An important new paper published today in Global and Planetary Change finds that changes in CO2 follow rather than lead global air surface temperature and that “CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2” The paper finds the “overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere,” in other words, the opposite of claims by global warming alarmists that CO2 in the atmosphere drives land and ocean temperatures. Instead, just as in the ice cores, CO2 levels are found to be a lagging effect ocean warming, not significantly related to man-made emissions, and not the driver of warming. Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.
The highlights of the paper are:
► The overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5-10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
► Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
► Changes in ocean temperatures appear to explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
► CO2 released from use of fossil fuels have little influence on the observed changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2, and changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
The paper:
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature
- a Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1047 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
- b Department of Geology, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), P.O. Box 156, N-9171 Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway
- c Telenor Norway, Finance, N-1331 Fornebu, Norway
- d Department of Physics and Technology, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway
Abstract
Using data series on atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures we investigate the phase relation (leads/lags) between these for the period January 1980 to December 2011. Ice cores show atmospheric CO2 variations to lag behind atmospheric temperature changes on a century to millennium scale, but modern temperature is expected to lag changes in atmospheric CO2, as the atmospheric temperature increase since about 1975 generally is assumed to be caused by the modern increase in CO2. In our analysis we use eight well-known datasets; 1) globally averaged well-mixed marine boundary layer CO2 data, 2) HadCRUT3 surface air temperature data, 3) GISS surface air temperature data, 4) NCDC surface air temperature data, 5) HadSST2 sea surface data, 6) UAH lower troposphere temperature data series, 7) CDIAC data on release of anthropogene CO2, and 8) GWP data on volcanic eruptions. Annual cycles are present in all datasets except 7) and 8), and to remove the influence of these we analyze 12-month averaged data. We find a high degree of co-variation between all data series except 7) and 8), but with changes in CO2 always lagging changes in temperature. The maximum positive correlation between CO2 and temperature is found for CO2 lagging 11–12 months in relation to global sea surface temperature, 9.5-10 months to global surface air temperature, and about 9 months to global lower troposphere temperature. The correlation between changes in ocean temperatures and atmospheric CO2 is high, but do not explain all observed changes.
http://nollyprott.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/green-holocaust-2/
Ole Humlum is the guy behind the climate4you.com website which I highly recommend as a good source of weather info/graphs etc.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CO2%20MaunaLoa%20Last12months-previous12monthsGrowthRateSince1958.gif
Rate of the CO2 increase is slowing down, resembling the global SST very much.
I would like to know when Dr. Murry Salby’s paper will be published. His theories would seem to be bolstered by this new paper.
“Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.”
follow the cite and you end up with a blog post by a lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics. The issue is not whether or not IR warms the oceans. The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly
While the Hockey Schtick does have a tendancy to link to deniers of the GH effect among others, let’s concentrate on the paper in hand.
Friends:
There is nothing new under the Sun. I draw attention to
Kuo, C., Lindberg, C., Thompson, D.J., 1990. Coherence established between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature. Nature 388, 39-44.
In 1990 that paper reported atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature cohere such the changes to the CO2 lag changes to the temperature by 9 months. Subsequently, other papers indicate that the time of the lag varies with latitude.
This Norwegian paper reports that the finding made in 1990 by Kuo, Linberg & Thompson still remains true.
Richard
Steve M has both the physics and the fact trace on the assertion correct. There is a additional statistical problem in this lead/lag analysis. The data is sufficiently noisy that there is almost no statistical significance. This is as bad as Dessler’s 2010 paper (quoted by NASA as definitive) that found a positive cloud feedback. The scatter plot looked like a shotgun pattern, and the r^2 was 0.02. Means nothing at all.
Absolutely.
Main players on decadal and multi decadal scale Sun and Earth in concert
Sun > Earth > Oceans > Land & Atmosphere
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm
“GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly”
ERL – Environmental Research Laboratory?, Extraterrestrial Remote Lander? Oh, that radiating level. l can see that if the atmosphere warms it will expand, so that the radiating level will be higher, if that were the only consideration. But it will not gain mass, so the tau (transparency) will remain constant. As for CO2, it may contribute a small amount to downwelling radiation at the surface but it will also increase the emissivity of the upper atmosphere. So, warming at the surface (greatly moderated by convection) and cooling above. Your IPCC fairy story is just another fabrication of the politicians of the UN who have nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics.
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm
“Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.”
…..Rhe issue is not whether or not IR warms the oceans. The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly
_____________________________
STRAWMAN!
The statement is CO2 and other greenhouse backradiation can not warm the oceans by penetrating the oceans.
So how about the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado @ Boulder? Is that highbrow enough for you???
Here is their graph. I am not embedding it so everyone can see it is a link to LASP @ Colorado
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/images/instruments/sim/fig01.gif
The relationship is blatantly obvious. The rate of change of CO2 atmospheric concentration is affinely related to temperatures. The correlation is especially prominent in the summer hemisphere, suggesting a strong oceanic link related, quite likely, to the fact that that’s where CO2-rich deep ocean currents upwell.
The temperature relationship leaves no room for significant human influence on overall concentration. Our puny input is plainly sequestered rapidly by the Earth’s systems with barely a pause in stride.
From Steven Mosher on August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm:
That post was authored by “MS”, from a comment above I gather that’s Murry L. Salby. I can see on Amazon that he authored “Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics, Volume 61 (International Geophysics)” in 1996, edited by Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Renata Dmowska, available for Kindle and apparently still in print, and recently authored “Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate” which appears to be a well-respected textbook going by the editorial review and the quotes from academia.
Which mere “lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics” are you referring to?
I read somewhere that they “proved” the rising co2 levels were from fossil fuels based on carbon isotope analysis. Either their proof is somewhat overreaching, or this analysis is incorrect.
It’s interesting and it’s very similar to Dr. Salby’s findings as presented here on WUWT in April. But neither does explain one thing.
If you undo all the math, remove all temperature changes and remove all subsequent CO2 changes, there’s still a steady slope at which the CO2 raises and the temperature would have to reduce dramatically to make it stop. But that’s not what was in the past, the temperature was not that dramatically lower than today and the CO2 concentrations were not so steadily (and definitely not at such rate) growing throughout the holocene – so if it’s not by humans, where is it all coming from?
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm
====================
True to type warmest response eh? Perhaps a similar scientific background to Al Gore then?
You and your warmist mates missives are getting weaker and weaker……..
Vince Causey says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm
IIRC it was Salby that showed that was a load of inflated BS ?
Here is information from NASA with an animation of earth greening and changes in CO2
Watching Earth breathe: An animation of seasonal vegetation and it’s effect on Earth’s global
So there is another lag where CO2 response to Mother Nature and not the other way round.
Steven Mosher;
GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lack of precision in your statement makes it difficult to respond to. As a system that includes the atmosphere, your statement is false as GHG’s do not change the temperature of earth at all. What they change is the temperature profile from earth surface to TOA. May we presume you meant temperature at earth surface and you are excluding the armosphere as being part of the earth for this statement? If your intent was in regard to earth surface, then your following statement is also false because the earth radiates to space very little from earth surface but mostly from the atmosphere. So in that part of your response, I presume that you mean earth to include the atmosphere? Then you say it cools less rapidly which I presume is going back to a definition of earth as meaning earth surface and excluding the atmosphere? Three sentences and each one raises more questions about what the heck you mean that take more time to understand than the point you are trying to make.
Oh yeah… What the heck is ERL?
Wow look at the usual suspects leaping out of their spider holes to defend the greenhouse effect. This paper hardly touches on it…the main point of the paper is the CO2 lags. But they jump on board to re-frame the argument and create a straw-man to sow confusion, and also to defend the greenhouse effect. Typical tactics of a badly losing pseudoscientific religion.
But, there is the underlying question posed – with CO2 not actually being responsible for any changes in warming/cooling, can it be responsible for setting any temperatures in the first place? That premise seems to be impossible to measure with empirical data since none has ever actually been presented for the climate showing so; that is, not outside of the mere inferences made within the particular constraints of certain assumptions and model boundary conditions. No real-time measurements show CO2 leading temperature change. You can IMAGINE CO2 causing temperature change and creating temperature increases within the constraints of certain models and approximations, but you can’t actually measure it empirically in the system in real time. Talk about a major problem. This would be the first science that continued to exist in modern times despite never actually having ever had empirical data to support it. Of course, that’s why alarmism and the whole negative orientation towards the concept of climate change in general is Pseudoscience.
They just took something which is normal and happening naturally all the time and pretended it was new and unknown and suddenly manifest and entirely unheard of before but required the end of capitalism and new massive taxation & regulations to comprehend. Neat trick. Major fail.
Vince Causey:
At August 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm you say:
That “proof” is bunkum. The change in the isotope ratio is in the correct direction for its cause to be the anthropogenic emission but its magnitude is out by a factor of 3 from expectation if the anthropogenic emission is its cause.
Indeed, Roy Spencer provided two articles on WUWT about this so-called proof. The latter is at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/
and it concludes saying;
“BOTTOM LINE: If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??”
Richard
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/new-paper-on/
Another paper that does a VERY deep dive into the data and shows no relationship between CO2 and temps.
Mr. Causey:
Dr. Spencer’s analysis of CO2 carbon isotope ratios might interest you:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/
Vince Causey says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm
I read somewhere that they “proved” the rising co2 levels were from fossil fuels based on carbon isotope analysis. Either their proof is somewhat overreaching, or this analysis is incorrect.
_________________________
Isotope Analysis is dicey, let me see if I can dig out Fred’s PDF…. Oh good here is a link to both his papers. Fred H. Haynie, a retired EPA research scientist, has devoted the past four years to a study of global climate change, and in particular the relationship to CO2. One of the papers goes indepth into the isotope Analysis.
More References on CO2:
Articles by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD
THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
GAVIN SCHMIDT’S RESPONSE TO THE ACQUITTAL OF CO2 SHOULD SOUND THE DEATH KNELL FOR AGW (rebuttal of the rebuttal)
ON WHY CO2 IS KNOWN NOT TO HAVE ACCUMULATED IN THE ATMOSPHERE & WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CO2 IN THE MODERN ERA
Lucy Skywallker pulled together information from all over the net and consolidated it in these two links:
Questioning the CO2 Ice Hockey Stick
CO2 figures, cycle, solubility, GHG effect, oceanic scale, and biosequestration includes Do isotopes show fossil fuel use?
A lagging entity can have a significant effect on a leading entity only if it is empowered by voodoo, or perhaps “climate scientists” are suggesting that CO2 molecules travel at speeds faster than light.
CO2’s affect on the climate is a classic example of circular reasoning. Evidence shows climate behaves only one-way with CO2 and it is not the ideas without taking any feedbacks into account in the laboratory (where there is no ocean). CO2 naturally in the atmosphere is just an indication of how much the ocean has out gassed previously. It is there because of the chemical nature of oceans warmed by the nearest star, not because adding CO2 determines the absolute ocean temperature. CO2 atmospheric concentration is therefore an effect of temperature not the cause of temperature on the planet scale. It has so unnoticeable effect that the difference between the poles and the tropics at the near surface can be more than 90 degrees c at any one time. (Yet CO2 levels at both sites are similar) Massive differences occur all the time on the planet, yet some of us are worried by a fraction of a degree over a long period.
This paper goes into a bit more detail than other observations already well known, but pro CAGW’s ignore with continued circular reasoning. It is impossible for a climate system to behave the same way in both directions with cause and effect or the planet would have frozen or fried many millions of years ago. If you add the cause you can increase the effect, but if you add the effect (CO2) you can’t increase the cause. You can’t have oceans increasing energy, which in turns increases CO2, which increases energy, which increases CO2. It is circular reasoning and when would it ever end?
That’s why the climate has not warmed, as it was to believe by pro CAGW’s, the planet system only behaves one way at a time and is prevented from becoming too cold or hot by feedbacks that reduce or eliminate the change. (Key player here being albedo)
The ERL has not changed over recent decades measured by LWR’s. This gives no indication that GHG’s have had any effect on the planet during this period for cooling to be less rapidly.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/indicators/olr.php?num_months=12
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/olr-s-pg.gif
Actually, no. What it suggests is that short term fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 are driven largely by nature rather than man. Is anyone surprised by this? I don’t think so. We all know that the annual amount of CO2 absorbed and emitted by nature (oceans and biosphere) is considerably larger than annual anthropogenic emissions, but the net natural change is much smaller than our emissions – hence the large annual cycle in atmospheric CO2 but the very small net natural change in atmospheric CO2 over centuries and millennia. Over the Holocene (last 10,000 years or so) until the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 changed at a maximum of around 0.002ppm per year. Now we’re raising it at around 2ppm per year – 1,000 times faster than the natural rate. That is what’s causing the current very rapid global warming (that and the other greenhouse gases we’re emitting). It should be blindingly obvious to everyone that:
(1): Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are indeed driving global warming;
(2): The paper in question does not in any way contradict (1) – it merely adds detail to what we already knew.
Steve Mosher: “You state: The issue is not whether or not IR warms the oceans. The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly.”
I don’t understand this. CO2 absorbs radiant energy and hence warms the atmosphere. The heat flux is dependant on the concentration of CO2 and the distance. Increasing the concentration of CO2 increases the amount of radiant energy absorbed by the atmosphere. I would suggest that you have it backwards. As CO2 levels increase, the level at which nearly all of the energy that will be absorbed decreases. That is if we consider (say) 200 bar.cm (the units used in most engineering texts), absorption will be nearly complete (yes yes, absorption will eventually go to 100%, just not on this planet. Also, at very high levels of CO2 the curve seems more hyperbolic that logarithmic with the asymptote nearly parallel to the x axis). As the partial pressure of CO2 increases, the altitude that this occurs at decreases rather than increases. That is, I would suggest that the “ERL” decreases as CO2 increases, not the other way around. The earth cools less rapidly because the atmosphere is warmed (slightly). Well. The earth cools at the same rate no matter what. It does it at a (slightly) higher temperature. If the earth were radiating at a lower rate (cooling less rapidly), it would be getting very hot very quickly.
Icarus,
What is “blindingly obvious” is the fact that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature on all time scales, from years to hundreds of millennia.
That is irrefutable scientific evidence showing conclusively that the rise in CO2 is an effect of the previous rise in temperature, not a cause of rising temperature.
It is hard to argue with definitive empirical evidence, but I’m sure you will give it a try.
The paper is behind a paywall unfortunately.
Its worth reminding people that, excepting statistical chance, correlation is always proof of causation.
If sea surface temperatures lead CO2 concentrations and they are correlated then,
Either, sea surface temperatures (in part) cause CO2 concentrations,
Or, they both have some common cause or causes.
And the statement downward LWR cannot warm the ocean is true in the sense that roof insulation cannot warm your house. Of course your house is warmer with roof insulation, because the insulation slows the loss of heat, as does downward LWR in the atmosphere.
ERL – Effective Radiation Level?
HOW DOES MAN MAKE CO2?
BY DEFINITION ALL THE CARBON IN FOSSIL FUELS HAS BEEN SEQUESTERED FROM THE ATMOSPHERE , BURNING THESE COMPLETES THE CARBON CYCLE ie RECYCLES THE CARBON,WHATS WRONG WITH THAT?
PS In the late fifties in 6th form grammer school we were forced to study LOGIC , Medieval disputations etc. A crippling disadvantage in this Brave New World.
I’m a simple guy. I don’t have letters to put behind my name to impress anybody. But I do know that water is wierd. The hotter water is, the more of a solid it will disolve. The colder water is, the more of a gas it will disolve. CO2 is a gas. The oceans hold lots and lots of CO2. As the oceans warm, they release that CO2. It takes a lot of hot air for a long time before the oceans warm and release their CO2.
(Unless you still believe Mann and Hansen.)
Kasuha says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:19 pm
…the temperature was not that dramatically lower than today and the CO2 concentrations were not so steadily (and definitely not at such rate) growing throughout the holocene…”
It’s a puzzle. Consider this simple thought experiment.
Suppose that temperatures were dramatically lower during the Little Ice Age, so that ocean waters downwelling to the depths at the time contained significantly more CO2 than today’s surface waters do.
Suppose those waters started rising to the surface again around the turn of the 20th century. As the waters heat to surface levels, they release that stored CO2. Since the waters currently downwelling are relatively CO2 depleted, it starts to accumulate at the surface and outgas to the atmosphere, in proportion to the difference between surface temperatures now versus surface temperatures then.
The downwelling waters may have picked up additional CO2 during their long trek through the depths due, e.g., to undersea volcanic vents. In effect, this would equivalently shift the temperature at which they downwelled even lower.
This is my favored working hypothesis. Current atmospheric CO2 levels depend not just on temperature differentials in the near past, but in the distant past as well, when currently upwelling ocean waters first descended into the depths.
John Eggert;
I would suggest that you have it backwards. As CO2 levels increase, the level at which nearly all of the energy that will be absorbed decreases.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’ve lost track of how many threads there have been over the years on this issue!
John, Mosher is right. Consider a photon travelling upward toward space. Either it has a clear path to escape, or it doesn’t. Increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the chance that it will get absorbed and re-emitted before escaping increases. Since being absorbed and re-emitted happens at a higher altitude than the photon originated from, the average height at which a photon escapes is higher, not lower, as CO2 increases.
Philip Bradley:
At August 30, 2012 at 2:24 pm you assert:
It is worth informing you that correlation is NEVER a proof of causation.
Any two time series are likely to show periods where they correlate if they are long enough.
However, in the event that a causal link is demonstrated to exist between two parameters then the correlation of the two parameters describes how a change to one effects a change to the other.
Coherence is indicative when considering causality because if changes to A follow changes to B then it is not possible for the changes in A to be the cause of the changes to B (in the absence of a time-machine).
Richard
Kasuha says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:19 pm
….. But that’s not what was in the past, the temperature was not that dramatically lower than today and the CO2 concentrations were not so steadily (and definitely not at such rate) growing throughout the holocene – so if it’s not by humans, where is it all coming from?
________________________
What makes you think the “Team” has not messed with the CO2 measurements as they did with the temperature measurements???
CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time: Statement written for the Hearing before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Climate Change: Incorrect information on pre-industrial CO2
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm
“Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.”
follow the cite and you end up with a blog post by a lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics. The issue is not whether or not IR warms the oceans. The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly
A one club golfer – only surface radiation being scattered is considered… Yet….
Most of the heat energy leaving the Earth’s surface is carried up toward the troposphere by convection of water not by radiation. Have a look at http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/flash-rb.html. All that infrared radiation from latent heat of fusion and condensation. You can see when the weather systems are building strongly by the heat radiation. Latent heat release due to water state change does not follow Stefan Boltzmann.
Hurricanes and storms in the ITCZ can carry liquid water up to 40,000ft or more in 100kt updrafts where it rapidly freezes releasing huge amounts of heat energy. Look at (currently) Hurricane Kirk and tropical storm Leslie. Go to http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/D7.html look at method 1 the energy released by a hurricane due to cloud and rain formation per day. “equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity” Nothing to do with Stefan Boltzmann.
Now go back to GOES East and look at that long frontal system part of the Ferrel cell circulation. The huge amount of energy being released from latent heat of fusion and condensation. Nothing to do with Stefan Boltzmann.
And more importantly nothing to do with GHGs scattering infrared radiation
Excellent paper which brings yet more bad news to the pseudo-scientific religion adherents of CAGW. They will have to dig deep for strawman arguments to offset the latest revelations. The time lag between temperature of the world and the level of CO2 shows exactly what is and i not happening.
@davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:29 pm
(Responds to Steven Mosher and then asks):
“Oh yeah… What the heck is ERL?”
In my neck of the woods, “erl” is what you put in your car when you’re “down pert-near a kwart.”
(I’m not kidding and it drives me nuts to hear it.)
Philip Bradley says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:24 pm
If sea surface temperatures lead CO2 concentrations and they are correlated then,
Either, sea surface temperatures (in part) cause CO2 concentrations,
Or, they both have some common cause or causes.
Might I suggest the El nino – La nina cycle?
Smokey says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Icarus,
What is “blindingly obvious” is the fact that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature on all time scales, from years to hundreds of millennia.
That is irrefutable scientific evidence showing conclusively that the rise in CO2 is an effect of the previous rise in temperature, not a cause of rising temperature.
It is hard to argue with definitive empirical evidence, but I’m sure you will give it a try.
=================================================================
It is also hard ro reason with the psychologically and intellectually hamstrung, even when the empirical evidence is blindingly obvious.
Oh wait, no…..reasoning does not play any significant part in religion, does it?
Good sport, though.
It would appear that this paper has rediscovered Henry’s Law:
“At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid.”
If the liquid temperature is raised the solubility of the gas in the liquid reduces. This is high school physical chemistry. Its why people like cold beer rather than warm beer.
The surface overturning layer about 700 meters will outgas relatively rapidly. The deep water, below the thermoclyne does not mix much with the upper layers. The overturning and outgassing would take centuries – and this is what is found. The Earth’s surface is 2/3rds water so Henry’s Law will rule on soluble gases like CO2.
It’s not the paper, couldn’t find that. But it is a long and informative April 2012 article by the authors about all of this, with more data and graphs. In Norwegian.
http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2012/april/319336
Google Translation to English.
Very interesting.
“follow the cite and you end up with a blog post by a lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics.”
That would be me then.
Well trained in logic and the weighing of evidence plus a lifetime’s study of weather and climate from long before many of the current protagonists knew the difference between wet and dry.
Sounds like a good mix to me.
And a heck of a lot of other participants have their primary knowledge base in areas other than climatology.
It’s also worth pointing out that the imbalance between outgassing and geological sequestration of carbon – i.e. the rate at which the total carbon in the climate system changes – is even slower than natural changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration, amounting to only about 0.0001ppm per year. In other words, we’re currently returning carbon to the climate system via fossil fuel combustion 40,000 times faster than the natural rate. That is the source of the 40% increase in atmospheric CO2, and that’s what is driving global warming.
Oh my God, not again…
What the paper shows is that the rate of change of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is heavily influenced by temperature fluctuations. But that says next to nothing about the cause of the increase.
– Humans emit twice the amount of CO2 that is seen in the trend. Thus nature is a net absorber of CO2, not a source.
– The (deep) oceans are not the cause of the increase, because of too high 13C/12C ratio and measurements all over the oceans show that the (deep) oceans are a net sink for CO2. See:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
– Henry’s Law shows an increase of some 16 microatm if seawater warms with 1°C increase. Thus the maximum 1°C warming since the depth of the LIA may be responsible for maximum 16 ppmv in the atmosphere (in fact less, because vegetation works in opposite direction), while we see an increase of 100+ ppmv (70+ ppmv since the accurate measurements at the South Pole started).
– The biosphere is not the cause of the increase, as the oxygen balance shows: more oxygen is released by the biosphere than used, thus more CO2 is absorbed and thus the biosphere is a net sink for CO2.
Thus whatever the influence of temperature on the current CO2 levels, it influences the year by year sink rate, without any net contribution to the increase… See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
Thus please, this repeated discussion about the origin of the CO2 increase, which is confirmed human by all available observations, makes that skeptics loose all credibility where it is needed: the real (lack of) influence of CO2 on temperature…
Philip Bradley says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Its worth reminding people that, excepting statistical chance, correlation is always proof of causation.
*
WTF? Have you actually LOGICALLY thought about that statement? Sheesh, I used to wonder if you believed what came out of your mouth, now you’ve convinced me you are deliberately seeking to misinform. An intelligent person simply wouldn’t accept such a claim, never mind advance it.
I can only guess you are after those readers who don’t know any science and don’t exercise much in the way of logical thought. Well, you’re not going to find many of those here. I’m pretty sure you won’t capture any open minds scanning the alarmists’ sites with that line, either, come to think of it, so you’re not doing yourself any favours at all.
Google “co2 lags temperature” and see how many hits you get attempting to refute it. When one throws a stone at a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit. This is a very weak spot, amongst many, for the warmista crowd.
Smokey: You’re aware that most of the warming from glacial maximum to interglacial occurs *after* atmospheric CO2 has started to rise, yes?
“icarus62i says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:00 pm
(1): Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are indeed driving global warming”
Here, let me correct your statement: Anthropogenic CO2 drives the climate, but what proof do you have.
Increase in CO2 ppm has always lagged “temperature”. There is no “hot spot”, can’t find the “extra heat” in the oceans, no increase in “heat trapping clouds”, can’t explain away “Roman Warm Period and the cooling period afterwards, tried to hide the MWP, LIA and got caught , so where is your proof? All you got is a computer model based on increase CO2 which has never been V&V. And you want me to live in a “cave” based on that!
Bart says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
This is my favored working hypothesis. Current atmospheric CO2 levels depend not just on temperature differentials in the near past, but in the distant past as well, when currently upwelling ocean waters first descended into the depths.
We have been there already a few times, but your working hypothesis violates several observations:
– The 13C/12C ratio of the deep oceans (and the oceans surface) is higher than that of the atmosphere. Thus any substantial contribution of extra CO2 from the (deep) oceans would increase the 13C/12C ratio, but there is a steady accelerating decline in d13C ratio as well as in the atmosphere (ice cores – firn – atmosphere) as in ocean surface, completely in ratio with fossil fuel use:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
– As proven by millions of measurements over the oceans, the oceans are a net sink for CO2, not a source.
– The human contribution (in mass, not in individual moleculres) is for 10% absorbed in the ocean surface (Revelle factor), some 15% in vegetation (based on the oxygen balance), some 50% resides in the atmosphere, thus 25% must be absorbed somewhere else. Add to that the extra CO2 released from the deep upwelling places near the equator, that means that the deep ocean sinks near the poles must absorb the 25% human emissions plus all of the deep ocean upwelling CO2. Thus anyway the deep ocean sinks are larger than the deep ocean sources…
And then Gavin says ….. and then Tamino ….
Funny thing about that bright glowing gasbag in the sky. It warms things. Very well. I cannot imagine how backscatter from a gas with the concentration of 390 ppm could contribute in a meaningful way to the onslaught from Sol. It’s basically insignificant. If the climate is so tenuously in ‘balance’ that a trace gas can cause it to topple, then it must have been essentially constant throughout earth history….and we know that is not the case.
So, to the Moshers of the world who dream up bizarre quotes from political science organizations to support their dreamstate, kindly get a life. The Earth really doesn’t give a Sh*t.
Smokey says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Icarus,
What is “blindingly obvious” is the fact that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature on all time scales, from years…..
Smokey
The link you gave shows negative values for CO2 in several years. Bearing in mind, mean annual CO2 concentrations have never fallen over the history of the ML record. Could you explain your link?
PS I can but I suspect you (nor TonyB (another one)) understands the plot you’ve linked to.
FerdiEgb says:
August 30, 2012 at 4:14 pm
….We have been there already a few times, but your working hypothesis violates several observations:….
_____________________________
Ok answer me this,
The CO2 during the Cambrian Period was nearly 7000 ppm. Earlier, the atmosphere was even higher in CO2 and there was little or no oxygen. Obviously the Earth’s carbon cycle could not only handle that amount of CO2 but was able to scrub it from the atmosphere and lay it down as rock.
So how come the Earth’s carbon cycle is now so delicate it can not handle mankind’s puny 3-4% per year added especially since the plant life on land and in the sea is gobbling it down as fast as it can? “I observed a 50 ppm drop in within a tomato plant canopy just a few minutes after direct sunlight at dawn entered a green house (Harper et al 1979)” link and Plant response to CO2
Graph showing steady decrease in CO2 over time.
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
John Eggert;
I would suggest that you have it backwards. As CO2 levels increase, the level at which nearly all of the energy that will be absorbed decreases.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’ve lost track of how many threads there have been over the years on this issue!
John, Mosher is right. Consider a photon travelling upward toward space. Either it has a clear path to escape, or it doesn’t. Increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the chance that it will get absorbed and re-emitted before escaping increases. Since being absorbed and re-emitted happens at a higher altitude than the photon originated from, the average height at which a photon escapes is higher, not lower, as CO2 increases.
Thank goodness you responded to John Eggert. I thought I might have to step in to support Steve.
I wonder if it might help if, as far as climate is concerned, people thought of the earth AND it’s atmosphere as a single entity. Then consider this
If the outgoing LW energy from the earth (including it’s atmosphere) is emitted from a higher, colder layer then, according to the S-B law, the energy emitted is reduced. So, now the earth (including it’s atmosphere) will be receiving more energy from the sun than it will be emitting to space. We will therefore have an imbalance where incoming energy is GREATER than outgoing energy. This will result in the earth (and it’s atmosphere) becoming warmer – until an equlibrium is reached whereby the outgoing LW energy is equal to the incoming solar energy.
I’m not sure this is a particularly good explanation but from regular reading of the posts and comments on WUWT, I know this is a subject where there is significant confusion. It would be useful if someone like Steve Mosher or yourself (David) could put together a guest post to explain the issue in simple ‘laymens’ terms.
Philip Bradley says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Its worth reminding people that, excepting statistical chance, correlation is always proof of causation.
===========================================================================
Everytime I come home from work, my dog wants a treat.
Therefore if I never went to work, my dog would never want a treat.
Ian W says:
Most of the heat energy leaving the Earth’s surface is carried up toward the troposphere by convection of water not by radiation
Right – but we are concerned about the heat energy which leaves the earth’s atmosphere . It is only by radiation that the earth (including it’s atmosphere) gets rid of energy to space.
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm:
“The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly”
======================================================
This notion is so absurd (shock).
What do you mean by “earth”? You can not mean the solid earth/the surface of the solid earth, because the solid earth has no higher “ERL” (effective radiating level). And what does the solid earth radiate from? Right, FROM THE SURFACE! And where has the alleged “global warming” been “measured”? Right, ON THE SURFACE, too! And what do you need to get higher temperatures ON THE SURFACE? Right, you need more energy coming TO THE SURFACE. And what your higher colder zone in the atmosphere has to do with more energy coming TO THE SURFACE? Right, absolutely nothing.
So, what you are talking about does not fit together, it is an absurd word salad.
mods – someone left off a close italics thingy
[Thanks, fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
@Mods:
Missing a close italics in this comment –
Andrew W says:
August 30, 2012 at 3:10 pm
[Thanks, fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Consider a photon travelling upward toward space. Either it has a clear path to escape, or it doesn’t. Increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the chance that it will get absorbed and re-emitted before escaping increases. Since being absorbed and re-emitted happens at a higher altitude than the photon originated from, the average height at which a photon escapes is higher, not lower, as CO2 increases.
David:
Ah yes. The absorption and re-emission . . . stuff.
Yes. Consider a photon >>originating at the surface<>originating at the surface<< will be absorbed at a low altitude INCREASES as the level of CO2 increases. Indeed, I can't believe that this is still a matter of debate.
You are also dead wrong about one thing. The following is not semantics. Read the next two sentences a few times and decide if you disagree with either of them. Your entire premise hinges on them both being wrong. Photons are NEVER re-emitted. NEW photons are emitted.
Not always at the same wavelength as they were absorbed at. A cold gas will, on average, emit longer wavelength photons than are emitted, on average, by the hot surface. (The gases are not black bodies by any stretch of the imagination, but they do emit over the entire Black Body Emissive Power Spectrum) So "re-emission" may result in new photons that have a much lower probability of being absorbed by CO2 than the original photon.
Also. A CO2 molecule will become energized by absorbing a photon, but photon emission is not the only means available to dissipate that energy. It may collide with an oxygen or nitrogen molecule and transfer energy. These will then have more energy and hence be hotter, thus bringing the entire system back into equilibrium. Indeed, we must assume a fairly large amount of energy is transferred to the other molecules, else how does the atmosphere warm? If they are warmer than absolute 0, they will emit a photon. That emission might be at a radically different wavelength than the original photon that has a much lower probability of being absorbed by CO2. Eventually a steady state is reached by radiant transfer to space. And the atmosphere is warmer. The lower atmosphere is warmed by conduction, radiation from the surface and solar insolation. The upper atmosphere is warmed primarily by solar insolation and convection. Most(NEVER ALL!) of the absorbable radiant energy from the surface has been absorbed by the lower atmosphere.
FerdiEgb says:
August 30, 2012 at 4:14 pm
“The 13C/12C ratio of the deep oceans …”
Already refuted upthread here and here.
“…the oceans are a net sink for CO2…”
Inferred based on assumed carbon cycle. Circular reasoning.
“…the deep ocean sinks near the poles must absorb the 25% human emissions plus all of the deep ocean upwelling CO2…”
…for your narrative to work. This, again, is circular reasoning.
Your hypothesis, however, requires something which is prohibited by the fact that temperature leads CO2 by a substantial amount (90 degrees of phase), and effect cannot precede cause.
“davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
John, Mosher is right. Consider a photon travelling upward toward space. Either it has a clear path to escape, or it doesn’t. Increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the chance that it will get absorbed and re-emitted before escaping increases. Since being absorbed and re-emitted happens at a higher altitude than the photon originated from, the average height at which a photon escapes is higher, not lower, as CO2 increases.
Wow davidmhoffe. You and Mosher make a few assumptions. First, the co2 molecule is a 1½ of KWART (sorry, I couldn’t pass it up) low from a ERL leak and will absorb protons. Second, air current is going to carry them higher than normal.
If what you say is true then we would already have evidence of a “hot spot”, but we don’t.
Conclusions from this paper by physicist Denis Rancourt
Radiation physics constraints on global warming
http://tinyurl.com/6py3tpb
[…]
The radiation balance steady state temperature of Earth’s surface is approximately two orders of magnitude more sensitive to changes in solar constant and planetary albedo than
to changes of atmospheric concentration of greenhouse effect CO2.
Virtually the same results (as eqs.24 and 25) are obtained for our single-layer atmosphere model (eq.7), and the same results were previously obtained for a model where the atmosphere was treated as an inert (non-thermalizing and non-radiative) infra-red greenhouse filter (i.e., like a pane of greenhouse glass that acts only to transmit or reflect back some fraction of the longwave emissions from the planet surface).
In view of the above model sensitivity calculations and given the physical simplicity of the model with no free parameters and based on established physical principles, it is clear that many factors will have a larger effect on surface-temperature-determining radiation balance than CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. For example, such factors as changes in albedo from aerial mineral dust variations due to land use changes, changes affecting cloud dynamics (albedo), effective solar irradiance variations, and many more, are expected to have larger impacts than CO2 concentration under present saturation absorption conditions.
Anyone wishing to focus on CO2 concentration as a climate driver should have the onus to explain ignoring the above straightforward demonstration of an approximately two order of magnitude irrelevance of CO2 relative to solar irradiance (of known seasonal variation) and albedo and emissivity (both under-studied and significantly more complicated than the effect of CO2).
John Finn;
It would be useful if someone like Steve Mosher or yourself (David) could put together a guest post to explain the issue in simple ‘laymens’ terms.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well I’m flattered. But the problem is that there is no way that I have ever been able to find to truly reduce this to “laymen’s terms”. It is one of those issues best described by one of my favourite quotes “Complex difficult problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers”.
John Eggert responds to me that I’m wrong because a photon is not “re-emitted” it is actually a new photon. Well he’s right. It is a technicality that doesn’t change my answer, but push comes to shove, he’s right, and my answer was an over simplification. Then he goes on forever about all the different ways that molecules absorb and emitt and resulting frequency shifts and related processes such as conduction…. and he’s right about those things as well. Which also doesn’t change my answer but it would take 5 pages of writing and a few diagrams to explain why. Then there’s Greg House who jumps in with his usual cold things can’t send energy to warm things argument which is half right and it takes another 5 pages to deal with that issue correctly, which ALSO doesn’t change my answer, and at the end of it he’ll still say I’m wrong as will a lot of other people.
John Finn says:
August 30, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Ian W says:
Most of the heat energy leaving the Earth’s surface is carried up toward the troposphere by convection of water not by radiation
Right – but we are concerned about the heat energy which leaves the earth’s atmosphere . It is only by radiation that the earth (including it’s atmosphere) gets rid of energy to space.
Glad you agree – but you also say in a previous post:
If the outgoing LW energy from the earth (including it’s atmosphere) is emitted from a higher, colder layer then, according to the S-B law, the energy emitted is reduced.
But the emissions due to latent heat of fusion and condensation are NOT governed by S-B law so that radiation is NOT reduced. Not only that but the radiation is often above or close to the ERL (which is not a hard limit) especially where there is most convection in the Hadley cells of the tropics.
Ahhg. Bloody html formatting.
The thing that says
“Yes. Consider a photon >>originating at the surfaceoriginating at the surface<<
Would make more sense as:
Yes. Consider a photon originating at the surface. You state that the probability that a photon would be absorbed at a lower altitude DECREASES as CO2 increases. How else to interpret: "Since being absorbed . . . happens at a higher altitude than the photon originated from". I assert that the probability that a photon originating at the surface will be absorbed at a low altitude INCREASES as the level of CO2 increases. Indeed, I can't believe that this is still a matter of debate.
Sorry about that.
old construction worker;
If what you say is true then we would already have evidence of a “hot spot”, but we don’t.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See what I mean John Finn?
Well old construction worker, I was responding to the question of what happens to the mean emission height due to CO2 increases in the absence of secondary effects. From that perspective, I stand by my answer. The fact that we do NOT see the putative hot spot is a good indication that feedbacks are negative and serve to largely cancel the effects of CO2. Doesn’t change the fact that a photon that otherwise would have escaped straight to space stands a larger chance of having that journey interrupted part way as CO2 increases. (yes, yes, I know, its a NEW photon that finishes the last leg of the journey, not the SAME photon. sigh.)
Effects cannot precede cause? Tachyons, my dear boy! Tachyons!
After two months I’m still a newbie to climate science, but please bear with me…
There is a well-studied planet in the solar system with lots of CO2 in the atmosphere. Give that man in the back row who said “Mars” a big round of applause. The actual surface temperature of Mars is about 8K higher than the Stefan-Boltzmann equilibrium temperature. Water vapor is present at a concentration of 210ppmv.
The guys who wear the white lab coats and the polka-dot bow-ties have calculated the optical thickness of CO2 and of water vapor. If we drop their values into a simple climate model we get surface temperatures very close to actual, for both Mars and Earth.
In this comments thread some climate experts are saying that CO2 has no greenhouse effect. I don’t understand the physics, but I do understand the Vostok ice cores. Provided that the dating protocol is valid (and the Vostok people are warmists, thus unlikely to use a false method harmful to their cause), then CO2 does not drive temperature, it follows temperature.
Now I’m wondering why CO2 warms Mars, but it doesn’t warm Earth.
Off topic, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all visitors to this forum came to share and to learn? WUWT isn’t as bad as jonova but a discussion that goes, “Warmist FAIL!!” — “Skeptic LOSER!!” only proves that your shoe size is bigger than your IQ (and a heck of a lot bigger than your manhood). Thankyou to the commenters who display good etiquette. I listen to you and I learn from you.
John Eggert;
You state that the probability that a photon would be absorbed at a lower altitude DECREASES as CO2 increases.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I said no such thing.
Greg House says:
August 30, 2012 at 5:41 pm
And what does the solid earth radiate from? Right, FROM THE SURFACE! And where has the alleged “global warming” been “measured”? Right, ON THE SURFACE, too! And what do you need to get higher temperatures ON THE SURFACE? Right, you need more energy coming TO THE SURFACE.
===========================================================================
Or you could measure surface temperature by placing your thermometer in a parking lot or next to an airport runway or an incinderator or an air conditioner or …
YFNWG says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Ole is a ‘just the facts’ sort of guy.
He has thoroughly falsified the AGW model of CO2 driving the climate. This has been done by simply graphing the CO2 versus Temp for the earth.
Now it is simply a political show. Some people want taxes and power, which explains why they keep pushing this nonsense of carbon driven climate.
If you believe otherwise, I truly feel sorry for you as you are the victim of a huge propaganda machine.
Cheer to all.
Jack
Philip Bradley says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:24 pm
The paper is behind a paywall unfortunately.
Bears cause winter by hibernating?
Colorado winter resorts cause winter by preparing for skiers?
Your assertion is pure nonsense.
Correlation is NOT proof of causality.
Hell I have a better one. I have always naturally woken up before the Sun rises above the horizen. Therefore I make the Sun…
Sacrificial goddess gifts gladly accepted at my cave entrance and services are Sundays at Sun-up.
Gail Combs,
the graph you link to from the University of Colorado appears to show that near IR radiation from the sun is absorbed in the first 10m of the ocean, which is what I would expect. I’m more curious to know what the upper ocean is doing to thermal radiaiton of a much higher wavelength?
and even before it rises above the horizon.
“There is a well-studied planet in the solar system with lots of CO2 in the atmosphere. Give that man in the back row who said “Mars” a big round of applause.”
We have barely scratched the surface of Mars, and the little we do know about the planet is hardly enough to use to shore up or counter any argument about Earth’s atmosphere or climate.
“Now I’m wondering why CO2 warms Mars, but it doesn’t warm Earth.”
Other than as an atmosphere in general, please show me the published studies are that pinpoint CO2 as being responsible for “warming Mars”.
Thanks in advance.
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 6:36 pm:
“Then there’s Greg House who jumps in with his usual cold things can’t send energy to warm things argument”
=====================================================
No, this is not true.
My argument is that apparently nobody has proven experimentally, that colder things can either warm warmer things or slow down cooling of the warmer things by means of infra-red radiation. Simply because no warmist I talked to on various blogs has been able to present a link to such a scientific experiment.
All I got was ad hominem, unrelated stuff and obfuscation. And, of course, repeated distortion of my position, like this one of davidmhoffers.
OK, let me see if I can super simplify this thing. For the record, I’m ignoring secondary responses (feedbacks) and I’m ignoring conduction and convection and I’m ignoring the argument about it being a new photon or the same photon. Anything I’ve forgotten to list as being ignored, I am also ignoring, which should cover a lot of territory.
Suppose we have just four photons. Suppose we have no CO2 (and no other radiatively active gases) so there is a 0% chance of absorbing any given photon between ground and top of atmosphere. Let’s suppose that distance is 10 meters.
Release the photons!
All four photons go straight through.
Average emission height = 0 meters.
Now we add enough CO2 that there is a 50% chance that any given one will get absorbed and re-emitted (or a new one disguised as the old one take your pick).
Release the photons!
Two photons goes straight through. One photon gets absorbed at 2.5 meters and then once re-emitted, goes straight through. The other one gets to 7.5 meters before being absorbed and re-emitted and then goes straight through.
Average emission height = 2.5 meters
Now we double CO2 which raises the chance of any given photon being absorbed to…. 75%. CO2’s effects are logarithmic, not linear. Yes, yes, I know, that’s not the exact right value but itz good enough for this illustration.
Release the photons!
One photon goes straight through.
One photon goes 5 meters, is absorbed and re-emitted and goes straight through from there.
Two photons get absorbed at 2.5 meters, and again at 7.5 meters, and then go straight through.
Average emission height = 4 meters
And so on and so forth. Of course for the model to be accurate we’d have to include the fact that photons get released in random directions, so some go back down before they come back up and escape, but the net effect is the same. Then we’d have to add in water vapour which competes with the CO2…. but more so at high temps close to water and less so at low temps and dry areas. Then we’d have to add in the conduction and the convection and the kvetching and complaining about the few hundred other factors that I left out….
But this should be good enough to illustrate the issue.
Pamela Gray says:
August 30, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Hell I have a better one. I have always naturally woken up before the Sun rises above the horizen. Therefore I make the Sun…
Sacrificial goddess gifts gladly accepted at my cave entrance and services are Sundays at Sun-up.
=========================================================================
You live in a cave?
No wonder the Greenies worship you!
As this paper suggests, it’s the SUN, stupid; not CO2.
Dr. Solanki’s paper (Nature, Oct 2004) shows that the solar cycles between 1930’s to the late 90’s were the strongest in 11,400 years. When this 70-year string of solar cycles in 11,400 years ended, so did global warming.
During high sunspot activity, UV radiation increases by as much as 16%, which CAUSES ocean warming. CO2 has little to do with it. Add to this the Svensmark Effect (higher sunspots=less cloud cover/higher global temps), the 0.6C of warming in the 20th century is basically accounted for.
Why this CAGW “debate” is still taken seriously following roughly 16 years of flat temperature trends, in spite of RECORD levels of man-made CO2 emissions during that time, is simply proof of the political drive behind CAGW dogma, rather than its validity.
The analysis shown in the paper isn’t novel, and it isn’t any good. It will be panned as the previous incarnations were.
The increasing trend in CO2 concentrations is likely responsible for the increasing trend in temperatures. Nobody believes that variability around the trend in CO2 concentrations causes variability around the trend in temperatures, but this is what their analysis on detrended data is testing. They are testing a straw man.
The fluctuations around the trend are dominate by El Nino. All this paper has found without realising it is that El Nino causes large positive anomalies in temperature, and a lagged response in CO2 concentrations. This has been known for years, and is mainly because of drought over the Indonesian forests reducing their uptake of CO2.
#Moderator: This is a repost as the first attempt never appeared
[it was posted to the wrong thread, and thus off topic ~mod]
Greg House says:
August 30, 2012 at 8:00 pm
———————————————–
Greg, you are very persistent with your claims regarding the inability of LWIR emitted from a cooler object to slow the cooling of a warmer object. Sadly you are incorrect. I have conducted several empirical experiments into an issue discussed elsewhere on this thread concerning the ability of LWIR to slow the cooling rate of liquid water.
I have found that LWIR incident on the surface of a most warm materials CAN slow the cooling rate of those materials (even if emitted from a cooler matter). However if that material is liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool then LWIR has no measurable effect.
Early claims about global warming centred on increased DWLWIR, however as this has no effect over 71% of the Earth’s surface (and probably only over dry deserts) the pseudo scientists have moved on to claims relating to absorption, thermalisation and radiation from the atmosphere. The good news is that these claims such as the ERL claim raised by Mosher are also junk, unsupported by empirical evidence.
First to absorption and thermalisation causing warming. Take two insulated boxes with a double glazed SW and IR transparent windows in their upper surface. Enclose identical matt black aluminium target plates on the floor. Add identical circulation fans and k-type thermometer probes shielded from incoming and outgoing radiation. Ensure an small 5mm bleed hole in the base of each box so both boxes remain at 1 bar. Fill one box with dry air and one with 100% CO2. Illuminate the target plates in each box with identical SW sources. The temperature rise in each box is identical. Cut the SW sources. Both boxes cool at the same rate. The reason? CO2 can absorb and re radiate LWIR, however it also radiates IR from energy it has acquired conductively. In the constant pressure boxes the warming ability of CO2 is matched by its cooling ability. This is why the ERL claim was was proposed in a storm of wrist endangering hand waving.
The first problem with the ERL hand waving is that CO2 at altitude is not just radiating at the local air temperature. It is also being illuminated by IR from the increased CO2 below. The second problem is that CO2 is heavier than air and the “well mixed” argument does not hold at the altitudes in question. The third and most serious problem for the ERL argument is that it is indeed testable in the lab. A gas column similar to the boxes described in the experiment above is placed on a centrifuge arm, without the bleed hole and with the addition of a cryo cooled matt black upper cap with a small window for incoming SWR. The centrifuge can then create a pressure gradient along the chamber from the SWR illuminated black target plate to the cooled black sky. This device can make the ERL claim vaporise, but there will just be a new claim until warmest funding runs out.
Greg, there is no way anthropogenic emissions of CO2 can cause dangerous or catastrophic global warming even if we burnt all known and projected geological hydrocarbon reserves. However your claim that LWIR emitted from a cool object cannot slow the cooling of a warmer object is incorrect.
This post and paper are timely – I am reposting the following entry from a few days ago.
I personally discovered the relationship between dCO2/dt and temperature in late 2007 and published the paper below on icecap.us in January 2008. This dCO2/dt is the source of the 9 month lag in CO2 after temperature, also demonstrated in my paper ( but the latter fact was previously noted by Kuo et al in 1990, Keelng et al in 1995, and Veizer in 2005 ).
The correlation between dCO2/dt and temperature is far more robust than stated by one of the previous commentators – all the data and calculations are available in Excel at icecap.
The evidence suggests that varying atmospheric CO2 is not a cause of climate change, it is an effect.
__________________
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/27/how-ocean-currents-affect-global-climate-is-a-question-oceanographer-may-be-close-to-answering/#comment-1066653
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/18/time-lags-in-the-climate-system/#comment-1012683
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/20/premonitions-of-the-fall-in-temperature/#comment-991087
Re: Time lags and cycle lengths – I’ve written comments like the following since 2008.
Excerpt::
The ~~4 year cycle in this 1997 paper is associated with a lag of atmospheric CO2 after atmospheric temperature T of ~9 months, and the rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with T. This CO2 cycle is caused by biological (photosynthesis, etc.) and physical (shallow water dissolution and exsolution) factors.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Then there is the much longer ~~800 year lag of CO2 after T (as measured in ice cores), which I suspect is associated with the upwelling of deep ocean currents. Note that ~800 years ago was the Medieval Warm Period.
It appears that CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
Each temperature cycle has its own CO2 delay, and its own approximate period (cycle time length).
There may also be one or more intermediate cycles between the above two (the late Ernst Beck believed there was), and other shorter cycles.
I think there is ample evidence of a daily localized cycle, driven by photosynthesis..
http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=30
The evidence suggests that varying atmospheric CO2 is not a cause of climate change, it is an effect.
I further believe that humanmade CO2 emissions are relatively small compared to natural daily, weekly, seasonal and millennial CO2 flux, and are probably insignificant in this huge dynamic system.
No small irony here – if I am correct, both sides of the rancorous “mainstream” global warming debate are wrong. Both sides assume that humanmade CO2 is the primary driver of temperature, and are only arguing about the amount of warming (climate sensitivity to CO2, feedbacks positive or negative, etc.). If I am correct, both sides of the mainstream debate have “put the cart before the horse”. I think Veizer (2005, GSA Today) already understood most of this.
One photon goes straight through.
One photon goes 5 meters, is absorbed and re-emitted and goes straight through from there.
Two photons get absorbed at 2.5 meters, and again at 7.5 meters, and then go straight through.
Average emission height = 4 meters
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Aw cr@p. Should be 5 meters. Physics Im good with. Arithmetic not so much.
Vince Causey says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm
“I read somewhere that they “proved” the rising co2 levels were from fossil fuels based on carbon isotope analysis. Either their proof is somewhat overreaching, or this analysis is incorrect.”
The carbon isotope would be 12C because fossil fuels are biological (living things select 12C when they can because it’s lighter). But guess what? The oceans are also enriched in 12C from paleobiological carbonate as well as recent human contributions.Warm the oceans by any means and you get disproportionate 12C.
davidmhoffer says (August 30, 2012 at 6:42 pm): “(yes, yes, I know, its a NEW photon that finishes the last leg of the journey, not the SAME photon. sigh.)”
🙂 I admire your patience.
gymnosperm says:
August 30, 2012 at 10:57 pm
But guess what? The oceans are also enriched in 12C from paleobiological carbonate as well as recent human contributions.Warm the oceans by any means and you get disproportionate 12C.
The oceans have a 13C/12C ratio that is a lot higher than in the atmosphere: deep oceans are at a d13C level of zero to 1 per mil, the oceans surface, due to biological depletion of 12C, are at +1 to +5 per mil. The atmosphere is currently at -8 per mil, decreasing from -6.4 per mil since the start of the industrial revolution. Fossil fuel burning is average at -24 per mil. Thus any substantial contribution of the (deep) oceans would INcrease the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere, but we see a steady and accellerating DEcrease… Thus the oceans are NOT the cause of the increase in the atmosphere.
Neither is the biosphere, as the net balance is more oxygen production than oxygen use, thus a net CO2 uptake and thus preferential 12CO2, thus that is not the cause of the CO2 increase or d13C decline…
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 8:16 pm
————————————–
It is in the nature of the carbon dioxide molecule and the behavior of the interacting electron shells that control which photons will get absorbed and/or emitted. To assume that CO2 in the atmosphere can absorb any photon in the range emitted by a surface at 15C is misleading to say the least.
“The oceans are also enriched in 12C from paleobiological carbonate as well as recent human contributions.Warm the oceans by any means and you get disproportionate 12C”
Very helpful comment.
I’ve been looking for a simple way to show why the isotope ratio isn’t helpful in determining how much of the ‘new’ CO2 is due to humans.
Is the answer really that simple ?
Allan MacRae:
At August 30, 2012 at 9:34 pm you say
Well, I make no such “assumption”.
Indeed, my refusal to adopt that assumption is the reason for the disagreement between Ferdinand Engelbeen and myself which has been raging for over a decade. Ferdinand asserts his ‘side’ of the argument in this thread where he says at August 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm
But I say the AGW-hypothesis is based on three assumptions; viz.
1. The recent rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is mostly an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration that has an anthropogenic cause.
2. The anthropogenic cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is mostly or entirely accumulation in the atmosphere of CO2 emitted by combustion of fossil fuels.
3. Increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration causes significant rise in global temperature when atmospheric CO2 concentration is greater than 280ppmv.
If any one one of those assumptions were shown to be incorrect then the AGW-hypothesis would be shown to be incorrect. And there are reasons to doubt each of these assumptions.
Importantly, although ‘assumption 1’ may be correct, it is certain that ‘assumption 2’ is wrong.
This certainty has much evidence and one piece of this evidence is the lag of CO2 changes behind temperature changes. Another is that if simple accumulation were the cause of the CO2 rise then the rise should directly relate to the anthropogenic emissions. But there is no such direct relationship: in some years almost all the emissions seem to be sequestered from the air, and in other years almost all the emissions stay in the air.
And although ‘assumption 2’ is wrong it is possible that the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion may be the major cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. This is because the recent rise in the CO2 is probably a result of the climate system moving towards an altered equilibrium state, and the anthropogenic emissions may be significantly altering the equilibrium state.
Each of the assumptions 1 to 3 deserves scientific investigation.
Richard
“If the outgoing LW energy from the earth (including it’s atmosphere) is emitted from a higher, colder layer then, according to the S-B law, the energy emitted is reduced”
What if the effective radiating height is NOT colder, just higher ?
If the atmosphere holds more energy for whatever reason then it will expand and the height at which any given temperature occurs will rise.
However, the adiabatic lapse rate stays the same because there has been no change in atmospheric mass or insolation.
So why is it suggested that the effective radiating height will be any colder ?
It might be from a height that was colder before the atmospheric expansion but that height would have become warmer, surely ?
The net outturn would be that the increased heights arising from the expanded atmosphere would leave the surface temperature just the same and the adiabatic lapse rate just the same but the atmospheric heights a little further up and energy out would still equal energy in.
So the change in height compensates for the increase in energy in the air with no change in surface temperature required.
Unless I’ve missed something obvious.
Several have linked to the 13C/12C ratio articles of Roy Spencer, but forget to look at the discussion there. My reaction at that time starts here.
The change in 13C/12C ratio is not proof that human CO2 is the cause of the CO2 increase, but it adds to the evidence. More important, it excludes the oceans as main source. That is where Dr. Spencer and others are wrong. The 13C/12C ratio of the (surface and deep) oceans is higher than of the atmosphere, thus any substantial contribution of the oceans would increase the atmospheric d13C/12C ratio, but we see a continuous and accellerating decline, completely in ratio with the human emissions.
As the other probable source of low d13C, vegetation decay is surpassed by additional vegetation growth, the biosphere as a whole is a net sink for CO2 and preferably 12CO2, thus leaving more 13CO2 in the atmosphere, thus not the cause of the d13C decline either.
Most of all other inorganic CO2 sources like volcanic releases, carbon rock weathering, etc. are higher in d13C than the atmosphere, thus not the source of the d13C decline.
That leaves only human emissions as the only source of the decline.
As Richard Courtney said, the decrease of d13C in the atmosphere is only 1/3rd of what may be expected from the releases from fossil fuel burning. That is true, but one may not forget that the current atmospheric composition in part sinks near the poles, but what is upwelling has about the composition of the sinks many centuries ago, thus at a higher d13C level. It is possible to estimate the deep ocean exchanges, based on this d13C “thinning”:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
“Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm
“Prior research has shown infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is incapable of warming the oceans, only shortwave radiation from the Sun is capable of penetrating and heating the oceans and thereby driving global surface temperatures.”
follow the cite and you end up with a blog post by a lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics. The issue is not whether or not IR warms the oceans. The mechanism is quite simple: GHGs raise the temperature of the earth by raising the ERL. When the ERL is raised the earth radiates from a higher colder zone. That means it cools less rapidly”
Nonsense, Steven. “Back” scattered IR radiation cannot heat the earths surface or atmosphere. The radiation is a consequence of that temperature, not the cause. Heat only flows from warm to cold, NEVER the other way round. Clearly Steven Mosher knows nothing about radiation physics!
Listen to Jo Posthma, he knows his stuff!
regards
John
icarus62 says:
August 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Smokey: You’re aware that most of the warming from glacial maximum to interglacial occurs *after* atmospheric CO2 has started to rise, yes?
Yes, and?
You’re aware that co2 levels continue to fall for 800-2800 years after the temperature starts to rise at the end of a glacial period, yes?
Therefore the natural cyclic driver of temperature (change in insolation due to cyclic change in orbital parameters) is easily overcoming the alleged negative forcing of the drop in co2 and is therefore stronger, yes?
And this despite the fact that due to the approx logarithmic nature of the alleged temperature response to co2, yes?
How then is co2 going to suddenly, magically, cause the majority of the warming from glacial to interglacial temperatures when it eventually and laggardly starts to increase?
Especially considering that we know that its alleged effect on temperature would decrease logarithmically with increased concentration.
And especially considering that natural cyclic forcings then make the temperature fall into a new glacial despite the fact co2 continues to increase for another 800-2800 years.
So natural forcings stronger than the alleged co2 effect end a glacial, and natural forcing stronger than the alleged co2 effect begin the following glacials. But you would have us believe that natural forcing goes all weak at the knees in between those events and co2 becomes the stronger driver?
Even though the lags of co2 behind temperature are around equal at both the beginning and end of glacial periods, when due to the logarithmic response of the alleged co2-T relationship, there should be a big difference in the length of the lags, yes?
Your story doesn’t stack up icarus.
Bart says:
August 30, 2012 at 6:17 pm
“The 13C/12C ratio of the deep oceans …”
Already refuted upthread here and here.
Not refuted at all, see my previous comments…
“…the oceans are a net sink for CO2…”
Inferred based on assumed carbon cycle. Circular reasoning.
Sorry, measured in millions of samples taken by ships surveys over decades:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/mean.shtml
“The yellow-red colors indicate a region characterized by a net release of CO2 to the atmosphere, and the blue-purple colors indicate a region with a net uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere. This map yields an annual oceanic uptake flux for CO2 of 2.2 ± 0.4 GtC/yr.”
“…the deep ocean sinks near the poles must absorb the 25% human emissions plus all of the deep ocean upwelling CO2…”
…for your narrative to work. This, again, is circular reasoning.
No, that is a simple mass balance: what is released into the atmosphere must be absorbed somewhere or should show up in the atmosphere, no matter if that is by humans or by nature. As only 50% of the human emissions as mass show up in the atmosphere, the other halve plus all natural releases (again as mass) must be absorbed by natural sinks. The sinks in the biosphere and the ocean surface are known as measured/calculated, thus the difference must be going into the deep oceans, as all other possible sinks are either too small or too slow.
Your hypothesis, however, requires something which is prohibited by the fact that temperature leads CO2 by a substantial amount (90 degrees of phase), and effect cannot precede cause.
As far as I know, I always insisted that dCO2 lags dT, which is what the current article shows: a lag of about 9 months between temperature changes and CO2 rate of change changes. That indeed is a phase change and is exactly what I expected, if dCO2 reacts on dT and not T. Your approach doesn’t show a lag, thus your approach is wrong, besides that it violates a lot of observations…
Ian W says:
August 30, 2012 at 6:39 pm
John Finn says:
August 30, 2012 at 5:27 pm
If the outgoing LW energy from the earth (including it’s atmosphere) is emitted from a higher….
But the emissions due to latent heat of fusion and condensation are NOT governed by S-B law so that radiation is NOT reduced. Not only that but the radiation is often above or close to the ERL (which is not a hard limit) especially where there is most convection in the Hadley cells of the tropics.
But latent heat and condensation don’t remove energy from the “climate system” (i.e. the earth’s surface AND it’s atmosphere). They do move energy to higher altitudes where it can be more effectively radiated away but it is only by radiation that the “climate system” loses energy.
It is the incoming/outgoing radiation budget that is key. The earth (including it’s atmosphere) receives ~235 w/m2 (after albedo reflection). It must therefore radiate ~235 w/m2 to retain a relatively stable temperature. This outgoing radiation is emitted directly to space from all layers of the atmosphere including ~40 w/m2 which is emitted directly from the earth’s surface via the ‘IR window’. A significant proportion is emitted directly to space from CO2 molecules in the higher, colder, drier regions of the troposhere. As far as the earth’s radiation budget is concerned it’s largely irrelevant how heat energy reached the uppermost CO2 molecules. Some may have gone through multiple absorptions and emissions, some via convectoion etc. The point is radiation is the ultimate ‘cooling’ mechanism.
Allan MacRae says:
August 30, 2012 at 9:34 pm
This post and paper are timely – I am reposting the following entry from a few days ago.
I personally discovered the relationship between dCO2/dt and temperature in late 2007 and published the paper below on icecap.us in January 2008.
Could you not give us a single rough figure for the relationship. Because …..
What I think what you may have ‘discovered ‘ is that atmospheric CO2 increases more in ‘warm’ SST years than it does in ‘cold’ SST years. However, the key point to note here is that it never goes down – not even in ‘cold’ SST years. That’s because, even though the oceans absorb more and emit less during cold years, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning exceed the net natural exchange.
Even if there were no fossil fuel burning atmospheric CO2 levels would still fluctuate by up to about +/- 2ppm per year, but the fluctuation would be about some equilibrium level of, say, 300 ppm. In an El Nino year (warm) CO2 levels might be 302 ppm while in a La Nina year they might be 298 ppm. CO2 levels over the past 50 years or so have underlying upward trend which cannot be explained by temperature.
For example
dCO2 (since 1982) = 50 ppm
dCO2 (since 1998) = 25 ppm
Now tell us what the temperature changes are that have ’caused’ these increases.
Ferdinand:
Thankyou for your mention at August 31, 2012 at 1:14 am of a point I made earlier in this thread.
As many know, you and I have been having a mutually respectful but strong and heated debate of these issues for a long, long time. Indeed, parts of those exchanges have been on WUWT. People wanting to see them can search the Salby threads on WUWT. So, I think it would be a distraction for me to engage in a reprise of those arguments in this thread.
I think I stated the basic disagreement between us in my post at August 31, 2012 at 1:01 am, and people can assess our arguments for themselves. If the research I want is conducted then one day there will be additional data so the future will reveal to what degrees each of us is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
However, if you insist on repeating our arguments here then my responses will be to copy from posts I made on earlier WUWT threads. I would prefer that those who want to compare those arguments refer to the earlier threads so this thread is not disrupted.
Richard
Ferdinand:
In retrospect, I think my reply to you could be misinterpreted as being a ‘fob off’. So, although I intend to not repeat our disagreements here, I write to demonstrate good faith by making a specific response to your statement which mentioned me. You said;
Your assertion that “It is possible to estimate the deep ocean exchanges” is correct. However, I was refuting the claim that the atmospheric carbon isotope changes “prove” the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic.
The fact that one can adopt assumptions which enable the data to ‘fit’ an anthropogenic cause does not alter the fact that the isotope changes do NOT prove the anthropogenic cause. Indeed, a factor of 3 difference between the assumed cause and the expected isotope change is a big difference.
Your estimate merely shows that the isotope changes do not provide a definitive proof that the atmospheric CO2 rise is not anthropogenic.
Having said that, I again say that I think a repeat of our arguments would be a distraction to this thread.
Richard
This statement appears to be of importance on a lay man common sense level…
“The overall global temperature change sequence of events appears to be from 1) the ocean surface to 2) the land surface to 3) the lower troposphere.”
So, arguments against the greenhouse effect aside, let’s assume that water vapor and other gasses do raise the ERL and following the moist adiabatic lapse rate down from a higher ERL we get more DWLWIR to the ocean surface (which from the statement above is the catalyst for surface temperatures over land). Let’s also assume that this increase in DWLWIR is absorbed in the surface of the ocean (50 microns?) and reduces the cooling rate of the ocean surface.
We know that the oceans are warming.
So, in this scenario we have CO2 causing a slight warming of the very top surface of the ocean. BUT we also have a downward trend in lower level cloudiness which is certain to allow more SWR into the ocean and thus heat the ocean.
A few questions:
1) For those that believe that CO2 is the cause of the warming ocean, what is the mechanics to get the small amount of heat from the surface to build up in the vast ocean to cause the current warming trend?
2) Are the clouds driving the ocean temperature or are they a feedback, if a feedback what is causing the downward trend in cloudiness?
3) Can anybody quantify how much of the ocean warming trend is caused by these two factors?
I know I have made several assumptions but I don’t believe that I have gone outside of any known published studies.
PS…Be nice!
John of Kent says:
Nonsense, Steven. “Back” scattered IR radiation cannot heat the earths surface or atmosphere. The radiation is a consequence of that temperature, not the cause. Heat only flows from warm to cold, NEVER the other way round. Clearly Steven Mosher knows nothing about radiation physics!
Listen to Jo Posthma, he knows his stuff!
Sorry, john mate, Steve’s right and Jo (whoever he is) is wrong. Initially many of us intuitively thought like Jo but after a few minutes of thinking things through we began to understand the basics.
Firstly the atmosphere does not heat the earth – The sun does. However the atmosphere can slow down the rate of cooling. Basic thermodynamics tells us that if the Outgoing LW energy is less than the Incoming solar energy then the earth will warm.
Steve’s right – if the height of the ERL is raised then the rate of outgoing IR will drop and since incoming solar energy should remain fairly constant, this will create an imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy and thus result in warming. To try to put it in simple terms (and probably failing): As CO2 molecules accumulate in the atmosphere, the average height at which IR emission to space occurs will increase. This means energy will be emitted from a higher (i.e COLDER) level. We know from S-B Law that this will result in a reduction in energy emission.
Konrad says:
August 30, 2012 at 9:19 pm
.
The first problem with the ERL hand waving is that CO2 at altitude is not just radiating at the local air temperature. It is also being illuminated by IR from the increased CO2 below. The second problem is that CO2 is heavier than air and the “well mixed” argument does not hold at the altitudes in question.
Regarding the “second problem” in particular. Could you explain the key features of the following emissions spectrum graph
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page19.htm
I’m particularly interested in the funnel centred around the wavenumber 600cm-1 to 700 cm-1 (or about 15 micron).
You might also care to comment on this post by Steve McIntyre (a noted sceptic) who, while referring to an emissions spectrum graph states the following:
Re my post
John Finn says:
August 31, 2012 at 3:27 am
The link to the Steve McIntyre quote is at
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/08/sir-john-houghton-on-the-enhanced-greenhouse-effect/
richardscourtney says: August 31, 2012 at 1:01 am
Well, I make no such “assumption”…
…
But I say the AGW-hypothesis is based on three assumptions; viz.
1. The recent rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is mostly an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration that has an anthropogenic cause.
2. The anthropogenic cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is mostly or entirely accumulation in the atmosphere of CO2 emitted by combustion of fossil fuels.
3. Increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration causes significant rise in global temperature when atmospheric CO2 concentration is greater than 280ppmv.
[end of excerpt]
Understood and agreed Richard – well said.
I am saying that the only point of disagreement between warming alarmists and most climate skeptics (in what I term the “mainstream” climate debate”) is your Assumption 3 above, which is essentially an argument about climate sensitivity to CO2, positive versus negative feedbacks, and whether the alleged humanmade increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause major or minor warming.
In this Assumption 3, I have strongly sided with the climate skeptics – I think climate sensitivity to CO2, if it exists at all, is so small as to be practically insignificant.
However, as you rightly point out, your Assumptions 1 AND 2 must also be true for the AGW hypothesis to be correct, and there are significant questions about the validity of both these assumptions.
This puts both of us outside the scope of the “mainstream climate debate” as I have defined above – but in scientific matters I’d rather be correct than popular. 🙂
P.S.
I want to acknowledge that, to my recollection, it was you Richard who pointed out to me (probably in 2008) the papers by Kuo et al (1990) and Keeling et al (1995) – thank you.
Also, thank you for so clearly stating your three assumptions, which are generally ignored in the mainstream climate debate and yet are the very foundations on which the shaky AGW hypothesis is built.
Although I do not agree with his “mass balance” and C13/C12 arguments, I want to acknowledge Ferdinand Engelbeen’s always interesting posts. Somewhere in our dialogue lies the truth, and this respectful and healthy debate is both interesting and constructive.
Finally, I recently misquoted the source of Veizer (2005) – it is not GSA Today, but Geoscience Canada Volume 32 Number 1.
ERL? you’ve got me there.
If a gas gets heated at height in the atmosphere then that heat will radiate to space earlier than from the surface thus reducing the radiation getting to the surface. Any gas molecule that is heated will reradiate energy at a lower level than that received so lowering the energy levels reaching the surface.
richardscourtney says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:01 am
Importantly, although ‘assumption 1′ may be correct, it is certain that ‘assumption 2′ is wrong.
and
But there is no such direct relationship: in some years almost all the emissions seem to be sequestered from the air, and in other years almost all the emissions stay in the air.
There is not the slightest reason that the year by year variability in CO2 increase rate should correlate with the emissions rate. By the same reasoning, there is no decrease or increase of sealevels, as the tides over a day and months are several orders of magnitude larger than the small changes in average sealevel. It takes 25 years to filter any change in sealevel out of the noise. Similarly, it takes only 2-3 years to filter out the influence of the human emissions out of the noise caused by temperature changes. The correlation between the accumulated emissions and the trend in the atmosphere is obvious:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1900_2004.jpg
while the temperature-CO2 trend is less obvious:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1900_2004.jpg
We are talking of a multivariate system, where the two variables: emissions and temperature both influence the year by year increase and the trend. The year by year variability is largely caused by the temperature changes, but the trend is largely caused by the emissions…
richardscourtney says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:31 am
Sorry, my previous response was before I did see your comment, indeed we have been there a number of years, thus everybody can look at the arguments used in previous discussions
Icarus62 specifically but generally speaking clearly there is a desperate need for more jobs in the economy otherwise there is a great risk that all this hot air will do more heat the planet more than co2 ever could. This nonsense proves only one thing that there isn’t a single solitary soul on the planet that has any idea exactly what is happening and why but there are a lot of smart guys and governments that are using the climate anxiety and debate to empty all of our pockets of as much cash as possible. There is nothing worse than a back room lawyer or a pseudo scientist or indeed a scientist so loaded up with guff and learnt by wrote gibberish who then strives to empower themselves with a knowitall pontificating attitude. As John Christy said to Senator Boxer in a recent hearing ‘we really don’t know, its a wicked problem,. For goodness sake find something positive to do with your lives instead of wittering on about what causes what and why because little will change until someone manages to persuade politicians that ripping us of on the basis of co2 is just one big scam. That is the issue and nothing else matters at all. I am only taking interest today because I am waiting for the morphine to kick in to control arthritus pain in my neck but frankly reading your pretentious bullcrap is more painful than my neck. In intellect terms there is in reality little between you and George Monbiot, its all gibberish!
Ferdinand:
re: your posts to me at August 31, 2012 at 4:06 am and August 31, 2012 at 4:15 am. No problem and no misunderstanding from me. As Alan MacRae says;
“Somewhere in our dialogue lies the truth, and this respectful and healthy debate is both interesting and constructive.”
I only wish everybody who disagrees about these things as strongly as you and me would also post their views without rancor and as forcefully as we do.
Richard
Steve Mosher is absolutely correct. The only significant energy input into the oceans is short wave solar energy. However, the rate that energy leaves the ocean is partially determined by long wave radiation directly to space (in the absorption window), and by the radiation heat transfer by absorption and re-radiation. Conduction to and convection by air, and evaporation and condensation at altitude also carry some of the energy from the oceans to higher altitudes. There is no heating by back-radiation, but the back radiation slows net radiation heat transfer up, and thus the accumulating solar radiation heats the water more. Eventually the convection and latent heat transfer make up the lost radiation heat transfer to restore equilibrium. The mechanism is through the raising of the altitude of radiation to space, which is initially cooler due to the lapse rate, but eventually the temperature increase is felt all the way through the atmosphere, which warms to restore the balance.
Leonard,
Sounds plausible, but can you quantify the amount of warming (heat buildup) in the ocean to a certain amount of CO2? How much ocean heating is due to clouds which have a direct effect on SWR reaching the ocean?
The PPM of CO2 in our atmosphere will never amount to a hill of beans as far as it effects temperature, totally irrelevant. Man made global warming seems to be artifact of thermometers in inappropriate places rather than a few misplaced photons smooging up to CO2 molecules and warming the cockles of their heart..
Mosher has been saying a lot about the magical qualities of photons and their strange affinity for CO2 molecules, firstly Mosher I have yet to find a physical proof of a photon, talk of a photon hitting your eye and that enables you to see falls in the face that it is actually an electron that hits your eye and lets you see. That would make the photon an electron, thus an electron at a lower level of energy than the electrons in the CO2 molecule would have a snowballs chance in hell of entering the CO2 molecule and heating it. Sadly heat flows one way, I could make a lot of money using my freezer as a welder if it did not.
That the world has been impoverished for CO2 and the flora on a starvation diet seems not to bother those of a green or warmist bent, that N.A.S.A have revealed the wonderful increase of biomass on the world in recent times is a success of a few extra parts per million of CO2.
This year I shall endeavour to give to our planet all the CO2 I can afford.
” but the back radiation slows net radiation heat transfer up, and thus the accumulating solar radiation heats the water more.”
I don’t think that is so, having spent a lot of time trying to unravel that very issue. see here:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/TheSettingAndMaintainingOfEarth.pdf
Mosher says
” follow the cite and you end up with a blog post by a lawyer who has nothing of scientific interest to say about radiation physics.”
Yeah, as opposed to an English Major who has no formal qualifications in physics or science who thinks that applying dubious statistics to a pile of crap data and averaging it would make it gold standard, isn’t it? And yeah, the same english major whose collaborative work with BEST was done on the basis of science by press release but ended up in the crappy paper getting rejected, isn’t it?
Pot, meet kettle.
“davidmhoffer
Two photons get absorbed at 2.5 meters, and again at 7.5 meters, and then go straight through.
Average emission height = 4 meters”
I understood what you were saying. What I’m saying at 2.5 meters there should be a “hot spot” if the back traveling LWR proton from 7.5 meter CO2 molecule is doing or causing any “extra work” that can be measured in the 2.5 meter CO2 molecule.
Let me put this another way: You go to your favorite Steak House, the chef sets your steak under a infra red “heat lamp” which is 18 inches above the counter. We know the steak will not stay as hot as it was on the grill. We know that the “heat lamp” will kept the steak from cooling down faster than not having a “heat lamp”. At some point in time, the steak will reach an equilibrium “temperature” regardless of any LWR being radiating out of the steak. We place a second steak 60 inches away from same “heat lamp”, the second steak will cool down faster than the first steak. It too will reach an equilibrium but be cooler than the first steak regardless of any LWR being radiating from the steaks. The question is: Does the LWR from the second steak cause any measurable “work” in the first steak.? If you add 9 more steaks at 60 inches, will that increase the LWR “work” in the first steak. Maybe somebody really good in math could say what that “increase” in “work” should be, but can that “work” be isolated and be measured? I don’t care how fast LWR is reaching the kitchen walls.
So, Average emission height is meaningless.
Stephen,
Your article says that any increase in IR on the ocean’s surface would result in more evaporation, negating heating of the surface. In this article they measure ocean skin temps during cloudy conditions with an increase in skin temperature and DWIR during cloudy conditions.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
Do you think that the experiment in the RC article was accurate? Could it be possible that because of a decrease in SWR during cloudy conditions that evaporation slowed and caused the ocean surface to warm?
Thanks, Eric
Eric H
I don’t think the RC article is accurate for the reasons stated.
Clouds do reduce evaporation by increasing humidity beneath them. I think that is the main reason that the water surface temperature rises and not any increase in downward IR (and also reduce SWR into the oceans) but in global terms that just introduces a greater temperature and humidity differential between cloudy and clear areas which gets offset by an increase in horizontal windflow so zero net effect globally.
Note that SWR doesn’t cause immediate evaporation because it penetrates past the evaporative layer. It only affects evaporation when the energy from the SWR rises back to the surface again.
The important thing is that the oceans can only hold so much energy as is necessary to release energy to the air as fast as it gets in from SWR. That requires a specific oceanic energy content beyond which the oceans will release any extra energy by way of evaporation.That quantity of energy is set by pressure at the surface plus insolation as per my article.
However, internal ocean movements do change the rate of energy release over time so the system cycles around the equilibrium set by atmospheric pressure and insolation.
John Finn;
means energy will be emitted from a higher (i.e COLDER) level. We know from S-B Law that this will result in a reduction in energy emission.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No. At any given level at which photons that otherwise would have passed straight through are instead intercepted and absorbed, the temperature at that level is elevated. When it cools, it therefor cools from a higher temperature than it otherwise would have been at.
Stephen,
Thanks for the reply, I will continue to ponder and learn.
old construction worker;
I understood what you were saying. What I’m saying at 2.5 meters there should be a “hot spot” if the back traveling LWR proton from 7.5 meter CO2 molecule is doing or causing any “extra work” that can be measured in the 2.5 meter CO2 molecule.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To which I agreed. In the absence of all other processes, that is roughly what we’d expect to see. But the real world isn’t absent those processes.
Konrad says:
August 30, 2012 at 9:19 pm:
“Greg, you are very persistent with your claims regarding the inability of LWIR emitted from a cooler object to slow the cooling of a warmer object. Sadly you are incorrect. I have conducted several empirical experiments into an issue discussed elsewhere on this thread concerning the ability of LWIR to slow the cooling rate of liquid water.
I have found that LWIR incident on the surface of a most warm materials CAN slow the cooling rate of those materials (even if emitted from a cooler matter).”
=================================================
Konrad, I have just written about distorting of my position by davidmhoffer and you immediately are doing the same thing (sad). Again, I do not claim “the inability of LWIR emitted from a cooler object to slow the cooling of a warmer object”. I do claim that apparently nobody has proven experimentally, that colder things can either warm warmer things or slow down cooling of the warmer things by means of infra-red radiation. Simply because no warmist I talked to on various blogs has been able to present a link to such a scientific experiment. I hope you can understand the difference.
Now, even if you honestly believe that you proved that experimentally you need to understand, that a pure claim “I did it” is not sufficient in a scientific debate. Just imagine another use would just claim he proved the opposite.
So you need first to publish an exact description of your experiment with all the data so that scientists could verify it. Then we can look at your conclusions and see whether they are supported by your data. And so on. Unfortunately, what we have now is only your claim and that, as I said, is not enough.
orld construction worker;
Maybe somebody really good in math could say what that “increase” in “work” should be, but can that “work” be isolated and be measured?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes it can. Stefan and Boltzmann derived the SB Law equation from doing exactly that.
FerdiEgb says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:36 am
“Not refuted at all, see my previous comments…”
You admittedly don’t even know why the ratio is what it is. You just make after-the-fact rationalizations. Semi-plausible rational explanation is not proof, Ferdinand. Contrary-wise, though mainstream scientists do not recognize it as such yet, this is proof that humans are not the main driver of atmospheric CO2 levels.
“Sorry, measured in millions of samples taken by ships surveys over decades…
Inconsistent with this, therefore the assumptions made to arrive at the numbers and their error bars are invalid. It is merely an estimate which has been made with an eye to confiriming what is already believed, a.k.a., confirmation bias.
“The sinks in the biosphere and the ocean surface are known as measured/calculated…”
The sinks are not know with any accuracy at all. We have argued this same issue on several WUWT threads which were specifically related to new discoveries about sinks and sources. New ones are discovered with regularity.
“As far as I know, I always insisted that dCO2 lags dT…”
Hardly. You have argued that they are coincident, and that short term variations in CO2 are due to temperature. They are not. Short term variations in the rate of change of CO2 are coincident with temperature. Integrating an affine function of temperature then produces a precise replication of the CO2. There are no arbitrary constants which can be adjusted in the relationship which allow significant human influence to be added in, because the integrated CO2 estimate so obtained necessarily diverges from from the true CO2 record.
John Finn says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:23 am
“Could you not give us a single rough figure for the relationship. Because …..”
Right here.
“Now tell us what the temperature changes are that have ’caused’ these increases.”
It is not just the temperature change between 1982 and 1998. It is the total absolute temperature offset between current conditions and equilibrium conditions. My hypothesis for how this comes about is explained here.
wayne Job says:
August 31, 2012 at 6:39 am
The PPM of CO2 in our atmosphere will never amount to a hill of beans as far as it effects temperature, totally irrelevant. Man made global warming seems to be artifact of thermometers in inappropriate places rather than a few misplaced photons smooging up to CO2 molecules and warming the cockles of their heart..
Nonsense, time to learn some physical chemistry!
Mosher has been saying a lot about the magical qualities of photons and their strange affinity for CO2 molecules, firstly Mosher I have yet to find a physical proof of a photon, talk of a photon hitting your eye and that enables you to see falls in the face that it is actually an electron that hits your eye and lets you see.
Time to read up on basic science, try the photoelectric effect for starters, that persuaded much more brilliant minds of the existence of photons. You’re wrong about the eye response too, a photon hits a receptor cell which then sends a synaptic response which in turn sends a signal to retinal ganglion cells this results in progressive amplification of action potential which is transmitted to the brain. Experiments have shown that the most sensitive cells (rods) are capable of detecting individual photons.
That would make the photon an electron, thus an electron at a lower level of energy than the electrons in the CO2 molecule would have a snowballs chance in hell of entering the CO2 molecule and heating it. Sadly heat flows one way, I could make a lot of money using my freezer as a welder if it did not.
Total nonsense.
R Taylor says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm
A lagging entity can have a significant effect on a leading entity only if it is empowered by voodoo, or perhaps “climate scientists” are suggesting that CO2 molecules travel at speeds faster than light.
Hardly, have you ever heard the squealing sound of ‘feedback’ in a PA system? The sound emitted by the speakers is picked up by the microphone and amplified and a louder sound emitted by the speakers which is then amplified and so on………
John Finn says: August 31, 2012 at 2:23 am
___________
Modern CO2 data collection at Mauna Loa started in ~1958.
Despite the huge quantities of manmade CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 did decrease year-over-year in some of the global cooling years from 1959-1974*.
Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in the past (calculating dCO2/dt from monthly data, by taking CO2MonthX (year n+1) minus CO2MonthX (year n) to minimize the seasonal CO2 “sawtooth”.)
These 12-month periods when CO2 decreased are (Year and Month ending in):
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:03 am
“The sound emitted by the speakers is picked up by the microphone and amplified and a louder sound emitted by the speakers which is then amplified and so on………”
Sorry, but you have not hereby discovered the long sought after verification of transluminal speeds. Unfortunately, we still cannot create a warp drive through microphone feedback. Cause and effect still only flow in one direction. It’s a bit ironic – you squashed one guy’s pseudo-science in the preceding comment, then went on to advance your own in this one.
Allan MacRae:
At August 31, 2012 at 9:28 am you refute a falsehood by citing real world empirical data.
sarc on
Don’t you know that in climastrology model output refutes empirical data?
/sarc off
Richard
In all the talk of colder objects heating warmer objects by radiant energy, I don’t see anyone addressing the real reason it is impossible. Firstly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics pertains to averages. On average, a colder object (I will assume here that both objects are blackbodies for simplicity) cannot heat a warmer object above its own temperature. Instantaneously, when the colder object emits a photon toward the warmer object, and the warmer object absorbs it, the warmer object’s temperature increases.
But, it then releases another photon back at the colder object which cools the warmer object and heats the colder object back up. If they were exchanging equal numbers of photons, their relative temperatures would remain the same on average. But, the warmer object is releasing more photons, so it will cool and the cooler object will heat up, until both are at the same temperature, exchanging equal numbers of photons.
That is what happens for a system of two objects in isolation. Do we have such a system here? No. We have three objects: the Earth, its atmosphere, and the Sun. The Sun, being much hotter than the Earth, absolutely can heat it. It heats it to the point where incoming radiation and outgoing radiation balance. The Sun is an active power source. If you could turn off its fusion generator, then the Sun and the Earth would exchange photons until both were at the same temperature (again, an idealization, because there are other bodies, as well as deep space, involved in reality).
The atmosphere impedes the solar radiation from leaving the Earth. Thus, it makes it hotter not by its own power, but by modulating the sunlight absorbed by the Earth. So, while it is true that the colder atmosphere cannot heat the Earth by itself, it can influence the Sun to heat the Earth more than it already is.
That scenario, in and of itself says that (and this really is “settled” science) all things being equal, the addition of a homogenous “greenhouse” gas to a planet heated by a nearby star will tend to increase the equilibrium temperature of the planet. But, all things are not equal, as the atmosphere of the Earth is not homogenous, and there are feedback responses from the Earth’s climate system which tend to mitigate the response. It is in those latter qualifications that the weaknesses of the AGW theory are to be found, not in the fundamental postulate of “greenhouse” warming.
“The Sun is an active power source. “
Having an active power source is what changes all the rules. Every day, millions of people use their microwave ovens to heat food. Once the food is heated, you can put your hand on the magnetron cover, and you will find it is quite cool. How did this cooler object heat the food? It did it by modulating the energy from the source electricity. It is that energy which heated the food, not passive radiation from the magnetron assembly itself.
@John Finn,
What role does convection play? You have not mentioned that important form of heat transfer which dominates at the surface through the troposphere. Convection removes excess heat from the surface, not radiation.
Of course radiation ultimately cools the planet by releasing it to space, but I fail to see how it is any more important than convection when discussing the movement of heat from the surface to above the troposphere. It seems convection spoils the party of the greenhouse effect.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/self-regulation-of-the-climate-system-by-deep-cumulus-convection/
talk of a photon hitting your eye and that enables you to see falls in the face that it is actually an electron that hits your eye and lets you see.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh. My. God.
Does cold ocean water hold more CO2 than warm?
“davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 8:39 am
orld construction worker;
Maybe somebody really good in math could say what that “increase” in “work” should be, but can that “work” be isolated and be measured?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes it can. Stefan and Boltzmann derived the SB Law equation from doing exactly that.”
Under “Steak House” Condition”?
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:29 am
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:03 am
“The sound emitted by the speakers is picked up by the microphone and amplified and a louder sound emitted by the speakers which is then amplified and so on………”
Sorry, but you have not hereby discovered the long sought after verification of transluminal speeds. Unfortunately, we still cannot create a warp drive through microphone feedback. Cause and effect still only flow in one direction. It’s a bit ironic – you squashed one guy’s pseudo-science in the preceding comment, then went on to advance your own in this one.
Really? So you believe that positive feedback can not occur?
Eric H. 6:38 am,
The amount of increased heating in the oceans depends on several factors besides CO2 increase. Feed-backs such as cloud changes also affect the final trend. I think feed-backs such as cloud changes tend to reduce the CO2 alone effect, but this is actually the big issue in the AGW debate. However, this issue is not resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. If CO2 were the only factor, there would be an increase in ocean temperature until the radiation balance was restored at a slightly higher temperature than before the CO2 increased. The number generally accepted is about 1 to 1.2 C increase per doubling of CO2 (but in fact it may be somewhat smaller, based on some models). However, this would be a very near surface increase, along with surface atmosphere increase, and would be much smaller with increasing depth in the oceans.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 8:57 am
As said many times, the correlation between temperature changes and rate of change changes is impressive, but that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the trend. Even if you detrend the temperature, the correlation remains the same. Thus the trend itself can be mostly from the (small) temperature trend, as you think, or it can be from the human emissions, as I think.
You have a theory, which essentially says that the human emissions are rapidely absorbed, while natural emissions are the cause of the trend. Any theory must be conform all known observations. If a theory violates even only one observation, the theory is rejected. Now, your theory violates several observations, but you refuse to acknowledge that. Your defense now is that the observations are wrong, because you are sure that your theory is right based on one graph, which is in part right (the variability part), but completely bogus for another part (the trend part), as the latter is based on an arbitrary bias and factor, simply said, curve fitting.
Hardly. You have argued that they are coincident, and that short term variations in CO2 are due to temperature. They are not. Short term variations in the rate of change of CO2 are coincident with temperature.
Bart, I always said that the CO2 change is temperature change dependent, on all time scales, from seasonal to multi-millenial. On very short term, leading to about 4 ppmv/°C change, on very long term to about 8 ppmv/°C. There are no natural processes which produces 70 ppmv in 50 years time, with only an offset of a few tenths of a degree C.
There are no arbitrary constants which can be adjusted in the relationship which allow significant human influence to be added in, because the integrated CO2 estimate so obtained necessarily diverges from from the true CO2 record.
Human emissions don’t disappear in space, thus must be absorbed somewhere. That implies that any natural + halve of the human emissions must be absorbed somewhere and that the natural sinks, wherever they are, must be larger than the natural emissions. Thus temperature variations have an influence on the sink rate, not the source rate…
It is the total absolute temperature offset between current conditions and equilibrium conditions.
Your theory is that the current increase is caused by the return of deep ocean waters which were enriched in CO2 during colder times in the past. It is entirely possible that the current upwelling is enriched in CO2, but the influence of e.g. a 1°C cooling during the LIA enriches the downwelling waters with not more than 16 microatm. When that is upwelling, that increases the CO2 pressure of the (local) surface waters with not more than 16 microatm again. If the atmosphere increases with ~8 ppmv, that brings everything back into equilibrium: the outgassing in the equator decreases and the absorption near the poles increases, the net result being that source and sink fluxes are the same as before the extra CO2 upwelling.
Thus the current 70 ppmv increase since 1960 is only possibly from the far past, if the levels were about 140 ppmv higher or the earth’s average temperature was ~9°C colder…
The correlation between global temperatures (anomalies) and changes (accumulations) in atmospheric CO2 is very remarkable. Many forget, it’s not changes in global temperatures (warming or cooling) but temperature levels that cause changes in CO2. There is also a global temperature level (or whatever we’re measuring with the global temperature indices) at which d(CO2)/dt = 0. Lower than this, the change gets negative (decline in atmospheric CO2).
It’s like a pump, when it’s warm, it pumps the CO2 out of the oceans (and other reservoirs) and when’t it’s cold, vice versa.
Jeff Koenig says:
August 31, 2012 at 10:26 am
“Does cold ocean water hold more CO2 than warm?”
Quite substantially. That is why soda in an open can goes flat rapidly if you leave it in the open, but can keep for days if you put it in the refrigerator.
GHE, is of course far from sure. The heat transfer problem at the surface and at TOA is not solved. On the face of it, CO2 cooling effect is more likely. Non-radiative fluxes dominate at the surface and at TOA there’s only radiation. CO2 emits, but the cooling effect is probably not significant. The bulk of the atmosphere (N2 and O2) insulates, the radiatively active gases cool the atmosphere by radiating to space. Then there’s clouds…
Stephen Wilde, August 31, 2012 at 6:49 am
Stephen, you make claims that have no basis in radiation heat transfer. I would be glad to discuss the issue with you. The simple fact is that the only source of energy absorbed by the oceans is short wavelength sunlight (neglecting volcanoes and internal Earth heating), and the temperature it goes to is based only on the ease in which that energy is removed. The ways it is removed are NET long wave radiation from the surface, evaporation from the surface, and conduction followed by convection to the atmosphere. An instant changer in CO2 would only affect NET radiation out, so the water would warm a small amount to increase all methods of energy removal until a new equilibrium level is reached. Notice the use of the word NET with radiation. Back radiation reduces NET radiation, but never directly heats the water. It only slows loss of energy.
Well I have a problem with their well mixed global CO2 plot; a more noise free signal one could not hope to find in ‘climate’ data. That p-p annual signal looks to be less than 5 ppm, and it is known that the ML signal is about 6 ppm. So everything south of Hawaii, is going to have less than 6 ppm p-p, but in the arctic, north of around +60 degrees Lat, the CO2 p-p signal is more like 18-20 ppm.
So I don’t find their CO2 graph to be representative in any way. But it does show that 5 ppm down step happening in five months, or about 1 ppm per month, ort more than 3 ppm per month in the arctic.
So the present 120 ppm excess CO2 could be gone in three or four years at that rate. So much for 200 year residence times for CO2.
Allan MacRae says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:28 am
Despite the huge quantities of manmade CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 did decrease year-over-year in some of the global cooling years from 1959-1974*.
The overall CO2 releases in the period 1959-current increased from about 2.5 GtC/year to 8 GtC/year. The natural variability didn’t change much in amplitude over time and is about +/- 2 GtC/year around the trend, which increased from ~1.3 GtC in 1960 to ~4 GtC nowadays. Thus it is entirely possible to find some 12-month periods in the early period where there was a net sink of CO2, not an increase, as good as periods where almost all of the emissions remain in the atmosphere (as mass). But the emissions inventory is only known for full calendar years, which all show a net increase over the past 50+ years…
In the first decades since the start of the industrial revolution, the natural variability certainly was larger than the influence of the emissions, since about 1900, the average increase over a decade is already above the natural noise and since 1960 even 2-3 years are sufficient.
Bart says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Kasuha says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:19 pm
…the temperature was not that dramatically lower than today and the CO2 concentrations were not so steadily (and definitely not at such rate) growing throughout the holocene…”
It’s a puzzle. Consider this simple thought experiment.
Suppose that temperatures were dramatically lower during the Little Ice Age, so that ocean waters downwelling to the depths at the time contained significantly more CO2 than today’s surface waters do.
Suppose those waters started rising to the surface again around the turn of the 20th century. As the waters heat to surface levels, they release that stored CO2. Since the waters currently downwelling are relatively CO2 depleted, it starts to accumulate at the surface and outgas to the atmosphere, in proportion to the difference between surface temperatures now versus surface temperatures then.
You would do well to study Henry’s Law (c=k*p).
The CO2 dissolved in the surface waters during the LIA which were at a lower temperature but also the partial pressure of CO2 during the LIA was about 60% of today’s. According to Henry’s Law the amount of CO2 is linearly dependent on pCO2 whereas the dependence on temperature is non-linear (van’t Hoff equation: k(T)=k(To)*exp(C(1/T-1/To). Equilibrium pCO2 doubles for a 16K increase in seawater temperature so your thought experiment fails because the upwelling seawater from the LIA still is undersaturated because the atmosphere it encounters on return to the surface is now higher. So not only did you fail to consider the dependence on pCO2 but you assumed a linear dependence on temperature which is incorrect.
Jeff Koenig says:
August 31, 2012 at 10:26 am
Does cold ocean water hold more CO2 than warm?
See the solubility graph here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/20/basic-geology-part-2-co2-in-the-atmosphere-and-ocean/
The graph is for fresh water, which can hold far less CO2 than seawater, because the latter has a higher pH and contains buffer salts (carbonates, boron). In general, the equilibrium between seawater and the atmosphere changes with about 16 ppmv in the atmosphere for a change of 1°C in seawater.
FerdiEgb says:
August 31, 2012 at 10:55 am
“Even if you detrend the temperature, the correlation remains the same.”
Nature has no ability to “detrend” the temperature. It must act on it as a whole.
“Any theory must be conform all known observations.”
To the degree that the observations are rock solid. It does not have to conform to observations which are themselves very dicey.
“…which is in part right (the variability part), but completely bogus for another part (the trend part), as the latter is based on an arbitrary bias and factor, simply said, curve fitting.”
It cannot be right in part for one and not for the other, as the same scale factor matches both perfectly. There is no reason to dismiss the need for a bias and scale factor. The bias of the temperature anomaly itself is arbitrary, based on an agreed-upon baseline. And, of course there is a coupling constant between temperature and CO2 – at the very least, you have to match up units.
The trend in dCO2/dt is not an artifact of the bias and scale factor. It exists quite independently. Likewise, the trend in temperature. When you scale and offset the temperature anomaly to match the CO2 rate of change, and integrate that, the trend integrates into a quadratic, i.e., induces curvature. That curvature is precisely what is needed to match the two series, CO2 and the integrated scaled temperature anomaly. If you add human inputs into that integration, you will change the curvature, to the point that the output no longer matches it. Thus, this is a quantity which is not added arbitrarily in, but results from the need for the scale factor to match the variations, and when you do that, there is no more room to put in a significant contribution from human inputs.
“There are no natural processes which produces 70 ppmv in 50 years time, with only an offset of a few tenths of a degree C.”
My hypothesis explains this. It isn’t just the few tenths of a degree in 50 years time, it is degrees of change in the centuries of time since ocean water downwelled at lower temperatures than today when it is upwelling again.
“That implies that any natural + halve of the human emissions must be absorbed somewhere and that the natural sinks, wherever they are, must be larger than the natural emissions.”
Or, it implies natural minus a little + all of the human emissions are absorbed somewhere. This is a semantical game you are playing. Carbon is carbon. It gets sequestered no matter its source.
“When that is upwelling, that increases the CO2 pressure of the (local) surface waters with not more than 16 microatm again.”
It will not be in equilibrium until equivalent global climate conditions which prevailed at the time it downwelled prevail again. Until then, it will keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere continuously.
“””””…..Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:13 am
GHE, is of course far from sure. The heat transfer problem at the surface and at TOA is not solved. On the face of it, CO2 cooling effect is more likely. Non-radiative fluxes dominate at the surface and at TOA there’s only radiation. CO2 emits, but the cooling effect is probably not significant. The bulk of the atmosphere (N2 and O2) insulates, the radiatively active gases cool the atmosphere by radiating to space. Then there’s clouds…..”””””
Why do you say at TOA, there’s only CO2 radiation; what about ALL of the roughly BB radiation from the surface, that is completely outside the CO2 bands (and other GHGs) that also goes out the TOA.
So N2 and O2 “insulate”, what does THAT mean ? We are told they don’t ABSORB or EMIT Infra-red. So they don’t absorb ir, but they insulate, so that just about limits it to “reflects”.
Actually they radiate IR just fine, but not in specific frequency molecular resonance spectra; just continuum thermal spectra due to their (collision) Temperature. CO2 spectra on the other hand, are not Temperature dependent (first order), but depend on molecular structure. Since gas molecular densities are much lower than liquid and solids, their absorption coefficients are much lower and so is their emissivity. But I suspect if you calculate the emissivity per molecule, you would find not much difference with phase; perhaps a collision frequency effect.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:13 am
“The bulk of the atmosphere (N2 and O2) insulates, the radiatively active gases cool the atmosphere by radiating to space.”
Don’t forget that CH4 is also a significant GHG, which radiates at much higher energy levels than CO2. I believe that it is quite possible that, by radiating away additional energy at lower levels, added CO2 can actually decrease the amount of excitation of the CH4, which would actually result in a lower surface temperature, all things being equal. This is what I was alluding to when I mentioned that our atmosphere is not homogeneous.
Phil.
Really? So you believe that positive feedback can not occur?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He didn’t say that. He said your example doesn’t support the argument you were trying to make at the time.
GHE, is of course far from sure.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And yet another Oh My God moment. This thread has really fallen apart.
Bart;
In all the talk of colder objects heating warmer objects by radiant energy, I don’t see anyone addressing the real reason it is impossible. Firstly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics pertains to averages.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The 2nd Law and SB Law can only co-exist if the exchange of energy is two way. Your answer goes on to talk about net transfer, and correctly describes it, but you neglect to consider the results in the absence of the colder object at all. If there is no colder object to consider, then the warmer object is simply radiating directly to space which has an effective temperature approaching absolute zero. A colder object is blazing hot by comparison to no object at all.
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:41 am
Phil.
Really? So you believe that positive feedback can not occur?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He didn’t say that. He said your example doesn’t support the argument you were trying to make at the time.
Actually he babbled away incoherently, you must be psychic to get any sensible interpretation from “Sorry, but you have not hereby discovered the long sought after verification of transluminal speeds. Unfortunately, we still cannot create a warp drive through microphone feedback.”
GHE by the radiatively active gases I mean. The bulk (N2/O2), which cannot radiate (cool) to space (according to the consensus explanation), does insulate and acts kinda like the cover (and walls) in a greenhouse, working as a barrier to air flow and therefore the convective cooling.
Leonard Weinstein says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:16 am
“Back radiation reduces NET radiation, but never directly heats the water. It only slows loss of energy.”
Could you be so kind as to explain this please.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:37 am
Don’t forget that CH4 is also a significant GHG, which radiates at much higher energy levels than CO2. I believe that it is quite possible that, by radiating away additional energy at lower levels, added CO2 can actually decrease the amount of excitation of the CH4, which would actually result in a lower surface temperature, all things being equal.
CH4 absorbs/emits at around 1300 cm-1 whereas CO2 absorbs/emits at around 667 cm-1, why do you believe that absorption in the CO2 band from the Earth’s LWIR would deplete the CH4 band at 1300 cm-1?
Leonard Weinstein says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:16 am
Hi Leonard.
I agree with this:
“The simple fact is that the only source of energy absorbed by the oceans is short wavelength sunlight (neglecting volcanoes and internal Earth heating), and the temperature it goes to is based only on the ease in which that energy is removed. ”
and this:
“The ways it is removed are NET long wave radiation from the surface, evaporation from the surface, and conduction followed by convection to the atmosphere”
But what you have missed is the energy cost of a specific amount of evaporation which is set by atmospheric pressure because atmospheric pressure sets the ratio between the amount of energy required to cause evaporation and the enthalpy of evaporation which is 1 to 5 respectively at standard atmospheric pressure.
Thus, if 1 unit of energy from more CO2 in the air is applied to the ocean surface to cause one molecule of water to evaporate earlier than it otherwise would have done then 4 more units of energy need to be extracted from the local environment.
The easiest place for that energy to be extracted is from the extra energy from the CO2 in the air so the process of increased evaporation will proceed until all the extra energy from more CO2 is used up and then it will stop.
The effect on the background rate of energy flow from water to air being zero.
If you wish to discuss this with me direct then please feel free to contact me via climaterealists.com and we will see if we can resolve any misunderstandings either way.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:06 am
The correlation between global temperatures (anomalies) and changes (accumulations) in atmospheric CO2 is very remarkable. Many forget, it’s not changes in global temperatures (warming or cooling) but temperature levels that cause changes in CO2. There is also a global temperature level (or whatever we’re measuring with the global temperature indices) at which d(CO2)/dt = 0. Lower than this, the change gets negative (decline in atmospheric CO2).
That is exactly the theory of Bart and it is wrong. There are no natural processes that can continue pumping CO2 out of the oceans for a small permanent offset in temperature. In two steps:
– Static:
If the temperature of seawater increases with 1°C, the equilibrium with the atmosphere increases with about 16 ppmv. No matter how much CO2 is in the (deep) oceans. An increase with 16 ppmv in the atmosphere is sufficient to compensate for a 1°C increase in ocean surface temperature. For most of the oceans surface layer, that process is quite rapid (1-2 years to equilibrium).
– Dynamic:
If the temperature of seawater increases everywhere with 1°C, the pCO2 (partial pressure of CO2) of seawater at the deep upwelling sources increases (from ~750 microatm to ~766 microatm). Therefore the CO2 source flux into the atmosphere increases substantially, as the pressure difference, that is the driving force of the fluxes, increases for the same atmospheric CO2 content (at 400 ppmv, which is about 400 microatm).
At the other side, an increase in temperature at the downwelling places increases the pCO2 (from ~150 to ~166 microtatm), thus decreases the pressure difference with the atmosphere, substantially reducing the sink flux.
Both lead to an increase of CO2 into the atmosphere. But as the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases, the pressure difference at the upwelling places gets smaller, thus the source flux gets smaller and the pressure difference at the sink places gets larger, thus the sink flux gets larger. The final result is that with an increase of 16 ppmv in the atmosphere, the source and sink fluxes are again in equilibrium for 1°C increase in global seawater temperature.
Thus whatever the static or dynamic (dis)equilibria were before the temperature changes, an increase of 1°C in global seawater temperature gives an increase of maximum 16 ppmv in the atmosphere, to reach the same (dis)equilibrium as before.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:33 am
It will not be in equilibrium until equivalent global climate conditions which prevailed at the time it downwelled prevail again. Until then, it will keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere continuously.
No it won’t, see Henry’s Law and van’t Hoff’s equation.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:00 pm
GHE by the radiatively active gases I mean. The bulk (N2/O2), which cannot radiate (cool) to space (according to the consensus explanation), does insulate
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gasp! How do gasses that you have defined as NOT being radiatively active accomplish this? Incoming SW goes right through. Out going LW goes right through. Where does the “insulation” part happen? To insulate, you have to STOP the energy from passing straight through! Which is what radiatively active gasses do! By definition!
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:59 am:
“In all the talk of colder objects heating warmer objects by radiant energy, I don’t see anyone addressing the real reason it is impossible.”
=================================================
For the third time on this thread, my point is very simple. Warmists mean that that is possible and actually works in case of alleged greenhouse warming, but there is apparently no experimental proof of that.
And in the science it is not so that a statement is considered valid until the opposite is proven, it is exactly the other way round.
“There are no natural processes that can continue pumping CO2 out of the oceans for a small permanent offset in temperature.”
Ferdinand, a small permanent offset is actually only the averaged story. In detail, there are latitudes and annual temperature cycles. There might be some kind of ‘pumping’ effect. I don’t suggest anything, I only comment on the correlation.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 9:59 am
“Firstly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics pertains to averages. On average, a colder object (I will assume here that both objects are blackbodies for simplicity) cannot heat a warmer object above its own temperature. Instantaneously, when the colder object emits a photon toward the warmer object, and the warmer object absorbs it, the warmer object’s temperature increases.
But, it then releases another photon back at the colder object which cools the warmer object and heats the colder object back up. If they were exchanging equal numbers of photons, their relative temperatures would remain the same on average. But, the warmer object is releasing more photons, so it will cool and the cooler object will heat up, until both are at the same temperature, exchanging equal numbers of photons.”
=======================================================
First you need to revise your understanding of the term “average” and also look up the term “net (result)”.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics was formulated on the basis of experiments and there were back then apparently no experiments confirming your notion of “average”, so no, it is not about “average”. If you mean otherwise – prove it.
The notion of photon was invented to explain certain experimental observations, so in this case too first come experiments. Your “photon calculation”, as I said before, is apparently not supported by any scientific experiments.
And generally, dear warmists, please do not confuse products of your imagination (even if they are to a degree logical) with scientifically proven facts.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:33 am
Nature has no ability to “detrend” the temperature. It must act on it as a whole.
Your fit is based on a temporarely trend in temperature, which by accident fits the trend in CO2 increase, but doesn’t fit in other periods (like the 1945-1975 cooling period). Let even be for the MWP-LIA or glacial periods with ~ 100 kyr of below “baseline” temperatures.
To the degree that the observations are rock solid. It does not have to conform to observations which are themselves very dicey.
It gets quite problematic if the theory violates a lot of observations… Take e.g. 13C/12C ratio of the oceans. Everywhere, except near estuaria, observed as higher than in the atmosphere. Deep oceans and even more at the surface. No models involved, simple, direct measurements. Thus any substantial contribution of the (deep) oceans to the atmosphere should increase the d13C level of the atmosphere. But we see a steady accelerating decline, not caused by vegetation decay either…
Thus your deep oceans upwelling theory from the past violates the d13C level observations…
Or, it implies natural minus a little + all of the human emissions are absorbed somewhere. This is a semantical game you are playing. Carbon is carbon. It gets sequestered no matter its source.
I was talking about total mass that must be sequestered, not which molecules are sequestered. The point is that anyway the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources. That means that there is no net contribution from the natural cycles. No matter if the human CO2 is immediately absorbed by the next available tree are resides for decades in the atmosphere.
The human contribution + natural contribution leads to an increase in the atmosphere that is higher than of the human contribution alone. But as we only observe an increase that is equal to halve the human emissions, the sinks must absorb a total amount which is equal to the natural contribution + halve the human contribution. No matter which exact molecules are sequestered. Carbon is carbon…
Bart;
You’re wasintg your time with Greg House. Every explanation you provide will end with the same result, which is him declaring it not proof. I’ve given up on him as have many others including Robert G Brown.
Greg House says:
August 30, 2012 at 8:00 pm
davidmhoffer says:
August 30, 2012 at 6:36 pm:
“Then there’s Greg House who jumps in with his usual cold things can’t send energy to warm things argument”
=====================================================
No, this is not true.
My argument is that apparently nobody has proven experimentally, that colder things can either warm warmer things or slow down cooling of the warmer things by means of infra-red radiation. Simply because no warmist I talked to on various blogs has been able to present a link to such a scientific experiment.
Well it’s easy to put an end to this, read an undergraduate text on radiation heat transfer, Hottel and Sarofim would be a good choice. There you’ll see many examples of experiments which show this and how engineers the world over use radiation heat transfer calculations involving this effect in their design calculations. Then we won’t have to put up with this fallacious argument any more.
Phil.
Well it’s easy to put an end to this, read an undergraduate text on radiation heat transfer, Hottel and Sarofim would be a good choice.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He’ll find some reason to claim it isn’t applicable, he always does. He’s been referred to text books before. I’ve also suggested that he look at experiments that are part of university physics courses that are designed for the express purpose of verifying SB Law and he ignores those as well. Simple google search shows they aren’t hard to find:
http://sampa.if.usp.br/~suaide/LabFlex/blog/files/amjournalphys46.pdf
http://media.paisley.ac.uk/~davison/labpage/stefan/stefan.html
http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/10/1/005/
http://fiziks.net/lifesciencesD/exp54.htm
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/Tahani_Al-Beladi/Documents/EXPERIMENTS%20SHEET/Exp.1%20.pdf
http://www.nikhef.nl/~h73/kn1c/praktikum/phywe/LEP/Experim/3_5_01.pdf
He’s drowning in evidence, but the bottom line is that he understands neither SB Law nor 2nd Law, doesn’t understand the math, and doesn’t understand how these exact experiments speak directly to what he claims isn’t proven, and so he just claims they aren’t proof.
Gail Combs says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:56 pm
What makes you think the “Team” has not messed with the CO2 measurements as they did with the temperature measurements???
__________________________________________
The analysis is only concerned about Mauna Loa measurements so the way how ice core data were spliced to it is irrelevant and so is it to my argument.
====================
Bart says:
August 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
This is my favored working hypothesis. Current atmospheric CO2 levels depend not just on temperature differentials in the near past, but in the distant past as well, when currently upwelling ocean waters first descended into the depths.
___________________________________________
Your hypothesis looks intriguing but I am not sure there were significant enough changes in the past to explain the current trend this way. Ice core data don’t seem to support it … but again, there’s the known smoothing effect so who knows. Some analyses of deep ocean water CO2 contents might help there, especially comparison of upwelling currents vs downwelling currents, but I am not aware of any such. Sea level measurements may not tell much because deep sea CO2 may be quickly absorbed by phytoplankton when it gets close enough to the surface, delaying actual emission by unknown amount and spreading it over a long time.
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:08 pm:
“Bart;
You’re wasintg your time with Greg House. Every explanation you provide will end with the same result, which is him declaring it not proof.”
==================================================
Right, if a scientific experimental proof was asked for but only an “explanation” has been presented, then yes, the “explanation” is not the proof in question. This must be easy to understand.
“Gasp! How do gasses that you have defined as NOT being radiatively active accomplish this? Incoming SW goes right through. Out going LW goes right through. Where does the “insulation” part happen? To insulate, you have to STOP the energy from passing straight through! Which is what radiatively active gasses do! By definition!”
The atmosphere gains it’s energy from the surface by the non-radiative fluxes too and they’re actually dominant. The dominant planetary (at TOA) cooling flux is actually from atmospheric radiation, not surface radiation.
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:38 pm:
“He’s been referred to text books before.”
===================================================
Come on, nobody is going to buy your “text books” just to discover that they do not contain what you claim they do, in particular no layman, including journalists and politicians reading here. As I said before, repeated claims do not constitute a scientific proof and do not make a fact out of a tale.
It is a key assertion of the AGW concept I am questioning, and if there is an experimental proof of that then there must be a detailed description of the experiment somewhere on the internet, at least on the warmists sites. If there is nothing, then highly probable nothing exists. And until now I have not seen any valid link.
As for your references, the last time I checked your link it turned out to be unrelated stuff: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/why-we-need-debate-not-consensus-on-climate-change/#comment-1059271 .
Greg House,
I know you mean well. But you need to understand that the 2nd Law is statistical. I recommend Four Laws by Peter Atkins. It is an excellent intro to the Zeroth Law through the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, and it’s only 124 pages long. Amazon probably has used copies for a few dollars. Sincerely recommended.
Edim,
The non radiatively active gases warm up until they are in thermal equilibrium with the surface, then they’re involvement in the overall energy balance ceases.
Bart, Phil,
Re Greg House… see?
Davidmhoffer, no they’re constantly gaining energy from the surface and can only lose it by transfering it to the radiatively active gases, which can radiate it to space.
Edim;
The dominant planetary (at TOA) cooling flux is actually from atmospheric radiation, not surface radiation.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To explain it better, you’re focused on only half the process. If there were no radiatively active gases in the atmosphere, then there would be no radiance from atmosphere to space. 100% of the cooling would come directly from the surface. But once you inject radiatively active gases into the atmosphere, while it is true that they radiate to space, they only radiate what the absorbed from the surface in the first place. So while you see cooling processes from atmosphere to space, they only exist because of warming processes that occurred first from surface to atmosphere. Hence, the warmer temps of an atmosphere with radiatively active gases versus one without.
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:50 am
At no time in either case does the warmer object on average get warmer than it was initially. But, as I stated later, that is beside the point, because there is an additional consideration: the active energy source in the mix. Then, the effect you highlight is what modulates the emissions of the warmer body induced by the active energy source, causing surface temperature to rise.
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“CH4 absorbs/emits at around 1300 cm-1 whereas CO2 absorbs/emits at around 667 cm-1, why do you believe that absorption in the CO2 band from the Earth’s LWIR would deplete the CH4 band at 1300 cm-1?”
The equilibrium temperature of the surface results from a complex interplay of where the major emitters in the atmosphere are, and where the emissions spectrum overlaps their excitation frequency. The emissions spectrum is not a monotonic function. Hence the partial derivatives of surface temperature with respect to changes in the relative atmospheric constituents are not generally monotonic, either. It is quite possible to have negative sensitivity due to a particular constituent.
FerdiEgb says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:10 pm
This comes down to a simple mass balance equation. If more CO2 is continuously coming up than going down, it will accumulate at the surface, and it will proportionately be taken up by the atmosphere. This is a simple statement of fact, actually a tautology. There is no way around it.
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Think!
Greg House says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:49 pm
“The 2nd law of thermodynamics was formulated on the basis of experiments and there were back then apparently no experiments confirming your notion of “average”, so no, it is not about “average”. “
FerdiEgb says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:52 pm
“Your fit is based on a temporarely trend in temperature, which by accident fits the trend in CO2 increase…
Doesn’t help you. During that “temporary” interval, the climate system has to respond to it. And, since that “temporary” interval happens to be the one over which the most significant increase in CO2 occurred over the last century, it accounts at the very least for the most significant increase in CO2.
“… but doesn’t fit in other periods (like the 1945-1975 cooling period).”
A) it fits since 1958
B) if we had reliable measurements prior to 1958, it would be possible to determine if there were a shift in the climate state at an earlier time, requiring an update of parameters in the model
C) we do not have reliable measurements prior to 1958
“Let even be for the MWP-LIA or glacial periods with ~ 100 kyr of below “baseline” temperatures.
We do not have reliable measurements prior to 1958. I choose to base my opinion on the best, most modern, most reliable and direct measurements of the physical quantities, not on unverifiable, indirect proxy measurements.
“It gets quite problematic if the theory violates a lot of observations…”
There is definitely a problem in that the observations are skewed toward those things people decided to observe, based on the hypothesis they were working on. It might violate a number of the dodgy observations you have available, but you have no idea how it comports with observations which were never made.
“The point is that anyway the natural sinks are larger than the natural sources. “
It does not follow. You have no data whatsoever which can verify that. Like I said, you could as easily have said: “it implies natural minus a little + all of the human emissions are absorbed somewhere.” With just a minor change in wording, I have absorbed all of the human emissions, and the natural sources are larger than the natural sinks. Yet, the two statements are equivalent. You can always play such games when the underlying variables are indeterminant, i.e., unobservable, given the data at hand.
Edim says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Davidmhoffer, no they’re constantly gaining energy from the surface and can only lose it by transfering it to the radiatively active gases, which can radiate it to space.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I thought the same at one time. The reason that this is not the case is that the same rules that govern how energy is transmitted radiatively between gas molecules also applies to conduction. Since gas molecules can only exist at very specific energy levels, they cannot exchange energy with other molecules unless those molecules have those exact same energy levels. Since the non radiatively active gases do not have the specific energy states required to transfer energy to or from the radiatively active gases, there is no on going process of energy exchange between them in the atmosphere.
To Mike Mellor:
You stated: “I’m wondering why CO2 warms Mars but doesn’t warm Earth…”
But it does! Much of the skeptic population here accepts the belief that greenhouse gases (of which the most important is water vapor, not CO2) result in the Earth’s surface temperature raised by approx. 33 degrees C. over the theoretical black-body temperature of an object in Earth’s orbit. (See http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html.)
However, most of the skeptic community represented here believe that CO2’s influence on global temperature–the “climate sensitivity”–is overstated. The reasons why vary wildly.
Many accept that all else being equal, a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in a rise in temperature of a bit over 1 degree C. The IPCC’s “consensus forecast” states 3 degrees C. for this doubling, mostly based on water vapor feedback effects. Many here believe that particular feedback is wildly overstated and might even be negative.
Some here have beefs about the radiation physics. They believe that the atmosphere is a more complicated place than a laboratory bench–a fair point. This leads them to postulate that other atmospheric effects shield, or overwhelm, the effects of CO2’s absorption & re-emission spectra.
If you keep looking and reading, you will find a number of other skeptic viewpoints.
Kasuha says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Perhaps you can help me develop the hypothesis to a higher level. Or, even come up with another entirely. The fundamental constraint is that it must conform with the empirical fact that the rate of change of CO2 is affinely related to temperature. Human attribution for even a majority of the rise in CO2 does not satisfy that constraint, hence is ruled out.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:52 pm:
“Statistical mechanics postulates that, in equilibrium, each microstate that the system might be in is equally likely to occur, and when this assumption is made, it leads directly to the conclusion that the second law must hold in a statistical sense. That is, the second law will hold on average, with a statistical variation on the order of 1/√N where N is the number of particles in the system. ”
================================================
This Wikipedia quote does not support your statement.
Look, it is not enough to find a word or two in a text, sometimes the are used in a very different sense. Just reread your initial statement and try to see any relation to your quote: there is none or, let us say, very little.
Again, you can not add or subtract photons just like that like an accountant, it is physics. I understand how nice it might be like “2photones-1photon=1photon”, but there is apparently no experiment supporting this calculation. Maybe you could consider dropping the tale and serving as a good example for warmists. I am still curious who will be the first one.
davidmhoffer:
At August 31, 2012 at 2:55 pm you say:
Sorry, but that is incorrect.
Radiatively active molecules can be rotationally and/or vibrationally excited by absorbing a photon or by collision with another molecule. And they can be de-excited collisionally, too. Indeed, it is collisional de-excitation which enables excited GHG (i.e. H2O, CO2, CH4, etc.) molecules to warm the ‘inert’ nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) molecules which comprise most of the atmosphere.
Kinetic energy of a collection of gas molecules is observed as temperature.
There are far more N2 and O2 molecules in the air than GHG molecules and the GHG molecules can be radiatively excited, but the N2 and O2 molecules cannot be radiatively excited. The energy of the ‘inert’ N2 and O2 molecules is entirely kinetic while the energy of the GHG molecules is kinetic and also energy of radiative excitation. Therefore, on average, the GHG molecules will be more energetic than the N2 and O2 molecules.
Hence, the net effect of collisions is much more collisional de-excitation than collisional excitation of GHG molecules with the effect that on average the N2 and O2 molecules are warmed as a result the radiative absorbtion by GHG molecules.
Richard
Chris R. says:
August 31, 2012 at 3:06 pm:
“Much of the skeptic population here accepts the belief that greenhouse gases (of which the most important is water vapor, not CO2) result in the Earth’s surface temperature raised by approx. 33 degrees C. over the theoretical black-body temperature of an object in Earth’s orbit.”
====================================================
Really? My impression is quite the opposite. But I can understand why you have yours.
The majority of commentators here have expressed their scepticism about the so called “greenhouse effect” and actually think that it is a complete BS invented for political reasons, but it is the other side who write the majority of the comments, and their comments are often long, so if we counted words then yes, my estimation were like 80-90% come from the other side.
No, I did not really count, it is just my guess.
davidmhoffer:
As an afterthought, I consider that I should have added another point in my post to you.
The probability of collisional de-excitation increases with gas pressure. This is because if a GHG molecule absorbs a photon it will de-excite by emitting a photon if it is not involved in a collision with an ‘inert’ molecule first. Pressure is an indication of the frequency of collisions. And this is one reason why radiative emission to space increases with altitude.
Richard
richardscourtney says: August 31, 2012 at 9:52 am
Yes Richard – how could I forget these famous comments:
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University
* Source: http://www.green-agenda.com
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“CH4 absorbs/emits at around 1300 cm-1 whereas CO2 absorbs/emits at around 667 cm-1, why do you believe that absorption in the CO2 band from the Earth’s LWIR would deplete the CH4 band at 1300 cm-1?”
The equilibrium temperature of the surface results from a complex interplay of where the major emitters in the atmosphere are, and where the emissions spectrum overlaps their excitation frequency. The emissions spectrum is not a monotonic function. Hence the partial derivatives of surface temperature with respect to changes in the relative atmospheric constituents are not generally monotonic, either. It is quite possible to have negative sensitivity due to a particular constituent.
That would require a huge sensitivity to CO2, we wouldn’t be living on this planet in that case!
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Think!
Not what I said but good advice, your model is wrong as I pointed out specifically in
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:28 am
Phil. says:
August 31, 2012 at 11:28 am
I just noticed this comment wedged up there.
“The CO2 dissolved in the surface waters during the LIA which were at a lower temperature but also the partial pressure of CO2 during the LIA was about 60% of today’s.
Although I consider the ice core data highly suspect (because they are impossible to verify), it makes perfect sense that pCO2 of the atmosphere during the LIA would be less than today. It was colder then. When temperatures get colder, more goes into the ocean, in accordance with your relation
c = k*p
k increased, but the total c and p are constrained, so c had to increase while p decreased.
Today, that c is coming back up again. It is displacing the c in today’s equation, so we can say dc/dt is greater than zero. Since, to the degree that “k” is actually constant,
dc/dt = k * dp/dt
and k is greater than zero, you also have dp/dt is greater than zero.
It won’t stop until the temperature decreases to the point at which the “c” of the waters coming up matches the “c” of the waters going down.
richardscourtney;
I shall delve into the collisionaly de-excitation thing again, it has been a very long time since I had a deep dive into the topic. But if you say I’m wrong, I’m inclined to believe you. Sort of a “trust but verify” thing.
Question – how significant is the process? IE of the energy given up by GHG’s in this fashion versus radiance, is it 1%? 10%? etc?
Question Supplemental – does the process go the other way? Can a GHG molecule be bumped into a higher energy state by a collision with a non GHG molecule?
mkelly, Aug 31 at 12:05 pm,
Radiation between surfaces or volumes of absorbing and radiating materials pass photons both ways if the properties and temperature are in suitable ranges. For a simplified case of two flat surfaces with coefficients (absorbing and radiating) of 1, the equation of Net radiation energy transfer is from the hotter to colder surface, and has an equation E=5.73E-8(Thot ^4-Tcold^4), in Watts per m2, where T’s are in K. The constant is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and both the hotter and colder surface contribute to the net value. Both T’s can increase individually, but the net effect (difference) is the only result that is important for the resultant energy flow. In the case of the oceans and atmosphere it is more complicated. The so called greenhouse gases only absorb and radiate in narrow spectral ranges (wavelengths). In those ranges, they act close to black body (coefficients =1), but do not absorb or radiate outside the selected wavelengths. The net result is that some of the radiation from the oceans (which act close to full spectrum black bodies in the thermal range), which is not in the special ranges, passes either directly through the atmosphere to space, or may be intercepted by clouds (which act like the ocean). For simplicity ignore cloud effects as this makes the discussion more complicated. Part of the radiation is absorbed, mainly by water vapor, and to a lesser extent by CO2 and some other gases. The absorbed energy transfers to surrounding N2 and O2 by collisions and slightly warms it. However, the N2 and O2 has a range of velocities (Boltzmann distribution), and the more energetic collisions with the greenhouse gases cause them to sometimes radiate photons. This cools the surrounding gas. Generally the warming and cooling are in close balance, so incoming at a particular level and outgoing nearly balance. However, the atmosphere has a temperature gradient (the lapse rate), so the atmosphere absorbing the photons from the ocean is generally slightly cooler than the ocean. Thus, in addition to the photons that directly passed to space, there is an in-balance of back radiation from the atmosphere to the ocean compared to the upward radiation. This results in a NET radiation heat transfer up from both the passed through photons, and the NET imbalance of radiation in the atmospheric absorption range. While some photons do get absorbed by the ocean surface, only the NET flux heats a surface. Think of two (black body) surfaces at the same T facing each other. Both are emitting and absorbing photons continually. Neither heats or cools! If the surfaces (or surface and gas volume) are different temperatures only the NET energy flux results in heating or cooling.
richardscourtney says:
August 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm
“…the N2 and O2 molecules cannot be radiatively excited…”
…significantly by emissions emanating from the Earth, I think you mean. Their excitation energy is well in the tail of the emissions spectrum. Hence, they are not GHGs on the Earth.
“The energy of the ‘inert’ N2 and O2 molecules is entirely kinetic…”
Not sure that is true. Incoming sunlight does overlap.
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 6:15 pm
“It won’t stop until the temperature decreases to the point at which the “c” of the waters coming up matches the “c” of the waters going down.”
Or, the “c” of the waters coming up tails off to match the “c” of the waters going down.
Stephen Wilde,
I do not have an account on climaterealists.com and Twitter. You need a more easily accessed entry. However, I can explain your basic error quickly. The enthalpy to evaporate water vapor is VERY weakly dependent of total atmospheric pressure or CO2 content. It depends almost entirely on the local water temperature, and is nearly constant for small temperature ranges. The rate of removal by evaporation also depends on the partial pressure of vapor above the water. There is a limit to how much can evaporate in some cases, due to local saturation and slower or faster removal of the saturated vapor by wind mixing. Since warmer air can hold more vapor before saturation, a warmer temperature generally allows more removal. However, it is always the absorbed solar energy that sets the limits. There is no special energy in the CO2, it is just a gas vibrating like the N2 and O2, and H2O vapor. The CO2 and H2O do take part in the radiation heat transfer process, but in no way affect evaporation other than the way I stated.
Gregg House,
There are many non-scientific commentators on both sides of the issue. However, the scientific skeptics almost all agree with the so called greenhouse effect, with a 33 C increase due to water vapor, clouds, and CO2 (in that order). I have seen many supporters of CAGW (the case for extreme results) blame everything from increased prostitute sex to polar bear deaths (which has been disproved), and thousands of other effects, which are just crazy. Most scientific skeptics just want the facts, not myths, lies, and models (which are a joke if you try to look decades ahead, due to the spreading uncertainty band swamping the small trend).
Stephen Wilde says: August 31, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Stephen,
Only the temperature affects the partial pressure of saturated water vapor. The enthalpy to evaporate is essentially independent of atmospheric pressure over modest partial pressure ranges and temperatures. Your talk of CO2 effects are wrong. See my response to mkelly.
I tried to enter your site, but it required Twitter or a password, which I did not have. You need a friendlier entry (like e-mail) rather than password.
Cloud cover acts to reduce mixing depth in the well-mixed oceanic layer, and therefor offsets the direct warming effect of insolation.
The paper prompts questions about the influence of changes in global oceanic cloud cover on surface ocean temperature and consequently surface air temperature. The fifty years to 1996 corresponded to a trend increase in that cloud cover (an increase of more than 7%) and was followed by a decrease of about 1.5% over 10 years.
To Greg House:
The issue is that there really are 2 “greenhouse effects” under discussion:
(1) The natural one I referred to which has been in in existence for most of forever. A majority
of posters here believe this greenhouse effect exists.
The average temperature for a body in the Earth’s orbit, having the Earth’s average
albedo, would be some 255 degrees K. This is a easy calculation; in fact my under-
graduate statistical mechanics textbook gave this as a problem. A majority of the
sceptic community here accept this natural greenhouse effect exists, and is caused
mainly by water vapor and the first few parts-per-million of CO2 and some other
greenhouse gases. Since the absorption by greenhouse gases is logarithmic, the
greatest change occurs as the gas is most dilute.
(2) A claimed man-made “greenhouse effect”, mainly starring CO2, which is stated to
be increasing “catastrophically” is the atmosphere due to man’s burning of fossil
fuels.
This is the group that you seem to have your impression of. Very few of the posters
here believe that this “man-made greenhouse effect” has the power to catastrophically
change the Earth’s temperature as stated by the IPCC. I already alluded to the
diversity of views on climate sensitivity among this community in my previous post.
Leonard Weinstein said:
“The enthalpy to evaporate is essentially independent of atmospheric pressure over modest partial pressure ranges and temperatures”
Less energy is required for any given amount of evaporation at the top of Everest as compared to at the ocean surface. .A kettle boils at a lower temperature than 100C if pressure is reduced.
Therefore, the ratio changes between the amount of energy required to provoke evaporation and the amount of energy taken up by the phase change (the enthalpy of vapourisation).
It is that ratio which determines the energy cost of any given amount of evaporation and in turn that determines how warm the oceans must become before energy out equals energy in.
Then once that level of warmth has been attained the oceans cannot warm up any further. Instead the rate of evaporation varies to maintain the balance.So more CO2 (or any GHGs) in the air will only affect the rate of evaporation and not the temperature of the ocean bulk.
Leonard Weinstein says:
August 31, 2012 at 7:24 pm:
“Gregg House, …the scientific skeptics almost all agree with the so called greenhouse effect, with a 33 C increase due to water vapor, clouds, and CO2 (in that order).”
=======================================================
I humbly hope to have refuted such statements: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/consensus-argument-proves-climate-science-is-political/#comment-972119
A have read your explanation about “net radiation” and allow me once again to point out that apparently it is not supported by any real scientific experiment. Looks good on paper, though…
Chris R. says:
August 31, 2012 at 7:42 pm:
“To Greg House:
The issue is that there really are 2 “greenhouse effects” under discussion:
(1) The natural one I referred to which has been in in existence for most of forever. A majority
of posters here believe this greenhouse effect exists.”
====================================================
Well, as I said, my impression is different and I explained why. So, you have yours and I have mine, no problem.
I still do not quite understand why you have raised this issue twice today. You are not implying hopefully that the science is settled, are you?
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:52 pm
This comes down to a simple mass balance equation. If more CO2 is continuously coming up than going down, it will accumulate at the surface, and it will proportionately be taken up by the atmosphere. This is a simple statement of fact, actually a tautology. There is no way around it.
and
The CO2 dissolved in the surface waters during the LIA which were at a lower temperature but also the partial pressure of CO2 during the LIA was about 60% of today’s.
You forget that the CO2 mass flows are influenced by the current CO2 levels in the atmosphere: if these increase, the pressure difference between the pCO2 at the upwelling places and the atmosphere reduces, which proportionally reduces the CO2 flux from the oceans to the atmosphere. Near the poles, the opposite happens, increasing the downwelling CO2 flux.
Thus whatever the CO2 pressure in the past was, an increase of about halve the pressure difference with the past CO2 pressure would fully compensate for the change in historical uptake. That means that for the current 70+ ppmv (and accellerating) increase the past CO2 levels must either have been 140 ppmv higher or 9°C colder (for 16 ppmv/°C, according to Henry’s Law). Both are highly unlikely.
Human CO2 emissions are not influenced by the current CO2 levels in the atmosphere, they are simply additional.
Another constraint is that in reality, the temperature at the THC sink places doesn’t change that much over the centuries, only the sink places change to where the waters become heavier than the bulk of the ocean waters at these places. That is at the edge where ice is formed at minus a few °C: ice formation excludes salts, which concentrate in the remaining water, that becomes heavier and sinks to the bottom.
As the pCO2 at that time was 60% lower than today, the current upwelling waters are probably around 60% lower in CO2 content than what sinks today…
With other words: the CO2 flux difference between the current upwelling and downwelling waters should reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, which is what is observed…
Bart says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:52 pm
There is definitely a problem in that the observations are skewed toward those things people decided to observe, based on the hypothesis they were working on. It might violate a number of the dodgy observations you have available, but you have no idea how it comports with observations which were never made.
13C/12C ratio measurements are real observations, which show that non-organic carbon has a higher ratio (around zero per mil d13C) than organic carbon (either living or fossil). The (enormous) bulk of carbon in the oceans is near entirely made of inorganic carbonates, where biolife in the upper ocean layers even reduces the 12C content, thus increasing the 13C/12C ratio. Whatever you think of some other possible biased observations, the d13C measurements of the oceans are what they are and effectively exclude the oceans as the main source of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere.
It does not follow. You have no data whatsoever which can verify that. Like I said, you could as easily have said: “it implies natural minus a little + all of the human emissions are absorbed somewhere.” With just a minor change in wording, I have absorbed all of the human emissions, and the natural sources are larger than the natural sinks.
Again, you don’t get it. It doesn’t matter which molecules are absorbed. It does matter that the total natural sink flux is larger than the total natural source flux. The human emissions are one-way additional, there are hardly any human sinks. The natural sources are NOT larger than the natural sinks, however you rearrange the wording, as the “minus a little” is halve the human emissions anyway.
Kasuha says:
August 31, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Bart’s theory is based on a continuous permanent CO2 release for a sustained samll difference in temperature. That seems to hold for a small period, but completely fails if you extend that period to previous periods, including the 1900-1960 period, and at fortiory the LIA-current period and much longer periods like glacials/interglacials.
My main point is that the short term (seasonal to interannual) reaction of CO2 on temperature changes is 4-5 ppmv/°C while the very long term reaction (decades to multi-milennia) of CO2 on temperature is ~8 ppmv/°C. The intermediate reaction should be, according to Bart’s theory, more than 100 ppmv/°C. Which is very unlikely for a natural process: the long term processes then should remove the medium-term reaction back to quite modest CO2 level changes…
Further, Bart’s theory violates the mass balance, violates the d13C balance (seawater has higher d13C than the atmosphere, but we see a steady decline) and violates the seawater flux estimates.
Bart’s reaction is by rejecting all observations which oppose his theory, that is the ice core measurements, the seawater flux observations, the d13C measurements and the mass balance…
The alternative theory is that the CO2 levels are dT dependent and not T-anomaly dependent, thus have a limited influence over time for a limited temperature change for all periods over the past 800 kyear while the emissions are largely responsible for the recent increase in CO2 levels. That fits all known observations…
If one doesn’t ignore the high resolution ice core measurements of Law Dome (average resolution of only 8 years), then his theory is obvious wrong for the period 1900-1960:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_T_dT_em_1900_2005.jpg
and even worse for long periods below the “baseline” temperature like the LIA or the 100 kyr glacials…
DR says:
August 31, 2012 at 10:17 am
@John Finn,
What role does convection play? You have not mentioned that important form of heat transfer which dominates at the surface through the troposphere. Convection removes excess heat from the surface, not radiation.
Of course radiation ultimately cools the planet by releasing it to space, but I fail to see how it is any more important than convection when discussing the movement of heat from the surface to above the troposphere. It seems convection spoils the party of the greenhouse effect.
I’m not suggesting convection is irrelevant or shouldn’t be considered. It should and as far as I know – it is. However, it is the radiation energy balance (incoming v outgoing) which ultimately determines whether the system (i.e. the earth) as a whole warms or cools.
I’m basically trying to get people on WUWT to acknowledge the basic principle that if outgoing LW energy is reduced while incoming solar energy remains constant then the earth ( including it’s atmosphere ) will warm. I’m not speculating as to how much it will warm (I think probably not that much) or trying to analyse how each process within the atmosphere might change. I accept that convection removes heat from the surface – but then what??
You stated that “Of course radiation ultimately cools the planet by releasing it to space”
– Right – so if the rate of cooling is reduced the planet will warm. Simple!
davidmhoffer says:
August 31, 2012 at 8:34 am
John Finn;
means energy will be emitted from a higher (i.e COLDER) level. We know from S-B Law that this will result in a reduction in energy emission.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No. At any given level at which photons that otherwise would have passed straight through are instead intercepted and absorbed, the temperature at that level is elevated. When it cools, it therefor cools from a higher temperature than it otherwise would have been at.
Yes, David, but that is still at a LOWER temperature than the layer they were initially emitted from had they passed through directly to space.
“but that is still at a LOWER temperature than the layer they were initially emitted from had they passed through directly to space.”
I have a query on that:
If the atmosphere expands then all the temperature heights rise too.
The radiating level might be higher but at the same temperature wouldn’t it ?
“I’m basically trying to get people on WUWT to acknowledge the basic principle that if outgoing LW energy is reduced while incoming solar energy remains constant then the earth ( including it’s atmosphere ) will warm”
But if the atmosphere expands then outgoing LW is greater so the Earth doesn’t need to warm.
You just get a faster loss of LW offsetting the warming that would otherwise have occurred.
GHGs might slow down energy loss to space but then the atmosphere expands to increase LW out to offset the effect of the initial slowdown.
John Finn;
Yes, David, but that is still at a LOWER temperature than the layer they were initially emitted from had they passed through directly to space.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are conflating two different issues.
davidmhoffer and Bart:
I am replying here to your respective posts at August 31, 2012 at 6:18 pm and August 31, 2012 at 6:46 pm. I intend no slight to either of you by this: my purpose in providing this single post is to collate answers to issues you each raise pertaining to a single (OK, with an addendum) comment which I made.
David:
Thankyou for writing
Yes! Please do that. I always tell people,
“Please do not accept what I say. Check it for yourself. If you do that then you will have reason to accept it or you will be able to tell me why I should not accept it.”
And it pleases me that soon after I said it to Monckton of Brenchley he started to say it, too.
Concerning collisional de-excitation, you ask;
I answer, “How long is a piece of string?”
The answer depends on temperature, pressure and gas composition. This is not an evasion because S-B obtained their equation by study of interstellar gas where collisions are extremely rare so there was debate some decades ago about whether S-B is applicable to the relatively very dense atmosphere of Earth. I am not aware that the issue has ever been quantitatively resolved. In the early 1990s Jack Barrett calculated that collisional de-excitation completely dominates de-excitation of CO2 in the lowest 100 m of the atmosphere but he soon retracted that.
A good discussion of the matter is on Climate Audit at
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/21/radiative-forcing-1/
Tom Volk says there
You also ask me:
I answer, yes, I said that.
Bart:
You rightly point out some simplifications in what I wrote (there are others, too) but I was explaining how collisional excitation effects exist and occur. It was not my intention to provide a detailed treatise. If I oversimplified then I apologise. I reply to your specific points.
You quote my saying;
“…the N2 and O2 molecules cannot be radiatively excited…”
And reply;
I answer, yes, I agree. But in context I don’t think I oversimplified because the effect is too small for it to be significant to my explanation.
And you quote my saying;
“The energy of the ‘inert’ N2 and O2 molecules is entirely kinetic…”
And reply;
I answer, yes, I agree that, too. Perhaps I did oversimplify here but – on balance – I don’t think I did because that important detail would have reduced the clarity of my explanation.
I hope these answers are more helpful than I think they are.
Richard
Stephen Wilde says: August 31, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Steven,
I am very sorry but you seem to not understand the thermodynamics. The boiling point of water is the temperature where the partial vapor pressure of the water equals the atmospheric pressure. The partial vapor pressure is strongly temperature dependent (at 0 C it is about 5 torr; at 20 C it is about 18 torr; at 100 C it is 1 atmosphere). Lower atmospheric pressure results in a lower boiling point temperature, not lower energy to evaporate a given mass. There is a partial pressure even if there is no boiling. It takes about 540 cal per gram to evaporate water TO ITS PARTIAL PRESSURE at all temperatures and atmospheric pressures. Boiling is a special case and not needed for partial pressures to exist.
“richardscourtney says:
September 1, 2012 at 4:41 am
The answer depends on temperature, pressure and gas composition. This is not an evasion because S-B obtained their equation by study of interstellar gas where collisions are extremely rare so there was debate some decades ago about whether S-B is applicable to the relatively very dense atmosphere of Earth. I am not aware that the issue has ever been quantitatively resolved.”
—————————————————————————————————–
It seems that NASA needed to tweak the S-B formula to land on the moon.
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/06/moon-effect-called-greenhouse-effect-on.html
“Let us return to the much simpler case of the moon. It has no atmosphere, no vegetation, and no oceans to muck things up. There is a paper by Martin Hertzberg, Hans Schreuder, and Alan Siddons called A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?, which Dr. Hertzberg was kind enough to draw my attention to in early June and I have had in mind discussing its very important results ever since. The paper notes that NASA scientists needed to calculate the expected temperatures on the moon’s surface prior to a landing. Taking into account the changing radiation on a point on the surface and assuming no heat was absorbed into the surface, the first result is:”
So for once I can be proud to be a Norwegian.
Hello Richard,
I would be interested in your thoughts on this small piece of evidence:
Preamble:
In 2008 I wrote that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. I referred to Jan Veizer’s papers and think Jan was generally on the right track.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
I also observed in 2008 that there was no similar detailed relationship between variations in fossil fuel combustion and atmospheric CO2 levels – the “wiggles” did not correlate.
Here is the interesting bit:
I was recently fascinated by the observation that the urban CO2 data from Salt Lake City exhibited NO human signature – only the natural daily cycle was apparent.
http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=30
This suggests that humanmade CO2 emissions are being ~immediately sequestered close to their source.
It seems to me there is evidence that the biosphere is CO2-starved or at least CO2-limited. Since we cannot (except perhaps in winter) see the human signature of urban CO2 emissions AT THE URBAN SOURCE OF THESE EMISSIONS, are these humanmade CO2 emissions being captured close to their source and causing increased biomass in the process? Is there any other explanation? And not all that increased biomass decays in the Spring.
I don’t like the mass balance argument. I think atmospheric CO2 concentration is part of a huge dynamic system with biological and physical components on land and in the ocean, and this huge natural system dwarfs the humanmade CO2 component and is generally unaffected by it. That is what the data says to me.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 1, 2012 at 1:09 am
“bottom.
As the pCO2 at that time was 60% lower than today, the current upwelling waters are probably around 60% lower in CO2 content than what sinks today…”
You are making the same mistake Phil did. If the pCO2 of the atmosphere was 60% lower, the current upwelling waters are likely as much as 60% higher than what sinks today.
FerdiEgb says:
September 1, 2012 at 1:28 am
“It does matter that the total natural sink flux is larger than the total natural source flux. “
Again, you don’t get it. You have no data whatsover to tell you that.
“The human emissions are one-way additional, there are hardly any human sinks. “
A sink is a sink. It does not discriminate between anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic.
FerdiEgb says:
September 1, 2012 at 2:45 am
“Further, Bart’s theory violates the mass balance, violates the d13C balance (seawater has higher d13C than the atmosphere, but we see a steady decline) and violates the seawater flux estimates.”
Doesn’t, doesn’t, and doesn’t.
“The alternative theory is that the CO2 levels are dT dependent and not T-anomaly dependent…”
CO2 levels are 180 degrees out of phase with the rate of change of temperature, so that doesn’t work. CO2 levels are 90 degrees out of phase, with phase lagging, from temperature, so that doesn’t work.
“If one doesn’t ignore the high resolution ice core measurements of Law Dome (average resolution of only 8 years), then his theory is obvious wrong for the period 1900-1960:”
A) the measurements are dubious
B) if we assume for the sake of argument they are accurate, regime change in the upwelling can easily explain the discrepancy.
richardscourtney says:
September 1, 2012 at 4:41 am
I have no disagreement with what you wrote in general. I was just trying to tie off some loose ends for you.
Allan MacRae says:
September 1, 2012 at 7:48 am
“…CO2 data from Salt Lake City exhibited NO human signature – only the natural daily cycle was apparent.”
Not sure I see it. My first thought was, is this a natural cycle, or is it workers going to work at 8:00 AM and returning home between 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM? And, the dips in-between could just be diffusion into the surrounding countryside.
So, I went to the weekly chart to see if things were different on weekdays and weekends. There’s actually more, in this weekly snapshot, on Saturday and Sunday than there is on Wednesday. Hmm… Does that tell us anything?
Do we actually have a way of comparing the “natural” cycle to what we are seeing? Data from rural surrounding areas, perhaps?
Allan MacRae:
You ask my opinion on your views in your post at September 1, 2012 at 7:48 am.
Firstly, I am certain that – as you suggest – local sequestration of CO2 is more than capable of sequestering ALL locally emitted CO2 both natural and anthropogenic. At issue is why it does not when its ability to do it is demonstrated by the dynamics of sequestration at all observed sites.
Indeed, I have published this (it was part of Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005). And I have repeatedly discussed it on WUWT. Indeed, I remind that you and I both posted to the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/19/what-you-mean-we-arent-controlling-the-climate/
where I linked to the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/05/the-emily-litella-moment-for-climate-science-and-co2/
where at August 5, 2011 at 6:41 am I wrote
And you say
The mass balance argument is circular logic which proves nothing (listen for the drum roll announcing the entrance of Ferdinand to the discussion).
And I share your opinion that the anthropogenic emission is a trivial addition to the system of the carbon cycle which is always adjusting towards an equilibrium that it never achieves. However, that is an opinion: it is not fact. The equilibrium state may be altered by many things and it is possible that the anthropogenic emission has altered (or is altering) the equilibrium state with the result that it has induced the observed recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
In summation, I share the opinions which you state in your post.
Richard
old construction worker:
Thankyou for the link you provided in your post addressed to me at September 1, 2012 at 7:38 am.
I did not know that. Thankyou.
Richard
Leonard Weinstein said:
“Lower atmospheric pressure results in a lower boiling point temperature, not lower energy to evaporate a given mass”
Consider the situation where atmospheric pressure is zero.
Any water will immediately convert to vapour with zero energy added and become extremely cold in the process probably going straight to ice crystals.
The higher the pressure the more energy one needs to add in order to provoke evaporation because it is pressure that sets the amount of energy required to break the bonds between water molecules.
At standard atmospheric pressure the amount of energy required to provoke evaporation is one fifth of the energy required by the phase change.
At two atmospheres the amount of energy required to provoke evaporation will be more than one fifth. I don’t know exactly how the numbers scale up but you must see the point.
So atmospheric pressure must affect the amount of energy required to evaporate a given mass.
Bart says: September 1, 2012 at 9:01 am
Allan: “…CO2 data from Salt Lake City exhibited NO human signature – only the natural daily cycle was apparent.”
Bart: Not sure I see it.
Hi Bart,
The CO2 peak typically occurred earlier in the day when I made this observation in June 2012 (days were longer then), but it is still clear that we are looking at a predominantly natural signal.
Why are CO2 levels rising steadily after sunset and dropping again at sunrise? This suggests a cycle dominated by photosynthesis and respiration of plants.
If this were a predominantly humanmade signal, I expect we would see an increase in CO2 starting at morning rush hour about 8am, a moderate decline during the day, and another peak at evening rush hour. We’ll see if the human signature is more visible in the winter when photosynthesis is less active.
It is interesting that the annual global CO2 sawtooth appears to be clearly visible in the yearly data.
______
Here is an excerpt of my previous post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/02/what-can-we-learn-from-the-mauna-loa-co2-curve-2/#comment-1000472
Here is recently observed Rose Park data at Salt Lake City:
http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=30
Please examine the Daily CO2 and Weekly CO2 tabs for all measurement stations.
Peak CO2 readings (typically ~500ppm) occur during the night, from midnight to ~8am, and drop to ~400 ppm during the day.
1. In contrast, human energy consumption (and manmade CO2 emissions) occur mainly during the day, and peak around breakfast and supper times.
2. I suggest that the above atmospheric CO2 readings, taken in semi-arid Salt Lake City with a regional population of about 1 million, are predominantly natural in origin.
IF points 1 and 2 are true, then urban CO2 generation by humankind is insignificant compared to natural daily CO2 flux, in the same way that (I previously stated) annual humanmade CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to seasonal CO2 flux.
Bart says:
September 1, 2012 at 8:50 am
“If the pCO2 of the atmosphere was 60% lower, the current upwelling waters are likely as much as 60% higher than what sinks today.”
While this is a valid point that the pCO2 of the atmosphere and the concentration of CO2 in the surface layer of the oceans tend to vary inversely with temperature, the conversation should not be straight-jacketed into such a narrow paradigm.
This is a nonlinear feedback system with significant transport lag. Such systems tend to develop oscillatory behavior, generally with a period comparable to the length of the lag. Nonlinearities can then induce subharmonic oscillations and the formation of “beads” (distinct regions of high concentration separated by lower concentration gaps). So, while we can look back at the LIA and speculate on what back-of-the-envelope formulas for equilibrium suggest, the actual dynamics have been unfolding for eons, and the resulting dynamics can be very complex.
We see evidence of such behavior in the proxy CO2 record. It happens that we are at a point in history when the cycle should be tending toward higher CO2 levels. The proxy data, based on assumed calibration parameters, suggests even so that we should not be seeing the levels we are, but there are unverifiable assumptions built into that calibration. Moreover, the character of the oscillations can change over time as, e.g, two large beads coalesce becoming one extra-large one.
So, we really do not know what level of CO2 is in the pipeline, nor how it should manifest itself today. What we do know, however, is that since 1958, the rate of change of CO2 has been affinely related to temperature, and this relationship precludes significant human forcing. The only thing remaining is figuring out how that behavior comes about.
Hi Richard,
Re Roy Spencer’s two articles in January 2008 on wattsup
I sent Roy two emails on December 31, 2007 regarding the close correlation of dCO2/dt with temperature, that he was kind enough to acknowledge at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/double-whammy-friday-roy-spencer-on-how-oceans-are-driving-co2/
“But first, some acknowledgements. Even though I have been playing with the CO2 and global temperature data for about a year, it was the persistent queries from a Canadian engineer, Allan MacRae, who made me recently revisit this issue in more detail.”
Best, Allan