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.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Warmists overwhelmed by fear, panic and deranged hatred as their ‘science’ collapses
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100028525/warmists-overwhelmed-by-fear-panic-and-deranged-hatred-as-their-science-collapses/
Max,
You are probably right that the current warming from the current level of CO2 is not dangerous. I would say it is cause for concern.
However, you do seem to be under the misaprehension that if this level didn’t change into the future, neither would the temperature. Unfortunately this isn’t correct and there is a timely posting on the RC website to explain why this is the case.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/climate-change-commitments/
Met Office ends season forecasts – no more “BBQ summers”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8551416.stm
Your first sentence (9827) baffled me:
If it is “not dangerous”, why would it be “cause for concern”? Please explain.
Then you wrote:
RC is not a very good source of unbiased scientific information on climate change, as the moderators clearly ”have a horse in the race”, but I will comment on the RC blurb you cited.
The article you cited has several theoretical projections of future climate based on different assumptions.
The “climate change commitment” concept is based on two premises, the first of which is unrealistic and the second is purely hypothetical and refuted by recent empirical data:
1. that human CO2 emissions will be immediately reduced to zero (i.e. we voluntarily return to the Stone Age)
2. that there is “hidden warming in the pipeline”, which would cause an added 0.3 to 0.8°C warming even if atmospheric CO2 remained constant.
The valid (but purely hypothetical) point is also made that if human CO2 emissions were immediately reduced to zero, the atmospheric CO2 concentration would begin to reduce, since CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by the upper ocean, by photosynthesis on land and in the ocean, by exchange between the upper and lower ocean and by diffusion into space.
There are studies that estimate the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere to be between 5 and 10 years, so this point seems to be valid.
But the key problem with the RC article is two-fold:
1. it accepts the physically unsubstantiated “hidden in the pipeline” postulation as correct, despite the fact that this postulation has been refuted by the cooling of both the atmosphere (after 2000) and the upper ocean (since 2003)
2. it ignores any natural climate forcings, which have been cited as the reason for the current cooling, despite all-time record CO2 concentrations
The RC blurb concludes with:
Let’s analyze this sentence in detail.
“We are clearly not going to get to zero emissions any time soon, and even the 60-70% cuts required to stabilise concentrations initially seem a long way off.” TRUE
“it doesn’t really matter whether the inertia is climatic or societal or technological or economic because the globe will continue to warm under all realistic scenarios.” CONJECTURAL (depends on how “realistic” the “scenarios” really are and whether or not natural forcing can be predicted)
“what we do have a possible control over is the magnitude of that warming” HIGHLY UNLIKELY, even with the disclaimer “possible”, since we have no control over natural forcing.
“Thus further adaptation measures will still be needed.” TRUE. We have been “adapting” to climate changes ever since we first appeared on Earth, so this will be nothing new.
So to get back to your first sentence: I have NOT assumed that if the CO2 level remained constant, so would the temperature, as you wrote. All you have to do to see that this is not the case is to look at the past temperature fluctuations that preceded any substantial human CO2 emissions. They had nothing to do with CO2, as the most recent ones probably also did not (at least not to any significant extent).
Max
Max,
What you have assumed, incorrectly, is that all other factors being equal temperature would remain constant with constant CO2 levels in your #9818 . You’re attempting to ridicule the desirability of setting a target for CO2 levels by introducing the notion of a ‘Goldilocks’ temperature.
The concept of climate inertia shouldn’t be too hard for you to grasp. Essentially what the RC article is saying: is that as CO2 levels increase the effects aren’t felt instantaneously but rather the system is thrown out of equilibrium. A new equilibrium is eventually reached over a number of years for a particular CO2 concentration.
This is also, partly, the answer to your question of why we should be concerned about a warming of 0.7 to 0.8 deg C, even though it is less than what might be considered a dangerous figure. The slowness of the climatic response means that the final figure will be higher even if CO2 levels stabilise tomorrow, which of course they will not.
PeterM
Your conclusion (9830) is wrong:
All other things are never equal, Peter, as we are now seeing (since 2000) and as we have seen several times with cyclical warming and cooling trends of around 30 years each. Gradually and steadily increasing CO2 is apparently playing a much smaller role in our planet’s climate than other cyclical natural factors.
Peter, if you cannot even say what the desired “just right Goldilocks” optimum globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature should be, how can you determine what the “just right Goldilocks” optimum atmospheric CO2 concentration should be?
Obviously, you can’t.
You then add:
Don’t rely on RC blurbs, Peter, as I have warned you before. They are notoriously biased.
Here is the problem, Peter. The “hidden in the pipeline” postulation has been refuted by the physically observed facts.
Since 2000 the level of atmospheric CO2 has risen sharply, which should have resulted in global warming.
Yet the atmosphere at both the surface and in the troposphere has cooled after 2000.
The upper ocean has cooled since 2003 when Argo measurements started bringing reliable data.
The latent heat of fusion of all the ice that has melted since 2000 is peanuts in the overall picture.
The theoretical latent heat of vaporization of all of the postulated increase in atmospheric humidity is also peanuts.
So where is all this “hidden heat” that is waiting somewhere to fry us later when “equilibrium” is reached?
It has to be somewhere or it is not real.
Since it cannot be found anywhere it is obviously not real and the “hidden in the pipeline” postulation has been refuted by the physically observed facts.
Once we have laid that postulation to rest we can see that CO2 has only had a minor impact (if any at all) on past temperatures and is therefore no threat for the future.
With this knowledge we can now safely conclude that there is no “desirability of setting a target for CO2 levels”.
Max
Max,
You’ve made quite a few unsubstantiated claims, such as that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a short time. Can you provide a credible reference for this?
You like to refer to refer to “pipelines”. This is just an English figure of speech. Of course we know that there isn’t a pipeline! After a cold winter the lakes and rivers will often freeze in your part of the world. Spring arrives with warmer temperatures but does the thick ice instantly melt? No, it doesn’t. You could say that the warming is in the pipeline but a better description is to talk about thermal inertia.
In autumn, or early winter, it might be the other way around. Temperatures might plummet but ice will not instantly form. It does take a while. There is a delay.
There is a delay between world average temperature and CO2 levels too. Instead of trying to equate the instantaneous values it would be more valid to equate temperatures now with what CO2 levels were 25 years ago.
Its not difficult; schoolchildren of 7 or 8 can follow this I’m sure. So can you, but instead you make up silly stories about heat lurking and waiting to ambush us when our backs are turned!
Your obtuseness on the question is just another example of why its a waste of time trying to discuss the science behind AGW. As I’ve just said on the ‘Election Fever’ blog, AGW just does not fit in with political concepts of minimum government and the elevation of absolute individual rights above all else.
PeterM
You asked about CO2 residence time in atmosphere. My claims are not at all “unsubstantiated” as you have erroneously assumed.
Check “Carbon cycle modeling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2” by Tom V. Segalstad (1998)
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
Segalstad lists 36 published values using 6 different analytical methods
· Natural C14
· Suess effect
· Bomb C14
· Radon 222
· Solubility data
· C13/C12 mass balance
The range of values is 1 to 15 years, with the average at 7.6 years.
For a more recent (2008) paper see “Atmospheric Residence Time of Man-made CO2” by Robert Essenhigh
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/08/atmospheric-residence-time-of-man-made-co2/
This paper comes to the conclusion:
I’ll get to your other points in a separate post, but thought I would straighten you out on this point first.
Max
PeterM
After going through your 9832 in more detail, I see there is really nothing substantive to respond to.
The political ramblings have nothing to do with our discussion, so will be ignored.
The “pipeline” postulation (no matter what you call it) suggests that the added LW energy absorbed and re-radiated by added atmospheric CO2 is stored somewhere in our planet’s climate system to be released at a later date to result in additional warming of the atmosphere.
Up until 2003 this was postulated to be in the upper ocean, based on very spotty temperature measurements, which showed a warming trend.
Since 2003 more reliable Argo measurements indicate that the ocean is actually cooling, so the added energy cannot be “hiding” there.
I also pointed out that it cannot be “hiding” in latent heat, since the values are much too small.
It is also not evident in the atmosphere (neither at the surface nor in the troposphere, both of which have cooled after 2000), so it is “nowhere to be found” and therefore not real.
The “hidden in the pipeline” postulation was “created” by the use of circular logic, which I will be glad to go into if you like (although I seem to remember that we have gone through all this once before).
Forget it, Peter, it’s an illusion, which has been refuted by the observed facts.
Max
FERC’s Chairman Jon Wellinghoff on Baseload Capacity and Distributed/Centralized Generation
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2009/04/fercs-chairman-jon-wellinghoff-on.html
http://www.nerc.com/files/IVGTF_Report_041609.pdf
Max,
Do you know where, or if, your quoted article was published or peer reviewed?
The mainstream scientific position is that CO2 hangs around for 100’s of years:
http://geosci-webdev.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf
Note that this is a proper scientific reference!
Circular “logic” is the use of the conclusion in justifying the premise! I would have to agree -it is probably something at which you guys are quite expert. You do it all the time!
PeterM
You asked about the CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere.
The Segalstad study summarized 36 separate studies, using 6 different methods of analysis. They are all listed.
Check them out if you want to.
Note that the studies calculated how long the CO2 stayed in the atmosphere (average 7.6 years).
I don’t know what your so-called “mainstream scientific opinion” of “100’s of years” is based on. Do you have any studies to cite, or is this just “opinion”?
Max
PeterM
I have just gone through the Archer study you cited, which comes up with a higher CO2 residence time.
So it looks like “science” is not in agreement on this matter, i.e. we have 36 studies using 6 different methods of analysis, which tell us the RT is under 10 years (on average), and another study that says it is over 100 years.
Shall we average them all to get a “consensus” figure?
Max
PeterM
You opined:
You got that right, Peter!
And that is exactly what James E. Hansen used to come up with his net energy imbalance of 0.85 W/m2, which forms the basis for his “hidden in the pipeline” postulation, which then provides confirmation for the higher than physically observed climate sensitivity.
It’s beautiful!
The only problem is that it has been refuted by the physically observed facts, as I pointed out.
Drat! Another beautiful hypothesis kicked in the head by the observed facts! How discouraging! Hypothesizing just ain’t what it used to be…
Max
Brute (9828)
Interesting that the MO states: the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days
What they mean is that they don’t have the expertise. Piers Corbyn, with the aid of a telescope and a desktop computer, managed to forecast the cold spell in early January to within a day, nearly 6 months in advance, no doubt while sheltering from our ‘barbecue summer’.
Curiously enough, the MO disregards his forecasts on the basis that he won’t tell them how he does it…
PeterM
Just for the fun of it, let’s do a little “sanity check” on the IPCC projections of anthropogenic GH warming to year 2100.
IPCC tells us that this could range from 1.8°C to 4.0°C (with a peak value of 6.4°C).
Naturally, the media and AGW alarmist sites like the 6.4°C peak value best, since it is the most frightening (and the name of the game is “scaremongering”).
EU politicians tell us they will commit to hold the warming to a maximum of 2°C.
How much of a risk are these politicians taking with their stated “commitment”?
And how realistic are the bases for the IPCC projections?
The IPCC temperature projections have several basic problems.
First, the “scenarios” project different temperature increases (°C increase relative to 1980-1999) with different rates of increase in atmospheric CO2 (CAGR, % per year):
Temp. – CO2 – “Scenario”
1.8°C – 0.48% – B1
2.4°C – 0.65% – A1T
2.4°C – 0.80% – B2
2.8°C – 0.86% – A1B
3.4°C – 1.29% – A2
4.0°C – 1.52% – A1F1
These rates of CO2 increase result in the following projected CO2 concentrations (ppmv) by year 2100:
B1 – 600
A1T – 700
B2 – 800
A1B – 845
A2 – 1250
A1F1 – 1540
Based on optimistic forecasts of total reserves, all the fossil fuels on our planet contain only enough carbon to raise atmospheric CO2 levels to just under 1000 ppmv, so “scenarios” A2 and A1F1 can be discarded as physically impossible from the start.
The actual CAGR of CO2 increase over the past 50 years has been 0.42%, and over the past 20 years, 0.49%, so the 0.48% projected increase for scenario B1 seems reasonable, the 0.65% increase for A1T stretches the imagination a bit and the 0.80% and 0.86% for scenarios B2 and A1B do not pass the “sanity test”, so can also be discarded.
This leaves us with scenarios B1 and A1T, with projected temperature increases (above 1980-1999 levels) of 1.8° and 2.4°C, respectively.
The temperature of the last five years (2005 through 2009) averaged 0.3°C higher than the IPCC baseline average (1980-1999), so we are talking about IPCC projected temperature increases beyond today of:
1.5°C – B1 scenario
2.1°C – A1T scenario
So, here is the good news, Peter: even using the highly questionable IPCC 2xCO2 climate sensitivity based on strong net positive feedbacks and all the other exaggerations, we barely arrive at the 2°C increase from today to year 2100 without cutting CO2 emission rates, so we do not need to do any “mitigation” or implement any carbon caps or taxes and the politicians are taking zero risk with their 2°C “commitment”.
Besides, they’ll all be long gone by year 2100.
Max
“kicked in the head by the observed facts” ??
That doesn’t sound very scientific!
The density of air is 1.2kg/m^3. The density of water is 1000kg/m^3 The specific heat of air 1.0 kJ/kg/K is whereas the specific heat of water is 4.186 kJ/kg/K
So in volume terms water soaks up 4000 times as much heat as air per degree K of temperature change. In otherwords for an input, or an output, of the same amount of heat water will change temperature by 1/4000 times as much.
So, yes, there may be difficulties in measuring it but that’s where the latency is ocurring.
Mar 07, 2010
Follow the Money
Enough is enough.
It’s about time that someone once and for all puts the lie to the recurrent charges that the AGW skeptical community is supported by “Big Oil”, or is populated by “flat-earthers”, or by those who in the past have been complicit with “the tobacco lobby”. These transparently pejorative statements are frequent inclusions in postings and commentary by AGW proponents , sometimes by less committed followers of the AGW controversy and even by some posters who are intellectually inclined to side with the skeptics. There are rarely any substantiating statements to support these allegations which in the absence of any formal repudiation by those so categorized, take on a life of their own like so many urban myths that populate the blogosphere.
The facts are that quite the opposite is the case. For example, let’s take “Big Oil”. BP has contributed over $500 Million to UC Berkeley, one of the Bay Area’s centers of AGW support, for its Energy Biosciences Institute.
Stanford University has received $225 Million from ExxonMobil, Toyota and Schlumberger for its Global Climate and Energy Project. That money will be combined with a $50 Million donation from alumnus Jay Precourt whose career as an oil engineer included such companies as Hamilton Oil and Tejas Gas Corp. The new entity will be named the Precourt Center for Energy Efficiency, see
http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-01-13/news/17198474_1_energy-efficiency-greenhouse-gases-uc-berkeley>
Compare these numbers with a total of ~$6.4 Million over a 4-year period between 2002-2005 provided to non-academic and presumably more conservative think tanks by ExxonMobile according to data acquired by EDF (hardly an unbiased source).
http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4870>
As for individuals active in the promotion of AGW, Susan Solomon, a Phd from Stanford and a lead author of the 2007 IPC Report was a recipient of the 2004 Blue Planet Prize, a 50 Million Yen (~$460,000) cash award from the Asahi Glass Foundation.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2249.htm
Other high profile figures such as James Hansen and Michael Mann have received six-figure amounts from organizations such as the Theresa Heinz Foundation and the Dan David Foundation. It seems as though being a staunch proponent of AGW is a very rewarding position to have.
These are just a fractional example of the money that has flowed from the private sector to individuals and academic institutions friendly to the notion of anthropogenic influences on the environment. Over the past 10 years Government funding to such organizations has been conservatively estimated at well over $50 Billion.
Compare these enormous sums of money with the amounts that are received by prominent and well qualified members of the skeptical community. I know from personal association that external funding for such sites as WUWT and icecap is in the low five figures and comes almost exclusively from individual donations from those who access these sites.
It would seem that the thinly veiled assertions from those expressing an alarmist position that people who adopt a more skeptical attitude are somehow insincere and must be doing it for the money. Since this is patently untrue, I submit that such accusations are more likely to be evidence of projection than of fiscal reality and they are more designed to obfuscate than enlighten the debate.
Mar 07, 2010
Global warming winners: There are big profits in climate hysteria
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The greatest scandal connected to global warming is not exaggeration, fraud or destruction of data to conceal the weakness of the argument. It is those who are personally profiting from promoting this fantasy at the expense of the rest of us.
Al Gore is the most visible beneficiary. The world’s greatest climate-change fear-monger has amassed millions in book sales and speaking fees. His science-fiction movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award for best documentary and 21 other film awards. He was co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Gore was laying his own foundations. As he was whipping up hysteria over climate change, he cannily invested in “green” firms that stood to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more) from increased government regulations and sweetheart deals from connected politicians and bureaucrats. The multimillionaire climate dilettante was given a free pass by reporters, who refused to ask him hard questions about the degree to which he was profiting from the panic he was causing.
With the global-warming story line unraveling, the New York Times allowed Mr. Gore to run what amounted to an unpaid advertisement for his brand of climate-change hysteria. This screed, published Saturday, reiterated his claim that the world faces an “unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” That’s pretty good rhetoric for the person with the largest carbon footprint in the world.
Mr. Gore is not the only one profiting from climate fraud. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace prize with Mr. Gore, is also the director general of the Energy and Resources Institute. The New Delhi-based research group has received substantial financial grants to examine the issue of the world’s vanishing glaciers, a purported crisis that was highlighted in the 2007 IPCC climate-change report. The glaciology unit is headed by Syed Hasnain, who in 1999 claimed that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035, which became a noted scare quote in the IPCC report.
A more detailed study found that glacial melt was far less pronounced and widespread than claimed by the global-warming proponents. Mr. Pachauri denounced this skepticism as “voodoo science.” However, in January, Murari Lal, who wrote the glacier section of the 2007 IPCC report, admitted that the alarmist claims were not backed by peer-reviewed science but had been included in the report for a political purpose, which was to “impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.” No word on whether Mr. Pachauri will return his institute’s grant money, but we doubt it.
The greatest potential profits are possible in the ill-defined “carbon trading” industry, currently valued at $126 billion. The trade in carbon emission credits – a key aspect of the beleaguered “cap-and-trade” energy bill now stalled in Congress – will make quick fortunes for the “carbon brokers” assisting companies with reducing their carbon footprints. But because carbon quotas and the acceptable means of measuring them will be determined by the government, this will benefit those who combine presumed expertise with political access, which in the Obama administration means the climate-change alarmists.
Mr. Gore is heavily involved in this scam through Generation Investment Management LLP, which he chairs, and Mr. Pachauri also has been accused of making millions from carbon trading. The dubious science of cap-and-trade and its productivity-killing implications make the bill unlikely to be passed in an election year, but any moves toward this framework will enhance the fortunes of these and other well-connected adherents to the global-warming cult at the expense of businesses and private citizens.
Given the clear conflicts of interest of those who both promote and profit from climate-change alarmism, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize should be rescinded.
You will remember that around 18 months ago I posted some comments here following my initial research into the history of CO2 measurements, where I expressed some surprise that perhaps concentrations varied much more than we now believe.
I have prepared an article on this which is being carried over at the Air Vent.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/#comment-22642
Tonyb
This article (from Reuters) illustrates perfectly the total absurdity of where the AGW scare has got us. It shows how the EU’s pledges to reduce emissions by between 13.2 % and 17.8% (from 1990 levels) – in any case, inadequate according to UN scientists – could, in reality, mean an increase in emissions. Here’s why:
First, the collapse of heavy industry in the old USSR has created a huge surplus of emissions “credits” – up to 6.8 percent. This means that developed world emissions need only be reduced by 6.4% over the next ten years to meet the Kyoto requirement. Second, loose rules for allowing credits for forestry and agriculture could erode another 9% from the agreed cuts. Et voilà: an increase of 2.6% would meet the Kyoto obligation. Er … compare that with the IPCC stipulated 25% – 40% cut.
Yet this utter madness is worth, in traded credits, $128 billion annually to the world’s financial markets.
TonyB
Very interesting article in Air Vent.
Max
PeterM
Yeah (9842). Water has a higher density and specific heat than air. Duh!
But BOTH the atmosphere AND the upper ocean are cooling, effectively invalidating the “hidden in the pipeline” postulation of Hansen et al.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OceanCoolingE&E.pdf
Max
PeterM
(Further to my 9848)
You seem to actually believe the “hidden in the pipeline” postulation. Interesting.
The latest paper referring to this hypothesis is (Trenberth et al.):
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175/2008BAMS2634.1
The “enhanced greenhouse effect” is based on the estimated imbalance in the total incoming radiation and the total outgoing radiation in the Earth’s global annual mean energy budget, two very much larger numbers, which were adjusted to the estimated imbalance.
The authors have not calculated this net imbalance, but have relied on an earlier estimate by Hansen et al., which calculated this to be 0.85 W/m2, and then rounded it up to 0.9 W/m2.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5727/1431
If there were no net energy “hidden in the pipeline” the net imbalance in the Earth’s global annual energy budget would be the GH forcing from the added GH gases as compared to the previous year. The GH forcing of the annual change in CO2 concentration is 0.03 to 0.11 W/m2 (instead of 0.9 W/m2). In other words the difference between 0.9 and 0.03 to 0.11W/m2 is the postulated “warming in the pipeline”.
But how did Hansen et al. arrive at this 0.85 (or 0.9) W/m2?
Summarizing Hansen’s determination of the 0.85 (or 0.9) W/m2 figure: Total GH forcing is assumed to be 1.8 W/m2 (1880-2003) and observed warming was 0.6-0.7 degC. Assumed climate response is 2/3degC per W/m2 (equivalent to an assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3 degC), therefore 0.65 degC warming is response to ~1W/m^2. But since theoretical GH forcing was 1.8 W/m2, this leaves 0.8 W/m2 still hidden “in the pipeline”.
Checking Hansen’s logic, it is “circular”. He starts out with an assumed CO2 climate sensitivity, then calculates how much warming we should have seen 1880-2003, if all warming had been caused by AGW (ignoring all other factors). This calculates out at 1.2 degC. He then ascertains that the actual observed warming was only 0.65 degC. From this he does not conclude that his assumed climate sensitivity is exaggerated, but deduces that the difference of 0.55 degC is still hidden somewhere “in the pipeline”. Using his 2/3 degC per W/m2, he calculates a net “hidden” forcing = 0.82 W/m2, which he then rounds up to 0.85 W/m2 (and Trenberth et al. round up again to 9 W/m2).
Checking Hansen’s arithmetic: The theoretical GH forcing from 1880-2003 is 5.35 * ln(378/285) = 1.51 W/m2 (not 1.8). Using Hansen’s figure of 2/3degC per W/m^2 puts theoretical warming at 1.0 degC. Observed warming was 0.65 degC leaving 0.35 degC hidden “in the pipeline”. This equates to a “energy imbalance” of 0.35/.6667 = 0.53 W/m2 (not 0.85 or 0.9), all things being equal.
But all things are not equal. Many solar studies show that 0.35 degC warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity over the 20th century (highest in several thousand years), although the exact mechanism for this empirically observed warming has not yet been determined. Let us assume that this covers the same 1880-2003 period cited by Hansen. Much of this occurred during the early 20th century warming period from around 1910 to around 1944, which cannot be explained by AGW alone. This leaves 0.3 degC observed non-solar warming (1880-2003). If we assume that one third of the theoretical GH warming over this long period is still hidden “in the pipeline”. we have 0.3 + 0.15 = 0.45 degC equilibrium GH warming 1880-2003 with an “imbalance hidden in the pipeline” of 0.15/.66667 = 0.22 W/m2 (instead of 0.85-0.9).
In addition to the solar studies, there are many observed natural factors that have caused warming. Notable among these are swings in the ENSO, which were partially responsible for many high temperatures in the 1990s, including most notably the all-time record high in 1998. The current cooling after 2000 is being attributed to these natural factors (called “natural variability” by Met Office), despite the fact that all models predicted record warming as a result of record increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. So it is wrong to simply ignore these natural factors, as Hansen has done, and assume that all warming 1880-2003 was caused by AGW.
Of course, if we assume that Hansen’s “hidden in the pipeline” hypothesis is wrong, we arrive at an imbalance equal to the GH forcing of the annual change in CO2 concentration or 0.03 to 0.11 W/m^2 (instead of 0.85-0.9), as pointed out above.
So much for the theory. Now let’s check the actual physical observations.
Hansen’s assumed “pipeline” is the upper ocean. This is where the “hidden” energy is assumed to be “hiding”. When this study was published (data to around 2003) it appeared that the upper ocean was warming. Since then the old, relatively unreliable measurement devices have been replaced by much more reliable Argo sensors. The record from 2003 to 2008 shows that the upper ocean has not warmed, but cooled instead.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OceanCoolingE&E.pdf
This presents a real dilemma for the “hidden in the pipeline” postulation.
Atmospheric temperature at the surface as well as the troposphere has cooled after 2000 (HadCRUT, UAH).
The amount of latent heat from melting ice or water evaporation is insignificant.
So where is this postulated “hidden energy”?
It is obvious that if it cannot be found anywhere in our planet’s climate system, it has either been radiated out into space or just does not exist.
Of course, it could have been transferred to the deep ocean by exchange with the upper ocean, but this is highly unlikely, and if it did go to the vast deep ocean it will never come back to haunt us.
In either case it is not “hidden in the pipeline” waiting to cause even more global warming as postulated by Trenberth et al. (or Hansen et al.), so we can safely forget about it.
Max
There’s an article today in the good ol’ Guardian (here) insisting that
There you have it: it’s a religion.