Discussion > GHG Theory step by step
Apr 12, 2018 at 9:35 AM | Entropic man
I have not claimed anything. I am inquisitive, seeking answers to questions that Climate Scientists keep running away from.
Any Team News about ECS?
Entropic man: you once again show your inability to read what is actually written as you eagerly apply your own interpretation to it, irrespective of the wording.
It does depend upon what you consider to be “short term” and “long term”; for humans, the former could be a few days, months or even years, often enough depending upon the age of the humans involved. “Long term” would be years or decades, but will most usually be within the expected lifespan of the human(s) concerned, but could be extended to the next generation or two. Of course, for the planet, these two have completely different scales: “short term” could be decades, centuries or even millennia, while “long term” really relates to periods greater than centuries. Whichever it is, it is scales that humans truly have trouble relating to; hence, we prefer to think that anything that happens while we observe it is indicative of what will be to come, often irrespective to what has been (which is one of the great fails of the infamous “hockey schtick”). This is what you quite happily engage in, extrapolating the rise over, basically, about three decades as what WILL happen over the next century, thus adversely affecting (in some never really defined way, only that it is all going to be ba-a-ad) your children and grandchildren, while perversely discounting the 2 decade lack of rise as it is “short term.”
Meanwhile, for the planet, there has been a short-term rise of ~1K in temperatures over the past 200 years (which follows a short-term fall into the LIA, which followed a short-term rise to the MWP, which followed… Can you see any sort of pattern, here?), which is a mere blip in the continuing, long-term fall from the Holocene Optimum (circa3-4K higher than present), as the planet inexorably returns to a true Ice Age.
The long and the short of it is that there is nothing that we can do about it, other than adapt. Now, Golf Charlie has been politely asking you for some evidence to back up assertions made that you avidly cling to; could you not indulge him, for once?
Apr 12, 2018 at 12:49 PM | Radical Rodent
ECS remains an elusive mystery, but it is not as bad as Climate Scientists hoped. It seems to be far worse for Climate Scientists than they expected.
Entropicman's Catastrophic Sensitivity?
End of Climate Science?
Golf Charlie
The most recent publication I can remember about ECS is this, a letter in Nature in January.
Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability, Cox et al
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25450
Mind you, not everybody likes it.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-claim-of-reduced-uncertainty-for-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity-is-premature/
So, Entropic man, you consider evidence to be opinions that are based upon the opinions of others, with no obvious scientific content; even the An Observationally Based Estimate of the Climate Sensitivity abstract is filled with the words: probability, estimates and assumption, some more than once, in a plethora of weaselly phrases in just 9 lines. Well done – yet another evasion of the question!
Answer this one: why is the temperature of the atmosphere of Venus (95% CO2, or 11+ “doublings” of Earth’s atmospheric concentration of 0.04%) at altitudes where it is Earth-equivalent pressure exactly what the temperature of the Earth would be, if the same distance from the Sun, and not anywhere from 17K (1.5 x 11 “doublings”) to 50K (4.5 x 11 “doublings”) warmer?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-claim-of-reduced-uncertainty-for-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity-is-premature/
Apr 12, 2018 at 9:17 PM | Entropic man
More theory, that does not match observed evidence, and simply depends on Computer Models programmed with the same theories.
Radical rodent
You will need to redo your calculation. You neglected to allow for the logarithmic variation in the effect of CO2 on temperature and you neglected to allow for the 70% albedo of Venus. You are also using old information.
Current information on Venus
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
The most recent data quotes the surface temperature as 740K. The 1 bar atmosphere is 49.5km with a temperature of 355K and Earthlings temperatures occuring around 54km.
Surface temperature of Venus is 740K
Lapse rate is 7.4K/km
1 bar altitude is 49.5km.
For a given altitude you can calculate the approximate temperature as follows:
temperature = surface temperature - (altitude × lapse rate)
For the 1 bar altitude temperature =740 - (49.5 × 7.4) = 373K.
At 54km temperature = 740-(54×7.4) =340K
You don't need exotic physics to explain Venus. The normal physics works fine.
Entropic man: you need to redo your reading – the logarithmic variation is fully allowed for, which is why I was using the figure of 11 in multiplying the claimed ECS. You will find that 96.5% is a little over 11 “doublings” of the present 0.04%, thus making what calculations I provided somewhat more in your favour, even if you seem unable to see that. I suggest you dust down your sliderule.
However, it is interesting to note that your confident calculations differ so much from the data in the wiki-link you provided. The table given show 50km altitude to be 1.066 atmospheres, with a temperature of 75°C (348K), suggesting that, at 1 atmosphere pressure, it would be marginally cooler (certainly NOT 100°C, as you claim), whereas the Earth’s surface temperature, if the same distance from the Sun, would be about 66°C (329K); while no longer exactly the same (why am I not surprised? Perhaps the data needs to be “homogenised” a few more times to increase this difference and eradicate the required coincidence to explain this similarity), it is certainly not as high as it should be, if ECS is as claimed. No exotic physics required – simply reading the data provided (though it is interesting to note that the only two direct measurements made, by the Magellan and Venus Express probes, give even lower temperatures of 20°C and 37°C (293K and 310K) at these Earth-equivalent altitudes. Odd, that; and even odder that this should be glossed over and ignored; but – hey! – when have inconvenient truths ever been a hindrance in this field, eh?).
Quite why you consider physics that gives completely different answers from you to be “exotic” will need to be explained; or perhaps you should contact the persons giving these different answers and put them right. I am sure that, after making a career of studying this field, they will appreciate being corrected by you, now that you have spent nearly an entire afternoon reading wiki about it.
Golf Charlie
Pitiful.
Your last two posts claim that short term decreases in stochastic variables are evidence of long term cooling.
Do you never tire of galloping this discredited straw man in all directions?
Apr 12, 2018 at 9:35 AM | Entropic man
The most recent publication I can remember about ECS is this, a letter in Nature in January.
Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability, Cox et al
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25450
Mind you, not everybody likes it.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-claim-of-reduced-uncertainty-for-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity-is-premature/
Apr 12, 2018 at 9:17 PM | Entropic man
You really ought to try reading some genuine science, if you want to stop making yourself so pitiful. Not everyone is impressed with Real Climate's post either, and Real Climate has had the honesty to leave some comments undeleted/censored.
If you have not read anything since January about ECS, how do you know what you are criticising? I may only be a County Bumpkin, but I did learn to read.
Entropic Man,
this is an abstract of the Cox paper, that you linked to, at Real Climate. It acknowledges some "issues" with ECS in the first paragraph.
Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variabilityPeter M. Cox, Chris Huntingford & Mark S. Williamson
Nature volume553, pages319–322 (18 January 2018)
"Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) remains one of the most important unknowns in climate change science. ECS is defined as the global mean warming that would occur if the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration were instantly doubled and the climate were then brought to equilibrium with that new level of CO2.
Despite its rather idealized definition, ECS has continuing relevance for international climate change agreements, which are often framed in terms of stabilization of global warming relative to the pre-industrial climate. However, the ‘likely’ range of ECS as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has remained at 1.5–4.5 degrees Celsius for more than 25 years.
The possibility of a value of ECS towards the upper end of this range reduces the feasibility of avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, as required by the Paris Agreement. Here we present a new emergent constraint on ECS that yields a central estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius with 66 per cent confidence limits (equivalent to the IPCC ‘likely’ range) of 2.2–3.4 degrees Celsius. Our approach is to focus on the variability of temperature about long-term historical warming, rather than on the warming trend itself. We use an ensemble of climate models to define an emergent relationship between ECS and a theoretically informed metric of global temperature variability. This metric of variability can also be calculated from observational records of global warming, which enables tighter constraints to be placed on ECS, reducing the probability of ECS being less than 1.5 degrees Celsius to less than 3 per cent, and the probability of ECS exceeding 4.5 degrees Celsius to less than 1 per cent."
This is Part 3 of 3 by Nic Lewis. He has previously written with Judith Curry. There are links to Parts 1 & 2.
https://judithcurry.com/2018/03/29/emergent-constraints-on-climate-sensitivity-in-global-models-part-iii/
Is there any OBSERVED evidence to support the IPCC's historic guestimates of ECS being higher than 2-2.5, given that Cox relies on " an ensemble of climate models to define an emergent relationship between ECS and a theoretically informed metric of global temperature variability"?
Golf Charlie
"Is there any OBSERVED evidence"
Yes.
At the start of the Holocene a change in orbital forcing sufficient to produce a direct warming of 1.2C produced a final warming from 9C to 14C over 10,000 years.
That is an ECS of 5/1.2=4.16
That is based on Marcott et al 2013. The deniers claim that the Holocene Climate optimum was even warmer. If so, that would make the Holocene ECS even larger than 4.2.
Remember that you need to distinguish between three different climate sensitivities.
There is Transient Climate Response, which is the immediate response without feedbacks. if you follow the Lewis/Curry approach you are measuring over such a short time period that you are only measuring Transient Climate Response.
Calculating using the full observed record (138 years) you get the TCR plus fast feedbacks. This is larger than the TCR but smaller than the ECS.
Calculating over periods of millennia you get TCR plus fast feedbacks plus slow feedbacks, the full ECS.
Note that the climate sensitivity measurements group into three main clusters plus a few high value outliers.
The sceptics such as Lewis cluster around the TCR , below 1.5.
The observed record estimates including fast feedbacks cluster around 2.0.
The paleo estimates including slow feedbacks cluster around 4.0.
Entropic Man, Marcott et al 2013 is another Peer Reviewed Climate Science paper that should have been retracted. Any merits it may have contained are tainted by the normal Hockey Team suspects, (to use their terminology) refusing to address any of the issues.
https://climateaudit.org/2013/03/31/the-marcott-filibuster/
Is Marcott reliable about the Holocene?
"The sceptics such as Lewis cluster around the TCR , below 1.5.
The observed record estimates including fast feedbacks cluster around 2.0.
The paleo estimates including slow feedbacks cluster around 4.0."
Were the paleo estimates, or holocene, linked to CO2?
If you are correct that CO2 has already caused 1°C rise in temperature, without any noticeable effect, what is it that we should be so fearful about, that "adaptions" could not cope with?
There is no such thing as an ECS or a TCR which can be attributed to CO2 or anything else, before the detection and attribution problem is solved, and there is no way you can produce any figure for sensitivity which can encompass many doublins. Or probably even one doubling. It's nonsense. It's angelic pinhead dancing, and only angelic pinheads need apply.
There is no valid comparison of Venus with Earth so long as we have three-phase H2O.
This discussion is going nowhere. Someday I'll post another thread with what's really happening. Real soon now...
Apr 17, 2018 at 3:26 PM | rhoda
I look forward to it!
It seems that Climate Science does depend on some science, but it is always multiplied by an undefined, or underdefined, or undefinable set of Fudge Factors.
With Fudge Factors set to 11 on a scale of 1-10, scary scenarios can be predicted as being possible. Creative statistics and imaginative data collation have been used to justify Fudge Factor 11 being programmed into the Computer Models, which then confirm what Climate Scientists had been warning people to be fearful of.
Are ECS & TCR the only Fudge Factors? Climate Science does not want to admit having got things wrong, or having made mistakes. Climate Science has an appalling record when it comes to self correction, so can't complain if Trump appoints his own panel of experts, to weed out defective Climate Science and those that have aided and abetted it.
"There is no valid comparison of Venus with Earth so long as we have three-phase H2O."
I believe that the GCMs are terrible at modelling Venus and can't get the superrotation right at all. It is strange we can't model a planet that is vastly more straightforward thsn the 3 phase water Earth that is really complicated.
We have spent decades tweaking parameters and damping the runaway effects though to make models that do broadly resemble the weather on Earth though.
".... to make models that do broadly resemble the weather on Earth though."
Apr 18, 2018 at 1:19 AM | Rob Burton
But are they any better at determining what causes the climate to change?
From this thread:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/18/an-interesting-plot-twist-call-it-an-anomaly/
a comment from Tim Ball about the CET and Lamb's understanding:
Tim Ball April 18, 2018 at 9:40 am
"The problem is much greater than presented, here although this article is very valuable. I spoke at length with Hubert Lamb about Manley and how he reconstructed the CET because he knew him and communicated with him. It was part of a larger discussion about the dates of onset and end of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA)
My interest was because I was dealing with a variety of records of different length, method, instrumentation, location and time period, which is exactly what Manley used to create his single CET record. Manley, to my knowledge, never recorded his methods, techniques, processes, or assumptions in his publications. Lamb told me that to his knowledge that information was never recorded anywhere.
I know from my work the range of error of estimates created by such diverse problems and suggest it effectively makes the record and graph created a very crude, best guess, estimate of temperature and temperature trend for a large region that has been variously and significantly impacted by the urban heat island effect. The only thing you can say with certainty is that when compared with other proxy data the record confirms the existence of the LIA that the “hockey stick” rewrite of climate history tried to eliminate."
Manley, to my knowledge, never recorded his methods, techniques, processes, or assumptions in his publications. Lamb told me that to his knowledge that information was never recorded anywhere […]The only thing you can say with certainty is that when compared with other proxy data the record confirms the existence of the LIA that the “hockey stick” rewrite of climate history tried to eliminate."
Ball's just making noise as usual. Manley's techniques are fully documented in his papers, for example this one.
But if you actually read those and other papers on which the CET is based, it is of limited use before around 1770. Issues include: missing values interpolated from a temperature dataset from Utrecht (not part of Central England, last time I checked.) temperatures inferred from snowfall and frost observations and readings taken in unheated rooms rather than outdoors. Precision was +/- 1C at best. Ironic, given Mr Watt's insistence on accurate instrumentation in pristine sites, no?
So the CET can tell us little about the LIA, which Lamb's famous graph shows happening around 1500-1700. Ball is blowing smoke again. You may remember the view of the judge in Ball's libel case, delivered February:
a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views
But do carry on believing…..
But do carry on believing…..
Apr 18, 2018 at 11:48 PM | Phil Clarke
I gave up believing in Mann's Hockey Stick some years ago, so why should I trust those that still do?
Lamb remains a reliable source because he stuck to evidence.
Have you got anywhere with ECS yet?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
Apr 19, 2018 at 1:06 AM | Phil Clarke
No answer on the Hockey Stick or ECS. Do you comprehend "incredulity"?
Just because you believe something, does not mean it is true
Phil Clarke, here is an approach for Climate Science, that Climate Science has always run away from. If other causes of Global Warming AND Cooling are looked at first, then the involvement of CO2, particularly manmade CO2 can be put into perspective.
This would avoid the preposterous mistake of assuming Manmade CO2 is THE temperature control knob.
If you have managed to find the Minutes of the Top Secret Meeting during which it was "agreed" to agree that CO2 was the only Temperature Control Knob, and that the Climate had never changed before, you could post them details and copy them here.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/04/18/swiss-climate-institute-director-absurd-to-call-co2-pollutant-main-culprit-behind-climate-change/#sthash.oUwymk4c.dpbs
"A new research institute in Switzerland set to rock the climate science boat…will investigate natural causes of climate change. Director calls claims CO2 the main driver and a pollutant “absurd”.
The Swiss Basler Zeitung (BZ) reported on April 13, 2018, that a new research institute opened at Aegeri in Switzerland last year: the Institute for Hydrography, Geo-ecology and Climate Sciences (IFHGK), which will focus on the natural causes of climate change.
Contrary to the other government-funded institutes, the IFHGK focusses on the natural causes of climate change: the Institute for Geo-ecology and Climate Sciences wishes to show that CO2 is not necessarily the main driver behind global warming and thus goes against the alleged broad consensus among mainstream researchers, the Baseler Zeitung writes.
A real climate scientist
The new institute, founded at the start of 2017, is located in Oberägeri, Switzerland is directed by Hans-Joachim Dammschneider. who according to the BZ explained:
Unlike many others who speak on the subject of global warming, I’m actually a climate scientist.”
The institute consists of scientists who work on a volunteer basis and operates on a shoestring. Decisive in the founding of the institute was Dr. Hans-Joachim Dammschneider’s encounter with Dr. Sebastian Lüning, who together with Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt wrote the Spiegel bestseller “Die kalte Sonne“, which upset German mainstream climate science. Lüning also runs the Die kalte Sonne climate site, where he posts daily.Looking at climate science with “calm, common sense and reason”
Dr. Lüning, a geologist, long ago concluded that the mainstream climate scientists have navigated themselves into a dead end. Dammschneider told the BZ that the institute will look at the issues with “calm, common sense and understanding.”
Dammschneider, who considers himself a climate realist, says that it is absurd that CO2 has been designated a pollutant and that the substance is mainly to blame for es climate change. Dr. Dammschneider is a leading German expert in the field of geography, climate research, oceanography and geology."
Cowtan and Way, 2013; Karl et al., 2015 were Peer Reviewed,
http://notrickszone.com/2018/04/19/new-consensus-science-half-of-1979-present-arctic-warming-ice-loss-is-natural/
"The Arctic region was the largest contributor to the positive slope in global temperatures in recent decades.
Consequently, the anomalously rapid warming in the Arctic region (that occurred prior to 2005) has been weighted more heavily in recent adjustments to instrumental temperature data (Cowtan and Way, 2013; Karl et al., 2015) so as to erase the 1998-2015 hiatus and instead produce a warming trend.
Meanwhile, other scientists have been busy determining that only about 50% of the warming and sea ice losses for the Arctic region are anthropogenic, or connected to the rise in CO2 concentrations.
The rest of the warming and ice declines can be attributed to unforced natural variability.
Based on a short review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there appears to be widespread agreement that a “substantial portion” of post-1979 Arctic-wide climate changes are naturally driven."
97% of Climate Scientists have ignored a "substantial portion" of the causes of Global Warming, because they decided (in secret?) that Manmade CO2 was the only temperature control knob.
So you haven't figured out how NoTricksZone operates then? Hint: Kenneth is incapable of performing an unbiased 'literature review'. Case in point: he cites Soon 2005, which identified a correlation between solar activity and Arctic temperatures. The correlation broke down after the period used, as pointed out in a RealClimate post on Willie Soon's science. But NTZ does not allow links to RC, so the readership is misled, and their bubble remains intact.
But, please, do keep trying.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/the-soon-fallacy/
Golf Charlie
Pitiful.
Your last two posts claim that short term decreases in stochastic variables are evidence of long term cooling.
Do you never tire of galloping this discredited straw man in all directions?