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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Loydo states:
“..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…”
Izaak says:
“perhaps they are right and you are wrong?…”
@Loydo and Izaak:
The two of you persistently come to this website and treat the CAGW hypothesis as though it is an infallible and unquestionable fact that is not worthy of being challenged. You both need to understand something about science if and when you come to this website and do that. Science has a long history of initially getting things wrong, and there are numerous examples. It is not infallible and unquestionable (nor incorruptible I believe) realm of human knowledge.
(1) When the (now dwarf) plant Pluto was discovered, it was made a full-fledged planet in our solar system. I was taught in grade school that it was a planet. Then, years later, numerous other objects out there like Pluto were found and Pluto had to be downgraded the status of dwarf planet that it ia today.
2) Back in the early 20th century, it was hypothesized that the Earth’s tectonic plates actually moved albeit very slowly. A conference was convened where the hypothesis was ultimately rejected. Decades later, in the 1960s, it was discovered that tectonic plates did indeed move.
3) In medical science, it was believed for many years that stomach ulcers were caused by stress and anxiety. Finally a scientist (in Australia I believe?) discovered a bacterium that causes (or contributes to the cause) of ulcers. He fed it to himself to demonstrate it.
There are likely other examples, but I think the two of you get the point. If you want to come to this website and dabble in science, the first thing you need to do is understand the nature and character of science and scientific discourse. Judging from your comments on this thread and others, I do not think the two of you actually do.
Because of the historical examples above and others, scientific theories and hypotheses should never stop being questioned and challenged. THAT is science. The two of you are treating the CAGW hypothesis as a religious or political doctrine when you give it the characteristics of infallibility and an unquestionable nature. Indeed that is why some (like Joe Bastardi) refer the hypothesis as nothing more than a political smokescreen for the purpose of advancing scientific careers and for pushing political and anti-fossil fuel environmental agendas. And of course lots of $$$$$$$.
Those with a hypothesis in science have the burden of proving that it is correct and scientifically sound. This website and its regular readers have shown that the CAGW narrative is seriously flawed. It is what they are SUPPOSED TO DO in science. Your failure to understand that demonstrates your ignorance of basic scientific discourse. Again, it is political and religious doctrines that are considered holy, infallible and unquestionable in the eyes of the faithful, not hypotheses in science.
It does not matter how many scientists support or believe your beloved CAGW narrative. Nor do your politics and hatred of fossil fuels make the CAGW narrative scientifically sound. Get out of your Church of the Holy Climate Scare and join the world of science.
+199
It is interesting to review what the great and the good have said about CO2 IR absorption bands and saturation.
They concede that a given band cannot absorb beyond 100%. But then they point out that band broadening can occur. This begs the question – how much extra absorbance and where is the limit? They don’t know and don’t answer, but as though they are all reading from the same script they earnestly point out that further increases in CO2 concentration will still produce warming. It seems they are determined to remain on message at risk of contradicting the science and themselves.
Most places I looked, including the Royal Society, gave answers like that. Now that William Happer has nailed it, we must make sure that the world understands the implications.
99% of those commenting here don’t understand the science and assume that this paper totally disputes established climate science. It does not. Climate science predicts that doubling of atmospheric CO2, say from 400 ppm to 800 ppm, produces a radiative forcing of about 3.5 watts/m^2 for a predicted temperature rise of about 1 deg-C. The certain forcing increase from greenhouse warming effects of increased atmospheric water vapor would approximately double that to about 2 deg-C. This is consistent with conclusions in the paper.
The larger predictions of temperature rise from doubling CO2 come from other feedbacks, which are much more uncertain. The authors do not consider those.
Exactly where does that 2 deg-C occur? Does it occur in minimum temps going up? Does it occur in maximum temps going up? Does it occur in Africa? Does it occur in Canada?
Telling me an “average global temperature” is going to go up is meaningless. Climate is the temperature profile at a specific geographic location. There is no “average global location” that I can find on my globe where you can measure the “average global temperature”.
donb
You said, “Climate science predicts that doubling of atmospheric CO2, …, produces a radiative forcing of about 3.5 watts/m^2 for a predicted temperature rise of about 1 deg-C.” What is the uncertainty associated with the radiative forcing? Is the 1 deg-C true for all Köppen climate groups? If not, then for what groups, if any? What is the range for the different groups? How does CO2 interact with water vapor in deserts versus the tropics? Do you actually believe that a single average for the entire Earth provides a useful metric for policy planning? Since you imply that you are among the 1% that truly understand the science, you should be able to answer my questions easily.
Very impressive. An SDI spinoff…
Some who said saturation was not defined – see page 34 (my bold) :
Table 2 and Fig. 10 show the overlap of absorption bands of greenhouse gases causes their
forcings to be only roughly additive. One greenhouse gas interferes with, and diminishes, the
forcings of all others. But the self-interference of a greenhouse gas with itself, or saturation, is
a much larger effect than interference between different gases. Table 4 shows that for optically
thin conditions, the forcing power per molecule is about the same for all greenhouse gases,
a few times 10−22 W per molecule.
At the risk of even more trauma to alarmists, when you try to set up an astronomy guide star or pump a laser defense weapon through the atmosphere you get totally different attitude to what gas and radiation are really all about.
Dr. Happer’s SDI, Strategic Defense Initiative, work was classified from 1982 to 1991.
There is renewed interest in such laser systems with the advent of hypersonics. They will have to deal with clouds etc…
How does “no more warming” and “saturated” agree with the calculated climate sensitivities in Table 5 of the preprint?
Imagine no more gorebal warming
It’s easy if you try
No more Chicken Little screaming
No more we’re all gonna d1e
Imagine Greta Thunberger
Going back to school, you-u-oohh
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday
The Believers will join us
Because the world truly is
Warmed by the sun
Magisterial evisceration!
I’m reminded of the closing scene and final words of the movie “The Truman Show”:
“What else is on?”
The central problem is, and I already thought of featuring it in an upcoming article, is that the emission layer of CO2 where it is most opaque (14-16µm) is already high up in the stratosphere. The idea of “saturation” btw. is non sense, as the emission layer will always elevate if you add CO2 or any GHG. However in the stratosphere temperatures are increasing with altitude, and thus more CO2 means higher emissions and a cooling effect, rather than a heating.
This may (or may not) be largely compensated by an elevation of the emission layer within the less opaque ranges (13-14 and 16-17µm) located within the troposphere (where temperatures drop with altitude). Yet it is pretty doubtful you could yield a substantial net gain of “radiative forcing” (sic!) after all.
So this is one of the few instances where I can endorse reasonable climate science, and congratulate Mr. Happer for asking the right question. Still I have point out it is just a minor problem as compared to the much bigger issues already explored..
https://notrickszone.com/2020/09/27/plenty-of-physics-flaws-accumulate-into-a-huge-ghe-hoax-the-dark-secret-behind-surface-emissivity/
https://notrickszone.com/2020/09/11/austrian-analyst-things-with-greenhouse-effect-ghe-arent-adding-up-something-totally-wrong/
Clive Best suspected that the CO2 IR effect was saturating:
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=1169
Wijngaarden and Happer have proved his suspicions correct.
Has become saturated or was already saturated? That is the real question. When do we call something saturated? It will never reach 100%, so its an ambiguous term.
The point is CO2 induced warming is greatly exaggerated – whether it’s “x2” or “x20”, it is not a threat.
The results of Happer and van Wijngaarden corroborates my results on effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on measured North-Atlantic sea surface temperature. I found “exactly” zero effect.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339274895_Increasing_Carbon_Dioxide_Concentration_in_Atmosphere_Has_Negligible_Effect_on_North_Atlantic_Sea_Surface_Temperature
There is really nothing whatsoever new in this paper whatever Charles Rotter or others may think.
It is already very well known that the climate sensitivity “everything else unchanged” is about 1.4 K per doubling
It is equally well known that assuming temperature-independent relative humidity it is a little over 2 K.
It is however also well known that this is completely unrealistic. Absolute humidity increases with temperature. but not nearly enough to keep relative humidity constant.
And then there are the other effects of more humidity, increased cloudiness, more efficient convection, flatter lapse rate which all tend to lower climate sensitivity.
So it is certainly below 2 K and quite possibly below 1.4 K.
Nothing to see here, please disperse.
tty October 27, 2020 at 3:21 pm
There is really nothing whatsoever new in this paper whatever Charles Rotter or others may think.
Exactly, there doesn’t appear to be anything novel about it to justify publication in a journal.
The first two lines of the paper are: ‘The temperature record from 1850 to the present shows the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by about one degree Celsius[1]. The Interovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attributes most of this temperature rise due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations associated with anthropogenic activity.’ The reference for these claims is the Physical Science section of AR5. More accurately – page 6 of that report has a graph showing an increase in temperature of about 0.8 degree C, about 0.3 before 1950, 0.5 since. On page 17, the report states: “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together”. So, half of the half degree temperature rise was caused by humankind = 0.25 degree C. This should be the starting point for all future projections.
I would very much like to see the comments and criticisms of the papers reviewers, please!
Could they be published without identify the reviewer’s identity?
Referring to equation 9 in the preprint, why use the wavenumber form of Planck’s Law, when it is known that the wavenumber form distorts the emission spectra. ?.
Once one has shown saturation of the CO2 and water vapour effect to 4 orders of magnitude, some of us are curious as to how like a rabbit out of a hat you can then produce a CO2 sensitivity of 1.4 C – or anything other than zero.
And further, like a kangaroo out of a hat, how a doubly added water vapour effect is able impossibly to exert a positive feedback and raise the sensitivity to 2.3.
Now that’s what you call prestige!
I used hitran back about 15 years ago to make an atmospheric transparency model for astronomical spectroscopy (what in a stellar spectrum is actually being generated in our atmosphere versus the star and anything in between) – essentially a one dimensional atmospheric model and I used it for a while to look at the co2 and greenhouse gas radiation blocking. About the only effect of the co2 doubling is associated with the line pressure broadening. The results I got was not tremendously different than what was achieved with some modtran models of the time. I have only perused this paper for a brief amount of time and it’s been over a dozen years since I looked at this topic but it looks like the authors did a good basic job.
However, meaningful results need to take into account clouds and atmospheric scattering and planetary albedo. These are things that were ignored or improperly done by those involved in the global warming movement. At least some of these are slated for future research by the paper’s authors. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Planetary albedo for Earth is a variable with essentially no data history. Unlike Mars or the Moon which have albedos that are essentially fixed, Earth’s albedo mostly depends upon clouds and the atmosphere. The difference is that Earth is mostly covered in liquid water which tends to be far lower than land, sand or rock or ice/snow. If Earth’s albedo happens to be 0.30, about 0.07 is the surface and 0.23 is due to clouds and atmospheric scattering. Clouds reflect or scatter incoming solar energy as well as blocking outgoing surface radiated energy and also emits outgoing radiated energy (at a usually somewhat lower radiative temperature and lower pressure – reducing the broadening of lines as well as total energy radiated). Clouds are extremely important in the energy balance of Earth and their effects vary due to many factors, both terrestrial and non-terrestrial.
The holy grail of sensitivity to co2 doubling or change in atmospheric absorption is going to be a difficult number to ascertain. One possible way is to divide the Earth into two hemispheres with very limited energy transfer between them and analyze the average temperature difference between them as well as the difference in the rest of the energy balance parameters. Satellite data now exists that essentially has all of the needed data for the last few years. However, care must be taken to ensure that the data is good around the equinoxes. There should be a difference of average energy between the hemispheres around the difference of added absorption due to a doubling of co2.
Charles,
You are going in an interesting direction.
“Albedo at 0.3 with 0.07 due to surface and 0.23 due to clouds and scattering ” – these must be global numbers.
With atmospheric effect at 0.23 this gives tremendous scope for global warming via albedo reduction against a surface backstop of 0.07
Some questions if I may
1. Is there a latitude dependency for albedo and if so can the albedo be partitioned down onto the areal footprint of the 3 atmospheric cells (Hadley, Ferrel and Polar)?
2. What about the polar ice for Antarctic, if this ice is not there (e.g. in the Cretaceous) what would be the albedo of an ice free vegetated polar cell land area in summer? (Would we even have a polar cell? see Eocene forests in Axel Heiberg Island, Arctic Canada)
3. Same question as 2 but for an ice free Arctic Ocean in summer.
4, What is the value for water versus land?
5. What are the values for vegetated land versus desert surfaces in the Sahara?
As I warned in the first post, I haven’t looked at this stuff for over a dozen yrs so I am working from a rather mediocre memory and have yet to generate up any enthusiasm to start doing this again as I concluded back then it was almost totally political.
Remember, albedo is the reflectivity indication and what counts for energy balance is the total reflected power which is related to albedo and incoming power which is latitude dependent and time of year dependent. Just offhand I don’t recall what satellite data I started to use and it is not on this computer. I’d have to go searching for it on another computer. However, they did offer albedo and other measurements by point on the globe and by day so one could combine them for your atmospheric cell regions. Note this was done about 10 yrs ago and wasn’t directly related with the atmospheric transparency modeling I had done earlier.
The amount of incoming and reflected outgoing power depends upon the incoming solar radiation and the albedo. Local summer polar can be 24 hrs of daylight and it’s thru angles less than normal which means thicker atmosphere than high noon. For visible light, there’s very little difference in the incoming but half of it is in the IR mostly near IR.
A fair amount of collecting information is needed concerning albedo (reflectivity of the surface). It varies by wavelength and different things vary radically. Clouds have a reflectivity as well as surface items. Water tends to have something like 0.03. It’s a serious absorber of incoming power. rock / rugged terrain I think tends to run around 0.15 to 0.3. Sand can be as high as 0.4 and fresh snow well over 0.5 (but once it compacts into ice with water pools can be much lower). Vegetation depends on the type and tends to be moderate.
If I recall right the 0.07 surface contribution is about 2/3 water and 1/3 land including ice/snow for the overall average. Since 2/3 is 0.03, the 1/3 land contribution comes in at around 0.15 or so when averaged together one gets about .08 or so leaving the rest to be atmosphere/clouds. Again desert reflects a fair amount, perhaps 0.3 (the 0.4 mentioned above may only be for wet sand).
Note that things are compounded even more by the fact there are multiple types of albedo and also scattering from clouds produces a variation of reflected intensity by angle as well as effects of cloud particulate sizes and shapes.
The division of hemispheres wasn’t completed as I created a simple model based upon satellite data that seemed to work just fine except the weeks around the equinoxes where there was significant differences which are probably due to how the satellite data was collected and processed and I never tried to ascertain what the difficulty was.
charles,
Very useful numbers.
Many thanks.
Philip
Charles,
You said, “Water tends to have something like 0.03.” That is only true for high sun elevations in the mid-latitudes. That is, derived from nadir viewing satellites passing overhead in the middle of the day.
You might want to take a look at this:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/
Article looked pretty good just browsing. I have not looked at this stuff since several years before it was posted. bear in mind that clouds are particulate in nature and in fact scatter which is not like reflectance in that it is not uniform in direction. There are also various definitions of albedo referring to different things. This scattering produces a phenomenon called cloud glory where the cloud appears thicker and brighter directly opposite the incoming light. Even morning fog lit by the rising sun will show this phenomenon. Small airplane pilots are most familiar with it as their airplane shadow on cloud tops is highlighted.
Note that we cannot look at Venus’ reflectance in the direction of the sun from Earth as we are always at a significant angle from that (or risk damaging equipment from the solar disk. ).
you are right on the variation of reflectivity. It also varies by wavelength as well as by incident angle. And that is not just for water.
3. Same question as 2 but for an ice free Arctic Ocean in summer.
Yes, but, from today’s sea ice extents, additional loss of sea ice is balanced: The relatively heat gained between mid-April and mid-August is balanced by the additional heat lost over the 8 months between mid August and mid-April.
Less sea ice = a cooler Arctic Ocean over a complete year.
Robert,
Not disputing your point. I am exploring the long term implications of an ice free Boreal Ocean in the Cretaceous with reference to the work of Academician Golovneva, when Tethys Sea warm water circulation made dense saline contributions to the global ocean.
Understood. Thank you.
If this is true, then it is a major hiccup for the climate change so-called scientists. I have been wondering for quite a while if there was a saturation limit effect for CO2 in the atmosphere. Most chemical effects are limited by saturation limits. Why should CO2 be any different ?
I have a feeling that this paper will be too complex for most climatologists to understand.
It needs a guide to the paper written in a more reader friendly manner to allow smart lay people and climatologists to understand.
Very clever people *tend* to fail at good communications.
Richard Feynman was the ultimate exception to this rule.
The physics and math are beyond me. But maybe someone could explain something. If the IR part of the spectrum is close to saturation how do we get such dramatic differences in photos from space with and without an IR filter? There seems to be a lot of IR getting through.????
until models of the atmosphere are able to deal with data in 1 cubic kilometer per data point, they will be unreliable. currently, my guess is that the data is in 10-25 kilometer sided chunks.
modeling chaotic systems is an exercise in futility.
Additionally trying to explain everything by radiation alone is a waste of time.
I’m not sure if those pushing the global warming fraud ever realized that below the tropopause, we have weather because convection is an important part of the balance.
@Charles:
Not only convection but the inherent buoyancy of water vapor/gas which continues to drive the Latent Heat upwards. This factor never seems to get a mention in the literature. A major omission I think.