Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In this post, I will both provide additional data for and also correct an error and a claim in my post entitled Where Is The Top Of The Atmosphere. Let me start by recapping the main point, which is the theory of why increasing CO2 must perforce lead to surface warming.
• The amount of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases (methane, CFCs, etc.) is increasing.
• This absorbs more upwelling longwave radiation, which leads to unbalanced radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). This is the TOA balance between incoming sunlight (after some of the sunlight is reflected back to space) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from the surface and the atmosphere.
• In order to restore the balance so that incoming solar radiation equals outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), the surface perforce must, has to, is required to warm up until there’s enough additional upwelling longwave to restore the balance.
In my last post, I showed what I believed was the relationship between the CERES surface temperature and the OLR. Here’s that graphic:
Figure 1. Scatterplot, monthly top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation (TOA LW) versus surface temperature. Seasonal variations have been removed from both datasets
Now, I mentioned above that I wanted to correct an error and a claim in my previous post. The claim was that although the change in OLR at the troposphere from a doubling of CO2 was shown by MODTRAN to be about 3.7 W/m2, the change at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) was much smaller.
However, since then I’ve found a paper entitled “Radiative Forcing of Quadrupling CO2” that says:
Note that the forcing and adjustment in this paper are analyzed using the radiation fluxes at the TOA instead of the tropopause. However, it can be shown that after the stratosphere equilibrates, the stratosphere-adjusted forcing is identical at the two levels.
Unfortunately, they neglect to reference just how or where “it can be shown”. And I see no reason to assume that it is true—why should the upwelling longwave radiation be the same, both somewhere in the upper middle of the atmosphere and also at the top of the atmosphere? That would assume that the stratosphere makes no contribution either way to the OLR … ?? Seems doubtful.
But to take a very conservative position, by which I mean one that increases calculated climate sensitivity, I’ll assume for the sake of this discussion that they are correct and that the top of atmosphere (TOA) OLR is reduced by 3.7 W/m2 from a doubling of CO2, the same as at the tropopause.
So that was the claim … what about the error?
Well, my error was that I used the actual TOA OLR figures to calculate the relationship between surface temperature and OLR. But assuming that the prevailing theory is correct, those OLR values have already been reduced by the effect of the greenhouse gases. So to get the true relationship between temperature and OLR, we need to add back in the amount of the reduction in OLR due to the greenhouse gases.
In order to get a more accurate answer from a longer period of record, this time I’ve used the Berkeley Earth surface temperature data and the NOAA OLR data. This gives us about twice as much data as we have from the CERES satellite observations. Figure 2 shows that result.
Figure 2. Scatterplot, NOAA OLR adjusted for well-mixed greenhouse gases (WMGHG) versus Berkeley Earth Surface temperature. Seasonal variations have been removed from both datasets
As expected, adjusting the OLR data to include the effect of the WMGHGs has increased the trend of OLR vs surface temperature.
As a check on the Berkeley/NOAA data, I took just the part of that data that overlaps the CERES data and I plotted up both of them. As you can see, the agreement between the two is better than what is generally found between different climate datasets.
Figure 3. Comparison of Berkeley/NOAA values and CERES values. Seasonal variations have been removed from both datasets
So … according to Figure 2, in order to offset a doubling of CO2, which presumably decreases the TOA OLR by 3.7 W/m2, the temperature has to rise by 3.7 ± 0.1 W/m2 divided by 4.2 ± 0.13 W/m2 per °C, which is 0.9 ± 0.04 °C per doubling of CO2.
Is this the long-term “equilibrium climate sensitivity” and not the short-term “transient climate response”? I say yes because it is independent of how long it takes for the temperature to rise. Whether the temperature goes up by 0.9°C in a month, a year, or a decade, the data above shows that it will increase the OLR by 3.7 W/m2.
And that’s all the news I have for you today.
My best regards to everyone,
w.
AS ALWAYS: I can defend and explain my words and I am happy to do so. I cannot defend or explain your interpretation of my words. So when you comment, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS that you are discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.
MATH: As discussed in my previous post, Where Is The Top Of The Atmosphere, I’ve used Deming regression instead of Ordinary Least Squares regression because of the presence of significant uncertainty in the x-axis of the graphs.
DATA:
Thanks Willis – for feeding our addiction to infrared pinball!
How does a complex system respond to the change of a single parameter?
If the system is climate, and the parameter is CO2 level, then how may other system parameters do we allow to change?
Well if we’re climate scientists the answer is one parameter only – global temperature is the only parameter that is allowed to change in response to CO2 increase and the resultant infrared pinball antics.
In reality, there are quite a few other parameters that can also change, possibly changing the overall outcome such that climate warming is far from certain.
(leaving aside for the moment the problem that CO2 warming contradicts the principle of least action.)
Some of these other parameters are:
.9C per doubling seems like a good deal to me.
The rational response is to make sensible investments in reforestation and in ocean pasture restoration to fix the damage we’ve done.
And invest in more nuclear energy, so we can export more coal and gas to developing nations that need it. So they can get rich too.
Jupiter emits twice the radiation energy that it receives.
Zeus clearly didn’t get the memo that his top of atmosphere radiative budget needs to be in balance.
Economic sanctions on Jupiter anyone?
Jupiter is a gas giant which is still internally generating heat from its gravitational collapse.
The earth, on the other hand, is a solid planet which is NOT generating heat from its gravitational collapse.
w.
Thanks W – I realize it’s from gravity, it wasn’t really a serious comment 🙂
“This absorbs more upwelling longwave radiation, which leads to unbalanced radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). “
Is “absorb” the correct word? I thought that the heat is absorbed then immediately reradiated in a scattered fashion, so greenhouse gases are just slowing down the return of IR to space.
That’s better Ed
At least your are trying.
However
Nobody remotely knowledgeable about basic thermodynamics would assert this.
So google this as one of many people who do.
M. Bahrami ENSC 388 (F09) 1st Law of Thermodynamics: Closed Systems 1 The First Law of Thermodynamics: Closed Systems
The first law of thermodynamics can be simply stated as follows: during an interaction.between a system and its surroundings, the amount of energy gained by the system must be exactly equal to the amount of energy lost by the surroundings.
–
Secondly you are aware of one of the definitions of a TOA
Energy in =energy out or are you denying a TOA exists at all?
-Thirdly as I said unless you bother to explain the First law properly
it is gobbledygook.
Like this.
“I simply expressed the most basic statement of the First Law of Thermodynamics (in differential form).”
No. you have taken one small part of the definition and chucked your own notions in.
Hence you have added a component called work which only exists in certain prescribed situations and certainly does not describe the full First Law of Thermodynamics.
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Hence “The other [idea is] that physics absolutely dictates that the outgoing energy must equal the in-going energy.”
is a truism.
Otherwise physics will not work.
–
“So if you have 100 watts of input to a system, and 90 watts of output, the energy of the system is increasing at the rate of 10 watts (10 Joules/sec).”
–
And when, as in reality you have100 watts output?
Explain how the system taking in 100 watts is not compelled to put 100 watts out?
[No batteries or heat storage devices in a bit of rock, remember?
No work engines]
All bodies do and must radiate any heat they do not make themselves.
–
As for this
“You do believe that you can heat a pot of water on your stove, don’t you? That the power into the pot does not have to equal the power out?”
–
This is not an argument.
It is not even a good analogy.
Nobody remotely knowledgeable about basic thermodynamics would assert this.*
That is cheeky of me, I apologise.
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Take Earth.
You claim that you can heat the earth with power in.
You do believe the earth does not have to put this power out paraphrasing your pot comment.
You believe the power in does not have to equal the power out.
In an arbitrary way that is the power out is always less than what goes in.
So what do you end up with after a billion years of the sun doing this to the earth?
A planet hotter than the sun.
Note. That is the essence of your logic
.-
Going back to the teapot.
Turn the stove off.
Does the energy stay in the teapot for you?
No.
How did it know how to leave?
The first law perhaps.
–
Now the 64 million question.
What is keeping the water hot?
Note it is not the heat that went into the teapot as that already left almost as soon as it went in.
Strange but true as Ripley would say.
What is the source of the energy making the teapot and water appear hot, Ed?
And by implication almost everyone else here.
You are not alone in believing the water is hot because of the energy the stove put into it although it has already gone.
–
Willis, can you please clarify something for me.
You say “So … according to Figure 2, in order to offset a doubling of CO2, which presumably decreases the TOA OLR by 3.7 W/m2, the temperature has to rise by 3.7 ± 0.1 W/m2 divided by 4.2 ± 0.13 W/m2 per °C, which is 0.9 ± 0.04 °C per doubling of CO2.”
Is this still true if the CO2 doubles from 2ppm to 4ppm? I know that we are not there now but if the statement that a doubling of CO2 causes a 0.9k rise in temperature, it should hold true for all levels of CO2? I find it hard to get my head around 2 extra molecules per million having that effect.
Many thanks.
So with pre-industrial estimated as approx 280ppmv we have to get to 560ppmv to see less than 1 deg C of AGW.
Climate crisis is cancelled folks, we can all go home again now. Sorry if any of this caused anyone any inconvenience.
I was surprised when I saw the legend on the graph here. Hey, did I just see “Deming regression” ?! Yes I did.
Then I saw the note at the bottom and the link back to the previous article where Willis gracefully credits one “statistics savvy commenter” for bring the misuse of OLS to his attention. I commented that eyeballing a graph was often more accurate than OLS in this sort of situation. Interestingly my eyeball estimation was within 1% of Willis’ later Deming result.
Here, if anyone is interested is the link to my article on the misuse of OLS regression. An error pervasive errors in almost all fields of science.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/on-inappropriate-use-of-ols/
It was published on Judith Curry’s site in 2016, a bit of exposure here also will do no harm.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/03/09/on-inappropriate-use-of-least-squares-regression/
One day climate “scientists” may get to the stage where they can fit a straight line to their data before they try to redesign the world economy for us.