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. Third time’s a charm……..

    Temperature Anomoly

  2. tempterrain (Peter): at #6480, I noted your contention that IPCC 2007 cites research demonstrating unambiguously that the hypothesis that mankind’s continuing to add CO2 to the atmosphere will cause a dangerous increase in global temperature has been subjected to rigorous testing against empirical (physically observed) evidence (publicly available and replicable) and has survived such testing intact. I asked you to refer me to the reference or references. I’m for waiting your answer. Thanks.

    (A tip: a straight answer please. For example, I suggest that you don’t refer to authority again: at #6484, I demonstrated the inaccuracy of your claim that the UK Royal Society, The AAAS and the Australian CSIRO had cited the research I am seeking.)

  3. Max

    The question of albedo and cloud are inextricably linked in the overall calculation of how much sun reaches the earth, how much it varies and how variations in clouds will affect the contribution to the increase or decrease in energy in W/m2 terms

    The work by Palle et al 2005 (revised oct 2008) brings together the work of Wild et al in 2005 and numerous other studies to create a comprehensive paper that I am not sure you have referenced here before.

    http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2008_JGR.pdf

    Extract

    “Global compilations from ground-based radiometer data(Liepert, 2002), covering the period 1960-1990, suggest a substantial decrease in solar irra-diance reaching the ground. More recently, Wild et al (2005) have brought up-to-date the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA), which is a long-term series of ground-based mea-surements of the solar radiation incident upon the Earth’s surface.

    These data, together with newly available surface observations from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) from 1990 to present, show that the decline in solar radiation reaching land sur-faces seen in earlier data disappears in the 1990’s. Instead, a brightening is observed since the late 1980’s.”

    Part of Conclusion

    “This large, long-term variability in the shortwave surface radiation budget
    would seem to imply that the Earth’s albedo has also undergone substantial changes at
    decadal time scales.

    Further, we have demonstrated that the trend toward an increasing terrestrial albedo
    seen in the earthshine is due to evolving cloud properties, rather than sampling problems
    or issues arising from the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry.”

    This also makes reference to the paper I posted here earlier today. All in all a fascinating piece of work

    Tonyb

  4. Max,

    There is a saying that if you ask a silly questeion you get a silly answer. These are the real questions, the serious questions, that need answers:

    1) Why should “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 280 ppmv) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase that is several times lower than the “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming, which occurred up to 280 ppmv (around 7 deg C)?

    Hint: As Motl has showed the logarithmic nature of CO2 is just an approximation. You can think of the real curve as a mixture of a linear and a logarithmic region. Or as an a decreasing exponential. Both are equally valid. Motl’s equation is pretty good in its form at least. The constants in it need some refinining though.

    2) Why will 21st century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 369 ppmv in year 2000) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase that is several times lower than the observed long-term “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming from around 280 to 369 ppmv?

    3) Why do contrarians neglect the effects of positive feedback and latch on to the flimsiest of possible suggestions of a slight negative impact? Why do they, or some of them, accept the figure of 33 deg C for the natural GHE, but which would be much less if the feedbacks weren’t strongly positive? Why should the natural GHE have positive feedbacks but the enhanced GHE have negative or no feedbacks?

    4) Is there any reason why the above incorrect assumptions should not be corrected to conform with the actual physical observations (which would put the 2xCO2 impact back to around 3 deg C when time lags are taken into consideration)? If so, what is the justification?

    5) What gives those with very little or no scientific understanding the confidence, or the motivation, to claim that mainstream science has made a giant blunder with its warnings of GHG emissions? If the limit of any persons scientific ability is to work out the logarithm of 387/280, doesn’t it make much more sense to admit to a lack of qualification to express an informed opinion?

  5. Pete,

    Your pot (kettle) of water on the stove analogy………is Roy Spencer one of your incognito ghost writers?

    A Layman’s Explanation of Why Global Warming Predictions by Climate Models are Wrong

    http://www.climatechangefraud.com/behind-the-science/4171-a-laymans-explanation-of-why-global-warming-predictions-by-climate-models-are-wrong?start=1

  6. U.S. EPA is Ill-Equipped to Fight Global Warming

    April 28, 2009

    Now that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced intent to find that greenhouse gas emissions (primarily carbon dioxide) from human activities lead to the “endangerment of public health and welfare,” the question arises: What could EPA theoretically do about it? (I’ll leave the politics to others.) In other words, can a U.S.-side agency conceptually protect U.S. citizens from the endangerment of their health and welfare from the global issue of global warming?
    It turns out that they cannot do much of anything. EPA is simply saber-rattling to get Congress’s attention. If the agency was forced to actually draw their weapon in battle, they would be holding a rubber sword against a massive and growing global force. The bottom line: the EPA is brandishing only about 0.0033ºC/yr-worth of global temperature influence—and that is only if it managed to shut down all greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. economic activity and keep it that way. All the while, the warming pressure from the rest of the world steadily grows, shrinking the EPA’s already too-small-to-matter arsenal.
    This can be understood by simplifying the issue down to the Xs and Os—carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures.
    I’ll cast carbon dioxide emissions in terms of the global temperature change they produce based on a few reasonable (although short of perfect) assumptions and then explore via the back of the envelope the potential impact of any EPA regulations.
    Assumption 1: Based on both observations and climate model projections, it takes an increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) of about 115 parts per million (ppm) to raise the global average temperature about 1ºC. Certainly, there is a lot of quibble room here (like the CO2 effect is logarithmic rather than linear), but this number is not that far off for the current conditions.
    Assumption 2:Based upon observations, it takes about 15,500 million metric tons (mmt) of carbon dioxide emissions to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration 1 ppm. This is based on the observations that show that about half of the human CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere and that this percentage has stayed relatively constant since good atmospheric concentration measurements began in the late 1950s. The 15,500 number comes from dividing the total global annual CO2 emissions each year by the annual CO2 increase (data available from CDIAC if you want to see for yourself). Again you could nit-pick this (like whether or not global CO2 sinks will continue to grow), but this will work for the time being.
    These two assumptions lead to the generality that it takes about 15,500 mmtCO2/ppm times 115 ppm/ºC which equals 1,782,500 mmt of CO2 emissions to produce a global temperature rise of 1ºC.
    This is a handy number to have. Every time you see someone touting some action that will lower CO2 emissions (and thus “save the planet” from global warming), you can take their emissions savings (in mmtCO2), divide it by the number above (1,782,500 mmtCO2/ºC) and see just how much of the planet they are saving.
    Here I’ll use it to look at what kind of temperature rise is being produced by U.S. emissions and what kind of temperature rise is being produced by the rest of the world (over which the U.S. EPA has no regulatory authority).
    In 2006, U.S. CO2 emissions were 5,903 mmtCO2, and the emissions from the rest of the world totaled 23,292 mmtCO2. So that means, roughly speaking, that with its 20% (and falling) world share, U.S. emissions in 2006 caused about 0.0033ºC (5903÷1,782,500) of global warming while emissions from the rest of the world caused about 0.0131ºC (23,292÷1,782,500). Now, the astute among you may point out that the global temperature didn’t increase by 0.0164ºC from 2005 to 2006—but realize that my analysis is aimed at a general characterization of the influence of CO2 emissions from human activities, and does not include other influences on the earth’s temperature, which, as we have seen over the past decade or so are quite large as they have acted to offset all the warming from CO2 emissions during that time.
    Figure 1 shows the results from not just 2006 but for the past 10 years (more specifically 1997-2006 since this is the most recent data available from the Energy Information Administration) from the U.S. and from the rest of the world.

    xxxxxxxxxxx

    Figure 1. Influence on global temperature from U.S. CO2 emissions (blue) and emissions from the rest of the world (maroon). The overall height of each bar represents the total influence from CO2 emissions on global temperatures (emissions data from the EIA).
    Notice a few things. The amount of global warming each year that the U.S. is responsible for averages about 0.0033ºC per year—an amount that has changed little during this 10-yr period. And, at the same time, the amount of global warming contributed by emissions from the rest of the world has increased from about 0.010ºC/yr in the late 1990s to about 0.013ºC/yr during the past couple of years. This means that the percentage of the total warming that the U.S. is responsible for has been declining—which of course, means that the EPA’s ability to mitigate global warming by reigning in U.S. CO2 emissions is waning. In other words, as total emissions from the rest of the world grow at a pace that far exceeds that of the U.S. emissions, the EPA’s ability to protect Americans from the endangerment of their health and welfare diminishes.
    Let’s look at it another way. This time, supposing that the EPA had made its endangerment finding in 1997 and issued regulations that (miraculously) eliminated all U.S. CO2 emissions within the proceeding 10 years (i.e. from 1997 to 2006), the chart in Figure 1 would look like this (Figure 2).

    xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Figure 2. Influence on global temperature from U.S. CO2 emissions (blue) and emissions from the rest of the world (maroon) assuming that the EPA instituted regulations in 1997 that reduced the U.S. CO2 emissions to zero by 2006. The overall height of each bar represents the total influence from CO2 emissions on global temperatures.
    The net result of this monumental achievement would have been that the EPA would have managed to hold the rate of global warming (total height of the bars) relatively steady during this period—this is not the actual global temperature, mind you, but just how fast it was warming from one year to the next. And most significantly, in doing so, it would have used up all of its chits! Having eliminated all U.S. emissions (whose reductions were being used to offset emissions increases from elsewhere around the world), total global emissions will once again continue their rise and so too will the rate of global temperature increase. And the EPA will be played out.
    The only lasting feather in EPA’s cap would be that it managed to eliminate 0.0033ºC of warming each year if it were successful at completely eliminating all U.S. CO2 emissions, forever. It would be mighty interesting to see a quantification of the endangerment that it avoided by doing so. My bet is that it would be embarrassingly small. And the effort to do so would be embarrassingly large.
    It is hard to imagine that the EPA couldn’t serve us in far better ways.

  7. James P comments “I’m beginning to wonder…. if the (natural) greenhouse effect even exists!”

    Yes it exists. Temperature decreases with altitude. Or, to put it another way the natural GHE makes the surface of the earth warmer than it would otherwise be by about 33degC. That’s the natural GH effect for you! If you don’t believe me take a walk in the mountains. The higher you go the colder it gets. Everyone knows that but only those with a certain level of scientific curiosity bother to ask why.

    Check it out on your friends. Ask them the question. Sure they’ll know it gets colder but most people will be at a complete loss when asked why. Now you know. If you didn’t before, and you are older than about 15, its probably because you’ve no real scientific curiosity or interest in science and you should leave any discussion about AGW to those who have.

  8. JamesP

    Waidaminnit!

    Don’t let Peter feed you anymore pseudo-scientific voodoo.

    The REAL reason it gets colder when you go up a mountain (as any Swiss schoolchild over 10 years old has learned) can be gleaned from the attached:
    http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1998-10/904360107.Ph.r.html

    This relationship (the Ideal Gas Law) was figured out, thanks to Boyle, Charles and Clapeyron, many years before Arrhenius came up with his greenhouse theory, and has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.

    For the history on this check:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_state#Boyle.27s_law_.281662.29

    Max

  9. Hi Peter,

    You probably think that you have answered my 3 questions with your latest waffle (6529). In fact, you have not.

    I will address them one at a time.

    1) Why should “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 280 ppmv) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase that is several times lower than the “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming, which occurred up to 280 ppmv (around 7 deg C)?
    Hint: As Motl has showed the logarithmic nature of CO2 is just an approximation. You can think of the real curve as a mixture of a linear and a logarithmic region. Or as an a decreasing exponential. Both are equally valid. Motl’s equation is pretty good in its form at least. The constants in it need some refinining though.

    This is no answer, Peter. Motl’s equation tells us that the 2xCO2 warming from theoretical level of 140 ppmv to 280 ppmv was theoretically 1.5°C and that the next 2xCO2 warming from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv will be 1.1°C (of which we have already seen 0.6°C at 385 ppmv). My question remains unanswered: why should the 2xCO2 warming from 280 to 360 ppmv be 3 times as high at 3.2°C?

    Peter, NONE of the proposed formulas we have discussed come anywhere close to a 2xCO2 impact of 3.2°C (the average of all seven is 0.9°C).

    Please answer my question as stated above (not with an irrelevant “hint”, but with a specific answer).

    Will come back to the other questions and non-answers later.

    Regards,

    Max

  10. Peter Martin, Reur 6514, I’ve decided to break my earlier intentions, and take brief intercourse with you because; shock & horror, I actually agree with you just this once!
    In response to my comment to ALL, you wrote in full:

    “Peter Fartin” Oh my goodness me is this the best you [Bob_FJ] can manage? It’s like being back at school again.

    You are quite right! Despite that I spent some time trying to find a cunning response to your astonishingly funny and clever address to me; “Boob_FJ“, I could only come up with Fartin. (I resisted the temptation to add an end ‘g‘)

    My effort was simply no match for your exquisite insult to me, and I apologise for even trying.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    BTW, as demonstrated herewith, you may have noticed that us rationalists are not afraid to admit error.
    You might earn more respect if you would also admit and apologise when you have been naughty. However, what with your head-shaking history of repetitively waffling and ignoring inconvenient questions, you have only earned negative credit! This has clearly become a Peter Martin mountain of denial and IGNORANCE of science! (For example, see Max’s 6533)

  11. Max,

    I’m surprised at you. I thought you would have picked up some science during our discussions. I’ll have to dig out the dunce’s cap again.

    Sorry but you’re explanation is all wrong!

    You might have done worse than taken a look at Roy Spencer’s website:

    “You can think of greenhouse gases as sort of a “blanket” for infrared radiation– it keeps the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer, and the upper layers colder, than if the greenhouse gases were not there.”

    Have you never heard of the “tropospheric lapse rate?”

    http://stason.org/TULARC/science-engineering/climate-change/4-Tropospheric-lapse-rate.html

    “At any given location, the temperature profile of the air column varies
    between day and night, from winter to summer. At times and places the
    air may get warmer higher up (an inversion). Globally averaged, the
    troposphere, the lower about 10 to 15 km of our atmosphere, gets cooler
    with height. A typical value cited is 6.5 o C cooling / km of altitude.
    This is the so-called global mean tropospheric lapse rate.”

    To see why, recall that infrared emitted from the surface rarely reaches space directly: greenhouse gases and clouds absorb most of it.

    So Mt Blanc, being some 4800 m high, would have a summit temperature typically 31.2 deg C below the temperature at sea level? Sound about right?

    Really. If you haven’t got an understanding of something so basic, what is the value of your opinion on AGW?

  12. If you didn’t before, and you are older than about 15, its probably because you’ve no real scientific curiosity or interest in science and you should leave any discussion about AGW to those who have.

    Yes I am a grown-up (and an engineer) and I seem to recall that I was the one expressing curiosity about the GE. Although I know about the gas laws and adiabatic expansion, I figured that the main reason it was cooler higher up was that there was less atmospheric ‘blanket’ acting as an insulator. Why wouldn’t it?

  13. Hi Peter,

    Better keep that dunce cap for yourself.

    And take the fur-lined one with earmuffs (I designed for you several months ago) when you climb up the mountain.

    In the “science for dummies” section they stay away from complicated concepts, such as “adiabatic expansion/compression” (or the ideal gas law) and explain it as follows:

    Heat rises, but also disperses. Molecules of air in upper climes are more spread out. In other words, the density of air is becomes increasingly lower with height, so these molecules do not transfer heat energy so frequently (thus not as effectively). In the upper atmosphere, molecules rarely meet another molecule because of such a low density measure.

    It is colder higher up because the sun’s rays heat the earth (light converting to heat) and the warmth is felt from the ground, so heat does not reach higher altitudes with as much energy, due to less molecular interaction.

    Go back to 8th school-year science, Peter and forget the greenhouse theory as an explanation for colder temperatures at higher altitudes. That is pure “hogwash”.

    Regards,

    Max

  14. Hi Peter,

    You asked about the tropospheric lapse rate.

    The troposheric lapse rate is simply the name given to the phenomenon that temperatures get lower at higher altitudes (with thinner atmospheres).

    Max

  15. Here’s an interesting article: Droppings put penguins on the map
    It’s about how the difficulty in tracking Emperor penguins is helped by locating the stains left by their droppings. Why is this important? Well (surprise) it’s about climate change (and: can I have my research grant now please?). Peter Fretwell, a geographer at the British Antarctic Survey, is quoted as saying that they need to know where they are “before we can really work out how threatened they are by climate change.” He comments:

    We know that emperor penguins rely on sea ice to breed – like the polar bears in the Arctic depend on sea ice for their hunting. Although the sea ice at the moment is reasonably stable, we know that in future decades it will decrease rapidly.

    Hmm – I wonder how he knows that?

  16. Hi Peter,

    Back to your non-answers of my 3 basic questions.

    Have covered question #1 in earlier post. Here’s #2:

    2) Why will 21st century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 369 ppmv in year 2000) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase that is several times lower than the observed long-term “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming from around 280 to 369 ppmv?

    You did not answer this question, except to reply with another question:

    Is there any reason why the above incorrect assumptions should not be corrected to conform with the actual physical observations (which would put the 2xCO2 impact back to around 3 deg C when time lags are taken into consideration)? If so, what is the justification?

    Sorry, Peter. The 0.65°C total linear temperature rise since 1850 is a recorded FACT. There is no “incorrect assumption”.

    The estimated 30% to 50% of the warming attributed to increased solar activity is the estimate of several solar scientists (not an “incorrect assumption”, unless you can disprove these studies scientifically, and by “scientifically” I do not mean with phony calculations of a partial effect, as you tried earlier).

    The fact that this leaves 0.3° to 0.4°C for all other factors is straight arithmetic (not an “incorrect assumption”).

    The calculation that this translates into a 2xCO2 impact of 0.8° to 1.0°C is also straightforward and not an “incorrect assumption”).

    Your “time lags” are an “assumption”.

    To claim that these will triple the long-term effect measured over more than 100 years is a “wild assumption”. Until you can quantify this “wild assumption” with more than just a few happy words, it can be considered to be an “unsubstantiated wild assumption”, which can be equated with an “incorrect assumption”.

    Bring some quantifiable evidence for your 3x exaggeration of the observed impact over an entire century due to this magic “delay”, or it is simply an unsubstantiated and therefore “incorrect assumption”.

    Your next non-answer to my question #3 was also a question:

    Why do contrarians neglect the effects of positive feedback and latch on to the flimsiest of possible suggestions of a slight negative impact?

    If you consider the study by Spencer et al. on cloud feedbacks “the flimsiest of possible suggestions of a slight negative impact”, it is obvious you have not read it. Read it again, thoroughly.

    The study covers the tropical region from 20°N to 20°S (roughly one-third of Earth’s surface). It shows, based on actual physical observations (rather than simply model input assumptions) that the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative (by at least as much as it has incorrectly assumed to be strongly positive by all the climate models cited by IPCC). Spencer has cited a negative feedback of -6.1 W/M^2°K over the region measured (compare this to the IPCC model assumption of +0.69 W/m^2°K). This is strong evidence, Peter, not “the flimsiest of possible suggestions of a slight negative impact”, as you have described it.

    You then ask another question:

    Why do they [the” contrarians”], or some of them, accept the figure of 33 deg C for the natural GHE, but which would be much less if the feedbacks weren’t strongly positive? Why should the natural GHE have positive feedbacks but the enhanced GHE have negative or no feedbacks?

    Who says that the impact of natural water (vapor, liquid droplets or ice crystals) is a “feedback”? These are natural forcing factors.

    Clouds alone are estimated to provide a warming forcing (trapping outgoing IR) of +30 W/m^2 and a cooling forcing (reflecting incoming solar radiation) of –48 W/m^2, for a net negative forcing of –18 W/m^2

    Water vapor is the most significant natural greenhouse gas, as no one denies. This has nothing to do with being a positive feedback to warming caused by CO2.

    So your question, “Why should the natural GHE have positive feedbacks but the enhanced GHE have negative or no feedbacks?” is silly. There is no evidence that “the natural GHE has positive feedbacks”; it simply is what it is: mostly caused by natural water vapor, some net negative forcing from clouds and a bit caused by trace GHGs, of which CO2 is the most important.

    Then you cap your non-answers off with another series of questions, which were apparently intended to insult me rather than ask a serious question:

    What gives those with very little or no scientific understanding the confidence, or the motivation, to claim that mainstream science has made a giant blunder with its warnings of GHG emissions? If the limit of any persons scientific ability is to work out the logarithm of 387/280, doesn’t it make much more sense to admit to a lack of qualification to express an informed opinion?

    Peter, as evidenced by our lengthy exchange here, there is no question that I have every bit as much “scientific understanding” as you do. You flatter yourself to think otherwise.

    I have told you my “motivation”, but will repeat it: to cut through the agenda-driven crap and “warnings” put out by IPCC and those whom you refer to as “mainstream science”.

    Is the limit of YOUR “scientific ability to work out the logarithm of 387/280”? It certainly isn’t MINE.

    Anyone with a scientific or technical education and background can have an informed opinion on the IPCC SPM 2007 and AR4 reports, simply by reading through them and gathering outside information that either confirms or refutes the claims made by IPCC.

    Someone lacking the technical or scientific background can also look for discrepancies and inconsistencies in the statements made and, therefore, can also have an informed opinion.

    I started out believing that AGW was a real problem, because that is what I was being told. But the more I saw exaggerated disaster projections, the more skeptical I became.

    Then I began to realize that we were dealing with a politically driven process that was being supported by immense quantities of tax-payer funding to justify a much larger tax and power grab by politicians plus big profits for private individuals, supported by a disaster-hungry media and a science still in its infancy, relying on GIGO computer model predictions of disaster, climatologists vying for research funding from the public trough and some doomsday cultists, who have a quasi-religious faith (cloaked in pseudoscience) that AGW is a serious threat and are unwilling to accept any scientific evidence that rattles the foundation of their belief.

    Your inability (or unwillingness) to answer 3 basic questions has proven my skepticism to be right.

    Answer them if you can, but I really no longer expect you to do so. Your past track record speaks for itself, Peter.

    Regards,

    Max

  17. Max,

    “The tropospheric lapse rate is simply the name given to the phenomenon that temperatures get lower at higher altitudes…”

    But because of “thinner atmospheres”? No. That’s just incidental.

    Look at it this way. The earth has a black body radiation temperature of 255 degC. That’s the temperature necessary for the earth to maintain thermal equilibrium. Heat coming in from the sun equals heat being radiated out. If the effective temperature of the earth was being measured from, say , Mars this is what would be observed. This is also the temperature of the atmosphere at about 5 km high. So, from outer space, this would look like the effective earth surface.

    The difference between the average surface temperature of 288 degC and the BB radiation temperature of 255 is 33 degC and is known as the natural GH effect. That works out at 6.6 degC for every 1000 metres (3000 feet)

    And this is what we notice when we climb mountains.

    Incidentally, if the GH effect increases the energy leaving the earth will still equal the energy being received from the sun. It’s a bit like putting on another item of clothing, the energy balance is still the same but you feel warmer. So instead of the effective surface being represented by 5000 metres it will then be 5500 metres if temperatures rise by 3.3 degs.

    It all makes sense. Its not hogwash. Its not Voodoo.

    You should pay a bit more attention to people like Roy Spencer. ( That’s not a phrase I would generally recommend!) but in this case, it looks likes he’s been embarrassed by the scientific illiteracy shown by some of his fellow climate change deniers and he’s decided to try to at least teach them the basics:

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-the-greenhouse-effect/

    I like the phrase “And it’s amazing how many scientists, let alone lay people, dispute its {the natural GH effect -PM} existence.”

    Yes. Well said Roy. And if there’s a natural GH effect is it really so so hard to dispute the enhanced GH effect too?

  18. Correction for Peter.

    My question #2 was:

    2) Why will 21st century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 369 ppmv in year 2000) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase that is several times higher (not lower) than the observed long-term “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming from around 280 to 369 ppmv?

  19. Robin (re Penguins)

    “Although the sea ice at the
    moment is reasonably stable, we know that in future decades it will decrease
    rapidly.”

    Being interpreted: “Although the grant situation is reasonably stable, we know that in future decades it will decrease, unless the sea ice begins to melt rapidly.”

  20. Hi Peter,

    Reur 6452, Spencer tells us that the greenhouse effect is real, which I do not doubt.

    But the explanation for WHY we see lower air temperatures at higher altitudes is not because of greenhouse warming. It is because of an atmosphere that is thinning the further we move from the surface and the fact that the atmosphere is being heated by IR energy reflected from the surface rather than directly by the sun.

    This would be the cased if our atmosphere were composed only of nitrogen and oxygen, with no water vapor or other GHGs. Below is the explanation:
    http://www.helium.com/items/681795-why-does-air-temperature-decrease-with-increasing-altitude

    Most people are familiar with the fact that generally speaking, air temperature tends to decrease with increasing elevation. When a trip to the mountains is planned, many people will bring along some extra warm clothing just in case the temperature is too cold. But what accounts for this temperature drop? Asked to give specifics, the majority of people would be left speechless.

    But in reality, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon are really easy to grasp.

    In order to put things into proper perspective, you must visualize the air around you as being made up of billions and billions of tiny air molecules. These air molecules are, of course, invisible to the naked eye, but they are everywhere! Now, a second piece to add to the puzzle is gravity. The gravitational pull of the earth is strongest near the earth’s surface. So, all of those billions and billions of air molecules that are floating around you are being held close to the ground by gravity. Now, here is where it gets a little more advanced. The heat that you feel in the air on any given day – the air temperature – is the result of “indirect” sunlight. The sun rises in the sky and the sun’s rays beat down on the earth. However, the air is not heated directly from the sun’s rays; instead, the sun’s rays heat the earth, and the earth heats the air! This process is what’s known as “radiational heating,” the heat radiates from the earth’s surface to the air.

    So, you know that the air around you is heated from the ground up. Since gravity is keeping the majority of the atmosphere close to the ground by way of its gravitational pull, the majority of air molecules are going to be closer to the ground. Each air molecule has the ability to retain heat; the more air molecules you have in a given measurement of air, the greater the ability to store heat. So, as you move further and further up into the atmosphere, you reach areas of the atmosphere that have fewer and fewer air molecules – the air is less-dense – because gravity is keeping the majority of air molecules closer to the ground. So, at higher altitudes, the air is less able to store heat. In a nutshell, that is the whole process. It all boils down to the following: gravity, density of the air, and the radiational heating of the air indirectly from the sun!

    I am not going to carry this discussion any further. If you can show me why an atmosphere with no greenhouse gases would not cool at higher altitudes, please try to do so.

    Regards,

    Max

  21. Hi Peter,

    Explain whether or not an Earth with an atmosphere of only nitrogen and oxygen (but no water vapor, CO2 or other GHGs) would show a cooling of the atmosphere with increased altitude.

    Looking forward to a straight reply.

    Regards,

    Max

  22. Max,

    This extract from your quotation: “However, the air is not heated directly from the sun’s rays; instead, the sun’s rays heat the earth, and the earth heats the air! This process is what’s known as ‘radiational heating,’ the heat radiates from the earth’s surface to the air.”

    is essentially just a description of the natural GH effect.

    You ask what would happen if the earth’s atmosphere was transparent to the IR radiation being emitted from the earth’s surface in exactly the same way that it was transparent to the radiation coming in from the sun. No clouds. No GH gases.

    The earth’s temperature would be about 33 degC lower. I guess we can agree on that. Also there would have to be some transfer of heat from the surface to the atmosphere by the processes of convection and conduction. But once it had reached equilibrium there would be no reason for there to be any heat gradient from the lower to the upper reaches of the atmosphere. You only get a heat gradient when heat is flowing. And if there was no radiation from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, which there wouldn’t be if it was totally transparent in both directions, there wouldn’t be anywhere for the heat to go.

    The temperature on top of Mount Everest would be no different to anywhere else at the same latitude.

  23. Max/Peter

    Lindzen has just published a new paper directly related to your discussion.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/02/lindzens-climate-sensitivty-talk-iccc-june-2-2009/

    Max, would be interested in your comments on the cloud variability paper from palle 6528.
    To me this-together with ocean currents- are major factors driving the climate.

    Tonyb

  24. Hi Peter,

    To help you brush up on your science, here is a source that explains that the atmosphere would cool off by the same amount with elevation WITH or WITHOUT a greenhouse effect.
    http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange1/02_1.shtml
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/3588554647_e8de54f44b_b.jpg

    The absolute temperatures are warmer with a greenhouse effect, of course (as no one denies and Spencer also stated), but the cooling of the atmosphere at higher elevations happens with or without GHGs for the reasons stated earlier..

    Regards,

    Max

  25. Hi Peter,

    You opined that with an atmosphere containing no GHGs:

    The temperature on top of Mount Everest would be no different to anywhere else at the same latitude.

    Sorry, Peter. This is flat out wrong. Just look at the reference I cited that crossed your message.

    The cooling at higher elevation would occur with or without GHGs in the atmosphere, only the absolute temperatures would be different, as shown on the picture.

    A picture is always worth 1,000 words, Peter.

    Regards,

    Max

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