By David Wojick |October 20th, 2020|Climate
Climate science is dominated by alarmists addicted to the idea that increasing carbon dioxide will cause dangerous global warming. How much warming is thus the central scientific question.
This question has been surprisingly difficult to answer despite 40 years of research, costing tens of billions of dollars. Now the issue is exploding because two different answers are emerging, one harmlessly low and the other dangerously high. This divergence is a crisis for the alarmist community. How they handle it remains to be seen.
What follows is a slightly technical explanation of the situation.
The issue centers on a benchmark estimate of the impact of increasing CO2 on global temperature. This is called the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” or ECS. The basic question is what will the global average temperature be when the CO2 level is double the supposedly original level of 280 ppm? That is, what will it be when we hit 560 ppm.
However, since it may take the climate system some time to adjust to this new high level, the question is what the temperature will be when the system equilibrates to this doubling, which may be some time after we hit 560. Also, this is about sensitivity, so ECS is not the new high temperature. It is the number of degrees C higher than the original temperature that this new high temperature will be.
So if the new high temperature is, say, 2.2 degrees C higher then ECS = 2.2 degrees.
Technically ECS is often an abstraction, something that only happens in climate models, but model ECS is taken as an important estimate of real ECS. In the models ECS is often estimated by simply doubling the CO2 instantaneously, whereas in reality this takes centuries.
All this said, I can now explain the emerging crisis.
For many decades the accepted model estimates of ECS have ranged from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C. Different models give different values, but the acceptable range has not changed. That the range is so big has been a policy problem. Warming as little as 1.5 degrees might be harmless, while 4.5 might be dangerous. But the ECS range has been stubbornly persistent, refusing to narrow to a specific value.
Now, suddenly, there is a huge new problem. ECS has exploded! It is not that it is higher, or lower — it is both. Two new lines of research have diverged sharply on the estimated value of ECS.
The first line of research takes a new approach called observational ECS. The idea is that since the CO2 level is almost half way to doubling we should be able to derive ECS empirically from the observed relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase.
There have been a number of observational studies and many are getting ECS values well below 1.5, which are harmless indeed. Values of 1.2 and 1.3 are common.
But at the same time there has been a new wave of modeling studies and these are getting ECS values way above 4.5, which would be truly dangerous. Here values of 5.2 and 5.3 are to be found.
Note that the modeling community is divided over accepting these new hot model numbers. After all, they imply that the modeling done over the last forty years or so has been wrong, including a lot of the recent modeling which is still within the old range.
The upshot of all this is that the science of ECS is in a shambles. Given that ECS addresses the core science of climate alarmism, this is truly a crisis. Has the modeling been wrong for 40 years? Is it wrong now? What about observation, which is supposed to rule in science? The scientific method says observation trumps theoretical modeling.
This is also a policy crisis. If we have no idea how sensitive the climate system will be to increasing CO2 levels then we have no basis for making climate change policy. If the observation values are right then there simply is no climate emergency.
How will this huge new uncertainty play out? Fortunately we will get at least a glimpse fairly soon. The latest IPCC assessment report (AR6) is presently under review and should be out in the next year or so. This report is supposed to review the state of climate change science, albeit from an alarmist point of view.
How the IPCC handles the exploding ECS range will be interesting to see, at the very least. They may choose to ignore it because it has to hurt alarmism. They may simply drop mention of the ECS altogether, it now being very inconvenient. But this glaring omission will be easy to call out.
Or they may only acknowledge the hot higher values, which favor alarmism. Here they risk making modeling look stupid (which it is). Plus this omission of critical evidence will also be easy to call out.
With the ECS range exploding the IPCC is caught between a hot rock and a cold hard place. So is alarmism. Stay tuned.
Author
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see
http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html
For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see
http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/
Available for confidential research and consulting.
The major part of the ECS is the water vapor feedback. But there is good reason why it doesn’t exist. We know the “natural” greenhouse effect warms the earth by about 33 degrees. If there was no atmosphere the average global temperature would be -18 degree, but with the natural GH it’s +15. But here is the BIG problem. The science and math behind that 33 degree warming does not include any water vapor feedback. It’s purely from the stand-alone warming from CO2, H20 etc. The derivative jump in CO2 from 50ppm to 100, to 150, to 200, to 250 etc, does not have a corresponding water vapor feedback. So if there is no H20 feedback from the original GH effect, then there can NOT be a H20 feedback in the enhanced one. Physics works all of the time, not just when you need it for your agenda.
Uhm… the +33 degrees by definition is the sum of all warming both direct and feedback from all ghg’s combined. How much is portioned out to each is up for debate, but in no way is water vapour left out of the original 33 degrees.
No that is not correct. The models/science/theory does not include any feedbacks in how the +33 is described. Obviously nature works how nature works (feedbacks or not), but we have our science/math that describes the theory and models it. Climate scientists have never included any feedbacks in the calculation of WHY the 33 degrees happens. My point wasn’t that there is (or is not) any actual feedback in that 33 degrees, it’s that climate science has never included any feedbacks in describing/modelling that 33 degrees. And if it wasn’t used then, then it isn’t valid now. And if they go back and re-do the science for the 33 degrees, then all of the current models will be drastically changed, because if they include feedbacks into the 33, then the original heating value of CO2 will be GREATLY reduced otherwise you couldnt get 33 degrees, you’d get 40 or 50.
ggm, I will try and explain it one more time.
Based on solar insolation hitting the earth , the calculated (via Stephan-Boltzmann Law) temp is 33 lower than the actual measured temperature. The difference is due to the total GHE effect of the atmosphere adding 33 degrees to the surface temperature.
There is NO modeling to arrive at this number. There is one calculation via Stephan-Boltzmann and a comparison to measured temps. The 33 degrees difference is the sum total of all the GHE of the atmosphere combined, part of which is water vapour.
The Stephan-Boltzmann equation relies on the Ceteris Paribus principle and therefore assumes that no phase change takes place. In the presence of water this is not the case; so one needs to careful when using this equation to determine the Earth’s temperature or that of it’s atmosphere.
Alasdair,
In this case the SB equation is done with a simple no atmosphere calculation to arrive at the BB temp of earth. Since atmosphere is not included, care need not be taken. This results in a SB BB temp of 255K. Measured surface temps produce a value of 288K. That’s 33K higher, and the 33K is attributed to GHE of the atmosphere.
Not modeling , and no effects of water vapour ignored, they are simply part of the 33K . Modeling only comes in when you want to determine the portion of the 33K that belongs to water vapour.
@davidmhoffer:
You make fair comment here. It seems that due care has been taken. I suppose that they picked the Albedo and Emissivity figures from the moon for the zero atmosphere calculation; but am not sure how they split the two components for inclusion in the SB equation. Anyhow, I appreciate your comments and have taken them on board.
Many thanks
Alasdair
Hi Alasdair , a pleasure to actually have a civil discussion of the physics for a change.
Earth’s albedo was not derived from the moon’s. I know this because the common value cited for the earth’s albedo is 0.3 and for the moon .12. But you did raise a question in my own mind as to where 0.3 came from.
When I first started paying attention to the climate science debate, learned people from both the low and high sensitivity camps cited 0.3, so I never questioned where it came from , it seemed uncontroversial. A bit of googling suggests that 0.3 is the value calculated from satellite measurements , but those measurements include scattering from the atmosphere . But thinking it through, that’s still the right number to use to calculate surface BB temp sans GHE effects, and measured surface temps are 33K higher than that.
Humidity fell – certainly over the last 15 years. We’ve been measuring atmospheric humidity since 1948 with radiosondes. For example:
The chart above was made from NOAA radiosonde data, by NOAA, at 300 mb (about 9.2 km altitude), over the tropics (30N to 30S latitude). It shows a fall.
Despite the evidential fall in humidity, modelers still project rising humidity and a positive temperature feedback of 3× more warming due to the fake humidity predicted by their models.
Mark
Any thoughts on why the absolute humidity would be falling when the temperature is apparently increasing and the capacity for holding increasing amounts of water would therefore also be increasing?
@Mark Pawelek:
If the modellers had gone back to the basic thermodynamics of water they would have known that at evaporation an increase in energy input such as the GHE would result in an increase in the RATE of circulation of the Hydro Cycle but NOT an increase in the MASS of the water involved.
(The daily evidence for this is in the way our steam generating plants work.)
Essentially this means that the GHE or increase thereof would not necessarily result in an increase in the absolute humidity in the atmosphere.
Modellers, however live in a different world.
An evening of global warming discussion isn’t complete without hearing from Christopher Monckton:
As the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, (CFACT) has noted, “There is all pocketbook pain, and no climate gain, from any plan to eliminate fossil fuels in the US. And any talk of a ‘climate emergency’ is an absurd attempt to force an irrational debate on a complex issue.”
Lord Christopher Monckton, the former Thatcher adviser, summed up the climate “solution” debate this way in his testimony to the U.S. Congress: “The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing.”
Moncton of Berkley, 9/2/19
They, not we, who are the true repudiators of the scientific method; They, not we, who are allowing Their totalitarian political predilections to get in the way; They, not we, who are profiteering at the expense of the jobs of working people, the existence of energy-intensive industries in the West and the very lives of the tens of millions annually who die in the world’s poorest countries because the World Bank, citing global warming, denies them access to domestic electrical power; They, not we, should be the distasteful objects of academic curiosity.
The “crisis” in alarmista circles, will get even funnier if/when the measured global temperature starts to drop.
In one way I hope the temperature doesn’t start to drop, because of the problems it might cause around the world with food supply, heating etc etc.
On the other hand I really want it to drop, just to watch the antics of the alarmista and their shills. 😉
They will simply claim, as they already have, that the cooling was caused by the warming.
Yes, they claim the increased energy causes bigger snowstorms!!!
Wow!
Estimates of the temperature increase per doubling of concentration necessarily assume all ease remain equal because the climate is “a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible” (IPCC 2001).
Instead of the familiar charts of CO2 and temperatures as a function of time, Clive Best has done an empirical study of global temperatures (HadCRUT) as a function of CO2 concentration coming up with a transient climate sensitivity of about 1.7C:
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=8837
As Wiki points out ‘it may take centuries or even millennia to reach equilibrium’.
Crisis, what crisis?
Never mind the models, look at the observed physical effects:
Sea ice extent still at lowest for this date – Almost half a million km2 less than 2019 and more than a million km2 less versus 2012, 2016 and 2007.
BTW I’ve accessed the collected Soviet ice records from 1933 and they show that the ice is MUCH lower at minimum in the last decade in Russian/soviet seas, than at any point in the Sovier record from 1933
Show us the Soviet data then Griff. Its pretty unlikely anyone here is going to take your word for it!
So what? How does that compare with 1433? Or 33? Or 333BC? Or any other of the Warm Periods since the Holocene Optimum? The world didn’t begin with the Little Ice Age, griff.
“Crisis, what crisis? Never mind the models, look at the observed physical effects:”
March 2020, this year’s maximum extent was at 15.05 million Km² (5.81 million Mi²), that’s Australia x2, it was 640,000 Km² (247,000 Mi²), 1 whole France more than the lowest maximum of 14.41 million Km² (5.56 million Mi²).
So half a million less is a crisis in your world, but half a million more is?……… **tumbleweed**
You keep shouting “ice melting!!” as if we don’t know………… we know, thanks.
“Sea ice extent still at lowest for this date”
Still with the same ignorant BS hey griff. Based on a pitifully short period from an extremme hig extent similar to those in the Little Ice Age.
Your comment is ignorant NONSENSE, and you know it.
Current levels of sea ice are in the top 10% of the last 10,000 year
They are still VERY HIGH relative to the Holocene norm.
And why to you think extreme levels of sea ice are GOOD.
The whole Arctic is responding to the RECOVERY in sea ice from the 1970s EXTREME HIGH.
Not only is the land surface GREENING, but the seas are also springing BACK to life after being TOO COLD and frozen over for much of the last 500 or so years (coldest period of the Holocene)
The drop in sea ice slightly toward the pre-LIA levels has opened up the food supply for the nearly extinct Bowhead Whale, and they are returning to the waters around Svalbard.
https://partner.sciencenorway.no/arctic-ocean-forskningno-fram-centre/the-ice-retreats–whale-food-returns/1401824
The Blue Mussel is also making a return, having been absent for a few thousand years, apart from a brief stint during the MWP.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683617715701?journalCode=hola
Many other species of whale are also returning now that the sea ice extent has dropped from the extreme highs of the LIA. Whales cannot swim on ice. !
https://blog.poseidonexpeditions.com/whales-of-svalbard/
Great thing is, that because of fossil fuels and plastics, they will no longer be hunted for whale blubber for lamps and for whale bone.
Hopefully the Arctic doesn’t re-freeze too much in the next AMO cycle, and these glorious creatures get a chance to survive and multiply.
Your HATRED of Arctic sea life knows no bounds, does it,
You are disgusting, evil, little anti-life AGW apologist/cultist. !
“Sea ice extent still at lowest for this date”
This is GREAT NEWS, Thanks, griff !! 🙂
Certainly not a “crisis” .. a highly beneficial situation for Arctic sea life, and anyone that lives up there
Fishing, transport, recreation, all become SO MUCH EASIER. !
Griff, how long is your record?
grief has access to soviet records?..
RH
Right! Didn’t you see the link he provided to back up his claim? 🙂
meanwhile Greenland ice mass is outside the SDD range also
while Antarctic sea ice is the mirror image of the Arctic’s – heat piracy anyone?
(Bipolar seesaw.)
That’s out of date for Greenland, view latest data here. For DMI we’re in 2020/2021.
http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
2019/2020 had a very short summer melt,with less mass loss than “normal”.
Ben
Thanks!
If the warming is natural, then there is nothing to worry about.
Since the warming still hasn’t gotten us back to the level of the Medieval Warm Period, much less the earlier warm periods, there is no reason to assume that the warming we are enjoying is anything but natural.
The models are the only source of the claim that the current warming must be caused by CO2.
If we ignore the models, we are back to the position that the warming is natural and something to be enjoyed, not feared.
If the Soviets know that Arctic sea ice is disappearing, it’s curious that they should be making the world’s biggest fleet of nuclear ice-breakers:
https://www.rt.com/business/504112-russia-most-powerful-arctic-icebreaker/
griff, What? the real ice is the Antarctica and the fact that it is INCREASING is what matters, not that little dribble of Arctic ice fluctuating as the winds change.
If you look at “Climate Reanalyser” you will see there is still an anomalous warm blob sitting over the top of Siberia. This is from a consistent WEATHER pattern that is dragging warm air from further south.
Over Canada is a cold blob.. again , its a WEATHER event.
An of cause , there is no evidence of any human causation…
and no evidence that the slow growth in sea ice so far this year is anything but a big plus for Arctic sea creatures.
“Crisis, what crisis?”
THERE ISN’T ONE..
…. except in your feeble little mind.
Griff, I am familiar with the Soviet data. It is presumably accurate as far as it goes, but the August-September maps often only show open water areas with no data on where the actual ice-edge was because it was beyond the range of the convoys and the short-range aicraft used for ice-reconaissance. Like this for example:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/NOAA/G02176/pngs/1939/e19390901_fy.v0.png
And there is very little data later in the year, because navigation had already ceased. As can be seen here:
0.85 degrees per doubling. 0.5 error bar.
“are getting ECS values way above 4.5, which would be truly dangerous.” That is pure conjecture, and very likely to be untrue.
Most of the warming will be from an increase in minimum temperatures, how is this negative, exposing plants and animals to less extreme temperatures?
This is the problem with trying to plan based on worst case thinking. Tomorrow I could go for a walk in the neighborhood and some car could come around the corner at 100 miles an hour and jump the curb and run me down on the sidewalk. This is the worst case. By IPCC standards this means I should never leave my house, or country should ban cars or put cement barriers along every sidewalk.
When science is being channelled to help resolve a debate, such as climate change drivers, the detail that is woven into arguments supporting and denying a position becomes ever more precise.
Despite this move towards precision of points surrounding the debate, overwhelmingly pointing clearly in one direction, still the debate goes on?
Now consider why that is the case?
Those who champion climate change being driven by human activity, mostly fossil fuel induced, have very little if any scientific training.
Greta Thunberg: no education no scientific training at all. can pull a face.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: no scientific training at all. can pull a pint.
Prince Charles: no scientific training at all, talks to trees, can pull a rope.
Caroline Lucas: (head UK Green): no scientific training, can pull together…apparently.
David Attenborough: a talking head, no scientific training, can pull stories from thin air, or cliffs.
Michael Mann: a discredited scientist famous for ignoring the past. can pull a grant.
I could go on but you get the picture.
Now with that as the opposition against the thousands and thousands of real scientists, who know their subjects and all say the man made climate change alarm is unfounded hype. How is it possible, to still be debating this man made climate change nonsense?
If scientific argument was going to win the debate it would have been over decades ago. Clearly something else is maintaining the climate story and anxiety? It is not the science!
Those of us who are realists, know you can’t win a non scientific debate with more scientific proof. The other side are not interested in facts, even if they had any understanding of the science being thrown at them.
What we have here is a movement demanding global change, primarily the ending of capitalism. They have chosen climate concern, as their instrument to influence the masses. They have also realised is a very blunt and long winded instrument. For them something much more dynamic and immediate is needed.
Welcome to Covid world.
Note the ongoing build up of scientific argument, but also note how much more immediate the closing down of commercial activity is.
Vote wisely America.
The powerful don’t really want to kill capitalism, they want to control it. Follow the money. There really isn’t much to be made from current electricity production. The state Public Utility Commissions have that under control. So let’s knock all the current stuff out and rebuild the infrastructure. Gobs and gobs of money will flow to the rich and powerful to create the infrastructure and then they will walk away.
Jim
Once one has several NYC apartments, international villas, and a stable of exotic cars, what do they do with their money? I suppose they could horde it as cash like Scrooge McDuck, but more likely they are going to invest in stocks, bonds, and developments. From that, everyone benefits. Not unlike what is called “Trickle Down.” When you get rich enough, like Bill Gates, you start being philanthropic. Again many people benefit.
Climate models are basically driven by the prior forcings input to them. This is basically a pre-determined low frequency model. The models themselves act as glorified pseudo-random generators. This is easily demonstrated for CMIP5 results by:
1. The “climate signal” matching historical temps only becomes apparent when multiple models are averaged, thus revealing the common input low frequency prior model
2. Subtracting the model mean from the individual models reveals…..nothing but unstructured random fluctuations with no temporal correlation or correlation to the historical temps. The physics of the models adds nothing to the understanding of the real world other than the prior assumptions that were input.
3. The final nail in the coffin is that the model mean can be trivially reconstructed from simple linear regression of the input prior. So just using anthropogenic positive forcings gives R=0.93 to the mean of the models, adding in natural forcing prior takes it to R=0.96. The correlation of the model mean with Hadcrut4 is R=0.92. The same correlation with Hadcrut4 can be obtained with a simple stepwise linear regression of the input forcings simply summarised into two groups of Anthro+ and natural, with a lag allowed for each to maximise correlation at each step.
In other words, the model mean can be almost perfectly constructed from just two linear regressions of the amalgamated inputs, and so can Hadcrut4. 92.6% of the model mean variance is explained just from the input prior model. So the mean climate model output is simply 92.6% input prior. And because the correlation to Hadcrut4 is lower it suggests the models are actually degrading the priors!
All the climate modellers are doing is tinkering with the balance of the input forcings by changing parameters. Climate models are simply:
Model output = model input low frequency prior + random noise
A bit OT and a bit off language, but then again…
Naomi Seibt exposing Prof. Drosten’s PCR test (German) in the German Bundestag.
I think her 18 minutes speech is extremely significant, not only to the Germans, but to the whole Western World.
You can see her speech at https://naomiseibt.com/ or
https://youtu.be/EmGatna0Uf4
Appeal:
Although I understand German perfectly, I do not have the skills to make English subtitles or a transcript.
Anybody here who are in for it?
Now I”m truly confused. “mean global temperature” should be defined as “habitable”. That covers it much bettre than squiggly numbers and shifting positions because the seat of your desk suddenly got too hard.
I do have to add that the only time temperatures have ever been mean in my area is in winter when the snow is done flying and I have to shovel that stuff. Those are the days when I wish the temperature would stop being so mean and warm things up just a bit.
Where is the proper place to start when proposing a value or range of values for ECS? Start at zero and admit there is no way presently to detect any condition by which a different value can be established.
Pat Frank has demonstrated formally in his paper (here https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full ) that no model can reliably project a global air temperature response to changes in atmospheric CO2.
This reinforces to me what is intuitively apparent by looking at total energy in the atmosphere at any particular point on the planet. To illustrate, here is a link to a graph of “Vertical Integral of Total Energy” at a gridpoint not far from where I live in upstate New York. It is a time series of hourly values for all of 2019. The data is from the ERA5 reanalysis product by ECMWF. I have expressed these values on the vertical axis in Watt-hours per square meter to get the point. 3.7 W/m^2 is widely accepted as the direct static warming effect at the surface of a doubling of CO2 (i.e. from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv.) Another way to express this same value is 3.7 Watt-hours per hour per m^2. Look at the graph. This quantity of energy stored or released per hour in the atmosphere is vanishingly thin on the vertical scale. Why? Because the rapid and large energy transformations in the atmosphere overwhelm and blur what happens if the radiative coupling of the lower atmosphere to the surface, and the effectiveness of high altitude emission to space, are each slightly adjusted by increases in CO2. The classic needle in the haystack. Other gridpoints, e.g. in the tropics or near the poles, will look a bit different but the message is the same.
So what? Any value of ECS different from zero cannot be reliably detected or determined. What the atmosphere does with energy (kinetic, potential, sensible heat, latent heat) will not let you find it. And if a value of ECS obviously cannot be determined at any gridpoint, neither can it be reliably estimated for the planet.
Equilibrium climate sensitivity is a meaningless metric. Doubling or halving the CO2 concentration merely halves or doubles the altitude at which there is complete absorption of the radiation in the CO2 absorption bands at the Earth’s surface temperature. That means that there is no more energy to be had from those bands.
See http://www.clepair.net/witteman-CO2+IR.html
for the paper by Professor Emeritus W.J. Witteman: The absorption of thermal emitted infrared radiation.
On 18 October 2020, the atmospheric CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory was 411.17 ppm. That equates to a density of 1.143 x 10^+16 molecules of CO2 per cubic centimetre. The four main absorption bands for CO2 emit 6.929 x 10^+7 photons per cubic centimetre, that is, one photon for every 165,000,000 CO2 molecules from Planck’s law for a source temperature of 15̊C. Consequently all of the radiation from the four bands emitted from the Earth’s surface for an average temperature of 15̊C would be absorbed within a few hundred metres of the surface, leaving the vast majority of the CO2 molecules in their vibrational ground state.
Even if there was room for more absorption, how is that going to heat the Earth at an average temperature of 15 deg.C when 99.83% of the photons in the CO2 absorption bands are in the 15 micron band, equivalent to the peak emission from a source at -80 deg.C. That temperature is only experienced at the South Pole on odd occasions.
Computer simulation models of the Earth’s climate are always wrong because they involve this meaningless metric.
Bevan
Looking for equilibrium parameters in a far-from-equilibrium system is obviously going to be a quest for a non-existent Holy Grail.
To me, final equalized sensitivity goes back to the idea that Earth is 33°C warmer than it would be if the atmosphere were completely transparent, because of energy imbalance of 150 W m-2.
This means that whatever causes the imbalance, it eventually equalizes out to,
33°C/150 W m-2= .22°C per W m-2. 2XCO2 claimed imbalance of 3.71 W m-2, would equalize out to .816°C.
I noticed an interesting coincidence in playing with the numbers (and coincidences do not usually exists in science)
The total pre industrial imbalance is supposed to be 150 W m-2, with CO2 at 280 ppm,
and CO2 accounts for 20% of that 150 W m-2, or 30 W m-2.
If we look at the number of doubling s of CO2 it takes to get from 1 ppm to 280 ppm,
we get 8.09 doubling s. This makes each doubling worth, 30 W m-2/8.09= 3.708 W m-2!
It doesn’t work that way. At low concentrations absoption increases linearly, it is only when fom a few tens of ppm that the incerase becomes logarithmic. So doublings have very different effects at low concentations.
In my arrogant opinion I reckon I sorted this problem out some time ago; but in my humble opinion it is little more than an hypothesis ripe for discussion and challenge. Here is a summary of the logic:
For every force or influence, at equilibrium there is an equal and opposite force or influence. The GHE may be considered as an influence.
Consider the Hydro Cycle as an OPPOSING influence, being in essence a Rankine Cycle. This being the basic Hypothesis.
In a Rankine Cycle an increase in energy input (GHE?) results in an increase in the RATE of circulation of the Cycle; but NO increase in the Mass of the working fluid (water) involved. (This being the opposing influence)
In this process the pressure and temperature remain constant; as seen in our steam generating plants.
The evaporation/condensation processes occur at constant temperature thus the Sensitivity Coefficient in the Planck Equation is ZERO.
The physical forces driving this Rankine Cycle are gravity and the buoyancy of the water Vapor(a gas) due to its molecular weight being less than that of dry air. The vapor with its Latent Heat rising and the condensed liquid descending under gravity. Thus moving a large energy up through the atmosphere and beyond for dissipation. This being some 694 Watthrs./Kilogram of water evaporated. (The Latent Heat)
It is within the clouds that much of this cycle takes place where energy is moved or transformed at very low levels of Sensitivity at a micro/fractal level, providing a strong influence on the overall Global Sensitivity.
Unless the above is incorporated into the climate models, there will inevitably be an overestimate of Climate Sensitivity.
Considering clouds purely in terms of Albedo, radiation etc. being inadequate to explain or conclude on matters of feedback etc.
IMO it appears that the climate models concentrate almost entirely on matters of radiation to explain or mimic the climate at the expense of basic thermodynamics particularly of water. They need to adjust this; but it would involve thinking outside the current mindset of reliance on data collection from sophisticated measurement of radiation.
I am getting a 409 Error message in attempting to comment. What do I do?
Anyone can look @ur momisugly the GHG diagram and see how little CO2 contributes:
It amazes me that anyone could look at that and say that CO2 can drive climate change.
Alarmists will always maintain high ECS estimates because without a temperature figure that’s high enough to scare the public the entire AGW industry collapses.
The IPCC will l** and l** about their central ECS figure to keep the show on the road. That’s just a fact.
Dr William Happer said if my memory serves me correctly said that if Co2 is about to cause dangerous climate change why didn’t it cause dangerous climate change during the Cambrian when atmospheric Co2 was 8,000ppm? Or when dinosaurs ruled the world when atmospheric Co2 was 2500ppm. Worst case scenario as atmosphere is mostly saturated Dr Happer said doubling from now – which is unlikely according to Dr Spencer – might warm the planet by 1C. Currently UAH shows a trend of 0.14C/decade or 1.12C by 2100.
Since 2004 the planet has spent $5 trillion on wind turbines which in 2019 generated – about – 1% of global energy demand. Turbines are at the BETZ limit and will remain 24% efficient at birth declining to 11% at 15 years just before they die at 20 years. Energy demand growth was 2.9% in 2019. Therefore to generated 1% of demand growth/year every year using turbines the planet would need to spend $20 trillion on turbines/year every year which is impossible and would make no inroads into the 85% of energy generated by fossil fuels.
It doesn’t matter how many times and how many different ways people do the calculations. Natural emissions of Co2 are 28 times those of human emissions including emissions from fossil fuels but insofar as I can understand it is the 3.4% which is causing the supposed problem not the 96.6% which doesn’t make a lot of sense. A slight rise in natural emissions would easily exceed the a slight rise in human emissions. But if we planted $20 trillion of turbines every year for 50 years turbines would cover an area the size of Russia.
There is not a snowballs chance in hell that this circle can be squared. We couldn’t build turbines and solar panels fast enough. We would most likely run out of space just before we recognised we couldn’t dig anymore holes in the environment that we were supposed to be conserving and protecting from the supposed ravages caused by Co2.
The rhetoric is absurd. The basis of the argument is that Co2 is a threat to the environment because it might cause a little more rain and a few more storms and maybe another tornado or hurricane the evidence thus far proves this to be nonsense. But in order to remove all risk we need to carpet the environment which is supposed at risk from Co2 with man made monstrosities which cannot exist with the abundance of coal oil and gas which are manufactured from stuff dug out of the environment. Cognitive dissonance. Whom ever dreamt up this idiotic exercise in Alice in Wonderland banality needs a Nobel prize for creativity.
Climate change is dangerous now, because it changes the conditions our current civilisation depends on, drastically, within a very short space of time.
Starting when?
Do you have any evidence to support that belief?
PS: A few tenths of a degree over a century or more is not something civilization can’t handle.
@griff You’re just making it up as you go along.
Griff, total fiction. The only thing it changes is increasing plant growth.
What difference does any of that make to the planet? We’re still not even a blink of an eye.
Utter RUBBISH ! from griff.
Climate has never been static
The warmer periods in the past have always been period of human progress.
The colder periods of human suffering.
You are a LIAR and FOOL, griff.
Answer this question griff..
or just run and hide
In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be SCIENTIFICALLY proven to be of human causation?
You will have to actually back up your answer with real science, not Gruniad parrot cage paper.
You are a empty sock, griff.
Griff, you should take a look at the temp changes during the Younger Dryas period.
Or consider that during Dansgaard-Oeschger events the Greenland temp can swing 10+ degC in a matter of decades (30 – 50 yrs).
Finally, consider that for around 80% of the Holocene the European Alps were largely ice-free – lots of peer reviewed papers on this, discovering ancient forest remains reappearing as ice retreats now.
Happer is quite right of course.
And Angstrom showed that the IR effect of CO2 saturates in a thin slice of the atmosphere back in 1900:
https://www.justproveco2.com/papers/Angstrom1900English.pdf
During the Archean Eon, when anaerobic prokaryotes ruled, CO2 was ten to 100 times as plentiful as now, ie 4000 to 40,000 ppm. The latter figure is comparable to water vapor in the moist tropics now.
Methane was also probably much higher than now.
From the article: “The first line of research takes a new approach called observational ECS. The idea is that since the CO2 level is almost half way to doubling we should be able to derive ECS empirically from the observed relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase.”
Temperature increase starting when? If we start in the 1930’s in the U.S. then there has been no temperature increase since that time, yet CO2 has increased. So this particular observation says CO2 has no measureable effect on atmospheric temperautures.
“The idea is that since the CO2 level is almost half way to doubling we should be able to derive ECS empirically from the observed relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase”
Estimating climate sensitivity from recent temperature and CO2 increases makes a logical error; it assumes that recent CO2 increase is the sole cause of recent temperature increases. It postulates that there is no “natural” process going on that affects temperature; a postulate that is extremely improbable. It’s the “natural climate change ceased in 1975” concept which is never actually stated, but is implicit in most climate science.
Therefore, not knowing the “natural” climate changes of recent decades makes it logically impossible to estimate ECS using temperature and CO2 time series.
If the alarmist cabal needs to defend itself against the argument that very high estimates of ECS don’t match observed temperature increases, they can say that there’s been a natural cooling process that offsets most of the CO2-induced warming. Of course, defending a position with argument isn’t part of climate science protocols; they just throw personal insults against anyone who points out their errors, so even that weak, post-hoc rationalization isn’t actually stated.
In Thor 2, when the evil dark elf is attacking the union of all space and time, the battle takes place at Greenwich.
Thus proving that the choice of Greenwich is not arbitrary.
It has divine sanction.
A very perceptive article, thanks David.
There have been a number of observational studies and many are getting ECS values well below 1.5, which are harmless indeed. Values of 1.2 and 1.3 are common.
But at the same time there has been a new wave of modeling studies and these are getting ECS values way above 4.5, which would be truly dangerous. Here values of 5.2 and 5.3 are to be found.
…
How the IPCC handles the exploding ECS range will be interesting to see, at the very least. They may choose to ignore it because it has to hurt alarmism.
FWIW I think the path they will choose is balefully predictable.
They are all in so they will double down on the new high modelling ECS numbers.
They have been chastened by the convergence of the empirical data-based low ECS in agreement with theoretical work by Chris Monckton, Nic Lewis, Lindzen and others. So they may well indeed try to move away from the concept of ECS. Find a modelling-only safe space.
Question: is there a so-called “tipping point” for CO2 level in the atmosphere?
And a second question: what is the percentage contribution of Man to the natural CO2 level?
That there is a “tipping point” is a given by climate alarmists, yet the scientific basis for this conclusion is lacking. Historical levels of CO2 in the atmosphere by various observational methods suggests it can vary widely. And this variable CO2 level has not been shown to be causative of atmospheric temperature.
It’s been hard to pin down the percentage contribution of Man to the natural CO2 level. Is it 3% or 10%, somewhere in between?
There is no scientific basis to declare even a 10% contribution creates a “tipping point.”
Only an a priori assumption.
That’s not a basis for upending the world’s political-economy by imposed (read forced) Socialism.