From Breitbart and No Tricks Zone:
A broad survey of climate change literature for 2017 reveals that the alleged “consensus” behind the dangers of anthropogenic global warming is not nearly as settled among climate scientists as people imagine.
Author Kenneth Richard found that during the course of the year 2017, at least 485 scientific papers were published that in some way questioned the supposed consensus regarding the perils of human CO2 emissions or the efficacy of climate models to predict the future.
According to Richard’s analysis, the 485 new papers underscore the “significant limitations and uncertainties inherent in our understanding of climate and climate changes,” which in turn suggests that climate science is not nearly as settled as media reports and some policymakers would have people believe.
Richard broke the skeptical positions into four main categories, with each of the individual papers expounding at least one of these positions, and sometimes more.
…
N(1) Natural mechanisms play well more than a negligible role (as claimed by the IPCC) in the net changes in the climate system, which includes temperature variations, precipitation patterns, weather events, etc., and the influence of increased CO2 concentrations on climatic changes are less pronounced than currently imagined.
N(2) The warming/sea levels/glacier and sea ice retreat/hurricane and drought intensities…experienced during the modern era are neither unprecedented or remarkable, nor do they fall outside the range of natural variability, as clearly shown in the first 150 graphs (from 2017) on this list.
N(3) The computer climate models are not reliable or consistently accurate, and projections of future climate states are little more than speculation as the uncertainty and error ranges are enormous in a non-linear climate system.
N(4) Current emissions-mitigation policies, especially related to the advocacy for renewables, are often ineffective and even harmful to the environment, whereas elevated CO2 and a warmer climate provide unheralded benefits to the biosphere (i.e., a greener planet and enhanced crop yields).
Below are the two links to the list of 485 papers as well as the guideline for the lists’ categorization.
Part 1. Natural Mechanisms Of Weather, Climate Change
- Solar Influence On Climate (121)
- ENSO, NAO, AMO, PDO Climate Influence (44)
- Modern Climate In Phase With Natural Variability (13)
- Cloud/Aerosol Climate Influence (9)
- Volcanic/Tectonic Climate Influence (6)
- The CO2 Greenhouse Effect – Climate Driver? (14)
Part 2. Unsettled Science, Failed Climate Modeling
- Climate Model Unreliability/Biases/Errors and the Pause (28)
- Failing Renewable Energy, Climate Policies (12)
- Wind Power Harming The Environment, Biosphere (8)
- Elevated CO2 Greens Planet, Produces Higher Crop Yields (13)
- Warming Beneficial, Does Not Harm Humans, Wildlife (5)
- Warming, Acidification Not Harming Oceanic Biosphere (17)
- Decreases In Extreme, Unstable Weather With Warming (3)
- Urban Heat Island: Raising Surface Temperatures Artificially (5)
- No Increasing Trends In Intense Hurricanes (4)
- No Increasing Trends In Drought/Flood Frequency, Severity (3)
- Natural CO2, Methane Sources Out-Emit Human Source (4)
- Increasing Snow Cover Since The 1950s (2)
- Miscellaneous (7)
Part 3. Natural Climate Change Observation, Reconstruction
- Lack Of Anthropogenic/CO2 Signal In Sea Level Rise (38)
- No Net Warming During 20th (21st) Century (12)
- A Warmer Past: Non-Hockey Stick Reconstructions (60)
- Abrupt, Degrees-Per-Decade Natural Global Warming (7)
- A Model-Defying Cryosphere, Polar Ice (32)
- Antarctic Ice Melting In High Geothermal Heat Flux Areas (4)
- Recent Cooling In The North Atlantic, Southern Ocean (10)
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Ah, the end of the beginning.
Is that a breath of fresh air, perhaps?
the beginning of the end..
“starts to crumble” ???
It was crumby (crummy) from the beginning.
Crumbly.
+1
485 out of how many?
There are thousands of climate “science” papers published every year. Many of them are not an analysis of the climate per say, they are an analysis that accepts the alarmist “science” as a given, and then examines the effects on (for example) the three toed leopard frog.
Is 485 papers a substantial % of the total publsished?
Sounds like a research project. If the number 485 is less than or equal to 3% of the number of papers that find new reasons to affirm the CO2-forced-catastrophic-anthropomorphic-global-warming meme, than the oft-claimed 97% consensus is affirmed. A little arithmetic says we’re looking at a minimum universe of 16,100 (or so) papers of which some 15,615 must claim new (or restated) proofs of their theory to reach the oft-mooted 97%.
Don’t forget to include titles like “The Effect of Climate Change on Donations to Polio Hospices” and “Climate Change a Causal Cause of Casual Gender Dynamics”.
And “Climate Impacts on Sea Snails Located in My Aquarium”.
And “Climate Change and Revolution: Spartacus to Bolivar”.
And “An Evaluation of Systemic Measures in Binary Transactions and …uh… Climate Change”.
“The Effects of Climate Change on the Soles of My Shoes on a Dry Sidewalk’
You forgot the comprehensive study: “The Effect of Climate Change on Climate Change.”
Recently here in NZ an Auckland university professor suggested that the “obesity epidemic” could be linked to climate change.
And his wallet.
How Climate Stasis Changes Opinions on Climate Change.
Unless there were 16,167 climate science papers published in 2017, 15,682 of which actually provide confirmation of CAGW (rather than just, as you so accurately merely accept it), the 97% is certainly incorrect. John Cook, et al, fabricated the 97.1% number in this 2013 paper. They looked at 11,944 abstracts of climate papers from 1991 to 2011. They found that 66.4% of those took no position on CAGW. Assuming all of the rest did provide confirmation, that leaves a maximum of 4,252 papers for that period, or 425 per year.
I’d say this is probably much more significant than it might appear at first blush.
Agreed.
“Assuming all of the rest did provide confirmation …”
No, they did not. The data is available on the Skeptical Science web site. Only 0.5% of the nearly 12,000 abstracts claimed that man was mainly responsible. Others have checked those papers and found that the real percentage was 0.3%. See Legates et al (2015). http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-013-9647-9#page-1
From memory, Cook’s crooked survey used about 3000 papers, spread over several years.
So 485 in a year is quite significant
For settled science, that’s an enormous waste of money.
Counting papers for or against the CAGW theory is no more logical than counting opinions. The point of this list of papers is to show the enormous amount of credible scientific research that shows current climate trends are not unprecedented, or unusual, and that there is ample evidence of natural drivers to explain them. Secondly climate models are amount to unvalidated speculation and are unreliable in predicting future climate trends. There could be 200 times as many papers that either assume or claim otherwise, but if they are not based on valid scientific observation, and rely entirely or partly on the fantasy world of computer modeling then they are not a refutation of the above points.
How true. I actually does not matter what anyone says, thinks, writes or graphs. We are going into a very cold time and nothing is going to stop it. When I came to this conclusion in July 2015 I started to think about preparing for such an event, particularly regarding food. One obvious thing to do would to build vast acres of greenhouses. About half an hour ago I read that in China where their winter crops are being destroyed at this very moment, that the roof of green houses have been and are collapsing under the weight of snow.
Einstein said that if only one paper disproved him, that’s all it would take. It wouldn’t take a hundred to do it.
The previous premise was 97% of “Climate Scientists” agree with the AGW hypothesis as evidenced by the position of published papers, so it must be valid. Now the published paper’s position have shifted so that it’s obvious that the 97% consensus now longer exists.
My hunch is that the supply of research grants for research supporting AGW has dwindled because the topic is blah now; where research opposing AGW is the “exciting new kid on the block”.
Yup! Amazing how they love to throw around those buzzwords to promote climate fear. “Unprecedented” being their favorite, and the MOST ridiculous. Especially when in their parlance, “ever” really means “on record,” and the “records” are a geologic eyeblink that is essentially meaningless.
Perhaps it isn’t but have you noticed the lack of papers from all the famous stalwarts in the “Climate Industrial Complex”? i.e. . . the likes of Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Kevin Trenberth etc. etc.
Most of the “the three toed leopard frog” variety are invariably some student’s thesis paper.
I reckon the big names really have little need to publish much these days.
They’ve evolved to become enablers.
Well, if 485 represents the usual 3% deniers’ efforts, there must be at least 16,167 pro-AGW efforts!
Ah, yes … but don’t the Koch Brothers and Exxon and the Canadian oilsands companies all contribute to Breitbart and No Tricks Zone? /sarc
Yes, and the same Canadians who would weep copious amount of liberal tears if an oil company interfered in our democratic process like entities such as the Tides Foundation do now would be mute.
you mean moot I think
i think mute is definitely the intended word. virtue signallers often become mute when their hypocrisy is highlighted.
They also become moot when their hypocrisy is pointed out.
Are those 485 papers a mere 3% of those published? That is the question.
“Are those 485 papers a mere 3% of those published? That is the question.”
Another question might be: if 3% of papers are against in 2017 and only 0.3% were for prior to 2013, doesn’t that point to the fact that their could be a 10:1 consensus against the global warming scam?
Are those 485 papers a mere 3% of those published? That is the question.
One item to consider when addressing your questions is that studies which, for example, attempt to predict how ‘whatever’ (frogs, SLR, forest fires, drought, motor oil in tractors, etc) will survive, get worse, perform, etc., in a warming world, are not a finding on whether or not AGHG’s are causing additional GW, AGW. My gut feeling is that most studies fall into this sort of a category; at least, those are the ones that our media writes about most every week.
You don’t need studies for that, everything gets worse under climate change.
And then worse than expected …
Actually, it’s not – whether they contain actual scientifically supportable information (i.e., unlike the “papers” that support AGW catastrophist nonsense) is important. And there never really was a “97%” consensus about anything – they only got that by ignoring all the scientists who didn’t take a position (which was reportedly 2/3s of them!). Only in the Eco-Fascist mind do you get “97% agree” when 66% didn’t take a position one way or the other!
We just cannot help from voting on scientific truth, can we?
There was a book A Hundred Authors Against Einstein.
Notwithstanding the above, I find it heartening that a bunch of researchers found the intestinal fortitude to go against the CAGW consensus.
i don’t think they have commiebob. the anthropogenic strap line will be there somewhere in most or all of the papers. even papers where the conclusions would appear to go against the consensus manage to squeeze the “man made” climate chage element in. no more rent seeking. . . sorry research grants if they don’t.
Fortitude indeed, especially when you consider the calls (Al Gore, Attorneys General) for them (as dissenters) to be investigated and punished for it.
CO2 levels control the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere… settled science or unproven hypothesis… discuss. 🙂 It seems like this is what it’s all about.
A resounding NO…
http://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=Z9jvy3Ep&id=810CD60B723E937821A8484CBB85FBEA8ADDB667&thid=OIP.Z9jvy3Ep7BtlurP7iR-y8gHaEs&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fskepticalscience.com%2fpics%2fnova_past_climate3.gif&exph=285&expw=450&q=geocarb&simid=608004999912358670&selectedIndex=8&adlt=strict&qpvt=geocarb&ajaxhist=0
“the efficacy of climate models to predict the future.”…
The models undermine themselves….they have made no correct predictions
…but then the science behind the models has made no correct predictions either
Why does this keep going on?
Why? Money! that’s why. What else is there?
Well, we DO now live in an attention economy mostly fuelled by speculation.
Why?
Cui bono?
Money sex or power.
Maybe that should be ‘and’
Because their so-called “climate science” is garden variety BS.
BS is good for most gardens.
As others have asked how many other papers there are, Cook’s 97% study looked at 4011 papers over the period 1991-2011.
Many of these were not even climate papers, instead simply looking at things like the effects of global warming, or how to mitigate it.
Of the 4011, only 65 papers are identified as “quantifying AGW as 50%+”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/cooks-97-scam-debunked/
Was just looking for that – that was about the number I remembered; and, that’s over a decade of publications – not just one year.
err . .oops … over 2 decades.
In their 2013 paper, Cook’s team reviewed 11,944 abstracts from years 1991 to ~May 2012 representing 29,286 authors. The list of abstracts was based on a keyword search using the abstracts database of Web of Science. For these abstracts, 7930 had no position on AGW so were excluded from any further consideration, regardless of the potential for the works to contribute to the scientific understanding or even discussion of GW, anthropogenic or not. Of the 11,944 abstracts, 3896 endorsed humans as the main cause of the observed GW. Seventy-eight of the abstracts rejected humans as the main cause of the observed GW, and 40 were uncertain. The “97% consensus” that man had caused at least half of a quoted 0.7 C global warming since 1950 comes from dividing 3896 into 4014 (=3896/(11944-7930)).
There are many problems with this methodology, biggest I see is that is science is not linear. A work that does not present an opinion or conclusion on a given topic does not mean it is irrelevant to that topic. To understand the relevance of a given paper the reviewers on Cook’s team would need to read the paper (not just the abstract), to have an understanding of the scientific field(s) covered, and to capture the findings for each paper in an unbiased manner. “Scientometrics” and “bilbiometrics” are terms I’ve seen. Their abstracts search on WoS was {‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’}, hardly a net big enough to capture the relevant scientific base, in my opinion. Also, there is no description of the quality of the WoS database for this time period, although from what I’ve seen from it in late 2016 it seemed very extensive of its representation of worldwide publication forums, which includes peer reviewed scientific journals and various other publications, scientific or not.
Importantly, Cook et al. (2013) was published by Environmental Research Letters, an online, publish-for-fee, and itself a NOT peer reviewed publication. It was quickly shown to be false in its math and called out as refuted on this and other blog forums. A followup piece by Cook’s group in 2016, which is a “consensus on consensus” piece, is interesting for its list of ‘97%’ers’ (with a strange graph showing Consensus vs. [Level of] Expertise), and not for its clarification of the quality of science of either the abstracts that were reviewed or Cook’s own scientometric methodology. Cook et al. (2016) is a rebuttal to Tol (2016), who was critical of Cook’s abstract rating team and the methodology overall, and quite rightly so. ERL is open access at http://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326. Search for ‘consensus’ to find the papers. There may be available a list of the abstracts reviewed in the 2013 paper.
This will be a repeat for many of you. My apologies.
Can’t be stated enough IMO. We are continually bombarded by the “97% consensus” message, esp here in Australia. Australian MSM and politicians forget we have full access to many sources of reliable information across the internet. We’re not blocked from that access, yet, although there was talk, by politicians, of that some years ago.
Oh come on…
These don’t attack let alone disprove AGW or the effects of CO2.
Most just list historical influences on climate… the fact being that the main current climate driver, in addition to all known/previous climate drivers, is human CO2
When do you think it will start doing that?
Ed Griffin, I call bulshit on you and your comment. You didn’t read them. You just knee-jerked.
of course he didn’t read them…..he doesn’t even read the links he posts
Yes, I’m beginning to think he’s a paid troll. He never responds to challenges.
Often I think Griff is someone invented by Anthony to pep up the discussion… ;-))
But anyway he has a certain approach and sticks to it.
dunno…don’t think he’s good enough to get paid
He never responds to challenges.
i think that’s the only way to troll. Some come and shoot spitballs never to be seen again. That kind only works if there are enough other people doing the same thing. (there aren’t enough others, so this kind is largely ineffective) Other trolls stick around a while and they respond to challenges. The responses end up being ineffective, eventually rendering the troll moot. The only effective way to troll is a combination of the two. Shoot spitballs, don’t respond, stick around, repeat. Everytime i bring up economics, i get trolled by this one guy. And he’ll never respond to me no matter how baseless his claims. (and i’ll be darned if the troll doesn’t take a toll)…
“You didn’t read them. “
So who has read them? Anyone? I have read a lot. Griff is right. They are mostly not disputing AGW.
And it’s the authors who say so, in many cases. There was an earlier version of this list at Breitbart in June, with then 58 papers. Climate feedback actually asked some of them whether their papers were disputing the consensus. You can see thier statements quoted there. Half said no. Often theoir papers had nothing to do with AGW at all. The author just quoted a sentence or two out of context. He also has an alarming tendency to modify their graphs.
Those 29 papers still seem to be in the list.
Some of the papers may not be about AGW but if their conclusions suggest that significant natural climate change occurred in the past and is in direct contrast to the Hockey Stick Meme, then even a chimp can see how that paper is not in agreement with the IPCC consensus.
“Those 29 papers still seem to be in the list.”
Nick I just searched the list for their names and got no matches…..did you actually look and see if the papers were still there?….or just shoot from the hip?
“Nick I just searched the list for their names and got no matches”
Stivrins et al is about 2/3 way down the second list. Tejedor is near the top of p 1. Etc.
You’re having better luck than I am….that’s two…keep looking 27 to go
It’s not his knee he jerked.
“that’s two…keep looking”
Let’s just review what they said back in June, but still remain on the list
However, I must acknowledge that Steiger did seem to get the message through, and does not now appear:
That’s still 2…..look for the other 27
“Those 29 papers still seem to be in the list.”
“Nick I just searched the list for their names and got no matches”
You said the 29 papers seemed to still be on the list??..are they or aren’t they?
Nick Stokes
January 10, 2018 at 12:45 pm
Those 29 papers still seem to be in the list.
“are they or aren’t they?”
As you have demonstrated, searching isn’t so easy. But let’s look at a few more:
Still there? Yes, p 2 about halfway down. Just the plot is shown, which as Jones says, doesn’t have anything about AGW at all.
Or
Yes, still there, again mid p 2. Again just represented by a single graph, which as they say, isn’t even theirs.
That’s 5 that I’ve tried. Four out of five. Your turn.
I didn’t try to slam them by saying the 29 papers seemed to still be on the list…..you did
…there’s no turns….back up what you said
And you said
“I just searched the list for their names and got no matches”
Did you try all 29?
…so I was right all along
You came on here to defend Griff and sling at No Tricks Zone….you’re just as guilty as Griff is
You admitted you hadn’t even looked at…much less read…the list when you said this
“Those 29 papers still seem to be in the list.”
“Often I think Griff is someone invented by Anthony…”
You must think Anthony has nothing else to do. Look at the hit count and tell us he needs to pep things up.
Does the atmosphere know the difference between human CO2 and natural CO2?
50% of the CO2 is absorbed/taken up by the climate system. One theory is that the natural CO2 is absorbed and the yucky man-made CO2 is spit back out to heat the planet.
Pixies, magical flying pixies sort out the CO2 and put the natural CO2 into buckets and they carry it down to feed the plants!
Not only doesn’t the atmosphere know the difference, there isn’t actually any solid scientific case to blame the rising CO2 level on human activities, since (1) the supposed amount of “increase” is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison of ice core proxy derived CO2 levels with modern atmospheric measurements, putting the alleged amount of increase in serious question, and (2) all of the other (i.e., the vast majority) of CO2 emissions from CO2 sources are not being measured, nor are the CO2 amounts being absorbed by CO2 Sinks, which means the basic fact is that there are more questions than answers regarding where CO2 is coming from and going to.
I have been assured that they smell different.
“the fact being that the main current climate driver, in addition to all known/previous climate drivers, is human CO2”.
Griff says with no supporting evidence to back up this claim. There’s no evidence that CO2 is driving anything. If you have some evidence to the contrary, please provide it.
Not only that, but there’s plenty of evidence that CO2 doesn’t “drive” jack sh!t. No correlation on geologic time scales, REVERSE correlation (temperature drives CO2) on shorter time scales where there IS any correlation.
What are you saying? Are you saying that “all known/previous climate drivers” are the main driver or CO2? Your sentence there says that it is all of the above. By golly, it’s almost as if you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Now, just find me which of the 485 papers actually concluded that the current main driver was human CO2.
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford for maliciously attempting to damage her professional credibility yet [snip]?
[Snip]
[Please refrain from editorializing on another commenter and instead keep the discussions focused on the actual topic. -mod]
“Griff January 10, 2018 at 10:28 am
…the fact being that the main current climate driver, in addition to all known/previous climate drivers, is human CO2”
Extraordinary claims must be backed up with extraordinary evidence. Where is the evidence to back your claim Griff? And no, output from a computer simulation or a 19th century lab experiment or a Bill Nye video do not count as evidence.
Seems Ed prefers a spin applied to his facts before he can swallow and regurgitate them. He appears to be too macro-focused to get the big picture of climate and its ever-changing, unsteerable paradigm.
Griff,
I thought that the main driver was H2O.
Griff, I wonder if you can help me please. I have been unable to find any scientific data (not models of course) that shows a rise or fall in atmospheric CO2 precedes a corresponding rise or fall in temperature, on any time scale in fact. Where I have been able to fine a correlation it seems to show that temperature moves first and CO2 follows.
Do you have some data you could provide? Many thanks.
@Nick Stokes
Need I remind you that the 97% consensus paper by Cook created their consensus by making assumptions of agreement with the consensus.
In this case Mr. Richards is collecting those that in his view disagree with the consensus. If you disagree with Richards, you disagree with Cook as well and we have no consensus.
So if you agree with Richard, do you agree with Cook?
@ur momisugly Nick, the difference (based on the examples discussed above) would appear to be that Richard cited what he viewed to be information which in some way undermines the CAGW mantra, whereas Cook (based on prior discussion of his “survey”) just cynically utilized a “standard” so broad as to be meaningless, since as put forward even plenty of “skeptics” would agree, even though they would disagree had the question been asked in a manner that made it meaningful, just so he (Cook) could CLAIM “consensus” regarding something ELSE.
The IPCC takes it as a given that it has been proven that the main driver of climate is CO2. As you acknowledge.
Many of these papers show that other factors are major drivers of climate.
That alone disproves the IPCC position.
Why do you have to engage in such easily disproven lies?
As expected, no show by Griff, again!
There is great satisfaction in knowing that we are all here at the turning of the tide.
Ah! Is the tide running out for them, or is it coming in for us? Will it be a slow retreat or a tidal bore that dashes the unwary CAGWer or stray Warmian against a floating box of chocolate puddings?
“There is great satisfaction in knowing that we are all here at the turning of the tide.”
Really? In 2009 WUWT was proclaiming 450 skeptical papers (many actually were). In 2017 we have a dodgy list of 485.
Nick,
Do you think that the Cook survey is a better representation of the consensus?
Simple question. Yes or No?
I have not read the Cook survey. The topic here is Notrickszone.
Everything in the whole field of climate science is dodgy so perhaps we needs 50 shades of dodgy. You wouldn’t have the need for a “consensus” in a real science. We don’t have the flat Earth as the centre of a static universe in a Luminiferous aether which classical physics describes. All had huge consensus in there day and all were wrong and thankfully science doesn’t care much for consensus
Gee Nick, it’s been around for several years and you’ve never read it even though it’s been referred to here and on several other blog posts? It appears then you are accepting the results of the Cook survey without reading it or you are being dishonest. You appears you read at least some this one and able to find flaws. There have been many several refutations of the Cook survey, have you not read them either?
That tells us a lot Nick. I thought better of you before but now I know you have a huge bias and very little objectivity and I can write off pretty much everything you say. So go ahead Nick, close your eyes, put your hands over your ears and sign la la la. You’re no scientist.
+100 to DCA
“even though it’s been referred to here and on several other blog posts”
I’m just not interested in trying to quantify the consensus in this way.
@Nick/your last post
I’m not interested in trying to “quantify” the non-existent “consensu” either – you know why? Because “consensus” doesn’t dictate “science,” so EVEN IF THERE WAS a “consensus,” it doesn’t mean anything. Empirical evidence, or pound sand.
450 papers written in the year 2009.
Another 458 papers written in the year 2017.
That sounds like a lot of disagreement to me.
That’s not remotely accurate. More and more companies are committing to go 100% renewable. Car manufacturers are making massive investments in EVs. More and more funds are divesting from fossil fuel equities. Even Trump says he would consider re-joining the Paris accord. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/10/u-s-could-conceivably-re-join-paris-climate-agreement-trump-says/1022118001/
Companies positioning themselves to farm government subsidies is only proof that money talks.
“Companies positioning themselves to farm government subsidies is only proof that money talks.”
Rubbish. Companies are funding their own wind farms and utility scale solar projects to meet their own needs – many of these are in states with no feed in tariffs. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11471
The consensus at the Table of Knowledge (an informal gathering at the local cafe) is we are having another entirely normal ‘weak La Nina’ winter here in the Great NorthWet of the USA.
We are suffering the catastrophic effects from man made socialism however, with high confidence.
Regarding Cook’s cooked consensus…
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
Cook and his merry band of SkepSciBots found 78 papers over the 20 year study period which explicitly or implicitly rejected and/or minimized AGW. They only found 64 papers that explicitly stated that more than half of the warming since 1950 was due to humans.
485 papers in 2017 that explicitly or implicitly rejected and/or minimized AGW s fracking YUGE compared to 78 papers from 1991-2011.
Based on Cook’s cooked definitions of implicitly endorsed and explicitly endorsed without quantifying almost every WUWT post I’ve written about climate change endorsed the so-called consensus.
Hey Griff, wudda wudda you say, hello, hello Griff you there? Must be conferring with the sources of his paycheck.
Somehow the climate cultists can’t understand, that a paper showing natural and significant climate changes in the past that are in direct conflict with the Hockey Stick Meme, is also in conflict with the 97% meme.
Yet they are mum on how the 97% meme was constructed in the first place.
All it takes is one paper to destroy a theory. At least that’s the way science is supposed to work. Science makes a prediction based on methodical repeatable formula’s or other means that anyone can learn and apply. If the prediction fits we all go about our daily jobs and ignore it. If the prediction doesn’t fit reality then a major problem ensues where the theory has to either explain the failure, that caveats or limitations are put on the theory to say it doesn’t apply in such situations.
Climate science is closer to Astrology. In astrology a predictor makes 20 predictions. 19 of them are shown false and one turns out correct. The audience goes “Isn’t that amazing?” They completely ignore the 19 failures.
In the 1940s astonomers discovered that the stars around galaxies were traveling far faster than they could explain with Newton or even Einstein’s general or special theory of gravity. They tabled this but it was a serious problem. Today we call this Dark Matter. This failure of the gravity model means that we had missed about 70% of the universe’s mass.
So, 485 papers that question if CO2 really can explain the warming or that the effects are different than anticipated or that the sensitivity of the models are wrong is non-trivial nullification of the theory.
Science doesn’t run on consensus. It is not a matter of how many papers say this is what is consistent and this is what is inconsistent with the theory. Inconsistent with the theory means the theory is flawed unless someone can explain how the result is not perfect. Formula’s do not produce numbers that work 10% of the time in any real science.
Climate science seems to be the only science other than astrology where they state that it is decided by consensus what is known or what is unknown.
We got a prediction from NOAA that this winter would be warm in the east coast and dry in the southwest. We are seeing exactly the opposite of course. The MET office in Britain used to make predictions based on computer models but after years of predicting warm winters, dry summers or dry winters or whatever and the public immediately seeing the coldest winter on record, the wettest winter on record began to ridicule the MET office. Their predictions became laughing stocks. They decided to stop predicting.
After 70 years of producing an enormous amount of CO2 that has bumped the concentration in the atmosphere up nearly 50% we have a significant amount of CO2. The amount which is 110ppm increase is more than the increase during the ice ages which sees co2 go from 180-280 and back. This 100ppm in the ice ages produced 8 C temperature change. We have seen in the 70 years since 1945 when we started producing significant more co2 about a 0.35-0.6C difference depending on if you believe all the adjustments and the hype of the climate astrologers. We should see close to 8C from a 50% increase in CO2 if the ice ages are driven by co2. The computer models were inspired by this ice age calculation. It was called the paleo method of computing co2 sensitivity. However, we haven’t gotten 8C or 4C or 2C or even 1C. We have gotten maybe 0.5C. That means co2 is not the reason for the ice ages. It can’t be. Co2 doesn’t cause enough impact on temperature to account for 1/3 of the ice ages.
Just like today and co2 it is not the most important factor. During the period 1945-1975 where co2 was rising at a huge exponential rate temperatures around the Earth fell. Co2 didn’t overwhelm forcing from other factors. During 1998-2014 the temperature of the Earth seemed to flatline even though we were pumping 2ppm and more CO2 into the atmosphere every year. CO2 again doesn’t seem to be that overwhelming.
Over the last 200+ years we have seen an ocean phenomenon called AMO/PDO move temperatures up and down over a 60 year cycle about 0.23C higher and lower. During these cycles they have overwhelmed the effect of CO2 many times. CO2 doesn’t dominate even the oceans effect on the climate.
While there is a trend overall upward if we believe the adjustments the overall trend over 70 years for a 50% increase in co2 says that by 2100 (another 82 years) we will probably see more likely closer to the 0.5C we’ve gotten in the last 70 years. That is the scientific answer for what warming to expect. The models predict 3-4C or more. To get 3-4C requires that temperatures around the Earth start spiking fast. The rate of temperature acceleration has to climb and climb fast unlike we have ever seen before even during the period we have poured CO2 into the atmosphere. To get to 3-4C requires that we are rising 6 times faster than we have for the last 70 years.
This is unscientific. It is astrology. We have no precedent for such rapid rise. The predictions they did make for the last 70 years are off by 50% or more. They have predicted way too much warming than what we’ve gotten. The idea that we accept their prediction that temperatures will suddenly spike up and surge massively is simply not a scientific defensible position. We have never seen this. In fact just when they thought temperatures would be spiking the most temperatures went flat for 20 years. Clearly this theory is flawed. Flawed in science normally means failed. Unbelievable. Proven wrong. Normally. Not in climate science.
The level of deceit being promoted as science is disgraceful and damaging to science. We all are more concerned that science is being infected with politics. When it does this the support of science will fail. We must clean out all of this moralizing and astrology. We must restore an understanding of the basics of science. This means the ideas of testability, prediction and verification based on data. It means figuring out if there is bias in studies or if they are repeatable. We must build credibility to restore faith that all these studies are worth spending money on because now it appears much of this science is not worth the paper it is printed on or the bits cost to be transmitted over the internet.
Thumbs up!!
Dark matter is now being questioned. That is honest science. Plate tectonics was fought by the consensus.
Excellent points, nc.
Why would anyone question dark matter? Just cause we can’t see it, taste it, smell it, feel it or find any? The concept has been questionable from the start. Just way too convenient an explanation for observations which are unexplainable. How about a big bang 13.7 bya that created the universe whose echoes indicate an infinite and eternal universe, eternal being longer than 13.7 billion years, with fully formed galaxies much to soon after this supposed beginning of time and space? Just because someone can come up with a model/mathematical equations which support such concepts does not make them real, only theoretical. Reality can be vastly different than math. I’ve had plenty of both for comparison purposes. I don’t know too many folks who can solve high order differential equations let alone undertand the meaning of the problem upon which they are working even if they can.
Well said! As you said: “All it takes is one paper to destroy a theory. At least that’s the way science is supposed to work.”
The CAGW project is, of course, not based on objective scientific methods at all. It just uses ‘science’ as a cover. It is modern Lysenkoism with a political agenda, period.
The problem is that it will not be overturned by real science either, although that will help. It is going to require political action to combat this political action. To the degree democracy still works in our increasingly and deliberately dumbed down society, that should eventually happen. Should, but quite possibly won’t until some other mega-crisis comes along to displace it.
In the meantime, even the most ardent followers of The Warming cult must be having a more difficult time squaring their beliefs with reality.
I agree with your post but I would like to add that Dark matter itself is a fabrication.Look at a competing theory that is based on some evidence.
https://briankoberlein.com/2016/09/29/galactic-motion-challenges-dark-matter/
There are also other studies showing that Hubble was possibly wrong in that the galaxies arent speeding up away from each other.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep35596
Dont forget that when astronomers thought that the galaxies were speeding away from each other at an accelerating rate they came up with the theory of Dark Energy and Dark matter to explain it They are complete fabrications. No one has any proof that they exist. So why should they exist ? If i invent the concept of a pink elephant to explain some inexplainable action of the universe,does that make it true? And dont forget the 2nd link above suggests that the orginal acceleration of the universe is wrong anyway.
What does all this have to with AGW?
The exact same WRONG process was followed in inventing AGW. Climate scientists thought they saw a trend that was provided by wrong computer simulations and they invented AGW to explain it. So not only the AGW hypothesis is wrong but so is the trend. This is exactly what happened with the fiasco of Dark Energy and Dark matter. Science should be ashamed.
I read the fascinating train of posts on dark matter, and think you should, too. The conclusion is that nothing but dark matter explains all of the observations, and the alternative theories explain some but not all. Dark matter wins.
Maybe it’s DARK CO2….?
In science it is not unusual to hypothesize objects. The neutrino was postulated by Pauli and found later on. Now it is hypothesized that the neutrino has mass but it is still not detected although there is an upper bound of 0.12 eV.
“After 70 years of producing an enormous amount of CO2 that has bumped the concentration in the atmosphere up nearly 50% we have a significant amount of CO2. The amount which is 110ppm increase is more than the increase during the ice ages which sees co2 go from 180-280 and back.”
This is wrong on three levels; first, the “enormous” production is a gross exaggeration; human CO2 emissions amount to a mere 4%, natural CO2 emissions 96% – let’s not lose perspective; second, the amount of increase is based on an “apples vs. oranges” comparison of ice core proxy determined “pre-industrial” levels to modern atmospheric measurements. Finally, the CO2 level change during past ice ages is EFFECT, not CAUSE, since CO2 FOLLOWS temperature, up AND down.
“This 100ppm in the ice ages produced 8 C temperature change.”
NOPE! CO2 FOLLOWS temperature in the ice core record, with a lag of ~800 years, up AND down. It “produced” NOTHING.
“We have seen in the 70 years since 1945 when we started producing significant more co2 about a 0.35-0.6C difference depending on if you believe all the adjustments and the hype of the climate astrologers.”
Agreed about the data being garbage, especially with all the ideologically tainted “adjustments.” But still no empirical evidence that indicates CO2 level to be the CAUSE of any such temperature change.
“We should see close to 8C from a 50% increase in CO2 if the ice ages are driven by co2.”
No, we shouldn’t (BIG “if”); the ice core records plainly show they had the cart before the horse – temperature drives CO2 level, NOT the other way around.
“The computer models were inspired by this ice age calculation. It was called the paleo method of computing co2 sensitivity. However, we haven’t gotten 8C or 4C or 2C or even 1C. We have gotten maybe 0.5C. That means co2 is not the reason for the ice ages. It can’t be. Co2 doesn’t cause enough impact on temperature to account for 1/3 of the ice ages.”
According to the sources referenced by Peter Taylor (an environmentalist!) in his book “Chill: A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory,” MORE THAN HALF of the *supposed* amount of warming (as of 2009) could be accounted for by solar activity ALONE, leaving precious little to POSSIBLY “blame” on increased atmospheric CO2 levels. And since all OTHER climate factors have not been IDENTIFIED, much less adequately observed, measured, and had their various interactions quantified over a period of time long enough to be meaningful, in the face of the non-effect of CO2 in the paleoclimate record, I don’t think we can attribute ANYTHING to CO2 at all. It’s just hypothetical BS.
Climate scientists fully agree with you that conclusions in science should be based on whether the theory fits the data. They have looked at all the alternative hypotheses proposed by the skeptics which is causing warming (solar irradiance, volcanism, cosmic rays, sun spots, etc.) and found that every one of them fails to fit the data. In contrast, the data best fits the theory of greenhouse gases causing warming. They settled this debate in the 1980s and there has been no new data that fundamentally challenges that conclusion. None of the alternative hypotheses can explain the climatic phenomena except greenhouse gases (and their derivate effects like increasing water vapor in the atmosphere).
What a great paper– a new way of looking at the issues–thanks!!! Something I can use with my believer brother.
Is your believer brother also a listening brother?
I have one of those to (a believing brother ) . At a quick glance there is a lot of good research in these papers .My brother was a geothermal scientist and when we meet the discussion always ends up about climate change and when I present him with some simple facts that he cannot counter he retreats to the 97% of scientists believe in global warming and its caused by man .
Recently, I had a long email discussion with a non-scientifically trained friend about AGW. Systematically, I knocked down every assertion he made, using evidence and logic (much of which was gleaned on WUWT). His final line of defence was the famous 97% consensus. I don’t have the heart to destroy even that…
Try to get him to understand that when something like science is corrupted into an ideology or belief system, it is no longer valid. It is religion.
Then tell him to read up on Trofim Lysenko. Because if this doesn’t stop, that’s the direction things will take. And no, there is NO difference.
From the article: “A broad survey of climate change literature for 2017 reveals that the alleged “consensus” behind the dangers of anthropogenic global warming is not nearly as settled among climate scientists as people imagine.”
It would be even more accurate to put it like this: not nearly as settled among climate scientists as people “were led to believe”.
The list of papers here does a lot to confirm the idea that the vast majority of scientists agree that CO2
is the main current driver of climate change. Most of the papers in the list are about historical climate change which was caused by something other than CO2 and are irrelevant. The few that reject the idea that CO2
increases drive increasing temperature are published in nonsense journals. In contrast there are probably at least 10000 papers published that accept the idea that CO2 causes climate change.
“10000 papers published that accept the idea that CO2 causes climate change”. Yep you maybe right but all that is missing is the proof.
Well the Journal of Climate reached page 10291 in 2017, Geophysical Research Letters reached page 12036, the International Journal of Climatology reached page 5216. There would easily be another 20 or so climate related journals that would have published a similar number of pages in 2017. So suggesting that there are 10000 journal articles published about the climate each year is
I think a lower bound that is almost certain to be exceeded.
That’s 12K since the beginning of time.
The 485 was for papers published this year.
(and yet, those 10000 papers don’t mean a dern thang if they just so happen to be wrong)…
And the same is true of the 485 papers supposedly disagreeing with the consensus. Consider for
example the paper by Sokeland, “Supernova and Nova Explosion’s Space Weather: Correlated Megafauna Extinctions, Antarctica Ice Melts and Biosphere Mega-disturbances—Global Warming”
which claims that global warming, mega-fauna extinctions and almost everything else are due to debris from super-nova reaching the earth. For example it includes the sentence “the Saiga antelope deaths in 2014 was extensive bleeding from their organs that was caused by supernova debris particles piercing their bodies at high velocities”.
If this is a typical example of the papers “disproving” human caused global warming then it is no
surprise that over 97% of scientists agree with the consensus.
And Germ manages to once again display his mastery of logical fallacies.
He declares that whatever caused climate to change in the past is no longer operative. How do we know that? Because the models have proven that only CO2 is operating now.
485 papers is certainly an impressive number. I’d like to know also how many total papers were published that address the notions of man’s impact on climate change (not the number of papers that deal with trying to predict the effects of warming on ecosystems and species – that number is likely in the thousands or tens of thousands each year, at least).
I don’t suggest that there is a voting process going on, and the majority “wins” .. but I’d like to know if 485 papers is a significant proportion of the total number published last year that addressed the causes and relative contributions of climate change. Is 485 papers 10% of the total? or 1%? Or 0.001%?
Scientist have never registered and voted on the validity of the AGW conjecture. There is not now nor has there ever been a consensus regarding the validity of the AGW conjecture. Even if there were, it would be meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some form of legislation. Scientific theories and not validated through a voting process.
The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is full of holes. For example, the AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s climate system, or anywhere else in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. If CO2 really affected climate then the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years should have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the torposphere but such has not happened.
What is the dry lapse rate?
Put ‘dry lapse rate’ into google
Result –
About 1,860,000 results (0.43 seconds)
1st = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
There …you could have done that… it’s called research.
logiclogiclogic…Nice summary. I would only add that during the current Quaternary Ice age, Temperature increases preceded Co2 increases by several hundred years in most ice core readings I believe, and we have had many periods (at least two that I am aware of) including the Dryas Period [Younger Dryas – Wikipedia] in the latest glacial/interglacial period where temps have increased or decreased as much as 10 degrees C in a ten year period….and of course there is no ‘settled science’ as to why those dramatic changes took place
Bad news for CNN…
The 97% consensus has been fabricated by Lewandowski and Crook, as Lord Monckton et al have successfully exposed a while ago. Yet the “true believers” cling to it like to a piece of wreckage in vain hope that their little raft gives them some more time to survive the storm of truth. The more this matter of utterly criminal pseudo-science is discussed in public, supported by household names, the better. I hope these evil spirits that still adhere to bad science will soon be exorcised.
“Published” generally means “survived the CAGW gatekeepers’ gamut”, which is presumably still biased beyond reason.
These lists just go on and on. Here‘s one from 2009, some of which were actually skeptical. The list featured here got a run here less than three months ago (“400 scientific papers debunk climate change alarm”). I pointed out then that most of the the papers actually didn’t question the consensus at all. He seems to just pick any paper that says anything about cooling of any kind of anything, maybe thousands of years ago. I offerred a challenge to jointly pick just one paper at random, and actually read it and see what it says. No takers. In fact, I can’t see that anyone anywhere has tried to check the list to see what the papers actually say.
It isn’t just me saying this. Back in June an earlier version of this 2017 list said 58 papers were “debunking climate change alarm”. Climate feedback contacted some of the authors invoked. Half (29) said that their papers were misrepresented. In many cases it wasn’t just a matter of misinterpretation. Their papers just had absolutely nothing to do with AGW or “climate alarm”. For example
“Normunds Stivrins, Associate Professor, University of Helsinki
Our article (Stivrins et al., 2017, The Holocene) focuses on other subjects than human-induced impacts (climate change). It’s sad that the blogger did not understand what this study is about, but rather took a sentence without context. “
His paper is still in the list. So is the paper of Tejedor, who specifically asked for it to be removed, as it in no way said what Richards claimed. I drew this to his attention in the last discussion. The paper is still in the list.
I just picked the very first paper:
The 97% consensus meme relies on the MWP and LIA not being globally encompassing and insignificant in scope. This paper, like thousands of others throughout the years, did not come to that conclusion. They show that past natural climate changes were on par or much more significant than what has been observed since the industrial revolution. Maybe even you could connect the dots from there, however, I doubt it.
“This paper, like thousands of others throughout the years, did not come to that conclusion.”
In N China it does.
Not Globally.
And it says nothing about stratospheric aerosol from equatorial volcanic ejection.
Which is what the consensus science attributes to the along with Arctic ice feed-back.
“I just picked the very first paper:”
They probably expected that you would do that.
The quote given in the list gives no indication that the author is talking about the Qinghai Lakes location in China, not globally. The consensus does not “rely” on any proposition about the MWP or LIA. There is a huge amount written about both topics. You could find plenty in the IPCC reports about places that warmed in the MWP time, or cooled in the LIA.
The paper is actually a technical paper on the evolution of wetlands.
Nick, I understand what you are saying and you’ll know that I have taken your part in the past, but aren’t you stretching things a bit here?
The very large number of papers that demonstrate that the warming/ sea level rise/ sea ice reduction that we currently see is neither exceptional, nor unprecented makes the ‘attribution problem’ on which so much depends close to insurmountable.
You may be right to point out that many, and indeed the majority, of the cited papers do not explicitly challenge the CAGW consensus, and some authors are likely very upset that their papers are cited in this way, but whether the authors themselves like it or not, they DO challenge key elements of the consensus
“The very large number of papers that demonstrate”
That tends to be the response – OK, maybe some inclusions are flaky, but there are so many of them.
But what do they actually say? And what do they dispute? Maybe something is not yet unprecedented. Is that in dispute? The warming/ sea level rise/ sea ice reduction records are much discussed. There are generally no revelations about them in these papers. They are, in fact, part of the consensus.
I’m not prey to the fallacy of volume, either, Nick. And I can agree that these are not ‘revelations’. A lot of this data has been around for quite a long time. You think that means it can be counted as a part of the consensus, but that’s where I lose your logic train. The lack of unprecedentedness (is that a word?) is a huge challenge, and I think you know that.
“The lack of unprecedentedness (is that a word?) is a huge challenge, and I think you know that.”
No. The issue is that we are mining huge masses of carbon and putting it in the air, and are likely to inject a great deal more. That is unprecedented. The question is, what effect will it have. There has been natural variation in the past (a consensus view), and there is a lot of past. The issue isn’t what has happened before, but what are the likely consequences of what we are doing now. So if eg temperatures are indeed shooting up, it isn’t a refutation to say that they have been higher at some time before.
You preach out of Plato, and prove it by Seneca
“The question is, what effect will it have.”
Up to now, the effects would appear to have been of effectively unmitigated benefit.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20716
http://archive.news.iupui.edu/releases/2016/02/drylands-global-greening.shtml
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
It is becoming increasingly clear that a degree or two of warming would be an unalloyed benefit to humanity, whereas a similar degree of cooling would be an unmitigated disaster and lead to the death of billions.
Further, it is also becoming – has in fact become – clear that mankind’s efforts can no more significantly affect the temperature of the Earth than significantly affect the time the Sun rises and sets.
“No. The issue is that we are mining huge masses of carbon and putting it in the air, and are likely to inject a great deal more. ……….. The issue isn’t what has happened before, but what are the likely consequences of what we are doing now”
good boy!…the fallback position…when the past doesn’t cooperate…..give that puppy a marshmallow
Nick Stokes wrote:
“No. The issue is that we are mining huge masses of carbon and putting it in the air, and are likely to inject a great deal more. That is unprecedented.”
I’ve seen a number of graphs that show CO2 levels were many times higher in the past. If these graphs are true, the earth didn’t self ignite and burn to a crisp.
Question for you Nick, how are we supposed to live to save the world from total CO2-induced devastation? Sustainably?
Nick
You know or you should know that it was Ben Santer a young lead author for the UNIPCC fourth assessment report AR4 in 2000 went deliberately against the findings and the evidence that the IPCC had assembled and wrote that the human fingerprint was identified and that it would lead to dangerous warming .
This was a deliberate lie . The findings were that they could not tell whether the warming that had occurred from 1979 was natural or not .
Since 2000 we have emitted well over one third of all man made emissions and although your lot keep trumpeting ” warmist year evaar’ the world temperature has stalled .
This is typical of what we have seen with Mike Manns fraudulent hockey stick and the shenanigans that was shown up with the climategate email leak ‘
We then have temperature adjustments and readjusting the adjustments and you would have to know that from the data on your site that this happens .
We then have the very inconvenient fact that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than present which you and your mates strenuously deny even though there is plenty of evidence that it was world wide .
Your lot goes so far as to call it bunk and it never ever happened but there were two other climate optimums before that and they were even warmer .
When the history of the world has to be changed or denied so that an unproven theory will work serious questions have to be asked .
Of course you and your lot can’t admit it because then the whole global warming story would starts to crumble.
“This was a deliberate lie .”
Very hard to deal with such a mish-mash of misstated facts. The AR4 ws in 2008, not 2000, and by then Ben Santer was 53. You are probably talking about a claim by Seitz in a WSJ op-ed regarding the Second IPCC report (SAR) in 1995. This was an unsupported claim by Seitz; some 40 scientists involved in the process wrote to say that Seitz allegations were untrue. The WSJ wouldn’t publish the signatures.
Looks like I got that one wrong by 5 years and 2 assessments
But Nick you never answered about why you lot have consistently denied history and the former warm periods .
The theory of global warming rely s on positive feed backs to amplify the heating potential of CO2 .You know this and no one denies that a large amount of Co2 has been emitted but the argument is that the tropical hot spot has not been observed and without the the hot spot the positive feed back theory collapses.
It is plain to see that the climate models run hot and from a casual observation the model developers are using positive feed backs instead of negative or neutral feed backs on the effect of rising CO2 levels ,
,
Nick Stokes
What do you think the climate consensus is, exactly, in your own words?
Thanks
Basically, that the greenhouse effect is real, that digging up and burning a whole lot of carbon will make the world warmer, and that that is happening.
Well then we should pat ourselves on the back, since a warmer world is a better world for life on Earth.
Nick Stokes
I interpret the consensus as hold that the warming from AG CO2 will be dramatic, that large storms of all kinds are evidence that mankind is already influencing the climate ‘significantly’ (detectably outside the bounds of normal range) and that we must all work very hard together to avoid increasing the temperature any more than it is going to.
I do not agree with that view. I have not found any clear evidence that AG CO2 affects the climate by driving temperatures out of normal range. Further, the ‘consensus’ POV is predicated on a relatively simple explanation about the amount of warming that can be shown between the average temperature of the surface of the moon and the average temperature 1.5m above the surface of the earth. The former is said to be -18 C and the latter 15 C for a difference of 33 degrees C.
The difference, often quoted and repeated, is that this difference is 33 degrees C is ‘due to the heat trapping ability (or effect) of greenhouse gases’. If I have misrepresented this in any way someone can correct me, but it is written in hundreds of places as the standard introduction to GHG’s and their effects.
It is an extraordinarily and badly constructed mental experiment. In order to test the effect of protein in a human diet, one compares a diet with no protein, and then a diet with progressively larger amounts of protein until one has covered the range of human diets. That would be how to discover the effect on the human of a diet that had or did not have protein in it.
With the atmosphere, the appropriate mental parallel is an atmosphere with no GHG’s, then the same atmosphere with some GHG’s, then a little more, and so on until the concentration reaches about what we have now.
We do not discover the effect of protein on the human diet be comparing our current diet and eating nothing at all. Yet that is the analogy used by proponents of the GHG effect. They are comparing an atmosphere with GHG’s and no atmosphere at all, instead of the experiment described above.
If you subscribe to the consensus holding that human emissions of CO2 are having a warming effect on the globe, then surely you have to frame the effect within an experimental range of having an atmosphere with no GHG’s at all, and having one with lots, and place the current situation on that continuum, not so?
The reason that comparing no atmosphere and “having one with GHG’s’ is such a bad comparison is that the surface is heated directly by the sun, and by GHG’s. If planet Earth had no GHG’s at all, the surface would be warmed quite a bit more than it is at present because all incident insolation would hit the surface. The surface would warm the air by convective heating (no radiative heating) and the atmosphere would get quite warm. It would remain warm because it has no way to radiatively cool in the total absence of GHG’s.
The temperature 1.5 m above the surface of Planet Earth with no GHG’s would be warmer than 15 C. The consensus holds that adding CO2 increases the temperature near the surface by back-radiation of IR. The consensus is fundamentally flawed, based as it is on a ridiculous thought experiment in which CO2 heating is claimed, yet in which the atmosphere is not examined to see the effect of GHG’s starting from none to lots. It is compared with having no atmosphere at all, like eating no food can somehow tell us about protein as a % of the diet.
The only reason the atmosphere is not more than 15 C at the moment is because the radiative, cooling capacity of the GHG’s is what it is. At some point the total heat loss will be balanced near the surface by back-radiating IR and it will stabilise. Perhaps that is 15 C – I do not know, because we have never been treated to a global circulation model output with surface heating and no GHG’s.
I encourage you to consider that the consensus position on AG CO2 is untenable, illogical, and anti-physical. If mankind were able someone to drive all GHG’s out of the atmosphere (which I agree it impossible) the temperature at 1.5m above the surface would increase. It would never drop to -18 C because of the surface heating the non-GHG air. As I said above, it would remain warm because the only way it could cool would be to convect heat to the ground at night so it could be radiated away. The equilibrium temperature at which that would happen would be far above 15 C.
Crispin,
“It is an extraordinarily and badly constructed mental experiment. “
If you don’t like it, you can do without. You can study the Earth as it behaves. And understand the radiative processes and how they respond to changes in GHG.
The 255K is a firm number. It is the temperature of a black body (BB) radiating the amount of heat that the Earth absorbs from the Sun. Warmer, and it will radiate more than it receives. This is unsustainable. So if there is a surface at 288K, something must be modifying the escape of the radiation.
Here is a spectrum I sometimes show, from a textbook by Grant Petty. It is taken during the thaw over an icefield near Barrow Alaska, so the surface is at about 273K. I have marked with CO2 the frequencies absorbed by CO2, and by AW the Atmospheric Window, where there is little absorption.
The dotted lines mark BB levels at the temperature indicated. So (top plot) the AW appears to radiate at surface temperature. But the CO2 bite radiates at about 225K. That is the temperature of the high zone where it is emitting. The energy in that bite is larger than it looks. It is energy not being radiated to space, and this reduces (along with the H2O etc regions), the outgoing to a level that matches the solar input.
In the bottom plot you can see the converse, high energy being radiated back in the CO2 region. This is what balances heat flux at the surface. It can radiate as a 273K surface though that is more than it gets from the sun. The back radiation in the CO2 band makes up the difference.
More CO2 enlarges the bite, in predictable ways. The sides expand through greater opacity in side bands, and the bottom drops because the emission layer moves higher.
I should complete the logic of that last para. Emission from Earth has to match solar absorbed. It can’t be over or under. So if the CO2 bite expands, blocking more IR, something has to compensate to keep the level. That means more has to exit through the AW, and that requires warmer surface.