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.
You know if he’s a real Lord he’ll be able to pull Excalibur from the rock. And he has two Holy Grails!
I think I should give myself a title.
Tigre of the Hill People – has a ring.
Don’t mind me. I’m just giddy from lack of sleep.
‘In the past year, I said, four separate groups haf contacted me.’
My Lord, do I detect a German accent?
Patrick and Gareth: can we just accept that: 1) Chris Monckton is a Viscount by birth; 2) Technically, he is a member of the HoL – but cannot ‘sit’ there; 3) As a result of 2, he does not participate in the making of laws so needs no mandate and no vote. 4) He is as entitled to the courtesy of his rank as you both are to expect to be called ‘Mr’ or ‘Sir’ when dealing in life.
Now that we have got over that little tantrum, and having played the man, perhaps you can now play the ball and tell us (we wait with bated breath) what your technical conclusion – pro or anti – are to Chris Monckton’s piece.
“Snotrocket says:
November 10, 2013 at 6:19 am”
If only he was, errrm, less “Holier than thou”, maybe. The fact the he classifies “others” who, gosh shock horror, disagree with him, as “trolls” and now claims his “position” was elected “by a Higher Authority” suggests he is, somehow, above us. What higher authority?
Gareth Phillips says:
November 10, 2013 at 3:59 am
“Unfortunately he did not get the opportunity to talk to our real masters, the unelected Kommissars of the European tyranny-by-clerk”
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And who elected you Monckton to the House of Lords to which you assert to be a member? At least ‘ Edinburgh’s daft wee parliament’ was elected by the people of Scotland who may irritate you by longer being seen as an English Lords property, but who have a right to a democratic process. Stick to climate comments , otherwise the words ‘glasshouse’ and ‘throwing stones’ tends to spring to mind when you use this site to roll out your right wing landed gentry view of the world.
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Me thinks you are barking up the wrong tree. I took it he is referring to the ” Boffins in Brussels”.
Chris Wright says:
November 10, 2013 at 3:54 am
I think Salby’s theory is very interesting, but I am a little – shall we say – sceptical.
So, is there observational evidence, e.g. in the ice cores, that supports the theory?
The ice cores clearly show that CO2 follows temperature, but this is over thousands of years. As the mechanism has a delay of around 800 years (oceans absorbing/emitting CO2) it only works over thousands of years, and could not explain the modern CO2 increase, which has happened over 100 years.
So is there evidence in the ice cores or elsewhere of CO2 rises being caused by temperature rises on the scale of a century or so? How about the MWP and Roman warm periods? If they don’t show any rises on this scale then it’s unlikely the theory could explain the 20th century CO2 rise.
Having said that, it would be wonderful if he were right. It would mean that not only the temperature rise was natural, but the very thing blamed for the rise was also natural.
Chris
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Yes this also “concerned” me. But is this not just a question of resolution. Ice cores can only point to very long-term changes as they “average” or smooth out shorter term variations like those that have and are occurring in the 20th and 21 Century.
Patrick and Gareth,
OK, you don’t like Monckton. We got that.
You got anything intelligent to contribute on the subject matter or not?
Ron Richey
CMoB:
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.
===
He’s been saying this ‘just about be to be published’ for two or three years now. The story is wearing thin.
I’m very interesting in seeing his work. The question of T vs CO2 is crucial and has never been properly assessed.
If he is being obstructed in certain journals he needs to go public with it any way. If there is anything to his work he is playing to warmists game by delaying getting this seen and verified.
I know Jo Nova has been encouraging him to publish too, the more he waits, the more it looks like he knows it will no stand up to scrutiny.
Let’s have it !
Patrick, you say: “The fact the he classifies “others” who, gosh shock horror, disagree with him, as “trolls”…”
You see, Patrick, if you go for the man rather than the ball, you earn the name. On the other hand, you play the inverse-snobbery card and expect Chris to give you a courtesy you have not earned.
Personally, I’d welcome your take on what Monckton/Salby has said – at a technical level – as that would help to move the argument forward.
BTW: You do realise that we (in the UK – and the rest of the EU) are governed by an UNELECTED commission in Brussels, who have difficulty accounting for their enormous expenditure. I figure, I’d rather be governed by honest men like Monckton than faceless pols in Brussels.
[i]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.[/i]
I can think of an even bigger killer than cold: tyrannical governments. I’ll take the cold because:
* It will wake the world up to the Watermelon tyrants, who will be disgraced and kicked out
* The cost of energy will drop again, to keep us warm in the colder climate
* Food will be cheaper; farmers will simply adapt their crops to suit the cold, but we won’t be subsidising stupid biofuels
* The cost of EVERYTHING will be less, due to no more tax-funding of stupid Green projects
* The Third World might just stand a chance of industrialising and lifting themselves out of poverty
Aye, give me the cold scenario ANY day.
Tom in Florida says:
November 10, 2013 at 4:59 am
Hi Tom.
The processes of creation and destruction of ozone above the tropopause are finely balanced and more complex than the basic description that you supplied.
Changes in the mix of solar wavelengths and particles (especially ultra violet wavelengths) appear to cause significant changes in that balance at different heights and different latitudes
I’d better not go too far into detail here because this thread is mostly about CO2 quantities.
I put my climate description into play because it explains how solar changes alter ocean temperatures which in turn drive CO2 amounts in the atmosphere.
The recent solar changes have only so far turned warming into a temperature plateau and there is the complicating factor of CO2 amounts also being affected by the 1000 to 1500 year thermohaline circulation and so the current fall in solar activity has not yet been enough to stop the background rise in CO2 emissions from the oceans.
We can see that sunlight on oceans is what drives the CO2 content of the atmosphere from this:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/evidence-that-oceans-not-man-control-co2-emissions/
which supports Murry Salby’s proposals.
Monckton complains:
So far only one troll has surfaced, saying he is dismayed at my calling Scotland’s daft wee parliament Scotland’s daft wee parliament.
Response:
As I said, you may not like it, but unlike you it is elected and reflects the will of the people of Scotland.You seem to want power returned to the UK, via UKIP, but are vehemently opposed to the people of Scotland having a say in self determination. Do I detect some cognitive dissonance there? By the way, just because I point out a truth does not make me a troll, annoying maybe, but tough. You utilise this site to campaign for a for your own right wing masters in UKIP, then whine when someone calls you to task on it. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
Monckton continues
Finally, the troll asks by whom I was elected to the House of Lords. I was elected by a Higher Authority.
Response:
Ah, I see, Monckton answers only to his God, who blessed us mere mortals by placing him on this earth. Some may contest that Monckton , some may even say it was an accident of birth which gives rather smaller mandate for governing than being elected by your fellow citizens. I believe in common with many that I would rather be governed by politicians I have a say in electing rather than those who govern by accident of birth or war. ( Please don’t moan about EU commissioners, I did not vote for Cameron but I accept his political role) Your politics differ,but you follow the same political line as North Korean political philosophy.
” 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.”
Preliminary estimations:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=233
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=223
Here is Central England temperature from the Met Office which over the years has been shown to be a reasonable proxy and indicator of Northern Hemisphere temperature.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
As can be seen, here in Britain we have declined nearly .0.75 degrees centigrade since the peak reached in 2000. In the NH-temperatures may follow the CET lead as they have in the past. There are however many uncertainties so I certainly wouldn’t bet on it as it would be a reversal of a long term warming trend we can observe for the last 350 years.
tonyb
Christopher, I would humbly ask you to reconsider the line “Whether they like it or not, typhoons are acts of God, not of Man.”
“Typhoons are acts of nature,” perhaps?
I say that only because the warmist blogosphere are likely to latch onto this and effectively dismiss anything else that you say. A belief in “god” is a personal option, IMHO, and discussing important stuff such as (the existence or not of) CAGW is too easily derailed by the opposition who would prefer not to debate the facts but smear their opponents.
Apart from that, more power to your elbow.
” I certainly wouldn’t bet on it as it would be a reversal of a long term warming trend we can observe for the last 350 years.”
Well it looks like a fairly convincing reversal of the bit we were supposed to panic about: the late 20th “run-away warming”.
“… over the years has been shown to be a reasonable proxy and indicator of Northern Hemisphere temperature.”
Were does that claim come from?
I’m not saying you’re wrong but I’ve learnt to mistrust such casual affirmations from any source in this game.
For those who asked about more recent CO2 vs temp correlations you can find this in Chapter 5, “The Cryosphere” by Easterbrook, Ollier, and Carter in the just published NIPCC volume (available online). Take a look at figures 5.7.1, 5.7.2, (you can also find these on Joanne Nova’s blog) and 5.7.3. The source of figure 5.7.3, which shows more recent CO2/temp relationships is Humlum, O., Stordahl, J., and Solheim, J., 2012, The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature: Global and Planetary Change, vol. 100, p. 51–69.
“Ron Richey says:
November 10, 2013 at 7:01 am”
The issue is not about liking someone or not. Monckton is not my friend. Don’t see your point there. He attributes the label of “troll” to anyone who disagrees with his point of view. His responses clearly show that.
“I say that only because the warmist blogosphere are likely to latch onto this and effectively dismiss anything else that you say. ”
No one should have to deny their faith to discuss science. The idea that regarding the scientific method as a useful tool is incompatible with spritual belief is a mistake only made by those that understand neither.
Compare:
In the beginning there was the word and the word was God …..
In the beginning there was a band, it was a big bang.
I don’t find either position more compelling than the other.
Christians believe there is an invisible, undetectable force holding the universe together. They call it God, or ‘the light’.
Scientists believe there is an invisible, undetectable force holding the universe together, they call it the Higgs field , filled with ‘dark energy and dark matter.
The latter is as much a statement of faith as the former.
I have listened to Dr. Salby’s lecture in London, November 6 and asked him a few questions where he answered rather evasive. Unfortunately I wasn’t properly dressed (no tie…) to follow the organizers in the catacombs of the Parliament to have a follow up of the discussions.
Let us start with the math: It is perfectly possible to match the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere with the integral of the temperature anomaly, simply by choosing the right offset, as there is already a linear slope in the temperature trend, that will give a slightly quadratic increase (as can be seen in the CO2 trend) over time. But that is only curve fitting without a physical basis.
It is as perfectly possible to use a factor (0.53 will do) for human emissions which are slightly quadratic increasing over time. That gives a perfect match for the trend:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_acc_1960_cur.jpg
Over the past 50(/110) years, the match between increase in the atmosphere and human emissions is almost perfect:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_cur.jpg
while that between temperature and increase in the atmosphere is somewhat less:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_co2_1960_cur.jpg
For the derivative, we see that more clearly:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Where human emissions are twice the increase in the atmosphere and the variability around the trend is from temperature variability, see Wood for Trees
As Wood for Trees has the human emissions not in its database, we can’t plot them together there, but the previous plot shows what it is with yearly emissions.
As you see, there is no trend in the derivative of the temperature, thus temperature itself has zero influence on the slope of dCO2/dt, except if there was a process which releases CO2 non-linear with temperature (which fortunately doesn’t exist).
The huge variability of the CO2 rate of change is clearly linked to the huge year-by-year variability of (ocean) temperature, while the trend is linked to human emissions.
Then Henry’s law. Indeed Henry’s law shows that an increase of 1 K of ocean surface temperature will increase the pCO2 of seawater with 16 µatm. That means that an increase of ~16 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere will restore the in- and outfluxes between oceans and atmosphere back to what they were before the temperature increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
There is no way that a (small) sustained increase in temperature would give a constant increase in CO2 in the atmosphere without suppressing the influx from the equatorial upwelling from the (deep) oceans and increasing the outflux into the polar (deep) ocean sinks. It is an equilibrium reaction, highly depending of (partial) pressure differences of CO2 between the ocean waters and the atmosphere.
Moreover, look at the influence of temperature on the CO2 variability:
for seasons to 2-3 years, the CO2 variability is 4-5 ppmv/K temperature change. For 50 years to multi-millennia, the CO2 variability is 8 ppmv/K (Law Dome: MWP-LIA, Vostok: 420 kyr, Dome C: 800 kyr). Over the past 50 years, it should be suddenly over 100 ppmv/K, which again disappears over the longer time scales…
The whole biosphere is currently a net sink for CO2, as can be deduced from the oxygen balance:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
The oceans are a net sink for CO2, as regular ships and buoys measurements show:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
Then the ice core “migration”. There is no measurable migration of CO2 in ice cores. What Dr. Salby has done is calculating a theoretical migration to fit his hypothesis and isn’t based on any real world data. If there was migration as he supposes, then the maxima during an interglacial would have been 10 times higher than measured, but as migration does influence the difference between peaks and valleys, that doesn’t change the average. That means that the minima of 180 ppmv measured in the ice cores during 90% of the time in glacial periods would have been much lower, even negative, effectively destroying near all life on earth… Moreover, such a migration doesn’t stop until all differences are gone, thus for each interglacial back 100kyr in time, the peaks would fade further and further, but that isn’t seen at all.
Thus what Dr. Salby proposes may be mathematically possible, but practically non-existing.
“Snotrocket says:
November 10, 2013 at 7:04 am”
Going for the man rather than the ball? Maybe you should direct that accusation at Monckton. He has stated that a “higher authority” elected him. What authority was that?
Patrick says:
November 10, 2013 at 4:24 am
“In debates about “climate” I often link to the RSS satellite graph, as above. In response, I am told by alarmists, that the RSS satellite system is unreliable however, they never support their claims with actual evidence. Is the RSS system subject to satellite orbit decay and thermometer device error and is there any evidence to support that claim?”
Here’s what Roy Spencer says:
”Anyway, my UAH cohort and boss John Christy, who does the detailed matching between satellites, is pretty convinced that the RSS data is undergoing spurious cooling because RSS is still using the old NOAA-15 satellite which has a decaying orbit, to which they are then applying a diurnal cycle drift correction based upon a climate model, which does not quite match reality. We have not used NOAA-15 for trend information in years…we use the NASA Aqua AMSU, since that satellite carries extra fuel to maintain a precise orbit.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/on-the-divergence-between-the-uah-and-rss-global-temperature-records/
”Based upon the evidence to date, it is pretty clear that (1) the UAH dataset is more accurate than RSS, and that (2) the RSS practice of using a climate model to correct for the effect of diurnal drift of the satellite orbits on the temperature measurements is what is responsible for the spurious behavior noted in the above graph.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/more-on-the-divergence-between-uah-and-rss-global-temperatures/
Any climate theory calculation based on total solar radiance misses the fact that Earth is covered with physically stable (IE land, water, etc), physically unstable (IE clouds, dust, ash, etc), generally consistent (IE total amount of desert, total amount of vegetation, etc), and highly variable (IE extent of snow and/or ice, or total cloud cover, etc) substances that of their own accord readily and strongly affect TSI received at Earth’s surface to a far greater degree than TSI varies of its own accord.
Play around with the following interactive to see how much these substances affect Earth’s temperature via albedo changes. And notice the degree of variability and “estimate” each substance has across research studies.
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/sun_radiation_at_earth.html
irradiance Pam, not radiance. Typed too fast.
“Snotrocket says:
November 10, 2013 at 7:04 am”
BTW, I am from the UK. I am fully aware of the EU (Formally known as the common market then) influence on the UK, since 1973, hence the growth in popularity of the UKIP party.
Monckton, by his own words, had nothing better to do than be “science adviser” to Thatcher between 1982 and 1986.