Guest essay by Ed Hoskins.
Some simple numbers on the effect of CO2 concentration on temperature
As the temperature increasing effect of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish logarithmically with increasing concentration, these notes clarify the actual amount of warming that might result from additional CO2 released into the atmosphere by man-kind and the temperature reduction impact of any policy actions to control CO2 emissions.
To understand exactly what might be achieved by political action for de-carbonisation the table below gives the likely warming, (without positive or negative feedbacks), that will be averted with an increase of CO2 from 400 ppmv to 800 ppmv, a full extra 400 ppmv, assuming that the amount of CO2 released by all world nations in future is reduced in future by 50%.
It shows the impact of the following countries or country groups with the range of both sceptical and alarmist assessments.
So the impact for the whole of the EU (27) is somewhere between 9 -73 thousandths of degree Centigrade and for the UK the range is between 1-9 thousandths of degree Centigrade.
To achieve this irrelevant and miniscule result the UK, European and other free world governments are willing to annihilate their economies to solve a problem that does not exist.
Western politicians should, “Have the courage to do nothing”.
UPDATE: A fuller essay is in this PDF: Ed_Hoskins_CO2_concentrations
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Jai Mitchell, if a warmist tells me that it has warmed from 1979 to now, is he lying?
You’re a relativist moron.
I would like to see that table again, this time showing how many days delay in the arrival of the increase in temperature the reduction in co2 would cause. So taking a guess, the UK could cut it’s co2 production, meeting all it’s co2 targets and it’s prize for achieving this near total destruction of it’s economy would be to delay the increase in temperatures or co2 by 1 or 2 days by the year 2100.
I don’t know how to calculate those figures, but Lord Monckton has done so in the past.
Everyone seems to think that CO2 will go on rising because we drive cars. CO2 is rising because the sea is still warming after emerging from the Little Ice Age (see Henry’s Gas Laws). If this cold weather continues (see failing Solar Cycle 24) the sea will eventually cool, and CO2 levels will drop. What worries me is that if CO2 had gone down as much as it has gone up in the past 100 years, from 280 ppm down to 180 ppm, then plants would no longer grow, and that would indeed be the end of us too. No one else seems to worry about this.
Do nothing? We should be investigating whether the failure of Solar Cycle 24 will bring about a Maunder Minimum cooling, and if it is, we need to build coal fired power stations and fracking for shale gas as fast as we can go. Some hope.
Ryan says:
June 8, 2013 at 11:56 am
“Didn’t we learn last week that CO2 rise wasn’t anthropogenic anyways? It’s so hard to keep up with the fast pace of e-research.”
Some day you should accustom yourself with the concept of links. Because I do not have the faintest clue what you’re talking about. And why do you use the pluralis majestatis?
Anthony. The update is truncated and does not give the full picture. Finger trouble?
REPLY: Your complaint need to be specific. Can’t find anything wrong – Anthony
“As the temperature increasing effect of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish logarithmically with increasing concentration”
Actually you should say its ” increasing effect” dimishes exponetially or its effect increases logrithmically. In fact either way of saying it would be untrue since no one has yet demonstarted ANY effect on temperature.
Taking into account that there is a roughly exponential growth in CO2 and log(exp(x))=x , it would be simpler to say current growth has a linear effect… on radiaiton , not temperature.
It does have an effect on the basic radiative “forcing” , assuming that means it has an linearly proportional effect on the ensuing equilbrium temperature is one of the biggest lies of our time:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=278
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=286
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=285
If climate can correct volcanic masking producing a 20% reduction in incoming radiation, it does not give a damn about CO2 “forcing”.
It’s not about co2 and global temperature – it’s about shutting down the fossil fuel industry.
@Dirkh
The funny thing is that, yes there is warming if you plot from 1979 to now, but 98% of the heat did not go into the atmosphere, it went into the oceans. It takes a LOT more heat to warm up water than air. When anybody says, “there has been no warming” they are only talking about air temperatures, not air and ocean temperatures. If you take the entire planet earth into consideration, not just the air, you will find out that there has been a whole lot of warming over these last 50 years.
dbstealey – Root cause is a legal term regarding failures with severe consequences that can be reasonably identified and reasonable corrective actions can be taken to reasonably prevent the failure from occurring again. In the case of carbon dioxide, Hansen and Company claim there is a tipping point that will result in the end of life as we know it. That meets the “severe consequences” requirement. We have had no global warming for 17 years, yet the fact that carbon dioxide continued increasing at the same rate has made no impact on the US administration, the EU administration nor the UN administration. They keep on believing that the severe consequences call for drastic corrective actions, dodging the requirement for reasonableness in identifying the root cause.
Obama has global warming on his short list for his second term. At some point this issue has to be brought before the legal courts. Jumping up and down doesn’t work in the courtroom. Using root cause allows one to demonstrate that natural cycles are more reasonable as being the root cause of the observed global warming from 1980 to 1996 rather than carbon dioxide. This stance allows the burden to be shifted from the plaintiffs (The Dirty Dozen) to the defendants (Hansen & Company) to prove that carbon dioxide is a more reasonable root cause than natural cycles. The goal is to win the war in court. I don’t think it can be won any other way. Hansen and Mann et al are not reasonable people.
REPLY: Your complaint need to be specific. Can’t find anything wrong – Anthony
My bad – misread the start of the paper. Apologies, KRL
jai mitchell says:
June 8, 2013 at 2:08 pm
“The funny thing is that, yes there is warming if you plot from 1979 to now, but 98% of the heat did not go into the atmosphere, it went into the oceans.”
Didn’t you say that anyone who says it’s been warming or cooling since 19XX is a liar? May I call you a liar now?
Dirh,
I did not say that, I said if you picked that one year, the one with the highest recorded el nino event in history as your start date then you are picking selectivity bias. Especially when you find out that there has been warming in nearly every other time period. AND that the ocean temperatures have cooled since then but the northern hemisphere land temperatures have warmed so that 9 out of the 10 hottest years since 1880 have all occurred within the last decade.
and last year, remember when Iowa corn yields dropped by 50%? that year the average temperature went up only 1.4 F above the long-term average. Imagine what 4F is going to feel like. . .
Meanwhile, if you exclude the effect of El Chichon and Pinatubo, the latest RSS temperature is at or below the 1981-2010 average.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/rss-close-to-30-year-average/
Hear, hear! This bears repeating and with emphasis:
It’s not about CO2 and global temperature – it’s about shutting down the fossil fuel industry. [Jimbo]
Jai Mitchell
and last year, remember when Iowa corn yields dropped by 50%? that year the average temperature went up only 1.4 F above the long-term average. Imagine what 4F is going to feel like. . .
Are you suggesting that it was hotter in Iowa last summer than in the 1930’s? In 1936, the average maximum temperature in July was about 6C higher, according to the State Climatological Reports.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/iowa-much-hotter-in-1936/
jai Mitchell – Go to the Reference Pages, click and scroll down to Ocean, click and scroll down to Ocean Page. Study the very first chart which demonstrates that the surface temperature has flattened and declined since about 2002. Please explain how heat entered the ocean without raising the surface temperature. Also please explain how the surface temperature decreased if heat was entering. Also please explain what physical mechanism happened in 1997 to allow heat to start entering the ocean without warming the atmosphere and continue to current day. Please be sure to include carbon dioxide in your explanations.
jai mitchell says:
June 8, 2013 at 2:29 pm
“I did not say that, I said if you picked that one year, the one with the highest recorded el nino event in history as your start date then you are picking selectivity bias.”
Why are you people not paying attention to your own guru? Rajendra K. Pachauri says it hasn’t warmed for 17 years. I leave it to you to find out what number you arrive at when you subtract 17 from 2013.
” … Please explain how heat entered the ocean without raising the surface temperature. Also please explain how the surface temperature decreased if heat was entering. Also please explain what physical mechanism happened in 1997 to allow heat to start entering the ocean without warming the atmosphere and continue to current day. Please be sure to include carbon dioxide in your explanations.”
Hmmmmm. Would waving my hands and saying “then some magic happened” satisfy you by any chance?
@ur momisugly Jai Mitchell re: “…that one year.. .” [2:29PM today]
Didn’t the sun begin to do something interesting that year, too?
Mark Stoval! So, you made it safely to Daytona! Hurrah!
(next time, call your mother and let her know you got there okay!) #[:)] (re: the recent Hurricane thread)
@Janice,
solar cycles are too small on the 11-year cycle to create any real difference if that is what you mean. funny thing is that the sun actually cooled after 2002 but the earth stayed warm.
@JFD and markstoval
yeah, its called mixing. The deep ocean is near freezing even at the equator. remember how water expands when it gets warm? well cold water is denser and sinks. if you have an increase in tradewinds then the surface cools due to mixing. Same thing when a hurricane moves over the gulf of mexico, the surface water gets cold because of deep water mixing caused by winds.
jai mitchell says:
June 8, 2013 at 12:18 pm
“saying that there has been no warming since 1998 is a classic case of selection bias. The sea surface temperature was higher at that year than in recorded history. it is basically the equivalent of a lie. So whenever anybody tells you that there has been “no warming for 16 years” they are basically lying to you.”
There is no period in the last 17 years until now that any temperature rise would begin to approach the rise predicted by the IPCC. The last 10 years is flat also. If you start from the 1999 La Nina you get a slight rise but that is just as bad as picking the 1998 El Nino but in the opposite direction.
Janice,
Yes, I made it there and back to Orlando. When I got on I-4 that morning and saw the interstate was blocked on the other side by emergency vehicles and there were cars upside down that I could see. What a mess. Then there were 3 more wrecks I saw before I got out of Orange Country.
It was a wild trip up and back I tell you.
Mark,
Glad to hear that you made it through. (I just thanked God for saying, “Yes.”) #[:)]
Re: the magical CO2 gas words….. here is Jai in a command performance just-for-you (he’s the one with the magical wand):
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Disney+Cinderella+bibbity+bobbity+boo&view=detail&mid=565004AC3C855590F72B565004AC3C855590F72B&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR
@scott scarborough
That is right, and that is why you have to take the total temperature record and compare it though the total period of time. when you do so, and honestly try to compensate for things like PDO and el ninos and volcanic eruptions you get the real temperature record.
the weird thing to me is that, if you check the effect of the sun on the northern hemisphere over the last several hundred thousand years you get why the ice ages happen. except this time, the temperature (and co2) stayed high for longer) if you compare now with the last 4 times that glaciers melted in earth’s history, we should already be well on our way to deep ice in north America. That is what happened at this time the last 4 cycles. Instead we are having temperatures GOING UP! Which is way different than the last 4 cycles (over the last 650,000 years or so.