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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Stephen Wilde says:
November 18, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Konrad would be nodding his head vigorously.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/stephen-wilde-the-ignoring-of-adiabatic-processes-big-mistake/comment-page-3/#comment-41489
Bart says:
November 18, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Not everyone dismissed Callendar completely. Although the infrared radiation absorption saturation question was considered settled—the question of absorption of CO2 by the sea was not. It was well known that for every molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere, there were 50 in the sea. But then why didn’t the sea absorb the 51st molecule?
The remarkable point is that Callendar pointed to the exact levels of CO2 found decades later in ice cores (and other proxies). His selection criteria can be discussed, but anyway these excluded a lot of real outliers like levels measured in towns, agriculture etc.
And his IR absorption idea was vindicated later in the asborption spectra of CO2 and water in thinning air at increasing height. Again the “consensus” of that time was wrong.
That not all CO2 is absorbed in the ocean surface is due to the buffer (Revelle) factor and the surface is in fast equilibrium with the atmosphere. The deep oceans have a quite huge, but limited exchange rate with the atmosphere (app. 40 GtC/year), but the net absorption rate is a matter of equilibrium: most of what goes in comes out and only about 3 GtC/year of the 9 GtC/year increase in the atmosphere goes into the oceans as difference between inputs and outputs.
guy callendar says
From this the increase in mean temperature, due to the artificial production of carbon dioxide, is estimated to be at the rate of 0.003C. per year at the present time.
The temperature observations at zoo meteorological stations are used to show that world temperatures have actually increased at an average rate of o.oo5°C. per year during the past half century
henry says
I had a look at that paper.
even those (low) values given are patently wrong….
Means temps. are currently dropping at around -0.01 degree C per annum, at least
You could (rightly so) argue that this is due to the sun
OTOH
the AGW theory implies that with increasing CO2 and GHG’s, minimum temps. should be rising faster, pushing up means
but minima are currently -0.004 degree C /annum
according to my data set
and the highest they ever were, was +0.006 degree C/annum
I am sorry
callendar’s story does not wash with me
@ur momisugly Ferdinand Engelbeen
like his “mentors”, Callendar did not see the whole spectrum of CO2
which has considerable absorption around 2 um, 4 um
and even in the UV, which is how is it currently identified on other planets
(what we mean with “absorption” actually implies “re-radiation”, a cooling effect.)
http://www.naturalnews.com/040448_solar_radiation_global_warming_debunked.html
Stephen 8:56pm: “We are still left with the mass induced greenhouse effect though.”
“…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.”
Here Stephen’s narrative fails even itself within a couple sentences. Forgets about the mass effect for Venus and Mars. Different than Earth’s.
Without clear equations, Stephen just gets deeply lost, deeply confused in his own narrative on EM theory not knowing even the basics. Confusion reigns in Stephen’s narrative, nothing like the unconfused elegance of the real physics equations Joel, Phil. et. al. keep pointing out. At no charge to Stephen.
******
Stephen 2:58pm: “Overall, does that not support my contentions ?”
Looking for a grade on your physics homework? Not is the answer.
As a TA, I would take points off for turning in a homework assignment stating:
1) “non radiative gases” when your lecture notes clearly say there are NO non radiative gases. None. They all radiate. Every macro object at all temperatures radiates. Get 10% off for this in a big red circle.
2) “pumps out energy to space” in discussion of an adiabatic ascent and adiabatic descent process. Then “radiative gases can pick up their extra energy by absorption”. Get like 20% off for these gaffes.
3) “That is what raises the surface temperature by 33K.” In the description of “that”, Stephen provides no hint of a source used up (energy transformed) to raise a temperature of a macro object. Take another 20% off and Stephen falls below 70% score, a failing grade in atm. thermo. homework class.
What’s even more embarrassing, the TA takes out Stephen’s homework assignment responses to go over for the whole class in the next session on EM Theory (for some aspiring students in back of class AKA codswallop) in Meteorology 101.
HenryP 6:21am: “callendar’s story does not wash with me…Means temps. are currently dropping..”
You have to see this is like discussing the capability differences of a B-17 to that of a B-2. Still, both work on exactly the same aerodynamic theory (that’s why they call ’em principles).
“..with increasing CO2 and GHG’s, minimum temps. should be rising faster…”
As mentioned in Callendar 1938, there are other variables. Dig them out, let us know their effects.
******
“..a cooling effect.”
Yes, that link supports the radiative science in Callendar 1938, in that added IR active gas enables cooling at great height offsetting the enabled warming at surface for no net atm. Tmean effect since no energy source is used up by added IR active gas to enable increase Tmean of entire atm.
Trick says:
This statement I would have to disagree with. There is no reason why Tmean has to remain constant. The Earth(+atmosphere) is not an isolated system, so conservation of energy does not take the form that the total energy of the Earth must be constant, but rather that any change in energy is equal to the net energy received (i.e., energy received from the sun minus energy radiated out into space).
And, in fact, as greenhouse gases increase, the Earth is accumulating more energy because any cooling above the troposphere is more than offset by warming of the atmosphere…and, even more importantly, of the oceans.
@Trick
if you really want to convince me, you have to come with actual results
So what actual results do you have or did you collect?
My results suggest that the increasing vegetation on earth over the past 50 years does trap some heat, a little bit, maybe about 10-25% of what Callendar is seeing, and insofar as this is due to human interference (release of CO2, and man’s desire to have crops, trees, lawns, etc) according to you, is this AGW as identified by me good or bad?
HenryP 7:19am: “..what actual results do you have…”
Basis Tmean surface 1921-1940, Calendar 1938 Table VI prediction for 20th century anomaly completed 62years in the future 0.16 degreeC. HadCRUT4+Decadal Mark 1 eyeball actual thermometer measured spatial and temporal avg. anomaly ~0.20C over 20th century give or take. Maybe even within CIs depending on your view.
Not too shabby.
Also, based on Bart’s link for Callendar 1938 CY2000 CO2 335ppm, Mauna Loa ~368ppm only ~10% difference. This is ~same difference in T percent for DALR off from environmental lapse at tropopause and many claim the DALR is pretty darn good est. unlike Bart writing ~same percentage off is “totally wrong.”
Decent target hitting in practice at high altitude for a B-17 with Norden tachometric vs. B-2 laser guided.
Joel 7:04am:
At most basic level, any Tmean increase total earth system is ultimately coming from the sun using up hydrogen. Added IR active gas uses up nothing, is only an enabler to accumulate/dispose energy as you write.
Trick says
Decent target hitting in practice at high altitude for a B-17 with Norden tachometric vs. B-2 laser guided.
Henry says
Jesus taught me to be a pacifist, so I am clearly not impressed with your war effort.
Jesus also sometimes replied a question with another question. If you do not answer my question posted to you here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/10/towards-a-theory-of-climate/#comment-1479177
why should I answer to any of your questions?
HenryP 8:27am: “If you do not answer my question…”
Lotsa’ questions go unanswered, not always b/c of knowledge limits but sometimes b/c of time limits and possibly posting space redundancy. I’ll go with Callendar 1938 again, see my comment answering you already posted at 11/18 2:01pm.
There are equivalent analogies in peaceful civil aviation. Take your pick. Hint: Can a DC-3 land itself within 10ft. of a runway CL like a DC-11 can? Answer my question!
BTW: earth energy balance papers include plant transpiration.
This is all moot. The trend in temperatures from the exit of the LIA existed long before CO2 could have had an impact. That steady trend continues today. Subtract it out, and you have very little which could be due to positive temperature sensitivity to CO2. Which cannot be significant anyway, because that would comprise a positive feedback loop with the temperature effect on CO2, and the system would never have stabilized at relatively low levels.
…long before industrial CO2 could have had an impact.
Joel says,
in fact, as greenhouse gases increase, the Earth is accumulating more energy because any cooling above the troposphere is more than offset by warming of the atmosphere…and, even more importantly, of the oceans.
henry says
you can only make such a statement unless you had some results showing a balance sheet of the warming and cooling effects of each GHG, which I have not found anywhere.
Truth is that due to the cooling from the top, GHG’s in the atmosphere are probably decreasing, due to less evaporation of water.
Addressing Trick’s comments:
1) ““non radiative gases” when your lecture notes clearly say there are NO non radiative gases. None. They all radiate. Every macro object at all temperatures radiates. Get 10% off for this in a big red circle.”
The standard AGW narrative is that non GHGs are as near non radiative as makes no difference.
2) ” “pumps out energy to space” in discussion of an adiabatic ascent and adiabatic descent process. Then “radiative gases can pick up their extra energy by absorption”. Get like 20% off for these gaffes.”
Radiative gases introduce a diabatic component to the background adiabatic cycle as demonstrated in Phil’s chart.
3) “That is what raises the surface temperature by 33K.” In the description of “that”, Stephen provides no hint of a source used up (energy transformed) to raise a temperature of a macro object. Take another 20% off.
I clearly stated that the result of heat energy returning to the surface in adiabatic descent is to hold energy in the system for longer until a higher equilibrium temperature is achieved. Mass can do that without any need for radiative capability.
If Trick tried marking papers in such a way he would soon be out on his ear.
Eric was right to refer to Konrad’s post at tallbloke’s.
Pure piffle from Trick and others.
Trick by name and Trick by nature.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 19, 2013 at 9:44 am
Addressing Trick’s comments:
1) ““non radiative gases” when your lecture notes clearly say there are NO non radiative gases. None. They all radiate. Every macro object at all temperatures radiates. Get 10% off for this in a big red circle.”
The standard AGW narrative is that non GHGs are as near non radiative as makes no difference.
However, since air contains radiative components which continually exchange their absorbed energy with their non-radiative neighbors air behaves as a radiative gas and follows the Joule cycle as I showed. Your idea that the radiative and non-radiative components behave separately is incorrect!
Stephen Wilde 9:44am: As usual, refuses to advance towards a theory of climate including EM Theory. Uses spin doctor theory to complain about the poster not the science.
What Stephen should use (and Phil. et. al. could improve a bit too) is by using the term IR active gas like in the lecture notes. There are some gases less active in IR bands but they still find ways to radiate. Your visit during office hours to find this out, appeal your grade and take back my minus 10% is denied. Yes, the open door policy means you can see the Dept. Supv. and take the matter over my head. Let me know how that works in next class.
My screen name comes from shortening up hockey’s keynote scoring success as in a HatTrick on a website long ago to get by the ‘already used’ name filter. Subsequently the moniker took on a whole new meaning in this field. The one I like is on dictionary .com; I realize readers may want to use other meanings but I’ll only scare the website software changing up to Trick#5 now:
5. a clever or ingenious device or expedient; adroit technique: the tricks of the trade.
Investigate, read up on, the ideas Phil. writes 11:28am (and all of Joel’s & Phil.s priors) and return in my next office hour period – before you appeal your two -20% grades causing the TA ‘F’ grade on your 2:58pm homework covering EM Theory in Meteorology 101.
Trick says:
November 19, 2013 at 12:11 pm
“Investigate, read up on, the ideas Phil. writes 11:28am (and all of Joel’s & Phil.s priors) and return in my next office hour period – before you appeal your two -20% grades causing the TA ‘F’ grade on your 2:58pm homework covering EM Theory in Meteorology 101.”
Sorry. You all get “F” for failing to consider the elephant in the room: it isn’t working. Until you start to consider reasons for why it isn’t working, you are simply huddling into a shelter which has already been blown away.
Stephen gets an “A” for effort – the jury is still out on his overall marks.
phil. says
Your idea that the radiative and non-radiative components behave separately is incorrect!
henry
e.g. nitrogen is transparent – no absorptions, oxygen almost the same
so where and how do they radiate?
Bart says:
November 19, 2013 at 12:26 pm
Sorry. You all get “F” for failing to consider the elephant in the room: it isn’t working. Until you start to consider reasons for why it isn’t working, you are simply huddling into a shelter which has already been blown away.
Stephen gets an “A” for effort – the jury is still out on his overall marks.,/em>
Actually not, he fails basic thermo and kinetic theory of gases. His concept that the non-radiative and radiative gases in a mixture behave separately in thermodynamics is wrong.
Bart 12:26: “..it isn’t working,…”
It? What isn’t working exactly? EM Theory & Experiment? BTW: I agree give Stephen A for effort. Effort and winning correct science results are different though. Also BTW, I re-read your stuff which seems to be “CO2 concentration cannot have a significant effect on temperature.”
I think Callendar 1938 agrees with you that added CO2 is working beneficially with no significant effect on Tmean at his 0.16C anomaly for all of 20th century that came out so close to thermometer measured (~0.20C). Fill me in.
HenryP 12:37pm: You can find a spectrometer measurement of O2 & N2 radiation bands in Bohren 2006. And many other sources.
“..nitrogen is transparent – no absorptions.”” Everything that emits (all macro objects at all temperatures do emit) also absorbs EM energy – emissivity and absorptivity not necess. equal. Some interesting photos in Bohren 2006 will convince you N2 is not exactly optically transparent. So they sent Kepler instrument into space.
HenryP says:
November 19, 2013 at 12:37 pm
phil. says
Your idea that the radiative and non-radiative components behave separately is incorrect!
henry
e.g. nitrogen is transparent – no absorptions, oxygen almost the same
so where and how do they radiate?
They absorb and radiate via the GHGs in the mixture which shares the energy via collisions. Near the surface collisions occur about 10 times per nano sec and a molecule travels about 70nm before colliding with another.
Trick says:
November 19, 2013 at 12:55 pm
“Effort and winning correct science results are different though.”
That is why I stated the jury was still out on his overall marks. I have been following the debate in rather desultory fashion – I have seen questionable statements on both sides, but not felt like getting involved as I have more important (to me, personally) things to do right now. But, the main theme I have seen is a gang of three on one insisting on a constrained theoretical outlook, which has already proved inadequate to the task at hand. I would rather see a constructive dialog along the lines of, “well, that cannot work because of this or that, but a modification which would be physically viable could be this…”
“I think Callendar 1938 agrees with you that added CO2 is working beneficially with no significant effect on Tmean at his 0.16C anomaly for all of 20th century that came out so close to thermometer measured (~0.20C).”
I am not sure what to make of this. Is it your opinion, then, that the surface temperatures are negligibly affected by atmospheric CO2 concentration? If so, then we are in agreement. But, I am not under the impression that was Callendar’s outlook, and certainly not that of his heirs.
I should have said, “…that the surface temperatures are at worst negligibly affected by atmospheric CO2 concentration?” I believe it is quite possible, when including the effects of other GHG like CH4, that an increase in CO2 could actually lead to an overall decrease in surface temperatures. However, that discussion would take us far afield, and I have little time for it right now.
Bart 1:15pm: “Is it your opinion…”
I don’t have a horse in the AGW stuff other than I found the basic science & experiment interesting enough to discuss at times on blogs. The only profit is in understanding that science better. The problem becomes AGW transcends science for many. No one comes to the table about this issue without biases.
Abe Lincoln had it right: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” which becomes in modern world “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open up your own website and remove all doubt.”
The things some websites & print authors were writing made me suspicious & go get several good modern text books on the atm. thermo. involved. Then I rapidly became astonished when discussing them, instead of pulling the texts and papers at the library like science teaches, some posters would just make stuff up. Becomes the thrill of battle in the modern age I suppose. I’net sub.s for wild west gunslingers.
Too, I have seen many scares, bubbles, manias come and go. The madness of crowds in history is great for learning. Tulips, asteroids coming, crop circles, ice age coming, killer diseases, killer bees, alchemy, witches, hauntings, on and on – all to profit somehow. Psst…there’s gold in Alaska, buy this shovel.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”