Jo Nova writes:
Murry Salby was sacked from Macquarie University, and Macquarie struggled to explain why, among other things, it was necessary to abandon, and strand him in Paris and hold a “misconduct” meeting in his absence. Since then he has been subject to attacks related to his previous employment. I’ve asked him to respond, which he has at length in a PDF (see below). The figures listed below refer to that PDF, which encompasses 15 years of events.
I don’t have the resources (unlike the National Science Foundation, the NSF) to investigate it all, but wanted to give Murry the right of reply.
On closer inspection the NSF report used by people to attack Salby does not appear to be the balanced, impartial analysis I would have expected. Indeed the hyperbolic language based on insubstantial evidence is disturbing to say the least. Because of the long detailed nature of this I cannot draw conclusions, except to say that any scientist who responds to a question about Murry Salby’s work with a reference to his employment is no scientist.
Remember the NSF report was supposedly an inhouse private document. It was marked “Confidential”, subject to the Privacy Act, with disclosure outside the NSF prohibited except through FOI. Desmog vaguely suggest there “must have been an FOI”, but there are no links to support that. In the end, a confidential, low standard, internal document with legalistic sounding words, may have been “leaked” to those in search of a character attack.
My summary of his reply:
See: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/murry-salby-responds-to-the-attacks-on-his-record/
The PDF:
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I had a nice, long weekend vacation. At least the conversation did not break any new ground while I was away.
Chris Schoneveld says:
August 15, 2013 at 11:23 pm
“Now, how do you respond to Engelbeen’s conclusion that in that case we have to assume a CO2 “increase of over 100 ppmv/K””
It is a mistake to say it is a temperature driven process. It is temperature dependent, but it is driven by something such as the upwelling of CO2 rich waters, such as I have suggested previously in the thread. It cannot be human inputs, though, as they are not temperature dependent, at least to first order.
Nyq Only says:
August 19, 2013 at 11:37 am
This post and others. You allege I have made a mistake, but since you don’t know what you are doing, you misinterpret what you have found. I tried to explain your rather trivial error, but since you do not understand the math, it is futile.
Just to restate the answer to Nyq’s silly argument, the question is, do these series match, or do they not? If they do (and, they do), then the integrated CO2 lags temperature by 90 degrees in phase. It is tautological, and Nyq’s confused generation of plots he does not understand will never change that fact.
Sorry Richard and db, but Nyq is right: we were debating the fact that the current CO2 increase in the atmosphere is NOT following the temperature increase as theorised by Salby, Bart en others. That is an important point and I want to see the reaction of Salby and Bart on that.
The discussion about the effect of the increase is of course interesting, and should be the ultimate fight between warmers, luke-warmers, coolers and everybody inbetween, but that is NOT at order now, as that is complete unrelated question to what the cause of the rise in CO2 is.
Nyq and I and many others would be interested in a debate over the effects of the increase, but NOT NOW, NOT HERE.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 19, 2013 at 12:32 am
Thanks.
Pre-industrial (for most of the world) equilibrium of course was for the LIA. As you know, CO2 was locally measured in the 400s ppm in the 19th century, but probably too close to coal-fired industry & heating.
Your estimate of 5% of the CO2 gain since then may well be about right, ie ~six ppm. Stomatal indeces suggest high of ~300 ppm for the early Eemian, which by itself should falsify the hypothesis that CO2 is the main driver of climate, since that prior interglacial was so much warmer than the current one.
Dunno about previous interglacials.
I hope that CO2 keeps rising so that the world can enjoy more bounty. As I’ve commented before, I’d be OK with anything under real greenhouse levels, ie ~1000 ppm, where some people start getting headaches. Making reasonable assumptions about equilibrium CO2 sinks, probably 600 ppm is the best we can expect if people continue relying upon fossil fuels to the present extent.
Soot & other genuine pollutants are IMO reasons for switching to other energy sources when economically feasible, rather than CO2 emissions, which are beneficial.
If we’re lucky, there will be something to the GHG hypothesis & we can keep the next glaciation at bay. Cold is the killer.
Bart says:
August 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm
It is temperature dependent, but it is driven by something such as the upwelling of CO2 rich waters, such as I have suggested previously in the thread. It cannot be human inputs, though, as they are not temperature dependent, at least to first order.
Two coincidences on a row to explain something that the human emissions can do on their own:
– the increase in CO2 caused by temperature just started at the same time and in exact ratio with human emissions.
– the increase in CO2 caused by upwelling just started at the same time and in exact ratio with human emissions.
Of course, the human inputs are not responsible for the year by year wobbles, temperature is. But temperature is not responsible for the increase in CO2, as the CO2 increase doesn’t follow temperature over the past 50 years…
Keitho says:
“The fact is nothing is forthcoming to show how man made CO2 has made things horrible. I have watched how Nyq Only has tried to avoid this but he has failed. We are still in that awkward zone where no evidence for the disaster that man made CO2 is supposed to have wrought has been presented.”
Nyq Only still cannot produce any evidence of global harm from CO2. He’s got nothin’. In fact, he has tried every which way to avoid presenting his “evidence” for global harm, because there is no such evidence.
And that is the crux of the matter: if CO2 is harmless, then the entire alarmist argument is pointless nonsense. Angels dancing on pinheads. IOW: they got nothin’.
==============================
Ferdinand says:
“…the current CO2 increase in the atmosphere is NOT following the temperature increase…”
Of course it is. Ferdinand, I am really surprised at you. Why are you completely disregarding all the empirical evidence that I and others have posted, showing conclusively that ∆T causes ∆CO2?
As I’ve stated repeatedly, that does not mean that CO2 does not also affect temperature. The problem with that, however, is that any such effect is too small to measure. Otherwise, you would have posted a chart of such measurements — which I have repeatedly asked for, but to no avail.
I’ve also explained that I’m a “show me” kind of guy: if you cannot post verifiable, measurable, empirical evidence, then all you are doing is making conjectures. Nothing wrong with that — as far as it goes. However, there is solid empirical [real world] observational evidence showing that changes in temperature cause changes in CO2 — but there are no equivalent charts showing that changes in CO2 cause changes in temperature. They may, I suppose. But: “show me”.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 19, 2013 at 12:45 pm
“…CO2 increase in the atmosphere is NOT following the temperature increase…”
What in the WORLD are you talking about? It fits perfectly.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
August 19, 2013 at 1:03 pm
“Two coincidences on a row to explain something that the human emissions can do on their own”
Human emissions cannot produce this match. They cannot.
“- the increase in CO2 caused by temperature just started at the same time and in exact ratio with human emissions.
– the increase in CO2 caused by upwelling just started at the same time and in exact ratio with human emissions.”
These are trivial post hoc ergo propter hoc rationalizations.
“But temperature is not responsible for the increase in CO2, as the CO2 increase doesn’t follow temperature over the past 50 years…”
It does, too. It’s right here.
You’re just plugging your ears, covering your eyes, and shouting “nah, nah, nah.”
So let’s get this right.
Everyone agrees that CO2 follows temperature except in the most relevant case of the last half century.
Nyq Only points out that the changes (delta) in CO2 follow temperature but the magnitude is wrong. More CO2 appears than would be expected from temperature changes.
But then he assumes that the extra CO2 is manmade. It isn’t all an effect of temperature therefore it is manmade… ?
So, temperature cannot effect a non-linear change in CO2 reservoirs?
The reservoirs (which dwarf man’s emissions) cannot change by independent causes?
The extra CO2 is known to be able to unbalance the reservoirs because man’s CO2 is particularly sneaky?
There are a lot of assumptions in this hypothesis that are not yet justified.
M Courtney says:
August 19, 2013 at 1:56 pm
“Everyone agrees that CO2 follows temperature except in the most relevant case of the last half century.”
Of course not. CO2 follows temperature with a 90 deg phase lag at least since the most accurate measurements became available 55 years ago.
“Nyq Only points out…”
Nyq Only has no idea what he is talking about. The integral of a time series always lags the series by 90 degrees of phase. Only a mathematical idiot would suggest otherwise.
Sorry Bart, and dbstealey, but the problem is that while your graphs line up nicely, they are not the graphs you are looking for. They do not show what you think. I am not a climate scientist so it took me a couple of attempts, but when I figured out what you were doing, then it became clear that you were not plotting the relationship between the temperature anomaly and the CO2 concentration, or its derivative, you are plotting the relationship with the variation of the trend away from its predominately linear increase i.e you are plotting the non-linar part of the relationship. But since the linear trend dominates (over the past century or so) you are missing the bulk of the increase in your analysis.
jimmi_the_dalek:
Your post at August 19, 2013 at 2:49 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1394874
is addressed to Bart and dbstealey but – hoping you do not mind – I write to make a comment.
Concerning the increase to atmospheric CO2, you say
Indeed so, and this illustrates the adoption of assumptions by both ‘sides’ of this debate.
Firstly, I remind you that in an above post dbstealey said he is more convinced by Ferdinand than by Bart.
Bart’s basic assumption is that “bulk of the increase” is related to the long-term trend in the global temperature which is recovery from the LIA (and cannot be an anthropogenic effect).
This assumption is reasonable but does represent a circular argument when concluding the cause of the “bulk of the increase” is induced by the temperature rise.
Similarly, the other ‘side’ (here ably represented by Ferdinand) assumes the atmospheric CO2 would be in equilibrium were it not for anthropogenic CO2 emission. This, too, represents a circular argument when concluding the cause of the “bulk of the increase” is induced by the anthropogenic emission.
In both cases the argument is circular for the same reason; i.e. an assumption cannot prove itself.
This use of assumptions by both ‘sides’ is one reason why neither ‘side’ convinces me to jump off the fence on one ‘side’.
Richard
jimmi_the_dalek says:
“…while your graphs line up nicely…”
You, too? When graphs “line up”, they are generally an overlay of two graphs. They show CO2, and temperature. But it cannot be determined which is the cause, and which is the effect.
In the charts I have posted [like this one], you can see that T rose, and CO2 subsequently rose; T declined, then CO2 subsequently declined. Over, and over, and over — from months to hundreds of millennia. T always leads CO2. If that does not show cause and effect, then I’m talking to a brick wall.
All I have been asking for in return is a comparable chart, which shows a cause and effect relationship between CO2 and a subsequent change in temperature. In other words, a chart that shows that ∆CO2 causes ∆T, in the same way that the charts I posted show conclusively that ∆T causes ∆CO2.
But so far, no one has been able to find and post any such charts. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that if CO2 does affect T, then at current CO2 concentrations the effect is simply too small to measure.
dbstealey says:
August 19, 2013 at 3:50 pm
db, you first graph only shows that CO2 changes follow temperature changes for short-term changes over 1-3 years, That says nothing about the increase of CO2 over the past 50 years, as that looks like this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1960/mean:12/normalise/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/integral/normalise
From which we can conclude that the CO2 increase over the past 50 years doesn’t lag temperature and thus probably is NOT caused by temperature.
Neither does the long term relationship – with lag – over glacials and interglacials say anything about what happened in the past 50 years…
dbstealey, The millennia long graph from the ice cores is I’m afraid irrelevant. Nobody doubts that temperature led CO2 there and that the gradual rise from ~200 ppm to ~300 ppm, and back, over 100000 years is due to that. The question is what is the most plausible cause of the rise from ~300 ppm to 400 ppm over 100 years. Your graph from WFT has used the isolate facility, and to quote WFT “Isolate Months Does the same running mean as ‘mean’, but then subtracts this from the raw data to leave the ‘noise'” Note that – subtracts the mean to leave the noise – you are lining up the noise not the bulk data, which is also what taking a derivative will do since the linear term is most of the increase. And as Ferdinand Engelbeen says, there are two separate questions, the cause of the rise in CO2 and its effect.
Ferdinand says:
“…you first graph only shows that CO2 changes follow temperature changes for short-term changes over 1-3 years”.
That’s why I posted other graphs, some going back more than 400,000 years. In every time scale ∆CO2 follows ∆T. Once again, the chart you posted above is only an overlay that shows CO2 & T. But it does not show cause and effect like the charts I posted do.
==============================
jimmi_the_dalek says:
“… there are two separate questions, the cause of the rise in CO2 and its effect.”
Yes. I agree that human emissions have resulted in more atmospheric CO2. But then, that has been my position for a long time. It is also not the issue.
The issue is in your second statement, concerning any putative effect of the rise in CO2.
So far, no one has produced any evidence of any effect from the rise in CO2. I have explaned why, when I linked to this chart.
Any effect from the added CO2 is too minuscule to measure. That is why there are no testable measurements showing any added warming from the added CO2 [in fact, the evidence shows cooling].
Any questions?
richardscourtney says:
August 19, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Your analysis of circular reasoning by both sides in the debate over the main cause of the rise from ~280 to 400 ppmv of dry air invokes the logical fallacy called “begging the question”, ie assuming what you intend to prove. (I wish people would quit using this useful term to mean “raising the question”, but that’s beside your point.)
I am being persuaded by the good Dr. Engelbeen, however I haven’t studied Bart’s position enough.
But IMO the predominant cause of the rise doesn’t matter much, since it is a good thing. If humans are largely to “blame”, then we should keep adding more CO2 to the air, although I hope accompanied by fewer real pollutants than is usual in the developing world. It would help if Obama would let the US sell our cleaner, high-BTU-content coal to China.
In any case, going from three molecules of CO2 per 10,000 to four now has too small an effect on global temperature to be measured within margin of error. Continuing to six would still have a barely measurable effect, IMO, while further fertilizing & greening the earth, making life better for humans, especially those now suffering energy starvation & concomitant famishing starvation.
dbstealey, You are trying to move the to move the goalposts. We are discussing your graphs, like this one http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.26/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
Do you understand why it does not show what you think it shows?
milodonharlani,
Excellent comment. I agree completely. There is no real problem, only a perceived problem by people who don’t know any better.
CO2 is not any more a ‘pollutant’ than H2O is. They are both necessary for life on earth. More CO2 is not any more harmful than more rain. But rain cannot be as easily taxed as CO2.
jimmi_the_dalek,
If you don’t like that graph, here’s another you can argue about. The fact is, they both show cause and effect: ∆T causes ∆CO2.
Bart says:
August 19, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Since temperature, as questionably measured by NASA, NOAA, HadCRU, et al, has flat-lined since c. 1996 & is probably in reality trending down, science should be able to observe in coming years the effect on CO2 of global cooling. Maybe science already has enough observations to estimate the effect on outgassing of small delta T fluctuations, but more would be welcome.
Only the satellite data should count, unfortunately, however, due to the corruption of land station instrumental records.
dbstealey says:
August 19, 2013 at 4:54 pm
Rain may well be under study for taxation purposes.
How unfair that some regions should be so rich in rain & others so deprived. This blatantly humidist situation cannot be allowed to stand. The reverse is true of sunshine, another obvious source for the additional tax receipts of which benevolent, omniscient governments which are here only to help need so much more, for the children.
milodonharlani says:
August 19, 2013 at 5:00 pm
Come to think of it, what resources on our planet aren’t in urgent need of being redistributed by benevolent governments instead of greedy individuals & their nefarious private associations? Only governments are great, good, humanitarian & altruistic, as of course are the “scientists” whom they hire.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
August 19, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Why are people so eager to deny what is right in front of their eyes?
Sorry, jimmi, no. There is a functional relationship with temperature. A general method for constructing a model of a function is to use a polynomial base. It is very general because a smooth, differentialble function can always be represented by its Taylor series expansion.
We generally start with the lowest orders, and truncate the expansion which the fit is good enough. In this case, a constant and a linear term for the rate of change of CO2 is found to be good.
Now, you can argue that my constant value is arbitrary, and I could vary it and substitute some other constant rate driving force in its place. But, as far as human inputs are concerned, the question is moot, because they have not at all been constant in rate (top plot).
richardscourtney says:
August 19, 2013 at 3:20 pm
“Bart’s basic assumption is that “bulk of the increase” is related to the long-term trend in the global temperature…”
No, my basic assumption is that the bulk of the increase is due to a temperature dependent pumping action into the atmosphere, most likely from upwelling of carbon rich waters from the depths. Human inputs are not temperature dependent, hence do not fit the bill.
milodonharlani says:
August 19, 2013 at 4:57 pm
“Since temperature, as questionably measured by NASA, NOAA, HadCRU, et al, has flat-lined since c. 1996 & is probably in reality trending down, science should be able to observe in coming years the effect on CO2 of global cooling.”
And, that is precisely what we are seeing. As temperatures fall off, so is the rate of change of CO2 in lockstep. The rate of emissions continues to increase, and the two series are diverging from their superficial affine similarity which prevailed from about 1958 to 1990. It was just a chance meeting, and now they are going their separate ways.
“Only the satellite data should count, unfortunately, however, due to the corruption of land station instrumental records.”
For your viewing pleasure: the very best agreement is, in fact, with the satellite data.
“No, my basic assumption is that the bulk of the increase is due to a temperature dependent pumping action into the atmosphere, most likely from upwelling of carbon rich waters from the depths.”
If my previous comment has not yet appeared, that quote from it may cause confusion. The post will, I am sure, appear soon. It probably got trapped by the comment filter for multiple links.
Actually, it is not my assumption that “the bulk of the increase is due to a temperature dependent pumping action into the atmosphere.” My assumption is that the excellent fit between temperature anomaly and the rate of change of CO2, in both the short term and the long term and, indeed, across the entire frequency spectrum, is not coincidental. Given the incredible coincidence that would represent, I judge the assumption to be on solid ground. The reason for the increase follows from that fundamental assumption.
(PLANT) FOOD FOR THOUGHT
CO2 is such a scarce and excellent plant food that it is gobbled up very close to the source during the growing season..
In urban environments like Salt Lake City where CO2 is emitted, it is gobbled up so quickly by plants that there is NO DISCERNIBLE HUMAN SIGNATURE IN THE DAILY CO2 RECORD.
For proof, see http://co2.utah.edu/index.php?site=2&id=0&img=31