Guest essay by Mike Jonas
Introduction
This article is the second in a series of four articles.
Part 1 of the series (Part 1) is here
In Part 1, simple mathematical formulae were developed to emulate the carbon dioxide (CO2.) contribution to global temperature change, as represented in the computer climate models.
This article uses the formulae to have a look at the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA).
Note : This article does not say anything new, or claim to find any new results. It has all been said many times before. But by using simple formulae that emulate the internal workings of the computer climate models, it allows the CO2 and non-CO2 components of global temperature change to be quantified using a spreadsheet [10] instead of a sophisticated climate model.
Please note : In this article, all temperatures referred to are deg C anomalies unless otherwise stated.
IPCC Report 1990
The 1990 IPCC Report contained the following graphic [1]:
In later IPCC reports, this graph was missing, and the MWP was either shown as much less significant or not shown at all. Considerable effort has been expended by climate scientists on trying to establish whether the MWP and LIA actually existed globally, or whether they were simply local to Europe and North America. There has also been a lot of discussion about whether climate scientists have tried to “get rid of” the MWP. For example, David Deming’s statement [2] to the US Senate in 2006 includes :
I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
There is actually a lot of evidence that the MWP existed and that it was global. For example, places outside Europe and North America where evidence of the MWP has been found include Antarctica [3] [4], China [5], Peru [6], the Pacific Ocean [7], and many other places [8].
It is worth noting that, whereas the existence of a global MWP is generally accepted but is disputed in some quarters, the existence of the LIA is generally accepted and there is little or no dispute.
Why get rid of the MWP?
So … why does it matter so much whether the MWP existed, and whether it was global?
The problem that a global MWP poses is that it is incompatible with the climate models, which focus almost exclusively on CO2. The contribution of CO2 to global temperature during the MWP and LIA is easily calculated using the formulae developed in Part 1.
First, the data: CO2 data for this period is from Law Dome in Antarctica [9].
It is pretty obvious, just looking at the graph, that CO2 would have had little influence during this period, but its contribution can be quantified using the formulae developed in Part 1:
The CO2 contribution is as calculated in climate models, using an Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of 3.2 (including all feedbacks).
Figure 3 shows very clearly why the promoters of the computer climate models were so keen to get rid of the MWP : it demonstrates that the computer climate models are incapable of representing the climate. The impact of CO2 on the whole of the MWP and LIA periods was utterly trivial. CO2 even went in the opposite direction at times – rising while the temperature fell, and vice-versa. The models’ big upturn in CO2 contribution in the 20th century is not reflected in the temperature after 1939.
Conclusion
The picture of global temperature and its drivers as presented by the IPCC and the computer climate models is one in which CO2 has been the dominant factor since the start of the industrial age and other factors have had minimal impact. In order to support this picture, the IPCC has sought to portray CO2 as having been an important driver of global temperature in the past.
The idea that CO2 has been an important driver of global temperature is not supported by the evidence from the MWP and LIA (905 to 1977).
Footnote
It is important to recognise that the formulae used here represent the internal workings of the climate models. There is no “climate denial” here, because the whole series of articles is based on the premise that the climate computer models are correct, using the mid-range ECS of 3.2.
Mike Jonas (MA Maths Oxford UK) retired some years ago after nearly 40 years in I.T.
References
[1] 1990 IPCC Report section 7http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07.pdf Figure 7.1(c).
[2] David Deming’s statement to the US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543
[3] Hemer, M.A. and Harris, P.T. 2003. Sediment core from beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, suggests mid-Holocene ice-shelf retreat. Geology 31: 127-130. http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/31/2/127.abstract
[4] Zunli Lu et al. 2012. An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.01.036 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659
[5] Yan, H., Sun, L., Shao, D., Wang, Y. and Wei, G. 2014. Higher sea surface temperature in the northern South China Sea during the natural warm periods of late Holocene than recent decades. Chinese Science Bulletin 59: 4115-4122. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-014-0317-3
[6] Thompson et al. 2006 Jun 30. Abrupt tropical climate change: Past and present. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0603900103 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1484420/
[7] Yair Rosenthal1, Braddock K. Linsley, Delia W. Oppo. Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years. Science 1 November 2013: Vol. 342 no. 6158 pp. 617-621 DOI: 10.1126/science.1240837 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/617
[8] Papers on the MWP as Global Event. https://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/papers-on-the-mwp-as-global-event/
[9] Ice Core results: Law Dome CO2 and CH4 records of the last 1000 years first published in Etheridge et al., 1996 and 1998. [..]
Etheridge, D.M., L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola, and V.I. Morgan. 1996. Natural and anthropogenic changes in atmospheric CO2 over the last 1000 years from air in Antarctic ice and firn. Journal of Geophysical Research, 101, 4115-4128.
Etheridge, D.M., L.P. Steele, R.J. Francey, and R.L. Langenfelds. 1998. Atmospheric methane between 1000 A.D. and present: evidence of anthropogenic emissions and climatic variability. Journal of Geophysical Research, 103, 15979-15996.Law Dome Ice Core 2000-Year CO2, CH4, and N2O Data. ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law2006.txt
[10] Spreadsheet “Part2” with all data and workings – Part2 (excel .xlsx file)
Abbreviations
AR4 – (Fourth IPCC report)
AR5 – (Fifth IPCC report)
CO2 – Carbon Dioxide
CWIS – CO2 warming already in the system
ECS – Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IR – Infra-red (Radiation)
LIA – Little Ice Age
MWP – Medieval Warming Period
SKS – Skeptical Science (skepticalscience.com)
WRI – World Resources Institute
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Geoffrey Parker’s book about the (likely) coldest century of the Little Ice Age is titled, Global Crisis: war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century.
Note the word Global; the LIA wasn’t a cool spell in Europe.
Mr. Jonas, use the maths on the top and bottom curves of the Vostok temperature vs CO2 graphs. At the top CO2 is rising while temperature is falling. At the bottom the temperature is rising while CO2 is falling. Please square that round peg. Is there an 800 year lag built into the maths?
Not sure what you are getting at. The data here is from Law Dome. Maybe you are anticipating Part 3?
About the 800-year lag : No, the maths is based on the climate models, and they have no 800-year lag.
If the all the math cannot explain the decrepency between the temperature and CO2 levels in the ice core record then the math is wrong. If no lag in the math then the theory as presented is wrong.
Hey, don’t blame the maths – all it is doing is applying what’s in the climate models.
Can someone please explain how the M-B formula is used to derive watts per square metre of warming from the CO2 gas in the atmosphere when every single CO2 molecule is radiating/absorbing over 360 cubed plus directions? Why does CO2 only see radiation from the ground when every CO2 molecule is busy all around. Maybe the molecules take it in turns. /sarc
I never liked representing the effect of CO2 in terms of W/m^2, as this is an effective contribution. My preference: IR is radiated away from at the top of the atmosphere. There must a temperature delta from the surface to the top of the atmosphere to drive that much energy. the higher CO2 and water vapor concentration, the larger delta-T must be.
First, all computer models are daytime 24/7, and second, Earth’s surface in sunlight is always warmer than the atmosphere, warming the lower troposphere by conduction and convection. The upper troposphere is -17 deg C and the surface at 15 deg C.
The warmist model has it that downward IR emitted by the cold upper air is absorbed by the surface, which then is warmed. However, at the given temperatures, the IR energy levels of the surface equivalent to the IR energies given off by the cold upper air would be full and the IR would be reflected upward. No effect at all, just a slight delay in the IR being lost to space. By the way, space has no temperature as only something with mass can have a temperature. Space is not warmed by the IR passing through it.
This discussion about global temperatures hundreds of years ago reminds me of the story of the blind men and the elephant.
There is no way that we can construct global temperatures to 1 C, let alone 0.01 C. based on the information we can obtain. We can, however, calculate the positions of planets.
Models that purport to be able to make temperature forecasts using planetary positions at least have accurate data to work with. Even today, the Achilles heel of climate science is the lack of accurate data covering the entire surface of the Earth.
We are left with assumptions and interpolations that even average person knows are ridiculous.
The weather in London is not the same as the weather in Glasgow. What can be said about the snow in Squaw Valley, given all the snow in Boston. Yet we have a few anecdotes and proxy data in the past that are supposed to determine the temperature of the entire globe.
Other point is that the change climatologists are trying to measure over the industrial era is at least one order of magnitude less than the day/night temperature variation in most parts of the world. In most scientific disciplines it is considered poor practice to draw any conclusions from data whose mean amplitude is so far below the system noise floor.
There is no doubt that almost everything produced by the field of climate “science” is pure crap. What I think people should do however is hoist them by their own petards. Use their published crap against them. Use the Ice Core data and test the null hypothesis “man is not causing climate change.” Publish temperature records of the Antarctic Ice shelf and the peak of Mt Killimanjaro which show continual sub-zero temperatures, and ask the question how does ice melt in sub-zero temperature. By what mechanism does CO2 lead temperature coming out of an ice age? By what mechanism can 13µ to 18µ IR warm the oceans? The data the climate “scientists” publish simply debunks their own theory. Just look at Al Gore’s chart. 1) CO2 lags temperature and 2) all previous peaks are above today’s temperatures.
http://www.habitat21.co.uk/al-gore-graph.jpg
“Publish temperature records of the Antarctic Ice shelf and the peak of Mt Killimanjaro which show continual sub-zero temperatures, and ask the question how does ice melt in sub-zero temperature”
..
FYI, the ice of the Antarctic ice shelf is floating on top of liquid sea water. Obviously, no matter what the temperature is above the ice, at the point of contact where the ice floats, the water temperature is high enough not to freeze.
…
If the ocean water underneath the ice warms just a smidgeon, the ice will melt. Ice is a very good insulator. The air above the ice can be very very cold, but the ice insulates the water underneath it.
I am not a chemist b I know that there is a temperature that CO2 disassociates. If CO2 is at this temperature, what is the concentration needed to raise the atmospheric temperature one degree?
Whatever are you on about? Dissociation is temperature dependent; for CO2 at 1 atm, it would be about .01% at 1,000°C. How this relates to heating the general atmosphere is an explanation I anticipate with some interest.
errmmm….. snowing in MT right now chacha, ye hottie-hysterics.
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Current.aspx?region=default&animate=true
Mike Jonas,
Climate modellers assume that climate change is driven by changes in radiative forcing. They consider anthropogenic forcings (CO2, methane, CFC’s, aerosols, etc.) and natural forcings (solar activity, volcanoes). They do not assume that CO2 is the major forcing. They attempt to estimate the various contributions and find that the largest forcing on short time scales is large volcanic eruptions. But those are transient, so the largest forcing on long time scales, given the changes in concentration observed, is CO2.
The issue with the MWP and LIA is not whether they occurred, but whether they were global or just regional phenomena in the North Atlantic and Northern Europe.
When you don’t seem to understand what you criticize and when you rely on a cartoon from 30 years ago as “data”, you lose credibility.
When it comes to understanding the past, it seems to me that the fatal flaw of the modellers is that they focus on exogenous changes, as listed above, and discount internal changes in forcing. An example of the latter would be changes in cloudiness driven by changes in ocean circulation. The modellers think internal variation is not very important since the models don’t show much internal variation. Circular reasoning, I think.
The models are compared with actual data, and then adjusted to match. It says so in the IPCC report (the key words are “constrained by observation”). Since the dominant driver of temperature in the models is CO2, that means that the models actually are assuming that all of the observed temperature change is caused by CO2.
An alternative, avoiding the assumption, would be to do the CO2 calcs, compare with actual data, and put the difference down to “unknown”. They don’t do that.
The “cartoon” you complain about appeared in an IPCC report. What I was investigating was why that “cartoon” subsequently disappeared. IOW, I’m not relying on the IPCC “cartoon”, I’m investigating it.
About the MWP : I cited multiple references that indicate the MWP was not limited to N America and Europe.
No amount of “forcing” is going to warm the oceans. You can take all the heat in the atmosphere and move it to the oceans and the change in temperature won’t even be measurable. The oceans have 2,000 to 4,000 the energy as the atmosphere. IR between 13µ and 18µ won’t even warm a cup of tea, let alone the oceans.
Right, and since the heat capacity of the oceans is ~1500X that of the atmosphere, even if all of the heat in the atmosphere was somehow transferred to the oceans, there would be zero change in temperature; the ocean temp wouldn’t even begin to change until all of the heat from 1500 such atmospheres had somehow been transferred to the oceans.
Mike M. (period)
“Climate modellers assume that climate change is driven by changes in radiative forcing. They consider anthropogenic forcings (CO2, methane, CFC’s, aerosols, etc.) and natural forcings (solar activity, volcanoes). They do not assume that CO2 is the major forcing. They attempt to estimate the various contributions and find that the largest forcing on short time scales is large volcanic eruptions. But those are transient, so the largest forcing on long time scales, given the changes in concentration observed, is CO2.”
The last time that I counted there were more than forty different (some correlated and others possibly not) forcings. Many were relatively insignificant but others were highly significant in the short term and probably still significant in the longer term.
Put thirty-nine estimates into your model and your residual variable will show what ever you want it to show, especially if you do not allow your other parameters to vary with time, or only to vary linearly.
But I wholly commend:
“When it comes to understanding the past, it seems to me that the fatal flaw of the modellers is that they focus on exogenous changes, as listed above, and discount internal changes in forcing. An example of the latter would be changes in cloudiness driven by changes in ocean circulation. The modellers think internal variation is not very important since the models don’t show much internal variation. Circular reasoning, I think.”
I
I would also expect this system to have a significant range of random variations. It seems like the random variation is larger than IPCC assumes. When I search for the word random in the contribution from working group I, I don’t get any particularly relevant hits. That is remarkable.
IPCC only regards volcanic eruptions and solar irradiance to be natural forcing agents.
H2O vapor and clouds are not regarded to be natural forcing agents or to exhibit significant random variation!
CO2 is regarded as the dominating forcing agent!
(Ref: Contribution from working group I, on the scientific basis, to the fifth assessment report; Chapter 8, executive summary)
The problem for IPCC is that the moment they accept more random variation, the hypothesis that: Random variation caused a significant part of the warming from 1970 something to 1997 – will stand stronger than the hypothesis that the increase in CO2 level is the main driver of global temperature.
The mission of IPPC would then soon diminish. Nobody likes to loose their mission. If you can’t convince – confuse. However, IPCC should loose their mission. IPCC does not act in accordance with a modern scientific method – the empirical method. IPCC resorts to inductivism. A few pages of reading in the works by IPCC and the works by Karl Popper should be convincing in this regard. Please enjoy a few soothing pages about the empirical method by Karl Popper:
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf
To correct myself. IPCC call it internal variation – not random variation. Internal variability is considered by IPCC – but regarded to be quite insignificant:
“Greenhouse gases contributed a global mean surface warming likely to be in the range of 0.5°C to 1.3°C over the period 1951 to 2010, with the contributions from other anthropogenic forcings, including the cooling effect of aerosols, likely to be in the range of −0.6°C to 0.1°C. The contribution from natural forcings is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C, and from natural internal variability is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C. Together these assessed contributions are consistent with the observed warming of approximately 0.6°C to 0.7°C over this period. {10.3}”
Indeed Mike M, The MWP is not limited to North America, and I highly suggest this site as an excellent resource to show the global nature of it. http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.co2science.org%2Fdata%2Fmwp%2Fmwpp.php
It is ingenuous in this discussion not to include night time, during which CO2 and water vapor act as “radiative gases” that convert heat energy in the air to IR radiation, which is lost to space. This is why the air cools down so very rapidly after subset and little breezes kick up so quickly on partly cloudy days.
During day time, CO2 is saturated and emitting and absorbing IR radiation as well as converting IR to heat energy and heat energy to IR. It’s a wash in full sunlight and any effects in heating the atmosphere are negligible. [Convection of air and water vapor is a huge, dominating process that is ignored by most models.] It is during night time that radiative gases actively, unopposed by solar energy input, cool the climate.
The bottom line is that no gas at any concentration in the atmosphere can detectably alter the climate. There are just too many much larger factors at play, well over fifty factors, that are purposely ignored in most computer climate models. It is no wonder that these models fail so drastically.
CO2 is inconsequential during the day. Incoming radiation can be as high as 1,000 W/M^2. IR radiation is about 1 W/M^2, and even less for 13µ to 18µ. Day time warming simply proves more visible light is reaching earth. IR has nothing to do with it. Note the scale.
Yes I note that you used a logarithmic wavelength scale, also you are apparently unaware that the units of energy density are W.m-2.μm-1.sr-1, which gives a scaling factor of 20 between the two peaks due to wavelength. Also the unit sr is a measure of solid angle so the area subtended by the earth with the sun must be taken into account. If all those effects are taken into account the area under each curves is approximately equal, as it must be.
In any case your value for IR is a couple of orders of magnitude too low.
The irony is that the warmists decry the clearing of the rain forests yet would kill more trees by reducing the air that trees breathe: CO2. No trees – no life – at all. No CO2 – no trees.
I doubt you are capable of logic yet I’ll try to explain in terms you can understand.
The irony has nothing to do with logic nor scientific understanding. The irony is a tragic “herd” of brainwashed lemmings bent on self-destruction. You fail to see and don’t support logical change. You simply crow their misdirections.
John, bald personal slagging is not going to advance your cause.
The biggest fail regarding estimating temperatures with CO2 increases are the failure to include pressure related equations with the doubling of CO2 calculations. Radiative forcings are used for the current values, but are based on that it is fixed between the troposphere/surface and doesn’t change with pressure. Increasing the pressure of the atmosphere has a greater impact than just a few extra atoms in the air. Whereas extra CO2 will increase the pressure slightly if enough, the tiny levels humans are adding are making no difference to the overall atmosphere pressure. No wonder the CO2 science bit is wrong.
Mike Jonas,
How does your theory taking into account that there is no ‘greenhouse effect’ under the 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by clouds? Cloud temperature is set by the lapse rate making t**4 differences with the Earth’s surface insignificant.
Long wave radiation is absorbed in the top micron or so of the oceans, where any greenhouse heating is lost by evaporation. Hence there is no greenhouse heating over another 70% of the Earth’s surface. Ocean heating is caused by direct solar radiation.
You do realize that Mike isn’t making his own argument, but merely exploring the whole CO2 as-climate-control-knob meme using ONLY the elements as presented by the IPCC?
The effect of clouds is discussed by IPCC here: https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-3-2.html
Clouds “..trapping infrared radiation emitted by the surface..” ! For heavens sake, is this supposed to be science?
How can CO2 warm the oceans? How can CO2 impact daytime temperatures? It can’t.
http://s11.postimg.org/qt4vzvq2b/Sun_Earth_Comparison.png
Right & why addition of GHGs above the current atmospheric concentrations cause slight cooling, not warming.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/greenhouse-gases-warmed-earth-somewhat.html
While I very much appreciate all the analytical work laid out here, I would like to point out what I feel is a very simple and salient fact. If it is proven that the MWP or RWP actually existed, where was the catastrophic rise in sea levels which we are assured is on the way even at present temperatures?
John, they were likely wrong then, and wrong now. SL has been falling since the warmest periods in this interglacial about six thousand years ago. but it is likely not steady with meter level plus flux up during warm times, down during cool times. Determining rate for the past is very difficult.
Six Thousand Years of Sea Level Change in the Southern Hemisphere
References
Baker, R.G.V. and Haworth, R.J. 2000. Smooth or oscillating late Holocene sea-level curve? Evidence from cross-regional statistical regressions of fixed biological indicators. Marine Geology 163: 353-365.
Baker, R.G.V. and Haworth, R.J. 2000. Smooth or oscillating late Holocene sea-level curve? Evidence from the palaeo-zoology of fixed biological indicators in east Australia and beyond. Marine Geology 163: 367-386.
What was done
The authors present substantial evidence that sea-level, as measured over large portions of the Southern Hemisphere, has declined significantly since approximately 6,000 years ago. But has the journey been smooth or oscillatory? In attempting to answer this question, they review data, including much of their own, obtained from a number of different places in the non-glaciated, tectonically-stable regions of the Southern Hemisphere.
What was learned
For the period from 6,000 to 600 years before present, the authors demonstrate that an oscillatory mode of sea-level decline is just as likely to have occurred, in terms of “statistical justification” based on the available data, as a smooth decline. In the words of the authors, “whether or not sea level has been subject to low-amplitude fluctuations during the late Holocene (the last ~ 6000 years) is a subject that has taken on increased importance in view of claims of possible sea-level rise associated with human-induced global warming.” If, for example, sea-level has oscillated somewhat over this period (the authors say it could have had an oscillatory amplitude of one meter or more!), it is possible the sea-level’s current rising mode may be nothing more than a small portion of a natural oscillation having nothing to do with the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.
Once again, the data already published by the Climate Alarmists is enough to convict them.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/biggest-fraud-in-science-history-the-nasanoaa-surface-temperature-record/
Here is the Vostok Data. The temperature data starts 438 years ago. The Stdev of temperature change is 2.89°C and the Max change is 3.23° and the Min is -9.39°. The ice cores demonstrate that the 1°C change over the past 100 years is absolutely nothing abnormal.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/deutnat.txt
438 is the mean deuterium level
I thought something was funny about that. You are right, and my point is even more valid. The ice age starts at about -149 years. The first date is -17, but it doesn’t look like they get readings for that. By starting -149 years ago it can then be combined with the IPCC temperature chart. Thanks for pointing that out.
More on how Hansen manipulated that data. He deliberately cut off the cooling period just before 1880. They cherry picked the period to maximize warming.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/02/23/hansen-then-and-now/
Reblogged this on paullitely and commented:
Temperature records used by “climate Change” authorities begin in the mid 1800s. Their forecast models can be shown to fit there through the 1900’s. However, using the same models on the temperature series back to 1600, the models do not fit at all. No wonder the models don’t work for the 2000’s
Berényi,
What you cite is from someone who wants to give a false impression…
The Law Dome ice cores (2 at the summit, 1 somewhat downslope) have a resolution of less than 10 years for the summit cores, where the bubbles are fully closed between 72-80 m depth, where the ice is 40-46 years old. The full record goes back some 150 years. The third core has a resolution of ~20 years and goes 1,000 years back in time. The three cores have an overlap of ~20 years with the direct measurements in the atmosphere at the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
The repeatability of CO2 levels in the ice cores are at 1.2 ppmv (1 sigma), with maximum 5 ppmv difference between ice cores taken at extremely different conditions of temperature and accumulation rate for the same average gas age.
Worst cases are Vostok (600 years resolution) and Dome C (560 years) which go back 420 and 800 kyear in time. Even these two would reflect the current increase of 110 ppmv CO2, be it with a lower amplitude.
See further:
http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/GHG.pdf
Subsequently a chemical reaction between olivine and carbon dioxide happens in situ, forming magnesite and quartz, depleting CO2 contents of air bubbles.
Pure nonsense. Most dust is desert sand and sea salt, including carbonates. Where dust is incorporated in the Antarctic ice cores, the CO2 levels are not different from layers where no/little dust is found.
Where there are frequent volcanic deposits is on the Greenland ice from nearby Icelandic volcanoes. That is highly acidic and forms extra CO2 in the ice with the carbonates from sea salt dust. Therefore Greenland ice is not reliable for CO2 measurements.
Stomata data are by definition proxies derived from land level CO2, which is highly variable and has a (variable) bias above “background” CO2 in the bulk of the atmosphere. Stomata data are calibrated against ice cores (!). If their average CO2 level over the same period as the resolution of the ice cores is different from the ice cores, then the stomata data are certainly wrong.
False impression is devastating indeed, but false propositions are certainly worse.
If Law Dome ice is 40-46 years old at 72-80 m depth, and snow accumulation rate is 0.68 m/annum IE (Ice Equivalent – ice thickness at a density of 917 kg per cubic meter), as it is documented in A 2000-year annual record of snow accumulation rates for Law Dome, East Antarctica, then average density of the upper 72-80 m of ice is less than 434 kg per cubic meter, what is impossible (at a depth of 15 m it is already more than 600 kg per cubic meter).
Therefore age of ice at a depth where bubbles in it are cut off from atmospheric exchange is considerably more than 46 years, contrary to your claim.
However, even with a 40-46 years smoothing it is impossible to achieve a resolution of “less than 10 years”. The information is lost, irretrievably.
That’s exactly what one would expect, provided volcanic dust layers containing olivine grains are not extremely rare. And they are not.
CO2 in enclosed air has plenty of time to find its olivine target by diffusion through microchannels, before enough pressure builds up to prevent any further movement.
Reblogged this on Storm Warning and commented:
Part 2 of the mathematics of CO2. It is really worthwhile getting an insight into this important area of climate science
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Part 2
Executive Summary:
Conclusion
The picture of global temperature and its drivers as presented by the IPCC and the computer climate models is one in which CO2 has been the dominant factor since the start of the industrial age and other factors have had minimal impact. In order to support this picture, the IPCC has sought to portray CO2 as having been an important driver of global temperature in the past.
The idea that CO2 has been an important driver of global temperature is not supported by the evidence from the MWP and LIA (905 to 1977).
Footnote
It is important to recognise that the formulae used here represent the internal workings of the climate models. There is no “climate denial” here, because the whole series of articles is based on the premise that the climate computer models are correct, using the mid-range ECS of 3.2.
For the record : Figure 1 is not the correct version, as pointed out to me by commenter JohnMashey on hotwhopper.com (to whom thanks). I have now checked, and he was correct that “the image is not exactly FAR Fig 7.1(c)”, but it is worth noting that the two graphs are identical in terms of the data that they represent. The only differences are in the texts. So the use of the wrong graphic made absolutely no difference to any of the calculations that I presented. If you follow reference [1], it is easy to check IPCC FAR Fig 7.1(c) against my figure 1.