Finally the modelers are catching up with the slow-down or pause in global warming over the last decade. Where the best estimate for the IPCC was 3.3 degrees C with a range of 2.0 to 4.5C, Otto et al have revised the best estimate to 2C, with a range of 1.2C – 3.9C.
Effectively the power of CO2 to warm just got 30% less, according to a team of researchers, many of whom have in the past have published more alarming papers. Remember “there is no debate” and “global warming is a fact” a lot “like gravity”. (And that gravitational constant g could be revised by a third soon, right?)
The Australian writes it up as “TEMPERATURE rises sparked by increased carbon dioxide levels will be lower than previously thought, an international research team has found”. The Age tells us that disaster is still coming but it will be slower. “Warming to take longer in reaching forecast levels”.
Otto et al looked at the global energy budget which means adding up atmospheric, ice, continent, and ocean energy. They compare it decade by decade since 1970, and argue that the long term equilibruim temperature response need to be revised down. The oceans are taking up more heat than anyone thought (or says Jo, given how little we know about the oceans, it could be that sneaky energy is tripping off to outer space?)
Observations of the global mean temperature change plotted against change in forcing minus heat uptake (ΔF–ΔQ) for the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) (a) and against ΔF for the transient climate response (TCR) (b), for each of the four decades 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s and for the 40-year period 1970–2009. Ellipses represent likelihood contours enclosing 66% two-dimensional confidence regions; best-fit points of maximum likelihood are indicated by the circles; and the curved thick and thin lines represent the 17–83% and 5–95% confidence intervals of the resulting one-dimensional likelihood profile in ECS (or TCR), respectively. All time periods are referenced to 1860–1879, including a small correction in ΔQ to account for disequilibrium in this reference period14. Straight contours show iso-lines of ECS (a) and TCR (b), calculated using a best-fit value of F2x of 3.44 W m−2 (also adjusted for fast feedbacks)10. Uncertainty in F2x is assumed to be correlated with forcing uncertainty in long-lived greenhouse gases10. To avoid dependence on previous assumptions16, we report results as likelihood-based confidence intervals.
For the number-junkies, one number that has been used ad lib as gospel for years appears to have changed. The hallowed forcing due to a doubling of CO2 was 3.7Wm^-2 is being lowered to 3.44Wm-2.
F2x is the forcing due to doubling atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
We use a value of F2x of 3.44 W m–2 (with a 5–95% confidence interval of ±10%) from ref. 10. Using a higher estimate of 3.7 W m–2 would shift up our estimated ranges for ECS and TCR, but only by about 0.1 K
The wide error bars on climate science knowledge (when it suits) mean that this 30% shift can be described as “in agreement”:
Using up-to-date data on radiative forcing, global mean surface temperature and total heat uptake in the Earth system, we find that the global energy budget6 implies a range of values for the equilibrium climate sensitivity that is in agreement with earlier estimates, within the limits of uncertainty.
Translated: we weren’t very sure of things, and we still aren’t, and our new estimates are lower, but we didn’t completely rule this out in the past, so therefore we were really right all along in a vague kind of way.
This gives the Age an excuse to tell us not to relax: “But the group’s modelling, using the most recent warming and ocean heat data, found the expected long-term temperature increase is consistent with earlier estimates.”
They don’t say that this means the tipping point (if there is one) is now further away, that there is less need to spend billions putting up windmills, that it changes the economic analysis for “action NOW!”. The cost benefit ratio of action to save our great great grandchildren from warmer winters just shifted.
It’s difficult working out climate sensitivity, no bones about it. My problem is with past statements that 97% of climate scientists were 90% sure what the climate would do a century from now, and the evidence was “overwhelming”.
Transient climate response is the immediate short term effect, and it’s got smaller:
The best estimate of TCR based on observations of the most recent decade is 1.3 °C (0.9–2.0 °C; dark red, Fig. 1b). This is lower than estimates derived from data of the 1990s (1.6 °C (0.9–3.1 °C); yellow, Fig. 1b) or for the 1970–2009 period as a whole (1.4 °C (0.7–2.5 °C); grey, Fig. 1b)
I think the climate sensitivity figure is still too high but it’s good to see estimates being revised in the right direction.
Reality bites back. The deniers were ahead of the climate experts. We said the models were exaggerating and we were right.
REFERENCES
Otto. A., Otto, F., Boucher, O., Church, J., Hegerl, G., Forster, P., Gillett, N., Gregory, J., Johnson, G., Knutti, R., Lewis, M., Lohmann, U., Marotzke, J., Myhre, G., Shindell, D., Stevens, B., Allen, M. (2013): Energy budget constraints on climate response, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo1836 [abstract] (Free PDF available with registration)
UPDATE
Nic Lewis published earlier versions at both Bishop Hill and Watts Up:
“Nic Lewis: Readers may recall that last December I published an informal climate sensitivity study at Bishop Hill, here. The study adopted a heat-balance (energy budget) approach and used recent data, including satellite-observation-derived aerosol forcing estimates.”
and even better it is getting media attention
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The media is getting warm?
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luke warm… but given thee attention span of the msm, the story will be cold tomorrow.
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This should be particularly pleasing to Jo, David and of course Lord Monkton as it has been the cornerstone of their main arguments all along.
Congratulations seem somehow hollow though as its kind of like spending 10 years in jail for a crime you didnt commit then having people expect you to be ecstatic about being released Id imagine.
Still credit where its due, I never doubted their position especially after listening to some of Lord Monkton’s early presentations on why the numbers were grossly over stated. I dont pretend to understand it in the depth that some of you do, but Jo, David and Lord Monkton have sure helped me along the learning curve and its been quite enjoyable to get such a “baptism of fire” in statistics, math and interpretation of data. I have recently been considering a degree in environmental science and much of that interest has come from wanting to better understand this topic.
So thanks and well done to you all, you stared down the monster and it looks like your winning.
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Safety, not quite out of jail but up for a parole hearing at least 😉
Monckton’s examples of how the IPCC corrupt graphs and data was so accessible to everyone and should be taught in high school of “what not to do” if you want any credibility in any scientific field.
Perhaps when the dust settles on this attack of the scientific method it may usher in a new era of real scientists and actual advancement of technologies to help solve some of humanities problems.
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Even the most verdantly-hued of the German Media are starting to pay attention and taking a hard look at the motives and methods employed by extreme ‘Warmist’ organisations.
And they don’t like what they see!
Look at some of the latest posts from Germany-based, Pierre Gosselin on his superb and,IMO, much under-read English-language ‘NoTricksZone’ site.
Link to NoTricksZone
Methinks, that a massive, trans-national, ocular-descaling is underway:)
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Roy great link but all I can say is WOW!
I mean it’s only been 77 years since the last time this evil thinking took place.
Oh well at lest we know their MO this time.
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And its like I have been saying for some time. Left Governments should be choosing an energy policy that secures low cost power for their people and promotes jobs and industry. So much damage has been done chasing fairies in the garden, so many people out of work, so many economies driven to breaking point. Finally the penny is dropping and left politics is remembering what the #@$% it is supposed to stand for.
Great link, thanks, I am reminding some friends and family with it that they can now stop regarding me as the “crazy climate guy” and start realising they have been taken for a long ride off a short jetty.
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my comment to me 20 up thumb is a record but with no down thumbs as well is a record I don’t want to keep on any forum. I didn’t expect to ever become vacuous!
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Happy now?
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You get used to it over time.
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So, they’ve tweaked their models, hindcast using “recent” data (not the severely contaminated NOAA output one would hope)and found that the hindcast now matches the historical data … fitting the curve to the historical data … wiggling the elephant’s trunk.
Now, what about those errant algorithms that are ‘tweaked’ to represent only the modelers’ misunderstanding of the physics ? Time to trash those and admit that for 30 years of rent-seeking they’ve not progressed much beyond where they started … but they’ve had a hell of a good time getting there !
Hilarious how they’re back-tracking to find a seat before the music stops … and its going to become ever so more evident as the evidence of the misfeasance catches up with them.
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Looks like the “evidence of the misfeasance” that is catching up with “them” is being published by “them”. Peer review scammers!
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What?
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This should be fun watching the warmbots debunk the warmbots or is the new normal GA?
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well name calling aside, it is the old normal of new evidence building on old evidence or changing the theories etc etc.
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GA,
Oh my, the term warmbot is now considered name calling?
To rephrase the question, is this paper considered to have come from one of the good guys ergo a sign of a shift in the consensus (the 97% of climate scientist agree stuff….) or is this paper considered to be nothing more than climate change denialist bumkum?
Should i be asking Cock these questions?
Cheers
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Sorry should read Cook…………….
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It was funnier the first time!
Your good guy, bad guy question is not worthy of response.
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GA,
I am simply asking for your opinion so let me rephrase again…….in your opinion do you believe the scientific consensus on AGW will shift in relation to this paper or do you believe this paper will be largely ignored?
I am not asking too much am i? If you do not wish to participate in this then simply say so, i personally think this paper will be ignored by the climate change peddlers but for some reason i wanted your opinion in the end i am sorry i bothered to ask.
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You are asking me to predict what papers will come out in the future and their impact and content so a simple answer is no, it wont shift as a consequence (did you mean consequence?) of this paper. This paper is incremental in scale and is fixed in time (ie it does not have a broad scope), and I suppose might one day be seen as a significant start point of a directional movement. If I were to pick a paper’s future significance a priori, it would be by luck not with skill.
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I believe any contrary science will be ignored by the high command behind the propaganda peddlers. After all, they’ve been pushing this for some 30 years, and spent quadrillions. People don’t willingly let go of power – they only submit to a far greater force,
e.g. – would a millionaire go back to a railway engineer’s job?
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What “contrary science”, Tim?
Otto et al says the same thing previous sensitivity studies have said.
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Margot,
I’m referring to hundreds of valid contrary opinions on sites like this one and WUWT, for instance. Should I list them all?
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True that. Its quite ordinary for science to move with the available evidence. I guess the surprise is whos moving.
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Yes, but it’s not “ordinary” for amateurs to be pointing it out years ahead of experts.
Don’t get too excited. Those models still don’t predict the climate.
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spewin’ you weren’t cited?
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I aim higher. They are still overestimating.
; -)
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do you have any evidence for the “overestimating” or is it jus a hunch? i.e. if you were a betting lady that’s where your money would be?
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Mattb, Evidence? I realize this is your first visit, but there is a tag called “The Evidence” in the top right column… ; -)
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Ooo, Ouch! That was a bit of a low blow Jo. 😉
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to be fair it was just a blog link to dubious assertions.
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Still have no evidence to cite in response eh Matt?
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How about Otto et al (2013)?
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Jo, “They are still overestimating” Judging from some reports I suggest they might have the sign (+/-) the wrong way around. Graham.
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They did not add their two’s compliment correctly?
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oops, I forgot the link
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/163-new-discovery-nasa-study-proves-carbon-dioxide-cools-atmosphere.html
Graham
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it had more credibility without the link.
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A wonderful tool for ‘climate science’ these retrospective predictions, aren’t they? Were would they be without them?
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Your money quote, Jo … shouldn’t be too hard to track down those 75 miscreants who have sullied the Scientific Method and request an explanation … wonder what they would say now ?
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I told you that when the world finds out what we have been up to they could hang us ….. Climategate hacked emails
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Dennis, do you know which one of the “players” said this?
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MSM & scientific “establishment” forge ahead nonetheless:
20 May: SMH: Bloomberg: Rising heat to increase NY deaths: Nature study
Manhattan may see deaths from heat rise by as much as 20 per cent in the 2020s and 90 per cent by the 2080s in a worst-case scenario, a study found.
The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, was done by Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Mailman School of Public Health. Higher winter temperatures may cut cold-related mortality, though net temperature-related deaths may still climb by a third by the 2080s, according to a statement detailing the findings.
“This serves as reminder that heat events are one of the greatest hazards faced by urban populations around the globe,” said Radley Horton, a climate scientist at the Earth Institute’s Center for Climate Systems Research and a co-author…
Daily records from Central Park in New York show that average monthly temperatures increased 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2000, the statement said. Last year was the warmest on record in Manhattan, it said. In cities, heat is concentrated by buildings and pavement. The temperature in New York is expected to climb by as much as 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2050s, the statement said…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/rising-heat-to-increase-ny-deaths-nature-study-20130520-2jvbb.html
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Is it any wonder that MSM is struggling to remain afloat in business
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As Otto et al says,
In other words, low sensitivity estimates are not only not established in the literature, they are pretty much ruled out by this study.
So, I guess we have general agreement that:
– Human activity releases CO2
– CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere
– That increase once it reaches 560ppm will result in a minimum of 1.2 degree of temperature increase.
Or…do we still have some who want to…erm…”argue against” this?
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Now it’s 560 ppm and 1.2 degrees? What happened to 450 ppm, 3 degrees raise, or 6 degrees as Hansen sometimes predicts. Also, it will take over 80 years to reach 560 ppm, assuming no change in what we use for energy. I’m not arguing against, I’m asking when the latest change in the established science occurred? It really is hard to keep up with (no sarc).
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What’s hard to keep up with?
Where did you get “450ppm, 3 degree raise” from?
Having asked that, “450ppm, 3 degree raise” is still within the uncertainty range of this latest paper, anyway.
There are now over a dozen different studies that reveal proposed ranges for climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2. It’s worth reminding ourselves that,
– all of them rule out both “no warming” and “cooling”.
– all of them have an intersecting range of potential values for climate sensitivity that lie between 2 and 3 degrees.
– nobody with a sceptical frame of mind would choose any single on of these studies and hold it up as “the right one”.
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LOL … where is the factual evidence that this is directly as a consequence of the activities of mankind ? Don’t bother, we all know already that there is no direct evidence … they don’t know … they merely make assumptions to support their meme. Before you try it on, the models count for nought.
I’ll quote Richard Verney at Bishop Hill:
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The effect of CO2 is well-known: it is a greenhouse gas.
Your comment seems off-topic for this thread, where we are discussing Otto et al, a study into the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 levels.
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Maggot, “greenhouse gas” is a nearly worthless expression born in the need for mass media simplicity and propaganda value.
The “effect” of co2 is not the only “effect” in our atmosphere. The combined effects of all components of our atmosphere are NOT “well-know”. You are a fool to say so much more the fool to think so.
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Mark, you are wrong: the term “greenhouse effect” was coined by Alexander Graham Bell in order to convey to his audience the effects of greenhouse gases. It’s an expression that is easily understood and has a precise meaning.
You seem to have gotten back on-topic towards the end of your comment: sensitivity is exactly what we are talking about.
And sensitivity is positive – all the studies agree that it is very, very unlikely to be less than about 1.2 degrees.
In other words, the net effect of the well-documented greenhouse effect caused by a doubling of CO2 is somewhere between 1 and 4 degrees. This study reinforces that message.
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Perhaps Margo can supply a little more information on Bell’s use of the term “greenhouse effect”. In searching for more information, I find only one sentence attributed to Bell:“We would have a sort of a greenhouse effect. The net result is that the greenhouse becomes a hot-house.” (Talking about burning fossil fuels) There is nothing more.
I believe what is more accurate is “Alexander Graham Bell” first used the term and it was picked up by others.
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I’m sorry, Sheri, where I am from, the term “coined” is quite close in meaning to “first used”.
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Actually, I find that Arrhenius is credited with the actual “coining” of the term. There are other sources that say early 1800’s scientists coined it. At the time it was first used, it did not have a negative connotation. The origin of the term in very early climate study may explain why it is such a poor term and why even the supposedly educated use a physical greenhouse or aquarium to demonstrate the effect. The earth has no glass walls or top, so the comparison is really very poor.
I do find some references to Alexander Graham Bell using the term, and a review of a biography of Bell where it notes that Bell did not coin the term as the biographer claims. It seems most likely Bell did not originate the term but rather sources now quote him as using it in order to “name drop”. After all, everyone knows Bell, few know Arrhenius.
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Margot says:
Am not! Green houses work by stopping convection. Tell me how that relates in any way to what co2 supposedly does in the atmosphere?
Really? A.G Bell? Prove that he was the “coiner”.
Easily understood but wrong. That is propaganda.
NO! It does what all effective propaganda does it places in the mind an image that appeals to emotion or subconscious mind. It has a precise function when used by warmists as propaganda but it is most un-precise as a scientific descriptor of a process in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Margot continues:
Really? Why have we not burned up yet?
More guesswork.
Not “all the studies” either only the ones you agree with. Further, the guesswork isn’t working out too well because we aren’t warming as much or as fast as the models have suggested. (models being refined guesswork) and water in all forms are not modeled well at all. Real scientists know this and admit that water vapor and other effects not “well” understood may reduce or negate effects of co2.
Well documented? Is that the same as well understood? This study does exactly as Joanne Nova has stated: The skeptics were right.
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Ah, I see – was Mark unaware that the mechanism that causes a greenhouse to heat up is a different mechanism to the one that causes the atmospheric “greenhouse effect”.
So – now you know, right Mark? The atmospheric greenhouse effect is not about convection.
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Ha Ha heeee heee [SNIP], you are positively thick and so willing to demonstrate. Airspace between your ears nothing more.
Whilst previous to this post 5.1.1.1.6 I would not have guessed your IQ to be very high, the post confirms that my guess in the past would have been at least 50% too high.
Not just a Troll but a really dumb one at that. Sorry for you…
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Actually, 350 was the original, drop-dead point according to activists. The degree increase stated by Hansen and other rages all the way to 6 degrees. I don’t know if Hansen actually wrote a paper with the 6 degree increase or he just tells the news media that number for dramatic effect.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/06/two-degree-global-warming-limit-is-called-a-prescription-for-disaster/
http://climateinteractive.org/scoreboard/scoreboard-science-and-data/graphs-possibilities-for-the-global-climate-deal
I do not see how it can be “settled” if the estimates keep changing and the amount of increase keep changing. I can pull up numerous studies with very different projections. Such variation is generally indicative of a young science with a large number of unknowns. As science becomes settled, the variation decreases.
This is like selling a car with estimated mpg of 25 to 50 mpg, with a 100,00 to 150,000 mile “lifespan” and a resale value that ranges from $10,000 to $13,000 (independent of condition). It’s selling a car that we really have no idea how long it will last, how much gas it uses, etc. Climate change science is just so many estimates, it’s hard to tell what to really expect.
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Been making a living for years finding and fixing problems. Problems in software, problems in hardware, mechanical problems, electrical problems, etc. etc.
The first thing one must do to determine a problem exists is understand how something works normally. So far none of these climate “scientists” have demonstrated that they have the first clue as to what is “normal” for the “climate.” They don’t know what a fraction of the variables involved are, incorrectly weight the ones they do use, and constantly adjust their models to try and make them fit reality after each time they fail.
Skeptic: So what’s the problem?
Climate scientist: It’s CO2, it’s going to overheat the world.
Skeptic: And you know this how?
Climate scientist: Because we’re experts, trust us on this.
Skeptic: But your models are wrong, and things are not warming as you claimed they would just a few years ago.
Climate scientist: Well that’s because there’s something temporarily altering things to where the CO2 isn’t having the expected effect.
Skeptic: I see, and what is this thing that is preventing the CO2 from warming things as you had predicted?
Climate scientist: Well we don’t really know, but trust us on this we are after all experts.
Skeptic: Well if you don’t know why your models don’t predict anything accurately, don’t know what is causing temperatures not to behave as you claimed they would even though CO2 is still rising, and you have had to finally admit that we were correct in that you overestimated your “forcings” you’re not much of an expert…
The short version of all of this for anyone who is paying attention, these “scientists” are telling us there is a problem with something that they don’t understand well enough to know if there is a problem. I certainly wouldn’t let them work on anything I’m responsible for.
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The study lowers the values for Equilibrium and Transient climate sensitivity; these are defined by the IPCC as:
With Trenberth’s new paper about heat being stored at the bottom of the ocean being proved wrong there is, therefore, no “additional warming commitment” to add to the Transient climate sensitivity figure. That is, there is no T2x. And since we have had about 0.7C of their estimate of 1.3C for TCR that leaves about 0.6C in the system if CO2 reaches 580ppm.
Really, at the end of the day, this paper is just as speculative as the papers preceding it which had a higher climate sensitivity; it’s simply less speculative and we will see more of this because the data is absolutely destroying the prior sensitivity estimates.
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It’s difficult to understand how you can conclude that this latest study, which agrees with previous sensitivity studies, could be “absolutely destroying the prior sensitivity estimates”.
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Read what I wrote Margot; I said data, for instance temperature data, not Otto et al.
And are you mad [RQ], this “latest study” does not agree with previous “sensitivity studies”.
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I apologise, I assumed that you were referring to the data that is the subject of this post, which obviously agrees with past sensitivity studies.
Which data were you referring to?
This latest study uses the period 1970-2009 and finds roughly the same results as previous studies. It contrasts those results against the result obtained from using *only* the data from 2000-2009 and shows how using the smaller amount of data gives a slightly lower estimate for sensitivity.
The study also says,
Now, would you prefer to draw conclusions from all the available data, or from a small subset thereof, I wonder?
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“The Age tells us that disaster is still coming but it will be slower.”
As long as it’s coming. I wouldn’t like to think we’re not doomed.
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Oh we will still be doomed, they will just have to find a different way of explaining how its still catastrophic.
I think the thing I have become most skeptical of over the past few years is the ability of so called “mainstream” science to actually act scientifically, let alone honestly.
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“The Age tells us that disaster is still coming but it will be slower.”
The Otto et al paper claims the climate sensitivity in current models is too high if the Age understand this statement then they are nothing but liars if they dont then they are too stupid to make such comments.
But hey this is just one paper of many that make the same claim and we all know how a consensus works……97% of climate scientists have to agree the sensitivity value is too high before they will change their collective minds. One, two or even a two dozen papers is not enough.
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you mean that the Age asked an author (Church) of the paper along with Sherwood to get these comments which you mischaracterise as, “The Age tells us that disaster is still coming but it will be slower.”
”With the new findings, atmospheric temperature will still be well above two degrees above pre-industrial levels if emissions continue in a business as usual approach.”
”By assuming that this behaviour will continue, they calculate that the climate will warm about 20 per cent more slowly than previously expected, although over the long term it may be just as bad, since eventually the ocean will stop taking up heat,”
”So while their conclusions are interesting, they need to be taken with a large grain of salt until we see what happens to the oceans over the coming years,”
I like the last comment. Basically saying he has no idea what is happening in the oceans but when we know, we’ll know.
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Ah finally a statement which shows commitment, the bottom line is that the sole purpose of this study is to simply distract the public from the shortfalls in the theory.
“Dont look at the real world temps, lookie over here at this new fancy study”
Its a crock GA just like all the rest, if sensitivity to CO2 is lower then the temps at each doubling (and the increments in between) need to be lower ergo we will not reach the predicted temps by the IPCC et al for teh same given amount of CO2.
But yet the authors conjure up some bullshit designed to befuddle the readers, what more evidence of fraud and corruption does one need?
The take home message from this latest bile is this: The reason why the temps have not risen for 17 years is because the sensitivity is lower than expected, even so this is still what we predicted (we still know what we are talking about) and nothing much has changed (as the AGE article).
The best thing that i like about it is they have used an unverified, unvalidated model to show errors in another unverified, unvalidated model……………oh the irony, befuddled fools fooling bewildered idiots.
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Gee Aye says: … you mischaracterise as, “The Age tells us that disaster is still coming but it will be slower.”
The Age said:”The rate of global warming caused by rising greenhouse gas levels could be slower than previously thought, but will still result in the same eventual higher temperatures as earlier forecast, new research has found.
Gee Aye, if the Age has changed it’s tune and announced that global warming is not going to be costly and disastrous do send me that link.
The Age, Church and Sherwood all failed to mention that if timing is slower, it rather changes all our cost benefit imperatives. What if we have time to wait and figure out how the climate works before we cripple our economy….
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it was reporting on a paper and reporting the authors’ comments. It was not an opinion piece. The piece you quote from the reporter precedes the quotes and then uses the quotes as evidence for the statement. It might well be biased but The Age is not telling us anything that is not actually being said.
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Gee Aye, When I say “The Age tells us a disaster is coming…” I’ve got ten years of data. Come back to me with a list of skeptical stories The Age has published, ones that say “no disaster is likely”. Then I’ll treat them as reporters.
It might be labelled “News” but if they never report the other point of view, it is an Opinion Piece.
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not if the other point of view is only available as opinion and not news.
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So publications with hundreds of thousands of readers, 1100 peer reviewed articles, and analysis by professors of geology, meteorology, physics and chemistry is not “news” right? The Age thinks hair style bloggers are news worth reporting. But they miss the revolution online and the mass uprising of scientists.
The new media is taking over the job they used to do.
If these journo’s weren’t failing so dismally to report the news, I wouldn’t have a blog.
What kind of reporter decrees that government experts make news, and independent experts just make opinions?
A useful idiot working for the God of Big-Government…
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We are talking about the article that you’ve featured above aren’t we?
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So in the world according to Gee, it is not newsworthy that the prognosications of climate science may well have been in error, that billions of dollars may have been inappropriately frittered away on pie-in-the-sky schemes of no value, that the impending death of the human race may have been oversold, the pudding may have been over-egged, the lily may have been gilded?
Why on earth would the general public have any interest whatsoever in stories of that nature? They’re only dumb cattle, right Gee? Better left to their betters to decide on their behalf how their money should be spent, how their lives should be organised, what knowledge they should be exposed to, what is a newsworthy priority for them in their lives?
I would suggest that you are painting yourself into an intellectual corner with your continued failure to acknowledge reality. What has been happening to public perception and opinion of science, economics and politics in the last 5-6 years has been a systemic failure of each of these disciplines to police themselves to the public’s satisfaction. They have failed to hold themselves to account, have lacked rigour and integrity, and the price they will pay will be grave indeed unless they adopt a different tactic- i.e. being open, honest, forthright and vigorously defend the principles under which they have traditionally been maintained. No amount of obfuscation, deception or spin can avoid the likely recriminations and consequences should this not occur voluntarily.
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Winston, better to paint oneself into a corner than to venture out without a brush.
You cover a lot there but I agree that some investigative journalism of the sort you discuss is worthy and that fairfax and pretty much all msm fails to do well (not only on this topic). The fact that The Age reported on this publication is not really relevant to whether they report on other things or not.
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Humour is your saving grace, Gee.
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Mind you I like to paint with a very broad brush, Gee. Its easier to hit your target.
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Be careful that your broad brush approach to debate is not the rhetorical equivalent of this artist’s work http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/jesus-painting-restoration-makes-christ-1276477
07
[climate works before we cripple our economy….]
Wow, so was Whyalla actually wiped out when those $100 lamb roasts of Barnyardy’s cam on the market???
You do come out with some right wing tosh on occasion you know.
213
Dumbass…..
30
Americanisms again – where do they come from?
Why not just answer the question?
“No, Whyalla wasn’t wiped from the map. Anybody who said it would, was obviously lying”.
24
South Australia, where I originally hail from, is well on the way to the highest electricity prices in the world, directly as a combined consequence of a Quixotic love affair with intermittent wind power and the ritual seppuku of RET’s. The Olympic Dam development (and its potential boon to SA’s economy and employment) has been permanently put on hold, due directly to the cost of renewable power and the lack of certainty in the availability of said power, and thus the costs of building a reliable power generating capacity independently that would have fallen foul of a raft of government taxes that effectively made the whole project economically unviable.
The fact that Whyalla still has a pulse, for the moment mind you, doesn’t mean that the slow acting poison that has been injected into its lifeblood by Labor’s stupidity or malfeasance (depending on your perspective) won’t eventually kill it, and stone dead. If it does die and become a ghost town, in the fullness of time, no doubt you’ll be heartily pleased while sitting in your insular inner city existence , and I’m sure you won’t be around here accepting your share of responsibility for the lives you’ve contributed to impacting negatively upon. The people of Whyalla are just collateral damage after all in a “feel-good” intellectual wank from parasites, liars and ignorant hacks without a shred of pragmatic sensibility to draw upon. That Aussie enough for you?
40
Winston
After that I would say , definitely Australian enough
and
what’s more we could probably qualify as an Honorary Novocastrian.
KK 🙂
00
Winston, that is not even remotely true. Firstly, SA doesn’t have the highest prices in the world, not the least thanks to the 9% cut in prices 6 months ago.
Secondly, the prices is high by comparison with other countries for the same reason other states’ prices are about the same price: the Aussie dollar is massively strong at the moment.
As far as what the power companies are paying for – wind towers have nothing to do with it – it’s the large amount of spending on grid upgrades that did it.
I’m guessing you read that in the paper or something and had an episode of scepticism-fail?
23
.
A 30% reduction of estimates.
This will them a 30% increase in the number of Climate Festivals they can attend.
70
Also this report
http://www.news.com.au/world-news/dire-outlook-despite-pause-in-global-warming/story-fndir2ev-1226646384051
On the radio Sherwood acknowledged in relation to ocean warming that the models and data do not include sub sea volcanic activity in the temeprature figures and that this makes the ocean temperature data even more difficult to interpret.
At least we are seeing a reduction in the “certainty” of the language. Thats a good start.
Also if you look at some of Sherwood’s previous statements, its nice to see him saying things like “grain of salt” in realtion to sources he has previously regarded as beyond question.
90
The radio?
I missed that. Did you note the station and the time? Surely not the ABC.
I’d like to here him say that.
20
Hear, hear!
20
It was ABC Radio National news at about 1030-11am ish yesterday. Surprised me too thats why I took notice.
20
I would just like to add something here, and it’s important how much electrical power generation relates to what we are being told about the warming, as 40% of all CO2 emissions come from coal fired power generation.
Notice that now these temperature models are indicating a slowing of warming over the last few years.
Here I would like to point out that while these climate models are now indicating a slowing of warming, emissions of CO2 have been rising in that coal fired power sector, and in fact, rising quite dramatically.
So, what I have done here is a small exercise to show you how emissions have increased and this is just from electrical power generation from coal fired power sources, As a source I have used the International Energy Statistics at the U.S. Energy Information Administration site and while their data only goes as far as 2010/11, I have added the extra year, using the same rise as for the previous year.
So here we have the increase in CO2 emissions just from coal fired power. The first number indicated is for the year. The second number indicated is the World total increase in CO2 emissions, and the third number (in brackets) is the rise just for China.
2006/7 – 1,010 Million tons – (600 Million tons)
2007/8 – 830 Million tons – (420 Million tons)
2008/9 – 1,060 Million tons – (450 Million tons)
2009/10 – 1,150 Million tons – (470 Million tons)
2010/11 – 1,250 Million tons -(490 Million tons)
2011/12 – 1,350 Million tons – (520 Million tons)
So, as you can see, these are no small numbers. While CO2 emissions are rising by seemingly large numbers, it now seems the models are backpedaling, showing warming is in fact slowing.
To me anyway, this is a pretty big pointer that CO2 is not really the culprit here.
Tony.
290
Spot on Tony, but for most of us, we have been having difficulty working out how CO2 ever was seen as the culprit.
No doubt we will have someone much smarter pop in soon and explain why its still a CO2 driven climate.
150
Small addition here in the form of an explanation.
The increases you see there are the increase from the previous year’s new total.
Tony.
30
The temperature changes and the rise in CO2 have never been closely correlated.
Lately, they seem to have been divorced.
130
Temporarily separated, according to the climate scientists.
50
Divorced for something like 700 years.
00
It’s been a long “temporary”.
10
@Tony,
The rising CO2 levels are nothing more than Henry’s Law* in action. The CO2 is simply a delayed outgassing from the MWP.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_law
60
I think you might be right there, Ban. There’s an interesting article on ‘Watts Up With That’ that presents a similar argument here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/09/a-study-the-temperature-rise-has-caused-the-co2-increase-not-the-other-way-around/ Worth looking at.
60
Jo,
This is a misleading impression given by activists, such as John Cook and Michael Mann. The 97% claim is from the Doran & Zimmerman 2009 that asked two questions.
Anyone who claims, or implies, that 97% of scientists support the predictions of climate models is making a grossly misleading statement. At best it shows extreme incompetence in interpreting statistical data.
130
The questions are so vague that even avowed skeptics of GHG theory would probably answer in the affirmative for both questions.
1. Certainly they picked low hanging fruit suggesting that global temperatures have risen since the Maunder minimum- so even “the slayers” would agree with that, as would anyone looking at CET, or any of the other long temperature records. Since GHG theory contends that anthropogenic causes of temp rise due to CO2 began to be significant after 1945, why frame the question from the 1700’s if not to intentionally trawl for a positive response?
2.”Human activity” can mean anything from UHI, to deforestation,to particulate pollution,to any number of sundry other factors which might influence climate and therefore global temperatures in a “significant” way, even 0.1degC could be considered significant.
The whole purpose of the study was to frame questions that most reasonable persons, regardless of their beliefs, would find it difficult to answer in the negative. That they found two who did was miraculous, out of a mere 77.
100
Winston,
I quite agree with what you say here. I would recommend all readers who have not read the original paper to do so. Less than 800 words long (1530 words including references) it is very easy to read. Anyone who has listened to a single lecture in on conducting questionnaires, or on statistical inference, should be able to spot some of the errors. That people like Lewandowsky and Cook should use it as a basis for claiming anyone who disagrees with them is “anti-science” demonstrates scale of their dishonesty.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
80
Yes, Manic (if I can use your diminuitive),
Its exactly like an iridologist using homeopathy as verification of his/her theories. Cook and Lew using “anti-statistics” to validate the “anti-science” of climastrology.
You’ve gotta hand it to them for chutzpah. Even if I believed in CAGW, I’d still call them out as purveyors of rubbish. They do their cause more harm than skeptics ever could through holding them to account.
40
Winston
Might I suggest a better analogy? Using opinion polls is a bit like in a criminal trial, the prosecution dispensing with the direct, forensic, evidence in favor of a petition of the local police officers declaring that
Like all analogies there are limitations. This one breaks down due to climatologists not having high quality evidence to disregard.
20
Just so.
10
The doom delayed, alarmists are still facile believers in the ultimate doomsday when CO2 is doubled from pre-IR times. That belief system rests of shaky foundations given that the feedbacks in our climate system are likely to be negative. Till that is known with some degree of certainty the scaremongering is childishly naive.
However they seem to be blindsided about a very important statistic, namely the relationship between human fossil fuel emissions of CO2 and the historical atmospheric concentration of CO2. What is that relationship and what causes the large discrepancy? Is it just possible that the CO2 emitted courtesy of us humans has the effect of not only limiting atmospheric CO2 increases but acting on the biosphere in ways as yet not quantitatively understood? Who knows? But until these scientists know more about how our climate system, in all its complexity, works they are only making fools of themselves by their ignorance.
If we check the decadal change in atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 1963 to 2013 then calculate the change in the decadal percentages we get , starting from 1963 to 1973 and compared to 1973 to 1983, then doing the same up to 2013 we get increases of: 33%, 11%, 23% and 15%. That was happening when worldwide increases in CO2 emissions have in recent decades been estimated at up to 58%.
However one plays with the CO2 emission data and atmospheric CO2 data there is a substantial “missing link”.
http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-dioxide-levels.htm
70
As I stated earlier, they are claiming there is a problem with something that they simply do not understand well enough to know if there is in fact a problem. They are then relying on their status as “experts” to b.s. everyone into accepting their view because it:
a – makes them more important than they would otherwise be
b – provides a means to an end for the activists among them, which appears to be many, to attain their goals
c – brings in grant money
Many of them have burned their bridges behind them with the result there is no going back. They MUST continue down this road because to do otherwise, i.e. to admit they were wrong, didn’t know, lied, etc. is to vindicate those they have attacked over the years and the repercussions and fallout they are going to face… it will be ugly.
10
Yes, that is what I have said also. The climate scientists drew a line in the sand and dared the skeptics or anyone to cross it. Some people did cross the line–and the warmists discovered that their “wizard” was actually a tiny little person hiding behind a degree and bluster. They can’t back down, even when they realize they are wrong, without admitting they followed and participated in a fraud. Their lives are invested in this. They have to keep up the fight until the last man is down and then claim they were always right, but lies and politics destroyed “real” science. Then the whole thing fades into a distant memory and the climate scientists maintain their “dignity” and remain the wronged party.
10
Sorry this is out there but important.
Surprise, surprise the journos have been found out. Most are Labor/ green supporters and the billion $ plus per annum ABC is the worst. Geeezzzz who would have thought, Grrrrrrrrr?
If that isn’t corruption what is? The ABC is funded by the poor taxpayer to promote Labor and the Greens. Could you even dream up a more blatant fraud?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/anything_but_conservative_survey_confirms_all_you_suspected_about_the_abc/#commentsmore
Time we split this corrupt Labor /Green mob and funded both left and right sides and let it rip. That means about 500 million dollars each.
Couldn’t be a fairer way to fix this embedded Labor/ Green corruption.
141
This is laughable. The “skeptic” arguments have ranged from rejection of GHG theory to a range of nonsensical unscientifically founded claims of sensitivity being low while at the same time saying temperatures were warmer in the past. And Nova has courted all those opinions, theories, beliefs and their associated conspiracy theories here. She still posts stuff from Bob Tisdale who claims the warming is mostly natural. So are you now going to reject Tisdale’s claims Jo, or can you explain to us all how it works in with what “you know” about climate sensitivity being low?
Do you Jo? Let’s see your paper demonstrating your physics or is it just an “I feel it in my bones” thing?
230
Look, I know it will kill you to actually read my site, but if you can’t read it, perhaps you shouldn’t comment?
Far from courting the opinions of those who reject the GHG theory, I explain why I think they’re wrong over and over. And I’m sorry I can’t give you the therapy you need to read the post “The Evidence”. But I’ll toss in that link for you to ignore for the 27th time.
As for Bob, I have no idea what you are on about. Most skeptical scientists think the warming is predominantly natural, and I have posted hundreds of links to papers supporting that.
If you can afford the therapy, try to find someone who can help you with your language. While you talk about Jo having her “own physics” (when I agree with the alarmists on the physics) you are feeding your delusion. I’m sure you still call us deniers in your head, same story.
It doesn’t matter what I say or do. If I post your error-filled comment it will embarrass you, but if I don’t, you’ll think I’m “hiding it”. If I agree with you on the science, you’ll say I deny it. If I link to peer reviewed papers, you’ll say they’re no good because they don’t have my name on them and I must publish them myself. But if they had my name on them, they would be no good because they had my name on them, right?
This can’t be good for your self-esteem, but I guess if you were proud of what you wrote, you wouldn’t hide behind anonymity.
331
“…Far from courting the opinions of those who reject the GHG theory…”
Jo,
It would be a mistake to assume all who challenge the radiative greenhouse hypothesis are “slayers”. It may also be a mistake to assume “slayers” are sceptics 😉
The “slayer” tactic has been very effective. Sceptics are willing to discuss measurement, sensitivity and feed backs, but few are now willing to challenge the foundation of the hoax. However there is a hole in the radiative greenhouse hypothesis so big you could drive a B-Double full of polar bears through it. The problem is that some of the AGW promoters have been aware of the issue from before 1995 and are prepared to go to great lengths to derail any discussion of it.
18
Konrad,
I am interested in finding out more about this alleged hole in the greenhouse theory. Can you provide a link to documentary evidence or observational evidence which proves its fundamental flaw?
Also please note, “all who challenge the radiative greenhouse hypothesis” really can be assumed to be “slayers” because that is the definition of a Slayer; it’s the term coined by Alan Siddons to describe the group that doubts that GHGs can increase the surface temperature – ie anyone who doesn’t believe in the greenhouse effect is a Slayer according to the chief Slayer. It may sound pejorative now but it was clearly intended to be sarcastic when he created it.
I do not use the term pejoratively myself, I think it is a valid label for a group and it really depends on how you say it as to whether it sounds dismissive or neutral.
20
Wait… wait. Let me guess. The 2nd law of thermodynamics? That one ALWAYS gets brought up.
21
@Richard
No, that would be a slayer argument. Please re-read what I wrote to Jo above and do try to keep up. The problem with the AGW hypothesis does is not with radiative physics, but with fluid dynamics and gas conduction. I have every reason to be irritated with the PSI group. They have delayed the end of the hoax by years.
13
The basic foundation of the radiative GHG theory seems sound to me and in accordance with well-accepted, long-established physics. Why would the Earth not be warmed by back-radiation from GHGs? I realise this probably isn’t the right thread to discuss it though. Seems a little off-topic.
32
Andrew McRae
From the same man who, less than 48 hours ago, posted this:
To attack a person – not even a slayer – who merely stated the obvious, that there cannot be a NET transfer of atmospheric heat energy FROM the atmosphere, TO the oceans.
You even admitted later it was a rather nasty, personal and vicious attack, and now you’re here, proudly parading your “understanding” and “tolerance”.
What a joke.
By the way, you never did get around to explaining just how the “missing anthropogenic heat” got FROM the atmosphere, TO the ocean. You teamed up with a troll plant to divert the conversion to how the oceans might heat up as a result of increased trapped sunlight, but neither you nor your troll mate ever got around to explaining how the alleged man-made “extra heat” in the atmosphere, got into the oceans.
This remains as topical as it was on the last thread, since the whole thrust of the paper Jo’s article is based on, is premised on the concept that “the oceans are taking up more heat (from the atmosphere) than we thought”.
The question remains – how?
I won’t even mention the Second Law of Thermodynamics, since that apparently sends you into some kind of Berserker frenzy. I will merely call to your attention again, that the age-old process known as the “water cycle” (sun heats ocean, heat is transferred to atmosphere via evaporation and conduction, warm, moist air rises, energy is released and precipitation falls, energy is radiated out to space), which specifically PRECLUDES any NET transfer of heat energy FROM the atmosphere, TO the oceans.
32
As I said, I didn’t use it pejoratively, I intended it to be funny rather than malicious, which is more than can be said about your current behaviour. I already acknowledged it was received differently than how I imagined it and said we should not use insults any more, so you have little excuse for insulting me with personal attacks now.
Anyone with eyes can see that you just made up that entire sentence, even using quotation marks for words I have never typed. It is a purely malicious lie. You also wished to blame others for your own lack of self control in retaliating with insults and “reaction in kind” jibes of your own, as though you think no other reaction was possible. If insults are so awful then why do you do it? You do not meet your own standard there.
You were quite emphatic about being precise with terminology:
So when I answered thusly:
Your next reply was inexcusable by your own standard:
The distinct lack of the word NET in my response was apparently not enough to dissuade you from your tirade against vapid talking points previously dictated to you by Tim Flannery. This sequence of events demonstrates you have either no willingness or no ability to understand what I said.
Presumably you refer to the enigmatic “Ian H” as being some sort of “troll mate” of mine, which is laughable. I had nobody else on my side, I am not part of any Team, I ignored everything “Ian H” said and didn’t follow that part of the thread at all. In fact I never replied to him or to any of your replies that you made to him. A complete lack of teamwork by the looks of it. Your bunker mentality and delusions of persecution are quite sad.
I am loathe to address the physics questions as presently you are clearly beyond physics and into vendetta mode.
I would just remind you that:
A) the entire thread #4.x was based on me misunderstanding the main point you were trying to communicate, which I already explained two days ago, and
B) that your initial statement regarding NET transfers in the down direction being impossible in the hypothetical situation that the ocean and air are the only two bodies in existence is a theoretically correct statement but due to the misunderstanding of your initial comment I had mischaracterised you as a Slayer and had been arguing against something that you didn’t intend to claim in #4, and
C) that having your talking points chosen by Flannery is a poor strategy since it gives the other side control of the terms of debate.
You’re now bringing up previous matters in a whole new thread as an excuse to make personal attacks on me again, which I do not think qualifies as stalking (yet) but I nonetheless find it unpleasant and I ask you politely to cease and desist.
11
What does this have to do with “30% reduction in modelers estimates of Climate Sensitivity”?
I would be happy to see the mods delete your post. We are not in the school playground any more.
20
(addressing Themm Nunnov).
10
Backslider,
The whole thrust of this piece of voodoo claptrap “science” paper by Otto et al is that the “climate” (atmosphere) is “less sensitive” to the alleged heating effect of CO2, NOT because it doesn’t exist in the first place (as Jo rightly alludes to), but because the oceans are somehow magically “taking up” that (atmospheric) heat.
You don’t even need to have read the actual paper to know that. Jo repeats the claim in her article (my emphasis):
The water cycle (sun heats oceans, oceans LOSE heat to atmosphere, atmosphere LOSES heat to space – it’s a ONE-WAY cycle), is described in the Book of Job, claimed to be some 5,000 years old. It’s taught in our Primary Schools.
For as long as these so-called “climate scientists” are allowed to continue to completely ignore it, and continue to blithely claim, unchallenged, that the “missing heat” is “missing” because the atmosphere “lost it” to the oceans, the longer it will be before these snake-oil salesmen are behind bars, where they belong.
21
I was referring to your spat with Andrew… you are wasting space.
00
Backslider
I see. Because I had a “spat” about it with Andrew, we should studiously ignore the fact that the entire edifice of “climate science”, including the paper covered in this thread, now rests on the single logical fallacy that there is an ongoing transfer of NET energy FROM the atmosphere, TO the oceans.
Since the “missing heat” isn’t in the tropical troposphere or anywhere else that the climastrologists have claimed, and since it can’t “find” it’s way into the oceans (deep OR otherwise) without running counter to the known and observed water cycle, then it simply doesn’t exist.
If it doesn’t exist then the CO2 GHG “heating effect” amplified or otherwise, simply doesn’t exist, leastways not to any extent worth destroying modern civilisation over.
00
Andrew,
My use of the term slayer refers to those identifying as part of the PSI group or linking to their publications. I have reason to be irritated with PSI as I believe they have delayed the end of the hoax by years.
As to the hole in the radiative green house hypothesis, while there are some errors in the radiative physics, the main problem relates to fluid dynamics and gas conduction. If you are familiar with these processes then you only need to know one thing –
– Radiative gases are critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation.
You will not find much on the web relating to this issue as most sceptics are unaware of the problem. Slayers have no idea. The people who do know are AGW promoters and they are not prepared to discuss it. I found out through empirical experiments*. Further web investigation revealed that some AGW promoters already knew.
To get a fuller understanding of the problem it is necessary to go back to pre AGW hoax atmospheric physics of tropospheric convective circulation. Many people do not understand that adiabatic cooling of air masses on accent is matched by adiabatic heating on decent and this plays no part in driving convective circulation. Diabatic processes are needed for buoyancy loss at altitude. In our atmosphere this is through IR radiation to space, primarily from water vapour. This site has a basic primer –
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/climate/tropics.html
“Air spreading out at higher levels also tends to have low relative humidity, because of moisture losses by precipitation. As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space (this is a diabatic process, involving exchanges of energy between the air mass and its environment). Decreasing potential temperature leads to an increase in density, upsetting the hydrostatic balance and initiating subsidence.”
– From this you can see the critical role radiative gases play in tropospheric convective circulation.
Why is convective circulation important to atmospheric temperatures? Firstly without radiative energy loss at altitude, hot gases can still convect to altitude however they cannot lose energy and descend. Secondly the lapse rate below the tropopause depends on continued strong vertical circulation. Without this, gas conduction will cause the atmosphere to trend towards an isothermal state. As rising air masses have their temperature set by surface Tmax, not surface Tav this means that an atmosphere without radiative cooling at altitude and strong vertical circulation would heat dramatically.
Now on to the failed AGW hypothesis . You will have heard the AGW faithful claim that an atmosphere without radiative gases would be 33C cooler than present. How did they pull this trick? Very simply, they assume that strong vertical tropospheric circulation would continue in the absence of radiative gases and only solve for direct radiative flux between the surface, atmosphere and space. The role of radiative gases in convective circulation is ignored. However the role of radiative gases in radiative exchange and fluid dynamics must be solved simultaneously. Anything less is pseudo science.
Do some AGW promoters know of the problem? Yes. You have probably never read AGW faithful claim –
”So increasing the emissivity from zero (increasing “greenhouse” gases) cools the climate to begin with. Then as the emissivity increases past a certain point the warm pool surface temperatures start to increase again.”
– but that is exactly what Pierrehumbert (author of some of the most sacred AGW texts) tried to get away with in 1995. Industrial strength bafflegab. Some discussion at a warmist site can be found here –
http://scienceofdoom.com/2012/12/23/clouds-water-vapor-part-five-back-of-the-envelope-calcs-from-pierrehumbert/
– This bafflegab does not stand up to scrutiny, so now when challenged, most AGW promoters will try to claim some wholly unproven mechanism for continued strong vertical tropospheric circulation in the absence of radiative gases. Much wrist endangering hand waving is often involved.
The AGW hoax depends on ignoring the role of radiative gases in atmospheric circulation. Because radiative gases are critical for energy loss at altitude and strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation, the net effect of radiative gases on atmospheric temperatures is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
* some simple empirical experiments showing this and other holes in the AGW hypothesis can be found here –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/05/a-comparison-of-the-earths-climate-sensitivity-to-changes-in-the-nature-of-the-initial-forcing/#comment-1267231
– These have been designed so readers can build and run them for themselves. Most important to the issue above are experiments 3 & 4.
Experiment 1 shows that LWIR does not effect the cooling rate of liquid water in the same manner as other materials. This shows that the surface under a non radiative atmosphere would have a slightly lower Tav, but not 33C cooler. The oceans are largely immune to DWLWIR.
Experiment 2 demonstrates the ability of CO2 to radiate as IR, the energy it has acquired by conduction, not just intercepted surface IR. This is what radiative gases are doing in the upper atmosphere.
Experiment 3 demonstrates how to drive convective circulation in a fluid column by removing energy from the top of the fluid. This is what radiative gases are doing in the upper atmosphere.
Experiment 4 shows the difference cooling at altitude makes to the temperature of a gas column in a gravity field. Temperatures are lower for the gas column with heating at the base and cooling at the top with full convective circulation. Temperatures are higher for the gas column with heating at the base and cooling also at the base with little convective circulation.
Experiment 5 simply shows that AGW calculations that atmospheric temperatures for a non radiative atmosphere would be set by surface Tav are rubbish. Gravity creates a bias in conductive flux between the surface and atmosphere such that the surface is far better at conductively heating moving atmosphere than it is a conductively cooling it.
42
Thank you for an excellent post, Konrad.
Worthy of much reposting and linking around the net. That being the case, I wonder if we can get the MODS to correct “accent” to “ascent”, and “decent” to “descent” in the following sentences:
“To get a fuller understanding of the problem it is necessary to go back to pre AGW hoax atmospheric physics of tropospheric convective circulation. Many people do not understand that adiabatic cooling of air masses on accent is matched by adiabatic heating on decent and this plays no part in driving convective circulation.”
Just as an aside, would not the “Lava Lamps” of the Seventies be a simplistic demonstration of Experiment 3? (I haven’t yet followed the link).
Again, thanks.
41
Themm,
feel free to cut, paste and correct spelling as required 😉
As to lava lamps, perhaps these are best linked to experiment 4. However lava lamps involve two fluids and rely on a tapered shape (reducing internal volume to surface area with height) to drive convective circulation. Lava lamp energy loss with height is both through conductive losses and radiation. Experiment 4 is “cleaner”.
Experiment 3 however does show the role of energy loss at altitude in driving convective circulation. I recommend you follow the link and try this experiment. It is the easiest of the five to conduct and as it involves finely ground cinnamon, also the nicest smelling. You just don’t get that in most experiments nowadays 😉
21
Konrad
Thank you. Don’t worry, I’ll get around to the experiments this weekend. For the moment however, I’m bogged down on a tight deadline writing commissioning procedures for a new power plant at a refinery in PNG.
Do you post your snippets of wisdom elsewhere?
10
I can see why. This is awesome. You are the first slayer I’ve ever encountered who actually makes sense. This is all very impressive.
I’ve currently not slept for 30 hours so I have to take more time to understand this and think it through before even attempting to criticise it, maybe another day or two, but it looks plausible. I am still trying to reconcile it with GHE on the chance that they can both occur.
I have a couple of questions….
* Where the air packet has ascended past the point of condensation it is now “dry air”, but this only means it is low humidity, not that has zero H2O, right?
* Where the air packet is ascending and cooling, the radiative loss is not the only cooling mechanism because the molecules will be exchanging their kinetic energy for higher gravitational potential energy, yes?
* Most downwelling IR is longer than 14um and water still has some decent absorption everywhere longer than 3um. Experiment 1 only establishes a slight difference between dirt and water heating by DWLWIR right?
* Do you know how much more likely an intermolecular energy transfer by collision is than by IR radiation at surface level for H2O?
Now I wonder if the patient can be revived. A first attempt to resurrect the GHE out of this scheme. 🙂
My tactic is to attack the very beginning of the process before convection takes over.
Water is still going to grab UWLWIR longer than 3um because the measured spectrum says so.
So the more H2O vapour you add near the surface
the more outgoing energy gets shifted from the fast vehicle (IR) to the slow vehicle (convection) for its journey to TOA.
While the convection train may still be going at the same speed to the TOA and has room for more passengers and so has greater cooling capacity to TOA, the fact that more Joules are boarding the steam train instead of riding their lightcycles means:
* the Kirchoff characteristic surface is lower in the atmosphere,
* the energy density of the lower atmosphere is therefore increased,
* therefore the temperature is higher, and
* so you’ve just had a positive greenhouse effect feedback by adding more GHGs, right?
It can’t be that easy, surely I’ve missed something.
00
Andrew,
“It can’t be that easy, surely I’ve missed something”
It is very easy, but you “missed” something…
Right here, at the first post –
“Where the air packet is ascending and cooling, the radiative loss is not the only cooling mechanism because the molecules will be exchanging their kinetic energy for higher gravitational potential energy, yes?”
Yes? No! Sorry Andrew, diabatic energy exchange is the only method through which rising air masses lose buoyancy. KE to PE is an adiabatic processes and does not count.
The S.W. thing has failed. There is no way out.
Every last one, Andrew. Every. Last. One.
11
But it’s not a shortwave effect, it’s a longwave absorbance effect.
And you do not seem to have any explanation for why the above sequence won’t happen.
Move more energy out of radiation into convection and you slow their escape. Surely that much is true. So what other phenomenon can diminish the effect of this radiative diversion?
10
There is a very interesting by product of these experiments that really needs to be mentioned.
The experiments have been posted on WUWT. Other people of varying degrees of training, education, skill are reading them. Some are actually performing them. Of those getting involved they submit feedback on results, possible improvements, flaws, etc.
In effect the experiments have been published, they are being reviewed, and they are being reproduced. All on a blog on the internet.
Now, does that not fit the criteria of “doing science”? I’ve had someone elsewhere go all incredulous on me for what they perceived as my suggesting science be done on a blog. While I wasn’t suggesting it then, I am not opposed to it. Science can just as easily be done in a pub on the back of a cocktail napkin providing those involved are sketching out a hypothesis, analyzing it, refining it, and planning ways to test it. Bear in mind this same person even had the delusion that “science isn’t done in books” which amazed me since I have a stack of text books I’ve had to buy that certainly contain a lot of science within their pages. The only conclusion I can reach is we have a large number of people out there who seem to think science is defined by where it is done and by whom, rather than how it is done.
One does not need a huge lab with millions invested in equipment, a lab coat, and a degree to do science. If so then many of the pioneers of science weren’t engaged in what they though they were engaged in as many of them did not have any of the above. Granted some experiments may require specialized equipment in a lab designed for the purpose but basic scientific experimentation can be, and has been, done anywhere an inquisitive mind chooses to look for answers. But one does need to be looking for answers rather than assuming they have them all.
So whatever the outcome of this may be we need to keep in mind that it may well end up being the internet and the blogs, forums, etc. where science returns to its roots. One thing is certain, many if not most of those on the alarmist side of the issue really don’t know what science is. No wonder they are so easily misled.
20
John Cook’s study was called “citizen science” and he said the idea came from his blog. It seems if warmists can bet us, they’ll join us. It certainly changes the playing field, now that “amateurs” are credible, doesn’t it?
00
Well I can’t tell you anything about that since I will no longer read anything associated with Cook. I think the difference between his “citizen science” and my idea of science would be that mine relies on the scientific method where nothing I have seen from him gives me any indication he even knows what that is.
00
Considering he has a degree in physics and did software development, one wonders how he missed the whole “science works like this” message. This may be an example of how training and logic fly out the window in the face of fear. It MIGHT be true the earth is getting very hot and people caused it, so don’t rely on the scientific method. Just grab that precautionary principle and run with it. Or maybe science didn’t tell him what he wanted to believe. I admit I have trouble reading SkS–it’s just dogma spewed out for all to agree with or else.
00
Well, if it ain’t The Quiz. >>> I thought we advised you go go back to the S(k)S and get some trolling lessons?… you don’t even make a brownshirt.
60
There is a February 2013 paper by Stott et al (open access) that concludes the upper 95% bounds on temperature increase of the climate models are too high, thus supporting the new Otto et al paper.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/014024
Of note for Australian readers, Stott et al single out the CSIRO as being an outlier, greatly overestimating temperature changes.
120
As the failure of the models becomes increasingly obvious, the warmist weasels are thrashing and squealing, desperately seeking an exit strategy. Nothing they try will work. The problem is that the climate pseudo scientists got the “basic physics” of the “settled science” totally and utterly wrong. There is no escape in trying to reduce the estimates of warming due to CO2, because radiative gases act to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
Quite simply they did not model the role of radiative gases in a moving atmosphere correctly. In calculating that an atmosphere without strongly radiative gases would be 33C cooler, they assumed continued strong vertical circulation under the tropopause. However tropospheric convective circulation depends on radiative energy loss at altitude. Radiative gases are critical for tropospheric convective circulation. Without this our atmosphere would heat dramatically.
No exit strategy based on the “it warms, but less than we thought” theme can ever work. The mistake at the core of the hypothesis is recorded forever on the Internet. Even worse for the warmist weasels, the evidence that some were aware of the problem as early as 1995 and tried to bury it, is also recorded forever.
There is going to be no soft landing for the global warming hoax or any of the fellow travellers on board.
230
Konrad, oh I hope and pray your last sentence turns out to be true.
50
My thoughts EXACTLY. Remember the 65 people dying a day in the UK this winter because of Fuel Poverty.
Micheal Mann, Phil Jones, James Hansen and the rest have blood on their hands.
70
The environmental pogrom is underway in earnest:
Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised Indian women and men, the Observer has learned.
“Yet a working paper published by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes.
The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases …
Across the country, there have been numerous reports of deaths and of pregnant women suffering miscarriages after being selected for sterilisation without being warned that they would lose their unborn babies.
Many have died as a result of botched operations, while others have been left bleeding and in agony.
A number of pregnant women selected for sterilisation suffered miscarriages and lost their babies.”
*
Blood on their hands?
Handcuff time is not enough for these green government human haters.
50
I don’t think the sensitivity can be more than 1.2 C for doubling CO2, or we would have positive feedback. I think the feedback has to be negative or the earth’s climate wouldn’t have been reasonably stable for a billion years.
My guess is that negative feedbacks reduces the warming by 2/3, which means a sensitivity of 0.4C per doubling.
80
A 3.7 W/M2 forcing translates to 1 degree C at the emission level. A 3.44 W/M2 translated to a .909 Degrees at the emission level. I don’t see how you get 30%, so there’s something else missing that just the change in radiative suppression.
00
yes Carl, just as Idso found more than 10 years ago.
Negligible, in fact probably not measurable, well inside the error bars. Just like the ocean warming in the last thread. BTW the satellite sensors are good to only +/- ONE degree C too. No better than the weather balloons, yet mean temperatures are claimed to 3 decimal places. This whole thing is so tiresome.
120
The ABC News site is running with a similar story to this at this link.
Blah blah blah, and then right close to the bottom of the article comes this little gem.
I thought it was a little obvious that it might be a misprint, probably meaning gurgle, but just in case, I looked it up, and found this wonderful explanation for the word glurge, as quoted in the article.
Read this and, dare I say it, LOL
Oh nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Tony.
350
I’ll copy that and slip it into a comment somewhere. Excellent spot!
50
Probably a sub editor on loan from Ltd News. 🙂
06
Apparently, the word started life as a mispronunciation of dirge on a dictaphone. It has no synonyms or antonyms.
I suspect the reporter meant “surges”, and the sub-Editor’s Scrabble dictionary let it through.
20
Dictaphone must always be capitalized, sir.
00
I stand corrected.
00
I posted this on the James Delingpole blogs and the warmist trolls gave it the old body swerve? Perhaps they didn’t like it?
BBC hedging their bets. Once the Beeb starts to edge towards the exit, well . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567023
70
When the BBC moves their pension funds from Green Energy you know CAGW is dead.
60
No surprise here. Chemists (the real authorities on spectroscopy) have been arguing for many years that the Greenhouse Effect is unscientific nonsense that contradicts the most fundamental principles of quantum mechanics.
110
No argument from me. I simply want to know the source of your claim so I can learn more about it.
30
Just look up any university spectroscopy textbook. It will either completely ignore the GE or (cunningly) ask the student to try and explain how it works in the context of what they’ve learned. The student, of course, can’t logically explain the impossibe.
40
I’ve read on another blog
(political one)where Otto’s paper has been picked and commented on by an Oxford Uni publication and the Financial Times. It was also commented on by one of the MSM publications here in NZ.
Something tells me there are alot people behind the scenes who are trying to find the “exit” door on this issue.
140
Ross,
Totally agree, even Climate Spectator is reporting big blowup between Combet and Shorten regarding all this CAGW stuff, but also a fight for the leader of the opposition I suppose. Apparently even Julia Gillard can’t stop the in fighting.
The VOTERS are telling their elected representatives, to get real and be honest.
But also this is the unions knowing that the CO2 Tax is crippling industry in Australia.
It won’t be long. The acceleration of the the CAGW downfall is rapidly coming.
110
You have to give the climate scammers credit. They are creating another 20 years work for themselves working out why the models have failed.
50
Give it a few more years and we will be paraphrasing that old cliche about economists:
<>
10
Don’t know what happened there; half the post did not appear. Try again:
Give it a few more years and we will be paraphrasing that old cliche about economists:
” Climate scientists have successfully predicted 12 of the last 4 climate crises “
120
The next revision they come up with, whenever that may be, will put the warming rate into the margin of error. That way they get out, reputation in tact. Or so they believe.
20
The present “global warming pause’ is considered by some likely to last
another 4 to 5 years before … whatever trend appears. Cooling looks to be
a rave fave.
I’m stocked up. I’ve laid in ten years supply of pop corn. It will be consumed
slowly in order to best co-ordinate its consumption with the
snail paced calamities.
It’s going to be amusing. The armchair has had an oil change and upgraded cushions.
I’ve got the binoculars trained on C(r)ook, Lewan-dupe-sky, and others. Rahmstorf is
suspiciously quiet … Jones et al too, but Mikey Mann should be fun for some time yet.
90
Of course the skeptics were right. We had intelligence and inquisition, they had political hubris. You can’t bring politics into science unless you accept the fact that they are mutually incompatible unless each speaks objectively in support of the other. The AGW debate has demeaned both which must really piss off the honest practitioners of both no end. As a lay person I still have a hard time understanding how people can measure and attach so much significance to miniscule increments of change in such a huge and chaotic biosphere as our own, which I also suspect we all are a long way from fully understanding. That so many opportunists in both the political and scientific realm chose to exploit our ignorance for their own ends is unforgivable.
210
And yet the alarmists still cant get their PR back to reality. One interview I read with the UNSW went:
Idiot journalist: “Does this new work mean that people who think climate change isn’t real were right?” (nobody says climate change ‘isn’t real’).
Govt funded alarmist: “Absolutely not. It hasn’t changed anything”
Still living in the Wonderful World of Alarmistland.
120
Like Monty Python isn’t it thingodonta (is that a toothy dinosaur?).
40
Nup,
An old Aussie name for an order of extinct Australian marsupials that we out bush call Thingodonta’s but don’t know whether that is the exact name on the zoological records.
They were found out west Queensland way, near Winton somewhere.
20
You Aussies have a way with words. Actually quite a few ways with many words to be sure.
10
TA mate
00
.
Tipping Point,
This has been spruked for years by warmists, eg: flooding, drought, 400ppm, 10 years, desal plants etc.
But what if the tipping point never was, but simply an argument between alarmists and skeptics that has escalated like the cold war between the USSR and the USA?
What I haven’t seen is an absolute definition of the tipping point from models that say we are over the limit. The earth has had enough etc. What if the warmists have started to see that the cooling period is here, where can they go. They start off with reducing messages always hoping that it changes sometime soon.
In the meantime they want to guarantee their income from the previous 30 or so years of their global warming estimates solely due to CO2 increases in the atmosphere spread by fossil fuels. Who do they attack then? Change Global Warming to Climate Change (goodbye Al Gore) then they turn on themselves by advocating a moderate long term approach, the back door or the escape POD but with running shoes on.
THIS seems to be OK in a year when the budget went from a few Billion surplus to nearly $20 Billion deficit. What an ideal time to release this TINY drop in estimations compared to those shocking TREASURY mistakes in estimates they gave to Wayne Swan.
The Models will have to be punished (and the inventors) while continuing to need more money to calculate how to rectify and increase future Climate Change (NB Not Global Warming) income.
Climate Scientists, Climate Change advocates and politicians now the most distrusted group on Earth, while Used Car Salespeople are gaining respect, some of the first three, have to pay back for their economic ripoff of our country, especially Australia.
30% reduction in all three groups at September 14th 2013 please.
I am ready to bulldoze Canberra very shortly (electively speaking of coarse).
30
Actually I thought they were doing a pretty good job of trying to figure out what the Tipping Point” is.
More from the same report
it is those abrupt climate changes within a decade that will getcha every time.
50
You mean the science ISN’T settled? How much else have they got wrong?
60
This paper is, of course, interesting. It is part of a long term effort to find out what is really happening. There have been climate sensitivity estimates of under 2 degrees before. I actually reckon its about 2 degrees, but that is just a guess.
522
.
JB
Violin playing sensitively in the background.
Come on JB, you said “a 30% reduction in their estimates”, sure we all believe you?
120
Good guess, John.
But now you have to ask, of what value is a guess? Answer: none! It has no value at all. Unless you’re a climate scientist, that is. Then it’s highly prized for some reason I can’t ever quite figure out.
So John, maybe you can explain it to me. Why is guesswork so acceptable to the climate science industry? Seriously, where are their standards for rigor and precision? 🙂
160
John, you’ve been keeping that to yourself? Have you mentioned the “2 degree” best guess before anywhere?
221
C’mon Jo, he’s mentioned that guess literally hundreds of times. Maybe we don’t know who he mentioned it to. But he surely must have mentioned it. Dontcha think? 😉
130
It was probably mentioned to his other friend … you know, the one that isn’t imaginary.
60
Ha Haaa HHHHHhhhhhaaaaa
Good one, now I’m off to find a towel to mop up the
coffeeadult style beverage containing hydrocarbons (the byproduct of the life of fungi Kingdom beasts).20
John,
You mean, stumbling around in the dark, they might in another year or two of fumbling around they might actually find the light switch. What’s the betting that, when they do, they come to find the representation they had of the “room” in their mind was completely erroneous. But hey, we skeptics could have told them that, right John?
100
Without feedbacks CO2 alone can only account for 1 degree and that was at a forcing of 3.7 W/M2. The new 3.44 W/M2 yields only .909 Degree Co2-alone-doubling warming.
72
Rubbish.
There is no scientific background to any claim that doubling CO2 will cause x amount of temperature change.
KK
10
Check out the EVIDENCE tab at the top of the page. Jo seems to disagree with you. So do I.
01
Argumentum ad auctoritatem …. that’s not accepted around here 🙂
20
Appeal to authority when the authority is an a relevant area and where there is not controversy among authorities is NOT A FALLACY. I suppose you might say that Jo Ann is not an authortity so I’ll just refer you to the wikipedia subject of climate sensitivity itself, and if you don’t like that I’ll give you others. This particular issue is proven non-controversial science.
Argument from authority (argumentum ad auctoritatem), also authoritative argument and appeal to authority, is an inductive reasoning argument that often takes the form of a statistical syllogism.[1] Although certain classes of argument from authority can constitute strong inductive arguments, the appeal to authority is often applied fallaciously.
Fallacious examples of using the appeal include:
cases where the authority is not a subject-matter expert
cases where there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter
any appeal to authority used in the context of deductive reasoning.
10
A sense of humor IS accepted around here…. [rolleyes]
10
When a so called “authority” says something is a scientific fact, it is not a fact because he states it nor because a large number of “authorities” state it. It is because it is actually a scientific fact.
However, the “authority (s)” must be able to produce the proof/demonstration of said fact on demand. Thus, it is NEVER proper to assert that a fact of reality is so simply because an “authority” says so – even for the so called “authority”.
Truth MEANS correspondence to what actually is and has no relationship to how many of whomever say it is so. I have many times been the first one to know something is true. This is partially attested to by the fact I have many patents in my name. It is additionally attested to because what I have done works in spite of many “authorities” in the field saying that it is impossible.
Argumentum ad auctoritatem was, is, and will remain a serious logical flaw. Consensus is only a consensus and is at best self referential and offers no truth value to whatever the consensus position happens to be no matter what level of “qualifications” the members of the consensus might have. The trivial proof of that
is that “qualifications” are created and attributed by still other sets of “authorities” and become Argumentum ad auctoritatem by proxy.
So get over the notion that authority, consensus, and qualifications offer any meaningful truth value apart form and in addition to proof and demonstration of the asserted fact. They are not worth warm spit.
Prove and demonstrate! There is no alternative.
30
It matters not what Wiki says. Wiki is written by the general public and has no real credibility. The fact that scientists quote it is disturbing.
The “valid” argument from authority is designed to only apply to science. If I state that 95% of medium believe their conversations with the dead are real, does that make these conversations real? If I state that 99% of Catholics believe in God, does that make God real? The fact is that this particular rewriting of logic serves to elevate scientists to the level of a god that never errs is not valid. Historically, scientists have not been all-knowing and there is no evidence they are now. Their beliefs must still be proven.
From a purely practical angle, it may be necessary to follow the advise of experts in some cases. This should only be done when you have exhausted your own research and still cannot find answer.
Most importantly, appeal to authority does NOT mean the authorities cannot be questioned or challenged.
20
The IPCC’s 3.7W/sq.m only includes the direct effect from CO2 – without the feedbacks. The feedbacks boost CO2’s initial radiative forcing up to about 16.5W/sq.m which gives us a temperature increase at the surface of about 3C. Does the newly-calculated figure of 3.4W/sq.m include the feedbacks too? (I see it says the figure is adjusted for ‘fast feedbacks’). If it does deal with feedbacks too, that’s good news! 3.44W/sq.m radiant forcing from CO2 is only enough to give them a 0.63C warming at the surface at most. And that’s assuming that none of it is absorbed in the evaporation of seawater too. Where will they get all the rest that they need to prove significant AGW? CAGW-advocates it seems are putting forward a proposal for the radical upheaval and restructuring of world society based on a possible temperature increase from CO2 of 0.63C. Insane.
31
The major feedback, that of assumed increased water vapor in the UT was always ASSUMED and UNPROVED as far back as the Charney Report in 1979. Recent studies have shown no increase of water vapor in the UT during historical periods of global warming (Gray and Schwartz, Lindzen and Choi, Braswell and Spenser, Vonder Haar, et al). The climate models assume this positive water vapor feedback will TRIPLE the 1 degree warming of CO2-doubling-alone. However, no increased water vapor in the UT >>> no 3X amplification >>> no CAGW. QED.
62
Bishop Hill | May 20, 2013 at 1:55 PM | geronimo
There you have it … just a lot of guess work … jb should be proud !
50
Just so. Pretty Rube Goldberg when you think about it.
11
Give them time and they may get down to the correct figure (which is probably very near 1.0!) For all these jokers (and by that I mean “climate scientists”) know it could even be negative…
20
Let’s see if I have this figured out the right way. They were 30% off base for the last umpteen years but now, having discovered that fact, they still claim their original guess was within an acceptable uncertainty range. Is that what’s going on?
You know, I wish I could turn in work that was 30% wrong and still claim that I’m within an acceptable error rate. That would make life so much easier. You just relabel your mistakes as features and, voila, the problems are all gone. Don’t I wish! Or maybe I could have gotten away with that all along and was too dumb to figure it out!?
I really need to become a climate scientist! I’m so much better qualified than these turkeys! 😉
120
Roy–Try working as a weatherman (no limit to how many times you can be wrong), or maybe become a politician or economist.
(Oh, you did you mean in science?? 😉 )
50
Sheri,
I can look out my kitchen window and be as accurate as the weather forecaster. I don’t know what they do with it exactly but all that Doppler radar and satellite imagery isn’t able to tell me I’ll have to turn on the windshield wipers on the way to work or not. So let’s rule out the weatherman.
Then it comes to what we might call a climateman, a forecaster of climate if you please. And they’re in the same boat — all of them up the creek without a paddle. So let’s rule out the climateman too.
That leaves my usual method of handling both weather and climate doing just fine — I use a little experience to cope with whatever comes at me. Ain’t no science involved really. Just be a good Boy Scout and be prepared. 🙂
But yes, I do mean actual honest science, rigorous enough to be worth reading about. That does rule out climate models along with the aforementioned forecasters, forever adrift and unaware that a certain real forecaster is so good that he can charge a high price for his services and get away with it. I believe he relies on, of all things, the sun. Oh the terrible heresy! Let’s see how many remember his name.
I bet John Brookes will remember if no one else does.
90
Just try building a bridge over a river to within 30% of its width and to within 30% of its design strength. You will have to build quite a number of bridges before you get one that actually spans the river and can withstand the design load.
This is not acceptable because of the few hundred millions of dollars it would cost as well as countless lives. Yet, a 30% tolerance is acceptable when you are claiming that we must stop the use of fossil fuels and return mankind to the energy technology of prior to the 12th century and decimate the population of the earth as a consequence.
They justify it in the name of the precautionary principle. After all, if you save one rare green and yellow slime worm it is worth the destruction of civilization and mankind. This on the probability that one chance out of ten to the one hundredth power they are right. Personally, I will take my chances with modern civilization and industrial quantities of energy put to productive use. To hell with that one rare green and yellow slime worm.
I will agree with them on one point, one rare green and yellow slime worm is worth more than all the climatists who ever lived, are living, and will ever live. They should do the honorable thing and take one last breath.
10
The problem is they now hindcast on those heavy adjusted temperature data, ignoring UHI and other ways how human activity warms the microclimate. So yes, skeptics were right:
“Effectively the power of CO2 to warm just got 30% less, according to a team of researchers, many of whom have in the past have published more alarming papers. Remember “there is no debate” and “global warming is a fact” a lot “like gravity”. (And that gravitational constant g could be revised by a third soon, right?)”
Exactly Jo, thanks for pointing that out!
Their estimates are still not aligned with the newer ARGO data and the last decade of no warming, they still hide behind natural variability (sic, the one that they denied for so long!) and the too short period of time of more accurate data.
“Estimates are made for ECS and TCR using ΔT, ΔF and ΔQ derived from data for the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 1970–2009, relative to that for 1860–79.” – from WUWT here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/19/new-paper-shows-transient-climate-response-less-than-2c/
which makes me immediately think at a graphic I saw once on Steven Goddard’s site about how many data points did they had at the time of 1860s: ridiculously low, so I guess you are right Jo, their “guesstimate” is still far away from the truth.
They do not model the physics in their models.
They just put there an assumption for the “forcing” they assume would derive from more CO2.
But the reality is not an increase in Wattage at the surface. This is not what increased CO2 does. The reality is a changed way in how the heat that was transferred through radiation by CO2 will happen. And that net heat transferred by CO2 was and is minimal.
The better the data we get, the more time will pass by, the more stupid they look.
60
As far as I can tell from your link is that a lot of this 2 degrees if from aerosols (not CO2). Aerosols include everything from dust to sulfur compounds, to black/brown soot. Worse some of them are warming influences and some are cooling. And they all have different durations in the atmosphere. As I see it, the math only reduces things from CO2 alone by 10%, not 30% (because 3.44 W/M2 is 90% of 3.7 W/M2)
04
Otto claims that sensitivity is now between 0.9 and 5.0C.
I suppose that you agree with that also….
00
Climate sensitivity DUE TO CO2 alone is 1 degree using the official 3.7W/M2. If the new 3.44 W/M2 is the corrected CO2 forcing, then CS for CO2 is .909 degrees. When you account for the 50% of all solar radiation hitting Earth is converted to [cooling] evaporation, climate sensitivity due to CO2 and this evaporation is .5 degrees. QED
There are other factors,e.g. other GHG’s and aerosols, but the above is ALL the warming that COULD BE attributed to CO2.
01
There is an interesting snippet on Tallbloke quoting from the original….
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/130518/eu-dial-back-measures-against-global-warming
The European Union is set to adopt a change of focus in response to concerns over costs and the impact on companies in economically depressed Europe. …. the European Union will prioritize the supply of energy at affordable prices over cutting greenhouse gas emissions ….. in a turnaround of the region’s energy policy, an EU official said Saturday.
EU leaders will decide on the shift in energy policy at a meeting Wednesday. The change reflects requests from businesses in the 27-member zone amid the prolonged economic slump triggered by the eurozone sovereign debt crisis ……
If true, this will be a major step away from AGW.
I’m sure that the “green” activist organisations will be howling. Stopping the wind/solar subsidy racket is only a short step from stopping handing millions to them.
60
Just because you define something doesn’t mean it exists in the real world
Climate sensitivity is the amount world temperature (whatever that is) increases for a doubling of CO2
To be pedantic it means there is some fixed number C such that whatever the current temperature and whatever the current level of CO2 a doubling of CO2 will always raise the global average temperature (whatever that is) by C degrees. This is true for all time.
This implies changes in CO2 CAUSE changes in temperatures
Many people, including Murray Salby, have show this is not true
With this link you can do so to in the comfort of your own browser
The graph clearly shows changes in temperature come before changes in CO2 hence rising CO2 levels can not be causing rising temperatures. We knew this anyway as temperatures have been roughly flat for at least the last 15 years whilst CO2 continues to rise.
Not only does climate sensitivity not relate to anything in the real world, it’s kind of a problem for all those climate models which used in as input for their projections.
What a waste – as Ian Drury once said
50
The fact that CO2 lags temperature is sufficient by itself to refute the entire AGW-theory because the cause-and-effect link is backwards. Surely no rational-minded and sensible person would argue that CO2 changes could be responsible for corresponding temperature changes that occured before the CO2 changes? It is equivalent to someone arguing that cancer causes smoking. Also there’s a simple explanation as to why CO2 lags temperature, because the oceans (which contain 50 times as much CO2 than the atmosphere) release more CO2 when they warm and suck CO2 out the atmosphere when they cool. This whole man-made global warming rot is just a bad dream that has no substance in reality.
90
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ice-core-data-help-solve
This is the latest answer to why temperatures lag CO2. I am just reporting it, not endorsing it.
10
Thanks Sheri. Sounds like they’re describing the ‘age-assumption’ idea that scientists such as Jaworowski have already disproven. Even if it were true though the lag is still evident when you compare the raw un-smoothed Keeling data for atmospheric CO2 with the temperature data (see Jeremy’s link below). This is not proxy-data but direct measurements and so there can’t be any fanciful interpretations of it like the ‘age-assumption’ issue with the ice-core. Still, I wonder what elaborate excuse they would make up for CO2 lagging temperature in the data below?
20
I’ve often pointed this out myself, but to no avail to true believers. The reality seems to be BOTH that CO2 forcing causes warming AND warming causes oceanic out-gassing of CO2 (following Henry’s Law).
31
you need to publish these corrections!
20
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic. But the science behind this is well-established — the CO2 radiative transfer formula (F=5.35 x LN(a/b)) for CO2’s warming influence and Henry’s Law for the out-gassing phenomenon.
13
Is that, “well-established”, science based on theoretical models? Or was it observed under laboratory conditions? Or has it been demonstrated to also apply to conditions in the physical world, taking all of the other factors, such as wind and wave motion, into account?
30
Doesn’t matter. It’s well-established and not controversial.
01
whoops here’s the link
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/isolate:60/mean:12/scale:0.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/isolate:60/mean:12/from:1958
10
Jeremy,
Their problem is that they have this equation giving temperature increase as a function of the log of the ratio of two CO2 levels. That equation has a constant multiplier and no one knows what that constant multiplier is. It’s a sort of floating constant, flitting from one value to the next. Climate sensitivity is whatever you prefer it to be based on that unknown constant. IPCC thinks it’s in some range. SPPI thinks it’s in another range. A housefly is easier to catch with your bare hands than this constant.
After 30 years of diddling around the number isn’t any closer to being nailed down than it was when it all started. In the meantime there’s a growing body of circumstantial and observational evidence that whatever the climate sensitivity to CO2 really is, IT’S TOO SMALL TO NOTICE. On that point we agree.
The whole argument about global warming is a joke once you figure out exactly what it all hinges on.
71
Roy
An important part of your comment.
To catch a house fly just wait until it settles down on a flat surface.
Cup your hand facing the fly about a foot and a half from the fly and advance slowly towards it.
From about a foot off target, speed up and see if you can get him.
It works.
To demolish the fly throw him at the floor or a wall.
Flies have a neural mechanism that sends them at random when a threat is detected in the air.
I suspect that while on the flat surface they have fewer degrees of freedom and their defense breaks down.
What doesn’t work is the Global Warming charade and as you say:
The effect of “CO2 really is, TOO SMALL TO NOTICE”.
KK 🙂
42
KK,
A fly swatter coming down on the fly at supersonic speed works well. Their random response isn’t fast enough for that. The problem is waiting for it to settle down on a flat surface long enough to take a crack at it. It’s exactly like trying to catch that elusive non-constant constant. Every time you think you have it nailed, along comes a different one. They must breed somewhere out of sight like the housefly.
Sometimes you catch those little red thumbs too. But then, it is all too small to notice. 🙂
40
Lest anyone misunderstand me — I agree that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is an interesting question.
What I don’t agree with is making the whole human race commit mass stupidity on the basis of an effect that is provably too small to notice compared with the natural forces that have been going on for literally billions of years. They shaped this planet and made it into something very hospitable to life. They continue to shape this planet and will keep on doing that until there is no more Earth to shape.
Earth remains hospitable to life at this very moment. Will we be here tomorrow? Who knows? But if I wanted to worry about something I’d worry about more mundane threats like fires, earthquakes, tornadoes (like the one that just killed at least 51 in Oklahoma) or those big asteroids that fly by us much too close for comfort.
You only live once. And if you haven’t reached the age where you realize that fear isn’t what life is all about, then you will at some point. It’s time to stop beating the funeral drums for the human race and start spending our time solving real problems. We have many to choose from. And if those don’t satisfy you, then start working to undo all the corruption of politics, business and social stability that worrying about CO2 has caused. And don’t be afraid of anything anymore. If life is dangerous, so what? Laugh at anyone who tells you to be afraid.
This blog shouldn’t even be necessary. That it exists because it was necessary to fight back against an imaginary problem is a disgrace to the whole human race. Joanne Nova would, without a doubt, rather spend her time fighting real problems.
I will push this point over and over and over until I’m dead or there’s no more global warming scam.
60
Many “real problems” are of our own making. Climatism is a very real problem and totally self-inflicted. It’s a fight between those who want to spend trillions of dollars in a feckless attempt to control the weather (even though there’s no problem to be fixed in the first place) and to create a world no American would tolerate — less population, eating less food (no meat), colder in the winter, warmer in the summer, limited travel, fewer gadgets, etc., etc.. I’m not giving up without a fight.
32
I suspect rather than wanting to spend trillions of dollars on climate control, they simply don’t want anyone else to spend it at all. As our last POTUS notoriously said (approximately), “We think the taxes are too high but that is OK because, if returned to you, you won’t spend it on the things we think you should.”
Both the left and the right have an undying fear that people will be productive, live their lives joyously, and thrive. They simply argue over how best to stop such things. The muddled middle thinks both sides are right but should split the difference between them.
Heads they win, tails you lose!
41
Indeed so! And many of them have been around as long a humans have. The incentive to solve them is very great, so we need to get focused on what counts and put all these smart people to work. Surely the brain power that sent men to the moon can figure out ways to solve some of our real pollution problems, just for starters.
Instead I see today that the U.S. Government has developed a nano-drone — cute little bugger about the size and appearance of a mosquito — complete with remote control, camera and microphone. I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the reported development (frankly I’m in some doubt). But that’s where we’re going — 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
31
Well said Roy, especially the last three paras.
KK 🙂
00
“Sometimes you catch those little red thumbs too”
Enjoy.
10
The current formula for CO2 forcing is F=5.35XLN(a/b), where a=ending CO2 level and b=beginning CO2 level, so a/b = 2 for a doubling of CO2 and we get F=5.35xLN(2), which equals 3.7W/M2. In order for this formula to generate 3.44 W/M2 the coefficient has to be 4.97, or F=4.97xLN(2)=3.44W/m2
Hope that helps
14
As we are well into the asymptotic section of the CO2 absorption bands, doubling of CO2 has zero effect.
Your equation and any discussion thereof is therefore irrelevant.
KK 🙂
ps. The above comment is assuming that CO2 had any specif effect or mechanism to change temperature more than any other gas.
It doesn’t, so even my comment about an irrelevant comment was itself irrelevant.
21
KK… I really think that’s irrelevant…..
40
It may also have been irreverent.
KK 🙂
10
You are ignoring wing effects.
12
It is my understanding that wing effects or line broadening depend on total pressure, not partial pressure of CO2.
As the total pressure effect of increased CO2 is extremely small, the above effect cannot be operative.
30
Good point Mike.
KK
20
It’s a logarithmic function and that’s why the formula for CO2 radiaative forcing is a log function (LN means natural log).
02
I believe that the Wings fell off CAGW along time ago.
KK
20
That’s also irrelevant.
So, where is your paper?
40
Give my your email address and I’ll send it to you.
04
Right… so its not published.
There are plenty of places online you can upload your paper, if anybody is interested in looking at it.
So what are your qualifications?
40
You and Kinky have an idiosyncratic view of the hard science. JoAnn doesn’t seem to agree with you (check out the EVIDENCE tab at the top of the page).
As for my “Case Against CAGW” do you want it or not? If so, I’ll sent it to your email address if provided. Otherwise stop asking.
02
Why don’t you send it to Joanne?
20
Yes right, I’m going to publish my email address online.
It was you who were spruiking “I wrote a paper!!” ….. either YOU publish it or don’t mention it again.
20
David
The comments you make about natural logs shows that your view of science and your education therein is very restricted
and perhaps even non existent.
As I said before you can make all of the correct statements you like; many of them on their own are right on the money, but when it comes down to it there are some crass things that would only come out of the mouth of a died in the wool warmer. After that you have no credibility.
IF CO2 was a problem:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/08/blockbuster-planetary-temperature-controls-co2-levels-not-humans/#comment-416601
KK
10
david
Hi Dave
You are very observant: “JoAnn doesn’t seem to agree with you ”
It is true, I don’t agree with wasting time on estimating Atmospheric temp Increases from Delta CO2 as IF the IPCC concoctions/formulae/models are correct.
I think they are all junk science and merely speculative rather than descriptive. their only function is to prolong the slow death of CAGW long enough for people to qualify for retirement benefits.
I think it’s a dead end working out Delta T for Delta CO2 especially when all the parameters are so poorly defined or completely left out of consideration; deliberately?
That does not mean that I need to jump up and down and howl the thread down because of it.
This blog is fantastic and the opportunity to learn and gain from the insights of others who have specific expertise is outstanding.
KK
20
Doesn’t address my point. I once saw this argument at RealClimate where they deliberately obfuscated this point in reference to lab experimental data. The scum.
Depends on total pressure not partial pressure so what the hell does logarithmic (to any base) have to do with it?
20
Mike
ln is the only bit of info on his current crib sheet.
The new one doesn’t come out until midnight so he’s a bit lost.
KK
20
Why is Global Warming important?
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/08/blockbuster-planetary-temperature-controls-co2-levels-not-humans/#comment-416613
carbon trading a very lucrative passtime just shuffling the paper.
KK
20
David
to make it easy I have left out the calculations but be sure it is accurate and taken from reality; it is NOT a model.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/carbon-tax-going-through-next-week-alp-set-to-be-global-patsies/#comment-488345
KK 🙂
10
This is a response to the link in your 37.1.2.1.6 above.
The IPCC AR4 has pretty much the same information. Indeed it shows a more stark reality, to wit:
Land to air natural CO2 transfer annually 122/123B tons in and out
Ocean to air natural Co2 transfer annually 92/93B tons in and out.
Human emissions 6B tons emitted.
So more like 220B tons cycling annually in and out of the atmosphere, which is less that Salby’s 3%, but close.
This information is known to me and I have posted here on this thread my awareness of Henry’s Law and that both warming causes Co2 outgassing as well as CO2 emissions cause warming. It’s not ‘either/or.’
I really can’t understand why you seem to misunderstand what I’m posting. It also seems you challenge the whole notion of greenhouse gas effects, which is your right, but it a very eccentric position. My position is that THE MOST that CO2 doubling could influence temperature is 1 degree C (and now .909 degrees with the new 3.44W/M2 forcing claim) and that is reduced by 50% because 1/2 of solar radiation hitting the surface is taken up as [cooling] evaporation, not heat. I am NOT SAYING that CO2 explains the temperature record of the past, but only what THE MOST IT COULD HAVE impacted was. Most of the thrust of my scientific case is that recent studies have IMO thrown out the plausibility of the IPCC assumed 3x amplification of higher water vapor content in the UT with said CO2 warming. IF UTWV does not increase with warming (as appears to be the finding of multiple recent [post 2007] studies, then the 3X feedback goes out the window and the case for CAGW as well.
The radiative transfer formula F=5.35 x LN (a/b), which equals 3.7 W/M2 when a/b=2 is pretty standard climate science. I don’t know how to respond when folks here say “Not so,” This is a measured formula (the 5.35 has changed [downward] over the years as measurement has improved. Apparently in the article the 5.35 has been [suggested] revised down [again] to 4.97, because that’s what it has to be to get a forcing of 3.44 (i.e., F=4.97 x LN(2) = 3.44 W/M2).
01
David,
I think it’s a nice idea to use the IPCC’s own equations and figures to show that they’ve overestimated climate-sensitivity, which it appears to me what you’re trying to do. It’s a good idea because IPCC apologists don’t want to argue against the IPCC’s own figures, do they? You put them in a difficult position. The equation you cited above we are told is based on spectrometer measurements and satellite observations too, and these are then apparently fed into the radiative-transfer models, namely HITRAN and MODTRAN. However when I have tried to access this empirical data to verify it for myself I hit a brick-wall. The derivation of the equation is what matters because from that we can tell whether or not it really does accord with the established laws of physics. But the US military keeps this information on its master-discs and they are not open to public scrutiny.
I think the fact that there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years (even acknowledged by Hansen and Jones) brings CO2’s apparent direct radiative forcing into question. Are you familiar with the experiments by Hottel and Leckner? They found that CO2’s total absorptivity/emissivity is ~0.003. This has been confirmed by other experimenters too such as Ludwig and Sarofim. Such a low emissivity means that CO2’s warming would be correspondingly small. With some hairy mathematics (and depending on what baseline temperature you choose for the atmosphere and surface) the resultant radiative forcing would be about 0.45W/sq.m. That’s from the entire 400ppmv! Nasif Nahle has some good papers on CO2’s low emissivity and criticizes the IPCC for assuming an emissivity of 1.0 for greenhouse gases. Here’s an interesting article from him below.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
20
How dare anybody criticise our assumptions! We are experts and our assumptions are divinely infallible.
20
Mean while the Media is ignoring Snowfall data from NOAA Rutger’s Snow Lab showing the current winter season (November 2012 to April 2013) broke the record for snowfall. I can only find the information at Ice Age Now and Climate Depot and such.
It is mentioned in the depths of a Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog see if you can find it amid the screaming headlines about . Climate Extremes, Record Wet Aprils and Texas Tornado Outbreaks.
Arctic Sea Ice: Over the 2012 to 2013 winter season, sea ice extent grew a record 11.72 million square kilometers (4.53 million square miles). (The rest is the usual warmist spin)
And 2012 – 2013 was not just a one off
What is it going to take to get these people to open their eyes? A mile high glacier sitting on CRU in East Anglia?
50
Speaking of Henry’s Law and the oceans in equilbrium with atmospheric CO2, there is something happening that should be VERY INTERESTING.
Here is Roy Spencer’s Global Microwave Sea Surface Temperature Update for Feb. 2013 Please note that since 2010 the SST have fallen.
Here is the EPA’s graph of SST
Graph of solar radiation at various ocean depths and even NASA is starting to think the sun might actually vary OH MY! And is even entertaining the possibility of a future of prolonged spotlessness.
And finally we have the CO2 data graph from NOAA. And these two graphs of the BEFORE and AFTER ‘adjustments’ for CO2 data.
So if the sun is going dormant the SST is becoming colder, the oceans are not receiving as much energy from the sun, what will the warmist do to ‘Adjust’ the CO2 data in the future?
40
I read a story written by some “crrrrraaaaaazzzzzzzzzzy” Russian and he said that the relative humidity is dropping which was OK as long as the SST was going up (heat transfered) however he said if RH keeps dropping and SST stop and begin to drop then look out.
I wonder if he is still considered crazy?
31
To keep the relationship with CO2 politically correct they will crash the economy.
10
Hansen is not anymore GISS director, NASA news.
30
Yeah, he decided he was better off being a full time environmental activist, so he had to stop his full time environmental activism job.
60
I’ll bet NASA is very glad to be rid of him.
30
Certainly the rest of the world is.
40
Sorry, he’s not that far gone yet.
10
The age should listen to it’s journalists and stop insulting our intelligence with any noises about being unbiased or objective.
The age might as well just merge with teh socialist workers front and become a mouthpeice of that lot. Why not just formalise what the public either already knows or is well on the way to concluding.
They’re well and truly heading in that direction anyway, so why waste time?
20
Given that the temperature of the earth has been remarkably stable for a long time, one might suppose that the sensitivity is close to 1 (one).
Further, the temperature stability also suggests that climate has a thermostat that controls temperature.
Clouds?
20
Yes.
And yes again.
You may be interested in The Svensmark Hypothesis. It’s a big deal and it’s just what you’re looking for.
10
As important as this finding is to bring sanity to the madness of climate change fear, it seems almost moot alongside Professor Malby’s finding that total atmospheric CO2 is nearly unrelated to human emissions. Has his paper ever been published or his findings proven in error?
20
On intra-annual scales, it’s true that over the course of a year the CO2 goes up and down by more than human emissions have added. But what nature adds to the air nature also takes away 6 months later approximately.
On inter-annual scales, the amount by which the total atmospheric carbon content increases every year (year on year) is about half of the amount emitted by human activity. The air’s carbon content can be calculated from average CO2 concentration. The emissions are calculated mainly by total fossil fuel sales and some approximate contribution from land use.
In 2004/2005 the emissions were 8Gt/y and the carbon content of air went up by 4Gt/y. Because carbon is not being created or destroyed, this means that half of what we emit into the air ends up “somewhere else” other than the air. Obviously most is going into the oceans and some is going into plants. Under these conditions it is not possible for nature to be the source of recent CO2 rise on the interannual scale. If nature were to be a net emitter then the amount of air carbon annual increase would be at least as high as what we had put into it, maybe higher since air would be getting carbon from two sources, but it’s not.
The amount of CO2 the oceans can absorb depends on surface temperatures and mixing, so the annual increase is not as smooth as the annual emissions. In some years nature did act as net emitter of CO2, but the last time that the water was warm enough and our emissions were low enough for this to happen was 1966, as seen in the chart linked above.
The only way the above conclusion can be significantly wrong is if the annual emissions figures on which it is based are exaggerated. There has been no scandal surrounding these figures so far, so personally I think they’re real, but we’ve been lied to about so many things in this saga that I wouldn’t bet the country on it.
20
Hi Andrew
I had some argument with Ferdinand Englebeeen last year about this topic.
Obviously you are into this on a deeper level than me so I must be wary, but you mention Nature and Human CO2 output and assume that nature is in balance. Is that right.
I admit that looking at long term CO2 levels over many hundreds of millions of years nature is a Nett CO2 Sequestrator but on a short term basis, in geological time, over say 800,000 years CO2 levels are driven by temperature.
Another factor is that human activity is say 3% and nature 97%. Adding 50% to human output should not logically change much at all.
What happens when another sub oceanic rend in the crust occurs and CO2 out put is suddenly jumped by who knows how many orders of magnitude.
There may be unexplored Lag Factors in nature that has not been identified. Just what happens when large areas of permafrost peel away to expose tundra swamp to the air; what happens when unexpected snowfalls cover large areas of the northern hemisphere as has happened in the last few winters.
There may be lags and accelerators that we haven’t quantified yet?
KK 🙂
20
I like to be wary too, I just wasn’t aware there was anything else to be wary of in this Carbon Origin Conundrum.
[sorry I just did preview and realised how big this looks, but I promise it is pretty easy reading.]
And go easy on the time scale there. I’m talking about politically relevant timescales not geologically relevant ones. Just look at the chart I linked to, that’s the evidence I’m using.
Look at the CO2 month-by-month measurements and compare that to the above chart. Big difference. You have to be careful about what the “97%” and “3%” mean. Those numbers are right, but they are percentages of annual absolute flux. From northern spring to northern spring the biosphere cycles (in + out) an amount of carbon 30 times greater than the emission by human activity. The natural sourcing/emission to the air is demonstrably counteracted by a nearly equivalent sinking/sequestration the same year. The human emission just keeps adding to the air by extracting from sources that were, for all practical purposes, disconnected from the annual carbon cycle until we tapped into it. Our emissions are purely additive, we don’t recycle much carbon, we mainly dig it up.
Natural sources of course may change, and large events may happen just as you say, but on a biennial basis generally the ocean temperature is the main source of variance in the natural CO2 flux rate (again see prev chart).
So on a decadal basis the natural cycles nearly cancel, leaving us with a trend in atmo CO2 that is due to some combination of steady natural sourcing/sinking and steady anthro sourcing. The point of the carbon arithmetic above is to prove nature cannot be doing any sourcing into the air at all in recent decades. As much as the ocean might want to put CO2 into the air, due to submarine volcanoes and rising sea temperature etc, we have beaten the ocean to the punch by putting more CO2 into the air artificially than the chemical reaction naturally wanted to do.
That may deserve some justification.
It is exactly like a beaker containing chemicals on both sides of a reversible reaction equation. The reaction runs until a balance point in quantities is achieved for that reaction temperature. If you add more of a reagent on one side of the reaction you drive the reaction towards the other side. Well the late 20th century temperature increase (due to the sun) tries to push the balance towards moving CO2 out of the ocean into the air, but simultaneously we’ve added CO2 onto that destination side of the equation in such large quantities that it overcomes the temperature forcing and drives the balance point in the reverse direction to the temperature change.
The carbon accounting arithmetic proves that nature is a net sink of CO2 at the moment, and the basic chemistry explains how that can possibly happen at a time of rising temperatures.
Okay so when that crustal CO2 outgassing occurs we will never see it show up at Mauna Loa unless it is more than 4Gt minimum. If it’s a whopper, we’ll see it within 2 years, as CO2 is supposed to be fairly well mixed. OTOH I recall some article arguing the ITCZ separates NH CO2 from SH CO2 and means the CO2 is well mixed longitudinally, somewhat mixed latitudinally, but not well mixed between hemispheres. It’s a bit murky.
I guess if Mauna Loa itself explodes the boffins will not need to check their gauges that day to know where the CO2 came from. 🙂
Invoking undiscovered lags eh? Okay how careful do you want to be? I guess it depends on whether you want to form an opinion based on the facts that are known today, versus waiting to see if there is some lagging sink that makes all the bad CO2 go away next week.
We have a carbon tax in legal effect already. To defeat it will require an argument fully supported by the known facts. Does that move you towards forming an opinion instead of waiting? 🙂
10
Hi Andrew
“Our emissions are purely additive, we don’t recycle much carbon, we mainly dig it up.
“This is true but; nature does it for us.
True there is a 2 or 3 year wait for natural sequestration to take effect, and that creates a constant backlog, but every new bit of human carbon triggers natural sequestration.
“The carbon accounting arithmetic proves that nature is a net sink of CO2 at the moment, and the basic chemistry explains how that can possibly happen at a time of rising temperatures.”
Let me get this. We are, or have been until recently, in a period of rising temperature.
This causes degassing of the oceans and rising CO2 levels.
I appreciate the swings around the mean on the Mauna Loa graph but it may be a big leap to assume man caused the slope to rise.
There is a known mechanism which causes a CO2 emission lag of about 800 years; did anything unusual happen 800 years ago?
All I am saying is that I need to be sure of what caused the Mauna Loa graph to rise constantly and can’t just say it is human because it seems to fit.
How reliable is the stuff we are given.
KK 🙂
00
Nobody is *assuming* “man caused the slope to rise.”. It has been measured.
http://www.marine.csiro.au/marq/edd_search.Browse_Citation4?txtSession=8386
That’s called science.
23
OK
So the slope rises.
Now we both agree that we can see that the graph shows that the slope is rising.
Now, scientifically, point me towards the CAUSE of the rise in CO2.
KK 🙂
00
There is no question-mark hanging over the documented changes to isotopic ratios in atmospheric CO2.
22
Prof Salby points out that while fossil fuels are richer in C12 than the atmosphere, so too is plant life on Earth, and there isn’t a lot of difference (just 2.6%) in the ratios of C13 to C12 in plants versus fossil fuels. (Fossil fuels are, after all, made in theory from plants, so it’s not surprising that it’s hard to tell their “signatures” apart). So if the C13 to C12 ratio is falling (as more C12 rich carbon is put into the air by burning fossil fuels) then we can’t know if it’s due to man-made CO2 or natural CO2 from plants.“
40
Last year Ferdinand made much of the C12 C13 ratios to push the idea that man made CO2 was the main driver of increases seen at Mauna Loa.
It never stacked up, even without those ratios, and the mass balances are just junk contrivances to give the appearance of there being some base for the assertions.
It’s laughable to suggest that someone has done a complete and final total mass balance on Carbon and Carbon dioxide for planet Earth and that it comes out nicely balanced at ZERO.
I recently perused one such Mass Balance which showed Human Origin CO2 as 8 Gt pa.
Only problem was the errors that they were stupid enough to show on the other factors, such as the ocean degassing were + or – 1.6 and 1.9 Gt pa in two cases. That’s an admitted uncertainty of 3.5 in the Natural factors compared to the claimed 8 total for humans.
When the errors admitted to are half of the main target it is difficult to give any credibility that labels the main target,
Human Origin CO2 , as GUILTY.
Smacco’s Razor.
The Scientific truth is that Nobody has done a Mass Balance on CO2 which enables them to say that CO2 increases are definitely man made.
On the contrary, all available data says that Human activity is so small in comparison with other factors that it is irrelevant.
And that is even before we start to talk about whether CO2 can actually influence world temperatures.
KK 🙂
21
Easy, because it isn’t plants that are digging up lots of coal and burning it, thus releasing light-C CO2 into the atmosphere.
Not only that, but ice cores show the atmospheric C in CO2 is lighter now than it has been for 10,000 years.
And if that’s not enough, tree rings show the C13:c12 ratio started falling as the CO2 levels started to increase.
Of course, somebody may have a better proposition for explaining how these three facts fit together…?
21
More precisely there is a lag of around 400 to 1200 years between when natural warmings occurred and when the CO2 showed up in the ice cores.
But 800year lags are irrelevant when you look how the math is done, because it has to be based on what is observable today to diagnose the influence of nature today on the atmosphere. The only relevant lag is the one year delay between a source/sink event and its influence on MLO’s gauges. Since industrial output doesn’t change by much each year I think that’s safe to ignore, but look at the chart data and see for yourself.
Yes and I’ve often wondered if it was the CO2 of the Medieval Warm Period dissolved in the Meridional Overturning Current (aka ocean conveyorbelt) and is only just bubbling to the surface now, because I read somewhere the whole circuit can take 800 to 1000 years to do one lap. That could have been the source of the CO2 except… remember the numbers still have to add up. If the numbers don’t add up it’s physically impossible.
The CO2 levels would be increasing much faster than they are if there was another large source feeding them at the same time as we were. It’s because we can subtract the known human contribution from the observed net change in the atmosphere that we can determine the total sink rate of nature without even knowing what all of nature’s carbon bearing processes are. That’s the advantage of dividing the planet into “Us”, “Air” and “Everything Else”.
Of course. But it’s not true just because it “seems to fit”, it’s because 8 – 4 = -4 , as sure as 1+1=2.
How reliable is the stuff we are given? I’ve never seen these figures disputed. If you find someone saying that the 2004/2005 carbon emissions from human activity were nowhere near as high as 8Gt per year then please let me know. But the error on that figure would have to exceed -50% to change the conclusion.
10
heh, correction: it’s because 8 – 4 = 4 ,
Bit overzealous with the minus sign there, but it’s correct in the flows diagram.
00
Hi Andrew
I said I had gone through this with Ferdinand and I unfortunately described him as a Warmer but he could have just been a firm believer in this mode of analysis.
I don’t dispute the mathematics of adding up and subtracting nor the estimate of human output which to some extent must be a very slowly increasing average in line with population growth.
I do know that Vietnam jumped from about 45 million people in 1974 to well over double that now in 2013.
What I am very concerned about is the natural fluctuations and especially the unknowns and unquantifieds.
In the Arithmetic diagram are the quantities shown the Nett effect or absolute input output values.
If H1 is human origin CO2 and NO1 is Natural origin CO2 with there being an NO2 and NO3 and they are the ONLY factors outstanding, then by all means go for it. But is there an NO4 and 5?
Question is; are all the factors accounted for as far as carbon balance goes.
I think anyone who looks at the Carbon Balances and sees perfection may not be seeing what they think they are.
It’s a very big problem and an example of Smacco’s Razor.
KK 🙂
00
The important numbers are the bucket deltas, the +/- numbers in bold, the amount by which a repository goes up or down in total in one year, and they must sum to zero.
The model has been contrived specifically so there is only one unknown: the yearly change in carbon residing in all of nature other than the atmosphere. So there cannot be anything missing or left out by this model, it is complete by definition. Anything you can imagine (and everything you can’t) is implicitly inside the Nature bucket unless it is in the air or in proven fossil fuel reserves. The great unknown has been defined in terms of the two observables using the conservation of mass equation, so it can be estimated.
The lags don’t matter because we don’t care how long ago the cause of something was, we only care what entered the atmosphere this year, so we can estimate what nature absorbed this year.
Actually now you mention it. The main error probably is in estimating the mass of the atmosphere since that was probably used by ORNL to derive the ppm to GtC conversion factor, which is used to turn MLO’s measurement changes into atmosphere bucket deltas. I doubt they would be wrong by more than 30%.
If you’re looking for the “magic unsupportable number” in the model, that’s the only one.
00
Smacco’s Razor is the opposite of Occams and is a phenomenon associated with warmer Science.
00
Ah, down to name-calling eh? Okay, so I am making progress. 🙂
You’ve been confused by the appearance of the Biosphere and Ocean in the diagram, but my accounting methodology does not use them; you should ignore them. In the accounting argument all of nature is combined to one bucket. That’s in the bottom right corner. To be absolutely clear, the DIAGRAM hypothesises more flows than are actually used in the MODEL of the argument I’m using.
You’re avoiding any recognition of the simplicity of the model above. It is because it does not purport to measure all the vagaries of nature that it is so reliable. It’s not complicated. It is therefore not an example of Smacco’s Butterknife or whatever other in-joke you want to label it.
If you insist on enumerating all the carbon crimes of nature then you will miss some and get an underestimate of nature’s contribution to atmospheric CO2. You would be exhibiting Smacco’s Butterknife by adding more variables. This model does not involve a complete carbon process inventory, in fact was constructed specifically so that this did not need to be done, and you are wasting your time fighting a strawman if you continue to misrepresent the model.
Then there is the small fact that air temperatures have flatlined for 15 years, upper ocean average temperature has increased only 0.01 degrees in the ARGO era, and yet CO2 continues to go up.
I do not dispute that temperature has been affecting CO2, it is mentioned in the diagram.
The rate of change of CO2 should be proportional to sea temperature anomaly temporarily until it reaches the new chemical equilibrium, and indeed it has been, but that is always true regardless of whether we are the main source of the CO2 rise. The temperature has caused most of the short term year-to-year variance in CO2.
The 79 billion dollar question is: what’s the cause of the medium term CO2 trend since 1960?
Is it just co-incidence that when extrapolated backward the CO2 rate would be zero before the WW2 industrialisation?
If its all due to temperature, how can you get an exponential output from a sinusoidal cause?
Why speculate about ocean temperature chemistry when the emissions figures answer this more certainly?
00
Hi Andrew
I thought it obvious that there was no more name calling.
Smacco’s razor:
So Occam had the idea that if there was a problem and you looked at that problem you were likely to be faced with a number of possibilities.
Some solutions might be complex and appear well after the initial first, apparent logical solution.
He suggested that often it was the simplest solution that was the correct one.
Haven’t read your post yet but Smaccos principle might apply to global warming and especially to the carbon balance.
It could be stated that where a complex system existed it is highly unlikely that the first and simplest solution would be the correct one.
The carbon balances I see depicted on screen are mostly very simplistic and sadly seem designed with only one purpose:
to implicate man made CO2 in the warming concept pushed by IPCCC.
As I said I haven’t read the above yet but just wanted to explain Smaccos Principle; it was a joke.
The complexity of this topic makes it possible to get frustrated and misunderstand people.
On a recent thread I thought I saw Richard and “David Russell” bouncing off each other.
David seems to be a troll and his contribution can be summed up as:
“I believe in the equation with Log Natural in it and Doubling CO2 adds 1 C Deg to temps”.
Having quickly scanned what appears to be a contribution by Richard at
http://chipstero7.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/it-is-often-asserted-that-we-prove.html
I should now say that he and I share the same ideas about CO2 residence time and he is not a warmer nor a troll.
You just have to understand that the “forcing” effects of CO2 increases on the operation of Photosynthesis are real and significant. The speed at which my grass grows ready for cutting, again, is evidence that nature loves CO2.
There is almost immediate “sequestration” but not quite. Many papers show the time needed to equilibrise with increased CO2 is about 2 to 3 years.
This makes the small CO2 output by humans an unlikely source for the Mauna Loa observations.
KK 🙂
00
Andrew
Again, only partially through it but notice you seem to be familiar with the “Black Box” concept in modelling.
This is where any number of interacting items, not the prime item of interest, tend towards a neutral or constant bias in a situation.
Putting all those known unknowns into a black box is a very useful technique for simplifying analyses.
BUT, and there is always a but. this ONLY works where you are able to experimentally calibrate the value of the black box
before going to work on the main factor under analysis.
I just haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that anybody in warmer science circles has actually done this in isolating each
and every non human factor to the black box.
That’s why I am so skeptical of these “Balances”.
KK 🙂
10
Hey KK,
Before I forget, while it’s still fresh in my mind… thanks for the tip a few months ago about Les Miserables being a good movie. I just watched it.
Suddenly all this global warming shit seems like a total waste of time.
Today it will be impossible for me to sustain any argument about it.
I’m kinda hoping I can forget about the whole debacle for at least week.
And casting Sacha Cohen as the Innkeeper was just genius. 🙂
One day more….
20
Well the book was good too.
I read War and Peace last year but it was hard work.
Les Miserables was a very good read.
There is also a movie version out that includes Liam (Taken) Neeson, The Australian Bloke and Uma Thurman that is not a musical.
As Tony said, there is another book that you might want to look at as well.
It’s called “Victor Hugo” and was written by an Australian by the name of Les … something or other.
KK 🙂
00
Andrew,
That model may be popular by the IPCC but I fear it is too simplistic. I’m afraid nature has a far more complicated story to tell. It is true that the amount of CO2 that the oceans absorb depends on the water-temperature, but it also depends on the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is also true that the oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 will diminish as ocean temperature rises and more CO2 is outgassed, but the idea that their capacity to absorb CO2 also diminishes is an illusion. It isn’t true. You have to understand Henry’s law in order to understand this point. Henry’s law determines a specific fixed ‘partitioning ratio’ between the amount of CO2 residing in the atmosphere and the amount that will be dissolved in the oceans at a given temperature at equilibrium. At the current mean ocean temperature of ~15C (at the surface), that partitioning ratio comes out to be ~1:50. If the oceans were warmed by say 0.2C the increase in atmospheric CO2 would be about 106ppmv which would only change the partitioning ratio very slightly. However, it is only that ratio which changes, not the oceans’ absolute capacity to absorb CO2, which you can go on adding virtually indefinitely, albeit at the altered ratio.
The oceans should be able to continue to absorb our CO2 as long as there is a sufficient amount of H2O in the oceans to combine with CO2 molecules which of course there is. The idea that the oceans can’t absorb the CO2 because that is more than the ‘chemical reaction naturally wanted to do’ is silly. CO2 dissolves rapidly in water and is released from it rapidly too and water can hold significantly more CO2 than the air. If that was not the case fizzy-drinks manufacturers would be out of business and soda siphons would not work. The IPCC describe a rather imaginative and non-existent chemical reaction that stops the oceans from absorbing human CO2 which is determined by the Revelle Factor. The chemical reaction says that as CO32 decreases relative to H2CO3 and HCO3, then the oceans ability to absorb CO2 decreases. Their equation for determining this is actually rather amusing when you look at it, because it implies that carbonated drinks shouldn’t exist. Tom Segalstad has an excellent paper on this very subject called ‘1998: Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma’ that I recommend to everyone.
Also, see the correlation between changes in atmospheric CO2 and changes in SST by Dr. Lance Endersbee in his paper ‘Ocean temperature and CO2: Global climate change has natural causes’. The correlation is essentially perfect at 0.995 making the oceans a very likely candidate for the increase in CO2.
20
One objection that usually gets brought up to this is that atmospheric CO2 has apparently not been higher than 400ppmv for millions of years suggesting humans are the cause. This is only suggested by the ice-core data which is flawed. I’d be happy to explain why it is flawed if anyone wanted to know.
20
My understanding is that its flawed because ice melts as it is drilled and this quickly releases CO2.
00
On a side-note, a few years ago I wrote an article explaining why the increase in CO2 cannot be anthropogenic called ‘The Revelle vs Henry’ law’. It’s probably still lingering on the Internet somewhere.
00
Richard
I have found an article by a Richard E at
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1784-post-10766.html#pid10766
“If I open a bottle of fizzy pop, how long does it take to go flat??
When I boil a pan of water, are the bubbles on the inside of the pan before it boils degassing CO2?”
and there is an expansion of that on another location which I haven’t read.
Is that you?
KK
10
I didn’t write the passage you quoted Keith, but someone linked my post at the start of the page.
20
It’s still floating around, interesting reading!
You are doing well for a young buck…. are you really only 25?
10
Is this it?
”
Atmospheric CO2 short residence time
It is often asserted by CAGW-advocates that we can prove humans have increased the atmospheric CO2 concentration from its assumed pre-industrial baseline of 280ppmv to its present value of 390ppmv (as of 2011) by atmospheric carbon isotope measurements. Specifically by comparing changes in the C12/C13 ratio. “
10
Richard
I have been looking at some of your recent posts here and I must say I agree with them.
The incident the other day is a worry to me that I have misunderstood someones intentions and marked them as a troll.
The comments by David Russell were full of statements about a doubling of CO2 leading to an appreciable increase in temperature and exhibited the hall marks of warmer trolls: agreeing with 90% of theory but still pushing the payload ie there is a big gain for doubling.
The presence of a number of others such as Themm and Andrew adding to the conflict made it even harder to tell what was happening.
Unfortunately this topic, CAGW, is extremely complex and people may make comments that show lack of understanding or confusion and push those very strongly without being a troll.
In future I will read earlier p[arts of the threads first before commenting.
KK 🙂
10
My posts have consistently claimed that a doubling of CO2 can ONLY contribute 1 degree C of warming from radiative considerations. That’s 1/3 of the IPCC average #, because my research makes me conclude the 3X feedbacks are non-existent. I further claim that 1 degree is reduced 50% because 50% of the heat hitting earth is converted to [cooling] evaporation, not heat. So my position is that for CO2, we might at most get a .5 degree warming per doubling.
Why did this make me look like a warmist?
10
“Why did this make me look like a warmist?”
Because calculations of “Doubling” are theoretical calcs based on suppositions and ifs, buts and maybees.
Any acknowledgement of this so called “doubling” effect is ridiculous from a purely scientific point of view a simply perpetuates a scientific wrong that does not help anybody.
It’s like saying that “the models show….”. The CO2 vs T “models” are nothing more than computer simulations and must be seen as such.
In the link within this link I make the point that the IPCCCCs Black Box has been stuffed full of “inconvenient factors” like orbital mechanics so that that CO2 could be left out in the cold on its’ lonesome to take the blame.
KK
10
@David Russell
your research????
We are skeptics. Where is this research?
20
David
My view on the “Models”:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/major-30-reduction-in-modelers-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-skeptics-were-right/#comment-1277354
The other important point is that we are well into the asymptotic zone with CO2 concentration which means that CO2 cannot provide much T increase even if there was a bucketload of new CO2.
The only thing that can heat the Earth is not more CO2 but more Sun.
Failing to understand that is ti fail to understand the Log effect.
And that’s IF the CO2 mechanism was important which it almost certainly is not.
KK
00
Hi David
Was that Salby?
I would agree with his view.
KK 🙂
00
Nenana Ice Classic seems to have made a new record for the latest ice break-up.
See WUWT for live feed link
and Nenana Ice Classic continues to close on new record, meanwhile, lunar effects have been noted…. Is that Cook?
50
Hi Joe,
This summary attempts to provide a very simple explanation of the true factors which determine climate variation.
Congratulation on your website.
I hope you find this interesting.
Albert
Greenhouse Gasses Evaluation:
Of the two major greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, water vapour is approximately 97.5% (15,000 parts per million at 50% relative humidity) and carbon dioxide is approximately 2.5%.
Australia’s contribution to Earths carbon dioxide gasses is approximately 1% of the global total, which amounts to 0.025% (1/100 of 2.5%).
The Australian Governments policy of attaining a 5% (1/20) reduction of the 0.025% of Australian generated CO2 emissions equates to a global reduction of 0.00125 % of the total carbon dioxide present in the earths atmosphere or (1 part in 80,000).
Halving or doubling this minute amount will have no discernible impact on the earth’s climate or temperature.
Until humans can control the sun’s evaporation of water vapour off the world’s oceans (which constitute approximately 97.5% of the Earth’s greenhouse gases) we cannot change the climate via a reduction in CO2. If all the carbon dioxide gas was removed from the atmosphere, all the plants (crops, grasses, trees, etc) would die and so would all living things, including humans.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and human generated CO2 is having virtually no effect on the earth’s climate. Climate change is a natural phenomenon caused primarily by variations in solar activity which has a direct bearing on the production of water vapour evaporated from the oceans which constitutes approximately 97.5% of all global warming gasses in the atmosphere.
Other factors such volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes can also indiscriminately affect the earth’s climate however the sun is the prime cause of all climate change and variation.
Note: The 15,000 parts per million of water vapour in the atmosphere is from the Carrier psychometric chart showing that air with a dry bulb temperature reading of 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) and a wet bulb temperature of 75 degrees F (24 degrees C), at a relative humidity reading of 50%, shows 0.015 pounds of moisture per pound of dry air, or 15,000 parts per million of water vapour compared to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. The 50% relative humidity was picked as a world average (encompassing deserts to tropics).
http://lehighcheme.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/psychrometric-chart/
18/4/2013
100
Nahle has proved there is NO GHG effect. They simply dont exist. Even water vapour.
82
Where’s the proof?
03
It’s official Nenana ice classic sets new late ice record, 2013 now later than 1964 and continuing to extend.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/20/nenana-ice-classic-sets-new-record-for-latest-ice-out-and-the-record-is-still-growing/#more-86626
MSM doesn’t want to know, but were all over this when an early record popped up in 1998. What a mob of fraudsters and con merchants .
But ya gotta laugh , give JB, Matty and SF etc another 12 months and they’ll all agree with Lindzen’s 1C.
Plus have the nerve to insist they said so many times. What a hoot.
100
From WUWT:
No doubt we will all be deafened by the silence from the media.
80
As usual my grasp of maths and graphs is not quite up to the level required to say if this link is relevant. But Im sure you guys will tell me. Seems related somehow ?
http://vnatsci.ltu.edu/s_schneider/astro/seasons.shtml
10
The more astute members of the Global Warming Industry have bgun to realise that they face a lot of downsizing in the years ahead.
As jobs become scarcer, those who first expose the lies and excesses of the past are most likely to keep their jobs.
As climate reality continues to make a mockery of alarmist model projections then the forcing and feedback value estimates for a doubling of carbon dioxide levels will most continue to fall.
The sad thing is that very soon the current generation of alarmists will be retiring on comfortable pensions, which just goes to prove the old adage that those committing white collar crime seldom get punished.
100
Thats (this article) ‘luke warmist stuff’ anyway. What part of CO2 has NOTHING to do with climate dont they understand.
70
The famous mathematician Bertrand Russell once said: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts”.
I don’t see much skepticism here.
325
You’re very certain of yourself aren’t you?
231
Mummyblogger ?
70
And here’s one for the IPCC:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
140
Rachel a poor effort at a put down if I do say so myself.
Quoting Bertrand Russell is not without humorous irony as “Russell’s Teapot” can be firmly applied to warmists such as yourself.
I don’t know if I’m offended by your lack of effort in insults or your use of an obvious “special” person in your avatar.
60
Rachel,
Some would question the wisdom of Bertrand Russell. Having said something that is oft quoted is not by itself a worthwhile credential. He went from one thing to the next like a bee from one species of flower to the next, collecting a lot of theory and a lot of pats on the back in the process. But it never mattered a damn to the average man. And that is my chief complaint with men such as Russell, that they never lived in the real world of the people they so presumptuously judged and criticized. It would be well to not justify yourself with Bertrand Russell quotes.
50
Please don’t knock one of my hero’s.
There are many people who do not share your opinion of him, particularly in light of some if the bigotry that he was treated with in the USA on many occasions.
His essays are very insightful.
00
Hey, her avatar is better looking than mine.
I am not sure whether to feel insulted, or not.
30
Rereke,
If your present whatever it is (I’ve never figured it out) isn’t flattering enough you could use a picture of some handsome young stud instead. We might even believe it was you. Who knows? 😉
I don’t think Jo has any rules except to avoid socially unacceptable stuff.
30
Roy,
It represents a journalistic idea, associated with the second oldest profession in the world.
20
I liked it better before you described it.
It looked like a Kiwi assassin sneaking around doing dastardly deeds in the middle of the night so all the other Kiwis can sleep soundly in their nests blissfully unaware of the horrors from which they were saved.
Or something even more jingoistically poetic.
Now I know the Kiwi’s pen is mightier than the sword it all seems so innocuous. By daylight.
10
Except it looks like a certain digit (usually the longest one) disguised as a dagger. So it works by daylight….
PS Even more sinister is the hand.
00
From Wiki
No surprises here……………
00
Hey Guys, Gimme a break. It is just a stylised cloak and dagger. No assassinations required.
Here is the quote that led me to choosing this particular avatar:
[Sun Su: The Art of War, Essay 8 principle 3, circa 400 BC]
This blog is for people with foreknowledge, and those searching for knowledge; something that Governments and their agents would prefer you not to have.
00
I like my version of events better than yours RW 🙂 at least you where not inspired by “For by wise guidance you can wage your war”
Cheers
00
Having doubts, and being skeptical, are not the same thing at all.
Having doubts means not being convinced, or lacking faith, or being unsure. It is a middle-ground position, and that is what Russell was referring to.
Being skeptical means that, based on cross-disciplinary experience, we know that at least some parts of the climate change arguments are indemonstrable, because they are based on theoretical relationships or physical processes, that have not actually been observed, outside of the computer models. Also, the maths is based on variables that really have no observable basis in the physical world.
And we are skeptical because previous predictions about climate change have been shown to have been wrong.
30
“I don’t see much skepticism here.”
Are we reading the same site ?? If you want to see a collection of like minded folk stroking each others egos so hard thier hands are contributing to global warming, then go read John Cook, its actually quite sickly to see how timid anyone is to say anything other than the agreed positions on that site. Its almost the opposite of even high school science debate, let alone anything remotely approaching adult discourse.
Here we have people who generally agree on the basics of AGW skepticism almost tearing each other apart on details because they are so keen to ensure their position is well justified by as much evidence as they can gather (see Andrew Mcrea vs Themm Nunnov)
What exactly were you expecting, conversations about the moon landings being organised by aliens from Area 51 ? If so then you need to hang out at the IPCC forums more.
20
Well I guess I should take that as a “lukewarm” compliment, but I would rather not have that Monday thread used as an exemplar as it was not one of my better days. So much time wasted on semantics when I have made plenty of other comments on more tangible issues in the last 3 years on this site that are in some instances (dare I say) even more researched than the article I was commenting on.
But yes you’re right about the rest of it.
Because the aliens founded the IPCC from the beginning. This totally explains why their climate predictions don’t match Earth… they’re not modelling the Earth, mannnn… it’s all connected…. 😉
10
Nothing lukewarm about it Andrew. I think I learned more from reading you two going at it lately than I have in some time. Clicking your references and reading the descriptions of thing on other sites etc. Im just a poor dumb safety guy who flunked Math 4 and left high school at 15 y/o to join the WA prawn fishing fleet. For the last 20 years (47 now) I have been trying to make up for that mistake by reading science and math in my own time and doing a degree in OHS at Uni (which I just finished WOOHOO!) Im in awe of most of you and I feel in very informed company, please keep it up.
10
Sidney Hook on Bertrand Russell
“What did Russell believe? You tell mne the year and I’ll tell you what he believed”
00
And the same could be said for Sidney Hook – Communist, Marxist, Anti Communist, Conservative.
At least the two of them Hook/Russell were closely aligned on one account – Religion.
00
The math doesn’t make sense to me. To get 3.44 W/M2 you have to change the radiative transfer formula for CO2 from F=5.35xLN(a/b) to F=4.97xLN(a/v) where a and b are the ending and beginning CO2 levels. The orginal formula yields a 1 degree temperature, whereas the new W/M2 of 3.44 yields a .9 degree temperature change. So that’s 10%, not 30%. So something else must be changed we’re not being told about than just the climate sensitivity to CO2 levels, no?
06
david russell, you say here:
I had almost exactly the same problem that you have here with a model that I was working with. It seemed to give the same seemingly bogus results.
I had it checked and what they found was that the fremitter was bostrottled. They had to fix the rantangran, and then retrense the transaxlabiofronic multiplexification unit. It was a pretty costly exercise really, and we ended up applying for a Government grant to make the vital addition to give the correct result. What we needed to add was the Turbo Encabulator, and luckily, that was actually perfected some years back now, as shown at the following video, and once we could prove that this was what was needed, the Government was quite pleased in fact to pay the cost shown at the end of the video.
Hope this helps!
Turbo Encabulator
Tony.
POST SCRIPT: Sorry, I couldn’t help it!
151
It’s alright Tony;
you are entitled to plead extreme provocation.
KK 🙂
61
Tony, now that you have perfected the fine art of Bafflegab when are you going to apply for your government grant?
50
Suspicion confirmed!
I believe the adage goes something like this. If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance then baffle them with BS. Neither one gets the job done right. We humans get much too impressed with words and not nearly impressed enough with information content.
Years a go my boss had a thing called a buzzword computer. It had two wheels and two windows in which you could position one of the words on each wheel. You could concoct a really impressive sentence from this little machine without even trying. But it was all nonsense — impressive and official looking but total hot air.
I wish I’d saved one for posterity.
10
Thanks, Tony. I had no idea the humble automatic transmission was so, so, … ???
Well, after that spiel it must be so… …something or other! 🙂
20
Tony,
I hope you went through the full decontamination process in regard to the fremissions. They can be radiopassive in sufficiently small doses.
41
By my understanding I think the 3.44W/sq.m figure is the direct forcing from a doubling of CO2 alone and the newly-estimated climate sensitivity (i.e. with feedbacks included) by Otto is 2C, whereas the IPCC’s is 3.3C, which is about a 30% reduction by my reckoning. I hope that helps Russel. (That said, I’m not sure the 3.44W/sq.m figure is completely devoid of feedbacks). Perhaps someone can explain it better.
31
The effect of IR forcing on temperature follows the Stefan-Boltzmann temperature formula: F= σ(T)4, σ being the SB constant, 5.67x 10)-8. So you just solve for T at 255.15 degree (the Earth’s emission temperature) and then again for 256.15 degrees and you get the temperature effect in terms of forcing, F, in W/M2 at the emission level. That in turn works out to almost exactly 3.7W/M2. Thus 3.7W/M2 and 1 Degree C are equivalent at the emission level. Using the new 3.44 W/M2 you get about .909 degrees.
To put it in real simple terms, since 3.44 is 90% or so of 3.7, the math suggests a 10%, not 30%, reduction in warming for a doubling of Co2.
Now if you assume that forcings are OMITTED, well the forcing factor is about 3X, almost all of which is from CO2. But you still only get a 10% reduction, because from 1 degree to .9 degree is no different a reduction than 3 degrees is to 2.7 degrees (the latter including forcings BOTH in the climate sensitivity gross and in the impact as well in the reduction).
03
I think you might be misunderstanding things Russel. What Jo has said is that the climate sensitivity value has decreased by 30% from the IPCC’s old estimated value of 3.3C to the reformulated value by Otto of 2C. That’s about 30%. Right? The 3.44W/sq.m of radiative forcing from CO2 alone has nothing to do with 30%. Also, I personally would apply the S-B law to the surface instead of somewhere vaguely in the atmosphere.
30
We may be having a violent agreement. I am of course aware that the result “3.3C down to 2C” is a 30% (or so) reduction. But the only detail we are given on “how/why” is a reduction of the IR forcing from 3.7 W/M2 to 3.44 W/M2, which is only a 10% reduction. My point/question is: How does 10% become 30%?
02
David,
I’m not sure we need to answer that question. It looks to me that the warmists have finally realized that their models continue to be dead wrong and simply acquiesced to the amount of warming that has actually been measured. An adjustment of their models was then made and their climate sensitivity now looks closer to what skeptics say (and puts their original number about 30% wrong).
For myself, I don’t even care because I think the real evidence is that CO2 has no measurable effect when compared with natural forces. But I’m repeating myself, sorry.
That’s probably oversimplified but I think it’s basically the situation.
30
So you have no curiosity on this. Ok. I do.
01
Regarding where to apply the SB temperature value of IR forcing, since outcome is variable depending on the base temperature, where you apply it will indeed make a difference. The emission temperature of 255.15 K is I believe the appropriate temp for our purposes. But if you apply it at the surfaces where the base temp is 288.15 K (15 degrees C) the conversion of 3.7 W/M2 equates to only a .63 degree temperature increase from CO2-alone warming. This would be nice for us skeptics because it makes the CO2 disaster scenario look even sillier, but I’m pretty sure you have to use the Earth’s emission temperature for the SB calculation. Others may want to opine on this.
03
There’s a big ‘so what?’ here. ‘Global warming’ deceased some time ago and ‘climate change’ was the resurrection. The devil lies in the perfect juxtaposition between the believers credo and wider politics, and the end result, money. Who can disagree with a save the planet tax, a portion which goes to the Climate ‘Vatican’ – the UN – and provides the platform to bankroll agendas that supposedly advance ‘global management’?
It’s the mindset that needs to expire here, and for that I believe a new vision is required, one that truly captivates global imagination. Now, purely as an exercise imagine if you will, just for one moment were someone to quite literally come up with ‘warp drive’ or better still, crack the necessary technology for sustained, manageable, productive fusion.
Where would that leave the current climate preoccupations of politicians and scientists?
50
I’d bet they’d object to all the helium a fusion reactor would put into the atmosphere. Never mind that it’s been bubbling up from beneath the Texas Panhandle for a long time. And in commercially viable form and quantity too. Rule number one for sustaining a crisis is to always have a crisis ready to go for every new development. The possible villains are endless. 😉
A little side story: the reason the Hindenburg was using hydrogen instead of helium is because the only source of helium at the time was in the U.S. and because of Germany’s belligerence, we would not sell it to them. That turned what might have been an aviation success story into a disaster.
There are now other sources of helium but we still account for the largest share, about 78% (4th paragraph).
20
Graeme No.3 –
the GlobalPost article is attributed to the Japanese Kyodo News Agency.
also notable in the text:
“The change in policy comes as some European companies are moving to shift operations out of the region to avoid increasing costs to meet the emissions-cut goals, and amid a decline in emission trading launched in the region in 2005.”
yet:
20 May: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Gore Offers ‘Sustainable Capitalism’ as Night-Vision Goggles for Investors
“Bear with me,” Al Gore said to a rapt crowd of about 200 last Monday night at the fourth annual U.S.-India Energy Partnership Summit in Washington. He was asking the audience’s indulgence as he offered a scientific analogy to describe his investment philosophy.
Traditional investors focus on a narrow part of the spectrum of value that any company, or economy, produces, he said. Mainstream accounting in that way is like visible light. It’s all that eyes can see but makes up just 2 percent of the complete electromagnetic spectrum, the band of radiation that extends from high-powered gamma and x-rays to microwave and radio frequencies.
Generation Investment Management, the firm Gore founded 10 years ago with former Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chief Executive Officer David Blood, tries to widen the bands of light that it sees by incorporating sustainability analysis…
To refine Gore’s metaphor, sustainable investing is more akin to donning night-vision goggles, which extend human vision into the infrared band. That’s the part of the electromagnetic dial at which bodies radiate heat. It’s the same emission band as that other invisible thing Gore is known for trying to get people to see: atmospheric carbon dioxide.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-20/gore-offers-sustainable-capitalism-as-night-vision-goggles-for-investors.html
50
Haaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa another load of cods wallop from the biggest liar on the planet, but in his defence night vision goggles are……………well its complicated.
101
For the idiot that gave me a thumbs down (yes i understand it was more politically derived than scientific) but you cannot see in the IR spectrum with night vision googles.
Red thumb me all you like however i am merely attempting to highlight more bullshit from Gore and Co………….one day you will thank me for my efforts but until then get stuffed.
91
Go easy Crakar. Not every body is familiar with IR imaging technology, nor night vision glasses, for that matter.
21
OK! For one who is surprised to hear that, in what band do night goggles allow you to see?
Yeah! I’m sometimes ignorant and need to ask a question. But at least I’m not afraid to ask.
20
Roy,
Night vision goggles take in the very small amount of visable light (too low for us to see) and amplifies it. For example you may be in a room that to you is completely dark, however there will be some light, the goggles amplify this light to level that you can see. It is quite simple technology and easy to do.
IR cameras work on heat, for example we would use a camera to look at the RF connections on equipment, if the connection was warm/hot then it was no good (high resistance) but the camera would see this connector as red as it would be emitting IR.
The colors red for hot and cold for blue are a man made construct.
30
Thanks! Old dogs can learn new tricks. I would have said it was IR.
20
Baa! Baa!
70
I was wondering what rap they were up on.
10
Is rapt merely a shortened version of the word rapture? Which of course invokes religious connotations which in turn infers con artist?
00
China to reject EU fines on airline emissions: papers
BEIJING, May 20 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Chinese airlines are on a collision course with the EU after industry officials said carriers would ignore any fines imposed over failing to report their carbon emissions, local media reported this weekend…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2379462
ANALYSIS-Airline emissions deal may not come before EU deadline
MONTREAL, May 19 (Reuters) – Hope is fading for a global deal to regulate the airline industry’s greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a fall deadline, even though failure could push the industry back to the brink of a trade war over the European Union’s emissions trading system…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.2379397?&ref=searchlist
40
Hooray for China! Someone needs to stand up to that nonsense. 🙂 🙂
20
Monckton is ignored by the IPCC (for years) but then threatens to call in the police and gets an immediate reaction.
Go, go, go my lord. Just proves once again what a mob of shonks and fraudsters we’re dealing with.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/20/monckton-challenges-the-ipcc-suggests-fraud-and-gets-a-response/#more-86636
90
Monckton is my hero. <3
62
You need to get out more mate.
19
I suspect there is a secret coding to <3 which may reverse the meaning.
This has been a very weird thread where people have gone bananas.
But she'll be apples in the morning.
10
are you a wee bit uncomfortable about what <3 means?
00
Me and my friends on Xbox message each other that symbol every day. You need to get down with the yoof.
30
OK
20
Great link, hes a great man.
30
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2327494/Crossing-worlds-terrifying-terrain–giant-red-bus-Eight-intrepid-explorers-people-DRIVE-Russia-Canada-North-Pole.html
What the…..how…….this is not possible we are only 2 months away from an ice free Arctic.
Saint Al of Gore
51
Yes, and there is all that lovely oil and gas up there, just ripe for the drilling thereof.
And not just for the USA. Our Russian friends are hot to trot as well. They are advertising for Russian or English speaking geologists, with seismic survey experience.
20
can’t recall anyone posting CAGW gatekeeper Fiona’s hilarious take:
19 May: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: Climate change: human disaster looms, claims new research
Forecast global temperature rise of 4C a calamity for large swaths of planet even if predicted extremes are not reached
Some climate change sceptics have suggested that because the highest global average temperature yet recorded was in 1998 climate change has stalled. The new study, which is published in the journal Nature Geoscience, shows a much longer “pause” would be needed to suggest that the world was not warming rapidly.
Alexander Otto, at the University of Oxford, lead author of the research, told the Guardian that there was much that climate scientists could still not fully factor into their models…
Otto said that this most recent pattern could not be taken as evidence that climate change has stopped. “Given the noise in the climate and temperature system, you would need to see a much longer period of any pause in order to draw the conclusion that global warming was not occurring,” he said. Such a period could be as long as 40 years of the climate record, he said.
Otto said the study found that most of the climate change models used by scientists were “pretty accurate”…
Jochem Marotzke, professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and a co-author of the paper, said: “It is important not to over-interpret a single decade, given what we know, and don’t know, about natural climate variability…
Richard Allan, reader in climate at the University of Reading, said: “This work has used observations to estimate Earth’s current heating rate and demonstrate that simulations of climate change far in the future seem to be pretty accurate…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/19/climate-change-meltdown-unlikely-research
20
Moving the goal post again as expected.
The NOAA falsification criterion is on page S23 of its 2008 report titled ‘The State Of The Climate’
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
So, the climate models show “Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations”.
But, the climate models RULE OUT “(at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more”.
10
“It is important not to over-interpret a single decade, given what we know, and don’t know, about natural climate variability…”
And at the same time pointing to every storm and saying its evidence of the models being accurate.
In Australia we call that “having two bob each way”
Ive also had a theory for a while that if they (AGW’s) want to claim that so called “isolated instances” such as a decade of data is not enough to draw conclusions from a data set of a few hundred years (or less), then how is a few hundred years of data (only about 50 years of which is any good) enough in a 2 billion year old system ??
In Australia we call that “having two bob each way”
10
oh gawd let there be an unthreaded thread.
10
What amazes me is that, no matter how plain the evidence, they still scream “But, but… we are still gonna fry!!”.
We need more.
20
From the BBC and Dr Otto:
So, according to Otto, its even worse than we thought!
I take that to mean “We really do not know what we are talking about”.
40
Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming ‘not as likely’
10
Its evidence that there is not enough evidence to say that the are certain they think they dont know what they are talking about, but right now its unclear if they are unsure.
20
You would think, wouldn’t you, that for people who make such extensive use of hind-casts, they would update their models a bit more frequently?
Like maybe BEFORE even the general media starts to cotton-on to the fact that they couldn’t forecast hitting a barn door with a shot-gun.
As shown recently by Roy Spencer, 44 recent (“state of the art”, I expect) climate models all being on the hot side of reality suggests that the IPCC modellers have got hold of the wrong end of the shot-gun.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
20
…the graph says it all. Red and blue lines at the bottom being the reality observed by satellites:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png
10
I keep seeing graphs like this… and I’ll keep saying that they FALSIFY the models!
30
Yep!
KK
10
The model in thin bright red line seems to be lining up with reality fairly well. Why don’t they dump the other 43 and just use the model that works?
I bet that one has low sensitivity. 😉
How does one find out which model that is? I looked at the KNMI site and it seems guess-and-check is the only option. 🙁
10
Is it true that most of the math/programming behind these models has never been released for open scruitny ?
10
Yes. This is contrary to the scientific method, which again proves that their modeling is not science.
20
Thanks I had heard that it was almost impossible to get access to the models “back of house” but wasnt sure if that was a “myth” or not.
As you say its an odd way to proceed if your looking for genuine credibility. Really makes me wonder why anyone takes the models seriously when no one excpet their makers knows how they work.
*resists using an analogy*
20
Yes, it’s super-secret.
Also, it’s here:
http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/guide_to_cmip5.html
Honestly, this conspiracy-stuff is childish and ridiculous.
31
Excellent thanks, I did search for this but I guess you need to know he right search strings to come across it.
At no time was I attempting to say this is a “conspiracy theory” and I agree, incorrect assumptions undermine arguments, no argument.
I will read and no doubt my head will explode because even the front page is at the very limit of my poor little brain.
Appreciate the link.
00
Maggot, the question was:
You have posted a link to a project overview that lists a lot of abstracts of “peer-reviewed” “gunna-do” claims, alleged “results” and generated graphs of “possible scenarios”.
I opened four at random Maggot, and guess what? Not a single line of computer code, not a single table of raw data for processing.
In short there is NOTHING at your link that would allow a third party to attempt to reproduce the claimed, alleged, results.
So thank you for proving SafetyGuy correct in his original post.
20
The CMIP5 page has links to a large group of participating models, who make their code available in various ways.
For example, here is one of them,
http://cfmip.metoffice.com/
Evidently, you are as wrong as SafetyGuy was, but with even less excuse, having been pointed in the right direction before you made your mis-statement.
Even without those links, you cannot claim the “code is secret” unless you have actually contacted the model owner and asked them for it.
21
It seems the back-pedalling continues to gain pace.
Excellent article over at Pierre Cosselin’s “No Tricks Zone” on the latest about-face from the EU Commission here.
40
Thanks for the link TN. This follows the EU voting against supporting the carbon permit value a couple of months ago.
If you cannot keep the EU onside with AGW you’ll never win the war.
This has made my day!!
00
There is no sensitivity to be modelled. CO2 actually cools by about 0.002C degree because what really determines climate is this …
Without gravity acting to restore the thermodynamic equilibrium which is stipulated in the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which says: “An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system”) and thus, as a direct corollary of that Law, supporting (at the molecular level) an autonomous thermal gradient, then …
(1) The temperature at the base of the troposphere on Uranus would be nowhere near as hot as 320K because virtually no direct Solar radiation gets down there, and there is no surface at that altitude. The planet’s radiating temperature is under 60K because it receives less than 3W/m^2.
(2) The temperature of the Venus surface would be nowhere near as hot as 730K (even at the poles) because it receives only about 10% as much direct Solar radiation at its surface as does Earth at its surface.
(3) Jupiter would be nowhere near as hot, even in its core, which receives extra kinetic energy which was converted by gravity from gravitational potentential energy due to the continual collapsing of this gaseous planet. This is why Jupiter emits more radiation than it receives.
(4) The core of our Moon would be nowhere near as hot as it is thought to be, probably over 1000K.
(5) Earth’s surface would indeed be perhaps 20 to 40 degrees colder, and the core, mantle and crust nowhere near as hot, maybe no molten material at all.
Think about it! If you’re not sure why, it’s explained in Sections 4 to 9 and Section 15 here.
12
why does Wall St Journal give space to the following Press Release, without any dissenting views?
21 May: WSJ: Time to Seize Opportunity to Slash Carbon Emissions from Global Aviation
WWF, Equiterre, Association quebecoise de lutte a la pollution atmospherique (AQLPA) and the David Suzuki Foundation and their supporters are calling on delegates to the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to agree on a global approach that requires airlines to ratchet down emissions of greenhouse gases…
“Canada should advocate for — or even propose — an ambitious global market-based approach with an aggressive implementation timeline at the upcoming meeting,” said David Suzuki Foundation’s Director Karel Mayrand…
Cutting aviation pollution is a big part of what’s needed to curb global climate change. If aviation were a country, it would be the 7th largest contributor to climate change on the planet. ICAO experts estimate that, if unchecked, emissions will increase by 70 percent in the next 7 years and by between 300-700 percent by 2050. This astronomical increase could lead to a very different planet than the one know today…
“With climate change fueling warmer temperatures and increasing extreme weather events like record floods, droughts, blizzards and hurricanes, reducing carbon emissions from aviation is critical,” said AQLPA’s Louise Levesque. “We cannot allow the politics of delay to stand in the way of cleaning up our skies.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130521-909873.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
00
I have been reading the posts here and am fascinated with all the information presented. This is a great place to learn all kinds of things you never knew!
I have a question concerning how we know the absorption values and so forth. David Russel notes:
Land to air natural CO2 transfer annually 122/123B tons in and out
Ocean to air natural Co2 transfer annually 92/93B tons in and out.
Human emissions 6B tons emitted.
(I used David’s numbers because they were the first ones I found scrolling through looking for numbers–This in not an endorsement nor a put-down. Random chance.)
First thing I noted is the human emissions are 6 billion tons. The 6 billion matches an EPA document on US emissions. CO2.org says the world-wide amount is 9.1. How do we arrive at these numbers? What is the margin of error and how did we calculate that?
The land to air and ocean to air numbers–again, how did we arrive at these numbers? When researching arctic ice melt, I found that the way we “know” how much water there is in the ocean is using satellite data and an algorithm. We don’t really know how deep the ocean is so the ocean volume is a mathematical calculation based on interpretation of satellite data.
I watched a program on a research study using one tree and fractal math to map out an entire forest. My question is: The math is very straightforward, but the underlying assumptions are problematic. How can we know with empirical certainly that one tree represents a forest? How can we know that satellite data is correctly interpreted? What is the margin of error in estimating the volume of atmosphere and ocean, then how much CO2 they absorb?
We are looking at a 30% error possibly being present in climate change temperature change estimates–with only one study. Margins of error and basic underlying assumptions are very fuzzy in climate change calculations. I understand the math, I just don’t understand the empirical proof for the underlying assumptions. I realize I am asking more than a single post can answer. Just point me in a direction where I can find some explanations and I’ll take it from there!
10
See my comment above. It is not greenhouse gases that have raised the surface temperature by 33 degrees. The autonomous temperature gradient (lapse rate) in the troposphere evolves as gravity maintains thermodynamic equilibrium as the Second Law of Thermodynamics mandates must happen. This is not thermal equilibrium and never can be in a gravitational field. The slope (in totally dry conditions) would raise the mean surface temperature to over 20C, but then water vapour reduces the slope (to the wet adiabatic lapse rate) and thus leads to lower mean surface temperatures around 14C or 15C.
There is a study in the Appendix of my paper (linked in that comment) in which I found that moist inland tropical cities have lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures, so water vapour cools – the opposite of what the IPCC would like us to believe.
Only the gravity-induced thermal gradient explains the points (1) to (5) above. There is no warming effect due to carbon dioxide whatsoever.
23
I am familiar with your work. I will try and read some more articles of yours and see if that helps me figure this out.
00
These (MY) numbers are from the IPCC AR4 which was put out in 2007. Only the human emissions number is reliable (best estimates according to IPCC). The difference from 6B tons to 9.1B tons for our share is likely just the passage of time. I don’t think the exact numbers are terribly important because the WHOLE POINT is how vastly much greater the natural processes are to the man-made ones. Also given the huge sink that the ocean is and that the relatively constant ratio of 50/1 of how much the oceans/atmosphere absorb, the impact of human emissions has to revert to the infinitesimal, no?
00
A skeptic battles it out with the warmist Black Knight
00
It is interesting to note that Dr Roy Spencer plans doing an experiment with four metal plates, and he asked for predictions. Here’s my comment which was not accepted on his blog, because he has decided, like Anthony Watts, Judith Curry, John Cook, Jeff Conlon and some others to block my explanations of what is really happening. These explanations and published articles thereon are the result of thousands of hours of research into climatology, and then an application of valid physics to the atmospheres, surfaces and sub-surface regions of not only Earth, but other planets from which much can be learnt.
Here, for the public record, is the rejected comment …
Radation from a cooler source can and will slow the radiative cooling of a warmer body. Roy’s experiment is merely showing what physicists and engineers have known for over a century.
However, such radiation can never have any effect on the rate of cooling by other processes, conduction, evaporative cooling etc.
In Roy’s experiment there will be conduction into the air molecules that collide with the large surfaces of the plates. This may mostly compensate, but there will probably be a slight net difference in rates of cooling.
It proves nothing, however, in regard to climate, partly because the plates are so much hotter than the Earth’s surface that the percentage of radiative cooling versus non-radiative cooling will be significantly greater. But there are more significant reasons as to why mean surface temperatures are not determined by radiation at all. Temperatures on Uranus easily demonstrate this point.
See this comment and the next one of mine on that thread.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/major-30-reduction-in-modelers-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-skeptics-were-right/#comment-1276639
Doug Cotton
Sydney
(You need to stick with the topic better since it is about a reduction in modeling estimates) CTS
21
D Cotton 5/23 7:48pm: “…mean surface temperatures are not determined by radiation at all.”
I note Dr. Spencer’s simple, basic spreadsheet has shown earth’s mean surface temperature IS determined by 1st principles and net SW&LW IR radiation with measured physical input data to within ~1 kelvin and challenged anyone to take your ideas and “put up” a quantitative model of surface temperature consistent with experimental observations and basic 1st principles.
Can D Cotton meet Dr. Spencer’s challenge? Where is the D Cotton quantitative model?
10
The modelling estimates are totally incorrect because mean planetary surface temperatures are not determined by radiative forcing but by the underlying thermal gradient and associated thermal plot which, as a result of the spontaneous process described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, must also evolve spontaneously by diffusion of kinetic energy at the molecular level. Obviously my “model” and supporting empirical evidence is in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” but, before you get around to reading such, you may wish to consider how the base of the troposphere on Uranus acquires the necessary energy to maintain temperatures of 320K at that altitude. There’s no direct Solar radiation reaching down there through 350Km of the thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere on Uranus – and no surface there anyway.
03
D Cotton 8:00 pm – The top post indicates Otto et al & also Nic Lewis looked at the global energy budget and show that earth’s long term surface equilibrium temperature response increases due to added CO2 effects are revised downward but are positive. At 5/22 9:52am, I find your paper shows an incorrect negative response explained only with imprecise words with no spreadsheet showing your basic precise calculations.
I see no link or ref. to a better Dr. Spencer type spreadsheet in your new 8:00pm 5/27 response.
Interestingly I’ve read through & understood your paper but find no spreadsheet therein that can be used as well as Dr. Spencer’s spreadsheet which is his challenge. Since that challenge is unmet, Dr. Spencer’s spreadsheet stands (basic positive IR active gas response as in top post) as you have offered no better basic spreadsheet in your paper or in response anywhere else AFAIK.
You can use his spreadsheet to modify & learn about atm. emissivity (in part from CO2 et. al. IR gas) & net of albedo insolation basic positive response effects on earth’s mean surface temperatures from measured data and 1st principles. His spreadsheet shows the ~288K surface temperature as well as the ~255K satellite measurement can be simply calculated for a positive response as in top post.
Since Dr. Spencer’s spreadsheet uses basic 1st principles and measured data, get the input data needed for Uranus and explore what satellites measure (see NASA data). Internally to that planet, I predict more layers than in earth’s spreadsheet will be needed due to atm. opacity (“thick” as you write), but that is an easy spreadsheet extension. It is shown in modern atm. text books which I discover explain the atm. thermo physics tied to 1st principles much better, more precise, and accurately than your paper which does not improve on the basic, 1st course atm. thermo or convective, conductive, radiative heat transfer material.
00
Well you have missed the whole point of the paper, namely that climate is not determined by radiative forcing at all, but by the supported thermal plot. We don’t need a spreadsheet to work out the gradient thereof – it is done in two lines in the paper. Nor do we need a spreadsheet to work out that water vapour reduces the magnitude of the thermal gradient – pretty common knowledge I suggest, if you’ve ever heard of a wet adiabatic lapse rate. Thus water vapour causes the supported temperature at the surface to be lower, because the whole thermal plot rotates around the pivoting altitude which I have calculated elsewhere to be at about 3.0Km to 3.5Km using the SBL.
Finally I have provided a study in the Appendix which perhaps you didn’t get to. I found that the more moist cities did in fact have lower daily maximum and minimum temperatures, and I defy you to produce a similar study with contrary results. Hence, as predicted by the argument in Sections 4 to 9, water vapour cools. In total contrast, greenhouse conjectures consider water vapour the main GHG which is supposedly causing most of that “33 degrees of warming.”
Now maybe you might like to see whether any greenhouse radiation conjecture (or your spreadsheet) can explain (as I have) how sufficient energy originally absorbed from 3W/m^2 at the top of the Uranus atmosphere then gets down 350Km to the base of the troposphere and keeps it at about 320K there, despite the lack of any direct Solar radiation getting through that atmosphere of hydrogen and helium (with a sprinkling of methane) and without a surface there either.
00
D Cotton 6:56pm: I did not miss the whole point of your paper, I read it and the appendix and understood them.
The top post does not confuse the recently reduced global long term equilibrium (LTE) surface temperature response with altitude temperature gradient (DALR, WALR or “thermal gradient” in your words) as does your 6:56pm comment. This is a very basic confusion on your part. Atm. thermo text books avoid this confusion so I find them a better source of atm. science than your paper.
There are no two lines in your paper computing earth’s measured surface global LTE temperature mean near 288K and the satellite measured data near 255K as does Dr. Spencer’s calculations. Hence your linked paper isn’t up to his challenge.
Sure, moist city air columns have a different atm. emissivity above them than dry cities. Texts inform emissivity of earth’s atm. air column above cities varies from around 0.7 in the dry arctic to 0.95 in humid tropics.
However, it is the global mean atm. column emissivity that counts for top post conclusions and in Dr. Spencer’s spreadsheet. As does the global mean emissivity on Uranus where the spreadsheet with Uranus input parameter’s (global insolation net of albedo, global layered mean atm. emissivity) will explain mean temp. satellites measure and the opaque atm. planet’s internal temperature appropriate layer by layer.
Your linked paper does not explain this but Dr. Spencer’s basic calculations & atm. thermo and radiative text books do explain very well. After all, consulting text books/specialist papers is how the 1960’s Soviets predicted Venus expected surface temperature so as to construct their first probe temperature device to measure into the 700Ks.
10
Firstly, you won’t find what is in my paper in any textbook. You need a paradigm shift in your thinking if you want to understand what is really happening throughout the universe, and so do the textbook authors. If you understood Section 9 of my paper about supporting temperatures you should have realised that I am not talking about radiative models at all.
Radiative forcing is not what controls planetary surface temperatures.
Try explaining Uranus, or Venus with Spencer’s models, but before you do, read my comments ..
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/unthreaded-week/#comment-1279495
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/unthreaded-week/#comment-1279714
00
And, by the way, if you want to know what’s wrong with Dr Roy Spencer’s physics, I’ve had four articles published about such …
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/194-roy-spencer-still-gets-his-physics-in-a-muddle.html
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/177-no-roy.html
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/183-the-old-wives-tales-of-climatology.html
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/162-roy-spencer-s-misunderstood-misunderstanding-and-the-100-000-000-000-question.html
00
Look here Mr Cotton
00
D Cotton 12:01pm writes to see section 9 of the link from 9:52am wherein I find: “…temperature level at which the pre-determined plot intersects the surface is itself pre-determined primarily by the above-mentioned parameters…”
Apparently these parameters are “…gravity, specific heat and the amount of water vapour and other radiating molecules (like carbon dioxide)…”
Well right there D Cotton offers a contradiction to his writing: “Radiative forcing is not what controls planetary surface temperatures.”
Dr. Spencer’s calculations result for earth near surface global mean temperature 288.23K once equilibrium is reached. And this is within ~1k of what earth’s global thermometer field actually measures. Similar Dr. Spencer calculations for Venus (adjusted for orbital net insolation, atm. opacity) arrive at ~730K vs. ~732K thermometer measured for Venus near surface.
All D Cotton has to do to further discussion of the positive but reduced atm. near surface global Temp. response of top post is just go ahead and calculate the temperature level at which the pre-determined plot intersects the surface T from parameters gravity, specific heat and amount of H2O, CO2 et. al. radiating molecules to show both text author’s and my paradigm needs shifting. Until then Dr. Spencer’s and the text book authors (and my humble) paradigms stand.
As noted Dr. Spencer and text paradigms based on 1st law LTE energy balance do very well compared to thermometer measurements for earth, venus, mars and earth’s moon.
I will add a comment on the other thread you cite to try and explain Venus surface T provenance to D Cotton. Possibly a paradigm shift by D Cotton may be what is needed to reflect proper physics in calculation vs. actual measurement.
So…can I see D Cotton calculations of global near surface T from those parameters listes in sec. 9?
And don’t confuse those calc.s of the DALR or moist lapse AGAIN. Already shown the lapse rate calc.s, need the actual global surface T calculated in K with D Cotton “above mentioned parameters”.
00
Yes, I responded to that comment here.
How about you spend a couple of hours studying the paper and cited references, if you intend to join this discussion, because you’ll have no idea of the non-radiative mechanism explained in Sections 4 to 8 therein unless you do. The same goes for other readers.
00
LtCusper: No I don’t contradict myself. Inter-molecular radiation has a temperature levelling effect upon the -g/Cp gradient, reducing it in magnitude by up to about a third, depending on the composition of the atmosphere on any particular planet. This is not “radiative forcing” upon the surface, as described in IPCC documentation.
How are you going with explaining how some of the energy absorbed from 3W/m^2 of incident Solar radiation at the top of the Uranus atmosphere gets down 350Km to warm the theoretical base of the troposphere there to 320K, and further down to heat the probable solid surface by thousands of degrees?
Do you really think that about 10W/m^2 which gets through the Venus atmosphere is responsible for heating its surface to about 730K even at the poles? That surface cools by about 5 degrees during the four month Venus night. Then it warms again by 5 degrees the next day. How could so little direct Solar radiation possibly convey sufficient energy to raise the temperature from, say, 725K to 730K? The most that any back radiation would supply would be 10W/m^2 and all that does is slow radiative cooling. Cooling from what? Unless the Sun could itself raise the temperature by 5 degrees with direct radiation, then there’s no point in discussing slowing of cooling.
Direct Solar radiation does not force temperatures at the Venus surface, and nor can it raise Earth’s surface to 288K, so not even Earth could be cooling off from any such temperature.
And if you’re one of those who thinks radiation from a cooler atmosphere can actually help the Sun to raise the surface temperature more than it can by itself, well, take care that your blanket at night doesn’t raise your body temperature to fever levels.
Now, where’s your detailed explanation, using correct physics (which I’ve been studying and teaching for 50 years) that explains exactly how that required thermal energy gets down into the Uranus atmosphere?
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And, although I consider discussion of any radiative models to be irrelevant (and I’m hoping to help fellow members at PSI understand this paradigm shift, as explained in another article here which might help you also to understand) there has been a response to Dr Spencer which was published a few days ago on the PSI site here …
http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/202-roy-spencer-and-wuwt-cut-and-run-on-own-greenhouse-gas-challenge.html
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[…] Major 30% reduction in modelers estimates of Climate Sensitivity (Skeptics were right) […]
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Global warming has become such an emotive issue due to outright warmist scaremongering and belligerent antagonism to anyone who questions the CAGW theory . I can’t think of any of any other field of science where scientists or the general public who are in disagreement are branded “deniers”. What’s with that? Certainly not science.
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You give the Alarmists way too much credit by talking about “Climate Sensitivity” in terms of “Doublings of CO2 concentration”.
That theory based on Arrhenius (1896) is simply wrong. Trying to match observations to the Arrhenius theory is just curve fitting; it has nothing to do with science.
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/arrhenius-revisited/
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You can explain the Ice Age temperature swings using the Arrhenius theory or the temperature rise since 1850, but not both.
So which is it?
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/the-dog-that-did-not-bark/
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/major-30-reduction-in-modelers-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-ske… […]
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I thought the models were all wrong. How come you think this one is right and the others are wrong?
And didn’t you say that global warming is a fraud and the oceans aren’t warming? So I guess you now think that they are.
Consistency isn’t your strong suit is it?
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Mandas? Is it you?
Is this the same Mandas that used to comment on Coby Beck’s blog with Skip? If so then its been a long time Mandas how have you been?
Cheers
Crakar24
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Hm. I went through almost all comments and actually all discuss the sensitivity – as Jo put it in the title and almost none looks at the CO2 effect itself (only david russel seems to be pointing this out a couple of times, but actually trying to reduce the percentage from 30% to 10%).
Well – if I do not completely misunderstand – this 10% reduction of the CO2 doubling effect is a big admission.
I understood the 3.7 W/m2 was calculated based on measurement as being the warming due to CO2 itself. That has not been in discussion so far, skeptics talked mostly only about sensitivity – which was enough to ruin the CAGW party.
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.se/search/label/OLR
From the skeptics I saw Claes Johnson looking more closer at the claim of the 3.7 W/m2 for doubling based on CO2 spectra analysis:
“The scientific evidence behind CO2 alarmism consists of OLR spectra produced by a combination of modeling and measurement (Modtran/Hitran/IRIS) predicting a radiative forcing of 3.7 W/m2 by doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2 from a preindustrial level of 300 ppm to 600 ppm (with 390 ppm the present level) with an estimated warming effect of 1 C. ”
The above change to 3.44 lowers the number with 0.1 – as explained in the post – to 0.9°C for CO2 doubling and also shows that even the basis of the alarmist CAWG foundation are wacky, not only the sensitivity part – so Claes is right:
“Yet this is the main scientific evidence put forward in support of CO2 alarmism. Note that the fact that the number 3.7 W/m2 cannot be trusted as scientific evidence, does not itself give reason to restrictions on CO2 emissions putting more burdens on humanity”
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