Study suggests no more CO2 warming

Reposted from CFACT

By David Wojick |October 26th, 2020|Climate

Precision research by physicists William Happer and William van Wijngaarden has determined that the present levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor are almost completely saturated. In radiation physics the technical term “saturated” implies that adding more molecules will not cause more warming.

In plain language this means that from now on our emissions from burning fossil fuels could have little or no further impact on global warming. There would be no climate emergency.  No threat at all. We could emit as much CO2 as we like; with no effect.

This astounding finding resolves a huge uncertainty that has plagued climate science for over a century. How should saturation be measured and what is its extent with regard to the primary greenhouse gases?

In radiation physics the term “saturation” is nothing like the simple thing we call saturation in ordinary language, just as the greenhouse effect is nothing like how greenhouses work. Your paper towel is saturated when it won’t pick up any more spilled milk. In contrast greenhouse gases are saturated when there is no more milk left to pick up, as it were, but it is far more complex than this simple analogy suggests.

Happer is probably best known to our readers as a leading skeptical scientist. He co-founded the prestigious CO2 Coalition and recently served on the staff of the National Security Council, advising President Trump. But his career has been as a world class radiation physicist at Princeton. His numerous peer reviewed journal articles have collectively garnered over 12,000 citations by other researchers.

In this study Professors Happer and van Wijngaarden (H&W) have worked through the saturation physics in painstaking detail. Their preprint is titled “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases“. They have gone far beyond the work done to date on this complex problem.

To begin with, while the standard studies treat the absorption of radiation by greenhouse molecules using crude absorption bands of radiation energy, H&W analyze the millions of distinct energies, called spectral lines, which make up these bands. This line by line approach has been an emerging field of analysis, often giving dramatically new results.

Nor do they just look at absorption. Here is how Professor Happer put it to me:

You would do our community a big favor by getting across two important points that few understand. Firstly: Thermal emission of greenhouse gases is just as important as absorption. Secondly: How the temperature of the atmosphere varies with altitude is as important as the concentration of greenhouse gases.

So they looked hard, not just at absorption but also including emissions and atmospheric temperature variation. The work is exceedingly complex but the conclusions are dramatically clear.

Happer and van Wijngaarden’s central conclusion is this:

For the most abundant greenhouse gases, H2O and CO2, the saturation effects are extreme, with per-molecule forcing powers suppressed by four orders of magnitude at standard concentrations...”

Their graphical conclusions are especially telling:

Fig. 9 as well as Tables 2 and 4 show that at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 are so extreme that the per-molecule forcing is attenuated by four orders of magnitude…

The other three greenhouse gases they analyzed are ozone, nitrous oxide and methane. These are also saturated but not extremely so like water vapor and carbon dioxide. They are also relatively minor in abundance compared to CO2, which in turn is small compared to H2O.

Clearly this is work that the climate science community needs to carefully consider. This may not be easy given that three major physics journals have refused to publish it. The reviews have been defensive and antagonistic, neither thoughtful nor helpful. Alarmism is in control of the journals, censoring contrary findings, hence the preprint version.

Undaunted, H&W are now extending their analysis to include clouds. Alarmist climate science gets dangerous global warming, not from the CO2 increase alone, but also using positive water vapor and cloud feedbacks. Given that carbon dioxide and water vapor are both extremely saturated, it is highly unlikely that cloud feedbacks alone can do much damage, but it requires careful analysis to know this for sure. Stay tuned.

In the meantime the present work needs to be front and center as we strive for rational climate science. Professors William Happer and William van Wijngaarden are to be congratulated for an elegant and timely breakthrough.

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.

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Bill Treuren
October 26, 2020 6:09 pm

this will be popular.

Reply to  Bill Treuren
October 26, 2020 6:29 pm

Fakebook….Tweeter….and all of ’em will ban any mention….down the memory hole….never happened.

Craig from Oz
Reply to  T.C. Clark
October 26, 2020 7:04 pm

Actually I don’t know.

I could see our Social Lords and Masters deciding to let this trend, purely to distract from all those posts from people hunting for a second hand computer.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  T.C. Clark
October 26, 2020 10:08 pm

Make it easier on yourself. Just conglomerate them as TwitGooFace.

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 27, 2020 12:29 pm

How about goo faced twit? Sounds like a small song bird.

Scissor
Reply to  T.C. Clark
October 27, 2020 5:49 am

Things happened. The reality is that truth often finds a way of revealing itself sometimes very visually.

My biggest question today is did Joe and Barack know about Hunter and Malia?

A.C.j.p.
Reply to  T.C. Clark
October 30, 2020 5:40 am

Yeah… we need a new system of communication and information dispersement. This internet is like a science project gone out of control bad. We used to laugh about the “revenge of the nerds.”

Reply to  Bill Treuren
October 26, 2020 6:35 pm

You forgot the sarc tag.

I don’t believe this study will ever make it into the majority of informational outlets. As far as the typical media, not a chance.

Reply to  Brad-DXT
October 26, 2020 6:41 pm

I read it as sarcasm.

Reply to  Brad-DXT
October 26, 2020 7:12 pm

You mean we can’t expect Joe Biden to retract his strident fossil fuel statements in the last debate?

Reply to  philincalifornia
October 26, 2020 8:55 pm

“Climate Change” is merely a useful excuse for many petroleum company hating activists. If they saw a potentially more successful way to destroy the fossil fuel economy they would not be adverse to changing tactics, no matter where those led.

Loydo
Reply to  AndyHce
October 26, 2020 11:09 pm

It does not say that more CO2 could be added with no effect.
…but down the rabbit burrow we go.

And Wojick’s ludicrous “no more CO2 warming” spin gets everyone here breathless with excitement; a skepticism-free zone. I suppose the desperation is understandable given the relentless warming observation: 429 months of above average temperature.
comment image

But, but, maybe next month it’ll start to cool or pause or something…

Nuh, and clearly not for thousands of years.

mikebartnz
Reply to  Loydo
October 26, 2020 11:24 pm

Loydo quote “429 months of above average temperature.”
Above what average exactly. As for that graph, it is total bullshit as what happened to the 1930’s and you have to remember Loydo that we have been coming out of the little ice age or does that not make a difference? :((

fred250
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 12:19 am

Loy, It says “saturated”

What don’t you comprehend this time ???

1… Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?
2… In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be scientifically proven to be of human causation?

Duck and weave again, petal !!

fred250
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 12:24 am

NOAA/GISS ADJUSTMENTS look almost exactly the same

comment image

Find some REAL data next time, loy, not a blatant fabrication.

And of course the slight warming since the LIA has been totally beneficial and driven by natural forces such as the SUN and AMO/PDO cycles.

comment image
comment image

Loydo
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 1:44 am

Mike, last century’s average. Its global not just the US. If you think its bs, which global data set do you prefer?
comment image

mikebartnz
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 2:21 am

I am sorry Loydo but that previous graph was complete bullshit and the next one is probably no better. For one going back to 1850 so much of the world was not even covered with a thermometer so a global average back then is an undoubted load of bullshit. As well as that if the temperature was -30C and you were reading the thermometer would you quibble about a degree or two. In science you are not meant to use a precision greater than the least precise one and yet we are meant to believe it is so precise they can tell to a tenth of a degree. As well as that a global average actually tells us nothing. So many of today’s stations are a joke, like being on a roof within metres of an air-conditioning unit.
We also know how much the temperatures have been adjusted which would be believable except that the adjustments ALWAYS go in one direction. So you can throw as many graphs at me as you like but I won’t be believing them just like I won’t believe you. You have dirtied your nest too often.

lee
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 2:01 am

Loydo, poor petal that he is thinks we can average global temperature. He thinks they can do it to 1/100th Cº.

kim
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 4:39 am

Nobody knows why it has warmed since the LIA.
Nor does anybody know when that warming will stop.
Besides, we’re only talking about the atmosphere; it’s the oceanic heat content that wags the atmospheric tail and nobody knows ‘that thing’s’ trend.
Long term we are cooling, folks; that will bring the climate damages.
Anthropogenic warming is net beneficial and anthropogenic greening is cornucopic.
=============

oeman 50
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 5:34 am

Just like in Lake Woebegone, all of the temperatures are above average.

kim
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 6:42 am

Loydo cannot support ‘and clearly not for thousands of years’.

Eat your Wheaties, Hon, and try again.
=========

MarkW
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 7:54 am

It really is amazing how strongly the warmunists cling to their discredited “science”.

MarkW
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 7:55 am

Loydo, please provide evidence that any, much less most of the warming from the last century was caused by CO2.

MarkW
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 7:57 am

lee, Loydo not only believes that we can measure the temperature of the earth today, to 100th of a degree, he also believes that we can measure the temperature of the earth back in 1850, to the same degree of accuracy.

Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 8:44 am

Loydo – sea level rise and glacier retreat start around 1850 – 1860, which is 50 years too early for HadCrut4 and way too early to be consistent with IPCC forcings (which don’t even start to turn positive on decadel averages until after 1910 and don’t get going properly until the 1950s).

So what caused the warming from 1910 – 1945? In Hadcrut4 the warming rate for 35 yrs 1910 – 1945 is virtually identical to the 35 yr period 1975 – 2010, yet the IPCC forcings are a factor > 3x different for the two periods. Physically impossible, given the forcings. See:

https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1975/to:2010/trend

And how come global alpine glaciers were melting from as early as 1840 and the sea level rising at a steady rate since 1850? Completely impossible if you accept the IPCC forcings which are all negative (cooling) decadel averages until 1910.

See Jevrejeva (2014), Nussbaumer (2007), Zumbahl (2011), Leclerc & Oerlemans (2012)

Bob Weber
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 9:04 am

Nobody knows why it has warmed since the LIA.

Well, then my name is ‘Nobody’. It was higher solar activity kim.

comment image

kim
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 10:20 am

Perhaps so, Bob W, and I suspect so too.

But I’m not sure, not knowing the mechanisms of possible change in the sun, and/or change in the temperature effect of an unchanged sun.
===========

Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 11:18 am

Loydo
Nuh, and clearly not for thousands of years.

That’s priceless hilarity to rival anything from Laurel and Hardy.

Don’t forget that you’re supposed to at least pretend to believe in “natural” climate change.

fred250
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 12:34 pm

Loy is SO DUMB, that he still hasn’t caught on that all those are built using the same mal-adjusted data .

No accounting for his ignorance.

They can’t measure a global temperature now, and they certainly couldn’t back in the 1850s.

You can see the LIES in the graph knowing that the 1930s,40s were similar temperatures to now.

Also by looking at the fact that UAH, RSS and all other satellite data shows no warming between 1980 and 1997 and no warming between 2001 and 2010.

The graphs present are FAKE….. A fraudulent fabrication.

fred250
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 12:36 pm

““no more CO2 warming”

There is no evidence of any warming by atmospheric CO2 in the first place.

It is LUDICROUS to say there is…

especially when loy knows he/she/it cannot produce any evidence.

Reply to  Bill Treuren
October 27, 2020 7:20 am

Table 5 says “clear sky” climate sensitivity of 2.2, not “no more CO2 warming”…it’s possibly a test to see who reads content versus headline….

Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 6:32 pm

Why does the study merely “suggest” no more warming? Doesn’t it literally mean no further increase in the greenhouse effect due to CO2 emissions?

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 7:09 pm

On a day when the US Southern Central Plains is suffering through an awful ice storm in October, this may not be taken by all readers as good news.
/s

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Alan Robertson
October 26, 2020 10:10 pm

Weather.

Sweet Old Bob
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 27, 2020 7:13 am

Yes ….
deepest snow this early since 1880s ….
weather.

observa
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 9:12 pm

They suggest with evidence and you watch the temperature and doomster predictions. That’s how science works.

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 10:29 pm

Steve,
Partial answer might be that they studied clear sky conditions. Not enough data or understanding yet about cloudy sky conditions. Geoff S

Izaak Walton
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 10:47 pm

Actually it doesn’t. The conclusions states:
“ The surface warming increases significantly for the case of water feedback assuming fixed relative humidity. Our result of 2.3 K is within 0.1 K of values obtained by two other groups as well as a separate calculation where we used the Manabe water vapor profile given by (87). For the case of fixed relative humidity and a pseudoadiabatic lapse rate in the troposphere, we obtain a climate sensitivity of 2.2 K”

So the paper is suggesting a temperature rise of over 2 K in response to a doubling of CO2. Which is at the lower ends of typical estimates.

Wim Röst
Reply to  Izaak Walton
October 27, 2020 12:23 am

Izaak Walton: “So the paper is suggesting a temperature rise of over 2 K in response to a doubling of CO2. Which is at the lower ends of typical estimates”.

WR: I suppose it should be read: “an INITIAL temperature rise of over 2K”. The word ‘initial’ is always forgotten. There is a forcing which means nothing else than that there could be an initial rise in temperature but only “when all other things would remain the same”. But on Earth nothing remains the same: in case of a temperature rise all kinds of cooling processes are activated to come back to the previous ‘equilibrium point’. Willis Eschenbach has shown many examples, for example here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/22/where-the-temperature-rules-the-total-surface-absorption/
Others did so as well. Roy Spencer also emphasizes the role of clouds and we know: more water vapor when it is warming: more (tropical) clouds develop and more shading of the surface results. A major cooling effect resulting from initial warming. Daily observable.

fred250
Reply to  Izaak Walton
October 27, 2020 12:26 am

What don’t you comprehend about the word “saturated”, izzy ?

1… Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

2… In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be scientifically proven to be of human causation?

Loydo
Reply to  fred250
October 27, 2020 1:52 am

Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

There is plenty of evidence for CO2 contributing to radiative forcing. I don’t think that is in dispute.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 2:36 am

“Loydo October 27, 2020 at 1:52 am

There is plenty of evidence for CO2 contributing to radiative forcing.”

Please post that evidence (Above 350ppm/v). (Can’t wait).

David A
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 2:39 am

Well I wish to dispute one part of David W’s post…
“We could emit as much CO2 as we like; with no effect”.

There would be an effect, a definite and large net beneficial affect. More food grown on the same amount of land, with no additional water required. More crops, increased drought and frost tolerant, fewer frost nights, more and larger trees, more rapid forest recovery.

The known and demonstrated benefits of CO2 would continue to increase on a linear scale while the predicted and failed to appear harms would continue to be absent.

fred250
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 5:27 am

Why not just say you DON’T HAVE ANY EVIDENCE of warming by atmospheric CO2…

….and stop your childish ZERO-SCIENCE garbage posts !

Stop pretending you have the vaguest clue what you are talking about, because you make it patently obvious that you don’t.

Try again, clueless one…

1… Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

2… In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be scientifically proven to be of human causation?

fred250
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 5:29 am

“There is plenty of evidence… blah, blah…”

Then POST IT, and stop slithering about like a stranded eel !

Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 10:51 am

Loydo doesn’t think.. who knew?

Rich Davis
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 2:14 pm

Loydo,
That response is the same class of statement as “There is plenty of evidence that Jesus is the son of God. I don’t think that is in dispute.”

In an 18th Century European context, that would have seemed self-evident to Catholics and Protestants alike, with a 97% consensus. They had already accepted various things on faith. It would not strike an 18th Century east Asian as a valid claim backed by any evidence whatsoever.

Even if I agree that you’re right that CO2 contributes to warming, it is obviously “in dispute”. Simply asserting your belief or appealing to the popularity of your belief, is not evidence.

Responding to someone who is challenging your belief by saying that your belief is not in dispute, is irrational (since it was just challenged), or deeply disrespectful (implying that they have no right to question you and do not deserve to be given actual evidence).

You don’t want to be irrational or disrespectful do you?

Loydo
Reply to  Loydo
October 27, 2020 8:39 pm

Rich, do doubt CO2 is contributing to radiative forcing?

“In the 19th century, scientists realized that gases in the atmosphere cause a “greenhouse effect” which affects the planet’s temperature….”
https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm

Reply to  Loydo
October 28, 2020 8:03 am

Loydoo sez:
I don’t think that is in dispute.

Fixed for ya.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Loydo
October 28, 2020 6:05 pm

No, loy
Back in the 19th century, scientists hypothesized that CO2 causes a radiative effect, which, all other things being equal, should result in warming. They did not “realize it” any more than they realized that electromagnetic waves require the ether or that flames involve phlogiston.

It has not been demonstrated that this hypothesized effect is significant or harmful. The period from 1945 to 1975 calls the hypothesis into question or at least demonstrated that not all other things remain equal.

Even though I think the hypothesis seems logical, I don’t know of incontrovertible empirical evidence to show that warming is attributable to CO2 rather than to other factors which must logically be admitted to exist in order for temperatures to have dropped while atmospheric CO2 rose.

A C Osborn
Reply to  fred250
October 27, 2020 2:40 am

Has anybody here read the initial work of Scientists in the 1890s to understand what CO2 does?
They used experiments, the results are fascinating, there was great disagreement between Svante Arrhenius and Knut Ångström and his assistant Herr Koch discussed here.

https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2020/05/25/pick-your-a-team-arrhenius-or-angstrom/

I think Mr Wattts or a mod should make a post of the famous american that carried out those experiments and also reviewed the then current science.
The american Frank Very was requested by the senate to conduct the research.
His paper can be found here, warning it is very long and contains a great deal of data.

ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/noaa_documents.lib/NOAA_historic_documents/WB/Bulletin/Bulletin_G.pdf

It is ironic that NOAA of all people have this study.

One money quote for me is this one “no change in radiation for CO2 until it was below 20% of the test amount”. Also that optical depth has little effect for CO2.

The pages around 50 onwards contain a lot of tests data.

tty
Reply to  Izaak Walton
October 27, 2020 2:48 pm

“For the case of fixed relative humidity”

Which is completely unrealistic, as anyone who knows anything about atmosphere physics is aware. Humidity increases with temperature, yes, but not nearly enough to keep relative humidity fixed.

The only reason for this nonsense is that it is too complex to estimate the actual humidity change. The GCM aren’t up to it so let’s just “simplify” the atmosphere a bit.

Steve Z
Reply to  Izaak Walton
October 29, 2020 9:39 am

Assuming fixed relative humidity introduces a huge error into a climate model.

Relative humidity is the ratio of the actual mole fraction water vapor in the air to the mole fraction at saturation (where the partial pressure of water vapor is equal to its vapor pressure). In the range of ambient temperatures normally found on earth, the vapor pressure of water increases nearly exponentially with temperature, by about 6.0 to 7.5% per degree C.

If a climate modeler assumes that IR absorption by CO2 causes a given volume of air to be warmed by 1.0 C, the assumption of constant relative humidity requires an additional 6 to 7.5% of water vapor to be transferred to the air, in addition to the water vapor initially present. This water must come from somewhere, presumably by evaporation of liquid water from the sea or other body of water (lake, river, swamp, puddle, etc.). Evaporation of liquid water requires heat, and the heat of vaporization of the additional water vapor would be supplied by the air that has been warmed (heat transfer from warm to cold).

At temperatures above 20 C, at relative humidities above 70% (typical over tropical oceans), the heat of vaporization required to maintain constant relative humidity can consume 30% to 50% of the heat required to warm the air by 1 C. This means that a climate model assuming constant relative humidity is ignoring a negative feedback of -0.3 to -0.5 in the heat balance over the tropical oceans, which would have a huge impact on over-predicting the warming.

Over land, during dry weather, where would the additional water come from to maintain constant relative humidity? If the air warmed over dry land, the relative humidity would decrease, otherwise the model would violate conservation of mass.

Any climate model purporting to predict future climate must not assume constant relative humidity, and must account for the heat and mass transfer effects of water between its phases (water vapor, liquid water, ice/snow).

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Steve Z
October 29, 2020 12:57 pm

:
You are certainly on the right lines hereBut I would prefer to use absolute humidity rather than relative. The system is the Hydro Cycle which acts as a Rankine Cycle, where any increase in energy input results in an increase in the RATE of circulation but NOT the MASS being circulated. Thus any increase in evaporation would result in an increase in precipitation, giving a constant absolute humidity. The IPCC has got it wrong here.
Delving deeper into the thermodynamics reveals that water provides a strong NEGATIVE feedback to the purported GHE contrary to its claim that it is POSITIVE.

I am not alone in this as John T Houghton who was one of the lead authors for the IPCC states in his book “The Physics of Atmospheres” that the GHE is halted when the water vapour is saturated with respect to ice or liquid . (Page 16 in my copy).

Kurt
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 26, 2020 11:18 pm

I don’t believe so. As I understand the preprint of the study, the “saturation” they refer to is the amount of surface radiation absorbed by the atmosphere for each spectral line due to all GHGs that absorb in that line. But conventional GHG theory says that, even after the atmosphere absorbs all radiation from the surface in a particular band or line, adding more GHGs that absorb in that band sill leads to further warming, but at a logarithmic rate of increase by slowing the escape of heat to space.

What they seem to be saying is that for CO2 and water vapor, which have overlapping spectral bands with many other GHGs, the saturation is so great that the added forcing merely from doubling CO2 is much less than what would otherwise be expected if you were to only consider CO2 (they say only 2.3K with water vapor feedback – see the matrices on page 29 of the preprint where the top number(s) reflect surface temperature increase from doubling).

Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 27, 2020 10:14 am

“Suggest” is scientific language. One study does not prove anything. Plus they have not done clouds.

Gord
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 27, 2020 12:59 pm

The use “suggest”. the alarmists use “will warm”.
Check these warmists:
http://prairieclimatecentre.ca/

james fosser
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 27, 2020 3:30 pm

Dear Steve. Real scientists use words like suggest, may, could etc because being definitive is arrogance in that they can now go and attend to their gardens as the matter is closed.

John David Smith
Reply to  Steve Reddish
October 27, 2020 8:46 pm

Yes it does, Mr. Reddish. What caught my attention was the “flipping” of the viewpoint. The sun emits a finite amount of energy which means absorbtion by greenhouse gases is finite as well. If saturation has occured, then additional CO2 becomes available for greening ,
which is happening. While the math, physics is undoubtedly complex, my understanding is that of taking a gallon container of water and pouring it into a half gallon container i.e.one will eventually need a mop.

October 26, 2020 6:36 pm

Happer must not be a leading scientist….

Mr.
Reply to  DonM
October 26, 2020 7:07 pm

It shouldn’t matter what names are behind any scientific hypothesis.
All that should matter is the “fit” with observations.

Reply to  Mr.
October 26, 2020 8:27 pm

(sorry, mine is sarcasm. don’t you know that “all leading scientists” say we have 10 years to give our lives over to the progressives or we will bake?)

Reply to  DonM
October 26, 2020 8:53 pm

Yeah, I got it, but when you have a comment like that from Joe Houde below, apparently serious, anything is possible.

mikebartnz
Reply to  DonM
October 26, 2020 7:52 pm

You have convinced us all with that impressive comment.

October 26, 2020 6:38 pm

Climate Change is now at the superstition level of belief among US Democrats and the Left globally. And the smarter ones globally know Climate Change has never been about climate, but about Change. A political-social change to socialism and a two-class system in the West is the real objective of Climate Change policy.

Simply telling someone that clings to their rabbit’s foot or to a 4-Leaf clover that that doesn’t bring them “Good Luck” still doesn’t stop them from clinging. So it is the same with a saturated GHE of 400 ppm CO2 to a catastrophic Climate Change believer. They’ve drunk too much Liberal Koolaide to turn back on their superstition. And pseudoscientists like Mike Mann have all their tainted reputations on the line to support the climate scam, so support it they do.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 26, 2020 8:12 pm

How do you explain the hostile reviewers, Joel? They’re presumably trained Ph.D.-level research physicists.

Politics over science for them, is it? Or just blinded into incompetence?

What’s your take?

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 8:39 pm

The superstition is in the general public and the politicians, people too lacking in critical thinking skills to evaluate what the climate scientists are feeding them for that next grant, especially when what they are being fed fits an affirmation of a bias.

Climate change, as formulated by the IPCC and the CMIP series of model ensembles, is an institutional belief to be defended by the Consensus. Trenberth’s hopes that AGW becomes the Null Hypothesis has gained institutional traction without the “institution” even being fully aware of it. I firmly believe the Consensus of climate scientists, whose careers, reputations and grants are built upon that consensus, understands the fundamental aspect of Einstein’s response to the 100 Scientists against him.

Einstein was told of the publication of a book entitled, ‘100 Authors Against Einstein’, he replied: “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

So Pat, your paper on the fact that supercomputer climate models are iterating millions of time steps that it creates such uncertainty into unfathomably large statistical error makes the output meaningless puts them out of business. Entire fields of climate beyond modeling and all the non-climate fields that have attached themselves like leaches to RCP 8.5 alarmism have a stake in maintaining the consensus that the models outputs are somehow relevant to policy.

Maintenance of the consensus is the imperative for climate science. Because the data for another incipient “Pause” is looking stronger with the building ENSO La Nina and a solar minimum in the next several years going into the consensus IPCC AR6 alarmism hopes.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 26, 2020 9:39 pm

Thank-you, Joel. But why do Ph.D. research grade physicists buy into it?

Their training and critical minds should make them see right through it.

I plain don’t get it.

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 10:37 pm

Pat,
The math in the paper is too hard or tedious for them. Easiest to throw in the towel and go with the Establishment. Intellectual laziness? Geoff S

Izaak Walton
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 10:48 pm

perhaps they are right and you are wrong?

fred250
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 12:28 am

Wrong again Loy..

You are invariably WRONG.

Please explain where Pat is “wrong”.

Loydo
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 2:26 am

“perhaps they are right and you are wrong?”

Nah, that couldn’t possibly explain it, could it? Thousands of climate scientists and hundreds of national science institutes all have it wrong and a couple of bloggers have it all figured out because, well because it gotta be anything but CO2, and, and Marxists…

Jeez, its CO2, its ours and its rapidly warming. Don’t be surprised if there are another 400 months of warm anomaly will you.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 3:27 am

I don’t get it either. The paper doesn’t bring any “revolutionary” results. The findings are in close agreement with those of other authors, although the calculations were much more stringent with less assumptions being made. They have also compared the results of their calculations with observed spectral data over three different regions of the Earth, and the comparison (not a parameter adjusted fit like the IPCC models) to modestly put it, is really impressive. Another very sound paper where the climate sensitivity is estimated to be around 2.2.
My concern is, that one can prove by A+B that something is wrong. Unfortunately, political abuse of power seems to be way above that, where science is just cherry picked for the things that suit the AGW narrative, the rest being discarded, or “cancelled”.

Mike
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 3:50 am

Pat: Why do Ph.D. research grade physicists buy into it?

Because their university will loose money if they step out of the gravy train. That makes tenure somewhat difficult for a PhD grade physicist. It is part of the structure that includes, for example the iPCC and NASA Climate Division. Look at their Terms of Reference and think.

If this paper is true, and I suspect it is because it renders the otherwise inexplicable paeoclimate and many recent papers explicable, but we cannot yet be sure. We can do away with IPCC, windmills, solar power and electric cars. Perhaps we can spend some of the wasted $1.5 Trillion p.a. on cancer research, clean water and sanitation, raising the standard of living of the poorest 2/3 of the world population and repairing some of the environmental damage that Climate Craziness has caused.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 3:56 am

As a lay person my theory is that people including very academically clever people believe what they are told by clever people. The majority have neither the time nor the inclination to study the data and methodology, particularly when there are few dissenters. History is full of examples of clever people following the herd despite the flaws being obvious to a minority. Basically it’s human nature to follow the herd.

I’ve been reading recently about the remnants of pre-Big Bang blackholes being theorized and possibly detected. This may well lead to Big Bang denial.

kim
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 4:49 am

‘Perhaps’!

Perhaps alarmism has too much wrong with it.

Perhaps Walton will perceive that before his grandchildren do. Perhaps not.
=========

fred250
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 5:37 am

“its ours and its rapidly warming”

More arrant anti-science RUBBISH from Loy

He/she/it KNOWS they can produce ZERO-evidence to back up that statement…

…. but still yabbers on with brain-washed monotony.

Those “climate scientists” are like you , loy

They can’t produce any actual empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2

Its all base on models and assumptions. None of which are proven or validated.

It has never been observed or measured anywhere on the planet.

If you think it has.. PRODUCE THE EVIDENCE.!

Or just keep yabbering mindlessly.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 5:52 am

Pat,

Far too many Ph.D research physicists have been allowed during their careers to ignore uncertainty. I had four semesters of physics in college, including one on nuclear physics. Not a single professor ever once mentioned uncertainty in their classes. You calculated out your answers on a slide rule and the answer was the answer. I didn’t learn about uncertainty until I started my electrical engineering labs using analog computers and physical components. You learned very quickly that different results of multiple independent project runs identified the uncertainties in all of the component settings. When the dial on the field current potentiometer was marked to the nearest ohm you could get different readings for stall current on a motor and that was assuming you could read the current accurately each time! Even the resistors used in lab circuits were only 5% tolerance – guess what kind of different answers different students could get from building the same circuit!

Engineers careers and livelihoods are based on accurate assessment of uncertainty. Lives depend on it. That’s a big incentive. How many climate scientists have that kind of incentive to properly analyze their CGM outputs?

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 6:00 am

Izaak and Loydo,

When the climate scientists don’t bother to do an uncertainty analysis of their models and just assume the model outputs are correct how do you or they determine if they are right, wrong, or indifferent? An ensemble of models that have no uncertainty analysis can’t let you know if you have an accurate answer. If it could then all of the models would, sooner or later, coalesce into one model that gives an accurate answer. That doesn’t seem to be happening at all!

It’s as simple as understanding that averaging 1000 independent temperature measurement stations together, each with their own uncertainty interval, will give you a final uncertainty interval that is wider than what you are trying to measure. Root sum square is an established method of determining the uncertainty associated with independent measurements. Yet it seems that not one single consensus climate scientist understands that. Any so-called “global average temperature” has such an uncertainty interval that it is impossible to get an accurate answer. And using “anomalies” instead of absolutes doesn’t help at all! The anomalies have the same uncertainty interval as the absolute temperatures!

Jean Parisot
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 6:54 am

Eric,

“I don’t get it either. The paper doesn’t bring any “revolutionary” results. The findings are in close agreement with those of other authors, although the calculations were much more stringent with less assumptions being made. ”

I’ve been running FTIRs all over the world for my entire career and nothing in what I see at first glance disagrees with real world data. If anything, the AGW hypothesis of increasing water vapor causing more warming is an extraordinary claim thats contradictory to evidence. I can’t even make the mental jump from CO2 to Water Vapor to comment on that.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 8:52 am

A Ph.D. research grade physicist wants to see his (or her) papers published in the future. Publish – or perish.

Black JEM
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 9:41 am

Mike, more importantly is that the regions of the world that can do wind or solar is not nearly as large as people think. For instance, Germany spent upwards of 2T dollars to achieve almost no reduction in carbon emissions because geographically Germany has neither the wind corridors nor enough sun to to make either leading renewable power generating source viable. They are starting to burn dirty soft coal because they need the power. Interestingly, the country with the greatest renewable footprint available is the US, however the availability of almost free natural gas, which is very clean on the carbon scale makes its adoption senseless. Renewables have a way to go, and no technology we currently have are really usable on a large scale in a cost to power generation capacity sort of way.

So we should reorient our thought on CO2 appropriately. None of the carbon free solutions meet the goals of either side, assuming the alarmists want a successful growing US economy.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 10:06 am

“Jeez, its CO2, its ours and its rapidly warming.”

It’s not rapidly warming. You want to see rapid warming? Go back to the end of the last glaciation, and do your chicken little dance.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 12:26 pm

Pat,

Clever people, even when dealing with science, simply seem to become blind to things which should be obvious. A good example is this: The CMIP5 model average is always shown in comparisons to historic temp series (because the actual models runs are so noisy). So if its ok to average the model runs, to see the ensemble response, then its ok to subtract the model ensemble average from each ensemble member to see what each run contributes. If you subtract the model ensemble average from each ensemble member and look at the residuals what you see is uncorrelated, random noise. That’s an immediate tell for me – the models do nothing beyond what the input forcings instruct.

Then if you inspect the model ensemble average you discover you can reconstruct it (to a correlation of R = 0.94) from a simple linear regression of just two amalgamated forcing inputs – all the +ve anthropogenic and all the natural forcings summed into just two time series.

Taken with my first point, what this means is that the model outputs are simply the input low frequency prior model (the forcings) plus random noise. If you didn’t give the models the prior forcings they wouldn’t have any trends. In fact, I suspect they wouldn’t do anything at all except trivially derive simple properties of global temperature such as latitudinal variation etc (which we can do in a simple spreadsheet, of course).

Now I work in seismic inversion. Exactly the same problem pertains. Lots of very clever PhD people think that adding in the prior model is really part of the inversion. But the seismic data has a frequency range of about 5 – 65 Hz, so there is no actual data in the low frequency range and yet clever people actually believe its real (not just an added and unmodified prior).

Beats me how clever, educated, trained PhD’s just can’t see something so simple and obvious.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 8:04 pm

Pat,
Why do these “research grade physicists buy in to it?”
Some influences are:
1) Too many universities graduating too many mediocre minds.
2) Mediocre minds still want a career and comfortable income.
3) Mediocre minds are still clever enough to turn a backwater science field
into a golden goose by hyping potential calamity and catastrophe. They have willing allies in political and environmental activists.
4) Those scientists questioning the narrative threaten their golden goose. Hence they are shunned, vilified and declared anathema. “Nullius in verba” is revered only in the Orwellian sense.
5) There is a portion of the public that wants to believe that disaster is just around the corner and man’s pride and accomplishments must inevitably end in some type of Armageddon. In other words, to them it would be bad news if it turned out there was no climate catastrophe brewing.

Phils Dad
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 10:01 pm

Pat Frank says: “Thank-you, Joel. But why do Ph.D. research grade physicists buy into it?
Their training and critical minds should make them see right through it.
I plain don’t get it.”

Pat, they need to eat. They don’t get paid/published/promoted unless they toe the line. Like any other walk of life.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 28, 2020 10:02 am

“History is full of examples of clever people following the herd despite the flaws being obvious to a minority. Basically it’s human nature to follow the herd.”

That’s true, and applies to even some of the smartest people.

Following the herd is a survival instinct, so it is ingrained in every human being to one degree or another.

It is easiest to go along so that you can get along, and it is safer too because when you listen to your group’s Voice of Authority, you get information from those with experience that helps you survive..

If you are unsure of something, you fall back on depending on the society’s “Voice of Authority”.

Unfortunately, today’s “Voice of Authority” is the Lying Leftwing Media. So instead of getting good advice from the Voice of Authority, you get propaganda and lies.

So in this case, following the herd, gets society in all sorts of trouble. Lies and distortions are poison to freedom. Our Main Stream Media is currently poisoning millions of people with the horrible False Reality they create every day.

Bill T
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 3:42 am

“How do you explain the hostile reviewers,”

Gravy train.
$ leaving the station.

This is little different than any time in history when the established science is challenged. The reaction is mostly irrational. Pasteur comes to mind.

Jean Parisot
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 27, 2020 6:43 am

I’m beginning to wonder if reviewers should have to sign SEC statements that their work is independent of personal or institutional investment portfolios.

kim
Reply to  Jean Parisot
October 27, 2020 8:26 am

Only in it for the gold.
And for the the fame.
But mostly for the power, and for this they had to sell their integrity.

It’s a tragic episode in the history of science.
===============

OldCynic
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 26, 2020 11:38 pm

Joel
Unfortunately, I believe you are exactly correct :=(

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 28, 2020 9:50 am

“Simply telling someone that clings to their rabbit’s foot or to a 4-Leaf clover that that doesn’t bring them “Good Luck” still doesn’t stop them from clinging. So it is the same with a saturated GHE of 400 ppm CO2 to a catastrophic Climate Change believer. They’ve drunk too much Liberal Koolaide to turn back on their superstition. And pseudoscientists like Mike Mann have all their tainted reputations on the line to support the climate scam, so support it they do.”

Maybe this study will allow them to turn back. They can accept this study and say, “See, we were right that CO2 raises temperatures, and at the time, we thought it was necessary to reduce CO2 so temperatures wouldn’t go any higher, but now, with this new study, we see that is no longer necessary and we can forget about reducing CO2, since it is saturated now, and we can forget about doing away with fossil fuels and we can forget about building any more of those ghastly windmills and solar power plants.

Happer’s study is the way out for those who want to bail out of the human-caused climate change scam now without serious repercussions.

Of course, that won’t pay the bills or cause power to be accumulated, so I don’t know how many alarmists will take advantage of this moment. There’s your out, Michael, James, et al. We no longer need to worry about CO2.

Lewis P Buckingham
October 26, 2020 6:48 pm

Now this is on the net its time for a real debate. Will any atmospheric physicist step up to the mark?
‘Fig. 9 as well as Tables 2 and 4 show that at current concentrations, the forcings from all
greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and
CO2 are so extreme that the per-molecule forcing is attenuated by four orders of magnitude
with respect to the optically thin values. Saturation also suppresses the forcing power per
molecule for the less abundant greenhouse gases, O3, N2O and CH4, from their optically thin
values, but far less than for H2O and CO2.’
Red team/Blue team is needed.

Latitude
October 26, 2020 6:50 pm

makes sense…..and explains some things that have not been explained

October 26, 2020 6:51 pm

If I recall correctly, this was known (about H2O and CO2) many years ago, based on just the rough analysis. But it is good to have the detailed spectral breakdown, plus the work on the other gases.

I will not be at all surprised if the detailed analysis of clouds follows Willis’s results, just more precisely defined. H2O is the lightest major component of the atmosphere, which obviously causes the most convective uplift, and it is the only component that condenses – with a large energy emission at the transition, which occurs above much of the rest of the atmosphere. (Condensation being a function of both the transition temperature and partial pressure – low partial pressure being why we don’t have CO2 or methane clouds floating around up there.)

One week from tomorrow – VOTE!!! (Unless you already have, I’m not advocating the tactics of a certain political party…)

Wim Röst
Reply to  Writing Observer
October 27, 2020 12:07 am

Writing Observer: “H2O is the lightest major component of the atmosphere, which obviously causes the most convective uplift, and it is the only component that condenses – with a large energy emission at the transition, which occurs above much of the rest of the atmosphere. (Condensation being a function of both the transition temperature and partial pressure – low partial pressure being why we don’t have CO2 or methane clouds floating around up there.”

WR: Writing Observer could you elaborate more on the non-condensing of other components than H2O? Why does H2O do what other components don’t do in our atmosphere? What conditions are needed for other components to condense?

John Tillman
Reply to  Wim Röst
October 27, 2020 2:01 am

At 1.0 ATM, N2 liquifies at ~77.4 K. At lower pressures, even lower temperatures. Vapor pressure of saturated N2:

https://www.bnl.gov/magnets/Staff/Gupta/cryogenic-data-handbook/Section6.pdf

Not even Antarctica can condense CO2:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_(data_page)#Vapor_pressure_of_solid_and_liquid

It doesn’t get that cold in Earth’s atmosphere. It often however is cool enough for H2O to condense at pressures found in our air.

Reply to  John Tillman
October 27, 2020 4:05 am

There’s a lot of energy moved by the evaporation and condensation of H2O. The condensation can take place at a very different location both at altitude and latitude and longitude from the vaporisation. Which means energy has been moved in 4 dimensions.

Can’t help thinking that’s different from moving non condensing gasses in exactly the same way.

kim
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
October 27, 2020 8:18 am

CO2 effectively condenses at ocean temperatures with the help of sunlight and echinococcidae and their manifold cousins.

The bones of those sea plants precipitate as carbonates and there are more and more silting bones as CO2 rises in the ocean.

This reaction is nearly irreversible, and will lower the residence time of all atmospheric CO2, anthropogenic and naturally derived.
==============

michael hart
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
October 28, 2020 1:58 pm

Yup. Kim gets it.

Simple chemical-physical models of the CO2 cycle are clearly inadequate. The simple rate of conversion of gaseous/solution CO2 to dissolved carbonate/bicarbonate ions is speeded up by about 6 or 7 orders of magnitude by carbonic anhydrase in biofilms covering the worlds oceans.

The biosphere is chugging CO2 like a tramp on chips, at an increasing rate. Increasing as fast as human emissions. That the atmospheric concentration is increasing is probably just due to the mixing times: The CO2 from your SUV has to go into the atmosphere first before it can be swallowed up elsewhere by photosynthetic organisms. I’ve seen nothing to persuade me that this is not the case.

Generally, as far as increased CO2 in the atmosphere is concerned, I can only quote Arthur C. Clark and the movie “2010”:

“Something’s going to happen. Something wonderful.”

My advice for investors: Go long on manufacturers of lawnmowers and hedge trimmers.

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Writing Observer
October 27, 2020 2:34 am

@Writing Observer:
You make some good points here; but have conflated convection with the buoyancy of water in the vapor/gas form. The two are very different. Convection depends on a temperature differential whereas buoyancy does NOT as it is a function of the molecular weights. You are not alone here as just about all articles I read whether alarmist or sceptical make the same mistake and reveals a basic lack of understanding of how clouds work.
Where you are spot on is in the transfer of large energies up through the atmosphere and beyond by means of the Hydro Cycle. This done irrespective of Greenhouse Gases and operates in opposition to any warming that they are purported to generate. This means that water has a strong net NEGATIVE feedback to the GHE which is contrary to the IPCC et al claim that it is POSITIVE

Reply to  Alasdair Fairbairn
October 27, 2020 7:49 am

Alasdair,

Respectfully, buoyancy force is caused by a differential in the pressure exerted on two different sides of an entity, e.g. the top and bottom of a particle. It’s not really a function of the weight of the particle. The weight of the particle comes into play in determining where the buoyancy force and the weight of the particle balances.

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Tim Gorman
October 27, 2020 9:22 am

@Tim Gorman:
Not sure of what point you are making here. You are right of course; but so what?
Incidentally a balloon filled with water vapor/gas provides about twice the lift of an equivalent hot air balloon. With a bit of imagination you can see the atmosphere infested with these skinless water balloons rising up through the clouds.🤔
Cheers👍

Reply to  Alasdair Fairbairn
October 28, 2020 5:20 am

My point was what Writing Observer also pointed out. The buoyancy force is the same for all particles at the same altitude in the atmosphere since it depends solely on the mass above the particle and below the particle. The point where the weight of the particle and the buoyancy force balance is where the the particle will finally settle unless other conditions apply. It is this that causes stratification of the various gases and other particles in the atmosphere.

H2O is only about 0.8 the weight of CO2 so individual molecules of H2O will rise much further in the atmosphere than individual molecules of CO2.

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Tim Gorman
October 28, 2020 7:27 am

@Tim:
You are right. The upward force calculation or buoyancy will depend on the relative densities and will reduce as the densities reduce and eventually reach a point where it becomes negligible, giving, more or less, a maximum height to be reached.
I’m not sure what happens at the Tropopause but understand that water vapor does find its way up into the stratosphere in small quantities.

Reply to  Alasdair Fairbairn
October 27, 2020 8:17 am

@Alasdair – molecular weight is 100% of buoyancy – but also affects convectability (sigh-not-a-word, too late of a night and too early of a morning for me, so please deal with it). This is why, even with a strong temperature differential, a planetary atmosphere still has distinguishable layers of (non-condensing) gases. Not so evident on Earth, but take a look at a Venusian atmospheric composition profile sometime.

– thank you for an excellent (and probably much less windy) explanation of why nothing else in our atmosphere condenses. For some reason, the WUWT comment system does not work well for me on replying, so I am frequently quite delayed – if I reply at all. Checking the “Notify me of follow-up comments” floods my inbox with EVERY comment on a post, sorted by time – the actual reply to my own comment, if any, is lost in the weeds.

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Writing Observer
October 27, 2020 9:08 am

@Writing Observer:
Yes there are always other things to consider. My point is that the buoyancy aspect never seems to get a mention. Take for example the inversion situation at the top of those Anvil Cumulus clouds. The convection stops but the vapor/gas which we do not see, still rises due to its buoyancy, carrying with it the Latent Heat upwards for dissipation, some of which winds up in space.
This buoyancy also comes into play in the Cirrus clouds, up there nudging the Tropopause which are fed by what is left of the vapor after its travels through the atmosphere. These clouds are ice crystals at some -50C but still supported by the vapor and radiate into space on a NET basis on the simple fact that they are growing dendritically. Eventually this growth destroys the buoyancy as the crystal mass increases, thus initiating the return to earth under gravity, to complete the Cycle.
None of this buoyancy aspect ever gets a mention as the current mindset seems fixed mainly on matters of radiation which fails to explain these things.

Well; that’s my beef, for what it’s worth!

Catinthehat
October 26, 2020 6:53 pm

I haven’t read the paper yet. Is there an experiment we can construct to show this and support the paper experimentally?

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  Catinthehat
October 26, 2020 10:34 pm

Cat,
The paper compares calculations with observations. Near identical match. What more do you want?
Geoff S

Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
October 27, 2020 2:42 am

What more do you want?

Oh, a lot more. Most hypotheses match observations at the time they are proposed. They have to make predictions that are unique to the hypothesis and distinguish it from other hypotheses to convince skeptics.

kim
Reply to  Javier
October 27, 2020 4:58 am

Good one, Javier.

It exposes a difficult problem though, the attribution of cause to any future warming.

Attribution, she’s a bitch,
Don’t know why, just scratch that itch.
Puff, the Magic Climate,
Lived by the CO2,
Nature turned and bit him, someplace rich.
============

Catinthehat
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
October 27, 2020 11:28 am

Calculations about CO2 lines with predictions about climate sensitivity. Others predict similar climate sensitivities.

otsar
October 26, 2020 6:55 pm

As far as I can tell, the atmosphere of the Earth is just rolling around the bottom of multi dimensional well that that took billions of years to evolve. Move on thing then something or somethings move to compensate. The only thing that seems to move the atmosphere somewhat up the wall of the well, for a time, are large meteorite strikes.

Keith Harrison
October 26, 2020 6:58 pm

Patience. Persistence.

“Through adversity to the stars.”

Neo
October 26, 2020 6:59 pm

This only goes to prove that the Chinese were geniuses by negotiating a position in the Paris Accords of pretty much doing nothing.

Reply to  Neo
October 27, 2020 12:21 am

The Chinese have never believed in CAGW. That hasn’t stopped them from making huge amounts of money selling solar panels and windmills to credulous Westerners.

kim
Reply to  Graemethecat
October 27, 2020 5:08 am

Climate alarmism has been a deliberately fabricated and released viral meme to damage industrial society in the developed West.

So far it has been more damaging than the ‘Rona’, but it has had, and will have, longer to run. The beauty of the Coronavirus Panic is the threat of immediate consequences.
The warming panic is flawed in comparison, despite great ‘Big Lies’ being told about the immediacy of damages from anthropogenic warming.
We’ll learn, but Oh, my God, the ongoing costs from these panics!
==============

William Astley
October 26, 2020 6:59 pm

I agree that there will be no more CO2 warming.

This study looks at the radiation forcing of CO2 only.

All of the CO2 radiation studies, including the above study, fix the Lapse rate (rate of change in the atmosphere with elevation) in the atmosphere to calculate the simplified toy model (so called one-dimension model) effect of CO2 temperature.

A toy model is a simplified model that is hoped to be representative of the physical thing.

The Fixed Lapse rate assumption in the toy is physically incorrect. It is too big an effect and it is all cooling to ignore.

The Lapse rate changes because CO2 changes the specific heat of the gas which increase convection cooling which off sets the radiation effect warming. There is more than one physical effect of CO2 on atmospheric heat transfer.

Convection motion in atmosphere, moves heat up through the atmosphere, where there is less CO2 molecules and where there are free electrons and protons which radiate at all frequencies.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2015/07/collapse-of-agw-theory-of-ipcc-most.html

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B74u5vgGLaWoOEJhcUZBNzFBd3M/view?pli=1

Collapse of the Anthropogenic Warming Theory of the IPCC

4. Conclusions
In physical reality, the surface climate sensitivity is 0.1~0.2K from the energy budget of the earth and the surface radiative forcing of 1.1W.m2 for 2xCO2. Since there is no positive feedback from water vapor and ice albedo at the surface, the zero feedback climate sensitivity CS (FAH) is also 0.1~0.2K. A 1K warming occurs in responding to the radiative forcing of 3.7W/m2 for 2xCO2 at the effective radiation height of 5km. This gives the slightly reduced lapse rate of 6.3K/km from 6.5K/km as shown in Fig.2.

The modern anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory began from the one dimensional radiative convective equilibrium model (1DRCM) studies with the fixed absolute and relative humidity utilizing the fixed lapse rate assumption of 6.5K/km (FLRA) for 1xCO2 and 2xCO2 [Manabe & Strickler, 1964; Manabe & Wetherald, 1967; Hansen et al., 1981]. Table 1 shows the obtained climate sensitivities for 2xCO2 in these studies, in which the climate sensitivity with the fixed absolute humidity CS (FAH) is 1.2~1.3K [Hansen et al., 1984].

In the 1DRCM studies, the most basic assumption is the fixed lapse rate of 6.5K/km for 1xCO2 and 2xCO2. The lapse rate of 6.5K/km is defined for 1xCO2 in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere (1962) [Ramanathan & Coakley, 1978]. There is no guarantee, however, for the same lapse rate maintained in the perturbed atmosphere with 2xCO2 [Chylek & Kiehl, 1981; Sinha, 1995]. Therefore, the lapse rate for 2xCO2 is a parameter requiring a sensitivity analysis as shown in Fig.1.

The followings are supporting data (William: In peer reviewed papers, published more than 20 years ago that support the assertion that convection cooling increases when there is an increase in greenhouse gases and support the assertion that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will cause surface warming of less than 0.3C) for the Kimoto lapse rate theory above.

(A) Kiehl & Ramanathan (1982) shows the following radiative forcing for 2xCO2.
Radiative forcing at the tropopause: 3.7W/m2.

Radiative forcing at the surface: 0.55~1.56W/m2 (averaged 1.1W/m2).
This denies the FLRA giving the uniform warming throughout the troposphere in
the 1DRCM and the 3DGCMs studies.

(B) Newell & Dopplick (1979) obtained a climate sensitivity of 0.24K considering the
evaporation cooling from the surface of the ocean.

(C) Ramanathan (1981) shows the surface temperature increase of 0.17K with the
direct heating of 1.2W/m2 for 2xCO2 at the surface.

Reply to  William Astley
October 26, 2020 9:15 pm

“Convection motion in atmosphere, moves heat up through the atmosphere, where there is less CO2 molecules …”

The assumption that CO2 is generally well mixed on several-year annual timescales in the troposphere is on pretty solid observational data.
Maybe you meant to write H2O, which does decrease significantly with altitude?
A Biden moment?

Robert B
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 27, 2020 1:08 am

The mole fraction might be fairly constant but the a ir is thinning.

William Astley
Reply to  Robert B
October 27, 2020 8:52 am

Yes. Which means there is less CO2 molecules the free path before a photon strikes a CO2 increases.

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  William Astley
October 28, 2020 11:48 am

Yes. I think the “Optical Depth “ fits in somewhere here ; but not sure what the relationship is with “Saturation”.

JEHILL
Reply to  William Astley
October 26, 2020 9:46 pm

per WA above

“Convection motion in atmosphere, moves heat up through the atmosphere, where there is less CO2 molecules and where there are free electrons and protons which radiate at all frequencies.”

The heat moves both up and laterally due to ground winds, jet stream, or trade winds. I am not sure why this always seems to be conveniently forgotten or at least not mentioned. I hope, are we integrating this heat transport system over a cross-sectional mono layer of air molecules across a specified volume or at least know how much energy is stored in a mono layer plane of a specfied surface or surface area air molecules? It seems to me that where the heat from the surface leaves Earth is completely decoupled from it is origins. The other thought that comes to mind is there are numerous ways for that energy to be attenuated in its journey, for example, if that heated air moves over a body of water.

Anyway just some stream of consciousness….

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  William Astley
October 26, 2020 9:52 pm

“The Lapse rate changes because CO2 changes the specific heat of the gas which increase [sic] convection cooling which off sets [sic] the radiation effect warming.”

The specific heat of CO₂ differs from that of air by only 12.5%. Addition of 400 ppm of CO₂ to air will only change the specific heat of the mixture by an infinitesimally small amount. Changes in the lapse rate would be negligible.

Reply to  jorgekafkazar
October 27, 2020 7:47 am

The specific heat of dry air is about 29.19 J/mol K and CO2 is about 36.94 J/mol K. Looks closer to a third than an eighth. It is not the specific heat number alone that is important . The combination with mass is.

Mass of dry air is about 28.9 g/ mol and CO2 is about 44.01 g/mol.

Given the same input say 1000 J you get a temperature increase of 1.18 C for dry air and .615 C for CO2.

Because of the mass increase adding CO2 to air requires more energy to obtain the same temperature.

Thermodynamics says the the energy can be in “any form”. If thermodynamics is correct then there can be no forcing from addition of CO2. Specific heat is a property and accounts for its heating capability if any.

I say again if CO2 could do this why is it not mentioned in specific heat tables, the Shomate equation, or the NIST data for CO2?

tty
Reply to  mkelly
October 27, 2020 3:00 pm

CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere. It has virtually no effect on the specific heat or density of air.

Water vapor on the other hand has a vastly greater effect and is much more variable.

fred250
Reply to  William Astley
October 26, 2020 11:05 pm

Bulk mechanical movement of air between pressure and density gradient in the atmosphere CONTROLS the atmosphere….. not radiation.

Convection, winds, etc etc…

Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 7:03 pm

This is wishful thinking. Look at Venus! Denial won’t make the climate crisis disappear

(Your url has a lot of spam in it) SUNMOD

Komerade Cube
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 7:49 pm

Griff? That you?

mikebartnz
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 8:03 pm

The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 93bar so no comparison with earth’s atmosphere.

Richard M
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 8:12 pm

Joe, Venus is warmer due to the denser atmosphere.

migueldelrio
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 8:17 pm

So, the proximity to the sun wouldn’t have anything to do with that?

MarkW
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 8:27 pm

Whatever gave you the ridiculous notion that Venus is a model for the earth’s atmosphere.
For one thing, Venus never cooled off enough for the water vapor to condense out of it’s atmosphere. As a result it’s atmosphere is thousands of times thicker that the Earth’s.

Prjindigo
Reply to  MarkW
October 26, 2020 8:51 pm

Secondly Venus receives 16x the heat energy the Earth does.

fred250
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 9:22 pm

Poor Joe. There is NO CLIMATE CRISIS, except that invented by those you gullibly follow.

There is no empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes any warming at all.

The current rise in atmospheric temperature since the LIA has been totally beneficial to all life on Earth, just like the rise in atmospheric CO2 has been

If you have any evidence to answer these two simple questions, then produce it.

1… Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

2… In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be scientifically proven to be of human causation?

fred250
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 9:43 pm

At the same atmospheric pressure as on Earth’s surface, Venus is almost exactly the temperature it should be when considering its relative distance from the Sun.

CO2 makes NO DIFFERENCE

Thanks for saying we should look at Venus .. dolt !

William Astley
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 9:48 pm

Joe,

A basic analysis or real data shows the rocky planets in our solar system, include Venus….

… surface temperature, is determined by two parameters….

Atmospheric pressure (not greenhouse gas content)

And top of atmosphere solar irradence.

https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/new-insights-on-the-physical-nature-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect-deduced-from-an-empirical-planetary-temperature-model.php?aid=88574

Our analysis revealed that GMATs of rocky planets with tangible atmospheres and a negligible geothermal surface heating can accurately be predicted over a broad range of conditions using only two forcing variables:

top-of-the-atmosphere solar irradiance and total surface atmospheric pressure.

The hereto discovered interplanetary pressure-temperature relationship is shown to be statistically robust while describing a smooth physical continuum without climatic tipping points.

This paper is also interesting and comes to the same conclusion

https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ACS_2014111714391836.pdf
Do Increasing Contents of Methane and Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Cause Global Warming?
This model allows one to analyze the global temperature changes due to variations in mass and chemical composition of the atmosphere. Even significant releases of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere do not change average parameters of the Earth’s heat regime and have no essential effect on the Earth’s climate. Thus, petroleum production and other anthropogenic activities resulting in accumulation of additional amounts of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have practically no effect on the Earth’s climate.

The above conclusions and analysis makes sense a set completely independent analyses (there are more than six different independent physical proofs) shows that human CO2 emission caused no more than around 10% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2.

CAGW is completely incorrect. There is no sensitivity question to the rise in CO2 or the rise temperature. Humans caused neither. That is a fact.

JEHILL
Reply to  Joe Houde
October 26, 2020 10:04 pm

H

No one who is serious about this should ever use Venus as an example for Earth. Please educate yourself.

They believe they are comparing to apples to apples when they are in fact compairing Plankton to an Oak Tree.

Earth and Venus are in vastly different realities. Their only similarity is the star in which the revolve around. Full Stop.

Simon
October 26, 2020 7:13 pm

Let’s wait until the paper is peer-reviewed and published before getting too excited.

mikebartnz
Reply to  Simon
October 26, 2020 8:11 pm

Simon the peer-review process doesn’t mean too much these days as it has become pal-review instead in a lot of cases. I know of one scientist that has completely give up on it when it ceased to be a double blind review where the reviewers didn’t know the name of the author or the other reviewer.

Richard M
Reply to  Simon
October 26, 2020 8:14 pm

Simon, click on the link and read. Let us know what you find wrong.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Simon
October 26, 2020 8:26 pm

Simon
It’s out for peer review right here. As to whether it gets published in a well-known journal, it remains to be seen.

You have to understand that there are two kinds of peer review. The first step is for gate keepers to decide if there is any risk to the reputation of the publishing journal. The real science peer review takes place after publication. There was once a time when publishing options were very limited. The internet has changed that! Now, any scientist that wants to see the thinking and data of a peer can do so without subscribing to a very expensive journal.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
October 26, 2020 9:16 pm

It doesn’t need peer review, it needs consideration, pro and con, as to the basic radiation physics involved and examination of the analysis and calculations used to reach its conclusions. That is, the kind of thing that used to be carried out at scientific conferences and through detailed argument in responding papers that actually engage with what this paper reports.

Anyone want to bet whether or not there will be anything of the sort from the consensus?

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  AndyHce
October 27, 2020 11:21 am

Andy
You said, “…, it needs consideration, pro and con, as to the basic radiation physics involved and examination of the analysis and calculations used to reach its conclusions.” That is what peer review is supposed to be.

MarkW
Reply to  Simon
October 26, 2020 8:27 pm

Funny how you take the opposite position for papers who’s results you agree with.

Reply to  Simon
October 26, 2020 8:34 pm

Wait and see before getting too excited … good advice. Let us take, and follow, that advice.

fred250
Reply to  DonM
October 26, 2020 9:47 pm

Great to see that Simon also reckons there is no climate crisis.

Nothing happening outside NORMAL VARIABILITY of the AMO/PDO
comment image

and the effects of a grand solar maximum last century
comment image

So everybody should stop WASTING TIME AND MONEY on irrational, ineffective solutions to a NON-PROBLEM.

That is what you were saying, isn’t it , Simon?

Dennis G Sandberg
October 26, 2020 7:13 pm

As reported, “Clearly this is work that the climate science community needs to carefully consider. This may not be easy given that three major physics journals have refused to publish it.”
Note: and they never will publish. Cancel culture is the new norm.

DMA
October 26, 2020 7:32 pm

Combine Happer and van Wijngaarden’s findings with the message in Ed Berry’s new book “Climate Miracle” and you can understand why no correlation can be found in properly detrended time series of CO2 changes and temperature changes.

October 26, 2020 7:35 pm

Scientists say …
Study suggests …
The future climate will be …
And I can sell you my 25% share in the Brooklyn Bridge for 50 percent off !

October 26, 2020 7:53 pm

No climate journal will publish it because if the do, and the paper’s thesis is accepted, that will dry up 90% of the money going into climate science.
Look, I am re-reading the Band Played On (about the early AIDS epidemic.) All the craven and hysterical elements we see in the here and now were on grand display back in those days.
In the end, nature had its way. That’s how things usually work out.

Reply to  Joel
October 26, 2020 9:09 pm

Same with the COVID virus Lock-down hysteria on the Left trying to stop a highly infectious respiratory virus.

Telling young mean who felt immortal and who loved to have multiple risky anal sex with a dozen other strange men in a San Fran bath house in the 1980’s to stop simply wan’t going to work until the quite lethal HIV virus burnt through them.

Lock-downs will never stop this COVID virus, only slow it. Luckily thuis virus is far, far, far, less lethal than HIV on healthy people. Herd immunity will eventually in a few years will render the SARS-2 virus inconsequential above the background of seasonal cold viruses, of which it will just become another one of many. The vaccine by next summer will be irrelevant except to the Big Pharma companies needing a fat ROI for their shareholders.

george1st:)
October 26, 2020 7:58 pm

Any volunteers to peer review .
Or are they all working on their next grant application ?

M.W.Plia
October 26, 2020 8:02 pm

This study will never see the light of day.
The CO2 climate crisis has been successfully oversold by the political left and in politics perception trumps reality…all the time.
Witness the New York Times, National Geographic, Time Magazine, The Economist, PBS, CBS, NBC and the rest of the MSM. These organizations avoid explaining how the CO2 warming mechanism actually works…deliberately.
Our elites cannot admit to being wrong, the world has to remain clueless, so the line where the science ends and perception begins is kept out of sight.
This stinky little climate change creature has legs and will be around for a few more decades…what a mess.

Al Miller
October 26, 2020 8:05 pm

Mann-the truth hurts eh! But it never was about climate was it.

October 26, 2020 8:09 pm

Given that carbon dioxide and water vapor are both extremely saturated, it is highly unlikely that cloud feedbacks alone can do much damage, but it requires careful analysis to know this for sure.

If CO2 and H2O are saturated, there is no forcing to induce a feedback.

There are no cloud feedbacks, when forcing change is zero.

With the work of Happer and van Wijngaarden, it’s game, set, and match for GHG-induced global warming, climate change, climate weirding, and whatever else they want to call it.

It’s all natural variations in weather, in air temperature, and in the rest of the climate. And no way to know it hasn’t been over recent history.

The entire climate change industry is down the tubes. Entire careers will crash and burn, and deservedly so.

Huzzah, I say, and another huzzah for Happer and van Wijngaarden.

And their hostile reviewers should be consigned to driving a cab.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 8:50 pm

Pat
Note Table 5 in their preprint. It appears to me that they are getting values for ECS that are comparable to the low end of estimates published by others. The title suggesting no more warming is not born out by Table 5.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 9:28 pm

Clouds are confusing. If you look at 60% cloud cover this year versus 60% last year, you will end up saying that cloud forcing is a little negative or a little positive, but you are missing the elephant in the room. An EXTRA square meter of cloud with .7 albedo can reflect 800 watts of incoming sunlight back to outer space, never to be absorbed into the .06 albedo ocean surface below. And one degree warmer ocean surface temperature has 7% higher equilibrium water content in the air above that patch of ocean. As that moisture convects into the stratosphere, it makes clouds a couple of days later and a couple of hundred miles away.
The formation of clouds as a result of ocean surface temperature, are what controls the heat balance of the planet. CO2 doesn’t form clouds so it is a bit player.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
October 26, 2020 10:28 pm

oops….convects into the troposphere….

kim
Reply to  DMacKenzie
October 27, 2020 5:15 am

I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in the clouds;
Here it now, what were the odds?
The raucous laughter of the gods.
==========

kim
Reply to  kim
October 27, 2020 5:16 am

er ‘hear’ it now.
===========

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 26, 2020 9:53 pm

Thanks, Clyde. Looking at Table 5 and the discussion, it looks like they are using variations of the Manabe-Wetherald model to calculate those ECS values under varying assumptions of cloud feedback, etc.

It looks like they did that to compare the results from their improved radiation theory, with with previously calculated results.

That being true (tentative and provisional), their ECS’s are for comparative purposes, and are not necessarily a physically accurate prediction of how the real climate will respond.

October 26, 2020 8:11 pm

More warming?

What warming?

Alice: “More tea? But I haven’t had any yet.”

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Nick Schroeder
October 26, 2020 8:51 pm

Alice: “More acid? But the oceans aren’t acid yet.”

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
October 27, 2020 3:20 am

…and they never will be, perhaps an infinitesimal bit less alkaline.

Marv
Reply to  Nick Schroeder
October 27, 2020 7:39 am

Indeed – What warming?

https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548?t=15m56s

WR2
October 26, 2020 8:31 pm

The wishful thinking premise of positive feedback due to clouds, as I understood, was a feedback of the resulting warming, not of CO2 itself. If there is no more CO2 induced warming, there can be no more possibility of positive cloud feedback from the CO2 induced warming

Bill Treuren
Reply to  WR2
October 26, 2020 8:57 pm

That’s about it in a nutshell WR2 the water does not respond to the CO2 it responds to the warming.

Its amazing that each winter we even emerge, or come out of the summer at all.

John Karajas
October 26, 2020 8:36 pm

Judging by the geological record there were a number of world-wide glaciations when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were much higher than they are today (e.g. 5,000 ppm CO2 in the Late Proterozoic vs 420 ppm today). The geological data reinforces the findings of this latest study.

donb
Reply to  John Karajas
October 26, 2020 9:00 pm

Only if you assume that atmospheric CO2 is the only factor that influences temperature. Actually many others are possible.

Don K
Reply to  John Karajas
October 27, 2020 1:45 am

John, I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in paleo CO2 estimates other than bubbles in ice-cores for “recent” in geologic terms times. Even ice-cores have their problems since ice is not a material you’d probably pick to store an atmospheric sample for a few hundred thousand years without cross contamination. At best 5000ppm in the late Proterozoic is a WAG. It might not be that good.

But your underlying point seems correct. We probably know enough about the past few hundred million years to roughly describe paleo-climates. We don’t seem to have much idea at all about why past climates were what they were.

John Karajas
Reply to  Don K
October 27, 2020 2:36 am

Well Don, if you consider the huge amount of CO2 sequestration that happened in the laying down of the Carboniferous/Permian coal sequences then you would have to infer much higher pre-Carboniferous atmospheric CO2, right? Anyway there were 4 worldwide glaciations in the Late Proterozoic and as John Tillman points out below there was also the Ordovician glaciation that preceded the coal sequences.

By the way John I have seen many sequences of Proterozoic stromatolites during my field work in Australia and I reckon that there would have been extended warm periods in between the glaciations.

John Tillman
Reply to  John Karajas
October 31, 2020 7:28 pm

Yes, that would be consistent with what we know of more recent glaciations.

John Tillman
Reply to  John Karajas
October 27, 2020 2:14 am

Don’t have to go that far back, when solar output was lower.

The Ordovician Glaciation occurred with around 4500 ppmv CO2 and solar radiation at 96% of present.

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