Tuesday
Aug022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Jostling for position
Aug 2, 2011 Climate: solar Michael Lemonick has an interesting article about the role of the sun in climate, inevitably discussing Svensmark's work. This has the feel of further jostling for position ahead of publication of the results of the CLOUD experiment.
[Svensmark's] idea is far from outlandish on a theoretical level, and lab experiments at the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva have shown that this can actually happen. Moreover, Svensmark and several collaborators have claimed to see a correlation between the sunspot cycle and cloud cover — more clouds when the Sun is quiet, fewer when it’s acting up.
Update on Aug 3, 2011 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Lemonick has just posted a correction to the article - he had got the relationship between cosmic rays and climate back to front.
Reader Comments (85)
ZDB,
I'd be interested to know what your scientific background is. Thanks in advance.
James Evans
TS,
Yes, I was being overly polite. Frankly, to anyone with an engineering background it doesn't pass the laugh test, particularly, as you say, it provides no mechanism for cooling, unless the homeopathic CO2 feedback magically switches on and off near turning points, rendering it clairvoyant as well.
If there were a major, dominating feedback from CO2 you could have a fair crack at calculating it from the high-res ice core data by looking at the differences between the curves. Indeed, if this were the case, they would have done so & shouted it from the roof tops. The fact that the temp & CO2 curves are almost identical with the time lag is pretty strong evidence that CO2 has such a minor role as to be discountable.
Here's what I believe the climate science 'establishment' - for want of a better word - believe:
Solar variability has been the primary driver of most climate change episodes in the past. CO2 concentrations have then risen and this has caused a feedback or amplification of the warming. Hence the lag - no mystery. The solar forcing was generally small, so change took a long time. This is widely known and accepted by the climate science community, and allowed for in the models curently used.
This time we have the CO2 increase first, and it is creating a much stronger forcing than variation in solar output. Both have to be taken into account - and are in current models - but the forcing due to CO2 is eight to ten times bigger than the solar component.
The regulars on here may want to desperately believe that the forcing due to solar variation is greater than that due to CO2, so naturally they will pounce on any paper, no matter how obscure, that seems to even hint that this might be the case. Fair enough, but why not argue the specific case nicely? I have seen some unpleasantness on blogs and forums in my time, but some of the personal attacks on here should be struck from the record.
Play nicely children, why don't you?
Thanks for your insightful summaires, Dung and ThinkingScientist. After reading them, I thought it might be interesting to see what maximum levels CO2 has reached in the past, evidently without causing any runaway feedback that turned the Earth into a cauldron (because it never happened). Here's a summary from CO2 Science (and a link). It hadn't occurred to me before, but check out their comment about concentration levels going further back in time to 4.5 billion years ago !!
"In very general terms, these long-term reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 levels depict a gradual rising back in time to approximately five times earth's current concentration at about 220 million years ago, followed by a dip back to near-current levels between 250 and 350 million years ago, with a rise to perhaps 20 times today's concentration between 450 and 550 million years ago. Beyond that point in time, the CO2 content of the air is generally portrayed as rising all the way to a full bar of presure (1,000,000 ppm) at 4.5 billion years ago."
http://www.co2science.org/subject/questions/1998/historic_co2.php
Scots renewables,
Sorry, but your explanation provides no mechanism for cooling if CO2 forcing is 8-10x solar forcing.
Plus, according to the orthodoxy the A component of AGW only becomes measurable after about 1950 (a graph on Wikipedia shows this, the one where they provide 2 lines one showing "what would have happened without increased CO2" which is just them turning off the CO2 term in the model at the relevant point and thereby merely demonstrates the input assumptions), yet warming started at the end of the little ice age, hundreds of years earlier. So it is not correct that "This time we have the CO2 increase first".
I think it's too inconvenient to think about so they don't.
I have to agree that some of the comments here have been unduly personal. Play the ball (argument) and not the man. Or woman, as the case may be.
Scots Renewables
"Hence the lag - no mystery."
It is a mystery to me. You are stating that rising temperatures cause rising (atmospheric) CO2 concentrations and accept that there is a lag in time of that phenomena. You then explain, if I am correct, that artificial increases in CO2 reduce that lag. What you do not explain is how a lagging effect creates a forcing of the driver of it. As I am not a climatologist, could you direct me to an explanation of that mechanism as I have failed to find one by research into the normal understanding of 'feed-back'?
One thing that I have not seen written anywhere (although I am of an age where blindness is almost compulsory) is that quite logically the rising levels of Co2 at the moment are in fact a result of the Medieval Warm Period. Take warm period, wait 800 ish years, get rising Co2, job done.
Zed,
I am still waiting for you to answer the perfectly civil and rational question I asked you some time ago - how many sail-powered ships are in the world's mercantile fleet?
Still waiting, but not holding my breath while doing so!
Scots Renewables
OK, no answer yet but let me make my difficulty in understanding your explanation more clearly: your 'feed-back' would have to travel into the past to have an effect on or to affect the now. See my problem?
Now an accumulation I can understand, but that is a different argument but by your own admission, you believe solar activity is the driver, CO2 the direct product and Delta T a by-product. Svensmark suggests that both Delta T might be negative and the direct product with CO2 the by-product. Interesting don't you think?
@ Scots Renewables ...I have seen some unpleasantness on blogs and forums in my time, but some of the personal attacks on here should be struck from the record. Play nicely children, why don't you?
I am not sure how to take being lectured by a subsidy junkie.
@ 'Simple . . . .
It is a mystery to me. You are stating that rising temperatures cause rising (atmospheric) CO2 concentrations and accept that there is a lag in time of that phenomena. You then explain, if I am correct, that artificial increases in CO2 reduce that lag.
Erm - thought I had made that plain. CO2 is not a feedback effect this time round, it is a primary driver. That is the difference, and that is where 'contrarians' seem to have a real problem for some reason.
@ lapogus
I am not sure how to take being lectured by a subsidy junkie.
I am not sure how to take such an ill-informed remark. I can assure you that I benefit from no subsidies of any kind. Are you in the habit of making unfounded accusations against people you know nothing about? If so, don't you think you might have a teensy problem?
@Dung - CO2 from fossil fuel betrays a different isotope marker to stuff released from land/oceans, so we have a reasonable idea of how much of the extra C02 in the atmosphere is from that source vs 'natural' sources. (Though, of course, CO2 released from man-made changes in land use or tundra melt complicate this.) One cannot ascribe the entire rise in CO2 we are experiencing to time lag from MWP and a significant amount of current CO2 is from recent man-made sources.
@Scots Renewables. Think carefully about SSAT's argument. The assertion that 'it's different this time round' doesn't bear much scrutiny. If recent CO2 increases are acting as the 'primary driver' of T change, then why is its effect now immediate and runaway? Why did that not ever happen in the past, as ThinkingScientist describes? What you need are a unique trigger and unprecedented feedback behaviours.
Or is that just me?
It's happened before.
Without us.
It'll happen again.
Without us.
Climate does what Climate does!
(Moma Earth - b. 4.5 'ish billion years to Gawd knows when)
PS
Loved the joke about the mouse, the thorn and the elephant
Aug 3, 2011 at 12:30 AM | Scopts Renewables
"I can assure you that I benefit from no subsidies of any kind."
Well, are you the real "Scots Renewables" or are you taking the "p"?
If indeed you are something to do with renewables in Scotland as your pseudonym suggests, then you can only be connected with the long established and efficient hydroelectric industry. If so, I take my hat off to you.
If, however, you are anything to do with BigWind, or solar, or tidal, or wave power, then I fear you are a bare faced liar. None of those "renewable" technologies in Scotland would last five minutes without direct or indirect (in either case, massive) subsidies.
Scots,
The problem is that the proposed water vapour feedback has to operate irrespective of the nature of the forcing. The system is dumb & blind. It only sees the "forcing" term. The idea that it responds uniquely to anthropogenic CO2 is... fanciful at best, and lacks any empirical basis.
The idea that it operates at all also lacks empirical basis, otherwise we'd be having graphs of measurements of specific humidity shouted from the rooftops. We're not. There is a specific humidity graph out there, but it shows no increase consistent with the hypothesis, which is why you haven't seen it.
The GCM's essentialy assume relative humidity to be constant, which conveniently avoids increased cloud formation as a result of increased evaporation, which would of course lead to a negative feedback...
Scots Renewables
"CO2 is not a feedback effect this time round, it is a primary driver."
Not by your own argument. Only the anthropogenic component of it can be - 70ppm of the current 380ppm or around 2%. Since we know the T sensitivity to a doubling of concentration is negligible and hardly achievable then it stands that CO2 is not guilty. The prosecution case however, claims that increase in CO2 produces another amplifying phenomena the proof of that being shown in the temperature record. But this is circumstantial evidence only and is being used to prosecute a case of murder. The calculation for climate sensitivity to CO2 is performed on that circumstantial evidence alone - that it must be greater than unity.
Svensmark and others are right to reject circumstantial evidence and the comment of BH on jostling for position is entirely apt.
RE: Scots Renewables
"This time we have the CO2 increase first, and it is creating a much stronger forcing than variation in solar output. Both have to be taken into account - and are in current models - but the forcing due to CO2 is eight to ten times bigger than the solar component."
Unless you are suggesting that the laws of physics today are different than the period over which ice core data is recorded, then using your model how is it physically possible, after exiting one ice age and building up CO2 in the atmosphere, to return to an ice age again?
And again, how do you explain that the CO2 and temperature curves from ice cores have:
(a) Constant lag when warming or cooling - 800 years the wrong way for CO2 to be the driver
(b) When the temperature and CO2 curves are standardised over their min/max range they follow each other in step - ie no evidence whatsoever for forcing from CO2 to amplify warming.
This data can only be explained with the model that temperature causes CO2 concentration to change in a very simple, linear fashion. The reverse explanation that CO2 causes temperature to change is simply impossible based on ice core data - unless you also believe that CO2 can affect temperature 800 years in the past. Perhaps you think the mechanism could be a non-causal forcing system?
Climate change in the past has been a very slow process - in terms of temperature change and in terms of CO2 variation. The mechanisms that reduce CO2 concentrations are no mystery - primarily weathering, increased biomass and the ability of cooler oceans to hold more CO2
Paleoclimate data is interesting when looking into our crystal ball to the far future, but the most significant thing this time round is the rate of the change in atmospheric composition. The 'plus ca change' argument really doesn't bear close examination, which is why climate models are so important.
re. Brumby - try staying on topic rather than giving in to the temptation to indulge in childish name calling.
@ Scots Renewables -
@ lapogus - I am not sure how to take such an ill-informed remark. I can assure you that I benefit from no subsidies of any kind. - Nothing personal but if you work directly or indirectly in or for the wind, wave, solar or new micro-hydro-electric industry then your job is dependent on subsidies, therefore my remark is not ill-informed.
Are you in the habit of making unfounded accusations against people you know nothing about? If so, don't you think you might have a teensy problem? No, see above. My only problem is that I have to pay at least an extra 20% on top of my electricity bill to subsidise profiteering energy companies like SP and SSE (and dubious landowners) in their quest to cover my country with ugly and inefficient windfarms which typically produce negligible amounts of electricity. The Neta page was saying 54MW when I looked yesterday, out of 3.5GW installed capacity. It is up to a staggering 78MW just now. The only question about all of this is whether the subsidy scam will last longer that the gearboxes.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php#generation_by_fuel_type_table
BH and others - sorry for being OT and interjecting in the science discussion.
lagopus:
Nothing personal but if you work directly or indirectly in or for the wind, wave, solar or new micro-hydro-electric industry then your job is dependent on subsidies, therefore my remark is not ill-informed.
I don't, therefore your remark IS ill-informed, and typical of the bizarre contrarian mindset that assumes all supporters of the climate consensus have 'snouts in the trough'.
Re. subsidies - all energy is subsidised. Fossil fuels attract the biggest subsidy as they are largely exempt from paying for the environmental damage they cause, but nuclear is not far behind.
RE: Scopts Renewables (sic)
"Paleoclimate data is interesting when looking into our crystal ball to the far future, but the most significant thing this time round is the rate of the change in atmospheric composition. The 'plus ca change' argument really doesn't bear close examination, which is why climate models are so important."
There is no available data or evidence on which to judge whether the rate of change in atmospheric composition in the modern period is in any way different to historical or geological periods. To claim this is so as part of the AGW model is a tautological argument.
There is a large body of data on chemical assay based estimates of historical CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 150 years that suggest that CO2 has varied considerably and sometimes been much higher than today, even in the relatively recent past. This data is simply ignored by IPCC. Never let data get in the way of a good model, eh?. /sarc
Secondly, you have not responded to the statement about CO2 lags and ice core data - the ice core clearly indicates that the effect of CO2 ontemperature must be very small, otherwise the CO2 / temperature curves for ice core would show a very different relation.
Certainly, we're all guilty of confirmation bias. But then again, these days we can usually predict the entire content of an article from the first paragraph, so it's not really bias; it's more experience that tells us there's nothing new here, so move along.
Scots Renewables - I first saw a comment of yours over at Mike's -
http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/the-death-knell-for-global-warming-alarmism/#comments
and clicked on the link from your name out of interest. It led to:
http://www.scotsrenewables.com/
which seems to be a news and resource site for the renewables industry, which is as well all know, is heavily subsidised. (Incidentally, I agree that the nuclear power industry has been subsidised in the past and probably will be in the future. However, coal and gas have not to my knowledge been in receipt of direct or indirect subsidies, and I question your assertion that they have caused costly environmental damage which has not been paid for by the revenue generated from each GWh. The key point being that even if nuclear & coal have been subsidised, they have at least provided a stable and significant source of electrical power for the last 60 years, and kept the countries lights on, something that wind and wave simply cannot do.
If you are not the person behind http://www.scotsrenewables.com/ and don't gain financially from the site I apologise but I think my mistake is hardly surprising given the identical names. In any case, all I did was make a wee throwaway remark about being lectured by a subsidy junkie, maybe it is you that has the problem? This is the internet after all.
There is no available data or evidence on which to judge whether the rate of change in atmospheric composition in the modern period is in any way different to historical or geological periods.
I said 'rate of change'. CO2 levels may have been much higher in the past but they got there slowly. Now CO2 concentration is increasing year on year faster than at any previous time with the exception of the KT Boundary - which resulted in massive climate change and the extinction of the dinosaurs!
CO2 lagging temperature in the paleoclimate record is exactly as expected for past (slow) climate change which was driven by solar variation. This has been explained over and over again and is fully explained and accounted for in IPCC literature, so I do not intend to waste my time going over it again here.
RE: Scots Renewables
"Climate change in the past has been a very slow process - in terms of temperature change and in terms of CO2 variation."
This statement is complete nonsense. It is difficult to observe climate change rates over geological periods because the temporal resolution of the data is so low. To then conclude that therefore rates of change of climate are slow is an unsupported statement. However, where high temporal resolution climate data is available the data clearly show rates of climate change that are up to an order of magnitude greater than putatively "measured" for the 20th Century.
From high resolution ice core data from the Greenland ice cap there is clear evidence of temperature changes as large as 10 deg celcius taking place in just decades during Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. And in the Younger Dryas period 12,900 - 11,500 BP temperatures were 10+ deg deg celcius colder than today. At the start of the Younger Dryas the change from warmth to cold took less than 100 years and maybe no more than a decade.
Here is a rather nice quote from the NOAA Paleoclimate pages on evidence for past abrupt climate changes:
"Around 8,200 years ago, however, a surprising event occurred. The 8.2 ka event, as it is now known, was first discovered in the Greenland ice core GISP2, where high-resolution analyses indicate that over two decades temperature cooled about 3.3°C in Greenland (Alley et al., 1997; Kobashi et al., 2007). The entire event lasted about 150 years (Thomas et al., 2007; Kobashi et al., 2007) and then temperatures warmed, returning to their previous levels."
Try looking at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data.html before making claims about past geological climate change being at a slow rate.
sub-pages:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data3.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data5.html
Concerning questions about past atmospheric CO2 composition, here's a 'peer reviewed' paper that suggests the IPCC 'consensus' may be quite as sound some would have us believe...
http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
...plus a web page covering the same issue...
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-ice-HS.htm
Lagopus,
OK, perhaps I was over-sensitive . . . (takes chill pill)
It is my site but (at the moment at least) it is purely a 'hobby' site - I certainly don't derive any income from it , so don't consider myself to be a 'subsidy junkie'. I'm a web designer, so in some respects it is a demo site for that, particularly for exploring Wordpress - and it made sense to create a site about a subject I am interested in. I hope that the site isn't seen as a mouthpiece for the renewables industy either - it is not intended to be. 'Big Wind' is after all just 'Big Oil' in new clothing, and one is no more to be trusted than the other.
We could argue forever about the 'real' cost of fossil fuels . . . for example the recent exemption in the US of parts of the oil and gas industry from the Clean Water Act of 1974 - but that would be seeriously off topic, so I guess we can save that one for another thread. I'm out of this one for now, it's not really going anywhere and there will be some more 'news' along in a minute I am sure.
This is the abstract from Thomas et al (2007) archived over at NOAA:
"How fast and how much climate can change has significant implications
for concerns about future climate changes and their potential impacts
on society. An abrupt climate change 8200 years ago (8.2 ka event)
provides a test case to understand possible future climatic variability.
Here, methane concentration (taken as an indicator for terrestrial
hydrology) and nitrogen isotopes (Greenland temperature) in trapped
air in a Greenland ice core (GISP2) are employed to scrutinize the
evolution of the 8.2 ka event. The synchronous change in methane
and nitrogen implies that the 8.2 ka event was a synchronous event
(within ±4 years) at a hemispheric scale, as indicated by recent
climate model results [Legrande, A.N., Schmidt, G.A., Shindell, D.T.,
Field, C.V., Miller, R.L., Koch, D.M., Faluvegi, G., Hoffmann, G., 2006.
Consistent simulations of multiple proxy responses to an abrupt climate
change event. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103,
837–842]. The event began with a large-scale general cooling and drying
around ~8175±30 years BP (Before Present, where Present is 1950 AD).
Greenland temperature cooled by 3.3±1.1°C (decadal average) in less
than ~20 years, and atmospheric methane concentration decreased by
~80±25 ppb over ~40 years, corresponding to a 15±5% emission reduction.
Hemispheric scale cooling and drying, inferred from many paleoclimate
proxies, likely contributed to this emission reduction. In central
Greenland, the coldest period lasted for ~60 years, interrupted by a
milder interval of a few decades, and temperature subsequently warmed
in several steps over ~70 years. The total duration of the 8.2 ka event
was roughly 150 years."
Note that the cooling was 3.3 degC (+/-1.1) in less than 20 years and the return to warming in several steps over about 70 years. This is a rate of warming 3 - 5 times that seen in the 20th Century (and the first part of that warming is considered even by the IPCC to be natural).
Quite frankly, to get excited about a few tenths of a degree temperature change over 30 years (followed by effectively a plateau for around 10 years) is absurd when you can see how much climate can change quite naturally. And that's being generous to the putative "measured" temperature record - don't forget that in the GHCN data set the post-1910 "error" correction applied to the data gives 0.25 degC per century "warming" just of itself.
Can you imagine the AGW/IPCC derived headlines if the 8.2 ka event was occuring now?
The argument is usually of the form: "the government owns 100% of everything. What it doesn't tax is effectively a subsidy, therefore fossil fuels receive a massive subsidy".
The argument is usually of the form: "the government owns 100% of everything. What it doesn't tax is effectively a subsidy, therefore fossil fuels receive a massive subsidy".
Your argument, not mine . . . although some might see the above as applying to aviation fuel. As I said, another thread perhaps - got to do some work.
@ Scots Renewables - "... I'm out of this one for now... ".
No worries and I agree, let's move on. That said, the links on your climate news page to the SNH, SEPA, and the BBC story on the extreme rainfall events are hilarious. The rainfall study was ripped apart on here when it came out - http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/2/17/myles-fludd.html
I've always been amused by these CO2 molecules that have 'man made' or 'fossil fuel' stamped all over them. Waayy too confident, as Briggs would say.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/new_research_warmth_produces_these_carbon_dioxide_concentrations#87593
Gixxerboy
I am aware of the isotope theory on AGW but it doesnt stack up with the facts. Yes the isotope mix of Co2 in the atmosphere is changing and the isotope preferred by plants is rising. This is the isotope released when fossil fuels are consumed. However the argument then goes the same way as the original AGW argument; Co2 is the only thing we can find that could be increasing temperature therefore IT IS the cause. Burning fossil fuels is the only thing we can think of that could be responsible for the change in the isotope mix therefore IT IS responsible. There has been no investigation into or quantifying of any other reasons for the change. The amount of vegetation on the planet, partularly trees has been much reduced by human activity, this vegetation, particularly trees was taking a lot more of the C12 isotope out of the atmosphere 150 years ago than it is today. You would expect the mix to change simply because the vegetation has changed.
I have read many assumptions about the amout of human produced Co2 in the atmosphere in relation to the total amount of Co2. All the assumptions I have read put the figure at between 5% and 10%. If anyone can point me at some credible investigations into this area I would be grateful. Even if we take the worst case figure of 10% there is absolutely no way that man made Co2 can be responsible for all of the increase.