Guest post by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Abstract
Global CO2 emissions per unit increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration provide an independent constraint on climate sensitivity over the timescale of the available data (1960-2008), suggesting that, in the short term and perhaps also in the long, climate sensitivity may lie below the values found in the general-circulation models relied upon by the IPCC.
Introduction
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, p. 358, Table 6.2), citing Myhre et al. (1998), takes the CO2 forcing ΔF as 5.35 times the logarithm of a proportionate change Cb/Ca in CO2 concentration, where Cais the unperturbed value. Warming ΔT is simply ΔF multiplied by some climate sensitivity parameter λ.
Projected 21st-century anthropogenic warming, as the mean of values on all six IPCC emissions scenarios, is 2.8 K (IPCC, 2007, table SPM.3: Annex, Table 0). Of this, 0.6 K is stated to be in the pipeline. Of the remaining 2.2 K, some 0.65 K is attributable to non-CO2 forcings, since the CO2 fraction of anthropogenic warming is 71% (the Annex explains the derivation). Thus the IPCC’s current implicit central estimate of the warming by 2100 that will be attributable solely to the CO2 we emit this century is only 1.56 K.
Projected CO2 concentration C2100 in 2100, the mean of the values on all six IPCC emissions scenarios, is 713 ppmv (Annex, Table 3), 345 ppmv above the 368 ppmv measured in 2000 (Conway & Tans, 2011). Therefore, 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. This value, adopted in (1), is half of the IPCC’s implicit equilibrium value 0.88 K W–1 m2 (derived in the Annex).
Global warming from 1960-2008
The IPCC’s implicit central estimate of CO2-driven warming from 1960-2008 is at (1):
The CO2 forcing coefficient 5.35 was given in Myhre et al. (1998). Initial and final CO2 concentrations were 316.9 and 385.6 ppmv respectively (Tans, 2012). Since the 0.46 K warming driven by the CO2 fraction is 71% of anthropogenic warming, use of the IPCC’s methods implies that, as a central estimate, all of the 0.66 K observed warming from 1960-2008 (taken as the linear trend on the data over the period in HadCRUt3, 2011) was anthropogenic. However, attribution between Man and nature remains problematic: an independent approach to constraining climate sensitivity produces a very different result.
An independent constraint on climate sensitivity
Since few non-linearities will obtrude at sub-centennial time-scales, to warm the Earth’s surface by 1 K the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere must increase by 345/1.56 = 223 ppmv K–1. From 1960-2008, the trend in the ratios of annual global CO2 emissions to annual increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations does not differ significantly from zero (Fig. 1). The mean emissions/concentration-growth ratio over the period was 15.5 Gt CO2 ppmv–1, which, multiplied by 223 ppmv K–1, gives 3450 GTe CO2 K–1, the quantum of CO2 emissions necessary to raise global temperature by 1 K.
Figure 1. Near-zero trend in annual emissions/concentration-growth ratios, 1960-2008. Data and methods are described in the Annex. Spikes caused by volcanic eruptions are visible. Excluding effects of major eruptions makes little difference to the outcome.
Total global CO2 emissions from 1960-2008 were 975 Gte CO2 (Boden et al., 2011). Accordingly, CO2-driven warming expected over the period, by the present method, was 975 divided by 3450, or 0.28 K. Allowing for the non-CO2 fraction, some 0.40 K warming over the period, equivalent to 61% of observed warming, was anthropogenic, not inconsistent with the estimate in IPCC, 2007 that at least 50% of observed warming from 1950-2005 was anthropogenic. However, inconsistently with (1), this method yields a CO2-driven warming that is only 61% of the central estimate derived from the IPCC’s general-circulation models.
Implications
On the assumption that the coefficient in the CO2 forcing function, cut from 6.3 to 5.35 in Myhre et al. (1998), is now correct, one implication of the present result is that the climate-sensitivity parameter λ appropriate to a 50-year period is not 0.44 K W–1 m2, as the models suggest, but as little as 0.27 K W–1 m2. Since the value of the instantaneous or Planck sensitivity parameter λ0 is 0.31 KW–1 m2 (IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.), temperature feedbacks operating during the period of study may have been somewhat net-negative, rather than appreciably net-positive as implied by (1).
If feedbacks operating over the short to medium term are indeed net-negative, there is no warming in the pipeline from past emissions; in the rest of this century CO2-driven warming may be little more than 1 K; anthropogenic warming from all sources may be less than 1.5 K; and supra-centennial-scale warming may also be significantly less than currently projected. If so, all attempts at mitigation will prove cost-ineffective, and the cost of adaptation to future warming will be well below current estimates.
References
Boden, T., G. Marland, and R. Andres, 2011, Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Fossil-Fuel Burning, Cement Manufacture, and Gas Flaring: 1751-2008, available from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2008.ems
Conway, T., & P. Tans, 2011, Recent trends in globally-averaged CO2 concentration, ww2.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global.
Garnaut, R., 2008, The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report. Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Australia, 680 pp, ISBN 9780521744447.
IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis: Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell and C.A. Johnson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, NY, USA.
IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: the Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007 [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Avery, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, NY, USA.
Myhre et al., 1998, New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases. Geophysical Research Letters25:14, 2715–2718, doi:10.1029/98GL01908.
Ramanathan, V., R. Cicerone, H. Singh and J. Kiehl, 1985, Trace gas trends and their potential role in climate change, J. Geophys. Res.90: 5547-5566.
Solomon, S., G.-K. Plattner, and P. Friedlingstein, 2009, Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions, PNAS 106:6, 1704-1709, doi:10.1073/pnas.0812721106.
Tans, P., 2012, Atmospheric CO2 concentrations (ppmv) at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, 1958-2008, at ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Dr. Patrick Michaels for having drawn his attention to the near-zero-trend in the annual CO2 emissions/concentration-growth ratios that is confirmed here.
Annex: supplementary material
Values of the climate sensitivity parameter λ
If net temperature feedbacks exceed zero, the climate sensitivity parameter λ is not constant: as longer- and longer-acting feedbacks begin to act, it will tend to increase between the time of a forcing to the time when equilibrium is restored to the climate 1000-3000 years after the forcing that perturbed it (Solomon et al., 2009). Illustrative values of λ are given below.
The sensitivity parameter derived from the present result and applicable to the 49 years 1960-2008 is 0.27 K W–1 m2.
Where temperature feedbacks sum to zero, the instantaneous value λ0 is 0.31 K W–1 m2 (derived from IPCC (2007, p. 631 fn.: see also Soden & Held, 2006).
Garnaut (2008) talks of keeping greenhouse-gas rises to 450 ppmv CO2-equivalent above the 280 ppmv prevalent in 1750, so as to hold 21st-century global warming since then to 2 K, implying λ262 = 2 / [5.35 ln{(280 + 450) / 280}] = 0.39 K W–1 m2.
As explained in the text, the IPCC’s implicit climate-sensitivity parameter for the 21st century is λ100 = 1.56 / [5.35 ln(713/368)] = 0.44 K W–1 m2.
On each emissions scenario, the IPCC’s estimate of the bicentennial-scale transient-sensitivity parameter λ200 is 0.49 K W–1 m2 (derived in Table 0), a value supported by IPCC (2001, p. 354, citing Ramanathan, 1985).
The implicit value of the equilibrium-sensitivity parameter λequ is the warming currently predicted in response to a CO2 doubling, i.e. 3.26 K (IPCC, 2007, p. 798, Box 10.2), divided by the forcing of 5.35 ln 2 = 3.71 W m–2 at that doubling. Thus, λequ = 0.88 K W–1 m2.
Additional tables in the annex (which cannot reproduce properly here in blog format) are in the PDF file for this paper:
monckton_climate_sensitivity (PDF)
Christopher Monckton, September 1, 2012 at 12:40 am, states,
““Slioch” says that if I had added the IPCC’s 0.6 K warming in the pipeline at 2000 to the CO2-driven of 1.56 K 21st-century CO2-driven warming that is the IPCC’s implicit central estimate I should have derived a centennial-scale climate sensitivity parameter of 0,75 rather than 0.44 Kelvin per Watt per square meter.”
No, I made no such statement, and nor is it true. Nor was there any “double counting” on my part.
My main point was that, since Monckton took account of a (not yet seen) warming of 0.6K “in the pipeline” in 2000, then he should also have taken account of a similar figure in 2100, but did not do so. He still has not done so.
The last sentence of my previous post was conditional and illustrative. It showed that if Monckton had included an “in the pipeline” figure of 1.1K at 2100 (as well as the 0.6K figure in 2000), then he would have derived the 0.75K per W/m^2 climate sensitivity figure.
[I don’t know what the “in the pipeline” figure will be in 2100, and neither does Monckton or anyone else, but it is reasonable to suggest that it will be greater than the 0.6K 2000 figure since the proportionate rise in CO2 in the 21st century (according to Monckton’s figures) is greater than in the 20th.]
Wonders will never cease! Even the obstinate “there must be some warming due to CO2” Lord Monckton is shifting closer to agreeing with ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon.’ The death of the greenhouse gas effect is just taking a little longer to be absorbed in some quarters. Perhaps Mr Watts should entertain a post on the issue?
REPLY: You know my position on “Slaying the Sky Dragon”, I don’t see anything here that would change that. – Anthony
Gail Combs:
This is a brief reply to thank you for your post at August 31, 2012 at 4:09 pm which attempts to help me. I do not want to deflect this thread from its valuable subject but I give a brief outline of the experiment to display my gratitude for your attempt to help.
Simply, the experiment obtains the information of your graph and also (importantly) uses sensors mounted on the tether of a balloon to monitor at 10 m increments of altitude (a) the 15 micron IR flux in both vertical directions and (b) air temperature. The (near) simultaneous readings for (i) with solar and (ii) without solar radiation enable deconvolution of the effects of solar input and so reveal the variation of the IR effective emission height with varying backscattered IR from the surface. Hence, the effects of temperature on the emission height can be determined empirically. Knowing that, then the effects of GHG concentration can be calculated for constant temperature. And, therefore, anticipated variations to the lapse rate can be estimated for changes to GHG concentrations.
Again, thankyou.
Richard
Monckton in his reply earlier today pointedly failed to address a fundamental flaw in his calculations: he has ignored the fact that while total human emissions and atmospheric concentration of CO2 have a linear relationship, it does not go through the origin.
Moncktons silence on his error speaks volumes.
Mr., Telford says I persist in what he calls my “errors”: but, on reading his posting, I find it hard to determine whether he is deliberately trying to confuse the issue (which will fail: I shall only withhold wide publication of this result if proper scientific arguments against it are adduced), or is ignorant of elementary mathematics, or is simply confused himself.
It may be the inadequacies of the blog software, which is notoriously incapable of representing equations correctly, but the equation Mr. Telford produces is manifestly erroneous, in that – as it appears on my screen, at any rate – he equates the 67 ppmv growth in CO2 emissions over the period 1960-2008 with its reciprocal, as can be seen if the term for the sum of emissions on the l.h.s. is cancelled from the numerator and denominator.
He compounds this very silly mistake by asserting, quite wrongly, that I had derived the total emissions over the period of study from a half-baked equation such as his. Of course, I had done no such thing: as the paper itself rather plainly states, the method and data from which the value was compiled are given in the Annex: the value is the simple sum of the annual global emissions. In short, Mr. Telford has assumed I had argued in a direction that he thought he could dismiss out of hand, when in fact I have argued – as I usually try to do, in altogether the opposite direction: i.e. from the real-world data to the conclusion, and not the other way about.
Slioch’s attempt at partial rebuttal of my careful, detailed, point-by-point refutation of his attempt to suggest that I had incorrectly determined the centennial-scale climate-sensitivity parameter implicit in the IPCC’s projections estimates of climate sensitivity during the 21st century is plainly a further attempt merely to confuse matters. I refer readers to my earlier posting that details his multitude of errors.
John O’Sullivan intervenes with a pointless, off-topic and characteristically intellectually dishonest attempt to state that my paper appears to be moving close to his scientifically-illiterate proposition – with which he knows perfectly well I disagree – that there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect. Mr. Watts correctly points out that nothing in my paper lends the slightest support to any such infantile proposition.
Finally, “Tom P”, either through ignorance or through a deliberate attempt to confuse, moans that the least-squares regression trend on the annual ratios of global CO2 emissions to CO2 concentration increase does not pass through the origin of my graph. Of course it does not pass through the origin, because the y-intercept (the point on the line at which it intersects the y axis) has a value 15.25 Gte CO2. That rather substantial value being rather substantially different from zero, the regression trend-line could not possibly pass through the origin, now, could it? If only “Tom P.” would accept Dr. Courtney’s point that when dealing with a straight line one does not need to resort to infinitesimal calculus and that consequently there is no requirement whatsoever for a constant of integration, he would begin to grasp just how basic his errors are.
Let me make it very plain once again to those who, by various dubious methods, are trying to derail this thread or confuse the issue deliberately. Such techniques will no longer work, if they ever did. This little paper of mine is being widely circulated among the scientific community and, if there is anything truly wrong with it, whether conceptually or mathematically, someone will no doubt get in touch and let me know. I shall then add a posting here to record any real errors that are found. So far, though, the contributions from the climate-extremist camp have been painfully inadequate – an inadequacy, one suspects, that is born of sheer desperation.
Now hear this. From here on, do science, not politics, and do not sully science with willful or ignorant attempts at diversion. The result described in my short and not particularly complicated paper is respectable, as far as I or anyone else who has seen it so far can see. Please, please, produce proper, serious arguments against it, or go and play in somebody else’s sandbox. The time for intellectual dishonesty is over.
Lord Monckton, it is the relationship of total emissions (E) to concentration (C) that is linear: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/emissionsvsconc.png/
Your figure 1 represents the slope of the relationship (dE/dt)/(dC/dt), and then wrongly uses just the slope to relate emissions to concentration – you need the intercept as well.
Your error is precisely equivalent to solving the equation dC/dt = k dE/dt as C= k E rather than C = k E + Co and forgetting the constant of integration, Co (the CO2 concentration of about 300 ppm before there was any appreciable human emissions).
There is not a “quantum of CO2 emissions” necessary to raise the temperature by 1 K, any more than there is a quantum of CO2 concentration that would warm by 1 K. As should be clear from your equation 1, it is a ratio between two concentrations that determines the warming: an extra 10 ppm produces a different temperature rise if added to 300ppm or 400 ppm.
Hence it is necessary to know the total emissions at both 1960 and 2008 to calculate the rise in temperature, not only the increase in this period, just as you required the concentration at those two dates and not just the increase in equation 1. You will then find you get exactly the same answer for warming using either concentration or emissions, and your “independent constraint” from your calculation becomes evident as just being a result of your faulty analysis.
I don’t know who you might have already seen your draft of this paper, but I would advise you to ask them to take another look if you can’t grasp the error yourself.
Greg House says:
The concept of “greenhouse gases warming” excludes a negative feedback. You can not have both at the same time.
If the concept of “greenhouse gases warming” is correct, then you generally must have more warming if you have more “greenhouse gases” (until the effect is saturated). If warming increases concentration of water vapour in the air and water vapour is a “greenhouse gas”, then you will inevitably get more warming, this is a positive feedback.
Logically, if there is a proven negative feedback, then it proves the concept of “greenhouse gases warming” to be false. But, as I said, you can not have both at the same time.
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The above doesn’t make any sense at all. It belongs in the “not-even-wrong” category. A negative feedback does not become impossible because of the existence of the underlying process to which it is a response (in this case warming). On the contrary, the negative feedback — it if exists — does so precisely as a consequence of the underlying process.
What you are saying is equivalent to claiming that sweating (a negative feedback for thermoregulation of the body) cannot possibly exist if your body heats up. Or a million similar examples.
Sweating occurs precisely as a consequence of your body heating up. And it is a negative feedback because it cools you.
Examples of plausible negative feedbacks to green house warming can be easily conceived. The most obvious one, for us climate amateurs, would be an increase in cloud formation, blocking more sun.
The fact that the surface temperature of the planet has stayed within about 12 degrees C for what looks like an eternity, strongly suggests there must be some serious negative feedbacks at work.
And of course, pretty much all the feedbacks we observe in nature are negative.
Christopher Monckton continues to fail to address the error in his essay, to which I alluded earlier, which led him to “incorrectly determine[d] the centennial-scale climate-sensitivity parameter”.
The error (of omission) is contained within this paragraph in the Introduction from Monckton,
“Projected 21st-century anthropogenic warming, as the mean of values on all six IPCC emissions scenarios, is 2.8 K (IPCC, 2007, table SPM.3: Annex, Table 0). Of this, 0.6 K is stated to be in the pipeline. Of the remaining 2.2 K, some 0.65 K is attributable to non-CO2 forcings, since the CO2 fraction of anthropogenic warming is 71% (the Annex explains the derivation). Thus the IPCC’s current implicit central estimate of the warming by 2100 that will be attributable solely to the CO2 we emit this century is only 1.56 K.”
Monckton calculates the figure 1.56K, (upon which the calculation of climate sensitivity is based), by (inter alia) subtracting from the 2.8K 21st century IPCC warming the figure 0.6K, which figure is the, as yet unrealised, warming still “in the pipeline” as of the year 2000. That subtraction is entirely appropriate. HOWEVER, having subtracted that “in the pipeline” figure from the beginning of the period 2000 to 2100, it is then necessary to ADD a corresponding “in the pipeline” figure for the year 2100. This Monckton omits to do and therein lies the error to which I alluded earlier.
I went on to point out that the “in the pipeline” figure for 2100 was likely to be greater than that for 2000, since the proportionate increase in CO2 in the 21st century in Monckton’s calculation is greater than that for the 20th century. Hence the resulting temperature increase figure for use in the subsequent calculation would be greater than 1.56K and the calculated climate sensitivity then would be also proportionately larger.
I would be grateful, at the third time of asking, if Christopher could address these points.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 1, 2012 at 12:40 am:
Mr. House, having realized that he had been incorrect in assuming that net-negative feedbacks and global warming could not co-exist, shifts his ground in a tiresomely characteristic fashion and tries to maintain that there is no such thing as a negative feedback in the first place.
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No, this is not true, I did not realize that nor I maintained that other thing.
But OK, maybe I did not expressed my point clear enough, no problem, let me make it again.
The “greenhouse gases warming” notion alone supposes only a positive feedback. Since water vapour is considered to be a “greenhouse gas” too and “CO2 induced warming” causes more evaporation, you will have more warming until the effect is saturated, this is a positive feedback.
Now, if you maintain that a negative feedback is possible, you need to prove that the “greenhouse gases warming” triggers certain mechanism that itself contributes to cooling, then it would be possible to get a decrease in warming or even cooling as a net result.
Did you demonstrate that such a mechanism exists? No, you did not, neither in your guest post nor in your comments on this thread.
Hence your conclusion is not supported by your argumentation and is therefore baseless.
At the same time, it is generally possible to assume that a negative feedback exists, as long as no one proved the opposite, but you failed to prove that this assumption is correct.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 31, 2012 at 7:59 am
… My own approach is to take the data and the IPCC’s arguments, put them together, draw logical conclusions using simple mathematical methods, and demonstrate that, even if the premises of their arguments is correct, their conclusion does not follow. This is a very powerful technique, known to the ancient Greeks as elenchus – arguing as far as possible on the opponent’s own ground, and showing him that even on his own terms he is not correct.
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The Hockey Stick planted in Yamal is coming down one chop at a time …
Paolo says:
September 1, 2012 at 6:11 am:
“The above doesn’t make any sense at all. It belongs in the “not-even-wrong” category. A negative feedback does not become impossible because of the existence of the underlying process to which it is a response (in this case warming). On the contrary, the negative feedback — it if exists — does so precisely as a consequence of the underlying process.”
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I think there is some misunderstanding here. I already answered that in my comment at 7:15 am.
This is a futile exercise because climate sensitivity is zero. It follows from Ferenc Miskolczi’s work on the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere. He showed theoretically in 2005 that for a stable climate to exist the infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere has to have a value of 1.87. This is maintained by feedbacks among the greenhouse gases present. For practical purposes it boils down to carbon dioxide and water vapor. Carbon dioxide can not be changed but water vapor has an essentially infinite supply/sink in the oceans and can vary as needed. This was theory but in 2010 he was able to put it to an experimental test [E&E 21(4):243-262 (2010)]. Using NOAA weather balloon database that goes back to 1948 he showed that the infrared transparency of the atmosphere was constant and had not changed for 61 years. At the same time the amount of carbon dioxide in air increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of substantial amount of carbon dioxide to air had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. It follows that the output of climate models using the greenhouse effect to predict warming are completely invalid and emission control laws based upon these predictions are built on false premises and should be voided. If you wonder why the added carbon dioxide did not absorb IR, this is not what happened. It did absorb but water vapor adjusted itself to neutralize that absorption. This is called negative feedback. It is the exact opposite of positive feedback, an ad hoc addition to the greenhouse theory devised by IPCC for the purpose of increasing the warming you get from carbon dioxide. And since the addition of carbon dioxide to air does not result in a temperature increase the so-called “sensitivity” becomes zero.
Taking the CO2 concentration increase versus human CO2 emissions going back to 1750 yields a formula of:
CO2 concentration increase = 0.4922 * Human Emissions + 0.1 ppm
In practise, we would not expect CO2 to increase on its own if there were no human emissions so we can probably just discard the “constant”. In fact, in the absence of human emissions, the constant would become -2.6 ppm because the natural sources are now a big sink rather than a positive 0.1 ppm. So, what constant are you going to use.
In reality, it is just a fluke that we can arrive at only 49.22% of human emissions remaining in the air. Last year, natural sinks absorbed 66% of human emissions. It is more that human emissions have been increasing at a certain rate over time which just happens to be very close to the rate at which natural sinks are sinking the excess CO2 in the atmosphere above the equlibrium level of about 270 to 280 ppm.
Over time, the natural sinks ability to absorb CO2 has been rising. Before the 1900, the natural sinks increased and decreased by orders of magnitude more than human emissions were increasing. Starting in about 1900, the natural sinks have become mostly positive and the rate at which they are absorbing CO2 has been increasing. It has risen to about 2.0% per year of the Excess CO2 which is in the atmosphere. We might expect this rate to actually continue increasing going by the history since humans began adding CO2.
http://s12.postimage.org/3vbkgp8q5/Human_CO2_Emis_Concentration_1750.png
http://s17.postimage.org/9j3ef7vlb/Net_Natural_Absorp_Human_CO2_Emis_1750.png
http://s12.postimage.org/5japvcmlp/Net_Absorp_CO2_Above_280ppm.png
I agree with slioch here. If you take that the amount in the pipeline in 2000 is the same as that in 2100, you can’t subtract it from the 2.8 K rise which happens despite the changes in the pipeline. In fact, the amount at 2100 may be greater. Taking 0.6 K off is assuming everything now in the pipeline contributed to the 2.8 K, while none was left in the pipeline at the end. If any was left at the end, you can’t say it contributed to the warming.
Also the conversion to Gt CO2 per K is suspect, because we know that decreases inversely with the ppm over time due to the log function. So this parameter has twice the value in 2100 compared to now, for example, and a 21st century average is an overestimate for 1960-2008. The early addition of a given amount of CO2 is much more effective than the later addition of the same amount by this log law.
As I mentioned earlier, the aerosol change in 1960-2008 is also much larger than expected in the average of the 1900-2100 period, so that suppressed the initial temperature change too.
Greg House says:
September 1, 2012 at 8:48 am
I think there is some misunderstanding here. I already answered that in my comment at 7:15 am.
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It’s still impossible to understand your turbid thoughts on this matter.
The concept of greenhouse warming does not exclude the presence or absence of feedbacks, either negative or positive.
Of course you can consider greenhouse warming by itself, ceteris paribus, and therefore without any feedbacks. And that’s how the calculations of the basic greenhouse effect are usually done.
But since ceteris is clearly not paribus after ceteris has warmed up, if follows that feedbacks (of any sign) are possible.
Bill Illis:
At September 1, 2012 at 10:00 am your long post includes
I don’t know the composition of your “we” but anybody who knows anything about the carbon cycle would “expect the CO2 to increase” or to decrease because it cannot be constant.
The remainder of your post is based on your falsehood which I quote.
Richard
Bill Illis,
Monckton’s equation 1 requires the absolute CO2 concentration, not the increase in concentration of your equation. The relevant equation relating concentration, C, to total human emissions, E, is therefore:
C = k E + Co (2)
Co is about 290 ppm, and k is the reciprocal of the slope of the plot http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/emissionsvsconc.png/ or equivalently the reciprocal of the intercept of plot of Monckton’s fig. 1, both giving around 15 GTonnesCO2/ppm. Rewriting Monkton’s equation 1 in terms of emissions using equation 2 above allows the temperature increase for any period to be derived by plugging in the cumulative human emissions up to the start and the end of the period.
The excellent agreement of the data to the linear fit of equation 2 ensures that you get the same warming whether cumulative emissions or concentration values are used, and Monckton’s thesis of an independent constraint based on emissions completely unravels.
That straight-line between cumulative human emissions and the current CO2 concentration is also very strong evidence that human emissions are indeed responsible for the increase of CO2 over the last couple of centuries.
And it’s worth noting that the relevant quantity is cumulative human emissions to date, rather than emissions in any one year: even if we could cut total human emissions to zero, it would take a considerable time, many decades to centuries, before CO2 levels dropped appreciably.
For those more familiar with money than climate, the pipeline can be seen as a kind of escrow. If you need to pay $28k over a year and $6k are held in escrow going into the year, making the correct payments will lead to the same escrow at the end, but if you only pay $22k, you drain your escrow account. Monckton has assumed the warming is only 2.2 K, which makes the 21st century unbalanced on the budget books, not a sustainable situation going into the 22nd century.
Paolo says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:36 am:
“The concept of greenhouse warming does not exclude the presence or absence of feedbacks, either negative or positive.
Of course you can consider greenhouse warming by itself, ceteris paribus, and therefore without any feedbacks.”
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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.
Again, since water vapour is considered to be a “greenhouse gas” too and “CO2 induced warming” causes more evaporation, you will have more warming until the effect is saturated, this is a positive feedback.
So if you accept the concept of “greenhouse gases warming” you have already accepted a positive feedback. Skeptics need to realise that. A possible negative feedback still needs to be proven and Christopher failed to do that on this thread.
Jim Cripwell-
“Are you prepared to discuss it with me?”
Sure, but my responses to your posts will take time. As to your last comment, the blackbody radiator starting point assumes nothing about the existence of an atmosphere. It is a lousy approximation to the Earth. It depends on what temperature you assume for the emission surface of the body. If you assume 254 K, then the sensitivity is something like 0.27 K per W/m^2, as Lord Monckton pointed out above. It says nothing about the source of the additional forcing.
However, it provides a starting point from which to determine if additional model complexity provides higher or lower sensitivity than an ideal blackbody.
I think we need to agree on this before going further. Let me know your thoughts.
Has his Lordship forgotten that the reciprocal of the reciprocal of x is x? Has he so honed his copious rhetorical skills that he has forgotten his school-boy maths?
May I respectfully suggest that he submits his analysis to a journal with an open peer review process, so we can all enjoy the drubbing it get when the manifest and manifold errors are exposed, and logic not rhetoric is required to rebut comments.
Alternatively, should the nameless scientists to whom his Lordship claims to have sent this analysis not recommend publication on account of its numerous flaws, I challenge him to post their conclusions here and as necessary, apologise to those of us who found these errors first.
His Lordship appears to have neglected to comment on the importance of thermal inertia in determining how much warming is in the pipeline. May we conclude that he conceeds this point?
REPLY: Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve yet to see one positive comment on this blog from the perennially dour Richard Telford, so in the spirit of this comment, I think I’ll refer to him in the future as “his Snideship” 😉 – Anthony
Greg House said, “So if you accept the concept of “greenhouse gases warming” you have already accepted a positive feedback. Skeptics need to realise that. A possible negative feedback still needs to be proven and Christopher failed to do that on this thread.”
The latent cooling of water is already a negative feed back. The change in lapse rate also a negative feed back. The problem with GHG forcing is that all GHGs are not created equally. Increased CO2 will cause the radiant spectrum that interacts with CO2 to radiant from a higher colder altitude. Water vapor has limits on its higher cooler sweet spot. If one degree of surface warming increases evaporation by 4% as I believe is estimated, then is is not whether CO2 is saturated but if H2O is saturated that matters. So you really have two effective radiant layers, CO2 which would be uniformly distributed and H2O which would be highly variable. Only where the two layers are complimentary would you have the maximum CO2 forcing impact. That leaves the oceans and the Antarctic out of the equation as far as optimum reinforcement of CO2 forcing is concerned. It’s a nonlinear thing, kinda like the data implies :).
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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If you live in one of the ex-Soviet republics, answer to that will probably be “Friggin fantastic, comrade! Maybe we can do a bit better than barely surviving for a change!”
Richard Courtney,
You say: “…anybody who knows anything about the carbon cycle would “expect the CO2 to increase” or to decrease because it cannot be constant.”
In fact as Moncton’s fig. 1 or my plot shows, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is increasing in step with the human emissions. The amount of atmospheric CO2 will certainly will not be constant while we continue to produce so much from our activities.
At least on that point Monckton’s paper is clear. Do you disagree?
Some further replies on scientific points. First, Tom P. continues to try to apply a constant of integration to a simple algebraic relationship. Dr. Courtney has already pointed out his error, but he persists in it. If his ratio (dE/dt) / (dC/dt) is an algebraic equation, as an earlier posting by him says it is, then one may cancel the dt’s: and there is certainly no need to invent a constant that is not stated in the equation itself.
Next, he suggests that I have only used the slope to relate emissions to concentration, when in fact the slope and intercept of the relation between emissions growth and concentration growth are both plainly stated on the graph itself and mentioned in my earlier reply on this point.
He is, of course, trivially correct that there is no constant quantum of CO2 emissions necessary to raise the temperature by 1 K; but over the period of study no significant error arises. He would have avoided the error of imagining that this consideration mattered if he had acted upon my earlier request that he should produce a quantitative rather than a qualitative argument. Consider the 69ppmv increase in CO concentration from 1960-2008. On the IPCC’s method, the warming that results is 0.44[5.35 ln(386/317)] = 0.46 K. Now take the 69 ppmv increase from 386 to 455 ppmv, which gets us well into the mid-21st century. The warming, even if we regard the climate sensitivity parameter as a constant, is 0.44[5.35 ln(455/386)] = 0.39 K. Allowing for the fact that the climate sensitivity parameter will be climbing slowly throughout the century, the two values will be even closer to one another than shown here. So Tom P. is complaining about a second-order effect that is scarcely likely to alter the final analysis to a significant degree.
The point is that the trend in the ratio of CO2 emissions growth to CO2 concentration growth; over the limited timescale of the present exercise the growth in the climate-sensitivity parameter will more or less countervail against the logarithmic attenuation of the CO2 forcing; and, therefore, my calculations remain in the right ballpark. If Tom P. thinks otherwise, then let him now clarify and demonstrate his argument with a properly-sourced, properly-presented, quantitative analysis like mine. When he has done that analysis, he will see that the error he unscientifically (and erroneously) sneers about in my paper does not in fact exist.
“Slioch”, before lecturing me about supposed errors, should take the trouble to review my sources, all of which I stated so that the references could easily be looked up. It is the IPCC which says that, of the 2.8 K 21st-century global warming it projects (as the average of all six emissions scenarios), 0.6 K is attributable to warming in the pipeline. The rest of the warming over the century is 2.2 K, of which all but 1.56 K is attributable to other anthropogenic influences. Accordingly, the warming we shall cause in this century as a result of the CO2 we add to the atmosphere this century is 1.56 K, according to the IPCC. If “Slioch” disagrees with this, let him take it up with the IPCC, not with me. In my very detailed reply to his first posting, very nearly all of which he appears not to have read, I made it quite plain that, since the IPCC’s equilibrium climate-sensitivity parameter is 0.88 K/W/m2, and since that equilibrium will not be reached for 1-3000 years, it is, to say the least, implausible that a parameter as high as 0.75 K/W/m2 could obtain in this century: and I note that he has failed to accede to my request that he provide a reference from the IPCC for his absurdly high value. So all of “Slioch’s” points were answered, and answered comprehensively, at the first time of asking. Let him reread my original answer with proper attention, and then go and look up the references. Then, at least, though he may be no wiser, he will at least be better informed.
“Jim D” agrees with “Slioch” that one should not deduct the 0.6 K warming in the pipeline from the 2.8 K warming it projects for the 21st century, but in doing so he disagrees with my stated source, the IPCC. Let him take up his disagreement with the IPCC, not with me. All I have done is to take the IPCC’s results and data as though they were normative and demonstrate that they have drawn illogical conclusions from them.
Mr. House states, meaninglessly, that “the greenhouse-gases warming notion alone supports only a positive feedback”. That is incorrect. The instantaneous or Planck climate-sensitivity parameter is determined under the assumption that no positive or negative feedbacks exist. Its value, as I have already explained in some detail in an earlier answer, is approximately 0.31 K/W/m2. One necessary mathematical reason why the Planck parameter is determined under the assumption that no feedbacks exist (or, equivalently, that if they do exist they sum to zero) is that not only the warming that arises from a forcing but also, et separatim, the warming that arises from the presence of feedbacks, is dependent upon that parameter. It is part of the reference-frame within which all climate-sensitivity calculations must take place. For these reasons, Mr. House’s assertion that anyone who assumes there is a greenhouse effect must also assume net-positive feedbacks is a grave misunderstanding of the elementary equations of climatological physics.
Mr. House goes on to say that I maintain a negative feedback is possible. I gave him three references establishing that negative feedbacks exist. He has not read them.
He then complains that I did not demonstrate that any negative feedback actually exists in the real climate, and does so immediately after mentioning one such negative feedback himself – evaporation. If he will read the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, or Soden and Held 2006, he will find various negative feedbacks discussed, such as the lapse-rate feedback. Once again, Dr. Courtney’s comment is apt: Mr. House simply does not know what he is talking about and, even when he is given the courtesy of detailed replies with references, he fails to read them. He should really leave this discussion now: he is not up to it.
Mr. Oldberg has also failed to read my earlier reply to him, though he mentions that he has seen it. My paper did not, repeat not, depend upon the equilibrium sensitivity parameter. However, given that the transient-sensitivity parameters that are falsifiable are falsified in my paper, it is legitimate to expect that, ceteris paribus, the IPCC may also have overstated the equilibrium parameter. Mr. Oldberg has also failed to understand my earlier point that merely because a phenomenon cannot yet be measured it is not legitimate to assume, as he does, that the phenomenon itself is not a scientific concept. Again, if he wants to argue about whether the IPCC should talk about climate sensitivity, that is a matter he should take up with the IPCC, not with me.
Mr. Arrak says climate sensitivity is zero, citing Ferenc Miskolczi. My own investigations certainly suggest that climate sensitivity is closer to zero than to the IPCC’s 3.26 K per CO2 doubling: but unfortunately Dr. Miskolczi’s results cannot yet be verified properly because our capacity to measure both absolute and relative humidity throughout the atmosphere is insufficient. A recent paper, though, has lent some support to his contention that there has been nothing like the increase in the concentration of water vapor that the Clausius-Clapeyron relation allows for. The IPCC’s mistake in this regard (if it is one, for measurements are not yet anything like good enough for us to be sure) is to assume that merely because a warmer atmospheric space can carry more water vapor it must do so.
Mr. Illis makes an interesting point about the apparent increase in the capacity of CO2 sinks: but, rather like Miskolczi’s conclusion, this one is also subject to such enormous uncertainties that one cannot say for sure. One merit of my little paper, I think, is that it is founded upon data that we can measure with quite a high degree of reliability.
Finally, Mr. Telford, in a characteristically ill-tempered, intemperate, and ignorant posting, says I ought to remember that the reciprocal of a quantity is equal to the quantity itself. That is equivalent to a statement that x = 1 / x, or x^2 = 1. The only non-complex solutions to that equation are (x = 1, x = -1). For all other values of x in R, the reciprocal of x does not equal x.
Frankly, there have been too many absurdly elementary errors in this thread from the true-believing climate-extremists. I do appreciate that they are now desperate, and that my result – which comes very close to definitively demonstrating that climate sensitivity is low enough to be harmless – is uncongenial. But, by not even getting their elementary arithmetic right, and by failing again and again to take note of the detailed responses and references that I have supplied, they do no favors to themselves or to their collapsing cause. One thing they have demonstrated brilliantly: it is only because ignorance of elementary mathematics and physics is so near-universal that those who have fabricated the climate scare have gotten away with it for so long. But their day is now done, and the sun has set on their nonsense.
Monckton of Brenchley:
Rather than being only temporarily unobservable, as you imply, the spatially averaged equilibrium surface air temperature is permanently unobservable.