On the futility of climate models: 'simplistic nonsense'

Guest essay by Leo Smith – elevated from a comment left on WUWT on January 6, 2015 at 2:11 am (h/t to dbs)

As an engineer, my first experience of a computer model taught me nearly all I needed to know about models.

I was tasked with designing a high voltage video amplifier to drive a military heads up display featuring a CRT.

Some people suggested I make use of the acoustic coupler to input my design and optimise it with one of the circuit modelling programs they had devised. The results were encouraging, so I built it. The circuit itself was a dismal failure.

Investigation revealed the reason instantly: the model parametrised parasitic capacitance into a simple single value: the reality of semiconductors is that the capacitance varies with applied voltage – an effect made use of in every radio today as the ‘varicap diode’. for small signals this is an acceptable compromise. Over large voltage swings the effect is massively non linear. The model was simply inadequate.

Most of engineering is to design things so that small unpredictable effects are swamped by large predictable ones. Any stable design has to work like that. If it doesn’t, it ain’t stable. Or reproducible.

That leads to a direct piece of engineering wisdom: If a system is not dominated by a few major feedback factors, it ain’t stable. And if it has a regions of stability then perturbing it outside those regions will result in gross instability, and the system will be short lived.

Climate has been in real terms amazingly stable. For millions of years. It has maintained an average of about 282 degrees absolute +- about 5 degrees since forever.

So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple.

If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense.

With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:

∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)

where lambda (λ) is the climate sensitivity that expresses the presupposed propensity of any warming directly attributable to CO2 (k.log(CO2)) radiative forcing and its resultant direct temperature change to be amplified by some unexplained and unknown feedback factor, which is adjusted to match such late 20th century warming as was reasonably certain.

Everyone argues over the value of lambda. No one is arguing over the actual shape of the equation itself.

And that is the sleight of hand of the IPCC…arguments about climate sensitivity are pure misdirection away from the actuality of what is going on.

Consider an alternative:

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆x)

In terms of matching late 20th century warming, this is equally as good, and relies merely on introducing another unknown to replace the unknown lambda, this time not as a multiplier of CO2 driven change, but as a completely independent variable.

Philosophically both have one unknown. There is little to choose between them.

Scientifically both the rise and the pause together fit the second model far better.

Worse, consider some possible mechanisms for what X might be….

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆T).

Let’s say that f(∆T) is in fact a function whose current value depends on non linear and time delayed values of past temperature. So it does indeed represent temperature feedback to create new temperatures!

This is quite close to the IPCC model, but with one important proviso. The overall long term feedback MUST be negative, otherwise temperatures would be massively unstable over geological timescales.

BUT we know that short term fluctuatons of quite significant values – ice ages and warm periods – are also in evidence.

Can long term negative feedback create shorter term instability? Hell yes! If you have enough terms and some time delay, it’s a piece of piss.

The climate has all the elements needed. temperature, and water. Water vapour (greenhouse gas: acts to increase temperatures) clouds (reduce daytime temps, increase night time temps) and ice (massive albedo modifiers: act to reduce temperatures) are functions of sea and air temperature, and sea and air temperature are a function via albedo and greenhouse modifiers, of water vapour concentrations. Better yet, latent heat of ice/water represents massive amounts of energy needed to effect a phase transition at a single temperature. Lots of lovely non-linearity there. Plus huge delays of decadal or multidecadal length in terms of ocean current circulations and melting/freezing of ice sheets and permafrost.

Not to mention continental drift, which adds further water cycle variables into the mix.

Or glaciation that causes falling sea levels, thus exposing more land to lower the albedo where the earth is NOT frozen, and glaciation that strips water vapour out of the air reducing cloud albedo in non glaciated areas.

It’s a massive non linear hugely time delayed negative feedback system. And that’s just water and ice. Before we toss in volcanic action, meteor strikes, continental drift. solar variability, and Milankovitch cycles…

The miracle of AGW is that all this has been simply tossed aside, or considered some kind of constant, or a multiplier of the only driver in town, CO2.

When all you know is linear systems analysis everything looks like a linear system perturbed by an external driver.

When the only driver you have come up with is CO2, everything looks like CO2.

Engineers who have done control system theory are not so arrogant. And can recognise in the irregular sawtooth of ice age temperature record a system that looks remarkably like a nasty multiple (negative) feed back time delayed relaxation oscillator.

Oscillators don’t need external inputs to change, they do that entirely within the feedback that comprises them. Just one electron of thermal noise will start them off.

What examination of the temperature record shows is that glaciation is slow. It takes many many thousands of years as the ice increases before the lowest temperatures are reached, but that positive going temperatures are much faster – we are only 10,000 years out of the last one.

The point finally is this: To an engineer, climate science as the IPCC have it is simplistic nonsense. There are far far better models available, to explain climate change based on the complexity of water interactions with temperature. Unfortunately they are far too complex even for the biggest of computers to be much use in simulating climate. And have no political value anyway, since they will essentially say ‘Climate changes irrespective of human activity, over 100 thousand year major cycles, and within that its simply unpredictable noise due to many factors none of which we have any control over’

UPDATE: An additional and clarifying comment has been posted by Leo Smith on January 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm

Look, this post was elevated (without me being aware…) from a blog comment typed in in a hurry. I accept the formula isn’t quite what I meant, but you get the general idea OK?

If I had known it was going to become a post I’d have taken a lot more care over it.

Not used k where it might confuse,. Spotted that delta log is not the same as log delta..

But the main points stand:

(i) The IPCC ‘formula’ fits the data less well than other equally simple formulae with just as many unknowns.

(ii) The IPCC formula is a linear differential equation.

(iii) There is no reason to doubt that large parts of the radiative/convective thermal cycle/balance of climate are non linear.

(iv) There are good historical reasons to suppose that the overall feedback of the climate system is negative, not positive as the IPCC assumes.

(v) given the number of feedback paths and the lags associated with them, there is more than enough scope in the climate for self generated chaotic quasi-periodic fluctuations to be generated even without any external inputs beyond a steady sun.

(vi) Given the likely shape of the overall real climate equation, there is no hope of anything like a realistic forecast ever being obtained with the current generation of computer systems and mathematical techniques. Chaos style equations are amongst the hardest and most intractable problems we have, and indeed there may well be no final answer to climate change beyond a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and tipping the climate into a new ice age, or a warm period, depending 😉

(vii) A point I didn’t make: a chaotic system is never ‘in balance’, and even its average value has little meaning, because its simply a mathematical oddity – a single point on a range where the system never rests – it merely represents a point between the upper and lower bounds; Worse, is system with multiple attractors, it may not even be anywhere near where the systems orbits fr any length of time.

In short my current thinking says :

– there is no such thing as a normal climate, nor does it have a balance that man has disturbed , or could disturb. Its constantly changing and may go anywhere from ice age to seriously warm over extremely long periods of time. It does this all by itself. There need be no external drivers to move it from one attractor to another or cause it to orbit any given attractor. That climate changes is unarguable, that anything beyond climate itself is causing it, is deeply doubtful. That CO2 has a major effect is, on the data, as absurd as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all.

What we are looking at here is very clever misdirection cooked up for economic and political motives: It suited many peoples books to paint CO2 emissions as a scary pollutant, and a chance temporary correlation of rising temperatures and CO2 was combined in a linear way that any third rate scientist could understand to present a plausible formula for scary AGW. I have pointed out that other interpretations of the data make a non scary scenario, and indeed, post the Pause,. actually fit the data better.

Occam’s razor has nothing to say in defence of either.

Poppers falsifiability is no help because the one model – the IPCC – has been falsified. The other can make no predictions beyond ‘change happens all by itself in ways we cannot hope to predict’. So that cannot be falsified. If you want to test Newton’s laws the last experiment you would use is throwing an egg at a spike to predict where the bits of eggshell are going to land….

Net result is climate science isn’t worth spending a plugged nickel on, and we should spend the money on being reasonably ready for moderate climate change in either direction. Some years ago my business partner – ten years my junior wanted to get key man insurance in case I died or fell under a bus. ‘How much for how much’ ‘well you are a smoker, and old, so its a lot’ It was enough in fact to wipe out the annual profits, and the business, twice over. Curiously he is now dead from prostate cancer, and I have survived testicular cancer, and with luck, a blocked coronary artery. Sometimes you just take te risk because insuring against it costs more … if we had been really serious about climate change we would be 100% nuclear by now. It was proven safe technology and dollar for dollar has ten times the carbon reduction impact than renewables. But of course carbon reduction was not the actual game plan. Political control of energy was. Its so much easier and cheaper to bribe governments than compete in a free market…

IF – and this is something that should be demonstrable – the dominant feedback terms in the real climate equations are non linear, and multiple and subject to time delay, THEN we have a complex chaotic system that will be in constant more or less unpredictable flux.

And we are pissing in the wind trying to model it with simple linear differential equations and parametrised nonsense.

The whole sleight of hand of the AGW movement has been to convince scientists who do NOT understand non linear control theory, that they didn’t NEED to understand it to model climate, and that any fluctuations MUST be ’caused’ by an externality, and to pick on the most politically and commercially convenient one – CO2 – that resonated with a vastly anti-science and non-commercial sentiment left over from the Cold War ideological battles . AGW is AgitProp, not science. AGW flatters all the worst people into thinking they are more important than they are. To a man every ground roots green movement has taken a government coin, as have the universities, and they are all dancing to the piper who is paid by the unholy aggregation of commercial interest, political power broking and political marketing.

They bought them all. They couldn’t however buy the climate. Mother Nature is not a whore.

Whether AGW is a deliberate fraud, an honest mistake, or mere sloppy ignorant science is moot. At any given level it is one or the other or any combination.

What it really is, is an emotional narrative, geared to flatter the stupid and pander to their bigotry, in order to make them allies in a process that if they knew its intentions, they would utterly oppose,.

Enormous damage to the environment is justified by environmentalists because the Greater Cause says that windmills and solar panels will Save the Planet. Even when its possible to demonstrate that they have almost no effect on emissions at all, and it is deeply doubtful if those emissions are in any way significant anyway.

Green is utterly anti-nuclear. Yet which- even on their own claims – is less harmful, a few hundred tonnes of long lived radionuclides encased in glass and dumped a mile underground, or a billion tonnes of CO2?

Apparently the radiation which hasn’t injured or killed a single person at Fukushima, is far far more dangerous than the CO2, because Germany would rather burn stinking lignite having utterly polluted its rivers in strip mining it, than allow a nuclear power plant to operate inside its borders .

Years ago Roy Harper sang

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink

You can lead a man to slaughter, but you’ll never make him think”

I had a discussion with a gloomy friend today. We agreed the world is a mess because people don’t think, they follow leaders, trends, emotional narratives, received wisdom.. Never once do they step back and ask, ‘what really is going on here?’. Another acquaintance doing management training in the financial arena chalked up on the whiteboard “Anyone who presages a statement with the words ‘I think’ and then proceeds to regurgitate someone else’s opinions, analysis or received wisdom, will fail this course and be summarily ejected’

And finally Anthony, I am not sure I wanted that post to become an article. I dont want to be someone else’s received wisdom. I want the buggers to start thinking for themselves.

If that means studying control theory systems analysis and chaos mathematics then do it. And form your own opinions.

“Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”

I say people don’t think. Prove me wrong. Don’t believe what I say, do your own analysis. Stop trusting and start thinking.

I’ll leave you with a final chilling thought. Consider the following statement:

“100% of all media ‘news’ and 90% of what is called ‘science’ and an alarming amount of blog material is not what is the case, or even what people think is the case, but what people for reasons of their own, want you to think is the case”

Finally, if I ever get around to finishing it, for those who ask ‘how can it be possible that so many people are caught up in what you claim to be a grand conspiracy or something of that nature?’ I am on the business of writing a philosophical, psychological and social explanation. It entitled ‘convenient lies’ And it shows that bigotry prejudice stupidity and venality are in fact useful techniques for species survival most of the time.

Of course the interesting facet is the ‘Black Swan’ times, when it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.

Following the herd is safer than straying off alone. Unless the herd is approaching the cliff edge and the leaders are more concerned with who is following them than where they are going…

AGW is one of the great dangers facing mankind, not because its true, but because it is widely believed, and demonstrably false.

My analysis of convenient lies shows that they are most dangerous in times of deep social and economic change in society, when the old orthodoxies are simply no good.

I feel more scared these days than at any time in the cold war. Then one felt that no one would be stupid enough to start world war three. Today, I no longer have that conviction. Two generations of social engineering aimed at removing all risk and all need to actually think from society has led to a generation which is stupid enough and smug enough and feels safe enough to utterly destroy western civilisation simply because they take it totally for granted. To them the promotion of the AGW meme is a success story in terms of political and commercial marketing. The fact that where they are taking us over a cliff edge into a new dark age, is something they simply haven’t considered at all.

They have socially engineered risk and dissent out of society. For profit. Leaving behind a population that cannot think for itself, and has no need to. Its told to blindly follow the rules.

Control system theory says that that, unlike the climate, is a deeply unstable situation.

Wake up, smell the coffee. AGW is simply another element in a tendency towards political control of everything, and the subjugation of the individual into the mass of society at large. No decision is to be taken by the individual, all is to be taken by centralised bureaucratic structures – such as the IPCC. The question is, is that a functional and effective way to structure society?

My contention is that its deeply dangerous. It introduces massive and laggy overall centralised feedback, Worse, it introduces a single point of failure. If central government breaks down or falters, people simply do not know what to do any more. No one has the skill or practice in making localised decisions anymore.

The point is to see AGW and the whole greenspin machine as just an aspect of a particular stage in political and societal evolution, and understand it in those terms. Prior to the age of the telegraph and instantaneous communications, government had to be devolved – the lag was too great to pass the decisions back to central authority. Today we think we can, but there is another lag – bureaucratic lag. As well as bureaucratic incompetence.

System theory applied to political systems, gives a really scary prediction. We are on the point of almost total collapse, and we do not have the localised systems in place to replace centralised structures that are utterly dysfunctional. Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail. And nothing else will succeed, because people can no longer think for themselves.

Because they were lazy and let other people do the thinking for them. And paid them huge sums to do it, and accepted the results unquestioningly.

Happy new year

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Richvs

January 7, 2015 10:49 am

Commenting as a 40 yr. control systems engineer w/thermo & fluids & chemE background it was obvious to me years ago that the IPCC models were very simplistic & probably never get close to modeling reality… Oh yes one can constantly re-initialize the models, tweek & retrain them to look like reality… but they are worthless at hind casting… let alone forecasting. It would be nice to be well paid to develop models that are basically worthless. But I’m from the old school where you are paid based on your performance & actually making a product or profit. I am betting that most climate or physics majors doing modeling have never worked in engineering or have built workable or operational chemical, controls or fluids models. There is a basic attitude problem with these folks and an amazing lack of humility whatsoever…. AMAZING…

January 7, 2015 10:59 am

There are a ton of factors that affect climate in the short term. There are probably 2 factors that completely dominate all of those other factors over the long term- the output of the sun, and the content of water on earth. The atmosphere itself is really just a product of these two factors, and gravity (which is not a variable obviously). Water vapor dominates the green house effect that keeps the earth from icing over. If CO2 was the major driver, the earths temperature would be radically unstable and data disproves that possibility.

Joseph Murphy

January 7, 2015 11:12 am

Thank you Mr. Smith, thank you very much.

milodonharlani

January 7, 2015 11:22 am

Is that your real name? Thanks.

milodonharlani

Reply to milodonharlani

January 7, 2015 11:23 am

Nick Stokes.

Mike M.

January 7, 2015 11:53 am

Smith wrote: “So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback”. That is just plain false. The climate system has net negative feedback and every single climate model has net negative feedback. Otherwise the models would give wild numbers, which they most assuredly do not. The dominant feedback in the climate system, and in the climate models, is the “Planck feedback” – warmer temperatures result in the emission of more radiation, which has a cooling effect. Some of the other feedbacks are negative and most are positive. In the models, the sum of all the other feedbacks is positive, but is smaller in magnitude than the dominant Planck feedback. So the net feedback is negative, but less negative than the Planck feedback alone. The question the climate models seek to answer is: How much less negative?
If the net feedback is as negative as the Planck feedback, it is very hard to explain why the global climate is as unstable as it is: ice-ball earth, crocodillians in the Canadian high arctic, ice ages.
Smith wrote: “If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense.” Absolutely true. But it is Leo Smith, not the climate scientists, who is the one spouting this nonsense, .
Smith wrote: “With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:
∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)
where lambda (λ) is the climate sensitivity that expresses the presupposed propensity of any warming directly attributable to CO2 (k.log(CO2)) radiative forcing and its resultant direct temperature change to be amplified” Not an unreasonable description of a simple way to describe the results.
Smith wrote: “by some unexplained and unknown feedback factor”. This proves that Leo Smith knows nothing about the subject. EVERY feedback that is included is explained and known in at least some sense, NONE can be even remotely described as being “unexplained and unknown”. The evidence for some feedbacks is fairly good and for others the evidence is highly questionable, consisting solely of model results with no observational support. There is plenty to criticize in what the modellers do. But please criticize what they do, not some paranoid fantasy of what you suppose they do.
Maybe I will read and comment of the rest of this if I decide I have the time to waste.

Reply to Mike M.

January 8, 2015 7:29 am

Hence the word ‘unknown’.

bones

January 7, 2015 12:03 pm

Leo, thanks for your involuntary contribution. It was very informative and has set off a rather lively discussion. Much appreciated!

dbstealey

January 7, 2015 12:26 pm

Mike M. says:
If the net feedback is as negative as the Planck feedback, it is very hard to explain why the global climate is as unstable as it is…
That is backward. Negative feedbacks make for stability. It is positive feedbacks that would make the climate unstable.
Furthermore, the past century and a half has been exceedingly stable. There is nothing either unprecedented or unusual happening. When you start off with a wrong premise, you are sure to reach an incorrect conclusion.
Also, I agree with ‘bones’ above. Leo Smith has shown that runaway global warming is nonsense, and he shows it from an engineer’s perspective.
Engineers are like scientists, only better:
Understanding Engineers #1
Two engineering students were biking across a university campus when one said, “Where did you get that great bike?” The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.” The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, “Good choice: The clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”
Understanding Engineers #2
To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Understanding Engineers #3
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf!” The priest said, “Here comes the greens-keeper. Let’s have a word with him.” He said, “Hello, George. What’s wrong with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?” The greens-keeper replied, “Oh, yes. That’s a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.” The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”
Understanding Engineers #4
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers? Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Understanding Engineers #5
The graduate with a science degree asks, “Why does it work?” The graduate with an engineering degree asks, “How does it work?” The graduate with an accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?” The climate studies graduate asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
Understanding Engineers #6
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who must have designed the human body. One said, “It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.” Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.” The last one said, “No, actually it had to have been an environmental engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”
Understanding Engineers #7
Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.
Understanding Engineers #8
An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess!” He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn back into a beautiful princess and stay with you for one week!” The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you for one week and do anything you want!” Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess and that I’ll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The engineer said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog — now that’s cool!”

Gunga Din

Reply to dbstealey

January 7, 2015 1:53 pm

😎
Modelers project reality. Engineers design reality. The rest of us have to live with it. 😎

Climate Blog Critique

January 7, 2015 2:16 pm

FUTURE CLIMATE
Those who are interested in learning why long-term (~500 year) cooling will start after the year 2059 can see my new website whyitsnotco2.com.

January 7, 2015 2:52 pm

This has to be one of the most comprehensive yet clearly articulated reviews of the entire field of climate science I’ve ever read. Thanks to both the author and Anthony for elevating it.

dbstealey

Reply to AJ

January 7, 2015 7:48 pm

I agree completely. The author should take it as a badge of honor, having a comment elevated to the status of an article. Not many are recognized like that. Prof Robert Brown, the physicist, has had one or two. There were maybe a few more. But it is very rare. Good recognition, and well deserved.
The quality of the comments also commend your post. 452 comments so far, and 152 5-star ratings; much better than average. This thread commentary has been especially good. And don’t worry about a minor point or two you would have changed, Mr. Smith. Those are easily corrected in the thread. It is the basic idea you put forth that matters, and you did it very well.
So thanks again for posting originally, Leo Smith, and thanks to Anthony for providing a great forum where we can discuss it.

snopercod

Reply to AJ

January 8, 2015 1:16 pm

Absolutely the best essay of any kind that I’ve read a long time. Thanks Leo and Anthony!

nickreality65

January 7, 2015 4:32 pm

Air has no latent heat. It’s the water that has the latent heat of evaporation/condensation.

Will Nitschke

January 7, 2015 6:20 pm

I’m in agreement in that it doesn’t strike me that the present modest temperature fluctuation requires explanation.
Imagine you’re a pond dwelling creature with a a life span of a few seconds. You may observe the waters around you rising. You also observe that the sun is moving, the wind is blowing… From such observation you draw conclusions. Because when that pebble dropped in the pond, you did not even exist.

jmorpuss

January 7, 2015 6:52 pm

When scientists get theoretical modelling wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
7 Nuclear Weapon Screw-Ups You Won’t Believe We Survived
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_19546_7-nuclear-weapon-screw-ups-you-wont-believe-we-survived.html#ixzz3OC7wgSRf

xyzlatin

January 7, 2015 10:13 pm

“Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail.” That externality has come along, and its name is Islam.

Michel

January 8, 2015 6:13 am

coming late to the party…
Radiative forcing due to CO2 is from Myhre’s formula: ΔF = 5.35 · ln(C1/C0) in W m^-2
Where C0 is the initial and C1 the final CO2 concentration (in mole or volume fraction) for which one would like to calculate it.
The temperature sensitivity equation used by IPCC’s modelisation guru T. Stocker is ΔT = -ΔF / λ
in which λ is the so-called feedback parameter (from his lecture notes at the University of Bern).
λ is estimated by IPCC in its latest report AR5 WGI (table 9.5, p 818) to be negative, thus stabilizing, at -1.59 K W^-1 m^2 (with a range between -3.44 and +0.26).
Thus, following Stocker for any doubling of CO2, ΔF=5.35*ln(2)=3.71
and ΔT = -3.71/(-1.59) = 2.33 K,
which is amazingly well within the alleged IPCC’s Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, estimated to be likely between 1.5 to 4.5 K.
This is where insanity comes since ΔT would get to infinity if the feedback λ would tend to zero, which is quite possible when considering the range of values given by IPCC.
Further details: http://bit.ly/1BDB1FV

Michel

Reply to Michel

January 8, 2015 6:18 am

Sorry! a more useful link: http://bit.ly/1xIOPNT

Mi Cro

Reply to Michel

January 8, 2015 7:38 am

Michel commented on

Radiative forcing due to CO2 is from Myhre’s formula: ΔF = 5.35 • ln(C1/C0) in W m^-2
Where C0 is the initial and C1 the final CO2 concentration (in mole or volume fraction) for which one would like to calculate it.
The temperature sensitivity equation used by IPCC’s modelisation guru T. Stocker is ΔT = -ΔF / λ
in which λ is the so-called feedback parameter (from his lecture notes at the University of Bern).
λ is estimated by IPCC in its latest report AR5 WGI (table 9.5, p 818) to be negative, thus stabilizing, at -1.59 K W^-1 m^2 (with a range between -3.44 and +0.26).
Thus, following Stocker for any doubling of CO2, ΔF=5.35*ln(2)=3.71
and ΔT = -3.71/(-1.59) = 2.33 K,
which is amazingly well within the alleged IPCC’s Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, estimated to be likely between 1.5 to 4.5 K.

I’ve been thinking about how to calculate DWIR forcing so I can add it back into my measured BB spectrum to get the actual temp of the sky. That said there’s something wrong with this. Cold “dark” Co2 mixed into nitrogen, can at most radiate 15u photons only at a rate that is controlled by the bulk gas temp, right? Like water evaporating has to steal energy to raise it’s temp to 212 from the bulk, doesn’t Co2 have to gain energy from collisions to get the energy to radiate at 15u, if it’s not being radiated with IR?
So, to re-radiate back at earth, it has to be radiated by the LWIR radiating from the surface, and that’s temperature dependent, there’s no environment temperature input for Co2’s forcing calculation to quantify how much LWIR there is to even re-radiate, correct? Wouldn’t the correct forcing be some percent of however much 15u photons for what ever BB temp it’s exposed to (-70=~6W/m^2@15u, -20F=~10W/m^2@15u, 21F=14W/m^2@15u, 100F=24W/m^2@15u, and so on)?
I also know that adding 3.7W/m flux to a BB temp, is temp dependent, it’s ~3-4F at -40F, and only a couple degrees at ~32F.
So somewhere there ought to be a environment temp feeding into that Co2 forcing calculation, since forcing should scale with temp some.
What am I missing?

Michel

Reply to Mi Cro

January 8, 2015 10:35 am

@Mi Cro: a few short points
Forcing comes on the top of all radiative absorption phenomena that are going on. This word is just used to speak about an additional absorption by the increased concentration of so called greenhouse gases.
If radiative energy is absorbed and not readily re-emitted, then the net result must be an adiabatic temperature rise, followed then by further re-adjustments (e.g.conduction, convection).
CO2 absorbs electromagnetic radiations mostly at around 4.2 and 15 microns. Therefore at 4.2 micron some incoming sunlight is absorbed as well as some out-going long wave radiation from the surface of the earth.
Both contribute to forcing if CO2 concentration increases.
The only published value that is generally used is the 5.35 factor in the formula presented by Myhre for CO2. It may be more or less than that, who knows.
Any surface above the absolute zero temperature emits an electromagnetic radiation. In all directions.
This does imply that the material constituting the surface will lose energy … as long as it does not receive the irradiation from elsewhere compensating it.
In a hallway, two opposite walls emit in the direction of the other. Any temperature difference will result in a heat transfer from the warmer to the cooler surface.
This is similar with the atmosphere: from the warm ground up to the cold inter-sidereal space, layers after layers of the atmosphere emit up and down, with associated net heat balances.
More details at: http://bit.ly/mr-climate

Phil.

Reply to Mi Cro

January 8, 2015 11:49 am

Cold “dark” Co2 mixed into nitrogen, can at most radiate 15u photons only at a rate that is controlled by the bulk gas temp, right?
No it depends on the Einstein A coefficient, which for the 15 micron band is rather low, the lifetime of the excited state is rather long, order millisecs. Which is why at atmospheric pressure collisional deactivation is favored because the collision rate is about 10/nsec.
Like water evaporating has to steal energy to raise it’s temp to 212 from the bulk, doesn’t Co2 have to gain energy from collisions to get the energy to radiate at 15u, if it’s not being radiated with IR?
Yes, but it’s not that simple, the energy has to be in the rotational/vibrational modes so any translational energy doesn’t count. So on average a molecule will need to acquire significantly more energy than just the amount necessary to populate the excited vibrational state.

Mi Cro

Reply to Phil.

January 8, 2015 2:05 pm

Phil. commented on

No it depends on the Einstein A coefficient, which for the 15 micron band is rather low, the lifetime of the excited state is rather long, order millisecs. Which is why at atmospheric pressure collisional deactivation is favored because the collision rate is about 10/nsec.
Yes, but it’s not that simple, the energy has to be in the rotational/vibrational modes so any translational energy doesn’t count. So on average a molecule will need to acquire significantly more energy than just the amount necessary to populate the excited vibrational state.

Thanks Phil!
So, then my thoughts that a Co2 mix gas cloud chilled to -90F is not going to be radiating very much at 15u is probably true.
Will the -90F BB spectrum be enhanced or suppressed @15u’s in the dark?

Phil.

Reply to Mi Cro

January 9, 2015 6:59 am

Will the -90F BB spectrum be enhanced or suppressed @15u’s in the dark?
Try looking here:
http://nwmstest.ecmwf.int/newsevents/training/rcourse_notes/DATA_ASSIMILATION/REMOTE_SENSING/Remote_sensing101.gif
This is the emission spectrum above antarctica, the surface is emitting at about -80ºC, the CO2 in the atmosphere is actually warmer than the surface so you see extra emission in that band. Not sure what you mean by ‘in the dark’.

Mi Cro

Reply to Phil.

January 9, 2015 1:07 pm

Phil. commented on

This is the emission spectrum above antarctica, the surface is emitting at about -80ºC, the CO2 in the atmosphere is actually warmer than the surface so you see extra emission in that band. Not sure what you mean by ‘in the dark’.

The bottom graph was what I was looking for, thank you. By in the dark, I’m presuming this was at night, that was what I meant.
My original query was in interest in that bump at 15u, presuming it’s magnitude is dependent on surface temp, in this case ~-80C. Any idea what air temp was? I find a large difference, but I’m a lot further north (N41lat).

beng1

Reply to Mi Cro

January 10, 2015 8:26 am

Mi Cro, the IR graph that Phildot shows over Antarctica demonstrates that a few locations w/temp inversions can experience an anti-greenhouse effect if the surface is colder than the CO2, O3 and H2O emitting layers. The slightly enhanced IR emission on the CO2, O3 and H2O bands show that.
That said, such inversions are rare except Antarctica & sometimes locally in winter in the Arctic. But it brings into question the meme of polar “enhancement” of AGW, at least in the Antarctic.

Mi Cro

Reply to beng1

January 12, 2015 7:57 am

beng1 commented on

the IR graph that Phildot shows over Antarctica demonstrates that a few locations w/temp inversions can experience an anti-greenhouse effect if the surface is colder than the CO2, O3 and H2O emitting layers. The slightly enhanced IR emission on the CO2, O3 and H2O bands show that.

I’ve read some about inversions, what explicitly about this do you think it has an inversion?
I am curious what the air and surface temps were when that spectrum was measured. I frequently measure very cold temps with my IR thermometer of the sky.
In fact I measured near -80F on the 10th (N41 W81). Now I expected to see a bump at 15u, and I expect it to increase as the surface temp goes up, because that is in general the “light” source for the LW IR sky. Think varying amounts of fog, and the response of your headlights, and my fog lights are constructed differently from head lights. That’s what led to my question on why there is no surface temp specified for the 3.7W/m^2 from Co2. That bump didn’t look like 3.7Watts worth of bump. And to your second point

But it brings into question the meme of polar “enhancement” of AGW, at least in the Antarctic.

Makes you wonder, and we all know they aren’t squeamish over whether they tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or just look at us with a straight face and lie.
But, personally I think the polar enhancement is
a) LWIR from open water is much warmer than ice (almost 40F difference between snow in the Sun and snow in a shadow in my front yard, see below)
b) A 3.7W increase in DWIR increases the temp of the sky more at -80, than the same 3.7W does at 32F (It’s a larger % at -80 than at 32)
Nothing that is going to melt the Arctic (anymore than it did in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s).
At noon on the 10th the air temp was about 9F when I recorded that Tsky (it had been about 0F before the Sun started heating the air at the back of the house where the thermometer is), my shoveled sidewalk was about 22F, the snow in the full noon Sun front yard was 10F, the snow in the shadow of the house was -20F.
I routinely measure 70-110F colder Tsky temps than my sidewalk temp, the lower the humidity the larger the difference, clouds are much, much warmer, full low level clouds can be within 5-10 degrees of the ground (as much as 100F warmer than the sky). I have monitored surface cooling rates where Tsky if 100F colder than the surface, when you watch the rate of cooling you can see it cool very quickly for ~ the first half of the night, until surface rel humidity increases to ~80% or greater, then the cooling rate can go from over 5F / hour down to 1F or 2F / hour, this is what I understand is the common sort of inversion.
Basically the surface radiatively cools quickly at first, then that increase in rel humidity has to be increasing the “thickness” of water vapor (does it become more like fog, just that the water droplets are still too small to see in visible light, but they could be more visible in longer wave IR), which then regulates surface cooling. This all happens with no measurable wind, so there is nothing to circulate surface air to sweep away the “thick” air. With no wind at night, I believe that convection will be minimal.
So once again water vapor takes over control of surface temps.

usurbrain

January 8, 2015 8:48 am

Two points: 1, I have designed and made full size computer models for training simulators for coal and nuclear power plants used in the training of the operators. All of the needed “variables” are known and well documented for these simulators (models) yet it can still take several years for a new simulator to emulate the power plant well enough to meet design requirements (which is not perfect.) I have spent over a year trying to get just one parameter to within the instrument error accuracy, let alone the needed process requirements. If it is/was possible to “model” the climate well enough to predict even a year into the future with better than 50% accuracy then the people making these models would use the knowledge/experience to make a model of the stock/bond market and could make $millions if not $billions. 2, If nuclear CO2 is the only method to produce electrical power that truly adds no CO2 to the environment and does so with 1/100 to 1/1000 of the environmental impact in the generation of useful power in the quantities needed to power the required demand, then “Why aren’t we 100% Nuclear?” The only logical answer to this question is that AGW is a SCAM. If your house was on fire would you spray it with a mixture of 50% alcohol and 50% water. If you say yes then pour some rubbing alcohol on a rag and put a match to it or pour some on your charcoal grill when it is nice and hot. (I will not be responsible for any injuries caused to anyone who tries these potentially hazardous activities.)

exSSNcrew

January 8, 2015 12:55 pm

Thanks very much for posting this. Very illuminating.
As a B.S.E.E., I took Control Systems at the 400 level. Sparse matrices of non-linear differential equations, with computational methods. That is seriously hard math, that the climate alarmists probably can’t do. I was damn glad to get a ‘C’. Second semester ‘Fields and Waves’ was my other ‘C’ … and why I do digital now. 🙂

KevinK

January 8, 2015 5:09 pm

Phil wrote;
“Your model for the action of GHGs is not correct.
At a given insolation the Earth’s surface radiates energy towards space (T^4), CO2 filters out some of that energy (log dependence on CO2), using it to heat the atmosphere, as a result less energy is emitted to space than is lost from the surface. The Earth therefore increases its temperature until incoming and out going match.”
Ah yes the old “additional heating” hypothesis, the same 100 plus year old hypothesis which has never produced results that match observations. Arrhenius, Hansen the IPCC, keep trying, somebody’s bound to find the evidence somewhere, someday, it just has to be there……
You totally missed the whole “delay time”, “response time”, oscillation part of the argument didn’t you. The climate of the Earth is not a DC circuit, it is never ever in equilibrium anywhere. Funny thing that, warmer things cool down faster than cooler things. The heat in the atmosphere came from the surface, the surface cooled when the heat was emitted, the “backradiation” simply warms the surface a second time (cooling the atmosphere in the process). Thus the “radiative greenhouse effect” merely delays the flow of energy through the system by causing any given LWIR photon to make several passes through the system at the speed of light. This delay is mere milliseconds, which being shorter that the length of a day has no affect on the average temperature.
And the alleged “log dependence on CO2” is total hogwash. It is based on Beer’s law which is an observation law that cannot be derived from Maxwell’s equations. Funny thing about observationally derived laws, they only hold for circumstances similar to those under which they are derived. Beer’s law was observed with visible wavelength light striking room temperature objects, not room temperature light (LWIR) striking room temperature objects. Try placing a carbon absorption neutral density filter on your wall with tape, then image the wall with a FLIR camera and try to find the outline of the neutral density filter, it’s not there…. The neutral density filter is not warmer than the wall (as alleged by climate science), it is just the same temperature as the wall.
When the absorbed energy has roughly the same wavelength as the energy emitted by the absorbing object Beer’s law falls apart. There is no log dependence between the GHG temperature and the amount of CO2.
Thanks for the condescending explanation of a failed hypothesis, I understood the hypothesis the first time I saw it, I just can’t understand how intelligent people can believe that a miniscule portion of the gases in the atmosphere with thermal capacities that are about 8 orders of magnitude less than the Oceans can “Force” the temperature of the water in any way. These are the Calorific equations, usually chapter 1 in a thermo textbook.
Cheers, KevinK

Phil.

Reply to KevinK

January 9, 2015 6:19 am

Ah yes the old “additional heating” hypothesis, the same 100 plus year old hypothesis which has never produced results that match observations. Arrhenius, Hansen the IPCC, keep trying, somebody’s bound to find the evidence somewhere, someday, it just has to be there……
Here’s the evidence:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/co2-absorption/nimbus-satellite-emissions-infra-red-earth-petty-6-6.jpg
You totally missed the whole “delay time”, “response time”, oscillation part of the argument didn’t you. The climate of the Earth is not a DC circuit, it is never ever in equilibrium anywhere.
No, your argument concerning delays of millisecs is flawed, reduction in losses by GHGs including water necessarily causes an increase in temperature over time.
And the alleged “log dependence on CO2″ is total hogwash. It is based on Beer’s law which is an observation law that cannot be derived from Maxwell’s equations.
It is not based on Beer’s law, it arises from spectral broadening of the spectral band with a saturated center.
I understood the hypothesis the first time I saw it, I just can’t understand how intelligent people can believe that a miniscule portion of the gases in the atmosphere with thermal capacities that are about 8 orders of magnitude less than the Oceans can “Force” the temperature of the water in any way. These are the Calorific equations, usually chapter 1 in a thermo textbook.
Clearly you didn’t (and don’t), thermal capacities of GHGs don’t have anything to do with it, it comes down to modification of the energy flow through the atmosphere. An engineer should understand that increasing the IR opacity of the atmosphere will increase the temperature of the emitting surface.

kencoffman

Reply to Phil.

January 10, 2015 7:29 am

Phil, you are very amusing, thank you. I always enjoy the arguments claiming GHGs create a thermal diode. Let’s go over this again. With the amazing thermal properties of CO2, why are they not used in insulating windows?

Phil.

Reply to Phil.

January 12, 2015 12:34 pm

What are these amazing thermal properties you refer to and how would they be useful in insulating a window?

kencoffman

Reply to Phil.

January 17, 2015 2:39 pm

It’s hard to figure out exactly what climate activists think an atmospheric CO2 molecule can do, but it’s common for them to believe a tiny proportion of the atmosphere can block, trap or store thermal energy sufficient to raise the planet’s global temperature by 33C. For a prime demonstration of nonsensical handwaving, try to figure out exactly how GHG heating works when cooling convection is unconstrained and molecular collisions are far more frequent than spontaneous re-emissions. For activists, a theory need not be right to be useful.

Sam Pyeatte

January 8, 2015 7:10 pm

I loved the explanation from Leo Smith, as he can do it much better than I. Being an electrical engineer and have taken a graduate level class in nonlinear systems, I can appreciate the intractable problems in predicting climate – a chaotic, nonlinear system with long term feedback parameters that are unpredictable in their own right. The best we can do is study past climates as best we can, realizing that the further back we go the less resolution we can detect. We can only assume that what roughly happened in the past will probably happen again, but other unpredictable events may occur to alter any possible loose predictions. Essentially we just have to be able to adapt to whatever comes along. Perhaps in a couple hundred years when we will hopefully have a Star Trek future, we will have better options – like new solar systems and planets to inhabit.

The Iceman Cometh

January 8, 2015 10:19 pm

Leo Smith on 6-1 at 8.18pm said “is the flow between cells of the grid laminar flow, or is it nasty and turbulent (?) – because that screws up the boundary transfers and makes a mockery of any attempt to predict it – you can only map a turbulent flow by going to a cell size below the major turbulence.”
One of my favorite challenges to my climate modelling friends is to include a reasonable size cyclone in their models. It is nasty and turbulent, and it is bigger than the cells of many models, and even a simple calculation of the forces involved in accelerating air from the edge of the cyclone to the centre immediately shows that the energy dissipated by the system is very large indeed – and completely ignored by all climate modellers.
As a fellow engineer and analyser of complex systems, I can only say “Brilliant!”

Phil.

January 9, 2015 7:18 am

dbstealey January 7, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Mike M. says:
“If the net feedback is as negative as the Planck feedback, it is very hard to explain why the global climate is as unstable as it is…”
That is backward. Negative feedbacks make for stability. It is positive feedbacks that would make the climate unstable.
No, he has it right, try reading it again!

Phineas Fahrquar

January 9, 2015 11:28 am

Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Should be required reading on the climate alarmists’ beloved computer models.

Larry Butler

January 9, 2015 10:08 pm

It’s too late to try to save the Pacific Ocean life, but could this wonderful assembly of engineers and scientists, please, redirect your immediate attention to the three melted down BWRs at Fukushima-Daiichi NPP spewing a few petaBq of Pu, Sr, Ce, I and a few thousand lesser rad elements into the jet stream over the West Coast and Pacific Gyre…..now that this other childish nonsense makes no difference at all to survival on Earth?
Thanks!
Butler Code 132.21
Metrology

DirkH

January 10, 2015 6:00 am

Very good; the original comment as well as the addendum.
“And it shows that bigotry prejudice stupidity and venality are in fact useful techniques for species survival most of the time.”
Most profound.
We are entering now the period of profound change where it becomes the most dangerous attitude, I agree with that.

Julian Flood

January 10, 2015 10:55 am

Leo,
It may well be that the climate is quite capable of changing all by itself, but that does not preclude the possibility that we are actually having an effect as well. The CO2 change — which even the believers can only make work by adding in improbable positive feedbacks — is not necessarily due to human emissions anyway, but maybe we’re doing something else.
Judith Curry actually tried, at my suggestion, to see what the Gulf oil spill did to aerosol numbers above it: she failed as the a/c was busy, but I was flattered to be taken seriously.
Let me recommend to your number crunching the Flood Kriegesmarine hypothesis where ocean surface pollution is blamed for changing aerosol numbers. I like this theory as it covers so much — e.g. why the blip.
Or maybe it was the invention of Tide.
JF
(Don’t tell anyone but I think you’re probably right and it’s stochastic. However I’m hoping rgb proves he’s a scientist by going out in his boat and repeating Franklin’s Clapham Common pond experiment.)
Brother had angiogram a couple of days ago, they found the problem and put in a stent at the same time. Today he went for a walk.

Richard Greene

January 10, 2015 12:04 pm

Models are fine.
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The tall skinny ones on the catwalk, I mean.
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But for predicting the future climate, models are worse than flipping a coin because they give the illusion of actually having predictive ability.
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I mean they do use REALLY BIG COMPUTERS, and some of the scientists have REALLY BIG DEGREES !
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Come to think of it, humans are no better than flipping a coin when they predict the future, so why should their models be any better?
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Imagine an alternate universe where the leftists were scaring people about CO2 causing global cooling.
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Well, they were talking about global cooling for a while in 1975, but never mind that.
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If global cooling was the boogeyman of the day, I hope we skeptics would be pointing out that more CO2 in the air is good news for greening the Earth, and a few degrees warmer was good news too.
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I don’t hear that enough these days.
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And if there was any proof CO2 was responsible for some of the warming, then three cheers for CO2.
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In my view, more CO2 in the air is the best thing humans have ever done for the environment (inadvertently, of course) and a little warming since the 1800s is good news too.
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I’m brave enough to tell leftists I, and all green plants, favor more CO2 and more warming (all the leftists know about the climate is what they read in the New York Times, so they don’t even realize there has been no warming for 12 to 18 years, and there was no warming from 1940 to 1976.)
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Leftists are not very bright people, considering how many of them went to college, but they sure have strong beliefs, and so little data to back them up.
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I propose that in 2015 we skeptics remember to tell the leftists we favor MORE CO2 in the air to green the Earth, and MORE warming so we don’t have to buy a winter home down south.
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After stating those opinions, we should stop talking about the climate and just listen to the foolish, and often rude responses, from those leftists.
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They sure have mastered the art of character attacks!
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It is just amazing how little the typical leftist knows, or cares to know, about the climate history of Earth (of course they think they are EXPERTS in the climate 100 years in the future) !