An independent constraint on climate sensitivity

A thought provoking article, thank you.
My apologies for reposting my comment from elsewhere but it does seem relevant as it provides some practical empirical evidence;
“It is said that we can observe a rise in temperatures over the past 150 years according to GISS. It goes back much further than that as I demonstrated in this recent article where I set the latest BEST figures to 1753 against the older record of CET to 1660 and my own extended CET to 1538
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-historic-variations-in-temperatures-part-3-best-confirms-extended-period-of-warming/
From that we can reasonably postulate;
1) that GISS from 1880 was merely a staging post of an existing upward trend not its starting post.
2) .We can observe several notable temperature increases in the past greater than today
3) that the 400 year upward trend has lots of wavelets of natural variability contained within the boundaries of the trend
4) Whilst not included in this article I would observe that the rising trends of the past such as the Minoan, Roman and MWP lasted many hundreds of years, then came suddenly back down to earth before they started rising again.
5) that these considerable fluctuations throughout recorded history all occurred at 280ppm makes me wonder if additional co2 above this concentration has limited additional effect on temperatures.”
tonyb

My earlier comment:
Ooops! the feedback loop did not show well: see the diagramm on http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6905434/Block_Diagram.png

I agree with the general thrust of Monckton’s piece, but am not sure his Fig.1 is correct. When I plot the annual data on emissions (in GtC) from CDIAC (via the Global Carbon Project, Le Quere et al) against the increases in the atmospheric concentration also in GtC (from Tans, Mauna Loa), I get a poor linear fit but with a DECLINING trend which is also very statistically significant:
y = -0.0112x + 2.8823
R² = 0.0243
p=0.000000
That seems like good news to me, because it means that the emissions are growing faster than the atmospheric increases, which means in turn that the globe’s biospheres are absorbing the rising emissions at a faster rate than is ever admitted by the true believers.

An interesting corollary would be to investigate the relationship between a reduction in anthropogenic CO2 emissions and a reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentration (for the premise of every single mitigation policy is that first and foremost a reduction in CO2 concentration will result from a reduction in CO2 emissions, after a time lag).
Kurt in Switzerland

This mathematics is irrelevant because it assumes the earth emits IR as if it were an isolated black body in a vacuum. No professional process engineer or experienced experiment physicist accepts this is possible because convection and radiation are coupled..
The real GHE is from the reduction of emissivity of the Earth’s surface in GHG IR bands by ‘Prevost Exchange’. The GHE temperature rise is because the Earth has to radiate from fewer energy transfer sites, mostly the ‘atmospheric window’ and non self-absorbing IR side-bands.
The value of the GHE is effectively fixed by the first ~900 ppmV water vapour. There can be no CO2-AGW except in the most arid of deserts.

Louise says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:42 am
Such weasel words have long been decried on this blog so what’s different about this one?

ALL of these projections are little better than speculation. They should be treated as such.
If, for instance, CO2 concentration lags temperature, then the above work is probably wrong. That’s the way science works. It isn’t a problem. The problem is that the alarmists take something that could be true and treat it as if it were absolute gospel. They then pile more speculation on top and expect us to take really drastic action on that basis.

I am an empiricist; I only trust hard, measured data. On the subject of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity, the only thing that can actually be measured is total climate sensitivity; how much do global temperatures rise as a result of a given rise in the amount of CO2 in the atmopshere. In theory we can measure total climate sensitivity. We can measure how much CO2 concentrations rise; we can measure how much atmospheric temperatures rise, assuming they are still rising. All we need to do is to prove how much of any observed temperature rise is due to the change in CO2 concentration.
What I cannot understand is why there is so little interest in making an attempt to actually measure total climate sensitivity. If we could actually measure it, it would be like a Michelson/Morley moment; it would settle whether CAGW exists for all time.

Since the 1975-2005 warming was just a part of natural AMO/PDO positive cycle, indistinguishable from 1910-1940 period, all these calculations are useless. Just see the model projections: exponential curve copying the Keeling curve, nothing as real world. All these lambdas and formulas are trying to fit the radiative fantasy playstation models onto the 30-year warming trend.
Oh and the cold water appears in the NINO region again. Who would say that?

OT, breaking news:
A Moment of Silence, For the Fall of Europe

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richard telford says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:05 am
How is the sea-ice albedo feedback working for you this year?
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The sea-ice albedo feedback is small & localized at very high latitudes. Only at lower latitudes (say, below 65 deg) does it become significant.

Off topic, but important
Richard Black is leaving BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19422041

While scientific debate over carbon will no doubt continue for some time, it seems utterly obvious that CO2 emissions will be reduced, importantly or not, along with harmful emissions in a very big way in the coming years. Looking at the enormous nuclear power building boom currently being planned and undertaken, whereby China alone is anticipating 600 reactors in the next 30 years and 1800 reactors by turn of the century, it’s seems clear to me that electricity will be produced
in the future with few emissions, that fast reactors will turn that “nuclear waste” first into gold (fast reactors burning our current stockpile of “nuclear waste” can provide all the power this country needs for 1000 years) and then into a small pile of low radioactive matter,easily stored and returning to background levels within a few generations. We have plenty of uranium that can be mined and an inexhaustible supply that can be extracted from seawater, at a cost that won’t bankrupt the consumer. There are even new reactor designs that can operate as non-baseload
generators.
And few would doubt that practical and affordable batteries will arrive in the relatively near term, removing auto emissions from the picture.
So, in a sense, debate about carbon and its effects is only important as a means of preventing any more costly and self defeating “solutions” like solar and wind from bankrupting the country and achieving virtually nothing. The world is becoming emission free despite, rather than because
of the antics of the hysterical warmists, out to save the world from itself , much in the same fashion as the very similar fundamentalist religious reformers of the 1880’s. Warmists are today’s
evangelists, saving the world from the sins of mankind. They just avoid all that God stuff.
They need a real job.

Louise says:
August 31, 2012 at 12:42 am
From the abstract:
“suggesting that”
“perhaps”
“may lie below”
Such weasel words have long been decried on this blog so what’s different about this one?
___________________________________
You are missing the whole point of the exercise. Monckton has taken the points made by IPCC and the climate scientists and showed even using their OWN points CO2 will not have the effect the IPCC states. In such a situation, using the oppositions arguments and not your own, of course you would use “weasel words”
Remember the entire point of the IPCC exercise is to show mankind’s use of energy causes a major “Tipping Point” and a CATASTROPHE. Without a catastrophe politicians and bureaucrats especially in the UN would not have a reason for seizing a great deal of power and money. That is why CO2 must causes positive net forcings in water vapor so the models can take the CO2 forcing and multiply it by a factor of three. (Got to get that catastrophe some how) The fact that CO2 has been much higher in the past and the earth has not burned up and all the water vapor boiled off to space as well as other indications the water vapor net feed back is negative is completely ignored. It does not “Fit” the catastrophe scenario.
Then there is the other bit of IPCC fudging of the data called Judithgate The lead author on the team about the effects of the sun on the earth’s climate was not even a solar physicist. She was also co-author of the key paper that showed the sun’s TSI was constant.
The interesting part is the data she used was from other scientists who were solar physicists and protested in vain that she and her co-author did not know what the heck they were doing. The letters of protest with explanations are included in the link above.
The fraud was so blatant, an author passing judgement on her own work, that the Norwegian government made this complaint.

I urge IPCC to consider having only one solar physicist on the lead author team of such an important chapter. In particular since the conclusion of this section hangs on one single paper in which Judith Lean is the co-author.”

Luboš Motl, a physicist, was scathing about her credentials as a “Solar” Physicist link
So if the sun did change in intensity, as Dr. R.C. Willson (head of the ACRIM satellites) and Douglas Hoyt, “the people, who were in charge of the satellites and who created the original graphs (the best world astro-physicists: Doug Hoyt, Richard C.Willson)” indicate, then the IPCC has drastically underestimated the solar forcing and everything else has to be adjusted DOWN accordingly.
Yeah, I would be using weasel words too in this case.

As usual, a very nice presentation. However, as the IPCC models, etc, ignore convection and the huge negative feedback of the water cycle, the contention remains that, if CO2 caused any warming, it would only serve to ramp up the water cycle and increase energy loss to space.
Furthermore, as IR absorption by CO2 and water vapor during the day is effectively a wash, emitting in both directions in the face of overwhelming solar input, it is at night that CO2 and water vapor would serve to convert one way, heat energy into IR, and facilitate IR loss to space. These, thus, serve to cool the planet. Remember how fast the air can cool shortly after the sun goes down—that’s CO2 and water vapor doing their job.
And, also, as CO2 appears to replace absolute water vapor content in the air, the overall effect of more CO2 is to have a less effective factor which converts ever so little energy to heat during the day. Increased CO2 could conceivably cause a negligible amount of cooling, but more likely no effect.

Kent Beuchert says:
August 31, 2012 at 6:52 am
While scientific debate over carbon will no doubt continue for some time, it seems utterly obvious that CO2 emissions will be reduced, importantly or not, along with harmful emissions in a very big way in the coming years. Looking at the enormous nuclear power building boom currently being planned and undertaken, whereby China alone is anticipating 600 reactors in the next 30 years and 1800 reactors by turn of the century, it’s seems clear to me that electricity will be produced
in the future with few emissions….
____________________________
That is in China and India. Russia is moving forward with plans for doubling nuclear energy output by 2020. Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia already have nuclear planning firmly in place.
Brazil on the other hand said it has shelved plans to build new nuclear power stations in the coming years in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. So has Germany who has gone even further and is shutting down plants. In Sep of 2011 an explosion shook a French nuclear waste site in southern France, killing one person and injuring four. French President Francois Hollande, who took office in May, pledged to cut the nuclear-power portion of France’s electricity production to 50 percent by 2025 from about 75 percent now, and to invest in renewable energies. UK nuclear plans were also put on hold. As of march of this year Nuclear giants RWE and E.ON drop plans to build new UK reactors The UK also looked at Thorium link
Australia:

When Prime Minister Julia Gillard appeared on the ABC’s Q&A program recently, the first question asked of her was about her plans for nuclear power in Australia.
Ms Gillard replied that her government was not entertaining the idea.
“The Labor position has been opposed to the development of nuclear energy,” she said.
“We’re a country with abundant solar, wind, geothermal, tidal – you name it, we’ve got renewable sources of energy so we don’t think nuclear energy is right for this country.”
Earlier that same day, the Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott voiced his party’s view.
“The coalition has no policy to promote nuclear power in this country,” he said. http://
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-18/a-nuclear-australia/2653206

The USA gave up on nuclear in the 1970’s. Canada plans to expand its nuclear capacity over the next decade.

chris y you write “The result is 0.1 C per W/m^2 or less, indicating strong negative feedback mechanisms are in play.”
Thanks for the reference. However, I take major exception to the quote above. You seem to be assuming that it has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the value for the no-feedback climate sensitiviy has been established as being significant, thus requiring a strong negative feedback to explain the low value of total climate sensitivity.
On the other hand, if the value of the no-feedback sensitivity is, in fact, indistinguishable from zero, as I believe it is, then a low value of total climate sensitivity is completely understandable, with no need to resort to a strong negative feedback. My suspicion is that this explanation is the more likely of the two..

The biggest problem with this analysis is completely inherited from the CAGW proposal that it analyzes. CO_2 is only one component of a highly multivariate problem. I recognize that the point is to show that there are data at hand that do not support the “catastrophic” assignment of overall climate sensitivity, but AR5 already has backed off considerably from this (and I expect will back off still more for every year that CO_2 continues to rise but global temperatures remain more or less trendless, which is yet another constraint on sensitivity). Sadly, ALL of this analysis is across a range of times that is almost invisibly short on a geological scale, on a timescale that is short even compared to KNOWN important timescales of natural variability (e.g. decadal oscillations) and with the Sun in an unusual, if not unique on a timescale of centuries to thousands of years, state of high activity in the latter half of the 20th century. We are fleas trying to predict the height of a dog by looking at the best fit function to a hair on its ass with this kind of analysis.
IMO the only place and way — and I do mean only — that we will be able to quantitatively pin down the overall GHE in a way that can be quantitatively fit and understood is with TOA and BOA spectroscopy. TOA because in the end, the ONLY thing that matters as far as cooling the Earth is concerned is the integrated outgoing average power on a suitably coarse grained averaging interval and how that radiation is distributed. Even that isn’t enough to infer the actual “warming”, because temperature is not enthalpy, especially not with 70% of the Earth’s surface covered with seawater that serves as a huge heat buffer with multiple timescales stretching up higher than 1000 years. BOA spectroscopy provides at least a handle on the local blackbody temperature differential between surface temperatures and TOA emission temperatures across the spectrum, as well as a direct measure of the backradiation from the absorbing greenhouse bands that add to the surface budget of power that has to locally be balanced in dynamic quasi-equilibrium. Even that is perhaps too complex to quantitatively treat, but at least one could look for correlated trends in the data over a sufficiently long time series.
Perhaps 50 years, perhaps 100. More than 30, especially when we are not systematically measuring what we need to measure at the TOA even now, let alone at the BOA. Hell, we can’t even get straight thermometry right.
rgb

richardscourtney says:
August 31, 2012 at 6:55 am
…Now, it is important to keep up the attack until the scare sinks out of sight. Importantly, we need to recover the reputation of science which has been damaged by the scare, and the activities of people such as Lord Monckton are needed to achieve that….
_______________________
Unfortunately that genie is not going to go back into the bottle. As I have shown in other comments, it is not just CAGW where the science is suspect. Medicine especially, as well as pyschology has made front page news recently because of fraudulent science.
Perhaps it is just as well that the masses understand scientists are not gods or priests but instead are ordinary humans and are just as prone to the vices of humanity. Vices such as Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Apathy, Vainglory, Pride and perhaps the worst for a scientist, the need to belong to a group and therefore the fear of speaking out against the general “Consensus”

Matt says:
August 31, 2012 at 8:09 am
The good Lord is not a ‘notable person’ of his own home turf….
_______________________________
AHHhh yes the venerated Ad Hominem defense.
‘If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts. And if both are against you, pound on the table person.

I’m afraid there’s a schoolboy error by Monckton: if the rate of annual increase in CO2 concentration is proportional to the annual amount of carbon emissions, that does not mean that CO2 concentration is proportional to total emissions: a constant of integration been omitted.
In fact total anthropogenic emissions match very well to atmospheric CO2 concentration (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/emissionsvsconc.png/). But the graph does not go through the origin – there was a CO2 concentration of around 280 ppm before the industrial revolution when emissions were zero. If you just take the slope of the plot, as Monckton did, to convert from emissions to concentration and hence derive a temperature increase, you get the wrong answer.
If the calculation is done properly from this plot, the warming predicted from anthropogenic emissions is precisely the same as that predicted from concentration: Monckton’s analysis produces no independent constraint at all!
On another of Monkton’s recent comments on global warming, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/29/new-film-the-boy-who-cried-warming/#more-70119 , he claimed Gore cited a 2005 paper on the drowning of polar bears “that at no point said that global warning was responsible for any of this. He just made it up.”
In fact, Monnett and Gleason’s 2005 paper do put just such a context on their observations: “Although a number of published papers have discussed implications of climate change on polar bears, to date, mortality due to swimming has not been identified as an associated risk.”
Who’s making things up here?

Any chance of funding from Duke for another try?
Chuckle. But you know that. My entire participation (such as it is) in Global Climate or Climate Change or whatever one would like to call it is an utterly unfunded, unproductive hobby that has proven to be mostly a waste of time, as was an earlier hobby of trying to convince devout Christians that there was some small chance that Genesis was mythology, not fact, that the story of Noah and his ark was absurd beyond compare, that Moses (contrary to popular opinion) was a genocidal, femicidal, infanticidal murder (see Numbers 31, for example) that today would be tried for war crimes and murder many times over, generously accepting the proposition that Moses existed at all and isn’t just a legend or out and out myth (given a complete lack of corroboratory archeological evidence and a certain amount of absurdity, e.g. spending 40 years making a journey that is at most a few weeks on foot today).
Climate Science is a bizarre mix of similar religious belief and snippets of reason and science, where the latter are utterly incapable of causing any human being participating to shift their religious beliefs regarding the matter by an iota.
At the moment, my current windmill to tilt at is a clear model for the pure radiative greenhouse effect, one that reduces it to first year thermo plus Stefan-Boltzmann ONLY and proves that the second law of thermodynamics is NOT violated by it. This of course doesn’t prove that CO_2 increases do or do not increase global temperature averages — the climate system is complex and involves heat transport, the lapse rate, the differential transparency of the atmosphere to different wavelengths as one ascends the air column to lower pressure/density that you allude to, complex feedback from clouds and water vapor modulating albedo and heat transport, aerosols, heat transport and release from the oceans, particulates, and other things I’m probably forgetting.
But establishing that one of the primary theses of the Skydragon Slayers is nonsense seems like it would still be worthwhile, simply because they are embarrassing and give skeptics a bad name with their terrible physics. As you say, being a skeptic of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is not an excuse for bad science or weak arguments. The top article here is not bad science, although it isn’t any better than the weak science it directly addresses so it isn’t terribly strong. But Monckton doesn’t go around asserting that there is no such thing as the GHE, because he knows a) sure there is; and b) if he did, people would — with good reason — laugh at him. Science doesn’t involve belonging to a named group or supporting a book that is really pretty humorous where it isn’t sad.
rgb

Richard Courtney,
From introductory calculus you may recall that if the rate of change of two variables, dy/dt and dx/dt, are proportional with a constant k, the variable themselves will related by y = k x + c, where c is the constant of integration.
If you didn’t do calculus, you should be aware that in general you need both the slope and intercept of a straight-line relationship to convert between two parameters (e.g. Celsius and Fahrenheit).
Monckton has assumed that the intercept is zero between total emissions atmospheric concentration (or alternatively omitted the constant of integration). But it isn’t – there was a little less than 300 ppm of CO2 before any emissions by humans. Hence his calculation of the temperature increase based on a single value for emissions is just wrong. Just as for concentration, a ratio of emissions is required to derive the change in temperature. Monckton’s inclusion of emissions provides absolutely no independent constraint on the climate sensitivity.
What with this basic analytical error, and an attack on Gore which rather shows him to be the one “making things up”, Monckton has not had his finest week.

“If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts.”
Sounds like a witty adage – except for it isn’t. The law simply assesses the facts, well, in light of what the law actually says. It is not meaningful to pound on either one independently. Anyway, are you trying to imply that I have previously try to bring forward either the law or facts in vain?

Richard C,
Your phrase from Monckton’s paper is the key one:
“the trend in the ratios of annual global CO2 emissions to annual increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations does not differ significantly from zero”
which means the ratio between the rates of change of emissions and concentrations doesn’t change over time, or in algebra:
dE/dt = k dC/dt
giving
E = kC + constant
The constant is not zero, as Monckton implicitly assumes, and hence his calculation fails.
I, too, would like to hear any explanation Monckton can offer.

Matt says:
August 31, 2012 at 2:10 pm
“If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts….
_____________________
Matt, google the line, it is an old lawyer joke.

Christopher Monckton claims, “the IPCC’s implicit climate-sensitivity parameter for the 21st century is 1.56 / [5.35 ln(713/368)], or 0.44 K /W–1 m2.” [ie 0.44K per W/m^2].
That is wrong.
The temperature difference, 1.56K, used in that expression includes the necessary recognition of the lack of equilibrium (between average global temperature and atmospheric CO2) in 2000 with CO2 at 368ppmv (hence the expression “0.6 K is stated to be in the pipeline” used by Monckton), but there is no such recognition of a similar lack of equilibrium for the condition in 2100 with CO2 at 713ppmv, where a similar “in the pipeline” discrepancy due to lack of equilibrium will also exist and also needs to be taken into account.
The “in the pipeline” further increase in temperature that will similarly exist in 2100 due to this disequilibrium is likely to be greater than the 0.6K used by Monckton for 2000, since the ratio of CO2 concentrations between 2100 and 2000, (ie 713/368 = 1.9375) used in the calculation is greater than that between 1900 and 2000, (ie 368/296 = 1.243), 296ppmv being the CO2 concentration in 1900. Those latter figures can only give a rough indication, but what they show is atmospheric CO2 rising proportionally more rapidly in the 21st century than in the 20th, hence a greater “in the pipeline” figure is to be expected.
If the “in the pipeline” discrepancy in 2100 used in the calculation were 1.1K, (rather than being omitted altogether by Monckton), then the climate sensitivity would be 0.75K per W/M^2, in line with the IPCC , [since (1.56+1.1)/[5.35 ln(713/368)] = 0.75]

He has assumed that the ratio of 0.7 that was derived for 1900-2100 applies to the period up till now. If you look more closely at the IPCC numbers, the ratio till present is nearer 1.0 because aerosol effects have mostly canceled the non-CO2 warming effects, leaving the effect as equivalent to CO2 alone. This cancellation is easily seen from the IPCC forcings to date. Later the aerosol growth is not expected to be so fast because of its limited lifetime in the atmosphere, so the forcing change starts to be dominated by the accumulating GHGs of which CO2 may be more than half.

Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 31, 2012 at 7:59 am
“Henry Clark says that there was only 0.3 K warming from the 1930s to the present, so I ought not to have calculated that there was 0.4 K warming in the 49 year 1960-2008. However, I have merely followed the data. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the HadCRUt3 data over the period is 0.66 K”
HADCRUT3 is fudged data. CRU “data” (and the other dataset also adjusted by CAGW movement proponents: GISS) does not match reality seen outside of politically correct historical revisionism. See, for example:
http://www.real-science.com/hansens-tremendous-data-tampering
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/part1-the-perplexing-temperature-data-published-1974-84-and-recent-temperature-data-181.php
and the rest in the series
For a simple illustration of the standard tactic, these guys were sloppy enough to leave an electronic trail where, for instance, http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif shows the 5-year mean of U.S. temperature in the high point of the 1980s was 0.4 degrees Celsius cooler than such in the 1930s, but, in utter contradiction, later they realized next to nobody pays enough attention to quantitatively reading graphs so they could get away with the fudging in http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif making the same less than 0.1 degrees Celsius apart instead.
Hansen (GISS) is an extremist activist protester repeatedly arrested. His ally of Mann has outright stated his admiration of Ehrlich. And CRU (source of HADCRUT) is infamous for climategate.
The method used by GISS and CRU is the standard way: In the words of http://www.historiography-project.org/misc/biglie.html in another context, repeat something “so often that virtually no one bothers to challenge it.”
Yet all one has to do to for such to break down is go outside where enviro-activists are dominant, a locale bounded in time and in space: As illustrated in my last comment, pre-1980s sources countradict the revisionism and so do later ones from authors in Russia (plus some within the Anglosphere but with honest objective individuals less inclined to try entering the field at this point).
You already know untrue claims are common but may not want to try to delve into multiple matters at once. However, this is one of those most important, and even skeptics too often fall into implicitly treating untrue but highly publicized revisionism as if accurate, without a word of question.

Though having repeatedly been warned against the folly of it, Lord Monckton continues to claim that there is, in nature, the constant that he and others call “the climate sensitivity” (aka “the equilibrium climate sensitivity.”) The climate sensitivity is the proportionality constant in a purported linear mapping from increases in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration to increases in the spatially averaged equilibrium surface air temperature at Earth’s surface. As the equilibrium temperature is non-observable, the conjecture that there is in nature this mapping will forever remain untestable and thus unscientific.

richardscourtney says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:55 am
Tom P says:
September 1, 2012 at 11:01 am
————————————-
Plants, oceans and soils are absorbing 2.0% per year of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere above the equilbrium level of 276 ppm.
I say equilibrium level because that is what it has been for the past 24 million years (give or take a 185 ppm in an ice age) and roughly what is was for the 8,000 years before our emissions started in earnest about 1750.
If we stopped emitting tomorrow, plants oceans and soils would go on absorbing 2.0% per year of the excess CO2 and, in about 100 years, we would be back to 291 ppm.
–> CO2 concentration increase ppm = Human Emissions ppm – Natural Carbon Sink Rate
–> CO2 concentration increase ppm = Human Emissions ppm – [0.02 (CO2 curr ppm * 2.13 – 276 ppm * 2.13) / 2.13]
–> for 2011 = 1.92 ppm = 4.3 ppm – [0.02*(827-589)/2.13] = 4.3 – 2.38 = 1.92 ppm
–> for 1950 = 0.2 ppm = 0.83 ppm – [0.02*(663-589/2.13] = 0.83 – 0.63 = 0.2 ppm
This formula works very close for any year between 1950 and 2011 (prior to that the 0.02 was a little lower).
(the 2.13 is required to go between Carbon and CO2 because most of the data is in billion tons Carbon and, in the sinks, the Carbon is held is different Carbon-based molecules than CO2).

The IPCC says that if CO2 was not emitted after 2000, the temperature rise would be 0.6 K, which is in the pipeline. What happens if we continue to emit CO2 through 2100? We get a rise of 2.8 K. Everyone agrees so far. Where we disagree is what is the net loss from the pipeline if the CO2 continues to rise because that can be subtracted from 2.8 K to get the real heating of CO2 in the 21st century. Monckton assumes all the 0.6 degrees is lost from the pipeline, leaving nothing in the pipeline at the end. I (and the IPCC) would argue that there is no net loss from the pipeline (possibly a gain), simply because CO2 still provides energy to the pipeline at the rate it is lost. You only get that energy out, in the net, if CO2 stops putting energy in, which only occurs if emission stops. In short, 2.8 K is the real gain, as the fluxes to/from the pipeline tend to cancel.

Paolo says:
September 1, 2012 at 2:09 pm:
Greg House says:
September 1, 2012 at 12:00 pm
That is exactly what I am doing, considering “greenhouse gases warming” by itself, and by itself it excludes a negative feedback and includes a positive feedback.
If you are including a feedback, you cannot say in the same breath that you are considering CO2-induced warming *by itself.* Either you consider it by itself or you don’t.
====================================================
The alleged contradiction is not real, it is only the result of your possible misunderstanding, because you made “CO2-induced warming” out of my “greenhouse gases warming”.
Again, the “greenhouse gases warming” concept includes BOTH “CO2 induced warming” AND “water vapour induced warming”, and since “CO2 induced warming” produces more water vapour it produces thus also more “water vapour induced warming”, and this is a positive feedback.

Christopher Monckton,
Your plot is of the rate of change of emissions growth divided by the rate of change of CO2 concentration, and hence the intercept only gives the slope of the relationship between cumulative emissions and atmospheric concentration. You also need the intercept in that relationship to be able to convert between the two and hence put the right numbers in to your equation 1.
Your error at this point should be quite clear, but here are the numbers, as you insist. Substituting equation (2) above,
C = k E + Co,
into
deltaT = 0.44*0.53*ln(C2/C1)
where C1 and C2 are the concentrations at the beginning and end of the period we obtain
deltaT = 0.44*5.35*ln[(kE2 +Co)/(kE1 + Co)] (3).
Hence to solve for the temperature change between 1960 and 2008, we solve equation 2 using k as the reciprocal of 15 GTonnesCO2/ppm, Co as 290 ppm and E1 and E2 from the reference you use, Boden et al., as a cumulative 308 GTonnes in 1960 and 1272 GTonnes in 2008, giving
deltaT = 0.44*5.35*ln[(1272/15+290)/(308/15 + 290)]
giving
deltaT = 0.44*5.35*ln (375/311) = 0.44 C
which is in good agreement with the 0.47 C derived from the concentration figures for these two particular years. Your figure of 0.27 C is the result of you incorrectly relating emissions to concentration, giving a fallacious fixed “quantum of emissions necessary to raise global temperatures by 1K”. There is no such thing!
There is no contradiction between the warming derived from concentration and emissions, and certainly no independent constraint.
Again, I strongly suggest you ask your previous reviewers to take a closer look if you are still unsure as to your error here.

Christopher Monckton,
I should add you have misled yourself as to why you can ignore your admitted error.
You are right that you get away with it with regard to concentrations: this is because for a small relative change in concentrations between 1960 and 2008, from 317 to 386 ppm, the logarithmic relationship is close to linear for a change of around 20%, with only a 2% error. But this is not the case for emissions. They have increased from 308 to 1272 GTonnes, some 420%, and a linear approximation is off 65%. This is not a second order effect!

I will just say that the pipeline (aka the ocean heat content excess) had a net gain in the 20th century.There is no expectation of a net loss in the 21st century. At least the same warming will still be in the pipeline in 2100. You can’t pay into the atmospheric budget from the pipeline, because at least as much leaks in the other direction as it was doing in the 20th century.

Greg House says:
You apparently know that there is such an effect as evaporative cooling.
[…]
But OK, I am not going to “torture” you scientifically any further
====================
So first you question wether evaporation causes cooling and almost immediately you brag about torturing people “scientifically”. You have made an ass of yourself long enough and no one should reply to your brayings anymore.

Christopher Monckton,
You ask for a quantitative analysis: you have been given one in my comment of September 1, 2012 at 3:36 pm, clearly demonstrating that the data for concentration and emissions give the equivalent warming for the period 1960 to 2008 of 0.46 K and 0.44K.
Your value of 0.28 C is a result of your faulty analysis, evidenced by you calculating a “quantum of emissions” for a 1K warming. Such a constant quantum does not exist. You have admitted your error here, hoping it had no appreciable effect on your calculation over this period. For emissions, that hope is misplaced, as the numbers show.
There is no independent constraint on climate sensitivity available using the emissions rather than the concentration data. This should be hardly surprising given the linear relationship between the two.
I suggest you read the comment of September 1, 2012 at 3:36 pm , and if you still remain unclear as to your error, ask one of the scientists whom has seen your draft to go over it with you.

Christopher Monckton,
It appears you did not take my advice to show your draft to a scientist who would be able to correct you on your analysis. At least your response should be making it clearer to others as to how you have confused yourself.
Your write:
“But, as I think Tom P. accepts, over decadal to centennial timescales there is also a near-invariant relation between CO2 emissions increase and CO2 concentration increase.
Accordingly, little error arises if, over the period of study, we assume two constants: 15.5 Gte CO2 emissions increase per ppmv concentration increase; and about 220 ppmv CO2 concentration increase per Kelvin of temperature increase. Multiplying these two gives a third constant relevant to the period of study: namely the CO2 emissions increase per Kelvin of temperature increase. It cannot legitimately be said that the relation between CO2 emissions and temperature change is irrelevant, since that is precisely the point that everyone is arguing about.”
The problem comes when you multiply the two constants together, as there is an offset in the emissions/concentration relationship. Hence while there is an approximate linear relationship between increase in concentration and increase in temperature between 1960 and 2008, and a very good linear relationship between emissions and concentration, though with an offset of around 300 ppm, there is not a linear relationship between emissions and the increase in temperature due to that offset.
Furthermore, while using a linear approximation for the logarithmic function for the small relative change in concentration, from 317 to 386 ppm, is justified, it is not valid for the large, non-linear change in cumulative emissions that have increased from 308 to 1272 MTonnes CO2 (equivalent to 86 to 346 MTonnes of C):
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/9186/timeseries.png
The fault in your analysis in assuming a constant emissions per temperature rise is clear if you look at the emissions produced in the first and last decade of your period. As you state in your paper, you have taken the temperature as a linear trend over that period. Hence if there was a valid constant emissions per temperature, that would correspond to a similar quantity of emissions in the first and last decade.
In fact from 1960 to 1970, there were around 6 GTonnes of CO2 produced, while from 1998 to 2008 there were 11 GTonnes. Your data should have told you immediately that it was incorrect to base an analysis on a constant “quantum of emissions” for a given amount of warming.
At no point have I said that the relationship between CO2 emissions and temperature is irrelevant. What I have said is that you were incorrect to state that is has a constant value. It is the confusion in your maths that has caused you to get a different sensitivity using concentration and emissions.
It should now be clear that as both emissions and concentration give equivalent warming when properly calculated, there is no independent constraint on climate sensitivity emerging from you faulty analysis.

Shawnhet says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:46 pm:
Greg House:”As I said before, the process of evaporation is releasing water vapour in the air. You mean it is a negative feedback? Prove it. You apparently know that there is such an effect as evaporative cooling. At the same time you accept the “greenhouse effect” that includes warming properties of water vapour. So, the process of evaporation allegedly contributes to both cooling and warming at the same time. And you mean that the net effect is cooling? Then prove it.”
Respectfully, you are confused here. It is not evaporation that is a positive GH feedback, it is the *presence* of water vapor.
================================================
I do not see any confusion. First of all, I did not say “it is evaporation that is a positive GH feedback”, so your “it is not evaporation that is a positive GH feedback” simply misses the point. The best way to avoid confusion is not to replace the opponent’s words with what you think he meant.
Again, the first essential point is that evaporation has (according to the AGW concept) at the same time 2 opposite effects: evaporative cooling effect and “greenhouse warming” effect. Any problem with that? Then the next step. Depending on the real numbers, the overall effect of evaporation can be cooling or warming. Any problem with that step? If no, then the next step.
As I said, if the the overall effect of evaporation is cooling, then water vapour is not a “greenhouse gas” per definition. If the the overall effect of evaporation is warming, then it is not a negative feedback, it is a positive feedback then.
Now, within the AGW concept water vapour IS a warming “greenhouse gas”, so you can not at the same time support that concept and maintain that the evaporation is a negative feedback. It is a clear contradiction and I hope that Christopher Monckton realises that sooner or later and drops it. If he hopes that warmists will not be able to see his contradiction, then it is a bad strategy.

Monckton of Brenchley:
In the article at http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/monckton_climate_sensitivity.pdf you state that “Warming delta T is simply delta F multiplied by some climate sensitivity parameter lambda.” In your comment of Sept. 1, 2012 at 1:55 pm, you state that “My paper did not, repeat not, depend upon the equilibrium sensitivity parameter.” From the content of the two statements, I gather that lambda does not reference the equilibrium climate sensitivity parameter but rather references a similar idea with the equilibrium temperature replaced by the actual temperature. Lamda, then, is the proportionality constant in a function that maps the change in the forcing to the change in the temperature. However, there can be no such function for in the period after a change in the forcing, the temperature is time varying.

The global warming projections in the start of this thread.
How can they make these linear or accelerating when the effect of CO2 is logarithmic?

”
Jim D says:
September 2, 2012 at 9:45 am
There is much conceptual confusion about the relation of the pipeline to the earth’s energy imbalance to the ocean heat content. I recommend Hansen’s 2011 energy imbalance paper for a clear and up-to-date exposition on the subject.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha06510a.html
Essentially, the radiative warming from CO2 is not immediately balanced by the increase in surface temperature as some goes into the deep ocean. This results in a radiative imbalance that continues to warm the earth and deep ocean until the surface temperature has risen to offset the CO2 effect. In reality it never catches up if the CO2 keeps increasing, leading to the energy imbalance being a semi-permanent state, and the pipeline warming in the ocean being a thermal inertia that delays the equilibrium until after the forcing has stopped changing.
The paper talks about the interplay of the aerosol effect and deep ocean mixing in controlling this energy imbalance, and how better measurements of the imbalance will help with separating these effects on the observed record.
”
**********
None of the IR makes it past the skin of the surface of the ocean. All of the energy is absorbed at the top small section and very little of it transfers by conduction downward. The only places where the ocean is moving surface water downward is in small areas of much colder climate – not where there is substantial incoming solar and higher atmospheric temperatures near the surface. Have you ever tried to boil a pan of water by placing a hotplate upside down on the top? All of the mechanisms that make it straight forward and easy to boil water sitting in a pan on top of the hotplate are now working against the attempt. The same goes for the vast amount of oceans.
Visible light, almost 50% of total incoming solar, penetrates the surface to significant depths, some beyond a few hundred feet. LW IR emitted by atmospheric temperatures doesn’t get past the skin, well under an inch. It results in increased evaporation. Water vapor is a lighter molecule, 18, vs the average of 28.8. Like helium, it will rise, absorbing more IR energy and reducing its density even more (like a hot air balloon rises). It will rise until the water vapor is forced to become liquid/solid as the RH rises with decreasing T. At that point, the heat of evaporation absorbed by the water at the surface will be given up, well above most ghg effects and well above the surface.
My experience with reading hansen papers is that if he says it, it’s most likely wrong or totally unsupported by the facts presented.

”
Jim D says:
September 3, 2012 at 9:46 am
cba, the net effect of IR at the surface is cooling. This is also good for mixing. The only thing downward IR does is reduce the cooling rate, and the ocean stays warmer that way.
”
not if the net result is to generate more h2o vapor and more clouds.

Christopher Monckton,
You now claim “I do not obtain different results by the use of emissions and by the use of concentrations”.
When you first solve for the warming in equation 1 using just the concentration values of 316.9 ppm in 1960 and 385.6 ppm in 2008, you correctly obtain a value of 0.46 K. However, when you use the well derived linear relationship between concentration and emissions to recalculate the warming, you obtain “by the present method” a value of 0.28 K.
This you claim gives an independent constraint on a lower climate sensitivity. But your “present method” is plainly wrong, as it only uses the growth in emissions between the two dates. As I have clearly shown in my comment of September 1, 2012 at 3:36 pm, correctly rewriting equation 1 in terms of the emissions values gives a value of 0.44 K, not 0.28 K.
But apparently you now believe 0.28K is no different from 0.46K.
You have not only reinvented the wheel as square. You are now insistent that despite everyone seeing that your wheel clearly has four sides, it is still in fact a circle.

[Snip. ‘Denialism’ or its synonyms violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]

my earlier comment: sorry! the link for CO2 balance is http://db.tt/eMimzA71

Paolo,
Don’t forget my tussles with Steven Goddard with his perpetual promises of an arctic ice recovery. He never accepted his ice thickness calculations were wrong, though the money he lost this melt season might concentrate his mind.
That reminds me, I have that bet with Charles the Moderator on whether 2008 was the start of a cooling trend…

Christopher Monckton claims, “Tom P now resorts to … vituperative, ad-hominem remarks.”
Really? Where?
I have looked through the last several of Tom P’s comments and find not a single comment that could be so characterised.
Christopher Monckton, on the other hand, has interacted with those with whom he is in dispute in the following terms:
“Mr. [Xxxxx] should really not waste any more time displaying his bottomless ignorance on this site.
he tries – I fear deliberately – to muddy the waters
All he does with his childishly petulant and shamefully ill-informed interventions is to clarify before everyone the depth and breadth of his own ignorance. his interventions are perhaps of value in that they are yet further visible evidence of the sad level of general scientific and forensic ignorance
it is intellectually dishonest of “[Xxx X]” who continues to lurk furtively behind a pseudonym
Mr. [Xxxxx] whines … Let him do some reading before he makes a still greater idiot of himself …
it is intellectually dishonest of him … “

Richard Courtney
Even the very preliminary assessment of Monckton’s article provided by this forum has indicated there may be serious problems with it. My assessment, for what it’s worth, is that it would never pass peer review, but if Monckton wishes to attempt that hurdle then let him do so. Until such time, don’t expect those who find fault with it to agree that “An independent constraint on climate sensitivity now exists.”
As for your comparison – however tenuous – between the preliminary status of Monckton’s efforts and those of Newton and Einstein… . Really, don’t be ridiculous.
The Internet is awash with all manner of strange ideas. Are we to accord preliminary acceptance of these just because in the past major advancements have passed through a similar stage?
BTW, I do love the juxtaposition of “Clearly, you have no understanding of science and/or logic.” with “Play the ball and not the man.” Quite delicious.

Mr Courtney,
Your commented:
“With respect to your comment about me, at least you have not presented the usual warmist lie that Monckton of Brenchley is not a Lord. Such demeaning of people is normal by warmists, but it is reprehensible.”
There is no doubt Monckton is a lord, though purely by accident of birth. The US wisely dispensed with deferring to anyone by their title merely on the basis of parentage.
It should be added Monckton has not a happy relationship with the House of Lords:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/
In fact Monckton tried to attain an elected position in that House, but his candidacy gained precisely zero votes.
Of course, this has nothing to do with the flawed mathematics of Monckton’s post. He has failed to produce any rebuttal of the calculation I presented September 1, 2012 at 3:36 pm. You seem to be the only defender of Monckton’s position left. Maybe you could oblige?