Guest essay by Girma Orssengo, PhD
Orssengo at lycos dot com
What is the expected global warming if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles from 400 to 800 ppm? The answer to this question is essential for our understanding of the earth’s climate. Unfortunately, the estimates for the CO2 doubling global mean temperature (GMT) vary by a factor of three from 1.5 oC to 4.5 oC. Data analysis in the literature shows that this very large uncertainty is due to the multi-decadal oscillation (MDO) of the GMT, and when this oscillation is removed, we find a time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT of 1.4 oC.
The aim of this article is to determine the time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT using published results in the scientific literature for the GMT and the observed atmospheric CO2 for the Mauna Loa data (Tans and Keeling, 2017).
The CO2 doubling GMT T2x is a parameter in a linear mathematical model that relates the logarithm of the annual atmospheric CO2 concentration ln(C) to the GMT T given by (Caldeira et al., 2003; Knutti and Hegerl, 2008; Wigley and Schlesinger, 1985)
Eq. 1
where Co is the atmospheric CO2 concentration corresponding to a reference GMT of T = 0. Note that since Eq. 1 could also be written as ln(C/Co) = (ln(2)/T2x)T, when C/Co = 2, this equation gives T = T2x. As a result, T2x in Eq. 1 represents the CO2 doubling GMT.
To estimate the CO2 doubling GMT directly from observations, the reference atmospheric carbon dioxide Co could be removed from Eq. 1 by differentiation of this equation with respect to year y, which gives
Eq. 2
Solving for the CO2 doubling GMT T2x in Eq. 2 gives
Eq. 3
Using the mathematical model given by Eq. 3, if for a given middle year of a trend period, the GMT trend dT/dy and the relative atmospheric carbon dioxide trend (dC/dy)/C are known, the CO2 doubling GMT T2x could be estimated directly form observations.
Under what condition could we determine the time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT from Eq. 3? We may answer this question by looking at the annual atmospheric CO2 data for Mauna Loa shown in Fig. 1, which suggests a monotonically increasing smoothed curve for the annual atmospheric CO2. From Eq. 2 and Fig. 1, to obtain a constant CO2 doubling GMT T2x, the GMT trend dT/dy must be proportional to the relative CO2 trend (dC/dy)/C at all times, which is only possible if the GMT T is also monotonically increasing like the annual atmospheric carbon dioxide C.
Fig. 1. Annual atmospheric CO2 for the Mauna Loa data (Tans, P. and Keeling, R., 2017) and an average atmospheric CO2 concentration of 343.32 ppm and a least squares average CO2 trend of 1.46 ppm/year for the trend period middle year of 1983.
Several studies (Delsole et al., 2011; Knudsen et al., 2011; Latif and Keenlyside, 2011; Schlesinger and Ramankutty, 1994; Swanson et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2011) have reported that the annual GMT data has multi-decadal oscillation (MDO) having 55 to 70 year period. As a result, before the annual GMT could be used in Eq. 3, its MDO must be removed. Wu et al. (2011) have reported the secular GMT trend obtained after removing the MDO from the annual GMT data as given in Table 1, which approximately corresponds to the annual atmospheric CO2 data period shown in Fig. 1 and 2. Note that the annual atmospheric CO2 data for Mauna Loa starts from 1959.
From the results of Wu et al. (2011) for the secular GMT trend dT/dy for a given trend period middle year given in Table 1 and the observed relative atmospheric carbon dioxide trend (dC/dy)/C for the same trend period middle year, the CO2 doubling GMT could be calculated using the mathematical model given by T2x = ln(2)(dT/dy)C/(dC/dy) (Eq. 3).
Table 1. Secular GMT trends obtained after removing the multi-decadal oscillation from the annual global mean temperature data (Wu et al. 2011).
| Trend period
length (year) |
Trend Period | Trend Period Middle Year | Secular GMT Trend
dT/dy (oC/year) |
| 50 | 1958 to 2008 | 1983 | 0.0086 |
| 25 | 1983 to 2008 | 1995.5 | 0.0096 |
From Table 1, for the trend period middle year of 1983, the secular GMT trend dT/dy = 0.0086 oC/year. For the same trend period middle year of 1983, Fig. 1 shows an average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of C = 343.32 ppm and its average trend of dC/dy = 1.46 ppm/year. Substituting these values into Eq. 3 gives a CO2 doubling GMT of
oC Eq. 4
This result means that if the atmospheric CO2 were doubled from, say, 400 to 800 ppm, the secular GMT would increase by 1.4 oC.
To verify whether this CO2 doubling GMT of 1.4 oC determined for the trend period middle year of 1983 is time-invariant, we calculate its value for a different trend period middle year. From Table 1, for the trend period middle year of 1995.5, the secular GMT trend dT/dy = 0.0096 oC/year. For the same trend period middle year of 1995.5, Fig. 2 shows an average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of C = 363 ppm and its average trend of dC/dy = 1.67 ppm/year. Substituting these values into Eq. 3 gives a CO2 doubling GMT of
oC Eq. 5
The above results (Eq. 4 & 5) for two different time periods show that the time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT is 1.4 oC. This result is almost identical to the minimum possible CO2 doubling GMT of 1.5 oC reported in IPCC (2007): “The equilibrium climate sensitivity is a measure of the climate system response to sustained radiative forcing. It is not a projection but is defined as the global average surface warming following a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. It is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C.”
Regarding to the CO2 doubling GMT, in addition to its minimum possible value, IPCC (2007) had also reported: “It is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C”. How could we also determine these IPCC estimates using our mathematical model given by Eq. 3?
To determine IPCC’s CO2 doubling GMT estimates above using our empirical model, we use the GMT trends given in the same report (IPCC, 2007) : “Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections.”
Note that these IPCC’s GMT trends of 0.02 and 0.03°C per year are much greater than the secular GMT trend of 0. 0096 oC per year reported by Wu et al (2011) given in Table 1.
The IPCC report quoted above suggests a central GMT trend of 0.02 oC/year. Replacing the secular GMT trend of dT/dy = 0.0096 oC/year in Eq. 5 from Wu et al. (2011) with IPCC’s central GMT trend of 0.02 oC/year gives
oC Eq. 6
Remarkably, this calculated value for the central IPCC GMT trend is identical to the central CO2 doubling GMT of 3 oC reported in IPCC (2007).
Fig. 2. An average atmospheric CO2 concentration of 363.00 ppm and a least squares average CO2 trend of 1.67 ppm/year for the trend period middle year of 1995.5 for the Mauna Loa data (Tans, P. and Keeling, R., 2017).
The IPCC report quoted above also suggests an upper GMT trend of 0.03 oC/year. Replacing IPCC’s central GMT trend of dT/dy = 0.02 oC/year in Eq. 6 with its upper GMT trend of 0.03 oC/year gives
oC Eq. 7
Remarkably, again, this calculated value for the upper IPCC trend is identical to the upper CO2 doubling GMT of 4.5 oC reported by IPCC quoted above.
Regarding the history for the range of values for the CO2 doubling GMT, Kerr has reported an interesting story (Kerr, 2004): “On the first day of deliberations, Manabe told the committee that his model warmed 2°C when CO2 was doubled. The next day Hansen said his model had recently gotten 4°C for a doubling. According to Manabe, Charney chose 0.5°C as a not-unreasonable margin of error, subtracted it from Manabe’s number, and added it to Hansen’s. Thus was born the 1.5°C-to-4.5°C range of likely climate sensitivity that has appeared in every greenhouse assessment since, including the three by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). More than one researcher at the workshop called Charney’s now-enshrined range and its attached best estimate of 3°C so much hand waving.”
In this article, we showed that Charney’s range are not “so much hand waving” because they could be determined using the mathematical model T2x = ln(2)(dT/dy)C/(dC/dy) (Eq. 3), the observed relative atmospheric CO2 trend (dC/dy)/C (Fig. 2), and IPCC’s GMT trends dT/dy.
In conclusion, we found a time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT of 1.4 oC (Eq. 4 & 5). We also showed that the higher CO2 doubling GMT values reported in IPCC (2007) are for secular GMT trends of 0.2 and 0.3 oC/decade that are inconsistent with the observed secular GMT trend of about 0.1 oC/decade (Delsole et al., 2011; Wu et al., 2011). Note that as the annual GMT has been reported to have a multi-decadal oscillation (MDO) of about 55 to 70 years for the last 8000 years (Knudsen et al., 2011), a linear trend of at least a 70-year period should be used to remove the contribution of the MDO to determine the secular GMT trend, which gives about 0.1 oC/decade for the latest 70-year period from 1946 to 2016.
From about 1960 to 1990 with a trough in the mid-1970s, the MDO was in its cool phase, and it has been in its warm phase since 1990 that is expected to continue until about 2020. In the early-2020s, the cool phase of the MDO is expected to start with its trough in mid-2030s. The empirical evidence for this drop in global mean surface temperature would be the recovery of arctic sea ice and cooling of the Northern Hemisphere for the period from about 2020 to 2050.
When we start to see a steady increase in arctic sea ice in the 2020s that continues until the 2050s, what would happen to the “Theory of Man Made Global Warming”?
UPDATE: 1/29/18 This figure has been added to address questions posed in comments:
References
Caldeira, K., Jain, A.K., Hoffert, M.I., 2003. Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty and the Need for Energy Without CO2 Emission. Science 299, 2052–2054. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1078938
Delsole, T., Tippett, M.K., Shukla, J., 2011. A significant component of unforced multidecadal variability in the recent acceleration of global warming. Journal of Climate 24, 909–926. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI3659.1
IPCC, 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Kerr, R.A., 2004. Three degrees of consensus: climate researchers are finally homing in on just how bad greenhouse warming could get–and it seems increasingly unlikely that we will escape with a mild warming. Science 305, 932–935.
Knudsen, M.F., Seidenkrantz, M.-S., Jacobsen, B.H., Kuijpers, A., 2011. Tracking the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation through the last 8,000 years. Nature Communications 2, 178. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1186
Knutti, R., Hegerl, G.C., 2008. The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes. Nature Geosci 1, 735–743.
Latif, M., Keenlyside, N.S., 2011. A perspective on decadal climate variability and predictability. Deep-Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 58, 1880–1894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.10.066
Schlesinger, M.E., Ramankutty, N., 1994. An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65–70 years. Nature 367, 723–726. https://doi.org/10.1038/367723a0
Swanson, K.L., Sugihara, G., Tsonis, A. a, 2009. Long-term natural variability and 20th century climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, 16120–16123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0908699106
Tans, P., Keeling, R., 2017. Trends in Carbon Dioxide [WWW Document]. URL https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Wigley, T.M.L., Schlesinger, M.E., 1985. Analytical solution for the effect of increasing CO2 on global mean temperature. Nature 315, 649–652. https://doi.org/10.1038/315649a0
Wu, Z., Huang, N.E., Wallace, J.M., Smoliak, B.V., Chen, X., 2011. On the time-varying trend in global-mean surface temperature. Climate Dynamics 37, 759–773. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1128-8
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About 0.4C or less.
From the comments I got the impression that because GMT is chaotic we cannot predict its secular trend. We can indeed describe the secular GMT trend..
The annual GMT can be written as
Annual GMT = Secular GMT + MDO + Noise.
The MDO and Noise are oscillations. As a result, they don’t contribute to the long-term trend and they can be removed to obtain the secular trend as shown in the following figure.
https://tinyurl.com/y76zrea5
Wu et al (2011) reported the secular GMT trends for the central monotonically increasing curve in the above figure as given in Table 1 of this article, so we can indeed determine the secular GMT trend for the observed data.
From the above figure, the current secular GMT is about 0.9 deg C and the annual GMT for 2016 is about 1.2 deg C, so about 0.3 deg C of the annual GMT for 2016 is noise and it will reverse when the cooling phase of the MDO starts in the 2020s (as happened after the peaks in 1878 and 1944).
From detailed analysis of the GMT and atmospheric CO2 data, here is what Kuo et al. (1990) found:
“The hypothesis that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is related to observable changes in the climate is tested using modern methods of time-series analysis. The results confirm that average global temperature is increasing, and that temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are significantly correlated over the past thirty years. Changes in carbon dioxide content lag those in temperature by five months.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/343709a0
Girma Orssengo, asks
What is the expected global warming if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles from 400 to 800 ppm?
You are expecting warming to follow CO2 increase
.
But you also quote this which says the opposite, that is change in CO2 follows temperature
Kuo et al. (1990)
Changes in carbon dioxide content lag those in temperature by five months.
Roger,
Warming causes increase in atmospheric CO2.
And cooling causes fall in the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 as happened after the Mt Pinatubo volcano as reported by Sarmiento and Gruber (2002):
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jls0202.pdf
Roger Clague,
Difficult to explain as the problem is that different processes are at work, each with their own reaction speed and effect.
Temperature and CO2 are thightly correlated for natural processes:
– Seasonal: T up, CO2 down, lag 2-3 months, effect ~5 ppmv/K (vegetation dominant).
– 1-3 years (Pinatubo, El Niño): T up, CO2 up, lag 5-6 months, effect 4-5 ppmv/K (that is the Kuo e.a finding, vegetation dominant).
– Decadal to millennial (MWP-LIA): T up, CO2 up, lag decennia, effect ~8 ppmv/K (ocean surface currents dominant?).
– Multi-millennial (glacial-interglacial): T up, CO2 up, lag centuries to millennia, effect ~16 ppmv/K (deep oceans dominant).
Today:
– CO2 levels some 110 ppmv above the steady state for the current weighted average ocean surface temperature. CO2 up, T up, lag not known, effect: theoretical ~1 K for 2*CO2 before feedbacks, practical not known, humans dominant.
Ferdinand Engelbeen
January 29, 2018 at 7:25 am
You say CO2 lags T at time scales of months, years, 10s of years and 1000s of years. So cannot cause T
But you say now Co2 causes T by a different process.
Not convinced by that argument.
Roger Clague,
CO2 lags T on all time scales, except for the 113 ppmv increase since about 1850, where maximum 13 ppmv may have been caused by warmer ocean surface temperatures. Thus in this case the CO2 increase leads the T increase, despite the still working short and long term processes where T variability still leads CO2 variability…
The problem is that there is little information from the far past what that means in effect. The only interesting period is the end of the Eemian, the previous interglacial, where T and CH4 reached a new minimum (and ice sheet formation a new maximum), before CO2 started to go down with ~40 ppmv. That drop in CO2 didn’t have a clear effect on T or ice sheets.
Girma
Your article stinks.
No one here takes nature.com seriously
Our planet has existed for 4.5 billion years.
You can’t study a mere 50 years,
.
of haphazardly measured
.
climate history,
.
measured by
.
smarmy government bureaucrats
.
who WANT TO SHOW
MORE WARMING,
.
and frequently “adjust” their numbers
.
TO SHOW MORE WARMING,
.
— numbers with more wild guess grid infilling
.
than actual thermometer measurements,
.
… and then use that garbage “data:
.
to jump to any meaningful conclusion
.
that anyone with sense
.
would take seriously.
What a waste of a PhD —
— Piled high and Deep.
Co2islife
“The obvious problem, by what mechanism could that model explain the start of or end of an ice age?”
Solar forcing!
During solar maximum, the ocean stores heat and global mean temperature, atmospheric CO2 and sea level rise. During solar minimum, the ocean releases its stored heat to the atmosphere and to space and the global mean temperature, atmospheric CO2 and sea level fall.
Girma january 29 5:43pm
More of your nonsense
speculation.
The solar energy difference
between a solar maximum
and solar minimum
is far from enough
to explain
the start of,
or end of
an ice age.
The Medieval Warm Period was extant from the year 900 to the year 1300; roughly 400 years.
As any sentient, carbon based life form knows by now, the ONLY reason the climate was warm during that period, was because of………..drum roll please……………elevated CO2 levels.
So, since all this is already known, all that is required is to correlate the temperature over that time period with CO2 levels over that same time period and, voila, you can establish how a “delta CO2” produces a “delta temperature change.
This should be a breeze because all one needs to do is look up the data.
No fancy, schmancy computer modeling or math needed. Just some straight up, 9th grade graph plotting (OK, maybe 10th grade graph plotting).
Further, since the MWP was followed by the Little Ice Age (from about 1300 to about 1800; 500 years) we can perform the same exercise to see how a decrease in CO2 affects the magnitude of temperature reduction.
This assumes………..OK, does NOT assume as even any non-sentient carbon based or sulpher based life form knows ….. that the ONLY variable one can imagine that affects climate is, of course, CO2.
As we all know, there can be no other reason why climate would change other than due to changes in CO2.
So, in summary, by just looking up some historical climate/temperature data and historical CO2 levels, one can easily see how the rate of change of CO2 produces a rate of change of temperature.
Simple really.
Of course, none of the above has to be done.
It is much easier and quicker to turn on those fantastically reliable and accurate computer climate models, input the CO2 levels and its change during the MWP and LIA, and voila, the models will…….as we all know with 1000% certainty…….accurately and faithfully reproduce the climate extant betwixt 900 and 1800.
It really is that simple folks !!!!
It is beneath the intellect of the PhDs to engage in “simple” thinking. If they started doing that they run the risk of an ordinary person winning an argument.
Badger January 29 at 7:45 am
That is a very wise comment.
I take back some
of what I said about
you in a prior comment.
No, it’s just a waste of time to engage in simplistic thinking when it comes to climate.
What is the current rate of PPM increase? From those graphs and talk about staic PPM levels, how likely is it that there will EVER be a doubling of CO2 levels?
The Reverend Badger,
The ppmv/year increased from about 0.5 ppmv/year in 1960 to around 2.0 ppmv/year in last years, with a lot of variability around the more or less linear increase over the decades. If that remains linear depends of how the emissions will evolve in the future as countries like China and India get step by step more industrialised and people more wealthy…
Sorry Arthur, answer was for you, not the Reverend…
arthus4563
Brilliant question.
At 2ppm per year increase,
CO2 would double in 200 years.
Hard to believe we’ll still
be burning so much coal,
and still frightened by nuclear power,
100 years from now.
…and what is always ignored, is that less than 0.5% – even if humans doubled their contributors of fossil fuels use – is from Fossil Fuels. With all of nature on land and sea’s, the soils and volcanic activities being the mass contributors of Carbon Dioxide. With so little of it being from human contributors the whole subject is bovine manure. Until the global population is informed of this fact, this narrative will keep being pushed by politicians scamming them into thinking they can make any significant difference to our Climate, when there is no proof that CO2 has any affects by historical records.
johchi7,
I don’t think your bookkeeper would agree: you completely forgot the sinks, which are all natural. Most natural CO2 fluxes are seasonal: what goes in during spring and summer returns in the atmosphere in fall and winter. Net effect of a full seasonal cycle: about zero.
Human emissions currently are about 6% of natural inputs, but only half of that is removed (as mass, not the original molecules) out of the atmosphere by natural sinks. Nature is more sink than source, thus not the cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere. Humans are to blame…
Which doesn’t imply that the extra CO2 has much effect on temperature/climate…
F. E.
What most people forget is that fauna are natural sinks too. Fauna are Secondary Carbon Cycle Sinks because they ingest flora (and fauna) that are the First Cycle Sinks and sequester it by the cells on their bodies…just as flora sequesters carbon from atmospheric Carbon Dioxide to make up their cellular structures.
Just by respiration the fauna that has exponentially increased since the last ice age mass extinction event has increased the carbon dioxide in the environment. Add to that the decomposition of flora and fauna (and their escretments) causes an increase in carbon dioxide in the environment. This is how the majority of carbon dioxide has been created long before the burning of fossil fuels of the Industrial Age. Adding the burning of bio-matter as deforestation of natural causes to those sources and that of soil respiration and volcanic activities makes up more natural sources than humans minute contributions that total under 6% of the total.
That all of those natural sources from microscopic flora and fauna on land and aquatic to the massive flora and fauna and the water and soils of the Earth are all sinks and are all sources of carbon dioxide as they respire and decompose. So no, not all of that is “Most natural CO2 fluxes are seasonal: what goes in during spring and summer returns in the atmosphere in fall and winter. Net effect of a full seasonal cycle: about zero.” because even in the fall and winter more carbon dioxide is still being created by biomass, soils and volcanic activities than is sequestered by dormant flora that their foliage is decomposing…than humans create by all of their sources. Your “Net effect of a full seasonal cycle: about zero.” is wrong.
johchi7,
Here the net results of the seasonal CO2 cycle averaged over two periods:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_MLO_BRW.jpg
As you can see, the amplitude of the seasonal cycle slightly increased, probably due to increased biomass, thus more CO2 uptake and decay, especially in the NH.
Of importance is the difference between start and end of the year: that increased from average 0.5 ppmv/year in the 1960’s (not shown in the graph) to about 2 ppmv/year in the 2010’s.
Over the same period human emissions increased from some 1 ppmv/year to 4.5 ppmv/year nowadays.
Thus no matter how much CO2 goes in and out the biosphere (and the oceans), at the end of the year, humans have one-way emitted twice the total CO2 increase in the atmosphere. That means that vegetation (and oceans) is a net sink for CO2 and not a net source. That is proven by the oxygen balance and by satellites: the earth is greening.
Ferdinand
I think you still don’t understand it. And I have to go to work and will not be back until the morning. But, here’s some food for thought.
The human population has more than doubled since 1960. Every human exhales more CO2 than they inhaled. Animal husbandry and conservation has more than tripled livestock and wilderness animals. All of which exhaled more CO2 than they inhaled. Therefore, just by these examples, CO2 naturally increases 24/7/365. So there can never be a “zero” CO2. And each yearly cycle adds at least 2 ppm that is the starting point for the next yearly cycle.
johchi7,
Think about where the increased population and cattle have their carbon containing food from: from vegetation that removed more CO2 out of the atmosphere than all other creatures on earth ever can return. Without photosynthesis no animal life on earth…
Despite the growing population including more meat consumption, agricultural output did grow faster than what was needed in the past decades.
From the oxygen balance and from chlorophyll monitoring satellites, we know that the total biomass is growing: vegetation growth outpaces all vegetation uses by several GtC/year. The biosphere is a net sink of CO2 each year (strong El Niño years excluded), not the cause of the CO2 increase…
Ferdinand
Although flora can survive without fauna from the natural sources of carbon dioxide like volcanic activities, soill decay/respiration and other non-life sources, as well as natural fires and the decaying of flora. The amount of carbon dioxide they provide would cause a global starvation for most flora over a period of time, if fauna were to stop to exist….and if fauna had never existed, what flora exists would be far less than now and only at a micro-fauna scale. Micro-fauna living along with micro-flora is what exponentially increased the carbon dioxide in the environment that led to the increase in size of flora and fauna size increased because of it. Our biosphere depends upon both flora and fauna doing what they do.
That innovation of humans has increased the biosphere and the carbon dioxide in the environment is undeniable through farming and burning wood and fossil fuels. But how is that a bad thing? When it has contributed to the exponential greening, by increasing carbon dioxide that the exponential population increase of fauna exhale, as a result of them digesting flora and fauna?
For two years in a row, it has risen at a record of 3 ppm each year, which is a record.
‘“The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age,” Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said in a statement. “This is a real shock to the atmosphere.”’ http://e360.yale.edu/digest/co2-levels-continue-to-increase-at-record-rate
I talked to Pieter Tans for about 20 minutes when I visited NOAA in Boulder a couple weeks ago with my uncle, a principal scientist there (in atmospheric aerosol measurement). Tans had wonderful, detailed answers to my questions, a wealth of information about the science of climate. To suggest people like him don’t have integrity, discipline, honesty and absolutely incredible minds is to diminish humanity in general. One of America’s strengths has always been in her research, and that is no different in the case of climate science.
Those who imagine the majority climate science community so fraught with corruption, duplicity, greed, “groupthink” and political bias that it’s making up data, fudging the models, ignoring uncertainty and others’ ideas, etc. are saying more about their own ethics and biases than about those of most scientists.
If it is a possibility, why might it not be a possibility that it is instead the contrarians who are corrupt, etc.?
The contrarian scientists are much more vocal in the public sphere, proportionally speaking. That’s no accident. That seems to be the main cause of academic discipline. Scientists in general shouldn’t be policy advocates, at least for highly partisan and politicized topics like this.
Kristi Silber,
I do admire scientists like the late C.D. Keeling, Pieter Tans and others who were and are at the source of the data, as indeed most of them have devoted their entire life to get, maintain and publish the best data available.
Attacking these people and/or their data by some sceptics is just shooting in their own foot, and works counterproductive.
The problem anyway is not with the data providers, the problem is with the data interpretators. Like Michael Mann, Thomas Karl (NOAA) and too many others who “adjust” the data, fill in the gaps with fabricated data, truncate where they don’t like the data and use data which are at least questionable, only because they like the result…
Further, too many “alarming results” are from runaway computer models, which today are already much too high in their “projections”, let it be in the year 2050 or 2100. That is where sceptics protest to.
Pieter Tans is right that the recent increase of CO2 is unprecedented fast for at least over the past 800,000 years. What is unknown is what the effect of that increase is on temperature and climate. Every observation until now shows that the effect is small.
BTW, Pieter Tans is of Dutch origin…
Kristi,
the problem I have with Dr. Tan’s statement which is based on very little validated data, and without evidence that it is a real concern since the planet is enjoying the big increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. There have been big increase in biotic growth and crop fields.
Earth is greening happily of which you seem to ignore.
‘“The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age,” Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said in a statement. “This is a real shock to the atmosphere.”’
No it is NOT a shock to the atmosphere, statements like this is why there are many here and elsewhere who thinks they inject too much hyperbole into their research.
Agree with Mr. Engelbeen,
“Pieter Tans is right that the recent increase of CO2 is unprecedented fast for at least over the past 800,000 years. What is unknown is what the effect of that increase is on temperature and climate. Every observation until now shows that the effect is small.”
The effect is postulated to be very small to Zero according to many published science papers on CO2 sensitivity. People forget that most of the warm forcing effect of CO2 has been set in place around 500 Million years ago, with ZERO additional effect since then, it has been over 500 ppm for around 98% of the past, if we trust proxy data.
People need to stop demonizing CO2.
Yes. With the some 20% greening from the increased CO2 over the past 6 or more decades. This Bio-Mass exponentially increasing flora and fauna by the Carbon Cycle increased the CO2 in the environment, which still creates more CO2 from Natural Sources than all of Humans Contributors that are estimated at below 0.06% of the total. As the ocean’s sequestered much of that, the past 2 year’s of El Nino event’s would out-gas more of it over a longer period of slightly more warming. Making the usual 2 ppm reach closer to 3 ppm.
The Co2 induced Thermogeddon is an increddible scam to destroy our liberties and indepedence so they can treat us like hens in an egg farm. Wake up and stop burping up the same old same old discussions over and over again. Co2 doesn’t punch a dent in a package of butter. Energy poverty and a ban on fossil fuels does. It will kill us. The climate change doctrine is a total waste of money and resources and if we keep turning in circles we will find ourselfs in dire circumstances. The EU mandated introduction of solar voltaic and wind is still in need of 100% conventional power generating back up. It is not a solution. In the mean time our landscapes have turned into industry parks with flashing red lights all over the place. Our coal plants have been forced to add 30% biofeed to be mixed with coal so we already have started to burn up our biosphere. The sick lot of wannabe apparatchiks, snake oil salesmen and ruthless money grabbers with Al Gore leading the pack all have one thing in common. They are sociopaths who should be locked up as soon as possible. Preferably in closed mental institution with steel doors and no windows @ur momisugly 3000 ppm Co2 and no heaters. Let’s talk about how to achieve that.
I am greatly amused by the persistent “once the cooling begins” comments; I’ve been reading these for the last 15 years. When is this cooling going to begin and what mechanism will initiate it? Short of some monstrous volcanic event, I don’t see any in the offing.
Slipstick
For the first signs of cooling then watch the NH spring snow extent. Last winter the snow mass of the NH was well above average. This helped to cause a big increase in the 2017 spring snow extent. This winter there is also been a well above average snow mass, so it will be interesting to see what happens to the spring snow extent this year. Over the the last 50 years there has been a increase in Fall/Winter snow extent. But this has been kept in check by a decline in the spring snow extent. Should the spring snow extent also now begin to extent then cooling could really begin to set in with force.
We have an about 64 year period for the MDO, which means an about 32 year warm and 32 year cool phase. The warm phase started in 1990, so expect cooling to start from 1990 + 32 = 2022.
https://tinyurl.com/y76zrea5
There you go again Girma.
Another dumb comment.
The problem with climate science
( and I burst out laughing
every time I type that
oxymoron “climate science” )
is that no one can predict
the future climate.
Yet almost everyone just has
to make a prediction,
even you !
It’s been warming for 20,000 years
No one cares about that.
It’s also been warming since about 1850.
Pleasant wonderful warming,
mainly at night, and mainly
in the higher northern latitudes.
Instead of celebrating the warmer
nights, we have smarmy leftists
falsely declaring
CO2 controls the temperature,
and extrapolating 1975 to 2000
warming hundreds of years into the future,
telling us the fairy tale that
a climate disaster is coming,
and a more powerful government
is the only solution,
to lead an attack
on fossil fuels,
because they are evil.
And I suspect you believe all that,
based on your article
and comments here.
As I wrote earlier
— what a waste of a PhD.
If something can be explained, it can be modeled. You will never model temperature using a linear relationship between CO2 and Temperature…never. The fact that these Ph.Ds think they can pretty much prove they don’t understand the very basics.
Climate “Science” on Trial; If Something is Understood, it can be Modeled
The Climate Sophists’ main argument is that there is a scientific “consensus,” and that this “consensus” supports the conclusion that this is “settled” science. First, science is never settled. Science is a process, a method, real science falsifies claims, it never proves something is true. Claiming that an understanding of something as infinitely complex as … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/climate-science-on-trial-if-something-is-understood-it-can-be-modeled/
Climate “Science” on Trial; CO2 is a Weak GHG, it has no Permanent Dipole
The best way to argue for the science, and against the climate alarmists is to simply go back to the basic physics of the greenhouse gas effect (GHG) and how CO2 contributes to it. Stated simply, the GHG effect is the trapping/absorbing of outgoing infrared (IR) radiation by various greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. These … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/climate-science-on-trial-co2-is-a-weak-ghg-it-has-no-dipole/
Rud, your last reply to mine indicates total mis-comprehension of what I wrote. Again. Gravity is a pseudo-force with its own effects. Insolation lifted the air into gas phase, in which a lapse rate is possible. Come back when you understand why the gas phase cares little what the species are.
All this assumes that CO2 does in fact behave as a greenhouse gas and actually causes global warming. As is well known, critical hard evidence for this assumption is lacking, and the actual behavior of global temperature over the past fifty years is more consistent and correlative with total equivalent atmospheric chlorine and consequent ozone layer depletion, with its abrupt reduction around the turn of the century, than with carbon dioxide, with its monatomic rise. The former easily explains the so-called “global warming hiatus,” whereas the latter cannot.
Wow, that’s an interesting hypothesis. How come we keep getting record temp years even when the ozone hole is now decreasing?
Wow, you have no point to make as usual. Just make babbling comments here that has no substance in it.
Why are you here, Kristi?
Some of you guys are getting it, others are well stuck in the CO2-causes-warming idea.
Tell me, if more CO2 causes any warming in the atmosphere anywhere, then why isn’t there a peer-reviewed published paper quantifying it in the real atmosphere?
The Molar Mass Version of the Ideal Gas Law says that far from causing any warming, a doubling of CO2 causes a slight cooling.
The thermal gradient and the thermal enhancement on planetary bodies is caused by auto-compression. Venus is a perfect example of this, the same effect is seen on Earth, Titan and the gas giants. A doubling of CO2 would have no warming effect in the troposphere of Earth.
Best comment on this I’ve seen yet.
Please see my explanation as to why CO2 cannot cause global warming;
Frolly,
Here’s my measured CS for changes in insolation in the extratropics over the known daily change in forcing over the seasons.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
Frolly,
Love your latest video Climate Sensitivity to CO2 is -0.02 Degrees Celsius.
Here is a new thread on Energy Matters for you to contribute to.
The Geological Society of London’s Statement on Climate Change
Phil
Some of the commenters here seem to think that lapse rates (changes in temperature with altitude) are somehow dependent on “greenhouse gases” and absorption of upward IR radiation.
In the troposphere, lapse rates are due to the vertical currents in the atmosphere that have nothing to do with absorption of IR by greenhouse gases.
If a volume of air is warmer and less dense than the surrounding air, it will be forced upward by buoyancy, but it will rise into an altitude where atmospheric pressure is lower, and adiabatic expansion will cause it to cool. At thermal equilibrium, this results in the lapse rate.
The atmospheric pressure at a given altitude z is due to the weight of the atmosphere above it, expressed by
dP/dz = -dg (Eq. 1)
where d is the density of the atmosphere and g is the acceleration of gravity.
If air is considered an ideal gas, its density is
d = MP/RT, (Eq. 2)
where both the pressure P and temperature T vary with altitude.
If a volume of air initially at surface temperature To and surface pressure Po rises into an altitude with a pressure P, and does not exchange heat with the surrounding air, the air cools to a lower temperature given by
T(z) = To[P(z)/Po)]^(R/Cp), (Eq. 3)
where Cp is the specific heat of air at constant pressure. If the column of air is in thermal equilibrium (the adiabatic lapse rate), the temperature profile as a function of pressure follows Equation 3. The temperature change as a function of altitude can be found using the chain rule
dT/dz = (dT/dP) * (dP/dz) (Eq. 4)
Differentiating Equation 3 with respect to pressure, inserting Equation 2 into Equation 1. and using Equation 4 results in the adiabatic lapse rate
dT/dz = -Mg/Cp (Eq. 5)
It should be noted that the atmospheric pressure and surface temperature do not appear in this equation for the lapse rate (except to the extent that the specific heat Cp varies slightly with temperature). The minus sign indicates that temperature decreases with increasing altitude (the weather is usually colder on top of a mountain than in a nearby valley). At 298 K, the lapse rate for dry air is about -0.0098 K/m, or -0.98 K/100 m.
It is true that the temperature of humid air decreases less with altitude than that of dry air, but this is NOT due to any “greenhouse effect” or absorption of IR radiation. The reason for this is that the specific heat (Cp) of water vapor is much higher than that of nitrogen or oxygen, and the molecular weight of water vapor is only 18 compared to about 29 for dry air. Mixing water vapor into dry air tends to decrease M and increase Cp, so the magnitude of the lapse rate decreases.
If the temperature of the air reaches the water dew point, Equations 3 and 5 are no longer valid, since condensation of water vapor into clouds of liquid water releases heat, and this process is no longer adiabatic, so that the lapse rate in Equation 5 does not apply to overcast weather.
The point here is that lapse rates do not indicate a “trapping” of heat in the lower atmosphere by absorption of IR radiation. They are simply a result of natural vertical convection where various air masses either sink by gravity or rise by buoyancy to an altitude where they have the same density as the surrounding air.
Steve, the process I see happens when it is still clear out. I know because I’m taking pictures of galaxies while it has stopped cooling.
What I expect is evaporation exceeds condensation until it’s 99 or 100%, and it usually will not radiatively cool to fog as the dew point will drop as it consumes water vapor (at least where I live), I do get fog sometimes when weather conditions change.
Imagine the whole troposphere’s water vapor starts glowing as it gives up the heat of evaporation (at ~15u) as the atm column cools, but at the same time, most of that latent heat just gets reabsorbed.
That emission is controlled by air temp, and it supplements the losses from the surface slowing or stopping cooling.
You can see the change in net radiation.
Why isn’t it just equilibrium? Because Zenith temps are still 80-100F colder than the surface, about the same as when it was dropping 3 or 4F/hr
Steve Zell
You are right of course.
d = MP/RT, (Eq. 2)
And if we rearrange your formula 2 by swapping density and temperature we get;
T = MP/Rd
Which essentially means that for Earth’s surface, the temperature depends totally on the interplay between density and pressure.
On human time-scales only these two gas parameters change, which gives rise to all the observed temperature changes we see.
The ‘greenhouse effect’ exists, but its effect in the troposphere is eliminated by negative feedback’s.
Doubling CO2 has (almost) no effect – only a theoretical slight cooling which is too small to measure in the real atmosphere.
Frolly yep!
T = MP/Rd ( gas law) M and R are constants
so T = constant x P/d
https://www.digitaldutch.com/atmoscalc/graphs.htm ( scroll down)
P/d is constant so gas law predicts T= constant for atmosphere. That is wrong T/h = 6K/km
Gas law cannot be used for atmosphere
Roger
What you said is complete nonsense.
The molar mass version of the ideal gas law clearly works in all planetary atmospheres of over 600Pa, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan etc.
R is 8.314 and is a constant, but M (molar mass) is not a constant and neither are P pressure or d density.
If we measure M, d and P anywhere in the atmospheres of these planets (or even inside the Sun) we will get T the temperature from this formula.
“The reason for this is that the specific heat (Cp) of water vapor is much higher than that of nitrogen or oxygen, and the molecular weight of water vapor is only 18 compared to about 29 for dry air.”
SH isn’t that much higher. It’s 1.86 kJ/kg (at 275K) for wv, 1.00 kJ/kg. But the thing is, wv is only a very few percent. That couldn’t reduce the lapse rate by at least a third.
What does cause that is the LH of condensation. That is a virtual big increase in specific heat in the range where condensation is happening, and brings down the lapse rate.
“The reason for this is that the specific heat (Cp) of water vapor is much higher than that of nitrogen or oxygen, and the molecular weight of water vapor is only 18 compared to about 29 for dry air.”
SH isn’t that much higher. It’s 1.86 kJ/kg (at 275K) for wv, 1.00 kJ/kg. But the thing is, wv is only a very few percent. That couldn’t reduce the lapse rate by at least a third, as observed.
What does cause that is the LH of condensation. That is a virtual big increase in specific heat in the range where condensation is happening, and brings down the lapse rate.
“SH isn’t that much higher …. It’s 1.86 kJ/kg (at 275K) for wv, 1.00 kJ/kg”
So nearly TWICE as high, is that right , Nick ?? 😉
Disingenuous as always.
LH is the regulating agent for Min T, it’s what sets min temp because that’s what is in equilibrium between the surface and space.
The thing with the LH, it is strictly inverse to decreasing temps, but it’s strength to affect temps isn’t until RH is over 50 – 60%, but remember, as it condenses from the top down, as the water molecule fall, they reevaporate, I think it also has to do the same from the bottom, since the hard surface cools as well, but that doesn’t have a big effect on the lapse rate, but the top down does.
Steve Zell
January 29, 2018 at 1:54 pm says
If air is considered an ideal gas, its density is
d = MP/RT, (Eq. 2)
where both the pressure P and temperature T vary with altitude.
A condition for using the gas law is that the density, pressure and temperature of the volume of gas is the same in all parts of the volume. This is not so for the atmosphere.
So the gas law does not explain the atmosphere lapse rate,dT/dz, it requires it does not exist.
To derive lapse rate without using gas law
Gravity energy = heat energy
mgh = cpT
lapse rate =T/h = g/cp
Steve Zell
January 29, 2018 at 1:54 pm says
If air is considered an ideal gas, its density is
d = MP/RT, (Eq. 2)
where both the pressure P and temperature T vary with altitude.
A condition for using the gas law is that the density, pressure and temperature of the volume of gas is the same in all parts of the volume. This is not so for the atmosphere.
So the gas law does not explain the atmosphere lapse rate,dT/dz, it requires it does not exist.
To derive lapse rate without using gas law
Gravity energy = heat energy
mgh = cpT
lapse rate =T/h = g/cp
Roger, the wrongness is very strong with you today….
To show how the secular GMT T (the monotonically increasing GMT) since mid-19th century is determined from the annual GMT data and to show why global cooling is expected for the period 2022 to 2054 because of the cool phase of the multi-decadal oscillation, I have added Fig. 3 to the article.
The secular GMT model by Wu et al. (2011) is similar to my model in my post at WUWT in 2010:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/03/empirical-model-of-the-global-mean-surface-temperature/
Sorry, in 2012
Even if true that there will be a cooling period, this may not change the overall trend – it didn’t do so before. Natural variation is expected, it’s the effects of humans that overlay and interact with the natural variations that are the concern and that we have some control over.
Kristi, what are you responding to?
Meanwhile are you aware of the failed IPCC Per Decade warming prediction/projection starting in 1990?
Kristi Silber January 30, 2018 at 7:48 pm
You may want to expand your view a bit. We’re living in the coldest period of the last ~300 million years. Since the last hot period ~85 mya Earth has been cooling down some 18K, slipping away into an ice age.
We’re just lucky to be living in a relatively warm inter glacial.
Girma,
This article makes some pretty serious mistakes.
1) You seek to relate everything you do to the ECS values quoted by the IPCC. Since you differentiate your Eq 1 and then use transient temperature gradients for all of your estimates of T2x, then your Eq 1 can ONLY be related to transient estimates. Specifically, your T2x is actually an estimate of what is normally called TCR. It has nothing to do with the range of cited ECS values which you seek to “match”. If (instead) Eq 1 was assumed to relate equilibrium value of temperature to fixed forcing values, then you cannot differentiate it and use transient temperatures. You would in effect be using one name, T, for two distinct variables.
2) The temperature change with time from observations is not solely related to the change in CO2 forcing. This as true for the low frequency data as it is for the whole dataset. Since you use the observed time derivative in T without accounting for the effect of non-CO2 forcing drivers, you need to use the full forcing dataset to estimate the change in forcing over the period, and not just the change in CO2 forcing as you have done. In the post-1940 period, aerosol forcings have a major effect on forcing evolution and total change. You cannot just assume that the non-CO2 forcings can be ignored.
Kribaez
I disagree.
What I have done is to relate the instantaneous rate of change of atmospheric CO2 to that of the secular GMT and that gives you an atmospheric CO2 doubling GMT of T2x = 1.4 deg C.
Regarding the equilibrium sensitivity, it is unobservable and unverifiable quantity so it is a scientifically useless concept.
The solubility of CO2 in the ocean decreases with increase in ocean temperature. So the logarithm of atmospheric CO2 is proportional to change in ocean temperature as given by Eq. 1 of this article.
There is no climate forcing other than the seasonal solar heating and the seasonal infrared cooling. The sea level every year steadily falls from September to March due to the seasonal infrared cooling (not due to aerosol forcing). From March to september, the sea level rises due to seasonal solar heating (not due to greenhouse forcing). So the globe warms naturally due to solar forcing, not anthropogenic forcing. The increase in atmospheric is due to 18% of solar energy being absorbed in the deep ocean. When the current solar maximum ends as expected, the ocean starts to release its stored energy and the atmospheric CO2 and sea level would fall.
Girma January 30, 2018 at 6:48 am
Girma, what do you consider “deep ocean”?
Solar hardly penetrates deeper than ~200m , see
http://www.oc.nps.edu/nom/day1/annual_cycle.gif
The reason I ask is that I’m convinced that the temperature of the deep oceans is completely caused and maintained by geothermal energy and thus can explain why the avg. temperature on Earth is > 90K higher than the avg. temperature of our moon.
Solar only increases the temperature of the mixed surface layer a bit above the ~275K base temperature of the deep oceans.
Ben, your theory is backed up by E M Smith at Chiefios he proposed it a while back.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/the-sun-does-not-warm-the-earth/
A C Osborn January 30, 2018 at 8:55 am
Thanks, had a look at your link. He doesn’t show the mechanism that explains how the small geothermal flux of ~100 mW/m^2 can MAINTAIN the temperature of the deep oceans and drive the thermohaline circulation.
Once you realize that the temperature of the deep oceans and the temperature of the crust is completely caused by geothermal energy, it becomes obvious that the sun is perfectly capable of increasing the temperature of a shallow top layer a bit to create our observed surface temperatures.
So the surface warms the atmosphere iso the other way around, as should be obvious from all kind of meteorological processes, like the Hadley Circulation etc.etc.
Ben
“…I’m convinced that the temperature of the deep oceans is completely caused and maintained by geothermal energy”
The ocean heat content decreases with El Nino (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/website-archive/trenberth.papers-moved/Balmaseda_Trenberth_Kallen_grl_13.pdf) but increases with La Nina. As a result, deep ocean warming is caused by La Ninas.
Girma,
It is difficult to know where to start with your response here.
Let’s start perhaps with this comment:-
“Regarding the equilibrium sensitivity, it is unobservable and unverifiable quantity so it is a scientifically useless concept.”
I certainly agree that ECS is unobservable and unverifiable. It exists only as a mathematical abstraction. However, it is a well-defined mathematical abstraction and as such it is quite distinct from the Transient Climate Response (TCR), which is yet another well-defined mathematical abstraction which is unobservable and unverifiable. The fact that these variables do not and cannot exist as directly measurable quantities in the physical world does not in any way inhibit us from estimating their magnitudes. More importantly, despite your opinion on the low utility of ECS, you are still not permitted to compare your estimate of TCR with someone else’s estimate of ECS. This is a banana-to-apples comparison.
“The solubility of CO2 in the ocean decreases with increase in ocean temperature. So the logarithm of atmospheric CO2 is proportional to change in ocean temperature as given by Eq. 1 of this article.”
This is aberrant. Models which seek to predict changes in atmospheric CO2 are all founded on the continuity equation, which states that the rate of change of atmospheric concentration is equal to the Emissions Rate minus Adsorption Rate. This is a mass balance, which has the power of a scientific law. The emissions rate is a function of all additions – natural and anthropogenic. Your Eq 1 has NOTHING to do with prediction of changes in atmospheric CO2 from temperature. (Nor do your references make any claim to do this. If they had done, they would have been laughed out of court.) Instead, Eq 1 can be derived as a valid approximation for predicting the change in temperature due (just) to CO2 addition arising from the change in CO2 concentration from whatever source under the assumption that the CO2 forcing is changing approximately linearly with time. Do you see the big difference here?
(For more on the derivation of your Eq 1, please see my response to Nick Stokes above.) As such, your estimate of T2x represents an estimate of TCR under two assumptions:- (a) there is no forcing other than CO2 forcing affecting your selected “observed” temperature evolution and (b) the forcing due to CO2 increases approximately linearly with time. This latter corresponds to an exponential increase in CO2 concentration or a year-on-year geometric progression.
Girma January 31, 2018 at 5:24 am
Please. ENSO is basically a sloshing back and forth of warm surface water in the tropical pacific, driven by varying tradewinds. ENSO plays out completely in the mixed surface layer (~300m), and doesn’t change much in the heat content of the oceans, only the surface temperatures are affected.
See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/15/do-over-the-199798-super-el-nino-via-latest-computer-animation/
See http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/woce/
In all three ocean basins the temperature of the oceans below ~1000m is ~275K or lower.
Given the well known 255K and the ~33K the atmosphere is adding to the the surface temperatures, how do you explain the ~275K temperature of the DEEP oceans? How does CO2 have an influence on the DEEP ocean temperatures?
Notice that warm surface water doesn’t sink into colder deep water and that maximum salinity is near the surface.
ristvan
“This post result is also yet another way to show that most CMIP5 models run about 2x hot.”
I agree with you
What about more recent rates of CO2 change? The last 3 years have been at least 3 ppm.
Your test seems to be comparing two years, 12 apart, to see if your result agree – but show the results only to a tenth of a degree. That’s hardly a demonstration of a “time invariant” prediction.
Why in Wu’s paper does the mean slope of the MDO get larger, the less time is considered, i.e. why does the oscillation account for more change over time? It’s an artifact of the sampling, no?
If its a natural, normal, predictable oscillation, unless it interacts with other factors (quite possible) it’s overall, long-term effect on temperature change should be zero. What it might be good for is estimating trends shorter than 30 years, but in that case you’d want to keep it.
” The sea level every year steadily falls from September to March due to the seasonal infrared cooling (not due to aerosol forcing). From March to september, the sea level rises due to seasonal solar heating (not due to greenhouse forcing). So the globe warms naturally due to solar forcing, not anthropogenic forcing.”
But sea level and temperature are rising overall.
“The increase in atmospheric is due to 18% of solar energy being absorbed in the deep ocean. When the current solar maximum ends as expected, the ocean starts to release its stored energy and the atmospheric CO2 and sea level would fall.”
Why would atmospheric CO2 fall? It didn’t after the last solar maximum.
The solar oscillations have been studied in depth by many climate researchers. There is reason it’s given short shrift in climate modeling.
Wu, et al used a new method. It may be right, it may be wrong, it may be narrowly or widely applicable, I don’t know, but I’m not trusting it until others have used similar methods to address the same problem.
You are making predictions about an extremely complex system with no estimate of uncertainty, and that’s a problem.
Kristi, you are babbling here. Try making a coherent statement next time.
What is your point?
Nick Stokes,
Yow wrote: “yet another article misusing the relation for a change in equilibrium temperature to a sustained step change in forcing.”
However, we can see that a CO2 doubling GMT of T2x = 1.4 deg C is consistent with the observed secular global warming since mid-19th century.
Here is what Wigley (1983) reported: “Recent indirect data and direct measurements from ice cores point towards a ‘pre-industrial’ CO2 level of around 260-270 ppmv, considerably below the commonly assumed value of 290 ppmv. He also defined pre-industrial CO2 as: “the level which prevailed prior to the intense industrial activity which began in earnest in the mid-to-late 19th century” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02423528
Wigley’s report indicates that the mid-19th century central atmospheric CO2 is Ci = 265 ppm. From Fig. 2 of my article, the atmospheric CO2 for 2008 is Cf = 383.93 ppm. From these initial and final atmospheric CO2, the global warming for 2008 could be calculated using Eq. 1, which gives T = (T2x/ln(2))ln(Cf/Ci) = (1.4/ln(2)) ln(383.93/265) = 0.75 deg C. This result is identical to the global warming for 2008 reported by Wu et al. (2011).
This result shows, a CO2 doubling GMT of 1.4 deg C is consistent with observation.
Regarding your “equilibrium sensitivity”, it is unobservable and unverifiable quantity so it is a useless concept for science.
, you mean Wu’s heavily modified and made up data? lol
That’s not an observation.
micro6500
The global warming of 0.75 deg C from mid-19th century to 2008 from the result of Wu et al (2011) is observation.
No, it made up from observations, there’s a big difference. Tell me how many stations, and how many samples a year do you need to know the entire planet’s average temperature?
Here’s day to day change of min and max temp, and record count from the Air Force NCDC Gsod dataset
Girma,
“Regarding your “equilibrium sensitivity”, it is unobservable and unverifiable quantity so it is a useless concept for science.”
It isn’t mine. It has been standard for a very long time. And it is the only sensible answer to your original question
“What is the expected global warming if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles from 400 to 800 ppm?”
Because if CO₂ doubles, the temperatures rises, and then goes on rising. So if you aren’t going to define the “expected warming” as being when it reaches equilibrium, you have to define a time when you’ll measure it.
“However, we can see that a CO2 doubling GMT of T2x = 1.4 deg C is consistent with the observed secular global warming since mid-19th century.”
But you said
“The aim of this article is to determine the time-invariant CO2 doubling GMT”
You present Eq 1 as a general relation between C and T, which presumably is the basis for “time invariance”. And now you are justifying it by saying it is satisfied by a single observation. I’ve heard complaints about curve fitting to too few points, but fitting to just one point takes that a bit further.
Your derivation relies on the truth of Eq 1 for all values of C. You need to justify that. You’ve cited authors who just aren’t saying that at all. The paper by Knutti and Hegerl, for example, is titled
” The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes”
You say ECS is useless. But it’s what you are citing.
The formula T = (1.4/ln(2))ln(C/265) gives you the secular global warming corresponding to any atmospheric CO2 since the mid-19th century. It is not for just one point.
No, it gives the forcing. But you have to account for feedback, and it’s negative, not positive, before you can get warming.
For example, the atmospheric CO2 for 1983 from Fig. 1 is C = 343.2 ppm. Using this value in the formula T = (1.4/ln(2))ln(C/265) gives T = 0.52 deg C. This is agrees with the global warming reported by Wigley and Shelesinger (1985).
The main flaw in the anthropogenic global warming theory is the assumption of a multi decadal energy balance at the top of the atmosphere. This assumption is inconsistent with observation that shows a multi centennial cooling of the ocean from the medial warm period to the little ice age followed by a multi centennial warming of the ocean until now.
“gives you the secular global warming corresponding to any atmospheric CO2 since the mid-19th century”
The correspondence is shown in your Fig 3. It’s isn’t great.
“This assumption is inconsistent with observation that shows a multi centennial cooling”
Again you need to quote, carefully, the wording of these “assumptions”. Who said it, and what did they say? There is a general expectation that flux at TOA will be approximately in balance in the long term. That is based on the Earth having fairly stable temperature. To the extent that the Earth warms or cols, there will be imbalance. But with slow change vs the very large solar heat flux that comes and goes, the imbalance is small. The imbalance associated with the current warming is said (Trenberth) to be 0.5-1.0 W/m2.
How long is long? 100-1000 years.
First off, the surface isn’t symmetrical in either hemisphere or rotation, and I do not think they have 100% 24×7 surface coverage for a minimum of a year, and we definitely do not have 100’s of years of measurements, yet. So even if the satellite had the accuracy it doesn’t have, without full coverage it’s not telling us the right answer because they’re infilling, making stuff they have not measured.
Secondly, there has to be imbalance due to heat storage, you can’t have storage without an imbalance, so there’s going to be an imbalance over the tropics, as energy is converted to stored energy (wv). Most will be returned, but it’s lumpy, and it’s not all returned, that’s how we end up with El Nino’s as one example.
Lastly there’s an optical window that “short circuits” any blocking co2 might have.
Nick
Here is a paper published in 1975 using the same method I used to relate atmospheric CO2 to global mean temperature.
Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?
Wallace S. Broecker
Science
New Series, Vol. 189, No. 4201 (Aug. 8, 1975), pp. 460-463
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1740491
Nick
The most important question in climate in my opinion is whether arctic sea ice is going to start to increase during the expected cooling phase of the multi-decadal oscillation starting in the 2020s. If that happens, it will have a major implication for our understanding of the earth’s climate, because that would suggest the observed loss of arctic sea ice was due to the warming phase of the MDO and not due to the secular warming.
Girma January 31, 2018 at 7:28 pm
While awaiting the answer to that question, maybe you have the time to answer some much more fundamental questions.
Given the average surface temperature of the moon (~197K, already some 35K above radiative temperature):
– why are the deep oceans (near the ocean floor) all around the world some 75K above the average lunar surface temperatures?
– why is the average surface temperature of the Earth some 90K higher than the average lunar temperature, in spite of the Earth having an albedo 0f ~0,3 vs the moon ~0,11?
Ben
I have not studied the temperature of the moon at all.
Girma February 2, 2018 at 8:05 pm
Perhaps you should have done that.
The Effectrive Temperature of the moon is ~270K (vs 255K for Earth) due to the lower albedo (~0,11 vs 0,30)
The actual average temperature of the moon is ~197K as measured by the Diviner project.
This clearly shows that a body at our distance from sun in radiative balance with incoming solar has a much lower average surface temperature than eg the 255K as used for Earth.
Simple calculation gives 161K for the moon and 151K for Earth.
The idea that our atmosphere can explain the difference between this number and the observed temperatures is beyond bizar.
The observed GMT pattern since mid 19th century
The observed GMT pattern:
How do you post an image here?
Please delete that above empty posts, as I have been trying without success to post an image.