Important paper strongly suggests man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming

http://nollyprott.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/green-holocaust-2/

http://www.climate4you.com/images/CO2%20MaunaLoa%20Last12months-previous12monthsGrowthRateSince1958.gif
Rate of the CO2 increase is slowing down, resembling the global SST very much.

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

From Steven Mosher on August 30, 2012 at 12:17 pm:

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 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?

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?

Vince Causey says:
August 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm
IIRC it was Salby that showed that was a load of inflated BS ?

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?

“Important paper strongly suggests man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming.“

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.

ERL – Effective Radiation Level?

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.

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

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?

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.

“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.

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…

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.

“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!

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.

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.

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.

mods – someone left off a close italics thingy
[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.

“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.

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.

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.

Effects cannot precede cause? Tachyons, my dear boy! Tachyons!

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.

YFNWG says:
August 30, 2012 at 12:01 pm

Ole Humlum is the guy behind the climate4you.com website which I highly recommend as a good source of weather info/graphs etc.

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

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.

and even before it rises above the horizon.

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.

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]

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…

“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 ?

“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.

“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

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…

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.

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.

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/

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 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

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?

” 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

“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.

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.

Stephen,
Thanks for the reply, I will continue to ponder and learn.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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/

Does cold ocean water hold more CO2 than warm?

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…

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.

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.

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.

“””””…..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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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…

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 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”. “

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. For everyday (macroscopic) situations, the probability that the second law will be violated is practically zero. However, for systems with a small number of particles, thermodynamic parameters, including the entropy, may show significant statistical deviations from that predicted by the second law. Classical thermodynamic theory does not deal with these statistical variations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.