By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I propose to raise a question about the Earth’s energy budget that has perplexed me for some years. Since further evidence in relation to my long-standing question is to hand, it is worth asking for answers from the expert community at WUWT.
A.E. Housman, in his immortal parody of the elegiac bromides often perpetrated by the choruses in the stage-plays of classical Greece, gives this line as an example:
I only ask because I want to know.
This sentiment is not as fatuous as it seems at first blush. Another chorus might say:
I ask because I want to make a point.
I begin by saying:
You say I aim to score a point. Not so:
I only ask because I want to know.
Last time I raised the question, in another blog, more heat than light was generated because the proprietrix had erroneously assumed that T / 4F, a differential essential to my argument, was too simple to be a correct form of the first derivative ΔT / ΔF of the fundamental equation (1) of radiative transfer:
, | Stefan-Boltzmann equation (1)
where F is radiative flux density in W m–2, ε is emissivity constant at unity, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant σ is 5.67 x 10–8 W m–2 K–4, and T is temperature in Kelvin. To avert similar misunderstandings (which I have found to be widespread), here is a demonstration that T / 4F, simple though it be, is indeed the first derivative ΔT / ΔF of Eq. (1):
. (2)
Like any budget, the Earth’s energy budget is supposed to balance. If there is an imbalance, a change in mean temperature will restore equilibrium.
My question relates to one of many curious features of the following energy-budget diagrams for the Earth:
Energy budget diagrams from (top left to bottom right) Kiehl & Trenberth (1997), Trenberth et al. (2008), IPCC (2013), Stephens et al. (2012), and NASA (2015).
Now for the curiosity:
“Consensus”: surface radiation FS falls on the interval [390, 398] W m–2.
There is a “consensus” that the radiative flux density leaving the Earth’s surface is 390-398 W m–2. The “consensus” would not be so happy if it saw the implications.
When I first saw FS = 390 W m–2 in Kiehl & Trenberth (1997), I deduced it was derived from observed global mean surface temperature 288 K using Eq. (1), assuming surface emissivity εS = 1. Similarly, TS = 289.5 K gives 398 W m–2.
The surface flux density cannot be reliably measured. So did the “consensus” use Eq. (1) to reach the flux densities shown in the five diagrams? Yes. Kiehl & Trenberth (1997) wrote: “Emission from the surface is assumed to follow Planck’s function, assuming a surface emissivity of 1.” Planck’s function gives flux density at a particular wavelength. Eq. (1) integrates that function across all wavelengths.
Here (at last) is my question. Does not the use of Eq. (1) to determine the relationship between TS and FS at the surface necessarily imply that the Planck climate-sensitivity parameter λ0,S applicable to the surface (where the coefficient 7/6 ballparks allowance for the Hölder inequality) is given by
= 0.215 K W–1 m2 ? (3)
The implications for climate sensitivity are profound. For the official method of determining λ0 is to apply Eq. (1) to the characteristic-emission altitude (~300 mb), where incoming and outgoing radiative fluxes are by definition equal, so that Eq. (4) gives incoming and hence outgoing radiative flux FE:
= 239.4 W m–2 (4)
where FE is the product of the ratio πr2/4πr2 of the surface area of the disk the Earth presents to the Sun to that of the rotating sphere; total solar irradiance S = 1366 W m–2; and (1 – α), where α = 0.3 is the Earth’s albedo. Then, from (1), mean effective temperature TE at the characteristic emission altitude is given by Eq. (5):
= 254.8 K. (5)
The characteristic emission altitude is ~5 km above ground level. Since mean surface temperature is 288 K and the mean tropospheric lapse rate is ~6.5 K km–1, Earth’s effective radiating temperature TE = 288 – 5(6.5) = 255 K, in agreement with Eq. (5). The Planck parameter λ0,E at that altitude is then given by (6):
= 0.310 K W–1 m2. (6)
Equilibrium climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling is given by (7):
, (7)
where the numerator of the fraction is the CO2 radiative forcing, and f = 1.5 is the IPCC’s current best estimate of the temperature-feedback sum to equilibrium.
Where λ0,E = 0.313, equilibrium climate sensitivity is 2.2 K, down from the 3.3 K in IPCC (2007) because IPCC (2013) cut the feedback sum f from 2 to 1.5 W m–2 K–1 (though it did not reveal that climate sensitivity must then fall by a third).
However, if Eq. (1) is applied at the surface, the value λ0,S of the Planck sensitivity parameter is 0.215 (Eq. 3), and equilibrium climate sensitivity falls to only 1.2 K.
If f is no greater than zero, as a growing body of papers finds (see e.g. Lindzen & Choi, 2009, 2011; Spencer & Braswell, 2010, 2011), climate sensitivity falls again to just 0.8 K.
If f is net-negative, sensitivity falls still further. Monckton of Brenchley, 2015 (click “Most Read Articles” at www.scibull.com) suggest that the thermostasis of the climate over the past 810,000 years and the incompatibility of high net-positive feedback with the Bode system-gain relation indicate a net-negative feedback sum on the interval –0.64 [–1.60, +0.32] W m–2 K–1. In that event, applying Eq. (1) at the surface gives climate sensitivity on the interval 0.7 [0.6, 0.9] K.
Two conclusions are possible. Either one ought not to use Eq. (1) at the surface, reserving it for the characteristic emission altitude, in which event the value for surface flux density FS may well be incorrect and no one has any idea of what the Earth’s energy budget is, and still less of an idea whether there is any surface “radiative imbalance” at all, or the flux density at the Earth’s surface is correctly determined from observed global mean surface temperature by Eq. (1), as all five sources cited above determined it, in which event sensitivity is harmlessly low even under the IPCC’s current assumption of strongly net-positive temperature feedbacks.
Table 1 summarizes the effect on equilibrium climate sensitivity of assuming that Eq. (1) defines the relationship between global mean surface temperature TS and mean outgoing surface radiative flux density FS.
| Climate sensitivities to a CO2 doubling | |||||
| Source | Altitude | λ0 | f | ΔTS,100 | ΔTS,∞ |
| AR5 (2013) upper bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +2.40 W m–2 K–1 | 2.3 K | 4.5 K |
| AR4 (2007) central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +2.05 W m–2 K–1 | 1.6 K | 3.3 K |
| AR5 implicit central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +1.50 W m–2 K–1 | 1.1 K | 2.2 K |
| AR5 lower bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +0.75 W m–2 K–1 | 0.8 K | 1.5 K |
| M of B (2015) upper bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +0.32 W m–2 K–1 | 0.7 K | 1.3 K |
| AR5 central estimate | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | +1.50 W m–2 K–1 | 0.6 K | 1.2 K |
| M of B central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –0.64 W m–2 K–1 | 0.5 K | 1.0 K |
| M of B upper bound | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | +0.32 W m–2 K–1 | 0.5 K | 0.9 K |
| M of B lower bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.60 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.8 K |
| M of B central estimate | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | –0.64 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.7 K |
| Lindzen & Choi (2011) | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.80 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.7 K |
| Spencer & Braswell (2011) | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.80 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.7 K |
| M of B lower bound | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | –1.60 W m–2 K–1 | 0.3 K | 0.6 K |
Table 1. 100-year (ΔTS,100) and equilibrium (ΔTS,∞) climate sensitivities to a doubling of CO2 concentration, applying Eq. (1) at the characteristic-emission altitude (300 mb) and, boldfaced, at the surface (1013 mb).
It is worth noting that, even before taking any account of the “consensus’” use of Eq. (1) to govern the relationship between TS and FS, the reduction in the feedback sum f between IPCC’s 2007 and 2013 assessment reports mandates a corresponding reduction in its central estimate of climate sensitivity from 3.3 to 2.2 K, of which only half, or about 1 K, would be expected to occur within a century of a CO2 doubling. The remainder would make itself slowly and harmlessly manifest over the next 1000-3000 years (Solomon et al., 2009).
Given that the Great Pause has endured for 18 years 6 months, the probability that there is no global warming in the pipeline as a result of our past sins of emission is increasing (Monckton of Brenchley et al., 2013). All warming that was likely to occur from emissions to date has already made itself manifest. Therefore, perhaps we start with a clean slate. Professor Murry Salby has estimated that, after the exhaustion of all affordably recoverable fossil fuels at the end of the present century, an increase of no more than 50% on today’s CO2 concentration – from 0.4 to 0.6 mmol mol–1 – will have been achieved.
In that event, replace Table 1 with Table 2:
| Climate sensitivities to a 50% CO2 concentration growth | |||||
| Source | Altitude | λ0 | f | ΔTS,100 | ΔTS,∞ |
| AR5 (2013) upper bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +2.40 W m–2 K–1 | 1.3 K | 2.6 K |
| AR4 (2007) central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +2.05 W m–2 K–1 | 0.9 K | 1.8 K |
| AR5 implicit central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +1.50 W m–2 K–1 | 0.6 K | 1.3 K |
| AR5 lower bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +0.75 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.9 K |
| M of B (2015) upper bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | +0.32 W m–2 K–1 | 0.4 K | 0.7 K |
| AR5 central estimate | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | +1.50 W m–2 K–1 | 0.3 K | 0.7 K |
| M of B central estimate | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –0.64 W m–2 K–1 | 0.3 K | 0.6 K |
| M of B upper bound | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | +0.32 W m–2 K–1 | 0.3 K | 0.5 K |
| M of B lower bound | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.60 W m–2 K–1 | 0.2 K | 0.4 K |
| M of B central estimate | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | –0.64 W m–2 K–1 | 0.2 K | 0.4 K |
| Lindzen & Choi (2011) | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.80 W m–2 K–1 | 0.2 K | 0.4 K |
| Spencer & Braswell (2011) | 300 mb | 0.310 K W–1 m2 | –1.80 W m–2 K–1 | 0.2 K | 0.4 K |
| M of B lower bound | 1013 mb | 0.215 K W–1 m2 | –1.60 W m–2 K–1 | 0.2 K | 0.3 K |
Table 2. 100-year (ΔTS,100) and equilibrium (ΔTS,∞) climate sensitivities to a 50% increase in CO2 concentration, applying Eq. (1) at the characteristic-emission altitude (300 mb) and, boldfaced, at the surface (1013 mb).
Once allowance has been made not only for the IPCC’s reduction of the feedback sum f from 2.05 to 1.5 W m–2 K–1 and the application of Eq. (1) to the relationship between TS and FS but also for the probability that f is not strongly positive, for the possibility that a 50% increase in CO2 concentration is all that can occur before fossil-fuel exhaustion, for the IPCC’s estimate that only half of equilibrium sensitivity will occur within the century after the CO2 increase, and for the fact that the CO2 increase will not be complete until the end of this century, it is difficult, and arguably impossible, to maintain that Man can cause a dangerous warming of the planet by 2100.
Indeed, even one ignores all of the considerations in the above paragraph except the first, the IPCC’s implicit central estimate of global warming this century would amount to only 1.1 K, just within the arbitrary 2-K-since-1750 limit, and any remaining warming would come through so slowly as to be harmless. It is no longer legitimate – if ever it was – to maintain that there is any need to fear runaway warming.
Quid vobis videtur?
Back to the basics, how would atmospheric CO2 trap enough heat to warm the oceans? The warming oceans is the 800lb gorilla in the living room. The energy required to warm the oceans is enormous, 2000 to 4000 x the heat available in the atmosphere. How can CO2 and trapping IR radiation, radiation that doesn’t penetrate the oceans, warm the oceans and especially the deep oceans? What is heating the oceans is most likely warming the atmosphere above it, and that is the visible wavelengths that have nothing to do with IR and the GHG effect. The Sun warms the oceans, the oceans warm the atmosphere, it is that simple. BTW, all GHGs are increasing, not just CO2, so clearly there is a natural cycle people seem willing to ignore.
Exactly.
co2islife,
Agreed.
I only ask because I want to know. Why is the Earth even supposed to have an energy budget which at equilibrium means the amount of energy coming in equals the amount of energy going out? Surely not. The earth absorbs solar energy which is not returned to space through processes like photosynthesis. Therefore the energy balance would be that the energy going out is equal to the energy coming in minus the energy absorbed. As I believe that it would be impossible to measure the amount of energy being absorbed in any meaningful way, it would be impossible to quantify the energy balance.
Great question, what law of physics for an open system requires a requirement that the earth’s energy input equals its energy output? Maybe such balance has occurred in the past, but is it physically mandated by physics, thermodynamics etc. If it is, then run away global warming is impossible … and lest you think of me otherwise, I’m a skeptic!
Dan
The comment is made early on that 400 ppm is too small an amount to make much difference to light transmission through the atmosphere. The is a substance, potassium permanganate also known as Condies crystals that was used as an antiseptic (may well be still available from chemists). A piece less than a match head in size in a litre of water turns the water deep purple and almost completely opaque to light transmission. Thats maybe 10 mm^3 say 0.1 gm in 1000 grams or 100 ppm! 400 ppm does indeed profoundly change the opacity of the atmosphere at 15 microns.
RCS june 27th 8:30 am claimed the Lord Monkton’s inversion of the derivative was wrong. It was not wrong if y=x^2 the x = Y^0.5 and dx/dy = 0.5*y^-0.5 = 0.5/y^0.5 but y^-.5 = x hence dx/dy = 0.5/x = 1/2x and dy/dx = 2x. Christopher is completely correct.
However, the comment that the effective emission altitude is at 255 K is not right. There is no effective emission altitude this is a fallacy that has been perpetuated for years and leads to utterly wrong conclusions. The truth is that the emission altitude is highly variable and depends on wavelength. At the green house gas wavelengths the emission is from the top of the green house gas column(which is generally well above the cloud layer). At 15 microns that is approximately the tropopause to lower stratosphere where the temperature is more like 220K not 255K. In the atmospheric window the emission altitude is indeed the surface under clear sky conditions and the top of the cloud layer in cloudy conditions. In fact there is no significant emission from anywhere at 255K (maybe a little from some water vapour wavelengths). In a system as nonlinear as a T^4 relationship one cannot simply use some mythical average when T at different wavelengths is varying between 290K and 220K. The surface of Earth is close to a black body in the thermal IR and indeed it does emit about 390 watts/sqM at an effective emission temperature of about 288K.
However I don’t want to give the impression I completely disagree with lord Monkton because I don’t. I also believe that the entire theory of AGW is utterly wrong. There is a much simpler and even more irrefutable argument. The theory of AGW states that rising CO2 acts as a blanket reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. Solar input is constant so that creates an imbalance which means Earth must warm. Now energy loss to space is measured as outgoing long wave radiation (OLR). So if the AGW theory is right OLR must have been falling since 1975 otherwise there would be no energy imbalance to cause warming. Trouble is NOAA has been measuring OLR since 1978 and it has been rising not falling!!!!!
The theory of AGW absolutely requires OLR to have been falling at least since 1975. It has been doing the opposite. It only takes one irrefutably contradictory fact to destroy a theory and it seems to me this is it.
[quote]
The truth is that the emission altitude is highly variable and depends on wavelength.[/quote]
Hence the use of the word “effective”.
[quote]
The theory of AGW states that rising CO2 acts as a blanket reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. Solar input is constant so that creates an imbalance which means Earth must warm.
[/quote]
And, as the Earth warms, the OLR will increase again. So, at the end of the day, it is not so simple, although I agree that over the last 40 years of rapidly rising greenhouse gases, the Earth should have become somewhat more out of balance and hence OLR should have decreased a bit.
[quote]
Now energy loss to space is measured as outgoing long wave radiation (OLR). So if the AGW theory is right OLR must have been falling since 1975 otherwise there would be no energy imbalance to cause warming. Trouble is NOAA has been measuring OLR since 1978 and it has been rising not falling!!!!![/quote]
You claim that they have been measuring OLR with sufficient accuracy to determine this?!? If they can measure it so well, why do they use the rise in global ocean temperatures to compute the radiative energy imbalance rather than just measuring it directly.
Also, see this article that looks at the actual spectral changes to deduce a conclusion opposite to yours: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/full/410355a0.html
We all know that there are issues with all the data sets, and probably with the exception of the CO2 data set, none are fit for purpose.
Even with CO2, we do not yet know how well mixed it is, and whether the distribution of CO2 fits in with the claim that the problem is manmade emissions, or whether it will be more consistent with the bulk of CO2 being natural, and we have little grasp on the CO2 sinks. Why have we not seen any OCO data/plots apart from the initial release plot? What is being hideen/adjusted?
All in all, a very poor state of affairs upon which to base a science, still less to claim any degree of confidence, still less certainty in what is being proclaimed.
Joeldshore;
You seem to be claiming that by adding the word effective makes everything OK and a composite emission altitude can be used. I disagree totally, when one is dealing with temperature ranges of 220K to 290K in a T^4 system the non linearity is profound. Also as CO2 concentrations rise what happens is that a very slightly greater range of wavelengths emit from a 220K source and a slightly narrower range emit from the surface 290K ie: the line broadens slightly.
You also comment that as the earth warms OLR rises again. Sure but then that decreases the imbalance so the Earth re-establishes equilibrium. If OLR returns to its original value the Earth stops warming. However the claim is that the earth will continue warming at an increasing pace and for that the OLR has to remain reduced. As to me claiming they can measure OLR that accurately, no THEY claim they can measure OLR that accurately since they publish the data, and I should point out NOAA is considered one of the most reputable sites for this sort of data and they are hardly sceptical.
As to your question of why they do not compute the radiation imbalance from OLR directly I don’t know (something to ask them) but I can conjecture its because they know it would give them an answer they don’t like (ie: CAGW theory is wrong!). Also to compute energy imbalance from OLR one also needs to know energy input and while they claim the emission intensity of the sun has not changed the energy absorbed depends on albedo which depends on cloud cover and the data I have seen suggests this has decreased by 4% since 1978 which would make a VERY large difference.
I had a look at the paper you cite (or as much as I could since everything but the summary is behind a paywall). No they do not appear to come to a different conclusion. They are looking at emission to space by wavelength and I am guessing finding that at the CO2 line edges the OLR is falling which is exactly what i would expect from rising CO2 (CO2 is a green house gas and green house gases do retain energy – no argument but the massive question is how much). My point is that for AGW theory to be correct the total OLR has to be falling and according to probably the best recording site in the world (NOAA) the satellite data says its rising not falling. To me that’s totally definitive. If you want to argue that rising CO2 is reducing OLR but other “natural” factors outweigh that and cause net rising then I agree its possible but in that case AGW is by far not the dominant effect on our climate and what ever warming there has been must be as a result of an even larger increase in absorbed energy which has nothing whatever to do with CO2. So just maybe AGW could be technically correct but the effect so massively exaggerated that in any practical sense it is wrong. Either way the call to urgently reduce fossil fuel use is misguided and misplaced.
Michael,
So, your standard for data that you like is “They publish the data and therefore it must be accurate to whatever precision I want it to be”? That sounds like a very unskeptical point-of-view and one you surely don’t apply to data that goes against your prejudices!
In particular, there are some data sets in climate science where the short-term variations are captured accurately but the long-term trend is subject to artifacts due various effects such as different satellites, changes in instrumentation, and so forth.
Where is this data that you are talking so much about anyway?
If different satellites give different values, how reliable can any of the data be?
Joeldshore;
You are putting words into my mouth that I did not say. Your quote “They publish the data and therefore it must be accurate to whatever precision I want it to be”. I did not say that. What I said was that NOAA published the data, they are one of the premier sites for such information and they are making the claims as to the data accuracy. As to whether the data accuracy is reasonable or not. They claim a rise of 2 watts/sqM in about 240 watts/sqM or just under 1%. Compare that with the global temperature where the claims are accuracies of 0.1K or even better in 288K or about 0.04% (in the case of the oceans they are claiming accuracies down to 0.01K!!!!). Do I think an accuracy of 1% to measure OLR is reasonable – yes I think that’s plausible, far more plausible than measuring the average temperature of earth to 0.04%. However even this is not the end of the story. If NOAA were claiming a fall of say 5 watts/sqM and the theory of AGW required a fall of 6 watts/sqM I agree you would have a point. But the theory of AGW requires a sizable fall and NOAA is reporting a sizable rise so NOAA’s error would have to be 2-3% or more – enough to change a measured rising trend into a significant falling trend.
The original NOAA data came from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/db_search/DBSearch.pl?Dataset=NOAA+Interpolated+OLR&Variable=Outgoing+Longwave+Radiation
This was replotted by http://www.climate4you.com. I have downloaded the original NOAA data and checked that the climate4you plot does correctly reflect the NOAA data and it does.
300mb (Hpa) is closer to 9000m, not 5000m.
What renders the equations academic in my mind is that while 390 or thereabouts is nominally escaping 340 or so is coming right back. At the speed of light. Just like it never left. How can we know that it did leave?
Both legs of this “cycle” are greater than TSI. Sensitivity may well have more to do with this quantum whatever it is that no one seems to want to think about than all the differential equations we can muster from our zeroth level understanding.
David, I totally believe in the greenhouse effect. It would be impossible to have a sub cycle of energy greater than input without it. Whether one believes in waves or particles I’m not sure I believe potential energy in this context is any more meaningful than aether.
My point is that there seems far too little wonder at the amazing exchange of energy between the surface and first hundred meters of atmosphere. I believe the most intense co2 bands around 15 microns are completely captured by 60 meters. I do not believe adding a new wild card term “potential radiation” is helpful.
Why aren’t convective heat transfer and latent heat considered? These are far bigger effects that radiation under the 70% of cloud cover over the Earth.
Michael Hammer
June 27, 2015 at 3:35 pm
“The theory of AGW absolutely requires OLR to have been falling at least since 1975. It has been doing the opposite. It only takes one irrefutably contradictory fact to destroy a theory and it seems to me this is it.”
Mike Hammer, wouldn’t OLR decrease during the warming period (warming ‘accumulation’) and then level off during the ‘pause’ in temperature rise. Physically, how does this work?
Hi Gary;
The theory of AGW can be summarized as atmospheric CO2 reduces energy loss to space and this is progressive with higher atmospheric CO2 further reducing energy loss. According to Mauna Loa CO2 has been rising progressively and is still rising so according to the CAGW theory OLR should have fallen and be still falling. Of course as the temperature rises OLR rises with it, after all that’s how the earth re-establishes thermal equilibrium but the CAGW claim is that the Earth is still warming. If we postulate that the pause is because Earth has re-established equilibrium then indeed OLR would not be falling any further but then there would be no latent warming in the pipeline and the total warming from doubling CO2 would only be about 1C which is not catastrophic. You can see the plot of OLR replotted at http://www.climate4you.
My point is simply that CAGW absolutely requires that OLR has been falling and if Earth is continuing to warm then it must still be depressed even if not falling further yet according to NOAA it has been rising. To me that’s an absolute fundamental refutation of the entire CAGW hypothesis.
To David Cosserat at 4:45 am;
I think you are saying that as CO2 increases, temperature rises and since OLR rises with temperature if the CO2 increase is slow enough we could have a gradually increasing temperature which shows up as a slowly rising OLR. Unfortunately this is not possible. For the Earth to warm, its total internal energy must be increasing – you put energy into a system to warm it up and that means for the Earth to warm is has to be absorbing more energy than it is losing. Now the theory of AGW claims that absorbed solar energy is constant and that Earth was in thermal equilibrium before mans widespread use of fossil fuels (ie: Earth’s temperature was stable). Then Earth only warms as long as energy loss to space is reduced below the equilibrium level ie: only as long as OLR is reduced. If a slow rise in CO2 warms the Earth and that increases OLR then the energy loss to space would be higher than required for equilibrium and it would start to cool again. Using the claims of the AGW theory, Earth only continues to warm while OLR is depressed and if the rate of warming was accelerating it would mean that OLR was continuing to fall.
The flaw in your argument is assuming that OLR is simply tracking warming without looking at the implication of rising OLR on further warming.
This may be a new record in pseudoscience, even for wuwt. I commented three times, and all three have not shown up for now over 3 hours, aka, been deleted.
Fortunately there are “screen shots”.
(I love documenting phony sites.)
[document all you want, but all your comments are there. I’m sure you’ll be able to prove something now. -mod]
Here is something I wrote on the topic, focusing on the surface fluxes. The flow diagram from Stephens et al did not copy, but it isn’t needed.
Earth Surface Sensitivity to a Doubling of the Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
by
Matthew R. Marler, PhD
The energy flow diagram of Stephens et al(1), along with some recently published results,
permits a computation of the climate sensitivity of the Earth surface to a doubling of the
atmospheric concentration of CO2, that is a change in the global mean Earth surface
temperature. According to the theory, a doubling of the CO2 concentration will result in an
increase in the power carried by the downwelling long wave infrared radiation (DWLWIR), up
from approximately 346 W/m^2 (for simplicity I am rounding to the unit place and suppressing
the uncertainty) by 4 W/m^2 (2), and the Earth surface will warm until the sum of the upwelling
long wave infrared radiation (UWLWIR), the latent heating of the troposphere (LH), and the
sensible heating of the troposphere (SH) has increased by 4 W/m^2. How much surface
warming might that be? I illustrate by calculating the increase due to a 0.5C increase in
surface temperature.
1. UWLWIR is proportional to T^4, (2) with emissivity constant, so the increase in
UWLWIR, assuming that the global mean surface temperature is equal 288K, works
out to delta U = (288.5/288)^4×398 398 = 2.8 W/m^2.
2. LH results from the hydrologic cycle, cloud formation and precipitation. The review by
O’Gorman et al(3) reports that a 1C increase in global mean temperature will result in
a 2% 7% increase in the precipitation rate; the lower values are results of GCM
output, and the upper values are results from regressing estimated annual rainfalls on
annual mean temperatures. Using the value 4%, a 0.5C increase in global mean
temperature will produce an increase of 2% of 88 W/m^2 = 1.8 W/m^2. 3. The increase in SH can be estimated from a result reported by Romps et al(4). Their
main result was an increase in the cloudtolightning ground strike rate by 12% per 1C
increase in mean temperature over the US east of the Rocky Mountains. The most
important result for this presentation was the estimate of a 12% increase in the power
of the process that generated lightning, and that estimate was not confined to the US
east of the Rockies. Up to a constant of proportionality, the power of the process
generating the lightning was calculated as CAPExPR, where CAPE is “convective
available potential energy” (5) and PR was precipitation rate. Precipitation rate was
used in the calculation rate not because of the latent energy in the water vapor, but
because the precipitation rate was treated as proportional to the rate of transfer of air
(with water vapor mixed in) from the surface to the upper cloud level; and the fraction
of each kilogram of air that was water vapor was treated as constant. That result
depended on the modeled lapse rate and difference between the interior and exterior
of the cumulus column. Assuming that their result is widely accurate wherever those
can be modeled, and PR rate is proportional to the rate of ascension of air, the
increase of SH due to a 0.5C increase of surface mean temperature should be
approximately 6% of 24 W/m^2 = 1.4 W/m^2.
The changes in SH, LH, and UWLWIR sum to approximately 6 W/m^2 (with considerable
uncertainty), so the sensitivity of the Earth surface temperature is approximately (4/6)x0.5C =
0.33C (again with considerable uncertainty). This result is lower than most other estimates,
and it is approximate and conjectural besides, but the computation is straightforward and
based on published research.
Omitted from the foregoing is a potential increase in the DWLWIR from a warmer atmosphere
(the feedback from the feedback). One approach is to compute the ratio of the energy
radiated from the atmosphere to the surface ( 319 W/m^2) to the total energy transferred from
the surface ( 24 + 88 + 398 = 510 W/m^2), and assume that ratio (0.63) applies recursively to
each increase in energy transfer from the Earth surface. Doing that, the effect of a 4 W/m^2
increase in DWLWIR is equivalent to 4(1/0.37) ~ 4(2.7) ~ 11 W/m^2, so the surface sensitivity
is 0.9C per doubling of CO2 concentration, but with substantial uncertainty. If the radiant
energy absorbed directly from the sun by the atmosphere (75 W/m^2) is added to the
denominator to get 585 W/m^2, the ratio is 0.55, and the surface sensitivity is approximately
0.7C.
References
1. Stephens, G. L., J. Li, M. Wild, C. A. Clayson, N. Loeb, S. Kato, T. L’Ecuyer, P. W.
Stackhouse Jr., and T. Andrews (2012), An update on Earth’s energy balance in light
of the latest global observations, Nat. Geosci. 5 : 691–696.
2. Pierrehumbert, R. T. 2010,
Principles of Planetary Climate , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. O’Gorman P., R. P. Allen , M. P. Byrne, and P. Previdi, 2011, Energetic Constraints on Precipitation Under Climate Change”, Springer:Surveys in Geophysics : DOI 10.1007/s1071201191596.
4. Romps D. M., J. T. Seeley, D. Vollaro, and J. Molinari , 2014, Science , 346:851- 854.
5. Salby, M. 2012, Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate , Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
The science that is settled is that liberals lie.
“Solar input is constant so that creates an imbalance which means Earth must warm.”
Solar input isn’t constant. The Sun’s output may be relatively constant, but what actually makes it to the earth’s surface in highly variable. Warmists always claim that it can’t be the sun because the sun’s output is constant (which sun spots proves is wrong anyway). What is important is what the sun puts out, it is what makes it to the earths surface and oceans that counts and that depends on clouds, particulate matter and a whole host of other factors.
co2islife;
I could not agree more and just maybe the small amount of warming we have been seeing is due to an increase in solar energy absorbed rather than a drop in OLR. Probably due to a reduction cloud cover since reducing that will increase solar energy absorbed and will also INCREASE OLR since clouds also impede energy loss to space. However the increase in absorbed solar energy is greater than the increase in OLR so it leads to net warming.
Not so simple.
Clouds impede energy loss to space, but also increase albedo.
At night clouds keep the surface warmer, but during the day, they keep it cooler.
And different clouds behave differently.
It is possible to have in increase in cloudiness, but to have the increase be mostly during the day…or mostly at night.
Note that there is a strong indication that much of the recent (prior to the pause) increase in temps is due to higher minimums, and not as much due to higher maximums.
And besides for all of that, the climate has never been stable, over any time scale. So the question that should be determined first is whether or not anything unusual is actually occurring.
Even if solar output was constant, they would still need to assume that the Earth’s orbit is circular (with respect to the Sun,. not the barycentre of the solar system) and that the Earth’s axis was not tilted
Either one ought not to use Eq. (1) at the surface, reserving it for the characteristic emission altitude, in which event the value for surface flux density FS may well be incorrect and no one has any idea of what the Earth’s energy budget is, and still less of an idea whether there is any surface “radiative imbalance” at all, or the flux density at the Earth’s surface is correctly determined from observed global mean surface temperature by Eq. (1), as all five sources cited above determined it, in which event sensitivity is harmlessly low even under the IPCC’s current assumption of strongly net-positive temperature feedbacks.
Very good.
This was a good essay. Thank you.
My alternate calculation of a surface sensitivity is not an implied criticism, merely a focus on what can be said now (with some hope of not being too inaccurate), about changes of energy flows at the surface. I think that the changes in the non-radiative heat fluxes (wet and dry thermals and rainfall) need more consideration in the published literature than I have seen to date. And I think there should be greater focus on the surface, instead of trying to lump the surface and all the layers of the ocean and atmosphere.
Regarding “However, if Eq. (1) is applied at the surface, the value λ0,S of the Planck sensitivity parameter is 0.215 (Eq. 3)”:
The energy budget diagrams show radiation from the surface being absorbed by greenhouse gases. This happens initially mostly at altitudes well below the effective altitude for greenhouse gas emission of radiation that escapes to outer space. Much of this absorbed radiation from the ground is ultimately reradiated back to the ground, after one or more absorptions and reemissions. This is a radiative positive feedback that causes an increase from the .215 W/m^2-K figure.
In fact, the figure for the surface would be the same as that for the effective altitude for radiating outward to space, assuming the lapse rate does not change as a result of the forcing. If there is a radiative forcing, convection within the troposphere will probably change so as to keep the overall lapse rate near the wet adiabatic lapse rate.
Figure 1 of this article implies to me that most radiation that reaches space exits via the “Radiation Clear Window” as continuum radiation. So that my naive take on this is that it is most appropriate to use the .215 W/(m^2*K) figure as a canonical value, rather than discrete radiation from water bands at higher cooler altitudes. What do you think?
http://climatephys.org/2012/06/12/building-a-planet-part-2-greenhouse-effects/
OK, I’ll ask (because I truly want to know).
Of what value is finding the “right” way to calculate a linear constant to describe sensitivity to CO2 doubling when the relationship between energy flux and temperature is known to NOT be linear? (SB Law)
It is possible (though admittedly unlikely) to have a +ve change in average temperature of earth coupled with a -ve change in energy balance. So it seems to me that arriving at a linear constant to describe a system that has wide temperature swings in which P varies with T^4 is just trying to find the right way to calculate a constant with no practical value in the first place.
AlecM June 27, 2015 at 8:25 am
SI Unit ‘exitance’
Is ‘exitance’ an SI unit? I can’t find it….
” Jai Mitchell posted at June 27, 2015 at 11:10 am
So my question to you all is:
With this definitive evidence of heat accumulation in the earth, why do you still believe that humans are not the primary contributor to this effect? ”
He posted this chart as evidence:
The chart clearly shows the oceans are warming. The temperature of the atmosphere above the oceans also is warming at about the same trend. Clearly there is a relationship between the two. The problem is that it is common sense that a warming ocean will warm the atmosphere above it. It requires new laws of Physics to explain how the atmosphere will warm the oceans. Will someone please explain how CO2 absorbing IR radiation consistent with -80 degrees C (15 Micrometers) can ever warm the oceans? Problems I see:
1) The oceans are dense heat sinks, and the atmosphere isn’t. There is 2000 to 4000x the amount of heat in the oceans as the atmosphere. Even if the oceans absorbed all the heat in the atmosphere its temperature wouldn’t change.
2) The 15 micrometer wavelength that CO2 emits doesn’t penetrate the oceans, in fact it has a cooling effect of causing surface evaporation. How can IR that doesn’t penetrate the oceans cause it to warm?
3) What wavelengths do warm the oceans, especially the deeper oceans? Isn’t it reasonable that what is warming the oceans is also warming the atmosphere? CO2 is transparent to the wavelengths that warm the oceans.
4) All GHGs are increasing, not just those created by man. Is it logical to think that a natural cause is increasing the non-anthropogenic, and that only man is increasing CO2? Isn’t it more logical to conclude that some natural cause is increasing all GHGs? Segregating out CO2 for preferential treatment from all other gasses makes no sense.
5) The only mechanism by which CO2 can cause climate change is through trapping heat. First problem is that it traps -80 degree C heat, and the second problem is that we haven’t had warming in over 18 years. By what mechanism can CO2 affect climate change if it isn’t through trapping heat?
6) If in fact temperatures were increasing at an increasing rate (2nd Derivative), would the sea level not be increasing at an increasing rate? Why isn’t it if we are warming at an abnormal rate?
7) Statistical analysis of the Holocene Ice Core date demonstrates that we aren’t near the peak temperatures of the past 15k years, and that the variation of the temperature over the past 50 and 150 years (the era man created all the CO2) is statistically identical to the previous 15k years. Why hasn’t the record CO2 caused the earth to warm to at least the peak of the past 15k years if CO2 was truly the cause of the warming?
Climate science isn’t science unless you categorize is as political science. If not, it is an unbelievable case study in propaganda and sophistry. As stated above, the only science that is settles is that climate scientists lie.
Good comment. All the points are important ones.
Jai, If you are to understand me correctly, you must read what I say and not insert your own thoughts and transpose them for mine.
I said none of those things.
I said what I said.
150 years ago we were in the little ice age.
Sea levels are rising in most places, but there is no acceleration in the trend anywhere. And the actual amount is tiny.
You might want to read up on a little scandal called climate gate, but besides for that, it takes no conspiracy for people to be very wrong.
Smart people have been completely wrong about a great many things.
In fact, the history of medical and physical sciences is a veritable compendium of how wrong people can be, and how stubborn they are in the face of evidence that they are mistaken.
And besides for all of that, the US federal government ALONE larded out $29 billion, just in the PAST YEAR(!) on a giant gravy train of climate related funding. Guess how many grants skeptics get out of that total?
Now, if warmistas get into such a tizzy regarding the possibility that someone on the skeptical side may have gotten paid for their work, why do they also get their panties in a knot when it is suggested that warmistas get the results they are paid to get?
To paraphrase as one recent commenter put it, at any hypothetical meeting of the warmista high council, in which the subject of modifying their stance is raised, whether in light of the pause, or the possibility of renewed cooling in the coming years, the question would certainly hinge on another question…how many of them want to go find new jobs?
The unscientifically unequivocal language that has long been used has produced the net result of these folks painting themselves into the mother of all corners.
When you grow weary of living in a state of cognitive dissonance, come back around with a more open mind.
Everyone here, me especially, will be happy to clue you in and disabuse you of all the misinformation you have been force fed all these years.
The sky is not falling, the world is not ending, the oceans cannot and will not boil, scaring children is a rotten thing to do, and being afraid of things that do not exist is an unnecessary burden to bear.
Co2
thanks for your response, apologies for the delayed response.
The chart shows that the oceans are accumulating heat energy, not much warming. The point is that the amount of heat accumulation shows a massive energy imbalance. Surface air warming is not happening at the same rate it has more variability but since atmosphere only accounts for 3% of total heat accumulation small fluctuations in energy balances between air and oceans can lead to big swings in atmospheric warming rates.
Warming to the oceans is primarily through solar shortwave incident radiation, (ocean albedo absorbs about 70% of this energy), not the atmosphere. However, the increase in IR re-reflection is producing an energy imbalance. This imbalance has been directly measured over a decade using surface detectors.
The reason that a re-reflection of IR radiation can warming things is because IR radiation contains energy the absorption of energy leads to warming. So any increase in incoming energy, if it is absorbed, leads to heating, this is true for high energy particles and gamma rays as well as low-infrared energy and all between.
The oceans are indeed deep heat sinks. They are also variable in their effects on atmospheric temperatures (see 1998 El Nino).
IR does indeed warm water. Place a bowl of water under a heat lamp and see what happens.
The main GHG are water vapor, Methane and CO2. Other incident GHG are NOx CFCs and other trace gasses. Water vapor is a feedback mechanism associated with warming, causing more atmospheric humidity. All other GHGs are attributed to human activity including CO2 which has been isotopically identified as produce from the consumption of fossil fuels,
Of all of the anthropogenic GHGs CO2 has the largest contribution to increased IR. Water vapor is a feedback produce by this warming, leading to some additional warming.
CO2 does indeed trap (re radiate) heat energy downward. Any re-reflection of incident radiation that is absorbed will raise the temperature of the material that is absorbing it. Energy doesn’t have a temperature it raises temperature by vibrating atoms that interact with it.
Sea level has many components, thermal expansion is a major part of it.
This image has the components of recent ocean sea level rise. The red and gold curves in the top half represent the thermal components. Red is near-surface and gold is deep ocean warming. combining these two curves produces an expansion that nearly identically follows the Argo buoy warming data I posted above.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/images/nature07080-f3.2.jpg
see: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page5.php
Finally, the holocene ice core records indeed do show that we are at or above the globally holocene peak temperatures. Please be aware that the GISP2 ice core data records end at 1855 and that there has been significant warming since then.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/c4u-chart7.png
I am a proud supporter if American independence, especially food and energy. I really want us to be able to charge our cars with rooftop solar. I hope that you agree!
Jai,
Two one hundredths of a degree of ocean warming, and the resolution and error bars much in debate, seems less than worrisome, as it may not be real.
Especially since the Argo buoys, rather than being the excellent coverage that you seem to want us to believe, are spotty, and random, and miss entire sectors of the ocean, and do not descend to the bottom, and have one buoy for every 300,000 cubic kilometers of water.
Imagine if we measured air temperature using the same methodology?
And I have yet to see anyone come up with an explanation for how the heat got down there while bypassing the surface, or even how it got into the ocean at all.
Tide gages the world over show no acceleration of sea level rise. Photographic evidence shows the ocean was right where it currently is a hundred years ago, as does the observation that many areas have buildings near the sea that are very old.
Fake satellite data showing sea levels doing something completely different than what is shown by actual poles anchored in the sea all over the world is evidence of chicanery, not cause for alarm.
As for warming over the past 150 years…every reader here knows all about the adjustments that obscure any real accounting for surface temps over that period.
Lies and propaganda do not fly among people who know the actual facts.
Charge your car however you like.
Stop supporting policies and politicians who want to make my choices for me, and who are dismantling our economy and energy infrastructure based on a big fat series of lying BS.
Menicholas,
so if I am to understand you correctly, you do not believe that the earth has warmed over the last 150 years, that the ocean sea level is not rising and that the satellite and temperature records are falsified to allow politicians to dismantle our economy and make decisions for you?
So you believe in a grand conspiracy with tens of thousands of scientists working all over the earth in every major country in the world, teaching in universities and they are all working together in a group plan to enrich themselves, destroy America and remove your personal freedom by using a thinly veiled facade that can be easily disproven on the internet?
@Jai
Your last two figures show no correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature. We’ve been here before with much greater variability.
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2012/feb/Kobiashietal2011b.gif
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IfmYavM0uVs/ThZn2zCmLwI/AAAAAAAAHR4/hsHju5LNI6I/s1600/holocene_greenland_ice_J_Storrs_Hall.png
And from Rasmussen etal. (2014), “About 25 abrupt transitions from stadial to interstadial conditions took place during the Last Glacial period and these vary in amplitude from 5 °C to 16 °C, each completed within a few decades”.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114003485
From Rasmussen etal., (2014):
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiCaptionURL&_method=retrieve&_eid=1-s2.0-S0277379114003485&_image=1-s2.0-S0277379114003485-gr1.jpg&_cid=271861&_explode=defaultEXP_LIST&_idxType=defaultREF_WORK_INDEX_TYPE&_alpha=defaultALPHA&_ba=&_rdoc=1&_fmt=FULL&_issn=02773791&_pii=S0277379114003485&md5=0cbe81aef29c22fc5fa63cc10493e598
Woosp, looks like I inserted comment in wrong spot.
Jai, If you are to understand me correctly, you must read what I say and not insert your own thoughts and transpose them for mine.
I said none of those things.
I said what I said.
150 years ago we were in the little ice age.
Sea levels are rising in most places, but there is no acceleration in the trend anywhere. And the actual amount is tiny.
You might want to read up on a little scandal called climate gate, but besides for that, it takes no conspiracy for people to be very wrong.
Smart people have been completely wrong about a great many things.
In fact, the history of medical and physical sciences is a veritable compendium of how wrong people can be, and how stubborn they are in the face of evidence that they are mistaken.
And besides for all of that, the US federal government ALONE larded out $29 billion, just in the PAST YEAR(!) on a giant gravy train of climate related funding. Guess how many grants skeptics get out of that total?
Now, if warmistas get into such a tizzy regarding the possibility that someone on the skeptical side may have gotten paid for their work, why do they also get their panties in a knot when it is suggested that warmistas get the results they are paid to get?
To paraphrase as one recent commenter put it, at any hypothetical meeting of the warmista high council, in which the subject of modifying their stance is raised, whether in light of the pause, or the possibility of renewed cooling in the coming years, the question would certainly hinge on another question…how many of them want to go find new jobs?
The unscientifically unequivocal language that has long been used has produced the net result of these folks painting themselves into the mother of all corners.
When you grow weary of living in a state of cognitive dissonance, come back around with a more open mind.
Everyone here, me especially, will be happy to clue you in and disabuse you of all the misinformation you have been force fed all these years.
The sky is not falling, the world is not ending, the oceans cannot and will not boil, scaring children is a rotten thing to do, and being afraid of things that do not exist is an unnecessary burden to bear.
How much energy does it take to accelerate the hydrological cycle, and to grow 35 percent more bio-life? I only ask because I want to know.
Once again, getting back to the basics. All these charts, formulas and theories are greats…but they totally miss the point and distract from the key issue. Climate Science is a “science.” All these arguments distract from the scientific method. Warmists will always be able to produce countless nonsensical claims and graphs to get real scientists to chase their tails trying to disprove. This whole article is about charts produced by the IPCC. That is why the scientific method is so very very important and you never hear Warmist referring to it. They have never been able to reject the Null Hypothesis that Man is not causing Climate Change/Global Warming. It only takes one experiment to prove them wrong as Einstein said. That is how science is done. The most fundamental proof that the Warmist must have is a data set that rejects the Null Hypothesis that man is not causing climate change. They simply don’t have it, that is why they rely on theories, models and propaganda. Simply download any Ice Core Data set and test if the past 50 and 150 years is statistically different from the previous 15k years of the Holocene. The data doesn’t exist. If climate science was a real science, that would be game over. Only is a pseudo-science do you call yourself a science and then reject the scientific method. This is pure climate sophistry and fascist style propaganda, it has nothing to do with science.
How much more evidence do you need then to have all the models that rely on CO2 to be a major factor in warming to fail? The only evidence climate science has are computer models and their computer models reject their very own theory. Once again, this isn’t science it is sophistry. The following graph would be game over in any real science.
Could not many of these endless arguments about CO2 be put to rest once and for all with a rather simple experiment?
Reality trumps experiment every time, Shawn, except to trough-feeding “climate scientists” who are feeding at the trough and politicians who see carbon taxes as a great way to expand government and control.
The graph immediately above compares reality to experiment, and the idea that man has a substantial impact on climate is untenable. Further efforts to foist this falsehood on us by a fear mongering faction must be stopped.
Let us get the terminology right. The models’ outputs in the graph represent neither experiments nor reality. They reoresent a hypothesis. Reality is determined by experiment. In the graph, the experiment is the measurement of global temperatures, which determines the reality that the world has warmed, but at a rate increasingly far below prediction, falsifying the rapid-warming hypothesis – to date, at any rate.
“Could not many of these endless arguments about CO2 be put to rest once and for all with a rather simple experiment?”
Yes. They have been, but many commenters here are either unaware or unable to understand; so the nonsense continues.
What is wrong with this experiment which could be done by undergrads or high school students?
1) Construct 2 identical 1m^2 earth boxes 6?in. Deep
2) construct a darkroom inside an unconditioned building to contain the 2 earth boxes and to shut out all light and other radiation; also a wall is needed between the boxes to block possible IR from CO2 interfering with the other box
3) construct 2 helical coils of flexible water tubing fixed at ?3in from the bottom of the boxes
4) connect input ends of tubes to a hot water tank with identical length tubing
5) connect the output end of tubing to a set of valves, one to return hot water to source, the other to fill identical catch basins to measure the volume of water
6) install 2 ‘clouds’ constructed of non-infrared blocking glass; 1m^2 x ? 6in.
7) Locate the clouds at a height of 2? meters above the sand boxes to avoid restriction of convection; the dark room should be well ventilated at the top of the walls by large apertures covered with shrouds
8) saturate the sand boxes with identical quantities of distilled water ?20gal
9) place thermocouples in the center of each box
10) Circulate hot water through each box until a steady temperature of 90 F is achieved
11) fill one cloud with CO2; the other with a natural air mix of Oxygen and nitrogen
12) stop the circulating water and open the valves to the catch basins
13) maintain the temperature in each box at 90 F by flowing hot water whenever the temperature declines by .5 F, all the while charting the temperatures for both boxes
14) Maintain experiment for x? Hours
15) premise – if the CO2 can warm the box beneath it by back radiation then that box will require less hot water to maintain temperature
Shawn Marshall,
“What is wrong with this experiment …”
Scale models work for some things and fail miserably for others. This is one of the latter.
“Professor Murry Salby has estimated that, after the exhaustion of all affordably recoverable fossil fuels at the end of the present century, an increase of no more than 50% on today’s CO2 concentration – from 0.4 to 0.6 mmol mol–1 – will have been achieved.”
Murry Salby also makes two other incontrovertible point:
1) The rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has remained constant at 2ppm per year over the last 30 years.
2) During this time, the rate of producing of fossil fuel CO2 emissions has tripled.
This would indicate that the relationship between fossil fuel CO2 emissions and total CO2 increases is not a simple additive one. So even,if all fossil CO2 emissions stopped altogether, it is not at all clear that total CO2 would not still keep increasing at 2ppm per year.
The rate of increase of CO2 has not always been constant. Just recently. The simple answer is that carbon uptake has increased commensurate with the increase in CO2 emissions, to balance it that increase. If we lower emissions, the rate of ppm increase will go down and could go to zero, even with 5 GT of CO2 emissions.
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
This is the data I quoted. Plot it from 1979 to 2014. You get an almost perfect straight line with a steady increase of 1.7278 ppm per year, R^2 = 0.9936. During this time, the increase in CO2 emissions per year has been huge.
Walt D, that is exactly the approach Real Scientists should take. Your common sense observation is exactly what is missing from the climate science debate, and highlights where we are losing the debate. We, skeptics, need to get back to the basics. Science isn’t about proving things, science disproves things. That is why we reject nulls, we never accept them. Just remember Einsteins famous quote: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein”
We skeptics are fighting this fight in the most unscientific way. This very posting highlights just how effective the warmists are ad distracting the argument away from science. They have the ability to produce an endless amount of nonsense, so there is no way we will ever be able to expose every flaw in their models, charts and conclusions. They aren’t stupid, they are expert propagandists, and they know the scientific method is their greatest enemy. IMHO skeptics should start demanding that the warmists answer the questions, and not vise verse. They keep the skeptics chasing their tails, and that is their goal.
We simply need to start answering the right questions and turn the table on the warmists:
1) Why if mans production of CO2 has increased exponentially over the past 50 years, why has the trend in atmospheric CO2 remained constant?
2) What is causing the oceans to warm? How could it be due to atmospheric CO2?
3) Why if we have seen an acceleration is warming, why hasn’t there been an acceleration in sea level increase?
4) How does CO2 affect climate change if it isn’t thought warming? We’ve had stable temps for 18+ years, if it isn’t warming, how does CO2 affect climate change?
5) CO2 traps outgoing radiation, how does CO2 lead to record daytime highs when daytime temps are due to incoming radiation? Co2 is transparent to Incoming radiation.
6) 15 microns IR is consistent with -80 degree C, the warmer it gets the less IR CO2 traps. Given that fact CO2 should result in the cooler climates showing greater warming than the warm climates. Data shows otherwise.
7) The colder higher altitudes would also trap more heat, and show relative warming to the areas transparent to CO2. Data doesn’t show that.
8) statistical analysis of the Holocene ice core demonstrates that there is absolutely nothing statistically abnormal about the past 50 and 150 years. That is the bare minimum for their theory to have any validity at all.
9) Demand that they produce a model that has CO2 as a significant variable that accurately models the entire Holocene, or even the past 18 years.
10) Why would NASA ever use ground measurements when they have more accurate satellite data? That alone doesn’t pass the stink test.
11) What kind of science relies on models that don’t do a good job modelling what they intend to.
If we want to effectively battle and expose this science as the fraud that it is, we need to battle it scientifically. We should demand that Congress require that all data sets and conclusions be verifies using double blind testing like the FDA requires. The problem with climate science is that politicians rely on opinions and research of the very people that support the causes and depend on the Gov’t funding. This is the same problem we had with tobacco, but on steroids and no effective government or press watch dog.
Conclusions and research used to support political objectives should require independent verification JUST LIKE THE FDA demands of drug companies and the EPA demands of chemical companies. The data should be turned over to an independent lab along with placebo data, and testing should be performed without anyone knowing what is actually being tested. If congress was to simply demand that common sense approach be taken, an approach already demanded by the FDA and EPA, climate science would vanish overnight. The only reason climate science continues is because they are able to avoid the riggers of the scientific method demanded by the FDA and EPA. No one is holding them accountable. Congress needs to do that, and that is where the efforts of skeptics should be directed, not at exposing every flaw in their models and theories, we all know they are junk, and they can create an endless stream of junk. Fighting it that way will result in the propagandists winning. We need to use the tactics used by the warmists on them. We need to turn the tables.
Sir, your post contains enough contradictory statements to make my head spin.
Just read 3 and 4 again.
You lost me on this comment…completely.
Menicholas, are you referring to my post?
“Sir, your post contains enough contradictory statements to make my head spin.
Just read 3 and 4 again.
You lost me on this comment…completely.”
Here are #3 and #4:
3) Why if we have seen an acceleration is warming, why hasn’t there been an acceleration in sea level increase?
4) How does CO2 affect climate change if it isn’t thought warming? We’ve had stable temps for 18+ years, if it isn’t warming, how does CO2 affect climate change?
If increasing CO2 at an increasing rate has resulted in global warming at an increasing rate would you not expect sea levels to be increasing at an increasing rate? Or don’t glaciers melt faster the warmer it gets?
We haven’t had warming in over 18 years according to NASA’s most accurate measurements, and yet President Obama is telling me that all these extreme weather events are caused by CO2. How could anything over the past 18 years be due to CO2 is there has been no warming? By what mechanism does CO2 affect climate change if it isn’t through trapping heat. I’ll ignore that CO2 most efficiently traps -80 degree C heat.
Never mind.
I think I see what you are saying.
You are repeating warmista talking points to point up the contradictions?
I see no evidence of warming, let alone accelerating warming.
Your posts are very interesting. Hard to follow sometimes, but is probably just me.
A great deal of interesting information has emerged from this discussion. First, Roy Spencer has characteristically given the most succinct answer to my question. It follows that the SB equation applies not only at the characteristic-emission altitude, where the climate-sensitivity parameter is determined, but also at the surface.
It is also clear that, even on the IPCC’s high-sensitivity assumption, the amount of global warming we can expect this century is small,since it expects only half of equilibrium climate sensitivity to occur within 100 years of the forcing, and particularly small if CO2 concentration does not rise above 0.6 millimoles per mole compared with 0.4 today, as Professor Salby and the apparently increasing capacity of the CO2 sinks suggest. If, as a growing body of papers suggests, temperature feedbacks are not strongly net-positive, then we shall scarcely see 1 Celsius of global warming this century, and perhaps less.
To the few (such as Mr Born) who sneer because I ask questions, I say that the scientific method works by people asking questions rather than assuming religiously that what has been handed down to them from on high is written on tablets of stone. The propensity of know-it-all climate extremists to declare that no questions should be asked is a blot on the face of science. Nearly everyone else has avoided the high-handed, arrogant tone adopted by Mr Born. He would do well to learn how to be civil, for in these threads he has made plenty of mistakes. To be a know-it-all, one must know it all. And even then, being civil helps.
“He would do well to learn how to be civil, for in these threads he has made plenty of mistakes. To be a know-it-all, one must know it all. And even then, being civil helps.” ~ M of B
We could all learn to be civil in these threads and in the posts as well. This is very good advice.
One has to remember that science has been wrong on almost everything throughout its history. Science is a process of getting ever closer to the reality (hopefully) as one theory replaces the other. I say that someday the “CO2 warms the surface” paradigm will die, and I have good reasons to think that — but even if I am wrong there is no reason for unpleasantness by me or by others. M of B makes an important point on disagreeing without being disagreeable.
~ Mark … who always thinks he is right 🙂
I would think that “CO2 warms the surface” will still be considered to be true 100 years from now, but nowhere near what the CAGW advocates contend.
Erik,
Time will tell my friend. I think the delusion will be over before 100 years from now, but then I am an optimist at times. 🙂
“It follows that the SB equation applies not only at the characteristic-emission altitude, where the climate-sensitivity parameter is determined, but also at the surface.”
Hmm – I wonder if your are relying too much on a hypothetical construct here.
There is plenty of discussion on the www about incorrect application of SB (see Jennifer Marohasy for example).
This is a concept of an emitting surface behaving according to SB, some 5km embedded within a gaseous mass. It could have some uses for theoretical discussion, perhaps for visualisation. But no such surface exists in the real world. We cannot observe it, or interact with it in any meaningful way. In other words, it is not scientific.
In the above thread, there is discussion about change in the characteristic emission altitude, as though something physical actually happens.
This is unlikely to be a productive approach and may never help to resolve differences one way or the other. If so, it would be better not to rely on it at all.
Feel free to shoot me down if you disagree.
Correction (for clarity)
The characteristic emission altitude is a concept of an emitting surface behaving according to SB, some 5km embedded within a gaseous mass…..etc
Monckton of Brenchley: “He would do well to learn how to be civil, for in these threads he has made plenty of mistakes.”
My, my, I appear to have struck a nerve.
Lord Monckton might have saved his keystrokes. I have no interest in what is considered civil or uncivil by someone who routinely refers to those who disagree with him as “trolls” and “bedwetters.”
I sometimes point out errors. Since a recent paper of Lord Monckton’s was replete with them, I did so in that case, but I did so without calling the authors “trolls” or “bedwetters.” Moreover, I was holding back; I had been hoping that at least one of the authors would recognize their errors and make changes on their own. Anyway, pointing out errors hardly makes comments uncivil; it’s how science advances. If Lord Monckton cannot take a candid discussion of his theories, he should withhold them.
I don’t deny making mistakes myself at times. When I do, I acknowledge them. However, Lord Monckton was unable to make an even remotely credible case that I did so in the recent colloquies regarding his paper; all he could do was bluster.
Perhaps that explains his gratuitous attack on me in this thread.
Joe Born,
You are right. I note that Monckton has not acknowledged the error pointed out by you, Roy, me, and others.I suspect that his gratuitous attack on you is due to the fact that you have provided the most clear and careful explanation.
Mr Born is perhaps so habitually nasty that he does not realize when he is sneering. He said upthread that he had previously had some difficulty in explaining forcing to me, the implication being that it was I, not he, that did not understand it. However, it is he, not I, who does not understand it, nor its relationship to the Planck parameter, nor indeed even the value of that parameter. Indeed, as my reply to his initial attempt at an attack on our Science Bulletin paper made quite clear (an attempt full of errors compounded by inconsequentialities), Mr Born had made the elementary mistake, common among those who have little familiarity with the relevant mathematics or science, of assuming that the Earth’s emission temperature increases in the presence of a greenhouse-gas forcing.
As I had previously had to explain to Mr Born, since a greenhouse-gas forcing affects neither the total solar irradiance in the upper atmosphere nor the Stefan-Boltzmann constant nor (to any appreciable extent) the emissivity at that altitude, it cannot affect the Earth’s emission temperature.
In any event, Mr Born has no need to presume to instruct me in what a forcing is: the IPCC, particularly in ch. 6.1 of its Third Assessment Report, defines it quite clearly. It is also entirely plain from our Science Bulletin paper, which Mr Born says he has read, that we understand perfectly well what a forcing is and how it is treated mathematically in the determination of climate sensitivity.
It is time for him to realize that, ever since he twice falsely accused me of having refused to supply data for which he had not even sent me a request, and which was in any event supplied in some detail in our Science Bulletin paper, many of us here have little patience with his generally ill-informed and arrogantly-expressed lectures. He has not proven intellectually honest.
Roy Spencer had succinctly answered my question raised in the head posting: there was not the slightest need for Mr Born to add his characteristic malevolence to this thread.
Mr Born continues to complain that our Science Bulletin paper was defective. He is entitled to his opinion, but his opinion is ill informed, based in any event on an inconsequential corner of our paper, and wrong.
In reply to “Mike M.”, I had indeed acknowledged Dr Spencer’s characteristically concise and to-the-point answer at (if I remember rightly) 9.38 am. “Mike M.” is rather free with his allegations, but should take a little more care to check his facts first.
Monckton of Brenchley:
Nice bit of dishonest misdirection there.
Actually, my comment acknowledging Roy Spencer’s response was at 9.35 am, not 9.38. But it is there, and was there long before Mike M’s false allegation that I had not acknowledged it. I have also acknowledged it again in a subsequent head posting, So it is, as usual, Mike M who is being dishonest.
Monckton of Brenchley
It follows that the SB equation applies not only at the characteristic-emission altitude, where the climate-sensitivity parameter is determined, but also at the surface.
I lost track of the number of times I brought that point up. I gave up a long time ago trying to get anyone to pay attention. grumble, grumble, grumble. But it is an important point, hope it gets some traction.
Possibly my very first hint that something was amiss with climate science was reading IPCC reports (III or IV, can’t remember anymore) that said the direct effects of Co2 doubling = 3.7 w/m2 = +1 degrees. I knew that the average temperature of earth (as if there is such a thing) was accepted to be 288 K. So I ran the SB Law calculation which showed that 3.7 w/m2 at 288 K would only yield 0.68 degrees of warming. So, where did the 1 degree come from?
As it turned out, the 1 degree came from calculating 3.7 w/m2 against the effective black body temperature of earth, which is 255 K, and indeed running that math produces about a 1 degree temperature increase. Never mind that the effective black body temperature of earth (at equilibrium) doesn’t actually change from a doubling of CO2 (only “where” the MRL is), never mind that we don’t live a few kilometers up in the troposphere (we live on the surface) and never mind that you can’t find a clear explanation of this anywhere in their convoluted reports with vague references that when checked out almost always dead ended at a paywall.
It took me months of ferreting out info to conclude that they had deliberately obfuscated this issue specifically in order to present a larger number than they otherwise could have justified. I wasn’t reading a science document, I was reading a marketing document.
I would recommend everyone interested in this issued, and the integrity of science and out educational system to start promoting the formation of a Scientific Validation Agency or SVA to join/counter the EPA and FDA. The purpose of this agency would be to remove all bias from the conclusions used to form public policy. Data would be handed over to the SVA, the data would come in actual form and distorted form to form double blind tests. The data would then be tested and the conclusions published. The SVA conclusions would then be matched against the conclusion reached in the “peer reviewed” journal. If the SVA double blind conclusion doesn’t match that of the peer reviewed conclusion the authors and reviewers would then have to defend their conclusion, and if they fail, they would be required to return any funding or face fraud charges. If we do that, if we apply the same standard to our public researchers as we do our drug companies, I’m 100% certain there will be no more Climate Science research published regarding CO2 being the cause of global warming climate change.
We simply need to send a message to the academic community that someone is watching them. Eisenhower warned us against exactly what is happening today in his farewell speech.
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=90&page=transcript