A 2017 peer-reviewed paper authored by physicist Dr. Hermann Harde drew considerable response upon its publication in the journal Global and Planetary Change. Harde’s conclusion that less than 15% of the increase in CO2 concentration since the 19th century could be attributed to anthropogenic emissions was deemed unacceptable by gatekeepers of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) viewpoint. A critical reply to the paper was consequently published, but it included assumptive errors and misrepresentations of the original points. Harde’s exhaustive reply to the criticism has been refused publication, which has effectively silenced scientific debate on this salient topic.
We have yet another example of AGW advocates like Gavin Schmidt running away from real scientific debates with skeptics.
After receiving appeal-to-authority pressure from Gavin Schmidt and other activists at RealClimate.org, the overseers of the Elsevier journal Global and Planetary Change have refused to allow the public to read the exhaustive response to criticisms levied against a peer-reviewed paper they originally agreed to publish.
Image Source: Harde, 2017
Critiquing Via Misrepresentation and Models
Within months after the Harde paper was published, Köhler et al. (2017), was quickly cobbled together and published in Global and Planetary Change in an attempt to “refute” the conclusions of the Harde (2017) paper.
The problem was, Köhler et al. (2017) did not accurately critique the actual points made in the original paper, but instead they devised alternative or erroneous versions of Harde’s positions and then critiqued those instead. In other words, they used the straw man argumenttactic in their “rebuttal” paper.
In an unpublished response to the Köhler “critque” paper, Harde contends that Köhler et al. also employ “ad hoc”argumentation, “circular reasoning”, the “failure of logic” inherent in the practice of “validation by consensus”, and an overall reliance on models and assumptions rather than observation.
Excerpts from the unpublished response to Köhler et al. (2017):
Full story at No Tricks Zone
Harde does not understand the physics of a coffee filter.
Some would say that high-profiled, highly-degreed climate scientists do not understand the physics of a blanket.
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing that this is under so much dispute. Thermodynamics long ago explained how the diffusion of a tracer like C-14 into a system generally works on different timescales than equilibration of bulk addition of CO2.
To put it another way: diffusion, which can swap two molecules between systems but leave the totals the same, is distinct from equilibration where one system gains total # of molecules and the other loses.
This is basic, basic thermodynamics, and yes, this paper should never have been published.
Y’all are making skeptics look bad. Please remember your college thermo classes before siding with Harde here.
Peer review often becomes political review. If they allowed criticism of the original paper then it is only fair for them to allow the authors of the original paper to defend their peer reviewed paper. Apparently the publication involved is not really a scientific publication but rather a political rag.
I dunno, the original paper is *really* bad. And the defense is not any better.
If you’re trying to keep any kind of quality control, at some point you just have to call it. Harde makes fundamental mistakes with regards to thermodynamics and kinetics, and there’s no getting past that.
Similar academic scam-mongering has been practiced for many years by warmist journals, which have lost ALL credibility AND respectability. Nobody should trust them, or even bother to read them – they are trash.
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005, in defence of several legitimate climate scientists.
Regards to all, Allan
Full article at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-713945
DRIVE-BY SHOOTINGS IN KYOTOVILLE
The global warming debate heats up
Energy & Environment 2005
by Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature.
Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
*************
I want to show that the residence time for atmospheric CO2 about 4 years in the original paper of Harde is wrong. Firstly, there is an empirical evidence of the radiocarbon residence time. Nuclear bomb tests are probably the only full-scale tests by humans in the atmosphere. The decay rate of radiocarbon has been 16 years starting in 1964 and closing now zero level. Radiocarbon has been a perfect example about the tracer method to find out the dynamic behavior of a carbon cycle process. The radiocarbon residence time is directly applicable for the anthropogenic CO2 residence time.
Another test is a theoretical test, that we can carry on just by a pen and a paper. The residence time of 4 years means an adjustment time 4*4 years = 16 years. It means that the atmospheric CO2 concentration or mass should come to a new balance (= almost the original value) after a disturbance in 16 years. The atmospheric CO2 amount has increased from 600 gigatons of carbon (GtC) in 1750 to the present 850 GtC. If the adjustment time of CO2 would be 16 years, it would mean that the CO2 in the atmosphere should decrease by about 15…16 GtC per year in order to make this possible. Nowadays the annual CO2 emission rate 10 GtC and from this amount about 4.5 GtC disappears into CO2 sinks (ocean and biosphere). If the CO2 emissions would be stopped completely, the CO2 decreasing rate would not be more than 4.5 GtC/y but it would decrease gradually. The residence time of 4 years is not possible, it is totally out of question.
The major error in Harde’s study is the same as in other studies showing residence times of 4 to 8 years or so. They assume that a carbon cycle residence time can be calculated for a system of a single mixing chamber having a flow in and out. The real CO2 system is a complicated combination of recycling flows between atmosphere, ocean and biosphere. When the real results have been achieved, they can be approximated by single residence times – not another way around.
There are two residence times – not understood by many researchers: for anthropogenic CO2 and for total CO2 and these values are 16 years and 55 years. Here is a link to a blog, which describes these things in more details (based on the published scientific paper):
https://www.climatexam.com/single-post/2016/08/29/The-residence-times-of-carbon-dioxide-are-16-and-55-years
Dr. Antero Ollila
So where is the C02 coming from? Meteorites?
Atmospheric CO2, according to the above arguments, must be a breakdown product of unicorn farts.
Why? Because CO2 is the magical molecule:
– it drives both global warming AND global cooling;
– it drives both wilder weather and milder weather;
– since CO2 trends lag atmospheric temperature trends by ~9 months in the modern data record, it drives the past from the future – it is in fact a time-traveller, the Dr. Who of molecules;
– since CO2 trends lag atmospheric temperature trends by ~~800 years in the ice core record, it drives the past from the future there too, proving that Dr. Who-CO2 has been around for hundreds of thousands of years – Who knew!
– and oh yes, I almost forgot: “The Science IS Settled!” … isn’t it? 🙂
Actually atmospheric CO2 short-term changes lag 11 months of the (tropical) ocean temperature.
Dr. Antero Ollila – I generally agree.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/02/opening-up-the-climate-policy-envelope/#comment-2395408
Here is a relationship between Equatorial Atmospheric Water Vapour and UAH LT Global Temperature, which typically lags Water Vapour by about 1 month– this may prove helpful.
I first plotted this relationship about 2 years ago, but the idea came from Bill Illis.
Best, Allan
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1665255773551978&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
[excerpt]
UAH Lower Troposphere: Anomalies
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0beta5.txt
NOAA Precipitable Water Monolevel +/-20 N, 0-360W
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
The correct mechanism is described as follows (approx.):
Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature up –> Equatorial Atmospheric Water Vapor up 3 months later –> Equatorial Temperature up -> Global Temperature up one month later -> Global Atmospheric dCO2/dt up (contemporaneous with Global Temperature) -> Atmospheric CO2 trends up 9 months later
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1443923555685202&set=a.1012901982120697&type=3&theater
What drives Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature? In sub-decadal timeframes, El Nino and La Nina (ENSO); longer term, probably the Integral of Solar Activity.
The base CO2 increase of ~2ppm/year could have many causes, including fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc, but it has a minor or insignificant impact on global temperatures.
What drives Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature? In sub-decadal timeframes, El Nino and La Nina (ENSO); longer term, probably the Integral of Solar Activity.
The base CO2 increase of ~2ppm/year could have many causes, including fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc, but it has a minor or insignificant impact on global temperatures.
Regards, Allan
Moderator – please delete the following duplicate paragraph:
What drives Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperature? In sub-decadal timeframes, El Nino and La Nina (ENSO); longer term, probably the Integral of Solar Activity.
The base CO2 increase of ~2ppm/year could have many causes, including fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc, but it has a minor or insignificant impact on global temperatures.
How about you stop endlessly cutting and pasting. It’s just repetitious spam bombing.
A reminder to all, to ignore Lyin’ Ryan.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/16/why-does-climate-sensitivity-increase-over-time-in-models-a-look-at-two-possibilities/#comment-2432512
Ryan – the proof your demanded is provided above.
You are a liar and a troll. From now on you do not exist.
No it isn’t, as I stated for the record the last time you lied about it.
As for residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere: Willis Eschenbach explains that it’s much longer than the figure of a few years for residence time of individual CO2 molecules. He comes up with best-fit exponential decay of a pulse (injection in my words) of CO2 into the atmosphere having a time constant tau (or e-folding time) of 59 years, which is a half-life of 41 years. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/19/the-secret-life-of-half-life/
He’s all confused. I’m not interested in “residence time”. I am not trying to deal with any equilibrium calculation. It’s simply a matter of how fast the CO2 present in the atmosphere in 1963 leaves the atmosphere. Period. The 12C dilution argument is interesting, but there is not enough of it to make a difference, and we would see the baseline 14C level decrease, which we don’t.
“It is error, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
—Tom Paine
Excruciatingly meticulous analyses of CO2 residence time make me wonder whether anybody can really determine this.
Residence time of a vital atmospheric component seems like an odd focus. Even discussing it seems to validate the premise that CO2 is toxic to human well being.
Should we look ahead and start considering the residence time of oxygen? Now that’s something I would really get worried about.
Possibly 14C left the atmosphere at a constant rate for several years after the initial increase by weapons testing. But some of that 14C moved into plants and soils, and after several years began to return to the atmosphere. The surface ocean also returns 14C to the atmosphere. Thus as time proceeds, the rate of removal of atmospheric 14C slows.
Donb,
Most above ground nuclear tests were done in the 1950’s. By 1960, the 14C level reached its peak and as most exchanges between atmosphere and vegetation or ocean surface are seasonal, these two reservoirs were almost in equilibrium with the atmosphere for 14C, thus had little influence on the 14C decay in the atmosphere, except as extra reservoirs.
The main difference is in the deep oceans, where inputs and outputs are completely disconnected for very long periods.
I am not believing that any such quantity as “residence time” or “relaxation time” of CO2 can be determined by any now known method of physical-world data collection.
To think that we can figure out how long one molecule of CO2 remains in the air seems laughable, as I really reflect on it. And I sense that any determination of how long a given mass or volume of CO2 remains in the air does not fair much better. This all seems to be collective speculation, at best, solidified around great uncertainties and differing opinions, in a social milieu where the “right” answer is established politically, NOT empirically.
Forgive my ignorance, if I am way off, but that’s where I am at the moment.
Robert,
There are several ways the residence time can be determined, see for the long list here:
https://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.pdf Table 2.
An average of about 5 years is the accepted residence time for any CO2 molecule in the atmosphere.
The decay rate of an extra injection of CO2 above the dynamic equilibrium is observable: the net sink rate of CO2 in nature is directly proportional to the extra CO2 pressure in the atmosphere:
In 1959: 25 ppmv extra, 0.5 ppmv/year sink rate, 25/0.5 = 50 years, half life time 34.7 years
In 1988: 60 ppmv, 1.13 ppmv/year, 53 years, half life time 36.8 years
In 2012: 110 ppmv / 2.15 ppmv/year = 51.2 years or a half life time of 35.5 years.
Seems quite linear with an e-fold decay rate of about 51 years.
If you silence debate, then the hypothesis must be for schmidt.
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&q=drop+dead+german+academics+after+guttenplag&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj34r2R6pHdAhVJqIsKHa_8DQoQBQggKAA&biw=360&bih=560
With gutenplag Angela ‘Angi’ Merkel renounced any scientific truth.
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&nfpr=1&q=guttenplag+history&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSnef34pHdAhWBtIsKHcWKAbkQBQggKAA&biw=360&bih=560
Quote: I do not need an academic assistant
but a minister of defense.
_______________________________________________________
Since then, the EU no longer seeks truth, but political benefits.