What if there is no Catastrophic Risk from Man-made Global Warming ?
What if Man-made Climate Change really is a non-problem ?
But what if there is a Global Cooling Catastrophe in the offing ?
It is the propaganda of Catastrophic Global Warming / Climate Change alarmists that has illogically conflated Carbon Dioxide, the beneficial trace gas that sustains all life on earth and which can cause some minor warming, with real and dangerous pollutants to create the “Great Global Warming Scare / Climate Change Scare / Climate Emergency / etcetera”.
The role of Atmospheric CO2
To establish realistic policy the following points about man-made CO2 emissions need to be recognised:
- The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.
- Most of the greenhouse effect, (more than ~90% – 95%) arises from water as vapour and clouds in the atmosphere.
https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
- The role of water as vapour or clouds is fully acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, even though they concentrate their alarmist views on Man-made CO2 emissions. The role of Man-made emissions and climate impact is their mandate after all.
(page 666 of the IPCC assessment.)
- Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide CO2 is not pollutant.
- The world needs its atmospheric CO2 for the survival and fertilisation of plant life.
- Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is the very stuff of life.
- Atmospheric CO2 is essential for PHOTOSYNTHESIS, it supports all life on earth.
At about half the current atmospheric concentration of CO2, plant Photosynthesis falters and the world soon dies. In comparison with the Geological past the World is now in a period of CO2 starvation, because most of the CO2, once at least 10 times more abundant in the atmosphere at the time when plants evolved, has since been sequestered in the oceans as limestone.
CO2 concentration came close to that fatally low level, (~150 ppmv), during the last ice age, 110,000BC – 10,000BC. The dangerously low level of atmospheric CO2 could well be exceeded in any coming Ice Age.
Colder oceans absorb more CO2 and ocean life sequesters it as limestone. This is the way our world will eventually die of atmospheric CO2 starvation in a future glacial period.
Increased CO2 concentration promotes plant growth throughout the planet and reduces the water needs of plants. According to NASA, ~15% extra green growth across the planet is already attributed to the relatively recent increase in CO2 concentration.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Man-kind as a whole contributes only a small amount of the CO2 in the Carbon cycle, (~3% per annum), and any extra atmospheric CO2 is rapidly absorbed by the oceans and the biosphere, (with a half-life of ~5 years).
If any extra CO2 were to have some minor warming effect, it would be all to the good. Atmospheric CO2, whether Man-made or mostly naturally occurring, cannot therefore be considered as a pollutant.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf
The diminishing warming effectiveness of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
There is no direct straight-line relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature.
The effectiveness of CO2 as a warming Greenhouse gas rapidly diminishes logarithmically as concentration increases.
A concentration of atmospheric CO2 greater than 200 ppmv equivalent to ~77% of CO2’s Greenhouse effectiveness is absolutely essential to maintain all plant life and thus all life on earth. Plant life will be extinguished at ~150ppmv.
CO2 is not causing global warming
At the current level of ~400 ppmv, ~87% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas is exhausted.
At only 13% of CO2 effectiveness remaining, so little of its power as a greenhouse gas now remains that there is no possibility of ever reaching the “much feared” +2°C temperature rise or more predicted by alarmists, that they think will be caused by future Man-made CO2 emissions.
Alarmists consider that level of +2°C to be catastrophic and sadly they have convinced many of the Western world’s politicians. Economically this is not so, and any increase up-to +2°C would be beneficial. Global temperature would then approach the very abundant period of the previous Eemian interglacial epoch 110,000 years ago.
https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/12/1/4/4804315
But now increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can only lead to very limited further warming and certainly not to any catastrophic and any dangerous temperature increase. The assumptions are set out below.
Logarithmic diminution operates as follows:
- 77% of the CO2 greenhouse effect of CO2, 0 – 200 ppmv, is essential to maintain and fertilise plant life and thus all life on earth.
- If it is assumed that all the increase from 300ppmv – 400ppmv is Man-made it would give 4.2% of the Greenhouse effect and a temperature rise of between 0.14°C – 0.07°C
- A possible immediate future rise from 400ppmv – 500ppmv could only give a rise of between 0.11°C – 0.05°C
- A later rise of CO2 from 500ppmv – 1000ppmv, were it to occur, can only give a further rise of between 0.33°C – 0.17°C
- This ignores the statement by the IPCC that only 50% of CO2 increase is Man-made, which would reduce these increased temperature values by half.
- This also ignores the assumption made in Climate models that there is massive positive and escalating feedback from further increasing CO2 emissions: even if such feedback was proven, any continuing warming from CO2 emissions would still remain marginal as a result of the logarithmic diminution effect.
So, it is now likely that the impact of rising CO2 concentrations on global temperature, even at its greatest assessed effectiveness, is not only marginally insignificant for temperature rise but is also in fact beneficial.
To bring the Developing world up to the level of development of China, as indicated by CO2 emissions/head, over the coming decades their CO2 emissions are bound to escalate by at least a further 20 billion tonnes per annum, (+~60%). So all the attempts by Western Nations to control global temperature by the limitation of their own CO2 emissions from combustion of fossil fuels can now only ever have marginal or immeasurable further effect.
https://www.lomborg.com/press-release-research-reveals-negligible-impact-of-paris-climate-promises
Therefore, all de-carbonisation efforts by Western Nations are misguided and irrelevant.
Fossil fuels are a gift of nature. They are like a battery of energy created by sunlight several million years ago. They have enabled all the civilised development in the West and will continue to support the growth in prosperity of the developing world. Fossil fuels are not running out. Fracking developments can occur almost anywhere worldwide. For example there are 300 years’ worth of Coal in the UK alone.
Nonetheless there is a coming Climate catastrophe
That catastrophe is the exact opposite of the “we are all going to fry narrative” of the Climate alarmists. It presages a very scary future for Man-kind and the biosphere in the comparatively near-term:
- According to reliable Ice Core records the last millennium 1000 – 2000 AD was the coldest of our current Holocene interglacial.
- The world has already been cooling at ~0.14°C / millennium, ~20 times the earlier rate since before Roman times, in fact since ~1000 BC.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/holocene-context-for-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming/
- But as can be seen in the rapid Recovery from the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, when temperature increased at a rate of ~+2.5°C / millennium, the world’s Climate can change radically and suddenly.
- There is every reason to suspect that the World could meet a similar falling temperature cliff at the coming end of our present Holocene epoch, this century, next century or this millennium, similar to the end of the previous Eemian interglacial.
- The modern short pulse of beneficial Global warming stopped some 20 years ago and recent global temperatures are now stable or declining.
- At 11,000 years old, our congenial, warm Holocene interglacial is coming towards its end. The Holocene has been responsible for all man-kind’s advances, from living in caves to microprocessors.
- The world will very soon, (in geological time), revert to another period of true glaciation, again resulting in mile high ice sheets over New York. With much lower sea levels this was state of Western Europe only 16,000 years ago and gives an idea of what the new Ice Age look like in due course.
- The prospect of even moving in a cooling direction is something to be truly scared about, both for the biosphere and for man-kind.
- Some immediate cooling now seems likely in the near term, (this century), as a result of the state of the current Solar cycle.
- The weather gets worse in colder times.
- Cold fatally reduces agricultural productivity.
- Cooling is already be becoming evident.
And trying to control Man-made CO2 emissions in the Western world will do nothing to ameliorate the coming Cold Climate Catastrophe.
Conclusion
Spending any effort, for solely emotional and childish reasons, without true cost benefit analysis and without full engineering due diligence, let alone at GDP scale costs, trying to stop the UK’s 1% or the EU’s 10% of something that has not been happening for 3 millennia has to be monumentally ill-advised.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/global-man-made-co2-emissions-1965-2018-bp-data/
It should be understood that the real reason for Green thinking is to bring Energy and Economic catastrophe to the capitalistic Western world.
Green thinking should be regarded as a continuation of the “Cold War”.
Russia, China and India are mocking the way Western governments have been induced by “Green” thinking to promote their policies of abject self-harm at great national cost and to no perceptible benefit. This is supported by Western “useful idiots” (Lenin’s term). Lenin held them in utter contempt.
The developing and Eastern worlds are certainly not going to be meekly following the deranged example of the “virtue signalling” West.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05062019-china-and-india-will-watch-the-west-destroy-itself-oped/
“(page 666 of the IPCC assessment.)” ?
How appropriate…lol
I had the same reaction!
“The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.”
Pure pseudoscience.
Robert Turner: This is mostly correct, well the 90%-95% might need to be changed to >80%, but he is in the ballpark and no one knows the exact number. Also, I think he left out the important influence of the oceans in maintaining a stable temperature on the surface. They cover 70% of the surface. As incoming radiation increases the rate of evaporation increases to match and if things get too hot, wind, clouds and thunderstorms form to shield the surface and carry excess thermal energy off to higher latitudes. With these processes working it is hard for increased CO2 to have much influence, which is why we can’t detect the impact of CO2 and have to rely on models.
The Ocean’s and by extension Henry’s Law seem to be a big part of his hypothesis.
“The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.”
Around +33 C is around +91.4 F; that doesn’t sound very “cold and inhospitable” to me. 33 F, otoh, would sound cold to me.
James, I think he is referring to the difference in temperature between what it would be without CO2 (minus 15 Celsius) and what it is with CO2 (plus 15 Celsius). All figures ballpark.
Not at all, Earth’s effective temperature is minus 21 C – this should be a frozen planet, like Hoth from Star Wars. It’s the greenhouse effect mainly from water vapor that allows a thick biosphere here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_temperature#Earth_Effective_Temperature
Why are you using Wikipedia?
This is simply not true. Wikipedia is wrong. If there were no GHG’s there would still be heating of the air by contact with the hot ground in the daytime.
The article says there is 33 C of GHG warming. No. There is 33 C of total warming, being the combination of heating by the surface and heating by GHG’s. How much is there of each? No one is even admitting the surface gets hot, let alone working out the equilibrium temperature with and without GHG’s.
Try walking on a hot tar road in bare feet and then say there is no warming o f the air by the surface. Ever heard of a mirage? Or visual distortion of a distant tree on a hot day? Convective heat transfer in the flesh.
Just because the IPCC forgot the ground warms in the sun doesn’t mean everyone else must. The error is one of the two fundamental lies at the heart of the AGW scandal. The other is the impossible feedback multiplier which Monckton has covered well.
The article says there is 33 C of GHG warming.
No. The article says that without the greenhouse effect, the planet would be AT ~+33 C. I’ve previously said that since 33 C is pretty warm (91.4), then he must have meant 33 F:
“The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.”
Try this: replace “it” with what “it” refers to. Then it reads, “Without [the warming Greenhouse effect] at [read of] ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.” So now you take the average temperature of the Earth and subtract… see where this is going now?
Well, yeah; if one changes what he wrote, that’s the way it reads.
Water vapour is the most prevelant GHG, and one would expect that we can easily test the effect of this by looking at the dry adiabatic lapse rate. In approximate terms this is some 9.8degC per kilometer of height.
Thus one should be able to detect the effect of water vapour, as a ghg, simply by comparing the dry adiabatic lapse rate when prevailing humidity is say 15%, and when it is say 50%. Thus for example, what is the difference in temperature profile of a column of air over a desert, and a column of air over a warm sea?
Interestingly, the accepted formula for calculating the dry adiabatic lapse rate does not even contain a component for humidity. Why is that, if water vapour is an important ghg?
Of course not, see the word, “…dry…”? But just the lapse rate is pointless, that formula assumes a static column. No such thing exists in our atmosphere, we have a dynamic atmosphere. Add to that, the latent heat of the phase changes of water, and we have a dynamic heat transporter.
The theory of global warming by CO₂ increase may be correct, but it is completely overwhelmed by solar changes, latent heat (the warmer the surface of the ocean gets, the more evaporation and thus more thunderstorms) and convection. End game.
The lapse rate is caused by gravity acting on mass.
The composition of the gas is not relevant.
Robert Turner, just a question: have you EVER had to live through a blizzard that shut off all your electricity for a week and left you with NO means of keeping warm or cooking?
If you have, please say so and enlighten us AS TO how you managed to survive it. How did you cook? How did you keep yourself warm?
Your attitude is that such things don’t happen, which is pure ignorance on your part. It would take nothing more than a bad weather shut down of food transportation systems, power outages and frozen water mains – ALL of which are possible — to shut down everything you take for granted, Big Guy.
So please enlighten us all as to when you were hit by such a disaster and how you managed to survive it intact. Thanks.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It appears to me that Mr Turner is making a valid point, in that he is questioning whether GHGs are responsible for the current temperature of this planet, or whether it is the fact that the planet has an atmosphere of 1 bar pressure, and/or that it is a water world that spins on its axis once every 24 hours with oceans that have an immense heat capacity, vastly greater than that of the atmosphere, and they (the oceans) regulate the warmth of the planet.
Given that there appears no significant correlation between CO2 driving temperatures, on any timesclae, and much paleo evidence of anti correlation, eg, the planet cools as CO2 risies, the planet warms as CO2 falls, that the planet enters ice ages when CO2 is high, and exits ice ages when CO2 is low, there is reason to doubt that we sufficiently understand how climate works, and what controls and drives the climate and changes thereto.
The so called GHE is caused by gravity acting on mass and causing pressure.pressure
I did four days of sub-zero camping with a patrol of Boy Scouts one winter. Wood and charcoal are your friends. Food we brought with us (lots of freeze-dried stuff lol!). Lots of water all around. And snow is a good insulator if you can build a psuedo-igloo with it, e.g. lots of snow on top of a tarp supported by bent branches.
Lot’s of people do it in the Alaskan bush, not everyone goes south for the winter.
But this isn’t the real question. The real question is whether or not such an environment will come to pass. Our glacial periods say it’s a certainty, what is uncertain is when it will happen.
I am trying to understand the role of the two bars at each concentration range in the “Percentage Effectiveness of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas…” Chart. Also not clear the interpretation of the Current…” and Future…” sections of the bar graph, and the corresponding radical departure in behavior.
This link makes it more clear: https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/the-diminishing-effect-of-increasing-concentrations-of-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/
A simple, everyday-way of understanding it would be: think of adding layers of clothing on a cold day. Let each layer of clothing represent 100 ppm of carbon dioxide at msl. After four or five layers of clothing, even on the coldest days, each additional layer of clothing added will do essentially nothing. The more CO2, the less effect anymore has…
CTM
“With much lower sea levels this was THE state of Western Europe only 16,000 years ago and gives an idea of what the new Ice Age look like in due course.”
Excellent, we need to feed 10B people in the coming decades and are going to need CO2 help and the only climate crisis coming is the end of this interglacial. This interglacial has been the cradle of the human race, predicting and managing to prosper through its inevitable end is the next great challenge for us. Our task at hand is drill some honesty and rigor into climatology before it becomes too late to plan for the test of next Ice Age.
A good article and well said Jean.
We will know soon, but a new Little Ice Age may already be upon us. We’re watching crop yields this year from the Great Plains area of North America.
well unless theyve got them in already the next few days huge frost events will wipe em out from a report Ive dropped into tips n notes yesterday
meanwhile in Aus we have fires and 40c up nth and snow on the Vic alps and cold n rain lower down
seedlings again this yr are having a hard time even sprouting lt alone growing enough to plant out
Around here in KS it looks like a bumper crop of corn and soybeans, at least for those that got their crops planted. The big hit in total harvest will be the acres that were never planted because of the early spring rain.
In KS, at least, the corn and soybeans will be a bumper crop. At least for those that got their crops planted in between the early spring rains. The corn harvest has already started and the soybeans look like most of them are already made with their leaves starting to turn yellow. The big hit to the total harvest will be the acres that never got planted.
Alarmist Logic: burning fossil fuels creates CO2 which is a greenhouse gas that makes the planet hotter so we must stop burning fossil fuels or we’ll all die. But if the planet becomes cooler, it must be because there isn’t enough CO2, so we should be able to warm the planet by burning more fossil fuels.
I’m certain our brilliant alarmist friends will come to this conclusion soon.
Imagine no “climate emergency”
It’s easy if you try
No more Greta Thunberg
No more “we’re all gonna die”
Ha!
Mr. Cobb
Your comment was brilliant.
But there’s no need to “imagine no climate emergency” !
Because there is no climate emergency now, and no one living on this planet has the ability to predict one in the future.
And, in spite of 50+ years of predictions of a coming climate emergency,
especially in the past 30 years, the coming climate crisis never shows up.
The planet is probably +2 degrees C. warmer than in the late 1600s, but that’s good news, because the Little Ice Age had too many cold periods.
The planet is greening.
That’s good news too.
The northern half of the Northern Hemisphere is warmer, especially in the coldest six months of the year, and especially at night.
That’s good news too.
The only bad news from climate change in the past 300 years is:
(1) The money wasted “fighting” CO2 emissions,
(2) The money NOT spent fighting real pollution — very visible in the air of Chinese and Indian cities, and the worst news, by far:
(3) Listening to hysterical leftists bellowing about a coming climate crisis
for the past three decades, with their scary campfire stories, and always wrong computer game climate predictions.
And they always imagine future global warming will be 100% bad news, completely different than past global warming, which was 100% good news.
We’ve been adding CO2 to the air for over 100 years, and nothing bad has happened from the extra CO2 — but reality is not good enough for the leftists — they are always miserable, so they “see” a miserable climate in the future.
Leftists love to have a “cause” — climate change is the religion for leftists who reject conventional religions.
Their brilliant climate “perfessers” include Al “The Climate Blimp” Gore, Alexandria Occasionally Coherent, and Greta Thunderberg — who I see as the three stooges of climate science!
My climate science blog,
with over 44,000 page views:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
You may say I’m a denier,
Bu I’m not the only one.
I Hope someday she will join us
And discover life is fun!
Nice! I see a theme developing. Keep up the good work.
We can defund this ridiculous pack of raving grifters and order them to find honest work, and continue to bring the entire human species up to the middle-class level and above whereupon every country will have the resources to properly and successfully protect the actual environment.
And we all live happily ever after . . . with our steaks, bacon, pets, pickups, and planes intact. 🙂
Your post makes me wish WUWT had a like button!
Amen!
“Imagine no “climate emergency””
No need to get them to imagine it. All we need to do is to get them to open their eyes.
If there is no climate emergency than one will be perceived by some as their climate mantra required. Excellent summary thanks.
Try telling ER this, as they are doing stupidness in london, making people miss work and wasting police officers time, i truly do not understand How they get the money to sit around all day long? With rent over £1200 per month plus bills, how do these ER people live?
Benefits paid out of our taxes.
Simple they are bankrolled by various Soros backed and other globalist organisations.
Google them and you will soon see for yourself.
A C Osborn
They stated that they will protest for two weeks, nobody who lives in england can afford to to nothing for two weels, unless they are funded by the very people you mentioned. Two ER people sat in the middle of a busy central london road and started doing yoga 😐
Walking a Pet Skunk in their proximity might cure their inability to relocate
XR death cult performance art
https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1180882601621573632
Typically, the ER people are being paid to protest.
About $600 million was spent just to subsidize the anti-pipeline fraudsters in Canada.
And these same people will then turn around and declare that anyone who disagrees with them is in the pay of big oil.
Indeed … I was reading this thread, and the very last comment was …
https://patricktbrown.org/2017/01/25/do-propagation-of-error-calculations-invalidate-climate-model-projections-of-global-warming/
“How much does Patrick Frank trouser from Koch Industries? Just asking.” – Harry
Thank you for subscribing for selecting to receive updates about Over a Barrel, our short documentary about the funding behind activism against the Canadian oil and gas industry.
After sold out screenings in both Calgary and Edmonton, it is with great pleasure that I’d like to announce the film is now available at vimeo.com/ondemand/overabarrel.
They’re a bunch of upper-middle-class wankers –
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/07/the-madness-of-extinction-rebellion/ – who after protesting meat consumption by everyone elde head to McDs.
“Spotted in Westminster: Extinction Rebellion protesters queuing for lunch at… McDonalds.”
https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1181204702782001154
They are creating panic. With a little luck, they may induce some teenage suicides, or several Gretas.
Regarding your question, maybe they have a rich sponsor. Mr. Soros is known for his generosity.
“There is no direct straight-line relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature.”
I disagree with the specific statement, but NOT the main point. Thanks to Henry’s Law, there IS a relationship between CO2 and temperature, but temperature is the leading indicator, CO2 is the lagging indicator.
Since the effect of CO2 on wattage is logarithmic, and temperature is proportional to wattage to the 1/4 power, any actual CO2 effect on temperature would be proportional to
[ Old wattage + (5.35*natural log(CO2 new/CO2 old))]^0.25
Needless to say, the supposed relationship is minor, lost in the myriad of more significant climate drivers.
Without water vapor there IS NO RELATION between CO2 and temperature AT ALL. CO2 cannot warm itself, the moment it emits energy it would immediately be out of the loop.
Prjindigo October 7, 2019 at 12:17 pm
Without water vapor there IS NO RELATION between CO2 and temperature AT ALL. CO2 cannot warm itself, the moment it emits energy it would immediately be out of the loop
– is not the whole truth:
Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and other trace gases in Earth’s atmosphere absorb the longer wavelengths of outgoing infrared radiation from Earth’s surface.
These gases then emit the infrared radiation in all directions, both outward toward space and downward toward Earth.
_________________________________________________
That said:
From sun emitted photons, directed to Earth’s surface, are absorbed by trace gas molecules
– and remitted in whatever various directions.
So: the remitted photons mainly aren’t re-directed vertical down to Earth’s surface –
Most of the so-called “greenhouse gases” don’t warm Earth’s soil or Earth’s oceans but
50% incoming energy goes further down in the atmosphere and
50% incoming energy returns upwards.
https://www.google.com/search?q=CO2+absorbs+radiation+versus+CO2+emits+radiation&oq=CO2+absorbs+radiation+versus+CO2+emits+radiation+&aqs=chrome.
“What if there is no Climate Emergency?”
??? what do you mean ‘what if’ (?), there is NO Climate Emergency?
The climate is doing what the climate does, varying, and our impact is mostly through land use changes. The fact that our ‘climate science’ is so poor at discovering how and why our planet’s climate varies is due to the nonsense spouted about CO2!
To say CO2 changes the average global temperature is a nonsense! CO2 can no more change the global temperature than bad air or miasma cause malaria (see http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/miasmatheory). Any effects form the NATURAL changes to atmospheric CO2 levels that are happening, cause such small temperatures changes that it is lost in the thermal noise of all the other temperature variations that are happening. The sun easily has a greater effect.
And average global temperature is not a good proxy or determinant for climate change, medium and long term variations in temperature differences across regions is a better proxy for assessing climate variability.
Two errors right off the bat. Why can’t we get this presented properly. Are there no mechanical engineers in the house?
>The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.
No! The radiative contribution would be reduced to zero and the convective heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere would be all that remains, at least doubling from its present value due to the current level of GHG’s absorbing incoming energy. Absent that, the surface would heat far more than at present. Heating of the atmosphere is by radiation and contact with the hot ground.
The air temperature would be above zero C and there would be a breathable atmosphere – just no plants.
>Most of the greenhouse effect, (more than ~90% – 95%) arises from water as vapour and clouds in the atmosphere.
Misleading! Yes the greenhouse heating effect would reduce to zero, but the convective heat transfer to the atmosphere has been omitted from your explanation. It is correct that of the radiative heating, 90-95% is caused by those elements. But there are two contributions.
But, for heaven’s sake, the ground is heated by the sun. The ground heats the atmosphere. That has nothing to do with GHG’s, which add to the effect.
This is not complicated. Only part of atmospheric heating is caused by GHG’s. Stop parroting the IPCC’s incompetent texts and read some thermal engineering basics. If you take out the water, clouds and GHG’s the air temperature would still be above zero. I think Roy Spencer calculated it would be about 150 F; please correct the number if it is mis-remembered or mis-attributed. I think it would be higher. Someone else claims it would be about 2 C. Whatever, it will not be -33 C. That is the average temperature of the moon which has no atmosphere to heat mass transfer.
Good points. Couple questions:
Would the atmosphere be breaathable in the absence of plants? Where would the oxygen come from? Would the atmosphere be just Nitrogen and trace gases?
What would be the difference in temperature between night and day?
“This is not complicated. Only part of atmospheric heating is caused by GHG’s. Stop parroting the IPCC’s incompetent texts and read some thermal engineering basics. If you take out the water, clouds and GHG’s the air temperature would still be above zero.”
If removed the ocean {and left the ocean basins}. And removed all greenhouse gas {except O3, which part of having a oxygen atmosphere]. The lower elevations of of ocean basins would warmer then the “vast mountains” region of the continents. But average global average temperature would probably be below 0 C. But you could have higher daytime air temperatures in ocean basins near the tropical zone {in 40%] of earth surface. But if had air temperature of 50 C, 4000 meter lower in ocean basins, the continental or Island peaks would 4 times 8 C = 32 C cooler. Or have cooler tropical land temperatures much cooler than they are currently- and this is during the day. Far cooler nights than today. So tropics in ocean basin the average temperature daily could about 20 C, but outside of tropics and average temperature, depending season could be quite cold. And not in basins outside of the tropics. day time temperature cool and night very cold, or average less than say -20 C. Ocean basin might average around 0 C and higher elevation about -30 C.
And would be that warm in basins because the colder higher elevation are heating the ocean basin, but land is also dumping a huge amount radiant energy to space.
So in our world, ocean warms land, and land cools {and can have highest daytime air temperature] and land doesn’t warm the ocean. And in world of no ocean, the basins are the warmest in terms of daytime high and night time temperature. And they don’t warm the continents, but continents are cool, and lose heat to ocean basins. Or roughly the reverse.
What would be the impact of lower (or empty) oceans on the atmospheric pressure profile? What we call pressure at ocean level now, what would it be with much lower ocean levels? You can imagine that lower ocean levels and higher ice levels will impact our comfortable pressure at most inhabited places of the present… but how?
“This animation simulates a drop in sea level that gradually reveals this detail. As the sea level drops, the continental shelves appear immediately. They are mostly visible by a depth of 140 meters, except for the Arctic and Antarctic regions, where the shelves are deeper. The mid-ocean ridges start to appear at a depth of 2000 to 3000 meters. By 6000 meters, most of the ocean is drained except for the deep ocean trenches, the deepest of which is the Marianas Trench at a depth of 10,911 meters.”
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3487
–What would be the impact of lower (or empty) oceans on the atmospheric pressure profile?–
If you 1500 meter below sea level you have 17.5 psi or 121 kPa or about 12 tons of atmosphere per each square meter.
Sea level being 10 tons per square meter, 14.7 psi or 101 kPa
As say above the deepest sort of large areas of ocean are about 6000 meter.
And would guess at 6000 meter one have 18 to 20 tons of air per square meter. Or less
than 2 atm. And at our sea level {6000 meters higher] probably more than 1/2 atmosphere. But colder most air is, the less atmosphere at our present sea level. Somewhere around 5 tons per square meter.
And the colder air increases pressure at bottom basin [or more air mass pools into the basins}.
So, as the atmosphere “slides” into the depth of the former oceans, the higher altitudes, including where we are now, will cool even more and be depraved of oxygen (bad for plant life) and the deepest area will heat up more due to gas compression. But these area are less than the majority of the higher “plateau” and continents and possibly a good place to keep snow and ice frozen. Could that be a “point of no return” for snowball earth?
gbaikie
Thanks for giving it a shot. Had you read any of my earlier attempts at explaining this point you would have picked up on the point that the atmosphere, heated by the sun via the hot surface, would not cool by radiation to space if it has no GHG’s. This changes everything.
Air heated at 3000 feet would not descend at night – a strong inversion layer would prevent it. Like a freezer in a supermarket that is open on top all day, it remains frozen because the cold air sinks stays “down”.
At night the surface would cool dramatically by radiation (no back radiation), and the air immediately above it some feet would cool as well. Then a strong inversion layer would be established – more than 100 C difference – and that would stop the vertical transport which exists in the daytime. The atmosphere would be heated daily, convect that heat upwards, and and not cool much at all at night – can’t.
So the idea that adding GHG’s to the atmosphere heats if from -18 average is nonsense, and is based on a conceptual error included in every IPCC report and thousands of published papers. Adding GHG’s allows the atmosphere to cool by radiation.
They compare a naked planet (usually the moon) to Earth having an atmosphere and GHG’s. They claim this demonstrates the effect of GHG’s in the atmosphere. But their description does not compare a planet plus atmosphere with and without GHG’s. Just what we have now and having nothing at all. How stupid is that?
Suppose I wish to compare the weight of a vehicle with and without passengers. I use the IPCC method and compare the mass of the vehicle with passengers and the mass of nothing at all. Is that a valid comparison? Would you pass Grade 1 arithmetic making a bone-headed comparison like that? Well, the IPCC does, again and again. Look on Wikipedia. See what Connelly dishes on that matter. Be amazed.
If sea level were to decrease due to glaciation of large land masses in North America, Europe, and Russia, the atmospheric pressure at the new (lower) sea level would not change much from that at current sea level, because the same total mass of atmosphere would be distributed over the same surface area. Atmospheric pressure over current land masses would probably decrease slightly (leading to colder temperatures), and atmospheric pressure over the ice caps would decrease sharply, due to the higher altitude of the top of the ice cap above the new (lower) sea level.
The article above shows that, during an ice age with a lower sea level, most of the North Sea would become dry land. and would probably become glaciated, as the Gulf Stream would be forced farther west.
But a lower sea level would probably close the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, and the dry land would extend southward to the Aleutian Islands. This would prevent the current mixing of warm Pacific water with cold Arctic water, which would probably result in the Arctic Ocean freezing over year-round, while the northern Pacific Ocean would become warmer, with a possible warming of the climate over the east coast of Asia, southern Alaska, and the west coast of North America.
Crispin in Waterloo October 7, 2019 at 11:15 pm
gbaikie
“Thanks for giving it a shot. Had you read any of my earlier attempts at explaining this point you would have picked up on the point that the atmosphere, heated by the sun via the hot surface, would not cool by radiation to space if it has no GHG’s. This changes everything.
Air heated at 3000 feet would not descend at night – a strong inversion layer would prevent it. Like a freezer in a supermarket that is open on top all day, it remains frozen because the cold air sinks stays “down”.”
So, this is caused rapid cooling of air near the surface.
And roughly such inversion can also be caused by advancing cold front which pushes warmer above it.
So could be caused by rapid cooling of surface. And/or as fairly common on Earth advancing cold fronts which push warmer air upward.
But in either case, what count a global temperature is the temperature in white box 5 feet above the ground. So if had more cold air near surface, it something which causes lower average temperature. Though warming effect could be that it takes a shorter time period to just warm this 3000 feet of air. But then again, not sure why it’s 3000 feet, rather than 1000 feet or 5000 feet.
It seems to me that if had flat land it could lower elevation, but if land varied in elevation {was rolling hills] it would confined to mostly level valley/troughs. And hills could in sense fill valleys with cooler air.
So cold weather front flowing works better in broader and flatter regions. And apparently such inversions can lend to violent weather and tornadoes. Which seems reasonable as could be heated up sunlight quickly and other factors.
Generally speaking, it seems that world covered by land, could tend to have more violent weather. But other than fast increase in temperature, I don’t see that such inversion as causing higher temperatures- assuming air temperature is measured near the surface.
–Steve Z October 8, 2019 at 1:29 pm
If sea level were to decrease due to glaciation of large land masses in North America, Europe, and Russia, the atmospheric pressure at the new (lower) sea level would not change much from that at current sea level, because the same total mass of atmosphere would be distributed over the same surface area.–
Yes, not much.
But there could be various large effects, related to such a slight difference.
—Atmospheric pressure over current land masses would probably decrease slightly (leading to colder temperatures), and atmospheric pressure over the ice caps would decrease sharply, due to the higher altitude of the top of the ice cap above the new (lower) sea level.—
That describes an effect.
Of course we talking about a drop of sea level of only about 140 meters, which is probably the most amount sea level drop which is reasonable to expect to occur- in our current version of our ever changing Earth- meaning in terms of changes over time periods such as a hundred of million years.
But in terms what important in terms political matters, the focus should be about possible changes within next 50 years. And the changes are not going to be much.
“No! The radiative contribution would be reduced to zero and the convective heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere would be all that remains, at least doubling from its present value due to the current level of GHG’s absorbing incoming energy. Absent that, the surface would heat far more than at present. Heating of the atmosphere is by radiation and contact with the hot ground.”
I don’t agree totally. The Earth would be like the worst desert you could imagine. Very hot days and very cold nights. Which would dominate? I’m not sure but I suspect the freezing at night would sooner or later dominate our survival.
Tim G
The faults I find in the argument that there would be “very hot days and very cold nights” is that implicit assumptions that air has no thermal mass, that the entire depth of the atmosphere can cool at night without GHG’s, and that inversion (hot air above cold air) would not form.
The atmosphere has a thermal mass and stores heat. The lower portion of the atmosphere would have no way to cool at night, starting off the next day at a higher temperature than the one before. A (very) strong inversion layer would form each night, easily strong enough to quell all vertical motion. The strength of the resistance to convection disturbing a strong inversion layer depends on which Raleigh number you pick, but it is on the order of 50 to 100 times stronger than the perturbing force. At night the air next to the ground would indeed cool rapidly, but above that layer, it would remain warm. Really warm.
The implication for these observations is that the claim of “33 C heating from GHG’s” is incorrect. Suppose the equilibrium temperature of air was 30 C at 1000 ft altitude. Then adding GHG’s to the current level reduced the air temperature to 15 C. Why would it cool? Because it now has the ability to radiate energy into space, so it would not be the ground providing all emitted energy. The effect of “back-radiation” is often overs-stated. A photon escaping from low altitude into space travels an average distance of about 1.8 times the thickness of the atmosphere. That is not much.
Suppose the equilibrium temperature of air was 13 C instead of 30. That means adding all the GHG’s to date increase the temperature 2 C, not 33 C. The the heating effect of the two contributors is 33: 31 for convective heat transfer and 2 for GHG’s. You get my point? The IPCC has simply left the first contribution out of its description in order to justify a large value for GHG’s. Convective heating is described in their texts, but not in the determination of the calculated value of forcing by CO2.
It is a simple omission with huge consequences for their argument about AGW.
Crispin,
I would agree with everything you say except in high deserts today, where there is little water vapor or CO2 in the atmosphere, temperature inversions do not seem to be a common occurrence. If they were common then the deserts would tend to stay hot at night through conduction warming from the atmosphere toward the ground just as you describe. Yet the high deserts do oscillate between very hot and very cold over 24 hours.
I do agree that the models are not very good. There are a lot of things they just hand-wave at and dismiss with the magic words “climate change”.
I guess the main lesson is don’t become a climate policy statistic that is waved off as a mistake years later with the classic Edward Markey line “Who could have known?” Also, don’t feed the carbon tax sharks. They want your money to patch unrelated budget potholes and add to their power.
‘How dare you’
Anyway, based on previous glacial profiles we have perhaps 500/1,000 years to get our act together before the cold re-establishes itself. If the temperature decline follows the current slope then we have 5,000/10,000 years. All previous inter-glacials have ended even though CO2 had increased during the warming phases and had remained elevated while temperatures cooled. CO2 was unable to prevent temperatures falling. If the Holocene is cooler than the Eamian and all previous Inter-glacials look pretty similar, then who decided that the ice-ages are over and the ice would not return? And on what evidence?
‘Houston, We have a problem.’
Great article.
However:
“Cooling is already be becoming evident.”
No, planet surface still warming.
Yes indeed. The next climate emergency will be the next ice age.
https://lenbilen.com/2019/06/28/climate-emergency-pray-tell-why-the-climate-change-has-never-been-better-since-the-end-of-the-ice-age/
A good article and well said Jean.
We will know soon, but a new Little Ice Age may already be upon us. We’re watching crop yields this year from the Great Plains area of North America.
Going below 150 PPM CO2 will not kill off all plants, only the most CO2-needy ones. Meanwhile, the lowest CO2 dipped to during the last major glaciation is 180 PPM. As for how low CO2 can go with plants still surviving, it depends on the plant and varies widely. According to the study in the following link, this ranges from 60 to 150 PPM for the C3 plants in the study and is around 10 PPM for most C4 plants.
Oops, gotta put in the link:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e23/5047cba00479f9b2177e423e8d31db43229d.pdf
There was a emergency for these eco warriors
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/09/09/ship-of-fools-vi-another-global-warming-expedition-scuppered-by-ice/
B d Clark
LOL thats six boats stuck due to ice, maybe al gore can go and melt the multi meter thick ice himself lol
Yes and maybe al Gorry can put up bail for these clowns about 150 arrested todayhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49957521 thing is unless they get a absolute discharge the next time they go on the streets and get arrested they could end up in jail.😅
Whenever I see headlines like this I always guess it’s from Charles the Moderator. Why suggest doubt about a ‘climate emergency’ when there is NO doubt that AGW is ENTIRELY a fraud? ‘Doubt’ is an illusion that helps only the fraud. And real science is a defensive position that’s always countered with baffling bulls*it – NO amount of real science matters to the fraudsters and their brainwashed minions. So at this point offense, NOT defense, is the ONLY winning strategy. And we can’t afford to lose.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
GENESIS 8:22
Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?
JEREMIAH 5:22
Climate change hysteria/emergency is just a tool to create fear, a means to an end. Scared people are easy to manipulate. Thinking people are not.
Greta explicitly stated that she wants you to feel her hear.
Very true. Anyone telling you to panic or be afraid is trying to control you.
Only works on gretins.
David Attenborough is a great naturalist and like the National Geographic used to be I enjoyed watching his programmes. Interestingly he used not to make judgments of human activity so I don’t know what has happened for him to make him now pass judgement. Most recently he gave a message to world leader that included this:
“Our civilizations rose in large part because of the last 12,000 year period of Climatic stability, known as the Holocene.”
I always thought it was because the time we live in now is so much warmer and better than the previous 100,000 years. Climate instability is even worse during the cold phases so is he saying that we have to stop the temperature falling? Is he in fact a prisoner and he’s trying to get a message out?
Either that or protein clumping.
“David Attenborough is a great naturalist”
NO; David Attenborough was a great presenter of natural history films.
David Belamy was a great naturalist. as were –
Aristotle, Linnaeus , Joseph Banks, von Humboldt, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, James Hutton. Mary Anning , Georges Cuvier, Charles Darwin, James Audubon, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alice Eastwood….
OK but I think David Belamy still is a great naturalist?
Bellamy, YES, with a great sense of humour.
He needed it when he told the BBC their AGW propaganda was “poppycock”, which resulted in their kneejerk firing of him.
Sadly the BBC don’t have a sense of humour, neither luckily, do an increasing nmber of people who have to pay their rackrented TV stations and suffer their daily crapomatic agendas.
–The role of Atmospheric CO2
To establish realistic policy the following points about man-made CO2 emissions need to be recognised:
The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.
Most of the greenhouse effect, (more than ~90% – 95%) arises from water as vapour and clouds in the atmosphere.–
The greenhouse effect includes more than “greenhouse gases” and 90 to 95% of greenhouse effect is not caused by water vapor.
It matters how much atmospheric mass Earth has {and all greenhouse gases are a small portion of the atmospheric mass]. So, greenhouse effect would change if Earth had 1/2 or twice as much atmospheric mass.
Or Mars has 210 ppm of water vapor and about 30 times more CO2 per area as Earth, but Mars lacks atmospheric mass. And so, Mars has tiny greenhouse effect.
And if Mars had an ocean like earth’s ocean, it would certainly have more water vapor in it’s thin atmosphere.
And I would argue, it would have a much higher “greenhouse effect”- and not because {or not only because] of the increase of more water vapor in atmosphere in terms of it’s radiant effects. And not even because of the convectional and evaporative/latent heat effects of water vapor.
Or Earth has a “greenhouse effect” because Earth has ocean covering 70% of the planet. And the average temperature of the ocean is 17 C and average temperature of land surface is 10 C. And math of adding ocean 70% and land 30% gives an average global temperature of 15 C.
Plus basic earth climate knowledge, is that the tropical ocean {not tropics, but tropical ocean] is the heat engine of the world. And tropical ocean average temperature is about 26 C- the 60% of rest of global ocean is about 11 C. Average the 40 and 60% and it’s about 17 C.
This is all interesting, but the most important thing, people should be aware of is that we are currently in an Ice Age. Or an icebox climate, and have in the icebox climate for millions of year.
Or another way to say it, when human being were evolving into “modern human or something close to modern human {1 million years ago} the world was cooling, and presently the world is still cooling.
Though we been living in a warmer portion of time within our Ice Age, which called the interglacial period, which is called the Holocene period. And there has many interglacial periods during the millions of years of our Ice Age- but it should noted that most of the time is spent in glacial periods, with shorter time period of interglacial {or as word suggests between the glacial periods, or relatively brief interlude of being a bit warmer}.
Or we are in Ice Age because we have a cold ocean. And the temperature of entire ocean in your Ice Age varies
between 1 and 5 C. And we currently have ocean of 3.5 C. Or our ocean during our million year Ice Age has got warmer. And it’s might be possible our ocean could warm so as to be 5 C, but that will require probably more than 1000 years, and requires craziness alarmist imaginations to warm as quickly as becoming 5 C within a 1000 years. Or having an ocean which is 5 C is very dramatic and world changing, but we have had it in the past. And having ocean warmer than 5 C, not in a Ice Age, it’s in a more “normal Earth climate”. Or most of life on Earth has evolve in warmer conditions, not Ice Age conditions. Humans [in characteristics we are fond of and associate with modern human] are roughly, ice monkeys. And we will remain in this icy environment regardless of what human do, for at least 1000 years. {unless we get vast nature forces- human forces being puny in comparison. So unexpected like, vast volcanic activity and/or vast space rock hitting Earth, nearby supernova, or something like that.
Is our ocean temperature 3.5 C, 5 C, or 17 C?
Is one referring to surface temperature (17 C)?
–John Q Public October 7, 2019 at 12:44 pm
Is our ocean temperature 3.5 C, 5 C, or 17 C?
Is one referring to surface temperature (17 C)?–
Average surface temperature of the ocean is 17 C and this makes average ocean surface air temperature about 17 C.
90% of the volume of our oceans have a temperature of 3 C or colder
And/or average volume temperature of all liquid water of our oceans is about 3.5 C.
Our ocean during glacial maximum, as in our Last Glacial Maximum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
Can get as cold as 1 C.
And during past interglacial periods the ocean has reached as high as 5 C.
Our last interglacial period:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian
Had a ocean temperature a lot warmer [but probably a bit less than 5 C]
and had sea levels about 6 meter higher than our current sea level.
As recall if our ocean warm from 3.5 C to 4 C the thermal expansion will raise
sea levels by about 1 foot. And most of sea level rise during Eemian is believed
to be due to glacier melt water {some argument about whether Greenland or Antarctic
caused the most of sea rise rise- I have my own opinion on the matter.]
The climate (advocacy) emergency is to lock in carbon tax revenue sources before obvious evidence of medium and long cycle cooling sets in. Short term cyclical cooling in the Pacific could come even sooner. No time to waste. It’s a policy emergency for sure.
Yeah. What if?
But in order to cater to progressive paranoia, we must enact crippling policies that have so little effect that they can’t be measured.
Joel
“But in order to cater to progressive paranoia, we must enact crippling policies that have so little effect that they can’t be measured.”
The one effect, very measurable, that the “Alarmists’ preferred policies” – give money to windmill owners, and solar panel owners, and die in the cold when the unreliable electricity doesn’t allow you to heat OR eat – have is moving money into already very deep pockets.
Auto
I should have been more specific – no effect on the climate – but as I said ‘crippling’ policies DO have an effect on human quality of life – AND death.
Funny how the warm-fuzzy addicts never seem to put that together.
“What if there is no Climate Emergency?” There is no climate emergency – so what?
SO, what happened, what changed, around 1000BC to cause a cooling trend?
According to alarmists, water vapor increase depends only on temperature increase of the liquid surface water and has increased an average of 0.88% per decade. Actual measurements show the global average WV increase to be about 1.47% per decade. This proves WV increase, not CO2 increase, has contributed to temperature increase. WV increase is limited and might have already reached its limit
This, IMHO, is the rough equivalent of Hiroshima in the Climate Wars. Again, IMHO, should it go viral, as we might hope for to happen with Anthony Watts’ update video on the continuing Media Hype, it will be remembered as the turning of the tide in cultural awareness of the Hoax (and if we are lucky, a bit better understanding of the political and financial interests that propel said Hoax)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3432&v=rEWoPzaDmOA
What if there is NO climate emergency? That there is NO discernable anthropogenic CO2 contribution, once solar particle forcing has been included in the global energy budget, as promised to be include (we shall see, of course) in the coming CMIP6 reports. Now up to 700 relevant peer-reviewed papers supporting this revelation, in the last couple of years.
And of course – though they are trying mightley, the modellers still can’t model clouds. Oops.
Daily progress on this front available at Suspicious0bservers.org
Excerpted from article:
How’s come the ”warming” effect of the Greenhouse gas “water (H2O) vapor” ….. doesn’t rapidly diminish logarithmically as its concentration increases?
Atmospheric “water (H2O) vapor” absorbs IR the same as CO2, ……. right?
How’s come near-surface atmospheric “water (H2O) vapor” has a Heat Index value and CO2 does not?
Kind of a scarey posting, actually, but wait a minute, a mile thick of ice on New York City? Now I’m all in! Maybe only the top floor of the Trump Tower will stick through?
It’s a shame that most CAGW aficionados are functionally illiterate and will not be able to benefit from the wisdom of this article.
“What if” games are fun!
What if we were at peak warming in 2018. Mother Nature may have plans for a steep descent. A perfect storm, perhaps, of a Grand Solar Minimum and Magnetic Excursion [enabling cosmic ray induced Volcanoes].
Does anyone know WHO “edmhdotme” (the author of this article/essay) actually is?
I have long thought that there should be a saturation amount of CO2 in the atmosphere for a greenhouse effect. Chemical reactions almost always have a saturation amount for their effectiveness. Why should CO2 and sunlight absorption be exempt from this natural rule ?
The only real climate fear that we should have is another ice age. Which, is overdue.
I dont think it was Lenin that had useful idiots. Can’t remember off the top of my head who it was and dont have time to fact check right now.
Hear, hear, hear.
The warming man can do will be net beneficial. The greening we’re doing would be miraculous if it weren’t so predictable.
Alarmism has been a classic ploy of manipulation through fear and guilt. The fear is unnecessary and the guilt misplaced. Our grandchildren will understand this.
===========================================
Why don’t thermodynamic specific heat tables mention this IR problem? According to climate science it takes less energy to raise temperature of CO2 if IR present than if IR absent.
Increased CO2 does nothing per Anthony’s experiment.
Oh, come on.
If there were no climate crisis, if it was all just a false alarm, then the climate movement would have to stoop to rudeness, fallacy, intimidation, a Faustian pact with the political class, an eclectic repertoire of propaganda techniques combining the worst of both Orwellian and Goebbelian traditions, historical revisionism, weasel-wordiness, tweaking and ultimately abandoning the rules of science, non-standard statistical methods, Lysenkoist punitive psychology, forgery, secrecy, resurrecting the putrid zombie called consensus-as-evidence who was supposed to have been staked, decapitated and buried in unshriven ground upon the advent of evidence-as-evidence 300 years ago, and plain old-fashioned mendacity in order to keep their dogma in the ascendancy despite its theoretical bankruptcy.
Sorry, but I just don’t see that happening.
lol..+++++
Atomic grade sarcasm, you win the interweb today.
To my way of thinking, +33C is a very comfortable temperature, not making for “Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.” Here is Tweed, New South Wales, we are only just getting up to about 25C, for 33C you have to go to Darwin.
Surely you mean -33C?
It is the additional temperature of ~+33C from The warming Greenhouse effect on top of the temperature without the effect.
Apparently vineyards are experiencing a period of growth in the UK:
https://www.winegb.co.uk/uk-winemakers-celebrate-harvest-of-the-century-as-warm-weather-continues-2/
This growth will continue if the IPCC forecasts are correct.
https://www.savills.co.uk/blog/article/280817/rural-property/are-british-vineyards-still-a-good-investment.aspx
If the globe cools, what will happen to the UK vineyards? Can the wine makers get compensation from the UNIPCC for their inaccurate forecasts? Can energy consumers get compensation for the high cost of intermittent generators and carbon taxes?
No RGHE or RGHE that does nothing.
Six of one, half a dozen t’other.
“The warming Greenhouse effect is essential to all life on earth, without it at ~+33°C planet Earth would be a very cold and inhospitable place indeed.”
288 – 255 = 33 100% garbage!! Cold and inhospitable. Wrong, hot and inhospitable.
288 K – 255 K = 33 C warmer with the atmosphere is rubbish.
288 K is a WAG pulled from WMO’s butt. NOAA/Trenberth use 289 K.
UCLA Diviner mission uses 295 K.
The 255 K is a theoretical S-B “what if” temperature calculation for a ToA average 240 W/m^2 (w/ atmosphere!!) ASR/OLR balance (1,368/4 *.7) based on a 30% albedo.
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 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.
The case for chaotic Holocene climate that naturally creates warming and cooling cycles at millennial and centennial time scales:
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/11/chaoticholocene/
This crowd has spent a lifetime opposing the only grid-scale, reliable, zero-carbon energy source known to man. And while today they are advocating for expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions, in another 50 years they’ll be advocating for artificial emissions to hold off an ice age.
I haven’t had the time to go thru all these posts but has anybody pointed out yet that, generally speaking, optical absorbance is logarithmic with concentration? Just saying…
What is the evidence that CO2 is logarithmic? It’s the entire basis of this post.
Rate of temperature change versus time is clear example of a logarithmic function. And they are different between the NH and SH.
https://imgur.com/a/pHgiWrT
Sorry, the plot is thousands of years.
From wikipedia:
Logarithmic vs. directly proportional measurements
The amount of light transmitted through a material diminishes exponentially as it travels through the material, according to the Beer–Lambert law (A=(ε)(l)). Since the absorbance of a sample is measured as a logarithm, it is directly proportional to the thickness of the sample and to the concentration of the absorbing material in the sample. Some other measures related to absorption, such as transmittance, are measured as a simple ratio so they vary exponentially with the thickness and concentration of the material.
There are people who need to read, and understand, this ^^^
For Data that has wild-ass swings, we tend to use logarithmic solutions. However, the medium which tends to be more stable and predictable, arithmetic solutions are more reasonable.
Great post, Ed. Well researched and well written. Love your website.
An additional note to readers: every carbon atom in your body was once atmospheric CO2. Every molecule of oxygen that you breathe was once atmospheric CO2. That is how necessary, not just “beneficial”, that CO2 is to all life.
WARMER IS BETTER. FIGHT THE ICE.
But it’s carbon! Carbon is bad. *Head explodes*
To the preindustrial carbon cycle with approx 150.000 Gigaton CO2 (140.000 Gt in the sea, 4.000 Gt in the atmosphere and 6.000 Gt in the biosphere) humans have burnt fossils adding max 2.000 Gt CO2 – not much (1,3%). But this has caused unbalance in the atmosphere as a new balance (Le Chatelier) with approc 287 PPM (280 x 1,013) is delayed because of inertia in the system and continuous adding og more and more CO2 (7% of the unbalance disapper in a year – thus half of the unbalance will be gone in approx 10 years if we stopped with CO2 tomorrow)
“The modern short pulse of beneficial Global warming stopped some 20 years ago and recent global temperatures are now stable or declining.”
The article has some good points that get lost between lies like the above. Global warming has not stopped. At most, it has slowed down. Expecting it to stop or revert while CO2 increases is nothing more than wishful thinking of the worst kind (the kind that wants something bad to happen, i.e. cooling, just to prove being right). Fortunately though, the warming is mostly good (more advantages than disadvantages).
Really? Grand solar minimum coming.
Wishful thinking. Nobody can know that for sure, let alone prove it.
The global marxist movement requires some kind of constant “emergency”. They would just substitute something else for climate.
If there is no CO2 global warming, and whatever there is is minor, the most likely effect is the earth will continue it’s gradual cooling into another ice age. We are currently about 14,000 years into an interglacial period. Based primarily on the ice core data and other paleological measures(sedimentary rocks, fossils, etc) the interglacials last approximately 10,000-20,000 years. There is one “recent” interglacial in, I believe the Vostok ice core, where it only warmed up about halfway but lasted twice as long.
So at best we’re headed towards a continued cooling over the next thousands of years of about 9°C.
See http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-millennial-turning-point-solar.html
Quotes :
“When analyzing complex systems with multiple interacting variables it is useful to note the advice of Enrico Fermi who reportedly said “never make something more accurate than absolutely necessary”. My recent paper presented a simple heuristic approach to climate science which plausibly proposed that a Millennial Turning Point (MTP) and peak in solar activity was reached in 1991………………………….
Fig 3 The decline in solar activity (increase in neutron count ) since the 1991 solar activity MTP is seen in the Oulu neutron count.
Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans there is a varying lag between the solar activity MTP and the varying climate metrics. The temperature peak is about 2003/4 – lag is about 12years. The arctic sea ice volume minimum was in 2012 +/- lag = 21years. . For the details see data, discussion, and forecasts in Figs3,4,5,10,11,and 12 in the links below.
See the Energy and Environment paper
The coming cooling: usefully accurate climate forecasting for policy makers.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958305X16686488
and an earlier accessible blog version at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-coming-cooling-usefully-accurate_17.html See also the discussion with Professor William Happer at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2018/02/exchange-with-professor-happer-princeton.html
The establishment’s dangerous global warming meme, the associated IPCC series of reports ,the entire UNFCCC circus, the recent hysterical IPCC SR1.5 proposals and Nordhaus’ recent Nobel prize are founded on two basic errors in scientific judgement. First – the sample size is too small. Most IPCC model studies retrofit from the present back for only 100 – 150 years when the currently most important climate controlling, largest amplitude, solar activity cycle is millennial. This means that all climate model temperature outcomes are too hot and likely fall outside of the real future world. (See Kahneman -. Thinking Fast and Slow p 118) Second – the models make the fundamental scientific error of forecasting straight ahead beyond the Millennial Turning Point (MTP) and peak in solar activity which was reached in 1991.These errors are compounded by confirmation bias and academic consensus group think.”
https://youtu.be/2flZ5UfgzC8
This chilling video taken by the Russian military – no doubt in protective suits – shows graphically the environmental destruction in the Arctic caused by climate. The music grippingly evokes the deadly miazma of ecosystem collapse.
There never was liquid water before in the Arctic Ocean – OMG what have we done? Birds cling to a last holdout on precarious cliffs – never before have they been forced to nest their young precariously on vertical cliffs – each one that falls to their death adds to a mountain of human guilt for such a tragedy. A polar bear lies dying by a poisoned creek – howling mournfully.
Alas the blighted seals have developed grotesquely overgrown front teeth – a quick fact-check from David Attenborough confirms this horrible mutation is quite new and without doubt caused by chemical contamination. Icebergs melt under a relentless sun into hideous shapes before disappearing forever. Another polar bear struggles in vain for life. Pure instinct refuses to surrender to merciless climate.
Adding insult to injury, human vandals damage centuries-old ice with an axe – have you no shame? Mutated seals languish in fetid stagnant pools. International tourists look on from a pleasure-boat. In panic a polar bear flees the stench from the polluted waterline and despairingly climbs a mountain face. Party-goers ignore the devastation caused by their kin and wave banalely at a camera. Where is Greta Thunberg when we need her?!
A good post and comments; BUT water off the green ducks back and all preaching to the converted. I have recently subscribed to the Quora site and indeed it is an eye opener.
The vast amount of the questions automatically assume that there is an emergency. I have great fun sticking my oar in by way of answers and get but a few upvotes and a few challenges mostly by the obviously brainwashed. Out of some 150 of my answers I think I have only got 1 or 2 sensible responses. As for finding someone with whom I can have a good scientific chat ? – It’s a desert.
I had hoped that I would get some form of peer review on my own thoughts ; but no as the whole so called debate has morphed into a form of Marxist politically manipulated emotional hysteria.
Still I am having fun!🤗
The half life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 16 years as measured by the bomb test pulse:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871409/
However, atmospheric (aboveground) detonations of nuclear weapons during the period of the cold war (1955–1963) doubled the concentration of 14C/12C in the atmosphere (8, 9). Although nuclear weapon testing was conducted at only a few locations, excess levels of 14C in the atmosphere rapidly dispersed and equalized around the globe. Since 1963, as a result of a worldwide test ban treaty, 14C levels in the atmosphere have been decreasing exponentially with a mean half-life of 16 years.
You have a way with words, Brad; I’ve never seen the “chicken little” climate fraud hysteria mocked more accurately and elegantly, and all in one clear, coherent sentence, to boot; my cap is raised to you, Sir.
James, are you talking to me? If so, you’re overly generous (it was a Dickensian, run-on sentence: hardly Polonius’ sole of levity) and if not, you’re underly so, but thank you!
The reality is that the Earth’s climate has been changing for eons yet the change is so small that it takes networks of very sophisticated sensors, decades to even detect it. One must not mix up true global climate change with weather cycles that are part of the current climate. Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. It is all a matter of science.
AGW is not a proven theory but rather a conjecture. AGW sounds plausible at first but upon a more detailed examination one finds that the AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is full of holes. For example there is the idea that CO2 acts as a thermostat and the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming because CO2 has LWIR absorption bands that cause CO2 to trap heat. CO2 based warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more warming because H2O also has LWIR absorption bands and hence causes H2O to trap even more heat. So according the ths AGW conjecture H2O acts to amplify any warming that CO2 might cause. Al Gore in his movie, “The Inconvenient Truth” presents a chart showing CO2 and temperature for the past 650.000 years. There is an obvious correlation between CO2 and temperature which Al Gore claims shows that CO2 works as a thermostat and that more CO2 in our atmosphere causes warming. But a closer look at the data shows that CO2 follows instead of leeds temperature. It is higher temperatures that cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere because warmer water does not hold as much CO2 as does cooler water. Contrary to what AL Gore claims, there is no evidence that the additional CO2 causes warming. On the plot, Al gore included where CO2 is today. CO2 is much higher than one would expect form the warming of the oceans and the proximate cause of the increase in CO2 is mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. According to the chart, if CO2 were the thermostat of global warming then it should be a heck of a lot warmer that it actually is but it is not. If anything, Al Gore’s chart shows that CO2 does not cause global warming as Al Gore claims.
H2O is actually a stronger absorber of IR than is CO2 on a molecule per molecule basis. According to he AGW conjecture, the idea is that CO2 warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more warming which causes even more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more H2O to enter the atmosphere and so forth. This positive feedback effect does not really require CO2 based warming but will operate on H2O based warming alone. This positive feedback effect, if true, would make Earth’s climate very unstable with H2O based warming causing more H2O to enter the atmosphere causing even more warming causing even more H2O to enter the atmosphere until all the bodies of water on Earth boiled away. Such an event would cause the barometric pressure and temperature of the Earth’s surface to be much higher than it is on Venus but such has never happened. What the AGW conjecture ignore’s is that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form and where heat energy is more readily radiated to space. The over all cooling effect of H2O is evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. So instead of providing a positive feedback amplifying any warming that CO2 might provide, H2O provides negative feedback and retards any warming the CO2 might provide, Negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for over the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve because we are here.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping gases but rather stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is entirely a convectime greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. No radiant greenhouse effect has been observed, So too on Earth where gravity and the heat capacity of the atmosphere acts to limit cooling by convection. Derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect causes the surface of the Earth to be roughly 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is the amount derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. Any additional warming caused by a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed. The radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere no on any planet in solar system with a thick atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect is nothing but science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is nothing but science fiction as well, This is all a matter of science.
Then there is the “scientific” consensus argument. But there is no real consensus. It is all is all just speculation. Scientists never registered and then voted on the validity of the AGW conjecture. But even if they had it would be meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process. The AGW conjecture must really be on shaky ground if “consensus” is one of the reasons for us to believe in it.
But even if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated because they are part of the current climate. We do not even know what the optimum global climate is let alone how to achieve it. The previous interglacial period, the Eemian, was warmer than this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels yet no tipping points ever happened. In the past, the Earth’s CO2 levels have been much higher than they are today and no tipping points ever happened. There is no real evidence that a climate emergency exists. It is all a matter of science.
+10
William Haas,
I would agree with you on all points except one. This is actually the largest and most fundamental point, which started the whole ‘Greenhouse Gas Theory’.
You (and virtually all text books) suggest there is a 33 degree C. difference between outgoing radiation and the temperature of the Earth, at +15 deg C. This is because outgoing radiation from Earth is indeed 240 watts/sq-m, which equates to a Stefan-Boltzman temperature of -18 deg C.
This is the fundamental misunderstanding, in my estimation, which started this whole mess.
Applying the S-B equation to the ‘surface’ temperature of the Earth, while disregarding the atmospheric temperature yields the error.
All particles on the surface of the land and ocean emit radiation. The gases which compose the atmosphere also emit radiation, as they have mass and temperature. This may be shocking news to ‘Greenhouse Theory’ proponents, but yes, all of the particles in the atmosphere emit heat (radiation).
Therefore, much like the Sun, we need a ‘composite temperature’. Different layers of the Sun’s ‘atmosphere’ (Photosphere and Chromosphere) have different temperatures. The composite (average) temperature of the Sun is approximately 5500 C.
Since, the atmosphere of Earth is about +15 C. at the surface, about -20 C. at 5-6 km altitude, and about -60 C. at 20 km altitude; then I would guess the ‘composite temperature’ of Earth plus atmosphere is about -20 C.
As a reference point, the temperatures at the peak of Mt. Everest range from -20 to – 35 C. (Also, Mt. Everest located at 27 degrees North latitude, is very close to the Tropics, similar to Palm Beach, Florida).
If one throws in a few degrees of ‘warming’ from the heat content of atmosphere and clouds, then I would guess the sum temperature to be around -18 C.
If what I suggest sounds plausible, then the whole ‘Greenhouse Gas Theory’ needs a thorough review.
Regards,
KD
i’m happy to see that someone finally put quotation marks around the word “green”.
i’m still waiting for someone to tell me just what is “green” about the “green” new deal.
We (citizens and governments) should transform optimism into actions and power. Really interesting post. Thanks for sharing!
Prjindigo October 7, 2019 at 12:17 pm
Without water vapor there IS NO RELATION between CO2 and temperature AT ALL. CO2 cannot warm itself, the moment it emits energy it would immediately be out of the loop
– is not the whole truth:
Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and other trace gases in Earth’s atmosphere absorb the longer wavelengths of outgoing infrared radiation from Earth’s surface.
These gases then emit the infrared radiation in all directions, both outward toward space and downward toward Earth.
_________________________________________________
From sun emitted photons, directed to Earth’s surface, are absorbed by trace gas molecules
– and remitted in whatever various directions.
So: the remitted photons mainly aren’t re-directed vertical down to Earth’s surface –
Most of the so-called “greenhouse gases” don’t warm Earth’s soil or Earth’s oceans but
50% incoming energy goes further down in the atmosphere and
50% incoming energy returns upwards.
https://www.google.com/search?q=CO2+absorbs+radiation+versus+CO2+emits+radiation&oq=CO2+absorbs+radiation+versus+CO2+emits+radiation+&aqs=chrome.
That said:
Most of this trace gases, that so-called “greenhouse gases” don’t warm Earth’s atmosphere, oceans or soil, thei’re in effect coolants, energy thieves.