by Joe Bastardi
Being I am branded as a “denier”, I am having trouble dismissing the relevance of the tree ring studies that challenge the hockey stick, in light of the magnitude of the weight against co2 having any relevance to the climate.
I am hoping Dr. Mann can clear some things up for me, a PSU meteo grad that as I understand is no longer welcome in our department because of my outspoken stance on the climate change issue. A response here can also enlighten the other Neanderthals, some of them apparently devious enough to fool entire departments so they have PHDs, as to the latest “situation” with you and Andy Revkin. Andy, I am hoping this is not too “divisive or toxic”.
You tweeted that this graph, which has a version that shows no hockey stick was “largely irrelevant”
Here is the tweet:
And yet we see that the Chinese find no hockey stick in their studies:
In light of the Chinese studies, how can you say the other finding is largely irrelevant?
In addition you are asking us to believe that a gas that is 1/400th of the greenhouse gasses in a mixture ( air) that has 1/1000th of the heat capacity of the ocean,
WHICH IS BY FAR THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTOR TO THE NUMBER ONE GREENHOUSE GAS, WATER VAPOR, is somehow so relevant its pushing around the climate system. Even more remarkable is that this gas ( co2 if you have not guessed) has a specific gravity of 1.5 that of air, heats and COOLS faster than air, has different radiation properties and according to NASA satellite data, does not mix well.
Add to that the fact that in that mixture, air, it occupies .004 and according to DOE, mans total contribution is 3 to 5 %,
meaning using the high end 5% we have contributed .0002 to a mixture that has 1/1000th of the heat capacity of a prime source of the number one greenhouse gas , water vapor, that is 400 times the amount of co2.
Since I am an actual graduate of PSU meteo, and would like to again show my face there, I would hope you can explain to me and the rest of the “denial machine” how assigning such a high value to what would appear by the PHYSICAL evidence to be a non factor is somehow consistent with 2 studies showing NO HOCKEY STICK being largely irrelevant.
Again here is my problem: we have 2 studies showing no hockey sticks, they are irrelevant, yet the sheer weight of evidence AGAINST co2 being able to push the climate around seems to be of a much greater magnitude than the 2 studies.
And just for good measure, perhaps you can help us deniers with the apparent misconception with the ocean and sun correlation and the disconnect to co2 seen here:
TOP LEFT CO2 VS TEMP top right global temp since pdo flip bottom left ocean vs temp correlation pdo plus amo bottom right solar correlation
ocean strength of correlation is .83 solar is .57 co2 is .44
I look forward to the response convincing me that by looking at all sides of the issues, and reading just about everything you have done, that I am wrong, so I recant my Neanderthal views, and once again be able to sing “ may no act of ours bring shame” in our alma mater, since after all I am a graduate of PSU.
I am also a letter winner, so along with sweating out classes, I sweat and bled on our wrestling mats, so you might understand why my relationship with my University and its most famous member of our esteemed meteorology department is important to me.
Joe Bastardi
State Collge, PA
Simply brilliant, Joe.
But you won’t get a response.
Mountain meet molehill That sounds about right. If Mann does the sums it comes out as a mountain, anyone with a modicum of honesty and it turns out to be a molehill.
Good luck with that, Joe. I feel the pain, because my alma mater, Acadia University, has gone hog-wild on the meme as well. I didn’t get a letter, but I was pretty much a 4.0 GPA. And watching science get sacked for political agendas is, well, a combination of irritating and depressing. And watching Mann’s unmistakably disdainful smirk must be a real drag.
Reading the responses in the link below illustrates just how shoddy the whole thing has become.
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/~/media/climate-change/prof-plimer-101-questions-response-pdf.pdf
Joe, you da man…
But, don’t you know, as Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, you can’t go home again.
Oh, he probably will get a response, Mardler, but it will be a “not worth even a serious rebuttal” tweet. 🙂
The mountain is under the right side of his graph. The molehill is under the right side of the Chinese chart.
Dim sum for everyone.
Joe, Joe, Joe. Tsk, tsk. Of COURSE it’s the CO2. Look at this equation: dF= 5.35 X ln C/Co (Wm^-2). See how simply the radiative forcing makes the temp go up? If you plug in values for C/Co one can easily see how the temperature of the atmosphere will increase. Why, with enough CO2 the oceans will boil away! What? One cannot do a tabletop experiment to confirm this? Why does that matter? The math is correct so it *MUST* be true! What? Why is it cooling off? Err…..ummm….. I’m not sure. I’ll have to recheck my figgers. I know Big Oil is putting more CO2 in the atmosphere so I’ll have to get back to you on that. I know the guys at GISS & CRU will be able to edumakate me. TTFN!
Do I really have to put “/sarc.” here?
Joe: the IPCC crew has somehow managed to make 4 major physics’ mistakes!
1. 1973, Lacis and Hansen adopt Sagan’s aerosol optical physics. NASA publications claim polluted clouds ‘reflect’ more sunlight because of higher droplet surface area/low size. Yet clouds with highest albedo are rain clouds. This was noticed by cloud physicist G L Stephens in 2010. There is no cooling by polluted clouds, in reality it’s the reverse, the real GW mechanism.
2. 1981, Hansen et. al. claim ~24 K lapse rate warming is a GHG effect, overestimating present GHG warming by a factor of ~3.7.
3. 1986, Houghton claims Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium in the lower atmosphere means it emits radiation as a black body: there is no such physics yet the IPCC climate models assume non-existent ‘back radiation’ in equilibrium with a black body Earth emitting as if it were in a vacuum. Any process engineer will confirm that to get radiation to exceed natural convection for ~0.9 emissivity you need >100 °C. The IPCC increases real IR warming by a factor of 15.5!
4. The Tyndall and CO2 in a bottle experiments do not prove direct thermalisation: there is no warming when the bottle is replaced by thin Mylar. In reality thermalisation is probably mostly at heterogeneous interfaces [cloud droplets etc.] as pseudo-scattering transfers the energy. This may explain the Miskolczi control system/constant IR optical depth..
The bottom line; there is indirect GHG warming; GHG-AGW has been vastly exaggerated and could be net zero. The subject has to be re-started by objective professionals, students should not be taught incorrect physics – ‘downwelling IR’ is an artifact of the measurement procedure, a measure of temperature convolved with emissivity, not an energy source.
You’ll never arrive at the right answer the way you’re going at this, Joe. The data must be adjusted using “sophisticated statistical techniques”. There are lots of such techniques available to the resourceful practitioner and you’ll know you’ve hit on just the right combination when you get the following effects:
1) Adjusted temperatures early in the 20th century come out lower than recorded raw readings.
2) Adjusted temperatures late in the 20th century come out higher than recorded raw readings.
3) The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period disappear.
Voila!
Joe: In one word – BRILLIANT. But real brilliance is seen as foolishness to those who are being deceived (or in this case, who wish to play the role of a deceiver). Hmmmmm…. sounds familiar. Where have I heard THAT quote before?
In the case of Mann it should be spelled hockey schtik.
Joe! Joe! Joe! How can you be so gauche as to cite actual, factual evidence and comparisons!!
Don’t you know it’s all about feelings? You have to “feel” the data, not examine it!
C’mon! Get with the program!
Or we’ll destroy your reputation! We’ll take your house and everything else you hold dear! We’ll try you for treason and hang you!
Oops! Did I just say that!!
Nevermind!!
I’ve yet to understand how CO2 levels can fluctuate 1000’s of ppm…..naturally
….yet can’t handle an additional 5 ppm (100 ppm X 5%)
and when CO2 levels were in the 1000’s…..managed to crash all on it’s own
Manns arse: 0 Bastardis boot: 1
Short and sweet with enough /sarc to hurt where it counts, superb job Mr.Bastardi.
I would think it would be more like the ‘I don’t joust with jesters’ line he’s used before.
Grrrrr. . . .
It is so obvious yet so many won’t even think about it.
0.04% of the atmosphere which is inconsequential when compared with the ocean has the ability to destroy Earth. Really !
/sarc
Well done !!
What is becoming ever more irrelevant is Michael Mann.
He’s has become simply a waste of time, an ignorant, whining, obsessed demagogue living in some kind of fantasy world where people respected his work.
His 15 minutes of fame are over.
Nice ground and pound work Joe. You and Hulk smash good.
Having worked in science at a university for some 28 years, I too am deeply saddened by this dismissal of real science in favor of popular “religious-science” (apologies to the actual church). It seems to have the properties of that notorious green gas that flowed through the city in The Ten Commandments, only now it’s taking brains, not first born.
Even more obscene is the importance being placed by these institutions of higher learning on sports, with spending increases on sports disproportionately greater than on science. Scientific faculty are being cut while the coach is getting a contract extension and a raise… on top of a half-million dollar current salary. It is no wonder that people who garner notoriety for populist causes that both reinforce and benefit from the myth of CAGW are deified.
A perfect example is my university’s recent hosting of Naomi Oreskes so she could give a lecture on why the deniers are wrong. Don’t get me started.
You offer some very good, simple questions, but I doubt they’ll be answered in any kind of direct manner, if at all.
ten out of ten for effort Joe, but he wont respond. Why not give Ho Chi Manh a call and ask him if he wants help to set up a CPCC
Joe you have to keep up. The satellites have been “adjusted”, what cooling? Now onto adjust those pesky balloons.
“In addition you are asking us to believe that a gas that is 1/400th of the greenhouse gasses in a mixture ( air) that has 1/1000th of the heat capacity of the ocean…etc, etc”
Sorry, but arguments like the above are not helpful. The theoretical underpinnings for AGW are valid as far as they go. Except for one thing. The real world data is not cooperating. And there is no “trapped heat” yet found to explain why that is. The way science should work, and usually does work is that when a hypothesis is shown to have no predictive value, that hypothesis is declared invalid.
As I see it, that’s the real argument… the fire to which we should be holding their feet.
I struggle with the text of this letter, which I find incoherent and difficult to follow – though the charts are of great interest. Could it be tidied up retrospectively? Thanks.
And “awarded a letter” – is that for representing the University at sport? Like a “cap” or a “blue”?
So, there goes my theory. I attended an NFL football game last year and my observations led me to conclude that wearing a replica football jersey causes middle aged men’s abdomens to grow. I guess that there must be more to it than that.
The global warming deception was built on the foundation of the hockey stick, and the specious non-causal correlation between CO2 and temps (see algor deceptively repeat this lie on CO2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg).
Now those foundations are debunked, gone, but the theory still stands… without foundation! An ad campaign should be developed that hits these two key points (there is nothing unusual about current temps / climate, and there is no empirical evidence that CO2 effects climate scale temps).
It’s obvious that the Chinese studies must be largely irrelevant just as McIntyre’s and McKitrick’s claim that “upside down” data were used was bizarre.
All science and logic must bow to the proclamations of the great and all-knowing Mann.
That was beautifully done, Joe. Whether you get an answer or not, you may make some people think… unless of course they already know… in which case you may make those people get in touch with their shame.
sorry but your comment about sports is way off base……exercise is a key to having a healthy life, and the sports programs at major universities make a profit.
Micheal Mann’s answer: “SHUT UP!”, he explained.
in that volume of atmosphere, 500 ppm of co2 carries 1/50000 of the heat that the 1% water vapor does, too. co2 ain’t the family joules.
infinitesimal.
Tony McGough said:
And “awarded a letter” – is that for representing the University at sport? Like a “cap” or a “blue”?
I’m not sure what a “cap” or a “blue” is, but I’m guessing it’s very similar. A letter made of heavy fabric–representing the first letter of the institution (in this case, a “P” for Penn State University)–is awarded to athletes, scholars, and often artistic performers for exemplary performance. The letter is typically sewn onto the front of a “letter jacket” for display.
In addition, I’d like to say, “Bravo, Joe!” Another double shot of espresso!!
Eric Simpson: Stott 2007 showed the end of the last ice age started 2 ky before CO2 rise. It’s warming of the deep Southern Ocean. 1.3 ky later tropical SST rises .700 years after that CO2 comes out!
The missing link is the amplification of Milankovitch tsi change by phytoplankton blooms reducing cloud albedo, The same mechanism occurs in the Arctic over a 70 year cycle. The Arctic is now freezing again. The warmists made the mistake of confusing this with CO2-AGW.
I think in the university’s eyes, the quality of the scientist is in direct proportion to the number of bureaucrats his research funding will support. By this criteria, PSU likely rates MM as brilliant. Joe, if you don’t raise money for bureaucrats you can’t be very smart so you can be ignored. When the climate change money runs out, you may want to ask them your question again.
@Tony McGough, I agree, the letter is a bit hard to follow with all the references to PSU. [It] does read well in terms of taking the piss out of Mann, but in terms of explaining the facts in a nice simple way it fails. If the facts where put forward in a simple manner then it might be useful to be used to explain to those who haven’t been totally taken over by the AGW cult, in other words the ordinary man in the street.
Mr. Bastardi: Can you explain to us why global temperatures are still high?
The PDO, AO and the sun has turned to cooling. So where are the cool temperatures from the eighties or seventies? I asked you that same question before here somewhere on WUWT in another one of your blogs. Never got a reply.
Oh Mr. Bastardi: April temperatures are going up again (RSS MSU) while they should go down in a cooling world. And how about the pathetic weak La Niñas the globe faced during 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 while you people were constantly propagating these were huge La Niñas. No they weren’t.
Mr. Bastardi: I considered you as a serious and objective person in climate and weather, but you are losing credibility.
Global temperatures are not going down like you would us have to believe in your last graph, but they will remain constant and increase again when the sun becomes active. Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently.
REPLY: If MR, Bastardi’s credibility is an issue for you, why not improve yours and put your name to your challenge, as he does with his writings? – Anthony
Joe. This is a Mann size slap down. More please!
I am extremely proud to be a Rutgers Univ. alumnus.
It was there, in the esteemed (this time the moniker is earned) Rutgers Agricultural School, that high levels of CO2 (up to 2000 ppm) were proven to result in much higher plant growth rates.
Not to mention most of the wonderful tomato varieties we enjoy today!
I hope their pragmatism, and actual observation of nature through experimentation, not computer simulations, has held firm, and that RU is still cogent on the climate science front.
Upstream, Red Team!
pokerguy says:
May 8, 2012 at 11:21 am
As I see it, that’s the real argument… the fire to which we should be holding their feet.
So *that’s* where Trenberth’s missing heat has been hiding!
First of all the sports comment was in a sport that is non revenue ( until now, our wrestling team is packing rec hall) but was meant to show another link to my loyalty to the school. Dr Mann DID NOT attend PSU. When I was there we graduated 2/3rds of the worlds meteorologist.
In addition when I started wrestling there after 2 years of not wrestling, my grades shot up cause I got back the discipline that I lost when I was a member of the general population. Even now, to me universities are simply businesses, as many of the curriculums are not the kind that one has to got to school for, or truly is something you need to build a career off of. I WAS NOT ON SCHOLARSHIP, WAS A TRUE STUDENT ATHLETE and as a matter of fact am the only known METEOROLOGIST to have lettered division one in the sport of wrestling as of 1978, and as far as I know, even through now. It was rough. Even today, I adopt an attitude that full preparation is one that involves a spiritual, mental and physical approach. I think being tested at things that you cant do ( I was 1-4 in wrestling, and in bodybuilding lost 37 straight times before winning at a state level) helps makes you appreciate and drive you in what you can do.
But my point was my linkage to PSU is burned into me, as opposed to arriving from the outside at a later date. Its is a bottom striving for the top, not top down link. Dont expect some of you to understand, but thats okay, we all have different journeys
Robbie says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently.
And your reference, rather than your opinion, for that is…?
Expect the “Sounds of Silence”
You will only get a response if other Alumni (with big wallets) chime in and want to know where the answer to your letter is.
You might try sending copies to Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor. (The last two are the only papers held in esteem by my husband’s newspaper owning Dad)
Otherwise it is a really great succinct synopsis of the skeptics case against CO2 as the control knob for climate.
@Robbie –
“Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently.” Really?
And you know this, how, Robbie?
I suggest you stick to reading stories about dinosaur farts. They fit with your world view.
one more thing. The football program money here at PSU has built alot of buildings and paid for alot of salaries, including those of people who hate the football program. I do not think we should apologize for success and some of you should understand that the late Joe Paterno, really did push for things in the matter of academics. His wife, someone I know personally, helped my family out when my wife was sick, and while I cant speak for some things, I do know they were sincere in what they envisioned the university to be about. Perhaps I am just longing for the days I went here. Things seemed so much clearer then from the weather, to what it meant to represent your school
The Wikipedia mavins marvelously report:
I wonder how he evaluates Nicola Scafetta‘s findings of periodicities in temperature records about 60 years long?
Furthermore, I find it remarkable that in the entire entry for Michael E. Mann, there is not a single reference to McIntyre, despite the large volume of hockey stick studies by McKitrick and McIntyre, and the frequent references to McIntyre in the Climategate emails. This falsification of history is remarkably similar to the eradication of Trosky under Stalin. Similarly, McIntyre is mentioned but dismissed in Hockey stick controversy. No mention yet of Yamal nor of McIntyre’s successful FOI and Yamal FOI sheds new light on flawed data.
AND to Robbie:
From London Express last week:
“Icy winds will send temperatures plunging today before torrential rain returns next week.
This weekend looks set to be the coldest start to May for more than 70 years and the Met men say the miserable weather, more like winter than spring, could drag on until June.”
Ontario, New York, and other apple regions lost most of the fruit crop due to a record late frost. $100M+ in losses.
Global tempos this winter are below average. Thousands dead in Europe from the cold this winter.
And you hail from…
which planet was it again?
I realize that “deceptively repeat the lie” is redundant. It’s the first time I used “lie,” perhaps thanks to Anthony’s top-hanging post yesterday on the CRU liars.
Anyway, the 3 and half minute video I reference is, I think, able by itself to remedy in the public a fundamental misunderstanding about CO2, and so, agw theory. That’s why I ask us all to promote it, share it, post about it in your blogs, whatever.
Further, there seems to be more buzz now about ad campaigns, thanks to Heartland. Take that video, distill its gist in a fraction of the time, and combine it with a graphical ad that also assaults the hockey stick. This is the main ad of a campaign, which could be largely self-sustaining through viewer contributions (now that conservatives are hyped about the issue and will donate $ to an effective campaign). Other ads take on subsidiary points, like the ideological impetus and deceptions of the scare-mongering Chicken Littles. Back the campaign with a web site that gives full, rebuttal-resistant documentation and references for the claims made. Go to it!
Robbie says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
“Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently”
———-
Robbie, what Temp ‘should’ the earth be without manmade CO2 ? Because I think if you can answer that question and supply a reason that can stand up to the posters here, you have a Nobel Prize in your future.
regards,
Heggs.
Mr. Bastardi,
1. Yamal and China are regions and thus not representative of the entire globe or hemisphere.
2. Your theories on CO2 and heat capacity are not relevant. Also, I’m not sure why that chart from NASA makes you think that CO2 is not well-mixed.
3. What are your correlations for solar, ocean and co2 for the last 30 years? 50? 100?
Robbie said: “Oh Mr. Bastardi: April temperatures are going up again (RSS MSU) while they should go down in a cooling world.”
Now there’s an unprecedented climatic event. /sarc
Regardless of whether the world is cooling or not, it’s silly to claim they couldn’t go up temporarily in “a cooling world.” As the follks at Realclimate used to say repeatedly, you’re talking about weather, not climate.
As a fellow met….bravo! You represent a LARGE number of us (a majority maybe?) and are often shackeled by politics to voice our opinion….Please continue the good fight my friend! And good lucK with your quest to grace PSU again soon! 🙂
Robbie says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
“Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently”
___________________________________
OH?
So you would like to see a 1C or 2C drop in temperature so we can duplicate the famines and revolutions seen during the period between 1350 and 1900.
Is that what you want?
Maybe Micheal Mann can be the new “Schticky” spokeman instead of “Vince”.
If I remember correctly , Buzz Aldrin had a way of dealing with people who accused him of being a liar.
After reading this post, I would warn anyone against calling a man who is capable of twisting your head off and putting in your pocket for safe keeping a ‘denier’
(I am sure JB would never do such a thing)
Fred says, “His 15 minutes of fame are over.”
I disagree a little. If the dendrochronological graphs evidencing what is called proof of warming were not so important and powerful for the gravy train, the warmistas would have already dumped or sidelined the dendrochronologists with their alleged treemometers. Also, there seems to be a some money out there testing whether Mann can be the public relations “face” of the warmista industries. Hansen was sidelined about two years ago when he stated the obvious that cap and trade is a scam that will not decrease CO2 emissions. The only time the corporate-left media will touch Hansen these days is if he can manage to get arrested and provide a photo-op.
Joe, my comment about sports was not directed to you, my mistake in not making that clear, it was for the post that was knocking money being spent on sports and just showing that in reality the sports programs supports themselves(i know some sports lose money but the big sports make a profit to offset those other sports).
i agree with you Joe 100% that sports indeed are a very good thing for people to participate in at whatever level they desire, and indeed MOST athletes are students first and just like the rest of their education the things they learn in athletics serve them well in the rest of their lives.
Robbie says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Mr. Bastardi: Can you explain to us why global temperatures are still high?
The PDO, AO and the sun has turned to cooling. So where are the cool temperatures from the eighties or seventies? I asked you that same question before here somewhere on WUWT in another one of your blogs. Never got a reply….
“Still high “compared with what and when? It is high compared to the LGM, and the LIA minima, but low compared to the maxima of the early Holocene. Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods. So, it is quite possible that Mr. Bastardi thinks your question is a straw man issue.
You first have to show the planet’s mean temperature actually is high given current conditions before there is any need to explain it. Since it is self evident that no one really does know how the “climate” works – there would be no call for the current debate otherwise – we can conclude that there is no one on the planet that can say with empirical authority what the planet’s temperature really ought to be at present.
He’ll laugh at you, Joe. He has impunity granted to him by the media. Skeptics can’t turn the media. Alarmists can’t turn the public. Give Revkin a call and ask for an interview. Posting in an echo chamber like this accomplishes nothing.
Well done Joe, as always to the point.
Mann meets the Hulk,mann runs, hide’s under big Al’s coat…. LOL,LOL,
The “letter” one gets as a PSU Letterman is actually an “S” for a 2nd year letterman. And it comes in the form of a blanket. A blazer is given the first year and sports the Nittany Lion emblem, which has varied over the years. A three year letter winner receives a ring, but I never made it that far! I give to my Coach’s endowment but never to the University, soley because of Michael Mann. I have a different letter for him.
Boris said:
“Mr. Bastardi,
1. Yamal and China are regions and thus not representative of the entire globe or hemisphere.”
Precisely, Boris! Now you’re getting it!
My PSU letterman certificate is actually signed by my Coach and Joe Paterno, who was briefly the Athletic Director, until he figured out what a horrible job that can be.
“And yet we see that the Chinese find no hockey stick in their studies:”
So either the hockey stick based on rings from “a” tree is a local phenom, i.e. a regional climatic issue OR the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) was everywhere else like China. And now we know where the AGW believers got the idea for claiming the MWP was just a regional phenom, they were PROJECTING their accusation because the hockey stick derived graph was the regional climatic anomaly.
@Boris says: May 8, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Mr. Bastardi,
1. Yamal and China are regions and thus not representative of the entire globe or hemisphere.
////
Have you told Michael Mann that?
Joe Bastardi,
Your contribution is appreciated. Thanks.
John
Is Mann still on sabbatical from PSU for the purpose of improving the communication of IPCC centric CAGWism to the increasingly skeptical public?
I think the more Mann works on his communication skills the more skeptical the public becomes. (I am grinning)
John
Boris says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Mr. Bastardi,
1. Yamal and China are regions and thus not representative of the entire globe or hemisphere.
_________________________
So why the heck did Mann use JUST 12 trees in his infamous hocky stick????
The discussion of that is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/east-anglia-climate-research-unit-shown-to-be-liars-by-results-of-latest-foia-ruling-and-investigation/
2. Your theories on CO2 and heat capacity are not relevant. Also, I’m not sure why that chart from NASA makes you think that CO2 is not well-mixed.
He is correct CO2 is not “well mixed” it can not be because it has continuous input sources, sequestering sources, not particularly good mixing and it is heavier than air. Somewhere on WUWT I have gone through that argument (many times) Richard S. Courtney has a peer reviewed paper on it behind a pay wall.
3. What are your correlations for solar, ocean and co2 for the last 30 years? 50? 100?
That one is easy to answer. Just ask:
Milankovitch: http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-defense-of-milankovitch-by-gerard.html
Peer reviewed paper: http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
Or Dr Feynman: (NASA) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1319
Peer reviewed paper: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006JD007462.shtml
or Dr. Shaviv
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JA010866.shtml
http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/13/7/pdf/i1052-5173-13-7-4.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003JA009997.shtml
or Dr. Ilya G. Usoskin
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JA010946.shtml
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006aogs….2..321U
or Dr. Muhong Chen
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.12.003
or Dr. George C. Reid
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v329/n6135/abs/329142a0.html
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1991/90JD02774.shtml
Maine 6800-Year Peat Bog Core Shows Distinct Solar Correlation – http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/06/new-maine-6800-year-peat-bo-core-shows-climate-correlated-with-solar-activity-expect-more-frequent-new-england-flooding-ahead/
or Vukcevic.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HmL.htm (CET = a long running temp record in England)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMC.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFCfiles.htm
Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic
THROUGHOUT HISTORY, or
LAMENTS FOR A MISSING CURVE
o tempora
o mores
o absens virga flecti
(Cicero, Oratio in Catilinam Prima, 63 BC)
[Oh times!
Oh customs!
Oh missing (hockey) bent stick!]
Dictes moy ou n’ en quel pays
Est de hocquet le bâton
Qui beaulté ot trop plus qu’ humaine.
Mais ou sont les neiges d’ antan?
(François Villon, Le Grand Testament, 1462)
[Tell me where, in which country
Is the hockey stick
Which had a beauty too much more than human?
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!]
(greetings from a Penn State professor, Joe)
@DJ (11:17 am)
Half a million? What school are you talking about? Must not have a decent football team. Probably not even FBS. Half a million is RIDICULOUSLY LOW for a top-tier college football coach. The coach at my alma mater makes 4 million, and took his team to Tue national championship game, where they lost to a team whose coach makes 5 million.
Meanwhile, those teams brought tens of millions of dollars in revenue into the GENERAL budgets of their universities. From ticket sales, television revenue, and licensing. And much of that went to education, including, Yes, science. And if the university wasn’t paying top dollar for a great coach, it wouldn’t have got all that revenue. So stop moaning about those outrageous coach’s salaries and just be glad that MOST of the income generated by college sports is going to SEC schools, which generally don’t subscribe to the CAGW hoax.
Perhaps David Appell will answer for Mann?
Mike Mangan says:
May 8, 2012 at 1:08 pm
He’ll laugh at you, Joe. He has impunity granted to him by the media. Skeptics can’t turn the media. Alarmists can’t turn the public. Give Revkin a call and ask for an interview. Posting in an echo chamber like this accomplishes nothing.
I doubt he is laughing. He has not responded to direct challenges. His CRU HS team members have been branded liars, and have not responded. No, I think he sweats more and more.
Maybe Michael Mann will let us know which.
PS: Post gives 0.004 AS CO2 %. Needs cleaning up.
Joe, academics such as yourself who represented their colleges as sportsmen and who earned their letters, colours and academic qualifications through honest endeavour, you have my admiration. Keep telling it as you see it, but please don’t hold your breath waiting for a reply from Mann.
As a footnote, us sceptics in New Zealand are very aware of the evidence for the MWP impacting the Southern hemisphere in the same time periods as in the North, despite Mann’s best efforts to ‘disappear’ the MWP.
It’s all very well for us all to agree; for me the mind-blowing component is why the university power brokers continue to support Mann. Their failure to grasp all the elements of academic freedoms. Are they foolish enough to believe they can hold out for ever? The longer this goes on the more discredited they personally and the university become.
Joe, you show a graph from Liu et al. (2011) that is for the central Eastern Tibetan Plateau based on tree rings. I think you should add the actual figure title to the plot so that your readers understand this is a temperature reconstruction for a small region, rather than the entire globe.
REPLY: No comment then about the other Mannian elephants in the room? – Anthony
I think you questions are good and well worth asking, however, I have reservations.
The chinese data do show a hokey stick for the last 1000 years which is the same time period covered by all the well known hockey stick studies.
The second issue is that trees are horrible thermometers. The divergence problem; the non-linear responces; contamination by increases CO2 and the much stronger dependance growth rates have to rainfall are the more fundemental questions. These are the true mountain.
I hope you get a reply Joe! However typos crept in.
a gas that is 1/400th of the greenhouse gasses in a mixture
CO2 occupies about 0.04% or 0.0004 of the atmosphere. If you assume water vapor averages 1.6%, then that would be 40 times more, not 400.
Even more remarkable is that this gas ( co2 if you have not guessed) has a specific gravity of 1.5 that of air, heats and COOLS faster than air
Cp of CO2 is .844 J/g C or 37 J/molC
Cp of air is 1.01 J/g C or 29 J/molC
So for clarification, when measured per gram, CO2 does indeed have a lower specific heat capacity, but when measured per mole, the heat capacity is higher for CO2. So if you had identical jars of the same volume and temperature and pressure, but one filled with CO2 and the other with air, the one with CO2 would actually heat and cool slower. But having said this, the heat capacity of CO2 is not the property that makes it a so called greenhouse gas.
Aside from the obvious snark value of “Yamal largely irrelevant. Mountain meet molehill”, in all seriousness his tweet is very telling.
1. If he is admitting that Yamal is largely irrelevant, then is he really admitting that Yamal is flawed and that the flaw doesn’t take away from the other AGW “evidence”? If he believes Yamal in not flawed but only a small piece of the “evidence”, then why use the term “largely irrelevent” it is either relevent or it is not. I can only read this as conceding Yamal is flawed.
2. If it is a concession of the flaw of Yamal … he must explain if is it due to an oversight or fraud. We know what he would say, but it must be explained.
If I file taxes correctly 9 times out ten but 1 time I mess it up and get it “flagged” and audited, doesn’t it mean that the other 9 times are suspect too? What if the 1 time really was intentional fraud on my tax return?
It would be nice to nail him down on the meaning of “largely irrelevant”
Robbie says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
“Mr. Bastardi: Can you explain to us why global temperatures are still high?
The PDO, AO and the sun has turned to cooling. So where are the cool temperatures from the eighties or seventies? I asked you that same question before here somewhere on WUWT in another one of your blogs. Never got a reply.
Oh Mr. Bastardi: April temperatures are going up again (RSS MSU) while they should go down in a cooling world. And how about the pathetic weak La Niñas the globe faced during 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 while you people were constantly propagating these were huge La Niñas. No they weren’t.
Mr. Bastardi: I considered you as a serious and objective person in climate and weather, but you are losing credibility.
Global temperatures are not going down like you would us have to believe in your last graph, but they will remain constant and increase again when the sun becomes active. Even in the “Cold” phase planet Earth is way too warm currently.”
If you look back to the 1970’s the last cool phase we had, you should be aware (unless your speaking from a position of total ignorance) that the PDO had been running consistently negative for nearly 30 years and the AMO for 10 years.
Currently we are approaching solar maximum, the 109 year running mean for the PDO has only turned negative in recent years and the AMO is just coming off its peak for the 10 year running mean. Even with all these factors we’ve seen no significant increasing temperature trend for approaching 15 years.
Where is the heat?
Your comments are ludicrous and uninformed. If your going to post try and do a little research about the subject your posting on.
Gail,
Thanks for your comment.
1. Mann used more than 12 trees in his paper. I’m not sure where this idea comes from, but you can find Mann’s paper online to see for yourself.
2. The graphic Mr. Bastardi presents shows that CO2 is indeed well-mixed with about 4% variation.
3. I think you misunderstood what I was looking for with respect to correlation between CO2 and solar during the twentieth century and latter twentieth century. Mr. Bastardi implies that since CO2 doe snot correlate well int he last 15 years, then it cannot be a driver of temperature. However, CO2 correlates much better than solar and etc. for longer time periods. That seems to fly in the face of his conclusions.
Oh and if you want to see cool wait and see what the next 30 years brings.
DJ @ May 8, 2012 at 11:17 am
Call it what it is, LYSENKOISM.. Politicised science.
Robbie: High according to WHO just what should the temperature be you know so we can set the thermostat ???
Kerry R Jennings
Boris states CO2 correlates much better than solar and etc. for longer time periods no it doesn’t, that is the lie!
I know that Anthony hates it when anyone mentions coughcreationismcough in the blog, but the answer to your question is the exact same as we always got from the c-ists:
“Things were different then.”
Worked for them — works for CAGW alarmists.
Continuing “Boris, that is the lie”. what is this “and etc.” that you cannot name? I would say that CO2 correlates with temperature, rather than the other way around. But I am skeptical of that too. It surely must correlate with ocean temperature.
Temperatures appear to correlate with piracy. This theory was first postulated, well at least the earliest reference I can find to it is from fellow Canadian Stéfan Sinclair http://stefansinclair.name/global-temperature-and-pirates/
Now, temperatures had been increasining from the 1980s, when piracy was increasing, reaching a peak around 1998 to 2002,; but piracy is being tackled by the Navies of the world and piracy is diminishing, and temperatures are not increasing.
Oh, wait a minute, I misread the article. Perhaps we need piracy after all; there is an INVERSE realtionship .. perhaps … but the point of my post is that statistical correlation is not proof. Even with a correlation of 1.0, we we would have to determine which was correlated with what .. which came first.
Mann will not answer. He’s already drowning in his “disingeniousness,” to borrow a word he likes. But maybe the ubiquitous Connolley will give it a shot, no? Perhaps one of his lurking acolytes will see this:
Dr Connolley? Paging Dr Connolley!
[Boris says:
May 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm
1. Mann used more than 12 trees in his paper.]
That’s the problem, he should have used eleven. I guess you missed that small detail.
Robert of Ottawa says:
May 8, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Boris states CO2 correlates much better than solar and etc. for longer time periods no it doesn’t, that is the lie!
I was going to say that !
Because its true !
Borris: the problem with CO2 levels and temperature is that over time they follow quite different stochastic processes with differing unit roots. You can eliminate one unit root by taking the first level of integration and regressing temperature change with co2 change on an annual basis with varying time lags. What soon emerges is that there is zero correlation between this year’s change in temperature and this year’s or any previous year’s or indeed any combination of year’s change in co2. It is this fundamental problem with the statistical relationship between temperature and co2 that has led to large amounts of intellectual muscle being applied to the attribution problem with optimal fingerprinting techniques. However, these data torturing techniques have the same result as any other form of torture – any information gained is worthless. If there really was the level of correlation you suggest then the debate would be largely over but as it stands at the moment even if we were to cut co2 levels by any amount we could not say when if ever global temperatures would respond.
Robert of Ottawa says:
May 8, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Boris states CO2 correlates much better than solar and etc. for longer time periods no it doesn’t, that is the lie!
____________________
No Robert he is correct. CO2 does correlate with an 800 year lag because as the oceans warm they outgas CO2. That is well know chemistry.
Boris says:
May 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Gail,
….2. The graphic Mr. Bastardi presents shows that CO2 is indeed well-mixed with about 4% variation…..
____________________________
Actually you are missing something very important.
The NASA photo Bastardi shows is the CO2 averagedfor the air in the mid troposphere. “…The monthly average of carbon dioxide in the middle troposphere made with AIRS data retrieved during July 2003 Image credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio. (right) AIRS sensitivity to carbon dioxide with altitude The graph on the right shows that AIRS is sampling a column of air in the middle troposphere over a change in altitude.
So even with averaging of a column of air across a month you STILL are seeing variation.
Even NASA says CO2 is not uniform as previously thought.
This new information sheds completely new light on Beck’s historical data and Callendar tossing out most of said data. see pg 228
OOP for got the NASA link for AIRS Carbon Dioxide Data
For ages, Revkin should be well aware that the hockey stick is pure fiction based on bad science.
The only reason I can think of why he and others do not speak out may be a state of fear created within certain media outlets and it would be up to insiders to reveal how these regimes have been created and are maintained.
Joe is still going with the C02 isn’t well mixed nonsense? It’s pretty odd that such a blatant and easy demonstrable falsehood is a tenor of his bizarre pseudo-scientific beliefs. Better avoid low-lying areas Joe, or else you might be suffocated by those pools of CO2!
Boris said:
“Mr. Bastardi,
1. Yamal and China are regions and thus not representative of the entire globe or hemisphere.”
“Own Goal” Boris ! ( How embarresment )
This is an excellent summary with just enough text and graphics to hammer home the relevant points, well done Joe Bastradi !
I am interested in the vertical profile of Co2 as I am suspicious about the mix of the very dense gas,and not just using a satellite looking down at the troposphere and averaging the result.
That link that Gail provided also says :
But the graphs only show CO2 against time.
Are there vertical CO2 profiles, like temperature profiles from different sites, would Radiosondes provide this information ?. I will do some checking when time permits but someone may enlighten me first.
It’s good, but I’ll add my own proviso. By introducing other aspects of the climate debate you give your opponent room to side step the present major issue which is the disappearing/reappearing hockey stick. Mann should be made to explain that.
@Robert of Ottawa.
Re:Perhaps we need piracy after all; there is an INVERSE realtionship .. perhaps … but the point of my post is that statistical correlation is not proof.
__________________
An analogy I use is the following: umbrellas correlate with rain. But umbrellas don’t cause rain …
Jerky, it seems you were pwned by Gail Combs before you even wrote your first word. Perhaps you should explain to NASA that their stance that CO2 is not being well-mixed in the atmosphere is “a blatant and easy demonstrable falsehood.”
Oh, and Gail provided links to support her statements. Where are yours?
I really feel bad for the Mann, not!
Nice job Mr. B !
Yamal was so obvious to many, but so well funded ™TheCause™ was!
🙂
Keith Minto says:
May 8, 2012 at 6:16 pm
I am interested in the vertical profile of Co2…
I will do some checking when time permits but someone may enlighten me first.
It is a common misconception that buoyancy applies to gases as it does to liquids, however that is not the case. If we take a helium filled balloon in a room, it would rise to the top, however a CO2 filled balloon would go to the bottom. However if we poke a hole in each balloon, the individual molecules spread out very evenly. And in the atmosphere outside, the distribution of all gas molecules with the exception of water vapor, is very consistent. If all heavier molecules would sink to the bottom, then we would never have very heavy chlorofluorocarbons in the stratosphere. Helium atoms do escape from our atmosphere. However it is not due to buoyancy. You could have a CO2 molecule and a helium atom in the same place high in the atmosphere at the same temperature. Being the same temperature means the translational kinetic energy is the same. Kinetic energy is calculated by the formula E = 1/2mv2. Since the helium atom is much lighter than the CO2 molecule, its velocity at the same temperature is much higher so it can reach escape velocity and thereby leave Earth. By contrast, Jupiter has a larger gravitational field and a lower temperature than Earth, so it can hold on to its hydrogen and helium.
For more on this topic of CO2 mixing, see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/#comment-869343
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/#comment-869356
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/#comment-869370
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/#comment-870037
“Boris says:
May 8, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Mr. Bastardi,
2. Your theories on CO2 and heat capacity are not relevant. Also, I’m not sure why that chart from NASA makes you think that CO2 is not well-mixed.”
The NASA report SAID CO2 is not well mixed:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-196
“December 15, 2009
WASHINGTON – Researchers studying carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas and a key driver of global climate change, now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide in a key part of our atmosphere. The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. …….
Chahine said previous AIRS research data have led to some key findings about mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide. For example, the data have shown that, contrary to prior assumptions, carbon dioxide is not well mixed in the troposphere, but is rather “lumpy.” Until now, models of carbon dioxide transport have assumed its distribution was uniform. “
Anthony will likely refer to this in a top post.
Bishop Hill has updated the ‘Yamal Explained’ essay he first wrote in 2009. More recent developments, including Steve’s latest, are reflected.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/8/the-yamal-deception.html
[SNIP – Multiple policy violations, fake email address, vulgar language, sexual references – who’s the BOZO now? ]
BOZO says:
May 8, 2012 at 9:47 pm
That was probably just Mann. Poor dude. 🙂
I can’t understand why you should want more than ONE thermometer to see if the GLOBAL temperature is changing. Sure, that thermometer will show seasonal and local temperature changes, but over a long enough period, maybe hundreds of years, you will notice the change.
The problem with treerings is that they respond to more than just the temperature. The same for ice cores, peat bogs, stomata, etc. etc.
Better get that correct….well done Joe Bastardi.
Robbie Says: ”Global temperatures are not going down like you would us have to believe in your last graph, but they will remain constant and increase again when the sun becomes active.”
When the sun becomes active ?? Does this mean that you acknowledge that the sun has greater influence over temperature than CO2 ?
Boris pointed out that CO2 is well mixed with about 4% variation across the globe.
Well, 4% is around the percentage of the atmospheric CO2 that is man made. The highest concentrations are around the regions where it is produced.
Who would have thought it. 😉
Haven’t seen all the comments BUT: Doesn’t mann’s comment ‘Yamal is irrellevant’ sort of tell Briffa that all his work was meaningless JUNK to michael mann?
So much for The Team…
Julian Braggins:
At May 9, 2012 at 1:54 am you say;
“Boris pointed out that CO2 is well mixed with about 4% variation across the globe.
Well, 4% is around the percentage of the atmospheric CO2 that is man made. The highest concentrations are around the regions where it is produced.
Who would have thought it. ;)”
Well, no, not according to the plot from NASA AIRS (dated July 2003) in the above article.
Most of one region of highest concentration is over the continental USA (i.e. a region of high industrial activity so a place where much CO2 is “man made”). All other regions of highest concentrations (i.e. almost all such regions) are NOT “around the regions where [man made CO2] is produced”.
Who would have thought it? Anybody who knows that nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 for every CO2 molecule emitted by the total of all activities of humans.
Richard
Excellent work, Mr Bastardi.
“Huh, FACTS. You can prove anything with *those*.” (Homer Simpson)
@ Mr. Joe Bastardi,
Perhaps the fact that you were involved in a physical sport led you to not be intimidated by the weak conniving type that have permeated the so called ‘climate science community’. It is obvious that none have the guts to stand on their own 2 feet without their peer support of approval.
Perhaps the fact that you graduated from PSU at a time prior to academia being reduced to a sad joke, you were educated at a time where ethics and sound knowledge were a prerequisite for graduation.
I would venture to say that you are not likely to fear a member of the ‘Team” beating you up physically (LOL) and you have clearly tossed the entire ‘Team’ to the matt intelectually.
@ Anthony, thanks for hosting this site. The knowledge brought here is absolutely astounding.
It seems that the ‘Team” is feeling the heat now and suffering a meltdown of hockey stick proportions. Real men are swinging the stick now. The ‘Hockey Stick Team’ is about to get pucked.
[SNIP: More than just a little Off-Topic. Rants about moderation policy, Monckton, Hadfield and use of “denier” will be summarily snipped. If you have something relevant to contribute, fine. If not, don’t. -REP]
pokerguy says:
May 8, 2012 at 11:21 am
As I see it, that’s the real argument… the fire to which we should be holding their feet.
Unfortunately the model results have been fed back into the temperature data as the basis for adjusting temperatures. In other words, the models are assumed to be correct, and this is used to determine where the surface temperatures collected worldwide are wrong, and the data adjusted accordingly.
This is then used to justify the correctness of the models. And the taxpayers are funding this effort. And the folks doing it are assumed to be doing it correctly because they have the label phd after their names. Phd is the modern day equivalent of papal infallibility.
Gail Combs says:
____________________
No Robert he is correct. CO2 does correlate with an 800 year lag because as the oceans warm they outgas CO2. That is well know chemistry.
——————————
Given the natural warming that has occured since the LIA, this simple fact of the oceans out-gassing CO2 as they naturally warm means humanity could be eliminated from this planet and CO2 levels would still rise.
And then the oceans cool and absorb excess C02 so you seems to get it now
One gets the feeling that this Yamal thing will actually destroy the AGW theory because its based on a lie. I think that with this information (ie McIntyre) virtually any Company, legal democratic government or person agrieved by the AGW, can bring these people to court and win.
Dave says:
“If you look back to the 1970′s the last cool phase we had, you should be aware (unless your speaking from a position of total ignorance) that the PDO had been running consistently negative for nearly 30 years and the AMO for 10 years.
Currently we are approaching solar maximum, the 109 year running mean for the PDO has only turned negative in recent years and the AMO is just coming off its peak for the 10 year running mean. Even with all these factors we’ve seen no significant increasing temperature trend for approaching 15 years.
Where is the heat?
Your comments are ludicrous and uninformed. If your going to post try and do a little research about the subject your posting on.”
PDO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PDO.svg (showing way below the 0.0 line clearly)
AO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Winter-NAO-Index.svg (has decreased significantly in the last decade)
Solar cycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png and of course cycle 24 http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/ (colder than ever before)
See for the UAH temperatures: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2012-0-30c/ (still high temperatures for April and 2012 will probably be another very warm year)
That is simply not possible with all the available data I have just shown you so far. It should be cooling right now. At least back to the early or mid-nineties. And if cloud cover were to blame I like to see the evidence for it.
So stop telling me that I am making ludicrous and uninformed statements.
duster says:
“You first have to show the planet’s mean temperature actually is high given current conditions before there is any need to explain it. Since it is self evident that no one really does know how the “climate” works – there would be no call for the current debate otherwise – we can conclude that there is no one on the planet that can say with empirical authority what the planet’s temperature really ought to be at present.”
It’s easy to leave everything in the dark and confuse people, but one thing is for sure if humans were not on Earth the planets current temperature would be cooler than today’s global temperature. Every climate scientist (I think even Roy Spencer and Lindzen would agree) with me here.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/GlobalClimateChange49
And here is the best primer why I asked the questions to Mr. Bastardi on May 8. Now look what the temperatures are doing http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2012-0-30c/
Really cold La Niñas??? I don’t think so. Cooling world???? I don’t think so either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4TC2bQqDTw&feature=g-vrec
Robbie,
If you look at the long term temperature trend line from the LIA to now, you will see that temperatures have not accelerated, but remain within their long term parameters — while CO2 has increased by ≈40%
What does that tell you?
Robbie says:
May 9, 2012 at 11:36 am
If so, why, if not, why not; please explain.
Your argument has become a vast waste of time and money, Robbie. You apparently aren’t a scientist–you’re just a bumper sticker writer. And you know what happens to bumper stickers after a while–they get washed off.
(PS> Please don’t post wikipedia links; nobody here takes them for more than two-bit actors.)
>Jerky, it seems you were pwned by Gail Combs before you even wrote your first word. Perhaps you should explain to NASA that their stance that CO2 is not being well-mixed in the atmosphere is “a blatant and easy demonstrable falsehood.”
Nice way to try and twist the data, but the resulting radiative effects will be the same. The AIRS data show that MID-TROPOPSHERIC c02 is strongly influenced by synoptics. That is what the actual data says, not Joe’s idiotic statement that somehow it’s so unmixed it can’t affect anything. When you look at the DATA, the total variations are on the order of 5ppm. In addition, the surface observations do indeed show a well-mixed boundary layer, e.g.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html
If you think this sideshow negates the radiative effects, you really don’t understand radiation physics at all!
Re: Boris who wrote;
“2. Your theories on CO2 and heat capacity are not relevant.”
With all due respect good sir, I submit this simple example;
1) A person with simple cotton clothing gets drenched by a rain storm; the water contained in the cloth has a thermal capacity that is much less that the thermal capacity of the “drenched” person. If the person keeps moving vigorously the cloth will eventually dry out and they will likely survive. In this case the thermal capacity of the person’s wet clothes is “insignificant” with respect to the thermal capacity of the person itself.
2) A person falls into a “large” body of water (i.e. the unfortunate souls that did not achieve a lifeboat seat after the Titanic tragically sank). In this case the “heat capacity” of the water did indeed make quite a “relevant” distinction in their “future plans”.
Cheers, Kevin.
Gail Combs or Joe Bastardi – question for you: So a variation between 365 ppm and 385 ppm is not “well mixed”? I am not a chemist, so I would appreciate an explanation about why that is not considered well mixed. Thank you.
@Joe:
Just loved it. Especially like the correlation coefficients and the relative heat capacities. “Those guys” don’t like to talk about heat capacity. Enthalpy and heat of fusion or vaporization make them flush with apoplexy. They also can’t abide convection. Everything must be temperatures and radiation. No other physics allowed.
So it’s nice to see someone with a more rounded pallet.
I have an idea:
How about you and Mann go for a one on one match to determine the winner? First pin wins 😉
RockyRoad says: “(PS> Please don’t post wikipedia links; nobody here takes them for more than two-bit actors.)”
Just for the ugly fun of it:
Take a good look at the following “Compiled by WUWT” page:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/potential-climatic-variables/
Please count how many times the WUWT team uses Wikipedia as a reference. I cannot help it that you don’t like what is happening in the real world.
Please never ever respond to me again!
Smokey says: “If you look at the long term temperature trend line from the LIA to now, you will see that temperatures have not accelerated, but remain within their long term parameters — while CO2 has increased by ≈40%
What does that tell you?”
Nothing particular. Can you tell me how many years CO2 lags temperature during glaciations and deglaciations? Do you also know why that happens? So why should temperature on Earth increase instantly when CO2 starts to rise in a “cold” world. Ehhh again how many years did it take to warm up the oceans during deglaciation before CO2 starts to rise?
Now what does that tell you?
Robbie is clueless: “Nothing in particular.” Facts tell Robbie nothing in particular.
The failure of the long term trend line to accelerate, as was universally predicted by the alarmist contingent, falsifies their CO2=CAGW conjecture. It tells folks who understand the issue that CO2 does not have the claimed effect.
Robbie asks: “Can you tell me how many years CO2 lags temperature during glaciations and deglaciations?”
Yes. The lag is 800 years, ±200 years. Peer reviewed papers on this subject are easy to find. Do your homework.
And:
“Do you also know why that happens?”
Yes. I’ll let Prof Richard Lindzen explain:
The current rise in CO2 is largely due to the warming during the MWP, 800 ±200 years ago. Since you are so far from being up to speed on this subject, I suggest that you make use of the WUWT archives, keyword: CO2. Do a few weeks’ reading, and you may be qualified to ask the right questions.
@ Smokey:
I hope you do realize that the temperature changes I am talking about are not on the order of tenths of a degree. Lindzen is correct if that is a quote from Lindzen at all. Btw Tsonis et al 2007 is not talking about deglaciations or the 800 year lag. But this paper is using a GCM-model. I wonder what your opinion is on models. Or do you embrace them only when they support your view? I am very critical on all research done with models. So too about Tsonis et al 2007.
The MWP was not 5-6 degrees warmer globally than current temperatures (you can research a very large peer-reviewed archive on CO2 Science http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php ), but merely 0.75 of a degree Celsius warmer (locally) than current temperatures suggesting in most of the studies: http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/quantitative.php . But Glacial-Interglacial stages are 5-6 degrees in amplitude globally (Jouzel et al 2007, Caillon et al 2003, Zachos et al 2001, Petit et al 1999 just to name a few).
What you are suggesting that the current rise in CO2 was largely due to the MWP is complete nonsense. (And if you think you are right about that would you be so kind to present me the evidence for it in the scientific literature?)
Every climate scientist (including Lindzen – look for my link earlier) agrees with me: The current rise in CO2 is caused by 20th century emissions (e.g. man/anthropogenic). (If not than please show me proof in the scientific literature?) The Keeling Curve http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ (Keeling 1960), is more than enough proof of our effect on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
So far you only do a lot of talking without presenting links or literature to strengthen your case. Let me be clear about this: I dismiss blogs or forums as proof for your points. Blogs with forums are not science.
So to suggest that I need to do “a few weeks’ reading on WUWT” (I am a daily visitor here) and maybe then I will be “qualified to ask the right questions” is not only an ad hominem attack, but also a very arrogant attitude towards people you don’t even know.
I can proof with scientific facts what I am claiming. Now it is your turn to proof that the current rise in CO2 is caused by the MWP. Show me please!
@ Smokey:
And if the lag is 800 ±200 years before CO2 starts to rise. Why should the oceans be warm instantly when CO2 starts to build up in the atmosphere? It’s a huge body of water. It takes at least 800 ±200 years before we will experience the full impact of our induced CO2 increase.
Robbie:
It is good that you seek to learn. However, it is best to do that by asking instead of citing papers that you clearly have not read. So, I am pleased that (at May 10, 2012 at 9:13 am) you ask;
“And if the lag is 800 ±200 years before CO2 starts to rise. Why should the oceans be warm instantly when CO2 starts to build up in the atmosphere?”
I answer:
They don’t. The ocean surface layer warms so the retention of CO2 in the air increases (i.e. movement towards equilbrium) while CO2 in that layer increases but proportionately not as much as the atmospheric rise. The thermohaline circulation then carries CO2 through the deep ocean (that does not warm) and returns it to the surface centuries later.
I suggest that you look-up thermohaline circulation and read the WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
I think the contributions of Alan MacRae in that thread will be especially helpful to your understanding of the matter.
I hope that helps.
Richard
@ richardscourtney
What! You are leading me to a blog from Mr. Willis Eschenbach while I am giving sources from scientific experts in their field.
Would you please listen to what Mr. Eschenbach himself says in the first 20 seconds:
Your claim: “through the deep ocean (that does not warm)” You should read Cutler et al 2002: Rapid sea-level fall and deep-ocean temperature change since the last interglacial period. Especially paragraph 5.2.
And I do not read papers!
Enough said!
@ Smokey
You are not running away from me, are you?
Please show me your source(s) that the current rise in CO2 was caused by the MWP!
I have another question: If the MWP is causing a 110 ppm rise in CO2 currently and it is still increasing on a yearly basis. Why is the difference between a glacial-interglacial also 110 ppm?
MWP 0.75-1 degrees C of warming while glacial-interglacial warming is 5-6 degrees C of warming causing practically the same amount of CO2 increase. Please explain!
I am only discussing with Smokey here from now on.
Robbie:
At May 11, 2012 at 5:23 am you reply to my post (at May 10, 2012 at 1:16 pm) which gave you an answer to a question you posed and pointed you to further information on the subject.
Your reply states that you did not want an answer but cites a paper that is plain wrong. If you were to read the link I provided then you could learn something about the subject instead of being blissful in your ignorance.
Importantly, since you say that you like being ignorant, perhaps you would be so kind as to stop disrupting this blog with your ignorant twaddle.
Richard
Robbie,
You are an ass if you think I’m running away. I just happened to check back and saw that Richard Courtney has already set you straight. Now it’s my turn.
Here are just a few sources referencing the 800 year ±200 year delay between rises in temperature and subsequent rises in CO2:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
Why should I have to do your homework for you? I’ve provided more sources out of dozens, many of them peer reviewed, which confirm evidence of the 800 ±200 year lag time between temperature rises and rises in atmospheric CO2. If you cannot see that the MWP [900 – 1300 A.D.] is the cause of much of the current increase in CO2, then your mind is closed, and I’m done trying to eduacte you. The authors of the citations I provided here have forgotten more than you will ever know about the subject, yet you presume to have a superior intellect. As if.
As a climate alrmist true believer, your response to established, verifiable facts is typical. From now on, do your own homework.
@ richardscourtney
I am sorry. I cannot help it that you don’t like the answer I gave to you.
The fact that you resort to ad hominem attacks (You wrote “If you were to read the link I provided then you could learn something about the subject instead of being blissful in your ignorance.” & “Importantly, since you say that you like being ignorant, perhaps you would be so kind as to stop disrupting this blog with your ignorant twaddle.”) is proof that you are not able to discuss in a rational and grown up manner. And also proof of someone who is not capable of coming up with better arguments.
The deep ocean temperature doesn’t change during glacial-interglacial periods according to you. Where are your sources? We talked about the 800 year lag and the 110 ppm CO2 rise. At least I was to Smokey. I suggest to read that carefully before you comment on it.
If my citation of the Cutler et al paper is plain wrong I suggest you write a rebuttal of that paper and publish it in a peer-reviewed paper. You would do science a great service. Furthermore I do cite peer-reviewed work which clearly shows that deep-ocean temperature does change during glacial-interglacial periods.
You came up with a blog and what Mr. Eschenbach is writing isn’t peer-reviewed. It is his opinion what he is writing and nothing more. That’s why it is called a blog (op-ed piece). I tried to convince Mr. Eschenbach several times to publish his findings in magazines (some of it seems quite good), but he is too reluctant to do so. That’s his personal choice, but then he should also face the responsibility for not being taken seriously by the climatic community. That’s the consequence.
I cannot help it that you don’t like what I write and what you are trying to do here is nothing more than to stifle the debate in your last remark.
Please do not respond to me again if I cause you so much irritation and pain.
@ Smokey
You don’t have to do homework for me. I have done more than enough climate research to understand just a little bit of it.
The only thing you had to do was to cite one paper or a statement from a scientific work which clearly says that the current CO2 increase was caused by the MWP.
In all your six clicks you only came up with one scientific work: Caillon et al 2003 and that paper never speaks about the MWP.
Like I thought you only read blogs without checking the actual sources. And you have the stomach to call me closedminded. Not even Richard Lindzen (a foremost climate expert) agrees with you on this.
Here’s the link once again:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/GlobalClimateChange49
The MWP was globally not warm enough to cause any meaningfull effect on CO2 800 years later. For that you need a lot more temperature rise than just a 0.5-0.75 degrees Celsius of warming.
Just listen to Geologist Bob Carter (between 20-25 minutes in the interview) Part 2 of 2 in the page:
http://www.truthnews.com.au/web/radio/story/professor_bob_carter_on_climate_change
Yes I know this is not peer-reviewed either, but Bob Carter is also an expert and produces peer-reviewed work. See for yourself http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_4.htm
– Click 1: The David Archibald is not a peer-reviewed paper and uses work already outdated. See the extensive archive on CO2 Science about the MWP. It clearly shows that temperatures weren’t 2 degrees warmer than current warm period.
Archibald used a Modified Moberg graph from IPCC TAR 1990 and that’s misleading, because in IPCC 1990 it was a Lamb graph from 1965 and shows only the temperatures from central England. Check it for yourself. So that in itself makes this source not credible.
– Click 2: Caillon et al 2003 I already cited, but doesn’t state at all that the current rise in CO2 is caused by the MWP. Just point me to the citation in the paper, please!
– Click 3: What! A column. Sorry not worth the read.
– Click 4: Not peer-reviewed work either.
– Click 5: Is not peer-reviewed work.
– Click 6: Debunk House: And you regard this as serious science? But let me use a citation from that page: “We find that the ~230-year lag time is consistent. CO2 levels peaked ~230 years after the Medieval Warm Period peaked and the Little Ice Age cooling began and CO2 bottomed out ~230 years after the trough of the Little Ice Age.”
Something completely different than what you are trying to tell me.
Now I ask you one more time: Show me one citation from a scientific work that the current rise in CO2 is caused by the MWP. That’s all. You don’t have to do a lot of homework for me. I get a lot of homework from you because I have to do a lot of research where your provided bloggers are getting their information from.
Nowhere in all your six clicks I was able to find a statement that the current rise in CO2 was caused by the MWP. Neither are you answering my question in my previous comment which you have read (“running away”)
Instead you, just like richardscourtney, also resort to ad hominem attacks of me being a climate alarmist true believer and having superior intellect. And your last claim “As a climate alrmist true believer, your response to established, verifiable facts is typical. From now on, do your own homework.”
If you know it better than the established and verifiable facts then I urge you to publish your findings in scientific work. We need your knowledge and you would do science a great service.
These remarks are nothing more than proof that you are out of arguments.
Robbie:
Your post addressed to me at May 11, 2012 at 11:49 am begins:
“I am sorry. I cannot help it that you don’t like the answer I gave to you.”
SAY WHAT!
I gave YOU an answer to a question YOU asked together with a link that would enable you to learn more about the subject (on which I have published in the peer-reviewed literature), and you rejected that because you prefer to be ignorant of the matter.
And I did NOT use an ad hom.
Clear off, troll. You are wasting space on the thread.
Richard
Robbie says:
“Yes I know this is not peer-reviewed either…” while posting his appeal to authority… and at the same time complaining that some of the links I posted are either not peer reviewed, or “uses work already outdated.”
Thanx for your personal opinions. They are worth exactly that.
The facts are that the MWP was warmer than today; and that that the planet cooled significantly following the MWP, until the depths of the LIA; and the planet, including the 71% that is ocean, has warmed at ≈0.35ºC per century since then. When oceans warm they outgas CO2, just like when a Coke warms it outgases CO2.
Obviously you have a problem with natural global warming, and with the fact that oceans outgas as they warm. But those are your problems, because they deconstruct your CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Rising CO2 is primarily a function of warming oceans. The planet began to warm following the LIA along the same long term trend line it is currently on [and that long term trend is still intact]. There has been no accelerated warming outside of its long-term parameters. Thus, it follows that the conjecture that human emissions are responsible for most of the current global warming is falsified.
If human emissions made any measurable difference, the parameters of the long term warming trend from the LIA would have broken out to the upside. Global warming would be accelerating. It is not. The same long-term trend is intact, and there is no way to measure any small rise in temperature due to human CO2 emissions. Such a rise may exist, but if so, it is too minuscule to measure; almost certainly a small fraction of the less than 1ºC over the past century and a half. Most all of that rise is entirely natural.
You can deal with those facts, or you can hand-wave. What you cannot do is provide an empirical measurement showing that X amount of CO2 results in Y degrees of warming. Because there is no such verifiable, testable measurement.
Finally, people are accepting the fact that CO2 is not only harmless, but that more is better. The planet is measurably greening as a result of the added CO2. And of course, more warmth is better.
@ richardscourtney
Two words for you: Grow up!
And see the link from Alan MacRae for yourself:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
Now why does CO2 goes up and up as each year passes? Natural variation huh! I think not.
Richard Lindzen is pretty clear on it:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/GlobalClimateChange49
His quote: “that CO2 is increasing due to man’s activities is also widely accepted”
Smokey disagrees with me on this so he has to proof that.
And I am the one who is “ignorant”.
Your provided material and answer doesn’t answer my question which I asked Smokey and on which you gave a comment: His claim is that the current rise in CO2 was caused by the Medieval Warm Period and I asked him for proof in the scientific literature. I still do btw, because he hasn’t anwered the question yet.
Read before you comment to people!
And please can you provide me the name of the paper on which you have published in the peer-reviewed literature. Now I am beginning to become curious in what scientific magazine that was published.
Robbie:
I see you are continuing to troll at May 11, 2012 at 3:04 pm where you ask about some of my papers. Had you taken the trouble to read the thread for which I gave you the link then you would have a reference to one such pertinent publication.
Now, clearly reading is a difficulty for you so I suggest you ask your paymasters at ‘Troll Central’ to study the link for you then to provide the next meaningless ‘soundbite’ for you to post here. However, I shall not bother to respond to more of your teenage angst.
Richard
Friends:
Robbie writes (supposedly to me);
“Now why does CO2 goes up and up as each year passes? Natural variation huh! I think not.”
The question is a scientific one so the only answer to the question is provided by the empirical data (what he doesn’t “think” is of no importance).
The true answer to the question is apparent to anybody who reads the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
Richard
@ Smokey
I gave you many peer-reviewed sources in my previous comments. You gave me just one. Just one. And it was one I already gave you earlier.
And now you are starting to blame me: “and at the same time complaining that some of the links I posted are either not peer reviewed, or “uses work already outdated.”
Laughable: Can you provide an empirical measurement showing that X amount of CO2 results in No degrees of warming?
Judging from your last comment in which you gave your CO2 story without any sources cited to backup your claims you are starting to become something of a preacher. I have to believe your story, because that’s a better story than what is written in the scientific literature. Right! That’s religion and not science. And religion is not my department.
Sorry! But I think we are done here. I won’t (I refuse to) listen to preachers who are not able to backup their claims with scientific sources.
Goodbye!
Robbie says:
“Goodbye!”
Best you stay out of the kitchen anyway. It’s easier than following the logic. ‘Bye.
@ richardscourtney
I have discussed with many people on the web, but you are certainly the most childish individual I have ever met so far.
You are not even capable of answering questions or acknowledging facts. Instead you are namecalling and shouting like a madman.
Smokey: “Rising CO2 is primarily a function of warming oceans. The planet began to warm following the LIA…”
Smokey, at May 10, 2012 at 7:20 am you make this claim: “The current rise in CO2 is largely due to the warming during the MWP…”
So is the current rise in atmospheric CO2 “largely due” to the MWP, or is it a result of warming following the LIA?
Yo, Robbie,
You just wrote that you were gonna take your blankie and go home! You should do that, you will only get the truth here, and that hurts. Here, maybe this will help.☺
Buck up, bucko, things could be worse. The planet could be doing what you predicted. Instead, we’re living in a Goldilocks climate.
Jerky says:
May 8, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Joe is still going with the C02 isn’t well mixed nonsense? It’s pretty odd that such a blatant and easy demonstrable falsehood is a tenor of his bizarre pseudo-scientific beliefs. Better avoid low-lying areas Joe, or else you might be suffocated by those pools of CO2!
_____________________________
Do not say that to the relatives of those who were suffocated by those pools of CO2!
No I am not kidding it happened.
That was not the first time.
Roger says:
May 9, 2012 at 10:38 am
One gets the feeling that this Yamal thing will actually destroy the AGW theory because its based on a lie. I think that with this information (ie McIntyre) virtually any Company, legal democratic government or person agrieved by the AGW, can bring these people to court and win.
______________________
Sorry Roger, you are assuming the US is a nation of Law. Unfortunately it is not. Here is an examples of just how corrupt our legal system has become. link and link (note deaths)
Maybe we can sue, why not beat the left with their own Sickle and Hammer? The “Equal Access to Justice Act”.
https://westernlegacyalliance.org/eaja-abuse-home-page/activist-green-lawyers-billing-u-s-millions-in-fraudulent-attorney-fees
Brendan H,
[Or should I say ‘Herbert’]. I’ll try to explain it to you, Herbert. As the planet cooled following the peak of the MWP [which was warmer than now], cooling ocean currents took massive amounts of CO2 deep into the ocean depths. That continued into the coldest part of the LIA. But because of the slow movement of currents, the time scale to outgas that CO2 is on the order of ≈800 years. Thus, I expect CO2 levels to continue to rise even if all CO2 emissions are stopped [human emissions add ≈3% annually]. I’ll step aside here so Prof Richard Lindzen can explain:
We are now 800 years, [±200 years] beyond the end of the MWP. The CO2 taken into the ocean from the MWP to the LIA is being expressed now [outgassing apparently ramped up starting in the late 1700’s – mid-1800’s], as the planet’s oceans slowly warmed [at a rate of ≈0.35ºC per century – a rate that has not increased since the LIA. As the planet continues to warm from the LIA, more CO2 will be outgassed from the oceans.
Look at this chart of global warming since the 1850. Observe that the slowly rising trend line remains within it’s long term parameters. That means there is no acceleration of global warming, which means that despite the rapid rise of CO2, that CO2 does not have the claimed warming effect. Aceept it or not, but that is what the planet is telling us.
Robbie says:……
It depends on your perspective. Long term the earth is cooling http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/jja_tmax1.jpg?w=640&h=424
Only an idiot would want the temperature to “cool” and unfortunately we are most likely headed in the direction of cooling not warming. That is why the CAGW hype is so criminally insane. It will leave most humans ill prepared, starving and fighting. I sometime wonder if that is not the whole goal of this con. To deprive the majority of humans any way to easily move by depriving them of energy. leaving the wealthy with less competition for soon to be scares resources.
Evidence we might just be barking up the wrong tree and if CO2 helps warm the planet we should be increasing production not trying to contain it.
And another paper:
So much for TSI not changing more than 0.1%, it just depends on what you are looking at.
The Milanchovitch cycles have been “up dated” The Milankovitch theory had no truly convincing reconstructions. Gerard Roe realized a trivial mistake. Discussion with link to his paper HERE
Smokey says:
May 11, 2012 at 11:30 am
Robbie,
If you cannot see that the MWP [900 – 1300 A.D.] is the cause of much of the current increase in CO2, then your mind is closed, and I’m done trying to eduacte you.
Unfortunately for your thesis the temperature rise since the MWP is far too low to explain the increase in CO2. Check out Henry’s Law, and note that an increase in atmospheric CO2 due to direct emissions can be large enough to suppress any outgassing due to temperature change.
Darn it I goofed. The first link should be: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif and not http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif
(beats me how the wrong url can be in the web box over the correct image.)
The oceans are a sink:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6538300/Climate-change-study-shows-Earth-is-still-absorbing-carbon-dioxide.html
One sentence in this site says: “According to the study, the Earth has continued to absorb more than half of the carbon dioxide pumped out by humans over the last 160 years.”
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. …….
So much for TSI not changing more than 0.1%, it just depends on what you are looking at.
So much for TSI not changing more than 0.1%, it just depends on what you are looking at.
Why would the TSI depend upon the precession of the equinoxes?
I am aware of the 800 year lag between rising temperatures and CO2 concentration in ancient times. The following illustrates it well.
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
However the hot periods lasted about 20,000 years and there were no LIA in between. I cannot believe that the MWP is responsible for today’s CO2 any more than I can believe Trenberth’s heat is hiding in the deep ocean and got there undetected by any buoy’s. Sorry about that! But I totally agree with the rest of the 99% of what you say Smokey.
Werner Brozek,
Thank you for that link. Lubos Motl says:
Lubos says “The explanation is obvious…” That is the same explanation I was giving. Maybe I just wasn’t clear enough.
Smokey says:
May 11, 2012 at 6:10 pm
The explanation is obvious: oceans are large and it simply takes centuries for them to warm up or cool down before they release or absorb gases.
I completely agree with the above statement. But this misses the main point. You need to have 800 years of continuous heating or continuous cooling to get to the bottom of the ocean with the heat or coldness and then to have the ocean respond by releasing or absorbing CO2. As you know, when the ocean warms, CO2 is released. So during the MWP, at least the surface waters should have released extra CO2 down to whatever depth was reached in that short time. However CO2 never made it above 280 ppm in the last 650,000 years. If I understand your logic, then over the few hundred years that the MWP had temperatures higher than today, the CO2 should have gone above today’s value, right? So immediately after the MWP, the oceans would be relatively depleted of CO2. Then during the LIA, the oceans would have absorbed more CO2, right?
At the present time, since 2002, the ocean surface temperatures are actually decreasing but CO2 is rising. The only explanation I have for this is that our emissions are the cause. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2002/normalise
Werner,
I agree. But taking the past one year’s CO2 rise, it can only be that about 3% of it is from human emissions:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png
The rest of it must be due to natural causes, no?
Smokey says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:28 pm
The rest of it must be due to natural causes, no?
True. However the cumulative effect of our extra emissions over the last 260 years was to increase the CO2 from 280 ppm to 390 ppm or about 40%. But who cares? It is good for us as we both agree.
Smokey: “As the planet cooled following the peak of the MWP [which was warmer than now], cooling ocean currents took massive amounts of CO2 deep into the ocean depths. That continued into the coldest part of the LIA. But because of the slow movement of currents, the time scale to outgas that CO2 is on the order of ≈800 years.”
Thank you for your thoughts, Smokey. So there’s a Medieval warming, a Little Ice Age cooling, a post-LIA warming, followed by an outgassing of CO2 from the oceans.
But this scenario doesn’t show that the current rise in atmospheric CO2 is “largely due” to the MWP, as you have claimed. The outgassing of CO2 could equally be a result of warming following the LIA, MWP or no MWP.
So there is no need to posit the MWP as the cause of the current increase in CO2.
Werner Brozek:
At May 11, 2012 at 8:49 pm you say;
“However the cumulative effect of our extra emissions over the last 260 years was to increase the CO2 from 280 ppm to 390 ppm or about 40%. But who cares? It is good for us as we both agree.”
No!
That is plain wrong. Those extra emissions have NOT had a “cumulative effect” although they may have – but probably have not – caused the “increase”.
I again recommend reading the discussion in the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
I offer the following ‘taster’ from it because it is clear my repeated recommendations have not been accepted.
Richard
****************************
rgbatduke says:
May 8, 2012 at 7:41 am
Richard S Courtney said;
“The evidence suggests that the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is most probably natural, but it is possible that the cause may have been the anthropogenic emission. Importantly, the data shows the rise is not accumulation of the anthropogenic emission in the air (as is assumed by e.g. the Bern Model).”
I would agree, especially (as noted above) with the criticism of the Bern Model per se. It is utterly impossible to justify writing down an integral equation that ignores the non-anthropogenic channels (which fluctuate significantly with controls such as temperature and wind and other human activity e.g. changes in land use). It is impossible to justify describing those channels as sinks in the first place — the ocean is both source and sink. So is the soil. So is the biosphere. Whether the ocean is net absorbing or net contributing CO_2 to the atmosphere today involves solving a rather difficult problem, and understanding that difficult problem rather well is necessary before one can couple it with a whole raft of assumptions into a model that pretends that its source/sink fluctuations don’t even exist and that it is, on average a shifting sink only for anthropogenic CO_2.
I’m struck by the metaphor of electrical circuit design when those designs have feedback and noise. You can’t pretend that one part of your amplifier circuit is driven by a feedback current loop to a stable steady state (especially not when there is historical evidence that the fed back current is very noisy) when trying to compute the effect of an additional current added to that fed back current from only one of several external sources. Yet that is precisely what the Bern model does. The same components of the circuit act to damp or amplify the current fluctuations without any regard for whether the fluctuations come from and of the outside sources or the feedback itself.
rgb
richardscourtney says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:31 am
No!
That is plain wrong. Those extra emissions have NOT had a “cumulative effect” although they may have – but probably have not – caused the “increase”.
Just to clarify, by “cumulative effect”, I was intending just the effect of increasing the CO2 concentration and nothing else. Do you agree with Smokey that “But taking the past one year’s CO2 rise, it can only be that about 3% of it is from human emissions”? If so, then it is a matter of many years of extra 3% to make a much larger amount. Naturally, in 1750, our percentage would have been totally negligible.
I basically completely agree with Ferdinand Engelbeen on this issue who has had many posts on WUWT. See
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/climate.html
I just cannot see how the net increase in atmospheric concentration since 1958 is not due to our excess emissions. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2
The article on the Bern model and follow-up comments talk about all kinds of complexities and there is much we do not know. However the law of conservation of mass of course needs to be obeyed and all of our CO2 emissions over the last 260 years need to be accounted for somehow. Unlike He and H2, CO2 is too heavy to reach escape velocity in the outer atmosphere. I would never debate a warmist and suggest that we cannot be sure that we have had a large effect on the net increase in CO2 over the last 260 years due to the many things we do not understand about all sources and sinks.
Werner Brozek:
Thankyou for your post at May 12, 2012 at 8:30 am.
Firstly, you ask me;
“Do you agree with Smokey that “But taking the past one year’s CO2 rise, it can only be that about 3% of it is from human emissions”? If so, then it is a matter of many years of extra 3% to make a much larger amount. Naturally, in 1750, our percentage would have been totally negligible.”
No, I don’t agree. Indeed, the data say it cannot be true although the anthropogenic CO2 emission may have been – but probably was not – the cause of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 since 1958 when measurements began at Mauna Loa. I addressed the point in the thread which you have read at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
To save you finding my answer, I copy my pertinent two posts from that thread here together with another post. The three following posts from that thread address all the points in your posts that I am answering. For more detail see the comments of Robert Brown (I,e, rgbatduke) in that thread.
Please note that I say I think Ferdinand’s is the best of the ‘plumbing models’ but they are all based on the same false premise which is demonstrated by their need for unjustifiable smoothing of the empirical data to make them fit.
Richard
***********************************
Richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am
Willis and others:
I understand the interest in the Bern Model because it is the only carbon cycle model used by e.g. the IPCC. However, the Bern Model is known to be plain wrong because it is based on a false assumption.
A discussion of the physical basis of a model which is known to be plain wrong is a modern-day version of discussing the number of angels which can stand on a pin.
I again point to our 2005 paper which I referenced in my above post at May 6, 2012 at 3:58 pm. As I said in that post, agreement of output of the Bern Model requires 5-year smoothing of the empirical data for output of the Bern Model to match the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The need for 5-year smoothing demonstrates beyond doubt that the Bern Model is plain wrong: the model’s basic assumption is that observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration is a direct result of accumulation in the air of the anthropogenic emission of CO2, and the needed smoothing shows that assumption cannot be correct.
(Please note that – as I explain below – the fact that the Bern Model is based on the false assumption does NOT mean the anthropogenic emission cannot be the cause of the observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration.)
I explain this as follows.
For each year the annual rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the residual of the seasonal variation in atmospheric CO2 concentration. If the observed rise in the concentration is accumulation of the anthropogenic emission then the rise should relate to the emission for each year. However, in some years almost all the anthropogenic CO2 emission seems to be sequestered and in other years almost none. And this mismatch of the hypothesis of anthropogenic accumulation with observations can be overcome by smoothing the data.
2-year smoothing is reasonable because different countries may use different start-dates for their annual accounting periods.
And 3-year smoothing is reasonable because delays in accounting some emissions may result in those emissions being ‘lost’ from a year and ‘added’ to the next year.
But there is no rational reason to smooth the data over more than 3-years.
The IPCC uses 5-year smoothing to obtain agreement between observations and the output of the Bern Model because less smoothing than this fails to obtain the agreement. Simply, the assumption of “accumulation” is disproved by observations.
Furthermore, as I also said in my above post, the observed dynamics of seasonal sequestration indicate that the system can easily absorb ALL the CO2 emission (n.b. both natural and anthropogenic) of each year. But CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. These observations are explicable as being a result of the entire system of the carbon cycle adjusting to changed conditions (such as increased temperature, and/or addition of the anthropogenic emission, and/or etc.).
The short-term sequestration processes can easily absorb all the emission of each year, but some processes of the system have rate constants of years and decades. Hence, the entire system takes decades to adjust to any change.
And, as our paper shows, the assumption of a slowly adjusting carbon cycle enables the system to be modelled in a variety of ways that each provides a match of model output to observations without any need for any smoothing. This indicates the ‘adjusting carbon cycle’ assumption is plausible but, of course, it does not show it is ‘true’.
In contrast, the need for smoothing of data to get the Bern Model to match ‘model output to observations’ falsifies that model’s basic assumption that observed rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration is a direct result of accumulation in the air of the anthropogenic emission of CO2.
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 2:44 am
Willis and others:
I write this as an addendum to my post at May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am.
As several people have noted, the Bern Model is one example of a ‘plumbing model’ of the carbon cycle (personally, I think Engelbeen’s is the ‘best’ of these models).
Adjustment of the carbon cycle is akin to all the tanks and all the pipes varying in size at different and unknown rates. Hence, no ‘plumbing model’ can emulate such adjustment.
And the adjustment will continue until a new equilibrium is attained by the system. But, of course, by then other changes are likely to have happened so more adjustment will occur.
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
May 7, 2012 at 10:42 am
Nullius in Verba:
At May 7, 2012 at 9:16 am in relation to a ‘plumbing model’ you ask;
“The case with three or more reservoirs is not intuitively clear, but it seems clear enough with two – that if the buckets are of equal size that only half the water dumped in one ends up in the other. They cannot all return to their previous level – where would the added water go to?”
I answer:
It goes into a change in the volume(s) of the reservoirs.
In other words, the model is misconceived. Please see my above post at May 7, 2012 at 2:09 am and especially its addendum at May 7, 2012 at 2:44 am.
Richard
Werner Brozek,
A year or two ago I was in a back and forth debate with Ferdinand Engelbeen over whether the 20th Century rise in CO2 was due to human emissions. I didn’t think it was.
But after patiently answering all my objections, Ferdinand eventually convinced me he was right. With that, I moved on to the question of whether the rise in CO2 was causing global harm. Despite my regular challenges to the other side to provide evidence of global harm due to the rise in CO2, no one has been able to identify any harm at all.
The conclusion must be that CO2 is harmless at current concentrations. And there is no evidence that its continued rise is, or will be harmful in any way. Thus, efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions are wasted energy. There is no benefit whatever, and immense societal cost to reducing CO2 emissions.
Regarding my comment: “But taking the past one year’s CO2 rise, it can only be that about 3% of it is from human emissions”, it was based on this:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png
I was only referring to the most recent year, not to the cumulative total.
richardscourtney says:
May 12, 2012 at 11:33 am
If the observed rise in the concentration is accumulation of the anthropogenic emission then the rise should relate to the emission for each year. However, in some years almost all the anthropogenic CO2 emission seems to be sequestered and in other years almost none.
The short-term sequestration processes can easily absorb all the emission of each year, but some processes of the system have rate constants of years and decades. Hence, the entire system takes decades to adjust to any change.
Thank you for your reply!
I completely agree with the above statements. The strangest things can happen in any given year, but at least to a first order approximation, I still believe that Engelbeen is fundamentally correct. In my opinion, some fine tuning may be required for second order effects. So we may have to agree to differ here. But in the end, I believe what matters most is what effect this extra CO2 has on temperatures, regardless of the source. And here I believe that the IPCC has greatly overestimated things.
Smokey says:
May 12, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I was only referring to the most recent year, not to the cumulative total.
I knew what you were referring to. I just sort of added 2 + 2 together.
Ferdinand eventually convinced me he was right.
If that is the case, and I agree with Ferdinand, then it seems as if the MWP and LIA are not at all relevant to the discussion as to why CO2 is increasing now. Or am I missing something in your thinking?
The conclusion must be that CO2 is harmless at current concentrations. And there is no evidence that its continued rise is, or will be harmful in any way. Thus, efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions are wasted energy. There is no benefit whatever, and immense societal cost to reducing CO2 emissions.
I agree completely with the above.
Werner,
Two different issues, I think. One is the buildup of CO2 due to human emissions, from a minuscule 0.00028 of the atmosphere, to a minuscule 0.00039 of the atmosphere.
A different issue explains at least part of the cause. From the peak of the MWP, as the planet [and oceans] began to cool, CO2 was absorbed into the oceans [for the sake of argument I’m disregarding partial pressure]. CO2 continued to be absorbed into the deep ocean as the planet cooled for hundreds of years.
Eventually the coldest part of the LIA was reached [actually one of the coldest episodes of the entire Holocene]. When the planet began to [naturally] warm, CO2 began to outgas – with a delay due to slow moving currents. That process is still continuing today, as cold CO2-rich currents emerge at the surface.
This is admittedly a conjecture. However, there is ample geologic evidence that CO2 levels began ramping up after the beginning of warming from the depths of the LIA. This began right on schedule, ±800 years after the peak of the MWP. Since it has happened repeatedly in the past, there is every reason to think that the same thing is happening now. My opinion, but it is based on evidence, not on computer models.☺
Werner Brozek:
I am pleased that you seem to have liked my answer. I now write to say that if you want more clarification of my views then it must wait for a week because I am to make one of my frequent ‘disappearances’ in a few hours time.
Please note that I am not ‘running away’ and I will address anything you put to me when I return. I apologise for any inconvenience this causes.
Richard
Smokey says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Eventually the coldest part of the LIA was reached [actually one of the coldest episodes of the entire Holocene]. When the planet began to [naturally] warm, CO2 began to outgas – with a delay due to slow moving currents. That process is still continuing today, as cold CO2-rich currents emerge at the surface….This began right on schedule, ±800 years after the peak of the MWP.
Keep in mind that it takes about 800 years for the deepest parts of the ocean to respond with changes in temperature and CO2 levels. So things do not turn around on a dime so to speak. However it does make sense that at least at the start of the earth coming out of the LIA, that CO2 from the ocean could have played a part in increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. But as the man-made CO2 really ramped up around 1945, the man-made CO2 would have been much larger than what the ocean could deliver. However I do not have any numbers on this other than the article I alluded to earlier:
The oceans are a sink:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6538300/Climate-change-study-shows-Earth-is-still-absorbing-carbon-dioxide.html
One sentence in this site says: “According to the study, the Earth has continued to absorb more than half of the carbon dioxide pumped out by humans over the last 160 years.”
As for your comment about the peak of the MWP, it is quite possible that the peak of the MWP was 1.0 C warmer than today. It is also possible that 100 years after the peak, that the temperature was 0.5 C warmer than today. IF that were to be the case, then possibly no CO2 from any time of the MWP is even being outgassed today. I just would not go there if I were you. Believe it or not, when we comment, we are asking for people to spend their time reading what we write. How many times have you seen the statement: When I got so far, I stopped reading? I have also been told about someone else: Werner, we just ignore so and so. So you may make the most brilliant observations, and I almost always DO love what you have to say or show, but I would hate to have people ignore you because of a statement that at some point in the MWP, the oceans absorbed CO2 which is now being expelled.
(P.S. In case you are wondering about whether or not you can trust me, for what it is worth, I received an engineering degree over 40 years ago. Of course this does not mean I cannot make mistakes here!)