Bishop Hill A response to the CSAs
Sep 16, 2013 Climate: Models Climate: Sceptics Michael Kelly has a letter in the Times responding to the Chief Scientific Advisers' call to trust the IPCC.
Sir, In any form of exact science or engineering, having a discrepancy of a factor of two between theory and experiment would be a source of grave embarrassment. This is not so with climate science where the climate models have overestimated the effect of increasing CO2 on the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere by a factor of two over the past 25 years.
For this reason, the divergence between the predictions of theoretical models and real-world data is growing. If the forthcoming fifth assessment report does not address this problem and its implications in an open and candid manner, the validity of the report will be widely questioned.
Kapow.
Reader Comments (77)
entropic man (Sep 16, 2013 at 7:01 PM), I'm not sure what to make of that paper you linked to because, if CO2 and Global temperatures also correlation, then this is hardly unique evidence for CO2 being the driver. I'm also puzzled because they use sea ice 'extent' as their metric but I thought we were now being told that it's sea ice *volume* that's the key metric for Arctic ice?
entropic man
I've read your various postings and I think I see your viewpoint: you believe that the additional radiation ("back radiation") is absorbed by the Earth's surface and causes it to warm. From a basic physics point of view that all sounds reasonable. Everything else you state seems to come from this.
The problem is that this idea hasn't been tested. And there are a number of reasons for it not being tested and it being less in real life:
1) 4 W/m2 is not a lot of power - even the proposed heating is very small
2) In the food industry, IR is used to heat fluids (milk, water) without contaminating it - typically they use power densities of 1000s W/m2. Laser physics often use 10000 W/m2. And yes IR is very effective at these densities at heating fluids but there is still considerable waste due to reflectance and thermal loss. For much less power the loss could swamp the actual input power.
3) The Earth's surface isn't in a vacuum - hence simple blackbody physics don't strictly apply. The surface is in contact with an atmosphere and as has been posted here before can also freely evaporate. There are other mechanisms to take the heat away rather than have it absorbed by the surface. Nature is a lazy beast and the Least Energy Principle applies.
4) Lastly - other thermal losses - just regular surface energy thresholds, thermal interia. From "basic physics" alone these may play a considerable part in reducing the efficacy of energy transfer. The atmosphere can also store energy laterally so the vertical temperature profile does not have to be effected which helps with energy dissipation.
I have quite a few years experience with plasmas and performing physics experiments and industrial/space engineering. I have seen plasmas absorb amps without much change at a macro scale even though at the micro there are large oscillations. In all my time the basic tenet is that if an effect is proposed it needs to be characterised before being used in predicitions or models. When I worked in the space industry you couldn't afford not to.
Now hand on heart can you really say the Co2 forcing effect has come under that level of scrutiny? Jim Hansen's equation is the only thing I see. Just a theory not a characterised effect. And I also see a lot of "theorists" rather than "empiricists" in the climate debate. There should really be less thinking and more doing when it comes to getting facts.
I'm very surprised indeed that the assumption that CO2 is the only driver of climate got any traction here!
Sep 16, 2013 at 4:23 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
It didn't [snip - manners]!! This is the one place where qualified scientist have argued the stupidity of that statement. It is you and your greanpeace led organisation that has claimed that. Your models demonstrate your beliefs every time you run them. Your arctic ice prediction this year is based on this most ridiculous notion.
TerryS, David Salt.
Arctic sea ice extent, area and volume all correalate with each other and with CO2. Extent has been measured, at least approximately, since the 19th century. Area and volume had to wait for satellite data, so there's only 30 year's worth. You use what you have.
The Antarctic is a lot more complex. NSIDC did a short article on the processes driving the Antarctic ice expansion.
http://nsidc.org/icelights/2012/11/
Richard Betts may be approaching his Damascene moment, but it's far too late for the MO as an organization. People caught on to them a long time ago, so there's little hope
It's a shame that he and all his colleagues are not approaching Damascus right now and for more than a moment.
Mickey H Corbett....don't hang around waiting for entropic man to respond...if he does he will do a "gish gallop" and tell you about walrus populations, such is his wont.
entropic man (Sep 16, 2013 at 9:50 PM), you say that "Arctic sea ice extent, area and volume all correalate with each other and with CO2" but, if memory serves, you also said not long ago that volume was the metric that mattered... this was when people were pointing to the area/extent measurements showing a recovery that went against the "expected" trend.
Also, I fully understand your point about the models being unable to account for future events that are unpredictable (e.g. volcanoes) but still don't understand why climate scientists haven't yet been able to show that their models are still correct once these events are accounted. Why do they not see the solution as clearly as you do?
Without an actual experiment, Kelly's statement relies on the assumption that observed changes over the past 25 years are entirely due to CO2, with nothing else either adding or substracting from its effect.
(...)
Sep 16, 2013 at 4:23 PM Richard Betts
Until perhaps about now, I thought that that was the official Met Office line - see eg Kate Willetts on My Climate and Me patiently explaining that the only thing that could account for warming was CO2. Or the Met Office's numerous publications on global warning.
entropic man-
"Note the Rsquared of 0.84 for the left hand graph, correalating CO2 concentration and sea ice extent."
Now repeat for Antarctic sea ice extent. I wouldn't be surprised if Rsquared is -0.84.
That settles it then...
Sep 16, 2013 at 10:14 PM Dave Salt
Because EM just sees things with far greater clarity than others do.
His world is described by delightfully simple analytical formulas, unrelated time series that precisely cancel, and so on.
Re: EM
> Extent has been measured, at least approximately, since the 19th century.
Err no, it hasn't. It is from a variety of sparse data covering mainly the Nordic seas. From 1850 to 1922 it is from ships logs, from 1922 it is data from sealers, ship traffic and trappers. Since 1950 it has been Russian Norwegian and American aircraft observations. The ship data is problematic since the ships were trading ships they would avoid the edge of the ice and so would not be able to report its position, only their own. Overall, the data from pre satellite doesn't cover the entire Arctic and is dependant upon a lot of incidental observation and interpretation.
Is Richard Betts making a lame attempt to pretend that the Met Office has not based its false science on the assumption that CO2 is the only driver of climate?
Re: Dave Salt
> future events that are unpredictable (e.g. volcanoes)
There is a claim that there has been more volcanic activity recently which has caused the pause in global warming. I've searched for evidence of this but can not find any. The only thing I can find (and EM pointed me to this) is a paper that used the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model in combination with the Community Aerosol and Radiation Model to determine that most of the SO2 up there was from volcanoes and therefore volcanic activity had increased.
I don't consider this evidence of more volcanic activity.
It isn't as if you can hide the damn things, they are pretty big and tend to make themselves known when they erupt. There are only 50 to 60 that erupt every year so it isn't difficult to count or measure them. I would have thought that Volcanologists would have publishing papers left right and centre about the unprecedented* volcanic activity in the 21st century but I can't find a thing. The only thing I can find is from the climate community making that claim via their models.
* It has to unprecedented. If it is within normal bounds then the climate models should have already included it.
Schrodinger's cat
Showing correalation is a necessary step.
Correalation does not prove causation, but if causation exists you would expect correalation. If you cannot show correalation, there is probably no causation either.
Regarding the Antarctic, there is a correalation between Southern Ocan temperatures and CO2 and a correalation between ice loss from the land and CO2. The sea ice extent correalates with wind direction and strength, and inversly with salinity, which is why its response to warming is counterintuitive.
Note that the recent record for the post 1979 period is close to the extent recorded by the 1964 Nimbus satellite photos.
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/699/2013/tc-7-699-2013.pdf
The authors suggest that the 1960s extent is the norm and that the increase in recent years is a recovery from a temporary decline.
Sep 16, 2013 at 7:01 PM | Unregistered Commenterentropic man
There is no genuine science that rests on time series analysis and there never will be.
Sep 16, 2013 at 4:23 PM | Richard Betts
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If one looks at the thermometer record (whether this be CET, or any of the global data sets) there is no first order correlation between CO2 and temperature (and these data sets include a number of instances of anti-correlation) such that I am surprised that the notion that CO2 is a part driver of temperature got any traction, still less that it was dominant over natural variability.
You are right. Enquiring minds would like to know: Where are the experiments that CO2 does anything in the real world conditions of Earth's atmosphere? Where are the experiments that DWLWIR has sensible energy capable of performing work in the environs existing here on Earth? Why are we pushing ahead with extracting energy by way of PVR cells from solar, and not experimenting into capturing energy from DWLWIR when according to K&T DWLWIR is almost twice as powerful and is a 24/7 come rain or shine energy source and would solve the world's energy problems, in a clean and environmentally friendly way, if only useful work could be extracted from DWLWIR?
@Sep 16, 2013 at 5:23 PM | David Coe
"I suspect that you are wrong about AR5 being the last one...This is and will continue to be a long hard road."
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You may well be right (and I fear that you are), but then consider what if there are no volcano eruptions between now and say 2020 and temperatures during this period show a statistically significant fall? What will the IPCC say? How will it deal with that? Consider the even greater discrepancy between model projections and reality and the implications that has on its models. Consider that in this scenario it is lekley that there are more and more peer reviewed papers scaling back on Climate Sensitivity. One can see that AR6 would in these circumstances be an akward report to write.
Of course no one knows how the future will unfold and what temperatures will do. Will temperatures rise, will the hiatus continue, or will they fall? However, save for an ENSO event, there are reasons to suspect that temperatures will not begin to rise within the next 7 or so years so I can envisage AR5 being the last report, especially if it comes under severe criticism such that the public lacks confidence and respect in the IPCC. Much will depend upon MSM, but we are slowly seeing changes which are shedding some light on the contradictory evidence and the uncertainty of the science behind the AGW (especially CAGW) theory.
"In the last one 130 years, ten of the warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The long term trend is incontrovertibly one of rapid temperature rise since pre-industrial times. So there are still some areas of contention around climate science but whether the globe is warming is not one of them"
Met Office
@ Richard Verney, 5:34 AM: DWLWIR?
Quite, the confusion between black body radiation and flux endures. I would have said inexplicably but as a cornerstone of the alarm, it simply has to.
IIRC, the long-term correlation between temperature and CO2 (e.g. Vostok ice cores) shows CO2 trailing temperature, thus reversing the supposed cause and effect. If true, isn't that rather inconvenient?
Re: EM
> there is a correalation between Southern Ocean temperatures and CO2
Yes and it is negative. According to Reynolds OI.v2 Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies the Southern Ocean has a slight cooling trend.
EM. Look at this (peer-reviewed) paper.
Soon, W. W.-H. 2005. Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years. Geophysical Research Letters 32.
Paints a rather different picture of the relationship between Arctic Sea ice extent and CO2 than your "Dosbat- Notes from an amateur reader of Arctic sea ice science" source.
"Sep 17, 2013 at 8:05 AM | Martin A
In the last one 130 years, ten of the warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The long term trend is incontrovertibly one of rapid temperature rise since pre-industrial times."
And it's not getting any warmer. There have been warm periods before 1000 & 2000 years ago. 500 years ago there was a little ice age. These all happened without industrialisation. So the best that could be argued by CAGW proponents is that the difference between the peak 1000 years ago and the present warming is down to industrialization, which is not a lot.
This MO statement is indefensible, simply because of the word rapid. It has no intrinsic meaning. Richard Betts and any other real scientists involved should ensure such things are not part of MO statements.
Never forget - IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate CHANGE - not Climate RESEARCH...
In other words - 'Just prove that the change is caused by humans - nothing else'..
I feel like a pudding having treacle poured over it. I'm not going to be able to answer all of you properly.
Don Keiller
Not everyone has your resources.
I had to use Dobsat. The original paper was paywalled.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL051094/abstract
Your own link is interesting. The ends of the record more closely fit the CO2. The middle is a closer fit to insolation.
Micky H Corbett, Richard Verney,
What experiments would you suggest? An entire planet is not as amenable to experiment as a laboratory setup. What controls would you use?
PVs work in the short wavelength range, and probably could not be engineered to work in the infrared too. The water heaters probably absorb some DWLWIR.
DWLWIR is measurable, even with cheap equipment. Buy a £10 IR thermometer and point it at a night sky.
JamesP, steveta_UK
Over long timescales you are correct. Interglacials come and go in response to insolation driven temperature changes amplified by positive feedback between temperature and CO2. The two move up and down together over timscales of tens of millennia.
The last 130 years have not fitted this pattern. A long term cooling trend has been interrupted by a rapid artificial release of CO2, with no preceding temperature rise.
"Rapid" would describe the current rate of change of CO2 change, 10ppm per decade and rising. Over glacial/interglacial cycles 10ppm per millenium would be more typical. We are changing CO2 concentration 100 times faster.
son of mulder
The current interglacial peaked some 8000 years ago. The last few millenia have shown a cooling trend up to the latter 1800s. This fits with the long term reduction in insolation expcted at this stage of the current interglacial. The MWP and the LIA fit the cooling trend. The rise in temperature since than does not, so we look for a different explaination.
entropic man
You say:
"Micky H Corbett, Richard Verney,
What experiments would you suggest? An entire planet is not as amenable to experiment as a laboratory setup. What controls would you use?
PVs work in the short wavelength range, and probably could not be engineered to work in the infrared too. The water heaters probably absorb some DWLWIR.
DWLWIR is measurable, even with cheap equipment. Buy a £10 IR thermometer and point it at a night sky."
Okay, you have just provided a strawman argument. The key to AGW is that the Co2 forcing is due to IR light being reabsorbed by a surface (water or land). So you concentrate on characterising how well that occurs. You don't need a planet size experiment. The food industry goes to great pains to characterise IR heating of milk. You could use sea water instead. What we are after is how much energy loss occurs as you drop the power density. Similar to performing a sputtering experiment with ions of decreasing energy.
If the efficacy of IR absorbtion and subsequent heating at lower power densities, with an atmosphere, on typical surfaces is very small then the claim that "back radiation" and the Jim Hansen temperature curve are wrong. That is where you start. You build more complicated experiments off the back of that.
I'm surprised you don't see that EM as it is basic scientific method.