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Comments 1 to 50:

  1. Thinking is Power: Don't be fooled... fact check!

    @JH1961

    The article is about how to check facts. Therefore, I think the message is: be a fact checker yourself.

  2. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

    PaulDent @1503 ,

    You seem to be trying to make two opposite arguments at once:

    That: [A] fossil fuels will be exhausted in 50-100 years, and so we should simply keep using them until they're all gone (and without us developing Renewable Energy systems in the meantime).

    And that: [B] we should quickly phase out the burning of fossil fuels, because they should be saved for using to counteract the next scheduled "ice-age" glaciation . . . (which is due in about 16,000 years).

    Either way, you could probably better argue one case (or the opposite case) on a more appropriate thread than this one ~ 'cos this thread is for those people who have rather wacko ideas about Greenhouse and Thermodynamics.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Thank you Ecletic - more offtopic comments on this thread will be deleted. Any responses in the indicated thread please.

  3. Skeptical about a defense of science?

    I smell a smell.  The smell started about 1948.

    After the first Arab-Israeli war, I believe a group of unnamed people concocted a long term plot ot deny the Arabs oil money, which they were using mainly to arm themselves to the teeth with Russian, American, British and French weapons which those countries were falling over themselves to supply in order to get some of their oil money back.  The plot I believe originated in Sweden, which I deduced from absorbing the sentiment through living there. Sweden is a very pacifist country and this would be an in-character idea of how to keep the peace-   cutting off the oil  money should cool things down!

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Offtopic for starters and well in breach of comments policy.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  4. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

    Even we accept that buringin fossil fuels is warming the planet, the estimates are a few degrees per century. Now that might be catastrophic given enough cebtturies, but there is another doomsday scenario with which gloabl warming is mutually exclusive: Namely, Oil is nprdicted to last another 50 years, natural gas 53 years and coal 110 years - all running in parallel at the current rate of consumption. So after 50-53 years our fossil feul consumtpino is down to coal alone, and boy will we be scrambling to turn that into gasoline efficiently! So after 50 years, the rate of warming may fall or cease completely, and after 110 year (or less, as we will coal fater when the oil is gone) there will no more fossil fuels to burn and there will be nothing to stop the next ice age- although is rather a long way off !

    Summary: If we do nothing there will be no catastrophe.

  5. Reviewing the horrid global 2020 wildfire season

    Mike:

    Yes, "tonnes" would be the same as "metric tons" - 1000 kg.

    This Skeptical Science post on the carbon cycle gives numbers of 29 gigatons/yr of CO2 from fossil fuel and land use activities. I assume it is U.S. tons (2000 lb), so not quite so many tonnes (about 2,200 lbs). 1.26 billion tonnes is a small amount, but not negligible.Also keep in mind that CO2 from forest fuels is relatively-recently-fix carbon - taken out of the atmosphere in (probably) the last 100 years or so.

    Between Europe and the U.S., we need to make sure we are using the same "billions" - 1,000 million ( = "giga"). When comparing carbon numbers, you also have to make sure that you don't mix between tonnes carbon, and tonnes CO2 (which includes the weight of the O2).

  6. Reviewing the horrid global 2020 wildfire season

    LINK

    This is the story that I meant to link.  It says "Wildfires released 1.26bn tonnes of CO2 in July, according to the data, with more than half of these emissions attributed to fires in North America and Siberia. In August, fires caused 1.38bn tonnes of CO2 to be released."

    a billion tonnes of CO2 seems like a lot.   But this where scaling becomes problematic.  Is a billon tonnes of CO2 a lot?   How does it compare to other sources, like private vehicle emissions for the US in a month, etc.  I read a source that said the US emission level for 2019 was abt 5.1 billion metric tons.  are metric tons and "the Independent" tonnes the same thing?  If yes, then a billion tons of emissions in a month is really quite large at about twice the monthly US emission level.  Am I understanding this correctly? 

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Shortened link.

  7. Reviewing the horrid global 2020 wildfire season

    Mike: the latest IPCC report, in the SPM, states:

    "The magnitude of feedbacks between climate change and the carbon cycle becomes larger but also more uncertain in high CO2 emissions scenarios (very high confidence).  However, climate model projections show that the uncertainties in atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 2100 are  dominated by the differences between emissions scenarios (high confidence). Additional ecosystem  responses to warming not yet fully included in climate models, such as CO2 and CH4 fluxes from wetlands,  permafrost thaw and wildfires, would further increase concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere (high  confidence).

    So, it is on the radar of climate scientists. In the IPCC report, section 5.4.3.2 mentions it specifically, but only some models include these emissions as a dynamic feedback. Here is how that section closes (emphasis added):

    Overall, climate change will force widespread increases in fire weather throughout the world (Section 12.3.2.8). Because of incomplete inclusion of fire in ESMs, a separate compilation of fire- driven carbon-climate feedback estimates (Eliseev et al., 2014a; Harrison et al., 2018) (section 5.4.8). There is low agreement in magnitude and medium agreement in sign, which alongside other literature (Jones et al., 2020), leads to an assessment of medium confidence that fire represents a positive carbon- climate feedback, but very low confidence in the magnitude of that feedback. Other disturbances such as tree mortality will increase across several ecosystems (medium agreement) with decreased vegetation carbon (medium confidence). However, the lack of model agreement and lack of key process representation in ESMs lead to a low confidence assessment in the projected magnitude of this feedback.

     

  8. Reviewing the horrid global 2020 wildfire season

    LINK

    I have trouble getting a handle on the scale of emissions from forest fires.  I assume these emissions are dwarfed by human emissions, but I am would like to have a clue about the scale.  So, if 2021 summer was the worst on record for forest fire emissions, how bad is that? 

    Is this a significant feedback or journalistic clickbait? 

    Cheers

    Mike

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Link activated. (It is the same link as the one in the following comment from Mike.)

  9. Book Review: Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe

    Very nicely presented "Wilddouglascounty."  I hope many read it. You are more optimistic than I can be; thus thank you for your sign of hope. I need such. I'll make it through the day.

    My take tends to be with the flaws in being human, and the laws of a natural order that human fight with. Yes, I'm a bit skeptical about "scientific method," as was one of my mentors who authored the 1962 book of that title. He moved on to systems sciences, as did I, thus I encountered climate change in 1975 via reading the 1856 work of Eunice Foote.

    In my courses, whatever they might have been titled, I covered two subjects. 1) Ethics: Fastian Negotiations always selling the soul, thus leading to end-state tragedy, and 2) Human economics and business always avoiding laws of thermodynamics, especially that funny 2nd one. 

    For the first I usually rely on Marlowe, Goethe, and Mann. For the second I rely on Einstein, Hawking and Sagan, where I considered Carl a friend.  In 2007 in this regard a debate was held with China's leadership council, prior to their selection of Xi as President. I recommended they give up on Confucian thought (too similar to Plato) and return to Lao Tzu wisdom (similar to Socrates).  They seems to really understand what such could mean to managing climate change, before they didn't a few years later.  A similar debate would not have been held in Washington, unless about a dozen lobbiest approved the script. (I can give you a list, ha..ha.. )

    I have a book coming out in Europe this winter on the above..."Short-term Gain, Long-term Pain."  Its about Faust, Industrialization, and life during the human end state.  Therein I cover 2,500 years of the idea of management as the problem, including the management of science. My focus ends with the inherent limitation in the first three letters of management. If so, we might try femagement for a bit? Their science is very promising. For politics they listen to their husbands, but are now moving on from that limitation.  See you on the other side, I hope. 

    In 2015, when is was obvious that America was moving to a Trump version of leadership, I began a foundation in China to prepare girls for managing humans during masculine created climate change.  An English version of its site is at EternalFeminine.org. 

  10. Can the economy afford NOT to fight climate change?

    Economy cannot afford NOT to fight climate change, that’s right! – But how can we effectively fight global warming, if the only alternative given is to reduce energy, the human’s economies vital input? At what extent economy can afford climate action without mutilation of survival?
    Yes, we can! – It’s not necessary to stop energy consumption, when fighting global warming by boosting global water cycle. Everybody studying about the carbon impact and its sophisticated relation in the biosphere, with diagnostic results. Utopic thoughts about geo-engineering with unimaginable global impacts. Science should really put the feet on earth!
    The global water cycle is the natural way to intervene against global warming! “GAIA”, the auto-regulating hyper-organism, asserts temperature by water circulation. And we should learn more about the different instruments we have to enhance or reduce the fluxes. We know that evapotranspiration in the tropics by solar radiation and direct warming distributes water in the southern and northern hemispheres. We also know that evaporating water cools surfaces and returns as refreshing water. Vapor at the equator produces convection and drafts up to higher regions, where we observe ice-clouds in the uppermost layers of the troposphere. These drift to the poles and bring snow to the higher latitudes by “scratching” the stratosphere with freezing temperatures of -50°C.
    It might be quite easy to booster tropical evapotranspiration, by installing artificial evaporators at the eastern coast around the Equator-line. Look at Somalia, were the mangroves have been removed for firewood from our human ancestrals. At the horn of Africa, I am sure we make the Somalian desert disappear!

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] This assertion of cooling the globe by enhancing evaporation is nonsense - unsupported by anything you post, and refuted in recent discussions in other threads here.

    Unless you can actually provide scientific evidence and links, your posts constitute sloganeering and will be subject to deletion. You have been warned before. From the Comments Policy:

    No sloganeering.  Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted.

  11. wilddouglascounty at 00:12 AM on 23 September 2021
    Book Review: Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe

    Time-Life put out a wonderful "coffee table book" in 1955 called The World We Live In. This popularization of the best we knew from science about our planet and universe was shown in beautiful, striking photographs, illustrations and clear language, at least for me as a child and my parents, for that matter.  On page 86, they wrote:

    "for the last cetury temperatures have shown an upward trend. This has been particularly true in the last four decades, during which glaciers have been in retreat all around the world. The reasons for this gradual warming of the earth cannot be defined with certainty. One suggested explanation is an increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. Along with water vapor and ozone, carbon dioxide helps to trap the earth's heat within the greenhouse of the atmosphere and prevents it from radiating away into space. In the last century the carbon dioxide ratio in the atmosphere has increased by 10%, a phenomenon which some attribute to expanding industry, pointing out that six billion tons of CO2 pour from factory chimneys every year. Other authorities believe that a more important factor may be the decimation of forests, which concume great quantitites of CO2, and the disturbance of the soil which exhales it."

    There have been popularized explanations from scientists explaining greenhouse gases and their impact on the climate my entire life.  I'm sorry folks ignored your efforts, just as I'm sorry that folks ignored the warnings put out by scientists in 1955 and at many, many other points before and since. What has become clear over those years is that it is not the job of our governments to discern the truth, rather they have the job of setting the rules for our economies to follow.  This is not the first time that those rules were set with other priorities than the truth in mind, since it almost never has been in the first place. 

    Science has a process to whittle away at alternative explanatory hypotheses, and, as fraught with messiness as it is, the curve bends toward better, more accurate algorithms. Politics has a process to choose society's governing rules, but there are many, many examples when the curve goes away from the truths about functional societies and sustainable relationships with the rest of the planet. Therein lies the issue, and why telling the truth is always insufficient in the political realm.

  12. Book Review: Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe

    The Hayhoe book if fine but a bit late. By some standards it could be seen as an "ad hominem" exercise to cheer up human failures. I carried out a major Swedish-based research effort in the nineteen seventies, that  was widely labelled "ad hominem" in 1979. Even the director of EPA at the time used that label in a furious letter. From that time I never respected those using that title to pretend they were more scientific. 

    My project included many corporations and six governments, as well as researchers like James Black. It was presented to OECD by Sweden's Prime Minister. The three volume research report ended with a threat of climate change if humans didn't improve on their reductistic science without context and legal-order regulations via threats that become humor. A negotiated order approach was proposed to manage environmental deterioration.

    A key finding, as presented in a keynote to the annual Liebnitz Conference, was that the glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is clearly empty with urine stains on it. A dissertation came out from the Swedish project where the Dean of the Wharton School, U of Penn, came out strongly against the research conclusions. He called it "ad hominem." It was not allowed in the library so a group of students, not including me, publlished it. They were upset with the Wharton dean's comments on the future relative to climate change.

    It was republished after 40 years as "Too Early, Too Late," Now what?"  An outline of the book was in a May, 2019 Science Magazine issue. More then 800 scientists responded with 2,100 pages of comments, where the majority were more pessimistic than the book. A Science community chat site director called it "ad hominen," and thankfully was let go.

    Now its even later. The book is being republished this winter under a much clearer title.  This was became the 2019 version was seen as having a "funny" title by Amazon. They moved if from acadmic science to their human section.  Sadly, its not all that funny, but humans and their counter productive attempts at rules of irrelevance are funny.

    Just now I'm managing my 1,500 acre Iowa farm to demonstrate the ravages of climate change to those who see it as a hoax, and say its "ad hominem."  The farm is winning, but humans are still losing.  Sorry for being too clear.

  13. prove we are smart at 22:47 PM on 21 September 2021
    Can the economy afford NOT to fight climate change?

    Maybe our govts will see the value of reducing carbon emissions if not from a moral perspective but a bottom line view. I don't know if here in Aust this issue is as relevant but here is an important consideration when changing to renewals.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You seem to be getting in the habit of posting links with little or no explanation as to why they are relevant. A reminder that the Comments Policy includes the following:

    No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.

  14. prove we are smart at 22:12 PM on 21 September 2021
    Can we afford (not) to stop Climate Change?

    3. Mike at 21:38 PM on 16 September, 2021.

    These are some of my thoughts too, of course the biggest drop in global carbon emissions was caused by a pandemic civilization reset/collapse however short lived though! I can't see the future-maybe a fixallforever vaccine will be developed to finally free us all from novel viruses or maybe we will paint those damn subs yellow and live happily ever after ha. What we alI can see is a more hotter earth,a worse guarantee of disastrous events.

    With all I've seen being born in the mid fifties,to watch how clever we have become but how comfortably numb to what is really important is a depressing indictment of modern society. I have my favourite climate fix science review blog sites which give me some hope but leaving my small village to the big smoke,really shows me the true scope of consumer driven society. More lately with our window of reduction closing I am wondering about a real change/shakeup is even possible?

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eljw9qoNAo&t=115s

  15. Thinking is Power: How to do your own research

    Yes: who you trust is the key. In science, we often stress peer-reviewed literature, but very few people understand the review process and how it works (or not). For climate change, the anti-science crowd usually claims that the peer review system is corrupt, even though it is more often the "contrarians" that abuse it.

    Skeptical Science has a couple of rebuttals on those subjects:

    https://skepticalscience.com/Peer-review-process.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/pal-review.htm

    and we are trying to prepare more.

    The person that cries "they are lying to you" the loudest is often the one that is doing the most lying.

     

  16. Thinking Is Power at 04:08 AM on 21 September 2021
    Thinking is Power: How to do your own research

    Thank you for the kind and thoughtful comment.

    The thing I keep coming back to is: who do you choose to trust and why? Often it seems like those who are "doing their research" are doing so because they distrust - and therefore don't accept the conclusions of - scientists, etc. Therefore they're going to google, typing in what they want (or don't want) to believe, and going to the sources that tell them they're right. Unfortunately, those sources haven't used reliable and trustworthy methods of gaining knowledge...they have biases and existing beliefs they're attempting to justify.

    We all use trust as a heuristic for what to believe, but when an issue becomes politicized and/or part of people's identity, trusting the wrong sources can lead us astray.

  17. It's albedo

    I have no idea why the "hot link" problem occurs. When a simple click didn't get me to the graph, I tried copying the URL. When that worked, I thought I'd let others know.

    The sum of the trends isn't that far off 0:The balance is ET = Pr - Q - dS/dt, or 2.30 = 1.00 + 1.01 + 0.75 ==> 2.30 = 2.76, so only off by 0.46.

    (Pr, Q, and dS/dt are defined in the figure in MAR's comment.)

    I was able to download the Pascolini-Campbell et al paper through work. They do discuss the uncertainty in trends. On p 544, they say:

    "Propagated uncertainty in the trend is greatest for Pr (±0.41 mm yr−1 ), followed by Q (±0.32 mm yr −1), and smallest for dS/dt (±0.05 mm yr −1). This leads to a bounded ET trend estimate of 2.30 ± 0.52 mm yr−1 (determined by summing the square of the error in the trend of each component). The fractional uncertainty from Pr is 61%, 38% from Q and 1% from dS/dt. From this analysis it follows that the ET trend is positive and significant in light of the propagated error, and ranges from 1.78 mm yr−1 to 2.82 mm yr−1."

    This is getting off-topic for albedo, though.

  18. It's albedo

    Bob Loblaw @99,
    I did note when tapping out #98 that the CarbonBrief item written about Pascolini-Campbell et al (2021) objected to the hot-linking of their image of the paper's Fig3 into this thread so I provided the direct link to the image (which I wouldn't have considered to be 'hot-linking') and that works fine for me, but apparently me alone.
    The image of the paper's Fig 3 is perhaps a bit too fuzzy to display in-thread here but I see there the clearer version is on-web at Nature where 'hot-linking' works.

    Pascolini-Campbell et al (2021) Fig 3
    'Timeseries for evapotranspiration (top), precipitation (second from top), discharge (second from bottom) and change in ground water storage (bottom) over 2003-19. The black line shows the average trend and the shading shows the confidence range, where red regions indicate a high confidence.'

    One further oddity is that the four trends are a long way from adding up to zero, probably due to all the very wobbly data. (The paywall prevents my access to the full paper & I couldn't immediately see any obvious explanation within the 'Extended data figures and tables'.)

  19. It's albedo

    Just a note on the last link in MA Rodger's comment (the one to Fig3).

    If you click on the link, you get a message that includes "The owner of this website (www.carbonbrief.org) does not allow hotlinking to that resource..."

    If your right click the link, copy the link, and paste that into your browser's address bar, you can view the figure.

  20. Thinking is Power: How to do your own research

    I have been enjoying reading these posts. In this one, the phrase that struck me was "What you’re actually doing is looking for the results of someone else’s research."

    This is a really key factor in terms of what people think "research" is. In common usage, someone might say "I am going to the library to research this topic" (or, today, "I am going to Google to research this topic")1. This is not really "research" in terms of creating original work, though.

    In scientific terms "research" usually involves either the collection of new data, or at least a novel analysis or combination of existing data. "Research" requires that somone provide innovative thinking, analysis, and interpretation - supported by evidence, of course.

    An important stage in scientific research is to go to the library and learn what others have already learned before you ("Learn from the mistakes of others - you won't live long enough to make them all yourself"). But then you need to be able to say the following:

    • What questions remain unanswered?
    • What sort of data or evidence is needed to answer that question?
    • Can I find existing data that fits my needs?
    • How would I go about collecting new data to answer my question?
    • What does this data tell me?
    • Do I now know more about my question?

    Doing this well requires knowledge and skill.

    1. [Someone over at RC once said something along the lines of "between a library and Google, one of them wants to make you smarter, while the other wants to sell  you stuff. Choose carefully."]

  21. It's albedo

    The commenter @97 is no-longer a participant here but as this response to his comment @97 is albedo-stuff, I hope the moderators will allow it.

    ☻ Concerning the spectrum of reflected light in earthshine:- @97, the objection was to Woolf et al (2004) using an arbitrary ordinate scale on their Fig 1 (shown @96) rather than Wm^-2. Addressing this objection (although Woolf et al Fig 2 should have sufficed as it shows a roughly constant % albedo with wavelength), below is a graph of spectrum for wavelengths 0.25 to 6.5 microns (so into the UV) with a Wm^-2 ordinate scale. (Woolf et al above shows the spectrum 0.48 to 0.92 microns, so into the IR.)

    albedo spectrum

    ☻ Concerning Wild et al's -19Wm^-2 clear-sky radiation:- Indeed, as commented @97, it is "visa versa"  @96 as "cooling" was written in error and should have been "warming" from clear-sky relative to all-sky.

    Do note that the cooling from an AGW-induced decrease in albedo is greatly due to the reduction of tropical marine cloud. AR6 provides a better assessment of such cloud today that allows AR6 to state that "A net negative cloud feedback is very unlikely" with a potential range of -10Wm^-2ºC^-1 to +9.4Wm^-2ºC^-1 ['very likely' =1.67sd]. (Although half the range given in AR5, these remain broad confidence intervals.)

    Yet the -19Wm^-2 result from Wild et al (2019) was not misunderstood. The value is saying that the net energy balance under clear skys is -19Wm^-2 relative to the global average. (Note a coincidental -19Wm^-2 is also given by Wild et al for Land relative to Global.)
    It doesn't follow that a reduction of clear-sky conditions would result in a comenserate cooling of the planet (just as an increase in the land area of the planet would not be expected to increase planetary cooling). It is not so simple.
    Note what Wild et al consider their finding would be useful for:- "To better constrain (global climate models from CMIP5), we established new clear-sky reference climatologies." There is no mention of geo-engineering. (And note that if it were, the net planetary cooling would be -19Wm^-2 for the extra cloud and a further -19Wm^-2 for the loss of clear sky - this assuming a 50% global cloud fraction.) However, the impact of altering the global level of clear-sky conditions would depend entirely on the particulars of the alteration.
    Indeed, consider the cloud-effect in its totality. If the models take all the clouds out but keep everything the same, the GH-effect is diminished by about 15%. This would suggest increased cloud warms (and so does not cool,) a warming with a back-of-fag-packet global value of [33ºC GH-effect x 3.7Wm^-2/ºC x 15% =] +18Wm^-2. So +ve and not -ve. An interesting result.

    ☻ Finally, the mistake within the annotations of Fig3 of Pascolini-Campbell et al (2021) - It a trivial mistake (that the value of 2.3mm/yr in Fig3a should be 2.3mm/yr/yr and likewise elsewhere) as the mistake is quite evident. Simply look at the regression line. The graphed regression line rises from an anomaly of -18mm/yr in 2003.0 to +21mm/yr in 2020.0, so a rise of 39mm/yr over the 17-year period graphed = 2.3mm/yr/yr.

  22. It's albedo

    @96

    MA Rodger: you state that "albedo is ... depends primarily on the wavelength of the light that hits the body/molecule." This is not correct. The reflected light is pretty-much independent of wavelength being no more than "bluish". The spectrum of reflected light is thus not significantly different from the spectrum of sunlight.

    coolmaster: I'm not sure if you know that e.g. plants are green (wavelength = ~ 550nm), a tomato red (~ 650nm) and blueberries (~ 450nm) blue when illuminated by sunlight with a full spectrum.

    Illuminated by a full spectrum (white), the objects appear to your eyes & brain in more or less monochrome light. So - many of the incident wavelengths are absorbed and only single colors are reflected.
    A snow surface is white and has a high albedo because all wavelengths are reflected in the range that is visible - nevertheless, snow absorbs very strongly in the long-wave range of IR radiation.

    What you describe as "bluish" is the Raleigh scatter.
    This has absolutely nothing to do with absorption, relative reflection and albedo.

    Your posted graph shows the spectral properties of the light emanating from the earth - and not the energy content of sunlight, that matters in an energy balance.
    Without having read the article - I guess you will hardly find the unit W / m², which is the important one for the radiation budget of the earth. So please don't mix it all up here. (MOD)

    MA Rodger: The TOA radiation balance under clear sky conditions averaged globally by Wild (2019) shows 19Wm^-2 more cooling than his all-sky average.
    coolmaster: No you are utterly wrong - it is vice versa.

    Or do you feel yourself cooler in sun under clear sky - and feel heat when a cloud covers the sun ????

    The radiation net effect of clouds and water vapor (CRE = -19W / m²) You still seem to confuse CRE with the atmospheric feedback of the clouds, which consists in the fact that with increasing temperature less cloud cover, changed lapse rate and optical depth are determined (+ 0.42Wm-2 ° C-1).    Earth - is - loosing - the clouds !

    MA Rodger: ☻ And to correct your bold assertions @94 / Your own derivation of a greatly different value of 344km^3/yr uses solely Fig 3a of the former paper which gives an annual rate of increase as 2.3mm/yr (it should actually be 2.3mm/yr/yr)???? and for the 16-year period the increase would be thus 5,500km^3/yr, in the circumstance not a significant difference from 7,000km^3/yr.

    coolmaster: 1500km³/yr is more than I suggested to retain.

    www.carbonbrief.org/satellite-data-reveals-impact-of-warming-on-global-water-cycle

    Can you give us just a reference or a page in the www. quote where the unit mm / yr / yr is used ???? You should then definitely get in touch with Ms. Madeleine Pascolini-Campbell and explain to her that she was mistaken by a factor of ~20.

    After all, her work and GRACE-FO are regarded worldwide as one of the most important findings of the last few years. So if you know better - go ahead ... Your pocket calculator with the built-in joker must have been very expensive.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] More sloganeering removed. You continue with an aggressive tone, unsupported assertions, and repeated violations of the Comments Policy.

    [DB] This user has recused themselves from further participation here.

  23. Can we afford (not) to stop Climate Change?

    When I consider this problem I don't think so much about whether we can afford or not afford to address global warming, the question that arises for me is whether our species is capable of stopping the processes that we have created and now rely on.  The other issue that arises for when I consider this matter is that a significant level of civilization collapse may be the most likely way that human activity can be altered to finally allow for something like a net zero status.

    I think we can point to some successes with acid rain and atmospheric ozone depletion, but I am not sure the scale of those problems were close to the scale of the ghg emission problem. 

    Cheers

    Mike

  24. It's albedo

    coolmaster @94+,
    Trying to keep this on-topic for the thread (and I would have considered transferring this interchange on what is geo-engineering to another thread if it had a chance of being usefully continued), some Albedo issues which you raise.

    ☻ Firstly, within the deleted comment @95 (still visible to commenters), you state that "albedo is ... depends primarily on the wavelength of the light that hits the body/molecule." This is not correct. The reflected light is pretty-much independent of wavelength being no more than "bluish". The spectrum of reflected light is thus not significantly different from the spectrum of sunlight as Fig1 of Woolf et al (2002) demonstrates.

    Woolf et at (2002) Fig 1

    ☻ Your annotated graphics @71 are probably taking the simplisitic calculations a step-or-two too far.
    Want we can say from Wild (2014, 2019) is that Land Cloud albedo is shown as 19.7% with Land Surface albedo shown as 26.1%. Likewise Ocean Cloud albedo is given as 23.1% and Surface albedo as 8.1%.
    The TOA radiation balance under clear sky conditions averaged globally by Wild (2019) shows 19Wm^-2 more cooling than his all-sky average. Yet this result does not mean that cloud and its resulting albedo is overall a cooling influence. Cloud is well-known to cool if low and to warm if high and the latitude is also important. The usual climatological consideration is whether today cloud presents a positive or negative feedback to a warming world, the present understanding being that it is very likely positive, a position reinforced by recent work (eg Ceppi & Nowack (2021) [Abstract] (@94 you cite resumably IPCC AR6 with a similar finding.)

    We have up-thread shown very large increases in anthropogenic water 'use' on land and measured increases in evaporation over land. Thus to suggest an increase in evaopration over land would result in a higher cloud fraction and a strong cooling based solely on Wild's 19Wm^-2 is based on very shaky ground.

    And the following back-of-envelope calculations suggest there would not be cooling but warming.

    We see from Fig 2 Wild (2014) an all-sky Land Cloud albedo of 64Wm^-2. If cloud albedo were increased 1% that would pro rata present a global climate forcing of -0.19 Wm^-2 cloud albedo but with a loss of +0.05 Wm^-2 surface albedo. There is also reduced OLR cooling of +0.08 Wm^-2 pro rata suggested in Wild (2019) Fig14 and a water vapour forcing from the 1% increased humidity over land of roughly +0.12 Wm^-2. This would suggest a net warming from a 1% increase in Land evaporation of +0.06 Wm^-2, this a warming climate forcing larger than AGW.

    ☻ And to correct your bold assertions @94 concerning arithmetic. The 10% percent increase in land evaporation 2003-19 reported by Pascolini-Campbell et al (2021) multiplied by the 69,000/yr (+/-10%) land evaporation given by Abbott et al (2019) yields the 2003-19 increase of 7,000km^3/yr I present @93 (along with the references). The other values alongside which you object to are similarly derived.
    Your own derivation of a greatly different value of 344km^3/yr uses solely Fig 3a of the former paper which gives an annual rate of increase as 2.3mm/yr (it should actually be 2.3mm/yr/yr) and for the 16-year period the increase would be thus 5,500km^3/yr, in the circumstance not a significant difference from 7,000km^3/yr.

  25. Can we afford (not) to stop Climate Change?

    @sfkeppler

    You are right. We can even lower slr and stop global warming.

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=2&t=95&&a=141#137656

    follow my comments and the discussion and you will find many people, they won`t belive you.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You've had multiple warnings. Continuing the same refuted arguments is not constructive.

    Read the comments policy: https://skepticalscience.com/comments_policy.shtml

    Specifically:

    No sloganeering.  Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted.

  26. Can we afford (not) to stop Climate Change?

    Dear Adam, 

    The most important thing is to understand what is going on! - I don't want any more question the reason of global warming. Everyone feels that there is something wrong with the earth's temperature. Minimizing carbon emission is perhaps the direct way scientists of IPCC want to go, but there is another physical fact - water!

    We have to follow natural mechanisms of cooling the troposphere by water evaporation. This is not expensive, because does not need any energy other than that from the sun. We should evaporate water from the tropical oceans directly on the beach, additionally producing best salt. Does that cost anything to understand the global water-cycle, which comenses by the humidity of the evapotranspiration of the tropical mangroves, being transportet along tropical rainforests and lifted up to the cold region of the athmosphere by the tropical convection. From there it's transported to the southern and northern hemispheres, bringing rain and refrigeration. - Is it so difficult to understand??? - only evaporating seawater at the tropical east-coasts?

    Stefan

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    [BL} Despite multiple warnings, you continue to post short, unsupported claims with no constructive value.

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  27. CO2 effect is saturated

    MA Rodger @626 :   Thank you.  You are as always, a grand source of climate information and analysis.  Encyclopedic !

    Yes, I am guilty of being insufficiently attentive to the non-publication status of the Wijngaarden & Happer paper.  And yes, the paper seems to have drifted toward oblivion during the past year ~ even within the hallowed precincts of Wattsupia University.

    Nevertheless, there is a scientific duty to keep a weather eye in the direction of all fringe-dwellers, just in case there really might develop "a small cloud on the horizon".   ~Improbable though that might be.

    In one sense, the main obfuscation in the W & H paper is the prominent semantic mis-use of the term "saturation".   That is a matter which seems to have misled the propagandist Dr David Wojick (or perhaps he - and his Heartland colleagues - are being disingenuous in not seeing through it. A novel thought! )

  28. It's albedo

    @GPWayne:

    "We know the planet is warming, and that human agency is causing it. What we cannot say yet is how climate change is affecting albedo, how it might be affected in the future, and what contribution to climate change - positive or negative - it may make."

    coolmaster: The albedo is relative ... and depends primarily on the wavelength of the light that hits the body/molecule. We should therefore always specify a wavelength range for the albedo. Otherwise, strictly speaking, the entire incoming spectrum of the sun ( UVC140nm up to Micro waves10cm) is decisive. This relativity to the albedo is particularly important for an element as widespread worldwide as H²O. I.e. ice and snow with an albedo of up to 0,9 in the visible range(380-780nm) has an albedo in the micro wave range of only < 0,1.

    Albedo of the earth ist 0,3 because absorbtion is 0,7(0,5 on the surface + 0,2 in the atmosphere) --> so the atmosphere has an albedo. Higher concentrations of GHG specially CO² is lowering the albedo of the atmosphere and is thus increasing temperature. We could always increase the albedo elsewhere: clouds, white color in the outdoor area or lighter field crops through foliar fertilization with light clays are just a few of the many possibilities.

    The temperature of the earth's surface is globally determined by the radiation balance, the radiation budget. This records the interaction between absorption and reflection as well as re-emission and scattering.
    But no matter which albedo you are looking at, whether short or long wave - a higher albedo can never cause a rise in temperature or energy. Conversely, every falling albedo increases temperatures or energy on earth.
    So I suggest that you update the last sentence of your basic rebuttal.

    @Moderation response: "last warning"

    In my last comment, which you would like to see in the slr section, the word albedo appears 3 times - the words clouds and cloud cover even more often. You should also warn others, who do exactly the same(i.e. MAR,BL).
    The inseparable connection between albedo - clouds - water and SLR was invented by an immovable mover (Aristotle's definition of God) ! not me !
    I don't want to discuss religion here, if only because I don't belong to any official religious community and because my religion is art. For me, climate science is a discipline, just like painting, sculpture, dance, music, and theater, etc.

    Nevertheless, I noticed that there once was a man who said he wanted to save the world. Among other things, because he supposedly could move over the water ...
    I also want to save the world ... and move (spiritually & physically) over the water.

    If you don't like my holistic, alternative climate protection strategy, which lowers sea level rise and earth temperatures - I can't change it, but I can't understand it either. In my opiniont it is the very last opportunity for you, your readers, commentators, your descendants, and the rest of creation to escape from climate hell (as long as anybody presents a much better, faster or cheaper concept.)

    That was my last warning to you...

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] 

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit unsupported assertions (sloganeering) or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

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    Sloganeering and moderation complaints snipped.

  29. CO2 effect is saturated

    Eclectic @625,

    Of course, there is the point as to whether you should be referring to that paper as Wijngaarden & Happer (2020). Academic work is usually only dated if it is properly published or if it is presented at a conference. Otherwise it would be demoted to being a working paper which is thus not complete and thus not properly dateable. And I would suggest that up-loading a paper onto Cornell University's "free distributon service" arXvi doesn't count as 'publication', it being no-more 'published' than this comment I post here at SkS.

    But the proof of the pudding and all that....

    Whatever tha nature of a piece of work's origin, it is its usefulness to the science that is the proper measure of it. A look at google scholar for Wijngaarden & Happer (unpublished) 'Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases' shows today just four citations, which is pretty rubbish. And one of those is a reference from a further Wijngaarden & Happer paper posted @arXvi which is but an updated version of the same while accounting for two more GHGs, CF4 & SF6. Of the remaining three, one explicitly styles itself a working paper. (I note its reference list is stuffed full of denialist nonsense: Koonin & Jon-boy Christy, Lewis & Dicky Lindzen, McIntyre & McKitrick & Monckton, Svensmark & Woy Spencer.) The final two citations do initially appear to be by published work. But in tracking down both ♣Pascal Richet (2021): 'Climate and the temperature-CO2 relationship An epistemological re-examination of the ice core message', History of Geo- and Space Sciences, Vol 12, pp97-110. and ♣David Coe; Fabinski, Walter & Weigleb, Gerhard (2021): 'The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other "Greenhouse Gases" on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures'  Int J. Atmos. & Oceanic Sci.,Vol 5, Issue 2, pp29-40. I see either a blank space in the pp97-110 page-numbering or the pages pp29-41 taken by another paper. So it appears that the final two citations have failed to gain publication; not so uncommon with denialist works which both these final two citing paper evidently are. (An on-line French version of the first of these two simply presents a common climate myth while a posting of the second's Abstract still visible on a denialist website shows its finding is an ECS=+0.5ºC.)

    ....turns out to be a large bowl of rather-sticky humble pie.

  30. CO2 effect is saturated

    Hari-Seldon @624 :  Thank you for that.  Me and my slide-rule were vaguely following the Wijngaarden & Happer (2020) paper, but, allowing for possible bias on my own part, it seemed I might well be missing some vital point.

    The paper was discussed rather briefly on this thread, about a year ago.  I gather the paper had been rejected by several journals initially.  Yet, despite the bizarre political statements that continually come from both W. and H., their scientific contributions should be worthy of respectful attention, at the outset anyway.

    The (non-expert) impression I felt while reading this paper, was that W. and H. were trying to carefully examine one tree ~ while studiously ignoring the forest.  The clear-sky & constant humidity focus, the downplaying of Top-Of-Atmosphere aspects . . . and the later verbal diminution of the ECS figure (by van Wijngaarden) ~ were all part of an overall impression that W. and H. were in the business of obfuscating their own findings (in their own minds as well as in the minds of their acolytes).  

    Disappointing, in two scientists with good track records in non-climate areas.  But our subconscious minds have the  power to make fools of us all, when we permit such.

  31. CO2 effect is saturated

    Michael sweet. Quantum statistical physics apologizes to you for their misunderstadings. On the other hand I think that this whole page is not worth of my time. The reason is that there is a post titled: "How could global warming accelerate if CO2 is logarithmic."(https://skepticalscience.com/why-global-warming-can-accelerate.html)

    Thus in one post my reasoning is valid in another is misunderstandings ... This is crap.

    Eclectic: This paper calculates the forcing due to the different green-house gases. The authors find a "logarithmic forcing" for CO2 concentration. Their value for the forcing is only 3.0 W/m^2 (where MODTRAN finds 3.7). Their words are "Note from Table 2 that doubling or halving the column density of CO2 changes the
    forcing F by almost the same amount, either at the tropopause or at the mesopause. " (page 18 at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.03098.pdf). They also say that "In addition to line intensities, three of the calculations used a
    continuum CO2 opacity, and all five used a continuum H2O opacity. The physical origin
    of these continua is unclear. They are added to make the calculations agree better with
    observations [10, 13]. "  This means that they do not understand why they have to use that model. However they also say "The mesopause spectral intensities,
    calculated with only HITRAN lines and with no continuum contributions, are in excellent
    agreement with satellite measurements over the Sahara Desert, the Mediterranean Sea and
    Antarctica, as discussed in Section 8". This means that they are confident for their mesopause calculations. In the conclusions they say that "Fig. 9 as well as Tables 2 and 4 show that at current concentrations, the forcings from all
    greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and
    CO2 are so extreme that the per-molecule forcing is attenuated by four orders of magnitude
    with respect to the optically thin values. " When the authors say that the concentrations are in the saturation regime it means that they have passed the area of a large slope and they are in an area with small slope (no constant forcing). An important result is that: "The calculated flux increment
    from simultaneously doubling CO2, N2O and CH4 is the slightly smaller value, ∆F = 4.7 W/m^2". This is important because we have to examine closely how an increased CO2 concentration affects the concentrations of the other gases.

    I am not confident enough about the earth temperature part because there are too many parameters and I am not an expert on that.  

     

     

  32. CO2 effect is saturated

    Hari-Seldon, I would very much like you to give your opinion on the WH2020 paper, as well.  Likewise I appeal to all others expert enough in these matters.

  33. CO2 effect is saturated

    Speaking of saturation and "error of interpretation of the resulting data" :-

    Coolmaster, you may be the very person I could ask for an interpretation of the recent paper by Wijngaarden & Happer (2020).

    I confess to being very nearly a physics naif  (and a naif  who habitually thinks in terms of two-and-a-half significant figures as afforded by my trusty slide-rule).   So, in reading the WH2020 paper, I skipped through the numerous formulae, and sought the Take Home message.   ~Which, verbiage aside, seemed to be minimally different from the mainstream climate science on GHG "saturation".

    Yes, assorted "AGW-deniers" immediately seized upon the WH2020 paper as a conclusive debunking of a half-century of climate physics & observations.  But there are always fringe-dwellers who seize upon anything within a million miles of the idea that no AGW is occurring (or alternatively  ~ that the AGW will doom the world irreversibly by the year 2030).

    Coolmaster, I will be grateful for your opinion, if you have time to look at the WH2020 paper.  ( I do realize that both van Wijngaarden and Happer are afflicted by severe emotional/political bias producing major motivated reasoning problems in their climate assessments ~ but all that aside, is there something of useful scientific value in their paper? )

  34. CO2 effect is saturated

    I think MARodger answers your misunderstandings better than I do so I will leave it to his comments.  It seems to me that his post at 618 answers your question and shows that CO2 is not saturated.  It appears that you do not have a calculation error, it is an error of interpretation of the resulting data.

  35. It's albedo

    MA Rodger93:

    MAR: "Your proposed grand scheme seems to be assuming atmospheric water can increase by 0.001335M km^3 annualy, or a 10% annual increase."
    No - I never ever assumed, wrote or thought about that I plan or can increase atmospheric water by 1335km³ annualy.

    You are making a very similar mistake as Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf from PIK in Potsdam in response to my comment in another climate forum.

    https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/sea-level-in-the-ipcc-6th-assessment-report-ar6/#comment-794653

    Your mistake is probably that you have not read my posts with due attention, even though they are kept very simple and straightforward.
    An increase in atmospheric water by 10% / year would mean that, according to the CCF, earth temperatures rise by approx. 1.4 ° C per year. A state of the climate which means certain death for all life on earth.

    So you also completely misunderstood me.

    My climate protection strategy would like to take the volume of 3.7mm SLR(1335km³) from the global rivers discharge when their water levels are sufficient(&clean) or even specially in flood events after rain- !!! to store it in soil moisture and groundwater over the land mass.
    In principle a simple, seasonal storage of retained river water also to adapt to droughts and floods.

    In dry seasons, this water will be mainly evaporated from agriculture, but also the before mentioned “amunas” of the old inca culture and their water management are a perfect way to rewet forests & moors.

    hidraulicainca.com/lima/sistema-hidraulico-amunas/

    This in turn ensures an increasing relative (and specific) humidity and additional cloud formation over land in a regional drought season.

    After an average of ~8.5 days in the atmosphere it will return – even with a relatively high probability – as precipitation over another land area. There will be a multiplier effect that increase together with soil moisture and evaporation rate (wet regions become wetter).

    As a result, the water cycle over the land areas is intensified by ~ 1-1,5% and thus the increasing size of the annual mean cloud cover over land areas leads to a higher albedo & CRE, which I estimate to be at least a cooling RF of ~ -0.2W/m² / year.
    A really cooling, additional radiative forcing, which, in my opinion, can more than compensate for the current annual radiative forcing caused by CO² .

    A holistic, functioning climate protection strategy,(stopping SLR AND global temperature rise & adaptation to droughts and floods) which works alternatively and independently of the reduction in CO² emissions, which only promises to stop the temperatures rise perhaps after ~ 2070 (if we as humanity can reduce emissions immediately – which I personally do not believe)

    In the latest IPCC report / WG1 Chapter 7.4.2.4.3, the positive feedback of the cloud cover on an atmosphere warmer by 1 ° C is given with +0.42W m-2 ° C-1.

    We are slowly but steadily losing not only areas of ice and snow albedo, but also the clouds albedo due to decreasing global mean cloud cover and higher lapse rate.
    The cooling CRE with ~-19W m-2 (chapter 7.2.1. in the same report) should decrease accordingly.

    The slower warming of the oceans means that there has not been enough moisture evaporated into – and then held in – the air above the oceans to keep pace with the rising temperatures over land. This means that the air is not as saturated as it was and – as the chart below shows – relative humidity has decreased, desertification is spreading rapidly mainly caused by human activities.
    Dryness is a temperature driver and cloud killer.

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Global-time-series-of-annual-average-relative-humidity-for-the-land-ocean-and-global-average-relative-to-1981-2010.jpg


    That is why I (as an artist - not a climate scientist) think it's a good idea to create additional “artificial” clouds by additional artificial irrigation retained by river discharge from the superfluous water of the oceans.

    ---

    MAR: but the reported 10% increase in evaporation rate 2003-19 over land equates to some 7,000km^3/y while the reported 3% increase in rainfall equates to 3,300km^3/y and the decrease in direct discharge from land to ocean a further 3,000km^3/y.

    This suggests your grand scheme wouldn't make a ha'p'orth of difference. Evaporation over land is shown to have increased five-time the amount you propose yet AGW and SLR continued apace.

    coolmaster: ???

    360.57M km² ocean area * 3.7mm SLR = 1334.1km³ water = 8.93mm above the land area.

    149.43M km² land area * 2.3L / m² increasing evaporation per year = 343.689km³ water.

    * 1L / m² increasing precipitation per year = 149.43km³
    * -1.01L decreasing runoff through the rivers per year = -150.92km³
    * -0.75L decreasing groundwater level per year = -112.07km³

    Your calculator probably has a built-in joker.
    And if you are holding a PhD, you should hand it over (to me ?) as soon as possible.

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Once again, please browse the topics on this site and move discussions on SLR to that thread. Last warning on this one.

  36. CO2 effect is saturated

    And some  simple facts from elementary quantum mechanics.

    Fact No 1. In the graphs that MODTRAN (http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/) presents the area under the intensity curve with the horizontal axis is the trasmitted power per m^2.

    Fact No 2. This area is FINITE (for a CO2 concentraion of 280 ppm is around 300 W/m^2)

    Fact No 3. The valley we see near 15 μm is due to the CO2. The area of this valley is the power/m^2 that CO2 absorbs. For a concentration of 280 ppm is around 30 W/m^2.

    Fact No 4. Increasing the CO2 concentration the area of the valley increases due to the increase of the width of the spectral line. 

    Fact No 5. Due to the fact that the total area is finite the area of the valley can not increase linearly with the CO2 concentration. If a linear behaviour existed a concentration of 2800 ppm should absorb all the existing energy.  Thus there should be a "saturation" mechanism. This is the logarithmic relation that this results show.

    Fact No 6. Even at very large concentrations of CO2 such as that in Venusian atmosphere the area of the valley is less than one third of the total.

    Fact No 7. If there is a regime where the area of the valley increases linearly with CO2 concentration, this regime would be very limited. After that a stronger "saturation" mechanism should appear.

     

    Thus the program of MODTRAN has the essential physics correct. Maybe it is not accurate enouth and there is some error in some concentrations. But overall the behaviour that this program present is correct. And its results are solid (maybe not for all concentrations but for most and maybe with an error of 10-15%).

     

     

  37. CO2 effect is saturated

    Ma Rodger. 

    I read Asimovs story in 1977 , when I was 13 years old. It is my favorite, so yes the name comes fron Trantor.

    We have to be self-consistent with what we claim. In this article the authors support the idea that the CO2 effect in atmospheric radiance comes form the increasing of the width of the spectral lines. This program shows that effect, and that effect shows a logarithmic behaviour which is leading to a decrease of the slope of the increase anount of the energy confined in the atmosphere. 

    If someone uses another argument then we will discuss the effect of that argument, but when we speak of the width of the lines this is the result. And if we have to convince someone we have to be selg-consistent and not to change our story.

    Michael Sweet You are wrong. I do not support something that is different from accepted science. On the contrary I am speaking of the accepted science. Earth is warming because it radiates less energy than it receives. Simple fact. So looking at tha spectrum (black-body or bettter gray-body) of the outward radiation will gives as the amount of energy earth radiates. I am not interested on the mechanisms that energy uses to reach the upper atmosphere. I know that almost vacuum surrounds earth so I know that the only energy leaving earth is EM radiation (and gravitational radiation but this is negligible). Thus there is one argument concerning the increase of the widths of the absorption lines more that the Doppler and Heisenbergs uncertainty effects. This program shows exactly how this effect (increase of the width) works.  Simpe as that.  

     

  38. CO2 effect is saturated

    Hari-Seldon @616,

    (I assume you have adopted the name of the character Hari Sheldon from Asimov's Foundation trilogy but claim nothing of his prescience.)

    Picking up on michael sweet @617 description of the mechanism of CO2 forcing and its logarithmic nature....

    Chicago University's MODTRAN which you employ is a very useful on-line resource. But I don't think it is correct to suggest that CO2 levels are "in a condition similar to saturation"  because the forcing is logarithmic.

    You show the climate forcing incrementing due to 2x/4x/8x the pre-industrial CO2 280ppm level as being (& I correct your arithmetic) +3.30, +3.36 & +3.52Wm^-2. A further increase to 16x to 4,480ppm again yields an additional +3.74Wm^-2 with 32x incrementing +4.11Wm^-2 & 64X incrementing +4.68Wm^-2.

    And a halving of the pre-industrial level to 140ppm from 280ppm yields -3.36Wm^-2. And this 'halving' sequence can be contimued down to roughly that 1ppm you mention, halvings running down from 140ppm -3.42, -3.52, -3.48, -3.45, -3.14, -2.51, -1.88Wm^-2. And these halvings from 280ppm down to 1.094ppm total to -24.8Wm^-2.

    While I am not sure how well MODTRAN works at CO2 levels well beyond today's atmospheric levels (I assume the well-established 3.7Wm^-2 value  does not appear in the doubling 280ppm-560ppm as the model is set for the clear-sky tropics), it is plain that CO2 creates a reasonably constant climate forcing for each doubling from roughly 20ppm up to 2000ppm. This logarithmic relationship is well-known. Al levels of CO2 above 800ppm, Zhong & Haig (2013) found the forcing from these higher CO2 levels begin to exceed the logarithmic relationship due to significant additional radiative effects appearing at 10μm which provide extra forcing as the 15μm effects diminish.

    So the relationship is stronger than logarithmic and thus describing such a relationship as "in a condition similar to saturation" is neither applicable nor (given the dismissive connotations of calling it 'saturated') helpful.

  39. CO2 effect is saturated

    Hari-Seldon:

    Welcome to Skeptical Science.  I suggest that it is better to try to phrase your comments as questions when you are asserting something that is different from accepted science.

    At the surface of the Earth the greenhouse effect is in what you would describe as near saturation.  That doesn't matter.  The key point is that at the average escape altitude for IR radiatiom, at approximately 10,000 meters, the concentration of CO2 is about 1/3 the concentration at sea level due to lower atmospheric pressure.  In addition, since it is so cold at the escape altitude, there is little water vapor present so CO2 is the ultimate control of most of the radiation escaping.  I think your calculations are in error because you used the incorrect concentration of CO2.  

    Increasing the concentration of CO2 increases the escape altitude.  The lapse rate of the troposphere is about 6K/km.  If the escape altitude increases 100 meters than the temperature at the surface increases 0.6K.  Positive feedbacks cause the amount of heating from CO2 to approximately triple.

    Keep in mind that the greenhouse effect increases the temperature of the Earth's surface about 33K.  Adding 10% to the existing greenhouse effect would increase temperature over 3K, a disastrous amount. Try calculating how much of an increase in CO2 would result in a 100 meter increase in the escape altitude for a more accurate estimate of the change required.

    You are trying to do a difficult calculation without understanding the basics of the atmosphere.   I recommend reading a lot more background information before you assert you are correct.  It is generally accepted that doubling CO2 concentration results in approximately a 3K increase in surface temperature.  About 1K is from the CO2 increase.  The response to increased concentration is logarithmic.

  40. CO2 effect is saturated

    As a theoretical physicist I have learnt to be very carefull with my words and to closely exam the available data. Using the link I found here
    (http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/) I understand that:
    Is the CO2 saturated? No it is not.
    Is it in a condition similar to saturation? Yes it is. The reason is that with 1ppm of CO2 there is an upward IR flux of 325.304 W/m^2.
    With 280ppm of CO2 there is an upward IR flux of 300.215 W/m^2 (lost 25 W/m^2)
    With 2*280 =560 ppm of CO2 there is an upward IR flux of 296.918 W/m^2 (lost 3.7 W/m^2)
    With 4*280 =1120 ppm of CO2 there is an upward IR flux of 293.559 W/m^2 (lost 3.36 W/m^2)
    With 8*280 =2240 ppm of CO2 there is an upward IR flux of 290.042 W/m^2 (lost 3.5 W/m^2).

    In order to have an upward IR flux of 275 W/m^2, i.e. to have a decrease similar to the one from 1ppm-280 ppm (we should reach a concentration of 25000 ppm). This means that we are near the plateau of the curve which means we are in a condition similar to saturation (because I am not convinced that a real saturation exists).

  41. It's albedo

    coolmaster @92,

    Your final paragraph is packed full of unsupported assertions which you say will result from your grand scheme of annually diverting 1,335km^3/y of water that would otherwise discharge into the oceans and thus radically increase global albedo through increased cloud. The "unsupported" nature of your assertions is easily demonstrated with the two references you provide.

    ♣ The graphic you present is from Wikithing but is adapted from Abbott et al (2019) 'Human domination of the global water cycle absent from depictions and perceptions'  who provide the numbers in their Fig 3. Relevant to your grand scheme is the size of the various global water reservoirs. The giant reservoir is of course the oceans which hold 1,340M km^3. Next is ice with 25M km^3 and surface/soil water with 23M km^3 while trailing along far behind is the atmosphere holding just 0.0125M km^3 water.

    Your proposed grand scheme seems to be assuming atmospheric water can increase by 0.001335M km^3 annualy, or a 10% annual increase. Note this 10% annual increase in atmospheric water would add to the GH-effect, perhaps by some 4Wm^-2 annually, so 100x stronger than today's AGW.

    ♣ The CarbonBrief reference describes Pascolini-Campbell et al (2021) 'A 10 per cent increase in global land evapotranspiration from 2003 to 2019' which is iteslf paywalled [Abstract] but the reported 10% increase in evaporation rate 2003-19 over land equates to some 7,000km^3/y while the reported 3% increase in rainfall equates to 3,300km^3/y and the decrease in direct discharge from land to ocean a further 3,000km^3/y.

    This suggests your grand scheme wouldn't make a ha'p'orth of difference. Evaporation over land is shown to have increased five-time the amount you propose yet AGW and SLR continued apace.

  42. It's albedo

    MA Rodger: "You tell us that you suppose I "can see the difference for the SLR" in regard to the source of human water use."

    Sorry - - that was obviously a misjudgment on my part. The same applies to you here: All good things are 3
    The oceans work like a bathtub:
    '- The inflow comes from the rivers discharge ...greenland, antarctica incl. (~49500km³) & ocean precipitation (379500km³)
    - and the outflow happens by ocean evaporation. (420750km³)

    water cycle

    We take the ! additional ! 1335km³ so from the rivers and not from the groundwater ---> SLR stopped.

    You already know the page that quantifies the drainage of the continents.

    www.carbonbrief.org/satellite-data-reveals-impact-of-warming-on-global-water-cycle

    The volume corresponds to 907 PWh and will replenish groundwater and aquifers and circulate again and again to large parts over the land areas and incl. create a multiplication effect that increases cloud cover, precipitation, evaporation and runoff.

  43. It's albedo

    BL: You have to find out for yourself how the water cycle works. More than 3 attempts at explanation tell me that this will take months for you. (if any)
    Anyone who asks the same question 8 times in a single comment and then does not get along with NASA's simple answer should think twice about whether he will get along here as an author at all. And please save your insults for your future readers (?) - they will surely love you.

    A small reading sample at the end of our funny and fruitful discussion he already provides here in advance:


    BL: 70

    "Clear skies and overcast skies are quite different.
    Land and sea are quite different.
    Visible light and IR radiation are quite different.

    Complex? Yes.

    Incomprehensible? No."

    Personally, I would like to read some explanations of the final mysteries of climate research as the first topic for his entry as an author:


    After the rain - comes the sun                                                              and after the sun comes the rain.        Good luck

    lmao - MACIAS

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] You'll please note this thread is supposed to be directed toward issues of albedo. If you wish to discuss issues related to SLR please find the appropriate thread and comment there.

  44. It's albedo

    coolmaster @87,

    You tell us that you suppose I "can see the difference for the SLR" in regard to the source of human water use.

    Folk familiar with SLR would know that if the (2,700+300=) 3,000 cu km mentioned @85 were added to ocean volumes, it would cause over 8mm in SLR. So the proportion of that 3,000 cu km of water sourced unsustainably from aquifers is small. Indeed, the SLR from changes to ground water is assessed as running at about 0.4mm/yr (Cáceres et al (2020) puts it at 0.39mm/y for the period 2003-16) suggesting the 3,000 cu km/yr in 2010 comprises just 5% from unsustainable aquifer.

  45. Philippe Chantreau at 03:03 AM on 12 September 2021
    It's albedo

    I've followed this exchange somewhat distractedly, but now I'm noticing this from coolmaster when confronted with the lack of cooling that has happened from exactly the physical process he argues would cause it:

    "NO. The water consumption of civilization and agriculture has increased steadily with the population growth.
    Agriculture in particular, as the largest consumer, has already dangerously lowered and polluted the water table in many places. Consumption continues to rise and the switch to river and rainwater is actually inevitable."

    How does that constitute any kind of response? It is completely beside the point and has nothing to do with the initial argument that the retained water would promote cloudiness, change albedo and lower temperatures. From that point of view, where the water comes from is irrelevant. The fact remains that the cooling imagined by Coolmaster from the physical process he described has not happened.

  46. It's albedo

    ..and once again, coolmaster just links to a page and shows a graphic without explaining how it supports his Grand Theory.

    OK. I"ll bite. On the web page at that link (which is broken - here is the correct one), we find this (emphasis added):

    Another interesting relationship is that while the places with the most water vapor in any month are always among the cloudiest, it is not always true that the cloudiest places are among the most humid locations. The tropics are both very humid and very cloudy, but in many months, the Southern Ocean is among the cloudiest places on the planet, even though the amount of water vapor is relatively low. This pattern occurs because cloud formation depends on both water vapor and air temperatures. The colder the air, the more readily any water vapor in the air will condense into clouds.

    Where is the part that says a 1% increase in evaporation will be guaranteed to lead to 1% more clouds?

    Coolmaster probably does not even read the links or papers he posts. If he does read them, he clearly does not understand them.

    Coolmaster has clearly crossed into basic trolling now.

  47. It's albedo

    BL: @ 83-86

    BL: - It is not directly applicable to cloud reactions to local changes in surface temperature (e.g. irrigation of land) or local changes in surface humidity (e.g. increased humidity over irrigated land).

    - And coolmaster's claim that cloud cover changes in response to increased surface evaporation is basically a wave of the hand.

    - He has not provided a single reference or figure to support the claim that increasing evaporation over part of the world can lead to a global increase in cloud cover

    - unless he can substantiate his claim of local increase in evaporation leading to global changes in cloud cover. ..

    - if you do not have to provide a reference for your claim that local surface evaporation leads to a 1% increase in cloud cover.

    - Now let's look for evaporation data so that we can finally check the elusive story "1% increase in evaporation causes 1% increase in clouds". Hmmm. I'm looking hard but I don't see - I see "atmospheric water". Is that "evaporation"? I do not think so. I seem to remember that "evaporation" is flow from the surface into the atmosphere, not storage in the atmosphere.
    Are we looking at a system where increased evaporation actually causes these cloud changes? I don't see any evidence of that.

    - Maybe one day Coolmaster will give us the evidence we need, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

    earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV/MODAL2_M_CLD_FR

    NASA water vapor vs. cloud fraction

    NASA water vapor vs. cloud fraction

    IF you need a reference, that evaporation is the phase change from water ---> to water vapor - just (hopefully shorter) let me know.

    BL: - You may find some clues about my background and why your Google search failed on the Skeptical Science Team page. - Congratulations. I see that you are very bussy & diligent with Prof. Dr. Martin Wild have worked together. I look forward to hopefully reading your funny future posts here in the forum soon. (Sincerely) MACIAS

    @MA Rodger
    Unfortunately, your graph says nothing about whether these amounts of water are taken from groundwater / aquifers or from river water or bank filtrate. I suppose you can see the difference for the SLR in that regard.

    MAR: All we have to do now is sit back and watch global temperatures drop from year to year. And when we have time ...


    NO - The water consumption of civilization and agriculture has increased steadily with the population growth.
    Agriculture in particular, as the largest consumer, has already dangerously lowered and polluted the water table in many places. Consumption continues to rise and the switch to river and rainwater is actually inevitable.

    In middle latitudes + 2 ° C, higher temperatures are also associated with ~ 10% higher evaporation. This is a huge problem for the arid regions that are becoming increasingly arid. Saving water wherever possible is certainly a challenge there today.

  48. It's albedo

    Amazing what a little relevant data will tell you MAR.

    Just considering Agriculture in your graph, the 1335 km^3/yr has been exceeded continuously since the early 1950s. So, 70 years times -0.07C/year gives me something like 4.9 C of cooling since I was born.

    I"d better buy a parka. The glaciers will be covering Canada again once this global cooling gets its way.

    I wonder why nobody has noticed this cooling. Is it possible that coolmaster is wrong?

  49. It's albedo

    coolmaster & Bob Loblaw,

    While we have been blathering about the efficacy of coolmaster's grand scheme, somebody has snuck in and done it!!! And not just 'done it' but done it twice, more than twice. And all since, what was it, 1900hrs yesterday?

    Diverting 1,335 cu km water onto land? According to AQUASTAT, they have managed to divert over 300 cu km water into reservoir evaporation and a further 2,700 cu km water diverted onto farmland. And more impressive still - the farms will be also delivering much more produce because they have this water resource available.

    So all we need to do now is sit back and watch the global temperatures tumble year-on-year. And if we have time, perhaps digging out the scarves and woolly hats would be an idea. According to coolmaster's calculation method, this cooling will be three-times faster than the warming of AGW :)

    AQUASTAT annual global water withdrawal

  50. It's albedo

    coolmaster @ 82:

    Congratulations. Another comments policy violation. You can't find anything using Google? Maybe if you look at the Skeptical Science Team page, you will find some clues about my background and why your Google search failed.

    It is amusing that you complain about a lack of links or references, when you still have yet to provide a reference for your claim that local surface evaporation will lead to a 1% increase in cloud cover. Just in case you have forgetten it, here is your original claim again:

    This volume can be retained by a wide variety of measures before it flows into the oceans and converted into evaporation. - 9L / m² corresponds to ~ 1% of the average annual rainfall over land and should therefore create ~ 1% additional clouds over the land mass.

    You repeat a diagram previously linked to. Let's us try to find the evidence we seek in that diagram.

    • Cloud cover data? Yes, for three types (high, middle, and low).
    • Clear annual cycles, especially for middle and low.
    • Global total cloud cover? We don't see sums, but it is obvious that the low and middle cloud amounts are counter-cyclical... when one goes up, the other goes down. Less variation in high cloud. Could it be possible that these cloud types are responding differently to whatever the seasonal cycles are? Maybe there are changes in geographical distribution? Maybe differences between land and sea?
    • Trends over time? Yes, And different trends for different cloud types.

    Oh, there is that pesky cloud type issue again. Maybe it's actually important?

    Now, let's look for evaporation data, so we can finally verify the elusive "1% increase in evaporation causes 1% increase in clouds" story.

    Hmmm. I'm looking hard, but I don't see it.

    • I see "atmospheric water". Is that "evaporation"? I don't think so. I seem to remember that "evaporation" is a flux from the surface to the atmosphere, not the storage in the atmophere.
    • Are we looking at a system where increased evaporation is actually causing these cloud changes? I see no evidence of that.
    • Oh, wait. Coolmaster has pointed out that this graph shows "...clouds feedback during the last decades triggered by a warming atmosphere..." My mistake - I thought you were trying to show data that supported your grand theory.

    This is typical of what coolmaster has produced here: links to papers or diagrams, with no explanation as to how they are supposed to support his argument, leaving the reader to try to examine the paper or diagram in search of something only coolmaster sees. There is no "there" there.

    You seem to like the IPCC reports. Since you appear to have a copy of AR6, I'll skip linking to it. Maybe it has something to say about your grand theory that irrigation can increase evaporation and cool the planet.

    [search]
    [search]

    Oh, maybe this is it!

    Section 7.3.4.1 Land use.

    It mostly covers albedo changes for land, but the second last paragraph says: "The contribution of irrigation (mainly to low cloud amount) is assessed as –0.05 [–0.1 to 0.05] W m -2 for the historical period (Sherwood et al., 2018)."

    Hmmm. With those error bars, it's hard to tell if the effect is positive or negative. It's also the total effect attributable to all the increases in irrigated land over the historical period. If the -0.05 number is correct, would there be a linear response to more irrigated land, so that 100x the historical area would lead to -5W/m2 and offset the CO2 forcing? How much water is used each year for current irrigated land?

    That might give coolmaster a glimmer of hope. Why has he not presented this information before? Maybe the more detailed results in the reference the IPCC uses do not support coolmaster's grand theory? Maybe he just doesn't know what to look for?

    Maybe coolmaster will eventually provide us with the evidence we need, but I won't hold my breath.

     

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