From the “this ought to shut up the “Skydragon slayers” department. Despite sophomoric claims that I’m a “denier”, I’ve never disputed that CO2 has a role in warming via retardation of IR transfer from the surface to the top of the atmosphere. What is really the issue related to AGW claims are the posited/modeled but not observed feedbacks and the logarithmic (not linear) saturation curve response of CO2. Along those lines, eyeballing the graph presented from the north slope of Alaska, it appears there might be a bit of a slowdown or “pause” in the rate of forcing from about 2007 onward. Hopefully, LBL will release the data for independent analysis.
First direct observation of carbon dioxide’s increasing greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface
Berkeley Lab researchers link rising CO2 levels from fossil fuels to an upward trend in radiative forcing at two locations
Scientists have observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface for the first time. The researchers, led by scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s increasing capacity to absorb thermal radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface over an eleven-year period at two locations in North America. They attributed this upward trend to rising CO2 levels from fossil fuel emissions.
The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now. The research is reported Wednesday, Feb. 25, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature.
The results agree with theoretical predictions of the greenhouse effect due to human activity. The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today’s climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2.
The scientists measured atmospheric carbon dioxide’s contribution to radiative forcing at two sites, one in Oklahoma and one on the North Slope of Alaska, from 2000 to the end of 2010. Radiative forcing is a measure of how much the planet’s energy balance is perturbed by atmospheric changes. Positive radiative forcing occurs when the Earth absorbs more energy from solar radiation than it emits as thermal radiation back to space. It can be measured at the Earth’s surface or high in the atmosphere. In this research, the scientists focused on the surface.
They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010. Much of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, according to a modeling system that tracks CO2 sources around the world.
“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper.
“Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect,” Feldman adds.
He conducted the research with fellow Berkeley Lab scientists Bill Collins and Margaret Torn, as well as Jonathan Gero of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Timothy Shippert of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Eli Mlawer of Atmospheric and Environmental Research.
The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. These instruments, located at ARM research sites in Oklahoma and Alaska, measure thermal infrared energy that travels down through the atmosphere to the surface. They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2.
Other instruments at the two locations detect the unique signatures of phenomena that can also emit infrared energy, such as clouds and water vapor. The combination of these measurements enabled the scientists to isolate the signals attributed solely to CO2.
“We measured radiation in the form of infrared energy. Then we controlled for other factors that would impact our measurements, such as a weather system moving through the area,” says Feldman.
The result is two time-series from two very different locations. Each series spans from 2000 to the end of 2010, and includes 3300 measurements from Alaska and 8300 measurements from Oklahoma obtained on a near-daily basis.
Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade. This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.
Based on an analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s CarbonTracker system, the scientists linked this upswing in CO2 -attributed radiative forcing to fossil fuel emissions and fires.
The measurements also enabled the scientists to detect, for the first time, the influence of photosynthesis on the balance of energy at the surface. They found that CO2 -attributed radiative forcing dipped in the spring as flourishing photosynthetic activity pulled more of the greenhouse gas from the air.
###
The scientists used the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab, to conduct some of the research.
The research was supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
“They attributed this upward trend to rising CO2 levels from fossil fuel emissions.”
With absolutely NO proof of causation.
{35:41} 1. AGWers claim that human CO2 dilutes atmospheric Carbon 13; for this to be true, native sources of CO2 must NOT dilute C13;
{36:34} 2. Native Source of CO2 – 150 (96%) gigatons/yr — Human CO2 – 5 (4%) gtons/yr (i.e., native = 2 orders of magnitude greater than human);
{37:01} 3. Native Sinks Approximately* Balance Native Sources – net CO2
*Approximately = even a small imbalance can overwhelm any human CO2;
{37:34} 4. Since many native sources also involve Carbon 13, leaner than in the atmosphere, “ALL BETS ARE OFF.”
Source: Dr. Murry Salby’s April, 2013 Hamburg lecture , published on youtube:
Janice,
1. There are only two sources of low 13CO2: recent organics and fossil organics. All other sources (volcanoes, oceans, carbonate rocks) are higher in 13C/12C ratio than the atmosphere.
Recent organics, that is the whole biosphere, is a net absorber of CO2, thus of preferably 12CO2, thus not the cause of the 13C/12C decline, only human emissions are…
2. Currently 9 GtC/year of human emissions and growing, thus going to 1 order of magnitude difference…
3. The measured imbalance between natural sources and sinks over the past 55 years is +/- 1 ppmv. Human emissions are 4.5 ppmv/year and the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is over 2 ppmv/year. Thus human emissions and increase in the atmosphere both are larger than the natural imbalance…
4. That simply is not true, see point 1.
Ferdinand,
Your unsupported statement: “1. … the whole biosphere, is a net absorber of CO2;”
is mere conjecture.
Janice
Thank you for providing the opportunity to present this from Dr. Murry Salby’s Hamburg lecture (above in this comment http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/25/almost-30-years-after-hansens-1988-alarm-on-global-warming-a-claim-of-confirmation-on-co2-forcing/#comment-1868870 ):
{39:40} 1. High CO2 values (per SCIAMACHY satellites) are not in industrialized nor highly populated regions, they are in Amazon basin, tropical Africa, and SE Asia.
{41:20} 2. Observed deviations of global mean (natural) CO2 deviate widely, sometimes more than 100% from year to year, decade to decade – they are INcoherent with human CO2 emission rate, i.e, net global natural emission evolves independently of human emission.
{42:35} 3. Observed global (land or ocean measurements) CO2 emission has strong sensitivity (.93 correlation [43:41]) to surface properties (mostly temperature, c = .8, and also soil moisture), i.e., increase in either increases CO2 native emissions.
{44:28} 4. C13 has strong coherence with temp. and soil moisture, but inversely, temp. up = C13 down; {45:15} the same is seen in the ice proxies.
{45:22} 5. Satellite record shows that the emissions are clearly NOT human, unless human emissions cause volcanic eruptions and El Nino.
Ferdinand, where are the other 2 ppm going? I understand that the obvious source for the 13C seems to be anthropogenic, but I am not convinced of the connection between human emissions and rising global CO2 (although, it seems like a likely culprit). What I mean is, we are discussing two separate metrics; the composition of atmospheric CO2, and the composition of the atmosphere itself. Both are changing, but your evidence speaks more to the former rather than the latter. Can you elaborate on why you think there is a connection and can confidently rule out natural sources? Thanks for your comments thus far!
How accurate is this Video? It makes perfect sense to me.
Hi, Oz Ric 101,
I agree! It is highly persuasive (not being a scientist, I had to watch it 3 times to really understand, but well worth it).
As to its accuracy, while I cannot personally verify that for you, I can offer you this evidence of Dr. Salby’s being highly qualified to speak to the issue and also likely being correct in his analysis:
1. There are other excellent scientists who agree with him.
2. Here is a list of Salby’s published work (pretty impressive):
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Search?query=Murry%20L.%20Salby
Even more impressive is the number of citations to each of his published works: Click on the (Citations:54) line to see them.
3. Here is his (cringe) Wikipedia bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murry_Salby
4. Dr. Pehr Bjornborn of Sweden replicated Dr. Salby’s work: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.se/2013/07/swedish-scientist-replicates-dr-murry.html
There! Hope that is helpful.
Your friendly research librarian (who does not want to do anymore for you at this time!),
Janice
Janice,
The whole biosphere (plants, bacteria, molds, insects, animals) is a net absorber of CO2. That can be calculated from the oxygen decline in the atmosphere: every type of fossil fuel burning uses its own amount of oxygen when burned.
Since about 1990 the methods of measuring oxygen in the atmosphere were accurate enough to measure a change of less that 1 ppmv oxygen within 210,000 ppmv in the atmosphere. That shows that there is less oxygen used than needed by burning fossil fuels. Thus the biosphere as a whole is a net producer of oxygen, that means a net absorber of CO2 and preferably 12CO2, leaving relative more 13CO2 in the atmosphere. The earth is greening…
Thus the biosphere as a whole (or anything else) is not the cause of the firm decline of the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere. As that is the only huge known source of low 13CO2 on earth besides fossil organics, what is left are human emissions.
If Dr. Salby had informed himself about this (not so) recent scientific knowledge, he would have known that.
See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short
and
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf up to 2002
If you or Dr. Salby can point to any other important sources of low-13C besides recent and fossil organics, I may change my mind…
Joseph Murphy,
See the second link in the previous reply.
In general the distribution of about halve the ~9 GtC human emissions is partly in vegetation, partly in the oceans. For the period 1990-2000, a nice distribution graph was made, based on the oxygen changes in the atmosphere:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/bolingraph.gif
“In general the distribution of about halve the ~9 GtC human emissions is partly in vegetation, partly in the oceans. For the period 1990-2000, a nice distribution graph was made, based on the oxygen changes in the atmosphere:”
In general we do not have adequate measurements and knowledge of sources and sinks to say that your graph and comment is anything other than speculation. More hot air to try and help the CO2 myth along.
Janice Moore February 25, 2015 at 1:53 pm
Again Janice, Dr. Salby is right and wrong on these points:
1. The equatorial oceans are the main natural source of a continuous influx of CO2 due to the upwelling of CO2 rich deep ocean waters. But Dr. Salby doesn’t mention the equally important continuous outflux of CO2 in the polar sink places, where slightly more CO2 sinks in the deep oceans as what is upwelling near the equator. The estimates, based on 13C and 14C decline are around 40 GtC/year continuous influx and around 43 GtC/year outflux.
2. The variability in natural sink rate does vary +/- 1 ppmv from year to year (Pinatubo, El Niño), but that is the variability around the trend, which levels off within 2-3 years. The trend itself is 2 ppmv/year and human emissions are over 4 ppmv/year. Thus human emissions are twice the natural variability in net sink rate, that is the difference between the sum of all natural influxes and the sum of all natural outfluxes… The overall increase in the atmosphere is in extremely fixed in ratio with human emissions, but the short term variability is quite obviously linked to fast variations in temperature.
3. and 4. Agreed, but that is only for the variability: seasonal that is caused by the NH extra-tropical vegetation, short term (2-3 years) that is caused by tropical vegetation (temperature, drought), but decadal and longer, that is not caused by vegetation, as vegetation is a net sink for CO2 over time…
But that is NOT seen in ice proxies: the main change in CO2 between ice ages and interglacials is from the (deep) oceans, not from vegetation. That can be seen in very small changed of a few tenths per mil δ13C in the past 800,000 years. Until about 1850: a drop of 1.6 per mil δ13C in the past 165 years in ice cores, firn and direct measurements…
5. Satellite records – until now – can’t detect the faint human emissions because they lack the precision needed for emissions of 0.01 ppmv/day caused by humans. Maybe the new OCO-2 satellite can do better…
Ferdinand and Janice, interesting as this back and forth is, it is difficult to see whether the numbers you easily throw around are of any significance. No error bars. 4 pomv this and 2 ppmv that.
Not to single you out Ferdinand, the neat little neat graph you show gives no idea of the the scatter. Which IMO would be reality. It looks like model generated. Also some of your explanations, seem plausible, (upwelling CO2) but without any numbers behind them it is merely interesting. And quickly grows tiresome.
Dear DEEBEE,
With a little effort on your part, you could easily verify the underlying numbers and identify the error bars. Did you watch Dr. Murry Salby’s lecture? There are many sources, easily accessible online, where you can verify the parts per million of CO2 and other figures.
Would you want to be spoon-fed all the information, anyway? A genuine scholar would verify these things for him or herself.
If you are bored, perhaps you are in the wrong classroom… .
Janice
http://carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net/
Volcanic Carbon Dioxide
Timothy Casey B.Sc. (Hons.)
Consulting Geologist
Uploaded ISO:2009-Oct-25
Revision 3 ISO:2014-Jun-07
Abstract
A brief survey of the literature concerning volcanogenic carbon dioxide emission finds that estimates of subaerial emission totals fail to account for the diversity of volcanic emissions and are unprepared for individual outliers that dominate known volcanic emissions. Deepening the apparent mystery of total volcanogenic CO2 emission, there is no magic fingerprint with which to identify industrially produced CO2 as there is insufficient data to distinguish the effects of volcanic CO2 from fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere. Molar ratios of O2 consumed to CO2 produced are, moreover, of little use due to the abundance of processes (eg. weathering, corrosion, etc) other than volcanic CO2 emission and fossil fuel consumption that are, to date, unquantified. Furthermore, the discovery of a surprising number of submarine volcanoes highlights the underestimation of global volcanism and provides a loose basis for an estimate that may partly explain ocean acidification and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels observed last century, as well as shedding much needed light on intensified polar spring melts. Based on this brief literature survey, we may conclude that volcanic CO2 emissions are much higher than previously estimated, and as volcanic CO2 contributions are effectively indistinguishable from industrial CO2 contributions, we cannot glibly assume that the increase of atmospheric CO2 is exclusively anthropogenic.
The biosphere is responding to increased CO2, as is to be expected on a homeostatic planet.
Gosselin estimates that at present rate of emission, CO2 should stop increasing in about 30 years, thanks to the greening of Earth.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/05/carbon-dioxide-will-cease-to-be-a-problem-as-biosphere-absorbs-increasing-amounts-of-co2/#sthash.yiYzSGme.dpbs
Dear Milodon,
Thank you for providing us with all that helpful information and insightful analysis.
Hope all is well in Cheelay :),
Janice
Which implies stabilization at an equilibrium around 460 ppm, followed possibly by decline, especially if other power sources replace fossil fuels.
That level of CO2 is still far below optimum for most plants, but far better than the 280 ppm at the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid- or late 19th century.
Janice,
You´re welcome.
Well here, thanks.
No Mag 6, 7, 8 or 9 earthquakes so far this year. Had a protracted 5+ last week here (Valpo Region) though.
Hope all’s well in your Area of Operation, too.
John
Mike,
I too would like their water vapor observations.
So far the effect of an atmosphere richer in plant food has been beneficial to life on earth.
A new equilibrium state will be reached, IMO, before mid-century. If we weren’t burning fossil fuels, it would be good for the planet to do so, as long as real pollution is controlled, as unfortunately it has not been in the dark, satanic mills of rapidly industrializing, Dickensian China.
Doing a back of the envelope calculation 0.2C per decade means that it would takes 185 years to get to the IPCC figure of 3.7 W/m2 for a doubling of CO2 concentration. Is that about the time period that the Industrial Age started up to now?
DeeBee,
Sorry for the late reply, the Greenpeace attack on Willie Soon was here in the press too, I had a good time with providing some backfire…
Atmospheric CO2 measurements are accurate to +/- 0.2 ppmv. Oxygen measurements are better than +/- 1 ppmv and human emissions are estimates (based on fuel production and sales) accurate to -1/+2 ppmv.
Errors in one year for CO2 and O2 measurements are compensated in the next year(s) as the changes are additive. That is not so for the human emissions, but these are probably more underestimated than overestimated (by under the counter sales…).
All together, the error bars are quite small compared to the year by year and overall increases/decreases.
milodonharlani February 26, 2015 at 7:39 am
I had read your source some time ago. For a geologist he makes a lot of assumptions which don’t fit reality…
– Take the amount of CO2 released by volcanoes: except for the Toba all huge eruptions are a factor 100-500 smaller that human emissions over one year (MtC vs. GtC). Even the Pinatubo didn’t show up in the Mauna Loa measurements, only negative: more uptake than usual…
– There is nothing magic to distinguish volcanic from human CO2 emissions: the 13C/12C ratio of subduction volcanoes is near zero per mil, as that comes mainly from carbonates, while deep magma volcanoes emit CO2 at around -6 per mil, about what the atmosphere is, but the average of human emissions is around -25 per mil.
– As far as I know, most elements that can be oxidized on earth are oxidized. But even if that wasn’t the case, the oxygen decline in the atmosphere is less than calculated from the use of fossil fuels. Thus there is a source of oxygen at work. I do know only one main source of oxygen: photosynthesis. That clearly does overwhelm any use of oxygen by any other process besides fossil fuel burning.
– Underwater volcanoes may be underestimated, but most of their CO2 doesn’t reach the surface as at the pressure and temperature of the deep oceans the waters are undersaturated for CO2. Further, there is no measurable increase in upwelling or throughput of oceanic CO2…
– Oceanic acidification by stronger acids from underwater volcanoes do lower the pH, but that is accompanied by a decrease in total carbon (DIC) in the oceans. What is observed is an increase in DIC for a lower pH, thus the net flux of CO2 is from the atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse.
Thus a lot of assumptions, not based on what is observed in the real world…
Ferdinand,
Why do you quote molecular abundances in ppmv rather than just ppm. Who cares what the volume is; its the number of each molecular species molecules that matters; not the volume.
George,
In general ppm is used and implied for gases as molecular ratio which for ideal gases is “by volume” in dry air. Water vapor being a big exception in that game. But some use ppm as “by weight”, especially in liquids. This is just to avoid confusion… See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts-per_notation#Mass_fraction_vs._mole_fraction_vs._volume_fraction
Salby is your credible source?
‘A National Science Foundation investigation report issued on 20 February 2009 found that Salby had overcharged his grants and violated financial conflict of interest policies, displaying “a pattern of deception, a lack of integrity, and a persistent and intentional disregard of NSF and University rules and policies” and a “consistent willingness to violate rules and regulations, whether federal or local, for his personal benefit.” It debarred Salby from receiving federal assistance and benefits until 13 August 2012.
After leaving Colorado, Salby joined the faculty of Macquarie University in Australia, where he was appointed Professor of Climate Risk in 2008. Salby’s employment at Macquarie was terminated in 2013; his return ticket from Paris was cancelled by Macquarie, stranding Salby in Europe. Macquarie University stated that he was not dismissed because of his views on climate change, but for refusing to fulfill his teaching responsibilities and for inappropriate use of university resources including a corporate credit card.’
“Salby is your credible source?
‘A National Science Foundation investigation report issued on 20 February 2009 found that Salby had overcharged his grants and violated financial conflict of interest policies, displaying “a pattern of deception, a lack of integrity, and a persistent and intentional disregard of NSF and University rules and policies” and a “consistent willingness to violate rules and regulations, whether federal or local, for his personal benefit.” It debarred Salby from receiving federal assistance and benefits until 13 August 2012.
After leaving Colorado, Salby joined the faculty of Macquarie University in Australia, where he was appointed Professor of Climate Risk in 2008. Salby’s employment at Macquarie was terminated in 2013; his return ticket from Paris was cancelled by Macquarie, stranding Salby in Europe. Macquarie University stated that he was not dismissed because of his views on climate change, but for refusing to fulfill his teaching responsibilities and for inappropriate use of university resources including a corporate credit card.’”
Assuming that these were not just Political hatchet jobs, and the Macquarie University trash appears to be just that, you are still stuck on stupid with a fallacy.
Dr. Mengele was a horrendously evil man as far as what he perpetrated. You would have us ignore all of his work that so many paid so much suffering and their lives to obtain.
Actually, you are probably fine with the knowledge that Mengele gained for us. It is only Salby, because he doesn’t fit your agenda, that you have a problem with…
@warrenlb
Either your comment above is due to ignorance, or you are trolling. I suspect the latter, based on your previous comments.
If you do a simple archive search here [keyword: Salby], you will see that the charges against Prof. Salby were/are highly questionable. It is the other side of the coin from M. Mann, who was given a completely free pass in every ‘investigation’ that supposedly ‘exonerated’ him.
So you are either naive and credulous, or you are being your usual pestilent self.
Again, I suspect the latter.
Great stuff, Janice. Everyone in London in mid-March, mark your calendars.
Do you suppose that it bothers them that they are measuring a rate of increase that is less than the IPCCs 3.7 w/m^2 for a doubling period that is 14 decades with CO2 emissions going up 5% per decade?
“The biosphere is responding to increased CO2, as is to be expected on a homeostatic planet”
This also what I see too in the graph as the lows in CO2 and forcing over the last 7 years of the study have flat lined. CO2 is being used up by plants. This is what I see in observations of the real world. Photosynthesis is created a strong negative feed back.
Vegetative health/growth is booming. This is also effecting transpiration and the water cycles, adding some water vapor but also increasing low clouds(that have a cooling effect) and producing more rain in the growing seasons.
I would have liked very much to see their measurements of H2O, as this is supposed to more than double the greenhouse effect from CO2. Since they were able to separate out CO2, I wonder why H2O is not part of this?
This is a confirmation of my understanding of the effect of greenhouse gas warming from CO2 and the response from the atmosphere and biosphere.
Mike,
Oops. Please see reply above.
I might add that the US won’t sell China the low-sulfur, high BTU density coal that would help clean up its air, yet we buy windmills & solar panels from them. Even had America the needed rare earths, our environmental regulations would not permit solar cells to be made here.
Windmill & solar farms are environmental disasters, massacring millions of birds & bats, increasing our reliance on insecticides. Besides which “Green” energy requires fossil fuel backup. Craziness on a massive scale.
Re: Mike Maguire (8:44am):
“… the greenhouse effect from CO2. … This is a confirmation of my understanding of the effect of greenhouse gas warming from CO2 … .”
You are strangely determined to keep on asserting (wherever a WUWT thread presents even the slightest opening) the “greenhouse effect from CO2” conjecture as if it were fact despite the fact that, so far, there is no evidence, that CO2 drives climate change (not by a “greenhouse effect” nor by any other speculated means). None. Correlation is not causation.
Even the AGWers admit this by their panicked scrambling for explanations for where the “missing heat” went.
CO2 up –> WARMING STOPPED.
AGW Game Over.
F.E.’s statement that only biogenic sources, including fossil fuels, have lower delta 13C than the atmosphere is mainly true. These biogenic sources include soils, land plants, marine organic C, etc. The highest delta 13C are limestones and the ocean. (Volcanic CO2 resembles the atmosphere.)
However, whereas fossil fuels contribute about 7 gigatons per year, the carbon exchange rate between soils plus vegetation and between the ocean and the atmosphere are an order of magnitude higher. Thus fossil fuels are a minor player in the long-term delta 13C of the atmosphere, and the competition among these other sources are dominant.
@ Donb
Donb,
Mostly true what you say. But the exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere and the ocean and the atmosphere are quite rapid: the 13C/12C decline caused by human emissions is rapidly distributed within the biosphere and the ocean surface. The ratio that goes out in one season mostly comes back in next season.
The deep oceans are where the difference is: what goes into the deep oceans is the isotopic composition of the atmosphere of today (minus the fractionation at the air-water border), what comes out of the oceans is the isotopic composition of ~1000 years ago (minus the fractionation at the water-air border). One can estimate the CO2 exchange between the deep oceans and the atmosphere. based on these differences:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg
The discrepancy in the earlier years is probably from vegetation, which was a small source of low-13C until about 1990 and a small, increasing sink thereafter.
The ~40 GtC/year deep ocean exchange was confirmed by the decay rate of the 14C atomic bomb tests spike since 1960: the rapid decline also was in part caused by the difference in output and input concentrations for 14C via the deep oceans…
“They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations”
A fly on the wall, when the authors were discussing their findings: “Hmm…seem to remember something I read sometime about correlation and causation…nope, it’s gone.”
Anto
Exactly. If the water vapour varied in concert it would be far more likely to be water vapour as the CO2 band is usually saturated at ground level anyway.
Another thing, if the DWIR increase is real, why hasn’t it made a dent in the temperature at these two locations, of equal magnitude, or of any magnitude? I find the readings interesting, for sure. I am sure they measured something very precisely. I am not convinced they have attributed it with equal precision. It looks a leap of faith from measurement to attribution.
Let’s suppose the ‘back radiation’ values are completely accurate and caused by CO2 – that is a possibility. OK, now what? It proves CO2 is a GHG. Is this news? Were they investigating whether it is or not? They cannot attribute the increase of 2/10th of a watt/m^2 unless they have simultaneously factored the result for water vapour increase which is supposed to accompany the CO2 increase – isn’t that how it goes? Where is the total H2O vapour column concentration? Show it then subtract that first.
What I would then look for is whether the expected 1/logarithmic effect for an increase at 400 ppm is being tracked. If it doesn’t match, and has something closer to a linear response to CO2 concentration, then they are blowing smoke.
From 2000 until the end of 2010. That’s the pause isn’t?
Yes, begging the question of why, with the putative increase in forcing, we didn’t see the expected increase in global temperatures.
Please excuse the pedantry, but you mean “raising the question”. “Begging the question” is the name of a logical fallacy, basically assuming what you intend to demonstrate, which is of course what the GIGO climate models do.
Also I cannot understand how CO2 reduces radiation to space when it is a very good emitter of IR.
Most CO2 is volcanogenic not anthropomorphic.
Most CO2 is anthropogenic, not volcanogenic as you put it. We emit 130 times more GHG’s than all the world’s volcanoes combined.
And termites produce 10 times the amount of CO2 as humans.
http://preventdisease.com/news/10/071110_terminte_co2.shtml
Douglas Hollis: Most CO2 is natural and not anthropogenic. You mix in a little truth (that volcano CO2 emissions are less than human CO2 emissions) with a big l1e.
{36:34} — Native Sources of CO2 – 150 (96%) gigatons/yr — Human CO2 – 5 (4%) gtons/yr (i.e., native = 2 orders of magnitude greater than human).
{Source: Dr. Murry Salby, in video posted in this comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/25/almost-30-years-after-hansens-1988-alarm-on-global-warming-a-claim-of-confirmation-on-co2-forcing/#comment-1868870 }
Doug,
Actually no one knows how much naturally occurring CO2 comes from volcanism, since most of it is submarine.
John,
You say “CO2 is a very good emitter of IR”
That may be true. But that doesn’t mean CO2 is a primary source of IR.
So about the only EM radiation CO2 can emit, is the same LWIR that it is absorbing from surface emitted LWIR which is energy in the 5.0 to 80 micron wavelength range. CO2 grabs some of the 13.5 to 16.5 micron band.
That is IR energy that would have escaped to space, if not for the atmosphere.
So the CO2 absorbs some of it, and shortly thereafter, re-radiates essentially the same wavelength.
BUT …. The reradiated IR is isotropic in distribution; it goes in every direction, and only half of that is towards space.
So some of it comes back to the surface. And all the time of course, the CO2 can recapture it and continue the delaying process.
Now since the CO2 is part of a gas mixture at a Temperature above zero K, it can also radiate (at low intensity) a thermal spectrum of radiation that depends on the gas Temperature. That (BB like) radiation is due to the collisions between molecules that distorts the molecule exposing a non zero dipole electrical moment (and other higher multipole antennas as well).
Since the molecular density is low in gases, so they are not opaque in available quantities, the emissivity is very low, but it isn’t zero.
So it is the delaying effect of the GHGs which results in the warming (caused by more solar energy getting in during that delay.
If you partially plug up the drain in your bathtub, to slow down the emptying, but the faucet is still on adding water to the bathtub, then the water level will rise over the level it had before you plugged up the drain partially.
G
Termites produce 50 GT CO2 / yr according to:
“Termites: A Potentially Large Source of Atmospheric Methane, Carbon Dioxide, and Molecular Hydrogen”
Science 5 November 1982:
Vol. 218 no. 4572 pp. 563-565
DOI: 10.1126/science.218.4572.563
@ George E. Smith February 26, 2015 at 8:28 am
BUT, BUT, ….. George E, ….. does not the Law of Diminishing Returns …. apply to the above scenario?
Does not the downward (toward the surface) reradiated IR energy decrease by 50% each and every time it is absorbed and reradiated by another CO2 molecule?
Me thinks it does, me thinks it does.
And whenever there is a minimum or very little (<1%) H2O vapor in the near surface atmosphere (desert areas) then things cool down pretty damn quick when solar irradiance terminates at the end of each day.
Thus, in actuality, 400 to 1,000 ppm of CO2 will have absolutely no measurable effect on near-surface air temperatures.
“””””…..
Samuel C Cogar
February 27, 2015 at 7:47 am
@ George E. Smith February 26, 2015 at 8:28 am
“
BUT …. The reradiated IR is isotropic in distribution; it goes in every direction, and only half of that is towards space.
So some of it comes back to the surface. And all the time of course, the CO2 can recapture it and continue the delaying process.
BUT, BUT, ….. George E, ….. does not the Law of Diminishing Returns …. apply to the above scenario?
Does not the downward (toward the surface) reradiated IR energy decrease by 50% each and every time it is absorbed and reradiated by another CO2 molecule? …..”””””
Well just think this through Sam.
At some height H you have a CO2 molecule absorb a 15 micron photon (which could have come from ANY direction).
Later it re-emits essentially the same photon, again in any direction. About half of those incoming photons came up, and about half came down.
Likewise the re-emitted photons go about half up and half down. It looks like a static symmetry; BUT … !!
Up and down are not quite the same.
Down is denser, and warmer. Up is cooler and less dense.
Warmth and density lead to line broadening; Doppler shift broadening in the case of higher Temperature, and collision broadening in the case of higher density.
So photons headed downwards, see a GHG laden atmosphere with broader absorption lines, so the probability of a photon being absorbed is increased.
Photons headed up, see an atmosphere with narrower absorption lines, so are LESS likely to be absorbed.
So the atmospheric gradients tend to favor the upward escape direction over the downward re-capture direction.
When you take the gradient refractive index of air into account, slightly more than half of a geometric hemisphere of GHG emitted photons head downwards, and slightly less head upwards. BUT
The upward ones are more likely to escape than the downward ones.
Eventually they escape; but all the delaying tactics just allow more solar energy to come in during that delay time.
Sans any absorption in the atmosphere a photon can escape to 300 km height in one millisecond.
The incoming ones from the sun make the atmospheric journey in about a millisecond, but the outgoing takes longer. And no I have never tried to compute how much longer, but I’m sure the X-box chaps can do that. so the delay allows the Temperature to rise slightly compared to what it would be with no delay of the outgoing LWIR.
G
@ george e. smith February 27, 2015 at 1:55 pm
First of all, George E, your 2nd sentence in this statement makes no logical sense, to wit:
Therefore we have to discredit it without any further ado.
And likewise, your next statement, it is also discredited, to wit:
But ells bells, half of those re-emitted photons could be leaving at a 45 degree angle to the zenith …… and half could be leaving at a 33 degree angle to the zenith ………. and half leaving at a 78 degree angle to the zenith. And five (5) halves and twenty (20) quarters does not equal one (1) orb.
And remember, George E, the higher the altitude is when that CO2 molecule emits that photon ….. the less likely it is that that proton will be re-emitted at an angle to make contact with the earth’s surface ….. and the less likely it is to make contact with another CO2 molecule. As the mass density of the GHG gasses decreases with increases in altitude, … so does the decreasing of the photon’s chances of colliding with one of their molecules.
Now the remainder of your verbiage, IMLO, reads awful purdy like, but does nothing to explain the actual, factual near-surface temperature measurements, ….. especially the extremely quick decreases in near-surface temperatures of desert environments of extremely low humidity (H2O vapor).
Climate scientists or whoever …. should set-up some actual “controlled” experiments on some locale of the earth’s surface ……. to test their conjecture ….. before making claims of factual science.
There is an ole design engineering “saying” that goes, to wit:
“If it don’t work on paper ….. then you don’t have a chance in hell of it working when you put it to practice.”
Well now, there is an awful lot of climate science claims out there “on paper”, ….. but very few to none of their authors want to put their “claims” to practice.
Does it make you wonder why they don’t. HA, their reason is quite obvious to me.
@dbstealey.
And your source for saying that the widely reported charges against Salby were ‘highly questionable” is…..?
I have explained that to you, but you ignored it — and then you asked the very same thing again.
Quit trolling, warrenlb, and do the archive search on this site, keyword: Salby.
You will see all kinds of things to set you straight. I suspect that’s why you pretend you don’t understand. You did the search already, and found out way more than you wanted to. The fact is that Prof Salby is the victim of yet another witch hunt by the ethics-free climate alarmist crowd.
When you’ve read the results of your search, report back. Tell us what you found. I will be happy to discuss it here.
0.2 W/m^2? What’s the uncertainty on that value? Per decade? Compared to all the other heat sources? Seems almost below the threshold of detection to me. Is it another statistical construct? Was all the raw data +/- 1.0 W/m^2 with the statistical average carried out to 0.x?
I always have to wonder when they leave out details of technical accuracy and precision of their equipment and assumption.
Well we already have incontrovertible evidence from their new fancy Carbon Satellite that disproves the claim that CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere.
So these two sites that they sampled are just cherry picking.
So you drill a rock core in Oklahoma (might as well; they got orl down there,) And you drill another hole in the North Slope of Alaska; wow there’s orl there too.
And from those two rock cores you describe the complete Geology of the North American continent.
Wow Nyquist must have been wrong. No wonder the telephone system doesn’t work any more.
Two samples from the whole earth, and eleven years does not make a climate cycle.
But I guess I will wait and see what sort of legs this brand new Nobel Prize worthy research has.
So they can isolate IR from CO2 out in the wild, whereas before they could only do it in the lab. I assume they mean the science guy’s 100 watt light bulb experiment.
But ok. Now that we know for sure that CO2 is the culprit, then we don’t need to waste any more taxpayer’s money on research that is already settled science, and bigorl doesn’t need to waste any more money funding Willie Soon to prove it ain’t so, now that it has been proven to be true.
That is going to make a whole lot of new unemployed and otherwise unemployable climate scientists available to do all those odd jobs that Americans simply won’t do.
Well they will, when they finally have to figure out how to put food on their table.
A new day, and a new startling revelation.
I thought this was already concensucised settled science ??
I think I see their problem.
I just looked at their Mauna Loa like graph, and I noticed that there isn’t any Temperature information in there anywhere.
So this is like using you camera light meter to demonstrate that clouds block sunlight.
Well we already knew that.
So what is it that Le Chatalier’s principle says happened as well as their forcing increase, to result in no statistically perceptible Temperature result from that CO2 ??
george e. smith
The satellites don’t disprove the “well mixed” CO2, they show the opposite:
The seasonal exchanges between the atmosphere and the other reservoirs are 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere. The satellite shows +/- 2% differences of full scale. I call that well mixed.
Well mixed doesn’t imply that CO2 at all moments is the same everywhere on earth, that only implies that any source or sink rapidly is mixed in with the rest of the atmosphere…
Humans can not see the CO2 molecules in the atmosphere ….. and neither can a satellite …. so cease with all the silly conjecture that it can.
Well I believe that Nitrogen and Oxygen and Argon too are well mixed in the atmosphere, even though oxygen comes and goes as a result of biological processes that vary all over the place.
So 2% variation is not my idea of well mixed.
Can these satellites discern local variations in the Nitrogen / Oxygen ratio in the atmosphere ?? And is it anything like 2%.
The CO2 satellite photo map that I saw, showed concentrations of CO2 where there were no unusual sources of CO2.
The Mauna Loa CO2 data shows about a 6ppm P-P CO2 abundance annual cycle with about 7 months to rise that much and five months to fall back. Well there’s about a 1-1.5 ppm remainder.
BUT ! at the North Pole, that CO2 p-p cycle in a place where there are no CO2 sources like trees, the amplitude of the CO2 cycle is about 18-20 ppm ; three times the ML amunt.
And at the South pole where likewise no CO2 sources exist, the amplitude of the CO2 cycle is about -1 ppm , meaning it is out of phase with the north pole and ML.
So there is a 19 – 21 ppm difference between the north and south poles.
No that is NOT well mixed.
They give the values as 0.2 +/- 0.06 W/sm for SGP, and 0.2 +/-0.07 W/sm for NSA data set. The seasonal range for SGP was 0.1 – 0.2 W/sm, and for NSA the seasonal range was 0.1 W/sm.
“The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the
Southern Great Plains and the North Slope ofAlaska—are derived from
Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3 together with
ancillarymeasurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer
calculations4
. The time series both show statistically significant trends
of 0.2Wm per decade (with respective uncertainties of +-.06W m^2
per decade and +- .07W m^2 per decade)
You mean model significant, not instrumental significant.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the explanation. I gather that you are looking at the P and R branch differentials to the saturated nu-2, essentially using the pressure broadening effect to gauge the CO2 contribution. An interesting approach. As you know, this can be tricky if the inputs from other gasses in the mix to the “pressure” are not carefully controlled.
I eagerly await your paper which will undoubtedly answer many other questions such as the altitude profile and the measured H2O content and forcing.
Thanks again,
Gordon
Since the time period was cherry picked the results are not robust.
But go ahead and blow some more hot air. It won’t warm the earth any faster than CO2 is…
Why are they using a computer modeling system to track CO2 sources? When we have that brand new satellite that shows exactly where the CO2 really is coming from. Oh yeah it’s not coming mostly from us. The Amazon doesn’t fit in their model’s.
The Amazon source IS human–they are building a dam that will or is flooding large areas of land. That kills the organisms that were there, including an endangered turtle and human beings from indigenous cultures. Rot bacteria produce methane, CH4. This is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2–but it isn’t stable in an atmosphere around 20% oxygen. It becomes H2O and CO2.
The killing of life. THAT is what is producing the main increase in CO2. The alarmists picked up the signal–the Keeling curve. But they have totally misinterpreted it.
This Alaska research is a little silly. All it really says is that atmospheric CO2 is rising. We already knew that.
In Europe, the “heavily industrialized area” of the recent NASA graph is not Germany, France or England; it is Turkey. Huh? Turkey has just built a horrifying dam that is killing life to produce the death-signal you see on the NASA graph. It is also inundating ancient archaeological sites of immense importance, and it is also going to harm the farmers of the vast fertile crescent enormously. That dam is a monstrous crime and the warmists miss it. So do the skeptics.
Most of the warmists are gullible do-gooders who want to save the biosphere. It will be rather easy to knock them off the warming alarmism if they understand the real meaning of the global death signal.
Dams that are still being built cannot by definition have flooded or killed anything and people never sit still waiting to be drowned.
The Deriner Dam in Turkey was only completed in 2012 so it can hardly be responsible for a massive ‘death signal’. IN any case one of the major aims of the dam is to provide a controlled source of water to allow MORE stuff to grow. It is also NOT in Europe but is in fact in Asia.
The fertile crescent lies between the Tigris and Euphrates and the Nile valley. Both of these areas have had managed water systems since the bronze age and are downstream of the the Deriner Dam watershed so rather unlikely to be flooded.
The areas claimed to be responsible for the generation of CO2 that causes global warming are Europe and North America not Eastern Anatolia
Now Europe has massive dams all across southern Germany, Italy and Austria – where is the ‘death signal’ ?
The USA has massive dams across the Columbia and Colorado – where is the ‘death signal’ ?
Hint – its in your head.
Interesting the global death signal, look for the CO2 signatures, cross reference with dams, and you will find massive kill zones.
Are you a novelist?
amazing……dams can cause CO2 levels to rise before they are built
Lady,
The only life forms that are net CO2 consumers are the chlorophyll primary producers. Everything else, including our freeloading selves, produce CO2. Even the primary producers produce some CO2 by their own respiration. They don’t produce all that ATP just for us.
That is only a plausible explanation. Just like I can explain the last few dips in the stock market. Where is the scientific data , with measurement. Otherwise all your did is tell plausible myths.
Little dams, big dams and gigantic dams, …. including lakes of all sizes, ….. are notorious for producing horrendous amounts of atmospheric H2O vapor atop the water surface as well as “downwind” from the water impoundment areas.
Anyone want to discredit lake effect snowfall …. or early morning lake fogs … then stand up and be counted.
And of course, atmospheric H2O vapor not only has a much greater “IR signature” than does the atmospheric CO2, …… but also the same “IR signature” as the atmospheric CO2 except for the 3.5-.8 uM wavelength which is only a small portion of its total IR absorption band.
So phooey on your satellite images of IR radiation emissions from atmospheric CO2 sources.
Isn’t this the same curve affected by deciduous trees? http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b7c6de0d93970b-pi
Excuse my ignorance, but would CO2 forcing correlate well with CERES radiation measurements? And does it?
In fact, it doesn’t correlate at all. Globally, Earth’s surface has strongly strengthened its ability to cool radiatively from 2000 to 2014 (by about 1.5 W/m2 or ~1 W/m2 per decade) according to CERES:
(Note, absolute values, negative means LARGER surface heat loss.)
Not much trace there of any increasing atmospheric retardation of outgoing surface radiative heat, is there? Rather the opposite …
And if you think this is only because the surface has warmed somewhat and so radiates more, think again. Here’s global DWLWIR (“atmospheric back radiation”) over that same period:
(Note, anomalies, negative values mean LESS in.)
Down by ~1 W/m2.
And this is in spite of significantly increasing atmospheric content of both CO2 and H2O (WV & clouds) + allegedly rising temps since 2000.
Go figure …
Curiously, every time a cloud is formed heat from the surface is released into the atmosphere and is free to radiate into space. i.e. more clouds = more cooling
This is what I thought. Which seems to contradict this articles evidence, right?
Why should I believe this new data over the CERES data (which shows no positive correlation), especially since Willis showed recently how strongly CERES correlates with other surface data? Or is this apples and oranges and not talking about the same thing? Seems like it is, but I don’t follow this stuff that closely and maybe they are not really talking about the same phenomenon (i.e. measuring the greenhouse effect).
“Which seems to contradict this articles evidence, right?”
Oh, I’m sure they’ll find a way around it. Like they do with all inconvenient data. Simply ignoring it works well most of the time …
Ian,
No, they seem to be talking about something else, i.e. the radiative balance at the ToA (which, btw, hasn’t moved since 2000), which they strangely claim can also be measured somehow at the surface.
But what they actually measure is the so-called “sky radiance”, which is basically the same thing as what is plotted in the lowermost CERES diagram above, which is total DWLWIR. They are simply targeting the CO2 part of it, that is its active spectral bands specifically.
ENSO down > less WV in the tropics > DLR down, easy.
Look at your data in 2010. It is a high period (probably due to ENSO). If you limit the data to 2000-2010 there might actually be a slight increase. Is this paper pure cherry picking?
@ Richard M…you hit the nail on the head with that thought. Not only was 2010 a moderate El Nino year, but the year 2000 was the deepest part of a La Nina.
“They are simply targeting the CO2 part of it, that is its active spectral bands specifically.”
what you say may be true, but, if it is, how do they distinguish between CO2 & Water Vapor, which, as I understand it overlaps the CO2 spectral bands almost completely (which is why the tropics don’t seem to respond to increasing levels of CO2 but the Antarctic does?).
dccowboy
Antarctica ? In theory perhaps. In reality, not so much:
From the sidebar:
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_southern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
It’s a shame that the paper Anthony references only includes data to 2010, it’s the last five years data that have been particularly interesting. If you crop off your CERES data in 2010 the resulting trends look a bit different than if you include 2011 and 2012. Same for the arctic sea ice area and volume behavior. Same for the global temperature trends.
The plot the Anthony references has an interesting variation to the overall trend the last couple years. While the peaks for CO2 continued to increase, both the peak and minimums to the Forcing curves did not increase. Wonder which trend persisted through the 2014 data?
Ian Schumacher
February 25, 2015 at 11:28 am
You ask:
“Excuse my ignorance, but would CO2 forcing correlate well with CERES radiation measurements? And does it?”
——————–
Not necessarily with the CERES calculated CO2 forcing as actually per this particular case.
Ian Schumacher
February 25, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Again, you ask:
Why should I believe this new data over the CERES data (which shows no positive correlation),
——————–
Because this new data are a measurement, a physical measurement, when in the same time CERES data in this one is a calculation not a real measurement, less credible…, beside, very likely CERES calculation relying in Temp measurements, directly or indirectly.
Please someone correct me if I got this one wrong.
cheers
3300 and 8300 measurements over a ten year period, I would have expected many many more, for example recording every five minutes, not around once per day.
I wonder about that too – assuming 365 days/yr – 3300 measurements would, if evenly done, allow 82% of days to be measured and 8300 could be twice/day. But so far, we haven’t learned much about their sampling methods. The graphs seem to show continuous lines but they say only “on a near-daily basis” whatever that means?
Another question:
Why does the error range seem to be greater for the Oklahoma series than the Alaska series where the sampling was 2.5 times ?
2.5 greater than the Alaska sampling?
With that being said, even if it was close to once a day, what time of day? What it consistent? Same for the 2.5/day average. If the sampling time as not consistent, could that be a problem for any conclusion being drawn from the data. I could be wrong, but doesn’t the rate of CO2 uptake and release vary with time of day especially in OK with a lot of biological/plant activity? Just curious.
Also, those sure are some wide data lines aren’t they
Meanwhile, back in reality, if it was even possible for CO2 levels to create temperature havoc, it would have already happened. Since the planet is still here, it’s only pseudo-science.
Simple convection effects completely swamp any tiny radiative changes, and that doesn’t require decades of data fiddling, name calling, bad science, government grants, increased taxes, etc.
Here, Codetech, you are trashing, correctly, the “positive feedback” hand waving that is so important to the Warmistas, as even they say the direct CO2 effect is small.
Aaaaa! That video is sabotaged at the end by a ROBOT SPEWING JUNK SCIENCE! I’ve asked the mod (in a comment invisible to all but me and the mod) to remove it. Sorry for not watching to the very end.
I hate it when that happens 🙂
Oh, brother (wry smile) — Hi, U.K. — I thought THAT comment would go away as a “reply” to the original messed up video post. OH. WELL. 🙂
Hope you enjoyed watching the magical sight of the falling snow.
I saw nothing of the sort/ or the video, just giving you a hard time 🙂
I’ve been there.
The video referred to here was one about positive feedback loops in systems engineering. It has been removed. Thanks mod!
Excellent point re: Positive Feedback Loop Gain (process engineering principles), Code Tech. You just sunk the AGW battleship.
Engineers rock!
They should be running the government (but, they are just too busy… ALL the time….. (sigh)).
#(:))
Janice, how miserably right you are. 🙁
Absolutely right on…
Code Tech.
Meanwhile, back in reality, if it was even possible for CO2 levels to create temperature havoc.
——-
This new thing here does not prove that CO2 emissions cause climate change or as you put it, temperature havoc………, it simply proves that CO2 emissions increase RF (Radiative Forcing).
cheers
actually they have, at least here, shown in graphs that behaviors of CO2 and radiative forcing eyeball similar “trends”. They don’t provide the data or the stats – say correlations – to estimate any relationship and,even if they did or do in the paper, that wouldn’t prove anything.
Bubba Cow
February 25, 2015 at 4:44 pm.
actually they have, at least here,
—————–
Another Moshering here for you….:-)
Wrong, they have not…….
cheers
The showed that increased CO2 levels correlate with an increase in downward radiation in the wavelengths that CO2 absorbs. That was never in question. Your tax dollars (= money taken by force from productive citizens) at waste.
Exactly what scarletmacaw said.
NOBODY (that I know of) has ever said that CO2 has absolutely NO effect, just that the effect it has is inconsequential. And that is something that neither you nor anyone else CAN EVER SHOW.
The preponderance of evidence is that we should not be worrying about CO2, not even a little, at the levels we’re dealing with.
Didn’t we already know that (except for the Skydragon Slayers anyways). I don’t know of any ‘skeptical’ scientists that ‘deny’ that CO2 causes increased DWLWIR over an absence of CO2. So does water vapor.
And Anthony, I don’t expect that this will ‘shut up’ the Skydragon folks.
How do simple convection effects swamp radiative changes? Convection simply moves heat around within the earth’s biosphere, that has nothing to do with the net inflow of heat into the biosphere changing due to changes in radiative forcing,
Simple.
CAGW hypothesis is that CO2 “traps” heat, leading to harmful atmospheric changes.
Reality is that convection moves any “extra” heat around, completely eliminating ANY possibility of harmful (or unusual) temperatures.
If heat can’t escape as easily into space due to the imagined CO2 blanket, warmer air simply convects higher to radiate to space.
This is what is actually happening, as opposed to the elaborate, and incorrect, nitpicking regarding individual photons, DWLWIR, etc.
Heat outflow always matches inflow, no matter what happens in between. Although ACC is a popular hypothesis, it is disproved each and every single day, which is why the whole “climate change” meme has absolutely nothing to do with science, and everything to do with political goals.
Okay, I’m not in any way, shape or form a scientist and don’t even to pretend that my math skills are strong enough to conduct science. But…
“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” says Daniel Feldman,
These instruments, located at ARM research sites in Oklahoma and Alaska, measure thermal infrared energy that travels down through the atmosphere to the surface. They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2.
Other instruments at the two locations detect the unique signatures of phenomena that can also emit infrared energy, such as clouds and water vapor.
They say “what the Earth emits” but then don’t measure anything going up. They just measure what is coming down.
The science is settled. This is what happens when you set up an organisation like the IPCC too early. Conclusions are reached before the real research gets going!
That’s because the Great Plains are drier during a warm AMO mode:
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~nigam/GRL.AMO.Droughts.August.26.2011.pdf
Quote:
This increase (in CO2 forcing) is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.
_______________________________
Ok, so what they are saying is that Global Warming is 90% caused by water vapour and clouds. So why are we worrying about CO2? What is the point in trying to eliminate a source of 10% of the warming trend?
R
Great spot ralfellis, I wonder why our host did not mention it?
We need to drastically cut out all atmosheric water of any kind.
Oh hang on a minute, just like reducing CO2 to zero everything dies.
“What is really the issue related to AGW claims are the posited/modeled but not observed feedbacks”
It is kind of mentioned. I don’t know about putting the Dragon Slayers in their place though. The energy measured is coming from CO2 within a few hundred metres.
Remember that this graph shows that the rate of ‘forcing’ increase was the same pre-2000, assuming that it correlated well with CO2 levels then as well, and we still have a pause/hiatus/cessation/bloody freezing in the NH now.
That was exactly my first thought too ralfellis ! “10% of the trend of FORCING from all sources of infrared energy.”
And there is NO PROOF offered that the increased CO2 was from human sources. If the oceans are warming up as stated, then the oceans are going to outgas more C02.
Also…question for the experts here…how relevant to “global warming” is the CO2 radiative forcing detected at a surface in Alaska that is covered with snow/ice all year (almost all year?) considering albedo etc. And the OCO-2 satellite shows us that CO2 is NOT a “well mixed greenhouse gas”…the current map shows a difference in CO2 readings that is 15.5 ppm!! So how could BOTH places register the exact same “22ppm” increase…is that 22 ppm a “global average” or were they actually as “precise” as they claim to have been?
+1 great question
Aphan, the variation in CO2 in Alaska is FAR more than in Kansas. 15.5 ppm is not even close. Have a look at the Point Barrow CO2 levels during the year.
As someone who has to measure and deduct background CO2 from experiments, I have seen 1100 ppm CO2 floating by the lab, with a duration of less than an hour. Sometimes it is less than 400. In anyone’s ordinary life the CO2 is not constant at all near the surface. Mixed? More like mixed up.
Thanks Ralph. Saved me posting it. What a stupid world we livevin.
Back of the envelope calculations.
If CO2 increase is contributing 10% of the forcing trend, then 90% of the forcing trend must be something else, I assume water vapour feedbacks mostly. This gives an increase of around 1.8 W/m2 per decade.
So the 10% from CO2 is significant as it drives the increase of around 1.8 W/m2 per decade in the total clear-sky longwave flux at the surface.
It looks like the two curves are diverging at about the same rate as all of the model vs. reality graphs. Maybe it’s “the logarithmic (not linear) saturation curve response of CO2”, or maybe it’s the increasing rate of growth of plants now that they are less CO2 deprived. Hopefully they release their data and methodology. I’d like to see it get the Eisenbach treatment before buying in.
OK – if they have the instruments to do this for CO2 then please hurry up and do it also for H2O. The H2O contribution needs to be going up at around 3 times or more the rate of the CO2 contribution if the positive feedback assumption (on which the whole CAGW edifice is constructed) is to be correct. If it isn’t then CAGW is a busted flush. They mention that separating out the contribution from water vapour was obviously a problem for them, so they must surely be able to measure it.
Measuring the radiative effect of CO2 as they have done is an impressive piece of experimental physics, but the result is quite uncontroversial and banal. Only the sky dragon lot will be challenged by it. Measuring the radiative contribution of H2O however goes to the heart of the dispute between mainstream skeptics and the current paradigm over the size of the feedback and is potentially of huge significance. Why do one but not the other? Were the results unexpected?
A graph showing the H2O contribution to radiative ‘forcing’ going up in lockstep with the CO2 contribution but at over three times the rate would be one of the few pieces of evidence at this point that might persuade me to change my mind. The other piece of evidence I’d need to see is accurate measurements of cloud coverage and albedo to show that this has not changed in compensation.
Yep. I am suspicious that since they had to measure/calculate the H2O effect in order to get what they were looking for with the CO2 the H2O didn’t match expected. If it had I am sure it would have been included.
Yes, the most important parameter data would be the water IR signal. Hopefully we will see that data soon as it must exist. GK
So, these measurements are only taken at night then?
So where are the links to the data, has it been properly Peer Reviewed?
Why does it need “The scientists used the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab, to conduct some of the research.”
to do this research.
After seeing what BEST does to surface temperature records I would not trust anything that comes out the the place.
And then there is this “They can detect the unique spectral signature of infrared energy from CO2.”
With what accuracy I wonder?
So that is the one tiny little band where it is not swamped by H2O then.
As someone else said what were the Error Bars on the 0.2 W/m^2?
“After seeing what BEST does to surface temperature records I would not trust anything that comes out the the place.”
Nail. meet hammer !!!
You want a real hoot, take a look at SURFRAD. Go pull a “downwelling” plot from any site and see where they’ve got a floor of at least 190 w/m²… which I have to assume is the cavity temperature of their sensor. Or they’re doing some more mathematical adjusting. I guess they never learned Stefan’s Law in science class…
KaiserDerden February 25, 2015 at 2:31 pm
and doesn’t the water signal cover the same frequencies as CO2 ?
No.
Phil. – Links please.
Incorrect Phil, there is a lot of overlap between water vapour and carbon dioxide absorption spectra.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSyV3jKQP83Xnj3s_w03Fu6Yo-nabi17fMLKFIPKXG5D0NOp4czgg
They can pick CO2 out well enough. I did some IR spectra in advanced organic chemistry labs that will be taken by any chemistry undergrad in any advanced country.
The water signal, on the other hand, is very broad and harder to pick out.
and doesn’t the water signal cover the same frequencies as CO2 ?
KaiserDerden, in an atmospheric absorption graph, the CO2 bands at 4.3 and 15 microns are distinguishable as “shoulders” on the H2O spectrum:
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/595px-atmospheric_transmission.png
Gary,
Great graphic. Thanks!
Well repeating that old, low resolution, cartoon of a spectrum shows nothing, here are proper spectra of CO2 and H2O from the 15 micron band which show how little overlap there is between the spectra.
http://s302.photobucket.com/user/Sprintstar400/media/H2OCO2.gif.html
The link above appears corrupted, try again.
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/H2OCO2.gif
phil, the chart posted (low res if you like) is correct enough. the fine lines are broadened by various functions.
http://www.arm.gov/publications/proceedings/conf09/extended_abs/mlawer_ej.pdf
see page 4 figure 3 for a comparison of no continuum and a ckd model.
there it shows the reality is closer to the “low res” graph than the individual lines. the water vapour by itself is also correct. yes there is more saturation of co2 in that region, however there is water vapour absorption there (as shown by the graph) and there is up to 1000x more of it in the atmosphere.
I would love to see this paper. If they’re using the same convoluted math they use for the SURFRAD system the data is mathematically created fiction. Even if they’ve got a sensor system with a cavity resonator tuned below 190°K and the filters that could read CO2 @ 15μ the ONLY temperature “forcing” they’re reading is from atmosphere to sensor. CO2’s peak radiation is ~193°K… and the only place that energy’s going is out to space at 3°K or possibly to the middle of Antarctica in July. Just because they can do the math backwards doesn’t mean that entropy in the real world can go backwards.
0.2 Watts per meter squared? HAHAHAHA! That’s 2 Watts per 100 years.
That’s 1%, in 100 years. NOT ENOUGH TO CAUSE A NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE!
Heaven help us.
TSI change by sunspots is about five times that amount, and we know that doesn’t have any affect on global temperatures. Right?
rh – +1
Changes in EUV radiation and the solar wind are much larger than changes in the total solar irradiance.
Hey, that’s a dangerously high 43°K… you could get a really severe burn. OK, it would be frostbite, but still it still counts as a burn.
0.2 x 100 = 20
Never mind. 0.2 x 10 decades = 2
0,2 watts pr. decade – altså 0,2 x 10 = 2,0 watts pr. century.
People mention the logarithmic nature of CO2 forcing. Yes, the log nature appears when you double the amount and then double it again. On yearly and decadal level the percentage of change is so small it differs little from its linear approximation.
That’s why drawing CO2 growth and temp on the same graph does not do much violence at a short period of time, given the scaling factor used is representing the chosen TCR assumption.
There is NO experimentally measured evidence that anything depends on the logarithm of the CO2 molecular abundance. You can’t experimentally differentiate it from a linear dependence. You can also fit the Temperature / CO2 relationship to the function :
Y = exp(-1/x^2) with suitable parameters, and (x , y) are Temp and CO2 abundance (in either order).
So far in measured data, there has been about 25% of one doubling.
Ln(1+x) = x (roughly)
Nor is there a theoretical basis for assuming a logarithmic relationship. It could be non linear, but it isn’t logarithmic.
If it was logarithmic, you would get the same Temperature change going from one CO2 molecule per litre (at STP) to two CO2 molecules per liter. You don’t !
Yes, when |x| is small. That was my point, thanks for expressing it.
Reductio ad absurdum. Yes, it is definitely not mathematically precisely logarithmic, which would mean equal cooling to each halving of CO2. That would lead to colder than 0K temperatures on zero-CO2 boundary. Also I was talking about temperature, but CO2 causes warming in W/m2, which converts somehow to a surface temperature change. Thanks for bringing this into my attention.
However, you may also want to read this old wattsupwiththat.
The warming effect of CO2 is logarithmic at current concentrations. At low concentration, the effect is linear.
George, there is a very good basis for the logarithmic relationship, it arises from the curve of growth, see e.g.
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lea/courses/grad/cog.PDF
For weak lines it gives a linear relationship which is what you’d get in your example of 1molec/l->2molec/l
See 0.1 in ref.
For moderately strong lines (CO2 in today’s atmosphere) it gives a log relationship: see 0.2.1
For very strong lines it gives a square root relationship: see 0.2.2
http://deforestation.geologist-1011.net/
To toss in a graph amongst all this logarithmic discussion that shows no correlation at all….because I’m currently on the fence…
Hugh
February 25, 2015 at 11:53 am
logarithmic nature of CO2 forcing.
————————
Let me do a Mosher arguing here.
Nope, wrong, Logarithmic nature of CO2 is only a figment of imagination…..sorry.
cheers
Heh, Whiten, you are too kind to do M0sher.
M0sher: Nope.
🙂
So you disagree with Alan Watts?
That’s OK.
Why do these guys stop at 2010? A guess would be that a divergence is apparent starting from 2008. Trenberth also forgot about the years after 2010 when the temps were heading into a decline. I’m thinking a good board game would be “Hide the Decline” – a lot of interesting possibilities come to mind.
“The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments..”
####
Do we have more scientists who fail to distinguish between precision and accuracy?. These are different. I am not so much impressed by precision as I am by accuracy. You can have data that is very precise but inaccurate.
Note “incredibly precise” but nothing about accuracy.
Note that the data spans a decade 2000-2010, ending 5 years ago. Hmmm. So what about these last five years? Why such a tardy report? Somethin’ dead in the woodpile.
A doubling of CO2 would supposedly increase the flux at earth’s surface by 3.7 watts.
Currently the average wattage per square meter, assuming an average temperature of 15 C or 288 K, is 390.7 watts.
A century of increase in CO2 caused wattage flux of 0.2 watts/decade is 2 watts. Since wattage increases as the fourth power of the temperatue That would result in a temperature increase of about
1/4 (288/390.7) degress K per wat increase, or 0.18 degrees per watt. At the measured increase of 2 watts per century, we can expect a temperatue increase of 0.36 K by 2115.
How do their results compare to what the IPCC predicted for CO2 forcing? Anyone know?
Alan McIntire: At the measured increase of 2 watts per century, we can expect a temperatue increase of 0.36 K by 2115.
I expect that by now that computation has been done by hundreds of people worldwide, soon to be read by thousands, and then more. I expect much followup to this paper: more data collection and more commentary.
Matthew R. Marler,
Could that have meant .36C, not K?
Matthew R. Marler,
Please ignore my question about K vs. C. I see where I erred.
Regards,
“At the measured increase of 2 watts per century, we can expect a temperature increase of 0.36 K by 2115.”
Can we now stop the demonisation of CO2, and stop the insidious spread of bird-munchers and get back to feeding the world’s plant life properly !?
Also, this destroys the world push for UN governance.. Obama will not be happy !
Dream on sucker.
50 years of incorrect Physics’ teaching means ‘Forcing’ is unphysical.
There is no Enhanced GHE. The non-enhanced GHE is near zero.
“The scientists used incredibly precise spectroscopic instruments operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.”
Sounds like marketing material. Can they elaborate on what these “incredibly precise” thingbobs are, and what they’re measuring so incredibly precisely? Is their definition of “precise” the same as the reviewers of Pat Frank’s paper used? And I don’t think “incredible” means what they think it means.
LOL, good one, Harold. Pretty pathetic.
Note: They did not say “accurate.” Got a little loophole, there, eh, Envirostalinists?
Second that.
Sounds like it was written by Douglas Adams.
For a graphic distinction between “accuracy” and “precision,” see CBeaudry’s post, http://wattsupwiththat.com/test/#comment-1867650
It means some drunk guy tried to come out each day to take readings, Occasionally he noted them correctly. If he was too drunk to come out for a few days he would fabricate notations for the days he missed. The data is incredibly precise and reliable.
“The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now.”
OK, help me out it. We have a guess about how this works that is well established but has never been verified? So, it’s well established how?
Cube,
their claim of the atmospheric radiative GHE being “well established” is of course complete garbage. The idea that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability remains as inane as ever.
All that has been demonstrated in this study is a new way of detecting CO2 in the atmosphere.
This tells you nothing about the role of radiative gases in our radiatively cooled atmosphere, let alone the role of our radiatively cooled atmosphere in cooling our solar heated oceans.
“I’ve never disputed that CO2 has a role in warming via retardation of IR transfer from the surface to the top of the atmosphere.”
Thank you Anthony for that clarification of your position.
It is very hard to recognise that fact when coming here to read your Blog – as indeed many posters are from the “the “Skydragon slayers” department”. Or the conspiracy ideation league.
I always thought a fellow Meteorologist would stand by the role of CO2 as a GHG.
More info on the paper here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/fig_tab/nature14240_SF5.html
There is no dispute as to whether CO2 is a GHG. The dispute is that CO2 in a greenhouse or lab or math equation, is not the same as CO2 in a planetary atmosphere and eco-system.
The dispute is taking a taking a simple theory and jumping the shark with it.
The real dispute is what water vapor does. The increased CO2 allegedly causes an increase in temperature, which results in an increase of water vapor. The models are set to assume water vapor acts as a strong positive warming feedback, while others say water vapor acts as a negative cooling feedback. Observations tend to support the latter. Either way, the models have been seriously flawed.
Don Perry
February 25, 2015 at 5:43 pm
The real dispute is what water vapor does. The increased CO2 allegedly causes an increase in temperature, which results in an increase of water vapor. The models are set to assume water vapor acts as a strong positive warming feedback, while others say water vapor acts as a negative cooling feedback. Observations tend to support the latter. Either way, the models have been seriously flawed.
—————–
The big problem is that there is no any significant increase of “water vapor”.
That is what observations support.
Seems like both are wrong in that one,……. as both seem to be wrong also with the assumption of the logarithmic relation of CO2 and RF.
With careful consideration it becomes obvious that both approaches lead to ACC, one through AGW and the other through abrupt climate disruption due to disruption of ocean atmosphere coupling.
cheers
Toneb
There is in fact dispute and it is not irrational, for you to dismiss other views out of hand shows your ignorance.
l
“Thank you Anthony for that clarification of your position.“. This really p’s me off. Anthony has stated time and time again, as have many of those who dispute CAGW here, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that it does have a warming effect, but that it does not warm the planet anything like as much as is claimed. The pro-CAGW fraternity have continually and relentlessly misrepresented Anthony’s and others’ position, in order to maintain the misconception that A&Co are d-n–rs. I think the correct term for your statement is “slime”.
Still not a scientist, and doubting I ever will be. Out of no concern of embarassment I need to ask (again) for assistance.
If CO2 acts as a restriciton which holds in energy from solar IR, is there any evidence that the same change in CO2 levels has reduced incoming IR? As I understand, CO2 “absorbs” and re-radiates all directions. But due to the increase in atmospheric concentrations, wouldn’t one expect there to be a change both directions that should be measurable? Considering all the variables in the climate on the planet, why wouldn’t one expect to see fewer variables and therefore a variation more measureable above the atmosphere?
The main sunlight radiation passing through the atmosphere on the way down is not IR. When it heats the surface, the surface converts it to more IR so radiation going up is different that going down. It is this larger amount of IR that gets slowed by CO2 (and water vapour)
Gary,
Thank you. I missed the first part: “The main sunlight radiation passing through the atmosphere on the way down is not IR.” Gotta find a good on line class.
Still makes me wonder if the theory is that the IR is absorbed and re-emitted in all directions then it seems the “volume” of IR would be more easily measured with fewer variables if looked at above the atmosphere. Is this thinking off base considering an ever increasing emission of CO2? Maybe we don’t have a base line with which to compare except since the satellite era.
Danny-
Incoming sunlight energy is short wave radiation (SWR) and the ocean surface and land surfaces absorb this radiation and warm up. Then they emit long wave radiation (LWR) back into the atmosphere. CO2 (and water vapor and methane etc) only absorbs and re-emits LWR.
Clouds and aerosols absorb/reflect some of the incoming SWR and return it to space before it has a chance to become LWR at the surface.
Nevertheless there is a significant amount of flux incoming in the near IR and it should, indeed, be measurable.
Bones, et al,
I’m obvioulsy a bit lost. Am I to understand that the sun does not produce the same wavelengths of radiation as that which is returned from the earth after orgination from the sun?
If it does, it seems like it would be “measurable” from both the earth prior to entering the atmosphere to see if there is a delta after and then again at surface. If there is no base line for comparison one could be started, and comparisons made?
Suggestions on resources?
Thanks,
Incoming solar radiation gets absorbed by the atmosphere too, the same as at the surface. Comes in as a black body, leaves as IR. The planet warms from space down, not the surface up, which is the biggest omission, mistake, or lie of the AGW theory.
This data started in 2000 ran till 2011 and is eerily similar to the rise of the current (small ) solar max cycle, which btw is now 4 -5 years later in said cycle and almost over. The forcing in 2010 is already lower than in 2011. It would have been nice to see the data gathered a little longer to see were it would be today. (@ Danny Thomas I am not a scientist either but you ask good questions, thanks)
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7i.html
Here’s a link to a pretty basic description of Earth’s energy budget. I haven’t checked all the math, and some energy budget figures are debated/estimated, but this site seems to lay out the cycles etc pretty well.
Satellites can supposedly measure the difference between incoming and outgoing radiation (according to James Hansen who claims there is less outgoing than incoming) but there are still error margins in those measurements and of course the satellites that do it are owned by NASA etc so who knows if there’s any way to verify them independently.
Aphan,
My next homework assignment as I must gain a (better?) grasp on the concept. I very much appreciate your offering.
My thanks!
You’re very welcome. I’m a baby in all this sciencey wiencey stuff myself, but I love to learn and many here have helped me in the past.
Other things:
1) Barrow is in total darkness for just over two months a year and not a lot of light for probably half that (total 1/3 of a year).
2) because of the snow and ice, albedo and angle of incidence, 70-80% of the incident light is reflected from October until April-May.
3) there aren’t any plants to speak of for this robust absorbtion of CO2.
The responses should be markedly different for Oklahoma and Barrow, unless you are actually measuring something different than you think.
and how much photosynthetic activity is there in Spring of wherever Oklahoma?
think I found it – SGP = Southern Great Plains
SGP Central Facility, Lamont, OK
36° 36′ 18.0″ N, 97° 29′ 6.0″ W
Altitude: 320 meters
The SGP site consists of in situ and remote-sensing instrument clusters
arrayed across approximately 55,000 square miles (143,000 square kilometers)
in north-central Oklahoma.
The heart of the SGP site is the heavily instrumented central facility
located on 160 acres of cattle pasture and wheat fields southeast of
Lamont, Oklahoma.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Comparing 200ppm to 400ppm CO2.
Roughly speaking, 200 extra parts per million CO2 has to absorb enough energy to raise the other 999800 parts per million of the atmosphere by 1°C, very roughly from15°C to 16°C which is approximately about a 5 watts per square metre change.
200 is 1/5000 of 1 million therefore 200 parts of CO2 has to absorb 5,000 times the energy to raise the temperature of the other 999800 parts.
To raise 1 square metre of atmosphere by 5 watts, CO2 would have to absorb 25000 watts?
Well spotted.
It also needs to stop any of this extra energy escaping into space.
Very good Kelvin…………
“This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.” So, the other 90% might not overwhelm the 10%? And the outgassing of CO2 from the oceans due to the warming over the past 12, 000 years of interglacial warming might not be the source of the CO2? And still two decades of no warming. Trade those models in on a Victoria’s Secret model and ask her. Irrespective of her answer it would be a great trade.
“Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade.”
I’m confused. Wasn’t the idea behind the CO2 greenhouse effect that at surface pressures, absorption of IR in the band of CO2 , by a CO2 molecule, is way more likely than (re-)emission? And that therefore, thermalization of IR heats up the (low) atmosphere? And would this not also apply to an IR photon coming from above, i.e. a downwelling radiation, assuming the scientists have pointed their sensor upward.
SO, if CO2 is a net absorber at surface pressure, should they not have measured a decrease of IR photons in that band?
…because, if the concentration of the absorbing element rises, more absorption should happen.
We must remember that in the case of CO2 it is not a linear relationship, meaning that if you double the concentration in the atmosphere it does not mean twice the amount of IR radiation will absorbed. There has been some speculation that we are approaching the saturation point where further increases in concentration will have little effect on IR absorption.
tty:
Good point. More wv===>more convection ===>more cooling. Positive feedback is absurd. Increase wv, you simply increase cooling of the atmosphere. In fact, water vapor represents cooling of the surface.
“””””…..
DCE
February 25, 2015 at 1:12 pm
………………………………………
There has been some speculation that we are approaching the saturation point where further increases in concentration will have little effect on IR absorption.
Not so.
That picture is based on the assumption that the captured photons stay dead; which is a requirement of the Beer-Lambert model.
But the don’t stay dead. because of thermal collisions the excited states are terminated and the photon re-emitted at some line broadened wavelength, so it stumbles on uintil another CO2 moleculse somewhere else re-captures it.
So there isn’t any saturation process. It’s almost as if the CO2 is acting as a catalyst, modifying the photon behavior but without changing the photon (much).
George
However when the co2 emits the photon it “Cools” so the net result is that no matter how much ir radiation there is the co2 once warmed never again can add to the energy balance. in essance it can only slow the rate transfer once.
The absorbed energy is all re-radiated and eventually leaves the Earth. The presence of CO2 causes this heat loss to slow down a little as the energy bounces around in all directions for longer. Eventually, there is a new equilibrium at a higher temperature.
I saw that nicely demonstrated by some schoolkids in a You Tube video using sealed boxes with different concentrations of CO2. The question is–what happens in the real atmosphere with no seals, plenty of convection and unknown feedbacks?
I don’t think it even reaches a new equilibrium at a higher temperature. It’s NOT CO2 that drives temperature, it’s more a function of atmospheric pressure.
Water vapor is lighter than air, and will rise to whatever altitude it takes before radiating enough heat to condense and fall back. The absolute most change that CO2 levels CAN make is to change the altitude of that change. Heat will never build up significantly, it will always be radiated as required.
This is THE fundamental flaw in the whole “greenhouse” hypothesis, and the reason I simply laugh at anyone who thinks CO2 drives climate. It has never done so historically, and it never will.
ladylifegrows
February 25, 2015 at 1:05 pm
“The absorbed energy is all re-radiated and eventually leaves the Earth. The presence of CO2 causes this heat loss to slow down a little as the energy bounces around in all directions for longer.”
According to warmists’ explanations at surface pressure a CO2 that catches an IR photon, with a high probability, collides with another molecule faster than it would take to re-radiate the photon. Situation is reverse in the stratosphere- where re-radiation is more likely.
So, IR is net thermalized near the surface (where they measured) and net de-thermalized higher up (the energy is obviously transported upwards mostly by convection).
BUT this would mean that there should be FEWER free IR photons (what they measure) near the surface if there’s more CO2.
I don’t understand their logic a bit.
And, people on this blog, warmists, and lukewarmers, and generally everyone except the slayers, have lambasted me for not understanding the difference between high and low atmospheric pressure and the according absorption/emission probabilities (I claimed that at every height every absorbed IR photon is net re.radiated – which seems to be false).
Now, these scientists detect MORE IR photons when there’s MORE net-absorbing CO2? Can someone get Tamino and Eli Rabbett to call them nitwits? Or bend themselves into a pretzel while explaining the obvious contradiction away?
So Ladylife, You watched some u-tube kids do a CO2 radiation absorption experiment.
So what was it that they used as their source of 10.1 micron peak spectral wavelength LWIR radiation at 390 W/m^2 like the earth’s surface puts out.
Was it a bottle of water chilled to about +15 deg. C (288K) or was it a 3,000 K 100 Watt light bulb that is 10,000 times as bright as the bottle of water, and 100,000 times as bright (spectrally) at the peak wavelength; which incidently gives photons having 10 times the photon energy of the earth’s photons or the water bottle’s photons.
Oh that light bulb is 1/16th as bright as the sun’s surface.
So yeah that’s a great experiment to prove that heat conducts through box walls and heats the air inside.
“””””…..
DirkH
February 25, 2015 at 2:33 pm
ladylifegrows
February 25, 2015 at 1:05 pm…..””””
So Dirk,
Your near surface CO2 molecule at 288 K Temperature, captures a 15.0 micron Photon which is about 86.7 meV energy, and it starts doing the elbow bend oscillation, while still running around consistent with its 288 K Temperature environment, to which the elbow bend oscillation is totally oblivious.
If they leave it alone like up in the stratosphere, it will eventually reradiate about the same 86.7 meV photon, and quit flexing its muscles.
But instead, another nitrogen molecule collides with it, and upsets its timing so it prematurely ejects the photon. But it is still a nearly 86.7 meV photon, except the Heisenberg uncertainty, will change the energy a bit since dE.dt > h’2pi and the unperturbed lifetime of the excited state got perturbed.
So the CO2 molecule and the N2 molecule exchanged some billiard ball kinetic energy and each went off in some other direction, but the CO2 molecules emitted photon is still at about 86.7 mev just slightly line broadened because of the collision.
So just where in this process, did the photon’s energy get “Thermalized” ??
I can’t see it.
Sodium atoms in a sodium lamp absorb and emit 589.0 and 589.6 nano-meter yellow lines.
They also bang into each other, which results in broadening those emission lines. But they never move far from that 589.3 mean wavelength.
The idea that somehow the 86.7 meV energy of a CO2 elbow photon gets cut and divided up and distributed to a bunch of nitrogen, or oxygen or argon molecules, seems pretty phony to me.
The 15 micron dip (13.5 to 16.5 microns) in the as seen from space earth extra-terrestrial spectrum, is not because some of the surface emitted captured photons got thermalized away as some other critters. It is because the emission is isotropic, and only about half of them head in the direction of outer space, leaving a deficit in that 15 micron band as seen from space.
This not peer reviewed research was financed in part by a grant from the Government of New Zealand (circa 1954-57). Just too early to be included in the IGY researches.
llg: people who say that should realise that the delay is in millionths of a second, and does not take account of negative feedbacks. Nor do they seem to consider that we are dealing with emissions, not absorptions. Brett
Thanks, George.
ladylifegrows @ February 25, 2015 at 1:05 pm
“I saw that nicely demonstrated by some schoolkids in a You Tube video using sealed boxes with different concentrations of CO2. “
You may have seen a claim of that, but it would be impossible to demonstrate it that way. CO2 in sealed boxes does not experience pressure and Doppler and other broadening, and would intercept an utterly negligible amount of outgoing IR. Experiment debunked throughly here.
Do we just “eyeball” their charts and “see” their correlation?
I have to assume that radiative forcing doesn’t go up much during the summer, either, because plants are still growing. That means the greatest increase of CO2-attributed radiative forcing must be occurring during fall and winter months. Oh no, an increase of 0.02 watts/m^2 each cold-weather season is going to doom us all!
“The direct sunlight at the earth’s surface when the sun is at the zenith is about 1050 W/m2, but the total amount (direct and indirect from the atmosphere) hitting the ground is around 1120 W/m2”
So my take on their claim of “two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade” is the following equation:
MWRD= 0.2W/Decade=Noise
Note: MWRD = More wasted Reseach Dollars
And they assume a linear increase but all the data I have seen shows everything occurs in cycles. The trend reverses about 2011 and temps moderate and sea ice increases.
Ian H said ……………
“OK – if they have the instruments to do this for CO2 then please hurry up and do it also for H2O. The H2O contribution needs to be going up at around 3 times or more the rate of the CO2 contribution if the positive feedback assumption (on which the whole CAGW edifice is constructed) is to be correct. If it isn’t then CAGW is a busted flush. They mention that separating out the contribution from water vapour was obviously a problem for them, so they must surely be able to measure it.”
Much more difficult to measure H2O increase as it varies enormously in time/space. indeed the measurements have to be taken in clear skies.
The paper does show radiosonde measurements though of H2O profile averages – showing an increase in lower tropospheric H2O, especially at the Alaska site in summer.
Remember we have a snapshot of just 2 locations for the globe here.
BTW: WV must increase if the temp is rising, such that the absolute humidity goes up while the rel humidity stays constant (given a water molecule’s stay of around 10 days in the atmosphere). The Earth’s surface is ~70% water and can’t help but evaporate to saturate any warming. It’s empirical physics.
Take a look at the Satellite CO2 data, it is not well mixed as advertised.
“WV must increase if the temp is rising, such that the absolute humidity goes up while the rel humidity stays constant (given a water molecule’s stay of around 10 days in the atmosphere).”
There is no physical law that says that rel, humiditry has to stay constant. And note that convective heat transport to the tropopause increases linearly with the amount of water evaporated.
tty:
Good point. More wv===>more convection ===>more cooling. Positive feedback is absurd. Increase wv, you simply increase cooling of the atmosphere. In fact, water vapor represents cooling of the surface.
So what evidence do you have that some specific water molecule has stayed in the atmosphere for ten days.
Only Mother Gaia can read the serial numbers on water molecules to tell them apart, and she won’t tell us which is which.
Water vapor is a PERMANENT component of the earth’s atmosphere. In recorded history, there has never been a time with no water vapor in the atmosphere.
Well there was when Peter Humbug took them all out on his Play Station just to watch the planet fry.
Trouble is they all came back within three months.
It will be interesting to see what bona fide evidence they have for their grand claims. Meanwhile, mere eyeball correlation with little evident phase lag does not causation make.
Weren’t there a couple of large volcanic eruptions between 2000 & 2010 and wouldn’t they show on the CO2 graph??
Are they claiming that overall forcing increased at a rate of 2 W/m²/decade between 2000 and 2010? If they do, this claim is plainly contradicted by both OHC (Ocean Heat Content) and CERES satellite radiation flux measurements at ToA (Top of Atmosphere).
Not much increase in any alleged radiative imbalance at the TOA over the last 14+ years:
Any upward trend to discern? (CERES, March 2000 – June 2014.)
“Any upward trend to discern?”
Sure, start the graph in 2001 and stop at the end of 2009 and you have a nice scary picture that ought to be worth some grant money.
RH, there data has a nice rising trend in line with overall CO2 data, but the ceres data does nothing from 2001 to 2008 and then jumps up 1 Unit.
So the Atmosphere stores up there steady input and then sends it out in one package over 12 months. Really clever.
Damn, wish they had either a spell checker or Edit facility.
For there please read their.
Can some one do the math – what would the 0.22 watts per m^2 per decade equate to in terms of climate sensitivity , deg C per doubling ?
TIA
I just checked NOAA- atmospheric CO2 was 369.92 ppm in 2000, increased to 389.85 ppm in 2010- 10 years. the natualr log of 389,85/369.92 is about 0.052475.
The natural log of 2 is 0.693147.
.693147/0.052475 is 13.2 If CO2 continues to double at the 2000-2010 rate, It’ll take 13.2 decades for a doubling, at which point the wattage increase would be 0.02 watts/year * 132 years = 2.64 watts for a doubling of CO2, only about 2/3 the IPCC figure of 3.97 watts increase for a doubling of CO2..
Dude! I’m sittin’ next to you next pop quiz!
Mike said………..
“The direct sunlight at the earth’s surface when the sun is at the zenith is about 1050 W/m2, but the total amount (direct and indirect from the atmosphere) hitting the ground is around 1120 W/m2″
So my take on their claim of “two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade” is the following equation:
MWRD= 0.2W/Decade=Noise
The measurements were made at night, at which time only back-radiated IR impinges the Earth’s surface.
The measurements are “spectral” and so can attribute the IR frequencies out to the molecules that are re-radiating them. A basic IR thermometer can do it for you.
Roy Spencer explains how…….
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/help-back-radiation-has-invaded-my-backyard/
There is nothing of “noise” at all here. If that were the case what do you say of satellites measuring planets and stars millions of light years away?
To be picky, Alpha Centauri is only about 4.3 light years away, Sirius is 8 light years away, the super giant Betelgeuse about 300 light years away. The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away, and satellites CANNOT detect individual stars at that distance, unless they’re supernovae.
From http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150106.html
“What stars compose the Andromeda galaxy? To better understand, a group of researchers studied the nearby spiral by composing the largest image ever taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The result, called the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT), involved thousands of observations, hundreds of fields, spanned about a third of the galaxy, and resolved over 100 million stars. “
Maybe that’s 100 million supernovae? 😉
I think relatively modest telescopes can resolve some stars in Andromeda.
Don’t know if I could with my Questar, but I suspect some serious photographers have tried.
I am pretty sure I have seen the Andromeda Galaxy with my naked eye, and that without being on top of some high mountain.
I spotted the Andromeda Galaxy with binoculars- it was a fuzzy blur. I later had the opportunity to see the galaxy through a friend’s Dobson telescope. Through the telescope it was a BIG fuzzy blur.
Leif says:
…a group of researchers studied the nearby spiral by composing the largest image ever taken with the Hubble Space Telescope…
This is the image of Andromeda. The bright stars around the image are actually stars in our own galaxy. They are bright because they’re close.
Amazing. Astonishing. And it’s only one of trillions of galaxies…
Thanks for that video, D. B. . Now, THAT is incredible.
Hubble observed individual variable stars in Andromeda in the 1920’s enough to know what they were and roughly calculate their distance.
DB,
Hundreds of billions of galaxies, not trillions. Estimates used to range from 100 to 200 billion, but Hubble ST observations suggest that there might be as many as 500 billion.
But the number varies with time. In four billion years Andromeda & the Milky Way will merge. Later still the entire Local Group will combine.