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.
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Bart says:
This is both not demonstrated and not relevant. It is not demonstrated because it is based on confusing signal with noise. I.e., it is not even clear that there is anything to explain regarding the temperature record over the last decade and a half…Plus, we know that there are various things that could explain what little there might be to explain (e.g., an unusually pronounced and extended solar minimum).
It is not relevant because if there is a discrepancy between theory and empirical data, the best place to look is at the science that is most uncertain. In that case, it would involve things like the aerosol forcing, the uncertainty in the cloud feedback and so forth. To doubt the basic science of the radiative greenhouse effect, for which there is overwhelming evidence is unjustified.
And, finally, even if one does want to doubt the most basic science, one does that by introducing arguments about the atmospheric science that agree with basic physics principles, not by making up physics principles for which there is no evidence.
Phil said
“If it doesn’t cool to space it stays at 4 and never goes to 1!”
It cools via conversion of KE to PE regardless of radiative capability. The initial uplift is caused by uneven surface heating causing the parcel to become less dense and thus lighter than surrounding parcels. Once uplift begins so does the loss of KE to PE and cooling will follow the lapse rate upwards.
I previously gave you good links to all the relevant physics.
Having cooled it becomes denser than the warmer air coming up behind.
It gets pushed away to one side and starts to descend elsewhere.
This is all meteorology 101 and leads to the creation of low pressure and high pressure areas including the Hadley and Ferrel cells.
In practice, the uplift and descent is spread around across the horizontal plane so for example a large high pressure cell will be comprised of a central core with a vast circular region of nearly horizontal winds that slowly descend towards a large surface area and in the process of descending they become warmer at the dry adiabatic lapse rate.
When that happens on the night or winter side of the planet that warming effect from warm winds will heat the surface or reduce the rate of surface cooling.
On a global scale that results in accumulating warmth at the planet’s surface and explains the 33K surface temperature enhancement without invoking GHGs at all.
This is not my invention. It is standard meteorology.
Joel said:
“Actually, the net effect of convection…at least if you include the processes of evaporation and condensation in the mix…is to transport energy away from the surface ”
Don’t mix up adiabatic ascent and descent caused by uneven surface heating with the water cycle.
The former, being adiabatic, neither warms nor cools the surface directly since.the conversion of KE to PE during uplift is equal and opposite to the conversion of PE to KE on the descent. That is what ‘adiabatic’ means. It is a purely redistributive process but since it takes TIME the energy tied up as PE within the system adds to total system energy content and the surface temperature will rise. The more PE there is stored in the vertical column the more will be returned to warm the night or winter side whilst insolation on the day or summer side continues at a steady rate.
Changing the TIME for the adiabatic cycle can adjust system energy content and stabilise surface temperatures. That is where atmospheric height changes become relevant. Such height changes adjust TIMING to keep the system stable.
No radiative gases needed.
Adding radiative gases or the phase changes of water on top of that adiabatic background process does transfer energy away from the surface and out to space but that is independent of the adiabatic cycle.
I will persevere a little longer since the initial blank incomprehension has been followed by questions about the adiabatic cycle and meteorology in general which I am prepared to try and answer.
Trick said:
“No readings of DWIR of any amount…”
You can have a haze of IR without any net DWIR or UWIR within it.
If you doubt my explanation as to why IR sensors have been misused then do please say so.
Henry@Stephen Fisher
there is re-radiation in the atmosphere, both a warming effect (think of the fact that a cloudy night in winter is warmer than a bright night) and a cooling effect:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
They measured this back radiation as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction was sun-earth (day)-moon(unlit by sun) -earth (night).
The GHG’s (I have repeatedly questioned the term, as we don’t know the net effect of each, e.g. I am sure more ozone causes more cooling,) re-radiate in the absorptive region, hence we can measure as bounced back from the moon.
I have however often wondered how it would be possible for <1% of the atmosphere to cause a 33K warming effect….on earth
my suggestion is to look for that warming effect TOA, mostly. Hence we are now cooling whilst ozone is increasing
remember an inactive sun is hotter, or rather: emits more E-UV – small shift in the distribution TSI
Joel 9:26am:
Yes, agreed. 2nd law requires Stephen’s adiabatic processes in reality to be diabatic, some entropy escapes into the wild in their workings. The pressure is not quite isobaric and temperature not quite unchanged in the main atm. processes discussed.
Bart 9:24am: “..to raise mass above the Earth requires energy from somewhere.”
Of course. Descending the mass returns the exact energy to source for an adiabatic process – along Phil.’s Carnot cycle back to 1. As in reply to Joel, though we call processes adiabatic to learn about them, no real process is adiabatic. No perfect insulation. Entropy always increases in a real process, entropy only remains constant in theory.
“Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is not heating the Earth as expected.”
You have to be real careful with words here or use clear eqn.s. Added IR active gas in theory enables increase near surface atm. Tmean, decreased atm. Tmean at great height and no effect at all on overall Tmean b/c no net energy is used up by the added IR active gas so no overall net increase in atm. thermal energy.
Tmean of earth’s surface has increased pretty much as predicted by Callendar 1938 give or take. Coincidence? Probably not, Callendar’s a priori reasoning/theory is solid even given the criticism he discusses; the IR active gas theory as he applied still exists in modern text books.
Stephen 10:59am: “It cools via conversion of KE to PE regardless of radiative capability.”
Yes, then warms exactly by conversion PE to KE to arrive back at Phil.’s 1, here p*V term changes too along the way as you can see, but gas parcel enthalpy is conserved coming back to 1 – no external heating by any adiabatic parcel. In reality this is not possible, entropy increases so cannot get back to point 1 (Joel’s issue). Sadie Carnot had this figured out early 1800s IIRC some 40 years before Clausius but Carnot didn’t write it down and Clausius got the credit and enjoyed naming rights to entropy.
Stephen writes: “This is not my invention.”
Unfortunately for Stephen, this is not true. It IS Stephen’s invention of make believe reality. Meteorology 101 co-exists with electromagnetic theory unlike Stephen’s missing EM Theory almost entirely along with missing gas enthalpy.
“…meteorology in general which I am prepared to try and answer.”
There is no try, only do or do not. Stephen is in the do not category regards atm. thermo. in modern standard meteorology 101. But I think Stephen can learn, he can read a text (but doesn’t), he can read this thread. So far this EM science is lost on Stephen. Astonishingly lost, blank comprehension indeed.
Henry, I have no problem with a net radiative flux between Earth and Moon and back again.
Nor do I have a problem with solar energy flowing through the Earth’s atmosphere from surface to space.
Where I do have a problem is with the idea from radiation theory that there is a separate net DWIR or UWIR flux within an atmosphere that has a strict thermal gradient (lapse rate) induced by declining atmospheric density with height (ultimately a product of only mass, gravity and insolation)
If there were such a separate net flux within an atmosphere either way then the atmosphere could not be retained.
The answer has to be a matter of the adiabatic cycle juggling PE and KE as necessary to ensure ToA radiative balance when forcing elements operate either towards warming or cooling. That would cover atmospheric composition changes caused by E-UV variations too.
As for re-radiation within an atmosphere I think it nets out to zero for no net DWIR or UWIR apart from solar energy passing straight through.
.
Stephen 11:29am: Yes, there can be a haze of IR without any net DWIR or UWIR.
The surface atm. UWIR being from solid & water object Tmean ~288K and the DWIR being from a gaseous object .LT. than 288K reducing by the environmental lapse rate means under avg. conditions get net amount of upward IR near surface.
I do doubt your explanation as to why IR sensors have been misused simply because you do not appear to be any kind of expert on EM Theory upon which they are based.
Trick says:
November 18, 2013 at 12:18 pm
“Tmean of earth’s surface has increased pretty much as predicted by Callendar 1938 give or take. Coincidence? Probably no…”
Actually, probably yes. The mean trend had been going on for some time, before the increase in CO2 could account for it. So, there is no reason to expect that, that trend just stopped, and CO2 warming took over without a hitch in stride.
Moreover, increasing temperature causes a direct increase in atmospheric CO2, which is very obvious. Significant increase in temperature due to CO2 would then create a positive feedback loop – temperature increases, increasing CO2, increasing temperature, increasing CO2, and so on, until the system would be driven to a physical limit far beyond our present conditions.
No, sooner or later, people will have to face the fact: the theory is broken. It could be cloud feedback, as Joel suggests, or it could be a fundamental problem with extrapolating laboratory experiments on the ground to the entire globe. But, AGW is dead. The continued kicking is just automatic reflex action at this point.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 10:59 am
Phil said
“If it doesn’t cool to space it stays at 4 and never goes to 1!”
It cools via conversion of KE to PE regardless of radiative capability. The initial uplift is caused by uneven surface heating causing the parcel to become less dense and thus lighter than surrounding parcels. Once uplift begins so does the loss of KE to PE and cooling will follow the lapse rate upwards.
If that is the case the total energy content remains the same which is what the adiabatic curve is all about!
The descent would follow the same path, what actually happens is that IR is lost to space and the energy content is reduced and the lower path is followed.
I previously gave you good links to all the relevant physics.
As I recall you just repeated the one I cited.
<em.Having cooled it becomes denser than the warmer air coming up behind.
It gets pushed away to one side and starts to descend elsewhere.
This is all meteorology 101 and leads to the creation of low pressure and high pressure areas including the Hadley and Ferrel cells.
I suspect you have mistaken meteorology 101!
Stephen Wilde says:
How does changing the time change adjust the system energy content? The energy content of the system will only change if energy is absorbed from outside the system or emitted to outside the system.
That’s because you haven’t done anything but write down some words. Show me the equations. In particular, show me USING ACCEPTED EQUATIONS OF PHYSICS how energy conservation is enforced at the top of the atmosphere. Hint: You won’t be able to because it is not. The only way to enforce energy conservation using accepted equations of physics and have the surface be at an average temperature of 288 K is to have the atmosphere absorb some of the radiation emitted by the surface.
Do you really think that just writing a bunch of sentences constitutes creating a theory, let alone demonstrating its physical viability?
Mechanical energy is only conserved when there are no non-conservative forces acting.
Again, Stephen, we are at the point where you need to explain things using correct physical principles. If you believe that radiation “is absorbed in the form of PE”, you need to explain what that even means and where it is discussed in a physics textbook. All the physics textbooks I have ever seen talk about radiation being absorbed by elements that can absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation.
Yes, it is pointless because you are just making up the physics as you go along and it isn’t pretty.
Only those who are ignorant of physics (and are unable to accept the opinion of those who are not ignorant of physics). None of the ones who understand physics, even if they are skeptics like rgb, Roy Spencer, or Richard Lindzen, would see the points you have made as being anything other than nonsense.
So, basically, you want those folks to believe that you understand atmospheric physics better than myself, Nick Stokes, rgb, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, and countless others, despite the fact that you have never demonstrated that you can do the simplest physics calculation or understand the most basic physics formulas. That is a tall order!
Phil.
Your diagram works for radiative gases but not non radiative gases.
The link I referred to previously was this one:
http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter6/adiab_warm.html
Bart 1:35pm: Callendar 1938 discusses the ocean, feedback & atm. circulation effects; he had reasoned them for his work.
“But, AGW is dead. The continued kicking is just automatic reflex action at this point.”
Note Callendar writes the effect of providing heat and power on Tmean: “..is likely to prove beneficial to mankind in several ways…important at the margin of cultivation…growth of… plants…return of the deadly glaciers should be delayed…” I definitely don’t call that CAGW but maybe AGW depending on your view of CIs.
Table VI 20th century anomaly prediction is fairly close to that recorded & in the bag, clock is still running for both 21st and 22nd century anomaly predictions. The man was clearly not fearful of prediction past tomorrow’s or even 5 day weather.
Trick says:
November 18, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“Callendar 1938 discusses the ocean, feedback & atm. circulation effects; he had reasoned them for his work.”
You need to provide a citation and a link. It is unlikely that he was an expert in feedback theory, or that he had the data on hand to know how inexorably temperature increases produce an acceleration in CO2 concentration.
“Table VI 20th century anomaly prediction is fairly close to that recorded & in the bag, clock is still running for both 21st and 22nd century anomaly predictions.”
Given a very large pool of prognosticators, it is hardly unlikely you would be unable to find one which guessed more-or-less right. Past results are not indicative of future performance.
Moreover, Callendar got the atmospheric concentration totally wrong, so guessing the right temperature is hardly persuasive.
…hardly unlikely you would be able to find one…
Bart 2:25pm: Citation & link? Here you go, this paper is cited often in the literature, much discussed, IMO a good move toward a theory of climate:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49706427503/pdf
Shows he had enough data on CO2 production on hand plus reasoning why some data was suspect whether or not you buy the reasoning. I don’t consider this work as a guess or the best guess left standing – rather a reasoned prediction. Not in the genre of: right answer, wrong method, bad science. Think he would agree, given so many variables, the predictions are subject to the usual known variations, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Got the atm. CO2 concentration totally wrong? How so?
Lets apply some more thought to Phil’s diagram here:
http://ej.iop.org/images/0143-0807/33/1/002/Full/ejp406554fig08.jpg
It must only apply to a radiative gas because a non radiative gas on descending would simply reverse the route 4 to 3 with no loss or gain of energy content which is as per my contention about the ability of such gases to warm the surface on a descent phase.
Applying it to a radiative gas one can see that it pumps out energy to space between 4 and 1 and then descends with less total energy content to point 2 and then picks up another load of energy before rising again to repeat the process.
Which is exactly my contention about the ability of radiative gases to absorb lower down, rise higher and dump radiation to space.
Note that the non radiative gases pick up the energy they need to rise up in the atmosphere from an unevenly solar heated surface.
In contrast, the radiative gases can pick up their extra energy by absorption from an elevated position and so need not involve the surface.
Overall, does that not support my contentions ?
Trick says:
November 18, 2013 at 2:56 pm
Thank you for the link. I see no indication that he considered any dynamic relationship between temperature and the production of atmospheric CO2. Here is another interesting link on Guy Callendar which explains my previous comment.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Overall, does that not support my contentions ?
—
It does until you realize it makes clear the ghe effect is codswallop.and you gladly fall back on one of the many distractions you’ve employed time and again to make yourself feel better.
Eric, I’m puzzled.
I know the radiative GHG effect is codswallop so isn’t your comment directed at Phil ?
We are still left with the mass induced greenhouse effect though.
We can use that neat chart of Phil’s to take another logical step.
On the face of it radiative GHGs allow a loss of some of their energy direct to space thereby by passing a preliminary trip back to the surface so if an atmosphere had 95% CO2 such as Venus or Mars one would expect the whole atmosphere to lose energy faster than energy arrives from space with the consequent loss of atmosphere by freezing to the ground.
In fact that does not happen. Nor does the opposite ever happen so the fact is that atmospheres are retained whatever the mix of radiative and non radiative gases.
The only way to achieve that is for the average height of radiative gases to settle at ba level where the thermal effect of a loss of radiative energy to space is offset by the thermal effect of the radiative energy sent back to the ground for a zero net effect on either solar energy throughput and surface temperature.
Phil’s chart in demonstrating the different thermal effects of radiative and non radiative gases makes that conclusion inevitable.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Phil.
Your diagram works for radiative gases but not non radiative gases.
Since our atmosphere is a radiative gas that is appropriate!
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Lets apply some more thought to Phil’s diagram here:
http://ej.iop.org/images/0143-0807/33/1/002/Full/ejp406554fig08.jpg
It must only apply to a radiative gas because a non radiative gas on descending would simply reverse the route 4 to 3 with no loss or gain of energy content which is as per my contention about the ability of such gases to warm the surface on a descent phase.
And so would be incapable of warming the surface which I understood to be the opposite of your position.
Applying it to a radiative gas one can see that it pumps out energy to space between 4 and 1 and then descends with less total energy content to point 2 and then picks up another load of energy before rising again to repeat the process.
Which is exactly my contention about the ability of radiative gases to absorb lower down, rise higher and dump radiation to space.
Note that the non radiative gases pick up the energy they need to rise up in the atmosphere from an unevenly solar heated surface.
Since our atmosphere is a radiative gas what are you talking about?
In contrast, the radiative gases can pick up their extra energy by absorption from an elevated position and so need not involve the surface.
Overall, does that not support my contentions ?
You appear to still believe that the atmosphere is divided into two parts, radiative gases and non-radiative, which operate independently of each other, as you have been told on numerous occasions this is incorrect! So if that is your contention it isn’t supported.
Phil said:
“Since our atmosphere is a radiative gas that is appropriate!”
The vast majority is not radiative.
You have to treat the different effects of radiative and non radiative gases separately as your chart clearly shows. Both work in parallel during uplift and descent but their thermal effects are very different.
The fact is that contrary to the radiative theory of gases it is the non radiative gases that warm the surface because they require energy to be passed back to the surface by conduction before it can be lost to space. That is what raises the surface temperature by 33K
Your chart illustrates the point very effectively. May I make use of it elsewhere ?
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Phil said:
“Since our atmosphere is a radiative gas that is appropriate!”
The vast majority is not radiative.
You have to treat the different effects of radiative and non radiative gases separately as your chart clearly shows. Both work in parallel during uplift and descent but their thermal effects are very different.
The different species in a gas mixture do not behave separately as you have been told repeatedly, this is the source of your fundamental error in your ‘theory’. They can not be treated separately.
The fact is that contrary to the radiative theory of gases it is the non radiative gases that warm the surface because they require energy to be passed back to the surface by conduction before it can be lost to space. That is what raises the surface temperature by 33K
Your chart illustrates the point very effectively. May I make use of it elsewhere ?
It’s the Joule cycle, not my chart and it’s applicable to the radiative gas, air.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 8:56 pm
Eric, I’m puzzled.
I know the radiative GHG effect is codswallop so isn’t your comment directed at Phil ?
Yep. A hypothetically unrestrained Phil (and others).