Discussion > That CO2 thing again..
Martin:
My view was that if a succession of mice are running through a pipe to get into my barn, it does not make sense to say that the mice are "trapped" in the pipe even though there are always (say) three mice in the pipe. Or that the cars travelling along the M4 are "trapped" on the motorway.
Very good. And what of Richard Drake when he and his company got involved in the four-year contract with the exploration arm of Rio Tinto in Newbury, travelling from North London most days in the early 90s (and coming across climate scepticism in the wild for the first time in the process). I felt trapped on the M4 some days, depending on when I tried to travel. The acceleration possible in the little XR2 helped. Anyway, I could be digressing. The terminology issues with explaining the 'greenhouse effect' (and that's simply a label by now, not a real analogy, come on guys) are fascinating in their own right.
Richard Drake
SoD: yes, I know that you are a lot cleverer than I, and know so much more, and have dedicated a lot more time and effort researching, but why, if you have to acknowledge, could you not just do so, even if the information I gave was fuzzy in details.
We seem to be concentrating on the nap of the cloth of the uniform of the army, ignoring the outcome of the battle that it was engaged in and oblivious to its effect on the war – and it is the outcome of a war that is the really most important thing to discuss.
Radical Rodent
Mike Jackson
Analogies are always limited, but this one might help you with the "trapped energy" illusion.
Consider a tank of water, perhaps the size of a home heating oil tank.
Put water into the top through a hose. Open a tap at the bottom and let the water run out into a basin, which then overflows. Close the tap slightly. The water level will rise until the head of water increases the outward flow rate to match the incoming flow from the hose. At that point the level in the tank stabilises.
The tank is the land,sea and ice. The water is the energy content. The level is the temperature. The water coming in is insolation and the water flowing out is OLR.
Add a pump moving some of the outflow water from the basin back into the tank. This will raise the water level until the increased head increases the outward flow to cancel out the effect of the pump. Incoming flow and outgoing flow are the same as before, but with thebpump operatingbthe water level is higher. This is analogous to what the greenhouse effect does. None of the energy is trapped, just temporarily recycled.
Want to simulate extra CO2? Run the pump faster and watch the water level rise.
Entropic man
Sorry, Martin, I should have been a little more careful in the phraseology there. Time pressure is the excuse. You are indeed one of those who is sceptical of the "dog ate my warming" as I am.
The quote from Richard is another aspect of what I was arguing. The "greenhouse" effect and the "blanket" only make sense as analogies and the more we dissect them the less convincing they become. And during my other activities (or lack of them) this morning I had much the same thought as RR has just expressed.
We are seriously debating radiation, back radation, missing heat, and the effects of greenhouse gases while the earth's climate is not doing anything much beyond what it has done for at least the last several thousand years and the cretins that run the EU are about to make matters worse because they don't understand basic physics and politicians are about to make matters worse because they don't understand anything very much and have been listening to anti-science. anti-civilisation activists who care for nothing except themselves.
Far from sleep-walking into a climate catastrophe caused by overheating (which is what the eco-warriors accuse us of) we are in danger of sleep-walking into a socio-economic catastrophe caused by listening to the lies of those same eco-warriors and probably compounded by a fall in temperature rather than a rise.
We are indeed concentrating on "the nap of the cloth of the uniform" and the warmists are quite happy to encourage us to continue doing that.
Mike Jackson
Want to simulate extra CO2? Run the pump faster and watch the water level rise.*beats head on desk*
CO2 levels might be rising, but temperatures are not – how often does that have to be pointed out?
“Okay,” you’ll now reply, “temperatures may not be rising but the heat content is!”
And how is heat content measured? Why, by temperature, of course. Now, are the temperatures rising? And on we go… round and round and round and round…
CO2 is NOT the demon gas portrayed; the “greenhouse effect” might not be as important as we think; there is still a lot to be learned about the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and lithosphere and their varying – mainly unknown – effects upon climate. Now we have dismissed CO2 as THE primary driver of climate, let us look to see if we can find other things that might have some effect.
Radical Rodent
Mike Jackson"
"..And I am going to take even more convincing that increasing the concentration of CO2 from .003% to .004% is going to make a damn of a difference anyway."
What equations would you use?
The only one known about in atmospheric physics is the equation of radiative transfer. It is used because it gets the correct results. That is, the spectra and the flux at top of atmosphere looking down, and from the surface looking up.
The numerous satellites that measure SST, lower tropospheric atmospheric temperature, water vapor concentration vs height and many other temperature and GHG concentrations all use this equation.
How do these satellite measurements get the right answer? Do you think this is all invented? The same equation is used to calculate the pre-feedback radiative forcing. I wrote a Matlab program using this equation, loaded the HITRAN database of absorption data for the main GHGs and reproduced the standard results. You can see it all explained, along with the code, and much results, in Visualizing Atmospheric Radiation.
This theory was well-developed in the 1950s by Nobel prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
Science of Doom
Radical Rodent:
"..but why, if you have to acknowledge, could you not just do so, even if the information I gave was fuzzy in details.."
Sorry for whatever it was I did.
Science of Doom
Don't worry Dr Doom, the rodent is quite often very cross about things.
splitpin
SoD
Thank you.
I am right, I take it, that increasing the CO2 concentration from .003% to .006% would have the effect of raising the (alleged) temperature of the atmosphere from roundabout 14.5C to roundabout 15.7C (absent any if these theoretical positive feedbacks so beloved of climate modellers)
Given that, as I understand it, the effect of CO2 is logarithmic I would imagine that an increase from .003% to .004% would be somewhere about half that, ie we should have raised the (alleged) temperature to 15.1C.
As I have said before I can get a bigger variation than that by moving the sensor on my thermometer from one end of the window sill to the other.
I'm still refusing to panic.
Mike Jackson
Mike quoted me saying "The difference is because there is energy contained (dare I say trapped?) within the Earth 'system'."
and said
"Where from? And if it's trapped, how come it's getting out?"
Where from? The sun of course.
And words like "trapped" and "blanket" are just used in analogies. Just analogies mind, not the physical mechanisms they are being used to illustrate. You can tear any number of holes in an analogy and you prove exactly nothing beyond the universally know fact that analogies are not perfect. Do you think that by showing an analogy to be inadequate you have proved the physics to be wrong? If not, what do you think you achieve?
Give us some alternative equations for what you believe to be true, or find holes in SoD's equations. Then your skepticism will be justified.
Raff
Raff: forget fancy equations and look at simple facts: CO2 levels are rising, but temperatures are not – how often does that have to be pointed out?
“Okay,” you’ll now reply, ’cos you seem as daft as others can be, “temperatures may not be rising but the heat content is!”
And how is heat content measured? Why, by temperature, of course. Now, are the temperatures rising? … and on we go… round and round and round and round and round and round …
Where is this “trapped” heat? Oh, yes – the deep, deep oceans; a region that has never been measured in any detail at all. Even today, we rely upon less than 3,000 sensors on the ARGO buoys scattered in… well, how many billion cubic kilometres of ocean? And then – when the field thermometers have an acceptable accuracy of one tenth of a degree (0.1°C), the claim is that the deep ocean temperatures have risen (despite having no historical measurements, and skipping straight past the surface layers)… two hundredths of a degree (0.02°C) (oh – and since when?)! Can you not see the utter, utter absurdity in this?
Yes, splitpin, I do get cross, especially with apparently intelligent people appearing to be stupid. And, no, I don’t have many mirrors in my home.
Radical Rodent
Radical Rodent Mike Jackson
I don't insist on CO2 as the forcing analog for the pump. Increased insolation, reduced albedo, increased water vapour; anything recirculating some of the energy would have the same effect.
The change in temperature due to increased CO2 follows the equation
Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/C0)
Delta T is the radiative forcing in Watts.
C is the initial concentration and CO the new concentration.
For the doubling from 280 to 540pm thia becomes 5.35 ln (560/280) = 3.7W.
That 3.7 W corresponds to about 1C direct warming plus whatever climate sensitivity adds. A further doubling to 1120 ppm would have the same effect. In the long run the logarithmic effect will dominate but over the 21st century the effect of each extra ppm will produce an effect closer to linear.
Thus increasing from 280 to 400ppm as seen since 1880:would be expected to produce 5.35 ln (400/280) = 1.9W and 0.51C. Add another 120 ppm and the increase from today would be 5.35 ln (520/400) = 1.4W and 0.38C.
I am afraid that the logarithmic argument is a straw man. It reduces the effect of each extra ppm, but not enough be much help.
Entropic man
That 3.7 W corresponds to about 1C direct warming plus whatever climate sensitivity adds.Or minus whatever it subtracts.
A further doubling to 1120 ppm would have the same effect.So absent these positive feedbacks which we may or may not exist we can expect an increase of ~2C by the time the CO2 concentration reaches 1120 ppm.
Forgive me if I have trouble keeping a straight face.
Mike Jackson
Radical Rodent
Just for fun. Since your hypothetical pause began in 1998 CO2 has risen from 370 to 400 ppm.
That would be expected to produce warming of 5.35ln (400/370) = 0.41W or 0.11C.
The margin of error for the global average temperature is about +/- 0.06C. To detect statistically significant warming you would need to see a 0.12 difference between 1998 and 2013. At the typical warming rate since 1880 (0.06C per decade) you would need 20 years, not 15 to see significant warming. Your pause is still well within the normal range of short term internal variation.
Perhaps you can supply some scientific justification for your conviction that warming has stopped.
Entropic man
Mike Jackson
As I asked Radical Rodent, do you have any scientific justification for your hypothesis.
If Radical Rodent is correct, there is a 0.4 W cooling effect countering the effect of CO2 forcing since 1998. Do you have evidence for this?
Entropic man
Fancy equations? Fancy? Are all equations fancy or just some? Which are non-fancy in your view and how can one tell? I'm intrigued. The fancy equations tell us that extra atmospheric CO2 causes energy to be trapped. Yikes! sorry, not trapped but accumulated. Holy Moses! done it again, that is so ATTP terminology. Not accumulated but ... let's see what the thesaurus says: gather, collect, assemble; amass, stockpile, pile up, heap up, rack up, run up, scrape together, store (up), hoard, cumulate, lay in/up, garner; mass, increase, multiply, accrue, snowball; Brit. tot up; informal stash (away). Yeah, I like that - it causes Earth to stash away more energy. Darn it, I bet that doesn't pass muster either...
Oh and I hope you don't really think that a measurement accuracy of 0.1C restricts the precision of an average of a large number of measurements to 0.1C. Silly me! Of course you do.
Mike how are you doing falsifying SoD's equations - or are you with Radical in thinking that equations are too fancy?
Raff
EM: I have not made the claims on measurements that I have made, or hypotheses that I have mooted. I fall back on the evidence provided by organisations that have studied the phenomenon in far greater depth that I have or am capable of, as they will have far greater resources at their disposal; organisations such as the IPCC and UKMO, for a start, both of whom have admitted that there has been no statistically-significant warming for over 15 years.
Obviously, you will have far better information, so, let’s hear it.
Radical Rodent
Raff:
The fancy equations tell us that extra atmospheric CO2 causes energy to be trapped.Yeah? Where?
Stop hiding behind numbers and look at facts – the soaring temperatures that we have been warned will accompany soaring CO2 levels are not happening. The numbers might be predicting it will happen, but the facts are showing that it isn’t – CO2 continues to rise, the temperatures are not. Mind you, you also believe that the models provide evidence of warming (though you have never told us what that evidence is); perhaps that “evidence” trumps the evidence of observations. Yikes.
Radical Rodent
Mike Jackson
I'm afraid you are unlikely to get negative climate sensitivity.
The world warmed by 0.8C since 1880, with rising CO2 expected to produce 0.51 of that. Even ignoring lag, lack of equilibrium, or any other modifying factors, that gives an absolute minimum sensitivity of 0.8/0.51 = 1.56.
Entropic man
Radical Rodent
" Yeah where?"
If you are not already familiar with the terms,please read about latent heat of fusion, specific heat capacity and thermal expansion coefficient Once you can confirm that you understand these concepts we can sensibly discuss where the heat is going.
Entropic man
Radical Rodent
Did you not read my 8.15pm post? Even with continued warming at latter 20th century rates, no climate scientist would expect to see significant warming in a 15 year period.
Entropic man
…no climate scientist would expect to see significant warming in a 15 year period.No? Even with continued warming at latter 20th century rates? Even at the rates that fed this scaremongering farrago from the start (and went on for not much more than 18 years, after a 30-year fall)? What will you say should the temperatures be lower by the year 2020? Extend the "deadline" to 30 years? BTW, why do the likes of the IPCC and UKMO acknowledge that there has been a “pause”? Perhaps you should get in touch and put them right.
Meanwhile, we continue to blame the ripples in the water on the actions of a minnow, ignoring the leviathans that are prowling a little further out. (H/T John Shade)
Radical Rodent
There are two completely different ideas being discussed here.
One is a simple experimentally verifiable concept called radiative transfer.
The other is about the complete climate, which is one of the most complex systems we know of, with turbulent heat transfer as just one tricky subject at the heart. And turbulence is one of the most difficult subjects in physics.
If anyone has any questions about radiative transfer I will try to help, because I think I understand it. But if the idea is to win some kind of argument there isn't much point being here.
Every time someone comes up with something about the last X years of climate history in the context of demonstrating what CO2 does or doesn't do, they should change their comment to:
"Because climate hasn't warmed for the last x years, it clearly demonstrates that SST and lower tropospheric temperature measurements by satellites are clearly rubbish".
That's about the size of it. I can't state it any simpler.
Science of Doom
... no climate scientist would expect to see significant warming in a 15 year period.
Sep 3, 2014 at 11:47 PM Entropic man
EM - please stop making stuff up.
Vicky Pope, in charge of the Met Office's climate modelling activity at one stage, in 2007 confidently expected significant warming in a period shorter than that.
"2014 we're predicting will be point three degrees warmer than 2004..."
Martin A
Trenberth's "missing heat" because (...) you (...) are convinced it has to be there
Sep 3, 2014 at 9:45 AM | Mike Jackson
Bollocks.
I have never said any such thing.
I have frequently said that the "missing heat" may be Nature's way of hinting that their assumptions are incorrect somewhere.