Guest Opinion; Dr. Tim Ball
The only place in the world where CO2 increase causes a temperature increase is in climate models, including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The assumption that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase is central to the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis. If incorrect, failure of this assumption alone should guarantee rejection of the hypothesis. In proper scientific procedure if the hypothesis is rejected the null hypothesis is considered. In this case, the null hypothesis is that CO2 is not causing global warming. The IPCC never considered the null hypothesis. Ironically and unwittingly, James Hansen proved the null hypothesis in his first major attempt to push his agenda that CO2 is causing global warming or climate change.
Background
The first IPCC Report appeared in 1990, but the more orchestrated push of the AGW hypothesis occurred with the 1995 Report. Four years later an Antarctic ice core record produced by Petit et al., was published in Nature. The article included a graphic that juxtaposed temperature, CO2, methane, and insolation (Figure 1).
It appeared to provide support for the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis. It looked like temperature increase preceded CO2 increase. I recall one of the authors, Jean Jouzel, warning in an interview not to rush to judgment. He noted it was 420,000 years plotted on a 10 cm long graph, complicated by a 70-year smoothing average that masked much detail. He was prescient. AGW advocates ignored the warning and used the graph as support for their hypothesis. It effectively became the forerunner to the ‘hockey stick’ in grabbing media and public attention.
However, in proper scientific tradition Hubertus Fischer, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography was already questioning the cause and effect relationship with a 1999 paper. In 2001, Manfred Mudelsee published another paper that challenged the relationship in Quaternary Science Review.
Lowell Stott followed with a 2007 paper in Science titled, Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming. Sherwood and Craig Idso maintain the best website on all issues related to CO2. They provide a list of papers that yield further evidence that the relationship is opposite to the IPCC assumption. None of this ever received mainstream media attention.
Failed predictions, which began with the 1990 IPCC Report, were one of the first signs of problems. Instead of revisiting the assumptions and science of their hypothesis they made the first political adjustment by creating projections to replace predictions. They compounded their duplicity by allowing the media and public to believe they were predictions. Hansen et al,
produced a forerunner of the projection scenarios in 1988, the same year he appeared before the US Senate committee to kick-start the entire AGW deception. Figure 2 shows the original graph from that article.
In an incisive article on Hansen’s model Anthony Watts provided a modified version of Figure 2 with actual temperatures added (Figure 3).
Hansen et al, postulated three scenarios,
A: increase in CO2 emissions by 1.5% per year
B: constant increase in CO2 emissions after 2000
C: No increase in CO2 emissions after 2000
Naturally, the mainstream media focused on the temperature projections of scenario A. Some of us knew Scenarios A and B were unrealistic, and now we know how wrong they were. I had many discussions in the 1990s with Canadian ice core expert Fritz Koerner about his Arctic Island cores. He told me they showed temperature increasing before CO2. In retrospect, scenario C is more interesting and more telling.
Hansen presents it as the ideal scenario. He is telling political leaders and media what will happen if humans stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Salvation! Temperatures will stop increasing. Ironically, this is equivalent to running the model as if CO2 was not causing warming. In doing so, it effectively presents the null hypothesis to the AGW hypothesis. It shows what would happen if CO2 was not the cause of warming. It approximates reality.
Figure 4 shows similar scenario projections from the IPCC AR4 2007 Report overlain with actual CO2 increases. The difference with Hansen is in the low scenario. The IPCC say in AR4,
Model experiments show that even if all radiative forcing agents were held constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming trend would occur in the next two decades at a rate of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans.
Figure 4 appears to show that the “Best” and “High” projections are primarily a function of the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. Even the “Low” projection diverges from the actual temperature trend shown for the surface (HadCrut) and satellite (UAH) records. Besides confirming the null hypothesis the results show that the IPCC claim of continued increase because of slow ocean response is also incorrect.
Hansen limited his research and climate models to human causes of climate change. He produced two projections that argued CO2 would continue to increase. In doing so, he predetermined the outcome. He confirmed his hypothesis that continued human production would cause global warming, but only in the models. However, apparently driven by his political agenda, he had to convince politicians that a reduction in CO2 output would solve the problem. To do this, he ran his model to show what happens with no CO2 increase. It produced a curve that fits the actual temperature trend in the intervening 27 years. This is the result you expect if you accept the null hypothesis that CO2 from any source is not causing global warming. Thanks, Jim, enjoy your retirement.
Ferdberple’s use of Tyndall’s experiment also proves the null hypothesis! Why and how, some may ask?
Tyndall was a great experimenter, and his complex apparatus, as shown in Wiki, used a galvanometer to detect radiation flux successfully via heated CO2. The flux was from a source to a sink, of course. A cooled sink. Because it would not nor will ever work any other way. Read the ‘Methods and Materials’ as I would term it. He may not have realised exactly what was happening,or/and had another aim in mind. But, by Jove, he made a good machine there.
As the then still-developing laws of thermodynamics inform us, emittance can be everywhere, but flux is only down the gradient. No exceptions, not physically possible. The real world demonstrates this all the time, but apparently not the ivory tower lifestyle.
The sayings of AGW’s other ‘ancient sages’, Fourier to Callendar, are likewise misconstrued.
Par for the course.
In short, a simple Tyndall gas galvanometer in every Physics 101 Lecture room for the last century, like my university’s Foucalt pendulum, but far smaller, might have saved us wasted trillions….
Sorry, I seem to have gotten my Ferds mixed up. “@ur momisugly Ferdinand Engelbeen
October 3, 2015 at 11:54 am”: is the Tyndall posting. Incidentally, the allusion there to CO2 bites out of the OLR spectrum, is really looking at pressure-broadened kinetic transfers to good ol’ H2O, the giant of spaceward flux. A giant of many means. Brett
If I were a Viking in Greenland growing barley or an Englishman growing wine grapes this macro intensified greenhouse effect theory might not even be of more use to me. Otherwise the rest of the world sees western politicos and paid from scientist jingos blowing a bunch of CO2 from their lips.
It makes absolutely no sense for CO2 to lead temperature. By what mechanism is there for CO2 to lead warming to bring us out of an ice age? None. The oceans must be warmed to release CO2, ie Henry’s Law. The ice must be melted for things to grow and decay and burn. There is simply no credible model or theory that would have CO2 lead temperatures. The natural mechanisms simply don’t exist. Globes covered in ice store CO2, they don’t release it unless warmth is first introduced into the equation.
https://youtu.be/0LbqU3spW90?t=9m4s
SHHHH!
You’re making sense.
(Expect a RICO letter any day now.)
co2islife October 4, 2015 at 2:10 am
I wish that I had seen this video earlier. It is well worth a view. I note that it makes a point that I made in the recent Article by Dr Brown and Werner Brozek regarding evidence of adjusting unsuitable data.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/01/is-there-evidence-of-frantic-researchers-adjusting-unsuitable-data-now-includes-july-data/)
The video makes the point that due to the constantly changing number and location of stations that go to the compilation of the global temperature anomaly data set, they are mixes oranges and apples. In my opinion this is a very important point since the reconstruction is nothing more than a proxy and what goes into the proxy is constantly changing such that nothing reliable is produced.
I commented (and I consider that it is worth repeating since many may not take time to review that video);
QUOTE:
I doubt that many are still following this thread, but this is a point that should be made.
The land based thermometer record is a proxy record, and GISS, BEST and the like keep on using different proxies in their reconstruction.
If the record is to show the warming going back to 1880, then one should identify the stations that were returning data in 1880. One then identifies how many of those stations have a continuing and extant record going from 1880 to today. One should then use only those (ie., the ones which have a continuous record from 1880 to date) stations in the reconstruction.
Thus for example, if in 1880 there were only 350 stations and of those stations 100 have fallen by the wayside, one is left with 250 stations and it is these stations and these alone that should be used in the presentation of global temperatures between 1880 to date.
If by 1900 there were say 900 stations of which say 250 have fallen by the wayside then one would have 650 stations which should form the basis of any reconstruction between 1900 to date. Only the 650 stations that have a continuous and existing record throughout the entire period should be used.
If by 1920 there were say 2000 stations of which 450 have fallen by the wayside, one would be left with 1550 stations, and it these stations, and only these stations, that should be used in the temperature reconstruction from 1920 to date.
The land thermometer data should not consist of a constantly changing set of station data in which the siting and spatial coverage (and hence weighting) is constantly changing. This does not produce a valid reconstruction time series.
Those producing the record should present data which contains precisely the same stations throughout the entirety of the time series. What could be presented is a series of plots in 10 year intervals to date, ie., 1880 to date, 1890 to date, 1900 to date, 1910 to date etc etc. On the top of each separate time series the number of stations being used in the reconstruction could be detailed with an explanation as to their split between NH and SH.
UNQUOTE.
If Steven or Zeke are around, it would be interesting to hear from them as to why separate and distinct reconstructions are not made on a decadal basis using only stations that have complete data/records for the period of reconstruction.
Richard,
It goes somewhat farther than that. If the station changed out thermometers or housings or changed housing coatings, then it is no longer the same station. Changing thermometers can be overcome if the two instruments are run in tandem for some period to ascertain a calibration error, otherwise it is a NEW station (even then it can be argued to be a NEW station as we are not likely it go through the full range of local temperature and humidity during the calibration period.) If the old Stevenson screen is changed out for some newer easy care material, it is a NEW station as there is no way to ascertain a calibration factor (and looking for a step change and banging it back into line isn’t a good way to go since we have shown that sometimes climate really does make step changes.) If one goes from whitewash to latex, it is a NEW station as again there is no way to correct for this sudden change in readings since step changes DO HAPPEN in the climate – especially on a local level. (I know our host did a study on the whitewash/latex thing, but applying his statistical correction means we have gone from data to a statistical representation of the probable data i.e. a proxy reconstruction of the site.)
Applying this standard, we are lucky to have 15 years of reliable data.
if the radiation theory of the “greenhouse” effect was correct, then adding more non-condensing GHG gas to the atmosphere would make the lower atmosphere warmer and the upper atmosphere cooler. This would make the DALR steeper than 9.8C/km. The DALR would for example, go to 10C/km or even 11C/km.
However, this is not what we observe. The DALR is completely independent of the amount of non-condensing GHG in the atmosphere. No matter if you raised the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 100%, the DALR would remain at 9.8C/km.
Thus, you cannot make the surface warmer long term by increasing GHG unless you increase the height of the atmosphere in circulation.
I’m not saying that GHG doesn’t have a warming effect on the surface. What I’m saying is that this effect can only raise the temperature to the limit imposed by the force of gravity, and the atmosphere is already at that limit.
ferd,
How then do you explain the periods of history that were significantly warmer if we are at the gravity limit?
I think the theory needs some work – may have a partial explanation of one mechanism in there, but hotter in the past means hypothesis tested and failed.
I have a feeling this theory suffers from a similar failing found in many studies of climate – looking at one dimension of a 20 dimensional problem, without the ability to hold anything constant while changing one thing to measure response of a single other variable. All our partial derivatives are cross-linked and can not be easily swept into the constants realm or even given a straight function value.
20 dimensions was a notional guess, by the way, representing some large number I don’t know…I am sure some of the meteorologists out there can provide a better SWAG than my admitted WAG.
How then do you explain the periods of history that were significantly warmer if we are at the gravity limit?
=================
the gravity limit is simply an energy limit on how much temperature difference there can be between the upper and lower troposphere. you can still raise or lower the total energy in the troposphere, which would change the height of the circulating portion of the troposphere and thus change the surface temperature.
So for example, if one was to observe the predicted tropical hotspot signature for global warming, that would be pretty good evidence that the total energy in the circulating portion of the atmosphere was increasing due to increasing CO2, and should result in increasing surface temps as the height of the troposphere expands.
However, the failure to observe the predicted hotspot would be pretty good evidence that the total energy in the circulating portion of the atmosphere is not increasing due to CO2. Instead it may simply be a change in the turn over rate between the upper and lower oceans.
If the oceans were well mixed vertically, the surface temperatures would be something like 6C as compared to 15C currently. This would have a dramatic effect on climate, plunging the earth into deep ice age conditions.
Climate science makes the simplifying assumption that the mixing rate of the deep oceans is relatively constant, with random noise, but this highly unlikely to be true.
The oceans are continually pumped by the oscillating effects of the tides, as well as the seasonal effects of the winds. It is highly likely that there are long term oscillations in the turn-over rate of the oceans that drive long term climate oscillations.
These oscillations would not affect climate the same way as random noise. Rather they should be expected to behave as 1/f noise. Thus, the longer we observe climate, the greater the variability we should see. Climate extremes are thus not the effect of climate change. they are the effect of a longer period of observation.
In other words, a 1 in 100 year storm is more extreme than a 1 in 10 year storm, not because climate is changing, but rather because the observation period is changing,
ferdberple
October 4, 2015 at 8:05 am : Thankyou, fb, superbly well-said. Brett
“Why do the models use the “Global average SURFACE temperature” for these prognostications?”
Because although they are a total fail for the surface, they are worse for the lower Troposphere temperatures, and worse still for the Stratosphere. This also applies to water vapour concentration.
I am dealing with a company that makes EPA certified NDIR CO2 and water vapour detection instruments. The maximum concentration of water vapour they can work with is 2.5% and the reason for that is it is very difficult to extract a CO2 signal out of a mix.
The important thing is the level of CO2 they are having trouble detecting (because of the water vapour signal swamping the CO2). It is supposed to report CO2 from 0-20% to a 100 ppm precision. It is difficult enough to find 1% CO2 in 2.5% water vapour, the interference is so great, i.e. 10,000 ppm quantified to the nearest 100 in the presence of 25,000 ppm H2O. My point is, it is a fool’s errand thinking that a tiny amount of CO2 is going to have a detectable effect when it is dispersed through an atmosphere chock-a-block with water vapour, water ice and liquid water (all of which are strongly interacting with IR).
Exactly the same problem presents itself to an IR photon looking for the Great Beyond. A drop of something like 50 ppm H2O would cancel 100% of the GH effect of all the CO2 in the atmosphere. I would appreciate further comments from readers on the H2O drop required to balance a change of 350 ppm CO2.
Further to the above comment, the amplification predicted from H2O rising in the atmosphere heretofore assumed to be the feedback from CO2 forcing is larger than the CO2 forcing itself. I am pointing out that like the confirmation of the null hypothesis for CO2, this prediction cuts both ways on both counts.
If the water vapour is supposed to increase with a rise in surface temperature, and the temperature drops somewhere else in the system, then the water vapour concentration may drop at that point/region. That drop will amplify the temperature drop just as CO2 is supposed to increase it.
There is, therefore, another null hypothesis: that a change in water vapour concentration is a stronger driver of temperature than CO2, and that the total column water vapour has been dropping. The result should be a stabilisation of temperatures at the surface, something clearly observed.
It is true that as the CO2 rose, the average surface temperature remained constant for years, confirming one null hypothesis. It is also true that as the CO2 rose, the water vapour dropped though the magnitude of that drop was smaller. The ratio of the changes provides the feedback ratio: 1 unit of H2O drop offsets 3 or 4 units of CO2 rise and the temperature remains unchanged. One can then claim that a drop in H2O makes no difference to lower Tropospheric temperature (the null hypothesis for water vapour).
However one can also hypothesize that they cancel each other exactly.
If there is a separate mechanism that stabilises the surface temperature, like the tropical thunderstorm and cloud hypothesis, then the water vapour level can never get out of hand. If the water vapour is thereby stabilised, additional forcing by additional CO2 cannot cause temperatures to get out of hand because any forcing invokes the mechanism of cloud based cooling, whatever the temperature, because it is separate. We see from the historical proxies that the upper limit of the planet’s average temperature is 24 C. As the tropical temperature is stabilised by the cloud effect, it means the poles will warm by maybe 12 degrees C maximum to get the figure 24 C. The higher the sea level, the greater the effect of tropical clouds (more sea surface area). This is a self-governing system that can tolerate a very large range in CO2 concentration while maintaining a constant tropical surface temperature. The temperature at the poles rises and falls according to the combination and ratio of CO2 and H2O.
Menicholas , All of the computations of the classic quantitative relationships I assert are included on the Heartland presentation slides ( linked at http://cosy.com/Science/HeartlandBasicBasics.html ) and executable in a freely downloadable APL .
Somehow I’m supposed to give a specific reply to “What a pile of woo” ?
Let me echo Willis Eschenbach’s standard admonition to please state precisely what statement of mine you take issue with .
To which I’ll add my standard request : show us your equations .
I don’t have time a “real feisty criticism” . All I see in your replies is vacuous ad hominem .
Bob:
Wait, what?
I think you must have me mixed up with someone else.
Here is my comment, addressed to Alice, and then yours, addressed to Alice.
Me:
“Do you have anything specific to say Alice?
“What a pile of woo” makes for the start of a real feisty criticism,, but it does not sound like much of a refutation to a what Mr. Armstrong had to say unless you have even one specific counterpoint to make.”
You:
“Alice : Please show us your equations or experiments which falsify the classical physics I present . To start , please show how the computation I present of the 255K value so widely parroted is wrong when it produces the same value , just presents the computation for arbitrary spectra ”
I agreed with you hear, and in fact I referenced your comments elsewhere as being particularly interesting.
I have never been accused before of being vacuous, and I try not to make any comments that are ad hominem, except to point out t the clueless that they seem to be clueless.
I think you must have seriously mixed me up with someone else, or did not read my comments very carefully.
No apology needed.
PS, I think maybe you should scroll up and reread my comments again.
Menicholas , Yea , re-reading everything I see it got kind of out of sync . It’s partially due to having 0 time for vacuous even if “fiesty” discussions a the time — or now .
Sorry to have gotten the story line tangled .
After re reading the entire thread, I do not find one instance of me making a personal insult on anyone.
I did say this though:
“Menicholas
October 4, 2015 at 8:17 am
Clarification…not disagreeing in regard to the knowledge or lack thereof of the general public.
I am agnostic at this point re the discussion here of whether there is a GHG warming affect.
I am a physical chemist, and a geographer, with a smattering of knowledge of biology and Earth history…sort of a generalist, my first degree pursued was interdisciplinary natural sciences…a degree since discontinued…I am not a condensed matter physicist, and many here are. Or at least seem to be and purport to be. If they cannot agree on the radiative properties of the atmosphere, who am I to jump in and offer an opinion one way or the other?
I do love the debate though, and go back and forth on which way I am leaning depending on who is talking.
I understand the persuasive arguments on both sides, and just hope I do not run out of popcorn.
How can it be that there is such a seemingly stark and basic disagreement over this topic?
It would seem that experiments could and should be devised to put the mater to rest and settle it once and for all.
I find the arguments put forward by Mr. Bob Armstrong, Fedberple, and Hockeyschtick compelling. But much of the counter-argumentation seems compelling as well. If the statements regarding Venus are not true, those on the other side of this question should dispute them in clear and plain language and argument.
Ditto with the temperature profile of the Earth’s atmosphere being completely and adequately explained without regard to the specific composition and mixture of gasses.”
Menicholas , You’ll see my apology for misreading your comment as implying I should spend time replying to caca which I think is spanish for “woo” .
I am astounded that the field of “climate science” has gone decades now essentially ignoring the constraints of extremely basic classical physics . I’ve , perhaps , had the advantage of only having a background in basic classical physics and being an APL programmer , implementing quantitative relationships in order to play with them and to have very little patience of qualitative claims presented with no computable equations , ala Hansen , and also Raymond Pierrehumbert . How these people can have ever been given a pass on the quantitative assertions and proofs on any real field of physics is a sociological phenomenon I will never understand .
After figuring out the general equation for the equilibrium temperature for arbitrary source and object spectra ( which I have yet to see presented anywhere else on the web ) I should have immediately realized that gravity was the next parameter which must be considered . Not only because it’s obviously there , but it is the only force which is asymmetric . Cascading layers of color filters , which is essentially the arguments — presented without equations by both Hansen and Pierrehumbert — and for that matter all theories which rely on spectral properties can’t do it . They are intrinsically symmetrical processes which offer no possibility of evading the Divergence Theorem .
Only gravity provides the essential asymmetry . And as HockeySchtick shows was both classically understood , and is compellingly accurate when tested against observation .
From my perspective , it’s case closed . The greenhouse gas theory is pathetically bad physics and it is now “dead theory walking” .
Well, no.
Nature did. 20+ years ago.
We are actually very lucky the temperature has not continued to go up for the last 20 years. If it had gone up disproving the AGW hypothesis would be far more difficult, despite aphorisms like “correlation is not causation”…
Peter
You can get anything you want, at ALICE’S restaurant . . .. excepting a fact – based response.
What I find ironic is that Hansen’s scenario “C” closely resembles what we have with the hiatus, and what I have calculated in a response curve of solar change equitation through a solar/ocean/atmosphere coupling, and using numbers of another paper from Hansen.
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Global%20Warming/TSI%20Equalization%2060%20pct%20at%2081%20to%20120%20years_zpsdmysznnd.png
(Note: [IMG] tags removed. You don’t need them here. ~mod.)
There are no failed “predictions” as today’s climate models do not make “predictions.” As the “projections” that these models do make are not falsifiable it is impossible them to fail.