From the University of Waterloo, an extraordinary claim. While plausible, due to the fact that CFC’s have very high GWP numbers, their atmospheric concentrations compared to CO2 are quite low, and the radiative forcings they add are small by comparison to CO2. This may be nothing more than coincidental correlation. But, I have to admit, the graph is visually compelling. But to determine if his proposed cosmic-ray-driven electron-reaction mechanism is valid, I’d say it is a case of “further study is needed”, and worth funding. – Anthony
WATERLOO, Ont. (Thursday, May 30, 2013) – Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and not carbon dioxide, according to new research from the University of Waterloo published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B this week.
CFCs are already known to deplete ozone, but in-depth statistical analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
“Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming. But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong,” said Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science. “In fact, the data shows that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global warming.”
“Most conventional theories expect that global temperatures will continue to increase as CO2 levels continue to rise, as they have done since 1850. What’s striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined – matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere,” Professor Lu said. “My calculations of CFC greenhouse effect show that there was global warming by about 0.6 °C from 1950 to 2002, but the earth has actually cooled since 2002. The cooling trend is set to continue for the next 50-70 years as the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere continues to decline.”
The findings are based on in-depth statistical analyses of observed data from 1850 up to the present time, Professor Lu’s cosmic-ray-driven electron-reaction (CRE) theory of ozone depletion and his previous research into Antarctic ozone depletion and global surface temperatures.
“It was generally accepted for more than two decades that the Earth’s ozone layer was depleted by the sun’s ultraviolet light-induced destruction of CFCs in the atmosphere,” he said. “But in contrast, CRE theory says cosmic rays – energy particles originating in space – play the dominant role in breaking down ozone-depleting molecules and then ozone.”
Lu’s theory has been confirmed by ongoing observations of cosmic ray, CFC, ozone and stratospheric temperature data over several 11-year solar cycles. “CRE is the only theory that provides us with an excellent reproduction of 11-year cyclic variations of both polar ozone loss and stratospheric cooling,” said Professor Lu. “After removing the natural cosmic-ray effect, my new paper shows a pronounced recovery by ~20% of the Antarctic ozone hole, consistent with the decline of CFCs in the polar stratosphere.”
By proving the link between CFCs, ozone depletion and temperature changes in the Antarctic, Professor Lu was able to draw almost perfect correlation between rising global surface temperatures and CFCs in the atmosphere.
“The climate in the Antarctic stratosphere has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact. The change in global surface temperature after the removal of the solar effect has shown zero correlation with CO2 but a nearly perfect linear correlation with CFCs – a correlation coefficient as high as 0.97.”
Data recorded from 1850 to 1970, before any significant CFC emissions, show that CO2 levels increased significantly as a result of the Industrial Revolution, but the global temperature, excluding the solar effect, kept nearly constant. The conventional warming model of CO2, suggests the temperatures should have risen by 0.6°C over the same period, similar to the period of 1970-2002.
The analyses indicate the dominance of Lu’s CRE theory and the success of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
“We’ve known for some time that CFCs have a really damaging effect on our atmosphere and we’ve taken measures to reduce their emissions,” Professor Lu said. “We now know that international efforts such as the Montreal Protocol have also had a profound effect on global warming but they must be placed on firmer scientific ground.”
“This study underlines the importance of understanding the basic science underlying ozone depletion and global climate change,” said Terry McMahon, dean of the faculty of science. “This research is of particular importance not only to the research community, but to policy makers and the public alike as we look to the future of our climate.”
Professor Lu’s paper, Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change, also predicts that the global sea level will continue to rise for some years as the hole in the ozone recovers increasing ice melting in the polar regions.
“Only when the effect of the global temperature recovery dominates over that of the polar ozone hole recovery, will both temperature and polar ice melting drop concurrently,” says Lu.
The peer-reviewed paper published this week not only provides new fundamental understanding of the ozone hole and global climate change but has superior predictive capabilities, compared with the conventional sunlight-driven ozone-depleting and CO2-warming models.
Journal reference
Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change
Qing-Bin Lu, University of Waterloo
Published on May 30 in International Journal of Modern Physics B Vol. 27 (2013) 1350073 (38 pages).
The paper is available online at: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217979213500732
Preprint (h/t to William Astley)
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.6844.pdf
Too late for inclusion in IPCC’s latest work of sciencey fiction?
Well, the ‘curve’ of CFCs matches the observed temperature better than atmospheric CO2 I have to say. In my mind, that puts them a leg up on the conventional theory.
Yeah, let’s find another way to heap it on man.
If they’re right, this will change everything.
How much of the correlation is due specifically to CFCs, as opposed to the cosmic rays interacting with a plethora of other mechanisms?
There is of course the small matter of the warming from 1850 to 1970 to take into account, and the cause of warming during the Cretan warm period, the Roman warm period and the Medieval warm period, but why spoil a good story?
weird.
How he created the pictures?
In PowerPoint?
Yes, O3 levels might be a proxy for climate change, but it has nothing to do CFC. It’s even stupider than CO2, if that’s possible.
More study Needed, Correlation does not equate to Causation. But hey lets look into it.
it will change nothing. They will still find a way to support the industry base doing ‘green’ CO2 may not warm the place up, but it will ‘acidify the oceans’
The same unanswered question that troubles the CO2 hypothesis applies here too: Who released CFCs during the last few warming periods prior to industrialisation?
“Correlation is not causation”. Or perhaps temperature change could be causing the change in CFC concentrations? But then, if A and B vary together then either one causes the other or both A and B are caused by some unknown factor C. Some way to on this one…
If there is some validity to this in the end, the real question is how will Al Gore and his cronies EVER be able to make any money? Parka futures market?
This is the most amusing theory by far….
“It’s all a load of COCC”
http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=39
Lets see how the carbon trading exchange digest this news, might see a huge collapse today in Carbon credits that trade.
Sure could be likely cause, CFC’s
This news if true could push a quick world wide program to get rid of any old CFC using air conditions, or cooling type devices that are still in use today and have CFC’s in them.
Correlation does not prove causation. I doubt Prof. Lu would claim medieval alchemists inadvertently brewed up CFCs to cause the MWP, or that the age of enlightenment with a concomitant reduction in alchemy caused the LIA.
The paper and PR do prove two things. First, peer review is pretty useless. Second, more research is always needed (aka send more money) by such researchers.
I have no idea whether this idea will pan or not. But it does make a critical point – our understanding of climate is still in it’s infancy. Thus there is massive uncertainty in our climate predictions, something the alarmists have glossed over and even sometimes outright denied.
Haven’t various peer-reviewed papers stated that CFC influence in the upper atmosphere is somewhat…overblown?
Did CFCs caused the MWP? The Roman Warming? Various other spikes in temps? End the last ice age?
They might, maybe play some part in the modern warming, and the graph is interesting, but I think we’re a looong way from calling it a cause.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.6844.pdf
The following is a link to the preprint paper.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.6844.pdf
COSMIC-RAY-DRIVEN REACTION AND GREENHOUSE EFFECT OF HALOGENATED MOLECULES: CULPRITS FOR ATMOSPHERIC OZONE DEPLETION AND GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
…in-depth statistical analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change…
That was enough for me. Another scam. ‘In-depth statistics’ is another word for fraud…
So if we head in to another ice age we just dig up all the old fridges that we can?
CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in parts per million:
Hydrocarbons are measured in parts per trillion. . . . .and besides that, have such a high molecular weight that their atmospheric concentration can vary by the foot of elevation.
I remain to be convinced. . .
CFCs may have had a transient effect but, in the end, it’s all about the sun. I think this paper may be more important than it appears at first glance.
This changes nothing. Since alarmism is tone deaf to scale effects of cost or science effects like forcing or sensitivity or model errors, the campaign will soldier on as long as any fraction can be attributed to CO2. It actually reinforces the AGW arguments with CFCs that were starting to fray compared to the actual temp record. Kudos to the authors for actually mentioning the actuals and their departure from alarmism. That was bold on their part.
Does the term “climate change” now mean a change of temperature caused by man made emissions?
A cointegration analysis may clarify cause and effect in CFC vs CO2. e.g. AGW does not cointegrate with global warming. See Beenstock, Reingewertz, and Paldor Polynomial cointegration tests of anthropogenic impact on global warming, Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., 3, 561-596, 2012
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/3/561/2012/
doi:10.5194/esdd-3-561-2012
OK. Which is it, CFC’s are bad, or CFC’s are good? I think warming is much preferable to cooling.
I have spent lot of time understanding CO2, now I have to jump back into the books to understand CFC’s. Those catastrophic dudes really are clever. CO2 has bitten the dust as the cause of climate change, now they go to CFC’s.
It is a tough world out there.
European Union carbon price expectations through 2020 have fallen 47 percent since last year, the International Emissions Trading Association said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-28/eu-carbon-price-expectations-plunge-47-in-a-year-ieta-says.html
Articles about CFC’s reason and Not C02 could crash the Carbon Scam market.
Rud Istvan says:
May 30, 2013 at 9:58 am
Correlation does not prove causation. I doubt Prof. Lu would claim medieval alchemists inadvertently brewed up CFCs to cause the MWP, or that the age of enlightenment with a concomitant reduction in alchemy caused the LIA.
##################
Nobody argues that CFCs or C02 explain all warmings at all times. You can have CFCs cause warming today and that does not require that CFCs were even present in previous warming periods.
Eating cookies can cause weight gain. Lack of exercise can cause weight gain. pumping iron
can cause a weight gain
Lets suppose you ate cookies every day for the next two months and put on 5 pounds.
Would you point to your teenage years when you bulked up 5 lbs by pumping iron and exclaim that cookies dont cause weight gain, because as a teenager you put on 5 pounds without eating cookies? If you ate cookies and exercised like crazy and put on no weight would you argue that cookies could not cause weight gain?
The LIA and the MWP tell you next to notihing about the effects of C02 or CFCs. Those periods can give you information about sensitivity to TOTAL FORCING ( cookies + all other factors) but they tell you ZERO about C02 or CFCs in isolation
From the final paragraph of the article:
“The peer-reviewed paper published this week not only provides new fundamental understanding of the ozone hole and global climate change but has superior predictive capabilities, compared with the conventional sunlight-driven ozone-depleting and CO2-warming models.”
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt the TEAM …
This absolutely CAN NOT be true.
We all know, by now, that the science was settled in favor of CO2.
Don’t we?
The next step is to create a model that shows burning coal releases CFC into the atmosphere.
Mark says “If they’re right, this will change everything.”
Even in they are only *half* right – that is, even in CFCs only account for half of anthropogenic global warming – this will still change everything.
I’m very skeptical. Isn’t this just a convenient way to switch human-caused bad guys? If it’s not our machines and power plants and factories producing planet killer CO2, then it must be something else WE in the west are doing. Enter CFC’s. While I won’t say this claim shouldn’t be further looked into, the initial claim is kind of grandiose. And remember that line about the ozone hole? How do we know there wasn’t a hole in the ozone layer when Julius Caesar walked about? Just because we stumbled across it in the 1980s (or 70s; I forget) doesn’t mean we did it. Next thing they’ll be saying is we somehow killed off the dinosaurs. Talk about your western guilt trip. Why don’t we all just shoot ourselves and make the world a better place (sarc)?
The dangers of fluorides have been covered up for 70 years! It’s clear that they are a severe problem that has been too long ignored.
Climate variabiity obviously has more than one cause. Just because CFCs weren’t around during other warming periods by no means proves that they are not the dominant factor in recent times.
Actually the issue is ozone, not CFCs per se It’s perhaps even possible for ozone depletion to occur by other non-man-made causes. Correlations of .97 don’t grow on trees, especially if calculated over any data points. Anthony is right – this is one area of study that deserves funding – lots of it, simply because of the possibly enormous monetary consequences
At least someone is beginning to notice that the warming curve doesn’t match with CO2. That’s a good start. I’m not naive enough to think they will ever give up on alarmism, but at least this may force them to change targets from carbon to something else that is about to cause “the end of the world as we know it.”
I recall Dr. Nicola Scafetta reporting his finding that the warming effect of CO2 was greatly exaggerated, and the warming effects of CFCs were underestimated, at a Locke Foundation lecture quite a few years ago.
Rud Istvan says:
May 30, 2013 at 9:58 am
Correlation does not prove causation, but it does show where to look. If there is no correlation, there’s little need to consider causation. If there are several factors well correlated, look at the relationship that is most strongly correlated first.
This paper is really interesting if you combine it with the concepts of Henrik Svensmark. Svensmark’s team have provided very good evidence of a correlation between cosmic rays and past temperature with a proposed link to cloud formation. He has been criticised due to the fact that his mechanism does not provide adequate explanation for the rise in temperatures from 1980-1998 (or so).
So lets propose that Svensmark and company got it right on the geological timeframe but the effect identified has been masked by global changes in CFC output from the 70’s on as per the paper outlined above by Qing-Bin Lu and his team.
Does this provide a starting point for Green campaigners (concerned about industrial pollution) and the non CAGW camp (concerned about the abuse of science) to come together? I think it does…
World Carbon Trading (Co2) scams are going to CRASH??. Is this Article to combat Carbon Trading Markets before a big meeting next week or is what was found about CFC’s true?
I have a feeling it is true about CFC’s and have always believed C02 was not causing warming.
The entire world carbon trading scheme that has been spreading fast and is a way for Governments to make fast cash on BS C02 Caused Global Warming.
Nations at odds over U.N. role in future global CO2 markets
30 May 2013 16:36 Last updated: 30 May 2013 16:38
LONDON, May 30 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Over 190 nations will meet next week in Bonn, Germany for annual mid-year talks on how to draft a new global climate pact, but debate remains bogged down on how to create rules governing a future carbon market that could make it cheaper for nations to cut emissions.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2395503
Lu has been pushing the CFC hypothesis for years. He has been ignored by mainstream climate scientists for just as long. IIRC, WUWT covered one of his previous papers (or it was mentioned in comments). I’ll stick with the oceans (PDO/AMO/etc.) as they also explain other time periods.
Turns out there are two articles:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/22/study-shows-cfcs-cosmic-rays-major-culprits-for-global-warming/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/08/a-paper-unifying-cosmic-ray-interaction-cfcs-ozone-and-warming/
Carbon Trading Markets ( New Words For Disguised Taxes) are growing faster then cancerous tumors world wide..
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/allnews/
You have to remember that the correlation between two straight lines is always perfect. Unless the data includes all of the variability of both data sets, a correlation coefficient is meaningless and worse, deceptive, and even worse, a Tool of the Devil.
Is this another case of a man with a hammer (‘his previous research into Antarctic ozone depletion and global surface temperatures’) seeing everything as a nail (‘CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global warming’)?
© Mark Twain
So Hansen’s finally met his Waterloo.
Perhaps we can exile him to some island, or as is known in the UK, “giving him the Elba” !!!
” I’d say it is a case of “further study is needed”, and worth funding. – Anthony ”
Okay that is a first or at least the first I can remember. That falls into the high praise category around here!
” said Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science. ”
Now there is a resume to have work on this climate stuff! I know UofWaterloo in known for attracting very bright types but that is a nice list.
So even though correlation doesn’t equal causation it is a good place to start. So how do we test the CFC + CR part further?
A better correlation provides 90% accuracy to average global temperature measurements since before 1900.
Two papers on line provide some eye-opening insight on possible cause of change to average global temperature.
The first one is ‘Global warming made simple’ at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com/. It shows, with simple calculations, how a tiny change in low altitude clouds could account for half of the average global temperature change in the 20th century, and what could have caused that tiny change. (The other half of the temperature change is from natural ocean oscillation which is dominated by the PDO)
The second paper is ‘Natural Climate change has been hiding in plain sight’ at http://climatechange90.blogspot.com/2013/05/natural-climate-change-has-been.html . This paper presents a simple equation that calculates average global temperatures since they have been accurately measured world wide (since before 1900) with an accuracy of 90%, irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is included or not. The equation uses a proxy of the time-integral of sunspot numbers. A graph is included which shows the calculated trajectory overlaid on measurements.
A third paper, ‘The End of Global Warming’ at http://endofgw.blogspot.com/ expands recent measurements and includes a graph showing the growing separation between the rising CO2 and not-rising average global temperature.
When the French Scientists proposed a 100 step process to get the highly stable CFC to release one chlorine atom, I didn’t buy it. So, now we have someone who “believes” that another mechanism can release the chlorine atom. I still don’t buy it. Has anyone ever proved that CFCs can be broken down in a natural setting so that a chlorine atom is released?
Steven Mosher says:
May 30, 2013 at 10:41 am
=====
Mosh you might as well have said that the tropic hot spot was predicted to show up as cooler spot…..
The increased melting at the poles?
Antarctic ice is shrinking?
I sell a rat.The whole ozone/refrigerant fiasco still stinks on ice, we claimed an effect based on zero history and pretended our political masterbations solved the problem.
Now with 30 years worth of actual measurements of the ozone at each pole, the “panic theory” looks doubtful.
But it sure was a political success, as in stampede the masses at their cost.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the CFC and UHI arguments are intimately related….
The ozone hole began with a circulation change in the troposphere; and BTW in 2011 it reached a larger area than ever.
In depth statistical analysis here is essentially multiple linear regression on lagged variables. They have a mechanism, and a justification for the lag, and they have predictions. It’s too bad they fit their regressions to 3-point means instead of raw values, as their procedure inflates R^2.
Let the testing begin.
To William Astley, thanks for the preprint. Lu does not seem to have put his data and code online, or perhaps I missed it.
Not so fast, Paul. 😉 Hansen will call up this:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/18/9875.long
But hasn’t it already been proved that global temperature change is driven by the price of stqmps?
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/05/03/shock-global-temperatures-driven-by-us-postal-charges/
See the subsequent paper by QB Lu, On Cosmic-Ray-Driven Electron Reaction Mechanism for Ozone Hole and Chlorofluorocarbon Mechanism for Global Climate Change
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.1498.pdf
Given:
1) “We’ve known for some time that CFCs have a really damaging effect on our atmosphere and we’ve taken measures to reduce their emissions,” Professor Lu said. “We now know that international efforts such as the Montreal Protocol have also had a profound effect on global warming but they must be placed on firmer scientific ground.”
2) “This paper is really interesting if you combine it with the concepts of Henrik Svensmark. Svensmark’s team have provided very good evidence of a correlation between cosmic rays and past temperature with a proposed link to cloud formation.” [Mike at 11:10] and
3) CERN’s assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is a significant cause global warming:
“… these experiments … would change the understanding of anthropogenic climate change. We are well informed about greenhouse gases. But we know too little about aerosols. Also airborne particles that pass through our industry in the atmosphere. You have a cooling effect with certainty. … It might be … so large that it compensates for the effect of additional CO2 in the atmosphere.”
[Source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/29/update-on-the-cloud-experiment-at-cern/#more-87267%5D
It appears to me that the IPCC Gang is going to attempt to maintain control over human activity by exaggerating the CFC (or other “organic substance” — from human activity, of course) factor. It will of course, once again, be essentially a lie (v. a. v. HUMAN causation). Just the sort of thing the Cult of Climatology does best.
I hope I am wrong about the above potential new lie.
I’d love to hear that I am!
In any event, that lie, too will fall.
TRUTH WILL, IN THE END, WIN.
I thought atmospheric CFC level starting going down 20 years ago.
I just skimmed his paper. He makes a lot of sense.
But what about the 97% CFConsensus?
Good thing they took away asthmatics’ inhalers or the oceans would be boiling by now.
This paper needs to be reviewed by Svensmark and also Kirby at CERN then if it has legs CERN has the resources to test it as a component of their on-going work. If factual the implications for the politicians are mind blowing. No government could sustain Carbon taxes, emission trading schemes or any other hot air taxes and for those of us who have them the positive injection to the economy of revoking ETS legislation would come at the right time in business cycle to stimulate economic activity.
Looking at the CFC’s v Temperature graph above, it looks very similar to what is going on here with Solar activity and planetary resonance. (Solar activity and planetary resonance must drive CFC’s too).
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/solar-activity-mod-1.gif
This paper has to BS because reliable surface temp data from 1850 is non existent due to adjustments, UHI etc. He is comparing his CFC data with a pretend made up temperature trends by hadcrut Giss etc.The only surface temperature data that I trust is CET and it shows a 100% flat line since 1849. There has been no significant rise confirmed by satellite data since 1979
If I’m reading the chart right, it shows that CFC concentrations continued to increase until around the year 2000. I find that a bit hard to believe, since the Montreal Protocol’s went into effect back in the 80’s.
BTW, they are attributing ozone fluctuations over the Antarctic directly to CFC’s and are therefore attributing Global temperatures directly to ozone
The fact that there has been no “global” warming can easily be shown and has been overlooked massively. Look at ANY graph of Southern Hemisphere temperatures since measurements began and you will observe NO warming in the SH. see RSS remote sensing graphs. its NOT global. Actually tropics doesnt appear to show warming either (RSS data).
This is all a conspiracy of the Harper government – channelling research dollars into anyone who will validate the “it’s not CO2 from the Canadian tar sands” policy position. /sarc
Ans should there be a tropical tropospheric hot spot? If not why not?
OT but how the hell did Steig get his rubbish published in NATURE? see this
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_time_series.html
see antarctic temperature trend
RE previous select south polar from the RSS menu to see antarctic temperature trends. They are flat
It was this, I think:
Two from google news… it’ll be interesting to see if and how MSM deals with this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130530-909921.html
http://www.albanytribune.com/30052013-global-warming-caused-by-cfcs-not-carbon-dioxide-study/
If this is true, this DOES show the importance for everyone to be open-minded about science. There is no reason why, in principle, our actions cannot be dangerous to our future and our planet.
Just because the CO2 AGW hypothesis is overblown, does not mean we should be complacent. Scientists may well have helped humanity dodge a major bullet here with CFCs.
And it’s stopped warming, right? I realise that’s simplistic, there are many forcing factors, but this is an argument in favour of this hypothesis, not opposed to it.
I have previously expressed the view that an alternative explanation fits the data even better.
Namely, that the cooling stratosphere and mesosphere during the time that the troposphere was apparently warming was due to high solar activity reducing ozone above the tropopause. The conventional wisdom is that an active sun creates more ozone but I think that is wrong in the upper levels above 45km where lies the boundary between stratosphere and mesosphere and the processes above 45km dominate overall.
Ozone reacts directly to incoming solar shortwave so more ozone results in warming and less ozone in cooling.
Some evidence in favour of just such a reverse sign effect on ozone from solar variations has already been noted for the period 2004 to 2007 and commented on by Joanna Haigh.
There has been some spin on those results so there is little point linking to sources at this stage.
During that period of declining solar activity it seems that ozone amounts above 45km actually increased which was the reverse of that expected.
If that is correct then the sun is responsible for climate changes by affecting the temperature of the stratosphere so as to alter the gradient of tropopause height between poles and equator which in turn affects climate zone positioning and jet stream behaviour, altering global cloudiness and albedo and the amount of solar energy that gets into the oceans.
These authors have seen the problem with the CO2 hypothesis and so have rather desperately changed horses but their idea is equally flawed.
Solar variability affects ozone quantities in the main rather than CFCs. I am not aware of any current data quantifying the solar effect as compared to that from CFCs.
I would think CFCs are as irrelevant to ozone amounts as CO2 is to surface temperature.
The money line?
What’s striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined
Scratch CO2, insert CFC; resubmit application.
In addition to other critiques of the CFC ozone destroying effect, my own observation that O2 is highly paramagnetic (attracted to a magnetic pole) and ozone is diamagnetic (repelled by a magnetic pole) means the ozone “hole” would be preferentially filled with O2 and ozone is displaced away from it, creating the “hole”. It is instructive to look at NASA’s imagery of the ozone hole in the link below. Note that surrounding the hole is a very thick “collar” of ozone, and as we go toward the equator it tapers off substantially – exactly as you would expect if it were purely a magnetic phenomenon. The ozone hasn’t been destroyed, it has been rolled back like a turtle neck sweater collar. Probably Willis can figure out how to determine if the “collar” if unrolled would fit nicely back into the hole.
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/historymakers/solomon/ozone_hole650.jpg&imgrefurl=http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/historymakers/solomon/ozone_hole650.html&h=778&w=586&sz=130&tbnid=XWfk73izDnvOQM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=67&zoom=1&usg=__yLOVh7kEoE-IHIZcIfnlTywUHc0=&docid=-BZj4l1iUymUvM&sa=X&ei=IrinUf0-hr3IAZfZgVg&ved=0CFwQ9QEwDg&dur=9682
This is funny. Freon (R-22) was banned because it destroyed the ozone hole. Until, of course, someone decided to verify that. It was discovered it is too heavy to get to the ozone layer so it is impossible to destroy the ozone hole. (If memory serves me correct, which sometimes it doesn’t.) Still, despite not destroying the ozone hole, the ban remained.
It was replaced by the misnamed Puron refrigerant. Puron is a very potent greenhouse gas and so it is not “pure” like the copyrighted name suggests. This study reminds me of the switch of refrigerants for our AC’s and how the greens aren’t interested in science, just agendas.
Lu said:
“What’s striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined – matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere,” Professor Lu said. ”
Global temperatures have certainly stalled and may have cooled a little but the jury is out on that for the moment.
CFCs have been declining since long before 2000 (the Montreal Protocol came into force on 1st January 1989) but until 1998 temperatures appeared to be rising.
The story in the stratosphere is different.
Up to the late 90s it was cooling but since then the cooling has stopped and it may now be warming. If CFCs were involved why did the cooling not show signs of decelerating during the previous ten years?
The change that fits best is the decline in solar activity from cycle 23 to 24 which started to bite around 2000 when I first noted the jet streams stop becoming more poleward/zonal and start becoming more equatorward/meridional.
Since similar jet stream and climate zone changes occurred in the Maunder, Dalton et al I disagree that it is anything to do with CFCs.
I liked it when it was warm. Ramp up the production of freon.
From the second paragraph: “CFCs are already known to deplete ozone.” I was under the impression that this was a belief that had never been verified. I understand that the mechanism offered for CFCs to deplete ozone requires a metal surface for the reaction to take place. Correct?
Since no ozone measurements in the antarctic exist prior to 1956, we don’t have a long back-period of knowledge to support any hypothesis regarding cause.
Ian
Steven Mosher May 30, 2013 at 10:41 am
Just exactly which one of the 44 models used to promote trillions in taxes predicted the present plateau ? Just exactly which one of the 44 models used to promote the expenditure of billions to pay for unreliable power sources hind cast the LIA, MWP, RWP, etc. etc.
Another atmospheric study missing an elephant in the room – ocean currents. With AMO/PDO/ENSO included properly. their correlation coefficient will be very different. However, the IPCC still makes the same mistake, with IPCC forcings about 100% human caused. I would think, about 97% of scientists would disagree with this IPCC consensus if asked properly.
All they have done is to find a correlation between CFCs and temperature. They have interpreted it as ‘CFCs drive temperature’ (“option A”). They need to also look at ‘temperature drives CFCs’ (“option B”) and ‘something else drives both’ (“option C”).
In their graph, there is a strong cycle visible in CFCs. That cycle, to my eye, exactly matches the sunspot cycle http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/.
Looks like option C is the correct answer.
Stephen Wilde’s ideas look worth investigating too. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/30/study-says-global-warming-caused-by-cfcs-not-carbon-dioxide/#comment-1321886
@Steven Mosher
“The LIA and the MWP tell you next to notihing about the effects of C02 or CFCs. Those periods can give you information about sensitivity to TOTAL FORCING ( cookies + all other factors) but they tell you ZERO about C02 or CFCs in isolation”
*********************************************
Certainly CO2 tells you nothing about sensitivity to TOTAL FORCING, since almost the entire period during which CO2 has been increasing steadily was preceded by warming not caused by, but which caused, increasing levels of atmospheric CO2. During that same period, as CO2 increased due to the lagged effect of natural climate change warming, half the time CO2 was steadily increasing there was global cooling (1945-1975) or temperature stagnation (1997-present). Prior temperature cycles of prolonged cooling and warming – Holocene Climactic, Minoan, Roman, Medieval for warming, Little Ice Age and Dark Ages for cooling – correlate well with solar and ocean-related variations. The current warming cycle very closely resembles prior warming cycles, except that it is well below attaining their levels of warmth. The Little Ice Age, which we are in recovery from, was the coldest period since the Younger Dryas at the end of the Ice Age. There has been a cooling trend since the Holocene Climatic Optimum, and each succeeding warm cycle since the Holocene Climatic Optimum (8,000 to 5,000 years before present) has not been as warm as its predecessor.
Obviously, the null hypothesis is that climate change is natural, and the just publicized CERN Cloud study suggests that there is another mechanism rather than CO2 causing climate change.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/29/update-on-the-cloud-experiment-at-cern/ (This is the WUWT link – the CERN link takes you to a German-language announcement).
The British MET Office is slowly coming to the same conclusion. The story being told by many recent studies is that CO2 is insufficient in isolation to explain current warming. It’s “back to the drawing board.”
Stephen Wilde says:
May 30, 2013 at 1:54 pm
———————————
While I share your view that evidence best supports a solar role, in fairness CFC concentrations didn’t stabilize, let alone start dropping, until long after the 1989 Montreal Protocol.
Skeptical of the connection, but there does appear to be a correlation.
The clever thing about this study is that they have realised we about to head into a NATURAL cooling period, (after a NATURAL warming period) and mave managed to work it into their study.
Quite neat really.
mave = have !!
I thought some chemist out there had figured out that the conditions required for the CFC-Ozone reaction weren’t available at the temperatures and pressures available at the Ozone layer. I think what we may see here is a good correlation between Ozone and temperature with CFCs being a covariable effect from the same cause or a complete red herring accidental correlation.
Well, your honor,
we are clearly innocent scientists who had no control over what politicians and hustlers did with our results.
See, we have lots of papers covering multiple causes.
Yes, some non-specialist scientists did get a little overboard,
we’re a little embarrassed about the attention they got….
and those taxes, and subsidies….that was them not us,
but that was until the new data came to light
(or they retired, or died of old age, or snookered enough to retire to Hawaii, or…)
But we’re innocent, we say!
…and we do need some more grants to investigate this new, possibly false, information!
Oh, say each one of us needs to get $300K….
per year…. for at least a decade……
plus support for 8 students…..plus equipment, field trips…..
Then we will figure this conundrum out!
Watch the ozone hole animation 1979 – 2013. With the cursor, move the animation slowly and watch as the hole increases, you can see the ozone building up in a thickening collar around the ozone “hole” as it progresses. The ozone isn’t depleted it is rolled back like the collar of a turtleneck sweater because it is repelled by a magnetic pole and regular oxygen is attracted – filling in the hole. This should be checked against strengthening and weakening of the earth’s magnetic field. Anyone with this kind of data could check this out.
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone_maps/movies/OZONE_D1979-05%25P1Y_G%5E360X240.MMERRA_LSH.mp4
Owen in GA. My point exactly. I am not aware of anyone who has been able to demonstrate how CFCs can be forced to give up that chlorine atom. And if it doesn’t then it doesn’t do anything to the ozone layer. That makes the entire paper and discussion a moot point. Can anyone point to such a study?
The other day I was looking at the current solar data, and the graph line from the neutron flow chart jumped out as a perfect fit with several volcanic events and one major quake. I then made a comment which would be a better fit to this conversation then on this post, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/29/modeling-sea-ice-loss/#comment-1320802.
goldminor says:
May 29, 2013 at 1:01 pm
This morning I went to WUWT’s solar page to see the latest on solar news. When I came to the graph showing the neutron stream, which never registered any thoughts before within me, I saw a potential connection with some recent comments from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/10/why-reanalysis-data-isnt-2/#comment-1303136. In that post i had made this comment regarding volcanic events overlaid on a graph with sst data and the different levels of the sea. I made this comment…”If you look approximately 6 years out past each eruption, the graph shows a large upward heat spike on the surface:ICOADS SST line. That spike following all three eruptions gains approximately 2.5C from the point where the ICOADS line crosses the eruption event to the peak of the ICOADS line 6 years out. Is this just a coincidence? Also, there are 16 peaks in that time span or slightly over 3.5 years between spikes on the surface:ICOADS. It seems so regular, but what would cause that? The surface:ERSST closely follows the same pattern”.
Then Greg Goodman commented that he had noted this several years earlier and that he had labeled this possible effect as ‘volcanic rebound’. So in looking at the neutron stream data which starts around the late 60s, I could not help but notice that there is possible correlation with the above comment. The neutron record is not very long so there are only 2 good connections with El Chichon in late 1982 and Pinatubo in mid 1991. If you look at the neutron graph, the low of the neutron flow matches exactly with these two volcanic events. Then some 6 years later there is the peak of the neutron flow, or the possible ‘volcanic rebound’. How is it that the neutron flow can fit in so exactly, or was it the neutron flow changes that created the impression of ‘volcanic rebound? There is one other signal from the neutron data. Around mid 2000 the neutron flow hits a weaker low as compared to 1982 and 1991. It then stays at that low for 4 years until the end of 2004, which lines it up with the Sumatra Christmas Quake and Tsunami. This is followed about 6 years later with a new neutron high at the end of 2009 or into 2010. This is certainly not linked to co2. Can neutron flows cause temperature changes? or can they partner/enable other processes that have not been included in CC studies?
CFCs? Are we doomed yet?
CFCs became illegal to manufacture in the US in about 1992 or 1993. They were replaced, first by HCFCs (i.e. R-22) then by the HFC (R-134a). There is a big difference between the effects on the ozone layer. CFCs, the first non-ammonia refrigerants to come into general use, had the worst effect on the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol led to the banning of this group. The HCFC family only did about 5% of the damage that the CFCs did. They became illegal to produce just a few years ago. The HFC family is not at present believed to cause any damage. CFCs are still used in old equipment. They are “mined” from old equipment and recycled in your own equipment or “reclaimed” to original specs and sold on the market. The last I looked there was about a $15 lb. federal tax on the stuff to discourage use. The stuff is still leaking into the atmosphere as I type, but not much. It will be around for a while longer, but with declining effect. There is a huge amount of R-22 around and it will be leaking into the atmosphere for the next 25 years until the equipment wears out or becomes too expensive to recharge. Most refrigerant is eventually lost through leakage. You could lose every thing you own through fines for intentional venting. There have been fines in the millions. In the preMontreal days, People found it easier to vent rather than try to recover small amounts. Practical equipment to do that wasn’t available, so people just cut the pressure line with a side cutter. Millions of tons went into the air. Montreal changed everything, probably for the better. The increase in efficiency was phenomenal. R-12 units were typically at SEERs of 5-7, now they can get over 20, but it’s due to all kinds of improvement, not just the refrigerant.
Well, this is convincing.
“…superior predictive capabilities, compared with the conventional sunlight-driven ozone-depleting and CO2-warming models.”
Anyone else starting to see a distinct resemblance between gang-reviewed cli-sci literature and 1950s car commercials?
So what’s the catch? The Canadian universities are every bit as politically correct as the American ones, so what’s their angle to bilk the developed world out of trillions of dollars by taxing the developed world economy? Surely this can’t be a case of good science.
This is worth some study. In the case of CFCs, we are introducing something new to the mix on a macro scale where we don’t know the rules. He might be right. Very small things can make very big changes. Obviously we can only look at recent times so proof is tough sledding. I’d like to hear more about how we can either prove this or rule it out. We cannot continue to introduce ‘foreign’ things into the environment without study on any scale or we will eventually find the one that does us in. CFCs are as good a place as any to start serious study into the chemistry and mechanisms.
Hole in ozone layer caused by cfcs causes global warming
Recently hole in ozone layer is larger than usual
therefore temperatures are not increasing
therefore CFCs cannot be causing global warming.
Those who doubt the basic atmospheric chemistry and physics of CFCs would benefit from this summary and cited references.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/hats/publictn/elkins/cfcs.html
Although the interaction of CFCs, ozone depletion, and GW is quite complex, and “catastrophe” has been overstated, the fundamental and observed chemistry of CFCs in the atmosphere is pretty solid.
Professor Lu’s cosmic-ray-driven electron-reaction (CRE) theory of ozone depletion
This is the second paper in 2 days that identifies GCR interactions with molecules in the atmosphere as a major cause of climate change.
And if anyone thinks humans changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere is a modern phenomena, then I refer them to charcoal production.
http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/publications/2006%20pubs/JGR_Pennise1.pdf
The CFC problem is solved. The stuff is no longer made and there is only a small amount left to leak into the air. The fact that it is still leaking into the air is the result of industry and governments working out an economic compromise. Instead of confiscating or making illegal to operate everybody’s R-12 refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners, the deal was to let the stuff wear out through use, but to make it more expensive to get the CFCs to refill them so that people would replace earlier( a small number of units constantly had leak problems and policy wanted to get rid of them quickly). This is so different from the global warmists who will bring complete economic destruction on the West with their policies. They don’t want economic compromise. Professor Lu agrees with most of the views held here. He tries to explain that the unusual temperature increase between 1970 and the turn of the century correlates with CFC concentration and not CO2. This is most of the blade of the infamous hockey stick. He explains it away fairly simply. One huge slap at the IPCC if he’s correct. Anthony is right that he deserves funding.
Here we go around the Malthusian merry-go-round …. again.
Climate Scientists/ Activist: We’re not sure exactly how it all works together, but we are absolutely sure that mankind is to blame for: (heating, cooling, bad weather, the cookie monster, etc. etc.).
Skeptic: Do you have proof?
Climate Scientist/Activist: We have a 97% consensus among ourselves.
Skeptic: Where is the data?
Climate Scientist/Activist: You’re a denier. You’ll have to wait 20 years for proof. Look at the data we’ve modified from last year/century. Insert next excuse for immediate action [here].
What Global Warming?
We’d get a lot further along in climate research if the researchers wouldn’t START with assumption that all climate change is human caused. It has been a dead end approach for the last forty years for God’s sake!
[snip – more Slayers junk science from the banned DOUG COTTON who thinks his opinion is SO IMPORTANT he has to keep making up fake names to get it across -Anthony]
Sounds fishy – “a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry”.
I’m calling bullsh!t on this one.
Stating that conventional CO2 dogma is wrong, coming from U of W is some sort of major politically correct science paradigm shift !!!
“Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming. But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong,” said Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science. “
What if increasing temperatures promoted the spread of air conditioning. Is that not a good an explanation as the reverse?
Anything that went up from 1970-2000 and then stagnated will correlate with global warming. Heck, my salary went up steadily from 1970-2000 and has since stagnated, maybe its my salary that is the cause. Bad news is, my salary will be going down soon when I retire, so you might want to buy a good winter coat.
Unfortunately for the cagw types, you don’t need any contribution from man at all to account for a majority (if not almost all) of the warming in the 20th century as history shows us that this is normal for earth’s climate.
Woah, there honey! “CFCs are already known to deplete ozone,”
That bogus research was funded and promoted by Du Pont Chemical to have the current most popular refrigerant banned (it was also out of patent) and they happened to have a much more expensive refrigerant ready to go (and under patent). Twenty years later, they admitted that the research was bogus and that it is really nitrogen gas and solar UV that destroys ozone. This guy needs to catch up on his reading! Du Pont killed people by making refrigerants too expensive for people in poor countries.
Surely, DuPont is funding all you skeptics to spread this disinformation about Freon. (sarc)
In my opinioin, it is definitely NOT worth further study (think billions of dollars spent) at this point, as CFC’s are no longer being released to any great extent. The only studies that can be conducted are computer models and who here believes computer models are all one needs to prove something?
On the other hand…. if a couple billion dollars is spent on attributing 20th century warming to CFC and in the process slays the CO2 demon, maybe it would be money well spent afterall. We have already solved the supposed CFC problem so I say… go ahead… blame it on CFC, works for me.
Its not that I think the scientists are not learning more through the billions we spend on science….but that the scientists are trying to explain the zit on a teenager’s face and its impact on society as a whole. Sure, I bet it does help to some extent to explain the universe, but aren’t there much better things to study than one teenager among thousands? And why are we studying zits on a youngsters face instead of how the water effect works on our planet?
Water is known to be both a dominant GHG and a dominant moderator of temperatures on this planet and we have scientist studying trace gases and trace stuff on this planet before they understand water completely and utterly? Give me a break. This is just another nonsense angle. Yes, I am sure just like everything on this planet, it has some impact. And I am sure someday we might be able to measure the impact of CFC’s succintly. But why are we wasting money on academics who are explaining the zit on one teenager instead of studying what they should be studying?
And none of these scientists tries to pin-down water’s effect on the climate!! The large buffalo in the room and these scientists are after CFC’s which are measured in parts per trillion….they are after the flea when the elephant in the room is being begged to be measured and quantified more accuratly. Do they purposely inject their own prejudices into the science and only study things that humans impact on this planet?
What if it came out in 30 years that because they ignored water and ignored what animals and plants do to the planet from an astrophysics standpoint that we run out of time to actually counter the problems?
And therein lies the problem. Perhaps beavers will cause the next ice age, but we will never know because the scientists are so busy trying to blame humanity for what “they think” ails the planet that they study what “evil pesky humans emit” and completely ignore the fact that this planet is big and there are tons of species in the ocean alone that we have very little understanding of. Go get on a boat, or head to the arctic and learn something new. Don’t inject probability and statistics into a science that is not ready for it yet.
The worst part of it all is that its all human-centric. They focus on things that humans add to the environment without once considering that we probably off-set some species and add other species of animals and plants and that this has a larger impact than all of our CFC and CO2 emissions combined.
So its not that I don’t believe that CFC’s probably do have some impact on the climate, the thing I really question is whether we are ready to start down the trail of trace gases in the atmosphere when the main driver of our climate: water is simply ignorred and the effects that come from changes in cloud cover and other factors are glossed over when the truth is simple: A small 2% change in cloud cover could easilly account for the warming since the LIA.
This is the question of degree as I was talking about. They are so gung-ho about going after evil humans that they forget that their own prejudices cloud their judgement and they turn into yet another laughing stock of why real science is moving away from academia and into industry. The trend has been happening for a very long time and the primary reason is that those still in academia are stuck on their own prejudices and refuse to ever admit that they were wrong. While in the real world of industry the only thing that matters is actual results.
Until these scientists are actually required to give us actual results that we can take to the bank, we will continue to see science based on “its possible mate, so lets study the one zit among hundreds on one teenager in 1,000,000 and call our science golden.”
After doing a bit more reading on the NWU neutron monitor and elsewhere, the relationship of the neutron monitor to GCRs is clearer. The ICOADS and ERSST surface temperature data fit close with the min to max line of the neutron monitor chart. The 0-100m line also shows the correlation with the neutron monitor but that line is slightly lower in temperature than the two surface measurements. What about the 3 major Earth events at each low of the neutron monitor?
It’s a pity we have no known way of determining whether or
not there were ozone holes over the Antarctic during previous
warmings.
The atmospheric UV breakdown ->electron->CFC->ozone
depletion reactions have always seemed wrong to me, as I
could not see there being sufficient energy for it to produce
the reaction. I’ve always wondered if it was high energy cosmic
rays. Now we have a guilty cosmic ray + a guilty CFC. I still
don’t see the CFC as being a real part of it. We all know the
“correlation is not necessarily causation” mantra. How well
does it correlate with the sun’s magnetic cycles? Without the
CFC, ie: is the link guilty-cosmic ray + guilty-solar magnetic
activity and the CFC just happens to be between the hammer
and the anvil?
I ‘ve had half my hypotheses covered. I can wait. I’ve got
plenty of popcorn ….
goldminor (May 30, 2013 at 3:23 pm) asked “Can neutron flows cause temperature changes?”
They’re coherent with decadal timescale equator-pole temperature gradients and hence flows.
@ Paul Vaughan…thanks, I am learning as I go.
Um, wasn’t it getting colder in the ’60s and ’70s when this graph shows CFC production rising greatly;
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/thumbs/1805c933-493c-4b85-be16-ad06eb342332/large/global-cfc-production_83db.gif
And wasn’t the temperature supposed to be rising a lot between the mid ’80s and ’90s when the graph shows CFC production falling?
“Needs work” comes to mind…
Peter Ward says (May 30, 2013 at 9:52 am): “But then, if A and B vary together then either one causes the other or both A and B are caused by some unknown factor C.”
Or, as Anthony mentioned at the beginning of this article, the correlation could be coincidental. Or, as I don’t see anyone else suggesting, perhaps the statistics used in this paper were inspired by the Hockey Team.
“The change in global surface temperature after the removal of the solar effect has shown zero correlation with CO2 but a nearly perfect linear correlation with CFCs – a correlation coefficient as high as 0.97.”
I’m skeptical of such a high correlation with a nebulous measurement like “global surface temperature”; it implies he’s found THE thermostat in a climate system presumably full of them. And what is he using for “the solar effect”? Is THAT settled science now?
Not saying it’s bogus, just that this paper bears close examination before any more money is thrown at this theory. Fortunately, since this paper would drive a stake through the heart of the CO2-is-bad theory, it will probably receive a lot of scrutiny. Presumably all the necessary data & code to replicate this paper are archived, right?
Good god Watts, what the hell are you thinking?
That is the nuttiest thing I’ve read here in a long time. The effect you are talking about from the field is tiny and the distance scales are completely wrong. Yes the diamagnetic effect means ozone will have fractionally higher PE over the poles than away from it. But Earths magnetic field is weak making the effect very small indeed, and what is more important, it varies extremely slowly over distance scales of hundreds of miles. The derivative of PE wrt distance is what determines forces and this is ridiculously small.
Sorry mate. Idea rejected.
“…in-depth statistical analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change…”
What happened to the laboratory tests showing the chemical interaction of low density CFC and cosmic rays … then the extrapolation to climate change.
Couldn’t possibly explain the Mediaeval Warming Period. The Vikings drank warm beer and refused to use deodorant.
Have a look at this plot.
It is the Dow Jones industrial average since 1900. It is evident that one could fit it with the temperature curve, therefor the rise in the Dow Jones creates the temperatures. During Ice Ages there is zero Dow Jones. /sarc
Anthony –
FYI — You are quoted on the Daily Caller website. Your introductory comments about Lu’s CFC paper are quoted verbatim (with attribution) in the last two paragraphs of the Daily Caller’s article on the subject.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/30/report-co2-not-responsible-for-global-warming/
All over the UV role but the CFC/ozone effects seem too skewed poleward to be the cahuna. Did a post a while back on this correlation.
http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2012/11/08/global-uv-incr…global-warming/
Stephen Wilde’s ideas are very interesting. Humans may have been the recent volcano but the halogens Chlorine and Fluorine (like water, Carbon, and everything in earth chemistry) exist because they were emitted by volcanoes. Halocarbons may also be potentiated by a tiny CO2 increase. Never forget that we live in a Carbon starved ice age.
The real problem is to explain why warming and cooling seems to alternate between the poles. The tropics never change.
So it has been warming? I thought you said it hadn’t. Confused now!
Wonder how well it predicts recent Ocean Warming?
As Yu’s paper notes Antarctic ice sheet analysis shows there are significant periods when the glacial/interglacial temperature change does not correlate with CO2 changes. There are lags of 200 to 1000 years on warming and lags of 4000 years on cooling before there is a change in atmospheric CO2. That observational fact indicates something is fundamentally incorrect with the fundamental assumed theory of CO2 forcing.
This is a paradox for the CO2 theory. The observational paradox however does not validate the Dragon slayers’ calculations which are incorrect. Incorrect calculations that are cranky does not in any way help the so called ‘skeptics’ position.
At present, as far as I am aware there is no scientific explanation for the observational fact that there are periods of time when there is a lack of correlation between temperature changes and atmospheric CO2. It should be noted the lack of correlation of CO2 Vs temperature for multiple period does prove Yu’s assertion the CFC is the primary reason for the 20th century warming is correct.
As noted in another thread, there is now observational evidence that indicates the Arctic is now starting to cool (2012 fall to present). That cooling is a step change. As CFC has remained constant Yu’s mechanism cannot explain step change cooling of the Arctic. If the step change cooling continues unabated it will invalidate Yu’s hypothesis and provide unequivocal evidence that the majority of the 20th century temperature rise was due to something else besides the rise in atmospheric CO2.
In addition to the step change cooling of the Arctic there is now observed cooling of the ocean in the regions where there was past cooling due increases in planetary cloud cover before the GCR modulation of planetary cloud cover mechanism was inhibited.
Yu’s CFC mechanism cannot explain the above noted step change in planetary temperature as atmospheric CFC has remained constant.
As noted in other threads there cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record (referred to a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles.) The regions of the planet that warm during a D-O cycle are the same regions that warmed during the 20th century.
Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6844
As first observed in a careful analysis of satellite data by Anderson et al.95 and recently revisited by Lu 35, there exists the striking contrast between observed and CO2-warming-theory predicted radiance difference between OLR spectra measured in 1970 and 1997 (spanning over the most drastic warming period). In fact, the expected strong CO2 absorption band in the 600 to 800 cm^-1 region is absent in the observed difference spectrum. Moreover, detailed analyses by Fischer et al.96 of high-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores showed that the CO2 concentration increase by 80 to 100 ppm had a lag of 600 to 1000 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations, and despite strongly decreasing temperatures by about 5 °C, high CO2 concentrations remained constant for thousands of years during glaciations. The results have questioned the application of the past CO2-climate relation to the recent anthropogenic warming. Further evidence of the real saturated GH effect of non-halogen gases and the dominant role of halocarbons in altering the Earth climate since 1970 will be shown in Sections 7 and 8.
http://epic.awi.de/825/1/Fis1999a.pdf
Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations
Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations.
Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere. …. …. In the following 15,000 years of the Eemian warm period, CO2 concentrations do not show a substantial change despite distinct cooling over the Antarctic ice sheet. Not until 6000 years after the major cooling in MIS 5.4 does a substantial decline in CO2 concentration occur. Another 4000 to 6000 years is required to return to an approximate in-phase relation of CO2 with the temperature variations. …. ….. In agreement with this hypothesis, CO2 concentrations start to decrease in the Vostok record at about 111 ky B.P. Another possibility to explain this delayed response of CO2 to the cooling during MIS 5.4 would be an inhibited uptake of CO2 by the ocean. In any case, about 5°C lower temperatures on the Antarctic ice sheet during MIS 5.4 (17) are difficult to reconcile with the full interglacial CO2 forcing encountered at the beginning of this cold period and again question the straightforward application of the past CO2-climate relation to the recent anthropogenic warming.
So ‘new research’ turns out to be, as is often the case, merely fiddlimg with stats and drawing conclusions. That’s not actually science, Further, the professor appears unaware that the ozone LAYER as opposed to the ozone HOLE [over Europe] is not ‘recovering’ and is at its thinnest yet measured. So this professor, who appears not to be a specialist since physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry are entirely unrelated disciplines [I wonder when he last did actual research in any of these], is ignoring the well-established science of the greenhouse effect and positing an entirely different process to account for warming? Peer review anyone? Emeritus professor?
Quote: ‘What’s striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined – matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere,” Professor Lu said – which reveals his agenda as this is a denier lie that has been thoroughly answered many times but keeps being raised by the ignorant. Last decade was 2nd hottest on record, and plenty of records have been broken in the last few years. I suspect this ‘professor’ is hiding his real agenda. Canada is a big oil producer surely?
Nice one: Oh yes, you’ve been lied to.
These crabs seem to know better: http://planetark.org/wen/68802
John Greenfraud: All the data has been collated and released. Would you understand it though? Your glib little attempts at humour illustrate perfectly your ‘understanding’.
[Again, watch your language. You’re deliberately violating site policy. Mod]
Of course this isn’t a forum in any sense, they encourage debate, different opinion, argument, while this pathetic little blog screens all that out and just has the faithful reciting their litany responses just like any old religion. What a deceitful denier you are Anthony. But then few deniers are ever willing to debate anything, to them it’s a conspiracy so anything contra will be lies. Neat. Pity more people aren’t forced to study philosophy.
[Odd that you apparently complain about encouraging “debate” over “different opinions”, but deliberately violate this forum’s policies. Watch the language. See site policy. Mod.]
The correlation with the curve of CFC-12 (by far the most harmful with it’s GWP of 10.900) is really dazzling …
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/hats/combined/CFC12.html
John M – You say “the fundamental and observed chemistry of CFCs in the atmosphere is pretty solid“. Please show me the evidence that changing levels of human CFC emissions have affected ozone levels in the Arctic, in the Antarctic, and in other regions too for that matter.
higley7 – You say “Du Pont Chemical [] admitted that the research was bogus“. Link please.
This could.actually explain the spectacular failure of.Hansen et al., 1988.
I am with benfrommo on this one.
sarc on/
Sure, it is CFCs now that are the main driver.
Forget oceans, clouds, Sun and Moon, LIA and MWP.
/sarc off
The PDO correlates with all warming and cooling in the 20th century, not just the late warming. I think I’ll stick with oceans until something better comes along.
Just on the basis of this report, the CFC theory already looks far more compelling than AGW. But whether it’s actually right is another story.
There is one thing going for it. The graph has a number of features, which correlate quite well. I know of no graphs of CO2 versus temperature that actually have features that correlate. Of course, the ice cores are feature-rich, and there is strong corrlation of the features, but we know know that the temperature leads the CO2, so temperature was probably controlloing the CO2, and not the other way around.
I think the 20th century climate change was primarily natural, basically a repeat of the warm periods that have been coming along roughly every thousand years. But if it turned out the 20th century warming was caused by CFC’s, then this would still be good news for sceptics. It would remove the need to slash CO2 emissions and would remove a huge threat to the future prosperity and wellbeing of mankind. CFC’s are already being cut, so no new government action would be required – hopefully………….
Chris
It cannot be CFCs. Any CFC scare can’t be used to socialize and control western economies.
Similarly, It can’t be UHI, the Sun, the clouds. cosmic rays, tectonic action, volcanism ENSO, PDO, AMO.
Nope, only evil fossil fuels can cause Global Warming. Only CO2 and its connection to fossil fuels can be the vehicle for Orwell’s “1984” premonition.
One great thing about this site, I see people ‘skeptical’ over something that according to others would ‘prove’ that it is not CO2 that is the main driver of Climate Change ( Global Warming, Whatever ). This audience stands apart from others when they see information that simply shows a correlation they immediately start to question other scenarios and say, ‘But what about when this occurred in the past CFC’s did not have anything to do with it then’
This means they are not simply looking for something to validate their own belief. That they are attempting to understand and create a narrative that makes logical sense rather than simple emotional sense. It is pleasant to see.
alexwade says:
May 30, 2013 at 1:54 pm
This is funny. Freon (R-22) was banned because it destroyed the ozone hole. Until, of course, someone decided to verify that. It was discovered it is too heavy to get to the ozone layer so it is impossible to destroy the ozone hole. (If memory serves me correct, which sometimes it doesn’t.)
I this case your memory has failed you, unless perhaps you listened to Myrrh (always a bad idea).
The ‘heavy’ Freons are measured in the stratosphere, so they definitely can get there!
Here are the earliest:
Schmeltekopf, P.D., et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 2(1975), 393-396,
Heidt, L.E. et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 2(1975), 445-447.
See here as well:
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/myths/heavier.html
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01636907
Note that SF6 with about double the molar mass of R-22 is used as a stratosphere tracer.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~beckya/nobackup/Stratospheric%20paper%20(GRL).pdf
Come on in , Forrest, The water’s fine. Everything is doubted here, by someone.
There’s a lot of very smart people here. I have been educated here and I can’t thank Mr. Watts & Co. enough.
I like to see each day progress as posters from around the globe chime in.
Welcome to reality.
This paper continues the process of finding new ways to blame trace gases for climate change.
Amazing, it’s always something we can’t do without (refrigerants) or can’t help but produce (CO2). What’s next , EPA regulating water vapor?
Sooooooo, we find something to match the artificially induced, UHI corrupted US surface temperature record and call it science? Or am I missing something?
Mike says: May 30, 2013 at 11:10 am
This paper is really interesting if you combine it with the concepts of Henrik Svensmark. Svensmark’s team have provided very good evidence of a correlation between cosmic rays and past temperature with a proposed link to cloud formation. He has been criticised due to the fact that his mechanism does not provide adequate explanation for the rise in temperatures from 1980-1998 (or so).
That is precisely what I was thinking. However there is also a similar discrepancy between two temperature series and with global rainfall (a proxy from temperature).
However, I have been thinking why this discrepancy could have arisen and we must not forget that progress in itself has caused a lot of things to change from 1970/80 onward. As well as new chemicals being used & released a lot of environmental pollution legislation came into force which reduced historic high levels of coal burning emissions.
CO2 rose because of our modern lifestyle. That modern lifestyle also consumes a lot of other things and so there are a lot of other pathways for things to affect the climate from our lifestyle. Not only that, but actions to reduce pollution also match into this timescale. So there are potentially many different things that could be correlated.
Doesn’t make sense. The outward-emitted IR “notch” due to CFCs is miniscule compared to other GHGs.
This theory is easily tested in the real world. Since the CFC trend is one of decline since we have regulated the use of CFCs, and because this model predicts global cooling for the next 50-70 years (a risk to life in itself), and given that both sides of the debate are skeptical that CFCs can have any real affect, it would seem a low risk strategy to experiment by elevating the CFC levels and see if this results in a temperature increase. All we have to do is ban the replacements for CFCs for a few decades and allow CFCs to return to use and voila we have an experiment that does not depend on models.
OneWorldNet,
(edited to avoid site policy violation)
That’s remarkable, that you didn’t manage to say one single correct thing in all of this verbiage! I’d like to take a moment to recognize your accomplishment.
Let’s see. Regarding debate and argument, I note discussion about correlation and causation above, and argument about CFC’s no more explaining temperature in preindustrial times than CO2. On differing opinion, Cynical says ‘Sorry mate. Idea rejected.’ E.M. Smith seems none too impressed. General P. Malaise calls bullsh!t on this one. Others say, sounds interesting enough to look at. As Forrest points out, this is hardly a choir of harmonious voices. In my view, it’s a good sign that there’s no ‘97% consensus’ here!
Further regarding debate, I know lots of people here love to debate. I’m one of them.
Regarding conspiracy, … I’d refute that if what you said actually made enough sense to refute. Personally I think that your post is a pretty good demonstration that no conspiracy need be postulated when the much simpler explanation (stupidity) explains the observations equally well.
There was recently an interesting discussion at Lucia’s Blackboard regarding use of your site policy violation term (D*). I talked with someone from SkS who supported use of the term and someone who said it was deprecated, but the interesting part is that they both agreed that the term is detrimental to debate, discussion, argument, and difference of opinion. You might want to reconsider your position on the use of the term while making arguments that imply that you consider these things to be of value.
If your studies of philosophy inspired your post, I’d try to get my money back from whatever university you attended were I in your shoes.
Study says global warming caused by CFCs…”
What “global warming“??
This story made the Edmonton Journal today (May 31) (Alberta, Canada)
See:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Climate+change+claims+raise+eyebrows/8459897/story.html
Some quotes:
“In a report that has raised plenty of eyebrows among climate scientists, Waterloo’s Qing-Bin Lu says chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals once used widely as refrigerants and propellants, are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and “not carbon dioxide.” “
“She said Lu is “cherry picking” data when he says the Earth has cooled since 2002.”
“”It’s unbelievable,” said Weaver, who doubts the claims will hold up to scrutiny.”
goldminor says:
May 30, 2013 at 3:23 pm
… The neutron record is not very long so there are only 2 good connections with El Chichon in late 1982 and Pinatubo in mid 1991. If you look at the neutron graph, the low of the neutron flow matches exactly with these two volcanic events. Then some 6 years later there is the peak of the neutron flow, or the possible ‘volcanic rebound’. How is it that the neutron flow can fit in so exactly, …?
Not to criticize your suggestion, however this argument appears to be a “Texas sharp shooter” error. You’ve picked out some eruptions that match some neutron spikes, but according to various sources there are very roughly 50 to 70 eruptions a year. The data I have average about 2.8 per year so better research is warranted. However, it’s pretty certain that regardless of what year your neutron flows peak, there will very likely be at least one eruption. The data I used to get that 2.8 eruptions per year can be found here: http://volcanic-eruptions.findthedata.org/.
Werner Brozek: re article http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Climate+change+claims+raise+eyebrows/8459897/story.html
“Atmospheric physicist Kimberly Strong at the University of Toronto said she has not yet had a chance to review Lu’s paper, but she takes issue with some of his “bold claims” in the news release”
So she is just talking crap. She has issues with things she has not read, and her opinion that the current lack of a warming trend runs counter to the data. Is she sure that she is a scientist, or is she just another activist stealing the public’s research grant money to write her climate cult religious propaganda?
As for the opinion of Andrew Weaver, that counts for nothing. He is an activist, a junk scientist, and an idiot.
Duster says:
May 31, 2013 at 11:28 am
goldminor says:
May 30, 2013 at 3:23 pm
@ Duster…thanks for the response. I would agree with you that the volcanic events could be coincidence, ditto with the Sumatra Quake in Dec 2004. This thought was first generated by looking at a graph of sst’s with 4 ‘major’ eruptions. So there is a bit of a difference there. We do not see a Pinatubo multiple times a year. Then two days ago while looking at the WUWT solar page I saw the fit on the neutron monitor graph. This is where the neutron monitor makes it’s entrance, as it corresponds closely with the surface SST data and the 0-100m on any graph. This is the connection. ICOADS, ERSST, and the 0-100m all show a spike in temperature low and high that correlate exactly to the neutron monitor. Also 2 of the 3 hottest years, 1998 and 2010 sit at the top of the neutron peak.. The second hottest, 2005, sits midday at the rise from low to high on the neutron graph, which shows a mini peak, then a slight reversal and then the final push to the max. This midway peak is most apparent at 1984, 2 years after low and El Chichon, and in 2006, also 2 years after the low in Dec 2004 prior to the Sumatra Christmas Quake. In 1990 there is an initial low, but then an upswing in 1991, followed by a low low after Pinatubo erupts. From that point the low rises all the way to a peak at 1997/98, “the year of change”. Those 2 midday spikes on the graph also show a very similar pattern. From the low the line rises approx 15 units, reverses for approx one year, and then finishes with a rise to the peak with another ’15 units of gain. The midday drop in the 80s and 2000s is about 6.6 units at both points prior to the continued rise of 15 more units. The year 2010, the prize year for the warmists, is the highest peak seen on the neutron monitor. The neutron monitor also might show that after each eruption it drops 12 to 13 units to the low. This possible effect is not seen in the 2000/04 sideways low, but then there is no eruption there, only a massive earthquake.There is a puzzle here that needs to be deciphered.
Whoops should have looked a bit closer. Where I use the word ‘midday’ that needs to be transposed to ‘midway’.
Credible changes to the levels of non-condensing ghg, such as CFC & CO2, have no significant influence on average global temperature as demonstrated at http://climatechange90.blogspot.com/2013/05/natural-climate-change-has-been.html
and one more final final, I am making this assessment using the 2 Sanae graph lines on the neutron monitor, at the bottom of the 5 listed monitoring sources.
“We’ve known for some time that CFCs have a really damaging effect on our atmosphere…”
Ok, I’ll ask: Are CFC’s really that bad for our environment? Were they really the cause of the ozone holes over the poles? I seem to recall stories that the holes open and close on their own, especially of late.
So, are we just trying to find another boogeyman, albeit one that is not around that much now?
a bunch of sources quoted this line
I’d say it is a case of “further study is needed”, and worth funding. – Anthony
and they are thinking you are the type that depends on the funding and are a warmist.
been trying to educate people that you are not but they saw that line and went all crazy.
good lord.
I even post links here showing you are not a climate scammer and they won’t believe it.
@Dmacleo
Sometimes you just can’t help stupid people see reality, no matter how hard you try.
[snip – too stupid and full of vitriol to publish – mod]
@ Anthony Watts…thanks for keeping a neat, clean space where thoughts can be shared. I started talking at the end of 2008 at Newsvine.com. I rarely go there anymore. It seems so pointless, although it was a decent place to start at back then. Now, I no longer want to continuously argue against inane comments. It is very pleasant to talk here and at other related sites.
Even though actual temperature trend has followed the shown prediction
for effect of CFCs, there are 2 factors that I don’t see being considered:
1) Climate sensitivity is likely to be less than that assumed for the
prediction of warming from CO2.
2) There is a roughly 62-year natural cycle that shows up well in
HadCRUT3.
Mike Jonas says:
May 31, 2013 at 3:41 am
By fundamental and observed chemistry of CFCs in the atmosphere, I’m mostly addressing those who say “CFCs are too heavy to make it to the stratosphere” or “CFCs require a metal catalyst to decompose”, etc.
However, since you asked, I’m not sure what evidence you’re looking for, but assuming you don’t mean a video tape taken with an atomic microscope suspended in the stratosphere showing color-coded molecular fragments containing chlorine attacking ozone molecules, I find this review article by Rowland very compelling.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1469/769.full
Given that :
many laboratory experiments have established the UV decomposition of CFCs and the fundamental kinetics involving their decomposition to form chlorine radicals;
chlorine radicals are known to react with oxygen to make ClO radicals;
reactions have been demonstrated with other atmospheric species;
models built on these reactions have been verified by actual measurements of chemical species in the troposphere and stratosphere;
the presence of ClO radicals at precisely the time when ozone depletion is seen has been
experimentally observed in the stratosphere over Antarctica;
and
both heterogeneous and homogeneous reactions have been observed in the laboratory and kinetics established that match what is observed in the atmosphere;
I’d say I’m convinced.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
John M, so this is based on models, predictions and lab experiments and relating to a correlating ozone depletion event at the same time. Isn’t that a parallel action, not necessarily a causation? Like saying that rising CO2 could affect ozone depletion since they both occurred at the same time, right?
The full story in this excellent research paper is mega complicated. I suspect not enough attention was paid to the variation in solar flares and solar output of UV rays. penetrating our atmosphere. UV being the major player in the heating of, and variations to, the chemistry of the stratosphere through its interactions with 03. More complexity remains and this theory requires more research
Anthony Watts says:
May 31, 2013 at 2:17 pm
@Dmacleo
Sometimes you just can’t help stupid people see reality, no matter how hard you try.
*************************************
well I tried, may have gotten through to at least 1 person so theres that LOL
Sounds like Dupont must be ready to scare everybody into buying there next safe cfc free refrigerant, and we must outlaw the stuff that we designed because it’s evil for the second time that I can remember in just the last 25 years. DuPont™ Opteon™ refrigerants hey you got to pay for that next invention by killing off the old first. Opteon is that next sustainable enviro friendly gas very much like that R134a crap they sold us all those years ago. I can’t prove that Dupont funded this school, but I know how this company works when it’s time to get a new refrigerant to market and maximize dollars which I am all for, but do it the right way.
Henry@Stephen Wilde
Interesting, looking at your comments above, that we have come to exactly the same conclusions, although approaching the problem from different perspectives.
More E-UV means more O3 (& peroxides + nitric oxides) which means less F-UV which means less energy going into the oceans, SH, especially.
The decrease in ozone from around 1951 was not caused by CFC’s but by a shift in activity from the sun. The increase in ozone (& others!) , since 1995 is caused by a similar shift.
The CFC connection is purely coincidental and has little or or nothing to do with the natural processes playing TOA. This paper is probably not worth the paper it is written on.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
That means 98% of scientists were wrong!
captainfish
I prefaced my comment to Mike Jonas with this:
“but assuming you don’t mean a video tape taken with an atomic microscope suspended in the stratosphere showing color-coded molecular fragments containing chlorine attacking ozone molecules”
It appears that’s a bad assumption to make in your case?
[snip – more Slayers junk science from the banned DOUG COTTON who thinks his opinion is SO IMPORTANT he has to keep making up fake names to get it across -Anthony]
Your “answer” has been rebutted many times, and its faultiness should be so obvious that it needs no rebuttal. There’s no contradiction between being at the top of a hill and also that top being a downward-sloping plateau. (Three of the last five years have not been in the top 10 warmist, IIRC.)
Local records, not global ones. They’re weather, not climate.
If this hypothesis proves out, we have not only inadvertently “solved” the problem of global warming with the Montreal Protocol, we probably have a viable way to warm up and “terraform” Mars once we get there.
Climate_Science_Researcher says:
June 1, 2013 at 9:20 pm
————————————-
Great comment! That will take some time to absorb.
I recently heard on Australian ABC radio (not the most balanced of sources) that Will Steffen of our illustrious Climate Commission says this study is wrong. No explanation of how it is wrong, just that it is wrong.
It couldn’t be that there are jobs at the Climate Commission on the line if it is true, could it?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578528841152512364.html
In a WSJ guest editorial, Rupert Darwall, author of the recent “The Age of Global Warming—A History” argues, based upon Lu’s study, that Reagan, not Obama “began to slow the rise of the seas”, thanks to the cost-benefit analysis behind the 1987 Montreal Protocol on CFCs.