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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Donald L. Klipstein says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:53 pm
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It is not easy to see how the 4 to 10 micron layer is heated by conduction from the ‘heat’ absorbed in the first 3 microns of the ocean. See:http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/additional/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
This is just a temperature profile, but you can see how the temperature at 10µm is warmer than say at 8µm which in turn is warmer than say at 5µm.
The 3 micron layer is cooler (presumably because of latent heat of evaporation) so how does the energy absorbed in that 3 micron layer find its way to 4 microns, then to 5 microns, then to 6 microns since to do so, if it does so by conduction, as you suggest, would require heat to be conducted against the direction of energy flux?
Unless the ‘energy’ from DWLWIR absorbed within the first 3 microns can be disipated to depth at a speed quicker than that energy powers/drives evaporation, it would appear that DWLWIR predominantly powers evaporation, and does not heat the ocean.
The manner in which DWLWIR acts over the land and the ocean may be different since the ocean is free to evaporate.
Kristian5:22pm:
1). “Heat is not contained inside a body.”
2). “the effect of a heat transfer”
If 1). is true (it is) then 2). is nonsense (it is). If heat isn’t contained inside a body (true as heat doesn’t exist), it is nonsense to write heat can transfer from that body.
Energy is contained inside a body so energy can transfer from the body. DWLWIR (aka terrestrial radiation) is contained inside the atm. so surface incident DWLWIR can be absorbed, reflected, or transmitted at the surface. If the incident object is small enough, DWLWIR can also be diffracted which is negligible on the earth and is not negligible in the moon’s powder.
Some text books do use the term “heat transfer” synonymous with “energy transfer” – you are free to chuckle at their nonsense as I do.
******
Ghengis 5:49pm: You are not picking up differing IR thermometer readings with different DWLWIR amounts because in situ ocean measurements with more precise equipment (M-AERI google term) have shown about +.004K slowing in skin water cooling for each +2 W/m^2 DWLWIR increment. As you indicate, your equipment is not that sensitive in K.
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
“For gawd’s sake Nick, I can go to any decent hardware store and buy a propane heater with a parabolic reflector on it for the express purpose of focusing IR.”
A parabolic reflector focusses a parallel beam.
The feedbacks are likely to be negative. No one has even given thought to this. If I recall during the ice ages Co2 was 1000’s ppm?
Hadn’t been to the Met Office site for a while but I’ve just noticed that they no longer show the global SST time series plots. Now they prefer to show a map with lots of red bits.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst3/
Don’t want anyone to see that SST has been flat for the last 10 or 15 years now do we?
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
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Why not do an experiment?.
Get your parabolic heater and use the reflector to reflect DWLWIR from the night sky to heat say 10 ccs of water. You do not have to boil the water, just increase its temperature..
Nick Stokes;
A parabolic reflector focusses a parallel beam.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For the purposes of this discussion, at the scale we are talking about, DWLWIR is a parallel beam. A reflector just 50 meters in radius, would not be impacted by the curvature of the earth (above it or below it) to enough extent to amount to anything more than a rounding error. Even if all it reflected was 1 w/m2 and spilled the rest because it wasn’t exactly downward and parallel, that would still be nearly 8,000 watts, plenty to boil a pot of water.
You argued that DWLWIR could not do work because of the lack of a sink source. When I pointed out that you don’t need a sink, you switched gears and tried to argue that you couldn’t focus it. Pick which ever wrong argument you wish to stick to. Or are you going to come up with yet another way to be wrong?
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm
“You argued that DWLWIR could not do work because of the lack of a sink source. When I pointed out that you don’t need a sink, you switched gears and tried to argue that you couldn’t focus it.”
The issues are closely related. Here’s a proof that you can’t focus.
A parabolic reflector for sunlight can be emulated with a whole lot of plane mirror pieces, each aligned to provide a mirror image of the sun, and occluding an equivalent amount of sky (or land). It gets very hot because you see lots of suns, each sun replacing a cool; patch of sky.
What if you do that with DWLWIR. Think of a single mirror. It reflects a patch of sky, and you get the warmth from that. But you occlude a similar patch of sky, or of ground, which is warmer. You aren’t making progress. And you won’t improve with lots of mirrors.
Nick Stokes;
What if you do that with DWLWIR. Think of a single mirror. It reflects a patch of sky, and you get the warmth from that. But you occlude a similar patch of sky, or of ground, which is warmer. You aren’t making progress. And you won’t improve with lots of mirrors.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
But you are. If the pot is say 30 cm in diamter, the mount of upward LW from the ground that you are occluding is a circle of earth 30 cm in diameter. But you are pointing all the DWLWIR from a 50 meter radius and focusing it on a single point.
Three times wrong Nick. Care to try for four?
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm
“For the purposes of this discussion, at the scale we are talking about, DWLWIR is a parallel beam.”
That is the problem with the discussion. It isn’t. For any point on the surface of the earth, the DWLWIR is not coming from a point source, it is coming from the entire sky.
Edward Richardson;
It isn’t. For any point on the surface of the earth, the DWLWIR is not coming from a point source, it is coming from the entire sky.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure. But the bulk of it will be coming straight down from the perspective of a 50 meter dish.
In any event, the argument that DWLWIR cannot do work flies in the face of known physics. Arguing the minutia of how to use it to do work is just silly. Radiated energy does work, else the earth would be close to absolute zero by now. To have Nick Stokes, an advocate of the GHE, argue that it cannot do work is just jaw dropping. He wants to argue that the GHE is real, but that DWLWIR cannot do work? Talk about trying to both suck and blow….
Question: Why does CH4 track CO2 (and T) in the ice cores? –AGF
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2014 at 8:08 am
Steven, I don’t give special value to so called accepted science unless it is valid science. Much of the so called accepted science used by those crying wolf on global warming are using what they call consensus views to replace valid science. It is not science! Skeptics were repeatedly told that if they disagreed with what the hypothesis of AGW or CAGW claimed, they had to come up with possible alternate explanation for the heating trend of the last 150 or so years. Several did, including solar influences (which has not been falsified), long period ocean currents synchronization (PDO and AMDO), and even large long period natural chaotic variations. They did not mainly disagree with CO2 potential for warming, or even human increases, but did disagree with magnitudes, sensitivity, and feedback issues.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
I have kept out of this discussion so far due to the large number of not very accurate statements made by numerous comments, and responding to many would take too much effort. However, your statement clearly shows your lack of understanding on optics and radiation. A concentrated area optical source at any wavelength (visible solar or the heat from a torch) can be focused with a suitable curved geometry reflector (parabolic for distant sources, but elliptical for short object to focus distances). However, an extended source such as back-thermal-radiation (or even scattered sunlight from overcast) cannot be focused. This is a simple geometric optics issue.
Trick says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Ghengis 5:49pm: You are not picking up differing IR thermometer readings with different DWLWIR amounts because in situ ocean measurements with more precise equipment (M-AERI google term) have shown about +.004K slowing in skin water cooling for each +2 W/m^2 DWLWIR increment. As you indicate, your equipment is not that sensitive in K.
*****************
If I have 130 watts of additional DWLWIR (measured) then that would translate to 65 x .004K = .26K well within my .1 K equipments sensitivity. Remember that is per second of warming.
Just for you I stepped up on deck and measured the surface temp with my IR gun. It is a little after 10 pm, dead calm conditions and the sky is mixed clouds and clear, there are some big heavy clouds forming down around Marsh Harbour and the almost full moon is obscured behind some haze. The ocean surface temperature reading is still 31.4˚C. The clear sky reading is around 2˚C, and the dark clouds are close to 30˚ C and there are a lot of in-between readings.
Like I said earlier I expect it to go to full overcast by morning but who knows. At this point though my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K according to your reference. Obviously your reference is wrong.
Leonard Weinstein;
However, an extended source such as back-thermal-radiation (or even scattered sunlight from overcast) cannot be focused. This is a simple geometric optics issue.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If that is your opinion Leonard, then I accept it.
But DWLWIR still does work.
If IR can’t do work, then how am I able to get a temperature reading from my IR gun? I am not saying it does much work but it does enough to dislodge a couple of electrons from what ever chip my IR gun is using.
At room T my T gun can measure and compare fridge and freezer T. How can it do that if radiation can’t be transmitted from a cold to a hot place? –AGF
agfosterjr says: August 10, 2014 at 7:38 pm
“At room T my T gun can measure and compare fridge and freezer T. How can it do that if radiation can’t be transmitted from a cold to a hot place? –AGF”
It measures the energy transmitted from your gun to the freezer.
Nick, I measure energy from my guns by the amount of powder I put in the reloads. LOL!!!
Steven Mosher: 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..
I have sometimes wondered what you have meant by “science”.
davidmhoffer: 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.
I think you are in the right “ballpark” as they say of coarse estimates. (1) starting now, (2) in 100-200 years, (3) cumulative effects of CO2 will be slight and (4) slightly beneficial.
Thanks to Ed Hoskins for a good essay.
Kristian, you say: “The concept of heat, the effect of a heat transfer, just like the laws of thermodynamics, don’t change even if we find out more about the microscopic processes behind it.”
You are still missing the point. You insist that people who use the underlying physical mechanisms are wrong, when they end up with the same result that you get using an analytic abstraction. This tells me that you are missing important conceptual principles.
Every thermodynamics and heat transfer textbook I’ve seen has described the process of radiative exchange (and the word “exchange” should be a clue) as two counter flows of energy with the resultant heat transfer as merely being the difference in the two flows. And yet you describe this viewpoint as completely erroneous.
@curt: Prévost’s Theory of Exchanges has misled 1000s of scientists for 228 years (from memory!). It misled me too until I went back to Planck and worked out the missing concepts.
It’s all very easy once you realise instrumental analysis does not measure what is claimed by the Climate Alchemists. Thus a radiometer, of which a pyrgeometer is a poor version, is a metal box with a hole to allow the sensor to equilibrate radiatively with the emitter(s) in the Feld of View.
Few understand the metal box is the most important part, not the sensor. It blocks the sensor equilibrating over 360 degrees so it equilibrates with the emittance from at most 180 degrees, not an energy flux but a potential energy flux. Real net flux is obtained by pointing the radiometer one way then the other and calculating the difference of the two emittances.
Hence a warm body does not emit radiant energy at the Stefan-Boltzmann rate unless it is in radiative equilibrium with the zero point energy of empty space. That is never achievable. The Earth is in radiative equilibrium with the cosmic microwave background, about 2.7 deg. K; the ‘forcing’ argument works for OLR because the opposing radiation field is so low it is negligible. The same is true for the SW energy thermalised at the earth’s surface; the Earth emits very weakly in the SW.
However, ‘back radiation’ is not real; only [surface emittance – ‘back radiation’] = (mean) 63 W/m^2 is real. The rationale is that for each wavelength, the energy flux is set by a travelling wave of the difference of the warm and cooler amplitudes. This is superimposed on a standing wave of twice the cooler body amplitude. It is all expressed by the Law of Conservation of Energy:
(monochromatic heating rate of matter/unit volume) = – ∇.(monochromatic radiative flux density)
From this you derive all the above. Climate Alchemy must change its textbooks ASAP otherwise it is condemned to remain Alchemy, not Science.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:33 pm
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Your gun needs a power source.
The gun is not actually receiving energy, if it was, it would be possible to design and manufacture a gun that did not require a power source (ie., one that does not need a battery).