By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
When The Times, a Murdoch paper previously slavish in kow-towing to the Party Line on climate, leads with a story picked up from the more healthily skeptical Daily Mail to the effect that climate scientists have admitted “the threat of global warming is not as bad as previously thought”, one’s first instinct is to cheer.
In the climate debate, though, it pays to read the small print. Official climatology does not usually admit its many errors: instead, we are ordered to obey the “consensus”, as the Party Line is these days rebranded. On reading the headlines, I suspected at once that the true purpose of the latest admission, by Millar et al. in the current issue of Nature Geo“science”, is to minimize and thus to conceal the true magnitude of past over-predictions.
Here is how the Daily Mail reported the latest findings:
“The research by British scientists shows that, under the old projections, the world ought now to be 1.3 C° warmer than the mid-19th century average. In fact the new analysis shows it is 0.9-1.0 C° above. Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, accepted that the old projections had been wrong.”
There has been just 0.85 C° global warming since 1850, taken as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the HadCRUT4 monthly data. This not particularly thrilling rate it is equivalent to about half a degree per century. Fact-checking this part of Grubb’s statement, then, shows that his 0.9-1.0 C° observed warming since 1850 is on the high side, but not by much.
As we shall see, the Millar paper, in saying official climatology would predict only 1.3 C° global warming since 1850, has greatly understated the warming that would have been predicted. Not by coincidence, in the current issue of Nature Geovoodoo there is also a short paper by Gunnar Myhre, whose 1998 intercomparison between three climate models concluded that the CO2 forcing had previously been overstated by 15%. Myhre’s latest paper says:
“The combined radiative forcing from all well-mixed greenhouse gases [the non-condensers, notably CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and a sprinkling of halocarbons] was 3.1 Watts per square meter in 2015 …”, and just about all of that forcing has occurred since 1850.
To determine how much global warming official climatology would predict in response to 3.1 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing, we shall use the official “zero-dimensional model”. The equation for that model is strikingly naïve. Where w, W are pre-feedback and post-feedback global warming respectively (i.e., “reference sensitivity” and “equilibrium sensitivity”), and where f is the feedback factor,
You may well be startled – indeed, outraged – that the equation official climatology uses to tell us how much warming we’re going to get is as naïve as that. Why are we spending billions a year on IPCC if it all boils down to just that nonsensical equation? Nevertheless, I shall calibrate it to demonstrate that, naïve though it is and wrong though it is, it is indeed what climatology now uses.
If one takes official values for the inputs w, f, the equation duly spits out the official predictions of equilibrium sensitivity W. Vial et al. (2013), relied upon by IPCC (2013) for the official diagnosis of the global warming predicted by the latest generation of computer models, says that about 85% of the uncertainty in equilibrium sensitivity W arises from uncertainty in the feedback sum c, and hence in the feedback factor f, which, in the official way of doing things, is simply equal to c divided by 3.2 Kelvin per Watt per square meter.
In reality, as we shall hope to demonstrate in a learned paper before long, feedbacks have only a small influence on warming, so that the only uncertainty is in the magnitude of the forcing, but our paper proving that fact is still awaiting reviewers’ comments now three weeks overdue. For now, therefore, we shall just do things the official way, though it is egregiously at odds with mainstream science – and with experiments commissioned by us at a government laboratory, which have confirmed in every particular that we have correctly understood the mainstream science and official climatology has not.
Calibrating the official zero-dimensional-model equation proceeds thus. IPCC (2013, fig. 9.43), cites Vial et al. (2013) as having officially diagnosed the feedback sum c from simulated abrupt 4-fold increases in CO2 concentration in 11 fifth-generation models. The 11 models’ mean value for c was 1.57 W m–2 K–1, implying a mid-range estimate of 0.49 for f. Vial also gave the 2 σ bounds of f as the mid-range estimate ± 40%. i.e. 0.49 ± 0.20; and the implicit CO2 forcing, atypically including fast feedbacks, was 4.5 Watts per square meter.
The direct warming w at CO2 doubling in Vial is thus 4.5 / 3.2 = 1.41 C°, about 20% higher than IPCC’s 1.16 C°. Using f = 0.49 and w = 1.41 C°, the zero-dimensional model equation yields an interval of equilibrium sensitivities W of 2.0-4.5 C° in response to doubled CO2, as shown in bold type in the table. Since the values the equation determines from official inputs are near-perfectly coextensive with many published official intervals, the equation is duly calibrated. Like it or not (and you shouldn’t), it is what the Forces of Darkness use.
The only discrepancy is in the central estimate of post-feedback global warming, where the zero-dimensional model predicts 2.8 K and the published official estimates predict 3.3 K.
This discrepancy arises because official climatology occasionally forgets that the curve of the zero-dimensional-model equation is not a straight line but a rectangular hyperbola (see above). Using IPCC’s 3.0 [1.5, 4.5] C° official range of predicted equilibrium sensitivities to doubled CO2, a mid-range estimate f = 0.49 for the feedback factor visibly implies a mid-range estimate of 2.25 C° for post-feedback global warming, not the 3 C° imagined by IPCC, and still less the 3.3 C° that is the CMIP5 models’ mid-range projection.
One can, therefore, determine the implicit mid-range estimate of post-feedback warming in the fifth-generation models by using the zero-dimensional-model equation. Where the direct or pre-feedback warming w in response to doubled CO2 concentration is 1.16 K, and where the post-feedback warming W is predicted to be 3.3 K, as the CMIP5 models predict, the feedback factor implicit in that prediction is 1 – (1.16 / 3.3) = 0.65.
Now we have enough information to determine the global warming that the CMIP5 models would predict in response to the 3.1 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing, from all anthropogenic sources, that Myhre (2017) says has occurred since about 1850. The direct or pre-feedback warming is simply 3.1 / 3.2, or about 1 C°. Using the now-calibrated but dumb official zero-dimensional-model equation from above, the post-feedback warming that he CMIP5 models would have predicted since 1850 is 1 / (1 – 0.65), or 2.75 C°, more than twice the 1.3 C° mentioned in the Millar paper and more than three times the 0.85 C° of global warming that has actually occurred.
For comparison, our corrected version of the zero-dimensional-model equation would have predicted 1.2 C° warming in response to 3.1 Watts per square meter of anthropogenic forcing since 1850, far closer to the 0.85 C° that was observed than official climatology’s 2.75 K.
One could do a similar analysis based on the statement in IPCC (2013) that there had been 2.3 Watts per square meter of anthropogenic radiative forcing since pre-industrial times, implying 2.05 C° global warming to date, or almost thrice the 0.75 C° observed from 1850-2011 according to the HadCRUT4 dataset. Our equation would have predicted 1.0 C°, again far closer to observed reality than the 2.05 C° that the official equation would predict.
Or one could compare IPCC’s central prediction in 1990 that in the 36 years 1990-2025 there would be 1 C° global warming (equivalent to 0.75 C° in the 27 years 1990-2016) with the actual warming of 0.45 C° over the period, taken as the mean of two terrestrial and two satellite datasets. Again, the unsoundly-based official prediction is a substantial exaggeration compared with the observed outturn, but our corrected model comes much closer to the truth, suggesting 0.37 C° warming, far closer to the 0.45 C° that actually occurred than the 0.75 C° that IPCC had predicted.
Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University is cited by the Daily Mail as having said that if the world followed “ambitious” reductions in CO2 emissions there would be even odds of meeting the unscientific Paris aspiration of a Canute-like restriction of global temperature to 1.5 C° above the pre-industrial value, equivalent to 0.65 C° above today’s global mean surface temperature. However, on present trends CO2 concentration will rise from 400 to 650 ppmv by 2100, causing a direct warming of 0.8 C°, with a further 0.2 C° contributed by temperature feedbacks. The 1.5 C° aspiration, therefore, will not be met even using our mainstream equation rather than official climatology’s defective equation.
Unless, that is, Professors Harde and Happer are right that the CO2 forcing, as well as the feedbacks on which our paper concentrates, has been exaggerated. Professor Harde has estimated that it is overstated by 30%; Professor Happer, for a different reason that does not overlap with Professor Harde’s conclusion, says the CO2 forcing has been overestimated by 40%. If both Professors are right, the CO2 forcing has been over-predicted by 82%. If we are also right, then the direct warming this century will be 0.45 C°, with another 0.1 C° from feedbacks. Though there are other greenhouse gases, these are more or less exactly offset by negative anthropogenic forcings, so that, even without any mitigation efforts in this century, the Paris ambition will in reality be met by 2100. And, if the world warms by more than 0.65 C° compared to today, but does not do so till after 2100, the rate of warming will be too slow to be dangerous,. There is now no need for the UNFCCC or for the IPCC. Abolish both.
Official climatology has vastly exaggerated its predictions. Its disfiguring attempts to conceal the true extent of the discrepancy between exaggerated prediction and unexciting observation will fail. That discrepancy is attributable to errors chiefly in the representation of feedbacks in the zero-dimensional and, inferentially, in the three-dimensional models whose outputs the simple equation faithfully reproduces, indicating its efficacy as a black-box diagnostic. Correction of the errors in the official equation generates predictions far less extreme and far closer to real-world observation than the wild exaggerations on the basis of which governmental and intergovernmental entities have hitherto profitably panicked.
Though the Millar paper serves to conceal the true extent of the official exaggerations on which demands for “climate action” have been unwisely based, it is at another level an early crack in the dam that indicates that the entire edifice of nonsense is about to fail. Have courage! The truth that global warming will be small, harmless and net-beneficial will soon prevail over the screeching extremists. The Millar paper is not the beginning of the end, but it is at least the end of the beginning.
But it is still warming – and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.
Isn’t it?
What harmful effects?
Would you prefer we return to 19thC temperatures, or do you think we now have the Goldilocks temperature?
I was under the impression that a significant part of the warming was in crease in maximum nighttime temperatures which are well below the maximum daytime temperatures. How does that produce “harmful effects?”
What is harmful about any extra 1 degC over and above 2017 temperature?
What is harmful about an extra 2 degC over and above 2017 temperature?
What was harmful about the Egyptian Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm period. Life in general, and humans in particularly thrived in such times, These were the zenith of the respective civilizations at those times?
In fact, almost every advance mad by man is since the Holocene. We have thrived in this benign climate, and if it were to warm back to the Holocene optimum surely that would be a godsend.
The long-term problem with temperature rises is of a rise in sea level, which endanger coastal infrastructure and populations. But that warming and rising is happening anyway, just slower.
Most of the recent technological advances in the last 50 years has been because of the military and war.
Does this mean that you suggest we should create a few wars to become technologically advanced (hmmm perhaps Trump Is doing that)?
Sea levels change with or without CAGW and it’s at a very slow rate. You either mitigate or move, which is a choice of those in the area and how much risk you want to take. You aren’t going to be caught unaware one morning and die to rising sea levels and it may rise without CAGW anyhow.
Griff, your idea of a dangerous rate of change is a tiny fraction of natural annual variability on any single day – Sept 20th here one year can be 12C, or next year 34C – that is natural. Your dangerous rate of change is nullified by moving a handful of miles north (in my hemisphere), or going a few feet up a hill.
And so far all the indications are that the minimums are rising slightly and the maximums not increasing so much, so your idea of dangerous is actually more benign – less extreme. It is also well inside possible natural variation, and claiming that it is dangerous IF caused my CO2, and safe if caused by nature – well that is just nuts.
Sea level changes have probably got nothing to do with temperature change and everything to do with plate tectonics. Over long periods of time changes in the ocean floor due plate boundary subductions mid ocean ridges from volcanic action must influence sea levels. Over the short term earthquakes have effected changes in the ocean floor such the one that recently moved Japan bodily to the west and the boxing ‘tsunami’ earthquake off Indonesia which substantially changed the ocean floor.
Long and short changes in the configuration of the earth’s crust must have more effect than stupid nonexistent man made global warming.
Griff, you’re attempting humor.
Now THAT’S funny!
Is it still warming? The only warming in the last 20 years was a record setting El Nino, as that fades, so will the warming.
Even if the worst case IPCC scenario came about, there wouldn’t be harmful warming this century.
Since the real warming is way, way below that, there won’t be any harmful warming in this century or the next.
Most people agree it was been warming since the 1800’s,however since 1990,the IPCC have made Per Decade warming trend predictions that have ALWAYS been too high. They are now predicting a .30C per decade warming since 2001,but Satellite data show LESS than half that rate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1990/mean:12/plot/rss/from:1990/trend
Epic fail,Griff!
You have been told this many times now,you NEVER make a counterpoint to it,just ignore and go on with your deliberate lies.
Griff, why don’t you study the Minoan,Roman,Medeivel and the warmest time of all,the climate Optimism. It was warmer [then] than now by up to 1.5C warmer.
The Sahara was a largely green then,with a lot of animals in it,today it is a DESERT!
Your ignorance of the topic seems deliberate,since you NEVER improve over the last year.
It hasn’t warmed from human effect (not including data adjustments) in the whole satellite data period.
All the warming has come from ocean events and oscillations.
Big La Nina on the way, griff. enjoy ! 😉
Oh and did you know that the Arctic melt this year was LESS than any year since 2006?
Also less melt this year than 1990, 1993,1999 and 2002
“the Arctic melt this year was LESS than any year since 2006”
Which explains the article in the Australian today diverting people’s attention to the ice levels in the Antarctic.
What warming? The Earth has been in a temperature downtrend since the 1930’s. Today, we are still not as hot as the 1930’s although we are not far away, but it’s still a downtrend.
Here is Hansen’s chart from 1999:
As you can see, the 1930’s was 0.5C hotter than 1998, which also makes it hotter than 2016, the supposed “hottest year Evah!, since 1998 and 2016 are tied for the hottest year since the 1930’s.
Draw a [straight] line from the 1930’s to today and you will see it is a downtrend. Thus, my question: What warming?
And this temperature profile is duplicated in all unaltered charts from around the world: The 1930’s being hotter than subsequent years.
The chart shows warming from 1910 to 1940, then cooling from 1940 to 1980, and then warming again from 1980 to the present, and the present still hasn’t gotten as hot as the 1930’s.
So it’s warmed a little, cooled a little, and warmed a little again. Which warming period were you referring to, Griff, when you refer to “still warming”?
The temperature has been on a downtrend for the last 5000 years.
Re Griff
**But it is still warming – and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.
Isn’t it?**
Do you have a thermometer? Likely not.
Nobody has established a harmful rate. Find me a paper, Griff.
You have been asked before for the 2 deg C paper.
Produce or get lost.
Harmful effects on what this century Griff? 16 °C on average is not tolerable without clothes or artificial heat. Many people have resolved it by moving south.
““The combined radiative forcing from all well-mixed greenhouse gases [the non-condensers, notably CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and a sprinkling of halocarbons] was 3.1 Watts per square meter in 2015 …”, ”
What about all the perflourocarbon and SF6 tracer gases I’ve released over the years. If I’ve contribute d to that much warming over the years, I want a medal.
No
“But it is still warming – and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.”
Ever wonder why hurricanes form during Autumn when it is cooling and not in Spring when it is warming?
no.
above reply to griffs post.
Hi Griff, Its warming about 0.5 deg C since 1990 that’ pretty stable in my mind. If it is too warm for you then I recommend you go a little further towards the North Pole. It is certainly cold enough. I prefer to move towards the equator (13 ° N). There I can bathe in the sea in winter too.
Griff;
Has anyone managed to find a temperature proxy that responds as quickly to temperature changes as our modern instrumentation?
To claim that the temperatures are rising faster than they were in the past, the rise in temperature must be measured by the same techniques as the past temperature rises were measured. If our knowledge of warming rates for a period come from ice cores, a true comparison with current warming must also come from ice deposition proxies.
Griff, finally he is back. I have missed him. Or checked the wrong articles.
But I’m still suspicious, if he is not a stunt from Anthony to keep his site lively.
If it wasn’t warming, we wouldn’t be coming out of an ice age would we!
Grift – or ‘Ed’, or whatever – we really don’t need to hear the warmist talking points – besides the fact that all your by-rote talking points have been repeatedly debunked – despite your Goebbels-inspired effort at repetition – we already get this crap from every media outlet in the country. Nobody here is uneducated, or uninformed – that’s the audience warmists depend upon.
No
does anyone know the optimum temperature for the planet cheers
In response to Griff, it has been warming this millennium at a rate equivalent to 1.3 K/century, taken as the least-squares linear-regerssion trend on two terrestrial and two satellite datasets. There is no reason to suppose that so slow a rate of warming will do more harm than good. Until the priests of the New Religion tell us what the ideal global mean surface temperature of the Earth is and why, they cannot say that so small a warming will be harmful.
Furthermore, the warming rate has been slowing compared with the rate in the closing decades of the 20th century, even as emissions and CO2 concentrations increase. That slowing may well continue.
No it isn’t. There is sufficient (380ppm) CO2 to account for all the absorbable infrared in the CO2 waveband(12.5 to 16.5 microns) even though this amounts to 7500 trillion trillion photons per m^2 at 40 C. An increase in CO2 cannot and will not absorb anymore. This is of course assuming there are any first generation photons left after the radiation has passed through water vapour at 100 times the concentration of CO2 and much more’ potent’.
Additional info…….7500 trillion trillion photons per second per m^2………with frequencies between 1.82 and 2.4 cps.
Sorry …..1.82 to 2.4 x 10^13 cps….
If you read the paper, the answer is a clear YES and NO. The only effects of significance are the increased crop yields and global greening that consume the CO2, as they have for a Billion years.
?dl=0
Is this bad in your view, especially given the next major change in which context these are small changes that may require the relocation of a few marginal human habitats. The next almost inevitable change is the beginning of the next ice age at the end of the regular and short interglacial we are currently near the end of, probably well inside the short 10,000 years humans have spent developing our short and vulnerable interglacial civilisation. But there will be another interglacial along in 80K yrs, probably.A sense of proportion, of the scale of pour real scale and human significance on our planet in general is useful in providing context for the larger picture. It doesn’t mind, we don’t matter. Best to roll with the punches or run and hide than of pick a fight with nature that you can’t win. IMO.
” and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.”
LIAR
Now go and apologise to Dr, Crockford for maliciously attempting to damage her scientific credibility, hence jeopardise her career.
I still don’t understand why people start out by giving credence to their temperature history…
…when they know it’s been fudged
When they know it’s been fudged
Yes indeed, it’s easy enough to demonstrate:
http://oi68.tinypic.com/wck4lc.jpg
Essentially, all global warming is in the adjustments.
The issue is Are all the adjustments valid and an improvement to the RAW data and in which case the warming is real, or are they simply bastardising the data so that it is worthless and we do not know whether there has been any warming at all?
As I’ve said many times before. When the signal you claim to have found is less then both the adjustments made and the error bars on your numbers, then you have not found a signal.
BINGO!
That the data has been rewritten, corrected, adjusted, or otherwise changed – call it what you want – is a matter of fact. Why it has been changed is a matter of opinion.
Are all the adjustments valid….
Obviously not
When you hindcast/tune the models…they all run too hot
There are justifiable reasons behind the adjustments in the GISS data. Even if you refuse to understand that, the adjustments shown on your graph do not negate the warming.
So what are the “justifiable reasons” for the adjustments to GISSTEMP? Or is this just another case of “don’t give me no lip, punk!?
“There are justifiable reasons behind the adjustments in the GISS data.”
Of course there are child, of course there are.
But they have nothing whatsoever to do with science – climate or any other variety – and a everything to do with Left wing politics.
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
Tom, my point was that even without the adjustments there is still warming, so it is not “all in the adjustments” as claimed above. Anyway, the adjustments are for heat islands, different measurement technologies etc. This is all well documented and the data is available to everyone who cares to look at it. It is not a black box. If someone wanted to come up with a better temperature graph they are free to do so and post here. Most of the critique I see focus on the effects of the adjustments not on the reasons. Funny, eh?
My point, if one looks at temperature graphing of the 1930′ to 1990’s published in the late 1990’s, there is a decline from 1940-75, with the temperature reported in 1998 being what is reported in 2016. The adjustments diminish the decline, as well as 1998, resulting in the graphing fitting the CO2 model better.
Doing away with so-called natural variation leaves more to attribute to GHG’s.
Thank you catweazle666 for proving my point. You also can’t be bothered to look at the science but instead you choose to refer to a bureaucrat who has nothing to do with the GISS temperature record.
Wait a minute … are you saying it is all Proxies and Pixies??
Because the Consul Cortina wiring diagram is simple enough so is planetary climate change – both can be modeled and predicted with great certainty…
http://www.classiccarcatalogue.com/F/ford%20gb%201964%20cortina.jpg
http://www.enfostuff.com/wiring/ford-consul-cortina-wiring-diagram.jpg
Oh for the days when a cars wiring diagram could fit on a single sheet of paper.
@MarkW;
I’m sure it still can; just use the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s standard drawing size: 34 x 56.
“sparking plugs”. LOL
When I was a co-op, I used to draw schematics on that ‘E’ size paper. Good way to mess up your back if you didn’t have a good drafting table.
I wrote off one of those, but mine had a twin choke Weber… So little faith in the branding they kept the Consul name for the Mk1. Could have called it Edsel… If only electrics just did the lights, sparks and started the thing, all would be fine. I’m all for progress – if i can fix it and not the cowboys at the local Ford Dealership.
Even if the adjustments are warranted (and I’m not saying they are), you still have to increase the error bars to account for the fact that you can’t prove that the adjustments given are 100% precise, not too much, not too little.
Fiddling with the data ALWAYS increases the error bars, it can never decrease them.
This discussion about adjustments to the temperature records reminds me of a comment Carl Sagan once made about the Canals on Mars; he said that “There was no doubt that the Canals on Mars were of intelligent origin, the only question was which side of the telescope the intelligence was on”. In like manner, there is no doubt that Global warming is of human origin, the only question is which human action is causing it, adjustments to the temperature records or adding CO2 to the atmosphere . His follow-up comment on the Canals on Mars was “Where we have strong emotions, we are liable to fool ourselves”.
Thank you Latitude. My thoughts exactly.
“I still don’t understand why people start out by giving credence to their temperature history…
…when they know it’s been fudged.”
I think C.M. should base climate sensitivity off of satellite and weather balloon data sets, as any GHG warming at the surface from GHG must be the result or affect of these troposphere data sets WHICH per IPCC theory should run 20 percent warmer then the surface.
So a simple 20 percent reduction of UHA and weather balloon data sets gives you the GHG caused surface warming warming.
What say you Christopher Monckton?
And a sincere thank you for all your brilliant work.
End of the beginning? I’m not holding my breath. There are $Billions riding on this issue. There might be a revision of the projections – remember, there haven’t been any predictions. Acidification of the oceans will still be an issue, methane will continue to be 86 times more powerful than CO2 and sea level rise even if it doesn’t will be shown to be accelerating. Polar bears will be ignored.
There is no acidification. 86 X zero = zero. It can’t last without the lies getting bigger and bigger and/or people getting stupider and stupider.
I guess you’re right!
“or people getting stupider and stupider.”
Why do you think the far-left have co-opted the education system !
Steve,
You are correct; the AGW proponents like Mosh and Stokes have been telling us that no “predictions” have been made. If this is so, then AGW is not a hypothesis or a theory, since the Scientific method requires such to make specific, testable predictions. At best, AGW is a conjecture. Are we really ready to bet the future of civilization on a conjecture?
If there are no “predictions”, then why are we wasting so much money on renewable energy and such?
Because 97% of scientists is enough to support 97% of politicians taxing naughty energy.
Still waiting for the evidence of large positive feedback loop to show up……..
… ANY positive feedback …
Where I believe the discrepancy is even worse than admitted is the fact that the data upon which the warmist rely has been manipulated and adjusted such that we cannot be certain to what extent any warming has occurred. The failure of climate models to predict the future hasn’t been for want of trying . The powers that be on the warmists side of the argument have made series of small adjustments almost hoping no one will notice. ( like the embezzler who skims a small amount from millions of accounts).
From what I have read I would question whether there has been any warming at all ( especially if adjusted for natural climate cycles)
“The failure of climate models to predict the future hasn’t been for want of trying .”
Don’t tell them that.. they will start to fudge the data even more !!
Invent new reasons for manifest alteration of past temperatures, like maybe “regional expectations”, “homogenisation to models”.. or some other scam.
Oh wait……… some are already doing that !!
This is why they hate satellites and radiosondes.
Off thread I know, but my French newspaper Sud Ouest has a long widely syndicated article quoting industrialists and others which slams electric cars, asking who on earth sets these policies without doing the sums and what is to be done about battery recycling, profiteering by lithium sources etc ad lib. The ice is cracking
Global Warming! The only earth threatening idea that is:
Not even a theory and questionably a hypothesis
Completely unable to make an accurate prediction
Endlessly adjustable to meet uncooperative facts
Routinely in defiance of known physics
Massively in need of support from that other bastion of efficiency, veracity and performance-government
Almost exclusively supported by the Left but “absolutely apolitical”!
Loaded to the brim with “researchers” like Michael Mann who don’t seem to even know where the truth separates from a lie.
But undoubtedly worth spending trillions on!
There’s an infamous line in a movie “follow the money”. I’d say it is completely active in this domain’s case. Just consider the millions of scientists, teachers, professors, department heads, ecological and counter-ecological groups involved with moving “the money” around. Not money to buy peat moss (as an absurd example) and piling it in great barrows in the Arctic tundra (where it would take millennia to decompose, thereby entombing CO₂ for a while). No.
It is mostly spent on construction, salaries, buildings, salaries, accounting departments, consultants, junkets, airline tickets, auditoria halls, hotel rooms, nice-but-not-too-fancy quadruple priced dinners, salaries, assistants, government subsidies, government taxation and fee taking, more subsidies. Its spent on salaries, wages, stipends, kickbacks, grants, subsidies (again) and yes… more salaries. It is spent on advertising, specialized industry-focus site development (salaries), its spent on vacations, bally-hoos, its spent on The Arts (those buildings need deco), on marketing departments, on trucks, vans, busses, tour operators. It is spent on outreach, on text books, on PhD-track research, write-ups and more. It is spent on testing (people), certification (people), on developing rigorous regulations, policies, political action groups and lobbyist activities.
IT IS A FARCE, tho’ if “the science, the results, the predictions” don’t hold up, or are falsifiable.
And that’s what WattsUpWithThat is all about: taking off the blindfold, hitting the arc on the kleiglights, demonstrating that the Whole Industry has NO CLOTHING.
Follow the money.
For that’s what powers the whole thing.
GoatGuy
I will never believe the greenhouse gas hypothesis until someone can explain how the 20 – 30% of energy that the surface of the earth absorbs and is conducted into atmosphere is completely overpowered by the ability of greenhouse gasses to absorb about 7 % of the total earth outgoing energy (and CO2’s <1%). Do people really believe this conducted energy can't be emitted in a manner exactly as the greenhouse hypothesis dictates? Shouldn't it be even more powerful because it is emitted at a lower level in the atmosphere (can't get any lower than earth itself) rather than absorbed and re-emitted at some distance from the earth in a random direction? Do they believe that oxygen, nitrogen, argon don't radiate? Even if they don't radiate as fast how about the fact there is 4000 times as much of it radiating? I just don't get it.
Gases radiate according to different rules than liquids and solids.
According to what piece of physics? Molecules radiate at frequencies specified by their energy levels. It has nothing to do with their state. The physics of radiation is identical. All that might change are the energy levels which are effected by the neighbourhood of any particular atom.
Ger – Liquid water radiates a full Planck spectrum with emissivity about 0.99. Water vapor, a gas, only radiates at specific wavelengths. All gases radiate only at specific wavelengths. This characteristic is exploited in spectroscopy.
Ger – Oxygen, nitrogen and argon do not participate radiatively at wavelengths associated with earth temperatures.
Do try this out…
If you shine “naked sunlight” (that encountered in space) on a grey ball that has the equivalent albedo of Earth, which spins… using a set of pretty simple equations, you can expect that it’ll heat up and stabilize at a very specific temperature. Boltzman-Stefan laws.
If you slightly change the albedo of that grey ball, using exactly the same laws, you will find that the temperature will dutifully gradually change and stabilize at another well-predicted temperature. This-all was learned back in the 1800s by those snazzy Stefan and Boltzman dudes.
This objective, proven, relatively easy-to-understand physics is at the core of the whole enchilada.
The idea is, that (not in the traditional visible sense, but the ‘all spectrum’ sense) increasing atmospheric load of certain common gasses that have quite easily measured infrared spectra … thus changing the whole-spectrum albedo of Earth … that Earth like that grey ball will gradually exhibit a change in temperature on the average, consistent with the simple equations, and the effect of the extinction coefficient (absorption) of the gasses.
So. THAT PART IS GOOD SCIENCE.
What isn’t good science is coming up with a believable f factor (in the simple equation of this article). There is precious little physics that can generate one. It is more of an “f for fudge” factor, derived empirically when the Good Ol’ Earth’s temperature trend doesn’t match the naked change to Stefan-Boltzman’s predicted outcome.
And that is what the debate here is all about.
GoatGuy
Goat guy, I don’t see how a gray ball comparison to the Earth is useful in the debate over global warming. Exactly what level in our atmosphere does the surface of the gray ball compare with? Whatever level compares, wouldn’t changing the atmospheric composition (whether SO2, dust, clouds, O3 or CO2) change that level? What that changing level way up in the atmosphere does to the temperature down here at the bottom of the atmosphere is the important question.
Many of us think the thermodynamic top of the atmosphere (the equivalent of the surface of your gray ball) is primarily responding to water vapor and cloud top elevation changes – in a manner that reduces surface temperature variation.
SR
Here is some real life observational data
Whilst most of the energy is stored in the oceans, the atmosphere itself contains considerable thermal mass and thermal inertia. One sees that very clearly when there is high humidity.
I am presently in Spain, on the shores of the Med, on 25th September, it was a cloudless sunny day with a day time high of around 26degC in the early afternoon. At 02:37 hrs, on 26th September, the WINDOWS 10 weather app said it was 24 degC. Even though it was a cloudless night sky, the temperature had fallen by only 2 degC since the late afternoon. At 05:00hrs the temperature was down to 22 degC, ie., in 2.5 hours (02:37 hrs to 05:00), the temperature had fallen only by a further 2 degC, and only fallen by 4 degC since the highs of the previous day in the early afternoon of 25th September.
Of particular interest, was the forecast temperatures over the next 6 hours. These were for 17 degC at 06:00 hrs, 16 degC at 07:00, 16 degC at 08:00 hrs, 18degC at 09:00 hrs, 20 degC at 10:00 hrs and 22 degC at 11:00 hrs.
The sun up is about 07:45 hrs and it was forecasted to be cloudless and sunny. It will take approximately 3 hrs of sun (07:45 to 11:00 hrs) before the temperature at 11:00 hrs is as warm as it currently was at 05:00 hrs.
Why is there such thermal inertia even though there are no clouds to impede convection or to bathe the ground in lots of wonderful (warming) DWLWIR from the underneath of the clouds? After all the surface was radiating through clear skies to the background temperature of space. The answer is simple, the humidity at 02:37 hrs was 83%, and at 05:00hrs it still was some 73%.
This thermal inertia means that it takes the atmosphere a long time to give up its energy and cool, and then a long time to recharge and warm.
In relative terms, I am not that far away from the deserts of Africa, but they have a very different temperature profile since they have so very little humidity. In the nearby deserts the day quickly warms as the sun gets up, and quickly cools as the sun goes down. However on the shores of the Med, all this sunshine evaporates a lot of water resulting in high humidity, and this creates an atmosphere with far more thermal mass and far more thermal inertia that has to be overcome before temperatures change either up or down.
This is why it is very important to take full account of the fact that we are living on a water world, and the water cycle is dominant.
Thank you Richard. Makes sense.
And further to the water world, majority of it is in liquid-phase and, to a far lesser degree thankfully, solid. The liquid quantities are overwhelming. The Mediterranean Sea alone may even contain more water than the Earth’s atmosphere at any given time. Either way, there are significant energy flows in the H2O phase transitions. Evaporation cools, condensation warms. Quantifying it meaningfully sounds complex even in a laboratory setting, let alone planetary scale modelings and projections.
Another aspect relevant to your anecdote and similarly to UHI: vast expanses of the Mediterranean shorelines are naturally exposed rocks and/or sand. They absorb heat during a clear sunny day and radiate it during the night. The phenomenon is effective enough to be harnessed in an engineering application: sauna stoves. 30 kilograms of rocks can warm 30 kilograms of sauna air overnight. Water vapour is also used in this context, but the effect is temporary. With the exception of fire extinguishers and dry ice to cool perishable goods, I’m not aware of any CO2 heating, convection barrier or insulation applications. Perhaps someone here can name one.
Richard Verney: “This is why it is very important to take full account of the fact that we are living on a water world, and the water cycle is dominant.”
WR: Agree. An unsolved question: as water vapour is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas (estimations say that water vapour is responsible for 75% to 90% of the total greenhouse effect), climate science should concentrate on the quantity and behaviour of water vapour – if ‘greenhouse gases’ are that important. But climate science doesn’t. Why? Because any extra CO2 greenhouse effect will be proven to be dwarfed by minor changes in water vapour and the behaviour of water vapour?
1) take an already highly innumerate populace
2) decrease its scientific literacy
3) decrease its attention span exponentially with every generation
4) increase its reverence for a pop culture that worships celebrity and irrelevancies
5) scare it constantly (see #3) by telling it that Something Bad is happening
6) chuckle when that #5 is maybe sort of measured in the 10ths of a degree over decades
7) see #1 and repeat as needed
I’m not trying to be a toad, but I take exception to the points, friend.
(1) innumerate populace – its always been rather so. While the carpenters, accountants, usually lawyers and engineers of old could do ridiculously difficult math tricks in their noggins, but today so few seem able to, this does not make any greater or less of the populace innumerate.
(2) decrease science literacy – yep this is oft’ said. Truth is that so many more people on the planet are scientifically at least passingly literate. This goat don’t fly.
(3) decrease attention span – NO challenge there! But not “exponentially”. Its just gradually declining due to the rapid-fire personal-computer-in-back-pocket devices. Everything is one Trump Tweet away from a madcap discussion or foodfight.
(4) Celebrity Cause Worship – well … again, I take no umbrage at this. Its definitely the case that most-everything that is quasi-scientific and politically charged becomes a celebrity topic. And then gets each and every ‘next generation’ of kiddies and post-kiddy new-adults to hang onto it like lampreys on a big fish. On this we agree.
(5) Scare-wail constantly – I agree entirely. This is getting out-of-hand with the next/new-adult generation. I cannot even have a peaceful dinner-party with our neighbors without getting shouted (with alcohol, literally) over a We’re-Cooking-Ourselves-to-Death argument. Sheesh…
(6) Tenths of a Degree – Ah. Pay-dirt. Right you are on this. On this I’ll “take a knee” (LOL) and start a new paragraph.
Hubris over the invisible, insensible is the new thing. Its kind of like the variously perpetually touted brands of New Age medicine that variously call for enhancing mainstream medicine with elixirs, extracts, x₉ dilutions, distractions, crystals and Lei Lines. Mysticism.
I say this thinking in parallel about this: EVERY day here on the 35th parallel in Summer (or any season), I note that there is a 25°C to 35°C temperature change between 3 PM and 5 AM. Oh, various blankets of clouds, fogs, mists, hazes, dusts and smogs can attenuate the degree of change over the diurnal cycle, certainly. But then when one “steps back” and looks at just the daily diurnal cycle, the actual weather pattern, you are left with this: there is a HUGE difference as far as we humans are concerned. Nominally.
I say this also noting that EVERY season, there are HUGE changes in temperature whether you do it hour-by-hour or day-by-day, week-by-week. I’m at the 35th parallel, and there are seasons. Why? BECAUSE there’s a nice be orb “Sol” and a slanted Earth which conspire to make the seasons happen. Insofar as I can tell, there isn’t a competent mathematical model, anywhere which can predict the week-by-week progression of a year’s worth of weather.
But somehow, we are lead to believe that The World is burning up, that the oceans will rise meters in decades, and innundate oh-so-sensitive coastlines around the world, starting in the Maldives. We’re lead to believe that the Polar bears are dying off, that penguins are going extinct, that the tropics is starting to wilt and die. That the endless (pattern of) famines in Africa are thus impacted, that forest fires are getting bigger, than hurricanes are going wazoo, and so on.
Yet… all this over ³/₁₀ to ⁵/₁₀ of a degree?
Ah… I think not.
GoatGuy
Bravo. No time to critique your fine critique, which was made with more effort than my post, that’s for sure. We agree on the main points, that’s obvious.
Case in point: its been hot here in Toronto this week. Used the AC more than I did in July and August COMBINED. This must mean something…only to, as above, the innumerate and the easily confused.
As mentioned, I DIDN’T use my AC much this summer. This might something, maybe not, but they won’t even remember NOT using their AC. Only that its hot NOW, NOT that they didn’t use it during a non-hot summer.
As well, we’re in a 3 week drought. THAT means something, for sure. There is DEFINITELY a climate model that says Toronto will be hotter AND drier. See! Science says so.
Except…we had flooding this spring. The “new normal”, of course. The climate models said so (see #3 above). Toronto would be hotter AND wetter.
As mentioned, repeat as needed.
Richard Verney in Spain
You report a temperature variation of 10°C for the part of Spain that you are in. From 26°C to 16°C. With 70 to 80 % humidity.
Looking at the weather forecast for Timbuktu (middle of the Sahara) from today overnight we get a smaller temperature range, 9°C from 38°C to 29°C.
That is less than Spain
Now the relative humidity is about third to a half that of Spain ie 24% to 48% I’ll let you work out which has most water. But we are well away from dew point.
Dan Pangburn if you are commenting to me since I am only talking about gasses in the atmosphere I fail to comprehend your comment.
Gases absorb/emit only at specific wavelengths, not over a full spectrum like liquids and solids. The specific set of wavelengths associated with each molecule or atom is how spectroscopy works to identify them at a distance.
Oxygen, nitrogen and argon do not participate radiatively at wavelengths associated with earth temperatures.
I Agree:
‘There is sufficient (380ppm) CO2 to account for all the absorbable infrared in the CO2 waveband(12.5 to 16.5 microns) even though this amounts to 5900 trillion trillion photons/s m^2 at 20 C. An increase in CO2 cannot and will not absorb anymore. This is of course assuming there are any first generation photons left after the radiation has passed through water vapour at 100 times the concentration of CO2 and much more’ potent’.
GoatGuy – That is the point. The greybody temp has nothing to do with atmosphere It is strictly a radiation in / radiation out theory. Green house hypothesis needs energy interception and reradiate at earth. I’m sayiing this is no different than conduct to atmosphere and reradiate at earth.
All this relies on HADCRUT being a good representation of temperature. Given the actual state of HADCRUT, anyone who claims to know the actual level of climate change is deluded. It is probably warmer than 1850, and almost certainly warmer than 1650, but the actual pattern and degree of change is speculative, as the records are being reported by persons with an interest in proving their pet conjecture.
Yep, just compare HadCRUT3 to HadCRUT4 and see the warming you get when you just drop some climate stations and add other ones.
12 month average anomaly HADCRUT3 HADCRUT4
Dec 1998 —————— 0.55 —- 0.52
Dec 2011 —————— 0.34 —- 0.40
Increase/Decrease ——- -0.21 —- -0.12
HadCRUT4 reduces the decrease in temperature from Dec 1998 to Dec 2011 by almost half, compared to HadCRUT3.
Nice post. Agree that the IPCC ‘official’ values are w~ 1.16, ECS ~3, and f~0.65. The first is about right. The second and third are high by ~2x and will be CAGW’s undoing.
IMO the reason this paper got such vicious pushback from other warmunists is simple. All the predictions about CAGW are based on the climate models. There is no observational data. World is greening, sea level rise is not accelerating, Arctic summer ice has not disappeared, polar bears thriving, children play in snow, and so on. This paper admits for the first time from within the warmunist ‘congregation’ (CAGW is akin to a religious belief) that those models are wrong compared to reality. And to compound the heresy, the paper did not resort to the usual ‘tipping point’ or ‘in the pipeline’ responses to skeptical observations of the same model/pause discrepancy discussed in the paper. Apostasy! So they start devouring their own.
I don’t know if this is a “95 Theses” moment but it has the look of one.
Climate (carbon) indulgences and wanting to put heretics on trial. You have a good point about this resembling what was raised by Martin Luther as this is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
It is interesting to note that that last year was the 500th anniversary of the famous German beer purity law, the Reinheitsgebot.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but just like they were not able to burn Luther, they will fail to burn those who question the CAGW hierarchy.
Rud, I agree; with one small addition: The paper just moved the CAGW out a bit. It still says that we have to buy our indulgences to avoid the all-knowing climate doing us in.
Why not use Pinatubo and empirical observational data rather than some model?
As you are aware, warmists would have one believe that the temperature is the sum of the forcings. Now warmist suggest that Pinatubo had a forcing (negative forcing) of 4W/m2. The strength of this forcing (forgetting its sign) is far higher than the 3.1 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing referred to above.
So Pinatubo allows us to have a look at the effect of a forcing of 4 W/m2. Pinatubo produced a cooling of around 0.35 degC, which suggests that 4 W/m2 of forcing leads to a 0.35Deg C of change in temperature. If that is the case, then there is no reason to envisage that the response to 3.1 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing will produce more than some 0.35 degC temperature increase.
Apply this logical approach to the Fiji Volcano event coming. Measure the actual changes in forcing, and the temp differences.
Bali, not Fiji, IIRC.
Richard,
Interesting suggestion but it depends on where the figure of 4W/m2 comes from. Your argument would be powerful if such a figure could be verified as an officially recognised figure but not otherwise.
Goatguy – I would like to also say your albedo stuff is NOT how greenhouse hypothesis works. It is strictly a baseline that the earth exceeds according to greybody literature and must be explained by another mechanism. That mechanism is the greenhouse hypothesis.
A greenhouse only works as a barrier to convection.
Given the troposhere has higher temp (energy) than the stratophere, and CO2 absorbs and radiates the IR wl (far narrower than other atmospheric gases), and resides in the stratosphere…
How does CO2 act as a barrier to convection and transfer energy to from ‘cold to hot’?
This is [snip], start to finish. Please stop spreading misinformation by writing about things you don’t understand and using sources that are either wildly unreliable or severely mis-interpreted.
For those interested in reality, my colleagues do a wonderful job of explaining the state of our planet and the nature of the warming crisis we face here: https://climate.nasa.gov/
[The mods point out that if you wish to claim the credibility of colleagueship with government paid scientists, it would help your case to identify who you actually are. -mod]
https://climate.nasa.gov/ .. boy, talk about bullshit from start to finish.
I did not know that Dr. Goebbels worked for NASA.
Wanna invest in some homeopathic voodoo accupuncture? If you do not know what is dubious about NASA and its climate work, you just might be naive enough.
“using sources that are either wildly unreliable or severely mis-interpreted.”
And then you link to NASA..
Satire in its finest form. 🙂
Under the “consensus” link where Camilla works, they still have J. Cook, et al (2013), P. T. Doran & M. K. Zimmerman (2009) and the even less believable N. Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower” from 2004 among others.
Maybe Camilla could explain how (was it?) only ~ 67 people agree with her “warming crisis”?
Otherwise, people might consider NASA relies on sources that are “wildly unreliable or severely mis-interpreted”.
As to the NASA website, I’d cite Mickey Mann’s comments on WUWT:
“…flashy (apparently widely distributed)”
But thanks for commenting, Camilla, and good luck with that ‘reaching out to the Muslim world’ thing . . so important for a rocket scientist.
I read your link, but it did not answer one of the nagging questions that I have.
Perhaps you, or your colleagues at NASA, will kindly explain to me a point that has long troubled me, namely why have the oceans not boiled off from the top down long ago?
According to the K&T energy budget the backradiation absorbed by the ocean is some 333 W/m2. Due to the wavelength of LWIR and the absorption characteristics of water, and given that DWLWIR is omni-directional interacting with the oceans at grazing angles between 1 and 90 deg, all of this DWLWIR must be fully absorbed within the top 6 microns of the ocean. That means that 333 W/m2 is being fully absorbed in a volume of just 1 x 1 x 6/1,000,000 equal to 0.000006 cubic metres. It means that 6 grams of water are absorbing 333 joule secs of energy!
In approximate terms, given the latent heat of evaporation of 2260 KJ/Kg, this would result in every square metre of the ocean losing some 0.14 gram/sec, or 4.6 tonnes/year. That is about 4.6 m per year of ocean would be lost to such evaporation (although of course some of that would be returned as rain over the oceans).
By contrast, consider solar insolation. According to the K&T energy budget the solar insolation absorbed by the ocean is some 161 W/m2. Due to the wavelength of solar irradiance and the absorption characteristics of water, none of this is absorbed in the top microns of the ocean, but instead the bulk is absorbed at a depth extending from 1 to 10 metres, with some of it being absorbed at depth extending to around 100 metres. This means (for practical purposes) that 161 W/m2 is being fully absorbed in a volume of 1 x 1 x (10 – 1) equal to 9 cubic metres.
To summarise, we have 6 grams of water absorbing 333 joule secs of energy (from backradiation) whereas we have some 9 tonnes of water absorbing 161 joule secs of energy from solar insolation. This is quite an extraordinary scenario, and one can see why solar irradiance gradually warms the oceans, whereas it is difficult to understand why backradiation is not boiling the oceans away from the top down.
Of course, the top 6 micron layer has even more energy in it than the 333 joule secs that it fully absorbs from backradiation. Whilst, it does not absorb any incoming solar irradiance, of course, some part of the 161 W/m2 that was absorbed at depth (ie., in the 1 to 10 metre layer) makes its way up to the 6 micron layer by conduction. The energy flux is upwards at the very top of the ocean, viz:
So my question to you (or your colleagues) is this: If backradiation consists of sensible energy capable of performing sensible work in the top microns of the ocean where it is fully absorbed, why do we not see either approximately some 4.6 metres of rainfall annually, or what process is involved at sequestering the energy in the top 6 microns down to depth (where the energy is thereby dissipated and diluted by volume) at a rate faster than the energy absorbed in the top 6 micron layer would otherwise (ie., if not sequestered) drive evaporation?
We know that the energy in the 6 micron layer cannot be sequestered to depth by conduction, given the heat flux in the top few millimetres is upwards (not downwards). Processes such as ocean overturning, wind and swell are slow mechanical processes and it is not easy to see that these can sequester the energy in the 6 micron layer down to depth at a rate which would overcome the rate at which evaporation occurs. indeed, ocean overturning is a diurnal event so not operative 24 hours a day, and there is almost no wind or swell when the prevailing conditions are BF2 or less. In these conditions the ocean is as still as a mill pond so no substantial mixing could be taking place. Given that the average wind speed over the oceans is just over BF4, it follows that vast swathes of ocean encounter lengthy spells of BF2 and less when no mechanical mixing could take place.
I look forward to hearing your explanation so that I can further consider the point that troubles me.
All surfaces radiate according to their effective Stefan-Boltzmann temperatures, including the ocean surface. So, the radiation from the atmosphere is balanced (at the level of your analysis) by the infrared radiation the ocean surface is emitting because its own temperature is greater than absolute zero.
When doing this sort of energy balance you have got to include ALL the radiation emitted by surfaces whose temperature is greater than absolute zero as well as all the radiation those surfaces absorb. In fact, what you really end up doing is calculating the equilibrium temperature at which radiant (and all other) energy absorbed equals radiant (and all other) energy emitted, because, as your calculations show, when they are out of balance the temperature will adjust very quickly until they reach an equilibrium.
The warmist scientists aren’t fools or straight-up liars, you know, just con men who rely on their superior knowledge of the field to direct your attention away from all the weak spots in their reasoning. Think of them as very smart lawyers, who know the law much better than you do, trying to get an unfairly good deal (i.e. government subsidies) for their “clients” — that is, themselves and their government friends. This also applies to the NASA scientists, unfortunately, because the government would zero out NASA’s climatologist budget tomorrow if it decided there were better uses for that money. NASA itself would by and large go on doing what it does, but its climate division would be out of luck.
In my opinion, the weakest of their weak spots is the assumption that a few degrees of global warming would be on balance bad for us. According to their own theories, the poles will warm faster than the equator, and the average temperatures increase mostly because the winter night-time lows are not as low — the summer day-time highs do not increase very much. These con men then allow the public to assume that the day-time highs will be higher — so give us more money so you don’t get boiling hot — and they direct the public’s attention away from the probable benefits of a longer growing season and how great it would be to have a huge island (Greenland) and another continent (Antarctica) to colonize and exploit for mineral wealth. Also, melted glaciers means more liquid and evaporated water, so that on average the deserts will shrink. (We certainly know that during glaciation episodes when the ice sheets advanced, removing water from the ocean and atmosphere, the size of the earth’s deserts increased dramatically) I say that the deserts “on average” will get greener because there is some evidence that the American southwest and California get drier when the climate warms. By the same token, however, the much bigger Sahara desert becomes more lush.
Thanks
The point you raise essentially goes to whether the energy is actually absorbed, or whether there is simply some form of photonic exchange without absorption.
I do not consider that we know or understand sufficiently what is going on in the top microns of the ocean and/or the bottom microns of the atmosphere. I do not consider that we properly understand this very important interface, still less that we can model it.
I fully concur that the weakest position is the claim that a warmer world will be detrimental. There seems to be overwhelming evidence that a warmer world would be net beneficial to us, as well as the majority of the biosphere (life is most abundant in warm wet environs and least abundant in cold frigid environs).
Indeed, it is interesting to consider our natural habitat, ie., the climate of the place where our species evolved and the places on this planet where we can survive without the need to adapt either ourselves (with clothes) and/or our environment by building shelter and camp fires (central heating). This alone suggests that our species would benefit from a warmer globe.
Incidentally, if you consider that the only energy absorbed that heats the oceans, and bearing in mind that not all that energy leads to evaporation (some of it is distributed towards the poles where it becomes trapped under ice and/or is used in melting ice in the annual cycle etc), the amount of solar irradiance far more closely reflects the amount of annual rainfall we see.
Richard,
You say: According to the K&T energy budget the back radiation absorbed by the ocean is some 333 W/m2…all of this DWLWIR must be fully absorbed within the top 6 microns of the ocean. That means that 333 W/m2 is being fully absorbed in a volume of just 1 x 1 x 6/1,000,000 equal to 0.000006 cubic metres. It means that 6 grams of water are absorbing 333 joule secs of energy!
I am afraid this is all nonsense. Your argumentation ad absurbam calculation just doesn’t work. The radiative energy transferred between two surfaces that are radiating towards one another must be applied to the difference between their respective radiative potentials. You cannot just pick the K&T 333W/m2 downward radiative potential from atmosphere to surface and run with it on its own to produce your totally erroneous and dramatic result. You need first to subtract the opposite upward radiative potential of 396W/m2, which is larger. This results in an net UPWARD flow of radiative energy of 63W/m2. So there is no heating of the ocean by LW radiation but actually a modest COOLING contribution, the main cooling effects being due to evapotranspiration (80W/m2) and thermals (17W/m2).
Richard,
Further to my above comment to you…
In reply to Douglas Cohen you say (September 26, 2017 at 6.30pm):
The point you raise essentially goes to whether the energy is actually absorbed, or whether there is simply some form of photonic exchange without absorption. I do not consider that we know or understand sufficiently what is going on in the top microns of the ocean and/or the bottom microns of the atmosphere. I do not consider that we properly understand this very important interface, still less that we can model it.
Nope, wrong again!
It doesn’t matter whether you favour the modern photonic theory whereby photons arriving at each opposing surface from the other are absorbed, or the classical assumption that the electromagnetic wave potentials simply offset one another, resulting in a net wave that transfers the energy. In both cases the net flow is the difference between the two individual potential flows. End of story.
David Cosserat September 27, 2017 at 6:03 am: “This results in an net UPWARD flow of radiative energy of 63W/m2. So there is no heating of the ocean by LW radiation but actually a modest COOLING contribution, the main cooling effects being due to evapotranspiration (80W/m2) and thermals (17W/m2).”
WR: David Cosserat, given the above, the top layer of the ocean experiences a COOLING of 63+80+17 = 160W/m2.
But, you did forget one thing: that might be so “on the average”. In the tropics oceans are being warmed by insolation and radiation (by a lot of back radiating water vapour) and cooled by evaporation. At the poles there is a net cooling by the total of the above mentioned processes. So, for the tropics the question as being raised by Richard Verney, still remains: what happens with the top layer after being heated by insolation and radiation?
Sales job in the extreme, Camilla. The use of old (2006 to 2009) stuff and no proof of CO2 causal relationship. Ending on an extreme Super El Nino is scientific malpractice.
No mention of the 21st Century pause/hiatus. No mention of the unreliability of doom-forecasting IPCC climate models, being flogged at the insane AR5 RCP 8.5.
But our tax money bought a slick sales job.
@ Camilla September 26, 2017 at 2:14 pm
=====
Good that you are here reading WUWT. Hang around and learn. Then you can go back to your colleagues at nasa and help them along. They seem to be in quite a rut.
Does the furtively pseudonymous “Camilla” have a scientific point to make? I think not. Moderators, please remove this posting, since it offends against the site policy of forbidding anonymous posters to make yah-boo comments.
Warming or anthropogenic warming?
There is a clear and progressive trend to conflate terms, concepts, logical domains, etc.
Not to mention extrapolation from mechanisms characterized in isolation to global proportions supplemented with evolving (i.e. chaotic) fudge factors that fail to keep pace with reality, past, present, and future.
Oh, and the Keeling curve is always in dry air. It is only an approximation ofmthe actual partial pressure.
Dang it, this is correct ;p.
It would be better to start the graph in 1880. That’s when the National Climatic Data Center’s data starts, according to Wikipedia.
The “zero-dimensional” equation W = w/(1-f) is indeed “nonsensical”, and does not correspond to any physical reality. According to the equation at f = 0.65, the warming with feedback would be 1.54 times the warming without feedback. At f = 0.80, the warming with feedback would be 5.0 times the warming without feedback. If there was a feedback factor equal to that of the effect of CO2, f = 1.0 and the warming would be infinite!
If the feedback factor was slightly stronger than the effect of CO2 (for example, f = 1.1), W / w = -10, and we would get 10 times as much COOLING as the warming which would be expected without feedback. Does anyone at the IPCC, with all their PhD’s, even bother to check whether these equations can give physically ridiculous results, which could easily be done on the back of an envelope?
A lot of the positive “feedback” in the climate models is based on the assumption of constant relative humidity, that if the atmosphere warms, it can hold more water vapor, which would then absorb more infrared radiation and accentuate the warming effect.
But this additional water vapor in the atmosphere must come from somewhere, presumably by evaporation from the sea surface. Evaporation of water requires input of heat, and at typical values of air and water temperatures over oceans (15 to 30 C), the evaporation required to maintain constant relative humidity would consume 50% to 80% of the heat used to warm the atmosphere (presumably from additional IR absorption by CO2). This is equivalent to a value of f between -0.5 and -0.8, which would have to be subtracted out of any positive feedback due to increased IR absorption by water vapor.
Have the genius modelers at the IPCC ever considered what happens if f is negative and W < w?
See my post above at September 26, 2017 at 3:51 pm which discusses the absorption of DWLWIR and evaporation.
Mr Zell is right that at a feedback factor of +1.0 there would in theory be infinite global warming. And the sum of the official high-end estimates of the climate-relevant feedbacks implies a feedback factor of exactly 1.0. These absurdly high feedback estimates are based on a series of elementary but serious errors in feedback theory perpetrated for a century and more by climatologists.
Richard Verney at 2:20pm.
There is little water in the atmosphere at the conditions you quote which were about 3% by volume or by mol. For the higher Cp of water to give a significant rise to that of air you will need a lot more. The atmosphere was at 87% humidity so had condensation occured? Not at that value. You confirm in that it was cloudless. So the latent enthalpy of condensation of water had not been used to maintain the temperature.
Yet you say that in drier climate the cooling is more rapid.
With 87% humidity then people will point out that you are describing the greenhouse effect of water. The only way you can invoke the extra thermal inertia of wet air if it forms clouds. Is there an explanation i.e. invisible droplets? These would support your observation, yet air can be several 10°C below dew point before condensation occurs. I would be very interested if you could point out to me literature that confirms invisible condensation of water. Then you could put good credence to your observation.
Ps did you measure these yourself or were they all from the Spanish forecast.
Personally these computer for cast get it wrong most of the time round here on temperatre .
They are a bit better on rainfall though
As I explained the data was from from the Windows 10 weather App, so I have no idea to the extent that dew might be forming on the car, or other such similar surfaces, but towels are usually damp if left outside.
But it is a scenario that I have observed numerous times in the Summer, namely that cloudy nights are usually cold, and clear sky night are usually warm. This is partly because one rarely sees cloudy nights, unless the afternoon has clouded over. It has approximately 320 sunshine days per year.
Frequently, I have ridden my bike along the sea front promenade at say 02:00hrs in the morning with many shop thermometers reading 32 degC following the previous day where the afternoon highs were around 34 to 35degC.
In the Summer, along the coast it rarely gets above 35 degC whereas going inland even a relatively short distance the temperature will be over 40 degC, probably nearer 43 degC, and with much less humidity.
In the Summer, my wife and I rarely go to bed before around 5 am, since we find the best part of the day is sitting out (and swimming) between 11pm and 5 am, and it is easier to sleep after 5 am when the night begins to cool off. In the Summer we become night people (it is presently 02:37 hrs)
Of course, late September is not Summer, and at 22 to 24 degC it is no longer pleasant sitting out and swimming etc.
I think that part of the reason for their bad predictions is their reliance on cumulative emissions.
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3000932
Richard the molar heat capacity of water Cp is some 20% higher than that of dry air.
So at 3% volume of water in air one would expect the heat capacity of air go up by this calc
100% dry air Cp = 30 J/mol K
3% water Co = 36 x3% +30×97% = 30.18 J/mol K
i.e. a 0.6 % rise in Cp
chaamjamal,
No not climate , I’m talking about weather forecasting getting temperatures wrong.
Another way to calculate the effect of 3.1 W/m^2 is to consider that currently, each of the 240 W/m^2 of incident solar energy results in 1.62 W/m^2 of surface emissions for a total emissions of 388.8 W/m^2 corresponding to a temperature of 287.8K. If each of the 3.1 W/m^2 of ‘ghg’ forcing contributed the same 1.62 W/m^2 towards the surface emissions, the emissions prior to the 3.1 W/m^2 of forcing would have been 383.8 W/m^2 corresponding to a temperature of 286.8K or about 0.97K cooler for a sensitivity of about 0.31C per W/m^2 of forcing. However; the 3.1 W/m^2 of forcing from anthropogenic feedback seems high as that would imply that we have already nearly doubled CO2 so it probably also includes presumed h2o feedback and other effects which are already accounted for by applying ‘feedback’.
Since we are not even half way from pre-industrial CO2 levels to their doubling, and doubling is claimed to be equivalent to 3.7 W/m^2 of forcing, the forcing from CO2 alone is closer to 2 W/m^2 which corresponds to about a 0.62 C increase.
Given that the observed increase has 0.95C, you can make the case that about 2/3 of the warming we have actually seen has been due to CO2 emissions, however; this is unlikely as it would mean that the natural warming since the end of the LIA would be less than expected based on the paleo record which tells us that we should have expected continued warming following the end of a natural cooling period like the LIA. Note that the increase arising from the 3.1 W/m^2 of forcing claimed is more than what was observed, which is even less likely and most indicative of a serious over-estimation of the actual forcing power as well as the sensitivity to that forcing.
It is certainly true that W = w/(1 – f) formula is an irrelevant approximation for calculating the effects of feedback that’s not even approximately correct. The reason is that what Bode calls feedback has no correspondence to what climate science calls feedback and this equation is direct from Bode, where w is the open loop gain, W is the closed loop gain and f is the fraction of the output fed back to the input.
The fundamental flaw is that when f == 1, W = infinity and this requires the implicit, infinite source of Joules powering the gain that Bode assumes for his analysis and that’s missing from the climate. The actual limit at f = 1 is that the feedback power can not exceed the forcing input, so rather than a feedback term of infinite power per W/m^2 of forcing, it’s limited to 1 W/m^2 of feedback per W/m^2 of forcing
George
You might like to read the recent paper: Using Earth’s Moon as a Testbed for Quantifying the Effect of the Terrestrial Atmosphere
at http://file.scirp.org/Html/3-8302911_78836.htm
This paper touches upon many of the points that are involved in your model.
Richard there is less daily variation forcast tonight in Timbuktu 38 to 29 °C ie 9°C than in the part of Spain 10 °C you are sitting in.
At 02:52 hrs the temp is 21 degC, Yesterday struggled to reach 24 degC, hence, so far there has been a fall in temps of just 2 to 3 degC.
It is 3 degC cooler than this time yesterday in the early hours of the morning, but then again, the sky is not completely clear. There is some cloud around.
Richard,
Yes, it seems that excluding a lot of excess complexity, it’s similar to this,
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/20/a-consensus-of-convenience/
Although the hypothesis I was testing was that planetary bodies like the Moon and the Earth obey the same laws of physics and that the test of applying the same physics to both gets the correct answers for both. You would think that this should be obvious …
George
I know that it touches on your post, that is why I thought the paper may be of interest to you.
And that’s assuming that the proxy measurements, often given without a full error analysis and propagation really mean anything, particularly from extrapolating confined space measurements to unconfined conditions
that include factors not tested in the confined space measurements and applying a ceteris paribus argument. Then we need to keep in mind that the SB T is a color or brightness temperature that at the ideal limit is equivalent to the kinetic energy and only kinetic energy summary statistic that is the thermodynamic temperature.
Richard, for water to have an inertial effect I think we agree that it must use the enthalpy of condensation, the change in Cp is simply insufficient then once condensation starts you have clouds which block radiation.
Yes, I think that it was tracking at that boundary condition, but one would need accurate measurements to be sure of that.
No one has answered, so I repeat Grif:
But it is still warming – and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.
Isn’t it?
Griff seems to have quit the discussion. Perhaps you can declare the target average earthly outside air temperature of the settled science.
Where I come from +16 °C is the average July temperature. The gang green optimum at the end of the 19th century a.k.a year without summer starved about 10% of my people. If that’s more to your liking, there is plenty of space over there for you and likeminded people. There are even private islands. Perhaps Al Gore, Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leonardo diCaprio et al move to northern climate and accept it, instead of moving to south and to complain how horriawful it is. But I’m not holding my breath, based on their actions so far pigs will fly first.
Where I am, the month, July, with the highest average of temperatures is 80F/27C and pretty much any year will be between 75F/24C and 85F/29C and given that the month, January, with the lowest average of temperatures is 35F/2C and may be between 30F/-1C and 40F/4C, and local conditions set these; why am I going to worry about an artifact like the GMST, which is not something that exists on Planet Earth, going up 2C from 14 to 16C? /rhetorical
‘But it is still warming – and at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century.’
Unfortunately the warming is coming to an end, so the only harmful effects will come from global cooling.
It absolutely isn’t.
This is an old article but very current: https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2015-02-25-slowing-global-warming-is-like-turning-an-oil-tanker
The point is that we need to act on early evidence that GCW is going to do us in. because acting after it is hurting us will be too late.
There is no problem for us since we would easily survive even if the planet were to be 5 or 8 or even 10 degC warmer than today. there is no problem that we cannot easily adapt to.
Moving 300 miles south will definitely not do us in.
I will most certainly be able to cope with 2 degree change in temperature I will barely notice it, I might have to use my heater a little less in Winter and my air con a little more in summer. Problem fixed.
It isn’t a nice 2 degree increase at your locality on the temp through each season.
It’s a global average temp increase.
this isn’t like a gentle tweak on the thermostat.
“Reallyskeptical” does not seem very skeptical. There is no evidence that it is warming at a rate that will produce harmful effects this century. The warming rate in the first 16 full years of the 21st century, taken as the mean of two terrestrial and two satellite monthly global mean surface temperature datasets, was 0.2 K, equivalent to 1.3 K/century. Not exactly life-threatening.
If “Reallyskeptical” were really skeptical, it would ask the priests of the new religion to tell it what is the ideal global mean surface temperature, and why. Then sit back and watch Them wriggle.
219902619Our sun is entering into a period of decreasing sunspots which can lead to the solar minimum. If the sun reaches that stage, we will have a mini ice age. Look at Europe in the 1600’s
And you will see what the climate is like in a solar sunspot minimum period. CO2 affect has very little influence on the Earth’s temperature IF we have a mini ice age solar minimum.
https://youtu.be/xa53inMYhUk
Of course, paper authors Allen and Millar rightfully call much of MoB’s cut&paste narrative nonsense … and worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/when-media-sceptics-misrepresent-our-climate-research-we-must-speak-out
No shame.
The snivelingly, furtively pseudonymous “John@EF” is, as usual, lying. I am not mentioned in the Communist paper’s piece – it has learned that it faces legal action if it misrepresents me. Nor is any of the head posting “cut & paste”: where I have used others’ material, I have referenced it explicitly.
This is your echo-chamber cut & paste from the Daily Mail:
“The research by British scientists shows that, under the old projections, the world ought now to be 1.3 C° warmer than the mid-19th century average. In fact the new analysis shows it is 0.9-1.0 C° above. Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, accepted that the old projections had been wrong.”
It’s nonsense. 1.3 C° was not the projection – it was always a range. Stop sniveling and try a little honesty for once.
… Allen and Millar’s comment about your echo-chamber cut & Paste BS …
“In fact, the IPCC specifically assessed that temperatures in the 2020s would be 0.9-1.3C warmer than pre-industrial, the lower end of which is already looking conservative. Anyone who had troubled to read our paper would have found this “IPCC AR5 Ch11 projection” helpfully labelled on two of our figures, and clearly consistent with our new results.”
Let’s get the facts first. There has been no measurable change in temperature as the resolution of the current and past measurement apparatus is an order of magnitude greater than the change required by theory. Not to mention spatial resolution, error propagation, process errors i.e. each step in the process is uncalibrated. I could go on.
The temperature record is a hypothetical construct where a large set of assumptions are used to create a data set with lower theoretical uncertainty. We were reminded of this recently with Kip Hansen’s post about absolute temperature and anomalies where Gavin Schmidt proposed how anomalies have uncertainties of 0.05 K whereas absolutes have 0.5K (He may have been speaking abstractly but his point is still valid). How can a derived value have less uncertainty than its inputs?
So when some professor says that things “did” happen or that changes “were smaller” when talking about a the “temperature record” they are talking out their arse.
For once can we stop believing the rhetoric of theoreticians and focus on tangible things that can be verified.
And as such we just do not know.
Lord Monckton, disregard all the climate sensitivities derived from climate models. They are just imaginary. Look at the real climate. Warming since 1850 = 0.85 C from 3.1 W/m^2 GHG forcing. That’s lower than the no-feedback sensitivity = 1 C. It only means the feedback in the real climate (not the imaginary climate in models) is negative feedback. We are being generous here because the 0.85 C warming is not all from GHG. Probably a large part is natural. So it’s not just negative, it’s a strong negative feedback!
In reply to Dr Strangelove, the CO2 forcing is 5.35 ln 2, or 3.7 W/m^2. Divide this by 3.2 K/W/m^2 to give reference or pre-feedback warming of 1.15 K at CO2 doubling. Thus, pro rata, the forcing to give 0.85 K direct warming would be three-quarters of 3.7 W/m^2, or 2.7 Watts per square meter, but according to Myhre (2017) there has been 3.1 W/m^2, from which one would expect 0.95 K direct warming, implying a negative feedback factor (using IPCC’s defective implementation of the Bode formulism) of -0.112. Our own research has indicated that net temperature feedback in the climate cannot exceed +0.12 in any event, and we submit that we have proven it. We are about to discuss our result with experts in control theory to confirm what we have found.
You have to understand what’s actually behind this admission by the warmists. They’re realizing that they’ve set the tipping point to close, that all those dire predictions are about to fail and the global warming gravy train will end for them. What they’ve done is ensure that the scam continues. “OK, it’s not going to kill us that soon but it’s still going to kill us, just you wait and see!” Reminds me of Paul Ehrlich and his book “The Population Bomb” – when his dire predictions failed to materialize he re-issued the book with doomsday 10 years further down the road. Twice.
They’ve just moved the goalposts. Again.
Art, as per my comment at Jo Nova’s on 21st September, I largely agree with you. Is this admission by the alarmists not simply them “getting their revenge in first” before they get a mauling in president Trump’s long overdue due diligence red-v-blue teams assessment of the science? Hence their new paper will allow the alarmists to say that (i) they had reduced their temperature rise estimates and thus no new science had been revealed by the red-blue due diligence assessment, and (ii) carbon dioxide reduction policies should continue as per the Paris agreement. In short, as suggested by several commentators on several blogs, this is all PR and damage limitation by the alarmists.
wATTS: YOU REALLY ARE AFRAID OF SCIENCE.
[SHOUTING IN UPPERCASE such as this comment shows and the other one you’ve made that will not be published isn’t the way to convince anyone. Your approach is not only a violation of blog policy, but also ineffective – mod]
Because of the predictions I didn’t believe the thermometer and refused to fire our Heating. Now I’ve caught cold – in Germanys Autumn.
Your last graphic shows 1990 three times, but the last two should be 1850 instead. — John M Reynolds
Mea culpa
why did the last ice age glaciers melt, and how do we know that?
About 9000 years ago the last glaciers receded from our estate in the strath of Rannoch in Scotland, as geological study of the extensive glacial moraine reveals. Similar studies have been conducted in Yorkshire and elsewhere in the world.
There is no truth in the rumour that the good lord Monckton was found on the estate at that time, exposed by the receding glaciers…
Forrest Gardener is asking the right question. The reason why positive feedbacks have not led to runaway warming, as they would certainly have done if the feedback factor was as high as the 0.65 implicit in the CMIP5 central estimate of 3.3 K Charney sensitivity, is that feedbacks cannot be anything like that strongly net-positive. If our calculations are correct, today’s feedback factor cannot exceed 0.12, less than a fifth of the CMIP5 mid-range estimate.