Richard Courtney has made a couple of comments on a WUWT discussion of a new paper studying temperature trend components which are worthy of a separate discussion.
richardscourtney says:
Barton Paul Levenson:
I am ignoring the invitation to debate the climate of Venus although that would be interesting. WUWT has a severe troll infestation today and discussion of Venus would be a disruption to this thread which is about the Earth’s climate.
I am replying to the statement in your post at October 18, 2012 at 7:15 am which says
Richard:
at present levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration additional CO2 in the atmosphere has no discernible effect on the Earth’s climate.
BPL: No. It’s up 40% since the industrial revolution began. It’s the absolute amount that matters, not the concentration. The nitrogen, oxygen and argon that make up more than 99% of Earth’s atmosphere is not radiatively active.
It seems you are unaware that the IR absorbtion of CO2 in the atmosphere is constrained to only two narrow bands with almost all being in the 15 micron band. These bands are so near to saturation that they only increase their absorbtion by band broadening.
Think of light (i.e. visible radiation) entering a room through a window. If you put a layer of dark paint over the window then much light is absorbed by the paint and, therefore, does not enter the room. Add another layer of paint and more light is absorbed by that layer, but not as much as by the first layer. Similarly for each additional layer of paint.
The IR emitted from the Earth’s surface is trying to pass the ‘window’ of the atmosphere to enter space. Adding more CO2 to the air is like adding more paint on the window that has seven layers of the paint. Each unit addition of CO2 has less absorbtion than the previous unit addition: this reducing effect is logarithmic.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satelite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
If climate sensitivity is less than 1 deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, then it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected because natural variability is much, much larger. If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
As you say, the concentration of CO2 in the air has increased by ~40% since the industrial revolution (i.e. from ~280 ppmv to ~390 ppmv). This takes the degree of absorbtion of CO2 to ~80% of a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere because of the logarithmic effect. And the globe has only warmed about 0.8deg.C since the industrial revolution. Most – if not all – of this rise is certainly recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA), but if it is assumed the entire temperature rise is from the CO2 increase then a further increase to reach double pre-industrial concentration (i.e. to ~560 ppmv) would only provide a further increase to global temperature of about 0.2 deg.C. And a further doubling of atmospheric CO2 (to 1,120 ppmv) would only raise global temperature by an additional 1.0 deg,C.
In summation, as I said, at present levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration additional CO2 in the atmosphere has no discernible effect on the Earth’s climate.
richardscourtney says:
Barton Paul Levenson:
At October 18, 2012 at 3:23 pmyou say to me
R: It does not matter what your “calculations” say because empiricism trumps theory
BPL: Which physical law, based on empirical observation, do you disagree with? Stefan-Boltzmann? Wien? Kirchhoff? The ERT? What empiricism, in particular, trumps calculations of mine you haven’t even seen yet?
The “calculations” are those which you mentioned at October 18, 2012 at 10:42 am where you wrote
It’s not saturated at the upper levels, and warming anywhere there will propagate down to the surface. It’s easy to demonstrate if you want the math.
“The math” must be wrong because the ‘Hot Spot’ is missing.
I agree with all the physical laws. But I am not an idiot so I know that attempting to apply physical laws to a complex and partially understood system usually provides wrong answers. And the empirical evidence clearly shows your assertion is wrong. Simply you have done some sums to assess what you think is how the climate system works but reality demonstrates the system is nothing like you think it is.
Try applying physical laws to calculate the behaviour of the human brain and see what you get: the climate system is more complex than the human brain. (And don’t try to use that illustration as an excuse to troll the thread about brain structure).
Richard
________________________________________________
So, a couple of questions.
Just how much does ‘Band broadening’ increase the heat absorption capability of atmospheric co2?
Why do AGW proponents insist that radiation laws which are derived from experimental conditions which exclude complicating factors like a freely convecting troposphere containing complicated system feedbacks be applied to the Earth’s climate system as if they are acting in a vacuum, or indeed in vacuo?
Why was Sherwood Idso’s paper ignored by the IPCC in their third assessment report?
Here’s the abstract:
ABSTRACT: Over the course of the past 2 decades, I have analyzed a number of natural phenomena
that reveal how Earth’s near-surface air temperature responds to surface radiative perturbations. These
studies all suggest that a 300 to 600 ppm doubling of the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration could raise
the planet’s mean surface air temperature by only about 0.4°C. Even this modicum of warming may
never be realized, however, for it could be negated by a number of planetary cooling forces that are
intensified by warmer temperatures and by the strengthening of biological processes that are
enhanced by the same rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration that drives the warming. Several of these
cooling forces have individually been estimated to be of equivalent magnitude, but of opposite sign, to
the typically predicted greenhouse effect of a doubling of the air’s CO2 content, which suggests to me
that little net temperature change will ultimately result from the ongoing buildup of CO2 in Earth’s
atmosphere. Consequently, I am skeptical of the predictions of significant CO2-induced global warming
that are being made by state-of-the-art climate models and believe that much more work on a wide
variety of research fronts will be required to properly resolve the issue.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Those nasty stacked negative feedbacks! CO2 must feel SO frustrated!
Barton Paul Levenson thinks his name makes him a great scientist. He spends most of his time with the disciples over at RC where he knows he won’t be challenged. Just occasionally he emerges fromthe dark hole to preach to the more intelligent people on the real science blogs but he will retreat after he has been shown to be wrong yet again.
Richard Courney says:
“The math” must be wrong because the ‘Hot Spot’ is missing.
I agree with all the physical laws. But I am not an idiot so I know that attempting to apply physical laws to a complex and partially understood system usually provides wrong answers. And the empirical evidence clearly shows your assertion is wrong. Simply you have done some sums to assess what you think is how the climate system works but reality demonstrates the system is nothing like you think it is.
Try applying physical laws to calculate the behaviour of the human brain and see what you get: the climate system is more complex than the human brain. (And don’t try to use that illustration as an excuse to troll the thread about brain structure).”
I wholeheartily agree to what Richard is sayings. More powerful computers using inadequate (unverified) models (BS in BS out) or simplified reasoning such as blaming a complex varying climate on a single variable such as carbon dioxide are far from accepted scientific methods. These methods suit people who wish to recieve a result that is already decided in advance. It is a way to promote superstition, not science. Many thanks Richard for your engagement, honesty and competence during years of debate in the field of climate change.
Hans Jelbring.
TB,
I do not see any mention of how heat and cold effects density changes of molecules.
The simple one plastic bottle in the freezer and one in the heat demonstrates very different effects which are pressure changes inside the bottle.
This business of ‘band broadening’. I must admit my layman mind is baffled. My reading tells me that for ‘broadening’ to occur the KINETIC ENERGY, speed of the molecule, changes such that the molecule is moving at a measureable fraction of the speed of light which will equate to the sum or difference of the molecular speed and the speed of light that will equate to the ‘width’ of the broadening. The warmest air is at the surface, supposedly about 15C, this equates to about 400 metres per second for average molecular speed. For any measurable broadening the molecular speed will need to exceed 3,000 metres per second which is approaching the escape velocity for the molecule.
Our atmosphere should be bleeding out to space if such kinetic energy levels existed. Maybe this idea originated from the missing ‘hotspot’.
Also, how would ‘broadening’ increase the available energy as the number of molecules doing that radiation have not changed? Would not the ‘peak’ get less as the band broadened? Thus the average radiated energy would remain the same.
Anyway, radiation in the 15 micron band, any width you like, cannot warm a gray body surface radiating at 10 microns or a lot of the laws of physics are wrong.
Which kind of Broadening?
“The principal physical causes of spectral line broadening are Doppler and pressure broadening.”
— http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/AtSpec/node20.html
Richard says “I agree with all the physical laws. But I am not an idiot so I know that attempting to apply physical laws to a complex and partially understood system usually provides wrong answers.”
I couldn’t agree more. I used to work with complex 3-D computational models of nuclear reactor accidents involving heat transfer, phase change and all the sorts of thermal-hydraulic and flow behaviour seen in the atmosphere. There was nothing wrong with the physical laws within the calculational models, but incomplete modelling of partially known phenomena could result in calculated results being wildly different from empirical results obtained from carefully controlled experiments. The nuclear system being modelled was a closed system and far less complex then the open atmosphere.
@tchannon
Interesting link, thank you. Math is way beyond me. I guess I misuse the term ‘kinetic energy’ for ‘thermal motion’ of the emitting atoms or ions and ‘Maxwellian velocity distribution’.
Examples in the link are beyond our simple atmosphere collisions of CO2 – N2 and CO2 – O2 and CO2 – Ar, Finally and least possible collisions CO2 – CO2. The presence of H2O, which in the lower troposphere can at times reach and exceed 4% by volume, never seem to be discussed. But I suspect most atmospheric radiation charts show H2O and CO2 spectra combined and blame it all on CO2.
My reading tells me a small percentage of molecules can exceed 400 metres per second in the ‘Maxwellian velocity distribution’ curves but the concentration of CO2 at 0.04% in that small excess does not convince me of the efficacy of ‘band broadening’ by CO2.
I would also like to know where the extra energy comes from if ‘band broadening’ increases the ‘back radiation’ heating capacity of CO2 since the input energy level (surface IR) does not change.
Sufficient has been shown on the Talkshop to show that clear air and dry atmosphere produces negliable radiation yet CO2 is there just the same. Cloud is a whole different matter. Perhaps the only question is whether there is some magic water co2 interaction to do with clouds.
Pressure broadening is IIRC mentioned to do with atmospheres. As I recall it kicks in at very low pressure so I suspect it doesn’t vary much on earth, venus might be a little different.
Although dealing with modelling of a kind where I have serious reservations, this relatively recent paper might outline some of what you are thinking about
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/24/9576.full
(I don’t understand the math on that web page either but NIST mentioning key items is going to be a pretty solid ref)
Now there’s a funny thing to say …
“the climate system is more complex than the human brain”
Quite the opposite.
Yep. Very nice. I’d have to study it for weeks to get the full gist. What I picked on though is the partial pressure change of CO2 having this profound effect on the temperature. This is all explained from models. But no where do they explain the energy flow. It must be in the models. Why won’t they show us how it works? Flow diagrams, energy in, work done, energy out and audit to explain the final result.
So far I have found that H2O, the gas phase of water, is a constituent of ‘dry air’. Only at the dew point when the H2O molecules start to coalse into water droplets (true liquid state) do we get the major changes in lapse rate and radiation. Water has an emission factor of 0.95 and better. Compare that to the figure Nasif Nahle quotes for CO2. Even at the dew point water droplets are vapourising almost as fast as they condense. You can observe the different rates simply by watching clouds passing overhead. Slow motion videos of the clouds are best. Anyway, no surface heating under that lot. Very little sunshine in my area now since 2,500 solar panels were installed on roof tops visible from my house. Do you think that is a sort of Gore factor? 🙂
Quote above from BPL:
“The nitrogen, oxygen and argon that make up more than 99% of Earth’s atmosphere is not radiatively active”
Consider this in the context of the quote:
These gasses get warmed through conduction from the surface. They do not emit radiation as the quote says, thus cannot cool down (to space) by this mechanism. Considering that heat flows only from hot to cold (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) they also cannot conduct this heat back to the surface, unless they are transported to a place where the surface is cooler than the atmosphere (at the poles) or if the surface cools down more rapidly than the atmosphere (e.g. after a severe thunderstorm), which then emits to space through the atmospheric window. (Emittion to space is ultimately the only way for the planet to cool)
The other mechanism would be, to be in contact with a radiative active gas, which then is able to emit this radiation directly to space. These gasses however are only 1% or less of the atmosphere and only water vapor can emit at a broad range (the other gasses only have very narrow ranges, thus contributing very little to the cooling). So this is the actually the main cooling agent from the atmosphere directly to space.
Now what would be the consequence if a gas has difficulty to cool, but constant heat is added from the surface, which is periodically warmed from the outside?
The whole atmosphere must necessary warm up (at least to some equilibrium).
And there you have it a ‘Greenhouse’ – Yes the garden verity one.
That is exactly how the atmospheric greenhouse works. It has a lid, like the garden verity one, which is space (an excellent insulator) and a surface, which is warmed from the outside by shortwave solar radiation. Its heat is also thermostatically controlled, through variation of water vapor (actually all the phases of water).
The real greenhouse gasses are thus the non radiatively active gasses above and to a lesser extent gasses which have small emittion ranges. Water vapor is the main anti-greenhouse gas.
Since CO2 can also be considered a greenhouse gas in this context, it is thus possible for Venus to warm up in the same manner. In the case of Venus it has a very much higher atmospheric mass, which can hold more heat, thus the equilibrium temperature would be higher. Also due to its closer location to the sun more heat is entering.
The radiative Greenhouse Theory, described in text books, thus actually has the mechanism wrong. Thus all the forcing and feedbacks calculated by scientist, are like the Epicycles of the pre Galilean planetary movements, which were thought to move around earth, at that time, until Galileo did show that they do not orbit earth, but our sun.
“The nitrogen, oxygen and argon that make up more than 99% of Earth’s atmosphere is not radiatively active”
I am not so sure you can simply dismiss nitrogen and oxygen:
Molecular oxygen absorbs ultraviolet and splits into atomic oxygen: O2 + uv -> O1 + O1
Molecular oxygen combines with atomic oxygen to form ozone and releases energy: O2 + O1 + M -> O3 + M
(where M is a third body that carries off excess energy [usually N2 or O2])
Ozone absorbs ultraviolet and splits into atomic and molecular oxygen: O3 + uv -> O1 + O2
Nitrogen produces NO and NO2 in the presence of lightning…
then NO2 + uv -> NO1 + O1
Plus we have photoionization by Euv, X-rays, cosmic rays of nitrogen and oxygen…
Therefore:
Oxygen and nitrogen absorb and release a lot of energy…
Oxygen and nitrogen are thus thermally “active”.
I would add one other commonly ignored issue. If we actually have band broadening we actually have warming. if we actually have warming the BB radiation will be shifted away from the 15m band giving those slightly broadened bands even less to absorb.
Just too many negative feedbacks in the real world system that we don’t fully understand!!
RichardSCourtney is absolutely correct.
kuhnkat says: October 19, 2012 at 11:39 pm
I disagree kuhnkat! To me, ‘pressure broadening’ of the spectrum implies an enhanced energy transport for that spectrum. In simple terms, the widening of a ‘band pass’ increases the power flow through that spectrum of frequency. Thus, an increase in energy transport for that spectrum!
Surely this implies an increase of energy transport until the thermal value alters the spectrum, where another ‘attractor’ comes into play.
Best regards, Ray Dart.
Eilert 8:25pm: “These gasses (N,O,Ar) get warmed through conduction from the surface. They do not emit radiation as the quote says, thus cannot cool down (to space) by this mechanism.”
All matter with T > 0K will emit radiation so these gases do radiate, just not relatively very much in the infrared band. The quote you clipped would be more meaningfully written using the term infrared-active gas i.e. “The nitrogen, oxygen and argon…..” ppm making up earth’s atm. is not as infrared-active as other constituents ppm (CO2, H2O vapor, et. al.).
Someone without a real email address just added this for Ray Dart:
Ray,
not really sure what you mean by enhanced energy transport. Pressure broadening increases the bandwidth absorbed by a tiny amount and would also affect the bandwidth emitted similarly
Surely arguments over basic theory, while interesting intellectually, have become a side show.
The visual impact of 20 years of observations contradict IPCC consensus on sensitivity so obviously that they replicate Grace Jones on Russell Harty!
http://tinyurl.com/hadcrut4hadsst2co2decadal1990
I just read the Sherwood Idso paper right through. Very refreshing. Highly recommended. Some nice insight into how a lot of good knowledge got turned on it’s head by the anthropomodellers.
Suricat,
yes pressure broadening increases the power or wavelengths that the CO2 will absorb. This has little to do with the BB emissions of the surface. If the surface warms it shifts the emission peak of the earths BB curve away from the 15m band where CO2 is strongest!!!!
In other words, as the broadening happens there is less OLR for it to absorb.
http://www.calctool.org/CALC/phys/p_thermo/wien
For example, at 50c the emission peak is at 9 microns. At -50c the emission peak is at 13 micron, much closer to the 15 micron CO2 primary band!!!
This is the type of information that the IPCC’s ubiquitous AVERAGING loses!!!
Basically the pressure expansion may only be making up for the change in BB peak!! They are both pretty small!! 8>)
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2011/01/blackbody-radiation-and-consensus.html
I suppose I should not be surprised that there are people, with little qualifications in a subject (eg heat transfer) and little actual experience in measurements, who betray their ignorance by referring to information of doubtful science but it is a sad trait which seems to becoming more frequent with the influence of politics.. One should look at the vast amount of experimental work carried out by Prof. Hoyt Hottel (Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT – http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/hottel-0926.html) Hottel developed graphs and equations for the absorption of radiation with respect to path lengths and density (as partial pressure) for water vapor (H2O gas) and CO2 taking into account overlaps. It seems that no so-called climate scientist or physicist has read the work preferring instead their own unphysical thought bubbles.
The path length absorption is clearly logarithmic and calculating from Hottel’s formula over the atmosphere to 8km shows that the absorption of radiant heat by CO2 is insignificant in comparison to water vapor (at least 50 times lower partial pressure and at least 10 lower wavelength spectrum absorptivity). I have seen no proof of the assumed CO2 sensitivity of 1C for doubling of concentration. If the present absorption of radiant energy is insignificant the double of partial pressure results in close zero increase..
Eilert says:
October 19, 2012 at 8:25pm
—————————————-
You are correct, the net effect of radiative gasses in Earth’s atmosphere is cooling. Alarmists use flawed physics to claim that Earth’s near surface temperature would be 33 degrees cooler in the absence of “greenhouse gasses”. The simplest way to understand how wrong this is is not to ask what would happen if more radiative gasses are added to the atmosphere but rather to ask what would happen if all radiative gasses were removed from the atmosphere.
Imagine an Earth with no “greenhouse gasses”. No CO2, no water vapour, no clouds no methane and no nitrous oxide. The nitrogen and oxygen remaining would still heat through conductive contact with the Earth’s surface, but would have almost no way of losing this heat. Convection would lead to stratification of the atmosphere, so transfer of heat back to parts of surface cooled by radiation would be limited.
It may appear that the lower tropospheric air temperature would steadily rise to the hottest daytime temperature of the hottest desert under a cloudless sky, but the situation would actually be far worse. The atmosphere would in fact rise to near the temperature of the hottest points on the Earth’s surface. This is a volcanic planet, so the hottest material in conductive contact with the non-radiative atmosphere would be liquid magma.
Without radiative gasses in our atmosphere we would truly see some catastrophic global warming.
Konrad says:
October 21, 2012 at 5:28 am
You are right the total warming of the atmosphere may be determined by the hottest temperature at the surface, as long as this heat entering is sufficient to mitigate the cooling effect, which is easier with non ‘greenhouse’ gasses.
The total greenhouse effect will be determined by the amount of heat energy entering the system, the efficiency of the cooling radiation to space and the amount of heat the atmosphere can hold, which depends on its mass. Where exactly most of this heat will be found, depends on the density distribution of that mass. This will be determined by the gravity of the planet. Since the highest density would necessary be near the surface, we would have most of the atmospheric mass also near the surface. This means that most of the heat content in the atmosphere, which will determine its temperature, will also be near the surface. This also explains the lapse rate.
The radiative Greenhouse Theory concerns itself only with the surface temperature (actually with the black body surface temperature and the atmospheric surface temperature at 1.5-2m above the surface, instead of the surface kin temperature, which is an apples to oranges comparison), as if this is determined in isolation from and with the atmosphere. Processes like conduction, convection, evaporation, which move the heat content from and to the surface, are only tagged onto this theory, as if this would not have an effect on the whole Greenhouse.
The gasses in the greenhouse act like fluid in a thermos flask, with outer Space the insolation layer, which prevents cooling, but which is periodically heated up.
Space is actually the insolation blanket and not the atmosphere as claimed by the radiative Greenhouse Theory.
On the GISS antarctic thread Roger A makes an observation which I followed up which is relevant here:
Roger Andrews says:
October 21, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Tim & TB
The idea behind this post was simply to show the extreme lengths GISS is prepared to go to make global warming look real. But to set the record straight on Antarctic temperatures, here’s what the available data show:
About 2C of surface warming in the Antarctic Peninsula since 1943.
No change in mean surface temperatures on the Antarctic mainland since 1955.
No change in mean UAH TLT over the Antarctic mainland since 1978.
No evidence for any cyclic relationship with NH temperatures.
But – and going way O/T myself here – a thought occurs to me. If the Antarctic is climatically isolated from the rest of the world by the circumpolar current, as it appears to be, then we can consider it as a kind of sealed chamber in which we can study the impacts of increasing CO2 without worrying about extraneous effects. And since 1955 CO2 in the Antarctic has increased by about 80ppm but temperatures haven’t increased at all.
tallbloke says:
October 21, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Roger A: Delicious. 🙂
And the Earth radiates strongly in the 14um bad at around Antarctica temperatures, where co2 absorption is strongest and there isn’t much water vapour around…
Mr. Courtney
Figure 3 of the paper below, discussing changes over time in the OLR, shows a decrease in Differential Brightness Temperature of approximately 1K in the 700-800 wavenumber band between 1970 and 2006 This is the region of the infrared spectrum in which most CO2 backradiation takes place.
Such a decrease is consistent with an increase in backradiation from CO2 during that period, which one would expect to produce an increase in surface temperature.
If your claim that the increased CO2 has produced no increase in temperature is correct, you would need to explain-
1) Why the extra backradiation has produced no temperature change?
2) Where has this extra retained energy gone?
Click to access pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
TB:
Does 55 years of no warming in the Antarctic falsify AGW all by itself?
kuhnkat says: October 21, 2012 at 1:42 am
Whilst I concur with your post, I also think you are confusing the ‘macroscopic’ BB observation with the ‘microscopic’ observation of the spectral analysis. I’m not ‘proficient’ in spectroscopy, so I say this ‘tongue in cheek’.
A ‘microscopic’ analysis of the ‘macroscopic’ BB observation will show that, for many varying temperatures, the BB observation displays an appreciable brightness for a singular – ‘microscopic’ – wavelength. Simple or perfect gasses will display other characteristics, but Earth’s atmospheric mix displays a propensity of varied wavelengths at a specified macroscopic temperature and a source of a ‘microscopically’ specified wavelength at varying temperatures. IOW, a particular wavelength is always available within a broad range of BB temperature.
This is why I said “Surely this implies an increase of energy transport until the thermal value alters the spectrum, where another ‘attractor’ comes into play.”, but, I think we already know, the ‘wings’ value of energy transport is quite small.
This post only adds to my belief that ‘radiative energy transfer’ only adds to the cooling effort within the troposphere. 🙂
Best regards, Ray.
Roger Andrews
The Antarctic Plateau is isolated (one might even say insulated) from the rest of the world by its high latitude and low insolation, by its 3000M altitude, by the Polar Vortex and by the Southern Ocean. (By the way, at Antarctic temperatures the ice does radiate a higher proportion of its energy around the frequencies absorbed by CO2. However, the very low surface surface temperatures also mean that the intensity is much lower than elsewhere. The net result is limited IR for CO2 to trap, with a correspondingly limited effect of increased CO2 on the system.)
[Reply] CO2 is well mixed gas. The Antarctic is not ‘isolated’ from its increased worldwide levels. Insolation is higher than the equator in austral summer. Low temperature means low energy required for temperature change. It hasn’t happened.
Ask among the climate scientists and you would find most of them expecting very little change at the South Pole.
[Reply] The models predict the largest temperature changes at both poles.
The only land area in the Antarctic exposed to significant outside influence are the coastline and the West Antarctic peninsula.. This and the Southern Ocean are where the changes are happening. Though energy driven, they are not always appearing as temperature changes.
While temperature is relatively unchanged, the South Pole is getting more snowfall. This is not a sign of cooling. More precipitation on the icecap is due to more water evaporation from the Southern Ocean.
[Reply] The Southern ocean surface has been cooling since the late 80’s
Finally, the Southern Ocean winds are increasing in strength and becoming less meridional. The effect has been similar to the August 2012 storm in the Arctic, breaking up larger masses of ice and spreading the fragments further from the shore, giving the record extents seen recently.
Konrad 10/21 5:28am: “Alarmists use flawed physics to claim that Earth’s near surface temperature would be 33 degrees cooler in the absence of “greenhouse gasses”.”
Really atmospheric radiation theory says this in the absence of atm. emissivity. Where is the flaw? Be specific.
Konrad: “…ask what would happen if all radiative gasses were removed from the atmosphere.”
Proper basic, simple formulation of planetary irradiative physics in balanced equilibrium would then show that Earth’s near surface air temperature (Teq.) would be ~255K when atm. emissivity is set = 0 (theoretically no radiation at all from atm. gas). When emissivity set = 0.8, find Earth’s Teq. ~ 288K as measured today.
Konrad: “Imagine an Earth with no “greenhouse gasses”. No CO2, no water vapour, no clouds no methane and no nitrous oxide. The nitrogen and oxygen remaining would still heat through conductive contact with the Earth’s surface, but would have almost no way of losing this heat.”
The N&O atm. would still radiate to deep space losing heat and arrive at a different balanced equilibrium than current T=288K in LTE averaged over the spectrum. Approx. lapse rate would be different only by Cp difference.
Konrad: “The atmosphere would in fact rise to near the temperature of the hottest points on the Earth’s surface….Without radiative gasses in our atmosphere we would truly see some catastrophic global warming.”
Not according to proper atm. radiation theory even in your N&O world the N&O green house effect raises Teq. & that alien planet atm. radiates to deep space in LTE.
Basic atm. radiative equilibrium physics shows Earth Teq. would be 255K without radiative emissivity and thus cooler than 288K today. Proper theory shows your N&O only world would heat differently than 288K but not conceivably to hot magma T.
Trick,
Please tell us at what wavelengths and at what rate the N and O2 would radiate at current atmospheric temps??
Entropicman,
what does well mixed mean in technical terms?? I keep hearing it and have never seen a real explanation. Measurements of BACKGROUND at Mona Loa tell us a range. Over summer in Canada and other areas there is a large decrease as the forests grow and suck up CO2 faster than it can be replenished. In cities, of course, there is a much wider range due to anthro production.
Please help me out.
kuhnkat 6:32pm: Wavelength & rate….N&O atm. – ultraviolet mostly and the thermal radiation rate ~288K would be slow but non-zero. From the question should I infer you can fill in more?
Trick,
So they EMIT ultraviolet?? Cause if they don’t it doesn’t cool. The fact they absorb and emit IR at extremely slow rates at our atmospheric temps means that the atmosphere WILL heat to much higher levels before it equilibrates. Sound like dangerous for current life??
So, you apparently have just agreed that GHG’s have a COOLING effect on our atmosphere as you are not able to show how Nitrogen and Oxygen would cool themsleves at our current temperature levels.
Please point out where I got it wrong.
kuhnkat – “…the atmosphere WILL heat to much higher levels before it equilibrates.”
Interesting thoughts. N&O emit mostly in the UV band but not much of that UV if any gets out to deep space, O3 still around to majorly absorb that wavelength. N&O are >0K matter so they emit/absorb in the infrared just not very much. So of course you are right there would be a different radiation balance; an interesting thought exp. to discuss re discernible effects of CO2.
Interesting enough to spend some time due to your question trying to find existing work to estimate the new Teq. at surface but I haven’t found any existing answers so far – however the situation IS discussed & maybe someone else (Konrad?) knows a ref. that has formed a science view.
The N&O atm. Nimbus trace would not show the dropouts due to CO2, H2O et. al. so much more IR would escape to deep space from surface, the atm. wouldn’t absorb/emit as much incoming solar nor have near as much downwelling atm. IR affecting surface cooling at night (that which must not be mentioned by some, ha).
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html
Also the albedo would not feature H2O clouds (assume liquid oceans I guess but maybe not – anyway somehow evap. has been eliminated but this is only theory) so lower reflected watts/m^2? Probably but by how much?
True the pure N&O atm. itself would emit way less IR & slower but an answer for a planet similar Earth whether LTE ends up hotter or cooler needs a lot of computation & some other simplifying assumptions to complete the problem. Really all that’s – simplest case- needed is the new albedo and atm. emissivity, Can still assume emissivity of surface =1.0.
You are not necess. wrong to write hotter but w/o citing a ref. or showing the work I am still unsatisfied that IS the answer. Also, there are no agreed specific ground rules to start the solution – more work than I can do for sure. So a view on adding back the CO2 to get a discernible effect on climate in this idealization is open question.
Thanks for the thought starters.
“[Reply] CO2 is well mixed gas. The Antarctic is not ‘isolated’ from its increased worldwide levels. Insolation is higher than the equator in austral summer. Low temperature means low energy required for temperature change. It hasn’t happened.”
Kuhnkat
“Well mixed” refers too the way in which local variations in [CO2] due to sources and sinks even out with time and distance as convection and turbulence mix the air. Hawiai is regarded as a good sampling site because it is equatorial and well away from both natural and anthropogenic sources,
[Reply] It’s on the side of a volcano! Read the Cardellini thread!
giving as much mixing as any single site worldwide is lkely to get. Being equatorial, it also has input from air masses in both hemispheres. In practice, the main annual variations in CO2 are due to increased fossil burn in Winter and increased photosynthesis in Summer,
[Reply] The Annual variation has hardly changed in 40 years!
both taking place most actively on land in the Northern hemisphere. The result is that Point Barrow shows more annual variation than Mauna Loa, though their measured concentrations agree when averaged over the years. There is also a tendency for Southern Hemisphere concentrations to lag a little behind those in the North as significant mixing only takes place where the two equatorial Hadley cells meet.
[Reply] You just said Mauna Loa gets input from both hemispheres!
” Insolation is higher than the equator in austral summer.”
Surely not. You might like to look it up, but my own recollection is that the Equator gets about 400W/M^2 all year round, while the Antarctic never exceeds 100W^M2.
[Reply] You don’t know what you are talking about. At the peak of Austral summer, the Antarctic is getting more sun over the diurnal cycle than the equator, as I said. See the insolation map here. https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/insolation-map.png
“Low temperature means low energy required for temperature change. It hasn’t happened.”
The amount of energy required for a 1K temperature change is the same, whether you go up from 223K (-50C),273Km (0C) or 303K (30C).
[Reply] Get thee to a library and learn about the fourth power relationship between radiation and temperature!
At the Equator CO2 is generating 33W/M^2 of back radiation from 400W/M^2 of incoming insolation, all year round. At the South Pole it would generate around 8W/M^2 from 100W/M^2, and then only in Summer. An increase in CO2 which would produce a direct 1C increase in equatorial temperature would struggle to raise the South Pole by 0.2C.
Remember too, that most of the Arctic warming comes from mixing of sea and air with lower latitudes, something which happens to a much lower extent in the Antarctic.
“[Reply] The models predict the largest temperature changes at both poles.”
The models predict the largest changes in the whole Arctic and in the Antarctic Ocean. They do not predict big changes on the Antarctic plateau.
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science/climate/climate_change.php
“[Reply] The Southern ocean surface has been cooling since the late 80′s”
I think not.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2008JCLI2131.1
[Reply] http://i41.tinypic.com/29zxus7.jpg The data is the data is the data. Live with it.
Trick,
thank you for the consideration.
The only people I know with technical ability that took any time on a GHG less atmosphere were over at Curry’s a while back. Pekka Pirila and Fred along with a couple of others discussed the issue. I thought it was hilarious that they were more worried about the VERY HOT atmosphere being pretty much all the same temp, no lapse rate, rather than the fact that it would be VERY HOT without GHG’s!!! Yes they were Warmers.
My thought of hot was both from them and due to the fact that no one seems to be able to come up with a physical mechanism to cool the atmosphere without GHG’s. I point to the Thermosphere as a reasonable example of the direction of change without a cooling mechanism.
[Reply] It’s on the side of a volcano! Read the Cardellini thread!
If CO2 release from the volcano were a problem it would show up as transient peaks or as a higher annual avaage than other sites. Neither are apparant in the data.
[Reply] The Annual variation has hardly changed in 40 years!
That intrigues me too. My hypothesis is that as our rate of CO2 production and overall [CO2] increase, so does the rate of absorbtion by carbon sinks, If both processes increased at about the same rate, we would see the annual variation remaining roughly constant. Note that annual variation varies with latitude, peaking around 45N and decreasing as you move North or South. Thus the variation is largest at Point Barrow, then lower in Japan and Mauna Loa. I am not aware of a long term Southern Hemisphere dataset, but would expect it show less variation again.
[Reply] You just said Mauna Loa gets input from both hemispheres!
So it does, with input from the Hadley cells on either side of the equator depending on the time of year. Lokk at the Mauna Loa annual variation in detail and you sometimes see a step change , which would be consistent with an inflow change from one hemisphere to the other.
[Reply] You don’t know what you are talking about. At the peak of Austral summer, the Antarctic is getting more sun over the diurnal cycle than the equator, as I said. See the insolation map here. https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/insolation-map.png
We are talking across each other here. You are clearly thinking about daily and seasonal peaks,;I’ve been thinking in terms of annual averages.
[Reply] Get thee to a library and learn about the fourth power relationship between radiation and temperature!
I’m too old and lazy to do Stefan-Boltzmann calculations every time. I doubt that at the temperatures we are discussing a calculated 4th power figure would give such a large difference from my simple linear estimate as to invalidate my point.
[Reply] http://i41.tinypic.com/29zxus7.jpg The data is the data is the data. Live with it.
We’ve discussed this before. In the Southern Ocean SSTs are too easily influenced in the short term by evaporation, insolation or meltwater off the icecap. I would regard Gille’s analysis of long term increases in energy content in the upper 700M layer as a better indicator of the long term warming behaviour of the system.
Tallbloke et al.:
I have not been avoiding this discussion of my words. I have only now become aware of it. Sorry.
I write to answer two points which specifically address what I said.
Paul Vaughan says at October 19, 2012 at 6:42 pm
“Now there’s a funny thing to say …
“the climate system is more complex than the human brain”
Quite the opposite.”
No! Simply factual. For example, the climate system has more interacting components (e.g. biological organisms) than the human brain has interacting components (e.g. neurones).
The purpose of my illustration was to demonstrate that an ability to imagine and build a model of a complex system is not evidence the system behaves as the model suggests.
Entropic man says asks me at October 22, 2012 at 12:56 am
“If your claim that the increased CO2 has produced no increase in temperature is correct, you would need to explain-
1) Why the extra backradiation has produced no temperature change?
2) Where has this extra retained energy gone?”
Firstly, it is not a “claim”. It is a report of an empirical observation independently obtained by three different analyses of three different data sets.
The elegance of a theory does not matter when empirical data shows the theory is wrong.
The answer to Question 1 is stated in my statements which are the subject of the thread. I say there;
“If climate sensitivity is less than 1 deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, then it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected because natural variability is much, much larger. If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).”
“Not detectable temperature change” and “no temperature change” are the same in practical reality but not the same in absolute reality.
I fail to understand Question 2 because there is no “extra retained energy”. All the energy is obtained from space, distributed through the climate system, and then returned to space.
Perhaps Entropic man is referring to ‘Trenberth’s missing heat’. If so, then I don’t know where it is. I can assure him that it is not down the back of my sofa and to my knowledge it is not where anyone else has looked either. Personally, I think it has been lost to space.
Richard
Richard, It was remiss of me not to alert you to the post, my apologies.
Regarding Kevin T’s missing heat, I agree that it is most likely somewhere past Alpha Centauri by now.
Mr Courtney
The complexity question is probably moot, as it is so dependant on your approach. For my part , I would regard climate as less complex because the physical laws underlying its activity are simple and the complexity only comes from the number of interacting particles, while the complexity of the brain activity increases as the factorial of the number of possible neural interconnections.
Notwithstanding, the climate is complex enough to preclude complete information about it, so we are unable to overcome its chaotic nature enough to make precise predictions. General behaviour is predictable, but emergent behaviour such as the 2012 Arctic minimum, and the odd weather accompanying it, remain out of reach.
Regarding detection of changes in temperature due to our CO2, the world’s temperature measuring system generates global averages with 95% confidence limits of about +/- 0.1C. The heat transfer equations used in the Arrhenius calculation and its successors predict a temperature change from 280ppm to 390ppm of between 0.5 and 1.5C( depending on your secondary forcing assumptions), which is well within the detection capacity of our network and which has been observed. To claim that no change has been observed is obtuse. The degree to which it is cAGW induced is still open to argument, but I am not aware of anybody who has falsified it well enough to trigger a paradigm shift.
Regarding the missing heat, I’d hoped for a less flippant response. One possibibility is that over the last decade the energy which previously warmed the atmosphere has been warming seawater. Witness the predominately La Nino orientation of ENSO in the 2000s and papers like this one.
ftp://psrd.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Ocean%20warming%202010.pdf
Entropic says:
“Regarding detection of changes in temperature due to our CO2, the world’s temperature measuring system generates global averages with 95% confidence limits of about +/- 0.1C. The heat transfer equations used in the Arrhenius calculation and its successors predict a temperature change from 280ppm to 390ppm of between 0.5 and 1.5C( depending on your secondary forcing assumptions), which is well within the detection capacity of our network and which has been observed. “
Two questions:
1) What do you think caused similar excursions in temperature before co2 started rising significantly?
2) How much of those previous forcings do you you think were acting between 1970-2003
tallbloke
1) Depends on your timescale. Over a couple of years comes volcanic activity such as Tambora or Pinatubo. Over a decade come the 11 year solar cycle and ENSO. Over a few decades we have AMO and its ilk, and our own CO2 production. The Little Ice Age correalates well with the Maunder Minimum, suggesting a depression of whatever passed for normal temperatures due to reduced solar insolation. The Medieval Warm period fits quite well with an earlier stage in the long slow decline in temperature one would expect in the latter stage of an interstadial. OVer 100,000 year timescales Milankivich cycles drive, Since Mikankovich cycles in turn only produce ice age cycles when the continents are appropriately positioned, ice at the poles comes and goes over periods of tens or hundreds of millions of years. In some 5billion years the Sun will move off the Main Sequence and become a red giant, at which point we fry.
2) Very few. Solar activity was constant, or slightly increasing through most of the latter 20th century. the Milankovich cooling would have been expected to continue. ENSO showed both negative and positive phases, with little overall effect, excepting perhaps 1998. AMO showed some local warming of the Atlantic, but not worldwide. Cosmic rays, within the limitations of our measurement technology, remained constant.
The warming shown by the global temperature records over the 1970-2003 period
would require extra energy input of around 0.2% over 33 years, for which I would regard the extra backradiation from increased CO2 as the most probable candidate.
None of the other proposed alternatives, from changes in insolation up to cosmic rays have, IMHO, shown quantitatively that they can explain the energy change to the same confidence level.
I know you see cycles as important factors influencing climate, but I see them as changing the energy distribution within the system, rather than as increasing the overall energy content of the ocean and atmosphere system as a whole. Unless it can be shown that these cycles can change the total energy of our climatic system, I would not regard them as causative agents in long term global temperature change.
In summary, I recognise that a number of natural variables have influenced past climate, but have not seen convincing evidence that any of them provide as good an explaination as cAGW for the changes over the last century.
Entropic,
“One possibibility is that over the last decade the energy which previously warmed the atmosphere has been warming seawater. Witness the predominately La Nino orientation of ENSO in the 2000s and papers like this one.”
Why would the warming shift from the atmosphere to the oceans, especially when what measurements we have would appear to show that there was ocean warming at the same time as the atmospheric warming that is claimed and neither now?!?!?!
Entropic man:
I am replying to your post addressed to me at October 26, 2012 at 11:17 pm .
You begin with factually incorrect and illogical assertions concerning complexity saying,
“The complexity question is probably moot, as it is so dependant (sic) on your approach. For my part , I would regard climate as less complex because the physical laws underlying its activity are simple and the complexity only comes from the number of interacting particles, while the complexity of the brain activity increases as the factorial of the number of possible neural interconnections.
Notwithstanding, the climate is complex enough to preclude complete information about it, so we are unable to overcome its chaotic nature enough to make precise predictions. General behaviour is predictable, but emergent behaviour such as the 2012 Arctic minimum, and the odd weather accompanying it, remain out of reach.”
The complexity issue is NOT “moot” because it depends on the nature of complexity and NOT on [my] “approach”. A chaotic system with unknown attractors prevents ability to make predictions except in the short term.
Physical laws may be simple but their effects in real-world situations can be very complex. Clearly, you know nothing about several scientific disciplines such as fluid mechanics.
Your ignorance of such matters is also displayed by your suggesting differences between the complexities of the climate system and the system of a brain. Both depend upon and use the same physical laws and you imply they don’t. Then you hand-wave that
(a) the complexity of the climate system “only comes from interacting particles”
whereas
(b) the complexity of the brain activity increases as the factorial of the number of possible neural interconnections “.
You know that? How?
Your claim of the difference tells nothing about either system but displays your prejudices which prevent you from understanding the difference between the real world and your assumptions.
You admit emergent behaviour is not predictable while failing to recognise that admission defeats your assertions. In both systems, it is the emergent behaviour which is most important. In the case of the climate system its unpredictable behaviours include Its bi-stability with glacial and interglacial states, ENSO, AMO, PDO, etc..
Then you make the ignorant assertion
“Regarding detection of changes in temperature due to our CO2, the world’s temperature measuring system generates global averages with 95% confidence limits of about +/- 0.1C. “
Please see
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
It is a link to the UK Parliamentary Record which provides my submission to UK Parliament’s Select Committee Inquiry (i.e. whitewash) of climategate.
Its Appendix A is a leaked climategate email that was from me. The discussion of that email is of a specific case of prevention of a scientific publication which provided doubt to existing presentations of ‘climate science’ data. Its Appendix B provides a draft of the pertinent paper which was prevented from publication by nefarious method. The bulk document is the submission which explains the problems.
Appendix B shows that however you consider it, there is NO single “world’s temperature measuring system”; there are several different ones. And the different measurement systems have much larger – and unknown – confidence limits than each measurement team claims.
You follow that saying;
“The heat transfer equations used in the Arrhenius calculation and its successors predict a temperature change from 280ppm to 390ppm of between 0.5 and 1.5C( depending on your secondary forcing assumptions), which is well within the detection capacity of our network and which has been observed.”
Again, you proclaim your ignorance and lack of logical ability.
Merely because a temperature rise has been observed does NOT mean you can claim any cause you want then say, “Prove me wrong”. This is especially true when the temperature rise from the LIA started before the cause which you assert.
If Arrhenius calculations were correct (they are not, but that is irrelevant history), then so what?
You are ignoring how complex systems differ from simple Newtonian mechanical behaviour. if your ‘Arrhenius assertion’ were a correct description of complex system response to minor disturbances then your body temperature would change in response to putting your hand in cold or warm water.
Then you make an outrageously anti-scientific assertion which says,
“ To claim that no change has been observed is obtuse. The degree to which it is cAGW induced is still open to argument, but I am not aware of anybody who has falsified it well enough to trigger a paradigm shift.”
Say what!?
YOU ARE THE ONE CLAIMING TO KNOW CAUSE OF AN UNDISPUTED TEMPERATURE RISE SINCE THE LIA.
You need to falsify the Null Hypothesis before claiming the cause you assert needs falsification.
And I take very severe exception to your saying to me,
“Regarding the missing heat, I’d hoped for a less flippant response.”
MY RESPONSE WAS NOT FLIPPANT. I know of no missing heat and you have stated none. You still have not.
But you write,
“One possibibility is that over the last decade the energy which previously warmed the atmosphere has been warming seawater. Witness the predominately La Nino orientation of ENSO in the 2000s and papers like this one.
ftp://psrd.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Ocean%20warming%202010.pdf “
Another possibility is that the Moon is made of green cheese, but I see no indication of the existence of any “missing heat” or any green cheese.
It is your responsibility to explain why your unfounded and often unstated assertions should be accepted. It is not my responsibility to guess why your unfounded and clearly untrue assertions are wrong (especially when you are afraid to put your own name to them).
Richard
Entropic man says:
October 27, 2012 at 1:54 am
tallbloke asked
1) What do you think caused similar excursions in temperature before co2 started rising significantly?
1) Depends on your timescale.
Specifically, the ~1910 – 1945 warming during which co2 levels were almost constant, according to your favoured proxy, and the rate and magnitude of the warming were similar to the modern warming. You don’t have a leg to stand on with your co2 driven argument in my opinion. Of course the AMO can cause worldwide warming of the atmosphere. The top 50 feet of the Atlantic contains as much energy as the entire atmosphere. Get real.
I’m tiring of your evasive blustering, so put your effort into answering Richard Courtney. I have too many other posts to write to waste my time with your self blinkered ramblings.
When my debating opponents start being rude to me, I know I’m making progress. I’ve to go to work soon and will be on till late tonight and daytime tomorrow.. I’ll try to post a proper response to Mr. Courtney tomorrow night.
Entropic man:
At October 27, 2012 at 2:29 pm you say:
“When my debating opponents start being rude to me, I know I’m making progress. I’ve to go to work soon and will be on till late tonight and daytime tomorrow.. I’ll try to post a proper response to Mr. Courtney tomorrow night.”
When you make a post that is not “rude” then you will have made much progress.
And do, please, set a precedent by managing to make a “proper” response.
If you do then I will bother to reply to it on Monday.
Richard
Tallbloke:
I intend no offence to your blog by saying I will not bother to reply to Entropic Man until Monday.
I have put priority to answering proper posts addressed to me on your blog in the past, and I probably will in the future, but I will not in this case.
It takes significant effort for me to make time to provide considered replies on a Sunday. I am not willing to give that priority to an ignorant and illogical troll who makes offensive comments from behind the cowardly shield of anonymity. This is especially true when the troll has yet to make a post addressed to me which is not offensive and complains at a “rude” reply when my reply treated him/her/them with more respect than the post I answered provided to me.
I hope that explains I am not intending disrespect to you or to your blog.
Richard
Richard,
don’t worry, entropic is one of those retired science teachers who :-
1) Thinks he’s clever at bamboozling curious students who ask awkward questions
2) Is way out of his depth with anything which wasn’t spoon fed to him in a syllabus.
I dont want to get into a slanging match, or a Gish Gallop. We’ve at least four different differences of opinion running here.
Choose one for more detailed discussion. I will try to abide by the rules of scientific debate implied by Karl Popper’s philosophy of science..
[Reply] Good idea. We’ll let Richard choose the first one.
Oh yes. You complain about my anonymity. My first name is Richard. My suname is on my e-mail address, which Tallbloke can e-mail you if you wish. I have no public reputation, but my children both work in business and prefer that I use a nom-de-plume. They find my strange hobby embarassing and would rather it does not appear on Google searches relating to them.
Entropic man:
Firstly, you made accusations of rudeness. Don’t pretend hurt which you have not had when any rudeness was initiated by you.
Secondly, you challenged what I said so I think it would have been better if you had chosen which of those challenges you most wanted to pursue. However, you and tallbloke say you agree I should choose so I opt for your most basic challenge of what I wrote.
In my original rebuttal of your challenge I quoted you and replied as follows.
“To claim that no change has been observed is obtuse. The degree to which it is cAGW induced is still open to argument, but I am not aware of anybody who has falsified it well enough to trigger a paradigm shift.”
Say what!?
YOU ARE THE ONE CLAIMING TO KNOW CAUSE OF AN UNDISPUTED TEMPERATURE RISE SINCE THE LIA.
You need to falsify the Null Hypothesis before claiming the cause you assert needs falsification.”
To help your reply, I point out that there is no evidence – none, zilch, nada – that any of the observed rise since the LIA is other than natural.
Richard
A good choice . It crystallises our main differences of viewpoint.
If this were a debate I would propose a motion such as this.
” The rise in global temperatures between the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid 1800s and the present has been mostly caused by human activity”
It would probably be better to keep comments fairly brief , and we need to agree some common ground.
The first problem might be sources of data. Do you have a particular favourite among the 20th century temperature records available? I have been in the habit of using GISS, thuogh I’m quite happy to follow your preference.
Looking for temperature data going further back, I found this summary of ten different longer term temperature graphs on Wikipedia. They all show an drop in temperature worldwide, ending around 1850, though the exact end date seems subject to interpretation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Temperatures between 1850 and 1880 seem to have been fairly even, and most temperature records start from around 1880, so shall we use 1880 as our starting point?
[Reply] Please observe the convention of naming the person you are addressing at the start of your comment. It helps avoid confusion. TB
Entropic Man:
I came here to see how if you had yet provided some justification of your statement saying;
“ To claim that no change has been observed is obtuse. The degree to which it is cAGW induced is still open to argument, but I am not aware of anybody who has falsified it well enough to trigger a paradigm shift.”
Or, alternatively, your provision of some refutation of my response which was
“Say what!?
YOU ARE THE ONE CLAIMING TO KNOW CAUSE OF AN UNDISPUTED TEMPERATURE RISE SINCE THE LIA.
You need to falsify the Null Hypothesis before claiming the cause you assert needs falsification.”
But I found neither. Instead you have asked me
“The first problem might be sources of data. Do you have a particular favourite among the 20th century temperature records available? I have been in the habit of using GISS, thuogh I’m quite happy to follow your preference. ”
I don’t have a “preference”. Only warmunists choose data to suit their purposes.
Use whatever data you want, but expect me to possibly dispute it and/or to provide other data which shows something else. That is how a scientific debate is conducted.
I am surprised at you asking your question, Surely, you would not want to delay putting your argument which you think will show I am wrong?
Richard
Ray,
I am afraid you are right about my making a mistake!!!
I had never actually used one of the tools to determine the intensity of the radiation. At 50c the 15um would be about 8w/m2 and at -50c about 2w/m2 whereas the actual peak output changes by a magnitude greater. So, there will be an increase of power to the CO2 for the band broadening as the temps increase, just not nearly as much as if the peak did not move away. Thanks for pushing me so I clarified this in my mush head!!
-50C
radiant emittance 133.6 w/m2
radiance 42.5 w/m2/sr
peakspectral rad 2.2 w/m2/sr/um
wavelength peak 13.0 um
2-40um band radiance 37.8 w/m2/sr
15um spectral radiance 2.1 w/m2/sr/um
50C
radiant emittance 587.4 w/m2
radiance 187.0 w/m2/sr
peakspectral rad 13.7 w/m2/sr/um
wavelength peak 9.0 um
2-40um band radiance 178.5 w/m2/sr
15um spectral radiance 8.1 w/m2/sr/um
Spectralcalc using .95 emissivity
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
Entropic,
cleaning up a few bits and pieces from earlier in the thread:
“Figure 3 of the paper below, discussing changes over time in the OLR, shows a decrease in Differential Brightness Temperature of approximately 1K in the 700-800 wavenumber band between 1970 and 2006 This is the region of the infrared spectrum in which most CO2 backradiation takes place.”
As my figures from Spectralcalc show the amount of energy emitted in the 15um area increases with warming. Co2 absorbs and reemits this energy with slightly more than half still going away from the earth. By telling us that the amount if OLR has decreased you are telling us that 1) there is less energy in the band meaning the earth actually cooled. That would be consistent with the apparent corruption of the temperature record and UHI issues. Or 2) the energy has been moved to other bands.
You are IGNORING the total energy out. The fact that GHG’s absorb and emit are not at issue. What happens to the radiation is the issue.
“Such a decrease is consistent with an increase in backradiation from CO2 during that period, which one would expect to produce an increase in surface temperature.”
As I mentioned above, more backradiation should also mean more OLR as more goes out than comes back. You need to give us a mechanism to explain why your mythical backradiation can increase without a corresponding increase in all other directions.
““Well mixed” refers too the way in which local variations in [CO2] due to sources and sinks even out with time and distance as convection and turbulence mix the air. Hawiai is regarded as a good sampling site because it is equatorial and well away from both natural and anthropogenic sources”
This is a meaningless definition with no time period or range of concentration.
Mona Loa throws away many measurements that exceed the standard they set. You will need to obtain their operating procedures to see why their curve is mostly meaningless as they have also implemented making up data to infill when they have to throw away too much!!! You then need to explain why we should be using measurements from “pristine” sites carefully selected to give a BACKGROUND level for CO2 that totally misses the large variations over and above the annual cycle shown in the pretty made up charts. Why do we measure temps where anthro affect is guaranteed and try to measure CO2 with neither anthro or large NATURAL variations??
““Low temperature means low energy required for temperature change. It hasn’t happened.”
The amount of energy required for a 1K temperature change is the same, whether you go up from 223K (-50C),273Km (0C) or 303K (30C).
[Reply] Get thee to a library and learn about the fourth power relationship between radiation and temperature”
Apparently you do not understand what Tallbloke is trying to point you to. While you are trying to warm a body it is emitting continuously. As you warm it its rate of emissions increases!! That means to increase the temp another unit the amount of power input also has to increase by a power!!! It takes a smaller increase in energy to warm the poles by 1C than to warm the tropics as the tropics radiate at a much higher rate that increases faster than the poles!!!
richard courtney
“undisputed temperature rise”
Lets start with this. Its the GISS Land/Ocean temperature record.
In 1882 it shows a 5-year average anomaly of -0.26. For 2009 the figure is 0.54C, giving a temperature increase of 0.8C in 127 years. My own estimate of the 95% conficdence limits for these averages is +/- 0.1C, due to everything from changing accuracy of thermometers to the UHI effect.
The other datasets show changes between 0.6C and 1.0C and a generally similar pattern. By inspection, I identify a gentler slope in the early years, curious behaviour during the 1935-50 period, which may be due to disruptions in data collection, a steeper slope in the late 20th century and a possible flattening in the 21st century.
The first point of disagreement may be the reliability of the temperature data. Are we agreed that that this is an approximate description of the last 130 years? If not, we are both wasting our time.
kuhnkat
I’ll need to do some research on this and get back to you. We seem to be interpreting a number of concepts such as specific heat in different ways.
Entropic man:
I have read your post to me at October 30, 2012 at 12:35 am .
Please present your argument using whatever description of whatever data you want.
If your argument depends on data reliability then in that event we can discuss the limitations of the data.
Your evasions are tiresome.
Richard
Richard Courtney:
1) Kirshvink Glaciation.
An example of [CO2] driving major climate change. Cyanobacteria photosynthesis reduced [CO2] to very low levels. The resulting drop in forcing produced glaciation covering almost to the Equator. With the biosphere almost shut down, [CO2] remained low until vulcanism released enough CO2 for its accumulated back radiation to break the freeze.
Click to access Kirschvink%2092%20chapt.pdf
2) Milankovich Cycles. Path of causation is Orbital changes cause temperature changes which cause [CO2] changes.The orbital changes are not enough to cause the observed temperature changes. CO2 acts in this case as an amplifier, in a positive feedback loop with temperature. A change between 200ppm and 280ppm is associated with a 5C temperature swing.
3) Over the last 130 years CO2 released from industrial activity has raised CO2 from 280ppm to 390ppm. In the light of laboratory and observational physical mechanisms linking CO2 and changes in Earth’s energy budget, along with previous examples of CO2 driven change,( and considering the lack of alternative hypotheses which fully explain the observed energy changes) I consider the case for cAGW as demonstrated “on the balance of probabilities”, sufficiently to regard it as the default explaination until something better comes along. Demonstrating it either way “beyond reasonable doubt” is more difficult, and probably beyond both of us at present.
You did want it quick. Stripped of other examples and supporting data that’s my argument. I look forward to the evidence for your refutation.
I was reading about memes and memeplexes last week. Considering climate change and climate scepticism as memeplexes, neither of us is likely to disinfect the other.
Kuhnkat
Thanks for the radiance numbers, especially the 2.1 and 8.1 radiance values for 15 micrometres at -50C and 50C. (This old man will have to get a tutorial somewhere on all these new computer tools) That was one point I was trying to make; that the energy flows in the Antarctic are lower than elsewhere and that the back radiation from CO2 will be smaller in proportion. Any change in back radiation and temperature due to increased CO2 will also be smaller in proportion, which is part of the reason for the lag in Antarctic plateau warming.
Sanity check. The specific heat of water is 1 joule per gram per degree Centigrade. 1 Watt is one joule-second of power and will change the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1C per second. Phase changes aside, this is constant between 0C and 100C under earth surface conditions. For seawater and most materials energy thermal energy content is proportional to temperature.
I put 1 litre of water in a saucepan on a 1kiloWatt hotplate. The water increases temperature at 1C/second until it boils. I reduce the power until it simmers, then a bit further. The water stabilises at that temperature at which the input Wattage is balanced by an equal rate of heat loss.
I add a ring of metal foil round the pan, reflecting IR back into the pan. There is an initial reduction in heat loss, The water temperature rises, with consequent increased heat loss. This continues until the heat loss reaches its original Wattage and the water temperature reaches equilibrium at a higher value.
Scale the whole thing up a bit. The pan of water is the Earth, its oceans and atmosphere. Solar input is the hotplate and outgoing radiation is the heat loss. Incoming and outgoing radiation balanceand the temperature is constant,in equilibrium.
Add 100 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere (metal foil). This upsets the equilibrium. Increased back radiation reduces heat loss in the 15 micrometre OLR. Surface temperatures increase and the OLR increases at other wavelengths until it the overall outgoing radiation reaches its previous level. The planet stabilises at a new equilibrium with the incoming and outgoing radiation at their previous totals , but with the surface temperatures warmer.
Earth is not yet in equilibrium, so we stillsee decreasing OLR at 15 micrometres and increasing OLR at other wavelengths.
PS. I understand your point regarding radiance increasing as the 4th power of black body temperature. I have been thinking in terms of total energy, as in this post,but my style may have obscured my meaning.
Regarding data collection and processing, I regard it also as an equilibrium process.
If you’ve worked in science, you’ll know that the practicalities of collecting any sort of data create their own problems. The raw data of every measurement, with every possible source of variability goes into your lab notebook, but if you publish it all the forest gets lost in the trees.
If you overprocess the data it becomes an artificial construct, divorced from the processes you are trying to measure..
Politicians and media complain about excessive complexity and uncertainty in the data the scientists supply and demand simple summaries. Climate sceptics complain that overprocessing has reduced the uncertainty too much.
What guidance would you give to a practical scientist trying to square this circle and find an optimum?
Entropic man:
It is late at night on Wednesday here and I am about to retire for the night.
Early on Friday morning I shall be leaving for one of my frequent absences which put me out of internet communication for a week or two. (I suspect Tallbloke has noticed these periods of my absence from the internet that occur at ~6 week intervals).
Hence, I will not be able to answer your argument for some weeks unless it appears early tomorrow.
Please note that I am not avoiding your argument. When I agreed to address your argument I assumed I would be doing it on Monday (i.e. two days ago) and I am now warning of my departure after tomorrow so you can provide it before I leave. However, I regret that in the present circumstances – and depending on your argument – I may lack time for a full answer before I depart.
Richard
[co-mod: Yes you do eva from time to time but return. Quite a few do this, called real life. –Tim]
[Reply] Entropic Man laid out his argument here https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/richard-courtney-empirical-assessment-of-the-warming-effect-of-co2/#comment-34065 at 11.41am on Wednesday. It took a while to approve, because he didn’t say who it was addressed to. – Rog
Entropic man says: October 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm
“Thanks for the radiance numbers, especially the 2.1 and 8.1 radiance values for 15 micrometres at -50C and 50C.”
This is what I tried to point out to Khunkat!
The values ‘aren’t’ for 15 um, they’re for Earth’s atmosphere at those temps and Khunkat discovered that the “wavelength peak” ‘~around the 15 um spectrum’ is 13.0 um and 9.0 um respectively. This isn’t the ’15 um peak’ for CO2 that everyone talks about.
His/her link is there, get the ‘feel’ for the app. I expect there’s a ‘tutorial’ there, somewhere, and I mean this with the best possible intentions (from one ‘old man’ to another ‘old man’ [are you a granddad yet like me?]). 🙂
I’m ‘weak’ on spectral analysis. Perhaps I’ll take a tutorial too, when I get a window!
Best regards, Ray.
Entropic man says: October 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm
“Sanity check. The specific heat of water is 1 joule per gram per degree Centigrade. 1 Watt is one joule-second of power and will change the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1C per second. Phase changes aside, this is constant between 0C and 100C under earth surface conditions. For seawater and most materials energy thermal energy content is proportional to temperature.”
This doesn’t account for energy loss to evaporation during a ‘warming’ scenario for a ‘volatile compound’ such as water.
A ‘warming scenario’ presupposes that the ‘vapour pressure’ of a volatile liquid will increase with an increasing temp change (either, to the liquid, or to the gas phase). Thus, the ‘vapour pressure’ of the liquid overtakes the ‘vapour pressure’ of the surrounding gas and emits moles of the liquid into the gas (the Clausius-Clapyron principle/relationship).
Plain and simple, as you heat the water, more energy is lost to greater evaporation (a ‘prime’ example of an energy exchange between attractors).
An unfortunate analogy. 😦
Best regards, Ray.
Entropic Man:
I am at a loss to understand your post at October 31, 2012 at 11:41 am. I understood that it was to provide some justification of your statement saying;
“To claim that no change has been observed is obtuse. The degree to which it is cAGW induced is still open to argument, but I am not aware of anybody who has falsified it well enough to trigger a paradigm shift.”
Or, alternatively, your provision of some refutation of my response which was
“Say what!?
YOU ARE THE ONE CLAIMING TO KNOW CAUSE OF AN UNDISPUTED TEMPERATURE RISE SINCE THE LIA.
You need to falsify the Null Hypothesis before claiming the cause you assert needs falsification.”
At very least I had expected an attempt to falsify the Null Hypothesis.
But your post does none of those things. Instead it presents three assertions of events which you assert – without evidence – were “driven” by CO2 changes.
Assertion and assumption are NOT evidence.
Before addressing your assertions, I make an important point.
You say;
“I was reading about memes and memeplexes last week. Considering climate change and climate scepticism as memeplexes, neither of us is likely to disinfect the other.”
That is offensive PNS bollocks!
We are discussing empirical data. The data can be challenged as to their accuracy, reliability and precision. And it may be possible to apply more than one interpretation on the available data. But I am NOT “infected” by the data: I accept what it indicates.
Simply, I change my opinion when the facts change.
Taking your first “example” first, the empirical data of present climate sensitivity result from the climate system which now exists. Prior to the Holocene the climate system was different because of different continents, different continental positions, different ocean currents, and different solar input.
The empirical data from Idso, Lindzen&Choi and Gregory indicate the climate sensitivity which exists now. They show that feedbacks are large and negative.
But the feedbacks would have been different and are unknown for previous geological epochs. Therefore, those epochs indicate NOTHING about today’s climate sensitivity.
Hence, your example of the Kirshvink Glaciation would be meaningless if it were true.
But you claim the Kirshvink Glaciation is “An example of [CO2] driving major climate change”.
And the paper to which you link explains that its authors don’t know what did cause the snowball Earth or how recovery from it occurred.
In other words, your example of the Kirshvink Glaciation is rejected because it does not apply to the Holocene and the “evidence” you provided says nobody knows what caused it.
It is not valid for you to say nobody understands this so it must be CO2. Why not ‘fairy dust’ instead of CO2?
Then you say,
“Milankovich Cycles. Path of causation is Orbital changes cause temperature changes which cause [CO2] changes.The orbital changes are not enough to cause the observed temperature changes. CO2 acts in this case as an amplifier, in a positive feedback loop with temperature. A change between 200ppm and 280ppm is associated with a 5C temperature swing.”
But your assertion is refuted by the data.
According to the ice core data, the CO2 follows the temperature. When the temperature starts to fall then the CO2 continues to climb for centuries after (typically 800 years). And when the temperature starts to rise the C2 continues to fall for centuries after. Clearly, the Milankovich Cycles are sufficiently powerful as to overwhelm any effect of CO2.
It is a cyclical argument to say
1.
“The orbital changes are not enough to cause the observed temperature changes”
2.
so the CO2 must be an amplifier
3.
therefore the CO2 increases the temperature changes.
Indeed, the delay disproves the assertion of 200ppm and 280ppm is associated with a 5C temperature swing. The Milankovich Cycles themselves are the cause of the major temperature change and may cause all of it.
In other words, your assertion of a discernible effect of CO2 as an amplifier of temperature change from Milankovich Cycles is refuted by the same empirical data which indicates the association between Milankovich Cycles and CO2 concentration.
Your third point is illogical armwaving. It says
“3) Over the last 130 years CO2 released from industrial activity has raised CO2 from 280ppm to 390ppm. In the light of laboratory and observational physical mechanisms linking CO2 and changes in Earth’s energy budget, along with previous examples of CO2 driven change,( and considering the lack of alternative hypotheses which fully explain the observed energy changes) I consider the case for cAGW as demonstrated “on the balance of probabilities”, sufficiently to regard it as the default explaination until something better comes along. Demonstrating it either way “beyond reasonable doubt” is more difficult, and probably beyond both of us at present.”
Your “balance of probabilities” ignores the fact that the empirical measurements of climate sensitivity refutes your assumption of CO2 as a cause of the temperature rise.
And your lack of “an alternative hypothesis” is the logical error of ‘argument from ignorance’. Let me give you an alternative and equally probable hypothesis in light of the empirical data. The suggested alternative is that witches are casting spells which have raised the temperature: do you want to say why that should not be “the default explanation until something better comes along”?
Now let me tell you the scientific explanation. It is the Null Hypothesis.
The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.
The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.
In the case of climate science there is a hypothesis that increased greenhouse gases (GHGs, notably CO2) in the air will increase global temperature. There are good reasons to suppose this hypothesis may be true, but the Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed the GHG changes have no effect unless and until increased GHGs are observed to increase global temperature. That is what the scientific method decrees. It does not matter how certain some people may be that the hypothesis is right because observation of reality (i.e. empiricism) trumps all opinions.
Please note that the Null Hypothesis is a hypothesis which exists to be refuted by empirical observation. It is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can “choose” any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.
In the case of global climate no unprecedented climate behaviours are observed so the Null Hypothesis decrees that the climate system has not changed.
Importantly, an effect may be real but not overcome the Null Hypothesis because it is too trivial for the effect to be observable. Human activities have some effect on global temperature for several reasons. An example of an anthropogenic effect on global temperature is the urban heat island (UHI). Cities are warmer than the land around them, so cities cause some warming. But the temperature rise from cities is too small to be detected when averaged over the entire surface of the planet, although this global warming from cities can be estimated by measuring the warming of all cities and their areas.
Clearly, the Null Hypothesis decrees that UHI is not affecting global temperature although there are good reasons to think UHI has some effect. Similarly, it is very probable that AGW from GHG emissions are too trivial to have observable effects.
The feedbacks in the climate system are negative and, therefore, any effect of increased CO2 will be probably too small to discern because natural climate sensitivity is much, much larger. This concurs with the empirically determined values of low climate sensitivity.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of Idso from surface measurements
Click to access Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satelite data
Click to access Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
Click to access OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Indeed, because climate sensitivity is less than 1 .0deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected (just as the global warming from UHI is too small to be detected). If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
To date there are no discernible effects of AGW. Hence, the Null Hypothesis decrees that AGW does not affect global climate to a discernible degree. That is the ONLY scientific conclusion possible at present.
Richard
Suricat
The problem with any analogy is that if you push it too far, it falls apart. I was quite happy to think in terms of the total energy flow through the saucepan, including evaporative cooling (though one might keep the lid on 🙂 ), convection and IR. I chose tinfoil reflecting IR in hopes of making a conceptual link to CO2 back radiation. The saucepan analogy was a gedanken experiment to help me think about the way anthropogenic CO2 increase would be expected to change the OLR in the short term and after reachingequilibratium.
Kuhnkat and I have been bouncing ideas back and forth regarding the effect of extra CO2 on the amount of warming at Antarctic and Equatorial surface temperatures, though its been verbal speculation. We really need someone to crunch the numbers.
No grandchildren yet, though I live in hope.
Richard Courtney
” Climate Sensitivity”
We can bounce different climate sensitivity estimates off each other all night, Here are a few more, averaging around 2C per doubling.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html
Note the comment in the link.
“…Idso’s estimate of 1980, which, as Schneider and others pointed out, is based on reasoning that would violate the conservation of energy.”
———————————————————————————————————————–
“Prior to the Holocene the climate system was different because of different continents, different continental positions, different ocean currents, and different solar input.”
What has not changed is the physics of CO2. It behaves in the same way and produces the same effect, in the pre-Cambrian, Triassic, Holocene and Anthropocene.
————————————————————————————————————————
“your assertion of a discernible effect of CO2 as an amplifier of temperature change from Milankovich Cycles is refuted by the same empirical data which indicates the association between Milankovich Cycles and CO2 concentration.”
I find this summarises my argument.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm
————————————————————————————————————————-
“The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change. ”
Evidence of change:-
Click to access Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
Entropic,
“I add a ring of metal foil round the pan, reflecting IR back into the pan. There is an initial reduction in heat loss, The water temperature rises, with consequent increased heat loss.”
Actually no. The IR evaporates the surface of the water with little change in the heat content of below. We know this from experiment and due to that bodies of water have overturning of their surface under earth conditions. Water conducts energy more slowly than it radiates it so the area immediately below the surface being evaporated actually cools faster than the underlying water. When there is a large enough differential the overturning happens moving the cooler water lower and bringing warmer water to the surface.
With the oceans and other bodies of water what you claim is not happening. IR does NOT penetrate enough to make any difference so the CO2 content of the air has no influence on its temp.
Take a bucket of water and your favorite IR heater or heat gun and see how long it takes to raise the temperatue of the water 5c.
Entropic,
“was one point I was trying to make; that the energy flows in the Antarctic are lower than elsewhere and that the back radiation from CO2 will be smaller in proportion.”
Try to concentrate on what we are attempting to tell you. Take a period of time, say 5 seconds. In 5 seconds a square foot of water emits radiation based on it temperature to th 4th power. If its temp is 32c it will emit substantially more IR than if it was at 0 or -50c!!! To raise that square foot of water 1c you already know it takes a fixed amount of energy for an INSTANTANEOUS rise. The real wold works in energy fluxes over time and does not do INSTANTANEOUS!!! During the time that a particular level of insolation takes to provide the energy to raise the foot of water 1c the warmer water emits far more energy THAT MUST BE REPLACED or it may actually COOL instead of warm!!!
The models are wrong, but, they aren’t THAT wrong. Basic physics says the Antarctica should be warming just like the Arctic. Of course, that basic physics simply does not represent ALL the interactions of the whole system for particular conditions!!
“…so we still see decreasing OLR at 15 micrometres and increasing OLR at other wavelengths.”
Again, try and concentrate. If the earth is warming it emits MORE 15 um radiation that is absorbed by an increasing amount of CO2. If the air is warming there will be a little band broadening that increases this also. You claim that there is DECREASING 15 um radiation. CO2 cannot shift the frequency of the OLR substantially. It can only absorb and emit. It emits slightly more up than down. What physical process allows this?? What BLOCKS or frequency shifts this radiation?? If there is more CO2 and more OLR from the surface there should be MORE IR at all levels!!!
Finally, if warming causes DECREASED BACKRADIATION…..
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“No grandchildren yet, though I live in hope.”
I have 4 through pure accident/luck/happenstance. 8>)
kuhnkat
I was just reading an article on the end of the last ice age in th 3 November 2012 New Scientist. It includes a graph which suggests that the time to reach equilibrium after a large rise in CO2 should be measured in millennia.
We are agreed that it takes a long time to warm water by IR illumination, whatever the mechanism. This is why there is a lag between the increase in CO2 and the new equilibrium temperature that results.
If the lessons from the last 22000 years can be applied to anthropogenic CO2 poduction, it would suggest that the next few millenia should divide into three stages.
1) [CO2] rises from 280ppm to well over 400ppm at about 10ppm per decade, with an accompanying rise in forcing.
2) Land at sea temperatures rise in response, at whatever rate the physics allows, probably with a considerable lag.
3) Eventually a new equilibrium is reached, with higher surface and ocean temperatures but, all else being equal, the same total OLR as before.
Setting aside arguments about rates of change, degrees of forcing, what IS warming the oceans, and all the other things that so exercise us, I would be interested to know how you would expect the OLR to look.
How would you expect the current rapid increase in CO2 to affect the OLR in the short term?
How would you expect the subsequent temperature change to affect the OLR?
How would the new equilibrium OLR resemble and differ from the present one?
It would then be enjoyable to compare our respective predictions with what the OLR actually does.
kuhnkat says: November 2, 2012 at 8:52 pm
“I have 4 through pure accident/luck/happenstance. 8>)”
I like that word ‘happenstance’. It gives a chaotic flavour to destiny/fate for the way things turned out in hindsight. However, it’s also nice to be able to give grandchildren back to their parents when your wits are shredded. 🙂
You beat me by 1 khunkat (not that I’m jealous). 🙂
kuhnkat & Entropic man.
It’s impossible to look at a single spectral frequency and say that ‘all spectra’ are so affected (because they’re not). We need an analysis of the ‘full OLR spectrum’ (all spectral wavelengths emitted by Earth) to observe/rate the energy leaving Earth’s systems. The 15 um waveband just doesn’t cut the average for the total OLR.
Moreover, many wavelengths of insolation are converted to a chemical energy. Thus, how to differentiate between energy to OLR and energy to other attractors (‘eta energy’ for Earth’s system)? I realise that ‘albedo’ defines the absorption and rejection to Earth’s system WRT insolation, but what happens to the ‘absorbed’ portion?
Discussion on IR is limited by the depth that IR can penetrate, but ‘blue vis’ and ‘UVa’ has a much greater penetration depth into water than IR, and ‘blue vis’ and ‘UVa’ is of a much greater ‘Plank Constant’ than IR (thus has a greater energy sig [to the point of ‘ionising’]). Should we be discussing the IR content of OLR, or the content of insolation?
You decide. 🙂
Best regards, Ray.
You might recall I built a simple model of the lunar radiation situation which fits nicely with the new measured data. Theory and measurement agree, no surprise.
The earth is a very different regime but I can draw some conclusions, including that the majority are dangerously clueless and continuing my view that there is no point in even talking to them.
Few comprehend stephan-boltzman. It is correct but purely theoretic with no connection to the real world. Hence the hand flapping.
Critical things.
The earth and moon are rotating bodies. This may not be ignored, is critical unless there is immense atmospheric mass eg. Venus.
A key factor is surface conductivity, where surface is notional. In the case of the moon the surface is highly thermally insulating, will be as dust in a high vacuum.
Heat transfers into and out of a body which can be seen as a thermal capacity or as entropy, various views. In the lunar case this is purely bidirectional, acts as a thermal delay line vs. depth.
The earth has a very high “surface” thermal conductivity but there is no definite surface, is highly complex. The effect of high conductivity is the body assumes a much higher temperature but keep firmly in mind this is a rotating body with no steady state.
From what I could gather from the model the earth is rough at an expected temperature but extending the model to earth systems is far beyond me.
Another key factor is atmospheric temperature inversions which are normal nightside. GCM have great trouble handling these even in weather forecast mode but for a static body as in climatic mode, a total joke.
A further key lies in Leroux of the deleted from Wikipedia notwithstanding he is accepted in science. His MPH (Mobile Polar High) is real and what they do is of interest. These form all year at the poles as heat is radiately shed forming polar temperature inversions and a ground level thin disk of cold dense air, stays down because it is cold and dense. These plop out regularly and spin equatorwise following a Coriolis kind of path. Warmer air goes the other way for cooling.
Quite possible the NY area storm met such air arriving from the north via a common route.
Laroux also points out the low level of the air means that for the north it is steered by ground topography to preferred paths and hence there is typical weather patterns. The south spills all directions. He also suggests this is changed during ice ages by the topographic change.
He also point out the meteorology folks are stuck on old thinking, particularly over jet stream.
I’ll shut up and go back to simple stuff.
Entropic man: “No grandchildren yet, though I live in hope.”
Does that mean that when, on the 12th of June, at the BBC, you weren’t being being entirely honest when you wrote:
“I want my grandchildren to live a full life, without having to cope with the triple disaster that most future analysts see looming. On the evidence I have available, people like Rio+20 and UNFCCC give me more hope than your own philosophy.”
??
“I’ll shut up and go back to simple stuff.”
That’s OK, Tim. I’m glad you take the time to point out these things, and is partly why I can’t even be bothered to get involved in discussing many of them.
Only a few days ago I read that some of the CMIP5 models are now so advanced that they actually incorporate a carbon-cycle into their fancy programming.
Michael Hart.
I have seen ” grandchildren” used both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for future generations. Regrettably I can only use the term in the general sense until my children get on with their own reproduction.
tcshannon
Your lunar model gives a good idea of the expeced surface temperature of a body in vacuum at our distance from the Sun. Its low rotation period allows extreme temperature changes. I’ve seen peak figures for lunar day and night (averaging 340 hours each)of 150C and -150C due both to the high input of energy and the long heat and cold soak periods
.
Earth’s temperatures show two differences. The atmosphere acts as a moderator, reducing maximum heat input during the day and holding in heat at night. Our temperature range rarely exceeds -50C at the poles and 50C in the tropics.
The second moderator is our short day, which (except near the poles) limits the heat and cold soak periods and the amount of energy absorbed or lost per cycle.
Kuhnkat, suricat, tcshannon
We are mostly armwaving, but kuhnkat’s hypothesis that CO2 backradiation causes evaporation rather than warming at the ocean surface has testable implications.
1) Increased CO2 backradiation would warm the land directly, then the atmosphere and the sea indirectly.. Sea temperatures would increase more slowly than land temperatures.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
A quick glance at the GISS anomaly data show the overall change from 1880 as -0.3 to 0.6, an increase of 0.9C. That includes land and sea.
The weather station data, mostly from the land, shows an increase from-0.6 to 0.8, an increase of 1.4C.
The land is warming faster than the sea.Score one to kuhnkat.
2) Increased evaporation would drive the water cycle, leading to increased precipitation. This should be larger in the southern hemisphere, with its larger area of ocean.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/precip_cru/graphs/
The global change through the 20th century shows in the 5-year averages as 2.55 to 2.65mm/day, an increase of 0.1mm/day..
Northern latitudes show an increase of 0.05mm/day.
Low latitudes show an increase of 0.11mm/day
Southern latitudes show an increase of 0.15mm/day
There is a trend to increased precipitation in all areas, especially in the southern hemisphere. Score two for kuhnkat
3) The Northern hemisphere, with more land area, should warm faster than the Southern Hemisphere, with more ocean.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=9&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2011&year2=2011&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
This shows the 2011 temperature anomalies, compared with the 1951=1980 average. Note the trend towards higher anomalies, the further North you go.
Score three for kuhnkat.
kuhnkat
I found this on realclimate . It suggests a way in which IR warming of the surface film can influence the energy flow further down.
This is what Professor Minnett wrote in the Real Climate post I directed you to:
“…..how can a forcing driven by longwave absorption and emission impact the ocean below since the infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few micrometers into the ocean? Resolution of this conundrum is to be found in the recognition that the skin layer temperature gradient not only exists as a result of the ocean-atmosphere temperature difference, but also helps to control the ocean-atmosphere heat flux.
The ‘skin layer‘ is the very thin – up to 1 mm – layer at the top of ocean that is in direct contact with the atmosphere). Reducing the size of the temperature gradient through the skin layer reduces the flux. Thus, if the absorption of the infrared emission from atmospheric greenhouse gases reduces the gradient through the skin layer, the flow of heat from the ocean beneath will be reduced, leaving more of the heat introduced into the bulk of the upper oceanic layer by the absorption of sunlight to remain there to increase water temperature”
[Reply] There are several reasons Minnet’s nonsense never made it into the literature. Principally, the ‘skin’ is very dynamic, and doesn’t form any kind of ‘barrier’ layer whose temperature is determined by atmospheric composition. The tail does not wag the dog.
You can’t have it both ways. If you regard the thin surface layer warmed by IR as non-mixing and losing its heat by evaporation, then it reduces the temperature gradient across which deeper layers lose heat to the atmosphere and causes them to retain heat from solar insolation..
If the surface layer is dynamic, then turbulence will mix the heat from absorbed IR into deeper layers and the isolating effect kuhnkat describes is lost.
Either way, increased backradiation raises sea temperature, and not just in the top millimetres.
Try to keep words like “nonsense” out of the discussion. I tend to regard them as political rather than scientific.
[Reply] While I was walking round Lisbon castle walls with Judy Curry and Peter Webster (oceanologists) in Jan 2011, I asked them about this. They said it hasn’t been possible to measure what is going on at the boundary between sea and air. I commented that better way to go might be to measure what is going on just above and below the boundary simultaneously. They said that was correct. Net radiation is upwards. Convection is upwards, conduction is on average upwards. Evaporation is upwards, cools the surface and the surface molecules then sink, to be replaced with more buoyant, warmer molecules.
Entropic,
Do the experiment I suggested with IR in the wavelengths between 4um and 20 um. Get back to me when you have been able to warm water to ANY degree. Otherwise you need to give up your misperception that DLR/Backradiation/ whatever you want to call it contributes to the warmth of the oceans.
If you can’t be bothered to prove or disprove your BELIEF you need to tell us that so we can understand your position.
Entropic man says: November 4, 2012 at 12:29 pm
“We are mostly armwaving, but kuhnkat’s hypothesis that CO2 backradiation causes evaporation rather than warming at the ocean surface has testable implications.”
As an ‘engineer’ I don’t “arm-wave”, I just try to state the science as it’s currently understood and has been passed down to ‘engineers’ from our ‘science community’ (I’ll admit that I may not be ‘au fait’ with any ‘breaking science’ detail).
However, it must be understood that ‘back-radiation’ is only a hypothetical accreditation of the ‘inversely understood’ property of the ‘insulation value’ of ‘absorbed energy’ to ‘radiate’ by way of ‘radiative gasses’. Moreover, any single ‘radiative gas’ in question is only part of the full make-up of the ‘OLR’ for Earth’s systems.
If you’re not up to speed with this concept, I don’t see a future for our dialogue.
Best regards, Ray.
Entropic,
“I found this on realclimate . It suggests a way in which IR warming of the surface film can influence the energy flow further down. This is what Professor Minnett wrote in the Real Climate post I directed you to:”
Hypothesizing is always fun. Where are his studies showing there is something to this hypothesis??
Suricat , kuhnkat, tallbloke
I have noticed before that climate scientists are happy with the concept of back radiation, engineers are not. I wonder if its a difference in perception. I understand the processes involved, but find the concept of back radiation a useful shorthand. For example, in biology “osmosis” is a widely used and useful concept when discussing water flow through cell membranes, though a physicist (or engineer?) will tell you osmosis does not exist, except as a special case of diffusion.
Lacking lab facilities, I put a jamjar of water in front of my coal fire and it did warm, though through the glass, rather than the surface. I’ll try to rig a mirror and screens to illuminate the jar with IR through the surface only.
I also tried warming the surface of a pan of water with a hot air gun. This warmed the water quite well, It also created considerable disturbance of the surface. Perhaps we have been discussing the wrong thing. The whole surface film concept only really works when dealing with still water. In the ocean wind, waves and biological activity create a more or less constant mixing effect which would probably overwhelm any surface film effects.
“Hypothesizing is always fun. Where are his studies showing there is something to this hypothesis??”
Regarding Professor Minnett’s hypothesis. This graph may be of interest.
The sea surface temperature was measured directly using an infrared spectrometer and related to incoming infrared flux. The result showed a warming effect with increasing flux, not the cooling by evaporation that some folk expected.
I notice that you’ve discussed this before.
The cold-film argument wasn’t settled then, and wont be here. Time to let it rest, I think.
Entropic man says:
November 5, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Suricat , kuhnkat, tallbloke
I have noticed before that climate scientists are happy with the concept of back radiation, engineers are not. I wonder if its a difference in perception.
No, it’s the difference between people who make the measuring equipment and the people who (mis)use it.
I understand the processes involved, but find the concept of back radiation a useful shorthand.
A useful shorthand for an incorrect conceptual scheme maybe.
As an engineer, I don’t have a problem with the concept of ‘back-radiation’ so long as it is considered along with ‘forward-radiation’, and ‘sideways-radiation’, and ‘all angles in between-radiation’. Singling it out and separating it from the other dynamic processes happening contemporaneously (including convection, evaporation, advection, conduction) without taking the part they are playing into account is just stupid beyond belief. But then, we are talking about AGW theory.
In the ocean wind, waves and biological activity create a more or less constant mixing effect which would probably overwhelm any surface film effects.
The stronger the wind, the more the evaporation, more than offsetting any mixing down of puny amounts of heat on days when the air is slightly warmer than the ocean surface. Which it isn’t on average.
tallbloke
I think of back radiation as that part of the outward radiation from the Earth’s surface and atmosphere that, by whatever mechanism, then becomes part of the inward radiation. Since the primary back radiation from CO2 is its main contribution to its effect as a GHG, quantifying it would be useful. The secondary effects can then be quantified separately. Finally the separate effects can be recombined, like a jigsaw.
The warming effect of the extra couple of watts from extra CO2 is small compared with the total energy flux across the surface of the ocean, but applied over years can have significant effect.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/?attest=true&wpmp_tp=1
Having read both your 2011 post, realclimate’s 2006 post, various papers and the comments here, I’ll go with the climate scientists on this one, I’m afraid I’m still not convinced that the ocean is completely unable to absorb a few extra infrared watts. We’ll have to agree to differ again.
[Reply] Various papers? Any which specifically show empirical measurement of ‘back-radiation’ heating the ocean?
Entropic man says: November 5, 2012 at 12:54 pm
“I have noticed before that climate scientists are happy with the concept of back radiation, engineers are not. I wonder if its a difference in perception. I understand the processes involved, but find the concept of back radiation a useful shorthand.”
The problem for ‘back radiation’ is that the ENERGY is ‘already accounted for’ within the ‘sensible heat’ assessment and almost ‘doesn’t exist’ without a ‘sensible heat temp difference’ within the ‘depth to extinction’ vector for the spectrum observed at that atmospheric pressure.
I’ve spent many hours discussing this point with Tom Vonk on the, now extinct, Climate Audit forum. It turned out that we were both arguing for the same outcome, but from different disciplines (‘micro’ v ‘macro’). Thus, I doubt it’s a “difference in perception”. If anything, it’s an attempt to find a way to extend the ‘top of atmosphere’ ‘radiative balance’ to the rest of the planet’s depths and regions. It doesn’t work because ‘radiative balance’ observations become too complex at low atmospheric altitudes.
Within the last year or so, I received mail from Ferenc Miskcolczi (Ferenc’s home was flooded, so I’ve not followed this up) that shows data which supports the premise that a radiative quantum can’t be observed accurately below the local ‘cloud top’ altitude (latent energy obscuration). As an ‘engineer’, I’d say this altitude should be more within the ‘strat’ for reasons of accuracy.
Em. I despair at your “osmosis” analogy. 😦
Have you ever scooped a hole in a potato, poured salt (or sugar) into the hole and watched as the water from the potato seeped into the hole to dilute the ‘electrolyte’ within the hole? If not, your youth is/was unfortunate. 😉 The ‘osmotic’ process is originated by the ‘partial pressures law’, in that electrostatic ‘difference’ is the ‘motive force’ towards an ‘equilibrium’ for the electrostatic medium. This is proved by the ‘RO’ (reverse osmosis) process that removes electrolytic contaminants by passing them through a suitable semi-permeable membrane at a pressure that exceeds the ‘electrostatic energy’ level of the contaminant (it’s similar to the principle of ‘how the kidney works’).
Your ‘lab methodology’ needs refinement. The flames that emit energy from a ‘coal fire’ are more than just ‘IR’! Besides the ‘vis’ spectrum they emit, when the volatile gasses are exhausted and you’re left with ‘coke’, the ‘carbon and sulphur combustion’ gives a ‘blue flame’ that includes some of the UV spectra.
Please try to ‘understand’ my posting! 🙂
Best regards, Ray.
tallbloke
Try this article. I refer you particularly to Fig. 4
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281981%29038%3C0918%3ATROOAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
suricat
I’m long retired, and dont have access to lab facilities any more. The only significant IR emitters in my centrally heated house are one coal fire, and electic hot plates on my cooker. Neither can effectively be used to illuminate the surface of a container of water. The hot air gun used in my aeromodelling produced an effect akin to a warm wind, rather than back-radiation.
Regarding osmosis, Any child will watch the potato experiment and understand the basic effect without the need for a full understanding of the process.
(You perhaps need to work on your own understanding. Osmosis is driven by the kinetic energy of the solute and solvent molecules and is basically a thermodynamic process tending toward a state of maximum entropy at zero concentration gradient across the membrane.. Electrostatic effects normally have nothing to do with it beyond keeping the solutes in solution, though an applied electric field can be used to drive solute movement.)
Similarly, you can detect the back-radiation around 15micrometres on a frosty night, as I did as a student, without a full mathematical understanding of the emission/absorbtion/reradiation going on in the troposphere. If this 15micrometre radiation is not coming from back-radiation due to CO2 , why was my upward pointing IR spectrometer detecting an emission peak around that wavelength?
Entropic,
” I also tried warming the surface of a pan of water with a hot air gun. This warmed the water quite well, It also created considerable disturbance of the surface.”
Are you stupid or just playing games? Either way I have no more time to waste with you.
Entropic man says:
November 6, 2012 at 2:13 am
tallbloke
Try this article. I refer you particularly to Fig. 4
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281981%29038%3C0918%3ATROOAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
You don’t seem to understand the difference between theory and empirical observation. Ramanathan et al has been falsified by subsequent observation. There is no ‘tropospheric hotspot’. There has been no water vapour amplification. Their incorrect theoretical construct relies, as they state near the start of their paper, on
“increasing co2, while fixing all other climatic parameters and variables”.
They ignore the fact that increasing surface Temperature will increase the rate of convection and the hydrological cycle, and produce a shift in the jet stream latitudes. These are massive negative feedbacks with enormous spare capacity. That’s how their model ends up with increased humidity, which is not observed in the climate system as a whole.
The AGW hypothesis is a busted flush, and yet every time observation falsifies it, the proponents simply make ad hoc adjustments to the hypothesis, and alter the unmeasured aerosol parameters to save it.
The more sophisticated among the proponents gave up trying to tell us that the back-radiation absorbed at the ocean surface gets ‘mixed down’ long ago. Instead they try to push the idea that the increasing opacity of the atmosphere raises the ‘effective altitude of emission’ to space. They say this higher altitude is colder, and therefore surface T ‘must’ rise to warm this higher altitude to enable the radiative gases to radiate at the requisite rate to restore radiative balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing long wave radiation.
But this is back to front. Observation tells us cloud amount reduced from at least the 1960’s to the turn of the millennium. This allowed more solar radiation into the lower troposphere and ocean, warming surface T. It also reduced the Martian polar ice caps.
As Ramanathan says in the paper, the relaxation time of the ocean is orders of magnitude longer than that of the atmosphere. The run of high amplitude solar cycles in the later C20th caused ocean heat content to increase, and this raised level of OHC is still keeping the lower troposphere warm, as the energy belches back out of the ocean in El Nino events.
However, the increase in cloud since ~1998 and the collapse of solar activity levels means the oceans are not gaining so much heat any more. This is why surface T hasn’t increased for the last 15 years, as the EMPIRICAL OBSERVATIONS show.
If you carry on trying to push AGW theory here with assertions which ignore empirical observation, or by reference to papers long ago falsified by observation, you will be more heavily moderated, because this is a science blog, and we will not allow our time to be wasted having to counter attempts to disseminate false information. We have better things to spend our time on, such as developing our new theory of how the climate system really operates within the wider context of the solar system in which it exists.
TB,
“The more sophisticated among the proponents gave up trying to tell us that the back-radiation absorbed at the ocean surface gets ‘mixed down’ long ago. Instead they try to push the idea that the increasing opacity of the atmosphere raises the ‘effective altitude of emission’ to space. They say this higher altitude is colder, and therefore surface T ‘must’ rise to warm this higher altitude to enable the radiative gases to radiate at the requisite rate to restore radiative balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing long wave radiation.”
Of course, this ignores the FACT that if the atmosphere actually warms it expands returning the spacing for particles in the lower atmospheric levels to continue emitting approximately as before!
I think NASA’s announcement that they have been using less station keeping fuel due to less atmospheric drag on the satellites tells us exactly how much the atmosphere has NOT warmed!! It also would seem to prove that those adjustments made to the Satellite Temp Record in the 80’s to give it a trend closer to the surface and models were probably incorrect!!
Entropic man says: November 6, 2012 at 2:13 am
First of all, I’m surprised, but quite happy, that you responded to my last post to you. It’s a bit odd that you’ve responded in reverse order and not dealt with the main points, but what the hey!
“I’m long retired, and dont have access to lab facilities any more. The only significant IR emitters in my centrally heated house are one coal fire, and electic hot plates on my cooker. Neither can effectively be used to illuminate the surface of a container of water. The hot air gun used in my aeromodelling produced an effect akin to a warm wind, rather than back-radiation.”
Well I’ve only been ‘shortly retired’ and I’m not enjoying it either. FWIW, a ‘thought experiment’ would be better received than a ‘bad analogy’ for a ‘valid’ experiment! If your house is “centrally heated” there’s the possibility that a ‘radiator’ can act as a reliable IR source, but there’s a real problem for the ‘thermal isolation’ of the glass containing the water. Your “hot air gun” experiment just doesn’t involve the ‘depth of water’ to arive at any conclusion. 😦
“Regarding osmosis, Any child will watch the potato experiment and understand the basic effect without the need for a full understanding of the process.
(You perhaps need to work on your own understanding. Osmosis is driven by the kinetic energy of the solute and solvent molecules and is basically a thermodynamic process tending toward a state of maximum entropy at zero concentration gradient across the membrane.. Electrostatic effects normally have nothing to do with it beyond keeping the solutes in solution, though an applied electric field can be used to drive solute movement.)”
Sorry for being a bit cynical on this point, but it’s a ‘no briner’. What drives the ‘kinetic’? It’s the electrostatic attraction to a ‘solvent’ by the ‘solute in solution’.
Assume the ‘solute’ to be a common salt and the ‘solvent’ to be water. These materials are in common use. The addition of ‘common salt’ to water causes the ionisation of the ‘salt’ to form a ‘brine’ (ionic inclusion of ‘salts’ within water). This may seem trivial, but is more profound than the first glimpse predicts.
The ‘salt’ is ionically bonded to the water and forms a ‘larger molecule’ than that of ‘water per se’, thus, can be identified, and excluded, by filtration of both ‘electrostatic’ potential and ‘molecular size’.
“Similarly, you can detect the back-radiation around 15micrometres on a frosty night, as I did as a student, without a full mathematical understanding of the emission/absorbtion/reradiation going on in the troposphere. If this 15micrometre radiation is not coming from back-radiation due to CO2 , why was my upward pointing IR spectrometer detecting an emission peak around that wavelength?”
Because Earth’s ‘radiation’ is ~roughly within this parameter! I can’t honestly answer Em, but it’s a good question to ask ‘why’. Perhaps you should follow the suggestions from ‘kuhnkat’.
Best regards, Ray.
Entropic man:
Thankyou for your reply to me which you provide at November 1, 2012 at 11:59 pm.
Firstly, I point out that I have only just returned and I have yet to unpack or to check my mail and post. Hence, this reply is a demonstration of the priority I am giving to our dialogue.
You say to me;
“We can bounce different climate sensitivity estimates off each other all night, Here are a few more, averaging around 2C per doubling.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html ”
No!
I provided empirical measurements of climate sensitivity and you have replied by providing a list of theoretical estimates of climate sensitivity which range between 0.7 and 5.5 deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent.
In any real science an estimate is rejected in favour of a measurement. Hence, all the estimates in the list are rejected by the measurement results I provided. The ,easurements each agrees climate sensitivity is 0.4 deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent.
n.b.
THERE IS NOTHING TO DISCUSS “ALL NIGHT” BECAUSE THE REAL VALUE HAS BEEN MEASURED.
Then you assert
“…Idso’s estimate of 1980, which, as Schneider and others pointed out, is based on reasoning that would violate the conservation of energy.”
Nonsense!
Idso used 8 different methods and none of them violates conservation of energy. His methods provide the same result as Lindzen&Choi and Gregory who used different data sets and different methods.
You follow that by quoting my saying.
“Prior to the Holocene the climate system was different because of different continents, different continental positions, different ocean currents, and different solar input.”
And you respond with this twaddle
“What has not changed is the physics of CO2. It behaves in the same way and produces the same effect, in the pre-Cambrian, Triassic, Holocene and Anthropocene.”
I shall ignore the idiocy of the “Anthropocene” which has never existed, and agree that of course the physics have not changed. THE CLIMATE SYSTEM OF THAT ANCIENT EPOCH HAS CHANGED SO WE HAVE THE CLIMATE SYSTEM OF THE PRESENT EPOCH. What matters are the feedbacks and a different system has different feedbacks.
As I said,
“The empirical data from Idso, Lindzen&Choi and Gregory indicate the climate sensitivity which exists now. They show that feedbacks are large and negative.
But the feedbacks would have been different and are unknown for previous geological epochs. Therefore, those epochs indicate NOTHING about today’s climate sensitivity.”
YOU HAVE IGNORED THAT FACT.
And I said,
“your assertion of a discernible effect of CO2 as an amplifier of temperature change from Milankovich Cycles is refuted by the same empirical data which indicates the association between Milankovich Cycles and CO2 concentration.”
To which you have replied
“I find this summarises my argument.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm”
I refuse to dirty myself by visiting that site. Either you have an argument which you can state or you don’t. Your assertion that a climate-porn site agrees with you is a statement that you don’t have an argument which you can state.
Your lack of an argument is not surprising because – as I explained in my post you purport to be replying – the delay in the ice core data refutes your argument. You have not answered my explanation.
Importantly, I said
“The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change. ”
And you have replied
“Evidence of change:-
Click to access Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg “
NO!
Your links provide evidence that the system has NOT changed.
With the possible – and debateable– exception of increased atmospheric CO2, all the variations are within the range of previous variations in the Holocene. And the increase of CO2 is not a significant change because its effect is trivial (climate sensitivity is 0.4 deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent).
The lack of changed climate behaviour is evidence that the climate system has NOT changed.
It seems to me that your reply to me indicates you do not understand the importance of empiricism so you place opinion over scientific method. I support science.
Richard
Richard Courtney
Welcome back, sir.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply.
Climate sensitivity:-
I thought there were only four ways of measuring climate sensitivity.
1) Add the extra CO2, wait for the system to reach equilibrium and measure the temperature, some 500 years hence.
2) Look back into the past, and reconstruct the sensitivity from the changes in CO2 and temperature recorded in sediments, ice cores, etc.
3) Mathematical models, running with different atmospheres.
4) Go out into the multiverse and run controlled trials, releasing different amounts of CO2 into different parallel Earths and measuring the resulting temperature changes.
We are currently waiting for the results of 1).
You regard 2) as invalid because of the limited match between past and present.
You are also unhappy with mathematical models, exeunt 3)
4) is not practical!
I’m interested to know how you can place such faith in Idsos climate sensitivity figure. He claims to measure empirically the effect of doubling CO2 without an experimental system of suitable scale, duration and controllability. I read your link, but found it difficult reconcile his somewhat vague description of method with the certainty of his conclusion.I not ethat his estimate is conservative even by the standards of other sceptic scientists, who think in terms of a direct sensitvity of 1.1C per doubling , with 0.3C secondary forcing.
“With the possible – and debateable– exception of increased atmospheric CO2, all the variations are within the range of previous variations in the Holocene. And the increase of CO2 is not a significant change because its effect is trivial (climate sensitivity is 0.4 deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent).”
The change in CO2 is part of our debate. The rate of change and the current concentration have not been seen elsewhere in the Holocene, you might have to go right back to the Triassic. The second part of your argument depends on an estimates of sensitivity much lower than most workers have derived. In a field where the uncertainty of climate sensitivity has compelled organisations like IPCC to work in probabilities, not certainties you have a perhaps inflated faith in Idso’s estimates.
Skeptical science. You would get pretty much the same argument from any mainstream climate scientist. As you say, I could type it myself, but it would take more time than I have.My link was a convenient summary.
This problem of reliable sources is making life difficult. I mistrust many of yours, and vica versa.
I see evidence of change where you do not. A n increase of global temperature between 0.6 and 1.1C, depending on your dataset.
A minimum ice extent 6 SD lower than any in the recorded history of the Arctic.
Changes in absorbtion and emission spectra.
Higher CO2 levels than normally seen even at peak interglacials.
I like empiricism, but you seem to refuse to see patterns of change in measured data. That is not empiricism.
suricat
You do need to read up on osmosis!. Incidentally, the potato experiment does not work well with salts, to which cell membranes are somewhat permeable. Try sucrose.
kuhnkat
The temperature drops with altitude into the stratosphere. Below that warming of the surface produces a small amount of expansion.
Once you rise above the minimum temperature height, the upper atmosphere warms enormously. The temperature and density in the thermosphere above 50km depend mostly on solar X-rays and UV, the solar wind and magnetic effects, though CO2, NO and ozone affect energy flow rates.
The drag on orbiting satellites is affected by the variation in solar output and by CME events, rather than any surface global warming.
Entropic Man:
I see evidence of change where you do not. A n increase of global temperature between 0.6 and 1.1C, depending on your dataset.
If you’ve been reading some of the other recent posts on this blog by Tim C and Roger A, you’ll know why we’re sceptical of the agencies which produce figures at the upper end of this range. Especially your preferred NASA GISS dataset, which is controlled and produced by an advocate agitator for CAGW.
A minimum ice extent 6 SD lower than any in the recorded history of the Arctic.
The recorded history of the Arctic goes back to when the Vikings inhabited Greenland, in the Medieval Warm period. The record of whole-arctic measurements is only half an ocean cycle long, and it’s the warming half of that ~64 year Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation that has been recorded. Morover, some of the same chicken littles spreading alarm about recent warming were worrying journalists and the public about anomalously high amounts of arctic sea ice in the 1970’s.
Changes in absorbtion and emission spectra.
Very minor changes, which we can’t yet attribute to any particular cause.
Higher CO2 levels than normally seen even at peak interglacials.
So what? CO2 has been at a historic low on geological timescales. Paleo studies reveal times when Earth was cool and co2 was high, and vise versa. Since changes in its levels always follow, and never precede changes in temperature, the chain of cause and effect indicates that co2 level is more dependent on temperature than the temperature is on co2. This is borne out by a comparison of rate of change of co2 to the surface temperature record.
I like empiricism, but you seem to refuse to see patterns of change in measured data. That is not empiricism.
That’s amusing coming from someone who doesn’t recognise empirically observed long term oceanic oscillations and the coincidence of their warming phase with the mild and benign warming of the late C20th.
Entropic man:
At November 9, 2012 at 1:26 am you provide an explanation of your inability to understand empiricism: you say you don’t know that empiricism consists of measuring the real world.
You say;
“I thought there were only four ways of measuring climate sensitivity.
1) Add the extra CO2, wait for the system to reach equilibrium and measure the temperature, some 500 years hence.
2) Look back into the past, and reconstruct the sensitivity from the changes in CO2 and temperature recorded in sediments, ice cores, etc.
3) Mathematical models, running with different atmospheres.
4) Go out into the multiverse and run controlled trials, releasing different amounts of CO2 into different parallel Earths and measuring the resulting temperature changes.”
I here answer those 4 assertions in turn.
1.
Waiting centuries is an option for an experiment (e.g. Halley’s prediction of a comet’s return) but would not provide an indication of climate sensitivity which is useful in the immediate term. Fortunately, the centuries-long experiment is not needed because climate sensitivity has been measured by Idso, by Lindzen&Choi, and by Graham.
2.
Observations of the past behaviour of the present climate system (i.e. in the Holocene) indicate the behaviour of the system. Observations of proxy indications of temperature and CO2 indicate that temperature affects atmospheric CO2 concentration but the CO2 concentration has no discernible effect on temperature. Previous geological ages had different climate systems so indicate nothing about climate sensitivity of the climate system which now exists.
3.
A model cannot measure anything except the opinions of those who constructed the model.
OPINIONS ARE NOT REALITY.
EMPIRICISM PROVIDES QUANTITATIVE OBSERVATIONS OF REALITY.
4.
We are discussing the climate system which exists on planet Earth in the Holocene. What happens in other multiverses has as much relevance as previous geological ages; i.e. NONE. We have released CO2 into the atmosphere. The atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen and this rise may have been – but probably was not – caused by the anthropogenic emission, but there has been no discernible effect on global temperature. Indeed, in the item at the head of this thread I wrote
“the concentration of CO2 in the air has increased by ~40% since the industrial revolution (i.e. from ~280 ppmv to ~390 ppmv). This takes the degree of absorbtion of CO2 to ~80% of a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere because of the logarithmic effect. And the globe has only warmed about 0.8deg.C since the industrial revolution. Most – if not all – of this rise is certainly recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA), but if it is assumed the entire temperature rise is from the CO2 increase then a further increase to reach double pre-industrial concentration (i.e. to ~560 ppmv) would only provide a further increase to global temperature of about 0.2 deg.C. And a further doubling of atmospheric CO2 (to 1,120 ppmv) would only raise global temperature by an additional 1.0 deg,C.”
I have repeatedly provided links to three empirical determinations of climate sensitivity. I had hoped you would have read them by now. But you write to provide your list of how you – wrongly – think climate sensitivity can only be measured in four ways which does not mention the measurements which do exist.
You have yet to answer any point I have put to you, but I have refuted every point you have put to me. Perhaps you would like to consider the possibility “that ye may be wrong”.
Richard
TB.
Please excuse this post. It’s ‘well’ OT, but I have the ‘urge’ to make a response.
Entropic man says: November 9, 2012 at 1:26 am
“suricat
You do need to read up on osmosis!.”
I assume you realise that we ARE ‘OT’, but for the sake of the rational sanity of chemistry, I’ll respond.
“Incidentally, the potato experiment does not work well with salts, to which cell membranes are somewhat permeable. Try sucrose.”
“Sucrose” is also a ‘salt’! As is; ‘glucose’, ‘fructose’ and ‘galactose’ in the ‘monosaccharide’ camp, but other ‘disaccharides’, like ‘sucrose’, such as ‘lactose’ and ‘maltose’ are ‘dissociated’ (ionised) by the solvent ‘water’ in the same way that the ‘common salt’ (sodium chloride) is. I’m pretty sure the most abundant compound in everyone’s larder is ‘common salt’ (these are experiments for children after all is said and done)! I’ll not be the person to ask a child to differentiate between the above mentioned compounds for their ‘efficacy’ of ‘osmotic effect’. This should follow ‘later’ (when the ‘concept’ is understood)!
This is for undergrads:
You need to understand the electrostatic system that, not only permits the dissociation of a ‘solute’, but also impacts the ‘partial pressures’ that give rise to the permeability/impermeability of the systems confronting the property of the ‘semi-permeable’ boundary at either side of it. If the partial pressure is exceeded across the boundary, the resultant ‘mix’ of proponents may be defined by the ‘pressure’ across the boundary, or/and the electrical potential across the semi-permeable ‘boundary’.
The selection of ‘semi-permeable’ membrane is dependant upon the ‘input-output’ requirement and the ‘method of execution’ for the process. Do I need to add more?
Best regards, Ray.
suricat
We’d better conclude this topic before Tallbloke decides it’s too irrelevant. Final comment.
In the context of osmosis it is a good idea to distinguish between two tyoes of solute. Solutes such as sodium chloride dissociate in solution in water. Sodium chloride becomes Na+ and Cl- ions.
Because of the distribution of electron density across the molecule water molecules are polar, behaving as though having a fractional positive charge on the hydrogen atoms and a fractional negative charge on the Oxygen. Sodium chloride is soluble because the charged Na+ and Cl- ions interact with the fractional charges on the water molecules.
Sucrose does not dissociate in water, but is soluble because the hydrogen and hydroxyl groups which make up a significant part of its structure also show the fractional charge effect, allowing them to interact with water molecules.
Osmosis occurs when two solutions of different solute concentration are separated by a semi-permeable membrane such as a cell membrane or a dialysis membreane. This allows small molecules such as water to traverse the membrane but blocks large molecules such as sucrose.
Consider sucrose solutions.If the two sides are at equal pressure the random movement of the molcules in the solution bounces solvent and solute molecules off the membrane. Some solvent molecules pass through, but others bounce back. Because of the presence of sucrose, a smaller proportion of the molecules hitting the membrane on the stronger sucrose solution side are water , so fewer pass across the membrane to the weaker solution than in the opposite direction. The result is a net flow of water molecules towards the stronger sucrose solution, This continues until the concentration difference between the two solutions disappears.
Consider the process in entropy terms. Add a sugar cube to a glass of water. The sucrose molecules dissolve and spread randomly through the solution, effectively moving down a concentration gradient away from the cube until they are evenly distributed. Water molecules move down their concentration gradient towards the cube until they are evenly distributed.
Now cut the ends of a potato, carve a small depression in the top end and put the base in a saucer of water. Add a sugar cube to the top and a little water. The tissue of the potato acts as a semi-permable membrane. Sucrose molecules camnot diffuse through the membrane, so the system can only reduce the concentration difference by diffusing water molecules through the membrane, giving a net water flow up through the potato.
A spoonful of Sodium Chloride added instead of the sucrose creates an initial water flow because of the concentration gradient established as it dissolves. The Na+ and Cl- ions are small enough to cross the membrane, so the osmotic effect decreases rapidly as solute movement, as well as solvent movement reduces the concentration gradient.
tallbloke
I wrote a comment on empirical observation here on Friday night about midnight, but it hasnt appeared. Did it reach you?
[Reply] If it did, and it fell in the spam bin (you wouldn’t have seen it marked as awaiting approval – it would have ‘vanished’ when you submitted), then unfortunately, it may have got accidentally deleted along with the piles of spam we haven’t time to examine closely every time. If so, my apologies, and I hope you kept a copy if it was a long comment.
Tallbloke
Thanks. I shut down the computer immediately afterwards, so I may even have interrupted its transmission myself. I’ll remember to copy each comment before sending it. Thus we learn!
[Reply] Ah, bummer. In future: Copy – notepad – paste .
Entropic man says: November 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm
At last we seem to be in some agreement. 🙂
The ‘electrostatic’ attraction between the ‘solvent’ and the ‘solute’ produces a ‘larger molecule’ that can be filtered out by the ‘membrane’ employed.
With ‘RO’ (Reverse Osmosis), the ‘solute’ is separated from the ‘solvent’ by selection of the ‘pore size’ of the ‘membrane’ and the application of a ‘pressure’ that overcomes the ‘electrostatic force’ that exists between the ‘pre’ and ‘post’ filtration products of the solvent and solute concentrations.
However, the molecules holding a differing ‘charge’ can also be ‘separated’ by an ‘induced electric current’. This is also the principle upon which the ‘electric cell’ (battery etc.) and, for an electrostatic example, the ‘DI Plant’ (water De-Ionisation Plant) work.
I’ve kept this post short for OT reasons. 🙂
Best regards, Ray.
1. I no longer hang out at RealClimate since I was pushed out by Jim Bouldin.
2. Line broadening is due to pressure effects in the lower atmosphere, not Doppler effects. Doppler effects are much smaller and occur largely in the upper atmosphere.
3. Saturation is irrelevant, not only because of line broadening, but because heating also occurs in upper atmosphere levels which are not saturated, and all levels affect each other.
4. My name doesn’t make me a great scientist. I am not a great scientist. But I am a scientist. Which, for example, Anthony Watts is not. Or Chris Monckton. Or Rush Limbaugh. Or Glenn Beck. Or Sean Hannity. Or Ann Coulter.
5. Every time you forget to vote, Ann Coulter eats a kitten!
Barton Paul Levenson:
Much of what you say at November 13, 2012 at 3:37 pm is true.
But you assert
“3. Saturation is irrelevant, not only because of line broadening, but because heating also occurs in upper atmosphere levels which are not saturated, and all levels affect each other.”
No. Adjacent levels possibly affect each other but nobody knows how. If the understanding of the AR4 were correct then the ‘hot spot’ would exist: it doesn’t. All we know is that interactions between layers are not known and are not understood by anybody.
It is a leap of faith – not logic – to assert something is “irrelevant” on the basis of lack of both knowledge and of understanding.
In this circumstance a scientist would say “may not be relevant” and would certainly not say “because”.
So, it seems you would benefit by learning about science and logic from Anthony Watts and Chris Monckton.
Richard
richardscourtney
Click to access Idso_CR_1998.pdf
From Idso’s paper, page 74.
“However,
the observed global warming of the past century,
which has occurred in concert with a 75 ppm rise in the
air’s CO2 content, has already exceeded the 0.4°C
increase in temperature that my analyses suggest
would require an atmospheric CO2 increase of fully
300 ppm; and it is only natural to wonder if this relatively
large warming of the last hundred years was
produced by the relatively small concurrent rise in the
air’s CO2 content. This question is of crucial importance,
for if the global warming of the past century was
wholly the result of the concurrent rise in atmospheric
CO2, it would imply that the primary conclusion
derived from my natural experiments is incorrect.”
All credit to him for recognising the problem. I’ve been keeping an eye out for years, looking for clear measurements of alternative sources for the warming. All I’ve found is a small increase in solar insolation, enough to explain 0.14C.None of the other suggestions have held water.
————————————————————————————————————————–
“the globe has only warmed about 0.8deg.C since the industrial revolution. Most – if not all – of this rise is certainly recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA), but if it is assumed the entire temperature rise is from the CO2 increase then a further increase to reach double pre-industrial concentration (i.e. to ~560 ppmv) would only provide a further increase to global temperature of about 0.2 deg.C. And a further doubling of atmospheric CO2 (to 1,120 ppmv) would only raise global temperature by an additional 1.0 deg,C.”
My maths is very rusty, but I tried running the same calculation assuming temperature change is proportional to ln [CO2].
If the 0.8C observed since 1880 is entirely due to CO2, the effect of doubling the pre-industrial concentration to 560pp would be a total change of
0.8 * ln2 / ln(390/280) = 1.67C
That is a further increase of 1.67 – 0.8 = 0.87C on present day temperatures.
Doubling the CO2 content to 1120ppm would cause an increase from 1880 temperatures of
1.67 * ln2 = 1.16C.
Total change from 1880 for two doublings.
1.67 + 1.16 = 2.83C
I would regard these as minimum values, because, if the rates of temperature change shown by paleo data are valid, Earth has not yet reached equilibrium temperature for the CO2 increase to date.
————————————————————————————————————————-
“the ‘hot spot’ would exist: it doesn’t”
It is rather more complex than that.
The models reported in AR4 show a tropical hot spot due to a change in adiabatic lapse rate.
Weather balloon data show a hot spot intermittently, associated with some phases of ENSO.
It does not show clearly in the satellite data; there is discussion whether this is due to its absence, sensor design not optimised to detect it, or it being filtered out during data processing .
Whether it is a normal continuous climate phenomenon, a normal intermittent one or a result of climate change, it is too early to say.
[Reply] “There is discussion” – Who by, Where? Citation or link please.
You should have read a few further paragraphs of the Idso paper:
“And while the Earth was traversing the
entire temperature range from the maximum warmth
of this Little Climatic Optimum (Dean 1994, Petersen
1994, Serre-Bachet 1994, Villalba 1994) to the coolest
point of the Little Ice Age, the CO2 content of the
atmosphere, as inferred from ice-core data, varied not
at all (Idso 1988b). Consequently, the Earth can clearly
warm even more than it has already warmed over the
last century without any change in atmospheric CO2,
suggesting that even continued global warming—
which appears to have peaked (Hurrell & Trenberth
1997, Spencer 1997)—would imply very little (and
possibly nothing at all) about the potential for future
CO2-induced climatic change.”
tallbloke
“That’s amusing coming from someone who doesn’t recognise empirically observed long term oceanic oscillations and the coincidence of their warming phase with the mild and benign warming of the late C20th.”
The problem with explaining Arctic sea ice minima using the 64 year AMO is the poor fit with the data. If the AMO were driving the ice extent, low extents comparable to those seen recently, would be expected during the 1940s and 1950s. Reliable ice extent data has been taken since the early 1950’s with some from pre-war sources.
Neither show the low extents an AMO-based hypothesis would predict. Instead the long term trend showed large extents with no decline from 1953 up to about 1970, and then an ongoing decline towards its present level.
http://nsidc.org/icelights/category/arctic-sea-ice/page/5/
From Wattsupwiththat comes a collection of ice extent maps for the whole 20th century. There is some ice loss along the Russian coast during the late 1930,s which may have been encouraged by the approaching 1940s AMO peak, but not on the same scale as the 21st century changes.By 1946 the extents are increasing again.
Its a pity there’s no wartime data, which might have helped your case.Since the St Roch was only the second ship therough the Northwest Passage after Amundsen, during WW2, and spent most of her three year trip iced in place, I doubt that the ice extent decreased to 21st century levels in the 1939-45 period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Larsen_(explorer)
tallbloke
References for my ” hot spot” comment.
Lapse rate and weather balloon measurements;-
Click to access JClimTvertStruct.pdf
Click to access 2005_Santer_etal.pdf
Satellite data;-
Click to access sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf
Look particularly at page 3.
tallbloke
“And while the Earth was traversing the
entire temperature range from the maximum warmth
of this Little Climatic Optimum (Dean 1994, Petersen
1994, Serre-Bachet 1994, Villalba 1994) to the coolest
point of the Little Ice Age, the CO2 content of the
atmosphere, as inferred from ice-core data, varied not
at all (Idso 1988b).
Idso was mistaken. The graph below is the Law Dome CO2 record. Note the drop in atmospheric [CO2] from 1600 through 1800, during the Little Ice Age.
[Reply] Looks like a drop of about 7ppm. Can’t see that doing much really.
Entropic man:
Thankyou for your post addressed to me at November 13, 2012 at 7:38 pm.
I note your earlier comment saying that you had hoped to post it some days ago and it is unfortunate that did not happen because I shall be leaving for another of my absences very early on Thursday morning (it is now late on Tuesday night here).
You cite from p74 of Idso’s paper which can be read at
Click to access Idso_CR_1998.pdf
From Idso’s paper, page 74. The quotation states that
“the observed global warming of the past century, which has occurred in concert with a 75 ppm rise in the air’s CO2 content, has already exceeded the 0.4°C increase in temperature that my analyses suggest would require an atmospheric CO2 increase of fully 300 ppm; and it is only natural to wonder …”etc.
Your response is to say
“All credit to him for recognising the problem. I’ve been keeping an eye out for years, looking for clear measurements of alternative sources for the warming. All I’ve found is a small increase in solar insolation, enough to explain 0.14C.None of the other suggestions have held water.”
Ah, that is the nature of science. The Earth has warmed from the LIA. Nobody knows why, but it is probably not a result of CO2 or solar insolation. So, we need to research what it is. Science exists to solve “problems”.
You then quote my having said
“the globe has only warmed about 0.8deg.C since the industrial revolution. Most – if not all – of this rise is certainly recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA), but if it is assumed the entire temperature rise is from the CO2 increase then a further increase to reach double pre-industrial concentration (i.e. to ~560 ppmv) would only provide a further increase to global temperature of about 0.2 deg.C. And a further doubling of atmospheric CO2 (to 1,120 ppmv) would only raise global temperature by an additional 1.0 deg,C.”
And you reply to that by doing some calculations based on “assuming temperature change is proportional to ln [CO2].”
From that, you conclude
“If the 0.8C observed since 1880 is entirely due to CO2, the effect of doubling the pre-industrial concentration to 560pp would be a total change of
0.8 * ln2 / ln(390/280) = 1.67C
That is a further increase of 1.67 – 0.8 = 0.87C on present day temperatures.
Doubling the CO2 content to 1120ppm would cause an increase from 1880 temperatures of
1.67 * ln2 = 1.16C.
Total change from 1880 for two doublings.
1.67 + 1.16 = 2.83C”
OK. For sake of argument, I will accept your values (I could dispute them).
Your values are much higher than my own but are still too small for them to provide a problem.
But you then assert
“I would regard these as minimum values, because, if the rates of temperature change shown by paleo data are valid, Earth has not yet reached equilibrium temperature for the CO2 increase to date.”
NO! We have assumed the entire temperature rise from the LIA is from CO2. It is a maximum, and it is unreasonable to make an ad hoc assumption of delayed equilibrium centuries in the future when the rise we have considered is over centuries.
I said
“the ‘hot spot’ would exist: it doesn’t”
And you reply
“It is rather more complex than that.
The models reported in AR4 show a tropical hot spot due to a change in adiabatic lapse rate.
Weather balloon data show a hot spot intermittently, associated with some phases of ENSO.
It does not show clearly in the satellite data; there is discussion whether this is due to its absence, sensor design not optimised to detect it, or it being filtered out during data processing .
Whether it is a normal continuous climate phenomenon, a normal intermittent one or a result of climate change, it is too early to say.”
No, that is not true. I don’t know where you got that misinformation but it is plain wrong.
The pertinent information is in Chapter 9 of WG1 AR4 and can be read at
Click to access ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
It is summarised in Figure 9.1. which is on page 675.
The title of that Figure says
Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from
(a) solar forcing,
(b) volcanoes,
(c) wellmixed greenhouse gases,
(d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes,
(e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing
and
(f) the sum of all forcings.
Plot is from 1,000 hPa to 10 hPa (shown on left scale) and from 0 km to 30 km (shown on right). See Appendix 9.C for additional information. Based on Santer et al. (2003a).
Only plot (c) for ‘wellmixed greenhouse gases’ and (f) for ‘the sum of all forcings’ show the ‘hot spot’. And the reason (f) shows it is because the effect of ‘wellmixed greenhouse gases’ is so great that it overwhelms the effects of all the other forcings.
The modelled period is for 1890 to 1999 but the increase to ‘wellmixed greenhouse gases’ is greatest near the end of the period. Hence, radiosonde data from weather balloons (from 1958) and MSU data from satellites (from 1979) should show the ‘hot spot’ more clearly than the plot if the model is correct.
Please note the severity of the ‘hot spot’: it is a factor of between 2 and 3 times the warming at altitude as is observed at the surface. This should be very clearly observed in both the radiosonde and the satellite data. It is not seen in either data set. Your claim about possible satellite calibration error is risible, and I don’t understand your “intermittently” in the radiosonde data. The difference between warming and surface is so great that it should be obvious in both data sets.
In other words, either there has been no global warming from ‘wellmixed greenhouse gases’ or there has been no global warming of the kind modeled and reported by the IPCC AR4.
That effectively destroys all projections of global warming according to the models. The models do not project warming of the past so they can’t project warming of the future.
Then you say I “should have read” a paragraph from Idso’s paper which I have read many times. It says,
“And while the Earth was traversing the entire temperature range from the maximum warmth
of this Little Climatic Optimum (Dean 1994, Petersen 1994, Serre-Bachet 1994, Villalba 1994) to the coolest point of the Little Ice Age, the CO2 content of the atmosphere, as inferred from ice-core data, varied not at all (Idso 1988b). Consequently, the Earth can clearly warm even more than it has already warmed over the last century without any change in atmospheric CO2, suggesting that even continued global warming— which appears to have peaked (Hurrell & Trenberth 1997, Spencer 1997)—would imply very little (and possibly nothing at all) about the potential for future CO2-induced climatic change.”
I am surprised that you quoted this and say I “should have read” it because it destroys your argument.
The paragraph says there is evidence that global temperature varies INDEPENDENTLY of atmospheric CO2. I agree. It is what I have been saying and what I explain in the items at the head of this thread. It pleases me that you now agree, too.
Richard
Hi Richard. It was me that appended the later Idso p74 paragraph to Entropic Man’s post, as part of my bolded [Reply] to him, which I placed inline with his comment as I was short of time for loading the page and writing it as a new comment. Sorry for the confusion.
I concur that it destroys his argument, which is why I selected it.
As you will see from his later approved comment above your latest, he contests this with a graph showing a ~7ppm drop in co2 in the C17-18th.
I like the word ‘risible’ too. 🙂
Entropic just showed why I have so much contempt for many Gorebull Warmers. He mentions the trip of the St. Roch going east that took over 2 years. Is he so poor at research that he couldn’t find the fact that its return trip made it with no problems in 86 days?? Is he lying or just spouting Warmer talking points? Yup, a waste of time discussing things with him as he simply refuses to accept any facts like Nick, Mosh, and the rest of the propagandists. If he can’t be bothered to get the easy stuff right what can be said about the hard parts???
“What was the significance of St Roch?
First vessel to sail the Northwest Passage from west to east (1940 – 1942)
First vessel to complete the Northwest Passage in one season (1944), also making it the first to use the more northerly, deeper route and to complete the Passage in both directions
First vessel to circumnavigate North America
Survived 12 winters stuck in the ice for 10 months at a time
King George VI awarded the prestigious Polar Medal to Henry Larsen and the crew who sailed during the 1944 voyage
Declared a National Historic Site (1962)”
http://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/page216.htm
http://www.hazegray.org/features/stroch/stroch.htm
“The temperature drops with altitude into the stratosphere. Below that warming of the surface produces a small amount of expansion.
Once you rise above the minimum temperature height, the upper atmosphere warms enormously. The temperature and density in the thermosphere above 50km depend mostly on solar X-rays and UV, the solar wind and magnetic effects, though CO2, NO and ozone affect energy flow rates.
The drag on orbiting satellites is affected by the variation in solar output and by CME events, rather than any surface global warming.”
Entropic waves his arms nicely but doesn’t consider that Gorebull Warming that he BELIEVES in requires that the tropopause rises along with the hot spot and lower strat cooling, none of which is in the data..
Entropic also ignores that for the upper atmsphere to cool, if it is warmed by insolation, the SUN MUST BE RADIATING LESS IN THE WAVELENGTHS THAT WARM IT!!! OOOOPS!!! Except his team has denied that the UV has decreased in intensity more than the visible and IR bands!!! Oh yeah, and UV is a not inconsequential contribution to the warming of the oceans.
HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE (that’s a gotcha)
tallbloke and Entropic Man
At November 13, 2012 at 11:18 pm tallbloke writes;
“Hi Richard. It was me that appended the later Idso p74 paragraph to Entropic Man’s post, as part of my bolded [Reply] to him, which I placed inline with his comment as I was short of time for loading the page and writing it as a new comment. Sorry for the confusion.”
The error was mine and I apologise to each of your for it.
My failure to recognise the paragraph as a response from tallbloke together with my resulting misplaced comment was genuine mistake and was not intended as an insult to either of you.
Sorry.
Richard
Tallbloke
The Laws dome data shows a drop in CO2 where Isdo says there is none. Such errors of fact do not improve my confidence in him as an authority.
I think we are agreed that the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven. Its strong correalation with the Maunder Minimum suggests that it was due to an extended period of reduced solar insolation. Etheridge et al (1996) suggested that the drop in CO2 during this period was mainly due to forest regeneration as a reduced population used less agricultural land.
richardscourtney
“The Earth has warmed from the LIA. Nobody knows why, but it is probably not a result of CO2 or solar insolation.”
See my comment to tallbloke at 5.57pm today. . I also ran across this, suggesting volcanos started it; then it took 400 years for the system to recover. Lots of grist for that mill yet.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050168.shtml
My calculation was for fun. People keep telling me that CO2 warming is proportional to the natural logarithm of the [CO2] change, so I thought I’d try calculating it. The 1.67C change per doubling is at the low end of the IPCC’s expected range (perhaps because I’ve ignored lag 🙂 ) Feel free to criticise my maths! I’m no more infallible than the next guy.
As for the significance of the rise, coming out of past glacial periods a 5C temperature rise correalated with a 120M sea level rise.
Lets hope that does not apply to our present situation. If it does we can expect a long term sea level rise of 19 M from the 0.8C warming to date!
We keep coming back to lag. You dont think CO2 has an effect on temperature, so there’s no problem. I think CO2 is warming, which cannot be instantaneous.As tallbloke once said, “the sea carries 50 times the energy of the atmosphere” I would expect it to take 50 times as long for any change in energy flux to warm it.
The references for my hot spot comment are in my November 13th 8.45pm post.
Sorry for the confusion regarding Idso’s paper. I’ll try to answer each person’s comments in separate posts, in hope of avoiding such problems in future.
Entropic man:
This is a perfunctory reply because I am packing to leave in a few hours and I don’t really have time to write this. However, I would not want to give the false impression that I am ignoring you so I write this rushed reply.
Firstly, your comment to tallbloke at November 14, 2012 at 5:57 pm says,
“The Laws dome data shows a drop in CO2 where Isdo says there is none. Such errors of fact do not improve my confidence in him as an authority.”
I find that to be very strange when the “drop” is a negligible 7 ppmv but you cited the ridiculous Trenberth paper to me as an excuse for the missing ‘hot spot’. This does not give me confidence that you assess information rationally.
Then in that same post you say,
“I think we are agreed that the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven. Its strong correalation with the Maunder Minimum suggests that it was due to an extended period of reduced solar insolation. Etheridge et al (1996) suggested that the drop in CO2 during this period was mainly due to forest regeneration as a reduced population used less agricultural land.”
OK. If “the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven” then there is no reason to suppose that the recovery from the LIA is CO2 driven. In which case you either need to explain why the recovery is “CO2 driven” or accept that the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..
I am content to accept the Null Hypothesis so I fail to understand why anybody would introduce the AGW hypothesis to explain the recovery.
Then you write to me at November 14, 2012 at 7:43 pm.
You quote my saying,
“The Earth has warmed from the LIA. Nobody knows why, but it is probably not a result of CO2 or solar insolation.”
And you reply to it saying,
“See my comment to tallbloke at 5.57pm today. . I also ran across this, suggesting volcanos started it; then it took 400 years for the system to recover. Lots of grist for that mill yet.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050168.shtml “
That is desperate!
Why would volcanic cooling take “400 years for the system to recover” when recovery from volcanic cooling is observed to require less than two years? That suggestion is plain daft! Whatever caused the LIA and recovery from it, the cause was NOT volcanism. A much more likely explanation is internal system variability (e.g. normal variation to the thermohaline circulation).
You follow that with
“My calculation was for fun. People keep telling me that CO2 warming is proportional to the natural logarithm of the [CO2] change, so I thought I’d try calculating it. The 1.67C change per doubling is at the low end of the IPCC’s expected range (perhaps because I’ve ignored lag 🙂 ) Feel free to criticise my maths! I’m no more infallible than the next guy.”
I said I was accepting your calculation for sake of argument: I did not challenge it but said I could.
I am still not challenging it, but I explain how it can be (should be) challenged. There is an effect of feedbacks on the system so there is a correction factor to be applied. Positive feedbacks apply a correction factor greater than one and negative feedbacks multiply by a factor less than one. Your calculation uses a factor of one: i.e. it assumes no feedbacks.
Anyway, that is merely a result of assuming recovery from the LIA was “CO2 driven” and we both agree it was not.
You then say
“As for the significance of the rise, coming out of past glacial periods a 5C temperature rise correalated with a 120M sea level rise.
Lets hope that does not apply to our present situation. If it does we can expect a long term sea level rise of 19 M from the 0.8C warming to date!”
That is so wrong as to be ridiculous! Land ice is increasing. And at present rates of sea level rise it will take millennia to obtain 19 m of sea level rise.
You follow that by saying to me
“We keep coming back to lag. You dont think CO2 has an effect on temperature, so there’s no problem. I think CO2 is warming, which cannot be instantaneous.As tallbloke once said, “the sea carries 50 times the energy of the atmosphere” I would expect it to take 50 times as long for any change in energy flux to warm it.”
I do NOT say I “dont think CO2 has an effect on temperature”. I have never said that.
My view is clearly stated in the items we are discussing which are at the head of this thread. I say there,
“If climate sensitivity is less than 1 deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, then it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected because natural variability is much, much larger. If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).”
Having got that out of the way, for sake of argument, I will accept that warming of the oceans is – as you suggest – 50 times slower than warming of the air. (This is plain wrong for several reasons, but I am assuming your assertion is correct for sake of argument). It took a century for the air to rise 0.8 deg.C so it will take the oceans (50*100) years – i.e. 5 thousand years – for the oceans to warm 0.8 deg.C as a result. The next ice age will have set in by then.
You say
“The references for my hot spot comment are in my November 13th 8.45pm post.”
Yes. I have read them before. They take some beating as pseudoscientific nonsense, don’t you think?
And you conclude.
“Sorry for the confusion regarding Idso’s paper. I’ll try to answer each person’s comments in separate posts, in hope of avoiding such problems in future.”
There was no need for you to apologise. The misunderstanding was mine – not yours – and I have apologised for it. I do so again. I am sorry.
I must now leave this and will be back in about a week.
Richard
kuhnkat.
Thank you. I knew of the Eastward voyage, but not the return in 1944.
If she did it in 86 days, she averaged about 2 knots, suggesting frequent stops or moderate ice.
Is the 1944 log available online? It would illuminate a period when Arctic data is very sparse.
Regarding behaviour of the atmosphere:-
The tropopause is gaining height.
Click to access 2003_Santer_etal.pdf
The stratosphere is cooling about 0.5C/decade.
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/20c.html
The thermosphere is cooling.
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/thermosphere.shtml
Click to access angeo-29-1779-2011.pdf
Entropic quotes a paper submitted in 2002, published in 2003, using real data through 1997, model data through 2050 and unknown error bars.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“To test this
premise, we introduce a diagnostic that has not been used
in previous detection studies: changes in pLRT, the pressure
of the lapse rate tropopause.
[96] We estimated pLRT values from two different reanalysis
products (NCEP and ERA) and from climate change
experiments performed with two different models (ECHAM
and GISS). All had relatively coarse vertical resolution in the
atmosphere, ranging from 12 to 19 discrete pressure levels.
To diagnose pLRT, we applied the same WMO-based algorithm
to the model and reanalysis vertical temperature data.”
Again, Entropic is stupid or playing games. I am starting to lean toward stupid where before it was playing games.
richardscourtney
“the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..”
This is a non sequiteur, which assumes that the LIA warming and the 20th century warming are a single phenomenon.
The temperature data, from proxies before 1850 and from the record thereafter, shows a drop during the LIA and a recovery in the first half of the 19th century. It then goes flat, decreases from 1880 to 1910 and rises thereafter.
I would regard the recovery from the LIA and the 20th century warming as separate events, with different causes.
The LIA recovery may have been induced by increasing solar insolation, or a delayed recovery from volcanic activity. I doubt CO2 had anything to do with it.
The temperature increase during the 20th century may be anthropogenic CO2 induced, an entirely separate phenomenon.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
“Your calculation uses a factor of one: i.e. it assumes no feedbacks.”
Indeed My main interest was to see how the “natural logarithm ( ln )” pattern of CO2 induced warming behaved, compared with the simpler linear change pattern I have used in the past.
Compared with a linear change pattern the ln pattern gave an increase of 1.67C as opposed to 1.15C for the first doubling.
For the second doubling the ln pattern added another 1.16C to give a total of 2.83C, compared with 1.15C and 2.3C for the linear pattern.
This was based on the raw temperature and CO2 changes. Any associated feedbacks are subsumed in the temperature and CO2 increases. There is also an assumption that no CHANGES in feedbacks occur.
Including feedbacks seperately would make for a much more complex calculation, unnecessary for my simple purpose.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
“ridiculous Trenberth paper” “pseudoscientific nonsense”
Could you be a little more specific regarding your objections to Trenberth 2006.
[Reply] Misquoting people is a quick way to get kicked off the site. Here’s what Richard actually said:
“OK. If “the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven” then there is no reason to suppose that the recovery from the LIA is CO2 driven. In which case you either need to explain why the recovery is “CO2 driven” or accept that the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..”
So you’d better reply properly to his argument now you’ve mischaracterised it.
kuhnkat
The tropopause is defined by the change in temperature trend from decreasing temperature with increasing height in the troposphere, to increasing temperature with increasing height in the stratosphere. The height of the transition can be defined as a vertical distance above the ground (which is variable) or as an atmospheric pressure (which tends to be more constant).
By analogy, think of an aircraft altimeter. It actually measures air pressure, not height. Close to the ground it can be adjusted to read the height above local ground level. At airliner cruise heights altimeters are adjusted to a standard pressure setting and the aircraft flies along a constant air pressure contour regardless of the actual height above the surface.
Entropic next presents another warmer talking point. This long term trend on strat temps is meaningles when one considers that the strat has not cooled in about 18 years and the 10 before that point had two step decreases in conjunction with volcanoes that accounted for its decrease. Another fail for the conflicted one.
Finally the entropic one claims the thermosphere was cooling which is what I pointed out with my anecdote about the NASA station keeping fuel. He is apparently too stupid to realize that the thermosphere can only cool due to decreased insolation or decreased electromagnetic effects all of which is from a less active solar regime.
Yup, Entropic one, it is getting cooler out there. Learn to live with it and stop wasting people’s time with your unending repetition of lying liars talking points.
Entropic man says:
November 15, 2012 at 1:43 am
richardscourtney:
“the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..”
This is a non sequiteur, which assumes that the LIA warming and the 20th century warming are a single phenomenon.
Misquoting people is a quick way to get kicked off the site. Here’s what Richard actually said:
“OK. If “the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven” then there is no reason to suppose that the recovery from the LIA is CO2 driven. In which case you either need to explain why the recovery is “CO2 driven” or accept that the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..”
So you’d better reply properly to his argument now you’ve mischaracterised it by selective quotation.
YOU are the one who said “I think we are agreed the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven“
(which means you also owe Sherwood Idso an apology for impugning his paper)
Richard was simply pointing out to you the logical inference from that WRT the null hypothesis.
Which leaves you in trouble, because the rise in co2 from the end of the little ice age to 1950 is minimal, and can’t explain the warming trend from 1910 to 1950, which was equal in duration and amplitude to the warming from 1975 to now. So you either have to acknowledge the contribution of the ocean oscillations, propose a ludicrously high sensitivity which you’ll have trouble supporting, or bring in some quantified factor other than co2 to save your argument. Which is it to be?
As I said to you a few days back, there is a limit to our patience, and how much time we are willing to waste dealing with spurious argument. So shape up, or ship out.
tallbloke
Apologies if you think i misqoited richardscourtney. I prefer to pick the key phrase of a point as an identifier, rather than reprint whole paragraphs.
I am having great difficulty getting my point across here
I will break this down into stages.
“If the Little Ice Age was not CO2 driven” then there is no reason to suppose that the recovery from the LIA is CO2 driven.”
I agree with richardscourtney on both of these points. There are at least two lines of evidence that the LIA was not a CO2 related event.
The first is the Maunder minimum, the paucity of sunspots during the LIA, which suggests a prolonged quiet sun period and reduced solar insolation.
The second is that CO2 remained fairly constant throughout, except for the 7ppm reduction we have noted.
“In which case you either need to explain why the recovery is “CO2 driven” or accept that the temperature rise since the LIA is not CO2 driven and, therefore, the global temperature rise of the twentieth century is not CO2 driven..”
Richardscourtney links the recovery from the LIA and the warming we see now as a single event with a common cause.
I contend that the LIA warming and the 20th century warming are separate events with different causes. In support, I submit the temperature data. This shows a global warming up to 1880, a constant or declining temperature to about 1910 and rising temperatures thereafter.
I regard that 30 year hiatus from 1880 to 1910 as evidence that the post LIA warming stopped and was replaced by Milankovitch cooling.
Human CO2 release then started a separate and independant temperature rise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg
“the rise in co2 from the end of the little ice age to 1950 is minimal, and can’t explain the warming trend from 1910 to 1950, which was equal in duration and amplitude to the warming from 1975 to now”
Look back at the graph ot the Law Dome data.(November 123th, 9.15pm).
Th inflection point at which the slope steepens is around 1870, at about 265ppm, and reaches at least 315ppm by 1950.
I would hardly call 50ppm a minimal rise. If you accept CO2 as the warming agent at all, this is enough to start the warming trend.
“As I said to you a few days back, there is a limit to our patience, and how much time we are willing to waste dealing with spurious argument. ”
I’m sorry you think that. I have found this debate stimulating and enjoyable, and it has helped extend my reading considerably. Since you feel this has been wasted effort and kuhnkast has reverted to insult, it is probably time to move on to other topics. My apologies to Mr. Courtney for breaking off here.
Entropic man:
I am replying to your posts to me at November 15, 2012 at 1:43 am and to tallbloke at November 15, 2012 at 5:23 pm.
Firstly, I am sincerely sorry that my enforced absences have disrupted our discussion. Indeed, I notice that you conclude your post to tallbloke by saying you are withdrawing from further involvement. Please be assured that my absences from the web were necessary and more will occur in future. I genuinely regret that they have contributed to the present unfortunate situation.
I have considered leaving things as they now are and, thus, giving you the ‘last word’. However, there are clearly some unresolved issues and I would not wish you to think I have left in a huff, so I write to address those matters.
Firstly, you say,
“I would regard the recovery from the LIA and the 20th century warming as separate events, with different causes.”
It is your human right to “regard” anything in any way you desire, but the scientific method does not permit such freedom. In this case, you need evidence to assert that recovery from the LIA is other than variation of whatever caused the LIA. And, I agree with you when you say,
“The LIA recovery may have been induced by increasing solar insolation, or a delayed recovery from volcanic activity. I doubt CO2 had anything to do with it.”
Therefore, there is no reason for you to say,
“The temperature increase during the 20th century may be anthropogenic CO2 induced, an entirely separate phenomenon.”
WHY SUPPOSE IT IS “AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE PHENOMENON”?
Unless you can show evidence that it is “an entirely separate phenomenon” then the most likely explanation is that it is the same phenomenon. The Null Hypothesis decrees that IT IS THE SAME phenomenon unless there is evidence to show it is not: and, therefore, science decrees that there is no reason to suppose the “temperature increase during the 20th century” was “anthropogenic CO2 induced” (although that improbable possibility exists).
I do not dispute your calculation in its context: indeed, I said I did not. However, as tallbloke says, the context was set by you and not me. The important points are twofold and I stated them. I repeat them here for clarity.
1.
The Null Hypothesis decrees that your calculation is based on a false assumption of CO2-induced temperature rise.
2.
If your false assumption were true then your calculation indicates that possible CO2-induced temperature rise is trivially small.
In response to tallbloke you attempt to justify your assumption by two assertions.
Your first assertion says;
“The first is the Maunder minimum, the paucity of sunspots during the LIA, which suggests a prolonged quiet sun period and reduced solar insolation.”
OK. If it is assumed that the Maunder minimum induced the LIA then it is equally likely that the end of the the Maunder minimum induced the recovery from the LIA. Simply, your assertion is an objection to your claim that cooling to the LIA and recovery from it have different causes.
Your second assertion says,
“I contend that the LIA warming and the 20th century warming are separate events with different causes. In support, I submit the temperature data. This shows a global warming up to 1880, a constant or declining temperature to about 1910 and rising temperatures thereafter.
I regard that 30 year hiatus from 1880 to 1910 as evidence that the post LIA warming stopped and was replaced by Milankovitch cooling.
Human CO2 release then started a separate and independant temperature rise.”
Sorry, but NO!
There were NOT “rising temperatures” after 1910.
The temperature
(a) did not rise from 1880 to 1910 (i.e. no warming),
(b) rose from 1910 to 1940 (i.e. warming),
(c) did not rise from 1940 to 1970 (i.e. no warming),
(d) rose from 1970 to 2000 (i.e. warming), and
(e) did not rise after 2000 (i.e. no warming).
The rates of temperature rise were the same in the two warming periods but CO2 increased exponentially throughout the entire period after 1958. This is NOT consistent with your assertion
“that 30 year hiatus from 1880 to 1910 as evidence that the post LIA warming stopped and was replaced by Milankovitch cooling.
Human CO2 release then started a separate and independant (sic) temperature rise.”
If your assertion were true then why was there no warming from 1940 to 1970 and after 2000? And why were those periods of no warming different from the period of no warming from 1880 to 1990?
The listed temperature history is consistent with a continuous recovery from the LIA combined with a cyclical warming/cooling with a 60-year cycle length. And there is no reason to suppose that CO2 was significantly involved. Indeed, the periods of no warming suggest that the continuous and exponential rise in CO2 was NOT significantly involved.
The most important issue for me to address is you quoting my saying,
“ridiculous Trenberth paper” “pseudoscientific nonsense”
and asking me the very reasonable question
“Could you be a little more specific regarding your objections to Trenberth 2006.”
Yes, my comments were far too abrupt and, therefore, they were improper. I can only point out that I said I was making a perfunctory reply because I was extremely pressed for time before leaving. I point this out as explanation and not as an excuse or as an apology (no apology could be sufficient to correct such inadequate statements), but I do apologise if my abruptness caused offence to you because that was not my intention.
I now write to answer your very reasonable request for “objections” to Trenberth 2006.
I pointed out that the ‘hot spot’ is missing and you cited Trenberth 2006 as disproving my true statement. You did not say in which way it refutes my statement, and it does not.
Trenberth 2006 uses imaginative and improper statistical procedures in an attempt to show that the ‘hot spot’ may exist. Douglass et al. 2007 does the same. I could argue with the statistics in these papers (which are so abused as to make Michael Mann blush at such improper methodology) but I don’t need to because we explained that in the NIPCC Report: see page 107 at
Click to access Chapter%203.pdf
Much more important is that anything could be wrong so it is always possible that the ‘hot spot’ may exist. However, the clear indications of the radiosonde data and of the MSU data are that the ‘hot spot’ does NOT exist.
SCIENCE
consists of finding the closest possible approximation to ‘truth’ by attempting to find evidence which refutes existing understanding(s) and altering the understanding(s) in the light of obtained evidence.
PSEUDOSCIENCE
Consists of adopting an understanding as being ‘truth’ then attempting to find evidence which supports it while presenting excuses for ignoring evidence which refutes it.
Trenberth 2006 and Douglass et al. 2007 are clear attempts at excuses for ignoring the evidence that the ‘hot spot’ is missing: as I said, it is hard to find a more clear example of pure pseudoscience than Trenberth 2006 (and Douglass et al. 2007).
I am sorry that our discussion ended with ill-will and I hope this post provides answers to the matters which my latter absence ‘left hanging’.
Richard
Hi Richard, good to see you call back in. In fact, the debate with Entropic Man has restarted on the unlikeliest of threads:
Entropic Man has done some calcs and appears to have realised that the heat capacity of the ocean is indeed very large.
You are very welcome to join us there.
I can’t understand why there seems to be so much acceptance of a “ghe” as the explanation for the warmer nighttime conditions under clouds.
Water cools the surface as it evaporates. And water vapor warms the Earth at night as it condenses.
Latent heat is transferred into water or out of vapor at a temperature that varies with pressure. until the phase change is complete.
For atmospheric temperatures, the latent heat of water evaporation is over a thousand Btu/lb., which means one pound of vapor has enough heat to raise the temperature of a thousand pounds of 59 F water to 60 F, or about a thousand pounds of dry air from 56F to 60 F.
Water vapor is lighter than and mixes with air well, making humid air buoyant. Water also causes movement as its volume changes between water and vapor.
At a partial pressure of 0.1 atm the boiling point of water is about 115 deg F, and the volume of vapor is about 14,000 times the volume of an equal mass of water at the same temperature. At 0.01 atm, the boiling point is about 45 deg F, vapor volume is about 125,000 times water volume. At 0.001 atm, boiling point is about -8 deg F, vapor volume is about 1.1 million times water volume. At 0.0001 atm, boiling point is about -50 deg F, vapor volume is about 10 million times water volume.
So, as water condenses after rising to higher cooler altitudes, it releases its heat to space and back toward earth. It also contracts, inducing winds to fill the voids.
The misconception that warmth from clouds is due to “back radiation” of energy leaving Earth’s surface; fosters the analogous, but erroneous, presumption for CO2, and other innocent molecules.
” It also contracts, inducing winds to fill the voids.”
That’s a novel thought and correct of course. How significant this is, don’t know.