Assessment of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity and Catastrophic Global Warming Potential Based on the Historical Data Record

ferdberple says:
“doesn’t that assume the the climate was in equilibrium at the start of the temperature record?
Excellent point! Yes, it does sort of assume that. If we assumed it was equaly distant from equilibrium at the beginning and end (unlikely, but more likely than the condition of closest to equilibrium at the beginning and furthest at the end) then it would be equilibrium sensitivity.
So, we can say with even greater confidence that given the data CO2 isn’t a problem.

I’m starting to see a series of instant replays of the typical arguments – in particular those involving the Dean of “Science is Settled U.” – James Hansen. Without casting any aspersions on the AGWer’s can anyone who is happy to quote politically loaded pronouncements from James Hansen — quote anything which Dr. Hansen has written and which has been found to be scientifically reliable and valid when tested — I presume that he published a dissertation — has anyone ever read it?
To put this discussion in simple terms ==> You Can’t !!
1) To try to unravel the onion — let’s see if there are things which we can agree on:
a. The earth-sun system is fiendishly complex. Nevertheless, It is relatively easy to make reasonably well characterized measurements which are local in-time and space of various parameters — such as the current temperature of the air at human height near to my house in a suburb of Boston. I have up to 6 wired, wireless and the old fashioned optically monitored thermometers located at various heights, distances from the structure, cardinal directions, amounts of shade, etc.. To a general level they agree with interesting variability depending on the seasons, time of day, weather, etc.
b. However, Its considerably more difficult to develop a well characterized spatially averaged value for a given parameter
c. and even more difficult to develop meaningful time series of these global values.
Why — because things change beyond our control such as the immediate surroundings of a monitoring station; instrumentation used; or the protocols used to make the measurements and calibrate.. Corrections can be applied to the individual datums or various aggregates — but they can never be verified without access to the Proverbial Time Machine. So what we have to work with is poorly characterized time series of data which we even less reliably attempt to average.
2) From now on I’m assuming that some of us will not agree with the following:
a. Now to try to characterize the behavior of one such difficult to quantify parameter — e.g. the earth’s surface temperature measurements in terms of any one other parameter, e.g. global CO2 conentration in the atmosphere is a fools errand
b. The vaunted models are even worse as we don’t know which elements of the overall physics has been omitted from the model let alone the relevant weighting factor to apply to each scalar or vector parameter —
c. The above results in the despicable practice of fitting the model with an abundance of guestimated weighting factors which seem to change as needed to meet the political requirements.
3) Hope now that most will be tuned back in a agree with the following:
a. The only thing that we can say with reasonable certainty is that whatever we [people the rest of the biosphere and even the geology] do here will have no noticeable impact on the behavior of the sun.
b. Almost nothing can be categorically excluded with respect to the influence of the Sun on the behavior of the overall system.
4) To then use the results of these hopelessly incompletely constructed models as the basis for public policy which has the potential to disadvantage millions and possibly destroy the most productive global economy in history is far beyond insanity — its criminal insanity.
5) Instead of wasting Billions on Solyndria, Ivanophahotep? and CapeWind – here’s a policy every country on the planet can contribute to in a meaningful way:
a. Fund as yet uncorrupted students to:
i. Design good, long MTBF easily, fabricated, easily deployed and maintained automated instrumentation with cloud-based global access to the raw data
ii. Design web-based experimental protocols and data analysis tools — as if we were planning a Voyager-type mission to planet earth – 15 years should suffice
b. “Launch” and collect good data for the next 50+ years
c. Fund students to challenge the accepted and orthodox interpretation of the real-time data and any paleo, proxy, etc.
d. Somewhere around 2080 we can revisit the question of APG or not and if so how much.
e. Meantime we can always build a few seawalls to adapt to the changes as we always have adapted to a changing climate in the past.

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Alex Hamilton says:
February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am
Monckton of Brenchley
I refer to your comment pertaining to climate sensitivity and I am of course aware of your efforts in the field. I respect your knowledge of the history of all this, but, when it comes to science,the only thing I respect is the truth based on valid science and empirical data.
There is a whole new paradigm emerging, Sir, which I believe you need to heed and which I have outlined in my comments on this thread. The greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture can be shown to be incorrect with valid physics. There is no “33 degrees of warrming” supposedly caused by back radiation from the cold atmosphere. Radiation doesn’t raise the temperature of a warmer body. Thus you cannot calculate sensitivity to radiating gases because the underlying assumption is false.
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Sorry alex but your paradigm results in the conclusion that wearing a coat doesn’t help when you’re out in the cold. There’s so much energy coming to the Earth’s surface, mostly from the Sun, a little from the planet’s interior and a pittance from man using energy. To quantify, we get an average power input of around 240 W/m^2. We enjoy a global average temperature of around 288 kelvins. The surface radiates about 390 W/m^2 on average. Notice that we do not have enough incoming power (240 W/m^2) to compensate for the 390 W/m^2 power radiated. There’s about 150 W/m^2 discrepancy here – enough to cause the Earth to cool off by about33 deg C before the outgoing power is balanced again by the incoming.
When it comes to matter, everything above absolute zero is going to radiate power. When something is the same temperature as its surroundings, it will still continue to radiate the same amount of power – based upon its own temperature. This object will stay at the same temperature as its surroundings and that means also that there can be no net flow of energy into or out of the object. It it were not this way, then an object that behaves this way could be placed into a box of the same temperature and this object would change temperature away from its original temperature. If you can come up with this, you’ve just solved the energy problem of mankind forever because you have just invented the perpetual motion heat engine – no additional energy sources needed. Better go secure your patent before the Japanese figure it out and beat you to it.

Shame on all of you from both sides of the AGW issue who are so critical of Jeff L’s reasoning and work. Especially you Willis E. who I somewhat admired before your rants in your comments here to Jeff L. He made it clear he was looking to bound the possible effects of CO2 and he did.
The important lags you are harping on are incorporated into the HadCRUT data for CO2 rise in previous years…..and read on before you reply. I endorse the supportive comments from Jim Cripwell and Doc Martyn.
And to all of you who beat up on Jeff about ECS, if he didn’t understand completely the differences between ECS and TCR, then he had the same problem I did until about 9 months ago, because it isn’t talked about that much in the peer-reviewed literature. You want proof? Ask yourself why our EPA is focused on ECS and not TCR in trying to predict global warming over the next couple of centuries, while writing their CO2 emissions control regulations focused on that period of time. ECS is a purely academic concept that can’t be verified by actual physical data. The IPCC’s other climate sensitivity metric, TCR, also theoretically can’t be verified by physical data. What climate sensitivity metric does the IPCC utilize that could actually be verified by actual physical data? That they don’t demonstrates their ill-advised dependence on un-validated climate models. Focusing on ECS that is such the impractical darling of peer-reviewed research, is a waste of resources for many reasons too numerous to list here, if one is really trying to understand what will happen with AGW over the next couple of centuries. The ECS forcing scenario is preposterous, unrealistic and a total waste of computer time.
Jeff L has extracted from the HadCRUT4 data an upper bound for what I define as Total Radiative Force (TRF) Transient Climate Sensitivity (TCS). That is the global average surface temperature achieved in the year CO2 doubles in the atmosphere from the actual slowly rising TRF. The TRF involved is from CO2, other GHG, and primarily Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) changes referenced to 1850 levels. Natural climate cycles in play can skew the results either way. If the internal dynamics of the climate system provides surface warming over the data analysis period, then Jeff L’s approach is conservative in identifying TCS TCR. If there is something cooling it (and there is very some slow cooling from the Milankovic’ cycle) then his analysis may underestimate climate sensitivity to CO2, but we can bound that possibility also in trying to figure out how much AGW we can possibly get before we run out of all fossil fuels on the planet to burn within 125 years. One has to be aware of the approx. 60 year internal climate cycles and what effect they may have on Jeff’s straightforward analysis method. If you pick a time period that goes from one peak in this cycle to a peak several cycles later then you can minimize the effects of this natural climate cycle on the accuracy of his analysis method.
For all of you who beat Jeff up about equilibrium conditions, I submit that the climate is approximately in equilibrium for the average total radiative force in any year, if the radiative forcing applied is very gradually like it actually is in the real world. Don’t believe me? Consider a simple spring-mass-damper system in a 1G gravity field and that initially you are holding the mass in place by pushing upward on the mass with a constant force = 1/4 the tension force in the spring and the mass is at rest. If you slowly start to increase the upward force by pushing up with your finger to a new equilibrium position such that the final increased force you apply to the mass is twice the initial force (equal to 1/2 the original tension force in the spring) and then you stop pushing and hold the mass in place with this final force, the mass is in a new equilibrium position with twice the initial upward force and you just hold it there. If you take care to push the mass very slowly upward so you don’t excite any oscillatory behavior, the mass undergoes a gradually changing equilibrium condition that can be assumed to be constant in any one year. So when the CO2 reaches a doubled value in the atmosphere, because of non-linearities in the climate system, some CO2 transfers to the atmosphere from warming oceans and land masses, but when the CO2 in the atmosphere reaches a doubled value, some injected and some from the earth’s surface, the climate will be in a new quasi-steady equilibrium point for that Total Radiative Force level.
Once an upper bound for the TRF TCS value is extracted from the data using Jeff’ approach, it can be corrected for any TSI changes that occurred over the data analysis period. When considering the actual slow gradual radiative force rise when CO2 and TSI are both increasing over a long period of time, thinking about the simple dynamics problem above will lead you to understand that TCS as defined here, is approximately equal to TCR. The average of TCR and ECS values in Table 8.2 of the IPCC AR4 report provide an average ratio of ECS/TCR = 1.8. Therefore, if TCS = TCR, then ECS = (Jeff L’s 1.8 deg C value)(1.8) = 3.2 deg C. However, Jeff L’s 1.8 deg C value extracted from the data can be lowered to 1.6 deg C by correcting for about 0.4 W/m^2 TSI rise from 1850 to 2010. Also his sensitivity value is for all GHG effects since 1850, not just CO2, but germane to bounding the AGW threat Throwing out some spurious “out of family” HadCrut4 data points like the 1998 data point we know is associated with a naturally occurring El Nino event that yea,r could get his upper bound value a little lower to my least upper bound value for ECS = 2.5 deg C. But, he has performed a very simple and easy to understand analysis that is much, much better than the IPCC AR5 report’s new climate sensitivity uncertainty range of 1.5 < ECS < 4.5 deg C. And he did it simply and inexpensively.
All of you take notice because more of us are going to join his bandwagon to rigorously lower the IPCC ECS uncertainty range using similar reasoning. The upper bound for ECS buried in the HadCRUT4 data is below the mid-point of the official IPCC uncertainty range. But we shouldn't be bothering with ECS to predict climate over the next 200 years. TCS as extracted from the data, is a more appropriate measure of climate sensitivity we really need to be worried about. If you use methods similar to Jeff's to bound all-GHG TCS and consider the remaining economically recoverable fossil fuels on the planet, we can only get about 1 deg C more of AGW warming before we have to be completely transitioned to alternative fuels that do not emit CO2.
To other critics that pointed out the hadCRUT4 Global Average Temperature Anomaly (GATA) is not global average surface temperature (GAST), what else are you going to use to cut through all the BS from the IPCC and get them to get real about a useful climate sensitivity metric that could be used to accurately assess the maximum possible "heat pulse" we might get from AGW over the next 200 years? Its time to cut off all of the alarm bells, agree that climate sensitivity of importance is not ECS and closer to TCS = TCR and work the problem.
The peer-reviewed literature on climate science is voluminous and full of useless claims. Amateurs like Jeff and myself don't have time to wade through all of this mostly useless literature. What reputable journal would even publish results of a study based only on results of un-validated climate models. Those of us who have to solve critical problems quickly in the real world can do something simple to try to bound the problem and Jeff L. did. Please congratulate him for his interesting effort and help him to get closer to the truth. Don't bully and discourage him with your nasty and pompous remarks.

Willis Eschenbach says:
February 16, 2014 at 12:03 am
Oh, please, stop your pearl-clutching. Many people pointed out mistakes Jeff made, myself included. Because of the mistakes he made, he didn’t even come close to being able to “bound the possible effects of CO2″.
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Willis, while your suggestion for testing the OP out of sample has a lot of merit, I can’t help feeling that you’re falling nto the same mistake as others of reading more into the post than was ever intended. That’s maybe not surprising seeing as most people on both sides of the climate debate seem to be forever looking for a “smoking gun” or silver bullet. But that’s not what the Op was ever offering.
Let’s say I want to get a feel for the Sun’s energy output.
I could set out a few solar panels in my back yard in the UK and measure the energy they capture. I find that I capture about 125 W / m^2. From that it would be madness to back-calcuate and claim I had an accurate figure for the Great Fireball’s output but I would be perfectly entitled to calculate back and say something like:
“Assuming the solar energy per area falling on the uk equals the average energy falling across the Earth’s surface, the total output of the Sun is at least the value I’ve calculated.
That statement takes no account of factors such as the efficiency of my panels, their response to different wavelengths, the atmosphere or anything else intercepting the incoming radiation but it would still be valid statement if I took my measurements using a selenium cell under cloudy skies during a total eclipse!
The complaints about TCS / ECS are more or less irrelevant because (a) the climate is never in equilibrium and (b) they’re both defined in terms of an instantaneous doubling of CO2 which is a physical absurdity. Unless the lag to ECS is several centuries the actual rate of increase is slow enough for thde climate to keep up.
The complaints about factors he’s ignored are irrelevant because (a) he’s openly stated that he’s ignored them, (b) they will ALL tend to reduce, rather than increase, the observed direct response to CO2 under the “CO2 does it all” assumption, so they will ALL lead to a lower figure in reality and (c) he’s (briefly) considered what the implications of including any other factors would be, regardless of the “direction” in which they operate.
Incidentally, that final point is where your suggestion of looking out of sample falters a little. It would be an interesting exercise in its own right but unless the assumption that “it’s all CO2” is actually true we would expect a model that ignores lots of known factors to fail out of sample. If it didn’t then it would be telling us that it really IS “all CO2”, which would be an incredible result
You’re quite right that science progresses by inviting people to knock holes in your ideas, but that’s only true when the people with the hammers actually aim at your ideas, rather than what they imagine your ideas to be!