New paper on climate sensitivity estimates 1.1 ± 0.4 °C for a doubling of CO2

In my previous post I got it wrong. Using the 1.1 deg/doubling of CO2 gives outrageous CO2 concentrations for a 10 deg increase of the planet. Over 200,000 ppm. This doubling formula doesn’t make sense to me unless you only double once (say from 250 to 500).

Agnostic, a few notes. Just notes, nothing personal:
“The reason for the great range of estimates of sensitivity is because the feedbacks are so uncertain. ”
eg. The climatologists are in the same ceteris paribus boat as the economists. We can look at simple tautological first principle notions and derive such things as a 1.1 C feedback on the notion that *nothing else has any effect*. With CO2 alone there would be nothing further to say. But if we state anything about the sensitivity of the climate due CO2 is a large box of nonsense. There is nothing peculiar here to the climate as these are standard notions of dealing with any complex systems.
“The bigger issue is whether to regard CO2 as a forcing or a feedback. ”
This is a pet peeve of mine. If we have a number of Fe atoms in a solid strata then they will interchange photons. Is that a forcing or feedback? The question itself is a nonsense in large part. If you pick a domain within the bulk then all inbound photons from elsewhere in the bulk are ‘forcing’. If you pick a domain within the bulk then all photon transfers within the bulk are feedback. But that last is rather strained itself as we’re only talking about variations in the heat equations. Nonetheless all photons begin and end within the bulk in this notion.
The problem here is that if you’re looking at soil temperature alone, then CO2 is a forcing. If you’re speaking of atmospheric temperature alone then CO2 is a feedback. If you’re speaking of the H2O and CO2, each distinctly, within the atmosphere alone then both are feedbacks on the atmospheric temperature and forcings upon one another.
In the large part the use of ‘forcing’ and ‘feedback’ are simply obfuscation to avoid dealing with ensemble differences in the heat equations. By trying to take a half-argument into spooky quantum domains. It is as unhelpful as it is unnecessary; and it is the first refuge of free-energy perpetuum mobile scoundrels

If you want a better view of the data than is shown in the paper (like Mosher, it is quite cryptic), here are the temperature estimates and all of the CO2 estimates over the last 40 million years (the data used in the paper are in this chart but I am using all the reliable numbers that there are so rather than 8 data points, there is a total of 16,000 datapoints here between temps and CO2).
http://s19.postimage.org/59fwa1fv7/CO2_Temps_Last40_Mys.png

Deep-ocean temperature increase can cause CO2 rise more than the other way around. This publication is more suggestive of an upper limit on the potential magnitude of temperature change from CO2 than of its exact value, as in either around a degree Celsius or less from a CO2 doubling (not demonstrating a lower limit). Aside from that correlation versus causation issue, it is good to see a relatively honest study, though.
Slightly off-topic:
Over a time period of thousands of years like that, the deep oceans can change substantially in temperature, as in a large fraction of a degree. Such, though, should cause no confusion about far shorter timescales. The temperature change they can have on short timescales like years and decades is almost zero. (For instance, the belief that global warming would quickly warm the ocean floor and release methane hydrates enmasse, aside from being disproven by past history, demonstrates the utter and complete mathematical illiteracy of typical environmental activists, the same as on other topics like radiation and nuclear power). There has been next to nil deep-ocean warming during current “global warming,” in terms of not a tenth of a degree, as is the only possible result due to the quantitative magnitude of the thermal inertia and effective insulation of water thousands of meters deep; the top several meters of ocean surface water change far more than water a thousand times their depth below.
For the extreme lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature change when the latter is happening on timescales not long enough to change deep ocean temperature much, see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/
especially, for the past 200 to 11000 years:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

It seems plausible to me that if the average global ocean surface temperature were to rise by 1.1C then that would result in a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 content due to a change in the balance between oceanic absorption and oceanic release of CO2.
All that would be necessary would be for the climate zones to shift latitudinally which would in turn shift the latitudinal point in each hemisphere where equatorial release of CO2 becomes overcome by polar absorption of CO2.
For example, if the climate zones shift poleward as was observed then the dominance of emission over absorption would increase and if the climate zones shift equatorward then emission would decline relative to absorption.
It has been observed that the climate zones did shift poleward whilst CO2 rose. Indeed that poleward shifting has been in progress since the Little Ice Age so the balance of absorption / release has been changing throughout that period.
In fact there are many negative feedback processes such as evaporation rates and convection that serve to make it very difficult for ocean surface temperatures to rise significantly in the first place hence the long term stability of the global climate system.
If we accept that the world has warmed by about 0.7C over the past 150 years then the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is not far from what would be expected on that basis.
However, the warming oceans are far more likely to have been caused by reduced cloudiness at a time of more active sun than by our puny emissions of CO2.
I much prefer that simple diagnosis against the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Kelvin Vaughan says:
October 6, 2012 at 9:58 am
A 1.1°C rise in temperature will double CO2. You heard it here first.
Stephen Wilde says:
October 6, 2012 at 10:25 am
It seems plausible to me that if the average global ocean surface temperature were to rise by 1.1C then that would result in a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 content
That violates Henry’s Law: an increase of 1°C of seawater at the surface results in an increase of maximum 16 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere (~8 ppmv in reality, as vegetation reacts in opposite ways to temperature). That is the difference in solubility of CO2 in seawater, no matter if that is for the ocean’s surface or for the total ocean depth. It is the pCO2 pressure (difference) which counts, not the mass. That works as well as static as dynamic (with equatorial upwelling deep ocean waters continuously discharging CO2 and polar waters continuously removing CO2 into the depth).
Thus a temperature increase of 1.1°C from the deep oceans, if that is also found at the surface, would give an increase of maximum ~18 ppmv in the atmosphere, that is by far not the increase from 770 to 1130 ppmv as estimated from the deep ocean sediment cores. In that case, CO2 may be the driver of the temperature increase of the deep oceans and one can estimate the climate sensivity.
But rests to know where that extra CO2 was coming from and we still may have a spurious correlation where, except for the small influence of temperature on CO2 levels, CO2 and temperature were independently moving up, but maybe with a common cause.
HenryP says:
October 6, 2012 at 10:30 am
So the reaction is
heat + HCO3- ==> CO2 (g) + OH-
The increase of temperature increases the pCO2 in water, compared to the atmosphere, leading to more release of CO2, a reduction of total dissolved inorganic carbon in seawater (DIC) and an increase in pH. As we currently observe an increase in DIC over time and a decrease in pH of the seawater surface layer, it may be clear that temperature is not the driving force for most of the increase over the past decades… See:
http://www.bios.edu/Labs/co2lab/research/IntDecVar_OCC.html

I think the curious fact that the CO2 seems to come after the temperature rise is best explained by the Gore Space-Time Loop Effect (STLE).
First the temperature goes up. Then some time later (perhaps several hundred years) the CO2 rises. This sudden rise triggers the STLE. The gas [here CO2] around the planet [here Earth] separates into two distinct layers—a Non-Precipitating Layer (NPL) and a Precipitating Layer (PL). The PL remains where it is and gives the impression in precipitation of the entire mass. The NPL on the other hand opens a rift in the Space-Time continuum and goes back to a time before the temperature rise. Here it remains and by the GHG effect raises the temperature—(but , since it is NP, never shows up in the snow and ice that time records). It remains there until it reaches its proper time and then loops back again, etc.
Actual proof of the STLE will require new solutions to Einstein’s equations. However, it is the consensus view of climate scientists that it is empirically true—so the appropriate solutions will, no doubt, be found soon.
rdr200

Two events, which will occur for certain in the not very distant future – practical electric cars and
nuclear power – will virtually eliminate sizable carbon emissions from us humans, and thereby transform this issue into an academic one. So that’s the way I view it – a question that will be, at best, of historic interest to future generations of non-climatologists. Those hysterical souls who
have acquired carbonophobia should be campaigning for cheap batteries and nuclear reactors
(Generation 4 reactors, fast reactors, that is).