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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“None of this future stuff, OK ??”
Well YAH this is happening now! Tornadoes hello?! But people here are referring to the 33K forcing which comes from backradiation heating the surface, and that it isn’t increasing to 34, 35, 36, 37, 38K etc etc as CO2 increases.
YET! It takes some time to ramp up the temperatures, as the ice core records show.
AKerr says:
“Tornadoes hello?!”
As if that is an argument.
In fact, tornado activity has been declining for decades. Tornado fatalities are down.
All of your climate alarmism is based on easily disproved ‘facts’. That is why you revert to your ‘What if’ scenarios. Unlike the alarmist crowd, scientific skeptics look at the empirical evidence, not at ‘What ifs’. <– that is witch doctor territory.
“All of your climate alarmism is based on easily disproved ‘facts’”
Well you might take a few pointers on real science from Joel Shore and other *real experts here. Short term variations in the warming signal that amount to noise do not repeal the basic physics of thermodynamics and heat transfer: 33K of heat transfers to the surface from the atmosphere because of backradiation, and yes such bulk transfers of heat CAN happen from cool to hot because the total net is required to balance to space which is hot to cool. Soon, the 33K will become 34K, and then 35K, and then 36K, and ongoing. You can’t just “stop” backradiation heating at 33K – it WILL continue on and accelerate the warming. I mean you have to deny geologic history and all evidence.
AKerr,
joelshore is incapable of producing a model that predicted the current stasis in global temperatures. Thus, all computer climate models are wrong. QED
Note that models are programmed with what joelshore and his ilk believe is a “theory” of climate, based on their inadequate physics. Obviously, they do not understand how the climate operates, or they would be able to make accurate predictions. But as we see, they cannot predict their way out of a wet paper bag.
To avoid embarassment, try to pick your HE-ROes a little more carefully. Politics does not take the place of scientific skepticism.
Tornadoes hello ?
Go on then, ask Joel Shore to provide a convincing scientific hypothesis showing how and why carbon dioxide at 400 ppm causes some measurable difference in tornadoes versus carbon dioxide at 280 ppm …. with the empirical data of course …
…. cue a lot of nondescript mental masturbation.
‘Ding’
I’ve just realised how one can better reconcile my narrative with radiative theory without changes in the quantities of radiative gases altering surface temperature.
Trick’s point that there must be a mix of DWIR and conduction is correct and that was the missing element in my narrative. It was implied but not set out clearly because I did not adequately distinguish between a radiatively inert atmosphere (purely theoretical in practice) and atmospheres with different levels of radiative capability.
This is how it must work:
i) Atmospheric mass determines the surface temperature that can be achieved for a given level of insolation and a given strength of gravitational field.
ii) That surface temperature, in so far as it exceeds that predicted by the S-B equation MUST be caused by energy returning to the surface from the atmosphere.
iii) For an atmosphere to remain in gaseous form that return of energy must be a mix of conduction from air to surface AND DWIR.
iv) If the atmosphere had zero radiative capability then it would be no different to a solid and would never lift off the surface. All the energy transfer between the molecules that would have comprised the atmosphere and the rest of the solid surface would have to be by conduction and you can only have 100% conduction within a solid.
v) The gases of the atmosphere cannot be 100% radiative either because that constitutes complete transparency. Without some conduction from the mass of the gases to the mass of the surface any DWIR from he molecules just bounces straight back again as UWIR from surface to atmospheric molecules. That is similar to what happens with a planetary surface without an atmosphere. True that the surface heats during the day whilst being irradiated but on the night side without illumination the energy just comes straight out again with no net surface energy accumulation. To warm the surface from one spell of diurnal irradiation to the next, the mass of the gases must absorb radiative energy and conduct it to the mass of the surface. Hence the importance of adiabatic descent on the night side.
vi) So that brings us to the only possible option of an atmosphere capable of both radiative activity and conduction capability and since no gases are perfectly radiative or perfectly conductive that category represents every atmosphere there has ever been or will be. Let’s examine that scenario:
a) The surface temperature being set by mass, gravity and insolation that temperature has to be maintained regardless of the precise mix of conduction and DWIR from atmosphere to surface.
b) If either DWIR increases without a reduction in conduction or if conduction increases without a reduction in DWIR then the surface gets too warm and radiative loss to space rises above energy received from space which is a cooling effect.
c) If either DWIR decreases without an increase in conduction or if conduction decreases without an increase in DWIR then the surface gets too cold and radiative loss to space falls below energy received from space which is a warming effect.
d) In all four cases the system response to the change in either DWIR or conduction is an equal and opposite thermal response which is why atmospheres can be retained.
vi) The solution is that which I have been proposing in that any imbalance at top of atmosphere arising from a shift in the balance between DWIR and conduction from atmosphere to surface simply results in a change in the volume of the atmosphere and not a change in surface temperature.
vii) More DWIR from atmosphere to surface leads to a deeper, expanded less dense atmosphere and a less vigorous adiabatic cycle which conducts energy to the surface more slowly.
ix) Less DWIR from atmosphere to surface leads to a shallower, contracted, denser atmosphere and a more vigorous adiabatic cycle which conducts energy back to the surface more quickly.
The consequence is a system thermostat that ensures that the surface never gets too warm or too cold to perform the basic two functions of holding the atmosphere off the surface whilst at the same time maintaining top of atmosphere radiative balance.
At its simplest, atmospheric molecules float atop the column of DWIR that is sent back to the surface and the more DWIR the higher they go, the less conduction to the surface can occur, and vice versa.
AKerr says:
I have to disagree…That is not a NET radiative flow. It is a flow balanced by a larger radiative energy flow in the other direction. The temperature of the surface is only 33 K warmer than it would be if the flow were even more unbalanced (i.e., if all of the radiation escaped without any of it being returned to the surface).
And, given the laws of radiation, it is not possible to engineer having this flow in the “reverse” direction (from cold to warm) without having a larger flow in the “forward” direction (warm to cold).
Stephen accepts DWIR 12:21am then trips:
“i) Atmospheric mass determines the surface temperature that can be achieved for a given level of insolation and a given strength of gravitational field.”
In past threads, you give a cite for this wrong science from a 1960s text book you can no longer name, can no longer find (did the dog eat it?) and this is not in any modern atm. thermo. text book. Gotta’ prove it on your own then; for Earth as a starting point then let’s move to the others.
Mass of atm. = 5 * 10^18 kg
Insolation = 1365 W/m^2
Gravitational acceleration = 9.8 m/sec^2
To prove his logic, from this data Stephen must: Compute basic Earth near surface Tmean measured ~ 288K
If Stephen can’t show this as the basic starting point, every other item fails in logic. Note Bohren 2006 computes basic Earth surface Tmean ~ 288K on p.33 from basic 1st principles.
Bart says:
No…but I think there are plenty of scientists in the field who understand the CO2 cycle better than he does.
The fact that you can find one sort-of-expert (i.e., at least a climate scientist) who agrees with you doesn’t make you right.
philincalifornia says:
I didn’t discuss any connection between climate change and tornadoes; A Kerr did. I’ll let him provide the arguments. (My vague impression, having not looked in detail, is that the relationship between climate change and tornado activity was not settled, e.g., see discussion here: http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2013/05/is-climate-change-making-tornadoes-worse/ )
Stephen Wilde says:
In other words, “Screw the First Law of Thermodynamics. If I just believe hard enough, we can violate energy balance at the top-of-the-atmosphere (or I can just ignore it).”
In other words, “Screw the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. If I just believe hard enough, we can have the independent process of convection transfer energy from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface.”
Yes, it is truly amazing what you can do if you are not constrained by the laws of physics!
Is this statement a typo or do you really understand so little about radiation that you would say this?
Trick says:
He also must show how the rigorous calculations based on radiative transfer theory in the atmosphere fail, despite the fact that they are used successfully in an entire field of technology, remote sensing, and that they can accurately predict the observed spectrum of radiation emitted to space.
Joel asked:
“v) The gases of the atmosphere cannot be 100% radiative either because that constitutes complete transparency. ”
“Is this statement a typo or do you really understand so little about radiation that you would say this?”
Well space is purely radiative and virtually transparent.
A solid surface is purely conductive and wholly opaque.
So the general rule is that the more radiative is a volume of space the colder it is and the more conductive is a volume of space the warmer it is given a steady supply of radiation in each case.
The reason is density related because the volume of space is more radiative in the absence of mass and the volume of space is more conductive in the presence of mass.
So if you want more radiation bouncing about in an atmosphere then that is just fine but the fact is that it can only occur if there is less mass per unit of volume in the form of reduced density.
Radiation drives molecules apart and lifts them further off solid surfaces to achieve that effect.
That puts the thermal effect of increased atmospheric radiation (along the line between maximum conduction and maximum radiation) closer to the cold of space than to the heat of a surface.
But the radiative theory of gases does the opposite.
It proposes that the effect of increased atmospheric radiation is to move the thermal effect closer to the heat of a solid surface.
Something wrong there unless one can increase mass at the same time which doesn’t happen to any significant effect when one adds GHGs
Note too that the radiative energy in space is virtually all potential energy (not heat) and the conductive energy in a solid object is all kinetic energy (heat) so this feeds into my previous point about the relative proportions of KE and PE being important for surface temperature.
” If I just believe hard enough, we can have the independent process of convection transfer energy from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface.”
You are conflating heat with energy.
Downward convection just changes PE to KE to balance the KE lost to PE by uplift elsewhere.
No question of any net transfer of energy.
ToA radiative balance is retained because the process is adiabatic until you involve water vapour and other GHGs when a diabatic component is introduced.
The introduction of a diabatic component is then dealt with by atmospheric expansion or contraction and the whole scenario is fine with the Laws of Thermodynamics.
As to why the amount of kinetic energy that the system can hold is limited by mass and insolation:
Radiation carries no significant kinetic energy as witness the temperature of space which is full of radiation but has a temperature of only 3K above absolute zero.
If we ignore that 3K then radiation carries only potential energy when it arrives at the top of a planetary atmosphere.
That potential energy can only be converted to kinetic energy via interactions between the radiation and any mass which it encounters.
The amount of kinetic energy that can be produced is limited by the amount of mass available for the radiation to react with.
Whenever kinetic energy is produced there is an equal reduction in potential energy.
In effect, radiation is simply raw potential energy in motion but when its motion is restrained by encounters with mass then kinetic energy is generated from that potential energy and we call that heat.
There cannot be repeated encounters with mass leading to an accumulation of kinetic energy. The first encounter is the only one that matters.
Any further encounters first require reconversion back to radiation so that the thermal effect of the first encounter is cancelled out before the second encounter can occur.
There is a limited amount of mass, a limited amount of radiation and thus a limited amount of kinetic energy that can be created by the available mass from the raw potential energy of incoming radiation.
The radiative theory of gases does propose an accumulation of kinetic energy from successive encounters involving the same amount of incoming radiation and the same amount of atmospheric mass.
How could that work?
Hmmm.
Not sure about my last post. Although there are forms of kinetic and potential energy in radiation I feel that I haven’t dealt with it correctly so will give more thought to that aspect.
Photons have lots of kinetic energy which, on collision with mass, imparts kinetic and / or potential energy to that mass depending on the position of the mass relative to a gravitational field.
Other aspects of that post do seem serviceable though.
Stephen Wilde says:
Okay. Your unusual use of terminology is confusing to me. I thought you meant “purely radiative” as consisting purely of a radiatively-active (greenhouse) gases. I now understand that you mean it in the sense of which type of heat transfer is most dominant. There are still lots of problems with what you say though.
This rule comes from where?
You are just making up stuff here. The details of substances involved (i.e., their absorption spectra) are very relevant in determining how they interact with radiation.
Can you can cite a physics textbook to back up (or even explain) this claim?
You are really using words here in ways that are basically just your own private language, bearing very little relationship to how they are used in physics.
Stephen Wilde says:
You seem to still be under the delusion that there is a general principle that kinetic plus potential energy is constant. That principle only holds in the case where there is no work done by non-conservative forces. You are ignoring the buoyant force.
And, if there is no net transfer of energy, then this process cannot be responsible for warming the surface. If there is net transfer of energy…and the net effect is a transfer from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface, it violates the 2nd Law.
This thread has degenerated to another war between “slayers” who think CO2 has no effect on anything and people that live in the real world. I’m closing it as it serves no purpose to continue.
This idiotic statement by Stephen Wilde was the tipping point for me:
Stephen Wilde says:
Do you have an English translation of this? Once again, you are so far removed from discussing things using correct physics principles that it is simply impossible to figure out what you are even saying anymore.
And, of course, you are simply avoiding giving a direct answer to my post here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/10/towards-a-theory-of-climate/#comment-1479497
Stephen issues forth a few more gaffes for Bart to understand where Abe Lincoln was right.
8:35am: “You are conflating heat with energy.”
Using units Stephen’s meaning is: “You are conflating joules with joules.” There is no meaning.
“Downward convection just changes PE to KE to balance the KE lost to PE by uplift elsewhere.”
No, if this were true bird baths would freeze overnight all the time everywhere. They only freeze rarely due to DWIR bath energy effects on surface Tmean.
“Radiation carries no significant kinetic energy…” Right, photons are massless, unaffected by the Higgs Field so far as we know. Photons do possess momentum.
“…then radiation carries only potential energy…”
Where did the photon mass suddenly come from for the PE calculation? Simply made up, mass is created by Stephen.
9:13am: “…I feel that I haven’t dealt with it correctly so will give more thought to that aspect.”
Read a good modern atm. thermo. text while you are at it.
“Other aspects of that post do seem serviceable though.”
Not a one, they all collapse into the cellar because their foundation is shoddy, else from Stephen’s foundation compute earth’s surface Tmean set by the given mass, insolation and gravity .