Guest essay by Ed Hoskins
Using data published by the IPCC on the diminishing effect of increasing CO2 concentrations and the latest proportional information on global Man-made CO2 emissions, these notes examine the potential for further warming by CO2 emissions up to 1000ppmv and the probable consequences of decarbonisation policies being pursued by Western governments.
The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough, but its influence is known and widely accepted to diminish as its concentration increases. It has a logarithmic in its relationship to concentration. Global Warming advocates and Climate Change sceptics both agree on this.
IPCC Published reports, (TAR3), acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information has been presented in the IPCC reports. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate) [1]. It is a crucial fact, but not acknowledged in the IPCC summary for Policy Makers[2].
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The rapid logarithmic diminution effect is an inconvenient fact for Global Warming advocates and alarmists, nonetheless it is well understood within the climate science community. It is certainly not much discussed. This diminution effect is probably the reason there was no runaway greenhouse warming caused by CO2 in earlier eons when CO2 levels were known to be at levels of several thousands ppmv. The following simplifying diagram shows the logarithmic diminution effect using tranches of 100ppmv up to 1000ppmv and the significance of differing CO2 concentrations on the biosphere:
§ Up to ~200 ppmv, the equivalent to about ~77% of the temperature increasing effectiveness of CO2. This is essential to sustain photosynthesis in plants and thus the viability of all life on earth.
§ A further ~100 ppmv was the level prior to any industrialisation, this atmospheric CO2 made the survival of the biosphere possible, giving a further 5.9% of the CO2 Greenhouse effect.
§ Following that a further 100ppmv, (certainly man-made in part), adding ~4.1% of the CO2 effectiveness brings the current level ~400 ppmv.
§ CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.
Both sceptics and the IPCC publish alternate views of the reducing effect on temperature of the importance of CO2 concentration. These alternates are equivalent proportionally but vary in the degree of warming attributable to CO2.
The IPCC have published views of the total effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas up to ~1200ppmv, they range in temperature from +6.3°C to +14.5°C, shown below:
There are other views presented both by sceptical scientists and CDIAC, the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre. What these different analysis show the is the amount of future warming that might be attributed to additional atmospheric CO2 in excess of the current level of ~400ppmv. Looking to the future in excess of 400ppmv, wide variation exists between the different warming estimates up to 1000ppmv, see below.
A comparison between these estimates are set out below in the context of the ~33°C total Greenhouse Effect.
This graphic shows in orange the remaining temperature effect of CO2 up to 1000ppmv that could be affected by worldwide global decarbonisation policies according to each of these alternative analyses.
Some of the IPCC data sets shows very large proportions of the temperature effect attributable solely to extra CO2. The concomitant effect of those higher levels of warming from atmospheric CO2 is that the proportion of the total ~33°C then attributable the water vapour and clouds in the atmosphere is displaced so as to be unrealistically low at 72% or 54%.
It has to be questioned whether it is plausible that CO2, a minor trace gas in the atmosphere, currently at the level of ~400ppmv, 0.04% up to 0.10% achieves such radical control of Global temperature, when compared to the substantial and powerful Greenhouse Effect of water vapour and clouds in the atmosphere?
There are the clearly divergent views of the amount of warming that can result from additional CO2 in future, but even in a worst case scenario whatever change that may happen can only ever have a marginal future effect on global temperature.
Whatever political efforts are made to de-carbonize economies or to reduce man-made CO2 emissions, (and to be effective at temperature control those efforts would have to be universal and worldwide), those efforts can only now affect at most ~13% of the future warming potential of CO2 up to the currently unthinkably high level of 1000ppmv.
So increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can not now inevitably lead directly to much more warming and certainly not to a catastrophic and dangerous temperature increase.
Importantly as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor, there is no possibility of ever attaining the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C by the control of CO2 emissions[3].
Global Warming advocates always assert that all increases in the concentration of CO2 are solely man-made. This is not necessarily so, as the biosphere and slightly warming oceans will also outgas CO2. In any event at ~3% of the total[4] Man-made CO2 at its maximum is only a minor part of the CO2 transport within the atmosphere. The recent IPCC report now admits that currently increasing CO2 levels are probably only ~50% man-made.
On the other hand it is likely that any current global warming, if continuing and increased CO2 is:
§ largely a natural process
§ within normal limits
§ probably beneficial up to about a further 2.0°C+ [5].
It could be not be influenced by any remedial decarbonisation action, however drastic, taken by a minority of nations.
In a rational, non-political world, that prospect should be greeted with unmitigated joy.
If it is so:
· concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be mostly discounted.
· it is not essential to disrupt the economy of the Western world to no purpose.
· the cost to the European economy alone is considered to be ~ £165 billion per annum till the end of the century, not including the diversion of employment and industries to elsewhere: this is deliberate economic self-harm that can be avoided: these vast resources could be spent for much more worthwhile endeavours.
· were warming happening, unless excessive, it provides a more benign climate for the biosphere and mankind.
· any extra CO2 has already increased the fertility of all plant life on the planet.
· if warming is occurring at all, a warmer climate within natural variation would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development, especially so for the third world.
De-carbonisation outcomes
To quantify what might be achieved by any political action for de-carbonization by Western economies, the comparative table below shows the remaining effectiveness of each 100ppmv tranche up to 1000ppmv, with the total global warming in each of the five diminution assessments.
The table below shows the likely range of warming arising from these divergent (sceptical and IPCC) views, (without feedbacks, which are questionably either negative or positive: but probably not massively positive as assumed by CAGW alarmists), that would be averted with an increase of CO2 for the full increase from 400 ppmv to 1000 ppmv.
The results above for countries and country groups show a range for whichever scenario of only a matter of a few thousandths to a few hundredths of a degree Centigrade.
However it is extremely unlikely that the developing world is going to succumb to non-development of their economies on the grounds of reducing CO2 emissions. So it is very likely that the developing world’s CO2 emissions are going to escalate whatever is done by developed nations.
These figures show that whatever the developed world does in terms of decreasing CO2 emissions the outcome is likely to be either immaterial or more likely even beneficial. The table below assumes that the amount of CO2 released by each of the world’s nations or nation is reduced universally by some 20%: this is a radical reduction level but just about conceivable.
These extreme, economically destructive and immensely costly efforts by participating western nations to reduce temperature by de-carbonization should be seen in context:
§ the changing global temperature patterns, the current standstill and likely impending cooling.
§ the rapidly growing CO2 emissions from the bulk of the world’s most populous nations as they continue their development.
§ the diminishing impact of any extra CO2 emissions on any temperature increase.
§ normal daily temperature variations at any a single location range from 10°C to 20°C.
§ normal annual variations value can be as much as 40°C to 50°C.
§ that participating Europe as a whole only accounts for ~11% of world CO2 emissions.
§ that the UK itself is now only about ~1.5% of world CO2 emissions.
As the margin of error for temperature measurements is about 1.0°C, the miniscule temperature effects shown above arise from the extreme economic efforts of those participating nations attempting to control their CO2 emissions. Thus the outcomes in terms of controlling temperature can only ever be marginal, immeasurable and thus irrelevant.
The committed Nations by their actions alone, whatever the costs they incurred to themselves, might only ever effect virtually undetectable reductions of World temperature. So it is clear that all the minor but extremely expensive attempts by the few convinced Western nations at the limitation of their own CO2 emissions will be inconsequential and futile[6].
Professor Judith Curry’s Congressional testimony 14/1/2014[7]:
“Motivated by the precautionary principle to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, attempts to modify the climate through reducing CO2 emissions may turn out to be futile. The stagnation in greenhouse warming observed over the past 15+ years demonstrates that CO2 is not a control knob on climate variability on decadal time scales.”
Professor Richard Lindzen UK parliament committee testimony 28/1/2014 on IPCC AR5[8]:
“Whatever the UK decides to do will have no impact on your climate, but will have a profound impact on your economy. (You are) Trying to solve a problem that may not be a problem by taking actions that you know will hurt your economy.”
and paraphrased “doing nothing for fifty years is a much better option than any active political measures to control climate.”
As global temperatures have already been showing stagnation or cooling[9] over the last seventeen years or more, the world should fear the real and detrimental effects of global cooling[10] rather than being hysterical about limited, beneficial or now non-existent warming[11].
References:
[1] http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
[2] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/why-global-warming-alarmism-isnt-science-2.php
[3] http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/ccctolpaper.pdf
[4] http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
[5] http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/
[6] http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.fr/2013/11/lomborg-spain-wastes-hundreds-of.html
[7] http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275
[8] http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/28/uk-parliamentary-hearing-on-the-ipcc/
[9] http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3436241/the-inescapable-apocalypse-has-been-seriously-underestimated.thtml
[10] http://www.iceagenow.com/Triple_Crown_of_global_cooling.htm
[11] http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/28/global-cooling-consensus-is-heating-up-cooling-over-the-next-1-to-3-decades/
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Nice presentation Ed, thank you.
CO2 alone has never been the claimed problem – it was always supposed to be the knock-on affects of CO2 such as increased water vapor and and wretched Republican lifestyles that amplify the feeble CO2 effect.
notice how the author makes his case from WITHIN the accepted science.
Notice how effective the case is when you start INSIDE the accepted science..
notice that he doesnt have to resort to saying wacky stuff about the sun.
notice how he doesnt have to engage in numerology about the planets
he takes the science as given ( much like Nic Lewis does) and works from the inside
Is this anything more than a “face saving” exit plan for all the CAGW evangelists?
“Yo wagons ho!, thar be the real … (insert what you will here).
considering we really do not know what historical CO2 levels were…
…and we really have no clue what CO2 levels do to temps
and CO2 reconstructions are about as fudged as it gets
…and trying to compare any of that to fudged temp reconstructions ( is that tree right side up?)
That’s a pretty good explanation of the science if it is that way……..but then, we don’t know
Facts, we don’t need no stickin facts. We have FEAR to sell.
Rational response to CO2 is not part of the Obama administration. CO2 is a newly found political tool used by Obama’s EPA to apply control.
I’ve got to keep saying this until somebody listens. Co2 is innocent. If you fire heated gas at the surface of water the water will not accept the heat indeed even the surface itself is not affected by the heat, so the story that heat can be stored on this planet or that evaporation can be increased by the heat leaving the atmosphere doesn’t stand up to testing. Heat will not pass through the surface of water by means of convection because it is blocked by surface tension.
Surface tension is not a powerful force but is enough to get the job done so you cannot put additional heat into the ocean and the good news is you can’t boil the ocean away. AGW is utter rubbish.
I have found that your average AGWer will not admit to the Pause for the last 17 years. Nor will they accept the concept that CO2 follows temperature shown in the historical record via the ice core data. Therefore, your average AGWer will never, ever accept the fact of CO2 having an algorithmic impact on global temperatures. Any information coming from a “denier” website is instantly dismissed.
There is no enhanced GHE; that hypothesis relies on juvenile physics; any professional scientist or engineer sees almost immediately that it is a Perpetual Motion Machine of the 2nd Kind.
The way the scam works is to assume mean atmospheric emittance measured at the Earth’s surface, 333 W/m^2, is a real energy flux [2009 data]. This is not true; it is the potential energy flux the atmosphere would emit to a sink at absolute zero. Net IR flux from surface to atmosphere is [surface emittance – atmospheric emittance]; 396 – 333 = 63 W/m^2, about 1/6th of a black body.
If at constant surface temperature ‘back radiation’ increases, this net surface IR flux decreases. To give constant sum of convective, evaporative and radiative energy, the surface temperature rises. That temperature rise is 1.2 K/doubled [CO2].
The reason why the net IR is 1/6th of a black body is because the opposing emittances interact as vectors. For equal temperatures, there is zero net IR in all main GHG bands (self-absorbed). The entire IPCC logarithmic argument presented above is irrelevant.
Sorry folks; this is radiative physics 101; atmospheric sciences teach it wrongly and have done so since Carl Sagan made his science booboos in 1965. To complete that History, his assumption that the surface of Venus emitted IR as a black body was because he messed up the cloud physics and assumed about 7 times as much SW energy entering the lower atmosphere as reality.
I’m just biding my time for the first enterprising lawyer to advertise “Have you been MISS SOLD CO2” call 0800- …… so I can claim back all the bullshit £715 Vehicle CO2 emission taxes I am getting fined each year.
All these so called intelligent people running around like chimpanzees for a non problem
CO2 is so last http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2719727/Were-f-ked-Climate-change-catastrophe-mankind-study-shows-methane-leaking-Arctic-Ocean-scientist-warns.html
In the mean time the Gravy Train rolls on
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2720903/Prescott-flies-40-000-miles-s-nearly-twice-world-five-months-lecture-climate-change.html
But in fact the so called “climate sensitivity” is
a theoretical construct relying on the tenuous assumption that lab data can be applied to the atmosphere with valid results. This assumption is looking ever more dubious. I do not think that the present flat temp trend will end before the whole of AGW theory is discredited in the eyes of all, excepting a few diehards.
Excellent essay. I really think this information needs to be repeated over and over. The facts (and IPCC’s blatant attempt to bury them) are very revealing.
If CO2 was ever a problem, it is now at worst a logarithmically decreasing problem.
Excellent description of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns as it applies to CO2 affecting GAST (Global Average Surface Temperature).
This sentence, however, strikes me as needing to be reworded:
”Importantly as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor, there is no possibility of ever attaining the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C by the control of CO2 emissions”
It gives the impression that it is predetermined that the arbitrarily chosen limit of +2.0°C will be crossed.
Perhaps something along the lines of:
Importantly, as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor; the control of CO2 emissions has no possibility of ever determining whether attainment of the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C is achieved.
This is, of course, ignoring that the CO2 in the tropical upper troposphere is at -17 deg C and the surface at 15 deg C, in which case, nothing radiated downward by this CO2 can warm anything. Simple thermodynamics. Any IR radiation absorbed by CO2 in the lower atmosphere is a wash in sunlight as it will be saturated and absorbing and emitting constantly. The computer models do not do night-time, at which time, CO2 and water vapor in the lower atmosphere will indeed be emitting and not absorbing, radiating IR out to space. This is why it cools down so quickly after sunset with a clear sky.
Why do the ratios for any temperature rise from Lindzen, Kondrajew & Moskalento, and Charnock & Sine always come up around 1.42 for Kondrajew & Moskalento to Lindzem, and close to 2.33 for Charnock & Shine to Lindzen? For both the figures including feedback, and the figures for excluding feedback? It’s as if all three of these agree on the magnitude of the feedback, but disagree on the magnitude of the direct effect of CO2.
Meanwhile, I have noticed that the direct effect of CO2 is widely mentioned as considered by both advocates of existence of CAGW and by skeptics as 1.1 degrees C per factor-of-2 change of CO2 (which is indeed logarythmic). This would mean before feedbacks, increase from 400 to 800 PPMV would increase global temperature by 1.1 degrees C. It’s the feedbacks where all the debate is.
In fact, according to the way I see the first 2 charts as presented, it looks as if the 2 skeptic sets of figures and the 3 IPCC sets of figures agree that the feedback is positive, and by a factor of around 4.8, causing the total effect of CO2 change to be multiplied by around 5.8. I thought skeptics considered the feedbacks to be either negative or probably negative.
Thanks, Ed Hoskins. Your article brings forth, once again, the inconvenient truth of CO2 increase having a diminishing return.
higley7 says:
“…….. The computer models do not do night-time, …….”
This statement can not be true, if it is could someone explain why these models have any validity at all?
One of my first “I smell a rat” moments in this debate was noticing that the IPCC insisted on referencing CO2’s effects based on doubling “from pre-industrial levels”. If we were currentlat at pre-industrial levels, it would make sense to quantify the effects of any given additional amount of CO2 from that perspective.
But we’re not at pre-industrial levels. Pre-industrial levels were 280 ppm. Current levels are close to 400 ppm. So in discussing the the impact of current CO2 emissions, they should be calculated against current levels of CO2.
If we accept for the moment that the direct effects of CO2 (excluding feedbacks) are indeed 1 doubling = 3.7 w/m2 = 1 degree, we can do some simple math, but instead of comparing to some distant point in time that no longer matters, lets compare to current conditions with is the only thing that matters.
At a current concentration of 400 ppm, and current CO2 increases of about 2 ppm per year…..it will take 200 years to achieve a single doubling resulting in one degree.
The second part of the IPCC shell game however is that they neglect to mention was what temperature they calculated the 1 degree of warming. Since temperature doesn’t vary linearly with w/m2, adding in 3.7 w/m2 has different effects at different temperature. We can calculate exactly what effect at what temperature using Stefan-Boltzmann Law:
P(w/m2) = 5.67 * 10^-8 * T^4 with T in degrees K.
Run the numbers and you’ll discover that 3.7 w/m2 causes a 1 degree temperature change at about -18C, which is point in the atmosphere at (IIRC) about 14,000 feet. If it is the surface temperature we are interested in, they should have done the calculation at average surface temperatures which would yield a change in temperature for CO2 doubling of about 0.68 degrees.
So, put in proper context, a doubling of CO2 from where we are now will take 200 years and will raise surface temps by only 0.68 degrees.
Even with MONSTER positive feedbacks from water vapour, that value is of little or no concern. We can be quite certain that monster positive feedbacks do not exist because if they did, the rise in temp from pre-industrial to now would be massive, and it isn’t.
The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic”. It has remained alive by an elaborate shell game by the IPCC. They present facts which are utterly true, and completely irrelevant. When we apply THEIR math and THEIR sensitivity and THEIR calculations to the here and NOW, their argument goes “poof” and disappears in a puff of logic.
Never before have so many been duped by such simple trickery by so few.
I misread the first of 2 non-line-graph charts, mentioning 5 different scientists/groups, by looking at it too quickly. In the first chart, the figures in the orange bands are the amount of temperature rise by increasing CO2 from 400 to 1000 PPMV, rounded to 2 decimal places. In the second chart, the bottom figures are the same, except carried out to 3 decimal places.
Meanwhile, the 5 different scientists/groups are shown as predicting effects of CO2 change ranging from .124 to 1.45 degree C per factor-of-2 change of CO2. If there is substantial evidence that this figure is much less than 1.1 degree C per 2xCO2, then I would expect Dr. Roy Spencer (drroyspencer.com) to say so, and I never seen him say so. I have yet to see him mention a figure calculated by using the MODTRAN model, which seems to me as about .8 degree C per 2xCO2. Meanwhile, MODTRAN is known to not have full resolution of the highly detailed CO2 absorption spectrum in the wavelength ranges where CO2 is partially transparent.
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough,…..”
What happened during the last 17 years ?
I am actually a skeptical denier and a denying skeptic. Until somebody does dome experiments to show how the back radiation horse shit mechanism actually works I say it does not work. I have looked at CO2 lasing and CO2 lasers. That actually works. But 4 CO2 molecules out of 10,000 air molecules buzzing around at considerable speed dont impress me much. So lets have some climate warmist do the experiments.
Raymond;
This statement can not be true
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And it isn’t.
davidmhoffer says in part, August 10, 2014 at 9:31 am:
“P(w/m2) = 5.67 * 10^-8 * T^4 with T in degrees K.
Run the numbers and you’ll discover that 3.7 w/m2 causes a 1 degree temperature change at about -18C, which is point in the atmosphere at (IIRC) about 14,000 feet. If it is the surface temperature we are interested in, they should have done the calculation at average surface temperatures which would yield a change in temperature for CO2 doubling of about 0.68 degrees.”
Since some of the increase of surface radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the lower troposphere and reradiated back towards the surface, increasing the surface temperature increases its radiation by more than 3.7 W/cm^2 in response to a forcing of 3.7W/cm^2.