Greenhouse Panic Over: New model demonstrates dependence of Planetary surface temperature on atmospheric pressure

New talkshop visitor ‘David’ has dropped a fruitful link on Wayne Jackson’s recent thread which, after a bit of sleuthing via AstroBio.net, leads to a new paper from the Trieste Astrobiology Group led by Giovanni Vladilo. This will be of great interest to our friends Nikolov and Zeller, because it vindicates their contention that atmospheric pressure is the principle determinant of planetary surface temperatures. However, there is a twist. As well as affecting the near surface heat capacity, evaporation rates and meridional energy transport, atmospheric pressure also affects the atmospheric optical depth of atmospheres, and this explains the role of ‘greenhouse gases’ and their radiative properties in contributing to the overall distribution and magnitude of energy at planetary surfaces. Although not dscussed in the paper, I think it will also be the case that regardless of extra emissions of a greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, since the pressure is the primary variable, the optical depth will remain constant, as NASA Physicist Ferenc Miskolzci found. If so, the Man Made Greenhouse Panic is over.

The pressure-dependent habitable zone is shown in the left figure below. The circles indicate solutions of the climate simulations with mean global annual habitability h>0. The area of the circles is proportional to the habitability h; the colors are coded according to the mean annual global surface temperature, Tm. The size and color scales are shown in the legend. The solid lines are contours of equal mean temperature Tm=0 C (magenta), 60 C (red) and 120 C (black). (Click for larger image)

The key passage from the paper is this one:

4.2.1. Surface Pressure and Planet Temperature Variations of surface pressure affect the temperature in two ways. First, for a given atmospheric composition, the infrared optical depth of the atmosphere will increase with pressure. As a result, a rise of [pressure] will always lead to a rise of the [radiative] greenhouse effect and temperature. Second, the horizontal heat transport increases with pressure. In our model, this is reflected by the linear increase with [pressure] of the diffusion coefficient D (Equation (A5), Appendix A.2). At variance with the first effect, it is not straightforward to predict how the temperature will react to a variation of the horizontal transport. In the case of Earth, our EBM calculations predict a rise of the mean temperature with increasing D. This is due to the fact that the increased diffusion from the equator to the poles tends to reduce the polar ice covers and, as a consequence, to reduce the albedo and raise the temperature.

Nicola Scafetta: Major new sea level study – finds C21st rise likely to be less than a foot.

Congratulations to Nicola Scafetta, who has successfully published a new paper on sea level rise Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level recordsversus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes in the  journal Climate Dynamics. This is a major paper, which undertakes a comprehensive review of recent studies, which diverge widely in their findings. He finds that the main reason for divergence is the length of records used in studies, and shows that the quasi-cyclic oscillations of the major ocean basins largely account for the differences in those studies conclusions. Developing a powerful analysis technique with strong visualisation, it is shown that the periodicity of the major oscillations, being 60 to 70 years, require a minimum record length of around 110 years in order to prevent polynomial fitting of long term secular trends being contaminated with shorter term quasi-cyclic variation. Using tide gauge records going back as far as 1700, Nicola compares the trends in sea level rise acceleration at widely spread geographical locations once the quasi-cyclic components are removed and finds the long term global average to be very small – around 0.01mm/yr. Very little difference is found between acceleration rates between the pre and post industrial eras. It is suggested the acceleration is a natural variation due to the recovery from the little ice age as part of a quasi millennial cycle which may continue until the mid C21st. In conclusion the study suggests that sea level rise during the C21st will be around 277+/-7mm, or about 9 inches.

Fig. 10 a Global sea level record (Jevrejeva et al. 2008) (left) and its
MSAA colored diagram (right).

Roger Andrews: A New Climate Index – The Northern Multidecadal Oscillation

My thanks to Roger Andrews, who sent me this guest post a little while ago and has been very patiently waiting for me to publish it. I had a good look around Bob Tisdale’s site before deciding to go ahead, to check he hadn’t already done the same thing. I can’t find anything directly comparable, so here it is. Hopefully Bob will join us in comments and let us know. Nicola Scafetta and others have shown a ~60-70yr pattern the motion of the solar system’s planets which we suspect is linked to this natural cyclic variation. It hasn’t been taken into account by climate models. The positive, warming phase of the oceanic cycles coincides with ‘global warming’ attributed to the increase in co2 by the IPCC. Ignoring the natural oceanic cycles amounts to something which in commercial law is known as ‘omitted variable fraud’.

A NEW CLIMATE INDEX – THE NORTHERN MULTIDECADAL OSCILLATION
Roger Andrews – March 28-2013

It’s widely recognized that weather and climate are strongly influenced by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) in and around the North Atlantic Ocean and by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in and around the North Pacific Ocean, if not globally. But as illustrated below the AMO and the PDO show quite different trends, giving the impression that North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean cycles march to the beat of a different drummer:

http://www.eoearth.org/files/111301_111400/111389/AMO_-_USGS.jpg

Is the North Pole Going to Melt entirely? asks Newspaper in 1923

As the northern melt and polar bear worrying season gets underway, a timely reminder of the repetitive nature of ‘unprecedented’ climate happenings. H/T ‘IluvCO2′

NORTH POLE MELTING. CHANGE OF CLIMATE. MANY GLACIERS VANISHED.
Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 – 1954) Thursday 5 April 1923

Is the North Pole going to melt entirely? Are the Arctic regions warming up with prospect of a great climatic change in that part of the world? Science is asking these questions (says “Popular Science Siftings”). Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas around Spitsbergen and the Eastern Arctic all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, with hitherto unheard-of high temperatures on that part of the earth’s surface. Observations to that effect have covered the last five years during which the warmth has been steadily increasing. In August the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitsbergen and Bear Island under the leadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, professor of geology in the University of Christiania, the object in view being to survey and chart areas productive of coal and other minerals.

North Sea fisheries making a recovery: Cooler seas, busier plankton?

Roger Harrabin has spotted this report on Scottish North Sea Fish Stocks which is of interest to us climateers. The American fisheries organisation the FAO produced a longer time span report some years ago which found certain fish stocks around the Americas correlated quite well with changes in Length of Day (LOD) and detrended global temperature. Maybe this Scottish fisheries report is telling us something about the upper ocean heat content and the abundance of biota further down the food chain.

Steven Hayward: Climate Change Endgame In Sight?

This is a repost from the Powerline Blog of an article summarising the implications of the piece published by ‘The Economist’ a couple of days ago, which recognises the serious problems the co2 driven climate theory faces:

Steven Hayward: Climate Change Endgame In Sight?

In my Weekly Standard cover story about the fallout from the “Climategate” email scandal three years ago, I offered the following question by way of prediction:

Eventually the climate modeling community is going to have to reconsider the central question: Have the models the IPCC uses for its predictions of catastrophic warming overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases?

The article then went on to survey emerging research (U.S. government funded!) casting doubt on high estimates of climate sensitivity, along with alternative explanations on some climate factors, such as “black carbon.” The question in my mind the time was how long this would take to begin to break out into the “mainstream” scientific and media world.

A Personal Appeal to Britain’s Politicians: Wake-Up From Your Warm Dreams! Fuel Poverty is Killing People

“The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening.”
Rosa Luxemburg

There are times when I find it hard to speak politely. I left school at sixteen and worked on the shop-floor of a large engineering works for ten years, gaining a higher national qualification in mechanical and production engineering along the way before getting the chance to study for a degree in the History and Philosophy of Science. While I worked in heavy industry, I learned some choice ways of expressing myself which are basic, direct, and hurt the sensibilities of those who have spent their lives in polite company, although they got the job done effectively. So I sometimes struggle to find the right tone at those times when a message needs communicating forcefully to people in a position to influence policy, but without having them recoil and ignore things they don’t want to contemplate.

But the time for niceties has passed. Britain’s people face a looming disaster of epic proportion. Britain’s political class needs to act swiftly to minimise the damage which cannot be wholly averted at this late stage. Successive governments have set the stage for the impending denouement, so this is not a partisan rant, but a cross-party appeal to common sense. People are dying by the thousand as a direct result of botched energy policy and we must act to save lives. Now.

Let’s clear some of the undergrowth so we can see the shape of the problem. Firstly, we’ll deal with the climate scare.

Nils-Axel Morner: Solar Wind, Earth’s Rotation and Changes in Terrestrial Climate

My thanks to Nils-Axel Morner for sending me a copy of his new paper ‘Solar Wind, Earth’s Rotation and Changes in Terrestrial Climate’ published yesterday in Physical Review & Research Inernational. This is a great paper, full of interest, drawing together disparate dynamic phenomena into a comprehensible whole. Niklas is fully up to date with the latest research from Nicola Scafetta and the talkshop, incorporating planetary motion into the scheme encompassing the wider ‘frame of reference’ in which terrestrial climate change occurs. This is what will enable the new climate science to move beyond the constricted and constipated thinking of the current climate science mainstream.

 

Ken Gregory: Water Vapor Decline Cools the Earth – NASA Satellite Data

My thanks to Clive Best for offering this analysis from Ken Gregory as a repost here at the talkshop. There’s already an active discussion of it on WUWT, but we’ll run it anyway, as its importance is high.

Water Vapor Decline Cools the Earth – NASA Satellite Data
Original article at http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=483

An analysis of NASA satellite data shows that water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas, has declined in the upper atmosphere causing a cooling effect that is 16 times greater than the warming effect from man-made greenhouse gas emissions during the period 1990 to 2001.

The world has spent over $ 1 trillion on climate change mitigation based on climate models that don’t work. They are notoriously poor at simulating the 20^th century warming because they do not include natural causes of climate change – mainly due to the changing sun – and they grossly exaggerate the feedback effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

Most scientists agree that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, which takes about 150 years, would theoretical warm the earth by one degree Celsius if there were no change in evaporation, the amount or distribution of water vapor and clouds. Climate models amplify the initial CO₂ effect by a factor of three by assuming positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, for which there is little direct evidence. Most of the amplification by the climate models is due to an increase in upper atmosphere water vapor.

The Satellite Data

The NASA water vapor project (NVAP) uses multiple satellite sensors to create a standard climate dataset to measure long-term variability of global water vapor. NASA recently released the Heritage NVAP data which gives water vapor measurement from 1988 to 2001 on a 1 degree by 1 degree grid, in three vertical layers.¹ The NVAP-M project, which is not yet available, extends the analysis to 2009 and gives five vertical layers. Water vapor content of an atmospheric layer is represented by the height in millimeters (mm) that would result from precipitating all the water vapor in a vertical column to liquid water. The near-surface layer is from the surface to where the atmospheric pressure is 700 millibar (mb), or about 3 km altitude. The middle layer is from 700 mb to 500 mb air pressure, or from 3 km to 6 km attitude. The upper layer is from 500 mb to 300 mb air pressure, or from 6 km to 10 km altitude.

The global annual average precipitable water vapor by atmospheric layer and by hemisphere from 1988 to 2001 is shown in Figure 1.

The graph is presented on a logarithmic scale so the vertical change of the curves approximately represents the forcing effect of the change. For a steady earth temperature, the amount of incoming solar energy absorbed by the climate system must be balanced by an equal amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of the atmosphere. An increase of water vapor in the upper atmosphere would temporarily reduce the OLR, creating a forcing of more incoming than outgoing energy, which raises the temperature of the atmosphere until the balance is restored.

Figure 1. Precipitable water vapor by layer, global and by hemisphere.

Ian Wilson: Solar System Timings Evolved Lunar Orbital Elements Linked to Earth’s Chandler Wobble

My thanks to Astrophysicist Ian Wilson who has left a long comment which I’m reposting here for further discussion, because it contains findings which are as Ian says, amazing (and Ian isn’t a man of hyperbole) . The summary below is further explained in Ian’s new paper which I’ll be putting up a further post on soon: 

Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate? 

which is available from this link. This is a stupendous work, containing many exact period matches, rather than being dominated by tenuous statistical derivations like so many other climate papers are. Top quality science on the talkshop. In the meantime, to whet your appetite:

Ian Wilson:
We know that the strongest planetary tidal forces acting on the lunar orbit come from
the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter, in order of the size of their respective tidal
influences. In addition, we known that, over the last 4.6 billion years, the Moon has
slowly receded from the Earth. During the course of this lunar recession, there have been
times when the orbital periods of Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been in resonance(s) with
the precession rates for the line-of-nodes and line-of-apse of the lunar orbit. When these resonances have occurred, they would have greatly amplified the effects of the planetary tidal forces upon the shape and tilt of lunar orbit. Hence, the observed synchronization between the precession rates of the line-of-nodes and line-of-apse of the lunar orbit and the orbital periods of Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter, could simply be a cumulative fossil record left behind by these historical resonances.