By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
What is science for? Its end and object is to stretch out a fumbling hand for the truth by a humble and eternally-unsatisfied attempt to constrain uncertainties.
The scientific method is hungry curiosity, followed by acute observation, followed by careful measurement, followed by the meticulous application of pre-existing theory to the results, followed by the detailed drafting and reviewed publication of a hypothesis, followed by other scientists’ attempts to overturn the hypothesis, which is either discarded or slowly accorded credence to the extent that it has survived the process of error elimination.
In the physical sciences, absolute proof – which mathematicians call demonstration – is very seldom available. In mathematics, the art that is the language and the queen of the sciences, demonstration is more often available, particularly in number theory, the branch of discrete mathematics that concerns itself chiefly with the integers. Die ganze Zahl schuf der liebe Gott, said Kronecker. Alles übrige ist Menschenwerk.
One of the reasons why the Thermageddonite superstition has been so successful until recently is that just about the only formal demonstration that nine-tenths of the population recall – and even then hazily – is that in the Euclidean and hyperbolic planes the square (or semicircle) on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares (or semicircles) on the other two sides.
Now, the problem with the theorem of Pythagoras is that it is unquestionably true. For those who agree with the philosopher Schopenhauer that Euclid’s demonstration is “a triumph of perversity”, here is the admirably clear proof by dissection attributed to the fifth-century Hindu mathematican Aryabhatta.
However one looks at the theorem, the wretched thing is objectively true. There are hundreds of distinct demonstrations of it. It is true whether or not you or I or anyone else wants it to be true or believes it to be true or knows it to be true. In the language of theology, it is intrinsice honestum. It is right in itself.
I submit that it is the theorem of Pythagoras that has allowed the Thermageddonites to succeed when, scientifically speaking, they should simply have been laughed at.
For the truth of that venerable theorem has misled generations who have been given some acquaintance with the sciences but little or none with the philosophy of science into believing that every scientific finding is definitive, unalterable, unchallengeable and unquestionable.
Yes, liberating greenhouse gases by combustion will cause some warming – all other things being equal. Yes, we are liberating greenhouse gases by combustion. These things have been established beyond reasonable doubt. But what has not been established is the crucial quantitative question how much warming we may cause.
That simple fact has been relentlessly and artfully concealed from the population, who have been sedulously deluded into believing that “the science is certain” and that anyone who questions how much warming we may cause is by implication also challenging the well-established experimental results showing that greenhouse gases cause warming.
It is worth briefly considering the how much question – or, as the climate scientists call it, the question of climate sensitivity.
In response to my recent posting pointing out that on the RSS satellite record there has been no global warming for 17 years 10 months, a commenter, one Stacey, asked:
“Please could you … demonstrate the actual climate sensitivity in respect of the last 30 years due the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere? My guess is that it’s zero. :-)”
“Stacey” is adopting a sound, scientific approach, beginning with that vital first step: curiosity. Socrates used to say that the first step on the road to knowledge was an awareness of one’s own ignorance. And what is curiosity, the wellspring of the sciences, if not an awareness of one’s own ignorance coupled with a determination to do something about it?
“Stacey” offers the hypothesis, that climate sensitivity to CO2 over the past 30 years has been zero, and asks whether she is right.
So let us examine the hypothesis. We begin with the observation that in the climate there appear to be quasi-periodicities of about 60 years in global temperature – roughly 30 years’ tendency to warm followed by 30 years’ tendency to cool – and that these cycles are tied to, and may be caused by, the great ocean oscillations, of which the most influential seems to be the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Therefore, in order to cancel these naturally-occurring cycles, it is necessary either to take periods that are multiples of 60 years in length or to take periods that straddle a phase-transition from one 30-year phase of the PDO to another.
Usefully, the most recent phase-transition in the PDO was in about the year 2000, so that the past 30 years will have been about equally influenced first by a warming phase of the PDO and then by a cooling phase. That removes the most obvious potential natural distortion of our attempt to determine climate sensitivity from what has actually occurred.
Next, measurement. How much global warming was there in the past 30 years? For this, we shall take the mean of the global mean surface temperature anomalies on all five principal datasets – GISS, HadCRUT4, NCDC, RSS, and UAH.
We now make the assumption, for the sake of beginning somewhere, that all of the global warming over this 30-year period was attributable to us.
As the CO2 record on the chart shows, CO2 concentration rose by 54 ppmv over the 30-year period. We shall assume that all that increase in concentration was anthropogenic. If so, official theory suggests it caused 0.78 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing.
We shall also assume that over the period CO2 represented 70% of all anthropogenic forcings, so that the total anthropogenic forcing was 1.11 Watts per square meter. This assumption is derived from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report.
We shall further assume that none of the warming was committed but unrealized warming from before 1984, or that, if there was some, it was approximately balanced by uncommitted warming generated over the 30-year period but not yet apparent in the temperature record.
Now we can divide the measured temperature change of 0.48 Cº by the total anthropogenic forcing of 1.11 Watts per square meter to obtain the transient-sensitivity parameter λt where t = 30 years, which is 0.43 Cº per Watt per square meter.
However, the instantaneous, Planck or zero-feedback sensitivity parameter λ0, which is the mean of the first derivatives across all latitudes of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer at the characteristic-emission altitude, where incoming and outgoing radiative fluxes balance, is just 0.31 Cº per Watt per square meter (IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.).
Next, some handy equations, that you will not find in most textbooks, will help us to determine the system gain Gt, the closed-loop feedback gain gt, and the feedback-sum ft directly from the Planck sensitivity parameter λ0 and the transient-sensitivity parameter λt:
The transient system gain Gt, which is the factor by which the direct warming from anthropogenic forcings is multiplied to allow for the action of feedbacks over the 30-year period, is simply 0.43 / 0.31, or 1.39, showing that short-acting feedbacks have increased the direct warming by almost two-fifths.
The loop gain gt, which is the product of the sum of the short-acting feedbacks and the Planck parameter, is 1 – 0.31/0.43, or 0.28.
Then the feedback sum ft, the sum of all short-acting feedbacks over the period, is 1/0.31 – 1/0.43, or 0.9 Watts per square meter per Celsius degree of warming over the period.
The IPCC’s current central estimate is that at equilibrium, when all short-acting and long-acting feedbacks have acted, the feedback sum is just 1.5 Watts per square meter per Cº (IPCC, 2013, table 9.43, red dot at top right). This is a substantial reduction from the 2.1 Watts per square meter per Cº (blue dot at top right) central estimate implicit in IPCC (2007).
From that current estimate of the equilibrium feedback-sum f∞, which is the sum of all feedbacks acting over the thousands of years till the climate has established a new equilibrium following perturbation by a forcing, the equilibrium system gain G∞ may be determined, using the Bode system-gain equation:
From the Bode equation, the equilibrium system gain G∞ is [1 – 0.31(1.5)]–1, or 1.87. In short, the IPCC’s current implicit central estimate is that feedbacks increase the direct forcing-driven warming by seven-eighths.
The central estimate of Charney sensitivity implicit in the IPCC’s current central estimate of the feedback sum is given by
Thus, the IPCC’s current central estimate of Charney sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentration ought to be (5.35 ln 2)(0.31)(1.87), or 2.1 Cº. So the 3.2 Cº that is the current central estimate of the CMIP5 model ensemble is too big by at least half.
The eventual warming as a result of the anthropogenic forcings of the past 30 years will be (1.11)(0.31)(1.87) = 0.64 Cº, of which 0.48 Cº, or three-quarters, has already occurred, leaving just 0.16 Cº warming committed but unrealized over the period. Yet the IPCC says there is about four times that amount of committed but unrealized warming in the pipeline.
Now, all that is set out above is mainstream climate science. It is possible that we caused some of the warming of the past 30 years. It is possible, though by no means certain, that we caused at least half of it.
Why, then, can we not be more precise in deriving a climate-sensitivity estimate from the temperature change and CO2 concentration change we have seen over the past 20 years?
The answer – though you will very seldom hear it from the Church of Thermageddon – is that there are far too many unknowns. The biggest outright lie in the IPCC’s 2013, 2007, and 2001 reports is the notion that we can determine with any confidence the fraction of global warming over recent decades that is attributable to us.
In 2001 the IPCC said it was 66% confident we had caused most of the warming since 1950; in 2001, 90% confident; in 2013, 95-99% confident. All of these confidence values are direct lies. For there is no dataset from whose values any such supposed confidence levels can be determined by any recognizable statistical process.
It is a measure of the contempt in which today’s scientific elite holds the rest of the population that the IPCC, as the elite’s soi-disant spokesman on climate change, could have made and persisted in and doubled down upon these particular lies. It knows it can get away with them, for scientists have abdicated, forfeiting their high priesthood to far-left politicians and profiteering environmental protection rackets.
We do not know enough about the climate to say in what direction, let alone by how much, the climate would be changing in the absence of any anthropogenic influence. We do not know the forcing from CO2 or any other greenhouse gas to a sufficient precision. The official value of the CO2 forcing was cut by a massive 15% in 2001.
We do not know the value of the Planck parameter to any great precision. We thought we did: then the actual mean surface temperature of the Moon was measured, and was found to be 40% adrift from the official value that had been determined on the basis of the lunar sensitivity parameter, and had been confidently published on official government websites.
We do not know what fraction of manmade warming is attributable to each of the greenhouse gases. We do not know the magnitude or even the sign of the forcing from our emissions of soot to the atmosphere.
We certainly do not know the values of the individual temperature feedbacks to anything like the narrow error bars falsely claimed by the IPCC. We do not even know the sign of the cloud feedback, and the IPCC has recently been forced to reduce the value of that feedback drastically.
Then there are the major non-radiative transports: evaporation and convection up, advection across, and precipitation and subsidence down.
We cannot predict the behavior of the oceans – indeed, we cannot even measure changes in their heat content with sufficient resolution to give a meaningful result.
We cannot predict el Niño and la Niña events. Look how many enviro-left news media predicted a record-busting event this year. They predicted it because they wanted it.
They needed it, desperately, to bring the Great Pause to an end and reduce the humiliation that the less dishonest among them are beginning to feel now that the laymen like me at whom they have viciously snapped and sneered for so long are – so far, at any rate – closer to the mark than they and their expensive but useless models.
For it would take only a very small reduction in each of the assumed values on the basis of which the IPCC makes its predictions to reach a climate sensitivity far less than the models’ currently-claimed central estimate of 3.2 Cº per CO2 doubling. And there are powerful theoretical reasons why some of those values must have been greatly overstated, though there is no space to consider them here.
My own best estimate, for what little it is worth, is that a doubling of CO2 concentration would warm the world by about 1 Cº, if that. The IPCC is heading – albeit far too slowly – towards the same answer. It has cut the CO2 forcing; it has accepted that the next-biggest anthropogenic forcing, from methane, has been vastly overestimated; it has slashed the feedback-sum and consequently the equilibrium system gain; it has all but halved its near-term predictions of global warming.
However, the honest answer to Stacey’s question about what climate sensitivity is indicated by the temperature record of the past 30 years is, “We do not know”.
But you will never hear that honesty on the lips of the Thermageddonites, as they furtively and profitably cement in place the last of the thousand interlinked supranational bureaucracies that are the silent sinews of what – if they get their way in Paris in December next year – will be an all-powerful world government founded upon the greatest lie ever told, the lie of certainty in a cloud of unknowing, elected by none, loved by few, feared by all, and answerable only to itself.
Or three more molecules, for the doubling from three to six.
I note that “Konrad”, who seems confused, is unable to provide a mean emission temperature for the Earth other than the 255 K that I did not – as he alleges – assume or accept. I went back to first principles and calculated it for myself, assuming emissivity of unity: for, with respect to the blackbody radiation we are dealing with, the Earth’s surface (after allowance for albedo) has an emissivity close enough to unity to avoid significant error. I asked him to provide and justify an emissivity other than unity, and he responded with a vague comment about the Earth’s surface temperature. I asked him whether the experiments for which he had been unable to give me even a result had been peer-reviewed, and I take it from his reply that they have not. I repeat that I do not yet see any reason to take his suggestions seriously.
Mr Wright thinks climate sensitivity to CO2 is “one of the great scientific questions, a bit like the age of the universe”. Not really. If climate sensitivity is small it is unimportant. If it is large, it may or may not be important. Since so many unknowns are present, it is not at present definitively determinable. Yet Mr Wright says he thinks climate sensitivity is likely to be immeasurably small.
His arguments are as follows:
1. “Nearly half of the modern warming occurred before there was sufficient CO2, so clearly something else is at work”. That is the argument from false cause. Merely because natural warming can be shown to exist, one should not assume that CO2-driven warming does not exist.
2. “There is no empirical scientific data that shows a change in CO2 followed by a corresponding change in temperature. Surely, if the sensitivity is one degree, it should show up repeatedly in the ice core data? Of course, the CO2 follows the temperature, and not the other way around.” That is the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc or Wafter, therefore because” fallacy. It is possible that when some astronomical or volcanic event shifted the temperature regime on Earth, the uptake or outgassing of CO2 in the oceans provided feedbacks amplifying the change, and there is no method of disproving (or, for that matter, proving) that assertion of the true-believers.
3. In the Holocene, each climate maximum – Old Kingdom, Minoan, Roman, Medieval, modern – was less warm than its predecessors. That is the statistical fallacy of assuming that trends are predictive. The usual suspects may well be right when they say we are liberating CO2 to the atmosphere from which it came so fast that its concentration is unprecedented in 800,000 years (indeed, perhaps even in 20 million years). Since elementary measurements and theory would lead us to expect some warming from CO2, that is what I expect.
4. “AGW theory makes a number of specific forecasts: the equatorial hot spot, forecast warming, and the trend of Earth’s infra red emissions. The emissions are predicted by AGW to be getting smaller, but Lindzen showed that, not only is the size of the trend wrong, it has the wrong sign.” Many of the forecasts are wrong, and I calculate that the forecasts of CO2-driven warming are exaggerated. But the fact that many forecasts are wrong does not imply that all are wrong: that is the inappropriate argument from the particular to the general that is the fallacy of accident. And Professor Lindzen did not show that the trend in infrared emissions from Earth is the wrong size and the wrong sign: the measurements from the ERBE and CERES satellites are in the right ballpark, and they show a decline in outgoing radiation that is particularly evident at the wavelengths corresponding to the principal absorption bands of CO2. He found that the sign of the temperature feedback sum was likely to be somewhat negative rather than strongly positive, concluding that climate sensitivity was about 0.7 K per CO2 doubling – in other words, in much the same ballpark as my own “less than 1 K” from back in 2008.
5. “Much of climate science is corrupt almost beyond belief.” That is not really fair to climate science. Some of it is undeniably corrupt, and if the scientists who knew it to be corrupt had arranged for one or two of the worst offenders to be prosecuted there would no longer be a climate scare. However, to assume that because much of climate science is corrupt all of it is corrupt is to perpetrate yet again the fallacy of accident.
All five of Mr Wright’s arguments for zero sensitivity are instances of common fallacies.
Mr Wright also asks what evidence there is to support a climate sensitivity as high as 1 K per CO2 doubling. One answer is that the surface temperature of the Earth is some 34 degrees higher than its emission temperature. Greenhouse gases account for the difference, in approximately the proportions set out in various scientific papers over the past couple of decades. Adding more greenhouse gas will cause more warming. How much, or how little, is the big question. I calculate there will be some modest warming, but not enough to worry about.
“One answer is that the surface temperature of the Earth is some 34 degrees higher than its emission temperature. Greenhouse gases account for the difference,..”
That would be true if it were not for the massive thermal reservoir of the oceans. It is not long-wave radiation that makes the global surface mean T of the oceans 7.5°C higher than the global land surface mean T.
From Monckton of Brenchley on August 5, 2014 at 3:30 pm:
The proof shown by the graphic is indeed rigorous, especially when properly notated and drawn, and is more properly attributed to Pythagoras. If you had indeed read my words then you shouldn’t be so obviously misrepresenting what I had said.
I noted an apparent error in attribution, with reference. Such attribution errors can be mundane matters given the fragmentary histories.
But at a depth clearly greater than what he bothered to comprehend of my writings, as such a proof is normally attributed to the first one to present it, by attributing that proof to Aryabhata he did indeed claim it as first demonstrated by Aryabhata, rather than make the better attribution to Pythagoras.
Meanwhile Monckton has clearly done his sneering without understanding what I wrote. Apparently his time is so valuable he finds it efficacious to spew falsehoods based on a quick glance rather than attempt comprehension.
Since Monckton did not provide countering evidence that the proof is better attributed to Aryabhata than Pythagoras, the attribution thus stands as better belonging to Pythagoras.
Of course, indicative of the negligible attention he gave to my comment, he did say:
When I clearly stated in my comment, presented here with bold added to make it obvious:
I show something I found on the internet using his spelling, he thinks I’m saying I was unable to find that spelling on the internet.
And indeed, I found many things using his spelling, as it is a common misspelling, thus such findings are expected.
This is saddening. I had expected better of Christopher Monckton, now a decidedly ex-journalist.
Silly those who doubt the ocean is nearly a blackbody. Do they doubt the ocean is water? Or they doubt all the experiments that measured 0.95 the emissivity of water?
Those who doubt the existence of downward longwave radiation (DLR). This has been measured all over the world at around 300 W/m^2. Read and learn.
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/
“…”DWLWIR (‘atmospheric back radiation’) to be a real, separate working flow of energy to the surface (an extra (and equal) input of energy next to the solar heat flux): If this were really the case, then why aren’t we harnessing this energy flux?”
Actually we are harnessing it. Without DLR the sea surface will freeze. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) harnesses the temperature difference between the warm sea surface and cool deep water to generate power. Tokyo Electric Power Co. produced 120 kW of electricity in 1981 using OTEC technology.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 5, 2014 at 3:42 pm
—————————————
Viscount Monckton,
In re-reading this thread I see some of my comments can be view as overly antagonistic. I should clarify that I appreciate much of what you write and have enjoyed attending some of your talks when you toured overseas. From those talks I would accept that you would have the experience to fairly level the charge of “bombastic” against me 😉
As to “bluff”, not so much. Anyone is free to repeat my experiments and check my claims.
As to my “confusion”, let me clarify. I understand the basic radiative physics you are using. I have shown may times the refined design of an early empirical experiment into the two shell radiative model –
http://i44.tinypic.com/2n0q72w.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/33dwg2g.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/2wrlris.jpg
– it works, and the target plate in chamber 1 will reach the higher temperature. But it all goes pear shaped if you don’t use the vacuum pump. What if you replaced the target plates with a selective surface (emissivity lower than absorptivity) and allowed conductive gas coupling between the target plate and black foil in chamber one? Now the target plate in chamber 2 would reach the higher temperature. This is the situation on Planet ocean. The ocean surface is conductively, evaporatively and radiately coupled to a radiative atmosphere that is a better radiator than the ocean surface.
You say –
“ I went back to first principles and calculated it for myself, assuming emissivity of unity: for, with respect to the blackbody radiation we are dealing with, the Earth’s surface (after allowance for albedo) has an emissivity close enough to unity to avoid significant error.”
It is not just the assumption of unity (ratio of emissivity and absorbivity 1:1) I am challenging. I show that there are dual selective surface (or more accurately selective material) effects in play with regard our oceans.
“I asked him to provide and justify an emissivity other than unity, and he responded with a vague comment about the Earth’s surface temperature.”
There have been many experiments to determine the emissivity of the oceans. One of the results that was a big read flag was the apparent emissivity changing with viewing angle and surface roughness. A near blackbody does not respond in this manner. Ie: while and emissivity setting of 0.95 is fine for calibrating an IR instrument to counter Hohlrumn/cavity effect when measuring water under a radiative sky, this figure should not be used for radiative balance calculations. You are correct to claim I do not have an exact figure for the effective (not apparent) emissivity of water, but I do not have the funds to drop background IR to 3K over a sample. I did however show you a simple experiment in which background IR was reduced under a -40C “sky” –
http://i61.tinypic.com/24ozslk.jpg
– and I did say the result for a 40C water sample was apparent emissivity dropping below 0.8. That result alone should have been enough (peer-reviewed or not) to indicate that there was something very wrong with the assumption of emissivity of unity for the oceans.
“I asked him whether the experiments for which he had been unable to give me even a result had been peer-reviewed, and I take it from his reply that they have not.”
I did mention that these experiments-
http://oi62.tinypic.com/zn7a4y.jpg
http://oi61.tinypic.com/or5rv9.jpg
-were covering peer reviewed results from 1965. This is the relevant paper –
“Harris, W. B., Davison, R. R., and Hood, D. W. (1965) ‘Design and operating characteristics of an experimental solar water heater’ Solar Energy, 9(4), pp. 193-196.”
What they covered was design issues with evaporation constrained (NOT salt gradient) solar ponds –
http://oi62.tinypic.com/1ekg8o.jpg
(Ignore the use of the the word glass on the old image, consider only IR transparent LDPE film) They found a surprising result. When layer 2 was made matt black, despite now absorbing more SW, the pond did not heat as well. Surface temperatures were around 30C higher than water just millimetres below. Average temperature was far higher if layer 2 was clear and layer 3 black.
I demonstrate this effect more clearly in “selective surface experiment 1” linked above. Here two blocks have equal SW absorption and IR emissivity, yet have a dramatic difference in temperature when exposed to SW due solely to the differing depth of SW absorption. Full sun for 3 hours and block A will have a 20C higher average temperature, and a dramatic 40C base temperature differential will develop between the target blocks.
This empirically demonstrable effect is clearly missing from the base assumption that ~240 w/m2 can only heat our oceans to 255K.
“I repeat that I do not yet see any reason to take his suggestions seriously.”
If you build and run the experiments for yourself you would see the reason. Even better, you could repeat the Texas A&M experiments using IR transparent film in deep ponds at 6000m in the Atacama desert. The air is dry and there is little DWLWIR. Try one pond(A) with layer 2 matt black and pond(B) layer 2 clear and layer 3 black. Pond A will have extreme surface temp variation but an average temperature close to freezing (ie: close to the prediction of climastrologists). Pond B would be destroyed by steam overpressure in a dramatic demonstration that the assumption that the “oceans are a near blackbody” is utterly incorrect 😉
Mr Knoebel continues to do what he does best – pick nits. I have already made it plain that, since he came here with a sneering tone he must do his own homework to find the attribution of the proof without words to Aryabhatta (that spelling is used in India with more frequency than the spelling he prefers on the dubious ground that Creepymedia recommends it, and is also common on the internet, where Mr Knoebel seems to do his primary research). Let him go into a real library and read some proper books. It will not take him long to find the attribution to Aryabhatta. And his assertion that because Pythagoras predated Aryabhatta the attribution of the proof to the former is preferable is an interesting variant of the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc subspecies of the fallacy of false cause. His quibble about the fact that my simple diagram exhibits symmetry about one of the diagonal axes, unlike the images he has seen on the internet, demonstrates how little he understands the proof, for my rearrangement of the “puzzle pieces” makes not the slightest difference to its efficacy. He now whines – for he is a serial whiner – that the proof should have been annotated: however, since the children of 11 to whom I have shown this proof are capable of grasping it instantly, and since the proof was merely an incidental ornament to a head posting on another topic and most of the readers here have a mental age >11, I had no need to annotate it. In Mr Knoebel’s first futile posting on this side issue plainly doubted that the proof was rigorous – with one of his characteristic sneers. Now he accepts that it is rigorous after all. That is some progress, I suppose.
“Konrad” continues to be confused. He says the ocean is a “selective surface”. No, it isn’t. Then he says maybe the coupled ocean-atmosphere system is a selective surface. No, it isn’t: the mean emission altitude of the coupled system is many miles above the ocean surface. He says the emissivity of the ocean is not close to unity, as all recent measurements suggest it is, but continues to fail to provide an alternative value, let alone any credible reasons for it. He says he thinks water at 40 C has an emissivity of 0.8, but what relevance that has to an ocean that exhibits such temperatures almost nowhere on Earth is not explained. I can see increasing reason not to regard his case as credible. Let him draw it up in a fashion less unsystematic and better verified than what he has presented here, and let him send it to a journal for peer review. As far as I know, not a single paper following that which he cited finds ocean emissivity to be anything other than the usual value in the region of 0.95.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1
All is not well in the World of DWLDIR.
H/T Griss-JoNova
Duh ,,DWLWIR
“One of the results that was a big read flag was the apparent emissivity changing with viewing angle and surface roughness. A near blackbody does not respond in this manner.”
Measurements of emissivity of materials are done with direct radiation, the rays are perpendicular to the surface. Changing the angle of incidence will change the radiative flux on the surface. The results are no longer comparable. A light source emits 100 W/m^2 directly on a blackbody surface. The body emits 100 W/m^2. Change the angle of incidence. The body emits 80 W/m^2. Aha! The emissivity is only 0.8
This is apple and orange. The direct radiation changed to 80 W/m^2 though the light source still emits 100 W/m^2. The blackbody is still black.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:18 am
—————————————–
Mr Knoebel chose to get into a maths fight with a provably accomplished mathematician. Not dissimilar to making close visual inspection of the intake and/or exhaust of a running Trent 800 turbofan engine. The results are predictable and nothing to crow about.
But as to the rest…
“Konrad continues to be confused.”
Only in so far as to why you don’t pay attention to empirical evidence place right under your nose.
“He says the ocean is a “selective surface”. No, it isn’t.”
Is. Isn’t. Is. Isn’t. Play as long as you like. I still win. Emissivity less than absorptivity. UV/SW absorption at depth not surface. Slow speed of internal non-radiative transport. That’s a selective surface. No way out of that.
“Then he says maybe the coupled ocean-atmosphere system is a selective surface. No, it isn’t:”
Well, no I didn’t. Coupled ocean atmosphere emits near theoretical blackbody, around 255K. Please don’t ever try and mis-quote me.*
“the mean emission altitude of the coupled system is many miles above the ocean surface.”
Oh do please buy yourself some IR measurement gear as I have done. ERL? Garbage! Get outside. Measure the sky! The strongest emission is from cloud (see if you can catch the IR pulse during condensation). ERL is a mathematical fiction.
“He says the emissivity of the ocean is not close to unity, as all recent measurements suggest it is, but continues to fail to provide an alternative value, let alone any credible reasons for it. He says he thinks water at 40 C has an emissivity of 0.8, but what relevance that has to an ocean that exhibits such temperatures almost nowhere on Earth is not explained.”
Come now Christopher, here you are just struggling. I have empirically demonstrated the difference between apparent and effective emissivity. “all recent measurements”?! Got any where water was measured as a thin film less than 100 microns thick under a 3K “sky”. Of course you don’t. (side note – I suspect someone smarter than me may have attempted this as 0.67 appears in many old tables ands texts.)
“I can see increasing reason not to regard his case as credible. Let him draw it up in a fashion less unsystematic and better verified than what he has presented here, and let him send it to a journal for peer review. As far as I know, not a single paper following that which he cited finds ocean emissivity to be anything other than the usual value in the region of 0.95.”
Sadly for you claims I have been very systematic. First I empirically checked whether incident LWIR slows the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool. (it doesn’t, so game over for AGW). But I am systematic. I didn’t let it rest. I went further. I found how the sun alone is enough to heat the oceans far beyond 15C if it were not for atmospheric cooling.
And emissivity of 0.95? That’s apparent not effective emissivity. If you don’t understand the difference, then perhaps you should not have brought maths to a physics fight 😉
*As to the mis-quoting thing…here, so you have no further excuse in this area, I have a Oh-So-Easy cut and paste list of 22 basic claims of “Konrad” you can refer to in future (all in the interest of scientific accuracy 😉 )
1. DWLWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of the oceans.
2. Radiative gases play a critical role in radiative subsidence of air masses in vertical tropospheric convective circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells.
3. The power of radiative gases to cool our atmosphere is double their power to warm it.
4. Without radiative gases our atmosphere would super heat.
5. The surface is far more effective at conductively heating the atmosphere than it is at cooling it.
6. The oceans are a UV/SW selective surface not a “near blackbody”
7. The effective IR emissivity of the oceans is far below their apparent IR emissivity.
8. Solar variation drives climate change by variance in UV heating below the ocean thermocline.
9. Radiative gases act to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
10. Adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will not reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability.
11. The net effect of our radiative atmosphere, excepting pressure, over the oceans is cooling of the oceans.
12. Regardless of DWLWIR, without atmospheric cooling our oceans would heat to 80C or beyond.
13. Radiative gases are the atmosphere’s only effective cooling mechanism.
14. The sun heats the oceans.
15. The atmosphere cools the oceans.
16. Radiative gases cool the atmosphere.
17. 97% of climastrologists are assclowns.
18. 3% of climastrologists provably knew they were lying.
19. Global warming was in effect a global IQ test with results permanently recorded on the Internet.
20. Sceptics will never forgive and the Internet will never forget.
21. The corpse of the global warming hoax cannot be re-animated nor can it be hidden.
22. Every activist, journalist or politician who ever vilified sceptics is about to have their public face, metaphorically speaking, punched to custard. No excuses, no exceptions.
Christopher,
I thought you would be able to classify my arguments as fallacies, and I wasn’t disappointed!
Just to clarify, I don’t mean to suggest that each point of the five is a proof in its own right. What I suggest is that, as a whole, they suggest a natural explanation for the warming. For example, it is odd that the modern warming is probably no greater than the previous ones, despite the claimed extra warming due to CO2.
I’ll concentrate on your final remarks, as it’s the most important. I asked for examples from historical data that shows a temperature change that followed a change in CO2. I note that you could not give a single example.
Instead, you cite the probable fact that the Earth is warmer due to greenhouse gases (of course, CO2 provides a tiny amount, about 95% of greenhouse warming comes from water vapour).
So, we are comparing two cases: zero greenhouse gases and the present. How many doublings does this represent?
Of course, it represents an infinite number of doublings. This is so different to what we’re talking about (an increase of just 50%), so I don’t think it helps. Curiously, if you ascend to a height on Venus where the atmosphere is Earth normal pressure, the temperature is also roughly Earth-normal – despite the massive amounts of CO2 above. The temperature on Venus rises dramatically only as you descend into the denser atmosphere. The same happens on Earth but – fortunately – it is far less extreme. This strongly suggests that atmospheric density is also a strong factor, and coud conceivably be far more significant than CO2.
If you consider Venus, Earth and Mars, the planetary temperature correlates with atmospheric density and distance from the Sun. But it does not correlate with the amount of CO2 (although the Martian atmosphere is very thin, it contains more CO2 per volume than Earth)..
Nature has conducted an amazing experiment over the last million years, with the climate going up and down like a yo-yo, and it carefully recorded the results in the ice.
If the ice cores show absolutely no evidence of a one degree sensitivity, then the only rational conclusion is that the sensitivity is far less, and is probably unmeasurable.
Best regards,
Chris
Dr. Strangelove says:
August 6, 2014 at 1:53 am
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Sad, just sad.
A true blackbody does not change apparent emissivity with viewing angle.
But I can’t expect any more from you.
Remember what you tried at Dr. Spencers site? Remember when you lied and claimed you had conducted one of my experiments? Remember when, not I, but another commenter replicated the experiment and shot your lies down before I could. The Internet remembers. Forever.
You don’t even rate as a “sleeper”. Poptech popped. Slick Nik slipped up. Kanada karked. And they were all better than you by far. Want to be good? Look to the “Hoff”. He’s real good. Shot down, kept quite and put many solid hours into re-building “cred”. Now that’s dedication to the “cause”. Compared to that you are just not in the running…
Dr. Strangelove says, August 5, 2014 at 8:14 pm:
“Those who doubt the existence of downward longwave radiation (DLR). This has been measured all over the world at around 300 W/m^2. Read and learn.
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/“
Sigh. How many times must this be explained? We are NOT ‘measuring’ DLR unless it comes in as HEAT, an actual, detectable transfer of energy. ‘Back radiation’ in a heat transfer situation is NOT detectable. It cannot be extracted (isolated) from the radiation field as a whole. People who think so don’t know what a radiation field is and how it works. We are calculating the DLR from the outgoing heat and the temp of the sensor (pyrgeometer) or estimating it from the incoming heat from the atmosphere to a severely cooled sensor (interferometer) (in which case the radiation could no longer be considered ‘back radiation’, the sensor doesn’t heat the atmosphere). Science of Doom is a guy who thinks ‘heat’ flows both ways in a thermal radiative exchange and mocks people who know better and try to point it out to him. He’s an embarrassment to himself.
“Actually we are harnessing it. Without DLR the sea surface will freeze. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) harnesses the temperature difference between the warm sea surface and cool deep water to generate power. Tokyo Electric Power Co. produced 120 kW of electricity in 1981 using OTEC technology.”
Right.
Mr Wright seems to consider that five logical fallacies, taken together, constitute a valid argument. In logic, though, five wrongs don’t make a right.
As for his final argument about the ice-core record, there is a statable case that after temperature changes had been triggered they caused CO2 concentration to change, which then amplified the temperature change. As far as I know, there were no events in the past 800,000 years that added enough CO2 to the atmosphere to cause warming – except the increases in temperature, which caused CO2 to outgas and hence may have caused some additional warming.
We must all be careful not to adopt a scientific position based on wishful thinking. By trying to pretend there is no greenhouse effect, or to pretend it is insignificant, we are unlikely to convince anyone with scientific training. If instead we point out that the temperature feedbacks in response to CO2-driven warming are likely to be small, then we have some chance of opening some closed minds.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 5, 2014 at 12:40 pm
“Except it doesn’t. You propose filling two identical structures with differing concentrations of CO2, as if CO2 was insulation”.
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BUT, BUT, BUT, …. the proponents of CAGW have always claimed that the insulating properties of atmospheric CO2 is the PRIMARY cause of Global Warming Climate Change. To wit:
“Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases act as an insulation layer to trap some of the sun’s energy in the earth’s atmosphere, between the earth’s surface and this insulation layer. This is similar to the situation in a greenhouse – the glass walls allow heat and sunlight in during the day and trap it there so it can warm the plants that are growing inside.” Ref link, to wit: http://www.landlearnnsw.org.au/sustainability/climate-change/what-is-it/greenhouse-gases
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“ These steady additions have begun to tip a delicate balance, significantly increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and enhancing their insulating effect”. Ref link, to wit: http://clinton5.nara.gov/Initiatives/Climate/greenhouse.html
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kadaka, iffen you are intent on “supporting a cause” ….. you really should familiarize yourself with the particulars of what you are supporting.
==============
“But the CO2 that provides the greenhouse effect is ABOVE the surface, not AT the surface”.
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kadaka, I would sure be interested in knowing what physical property of CO2 that you are referring to that permits said CO2 molecule to determine its vertical “height/location” above the surface of the earth …. so that it can start absorbing and emitting thermal (heat) energy?
Anyway kadaka, iffen the 1st one of my above cited CAGW biased “quotes” about “greenhouse” gases CONFIRMS the fact that my stated “experiment” is scientifically sound then it is not silly for you to criticize it.
Kristian 8:14pm: ”Science of Doom is a guy who thinks ‘heat’ flows both ways in a thermal radiative exchange…”
It does! It is proven. In this case what you write has absolute proof even though it was very hard to come by & took some time – a lot of effort by many pioneers was required as top post says: ”In the physical sciences, absolute proof – which mathematicians call demonstration – is very seldom available. In mathematics, the art that is the language and the queen of the sciences..”
Think I’ve pointed out before you just remain behind in your reading of the absolute proof of your statement by lab test & math written down in several languages & accents. SOD was preceded in that discussion by a Scottish farm boy who developed lab tests & then provided the theory in support of an English book binder apprentice’s more extensive prior lab experiments (incentivized by a couple Frenchmen) showing the clip herein that you wrote to be true. A German then provided the lab experiment proving the Scot’s theory and an Austrian showed why. True multi-national collaboration story. Text books today still follow these guys. Catching up on your reading will enlighten you. Fill in their names for me; prove you did the research work.
Konrad says:
“1. DWLWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of the oceans.”
While short-wave radiation will warm both surface and sub-surface layers, long-wave radiation will cause a cooling of the surface depending on the temperature and humidity of the air:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1963.tb01399.x/pdf
“The central climate fallacy is that the unknowns are known”
The central fallacy is that natural variability is internal to the climate. Take the warm AMO since 1995, that is a negative feedback to declines in solar plasma forcing, which caused at least 0.2°C warming of the global surface mean T just by increasing poleward ocean transport.
“We cannot predict the behavior of the oceans – indeed, we cannot even measure changes in their heat content with sufficient resolution to give a meaningful result.
We cannot predict el Niño and la Niña events.”
The AMO and ENSO can both be forecast if you understand that they are both amplified negative feedbacks to the short term solar signal, and that you can forecast that signal. I forecast (last Autumn) for weak El Nino conditions for the first half of 2014, but weakening strongly from late July, accompanied by a rise in Arctic sea ice extent from late July.
I am most interested in Mr Lyons’ statement that there is a link between solar events and el Nino, and would be most grateful if he were to email me further details.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:13 am
From my discussion of solar influences on climate in comments on the BOMBSHELL post, a paper on solar modulation of an ENSO-related climatic phenomenon:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50453/abstract
Solar cycle modulation of the ENSO impact on the winter climate of East Asia
Qun Zhou1, Wen Chen1,* and Wen Zhou2
This study examines how the East Asian winter climate response to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) varies with the 11-year solar cycle. The results indicate that the ENSO and East Asian climate relationship is robust and significant during winters with low solar (LS) activity, with evident warming in the lower troposphere over East Asia, which can be closely linked to the decreased pressure gradient between the cold Eurasian continent and the warm Pacific. Moreover, during the LS and El Niño winters, there is a typical rainfall response in Southeast Asia, with wet conditions over South China and dry conditions over the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi, which can be explained by the anticyclone over the western North Pacific (WNP). However, during high solar activity winters, both the surface temperature and rainfall anomalies are much less closely associated with the ENSO. The possible mechanism for this solar modulation of the ENSO-related East Asian climate anomalies may be the change in the tropospheric circulation with the ENSO in both tropical and extratropical regions. Particularly, in the LS cases, an anomalous WNP anticyclone is intensified and a noticeable cyclone occupies northern Northeast Asia, resulting from the changing location and strength of the large-scale Walker circulation induced by the more pronounced sea surface temperature anomalies associated with the ENSO. Further investigation with long historic data confirms that the relationship between the ENSO and the East Asian winter climate anomalies depends on the phases of 11 year solar cycle, with enhanced East Asian climate variation during the LS winters.
There are lots of other papers with similar conclusions, including effects upon ENSO itself, such as the fact that El Niños are more common during the warm phase (warmer water in the East Pacific and cooler in the West) of the PDO, which oscillation is itself influenced by solar activity, and La Niñas during the cold phase.
milodonharlani says:
August 5, 2014 at 2:24 pm
“Consider first the case of the moist tropics. There you have about 40,000 ppm of the GHG water vapor. Adding 300 ppm of CO2 means the total of the two far & away most important GHGs would grow from 40,300 to 40,600 ppm, ie practically no increase, especially when considering the logarithmic nature of the effect”.
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milodonharlani, me thinks your above comment pretty much defines the “root problem” that exists in most every commentary/conversation concerning and/or related to the per se “greenhouse” gasses and their contribution to the “warming” of earth’s atmosphere.
It is of my opinion that a large majority of the aforesaid commentators … can not see the forest for the trees, …. and conversely, … can not see the trees for the forest. In other words, if their eyeballs and mind are “focused” on the trees …. then the forest is non-existent. And if their eyeballs and mind are “focused” on the forest …. then the trees are non-existent. But the literal fact is said forest and trees are mutually conjoined and thus inseparable.
And likewise, the per se “greenhouse” gasses are mutually conjoined via their similar/same physical properties associated with both the “conduction” of thermal (heat) energy …. and the absorption & emission of “radiated” Infrared thermal (heat) energy and thus are inseparable.
In other words, ….. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.
Now, given the fact that most everyone agrees that both atmospheric CO2 and H2O vapor are per se “greenhouse” gasses …. and that the H2O vapor molecule is a far greater absorber/emitter of thermal (heat) energy than is the CO2 molecule …. and the fact that there is far, far, far greater quantities (up to 40,000+ ppm) of atmospheric H2O vapor than there is of CO2 (400 ppm) …… then “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” still applies.
And with a “400 to 40,000 ratio” means that H20 vapor (humidity) will cause 100+ times more “warming” of the atmosphere than the CO2.
But like the “forest and the trees”, …. most everyone averts their eyes and their mind to the “warming” effects of the H20 vapor (humidity) while they are touting the “warming” effects of the CO2.
And I SPECIFICALLY stated H20 vapor (humidity) in the above to distinguish it from atmospheric H2O droplets that exist in the form of clouds, fogs and mists which have additional physical properties that permit them to “reflect” the energy in Visible Light as well as to act as a “bi-directional buffer” to/for the “radiated” Infrared thermal (heat) energy.
Now I did a rough calculation and decided that iffen 300 ppm of CO2 had the “warming” potential of causing a 1 degree F INCREASE in average temperatures …… then 40,000 ppm of H20 vapor (humidity) had the “warming” potential of causing ….. your socks to melt off your feet while standing knee-deep in water.
And iffen the “logarithmic nature of CO2” is as is described herein, to wit: http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/co2-is-logarithmic-explained-3/ … then that is just more “junk science”.
@Monckton of Brenchley
August 6, 2014 at 11:13 am
My LinkedIn profile has my contact details, if you can mail me first as I cannot find a contact for you, thanks.
Ulric 9:40am: “…long-wave radiation will cause a cooling of the surface depending on the temperature and humidity of the air…”
Note in the top post the population ”…who have been sedulously deluded into believing that “the science is certain”… I had to look up “sedulously”. This issue you note is a good example.
The paper you link does not show what you write since it deals in T differences. It shows in Fig. 1 the temperature difference between surface air (assumed = surface water skin) and the water 0.5m below surface for increasing heat used for evaporation computed from wind speed & humidity. Shows the difference gets smaller for increasing evaporation. Tests show nothing about absolute T.
Again in Fig. 2 discussion, the paper plots this difference from others but concludes the bulk of work shows effects of “evaporation and radiation failed to be conclusive.”
The readings were recorded only to the nearest 0.01C so did not have the precision required for modern absolute sea surface skin temperature vs. DWLWIR readings. Modern ocean in-situ measurements run by U. Miami researchers with much more precise interferometry based instrumentation have reportedly indicated a lot of scatter (due in part waves radiating at each other & spray) for roughly .004K increase in ocean skin T per 2 W/m^2 increase DWLWIR. AFAIK this work is unpublished, you would have to contact the researchers for more up to date information.
http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/sci_team/meetings/200503/posters/ocean/minnett1.pdf