R. Lindzen, W. Happer, and W. A. van Wijngaarden
Many people are surprised by how little warming would be averted from adoption of net zero policies. For example, if the United States achieved net zero emissions of carbon dioxide by the year 2050, only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming would be averted. This could barely be detected by our best instruments. The fundamental reason is that warming by atmospheric carbon dioxide is heavily “saturated,” with each additional ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide producing less warming than the previous ton.
Abstract:
Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 ◦C (0.015 ◦F), which is below our ability to accurately measure. If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 ◦C (0.13 ◦F) would be averted. If one assumes that the warming is a factor of 4 larger because of positive feedbacks, as asserted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming averted by a net zero U.S. policy would still be very small, 0.034 ◦C (0.061 ◦F). For worldwide net zero emissions by 2050 and the 4-times larger IPCC climate sensitivity, the averted warming would be 0.28 ◦C (0.50 ◦F).
Read the entire short paper here:
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Nicely stated Professors Lindzen, Happer, and Wijngaarden! This is a timely message in an election year. I’ll be passing this along to my federal, as well as state, politicians here in Utah.
CO2 is not causing warming. But if you want to assume it is, as this article does, then the models are not feedback free so you have to deal with that issue. The claimed dangerous warming is from the posited feedbacks.
The authors deal with the positive feedback scenario under 3 Alternative Assumptions, from the abstract:
Sorry I was rushed and unclear. My understanding is that the first Happer and VanW paper found the same degree of CO2 saturation as the IPCC, in fact they cite the IPCC. How then do the models get such huge sensitivity, some over 5 degrees C? Or have Happer et al changed their position? They need to address this issue.
Of course those hypothetical posited feedbacks are not well understood.
of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
You can estimate S from actual evidence. From (2), S = δT/log2(C/C’). Preindustrial CO2 concentration was 280ppm, it is now 420ppm. Observed warming is 1.3°C. S = 1.3/log2(420/280) = 2.2°C. This aligns well with current transient climate sensitivity estimates between 1°C and 2.5°C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
This is great news, as it quantitatively confirms what most believe to be true — there is no climate emergency — and that both CO2 warming and net-zero efforts produce trivial temperature changes. CO2 is a very poor investment in global warming, but it’s an outstanding contributor to earth’s ecosystems — on land and in the water.
But, but, but (/sarc) we are on the precipice and tipping points only need a minute change to crash the climate.
If it saved one tax increasing, scare mongering politican’s seat, it would be worth it.
Wouldn’t it?
Their calculated decrease in temperatures for NetZero by 2050 are so small as to likely be swamped by natural variation. We are in far more danger from the climate alarmist’s policies than we are from any “climate change”.
We should instead be investing on supplying adequate energy to the 3+ billions of people who are in energy poverty, thus making society more resilient, less fragile and able to manage whatever mother nature has in store for us in the future.
“are so small as to likely be swamped by natural variation”
There’s no “likely” about it. No human co2 temperature signal can be detected, period.
This paper completely misses the point. The issue is not how much the temperature would rise over the period it takes to get to net zero but how much the temperature would rise subsequent to that.
What makes more sense is to calculate the how much the earth would have warmed at a fixed point in the future (eg 2100) under different scenarios. You can then compared the results of getting to net zero by 2050 and having 50 years of zero net carbon emission to a scenario of getting to net zero by 2090 and have 10 years of zero net carbon emissions etc.
‘What makes more sense is to calculate the how much the earth would have warmed at a fixed point in the future (eg 2100) under different scenarios.’
Actually, the modelers have already tried this. The problems include the facts that their ‘results’ don’t agree with other model results within their various ‘ensembles’, as well as being well off the mark of observed data.
Yes but this paper is still using the wrong metric. Look at their Eq. 7 which says that the averted temperature warming is proportional to the time it takes to get to net zero. Which is saying that if you take 100 years to get to net zero you avert 100 times more global warming than if you do it in one year. Which is nonsense.
You are talking gormless fantasy gibberish again, Izzydumb.
Your comment is complete nonsense.
Climate models are BS. Thanks Izaak. Appreciate that.
Izaac said:
Frank responded:
Izaac replied:
Finally!
You have accepted the models are well off the mark.
Welcome back to sanity, Izaak.
100 times more global warming?
Read the whole paper.
Pay close attention to equation 34.
0.2 C/ 0.0084C is ~25.
That aside, is 0.2 C a crisis?
“If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 ◦C (0.13 ◦F) would be averted.”
This is over what? 25 years from now? Multiply that by 3 to get to 2100. Hell, multiply it by 10! That would still be only 0.7C!
IT WOULD STILL BE UNMEASUREABLE BY INSTRUMENTATION!
There is no measured evidence that temperatures would rise at all.
There are theoretical tiny amounts as shown in the paper.. but they are based only on radiative processes.
You have yet to present ANY measured evidence of CO2 warming, either because there ISN’T ANY or it is way too small to possibly be measured.
It makes absolutely ZERO scientific sense to “imagine” anything in 2100 based on scientifically unsupportable garbage.
Fantasy scenarios and fairy-tales computer games are NOT science.
They are JUNK ass-umption driven NONSENSE.
The unfortunate problem most science is done with models, data be damned. To most young scientist god forbid I actual have to collect data.
But with most science, they do have better data than climate scientists. And they do a better job of testing their models.
Not too different than today’s advocacy journalism dismissing objective journalism.
I remember a few years back.
New math: 1 plus 1 equals 4; how do you FEEL about that.
Nothing you post makes any sense, whatsoever.
Fixed it for ya.
Izaak – you’re a loonie
yep.. that too !! 🙂
It isn’t necessary to project future temperatures. That is being done by the IPCC climate models, all they are saying is “whatever temperatures they project, a draconian net-zero policy will have minimal effect”.
Even the IPCC reports say minimal warming.
The head of the IPCC said there is no need for alarmism.
The UN Sec.Def. has an agenda and is not following the IPCC, not even the political report.
You did not read the whole paper.
It does exactly what you said needs to be done.
You need to learn something about thermal equilibrium.
The calculations in the paper include a steady decline of CO2 between now and 2050 reaching Net Zero. At that point, given the whole of temperature change is due to CO2, 2050 achieves thermal equilibrium. Given the claim the CO2 is the cause, the temperature would remain in equilibrium from 2050 onward.
How much sense is needed when the IPCC sets the scenario rules? Net Zero by 2050 is the established criteria.
“What makes more sense is to calculate . . . under different scenarios.”
In other words, GIGO.
I have a hunch the advisers to our elites won’t read this and wouldn’t pass it on to the politicians if they did bother to read and understand it. António Guterres, Joe Biden, and fellow travelers are searching for a legacy and believe* redistribution of wealth is the ticket to fame.
*I’m not sure about Biden. He might seriously think a climate catastrophe is imminent. Or, his advisors own stock in green technologies.
‘Or, his advisors own stock in green technologies.’
If there’s a silver lining to this fiasco, it’s that green tech stocks will become absolutely worthless when these jerks collapse Western economies and civilization.
If you look at the Soviet and CCP track record, those useful idiots have a lot more to worry about than the price of their investment. In the end all ultra leftist confiscate all wealth and shot those who once held it.
and they wiped out the Kulaks, the most prosperous and productive farmers
This is really important and needs to be plastered all over the United States. The whole CAGW thing is a sham.
It is also interesting to see that the authors are predicting a temperature increase of
1.6 degrees by the end of the century if CO2 emissions keep on rising at their current rate.
Their Eq. 34 gives a predicted “averted” temperature rise of 0.2 degrees by the end of
the century if the US reaches net zero by 2050. This is based on the fact that the US emits
12% of the the world’s CO2 (their equation 4). So if a 12% reduction stops 0.2 degrees by the
end of the century then the entire world reaching net zero by 2050 means that the averted warming would be 0.2/0.12=1.66 degrees.
So really what the paper should be pointing out is that if the world reaches net zero by 2050 then there will be 1.6 degrees of averted global warming by 2100.
Your argument is right to a point, that is the implication of the paper. But it cuts both ways. First, the global effort involved to reach 1.6 degrees of averted warming is disproportionate to the return. 1.6 degrees isn’t going to be harmful – if it happens. But the effort to get to net zero will be huge and very damaging, particularly on poor countries.
But second, there is no possibility that the world is going to reach net zero by 2050. Everyone except the Anglosphere and maybe Germany is going hell for leather on economic growth and let the emissions do what they have to. This is not going to change. The Chinese, for instance, keep making all kinds of pledges which when scrutinized turn out to mean this. And at COP they basically veto any commitments to actual reductions.
So the paper is quite realistic in its presentation of the choices and payoffs. Get the US to net zero (if you even can) and it will avert 0.2 degrees of warming. Does anyone think this is worth doing at this cost?
Even if you could get the West to net zero by 2050, which is not going to be possible, you’d still only save about 0.4 degrees. Who cares?
The problem stays the same. The fastest growing highest emitters are not going to stop growing, let alone reduce. The West has chosen means of reducing which are impossible to do (moving electricity to wind and solar, and also moving to EVs and heat pumps). And even were they possible they would not deliver any meaningful reduction in the warming predicted by the theories.
Its a bust. The electoral fallout is just starting, but its going to be huge.
Then there is this “minor” possibility that as we pass the present day grand solar maximum and enter the grand solar minimum, the natural variations will swamp any pissant effects caused by humans.
Of course, eliminating 6 billion people through energy starvation and economic and social collapse will have its effects. Reduced energy, food, etc. needed, less heat injected into the environment by those processes, more land freed for greening, less concrete, steel, asphalt needed, and Gaia will smile.
The problem is that when the US gets to net zero its economy will be in a shambles. When the US goes down so does the rest of the world – just look at our global trade imbalances. When we can’t afford Chinese goods, what’s China going to do? Europe? Africa?
All of these model projections are worthless. And I use the “projections” because the modelers themselves call them that, not “predictions.” To think the world average temperature can be accurately projected enough to be of value 36 years in the future is oversized, self-serving hubris.
It’s not even of value now, and never will be. Global temperature is nonsense.
When models are based on scenarios, the results are projections, the correct term.
When models are based on established, toleranced, inputs,, a prediction is usually the result.
One does not challenge the math in a model. The errors are usually discovered and fixed with no consequence. ALL models must be challenged on stated and unidentified assumptions and biases.
I have yet to see an independent verification and validation of the software in the models, not an independent review of the model assumptions.
And you know this, how, exactly?
…….. and, as we continue on the Holocene downslope of global temperatures, back to full on glacial conditions, why would we even want to avert 1.6 degrees by 2100.
Disclaimer: My comment above should in no way imply that I know of any evidence that “ECS” has ever been shown to be something other than zero.
The temp here today has gone from 74f at sunrise to 90F at noon. You think anyone is going to notice 1.6C?
The only thing that might notice are my tomato plants – and they will grow LARGER with more PRODUCTION!
And of course, there is absolutely no way in which Net-Zero will be achieved… EVAH !!.
Except Net-zero intelligence of clowns like Izzydumborwhat !!
You need how to do base 2 logarithms. It is not linear.
Again. they are using a theoretical calculation based only on radiative properties.
It does not consider all the other energy transfer systems in the atmosphere.
IT IS NOT REAL. !!
There has been ZERO measured evidence of atmospheric CO2 causing warming in the last 150+ years.
That CO2 isn’t relevant was clearly demonstrated by Happer & Wijngaarden in 2 prior papers.
What’s very clever is to link that to temperature taking into account several IPCC scenarios, and showing that even the worst scenario is no big deal compared to the cost and suffering net zero policies bring. To me the real problem is a WUWT article “New Report Reveals Massive Scale of Green Billionaire Funding of ‘Climate Emergency’ Reporting in Mainstream Media”. It’s high time the various climate realist organizations get together and sue these people (the billionaires and the media who work with them) with class action lawsuits.
They don’t hesitate to go after oil companies, although they’ve lost up to now. There’s enough scientific evidence to prove these people wrong, and they should pay the price for the enormous costs and damages they’ve already made to society. They will keep doing that if we don’t fight back.
Law suits require significant funding. The pragmatic organizations (misnamed deniers) can’t pile up enough cash, unfortunately, to counter the near inexhaustible funding those billionaires can commit.
Best bet is to hope Gaia takes care of us soon enough the damage is minimal.
We are heading into a grand solar minimum. In a few years, we will see the results.
As long as NOAA/NASA are able to massage/manipulate their temperature data into a Co2 attribution graph the alarmists will be able to point to that and say: ‘look here, you are a denier’! Articles like this wont make headlines so the public wont be informed. It’s sad but true. However, enough doubts and pushback have crept in simply because the cost of net zero and all the climate measures are kicking in. This will push the ship back into the sea after broken parts have been fixed after hitting the reality wall. This is happening in coalitionland in the EU. The binary US and GB have less chance. But the US has one advantage, their constitution protects individual states. Not completely i admit but still.
I “get” the line of reasoning from assumed static radiative “forcing” to a small temperature impact at huge cost.
Much appreciation to Lindzen, Happer, and van Wijngaarden for putting this together.
But on the other hand, one needs no assumptions to just watch from space on NOAA’s “CO2 Longwave IR” band to see how the planet’s longwave emitter works. Please read the text description for the full explanation in this video.
https://youtu.be/Yarzo13_TSE
Should we expect ANY trend in emitter performance, to EVER be isolated for reliable attribution to incremental CO2 or any other non-condensing GHG? NO.
Can the climate system response to increasing concentrations of non-condensing GHGs EVER be reliably estimated by static radiative theory alone? ALSO NO.
Do the non-condensing GHGs add any energy of their own to the land+ocean+atmosphere system? NO.
Does the atmosphere behave physically as a static radiative blanket? NO. The physics of compressible fluid flow produces powerful energy conversion: [internal energy + potential energy] <-> [kinetic energy]. Lorenz described it. ERA5 computes it. More here. Read the full explanation in the description text. One cannot assume that the incremental radiative absorbing power computed for increasing concentrations of CO2 must result in “warming” in either the atmosphere or the land or the oceans.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
Science.
Spot on.
Also missing is any effort to include electromagnetic fields and waves into the models.
Having done research in IR sensors, it is clear those bands that block IR are opaque due to scattering, not trapping or absorption or whatever BS presented.
Generalizing the sun light is also lacking. Each wavelength of EM has a different energy. Each wavelength of EM has a different effect and all gas, liquid, and solid molecules and atoms have different interactions.
Having used the black body calculations, I understand the theory behind the IDEAL model and its practical limitations. I also have studied the black body model and know there are refinements not addressed.
One can not accurately model singular molecular interactions on a 25 Km cube.
The models also do not take into account energy absorbed in such chemical reactions as the formation of carbonic acid from CO2 and H2O (the ocean is a wee bit less alkaline today that a few years past). The removed energy and stored it in chemical bonds is not accounted for.
The devil’s in the details and a lot of details are ignored or glossed over via the incorrect use of averages.
Sorry. Felt the need to rant.
It’s appreciated tho, at least by some!
In response to the above authors’ science-based conclusion that “. . . we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 ◦C (0.015 ◦F), which is below our ability to accurately measure”, this just in from a joint communique released by the IPCC and the White House:
“Don’t confuse us with the facts, our minds are already made up. The science was settled decades ago.”
I have repeatedly pointed out that it can be proven that CO2 does NOT cause any global warming, but that, instead, it is caused by the decrease in the amount of industrial SO2 aerosol emissions into the atmosphere.
https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
They are being removed because of Net-Zero efforts to ban the burning of fossil fuels (which also produce SO2 aerosols), continuing “Clean Air” efforts to remove industrial SO2 aerosols from our atmosphere, and since 2020, the mandated low-sulfur fuels for maritime shipping.
The point is that if those activities are not halted, temperatures will keep rising because of decreased SO2 aerosol pollution, and the cleaner the air, the hotter it will get!
Currently, our temperatures are already so high that we are suffering from droughts, heat waves, fires, floods, tornadoes, and a predicted high hurricane season.
We NEED to lower our temperatures, and the quickest and safest way would be to revoke the mandated low sulfur fuels for maritime shipping, as a start, although the further efforts noted above will still be required to avoid increasing temperatures.
“Currently, our temperatures are already so high that we are suffering from droughts, heat waves, fires, floods, tornadoes, and a predicted high hurricane season”
Such gibberish and mal-information should be left for rabid climate alarmists.
You demean what tiny credibility you might have ever had.
You now have NONE. !!
bnice2000:
Obviously, you do not pay any attention to what is happening, weather-wise.
Based on increased absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 alone (without feedbacks), I have calculated sensitivities ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 C per doubling, which depend on the assumed initial surface temperature and humidity, with the lower values in the warm, humid tropics, and the higher values in winter and/or higher latitudes and/or dry climates. Averaged over the globe, a sensitivity of 0.6 to 0.7 C per doubling is estimated, which is close to the authors’ assumed value of 0.75 C/doubling.
Like the authors, I believe that most of the feedbacks are negative, particularly due to the evaporation from the ocean. If surface temperatures of the air rise due to infrared absorption by CO2, and the relative humidity remains constant, this requires increased evaporation from the ocean, and the required latent heat is removed from the air, representing a negative feedback, in the range of -50% to -70%, depending on the assumed surface temperature and humidity. This means that the sensitivity over the oceans is less than half that over land.
The authors mention Le Chatelier’s Principle, and one effect is that increasing the concentration of a reactant tends to increase its rate of consumption, which can be applied to photosynthesis, in which CO2 in the atmosphere is a reactant.
A mass balance shows that, in order to raise the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by 1 ppm, a net 8.00 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 must be added to the atmosphere. We can then write a mass balance for CO2 in the atmosphere
dC/dt = [ E(t) + G(t) – D(t) ] / 8.00 (Eq. 1)
where C = average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, ppm
E(t) = human emissions of CO2 by combustion, Gt/yr
G(t) = natural generation rate of CO2 in the atmosphere, Gt/yr
D(t) = natural destruction (removal) rate of CO2 from the atmosphere, Gt/yr
This can be re-written as
8.00 dC/dt – E(t) = G(t) – D(t) (Eq. 2)
Using concentrations of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa and estimates of global CO2 emission rates from 1959 through 2022, a linear regression of the left side as a function of concentration showed
8.00 dC/dt – E(t) = 39.92 – 0.140 C(t) (Eq. 3) R^2 = 0.83.
This equation implies that the natural generation rate of CO2 (from animal respiration and CO2 emissions from the oceans) is about 40 Gt/yr, and the natural removal rate is 0.14 Gt/ppm (or a first-order reaction with a rate constant of 0.140 / 8.00 = 0.0175 yr^-1).
Global CO2 human emission rates were about 37.2 Gt/yr in 2022. If this emission rate held constant into the future, the CO2 concentration would reach equilibrium when
dC/dt = 0 = 37.2 + 39.92 – 0.140 C (Eq. 4)
when C = 551 ppm, which would occur about the year AD 2250.
This scenario is NOT “net zero emissions”, but “net zero INCREASE in emission rates”, or business as usual. In this scenario the CO2 concentration never reaches double the current value, and comes to equilibrium at about double the “pre-industrial” estimate of 280 ppm.
Incidentally, if E(t) is set to zero to represent negligible human emissions prior to 1800, the equilibrium concentration for dC/dt = 0 in the above equation (3) would be 285 ppm.
It would be interesting if the authors of the article above would include the effect of increasing CO2 removal rate as a function of concentration (equation 3 above) in their analysis.
The concentration of CO2 in air at the MLO is for dry, pure air comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and CO2 at STP and is too high. Real air at the earth’s surface contains water in varying amounts which reduces the concentration of C02.
At the MLO the concentration of CO2 is 427 ppm by volume. This 0.839 grams of CO2 per cubic meter of air. The density of dry air at 0 deg. C is 1.29 kg per cubic meter. For air at 20 deg. C, the density of dry air is 1.20 kg per cubic meter. The concentration of CO2 in this air is about 397 ppm by volume. This is 0.780 grams of CO2 per cubic meter.
At 20 deg. and 70% RH the concentration of water is about 16,716 ppm by volume or 1.67% by volume. This is 13.4 grams of water per cubic meter of air. The concentration of CO2 is lowered by 1.67 % to 390 ppm. The air pressure for the calculations is 1 atmosphere, but in real air the pressure is variable and never exactly 1 atmosphere.
Based on the above calculations, I have concluded that this small of CO2 in air can heat up such a large mass of air by only a very small amount. In real air there is no uniform distributions of air pressure, temperature, water, and CO2. All of the calculations by various people really don’t mean much and should be taken with a large grain salt.