Hot on the heels of the Lewis and Curry paper, we have this new paper, which looks to be well researched, empirically based, and a potential blockbuster for dimming the alarmism that has been so prevalent over climate sensitivity. With a climate sensitivity of just 0.43°C, it takes the air out of the alarmism balloon.
The Hockey Schtick writes: A new paper published in the Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Change by renowned professor of physics and expert on spectroscopy Dr. Hermann Harde finds that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 levels is only about [0.6C], about 7 times less than the IPCC claims, but in line with many other published low estimates of climate sensitivity.
The paper further establishes that climate sensitivity to tiny changes in solar activity is comparable to that of CO2 and by no means insignificant as the IPCC prefers to claim.
The following is a Google translation from the German EIKE site with an overview of the main findings of the paper, followed by a link to the full paper [in English].
Assessment of global warming due to CO2 and solar influence
Currently climate sensitivity (discussed for example here ) is claimed by the IPCC mid-value to be 3.0 C (AR4) as the most probable value, but others have determined much lower values of 1.73C or 1C or even 0.43C. Prof. Hermann Harde, renowned physicist and Spektral analytiker has determined from his new paper the climate sensitivity is [0.6 C]




Advanced Two-Layer Climate Model for the Assessment of Global Warming by CO2
Hermann Harde* , Experimental Physics and Materials Science , Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg , Germany
Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Change, In Press
Abstract



CO2 concentration, based on a combination of thermally and solar induced cloud feedback.
Based on the HITRAN-2008 database [4] detailed spectroscopic calculations on the absorptivities of water
vapour and the gases carbon dioxide, methane and ozone in the atmosphere are presented.
The line-by-line calculations for solar radiation from 0.1–8 mm (sw radiation) as well as for the
terrestrial radiation from 3–100 mm (lw radiation) show, that due to the strong overlap of the CO2 and
CH4 spectra with water vapour lines the influence of these gases significantly declines with increasing
water vapour pressure, and that with increasing CO2-concentration well noticeable saturation effects are
observed limiting substantially the impact of CO2 on global warming.
based on actual data of the water vapour content, which is considerably varying with altitude above ground
as well as with the climate zone and, therefore, with the temperature. The vertical variation in humidity
and temperature as well as in the partial gas pressures and the total pressure is considered by computing
individual absorption spectra for up to 228 atmospheric layers and then integrating from ground level up
to 86 km altitude.
atmosphere and therefore on the geographic latitude and longitude, is included by considering the Earth
as a truncated icosahedron (Bucky ball) consisting of 32 surface elements with well defined angles to the
incident radiation, and assigning each of these areas to one of the three climate zones.
by the atmosphere itself, as well as their variation with temperature are derived from radiation transfer
calculations for each zone.To identify the influence of the absorbing gases on the climate and particularly the effect of an
increasing CO2-concentration on global warming, we developed an advanced two-layer climate model,
which describes the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere as two layers acting simultaneously as absorbers
and Planck radiators. Also heat transfer by convection and evaporation between these layers is considered.
At equilibrium each, the surface as well as the atmosphere, deliver as much power as they suck up from
the sun and the neighbouring layer or climate zone.
considering multiple scattering between the surface and clouds. It also includes the common feedback
processes like water vapour, lapse rate and albedo feedback, but additionally takes into account the
influence of a temperature dependent sensible and latent heat flux as well as temperature induced and
solar induced cloud cover feedback.
budget scheme of Tremberth et al. [20], which at a reference CO2 concentration of 380 ppm and a ground
temperature of 16 °C can well be reproduced.
and the lower atmospheric temperature are calculated as a function of the CO2 concentration. From the
temperature variations, found at doubled CO2 concentration, the CO2 climate sensitivity and air sensitivity
are derived.
are extensively discussed. While the albedo- and to some degree the lapse rate feedback are adopted from
literature, the water vapour feedback is derived from the sw and lw absorptivity calculations over the
different climate zones. With an amplification at clear sky conditions of 1:5 and at mean cloud cover of
1:2 these values are smaller than assumed in other climate models [27, 28].Since it is found that with increasing CO2 concentration the air temperature is less rapidly increasing
than the surface temperature, the convection at the boundary of both layers rises with the concentration.
As a consequence more thermal energy is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere. Similarly, with
increasing temperature also evaporation and precipitation are increasing with the ground temperature.
Both these effects contribute to negative feedback and are additionally included in the simulations.
A special situation is found for the influence of clouds on the radiation and energy budget. From
measurements of the global cloud cover over a period of 27 years it is deduced that the global mean
temperature is increasing with decreasing cloud cover [25]. However, it is not clear, if a lower cloud
cover is the consequence of the increasing temperature, or if the cloud cover is influenced and at least to
some degree controlled by some other mechanism, particularly solar activities. In the first case a strong
amplifying temperature induced cloud feedback had to be considered, this for the climate sensitivity as
well as for a respective solar sensitivity, whereas in the other case the temperature induced cloud effect
would disappear for both sensitivities and only a solar induced cloud feedback had to be included due to
the solar influence.
on the climate and solar sensitivity can be derived from model simulations, which additionally include
the solar effect and compare this with the measured temperature increase over the last century. These
simulations, considering both effects, show that the observed global warming of 0.74 °C [51] can only
satisfactorily be explained, when a temperature feedback on the clouds is completely excluded or only has
a minor influence. Otherwise the calculated warming would be significantly larger than observed, or the
thermally induced cloud feedback would have been overestimated. With a combination of temperature and
solar induced cloud feedback we deduce a CO2 climate sensitivity of CS = 0.6 °C and a solar sensitivity,
related to 0.1 % change of the solar constant, of SS = 0.5 °C. An increase in the solar activity of only 0.1
% over 100 years then contributes to a warming of 0.54 °C, and the 100 ppm increase of CO2 over this
period causes additional 0.2 °C in excellent agreement with the measured warming and cloud cover.
From our investigations, which are based on actual spectroscopic data and which consider all relevant
feedback processes as well as the solar influence, we can conclude, that a CO2 climate sensitivity larger
1 °C seems quite improbable, whereas a value of 0.5 – 0.7 °C – depending on the considered solar anomaly
– fits well with all observations of a changing solar constant, the cloud cover and global temperature. A
climate sensitivity in agreement with the IPCC specifications (1.5 – 4.5 °C) would only be possible, when
any solar influence could completely be excluded, and only CO2 induced thermal cloud feedback would
be assumed, then yielding a value of 1.7 °C.
variations over some time period and, therefore, have to solve complex coupled nonlinear differential
equations with countless parameters, for tracing the climate sensitivity this is of no significance. We
calculate an equilibrium state and can average over larger local variations, for which a partitioning into
three climate zones is quite sufficient. In addition, a simple energy balance model, focussing on the main
physical processes, is much more transparent than any AOGCM and can help to better understand the
complex interrelations characterizing our climate system.
Slowly, slowly the co2 CS consensus creeps toward 0.000K. The consensus creeps on the other hand just shriek louder with every drop.
Took the words out of my mouth, Henry. When I look at the evidence, I see the alarmist point of view springing leaks all over the place. When I look at the MSM, I see the climate establishment in rude good health, kicking ass left right and centre.
To be honest, they don’t seem to need a scientific underpinning. They are The Good People, and that is all they need to sway the public.
Some questions you might like to ponder upon.
What is the calibre of the peer reviewers at the Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Science?
Why did Dr Harne not submit his paper to a better recognised journal dealing with this type of research?
Is a two stage cylinder with few inputs of various forcings sufficiently robust to determine climate sensitivity?
I like WUWT but wonder sometimes if posters are too uncritical
Many apologies the journal is the Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Change
This momentum of recent months is like a train travelling down hill. Slowly at first. Chug….Chug….Chug. But eventually unstoppable.
It’s only unstoppable if you take the Leftists feet off the brakes.
Is this the new publication that was discussed here recently?
Let’s see if the paper gets the wide audience it deserves.
This is a pay-to-publish ‘vanity’ journal by a predatory publisher. Anyone could pay to have something published in it. It’s not peer-reviewed. It’s not even edited well. It won’t get a wide audience at all especially after it’s been published in a ‘journal’ like this. Why do you think it ‘deserves’ a wide audience?
I was reading ScientificOnline’s publishing requirements – it doesn’t seem predatory at all.
They have a peer review process, apparently, which can take a couple of months. They espouse openness of the published works – not to access of publishing works.
”
Q3: What is the publishing procedure?
A3: All published journals of SOP are under strict peer review. Your article will first be with editors to make sure it is within the scopes and fields. Then it will be with peer reviewers. Only if their comments are ‘Accepted’, will SOP publish your article. Please revise your article according to their advice if necessary.
Q4: How long is the publishing procedure?
A4: Because the time length of peer review is unpredictable, SOP will take care of your article as quickly as possible. Generally it takes no more than 8 weeks to publish journals out of contribution. At the meantime your cooperation and understanding are highly valued. Please keep an eye on your Email box and account to make sure your article is taken care of.
”
“Open Journal of Atmospheric and Climate Change(ACC) is free to all scientific researchers around the globe as an Open Access journal. ACC pays attention to academic research of theory and practice in the field and gives high priority to original articles, encouraging authors to further create in atmosphere change and climate change.”
I think the list of predatory publishers maybe should not include them. I have found nothing about them publishing anything for money.
Scientific Online Publishing is on the list ‘predatory’ publishers
http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/
You think they are going to be obvious about being predatory?
What guarantees the list as accurate?
According to your claims they are “a pay-to-publish ‘vanity’ journal by a predatory publisher.”
Apparent Truth: they don’t take money for publishing
Your claim: “It’s not peer-reviewed.”
Apparent Truth: They take 8 weeks or so to do peer review and publish nothing without review.
And one web-site listing the publisher as predatory doesn’t make it truth, IMHO. Doesn’t mean it is a lie – I just can’t find anything to support that claim – and they don’t justify the inclusion (that I’ve seen).
What do you mean they don’t take money for publishing? Read their FAQ. (notice the poor English. So much for ‘proof-reading and editing’ *grin*)
Q5: Do I have to pay for my articles?
A5: As an Open Access publisher, SOP charges nothing from readers or any academic institutions. However, SOP needs certain sum of payment for experts and editorial board to maintain first-class publishing quality. SOP also keeps our website running to increase visiting and download numbers of your article as well as to make your research outcomes known to all. Meanwhile SOP proofreads and edits every article with full meticulousness. Obviously all above is capital required. Thus you may need to pay a little number of money to make SOP better. Of course we can’t make a fortune out of it. And under affluent circumstance, SOP will publish your articles for free.
http://www.scipublish.com/faq
They CLAIM they do ‘strict peer review’. They can’t even proof-read their own website, let alone do peer-review. Look at the editorial board by the way. Harde’s paper was grammatically awkward, clumsily written and had clearly not been peer-reviewed or even proof-read.
LOL! I just looked up the Service address of Scientific Online Publishing.
498 W. Alton St., Nashville, IL 62263, UNITED STATES
It’s a single family home in a residential area in Nashville Illinois. It shares the same address as a Chinese company which sells anticorrosive paint.
http://www.trademarkia.com/map/sina-cova-86002760.htm
Nothing suspicious about that publisher at all. *grin*
We don’t need papers like this to show climate sensitivity has been grossly overestimated. For the past 20 years CO2 concentration has continued to rise while temperatures have not.
Since CO2 isn’t a poison, has benefits for crop yields etc and the link to catastrophe appears to be broken all the hugely expensive CO2 reduction measures should be put on hold immediately while smart, honest, impartial people look over all the data.
‘Green’ activists cannot be trusted to do what’s best for society any more than investment bankers or religious zealots can. Their demands and actions need to be scrutinized more in the future.
But tell that to the Supreme Court of the United States, who seems to be just another Leftist politicized assembly. Their rulings of late have been despicable.
Save your breath. All SCOTUS said was that Congress will have to rein in EPA, since Congress granted EPA nearly unlimited regulatory rulemaking powers.
Roberts & Kennedy debatable. Kennedy let a Connecticut city condemn property for Pfizer. Roberts, Obamacare. ‘Nuff said.
‘‘Green’ activists cannot be trusted to do what’s best for society any more than investment bankers or religious zealots can.’
Brilliantly put – I intend to use this phrase whenever climate change policy is raised in discussion.
Thanks Jaffa.
Agreed
You’ve only listed 2 unique groups there, not three.
Bingo jaffa!
My first impressions are that it is good to see a spectroscopy expert involved, it appears to be thorough and it doesn’t appear to contain the usual warmist caveats, so it may be refreshingly objective. As many of us suspected, the system responds to warming by increasing convection and other negative feedbacks.
It is also good to see that solar effects are not dismissed out of hand. I doubt if the warmists will welcome this significant contribution to their knowledge and understanding.
Wow, just wow. Speechless that it has been allowed to be published!
Agreed – Wow!
To fix this paper to meet the IPCC’s forecasts/guesses, you need to use their own unique statistical methodology, or even better some Mannian maths.
Look, it doesn’t count. What does he know, he’s not a ‘climate scientist’.
I think you mean ‘Climate Scientist®’.
Better stick to Climate Scientist™ Use of the registered trademark symbol requires a certificate of registration which is issued by the federal government. The ™ symbol may be used without registration. No point in giving the Feds a reason to harass people more than they already do.
“Climate Scientist” is a contradiction in terms.
Yes, ‘Climate Scientist’ is an oxymoron.
But Mr Mann is a CO2-Moron.
Ralph
I’ve read enough articles here on WUWT discussing evidence that the climate can be sensitive to… something… and change drastically and in a hurry; a decade or so. I’ve just not seen anything other than models that indicates the extreme sensitivity is due to changes in CO2.
Can someone equipped to understand such things tell us lesser lights how the author arrives at the parameterization by which he (I assume, necessarily) deals with clouds?
Let me try and help.
There is data on climate for the last hundred years showing a warming of about 0.8C more or less.
There is an estimate also of the most impact of short term natural variability on climate, like the sun the clauds etc.
What the author is actually saying is that for the observations and this kinda of impact of the Sun and the rest of the short term variations to match, the 0.6C CS for a doubling is the best….actually the higher possible.
If the CS is to be considered higher ( as a number) than the impact of the Sun will be less significant as been actually observed to have been according to the climate data for the last century, or probably since 1850.
Actually this possible to stand that way only if CS considered to be lower than 1.4C.
Higher than 1.5C and closer to 3C CS for a doubling The Sun actually means nothing as to be considered.
As the 1.5C to 3C CS for a doubling seems to be a too hot an estimate than when you go for a lower one you have to consider the Sun and similar short term variations while you try to have a good CS estimate.
In a lower CS estimate there is no such room FOR A RANGE as WITH 1.5C to 4.5C with an average of 3C,
it will be something like 0.5C to 0.7C with a 0.6C average……..That’s one of the problems with the small numbers…no much room for large ranges…
Is a b.tch of a thing….I know..:)
That is my understanding….. I stand to be corrected if my understanding is wrong.
…….
Stricly for the ones that may be rejoicing to the ever lower CS of 0.6C:
It is really a very low sensitivity indeed but for it to be true we must have a real expectation of AGW, a small one but never the less an AGW, technically is a very clear math cut AGW.
It has only one outcome possible for it to be true according to the current climate behavior show by the climate data, a clear 1.2C warming at 560ppm from the point of 280ppm, with the possible play of some kind of a hiatus for a considerable time before a warming gets to that point. More than enoughy room there to play a hiatus….at least up to 460ppm to 480ppm CO2. It requiries only another 4C warming up to 560ppm
50% of that 1.2C warming (a 0.6C) will be due to and a result of CO2 emissions….anthropogenic one.
That can be called only one way…the AGW one.. A 0.6C AGW, but never the less an AGW.
Sorry for the spoiling.
cheers
Correction in the above comment:
“It requiries only another 4C warming up to 560ppm”
Meant actually 0.4C instead of 4C as put above.
Should have put it as:
“It requiries only another 0.4C up to 560ppm”
Sorry about that
That’s a quality publication you’ve got there. The editors’ board really reads like the who’s who of climate science:
http://www.scipublish.com/journals/ACC/editorials
Racist
What? Did I miss something?
[Reply: Yes, the comment was removed. ~mod.]
and who leads the IPCC?
just asking.
isn’t his background in railroads?
I thought he was an erotic novelist…
He’s both. A real savant.
Are you arguing that China and India are technologically incompetent?
They have successful space programmes.
Or are you suggesting that the world’s largest CO2 emitters may be funding science that breaks the Western Hegemony on environmental norms?
In which case you may have correctly identified the day AGW died.
Here’s hoping
You make an interesting point. The editorial board is mainly China and India. Even more interesting is how the better established board of “Science” is almost entirely UK and USA – 8 of 11 positions. It probably says more about the publishing industry than the quality of the periodical.
All I see are meteorologists, geophysicists, geologists, environmental and civil engineers, a ‘proper’ climatologist, and a biochemist.
Yeah, what a total bunch of noobs.
/sarc
yes, looncrace –
its not that specialists, that compulsive neurotics who know all ’bout evrything and calling us laymen!
Its the grant majority of layman to vote / to decide!
convince me – I’m a layman!
and be good at it!
there’s millions of us!
So the paper is wrong then?
Your point?
Having delved into the CAGW/CACC mire for some 15 years with a PhD in a relevant subject matter, 35 years of academic and private sector due diligence [my colleagues would tell you I have finely tuned bullshit detectors], and with a good picture of the Who’s Who in your post, any of those mentioned, individually or collectively, suffice to discredit any paper or publication related to climate “science’.
So what’s your point in the context of this thread?
The publishers of this “Journal” are on the 2014 list of predatory publishers.
http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/
Why would any serious scientist totally ruin their credibility and integrity by publishing in a non-peer-reviewed vanity journal by a predatory publisher like this? Unless paying to have it published was the only way he could get it published at all?
Get ready. The warmists, and those who support the agenda expecting future financial reward, will soon pull all stops as they see control and money evaporate.
Already the anti-carbon lobby in the UK is saying, ‘climate change is irreversible, but we must still bring down ‘carbon emissions’ because its affecting health’. Watch this space, the next tranche of ‘scientific evidence’ against CO2 etc., is all going to be ‘medical’.
Which, in fairness, probably has more provenance.
CO2 has medical impacts! Aarrgghhhh!
Calm down a minute.
Try breathing into a bag.
“Try breathing into a bag.”
Very good, sir! You win the day!
What negative health affect does additional CO2 have?
Breathing pure CO2 will lead to hypoxaemia, fatigue, confusion, acute respiratory and cardiac failure, followed by brain death. Apart from that there are no known health effects.
Breathing pure H2O will lead to hypoxaemia, fatigue, confusion, panic then acute respiratory and cardiac failure, followed by brain death. Apart from that there are no known health effects.
Breathing pure Ar will lead to hypoxaemia, fatigue, confusion, acute respiratory and cardiac failure, followed by brain death. Apart from that there are no known health effects.
Breathing pure N2 will lead to hypoxaemia, fatigue, confusion, acute respiratory and cardiac failure, followed by brain death. Apart from that there are no known health effects.
Breathing pure He will lead to hypoxaemia, fatigue, confusion, acute respiratory and cardiac failure, followed by brain death. Apart from that there are no known health effects. Side effects of breathing He include the funny noises emitted by clowns, six-year-olds at parties, and many CAGW government-paid so-called scientists attending conferences in exotic expensive tropical locations also paid for by their governments.
Your comment is true, but does not lead us further in the debate. There is much more N2, Ar, H2O in the atmosphere than CO2. Should we ban the inert and noble gasses because we cannot breathe if they contaminate the atmosphere?
Bob Ryan, if the atmosphere is pure CO2 then we may have other issues as well.
Being on the wrong planet, for a start.
Intriguingly, the symptoms you quote also apply to breathing pure N2. Let’s try to keep that at less than 800ppm too.
Bob Ryan:
You amuse. You come here and try to demonize CO2 with a quip. We are scientists and we know better.
Yup, goes for any gas you care to think of apart from oxygen and even that, like fine malt whisky, is better diluted. Though to be fair, there are many gases, including CO, H2S and HCN that will seriously damage your health at 400ppm. So, a little CO2 sniffing is unlikely to impair wellbeing – taken in moderation of course.
David A, a quick search offered this.
Humans Exhale between 35,000 to 50,000 ppm of CO2.
5,000 ppm occupational safety standard (time weighted average for an eight-hour workday
within a 40-hour work week) for an industrial workplace.
http://www.energy.wsu.edu/Documents/CO2inbuildings.pdf
I believe that breathing pure O2 (at STP) will have about the same effect as with CO2.
It’s not the CO2 that kills you; it’s lack of oxygen. Geez!
The CO2 level in most households is around 800 ppm. In many greenhouses, CO2 levels are augmented to between 1,000 and 2,000 ppm while studies show that the physiological impact such levels have on humans working there are found to actually be beneficial.
Leave it to the climate mongers to get it wrong.
Most of the studies I’ve seen show problems starting around 1000PPM, mostly relating to cognitive functioning. The medical concerns are far more important than any global warming aspect of CO2, but don’t really require immediate action – we could just install CO2 scrubbers in our homes until outdoor levels are reduced if it really comes to that 😉
The CO2 level in your lungs, when you exhale, is about 40,000 ppm!
Here is a human translation of that editor’s note:
The parameter called “climate sensitivity” was invented to account for the assumption that the global average of atmospheric temperatures might be raised in a certain manner by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. To this end, various forcings were defined, based on certain physics-based and mostly plausible assumptions, which would cause this temperature increase by way of a departure from [the previous] equilibrium. One of many required factors is climate sensitivity, which states how many Kelvins of warming will occur when the CO2 concentration doubles.
(The original German is clumsy and stilted – no wonder that Google Translate got lost.)
It would also help to remove the hard line breaks from the text of the paper.
Thank you, I also thought the editor’s note was mightily garbled. Google MT would be screwed, however, even if the German original were perfect. There ain’t no such thing as “machine translation.”
OT: And there is of course no such thing as “un-difficult” German…. You know, as in the proverbial “”Kurzes Einfuehrung” [short introduction] in German grammar: one volume for the rules, followed by four volumes of exceptions…. Wenn ich das so sagen darf…
One has to have some empathy for the poor Google translation machine…. 🙂
Typo/Transcription alert?
I think the 0.43 should not have been repeated, but should be 0.60 C°. From the abstract at http://www.scipublish.com/journals/ACC/papers/846 :
My internal pedant points out I should have copied the one digit precision in the abstract, i.e. 0.6 C°. My apologies to it and its host.
I noticed the same thing. In order not to be too easy a target for attacks, 0,43C should be corrected to 0,6C
The 0.43C climate sensitivity [Cs in the paper] is not a typo, as explained below on page 38 of the paper:
All results for the individual and collective feedbacks on the climate and air sensitivity are listed in
Table 7. The upper ten rows show the data calculated under clear sky conditions, the lower 14 lines
the results under mean cloud cover. Comparison of respective rows without and with overcast clearly
demonstrates the dominant influence of clouds, causing a significant reduction of the sensitivities, as long
as the thermally induced cloud feedback is excluded. So, with water vapour, lapse rate, albedo, convection and evaporation feedback CS even diminishes to only 0.43 ˚ C.
This is the retrieval mode for decent climate scientist (so they still find work after the Fraud is completely uncovered). Most likely, and I dont have a clue, just guessing… Climate sensitivity to increased C02 (on Earth)is probably zero at higher levels (400ppm) and higher at lower levels (<180ppm) for obvious reasons (plants need to survive). At very high levels 3000ppm ect it seems to be related to extremely cold periods(ice ages), Stand to be corrected.
@Eliza
You say:
“Climate sensitivity to increased C02 (on Earth)is probably zero at higher levels (400ppm) and higher at lower levels (<180ppm) for obvious reasons (plants need to survive). At very high levels 3000ppm ect it seems to be related to extremely cold periods(ice ages), Stand to be corrected."
———————
The problem is always the estimate of CS.
The whole Earth system is expected to react to any energy increase outside the natural pattern as in the case of AGW.
Different CS means different scale of response….how can I put this…if you compare for example the 3C CS for a doubling with the 0.6C CS the system will have a different response. In the case of 3C the system will respond too little too late no much strength. With a lowering of CS the system responce becomes much stronger and quicker…for example in the case of 0.6C the system will start responding to the CO2 warming once that warming gets to be at about 0.2C AFTER THE CENTURY MARK, which actually coincides with the point that the last century warming getting to 0.8C….the full responce mean that the system will propagate a -0.6C impact from that point on for the next 150 years at least. So the system response will tend to cool the climate by -0.6C and the reminding warming to be added according to the 0.6C CS will be at about another 0.4C….
0.8C +(-0.6C) + 0.4C= 0.6C WARMING FROM THE 1900 TO ABOUT THE TIME OF 560ppm….meaning a cooling of 0.2C about from the present till then. That is still 0.4C above the system tolerance of 0.2C…a paradox really.
Under this explanation for the CS= 0.6C still to be true, the system should respond in such a way that the CO2 emissions must not get past the 440ppm to 450ppm.
So the 3000ppm you mention, as far as I can tell is impossible, and totally alien under the cicumstances with a 0.6C CS.
With the 3C CS the responce will be at a bout a 0.6C to 0.7C of a accumulated extra wearming solely due to the CO2 emissions wich more or less is about the same time as in the case of CS at 0.6C (according to the data) but the strength of the responce is nearly nil ( most a 0.1 to 0.2C max responce as the most variation in climate to be observed only due to CO2) wich is insignificant to the 3C warming in the case of CS=3C.
The 3000ppm is much easy to be immagined in this case.
The point made is that in higher CS a most tolerant system expected to the warming in the AGW senario…. in a lower CS less tolerant the system is towards the AGW.
So all depends in the actual CS value…….As far as I can tell any CS below 0.8C makes no sense through the numbers…same for any CS above 1C to 1.4C, for doubling of CO2 that is..
Above 1.5C and moving upwards to 4.5C, as in the case of the official orthodox estimate, the climatic condition will make some sense with the numbers but expected to be too hot, much more than the reality is allowing, so the above 1.5C no possible anymore according to reality, these CS estimates can't fit anymore with reality.
Hope that makes some sense..:-)
cheers
You’re making the classic mistake of assuming all warming is the result of added CO2 in your calculations. At most, I find that about 45% can be attributed to all GHG additions (mostly CO2). This is in the idealized model, with 1.41W/m^2 forcing (currently), building from earlier forcing, and the inclusion of no negative feedbacks… so… it’s over-doing it.
Of the 0.8C rise, 0.4~0.6C was natural (from the sun, or internal heat flying the American flag and achieving liberation). So we have seen ~40% of the CO2 effect from doubling – which is good, because we are 38% there. That makes for a low CO2 sensitivity of 0.6. But, if you ignore any external inputs and claim all warming is from CO2, the sensitivity must be >= 1.2C.
@loorenz
Thanks for your reply.
I see that maybe I have been not very clear with my comment you replied at….but what I said in my comment and my calculations are not based on the clasical mistake you mention…read carefully.
I did consider the warming due to CO2 emissions in regard to the CS=0.6C only as much as 0.2C in regard to the 0.8C warming experienced…so the figure that you consider as 0.4~0.6C as natural I have considered as ~0.6C……read carefully. Probably very hard to get the point I was making.
Let me try it from another angle..
What I said:
“As far as I can tell any CS below 0.8C makes no sense through the numbers…same for any CS above 1C to 1.4C, for doubling of CO2 that is..”
Meaning that 0.8C~1.0C CS is a number with less error than 0.6C CS…while compared to what you say 0.8~1.0C CS is equivalent to your ~40% and the 0.6C CS is equivalent to ONLY ~26% (0.2C of the 0.8C experienced) and not as it seems you do considered at ~ 38% warming due to CO2.. 38%~40% is equivalent 0.8~1.0C CS
What I was saying was that the 0.6C is less correct than the 0.8~ 1.0C CS.
The system response is big in the case of 0.8~1.0C CS, but smaller than in the case of 0.5~0.7C (aka 0.6C) CS which ranges very close to impossibility.
Lower the climate CS less tolerance in the system for any extra warming due to CO2.. THAT WAS THE POINT.
Numbers are too small, a little variation means a big error…….
I assure you I have not made that clasical mistake you mention… please read carefully….. there could be any other problems or mistakes with my calculations but the one you mention is not the case.
Please let me know if something still not clear enough.. I get lost my self with my own thoughts sometimes while CS considered..is a very complicated subject..:-)
thanks again.
cheers““““““““`-+
The standard problem with calculating the solar influence is the assumption of validity of the Group Sunspot Number coupled with the assumption of a recent Grand Maximum. Both of these assumptions have been shown [see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Revisiting-the-Sunspot-Number.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/Keynote-SCOSTEP-2014.pdf ] to be wrong, so the solar influence is much smaller than assumed, regardless of the contribution of CO2.
It totally amazes me to still find new papers using questionable solar indices. I understand lag time between first draft and final publication but I would think we are getting to the point that it no longer would show up in research. Is it just plain laziness, not want to wait for an official corrected indices or are we seeing examples of bias?
Leif, your keynote is a true scientific tour de force, tightly wrapping up in one paper a lifetime of related solar and geomagnetic research and knowledge. Pages 31 & 38 – thank you! I appreciate it – it will be referenced often down the road.
However, the “standard problem” regarding solar influence that you just stated in your comment & conclusion above is not overtly addressed in your keynote, and the data presented therein do not logically lead to your conclusion. There is no information in your keynote that invalidates the solar Modern Maximum as the main cause of “global warming”.
Solar activity during the Modern Maximum of 1936-2003, as measured by the annual average GSN, http://www.leif.org/research/Revised-Group-Numbers.xls, was 31% higher for the 68 years from 1936-2003 than the annual average GSN during the previous 183 years.
That is not the way to do comparison. Doing it your way you’ll find that the averaged revised GSN fo 1724-1796 was 29% higher than the average GSN for all the other years since 1700. You should not compare the average of a cherry-picked local maximum with the overall average. On this plot http://www.leif.org/research/New-GSN-since-1700.png I find it hard to believe that the 20th century activity was in any way GRAND.
Not if you believe in energy conservation. Accounting for the variation of sea surface temperatures during solar cycles requires more energy input than can be provided by the variations of solar irradiance that reach the top of the atmosphere during solar cycles. Further, it is not clear at all that the author assumed that irradiance was related to sunspot number, however, he did assume that irradiance increased.
The 68-year solar modern max epoch from 1936-2003 had an annual average GSN of 73.5. The 68 years prior to 1936 had an average GSN of 42.8.
That was a 72% increase in the average annual sunspot output from one 68 year period to the next 68 year period.
I wouldn’t call that grand either. I’d call it GREAT! The GREAT Solar Maximum of the 20th century.
The 50-year solar 19th century max epoch from 1825-1875 had an annual average GSN of 63.6. The 50-years after that had and average GSN of 36.9.
That was a 72% decrease in the average annual sunspot number output from one 50-year period to the the next 50 year period.
Amazing the games one can play by cherry-picking periods.
lsvalgaard
October 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm
After the first warming phase of the Modern Warm Period (following the last cold snap of the LIA, ie the Dalton Minimum), there occurred the first counter-trend cycle of the secular warming, c. 1879 to 1915, so not surprising that average GSN was lower in the interval 1875-1924 than during the prior 50 years (1825-74), which included recovery from the Dalton.
The non-surprising point is that solar activity goes up and goes down and every one of the last three full centuries have had its maximum and none of them were particularly GRAND or GREAT in relation to the others. This should be contrasted to the myth of the grand modern maximum illustrated by Figures 1 and 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/Long-term-Variation-Solar-Activity.pdf
From the standpoint of climatology, I find SSN lows more telling than highs, whether grand maxima or not. The Little Ice Age consisted of three long stretches of low SSNs (Spoerer, Maunder & Dalton Minima), or four if you include the Wolf Minimum, which occurred during what’s generally considered the transition out of the Medieval Warm Period, but was followed by warmth associated with higher SSNs. Also, the reversion to LIA-like climate (late 19th & early 20th century) early in the Modern Warm Period, after its first blast of warmth in the mid-19th century, coincided with lower SSNs. Conversely, the rapid, strong rebound (early 18th century) from the depths of the LIA during the Maunder coincided with higher SSNs.
In this case, IMO a strong argument can be made for a mechanism connecting correlation & causation.
What would be the effect on Earth’s atmosphere and by extension its climate at any level, global/regional -assuming for a moment this were possible- of turning off the sun, and then after a while turning it back on?
If that has no consequences -unlikely I would have thought- that would be very interesting, indeed. If it does, why is it that what would appear to be not inconsequential periodic fluctuations in the sun’s activity, have as little influence on climate as your research suggests?
milodonharlani October 14, 2014 at 3:10 pm
After the first warming phase of the Modern Warm Period (following the last cold snap of the LIA, ie the Dalton Minimum), there occurred the first counter-trend cycle of the secular warming, etc etc
Is a circular argument as you use assume a priori that the sun drives those large climate swings.
We turn the sun off every evening [i.e. night] and then back on [i.e. dawn]. Not much consequence.
I assume nothing. I note that climatic swings correlate with the observed variation in SSN. It was colder during the low SSN intervals (Wolf, Spoerer, Maunder & Dalton Minima, plus late 19th & early 20th century) & warmer during the intervening & subsequent periods of higher SSN. Beyond just correlation, plausible physical mechanisms have been proposed & investigated experimentally & observationally to account for the connection. Pretty persuasive to me.
milodonharlani October 15, 2014 at 8:01 am
It was colder during the low SSN intervals (Wolf, Spoerer, Maunder & Dalton Minima, plus late 19th & early 20th century)
and early 21st, right? Oh, wait, perhaps that is CO2 at work.
Only in “adjusted” data has the early 21st century been as warm as the late 20th century. At best, temperature has stayed the same, while CO2 has apparently risen monotonically. And IMO it’s going to get colder even as CO2 keeps going up.
CO2 doesn’t correlate well with actual temperature. If anything, it’s an effect, not a cause. In the past, temperature has risen with falling CO2, risen with rising CO2 (as after the PDO switch in 1977 until ~1996), stayed the same with both rising & falling CO2, fallen with rising CO2 & fallen with falling CO2. The conjecture that CO2 is the control knob on climate was born falsified.
GASTA also goes up & down while CO2 stays about the same, as during the 1940s & early ’50s.
So Figure 20 of http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf is persuasive to you. It isn’t to me. But, I realize that it is hard to argue with someone who is so persuaded as you.
lsvalgaard commented
Lief, how comfortable are you that we’re detecting and counting all of the significant energy put out by the Sun?
I don’t know which is Fig. 20. The figures don’t appear to be labelled. Is that on page 20?
I’m easy to argue with, somewhat harder to persuade. I’d like to see the variation in the UV component of TSI.
I’ve long been a fan of Piet Hein, since reading his “A Maxim for Vikings”. These seem apropos:
Experts have
their expert fun
ex-cathedra
telling one
just how nothing
can be done.
‘Experts’ (1966)
The road to wisdom?—Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
‘The Road to Wisdom’ (1966)
Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.
‘Problems’ (1969)
Mi Cro October 15, 2014 at 10:44 am
Leif, how comfortable are you that we’re detecting and counting all of the significant energy put out by the Sun?
Very comfortable.
milodonharlani October 15, 2014 at 11:07 am
I don’t know which is Fig. 20. The figures don’t appear to be labelled. Is that on page 20?
Yes, of course.
I’m easy to argue with, somewhat harder to persuade.
Yet, you are persuaded that the so-called grand minima control the climate. Go figure.
I’d like to see the variation in the UV component of TSI.
UV scales with TSI [and is itself a tiny part of TSI]. We have a very good record of the energetic part of UV [the EUV], see http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction-Solar-EUV-Flux.pdf and http://www.leif.org/research/Keynote-SCOSTEP-2014.pdf
I don’t call them grand minima, just minima, which is what they’ve been called for a long time. There were three or four of them during the LIA (depending upon start date for that cold interval) & none since. If another one occurs, then global climate is liable to get cooler. IMO Milankovitch Cycles come closer to “controlling” the climate, but solar activity certainly seems to matter as well.
Thanks for UV reconstructions.
“We turn the sun off every evening [i.e. night] and then back on [i.e. dawn]. Not much consequence.”
Whaaaa? Significant consequence in my book. Don’t have the average worldwide diurnal temperature variation on the top of my head and a fifteen minute google search refused to tell me (bet I could find it in ten minutes in a 1970 meteorology textbook). Anyway, clearly several degrees C in twelve hours. If it can do that in hours, why can’t miniscule variations over centuries do the same?
24 hours
Day time average rising temp and following night average falling temp are just under 18F.
No consequence for the climate. Or do you really believe that the day-night cycle is the cause of global warming or the lack thereof? That must be a new one.
Some physicists here and elsewhere have pointed out that the CO2 molecule will bump into another molecule and give up its extra energy before it radiates the energy. This means that convection is the dominate process in the lower atmosphere (where the atmosphere is so dense).
I am thinking that the climate “sensitivity” to CO2 is vanishingly small. Perhaps even zero.
Yes and it seems as time goes by climate sensitivity is getting smaller and smaller.
Eventually a paper will come out stating the truth i.e. climate sensitivity to CO2 of ZERO.
My luke warm friends have the exact same problem as the alarmists, i.e. explain the lack of warming of the last two decades.
“My luke warm friends have the exact same problem as the alarmists, i.e. explain the lack of warming of the last two decades.”
Couldn’t be easier:
Natural variation >= AGW
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
This paper builds an in-depth physics model and ignores the oversimplifications taken for granted by most of climate science. The alarmism simply cannot be supported when a thorough physics model, including spectroscopy, is used to examine the data. Our Professor Brown recently pointed out the pitfalls associated with oversimplifications.
“Editor’s note: The “climate sensitivity” said quantity was invented to carry the presumption in meaningful ways into account that the global mean temperature of the atmosphere could possibly be driven in a certain way by increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the air. To this end, forces defined (postulated) called. “Forcings”, whose influence, by means of certain physically based and mostly plausible assumptions, to accomplish this increase as migration out of balance. One of the factors is required for the climate sensitivity. It indicates how much K (° C) doubling the heating of the CO2 concentration rises.”
In other words, as always, they start out by assuming that there is a ‘climate sensitivity’ to more atmospheric CO2 before looking, that an increase in CO2 does lead to a rise in global temperatures. Same old circular reasoning. This continued approach will never get us anywhere.
A paper that tries to isolate downward shortwave radiation from longwave radiation? What a novel concept!
Do they use solar from the TOA or at the surface? It’s the surface that matters.
Indeed, and it is the long term absorption of SW radiation into the oceans that drives long term climate responses. In the oceans the residence time of a small increase can accumulate energy daily for years. In the atmosphere a balance is established daily.
I still don’t see correlation between CO2 and temperature – CO2 increases temperature goes down, CO2 increases temperature goes up, CO2 increases temperature goes down.
The sun and oceans do seem to correlate with temperature, though. What am I missing here?
At the risk of being ‘that guy’…
There are a couple of extraneous letters in ‘significant’ in the post title.
Spelling: The Lost Art
Good catch. That one got by me, probably because it’s in the title.
The 1st graph tells you all you need to know about the greenhouse gas effect–it is the H2O nothing else matters.
Groundbreaking in the sense that climate science is no longer the handmaiden of the Hansen/Gore/IPCC confirmation bias and no longer has to genuflect to the CAGW meme and its self-righteous proponents.
Margaret Smith – The main relationship is that atmospheric CO2 concentration depends on sea temperature since its solubility in water decreases as the water temperature rises. The current rise in atmospheric CO2 is probably partly due the earth warming up after the LIA.
Yes, that I know. But that has nothing to do with humans. Sea temperature influencing air temperature is pretty obvious to us in the UK who are kept mild in winter due to the Gulf Stream.
Your post on Hermann Harde’s work highlights a valuable analysis. He has shown that even if you adopt the Trenberth energy balance model (including the notion of the earth as a flat disk illuminated constantly by the sun at 1/4 power), empirical evidence gives a small fraction of the potential climate sensitivity claimed from increasing CO2.
I think the key inference is the saturation effect, “The line-by-line calculations for solar radiation from 0.1–8 mm (sw radiation) as well as for the terrestrial radiation from 3–100 mm (lw radiation) show, that due to the strong overlap of the CO2 and CH4 spectra with water vapour lines the influence of these gases significantly declines with increasing water vapour pressure, and that with increasing CO2-concentration well noticeable saturation effects are observed limiting substantially the impact of CO2 on global warming.”
As a conservationist and progressive and teacher, I’ve tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to educate my tribe in the science of climate science using, among other things, this elementary essay on climate sensitivity-
http://climatesensitivity.blogspot.com/
Well Doug, I notice you excerpted a section that has puzzled me.
“””… “The line-by-line calculations for solar radiation from 0.1–8 mm (sw radiation) as well as for the terrestrial radiation from 3–100 mm (lw radiation)…”””
Did they really integrate Solar radiation from 100 nano-meters all the way out to 8 millimeters, and IR from 3 microns out to 100 millimeters.
98% of solar radiant energy, is contained between 250 nano-meters, and 4.0 microns wavelength. Any solar radiant energy beyond even 10 microns, wouldn’t be worth a tinkers damn.
And 98% of the mean surface LWIR lies between 5 microns, and 80 microns, so once again, radiation beyond say 200 microns, would be quite negligible.
Now 0.1 to 8.0 microns, and 3.0 to 100 microns, would both be very reasonable and generous spectrum widths to deal with.
Could this be just a typo; read “micron” for “mm”.
The text as presented above reads impressively; I can’t say, I can grasp the detail without pictures.
I’m suspicious of the mention of the word “equilibrium” in there. That’s news to me, and if he uses Trenberth’s energy fluxes, it would seem to imply a non-rotating earth, as would the assertion of equilibrium.
I’ve done a lot of computer modeling; both electronic circuits (SPICE like, and down to the bare metal (Si)) and also Optical (imaging and non-imaging designs), but in every case, I have only modeled the real actual physical elements or objects, that were in the real system; or would be in it, when manufactured to my design, and strictly obeying laws of physics; sometimes approximations (geometrical ray optics) and sometimes more physical (diffraction based), and I’ve never ever gotten a result, that wasn’t replicated in the final as made system.
So I don’t quite grasp the concept of doing modeling on a system, that you know a priori is totally different from the actual real system you wish to explain.
But I guess, I will try and wade through this paper. It is a shame if it has typos that totally change the numbers.
Well Doug,
There may be overlap (what is “strong” overlap) of the absorption bands, of the various GHGs, with water notably having plenty of those, but those bands are hordes of very fine lines, and there is not much likelihood of a lot of overlap of those narrow lines. So they are more likely to be additive.
I didn’t see any reference to the influence of ocean cycles. This likely means either the solar or CO2 (or both) values are too high.
Would someone weigh in on the graph? i don’t get what this is showing. Isn’t the wavelength way off? If the gray line is a blackbody curve it’s pretty cool, like ATM average temp? That’s certainly not the BB curve for light from the sun which is peaked at around 0.5 um.
The plank curve in the top graph represents the emission from the surface of the Earth. It looks like it assumes a temperature of 300K, which is normal. It peaks about 10 microns. The graph is meant to show that radiation from the Earth can escape relatively unhindered through the ‘atmospheric window’, a wavelength band ranging from about 8 to 14 microns. Above 14 microns the radiation is blocked by the CO2 absorption band, below 8 microns it is severely attenuated by water vapour.
Thanks Mike! I’m dense at 7AM.
Randy
In the model used for this paper does the model make the usual prediction of a hot spot in the upper troposphere (found to be missing in reality)? If the model does not make a prediction of such a ‘hot spot’ that would certainly indicate a big improvement in modeling.
Versions of this work have been around since early 2011: Consider a Spherical Truncated Icosahedron
Another version and discussions from 2013: Hermann Harde: greenhouse effect 30% smaller than IPCC says.
which refers to this publication.: Radiation and Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere: A Comprehensive Approach on a Molecular Basis, Hermann Harde, International Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 503727, 26 pages, http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/503727
In the first two articles above there are links to additional discussions.
Yet another paper which justifies abandoning the IPCC model outputs as the basis for even discussing future climate let alone using them as a basis for climate policy.
The modelling approach is inherently of no value for predicting future temperature with any calculable certainty because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions of a sufficiently fine grained spatio-temporal grid of a large number of variables with sufficient precision prior to multiple iterations. For a complete discussion of this see Essex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvhipLNeda4
Models are often tuned by running them backwards against several decades of observation, this is
much too short a period to correlate outputs with observation when the controlling natural quasi-periodicities of most interest are in the centennial and especially in the key millennial range. Tuning to these longer periodicities is beyond any computing capacity when using reductionist models with a large number of variables unless these long wave natural periodicities are somehow built into the model structure ab initio.
In addition to the general problems of modeling complex systems as in the particular IPCC models have glaringly obvious structural deficiencies as seen in fig 2-20 from AR4 WG1- this is not very different from Fig 8-17 in the AR5 WG1 report)
The only natural forcing in both of the IPCC Figures is TSI, and everything else is classed as anthropogenic. The deficiency of this model structure is immediately obvious. Under natural forcings should come such things as, for example, Milankovitch Orbital Cycles, lunar related tidal effects on ocean currents, earth’s geomagnetic field strength and most importantly on millennial and centennial time scales all the Solar Activity data time series – e.g., Solar Magnetic Field strength, TSI, SSNs, GCRs, (effect on aerosols, clouds and albedo) CHs, MCEs, EUV variations, and associated ozone variations.”
More and more people are realizing that the GCM’s are inherently meaningless.
It is well past time that the climate discussion moved past the consideration of the these useless models to evaluating forecasts using a completely different approach based on the natural quasi-periodicities so obviously seen in the temperature and driver record.
Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths combined with endogenous secular earth processes such as, for example, plate tectonics. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of the relation of the climate of the present time to the current phases of these different interacting natural quasi-periodicities which fall into two main categories.
a) The orbital long wave Milankovitch eccentricity,obliquity and precessional cycles which are modulated by
b) Solar “activity” cycles with possibly multi-millennial, millennial, centennial and decadal time scales.
The convolution of the a and b drivers is mediated through the great oceanic current and atmospheric pressure systems to produce the earth’s climate and weather.
After establishing where we are relative to the long wave periodicities to help forecast decadal and annual changes, we can then look at where earth is in time relative to the periodicities of the PDO, AMO and NAO and ENSO indices and based on past patterns make reasonable forecasts for future decadal periods.
For forecasts of the timing and amount of the probable coming cooling based on the natural 1000 year and 60 year periodicities in the temperature record and using the 10Be and neutron count data as the best proxy for solar “activity”go to
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
Perhaps you should consider the “lag”‘ and through that consider what forces what. Warmer water releases more CO2…. Which is cause and which is effect? Perhaps they are both?
Dr. Page,
I have been to your site and find it interesting.
With regards to the climate I certainly don’t know the answers. There are many variables over many varying time scales. There is room for argument for the short term time frames and it is obvious that absolutely nothing is settled. One argument that I can’t buy is the one presented that CO2 is a major factor in the earth’s climate and negative at that. It would seem that 600 to 800 ppm could be beneficial overall.
I can see ECS taking some amount of time to stabilize with constant inputs. But I think TCS should be instantaneous, speed of light, er better speed of IR. A flashlight in a fog, happens immediately, DWLR should respond instantly as the Co2 get various levels of illumination in LW IR.
Even with this showing how much water vapor saturates at least the main 15-16u Co2 bands, when I measure the zenith (DWIR) with my IR Thermometer, when it’s cool and dry, I’m measuring -40F to -60F, and in the winter it was colder than the thermometer reliably reads (-80F). I’ve been measuring 80F-100F differences in temps between concrete and zenith. If there isn’t any water vapor, Co2 isn’t going to keep us warm.
On the other hand, I’ve long wondered if Co2 helps boost a planets temp from Co2 melting temps up to water melting temps, at which point a water cycle can warm it up even more.
~0.5! I guess that makes me a lukewarmer. I expected we would settle on ~1.0 the way the estimates were moving. If solar variations can be ignored, then ~0.7. I guess the big question has to be, why, with all these physicists in the fray and everyone telling us “its the physics”, they didn’t DO the physics!
My guess was zero ±1ish.
At the lowest levels the other factors are so significant as to make determining any effect from CO2… well, it’s impossible to distinguish from the unknowns over those time periods.
Dr Norman Page at October 14, 2014 at 6:24 am, just above, makes the point in detail (but with more certainty than I could muster).
Reduces co2 to background noise. I have it, when it was warming, at about 3% of the total warming, so about 0.015 C . Other factors simply overwhelm that warming. I’m not to sure co2 has any affect at all, other than maybe slowing the rate of fall of real temperatures by 3%. If co2 actually worked the way the IPCC says it does, then temps are actually falling. Which kind of proves that other mechanisms overwhelm co2 in climate control.
Still waiting for Mosher to tell us why this can’t be true ….
It looks as though band saturation by water vapour was under estimated in earlier studies and even the warming induced evaporation (seen by alarmists as positive feedback) would ensure further saturation, thus diminishing the potential of GHG warming by CO2.
Which has been obvious since AR3 squibbed and the Tropical Hotspot didn’t show up.
Not that I’m criticising your comment.
I’m merely asking how anyone was still able to think that warming induced evaporation could be a positive feedback without the Tropical Hotspot being easy to find?
No problem, now they can tell us how even such small increases in temperature will lead to ‘climate doom’ therefore we have to act now. It is a very rich and comfortable gravy train with lots of people on board so its going to take much more than is to derail it.
Oh oh!!! It’s not really looking too good for the IPCC. We were told its 2007 4th Assessment Report was the “gold standard in climate science”… the “settled science”… incontrovertible… based solely on peer reviewed science!
Well, Mother Nature has rendered that report obsolete. The report was all about rising temperature trends based on various rising CO2 emissions scenarios. The hotter temperatures supposedly would cause all those nasty extreme weather events. Nothing in the report about a flat temperature trend or possibly even slight cooling.
RSS has confirmed 18 years of no discernible warming. No warming. That’s big news… huge!
Since 2007, we’ve seen what… some 17 papers demonstrating climate sensitivity is significantly lower than that used in climate models.
So when is someone going to call this global warming alarmism for what it is … a massive deception… a scientific fraud?
Ok; for the (roughly) 2 millionth time here at WUWT:
Global warming alarmism is … a massive deception… a scientific fraud.
With 24 years of deductive reasoning under my belt as a chemist, I already knew that Gore’s claim about global warming didn’t make logical sense. http://chrisskates.com/novel-becomes-energy-crystal-ball/
These numbers agree with some of the studies that were produced years ago by Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen.
In the meantime, Svalgaard continues to pretend that Svensmark’s research on cosmic rays doesn’t exist.
My take, for the last 8 years has been that the number is between .5C and 1.2C for 2XCO2.
“We present an advanced two-layer climate model…”
Sorry, but I thought we were supposed to be skeptical of model results…
We are sceptical of model results. But this model uses known (measured inputs) from a spectroscopy database , HITRAN08 and plugs them into a simple model. A simple model with a simple aim, to “calculate the influence of an increasing CO2-concentration and a varying solar activity on global warming.”
It isn’t trying to predict the oceans and the weather systems.
From the introduction:
In other words, they try to do too much and fail to replicate anything – except through fiddling the parameters to tune the past. You’ve seen our scepticism of this in the past.
But they go on to state that their model is meant to look at climate sensitivity only – and it describes how it works so anyone can see the assumptions involved. The assumptions involved in solving for the movement of the oceans and atmosphere are so many and complex that they don’t test anything except the faith of the reader.
But here:
So you can see what they are testing.
“… I thought we were supposed to be skeptical of model results…”
Yes, it would be foolish not to be skeptical of all models, because they all tend to be biased from unavoidable assumptions, approximations and economies of scale.
Having said that, I would like to point out that it is impossible to measure anything without using a model of some kind.
Temperature? Temperature is only an abstract concept defined by physicists. So, thermometers can’t measure temperature directly, but must rely on a model, based on a variety of proxies like thermodynamic thickness of a column of mercury or the electrical resistance of a thermocouple, all subject to errors of implementation and interpretation. All are severely limited in scale. The thermometer in your weather station would be useless for measuring temperatures inside a furnace (and vice versa).
But many of these so-called ‘thermometers’ are often useful, and sometimes seem to provide acceptably consistent readings over a narrow range of values in selected locations. Assuming, of course, that they are free from manufacturing defects, improper installation or misreading of values.
Yes, be very skeptical of _all_ models.
Models are essential to understanding the physical world we live in. The key is that to be useful the model results have to agree with experimental results and/or the physical world. So if the model correctly predicts observation then it is useful. If not, it is junk.
Okay. So, we are lowering the estimate for the rate of change of a dependent variable we can’t really measure. Yeah.
Letter submitted to Raleigh (NC) News Observer (Dec. 24, 2004) by S Fred Singer:
Fred Singer wrote that 10 years ago. My money has always been on him being about right and the recent slew of papers on climate sensitivity all seem to be heading in one direction – down.
And just for those (like me) who prefer SI to Imperial units, 1.0 deg F is approximately 0.6 deg C.
[Is that 0.6 C before or after adjusting for the TOBS adjustments and station movements between the equator, Paris and the north pole since the meter was defined back in the French Revolution? 8<) .mod]
I thought I’d check your math so I asked a search box to tell me what 1.0 deg F is when expressed as Celsius.
The answer provided was -17.22222.
Perhaps you meant what 1.0 F degree is expressed as Celsius.
John, ThinkingScientist was talking not about the temperature 1.0 degree F, but what percent of a Celsius degree is a Fahrenheit degree. That is easily derived by noting that freezing in F is 32 degrees but 0 degrees C, & that boiling is 212 F but 100 C. Hence, there are 180 F degrees between these states of water, while only 100 C degrees. Thus, there are 1.8 F degrees per C degree.
The 0.6C value is just about what the logical person would have guessed was the expected value. Given that ~1.1C is the non-feedback value, and in stable systems feedbacks are very highly likely to be net negative, an actual value less than 1.1C should have been expected. The surprising result would have been if it was greater than 1.1C and yet our climate system remains stable.
I went and read the entire paper. On the plus side, Table 5 inputs are well founded, and using them innthe absence of feedbacks produces either sensitivity of 1.11 or 1.2 depending on assumptions. Those are the cannonical values, and show that the GHG radiative transfer calculations by layer agree with other much simpler calculations of the zero feedback sensitivity to CO2 doubling.
But the lower feedback sensitivity results from two rather clear conceptual errors.
With respect to water vapor feedback, an incorrect saturation assumtion is made that effectively negated any positive water vapor feedback. The error is two fold. Even saturated layers still reradiate in all directions, so that some of all the absorbed wavelengths will reach the next higher layer, contrary to the explicit assumption made. Second, the number of layers saturated increases (optical depth, ‘top of fog’ rises. That is the classical no feedback mistaken physics.
And cloud feedback is taken to be strongly negative. The derivation is wrong, since it isnot linear as assumed, and the ISCCP observational value is for Cc 66%, not Cc zero. As used in the paper for example equation 77.
Lewis and Curry are quite persuasive. As mathematically intense as this model is, it is not persuasive.
On a demonstrably homeostatic, watery planet, net feedbacks should be assumed negative rather than positive. Ruling out net positive feedbacks from water vapor, clouds, etc, then the lab result of ~1.1 degree C for a doubling from 280 to 560 ppm at equilibrium ought to be considered the upper limit of potential warming.
I’m with Dr. Singer, quoted above, as estimating perhaps one degree F over GASTA in AD 1850 by AD 2100, assuming that earth reaches a concentration of 560 ppm by then. Much of that presumed warming must already have occurred transiently, given the logarithmic nature of the effect.
IOW, not only nothing to worry about, but indeed a good thing.
In addition they don’t seem to have considered LW from the top of cloud which seems a significant omission.
Rud Istvan – If you are up to date with these matters, what assumptions are made about the probability of collision of excited GH gases with atmospheric gas molecules before re-emission has had a chance to occur?
My question is (a) generally in GCMs and (b) in this paper.
Thanks in advance if you can answer.
I was initially concerned about the use of models, and I admit to not being in a position to evaluate their calculations or validity.
However, he fact they detail all the assumptions and parameters on the model and further, highlight some of the limitations fills me with confidence.
Have and pro cAGW papers done similar with their models?
According to this, if you reduce the CO2 level to zero, average temps drop only 2 deg C. That seems far too little. What water partial pressure does he propose when CO2 is at zero? Are there no changes in ice caps and albedo?
Or is it that as the CO2 drops, water vapor drops causing a faster drop in albedo via fewer clouds?
@ Stephen Rasey.
You say:
According to this, if you reduce the CO2 level to zero, average temps drop only 2 deg C. That seems far too little.
————
Now been used to the IPCC’s climate science big numbers play, a drop of only 2 deg C seems really far too little indeed, but while looking in the climate data, the average temp drop from the Holocene Optimum (the warmer period of the holocene) to the mids of the LIA ( Little Ice Age) does not make it even to a full 1C drop. Imagine any further 1C drop from that point on…… and is no hard to picture a LIA becoming an Ice Age, provided that that drop of 2C lasts longer.
A drop of around 2.2C to 2.4C will mean a significant cooling in the case of a long term trend…..
cheers
“Climate scientists” have tried to get rid of the Holocene Climatic Optimum as well as the Medieval Warm Period. The Optimum was at least a degree C warmer than now globally (probably more), & much more at high latitudes. The LIA was about a degree C colder than now, so the worldwide average range from HCO peak to LIA trough was at least two degrees C.
Thanks for the reply.
YOU COOLD BE RIGHT, YES.
2 deg C sitll remains a significant cooling even in the way of your response…..besides I am a bit confused why should you estimate the cooling from the Holocene Optimum peak to LIA trough by taking in to consideration the warming at the present..strange…LIA did hapen prior and there is data directly showing the correlation without the need of the present… our present warming is not mature enough in the means of data as to be ready to compare (in) with long term data. In the future this warming of present you consider will look different in the long term data than now. Sorry but seems like a bit of acrobatics with the data….
But anyway that does not necesary mean that you are wrong….but as far as I can tell one of the reasons for the ridding off of Holocene data is that there is no enough cooling in the long term cooling trend and there is a lot of warming in the long warming trend prior to Holocene Optimum.
Your 2C cooling is a good enough one and very pleasing to the “Climate scientists” you mention.
Anyway is one thing that I would not bet either way at the moment.:-)
Thanks milodonharlani
cheers
– – – – – – – – – –
The paper makes a reasonable point, to get values within the IPCC specified climate sensitivity range requires excluding any solar sensitivity influence coupled with using an implausibly myopic view of only one aspect of cloud feedback.
John
Exactly. A fine summary statement, really nails the issue.
Still trying to see if anyone has noted that EPA reported that there had been no warming in last 100 years at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators. This was quite an admission.
Don’t see them saying what you say. Their page on US temps says +1.4F/century since 1901.
I assume this model continues to ignore all the other “stuff” in the atmosphere which would also mean it is overestimating the warming. Dust, salt, pollen, smoke, bacteria, etc. all absorb radiation as well which must reduce the amount available for GHGs.
Anthony: I find the dark, serif typeface used in this thread much easier to read than the ordinary light gray, sans serif typeface.
PS–Anthony: After my comment posted, the typeface changed back to gray sans serif!
Look at the impact factor of the journal.
No wait, it doesn’t have one.
That’s because it is a pay-to-publish vanity “Journal” by a predatory publisher
http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/
Why is anyone taking this paper seriously? A high-school essay could get published in this Journal is they paid the fee.
“Simulations including an increased solar activity over the last century give a CO2 initiated warming of 0.2 ̊ C and a solar influence of 0.54 ̊ C over this period, corresponding to a CO2 climate sensitivity of 0.6 ̊ C (doubling of CO2) and a solar sensitivity of 0.5 ̊ C (0.1 % increase of the solar constant).”
0.1% of solar constant is 0.34 W/m^2 forcing and it gives 0.5 C sensitivity. Doubling CO2 gives 3.7 W/m^2 forcing and sensitivity of 0.6 C. The only way to explain this is solar forcing has strong positive feedback and CO2 forcing has strong negative feedback. This mystery must be explained by the paper.
The W/m^2 is measured, in both instances, at the surface. The trick is that CO2’s effect only slowly builds through the atmosphere and, effectively, only at 15 micron wavelengths – and penetrating an average of 4 microns into the ocean. The solar effect is filtered through the entire atmosphere, imparting energy in a wide spectrum throughout, then passes through the interface layer of the ocean and warming beneath it directly (as well as imparting energy to the interface layer [cool-skin layer]).
At least that’s my understanding. That would give solar impacts an easy 10X greater warming efficiency, thereby making the effects equal.
Oh, BTW, current added CO2 forcing is only ~1.4 W/m^2. 3.7 is what we should be added by ~560PPM. So another 0.5C (or less, most likely). My own figures put atmospheric sensitivity at 1~1.6C based on current data per doubling of CO2, so by 2100, if that holds, CO2 could outpace solar variation. That figure, however, is idealized and will likely not be achieved, IMHO… there are too many unknowns, and absolutely too many unknown unknowns.
looncraz commented
On a cool dry day you can measure zenith temps of -40F to less than -60F, with the difference being how much water vapor there is. At -50F 3.7W/m^2 would make an effective zenith temp of say -46F. That’s the base temp prior to adding lots of water, water vapor can add +50F or more.
Let me summarize:
Co2 adds maybe 4F to the -50F or colder space the surface of the planet radiates to.
Water vapor can warm that same apparent surface 50-80F.
Water vapor controls surface temps, not Co2.
“At -50F 3.7W/m^2 would make an effective zenith temp of say -46F. That’s the base temp prior to adding lots of water, water vapor can add +50F or more.”
Yes, water vapor controls the equation. However, CO2 can be seen at work in the arctic’s temperature profile. The cold winters are warming, and the summer is cooling. This is, likely, due to CO2’s increasing effects in the absence of significant water vapor (such as during very low temperatures). It was also something I predicted would happen that many warmists violently fight.
They fight it because of what the changing temperature profile must ultimately represent: a shrinking melt season and inevitable Arctic ice rebound – even while the average temperature is higher – and the winters considerably warmer.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/ArcticGISS/fig2.jpg
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2004.png
looncraz commented
I’m not sure, the Arctic is poorly sample at the surface, many stations are near water. And unless it’s ice, you’re likely getting a lot of impact from water temps.
“The W/m^2 is measured, in both instances, at the surface.”
Nope. The figures I gave are at TOA. Sunlight originates up in the sky not on earth’s surface in case you haven’t noticed.
“Oh, BTW, current added CO2 forcing is only ~1.4 W/m^2.”
Read my post again. I’m referring to doubling of CO2 not the current added. BTW current is not 1.4 W/m^2 it’s 1.88 W/m^2. Nice try but you haven’t explained the mystery.
“The trick is that CO2’s effect only slowly builds through the atmosphere and, effectively, only at 15 micron wavelengths”
It is absorbed from 8 to 15 um which covers the entire longwave spectrum.
“and penetrating an average of 4 microns into the ocean.”
Opacity is not a measure of heat transfer. A thin sheet of aluminum is opaque to light. Expose it to sunlight and it will warm.
“The solar effect is filtered through the entire atmosphere, imparting energy in a wide spectrum throughout,”
The atmosphere is largely transparent to solar radiation. Only 20% is absorbed by the atmosphere. Nice trick but the mystery remains.
Things are really looking dismal for the CAGW warmunists…:
1) The Lewis & Curry paper putting ECS at 1.67C.
2) This Harde paper putting ECS at 0.6C.
3) The Javrejeva et al 2014 paper showing sea level rise stuck at 7 inches per century.
4) The Cazenave et al 2104 paper showing the rate of sea level rise has fallen 30% over the past decade.
4) No global warming trend for 18+ years and counting (RSS).
5) Falling global temp trends for 14+ years and counting (RSS).
6) IPCC’s 2013 AR5 report finally admitting no increasing trends of severe weather in in 50~100 years…
7) The satellite data showing higher CO2 levels increasing global greening by 16%.
8) Australia rescinding the most expensive and stupid CO2 tax the world has ever seen.
9) Russia, China, Canada, Australia and India not sending any delegates the the UN Climate summit.
10) CAGW’s model projections vs. reality now exceeding their 95% confidence intervals.
11) The Antarctic setting a 35-yr record ice extent a few weeks ago.
12) The Arctic ice extent showing strong signs of recovery since 2007
13) The US 2013/14 winter was one of the worst in 40 years.
14) Taxpayer polls showing belief in CAGW is falling.
15) Internet activity data shows interest in Global Warming collapsing.
16) The weakest solar cycle since 1906 peaked in January 2014 and it’s all down hill from here…
And the hits just keeeeep on comin’….
I really can’t see how the CAGW hypothesis can take many more broadsides like the aforementioned and still be taken seriously. Absolutely NONE of the catastrophic predictions of the CAGW hypothesis are coming close to matching reality and voters are just not drinking the CAGW Kool-Aid anymore….
The average voter may not be aware of all the particulars, but they do understand something is terribly wrong with the CAGW hypothesis; namely it doesn’t work… When CAGW becomes a political liability, the CAGW funding will stop and CAGW will die off.
We’ve got one more El Nino cycle for the warmunists to blame on CAGW, but when it’s followed by a La Nina, I think that’ll be all she wrote.
Excellent, I’ve always had belief that once the normal scientific process was allowed to progress (despite the best efforts of alarmist activists to shut down the process), climate sensitivity would be found to be a little below 0.7 degC, through a combination of back-calculating using known temperature and CO2 from 1850 onwards which shows more or less net neutral feedback as opposed to any positive feedbacks (coupled with Lindzen/Choi and others), and moreover gradual confirmation of dampening / self-regulation via. clouds (small negative net feedback).
One of the concluding statements, that solar influence would have to be entirely excluded to obtain a CO2 sensitivity even at 1.7K, at the low end of the IPCC range, is particularly significant. To get higher, I guess you have to reverse cloud feedback!
If Ta is suppose to represent the temp of the sky you’d see from the surface, those temps would require very high humidity, under clear sky I rarely see temps > 0C (even over the summer), unless I’m pointing at the bottom of a cloud.
I’m not sure what was considered mid/high latitude, and I’m only measuring at 41N.
I’d call 41 N mid latitude.
Funny how it works on sites like this:
Models are not to be trusted, models aren’t to be believed, models get it all wrong, and on and on..
OH – wait. We like the result of this paper so now we completely believe this model and call the paper “significant” and accept it uncritically.
Actually, it’s more about pointing out the conflicting views created and supported by similar methods while the science is supposedly already settled.
Each time a new study comes out that conflicts with the establishment assertion, that is all most of us here are doing. That is why many of the comments are arguing about the merits of the data, methods, or results and their implications if correct. On web-sites such as [REDACTED] the comment sections are horrendously one-sided with very little constructive discussion and considerable censorship. Interestingly, many of the comments on these sites are just personal attacks against “deniers.”
Here, people post graphs with opposing views, yell at each others’ data – or views on that data, but seldom tolerate ad hominem attacks. It is a more constructive environment with a considerable proportion of well-educated individuals. Often, the comments section is where the true beauty and values resides, IMHO, for almost any web-site.