Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
It is not surprising that Roe and Baker explained in a 2007 Science paper that, “The envelope of uncertainty in climate projections has not narrowed appreciably over the past 30 years, despite tremendous increases in computing power, in observations, and in the number of scientists studying the problem.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wasn’t designed to improve the uncertainty. Rather, it was mandated, designed and operated to isolate human effects.
The IPCC let the public believe they are examining the entire climate system. From a climate mechanism perspective, they only look at one or two very minor components. It is like describing a car and how it operates by ignoring the engine, transmission, and wheels while focusing on one nut on the right rear wheel. They are only looking at one thread on the nut, human CO2.
Figure 1, from IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5), shows the few forcing variables they examine.
Figure 1
Their mandate is limited to determining only “human causes of climate change”. Why are “Changes in solar irradiance” included? How do humans influence it? Why not include all changes in solar activity? The top panel labeled “Well-mixed greenhouse gases” is apparently done to eliminate water vapor, which is not well mixed? It can’t be anything else, because CO2 is not “well-mixed” either as the recent satellite images show.
There are other deceptions in the chart, including the claim that the “Level of Confidence” for CO2 is very high. This claim is false because CO2 levels have risen for 18+ years while temperature hasn’t increased, in contradiction to their major assumption that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase. It is not surprising because it doesn’t occur in any record. The “High” rating for “Total Anthropogenic RF relative to 1750” is a self-serving IPCC assessment. It must be high because we created it.
Why Sins of Commission and Omission Work
Another deception was creating the illusion that CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. The IPCC acknowledges H2O is the most important, but that is not what the public understands. Figure 2 shows a diagram taken from the ABC news website a few years ago.
Figure 2
The IPCC was designed and managed to perpetuate this deception and cynically do it openly. Deception is possible because most know very little about climate, as the Yale Education study showed (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Graded like a school exam, they found over half failed (52%) and 77 percent received D or F.
Too many scientists don’t know because they accept without checking. They assume, or don’t want to believe, that funding or a political agenda can corrupt other scientists. Klaus-Eckert Puls’ comment explains.
“Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data – first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements.”
I described this as “daylight robbery” three years ago because they don’t hide what they are doing. Explaining how it is done is central to persuading the public of the falsity of IPCC proclamations, without requiring people to understand the science. Sins of omission are as damaging as those of commission.
The whole wheel comprises the so-called greenhouse gasses, of which water vapor is 95 percent by volume. The nut on the rear wheel is total CO2, but the IPCC narrow their focus to a portion of one thread, the human fraction. The IPCC ignore water vapor by assuming humans don’t change it measurably. In the 2007 Report they wrote,
“Water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, human activities have only a small direct influence on the amount of atmospheric water vapour.”
It is essentially impossible to determine the impact of 4 percent if you have very limited knowledge about 95 percent.
The IPCC tried to downplay the role of water vapor in affecting global temperatures by amplifying the role of CO2 and CH4. The range of numbers used to determine greenhouse effectiveness or Global Warming Potential (GWP) suggested people were just creating numbers – it was not scientific. The IPCC note,
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is defined as the time-integrated RF due to a pulse emission of a given component, relative to a pulse emission of an equal mass of CO2 (Figure 8.28a and formula). The GWP was presented in the First IPCC Assessment (Houghton et al., 1990), stating ‘It must be stressed that there is no universally accepted methodology for combining all the relevant factors into a single global warming potential for greenhouse gas emissions.
Appropriately, questions about the GWP assessments persist. It prompted Gavin Schmidt, graduate of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), part creator of the website Real Climate, and now director of NASA GISS to offer clarification.
The relative contributions of atmospheric long‐wave absorbers to the present‐day global greenhouse effect are among the most misquoted statistics in public discussions of climate change.
The source of his clarification appears to disabuse his claim.
Motivated by the need for a clear reference for this issue, we review the existing literature and use the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE radiation module to provide an overview of the role of each absorber at the present‐day and under doubled CO2.
This form of affirmation is the standard circular argument of the IPCC. What I say is correct because my models say so. Schmidt further confuses the issue by saying,
With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapor is the dominant contributor (∼50% of the effect), followed by clouds (∼25%) and then CO2 with ∼20%.
Clouds are made up of water droplets so the total effect of water, according to Schmidt, is ~75 percent. The role of water in all its phases is critical to understanding weather and climate. For example, the upper portions of most clouds are predominantly ice crystals that change the albedo factor considerably. Roger Harrabin reported Roy Spencer’s view;
“He thinks clouds are impossible to model at present.”
IPCC claim greenhouse gasses raise global temperature by 33°C. Water vapor varies between slightly more than 0 and 4 percent of the atmosphere. According to Schmidt, this means water vapor accounts for approximately 25°C of the warming. Using an average of 2 percent, this means approximately 12.5°C per 1 percent. But, we don’t know how much water vapor there is or how much it varies. Does a minor fluctuation in water vapor at least equal or exceed the warming effect claimed for the human portion of CO2?
The IPCC is also unsure about the GWP as they explain in AR5. However, it is still not enough to recognize that it alone likely puts their entire computer model output in question.
The simulation of clouds in climate models remains challenging. There is very high confidence that uncertainties in cloud processes explain much of the spread in modelled climate sensitivity. However, the simulation of clouds in climate models has shown modest improvement relative to models available at the time of the AR4, and this has been aided by new evaluation techniques and new observations for clouds. Nevertheless, biases in cloud simulation lead to regional errors on cloud radiative effect of several tens of watts per square meter.
They conclude;
Many cloud processes are unrealistic in current GCMs, and as such their cloud response to climate change remains uncertain.
Importance of Water Vapor
Water, whether gaseous or liquid, serves to modify the temperature range. It increases minimums and decreases maximums and carries out other important processes.
As one website notes,
Over 99% of the atmospheric moisture is in the form of water vapor, and this vapor is the principal source of the atmospheric energy that drives the development of weather systems on short time scales and influences the climate on longer time scales.
Movement of water vapor, and its associated latent heat of vaporization, is also responsible for about 50% of the transport of heat from the tropics to the poles. The movement of water vapor is also important for determining the amount of precipitation a region receives.
The effect of the increased volume of atmospheric water vapor is not knowable because until recently there were only very crude estimates of atmospheric water vapor levels. Here is a 1996 quote,
“It is very hard to quantify water vapor in the atmosphere. Its concentration changes continually with time, location and altitude.” “A vertical profile is obtained with a weather balloon. To get a global overview, only satellite measurements are suitable. From a satellite, the absorption of the reflecting sunlight due to water vapor molecules is measured. The results are pictures of global water vapor distributions and their changes. The measurement error, however, is still about 30 to 40%.”
Four different measurements reflect the difficulties in determining the role of water in the atmosphere; Relative Humidity, Absolute Humidity, Specific Humidity, and Mixing Ratio. Relative Humidity is the only one the public knows, but it is also the most meaningless.
Recently satellite systems claim more accurate measures.
Total column water vapor is a measure of the total gaseous water contained in a vertical column of atmosphere. It is quite different from the more familiar relative humidity, which is the amount of water vapor in air relative to the amount of water vapor the air is capable of holding. Atmospheric water vapor is the absolute amount of water dissolved in air.
The IPCC lack of confidence about precipitation indicates they are not dealing with water vapor properly. Quotes from AR5 illustrate the problem.
Confidence in precipitation change averaged over global land areas since 1901 is low prior to 1951 and medium afterwards. Averaged over the mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere, precipitation has increased since 1901 (medium confidence before and high confidence after 1951). For other latitudes area-averaged long-term positive or negative trends have low confidence (Figure 4).
Figure 4 (Source IPCC)
The problem with this map is it assumes the number and accuracy of precipitation measures are the same in 1901 as in 2010. But the IPCC indicate that is not the case.
At regional scales, precipitation is not simulated as well, and the assessment remains difficult owing to observational uncertainties.
The simulation of precipitation is a more stringent test for models as it depends heavily on processes that must be parameterized. Challenges are compounded by the link to surface fields (topography, coastline, vegetation) that lead to much greater spatial heterogeneity at regional scales.
These comments apply to horizontal measures of precipitation, which are assumed to be a reflection of accuracy of knowledge about water vapor in the vertical column. Here is what the IPCC say about that.
Modelling the vertical structure of water vapour is subject to greater uncertainty since the humidity profile is governed by a variety of processes. The CMIP3 models exhibited a significant dry bias of up to 25% in the boundary layer and a significant moist bias in the free troposphere of up to 100% (John and Soden, 2007). Upper tropospheric water vapour varied by a factor of three across the multi-model ensemble (Su et al., 2006). Many models have large biases in lower stratospheric water vapour (Gettelman et al., 2010), which could have implications for surface temperature change (Solomon et al., 2010).
Most climate model simulations show a larger warming in the tropical troposphere than is found in observational data sets (e.g., McKitrick et al., 2010; Santer et al., 2013).
Because of large variability and relatively short data records, confidence in stratospheric H2O vapour trends is low.
Benjamin Franklin included the nursery rhyme, “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost” in his Poor Richards Almanack. It is appears the IPCC car is lost for the want of a water wheel.
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Drudge will “now” be called oops.
“Thanks To Tim Ball, the Public Still Doesn’t Know Water Vapor Is Most Important Greenhouse Gas or even any basics about the inappropriately-named ‘greenhouse’ effect”
Or that’s how I read the article.
The RF is “radiative forcing”. This is “basic” physics. It is the “no-feedback” change (see note) in energy balance as a result of more GHGs. There’s not much in doubt here, all of the satellite measuring systems rely on the physics of radiative transfer and it has been well understood for 60+ years.
Saying that climate hasn’t changed with more GHGs is the same as saying “with feedback, the climate hasn’t changed” and RF is “without feedback”. Do we find that in Tim Ball’s article? Does Tim Ball know what I am talking about?
To critique RF means being able to find a flaw in either a) absorption of radiation (the Beer-Lambert law) or b) the emission of radiation (the Planck law) or c) the work of spectroscopy professionals over many decades as recorded in journals like Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer where scientists measure the absorption and emission lines of various molecules.
And no, the IPCC didn’t create RF.
I’m looking forward to his next piece where he explains what is wrong with the theory of radiative transfer.
Actually, in comparison to water vapor, CO2 is very-well mixed. And no, it’s not done to “eliminate water vapor” because it is about “forcings” – i.e. external changes to the climate system. Water vapor changes are a feedback to the climate system.
Water vapor mixing ratio in the atmosphere changes by 10,000x – with temperature being the major reason.
Tim Ball would know this if he had read the report. Or papers on water vapor. Or looked at data on the mixing ratio of water vapor through the atmosphere.
So clearly this is the fault of the IPCC report. They didn’t write it large enough. What proportion of the public has studied the IPCC report? I have many criticisms of the various IPCC reports but the fact that public understanding of climate is flawed is a pretty crazy one. I think 1000x more people have read this blog..
Upper tropospheric water vapor (UTWV) is much more important than lower tropospheric water vapor – when it comes to climate feedbacks. Total column water vapor is really not that important when it comes to working out water vapor feedback.
How do humans change water vapor? Tim?
Basically Tim Ball appears to be writing a critique of the IPCC but he is writing a critique of basic meteorology and atmospheric physics, as it has been understood for many decades. Well, he is not writing a critique, he is writing a mish-mash of claims that aren’t supported by any textbook on meteorology or atmospheric physics.
To get out of the starting blocks with his impressive work, he needs to show that humans affect water vapor concentration, and to demonstrate where the physics of radiative transfer in the atmosphere (absorption and emission) is different from the all the textbooks, including Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel prize winner for his work on this subject). That’s just a couple of starters.
Water vapor concentration, especially upper tropospheric water vapor, is well understood to be a major challenge for climate prediction. This is mainly because it relies on understanding convection.
I could go on. More about water vapor at Science of Doom: Clouds and Water Vapor.
Note: the “no feedback” RF value does include one feedback – stratospheric adjustment – because this is very fast (order of a few months) and doesn’t rely on those tricky subjects like convection and the ocean. More at Wonderland, Radiative Forcing and the Rate of Inflation.
+100
Oh, what a delight! PseudoScienceofDoooooom. So good to see you here 😉
“Basic Physics”? Let me guess…of the “settled science”? Well it’s no good trying to apply the two stream approximation of radiative physics within the Hohlrumn of the atmosphere. Not when the primary energy transports within the troposphere are non-radiative. Sir George Simpson of the royal meteorological society warned Callendar against this way back in 1939. What’s your excuse?
You have been running a propaganda site for some years, promoting the idea that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. You have lent much support to the climastrologists and their political fellow travellers. Let’s examine some of the foundation claims of the Church of Radiative Climastrology for which you are an Imam –
DWLWIR slows the cooling of the surface.
Nope. 71% of our planet’s surface is ocean. Empirical experiment proves that incident LWIR has no effect on the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. (go on, give us ya best minnett, SoD)
The oceans are a near blackbody.
Nope. The oceans are an extreme SW selective surface. The oceans are SW translucent, IR opaque. If they are SW illuminated (and they are), they will heat far higher than a blackbody. Especially if the illumination is intermittent, not averaged. (last time I checked, this planet had a diurnal cycle…).
And worse, SW absorptivity of water is asymmetric with LWIR emissivity. 0.9 for hemispherical SW absorptivity. 0.67 for hemispherical LWIR emissivity. (Remember when you and yours at SoD tried to get rid of that annoying 0.67 figure? The Internet does. Forever. I and others have those glossy screen shots 😉 )
And worse and worse…if you were an engineer you would know that you can’t use S-B equations to determine eT for SW translucent / IR opaque materials that are being illuminated by SW. (Guessing you are a pseudo scientist, not an engineer, right?)
The sun alone can’t heat the oceans above 255K.
Nope. 71% of the surface of our planet is an extreme SW selective surface. Tmax of the oceans could hit 80C or beyond, were it not for cooling by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
The Sun heats the oceans.
The atmosphere cools the oceans.
Radiative gases cool the atmosphere.
PseudoScienceofDoooooom, you spent years spreading propaganda denying these three facts. You made the list 😉
Konrad,
Thanks for the welcome, let me address your points.
I’m not sure what the Hohlrumn of the atmosphere is.
Regardless of convection, which dominates heat transfer in the atmosphere, radiation still takes place.
And radiation is the only mechanism for heat transfer between the planet and the sun/space. It is also still important within the troposphere, but much less important than convection.
Changes in GHGs change the outgoing longwave radiation from the climate system.
As a result, other things change. The result from the changes is “with feedback”. The result before the changes is “no feedback”.
If you argue that changes in GHG concentrations have zero “no feedback” effect then you have misunderstood very basic physics. Can you supply a reference for this?
It is equivalent to saying that the Beer-Lambert law is wrong.
This “no feedback” value is what Tim Ball, the writer of this article is talking about with RF.
If you want to argue about “with feedbacks” then it is not basic physics and I have made no comment on that. But that was not Tim Ball’s point, assuming he had any idea what he was talking about. Let’s see if he comments.
Being able to distinguish between different ideas is necessary for the scientific method.
Do you think Tim Ball is talking about “with feedbacks”? Do you think it is impossible to calculate the OLR of the climate system?
No one would know from your answer.
It is possible to calculate the OLR of the climate system and it is done routinely. This is how satellite measuring systems work.
In Emissivity of the Ocean I give details of many experiments and studies on this fascinating topic.
In longwave – that is, the wavelengths that characterize the temperature of the oceans – the emissivity is very high. It is around 0.96. You can find this in all textbooks, going back to the 1960’s. I haven’t found any older books to check.
Just as a teaser, knowing the interest in primary research on this blog: “For example, 29 years ago Miriam Sidran writing “Broadband reflectance and emissivity of specular and rough water surfaces”, begins:
The optical constants of water have been extensively studied because of their importance in science and technology..”
And here are Konda, Imasato, Nishi and Toda (1994), commenting on a few older papers (before citing their research which you can find in the article I linked):
Then of course they take account of these shortcomings and present their own updated calculations. I don’t want to spoil the fun for you.
And I really look forward to the research you are about to present on the longwave emissivity of the ocean.
You also comment, a little mysteriously:
No. You will have to fill me in. Was that the Tallbloke blog where someone hadn’t understood that the particular measurements of emissivity didn’t include the ocean, and so it was a ‘blank value’ but no one realized it? And no one checked. Or something else?
Well, I have linked many papers, along with extracts, calculations and tables of the longwave emissivity of the ocean. Please explain where all these people went wrong, and how you got it right.
Either you present research, or you have done experiments.. or… you assert whatever value you like here.
I’m a little unclear here, because I claim all three as well. Probably my work is a little confusing. I would be delighted if you could show up at my blog and explain which claims I made that you disagree with. Remember to come with specifics. We are slightly more into boring detail than the arm-waving approach here, entertaining as it is.
As a small primer on the 3rd point, The Atmosphere Cools to Space by CO2 and Water Vapor, so More GHGs, More Cooling! starts with:
“The atmosphere cools to space by radiation. Well, without getting into all the details, the surface cools to space as well by radiation but not much radiation is emitted by the surface that escapes directly to space (note 1). Most surface radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. And of course the surface mostly cools by convection into the troposphere (lower atmosphere)..“
scienceofdoom
February 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm
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Ooops! Did I get your warmulonian feathers ruffled? So much typing. So sad. Too bad.
You invite debate on your own blog. But I and others have screen shots of what you and yours do. Good luck with that.
Wanna play the radiative physics game with your superiors? You can do it right here!
“Is the ocean a “near blackbody” or a SW selective material?”
Forget your little censored echo chamber. This here is WUWT. The only reason I post here is that Anthony (lukewarmer) hates my guts but has the decency to not censor. (a decency you and yours lack).
Step up to the plate PesudoScienceofDooooom. Oceans a near blackbody, or oceans an extreme SW selective surface?
…well I can ask. But it is unlikely a Warmulonian Drivel Monkey that doesn’t even know the meaning of “Hohlrumn” would ever come close.
Come on, Warmulonian Drivel Monkey. Right here. Right Now. WUWT! Your big chance. Oceans a near blackbody or oceans a SW selective surface? A or B. Right or Wrong?
Hohlrumn what exactly do you mean by this term?
Spelling error…
..
Correct spelling is hohlraum
Phil.
February 9, 2015 at 12:41 pm
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Yes, spelling error, hohlraum is correct.
The term refers to a self radiating cavity. Make a hollow aluminium sphere polished inside and out, with a small hole allowing interior observation. This is a Hohlraum.
Polished aluminium will have an emissivity of ~0.04.
Heat the sphere to 100C and use a IR thermometer to read the surface temperature. You will get a fair result for exterior reading using 0.04 as the emissivity setting on the instrument. Now try measuring the interior through the small hole. The material is the same, but now the instrument wildly over reads. You will need to raise the emissivity setting of the instrument to near 1.0 to get a fair reading of interior temperature, because the material is self radiating.
This also referred to a “cavity effect” in industrial thermography.
What this means is all the oceanography links that SoD offers are wrong. Or rather they are right for obtaining an emissivity setting for IR measurement of water under a radiative atmosphere. This is apparent emissivity not effective emissivity. You cannot use that figure as a measure of waters radiative cooling ability.
There are a couple of ways to obtain true or effective emissivity for water. (no the aluminium cone SoD describes won’t work.)
1. Complex and annoying
Cancel background IR over a flat water sample with a cryo-cooled “sky” that is not IR reflective –
http://i61.tinypic.com/24ozslk.jpg
– this is what was done for calibrating instruments for the diviner lunar mission –
2. Expensive
A new toy has been invented, the tunable IR quantum cascade laser. This can be used to check the IR reflectivity of water over all angles with great precision. Via Kirchoffs laws, IR emissivity will be the corollary of IR reflectivity.
All of the references SoD offered are about emissivity settings for IR measurement of water temperature in situ. They are irrelevant to the true radiative cooling ability of water.
But even with good figures for SW absorptivity and IR emissivity you still can’t use Stefan-Boltzmann equations on the oceans. The oceans are being illuminated by solar SW and they are SW translucent and IR opaque. S-B equations cannot be used for materials like this. But this is just what climastrologists did to get their ridiculous “255K surface without radiative atmosphere figure”.
Konrad 5:32pm: “What this means is all the oceanography links that SoD offers are wrong.”
No Konrad, you are wrong. What this means is you are measuring BB radiation emitting from the aluminum cavity thru its hole, this is why the IR thermometer setting is best raised to “near 1.0”.
“The oceans are being illuminated by solar SW and they are SW translucent..”
No Konrad, you’ve got that wrong also. The deep oceans are not translucent to SW, they are opaque to SW. The ocean surface reflects about 4% incident light energy over the entire spectrum from horizon to zenith by numerous experiments, modified very slightly (0.5 to 1 count out of 100) over the full range of reasonable natural windy conditions.
“S-B equations cannot be used for materials like this.”
S-B has tested applicable to all material with negligible diffraction & positive radii at all frequency intervals at all temperatures all the time. Whether in vacuum or under atm. pressure. The 255K is measured with precision instrumentation and not assumed.
“They are irrelevant to the true radiative cooling ability of water.”
No Konrad, you even get this wrong. Set your IR thermometer to 0.95. It will measure about 100C for boiling water, 0C for slush, 0F for refrigerator freezer ice, and about 70F for room temperature swimming pool water – all in accord with properly calibrated mercury or steel coil thermometers set therein.
I really need all my time to work on the making my 4th. CoSy language capable of expressing these relationships as succinctly and the best APLs and computing them rather than just jawboning about them , but I can’t let this howler go by .
That 255k assumption , as shown in the graph I included at February 9, 2015 at 12:52 pm is as crude as it could be and corresponds to no real spectrum , certainly not the earth’s surface .
One thing I never see discussed in any thing other than the vaguest allusions is the effect of the atmosphere on the variance in our temperature rather than it’s mean . That is the overwhelming effect of the transfer of heat to and from the atmosphere in which CO2 clearly plays a major role .
Trick
February 9, 2015 at 8:54 pm
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Ooooh, Trick! So delightful to see you here you Warmulonian Drivel Monkey! Could Drudge have been a factor….
Forget Drudge, you know you never win against Judge Dread. I am the law.
You know the rules from the real sceptic website “Tallblokes Talkshop”. How many times would you like to run your climastrology weasel around the bush before I pop it?
No Konrad, you are wrong. What this means is you are measuring BB radiation emitting from the aluminum cavity thru its hole, this is why the IR thermometer setting is best raised to “near 1.0″.
Nope. PseudoScienceofDooom was trying to claim IR emissivity measurement in the Hohlraum of the atmosphere meant effective not apparent emissivity. You fail.
No Konrad, you’ve got that wrong also. The deep oceans are not translucent to SW, they are opaque to SW.
Who’s a squealing warmulonian drivel monkey? SW penetrates over 200m below the IR opaque surface of our oceans! Did you mindlessly think the inclusion of the word “deep” would save your inane warmulonian propaganda? Suffer in your bunched panties warmist!
Face it “Trick”, every time you post comment, you just make the warmulonians look more and more scientifically illiterate. Do you want to appear as inane as Obarmaclese the messiah? That’s where you’re heading…..
[Enough already. You’re breaking the spell-checker. .mod]
[Enough already. You’re breaking the spell-checker. .mod]
The spell-checker you say? Oh for goodness sake!
Yesterday it was the damn microwave!
Something failed the smoke test in the electronics. The smoke turned to flaming plasma in the oven space. The papudum’s were ruined of course…
Spell-check Mods? You need to focus on the bigger issues. My home cooked Indian was ruined by a radiative physics mistake!
Bob Armstrong 2/10 8:52am: Your 12:52 “therefore (earth’s) absorptivity/emissivity (ae) is about 0.7 wrt the Sun” confuses reflectivity (life of photons) and absorptivity (death of photons). The earth system reflects ~0.3 SW – these photons still live, 100% of the remaining 0.7 incident SW is absorbed by the system – photon death – and turned into LW (born again).
The earth L&O surface is measured around 0.95 emissivity/absorptivity not “0.7 wrt the Sun”. The atm. is measured 0.7 polar to 0.9 emissivity equator looking up. The resultant global annual Tmean 255K has been measured by a series of precision, calibrated instruments on many satellites over several decades.
Sorry , not worth responding to .
The RF is “radiative forcing”. This is “basic” physics. It is the “no-feedback” change (see note) in energy balance as a result of more GHGs. There’s not much in doubt here, all of the satellite measuring systems rely on the physics of radiative transfer and it has been well understood for 60+ years.
1. The IPCC makes it clear that RF (radiative forcing) and SF (surface forcing) are two different things, so it isn’t “basic” at all.
2. Changes in RF due to changes in GHG’s do not, at equilibrium, change the energy balance of the system as a whole. The change is zero. What does change is the temperature profile of the atmospheric air column from surface to TOA, with the surface becoming warmer, and above the Mean Radiating Layer, things become colder. But there is NO change at equilibrium to the planet’s energy balance.
3. Satellites measure temperature by sensing the microwave emissions of an oxygen isotope that varies with temperature, which is rather different from measuring radiative transfer.
Those are three things you got wrong in just one paragraph. If you’re going to comment at length, do try and get it right.
In response to some other of your snark:
1. Humans do in fact alter water vapour in the atmosphere, primarily through land use changes.
2. The job of the IPCC is to inform the public in general as well as policy makers of the facts. That they diminish the role of water vapour in the system is a fair criticism of their work. Your sarcastic remark that they didn’t put it in big enough print, is, amusingly, quite accurate. They didn’t. And they didn’t do their job, they chose to mislead instead, and water vapour is only a single example of their many transgressions on that front.
davidmhoffer,
Good point. Basic depends on the writer.
Let’s say replicable science. Of course, lots and lots of people will dispute that but mostly their answers betray that they actually don’t know what radiative forcing is. Or radiative transfer.
You are correct that RF (at the tropopause, after stratospheric adjustment) is different from surface forcing. Being different from something doesn’t make it not “basic”.
Let’s say, in the scientific world, which includes the many scientists sometimes lauded on this blog (e.g. Lindzen, Christy and Spencer) no one is confused about RF, and no one thinks the calculation is wrong. I’ve read lots of Lindzen’s papers, and lots of Christy’s and Spencer’s and I’ve even written a series explaining where Spencer is correct and people attacking him are wrong, but that is completely off topic.
Find someone who can explain atmospheric radiation and how satellites measure things like SST – and have them say that RF is in dispute.
So I retract my statement and say instead that RF is not in dispute in the world of atmospheric physics. In the blog world, of course. But can any blog world doubters critique <a href="here“>the equations of radiative transfer? Or derive an alternative? Or even derive them in their original state? Or does anyone even know what I am talking about. Moving on..
“At equilibrium” – ?
Changes in RF disturb the equilibrium.
So I agree with the statement that never applies.
If we take a statement that does apply we would write: “With a system currently in equilibrium, changes in RF due to changes in GHG’s do change the energy balance of the system as a whole”
It’s important to be specific. If you disagree with my restatement of your second point then either you think that changes in RF do not change OLR – confused about radiative transfer, which we both now agree is not basic, but I state is not in dispute by anyone who works in the field – or, you think that the first law of thermodynamics is wrong.
I leave it to you to explain.
Satellites measure temperature by not just microwave. Satellites measure atmospheric temperature using radiative transfer equations. Specifically, an inverse of these equations. Likewise for water vapor. CERES and AIRS – the two current best systems for temperature and water vapor – they use it. How do they get it right?
Don’t take my word for it, I will just cite papers, give extracts and produce equations – all to confuse.
Go to Roy Spencer’s blog and ask him. He will tell you, yes, the radiative transfer equations are what we use, and yes, they are necessary for calculating the tropospheric temperatures via the UAH satellites. But thinking about it, maybe Roy just looks up the microwave measurements, or the radiosondes, does a bit of a back of envelope calculation – and then pretends he got it from the satellite. Maybe there are no satellites.. Are they driving new cars?
I suggest Roy Spencer because he is often highlighted here. If you can find someone who actually works in this field who says that the RTE are wrong, well, you will be a sensation. I will write an article on my blog and quote you. Just show up with the guy/gal, but they have to be producing stuff in this field.
scienceofdoom
Yoy say
Well, your long-winded post makes clear that you are one of the “lots of people” who “don’t know what radiative forcing is”. One example of the several demonstrations of this in your posts says
No, radiative forcing is NOT radiative transfer, and davidmhoffer is correct about equilibrium conditions. Please see the IPCC Glossarywhich says
Richard
gbaikie
You say
I cannot speak for Tim Ball, but I don’t know think you know what you are talking about.
It is an assumption used in the climate models that change to climate is driven by change to radiative forcing. And it is very important to recognise that this assumption has not been demonstrated to be correct. Indeed, it is quite possible that there is no force or process causing climate to vary. I explain this as follows.
The climate system is seeking an equilibrium that it never achieves. The Earth obtains radiant energy from the Sun and radiates that energy back to space. The energy input to the system (from the Sun) may be constant (although some doubt that), but the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun ensure that the energy input/output is never in perfect equilbrium.
The climate system is an intermediary in the process of returning (most of) the energy to space (some energy is radiated from the Earth’s surface back to space). And the Northern and Southern hemispheres have different coverage by oceans. Therefore, as the year progresses the modulation of the energy input/output of the system varies (and global temperature rises by 3.8°C then falls by 3.8°C during each year). Hence, the system is always seeking equilibrium but never achieves it.
Such a varying system could be expected to exhibit oscillatory behaviour. And, importantly, the length of the oscillations could be harmonic effects which, therefore, have periodicity of several years. Of course, such harmonic oscillation would be a process that – at least in principle – is capable of evaluation.
Very importantly, there is an apparent ~900 year oscillation that caused the Roman Warm Period (RWP), then the Dark Age Cool Period (DACP), then the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), then the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the present warm period (PWP). All the observed rise of global temperature in the twentieth century could be recovery from the LIA that is similar to the recovery from the DACP to the MWP. And the ~900 year oscillation could be the chaotic climate system seeking its attractor(s). If so, then all global climate models and ‘attribution studies’ utilized by IPCC and CCSP are based on the false premise that there is a force or process causing climate to change when no such force or process exists.
However, there may be no process because the climate is a chaotic system. Therefore, the observed oscillations (ENSO, NAO, etc.) could be observation of the system seeking its chaotic attractor(s) in response to its seeking equilibrium in a changing situation.
Random variation of the spatial distribution of surface temperatures could alone be responsible for all the observed temperature rise from the LIA.
Or the rise from the LIA could be an affect of random variation in cloud cover. Good records of cloud cover are very short because cloud cover is measured by satellites that were not launched until the mid 1980s. But it appears that cloudiness decreased markedly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s. Over that period, the Earth’s reflectivity decreased to the extent that if there were a constant solar irradiance then the reduced cloudiness provided an extra surface warming of 5 to 10 Watts/sq metre. This is a lot of warming. It is between two and four times the entire warming estimated to have been caused by the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. (The IPCC says that since the industrial revolution, the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has had a warming effect of only 2.4 W/sq metre).
But some people believe that only radiative forcing changes cause climate changes and model their belief as climate models for predicting/projecting the future.
However, if their assumption that climate change is driven by radiative forcing is correct then it is still extremely improbable that – within the foreseeable future – climate models could be developed to a state whereby they could provide reliable predictions. This is because the climate system is extremely complex. Indeed, the climate system is more complex than the human brain (the climate system has more interacting components – e.g. biological organisms – than the human brain has interacting components – e.g. neurones), and nobody claims to be able to construct a reliable predictive behavioral model of the human brain. It is pure hubris to assume that the climate models are sufficient emulations for them to be used as reliable predictors of future climate when they have no demonstrated forecasting skill.
Richard
scienceofdoom;
Changes in RF disturb the equilibrium.
Temporarily. Effective black body temperature of earth before CO2 doubles is -18C and after CO2 doubles it is -18C. Temps below MRL get higher, temps above get lower, but effective black body temperature between the states changes by 0. Let me spell it out for you. ZERO. During the temporary transient conditions caused by the change, equilibrium is indeed disturbed, but this is the transient effect, not the long term effect, and it is minor.
The rest of your long winded snark infested diatribe seems predicated on the assumption that I stated that RF is in dispute. I said no such thing. I said your treatment of it was overly simplistic and unrepresentative of the actual physics, to which you agreed. You then mounted of on some charge about things I never said (and wouldn’t agree with in any event) and challenge me to bring traffic to your blog so that you can make a mockery of me.
You must be getting truly desperate for traffic when you have to misrepresent what someone else says and challenge them to a dual on your blog.
Richard,
How do they calculate radiative forcing?
Let me know, along with references.
For readers interested, radiative forcing is worked by via a calculation of radiative transfer through the atmosphere. There isn’t another way to do it.
gbaikie,
The theory of radiative transfer is inapplicable/incorrect because Earth is mostly covered by ocean?
What about people’s shoe size, why not bring that up? Or the number of mountains?
Radiative transfer for readers interested, perhaps not including current commenters..
Take the temperature of the surface, temperature profile of the atmosphere, GHG concentration of the atmosphere – using the RTE (radiative transfer equations) as found in textbooks on this subject (long before the IPCC existed) – you can calculate the OLR (outgoing longwave radiation).
You can calculate other things also, like downwards radiation at the surface (DLR = ‘back radiation’).
In physics textbooks people give equations and then it is much easier to disprove or prove something. If commenters here provided an equation (laughter) then I could take the equation and disprove your confused ideas..
Anyway.. I provide the equations of radiative transfer (and their derivation) in Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Six – The Equations.
But I’m not doing anything novel – just reproducing work from 60 years ago.
gbaikie – provide your equations of radiative transfer and then we will see the dependence of these equations on the SW absorptivity of the ocean surface (we will see that it is not a boundary condition if we can read the equation). Why? Because the temperature of the surface is already determined prior to our changing GHG concentration. That is, the surface temperature is a boundary condition. Anyone know what a boundary condition is?
gbaikie will not provide equations because that’s now how this blog works. Handwaving is the recognized approach.
It is irrelevant what the emissivity of the surface is, as to whether it can “immediately radiate the energy back to space”.
Where did you learn this?
I blame the IPCC. They are responsible for your lack of understanding. Shame on the IPCC.
All surfaces “immediately” radiate. They “immediately” radiate a flux which is calculated from the temperature and emissivity of that surface.
So a surface with an emissivity of 1 “immediately” radiates a flux of σT4.
And a surface with an emissivity of 0.1 “immediately” radiates a flux of 0.1σT4.
I know the answer, but I have to ask. Have you ever read a heat transfer textbook which covers radiation? Which one? Can you find one now and post a graphic – or link to a graphic – which supports your claim about the emissivity affecting the “immediately radiating energy back to space”. You are just inventing radiative heat transfer, or perhaps you learnt it here?
scienceofdoom
Yes. Several. And many papers. Unfortunately, they tend to differ from each other, and from your rather cursory summary above. (You are radiating into a 0.0 degree C “perfect black body” assuming a “perfect” viewing angle and within a perfect black body spheroid, right? )
So, what is the energy emitted from a flat surface of fresh snow-covered sea ice at -2 degree C surface temperature and 1008 pressure into a night air of 15% relative humidity at -15 degree C 2 meter air temperature with a clear sky and a 10,000 meter temperature of -40 degrees?
Show your work. Cite the references for each constant.
gbaikie says:
..So this sunlight would heat water meters below the surface and can not immediately radiate the energy back to space, as it would with a blackbody surface.
To which scienceofdoom replies:
It is irrelevant what the emissivity of the surface is, as to whether it can “immediately radiate the energy back to space”.
Well Mr Doom, if you believe that energy absorbed at depth can be immediately radiated at surface of a body of water, you are free to do so. You’re very good at math. Applying it correctly is evidently not your strong suit. If you were not so completely and totaly over confident in your math skills, you might actually learn something. Nice try siphoning traffic back to your own site (yet again) in your previous comment. I appreciate also your honest admission that it contains no original work, just the work of others regurgitated.
RACookPE1978
Give specifics. Which textbooks, on which points?
“Tend to”? Or “Actually do”?
What equations do they use that are different from each other?
You, dear sir, want to bring up radiation losses. At this point, I don’t. That will be a later problem to address, naturally, a bit later.
So, provide the equations and constants for the specific radiation heat loss problem I listed above.
scienceofdoom
You demonstrated that you don’t know what radiative forcing is when you wrongly wrote
I referred you to the IPCC glossary, provided a link to it – and quoted its definition which is
Your definition is plain wrong: e.g. a change in the output of the Sun is NOT “more GHGs”.
We are discussing the above article by Tim Ball which concerns IPCC information so your attempt to say RF is other than the IPCC says is either a mistake by you or is support of Tim Ball’s article from you.
Did you thank me for correcting your error? No.
Did you acknowledge your error? No.
Instead, you have demanded of me
You don’t say who you mean by “they” but I will assume you mean climate modellers.
‘They’ don’t “calculate” RF but curve fit to obtain an apparent agreement.
I explain this (with references) as follows.
None of the models – not one of them – could match the change in mean global temperature over the past century if it did not utilise a unique value of assumed cooling from aerosols. So, inputting actual values of the cooling effect (such as the determination by Penner et al.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/25/1018526108.full.pdf?with-ds=yes )
would make every climate model provide a mismatch of the global warming it hindcasts and the observed global warming for the twentieth century.
This mismatch would occur because all the global climate models and energy balance models are known to provide indications which are based on
1.
the assumed degree of forcings resulting from human activity that produce warming
and
2.
the assumed degree of anthropogenic aerosol cooling input to each model as a ‘fiddle factor’ to obtain agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature.
More than a decade ago I published a peer-reviewed paper that showed the UK’s Hadley Centre general circulation model (GCM) could not model climate and only obtained agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature by forcing the agreement with an input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
The input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling is needed because the model ‘ran hot’; i.e. it showed an amount and a rate of global warming which was greater than was observed over the twentieth century. This failure of the model was compensated by the input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
And my paper demonstrated that the assumption of aerosol effects being responsible for the model’s failure was incorrect.
(ref. Courtney RS An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999).
More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
(ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).
Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ‘fix’ from every other model. This is because they all ‘run hot’ but they each ‘run hot’ to a different degree.
He says in his paper:
And, importantly, Kiehl’s paper says:
And the “magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing” is fixed in each model by the input value of aerosol forcing.
Kiehl’s Figure 2 can be seen here.
Please note that the Figure is for 9 GCMs and 2 energy balance models, and its title is:
It shows that
(a) each model uses a different value for “Total anthropogenic forcing” that is in the range 0.80 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2
but
(b) each model is forced to agree with the rate of past warming by using a different value for “Aerosol forcing” that is in the range -1.42 W/m^2 to -0.60 W/m^2.
In other words the models use values of “Total anthropogenic forcing” that differ by a factor of more than 2.5 and they are ‘adjusted’ by using values of assumed “Aerosol forcing” that differ by a factor of 2.4.
So, each climate model emulates a different climate system that has a different RF effect from each other model. Hence, at most only one of the models emulates the climate system of the real Earth because there is only one Earth. And the fact that they each ‘run hot’ unless fiddled by use of a completely arbitrary ‘aerosol cooling’ strongly suggests that none of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth.
For completeness, I add that empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is much, much less than the model-derived values (see Kiehl’s Figure 2 which I have linked) and is indicated by the studies of
Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satellite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
I hope this answer to your demand helps to dispel some of your self-declared immense ignorance of the subject.
Richard
Moderators
My long reply to scienceofdoom has vanished possibly because it contains too many links.
I would be grateful if you were to check whether it has gone into the ‘bin’ and if you were to tell me if it is not there so I can attempt to provide it again.
Richard
[Don’t see it in Spam, nor the moderator queue. ??? .mod]
[Rev 2. OK now? .mod]
Mods.
Thankyou.
Richard
–The RF is “radiative forcing”. This is “basic” physics. It is the “no-feedback” change (see note) in energy balance as a result of more GHGs. There’s not much in doubt here, all of the satellite measuring systems rely on the physics of radiative transfer and it has been well understood for 60+ years.
Saying that climate hasn’t changed with more GHGs is the same as saying “with feedback, the climate hasn’t changed” and RF is “without feedback”. Do we find that in Tim Ball’s article? Does Tim Ball know what I am talking about?
To critique RF means being able to find a flaw in either a) absorption of radiation (the Beer-Lambert law) or b) the emission of radiation (the Planck law) or c) the work of spectroscopy professionals over many decades as recorded in journals like Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer where scientists measure the absorption and emission lines of various molecules.
And no, the IPCC didn’t create RF.
I’m looking forward to his next piece where he explains what is wrong with the theory of radiative transfer. —
What wrong theory of radiative transfer is Earth is mostly covered with ocean which is transparent
to sunlight.
So it would work fine if most of sunlight intersected a blackbody surface.
But with Earth about 1/2 of the energy of the sun which intersect Earth disc passes thru this transparent watery surface.
So this sunlight would heat water meters below the surface and can not immediately radiate the energy back to space, as it would with a blackbody surface.
gbaikie
My reply to your post is above your post. Sorry.
This libnk jumps to my reply.
Richard
gbaikie
February 8, 2015 at 11:36 pm
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Well somebody gets it!
Liquid water is an extreme SW selective surface not a “near blackbody”.
255K for “surface without radiative atmosphere as the climastrologists claim? Try 312K. Now what’s our current average? 288K. So the net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere on surface temps is….(answer below)
(A) 97% of climastrologists are assclowns.
@ur momisugly scienceofdoom February 8, 2015 at 6:05 pm
You have so many fallacies injected into your above commentary that I wouldn’t know where to begin the “nitpicking” of them.
You can laugh at this idea if you like, but I tend to believe that the fact that humans emerged during the coolest period of the past 600 million years is an act of divine providence. If we’d emerged anytime when the northern hemisphere land masses weren’t covered in ice, our ancestors would have quickly dispersed out of Africa and diverged into a myriad of humanoid species scattered over the whole globe. But we we largely confined to one continent until the rest of the world became habitable….long enough to consolidate the species.
If we’d dispersed early, we’d be facing a plethora of humanoid interspecies conflicts, instead of simple interracial misunderstandings.
Thank God for planning ahead! Sounds like Design to me.
There’s an argument to be made that H. sapien evolved to handle change not inspite of the climate changes of the recurring glacial-interglacials, but precisely because of it.
Those hominids that couldn’t adapt as they fought among themselves and to a changing climate by using their cognitive ability, communication skills, organizational abilities, they simply perished. Those who could adapt to colder, then warmer — they got the best hunting, the best territory.
Continual rapid changes in climate shakes-up ecosystems, forces evolution, forces selection, ensures adaptation.
Homo ——s 😉
And I forgot to add:
The greatest achievement of human civilization has been to put an end to those annoying ice ages.
Now if we could only find the “Manual for the Sorcerer’s Apprentice”.
joel sprenger said on February 8, 2015 at 3:53 pm:
Did you look?
Google Scholar – scholar.google.com
I have a lot papers on the effect of water vapor, plus a couple of textbooks. I got the papers from searches in the above link – and from looking up references in papers. There are 10,000+ papers on this subject.
As a primer (not sure if I can load up images here), enter “review water vapor climate effect” into the field you get with the above google scholar link. “Review” is a good term in the search for beginners because it tends to bias results towards summaries rather than the incremental improvement.
One of the first results you get is a very high quality paper whose conclusions are still valid even though it is 15 years old: Water vapor feedback and global warming by Isaac Held & Brian Soden. Have a read. At the end of just this one paper you will know a lot more than Tim Ball at least.
If you want to find out if people have researched a topic, a) probably they have b) try and find it. You can do a search and pull up a paper quicker than typing a comment into a blog.
In their final comments from Y2K, Held and Sodin wrote, “Given the
acceleration of the trends predicted by many models, we believe that an additional
10 years may be adequate, and 20 years will very likely be sufficient, for the combined
satellite and radiosonde network to convincingly confirm or refute the predictions
of increasing vapor in the free troposphere and its effects on global warming.”
It’s 2015, and we’re still waiting.
They have been using models for 27 years, ever since Hansen started it. Apparently they still don’t know how to input the values for the most important greenhouse gas, water vapor, into their model calculations. Why should anybody take them seriously? This is just one more reason to dump the models. Anybody who has been looking at their climate predictions knows that they have been far off from actual climate values they aimed to forecast. It started with Hansen in 1988. He attempted to predict global temperature through 2019 with his “business as usual”.forecast. We have lived through most of these years and all his forecasts have been off the mark. Met Office was no better and had a persistent bias towards too high temperatures. The introduction of super computers was supposed to improve the results but it did not happen. Despite using one million line code their results were no better than Hansen’s were. And when the “hiatus” appeared all the computers just failed to handle it. They have had twenty seven years to put their house in order and they have failed. It is time to admit that computer models simply do not work and close down the entire computer modeling enterprise.
Deception implies a crime of commission.
Ignorance implies a crime of omission.
Regards the IPCC, I would hazard the latter than the former.
From the AR1 unto NOW, the IPCC and “hallowed reviewers” have not a clue about water vapor; neither by experience, knowledge or training and nor by definition of the words and usage.
Just ask non”Nobel Laureate” “His Excellency Supremo Commandant General of Earth and All Realms” Richard Alley, “Do you know water vapor?”
Heir Excellency will surely run away.
Ha ha and Har har on the body of Richard Alley
No, ignorance explicitly claims lack of intent.
It’s true that ignorance obviates intent but intent is not a sine qua non of all crimes.
Negligence and recklessness can result in criminal conviction.
recklessness usually requires being aware that one’s actions will cause harm, and notwithstanding that state of knowledge still pressing ahead with one’s actions.
On that basis, there is a strong argument that politicians have been reckless.
The whole “33c” meme is an extreme , computationally useless , dead end fraud . So the utter stagnation of the field is no surprise : http://cosy.com/Science/AGWppt_UtterStagnationShavivGraph.jpg .
We are about 10c ( 3% ) warmer than the 278.7K of a gray ( flat spectrum ) ball in our orbit ( +- ~ 1.3c from peri- to ap- helion ) . [If] it were science , this would be the relevant , computationally useful , value which would be cited .
As long as amateurish memes like the “33c” atmospheric effect , rather than computing the actual equilibrium temperature for the earth’s measured surface spectral map are perseverated , there is not a chance in hell of explaining the 0.3% change in temperature estimated over the course more than a century .
Bob Armstrong,
Thanks for that Nir Shaviv chart. That shows us a lot.
Also, there are still no measurements quantifying AGW! After many decades of investigation and study by thousands of scientists, and government agencies, and various countries and universities, there is still not one single measurement showing the fraction of anthropogenic global warming, out of all global warming, which is purportedly caused by human emissions. Can you say, “Speculation”?
Is AGW 50% of all global warming? We don’t know. Is AGW 5%? We don’t know. Is it 0.05%? We don’t know. Is AGW 0.00%?? We don’t know!
Until there are verifiable, testable measurements, showing the specific fraction of global warming caused by human CO2 emissions, everything said about it is no more than a conjecture. An opinion. We should restructure Western civilization based on a guess?? What if it’s a completely wrong guess?
After spending $billions every year studying this issue, we still have no solid answers. That is the elephant in the room, which no one on the warmist side ever wants to discuss. They would rather discuss mitigation, or count Polar bears, or promote the sea level scare, or the methane scare, or the runaway global warming scare, etc. Anything except come up with measurements of AGW that are mutually acceptable by all sides of the debate.
If we had a reliable, verifiable measurement quantifying AGW, we would also have a way to nail down the climate sensitivity number. And global temperature predictions would be much more accurate and reliable. But as of now, the 10 – 18 year stasis in global warming caught everyone by surprise. That seems to argue for a very low AGW percentage out of total global warming.
The AGW scare isn’t science as much as it is base moneygrubbing, and some folks on the warmist side are milking it for all it’s worth.
@ur momisugly dbstealey February 8, 2015 at 7:26 pm
Well now, … not really, …. but almost everyone.
I have been pretty damn sure, for the past several years now, that it was going to happen.
But I didn’t have a clue as to when it would.
They have been “massaging n’ adjusting” their “fuzzy math” calculated Global Average Temperatures, ….. including their month-to-month and year-to-year “percentage increases” ….. for nigh onto 30 years now, ….. to INSURE their calculated results correlated with the Mauna Loa measured yearly increase in atmospheric CO2, ……. which was a “Fool’s Game” to be playing as far as my learned opinion was concerned.
The historical records are “proof positive” that their flim-flm scam of a “Fool’s Game” was destined to fail.
I don’t believe that a “pause” in global average surface temperatures actually exists, ….. but only appears to exist ….. simply because they can no longer continue with their “upward” adjustments in their “fuzzy math” calculated Global Average Temperatures via use of their highly questionable post-1880 Surface Temperature Record data base.
Don’t be messin with Mother Nature because you are highly likely to get “Frost Bite” more often than not.
Cheers
Bob, 278.7K would be about right for a blackbody in Earth’s orbit. But the Earth is not a blackbody to incoming solar radiation. It has an albedo of about 0.3 which means that it reflects about 30% of the Sun’s radiation. Take this into account, and you see that its temperature should be about 255K, i.e. 33 degrees cooler than the surface actually is.
Indeed, seen from space, the Earth appears to have a temperature of 255K.
It is easy to calculate. Would you like me to do it for you or can you handle that yourself?
This is the pervasive apparent ignorance which caused me to be sucked into this brouhaha and see so much of it as amateurish nonscience .
A radiantly heated gray ball , no matter how light or dark , will come to the same temperature . That is why the gray , it’s not just black body temperature , which can be calculated simply by integrating the total energy impinging on a point , is the value against which the effect of spectrum can be calculated . Here’s a slide which shows 3 hypotheses , all assuming an absorptivity of 0.7 wrt the sun’s spectrum , and their corresponding temperatures : http://cosy.com/Science/AGWpptHypotheticalSpectra.jpg . Note the flat line assuming an absorptivity of 0.7 across the whole spectrum produces the same 278.7 as a black body . Given any object spectrum , its equilibrium can be calculated by the gray body temperature times the ratio of the dot product of its spectrum with that of the source to the dot wrt to the the sink , in this case , ~ 0K .
Given that we must have measured spectra for the planet as seen from the outside , we can calculate a far more realistic value for the lumped earth+atmosphere ball and the ( 0.7 ; 1.0 ) step function assumption needs to be recognized as the analytically useless extreme crude assumption it is .
It is this computation , relative to the gray body temperature in its orbit which shows that quantitative absurdity of Hansen’s still parroted scare story that Venus is an example of a runaway which could happen to us . Note in terms of temperature the Earth’s effective ratio versus a gray body is about 1.04 ; we are a few percent warmer than the gray body temperature in our orbit . The same is true for Mercury and Mars ( which you probably know has a 95% CO2 atmosphere ) . The ratio for Venus is 2.25 . The highest ratio yet created by humanity is about 2.21 for the material TiNOX ( which I was steered to on SoD’s site ) . And TiNOX has an absorptivity of about 0.95 wrt the solar spectrum . Venus is by far the most reflective of the inner planets with an absorptivity of about 0.1 . Thus it would have to be many times the reflectivity of the most reflective known materials , eg , aluminum foil , in the IR to explain its temperature w/o internal heat .
Thus Hansen’s claim is BS , QED ,
BTW , despite the bad science it displays , NASA lists the useless value for a ( 0.1 ; 1.0 ) step function spectrum for Venus as its “Black Body” temperature ( somewhere around 235K as I remember ) . Utterly useless for any purpose other than propaganda..
It has recently occurred to me that I have never seen an explanation of where the planet is 255K . Certainly there has to be a transition up from wherever that temperature occurs and outer space in our orbit where the gray body temperature is about 279K . I have often wondered if un-thermalized solar radiation is neglected in energy computations in the upper atmosphere . Living at 2500 meters up in the Front Range , that direct radiant energy is literally palpable .
Bob Armstrong
Heck. I’ve just been trying to get somebody anywhere to tell me what latitudes and elevations and how much area of the planet has this supposed 255K temperature!
The glaring leap is from the contention that from the outside the earth looks like a 255K ball with a 0.3 reflectivity wrt the solar spectrum , and black with 0.0 reflectivity at longer wavelengths to the claim that that is what the spectrum the surface of the earth exhibits — which clearly false . The effect of the atmosphere is only the delta between the spectrum of the surface and that seen from the outside but this stagnate nonscience seems incapable of getting beyond that uselessly crude and biased meme .
I believe that our few percent excess over our gray body temperature , much less the tenths of a percent variation we’ve seen will never be explained in terms of uniform spectrum over the sphere . However even a small temporal or latitudinal variation could — easily .
If , for instance , cloud cover increases at night , that could do it . Willis Eschenbach gave an interesting talk at the last Heartland conference , http://climateconferences.heartland.org/willis-eschenbach-iccc9-panel-19/ , on variation in the timing of mid-day clouds in the tropics . That sort of phenomenon alone could explain all the 4th decimal place variations we’ve recorded .
I’ve got it now Bob., you are just incapable of understanding. But, please, don’t stop spreading your ignorance. It gets a good reception from the ignorati.
I assume you are talking about this slide :
http://cosy.com/Science/AGWpptHypotheticalSpectra.jpg
Could you be more specific ? What am I failing to understand ? For all of our edification , and to establish a core of universally agreed basic science , what are the errors in my algorithms — which to me seem straight forward application of undergraduate level radiative heat transfer ?
Please give us your correct computations .
You do know what a dot product is , right ?
Or is it that you just can’t accept the implications that Hansen’s that Venus’s horror story can’t happen to us even if we don’t submit our rationality and prosperity to the collective mediocrity ?
To me, it appears extremely obvious that there can be no ‘runaway’ warming (or cooling) effect of any kind in our climate. If there was, the climate would have runaway with itself aeons ago, as it would have been so horribly unstable.
As soon as I came across this, I pretty much started to ignore everything else in the arsenal of the Warming Catastrophiles. Until this is addressed, there is no point discussing CAGW because ‘the debate is over’, the reason being that there is nothing to fear from a 1 or 2K temperature rise by the time fossil fuels are replaced due to scarcity (probably a century or so).
I’m assuming you have heard of ‘Snowball Earth’, so presumably you don’t believe in it.
I think it’s very clear there are no “tipping points” anywhere above the current temperature , but 0c is the elephantine tipping point around , and clearly has been crossed a number of times . However , even that is not crossed all the way to the equator and I”m skeptical of a total “snowball earth” ever having happened . But , I’m just a dilettante wrt these issues .
Something that recently struck me in graphs of temperature over the ice age cycles is that the “unfrozen” periods are just narrow plateaus between the colder periods . And when looked at a little more closely the peaks look blunted , as if , if anything some negative feedback keeps them from continuing upward .
Ball: You present no data that supports your claim.
@trafamadore and you sir present nothing !!
Thank god you pointed that out!
I was on the verge of completely renouncing my skepticism. That trafamadore is one silver-tongued devil.
And smart, too.
Sun Spot says it for me, too.
oh my
Figure 1 shows the radiative forcing including uncertainties of CO2 at 2.03 W/m^2 while aerosols at -2.10 W/m^2. IPCC should say we don’t know if CO2 has a net effect at all because aerosols could have cancelled all of it.
For many years I have attempted to promote the idea that water vapor must be actively described as what it is: the principle greenhouse gas. 04 February 2015 marked the completion of 25 years of measuring the ozone layer, aerosol optical thickness, UV-B and water vapor at my Texas site. Total column water vapor over these 25 years has not increased as the modelers would have us believe. It’s declined around 1.5 mm/decade. Other sites also show declines. (Paper in preparation to update my GRL paper on 12 years of column water vapor measurements.)
[Thank you. Can you release the paper here, or must it remain secluded until the paper is printed in ink? .mod]
Water is not only the most important GHG, it is the only important one. It dissolves, releases, and controls CO2, which has thus only derivative influence.
This is why I always cringe when I hear someone claim that hydrogen powered vehicles are “zero emissions” vehicles because they only exhaust water vapor. Be careful though, this post might give the AGW crowd another reason to argue against those GHG spewing nuclear power plant cooling towers!
I think the question(s) in the article has been answered. The primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas is CO2. Changes to water vapour are considered a feedback. Changes to clouds are also considered a feedback – clouds are not water vapour.
And the rain falling from the clouds is not water, ……RIGHT?
The rain falling from clouds is liquid water.
YUP, and the “heat” absorbing H2O is the “forcing” backfeeder of that “heat” to the heat” radiating CO2 which is the “backfeeding” forcer of the “heat” that is causing global warming.
Here is a question I sent to Environment Canada after they posted a page (no deleted) from their web site.
Following the question I sent in 2005, is the response:
Question submitted in Aug 23, 2005…
I was looking at the Glbal warming site maintained by your department. It does not identify the proportion of global warming attributed by the various gases. One would think that the most abundant greenhouse gas would contribute the most global warming? What would that gas be? How much of the global warming in percentage is attributable to that gas? How much error is associated with that calculation? What percentage of global warming is attributed to the least abundant gases? How are their contributions measured against the error estimates of the most abundant contributions?
Response to Question received September 7, 2005
Mr. Westhaver,
Thanks for your message. Here is the background information about greenhouse gases.
Water vapour is the most potent and abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, the change of water vapour’s concentration in the atmosphere is determined primarily by changes in atmospheric temperature and related effects on the hydrological cycle. Thus, an increase in other greenhouse gases, which warms the atmosphere and surface, would increase the atmospheric concentration of water vapour. It will then amplify the initial warming effect of the other greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, concentration of the other greenhouse gases have been increasing rapidly since the industrial revolution began (carbon dioxide have increased by 31%, methane by 151% and nitrous by 17%). Carbon dioxide accounts for about two thirds of the predicted increases in enhanced greenhouse effect due to fossil fuel combustion. Thus, carbon dioxide is considered as the major contributor to the global warming.
For your reference, you can check the following web site
(http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/understanding/greenhouse_gases/index_e.html)
to obtain more in-depth information about enhanced greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases and radiative forcing.
Thanks,
Hoppa Lau
Science Assessment and Integration Branch/ACSD/MSC
Environment Canada
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/
Here are the actual water vapor numbers versus temperature. If Environment Canada was right about CO2/GHGs controlling water vapor to such a great extent, the empirical data below would be following the Red line.
But it is not and the water vapor feedback, CO2/GHG controlling water vapor levels is just not happening as assumed in the theory. It is only 30% to 50% as strong as they have built into the theory.
http://s28.postimg.org/sqwgzuyvx/Hadcrut4_vs_PCWV_CC_Relation_May14.png
Bill Illis , looking at your plot I can’t help thinking that there seems to be 2 populations and that the distribution after an anomaly of 0.2C is not the same as that at lower temperature .
Would one expect this difference with what is presumably a simple slight increase in temperature? Not from basic physical chemistry.
However in recent years , an anomaly of 0.2-0.3C corresponds to the period 2000-2002 when the hiatus began or was underway , and the period that seems to correspond to a step- up in temperature anomaly.
I may be misunderstanding the plot but it looks as if at the present time , in the global temperatures and mean water vapour concentrations that we are currently experiencing , that the temperature anomaly is strongly dependent on the concentration of water molecules in the atmosphere. We know that the anomaly has not been following the CO2 concentration as closely as expected in the past 15 years .
Water vapor follows the ENSO very, very closely. It is, in fact, the main driver of tropical and global water vapor levels by a mile.
Hadcrut4 was in the 0.2C range when there were more El Ninos in this particular time-period, 1948 to 2014. Just a random variation in how the numbers set-up more than anything.
http://s28.postimg.org/te6wz6m1p/PCWV_IPCC_AR5_1948_Aug14.png
” Thus, an increase in other greenhouse gases, which warms the atmosphere and surface, would increase the atmospheric concentration of water vapour. It will then amplify the initial warming effect of the other greenhouse gases. ”
The little empiricists should stick to the only thing empiricism can do, deliver post hoc descriptions.
Delete………………….
That’s what public officials do when provided everything they need to grasp the fallacy of AGW.
The width and depth of available science to show their CO2 boogeyman is not real is willingly and purposefully avoided and dismissed while every location, source and messenger is smeared as anti-science.
100,000 square miles of irrigated farmland in the US contributing 1,920,000 gallons per square mile of evaporated water per day.
Transpiration is thought to yield a tenth of the world’s atmospheric water.
Some of the more bizarre findings of the survey of American adults (all direct quotes from the survey):
1. Nearly half (47%) incorrectly say that fossil fuels are the fossilized remains of dinosaurs.
2. Twenty percent of Americans say fossil fuels come from uranium in the Earth.
3. A majority believes that nuclear power plants also contribute to global warming.
4. Almost half of Americans (49%) incorrectly believe that the space program contributes to
global warming.
I won’t even go into the pandering/parroting nature of the editorial statements of “incorrectness” or “correctness” of the authors, especially in the sections titled “Climate skeptic arguments” and “Impacts” – most of which are patently wrong and blindly accepting of the IPCC position.
Steve,
Stop it, you’re scaring me!
Aye, it’s hard to effectively argue with an CAGW Alarmist when the audience are all chimps.
They will never understand.
Some time ago I used MODTRAN to investigate this, and the entirety of the effect of increased CO2 (40ppm) looks like a 4% increase in water vapor, i. e. 4.0% to 4.16% (molar fraction). MODTRAN does not account for any feedback, though. All I was interested in was a rough estimate.
Thank you for the long-term effort, here. It is interesting that you, and others on this forum find little or no increase in H2O vapor. The idea in climate modeling is that the atmosphere water vapor RH maintains a fixed relationship via the clausius-clapeyron equation, but this assumes equilibrium, or a fixed state of non-equilibrium. This model of feedback is likely too simple, and is just a stab in the dark in order to get a functioning model.
The AGW theory is that greenhouse gases provide an LWIR radiant insulation effect in our atmosphere restricting heat energy flow causing warming at the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere and cooling in the upper atmosphere. That is how insulation works. If this were the case then I would expect that the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases would be a prominent part of computations of the temperature lapse rate but they do not. The lapse rate is a function of the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the pressure gradient and is not a function of the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases. So there is no evidence that the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases has any effect on the transport of heat energy flow in the atmosphere. It is often stated that greenhouse gases absorb IR radiation but then they radiate it out in all directions. If that is true then they do not trap heat because as soon as they absorb the energy they lose it again. The description is of radiation diffusion and not heat trapping.
willhaas,
Mmmm hmm. The photons being radiated back down by a given GHG molecule still “need” to make it back to space somehow, which means striking something, being absorbed, and radiated back in the up direction. So it’s a probability problem. Photons at lower levels of the atmosphere have less chance of making it to space than photons in the upper atmosphere. So we get a warmer troposphere and cooler stratosphere. Add more GHGs and we get an even warmer troposphere and even cooler stratosphere.
Despite being closer to the Sun, the top of Venus’ atmosphere is even cooler than Earth’s for this very reason.
Radiative diffusion might well be the better way to describe the actual process, but the effect is the same at as insulation at the surface — reduction in the net rate of upward energy flux.
It does not matter how many bounces the photons make. If the energy is not retained, sensible heat is not increased. In the troposphere heat transport by convection dominates. The temperature lapse rate is a function of the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the pressure gradient. The LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases has no effect.
Willhaus:
“It does not matter how many bounces the photons make. If the energy is not retained, sensible heat is not increased. In the troposphere heat transport by convection dominates. The temperature lapse rate is a function of the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the pressure gradient. The LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases has no effect.”
If the photons are “bouncing” in the system, then by definition energy is retained. It is not lost until the photon makes it out to space. Sensible heat IS the retention of photons, not the emittance of them.
The LR of a rotating (coriolis effect important for heat transport) planetary atmosphere is a natural consequence of turbulent motion and convection. OK, what you say is true but then that goes on to transport air up/down, which creates the LR. Gravity does not cause it. Nor GHG’s. Simply air moving up down. Add water and you get moist convection, and an SALR, which means that ELR’s develop as a midpoint. Add GHG’s and the LR is pinned at elevation in the atmosphere. More gas and that point rises – and it become warmer below that point and colder above…. a colder Strat, ego Venus (despite being closer to the Sun). The signal of the GHE.
@ur momisugly Brandon Gates February 9, 2015 at 6:34 pm
Not so, …. due to the curvature of the earth’s surface the majority of those re-radiated or reflected photons from the surface have a 180+ degree “window” via which they can potentially make it back into space through. And as the altitude increases ….. the ppm of all atmospheric gasses decreases ….. thus lessening the chances of a photon collision with a molecule of said gasses.
Shooting a shotgun at a soaring “claybird” target doesn’t insure that all the “shot pellets” fired will strike the “claybird” smattering it into smitterenes. Regardless of what some might believe.
Samuel C Cogar,
Well … to a first approximation a sideways-moving photon at the surface is going to need to go through even more atmosphere to make it back out to space. So my 50% up/down argument, which I use only as a shorthand convenience in thought experiments, if taken literally effectively provides the shortest path out of the system possible.
We already estimate that some 40 W/m^2 of upwelling LW it out unabated by virtue of it not being at wavelengths where any GHG in the atmosphere is active. That’s got nothing to do with directionality and everything to do with the vibrational modes of the molecules in question.
Another reason why going higher in the atmosphere increases the probability of photons escaping. What GHGs are there contribute to net cooling in those layers, not warming.
Toneb above us covers that by saying pretty much what I would have: If the photons are “bouncing” in the system, then by definition energy is retained. It is not lost until the photon makes it out to space. Sensible heat IS the retention of photons, not the emittance of them.
We don’t need all the pellets to hit the pigeon for this mechanism to work because it’s not skeet we’re playing. More like pinball, with a whole hell a lot of balls. Add more balls, score increases faster.
@ur momisugly Brandon Gates February 11, 2015 at 2:20 pm
Brandon, whenever one (1) science-learned person is having a discussion with another person, …. especially another science-learned person, ….. I get highly irritated and “picky” whenever one (1) of said persons injects verbiage of a questionable nature into their commentary as a means of proof or justification for their explanation or claims of “something” of a scientific nature. Anyway, ………..
Brandon, I recall your …. “and radiated back in the up direction” … statement, but nothing about a “50% up/down argument”, …. but given said, I now have to disagree with both of them.
It is a literal fact that “numerical percentages (#%)” are …. reference information ONLY ….. and serve no purpose whatsoever in discussions of actual, factual science OTHER THAN in the context of what they are. In other words, iffen you employ your afore stated 50% value for calculating an actual numerical amount/quantity of thermal (IR) energy being radiated/transported through the atmosphere …… then you are employing “junk science” to create a fictitious “fact”.
Anyway Brandon, EXCLUDING clouds, fogs and mists, …… the “greenhouse” gasses in the atmosphere are not a “brick wall”, …. therefore a photon of IR energy that is radiated from the earth’s surface probably has a 50% chance of making it back to outer space without ever making contact with a molecule of a GHG. Said photon’s travels are akin to a neutrino traveling through the earth.
Anyway, regardless of how many atmospheric GHG molecules the aforesaid photon makes contact with, I would guess that it has less than a 5% chance of being re-radiated directly toward the earth’s surface. Now it might “bing n’ bang” around in the atmosphere for several hours ….. but sooner or later it will make it back to outer space. Thus your “50% up” guess is most probably way, way too low.
Brandon, the radiant emission of a photon of IR energy from the earth’s surface …. is akin to ….. a steel ball bearing being “shot” out of the chute of a Pinball Machine ……. with the GHG molecules being the equivalent of the “Lighted Bumpers” on the playing surface …… and the “dark” of the ball return slot being the equivalent of the cold of outer space.
So, go put a quarter in a Pinball Machine and watch the “live action” of the randomness of energy flow.
@ur momisugly Brandon Gates February 11, 2015 at 2:20 pm
Well now, my estimate is 36.8395 W/m^2 of upwelling LW, ….. so prove that you are right and I am wrong. And after you do that …. then explain to me how you account for the absorbed LW that is being transferred directly to Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules in the atmosphere via contact with the GHG gasses that absorbed said LW?
The fact is, you are only capable of “seeing” the LW, … but you have to guess what its source was. That LW is akin to rabbit tracks in the snow, …… you can see the tracks but you can’t see the rabbit that made the tracks.
And ps, how do you correlate your above stated “40 W/m^2 of upwelling LW” ….. with the stated “15 to 30% upwelling LW” as stated on this graph, to wit:
Really now, how much is ….. 15 to 30% of 40 W/m^2?
Then why don’t they use a single-shot 22 rifle for shooting trap or skeet?
And ps, that mechanism isn’t going to work with all those BS percentages that ya’ll keep flinging to n’ fro at it in hopes that one (1) of them will get caught on a “skyhook”. Given you were touting “sensible heat” …. maybe you autta try some “sensible conversation”.
Samuel C Cogar,
There’s no need for either of us to guess, though I think it’s marvelous that your guesses are so much better than mine. Fortunately, people far more expert than either of us have done the legwork for us and compared ground-based observation to line-by-line radiative transfer codes (ie, models): ftp://ftp.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/smcd/spb/lzhou/AMS86/PREPRINTS/PDFS/100737.pdf
See table 4.
Here’s another one doing much the same thing based on observations from satellites. Specifically interesting is the noticeable change in optical thickness of the atmosphere to LW radiation between 1970 and 1997: https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/physics/Public/spat/John/Increase%20in%20greenhouse%20forcing%20inferred%20from%20the%20outgoing%20longwave%20radiation%20spectra%20of%20the%20Earth%20in%201970%20and%201997.pdf
It’s not a difficult guess, just simple probability. No more difficult to estimate than tossing a fair coin and assigning a probability to the outcome of tails. GHG gas molecules don’t know up from down, they happily radiate omnidirectionally, so on balance any given layer of atmosphere is radiating 50% up and 50% down all the time. Closer that layer of atmosphere is to TOA, the higher the probability that upwelling radiation will make it to space.
I’m sorry, I thought this was a discussion about science, not rhetoric 101.
I’m not going to do the Gish Gallop with you either.
At the very least, we can rule out teleportation. However when we see changes in certain expected spectral absorption lines, one may reasonably infer that the gasses associated with those spectral lines might just be responsible. From there it’s a cinch to compare that to observed changes in said gasses atmospheric concentration and figure out that …. hmm … one thing is probably causing the other.
40 W/m^2 is the 15 to 30%. 17% is the figure I’d give based on outgoing IR at TOA at 240 W/m^2.
Right. Whatever.
Brandon Gates February 13, 2015 at 8:12 pm
So, the photons being emitted from an incandescent light bulb “happily radiate omnidirectionally” (except from the base connection) ….. but 50% of those emitted photons radiate upwards and the other 50% radiate downward, …. all the time.
WOW, dats an amazing fact I wasn’t aware of.
So, what you are claiming is, iffen a portion of the near-surface atmosphere warms up or heats up from a temperature of 45 F to a temperature of 95 F due to the GHG gasses resident therein said portion, …… for a total increase of 50 degrees F , ….. then that said portion of the atmosphere will never “cool back down” to 69 degrees F, ……. RIGHT?
WOWEE, another amazing fact I needed to know.
Brandon, and just which way are the photons going in this picture of IR radiation, …. up or down?
http://certinspectors.com.previewdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/infrared-house-heat-loss1.jpg
“This claim is false because CO2 levels have risen for 18+ years while temperature hasn’t increased, in contradiction to their major assumption that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase.”
You will have a difficult time getting this by any CAGW alarmist.
Only the RSS data has zero slope in the last 18 years. All the others have a positive slope.
Of course, one could argue that the slopes are small, insignificant, mathematically indistinguishable from zero slope, but then you will have lost 90% of the readers at that point.
It will take a little longer to get a definitive answer for the public to believe.
The fact that “the slopes are small, not different from zero, etc.” is not very relevant to the public or reporters as you stated. They will simply point out that global warming, however small has occurred, and this is true.
As it is now, the actual measurements are at the very bottom of what is predicted by the models.
So it will take a few more years. The models obviously are predicting an increase with time. We all know this, the public knows this.
If actual measurements stay about the same or even drops slightly then there will be no need for statistics, the public will see that the actual is indeed different than the predicted.
What is important now is that while CO2 is still increasing, global surface air temperature has barely increased and all the models rely on the increase in CO2 to predict future increases in global surface air temperature. Something has to give!
However, I don’t think this is the issue with the politicians. The very small increase in global temperature is just an excuse to stop the use of fossil fuels. Blame it on CO2, scare the public, we must stop using fossil fuels. Despite the fact that at most 3% of the total atmospheric CO2 is produced by fossil fuels use. Dr. Ball declared that CO2 is “not well-mixed”. The OCO-2 satellite preliminary results from NASA clearly show that he is wrong.
The world wide range map was 387 to 402 ppm! If this is not well mixed, I don’t know what is. I am willing to wait for more data coming in March, but what was interesting was the three high “spots” at around 402 ppm where identified by NASA as from tectonically active process from the underlying seafloor. So, maybe CO2 did contribute to the very small increase in global surface temperature, but was it coming from burning fossil fuels or from methane emanating from below the sea floor and oxidized to CO2 while rising to the surface of the ocean and exhaled in the atmosphere? Possible? The increase in atmospheric CO2 is really “from Mother nature”? Maybe?
It will be quite interesting to follow the OCO-2 satellite results coming next March. I can’t wait.