Guest post by Matt Ridley
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress described my Wall Street Journal op-ed as:
riddled with basic math and science errors
Yet he fails to find a single basic math or science error in my piece.
He says I :
can’t do simple math
…and then fails to produce a single example of my failing to do simple math.
He says I apparently don’t know the difference between water vapor and clouds. He produces no evidence for this absurd claim, which is wrong. Water vapor is a gas; clouds are droplets of liquid water that condense from water vapor. I do know the difference.
He quotes a scientist as saying
it is very clear water vapor … is an amplifying effect. It is a very strong warmer for the climate.
I agree. My piece states:
water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas.
So there is no confusion there. At least not on my part.
However, I do discuss the possibility that clouds, formed from water vapor, either amplify or damp warming – and nobody at this stage knows which. This is the point that my physicist informant was making: the consequence of increased temperatures and water vapor in the atmosphere may be changes in clouds that have a cooling effect. You will find few who disagree with this. As the IPCC AR4 said:
Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty.
Joe Romm disagrees with this consensus, saying
The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive.
He gives no backing for this dogmatic conclusion. By contrast, Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech says:
The key point is this. The cloud forcing values are derived from climate models; we have already seen that climate models have some fundamental problems in how clouds are treated (e.g. aerosol-cloud interactions, moist thermodynamics). So, climate model derived values of cloud forcing should be taken with a grain of salt. Empirically based determinations of cloud forcing are needed. At AGU, I spoke with a scientist that has completed such a study, with the paper almost ready for submission. Punchline: negative cloud feedback.
Joe Romm quotes Robert Kaufman as saying
“I know of no evidence that would suggest that the temperature effect of sulfur emissions are small.”
My piece never claimed that aerosols arising from sulfur emissions had a small effect, however as Nic Lewis points out, in the draft AR5 report,
“Table 8.7 shows that the best estimate for total aerosol RF (RFari+aci) has fallen from −1.2 W/m² to −0.7 W/m² since AR4, largely due to a reduction in RFaci, the uncertainty band for which has also been hugely reduced. It gives a higher figure, −0.9 W/m², for AFari+aci. However, −0.9 W/m² is not what the observations indicate: it is a composite of observational, GCM-simulation/aerosol model derived, and inverse estimates.”
With regard to the rate of ocean heat absorption, which I wrote was fairly modest, Joe Romm quotes Kevin Trenberth as writing:
“On the contrary there is now very good evidence that a lot of heat is going into the deep ocean in unprecedented ways…”
and then provides a link to an article citing a study estimating the Earth’s current heat absorption as 0.5 W/ m². So what “fairly modest” figure does Nic Lewis use? Actually slightly higher: 0.52 W/m²!
Romm then says:
Ridley apparently doesn’t have the first clue what the climate sensitivity means
This is not true. I define sensitivity clearly as the temperature change for a doubling of CO2. I am not talking about the Transient Climate Response, which relates to temperature change only over a 70 year period. There is no confusion at my end.
Romm then says that
Schlesinger notes that an aggressive program of carbon mitigation can limit warming to 2°C and avoid the worst impacts
and that
“It is worth pointing out that there is a healthy debate about Schlesinger’s low estimate”.
So maybe there is some confusion at Romm’s end about what Schlesinger concludes. This is what his paper says (in “Causes of the Global Warming Observed since the 19th Century” in Atmospheric and Climate Science 2012) –
“Additionally, our estimates of climate sensitivity using our SCM and the four instrumental temperature records range from about 1.5 ̊C to 2.0 ̊C. These are on the low end of the estimates in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. So, while we find that most of the observed warming is due to human emissions of LLGHGs, future warming based on these estimations will grow more slowly compared to that under the IPCC’s “likely” range of climate sensitivity, from 2.0 ̊C to 4.5 ̊C.”
Many other recent papers have come to similar conclusions: For example, Schmittner et al. in Science Dec. 11, 2011 URL:
Combining extensive sea and land surface temperature reconstructions from the Last Glacial Maximum with climate model simulations, we estimate a lower median (2.3 K) and reduced uncertainty (1.7 to 2.6 K as the 66% probability range, which can be widened using alternate assumptions or data subsets). Assuming that paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, these results imply a lower probability of imminent extreme climatic change than previously thought.
Meanwhile for transient climate response, similar low estimates are also now being made. See for example Gillett et al.’s 2012 article “Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations” in Geophysical Research Letters:
Our analysis also leads to a relatively low and tightly-constrained estimate of Transient Climate Response of 1.3–1.8°C, and relatively low projections of 21st-century warming under the Representative Concentration Pathways.
Or Padilla et al.’s 2011 article “Probabilistic estimated of transient climate sensitivity subject to uncertainty in forcing and natural variability” in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Association:
For uncertainty assumptions best supported by global surface temperature data up to the present time, this paper finds a most likely present-day estimate of the transient climate sensitivity to be 1.6 K, with 90% confidence the response will fall between 1.3 and 2.6 K, and it is estimated that this interval may be 45% smaller by the year 2030. The authors calculate that emissions levels equivalent to forcing of less than 475 ppmv CO2 concentration are needed to ensure that the transient temperature response will not exceed 2 K with 95% confidence.
Mr Romm seems confused about methane outgassing feedbacks, arguing that even if climate sensitivity is low, these may dominate. Suffice to say that in this he has drifted a long way from the consensus.
Mr Romm seems determined to rule out even the possibility of low climate sensitivity in the teeth of strong evidence. I can see why he wishes to do so, his job depending on there being a dangerous future. I do not understand where he gets his certainty.
Finally, Mr Romm throws the term “anti-science” at me, again with no evidence. I cited peer reviewed papers and made the scientific argument that the latest data be considered in estimating sensitivity. That is pro science. What is anti-science is to make false accusations and try to shut down legitimate debate.
Hard working people all over the world are now risking their lives as well as their wallets for the consequences of current climate policy (see Indur Goklany’s paper “Could biofuel policies increase death and disease in developing countries?”). They have a right to ask that those who determine the science behind such policies are open-minded. On the evidence of Mr. Romm’s astonishing outburst, my doubts about this are growing.
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Added by Anthony: Regarding Mr. Romm’s unsubstantiated methane claims, maybe he should look at this IPCC graph which shows methane observations in the atmosphere and models diverging:
Full writeup here
The writing style of Romm is pretty normal angry fare for him, though in this case he’s added some extra levels of angry bloviation, and it suggests Mr. Ridley is right over the target when Romm shoots that much flak. It also should be noted that Mr. Romm is a paid political operative for the Center for American Progress.
As such, he deals in political hit pieces catering to “low information” political acolytes, whereas Mr. Ridley deals in facts. Romm is so fearful of facts he doesn’t even allow readers to judge for themselves, as there is no link to Ridley’s article in his hit piece.
Also worth reading is Nic Lewis’ supplement to Ridley’s original WSJ essay, here– Anthony
Added: In comments below “the duke” writes:
Unfortunately, people like Joe Romm don’t debate. They publish posts that deliberately distort clear meanings and precise statements, after which they pontificate foolishly and then go hide behind the barricades of their websites, which either don’t allow comments or censor them if they are heretical to faith-based alarmism.
Don’t forgets Romm’s “Permanent Drought in the South West” last year.
In the end, 2011 turned pretty normal in the end.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/romms-permanent-drought/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/22/joe-romm-demonstrates-himself-to-be-an-angry-know-nothing-in-his-attack-on-matt-ridleys-wsj-essay-ridley-responds/#comment-1180023
jbird: forgive me for stating the obvious, but the reason they are losing the “war” is because people like Matt Ridley, Nic Lewis, Steve McIntyre and Anthony have taken the time to refute and correct post-normal AGW science and the journalism and blog commentary it has spawned. So it’s usually worth the time to respond, even in the case of a huckster like Romm.
Of course, at a certain point, it usually devolves into people talking past eachother. I think Romm’s response at Bishop Hill indicates he’s not interested in engaging with serious intent, so yes, Matt should probably ignore him. If he wanted to engage in earnest he could have come here, or posted in more detail at Bishop Hill.
Romm is trying to lure people to his website, but he doesn’t have an area to post a comment that I could see when I went there yesterday.
If Romm didn’t have his climate site to rant and rave, what would he be ranting and raving about?
Romm’s ego is so caught up with his warmist position, any discussion of another view than his is an personal attack. This is not about core values but about personal self-image; what he says is but an external portion of what he is.
Mann wouldn’t recognize Morano even when he was on the same. live radio broadcast, a most peculiar and telling bit of a deep-seated fear of losing face by losing a battle not of wits, but of facts. Romm is beyond the Mannian pale; he has allowed others to paint him into a corner and now has nothing left to do but snarl and spit.
If you look at the 2009 Trenberth Energy Budget and the modelling, you get an enormous internal energy production. It’s because the two stream approximation breaks down at boundaries.
I make the total 94.5 W/m^2 (= 333-238.5). To this you must also add the atmospheric window contribution, 40 W/m^2 which because it is produced at the earth’s surface, cannot be considered part of the 238.5 that radiates downwards from TOA to match the OLR in the modelling (360° emission requires this).
To offset this, the models generate absurdly high cloud cooling.
Joe Romm quotes Kevin Trenberth as writing:
“On the contrary there is now very good evidence that a lot of heat is going into the deep ocean in unprecedented ways…”
Whether this is true or not is really not relevant. Who really cares if the deep ocean warms from 3.0 C to 3.2 C? It is not as if this small increase will somehow gather in one spot and make the earth’s atmospheric temperature sky rocket at some point in the future.
Take the graph. Do a meta analysis of the predictions. After all, that’s a consensus.
It’s clear the consensus is falsified.
Or is this where science isn’t ‘consensual’?
Meanwhile over here http://t.co/fcKI3P1S William Conolley with an e is calling people cretins and getting a bit of a pasting…
Gary Pearse says:
December 22, 2012 at 9:38 am
…… The error bars should be probably +/- 10,000ppb (10ppm) or more. Any analytical chemists reading this?
__________________________
Just a plain old QC lab chemist. But I hear you. The error bars on all this data has had me really laughing from the get go.
What do you think of the CO2 is a ‘well mixed gas’ conjecture?
Jimmy Haigh says:
December 22, 2012 at 9:52 am
Romm – like “Connoll-E-y” – has issues… They are not our problem… But I do wish that they could be.? …addressed? It really is quite unsavoury.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What is quite frightening is Romm, Hansen, Connoll-E-y, Lewandowsky, Al Gore and the rest are the people who want to be our LEADERS… GACK, gag….
Er… all of the projections and the actual observations start from the same point, so the fact that the observations are below all of the projections HAS to mean that the long term trend is below all of the projections.
Looking at the last six years, the trend appears to be about the same as the LOWER limit on the AR4 projections, but it’s definitely lower than the average trend of all of the projections.
Your point about future methane outgassing is accepted, but wasn’t that taken into account with the AR4 (and earlier) projections? If so, the conclusion is that the outgassings are currently occurring at a lower rate than projected. That may be true for the future, too, especially if the reason for the lower outgassing rate is because temperatures have been lower than projected.
I like Matt’s blog posts and was happy to find this thread referring his dispute with warmistas.
Here is his blog post on it:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/low-climate-sensitivity.aspx
he added there:
“1. The article
2. An essay by Nic Lewis expanding on many of the points in the article.
3. …response to one of the critiques of the article”
I find it great for WUWT to comment about it and show Joe Romms anti-science rant!
Gail Combs says:
December 22, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Jimmy Haigh says:
December 22, 2012 at 9:52 am
Romm – like “Connoll-E-y” – has issues… They are not our problem… But I do wish that they could be.? …addressed? It really is quite unsavoury.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What is quite frightening is Romm, Hansen, Connoll-E-y, Lewandowsky, Al Gore and the rest are the people who want to be our LEADERS… GACK, gag…
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True but a gag a day still keeps the gagging away.
In the mean time, keep speaking and commenting and voting.
I also keep praying. (Ephesians 6:12) CAGW is but a thrust in a greater power grab,
Romm is Rommbunctious as usual, he’s in the sunset of climate alarmism, going down like a cold winters night.
Merry Christmas Romm!
Aldous Tenpenny says:
December 22, 2012 at 11:11 am
“Joe Romm still has a blog?”
Soros is not yet broke. And I think he will profit quite handsomely when the Dollar breaks.
Nick says:
December 22, 2012 at 1:39 pm
No; they have consensus about calling it projections; meaning they can’t be falsified, in other words, it is a consensus, but it is not science.
(The scientific method does not mention projections.)
“Schlesinger notes that an aggressive program of carbon mitigation can limit warming to 2°C and avoid the worst impacts”
What was left out . . .
. . . And that aggressive program will funnel money into Kleiner Perkins investments which can’t compete on their own economic merits and it won’t hurt that I and my buddy Al Gore have invested in those too. You damn skeptics and your facts are really getting in my way of becoming insanely wealthy.”
I hear that Romm is penning a tome on the joys of self administered proctology. Failed physicist, failed polemicist, successful proctologist (?) … with sincere apologies to the real proctologists of the world.
whatever you all are saying to support him: Ridley DID write in the wsj …’it remains highly plausible that there is NO net positive feedback from water VAPOR’;
and Ridley IS citing a Noble price scientist saying “We don’t even know the sign of water VAPORs effect”
Jimbo says:
December 22, 2012 at 9:44 am
My question is what happened to the clathrates / hydrates / methane when the Arctic Ocean was ice-free in summers for a millennium or more during the Holocene? Can anyone help?
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Humans developed agriculture to replace hunting and gathering. With that came the firsts towns and cities and the beginning of modern civilization. We were kicked out of the garden of Eden and now live in a hell of fire and CO2. Had we stayed with hunting and gathering there would be no want, no hunger, no disease. Life would be idyllic. Every day would be sunshine and butterflies.
This ‘anti science’ garbage hurled at skeptics needs to be rightly thrown back at alarmists. They are the one, after all, who do not use, or make improper use of,l the scientific method. This point needs to be made. Not only does it need to be made often, but skeptics need to go on the OFFENSIVE. So basically, I misspoke when I said ‘hurled back.’ We need to make the first move, to go on the attack if you will, and it needs to be done aggressively. (without ugliness and ad hom hopefully) I hope one day skeptics will pick up on this. Perhaps if only this point was advocated by someone with far more recognition, respect, and more physical science background than I.
Could someone please explain to me why convection is unable to remove any excess heat from the surface to the toa in the event there is surface heating?
Why wouldn’t convective processes accelerate with higher surface temperatures?
“””””…..However, I do discuss the possibility that clouds, formed from water vapor, either amplify or damp warming – and nobody at this stage knows which. This is the point that my physicist informant was making: the consequence of increased temperatures and water vapor in the atmosphere may be changes in clouds that have a cooling effect. You will find few who disagree with this. As the IPCC AR4 said:
Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty.
Joe Romm disagrees with this consensus, saying
“The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive.”
“””””…..However, I do discuss the possibility that clouds, formed from water vapor, either amplify or damp warming – and nobody at this stage knows which……”””””
Well I can’t speak for ANYBODY else; only for me.
So as to the above; for me it is beyond any reasonable doubt that MORE clouds ALWAYS results in MORE COOLING. No exceptions. Do I have to repeat, that this is an issue of GLOBAL CLIMATE; not last night’s weather !
Any increase in global cloudiness, as to area coverage, cloud density (water content), or cloud persistence time, for time intervals of climate significance, always results in a reduction of surface incidence of solar spectrum electro-magnetic radiant energy, that more than offsets the effect of any night time slowing of surface thermal spectrum escape (LWIR).
In addition ‘more clouds’ means more transport of latent heat of evaporation into the upper atmosphere where it is deposited as condensation occurs.
Direct “heat” energy transport to the upper atmosphere by (a) conduction, from surface to atmosphere, and through the atmosphere (weak); and (b) convective transport of warmed surface air to higher cooler altitudes, is NOT matched by ANY reverse “heat” energy transport. Here the second law is in full song, ensuring that “heat” energy is NOT net transported from the upper atmosphere to the surface.
That leaves radiative energy transfer from colder upper atmosphere, and warmer lower atmosphere, toward the surface. All such radiation, whether molecular resonance band spectra, or simple thermal continuum spectra, is at LWIR wavelengths about 99% of which is longer than about 4.5 microns. All such radiation is also emitted isotropically, so less than half of it can reach the surface; the rest is lost to space. For the thermal (Planck) spectrum portion, there is a direction bias, since both density (collision) broadening, and Temperature (Doppler) broadening, decrease with altitude. A particular wavelength photon going down, is more likely to be reabsorbed, than a duplicate photon going up. So escape is more likely than recapture by the surface.
70+ % of the surface is ocean, and somwhat more than 75% of the tropical surface is ocean; so most of the surface returning LWIR radiation is absorbed in the top 10-50 microns of ocean surface. This is much more likely to result in increased evaporation, and latent heat return to the atmosphere, than it is to deep ocean storage, as happens to most solar energy.
In the absence of solar radiation (sunset to sunrise), and of course influx of air from somewhere else, the surface Temperature NEVER increases with time whether or not there are clouds; any kind of clouds. It ALWAYS cools at night under those conditions.
In the daytime, sunrise to sunset, the Temperature NEVER increases in the shadow zone of a cloud passing between the sun, and the sensor; it always goes down.
So far, I haven’t found ANY mechanism by which clouds could be a positive feedback that causes warming. And water vapor or water has NO NEED for any GHG ignition process caused by some other GHG species, in order to temporarily capture some surface emitted LWIR radiant energy; it can do so in the complete absenc of ANY other GHG species.
This is not teraflop rocket science; it is Playstation 4-H club science.
Finally, may I suggest to ALL those out there, who haven’t been weaned from a childhood belief that gases DO NOT radiate in the infra-red; read he following paper:-
“Theoretical calculation of the translation-rotation collision induced absorption in N2-N2, O2-O2, and N2-O2 pairs.”
Authors are:- J.Boissoles, C Boulet, R.H. Tipping, Alex Brown, and Q. Ma.
Published in:- Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer ; 82 (2003) 505-516.
I just don’t make this stuff up; and I don’t have access to any publicly funded academic institution library either.
Dang ! wouldn’t you know it; their Fig 1 contains two sets of graphs; each a pair of theoretically calculated (model alarm) and experimentally observed, ( real world Mother Gaia’s laboratory) for two specific Temperatures, 343 K (70 deg C) and 228 K (-45 deg C).
In both cases, the calculated (model) values are about 80% of the observed, and the spectral shape and peak location, are essentially identical.
The curves are smooth continuum spectra on wave number scale from zero to 300 cm^-1 , so evidently offset from some point. The high Temperature set are broader than the other, and peak at a higher wave number. This is pretty much Planck black body spectral like; higher temp peaking at shorter wavelength where there are more wave numbers. There’s not a hint of any sort of band or line structure, as in molecular resonance spectra of the GHG type.
Oh I forgot, that fig 1 is for N2-N2 collisions.
They do also have plots forO2-O2 and N2-O2.
They describe the radiation in terms of Quadrupolar, and Hexadecapolar terms. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, maybe you should have studied RadioPhysics in school. Dunno why there is no Octopolar term, but I haven’t digested the whole paper yet. I think I already explained there shouldn’t be a dipolar term in homo-diatomic molecules, in my hand waving seat of the pants description of collision induced thermal radiation in gases.
I need a higher payscale to properly understand this all myself; but, I’m not surprise by the result.
They also have some curves at 179 K(-94 deg C).
Wow their -94 to + 70 deg C Temperature range is even wider than the -90 to +60 range I have taken as the Temperature range all over the earth for say northern midsummer. But I’m pretty close to them; well I’m a conservative type.
So there you have it; gases absorb (and radiate) in the IR.
Three of the authors got help from my taxes via a NASA grant. Good work chaps !
“Joe Romm disagrees with this consensus, saying
The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive.
He gives no backing for this dogmatic conclusion.”
It is interesting how blatant such as him are getting in falsehoods.
Clouds reflect back into space around 20% of all solar energy incoming towards Earth, which can not be understated as a huge amount in climatological context. Most of what is reflected by white high-albedo clouds would otherwise be absorbed by the far lower-albedo dark blue oceans or terrain. (Albedo comes from the latin word for white, whiteness). If water vapor in the atmosphere cloud never formed clouds, the planet would reflect a much lesser percentage of incoming sunlight right back into space and be much warmer. (That full extreme, of course, doesn’t happen, but times of reduced cloud-seeding galactic cosmic ray flux, from increased deflection by the interplanetary magnetic field during high solar activity, have effects illustrated in http://s13.postimage.org/ka0rmuwgn/gcrclouds.gif and http://s10.postimage.org/l9gokvp09/composite.jpg — click to enlarge — and elsewhere).
It is no surprise that clouds tend to be a negative feedback on temperatures, a stabilizing mechanism. A system doesn’t tend to maintain a relatively stable average temperature (for eon after eon never more than a few degrees away from 288 Kelvin in average temperature, while more easily slipping into a colder state than a warmer one) if it is dominated by an unstable positive feedback loop.
A fluctuation in temperature from any random natural cause over the years (such as one of the solar maximums long before human civilization even existed) -> more water vapor evaporated -> more clouds -> more net warming -> still more water vapor evaporated -> still more clouds -> still more warming turning the tiny fluctuation into a larger and larger one -> … and so on for extreme life-killing heat never happened in the history of life on Earth; clouds do not cause net warming.
Part of what distinguishes intelligence from stupidity is an ability to combine many segments of information, to check if a belief is consistent, to automatically cross-check if a claim is plausible, and to avoid simultaneously holding mutually contradictory beliefs or bits of knowledge from a lack of synthesizing them. For instance, even if someone had read nothing on climate topics and barely understood albedo or reflection, they ought to wonder why cloudless summer days reach often up to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but very cloudy and shady days are often in the 60s, 70s, or less, never above the 80s (in the example of the area where I live). There are more illustrations possible. Yet, like the rest of the CAGW movement, a hardcore core group of propagandists, at the top not exceptionally unintelligent but extraordinarily disgustingly dishonest, constantly spams falsehoods to prey upon the naivety of a wider group of more ordinary people.
Well !
With Romm Gleick Mann Lewandowski as spokesmen for CAGW how can sceptics loose?
Martin van Etten says:
December 22, 2012 at 5:23 pm
whatever you all are saying to support him: Ridley DID write in the wsj …’it remains highly plausible that there is NO net positive feedback from water VAPOR’;
and Ridley IS citing a Noble price scientist saying “We don’t even know the sign of water VAPORs effect”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So? That is what I found when I did a quick look-see at real world data comparing a desert and a rain forest. Comments here and here.
In that look-see the effect was to raise the lows 11C and lower the highs 11C and lower the overall temperature 4C (Latent heat of evaporation maybe? Blocking of sunlight getting to the surface in the first place?) All it shows is we should be thankful for GHGs that moderate our temperatures.
I would certainly rather see scientists FINALLY saying “We do not know.” It is about time.