seen by Argo.
Besides, if there was already this warmth down in the true deeps, that has now come to the mid-depths, this would not cause an increase in sea level due to thermal expansion. After allowing for sea level rise due to added water from melting ice, a reasonable component of sea level rise has been caused by thermal expansion of sea water. If the heat at the mid-depths is simply unaccounted for heat from the great deeps moving upwards, the net effect on sea level would be zero. Instead we are seeing the upper half of the ocean accumulating heat. Sea level rise says this can’t be coming from deeper in the ocean since it is extra heat – hence the sea level rise. The only available source of additional heat is from above. If the Thermosteric component of sea level rise was constant then maybe heat fro the abyss might be an explanation. But Thermosteric eal level rie say this is additional heat. The only possible source of this is from above. Warming hasn’t stopped. But it is being cycled deeper. It can’t be coming from deeper down because the sea level data precludes this possibility.
“Ask yourself this … if heat can “go somewhere else at the moment”, then why do we care? Is it because you think that it can come back from the deeps to affect us at the surface? Really?”
Because the fact that it is going ‘somewhere else’ means that warming is still occurring, contrary to what some might wish to believe.And eventually that warming will effect everything. Might more heat be drawn into the oceans quicker than models predict? Yes, maybe. Or this might be a temporary hiatus that will reverse in a few years which is what the models seem to predict. Either way, the idea that warming has stopped is false. So eventually eveything will be affected. And tat is what we are concerned about. The time scale is decades to perhaps centuries. Maybe the oceans warm faster than expected. Maybe this is a temporary hiatus and atmospheric warming rates will resume in a few years. Either way, as long as warming somewhere is continuing, eventually everywhere will be warmer. And that is the whole point.
“Then ask yourself if you can point to the parts of the current climate models that account for heat having come back from the deep previously …”
You are misunderstanding this. Heat doesn’t ‘come back from anywhere’. Rather if somewhere gets ‘filled up’ with heat, later it will be other places that start filling.
“No that’s not the point Glenn. This point is, will the warming be harmful to humans or life on this planet? If this warming goes somewhere else, as some now claim, then it would appear that those worries were exaggerated, no?”
Faulty reasoning. The warming has to go into all parts of the climate system, in proportion to the capacity of each part to absorb energy. Whether different parts may or may not absorb energy faster or slower than we currently think (or more likely that the rate of absorption of the different components may experience fluctuating rates of absorption), ultimately the question is ‘how much energy will each of the compenents in the system absorb and what impact will that have on us. To be told that other parts of the system might absorb more for a while compared to the part of the system I live in is cold comfort if I know that my part of the system will eventually reacy as well. Whether some thing terrible happens to me slowly and steadily, with a rush at the beginning, or with a rush at the end is all rather moot. If the terrible thing is going to happen, I just want to prevnt it – period.
“Maybe the warmth from the atmosphere is being sucked into other things (ice melt, deep ocean, radiated back into space, etc.)”
Possibly. However, when we look at possibilities like this we can’t just pose such hypotheticals in purely qualitative terms. It isn’t just whether heat may be moving to/from A, B or C. It is how much heat – quantitative thinking. And it is here that the huge heat capacity of the oceans limits what is possible in terms of other distributional possibilities. The Argo data suggests additional heat added to the oceans in recent years at around 1 * 10^22 joules per year. Such an amount of heat added to the ocean warms the ocean by small fractions of a degree. However, in contrast, if such an amount of heat were added to the atmosphere each year it would increase air temps by roughly 2 DegC per year. So redistribution of heat can occur. But as soon as any significant change in heat content occurs in the oceans, the scale of it precludes any other terrestrial cause. Warmin in the oceans in the last 5 years can’t be due to something local like heat from the atmosphere – that would be the equivalent of an Ice Age temperature change in just 5 years.heat
“Tell me, what physical process has NOAA described that allows this heat to defy otherwise accepted laws of physics? Heat rises, and if heat rises and the heat source of the 2000-700m comes from above that, then the 700m-0 would be consistently hotter than 2000-0”
Yes, if the only driving force for heat flow was local buoyancy forces due to the vertical temperature gradient. However, the oceans are a bit more complex than that. Other forces drive various circulation patterns that are stronger than local buoyancy. Cold currents rise from the deeps to the surface, creating great fishing grounds, warm currents sink. This is driven by the engine of Thermo-Haline Circulation. In the open oceans circulation patterns called Gyres dominate local circulation patterns. The vertical thermal gradient does limit downwards heat flow generally, but these types of current systems can overwhelm the local buoyancy forces in some locations, allowing warm water to sink and cold water to rise. Looking at just thermal gradients as the driver of ocean movements is a bit simplistic. What appears to drive the heat exchange I am describing, and remember these are observations, is changes in the flow rates of tropical gyres in the major oceans.
It’s only a 1/2 degree…
…and you can’t even get that without math and adjustments
@Glenn Skankey Tamblyn says:
“Because the fact that it is going ‘somewhere else’ means that warming is still occurring, contrary to what some might wish to believe.”
If the heat goes into space why care? That’s if the missing heat actually exists at all to boot and is not just statistical fantasy that seem to riddle so much else of the climatological adventures and their results.
@John
“Profession polling companies can estimate election results to within 1% based on a survey sample of around 0.0001%. ”
No they can’t. Serious “Polling companies” use previous observed outcomes in compare with their poll to claim a projection, but for that to have any value they can’t work with a fart sized sub group out of only a mere 30% who answered. It is those 30% that should’ve been at least 70% for there to be enough data to work to make some sort of qualified analysis. You can’t make a serious analysis with one third of the data points and to claim there are professionals who does it with about 3% of those pathetic 30% are bunch of lying hippies.
Glenn a few of us made fun of your assertion that CO2 drives 90% of the atmosphere’s temperature. You start off by pointing out that this is not what you meant then write a long post that reinforces that this is what you meant…
The other point you seem to waffle around is that if the missing heat is being diffused into the deep ocean (unfortunately, where we cannot measure it either, so we have to take your word on this), then it is perhaps rather simplistic to imply that it will somehow just “pop back out’ later and bite us. That diffused heat is for all intents and purposes gone for tens, or thousands of years, or possibly longer.
“Whether some thing terrible happens to me slowly and steadily, with a rush at the beginning, or with a rush at the end is all rather moot.”
I suspect the sentence above says it better than anything else you’ve written. We may not have any scientific evidence to support your speculations, but nonetheless you are convinced it will come back all at once and suddenly. It sounds a little too much like an apocalyptic vision to me…
The cold wind of reality doth blow.
It blows through chinks in crumbling walls,
It blows through cracks beneath the door.
Draught protection is no avail,
The cold wind of reality is becoming a gale.
Its cooling, folks.
To HankH:
I will have a paper in English ready by summer…
But I believe, with over 30 graphs in the booklet, one should get a good grasp of
demonstrations and what has been left out on purpose by the IPCC/Warmists…
all is unrefuted or better unrefutable….
JS Author
“Cold currents rise from the deeps to the surface, creating great fishing grounds, warm currents sink. This is driven by the engine of Thermo-Haline Circulation.”
This is sheer nonsense, on par with the fantasy that deep oceanic waters are warmed without warming the near-surface waters. By definition, thermohaline circulation is a GRAVITY-driven phenomenon, in which water density is the ONLY variable. Upwelling that brings colder subsurface waters to the surface is WIND-driven and usually confined to continental shelves. Those who seek to rescue the idea of “missing heat” from the workings of entropy drown their credibility in oceanographic ignorance.
@ur momisugly Pamela Gray and Jeff Alberts:
Dr. Svalgaard asserted, many times and in many different ways, that changes in Solar activity (not only in TSI but also in the number of sunspots, in the intensity if the UV radiation, etc.) cannot drive the Earth’s climate, that there is no mechanism connecting Solar events with Earth’s temperature, no interaction whatsoever between the Solar magnetic field and that of Earth, etc., etc. While it is possible that he didn’t express his opinions in exactly the same words that I have chosen for brevity, the essence of his view, as it is understood by the majority of people reading his posts, is exactly that the Sun has nothing to do with the Earth’s climate.
Moreover, Dr. Svalgaard prefers to express his views on this subject in very sarcastic and, quite often, insulting terms addressed to Mr. Archibald, Mr. Scaffetta, and many others. Yes, I don’t like Leif Svalgaard’s arrogant, condescending attitude, his semi-literate English (which, I suspect, is just a handy way of obfuscation), his habit of evading direct answers by resorting to links leading to his own works (as if they prove anything), and his narrow-minded denial of possibilities extending beyond the limits of the existing college textbooks. And I don’t see any reason, why I should be always silent about it. But if you prefer to waste your time discussing abstract advantages of the “null hypothesis,” and to demand exact quotes from the complete collection of posts by Dr. Svalgaard, I am no game. Life is too short.
I am interested in the explanation of the obvious relationship between the Solar activity and the climate around us, such as Dr. Svensmark’s theory, rather than in the endless squabble about superannuated textbook maxims and personal egos, masqueraded as “scientific discussion.”
@John
“Profession polling companies can estimate election results to within 1% based on a survey sample of around 0.0001%. ”
Polling companies try to make that 0.0001% a random selection from the population as a whole. When only 30% of those being polled respond, you cannot assume that’s a random sample. When they saw the questionnaire, and how biased the questions were, maybe the 70% who don’t believe in CAGW, and saw the poll as CAGW propaganda, threw the junk mail in the garbage.
“Glenn Tamblyn says:
“The data that really matters to a discussion about surface temperature trends is … surface temperature data.”
I completely disagree.
You don’t disagree at all, let alone completely. You just talk past the discussion, hitting your talking points.
Once again, we have been sold a bill of goods for the last thirty some odd years. This meme and its predetermined conclusion were conceived, defined, developed, communicated, “settled”, and declared to be “incontrovertable” based on global average surface temperature. Period. If you don’t like that, you need to take it up with those who pulled those stunts. They have names like Hansen, Mann, Schidt and Patchouli, and you won’t find them here.
You don’t get to condescendingly chastise us for responding to their position in the terms with which they defined it, on the playing field that they laid out. Doing so is nothing more than a lousy and very transparent attempt to prop up and continue the promotion of their conclusions, which you (correctly) claim are based on an incomplete conceptualization of the issue. Jimmy and Mikey fiddle with the data and hide the decline and tell us we are all going to die if we dont cede them authority, because surface temperatures are going up. When surface temperatures stop going up, and even fall for a while, Glenn says “that’s dusty record keeping – look over here”.
No.
You want to talk about heat content of the thermosphere? Then return to first principles and formulate the “global warming” argument on that basis. You dont get to pretend that you can just pick up where the last line of propaganda stumbled and carry on with “the Cause”. Changing the basis isn’t just for this point forward, it has to be performed on every step that got you here.
Woof, woof.
JJ,
Good post!
JJ Yeah. Brilliant. Withering!!
Yeah, right, BRILLIANT.
Keep clapping, morons. No doubt the next ‘final nail in the coffin’ of climate science will appear any day now for you to bray over. How many have there been so far anyway? That should be one well-nailed coffin. But the science keep stubbornly marching on.
Have fun being on the wrong side of history.
[this may well be appropriate comment elsewhere but it doesn’t add much to the debate does it? In fact it makes you look like a troll which I am sure is not the case but please try and add rather than subtract . . thank you . . kbmod]
Steven Sullivan says:
February 15, 2012 at 9:02 am
That should be one well-nailed coffin. But the science keep stubbornly marching on.
Let me rephrase that. The data keep adding more nails. One has to go back to the 1940s to find a time when a previous high temperature mark was not beaten for 10 years according to the Hadcrut3 data. See:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
The 1953 mark was beaten in 1963, which was beaten in 1973, etc. So in ten years or less, a new modern day record was set. However their mark of 1998 has not been beaten yet and this year does not look promising either. The HadCrut3 data for January is not out yet, but the January RSS data would put 2012 in 26th place if that anomaly continued for the rest of the year. In my opinion, every year that goes by without the 1998 record being beaten by HadCrut3 is another nail in the coffin for CAGW.
It’s interesting that so many people repeat the 97%-of-all-scientists meme, but no one repeats the claim from An Inconvenient Truth that in a sample of (I think it was) 928 scientists, 100% said they accept the global warming thesis.
I suspect this is because 97% sounds more plausible. But I have to admire Al for refusing to go only part-way.
To Alexander Feht:
Get my booklet (In German) from German Amazon.de ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4
explaining in detail the astronomical aspects and the substantial forcing of the orbit OSCULATION…..
(not oscillation)….too bad, Leif Svalsgaard has a bad attitude…..he reckons, he
knows it all, whereas there is substantially more, which he refuses to look at…
typical Warmist ignorance…..obstinance….
….I have hope that one fine day he will exercise self-criticism…
JS
I has a scratch around John Cooks place where they’re discussing this.
A huge graph is put up Fig 1 on this page
It says that Global Heat Content has risen by 200*10e21 Joules since 1960. That is one huge scary number and it is one scary looking graph.
But, there are 1.2*10e21 kg of water on the Earth, hence less than 200 Joules of extra energy per kilogram.
The Specific Heat Content of water is 4200J per kg per deg C so surely that means the world’s water has warmed by 200/4200 degrees centigrade, or, about 0.05’C
What is so scary about that? What is wrong with those people?