Lower climate sensitivity is getting some mainstream discussion. Last week at WUWT, we had this story: BREAKING: an encouraging admission of lower climate sensitivity by a ‘hockey team’ scientist, along with new problems for the IPCC which is now the most read story on WUWT in the past week.
This morning, WUWT carried this essay from Chip Knappenberger: The yearly lukewarm report which spurred some communication from Andrew Rekvin at NYT about the similar story he just posted today: A Closer Look at Moderating Views of Climate Sensitivity.
Andy just sent me a fascinating exchange from Gavin Schmidt of NASA and the Realcimate blog. Gavin sent sent this note as part of a group e-mail exchange and this is what Revkin forwared to me (and has now posted at Dot Earth):
Andy, I think you may be slightly misrepresenting where the ‘consensus’ on this issue has been. While there have been occasional papers that have shown a large tail, and some arguments that this is stubborn – particular from constraints based on the modern tranisent changes – there has always been substantial evidence to rule these out. Even going back to the 2-11deg C range found in the initial cpdn results in 2005, many people said immediately that the high end was untenable (for instance).
Indeed, the consensus statements in the IPCC reports have remained within the 1.5 – 4.5 range first set by Charney in 1979. James’ work has helped improve the quantifications of the paleo constraints (particular for the LGM), but these have been supported by work from Lorius et al (1991), Kohler et al (2010), etc. and therefore are not particularly radical.
By not reflecting that, you are implying that the wishful thinking of people like Ridley and Lindzen for a climate sensitivity of around 1 deg C is tenable. It is not, and James’ statement was simply alluding to that. For reference, James stated that his favored number was around 2.5 deg C, Jim Hansen in a recent letter to the WSJ quote 2.5-3.5 (based on the recent Palaeosens paper), and for what it’s worth the CMIP5 GISS models have sensitivities of 2.4 to 2.7 deg C. None of this is out of the mainstream.
I sent Schmidt and the group this reply:
In policy circles, including popular calculations of emissions trajectories necessary to avoid a high change of exceeding 2 degrees C. of warming, the hot tail has not been trimmed (unless I’m missing something?).
To me, that says the climate science community — including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change science working group — has not adequately conveyed the reality you state here.
======================================================
Anthony: This essay from Pat Michaels is relevant also:
richardscourtney says:
February 5, 2013 at 4:09 am
Please explain how you know that the prediction is “correctly” predicted when the next 6 years have yet to occur.
How do I know?
Mr. Courtney, that is a very tall question.
Any prediction declared ‘incorrect’ by its author at the time of making is just plain rubbish.
1. Let’s say that my analysis is a unique contribution, which shows no ‘global warming’ with CO2 proceeding in the upward direction (thanks to China) with the Hansen / Schmidt 3 degree C sensitivity applicable.
2. Let’s say that it is conclusively shown that the CO2 AGW ‘theory’ is the utter rubbish, than it is likely that the virtual community evolved around the WUWT blog would be on a slow extinction path.
Thus: aim of 1. is to prevent occurrence of 2.
My calculations are reproducible, hopefully someone might have a go at it.
As always, one is advised to read the small print:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/00f.htm
Robuk says:
February 4, 2013 at 1:05 pm
UNEP state,
It is now thought, is that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached levels which are affecting tree growth.
Carbon dioxide acts as a fertiliser to many tree species, making gas concentrations beyond a certain level uncouple the relationship between temperature and tree growth.
Has there been any substantial temperature rise since the 60`s and I thought trees grew more
vigorously with increased CO2.
Can someone explain.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Trees are C3 while grasses and weeds are C4. Most crops are C3 while some like corn and sugar cane are C4. Explanation of C3, C4 and CAM Photosynthesis
A Graph of C3 and C4 plants response to CO2.
A photo of plant response to CO2
Another Graph with actual examples of C3 and C4 growth. Article the graph came from.
Remember plants are not dealing with just the % CO2 in the air but with the partial pressure of CO2 that decreases with elevation.
And another paper:
A wealth of information about CO2 concentration and nitrogen activity can be found here:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/n/nitrogenefficiency.php
I am assuming you are interested in the topic descussed here WUWT: Now it’s more CO2 that will threaten crops from what you said. That UC Davis study of wheat and mustard going only so far as to analyse the nitrogen content of the leaves is borderline fraud if you ask me especially in light of this peer reviewed article from 2005.
That paper found that in durum wheat the nitrogen level in the leaves decreased with higher CO2 but at the same time the nitrogen level in the stems and seeds increased. Both biomass and grain yields increased under all nutrient and water regimes where CO2 was higher. The authors measured the leaf nitrogen content and found it lower with increased CO2. However, they failed (purposely?) to grow the plants to maturity and measure the nitrogen content in the seed. It appears that the plants in the higher CO2 regime are able to use less nitrogen to generate more leaf mass and then deposit the excess nitrogen in the seeds where it will be of benefit to the next generation.
Actual paper: http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/cgi-bin/graingenes/report.cgi?class=reference;id=2904
C3 plants:
So it looks like an evolutionary transition from C3 to C4 was taking place because of carbon dioxide starvation combined with drought during glacial periods. Graph: CO2 solubility in water
EPA: Sea Surface Temperatures
The CO2 fallacy:
The ice core values for CO2 are too low. See this synopsis for an explanation.
A related topic is the C12/C13 ratios that are used as a ‘fingerprint’ to point to human emissions as the culprit. E.M. Smith has an interesting take on that. Seems “C4 metabolism plants absorb more C13 than do C3 metabolism plants. Over the last 100 years we’ve planted one heck of a lot more grasses world wide than ever before. Grasses are often C4 metabolism”
The Trouble With C12 C13 Ratios
It needs to be reiterated that a very small change in sensitivity has enormous implications over time… in fact this is what allows these predictions of catastrophic, civilization ending, climate change to exist. If Gavin now thinks 2.5dC is likely, and it ends up being 2.2, thats a small difference in the range of what has been argued, but has massive implications in potential repercussions (hundreds of billions of dollars).
But in the meta-analysis, there really is a slight of hand (or gamblers fallacy) going on here. Yes, the IPCC have typically embraced relatively conservative sensitivities between 1.5 and 4.5 (in fact, such a prediction is about equivalent to suggesting climate change with kill between 0 and 3 billion people, not particularly useful), but the heavy hitters in the field have a track record of much higher assumptions (didn’t Hanson’s 2008 study suggest 6.0?). The IPCC science never matched up particularly well with their conclusions- a lot of ‘assuming we’re at the upper end of the sensitivity’, when it turns out we are likely not. Bottom line- the IPCC isn’t the canon of climate research, and there ought to be a lot of questions raised about the high profile researchers that appear to have come up with astonishingly bad sensitivities. Instead it seems likely that the projections that used the mid 2’s will be lauded and the 3+ flushed down the memory hole. Thats all well and good, but again, we’re constantly beat over the head with the ‘consensus’ argument and you can either argue that the consensus was so wildly open ended as to be functionally meaningless (per the IPCC), or badly mistaken in many cases. But the ‘we knew it all along, none of this is a surprise’ cover is weak sauce.
Jimbo says:
February 4, 2013 at 3:18 pm
….. I just can’t see how they can carry on spinning this over the next few years.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All that is needed is to keep the spin going until Obummer manages to get a carbon tax through Congress and the EPA manages to shut down more coal plants. 10% are already to be shut down.
Texas is already showing the face of the future.
Wind and solar DESTABILIZE THE GRID. Renewable sources accounted for 3.9% of all energy consumed in Texas in 2010 This has been disruptive enough that that “On April 17, 2006, ERCOT was forced to use 1,000 MW of involuntary demand response and 1,200 MW of voluntary demand response to successfully prevent a system-wide blackout.”
On top of that
NO ENERGY = NO JOBS and that means you have destroyed the USA’s prosperity and most likely her sovereignty as planned. Pascal Lamy of the World Trade Organization made it clear that the prosperity of the USA, Australia and the EU was targeted when he said
“Can we balance the need for a sustainable planet with the need to provide billions with decent living standards? Can we do that without questioning radically the Western way of life?” Pascal Lamy: Whither Globalization?
Remember it was President Clinton who pushed the USA into the WTO and brought China into the WTO. Clinton also approved the transfer of sensitive missile technology to China…[that] enhanced the accuracy of China’s ballistic missile arsenal. I often question whether or not Clinton was actually working for the USA or for China… OH WAIT…
It is very clear the ultimate goal of the Regulating Class is “a new international order” based on the European Union Model ( Also see Global Governance: Lessons from Europe )
The money quote is “…To improve policy coherence, we need to build consensus…..To achieve consensus, we need to strengthen the system’s legitimacy by better reflecting the interests and concerns of citizens…. civil society and citizens need to ensure that the issues debated on the global stage are echoed and explained at the grassroots…” That is where the Global Warming and the environment come in. As Mencken said
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. “
CAGW has to be placed into the context of UN/WTO politics so it’s aims can be understood. Another key phrase is interdependence they hope to get the economies of all countries inter-tangled.
Meyer’s graph inspired me to make an animated GIF:
http://oi46.tinypic.com/59sn4h.jpg
REPLY: Nicely done, if you’ll provide a comment on methodology and data source, I’ll make a post from it. – Anthony
Willis Eschenbach: I prefer the units Steven is using, temperature change per 1 W/m2 change in forcing, it avoids one assumption (that doubled CO2 leads to 3.7 W/m2 change in forcing).
It may be a matter of personal preference. Steven Mosher wrote as an adjudicator, it seemed to me, and used his definition to support his assertion that the sensitivity can not be negative. if you avoid the assumption that doubled CO2 leads to 3.7 W/m2 change in forcing, then it may turn out that, starting with the climate as it is now, doubling of CO2 concentration may lead to little or a negative mean temperature change. If it is to be a matter of personal preference, then I prefer sensitivity to doubling CO2, because that is what everyone tells us we must not allow to happen; CO2 is the “control knob”, etc. Your thermostat hypothesis seems more in line with my preference than yours — forgive me please if I have misunderstood.
I view this whole question of “Climate Sensitivity” as an exercise in self flagellation.
Let’s suppose there IS a mechanism whereby LWIR radiation can warm the atmosphere; I believe there surely is; call it the “Greenhouse Effect” if you like.
We assume that there is some source of LWIR radiation in the system. Surely, that mostly is the liquid/solid surface of the planet. We are often told quite vehemently that gases do not emit infra-red radiation, so what else is left but the far more massive liquid and solid surface of the planet. This is where most of the radiant energy from the sun is deposited, so it is also the hottest part of the climate system; we ignore volcanic activity here.
So the earth surface emits a roughly Planckian thermal spectrum, that first order we approximate as a black body radiation spectrum. Absent that simplifying assumption, what the hell else could you take as a starting guess ?
Well now we have a problem. Seen any thermometers stuck in the ground near you lately, or in the ocean surface ? Well evidently there are at least a few ocean ones, and the satellite scanners can evidently monitor ocean surface by some remote sensing means. But not a lot of on site ground thermometers; they seem to put those a couple of metres off the surface, which means they aren’t measuring the ground Temperature.
Well the total radiant emittance goes as T^4, so any error in measuring the surface Temperature has a big effect. The peak spectral radiant emittance goes as T^5 , so it is even further off kilter, because they don’t measure the ground, which can be as much as +60 deg C in tropical deserts, and may get to +90 deg C on artificial blacktop surfaces.
The popular media suggest that the earth heats during the sunlit hours, and then cools during the dark of night.
Not so ! Certainly the surface heats during the sunlit hours; but that is also when the surface is doing its best cooling job; sometimes at more than twice the rate it does in the cool of night.
Forget the polar regions when it comes to keeping the earth cool. The cooling rate in the Arctic, and Antarctic is often less than one tenth of what the cooling rate in the tropical deserts is.
Worse yet, in the polar regions, the LWIR emission spectrum peaks right around the 15 micron absorption band of CO2, which according to prevailing theories, further slows down the cooling rate at the poles. In contrast, in the tropical deserts the peak spectral radiance occurs at around 8.8 microns or so, which is a long way from the CO2 15 micron band, and may even dodge a bit of the Ozone dip at 9.6 microns. In any case it is further into the atmospheric window, and given the lower desert humidities, even the water absorption is subdued.
So deserts are great for cooling the earth; but we don’t do a lot of surface Temperature sampling there.
The long geologic time Temp and CO2 proxies from ice cores etc, show similarities in behavior, as if there is a link, but the CO2 data is always delayed from the Temperature data, by times from several hundred years to a few thousand years. 800 years is an often cited typical number.
So 800 years ago was the mediaeval warm period, which could be the genesis of today’s rising CO2. The geologic time data also shows that the Temperature falls, much faster, than the subsequent CO2 does, and the CO2 fall times are considerably longer than their rise times.
This does seem to fit a mechanism whereby Temperature rise DRIVES a CO2 increase, such as by ocean outgassing, or increased vegetation decay rates., followed by cooling and a somewhat passive uptake of CO2 in the oceans or biologic system.
I’m NOT claiming that this explains what is going on. It’s just one concept that is consistent to some degree with the facts. But if you are going to apply the climate sensitivity concept, just WHAT temperature sequence are you going to match with WHAT CO2 sequence of purported data. The whole notion of doing that is sheer lunacy.
Now the incoming solar energy, also is partly absorbed by the atmosphere; which simultaneously warms the atmosphere BUT cools the surface, since that solar spectrum energy never reaches the oceanic storage system.
What I find sadly lacking, are any thermal processes that seem to be effective in getting the atmosphere to warm the surface; which after all is where living things live.
The surface heats the lowest atmosphere by conduction, but then convection quickly removes the warmer air from the surface so that reverse conduction from air to surface is minimal. The warmed air rises, but must shed its heat energy at higher altitudes, before the circulatory system can bring that cold air back to the surface, sans the heat it got from the surface. The oceanic surfaces, also cool by evaporation which conveys huge amounts of latent heat to the upper atmosphere.
Finally, despite all the protestations, the atmospheric gases do radiate EM radiation in a continuum thermal spectrum, just like any material hotter than zero Kelvins. That energy loss is isotropic, so about half escapes to space, and about half can return to the surface. Because of the mean atmosphere being cooler than the mean surface (288K) , the atmospheric radiation spectrum is also in the LWIR region, which is very strongly absorbed by water, so over the 70%+ of the earth that is ocean, that returned energy is better at causing further evaporation, than it is in getting stored deep in the ocean.
So the GHG effects, to the extent that they exist (which I don’t deny), seem quite inept at affecting the surface Temperatures of the earth; which we aren’t really measuring much anyway.
So to argue that Earth’s surface Temperature follows a formula like:-
T2 -T1 = (cs) log2(CO2,2/CO2,1)
Is just plain silly.
I have never been able to find definitive proof that this formula was given to us by the late Stephen Schneider of Stanford, or not; that just seems to be the rumor.
The Beer’s Law theory says that the absorption of a specific radiation wavelength in a dilute solution of some solute, is proportional to the logarithm of the solute concentration.. If 10% of the radiation is absorbed in 1 cm of the solution, the next cm will absorb 10% of the remainder, and so on.
But Beer’s law is a law of absorption of a particular species of radiation; it IS NOT a law of transmission of EM energy. Beers law assumes that photons stay dead; they are not reincarnated as some different species of EM energy.
And many many substances that do absorb just as Beer’s law predicts, also incubate brand new photons of a different, and most usually lower energy, that can propagate in the medium.
These reincarnated photons are virtually always emitted as isotropic radiation, so even an input laser beam can be converted to a multispectral isotropic radiation propagating in all directions in the medium, so much of the energy can eventually escape from the medium.
If it doesn’t escape as some new fluorescence emission line, it ultimately will raise the Temperature of the medium, and the whole medium will radiate a continuum thermal spectrum.
No matter what ! The photons simply refuse to stay dead. The energy gets out by one means or another. And that defeats the entire foundation of Beer’s law.
ONLY if you monitor just the original input species, and ignore any offspring, does Beer’s law apply to the ABSORPTION of that species.
Forget about applying Beer’s law to atmospheric effects.
And when you figure out what 30 years of atmospheric CO2 you want to match with what other 30 years of atmospheric Temperatures, to show a logarithmic climate sensistivity relationship; please do let us all know what that magic recipe is.
Matthew R Marler says:
February 5, 2013 at 11:45 am (Edit)
Matt, it’s just units. It’s like pounds and kilos. One is 2.2 time the other, makes no difference which you use. Same here. CO2 doubling units are 3.7 times the units Steven is using. If one is negative, the other is negative. The choice of units is immaterial to his argument.
Thanks,
w.
george e. smith says:
February 5, 2013 at 12:19 pm
George, I have never, ever heard anyone make the claim, and certainly not “vehemently”, that
Some gases most assuredly absorb and emit infra-red, some gases don’t. In a mixture of the two, those that do absorb infrared immediately (nanoseconds) pass that energy on via collisions to the other gases that do not absorb or emit infrared and thus warm the mass of air. The reverse is true when they emit infrared, within nanoseconds they absorb energy from the other gases and cool the mass of air.
I fear I have not even read the rest of your long comment, given that you have gases this wrong.
w.
I note that they are assuming that 100% of the warming since CO2 was at 270, is due to CO2.
I was under the impression that the GCMs showed that increasing GHG concentrations had no effect on the earth’s temperature until about 1950. Which means that any warming before then was natural, and only the warming after that could be considered man-made. However, I also think they’ve suggested that without the human influence, the earth would actually have cooled since then, so there claim is that even more than 100% of the recent warming is due man, not just all of it. A very nice trick indeed.
Willis says directly above:
“George, I have never, ever heard anyone make the claim, and certainly not “vehemently”, that
gases do not emit infra-red radiation”
You DO need to read more of the post before going overboard…He is probably a physicist and DOES understand this stuff…
Well, IN FACT, W, you might also explain where I’m wrong in MY post above. Nobody else has, and I doubt that you can, either, because it’s just pure, simple basic physical science 101, without any post-modern “climate science” radiation magic added!
Basic physics and empirical evidence trumps the “radiative-greenhouse-gas-warming-by-IR-backradiation CARTOON SCIENCE ” that you engage. And the real proof is the manifest empirical evidence that is accumulating: (1) the current lack of warming for 16 years despite rising OCO levels; (2) the Antartic ice core data that shows…a lag… (you know very well); (3) Wood’s 1909 experiments; (4) the Atlanta/Phoenix paradox that you refuse to understand; (5) the absence of any “radiative” variable in the lapse rate equation; (6) the absence of any “radiative” variable in the ideal gas law.
You are on thin ice, man. And considering your bio, you’ve been there before and have survived!
@jae,
Lets see how much of the following you can agree with.
You say “If I add one atmosphere (1000 mb) to a planet the size of the earth, I have raised the temperature of that planet by 273K”
The temperature due to the one atmosphere offset is the surface temperature less the radiating zone temperature, or about 30K. Add an atmosphere and you will have 60K difference.
You say “T = (1)(22.4)/(1)(0.082) = 273K”
What you have done is substitute standard conditions of pressure and volume into the gas law and come up with the standard temperature. This is trivial.
And I do agree with Willis (this time only) that greenhouse gasses do emit infrared. That is the definition of a greenhouse gas.
You really do need to know what you are talking about before you bleed all over the place in public.
jae says:
February 5, 2013 at 6:14 pm
If you have a citation to someone making that claim, produce it. Your post is content-free.
w.
jae says:
February 5, 2013 at 7:26 pm
I assume you were referring to this:
jae says:
February 4, 2013 at 6:14 pm
I guess I’ll have to write a post about the Wood experiment … thanks for the push …
w.
pochas says:
February 5, 2013 at 8:32 pm
@jae,
“What you have done is substitute standard conditions of pressure and volume into the gas law and come up with the standard temperature. This is trivial.
And I do agree with Willis (this time only) that greenhouse gasses do emit infrared. That is the definition of a greenhouse gas.”
Yeah, that is exactly what I did, but it is not trivial. It is solid PROOF that you cannot have a standard atmosphere without ALSO having a temperature of 0 C. Now, you can use all sorts of radiation cartoons to explain how the atmosphere KEEPS this temperature, but me, I’m going with Occam’s Razor–it’s nothing but thermalization and heat storage.
And of course “greenhouse gases” emit (and absorb) IR. That’s critical to the thermalization.
I’m looking forward to Willis’ post on the Wood experiments.
Willis Eschenbach: CO2 doubling units are 3.7 times the units Steven is using. If one is negative, the other is negative.
You did point out that there is a big assumption in that statement of equivalence.
“””””…..Willis Eschenbach says:
February 5, 2013 at 1:30 pm
george e. smith says:
February 5, 2013 at 12:19 pm
I view this whole question of “Climate Sensitivity” as an exercise in self flagellation.
Let’s suppose there IS a mechanism whereby LWIR radiation can warm the atmosphere; I believe there surely is; call it the “Greenhouse Effect” if you like.
We assume that there is some source of LWIR radiation in the system. Surely, that mostly is the liquid/solid surface of the planet. We are often told quite vehemently that gases do not emit infra-red radiation, so what else is left but the far more massive liquid and solid surface of the planet.
George, I have never, ever heard anyone make the claim, and certainly not “vehemently”, that
gases do not emit infra-red radiation
Some gases most assuredly absorb and emit infra-red, some gases don’t. In a mixture of the two, those that do absorb infrared immediately (nanoseconds) pass that energy on via collisions to the other gases that do not absorb or emit infrared and thus warm the mass of air. The reverse is true when they emit infrared, within nanoseconds they absorb energy from the other gases and cool the mass of air.
I fear I have not even read the rest of your long comment, given that you have gases this wrong……”””””
Willis,
I accept without question, your admission that
“””””…..I have never, ever heard anyone make the claim, and certainly not “vehemently”, that
gases do not emit infra-red radiation…..”””””
And also your admission that you then read no more of my “long comment”.
So In view of those claims of yours, I then reread the small part pasted above, that you apparently did read; at least you have not claimed to have not read it.
I reread it looking for comments (of mine) directly related to gases, since you say I “have gases this wrong.”
I can find no comment of mine relating to gases ( in that portion you purportedly read); only a comment relating to what others have said relating to gases; comments which you assert you have not heard; and even if you have not, not heard them ,certainly not vehemently expressed.
If you had read just a little further on, in my long comment that you did not read, you will see where I mentioned black body like thermal radiation emitted by solids and liquids.
Just imagine that I was talking about that same kind of radiation in connection with the comments, sometimes vehement, that gases do not emit such radiation.
Now you assert that some gases emit IR radiation and some do not.
Why don’t you cite just a single case, of just one ordinary gas that does not emit such infra-red radiation; assuming it is above zero Kelvins of course; and yes of course you should give a peer reviewed reference for that assertion..
And Willis, why don’t you read your post out loud, and then you will be able to say that you have heard that gases (some) do not emit infra-red radiation. Try to not read your own words vehemently, lest it disturbs you.
Matthew R Marler says:
February 6, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Indeed I did … which is why I prefer Steven’s units. But they are defined as one being 3.7 times the other, so I can convert any time.
w.
george e. smith says:
February 6, 2013 at 2:37 pm
BZZZZZT! Next contestant, please …
Why on earth should I converse with someone writing such unpleasant innuendo and snark? No profit for me in talking to you,
Bye …
w.