by Judith Curry
Ferenc Miskolczi has published a new paper on the greenhouse effect that is generating substantial discussion.
The Greenhouse Effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere
Ferenc Mark Miskolczi
Abstract: This paper presents observed atmospheric thermal and humidity structures and global scale simulations of the infrared absorption properties of the Earth’s atmosphere. These data show that the global average clear sky green-house effect has remained unchanged with time. A theoretically predicted infrared optical thickness is fully consistent with, and supports the observed value. It also facilitates the theoretical determination of the planetary radiative equilibrium cloud cover, cloud altitude and Bond albedo. In steady state, the planetary surface (as seen from space) shows no greenhouse effect: the all-sky surface up-ward radiation is equal to the available solar radiation. The all-sky climatological greenhouse effect (the difference of the all-sky surface upward flux and absorbed solar flux) at this surface is equal to the reflected solar radiation. The plane-tary radiative balance is maintained by the equilibrium cloud cover which is equal to the theoretical equilibrium clear sky transfer function. The Wien temperature of the all-sky emission spectrum is locked closely to the thermo-dynamic triple point of the water assuring the maximum radiation entropy. The stability and natural fluctuations of the global average surface temperature of the heterogeneous system are ultimately determined by the phase changes of water. Many authors have proposed a greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The present analysis shows that such an effect is impossible.
Published by Developments in Earth Science [link to complete paper]
Background
Miskolczi’s original paper on this topic in 2007 Greenhouse Effect in Semi-Transparent Atmospheres. Clive Best has a post that explains Miskolczi [link]. Science of Doom has a number of posts clarifying/critiquing Miskolcii’s articles [link]. See also critiques by
JC comments
I didn’t pay much attention to all this the first time around. I started reading this latest paper, decided it didn’t warrant much of my time, but a few comments.
He concludes the greenhouse effect from anthropogenic emissions is impossible. Sounded bizarre to me, but then I noticed how he defines the greenhouse effect: The planetary greenhouse effect (GE) may be defined or quantified in different ways. In astrophysics the all sky GE is defined via the total available solar radiation interacting with the system. He states: In steady state, the planetary surface (as seen from space) shows no greenhouse effect: the all-sky surface upward radiation is equal to the available solar radiation. His ‘greenhouse effect’ is ‘all sky’, including clouds and is directly related to the top of atmosphere radiation balance (including solar radiation). This is not the definition of ‘greenhouse effect’ that is commonly used in climate science, whereby it relates to the atmospheric emission and absorption of infrared radiation. To define the greenhouse effect out of existence because it balances the TOA solar radiation is not very useful, to say the least.
The paper seems to have the same problems for which it was criticized by Spencer, SOD, etc. I don’t have the time to really wade through this.
The only potentially interesting point is whether the clear sky atmospheric optical depth has remained the same in the face of rising CO2, implying a decrease in water vapor. In any event, his analysis (theoretical and empirical) doesn’t seem up to the task of sorting this out.
So given that I have spent about 40 minutes on this blog post, I am leaving this topic open as a discussion thread, and not contributing much myself. Keep your comments on topic.
“If this statement was true, then IR radiative transfers cannot change the temperature of anything, and Earth’s natural greenhouse effect cannot exist.” ~Roy Spencer
Before the development of Polar Ice IR did most of the cooling and cloud Albedo did the rest.
Now IR does most of the cooling and cloud and ice Albedo do the rest, including very tight regulation of temperature.
I have never understood why people call IR cooling a greenhouse effect. The IR gets the heat gone. IR cools the earth. The sunlight does not contain much IR coming in. I think the name “greenhouse” ruined the thinking of scientists and others.
True, true, using the analogy of a greenhouse with respect to global warming alarmism is not objective at all. What such purposefully erroneous analogizing really means is obvious too: it’s Western society’s excuse for avoiding reality. What it really shows is that fear by an ever-growing secular, socialist society of global warming is really a mask to hide society’s fear of individualism and the Left’s determined effort to limit the freedom of others through the control of factors of production such as energy.
Wagathon wrote:
“…global warming is really a mask to hide society’s fear of individualism and the Left’s determined effort to limit the freedom of others through the control of factors of production such as energy.”
You’re welcome to all the individualism you want (within the law, of course). That doesn’t give you the right to spew your pollution all across the planet and far into the future.
Times have changed. Once people could burn anything they wanted without regard for the environment, because the effects were small. They’re not small anymore, and you ain’t living in a cabin you hacked outta the forest with your nearest neighbor five miles away,
Mitigating global warming is, in fact, about eliminating YOUR desire and efforts to affect and restrict the freedom of others. That desire isn’t individualistic at all, especially if you care to live in a world where we have consideration for others and not just for ourselves.
CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s plant food. You have no right to restrict the amount of nutrients available to the primary producers in the food chain.
“That doesn’t give you the right to spew your pollution all across the planet and far into the future.”
Although it apparently gives the windmill builders the right to litter the landscape with visual pollution, while actually making CO2 “pollution” worse and pocketing a nice subsidy from those who can least afford it.
So much for the superiority of your morals, eh?
I’m not a scientist, but I read somewhere that CO2 over 1,500 ppm is of no benefit to plants, and can even make plants sick. It’s bad for humans too. However, there’s no need to worry about overdosing because although atmospheric CO2 is rising, it’s now only about 399 ppm.
I’m not a scientist, but I understand most climate scientists believe the more CO2 people make by burning fossil fuels, the warmer the earth will become.
I know from experience plants don’t like warmer and warmer. If they did, no greenhouse would need cooling. So rising atmospheric CO2 is nothing to laugh about.
So there you have it, CO2 is good thing, but too much CO2 can be a bad thing for plants (and animals). Therefore, I believe it is correct to say too much CO2 is a pollutant, because it can be harmful
Rather than saying “too much CO2 is a pollutant” it’s easier just to say “CO2 can be a pollutant.”
CO2 can be a pollutant.
Max
Hmm.
Too much water is a problem
So by your logic , water is a problem
You need to keep things in context and qualify it. That example you gave is rather simplistic don’t you think?
Tonyb
Kneel wrote:
“Although it apparently gives the windmill builders the right to litter the landscape with visual pollution, while actually making CO2 “pollution” worse and pocketing a nice subsidy from those who can least afford it.”
Huh? Visual pollution doesn’t affect the entire world, or far into the future, does it? And not everyone thinks they are visually unattractive. But, no, they aren’t perfect. No energy source is.
David in TX wrote:
“CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s plant food.”
And human sewage is food for bacteria. Yet I doubt you want it in your water supply.
BTW, the Supreme Court ruled CO2 is a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act (Mass v EPA, 2007)
Tonyb January 8, 2015 at 5:35 pm |
Max
Hmm.
Too much water is a problem
So by your logic , water is a problem
You need to keep things in context and qualify it. That example you gave is rather simplistic don’t you think
______
Well, apparently not simplistic enough.
I will correct your misunderstanding.
By my logic, “water can be a problem” NOT “water is a problem.”
So as a pollutant, David, you surely advocate remove all of the CO2 from the atmosphere, correct?
k scott denison wrote:
“So as a pollutant, David, you surely advocate remove all of the CO2 from the atmosphere, correct?”
Did I ever say that? No.
It’s the manmade CO2 that is the pollutant. The plants were doing just fine at 280 ppm.
Dave, you were a lot funnier on Comedy Central, yet more serious.
Oh, different Dave.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 8:04 pm |
k scott denison wrote:
“So as a pollutant, David, you surely advocate remove all of the CO2 from the atmosphere, correct?”
Did I ever say that? No.
It’s the manmade CO2 that is the pollutant. The plants were doing just fine at 280 ppm.
I’m a little disturbed that this argument needs to be squashed so often.
Fossil fuel produced CO2 is healthier for plants than the current atmosphere. It has less C13 and C14. Calling it pollution is an absolute contemptible lie.
“The plants were doing just fine at 280 ppm.” This is the “my should be 6 foot tall son, is only 4 foot tall because I put him on a starvation diet, but he is just fine” argument.
It is an absurd argument. Animal abundance is dependent on plant abundance. You starve the plants, you starve the animals. Low CO2 lowers the amount and quality of life on the planet. More CO2 means more food for everyone and everything.
Low CO2 stresses plants and makes them require more water. The vast amount of desert (1/3 of the land area) is mostly due to starvation CO2 levels, which is why deserts are starting to green now.
“Animal abundance is dependent on plant abundance. You starve the plants, you starve the animals.”
Completely false. The nutritional benefit for animals, including humans, does not come from the carbon in plants, it comes from the nitrogen. And that decreases with higher CO2:
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/crop-nutrition/
Paper:
“Nitrate assimilation is inhibited by elevated CO2 in field-grown wheat,” Arnold J. Bloom et al, Nature 4/6/14
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n6/full/nclimate2183.html
This paper finds, from field experiments, that even AFTER CO2 fertilization, the nutritive value of many grains DECREASES:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/04/wheats-nutritive-value-decreases-under.html
PA wrote:
“You starve the plants, you starve the animals.”
What evidence is there that plants are “starving?” Weren’t there lots of plants before the Industrial Revolution? Was there a deficit?
” Low CO2 lowers the amount and quality of life on the planet. More CO2 means more food for everyone and everything.”
Your last sentence is completely wrong, as I just commented.
David, I suspect PA has been influenced by the following study:
Randall J. Donohue, Tim R. McVicar, Michael L. Roderick, Graham D. Farquhar, ‘Impact of CO2fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments’, Geophysical Research Letters Volume 40, Issue 12, pages 3031–3035, 28 June 2013 DOI: 10.1002/grl.50563
Unfortunately this study is behind a paywall, but there are many references to it. I believe the findings were confined to warm, arid environments.
“The carbon fertilization effect is already a prominent driver of land surface processes, at least in warm, arid environments. The authors note that though carbon fertilization may be occurring in some way in other ecosystems, the same strong relationship between increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and foliage cover likely does not extend globally.”
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/vegetation_arid_regions_increased_1982_due_carbon_fertilization-117418
At the same site, I noticed reference to another interesting study:
“Trees help keep the planet cool, but rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are preventing them from performing this very important function.
According to a new study in PNAS, in some regions more than a quarter of the warming from increased carbon dioxide is due to its direct impact on vegetation. This warming is in addition to carbon dioxide’s better-known effect as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.”
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/rising_co2_keeps_trees_cooling_earth
So, we have examples of a good thing and a bad thing about rising CO2, without even considering the enhanced greenhouse effect, which is according to most climate scientist a bad thing on-balance.
I’ll say it again: if warmer was better for plants, greenhouses wouldn’t need cooling.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 9:55 pm |
“Animal abundance is dependent on plant abundance. You starve the plants, you starve the animals.”
Completely false. The nutritional benefit for animals, including humans, does not come from the carbon in plants, it comes from the nitrogen. And that decreases with higher CO2:
All your articles depend on this study from Bloom.
“Nitrate assimilation is inhibited by elevated CO2 in field-grown wheat,”
He also harps on micronutrients (those are nutrients that are smaller than standard nutrients).
http://www.pubfacts.com/detail/10996368/CO2-enrichment-enhances-flag-leaf-senescence-in-barley-due-to-greater-grain-nitrogen-sink-capacity.
“Total nitrogen uptake of the crops was not affected by CO(2) treatment but responded solely to the N supply.”
Well, it is one of those things. Nitrogen uptake is dependent on available nitrogen. Total nitrogen uptake is constant regardless of CO2 level.
If you want more nitrogen in a plant that yields 38% more – you have to provide more nitrogen. You have to make the nutrients available for plants to use them. Nutrients don’t grow on trees, they are spread on the ground – like fertilizer.
However – other studies have shown high CO2 plants will sustain growth at lower nitrogen levels than low CO2 plants. If there is more of one nutrient (CO2) problems with other nutrients such as nitrogen and water have less impact on crop growth.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/co2-absorption/chapman-corn-field-fig-1-co2.gif
I have some issues with the way some of the studies are done – I’m not sure the CO2 levels are controlled correctly.
If you can find a PDF of Blooms study we will see if he increased available nitrogen to compensate for the increased growth.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 9:55 pm |
“Completely false. The nutritional benefit for animals, including humans, does not come from the carbon in plants, it comes from the nitrogen. And that decreases with higher CO2:”
HOLY SCIENCE ILLITERACY, BATMAN!
EPIC FAIL of David Appell the science writer.
Carbohydrates are the primary nutrients that animals get from plants. Carbohydrates have no nitrogen. Just carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate
Appell is thinking of proteins, which contain nitrogen, and which most animals require in their diets but carbohydrates are the primary source of calories. A science writer who doesn’t know that should find another profession.
PA wrote:
“All your articles depend on this study from Bloom.”
You didn’t read the paper, did you?
Here is its first paragraph:
“Many lines of evidence fromlaboratory studies demonstrate that
elevated CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere inhibit leaf nitrate
(NO3-) assimilation in C3 plants. These include: plants receiving
NO3 as their sole source of nitrogen (N) accumulate less organic N
under elevated than ambient CO2 (refs 7,911); plants subjected to a
pulse of 15N-NO3- incorporate less 15N into organic N compounds
under elevated than ambient CO2 (ref. 10); plant growth is slower
under elevated than ambient CO2 when NO3 serves as the sole N
source and faster when NH4 C serves as the sole N source(5,12); deltaAQ (changes in the ratio of net CO2 consumption to net O2 evolution after shifting N nutrition from NH4+ to NO3-), a real-time measure of leaf NO3 assimilation, decreases with increasing leaf internal CO2 concentration(9,12); and maximum NO3 reductase activity in vitro is usually less under elevated than ambient CO2 (refs. 1113).Verification of CO2 inhibition of NO3 assimilation in the field,
however, is still lacking.”
In other words, their field results weren’t very surprising.
PA: The study you quote is 15 years old, and says nothing about the nutritive value of plants grown under elevated growth — let alone demonstrating it in the field, as did the Bloom et al study.
PA wrote:
“However – other studies have shown high CO2 plants will sustain growth at lower nitrogen levels than low CO2 plants. If there is more of one nutrient (CO2) problems with other nutrients such as nitrogen and water have less impact on crop growth.”
You still aren’t understanding. The nutritive value of plants doesn’t come from their carbon content, it comes from their nitrogen content. They can absorb all the carbon they want; it won’t change the nutritive value.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 9, 2015 at 12:33 am |
PA wrote:
“All your articles depend on this study from Bloom.”
You didn’t read the paper, did you?
You haven’t done much farming have you?
You get out what you put in. If you get 38% more growth with the same fertilizer the nitrogen content of the plant will be less. There is some reduction. You use 8%. Since this is less than the 38% increase in growth, the plant is using nitrogen more efficiently. Regardless of the study for similar fields with CO2 as the only variable the growth is greater than the nitrogen decrease.
http://www.paulasbread.com/skin/frontend/default/default/images/media/whole-wheat-nutrition-chart.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Wheat-kernel_nutrition.svg/2000px-Wheat-kernel_nutrition.svg.png
The problem is most people eat refined flour and have tossed most of what nutrition is in the wheat away already. The endosperm (white flour) is basically carbs.
Sometimes I think like a liberal. If I was dictator of the US it would be a illegal to sell or produce anything other than whole grain flour. I don’t see the point of producing white flour.
As far as the age of the study – since warmers have hijacked the grant process (21st century) it is hard to find modern honest studies. You have to accommodate the addition nitrogen needs of high CO2 wheat. Bloom clearly didn’t – the actual farmer will.
Total ignorance of biochemistry, even chemistry. Nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH4+) are both sources of nitrogen. The study suggests that ammonium-based fertilizer might be more useful under high-CO2 conditions, but says nothing about overall nitrogen uptake.
I’m a little disturbed that participants on both sides of this debate display such scientific ignorance. It makes no difference at all to plants which isotopes of carbon they use.
I’m a little disturbed that this argument needs to be squashed so often. All modern plants are perfectly well adapted to CO2 levels of 200-280ppm. The vast majority of C4 grasses are adapted to win the competition for space in many environments where different ecosystems would win at higher pCO2.
Gimmee a break, willya? There’s already over a dozen ways to keep the wheat from going into the bin.
====================
AK | January 9, 2015 at 7:36 am |
Fossil fuel produced CO2 is healthier for plants than the current atmosphere. It has less C13 and C14.
I’m a little disturbed that participants on both sides of this debate display such scientific ignorance. It makes no difference at all to plants which isotopes of carbon they use.
Wrong. Just wrong. Why do you suppose fossil fuels are C13 depleted? C13 is a stable isotope. Next time at least google a topic before you respond.
Low CO2 stresses plants and makes them require more water. The vast amount of desert (1/3 of the land area) is mostly due to starvation CO2 levels, which is why deserts are starting to green now.
I’m a little disturbed that this argument needs to be squashed so often. All modern plants are perfectly well adapted to CO2 levels of 200-280ppm. The vast majority of C4 grasses are adapted to win the competition for space in many environments where different ecosystems would win at higher pCO2.
Wrong again. Another advocate of the “small dwarf CO2 starved plants are better plants” theory. More CO2 means less water use. Much of the desert is the result of low CO2 pushing water requirements too high.
Even C4 plant conserve water at higher CO2 levels.
Try studying the science, rather than just a few popular web-sites popped up by Google. Look up the actual difference in carbon uptake, and the difference in concentration. It’s enough for scientists to “measure” (using questionable models), it’s not enough to make a difference to any lifeforms using it.
Plenty of life in the desert. Are you a raw biomass chauvinist?
http://www.fws.gov/uploadedImages/Region_6/NWRS/Mountain_Zone/Seedskadee_Complex/Seedskadee/Images/Cactus-512×219.jpg
AK | January 9, 2015 at 9:18 am |
Wrong. Just wrong. Why do you suppose fossil fuels are C13 depleted? C13 is a stable isotope. Next time at least google a topic before you respond.
Try studying the science, rather than just a few popular web-sites popped up by Google. Look up the actual difference in carbon uptake, and the difference in concentration. It’s enough for scientists to “measure” (using questionable models), it’s not enough to make a difference to any lifeforms using it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=3wMBwxGIqDIC&pg=PA410&lpg=PA410&dq=rate+of+reaction+c13+c12&source=bl&ots=53cFLU9ZV5&sig=ani36CMpj_I2OrKiLTROV2Issd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VuSvVLrUIcyfgwTvtITwBA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=rate%20of%20reaction%20c13%20c12&f=false
“Two stable carbon isotopes occur naturally, C12 being present in 98.9% of … of the substrate; specifically, the reaction rate differs between C13 and C12 in CO2”
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
1. Plants uptake C12 preferentially. Isotopic discrimination reduces the C13. input.
2. The reaction rates for C12 and C13 are slightly different otherwise plants couldn’t do isotopic discrimination. The diffusion rate of C13O2 is lower/slower than C12O2.
Now for context:
This was a response to someone claiming fossil fuel CO2 was pollution. I was pointing out that the atmosphere is pollution and fossil fuel CO2 is the cure.
A side by side plant study with one plant feed pure C13O2 and the other plant feed pure C12O2 would show reduced CO2 uptake on the C13 plant. We know that for a fact because the C13 based carbon dioxide diffusion rate is lower. The only question is how much worse the CO2 uptake would be.
From your link:
Just as I said. Not enough to make a difference. Even if the release of fossil carbon brought it down to zero (which it won’t, fossil carbon has only a slightly lower percentage than the modern atmosphere) the difference would 0.011*0.011=0.00121: that is a 0.12% difference in diffusion. The plants won’t grow less, they’ll just open their stomata a little wider, equivalent to perhaps a fraction of a ppm difference in pCO2.
Why don’t you run some numbers yourself before wasting people’s time with your f00lish nonsense?
According to this site, which I certainly won’t vouch for,
So, let’s assume that the fossil contribution lowers the atmospheric value all the way to the fossil value (which it won’t, of course), the resulting reduction in diffusion is even smaller: 0.011*0.011*0.02=0.000242: a value of 0.024%, equivalent to less than 100 PPB (parts per BILLION) difference in pCO2
David Appell (@davidappell) wrote on January 8, 2015 at 5:53 pm
“BTW, the Supreme Court ruled CO2 is a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act (Mass v EPA, 2007)”
Indeed it did; sloppy legislation. It permitted the government to take control of 80% of energy generation by classifying CO2 as “pollution” as one of the Greenhouse gasses.
Justice Stevens. “MASSACHUSETTS ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL.,” April 2, 2007. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf.
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) No. 05–1120. Argued November 29, 2006—Decided April 2, 2007.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
In a 5 to 4 decision, Held:
1. Petitioners have standing to challenge the EPA’s denial of their rulemaking petition. Pp. 12–23.
“SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, page 08): “Air pollutant” is defined by the Act as “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” 42 U. S. C. §7602(g). The Court is correct that “[c]arbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons,” ante, at 26, fit within the second half of that definition: They are “physical, chemical, . . . substance[s] or matter which [are] emitted into or otherwise ente[r] the ambient air.” But the Court mistakenly believes this to be the end of the analysis. In order to be an “air pollutant” under the Act’s definition, the “substance or matter [being] emitted into . . . the ambient air” must also meet the first half of the definition—namely, it must be an “air pollution agent or combination of such agents.” The Court simply pretends this half of the definition does not exist.
The Court’s analysis faithfully follows the argument advanced by petitioners, which focuses on the word “including” in the statutory definition of “air pollutant.” See Brief for Petitioners 13–14. As that argument goes, anything that follows the word “including” must necessarily be a subset of whatever precedes it. Thus, if greenhouse gases qualify under the phrase following the word “including,” they must qualify under the phrase preceding it. Since greenhouse gases come within the capacious phrase “any physical, chemical, . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air,” they must also be “air pollution agent[s] or combination[s] of such agents,” and therefore meet the definition of “air pollutant[s].”
I’m not a scientist. I’m just an OKie from Miscolzi.
AK | January 9, 2015 at 10:45 am |
From your link:
“Sigh”, you again.
AK – there was an absurd argument that fossil CO2 is pollution. This a bald faced, premeditated, irresponsible, irrational, unsupportable lie.
I pointed out that fossil fuel CO2 is superior plant food. It isn’t earth shatteringly mind bogglingly better, it isn’t “end world hunger” better, it isn’t CO2 fertilization better, but it is better. End of story. Have to do a field test to find out if it noticeable in practical situations or just a measurable phenomenon.
Warmatistas make great hay of gnat sized differences all the time.
Your “The plants won’t grow less, they’ll just open their stomata a little wider” means the plant consumes more water. That alone will have a retarding effect on plant growth. Bigger problem is chlorophyll is C55H72O5N4Mg.
Nature discriminates against C13 twice in the photosynthesis process. The discrimination increases with higher CO2 in current plants (plants at 280 PPM don’t discriminate as much because they are starving). Ancient plants with 5 to 10 times the CO2 would presumably discriminate more.
About the only way to find out how bad C13 is to run a study. The difference could be muy poquito or it might be significant.
@ PA | January 9, 2015 at 3:48 pm |
Yup. Trying, in my spare time, to be the bane of ridiculous arguments that sound scientific but aren’t. Such as “[f]ossil fuel produced CO2 is healthier for plants than the current atmosphere.”
You and David Appell are like two peas in a pod. You’re pursuing some political/ideological agenda and drag in bits of science you don’t understand without any idea whether they make sense.
0.024%, equivalent to less than 100 PPB CO2. Too small to bother with.
So What?
Stupid comparison of the year award goes to:
David Appell for equating human sewage and CO2 as pollutants. pollutants.
Amazing.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 5:53 pm |
David in TX wrote:
“CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s plant food.”
And human sewage is food for bacteria. Yet I doubt you want it in your water supply.
————————————————————————-
http://prn.fm/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Are-You-Always-This-Stupid-Best-Demotivational-Posters.jpg
Not stupid at all. Actually very clever. Clever propaganda. Certainly not science, but despite its scientific provenance, this blog sees a lot more propaganda than science.
And of course, calling propaganda “stupid” just because it’s not science is also propaganda.
But the “human sewage and CO2” comparison certainly shows some input from science.
Why do people insist that local and global properties must be the same? A nonlinear system’s response depends on local conditions. It is quite possible to have a Greenhouse Effect which raises surface temperatures above what they would be without any greenhouse gases, yet has a local negative sensitivity. I use this plot to illustrate in simplified analogy – the global sensitivity (slope of secant line) can be positive while the local sensitivity (slope of tangent line) can be positive, negative, or zero.
Is not Miskolczi saying that, in the present climate state and atmospheric mix, the tangent line is flat?
A system ‘without any greenhouse gases’ cannot exist on Earth because the ‘greenhouse gas’ is primarily, water vapor, the amount of which is essentially, unlimited.
No, water vapor isn’t “unlimited” — air can only hold so much of it, depending on its temperature. See: Clausius-Claperyon equation.
This is why scientists say “water vapor is a feedback, not a forcing” for manmade global warming.
Water Vapor is limited by temperature and pressure, but the atmosphere supports the water as water drops and ice crystals and supports much more water than can be supported with just vapor. The limit of water the atmosphere can hold suddenly gets a lot more complicated and this is the part they don’t understand well enough to get their theory and models working. They don’t understand enough about clouds, not yet.
The idea of “unlimited,” as concerns the control mechanism in Miskolczi Theory, as observed Dr (hc) Noor van Andel, only exists because, “the main greenhouse gas, i.e. water, is available in unlimited supply and finds its way into the atmosphere to control the flux relations.”
Popes: clouds aren’t water in its vaporous state, and they don’t respond radiatively in the same way water vapor does.
Everyone admits clouds are a problem in models. But again, uncertainty cuts both ways.
No. Uncertainty cuts against those who claim they know what is going on, and want us to upend industrial society in order to address the putative problem. If they do not know what is going on, then there is no way to know what to do in the first place, much less any justification to visit quantifiably significant pain and suffering on vulnerable populations in order to do it.
We might as well be throwing virgins in volcanoes to appease the weather gods. It’s the same train of logic – if you don’t sacrifice the young ones to the gods, you can’t be sure they won’t become angry with you. It is utterly primitive.
Bartemis wrote:
“No. Uncertainty cuts against those who claim they know what is going on, and want us to upend industrial society in order to address the putative problem.”
I don’t know of a single person who wants to “upend” industrial society — so who do you mean? I only know of people who want to generate the energy society needs in a way that doesn’t emit carbon to the atmosphere.
Re: uncertainty — do you only buy fire insurance for your home if you definitely know it will burn down? Do you not stop smoking until your doctor can tell you the exact month and year you’ll definitely develop lung cancer?
I buy fire insurance, David. I do not buy alien invasion insurance. I do not smoke. But, I do drink coffee. Do you understand why these examples are germane, and undercut your argument?
“I buy fire insurance, David.”
So what date is your house going to burn down?
“I do not buy alien invasion insurance. I do not smoke. But, I do drink coffee. Do you understand why these examples are germane, and undercut your argument?”
No — only if one chooses not to accept established science. Do you understand how THAT undercuts your argument?
Where there is uncertainty, the science is not established, and you are begging the question. If you do not understand this, then I am engaging with a child, and further pointless discussion holds no interest for me.
Bartemis wrote:
“Where there is uncertainty, the science is not established,”
I understand perfectly. You don’t know when (or if) your house will burn down, but you still buy fire insurance.
You think uncertainty means nothing need be done. But your own purchase of fire insurance disproves that very point.
David Appell,
You wrote –
“Bartemis wrote:
“Where there is uncertainty, the science is not established,”
I understand perfectly. You don’t know when (or if) your house will burn down, but you still buy fire insurance.
You think uncertainty means nothing need be done. But your own purchase of fire insurance disproves that very point.”
I don’t have any house insurance. I assume I’m better off without it. So far, so good.
And your response is?
Ah, the absolute certainty of the fool!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
More apt might be the lightning rod craze, wasn’t it Mrs. McWilliams?
Sound science? Yes. Exaggerated applications found on fear and guilt? Why, yes. Much money and fraud, why Hell yes. {I’m over there, God}
There was a flood when Thurber navigated a steamboat on the Mississippi with Cap’n Stormfield.
===========
There appears to be an error in context here. The statement from Dr. Spencer above was in response to his quote from Miskolczi’s paper:
“for..two regions (or bodies) A and B, the rate of flow of radiation emitted by A and absorbed by B is equal to the rate of flow the other way, regardless of other forms of (energy) transport that may be occurring.”
But, that is not the whole quote. From the paper:
“It will be convenient here to define the term radiative exchange equilibrium between two specified regions of space (or bodies) as meaning that for the two regions (or bodies) A and B, the rate of flow of radiation emitted by A and absorbed by B is equal to the rate of flow the other way, regardless of other forms of transport that may be occurring.”
This is a quite un-objectionable definition of a particular state of the system, not an extension of Kirchoff’s Law.
Statement in Science Magazine for November 19, 2014 about missing heat: “But recent research suggests that Earth is still taking in more energy from the sun than it’s letting out, to the tune of almost a 60-watt light bulb’s worth for every 100 square meters.” Similar statements are made by Trenberth and others.
Miskolczi is saying that this is nonsense, that radiation must balance at the top of the atmosphere.
If greenhouse gas concentrations fall, the tropopause will be lower and, for a fixed adiabatic lapse rate, the surface temperature will fall. Hence there is a greenhouse effect at the surface which is not sen from space.
The stability and natural fluctuations of the global average surface temperature of the heterogeneous system are ultimately determined by the phase changes of water.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Water is abundant and it changes state to regulate the temperature of Earth using IR for much of the cooling and Albedo for the fine tuning.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page76.html
I am not a scientist. I have seen some reports that say the greenhouse effect of CO2 goes down as its percentage of the atmosphere goes up. How certain is the scientific community of the actual greenhouse effect of CO2 at various concentrations? Are there competing theories? It sure seems from observations over the past couple of decades that there are problems with the computer models. What theories are they based on? Is the science settled as the “warmists” claim? Do 97% of climate scientists agree on the CO2 greenhouse effect at various concnetrations?
The IR properties of CO2 are well known. it has a likely influence that is small. The other things that have much larger influence are not as well known.
Pekka: What do you mean by “far?”
Here’s an interesting recent paper that calculates GHG forcings from (for CO2) 100 to 50,000 ppm:
“Radiative forcing at high concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases,”
Brendan Byrne and C. Goldblatt, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13 2014.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058456/abstract
If it’s paywalled, some of the paper’s findings are here:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-if-co2-gets-really-high-say-1000.html
For very high concentrations it’s very important that the line shape of the CO2 absorption line is correct. More specifically the tails of the peaks make all the difference. Standard Lorentz line shape gives far too strong absorption, and it’s essential that the far tails are cut off correctly. I didn’t check, whether
– the paper is careful in handling the far tails
– the effect I mention is essential at 50000 ppm. I think it is, but I should check that.
One problem is that I don’t think that the far tails are known very well, but there’s certainly some knowledge on them.
The importance of the line shape is large in calculations of Venus atmosphere as discussed here
http://www.sat.ltu.se/members/mendrok/publications/takagi10_influence_jgr.pdf
I did calculations for 10000 ppm in the Earth atmosphere finding that the effect significant at that concentration. It’s not clear, whether the paper you referred used a model that’s intended to be used at high concentrations. If not, then the results may be significantly wrong.
As the paper says atop its 2nd page; “We evaluate the radiative transfer in the range 50–100,000/cm (0.1–200 microns) as a combined solar and thermal calculation.”
Pekka: What do you mean by “far” in “far tails?”
Dr. Spencer wrote:
“Miskolczi additionally shows from 61 years of radiosonde data that a long-term decrease in the Earth’s greenhouse effect from humidity decreases in the middle and upper atmosphere have approximately counterbalanced the increase in the greenhouse effect from rising CO2 levels.
At face value, this might suggest that nature has mechanisms in place so that the total infrared opacity of the atmosphere remains about constant, consistent with the absorbed solar energy, and so the Earth’s temperature is naturally stabilized.”
This is primary observational evidence that cannot be refuted by underspecified models. It needs to be refuted with evidence derived from measurement data.
data from ice cores shows that temperature has been regulated inside the same bounds for ten thousand years. climate theory and models do not reproduce these up an down cycles in the same bounds. Consensus Theory makes a hockey stick of the temperature. They don’t consider the ice cycles to be anything other than a result.
They will never fix their theory or models until they understand the Polar Ice Cycles. That is what is missing.
“They will never fix their theory or models until they understand the Polar Ice Cycles. That is what is missing.”
They’re not missing — they’re irrelevant on the century scale. Milankovitch factors have periods of order 10^(4-5) years, too long to affect climate tomorrow or a few hundred years into the future.
@daviidappell
Milankovitch is based on orbit cycles.
Polar Ice cycles operate differently.
It snows more when oceans are warm and then it gets cold.
it snows less when oceans are frozen and then it get warm.
Polar ice cycles are influenced some but are not driven by Milankovitch.
Polar ice cycles have been on the order of 100 thousand years for much of the last million years. Polar ice cycles have been on the order of 1000 years for the most recent ten thousand years.
Milankovitch did not do that. It was in phase some of that time and out of phase more of that time.
Popes: Can you please cite a few relevant papers?
If “polar ice cycles” exist on 10^4 – 10^5 timescales, they are still small to mean much for the climate in 2100.
David,
From the paper I linked you can see, where the profiles differ significantly. That defines where “far” begins.
The problem is that the tails add up to a significant continuum in regions where many narrow peaks are present. With strong cutoff the gaps between the peaks do not contribute much to the absorption, with pure Lorentz line shape there’s a lot of absorption in the gaps. The effect is strong with pure Lorentz but commonly applied cutoffs make it much weaker.
“This is primary observational evidence that cannot be refuted by underspecified models.”
There is no primary observational evidence. Miskolczi just looks through old balloon databases to get sets of temperature/pressure readings. These are inputs to his computer program. But no radiative data is used.
If you think there is such evidence, please specify.
“…balloon databases to get sets of temperature/pressure readings”
Nick, if it is a “reading” it is primary observational evidence. The data did not come from a test event, nor was it artificially produced by a synthetic model. I am curious how you would define “primary observational evidence,” perhaps there is a better way I could express what that term means to me.
“Nick, if it is a “reading” it is primary observational evidence”
You can read your watch. Check your weight. That’s primary observational evidence. But what of?
The fact that somewhere in the atmosphere a certain combination of pressure and temperature was observed is not evidence of anything about radiative transfer. Miskolczi did computer calcs for those observed combinations. But he could have made them up – it wouldn’t make any difference. The result all comes from hypothesis and calculation.
Again, I’d invite you to specify what observational evidence you are referring to and how it contributes to his result.
Nick Stokes | January 8, 2015 “This is primary observational evidence that cannot be refuted by underspecified models.”
“There is no primary observational evidence. Miskolczi just looks through old balloon databases to get sets of temperature/pressure readings.”
How unscientifically patronizing can you get in a simple statement?
“Just” is pejorative and in no way is a counter to the claim of ” primary observational evidence”.
As for calling this evidence “old”, All evidence is “old soon after it is observed. Your whole scientific life revolves around using “old ” evidence.
Again it is “primary observational evidence “.
It may not be all the evidence. Why not state what sort of primary observational evidence you feel should be looked at ?
“But no radiative data is used” It must be incorporated in his model, he states “The all-sky climatological greenhouse effect (the difference of the all-sky surface upward flux and absorbed solar flux) at this surface is equal to the reflected solar radiation.”
which one could assume means he has taken radiative data into account.
“which one could assume means he has taken radiative data into account.”
You can assume what you like. But he has made no radiative measurements.
Hey Nick, the dingo ate my baby!
I think it also ate your homework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde
Radiosonde data includes relative humidity.
Relative humidity is primary observational evidence.
Duh.
What kind of scientist are you exactly and why didn’t you know that radiosonde data includes relative humidity in addition to temperature, pressure, altitude, longitude, latitude, wind speed, and wind direction?
I might understand you not knowing off the top of your head but what kind of scientist wouldn’t quickly look up what data is returned by radiosondes before shooting off his mouth about them?
Nick Stokes | January 8, 2015 at 1:49 pm | Reply
“There is no primary observational evidence. Miskolczi just looks through old balloon databases to get sets of temperature/pressure readings. These are inputs to his computer program. But no radiative data is used.
If you think there is such evidence, please specify.”
“which one could assume means he has taken radiative data into account.”
You can assume what you like. But he has made no radiative measurements.
Wooah, hold on Nick.
There is a big difference between saying no radiative data is used and then demanding that poor Miskolczi make his own radiative measurements.
As opposed to saying you assumed/demanded he has not used radiative measurements.
You can assume/assert what you like.
He is not NASA or NOOA , is he?
“Relative humidity is primary observational evidence.”
Not in the TIGR database that M used. Or at least, only at pretty low altitudes. Radiosonde RH measurement has much inaccuracy. And so:
“Water vapour profiles : between 380 hPa and 0.05 hPa (levels 32 and 4 respectively), water vapour profiles have been replaced by a monthly climatology (*) from the ERA-Interim reanalyses, and then extrapolated up to 0.0026 hPa (level 1) based on the Ace_Scisat Instrument level 2 outputs.”
Nowadays it’s possible to get anything published in a journal that claims to be peer reviewed. This is the publisher of Miskolczi’s new paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Research_Publishing
They accepted even a paper written by random text generator.
I seem to have mixed two publishers, but my first sentence remains true.
I checked later the journal, where Miskolczi’s paper was actually published. The total for the journal is 8 papers (starting in Dec. 2013). Some of them are clearly of no interest, and none obviously interesting (and that applies also to this paper).
The publisher is on a couple of lists of predatory publishers as one of many hundreds of such publishers. I wonder, how long it takes before there are more publishers than scientists ;)
Pekka, at a loss for cogent argument, reaches into his bag of fallacies and pulls out card “guilt by association”. He then goes on to attack Miskolczi’s publisher. In the process making an egregious mistake by falsely accusing the publisher and, in record setting time, publishes a retraction of his mistake. But notably sticks with the fallacy.
http://zackeeney.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/440723_orig.jpg
Pekka
What journal was BEST’s paper published in. Are you saying that Mosh’s work wasn’t robust?
tonyb
If there’s one thing the climate wars have made clear to me, it’s that highly educated people can be quite foolish.
Pekka and/or tonyb are foolish?
No shoving, we’ll all get our turn.
========
Kim,
LOL. Kind of reminds me of the scene in the movie “Airplane” where the stewardess tries to calm a woman passenger having a panic attack. Another passenger pushes the stewardess aside and begins slapping the passenger. A line then forms up with people with baseball bats, guns, tire irons, boxing gloves, etc, waiting to get their turn with the woman.
Creating a research papers using a random text generator is about like Mann basing a belief in AGW on the results of mathematical models that generate ‘hockey sticks’ out of white noise.
Mann et al’s work says nothing about AGW, since it is a reconstruction of pre-instrumental temperatures. It’s the instrumental temperatures that make up the blade, not anything Mann et al did.
Well, he must have believed the blade when it emerged so magically from his Mannometric Machinator.
===================
kim wrote:
“Well, he must have believed the blade when it emerged so magically from his Mannometric Machinator.”
Magically? (How so?) It was calculated.
David Appell:
This isn’t unique to MBH, but just being “calculated” isn’t protection against bias, unless you freeze your methodology before you see the answer. Even if there isn’t a conscious decision to arrive at a result that you think is “right”, people have a tendency to look for errors that will move the result of the calculation closer to what they expected.
This is a well known problem.
Carrick wrote:
“people have a tendency to look for errors that will move the result of the calculation closer to what they expected.”
Maybe, but I the scientific method is so strong precisely because it minimizes that. In any case, people who read, review and replicate results are looking for such errors. In this case, the hockey stick has been replicated many times, some by teams using very different mathematical techiques.
David Appell:
It minimizes it—when you follow a methodological protocol such as the one I described. When you don’t, bias does creep in.
To be clear, this happens in all areas of science. I’m not picking on climate science per se here. Here’s an example, which tracks the measurement of fundamental constants.
Yes we do look for errors, but these sort of bias problems are almost impossible for a reviewer to uncover. How can you prove that the person preferentially corrected errors that pushed the answer towards the “known” (aka previously published) value?
I don’t agree. Here’s AR5 Fig 5.7.
The so-called replications involve the blade (the recent warming), and the values are literally all over the place in the “handle” (the period prior to the recent warming). Because the various mathematical methods enface the blade (by calibrating against the surface temperature record) it is a no-brainer they will all track each other in the so-called “calibration” period.
In the reconstruction period (the only part that is “new science” here, after all we know the temperature record already), the patterns are not replicated.
Now if you look at the long duration (circa 2000 year) reconstructions there is a good level of agreement. Whether that is meaningful is still something people are debating.
But the claim “the hockey stick has been replicated many times”, when you extend it to all reconstructions and focus on the reconstruction period, a good correspondence between reconstructions is simply not found.
“It minimizes it—when you follow a methodological protocol such as the one I described. When you don’t, bias does creep in.”
EVERYONE is susceptible to bias, not just those with a consensus view. So that argument proves precisely nothing.
“The so-called replications involve the blade (the recent warming), and the values are literally all over the place in the “handle” (the period prior to the recent warming).”
Not on a global scale. Not when you add the results from Tingley & Huybers, Marcott et al, PAGES 2k:
“A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years,” Marcott et al, Science v339 n6124 pp 1198-1201, March 8, 2013
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract
“Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia,” PAGES 2k Consortium, Nature Geosciences, April 21, 2013
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html
“Novel Analysis Confirms Climate “Hockey Stick” Graph,” Scientific American, November 2009, pp 21-22.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=still-hotter-than-ever
Carrick: The funniest part of your argument is that, if true — if there was a global MWP — that makes our current situation WORSE, not better, because it means that in addition to all the GHG warming today, we’d also have to worry about apparently more frequent natural fluctuations such as whatever caused the MWP, adding to GHGs.
By the way, in North America the Medieval Climate Anomaly was no picnic. There were a lot of drought — see “Sand Hills” in Nebraska:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhills_%28Nebraska%29#Paleoclimate_and_future
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/14/2/209.refs
David Appell,
Apparently you did not read the FAQ that Marcott et al issued on their paper:
“20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions”
Wow! Goodbye 20th century uptick. Why the hell did they even publish?
Climate Audit handles your other 2 references readily.
SkepticGoneWild: I understand Marcott et al’s FAQ very well — it means they didn’t use their proxies to calculate the 20th century.
So what? That hardly means the two datasets — Marcott et al + instrumental measurements — can’t be compared and shown on the same graph.
Of course they can be displayed together, both straightforwardly and deceitfully.
Hey, this misconceived display twittered past the ear of the Executive. False emanations, ‘twer.
===================
David Appell:
Based on this statement, you seem to have totally lost the thread on this one.
My comments have absolutely nothing to do with consensus on anything. Of course bias is present for everybody! That’s precisely why researchers try and establish methodologies to reduce the effect of bias on their results.
Since it is difficult for a reviewer to see directly whether bias is there (that eventually requires knowing the real answer), instead we focus on the methodology used and the degree to which it reduces the possibility of bias.
Methodologies that do not adequately guard against researcher bias are considered to be “poorly controlled” and those that do adequately guard against bias are considered to be “well controlled”.
David Appell:
David, you’re shifting the goal posts now.
I was addressing this claim:
The IPCC AR5 figure I linked above above totally contradicts this claim.
So, yes, on a global scale. These data are for the global scale.
It happens if we select the recent, long-duration records we do see more conformity. This is shown in the bottom two panels of the figure I linked (for NH and SH separately). A “hockey stick” is associated with a flat handle, and a rising blade.
So these newer reconstructions do not resemble hockey sticks.
I realize wasn’t addressing the question of the MWP, rather addressing your claim that the hockey stick had been replicated “many time”. But yes, the point about increased natural variability increasing the risk factor associated with human-generated warming is one I’ve made before too.
In my opinion, there almost is certainly more natural low-period variability than was originally suggested by MBH. This is even acknowledge on RealClimate.
I suspect we will have to live with the consequences of that variability, whatever those consequences may be.
Had the wrong link in the last comment.
Here’s the corrected link.
AR5 Fig 5.7
If David can’t admit that the data don’t support his beliefs, do we get to call him a d*nier?
david appel
“Mann et al’s work says nothing about AGW, since it is a reconstruction of pre-instrumental temperatures. ”
“Spatially resolved global reconstructions of annual surface temperature patterns over the past six centuries are based
on the multivariate calibration of widely distributed high-resolution proxy climate indicators. Time-dependent
correlations of the reconstructions with time-series records representing changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations,
solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols suggest that each of these factors has contributed to the climate variability of
the past 400 years, with greenhouse gases emerging as the dominant forcing during the twentieth century. Northern
Hemisphere mean annual temperatures for three of the past eight years are warmer than any other year since (at least)
AD 1400.”
Mann begs to differ.
David Appell, regarding the issues with greater natural variability than suggested by MBH 98/99, I’ll refer you back to this thread on Barry Bickmore’s site.
See in particular my comment dated “February 16, 2014 at 11:06 am” (there seems to be no way to get the URL for individual comments):
Your comment “The funniest part of your argument is that, if true — if there was a global MWP — that makes our current situation WORSE, not better” seems to be a succinct reiteration of my earlier point (so naturally I agree with it as being brilliantly put. :-D).
I think the AGW problem is actually more serious if the natural variability is as large as more recent paleoclimate reconstructions suggest: Not only do you have significant temperature swings, you can’t even predict them.
Heck, even if AGW weren’t an issue, understanding the range of climate variation (that is temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, etc) expected from natural variability is still something that needs quantifying accurately, especially as we zoom towards a 10-billion world population with all of the major agricultural areas concentrated in small regions of the globe.
I meant to point out that this paragraph starting with “Heck, even if AGW weren’t an issue, …” remains true even if MWP like events are not global in extent. All you need is a major climate disruption centered over one of the “bread baskets” before we have a major mess on our hands.
Pekka Pirilä | January 8, 2015 at 12:08 pm | Reply
“Nowadays it’s possible to get anything published in a journal that claims to be peer reviewed.”
Not to mention the peer reviewed journals that have always published anything.
True or not Nick Stokes would say “– it wouldn’t make any difference. The result all comes from hypothesis and calculation.” Like Michael Mann’s papers.
“..But he could have made them up”
Don’t make me laugh Pekka/Nick.
I seem to have mixed two commentators, but my first sentence remains true/ or is it the second one?
BOO YAH!
I’ve always been a supporter of The Saturated Greenhouse Hypothesis.
http://www.timothysykes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/bas.jpg
“I’ve always been a supporter of The Saturated Greenhouse Hypothesis.”
Then you’ve always been wrong. See the sidebar (page 37) of Pierrehumbert’s great 2011 article in Physics Today, titled “Saturation Fallacies”:
Pierrehumbert RT 2011: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today 64, 33-38
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
The sidebar doesn’t mention water vapor, Appell.
It talks about CO2 absorption bands not being saturated. Neither I nor Miskolczi contend that CO2 absorption is saturated. The contention is that as CO2 increases water vapor decreases.
Write that down.
The fact that you mention the sidebar is either a literature bluff (dishonest) or just plain incompetence.
I try to follow the maxim never attribute to malice what can be ascribed to incompetence. It’s one or the other, certainly.
I have seen that Ray paper a number of times David A. Thanks for another look. Nearly saturated here on earth may be more accurate Dave in TX?
“Nearly saturated here on earth may be more accurate Dave in TX?”
No, that too would be completely inaccurate.
Look at the graph I posted.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/08/miskolczi-discussion-thread/#comment-661870
It is DIRECT observational evidence that CO2 is not saturated. It can’t be made any clearer.
Straw man.
Again, the contention is that rising CO2 causes water vapor to rain out at such a rate as to make optical thickness of the atmosphere in the IR constant.
Write that down.
“Again, the contention is that rising CO2 causes water vapor to rain out at such a rate as to make optical thickness of the atmosphere in the IR constant.”
1. What’s the predicted time delay between the rise and the rain.
2. Optical thickness in the IR is due to more than just C02.
3. Mechanism please
You don’t need a mechanism for an observation, Mosher. Radiosonde humidity data shows decreasing RH around the world. The precision and accuracy of the data is questionable.
Independent sources confirm that relative humidity has declined while specific humidity increased over North America. The data is only for North America not the globe but the precision and accuracy are not in question.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00003.1
Surface Water Vapor Pressure and Temperature Trends in North America during 1948-2010
The crux of the matter is that Miskoczi’s hypothesis predicts relative humidity will decline as specific humidity increases in order to remain a constant IR optical depth. This agrees with all observations but the observations are either not global or not accurate enough to be conclusive. At the same time climate models produce water vapor amplification by correctly predicting SH increases but incorrectly holding RH constant. Observation does not support a constant RH. Observation supports Miskolczi not GCM climate models used by teh usual suspects.
Is that too difficult or unnerving for you to follow? I know how much emotional investment you have in at least a modest amount of warming from aCO2,
.
There is also a new paper November 10, 2014 Donohoe et al:
Shortwave and longwave radiative contributions to global warming under increasing CO2
you can download the pdf here (second link down):
http://www.google.com/#q=pdf+shortwave+longwave+radiative+donohoe
Supposedly the initial greenhouse blanket from longwave off the earth only lasts about one decade.
http://www.washington.edu/2014/11/10/global-warming-not-just-a-blanket-in-the-long-run-its-more-like-tanning-oil/
“So what keeps the planet warming after the first decade? In the longer term, the study shows thar the earth begins to absorb more shortwave radiation – the high energy waves coming directly from the sun”.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/10/global-warming-not-just-a-blanket-in-the-long-run-its-more-like-tanning-oil/
A very interesting paper. It shows how the feedbacks complicate the response to the initial IR forcing due to CO2. Enhanced water vapor absorbs more incoming sunlight and reflection from snow and ice declines.
“…Using radiative kernels (43, 44) and the changes in specific humidity
in the CMIP5 4× CO2 forcing experiments, we calculate
an SW water vapor feedback of +0.3 ± 0.1 W m−2 K−1. The SW
surface albedo feedback has a value of +0.3 ± 0.1 W m−2 K−1
(43, 45). Thus, the positive λSW of the CMIP5 ensemble average
and the resulting energy accumulation by enhanced ASR under
GHG forcing can be expected based only on the robust physics of
the water vapor feedback and the surface albedo feedback in the
absence of any changes in clouds… “
‘absence’. A word not absent meaning.
========
Curry’s understanding is incorrect. Miskolczi’s hypothesis is that the greenhouse effect is saturated. It is such that any potential warming by increasing CO2 is negated by changes in water vapor.
This has been my take for quite some time albeit I use a different line of evidence. I look at the transitions from glacial to interglacial and see that warming is extremely rapid, overshoots by a bit, then never again exceeds the initial overshoot during the rest of the interglacial period.
I attribute this to rapidly retreating snow cover and sea ice replacing high albedo surfaces with low albedo. The overshoot is caused by the time it takes ocean temperature to catch up with increased absorption of solar short wave. Rising ocean temperature increases cloud cover until such time as clouds starve the ocean of solar energy until an equilibrium is reached. That equilibrium point between solar heating of the ocean and clouds starving the ocean of solar heating is in effect a saturated greenhouse.
Miskolczi’s hypothesis is different in mechanism but not in end result. I believe Miskolczi’s mechanism is more like Richard Lindzen’s Cloud Iris Effect.
… more specifically, Miskolczi speculates that CO2 cannot be responsible for global warming because it simply replaces water vapor as a greenhouse gas (in the upper atmosphere where changes in the amount of water vapor is the only place that actually matters as far as the effect of greenhouse gases on out-going long-wave radiation).
It’s easy to see that CO2 is not saturated — just measure the Earth’s outgoing radiation spectrum. At no wavelength is the Planck distribution equal to zero:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
The reason is that the atmosphere itself radiates, and CO2-emitted photons from the upper atmosphere escape to space.
True. But you leave out the part Arhenius got wrong. More CO2 raises the optical depth (in layman speak, the top of the GHG radiative ‘fog’ above which IR is free to radiate to space and cool). This has two consequences. First, by Euclidean geometry, there is a greater radiating surface so more cooling. Second, by altitude lapse rate, the higher ‘fog top’ is colder, so cools less per surface time flux.
The net is a logarithmic relationship first posited by Guy Callendar in 1938. More CO2 means less warming. But not none, as M asserts.
M’s theory that GE ‘does not exist’ is nonsense. See downthread. What he presumably meant (assuming rational thought, perhaps a shakey presumption) was that it has long been saturated due to feedbacks. Unlikely.
But that does not change the basic log physics, which say more CO2 contributes less direct warming.
If you wish to be well regarded here, you really should show better mastery of simple basics, rather than post an easy Google images chart proving only that you don’t.
For the elementary school version of this (here kindergarten) basic physics lesson, see essay Sensitive Uncertainty in Blowing Smoke, a book Judith recommended that you have evidently not yet read. Cheap.
Rud: The graph comes from observations. It’s independent of anything Arrhenius or anyone else said.
@rudestan
“Second, by altitude lapse rate, the higher ‘fog top’ is colder, so cools less per surface time flux.”
You have things totally backwards. The upward IR radiation at lower temperatures is at a lower rate the cooler it is. That means less radiation leaving the earth for outer space, So more energy stays in the earth atmosphere system making the surface warmer.
eadler2 | January 8, 2015
“You have things totally backwards. The upward IR radiation at lower temperatures is at a lower rate the cooler it is. That means less radiation leaving the earth for outer space,”
Sorry
Rud Istvan | January 8, 2015 is correct, he knows about these things. David Appell would not agree with you either.
Simply put the radiative flux out is a [near] constant, The radiation leaving the earth for space is a [near] constant. The same amount of heat must go out. If it leaves far out at lower IR frequencies then there would be a much larger surface area it is radiating from, so the net energy out is the same.
You also make the mistake of assuming all the outgoing IR is absorbed and re radiated but obviously a lot gets through unimpeded as the atmosphere thins.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 3:58 pm | Reply
It’s easy to see that CO2 is not saturated — just measure the Earth’s outgoing radiation spectrum. At no wavelength is the Planck distribution equal to zero: The reason is that the atmosphere itself radiates, and CO2-emitted photons from the upper atmosphere escape to space.
No, the fact that a towel drips water does not mean the towel is not saturated. Your 2 points are individually right but your premise that CO2 is not saturated may be wrong. The 2 points do not define CO2 saturation.
“No, the fact that a towel drips water does not mean the towel is not saturated.”
That’s a very poor analogy.
It comes down to, what does “saturated” mean, when applied to CO2? To me it seems those who use it mean that CO2 absorbs *all* the IR from the surface. That’s technically true but avoids the fact that the atmosphere itself radiates.
Straw man from Rud too.
Miskolczi states there is no ANTHROPOGENIC greenhouse effect.
You failed to follow the context.
David Appell (@davidappell) | January 8, 2015 at 8:24 pm |
“No, the fact that a towel drips water does not mean the towel is not saturated.” That’s a very poor analogy
Also funny and very apt.
“It comes down to, what does “saturated” mean”
Thank you for adding some clarification to your thought processes in this matter. I guess if we are arguing “meaning of ” saturation you agree with my very poor analogy and Rudd and the fact that your two points did not support each other.
“I look at the transitions from glacial to interglacial and see that warming is extremely rapid,”
Define “extremely rapid.”
It’s not even as rapid as today’s warming.
Define extremely rapid:
7 years and 9 year is to separate abrupt changes 14500 and 11500 years ago in Ireland, Iceland Greenland. the change was from near glacial to near current temperatures. And guess what? Life thrived during warming periods and struggled and died out during cooling. Warming is good. Life thrives!
“The PETM is accompanied by a mass extinction of 35-50% of benthic foraminifera (especially in deeper waters) over the course of ~1,000 years – the group suffering more than during the dinosaur-slaying K-T extinction.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum#Life
Typical Appell arm-waving. The entire paragraph reads as follows:
And here are some following paragraphs:
Do you suppose increased CO2 is where some of our local dwarves (dwarfs?) come from?
AK: The class of mammals flourished after the PETM.
So what class will succeed after AGW?
Humans?
Mammals were a single species once, mid-Triassic or so. One of many branches of the major explosion of adaptive radiation that occurred in the wake of the Permian extinction event. That explosion, IIRC, had several origins, of which the ancestor of all mammals was (presumably) one. So, without the Permian extinction event, mammals probably wouldn’t exist.
We humans are poised to become ancestors of a similar explosion.
AK wrote:
“Humans?”
Your question mark is appropriate, thanks.
@David Appell…
It was sarcasm. Or irony. Or something. The changes you’re talking about are rapid changes. Of all mammals (likely all animals), humans are best adapted to dealing with rapid (sub-generational) changes. Some societies collapse, but humanity doesn’t die out, even in such locations. (E.g. When the Mayan “civilization” collapsed, AFAIK most anthropologists believe a good remnant of their population simply migrated away from the former power centers.)
Even societies that appear to have collapsed in response to (e.g. climate) change seem (IIRC) to be a subset of all societies, specifically those that had reached the point where there administrative (“management”) overhead had become too overblown and resources weren’t available to respond to changes.
Hardly a good description of the world today, except perhaps a few losers such as N.Korea.
N.B., the fact that so many anthro-sociologists use the word “management” for that overhead demonstrates (IMO) the Marxist contamination of the “science” behind those conclusions. Making it highly questionable.
And the poster-child of “collapse” is the Mykenaean collapse (e.g. Diamond), which may well not have happened. James et al. have challenged the entire chronology, and suggested that the so-called “gap” between flourishing late Bronze and Early Iron archaeology is an artifact. Indeed, a recent review of the evidence suggests that dating based on “tree-rings” (among other things) may have had as disastrously deceptive an effect on Mediterranean dating as it’s had on paleo climate studies.
Ancient historians had never heard of a general collapse at around that time.
I can’t resist blockquoting this (my bold):
Remind you of anything?
So, you see what can happen even when there aren’t humungous amounts of money, power and fame torquing the science.
=======================
I’ve seen since the ’90’s. Just trying to show.
I know confirmyshun bias hits us all and we all need
ter try harder ter bend over backwards like Feynmann
tells us, but naughty David Appell, doncha’ know yer
really shouldn’t pluck a sentence out of context like
that. That’s the kind of selectivity behavior that makes
skeptics so skeptical of, well, some tree ring selectivity
studies ‘n such.
David in TX said in his post on January 8, 2015 at 12:49 pm
“Curry’s understanding is incorrect. Miskolczi’s hypothesis is that the greenhouse effect is saturated. It is such that any potential warming by increasing CO2 is negated by changes in water vapor.
This has been my take for quite some time albeit I use a different line of evidence. I look at the transitions from glacial to interglacial and see that warming is extremely rapid, overshoots by a bit, then never again exceeds the initial overshoot during the rest of the interglacial period.
I attribute this to rapidly retreating snow cover…..”
_____
Wait a minute. Are you saying warming caused warming ?
Correct. Ice and snow melt that exposes a darker surface has lessened albedo as a positive feedback. Until such time as it gets so warm that water is evaporating and forming so many clouds that it cuts off the solar short wave from reaching the darker surface. Clouds are a negative feedback that follow from the increasing positive albedo feedback.
That positive feedback causes very very rapid transition from glacial to interglacial periods. The curious investigator must then ask what stops the positive feedback from becoming a runaway effect. The answer is clouds.
Write that down.
@RI: More CO2 raises the optical depth (in layman speak, the top of the GHG radiative ‘fog’ above which IR is free to radiate to space and cool).
Optical depth is not itself an altitude but a dimensionless measure of the absorbance of a partially transparent object (in this case a portion of the atmosphere). It is defined so as to be additive in the sense that the optical depth of two objects through which radiation passes consecutively is the sum of their respective optical depths. Optical depth zero passes all radiation, depth 1 passes 1/e of it, hence depth 2 passes 1/e^2 etc. In general optical depth d passes 1/exp(d), whence depth 2/3 passes 1/exp(2/3) = 0.513 or about a half.
The term “photosphere” for a star has essentially the same meaning as any of the six terms “Effective {Emission|Radiation|Radiating} {Height|Level}” for the atmosphere of a planet, being the altitude at which the gas above has an optical depth of 2/3, i.e. at which about 50% of the radiation leaving that altitude vertically upwards escapes to space.
First, by Euclidean geometry, there is a greater radiating surface so more cooling.
Each additional meter of height h increases the area (as a fraction) by 2h/R = 2/6370000 = 0.00003%. This is insignificant even if the effective emission level rises by a kilometer.
Second, by altitude lapse rate, the higher ‘fog top’ is colder, so cools less per surface time flux.
Yes, emission at a lower temperature is the one that matters.
The net is a logarithmic relationship first posited by Guy Callendar in 1938.
The logarithmic relationship was first posited by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, based on measurements of infrared radiation from the full moon obtained with the Langley bolometer. Arrhenius simulated the effect of simultaneously increasing CO2 and water vapor by measuring this radiation for decreasing altitudes of the moon above the horizon. Repeating these measurements for various levels of humidity permitted separating the respective contributions of these two GHGs.
to a layman like me it it is hard to understand the effect of CO2 molecules going from 3 in 10,000 to 4 or 5 or 6 in 10,000. How could a trace gas have such an impact on global temperature?
If you paint your windows black the paint molecules will only be a tiny percentage of the total molecules in the glass. How could a trace substance like paint have such an impact on the amount of light passing through the window?
99.96% of dry air consists of gases that are about as transparent to the heat radiated by Earth to space as glass is to visible light. Moist air can contain anywhere from 0.001% in the Arctic winter to 5% in the tropics. CO2 and water vapor are the principal counterparts of paint in this analogy.
But a better analysis would be changing the thickness of the paint. The issue is really rate of change so going from unpainted glass to painted is overly dramatic (imo). Does a thicker coat of paint warm the greenhouse in actual conditions enough to negatively impact conditions overall.
No Rob a better analogy would be covering an opening with a prgressively smaller mesh. The wide mesh reflects little light. as the mesh becomes more dense more light is reflected.
Try this one: You got a big ole jar filled with glass beads. The beads are either clear (representing gas molecules that don’t impede IR photons) or gray (molecules that grab IR photons and promptly kick them in a random direction). You start out with the jar filled with the proportion of clear and grey molecules that existed, before humans started adding a significant amount of grey CO2 molecules to the atmosphere. Get yourself a big ole IR flashlight and shine it through the open jar from the bottom. Do that for a while, then simultaneously put a lid on the jar and turn off the flashlight. Count the number of IR photons in the jar. Take the lid off, double the number of CO2 molecules and repeat shining the light, closing the lid while turning off the light. Count the photons in the jar again. You should have more this time.
Of course, the photons are free to escape the jar (except through the bottom) when the lid is off. When the lid is on, all action stops. So you can count the photons, of course.
Steve
Your example is better. I was trying stay with Vaughan’s paint example.
Just spray the paint on very gradually.
Still not good, doc. The principal component of the paint in your analogy is water vapor. Doubling the amount of CO2 does not have the effect of blacking out anything. It just makes it a little more opaque. How much more? You can do the math. It won’t be catastrophic, unless there is a big positive water vapor feedback.
@DM: Doubling the amount of CO2 does not have the effect of blacking out anything. It just makes it a little more opaque.
For those who have never sprayed paint, it starts out as a few very small droplets, “just a little more opaque”, with the space between the droplets gradually filling in as you continue to spray. Basically Steven’s mesh idea with complementary geometry (the holes in the mesh pass light, the droplets of paint block it).
How much more? You can do the math.
The math, Don? Well, conservatively assuming a no-feedback sensitivity of 1 °C per doubling of CO2, we are confronted with the challenging math problem of multiplying one times one. Challenging at least for those of us whose education began with the two times table. (I don’t recall any teacher ever testing us on one times one, yet this is a situation where the normally important fact that multiplication is commutative is entirely useless if you’ve had no exposure at all to the one times table. Robots are taught math better than children.)
But Earth has seen a wider range than just one doubling of CO2. Starting from 187 ppmv (typical for 20 KY), doubling four times brings the CO2 up to 3000 ppmv (typical for 60 MY) or 0.3%, still a trace gas compared to water vapor at most locations, let alone oxygen and nitrogen. Multiplying 4 by 1 (I do remember my four times table), I get a not insignificant temperature rise of 4 °C.
The principal component of the paint in your analogy is water vapor.
Oh Don, if there were water vapor in my analogy, four doublings of CO2 would make it way hotter. An ECS of 3 °C per doubling of CO2, based only on fast feedbacks, would result at equilibrium in a 12 °C rise. And half the estimates of ECS are higher than that.
And then there’s the even higher Earth System Climate Sensitivity based on slower feedbacks, hovering around 6 °C/doubling, for a rise of 24 °C with four doublings.
Not that we’re going to see four doublings, or even two, in our lifetime. It merely addresses the objection that a trace gas can’t have any significant effect.
But all this business about water vapor is losing sight of my basic point, which I would make as follows. Arguing that IR-opaque CO2 is of no consequence because it’s a trace gas (molecule-wise) compared to IR-transparent gases like oxygen and nitrogen, is like arguing that Al-Qaeda is of no consequence because it’s a trace population (individual-wise) compared to Antarctic krill, ants, or nematodes.
I wasn’t arguing with your basic point, doc. Your paint analogy is not good. You know that. And I asked you about the water vapor feedback, recently. We have no reason to be much concerned about CO2, unless there is a strong positive water vapor feedback. It seems odd that with your keen interest in this subject you haven’t spent much time or effort on examining the basic point of the case for serious damage from AGW. This discussion on trace gases whatever, and multiplying 1×1 is a waste of your valuable time. Tell us about the water vapor feedback.
The positive feedback of water has been positively exaggerated. With clouds, it must have a multitude of feedbacks, some of them clearly negative. And then we get into all the albedo effects of all of the phase changes in all of the places on scales great and small, yeah, kaleidoscopic.
================
Maybe this will help you, doc. You got a pane of glass with a surface area of 1 million sq inches. You paint 280 sq ins black. You liked that, so you paint another 280 sq ins black. Is it getting dark, yet?
now ask me why we sometimes used fine mesh on stealth designs
I know why, Mosh. But I am not at liberty to tell what I know.
1. Write 10,000 zeros.
2. Write a one in front of them.
3. Observe the effect.
Ozone makes up only 0.6 ppm of the atmosphere — 700 times lower than CO2. Yet without it you’d be dead.
Maybe ozone is people food?
how could it help plants?
don’t ask that question!
@daveandrews273: Put a liter of water in a glass container, like a Pyrex measuring cup. It is virtually completely transparent to visible radiation.
Now add a drop of food coloring. A drop of a water-based liquid is about 50 microliters. The coloring is only going to be about 20% of this, so 10 microliters. The container now holds about 100 ppm of a substance that can absorb certain wavelengths of visible radiation. Even your eyes can tell a significant difference.
Add a few more drops and notice the difference each time.
Now repeat the experiment in a dark room, shining a laser pointer of a different color from the food coloring through the container (e.g. a green laser pointer with red food coloring) onto a white background. As you add coloring, you can see the brightness of the laser spot on the background decrease.
What the few ppm of coloring in the water does not let through of the laser beam is energy absorbed by the fluid.
Typo alert: After one drop, the container should hold about 10 ppm of absorbent substance.
Good. Or, for CO2:
http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Soda-Plus-CO2-Carbonizing-Cartridges-Pack-of-100/8359618/product.html
The atmosphere acts like a data buffer with most of the output data (thermal surface emission) leaving the system and some being returned for retransmission.
About 60% of the data (photons) from the surface bypass the buffer entirely.
Adding CO2 is a combination of directing more data into the buffer (absorption spreading) and lengthening the buffer (increasing the average number absorptions per photon/reducing the mean distance between absorptions) .
Adding CO2 increases the average time between a photon leaving surface and escaping into space. This also means there are more absorbed photons in the atmosphere at any one time (the atmosphere is hotter).
When a photon is emitted it travels at the speed of light. When a photon is absorbed it travels at the speed of air (a few meters a second or less). An absorption could possibly return a photon to the surface since the emission direction is assumed to be random.
For 60% of thermal emission from the surface, 2 ms after emission the photon is in space and gone permanently. CO2 makes some photons take the scenic route.
“For 60% of thermal emission from the surface, 2 ms after emission the photon is in space and gone permanently.”
No, I don’t think so. All of the IR photons in CO2’s absorption bands are absorbed quickly — within less than a meter, I think. Then some are reemitted upward, then more absorption, etc…..until the photons emitted from CO2 less than one optical pathlength from the TOA escape to space.
DA – it actually is a communications theory problem.
The atmosphere is a transmissions channel.
The buffer has a CO2 input only gates packets with for example x09 and x07 starting bytes.
There is a WV (water vapor buffer) input that gates about 20 times as many bytes into the buffer..
The retransmitted data out of the buffer is assumed to be random (0x00-0xFF) with a height based probability of crashing into the ground, the same layer, or into space.
You could actual program this with the wein-planck distributions for the various temperature layers to set the odds for a given byte pattern.
Someone has to have modeled CO2 effects with a similar approach.
But if you look at GHE as a communications problem it is obvious what is going on and it seems that you could model the effect.
Is the atmosphere hotter or the effective surface hotter PA?
PA wrote:
“The retransmitted data out of the buffer is assumed to be random (0x00-0xFF) with a height based probability of crashing into the ground, the same layer, or into space.”
No, that’s not an accurate model of the physics.
> No, that’s not an accurate model of the physics.
Why?
It is best not to confuse yourself with analogies and to calculate a rough estimate of what is going on.
You have to look at the absorption crosssection per molecule of CO2 and count up the number of CO2 molecules per unit area that would be in the path of a photon travelling a certain distance in the atmosphere you can understand how such a low concentration of CO2 can have such a large effect. When you do the calculation you will notice that there is such a large number of CO2 molecules in a cubic meter of air, even though the concentration is low.
Here is how to estimate the influence of CO2 on the absorption of IR radiation in 1M^3 of air.
The absorption cross section for IR radition is the first thing to look at. The crossection of a CO2 molecule depends on the wave number of the radiation and has peaks at many wave numbers in the IR where it gets to about 10*10^-22 M2. This is about the physical cross-sectional area of a CO2 molecule at the absolute peak of the spectral line.
http://vpl.astro.washington.edu/spectra/co2pnnlimages.htm
If you look at the total cross section of all the air molecules in a volume 1 Meters high by 1 M^2 cross section, You get figure of.0.25*10^26 molecules/M^3 for the number of molecules at atmospheric pressure.
If only 4/10000 molecules are CO2 you get 1*10^22 molecules?M3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_density
So at the centers of the CO2 spectral lines the absorption is so large that the total cross section in a 1 meter path high of 1M^2 of air is about 10M2 for the exact peak of the lines. Of course the cross section drops rapidly as the wave number changes from the peak as you can see in the figures in the first of my links. Looking at the total spectrum, not only the peak, It has been calculated that the IR in the CO2 spectrum is absorbed completely in a 30M distance in the atmosphere. But since the temperature change in 30M of altitude change is small, about the same amount is emitted by the molecules as is absorbed.
As the altitude gets higher and the density of CO2 molecules decreases the absorption distance increases and the atmosphere absorbs less. The emission rate of the CO2 molecules decreases because the temperature goes down. So the upward emission into outer space is less than the upward emission at ground level.
eadler2 — that’s a great intuitive explanation of the situation. Thanks.
eadler2, “So the upward emission into outer space is less than the upward emission at ground level.”
Do you mean the total emission from this layer or total emission of those spectrum (flux +emissivity)?
Is the absorbed energy transfered to other molecules throughout the atmosphere and emitted at different wavelengths?
Thanks,
aaron
@Aaron,
“Do you mean the total emission from this layer or total emission of those spectrum (flux +emissivity)?
Is the absorbed energy transfered to other molecules throughout the atmosphere and emitted at different wavelengths?
Thanks,”
I was referring to the radiation wave numbers specific to CO2. It is true that water vapor and CO2 have some overlap of spectra, and the distribution of water vapor vs height is different from CO2. This makes the calculation much more complicated. Here is a web site that explains how this works. You need to go through a few pages to get the whole story. The diagram on the first page shows that the unique water vapor spectrum emission temperature is higher than the CO2 emission temperature. It is because the water vapor is at a lower altitude and therefore at a higher temperature.
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming.html
daveandrews723 wrote:
“to a layman like me it it is hard to understand the effect of CO2 molecules going from 3 in 10,000 to 4 or 5 or 6 in 10,000. How could a trace gas have such an impact on global temperature?”
How could it have an impact on one of the most astonishing phenomena of the known universe — plants?
Well, actually it does… but the plants have an impact on the CO2 level.
I don’t know why this doesn’t get more mention, the CO2 level drops significantly during the peak of the day anywhere there is ground cover.
There is a strong sinusoidal oscillation in both daily and yearly CO2 level.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1751303/thumbs/o-KEELING-201314-570.jpg?3
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_fig5a_med.png
PA wrote:
“I don’t know why this doesn’t get more mention, the CO2 level drops significantly during the peak of the day anywhere there is ground cover.”
But not one a global scale, or the entire vertical scale. See the Keeling Curve, where the annual variation is only about 6-7 ppm CO2.
Doesn’t oxygen comprise almost 20% of Earth’s
atmosphere?
And isn’t most of that oxygen generated by plant life?
And below 200 ppm CO2 don’t plants stop life -support
photo-synthesis?
Studies on plant response to CO2 and temperature increase.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/summaries/temp+co2ag.phphttp:/
You see? O2?
============
Dangit, missed out on ‘You see? Oh, too!’
================
Try again.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/summaries/temp+co2ag.php
I see
You see
We all see
For O2, see?
==========
Ter c or not ter c.
None so blind.
Miskolczi’s article is basically pseudo-scientific nonsense, published as an author funded vanity piece. The ‘research’ is a joke. See: http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/09/26/a-publisher-with-no-website-science-and-engineering-publishing-company.
Miskolczi’s should produce yet another paper showing that, similar to the atmosphere, academia is “saturated” greenhouse effect junkies and instead of their effect being controlled by the amount of water vapor content — the supply of which is unlimited — academia is controlled by an ending army politically-motivated Leftists whose aim is to enjoy the fruits of the labor of others as they sit back and drink margaritas in the safety and security of their Ivory towers in their mythical Eurocommie Utopia.
Wags, this is a variation of climate scientists are evil meme. Do you really think they are making it up as they go along to advance a political agenda?
Of course, it’s all dogma and for many global warming is a knowing deception, a politically-motivated hoax and scare tactic to achieve a Leftist agenda.
Once you see and dismiss the official climate establishments’ “97% consensus” as nothing more than propaganda, you can only conclude that climate science is either politically-motivated or it is the product of a personal problem –e.g., a problem that is similar to those who suffer from medical maladies they do not actually have, who waste their lives looking for remedies that do not exist.
None of the climatists of the government’s official global warming establishment has ever actually suffered from, global warming. It’s all a big charade, pulling mythical rabbits out of abstract mathematical models and diverting the public eye from the real truth.
Wag: Water vapor is not “unlimited,” as I wrote above. Why do you keep repeating a falsehood?
The atmosphere could hold much more water vapor than it does. We don’t know why it holds what it does, nor more, nor less but we do know that the absence of water vapor in the atmosphere is not due to a shortage of water, which essentially is unlimited. Capiche?
Wagathon wrote:
“The atmosphere could hold much more water vapor than it does.”
Prove that.
” We don’t know why it holds what it does, nor more”
Do you know the Clausius-Claperyon equation?
Please show humanity the model that correctly forecasts global humidity… years into the future. All of humanity will be much appreciated.
Waga: you avoided the questions.
1) Prove that the atmosphere could hold much more water vapor than it does.
2) Do you know and understand the Clausius-Claperyon equation?
The atmosphere does hold more water vapor and less water vapor over time, from time to time, from the surface to the troposphere and over lands of mountains, valleys, rocks, plateaus and plains, covered with vegetation, snow, lakes, streams and oceans, ice, sand and cities, throughout the cloudy day and windy night, and the only people even remotely capable of understanding the dynamics of that are people like Al Gore and pluviculture experts.
@W: Please show humanity the model that correctly forecasts global humidity… years into the future. All of humanity will be much appreciated.
Given that it will be “years into the future” before global climate rises 10 °C, Figure 5 of Romps 2014 makes precisely the forecast you are asking for, based on straightforward physics.
re Romps…
“Therefore, this toy model would be useful only to the extent that it is useful to know something about the mean RH [regions of high relative humidity].” (Ibid.)
Waga: you STILL avoided the questions. (But I’m not really surprised.)
1) Prove that the atmosphere could hold much more water vapor than it does.
2) Do you know and understand the Clausius-Claperyon equation?
Waga: you STILL avoided the questions. (But I’m not really surprised.)
Do you know C.P. Snow and his summary of the 3 laws of thermodynamics? Now you must play the game but, don’t expect Mother Nature’s imbecile son, Ceteris Paribus to hold your hand until hell freezes over. And, no matter how you insist on spelling it, Clausius-Clapeyron won’t save you either.
What may seem like a long time to is but the wink of an eye in the grand context of everything so, how long do you have to wait for stability to occur? Your equation does not specify that when that will happen. And, how long must you hold everything constant? You can never break even. You can never win.
Steve Fitzpatrick notes the study is an open access journal where the author instead of the reader bears the cost of publishing.
Then in what can only be called an EPIC FAIL Fitz-boy offers a rebuttal published in the least credible of all venues – a personal blog, making the publisher of Miskolczi’s paper look solid gold in comparison.
http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt112/ausador/IronyMeterSplode.jpg
A few data points:
A. Since we began measuring atmospheric CO2 its concentration has been increasing monotonically, with minor seasonal ripples superimposed on the general uptrend.
B. Over the same time interval there have been periods during which the reported ‘Annual Temperature of the Earth (TOE)’ has increased, others during which it decreased, and yet others, like the most recent 15-20 years over which it has remained statistically flat.
C. During the entire period of monotonic CO2 increase the TOE has remained well within bounds of its historical range, most of which occurred during periods when anthropogenic CO2 could have had NO influence on the variations in climate.
From this I conclude that whatever the influence of CO2 on the TOE, if any, it is NOT dominant and is CERTAINLY not the ‘knob on the thermostat of the Earth’, as has been argued for the last 20-30 years.
“From this I conclude that whatever the influence of CO2 on the TOE, if any, it is NOT dominant and is CERTAINLY not the ‘knob on the thermostat of the Earth’, as has been argued for the last 20-30 years.”
1. Theory doesnt say its dominant over short time scales. The dominant
force is TSI, which supplies all the watts. C02 adds a tiny bit
which acculumates over long periods of time. Like compounding interest.
2. You misunderstand the METAPHOR control knob. Its a bad metaphor
made worse by skeptical misunderstandings. read the science not the cartoons of the science.
How does CO2 act like compounding interest?
Steven Mosher | January 8, 2015
the influence of CO2 on the TOE, if any, it is NOT dominant and is CERTAINLY not the ‘knob on the thermostat of the Earth’, as has been argued for the last 20-30 years.”
“1. Theory doesn’t say its dominant over short time scales”.
Nice sleight of hand Steve.
Of course Steven Mosher [and to a lesser extent Theory] says it is dominant over short time scales
. At least the Steven Mosher I read does. This is the first time I have heard you deny radiative physics. You say increase the CO2 level and up goes the temperature, ******. It is the greenhouse effect. You do not say increase the CO2 level and wait a thousand years for the thermostat response.
Either the CO2 increase is real [Yes] in which case it must almost instantly have an atmospheric heat increase [Yes].
Or Arrhenius is wrong [No].
You cannot argue the physics of the amount of greenhouse gas in the air by saying it has a delayed effect, ever.
“The dominant force is TSI, which supplies all the watts.” Yes plus albedo clouds, aerosols time of year etc, etc
” C02 adds a tiny bit which accumulates over long periods of time. Like compounding interest.”
Garbage comment, you do not specify whether it is the CO2 which accumulates in tiny bits over long periods or the temperature response and are wrong on both counts.
But you use one half truth to hide a lie.
The CO2 goes up by what, 2.07 ppm per year out of currently 400 ppm
That is 0.5% a year, though small it is not tiny as you would have us believe and on a 10 year interval adds up to a 5% increase, not small in anyones language.
Change the CO2 in a container by 5 % increase and check the GHE. You will have the new answer in minutes.
Consider the whole atmosphere, millions of containers but they would also heat up in minutes not “over long periods of time”
Come on use decent arguments, not this rubbish.
“You say increase the CO2 level and up goes the temperature, ******. It is the greenhouse effect.”
Self censored though it would be Stevens choice of word, not mine.
Don Monfort you got a comment through, well done.
@ Steven Mosher
Not MY metaphor.
“CO2: The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature
By Andrew Lacis — October 2010
A study by GISS climate scientists recently published in the journal Science shows that atmospheric CO2 operates as a thermostat to control the temperature of Earth.”
From ‘Time’ magazine: “Climate: Why CO2 Is the “Control Knob” for Global Climate Change
By Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh”
From Wunderground: “The Biggest Control Knob: CO2 in Earth’s Climate History
By: Dr. Jeff Masters , 9:05 PM GMT on March 24, 2010”
From ‘Discovery’: “GLOBAL WARMING
Atmospheric CO2: Climate’s ‘Control Knob’
OCT 14, 2010 05:10 PM ET // BY JOHN D. COX”
From ‘ClimateProgress’: In must-see AGU video, Richard Alley explains “The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History”
BY JOE ROMM POSTED ON DECEMBER 21, 2009 AT 2:10 PM”
I could continue, but won’t. I will point out that NONE of the above came from ‘skeptics’.
@ David Appell
“Bob: What you’re missing is that CO2 isn’t the ONLY factor that determines surface temperatures.”
I’m not missing it at all. In fact, that is what I have been saying. Not only is it not the ONLY factor, it is empirically not the DOMINANT factor, never mind being the ‘Control Knob for the Earth’s Thermostat’, as we have been told for many years and which is taught to our children from kindergarten through graduate school.
But it IS the only factor that we are being told is so DOMINANT in controlling the temperature of the earth that ACO2 added to the atmosphere is causing the temperature to rise precipitously and that the temperature rise will prove catastrophic unless coordinated government action is taken to reduce or eliminate anthropogenic CO2 world wide. There are widespread demands within the climate science/environmental community to make questioning the dominant status of ACO2 in ‘controlling the thermostat of the Earth’ a criminal offense under the general umbrella of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’.
In fact that is the whole point of HAVING a ‘Climate Change Policy’: the idea that by controlling ACO2 governments can ‘set the thermostat of the Earth’ by limiting or eliminating the production of anthropogenic CO2.
@angech2014
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/08/miskolczi-discussion-thread/#comment-661969
There is so much wrong with your post it is hard to figure out where to start.
You argue that CO2 should warm the earth rapidly because the heat capacity of the atmosphere is small. What you don’t seem to know is that most of the heat retained by the earth because of the difference between incoming and outgoing radiation ( which is inhibited by CO2 and H2O and other GHG’s) is almost entirely absorbed by the oceans 90% of it , which have a huge heat capacity. Most of the balance goes into absorption by land. The heat capacity of the air is only 2% of the effective heat capacity of the earth.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/
As a result the rate surface temperature change due to radiation imbalance is way smaller than you claim.. It is currently on average around 0.2C/decade, actually smaller than the annual noise from natural annual variation of the temperature due to ocean currents and volcanoes and in the range of solar activity fluctuations.
Your claim that the earth atmosphere system would heat up in minutes like a container of air if 5% more CO2 were added is rubbish.
It’s not the worst metaphor in the world.
I was parking the father in laws pontoon boat one afternoon, I had a tape in the deck and Pink Floyd’s One of These Days started playing, and I turned the volume up to a tolerable level, and began guiding the boat into the dock.
The intro ended and the volume went up, I was getting into it Apocalypse Now style, then the wife and sister in law started screaming, that’s feedback.
“Bob wrote:
>> What you’re missing is that CO2 isn’t the ONLY factor that determines surface temperatures.” <<
"I’m not missing it at all. In fact, that is what I have been saying. Not only is it not the ONLY factor, it is empirically not the DOMINANT factor, never mind being the ‘Control Knob for the Earth’s Thermostat’, as we have been told for many years and which is taught to our children from kindergarten through graduate school.":
What do you mean by "dominant?"
Question: you're the scientist who has tasked with terraforming Mars as quickly as possible. How would you do it?
Terraforming Mars requires importing enough water to make a global ocean and then adding enough nitrogen to the atmosphere so you had enough pressure to keep the ocean from boiling away.
Thanks for asking.
“Bob: What you’re missing is that CO2 isn’t the ONLY factor that determines surface temperatures.”
No, but it is one of the smallest factors.
eadler2 | January 8, 2015 @angech2014
“There is so much wrong with your post it is hard to figure out where to start.”
Go for it.
“You argue that CO2 should warm the earth rapidly because the heat capacity of the atmosphere is small. ”
No, the argument put forward for anthropogenic global warming has nothing to do with the heat capacity of the atmosphere being small.
AGW and models say that there will be an increase in the global temperature [air or sea or land surface, take your pick] if the CO2 increases. We are talking about the greenhouse effect, remember?
This effect is purely due to the concentration of the CO2 in the air increasing. Arrhenius, IPCC, Mosher, JC, Tamino etc.
Now nobody says the temperature will take x thousands of years to get there, they say CO2 concentration is x, temperature is y.
GO ask SOD, anyone sensible.
The IPCC predicted a temperature rise of 0.34 C a decade for the next 100 years based on a CO2 rise , 2.07 ppm per year out of currently 400 ppm ie 5%.
“What you don’t seem to know is that most of the heat retained by the earth because of the difference between incoming and outgoing radiation ( which is inhibited by CO2 and H2O and other GHG’s) is almost entirely absorbed by the oceans 90% of it.”
No The fact is the oceans are not a heat producing source [like the sun]. The heat retained by the oceans is a natural property of a water surface under an air and GHG blanket. Physics says the energy into a system must equal the energy out once in balance, The heat in the oceans is what must be there to produce enough heat radiation out to space through the air/GHG blanket. Stop the sun’s energy for 3 days and we would be an ice block . The 2,182,610,130 Hiroshima atomic bombs of heat since 1998 is a drop in the ocean compared to the 2,182,610,130,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs of heat the earth needs each day to keep it warm!
“is almost entirely absorbed by the oceans 90% of it.””
Not even close
Landmass area = 29.2% Oceans area = 70.8%
The oceans absorb/radiate 70 % of heat , the land the other 30%.
Most of the [deep] ocean is uber cold and retains very little heat.The oceans and land are in radiative balance, that means the energy they get goes back out to space over 24 hours [at the equator]. The surface layer warms up during the day if in sunlight and radiates day and night to give up the energy it has taken in.
It will take thousands of years to heat the oceans up appreciably but the air heat depends purely on its composition and how much greenhouse gases are in it [mostly water vapor].
” Most of the balance goes into absorption by land.”
30 %, actually
“The heat capacity of the air is only 2% of the effective heat capacity of the earth. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/”
Real Climate gets it right twice a day, like a broken watch.
“As a result the rate surface temperature change due to radiation imbalance is way smaller than you claim. . It is currently on average around 0.2C/decade [Note the IPCC claimed 0.34 C], actually smaller than the annual noise from natural annual variation of the temperature due to ocean currents and volcanoes and in the range of solar activity fluctuations.”
We do not know if the earth is in radiation imbalance. Many people assume it is. Practically speaking the Earth should always be in radiative balance and the temperature variations are natural due to albedo and TSI changes only.
Your claim that the earth atmosphere system would heat up in minutes like a container of air if 5% more CO2 were added is rubbish.
* Really? This is where Mosher used his subterfuge.
When the sun comes up in the morning, the air where I live can go from 15 degrees to 35 degrees in 6 hours. It is called summer and sunshine in Australia. That whole bunch of air changing by 20 degrees centigrade in 6 hours.
and we are talking about a 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2? That would take 3.6 minutes in Australia, hardly a rubbish claim in that context is it?
Come in Appell, Mosher, Fan, help him out.
angech2014 | January 9, 2015 at 5:14 am |
Your response is such incoherent babble, that I am giving up.
@ David Appell
“Question: you’re the scientist who has tasked with terraforming Mars as quickly as possible. How would you do it?”
What David in TX said.
What’s your plan?
Bob Ludwick
well stated IMO
no matter which side the hypothesis comes from, nature has presented us with the plateau
even if poorly received
this paper would not exist without it
Bob: What you’re missing is that CO2 isn’t the ONLY factor that determines surface temperatures.
oh good,
perhaps we can tax some of those other “factors” as well
“…perhaps we can tax some of those other “factors” as well…”
We already do — we have gasoline taxes (though they aren’t priced to include their emissions — they should be), and a 20-year old cap-and-trade program on SO2 and NOx that has significantly reduced those emissions. And laws against many CFCs (which are GHGs).
Funny, I hadn’t heard that the taxes on NOx/SOx emissions, CFCs and gasoline fuel were justified for their effects on the earth’s surface temperature. I must have slept through those debates.
http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/group/dave/at745/Manabe_Wetherald.75.pdf
I discovered this neat paper from before climate science was contaminated by politics that (as I read it) says that the tropics don’t get warmed much by doubled CO2 (the energy gets transferred elsewhere) and the net effect of CO2 increases (as I read it) on total energy is little to none.
Did you read the abstract?
Without commenting on the paper per se, just a couple of observations: (1) I am sure the scientists 40 years ago were not engaged in skirmishes weekly of today resembling the Animal House food fights and (2) I hope someone in 2100 will make a thorough study of all studies such as this one to see how the forecasts compare to the observational data from the previous 200 years. That would be a fascinating topic, surely worthy of a few PhDs.
(2) I hope someone in 2100 will make a thorough study of all studies such as this one to see how the forecasts compare to the observational data from the previous 200 years. That would be a fascinating topic, surely worthy of a few PhDs.
If that’s done every decade starting with 2020, it’ll have gotten so predictable that by 2100 there won’t be anything left to write about.
No Vaughan, they will be asking why were the forecasts for warming so wildly overstated. That will be the question that will plague scientists and climate science. Then they will have to be more introspective than they have been to date.
Table 1 gives results of modelling global average temperature increase due to CO2 doubling , from 300 to 600 ppm, by 3 different methods. The results are 1.95, 2.36 and 2.93 C.
This paper published in 1974, is similar to previous results from a much simpler model done by Plass in the late 1950’s. As you point out, It is interesting that the results of these simulations have not changed from the time before climate change was contaminated by politics. This is because the source of political contamination was right wing think tanks that were worried that the scientific results might lead to regulation.
Fifty five years of modelling work with computers and the range of results has changed very little. The right wing climate change deniers don’t seem to be getting the message however.
55 years of climate science hasn’t narrowed the range of temperature change from a CO2 doubling.
Zero progress. Spinning of wheels (and yarns).
EPIC FAIL
@e2: This paper published in 1974
with lead author Syukuro Manabe
is similar to previous results from a much simpler model done by Plass in the late 1950’s
namely Effect of Carbon Dioxide Variation on Climate, 1956. This and two other papers by Johns Hopkins’ Gilbert Plass in the same year appeared while Manabe was a Ph.D. student at the University of Tokyo.
Two years later Manabe graduated and joined the General Circulation Research Section of the U.S. Weather Bureau where he remained for forty years. A 1961 paper by Manabe with Fritz Möller, “On the Radiative Equilibrium and Heat Balance of the Atmosphere”, referenced two of Plass’s 1956 papers though oddly not the above one which agreed with Callendar that industrial activity would increase global temperature at a rate of 1.1 °C per century.
Had climate skeptics been editorializing about global climate in 1974 they would have taken every opportunity to point out to Plass that global temperature had not increased during the 18 years since Plass’s 1956 paper.
Yet over the 93 years from 1911 to 2004 global temperature rose from −0.5 °C to 0.55 °C (relative to the 1960-1991 average), an average rate of over 1.1 °C/century.
eadler
To quote Reagan to Carter in their 1980 debate, ” There you go again”.
Can’t you leave the unseemly unsubstantiated sniping to others less credentialed, like oh say, Joshua. It is very unbecoming and detracts from any scientific arguments you have, that may by themselves be very persuasive
Climate scientists have lost credibility with the public, and not just because of the ever widening divergence between their projections and the observational data. The eye rolls also occur when the sorority cat fights begin. I know you can do better..
Given that Judith “doesn’t listen to” anyone who doubts the GHE, I look forward to reading this thread to get some evidence towards what % of the “denizens” Judith doesn’t listen to.
do you understand what it means to listen to someone?
do you understand what it means to listen to someone?
Whut?
and what part of ON TOPIC did you not listen to
Unintended .irony strikes again.
Lame, tedious irrelevance strikes again.
no the irony was fully intended.
Unintended irony strikes again
Happens to you a lot, eh Joshua?
Strike while the irony is hot.
Brand X rocks, er Rocking.
===========
For the record …
Ed Byrne Grade Irony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg&feature=youtu.be
A good spot to stop and laugh!
How reliable do people believe the data is regarding the clear sky atmospheric optical depth over time? What has been the margins of error for the measurements over time vs. that required to reach meaningful conclusions?
DAFS
optical depth measurements accuracy
ftp://ftp.cira.colostate.edu/ftp/Raschke/Book/Kidder/BOOK-CSU/Chapter%208%20-%20Clouds_Aerosols/Aerosols/Lit%20Tropospheric%20Aerosols%20-%20passive/Chylek_JGR03.pdf
In most Western countries you’ll in most cases find yourself without a job or you’ll get zero research funds if you doubt GHE. Accordingly GHE cannot be doubted. It will be very interesting to listen to Judith when she is a senior citizen and is able to speak freely.
It depends how smart your doubt it.Miskolczi’s isn’t that smart.
Mebbe not so smart, but original, plausible, and thought-provoking.
================
Kim: no, it isn’t.
Look, any journal in the world would love to publish a paper demonstrating that the GHE is false.
They’d also love to publish a paper showing that the Planck law is all wrong, or the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or general relativity. But these things, also, are not going to happen.
she would probably say that it CAN be doubted. Many forms of ignorance are possible. It’s just not interesting to doubt it because it rests on so much other
functioning science.
That’s a nice term, “functioning science.”
Thanks david,
In some sense if we had to do it over again, the story of C02 and how it operates ought to have been carried by engineers to the public. Engineers, say in optics and sensors or the military, have to make things that work. To do this they build things in accordance with accepted and functioning science. That avoids an appeal to “consensus” and rather rests the case on science that actually forms the foundation of working things.
In other words, skeptics can theoretically doubt the science of C02, however if they wanted to build a working thing they would have to accept it.
@ Steven Mosher
“In other words, skeptics can theoretically doubt the science of C02, however if they wanted to build a working thing they would have to accept it.”
I think that a bit more detail would be helpful. What exactly IS this ‘working thing’ that you think that skeptics may want to build?
When you start building something, there should be an objective. What would the ‘skeptics’ be trying to achieve and how would they know when they were ‘done’ and if the product met specs?
‘Deniers’, ‘skeptics’, bah. Shoulda merely been called ‘critics’ from the gitgo, and wondrous that it’s mostly criticism of horribly misbegotten policy.
So to be critical is to be a ‘climate denier’? Somewhere, the communications is frightfully fouled up, and I gotta feeling I know where.
=================
Early in the paper under discussion Miskolczi states:
“The breakthrough in the quantitative greenhouse science happened in 2007, when the correct mathematical relationship…for semitransparent atmospheres was first published in M07. The theoretical derivation of the analytical function was the missing link which…connects the surface temperature to the GHG content of the atmosphere.”
For those of us who waded through the quagmire of errors, false assertions and confused physics of M07, the above statement does not encourage serious examination of this paper, despite his suggestion that the present work is “…a remarkable achievement of planetary science.” So I am content for now to let Miskolczi enjoy his conclusion:
“In our view the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R. Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the National Academy of Science and the Royal Society (2014), simple does not exist.”
For any physical phenomenon we can easily develop approaches that have no power of telling, what the phenomenon really does. Miskolczi has taken this approach by writing yet another incoherent paper where inaccurate empirical observations and approximate properties of model calculations are put together claiming that the result is a new exact law of nature. He invents such new laws and then uses them to “prove” what he wants to prove.
No wonder that he had to go to this kind of journal to get it published.
Pekka
I think I read that there was a large mathematical error in his previous paper.
Has this been addressed or has he rewritten it entirely?
Tonyb
Tony,
Some of his earlier papers had serious mathematical errors. His previous paper was better in that respect. It presented quite correct calculations of the radiative heat transfer including results that were very close of proving his conclusions wrong, but he stopped just short of doing the last step that would have resulted in that.
The main problem of his theoretical part is that he makes calculations, whose results are dominated by the lower troposphere, but almost all the radiative forcing comes from the upper troposphere that does not enter properly in his calculation. That error persists here. The calculation that I mention in the previous paragraph looked at the upper troposphere, but he stopped short of calculating the forcing from that.
When he presents only the largely irrelevant part of the theory, he can use the numerical results to “prove” conclusions that are opposite of the truth.
As has been discussed by others, his use of empirical data is similarly based on the trick of picking numbers, where the relevant physics cannot be seen, and drawing unjustified conclusions from that.
Pekka
thanks for your very clear explanation
Tonyb
OK, so how about calculated at the right heights?
=============
I couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs, where he says:
Say what? The upwelling surface radiation is NOT equal to the available solar radiation. You can take your pick of datasets, I’ll use the CERES dataset:
Surface upward LW flux = 398 W/m2
Available solar radiation = 162 W/m2 (after atmospheric absorption and albedo reflection)
As Judith says, this is a bizarre re-definition of the “climatological greenhouse effect”. There are several ways to measure this effect, one of the more commonly used being Ramanathan’s:
Greenhouse effect = upwards surface LW radiation absorbed by the atmosphere / upwards surface LW radiation. This is calculated as
(upwards surface LW radiation – TOA upwards LW radiation) / upwards surface LW radiation
The CERES dataset puts this at 0.38, in other words 38% of the upwelling LW radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Miskolczi’s redefinition of the greenhouse effect would make anything possible, but it reminds me of the old joke:
Regards to everyone,
w.
Willis,” Surface upward LW flux = 398 W/m2
Available solar radiation = 162 W/m2 (after atmospheric absorption and albedo reflection)”
Available solar is close to 1300 Wm-2, average solar is ~162 Wm-2. Since clouds are water vapor and are a large portion of both albedo and DWLR they are responses to total available TSI not average.
There are other ways to approximate what “surface” temperatures should be than the standard astrophysics method. If you were designing a solar pond for example you would be interested in the actual TSI available and the rate of heat loss from your pond. Try it, you might like it.
“Available solar is close to 1300 Wm-2”
Not really. You have to divide by 4 to account for the Earth’s rotation, and multiply by 0.7 to account for its albedo.
David Appell, “Not really. You have to divide by 4 to account for the Earth’s rotation, and multiply by 0.7 to account for its albedo.”
Nope. That is an average available with an assumed fixed albedo. If you look at the design considerations of a solar pond, you can get temperatures of around 90C which would be impossible with only 162 Wm-2 “available”. So with a solar pond you would consider the maximum temperature which would depend on actual maximum energy available and the losses including load and periods when less energy is available, night, season, clouds etc. to determine an “average” temperature. It is very similar to a “greenhouse” effect using density to limit convection, except it is water, a fluid, not gases, also fluids.
David – I wonder about your albedo value of 0.7. Are you sure it is not 0.701, for example? That would change the solar by 3.5 W/m2.
“That is an average available with an assumed fixed albedo.”
Of course it is. This is a blog, not a paper in Science or Nature.
“If you look at the design considerations of a solar pond, you can get temperatures of around 90C which would be impossible with only 162 Wm-2 “available””
Solar ponds work via a salinity gradient, which works to trap heat from the sun.
“If you look at the design considerations of a solar pond, you can get temperatures of around 90C which would be impossible with only 162 Wm-2 “available””
I don’t know why you’re think that — the surface gets a lot of energy from IR radiated by the atmosphere. In fact, over twice as much:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2634.1
(Fig 1, pg 314)
David Appell, “I don’t know why you’re think that — the surface gets a lot of energy from IR radiated by the atmosphere. In fact, over twice as much:”
I get that mainly from that silly engineering background. See, solar ponds have “solar” in the title, they are not back radiation ponds. Back radiation would be a part of the ponds insulation consideration.
You are confusing “maintaining” an energy level with “acquiring” an energy level. My hot water heater can maintain 105F all day long with an average of 150 watts per day with the insulation if has. If I use hot water it requires more energy. If I add more insulation and maintain the same usage, it requires less energy. But since the temperature is regulated, doubling the insulation doesn’t equate to an increase in the average temperature.
So with the “greenhouse gas effect” if I add more CO2 AND all other things remain equal, temperature will increase, but if clouds are a regulating mechanism, adding more CO2 doesn’t have to change temperature at all, just the amount of energy required to maintain that temperature would be reduced. Since clouds respond to “surface” temperature and provide most of the albedo, it is quite likely they are a regulating mechanism and CO2 could have less than 1C of impact from a “stable” condition, if such a thing exists.
Curious George wrote:
“David – I wonder about your albedo value of 0.7. Are you sure it is not 0.701, for example? That would change the solar by 3.5 W/m2.”
The albedo is 0.3, not 0.7.
And it is what it is. If it doesn’t change (which isn’t happening), then the amount of sunlight is constant over a suitable average.
David Appell – you are playing games. You introduced 0.7 to account for albedo. A strange number with only one significant digit. Do you know it’s precision? Judging by your reaction, you don’t want to reveal it.
“So with the “greenhouse gas effect” if I add more CO2 AND all other things remain equal, temperature will increase, but if clouds are a regulating mechanism, adding more CO2 doesn’t have to change temperature at all, just the amount of energy required to maintain that temperature would be reduced. Since clouds respond to “surface” temperature and provide most of the albedo, it is quite likely they are a regulating mechanism and CO2 could have less than 1C of impact from a “stable” condition, if such a thing exists.”
Where is that science? Because a huge number of people would be interested in it.
David Appell,
“Where is that science? Because a huge number of people would be interested in it.”
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-F20Qnb70_HA/VLCFKELIDrI/AAAAAAAAMF4/r6fhcwaeqO0/w669-h416-no/clouds%2Btropics.png
I believe it would mainly fall under thermodynamics. More energy allows more water evaporation, warmer more moist air has has a lower dew point, more clouds form. In thermo though you generally don’t jump to conclusions that “average” energy input is all that meaningful when you have actual energy you can consider. The tropics for example are mainly ocean, have the highest energy input and would generate the majority of the water vapor. As you can see in the chart above, as the tropical oceans warm, the response is more clouds and the result is cooling. Clouds in the tropics are primarily a negative feedback to sea surface warming. That tends to regulate temperatures somewhat.
Of course in the higher latitudes clouds tend to be a positive feedback, but since global mean temperature correlates extremely well with tropical temperatures, which have the majority of the energy, the overall impact of clouds is negative with regulating potential. If the tropical clouds were not regulating temperature to some degree there would be a “tropical tropospheric hot spot”.
There are quite a few people interested in clouds and their ability to regulate temperature. Some that are doing quite a bit of research are with GFDL. That would be the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory which produced the lower “climate sensitivity” range, (Manabe) which was “averaged” with the much higher GISS estimate to produce a high end estimate that was assumed to be real science, when it was actually an average of WAGs.
Engineers typically are not all that impressed with politically motivated WAG averages and try to eliminate the least likely estimates.
Once you realize that the tropical oceans are the primary energy source you would switch to tropical temperatures and reconstructions like the Oppo 2009 IPWP and say 0-700 meter vertical temperature anomaly.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6Tf2glKTcu0/VG330klOFZI/AAAAAAAALxM/M60OPJJ6ITs/w858-h528-no/curry%2Btalk.png
That provides a fair estimate of the rate of total ocean heat uptake for the past 300 years or so.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QixN6RvJjP4/VGio57R499I/AAAAAAAALvI/SFCi1UgvHWc/w669-h459-no/oppo%2Bnormal.png
The full Oppo 2009 reconstruction would provide a range of temperatures that might be “normal” . Once you start using actual absolute temperatures in the tropics, especially the Nino regions, climate models tend to start getting more of the thermodynamic right. Anomalies are great for some things, but for thermo it is best to have temperatures that actually relate to energy which is the whole point doncha know.
Nothing Earth shattering here David, just a group specializing in thermo and fluid dynamics beat the heck out of a bunch of A$$trophycisists when it comes to thermodynamic problems.
Excuse me, warmer more moist air would have a higher dewpoint, pardon my brain fart.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2:I believe it would mainly fall under thermodynamics.
good post.
consider also the Romps et al calculation that a 1C increase in mean temp would produce a 12% increase in lightning strikes (over a large region of the US). One step in the modeling was to take the outputs of GCMs and for each of them calculate the change in rainfall, change in CAPE, and change in their product. CAPE is a thermodynamic quantity. Could a 12% increase in the CAPE*PrecipitationRate be produced by a 1C increase of surface temp without increasing cloud cover? I do not know, and I think that the answer is both important and difficult to know. Suppose for the sake of argument that a 0.2C increase in mean surface temp, starting with the climate as it is now, produced a 2% increase in cloud cover, in the conditions that produce lightning strikes. Would a 1C increase in mean surface temperature in response to a 4 W/m^2 increase in DWLWIR be possible?
MattStat, ” Suppose for the sake of argument that a 0.2C increase in mean surface temp, starting with the climate as it is now, produced a 2% increase in cloud cover, in the conditions that produce lightning strikes. Would a 1C increase in mean surface temperature in response to a 4 W/m^2 increase in DWLWIR be possible?”
I don’t see a 0.2C change as significant. “Globally”, a 2C change may not be significant depending on future adjustment to “surface” temperature. With “current” surface temperature records there could be a +/-1.0 C range or about 10 times the assumed” natural variability estimate. +/- 0.3 C would be my estimate of expected range of variability. That would be a lot of noise needing to be filter out before determining any change in “normal” cloud cover fraction. btw, +/- 1.0 C is a pretty standard control range and excursions outside of a control range are not unexpected.
Convective triggering potential might be a better metric to use than CAP or lightning strikes,
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2: I don’t see a 0.2C change as significant.
Significant or not, would a 0.2C change in mean temperature blunt any further warming that resulted from a 4 W/m^2 increase in DWLWIR?
Convective triggering potential might be a better metric to use than CAP or lightning strikes,
Where can I read about convective triggering potential? I give Romps et al lots of credit for stepping away from simple equilibrium concepts, and I think that their modeling approach has merit apart from the particular result concerning lightning strike rate.
‘Convective Triggering Potential’ is the little tined music box set in the base of Pandora’s climate box, released by lifting the lid. The melody is complex and unpredictable.
===================
MattStat, “Significant or not, would a 0.2C change in mean temperature blunt any further warming that resulted from a 4 W/m^2 increase in DWLWIR?”
0.2C change in surface temperature wouldn’t likely do much, i.e. it is insignificant. However, a 0.2 C change in the convective triggering potential would likely offset or “blunt” 4 Wm-2 of CO2 forcing. CTP is related to dewpoint and absolute temperature and it is the enthalpy more than the generic “surface” temperature that matters.
For CTP I would go with the GFDL,
https://gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/klf0302.pdf
Most of the work is based on soil moisture since that is so variable, but the same applies to tropical oceans.
captdallas: https://gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/klf0302.pdf
Thank you for the link.
0.2C change in surface temperature wouldn’t likely do much, i.e. it is insignificant. However, a 0.2 C change in the convective triggering potential would likely offset or “blunt” 4 Wm-2 of CO2 forcing.
Can ctp increase without an increase in temperature? The other way around, would a surface temperature increase produce a ctp increase?
MattStat, “Can ctp increase without an increase in temperature? The other way around, would a surface temperature increase produce a ctp increase?”
Yep, it changes with available moisture, so wind speed and direction among other things are factors.
Judith, it is a bit more complicated than that. Water vapor, unlike carbon dioxide, is not a well mixed atmospheric gas. Its average atmospheric lifetime is about 9 days, which is way too short for getting mixed properly by turbulent flows. Therefore in water vapor absorption bands IR optical depth, as given by average water vapor concentration, only provides an upper bound to actual average IR optical depth, the latter being pretty independent of the former one otherwise.
A thin metal plate is completely opaque, while a wire fence is almost completely transparent, even if it has the same amount of material per unit area.
The upshot is that you do not necessarily need to decrease water vapor to compensate for an increasing carbon dioxide concentration, it is sufficient to make its distribution slightly more uneven. In other words, you also have to measure higher moments of water vapor distribution, average is not enough.
Well, I slogged through the new paper. Unnecessarily mathematically dense, which to paraphase Winston Churchill, defends it well from being read. Although he threw in lots of colored charts and purports to drive four new principles from the reanalyzed radiosonde data he somehow cherrypicked (paper figure 7 proof). There are at least three fundamental problems.
1. He purports to validate both empirically and theoretically (more new theory) a fundamental equality “Esubd =Asuba”=…( paper p.42) derived from his breakthrough 2007 paper. Except that paper has been thoroughly mathematically debunked as a fruit salad (SOD said soufle, whatever). See SOD links.
2. He maintains the Earth has a robust set point with albedo ‘Hsuperc’ ~0.3 and cloud cover ‘beta’ ~0.66. Always. More CO2, more clouds, no greenhouse effect. (paper p. 50, “simple[sic] does not exist”]. More CO2, less water vapor, unchanged clear sky optical depth (Judith’s post comment). Both modeled, not observed. Note the sloppiness of the ‘observed’ to ‘theoretical’ correspondence. With ‘observed’ subject to point 1.
3. There is obviously a greenhouse effect, mostly water mediated. Else Earth would be about -18C (grey earth first principle calculation, see SOD or my books). So M is really arguing that the greenhouse effect is saturated at his theoretical equilibrium (paper p. 49). Since grey Earth says doubling CO2 contributes 1.1-1.2C (grey is a concept), M’s saturation assertion amounts to saying there is always an exact offsetting negative feedback in water vaper and clouds (water/ice condensed from vapor). That is highly implausible. M has no mechanisms, no good evidence. Worse than Trenberths deep ocean heat hypothesis, debunked in essay Missing Heat.
All the evidence says there is a positive WV feedback, but on the order of half what constant UTrH would predict. See essay Humidity is still Wet. All the evidence says there is probably a negative cloud feedback, not positive as AR5 asserts. See essay Cloudy Clouds. So climate sensitivity is something like half of what the IPCC asserts (see Lewis amd Curry for one good example). A TCR of 1.3 and an ECS of 1.7 still means there is a CO2 ‘greenhouse’ effect.
So M is in all likelihood just wrong. But his stuff surficially is as ‘good’ as Dr. Mills ‘GUT-CQM’ 1100 page self published theory of hydrinos behind the Blacklight Power scam (covered in The Arts of Truth).
Rod,
Most of what you say here is correct, but you make one small mistake. You say that he requires an “exact negative feedback” in order for his model to work. That’s not true. The range of viable negative feedback parameters is actually quite wide. That’s how negative feedback works, and that is why systems with negative feedback tend to be stable.
Positive feedback, on the other hand, requires exquisite tuning to avoid runaway amplification. The consensus position is that water vapor results in a positive feedback to CO2 concentration, which (to me, anyway) implies that the Earth’s climate should not be stable at all. The observation that it is stable (within some range) is experimental evidence that there exists some negative feedback effect, albeit not necessarily water vapor.
Yeah, I should have said net negative, if for no other reason than he posits two.
Fizzymagic,
The negative feedback is there. The increase in surface temperature will increase the upward IR radiation flux, which has the tendency to bring the energy balance back to equilibrium. This is what stabilizes the earth’s climate and prevents it from running away.
The negative feedback is the Stephan-Boltzman Law – energy emitted from a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its temperature.
The fact that eadler2 didn’t make this point right away is proof that she is little more than a Skeptical Science parrot and not a very good one considering she didn’t point to this canonical restraint on planetary surface temperatures.
eadler2-
[Upward IR radiation flux] is what stabilizes the earth’s climate and prevents it from running away.
Per James Hansen, you must also properly account for non-radiative vertical energy transport, lest you incorrectly conclude as he once did (and be unfairly accused of deliberate exaggeration), that complete ocean evaporation and Venus-like conditions is possible in less than a billion year time-frame.
Per James Hansen, you must also properly account for non-radiative vertical energy transport, lest you incorrectly conclude as he once did (and be unfairly accused of deliberate exaggeration), that complete ocean evaporation and Venus-like conditions is possible in less than a billion year time-frame.
Given that the energy from the Sun over a mere thousand years would suffice to evaporate the oceans if dedicated to that purpose, I’d be fascinated to see any argument proving that doing so is impossible even over a billion years.
Blog science (SOD) hardly qualifies as debunking, Rud. You should know better.
Anything qualifies as debunking something like that article.
Pekka writes:
https://irldefender.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/lack-of-substance.jpg
Then see A Lacis’ scathing remarks downthread, or read any the other M 2007 debunkings out there. I chose SoD because it was written and illustrated at a math level folks like yourself can comprehend, and because Judith has said several times she thinks SoD is ‘great’.
Not sure what you’re talking about, and whether it’s from the paper or somewhere else. The Earth is certainly no “grey”. AFAIK there’s absolutely no excuse for modeling it as “grey”.
OOps! Got sticky keys.
AK, ‘grey earth’ is a term of art in climate science basics. Even Lindzen uses it. It means correcting from the pure black body solution to stefan-boltzman (1C) to something more like earths surface. Depending on the grey assumptions, one gets a result from 1.1C (AR3, or Fiedler’s u. Oklahoma class METR 5223) to 1.2c (AR4 WG1 8.6.2.3, Lindzen). Judith hosted a number of discussions of this IIRC back in 2010. Also covered extensively in the climate chapter of The Arts of Truth.
In his full PDF Ferenc said:
“research must continue to find and establish the real causes and the true trends in global temperature change that may be present behind the natural fluctuations.”
I support his findings on the basis that convective changes will always adjust the balance between radiation and conduction within the Earth system so as to match energy out to space with energy in from space.
The existence of water simply makes the process much easier. If there were no water the same principle would apply but convective overturning within the atmosphere would have to work much harder to maintain equilibrium.
I referred favourably to the Miskolczi findings here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
and this is the latest version of my hypothesis as to ‘the real causes …. behind the natural fluctuations’ :
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
Furthermore, note that sinking air (50% of the atmophere on average) warms at the dry adiabatic lapse rate as it descends.
It is that warming on descent that dissipates clouds and results in clear skies. Those clear skies are similar to the clear glass roof of a greenhouse in that they let solar radiation reach the surface beneath.
That warming on descent also reduces the rate of temperature decline with height which suppresses convection from the surface so that the surface on the day side then warms more than it otherwise would have done and the surface on the night side cools less quickly than it otherwise would have done.. That is similar to the way that a greenhouse roof supresses convection and allows heat to increase beneath.
That is the true greenhouse effect
Stephen, was unaware of your stuff except through obliques at JoNova. Will look into it as time permits.
dont expect to find a single number that you could test.
Mosher, perhaps you have looked. I haven’t, yet. So have no opinion yet.
On the other hand, I have taken a close look at BEST. With which opinion, starting at but not limited to station 166900 (Amundsen Scott south pole scientific station), you violently disagreee. Then there is Willis’ station 46013 (Bogeda Bay Buoy)…same story falsifying BEST’ “regional climate expectation” on the margins. If your algorithm starts with an unsupportable assumption for many purposes, it will never end well.
Rutherglen, AUS, is another example of the same faulty assumption in a different algorithm, there BOM ACORN.
You need to get out of Berkeley more. Especially since Gov. moonbeams new energy goals will guarantee the place goes dark somewhen. You won’t be able to run any computer models or blog beyond mobile device battery life.
Steven Mosher – I’ll keep asking about your beginner’s stuff, but you never answer:
ERL – Effective Radiative Level. How high is it in Berkeley now? Does it change with the time of day? With seasons? With a location? What is the temperature there? Can your equations predict the ERL temperature?
Stephen Wilde: I support his findings on the basis that convective changes will always adjust the balance between radiation and conduction within the Earth system so as to match energy out to space with energy in from space.
Well. The “always” part can’t be known. Then the Earth surface temperature at which a balance is attained matters a lot to humans and the rest of the biosphere, and that can’t be calculated on present knowledge (though it might be bounded from above.) Since neither an equilibrium nor a steady-state will result, the extremes within which variation occurs (as it has over the Earth’s past, with aggregate input and output nearly equal), may be at least as inimical to life as a change in the spatio-temporal mean.
I think the best that you can really say is that convective changes, heretofore mostly ignored, will occur, and will be too important to ignore.
Matthew – I am surprised that you continue to complain that non-radiative energy transport in the troposphere is ignored, after I have pointed out to you numerous references where this issue is addressed. Here’s yet another one, which contains references to even more studies, all of which agree that the increase in precipitation/evaporation (and therefore latent heat transport) is a few percent/oC.
Here I was thinking it couldn’t get any worse.
In the 2007 paper Miskolczi fraudulently claims fundamental physical properties that are not applicable in the context. When questioned it appears that – yes – the physical properties don’t apply and the equations are based purely on data that can’t possibly be accurate enough to demonstrate the point.
Nothing could persuade me to look at anything further from this person.
But the astonishing thing here is diversity and abundance of mad theories that emerge from the woodwork.
Beyond robust, it’s burly.
============
Rob, why be astonished? The whole CAGW theory was ‘mad’ from the beginning, yet it not only emerged, it captured the UNFCCC, the IPCC, and some governments. Dutch tulip bulb mania, and all that.
“Mad” why?
The catastrophic part has been an Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd; the beneficial mild warming and strong greening of anthroCO2 have been almost completely neglected publicly, a further extraordinary delusion.
==============
Kim: First, how about defining “catastrophic.” Thanks.
Al Gore speaks for me. Maybe Stephen Schneider would or did.
================
Judith wrote:
“The only potentially interesting point is whether the clear sky atmospheric optical depth has remained the same in the face of rising CO2, implying a decrease in water vapor.”
This study says it does not:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
This is a good study, but it addresses a different issue; this paper infers increases in non water vapor greenhouse gases
Isn’t that what Harries et al do? They attempt to control for changes in the hydrological cycle….
JC said:
“To define the greenhouse effect out of existence because it balances the TOA solar radiation is not very useful, to say the least.”
____
Yes, to say the least. Defining the GH effect “out of existence” in this manner is convenient for certain purposes– none of which have to do much with understanding the true dynamics of Earth’s climate.
One of the early mistakes uf the IPCC was to ignore the so-called equilibrium that supposedly existed between incoming and outgoing energy. The fact is that most of the earth is ocean, water is a poor conductor of heat, so no one knows whether we are in equilibrium or not
It is obvious that if you are trying to solve a system of differential equations for a steady state solution, or any other state solution, that the inertia of the system is important. We need to know the major time constants of the system. Unfortunately this parameter has been largely neglected, but evidence from our own solar system suggests it is at least 30 years. That is because 1970 minus 30 equals 1940, the year the first temperature rise ceased. Miskolcsi or anyone else dabbling in equilibrium theory needs to understand this.
The best measurements we have indicate that the oceans are gaining heat. Since the oceans absorb 90% of the excess heating of the earth this is an indicator that the earth is gaining heat.
Using satellite radiation balance measurements and ocean heaing measurements the earth appears to be gaining heat at a rate of 0.6 Watts/M2 on average.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2014/20140121_Temperature2013.pdf
“Earth’s measured energy imbalance provides a valuable check on this interpretation (Fig. 14b). The calculated energy imbalance with increasing aerosols is ~+0.6 W/m2, but ~+0.8 W/m2 if aerosol forcing remained constant after 1990. The observed energy imbalance5 is about +0.6 W/m2, composed of ~+0.4 W/m2 heat gain by the upper 1500 m of the ocean, ~+0.1 W/m2, heat gain by the deeper ocean, and ~+0.1 W/m2 as the sum of all other terms including melting of ice and heat storage in the ground, lakes, and air. “
As I’ve indicated before, Pope may have something about water in all its forms. I also like the question of, what if the water vapor is compensating for the CO2? Let’s compare stability. CO2’s appearance and disappearance seems somewhat dependent on temperature while still having a randomness to it. When the Earth is defensively in a glacial period, CO2 goes AWOL, it retreats. We are left with the water to defend life by setting a lower temperature bound. Water seems to always be there to help us. When we are at the upper bound of temperatures and worrying about heat, CO2 doesn’t help. It doesn’t go away when it should to help us from getting too hot. I can’t say I know water protects us from getting too hot, but how could CO2 do that? In both cases, it does the wrong thing. Let’s allow CO2 to be the control knob. But let us also allow water to be the big resilient life protecting influence. We say we understand CO2. We also say we don’t understand clouds completely enough. We should understand clouds better before we conclude that CO2 will be the dominant victor. Also our understanding of sea ice and ice sheets isn’t where it could be. And there’s the associated sea water salinity effects to understand. We aren’t where we know, what the water will do as it reacts to additional CO2 and rising temperatures.
There is comprehensive evidence you all should read here on this new webpage.
If you believe, as I do, that the Earth was created with a molten surface, then you will hopefully agree that the surface has cooled somewhat.
There is no need to redefine something out of existence that has never existed. The supposed greenhouse effect is apparently defined in terms of analogies ranging from nonsensical to completely bizarre.
Blankets, heat accumulators, energy multipliers – the list goes on.
No one has yet managed to measure the average global surface temperature – once again incapable of rigorous definition – with any precision. Talk of surface temperature comparisons indicating warming, cooling, or business as usual, is utter balderdash, and incapable of independent verification.
The belief in the mystical and never observed power of carbon dioxide to increase the temperature of an object merely by surrounding it, is akin to the belief in the power of orgone, or the existence of N Rays.
If the Earth’s surface is indeed warming, then the heat content of the surface increases day by day. In other words, each day the surface is a little warmer than the day before. I am not surprised that otherwise intelligent and rational people believe this. Stomach ulcers caused by spicy food, vitamin C preventing viral infections, winnable wars on poverty, drugs, terrorism – as someone once said, there’s one born every minute. At least.
There is currently no cogent evidence to support the contention that the globe is warming due to the influence of CO2, control knobs, mental telepathy, or any other reason apart from localised heating due to the oxidation of carbon, conversion losses from things like wind or solar generated electricity, or heat from nuclear decay processes, and so on.
Left alone, the Sun will cool, let alone the Earth, which continues to lose heat at a surface rate amounting to around one or two millionths of a degree per annum. To me, this is a number practically indistinguishable from zero.
If you don’t like the heat where you live, move to cooler climes. Too cold? Build a fire, jump up and down, rub your hands together vigorously.
Or you could believe the Warmists, and surround yourself with CO2, which should magically warm you up by 33C if you stand in direct sunlight, somewhat less if the surrounding air temperature is say, -85 C. The choice is yours. Choose wisely.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
“No one has yet managed to measure the average global surface temperature – once again incapable of rigorous definition”
Ridiculous. Temperature is a scalar field, defined at every point on the Earth’s surface. So you just integrate T(r, theta) over the surface, and divide by the area of the surface.
@DA: Temperature is a scalar field, defined at every point on the Earth’s surface.
Is that also true for precipitation? If so we could dispense with the weather report completely.
“Left alone, the Sun will cool.”
Actually the Sun is getting brighter over time, by about 1% every 100 Myrs.
“The supposed greenhouse effect is apparently defined in terms of analogies ranging from nonsensical to completely bizarre.”
It’s not defined in terms of “analogies.” It’s defined as the difference between the Earth’s surface temperature and its brightness temperature. Analogies are just given to aid understanding.
“There is currently no cogent evidence to support the contention that the globe is warming due to the influence of CO2….”
Ha. Who exactly do you think is going to believe such a thing? THe evidence is overwhelming, such as:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/teaching-climate-change-through-six-questions/
Can you explain a single on of the climate changes taking place? Why the stratosphere is cooling? Why the northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere? Why the (top half of) the ocean is warming consistently year after year? Why satellites measure a warming troposphere? Greater warming over land than ocean? Why ice is melting? Why the seas are rising?
No, you cannot.
David Appell,
You wrote –
““No one has yet managed to measure the average global surface temperature – once again incapable of rigorous definition”
Ridiculous. Temperature is a scalar field, defined at every point on the Earth’s surface. So you just integrate T(r, theta) over the surface, and divide by the area of the surface.”
If you can provide a rigorous definition of the surface to which you refer, I would be most appreciative. As far as I am aware, temperatures of the atmosphere close to the surface, rather than the actual surface, are usually measured over land, unless measured remotely by satellites, in which case the temperature of the material overlaying the Earth’s surface is measured, rarely the surface itself.
If we are talking about the majority of the Earths surface, which is overlaid by water, then the near surface temperature is completely ignored, in favour of a notional sea surface temperature. In the past, even this was ignored in favour of a reading of water temperature from a bucket, or in the vicinity of engine cooling water inlets.
Of course, this depth would vary with the laden state of the ship, so is even more divorced from the surface temperature of the Earth at a particular location.
Your statement that the temperature is defined at every point on the Earth’s surface is just another example of irrelevant Warmist pseudo scientific blather. Neither you, nor anyone else, has come up with a definition of the surface that includes the fact that Warmist temperatures are measured anywhere but on that surface.
You wrote –
““Left alone, the Sun will cool.”
Actually the Sun is getting brighter over time, by about 1% every 100 Myrs.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe that stars go through a sequence which results in all their available energy being consumed, and becoming dark and inert. The eventual heat death of the Universe is part of the outcome.
You wrote –
““The supposed greenhouse effect is apparently defined in terms of analogies ranging from nonsensical to completely bizarre.”
It’s not defined in terms of “analogies.” It’s defined as the difference between the Earth’s surface temperature and its brightness temperature. Analogies are just given to aid understanding.”
You can’t even define the surface, let alone the surface temperature. When you have worked that one out, we can then proceed to your definition of the difference between two different types of temperature. Or is there only one temperature for a given location on the undefined surface? When you figure it out, let me know.
You wrote –
““There is currently no cogent evidence to support the contention that the globe is warming due to the influence of CO2….”
Ha. Who exactly do you think is going to believe such a thing? THe evidence is overwhelming, such as:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/teaching-climate-change-through-six-questions/
Can you explain a single on of the climate changes taking place? Why the stratosphere is cooling? Why the northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere? Why the (top half of) the ocean is warming consistently year after year? Why satellites measure a warming troposphere? Greater warming over land than ocean? Why ice is melting? Why the seas are rising?
No, you cannot.”
Yes I can. Firstly, climate is the average of weather. The weather changes from moment to moment. Never in the history of the Universe has there been a period of stasis, as far as anyone knows. Therefore climate changes.
You make a number of unsubstantiated assertions based on nebulosities even more vague than average surface temperatures. Cooling stratosphere? Warming ocean? Greater warming? I admire your passion, but I would like to see you adduce a fact or two to back up your furious hand waving. As to melting ice, or crustal movements resulting in marine fossils at 6000 meters, or sunken cities, I assume that basic knowledge of water phases and plate tectonics are sufficient. Of course, you may explain seashells and suchlike high on mountains as being the result of CO2, but I prefer the simpler explanation.
So once again, you fail to provide any scientific basis for the preposterous claim that wrapping an object with CO2 causes its temperature to magically rise. As usual, I win, you lose. No warming. No problem.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Something wrapped in insulation cools less quickly when put into a refrigerator. It’s like that.
“If you can provide a rigorous definition of the surface to which you refer, I would be most appreciative.”
I already did.
Let T(x,y,z) be the temperature of the air above the surface, defined however closely you wish. Then the average temperature at that distance is
= (1/A) surface_integral[over A] T(x,y,z) dA
Mike wrote:
“Your statement that the temperature is defined at every point on the Earth’s surface is just another example of irrelevant Warmist pseudo scientific blather. Neither you, nor anyone else, has come up with a definition of the surface that includes the fact that Warmist temperatures are measured anywhere but on that surface.”
If you can’t avoid the name calling, don’t expect any future replies from me. Clear?
“Can you explain a single on of the climate changes taking place? Why the stratosphere is cooling? Why the northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere? Why the (top half of) the ocean is warming consistently year after year? Why satellites measure a warming troposphere? Greater warming over land than ocean? Why ice is melting? Why the seas are rising?”
Get thee to a climate textbook, and study it. My favorite is:
“Principles of Planetary Climate,” R. Pierrehumbert (2011)
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/PrinciplesPlanetaryClimate/
Be careful though — you might learn something.
I like the question why did the stratosphere stop cooling. If CO2 warming causes stratospheric cooling and natural cooling causes stratospheric cooling and CO2 warming is currently being offset by natural cooling then the stratosphere should be cooling faster than ever. Instead we end up with a very flat looking trend since 1995. How did that work out?
David Appell,
You wrote –
““If you can provide a rigorous definition of the surface to which you refer, I would be most appreciative.”
I already did.
Let T(x,y,z) be the temperature of the air above the surface, defined however closely you wish. Then the average temperature at that distance is
= (1/A) surface_integral[over A] T(x,y,z) dA”
You still haven’t provided a definition of the surface. You have instead asked me to define it however closely I wish. You carry on about measuring the air above the surface, in spite of the fact that Warmists claim to measure the surface temperature. For example, the Earth’s surface temperature where overlaid by several kilometres of water is around 4C. The air temperature above this point, if in a tropical latitude, is significantly higher than 4C. The temperature of the sea surface is also significantly higher, and likely different from the air temperature.
So yes, you haven’t managed to define the surface, which appears to be a logical first step before talking about surface temperature. My assumption that neither you nor anyone else can provide a rigorous definition of the surface which is in line with other Warmist dogma. Your response is to accuse me of name calling. So be it, oh precious and delicate flower.
You wrote –
“If you can’t avoid the name calling, don’t expect any future replies from me. Clear?”
That would indeed be a blessing. Clear?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Surface temperature measurements are standardised. Otherwise it would make no sense at all.
Try to understand how something works before pissing on about it from an abundnce of ignornce Flynn.
Rob Ellison,
You wrote –
“Surface temperature measurements are standardised. Otherwise it would make no sense at all.”
Exactly. It makes no sense at all. Totally meaningless and useless. Standardised nonsense is still nonsense.
With very few exceptions, collecting air surface temperature measurements over land is completely pointless. Sad but true. Even the Australian Bureau of Meteorlogy agrees, not that it means much.
Oh well, maybe we should all get together to build even more temperature recording facilities. Surely, one hundred times as many will provide one hundred times the benefit! How much are you prepared to contribute?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Not only his greenhouse effect is odd, so is his optical depth definition. I repost what I wrote about this a few days ago.
Miskolczi’s optical thickness is how much of the surface emitted IR radiation reaches the top untouched and is equivalent to 15%. If you think about it, this would be the sum of the window regions, and not surprisingly this would not be affected by GHGs. There seems to be no realization that his optical thickness is designed in such a way as to ignore the GHG effect, and has no relevance to IR emitted by the atmosphere where the GHG effect resides. So, he defined a quantity insensitive to GHGs, and, voila, no effect of GHGs were seen in that quantity. Many were fooled.
Plus the arrogance to say people like Fourier and Tyndall (even Lindzen) were wrong, and only he is correct. Amazing.
Jim D,
I wonder if you could quote the relevant parts of the writings of Fourier and Tyndall, and the appropriate quotes from Miskolczi, wherein the latter disagrees with the former.
Having read both Fourier and Tyndall – at least what appears a good translation of Fourier – it seems that Warmists have misread the one, and misinterpreted the other. I see nothing in the writings of Fourier or Tyndall to support the CO2 Warming hypothesis. Maybe you can provide quotes to support your criticism of Miskolczi.
Merely pointing out, for example, that CO2 can be heated by providing an energy source invisible to the human eye, is obviously meaningless in relation to the Warmist cause, unless you are extremely gullible, and fervently desire to believe the unbelievable.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Pierrehumbert summarizes Fourier’s contribution here.
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/NatureFourier.pdf
However, I don’t know why Miskolczi is saying Fourier is wrong. He is not specific on that point, other than saying that the greenhouse effect does not exist, which he was far from showing himself, and then he proceeds to list all the names associated with the greenhouse effect through history. If Miskolczi has an explanation for why the earth’s surface is 33 C warmer than its radiative temperature to space, he does not state it. Arrhenius knew this much a century ago, and Miskolczi appears not to.
Jim D,
You wrote –
“Plus the arrogance to say people like Fourier and Tyndall (even Lindzen) were wrong, and only he is correct. Amazing.”
After I asked if you might provide more detail supported by relevant quotes, you then wrote –
“However, I don’t know why Miskolczi is saying Fourier is wrong. He is not specific on that point, other than saying that the greenhouse effect does not exist, . . . ”
Fourier never said that there is a greenhouse effect. Making an appeal to authority on the basis of what Ray Pierre-Humbert reads into Fourier’s essay is unlikely to be as convincing as reading Fourier yourself, and basing your argument on what Fourier actually wrote.
As to supposed authorities being right or wrong, the eminent Lord Kelvin believed that the Earth was a maximum of twenty million years old. I say Kelvin was wrong. Am I right? Does that make me smarter than Lord Kelvin? Am I arrogant to say Kelvin was wrong?
Facts are facts. You imply that it is amazing that a scientist would say another scientist is wrong. I find it amazing that you think that attempting to establish facts is amazing.
Amazing.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Miskolczi said “In our view the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was
postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S.
Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R.
Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and
endorsed by the National Academy of Science and the
Royal Society (2014), simple does not exist.”
Now you imply he was wrong to say that Fourier even postulated the greenhouse effect. If he doesn’t even know what Fourier did, how do you suggest he is right? I think you got yourself into a tangle trying to defend something you didn’t read. Do you take Miskolczi over Lindzen too, or are you about to finally ditch him.
Jim D,
You wrote –
“Now you imply he was wrong to say that Fourier even postulated the greenhouse effect.”
I imply nothing. If he says that Fourier postulated the greenhouse effect, he is wrong, unless he can show evidence that Fourier did, indeed, postulate, the greenhouse effect.
In any case, who cares?
The greenhouse effect does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist.
I am right. Anybody who claims the CO2 greenhouse effect exists is wrong. The last 18 years, or 4.5 billion years if you think 18 years is too short a period, supports my assertion. So does physics. We win, you lose.
Maybe you can do better in future. Try squeezing your eyes closed, really hard. Repeat “the world is warming” several times. Open your eyes. Nope, still cooling. Keep going. It might work eventually – who knows?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Interesting comments here from those that believe in the “radiative Greenhouse Effect”. I’m surprised that some of them can even type anything with their fingers stuck so tightly in their ear channels, LALALA I can’t hear him, LALALA I can’t hear him….
So we have the usual responses;
1) That journal is garbage, just ignore it….. If the meaning of life was written on a toilet stall AND WAS CORRECT would you still justify ignoring it.
2) Oh Him, he made a math mistake in his last paper, just ignore this paper…. OK everybody here that has never made a math mistake later found by someone else please raise your hand….. (scanning blog for upraised hands) I thought so.
3) I could not bother to read it all because I disagreed with the first, third, or fourth paragraph…. Of course everybody here has written totally complete papers with absolutely no discrepancies in language, format, units, variable names, etc…. I thought so.
4) I can’t believe that somebody disagrees with what WE ALL (well except of course for those idiots that disagree with us) know to be completely correct…. Wow, what a display of open minds, NOT….
5) Yeah his reasoning was wrong before, no reason for a reexamination this time…. Again everybody that has never ever changed their reasoning about the answers to complex questions and made it all the way from start to finish without ever changing their reasoning please raise your hand…..
I though so.
6) The ever popular; Well his data is crap, while Our data is pristine…. Funny thing that, everybody seems to have a favorite data store (“Temps Are Us”) that conveniently always has exactly the data we need to support OUR hypothesis in stock, and everybody is quite certain that the crappy data store on the poor side of town is selling garbage data…… Frankly if we turn over the label on most climate science data we see a “Made in China” sticker…
And a personal favorite of mine;
7) All I see is some graphs with fetching color schemes…. Boy Howdy if anybody is guilty of “eye-candy” graphics it is the climate science community; See that big BRIGHT RED area over there, yeah that one, right there… It says your house is going to be 5000 feet underwater next year if we don’t ACT RIGHT NOW…..
An aside; in the old days creating graphics was quite labor intensive (pens and paper was all we had, and sometimes we ran out of paper and had to use tree bark, har har har). That forced folks to concentrate on plotting the data correctly without embellishments, now folks can concentrate on making the graphics “POP”. Of course the data is still the data, but gullible folks think that data plotted with a RED pen is much more dangerous than data plotted with a BLUE pen (probably a PHD thesis in there someplace for a psychology major). WARNING, WARNING WILL ROBINSON: Everybody keep well clear of those RED data lines, they can kill you in a decade, well maybe by the end of the century, or at least midway thought the next millennium for sure…
NOW, what I don’t see is any substantive comments like (hypothetical examples);
1) Well, on page 4 in equation 7 the author seems to have the mathematical sign of the 47th term reversed, I wonder if the results are affected by that mistake….
2) Well it seems that the conclusions from equations 6 thru 9 could also be interpreted as follows (insert long winded alternative hypothesis here)….
Etc, etc, etc…
Dr. Curry, with respect, you post some intriguing articles about how to improve climate science (spin lots of hypothesis, avoid group think, be open minded), lots of good thoughts. And then you start this post with the equivalent of; “Yuck, there’s a pile of Dog Droppings, be sure you don’t step in it, I’m walking the other way”.
Cheers, KevinK
I expected the Denizens to dig in, given the effort that was spent on gravito-thermal discussion thread. We’ll see if we get any substantive critiques. As for moi, I am still pretty busy until Jan 16 (hope to get my proposal submitted tomorrow).
Dr. Curry, good luck with your proposal, I also have one due in the same time frame.
Cheers, KevinK.
KevinK, it would be nice to have your response to my quick critique upthread.
Specifics, please. Math/physics based. Not rant based.
Rud, I cannot find your upstream critique at this time.
Sorry if my musing came off as a rant, but my reading of this new paper seems to warrant further consideration of it’s merits (or lack thereof). I just find the immediate dismissive tone struck by some folks unfortunate, that will not advance the discussion much.
If you could kindly re-post your quick critique as a reply to this post I may be able to respond tomorrow.
Cheers, KevinK,
Sorry if my musing came off as a rant, but my reading of this new paper seems to warrant further consideration of it’s merits …
Their is no point in continuing.
KevinK,
Thanks for saying what I was thinking.
I don’t get much from the Miskolczi paper with this one exception: the citation of the humidity trend.
When the Paltridge paper:
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf
came out, adherents pooh-poohed the sonde data, citing the difficult humidity sensors and their many changes through the years.
But the lingering doubts of this dismissal continue.
If the trends were just from instrument changes, why did lower humidity increase but upper humidity decrease?
The Paltridge analysis does seem to support Miskolczi’s main premise – the vertical humidity profile has changed, in theory increasing OLR. But at the same time, temperatures have increased, which also increases OLR.
Eunice, any radiosonde stuff, including Paltridge (2009), has to be qualified by instrument error, especially for humidity. Covered that twice, see essay Humidity is still wet. The newest M paper goes to the extreme, claiming based on proven false 2007 math that there is no GE. See upthread for reasons is as nutter as those like Hanson claiming CAGW. Two wrongs do not make a right.
There is a new study that suggests the human lifespan is influenced by solar activity at birth:
http://www.appy-geek.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=1&articleid=34264910
“The only potentially interesting point is whether the clear sky atmospheric optical depth has remained the same in the face of rising CO2, implying a decrease in water vapor.”
OR implying that CO2’s effects are negated by saturation, which Roy does not believe in, but which Gavin outright admits:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/co2abs4x.jpg
by his own graph. When the very same information is plotted on earth spectra it looks like this:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/saturated-wings.png
If you can figure out any way to spin this besides at least a 50% saturation of the CO2 bands I would very much like to hear it. I have used an energy of photons approach tallied over the bands and derive a saturation well over 60%.
http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2014/05/14/pressure-broadening/
Gavin’s plot is at 4xCO2. The bottom plot is at CO2 = baseline. Those aren’t the same.
Where does the first plot of Gavin come from?
David Appell,
You wrote –
“Where does the first plot of Gavin come from.”
From the same delusionary continuum as the CO2 control knob, presumably.
Plot preoccupation is a symptom of the conspiracy theorist, I believe. Are you saying Gavin is merely deluded?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Gavin’s graph comes from his blog. It is HITRAN data plotted per spectral line. It shows both 4x and current saturation. Look harder.
60% saturation is very significant when total current CO2 is only 1% of the IR resonating gasses and the human contribution is at most 1/3 of that 1%.
60% saturated means it is far from saturated, like relative humidity, I find 60% RH rather comfortable.
If you can figure out any way to spin this besides at least a 50% saturation of the CO2 bands
You’re assuming the CO2 bands can’t get any wider. The meaning of the first of your two figures is that they can get very much wider.
That is called pressure broadening. It is a real effect that varies in the 1-10% range for gasses depending on the properties of the particular gas and the properties of the other constituent gasses of the atmosphere. Actually Gavin’s graph includes broadening effects for 4x CO2.
It is a partial mitigating effect on saturation and the reason not to bother to argue for more than 50% effective saturation.
Gymno, “It is a partial mitigating effect on saturation and the reason not to bother to argue for more than 50% effective saturation.”
Effective saturation is a fun term. In the Antarctic, CO2 is “effectively” saturated due to the low temperatures. In the tropics, water vapor is “effectively” saturated. If you pick an “average” temperature to determine the degree of saturation, you have to assume a linear response by both CO2 and water vapor. Then you can end up with a huge wv response to a small CO2 forcing increase like A. Lacis. I think he mentioned a 26% increase in water vapor for a doubling of CO2. Before long anthropogenic forcing will have to be 200% of natural variability to rationalize the overly pessimistic model projections.
Normally, there would be a point where people start scratching their heads while wondering where they may have screwed up. Lots of confidence in climate science though.
A Rube Goldberg machine powered by rubber bands. Heh, how can it possibly work?
==================
Relevant to this discussion is the website listed below …
This new website is the culmination of my extensive research over the last several years in which I have published a book, scientific papers and several articles.
Please read this site.
We now have 56 years of CO2 data from the Mauna Loa Observatory and 36 years of satellite lower tropospheric temperature data but I have yet to see an analysis of this data which shows that the changes in CO2 concentration are causing the changes in temperature. Most likely because there is no such causal relationship and it would be an embarrassment to bureaucrats and politicians to reveal this basic fact.
A simple plot of temperature and CO2 concentration against time at a monthly or finer scale will reveal an obvious annual cyclic variation in both variables. Linear regression applied to incremental changes in both temperature and CO2 concentration does not produce a significant correlation but cross-correlation reveals that the CO2 concentration lags the temperature by a few months. This is the well known annual life cycle which produces a major part of our food supply.
Temperature rises in Spring and on into Summer causing life forms to flourish with an accompanying take up of CO2, i.e. concentration decreases. Then in Autumn and Winter the temperature falls causing the demise of the life forms and a corresponding release of CO2 leading to an increase in concentration. This is the complete reverse of the proposition by the IPCC that increased CO2 concentration causes temperature to rise. Here the annual rise and fall of the temperature causes a fall and then a rise in the CO2 concentration.
Take away the season variations and one is left with a simple slope for CO2 which slope gradually increases with time. The current rate of increase of CO2 concentration is roughly FOUR times the rate when measurement began yet the temperature has remained stable for the past 18 years. This fact does not get a mention by the IPCC..
Linear regression applied to the average annual temperature vs the annual increment in CO2 concentration gives a correlation coefficient of 0.62 with negligible probability that the coefficient is zero. Clearly temperature drives the CO2 concentration. If there is any so-called “greenhouse effect” it is too small to register in the current data.
+1 Bevan. Correlation does not imply causation and even allowing for lags of many decades, the movements in the two series seem independent of each other.
Stretch it out, ice it out,
Temp arrow leads core gas.
Ocean got de Gout?
Heat doth stone and pass.
================
Correct Peter Davies, however when the correlation repeats at locations across the globe it starts to look as though there is causation not random events.
At Mauna Loa, the correlation coefficient was 0.62, with negligible probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Macquarie Island, Southern Ocean, correlation 0.73, negligible probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Izanz, Tenerife, correlation 0.54, negligible probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Ascension Island, correlation 0.48, negligible probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Cape Ferguson, NE Australia, correlation 0.29, minute probability that the coefficient is zero but metal smelters operating in the vicinity,
at Barrow, Alaska, correlation 0.54, small probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Cape Kumukahi, Hawaii, correlation 0.67, minute probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Cape Grim, NW Tasmania, correlation 0.64, negligible probability that the coefficient is zero,
at Casey Base, Antarctica, correlation 0.19, 2% probability that the coefficient is zero, temperature too cold for microbial activity ?
at South Pole Base, Antarctica, correlation 0.10, 6% probability that the coefficient is zero, temperature too cold for microbial activity ?
and hundreds more data listings available for analysis on the Web site for the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases.
There are at least two possible causes for temperature driving CO2 emission. One is the effervescence of CO2 from the oceans and the other is microbial activity, yeasts, moulds, fungi and so on. It was recently stated that the largest living organism across the land surface is a fungi, however I am no biologist.
The lag between movements in temperature and movements in CO2 levels may even between 800 – 1000 years if Vostok ice core studies are correct.
IF
” Clearly temperature drives the CO2 concentration.”
Then
How come the CO2 levels are better correlated with emissions?
Global temperature hasn’t increased enough to drive the CO2 from 280 to 400 ppm.
Bob, the lags are in decades because of the way CO2 sources and sinks work. It seems likely that temps from the last few decades of the 20th century are just being reflected in current CO2 levels.
Bob, it seems that Peter Davies has not realised the fact that as temperature correlates with the time rate of generation of CO2, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 will continue to rise, but at a diminishing rate, as the temperature falls. This continues until the temperature reaches the critical point where it is too cold for the sources to generate any more CO2, hence the time lag between peak temperature and peak CO2 concentration. This will apply to either biological or sea water sources if they are the cause.
As for the CO2 levels, the seasonal variation is of the order of 5 to 10 ppm, depending on location, so the perennial life forms could easily account for the global increase over the past century. The average rate of increase has been in excess of 2 ppm per annum over the past five years and that is at least four times greater that the rate back in about 1960 when the early measurements from Mauna Loa became available.
As of this writing David Appell authored 69 of 277 replies on this thread.
Clearly this paper has caused a disturbance in the force.
Aside from the saturated greenhouse hypothesis getting Appell worked up into a lather he is thread-jacking and needs to slow down.
It could be cabin fever on a cold January day.
38 degrees 90% humidity in Salem Or. Maybe he lost his umbrella.
Jealous here. Somehow your weather is closer to golf weather than our 10 degrees. 90 vehicles in pile up not far away. 50 semis, one with 40,000 lbs fireworks on fire.
Every time I look at the comments here, the premium on my agnotology insurance goes up.
This thread demonstrates the flawed human capacity to turn small mounds of sketchy data into pillars of scientific fact. The debate remains unsettled because nobody has enough irrefutable evidence to convince their opposition. Sometimes life is like that.
Nobody above using these nuggets of misunderstanding has the honesty to declare “we don’t know” and yet that is the only take-away conclusion one has from this thread.
Even kim doesn’t know.
========
Decades of intellectual inbreeding has atrophied the neuronal synaptic connections responsible for a rigorous imagination. Translation: they can’t think outside the box.
Once again, still more crackpot literature “published” by Miskolczi.
Something truly unfortunate must have happened to Ferenc Miskolczi’s scientific thinking and understanding of atmospheric radiation. His 1989 Technical Report gives a lengthy description (including also the FORTRAN code) of his line-by-line HARTCODE model, which can credibly compute the spectrally resolved outgoing TOA radiation for a clear-sky atmosphere. This would seem like a good beginning for a career in atmospheric science.
Assuming it was Miskolczi (rather than some competent research assistant) who wrote the code, it is indicative of a good understanding of atmospheric radiative transfer. With those credentials Miskolczi went to work for NASA where HARTCODE could be useful to interpret and analyze LW satellite remote sensing measurements (for a clear-sky atmosphere).
However, as becomes abundantly clear in reading Miskolczi’s 2004 paper, things seem to have gone bad by that time. Miskolczi appears to have lost his FORTRAN coding skills – there are no new improvements being made to HARTCODE (it still can’t calculate cloud or aerosol radiative effects, nor atmospheric LW cooling rates). Nor has Miskolczi shown that he has a model that can calculate solar SW multiple scattering radiative transfer.
Instead, Miskolczi appears to have become obsessed in trying to explain the greenhouse effect in terms of century-old outdated Schuster-Schwarzschild analytic formulations derived for a spectrally gray, homogenous, radiative equilibrium atmosphere. (Note that the Earth’s atmosphere is NOT spectrally gray, NOT homogenous, and NOT in thermodynamic or radiative equilibrium.) Aside from the outdated and erroneous formulations, he has also developed an erroneous understanding of Kirchhoff’s Law, which compounds his erroneous understanding and formulation of his greenhouse effect parameterizations – which inevitably leads to his erroneous global warming and greenhouse effect conclusions.
It only gets worse with his subsequent (2007, 2010, 2014) publications – all in obscure journals that have no credible reviewing capability for radiative transfer modeling topics. In his 2007 paper, Miskolczi (still screwed up on Kirchhoff’s Law) goes overboard with his misunderstanding of the virial theorem, radiation pressure (he left out the light speed “c” factor), and hydrostatic equilibrium.
If the Climate Etc denizens found Miskolczi’s (2014) formulations obscure and opaque – you should waste no further time in wading through them. The formulations are erroneous and non-relevant to what is actually being used in climate modeling. Did any of you catch the term “extropy” which Miskolczi references to his 2011 (or 2010x) paper? Extropy, for those not familiar with the term, according to Google, “is neither wave nor particle, nor pure energy. It is an immaterial force that is very much like information. Since extropy is defined as negative entropy — the reversal of disorder — it is, by definition, an increase in order. But what is order? Despite our intuitive sense, we lack a good operational definition of order, which seems to be tied up with complexity (see Ordained Becoming).”
The above is a clear indication that Miskolczi has really gone off the rails. Miskolczi’s (2014) paper is actually a re-hash of his 2010x paper which was actually rejected for publication by Int. J. Res. Public Health, as described and posted by atlatszo.hu, where the blog laments in plaintive tone that the Journal “rejected the publication of a recent manuscript by Miskolczi; apparently, the editor preferred a single unfavourable referee’s report over two favourable ones.”
http://atlatszo.hu/2011/07/27/ferenc-miskolczis-greenhouse-theory-crippling-conservatism-or-peer-review/ (my hyperlinks don’t seem to copy)
Miskolczi’s (2010x) paper rejection illustrates the Russian roulette nature of the current peer-review system. Had it been that Referee #2 did not have the time, or inclination, to do his review, chances are likely that Miskolczi would have had another published paper, and additional ammunition for climate deniers to recite and revel in. The three reviews of the paper are posted by atlatszo.hu and are very instructive in showing how the peer-review system works.
Anonymous referee #1 (perhaps a practicing meteorologist?) has some minor comments, but otherwise finds the ‘Scientific Soundness’ to be ‘High’. Anonymous referee #2 trashes the paper categorically. Anonymous referee #3 (perhaps an English literature major?) suggests some wording changes, rates everything as ‘High’, but does check the ‘Scientific Soundness’ as being only ‘Average’. Inexplicably, both referees #1 and #3 check ‘Reconsider after major revision’.
Referee #2 lays it out straight, and then calls out to question Miskolczi’s true motivation in attempting to sneak his paper into publication in a Journal where the readership (and the reviewers) might not be expected to be knowledgeable on the topic of his paper.
“This manuscript is gibberish and should be rejected. There is no conceivable revision that could render it publishable. It repeats and builds on a foundation of gibberish that the author has previously managed to get published in fourth tier journals such as E&E with no effective peer review.” “at the very foundations of the author’s claim lie the most egregious blunders of all: two errors on basic physics so elementary that just about any undergraduate physics student can spot them.” “The first of these is a complete failure to understand Kirchhoff’s laws.” “The second elementary physics error regards the virial theorem, which yields another of the constraints leading to the author’s claim of a maximum possible optical thickness.”
“The author may point to scatter plots (Fig. 6) which he will say confirm the correlation implied by his result, but these plots do not imply causation;” “In fact, the root of the reason the author has gotten so confused in the new attempts in this paper is the focus on average optical thickness as an indicator of the greenhouse effect.”
“In closing, let me say also that I find it peculiar that Miskolczi is submitting this to a journal with a focus on public health. I do understand that this special issue has as a goal exposing the environment and public health community to some areas of climate science outside their normal areas of inquiry, but wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect such extraordinary claims as the author’s (which are inconsistent with most of the radiative transfer work done in the past half century or more) to first past muster in a journal such as JGR-Atmospheres or JSQRT, which engages the physical science community?”
There you have it. It all goes to show that Miskolczi has become a serial crackpot. By getting his 2014 (formerly 2010x) paper published in some obscure journal, Miskolczi appears to have successfully dodged the Russian Roulette of a clearly-flawed Peer Review system.
To understand global warming, you first have to understand atmospheric radiation and the greenhouse effect. And those are topics that Miskolczi has clearly not been able to understand. So, there is no real hope that Miskolczi will ever understand the global warming problem despite his line-by-line modeling and his deeply flawed analysis of observational data.
Hi Andy, thanks much for this context
Andy, always good to see you post here. Miskolczi is pure pseudoscience, so it is sad to see so much time wasted on his nonsense.
In the realm of real science, I’d be curious to get your take on Santer & Solomon’s new paper on volcanoes and the “hiatus”:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/2014GL062366/
Combining the effects of volcanic aerosols, plus the negative IPO, it is actually amazing that instead of a mere “hiatus” we haven’t seen more severe cooling over the past 15 years. Pretty amazing statement related to the actual strength of the positive forcing from increased GH gases.
R gates
Just because you are languishing at the foot of a crackpots prt theory doesn’t mean I didn’t see your comment about volcanic aerosols….
History shows us they had little long term impact so there is no reason for the smaller scale levels at present to have cooled the planet.
Tonyb
Our own gatesy promotes the latest excuse, for the pause that is killing the cause. So, if not for da ballcanos and da negative IPO thang, we would be freezing our buttocks off.
Don
If correct, just think how warm the LIA would have been if it wasn’t for all those big volcanoes continually spewing out aerosols.
Tonyb
Hey Tony,
“History shows us they had little long term impact…”
____
I would disagree with this assessment, especially for the really big volcanoes, but really the latest study is not about long-term impacts of mega-volcanoes but about short-term “hiatus” related impacts of a series of moderate volcanoes. What I think we’ll see (in fact, I’m pretty sure of it) is a paper later on this year giving a pretty good summary of natural variability that led to the “hiatus” in atmospheric temperature increases and their relative contributions:
Something roughly like:
Negative IPO – 70%
Increased Volcanic aerosols – 20%
Lower net TSI – 10%
But going back to volcanoes, you still are seriously misinformed about how important the very active volcanic period of 1225-1275 was as a first big dent in the MWP as it relates to ocean heat content. It did not “cause” the LIA, as indeed, you know the LIA was quite variable, but it made a serious dent in global ocean heat content, and thus, was the doorway to the LIA cooling period that followed.
Here’s the last thousand years of IPWP ocean heat content with large volcanoes or active volcanic periods highlighted in green:
http://i58.tinypic.com/34j56k6.jpg
Cheers!
TSI is heading lower – as is the IPO. The latter is at a 1000 year El Nino high bias.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antartica-law-dome-ice-core-salt-content.png
rgates
I can only go by the observations and crop records rather than models, and whilst there was undoubtedly a cold period in the 1200’s it then recovered for a very long period
Anyway, IF the LIA was caused by volcanos that would mean temperatures would have been very much warmer without them and we can stop worrying about todays modest temperatures.
I think we have far more important things to worry about unconnected with climate.
tonyb
Be careful gatesy, if they find out back at climate dogma HQ that you are talking about the MWP, you will be severely reprimanded and sent to re-indoctrination camp. You know what that’s like.
Don
If the volcano theory is right I think we can look on our entire climate history as being one long MWP only interrupted at times by inconvenient emissions.
Tonyb
Here’s the last thousand years of IPWP ocean heat content with large volcanoes or active volcanic periods highlighted in green:
This would be more convincing if accompanied by a complete list of the “large volcanoes or active volcanic periods” during periods of global warming.
It’s been my impression that those seeking to tie global cooling to volcanism have a tendency to confine their search for higher-than-average volcanic activity to cooling periods.
“It’s been my impression that those seeking to tie global cooling to volcanism have a tendency to confine their search for higher-than-average volcanic activity to cooling periods.”
——
Most of those who study the subject on a professional level don’t try to intentionally “confine their search” to any specific period but seek as much data over as long as period as possible. We now have excellent proxy volcanic data and pretty good ocean heat content proxy data over the past 2000 years, during which their were both warmer and cooler periods.
Gang, “It’s been my impression that those seeking to tie global cooling to volcanism have a tendency to confine their search for higher-than-average volcanic activity to cooling periods.”
Crowley and Unterman have the currently most complete reconstruction of Volcanic forcing by hemisphere (and tropics) from 800 AD. The tropical volcanoes would have the largest impact on Ocean Heat Uptake and tropical ocean SST which takes 5 to 10 years to work its way through the climate system. Ocean heat capacity changes can take much longer time scales to settle out. So if you are trying to correlate something like CET or northern hemisphere trees with “global” temperatures which are predominately a function of the tropical oceans, you are likely to be disappointed since the lags are a bit complicated.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-GskY9s38Jo8/VGtNPTH8j7I/AAAAAAAALwE/gtezbRMncYw/w849-h397-no/sol%2By%2Bvol%2B800.png
The combination of Volcanic and Solar forcing for the past 1200 years should look something like that.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QixN6RvJjP4/VGio57R499I/AAAAAAAALvI/SFCi1UgvHWc/w669-h459-no/oppo%2Bnormal.png
Since the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool have very high correlation with “global” surface temperature anomaly, “Global” surface temperature for the past 2000 years should look something like that.
Right now I am playing with the tropical volcanic forcing and it looks like Northern Hemisphere tropical has the higher correlation with Oppo et al. 2009.
Aren’t lags complicated because every eruption is unique in duration, in composition, in penetration, as well as in locale?
===================
kim, “Aren’t lags complicated because every eruption is unique in duration, in composition, in penetration, as well as in locale?” Plus a few other things. Some would use terms like “chaotic” but that tends to scare the typical warmista climate science type.
How emblematic of the “climate science” establishment to rely upon blatant ad hominems in arguing against empirical data that exposes the gross inadequacies of academic conceptions of “the greenhouse effect.” Radiation is but one mechanism of transferring heat from the surface to the atmosphere–a minor one at that. Repeated experiments in situ consistently show that net radiative transfer is overwhelmed by the transfer via moist convection. Far from being any climate “control knob,” CO2 is but a minor role player in setting the optical depth of the atmosphere.
Whatever mistakes of writing and/or over-reaching reasoning Miskolczi may make, he is entirely correct in pointing to water vapor and the hydrological cycle as the regulating mechanism for surface temperature. And M. clearly distinguishes between the surface temperature problem and that of the planetary radiation to space. Lacis’ accusations are simply the pot calling the kettle black.
John,
You don’t seem to appreciate the fact that water vapor and clouds are feedback effects, which means that the water vapor and cloud distributions depend directly on the local meteorological conditions, and are therefore constrained by the temperature dependence of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. If it wasn’t for the greenhouse heating by CO2, the atmosphere would become too cold to hold the current amount of water vapor – which would condense and precipitate, reducing the greenhouse strength to the point of snowball Earth conditions. Even though water vapor and clouds account for most of the LW atmospheric opacity, it is the non-condensing greenhouse gases, of which CO2 is the strongest contributor, that actually control the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect.
Convective and advective energy transport is important in the troposphere. But it is by radiative transfer means that the global energy balance is determined. If it were not for convective energy transport, the terrestrial greenhouse effect would be 66K for the current atmospheric composition instead of the current climate 33K, which takes convective energy transport into account.
Atmospheric CO2 is indeed the principal LW control knob that governs the global equilibrium temperature of Earth.
A Lacis: You don’t seem to appreciate the fact that water vapor and clouds are feedback effects, which means that the water vapor and cloud distributions depend directly on the local meteorological conditions, and are therefore constrained by the temperature dependence of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation.
We have been through this. The Clausius-Clapayron relation is an equilibrium result that is never very accurate, and is least accurate during the episodes when the non-radiative transfer of heat to the troposphere from the surface is greatest, such as the build-up to intense thunderstorms.
Convective and advective energy transport is important in the troposphere. But it is by radiative transfer means that the global energy balance is determined
Having said that convective and advective energy transport are important, you totally neglect to consider how their change may affect the change in the Earth surface temperature in response to increased DWLWIR, and you totally avoid consideration of the possible changes in cloud cover that such changes might effect. Thus, you completely denigrate the main topic of Miskolczi’s paper, a topic that, as far as I can tell, you never address. Whatever the merits of your technical comments, and I do so wish you would quote things in the paper itself. you don’t even seem to consider the topic itself of importance, potential changes in cloud cover.
This comment from the abstract is correct: The stability and natural fluctuations of the global average surface temperature of the heterogeneous system are ultimately determined by the phase changes of water.
CO2 might be a power switch, but water is a large part of the surface temperature control.
A Lacis:
In the real world, we have variable wind speeds and the idealized Clausius-Clapeyron relation scarcely constitutes the final word on the dependence of water vapor upon temperature. Because water vapor condenses into clouds, which always reduce the insolation available for thermalizing the surface, its temperature need NOT necessarily rise in re-establishing steady climatic states after some perturbation in backradiation. The problem in situ is nowehere near as simple in vitro conceptualizations make it out to be. And observations pertaining to potential homeostatic regulatioin should not be dismissed as “craclp[ot” ideas.
To recognize that “climate scientists” have scant physical insight
into the “greenhouse effect,” it suffices to consider a dry planet with an entirely inert atmosphere, say, 100% argon. The surface would still be thermalized by insolation, but without any moderation by clouds. And thermals would still develop, heating the atmosphere by dry convection. It would then radiate, like all matter does, resulting in backradiation. Thus a greenhouse effect without any GHGs whatsoever would obtain.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to expose here point by point the myriad physical misconceptions that underly the notion that without “greenhouse heating by CO2, the atmosphere would cool “to the point of snowball Earth conditions.” This fantasy, which seems to play a central role in the belief system of model-oriented “climate scientists,” has never developed any traction among trained geophysicists with field-going experience.
A Lacis,
I wonder if you could point me to experimental verification of the seemingly outlandish notion that surrounding an object with CO2 causes its temperature to rise?
So called climate scientists seem to be endlessly preoccupied with divining the future, with little to no apparent success to date. It might appear to an outsider that multi million computers and multi million dollar research grants provide as much assistance as chicken entrails or used tea leaves do, in relation to ascertaining the future.
I cannot see any demonstrated benefit accruing to mankind from studying the average of weather, which study seems to be restricted to the temperature parameter in any case. You may be able to indicate some breakthroughs in climate research, or even point to the achievements of individual towering intellects in the field. I see none to date.
On the other hand, a tried and true Warmist tactic is to merely apply a belittling label – denier, crackpot, delayer, and so on – to anyone who asks you to back up your bizarre unsubstantiated assertions with a modicum of fact. This tactic is proving less and less effective, as economic circumstances are forcing governments to consider the relative disbursement of ever scarcer funds between the war on climate change, the war on terror, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, and so on.
The prospect of starving in terror in the dark, whilst climatologists rub their hands with glee at their latest multi billion dollar computer acquisition, is unlikely to enthuse the general public who provide your funding.
Don’t you think the hand that feeds you deserves to be treated with respect rather than disdain?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mike,
I am not a meteorologist, nor do I don’t spend much time analyzing climate change data. I work on atmospheric radiative transfer issues that are key to making climate GCMs capable of simulating terrestrial climate.
For me global warming is a cause and effect problem in physics. If you go and increase atmospheric CO2, there is no other option but for the global temperature to increase. It is all a matter of radiative transfer physics and the way that the greenhouse effect operates.
I you don’t happen to understand radiative transfer, or how the greenhouse effect works, then don’t worry about global warming. Because of the large heat capacity of the ocean, nothing disastrous regarding the Earth’s climate is likely to happen in your lifetime. Rising sea level and serious ecosystem disruption are problems that will impact future generations. So, you can just sit back, smile, and enjoy.
A Lacis: For me global warming is a cause and effect problem in physics. If you go and increase atmospheric CO2, there is no other option but for the global temperature to increase. It is all a matter of radiative transfer physics and the way that the greenhouse effect operates.
What do you have to say about non-radiative transfer of heat (sensible and latent) from the surface to the atmosphere? How will it change as the Earth surface temperature changes? The Trenberth et al energy flow diagrams show more transfer of energy from the Earth surface by dry and wet thermals than by radiation — surely those will both increase as the Earth surface temperature increases, as surely as the radiative cooling will increase — don’t you agree? If you do not agree, why not? Knowing the change in the non-radiative cooling of the Earth surface is as important as knowing the change in the radiative cooling, for computing the climate response to increased DWLWIR. And that is the simple case: knowing the change in cloud cover, which is addressed in the featured paper, is even harder, but it is important as well — don’t you agree, and if not why not?
Without denying the importance of the basic radiative physics, it is important to assert the importance of the non-radiative physics. You don’t want to actively deny the importance of the non-radiative heat flux from the surfaceof the Earth, do you?
FWIW, I have disagreed with Mike Flynn in the past. I comment to you here because I saw this post listed above, and I always read your posts. It is the first post that I have read on this thread.
Matthew Marler, those other surface fluxes do nothing to restore the radiative balance of the earth as seen from space. The earth has to radiate more to overcome the CO2 suppression of outgoing radiation. How would you propose that a change in these other fluxes restores the radiative balance? That is the bottom line.
When you say things like this, it leaves me highly skeptical of your “authority”. Certainly there’s “[an]other option but for the global temperature to increase.” If part of the result of increased GHG’s is increased cloudiness, leading to a higher SW albedo, then the overall global temperature need not increase, because the amount of energy actually entering the system has been reduced. Of course, just because the option exists doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. But saying “there is no other option” strikes me as sheer denial.
Jim D: Matthew Marler, those other surface fluxes do nothing to restore the radiative balance of the earth as seen from space. The earth has to radiate more to overcome the CO2 suppression of outgoing radiation. How would you propose that a change in these other fluxes restores the radiative balance? That is the bottom line.
How much does the Earth surface have to warm in order to restore the radiative balance at TOA after a doubling of CO2? At present, the warming of the troposphere by the non-radiative heat transfer is ignored in estimates of the answer to that question. By ignoring most of the energy transfer from the surface, the calculations have to over-estimate the surface warming that is necessary to restore balance.
Now in addition to that, the (neglected) increase in the hydrological cycle may increase cloud cover, which will also restore radiative balance at a lower Earth surface temperature than we have been warned of.
Those are the answers to your “how” question. What is the “bottom line” anyway? It used to be Earth surface temperature, then it became the deep ocean temperature, and now it is radiative balance. “The bottom line” is the Earth surface temperature, and the radiative and non-radiative transfers are details in the accounting.
Matthew Marler, those other fluxes help the troposphere to warm in response to a warming surface, and maintain the lapse rate which in turn helps the earth’s atmosphere to radiate more. You are separating something that is part of the warming process. This surface and tropospheric warming is the bottom line for the radiation to rebalance.
A Lacis,
You wrote –
“I am not a meteorologist, nor do I don’t spend much time analyzing climate change data. I work on atmospheric radiative transfer issues that are key to making climate GCMs capable of simulating terrestrial climate.
For me global warming is a cause and effect problem in physics. If you go and increase atmospheric CO2, there is no other option but for the global temperature to increase. It is all a matter of radiative transfer physics and the way that the greenhouse effect operates.
I you don’t happen to understand radiative transfer, or how the greenhouse effect works, then don’t worry about global warming. Because of the large heat capacity of the ocean, nothing disastrous regarding the Earth’s climate is likely to happen in your lifetime. Rising sea level and serious ecosystem disruption are problems that will impact future generations. So, you can just sit back, smile, and enjoy.”
Thank you for confirming, albeit in a roundabout fashion, that interposing CO2 between a radiative source and target reduces the amount of energy reaching the target. This bench experiment is used in Universities around the world to demonstrate that maximum radiative energy transfer occurs in a vacuum.
So the fact that GCMs have proven to be of no practical use whatever, is probably based on an erroneous assumption that there is a supposed greenhouse effect unknown to normal physics.
I do happen to understand radiative energy transfer at a reasonable level – at least enough to understand than when the surface loses energy via radiation, its temperature drops. Any energy from this source absorbed by CO2 and subsequently reradiated to the surface can do no more than restore part of the energy lost, and its concomitant drop in temperature.
I understand the physics of a greenhouse as the term is commonly used. Self styled climate scientists appropriated the term, either due to a misunderstanding about the nature of a greenhouse, or possibly because no other explanation of their bizarre hypothesis would be accepted by the general scientific community. I do not know.
If you increase the amount of CO2 surrounding a radiative target, it will not increase its temperature. Neither you, nor anyone else has managed to do so.
The ocean may have a large heat capacity. The solid crust has a larger one, so I cannot see your point. Your supposed sea level rises apparently do not explain the sea level falls which have resulted in marine fossils being found at altitudes several thousand meters above current notional sea levels. Aha, you may say, the apparent drop is really due to vertical continental displacement as a result of tectonic plate movement. And you are probably right. I suspect you will not accept the reverse situation relating to apparent sea level rises.
I merely point out that ocean levels depend on the physical arrangement of the solid crust which bounds them. The core, mantle, and crust appear to ceaselessly moving in three dimensions. Your efforts to relate sea levels to supposed global warming are probably doomed to failure. I hope I’m not indirectly paying for them.
Your predictions of serious ecosystem disruption are very likely to come to pass. Better than 99% of all species ever to exist have become extinct before the emergence of Homo sapiens. So yes, I sit back, smile, and enjoy a measure of contentment. Please feel free to worry on my behalf, but don’t expect remuneration. If you choose not to worry unless remunerated, that is your choice, and I respect it.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Jim D: You are separating something that is part of the warming process.
You asked “how” and I gave you two actual mechanisms, neither of which has been well measured, each of which exists and is potentially measurable. Ignoring them leads to over-estimation of the expected (“equilibrium”) increase in Earth surface temperature to a doubling of CO2 concentration.
A Lacis:
“Because of the large heat capacity of the ocean, nothing disastrous regarding the Earth’s climate is likely to happen in your lifetime.” Your statement is one I can agree with. It’s nice to get your opinion of the relevant time frame. It’s said that most the warming is going into the oceans at this time, let’s say around an order of magnitude more into the oceans. CO2 changes the radiative transfer rate in the atmosphere. Let’s say that effect is X units of heat at the TOA. Is it true that that effect at the ocean surface atmosphere boundary is as much as 10X?
Matthew Marler, one of your mechanisms was the same as Lacis, which is warming of the surface and atmosphere to compensate the CO2 effect. The other is the hope of a lucky happenstance that clouds will come to the rescue, which we see here all the time. Clouds have no direct connection to atmospheric CO2 levels, so it is a rather indirect argument at best. Clouds also exist by scores of mechanisms, so it is some hope that these conspire in one direction. Cloud albedo has not increased, and possibly even decreased during the latest warming for which we have satellites. Warming since the Ice Ages has been dominated by a positive ice albedo feedback, rather than any negative albedo feedback. There are many arguments against your hoped for clouds, and no evidence has come to light for it.
CO2 changes the radiative transfer rate in the atmosphere. Let’s say that effect is X units of heat at the TOA. Is it true that that effect at the ocean surface atmosphere boundary is as much as 10X?
Are you asking whether the shape of the temperature profile between say the Oceanic Mixed Layer (above the main thermocline) and the troposphere will change significantly as a consequence of global warming?
If so I’d be inclined to answer “no” on the ground that (a) the surface of Venus is some 350 °C hotter than that of Earth, and yet (b) Venus’s temperature profile is essentially the same shape as it would be if the surface of Venus were 350 °C cooler. I infer from this example that global warming has a negligible impact on temperature profile, at least in equilibrium. Rapid warming may distort the profile slightly before convergence to equilibrium.
In particular the only change to the ocean surface atmosphere boundary should be that both the ocean and the atmosphere in that neighborhood should warm equally.
Sorry, by “and the troposphere” read “and the tropopause”.
Jim D: Matthew Marler, one of your mechanisms was the same as Lacis, which is warming of the surface and atmosphere to compensate the CO2 effect.
You asked “how” so I described a mechanism. It had indeed already been mentioned by Lacis. A question not yet answered is how much will the non-radiative transfer of heat from surface to atmosphere increase as CO2 and surface temp increase? This increase is currently ignored in calculations of the equilibrium surface temperature of Earth following CO2 increase, which leads to over-estimation of the surface warming necessary to restore radiative balance at the TOA.
The other is the hope of a lucky happenstance that clouds will come to the rescue, which we see here all the time. Clouds have no direct connection to atmospheric CO2 levels, so it is a rather indirect argument at best.
Calling potential cloud change a “hope”, and then ignoring the mechanism because it is indirect, does not imply that cloud cover will not increase. An increase in surface temp will increase water vapor pressure at the surface: that will likely increase the rate of evaporation at the surface, which may or may not increase cloud cover. At present, the increase in surface temp is mostly incorporated via C-C into recalculating the moist adiabatic lapse rate; with the Earth climate never in equilibrium, that is not likely an adequate approximation.
Radiative balance between Earth and space at TOA does not imply or entail radiative balance between Earth surface and troposphere.
Another interesting detail from the Romps et al lightning flash modeling was the modeling of the change in CAPE that would accompany a change in the moist lapse rate. That is another reason why I think that is an important paper. They also assumed C-C, but they calculated a non-equilibrium result from it.
Are you saying that the models of radiative transfer of energy are complete and sufficiently accurate for this problem?
Matthew,
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere leads to many changes. Some of the changes are directly controlled by additional CO2 and are also on the critical path of the phenomena, while many others lead to highly efficient adjustments in other mechanisms that restore the related partial balances.
Energy transfer in the lower troposphere is a typical case, where changes in convective processes (including transport of moisture) restore the balance very efficiently leading to little direct influence from changes in CO2 concentration as long as the concentration is not much lower than the present one.
Where the effect of increase in CO2 is important for the energy balance is in the upper troposphere, because a significant part of the radiation emitted upwards by CO2 of the upper troposphere goes trough the tropopause to stratosphere or through it to open space. The more CO2 we have the higher up in the troposphere the origin of the escaping radiation is and the warmer must the atmosphere (at fixed altitude) be to restore the radiative balance.
What takes place at lower altitudes affects the relative temperatures in the atmosphere and on the surface, but as a whole the increased temperatures at a fixed height of the upper troposphere lead also to a warmer lower troposphere and surface.
The main error of Miskolczi is that he chooses to make calculations that are known to be inconclusive based on the main stream atmospheric physics. In addition he invents new relationships claiming that formulas that are approximately true in those inconclusive analyses are exact and can be used to derive stronger results – up to the point of “proving” that GHE does not exist.
If you wish to learn about GHE you must choose methods that tell most of that, not methods that are known to to tell virtually nothing on that. Main stream climate science does the first, Miskolczi picks the latter.
Pekka Pirilä:
Where the effect of increase in CO2 is important for the energy balance is in the upper troposphere, because a significant part of the radiation emitted upwards by CO2 of the upper troposphere goes trough the tropopause to stratosphere or through it to open space. The more CO2 we have the higher up in the troposphere the origin of the escaping radiation is and the warmer must the atmosphere (at fixed altitude) be to restore the radiative balance.
No quarrel with that from me. I have been addressing the calculated rates of cooling at the surface, and how changes in surface temperature affect all three mechanisms, with a focus here on the change in the evapotranaspirative cooling rate. All the public policy discussions and the warnings of bad effects to humans, agriculture, the biosphere and such focus on Earth surface temperature.
I can’t tell whether Miskolczi’s paper makes much of a contribution. A bunch of quotes, such as mine and those of Willis Eschenbach, make it seem doubtful to me that the results can be reliable. I think he is addressing a neglected aspect of overall energy transfer balance, instead of assuming that considerations of radiative balance are adequate.
Vaughan Pratt:
We’ve seen this graph:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Nuccitelli_OHC_Data.jpg
Say we agree the increase in the atmospheric temperature is mostly because of CO2 and caused the red effect in the graph. Can we say it also caused the larger dark and light blue effects? “Most of the heat from global warming is going into the oceans.” – Rob Painting. A warmer atmosphere on average will cause the oceans to warm. A number of sources suggest by about 10 times as much as the atmosphere warms. This suggests that by using the heat mass of warmth units absorbed, the oceans are 10 times as sensitive to CO2 and other effects. Lacis has extensive knowledge of atmospheric radiative transfer and I was wondering what he thought of this roughly 10 to 1 call it, amplification.
A Lacis: and additional ammunition for climate deniers to recite and revel in.
tut, tut, tut. You should not use the insult “climate denier”. Aside from the fact that no one denies climate, it prompts retaliation, such as “Are you a denier of the importance of non-radiative cooling of the Earth surface?” I have asked you about non-radiative heat transfer from the Earth surface to the troposphere, and how it changes with CO2 doubling, and you have never written a thoughtful answer.
Please see also my response to your comment to Mike Flynn.
I see I got my punch line messed up: If not for the CO2 yatta yatta yatta..
Anyway Tony, as you often do, you cause me to wonder. What were the contemporary scientists thinking during the LIA, about the cause for the cold? Were the warmists talking about ballcanos and heat hiding in the deep ocean abysses?
don
In the 1200’s they mostly thought it was the work of god or satan.
tonyb
Little has changed.
Plus ca change. Godly ‘on high priest syndrome’ and
‘satanic mills market economics’ are still the bete noir
requirin’ virgin sacrifices and climate conferences in far
away exotic places.
Much ado about nothing, maybe.
From the abstract –
“This paper presents observed atmospheric thermal and humidity structures and global scale simulations of . . .”
Ain’t science grand? Are we really reduced to arguing whose simulation is better or more elegantly written? Does any of this help the farmer determining when or whether to plant a crop?
It has been said of fox hunting in the UK that it was the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. Possibly someone can come up with a witty aphorism for climatologists, which takes into account that riders to hounds do so at their own expense.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Dissimulators in pursuit of the unsimulable.
===============================
Mike Flynn: Are we really reduced to arguing whose simulation is better or more elegantly written?
I was going to comment in a similar vein, perhaps not wittily. Maybe in 20 years there will be lots of out-of-sample data against which these models have been tested, and we’ll know which, if any, are dependable. In the meantime, a lot of this discussion is a clash of faiths.
‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic.’
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751
Models can’t be reliable in the sense of having a single plausible solution. Minute – and not so minute – differences in feasible initial and boundary conditions are unavoidable. The differences propagate as exponential divergence through time.
A Lacis,
Could you expand upon your comment that without C02 the earth would be frozen over ? It implies that there exists some pretty persuasive model that shows that a planet completely covered by water, with an atmosphere of n2,02 and nothing else, at this distance from our sun, would freeze.
I would be very interested if you could point me to the calculations or the model. I recall that there were several people on another blog attempted this very same modeling exercise and came to vastly different conclusions.
Thanks
David
This is a place to read about it. It is a version of a paper he published in Science in 2010.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/
david_in_nyc,
Two minor points.
Lacis’ paper contains the following –
“This assessment comes about as the result of climate modeling experiments . . .”
Non science at its finest. Actual experiments are soooo outmoded. Who needs them?
A second point is that the surface of the Moon achieves far higher temperatures when at the same distance from the Sun, and exposed for the same time. No atmosphere to speak of, let alone CO2, but I certainly don’t consider 107C or thereabouts to be freezing.
Water exposed to such a temperature does not remain frozen for long. I’m sure some of these people live in a special government funded alternate universe – no need for real experiments, words and concepts are redefined to suit the madness de jour, and facts become nothing more than irrelevant hindrances.
I’m sure that someone could use the words barking and mad, in close proximity, to describe some of the Witless Warmists. Not me, of course. I’m far too polite.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
A second point is that the surface of the Moon achieves far higher temperatures when at the same distance from the Sun, and exposed for the same time.
For the same time? Really?
You would have a good point if daytime on the Moon lasted 12 hours like it does on Earth. However it lasts some 340 hours, a blast of heat sustained long enough to boil water. Meanwhile night on the Moon similarly lasts 340 hours, and the night surface of the Moon cools like that of Earth when there’s no clouds, only for 28 times as long before heat returns, allowing it to get much colder than Earth. Earth nights are warm when there’s clouds, but there are no clouds on the Moon.
Vaughan Pratt,
You wrote –
“For the same time? Really?”
Yes. Really. I assume you are not attempting to be patronisingly condescending.
I won’t resort to analogies, and merely suggest that you perform the relevant calculations. If it turns out that I am correct, a simple apology might be in order. Do you not agree?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image38.png
Not sure whose argument this helps.
Takes less than a day for the moon to warm to the average temperature.
The temperature on the moon is the result of solar radiation and Boltzman’s law. Solar radiation is TSI*cos(θ),where θ is angle with respect to the surface. If you use the angle of incidence (perpendicular to the surface) it is TSI*sin(θ).
Boltzmann’s law E = σ*T**4 says the surface will warm rapidly until the black body emission gets significant.
The specific heat of lunar soil is about half that of earth soil (no water). The thermal conductivity is 1.5 x 10-5 W/cm2 K which makes it a 2200 times better insulator than styrofoam 0.033.
I have two comments on the paper. (1) it depends heavily on results Miskolczi derived in previous papers, so it can’t be mastered without mastering those, and I have not. (2) The following sentence gives the game away: It is assumed, that the equilibrium atmospheric structure is such, that the cloud cover alone is able to maintain the planetary
radiative balance; He assumes that which is in doubt.
Mattstat, “He assumes that which is in doubt.”
You pretty much have to make such assumptions they see how things owrk out.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/08/miskolczi-discussion-thread/#comment-662325
see that comment I made to Appell. It is that wild an assumption.
captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2 You pretty much have to make such assumptions they see how things owrk out.
True. If you derive something known to be false, then you know the assumption to be false.
However, readers should be aware that he assumed the most important result of his paper. How much that assumption is necessary for the results he brings in from the other papers is then something to investigate. It is equivalent to assuming that nothing could have warmed the Earth surface since 1850 except CO2, and thence concluding that CO2 was responsible for all of the warming since 1850.
It is assumed, that the equilibrium atmospheric structure is such, that the cloud cover alone is able to maintain the planetary
radiative balance;
As assumptions go, that is way too strong, and looks doubtful. Surely it makes more sense to assume that some role in restoring global radiative balance is played by increased radiation from a warmer surface? At least over some range of temperatures?
The energy flow diagrams of Trenberth et al and Stephens et al show 3 mechanisms by which a warming Earth surface can warm the troposphere and restore radiative balance: it is not reasonable to assert a priori that two of them can’t matter in calculating the global mean temperature after a doubling of CO2 concentration, when even a little study shows that all of them will be affected.
MattStat, “The energy flow diagrams of Trenberth et al and Stephens et al show 3 mechanisms by which a warming Earth surface can warm the troposphere and restore radiative balance: ”
A main difference between the Trenberth and Stephens budgets is clouds controlling half of the atmospheric window. I have no opinion on Miskolczi, but clouds regulating tropical temperature is not unreasonable.
It is assumed, that the equilibrium atmospheric structure is such, that the cloud cover alone is able to maintain the planetary
radiative balance;
There is at least one mechanisms which can maintain planetary equilibrium even if the atmosphere had no clouds or water vapor or CO2. The temperature can always reach a level at which there is radiative balance according to the Stefan Boltzmann equation. There is no basic physical reason to make that assumption. Given the complexity of the earth atmosphere system, that is a statement that requires proof of some sort.
From what I have read, the earth is not in radiative balance. Measurements indicate it is gaining heat at about 0.6W/M2.
eadler2, “Given the complexity of the earth atmosphere system, that is a statement that requires proof of some sort.
From what I have read, the earth is not in radiative balance. Measurements indicate it is gaining heat at about 0.6W/M2.”
Given the complexity of the system 0.6Wm-2 isn’t a particularly remarkable imbalance. But if it is proof of some sort, you won’t find it, evidence though is a different issue.
You could start with the correlation of the tropical oceans with “global” mean temperature. Given that the average available insolation is on the order of 1300 Wm-2, having the tropical oceans maintain a temperature in the range of 27 C degrees which is extremely close to the convective triggering potential would indicate that evaporative cooling and cloud fraction are providing a regulating service in the tropics. The estimates of DWLR at ~340 Wm-2 is also an indication of water properties being involved with regulation of temperature. When surface temperatures are below approximately 4C, clouds would tend to be a warming feedback and above 4 C and cooling feedback. This regulating combination of both positive and negative feedback to ocean surface temperature applies to a little over 70% of the globe at any given time and the last time I checked 70% was considered a significant majority.
Now if “global” surface temperature anomaly correlated most strongly with the poles or the northern mid to high latitudes, I might tend to be more in the CO2 as the dominate forcing camp, but such is not the case. We live on a water world so that is where I would start.
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud
Comin’ in like thunder
Out of Burma ‘crost the blog.
====================
capt dallas: I have no opinion on Miskolczi, but clouds regulating tropical temperature is not unreasonable.
I agree.
@Capt. Dallas,
“Given the complexity of the system 0.6Wm-2 isn’t a particularly remarkable imbalance. But if it is proof of some sort, you won’t find it, evidence though is a different issue.”
Usually the word assumption implies a level of rigor, rather than just some evidence. What this amounts to is an assumption that clouds are a negative feedback to temperature.
The evidence in the climate literature is mixed on whether cloud formation is a positive or negative feedback based on observations. Some would argue that the best correspondence between models and data is for positive feedbacks.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/01/a-bit-more-sensitive/
Given the controversy over this question, it seems the Miskolczi is making an unwarranted assumption.
eadler2, “Given the controversy over this question, it seems the Miskolczi is making an unwarranted assumption.”
What has the “controversy” to do with anything? Most scientific controversies are little more than handbag fights. If the models were performing reasonably, meaning they had some inkling of cloud dynamics and were able to get absolute temperatures close, there would be no “controversy”. As it is, the model parameterization of clouds just plain sucks. That would be an engineering term.
Now this would be a controversy.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png
Using a questionable reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere based on tree rings to represent “global” temperature when the tropics with the majority of the energy would be the go to place for a “global” teleconnection with temperature. Clouds would be a positive feedback there, but not for the majority of the real heat engine.
“You don’t seem to appreciate the fact that water vapor and clouds are feedback effects, which means that the water vapor and cloud distributions depend directly on the local meteorological conditions”
With all due respect, this fallacy alone will guarantee that your models will always be wrong. You tout your understanding of radiative transfer, yet relegate the primary radiative molecule to feedback only status based on the utterly unsupportable presumption that its “distribution” depends on “local meteorological conditions”. Try to get out more.
Go back one step. Changes in cloud and water vapour result from changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation primarily.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/loeb2012-fig1.png
There is no a snowballs chance in hell that they can model it.
Currently models do not calculate clouds from first principles. They take data from observations and put parameters in the models that best fit the data.
Not looking closely, it seems trivially true that in the steady state energy in equals energy out. The question is what is the temperature profile that results from this or that.
We don’t know, including warmists, and we’re not going to know barring an anti-chaotic growth in computing power that isn’t going to happen. We have managed to get along fine without this knowledge before it was found to result in funding and power.
The growth of political power is the actual problem.
Curiosity never was but that seems to have disappeared.
“We have managed to get along fine without this knowledge before it was found to result in funding and power.The growth of political power is the actual problem.Curiosity never was but that seems to have disappeared.”
That statement is nonsense. Attempts to calculate the temperature, that results from an increase in CO2, date from 1896. It is true that we have managed to get along without exact knowledge until the present day, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to have a good idea of what is going to happen, unless you assume that nothing bad will happen. Since we know we can affect the amount of CO2, and there is evidence that it could be damage our planet severely, the better the estimates get, the better equipped we will be to make a judgement. We don’t need an exact number to make an intelligent judgement about what to do. The IPCC report has given us a range of values for climate sensitivity. The longer we wait to take action, the more severe the resulting problems would become.
The problem is that free market ideologues and companies in the fossil fuel business want to persuade the public that there is no problem, because they don’t like the kind of regulation that is necessary to prevent and deal with the problems that are likely to arise. You obviously belong to the group I have described.
By putting forward the argument that there is a secret conspiracy among scientists, politicians and business people to make money out of the climate change. This way you can avoid engaging in arguments about the science. No one can refute a secret conspiracy, because it is a secret.
In fact many of the scientists have university tenure, and the specific results of their research do not determine the amount of income. Climate change is clearly not a great political sell for politicians. It is low on the list of issues that the public is concerned about. In fact if you look at money changing hands, politicians who are AGW deniers are receiving tons of money from fossil fuel interests. It is a more profitable than advocating emissions limitation and clean energy.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/26/2202141/anti-science-climate-denier-caucus-113th-congress-edition/
Over their careers, on average, Senate deniers took $752,621 from dirty energy while other Senators took $195,418. On average, House deniers took $273,071 from dirty energy while other members took $80,214.
If you are so convinced that politicians are making a profit off advocacy of AGW, where is the money?
“If you go and increase atmospheric CO2, there is no other option but for the global temperature to increase”
This is true in the atmosphere to the extent CO2 is not saturated but only to an extent proportional to its concentration relative to the other radiative molecules. CO2 is currently about 2% of the radiative molecules in the atmosphere by weight. It is twice as heavy as water and therefore represents only 1% of the resonating molecules. The CO2 bands are about 50% saturated. Humans are responsible for at most 30% of the unsaturated remainder…so ok, there is no other option but for atmospheric temperature to increase not very much.
Global temperature is an entirely different matter. CO2 radiates at atmospheric temperature. The ocean surface is ALWAYS warmer than the atmosphere. The second law prohibits radiation from CO2 warming anything above its emission temperature. Your ocean heat capacity is irrelevant to radiative transfer from CO2.
If you take the whole atmosphere, CO2 is 10% of the IR-active molecules. These smaller numbers like 1% come from just using surface concentrations of H2O. It reduces as you go up, while CO2 stays constant. Well below the stratosphere and on up CO2 outnumbers H2O molecule for molecule. This is why it is so important for the earth’s IR emission.
Atmospheric water 12-15000Gt, atmospheric CO2 850Gt. Dude, I’m being generous!
CO2 3000 Gt. Where did your number come from? Perhaps you confused carbon with CO2.
Whoops, grabbed that in a hurry from Trenberth at 2.13/ppmv. Apologies.
I stand corrected and you are right that it is a weight adjusted 10% of IR resonating atmospheric molecules. Even so, at 50% saturated and 1/3 human we are looking at a very small human effect.
JCH,
“Each addition to atmospheric CO2 has resulted in additional retention of SW energy in the oceans.”
Perhaps you can explain why your oceans prefer to retain their SW energy in the Indian and South Atlantic and expel it profligately everywhere else? These two oceans account for all the average ocean surface warming since 1997 while all the rest are flat or declining.
“The second law prohibits radiation from CO2 warming anything above its emission temperature. Your ocean heat capacity is irrelevant to radiative transfer from CO2.”
The second law of thermodynamics doesn’t prohibit transfer of radiation in any fashion. It just says that the NET flow of heat is FROM bodies at HOTTERr to bodies at COLDER temperatures. Heat flows upward from the ocean in the form of radiation, conduction and convective evaporation. Heat flows downward in the form of long and short wave radiation.
If CO2 were not in the atmosphere, the NET flow of heat from the ocean would be larger, because there would be no radiation entering the ocean in the unique CO2 spectrum from the atmosphere above.
The situation is a little more complicated than my statement because the ocean and atmosphere are not bodies at uniform temperature, but the gist of the argument is sound.
It is clear that you are not getting your ideas about this from web sites that teach sound science. Since you don’t understand the science well enough to distinguish pseudoscience from real science, you should avoid such web sites, which are clouding your mind, and stick to web sites that are reputable and endorsed by scientific societies.
I don’t get my ideas from websites. One tries to condense much to pithy statements in these forums.
Yes the ocean surface would be a little colder without CO2 in the atmosphere. It would be a lot colder without water in the atmosphere. Yet back radiation from neither molecule can raise the ocean temperature above its atmospheric emission temperature. As you say, the net flow of energy is always between a warmer ocean surface and a colder atmosphere. The only way CO2 can warm the ocean is by first warming the atmosphere.
@gymnosperm,
“The only way CO2 can warm the ocean is by first warming the atmosphere.”
So what. It doesn’t have to warm the atmosphere above the ocean temperature to make the ocean warmer than it would be without CO2 in the atmosphere.
@eadler2,
Additional CO2 will not cause additional ocean warming without first causing additional atmospheric warming. We have seen lots of additional CO2 lately with little or no atmospheric warming. Some would say the radiative energy is warming the ocean instead. Sorry, impossible.
Gymnosperm
“Additional CO2 will not cause additional ocean warming without first causing additional atmospheric warming. We have seen lots of additional CO2 lately with little or no atmospheric warming. Some would say the radiative energy is warming the ocean instead. Sorry, impossible.”
More fallacies in thinking. There are other influences on surface temperatures besides CO2. Ocean surface temperatures depend on ocean circulation currents like which vary like ENSO, that have intrinsic variations not directly affected by CO2, as well as Volcanoes and aerosals. Because of this it is a logical fallacy to claim that because we have seen increase in CO2 without warming so CO2 can’t be warming the ocean.
When ocean surface temperatures cool, due to a La Nina, the warmer surface water is mixed deeper into the ocean and cooler ocean water flows along the surface of the Pacific. It radiates less heat upward so the ocean has a tendency to gain more heat. You can look at the measurements of ocean heat to see that the oceans have been gaining heat lately.
http://www.realclimate.org/images//heat_content2000m.png
Come now fellows. Lets get some things straight here.
What is known as “back radiation” has a net cooling effect on the ocean. It cannot warm the ocean, because the flow of energy is from the ocean to the atmosphere. IR can only penetrate the ocean skin by a few microns. This is the evaporative layer.
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/o_atm.html
eadler2 | January 10, 2015 at 5:54 pm |
…
When ocean surface temperatures cool, due to a La Nina, the warmer surface water is mixed deeper into the ocean and cooler ocean water flows along the surface of the Pacific. It radiates less heat upward so the ocean has a tendency to gain more heat. You can look at the measurements of ocean heat to see that the oceans have been gaining heat lately.
Apparently when you have El Ninos without trade wind support it cools the ocean.
Much of the radiation from the atmospheric gases, also in the infrared range, is transmitted back to the ocean, reducing the net long wave radiation heat loss of the ocean. The warmer the ocean the warmer and more humid is the air, increasing its greenhouse abilities. Thus it is very difficult for the ocean to transmit heat by long wave radiation into the atmosphere; the greenhouse gases just kick it back, notably water vapor whose concentration is proportional to the air temperature. Net back radiation cools the ocean, on a global average by 66 watts per square meter. …
Try reading it again as you are massively confused. Search the internet for explanations by Leonard Weinstein. He’s a skeptic, but his descriptions of what is going on are excellent.
During a La Nina the SST cools. The oceans warm – aggressively.
During a super El Nino, the SST warms aggressively and the oceans cool aggressively.
During weaker El Nino events, the SST warms and the oceans warm.
The oceans are cooled by net radiation. This does not mean the oceans are not warming. Lol.
Atmospheric CO2 warms the oceans. Increasing atmospheric CO2 increases ocean warming.
“The only way CO2 can warm the ocean is by first warming the atmosphere.”
————-
“It doesn’t have to warm the atmosphere above the ocean temperature to make the ocean warmer than it would be without CO2 in the atmosphere.”
————-
If CO2 in the atmosphere is not like throwing a blanket over the oceans, how does it then work? If we had constant solar SW heating a lake, why not control its temperature with the air temperature just above its surface?
eadler2,
” Because of this it is a logical fallacy to claim that because we have seen increase in CO2 without warming so CO2 can’t be warming the ocean.”
You don’t understand that the ocean surface is ALWAYS warmer than the atmosphere even in upwelling zones. The differential is about 10 degrees at latitude sixty to 20 degrees in the tropics on a monthly average basis.
Much of the problem is that everyone is used to looking at anomalies here anomalies there and everyone has lost any sense of the truism that in absolute temperature the sun warms the surface and the surface warms the atmosphere. This is climate 101. Andrew must have skipped this class.
http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2014/10/05/the-ocean-ate-it/
The sun drills energy into the oceans each day. Roughly the same amount has to come out or the oceans will either warm or cool.
There are a finite number of ways the energy drilled into the ocean by the sun can leave. One of them is radiation: long wave. Back radiation reduces net radiation out of the oceans, which means that has to be made up by the other means of energy leaving or the oceans will warm. They’ve warming. They’re warming because atmospheric CO2 is going up.
JCH,
Wrong. Atmospheric back radiation in no way reduces the ocean’s ability to radiate or conduct its own energy which is at a higher temperature and energy state. Atmospheric back radiation effectively prevents the ocean surface from cooling below atmospheric emission temperature because atmospheric emission is at an intensity equal to TSI.
Much of the higher energy ocean emissions (ignoring conduction because it is lunch money and ocean surface emission intensity is maybe 110% of TSI) is absorbed by IR resonating molecules in the atmosphere. Some is converted to mass, thermalized. Most is reemitted but at atmospheric temperature. If the ocean actually succeeded in warming the atmosphere as it did from 1976 to 1997, that atmospheric warming would be able to warm the ocean surface. When the ocean fails to warm the atmosphere as has largely been the case since 1997 in spite of the ocean’s own average continued flywheel warming, and when 1/3 of historic human CO2 has been produced in this same period, it becomes all the more abundantly clear that CO2, let alone human CO2, is not warming the oceans.
Sorry, but it is you who are wrong. The “hiatus” is perfectly congruent with how and why the oceans are warming. Each addition to atmospheric CO2 has resulted in additional retention of SW energy in the oceans.
thebackslider | January 10, 2015 at 8:40 pm |
“Come now fellows. Lets get some things straight here.
What is known as “back radiation” has a net cooling effect on the ocean. It cannot warm the ocean, because the flow of energy is from the ocean to the atmosphere. IR can only penetrate the ocean skin by a few microns. This is the evaporative layer.”
Sorry but you are wrong. The surface skin is cooler than the ocean water below. The heat from the ocean below the surface skin tends to warm the very top by convection and conduction. If the top of the skin is cooler more heat will come up from below. The downwelling radiation from GHG’s is a major factor in preventing the surface of the skin layer from cooling and this keeps the ocean warmer.
http://scienceofdoom.com/2011/01/18/the-cool-skin-of-the-ocean/
JCH,
“Each addition to atmospheric CO2 has resulted in additional retention of SW energy in the oceans.”
Perhaps you can explain why your oceans prefer to retain their SW energy in the Indian and South Atlantic and expel it profligately everywhere else? These two oceans account for all the average ocean surface warming since 1997 while all the rest are flat or declining.
@ eadler2
I notice in your plot of the heat content of the upper 2000 m of the world’s oceans that the vertical tics represent 1e22 joules.
Now I am the first to admit that 1e22 joules are a heap of joules and when someone is faced with the fact that the ocean heat content has been rising at a steady rate of around 1e22 joules/year since 1970, the first reaction is to say ‘O. M. G.!! 1e22 joules per YEAR??? We gotta do something right now!!’
Then we ask, ‘With that precipitous rise, how long before our fishing boats begin bringing their catches in ‘well done’?’ A little figuring shows that it will be awhile.
An annual energy accumulation of 1e22 joules in the top 2000 m of ocean will raise its temperature by around 4 millidegrees C.
The chart shows that starting in the late 1940’s, we have been able to measure the heat content of the top 2000 meters of ocean accurately enough so that annual changes in ocean heat content of less than 1e22 joules can be detected and tracked.
Which implies that since the late ’40’s-early ’50’s we have had a data collection system deployed capable of measuring and tracking the annual TEMPERATURE of the top 2000 meters of the oceans of the world (necessary to calculate its heat content)–all of them–with a precision and accuracy in the millidegree range.
Have we?
For those who are dubious about accuracy, here is a graph from Levitius’ 2012 paper which shows error bars for the 700-2000M deep ocean measurements. The error is small enough to have confidence that the ocean heat content has been increasing in the past 15 years, during the so called ‘hiatus’ in global warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Levitus2012OHC.jpg
eadler2,
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-zze1q_HItsQ/VLRROSXgglI/AAAAAAAAMIw/VZQC0VeP71s/w858-h528-no/curry%2Btalk.png
Probably been increasing for 300+ years. Or are you a fan of the Mann?
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png
It is asserted above that the atmosphere can absorb IR and re-emit it. In the 1960s, my spectroscopy lectures would not accept this for quantised transitions. The other part was that the excitation energy had to be in excess if the emitted energy, or no reaction happened. Thus, UV is used to excite fluorescence in the visible, visible is used to excite fluorescence in the IR, etc. These lessons were mainly about atoms and electronic states. We stopped short of molecular absorption because of lack of clear knowledge then.
Questions. Can CO2 molecular absorption in the air be a repetitive process that moves steadily to higher altitudes without energy loss? Or must there be some energy loss (unless there is a window involved)? Can one not assume that the Beer-Lambert relationship works?
Can the CO2 molecule gain energy in the IR from a source that has lower energy than the least energetic, allowed, excited state transition? That is, can far IR create transitions in the near IR?
Then onto back radiation, I picture this mechanism. When clouds emit IR, some will likely hit the ground. The ground will, in turn, emit radiation, some upwards. This will heat the clouds above, which will then re-radiate, some going to the ground. So do we have this type of ping-pong game in reality, because the incremental loss of energy at each transition must eventually reach a limit, which might be that the repetitive upwards radiation component from the clouds approaches 100%. If there is a ping-pong effect, surely this will affect the watts per sq m used in diagrams like T&K produce – they depict only one back-and-forth.
How is the observed physics that IR is more or less fully absorbed by CO2 over a distance of tens of metres, tied in with atmospheric dimensions of kilometres?
I realise that I might be confusing quantum mechanics with continuous radiation as depicted by Wein’s Law and I would ask to be corrected where I have strayed.
Geoff, in the atmosphere we are dealing with IR photons at thermal wavelengths. These are therefore numerous being emitted by anything at normal temperatures. The molecules freely absorb and emit these, being in a thermal equilibrium distribution with a significant fraction in the vibrational state at any given time. For CO2, the important wavelength of 15 microns is in the middle of the thermal spectrum, which is why CO2 matters.
“Questions. Can CO2 molecular absorption in the air be a repetitive process that moves steadily to higher altitudes without energy loss? Or must there be some energy loss (unless there is a window involved)? Can one not assume that the Beer-Lambert relationship works?”
The Beer Lambert law works with light which has a lower energy than the average temperature of the gas it is travelling through. If the gas temperature were high enough to emit optical wave number light the Beer Lambert Law would fail. That is the case for IR in the CO2 absorption wave lengths in the atmosphere. It is thermally generated radiation. The temperature variation is slow enough that it controls the flux of IR radiaition in the atmosphere, rather than the Beer Lambert Law.
The Beer Lambert law would not work for optical radiation in the upper layer of the Sun either.
Further to my previous comment, here is a short technical description of how a CO2 laser works.
http://www.laserk.com/newsletters/whiteTHE.html
Your attention is drawn to the discussion of favoured and allowed transitions with these particular physics.
Question: Do modellers of radiation effects on the Earth’s atmosphere utilise this type of spectral information when building their models? Or is it mere arm-waving around broad brush matters of energy loss?
Note the comment that the primary excitation of the CO2 is from nitrogen in the gas mix, which is commonly heated by radio frequency waves. Note also the presence of helium in the mixture, to cool the mix and to lessen some competing transitions. The point is that gases other than CO2 play a major part in this laser process.
Question: Are other gases in the atmosphere properly treated in current radiative models for the Earth?
Many aspects of climate have been brought out by participants here but one vital connection has not been made, and that is how all this relates to the hiatus/pause/watchamacallit stoppage of warming. That stoppage goes against everything that Hansen firmly believed of global warming theory. For one thing, there is no warming now despite a constant increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.This is impossible according to the Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warning, but it is an observed fact. It has been going on for 18 years, long enough to tell us that the Arrhenius theory really does not work and must be discarded. And the current hiatus is not the only one known. Global mean temperature also stood still in the eighties and nineties for 18 years, the same length of time the current hiatus has existed. Check it out in figure 15 in my book. You don’t know this because you can only see it in satellite temperature curves. The usual ground-based sources (GISS, NCDC, HadCRUT) all show this period as a rising temperature regime. That is false warming they show, scientific fraud in my opinion, created by collusion among these three temperature sources. The only thing that explains the hiatus well is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, MGT. It differs from Arrhenius in being able to handle more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorbing in the infrared. Arrhenius can handle only one – carbon dioxide – and is incomplete. According to MGT, carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere form a joint optimum absorption window in the IR whose optical thickness is 1.87. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb, just as the Arrhenius theory says. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens, water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. This is a complete reversal of the claim that water vapor will increase warming. The introduced carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but the reduction of water vapor keeps total absorption constant and no warming is possible. And the warming made impossible this way would have been called greenhouse warming by Hansen and company. The fact that carbon dioxide has been unable to cause warming for the last 18 years has a direct bearing on the definition of sensitivity. If sensitivity is defined as the increase in temperature when atmospheric carbon dioxide is doubled you technically have to wait a century to find its value. But you could for example wait half a century and multiply the measured temperature increase by two and so on for shorter periods of time. This becomes especially simple when there is no temperature increase at all, such as during the present hiatus. We can simply state that CO2 sensitivity for any period of constant temperature is simply zero. Hence, for the last 18 years, sensitivity has been zero.
Arno,
The fact is that the heat gain of the earth has continued despite the talk of a “hiatus”. Ocean heating has continued unabated. Due to the predominance of La Nina’s in the last 15 years, the warmer surface water has been mixed into the deeper ocean.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/
Second, there has been warming of the surface if you include a careful look at areas that are not covered by weather stations, such as the Arctic.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/12/recent-global-warming-trends-significant-or-paused-or-what/
Finally your claim that Arrhenius did not deal with more than one GHG is wrong. He also included water vapor in his calculation in . That is part of how in 1896, he got a climate sensitivity on the high side of what we are getting today.
The whole premise of your post is totally wrong.
eadler2 | January 11, 2015 “Second, there has been warming of the surface if you include a careful look at areas that are not covered by weather stations, such as the Arctic.”
So if you have a careful look at places where you have no records nor thermometers you can measure the warming.
How can you measure it when you just said there are no measurements being done?
A careful look means measuring.
Not guessing, not modelling.
“There are ghosts if you include areas in the haunted house not covered by cameras” is not proof of ghosts, is it.
@Arno,
It differs from Arrhenius in being able to handle more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorbing in the infrared. Arrhenius can handle only one – carbon dioxide – and is incomplete.”
Here is an assessment of what Arrhenius did:
http://davidmlawrence.com/Woods_Hole/References/Rodhe_1997_Arrhenius_GreenhouseEffect.pdf
“Which were Arrhenius’ Most Significant Achievements
in this Field of Science?
– He was the first to quantify the influence of changes in the concentration
of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere on the temperature
of the Earth’s surface (3). The increase in surface temperature
caused by CO2 (and other infrared absorbing gases) in
the atmosphere as become known as the greenhouse effect (GE).
– In his calculations of the GE, he realized the important positive
feedback process caused by concomitant changes in water
vapor (4)….”
His calulations took a year by hand, and the climate sensitivity seems high relative to modern computer calculations, but it was a great achievement first.
Arno Arrak | January 10, 2015
” For one thing, there is no warming now despite a constant increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.This is impossible according to the Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warning, but it is an observed fact.”
Inconvenient, not impossible, you agree yourself that CO2 should put the temperature up.
You have mentioned a MGT feedback loop of diminishing water vapor as the only thing that explains the hiatus well but it could also occur with increasing water vapor as clouds might reflect more sunlight back restoring the new system to its temperature mean. Multiple causes for the pause are postulated.
“If sensitivity is defined as the increase in temperature when atmospheric carbon dioxide is doubled you technically have to wait a century to find its value.”
The IPCC predicted a temperature rise of 0.34 C a decade for the next 100 years based on a CO2 rise , 2.07 ppm per year out of currently 400 ppm ie 5%. 5% is not an insignificant [tiny] amount and 10 years is not ” long periods of time”. The air can changes by 20 degrees centigrade in 6 hours. A 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2 would take 3.6 minutes at that rate. A 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2 would take 3.6 minutes at that rate.
In other words the effects of the CO2 rise should be clearly and quickly obvious to all and should be happening now.
angech2014 | January 12, 2015 at 6:35 pm
No, angech, I do not agree that carbon dioxide ahould put the temperature up. I am simplt quoting what passes for conventional wisdom that is in fact crass stupidity. The reason why it is quite impossible for the Arrhenius theory to be right has to do with how laws of nature work. There is no way to turn them on or off. If the greenhouse effect is absent it is because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not able to capture the outgoing infrared radiation and use its energy to warm the atmosphere. The warmists know full well that this kills their greenhouse theory of global warming and are hard at work trying to explain away the hiatus. Anthony kept track of peer reviewed papers attempting to do that and stopped counting when the number reached fifty. Somewhere else it was stated that they are now up to 66, all of them failures. The ones I find fascinating are the ones looking for the “lost heat” in the ocean bottom. Not because of their ingenuity but because it is hard to understand how such stupidity can pass peer review. As I mentioned, Arrhenius greenhouse theory is a complete failure and belongs in the waste basket of history. Somehow you missed my point that the only correct interprertation comes from the Miskolczi greenhouse theory or MGT. It explains exactly why constant increase atmospheric carbon dioxide is inable to cause warming. Water vapor decreases to maintain the value of optical thickness when carbon dioxide increases. This reduces total absorption and prevents the absorption of IR by carbon dioxide from exceeding background levels needed to cause warming. IPCC has been touting water vapor as a helper of greenhouse theory and does not like to hear the truth. That hiatus/cooling/watchacallit has now been going on for 18 years and is obviously very effective. I suggest you forget that babble about multiple causes – it is nothing but a last ditch attempt to deny reality. Furthermore, this is not the first time it has happened. There was another standstill of global warming in the eighties and nineties that is not visible in ground-based temperature records such as GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT. That is because these three outfits have colluded to turn the eighties and nineties into a non-existent warming period. Fortunatelt they still don’t control the satellites. Both UAH and RSS satellites show that there was no warming for 18 years in the eighties and nineties. At that time ENSO was also active and created five El Nino peaks clearly visible in satellite records. In a case like this the global mean temperature is defined by drawing a straight line from the tip of the El Nino peak to the bottom of the adjascent valley and putting a dot in the middle. I did that for figure 15 in my book (What Warming?) and found that the dots lined up in a horizintal straight line 18 years long. Which means no warming for 18 years, same as our current hiatus has just reached. And if two hiatuses are not enough, I will give you one more. This one is due to Ferenc Miskolczi who found it in NOAA historical records. It began in 1948 and lasted for 61 years. At the same time, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 21.4 percent, just like it increased during the other two hiatuses as the Keeling curve shows. None of this is secret but it is simply information suppressed by the global warming gang to keep the faithful in the fold.
Steven Mosher | January 8, 2015 at 3:56 pm made a comment ” C02 adds a tiny bit which accumulates over long periods of time ” agreeing with a comment that the influence of CO2 on the TOE [Annual Temperature of the Earth )], if any, it is NOT dominant and is CERTAINLY not the ‘knob on the thermostat of the Earth’, as has been argued for the last 20-30 years.
The IPCC predicted a temperature rise of 0.34 C a decade for the next 100 years based on a CO2 rise , 2.07 ppm per year out of currently 400 ppm ie 5%.
Surely 5% is not an insignificant [tiny] amount and 10 years is not ” long periods of time”. A 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2 would take 3.6 minutes at that rate.
In other words the effects of the CO2 rise should be clearly and quickly obvious to all and should be happening now.
Missed out
in the morning, the air can go from 15 degrees to 35 degrees in 6 hours.The air changes by 20 degrees centigrade in 6 hours. A 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2 would take 3.6 minutes at that rate.
Agech2014,
“The IPCC predicted a temperature rise of 0.34 C a decade for the next 100 years based on a CO2 rise , 2.07 ppm per year out of currently 400 ppm ie 5%.”
Here is what the IPCC predicts for temperature depending on scenarios of emissions.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
“Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5. Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. Warming will continue to
exhibit interannual-to-decadal variability and will not be regionally uniform (see Figures SPM.7 and SPM.8). {11.3, 12.3, 12.4, 14.8}”
The scenario you are describing with an increase of 2ppM/year is RCP6, which is given a mean temperature change of 2.2C. (see table 2 of the link on page 21)
eadler2 | January 11, 2015
There is a difference between predicted and predicts
“Here is what the IPCC predicts for temperature depending on scenarios of emissions. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5.”
Actually
The worst case scenario for RCP8.5 [emissions increasing} is actually a 7.4 C degree rise in temp from 2046 to 2100, ie 54 years which would be 13.7 C degrees for 100 years. Best case 3 C degrees in 54 years or 6.1 C in 100 years.
What they predicted on average in the past was 0.34 c per decade on average and what they predict now is 0.21 C per decade though they do not actually put that figure up anymore.
It includes a RCP where we all stop existing and producing CO2, not very realistic,
Agech2014,
“Missed out
In the morning, the air can go from 15 degrees to 35 degrees in 6 hours.The air changes by 20 degrees centigrade in 6 hours. A 0.2 degree change for a 5% increase in CO2 would take 3.6 minutes at that rate.”
You should have left that comment out. It is totally silly.
The Sun comes up in the morning and on average the flux reaching the surface is about 320W/M2 in the daytime. The temperature drops 20C when the sun goes down.
What relevance does that have to a 5% change in CO2, which at equilibrium would make a change in temperature of about .0.21C at equilibrium based on a clmate sensitivity of 3C for doubling. How can you claim equilibrium would take 3.6 minutes?
What evidence do you have that the surface of the earth facing the sun is at thermal equilibrium during the daytime? We are gaining heat during the day and lose it at night. If the sun shined on a plot of earth for as long as it took to get to equilibrium, the temperature change would be way bigger than 20C.
eadler2 January 11, 2015 Sorry for being so snarky.
You said ” on average the flux reaching the surface is about 320W/M2 in the daytime”
No. Solar constant From Wikipedia,
“The average incoming solar radiation, taking that at any one moment half the planet does not receive any solar radiation, is one-fourth the solar constant (approximately 340 W/m²)”.
The average you quoted which is spread over the whole globe and is for 24 hours [ie 12 hours of no sunshine].
The actual heat at the equator is closer to the direct solar radiance so up to 4 times hotter.
“The actual direct solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere fluctuates by about 6.9% during a year (from 1.412 kW/m² in early January to 1.321 kW/m² in early July”
This massive amount of heat is why the atmosphere can heat up 20 degrees in 6 hours at the equator in summer
“What relevance to a 5% change in CO2, which at equilibrium would make a change in temperature of about .0.21C at equilibrium based on a clmate sensitivity of 3C for doubling.”
Relevance is that the atmosphere at the equator regularly heats up 20 degrees C in 6 hours which equates to that whole mass of air heating up 0.21 degrees C in 3.6 minutes. This strongly suggests that the air adapts to the temperature that the GHG theory specifies almost instantly with a constant heat source. ie that there should be no possible delay in a CO2 increase producing a temperature increase.
“What evidence do you have that the surface of the earth facing the sun is at thermal equilibrium during the daytime”
Some misunderstanding here? Thermal equilibrium is a concept where one can change the heat input to and the composition of a bounded system and it will tend to an equilibrium over time.
No one can say “the surface of the earth facing the sun is at thermal equilibrium during the daytime” when it is rotating . I certainly have not.
What I said was a detectable increase in CO2 will produce an almost instantaneous detectable increase in global temperature due to its GHG effect.
I see that once again A. Lacis has declined to share with us his thoughts, and scientific knowledge, regarding possible changes in non-radiative heat transfer from the surface.
Judy, forty minutes clearly is not enough to read and digest a scientific document. That is probably why you showed no reaction to this important conclusion of Miskolczi’s paper:
“…the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1924), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the Royal Society (2014), simply does not exist.”
I have been pointing out the same thing, based on the observation that the current hiatus of warming nullifies the validity of the Arrhenius greenhouse theory. It is impossible that you cannot see that this destroys the scientific rationale for the existence of the global warming movement. In my opinion it is an illegitimate movement that has done much harm and should be terminated. Would you be kind enough and tell us your thoughts about it? Refusing to react to it will not make it go away. Arno
“…the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the Royal Society (2014), simply does not exist.”
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Had to correct a date. Sorry for the typo. A
“…the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society (2014), simply does not exist.”
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Finally I have it right. This time I had to add the name of the National Academy of Sciences that was left out from the quote. NAS and RS are just two of the leading scientific organizations whose leadership has been taken over by the global warming movement. All of them lack scientific competence to correctly evaluate the global warming claims that they embrace. If they actually tried to evaluate them, that is, instead of swallowing groupthink whole to fill an empty brain.