(Note: this originally published on Dr. Spencer’s blog on April 25th, and I asked if I could reproduce it here. While I know some readers might argue the finer points of some items in the list, I think it is important to keep sight of these. – Anthony)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
There are some very good arguments for being skeptical of global warming predictions. But the proliferation of bad arguments is becoming almost dizzying.
I understand and appreciate that many of the things we think we know in science end up being wrong. I get that. But some of the alternative explanations I’m seeing border on the ludicrous.
So, here’s my Top 10 list of stupid skeptic arguments. I’m sure there are more, and maybe I missed a couple important ones. Oh well.
My obvious goal here is not to change minds that are already made up, which is impossible (by definition), but to reach 1,000+ (mostly nasty) comments in response to this post. So, help me out here!
1. THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT. Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m2) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn’t exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)… Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. I’ve blogged on this numerous times…maybe start here.
2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.
3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS. No. When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state. See more here. Also important is the fact that the rate at which a CO2 molecule absorbs IR is mostly independent of temperature, but the rate at which it emits IR increases strongly with temperature. There is no requirement that a layer of air emits as much IR as it absorbs…in fact, in general, the the rates of IR emission and absorption are pretty far from equal.
4. CO2 COOLS, NOT WARMS, THE ATMOSPHERE. This one is a little more subtle because the net effect of greenhouse gases is to cool the upper atmosphere, and warm the lower atmosphere, compared to if no greenhouse gases were present. Since any IR absorber is also an IR emitter, a CO2 molecule can both cool and warm, because it both absorbs and emits IR photons.
5. ADDING CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE HAS NO EFFECT BECAUSE THE CO2 ABSORPTION BANDS ARE ALREADY 100% OPAQUE. First, no they are not, and that’s because of pressure broadening. Second, even if the atmosphere was 100% opaque, it doesn’t matter. Here’s why.
6. LOWER ATMOSPHERIC WARMTH IS DUE TO THE LAPSE RATE/ADIABATIC COMPRESSION. No, the lapse rate describes how the temperature of a parcel of air changes from adiabatic compression/expansion of air as it sinks/rises. So, it can explain how the temperature changes during convective overturning, but not what the absolute temperature is. Explaining absolute air temperature is an energy budget question. You cannot write a physics-based equation to obtain the average temperature at any altitude without using the energy budget. If adiabatic compression explains temperature, why is the atmospheric temperature at 100 mb is nearly the same as the temperature at 1 mb, despite 100x as much atmospheric pressure? More about all this here.
7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND The rate of rise in atmospheric CO2 is currently 2 ppm/yr, a rate which is 100 times as fast as any time in the 300,000 year Vostok ice core record. And we know our consumption of fossil fuels is emitting CO2 200 times as fast! So, where is the 100x as fast rise in today’s temperature causing this CO2 rise? C’mon people, think. But not to worry…CO2 is the elixir of life…let’s embrace more of it!
8. THE IPCC MODELS ARE FOR A FLAT EARTH I have no explanation where this little tidbit of misinformation comes from. Climate models address a spherical, rotating, Earth with a day-night (diurnal) cycle in solar illumination and atmospheric Coriolis force (due to both Earth curvature and rotation). Yes, you can do a global average of energy flows and show them in a flat-earth cartoon, like the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget diagram which is a useful learning tool, but I hope most thinking people can distinguish between a handful of global-average average numbers in a conceptual diagram, and a full-blown 3D global climate model.
9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE Really?! Is there an average temperature of your bathtub full of water? Or of a room in your house? Now, we might argue over how to do the averaging (Spatial? Mass-weighted?), but you can compute an average, and you can monitor it over time, and see if it changes. The exercise is only futile if your sampling isn’t good enough to realistically monitor changes over time. Just because we don’t know the average surface temperature of the Earth to better than, say 1 deg. C, doesn’t mean we can’t monitor changes in the average over time. We have never known exactly how many people are in the U.S., but we have useful estimates of how the number has increased in the last 50-100 years. Why is “temperature” so important? Because the thermal IR emission in response to temperature is what stabilizes the climate system….the hotter things get, the more energy is lost to outer space.
10. THE EARTH ISN’T A BLACK BODY. Well, duh. No one said it was. In the broadband IR, though, it’s close to a blackbody, with an average emissivity of around 0.95. But whether a climate model uses 0.95 or 1.0 for surface emissivity isn’t going to change the conclusions we make about the sensitivity of the climate system to increasing carbon dioxide.
I’m sure I could come up with a longer list than this, but these were the main issues that came to mind.
So why am I trying to stir up a hornets nest (again)? Because when skeptics embrace “science” that is worse that the IPCC’s science, we hurt our credibility.
NOTE: Because of the large number of negative comments this post will generate, please excuse me if I don’t respond to every one. Or even very many of them. But if I see a new point being made I haven’t addressed before, I’ll be more likely to respond.
Agricultural Economist says:
May 2, 2014 at 12:55 am
There is another very popular, but also VERY stupid argument frequently brought up against model-based long-term climate projections:
“If we can’t forecast the weather two weeks from now, how can we forecast the climate in 100 years?”
Ahh, this is my favorite one. I don’t think it’s stupid, because
1) it’s simple and plausible
2) I believe climate is the sum of all weather, be it micro-, regional- seasonal- or global climate.
So if you can’t predict the parts, how will you predict the whole?
For example, can anyone predict today wether the next winter in northern America will be as
cold as the last one? Agreed, this is still ‘weather’, but also cold winters somewhat define the
climate of northern America. Which leads directly to the next argument:
3) I believe, the climate ‘mechanics’ are not well known. Why does the jetstream what it does?
How and why affect El Nino and La Nina weather or climate? What triggers lead to an ice age
or out of it? The science is far from settled.
4) Regarding the temperature variations of the last few hundred years, I think the uncertainty
is so high I wouldn’t dare predict the average temperature of 2020. It might be 5 degrees lower
or higher than now.
5) And finally, to predict the climate a hundred years in the future, you’ll have to factor in major
events like volcanoes, sunspot activity, earthquakes that change regional climate…
Dung says:
May 2, 2014 at 8:36 am
———————————————-
Perhaps the icecore-bubble migrationists also have an explanation why CO2 is directly sensitive to Milankovitch changes in insolation.
Couple of strawmen examples.
“2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. & So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.”
From a high school presentation 40 years ago on hypothermia. Take 5 sealed metal cans filled with water all at the same temperature. Cover one each with dry wool, wet wool, dry cotton, wet cotton and one bare. Put outside around 50 degrees, in the shade with a light wind (if I remember correctly). 30 minutes later measure the temps. The wet cotton will be lower than the bare can. Your example is not always right, wet cotton will make you colder. Dry clothing stops the evaporative cooling of the skin, not thermal radiation.
“3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT”
Glad to see your explanation of
“When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state.”
So greenhouse gases can catch IR photons, convect to non-greehouse gases and from #2 above “to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation” they all emit IR but at a changed frequency due to their temperature and Planck’s curves. Does the radiated IR from N2 & O2 get around the CO2 window?
“7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND The rate of rise in atmospheric CO2 is currently 2 ppm/yr, a rate which is 100 times as fast as any time in the 300,000 year Vostok ice core record.”
So if we have this 100x rate, how can any recent low temperature record be set. Even your sat. temp. output shows 1998 as a high. Does natural variation still overwhelm CO2?
“9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE”
As stated in #6 – “Explaining absolute air temperature is an energy budget question.”
For the following states: Alabama, Florida, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota & South Dakota; Which two states have recorded the highest temperature and which two have the lowest high temperature?
If you say Alabama / Florida and North Dakota / South Dakota you are right, but did you answer that the Dakota’s were the 2 higher and AL / FL were the 2 lower. Has to do with humidity. You cannot get total energy without humidity, so temperature alone does not tell the whole story.
george e. smith says, May 1, 2014 at 8:03 pm:
“Kristian, I believe that what the Nimus 4 observation is saying is that earth’s outgoing radiation is a near black body spectrum, at essentially the ocean surface temperature, shooting straight out to space unhindered, except where the CO2, O3 and H2O in the atmosphere are putting holes, due to GHG LWIR absorption bands.
Remember that what the GHG molecules absorb, and subsequently re-emit, (maybe spectrally different), is emitted ISOTROPICALLY so only about half of it escapes (directly to space), the rest returning to the surface, where it has a variety of processes to deal with.”
Smith, my point is this: When looking down at the radiation going out from the earth as seen by the satellites from space, wouldn’t we expect to see the OPPOSITE of what that spectrum supposedly shows, namely that ALL radiation was emitted by the radiative gases (the so-called ‘GHGs’), not the other way around, that most if not all the radiation came from outside the ‘GHG’ spectral bands and that it is specifically NOT emitted to any significant extent through the ‘GHG’ spectral bands? That is, IF this kind of spectrum diagram is interpreted correctly …!
But of course it isn’t. This is not about the AMOUNT of radiation being emitted by the earth. Even though some people apparently REALLY want to believe just that. It is about the FREQUENCY BANDS that this radiation is primarily emitted through. It tells us nothing about the total OLR (the flux out through the ToA).
What it tells us is what we all know: H2O and CO2 absorbs IR within certain spectral wavelength bands going out from the surface, but do not emit them again to space in the same wavelengths, because they collide with other air molecules before they can physically reemit. Hence, what we see is to a large extent simply a ‘bulk gas temperature’ emission signal, NOT an individual (molecular) spectral emission signal.
In other words, Robert Brown’s ‘proof’ of a GHE warming effect, simply isn’t what it’s claimed to be. It’s just evidence that H2O, CO2, CH4 et al. absorbs IR. Nobody disputes that. It’s however NOT evidence (not even hinting) that this absorbed IR is therefore somehow ‘trapped’ by the atmosphere, that it cannot ‘escape’. It goes into the greater bulk temperature of the atmosphere.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 11:51 am
“(there are problems with the amplitudes of the variability, because of that factor, but that is not the main point)”
It is the main point. We get a fit of both the trend and the variability with the same scaling factor. That confirms the scaling factor. The trend is therefore explained fully by the temperature relationship. Human emissions also have a trend in rate. There is little to no room for it to fit in, because it is already accounted for.
“But that is caused by the fact that CO2 follows temperature with pi/2 and that taking the derivatives shift both pi/2 back in time, which makes that temperature changes and CO2 rate of change changes always match in timing…”
Because it is a derivative relationship. The phase shift of pi/2 across all frequencies occurs if and only if there is a derivative relationship.
“Anyway, if the deep oceans should be the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, that is only possible via an increased deep ocean – atmosphere – deep ocean circulation in exact ratio to human emissions.”
A trivial matter. Every affine function is affinely similar to any other affine function. All you’re saying is that the rates of change of all relevant quantities are increasing roughly linearly over the timeline of interest. That is not only not remarkable, it is generally expected local behavior for any function, as anyone who has ever performed a Taylor series expansion knows.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 12:14 pm
“If that is caused by more natural circulation, as you think or only by human emissions, that is the point of discussion…”
The observation has no bearing on the discussion for a dynamic system. That is the point.
The oceans contain 250 times the mass of the entire atmosphere and a larger ability to absorb radiation from the sun. yet we are to believe that a 100 ppm increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is driving an increase in the temperature of the ocean and the Atmosphere.
The increase in solar radiation is warming the oceans and and releasing CO2. this is why CO2 lags behind temperature in all of the records. the amount of CO2 dumped in the atmosphere through man made sources would easily be absorbed by natural systems without this effect.
I still say we need a….
10 stupidest climate scientist arguments that don’t hold water
such as…..stop the stupid blown up graphs…this is what it really looks like
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/how-the-earths-temperature-looks-on-a-mercury-thermometer/
is anyone stupid enough to believe that 2ppm extra CO2 is too much?
stop debating some science as if it’s real when it’s based on wonky numbers…..reconstructed jiggled temp history
JohnWho:
At May 2, 2014 at 10:24 am you assert
No, it is not “clear” and that is why there is such discussion of the matter as has happened in this thread.
The anthropogenic CO2 emission is a trivial addition to the CO2 circulating in the carbon cycle. It is input to the atmosphere but the exchanges with the atmosphere give very rapid turnover.
Please read my explanations in this thread which are here, here and here.
Enough has been said on this matter in this thread. There is no data which resolves the matter and the discussion is ‘taking over’ the thread.
Richard
Some of my comments have been removed, I did not offend anyone and I am not happy about it therefore with great regret I will leave this great discussion.
OK.
Let us begin that conversation:
What Are The “Ten” Most-Common FALSE CAGW “Scientific” Claims and Exaggerations That Are Most Often Thrown in the Faces of Skeptics and Realists?
Now, I know how “I” would answer each challenge – and I “have” answered these same challenges and accusations many different times in probably as many different ways But, I’m not the only one they are accusing, the only one the CAGW religion is attacking because of our skepticism. SO, what “accusations” and “questions” am I missing? How have you ( the readers) responded – or have not been able to respond to each challenge?
Further, I use the term “challenges” deliberately – the CAGW religion requires that you be a “zealot” and be “ready to act” despite real evidence and despite any immediate threat – it is a real part of their fundamental religion that skeptics be not only demonized but thrown assaulted, in jail, and blown in half in a pristine classroom of innocent youth.
1. Why are you denying Climate Change?
2. Don’t you understand that 97% of “real scientists” agree that CO2 is a dangerous/is harming the environment/is affecting the climate/is humanity’s most serious threat to life around the world?
3. But CO2’s harmful effect on the climate is basic physics/has been an established fact since the 1890’s/has been known since Arrhenius first theories 120 years ago?
4. But why are you a part of the well-funded climate-deniers’ process/part of the climate denier’s conspiracy/widespread network of climate deniers? (Alternate: Aren’t you just a well-paid spokesman for a widespread climate denier’s/big oil conspiracy to deny climate change?)
5. But we MUST act NOW to prevent (potential) future harm!
Also: But we MUST act NOW as a precaution against climate change/as insurance against climate change!
6. But we MUST act NOW (against CO2) BECAUSE fossil fuels are running out/peak oil-peak natural gas-peak horse manure …
7. Only pure sustainable/renewable energy/green energy/energy rebates (to selected voters only)/ green energy programs/widespread mandatory reductions/international energy cooperation can save us from imminent disaster/imminent climate change!
8. Immediate higher energy prices/higher energy taxes (er, carbon trading schemes)/e MUST be implements to reduce CO2/to prevent climate change.
9. EVERY change in the weather in ANY direction of ANY type can be blamed on climate change due to (recent) CO2 increases, and EVERY recent weather problem and disaster will ONLY be prevented if we immediately control CO2 to below industrial levels.
10. And, of course, the ever-present-but-not-related-to-climate-change ….
Why do support flat-earth/religious fundamental deniers against true scientists?
Do you believe in evolution?
But real scientists claim… (and it’s neighbor) “All true scientists believe ..”
And would you support the Inquisition against true scientists like Galileo?
When was the earth created?
Why do you oppose teaching evolution in school?
Do you believe in the Big Bang?
No real scientist can deny …
If you believe in God/the Bible/religion you cannot be allowed to …
Great list RA…
It’s hiding in the deep oceans and affecting our weather by telekinesis….
Dr. Spencer –
Thank you for your informative post. There are so many valid arguments against cap and trade and CAGW it is unnecessary and counterproductive to advance flawed ones, and you have provided a valuable contribution. While it might be repetitive, I join those who would enjoy seeing your version of the top ten valid reasons to be skeptical of CAGW.
It seems clear by now that perhaps #7 could be rephrased. It does, however, make a point that I enthusiastically agree with and hear far too seldom: “CO2 is the elixir of life…let’s embrace more of it!” But, I feel it is a valid skeptical argument to point out that, when considering the major changes over several ice age cycles, CO2 clearly primarily follows warming, so it can’t be a dominant cause of warming.
Obviously sea water releases CO2 when warmed, promptly at the surface, but with centuries of delay for the warmth to reach the depths of the ocean. So, major CO2 changes in the ice-age cycle tend to lag major warming changes by about 800 years in the ice core records.
Al Gore’s movie prominently displayed hundreds of thousands of years of clearly correlated graphs of CO2 and temperature changes, deceptively implying that this correlation implied causation (of warming by CO2). Of course, since Aristotle, educated people have known that correlation does not imply causation. Most people accept that CO2 causes at least a little warming and that warming increases CO2. Basic signal processing techniques show that, on average, the major CO2 increases in the ice-age cycle primarily tend to follow major warming periods, so clearly the primary cause of the correlation is that warming causes increased CO2, and warming due to CO2 is not dominant. That makes sense, since CO2 is just a trace gas.
It is important to point out that CO2 follows warming. It not only disproves Al’s point, but it reveals his dishonesty, his contempt for the intelligence of his audience, and his lack of valid evidence. It also helps illustrates the abject failure of the mainstream media and those involved in awarding cinematic and Nobel prizes. It’s important that this is easily understandable by ordinary people with simple common sense.
CO2 levels are, of course, affected by many factors, including human emissions and the amount of warming both recently and up to 800 or more years ago. While some CO2 elevation is probably a delayed reaction to the MWP, your point is well-taken that there’s no point denying humans have emitted lots of CO2. There’s no need, it’s the elixir of life.
Bart says:
May 2, 2014 at 1:28 pm
It is the main point. We get a fit of both the trend and the variability with the same scaling factor.
Sorry Bart, that isn’t true. If there is a difference in slopes, between T and dCO2/dt, which is almost always the case, it is just coincidence that you can match the slopes ánd the amplitudes with the same factor. But the factor gets to near zero if there is little slope in dCO2/dt and a slope in T or to infinity for the reverse case. In both cases the amplitude of the variability is affected by the different factors used, while the effect of T changes on dCO2/dt changes should be the same.
In the current case, the amplitude is way too small if you get a real fit of the slopes.
Because it is a derivative relationship. The phase shift of pi/2 across all frequencies occurs if and only if there is a derivative relationship.
Which may be true for the variability, but doesn’t imply that the slope of the derivative is included in the T relationship. The slope can be – and probably is – entirely from human emissions.
A trivial matter. Every affine function is affinely similar to any other affine function.
Except that the “natural circulation” function isn’t found in any observation…
The observation has no bearing on the discussion for a dynamic system. That is the point.
Sorry? If you have a mass balance which shows that only halve the human emissions in quantity remain in the atmosphere, that means that the rest of the dynamic system must be more sink than source. No matter how they vary individually or as group or what the total throughput is.
If the sinks are slow in response, as it looks like, then humans are the main cause of the increase. In the other case, only a huge increase in natural circulation can increase the CO2 level in the atmosphere while dwarfing the human emissions. For which there is not the slightest indication.
– – – – – – – –
Ferdinand Engelbeen,
Your statement is a self-contradiction. And you appear to start with a premised ‘a priori’ knowledge that atm CO2 increase is form fossil sourced CO2 then make an argument for fossil sourced CO2 being the cause of the increase of atm CO2 by hand waving away lack of knowledge of the details of natural source and sinks which are orders of magnitude greater than the fossil source.
So, from the carbon cycle issue in my comments, connecting this all back to Spencer’s #7 then I would think that Spencer’s oversimplified position needs major augmentations to indicate the broader issues at hand on attributions to total increase in CO2.
John
richardscourtney says:
May 2, 2014 at 2:09 pm
There is no data which resolves the matter and the discussion is ‘taking over’ the thread.
I have the impression that some people never will accept any data which resolves the matter…
Meanwhile, point 7 is one of the points which discredits the skeptics most in discussions with luke-warmers: if they don’t (want to) see that it is our emissions which cause the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, what’s then the value of their other arguments?
1997
Giant el nino
Heat wave
Lots Ac units on
9 months later biggest increase in CO2 in one year at in Hawaii
Co2 increase caused by humans. Proved
John Whitman says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:35 pm
Your statement is a self-contradiction. And you appear to start with a premised ‘a priori’ knowledge that atm CO2 increase is [from] fossil sourced CO2
OK, what do we know:
increase in the atmosphere = human emissions + natural releases – natural sinks
for any give year, the increase in the atmosphere and human emissions are known.
For the year 2012 (approximately):
4.5 GtC = 9 GtC + X (natural releases) – Y (natural sinks)
X – Y = -4.5 GtC
Or the total of all natural sinks was 4.5 GtC larger than the total of all natural sources
In the past 50+ years, the natural sinks were always larger than the natural sources.
That we know without any knowledge of any individual or total flux in or out.
Does it matter that some individual flux doubled or halved since last year? Not at all.
Does it matter that the total of all sources was 100, 200 or 1000 GtC that year? Not at all, because in that case the total of all sinks was 104.5, 204.5 or 1004.5 GtC in the same year.
Does it matter that the total sources and sinks (= [throughput]) doubled from last year? Maybe. That is the discussion I have with Bart. The only possible way that humans are not responsible for the increase in the atmosphere is when the sinks are reacting very fast on any excess CO2 in the atmosphere above equilibrium. In that case, only a firm increase in natural releases will give more sinks (thus more circulation) plus an increase in the atmosphere and human emissions would have little effect and be readily absorbed in the fast sinks.
But there is no indication that the atmospheric throughput increased over the past 50+ years: not in the residence time, not in the 13C/12C ratio decline and not in the atomic bomb 14C spike decline…
Bob Boder says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:37 pm
1997
Giant el nino
Heat wave
Lots Ac units on
9 months later biggest increase in CO2 in one year at in Hawaii
Co2 increase caused by humans. Proved
Indeed, even in that year human emissions were -borderline- larger than the increase in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
This is one of the best threads on WUWT I’ve ever read. I’ve gone over the comments twice now (at 200 and today to get the next 250+). Originally I disagreed with #7 & #9 but with clarification I’m okay with number 9 now. Still looking at the #7 arguments as it seems Dr Spencer wasn’t clear enough in the original on several fronts. Learning lots on both sides. I hope this thread does make it to 1000 with more informative links in the comments.
I think WUWT is a great vehicle for fleshing out details because the devil is always in the details and lots of good eyes and brains going over it here. WUWT = Open Source Climate Science
PS. Perhaps you could get Dr Ball to write another thread that you snipped here. I would like very much his take on this issue and these statements.
Surprising
The ocean is warming and the co2 increase stays a little bit ahead of the sink.
Gee I wonder what happens when the oceans cool
I know co2 will go up even faster because people will turn up the heaters!
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:28 pm
“In the current case, the amplitude is way too small if you get a real fit of the slopes.”
This is noisy data of bulk measurements processed in entirely different ways. The match isn’t going to be perfect. Constraining the result to have a perfectly matched linear trendline is an arbitrary standard for determining goodness of fit.
“Which may be true for the variability, but doesn’t imply that the slope of the derivative is included in the T relationship.”
Yes. It does. You cannot arbitrarily remove the trend and assume it has no effect. Nature has no means of failing to respond to the trend alone when it is responding to everything else.
“Except that the “natural circulation” function isn’t found in any observation…”
I’m not sure what that means.
“If you have a mass balance which shows that only halve the human emissions in quantity remain in the atmosphere, that means that the rest of the dynamic system must be more sink than source.”
But, this means nothing by itself. As you say: “If the sinks are slow in response…” So, you recognize that your statement actually means nothing without qualifying it with an assumption. In fact, it means nothing at all. Only your assumption has meaning. The statement is a necessary consequence of the assumption. But, the assumption is not a necessary consequence of the statement.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:37 pm
“Meanwhile, point 7 is one of the points which discredits the skeptics most in discussions with luke-warmers…”
But, they are already themselves discredited by the halt in warming, so why should anyone care what they think?
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 4:07 pm
“But there is no indication that the atmospheric throughput increased over the past 50+ years:”
Sure there is. Right here.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2014 at 4:12 pm
I think Bob is suggesting the MLO measurements are corrupted by local activity.
That’s right I forgot because I have my Ac on the ocean will never cool again because it has to absorb all the heat that should be going into an atmosphere that is 1/250th the mass of the ocean that it is heating that isn’t raising co2 levels that doesn’t heat the atmosphere. I am glad that big orange ball in the sky never changes or we might really have problem.
Wait is it possible just maybe that the ocean is the sink at that when its warming it puts out more co2 then it takes in. But wait does that mean it might take in a little more then it puts out when it’s cooling.
Well that’s all hypothetical because the big orange ball is a constant after all so it’s the air temp that is causing the oceans to warm and that won’t stop anytime soon
Here’s a skeptical argument that probably doesn’t hold water: If CO2 is so good at retaining thermal energy, how come no one has invented a CO2 home insulation system? Quadruple the CO2 in my house to a still-breathable level of 1600 ppm, and save on my heating bill.
“””””…..rgbatduke says:
May 1, 2014 at 8:58 am
I actually have a couple of questions generated from the list above — serious ones I hope.
First, pressure broadening. Yes, I understand exactly where pressure broadening comes from — it is associated with the phase interruption brought about by collisions that alter the shape/width of the IIRC Lorentzian associated with any given emission line. The collisions don’t add energy (on average) but the phase interruption ensures that the fourier transform of the emission line gets fatter. No problem…….””””””
Robert,
I also did a double take, when I read that.
I have on a number of occasions, seen it posted by “the experts” that the “supposed” logarithmic CO2 abundance relation to the linear Temperature (surface / lower tropo / whatever) was a consequence “of the broadening of the (15 micron) CO2 absorption BAND as a result of the increases in CO2; that broadening (presumably) being slower than a perhaps linear increase in the number of CO2 molecules” And that seemed to me, an iffy way to claim a logarithmic relationship, rather than simply say “non-linear”. Well then I think of Einstein’s 1905 assertion, that a single molecule absorbs a single photon; one at a time. They do not conspire with each other, but act alone (particularly in gases).
Now Temperature broadening, is of course Doppler based, simply due to the increasing relative velocities (on average) of colliding molecules, and of course increases the line width above the intrinsic line width (the individual lines; not the band).
I assumed that pressure broadening (actually density) was due to the shorter mean free path between collisions, which increases the mean collision frequency, and thus shortens the life of the state between collisions, which I guess in QM, translates into your Fourier transform explanation.
But that too depends only on the total gas pressure / density, and is unaffected by the CO2 abundance change. They still act one molecule (of CO2) at a time; don’t even know they are alone. Nearest neighbor is 13 molecular layers away.
Now I have always countered the “saturation question” by simply saying, it takes a thinner layer of air to contain enough CO2 molecules to grab nearly all available (candidate) photons. so the absorption / re-emission / re-absorption cycle just happens in more thinner layers; but the photons never stop escaping eventually, and during the delay, the sun just feeds in more solar spectral energy, hence the increased warming (of the surface) I don’t care a whole lot about the upper air temperature.
I think Dr Roy and Phil might want to talk that one out between them.