By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I have just had the honor of listening to Professor Murry Salby giving a lecture on climate. He had addressed the Numptorium in Holyrood earlier in the day, to the bafflement of the fourteenth-raters who populate Edinburgh’s daft wee parliament. In the evening, among friends, he gave one of the most outstanding talks I have heard.
Professor Salby has also addressed the Parliament of Eunuchs in Westminster. Unfortunately he did not get the opportunity to talk to our real masters, the unelected Kommissars of the European tyranny-by-clerk.
The Faceless Ones whose trembling, liver-spotted hands guide the European hulk of state unerringly towards the bottom were among the first and most naively enthusiastic true-believers in the New Superstition that is global warming. They could have benefited from a scientific education from the Professor.
His lecture, a simplified version of his earlier talk in Hamburg that was the real reason why spiteful profiteers of doom at Macquarie “University” maliciously canceled his non-refundable ticket home so that he could not attend the kangaroo court that dismissed him, was a first-class exercise in logical deduction.
He had written every word of it, elegantly. He delivered it at a measured pace so that everyone could follow. He unfolded his central case step by step, verifying each step by showing how his theoretical conclusions matched the real-world evidence.
In a normal world with mainstream news media devoted to looking at all subjects from every direction (as Confucius used to put it), Murry Salby’s explosive conclusion that temperature change drives CO2 concentration change and not the other way about would have made headlines. As it is, scarce a word has been published anywhere.
You may well ask what I might have asked: given that the RSS satellite data now show a zero global warming trend for 17 full years, and yet CO2 concentration has been rising almost in a straight line throughout, is it any more justifiable to say that temperature change causes CO2 change than it is to say that CO2 change causes temperature change?
The Professor headed that one off at the pass. During his talk he said it was not global temperature simpliciter but the time-integral of global temperature that determined CO2 concentration change, and did so to a correlation coefficient of around 0.9.
I had first heard of Murry Salby’s work from Dick Lindzen over a drink at a regional government conference we were addressing in Colombia three years ago. I readily agreed with Dick’s conclusion that if we were causing neither temperature change nor even CO2 concentration change the global warming scare was finished.
I began then to wonder whether the world could now throw off the absurdities of climate extremism and develop a sensible theory of climate.
In pursuit of this possibility, I told Professor Salby I was going to ask two questions. He said I could ask just one. So I asked one question in two parts.
First, I asked whether the rapid, exponential decay in carbon-14 over the six decades following the atmospheric nuclear bomb tests had any bearing on his research. He said that the decay curve for carbon-14 indicated a mean CO2 atmospheric residence time far below the several hundred years assumed in certain quarters. It supports Dick Lindzen’s estimate of a 40-year residence time, not the IPCC’s imagined 50-200 years.
Secondly, I asked whether Professor Salby had studied what drove global temperature change. He said he had not gotten to that part of the story yet.
In the past year, I said, four separate groups haf contacted me to say they were able to reproduce global temperature change to a high correlation coefficient by considering it as a function of – and, accordingly, dependent upon – the time-integral of total solar irradiance.
If these four groups are correct, and if Professor Salby is also correct, one can begin to sketch out a respectable theory of climate.
The time-integral of total solar irradiance determines changes in global mean surface temperature. Henrik Svensmark’s cosmic-ray amplification, which now has considerable support in the literature, may help to explain the mechanism.
In turn, the time integral of absolute global mean temperature determines the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Here, the mechanism will owe much to Henry’s Law, which mandates that a warmer ocean can carry less CO2 than a colder ocean. I have never seen an attempt at a quantitative analysis of that relationship in this debate, and should be grateful if any of Anthony’s readers can point me to one.
The increased CO2 concentration as the world warms may well act as a feedback amplifying the warming, and perhaps our own CO2 emissions make a small contribution. But we are not the main cause of warmer weather, and certainly not the sole cause.
For the climate, all the world’s a stage. But, if the theory of climate that is emerging in samizdat lectures such as that of Professor Salby is correct, we are mere bit-part players, who strut and fret our hour upon the stage and then are heard no more.
The shrieking hype with which the mainstream news media bigged up Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, ruthlessly exploiting lost lives in their increasingly desperate search for evidence – any evidence – as ex-post-facto justification for their decades of fawning, head-banging acquiescence in the greatest fraud in history shows that they have begun to realize that their attempt at politicizing science itself is failing.
Whether they like it or not, typhoons are acts of God, not of Man.
I asked Professor Salby whether there was enough information in the temperature record to allow him to predict the future evolution of atmospheric CO2 concentration. He said he could not do that.
However, one of the groups working on the dependence of global temperature change on the time-integral of total solar irradiance makes a startling prediction: that we are in for a drop of half a Celsius degree in the next five years.
When I made a glancing reference to that research in an earlier posting, the propagandist John Abraham sneeringly offered me a $1000 bet that the fall in global temperature would not happen.
I did not respond to this characteristically jejune offer. A theory of climate is a hypothesis yet to be verified by observation, experiment and measurement. It is not yet a theorem definitively demonstrated. Explaining the difference to climate communists is likely to prove impossible. To them the Party Line, whatever it is, must be right even if it be wrong.
The group that dares to say it expects an imminent fall in global mean surface temperature does so with great courage, and in the Einsteinian spirit of describing at the outset a test by which its hypothesis may be verified.
Whether that group proves right or wrong, its approach is as consistent with the scientific method as the offering of childish bets is inconsistent with it. In science, all bets are off. As al-Haytham used to say, check and check and check again. He was not talking about checks in settlement of silly wagers.
In due course Professor Salby will publish in the reviewed literature his research on the time-integral of temperature as the driver of CO2 concentration change. So, too, I hope, will the groups working on the time-integral of total solar irradiance as the driver of temperature change.
In the meantime, I hope that those who predict a sharp, near-term fall in global temperature are wrong. Cold is a far bigger killer than warmth. Not that the climate communists of the mainstream media will ever tell you that.
richardscourtney said: “The number of arguments by assertion in this thread is also extraordinary.”
Isn’t that basically ALL of climate science alarm?
richardscourtney : “people who wish to make the extraordinary assertion that humans are affecting it with an “artificial forcing” need to provide some evidence to support their assertion.”
Well given that the radiative greenhouse effect had never even been demonstrated and doesn’t even exist in real physical greenhouses, and that there’s been no temperature rise for 20 years with a marked rise in CO2, and that there’s no historical evidence that CO2 drives temperature, only that temperature drives CO2…well then YES(!), maybe the climate alarmists should be asked to provide ANY actual evidence for their assertions.
Derek Alker:
Thankyou for your fine review of Salby’s lecture which you provide in your post at November 11, 2013 at 12:42 pm.
It is good to hear from you again, and I hope all is well with you.
Richard
Greg says:
November 11, 2013 at 10:25 am
Trying to suggest that dT matches dCO2 just as well a T(t) does , you demonstrate that you can see whatever you want to see in the data.
I know, mathematicians (like Bart) see a match and thus that is the cause… But have a look at what happens with a T sinusoid with a linear slope which allegedly produces a slope in CO2 increase in following emulation (no human inputs or sinks involved):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sim_co2_temp_00.jpg
The small response of CO2 on the T variability follows T with 90 deg. as expected.
Now we take the derivative:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sim_dco2_dT_Tanom_00.jpg
As you can see there is a complete synchronisation of T and dCO2/dt while dT/dt leads dCO2/dt with 90 deg.
Thus according to Bart, T is the cause of dCO2/dt.
But some trouble arises: as the slope in CO2 is linear, dCO2/dt is completely flat and no factor can make that the amplitude of the CO2 variability matches that of the T variability (here we used a small factor to show the synchronisation of T and dCO2/dt). That while dT/dt can match the amplitude and variability of dCO2/dt with a lag, whatever the slope of CO2 and T.
The solution Bart uses is that there is an increase of CO2 concentration in the upwelling waters completely synchronised with the increase in temperature, which gives a quadratic slope of CO2 in the atmosphere (as observed) and by coincidence is completely synchronized with the quadratic slope of human emissions. Too many coincidences on a row.
Moreover, there is not the slightest indication that there is an increase of concentration (or volume) of upwelling waters…
It has repeatedly been said that the mass balance analysis is not a model of the carbon cycle.
Which is a statement I can understand.
But please will someone tell me what the mass balance analysis is trying to do. What is the purpose of the mass balance analysis?
If it is just saying that total emissions (anthropogenic + natural) – total uptake of the sinks = the left over CO2 then… isn’t that trivial?
Genuine question from someone who is trying to follow the argument. I am told that you can use the mass balance analysis to avoid needing to know all the activities of the sinks. Which is helpful. But helpful for what exactly?
richardscourtney says:
November 11, 2013 at 1:25 pm
‘I answer because there is no evidence – none, zilch, nada – that the “natural” system is responding to anything other than natural variations so it probably was, is and will remain “strictly natural”. ‘
But, that can only be the case if the sinks are powerful enough that they effectively drain the human produced CO2 rapidly out of the atmospheric system so that it has little effect. So, essentially, you are merely restating my argument from another perspective.
Bart says:
November 11, 2013 at 1:57 pm
But, that can only be the case if the sinks are powerful enough that they effectively drain the human produced CO2 rapidly out of the atmospheric system so that it has little effect.
So they’re powerful enough to drain the human emissions, but not powerful enough to drain the natural emissions? …That doesn’t make any sense. The natural sinks don’t distinguish between natural and human emissions. If they could drain any amount of human emissions, they could do the same for natural emissions.
I think the accounting (mass-balance) identity is much more useful, and tells us more about why the CO2 is rising. And it tells us that at recent levels of human emissions and CO2 conc., the natural system is a net sink, and it’s a sink that’s not strong enough to counter human emissions. (Or otherwise, C would be dropping, not rising).
M Courtney says:
November 11, 2013 at 1:53 pm
“But helpful for what exactly?”
There’s the rub. The balancers claim that the intake of the sinks being greater than natural input flows proves the observed rise is human induced.
The problem for them is, the former observation does not compel the latter conclusion. If you take away the human influence completely, it does not follow that nature would then be a net sink, or even in balance.
The reason is that a portion of the sink activity is a response to the anthropogenic flows. And, when you take away those flows, the sink activity also decreases. So, you can still have a natural imbalance.
If you could somehow take out the natural imbalance, there is no guarantee that if you reintroduced the human input, atmospheric concentration would then build significantly. The sinks can easily be powerful enough to attenuate that input to virtually nothing.
There is nothing dispositive about the mass balance argument. It is trivial and meaningless.
Windchasers says:
November 11, 2013 at 2:05 pm
“So they’re powerful enough to drain the human emissions, but not powerful enough to drain the natural emissions? …That doesn’t make any sense.”
Of course it does. Turn on the faucet in your kitchen sink. The drain handles it easily, does it not? Now, aim a firehose into it. Will the drain handle that, too?
“…and it’s a sink that’s not strong enough to counter human emissions.”
That is a convenient answer, but it is not compelled by the mass balance argument.
Bart says:
November 11, 2013 at 2:06 pm
The problem for them is, the former observation does not compel the latter conclusion. If you take away the human influence completely, it does not follow that nature would then be a net sink, or even in balance.
The reason is that a portion of the sink activity is a response to the anthropogenic flows. And, when you take away those flows, the sink activity also decreases. So, you can still have a natural imbalance.
Ah, okay. A clearer description of Bart and I disagree.
Bart’s wrong – if human influence was taken away, nature would still be a net sink. Nature does not care where the CO2 came from, and the fact that the natural system is a net sink now means it would be a net sink under the present conditions no matter what.
Additionally, nature does not care about human emissions, but about the total atmospheric concentration of CO2. Nature “sees” human emissions and natural emissions as interchangeable. And CO2 is well-mixed, so a plant in the rainforest of Borneo doesn’t know (or care) if the CO2 came from a coal plant 1000 miles away or decomposing plants next door.
The reason is that a portion of the sink activity is a response to the anthropogenic flows. And, when you take away those flows, the sink activity also decreases.
Sure, if human emissions stopped tomorrow, sink activity will indeed decrease after a while. That’s because without human emissions, CO2 concentration will drop over time, and that will cause natural sinks to drop.
Say you have a greenhouse, and you pump in CO2 to help your plants grow faster. (That means the plants acts as a CO2 sink). Do those plants care if the CO2 came from fossil fuels or not? Heck no. They care what the CO2 concentration in the air is, and that’s it. That’s what they respond to, and that’s what makes them grow faster and sequester more carbon. The same principle goes for all the other CO2 sinks, like oceans and chemical processes.
The entire argument against the mass-balance equation seems to be predicated on the idea that nature “knows” the difference between natural and anthropogenic emissions. It doesn’t.
Derek Alker says:
November 11, 2013 at 12:42 pm
We have met in the past… As I remember well, you don’t accept anything from any (even probable) AGW source, including the Mauna Loa data…
Professor Salby’s presentation was very interesting. In regards of the C12 and C13 ratio.
No, he was right in his assesment, but wrong in his conclusions: there are methods to detect the source of the 13C/12C decline in the atmosphere: the oxygen balance:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
That shows that the whole biosphere has a net uptake of CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, thus not the cause of the 13C/12C decline in the atmosphere. As all other natural sources are higher in 13C/12C ratio than in the atmosphere then only human emissions are to blame.
However, we know the consensus figures for the modern global CO2 atmospheric concentration (ie, MLO) are questionable, if not completely wrong, as per Beck. We know the proxy record for CO2 atmospheric concentration (ice cores in this case) are questionable, if not completely wrong, as per Drake.
Ha, here we go again… the late Beck’s data were 90% taken near huge sources (and sinks): towns, forests, below, inbetween and above leaves of growing crops, with a huge diurnal variability (hundreds of ppmv for Giessen) and a huge bias (+40 ppmv for Giessen) compared to Mauna Loa (+/- 4 ppmv over a day for the outliers, no diurnal variation).
I have tried to reason with Drake, he is completely unreasonable and tries to overwhelm you with non-relevant items. If that is your source of knowledge…
We know the method by which they were spliced together is also questionable.
That is pure nonsense: the late Jaworowski from who is this story did look at the wrong column in Neftel’s Siple Dome ice core table: he used the column of the age of the ice instead of the average gas age to compare with the Mauna Loa data. But as far as I know most of the CO2 is in the gas phase, which is much younger than the ice at the same depth…
Last but not least, Salby was completely wrong about migration of CO2 in ice cores. There is no measurable migration in ice cores.
Windchasers:
At November 11, 2013 at 1:25 pm you ask me
Firstly, I did NOT claim “the seasonal response to CO2 means anything about the non-seasonal response to CO2”.
I really do wish you would read what I actually wrote because your repeated misrepresentations are tiresome. I wrote in my post addressed to you at November 11, 2013 at 12:36 pm
If you cannot understand that those two paragraphs explain different mechanisms and their effects then I am at a loss to comprehend what you would understand.
The seasonal variation is a rapid response to temperature by rapid mechanisms. In my post at November 11, 2013 at 5:52 am
Clearly, if the rapid mechanisms were providing sinks which were saturating then their ability to sequester would reduce as saturation was neared. This does NOT happen.
The rapid mechanisms sequester such that atmospheric CO2 plummets until it reaches the minimum quasi-equilibrium set by the slowly changing slow mechanisms.
Indeed, I explained that this could be explained purely as an effect of ocean/air equilibrium without need to consider other sinks, saying
Your claim that I made an argument by assertion is ridiculous nonsense. I explained why your argument about saturated sinks does not agree with observations, and I linked to the observations. And I provided an explanation which agrees with the observations and I provided as illustration one scenario which fulfills that explanation.
You also ask me
I don’t see why I am expected to respond to an argument I did not make. However, I observe that it continues the untrue notion that “This is irrespective of yearly fluctuations in CO2 levels, obviously. We’re talking about how quickly the natural system can respond to a repeated annual forcing of ~6ppm here, and everything we see seems to say “not fast enough”. And, as I have already explained, the dynamics of the seasonal variation demonstrate that the rapid sequestration processes clearly ARE “fast enough”.
Anyway, what “repeated annual forcing of ~6ppm”?
Who says the anthropogenic emission is a “forcing” and why? I don’t.
I say the anthropogenic emission is a small addition to the natural emission. The idea that this emission is so important that it is overloading the carbon cycle is extraordinary. As I have said to you at November 11, 2013 at 12:36 pm it may be overloading the carbon cycle, but that requires some evidence to support it, and there is none.
Please consider what you are suggesting. A variation to the total emission of CO2 to the air of ~2% will overload the carbon cycle and so transform CO2 from being the very stuff of life itself into becoming the harbinger of Armageddon. Only 2% per year? Few natural processes are that constant!
In conclusion, I remind you of what I wrote to you about this at November 11, 2013 at 12:36.
Richard
Ferdi: “Some theoretical background:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/10/21/diary-date-murry-salby.html?currentPage=2#comments
comment by Paul_K at Oct 26, 2013 at 8:19 AM”
I worked all this out in detail a while back, following a discussion with Paul_K on Lucia’s Blackboard:
>>>
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=399
Firstly it can noted that the final term is the transient response that only affects the beginning of the series. The other two are a term that is in phase with the original input driving signal and an orthogonal term (90 degrees out of phase with the driving force).
At high frequencies the orthogonal term dominates, at low frequencies the in-phase term dominates. They are equal at ωτ=1. It is also interesting that orthogonal term is strongest at ωτ=1 and only becomes less significant at notably higher frequencies.
>>>
This was done for temp as fn of radiative forcing but it’s exactly the same linear relaxation model that is behind ocean outgassing. This is what is behind Salby’s basic argument: that short term it’s the orthogonal response that dominates and longer term it’s the in phase component that dominates.
This trivial model is effectively a ‘single slab’ ocean model so the analogy should not be pushed too far but it does tell us how each slab will behave. It would appear that the shallow slab (mixed layer) that I’m fitting has a very short ωτ , since the response amplitude is already dropping :
9ppmv/K/a from El Nino glitch.
8ppmn/K/a from inter-annual
4ppmn/K/a from inter-decadal
That indicates that coeff of the orthogonal is already dropping and is thus, already at the interdecadal scale the in phase term should start to dominate though there will be a mix of the two.
Once the 12mo cycle if filtered out (as I did in all this) there is a strong circa 3 year repetition – that is the origin of the 9month lag 😉
Probably at 60 year time scale the response of the out-gassing from the mixed layer, at least , will be in phase with temp.
Since there is a clear orthogonal signal and it magnitude can be detected from several different angles this should merit further thought.
Windchasers says:
November 11, 2013 at 2:21 pm
“That’s because without human emissions, CO2 concentration will drop over time, and that will cause natural sinks to drop.”
At which point, nature becomes a net source. You are so close. You really need to think this through.
The net anthropogenic input is the emissions minus the portion of the natural sinks which respond to that forcing.
Na = Ea – Una
The net natural input is the total natural input minus the natural sinks plus that portion of the sinks which responded to human inputs.
Nn = En – Un + Una
Total is
C = Nn + Na
En – Un can be negative, yet still we can have Nn positive. And, that is why the “mass balance” argument is trivial and meaningless.
Bart, thank you for replying to me. I thought that the mass balance argument was not able to prove anything and wasn’t meant to and you agreed with my thought but…
But Windchaser makes a good point.
The sinks do not know where the CO2 comes from. And as natural (good, old-fashioned traditional) sources of CO2 are bigger than the anthropogenic sources (I think) surely the response to a change in man’s emissions is a minor effect at best. Changes in natural emissions and absorption are what matter even though they respond to changes in man’s emissions.
That argument makes sense to me.
Although I still don’t see how the mass balance argument helps.
I hope my question has progressed and clarified the debate and not diverted and ossified it.
Greg Goodman says:
November 11, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Basically, in the frequency band relevant to the timeline since 1958, you have a response which is -20 dB/decade and -90 deg in phase, i.e., which is an integrating action. There really is no way around it.
M Courtney says:
November 11, 2013 at 3:17 pm
“And as natural (good, old-fashioned traditional) sources of CO2 are bigger than the anthropogenic sources (I think) surely the response to a change in man’s emissions is a minor effect at best.”
Yes, that is true. But, it goes beyond the scope of concluding whether the mass balance argument means anything or not.
It is my, and others’, contention that the mass balance argument is inconclusive. That, as you say, the response to a change in man’s emissions is not necessarily significant based on that argument alone. But, Windchaser and dikran are claiming that it does, by itself, establish that humans are driving atmospheric CO2.
Bart, thanks again for answering me.
So it seems that the question is really unanswered still. For the question of “what does the mass balance argument mean” is actually one of “how significant is the evidence for the magnitude of man’s influence on the CO2 sinks” ? ?
And that is a question that needs to be answered if we are to tell how impactful man’s emissions are.
This is way beyond me – a bear of very little brain. I just hope that the question I asked helped clarify the debate for others like me who are lurking. Or maybe even for those who are engaging.
How significant is the evidence for the magnitude of man’s influence on the CO2 sinks?
richardscourtney: Nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 to the air for each molecule of CO2 emitted by human activity.
Where is that documented? Not that I necessarily disbelieve you. I expect you posted or published it somewhere and I missed it.
respectfully,
Matthew
Stephen Wilde: In particular, in the absence of GHGs a radiatively inert atmosphere around a rotating sphere will experience uneven surface heating and thus density differentials will arise together with a convective circulation that would prevent an isothermal atmosphere such as you describe.
Where did rgb at duke assert an isothermal atmosphere?
I’d like to see the supporting evidence for this assertion.
Richard. Thank you for your 8-58am swipe but 1% of something as enormous as Natures Co2 emissions is rather “huge” in my book.
Of these I would suspect up-welling deep ocean waters as being the main contributor.
Had you read on past that offending word you would have found that we,seemingly from what you say, concur on Co2 being a most unlikely temperature driver even if we arrived by very different routes.
But there must be some correlation between increased anthropogenic Co2.emissions and increasing atmospheric Co2 concentrations if the figures being given are correct.
Otherwise,do we really know the Co2 content of our Oceanic at depths >2000m say? and the quantity degassed as it wells to (near) surface?
Typhoons being acts of God really only works if you work in insurance or something. Its an occurrence of nature, though, not of man, for sure.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
“Indeed they are as there is constant upwelling from the deep oceans, which release their CO2 when warmed near the surface. The opposite happens near the poles, where the cold polar waters are permanent sinks. But as long as sinks and sources are in equilibrium, that doesn’t change the amounts residing in the atmosphere.”
There is more CO2 release in the tropics in El Nino episodes during less upwelling. Arctic waters have seen a lot of warming since the mid to late 1990’s. And global average surface wind speeds dropped significantly through the period of fastest warming, which has a big impact on oceanic CO2 absorption rates.
Matthew R Marler says:
November 11, 2013 at 4:56 pm
“Where did rgb at duke assert an isothermal atmosphere?”
He said:
“If you leave radiative coupling out, the atmospheric gas will only cool at the surface of the Earth, because in that case only the surface of the Earth will be able to radiate energy away to space. Since warm air rises (due to buoyancy forces) and since air, once warmer than the surface, will be unable to lose heat once it has lifted away from the surface and will always be displaced and held aloft by cooler air underneath, the atmosphere would promptly invert — coolest at the bottom, hottest at the top, and a nearly smooth gradient from coolest to warmest.”
which omits the inevitable circulation caused by uneven surface heating creating density differentials and doesn’t realise that simple uplift has a cooling effect because kinetic energy gets converted to potential energy with height.
Nor does he realise that simple adiabatic descent has a warming effect as potential energy is converted back to kinetic energy.
Good at physics but poor on meteorology.
Stephen Wilde: which omits the inevitable circulation caused by uneven surface heating creating density differentials and doesn’t realise that simple uplift has a cooling effect because kinetic energy gets converted to potential energy with height.
The quote from him explicitly recognizes temperature gradients: “If you leave radiative coupling out, the atmospheric gas will only cool at the surface of the Earth, because in that case only the surface of the Earth will be able to radiate energy away to space. Since warm air rises (due to buoyancy forces) and since air, once warmer than the surface, will be unable to lose heat once it has lifted away from the surface and will always be displaced and held aloft by cooler air underneath, the atmosphere would promptly invert — coolest at the bottom, hottest at the top, and a nearly smooth gradient from coolest to warmest.”
That does not assert an isothermal atmosphere. I think that you must mean something else.