Mar 172008

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.

Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.

(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)

 

10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

  1. Tony – Many thanks for the Willem de Lange link, which seems very lucid.

    His remark about the IPCC, “I was not asked if I supported the view expressed in my name”, tells you all you need to know about their agenda!

  2. JamesP

    I don’t know if you were around when I posted my 6319 so I wil repeat it here and add in some of the preliminary remarks not previously posted, as I had to ask the reviewers permission to replicate them.

    Here is the entire post from another IPCC expert reviewer Richared Courtney-sorry do not have the means to replicate the graphs

    “Yes, I had seen it (a paper on climate models). And they do think that the climate has to agree with their models.

    For example, my review of the second Draft of IPCC AR 4included this:

    *********************

    Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Line 46
    Delete the phrase, “and a physical model” because it is a falsehood.
    Evidence says what it says, and construction of a physical model is irrelevant to that in any real science.

    The authors of this draft Report seem to have an extreme prejudice in favour of models (some parts of the Report seem to assert that climate obeys what the models say; e.g. Page 2-47 Chapter 2 Section 2.6.3 Lines 33 and 34), and this phrase that needs deletion is an example of the prejudice.

    Evidence is the result of empirical observation of reality.
    Hypotheses are ideas based on the evidence.
    Theories are hypotheses that have repeatedly been tested by comparison with evidence and have withstood all the tests.
    Models are representations of the hypotheses and theories.

    Outputs of the models can be used as evidence only when the output data is demonstrated to accurately represent reality. If a model output disagrees with the available evidence then this indicates fault in the model, and this indication remains true until the evidence is shown to be wrong.

    This draft Report repeatedly demonstrates that its authors do not understand these matters. So, I provide the following analogy to help them. If they can comprehend the analogy then they may achieve graduate standard in their science practice.

    A scientist discovers a new species.
    1. He/she names it (e.g. he/she calls it a gazelle) and describes it (e.g. a gazelle has a leg in each corner).
    2. He/she observes that gazelles leap. (n.b. the muscles, ligaments etc. that enable gazelles to leap are not known, do not need to be discovered, and do not need to be modelled to observe that gazelles leap. The observation is evidence.)
    3. Gazelles are observed to always leap when a predator is near. (This observation is also evidence.)
    4. From (3) it can be deduced that gazelles leap in response to the presence of a predator.
    5. n.b. The gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system do not need to be studied, known or modelled for the conclusion in (4) that “gazelles leap when a predator is near” to be valid. Indeed, study of a gazelle’s internal body structure and central nervous system may never reveal that, and such a model may take decades to construct following achievement of the conclusion from the evidence.

    (Having read all 11 chapters of the draft Report, I had intended to provide review comments on them all. However, I became so angry at the need to point out the above elementary principles that I abandoned the review at this point: the draft should be withdrawn and replaced by another that displays an adequate level of scientific competence).

    *************

    All my review comments of both drafts of the AR4 were ignored. This is surprising because I sent a cover note with my comments on the First Draft that said:

    ***********

    Expert Peer Review Comments of
    the first draft of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report
    provided by Richard S Courtney

    General Comment on the draft Report.

    My submitted review comments are of Chapters 1 and 2 and they are offered for use, but their best purpose is that they demonstrate the nature of the contents of the draft Report. I had intended to peer review the entire document but I have not bothered to complete that because the draft is of such poor quality that my major review comment is:

    The draft report should be withdrawn and a report of at least acceptable scientific quality should be presented in its place.

    My review comments include suggested corrections to
    • a blatant lie,
    • selective use of published data,
    • use of discredited data,
    • failure to state (important) limitations of stated information,
    • presentation of not-evidenced assertions as information,
    • ignoring of all pertinent data that disproves the assertions,
    • use of illogical arguments,
    • failure to mention the most important aerosol (it provides positive forcing greater than methane),
    • failure to understand the difference between reality and virtual reality,
    • arrogant assertion that climate modellers are “the scientific community”,
    • claims of “strong correlation” where none exists,
    • suggestion that correlation shows causality,
    • claim that peer review proves the scientific worth of information,
    • claim that replication is not essential to scientific worth of information,
    • misleading statements,
    • ignorance of the ‘greenhouse effect’ and its components,
    • and other errors.

    Perhaps the clearest illustration of the nature of the draft Report is my comment on a Figure title. My comment says;

    Page 1-45 Chapter 1 Figure 1.3 Title
    Replace the title with,
    “Figure 1.3. The Keeling curve showing the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii”
    because the draft title is untrue, polemical assertion (the report may intend to be a sales brochure for one very limited scientific opinion but there is no need to be this blatant about it).

    Richard S Courtney (exp.)

    *********************

    But they not only mislead with their models and ignore review comments, they also choose to bypass peer review when they want to completely misrepresent data. Perhaps the following is the clearest example of this.

    A key – and blatantly misleading – statement in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of AR4 says; “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”.

    But this statement was not in the drafts provided for peer review. It was inserted into the final draft of the report and that final draft was only submitted to government representatives for comment. The Chinese Government suggested that it should be deleted and pointed out that “These two linear rates should not compare with each other because the time scales are not the same”. But this valid comment was ignored.

    It is not surprising that this key statement was not submitted for peer review because it is extremely misleading. It is justified by a statistical trick that the following paragraphs explain.

    This is the graph the IPCC submitted to peer reviewers for comment.

    It is important to note that the above version of the graph contains only one trend line and it was submitted for peer review. But another version of the graph was published in the AR4.

    The IPCC published the following version of the above graph in the final version of the AR4. It is one of the key graphs from the AR4 report: it is Figure 1 from FAQ 3.1, and is on page 253 of the WG1 section (i.e. the section by the IPCC’s purportedly scientific working group). I repeat, that the following version – the published version – was not submitted for peer review.

    The published graph shows the slope over the last 25 years is significantly greater than that of the last 50 years, which in turn is greater than the slope over 100 years. This is said to show that global warming is accelerating. It is important to note that this grossly misleading calculation is in chapter 3 of WG1 and also in the SPM that states, “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years”. Thus, policymakers who only look at the numbers (and don’t think about the different timescales) will be misled into thinking that global warming is accelerating.

    Of course, the IPCC could have started near the left hand end of the graph and thus obtained the opposite conclusion! In case this is not obvious, I provide the following graph that does it together with an explanation of the presentation of the data.

    In the above graph, the blue line is the HADCRUT3 data. The green line is the 40-year trend from 1905, with a slope of 1.46 degrees per century. The red line is the 100-year trend, with a slope of 0.72. The trend in the early part of the 20th century is twice that of the whole century.
    All the best”

  3. Hi Peter,

    Instead of answering my direct question, you wrote:

    You are saying that the next 280 ppmv will only add 0.8 degC. The IPCC are saying 3 degs C. That’s not 4 times less important. Although you could argue that it is somewhat less important.

    Hold on there, Peter, let’s do some arithmetic for 10-year olds.

    IPCC is actually saying that the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity (i.e. from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv) would increase temperature by 3.2C.

    I have said (using the greenhouse theory as stipulated by Arrhenius and Stefan-Boltzmann, and the radiative forcing for CO2 as estimated by IPCC, Myhre et al.) that these added 280 ppmv will only add 0.8 degC.

    I figure 4 * 0.8 = 3.2C (“somewhat less important” or “4 times less important”?)

    I repeat IPCC exaggerates the 2xCO2 increase in temperature by a factor of 4. Got it?

    Then you opined:

    Its one thing to understand what a logarithm is. Its another to understand why the temperature increase due to increased CO2 should be entirely logarithmic. And you clearly don’t. Or if you do you are totally incapable of explaining just why that should be.

    Take it up with Arrhenius (sorry, he’s gone as are Stefan and Boltzmann). Take it up with Myhre et al. Or with Pachauri, who represents IPCC.

    I have not said that the relation is “entirely logarithmic” (as you claim), but that I can accept that in the atmospheric CO2 concentration range within which we find ourselves for the past several thousand years or will find ourselves for the next several hundred years the relationship between CO2 and temperature is logarithmic.

    A good theoretical treatise on “Why is the greenhouse effect logarithmic?” by Physicist Luboš Motl can be found on:
    http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-is-greenhouse-effect-logarithmic.html

    Motl starts off with Arrhenius’ original work, which concluded:

    that the warming in Celsius degrees is proportional to the logarithm of the ratio of the initial and final concentrations

    Motl goes on to write:

    Clearly, the law is not completely universal. It breaks down for very small C because the logarithm would otherwise go to -infinity. For small C, the correct relationship becomes asymptotically linear: each molecule of CO2 causes pretty much the same warming if you only have a couple of them. Phenomenologically, the linear increase for small C and the logarithmic law for the large values of C is often interpolated by a function that is also quadratic in the middle but it is just one of possible conventions for curve-fitting.

    And

    One reason for the logarithm could be found if we were looking how new spectral lines and their “wings” [see Wiki: Voigt Profile] become relevant for the absorption. The old lines eventually get saturated but the total greenhouse warming never quite stops because new spectral lines emerge: it just slows down.

    [I did not follow this up in any more detail, as it had become a bit too complicated and theoretical for me.]

    Another reference states it a bit simpler:
    http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2009/04/recent-lower-global-temperatures/

    The radiative forcing associated with greenhouse gases generally follows a logarithmic function: The amount of extra heating of the Earth’s surface resulting from an additional amount of CO2 in the atmosphere decreases as there is more CO2 in the atmosphere.

    And then explains why this logarithmic relation exists:

    This result occurs because parts of the CO2 absorption spectrum become saturated, leading to less additional forcing for additional CO2.

    This saturation is never complete, however, as even at astronomically high CO2 concentrations like 20,000 parts per million (ppm) additional CO2 has a slight positive forcing.

    And how it theoretically impacts our climate:

    An easy way to grasp the logarithmic properties of CO2 is to think about it as a fixed temperature increase every time atmospheric concentrations double. So increasing atmospheric CO2 from 250 ppm to 500 ppm would result in a certain amount of warming, and increasing concentrations from 500 to 1000 would result in an additional warming of the same magnitude, all things being equal.

    This all makes sense to me and I hope it finally answers your question.

    Now it is time for you to answer mine:

    Why is the impact of the “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming on our planet (around 5 to 7C up to 280 ppmv ~ 0.8C for 2xCO2) only one-fourth as important as that of the “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (3+C for an increase from 280 to 560 ppmv)?

    Awaiting your specific reply.

    Regards,

    Max

  4. Pete,

    Please remind me again why you think Anthony Watts is an evil hand maiden of the oil/coal/gas industry? I need to know so that I can ignore this data………………

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/global-warming-of-7c-could-kill-billions-this-century/

    I added a red line below showing the reported projected rise in temperatures from the MIT models, compared with the actual observed temperature trends since the previous 2003 report. Their projections show a correlation of essentially zero.

    Flawed Model Prophecies

  5. Brute,

    I’m shocked you don’t know why Anthony Watts is an evil hand maiden of the oil/coal/gas industry.

    The inventor of the steam engine was called James Watts. Steam engines required a great deal of coal. Coal is evil. So James Watts was evil. So by implication anyone else with the same name must be as well.

    Mrs Brute could have told you all this I’m sure. Anything else you need help with?

    Why Gore is a saint?
    Why Hansen is much misunderstood?
    Why Michael Mann is the greatest historian who ever lived?

    Tonyb

    http://www.egr.msu.edu/~lira/supp/steam/wattbio.html

  6. Tonyb,

    I apologize…………how could I have overlooked such a glaring association between Anthony Watts and that villain James Watt who is responsible for all environmental ills of today’s society.

    How stupid of me…………

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7mIy97_rlo

  7. Hi Manacker and tempterrain – in #6384 Manacker says “IPCC has told us that the greenhouse effect from water vapor is not that of an independent greenhouse forcing, but rather that of a feedback to the greenhouse forcing from CO2”. So (continuing the thought experiment) if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere there would be no appreciable greenhouse effect at all, despite the planet being half covered in clouds.

  8. the greenhouse effect from water vapor is not that of an independent greenhouse forcing, but rather that of a feedback to the greenhouse forcing from CO2

    It’s beginning to make sense! There are clearly two sorts of greenhouse effect; the good sort, that keeps ice ages and glaciers away, and the bad sort, that causes tipping points and thermal runaway. It’s the same with CO2; there’s that good wholesome organic CO2 that we’ve all got used to and that keeps plants and fire extinguishers happy, and the black, anthropogenic, industrial-strength CO2 that comes from burning coal and oil and that causes the bad sort of greenhouse effect.

    Who needs computer models? :-)

  9. Hi James – er, thanks for your response. Also hoping for Max’s and Peter’s. Rgds Jonathan

  10. Jasper Gee

    Good extension of the “hought experiment”.

    In effect we can now justify the position that ALL greenhouse warming on our planet (with the exception of the relatively small amounts caused by minor GHGs) is, in fact, caused by CO2 alone (along with the positive feedbacks from water vapor, clouds, etc. triggered by the CO2 warming).

    This puts CO2 into the key position of not only being THE gas that is responsible for all LIFE on our planet, but also for all CLIMATE on our planet.

    And this at less than 400 ppmv concentration.

    Brilliant!

    Max

  11. manacker #6375 says “the [IPCC] model assumptions have been robustly refuted (in the case of clouds) and shown to be significantly exaggerated (in the case of water vapor)”.

    Max, could you enlarge upon this statement and also help me with a definition of “cloud”? Thanks Jonathan

  12. Max, I ask what a “cloud” is, because although I think I know that clouds are more than 99% H2O, I don’t know how much of that water is typically vapour, droplets, drops, sleet, snow, hail, ice crystals, or whatever, nor do I know what physics says about their various CO2 feedback effects and nor can I imagine how the IPCC would model them globally anyway. And, I think it’s a very important issue, because clouds cover over half the surface of the planet (see Stephen Warren, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington “The average cloud cover for 1982-1991 is found to be 54% for northern hemisphere land, 53% for southern hemisphere land, 66% for northern hemisphere ocean, and 70% for southern hemisphere ocean, giving a global average of 64%. The global average for daytime is 64.6% and for nighttime, 63.3%”). What percentage of the total volume of the troposphere comprises clouds I’ve no idea, but again what do the IPCC assume and how do they model it?

  13. Jasper Gee

    Getting away from theoretical “thought games”, you ask me two serious questions (6411, 6412):

    First, can I enlarge on my statement that the [IPCC] model assumptions for cloud feedbacks have been refuted by physical observations and that those for water vapor feedback have been shown to be exaggerated.

    Together with this, you asked me for a definition of “cloud” and for the overall impact of clouds on our climate.

    Let’s start with the second question, which is the more basic one.

    Water is present in our atmosphere in three phases: as water vapor, as liquid droplets in (normally) lower altitude clouds and as ice crystals in (normally) higher altitude clouds. I believe that “clouds” are defined as the water that is present either as liquid droplets or as ice crystals.

    It is generally recognized that liquid water droplets in lower altitude cloud cover results in overall cooling of our planet by reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space, but that ice crystals in higher altitude clouds do not block incoming solar radiation but block outgoing IR radiation, thus causing warming.

    A study by Ramanathan and Imandar (cited previously) tells us that the overall net impact of clouds is one of fairly strong cooling (around four times the warming impact of CO2).

    This study lamented the fact that there were no estimates based on actual physical observations to validate the model assumptions regarding the feedback from clouds with warming, i.e. do they cause more warming (positive feedback) or do they cause cooling (negative feedback)?

    The models cited by IPCC ALL assume that the net feedback from clouds is strongly positive.

    The net [IPCC] assumed impact of clouds is a warming of 1.3°C with a doubling of CO2 (out of a total assumed 2xCO2 impact of 3.2°C). In other words, cloud feedbacks are assumed by IPCC to be “strongly positive”.

    IPCC did concede in its SPM 2007 report that “cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty”.

    After IPCC published this report, a study was made by Spencer et al. (which I have referenced earlier). This study cleared up this “largest source of uncertainty” by showing that the net cloud feedback is “strongly negative” with warming, and that the magnitude of this negative feedback was close to the assumed magnitude of the assumed positive feedback.

    Even if we assume that it is slightly smaller, we can see that this changes the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity assumed by IPCC from 3.2°C to 3.2 – 1.3 – 1 = 0.9°C. A significant correction!

    Now to water vapor feedback. IPCC estimates this (along with lapse rate, which is a related negative feedback) to add a net warming of around 1.0°C to the 2xCO2 impact. This is based on the assumption that water vapor will increase with warming to maintain a constant relative humidity, as would theoretically be the case, following the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Actual physical observations have shown that this is not the case (report by Minschwaner and Dessler previously cited), but that the increase in water vapor is much less than that which would result from maintaining a constant relative humidity. While not as dramatic as the erroneous assumption on clouds, correcting for this erroneous model assumption would reduce the assumed 2xCO2 impact by another few tenths of a degree C, let’s say to around 0.8°C.

    So we have arrived at a corrected 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 0.8°C, rather than 3.2°C, as assumed by the climate models cited by IPCC.

    Now, to your question of how IPCC models clouds.

    I have read in several sources that the IPCC models are very primitive when it comes to modeling clouds. Ramanathan laments that the assumptions on cloud feedbacks with warming are all based on model assumptions rather than physical observations; IPCC itself concedes that clouds are the largest source of uncertainty.

    Clouds in total represent a very strong cooling influence on our climate. This tells me that since warming will cause greater amounts of water vapor in our atmosphere (which eventually all comes back out with precipitation) it is also reasonable to assume that there will be greater amounts of (cooling) water droplets in the form of clouds in our atmosphere. The open question was: will warming cause a greater increase in the high altitude ice crystal clouds, which reflect outgoing IR radiation and, therefore, cause a positive feedback (more warming)? Now that we have actual physical observations confirming that this is not the case and that the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative, we no longer need to speculate: clouds represent a strongly negative (cooling) net feedback with warming, as shown by Spencer et al.

    Hope this answers your questions.

    Max

  14. 54 degrees here today in late May, (that’s 12 degrees Celsius for you Fahrenheit challenged Europeans).

    Begrudgingly had to start the furnace here at the Brute palace (at Mrs. Brute’s insistence)……broke my heart……….had it mothballed for the summer.

    I’ve laid up the Brute wood stove for the season also, (ran out of shredded 4 ply automobile tires to burn).

    Al Gore must be in town.

  15. Max,

    You ask “Why is the impact of the “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming on our planet (around 5 to 7C up to 280 ppmv ~ 0.8C for 2xCO2) only one-fourth as important as that of the “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (3+C for an increase from 280 to 560 ppmv)?”

    I’m not quite sure how you get 0.8 deg C for a doubling of CO2 on the basis of your quoted 5-7 deg C warming. Maybe you can explain this? You are getting two things confused.

    Jasper Gee,

    On the question of clouds the IPCC has admitted some uncertainty. However its position that the overall feedback is strongly positive hasn’t been robustly refuted. There has been a letter, not a full paper, outlining some preliminary measurements but that’s as far as it goes at present

    I think Manacker has said that anthropogenic CO2 behaves just the same as natually occurring CO2. He’s right. Its all pretty much the same. There is a natural GHE. Even so, its possible that the earth could be heading back into an ice age if the concentration of CO2 was fixed at 280ppmv. It is reasonable to argue that a small increase over the natural level is a good thing. 330ppmv is enough to prevent a return to ice age conditions for the foreseable future. However the concentration is now 387ppmv and rising fast.

    It needs to be brought under control.

  16. Max,

    Thought experiments not ‘games’!

    I know you’ll scoff at all this but if you were prepared to think rather than just push a political line you might agree that the totally logarithmic equationship between CO2 cannot be correct at low concentrations.

    What can we say about the known levels of CO2 against temperature?

    1) If there were litle or no C02 in the atmosphere we’ve already agreed that temperatures would be about 5 deg or so less than with CO2= 280ppmv

    2) If CO2 levels were very high the temperature increase would saturate at some temperature T0 above the no CO2 level.

    A reasonable assumption would be that the adsorbtion of IR radiation in a tube of given length would be described by an exponential decay. Where that decay rate was proportional to the CO2 concentration.

    What actually does get aborbed is the difference between what goes in and what comes out. The temperature rise is proportional to the amount of the radiation absorbed.

    Therefore an equation to describe tempertaure rise without any mathematical absurdities would be

    Delta T = T0 (1- exp [CO2]/k)

    Where [CO2] is the concentration of CO2 in ppmv.

    When [CO2] = 0, Delta T =0 , just like you would expect. When [CO2] is very high the temperature rise saturates at T0. Again just like you’d expect it to.

    You can easily program this yourself and you can see that when CO2 levels are relatively high that the logarithmic relationship holds over most of the range but it should treated with some caution.

    Unfortunately there are two unknowns in this equation and to calculate what they are would require at least two data points. We have one data point of Delta T = 5 at 280ppmv. We could use whatever is the measured value at the current level of 387ppmv but we’d just get into the usual disputes about how much warming there has actually been and how much might be in the pipeline due to the current energy balance being out ouf equilibrium.

    However, we can look at your claim that a doubling of CO2 levels will lead to an increase in temperature of 0.8 degs. Can this equation fit that?

    Well, yes, it can if T0=6 degs. This would mean that CO2 levels are currently highly saturated in terms of IR absorbtion. We’d go from delta T=5 degC (at 280ppmv) to delta T=5.8 degC (at 560ppmv), and from then on, no matter how high CO2 levels became the temperature rise wouldn’t get more than another 0.2 degC worse. We could never have more than 1 degC of global warming.

    Of course that would be a good result if it were true. But, unfortunately there is no real evidence that CO2 is in anywhere near that level of saturation. From palentological climate evidence we can say that when CO2 levels have been very high the climate has been several, up to 10, degrees warmer than currently. This would put T0 at 15 degs.
    In other words, if CO2 levels ver extremely high, say 50,000 ppmv, global temperatures would 10 degs higher than now. I agree that there is quite a lot of uncertainty on what this will turn out to be.

    So what does this mean now in terms of a doubling of CO2 from 280 ppmv to 560ppmv?

    Would the figure of 3.3 deg C give you any cause for surprise?

  17. Hi Peter,

    I see (6416) that you are back with “thought games” again, rather than simply answering my fairly straightforward question.

    We have agreed that the logarithmic relation does not hold at very low CO2 concentrations (see the Motl reasoning on this, which I posted), but that it gives a fairly good indication at the levels within which our atmosphere finds itself today, has found itself within the past several thousand years or will find itself within the next several hundred years.

    This is the range of CO2 concentration of practical concern to us, not theoretical concentrations much lower than this (that never existed at any time in the past billion years of our planet’s history).

    Then you come up with ridiculously high levels of CO2, when you write:

    In other words, if CO2 levels were extremely high, say 50,000 ppmv, global temperatures would 10 degs higher than now. I agree that there is quite a lot of uncertainty on what this will turn out to be.

    Let’s check your statement.

    C1 = 385 ppmv
    C2 = 50,000 ppmv
    C2/C1 = 130
    ln(C2/C1) = 4.87

    ln(2) = 0.693
    dT (@2xCO2) = 0.8°C

    dT (from 385 to 50,000 ppmv CO2) = 4.87 * 0.8 / 0.693 = 5.6°C

    So your estimate of 10°C is a bit on the high side, Peter. But it is purely hypothetical in any case, since it is almost certain that our atmosphere will never be at 50,000 ppmv CO2 (a level that would even be toxic to many animals, including us humans).

    You then added:

    So what does this mean now in terms of a doubling of CO2 from 280 ppmv to 560ppmv?
    Would the figure of 3.3 deg C give you any cause for surprise?

    Yes, indeed, it would give me cause for great surprise, because it is not based on reality, but on the virtual world of computer models with unrealistic assumptions (in other words, GIGO).

    We have played the “thought games” long enough, Peter.

    In my next post I will give you a dose of REALITY.

    Regards,

    Max

  18. Hey Peter,

    Let’s forget hypothetical “thought games” or GIGO-suspect model outputs and look at some REAL numbers based on actual physical observations (the great nemesis to climate modeling).

    Temperature increased over the 20th century by 0.65°C (Hadley linear increase)

    CO2 level in 1901 was 290 ppmv (based on IPCC assumption)
    CO2 level in 2000 was 369 ppmv (Mauna Loa)

    Now we know from solar scientists that the solar activity of the 20th century was unusually high (highest in several thousand years), and that a portion of the observed 20th century warming can be attributed to this.

    Let us assume that the solar impact represented:

    CASE A: 50% of the total warming (as concluded by several solar experts).
    CASE B: 0% (sun had no impact on 20th century warming)

    Let us also assume that atmospheric CO2 concentration will increase to 560 ppmv by 2100 (primarily due to human CO2 emissions).

    What temperature increase can we expect to see from year 2000 to year 2100 as a result of this increase in CO2 (plus all feedbacks that will occur exactly as they did in the 20th century)?

    CASE A:

    0.65°C = 20th Century temperature increase
    0.325°C = increase attributed to sun
    0.325°C = increase attributed to CO2 rise (with all actual feedbacks)
    290 ppmv = CO2 in 1901 = C1
    369 ppmv = CO2 in 2000 = C2
    1.2724 = C2/C1
    0.2409 = ln(C2/C1)

    Assumed increase to year 2100
    369 ppmv = CO2 in 2000 = C1
    560 ppmv = CO2 in 2100 = C2
    1.5176 = C2/C1
    0.4171 = ln(C2/C1)

    dT = 0.325 * 0.4171 / 0.2409 = 0.56°C

    CASE B:

    0.65°C = 20th Century temperature increase
    0°C = increase attributed to sun
    0.65°C = increase attributed to CO2 rise (with all actual feedbacks)
    290 ppmv = CO2 in 1901 = C1
    369 ppmv = CO2 in 2000 = C2
    1.2724 = C2/C1
    0.2409 = ln(C2/C1)

    Assumed increase to year 2100
    369 ppmv = CO2 in 2000 = C1
    560 ppmv = CO2 in 2100 = C2
    1.5176 = C2/C1
    0.4171 = ln(C2/C1)

    dT = 0.65 * 0.4171 / 0.2409 = 1.13°C

    So even if you discount completely the impact of the sun over the 20th century, you only arrive at a 21st century temperature increase from increased CO2 (with all feedbacks) of 1.1°C, and if you accept the estimates of several solar experts, you arrive at a 21st century temperature increase from increased CO2 of 0.6°C.

    Yawn! We should levy taxes totaling hundreds of billions of dollars on every man, woman and child on this planet to “mitigate” against THAT?

    Peter, let me point out that these calculations are not based on purely theoretical “though games” or on questionable model assumptions that have no relation to actual physical observed data. They are based on REALITY: i.e. physically observed data from the 20th century, projected to the 21st century.

    Please tell me where you feel personally that these figures are incorrect, with the scientific reasoning supporting your premise and quantify the amount of error.

    Regards,

    Max

  19. Thank you Max and Peter for responding to my questions. I see there are some disagreements.

    tempterrain #6415 “On the question of clouds the IPCC has admitted some uncertainty”

    manacker #6413 “IPCC itself concedes that clouds are the largest source of uncertainty”

    tempterrain #6415 “its [the IPCC’s] position that the overall feedback is strongly positive hasn’t been robustly refuted”

    manacker #6413 “we have actual physical observations confirming that … the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative”

    Interesting.

    Regards to you both

    Jonathan

  20. Max,


    “We have agreed that the logarithmic relation does not hold at very low CO2 concentrations”

    Yes we have. Aren’t you guys always telling us that we have very low concentrations of CO2 anyway? Just four parts in 10,000? So you are saying that they don’t hold at current levels either?

    Its not just me saying that this logarithmic relationship, which is so precious to your heart, is just an approximation and valid within certain ranges but you don’t seem to have any appreciation of that.

    How accurate would you say it was at current levels? Be honest now. The true answer is that you’ve absolutely no idea. You’ve no idea why it should be logrithmic anyway. I’ve asked you to derive Arenhius’s law or explain in your own words why you think it should be logarithmic and you can’t. All you can do is copy and paste someone else’s answer. You’ve no appreciation for the science behind the equations. You’ve nothing at all of intelligence to say.

    You dismissed one reference becuase you couldn’t understand it. Your statement of “I accept that the logarithmic relation of the greenhouse theory… etc” is quite curious. Its not like buying and selling, when through a process of give and take, a bargain can be struck.

    What difference does it make what you will and won’t accept? What might make a bit of a difference would be if you were prepared to try to understand. There no point in claiming that the IPCC have it all wrong until you can see beyond the simple approximations which you’ve latched on to.

  21. Hi Peter,

    I don’t know if you are aware of it, but you are rambling and weaving.

    We have agreed (as Motl has well explained) that at very low concentrations, the logarithmic relation between CO2 concentration and CO2 greenhouse warming does not hold.

    By “very low concentrations” Motl is talking about concentrations measured in a few molecules, and he gives a very logical explanation for why the relation becomes logarithmic at higher concentrations, such as those we now have. He has hypothesized that the relationship could asymptotically approach a linear relation at these very low concentrations, but that the logarithmic relation gives a good indication of the relation at the concentrations within which our planet has found itself for several thousand years.

    The Yale forum site, which I also cited, gives essentially the same explanation for the logarithmic relation as Motl, i.e. partial saturation of the CO2 absorption spectrum, without getting into the “nitty gritty” of the “wings” of the spectral lines as Motl has done.

    Rather than harping ad nauseam on this one highly hypothetical sidetrack, I believe you have two challenging more practical questions to answer, which you have been avoiding so far:

    · Why should “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming occur at a much faster rate for each doubling of CO2 than “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming?

    · Why should 21st century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming occur at a much faster rate for a given predicted increase in CO2 than the observed 20th century warming for the observed increase in CO2?

    The “fatal flaw” in the premise that AGW is a serious threat is that it is based on assumptions fed into computer models, which are not supported by actual physical observations.

    Unless you can clearly provide scientific reasoning to answer the two above questions, your premise that AGW is a serious threat is unfounded.

    The ball is in your court, Peter.

    The time for hypothetical “thought games” is over.

    Regards,

    Max

  22. Max

    In my view Peter is very wise to suggest to Jasper Gee that he wants us to manipulate the co2 level from its previously ‘constant’ 280ppm up to 330ppm, as our records show we have had many very cold periods at this lower concentration.

    …Funnily enough we also had many hot ones as well throughout our recorded history, perhaps indicating co2 is not the powerful climate driver claimed, and there is no need for manipulation as it will find its natural state.

    The considerable fluctuations through our recorded instrumental history at a claimed 280 can be seen here.

    http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/mencken.xls

    Perhaps there is another explanation. You will know the next graph whereby the apparent peaks and troughs in our climate at a constant 280ppm appear to be better explained by factoring in the readings that Beck researched (orange dots),taken from 100,000’s of co2 measurements made at the time (1830 onwards) by competent scientists. These show a much more variable co2 concentration than is claimed and more closely match the temperature fluctuations.

    http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.xls

    So what causes this variable climate -is it CO2? The evidence appears to suggest not, as even at 280ppm we still got hugely fluctuating climate states in the past. At today’s 380 the temperature appears to be dropping again after failing to reach the levels recorded at times in our past at 280.

    Perhaps we ought to look at the oceans and other cyclical factors. By examining the HadCRUT3 global temperature anomalies (you know I don’t like global figures but needs must) we can see that there appear to be cycles of around 25/30 years which gives us

    1850-1875 +0.2 C…25 years of warming.
    1875-1908 ~-0.3 C…33 years of cooling.
    1908-1942 ~+0.5 C…34 years of warming.
    1942-1978 ~-0.2 C…36 years of cooling.
    1978-2005 ~+0.5 C…27 years of warming.

    1850 started from a very low base, being the end of the LIA and was the culmination of a considerable period of cooling, not shown here as the Hadcrut figures do not go back as far as the CET temperature graphs.

    (A record started from the 1700’s would reduce the amount of warming shown here)

    Since 2005 there has been a decline in temperatures once again, which is perhaps the start of the next cyclic period of cooling,or is perhaps not (I left my crystal ball on the train)

    The satellite data shows slightly more cooling since 2005 and slightly less warming than the surface data in the 30 years prior to 2005

    These 25/30-year cycles appear to occur in conjunction with the PDO and were described in Mr Don Easterbrook’s paper “Solar Influence on Recurring Global, Decadal, Climate Cycles Recorded by Glacial Fluctuations, Ice Cores, Sea Surface Temperatures, and Historic Measurements Over the Past Millennium”

    It is difficult to see how a constant co2 concentration of 280ppm can explain the considerable variations in temperature in our past. If it is a powerful driver the concentration would be expected to fluctuate much more in the past than it appears to.

    Either corect co2 levels were not being recorded in the past (as claimed by Beck) or co2 does not have the impact believed as a driver. Of course Becks theory incorporates both possibilities-co2 levels did fluctuate but they responded to temperature changes and did not cause them.

    It is surely likely that the temperature changes were primarily caused by the cyclical factors that drive our climate, many of which are discussed in the paper cited above.

    Tonyb

  23. Tony – belated thanks for your 6402.
    I particularly liked Richard Courtney’s comment:

    • failure to understand the difference between reality and virtual reality

    A key point, I think.

  24. JamesP

    The whole question of peer review of papers-or complete lack of it-and scrutiny of the IPCC- who seem to refuse to accept criticism-is an area that doesn’t receive enough scrutiny.

    The IPCC have become more akin to a political organisation that thinks it knows best rather than a genuine filter for scientifc papers who are seeking the truth.

    See this comment;

    “The IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001 showed that 8 of 11 climate factors
    were poorly understood but despite this it claimed that humans were responsible for
    rising temperatures.”

    Lots of other goodies in the next two links.

    http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/anthropogenic-global-waming-story-2-ipcc-and-peer-review/

    http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/mclean/mclean_IPCC_review_final_9-5-07.pdf

    Tonyb

  25. Hi TonyB,

    Thank you very much for your 6422.

    The observed multi-decadal cycles in our planet’s climate since the (admittedly inaccurate) global temperature records started in 1850, have always intrigued me.

    Just like Dr. Akasufo, I see that something must be at work here that we (current climate science) cannot yet fully explain.

    Don Easterbrook’s paper gives a rational explanation for these cycles, which shows a better correlation than atmospheric CO2 concentration, but still does not explain the mechanism in sufficient detail.

    It is just another piece of the puzzle.

    The problem I see today is that a majority of the “scientific community” which is involved with “climate science” has bought into the very lucrative AGW postulation, one that suggests that human CO2 is the principal driver of our planet’s climate.

    Scientists supporting this postulation are getting the research dollars today; those supporting an alternate view are not.

    It is politically “in” to support the premise that AGW is a serious threat. To question this premise is politically “out”.

    This has resulted in a myopic fixation on CO2 as THE most important driver of our climate, to the exclusion of any other factors.

    The premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat is based on a series of assumptions fed into climate models in order to arrive at the desired (virtual) solution.

    This is sold to the eager politicians (who can already taste the carbon tax or cap and trade taxpayer dollars) and to a gullible public, that believes whatever it is being told.

    The climate model assumptions have been successfully challenged based on actual physical observations (rather than simply assumed values) and have been robustly refuted (sign of cloud feedbacks, magnitude of water vapor feedbacks).

    Peter has a difficult time accepting the fact that the premise that AGW is a serious threat is not supported by the physical observations. He will not see this fact, simply because it challenges his firm belief and paradigm, which he so much wants to believe with all his heart.

    Yet this is the fatal flaw in the premise that AGW will become a serious threat.

    But we should still keep working on Peter.

    He might not see the light, but others, who are tuning in here may do so.

    Regards,

    Max

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