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Skeptics Are Not Deniers: A Conversation (part 6)
This is Part 6 of my six-part discussion with Robert G. Brown on paleoclimate, climate dynamics, and global warming. Start with Part 1. *********** RB: I’m not sure how much this makes us disagree in the end. We both agree that CO_2 increases are very likely responsible for some fraction of the observed temperature increase […]
Skeptics Are Not Deniers: A Conversation (part 5)
This is Part 5 of my six-part discussion with Robert G. Brown on paleoclimate, climate dynamics, and global warming. Start with Part 1. Wait until next week for my response to the NOAA “greenhouse gases increased the chances of the Texas heat wave by a factor of 20″ study. *************** 5. To analyze the modern […]
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Sorry Dr. Brown, if I rubbed your lamp in the previous post.
Well, as you can see, I just rub back…;-)
I would hope to see some more of your responses to obvious ‘confusionist’ pseudo-science postings that are so rampant on this fine blog.
Well, if you look, you will find out there in blogville tens of thousands of words I’ve written demonstrating that e.g. the results of Jelbring (claiming that warming is due to PV = NkT because the static thermal equilibrium of an atmosphere gravitationally bound to a planetary sphere is not isothermal) are second law violating nonsense, that the results of Nikolov and Zeller (claiming that there is a “miracle equation” that predicts the warming at the bottom of planetary atmospheres on the basis of surface pressure alone) are complete dimensionless nonsense with physical constants in the miracle equation that are truly absurd (and that besides, if one actually plots the over-the-counter data without their special sauce, it falls nowhere near their line), and any number of words patiently explaining why TOA spectrographs are nothing less than an actual photograph of the GHE in action, to anyone who can read them so that efforts to prove that there is no GHE are incredibly silly. I just posted the latter, in considerable detail with links, in a Slashdot thread only yesterday, for example.
That doesn’t stop me from agreeing with Koutsoyiannis’ lovely paper analyzing the fact that 2/3 of the station adjustments used to determine the thermometric temperature trends over the last century plus lead to an increase of late 20th century warming and a decrease of early 20th century or earlier warming, computing the p-value of that occurrence given the null hypothesis of unbiased station adjustments (which should, one would rather expect, have a neutral effect on warming trends on average) and conclude that this p-value is zero to as many digits as you would ever care to write, permitting the unambiguous rejection of the null hypothesis of unbiased station adjustments. If this paper doesn’t create a perfect storm of enormous proportions — among climate scientists who are shocked to discover that one of their primary sources of data is manifestly corrupted, pending an explanation that I literally cannot imagine being adequate — it will not reflect well on the discipline. Several other results can be interpreted quite simply as straight up Bayesian evidence of bias in this data set — such as the recently trumpeted observation that the US had 13 months in a row in the top 1/3 of warmest months on record. The more unlikely this is (even for trended data!) the more likely it is that what it is really revealing is bias in the underlying data.
It also makes me take David Hoffer’s remarks concerning straight-up log responses to CO_2 forcing quite seriously, because I can’t come up with a good way to refute them. In fact, they produce estimates very similar to what I get with back of the envelope computations. Yes, enormously detailed, complex, whole globe GCMs may produce different predictions than back of the envelope trends, but (to my own direct experience in physics) the rule is to trust Fermi estimates and scaling arguments more than complex multivariate computations, and to doubt that you have those complex computations right until you get reasonable agreement. If Koutsoyiannis is correct and GW itself has been exaggerated by 0.5 C or thereabouts by straight-up station adjustment bias, there is even less AGW to distribute over the last century and David’s arguments are even stronger. If Koutsoyiannis is correct, it will indeed require the complete renormalization of GCMs, will it not? Is there any possibility whatsoever that they will produce predictions of catastrophic future warming if their past warming has a few tenths of a degree (out of a few more tenths of a degree) knocked off of it?
rgb
ou accept compressive heating on Jupiter but not on Earth and instead return to CO2 because it is a GHG.
That’s because Jupiter is an enormous ball of gas with a mass about 1/1000th that of the Sun itself, that relatively narrowly missed the cut for becoming a brown dwarf star. A brown dwarf star is one that radiates only heat from gravitational collapse; it isn’t hot enough to ignite any sort of fusion process. In a certain mass range — roughly Jupiter’s size on up — surface to volume effects mean that it takes the star (if you want to call it that) a very, very long time to cool. You can read a bit about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf of course. Note especially that brown dwarfs are on a continuum with Jupiter-scale planets.
That means that Jupiter’s heat has an actual source. It is gravitational potential energy being released as heat as the planet cools and shrinks. Jupiter has a very high albedo and is far from the Sun so that its net energy input from insolation is very low, meaning that the “heat of condensation” being given off as it collapses and becomes more dense is competitive with the heat input from the Sun, and besides is trapped by Jupiter’s atmosphere to raise the temperature of the interior simply because a heat gradient has to exist to permit the heat to diffuse outward to where it eventually is radiated away in near-equilibrium.
The Earth, is a far, far, smaller rocky ball. It has almost no atmosphere, and the atmosphere it has is largely transparent in the visible band where the Sun emits the bulk of its radiant energy. This atmosphere is not, on average, collapsing. Indeed, if anything it is outgassing, which is in and of itself a cooling process (although utterly negligible compared to radiation). There is therefore no gravitational compression heating. That’s why I don’t “accept it” on Earth — because there isn’t any. If there were, surface pressures on the Earth would systematically increase. They don’t.
The only sources of heating for the surface of the Earth are: Insolation is well over 99% of it. Tidal heating and heat gradually being lost from the molten interior (some being produced by e.g. fission, some being lost from the Earth’s originally hot/molten formation) are the bulk of the rest of it, comprising IIRC around 0.1%. Magnetic induction heating is an even tinier contribution. I think infalling meteors and thermal outgassing about balance. Human added energy from burning stuff is teensy.
This isn’t really a “matter of opinion”, John. If you want to propose an alternative, is it a lot to expect that alternative to be quantitatively consistent and empirically verifiable (all of the above are)? You can get out a piece of paper and calculator and work down this energy budget and guesstimate the fairly close order of each contribution using very simple and believable and observable numbers. It isn’t even certain that the surplus heat observed from Jupiter is due to gravitational collapse (precipitation of Helium into the core) — it is just a theory that could explain the observation, and sadly, we haven’t really got a clue as to what’s going on deep inside of Jupiter on the basis of observation so we’re stuck with theories and guesses for now.
If you disagree, feel free to post your own proposed energy budget for the Earth. Insolation is what? Tides? Measured heat flux from the interior? Just be sure that if you include a term labelled “heat from atmospheric collapse” that you back it up with detailed computations that show a consistent connection to an actual source of free energy! I know where the actual energy in insolation comes from — nuclear fusion inside the sun radiantly transferred to the Earth. I know where it comes from in tides — the moon and sun lifting and dropping part of the Earth’s crust and atmosphere 2x a day. I know where it comes from in the case of the interior — leftover primoridial heat plus additional heat from fission and heat trapped from the tidal deformation. In each case free energy stores I can name and quantitatively guesstimate are the actual sources of the heat, and I can track the energy in motion from the source to the surface and thence out to infinity via outgoing thermal radiation.
What is the source of any free energy released from “atmospheric collapse”? If the atmosphere is collapsing a la Jupiter, why isn’t the pressure increasing as the compressed atmosphere becomes more dense? I don’t believe in magic, so heat in the air has to come from energy somewhere — where’s the energy coming from? Can you do any sort of computation that suggests even the remotest possibility that the numbers work out, that atmospheric collapse belongs on my list of energy sources above? I don’t think so, with all due respect.
The greenhouse effect, I reiterate (and will continue to reiterate indefinitely if need be) is directly observable in TOA spectroscopy. I do mean directly. One literally cannot doubt that the GHE — including the fact that CO_2 and water and ozone are all major contributers — exists as one can effectively photograph it. Furthermore — and you can trust me on this or not as you like — one can completely follow a “derivation” of the GHE from microscopic first principles through to at least a semi-quantitative theory, starting with blackbody radiation given off by the ground and being strongly absorbed and scattered by optically saturated CO_2 on its way out to space, but only in certain frequencies (and being similarly absorbed and scattered by water and ozone in significant proportions as well). It’s as easy to understand as a space blanket, and just as empirically demonstrable.
The derivation is only semiquantitative for a variety of reasons — the most important one being its dependence on the adiabatic lapse rate and the differential opacity of the atmosphere as a function of density and hence height in different greenhouse-coupled frequencies. The ALR isn’t a constant/predictable thing — it varies with humidity, location, temperature, and more. Furthermore, atmospheric concentrations of at least one GHG, water, are far from uniform and have highly nonlinear feedbacks and effects — water isn’t only a GHG, and it isn’t even clear that the GHE is its most important role as a moderator of climate. Or its second most important role. It participates in modulation of the bond albedo and hence insolation (probably the most important direct effect), direct heat/enthalpy transport to modulate the ALR and warm the upper atmosphere (sort of an anti-GHE and quite possibly the second most important effect), the operation of a huge, globe-spanning differentially permeable heat storing buffer with its own complex internal dynamics (the ocean) which could be the third most important as it directly affects both of the first two as well as sure, the GHE produced by water vapor as a GHG when it isn’t busy doing other things.
But everything simplifies at the TOA. There one just sees the outgoing radiation and can direct infer where it is coming from by its effective BB temperature, and can see the GHG holes that force the BB temperatures elsewhere to be higher in order to maintain detailed balance with all heat sources no matter what they are.
rgb
rgbatduke;
It also makes me take David Hoffer’s remarks concerning straight-up log responses to CO_2 forcing quite seriously, because I can’t come up with a good way to refute them.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks for the comment Robert. I’ve presented this explanation several times, in several different ways, in several forums, and all I’ve ever gotten for feedback was the sound of crickets. Skeptics and warmists alike just done’t seem interested in engaging on a discussion of the physics from this perspective. I find that odd. If I’m wrong, one would think someone would take me to task. If I’m correct, or even just more or less on the right track, then it drives a stake through the heart of the CAGW meme that makes all the debate about all the other issues, pretty much moot. I could be wrong of course….. but I’ve always been of the belief that the CAGW meme should have died on the the logarithmic nature of CO2 alone.
To go along with my comments above, there is the lates Mauna Loa chart indicating year over year increases in CO2 concentration:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo_anngr.pdf
As one can see, we were at just under 1 ppm in the 1960’s, and over the last 20 years, we’re under 2.0 ppm/yr. Even isolating to the last 10 years, there are some spikes over 2.0, but the average is less than 2.0 ppm/yr. Now here’s a link showing total fossil fuel consumption over the last 100+ years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg
If we interpolate from that graph, we get fossil fuel consumption increasing about four fold since 1960. But CO2 rate of increase has only about doubled. This leads to two possible causes that I can think of:
1. There are natural cycles that consume CO2 at variable rates that are off setting (at this point in time) the amount of CO2 we human scum are putting into the atmosphere or;
2. That the biosphere is responding positively due to CO2 fertilization and is sequestering it at a rate that in part off sets what we are releasing.
Either of the above must come to an end of course, nothing is forever, processes have limits. But if we extrapolate from the data we have:
If we quadrupled world wide consumption of fossil fuels starting tomorrow, we’d expect an increase in atmospheric concentration of about (interpolating and guestimating) about 3.6 ppm/yr. In other words, it would take about 100 years, at QUADRUPLE current fossil fuel consumption rates, to get just one doubling of CO2 = 3.7 w/m2 = +1 degree.
But, as I noted above, temperature has a built in negative feedback in that P(w/m2) = 5.67*10^-8*T^4 (Stefan-Boltzmann Law). If we accept the IPCC “average” of 15C, that gives us a rise in temperature at SURFACE of only 0.7 degrees. But who cares about averages? Let’s look at the temperature range the human condition suffers under across the globe which ranges from -40C to +40C and apply 3.7 w/m2 to those temps
+40C +3.7w/m2 = + 0.53 degrees
-40C +3.7 w/m2 = + 1.28 degrees
Now the above is a bit misleading because the 3.7 w/m2 would not be evenly distributed across all temps and latitudes, but that is a whole discussion unto itself. My main point is that the putative CO2 doubling = 3.7 w/m2 = +1 degree is an exageration unto itself, and presumes that the 3.7 w/m2 which models presume is TOA and could not possibly reach earth surface 100% suggesting that what we would logically expect to happen “on average” is a lot less than 0.7 degrees, and for the warmest parts of the earth, even less than that. As for the polar bears, if they hibernate at -39C instead of -40C, I’m not certain that they’ll either notice or complain.
davidmhoffer says: July 17, 2012 at 1:28 pm
” This leads to two possible causes that I can think of:
1. There are natural cycles that consume CO2 at variable rates that are off setting (at this point in time) the amount of CO2 we human scum are putting into the atmosphere or;
2. That the biosphere is responding positively due to CO2 fertilization and is sequestering it at a rate that in part off sets what we are releasing.”
AND/OR
In a decade or so, we will conclude that CO2 is a result of global climate, not a driver thereof.
There is a popular but fallacious argument (called the mass balance argument) that assumes that, everything else being constant (ha!), the magnitude of human CO2 emissions is sufficient that it must be the primary cause of increasing atmospheric CO2.
BUT we also can see from the data that human CO2 emissions are generally absorbed by vegetation within a short distance of their source, and furthermore, we also observe from satellite data that global sources of CO2 are located in equatorial areas, NOT industrial areas, and finally, the entire CO2-water cycle is highly dynamic, not static, and increased atmospheric CO2 results in increased global biomass.
I suggest that human emissions of CO2 are a tiny fraction of natural CO2 flux and are inconsequential within the variation of the natural system.
Allan MacRae said :
Of course you do. You are a good ‘skeptic’ after all. Let me ask you a question : if not by our emissions, why did CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere increase from 280 pmm pre-industrial to 395 ppm today (and rising by 2 ppm/year) ? Is that increase still “inconsequential” ?
rgbatduke said a lot but this was interesting :
Thank you rgbatduke, to admit that CAGW is a “political term”. Now, to WHO is using this term, you give no references, but a lot of rethoric, including :
Still, the SPM does not even mention term CAGW. In fact, they did not even mention the ‘Catastrophic’ label anywhere as far as I can see. What kind of scapegoating are you practicing here, rgbatduke ?
Dr. Brown mentions :
Dear Dr. Brown. The IPCC projects a 1.5 – 4.5 C global average warming for a doubling of CO2, based on paleo-climate analysis, basic physics, and implementation thereof in climate models.
From your perpective as a scientist, is there really much of a statistical difference between projections being based on scientific findings (1.5 – 4.5 C) which I understand you accept scientifically, versus what you emotionally call “catastrophic warming” (3 – 5 C) for a doubling of CO2 ?
Rob Dekker,
1. The SPM paints a picture of impending catastrophe driven by human avtivity. Arguing about what specific words they use or don’t use to accomplish that just makes you look manipulative.
2. Hansen contues to predict 3-5 degrees, is frequently both emotional in his claims and abusive to those with contrary opinions, and indeed claims repeatedly that it will be catastrophic. If you quibble is with the emotional prediction of catastrophe preciated upon Hansen’s prediction, then your quibble is with Hansen for saying it, not with Brown for referring to it. Attempting to hang the issue on Brown just makes you look manipulative.
Rob Dekker says: July 18, 2012 at 2:15 am
A rather aggressive question Rob. Read my post at 10:30pm – the information you seek is there.
The evidence suggests that temperature drives CO2, not the reverse.
CO2 lags temperature in time at all measured time scales.
So the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is primarily natural.
Furthermore, if there is a significant humanmade component to this increase , it is likely caused more by deforestation in equatorial areas rather than the burning of fossil fuels.
I further suggest that even if I am wrong in my above hypo*, Climate Sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 is insignificant, 0 +/- 0.3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. This low Sensitivity is consistent with the global cooling that occurred from ~1940 to 1975, even as humanmade CO2 emissions accelerated strongly. The fabrication of historic aerosol data to falsely hindcast climate computer models and thus justify higher Sensitivity values is an unscientific exercise.
So I conclude that the modest global warming that occurred from ~1975 to~2000, like the modest global cooling from ~1940 to ~1975, and the modest global warming from ~1850 to ~1940 were all primarily natural in origin, not humanmade. The fact that there has been no net global warming since ~2000 should also make you pause and re-examine your beliefs.
In conclusion, the manmade global warming crisis does not exist, and never did.
Regarding global temperatures, Mother Nature apparently does not even know we exist, not does she care.
Being ignored by Good Old Mom is painful to contemplate, especially when we humans always thought we were the centre of the universe.
Sorry Buck-o!
Try to be strong.
______________
I developed this hypo* and published in January 2008 at
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Murry Salby states the same conclusion in his 2011 video at
To the question I asked :
If not by our emissions, why did CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere increase from 280 pmm pre-industrial to 395 ppm today (and rising by 2 ppm/year) ?
Allan MacRae answers A rather aggressive question Rob. Read my post at 10:30pm – the information you seek is there.
where we read (among other claims) that :
Now, I noticed that Murry Salby waved around a map which seemed to suggest the same thing : that tropical rain forest areas are the major source of CO2 emissions, and NOT our industrial activities.
Interesting was that Salby did not give any reference to the source of that map.
Now that you are mentioning the same observation, it may be time to show where you and Salby obtained that map.
Re your final sentence: mealy-mouth compromise with those who plan for 90+% depopulation of a de-industrialized planet is a non-starter. As is leaving their works to date (literally libraries-full of legislation and regulations and treaties, and hundreds of grotesque landscape blights, and monumental monetary misappropriations) intact.
Persuading the perps to undo their depredations is not a plan.
I refer you to Pointman’s summary:
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/the-climate-wars-revisited-or-no-truce-with-kings/