Guest essay By Roger A. Pielke Sr.
My son and Kevin Trenberth did an interview for Colorado Public Radio on February 17th. The entire interview is worth listening to, but here I want to comment on a specific statement that Kevin made that is scientifically inaccurate.
The entire interview (well worth listening too) is titled
Is climate change causing extreme weather? Experts disagree – click the listen button at http://www.cpr.org/news/story/climate-change-causing-extreme-weather-experts-disagree for the interview
In the discussion on added heat during droughts that is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2, Kevin Trenberth said
“You can add up how much of that heat there is and over a six month period it’s equivalent to running a very small microwave over every square foot at full power for about ½ hour”.
The interviewer [Ryan Warner] seemed to be impressed by this analog. The analog of a microwave is an effective image, but it is scientifically wrong for several reasons. Public Radio listeners and Mr. Warner were misled by this analog.
· First, the reduction of long wave radiation emitted to Space due to the added CO2 occurs over the six month time period, not in a short duration burst. Clearly, a short ½ burst of such heat would have a very different effect than when this heat is distributed across a six month time period.
· Second, the effect of long wave radiative flux divergence on surface temperatures from added CO2 (or other greenhouse gas including water vapor) is much larger at night. This is because during daylight, most of the time, vertical turbulent mixing dominates. The atmospheric boundary layer is typically much deeper during the daytime, so that added heat from the increase of CO2 is distributed through a much deeper depth. While the effect on nighttime minimum temperatures can be significant as we showed in our paper
McNider, R.T., G.J. Steeneveld, B. Holtslag, R. Pielke Sr, S. Mackaro, A. Pour Biazar, J.T. Walters, U.S. Nair, and J.R. Christy, 2012: Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res., 117, D14106, doi:10.1029/2012JD017578. Copyright (2012) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/r-371.pdf
the effect on daytime maximum temperatures (and thus on increasing the heat stress in a drought) will be much less. Kevin did not properly inform the audience how the added heat would be processed differently during the day and night.
· Third, we examined this issue for a seasonal time scale in our paper
Eastman, J.L., M.B. Coughenour, and R.A. Pielke, 2001: The effects of CO2 and landscape change using a coupled plant and meteorological model. Global Change Biology, 7, 797-815 http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-229.pdf
We concluded based on our model sensitivity runs that the radiative forcing effect of doubled atmospheric concentrations of CO2 on regional temperatures over a growing season are minimal (e.g. see Tables 8 and 9). This is especially true for daytime temperatures. Indeed, the biogeochemical effect on the regional weather from added CO2[which Kevin did not mention] was a much larger effect, as was land use change.
The ½ hour of added heat from the microwave forcing that Kevin presented, when properly input over the entire growing season would only result in a trivial effect on maximum temperature (ie. The hottest part of the day)!
Thus, while added CO2 and other human and natural climate forcings certainly can have an effect on large scale circulation features which could exacerbate droughts and fires, the analogy to a microwave that Kevin presented to convince the audience regarding the importance of added surface heating from the radiative effect of the increase of atmospheric CO2 is scientifically incorrect.
Indeed, when we perform model sensitivity experiments, we find that biogeochemical effect of added CO2 on plants (and the feedback to weather) and of land use change are much larger effects on this time and spatial scale.
Something very wrong with a microwave oven that doesn’t produce any extra heat for some 17 years or more, and is in fact appearing to allow temperatures to cool.
Are they really trying to tell us that CO2, which was supposedly driving temperatures up has now switched to causing “extreme weather” instead? One weeps for science.
timetochooseagain says: February 19, 2014 at 9:22 pm “Seems to me like mankind’s real enemy is entropy.”
Too true! See the epistemologic Principle of Maximum Entropy (Jaynes, 1957) that damns ignorant pundits as they squeeze their ignorance out of the decision space.
DirkH:
At February 20, 2014 at 4:28 am you ask
No.
Trolls attempt to prevent discussion of a subject by deflecting a thread onto something else.
Trenberth, his statements, and his ‘science’ are the subject of this thread. And he has done nothing to deflect consideration of the subject of the thread.
Richard
Who needs microwave analogies to tell if extreme weather is increasing? Can’t we just look at the actual data… I guess that would be too obvious, gotta use a “model” somewhere to truly understand it…
You can add up the total heat of all the cups of coffee I’ve drunk and it will be the equivalent to detonating 1,000 microwave ovens every fortnight for a for several donkey’s years.
Using the power and heat from microwave ovens for comparison doesn’t clarify anything. I mean, how many would that be in birthday candles? The real message that needs to be conveyed is that simplification doesn’t help when you’re dealing with mathematical models of earth’s climate. Climate science would be simple if the weather didn’t keep messing it up.
Kate,
it is ludicrous , the combined heat from all the cups of tea i drink in a day would equal =
and here i am stlll at 98.6F- even with no end of GHG’s sorry clothes surrounding me.
Looks like NH ice has also been fiddled with
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/alarmists-busted-again/
@Crispin in Waterloo
I agree with what you say, but this proves water vapour is NOT a GHG. GHGs cause warming, but water vapour causes warming and cooling. More accurately it prevents or slows down warming and cooling – as you say – it acts like an insulator.
For comparison take the Amazon rain forest where the temperature varies by 2C to 5C during the day, and only 2C over the year. The water vapour acts like an insulator.
My argument is that water in all its forms so dominates the climate that the effect of GHGs can only be studied in areas where it is mostly absent, such as the Sahara. Otherwise factors due to the effect of water can be ascribed to GHGs. For example the discovery that low level clouds absorb more sunlight than thought and causes warming. All models have this warming down as due to CO2.
Also, of course, the Sun, which is heating the planet by around 300 degrees centigrade!! [Absolute zero is -273C, add 3C for the heat of the universe, so 270C plus the temperature outside!] Variations would hardly be a surprise, except to climate ‘scientists’ of course.
It’s s dumb and inflammatory analogy, yes. But I think it’s accurate in simple terms – energy input. It’s not nearly as inflammatory an analogy as the Hiroshima atom bomb one though. Be grateful for small favors.
Big increase in radiation as a result of solar plasma. The dark area shows the current position of the polar vortex 100 hPa.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/24ymqsm.jpg
I think the analogy is stupid. You could put me in a huge microwave and run it at full power for half an hour and I would die an agonizing death, but if you spread that same energy out over a 6 month period – I wouldn’t even notice. Does anybody really believe you can heat a cup of coffee in this manner? It’s ludicrous, not giving a damn about the rest of the interview or the other “science” discussed, this one analogy makes a man look beyond foolish. Am I wrong?
Me. Trenberth, do you know what a horsepower is? It represents the ability to lift 32,000 pounds 1 foot in 1 minute. I know it probably pains you to use one but you probably have a car, don’t you? At least I’m certain you’ve ridden in them. Now, those big semi tractor trailers that ply the highways are limited in many states to 60,000 pounds, less than twice of what one solitary horsepower can lift. And, we can safely assume that car you ride in weighs a wee fraction of that. So, I think a total of 1 horsepower for any car you’re in should clearly be more than adequate, especially since it’s generally not lifting the car but moving it on the level. So, when you travel somewhere to make your “small microwave” analogies might I humbly suggest you do it in a 1 horsepower car: it’ll be a fitting analogy to an analogy.
“Its like those shady salesmen who tell you that you’ll only be paying the equivalent of a cup of coffee a day or some analogy to create the illusion of not paying a lot.”
My wife says it takes about 3 minutes in our microwave to boil a cup of water. Thus using this silly analogy, you could boil 10 cups of water every 6 months. Is this really something to worry about?
@ConfusedPhoton says: February 20, 2014 at 1:14 am
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These guys are *still* claiming to be Nobel Laureates? Peter Higgs of Boson fame was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 the other day. It was a fascinating interview. (Still available on the iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03vdx7m/The_Life_Scientific_Peter_Higgs/ – you may need VPN or a UK proxy to access from outside the UK).
Higgs noted at one point that the Nobel Prize is awarded to at most three people at the same time. So the idea that tens of them all got the Nobel Prize is a preposterous display of preening and stupidity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize
“A maximum of three laureates and two different works may be selected per award.”
He did suceed in changing the subject.
It has never been about any thing other than taxes and the power to tax and spend.
Redistribution and social justice.
Facts not so much.
Now it is a mindless cult.
@joshuah says: February 20, 2014 at 5:01 am
Who needs microwave analogies to tell if extreme weather is increasing? Can’t we just look at the actual data
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Yes – but the data is none-compliant, and therefore must be disregarded. Who needs data when you can have model-based evidence? Or just plain dogma?
Untraceable analogy is another good hide and seek strategy to go with deep ocean and beneath the ice sheet concealment. The common characteristic here is to keep moving and keep the rational thinking and science response off base. Call it……, well I won’t get into analogies.
I think having a person breathing on a square foot for about one day every 6 months
would be a far more accurate illustration.
Dr. Trenberth is offering time and time again a demonstration of that law of physics known as conservation of stupidity.
John F. Hultquist says:
February 19, 2014 at 11:10 pm
You nailed it. For most people, the microwave in the kitchen is a monster that defies understanding. Recall all those “urban legends” about the child who put the kittie into the microwave for drying.
I have been disappointed by Trenberth and have distrusted him for some time. Now, he has placed himself off the charts. The use of this analogy is just sick.
Firey wrote: “Oh, I thought it was hiding in the deep ocean.”
No. That’s the heat in the deep ocean. From there, it causes all extreme weather, which appears to follow reporters around, regardless whether they are in the deep ocean.
Thanks to Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. for this posting. Climate alarmism by persons such as Kevin Trenberth needs to be shown for what it is.
Alarmists dug a septic tank they’ve been hoping all would fall into. Prancing around the tank, they smirk.
Now, they find themselves frantically having to bail out the tank, since it’s they who’ve ended up in it.
How’s that for an analogy? 😉
My pride at being a “denier” is growing by leaps and bounds as we are castigated by some of the most prominent people on the planet. The old saw about being judged by the strength of your enemies (political sense) has rarely been more true than in our case. From the late Osama Bin Laden to the US Sec State and his boss we have them happily heaping scorn on our heads to silence our voices. Their purpose is to close the ears of the public against us thereby avoiding civil debate on matters of great consequence. No blow to low no slander to great.
To quote Mya Angelou “And still we rise”
Keep up the good work