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DrBill at 08:51 AM on 12 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Since I addressed this very topic at length in my YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixT-_MYZgY&spfreload=10 I will only spend a couple of moments addressing the main subject of this thread.
1. As we breathe in 400 ppm CO2, we do not exhale "about ten times that amount", so the premise is incorrect. We exhale some 100 times that amount, about 40,000 ppm (4% CO2).
2. It is not a few cows that have CO2 (and I didn't even consider the trivial issue of flatulence that so fascinates the AGW humorists), but all the herds of animals, and all terrestrial animals, including rodents and insects, that contribute CO2 to the atmosphere. Indeed the mass of all other living things on land far exceed and far exceed in CO2 production, human exhalation. I had no basis for calculating marine sources, and for that matter did not include the direct release of CO2 by oceans, springs, grottoes or even volcanoes.
3. The CO2 production that I found in my meta study as shown in the video was growing, and growing at the same rate as the CO2 reports put out by IPCC showed (what a surprise as the curve is the same shape for human population growth), but *they focused entirely on industrial production* in intentionally misleading people imo, and my data showed that the total terrestrial animal production was 40% as large as that produced by industry. It's a sum because the industrial production data is well developed and not dependent on measuring Mauna Loa, and the other calculations are straightforward as well, so there's no confusion of what's a total produced (with my limitations as shown) and what's reported by measurement at 13000 feet.
4. Nor is it to be fobbed off as just part of the carbon cycle...ALL carbon comes from other carbon...but if the CO2 is being ascribed a causative action (a la Anthropogenic Global Warming theory by IPCC), then ALL the sources need to be accounted for, not just some summary presumption (I say presumptuous, tendentious, presumption), if for no other reason than to modify any so-called "forcing" effect, which if it operates at all, does not do so only in response to industrial CO2.
See the video. Ask questions there or here as you see fit. Just one more thing. [snip] I am not the first person on this thread to doubt some (or all) of the not-so-skeptical-science of the blog, but I see that they have disregarded those comments and not changed a thing. Is it characteristic of "skeptics" to be hardened in their skepticism, or is it that they call themselves skeptics as a false-flag clickbait hewing to the AGW belief system? FWIW, I will be keeping a copy of this post in my file in the (unlikely) event that it somehow violates the Comments Policy, by its contradiction of skepsci's assertions.
Moderator Response:[RH] I would suggest that you re-read the comments policy. Pre-complaining about moderation is still a moderation complaint.
This issue has been thoroughly addressed and you're not adding any new relevant material. The carbon you exhale comes from carbon in the current active carbon cycle. It's not adding any new carbon to the carbon cycle.
When we burn fossil fuels we are extracting ancient sequestered carbon from the earth's geology and, through combustion, are reintroducing that carbon to the modern carbon cycle.
This is a very simple concept which is accepted across the board. For you to dispute it clearly puts you outside of any rational scientific debate.
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fishfear at 08:14 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
I was going to list dozens of things that would indicate to a curious person that something isn't right but I'm sure my comment would be deleted so why bother.
I have a BS in Physical Science paid for by your tax dollars. I also have a MBA paid for my your tax dollars.
I'm a global warming agnostic... Meaning I agree with the data but not the cause and I choose to think the problem is far from being solved as it's much more complicated than we pretend it is.
So you feel the title of this book is a lie?
I propose that your website is also misleading. You are not skeptical as it's clear you and the folks here absolutely know the ocean level increase and temperature increase since 1900 is directly correlated to the increase in CO2 even though man's contribution didn't kick in until the 1950's.
I don't and thus I'm a denier.
I'm told I can't read data correctly.
I'm told by NASA their own chart that shows more ice growth over nearly all of Antarctica is actually showing melt.
When raw data and methods are not made public even when funded by the government I wonder.
Stay skeptical!
PS The 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 is nothing. However that's a 33% increase for plants which is massive. NASA has been documenting the greening of the world from space. More plant growth, more water vapor, more heating?
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering deleted.
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Kiwiiano at 07:39 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Anyone who has watched a courtroom drama on TV is familiar with consilience even if not the word. "His fingerprints were on the murder weapon, me lud, plus the victim's blood on his jacket, he's clearly visible on the security camera and he will inherit $1,000,000 from the victim's will." Convergence of evidence from multiple sources.
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Kiwiiano at 07:33 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Any chance of a larger copy of the COMET chart, it's not accessible to we lesser mortals?
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nigelj at 06:46 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
One Planet has a point. If you were to just start using the word consilience, in a popular public forum, most people wouldn't know what it meant.You would have to define what it meant, especially in relation to climate.
That's ok though, because it applies to all sorts of other things and illustrates a more general point. It's a worthwhile word to learn.
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curiousd at 05:58 AM on 12 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
O.K...but think that in correction number one I used the unscreened output of the 1500 to 2200 wn band. I think that this does not represent the actual output if water vapor is included. Also recall that in correction number one the output is for 255 K.
Using the SpectralCalc black body calculator set at 0.98 emissivity one obtains:
The unscreened output is 19.35 watts per meter squared for a temperature of 288.2 K for a band from 1500 wn to 2200 wn.
For a band from 1500 wn to 1850 the unscreened output is 14.752 watts per meter squared.
The band from 2 wn to 100 wn produces an unscreened output of 2.02 watts per meter squared.
(a) Total corrected (unscreened by water vapor) flux is then for 2 wn to 1850 wn
260.2 + 14.752 + 2.02 = 276.9 watts per meter squared.
(b) Total corrected flux (unscreened by water vapor) for 2 wn to 2200 wn band is then
260.2 + 19.35 + 2.02 = 281.57 watts per meter squared.
The second total is too large. If I replace the 260.2 watts per meter squared by your 265.9 watts per meter squared then (a) becomes 282.672 watts per meter squared and (b) becomes 287.27 watts per meter squared and now both (a) and (b) are too large.
The question of adjusting from the 1976 Standard atmosphere is one thing, and I'd want to learn more about this. Looks interesting. What is most clear, in my opinion, is that this correction cannot be carried out without putting the water vapor in there. For another thing one wonders: If the piece from 1850 wn to 2200 wn adds so much flux, how could Chen et al just eave it out?
This is all interesting and I appreciate your input and comments.
There is now a practical Skeptical Science question I have....A long time ago I knew of the way to make graphs and paste them into these comments, but now Ihave totally forgotton. I will ask in the Newbie section probably Tom Curtis to once more educate me on this.
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uncletimrob at 05:07 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
I'm not intending to insult High School general science teachers as I've been one myself - although my prefered subjects are Maths and Physics - but perhaps consilience needs to be use more often in the science narrative in schools? Just a thought.....
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uncletimrob at 04:57 AM on 12 April 2017From the eMail Bag: A Deep Dive Into Polar Ice Cores
Thankyou! I had wondered about the resolution of ice core records, but having no expertise in that area, this article has cleared up most of my questions.
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bjchip at 04:34 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
12:@onePlanet - I don't think there is much chance of "consilience" being misunderstood. As words go it is pretty unambiguous and more to the point, for the talking heads the need to look it up (in secret) may well surprise them (how many of us are still learning new words?) and the point more clear as a result. I have never, ever, had any backscatter from it, not from denialists, not from anyone.
Denialists can only ignore it (so far that is all they do).
The point I am making however, is not for the denialists. It is for the news readers and news reporters (assuming that there are still some people paid to gather and verify news... somewhere). People who are attempting to achieve "balance" without real knowledge. People who shape the information flowing from the American media.
Convince them, and let them use words that ordinary folks understand. We use the word in interviews and media encounters. That forces the pace for the media. They are obligated by their profession to at least try to be competent in their native language. Not something they can ignore and not something they will misunderstand.
To use it with the masses? Maybe you'd be right about that "elitist" stuff but I would not expect even that. It is an ordinary word that is not commonly used, not a Scientific term. For people so far gone as that, there is no hope as they would rather die than change their minds. The objective is not to let them decide what the rest of us will do.
THAT takes a reduction of ignorance in the electorate in general. Which takes the media and the schools. Only an informed electorate is going to UN-elect Lamar Smith and the T-rump. I've seen this word work for me and I think that in the main, it will do a good job... on my intended targets :-)
As for the brevity and punch-drunk, that'd be facebook and the twits. A form of self-induced attention-deficit-disorder. Zuckerberg created a monster to eat the brains of a generation. Getting careful analysis into a Facebook post is torture. As a result there are children I know who cannot at 18 years, tell me what an analysis is or perform one. They can have opinions though... that's all facebook provides for.
I don't think this story ends well. I will keep trying until my last breath, but I don't expect to succeed.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:32 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Regarding Consilience. Use of a term that:
- may need to be looked up
- could be misunderstood
- can be open to interpretation (and misinterpretation)
- may lead a reader to be dismissive of the information being presented because it is "Elitist" or "From an Expert" (examples of terms that should never have developed negative connotations but now clearly are negative in the minds of many people due to the unethical PR successes of "Smart People" like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and the many members of Team Trump)
may not be as helpful as using more words to make a point.
The growing predilection with brevity and punchy unjustified, and even totally irrational, info-bites Winning popular support has developed many damaging consequences. An example is the popularity of America First, even though the majority of actions that have been taken and could be defended as being America First, such as the reversal of USA actions to reduce the production of additional CO2, are clearly contrary to improving the future for humanity.
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ubrew12 at 01:51 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
You make an important point: In a debate, we expect troll behavior, meme's waiting in ambush to trip up the conversation ("Earth is old and climate cycles naturally!"). But our schoolchildren deserve more than knowing what isn't driving their modern climate. As in all things, they deserve our best explanation. It's why we send them to school. Judge Heartland "Heartless" on this one.
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MA Rodger at 01:25 AM on 12 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Curiousd @19.
While we have now both sourced Pierrehumbert, are now looking at the same writing, and while you do say “I think we should get this straight before talking about the other issues“, do note my apprehension expressed @18 concerning the use of the 1976 US Std Atmosphere as a global average.In producing a better global average than the single values fo single the 1976 US Std Atmosphere, the UoC model does provide regional/seasonal alternatives for analysis. I have endeavoured to gain a global average by weighting these regional/seasonal UoC alternatives. Using the surface temperature outputs from the UoC model, the weighting that provided a parity of global average temperature is 50% tropics and 12½% for the 4 remaining latitude/seasons. This is not an unreasonable outcome. It would fit with global coverage 70ºS to 70ºN. (The Chen et al analysis coverage is 80ºS to 80ºN.)
The calculated TOA IR flux from the UoC model when weighted in this manner yield a global average global of 265.9Wm^-2, a significant increase on the 1976 US Std Atm output. If the 1½% to 2% is added to this sum (representing the additional IR in the 0-1800cm^-1 band used by Chen et al but excluded by the UoC model (your 'Correction Number One'), we arrive at a TOA IR flux range of 270-271Wm^-2. These values are now very close to the measured global value used by Chen et al (273.7Wm^-2) and their calculated values (271.7, 274.2, 277.0Wm^-2) . That the UoC calculator comes so close is pretty impressive for a webpage-calculator. -
curiousd at 23:47 PM on 11 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Hi M A Rodger,
Look at http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/rocky-planets-class09/ClimateVol1.pdf
Unfortunately the thorough discussion of the various angles one might use under different circumstances on page 191 in my text does not appear to be in this. However, page 190 does have the statement after equation 4.69 "For strong lines the equivalent width is...." Note that within the radical is the symbol L sub S for the "strong path". Note that in equation 4.67 the set of terms q(p)/ g cos theta appear together. The q(p) is not a constant as it is for CO2 up to 100 km, but if I multiply by 1.7 the factor 1.7 being constant comes outside the integral. This complication does not come about for the CO2 case since q is constant and comes outside the integral.
I am assuming that SpectralCalc correctly takes care of the integral of q(p)dp between pressures.
BTW..One of the limitations of both MILA and Spectral Calc is that both have no ability for the user to resolve altitude steps less than 1 km. Of course, both MILA and SpectralCalc have a length resolution much less than this in the underlying program. For MILA I think I recall from the button for the underlying program that the length resolution is one centimeter. MILA is free, SpectralCalc is amazingly reasonable and Modtran6, which I have also purchased is expensive! But with Modtran six, one has a resolution in length at least down to a meter, a wavenumber range way more than I would ever need, and it deals with scattering. But although I am quite familiar with SpectralCalc I can now only do rudementary things with Modtran6, just because I have not studied the program very much. It is breaking in a new GUI interface, other wise I never would have purchased this package.
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jgnfld at 23:30 PM on 11 April 2017Sea ice falls to record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic
My bad.
Extrapolation is _always_ suspect, true. but at least interpolation in this case can likely be attributed to observable temp/weather changes.
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curiousd at 22:47 PM on 11 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Hi M A Rodger,
The reference is my well worn copy of "Principles of Planetary Science" ,Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Cambridge University Press, third 2014 printing, ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 86556 - 2 Hardback. Some time ago in a completely different context I was given an URL for a free online copy by someone on SS. Maybe Tom Curtis??? Even then there is a strange thing...almost all of the ONLINE version is the same as the book, but some of the book material has been left out. Maybe I can dig up the URL to the on line version someplace on my computers, but no guarantees.
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MA Rodger at 20:20 PM on 11 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd @19.
It seems we discuss a work by Pierrehumbert. It would be good to be sure we are discussing the same work so a proper reference would be good. The work you reference should be listed here although likely it will be this work you offer up for discussion. (By the way, my initial thought @14 had been solely to provide the links, not to comment on them.)
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curiousd at 11:26 AM on 11 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
As I said, increasing the water vapor concentration by 1.7 is only because it has precisely the same effect on the radiation emitted as using a 54 degree angled path, even though I am using a vertical path. This is because 1 / cos 54 degrees is 1.7/cos zero degrees. The angle 54 degrees is by some measures, close to the optimum angle to do this.
Here is another way of looking at it. Consider the equation for a "path" such as in equation 4.67 in Pierrehumbert for the strong line limit in the Curtis-Godsen Approximation. There is a factor in the equation for the "path" LS which is q(p)/cos theta. The q(p) refers to the specific mass as a function of pressure. The equivalent width of a Lorenzian line is given by W = 2 x sqrroot (S(Tnought)*gamma (p0))* times LS where LS is the "strong path" (Pierrehumbert top of page 230.) Gamma (p0) is the line width at surface atmospheric pressure. S(Tnought) is the Line Strength analagous to a mass absorption coefficient at the surface of the Earth, where in this approximation one neglects the temperature dependance of the Line Strength. This is all part of an old way to estimate transmittance values without cranking out a line by line result. q(p) is a specific mass which may vary with height ; therefore pressure. Thus, it is a constant for CO2 up to order 100 km; however, water vapor is concentrated near the Earth surface. But no matter; a vertical path (cos zero = 1) ; using 1.7 times q(P)) is mathematically exactly the same as q(P) in the numerator and cos 54 degrees in the denominator. Now that we have SpectralCalc to hand us transmittance values on a platter, it is much easier and quicker to merely multiply the q(P) by 1.7 instead of actually changing to an angled path.
The chief technical person for "SpectralCalc" has told me that the same issue comes up in their radiance programs as in old ways of computing transmittance. Using a 54 degree angled path whilst multiplying the quantity with units of (watts / square meter steradian wave number) by pi is a" quick and dirty approximate way" of converting to diffuse upward flux by averaging over all angles.
The SpectralCalc expert has told me that the SpectralCalc way is to use a "fourth order quadrature" but what I do is a "quick and dirty way to proceed."
Bottom line..what MILA does is to angle integrate all angles and do it correctly. I do not know how to do this, so I use the old recipe for converting intensity to OLR by multiplying by p1 and effectively using a 54 degree straight line path.
(This is sometimes called the "diffusivity approximation" see Science of Doom under greenhouse effect, part 6 the equations , or page 171 in Grant Petty's text book for a drawing of the method. Also see in Liou, p. 127. Liou states that "in general a four point Gaussian quadrature will give accurate results for integration over the zenith angle"..but "for many atmospheric applications it suffices to use (shows equation involving the diffusivity factor.) See Pierrehumbert on page 191 who describes the method at length and even compares the various angles one might use.
Note that 400 ppm x 1.7 is 680 ppm. In my post 9 above you will note that for CO2 if I use a factor of 1.7 to multiply the 400 ppm present day CO2 concentration but do not integrate over angles then I get good agreement with MILA for 400 ppm where they do integrate over angles.
I think we should get this straight before talking about the other issues.
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chriskoz at 11:15 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
For those who haven't read it or forgotten, it's worth to refresh one's mind by looking at CC Cluedo post to appreciate the extent of consilience in the science of climate change/AGW attribution. Especially the evidence matrix at the bottom.
Any comparison to the contrarian "arguments" by Heartland simply does not exist: any Heartland talk is just silly noise.
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John Hartz at 09:35 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Consilience is a very good word. Unfortunately, it is also "science-speak" and therefore it isn't a particularly good word to use in communicating climate science to the average person.
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chriskoz at 08:55 AM on 11 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
ThanksTom for that video. Michelle is a very prolific talker, as for a scientist :)
The most remarkable is her admission in the last minute of the video: those deniers who invited her to talk on camera dsid first "probe" her what she would say on the subject of the show and then, when herr point did not suit their opinion, they simply did ask a different question on air: simply did not allow her to talk...
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Tadaaa at 08:17 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
@ bigchip
to reinforce JH's point i even know, without looking it is an article by Micheal Shermer
conversly i can guess with a high degree of acuracy a denier link to science, just from the URL
it is usually the Zwally antartic study, or the recent "greening" study
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nigelj at 08:10 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Consilience is a good word. Everything points at fossil fuels causing a greenhouse effect, from many lines of evidence and different fields of enquiry. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.
Natural causes for the recent warming period have been exhaustively investigated, and ruled out. Every possible idea has been suggested, and evaluated (and this is a good thing). It seems very improbable that we have missed some natural cause.
We are 95% sure we are causing climate change, yet many don't take the problem seriously. This doesn't make sense, because with anything else 95% proof would be sufficient. If some local government authority said they are 95% sure the local river is polluted by bacteria from cows, I think most people would accept this as compelling enough, especially when the evidence is explained.
Of course theres a particularly ruthless campaign to spread doubt about the climate science.
Our other main problem is politicians captive to fossil fuel, business, and ideologically motivated lobby groups. You have to get this out of politics somehow, and tax payer funded election campaigns is one option. At the very least, make activities of lobby groups, funding sources, and donations to election campaigns very public and transparent, so the public can see what influence is operating.
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bjchip at 07:28 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Oy! A forceful placement of climate change - Interesting form that slip takes though, taking a chance.
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bjchip at 07:25 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Thanks Sarah and I am pretty sure most people here know it. The mainstream media needs to hear it. I expect that more than half the talking heads will be forced to look it up.
:-(
A forceful placement of climate chance as a "Theory" well substantiated and co-equal to other established and accepted theories (eg. Evolution) can cancel much of the noise being injected by the denialsphere.
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Sarah at 07:09 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Consilience is indeed an excellent term for the agreement among multiple streams of evidence for climate change.
We should use that word more often; it's a feature notably lacking in alt-theories of climate.
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MA Rodger at 04:51 AM on 11 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd @15,
I should confess that my comment @14 was quite a bit more than I had initially intended to say, and I can see I have erred in places (but only in places).Concerning your "Correction Number One", the value presented by the UoC calculator as 'Upward IR Heat Flux' is calculated over the range 100cm-1 to 1500cm-1 and I think we can say with confidence that such a restricted spectrum will be ignoring 3.6% of 255K blackbody radiation spectrum. Of course, the TOA spectrum is only a very very approximate blackbody spectrum. I did a very quick scaling of this graph which plots TOA flux from 0cm-1 to 2000cm-1 and suggests there is somewhat less than 3.6% unaccounted, perhaps only a further 2% in the 0cm-1 to 2000cm-1 range leaving potentially 0.5% of unaccounted blackbody radiation above 2000cm-1.
It seems I was in error interpreting what your "Correction Number Two" was about. On reflection, your second correction appears to be suggesting that MODTRAN does not correct for the horizontal component of radiative transfer. This I cannot believe. And I fail to grasp the logic of your correction - increasing water vapour by a factor of 1.7 (=1/cos54º, the angle being the average for the integral). If such a correction were to be made, surely it would also require a similar adjustment to all other GHGs.
Chen et al (2013) does indeed concern clear-sky data (specifically 2004 data) and thus is comparable with 'No Clouds or Rain.' Note that Chen et al compares observations with reanalyses which use MODTRAN5 to calculate the TOA spectra flux. The comparisons of flux over the spectrum 0 – 1800 cm-1 are scattered either side of the observation with roughly 1% accuracy. This result suggests that MODTRAN in an apples-v-apples analysis does not need correction. The use of the 0 – 1800 cm-1 spectrum also reduces the blackbody IR beyond the range 100cm-1 to 1500cm-1 to 2.8% and scaling that graph of TOA IR it reduces to 1.4%.
Concerning the use of 1976 US Std Atmosphere. This is a global average for the full annual cycle and with non-liner calculations such an average cannot be as acccurate as the Chen et al analysis. If the impact of using a spectrum 100cm-1 to 1500cm-1 is roughly 2%, a little under half of the descrepancy you set out @10, it may be worth considering if a less crude averaging method can be shown to reduce that remaining 3%.There may still be other explanations. It is not impossible to believe that the UoC calculator contains simplifications (as yet undiscovered by us) even though it produces some very convincing-looking outputs.
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John Hartz at 04:35 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
To get a basic understanding of what climate models are, check out this recently posted article...
Yes, we can do ‘sound’ climate science even though it’s projecting the future by Kevin Trenberth & Reto Knutti, Conversation US, Apr 5, 2017
Note: Trenberth & Knutti recommend using the word projection (rather than predicition) to describe the output of climate models.
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DaveMartsolf at 03:40 AM on 11 April 2017We're heading into an ice age
Deep thank yous to Yail Bloor, Tom Curtis, and scaddenp. Together you have cleared up all my questions regarding the interrelated processes that are bringing out an unfortunate future to our planet. I totally understand now why current and near future increased levels of CO2 will be around for centuries. And, scaddenp's link to Howard Lee's article describing an outcome of rapid CO2 increase that I did not think possible. I can understand why these facts have not been made into a movie, although they should be. I want to thank all of you for opening my eyes and for filling in all the blanks in my understanding. May our future generations find a way to survive The Once and Future Planet.
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bjchip at 03:21 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
The word that nobody seems to know is
"consilience"
...and it is what makes the climate change theory an established theory, much like evolution, not a hypothesis.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-climate-skeptics-are-wrong/
Moderator Response:[JH] Rest assurred that the SkS author team and most of our regular readers know the meaning of the word consilience.
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John Hartz at 03:05 AM on 11 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
Suggested supplemental reading:
Climate Change Skeptic Group Seeks to Influence 200,000 Teachers by Katie Worth, Frontline, Mar 28, 2017
Climate Change-Deniers ‘Spam’ Thousands Of Teachers With Anti-Global Warming Packages by Nick Visser, Huffington Post US, Mar 30, 2017
How climate skeptics are trying to influence 200,000 science teachers by Charlie Wood, Christian Science Monitor, Mar 30, 2017
Déjà vu all over again: Heartland Institute Peddling Misinformation to Teachers about Climate Change by Brenda Ekwurzel, Union of Concerned Scientists, Apr 7, 2017
Educators Decry Conservative Group's Climate 'Propaganda' Sent to Schoolteachers by Phil McKenna, InsideClimate News, Apr 10, 2017
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Tom Curtis at 20:10 PM on 10 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for the excellent suggestion. I will insert the video into next week's Digest.
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curiousd at 19:47 PM on 10 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Hi Glenn,
But not before what I havedone is thoroughly vetted, as the editors of BAMS suggest. The only way to thoroughly vet this is to continue to post my arguments and have experts at S.S. try to shoot them down. I suspect that the place where the largest effect ofthe correction is would be in estimating the relative contribution of CO2 relative to water vapor on the earth's temperature, since the tails between 2 wn and 100 wn, and 1500 to 2200 wn have extremely strong water vapor absorption but negligible CO2 absorption. I am building up to this.
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Jim Hunt at 17:13 PM on 10 April 2017Sea ice falls to record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic
jgnfld @7 - Was your remark addressed to me? If so, that's not what I'm arguing.
I was merely pointing out that CBD seemed to have misread a PIOMAS graph, and the suggestion that "the yearly max volume now is roughly equivalent to where the yearly min volume was in 1980" is not correct:
The physical validity of those exponential extrapolations is of course open to question!
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John Mason at 14:59 PM on 10 April 2017Past and Future CO2
The Foster et al paper is now available at:
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14845 -
Glenn Tamblyn at 14:22 PM on 10 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd
The person to contact regarding this would be Professor David Archer at UoC. The Modtran calculator site is part of a set of tools he uses in running on-line courses about climate science.
d-archer@uchicago.edu -
Paul D at 05:51 AM on 10 April 2017The Myth of 'Clean Coal'
Should have said in my comment at (3) that the Southampton CHP plant uses gas not coal. It provides heat to local domestic customers and refrigeration and heat to a large retail complex, the electricity is sold to the docks.
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Paul D at 05:37 AM on 10 April 2017The Myth of 'Clean Coal'
Ironically some of the best research into the inefficiencies of producing energy from coal has been produced by US government researchers.
They spotted the obvious in that no powerplant can extract all the energy from a piece of coal and that is even before taking into account the losses created from the energy that can be extracted.
Humanity has wasted a lot of potential that was ever in coal even before you take into account it's horrendous polluting qualities.
One obvious flaw is the poor thermal energy efficiency of power stations. Most power stations would be better off as CHP plants with the main product being heat and refigeration from the 60% wasted energy. That leaves 40% for electricity production - a secondary product (or it should be).
That of course requires a near socialist attitude towards energy production as the heat and cooling products MUST be used by local residents and businesses without much competition!
This is done at one location in the UK (Southampton) and many Scandanavian locations.
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bjchip at 05:35 AM on 10 April 2017Inconceivable! The latest theatrical House 'Science' committee hearing
Adding to that excellent link ( 10: John Hartz ) would be this
http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/27/14395978/donald-trump-lamar-smith
The T-rump taking an obvious place in the Lysenko comparison, and more obvious now than ever.
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Mike Blair at 04:19 AM on 10 April 2017Sea ice falls to record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic
The article title "Sea ice falls to record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic" has been misinterpreted by some deniers in UK. They probably have not read the article, but they take 'record' to be a verb, not an adjective, and so are claiming that the sea ice levels haven't fallen as low as predicted. I suppose it's the law of unintended consequences, and the article itself couldn't be plainer in its explanation, but please, take a little more care!
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curiousd at 23:47 PM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
I thank M.A. Rodger for his critique; it is exactly what I want.
(1) I can think of no other way to "disseminate the corrections to the Modtran online community directly " than to post such corrections as I have developed on "Skeptical Science" and "Science of Doom".
(2) The corrections I have made use SpectralCalc, a relatively inexpensive and wonderful tool for learning or teaching about atmospheric science. It would go well with Modtran. I can go further and take my violation of the plane - parallel approximation into account.
(3) I am not sure what you mean about the 1.7 factor being the correction I make. The1.7 factor is to expand the underlying wavelength range in the most correct way; to make the most "correct correction" . I cannot (or have not yet taught myself how to do it) actually integrate the intensity over many different angles. Modtran Chicago does this; that is better than my method, which is to use the "diffisivity approximation" approach and multiply by pi whilst at the same time effectively switching from a vertical path to one at 54 degrees. My table in post nine shows that by using a vertical path corresponding to 693 ppm - which has the identical effect as a straight line path at 54 degrees and 400 ppm - I can nearly duplicate the Modtran result for "CO2 only" where the Modtran result is for 400 ppm but they integrate outgoing intensity over all directions. I then carry over the 1.7 so that my "correction is more correct" for the water vapor bands. My correction is to expand the band width to 2 wn through 2200 wn from the original 100 wn to 1500 wn.
With respect to the comparison to Chen, et al: Since I use the U.S. Standard Atmosphere, which is supposed to be a type of world wide average, why is it so unexpected that my result isclose to that of Chen, et al ?
(You get something pretty close to the correct CO2 only climate sensitivity if you use MILA in U.S. standard atmosphere and the 0.98 emissivity; despite the fact that the present best value is by Myhre, who I believe found it improved the result to average over many locations? M.A. Rodgers, is the previous italacized sentence correct ?)
Also, regarding your criticism: Thus your 260.2w/sqm is calculated from MODTRAN applies only to "1976 U.S. Standard Atmosphere" and "No Cloud or Rain".
The idea of a "Clear Sky" OLR measurement is to obtain the OLR with no clouds or rain. Otherwise it would not be a clear sky experiment.
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MA Rodger at 19:54 PM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd @6-10,
The first question to ask you is - Have your "corrections" been "disseminated directly within the Modtran user community online" ? As you report @6, it is the advice of the BAMS editors that you should do this. It would also be my advice.
The two "corrections" you describe here (if I understand correctly) concern firstly the impact of IR beyond the range 6.67-100μm which you calculate as being significant yet outside the calculations made by the MODTRAN model, and secondly the lack of spherical adjustment for height in that model.
Regarding the first of these, using the on-line calculator at SpectralCalc.com, the value of blackbody radiation beyond 6.67-100μm amounts to 3.6% at 255K. I would assume the creators of MODTRAN were not unaware of that situation when they determined the wavelength limit of the model.
Regarding the second correction, the spherical effect on IR flux over 70km of atmosphere would be about 2%. While this may or may not be of significance to the MODTRAN model, the adjustment you make to the MODTRAN inputs to simulate this effect is surely incorrect. Your adjustment is "multiplying the standard ropospheric water vopor concentration" by 1.7. Concerning your use of Chen et al (2013) to provide a check on your correction, you should note that the value in Chen el al Table 3 is a "near-earth global annual mean" and so not actually comparable with any setting available on the MODTRAN interface. Those settings only provides for certain 'Locality' and weather, settings which greatly impacts the "Upward IR heat flux" . Thus your 260.2w/sqm is calculated from MODTRAN applies only to "1976 U.S. Standard Atmosphere" and "No Cloud or Rain".
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curiousd at 19:00 PM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Glenn, I don't think I am criticizing the Modtran site at all. It is an excellent teaching tool and my point is that an instructor could use these corrections along with Modtran to better illustrate certain important results. For instance, I suspect most students would never look at the underlying program button, and therefore simply stating someplace on the web site or in classroom hand outs that an emissivity of 0.98 is assumed and there is a cut off issue would improve things.
As a case in point, I myself went down the following dead end regarding the emissivity issue. If one simply takes the MILA OLR looking down from the surface and compares to what is expected from the Stefan Boltzmann law you appear to have an emissivity of 0.92 because of the cut offs at 100 wn and 1500 wn. But at time I was using MILA for my purpose I had no clue about the cut offs and assmed the program must assume an emissivity of 0.92.
If someone is using the MILA program to test whether he/she is correctly using Scwarzchild's equation to obtain, say, the co2 no feedback climate sensitivity---where else can you obtain the OLR versus altitude, even in any textbook?---that person will run into contradictions with such a low assumed emissivity. (This is the subject of my next post here.)
All this would be improved just by warning the user of the wavelength cutoffs and that the assumed emissivity is 0.98 not 0.92 on the output website the user uses. The way I discovered this, after months of work, was to digitize the output of MILA and integrate the case of co2 only at 400 ppm and then test my use of the trapezoid rule for integration. I happened to have used an underlying Planck distibution that went from 5wn to 2000 wn. My answer for the integration was significantly too large. So I changed the range of the integration to 100 wn to 1500 wn and got close to the MILA output.
Then I knew.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 18:11 PM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd
Here is a link, from the UoC site, to a technical summary of MODTran from the company who wrote the code - Spectral Sciences Inc. Note the distribution list to the Air Force. Note on the first page of the introduction, the range of wavenumbers is from 0 to 17,900 cm-1. This upper limit is defined by the range of the data in the HiTran database, not a limit in the code per se.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/berk.1987.modtran_desc.pdf -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:00 PM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd
Just a point of clarification. MODTran is a commercially available medium resolution Radiative Transfer Code. It is developed by the US military, primarily through the Air Faorce laboratory system, although they outsource the actual coding. In contrast the Uni of Chicago is hosting a copy of MODTran and supplying configuration parameters to it for their web interface and then showing results from their run.
So the criticisms you are making are more likely related to the configuration setup by UoC not anything built into the software itself which is a more general purpose tool. The emissivity of 0.98 for example would be their setup parameter, and is actually a reasonable average of the actual emissivities of materials on the Earths surface which tend to range between 0.96 to 0.995. Similarly the wavenumber range will be a choice by UoC, rather than built in. -
curiousd at 11:31 AM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Correction number two
Clear sky OLR measurements from satellites are of considerable interest since the properties of the atmosphere are being studied without the complications of cloud cover. For the "Modtran Infrared Light in the Atmosphere" (MILA) leave all default settings of greenhouse gases in place but choose the U.S. Standard atmosphere with no clouds. The uncorrected clear sky output flux observed by the virtual observer at 70 km is 260.2 W/m2 .
It should be kept in mind in what follows that unlike CO2, which maintains a constant concentration up to ~ 100 km, the water vapor content is concentrated close to the Earth's surface. (This may be seen by clicking the "temperature" button underneath the plot of altitude versus temperature in MILF, and compare CO2 andwater vapor on the drop down menu.)
Using the same SpectralCalc atmospheric path radiance application described in the previous two posts, I set the water vapor scale of the water vapor path to 1.7 instead of the default 1.0. This corresponds to the diffusivity approximation with an effctive angle to verticalof 54 degrees as described in the previous two posts. The radiant emission is calculated for the bands between 2 wn to 100 wn and 1500 wn to 2200 wn, again as described above. These outputs are associated with water vapor since the atmosphere for these wavelength ranges is essentially transparent to CO2 but the water vapor is a strong absorber. For a .98 emissivity, the corrected OLR is 266.7 W/m2 . If the Modtran output is - in addition to adding the pieces between 2 and 100; 1500 to 2200 wn, adjusted to correspond to an emissivity of one for the Earth's surface, the clear sky OLR becomes 272.1 W/m2 . This is compared to the value of the clear sky OLR obtained by Chen, Huang, Loeb, and Wei using the AIRS spectrometer of 273.74 W/m2
Chen, et al "Comparisons of Clear - Sky Outgoing Far IR Flux Inferred from Satellite Observations....." Table Three, Journal of Clima,Vol 30, No 9, May 2017.
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curiousd at 10:13 AM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Altitude in km, OLR in W / M2
Altitude S.Calc 683 ppm Modtran 400 ppm
0 360.2 360.2
1 357.5 357.6
2 353.1 352.9
3 348.5 348.5
4 344.5 344.4
5 340.2 341.0
6 336.4 337.5
7 333.1 334.4
------------------— skipping several entries
18 320.8 324.6
Only major isotopologue of CO2 used in Spec Calc results. Again, 0.98 Earth surface emissivity. Constrained to 100 wn to 1500 wn. For CO2 the windows between 2 wn and 100 wn, and 1500 wn and 2200 wn are transparent. But this is not true for water vapor.
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curiousd at 09:57 AM on 9 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
In order to proceed further with my corrections to Modtran Infrared Light in the Atmosphere (MILA) I need to include some background material. Here are results for OLR of CO2, only greenhouse gas, U.S.standardatmosphere Modtran. I use SpectralCalc atmospheric paths radiance calculator, looking down. A virtual source is on the Earth's Surface, operating between the 500 wn and 850 wn of the CO2 bending mode. Temp 288.2 K, emissivity 0.98 to match Modtran. In addition to the 500 - 850 wn window the transparent (for CO2, although not water vapor, this will come up later) bands between 100 to 500 and 850 to 1500 wn are included, again to match MILA conditions. The "diffusivity approximation" as described, for instance on the Science of Doom website in part 6 of "The Equations" under the Greenhouse Effect, is used with an effective 54 degrees angle to the vertical to go from upward intensity to OLR with units of w/meter squared. It is not a good match to SpectralCalc to actually use angled paths, for one thing the angled paths in SpectralCalc are "real" paths which are strongly refracted. The "diffusitivity" approximation needs idealized straight line paths. In expressions for the optical thickness the factor q/cos theta always appears, where q is a concentration of the GHG, which in the case of CO2 can be considered constant up to 100 km. Say theta was chosen to be 60 degrees. Since cos 60 degrees is (1/2) the factor q/cos 60 = 2q/cos0.
Therefore one just needs to keep a vertical path and multiply the concentration by 2. In my case I use an effective angle to vertical of 54 degrees and multiply the q by 1.7. Modtran actually integrates over the output angles from 0 to 180 degrees. I calculate for a vertical path with q = 683 ppm for CO2 to compare with Modtran for 400 ppm. Below are the results in the next post.
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Evan at 09:12 AM on 9 April 2017Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases
Anything that increases the translational, rotational, or vibrational energy of a molecule will increase its temperature. Energy added to one storage mode (e.g., vibration) is redistribted to the other storage modes until they are all in equilibrium. This happens within a time scale so small that for most considerations it is instantaneous.
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John Hartz at 04:31 AM on 9 April 2017Clouds provide negative feedback
Speaking of clouds and manmade climate change, here’s a handy reference document recently published by the WMO…
Humanity has a primordial fascination with clouds. The meteorological and hydrological communities have come to understand through decades of observation and research that cloud processes – from the microphysics of initial nucleation to superstorms viewed from satellites – provide vital information for weather prediction, and for precipitation in particular. Looking at clouds from a climate perspective introduces new and difficult questions that challenge our overall assumptions about how our moist, cloudy atmosphere actually works.
Clouds are one of the main modulators of heating in the atmosphere, controlling many other aspects of the climate system. Thus, “Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity” is one of the World Climate Research Programmes (WCRP) seven Grand Challenges. These Grand Challenges represent areas of emphasis in scientific research, modelling, analysis and observations for WCRP and its affiliate projects in the coming decade.
Understanding Clouds to Anticipate Future Climate by Sandrine Bony, Bjorn Stevens & David Carlson, Bulletin nº Vol 66 (1) – 2017
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jgnfld at 01:30 AM on 9 April 2017Sea ice falls to record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic
Volume always keeps increasing for a while after the extent peak. Yet volume has never been so low at this point in the cycle. Why do you argue that increasing volume in April means there is nothing to worry about re. overall volume?
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