By Dr. Vincent Gray
1. Roy Spencer and Murry Salby
The greatest difficulty facing the promoters of the theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause dangerous global warming is the inconvenient truth that it is impossible to measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface by any known technology. Without this information it is not possible to claim global warming.
In order to make this claim the “Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record” (MGSTAR) was fabricated from temperature measurements made at meteorological weather stations.
It did not matter that
· There is no standardized method for making these observations,
· They are unrepresentative of the earth’s surface, and worse the further back you go.
· Their locations are mainly close to cities,
· Only maximum and minimum temperatures are measured,,
· The number and location of stations changes daily
Despite these disabilities, which would have killed the idea in the days when genuine scientists controlled the scientific journals, the public have been persuaded that this dubious procedure is a genuine guide to global temperature change. They even seem to accept that a change in it over a century of a few decimals of a degree is cause for alarm
John Christy and Roy Spencer in 1979 at the University of Huntsville, Alabama established an alternative procedure for plotting global temperature anomalies in the lower troposphere by using the changes in the microwave spectrum of oxygen recorded by satellites on Microwave Sounder Units (MSUs). This overcame several of the disadvantages of the MGSTAR method.
It is almost truly global , not confined to cities. Although it misses the Arctic, this is also true of the MGSTAR. There have been some problems of calibration and reliability but they are far less than the problems of the MSGTAR record. They are therefore more reliable.
From the beginning the two records have disagreed with one another. This created such panic that the supporters of the IPCC set up an alternative facility to monitor the results at Remote Sensing Systems under the aegis of NASA and in the capable hands of Frank Wentz, an IPCC supporter. It was confidently believed that the “errors” of Christy and Spencer would soon be removed. To their profound disappointment this has not happened, The RSS version of the Lower Troposphere global temperature anomaly record is essentially the same as that still provided by the University of Huntsville. It is also almost the same as the measurements made by radiosonde balloons over the same period
The MSU record has now been going for 34 years. Spencer has recently published a comparison between temperature predictions made by a large number of IPCC climate models and their projected future and the temperature record as shown by the MSUs and the balloons.
at http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
It is surely obvious that all the models are wrong and that their projections are nonsensical.
I might also add that the central line is also meaningless.
2. MURRY SALBY
Murry Salby is Professor of Climate Science at McQuarrie Univerity where he has an impressive research programme to be seen at
http://envsci.mq.edu.au/staff/ms/research.html
He has published a book “Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate”.
He has recently expounded his views on the climate in two Youtube presentations. I have found that it was necessary to see both of them several times before I got a clear idea of what he is claiming. The first one, at
was a presentation at the Sydney Institute on 2nd August 2011.
He begins by showing the paleo record based on ice cores and shows that there is a close correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature, with temperature coming first. The same applies to methane.
He then attaches it to the more recent CO2 record and plots the Carbon13 figures, which declined over the whole period. Since plant material prefers C12 this means that the additional CO2 comes from plant material. The IPCC claims that the additional plant material must come from combustion of fossil fuels, so this is their “Smoking Gun” that the increase in CO2 is caused by human-derived emissions.
But the extra plant-derived CO2 could be natural. Salby sets out to show that this is true. He shows a satellite map of natural sources of CO2 which come more from the tropics than from temperate regions (but only 6% more)
He then provides data and graphs which show that the additional CO2 results from what happens during a temperature fluctuation, using the satellite (MSU) temperature record since 1978. He shows that the CO2 which is released by a temperature increase is always greater than the CO2 absorbed when the temperature falls, providing a net increase in the atmosphere
The CO2 increase is from natural sources. It is not related to temperature, but to the behaviour of temperature fluctuations.
The second Youtube presentation at
took place at Hamburg 18th April 2013.
It starts with an attempt to clear up the discrepancy of the first presentation, where , carbon dioxide was related to temperature for the ice core proxies and where carbon dioxide was related to a difference between emissions and absorption during a temperature fluctuation for the recent measurements.
He does this by questioning the reliability of the ice core measurements, something that my late friend Zbigniew Jaborowski questioned in 1997.
He points out that the snow that traps air from the atmosphere and then solidifies irons out the fluctuations in temperature which are the real source of CO2 increase, and that some diffusion of the gases must happen when they are buried. By a rather elaborate set of mathematical calculations he restores the fluctuation effect from the ice cores and shows that it is compatible with his other calculations from recent measurements
He then extends his calculations of CO2 from temperature fluctuations by using the instrumental record. When he allows for its low reliability as you go back in the record (only 8% of the earth in 1860) he derives an impressive agreement between carbon dioxide increases and the calculated natural additions derived from temperature fluctuations over his entire range.
He shows that for the MSU record, carbon dioxide is completely unrelated to temperature,
We already know from the first part of this newsletter that climate models based on the assumption that carbon dioxide increases influence global temperature are fundamentally wrong so it does not matter much whether it comes from human-related emissions or from natural sources.
I vociferously object to science by Youtube. In the old days any new theory from a recognised academic would be welcomed by the journals, but nowadays any disagreement with the IPCC orthodoxy would have difficulty finding a place in a scientific journal.
All the same, this material from Salby needs to be properly documented before it could be considered seriously
Cheers
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand
Salby’s 2nd presentation is a real eye opener if you can get past the mathematics of signal processing. What he has shown is why the climate models have gone off track.
The climate models all assume that temperature varies as CO2. What Salby shows is that the underlying math indicates otherwise, that it is the integral (sum) of temperature that varies as CO2. In other words, that temperature varies as the rate of change in CO2.
This is the very same finding as given by econometric analysis, that temperature varies as the 2nd difference of CO2. see for example: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/new-paper-on/
The implications are clear. Either CO2 acumulates as a result of temperature, or the system has strong negative feedbacks in response to increasing CO2. Either way, the assumption of positive feedback is wrong. Positive feedback is inconsistent with temperature varying as the rate of change in CO2.
What is significant is that two unrelated methods have delivered the same result, and both show that the models are not correctly describing reality. This implies that the models will only track temperature when temperature and CO2 are increasing in phase. When they are out of phase, as predicted by Salby’s work due to a 90 degree phase lag, then the models will diverge from reality.
Which is what is being observed. The models have the mathematics wrong. This is causing them to diverge from reality at times when CO2 and temperature are out of phase.
Brooks Bridges – it was predicted Arctic sea ice would be zero by NOW! here’s the latest sea ice extent for the Arctic, it is above average for the past decade. It’s not declining rapidly.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Yes – arctic sea ice extent has been decreasing yet antarctic sea ice extent is expanding, last year being a record.
Obviously something is occurring in the arctic but there is NO evidence it’s CO2 or man’s actions..
Brooks Bridges says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:50 am
No warming and yet the Arctic ice is melting rapidly. Please explain.
===========
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_see-saw
The polar “see-saw” causes one pole to melt while the other freezes. What it means is that it is misleading to study only the melting at one pole without considering the freezing at the other.
Climate scientists that wish to study the facts about climate know this. Climate scientists that wish to alarm and mislead politicians and the public ignore this and only talk about the melting at the north pole.
One can thus separate factual climate scientist from misleading and alarmist climate scientists, by how well they represent polar melting in the context of the polar see-saw.
@Peter miller –
The alarmists don’t and can’t control the historical records that unequivocally demonstrate the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Climate Optimum and the Hittiite-Minoan-Mycenean Warm Period. There is no way they can get around those records, and that makes their efforts to make these earlier warm periods go away the more ridiculous.
In reply to:
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:36 am
The 14C level declined in lockstep with fossil fuel use, so that since about 1870 the tables for carbon dating needed to be corrected. Until 1950, when the atomic bomb tests disturbed the 14C record completely.
William:
C14 is created by GCR and is hence inversely related to solar magnetic cycle activity. Higher solar activity, stronger heliosphere which blocks GCR, less GCR lower C14 production rates.
The solar magnetic activity has the highest in 8000 years during the last 70 years.
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
There are multiple anomalies associated with changes in atmospheric CO2 both current and at geology time scales. For example there is currently no explanation for the drop in atmospheric CO2 during the glacial periods. The increased CO2 that dissolved in the oceans is more than offset by the reduction in CO2 that is used by the biosphere due to the increase in the ice sheets (which reduces the amount of plant life) and the reduction in productive of the biosphere. (For example, roughly 40% of the Amazon rainforest changes to a savanna for example due to less precipitation. The biosphere contracts when the planet gets colder and expands when it get warmer, opposite to what the warmists tell us.)
Why is there a doubling of CO2 absorbed in the earth’s sinks? Is what we are observing an increase in sinks or a reduction in a source of high C12, CO2? What is the source of CO2 on geological time scales? How does one explain the long term and short term changes of CO2 in the geological record?
There are layers of anomalies if one digs into this subject. An example of an anomaly is the ratio of C12/C13 remains almost constant (except for unexplained periods where there are massive very high C12 deposits). As plants preferential remove C12 from the atmosphere and GCR creates C14 that decays into C13, if the carbon on the planet’s surface is recycled the geological deposits should gradually become higher and higher in C13. That is not observed.
As I have stated before, there is overwhelming evidence that the source of carbon and water on the earth’s surface is the release of CH4 from the earth’s core as it solidifies. (The competing theory to deep carbon source theory is the late veneer theory that has the source of water and CO2 as late bombardment of the earth’s surface by comets. The big splat removed the majority of the light volatile elements from the earth’s mantle so a mechanism is required to explain why 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water which is particularly anomalous as the solar wind removes dissociated water, hydrogen from the earth’s atmosphere.) The excreted CH4 at the core is under very high pressure so it is pressed through the mantel. The deposits of less dense CH4 explains how the continents float on the mantel and the geological anomalies such as the Tibet plateau and the reason why there are bands of mountains at regions where the ocean crust is pushed below the continental plate. The CH4 from the ocean crust is deposited below the continental crust at these locations.
The deep source CH4 is very low in C13 as it is not exposed to GCR. A continual new source of high C12 CH4 which dissociates in the atmosphere and then forms CO2 and H2O explains why the ratio of C12/C13 does not gradually increase with time in the geological record.
The above hypothesis also explains why the ocean is saturated with CH4. Saturated means there is some source of CH4 in the ocean that releases CH4.
Now if was bacteria in the ocean that converted CH4 to H2O and CO2, using the released energy to live, there would be a source of low C12 CO2.
So finishing off the strawman hypothesis, it is not temperature changes that are causing the increased or decreased CO2 in the atmosphere it is some other mechanism that affects how much CH4 is released in the deep ocean.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/earths-co2-sinks-increasing-their-uptake/
Earth absorbing more carbon, even as CO2 emissions rise, says CU-Boulder-led study
Planet’s carbon uptake doubles in past 50 years, researchers ponder how long trend can continue
Despite sharp increases in carbon dioxide emissions by humans in recent decades that are warming the planet, Earth’s vegetation and oceans continue to soak up about half of them, according to a surprising new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
But the new Nature study showed global CO2 uptake by Earth’s sinks essentially doubled from 1960 to 2010, although increased variations from year-to-year and decade-to-decade suggests some instability in the global carbon cycle, he said.
William: The other possibility is a significant portion of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to natural emissions. As noted above observations and analysis indicated that 0.45C of the warming in the last 70 years by solar magnetic cycle changes which modulate planetary cloud cover as opposed to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/revgeo/rog.pdf
Abstract. Fifteen years after the discovery of major glacial/interglacial cycles in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere, it seems that all of the simple mechanisms for lowering pCO2 have been eliminated. We use a model of ocean and sediment geochemistry, which includes new developments of iron limitation of biological production at the sea surface and anoxic diagenesis and its effect on CaCO3 preservation in the sediments, to evaluate the current proposals for explaining the glacial/ interglacial pCO2 cycles within the context of the ocean carbon cycle. After equilibration with CaCO3 the model is unable to generate glacial pCO2 by increasing ocean NO3 2 but predicts that a doubling of ocean H4SiO4 might suffice. However, the model is unable to generate a doubling of ocean H4SiO4 by any reasonable changes in SiO2 weathering or production.
http://faculty.washington.edu/battisti/589paleo2005/Papers/SigmanBoyle2000.pdf
Glacial/interglacial variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide by Daniel M. Sigman & Edward A. Boyle
The exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the surface ocean would reach completion over the course of six to twelve months if there were no other processes redistributing inorganic carbon in the ocean. However, the pCO2 of surface waters is continuously being reset by its interaction with the deep ocean reservoir of inorganic carbon, which is more than 25 times that of the atmosphere and surface ocean combined (Fig. 2).
As ocean temperature was lower during ice ages, it is an obvious first step to consider its effect on atmospheric CO2. The lower temperatures of the glacial ocean would have reduced the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by drawing more of it into the ocean. The deep ocean, which is the dominant volume of ocean water, has a mean temperature of 2 C. Sea water begins to freeze at about -2C, producing buoyant ice. As a result, deep ocean water could not have been more than 4C colder during the last ice age, placing an upper bound on how much additional CO2 this water could have sequestered simply by cooling. The potential cooling of surface waters in polar regions such as the Antarctic is also constrained by the freezing point of sea water.
See Carnegie Institute of Sciences Deep Carbon Workshop presentations if you interested in this subject.
https://www.gl.ciw.edu/workshops/sloan_deep_carbon_workshop_may_2008
and…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910084259.htm
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/abs/ngeo591.html
P.S. Thanks for the correction monograph vs monogram.
“…it is impossible to measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface by any known technology.”
Exactly! It is just an estimate extrapolated from a few data points. The error bars are so large, it becomes basically an educated guess. If methods and locations were consistent, you might be able to determine some rough regional trends from the data. However, with all the adding and dropping of weather stations, inconsistent methods used over the years, UHI, and continual manipulation of the numbers, surface temperature data is almost useless. And as a measurement of world-wide average temperature, it is pretty much meaningless.
<< I have very sound memories of the 1966 Wahine storm.
1968
Curiously, my PO Box number in Wellington is 5368.
When anyone asks me what my PO Box number is, I initially
reply, with a wink, "two disasters" … and even when I tell them the
actual number, there is usually incomprehension. Not however
among the readers here one hopes.
Marian says:
June 22, 2013 at 1:44 am
….Overall, temperatures for winter 2013 (June – August) are very likely to be above average across the entire country…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Do you believe them? Or do they have the same reputation as the UK’s MET.
The lag between CO2 and temperature is apparent in modern satellite data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
Ceetee says: @ur momisugly June 22, 2013 at 3:28 am
We owe a great debt of gratitude to those brave men and women who have stood up for truth.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I will second that.
“We are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants.” ~ Bernard of Chartres
Climastrologists are nasty little narrow minded dwarves with chainsaws and axes and chisels and hammers chopping away at the legs of the giants they fear and despise.
“…it is impossible to measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface by any known technology. Without this information it is not possible to claim global warming.”
Ho-Humm…an oldie but goodie:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
Let’s all just remember that IT IS OK to use the (manipulated) data when it suits:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/13/no-significant-warming-for-17-years-4-months/
Re warming oceans below 700 m. Far more likely that cloud free SW infrared warmed those deeper layers via mixing. CO2 related warming would be buried in the noise of natural mixed warming at deeper layers.
Antonia says: @ur momisugly June 22, 2013 at 4:15 am
…It amazes me that the alarmists still aren’t embarrassed by that thoroughly discredited claim that, “97 per cent of scientists” claim rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. How do they still get away with it? How?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Because the bankers and large corporations with a vested interest in the CAGW scam (link 1 and link 2) OWN the media and he who OWNS the presses controls what is printed. link 3 (see my comment)
P. Berkin says:
June 22, 2013 at 4:47 am
…here is a great post on the subject by E.M.Smith… I hope that he will not mind my posting this link.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I doubt it very much. At present he is settling into a new job after driving cross country. His website is : http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-fallacy-of-trapped-heat/
Didn’t Dr Salby claim that the atmospheric CO2 concentration was proportional to the integral of the temperature anomaly?
This was in contrast to the models assumptions that temperature behaved in almost direct proportion to the CO2 concentration.
So what did you mean by “He shows that for the MSU record, carbon dioxide is completely unrelated to temperature”
Thanks
Steve
Mike McMillan says:
June 22, 2013 at 4:53 am
….What I gathered about the ice core record is that non-conservative processes are at work on the CO2 fraction, which I didn’t quite get….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I would suggest Lucy Skywalker’s information:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-ice-HS.htm
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-flux.htm
And these two by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html#more
Also Dr Segalstad’s site: http://www.co2web.info/
ESPECIALLY: http://www.co2web.info/stoten92.pdf
And some info on/by Dr. Jaworowski
http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/51653381/CO2-the-Greatest-Scientific-Scandal-of-Our-Time
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=25526754-e53a-4899-84af-5d9089a5dcb6 (Story of Dr. Jaworowski being denied funding and then fired for not toeing the CAGW line)
Last there is tons of information at on CO2 at http://www.co2science.org/
“…it is impossible to measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface by any known technology. Without this information it is not possible to claim global warming.”
And if we could, then that darn relationship of LW radiation emission with T^4 would mean LW emissions from Toronto in February would be about half that emitted from Timbuktu. Oh well we can just approximate it as linear and extrapolate into areas a thousand km away with no temperature records…
Billy Liar says:
June 22, 2013 at 9:34 am
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:36 am
BTW, as I am travelling in beautiful Greece, looking for the roots of most of our Western Civilisation …
“You’re more likely to find the roots of the future failure of the EU.”
This is the favorite of the day!! It should be Quote of the Week.
Brooks Bridges says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:50 am
“No warming and yet the Arctic ice is melting rapidly. Please explain.”
The short answer is it’s summertime! Note however that the ice is melting a lot slower than any year of the past decade, indeed its more or less following the melt from the 1990s, which is in keeping with the 17 years of no warming.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
CodeTech says: @ur momisugly June 22, 2013 at 5:32 am…..
I think this says it all:
Raw CO2 data (graphed)
CO2 data after ‘Adjusting’ (graphed)
And the reasoning as outlined by Mauna Loa Obs.
One of the critical ASSumptions is that CO2 is uniform in the atmosphere. Without that assumption CAGW falls flat on its face because of the early historical CO2 measurements.
The actual data from chemical testing for CO2 GRAPH 1 Note the tendency to select low values for the CO2 concentration in the 19th century atmosphere despite values as high as 550 ppm and above.
A closer look at the cherry picked results used by warmists from above graph. GRAPH 2
World data/maps from Japanese satellite:
September 2009
July 2009 and January 2010 side by side comparison
August 2012
Apols. My cryptic remarks about PO boxes was intended for NZ readers.
Re William Astley says: June 22, 2013 at 11:49 am
In reply to: Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:36 am
“…and GCR creates C14 that decays into C13…”
Carbon-14 decays by beta(-) emission, to produce Nitrogen-14.
Reference: “Chart of the Nuclides”, 12th ed., 1977
Tom Moran says: @ur momisugly June 22, 2013 at 7:13 am
You mention C12 and C13 trapped in ice core samples. Is it possible to “tag” atmospheric Carbon….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You might try reading http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
Vincent, You have misspelt your late friend’s name. It’s Jaworowski not Jaborowski.
Here’s a couple of links:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/2006_articles/IceCoreSprg97.pdf
I regard them as very good papers, despite the Wikipedia entry: “However, Jaworowski’s views are rejected by the scientific community.”
Brooks Bridges says:
June 22, 2013 at 8:50 am
No warming and yet the Arctic ice is melting rapidly. Please explain….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is called the Bipolar Seesaw. While the Arctic is melting the Antarctic is increasing in ice.
Antarctic Sea Ice Anomaly (mean) graph 1979 to 2008
A discussion of a new peer-reviewed paper (September 2012) about what the reactivation of the Bipolar Seesaw means. (links to the entire paper at the end of the WUWT discussion) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/02/can-we-predict-the-duration-of-an-interglacial/