Guest geology by David Middleton
Way back in the Pleistocene (1976-1980), when I was a young geology student, the notion of CO2 as a driver of climate change was largely scoffed at…
Suggestion that changing carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere could be a major factor in climate change dates from 1861, when it was proposed by British physicist John Tyndall.
[…]
Unfortunately we cannot estimate accurately changes of past CO2 content of either atmosphere or oceans, nor is there any firm quantitative basis for estimating the the magnitude of drop in carbon dioxide content necessary to trigger glaciation. Moreover the entire concept of an atmospheric greenhouse effect is controversial, for the rate of ocean-atmosphere equalization is uncertain.
Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten. Evolution of the Earth. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Second Edition 1976. p. 441.
Sometime after 1980, a new paradigm emerged, suggesting that Phanerozoic Eon climate change had largely been driven by CO2 (Royer et al., 2004). The model was that the weathering rates of silicate rocks governed the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (Berner & Kothavala, 2001) and that CO2 was the “control knob” for temperature. Well, this paradigm may have just taken a bullet to the head.
Rutgers Today > Research
Is Theory on Earth’s Climate in the Last 15 Million Years Wrong?
Rutgers-led study casts doubt on Himalayan rock weathering hypothesis
September 22, 2019A key theory that attributes the climate evolution of the Earth to the breakdown of Himalayan rocks may not explain the cooling over the past 15 million years, according to a Rutgers-led study.
The study in the journal Nature Geoscience could shed more light on the causes of long-term climate change. It centers on the long-term cooling that occurred before the recent global warming tied to greenhouse gas emissions from humanity.
“The findings of our study, if substantiated, raise more questions than they answered,” said senior author Yair Rosenthal, a distinguished professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “If the cooling is not due to enhanced Himalayan rock weathering, then what processes have been overlooked?”
For decades, the leading hypothesis has been that the collision of the Indian and Asian continents and uplifting of the Himalayas brought fresh rocks to the Earth’s surface, making them more vulnerable to weathering that captured and stored carbon dioxide – a key greenhouse gas. But that hypothesis remains unconfirmed.
Lead author Weimin Si, a former Rutgers doctoral student now at Brown University, and Rosenthal challenge the hypothesis and examined deep-sea sediments rich with calcium carbonate.
Over millions of years, the weathering of rocks captured carbon dioxide and rivers carried it to the ocean as dissolved inorganic carbon, which is used by algae to build their calcium carbonate shells. When algae die, their skeletons fall on the seafloor and get buried, locking carbon from the atmosphere in deep-sea sediments.
If weathering increases, the accumulation of calcium carbonate in the deep sea should increase. But after studying dozens of deep-sea sediment cores through an international ocean drilling program, Si found that calcium carbonate in shells decreased significantly over 15 million years, which suggests that rock weathering may not be responsible for the long-term cooling.
Meanwhile, the scientists – surprisingly – also found that algae called coccolithophores adapted to the carbon dioxide decline over 15 million years by reducing their production of calcium carbonate. This reduction apparently was not taken into account in previous studies.
Many scientists believe that ocean acidification from high carbon dioxide levels will reduce the calcium carbonate in algae, especially in the near future. The data, however, suggest the opposite occurred over the 15 million years before the current global warming spell.
Rosenthal’s lab is now trying to answer these questions by studying the evolution of calcium and other elements in the ocean.
Rutgers Today
Basically, everything is bass-ackwards relative to the CO2-driven climate paradigm.
As far as press releases go, this one is very good. I would only take serious issue with this bit:
Many scientists believe that ocean acidification from high carbon dioxide levels will reduce the calcium carbonate in algae, especially in the near future. The data, however, suggest the opposite occurred over the 15 million years before the current global warming spell.
The “current global warming spell” is indistinguishable from other Holocene and Pleistocene global warming spells.
We’ve already experienced nearly 1.0 ºC of warming since pre-industrial time. Another 0.5 to 1.0 ºC between now and the end of the century doesn’t even put us into Eemian climate territory, much less the Miocene. 15 million years ago (MYA) was the middle of the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO).
Their paper is pay-walled; here is the abstract:
Abstract
Weimin & Rosenthal Nature Geoscience
The globally averaged calcite compensation depth has deepened by several hundred metres in the past 15 Myr. This deepening has previously been interpreted to reflect increased alkalinity supply to the ocean driven by enhanced continental weathering due to the Himalayan orogeny during the late Neogene period. Here we examine mass accumulation rates of the main marine calcifying groups and show that global accumulation of pelagic carbonates has decreased from the late Miocene epoch to the late Pleistocene epoch even though CaCO3 preservation has improved, suggesting a decrease in weathering alkalinity input to the ocean, thus opposing expectations from the Himalayan uplift hypothesis. Instead, changes in relative contributions of coccoliths and planktonic foraminifera to the pelagic carbonates in relative shallow sites, where dissolution has not taken its toll, suggest that coccolith production in the euphotic zone decreased concomitantly with the reduction in weathering alkalinity inputs as registered by the decline in pelagic carbonate accumulation. Our work highlights a mechanism whereby, in addition to deep-sea dissolution, changes in marine calcification acted to modulate carbonate compensation in response to reduced weathering linked to the late Neogene cooling and decline in atmospheric partial pressure of carbon dioxide.
The assumption has been that the rise of the Himalayan Mountains during the Miocene increased the rate of silicate rock weathering, drawing down atmospheric CO2 and precipitously cooling the Earth’s atmosphere. While the Neogene cooling did follow the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, the cool-down from the MMCO trailed the uplift by about 7 million years (Myr).
Part of the problem is that it is unclear if atmospheric CO2 levels were significantly elevated 15 MYA.
We can see that estimates for 15 MYA range from 250 to 500 ppm. While there is some support for higher CO2 levels 20-22 MYA, when the Tibetan Uplift was accelerated, it does not coincide with the MMCO at 15 MYA.
We now have clean kills of the MMCO being driven by CO2 emissions from the Columbia River Basalt Group eruptions and the subsequent cooling being driven by a draw down of atmospheric CO2. How many clean kills does it take to kill a paradigm?
References
Berner, R.A. and Z. Kothavala, 2001. “GEOCARB III: A Revised Model of Atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic Time”. American Journal of Science, v.301, pp.182-204, February 2001.
Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten. Evolution of the Earth. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Second Edition 1976. p. 441.
Pagani, Mark, Michael Arthur & Katherine Freeman. (1999). “Miocene evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Paleoceanography. 14. 273-292. 10.1029/1999PA900006.
Royer, D. L., R. A. Berner, I. P. Montanez, N. J. Tabor and D. J. Beerling. “CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate”. GSA Today, Vol. 14, No. 3. (2004), pp. 4-10
Tripati, A.K., C.D. Roberts, and R.A. Eagle. 2009. “Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years”. Science, Vol. 326, pp. 1394 1397, 4 December 2009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178296
Weimin Si & Yair Rosenthal. Reduced continental weathering and marine calcification linked to late Neogene decline in atmospheric CO2. Nature Geoscience, 2019 DOI: 10.1038/s41561-019-0450-
Zachos, J. C., Pagani, M., Sloan, L. C., Thomas, E. & Billups, K. “Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present”. Science 292, 686–-693 (2001).
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The neatest (if unconfirmed) explanation for the gradual cooling of the climate, is that as the Himalaya rose, it added a huge high albedo ice sheet, right in the tropics where it could reflect insolation all year round. And this high albedo ice sheet has cooled the global climate.
This was from a 1970s science paper.
Ralph
The problem with that theory is that there has almost certainly never been a “huge ice sheet” there. That theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked by geologists. Glaciers were only slightly larger during glaciations.
Though the Tibetan plateau is indeed a large high-albedo feature, like all vegetationless areas.
Evidence against a Tibetan ice sheet has grown convincing in the past decade or so, making it appear more like dry, windswept Beringia than the high latitude ice sheets.
https://www.glims.org/glacierdata/data/lit_ref_files/heyman2010.pdf
The GC models however continued to discover an ice sheet on the Plateau not in physical evidence:
https://jakob.heyman.info/publications/Kirchner-et-al-2011-Palglac-Tibet-modeling-QSR.pdf
The GC models keep finding a large ice-sheet in Beringia-Alaska as well:
https://www.clim-past.net/14/697/2018/
It just shows that the GC models are too primitive to handle topography and rain shadows realistically.
Among their many other failings.
This is an excellent post and research. The CO2 paradigm is a disgrace to science as one imposed by force for political not scientific reasons. It is pitiful how most publishing scientist have submitted to this false paradigm so abjectly. The authors of this study – and Dave – are to be applauded for calling BS on this atrocious and deeply damaging travesty of science.
Not viable? Abort.
Either the radiative feedback mechanism of CO2 is a more effective first-order forcing in the laboratory, or anthropogenic sources have been grossly overestimated and mischaracterized, or the CO2 gradient follows warming.
CO2 is both a minor forcing mechanism and a feedback product of warming.
I’ve always found Richard Alley’s and Potholer’s arguments about CO2 over geological time to be convincing. How will this affect the first seven minutes of Potholers video?
If ”the science is settled” like dust has settled on the truth then science is no longer of any use.
” How many clean kills does it take to kill a paradigm?” About the same number it takes to kill a zombie. Both will probably take a decapitation, such as defunding.
Oh boy…there goes David again! Trying to confuse a perfectly well-thought-out political power grab with stupid scientific facts. When will he ever learn?
I still find it hard to believe that CO2 is THE control knob when so many other possible controls are out there. CO2 *might* be a contributor to climate change, or it might just be residue that is produced by the changing climate. It’s like saying a gun is responsible for shooting someone…no, the person holding the gun is responsible. I think something causes CO2 to rise and fall, but CO2 plays only a part in the actual change in temperature. Mankind’s contribution is like a few volcanoes erupting… Yeah it contributes CO2 but its only a small factor.
I still strongly suspect that big glowing ball of fire in the sky has something to do with it… And that layer of gray and white fluffy stuff up in the sky. And the giant pool of salty water covering most of the Earth. But I guess 97% of the experts agree those are not important…so what do I know?
Yes – CO2 is a proxy of global ocean temperature. Not causative. You might as well say that the ratio of 18/16 oxygen istotopes drives change in ocean temperature.
“CO2 is both a minor hypothetical forcing mechanism and a feedback product of warming.”
Fixed it for ya.
The interesting thing is that it has been pointed out repeatedly by several geologists, e. g. Retallack, that monuntain chains don’t weather chemically, they weather mechanically and that sediment studies indicate that chemical weathering decreased as the Himalayas rose.
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/d/3735/files/2013/07/REtallack-et-al.-2017-Asian-monsoon-22vf1k3.pdf
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/d/3735/files/2013/07/Retallack-2013-grassland-cooling-q8ay9r.pdf
And indeed this is really obvious to anyone with practical geological experience. Chemical weathering is typical of plains and lowlands, particularily in the tropics, everywhere else mechanical weathering dominates (notable exception: limestone areas).
Before the Himalayans built up, one would assume western/central China (& beyond) would’ve been much wetter & “weathered” as the rainfall barrier to the Indian Ocean would’ve been absent.
Yes, Central Asia was a subtropical-tropical lowland/shallow sea:
http://resources.has.concord.org/resources/Shale-gas/Scotese/066.jpg
tty
+1
Yes, it is well established that mechanical weathering varies directly with elevation, particularly when the mountains get above the freezing line and frost wedging becomes common. Lateritic soils, such as were common during the Eocene and found today in the Amazon Basin, are the evidence for chemical weathering.
“Lateritic soils, such as were common during the Eocene and found today in the Amazon Basin, are the evidence for chemical weathering.”
Clyde,
In my many privileged years of studying marine seismic data of the seas surrounding the British Isles, the Eocene deposits of the Harris Basin on the western margin of the Hebrides Shelf stand out as being truly remarkable in character. The data showed over 1000 metres of seismically transparent shales with superb evidence of polygonal faults at the sequence base, a facies character that is diagnostic of deep-marine colloidal muds. These Eocene clays were derived from chemical weathering of the older Palaeocene basalts of the Hebrides shelf, which were eroded and transported into this deep-water basin. The presence of laterite, iron ore and bauxite deposits in the North Antrim plateau basalts onshore to the south demonstrate that the early Tertiary climate of this part of north west Europe was subtropical in character, with a seasonal monsoon. The fossil flora evidence from BGS offshore boreholes shows that the early Tertiary vegetation included low lying Nyssa-Taxodium swamp taxa. The fact that this biome included bald cypress (Taxodium) suggests that this ancient environment had a climate similar to that of modern Florida.
The key take home message is this: It is warm climate chemical weathering of basalt that both generates the insoluble clays and also releases the alkaline base metals of Calcium and Magnesium into the marine environment. These soluble base metals derived from the chemical weathering of basalt (the clue is in the name) form the chemical feed-stock that both sequester bicarbonate ions as mineral carbonate precipitates, and also keep our oceans alkaline.
Over 10^6-10^9 timescales global climate temperature is primarily controlled by tectonic rearrangement of continents and critically of the deep ocean circulation. Continents aligned meridionally like on either side of the Atlantic, and also land at high latitudes, give equator to pole ocean circulation cooling the planet and inserting a cold deep ocean layer under all the oceans even at the equator.
This is well understood but recent papers on palaeo climate ignore this and drivel on about CO2 drawdown and silicate weathering. These phenomena do occur but as the present paper makes clear, it is emphatically not any kind of control “knob” of climate.
Alarmists love to forget the oceans. Their theory will sink to a watery grave.
Doesn’t matter how high the climate sensitivity truly is – if the greenhouse effect of CO2 is logarithmic, then even 180ppm of the LGM provided 86% of the today’s total value. And the “preindustrial” level gives us 95%. Anyway, if the ECS is 3 Kelvin, then the total greenhouse effect of CO2 should be 30K. Which is more then the total effect of all gases.
ECS is more like 1.2 K… And it’s probably the total greenhouse effect.
So, you are saying water vapour isn’t a GHG? Anyway, I don’t care about separation of “feedbacks” and the “original” effect. Threnberth and Kiehl give CO2 25% of the entire GH forcing, so why would you, a sceptic, give it 100%?
No. I’m saying that the 1.25 °C per doubling of CO2 includes all the feedback, including changes in water vapor.
Nice try, David, but we’ve already been told by this generation’s greatest theoretical physicist:
https://youtu.be/sYMFHON8LFw
You just made me expel perfectly good cheap red wine through my nostrils…😆
David Middleton:
You wrote “Maybe decades or even centuries in the cases of large impacts and flood basalts…But still transients”
You are speaking of individual eruptions, which I agree are transient. However, when there are multiple large eruptions over extended periods of time, they can easily cause Earth’s temperatures to descend into those of an Ice Age.
The ~600 year Little Ice Age, for example, was caused by a string of VEI5 and VEI6 eruptions, along with at least 95 VEI4 eruptions. Had the same pace of eruptions continued for a few hundred more years, we could easily have slipped into another Ice Age.
We are indeed fortunate that the extensive volcanism abated, allowing their SO2 aerosols to settle out and to usher in warmer times. Hopefully, this will not happen again.
There’s no evidence at all supporting long-term volcanic cooling or warming over the past 540 million years.
David Middleton
“There is no evidence at all supporting long-term volcanic cooling or warming over the last 540 million years”
Over a 540 million year period the lack of evidence is not surprising, having been obliterated by geologic processes. However, the Ice Ages are indicative of extensive volcanism.
But of what importance are the temperatures of the distant past? They have no bearing upon those of historical times.
The end of the Roman warming period was due to large volcanic eruptions, the Medieval Warming period was due to decreased volcanic activity, and the Little Ice Age was caused by a significant increase in volcanic activity, with respect to the Medieval Warming period.
Since about 1850, our temperatures have demonstrably been controlled by varying amounts of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere, of either volcanic origin, or from the burning of fossil fuels. There is no evidence that there has been any additional warming from “greenhouse” gasses.
The ice ages have nothing to do with volcanism. The Cenozoic ice age began when Antarctica drifted over the south polar region. It deepened when the Panama Seaway closed and Himalayan uplift accelerated. The recent Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles are caused by orbital mechanics (Milankovitch cycles).
Volcanic cooling episodes due to sulfate areosols are short-duration events.
Actually Antarctica has been close to the Pole for a very long time, and there has probably been icecaps inland almost continuously (except possibly during the very warmest intervals).
What happened in the late Eocene was the opening of a circum-Antarctic seaway that isolated the continent climatically, making the icecap continent-wide. However there were already tidewater glaciers both in the Weddell Sea and Wilkes land sectors of East Antarctica in the Eocene:
https://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/swarny/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2018/02/Gulick-et-al.-2017-Nature.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16306100
Antarctica was already over the South Pole in the Cretaceous and close to or over it throughout the Mesozoic.
So, yes, it was the opening of deep oceanic channels between Antarctica and South America and Oz which led to ice sheets on the continent at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.
And, as you say, even in the later Eocene ice caps and glaciers grew on Antarctica, as the separating continents and forming Southern Ocean cooled the climate.
David Middleton:
Yes, volcanic cooling due to sulfate aerosols can be a short-term event. But when multiple volcanic episodes are strung together, their cooling can last for centuries, especially if the eruptions include contiguous VEI5-7 events, which can lead to changes in Earth’s albedo.
Here are comparisons of the reported volcanic eruptions during the Medieval warming period and the Little Ice Age:
For the MWP (c. 950-1250) there were 30 VEI4 or larger eruptions (avg. 10 per century). Of these there 9 VEI5 or larger (3 per century). All but 9 were isolated events, separated by 4 years, or more.
For the LIA (c. 1250-1850), there were 142 eruptions (avg. 24 per century. Of these, there were 47 VEI5, or larger (avg. 8 per century). 66/142 eruptions were separated by 2 years or less, with the next eruption occurring before complete recovery from the previous eruption, thus extending the period with dimming SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
Volcanism during the LIA clearly surpassed that of the MWP, and is reflected in their differing temperatures..
It may have played a role, but the LIA is simply a trough in the well-established Holocene millennial climate cycle.
Like Toba, which occurred during a glacial stadial, the LIA eruptions occurred during the interglacial equivalent of a stadial.
Late Pleistocene glacial stadials had a periodicity of about 1,500 yrs.
While volcanoes can have significant short-term effects on temperature, there’s no evidence of long-term effects. The LIA is a short-term event.
This post is about climate change on geologic time scales (100’s of thousands to millions of yrs).
David Middleton:
“This post is is about climate change on geologic time scales (100’s of thousands to millions of yrs).”
Yes. I was trying to point out that any attempt to discuss climate change during those earlier times needed to consider the ciimatic effects of volcanic eruptions.
The end of the RWP, the MWP, and the LIA were all due to changing levels of volcanic eruptions, with no effect from CO2, and there is no reason to expect that earlier ages behaved any differently. CO2 had no effect during those historical times, and it is unlikely that it magically had a climatic effect at any time in the distant past.
However, random volcanic eruptions have occurred for millions of years, and the alleged climate cycles undoubtedly simply reflect changing levels of volcanism.
There are no climatic effects of volcanoes over geologic time scales. Volcanic effects are short-term.
Over the past 65 million years, the three most significant sulfate aerosol events were 1) the Chicxulub impact (65 Ma), 2) North Atlantic rifting (57-52 Ma) and Columbia River Basalt Group (17-15 Ma). All of these are associated with warm climate anomalies.
While there is evidence for a brief “volcanic winter” after the Chicxulub impact, it was of too short a duration to be resolved in oxygen isotope reconstructions.
The major cooling episodes of the past 65illion years are generally associated with rearrangements of oceanic circulation patterns, driven by plate tectonics.
On the subject of geologists finding climate hidden in rocks, just finished a recent (pub 2012) audiobook, The Goldilocks Planet: The 4 billion year story of Earth’s Climate by Zalasiewicz/Williams … and I must say following WUWT may have affected my brain over time, for at times I found myself talking back to it. It seemed that a manuscript was presented to someone and CO2 alarmism was sprinkled in and certain items seemed fast-forward of topic and some missing.
For example, I was hoping for a good explanation of the issues with reading synchronous temperature and CO2 from Vostok cores. Breezed past it, failing to mention the follows-temperature-in-places thing. At several places I swear I could feel a CO2 reference coming on a few sentences ahead (you can hear the set-up), which is especially noticeable in places where a CO2 explanation for a phenomenon was available even if it didn’t make strict sense. Absent was any real discussion of any large scale volcanism or catastrophism which I really missed for talk of the Traps and its signals, and in places CO2 is posed as a cause for things without a clear event behind it, it just seemed like they had to mention it! Ever present is the CO2-is-the-master-control-knob mantra, and their awe of computer models is untainted by any doubt. They do cover Milankovitch cycle signals and touch on solar radiance. At one point they fall off the academic horse to dis certain persons who are ‘deniers’, but it could be the result of a single disagreeable meal.
The last chapter (aptly titled ’10. The Anthropocene Begins’) they go off the rails a bit. When they were presenting paleo/Clovis humans hunting mammals and rice cultivation in the East and tying these to climate via methane I am asking my mp3 player, “Hold on, how much paleo human population and acres of rice are we talking about here?”
I was aware of these things because I’m hypersensitive but in whole it is a great lay treatment of the topic in understandable language. I do recommend!
Zalasiewicz is a very enthusiastic supporter of the Anthropocene fiction… I don’t know him; but know someone who does, and he can’t understand why Zalasiewicz thinks the Anthropocene deserves to be an epoch.
Not even close, not even a flesh wound.
C02 is a GHG
GHGs, like H20 and C02, make the planet warmer than it would be otherwise.
Nothing will change basic radiative physics.
sorry, read the actual paper
+10
If this is directed at anything I’ve posted, it’s a red herring fallacy.
So radiative modelling is enough, and the palaeo record can be ignored entirely?
Take away the atmosphere or even just the GHGs and the 0.3 albedo would decrease. No ice, no snow, no clouds, no oceans, no vegetation, perhaps a lunarific 0.1.
The net kJ/h entering the terrestrial system would increase with only one result – the earth gets warmer not colder.
The atmosphere/albedo are like the reflective panel placed behind a car windshield.
There is no greenhouse effect (or spoon).
The CO2 warming hypothesis requires amplification by CO2 driving increase in atmospheric water vapour.
Unfortunately water vapour is doing the precise opposite – it’s steadily decreasing:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128045886000094
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/08/20/declining-relative-humidity-is-defying-global-warming-models/amp/
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/GlobalRelativeHumidity300_700mb.jpg
Phil Salmon
Ferenc Miskolczi has an explanation for this. The optical thickness of the atmosphere is a constant. As one greenhouse gas (CO2) increases, the main condensing greenhouse gas (H2O) decreases.
Ferenc M. Miskolczi (2010) The Stable Stationary Value of The Earth’s Global Average Atmospheric Planck-Weighted Greenhouse-Gas Optical Thickness
Philip
I believe Miskolczi was right.
His is the only atmospheric modelling of radiation fluxes that
(a) was enmeshed in real world data from radiosondes, not pure theory
(b) engaged with chaotic-nonlinear emergent dynamics in a way that indicates that his work connects with real world complexity. GCM models by contrast exist in La La Linear Land and have no relevance to the real world whatsoever. Pat Frank has just shown that despite – or maybe because of – their beguiling complexity, all the GCM’s do is make a linear projection forward of the CO2 back radiation built into them – they are vacuous self-fulfilling computer prophecies.
(c) correctly predict water vapour decrease in the atmosphere. AGW on the other hand incorrectly predict water vapour increase.
You’ll notice that no warmist criticism of Miskolczi ever quotes a single word that he said. This rebuttal narrative goes something like:
“M completely misunderstands such and such a law…
Beavis and Butthead giggle …
M wrongly applies such and such an equation …
Beavis and Butthead giggle …”
The only refutation of Miskolczi that actually has the honesty and decency to quote his specific arguments, is as one might expect, from Roy Spencer. He disagrees with Miskolczi but in stark contrast to the warmist mob he is a decent and principled person.
However one of Roy’s arguments makes me laugh. He mentions the fact that radiosonde measurements have confirmed Miskolczi’s prediction of falling atmospheric water vapour in adaptive response to rising CO2 (thus keeping the atmosphere’s optical depth constant). But then Roy says (something like) “but water vapour would not be falling if it weren’t for the high levels of the 50’s and 60’s.”
No Roy. It’s called data.
Phil,
What I really like about Miskolczi’s work is his inspired use of the viral theorem, which brings gravity into the mix of atmospheric physics and therefore provides a link to the Ideal Gas equations and the motion of air molecules in a gravity field.
In an honest world he should have won a Nobel prize for this superb insight.
I think you mean the Virial Theorem.
This description in wiki:
The significance of the virial theorem is that it allows the average total kinetic energy to be calculated even for very complicated systems that defy an exact solution, such as those considered in statistical mechanics; this average total kinetic energy is related to the temperature of the system by the equipartition theorem. However, the virial theorem does not depend on the notion of temperature and holds even for systems that are not in thermal equilibrium.
suggests that Miskolczi’s use of it in atmospheric modelling is indeed inspired.
It addresses two problems of climate analysis,
(a) that the notion of an average temperature in the atmosphere is problematic.
Average total kinetic energy might be a superior metric to employ.
(b) that the climate is a far-from-equilibrium system, never even close to equilibrium.
The concept of “equilibrium sensitivity” is a nonsense. His approach is much better.
No wonder the high priests put their hands to their ears and shouted “away with him!”
Yes, that one. 🙂
David, it occurred to me back when you were, er, younger, then continental drift might not have been part of your geology course… it only really became established in the later 1970s…
Given that that is now obviously accepted as part of the fundamental geologic process, might not CO2 driven climate change not also be a fundamental force? Science does move on, the evidence comes in and confirms the theory…
Plate tectonics had recently come into wide acceptance when I was in college. The “funny” thing is that the geological principle of Uniformitarianism is often cited as the reason it took so long for plate tectonics to be accepted; which is simply wrong. However, Uniformitarianism is probably why the CO2-driven climate change paradigm was so quickly and uncritically accepted.
You’re right Griff. It is tectonic continental movement and rearrangement of ocean circulation, not CO2, that drive climate change over deep time. Weimin and Rosenthal have resoundingly falsified the paradigm of interpreting deep time climate changes as driven by silicate weathering of CO2. The coccolithophore record unambiguously refutes it.
Weimin is his given name. His family name is Si. In the US, he goes by Weimin Si, following our given/surname order, but in China, where your family name comes first, he’s Si Weimin.
Griff, you might also reflect on the fact that the reason it took so long for continental drift to be accepted despite strong evidence was the absence of a plausible mechanism for moving entire continents.
There is always considerable resistance to the idea that there are things and forces that science does not know or understand. It is much easier to embrace a faulty and inherently implausible but simple theory that “explains everything”, like the geosynclinal theory or CO2 as the climate control knob.
The geosynclinal theory actually sort of works… in salt basins. Salt tectonics are largely driven by sediment loading.
Which means that Mount Sedom in the Dead Sea depression is probably the only genuinely geosynclinal mountain in the World (the climate is so dry that the salt dome actually forms a mountain, though there is enough rain that the salt is heavily karstified, “halokarst”). Very strange place.
https://nocamels.com/2019/03/israel-worlds-longest-salt-cave-mount-sedom-dead-sea/
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the geoscientific community accepted the hypothesis of continental drift after the observation of seafloor spreading provided a process for moving tectonic plates around.
Tectonic theory was already considered valid when I started college in 1969.
The hypothesis of dangerous man-made global warming OTOH was born already falsified. The original proponents of AGW considered it beneficial, as of course is more plant food in the air.
Some facts:
Caltech nailed it:
Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas.
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~xun/course/GEOL1350/Lecture6.pdf
288 K (assumed average) – 255 K (assumes 0.3 albedo) = delta 33 C warmer (complete garbage)
Refer to the Dutton/Brune Penn State METEO 300 chapter 7.2: These two professors quite clearly assume/state that the earth’s current 0.3 albedo would remain even if the atmosphere were gone or if the atmosphere were 100 % nitrogen, i.e. at an equilibrium average 240 W/m^2 OLR and an average S-B temperature of 255 K.
That is just flat ridiculous.
NOAA says that without an atmosphere the earth would be a -430 F frozen ice-covered ball.
That is just flat ridiculous^2.
Without the atmosphere or with 100% nitrogen there would be no liquid water or water vapor, no vegetation, no clouds, no snow, no ice, no oceans and no longer a 0.3 albedo. The earth would get blasted by the full 394 K, 121 C, 250 F solar wind.
The sans atmosphere albedo might be similar to the moon’s as listed in NASA’s planetary data lists, a lunarific 0.11, 390 K on the lit side, 100 K on the dark.
And the naked, barren, zero water w/o atmosphere earth would receive 27% to 43% more kJ/h of solar energy and as a result would be 19 to 33 C hotter not 33 C colder, a direct refutation of the greenhouse effect theory and most certainly NOT a near absolute zero frozen ball of ice.
https://sos.noaa.gov/Education/script_docs/SCRIPTWhat-makes-Earth-habitable.pdf
(slide 14)
ASR with 30 % albedo: 957.6 W/m^2, 360.5 K, 87.5 C, 189.5 F
ASR with 11% albedo: 1,217.5 W/m^2 (27.1%), 383.2 K, 109.8 C (22.3), 223.8 F
ASR with 0% albedo: 1,367.5 W/m^2 (42.8%), 394.0 K, 121.0 C (33.5), 250.0 F
Here we examine mass accumulation rates of the main marine calcifying groups and show that global accumulation of pelagic carbonates has decreased from the late Miocene epoch to the late Pleistocene epoch even though CaCO3 preservation has improved, suggesting a decrease in weathering alkalinity input to the ocean, thus opposing expectations from the Himalayan uplift hypothesis. Instead, changes in relative contributions of coccoliths and planktonic foraminifera to the pelagic carbonates in relative shallow sites, where dissolution has not taken its toll, suggest that coccolith production in the euphotic zone decreased concomitantly with the reduction in weathering alkalinity inputs as registered by the decline in pelagic carbonate accumulation.
It is well established that coccolithophores enjoyed peak size, diversity and abundance in earlier warm periods such as Cretaceous and early Tertiary. They have declined in all three since then due to cooling and (consequent) CO2 decrease:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/7/e1501822
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10284
Current climate is sub-optimally cold for plankton such as coccolithophores.
Trouble is most “climate skeptics” have already ceded the language to the “Climate Chaoticists.” Every time we acknowledge a any variation of “carbon footprint” we are granting legitimacy that is undeserved.
David Middleton.
You correctly insist that volcanic events are short term, but cannot seem to grasp the fact that closely spaced multiple eruptions can effectively cool the planet down.
This occurred during the Little Ice Age, during which time many of the glaciers that are now melting away actually formed, although there were probably some remnants of those formed after the RWP that did not fully melt away during the MWP and enlarged during the LIA.
Volcanic eruptions were probably much more extensive during the distant past because of on-going tectonic events , but only the very largest would have left traces of their presence. Their effectsdo need to be recognized.
The Little Ice Age is not geologic time. This post is about climate change over geologic time.
The Cretaceous Period was one of the most volcanicly active periods of the past 200 million years. It was also one of the warmest periods of the past 200 million years.
The climatic effects of sulfate aerosols are measured in months to years and in rare cases decades to centuries.
The climatic effects of continental and oceanic rearrangements are measured over hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of years.
David Middleton.
You are correct–the LIA would be only a blip up over a geologic time period.
But the temperature swings of the end of the RWP, MWP, and the LIA all occurred without any CO2 involvement, and it is ridiculous to ascribe any CO2 involvement in the temperature swings over
geologic times.
There’s no doubt that the millennial scale climate swings of the Holocene are totally unrelated to CO2. The point of this post is that there is no evidence that a drawdown of CO2 caused the cooling of the past 15 Myr.
Over geologic time, the connection between temperature and CO2 is between tenuous and non-existent.
David:
Thanks for the clarifications.!
🍻
can you explain why the glaciers of the last glaciation melted?
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm