Chris C

Dailytech nonsense aside, I have not looked into Miskolczi but I see no evidence (yet) to call him a wingnut or liar or what have you, though I can say this paper will not go very far (that is, revolutionize our textbooks, flip science upside down, win a nobel, etc). At best, a known journal would have been nice. I have read roughly the first 25 pages of the original document in detail. Most of the mathematics is rather standard textbook material, and although it looks fancy it amounts to simple energy balance equations which translate to the fact that the net solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) must equate to the outgoing longwave radiation at the TOA. In addition, the surface energy budget must close to zero after accounting for all the surface terms (i.e., convection, conduction, upwelling heat from the mantle, downward solar, downward IR, upward IR, etc, etc). This paper also does not assume constant optical depth as iNOW puts it (see first full paragraph on pg. 22). However, I do not think this paper gives full justice to the TOA energy balance, and over emhasizes what happens at the surface. The planet does not necessarily warm on the simple basis that more longwave radiation is absorbed and emitted downward, but because the net radiation downward is greater than zero until the planet can come back to equilibrium. That is simply due to the fact that when you add CO2, the same amount of solar radiation is being absorbed, but the planet is emitting less. I tried to explain this in very much detail, but with laymen terminology in these two posts http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/physics-of-the-greenhouse-effect-pt-1/ http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/physics-of-the-greenhouse-effect-pt-2/ There are several fatal assumptions in this paper, such as the idea that water vapor should decrease when you add CO2 (middle to end of page 23). They gave a quick paragraph on this, without any mention of the mainstream views on this subject. Venus is an example of immediate falsification by example, which clearly had a runaway greenhouse effect. The paper says that the OLR must increase for the planet to come back to balance, but in the runaway case this happens only after the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit (see my pt. 2) is exceeded and the oceans have evaporated. The original paper has only to say this: "At this time the Venusian atmosphere is not included in our study. The major problem with the Venusian atmosphere is the complete cloud cover and the lack of knowledge of the accurate surface SW and LW fluxes." This is pure dismissal. The Venus surface receives considerably less sunlight than Earth, and is yet much, much hotter. Not saying we know every detail about Venusian clouds, but the fact a runaway occurred on the well-known basis of CO2 does not give this paper a good start. So far, the only way to argue for the low climate sensitivity in the paper is to introduce substantial negative feedback. This paper has not done this in any justifiable sense, and has given a sensitivity far lower than the Planck response. There is a lot more explaining to do: Cretaceous hothouse? Faint Young sun in the archaean times? Ice Ages? PETM?

Ice in the northern hemisphere has a strange tendency to grow back in winter time. Crazy stuff. But it is the seasonal (summer) ice which is of concern now. Also a La Nina now, so global temperatures should be a bit lower than usual.

You are right, it is the greenhouse gases that are doing the radiatiing. You do not need the other air molecules. As a suggestion, see "a saturated gassy argument" at realclimate.org By the way, N2 and H2 can actually become greenhouse gases in very dense atmospheres, such as on Titan, or H2 on gas planets. Not factors on Earth however. The 15 micron region (or wavenumber- 667 cm) is of primary importance on Earth, and the other ones are measurable but not especially meaningful in Earthlike conditions. Though, the band around 4 microns can become important at much higher temperatures, such as on Venus. Water Vapor concentration has increased a bit, but its concentration is set by temperature and circulation, whereas CO2 is set by sources and sinks. Because of this, water vapor responds to temperature change, and goes up about 7% per 1 C increase (and in fact will amplify temperatures in a warmer climate), but please note the crucial distinction between "climate forcing" and "climate feedback." C

The sunspots themselves play a minor role - they are usually only taken as an indicator of the solar state. There are 3 proposed main mechanisms whereby changes in the sun affect our climate: 1 - change in TSI 2 - change in solar UV, which alters the absorption of energy in the stratosphere and the temperature of the upper atmosphere. May affect circulation and distribution of heat. 3 - change in galactic cosmic rays (GCR). Svensmark & co reckon the GCR affects the cloudiness. Others, such as Tinsley, think it affects the atmospheric fairweather electric field, which again may have an effect on the cloud micro-physics This is a good book on the subject http://www.amazon.com/Activity-Earths-Climate-Rasmus-Benestad/dp/3540433023

Simply speaking, this looks like delta P over the distance in question, very reasonable even if you never seen the formula. Part of your problem may be that 701.. mb is under 3 km, not 2 km by the way, how do you write summation/integral symbols ?

Jeremy, see this thread http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30936

I made this a new thread since everyone continues to discuss total solar irradiance (TSI)-CO2-temperature and the relationships with time. As a response to Jeremy in the other thread here, I created this excel file with data, and 3 graphs, one for TSI (1610-2000), and one for TSI (1950-2000) from data by Lean (2000), and CO2 and temperature data; CO2 prior to 1960 is from ice core data by Etheridge et al. (1998) and observational data after 1960 from observational data from Mauna Loa. Temperatures anomalies (base period 1951-1980) are from NASA GISS. TSI reconstructions are accompanied by an 11 year moving average. http://files.filefront.com/CO2+Temp+TSIxls/;9527896;/fileinfo.html Radiative forcings are given graphically here. They are relative to 1750, so if you do calculations from my stuff just realize that. Radiative forcing is defined by the IPCC TAR, AR4 as "‘the change in net (down minus up irradiance (solar plus longwave; in W m–2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values" You can get more detailed with my data, or other sources available, but just eyeballing the graph you can get very close to the changes in TSI over the last 400 years. For example, if you compare today to the Maunder Minimum you would probably eyeball a change of a about 2.5 to 3 W/m^2. To make this into a radiative forcing, you divide by 4 for the geometry of the Earth, then multiply by 0.69 (to account for albedo). To get a radiative forcing from CO2, you do 5.35 * ln (Cf/Ci) where Cf and Ci are the final and initial CO2 concentrations under the time period in consideration. Just for simplicity, we'll say that the climate sensitivity is about 0.75 C change per 1 W/m^2 change. To throw in some realistic numbers, say ΔT(CO2) = 5.35 * ln (380/280) * 0.75 C/W/m^2 = 1.2 C (or 2.2 F). This deviates from the observed ~0.7 C because the formula is for equilibrium conditions, so taking into account warming 'that is in the pipeline' we still have about half a degree to go even if concentrations remained constant. This is about 1.6 W/m^2 compared to the maximum of about 0.3 W/m^2 depending on how you do your change of in TSI, or if you account for UV absorption in the stratosphere which would theoretically lower the RF at the tropopause. In addition, most of that TSI increase is confined to earlier in the century, so if you limit your time period to, say, the last 30 years the sun has just about no effect on the change in temperature.

What exactly are you looking at when you compare graphs? I see a lot of lines going up in directions when I see "CO2 vs. temp" or "sun vs. temp" or "cosmic rays vs. temp" or "number of pirates vs. temp," and looking like they "fit together" or "don't fit together." But you need to quantify it; find me a graph that shows a 1-2 W/m^2 of radiative forcing from solar since pre-industrial time, and then we can talk.

Hey, for those who found interest in my blog in the past, it got enough attention for Dr. Roger Pielke to comment on one of my pieces. We are having an exchange, although in my blog (Which is linked inside there) http://climatesci.org/2008/01/26/963/ As for this post (just so it wasn't all for self-advertisement), I'm a bit too impatient to keep providing references and elaborate on well discussed topics, but the fact is that there is no secular trend in solar activity (including sunspots which do in fact relate to TSI) since around 1950, nor does that explain 1) why greenhouse fingerprints like stratosphere cooling are showing up all over the place 2) why the CO2 physics is wrong. This is a topic which falls apart before it even gets on the scene.

The time period in that chart is relative to 1750 (defined at pre-industrial values), and most of the increase in RF is from 1900-1950 (when papers like Solanski called a "historical high" and still the RF was minimal). Even working with a negative RF at the little ice age values, the impact of that would be outweighed by less than a decades worth of increased GHG's. No confident prediction can be made for solar irradiance in the future, and there is certainly no prediction out there that will offset the GHG forcing that is being taken seriously. I think anyone who is honestly proposing the secular trend of solar irradiance decrease that would be sufficient to offset 2x CO2 (or even less) is not even taking themselves seriously (or doesn't understand the topic) and is just working with preconceived notions. Lastly, because of the thermal inertia of the oceans, the 11-year sunspot cycle does not really show up in the surface temperature. This argument is just a smokescreen.

I try to put 1 in front of the "worst looking" one; start with Carbon, then H, then O, etc...just make sure they count each letter and everything equals

Temperature is most certainly a valuable way to look at the Earth's radiative budget, especially as the mean budget is characterized as being proportional to the fourth power of the temperature (i.e. the simplest model you can find is something like S + G = sigma T^4) where S is incoming solar radiation after albedo, and G is the greenhouse effect, both in units W/m^2). These simple models (Stefan-Boltzmann) are a valuable way of explaining the basic physics of radiation balance, and serve as a bridge between grey-gas models and more realistic models. It is also fairly standard practice to use the observed temperature record to put some constraints on both climate sensitivity and the magnitude of unknown forcing. The oceans are the main reason for "thermal lag" in the climate system, and I think everyone knows basics like land heats quicker than ocean. The response time has to do mostly with the thermal intertia of the ocean mixed layer, and mixing time of the deep ocean. If you could keep Pinatubo going for a century, then the cooling would continue to a new equilibrium and that would be a greater response than the 'immediate cooling' for the real world Pinatubo. That is also why the 11-year sunspot cycle is not very influential on temperatures, but you have to look at secular trends (long-term) to attribute a change in global temperature to the sun (even though the radiative forcing is greater than that of CO2 on the short term). But since the climate system is out of equilibrium now, even if we could halt CO2 concentrations to 380 ppmv, the temperature would still rise a bit (see Hansen et al. 2005 for further discussion).

I'll just toss out my pet-peeve of this broad generalization of "models say" for a minute. A lot of models exist, some designed just to include hydrologic cycle changes with some forcing. Also models aren't just for the future, but whatever... Models don't predict anything, they do projections. If I run a model out to 2x CO2 I'm making a projection, assuming that 2x CO2 occurs and based on thermodynamic and geophysical fluid dynamic principles, the models are doing pretty good. If an asteroid hits the planet, I didn't predict this, nor do I need to. Models don't predict we're going to hit 2x CO2, or that an asteroid is/is not going to hit the planet or what have you, they make a projection saying "if we hit 2x CO2, and nothing unexpected occurs, this is what will happen." And the accuracy of models has shown to be within the range of "usefulness." If a volcanic eruption occurs, that aren't considered in the ensemble, this doesn't effect the usefulness (or lack of) of models. Given our understanding, we'd expect a cooling trend for a year or couple. Knowing what models do, and their limitations, is a good first step to deciding how useful they are. Knowing their history of success, or what would be wrong with them, is another step. If the arctic is melting faster tha nwe think, then it isn't the model that is wrong, it is the physical relationships or the presence of external inputs that we haven't considered, and when we learn about them, then we can make the models better. This is not restricted to climate science

Someone needs to point out something in the actual Nature Study that supports the "unreliable model" claim. Someone also needs to point out which model and in which public archive I can check it. These broad generalizations like "models aren't getting it right" don't get us anywhere, and in actual science they try to improve them, not complain about and dismiss them. Someone should also include the error bars (hint, high end) of the uncertainty, and where uncertanties lie. Anyone can run summer temperatures for the dates in the study, and tell me where the models aren't getting the summer-winter variation in the study (i.e. amplification of the surface in winter, amplification in the troposphere in summer with near-zero surface due to phase change). Use "all forcings," and play around with different seasons with altitude. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/climsim.html Also, the logic of "do nothing, because models are underestimating observed trends" escapes me. Might as well have a picnic. Rahmstorf 2007 on models and observation would be a good look-at.

Aerosols cause cooling. 1940-70 has a lot to do with aerosols. No volcanic activity has had significant climate influence since Pinatubo. No, I will not reference myself.

Aerosols and internal variability look like the big suspects from 1940-70

How about a new global warming topic that is unrelated to solar activity and the decadal contribution of each forcing?

I calculate a forcing of 0.33 W/m-2 for ΔTSI of +0.14%. That is around 0.2 K in temperature response after equilibrium. This is near the high end of the IPCC forcings chart, but the IPCC is relative to 1750 which was a bit higher than 1700 so 0.14% is a high number. Aerosols also offset this by a factor of at least 2, so that leaves quite a lot of warming to be explained by other things.

In this case, I wouldn't be looking for a 'rebuttal' as much as a perspective on what it actually means (i.e. what was the significance of the Mann et al. error). See the analysis of the MM rebuttal at http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimaticChange_inPress.pdf A very read, for a quick analysis and non-technical language, would be http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_congress/7_27_06.cfm Mann et al. is not alone in reconstruction of the last millennia. You can visit the free, online authoritative book by the National Academies of Science at http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676 for paleoclimate perspective over the last 2,000 years or http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf starting on pg. 466. To be honest, it seems that for the laymen, the whole significance of this Mann and MM thing is if a Medieval Warm Period(MWP) exists, which seems to be of different significance in the actual academic community. Right now, the literature does not give us any reason to believe a MWP that was hotter than today exists, and there is a substantial amount of work suggesting that it was a more regional phenomena than a global one (confined to Greenland, Europe, and parts of Asia), and probably as warm as the middle of the 20th century, although the error bars are large enough to get it like today, or a few tenths warmer, if you go the the very high end. There does not appear to be a strong MWP signal in the tropics, Antarctica, southern hemisphere or other areas of the northern hemisphere. The NAS report and IPCC go over this. So far as we can tell, global warming is roughly 0.8 C from pre-industrial time, with the large majority of that coming from anthropogenic sources, and smaller forcings (mostly from 1900-1950) from natural variability (See Ammann et al 2007 in PNAS). Since climate is not now in equilibrium, it is likely we have about 0.5 C more "in the pipeline" that we're commited to even if GHG levels remain constant (Hansen et al.,2005). It is important to emphasize that AGW-theory does not require warming to be unprecedented; it only requires it to be caused by humans today. The existence of a medieval warm period seems, for some, to be a threat to anthropogenic global warming- though, in reality, it isn't really relevant. It is no more relevant than saying it was hotter 5 million years ago, we're just addressing the temperature or temperature change, without addressing the causes. If it turns out that the medieval times were a bit warmer than we think, this does not effect the attribution of recent warming to CO2. If anything, unmodified causes with a warmer past temperature would hint at higher climate sensitivity to an external forcing agent. Detection of climate change (now or before) simple demonstrates that climate has changed in a meaningful, statistical sense (at this point, providing a reason for that change is not necessary). Attribution of climate change is done by 1) detecting that climate has changes (is changing), 2) demonstrating consistency with known and expected relationships from greenhouse theory, such as identifying fingerprints (stratosphere cooling) or simulating the global changes in models with anthropogenic + natural forcing, and 3) demonstrating that the detected change is inconsistent with alternative explanations. This can all be done with a great deal of confidence now. A number of 'fingerprint' studies (e.g. Hegerl et al., 2000; Stott et al., 2000; Meehl et al., 2001) are out there. I fully understand that climateaudit exists, and McIntyre is obviously a very interested and dedicated individual. They can disagree with my extent of the MWP (which comes from a number of studies that McIntyre does talk about), although the literature supports the notion that today is anomalous but with some uncertainty, and there is nothing in the mainstream literature for me to be convinced otherwise. I fully support his efforts, and welcome corrections to work in the field. Although I have expressed my concern on his site to him that he decides only to "audit" papers which seem to be consistent with Mann et al. and not take the time to "audit" papers like the recent Loehle 2007 paper which received attention by realclimate, climate audit, the rest of the blogosphere, etc. His response to me was that he did not have the time to go over them. So the best I can say is that I think McIntyre is on a mission to get as much out of a medieval warm period as possible, or to extend the error in today's measurements as much as possible, but he is doing a very good job of forwarding the science in that regard. I think he is in the "skeptical" category and not in the "deceiving" category, and so his work should still receive attention. It is true, however, that he does not sit in the mainstream of research on this topic, has not done too much refereed original research on it (primarily but not exclusively blogging), and is often (rightly or not) associated with one end of the political spectrum. In my opinion, a lot of the site is simply complaining about the hockey stick and paleoclimate, but again, he is helping more than hurting the science so he can have fun with that.

UHI cannot explain low latitude-high altitude or high latitude glacier retreat/ ice loss. It cannot explain increased ocean heat content. I found the blog to be really lacking in information. Really, there is little difference between the rural and full series data station over the long-term trend, and there is a rather clear "external" signal in the climate system. A few worthwhile papers are Parker (2004,2006), Li et al. (2004), and Peterson (2003)

A simple example will show the problem with the Schwart inference: the time response of the surface after a volcano is not indicative of an overall time constant of the system. See a paper in Nature for example (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7077/full/439675a.html ) Abstract- "This huge eruption slowed sea-level rise and ocean warming well into the following century. We have analysed a suite of 12 state-of-the-art climate models and show that ocean warming and sea-level rise in the twentieth century were substantially reduced by the colossal eruption in 1883 of the volcano Krakatoa in the Sunda strait, Indonesia. Volcanically induced cooling of the ocean surface penetrated into deeper layers, where it persisted for decades after the event. This remarkable effect on oceanic thermal structure is longer lasting than has previously been suspected and is sufficient to offset a large fraction of ocean warming and sea-level rise caused by anthropogenic influences." I do understand that simple models are good for understanding something even if they don't reflect complex real-world behavior, and I don't think the Schwartz paper is "useless." The problem is if you take some time-constant "mean" and apply a whole system into a "single cell" when in fact there are multiple interacting cells. That is, the lag response time of the land/atmosphere/ocean. As for CO2 at "deadly" concentrations, you do need to get into whole number percenatages by volume, which 380 parts per 1,000,000 is not. Not near that, so I'd be much worried about warming before suffocating. Indeed, the carbon cycle is also a beautiful thing.

Thanks for the link. This is a very simplified model of climate, and amounts to something like representing Earth’s climate as a single entity, with one time scale (ex. the oceans and land have a single heat capacity). A "short timescale" does not allow for "in the pipeline warming" (our current warming is not at a 380 ppmv like atmosphere). Meanwhile, there is no heat exchange between the atmosphere and ocean and land (and the water heats up as quick as the ocean). In reality, an atmosphere heats quickly then slowly toward equilibrium. Of course this means the atmosphere's "time scale is short" which may or may not be applicable to the oceans. In other words, you can stop the accumulation of greenhouse gases and still get warming that we've already commited ourselves to (about half a degree C). You can allow "one time constant" for simplified climate models, but not for the real world. In that sense, Schwartz is probably a good first step at understanding climate sensitivity, but will not be accurate in a climate system with multiple timescale responses to a forcing. See this... http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/comment_on_schwartz.pdf Right now, one can easily calculate the temperature response for doubling the amount of CO2 with all other things equal at 1.2 K on basic physical principles. see my blog post at http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/basic-radiative-modelsearths-climate-system-analysis-pt-2/ (part 1 may help as well). But, you do have feedbacks in the climate system, notably water vapor, clouds, the presence of a lapse rate which the greenhouse effect depends upon, ice-albedo, etc. There are more uncertanties here, especially for cloud paramterization, but there is a range of ΔT(2x CO2) = 3.0 (+ 1.5; - 1) K. From real-world observations and paleoclimatic analogs, there is really no physically plausible way to stretch this to a really low or a really high climate sensitivity, despite the existence of uncertainty. Unfortunately, that uncertainty leaves much more room for bad things to happen on the high side than it does for the warming to be much lower than the "mean" estimate.

I was referring from pre-industrial time; sorry, I should have been specific.

I would spend a bit less time looking at emissions, since concentration is what matters. I haven't kept up with emission numbers lately, whether they have leveled off, declined a bit, or what have you. I know that since around the 2000 mark they have accelerated a bit, and are showing growth now (see http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0702737104v1 ). In any case, we're still adding CO2 to the climate system, throwing the carbon cycle a bit out of balance and *concentration* is increasing since it is being put in faster than the oceans can remove, and it is the rise in concentration that promotes a warming planet. Infrared radiative transfer isn't too concerned with emissions. For your first question, the number is around 0.8 C now, which still may look rather small, but globally averaged it is rather significant. Remember that since the last ice age around 10,000 years ago, the global temperature has not fluctuated by any more than + or - 1 degree C, and the rate of rise is pretty quick now (which matters for adaptation purposes). The "average temperature" includes the oceans, which take a lot longer to heat up, so on land the number is actually larger, and the poles (especially northern hemisphere) you get significant effect as well. For perspective on the numbers, you only need to reduce global temperatures around 3-4 C to get an ice age, so rapid fluctuations of a degree (and projected 3 C at doubling of CO2) is significant. -- chris P.S. For those who have followed my posts, or are just interested, I have a blog up at http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/ if you'd like to respond to any of the posts. I'm working on part 3 of the "Basic Radiative models/Earth’s climate system analysis" series now, which may be useful as a general overview of how our climate system works (see Pt. 2 for what happens when you add greenhouse gases)

Interesting thread (and hypothesis) The current science tells us that climate sensitivity with doubling CO2, at equilibrium, including feedbacks ΔT 2x = 3 K (uncertainty is +1.5 K - 1 K)(IPCC,2007). A few readers have rightly noted the nonlineraity in the slope of the line for temperature increases from pre-industrial out to CO2(2x). Another particular note, which I don't think SkepticLance has accounted for is the thermal lag in the climate system, which delays the response to perturbation of the climate system. In other words, one can assume (e.g. Hansen et al., 2005) that about an additional 0.5 K will be added to the system if CO2 concentrations were held fixed. In short, the system is not now at equilibrium and so Skeptic cannot assume that the temperature response so far is at 380 ppm-like conditions. This must be accounted for in making forecasts for the climate system out to CO2 (2x) because the radiative forcings chart used in the IPCC (2x CO2 = ~4 W/m-2) occurs at equilibrium. In fact, it is likely the ~1.2 C area has already been obtained if we were to keep CO2 levels at 380 ppmv and let the climate system return to equilibrium, so sensitivity for CO2 (2x) around this number is wrong unless one can argue that there is no thermal lag in the climate system. Water vapor feedback is the most important positive feedback in climate models. It is important in itself, but also because it amplifies the effect of every other feedback . Vapor pressure in equilibrium with a water surface increases exponentially with temperature at a rate in accord with Clausius-Clapeyron. If the relative humidity remains about constant as temperature and specific humidity increase, then water vapor greenhouse feedback nearly doubles the sensitivity of climate. The changes in specific humidity, with little change in relative humidity, have been documented recently and in accordance with our understanding. Clouds are a subject of uncertainty (though "unreliable and inaccurate" is indefensible, from real-world observations). First of all, one needs to make a case for a positive feedback from clouds for ΔT 2x = 3 K. Overall, today's models produce cloud feedbacks ranging from approximately neutral to strongly positive because the lower clouds, which control the albedo more than any other kind, get thinner when it gets warmer. The next point is that a lot of work has been done in getting climate sensitivity from both observational and paleoclimatic constraints. Models are useful here, but don't have the only say (ex. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf ). The argument that models are useless doesn't mean the ice ages or looking at Pinatubo is useless, but the bottom line is that there is not now a physical plausible way of getting a low climate sensitivity. A lot of work has been done (IPCC ch. 9 ) but the range of about 2-4.5 C, and the ability to eliinate really low and really high sensitivity is now there. Uncertanties exist, and the science still needs work, but the policy makers won't be hearing anything new. Chris