Guest essay by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Recently I provided – based on a characteristically interesting email from Roger Taguchi – a demonstration that IPCC has at least doubled true climate sensitivity. In this follow-up piece, will you please welcome the global-warming exaggeration factor X.
First, a breathless recap on my summary of Roger’s argument. Global temperature rose by 0.83 K from 1850-2016 (HadCRUT4), while CO2 concentration rose from 280 to 400 ppmv (NCEI). Officially-predicted pre-feedback sensitivity ΔT0 to this increase in CO2 concentration is thus 0.312 [5.35 ln (400/280)] = 0.60 K. Even if CO2 were the sole cause of all the warming, the post-feedback gain factor G would be 0.83/0.60 = 1.38. Then, since nearly all temperature feedbacks are short-acting, at doubled CO2 concentration and after all feedbacks had acted, equilibrium sensitivity ΔTeq would be only 0.312 x 5.35 ln (2) x 1.38 = 1.6 K. Yet the AR4, CMIP3 and CMIP5 central equilibrium-sensitivity predictions are of order 3.2 K.
Of course, not all feedbacks have acted yet, but, on the other side of the ledger, much of the warming since 1850 is attributable either to natural causes or to non-CO2 manmade forcings. Netting off these two considerations, it is virtually certain that IPCC and the models are overestimating Man’s influence on climate by well over double.
In this follow-up posting, I shall put some numbers to this conclusion. As before, the official climate-sensitivity equation will illuminate the argument:
Fig. 1 The official climate-sensitivity equation. Pre-feedback sensitivity ΔT0 = λ0 ΔF. Post-feedback sensitivity ΔT is the product of ΔT0 and the post-feedback gain factor G. By a suitable choice of the feedback sum, the equation can model transient or equilibrium climate sensitivity.
The official equation is simple. For instance, it has no term for ocean heat capacity and none for time-dependency. Yet, remarkably, it gives us the ballpark in which climate sensitivity will fall, and much can be learned from it, as a calibration step will demonstrate.
On the pre-feedback side, the values of the radiative forcing ΔF = 3.708 W m–2 at doubled CO2 and of the pre-feedback climate sensitivity parameter λ0 = 0.312 K W–1 m2 are those that IPCC and nearly all general-circulation models use. Their product is pre-feedback climate sensitivity ΔT0 = 1.16 K. Models take these values as near-constant in modern conditions.
As the bottom-left portion of the curve in Fig. 2 shows, this pre-feedback response to a radiative forcing occurs within a few years of the forcing.
Note that Roe (2009) uses 4 W m–2 as the forcing at CO2 doubling, rather than today’s IPCC estimate 3.7 W m–2, so that his pre-feedback or reference climate sensitivity is 1.25 K.
It is at once evident that the bulk of the warming comes not from the direct CO2 forcing but from consequential temperature feedbacks, particularly in the high-sensitivity case.
Therefore, the chief reason why climate sensitivity cannot be readily constrained is that the interval of models’ estimates for the feedback-sum Σici is broad.
Fig. 2 Time-evolution (log time axis after 500 yr) of the probability distribution of future climate states (mean climate sensitivity and 95% confidence interval) generated from a simple climate model forced by a step-function radiative forcing ΔF = 4 W m–2 at t = 0. Pre-feedback or reference climate sensitivity ΔT0 = 1.25 K. At right is the equilibrium probability distribution ΔTeq. Higher-sensitivity climates take longer to equilibrate. Based on Roe (2009, fig. 6).
As an input to the calibration step, Fig. 3, an enhanced detail from IPCC (2013, fig. 43a), shows (in gray annuli) the CMIP3 feedback-sum interval that was used for IPCC (2007):
Fig. 3 The feedback sum in the CMIP3 models was 1.93 [1.53, 2.35] W m–2 K–1
From the interval [1.53, 2.35] W m–2 K–1 of feedback sums Σici, the feedback fraction f, which falls on the interval [–1, +1], may be derived by multiplying each value of the feedback-sum by λ0 = 0.312 K W–1 m2, so that f falls on the interval [0.48, 0.73].
Since the post-feedback or system gain factor G is equal to (1 – f)–1, G falls on [1.91, 3.74]. Equilibrium post-feedback climate sensitivity ΔTeq, the product of ΔT0 and G in the official climate-sensitivity equation shown in Fig. 1, falls on [2.2, 4.3] K, near-identical to the published CMIP3 equilibrium-sensitivity interval [2.1, 4.4] K (IPCC, 2013, p. 820, §9.7.3).
The calibration thus shows a remarkably close correspondence between the models’ output and the official equation’s output, demonstrating that, simple though it looks, it is capable of reproducing modelled climate sensitivity with some reliability.
Between the 2007 and 2013 Assessment Reports, IPCC made no change to the values of the CO2 forcing or of the pre-feedback sensitivity parameter, leaving pre-feedback climate sensitivity unchanged at 0.312 x 3.708 = 1.16 K per CO2 doubling.
Fig. 4 CMIP5 feedbacks scaled to climate sensitivity to demonstrate the extent to which the now-rejected French IPSL-CM5A-LR model was an outlier in the ensemble.
The CMIP5 models relied upon by IPCC (2013) substantially reduced the interval of the temperature-feedback sum Σici from the 1.93 [1.53, 2.35] in CMIP3 to just 1.44 [1.00, 1.82] W m–2 K–1 in CMIP5, after exclusion of a single outlier model from France (Fig. 4).
Multiplying the new interval by λ0, the interval of the feedback fraction f falls from 0.60 [0.48, 0.73] in CMIP3 to 0.45 [0.31, 0.57] in CMIP5, whereupon the interval of the post-feedback or system gain factor G falls from 2.50 [1.92, 3.71] to 1.81 [1.45, 2.33].
Equilibrium sensitivity should, therefore, have fallen from 3.2 [2.1, 4.4] K in the CMIP3 models for IPCC (2007) to just 2.1 [1.7, 2.7] K in the CMIP5 models, since the feedback-sum interval between the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models had fallen as shown in the enlargement from IPCC (2013, Fig. 9.43a) in Fig. 3.
However, the CMIP5 models held the central estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity at 3.2 K per CO2 doubling (IPCC, 2013, p. 83, box TFE.6), and the interval is [2.1, 4.7] K (ibid., ch. 9, p. 745).
Accordingly, the CMIP5 models on which IPCC (2013) relies, having failed to adjust sensitivity downward in line with the reduction in the feedback sum compared with CMIP3, are now – on this ground alone – overstating climate sensitivity by a factor 1.53 [1.25, 1.76].
With this necessary theoretical background, we can now return to the observed record. Last week’s calculations were based on the assumption that all of the 0.83 K global warming since 1850 was caused by CO2.
However, IPCC’s various reports estimate that between 70% and 90% of all anthropogenic warming is attributable to CO2.
Furthermore, an unknown fraction of the global warming since 1850 was natural. Legates et al. (2013, 2015), of which I was a co-author, determined from the datafile in Cook et al. (2013) that, of 11,944 papers on climate and related topics published in the learned journals in the 21 years 1992-2011, only 0.3% had actually stated that at least half the warming since 1950 was manmade.
To cover all possibilities, we shall model manmade fractions of warming at 10-100% of observed or predicted warming. But we shall not model Michael Mann’s assertion that there would have been significant global cooling but for manmade global warming, because IPCC’s conclusion, in each of its past three Assessment Reports, is that without manmade forcings there would have been little warming or cooling. See, for instance, Fig. 5.
Fig. 5 Land and ocean combined warming, 1900-2000 with (pink) and without (blue) manmade forcings, according to IPCC (2013, fig. SPM.6).
Those who want to push the envelope a la Mann may, of course, do so using the method described here. But, as Fig. 5 shows, they are not in the mainstream that they so much value.
The method of determining the X factor begins with the observation that pre-feedback warming only takes a few years to manifest itself fully following a forcing.
Therefore, little error arises from the assumption that transient and zero-feedback sensitivities are approximately equal.
In the words of Roger’s follow-up email:
“Since CO2 levels have continually increased from year to year since 1850, it could be argued that we have never achieved a new steady state, so present temperature readings are lower than they would be at steady state (“equilibrium”). This argument had some plausibility during the rapid temperature rise from about 1950 to 1998.
“But the 18-year hiatus in temperature rise is most probably explained by a relatively short time constant, so that present temperatures must be fairly close to steady-state temperatures, with maybe a time-lag of a couple of years.
“Why would people invoke ad-hoc time constants of centuries, and search for “missing heat”? In order to save a failing theory, that doubling CO2 results in an “equilibrium” climate sensitivity of 1 + 2 = 3 K after positive feedback owing to increased water vapor.”
The fraction of observed global warming that the increased partial pressure of CO2 has generated since 1850 is by definition equal to the product of the anthropogenic fraction of all observed warming and the CO2 fraction of the anthropogenic warming.
For instance, if 50% of all observed warming were anthropogenic and 70% of anthropogenic warming were CO2-driven the fraction of observed warming since 1850 represented by CO2 would be 50% of 70%, or 35%.
The next step is to determine the factor by which predicted pre-feedback CO2-driven warming in response to the observed 120 ppmv growth in CO2 concentration since 1850 exceeds the fraction of all observed warming since 1850 that is attributable to CO2.
The product of this factor X0 and the interval 1.53 [1.25, 1.76] for the excess feedback prediction factor Xf is the interval of exaggeration factors X by which the models on which IPCC relies have overstated CO2-driven warming compared with observation since 1850.
The equation for the global-warming exaggeration factor X is thus as follows:
For instance, predicted CO2-driven warming ΔT0,pre since 1850 is 0.312 (5.35 ln 2) = 0.6 K; the fraction C of all warming since 1850 thought to be represented by CO2 warming is, say, 0.35 (assuming, for illustration, that half of all warming since 1850 is anthropogenic and 70% of that warming was CO2-driven, for 0.5 x 0.7 = 0.35); and the observed warming since 1850, assumed to be equal to the pre-feedback warming, is 0.83 K.
Then the pre-feedback exaggeration factor X0 = 2.048.
Next, the published central CMIP5 estimate ΔTeq,CMIP5 of equilibrium post-feedback warming is 3.2K; however, the central estimate of the system gain factor GCMIP5, based on the published feedback-sums in Fig. 3, is 1.81, and the equilibrium pre-feedback warming in response to doubled CO2 is 1.16 K.
Then the feedback exaggeration factor Xf = 1.53.
Accordingly X, the product of the pre-feedback and feedback exaggeration factors, equals 3.12, indicating that, assuming that warming to date is approximately equal to the pre-feedback response to radiative forcings, and assuming the chosen values for the fraction of all global warming since 1850 that was anthropogenic and for the fraction of all anthropogenic warming that was CO2-driven, IPCC and the models are approximately tripling true climate sensitivity.
The equation for X can, of course, be adapted quite easily to allow for any degree of positive or negative feedback that is thought to have occurred over the period of study (in the present instance, 1850 to the present). But here, for simplicity, and because little error arises, it is assumed that warming to date is approximately equal to pre-feedback warming.
The beauty of this method is that a table of global-warming exaggeration factors X can be prepared as soon as the CO2 and temperature values for a given month become available; and they can be computed for all anthropogenic-warming fractions and for all CO2 fractions.
Results of just such a computation are shown in Table 1.
In Table 1, exaggeration factors X > 2.000, indicating that IPCC’s methods are at least doubling true climate sensitivity, are in red; exaggeration factors 0.000 < X < 2.000 are in orange; and exaggeration factors X < 0, indicating an understatement of true climate sensitivity, are in green.
There are remarkably few values X < 0. Very nearly all of the values in the table show exaggeration by the models, and the great majority of the exaggeration factors are substantial.
The heavy bias in the models towards exaggeration of climate sensitivity is thus at once visible and explicit in the table. It is indeed virtually certain that the models have exaggerated climate sensitivity by at least double.
Table 1 Global warming exaggeration factors, 1850-2016, based on the CMIP5 model ensemble. Red indicates exaggeration of climate sensitivity by double or more; yellow indicates exaggeration by less than double; green indicates understatement. For each block, the first line gives the factor by which pre-feedback climate sensitivity is exaggerated in models, and the following three lines encompass the interval of exaggeration factors based on CMIP5 models’ failure to take into account their own reduction in the feedback-sum interval when determining final climate sensitivity, with the central estimate in bold face.
“If heat is going into the ocean heat-sink but is barle evident in the surface layer, then we do not need to concern ourselves too much with it.”
It is and it wont disappear. It has to escape to space at some point, having heated the atmosphere before doing so.
It is energy that is in excess of equilibrium – has to be, as even if your *pause* were real all TSI has not gone into it pausing it. Has it now.
Therefore there is an element NOT accounted for in your calc. Ergo you have not computed a ECS value. You have computed a TCR.
BTW: feel free to employ your usual rude dismissive comeback as displayed in your responses Nick Stokes, Toncul and Frank (and in every and all responses of yours to defenders of physics that seems to be your habitual want in the years I’ve been reading your comments here and elsewhere).
It’s just bad manners my friend, even from a Lord.
You are not an expert.
The experts therefore must either be…
a)Incompetent.
b)Fraudulent.
Or
c)They know more than you.
Answers on a postcard please. (sarc)
“It is and it wont disappear. [The heat in the oceans] has to escape to space at some point, having heated the atmosphere before doing so.”
If what you mean is that, before equilibrium is reached, the oceans have to give back up to the atmosphere the net heat they gained by having the atmosphere heat the ocean due to a rise in CO2, that’s wrong. If what you mean is that the little quanta of energy that flow into the ocean eventually flows back out of it, you’re technically right but it’s irrelevant.
Doubling CO2, say, will create a new equilibrium balance where layers of the atmosphere, the land surface, the ocean surface, the layers of the ocean depth, etc. all reach new steady-state temperature oscillations. Thus, the mere fact that sometime after CO2 has risen, the oceans instantaneously have more heat in them, does not tell you anything about how far off that equilibrium state is, or whether its already been reached. The heat content that’s in the ocean at this very moment could be what is needed for its temperature to balance the heat flux into the ocean with the heat flux going out of the ocean based on the existing atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Let me re-phrase Monckton’s statement slightly – If the man-made heat that sunk into the ocean depths was barely evident when it passed through the surface layer, then we do not need to concern ourselves too much with it. I think that about sums it up. If the equilibrium state of the ocean surface, in response to all the CO2 that has so far been spit into the atmosphere, has yet to be reached because some quantity of heat made its way from the air to the ocean depths, it must have passed through the surface layer of the ocean before now. If radiative equilibrium in response to ONLY PAST CO2 emissions isn’t going to be reached until that heat somehow makes its way back into the atmosphere, again passing through the surface layer of the ocean, at some point in the past (and again at some point in the future) wouldn’t the ocean surface temperature have to have risen above the temperature it is going to be at in the equilibrium state? In other words, wouldn’t the equilibrium temperature of the ocean surface be somewhere in the range of what we’ve already seen?
Radiation exchange between the ocean surface and the atmosphere adjusts near instantaneously. Convective and evaporative exchanges more slowly, but again, the radiative exchange should instantaneously adjust to convection, evaporation, and rainfall to restore radiative balance between the air and the oceans. Any component of equilibrium ocean surface temperature caused by a bubble of heat that somehow zipped through the surface layer of the ocean, and destined to do again as it makes its way back home must cause the surface temperature of the ocean to oscillate above its ultimate equilibrium temperature as it moves through the surface layer, and all back down as it leaves.
Slight edit – This should have read “Convective and evaporative exchanges occur more slowly, but again, the radiative exchange should instantaneously adjust to convection, evaporation, and rainfall to balance the heat exchange between the air and the oceans.”
Kurt is right again. And, in the first 11 years of the ARGO record, the warming of the top Mike and a quarter of the ocean was at the unalarming rate of 1 degree every 430 years.
[The mods are wondering if that was a calibrated Mike (in Jordan height units or Phelps spans)? .mod]
In the armed forces, Mike Mike can mean millimeter, as in the “40 Mike Mike” grenade launcher.
How alert are our wonderful moderators! Mike and a quarter should read mile and a quarter.
Give the lord a break… these climate forums are nasty entities and we should all commend MoB for wading into the filth. (he’s a stand up guy) All those guys you’ve mentioned including born in the last post (but excepting stokes, who’s also a stand up guy) seem to have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the good lord. It’s quite surprising that he should even waste one moment of one day on them and yet here he is. And then you come along and harp on him for being insolent to the insolent. If these people want to be treated with respect, then they can begin by treating Lord Monkton with respect. RESPECT is a two way street, even at a climate science blog…
To your point about oceans storing heat, why would we expect the heat to leave the ocean? The ocean has a temperature gradient and if the surface temp changes then the whole ocean adjusts to a new equilibrium state. The heat will stay in the ocean until the surface temps cool to a temperature below the current equilibrium state. (yes, SSTs could actually cool while the ocean continues to warm) Let me know where i’m going wrong here…
BTW, i’m kind of new here at wuwt, only came crawling over here when dr spencer had a “hiatus” with his comment page. From what i’ve gathered from your comments, you seem to have a gift for being able to handle yourself in these forums. (mustn’t be easy to find yourself in enemy territory…) Not everybody has your gift, perhaps not even lord m, so go easy on us lesser animals. Besides, there’s nothing more repugnant to an american audience than two brits squabbling… (☺)
Tony: Let me simply add that the method used by the experts (Lewis and Curry 2014 and previous workers) doesn’t give the ECS that Lord Monckton reports. I can be wrong, but that is unlikely in such a simple calculation. The forcing for 280 to 400 ppm is 1.9 W/m2, slightly more than half a doubling
ECS = F_2XCO2 * (dT/(dF-dQ)) = 3.7 * 0.83 / (1.9-0.5)
This equation gives effective climate sensitivity, not equilibrium climate sensitivity (which will be bigger). So he is wrong or this method is wrong.
Toneb
I agree with you about Monckton’s dismissive attitude.
He seems to take a delight in referring to anyone who disagrees with him as “it”, rather than “he” or “she”. That grates on the sensibilities of the reader, and detracts from whatever arguments are being presented.
I surprised that the moderators have acquiesced to this puerile stupidity
[it did not bother us. .mod]
Richard Barraclough:
Amen. I’d like to engage Lord Monckton in logical discourse but he perennially thwarts my desire. The topic sentence in many of his posts is a disparaging characterization of his opponent in debate by which he portrays this opponent as a nitwit. Whether disparaging or laudatory, characterization of a debater plays no part in logical discourse as there is not a logical way in which characterization of one’s opponent is of assistance in reaching a logically defensible conclusion from a debater’s argument. This being the case, debaters are faced with the requirement for attacking their opponents’ allegedly bad ideas rather than attacking their characters. Unlike character assassination, this approach leads to elimination from science of bad ideas. By adopting this approach Monckton could assist in ridding global warming climatology of its numerous bad ideas.
“Kurt is right again.”
If you say so.
However I say not – sorry.
That leaves us evens then, eh?
“in the first 11 years of the ARGO record, the warming of the top Mike and a quarter of the ocean was at the unalarming rate of 1 degree every 430 years.”
Oh, right … so, lets see. Lets take the first 2000m as around half of the oceans.
Then, if that amount of heat were to be applied to the atmosphere (and it could magically be retained) it would raise it’s temp by 2000C.
So then a rise of ~5C per year.
Yeah, that’s definitely irrelevant.
BTW: I assume you know the SH of water vs air and ocean mass vs atmosphere.
PS: Temp is not heat.
But then you knew all that, as you’re an expert and know more than the real experts …. or else they’re either incompetent and/or frauds.
As I say – if you say so.
The sneering but accident-prone Toneb seems unaware that the surface stratum of the ocean did not warm at all in the first 11full years of the ARGO record. So it is difficult to see how the ocean could have warmed the air by 2000K; and the record shows that that did not occur. It is perhaps unaware of the concept of heat capacity, which is what prevents any such warming from occurring.
It is also perhaps unaware that, even if the atmosphere had warmed over that period, which it did not, a small atmospheric warming could not cause so large an increase in the heat capacity of the ocean, which, according to the stratified ARGO data, is warming from below, not from above.
“Toneb
August 10, 2016 at 3:24 pm
‘Kurt is right again.
If you say so.
However I say not – sorry.
That leaves us evens then, eh?”
Kurt is not a ping pong ball.
Figures 3 and 4 in this post are very interesting. Lord Moncton is asserting that if one calculates ECS from the widely-used equation in Roe (2009), one gets values that are much less than usual value cited by the IPCC from extrapolating from 4XCO2 experiments. Since Lord Moncton confused transient warming with equilibrium warming, the data he cited is appropriate for an ECS of 2.2 K rather than 1.6 K. 2.2 K happens to be the mean ECS for the newer CMIP5 models derived from abstracting feedbacks from model output (not 4XCO2 experiments). This agreement wasn’t apparent in CMIP3 models. Section 9.7.2.4 and Figure 9.43b present the internal inconsistency produced when two different methods are used to determine ECS from model output.
9.7.2.4 Relationship of Feedbacks to Modelled Climate Sensitivity
The ECS can be estimated from the ratio of forcing to the total climate feedback parameter. This approach is applicable to simulations in which the net radiative balance is much smaller than the forcing and hence the modelled climate system is essentially in equilibrium. This approach can also serve to check the INTERNAL CONSISTENCY of estimates of the ECS, forcing, and feedback parameters obtained using independent methods. The relationship between ECS from Andrews et al. (2012) and estimates of ECS obtained from the ratio of forcings to feedbacks is shown in Figure 9.43b. The forcings are estimated using both regression and fixed SST techniques (Gregory et al., 2004; Hansen et al., 2005) by Andrews et al. (2012) and the feedbacks are calculated using radiative kernels (Soden et al., 2008). On average, the ECS from forcing to feedback ratios underestimate the ECS from Andrews et al. (2012) by 25% and 35%, or up to 50% for individual models, using fixed-SST and regression forcings, respectively.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/images/Assessment%20Reports/AR5%20-%20WG1/Chapter%2009/Fig9-43.jpg
Frank is, as usual, wrong on every material point. As the calibration strep carefully set out in the head posting demonstrates, use of the feedback-sum interval for the CMIP3 ensemble in Fig. 9.43a gives an equilibrium-sensitivity near-perfectly coincident with the that interval.
It is plain that the CMIP5 feedback-sum interval is considerably below the CMIP3 interval, while the values of all other inputs to the equation were identical in both ensembles. Accordingly, the CMIP5 climate-sensitivity interval should have been correspondingly lower than that of CMIP3.
And no, I did not confuse transient and equilibrium warming.
Since none of the thermodynamic gibberish you’re referring to actually refers to energy handling by compressible fluids, it’s as irrelevant and useless as all the other proclamations of there being more energy held by an atmospheric mix which has more CO2 added to it.
CO2 has lower specific energy than atmospheric air and furthermore it contact cools then radiates identical spectra parallel to the planetary surface which heats it.
CO2 providing an additional path for radiant loss at identical frequencies is called an overall larger total combined yet cooler mass, sharing a thermal load that, were the CO2 not there, would be radiated by the mass of the surface alone.
You can’t provide any actual mathematics for compressible fluids that show more CO2 in an atmospheric mix, making that mix hold more energy.
Why don’t any of the people who believe CO2 can warm an air mix, use proper mathematics for compressible fluids?
Because if they should do this, temperatures calculated out several places past zero, matching gas temperatures reflected by instruments in ovens, kilns, vacuums, jet engines, internal combustion engines, free combustion – would prove how ignorant it is, to claim to believe in any sort of GHE.
One of the greatest threats to scientific knowledge today is the widespread belief temperatures of Earth, as well as Venus with it’s CO2 atmosphere, vary from standard gas equations’ calculated temperature.
The atmosphere has an international standard setting it’s known density and it’s known average temperature, and a bunch of men caught claiming their hockey stick generators were a whole new form of mathematics aren’t going to change that.
The International Standard Atmosphere is able to be set due to mankind’s satisfactory knowledge and overall understanding of gas energy handling. Everything from the inside of light bulbs to air conditioners to the tires autos and jets use have standards set for their performance based on how accurately the gas equations calculate temperature – and there is no reference to green house anything, at any time, in the gas equations.
This is why the promise that soon you’ll see, it’s real, always turns out to be nothing more or less than vaporware. If it were possible to make a green house effect heating of 30 degrees using earth atmospheric mix, at earth atmosphere density, there would be a calculation involved specifying some ”Green House Effect” we’d all know about from high school and college, and work.
The fact is actual calculation of the earth’s temperature involves zero reference to a green house effect of any kind. And the temperature standard equations give, matches the earth’s overall temperature SO exactly
that there is the International Standard – known, as the Standard Atmosphere. And it is perfectly obvious when you check, that there is no reference to Green House anything, anywhere, in the calculation for establishing that
International Standard,
that make international treaties, regulations, and engineering standards for aviation, space travel, automobiles, anesthesia, air conditioned skyscrapers and everything else under the sun – pun somewhat intended – possible,
It’s vaporware and purest fiction, this mythological CO2 even being ABLE to heat the planet.
It’s why climatology/AGW/GHE places are the only ones on earth where you can be told your presence isn’t desired, if you’re going to keep referring to the laws of physics written for the subject: the Atmosphere. That’s with a capital letter as in the Standard Atmosphere, the international standard that doesn’t refer,
to CO2/Green House anything, when it’s provenance is checked.
The GHE is vaporware proven by the fact legally binding standards exist worldwide for myriad gas temperature applications and there is zero ”GHE” heating in any calculation referencing a real physical gas application.
When someone tells you he thinks such exists, have him explain to you how the international Standard Atmosphere nor any other engineering standard on the planet – in any field – has a calculation in it where some ”Green House” quantity is included.
You’ll see the vaporware portion of the conversation so many real scientific minds have run up against where a lot of talk happens but no capacity to predict comes from it. This comes from not dealing in the truth. Truth in engineering and mathematics brings capacity to predict.
AGW/GHE believers don’t have that capacity.
Theron is incorrect. There is a greenhouse effect. It is the reason why the Earth’s surface temperature is about 34 K warmer than its emission surface. It operates via the interaction between near-infrared long-wave radiation at a peak wavelength of 14.99 microns and molecules of CO2, whose symmetrical atomic disposition allows them to mimic the dipole moment of a more complex molecule, causing quantum oscillation in one of the vibrational modes of the molecule. That molecular oscillation is, by definition, heat. Some of the heat passes harmlessly to outer space; most passes harmlessly into the oceans, whose vast heat capacity is more than capable of handling the additional radiation without breaking a sweat; and some remains in the atmosphere.
Since the mechanics of the greenhouse effect are well understood down to the quantum level, it is no longer credible to say there is no greenhouse effect. However, one can question the magnitude of the forcing influence of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, and that, like it or not, is the question around which the real climate debate is centered.
“There is a greenhouse effect. It is the reason why the Earth’s surface temperature is about 34 K warmer than its emission surface.”
Qualitatively, I have no issues with that, but I have to wonder about the accuracy of that 34 K number. My reading on how it’s calculated is that it is set to be the difference between the ideal black body temperature of the Earth not considering an atmosphere and the measured average temperature with an atmosphere that radiates heat.
My problem is that I have a hard time believing that the mere existence of an atmosphere, liquid water, and a complex climate system – irrespective of whether the atmosphere radiates – doesn’t act to raise the effective temperature of the Earth such that an unknown part of that 34 K has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.
The touchstone characteristic of a black body is its instantaneous efficiency at adjusting its temperature to balance its outgoing emissions with whatever changes are made to in its incoming absorption. In other words, it doesn’t absorb heat, spend a little bit of time churning it around, and then emit the extra energy at some later point in time. But that’s what our climate system is all about. The wind, the rain, the hurricanes and tornadoes, the ocean currents, the glaciers – they all are the very process of the Earth churning around the incoming energy received from the sun before the Earth spits it back out to space. Those processes themselves have to raise the effective temperature of the Earth relative to a black body because they use incoming solar energy to drive them. In other words, because the Earth’s climate system spends time using the incoming solar energy to drive it, the Earth is less like a black body and it’s temperature rises relative to a black body.
And I can’t believe that all of these processes (wind, rain, ocean convection and currents etc.) owe their existence to the radiative exchange between the surface and the atmosphere Just the opposite – because GHGs moderate the temperature swings that would otherwise exist on Earth, and moderate the difference in temperature between the surface and the air aloft, and because GHGs let the air emit the heat to space that it receives via evaporation, conduction, and convection from the surface rather than having to have the heat return to the surface before the Earth can get rid of it, I think that the greenhouse effect moderates the severity and swings of the climate.
[trimmed]
Great article and informative comments. Perhaps it is just me but I think the issue boils down to a couple of facts: 1) By their vary nature, Complex Systems resist accurate predictions of their future state. 2) CO2 moving from 3 parts per ten thousand to 4 parts per ten thousand is unlikely to be the controlling variable of projected trapped energy measured as temperature increase. Call me simple but it just smells wrong.
I will be deeply disappointed if global warming has stopped or is even half of the computer programmer’s
whipped up projections. Climate changes and global warming is a very good thing . No denying that !
What gets to me about all the fear about Carbon is that the stuff we are using, oil and gas, supposedly had to have been sequestered from ages ago.
Imagine the amount of green fauna it took to create the oil and gas reserves.
When you are up to your crotch in seawater soon, keep trying to convince yourself that its an exaggeration….drip..drip…
Might be hard to stand in one place long enough to observe that imagined 36 inch sea water rise.
RACookPE1978 – best smackdown response to alarmist driven I’ve seen in months
Interesting discussion. Discussion of the OHC reminded me of a thought that I think is somewhat relevant here..
I believe I recall reading that the average (over the entire globe) amount of energy going into the ocean is on the order of ~0.2W/m2. At some point, given constant heating, we would expect this to stop going into the ocean.
This is very obvious but if the energy wasn’t going into the ocean, it would heat the earth’s surface presumably as though it were just another forcing. As such, it seems to me that we could come up with a reasonable back of the envelope estimate for the effect of oceans and thus help constrain the ECS somewhat. To wit, total forcing is ~2W/m2 which causes on average of X transient temp increase and ~0.2 W/m2. As such, the ocean-adjusted equilibrium sensitivity would be the transient sensitivity times ~ 1.1, 2W/m2/(2wm/2-0.2W/m2).
Obviously, we would still need to calculate the effect of albedo changes (the other major long term period feedback) but at least we are getting closer to the true ECS.
Cheers, 🙂
There seems to be some very simple science missing herer.
For gases which are soluble in water, the degree of solubility increases with increase in water temperature.
However CO2 is the opposite. As water temperature increases, solubility decreases.
The oceans contain vast quantities of dissolved C)2.
As ocean temperatures increase, solubility decreases, and there is an outgassing effect. That is, the oceans are releasing vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Nothing to do with anthropogenic activities, everything to do with nature.
But if we warm the atmosphere and the atmosphere warms the oceans, then the outgassing is known as the CO2 feedback, and it is attributable to us – but no one has much idea of its magnitude.
Peter Davis
August 11, 2016 at 4:28 pm
“There seems to be some very simple science missing herer.”
No Peter, the solubility of all gases DECREASE with RISING temperatures. I think even political scientists should have had to pass a general course in science.
Apologies for my typos.
Christopher,
Why are you posting this here ?, have you submitted this to the IPCC ?
In response to WTF’s excellent question, I often use this forum to test new ideas, because many of the protagonists (on both sides) have knowledge that is helpful to me.
Following this thread, the true-believers have been unable to find a hole in the argument that stands up to scrutiny.
I have some further work to do on why both the direct forcing and the feedbacks are being overestimated, and will be taking Bode (1945), all 556 magisterial pages of it, on two weeks’ holiday in my beloved Scottish highlands, where I can stare at the hills and think.
In due time, a paper will emerge.
Christopher,
Testing it here means nothing, only a submission to a relevant reputable body for peer review will.
Good luck
In reply to WTF’s excellent point, I am now drafting a paper, but I wanted to get some preliminary feedback (pun intended) from the trolls, paid hacks and perma-Cassandras that infest open-minded sites like this splendid one. It is probably fair to say that they have not landed a blow yet.
Behind the points raised in the head posting, there is a far larger and more significant error, and one which will cover the whole of climatology with confusion and embarrassment. It is that error, which I am not yet at liberty to describe, that will settle once and for all the question whether climate sensitivity can be anything like as high as the usual suspects are handsomely paid to believe.
I shall send the paper, once drafted, to my distinguished academic colleagues for a first read, and then to three of the world’s most eminent physicists, all of whom are friends enough to tell me that I am wrong – if I am wrong.
If they find no fault with the argument, the paper will be sent for peer review in a leading journal – possibly the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has already published a couple of papers by us.
Watch this space!
Because it’s a wonderfully-written parody on the kind of “science” that comes out of the alarmist camp. He’s trolled them beautifully. All this post does is flip around the unproven assumptions that the warmists use to explain why observed warming is much less than modeled warming. So when a warmist says that there is this mythical (or mystical – take your pick) equilibrium climate response that’s always waiting to fully manifest itself, Lord Monckton just makes the perfectly valid counter-assumption that it mostly already has – after all there can’t be any evidence in the observed historical record about what temperatures are going to be ten years from now. He’s actually got a chart that shows a quick rise in temps followed by a long, stretched out feedback period, which backs up the claim that absent long-term feedback effects, the climate hits equilibrium quickly. When a warmist makes the assumption that there are slow-acting positive feedbacks that have yet to act, Lord Mockton just assumes that whatever they are, they are counterbalanced by the fact that this presentation assumes that all of observed warming is due to CO2. Again, these are the same types of arm-wavy assumptions modelers make all the time.
But when you cancel out the warmists’ assumptions of any remaining feedbacks or any remaining time delay to equilibrium pre-feedback sensitivity, all you are left with is the fact, which everyone knows, that observed temperatures are much less than what models project. Monckton extrapolates that to a doubling of CO2, but again doing so in a parody, and that’s when the article (and back and forth between Monckton and the warmists) gets fun. He could have just taken the observed warming of 0.83 and multiplied it by ln(2)/ln(400/280) to get his 1.6 “observed” equilibrium climate sensitivity. But instead he dressed it up with pictures and formulas just like the warmists do (complete with a “calibration” step – I loved that). Then he came up with his “X-factor” that’s just the percentage by which modeled warming exceeds observed warming to date, extrapolated to a doubling of CO2, but made it seem more formal by breaking it down by how much of that was due to feedback we have no evidence of and how much is due to overestimated non-feedback warming. I also laughed for at least two minutes when I got to that table. The only thing that was missing was a press release that overstated the findings in the text.
When the warmists objected that he wasn’t measuring “equilibrium” sensitivity, he responded that he had indeed measured that. This is technically true given his assumption that we’re already at pre-feedback equilibrium and that the remaining feedbacks were balanced by the assumption that all observed warming was from CO2. In other words, he was treating them the same way they treat the skeptics who question the validity of their unprovable assumptions.
The IPCC would never publish this.
Kurt is right that IPCC will never publish so strong an argument against its anti-science. However, he should not think that the science in the head posting is mere parody. The numerous sour but scientifically illiterate responses from the usual suspects in the true-believers’ camp should reveal how very worried they are. All I can say at this stage – for further work is being done – is that they will have a lot more to be very worried about. The high-sensitivity case is about to collapse beyond all hope of repair.
Watch this space”
I certainly agree that this is not mere parody (but it is parody – and quite good at that). I think there is solid fact-based reasoning behind your assumption that, excluding feedback, equilibrium is attained in a very short period of time (maybe at most a couple years). The assumption that the yet-to-be felt feedback is balanced by the assumption that all warming to date is due to CO2 is more arm-wavy, and I see nothing in the article that actually puts any numbers or science to that assumption, though again, this is no more egregious than assumptions that many alarmist papers make. But at its most basic, your argument is just that the observed temperature rise, extrapolated to a doubling of CO2, is the appropriate measure for climate sensitivity. Since I am at heart an empiricist, I agree with that approach – but your scientific arguments should concentrate more on bolstering your assumptions as to why observations are a better measure of climate sensitivity than theoretical models, and accordingly concentrate less on the “X-factor” and your table.
If you will accept a few items of constructive criticism on your presentation, since your argument rests on canceling out future feedback with the assumption that all warming to date is CO2-based, I don’t think that you can logically build a table that estimates the exaggeration factor should CO2 only contribute specified percentages to observed warming. If CO2 does not contribute to all of the observed warming, then your analysis needs to consider future feedback given your original assumption.
Also, the following paragraph is self-contradictory:
“To cover all possibilities, we shall model manmade fractions of warming at 10-100% of observed or predicted warming. But we shall not model Michael Mann’s assertion that there would have been significant global cooling but for manmade global warming, because IPCC’s conclusion . . . is that without manmade forcings there would have been little warming or cooling.”
You actually aren’t considering all possibilities, since you are excluding Mann’s scenario that Earth would have cooled but for CO2. And appealing to the authority of the IPCC on this one issue, so as to challenge their authority on their numerical calculations of climate sensitivity doesn’t make sense to me. In fact, since the IPCC concludes that, but for CO2 the Earth’s temperature would have been unchanged based on the same models that show climate sensitivity of 3.2, you either have to accept both as being true, or come up with a better reason to exclude Mann’s possibility of cooling but for CO2.
I will say that this post made me look more carefully at the theoretical basis for the climate models, and right now I’m reasoning through something that may be a much more fundamental flaw in the climate models than any particular sensitivity they might come up with. I’ve always thought that it was wrong to model changes in CO2 concentration as a “forcing” of added energy, and that instead the change in CO2 concentration should have been modeled as a change in a parameter in a system to which an unchanged energy input was applied. It looks like the “forcing” paradigm is only true given certain conditions that I don’t think are present, but I’m still reasoning it out.
Kurt:
As the climate sensitivity is the ratio of the change in the equilibrium surface air temperature to the change in the forcing and as the change in the equilibrium temperature cannot be observed the magnitude of the climate sensitivity cannot be determined. Don’t you agree?
“As the climate sensitivity is the ratio of the change in the equilibrium surface air temperature to the change in the forcing . . . the magnitude of the climate sensitivity cannot be determined. Don’t you agree?”
If by “determined” you mean measured with observations, as a practical matter I agree. Technically, if we were willing to commit to a millennia-long experiment that tightly controls CO2 emissions for specified intervals and then waits for equilibrium, and repeats the process, you might be able to measure it assuming the climate behaved the way you thought it did. But I think your point was that, since equilibrium is always something that exists in the future, the equilibrium temperature can’t be measured, but only calculated based on theoretical assumptions. That’s something I’d agree with.
I will also say that I think you and Christopher Monckton are talking past each other (though I may be wrong). As you pointed out, equilibrium climate sensitivity can’t be physically measured, it can only be estimated after making certain assumptions. As long as those assumptions are stated clearly I have no issues per se with doing the calculation. Each person can all judge the result by how reasonable we think the assumptions are.
Here, after applying a couple clearly stated assumptions, the big nasty equation at the beginning of the post just reduces to saying that equilibrium temperature follows a logarithmic response y = K ln(x) where x is CO2 concentration, K is a constant that has to be measured, and y is the equilibrium response. The purpose of the exercise is not to predict or calculate equilibrium response given a freely-changing CO2 concentration, but to determine the value of the constant K. According to the equation and assumptions, the K ln(x) term is also the Earth’s current temperature relative to temperatures at a reference baseline CO2 concentration, so K is just measured by dividing that temperature difference by the natural log of the ratio of the change in CO2 concentration.
If I have an equation y = Ax, and I need to measure what the constant A is with a known coordinate (x,y) I don’t care what the independent and dependent variable is in the equation, since after all I’m solving for A by rearranging the equation to A = y/x.
Kurt:
Thank you for taking the time to respond and for your cordiality. You say that “K is a constant that has to be measured” but K cannot be measured as it is the ratio of the change in the equilibrium temperature to the change in the forcing and the change in the equilibrium temperature cannot be measured.
When I said it has to be measured, I meant that it couldn’t be derived from some kind of theory like defining the constant pi as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. Instead, it is something that you have to try to determine experimentally, like the heat capacity of a substance.
That’s a separate issue from whether you have a way to reliably measure it. Your experimental measurements may be imprecise because you have to make guesses about the present value of the variables. But you’re still measuring it, and again, how much you trust the measurement depends on how much you trust the assumptions that were used to establish the values of the variables at the time the constant was being measured. .
Robert ..rising sea water = happy fish . Why is it always about humans . Did the birds get a vote on
bird blenders ? warmer seas =more fish = more seals =happy fat polar bears . Why do you have a problem with warming Robert ? Are we to believe you think climate should only change if humans have nothing to do with it ? That’s OK but otherwise we are going to control it to suit some earth temperature committee ?
Enjoy the warming while it lasts because when cooling returns all the Ford 150’s on the planet are not going to do a thing .
Enroute to “the official climate sensitivity equation” discourse became muddled through ambiguity of reference by terms in which this discourse is attempted. We have long had from the IPCC an equation in which the change in the equilibrium surface air temperature plays the role of the dependent variable and “the equilibrium climate sensitivity” plays the role of the proportionality constant. We now have from Lord Monckton “the official climate sensitivity equation” wherein “the climate sensitivity” plays the role of the dependent variable. Though “the equilibrium climate sensitivity” and “the climate sensitivity” are similar sounding terms the first plays the role of constant while the second plays the role of dependent variable. Unlike a constant a variable varies. This use of language is highly confusing, Lord Monckton.
I refer Mr Oldberk to any elementary textbook of higher mathematics. In the official climate-sensitivity equation, as in any equation, the dependent variable is climate sensitivity, over any desired period, and the independent variables are illustrated and described clearly and accurately in the head posting.
Monckton of Brenchley (Aug. 14 at 8:31 am):
Not according to WikiPedia. It states that “Climate sensitivity is the equilibrium temperature change in response to changes of the radiative forcing.” This description makes the climate sensitivity the proportionality constant in a model for which the dependent variable is the equilibrium temperature change and the independent variable is the change in the radiative forcing. To get the equilibrium temperature change one multiplies the climate sensitivity by the change in the radiative forcing. For CO2 the radiative forcing is proportional to the change in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration. The climate sensitivity is the ratio of the change in the equilibrium temperature to the change in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration and is claimed by the IPCC to be a constant whose value is approximately 3 Celsius per doubling of the CO2 concentration. However, this claim is without a scientific foundation as the change in Earth’s equilibrium temperature is not observable. By the way, your citation to a textbook of higher mathematics is inappropriate as the climate sensitivity is not a topic of higher mathematics.
Mr Oldberg is, as usual, off the point and not well informed. For a start, only the intellectually challenged cite the useless Creepypedia as a source for anything. Mr Oldberg seems blissfully unaware that climate sensitivity is a change in temperature in response to a radiative forcing, not an absolute temperature; that the equation is performed at the characteristic-emission altitude and not at the surface; that the results of the calculation at that altitude are translated to the surface by means of the temperature lapse-rate; that lambda-zero, and not the temperature anomaly that is climate sensitivity, is the constant of proportionality between a given change in radiative flux at the emission altitude and a consequent change in temperature at that altitude; that a proportionality constant between variables denominated in different units cannot be denominated in the units of only one of the two variables; that neither transient nor equilibrium sensitivity is a constant, for both are variables; and that my use of language is more than usually precise, whereas his – for all his high-sounding waffle about logic, of which he knows as little as he knows climate science – is more than usually obscure, or, rather, obscurantist, for his postings have never yet brought illumination, only what looks like carefully-calculated confusion. At any rate, he plainly has no understanding of elementary climate science and no ability to comprehend the account of it that I have given in the head posting.
Monckton of Brenchley (Aug. 19 at 6:03 pm):
In the first sentence of your response you state that “Mr Oldberg is, as usual, off the point and not well informed.” By this statement you change the topic from the climatological issue under debate to alleged deficiencies in the character of your opponent (me); there are numerous additional examples of changes by you of the topic toward this end. These are applications of the ad hominem fallacy. For the future, on ethical grounds you must avoid application of this fallacy in view of the danger of leading readers your arguments to draw false or unproved conclusions from these arguments.
In the second sentence you state that I (Oldberg) seem “blissfully aware” that climate sensitivity is a change in temperature in response to a radiative forcing.” Actually “the climate sensitivity” of your writings and those of the IPCC is a ratio. The numerator is the change in the equilibrium temperature. The denominator is the change in the radiative forcing. As the numerator is not observable, “the climate sensitivity” is scientifically nonsensical.
Kurt:
That the equilibrium climate sensitivity is a constant necessarily lacks empirical support as it is the ratio of the change in the equilibrium temperature to the change in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration. However, the equilibrium temperature cannot be determined by measurement.
Let me ask which situation you are addressing, Are you suggesting that climate sensitivity λ might vary with one of the other dependent variables in the equation? Are you suggesting that, merely because we can’t measure equilibrium temperature we also cannot measure λ? Or is it a combination of these two – that because we can’t measure equilibrium temperature over a range of conditions, we will never know whether λ is really a constant?
Kurt:
My position differs from the alternatives that you offer. It is that the model which contains λ conveys no information to a policy maker about the outcomes from his/her policy decisions thus being useless for the purpose of making policy. The IPCC and Monckton are on the wrong track. To get on the right track they must abandon their habit of muddying the waters through fallacious argumentation.
Then you guys really were talking past each other. Your first post made it sound like you had an issue with the mathematics, arguing that dependent variables were being interchanged with what should have been constants.
As for your issue as you’ve now stated it, I’ve learned from a great deal of experience that most people won’t be persuaded not to act to prevent what someone who they consider to be an expert says is a threat, based solely on the argument that those experts can’t provide policymakers with information logically necessary to make a reasoned decision. That’s true even when you’re right, and they can’t refute your reasoning. Try explaining the logical fallacy behind the precautionary principle to an environmentalist and see how far you get.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong here, or even that you shouldn’t keep making your arguments, But I wouldn’t be so quick to criticize other approaches since different people are persuaded by different types of arguments.
Kurt
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I’ll respond by calling your attention to the problem of induction. It is the problem of how, in a logically defensible manner, to select the inferences that are made by a predictive model from a larger set of possibilities.
This problem was solved 50 years ago by a group of engineers and physicists that was headed by Ronald A. Christensen, an engineer and theoretical physicist.Though this solution was published and used in scores of real world applications it failed to catch on. Most researchers continued
to select these inferences through the intuitive rules of thumb that psychologists called “heuristics and biases.”
Heuristics and biases failed to solve the problem of induction. Consequently models were built and placed into service that made logical errors. At worst, a model that had been built under heuristics and biases seemed to policy makers to provide them with information about a policy issue when it supplied them with none.
To supply no information about a policy issue a characteristic of today’s climate models. This is a fact rather than a conjecture. How to get this fact across to voters who currently know little or nothing about information theory is a question for which a satisfactory answer has not yet been found.