THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
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There is a very interesting post from Frank Lansner over at WUWT about historic CO2 levels.
Also please note the important link at the end of that article which goes into further details of the size of the biosphere and the contradictory message if we believe the static levels of co2 at 280ppm shown by the ice cores.
It should be read in conjunction with my post #3950 above and my graph showing the measurements of becks data. This appeared to show that co2 could only have something to do with temperature changes if there were similar levels of co2 in our recent past, which becks data appears to show.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
TonyB
My post #3951 omitted the link to the WUWT thread. It is here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/c … -ice-ages/
TonyB
TonyB
Thanks for link to article on hare-brained climate mitigation schemes. I especially liked this one:
“By 2050, only stratospheric aerosol injections or sunshades in space have the potential to cool the climate back toward its pre-industrial state,” earth scientists Tim Lenton and Naomi Vaughan of East Anglia University in England write.”
“The clear winners, cost aside, are strategies that would block out some solar radiation. Perhaps the most currently workable version of this technique is injecting millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.”
We re going to inject massive amounts of a toxic substance (sulfur dioxide / trioxide) into the stratosphere, in order to return to the cold of the late 18th century?
Sounds like a monumental “lose – lose proposition to me”, and I do not believe that even Peter would support such nonsense.
(I’m certain that Tim Lenton and Naomi Vaughan must have been laughing up their sleeves as they wrote this line.)
The other interesting point, which Peter should read is: “Scientists calculate that humans’ carbon dioxide emissions from 1800 to 2005 are causing 1.6 watts of extra energy per square meter of surface area to stay in Earth’s atmosphere.”
The “scientists” who have “calculated” this extra anthropogenic radiative forcing are the same ones that are cited by IPCC. Using the 1.6 W/m^2 from 1800 to 2005 CO2 levels, and Peter’s assumed “average temperature at which greenhouse effect takes place” of –18C, gives us a theoretical greenhouse warming from 1800-2005 of 0.4C and from 2005-2100 (assumed CO2 level of 560 ppm) of another 0.5C.
That’s all the “watts per square meter of surface area” that there are.
So let’s go ahead and poison our planet’s atmosphere with an unnatural toxic component (SO2) that kills plants and causes acid rain in order to save ourselves from an increase of a totally non-toxic natural trace component (CO2) that is essential to all life on Earth, because some computer jockeys and enviro-clowns tell us we will otherwise destroy our planet.
Duh!
How dumb do these guys think we really are?
Regards,
Max
Damn it……everyone laughed when I said that I wanted to invest in planetary sunshade stocks…..now the cat’s out of the bag/the secret is out…….so much for getting in on the groud floor of that investment. Hmph….who’s laughing now?
(I could have made a bundle with my flying shoes investment…..never really took off).
Hi TonyB
Is this what you are looking for?
It shows the year-by-year human CO2 emissions versus the change in atmospheric CO2. As you can see, the percentage “staying in the atmosphere” bounces all over the map.
Data for CO2 graph:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3503/3239620742_b9b70e5618_b.jpg
Graph: Human CO2 versus atmospheric CO2
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3051/3056843022_d1d107fb78_b.jpg
The figures do not include CO2 from deforestation, which would increase the total amount of “human CO2” by around 15 to 18%, and reduce the long-term percentage (on average) that stays in the atmosphere from an average of 56% to around 48%.
Interesting is that the %-age “staying in the atmosphere” appears to be higher in warmer years than in cooler years. For example 98% “stayed in the atmosphere” in the record hot year 1998, while only 28% in the following much colder year 1999. Was this a result of more oceanic de-gassing at tropical latitudes and less oceanic absorption at latitudes closer to the poles?
If this is not what you were looking for let me know in more detail what you want and I’ll try to retrieve it.
Regards,
Max
An interesting comment in the WUWT thread on co2 I referenced above
“Have any of you looked into the analytical methods to measure CO2 in ice cores? I have a little and as a practicing analytical chemist (with considerable experience in gas measurements, including CO2) I can say that something does not look right.
First, before the “new and improved” procedures were developed (early 80’s) CO2 measurements routinely showed levels from 300 to 700 ppm or higher. The new procedures dropped those results by a factor of more than 2. I’ve read a few of the early papers (Delmas, et. el.) and I have to say, having been a judge at several science fairs, that high schoolers demonstrate a more rigorous use of scientific methods.
In any case, my experience tells me that the precision claimed is unrealistically good and the CO2 measurements are likely biased low. I hope to look into this further.”
Comments anyone?
tonyB
“How dumb do these guys think we really are?”
How dumb do you think these guys should think you really are? :-)
I’m still quite puzzled why you can’t grasp the concept of thermal inertia. For instance when I visit the local swimming pool at the start of summer the water is noticeably colder than at the end of summer even though the air temperature may be just about the same.
Its pretty obvious why the ocean temperatures lag , rather than lead, those measured on land.
If you really feel we are in a cooling phase, and if you deniers aren’t as dumb as some people might think you are, maybe you’d like to explain why is there no sign of any downturn in the land temperatures? And you might also like to explain why you still think that global warming stopped in 1998 or 2000 when it is clear that land based temperatures are rising by 0.3 deg C per decade ?
Hi Peter,
Your 3956 covered a couple of topics.
You wrote: “I’m still quite puzzled why you can’t grasp the concept of thermal inertia. For instance when I visit the local swimming pool at the start of summer the water is noticeably colder than at the end of summer even though the air temperature may be just about the same.”
No need to be “puzzled”, Peter. I can very well “grasp the concept of thermal inertia” and I am not going to get into any long-winded discussions on the formulas and how they work here. It is clear to me that the ocean can store heat it has absorbed during daytime and radiate this heat into the atmosphere at night.
But your “pan of water on the stove analogy” is flawed, as is your swimming pool analogy above. The swimming pool warms up over the summer months because heat is gradually being put into it over these months. During the day incoming sunlight warms the pool, at night it releases a portion of this warmth to the atmosphere, but the incoming heat exceeds the outgoing heat, so it warms. At the end of summer it starts to cool down as it radiates the stored heat back into a colder atmosphere at a higher rate than the reduced incoming solar heat. In both cases, the water temperature warms as long as net heat is being transferred in and stops warming when the incoming transfer of heat stops.
You wrote: “Its pretty obvious why the ocean temperatures lag, rather than lead, those measured on land.” Correct, Peter, this is obvious.
It is also obvious why the ocean temperatures do not cool off as quickly as land temperatures when the sun goes down or when seasons change from warm to cooler.
But all this has very little to do with your postulation of additional “global warming in the pipeline” from “ocean uptake” of heat from greenhouse warming, lurking there until the ocean has reached its “capacity” to absorb more heat and then being released into a warmer atmosphere, where it will cause even more atmospheric warming.
Let’s run through this postulation.
How warm is the ocean and how much “greenhouse” heat can it absorb before it warms up “too much”?
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/temp.html
The average temperature at the surface of the ocean is estimated to be 17C, while the average temperature of the “upper ocean” (the top 750 meters lying above the “thermocline”) is around 8C.
This report states that 90% of the ocean’s mass lies below the thermocline at a temperature of 0 to 3C. [Note: Other estimates put the “upper ocean” around 20% of the total mass, rather than 10%, but we’ll use the 10% figure here.]
The “average” temperature of the entire ocean is around 4C.
The mass of the ocean is estimated to be around 1.4 billion Gt.
At a unit specific heat of sea water of around 4,000 j/kg°C this represents:
4,000,000 Gj/Gt or a total of 5.6 quadrillion Gj per °C change in temperature
The Earth’s atmosphere has a mass of 5,140,000 Gt; the troposphere (where weather occurs) is only around 85% of this, but let’s ignore this for now
At a unit specific heat of air of around 1,000 j/kg°C this represents:
A total of 5.14 trillion Gj per °C change in temperature
The 2xCO2 climate sensitivity assumed by IPCC models, with all kinds of hypothetical “positive” feedbacks (and ignoring observed “negative” feedbacks), is 3.2C
At this climate sensitivity we should have seen an atmospheric temperature increase from CO2 of 1.44°C from 1850 to today, yet we only saw 0.3°C, or around 20% of this (once the 0.35C warming from increased solar activity has been deducted from the observed 0.65C total).
So let’s assume that the other 80% of the greenhouse warming went into the upper ocean where it is “hiding” from us, waiting to pop back out some day. In contrast to the lower ocean, the upper ocean is well mixed over relatively short time periods, but we can assume that little heat would be transferred down into the lower ocean.
How much would this have warmed the upper ocean?
1.14 * 5.14 trillion / (5.6 quadrillion * 10%) = 0.01°C
Now let’s look at the future.
There is not quite enough total fossil fuel on our planet (all known reserves plus optimistic estimates of all future new finds) to reach an atmospheric CO2 level of 1100 ppmv (or 4 times the pre-industrial CO2 level), even if we assume that 100% of the CO2 released by humans from today on goes into the atmosphere (so far the atmospheric increase represents only around half of the total human emission).
This means that the maximum all-time theoretical atmospheric warming we can ever reach under the most pessimistic assumptions on feedbacks is around 6C.
If we assume that 80% of this “all-time highest ever” atmospheric greenhouse warming of 6C (from 1850 to 2100) goes into the upper ocean, where it stays “hidden”, how much warming would the upper ocean really see?
The answer is: 80% * 6 * 5.14 trillion / (5.6 quadrillion * 10%) = 0.04°C
This means a “warming” of the upper ocean from a mean temperature today of 8°C to a new “warmed” temperature of 8.04°C.
And we are to seriously believe that this 0.04°C is going to miraculously jump out of the ocean (some horrible day in the future) into a much warmer atmosphere, thereby heating the atmosphere even more and frying us all?
This is obviously absurd, Peter.
The above “worst case” calculations are obviously simplifications, as they do not take into account evaporation from the ocean or precipitation back into the ocean, ocean currents, winds, diurnal and seasonal fluctuations or all the many other things that are going on out there that keep the climate of our planet balanced.
As far as your “NASA” land temperature curve is concerned, it is cute, but it really does not make sense to look at a “cherry picked” part of the temperature record over a “cherry picked” piece of the overall time frame and try to arrive at conclusions. This requires a longer-term analysis of the entire record, as I’m sure you will agree (based on your earlier statements).
Now to the current short-term cooling “blip”, the overall GISS temperature record (plus that of Hadley, UAH and RSS) shows cooling from 2001 through 2008 (at a bit more rapid rate in the troposphere than at the surface). The average rate of cooling seems to be around 0.1°C per decade. Those are the recorded facts, Peter, whether or not you happen to like them.
Since this is just a short-term “blip”, we’ll have to wait to see if it continues or reverses again to reflect the long-term warming trend we have seen since our planet has been coming out of the Little Ice Age of around 0.04°C per decade, as recorded by Hadley.
Who knows what the future will bring? Not NASA. Not Hadley (although they sometimes like to pretend that they do, but usually fall flat on their face with predictions). Not you. Not James E. Hansen. Not me.
There are just too many (partially still unknown) natural factors out there that can (and certainly will) take control of our planet’s climate as they have in the past, with or without human CO2 emissions. To naïvely believe otherwise is silly. To “hang” everything on human CO2 is absurd.
Regards,
Max
Max,
The average temperature of 4 deg C you quote is for the whole of the ocean including its depths.
The surface temperature is more like 17 deg C
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/LilyLi.shtml
and it is this temperature which important for ocean / atmosphere interactions. There will of course be some mixing between the surface waters and the depths but this tends to be less as the upper ocean warms. As the water expands it becomes more buoyant.
You might like to just notice that the ocean surface temperature followed the land temperature with a smaller time lag than you have calculated during the early 20th century warming. It had pretty much caught up by the 1950’s.
Is the heat currently being absorbed by ocean going to lurk there and suddenly jump out at some time in the future as you suggest? No, of course not.
What we are now seeing is the land areas warming at the rate 0.3 degs C per decade, whereas those in the ocean are somewhat less than half of that. Because the ocean accounts for 70% of the earth’s surface the combined figures are closer to what we currently measure at or near to the oceans’ surface.
This is very much to be expected, using the IPCC’s figure of 3 deg C for climate sensitivity. The land will warm in line with CO2 increases. When CO2 levels stabilise, so too will land temperatures. Ocean temperatures will continue to rise until they catch up. If they are rising at exactly half the rate of land temperatures they will take exactly twice as long to reach equilibrium.
PS I notice that your posts are much longer than mine. I do try to keep them brief and to the point. So I do hope that you might remember that before using the word ‘waffling’.
Brute,
I hope you, too, will remember that there is no support for your claim of the temperature falls or drops, in the areas that you like to mention, with comments like:
“Except for when it drops……..as it has this decade”.
As far as I can rembember all your claims of very cold weather such as in China last year or in the USA this year, have been in areas well above sea level.
I don’t rembember you saying anything like the “the lightship moored a hundred kilometers off the shore of the USA or Europe, or wherever, recorded its lowest ever sea surface temperature today”.
Hi Peter,
Will keep it short, since you are not bringing any new silly “analogies” or flawed “hypotheses”.
The Hadley record shows that the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has risen by 0.65C since 1850. Forget “cherry picked” pieces (land vs. ocean) or a “cherry-picked” time frame (last 30 years). These prove nothing, except the fact that you are getting desperate to prove your point even when the data do not support you.
Studies by solar scientists (who understand all this much better than you, I or IPCC) tell us that the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (highest in 11,000 years!) are responsible for 0.35C of this warming. Makes sense to me. Do you have a problem with this, and if so, why?
This leaves 0.3C for all other factors, including anthropogenic (primarily CO2), changes in ENSO, PDO. NAO, UHI distortion to the land part of the surface record and all other unknown factors.
It may well be that UHI distortion caused ALL of this 0.3C.
It may well be that the strong late 20th century El Nino pattern caused a major part of the observed warming.
But if we assume that ALL of the 0.3C is due to increased CO2, this leads us to a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of around 0.6 to 0.7C, as estimated by Dr.Richard Lindzen and others.
This tells us quite clearly that a CO2 level by 2100 will result in additional theoretical warming of around 0.4C.
That’s it, Peter.
All the rest is assumed (but not physically observed) “positive” feedbacks and hypothetical hype.
If you wish to waffle around this with more far-fetched hypotheses and suggestions of “hidden in the pipeline” warming in the ocean, so be it.
Religious belief is a wonderful thing, Peter, and I’m glad for you that you have something to believe in that makes you happy and gives you purpose.
It just doesn’t have anything to do with “science”.
Regards,
Max
Max,
Stamping your foot in a tantrum, endless repeating what you’ve already said without adding anything new, and telling me to ‘forget it’, isn’t really the best way to go about arguing your case.
I did think that TonyB might have had some sort of point when he mentioned that the concept of a world average temperature wasn’t very useful. He’s not right there. It is useful but even better is to get separate information on the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Land and Ocean etc. It’s all useful and all adds to our scientific understanding of the problem.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
But you aren’t interested in that! All that matters to you is finding bits of scientific evidence you can twist and manipulate for your own purposes and ‘forgetting’, or ignoring, any scientific evidence that you can’t use that way.
All that you are proving is that, if you don’t want to believe something, facts, no matter how compelling, won’t make any difference.
Max, (Reur 3957, mine crossing your 3960) I was surprised at your link and especially it’s schematic, which is very much over-simplified in several respects. (‘nough said for here). However, for the purpose of your calculations, I guess it is OK, and they can only be “ball-park” given the uncertainty of water mass in the mixed layer, and global average T’s. I’m not about to check your calculations, but wish to show to Pete, that some of his naïve assertions are just that, and are to be ignored.
Peter Martin, Reur 3958
You should try to understand that the very top surface layer, (almost entirely the skin), whilst it does interact with the atmosphere, has very little effect on what you call thermal inertia of the oceans because it is diurnally transitory etc, and what matters is the thermal mixing to a significant depth below it from wave action etc. The mass of this thin top layer is also too small to be significant in the overall mixing above the thermo-cline.
I know that you trust Wikipedia, and I would think that on this non-emotive issue that this article is probably as reliable as could be hoped.
You complain of lengthy analyses from Max, so I’ll just point out a few things, concentrating on the two figures;
1) The daytime skin temperature is shown as over 1 degree colder than 1mm below. This is explainable because of what they call “evaporation emission” (Global “evaporation emission’ amounts to ~46% of all cooling from the global surface according to the IPCC etc)
2) Most sunlight is illustrated as being absorbed as HEAT, at a little over a metre deep.
3) They fail to show that about 40% of sunlight is near-infra-red, and will be absorbed in the skin, and be mostly re-emitted as longer wavelength infra red because it is only microns from the absolute surface.
4) There is a clear diurnal difference shown, but it is all schematic, and there are obviously global seasonal and weather differences.
I know it is rather complicated for you, but please try and study it, and perhaps return to my 3924 and 3925 with more thought
Bob_FJ,
“my 3924 and 3925” ???
3924 is from Max.
3925 is from you but, there are no questions in there. Do you have a question?
Maybe the hot Melbourne temperatures are muddling your thinking?
If not, maybe you can answer a few questions of mine.
1) If AGW has ended, why are land based temperatures still rising, as they have for the last 30 years or more, at the rate of 0.3 degC per decade?
2) Would you agree, that the ocean has increased in temperature at approximately one third to one half of this rate during this time?
3) Do you have any evidence that these rates are likely to markedly change in the next few decades?
Peter Martin #3963
Are you using Global temperatures where thousands of mostly cold and rural stations were removed following the end of the cold war which completely skewed an already unreliable (because it is such an inconsistent and meaningless) data set?
Are you fairly comparing recent temperatures to historic ones by just looking at a tiny fragment of human history represented by the last thirty years?
TonyB
The interesting discussion on Co2 over at WUWT continues.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/c … -ice-ages/
On another thread someone had asked me some questions about Beck-stressing his scepticism of Beck figures.
I compiled a reply then checked some figures with Ernst Beck. He gave me such a comprehensive reply that it seemed worth repeating them which I have done so here with his permission-together with the original questions. Hopefully someone here will comment on them here.In my experience Ernst Beck is very willing to answer questions. Like me he does not pretend to have all the answers but I certainly believe our understanding of co2 levels and its behaviour is very limited at present and that new information will come to light that will question the established version of events.
TonyB
The very pertinent questions are in speech marks. Becks comments are not
“Ok, I’ll run through my reservations with the Beck paper (E&E 2007) (with apologies to others for this being OT in respect of the original post).
1. Beck refers to 90,000 analyses of C02 since 1812. Of these, 64,000 were taken at Giessen (not Bremen, as I mistakenly said last night) over an eighteen month period. So, some 79% of the data from which he draws conclusions about global C02 concentrations over a 150 year period is from one location over 18 months.
I have compiled from literature at the moment ~95 000 CO2 data from more than 300 000 analyses because of double to quadruple measurements and then averaging.”
I do NOT draw global conclusions. All CO2 measurements near ground are local and also the so called background CO2 data are local for instance in about 4 km altitude (MLO) they differ in latitude and continent or marine location.
If we compare famous ice core data concerning CO2 e.g. Vostok 1999 (petit et al), we have 200 years. They all take them globally!
“2. Beck states that “The longest single time series was determined in Paris’ Montsouris laboratory, and comprises 12,000 measurements over the 30 years from 1876 until 1910?, but we don’t have any detail of these measurements beyond that. He then graphs details for four locations, none of which cover the same periods. I cannot see what validation of one location against another applies.”
Looking to my webpage http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm you can find every resources and information you will find.
I´m writing a large monograph concerning in detail all information on the historic measurements since 2006. At the moment I do statistical analysis of my data using Maximum Entropy Spectral Analysis and Wavelet Spectral analysis. I hope I have finished the discussion about the results soon so that I can implement the results in my monograph.
After that the whole thing will be published. My website, publications and presentations are parts of this work.
The montsouris data had been investigated in detail by Stanhill, please see my website: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literatur/montsouris/stanhill1-23.pdf.
The four locations in my first paper are examples of very well done measuring series giving all necessary information to evaluate the data. More in my presentations and my second paper and the rest >140 in my monograph. It was not possible to do this in a 23 page paper.
The validation of one location against another is common in modern CO2 measurements. The WDCGG lists the data of the global network. If you compare the different locations you will see mostly the same data. But this is impossible because of very local data. E.g: CO2 on Mauna LOa ( ~4km volcano, no vegetation) or Schauinsland (1200 altitude, forested area, much vegetation) . The graphs are nearly identical. The explanation is a filtering of raw data and a statistical processing at both locations to get the predefined graph . At Schauinsland they had taken only the values at night, by the way. This is data picking to get the graph you want!!! All data are taken as globally important.
“My” historical data are near ground and typical for the vertical profile of CO2 in the atmosphere at that location. Near ground we have about 35-50 ppm seasonal variation on continent and about 12 ppm at an altitude of about 4 km (background). Please see here: http://www.purdue.edu/climate/pdf/Gurney%20Science.pdf
The averages in 4 km (background) and near ground (local influenced) are within about 4 ppm the same. Thats all. I will include a picture out of the chapter in my monograph on that issue. http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/surgut-hom.jpg
“3. Looking at the Kreutz/Gissen record as an illustration, we see very large variations in C02 measurements from one month to the next, e.g. c.300 to 430 between 9/39 and 10/39, and 340 to 550 over two months from 6/40 to 8/40. If such measurements were indeed representative of global CO2 concentration, then how could such quantities of C02 be moving in and out of the atmosphere at such a rate? This is equivalent to between a third and two thirds of all the CO2 contained in land plants globally. He refers to “monthly cycling” and suggests this is evident in Mauna Loa measurements, but not on that extraordinary scale! We have no evidence from ground observation or satellites to confirm such flux – are we to presume this is something that stopped happening in the 1950s?”
(Perhaps the questioner) who asked this has no idea of the daily and seasonal variations of atmospheric CO2 at a real location. Real fluctuations during a day can be more than 100 ppm without human influence. It is simple vegetation or wind. Of course they are not globally representative. We should stop these crazy thinking of a global climate or weather. Neither temperature nor any other parameter locally measured is globally representative. This is the result of the Keeling procedure of filtering data, cutting the outliers and processing the data. Take a look at the temperature data (Giss or HADCRUT). They are processed every month the old and the new one to fit the ideas of rising temperatures because of global warming.
The oceans easily emit such high CO2 every year. A warm water current will release per 1°C warming up to 70 ppm more CO2. This had taken place in the Northern Atlantic ocean during the 30s.
The monthly cycling ( about 28 days) I have observed is the fingerprint of lunar phases and part of the lunar nodal cycle. We can see it in all CO2 series also MLO (see my website)
The only thing we have to do is spectral analysis of the CO2 data. Please ask the guy why nobody has done this? I will give you the answer below.
“4. Seeing, then, the enormous and rapid variations in supposed global atmospheric C02 concentration as measured at Giessen and other locations, he then presumes that this can be fitted to the monotonic annual variation and steady rise in concentrations measured at Mauna Loa from the 1950s. How could this be plausible?”
The answer is given above. The Giessen data are typical for Giessen, latitude ~ 50 on continent. MLO is typical for a volcano at 3800 m altitude in a marine surround. Please ask the questioner why they do not publish raw data from MLO with the volcanic degassing?
1950 there were a sudden drop in atmospheric CO2 which can also seen in other data series. During the 50s the CO2 is rising again, but not as MLO will pretend. CO2 was higher on continent.
“5. Even if the measurement stations were entirely free from any contamination from human influence, and even if they were representative of a geographically ‘averaged’ location (that is, free from natural variability), they would not be able to measure background CO2. You can’t do that reliably close to sea level, owing to variations in atmospheric mixing (consider the build up of smog at certain times), or at least you can’t do it meaningfully without being able to apply corrections for bias.”
No measurement station is free from “contamination”. This is the wrong term and given by the AGW prayers to dismiss typical natural fluctuations. Of course the Giessen data are not free from typical influence of humans, which was clearly outlined by Kreutz. (see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/localinf_giessen1939.jpg)
Of course they have not measured “background level” at Giessen. Background CO2 is a special atmospheric concentration on some marine stations and stations at higher altitudes (MLO) or by processing the real measured data to fit the background rules (e.g. Schauinsland, WDCGG). Background is not typical for the world because the atmosphere is not typically well mixed. But we can do a background estimation by the windspeed-CO2 test for not well mixed locations . ( see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literatur/kreutz/kreutzwspapprox.gif and for modern stations (Diekirch Lux) see here: http://meteo.lcd.lu/papers/co2_patterns/co2_patterns.html.
“Beck is concerned to stress the accuracy of the instrumentation. I have no knowledge of that, so will take his word for it. But accuracy is of no use unless you know that you’re measuring what you want to be measuring.”
I have investigated the chemical methods in detail. If the English word “accuracy” is the wrong term please take the right one. The Pettenkofer method delivers a precision of +-1% of the reading value at it´ s best.
This is the follow up to a post I made in WUWT I tried to post it here first early this morning but it seems to have got lost, so here goes again. As it relates to Ernst Beck no doubt Peter will hope it gets lost again!
I hope we can continue the debate here as well. This reply was addressed to Simon Evans originally and was in answer to a series of questions from him about Beckls work. I had composed a reply to his original questions but after checking some details with Ernst Beck I felt his reply was much more comprehensive than mine so I have posted his reply in full with his permission.
Simon’s very pertinent questions are in speech marks. Becks comments are not
“Ok, I’ll run through my reservations with the Beck paper (E&E 2007) (with apologies to others for this being OT in respect of the original post).
1. Beck refers to 90,000 analyses of C02 since 1812. Of these, 64,000 were taken at Giessen (not Bremen, as I mistakenly said last night) over an eighteen month period. So, some 79% of the data from which he draws conclusions about global C02 concentrations over a 150 year period is from one location over 18 months.”
I have compiled from literature at the moment ~95 000 CO2 data from more than 300 000 analyses because of double to quadruple measurements and then averaging.
I do NOT draw global conclusions. All CO2 measurements near ground are local and also the so called background CO2 data are local for instance in about 4 km altitude (MLO) they differ in latitude and continent or marine location.
If we compare famous ice core data concerning CO2 e.g. Vostok 1999 (petit et al), we have 200 years. They all take them globally!
“2. Beck states that “The longest single time series was determined in Paris’ Montsouris laboratory, and comprises 12,000 measurements over the 30 years from 1876 until 1910?, but we don’t have any detail of these measurements beyond that. He then graphs details for four locations, none of which cover the same periods. I cannot see what validation of one location against another applies.”
Looking to my webpage http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm you can find every resources and information you will find.
I´m writing a large monograph concerning in detail all information on the historic measurements since 2006. At the moment I do statistical analysis of my data using Maximum Entropy Spectral Analysis and Wavelet Spectral analysis. I hope I have finished the discussion about the results soon so that I can implement the results in my monograph.
After that the whole thing will be published. My website, publications and presentations are parts of this work.
The montsouris data had been investigated in detail by Stanhill, please see my website: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literat … ll1-23.pdf.
The four locations in my first paper are examples of very well done measuring series giving all necessary information to evaluate the data. More in my presentations and my second paper and the rest >140 in my monograph. It was not possible to do this in a 23 page paper.
The validation of one location against another is common in modern CO2 measurements. The WDCGG lists the data of the global network. If you compare the different locations you will see mostly the same data. But this is impossible because of very local data. E.g: CO2 on Mauna LOa ( ~4km volcano, no vegetation) or Schauinsland (1200 altitude, forested area, much vegetation) . The graphs are nearly identical. The explanation is a filtering of raw data and a statistical processing at both locations to get the predefined graph . At Schauinsland they had taken only the values at night, by the way. This is data picking to get the graph you want!!! All data are taken as globally important.
“My” historical data are near ground and typical for the vertical profile of CO2 in the atmosphere at that location. Near ground we have about 35-50 ppm seasonal variation on continent and about 12 ppm at an altitude of about 4 km (background). Please see here: http://www.purdue.edu/climate/pdf/Gurney%20Science.pdf
The averages in 4 km (background) and near ground (local influenced) are within about 4 ppm the same. Thats all. I will include a picture out of the chapter in my monograph on that issue. http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/surgut-hom.jpg
“3. Looking at the Kreutz/Gissen record as an illustration, we see very large variations in C02 measurements from one month to the next, e.g. c.300 to 430 between 9/39 and 10/39, and 340 to 550 over two months from 6/40 to 8/40. If such measurements were indeed representative of global CO2 concentration, then how could such quantities of C02 be moving in and out of the atmosphere at such a rate? This is equivalent to between a third and two thirds of all the CO2 contained in land plants globally. He refers to “monthly cycling” and suggests this is evident in Mauna Loa measurements, but not on that extraordinary scale! We have no evidence from ground observation or satellites to confirm such flux – are we to presume this is something that stopped happening in the 1950s?”
(Perhaps the questioner) who asked this has no idea of the daily and seasonal variations of atmospheric CO2 at a real location. Real fluctuations during a day can be more than 100 ppm without human influence. It is simple vegetation or wind. Of course they are not globally representative. We should stop these crazy thinking of a global climate or weather. Neither temperature nor any other parameter locally measured is globally representative. This is the result of the Keeling procedure of filtering data, cutting the outliers and processing the data. Take a look at the temperature data (Giss or HADCRUT). They are processed every month the old and the new one to fit the ideas of rising temperatures because of global warming.
The oceans easily emit such high CO2 every year. A warm water current will release per 1°C warming up to 70 ppm more CO2. This had taken place in the Northern Atlantic ocean during the 30s.
The monthly cycling ( about 28 days) I have observed is the fingerprint of lunar phases and part of the lunar nodal cycle. We can see it in all CO2 series also MLO (see my website)
The only thing we have to do is spectral analysis of the CO2 data. Please ask the guy why nobody has done this? I will give you the answer below.
“4. Seeing, then, the enormous and rapid variations in supposed global atmospheric C02 concentration as measured at Giessen and other locations, he then presumes that this can be fitted to the monotonic annual variation and steady rise in concentrations measured at Mauna Loa from the 1950s. How could this be plausible?”
The answer is given above. The Giessen data are typical for Giessen, latitude ~ 50 on continent. MLO is typical for a volcano at 3800 m altitude in a marine surround. Please ask the questioner why they do not publish raw data from MLO with the volcanic degassing?
1950 there were a sudden drop in atmospheric CO2 which can also seen in other data series. During the 50s the CO2 is rising again, but not as MLO will pretend. CO2 was higher on continent.
“5. Even if the measurement stations were entirely free from any contamination from human influence, and even if they were representative of a geographically ‘averaged’ location (that is, free from natural variability), they would not be able to measure background CO2. You can’t do that reliably close to sea level, owing to variations in atmospheric mixing (consider the build up of smog at certain times), or at least you can’t do it meaningfully without being able to apply corrections for bias.”
No measurement station is free from “contamination”. This is the wrong term and given by the AGW prayers to dismiss typical natural fluctuations. Of course the Giessen data are not free from typical influence of humans, which was clearly outlined by Kreutz. (see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/ … en1939.jpg)
Of course they have not measured “background level” at Giessen. Background CO2 is a special atmospheric concentration on some marine stations and stations at higher altitudes (MLO) or by processing the real measured data to fit the background rules (e.g. Schauinsland, WDCGG). Background is not typical for the world because the atmosphere is not typically well mixed. But we can do a background estimation by the windspeed-CO2 test for not well mixed locations . ( see here: http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/literat … approx.gif and for modern stations (Diekirch Lux) see here: http://meteo.lcd.lu/papers/co2_patterns … terns.html.
“Beck is concerned to stress the accuracy of the instrumentation. I have no knowledge of that, so will take his word for it. But accuracy is of no use unless you know that you’re measuring what you want to be measuring.”
I have investigated the chemical methods in detail. If the English word “accuracy” is the wrong term please take the right one. The Pettenkofer method delivers a precision of +-1% of the reading value at it´s best.”
In his reply above Beck makes mention of several documents that I have seen but are not yet in the public domain.
In my experience Ernst Beck is very willing to answer questions. Like me he does not pretend to have all the answers but I certainly believe our understanding of co2 levels and its behaviour is very limited at present and that new information being compiled will question further the established version of events.
TonyB
TonyB
I have tried twice today (9.30am and 2.30am) to post a long item received from Ernst Beck about Co2 levels. Has Peter got at the spam filter to reject anything with his name on it? :)
Is it anywhere you can rescue it or should I cut it in two and try again?
tonyB
Sorry-my 3968 should have ben addressed to TonyN.
Perhaps I had better change my name to Peter to avoid any confusion…then start talking about Beck
TonyB
Hi Peter,
You wrote (3962), “But you aren’t interested in that! All that matters to you is finding bits of scientific evidence you can twist and manipulate for your own purposes and ‘forgetting’, or ignoring, any scientific evidence that you can’t use that way.”
Now, Peter, don’t throw a tantrum here.
If I were to make exactly that claim about you, you would howl in outrage.
The truth is, Peter, that the physically observed facts (or “scientific evidence”, if you prefer that expression) do not support the hypothesis of alarming anthropogenic global warming. No “twisting and manipulating” required, Peter. Just the facts. I have pointed this out to you repeatedly (as you acknowledge), but you still persist in denying the facts as presented, rather than recognizing and addressing them in a real debate.
150+ years of increasing human CO2 emissions and our planet is doing “just fine” (as far as climate/weather is concerned). Cold winters are followed by mild springs and hot summers, as has always been the case, with some years more extreme than others, but no real global change in weather patterns. Over the 150+ years an admittedly shaky global temperature record tells us that our planet has warmed by a fraction of 1°C. Big deal. Where’s the panic?
It is apparently unpleasant for you to hear this from me and to face the reality that AGW may not really be a serious problem for our planet.
Could it be that this offends your quasi-religious or politically-inspired dogmatic “belief” in a real-life morality play where evil capitalist industrial man is destroying his planet through greed and self-indulgence and will soon be punished by Mother Earth for his transgressions?
To conjure up the specter of a potentially alarming AGW does, indeed, require “twisting and manipulating” the data by feeding the computer models exaggerated assumptions. The “scientists” loading the GCMs cited by IPCC have become experts at this approach.
Computers are more gullible than human beings, since they will “believe” anything you feed them without question and then spit out the answers you have essentially pre-programmed in.
Rational human beings tend to be a bit more skeptical when they are being fed what they perceive to be a “bill of goods” or sales pitch, as you can see from the many posters on this site.
To summarize, Peter, relax. The world is not coming to an end, as the hysterical prophets of doom (Hansen, Gore, etc.) would have us believe in order to promote their own agendas.
There is nothing we can do to really influence our planet’s climate, nor do we even know whether or not a slightly warmer world (if it were to come) would actually be a better place for most of humanity.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Let’s see if we can identify the key points where we agree and disagree on AGW and its importance and then move forward in our discussion, which appears to be stalled.
I can accept the validity of the greenhouse hypothesis, even tough this hypothesis has not yet been scientifically proven based on physical observations.
I can accept that the Hadley record of “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” is the best indicator we have of our planet’s overall “temperature”, despite all the non-transparent manipulations, adjustments and ex post facto “corrections” made to this record, the obvious pro-AGW bias of the record takers and the many studies from all over the world that report a significant upward UHI distortion in this record.
I can accept that this record shows a linear warming trend of 0.041C per decade and a linear warming of 0.65C over the entire time period from 1850 to 2008.
I can accept the conclusion of several studies by solar scientists that tell me that 0.35C of the warming we have seen has resulted from an unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (the highest in 11,000 years).
I can accept the IPCC estimate of 285 ppmv CO2 in 1850 (based on ice core studies), as well as the 2008 value of 385 ppmv (based on the average adjusted and reported Mauna Loa reading).
I can accept the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of around 0.6 to 0.7C, as physically observed in the net non-solar warming experienced over the period 1850 to 2008 plus the above CO2 levels, and as estimated by Lindzen, Shaviv + Veizer, etc.
I cannot accept the model-based postulation of a strongly positive net total feedback from water vapor, lapse rate, surface albedo and clouds, since the actual physical observations on strongly negative cloud feedbacks show that the net total feedback from all sources is slightly negative, rather than sufficiently positive to result in a four- to five-fold increase in the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity; my specific “bone of contention” is with the IPCC model-based suggestion that “cloud feedback” will increase the 2xCO2 impact by 1.3C (from 1.9C to 3.2C), when the physical observations indicate that cloud feedback would result in a lowering of the 2xCO2 impact by around 1.0 to 1.5C.
I believe that you may agree with many of the points above, but will certainly disagree with some others.
In order to continue a fruitful debate, it would be helpful if you would let me know which points you can accept and which points you cannot accept, giving your reasoning on why you cannot accept these points, plus listing any other points, which you feel are pertinent to our discussion.
Regards,
Max
Max #3955
Only just noticed this. Thanks-it is great.
Look forward to your comments on my accidentally repeated item about Beck
tonyB
Hi TonyB,
My comments to the very interesting input from Ernst Beck which you posted (3967).
Beck’s responses to the questions by Simon Evans appear to be succinct and to the point. He appears to have answered all the questions and provided links to the source data, as requested by Evans.
Beck states that he has not attempted to define a “global” value from all his data points, pointing out that this is in contrast to IPCC, who have interpreted 200 years of Vostok ice core data as being “global”.
Beck states that modern CO2 records for two different locations (Mauna Loa and Schauinsland) have been made to be equal by “filtering of raw data and a statistical processing at both locations to get the predefined graph”. If this is really true, it sounds disturbing to me, as it would raise true questions regarding the global validity of the Mauna Loa record as well as the scientific objectivity of those making the comparison.
Tony, when I first heard about Beck’s studies some time ago, I thought that this was a “crackpot” on the “fringe of science” (as many AGW promoters were labeling him at the time).
But the more I read and hear of his work, the more I am convinced that he has, indeed, uncovered two weak spots in the IPCC AGW argument, namely (a) the supposition that pre-industrial CO2 levels were flat at 280 ppm for many hundreds (or even thousands) of years and (b) that the Mauna Loa record gives us a truly representative “global” value for atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Thanks for going to the trouble of getting Beck’s comments.
Regards,
Max
TonyB
You asked about CO2 fluxes and reservoirs.
A 1992 study by Jaworowski, Segalstad and Hisdal gives a good overall summary.
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/np-m-119.pdf
This study is a few years old and there are two points that should be mentioned.
Jaworowski et al. estimate the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere at 5 years. There have been several studies since then using three basically different methods, which show that this is actually closer to 7.5 years.
Jaworowski et al. discuss the hypothetical case that all fossil fuel resources on Earth are burned instantaneously. The estimate used for this total fossil fuel resource is 7,000 GtC equivalent. Based on all the actual proven fossil fuel reserves plus optimistically estimates of possible new finds, the planet has a total fossil fuel resource equivalent to around 1,400 GtC, or around one-fifth of the estimate used by Jaworowski et al.
But these are minor points.
The rest of the study is still valid today (as it was in 1992).
Regards,
Max
Peter Martin Reur 3964, you asked me in part:
I deduce that you are responding to my 3942, where I actually queried {3924 and 3935}, not {3924 and 3925} as you transcribed in error.
I’m sorry for the similar transcription error in my 3942…. I guess it was too hard for you to work-out that I was trying to find-out just what you were commenting on, given that you did NOT say WHAT you agreed with and understood, and then in the same statement said you did not understand it. (paraphrasing). If you had been able to solve this, you might have replied with something constructive like:
No, I was responding to XXXX. (or XXXX and XXXX) or (XXXX, XXXX and XXXX, whatever)…. Or maybe you might have thoughtfully written; I think you meant to say XXXX and XXXX, and the answer is yes.
With a bit of care, you might even have translated my error, by noting that my 3935 supplied only the image that was corrupted in my 3934. (and which referred to 3934), and that 3934 referred to 3925 and was intended to further help you understand some issues in 3925.
Also, where you wrote above: “3925 is from you but, there are no questions in there. Do you have a question?” This is clearly one of your old tricks of denying an issue where it might be embarrassing to you if it is not concluded with a ‘?’. You are correct; there are no question marks in 3925, 3934, or 3935. Does that mean that you have not responded to any of them? If so, what were you waffling on about?