Global Temperature Report: December 2013

Badger says:
January 3, 2014 at 7:29 pm
The only CO2 absorption band which is germane to the greenhouse effect is the one at 15 microns. The 4.3 micron band is not important in this context as there is relatively little radiation at that wavelength, either incoming or outgoing.
The Figure 6.3 which you link to terminates at around 14 microns and so does not fully show the effect of this CO2 absorption band, nor does it show the H2O continuum over this region. So your conclusion, which seems to be that CO2 has no effect, is not supported by what you link to.
Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will produce additional warming. The question is how much, not if. It is generally agreed that, all other things being equal, doubling the CO2 concentration will produce further warming at the surface of the planet by about 1.1 Deg.C. In itself this is not problematic, may even be beneficial.
The argument comes down to ‘positive feedback’. Will increased warming due to CO2 lead to the release of more CO2 from the oceans, methane from the permafrost etc. which, in turn, leads to even more warming? This is what is meant by ‘Climate Sensitivity’; how much will the Earth warm as a result of doubling the CO2 level. This is what the debate is about. It is not about ice melting or sea-levels rising, because these processes started long before the possibility of human cause.
Several papers have been published recently which tend to show that climate sensitivity is lower than the IPCC’s earlier estimates. As a result the latest IPCC report now says,

“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”

wbrozek says:
January 3, 2014 at 10:53 pm
Jim Roth says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Can someone please tell me how this squares with the idea that there’s been no global warming for the last 17 yr’s?
On RSS there is no warming for 17 years and 4 months. As to why there is such a big difference between RSS and UAH is a huge mystery. Perhaps UAH is measuring the Antarctic too high.

Or perhaps RSS are introducing a spurious cooling trend by applying an incorrect diurnal drift adjustment. Roy Spencer writes
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/
I do wish ‘our’ side would stop cherry picking the datasets. UAH is the one in which we had the most trust and I see no reason why that should change.

The past 17 years show us that there is nothing to worry about, I suppose. What goes up must come down. My thermometer won’t show that ~ .3° we are talking about. And I can live with higher temperatures pretty well, as mankind ist able to adapt. The IPCC should stop scaremongering, return to its closet and shut the door tightly. I’d be glad to throw the key away.

James Abbott says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:43 pm
“Now lets go back to the question.
Rather than use descriptive words (or reference the discredited Monckton) what would be the change in mean global temperature if CO2 was removed from the atmosphere ?”
It would be colder.
Not that you would have any interest in such a result Einstein, as being a carbon based life form, you would be dead along with nearly all the life on Earth.
Now here a few, far more relevant, questions for you to answer in return.
1. What if man had not contributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, what would the current global temperatures be?
2. Would those temperatures and CO2 levels be better or worse for mankind currently, would there be less of us or more of us?
3. How would plant life be doing, seeing as most higher life forms are ultimately reliant on the abundance of plant life for their existence?
4.. How would global sea ice, glaciers and other potentially ice covered areas be doing and if different, would this be a good or bad thing for life on Earth?
4. What would your preferred level of atmospheric CO2 level be, given that most plant life evolved to take advantage of the much higher CO2 levels prevalent then and are currently relatively CO2 starved?
5. What would be your preferred global temperature and how does Mankind ensure that it is maintained, as you seem to believe strongly that we are currently controlling it?
6. How long do you think Mankind can continue to control global temperatures, if indeed we are currently, as you believe? Please be reasonably specific, which shouldn’t be a problem for you, as you seem to feel strongly that you have a good handle on the mechanisms of this so called control..
So I would like you to answer these questions. They are far more relevant and real than your impossible and apocalyptic question after all. So no doubt you will be champing at the bit to answer, right?.
However, what I expect you will do is run away and not been seen again. However, I think I will keep a track of you and ask you the same questions every time you post your nonsense.
Alan

A photon comes in from the Sun at noon on Tuesday. It is absorbed by an electron in a molecule in a rock on the beach.
Then what happens?
What does the energy do? Where does it go? What path does it take, over what time, in how many different molecules does it then enter? How long does it take before it sent back to space? How does that process change when there is doubled CO2? Given how the process changes when there is doubled CO2, how does the temperature of the surface and different layers of the atmosphere change?
A climate model and a theory are supposed to be able to answer those questions. We are talking about the speed of light here, times in nanoseconds, 44 hours, the energy spending time in 8 billion different molecules, atmospheric molecular collision rates of 7 billion per second, radiation physics, blackbody radiation, a spherical rotating planet with an atmosphere, with oceans in space next to a Star, … and then, the Earth receives 1.6×10^40 of these solar photons every day and emits 8.0×10^40 IR photons every day. What could possibly go wrong with a climate model trying to simulate that.

Alan
IMHO
Ad 1.: It seems to me that actually nobody knows what the manmade and the natural(e.g. „cow fart“) part of CO2 in the atmosphere precisely is and that it is unknown to what an extent and in which way, esp. in which conjunction(s) e.g. with pollen, aerosols, solar activity, soot etc. feedbacks can be expected. Therefore, no way of telling in a way you think of.
Ad 5.: My personal selection of a nice climate would be that of New Caledonia(avg. p.a. 23°C).
Ad 6.: Mankind cannot „control“ neither weather nor climate. But mankind has been very successful in adaptation to the circumstances.

So – what would happen if we modelled the atmosphere with CO2 taken out ?
This has been done by your global warmng colleagues. The Result : Well the models came closer to the manipulated temperatures than they did with CO² in the runs.

A photon comes in from the Sun at noon on Tuesday. It is absorbed by an electron in a molecule in a rock on the beach
That is clown stuff. Stupid to the point of imbecilic.