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Models are unreliable

Bob Loblaw at 06:48 AM on 13 November, 2024

A further follow-up to Syme_Minitrue's post @ 1332, where (s)he finishes with the statement:

A climate model probably contains hundreds of model parameters. Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?

Let's say we wanted to run a climate model over the historical period (the last century) in a manner that "excluded CO2-dependency". How on earth (pun intended) would we do that, with a physically-based climate model?

We could decide to remove the part of the model that says CO2 absorbs (and emits) IR radiation.

Unfortunately, that would make our model run far too cold for the entire period, since the 19th century CO2 level of 280-300ppm is a significant source of heating that helps keep us in a stable climate of roughly 15C (as opposed to -18C that we'd expect with no atmosphere)

This would defy the physics of IR absorption by CO2 that is easily demonstrated in a laboratory.

We could arbitrarily decide that CO2 remain at 300ppm.

This would be a useful experiment, and is probably what was done for the graph I included in comment 1334...

...but this defies the actual physical measurements of rising CO2, so it can hardly be argued that this model experiment can explain actual temperature observations.

We could run the model so that the first 300ppm of CO2 absorbs IR radiation, but the CO2 content above 300ppm does not.

This makes no physical sense, since all CO2 molecules act the same. We can't use "special pleading" for some.

And once we remove the effects of rising CO2, how would we change other model calculations to compensate for the lack of CO2 warming? i.e., what would "fit" the model to the observed increase in temperatures?

We could arbitrarily increase solar input...

...but this defies our physical measurements of solar irradiance.

We could arbitrarily change cloud cover

but we have no physical measurements that would support this.

We could arbitrarily change surface albedo, vegetation, etc...

but we run into the same problem: we have physical measurements of the properties of these factors, and it's hard to justify using values that are different from the known measured values.

In comment 1334, I linked to a review I did of a paper that claimed to be able to fit recent temperature trends with a model that showed a small CO2 effect. I said it was badly flawed.

The paper in question did pretty much what Syme_Minitrue expressed concern about: doing a statistical fit to a large number of parameters, many of which defied any plausible physical meaning.

As long as your parameters can perform all sorts of non-physical gymnastics in an effort to fit the data, you can easily come up with some rather odd results.

When your model parameters are limited to physically-measurable values, "fitting" gets a lot harder.

Physically-based models in climate science generally get "fit" by trying to get the physics right.

Models are unreliable

MA Rodger at 21:24 PM on 12 November, 2024

Syme_Minitrue @1332,

You suggest CO2 can be extracted from climate models and it would be "then hard to use that model to claim that CO2 is what drives global warming." You then add "I have done a little bit of searching but not found any such falsification attempt."

I would suggest it is your searches that are failing as there are plenty "such falsification attempt(s)." They do not have the resources behind them to run detailed models like the IPCC does today. But back in the day the IPCC didn't have such detailed models yet still found CO2 driving climate change.

These 'attempts' do find support in some quarters and if they had the slightest amount of merit they would drive additional research. But they have all, so far, proved delusional, usually the work of a know bunch of climate deniers with nothing better to do.

Such clownish work, or perhaps clownish presentation of work, has been getting grander but less frequent through the years. An exemplar is perhaps Soon et al (2023) 'The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data'. Within the long list of authors I note Harde, Humlum, Legates, Moore and Scafetta who are all well known for these sorts of papers usually published in journals of little repute. If such work was onto something, it would be followed up by further work. That is how science is supposed to work.

Instead all we see is the same old stuff recycled again and again by the same old autors and being shown to be wrong again and again.

Models are unreliable

Bob Loblaw at 06:26 AM on 12 November, 2024

Syme_Minitrue @ 1332:

Your comment contains several misunderstandings of how models are developed and tested, and how science is evaluated.

To begin, you start with the phrase "If a hypothesis should be considered proven..." Hypotheses are not proven: they are supported by empirical evidence (or not). And there is lots and lots of empirical evidence that climate models get a lot of things right. They are not "claimed to be true" (another phrase you use), but the role of CO2 in recent warming is strongly supported.

In your second and third paragraphs, you present a number of "alternative explanations" that you think need to be considered. Rest assured that none of what you present is unknown to climate science, and these possible explanations have been considered. Some of them do have effects, but none provide an explanation for recent warming.

In your discussion of "parameters", you largely confuse the characteristics of purely-statistical models with the characteristics of models that are largely based on physics. For example, if you were to consider Newton's law of gravity, and wanted to use it to model the gravitational pull between two planets, you might think there are four "parameters" involved: the mass of planet A, the mass of planet B, the distance between them, and the gravitational constant. None of the four are "tunable parameters", though. Each of the four is a physical property that can be determined independently. You can't change the mass of planet A that you used in calculating the gravitational pull with planet B, and say that planet A has a different mass when calculating the attraction with planet C.

Likewise, many of the values used in climate model equations have independently-determined values (with error bars). Solar irradiance does not change on Tuesday because it fits better - it only changes when our measurements of solar irradiance show it is changing, or (for historical data prior to direct measurement) some other factor has changed that we know is a reliable proxy indicator for past solar irradiance. We can't make forests appear and disappear on an annual basis to "fit" the model. We can't say vegetation transpires this week and not next to "fit" the model (although we can say transpiration varies according to known factors that affect it, such as temperature, leaf area, soil moisture, etc.)

And climate models, like real climate, involve a lot of interconnected variables. "Tuning" in a non-physical way to fit one output variable (e..g. temperature) will also affect other output variables (e.g. precipitation). You can't just stick in whatever number you want - you need to stick with known values (which will have uncertainty) and work within the known measured ranges.

Climate models do have "parameterizations" that represent statistical fits for some processes - especially at the sub-grid scale. But again, these need to be physically reasonable. And they are often based on and compared to more physically-based models that include finer detail (and have evidence to support them). This is often done for computational efficiency - full climate models contain too much to be able to include "my back yard" level of detail.

You conclude with the question "Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?" The answer to that is a resounding No. In the 2021 IPCC summary for policy makers, figure SPM1 includes a graph of models run with and without the anthropogenic factors. Here is that figure:

2021 IPCC SMP figure 1

Note that "skeptics" publish papers from time to time purporting to explain recent temperature trends using factors other than CO2. These papers usually suffer from major weaknesses. I reviewed one of them a couple of years ago. It was a badly flawed paper. In general, the climate science community agrees that recent warming trends cannot be explained without including the role of CO2.

Models are unreliable

Charlie_Brown at 06:23 AM on 12 November, 2024

Syme_Minitrue @ 1332
That is an incorrect way to prove the null hypothesis or to demonstrate falsification. Climate models are not simple empirical models. They contain a mix of fundamental principles, including the laws of physics, as well as tunable parameters for uncertain factors. One cannot simply remove radiant energy, which follows the physics of CO2, and then tune the model to an unconstrained set of empirical variables, then say that if it can be made to fit, conclude that the laws of physics are invalid.

Models are unreliable

Syme_Minitrue at 01:28 AM on 12 November, 2024

If a hypothesis should be considered proven it must stand up against falsification attempts. If you take a climate model as an example, and remove all CO2 dependency, and adjust all other model parameters, and you can train the model to fit historical data AND it still makes a decent prediction of future climate, it is then hard to use that model to claim that CO2 is what drives global warming. I have done a little bit of searching but not found any such falsification attempt.

For example, since early human civilisation about 1/3 of the world's forests have been cut down, farmland has been drained. This inevitably makes the soil drier and you get less daytime cumulus clouds. These clouds reflect sunlight, but disappear at night allowing long-wave CO2-radiation to escape. Most of this deforestation & drainage has happened in sync with CO2-emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. If you can adjust/train the climate model by tuning all other model parameters (I'm sure there are hundreds in a climate model) relating to deforestation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, cloud formation, land use, etc etc etc, and the model 1) follows the observed climate and 2) makes decent predictions into the future (relative to the training window) then the hypothesis that CO2 is what drives climate change can't be claimed to be true, based on that model.

I have done a bit of model fitting on systems way less complex than the global climate. If the model contains more than, say 5 (five) model parameters that need to be tuned to make the model fit historical data, you really start chasing your own tail. The problem becomes "ill conditioned" and several combinations of model parameters can give a good fit and make decent predictions. In such a situation, you can choose to eliminate some parameters or variables, or impose some known or suspected correlation or causality between them, to simplify the model. A model should be kept as simple as possible.

A climate model probably contains hundreds of model parameters. Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?

Climate Risk

Paul Pukite at 07:31 AM on 5 November, 2024

Bob, It is a slow warming shown over the span of a 1000 years. Might as well classify it as a stable temperature, which is also not totally unexpected for zero further emissions — i.e. none of the excess CO2 is sequestering. There are scores of references to an adjustment time of >> millenia for CO2.

Climate Risk

Bob Loblaw at 06:39 AM on 5 November, 2024

Paul:

The paper in question does not seem to directly assess exactly what causes their model to continue slow warming after reaching net zero, but they discuss a number of possibilities. They discuss a number of outputs - not just global mean temperature.

How certain are they? In their abstract, they state (emphasis added) "Our findings suggest substantial long-term climate changes are possible even under net-zero emission pathways."

And in the closing section of the paper, they say things like "The results presented in this study use one of our best available modelling tools to understand future climates under net-zero emissions, but improved understanding of slow climate processes and the potential for sudden-onset changes is needed.", and "The hope with this model framework is that other groups might consider running similar simulations", and "... but further work is needed to comprehensively understand climate changes beyond emission cessation."

In other words, they are accepting that this may be a feature of their model that will not be found by others, and encourage others to try similar model experiments.

Yes, it would not surprise me if Curry is reading the tweet and misinterpreting it as "climate change because [not CO2]".

Climate Risk

Paul Pukite at 04:11 AM on 5 November, 2024

Yes, That's the entire charade of Curry's Uncertainty Monster. The uncertainty can go either way, and now that (or if) she has tilted toward a gloomish view, that uncertainty is biting back. We have long realized that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have a ratcheting effect in that once they increase, it's very difficult to reverse due to the difficulty in permamently sequestering CO2. This means the uncertainty is biased toward getting worse, and especially as in"the longer we wait to reach net zero, the worse things will be.". IOW, impossible for things to immediately get better since we require all the FF infrastructure to power us through an energy transition.

Yet, has Curry been saying this for over a decade now? It's possible that she saw the line about "climate will change" and equated that to natural variability, in which case she's been touting that for a long time. So, yes, it's rationalized by her not reading the artiicle.

Climate Risk

Bob Loblaw at 00:58 AM on 5 November, 2024

Paul @ 5, 7:

I wouldn't say that Curry has flipped - but I have to admit that I have not being paying a lot of attention to her and I have never had the impression that she has a coherent, logical, consistent position on much related to climate science. She would have to actually hold a position in order to be able to flip away from it. She has a history of broadcasting all sorts of whack-a-doodle stuff (calling it "interesting") - but in a way that she can deny she supported it (or opposed it) when the cards line up.

So, in that tweet, what the heck is she really claiming she has been saying for over a decade now? Only the contents of David Wallace-Wells' tweet, which says little? If you interpret his tweet as saying that there are other factors besides CO2 driving the current warming trend, and stopping CO2 emissions will have little effect, then maybe that fits her history of obfuscation and attacks on climate science as we know it. But is that what David Wallace-Wells really means?

We could try to find David Wallace-Wells' article at The Conversation. Not hard. It's here. Want more detail? The article at The Conversation links to the actual paper it is based on. It is here.

I have not read the paper in detail - it is moderately long and technical - but I can get the gist of it. It certainly does not support any argument that CO2 levels are less important than presented in the IPCC reports and positions. What the paper does seem to present is an argument (from model simulations) that the expected drop in CO2 levels after reaching net zero - due to fast parts of the carbon cycle continuing to remove CO2 - will be offset by other slow feedbacks in the climate system that will cause continued warming.

The paper uses the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator Earth system model (ACCESS-ESM-1.5), which appears to include a number of slow-response feedbacks related to ice, ocean circulation, etc. (The paper provides references that explain that model in more detail, but the details are not apparent from a quick read of the current paper.)

So, the gist of this new paper seems to be that slow feedbacks often not included in many models will make things worse than expected, once net zero is reached. They also indicate that the longer we wait to reach net zero, the worse things will be.

This may fit into Curry's Uncertainty Monster scenario ("See, I told you there were things the models didn't get right!), but it is an uncertainty that will bite us in the posterior regions - not Curry's favoured "everything uncertain will fall to our benefit".

I would not be surprised if Curry hasn't actually read the paper (or maybe even the Conversation article), and just saw what she wanted to see in the tweet - without actually understanding it.

Climate Risk

MA Rodger at 19:36 PM on 4 November, 2024

Paul Pukite @5,
I don't see Judy Curry having flipped.

While seeing her apparently agreeing with David Walliace-Wells is remarkable, the agreement is perhaps best seen as another instance of Judy re-defining the words of others. Over the last decade, since the WUWT failed to "change the way you think about natural internal variability" (WUWT=Wyatt's Unified Wave Theory which Judy calls the Stadium Wave), Judy has taken up ambiguity as a means of manufacturing what she calls "a wicked problem" to cloud the climate debate and give room for denialists to flaunt their nonsense.

Her book 'Climate Uncertainty and Risk : Rethinking Our Response' was published last year (a 40-odd page preview HERE) and a few months back she set out the same message at the denialist GWPF's AGM.
The book runs to fifteen chapters and 340 pages. Well hidden within it, Judy sets out her same old message, this from a book review.

The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is much less pressing than the IPCC and the UN contend because of the implausibility of extreme emissions scenarios such as RCP 8.5 and of high values for the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Natural variability is likely to slow down the rate of warming over the next few decades, and further time can be bought by targeting greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, which account for up to 45% of human-caused warming.

(Note that the 45% number is wrong. The non-CO2 forcing is no more than 35% and over tha last decade it is down to 26%.) The hidden message from Curry is that her imagined natural climate wobbles have masked the weak nature of human-caused climate change and fooled us all. So we can sit back and enjoy ourselves while we make plans for when all the oil runs out.

CO2 lags temperature

One Planet Only Forever at 09:28 AM on 26 October, 2024

Eclectic @677,

In 1901 Nils Gustaf Ekholm used the term ‘greenhouse’ regarding the warming impact of gases like CO2 in the atmosphere. And it is now used globally to the point of ghg being a commonly understood acronym.

I doubt that you really agree with JBomb’s way of thinking about the greenhouse effect. The 'greenhouse' concept works for most people ... but not for those who choose to be ‘deliberately hard of learning’. The ‘learning resistant’ way of thinking leads them to claim nonsense like “If one fills a greenhouse with higher concentrations of CO2, it doesn't get any hotter.” as if that is a relevant point to try to make.

I offered an alternative ‘greenhouse understanding’ and a related experiment that is more aligned with the correct understanding of why the term ‘Greenhouse gas effect’ is so common and is unlikely to be replaced by some new term.

CO2 lags temperature

Eclectic at 08:27 AM on 26 October, 2024

Quite correct, Michael Sweet @675. The scientific inquiry into the climate/CO2 nexus goes far back, well beyond a bit more than half a century.

My comment was intended to mean, that since about the 1950's , the investigations of CO2 properties (at the large scale of climate effect) have come so very thick and fast that it's close to impossible for a reasonable man to avoid all the evidence.

~ In other words, today a reasonable man making reasonable inquiry into climate/CO2 issues has to be disingenuous to state that he has yet to find "evidence".

(b) OnePlanetOF @676 , the "GreenHouse Effect" is really a very miserable analogy at the planetary scale. And I agree with JBomb about that . . . however, JBomb's purpose was to "trail his coat".

CO2 lags temperature

One Planet Only Forever at 06:13 AM on 26 October, 2024

JBomb @672,

Another way of thinking about the CO2 Greenhouse effect is to consider the CO2 and other greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to be like the glass of a greenhouse. The glass lets light energy in but reduces the rate of heat loss from inside.

Using double-glazed glass rather than single plate glass is almost certain to make the inside warmer. Build your own to test if you wish.

Increasing the amount of atmospheric ghg will increase the planet's surface temperature in a similar way.

CO2 lags temperature

michael sweet at 04:31 AM on 26 October, 2024

Eclectic at 673,

We agree on most issues regarding Climate Science. At 673 you said "There's more than half a century of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming."

In the 1850's scientists first measured the emission lines of carbon dioxde and noted that if carbon dioxide increased in the atmosphere it would heat the Earth (170 years ago). In about 1898 Arhennius calculated the temperature increase from a doubling of carbon dioxide and got a result not too far off the current estimates (125 years ago). In 1965 the National Academy of Science told President Johnson that climate change would be a big problem in the future (60 years ago).

The science of climate change has been understood by scientists for much longer than half a century. I find that many novices think that climate science was only recently developed when in fact it is well established, long understood that carbon dioxide will heat the Earth.

I think we should say "There's more than 170 years of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming". Jbomb need only look at the absorbtion lines of carbon dioxide to see convincing experimental evidence that the Earth will warm with more carbon dioxide in the air.

CO2 lags temperature

MA Rodger at 17:37 PM on 25 October, 2024

JBomb @672,

I would say that the planetary greenhouse effect is not well described. And as you say, an actual greenhouse will radiate the same (and thus cool the same) regardless of its CO2 levels. The level of radiation will depend on temperature.

One difference between an actual greenhouse and our planet's atmosphere is that greenhouses are far-more leaky than our atmosphere which is very stable with little upward and downward air movement. Thus, outside a hurricane a packet of air will take a week or so to travel the 10 miles up to the top of the troposphere at the tropics, and the same to come back down again, roughly. This is because, as the air rises it cools and expands, this all in balance with the atmosphere as a whole. And if this were not the case, hurricane-strength winds would be the result at ground level.

That said, consider the concentration of CO2 per volume in the atmosphere. At higher altitudes, the pressure is less and the molecules including the CO2 are more spaced out. So at some point, the radiation absorbed and emitted by CO2 will begin to emit upward and out into space, cooling the planet.

The greenhouse effect works because an increase in the CO2 concentration will make that radiation escaping into space happen higher up in the atmosphere. And that will be a cooler part of the atmosphere. Cooler gas radiates less. So with increased CO2 the cooling of the planet will be less. And to reach equilibrium, the planet has to warm.

That is how the greenhouse effect works. The various aspects of its working can be shown by experiment. But other than a full-scale experiment, pumping CO2 into a planet's Earth-like atmosphere, the full mechanism in action would be difficult to demonstrate by experiment.

CO2 lags temperature

Eclectic at 07:56 AM on 25 October, 2024

JBomb @672 :

There's more than half a century of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming. And yet you yourself have been unable to find anything of that?

Permit me to be skeptical about your "agnosticism".

Perhaps you have wandered onto an inappropriate website ~ you would be happier trying WattsUpWithThat website (where over half the participants are "agnostic" about the mass of evidence that the globe is warming at all).

CO2 lags temperature

JBomb at 06:22 AM on 25 October, 2024

As someone agnostic to climate change, I'd like to point out that the beer can analogy doesn't propose that CO2 causes warming and, indeed, supports the notion that CO2 levels follow temperature changes caused by other means.

I am trying to find reproducible studies that prove CO2 contributes to increased warming at all, but I can only find anecdotal evidence, which is not evidence at all. It merely demonstrates CO2 follows warming, which we all agree on.

If one fills a greenhouse with higher concentrations of CO2, it doesn't get any hotter. This has been tried many times.

Is someone able to provide any experiments to prove CO2 contribution to warming?

Many thanks.

Climate Risk

nigelj at 11:08 AM on 24 October, 2024

Jess Scarlett, I appreciate your concerns, but the amount of CO2 released by drilling holes is totally insignificant. Even volcanic eruptions have not released enough CO2 to explain the recent warming trend. Scientists have spent thousands of hours researching these issues and every possible cause of warming and every possible source source of CO2 before ruling them out. You can find this material with a simple google search and by scanning through the information in the "climate myths" box on the left hand side of this page.

If you are suspicious of the temperature record in Australia then I suggest please look at the global surface temperature record over land. Look at the global temperature in the oceans. Look at the ballon temperature record. look at the upper atmosphere temperature record. They all show roughly the same warming trend. Urban and rural areas show the same warming trend. One set of data might be in error, but it seems very unlikely to me several would be.

Also sometimes the raw data has problems, so needs adjustments. For example data from early last century from ships were found to be in error, and the raw data was adjusted DOWN so actually reduced the warming record. This is hardly a sign of people wanting to exagerate the warming trend. If you are still sceptical about temperature data, look at the UAH satellite temperature record compiled by Roy Spencer a scientist and a climate change sceptic, but even his temperature record shows robust warming.

If you still dont believe the global temperature records, and that the world is warming, you are beyond being reasoned with.

Your comments do suggest you may have been persuaded by conspiracy theories. The idea that there is an international movement by tens of thousands of meterologists and scientists to deliberately exaggerate warming is just insanity. There is no rational motivation for such a thing. No government wants expensive problems to deal with and is certainly not going to invent them when it gets plenty dumped on its plate anyway. It would be impossible to have a giant conspiracy like this and keep it quiet. Some of these guys would leak the truth. Its like the idea that NASA faked the moon landings. This doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Yes the renewables have their downsides and require a lot of mining. And yes the corporate sector benefit from building renewables and sometimes the business world is a dirty affair. But what is your better solution to the climate problem? Because its a huge environmental problem that is affecting not just human society, but the natural world, and you say you are a greenie, right?

Lots of your statements are false at PC points out. And evidence free. I suggest don't let any concerns you might have that we are potentially neglecting our various other environmental problems bias you against the climate issue. I don't see evidence we are neglecting other problems. Personally I think we have to deal with both the climate problem and other environmental problems together , and humanity is obviously able to deal with several problems at the same time.

4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second

MA Rodger at 21:02 PM on 16 October, 2024

One Planet Only Forever @55,
The CO2 level in the atmosphere has been accelerating through the decades and indeed the resulting climate forcing has also been accelerating. The total GHG forcing is less 'acceleraty' due to the cuts in CFC emissions back in the 1990s. The table below shows the average annual increase in CO2 forcing and total GHG forcing (WM^-2) from the NOAA AGGI.

1980s ... ... 0.026 ... ... 0.047
1990s ... ... 0.023 ... ... 0.033
2000s ... ... 0.028 ... ... 0.033
2010s ... ... 0.034 ... ... 0.040
2020s ... ... 0.032 ... ... 0.040

The big omission is the negative forcings from aerosols and a lot of ink has been spilt addressing that particular omission. (For instance, the marine regs of 2020 have often been mentioned as a possible cause of the "bananas" temperatures seen from the back half of 2023.) While it is a big omission, I'm not of the view that it will not prove an essential ingredient in understanding the EEI and 'bomb increase' measured both by CERES and in OHC.

There are plenty of rabbit-holes to jump down when tring to explain the CERES data. (I note recently a couple of the 'usual suspects' Nikolov & Zeller
trying to argue that it is the 'bomb increase' that has been forcing the whole of AGW.)

The 'bomb increase' is a net result from (1) a warming world which is thus leaking more IR into space and thus lowering EEI and (2), a less reflective world due to a reducing albedo increasing EEI. These both present reasonably good correlations with global temperature (1) -1.53Wm^-2/ºC and (2) +2.81Wm^-2/ºC with thus a net increase in EEI running +1.2Wm^-2/ºC.

Judy Curry EEI graph

What makes me sceptical about any very significant role of aerosol-reduction in the albedo numbers is both that there is the significant correlation with temperature wobbles (which suggests the reduced albedo results from climate feedbacks) and that the peiod where that albedo-temperature correlation looks less than convincing (2007-14 which are those dreaded hiatus years) doesn't coincide with any explained event (like the marine emissions regs) where we would expect something to be seen. [I posted a pink graphic of these correlations 5th December 2023, which you can scroll down-to here]

There remains the thorny question of whhat lies behind these correlations.

Back-of-envelope calculations appear to suggest something must be at work beyond simple AGW. The AGGI numbers above suggest the 2000-20 additional forcing totals +0.73WM^-2 which is roughly equal to the EEI increase through the period. But with SAT also rising +0.6ºC through the period, increases in AGGI and in EEI should not at all be equal.

If they are actual correlations with global temperature, what was happening pre-2000?

Do they otherwise include some wobble or some aerosol-effect?

Another rabbit hole is that while the rate of change in temperature (acceleration) over short periods fits with the wobbles in EEI, the increasing EEI does not fit at all well with the longer term temperature accelerations.

So there is a lot of rabbit holes and to-date no sensible-sounding explanation.

CO2 effect is saturated

NavierStokes at 18:40 PM on 16 October, 2024

Eclectic@718:

Whoever wrote the Basic Rebuttal doesn't understand the greenhouse effect at all. They seem to believe that the GHG molecules absorb IR radiation directly from the incoming sunlight instead of the upwelling terrestrial IR from the surface as indicated in the following quote:

Sunshine consists mostly of ultraviolet, visible light and infra-red photons. Objects warmed by the sun then re-emit energy photons at infra-red wavelengths. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 has the ability to absorb infra-red photons.

Remember that 99%+ of the incoming EMR from the sun is in the visible spectrum and is absorbed by the earth (except of course for what is reflected as albedo). The earth then re-emits this absorbed energy as a 288-294 deg. K blackbody at the surface. We then get the greenhouse effect when the GHG molecules absorb this upward-bound IR and convert it into thermal energy in some manner. Therefore, this Basic Rebuttal badly needs to be rewritten and my question still stands.

[Snip]

CO2 effect is saturated

NavierStokes at 15:42 PM on 16 October, 2024

I have a question concerning the Advanced Rebuttal for this "Is the CO2 effect saturated?" argument. I agree that thermal energy is spread around and transferred upward by radiation and convection and that IR emissions are occurring at all levels in the atmosphere. What is not mentioned, however, is where and how the CO2 molecules absorb IR energy from the 15 micron band for release as thermal energy in the greenhouse effect.

[snip] Could someone clarify this?

4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second

One Planet Only Forever at 06:55 AM on 11 October, 2024

MA Roger @54,

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I now appreciate that the ‘reason’ or attribution for the EEI rate appearing to have increased from 4 bombs to 9 bombs (or higher) is still not fully understood.

The annual CO2 level increase now appears to be about 40% higher than the average from 1980 to 2010 (see below). That does not appear to reasonably explain the more than doubling of the EEI in a way that is reasonably consistent with the expectation that no significant warming will occur after human impacts on GHG levels are effectively ‘net-zero’.

Could it be that the magnitude of annual GHG increase is significantly exceeding the rate of annual EEI to achieve the new balanced state? That would mean that there is a growing amount of ‘yet to be realized’ global warming. However, if the wind-down of GHG impacts is able to be slow enough, the reduction happens sooner and a more significant reduction happens earlier, then that excess warming could be realized by the time that human impacts become effectively net-zero. That would be seen by the EEI not declining at the time that the rate of CO2 increase begins to significantly decline.

Based on NOAA (see here) the approximate 10 year average annual increases of CO2 levels were as follows:

0.8 ppm - in the 60s (1960 to 1970)
1.3 ppm - 70s
1.6 ppm - 80s
1.5 ppm - 90s
1.9 ppm – 2000s
2.4 ppm - 2010s

Average annual increase from 1980 to 2010 = 1.7 ppm

Average of 2010 to 2020 = 2.4 (with 2018 at 2.4 and 2019 at 2.5), an increase of about 40% compared to the period used to calculate the 4 bomb per second rate.

2024's unusually persistent warmth

pattimer at 20:19 PM on 19 September, 2024

Bob Loblaw:

You may be right, and probably so. However the chemistry of the oceans is changing and changes in biology will affect this outwith photosynthesis. The oceans are becoming more acidic for example (although I am not saying that changes in air borne fraction of CO2 is involved here as that presumably would have been accounted for).

We will see if this pattern of unexplained increased air temperatures persist on the long term or not, through the different phases of the El Nino La Nina.

Certainly worrying regardless.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 04:39 AM on 5 September, 2024

MA Rodger @ 22:

Although that may seem to answer the direct question that rkcannon asks in comment 16, he finishes that comment by saying "It seems CO2 is not influencing T at all." To come to such a conclusion, it seems that he simply does not see or rejects all the synchronous rises and dips in the CO2 and temperature lines that precede that last spike. The explanation of those synchronous CO2 and T changes involves both T leading to an increase in CO2, followed by CO2 causing further increases in T.

David Kirtley's comment @ 6 is intended to challenge the argument that only T causes all the CO2 increase, all the time. If so, then why do we not see a huge increase in T before the recent large increase in CO2?

rkcannon appears to be ignoring any cause-effect for the previous cycles of T/CO2, and only looks at the last spike.

I saw "appears", because rkcannon has not bothered to return to this discussion to clarify his question or comment. We can speculate about what he really meant until the cows come home, but he is the only one who can really tell us.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

MA Rodger at 19:27 PM on 4 September, 2024

rkcannon @16.
Assuming Mark Johnson @18 is correct and you do refer to the graphic posted @6 (which seems entirely sensible), your question has still not been properly addressed.
And that presumably is to ask why the CO2 fluctuations through recent ice ages (180ppm to 280ppm) are associated with large temperature fluctuations (10ºC peak-to-peak) but the larger recent anthropogenic CO2 (280ppm to 420ppm) doesn't result in any commensurate temperature increase in the graph.
There are a number of factors to consider.
(1) The forcing from changes in CO2 is logarithmic, so the recent CO2 forcing would be slightly smaller than the ice age forcing (2.2Wm^-2 as opposed to 2.4Wm^-2).
(2) It takes time for the temperature to react to an imposed forcing so only about two-thirds of any CO2-forced increase would have occurred in the decades of man-made warming so far.
(3) The ice age CO2 forcing was not the major forcing through ice ages. The change in albedo due to the shrinking ice sheets and the rising oceans would be double the CO2 forcing. Other factors like methane and dust were also in play. (The orbital forcing that triggers ice ages is very minor.) Increasing CO2 contributed perhaps a third of the ice age forcings.
(4) The temperatures being plotted are from the EPIC ice core data and thus Antarctic temperatures which wobbled tiwce as much as global temperatures through the ice ages. (Note the modern CO2 value has been added, marked with an asterisk. Grafting on the modern EPIC temperature record would be difficult, and would not show much as the instrument record is more wobble than rise.)

So taking (1) to (4) into account, the 10ºC ice age cycle in the graphic @6 would be a little smaller, say 90% (1) then a third off (2) then two-thirds off (3) and finally halved (4). So the global temperature should be very roughly something like [10ºC x 0.9 x 0.67 x 0.33 x 0.5 =] +1ºC which is pretty-much what we see globally today.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 05:10 AM on 4 September, 2024

Mark Johnson:

To understand the fundamental error made by Koutsoyiannis, I suggest you go to the PubPeer discussion of an earlier paper that I referenced in comment 3. In particular, read the second comment on that discussion, where Gavin Cawley (who posts here as Dikran Marsupial - e.g., comment #1) demonstrates how the methodology used by Koutsoyiannis is utterly incapable of telling the difference between three different signals - one with a steady increase, one with a steady decrease, and one with no long-term trend.

Since Koutsoyiannis' methodology is incapable of telling the difference in trend between those three signals, it is by definition incapable of helping decide whether the past century of generally increasing CO2 and generally increasing temperature are related in any way.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 02:28 AM on 4 September, 2024

Mark Johnson @ comment 18:

No, rkcannon @ 16 is not clearly referring to anything specific. For his first comment on this thread, he just comes up with one statement (in two sentences), and can't be bothered to tells us whether he's looking at the original post, or one of the comments? Did he put more than 20 seconds of thought into his question?

Even if we look at the graph in comment 6, which spike is he referring to? Possibly the last one, but he has not take the time to write a clear comment explaining exactly what he is looking at or explain his reasoning. And he has not returned to clarify what he means - which I asked him to do.

rkcannon has a history here. which includes several occasions of throwing out one-liner "gotcha" kinds of questions, and then not bothering top engage in any constructive discussion when his errors are pointed out. That behaviour is "hardly conducive to constructive debate".

And yes, I have read the Koutsoyiannis paper referred to in this post. I have also read the comments on that paper and an earlier one on PubPeer, as I indicated in comment 3. The comment from rkcannon @ 16 comes on the heels of one he made on another thread. In that thread, rkcannon quoted the abstract of another Koutsoyiannis paper (emphasis added):

Recent studies have provided evidence, based on analyses of instrumental measurements of the last seven decades, for a unidirectional, potentially causal link between temperature as the cause and carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) as the effect.

Similar statements appear in several Koutsoyiannis papers. The statistical technique used by Koutsoyiannis is incapable of detecting multi-directional processes, and it is incapable of detecting correlations at multiple time scales. Even though Koutsoyiannis et al do not state it or imply it, it is an essential characteristic of their method. The fact that they do not even realize this is why Koutsoyiannis keeps producing papers that contain the same basic error. In essence, they have assumed their conclusion as a result of their methodology.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 04:42 AM on 3 September, 2024

rkcannon @ 16:

What on earth are you talking about? Figure 6 does not have temperature in it, so what temperature graph are you referring to? And figure 6 is showing short-term variation that includes annual or shorter times. It is a rate of change graph, not a cumulative storage graph. And which "very high spike" are you referring to? What year?

...and are you seriously thinking that every temporary spike in CO2 (really, rate of CO2 change, if you are using figure 6) will lead to a temperature spike? It takes time for global temperatures to change. The atmosphere alone has a sufficiently large heat capacity that it takes months for an energy imbalance of a few W/m² to reach a new equilibrium. If you take the shallow ocean mixed layer (<100m depth), the heat capacity means it take a decade or two for it to adjust. When you take the deeper ocean into account, the time lag increases proportionally.

...and CO2 is not the only factor affecting temperature. especially on the shorter time scales.

By thinking that every little short-term spike in CO2 has to correlate with a spike in temperature, you are making exactly the sort of basic error that Koutsoyiannis et al have made (several times). Koutsoyiannis has assumed that there is only one cause in one direction at all times scales, and has completely ignored the multi-factor and multi-time-scale nature of the carbon cycle and global temperature - and done it using a technique that removes the multi-decade slow rise in CO2 and how it correlates with global temperature.

It seems that you are not looking at the whole system, and focusing narrowly on some tiny feature that you think disproves the big picture.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

rkcannon at 03:29 AM on 3 September, 2024

Why don't we see a higher temp spike along with the very high CO2 spike in the graph in 6? It seems CO2 is not influencing T at all.

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

Bob Loblaw at 02:26 AM on 3 September, 2024

rkcannon:

An earlier paper by Koutsoyiannis was debunked on this post here at SkS. He has been repeating the same basic bogus analysis in a series of papers, all of which are basically junk.

In the snippet you copy (which appears to be the start of the abstract), he again repeats his assertion of "evidence ... for a unidirectional, potentially causal link between temperature as the cause and carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) as the effect." This claim appears in most (all?) his previous works, and it is still "not even wrong".

I notice that Koutsoyiannis has again chosen an MDPI journal for his assertions. MDPI does not have a particularly good reputation, having been a go-to location for a lot of bad papers that do not get proper review.

Is there any reason to think that Koutsoyiannis has actually gotten something right this time? For the most part, papers by Koutsoyiannis are simply not worth reading.

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

rkcannon at 01:34 AM on 3 September, 2024

Regarding C14, the gradual decline may be due to the nuclear tests that created C14 that is decaying or disappearing naturally. Ref this paper. Also this paper also looks at 13C/12C ratio, saying the following. Is there discussion on this somewhere?
Net Isotopic Signature of Atmospheric CO2 Sources and Sinks: No Change since the Little Ice Age
by Demetris Koutsoyiannis
[ORCID]
Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytechneiou 5, 157 72 Zographou, Greece
Sci 2024, 6(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/sci6010017
Submission received: 19 December 2023 / Revised: 23 February 2024 / Accepted: 29 February 2024 / Published: 14 March 2024
Abstract
Recent studies have provided evidence, based on analyses of instrumental measurements of the last seven decades, for a unidirectional, potentially causal link between temperature as the cause and carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) as the effect. In the most recent study, this finding was supported by analysing the carbon cycle and showing that the natural [CO2] changes due to temperature rise are far larger (by a factor > 3) than human emissions, while the latter are no larger than 4% of the total. Here, we provide additional support for these findings by examining the signatures of the stable carbon isotopes, 12 and 13. Examining isotopic data in four important observation sites, we show that the standard metric δ13C is consistent with an input isotopic signature that is stable over the entire period of observations (>40 years), i.e., not affected by increases in human CO2 emissions. In addition, proxy data covering the period after 1500 AD also show stable behaviour. These findings confirm the major role of the biosphere in the carbon cycle and a non-discernible signature of humans.

Climate Adam: Kamala Harris and Climate Change - Hope or Hype?

prove we are smart at 00:05 AM on 15 August, 2024

Well, it certainly needs all that because to be the worlds "good" policeman, you need at least 100million barrels of oil a year. It's a bit of an estimate since to disclose your militaries emissions is an optional answer at the COPs. The worlds militaries account for maybe 5.5% of the worlds CO2 in a year. www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/12/elephant-in-the-room-the-us-militarys-devastating-carbon-footprint

I certainly agree the classic ugly american Trump is unbelievably bad for most and the planet but as in my Australia and many countries, for many reasons,trust in our chosen public officials has declined and seems the sad new norm. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Public_trust_in_government.webp

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

MA Rodger at 22:43 PM on 8 August, 2024

Keith R @14,

You are correct that the Koutsoyiannis paper does not assess the on-going +2ppm/yr of CO2 resulting from fossil fuel use (less the ocean and biosphere draw-down).

But your comment has goaded me into a back-of-fag-packet assessment of how much out-gasing the wobbles in the global temperature record would actually achieve. (I'd reckon beforehand it would be exceedingly tiny.)

If the last ice age saw CO2 rise by about 100ppm and global temperature rise about +4ºC, that would suggest a big El Niño-induced temperature rise of +0.4ºC would see CO2 rise 10ppm but only if equilibrium was achieved (which would take about a millenium).
An El Niño temperature wobble is up-&-down in a single year so there is of course no equilibrium. The out-gasing would be greater earlier and quickly tail off: say 50% happening in the first century, so 5% in the first decade and 0.5% in the first year? That would suggest an out-gasing CO2-rise resulting from a +0.4ºC temperature rise in temperature following a big El Niño of just 0.05ppm.
The actual CO2 wobbles the Koutsoyiannis paper relies on being temperature-induced out-gasing (and not drought-induced reductions in forest growth) are about 1ppm. So "exceedingly tiny" is a good description.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Keith R at 20:51 PM on 8 August, 2024

Here’s a simple way to look at the Koutsoyiannis paper… It claims that the data from 1980-2019 has correlations demonstrating that temperature changes drive CO2 and no correlation supporting CO2 driving temperature. He then concludes that this proves CO2 changes can’t drive temperature changes. There is a leap here from not seeing an effect in a 39-year period to the conclusion that it doesn’t happen.

The temperature drives CO2 side of the relationship occurs when something else such an El Nino, solar cycles, etc. causes a temperature change which causes a change in the degassing rate from oceans and that causes CO2 levels to change. These events occurred during the 39-year period and are shown in the Koutsoyiannis analysis.

The CO2 drives temperature side of the relationship occurs when something causes the CO2 concentration to change which modifies the strength of the greenhouse effect and this changes the temperature. Humans were emitting CO2 at a steadily increasing rate during the 39-year period and it is not clear that there were any changes in the rate of CO2 emissions that were significant enough to cause the temperature shift that would be detectable by Koutsoyiannis.

The mechanism used in the paper to look at shifts in the moving difference between values and the previous 5-year average will not detect a steadily increasing CO2 concentration causing a steadily increasing temperature. The paper is focused on the cause-and-effect of shorter-term fluctuations. The paper only shows that all the short-term changes during the monitoring period were the result of temperature changes driving CO2. The claim that this proves CO2 doesn’t drive temperature is unjustified.

CO2 lags temperature

Charlie_Brown at 23:59 PM on 7 August, 2024

Bob Loblaw @ 670:

That level of water chemistry is not needed to convey or understand the concepts of equilibrium and lead/lag for CO2 and temperature. It would be needed to go on to explain acidification or total dissolved carbon.

CO2 lags temperature

Bob Loblaw at 10:28 AM on 7 August, 2024

Charlie Brown @ 669:

One needs to be careful about referencing Henry's Law when it comes to CO2. CO2 does not just dissolve in water - it ends up dissociating and forming carbonic acid. This complicates the solubility equations.

SkS has a very good series on ocean acidification - in 20 parts. The 9th part discusses Henry's Law. The entire series is summarized in the 19th and 20th posts in the series.

CO2 lags temperature

Charlie_Brown at 07:37 AM on 7 August, 2024

When considering lead/lag with CO2 and temperatures, there are two fundamental concepts to understand. One is Henry’s Law that dissolved CO2 in water will reach equilibrium with CO2 concentration in the air. The other is the overall global energy balance. At steady state equilibrium, nothing changes. Change occurs when there is an upset in the equilibrium. Major ice ages are caused by the major Milankovitch solar cycles which upset the energy balance. During the onset of ice ages, water gets colder and CO2 dissolves. The reduced greenhouse effect of lower CO2 concentrations allows more radiant energy loss to space. At the end of an ice age, CO2 evolves, reducing energy loss to space. This is the first time in the history of the planet that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have upset the equilibrium CO2 concentration in air first. This time, the overall global energy balance has been upset by greenhouse gases rather than by responding to changes in solar irradiation.

CO2 lags temperature

Bob Loblaw at 23:32 PM on 6 August, 2024

Blusox69:

The previous Koutsoyiannis paper that MA Rodger refers to - "On Hens, Eggs, Temperatures and CO2: Causal Links in Earth’s Atmosphere" - was subject to an analysis by Giacomo Grassi, in a guest blog post here at SkS in late May.

Koutsoyiannis has a habit of repeating the same errors paper after paper after paper, so I doubt there is much point in trying to read the entire "new" paper. In the abstract, he once again concludes "unidirectional causality", which defies physics. The abstract implies that he is using the same "stochastic methodology of assessing causality" that has been shown to be wrong before.

A key issue, buried in MA Rodger's reply to you, is that they use detrended data - ΔT and ΔCO2 - which hides the current cause of CO2 rise (steady input of CO2 from burning fossil fuels).

There are links to other discussions of previous Koutsoyiannis works on the SkS blog post (and comments) I link to in my first paragraph.

CO2 lags temperature

Blusox69 at 22:00 PM on 6 August, 2024

Thanks for the replies so far. I read the paper over a few times and it didn't sit right with me. Under section 4.1 he neglects to show data or even graphs for the CO2 to T as he states they "did not provide useful results". Straight away that rang alarm bells. I've never omitted data from my studies, even if the results were not useful as it lays the foundation for being accused of cherry picking data/results. I'm not a statistician, but I'm sure the same logic would be applied to their work too.

CO2 lags temperature

MA Rodger at 20:05 PM on 6 August, 2024

Blusox69 @664,
The paper you link-to is Koutsoyiannis (2024) 'Stochastic assessment of temperature–CO2 causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times' which is hot off the press. The author should immediately ring alarm bells being a known perveyor of crazy denialism.

This SkS thread deals with the Temp → CO2 → Temp relationship prior to recent times when mankind began to increase atmospheric CO2 levels by burning fossil fuels and clearing forests.
The author of Koutsoyiannis (2024) also co-authored Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz (2020) 'Atmospheric Temperature and CO2: Hen-Or-Egg Causality?' which addresses a different relationship and does so with eye-bulging stupidity.
[To explain this stupidity, the measured CO2 record of recent decades has wobbles caused by El Niño impacting rainfall patterns and thus reducing vegitation growth in tropical regions. This effect is enough to slow the draw-down of CO2 and accelerate the atmospheric CO2 increase from human emissions, delaying the absorption of perhaps 15Gt(CO2) over a matter of months. Such a wobble is quite visible on the measured CO2 record. The whole process has been measurd from satellites.
An El Niño also causes a wobble in global average temperature and this temperture wobble arrives earlier than the CO2 wobble This is the situation Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz are measuring, a Temp wobble preceeding a CO2 wobble.
What Koutsoyiannis & Kundzewicz entirely fail to explain is the long-term rise in CO2 due to human emissions. This becomes eye-bulgingly stupid when they address the source of this long-term CO2 rise if it is due to rising temperature. They "seek in the natural process of soil respiration" and also "ocean respiration" but fail to actually look and find it. This should be no surprise. While warming biosphere and oceans would release CO2, the CO2 content of the biosphere & oceans is today increasing not falling, not exactly what you'd expect in a CO2 source.]

I cannot say I have read Koutsoyiannis (2024) properly. After a lot of blather, it tells us it there are questions to be asked about the role of CO2 within the climate system. Is it a GHG? Is it "decisive" in this role? Is the GH-effect enhanced in the last century? Are human emissions increasing the GH-effect? Are human emissions "decisive" in this regard? Is mankind the cause of rising CO2 levels? Is CO2 increasing global temperature, or visa versa, or both?
Koutsoyiannis (2024) then lists a bunch of references to support the assertion that "conventional wisdom" is wrong although the science behind the "conventional wisdom" is rather unwisely (and unscientifically) ignored. Note that all nine of Koutsoyiannis's bunch of references is authored by Koutsoyiannis. He has, according to himself, managed to overturned the scientific understanding of our planet's greenhouse effect.

And this new paper, Koutsoyiannis (2024), proceeds to use 12,000 words examining the temporal relationship between CO2 and global temperature for periods back 541million years. I have not read those 12,000 words but they certainly comprise more eye-waterlingly stupid blather.

CO2 lags temperature

Eclectic at 19:37 PM on 6 August, 2024

Blusox69 @664 :

Are you referring to the new 10/July/2024 article by Dr Demetris Koutsoyiannis ? (your link is not activated)

If so, then you will find that some previous articles by Dr K. have already been discussed on the SkS website here.

IIRC, those articles showed gross errors in his understanding of climate physics. If you can show that Koutsoyiannis has made a large step forward in his understanding of climate mechanisms ~ then I (among others) would be happy to spend time analysing his new July paper. But you would need to make a good case that it wasn't just Dr K. seeking to recycle/republish his old erroneous ideas.

Over to you, Blusox69.

btw, the title of his new paper is: "Stochastic assessment of temperature-CO2 causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times". ~A rather discouraging title, which suggests that he is relying on a statistical analysis [which might well be misleading] rather than looking into the actual physical mechanisms which produce climate effects. Real science requires real demonstrated mechanisms of physical action.

CO2 lags temperature

Blusox69 at 15:55 PM on 6 August, 2024

during a recent discussion the below paper was mentioned regarding the lag of CO2 and temperatur. it's a very recent paper and doesn't pear to have been discussed on here.

[long link]

I would like to hear your thoughts on it.

A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

nigelj at 08:02 AM on 24 July, 2024

Regarding "A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked." Something related and important:

From the Sydney Morning Herald: “It’s good news’: Scientists suspect history about to be made in China” July 13th 2024.

“But it is data from the past few months that is intriguing analysts today. The world’s economy is growing. China’s economy is growing. Yet greenhouse gas emissions appear to have peaked.”

“Some time last year, or perhaps earlier this year, it appears China’s emissions, in particular, reached a high point. If China has peaked, there is good reason to believe global emissions peaked, too. It would mean that some time over the past few months, the stubborn nexus between economic growth and greenhouse gas pollution was snapped, and the 250-year surge in emissions ended…….”

“In November last year, he wrote that despite the post-COVID surge in emissions, China’s massive deployment of wind and solar energy, growth in EVs and an end to a drought that had cut hydroelectricity generation had caused emissions to tumble.”

“A 2023 peak in China’s CO2 emissions is possible if the build-out of clean energy sources is kept at the record levels seen last year,” he wrote in an analysis for Carbon Brief based on official figures and commercial data.”

“Largely as a result of the China green surge, global investment in renewable technology in 2023 outstripped that in fossil fuels for the first time, the International Energy Agency reported.”

www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/it-s-good-news-scientists-suspect-history-about-to-be-made-in-china-20240709-p5jsbi.html

Lots of caveats of course. But I found the article interesting. Especially Chinas self interested motivation to dominate certain technology markets, and reduce its dependence on foreign oil for geo political reasons. But at least the environmental consequences are positive:

CO2 is coming from the ocean

Bob Loblaw at 05:18 AM on 24 July, 2024

ThePooleMan:

Also take a look at this post, which explains a simple mass balance approach to the cause of atmospheric CO2 increases.

CO2 is coming from the ocean

Bob Loblaw at 05:12 AM on 24 July, 2024

ThePooleMan:

I think it may be easier to just think in terms of mass, not volume. Total atmospheric mass, per square meter, is easily calculated from standard surface pressure. As a mass calculation, density, temperature, etc. become moot.

You can see more numbers on this page about the human contribution to atmospheric CO2. That the rise is due to anthropogenic releases can been seen on this web page.

A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

Bob Loblaw at 04:54 AM on 24 July, 2024

Joel:

The figure mentions OurWorldInData.org. They have a large collection of charts of CO2 and greenhouse gas information on this web page.

One of the charts (second row, right side, in the view I have) is for "Annual greenhouse gas emissions by world region". It looks like the total for that chart matches the values in the figure in this post, so I expect the figure here is using the same data (just not by region).

If you dig down into the information for that chart at OurWorldInData, it gives the following reference:

Jones, Matthew W., Glen P. Peters, Thomas Gasser, Robbie M. Andrew, Clemens Schwingshackl, Johannes Gütschow, Richard A. Houghton, Pierre Friedlingstein, Julia Pongratz, and Corinne Le Quéré. “National Contributions to Climate Change Due to Historical Emissions of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide”. Scientific Data. Zenodo, March 19, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10839859.

That paper describes the data as "emissions CO2, CH4 and N2O from fossil and land use sources during 1851-2021."

If you follow the link to that paper, it then points to yet another paper that gives a more complete description: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02041-1. The abstract of that paper starts with:

Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have made significant contributions to global warming since the pre-industrial period and are therefore targeted in international climate policy.

From that information, it seems pretty clear that forest fires, peat, etc. are not included.

The figure here provides enough information that your question can be answered with a little effort tracking down sources.

A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

Joel_Huberman at 03:59 AM on 24 July, 2024

Does the graph (and other data reported here) apply only to anthropogenic emissions or to total emissions? Total emissions would include all "natural" emissions, including CO2 due to forest fires and methane/CO2 from peat melting. Emissions like those I've mentioned seem likely to increase in the near future.

CO2 is coming from the ocean

ThePooleMan at 23:05 PM on 23 July, 2024

The "all CO2 comes from the ocean" myth is being commonly used this month and therefore that man cannot change the climate.

It seems obvious that burning fossil fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere and so I set about calculating the volume of CO2 produced and comparing calculated ppm yearly increase to actual CO2 concentration change (around 2.5 ppm/year in 2024). Here is the approach:

35 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per year.

1 Kg of CO2 occupies 190L at standard pressure & temperature.

Earth radius is 6400 Km.

Volume of a sphere is 4/3 Pi r^3.

Assumed that CO2 is fully mixed.

Assume that effective atmosphere is no more than 10 Km. Obviously the atmosphere is higher but at 10Km the atmospheric pressure is 0.26 (see https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/international-standard-atmosphere-d_985.html)

I then calculate the volume of CO2 and divided by effective atmospehric volume* to work out CO2 ppm.

Using 10 Km then the calculated increase is 1.3 ppm.

Using 5 Km then the calculate increase is 2.6 ppm.

* By effective atmosperic volume I mean the height of the atmosphere if all the atmosphere was evenly compressed to 1 bar. I need to 'compress' atmosphere to 1 bar as I calculated CO2 volume at one bar.

Is there a better/published approach?

Pressure drops with altitude is not linear and I have not included temperature. So whilst perhaps Ok for a fag packet the approach is lacking some.

Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat?

walschuler at 02:16 AM on 17 July, 2024

I would add to this post two unfortunate feedback effects involved with air conditioning: first, in cities the heat rejected from air conditioned spaces raises the outdoor temperature, as the heat can't be rejected unless it flows out at a temperature higher than the air it is rejected to. Raising the outdoor temperature increases the energy required to achieve the next degree of cooling. In principle,this means that as time goes on air conditioning systems will have to be increased in capacity or indoor temperatures in air conditioned spaces will rise. Secondly, if the electricity driving the air conditioners is fossil fueled, and most still is, the supply of chilling adds CO2 to the atmosphere, adding to overall heat trapping and making that worse on a larger scale. Converting to renewably sourced electricity is essential and will help deal with the second feedback but not the first. Energy conservation and other measures are needed to fix this.

What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals

Eclectic at 01:49 AM on 16 July, 2024

Thank you for the entertainment, TWFA @52.

Your mention of "draft animal farts" and the production of CO gas . . . is a [typo?] of Justice Gorsuch-ian expertise. Asphyxiatingly funny ~ if you really meant CO2 gas.

I shall abstain from a pun about horses, mules, asses, and "asphyxiation". Also, TWFA, don't risk confusing H2S and H2O.

What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals

TWFA at 09:22 AM on 11 July, 2024

Nigel, you can appeal to higher courts, but if they are all required to defer to the unelected and permanently entranched regulators it has obviously been a wasted effort prior to Loper overturning Chevron. As to how many, it is probably far to many to count, because not only do they write the regulations but periodically reach back and reinterpret and usually expand their scope, for example the ex-post-facto inclusion CO2 into the Clean Air Act of 1970 as a pollutant caused cases to go to the Supreme Court where in a split decision it was decided in 2007 that the EPA "could" regulate CO2 but would still be subject to lawsuits, thus leaving the final decision with the courts and not the regulators.

There are almost 100,000 pages in something like 250 volumes of the Code Of Federal Regulations, all written by unseen and unaccountable people, revolving doors of experts who regularly pierce the semipermeable membrane between government and private sector, first feverishly promulgating regulations and then moving to the private sector to make a living helping others either fighting or complying with them.

The regulatory world is a living being with a whole economy and ecosystem of its own, like the mysteries of the human brain or the global ecosystem, nobody can claim they know everything that is going on, least of all the public at large, yet those regulations affect virtually every aspect of life.

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

janolsen at 01:53 AM on 21 June, 2024

One of the themes in the movie seems to be that co2 levels and temperatures have been higher before humans were around, i.e. when other animals roamed the earth...They also seems to claim that temperatures have risen shortly before co2 levels rise, rather than as a direct result of co2 levels (though co2 is undoubtedly has a greenhouse effect).

Here's is "opposing side's" documenation for the statements made in the movie:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2024/03/26/annotated-bibliography-for-climate-the-movie/

Of red flags and warning signs in comments on social media

Bob Loblaw at 06:08 AM on 18 June, 2024

OPOF:

Yes, it's amazing how so many of these zombie myths keep coming back in slightly altered form.

The OP does include a link to SkS's list of common myths (https://sks.to/arguments), and lo and behold we find "CO2 limits will hurt the poor" at #67. In that rebuttal, there is a map of Climate Demography Vulnerability Index (CDVI) that shows much of Africa as being highly vulnerable. (Go to the link above to see details on the source).

Vulnerability

...but you also raise another important "red flag" not specifically mentioned in the OP here: logical inconsistencies in the arguments being made. It takes a significant level of psychological compartmentalization to be able to hold strongly contradicting beliefs at the same time. As you state, how can action make poor countries richer and poorer at the same time?

SkS used to have an online list of contradictory "contrarian" viewpoints, but it became too difficult for our limited number of volunteers to keep up-to-date. Too many contradictions, I suppose.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 05:37 AM on 4 June, 2024

RE: my comment 10:

Now, if Koutsoyiannis et al want to claim that ENSO effects on temperature are irrelevant - i.e., that it does not matter if the temperature variation is due to ENSO, volcanoes, or fairy dust, etc. - then they can try to make that claim. But then they are breaking the chain of causality.

Causation has to start somewhere, and their "unidirectional, potentially causal link with T as the cause..." is basically ignoring any previous cause. By ignoring anything else, they fail to consider the possibility that both T and CO2 are responding to something else (hello, ENSO!). And, of course, they ignore the possibility of feedbacks, where two or more factors affect each other - i.e., the world is not unidirectional.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 04:24 AM on 4 June, 2024

As MAR points out in comment 9, Koutsoyiannis et al ignore ENSO as a possible factor in their analysis.

Is ENSO a factor in global temperatures? Yes. Tamino has had several blog posts on the matter, where he has covered the results of a paper he co-authored in 2011, with updates. The original paper (Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011) looked at the evolution of temperatures from 1979-2010, and determined that much of the short-term variation is explained by ENSO and volcanic activity. After accounting for ENSO and volcanic activity, a much clearer warming signal is evident.

Tamino recently updated this analysis, with modified methodology and covering a longer time span (1950-2023). This method turns this:

Tamino raw

to this:

Tamino adjusted

Now remember: Koutsoyiannis et al used differenced/detrended data in their analysis, which means that they have removed any long-term trend and fitted their analysis to short-term variations. If you remove the short-term effects due to ENSO, Koutsoyiannis et al will have a temperature signal with a lot less variation. That means they have a lot less ΔT to "cause" CO2 changes. Their physics-free "causality" gets stretched even thinner (if this is possible with an analysis that is already broken).

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

MA Rodger at 01:41 AM on 4 June, 2024

The most powerful message of the paper Koutsoyiannis et al (2023) 'On Hens, Eggs, Temperatures and CO2: Causal Links in Earth’s Atmosphere' is their "Graphical Abstract" which is reproduced in the OP above as Figure 1.

They are not the first to try and use these data to suggest increasing CO2 is not warming the planet. And likely there will be other fools who attempt the same in the future.

So what does their "Graphical Abstract" show?

The graphic below is Fig2 of Humlum et al (2012) which insists this same data shows that CO2 lags temperature and not the other way round.

Humlum et al 2012 fig 2

The data that is missing is the ENSO cycle which precedes both the T and the CO2 wobbles and thus drives global temperature wobbles and, by shifting rainfall patterns, drives CO2 wobbles. To suggest (as Koutsoyiannis et al do) that such "analyses suggests a unidirectional, potentially causal link with T as the cause and [CO2] as the effect" is simply childish nonsense.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 00:42 AM on 4 June, 2024

David @ 6:

Yes, the point you make about how glacial cycles show CO2 and T variations that would imply a huge temperature increase is needed over the last century to cause the observed rise in CO2 is discussed in the PubPeer comments on the earlier paper.

The earlier paper used the UAH temperature record that only covers very recent times (since 1979). The new paper also looks at temperature data starting in 1948 - but temperature data from re-analysis, not actual observations.

If their statistical technique is robust, then they should come up with the same result from the glacial/interglacial cycles of temperature and CO2...

...but their methodology is devoted to looking at the short-term variation, not the long-term trends. Our knowledge from the glacial/interglacial periods has much lower time resolution. Different time scale, difference processes, different feedbacks, different causes. That does not fit with their narrative of "The One True Cause".

A purely statistical method like Koutsoyiannis et al cannot identify "cause" when the system has multiple paths and feedbacks operating at different time scales.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 00:29 AM on 4 June, 2024

David @ 5:

Yes, that wording of "commonly assumed" in the Koutsoyiannis paper is rather telling. Either they are unaware of the carbon cycle and climate science work that has gone into the understanding of the relationship between CO2 and global temperature, or they are using a rhetorical trick to wave away an entire scientific discipline as if it is an "assumption".

That Looney Tunes clip has one more snippet that I think applies to Koutsoyiannis et al: at the end Foghorn Leghorn says "No, I'd better not look". I think that Koutsoyiannis et al did that with respect to learning about the science of the carbon cycle: "No, I'd better not look".

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

David Kirtley at 06:25 AM on 3 June, 2024

An easy way to test whether today's atmospheric temp inc. are causing today's rise in CO2 levels might be to look at this chart of data from the EPICA ice core:

EPICA Dome C

From this SkS rebuttal: https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm

Yes indeed, some of the CO2 inc during glacial-interglacial cycles was caused by Temp inc first. Koutsoyiannis et al. would have us believe that the current huge increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is also caused by Temp inc first.

Where is this huge increase in Temp?

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

David Kirtley at 05:52 AM on 3 June, 2024

From the Koutsoyiannis et al. abstract: "According to the commonly assumed causality link, increased [CO2] causes a rise in T. However, recent developments cast doubts on this assumption by showing that this relationship is of the hen-or-egg type, or even unidirectional but opposite in direction to the commonly assumed one."

"Commonly assumed"? I don't think so. The link between CO2 and Temp is shown by a wealth of actual physical evidence. There is no question that Temp increases can cause CO2 increases and that the opposite ("commonly assumed causality link") relationship is also true: CO2 inc. can cause Temp inc. Koutsoyiannis et al. seem to be saying that their study proves that the causality relationship can only be "unidirectional": Temp inc cause CO2 increases.

It is all very strange. They seem to be trying to answer questions about climate science which have very solid answers already from different lines of evidence. Is their statistical magic a new line of evidence which overturns the vast majority of climate science? I doubt it.

But, since we're on the subject of hens and eggs, this paper reminds me of an old Looney Tunes cartoon starring the rooster Foghorn Leghorn and the highly intelligent little chick, Egghead, Jr. Foghorn is babysitting little Egghead and they decide to play hide and seek. Egghead starts counting while Foghorn hides in a large "Feed Box". When Egghead finishes counting he gets out a slide rule and a pencil and paper and runs some calculations to try to locate Foghorn. He grabs a shovel and starts digging a hole nowhere near the Feed Box. With his last final tug on the shovel handle Foghorn pops out of the hole, flabbergasted.

Foghorn Leghorn-Hide and Seek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMyD3TSXyUc

I think Koutsoyiannis et al. think they are like Egghead, Jr and have come up with some magical statistics which override our physical reality. Maybe their calculations would work in Looney Tunes land. But they don't work in the climate system we are familiar with.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 02:02 AM on 2 June, 2024

To continue, one nice new example that appears in this blog post is the accelerator versus the brake analogy. The OP does a nice job of describing the natural carbon cycle, pointing out that the natural portions of the cycle include both emissions and removals - adding to and subtracting from atmospheric CO2 storage.

Koutsoyiannis et al basically assume that if there are changes in atmospheric CO2, they must be linked to something that changed emissions. As the OP points out, the likelihood is that the correlation Koutsoyiannis et al see (in the short-term detrended data set they massaged) is more likely related to changes in natural removals.

Once again, Koutsoyiannis et al do not realize the limitations of their methodology, ignore a well-known physical process in the carbon cycle (rates of natural atmospheric CO2 removal), and attribute their correlation to the wrong thing. The right thing isn't in their model (statistical method) or thought-space (mental model), so they don't see it.

The OP's bathtub analogy is useful to see this. The diagram (figure 4) looks at the long-term rise in bathtub level (CO2 rise), but it is easy to do a thought experiment on how we could introduce short-term variability into the water level. There are three ways:

Short-term variability in the natural emissions (faucet on the left).

Short-term variability in the human emissions (faucet on the right).

Short-term variability in the natural sinks (drain pipe on the lower right).

The bathtub analogy is similar to the water tank analogy that is used in this SkS post on the greenhouse effect. The primary analogy in that post is a blanket, but the level of water in a water tank appears further down the page.

In short, the Koutsoyiannis et al paper ignores known physics, fails to incorporate known physics in their methodology, and comes to incorrect conclusions because the correct conclusion involves factors that were eliminated from their analysis from the beginning.

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Bob Loblaw at 01:31 AM on 2 June, 2024

Yes, this blog post does a really good job of outlining the correct scientific background on atmospheric CO2 rise, and pointing out the glaring error that Koutsoyiannis et al have made.

The recent paper is a rehash of an earlier Koutsoyiannis paper that is allude to but not specifically linked in the OP and comments. The OP does subtly link to a rebuttal publication of that earlier work (link repeated here... You'll have to verify you're not a robot to get to the paper). As Dikran has pointed out, the authors appear to have doggedly refused to accept their error.

Both the current Koutsoyiannis et al paper and the earlier one have threads over at PubPeer:

The current paper only has one short comment.

...but the earlier paper has more extensive comments, including more detail on the criticisms Dikran mentions here in comment 1.

...and as Dikran mentions, this basic error is an old one, being repeated again and again in the contrarian literature on the subject. Two Skeptical Science blog posts from 11 and 12 years ago discusses this and similar errors. Plus ca change...

The blog And Then There's Physics also posted a blog on the earlier papers.

The importance of the differencing scheme used by Koutsoyiannis et al cannot be overstated. I hate to inject that dreaded word "Calculus" into the discussion, but if you'll bear with me for a moment I can explain. Taking differences (AKA detrending) is that dreaded Calculus process called differentiation - taking the derivative. This tells you the rate of change at any point in time - but it does not tell you how much CO2 accumulates over time. To get accumulation over time, you need to sum those changes over time - in Calculus-speak, you need to integrate.

The catch is, as Dikran points out, that taking differences has eliminated any constant factor - in Calculus-speak, the derivative of a constant is zero. And when you turn around and do the integration to look at how CO2 accumulates over time (basically, undo the differentiation), you need to remember to add the constant back in. Koutsoyiannis et al fail to do this, and then make the erroneous conclusion that the constant is not a factor. Their method made it disappear, and they can't see it as a result. David Copperfield did not actually make that airplane disappear - he just applied a method that hid it from the sight of the audience. (Of course, David Copperfield knows the airplane did not disappear, and is just trying to entertain the audience. In contrast, it appears that Koutsoyiannis et al are fooling themselves.)

At least introducing Calculus to the discussion give me a chance to mention one of my two math jokes. (Yes, I know. "math joke" is an oxymoron. Don't ask me to tell you the one about Noah and the snakes.)

Two mathematicians are in a bar, arguing about the general math knowledge of the masses. They end up deciding to settle the issue by seeing if the waitress can answer a math question. While mathematician A is in the bathroom, mathematician B corners the waitress and tells her that when his friend asks her a question, she should answer "one half X squared". A little later, when the waitress returns to the table, A asks her "what is the integral of X?". She answers as instructed, and mathematician A sheepishly pays off the bet and admits that B was right. As the waitress walks away, she is heard to mutter "pair of idiots. It's one-half X squared, plus a constant".

On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2

Dikran Marsupial at 23:41 PM on 31 May, 2024

Good article!

Koutsoyiannis et al. have made essentially the same mathematical blunder that Murray Salby did ten years ago (and he was far from being the first), which I covered here:

https://skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html

Correlations are insensitive to constant offsets in the two signals on which it is computed. The differencing operator, Δ, which gives the difference between successive samples converts the long term linear trend in the signal to an additive constant. So as soon as you use Δ on both signals, the correlation can tell you precisely nothing about the long term trends.

When the earlier work was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, I communicated this error to both the authors of the paper and the editor of the journal. The response was, shall we say "underwhelming".

The communication (June 2022) included the observation that atmospheric CO2 levels are more slowly than the rate of fossil fuel emissions, which shows that the natural environment is a net carbon sink, and therefore the rise cannot be due to a change in the carbon cycle resulting from an increase in temperature. It is "dissapointing" that the authors have published a similar claim again (submission recieved 17 March 2023) when they had already been made aware that their claim is directly refuted by reliable observations.

Fact Brief - Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

One Planet Only Forever at 05:52 AM on 19 May, 2024

Great brief rebuttal of the ridiculous belief that breathing contributes to increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

A minor nit-pick with a suggested better presentation added in italics:

The CO2 we breathe is part of a balanced carbon exchange between the air and the earth. In contrast, burning fossil fuels injects oxidized carbon, CO2, into the atmosphere that has been stored underground in hydrocarbon molecules for millions of years, causing a rapid buildup.

Tragically, the popularity of absurd beliefs requires efforts to 'change the minds' of people who are easily tempted to believe nonsense when the alternative is 'learning about the need to stop trying to benefit from being unjustifiably more harmful'.

The first Open Access Notable presented in "Skeptical Science New Research for Week #20 2024" - Publicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change - highlights that regions benefiting from high harmful CO2 impacts have higher percentages of the population willing to believe nonsense.

I live in Alberta so I was not surprised by the research results regarding climate skepticism ... and I am painfully aware that nonsense beliefs like 'breathing contributes to the CO2 problem' can be persistently popular among 'highly educated people' who have developed interests that conflict with being less harmful.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

MA Rodger at 20:58 PM on 14 May, 2024

Martin Watson @ 184,

As you say, the graphic appears in a Science article CenCO2PIP Consortium (2023) 'Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2', although more correctly it was in the 'commentary' of the paper and it also then sported a scale for the GMST (which in my eyes isn't so helpful).

The paper itself does provide a more conventional graphic (Fig2) which does show 20-odd Mya CO2 levels of perhaps 300ppm and GMST of some +3ºC above pre-indusrial.

While CO2 is the major control knob of Earth's GMST, other factors can make a big difference. The closure of the Panama Isthmus certainly is one of these 'other factors'. The timing is not so well defined (with some even suggesting a date as ancient as 23Mya, this a seriously controversial suggestion), and the changes at work in the climate system which resulted are far from straightforward. The conventional version is that the inital result of the closure was a warmer Earth but that kicked-off the Norhern glaciations which tipped the Earth into a colder phase leading to the recent ice-age cycles (as per for instance Bartoli et al (2005) 'Final closure of Panama and the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation'.)

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

Bob Loblaw at 04:30 AM on 14 May, 2024

Martin Watson @ 184:

The diagram you post is not radically different from the graphs and data presented in the intermediate tab of the "CO2 was higher in the past" rebuttal. That rebuttal gives a fairly detailed look at CO2 history over longer periods, and discusses many of the other factors that also affect temperature at geologic time scales.

From a brief point of view, many other factors would have been different at the time you ask about (25 million years ago), so one would expect that temperatures would not exactly match those of today.

I suggest that you look over that rebuttal for possible answers, and then continue the discussion on that thread.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

Martin Watson at 03:16 AM on 14 May, 2024

Could someone clear up another little issue for me. I've come across this graph today, which was taken last year from a big literature review in the journal Science. I'm confused by the dip at about 25 million years ago. It seems to show CO2 levels similar to today but temperatures much higher. I don't think I've seen this dip on other graphs.

news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/12/07/a-new-66-million-year-history-of-carbon-dioxide-offers-little-comfort-for-today/

The science isn't settled

Bob Loblaw at 05:54 AM on 11 May, 2024

To follow up on MA Rodger's comment (#106) on TWFA's comment (#104) that presents data from Delague and Bard (2010).

MAR has provided a link to a free copy of the paper.

The journal page is here,

That journal page includes a link to Supplementary data, which is a CSV file that includes their TSI reconstruction (discussed, but not graphed or presented in the paper).

With respect to Delague and Bard's TSI reconstruction, it is worth noting:

It provides values on a roughly 10-year interval.

The first value is for the year 695.

The last value is for 1982.

The graph presented by TWFA says "5-per running mean", so it is a smoothed graph where each point represents roughly 50 years.

The difference between the maximum and minimum in Delague and Bard's TSI data is 1.2 W/m². You need to divide by 4 to compare it to the CO2 forcing, to get 0.3 W/m². You need to then adjust for the earth's albedo, since 30% of TSI is reflected, further reducing the absorbed radiation to 0.21 W/m².

We can graph the original data (no smoothing) for the period 1900 to present. It looks like this:

Delague and Bard TSI

Question for TWFA:

How much of the warming observed since 1900 do you think is accounted for by the changes in TSI, as indicated by your source (Delague and Bard)?

The science isn't settled

Bob Loblaw at 00:51 AM on 11 May, 2024

I agree with Eclectic that TWFA seems to be getting some rather bad information from dubious sources. Given that TWFA often seems to just jump to a different "talking point" when challenged on his interpretation or argument, it seems that he lacks understanding of exactly what point his snippets of information are supposed to represent.

As an example, after arguing about the features of the Jevrejeva sea level reconstruction, in comment 99 I pointed to a RealClimate post that shows the Jevrajeva methodology is suspect. In comment 100, TWFA did not make any attempt to justify the use of Jevrajeva - instead, he made a bogus general argument about trends and processing, and did a "Look! Squirrel!" about comparing 1600 with 1750. After I commented in #101, he continued with more Just Asking Questions.

I will attempt to respond to TWFA's comment 102 in two ways. First, to address his general question about past climates, what we know, and what does it tell us.

The information we have about past climates is limited, and often requires use of proxies (geological records, tree rings, ice cores, etc.) That does not mean we "know nothing". though. In essence, the proxies are the result of past climates, rather than direct measurements of the temperature, precipitation, etc.

By understanding the physics of climate (including physics of solar output, etc.), we can use the evidence we do have about past climates to determine what factors were playing a role at that time. And we can compare that to what we can directly measure about those factors now.

...and we see that the best explanation for current trends must include greenhouse gas changes (mostly CO2 from fossil fuel use) to get things anywhere close to right. Other factors were active in the past to a sufficient degree to cause changes we see in the past - but they are not sufficient now to cause the changes we are seeing now.

To directly respond to TWFA's "I don't understand how what is now deemed to be abnormal can be so determined if prior normal cannot be",

We can determine what "prior normal" was - at least to some limited extent. But that limited extent contains a range of uncertainty due to our limited information. (Even today, we have limits on what is measured.)

When we interpret our evidence of the past, we have to include that uncertainty range. Hence Eclectic's question in comment 98: the broad mauve band versus the smooth calculated curve in the graphs that were being discussed.

The second approach I'll take is by analogy. A thought experiment.

Let's assume I am on trial for stealing money from TWFA's bank account.

The prosecution has shown evidence of an electronic transfer of $10k from his account to mine on a particular date last month, and evidence that this transfer was initiated for a login from my IP address. At the time, TWFA was on vacation in central Africa, with no internet access.

I have presented evidence that TWFA's bank account balance in the past has gone up and down by thousands of dollars from month to month. I do not have information about individual transfers in the past, but I do have evidence of TWFA's approximate income and typical monthly expenses.

I argue that this past range of bank balances raises doubt that I stole the money. How can we be sure that some expense that existed in the past did not cause the removal of $10k?

On cross, the prosecution presents detailed records that show each transaction for the past year (when detailed records are available). None of the historical expenses that cause $10k changes in the older historical bank balances were happening during the period I am accused of stealing money. They again point out that the current detailed records include a transfer to my account.

The judge ends up saying "it's settled - guilty as charged".

Climate scientists have spent a lot of time looking at past climates, using the available (albeit limited) evidence. We've spent time to understand the physics, analyze the data, and determine the range of effects that have caused past climate changes. And now we've looked in detail at the role of CO2, and we are observing the effects of increased CO2 that are in broad agreement with theory.

There are things we still want to learn (always), but the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, has caused most (if not all) the warming in the recent past, and will continue to cause warming in the future is settled science.

The science isn't settled

Eclectic at 11:39 AM on 10 May, 2024

TWFA @104 :

(Thanks ~ good timing ~ I was about to leave the house.)

Your question would be better expressed, not as "nature bringing temperature up stopped [in 1850]" . . . but rather as : nature reducing the greater downward pressure (by about 1850). Of course, from a Milankovitch-cycle aspect, we would expect the slow gradual line of temperature decline . . . to continue for about 15,000 years, until "the ice really hits the fan" . . . ;-) . . . and the world plunges deep into the next Glacial Age (a genuine Ice Age).

[ So there was no rush for humans to burn all their coal to keep the next glaciation at bay. ]

TWFA, the forcing from the sun ~ is only one factor in the big picture. And as best I currently understand it, the Little Ice Age was caused by two roughly equal factors. Those factors being (A) the Grand Solar Minima [Spoerer, Maunder, etc] . . . and [B] a period of greater frequency of major volcanic eruptions [stratospheric particulates causing cooling ]. A Grand Solar Minimum, by itself, is rather weak in its cooling effect.

The major factors causing climate change are : Albedo, Sun, Particulates, and CO2 (currently!)

Yeah, it's complicated. But the scientists have been doing good work in getting an understanding of it.

Fair to say : the science is settled enough for our current practical purposes. It is the politics of how to tackle our self-made problem . . . which is the difficult part to carry out efficiently.

The science isn't settled

TWFA at 15:38 PM on 9 May, 2024

Sorry, you're wrong again, perhaps your eyes didn't notice the first chart starts at 1700 and the second at 1800.

In the second chart the authors used data from the 2014 study, which basically took some of the noise out of the '08 paper but did not change the overall curve from 1700, however this particular evangelist cut off the data prior to 1810 to show the slight dip between 1810 and 1860 in order to make an apparent human caused reversal to fit the Industrial Revolution chronological orthodoxy, even though the lagging emissions curve still needed quite a bit of explaining... perhaps in the future they will discover or "adjust" preceding emissions to better fit the narrative.

By the way, I am not "regurgitating" anything, I first noticed the second chart about six months ago when somebody posted it as some sort of devastating proof of the coming inundation we are to be blamed for, it didn't make sense to me based upon the lagging emissions curve, then I drilled deeper into the source data and it all made even less sense.

In any event whether the science is settled (an oxymoron if there ever was one, no theory or law following the scientific method can ever be proved right, only not yet proved wrong) or not is moot, the evangelists ARE getting their way and we WILL be spending hundreds of trillions over the next four or five decades, probably forgoing a chunk of liberty along the way as well, seeing if we can operate a global CO2 controlled thermostat, either it will work, or nature will have something to say about it.

My money, if there is any to be left over, is on the buckets.

The science isn't settled

TWFA at 13:36 PM on 9 May, 2024

Of course I looked at Fig. 1... the ebb point in curve is at 1750, clearly rising by 1800 and well on the way by 1850.

I just want to know why, if we are the ones causing all this, that it began long before we were emitting measurable amounts of CO2, which was around 1890. Do I need to show you a chart of sea levels vs emissions?

Time series of sea level anomalies (blue) Jevrejeva et al. (2014).
Million tons of carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC 2014)

The science isn't settled

TWFA at 11:59 AM on 9 May, 2024

Come on, 2 buckets a day is 730 a year, and now you're bitching that it's a thousand a year instead, like that changes anything, it's all within an order of magnitude of my first 365 estimate, why didn't you just go right to 100,000 a century for greater effect?

The point is we KNOW such methods work and have been effective, not just on the coast, but improved insulation, hydroponics and gee, maybe agriculture will come back in thenorthern climes.

The Venetians have been dealing with rising water since the 5th century, on the other hand we only have an alleged 97% certainty that by adjusting the atmospheric content of CO2 up or down by a fiftieth of a percent from the four tenths of a percent it is now that we can control the temperature of the entire planet and avoid having to buldoze all that sand.

Besides, according to the Jevregeva data in '08 and refined in '14 the sea levels stopped receding and began to rise in 1750, when James Watt was twelve years old and over a century before our emissions were even measurable, see Fig. 1
Jevrejeva '08

The science isn't settled

TWFA at 03:52 AM on 9 May, 2024

I still get hung up on the plane example, not sure anybody is framing it correctly.
If you consider the plane to be built upon an aeronautical theory of AGW and is predicted with 97% certainty by those who designed it to be airworthy and get you to your destination, which would be surviving changes in the climate by preventing them altogether using a human controlled CO2 thermostat to control the temperature of the verses planet... verses choosing an alternative, far more pedestrian and proved means of transportation to climate survival that has worked for thousands of years, namely innovation, adaption and migration, which would you choose?

For example, a five gallon bucket of sand tossed upon your acre of oceanfront property every day will keep up with 8" of sea level rise over the next century.

Shakun et al. Clarify the CO2-Temperature Lag

Paul Pukite at 23:02 PM on 6 May, 2024

Lags are tricky in feedback-controlled systems. If one signal is 90 degrees out of phase with another, you can't really say one is leading or lagging over the other.

However, it's clear for the current interannual measure that CO2 lags the temperature shifts as T is clearly primarily seasonal and secondarily ENSO+AMO related. CO2 simply follows that temperature change via the outgassing relationship.

More problematic IMO is the belief that ENSO is a lagging indicator to shifts in prevailing winds, i.e. shifts in prevailing winds will trigger an El Nino event. One can argue that the winds are in fact a lagging indicator of the ENSO phase, with climatologists not able to accurately discriminate the two signals precisely enough. AFAIK there is only one article that has looked closely at this https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w and they find that ENSO is initiated at the subsurface level (likely due to tidal cycles). The wind is a lagging indicator as the ENSO modified thermocline level creates spatially-resolved surface temperature variations, leading to atmospheric pressure gradients, and that's what drives the wind as it blows from regions of high pressure to low pressure. This happens dynamically so it explains why so many are fooled by this misguided correlation = causation attribution.

Shakun et al. Clarify the CO2-Temperature Lag

Ignorant Guy at 09:17 AM on 6 May, 2024

DeeplyMoronic @158

I suspect that you misunderstands what "lag" is and how it is shown in the diagram you ask about.

First: It is not so simple that the horizontal displacement distance of the yellow curve and the blue curve is the time lag. The yellow 'curve' (collection of measurement points, rather than a curve) and the blue curve represents two quite different things (CO2 concentration vs temperature) and their respective scales are a bit arbitrary. They are selected to make the diagram easy to read with a glance. Imagine that the scale of the blue curve was selected so that it was much taller than the yellow curve. Then, if you assume that the horizontal distance was directly indicative of the lag, it would appear as the time delay was different, i e smaller. Just because of a change of scale.

Second: The concept 'lag' is a bit fuzzy. In this case we have one variable, representing a certain phenomenon, temperature, that depends on another variable , representing the phenomenon concentration of CO2. The temperature responds to changes in CO2 concentrations. This can be compared to signal theory where an out-signal responds to an in-signal. If the in-signal is a step then the out-signal is the step reponse. A typical step response starts immediately after the input but will take some time to reach its final value. In fact it will take some time before it's clearly visible - even if it really starts immediately.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_response
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Step_response
If the in-signal is not a perfect step (and in the real physical world it never is) then the response will look a bit more complicated and will take longer time to reach its final value.
Lots of physical system has this kind of behaviour. So in this case we have that when the CO2 concentration rather suddenly rises the temperature immediatly also start to rise, but the response takes quite a long time to finish. The climate is a very complicated physical system with all sorts of feedbacks and 'filter functions' involved so you should expect a diagram of past events to be a bit hard to read.

For our current situation we have a change in CO2 concentration that is not 'rather sudden' but very, very sudden. So we can expect that the temperature response will be visible a lot faster.

Shakun et al. Clarify the CO2-Temperature Lag

DeeplyMoronic at 00:03 AM on 6 May, 2024

Hello everybody. I'm not sure this is the best place to ask my question, this topic is so old, but I try. Also please excuse my bad english.

I was wondering about this graph :

How is it that the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels is so far removed from the increase in global Earth temperature ? I estimate that there must be between 500 and 1000 years of difference; How is it possible ? Isn't CO2 once in the atmosphere supposed to immediately warm it up ?

And when we look at the curves about more recent times, scientists explain to us that the climate began to warm up from the start of the industrial area, we don't see a gap of several hundred years.

Do you have an explanation ?

CO2 is just a trace gas

Bob Loblaw at 00:04 AM on 5 May, 2024

scaddenp:

I previously pointed out in this comment on this thread that concentration in ppm is not a good way to determine the effects of CO2 on IR radiation. I stated that the absolute amount is the key, and pointed to this "from the email bag" post that illustrates this point. That comment was two comments above where JJones posted his first comment in March of this year, so it's probably too much to expect that JJones actually read it. He seems more interested in posting than in reading and learning.

As for JJones idea that CO2 in trace amounts can't absorb enough radiation, there are commercial CO2 gas analyzers that are designed to measure CO2 by measuring the amount of IR radiation it absorbs, and they can do this on very small quantities of air. One such instrument is described here:

https://www.licor.com/env/products/gas-analysis/LI-830-LI-850/

From the "how do they work?" section of that web page:

How do they work?

The LI-830 and LI-850 use non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas analysis to measure gases in air. A broad-band optical source delivers infrared radiation through the sample onto optically filtered detectors. Optical detectors measure the sample and reference bands to compute absorption by CO2 and H2O (LI-850 only).

I expect that the manufacturer of this device (and the many manufacturers of similar devices) will be awfully disappointed to find out that they can't possible work, because JJones has asserted that trace amounts of CO2 can't absorb enough IR radiation to make a difference.

CO2 is just a trace gas

scaddenp at 10:26 AM on 4 May, 2024

JJones - despite the examples in main article of very small amounts capable of having large effect, you seem to be clinging to idea that the concentration cant be important. Can we unpack this please? I want to see how you understand this?

From the basics, the sun warms the earth and heat is radiated out to space through the atmosphere as photons with wavelengths in the infrared part of the spectra.

Now as I understand it, you believe because the concentration is low, then there are not enough CO2 molecules to catch all the photons leaving the surface? Is that a reasonable summary of your position?

One way to check that sort of question is consider how far, on average, a photon at say 15microns wavelength might travel before hitting a CO2 molecule if the concentration of CO2 is 400ppm. If you want to think about it a very crude approximate way, then think of cylinder 15microns wide going to top of atmosphere. Now then what is chance of it encountering a CO2 molecule? Doing it properly is quite complicated because density of molecules varies with pressure as you go up the atmosphere, but can start with simple sealevel values and the gas equation.

If you start the calculation, eg how many CO2 molecules in a meter of that tube, then you immediately realise that while 400 molecules in a millions seems rather small, Avagadro's number is extremely large. There are a lot of CO2 molecules in the way.

In short, the photon will likely get only a metre or so before being captured. 400pm can easily trap all the photons in appropriate wavelength leaving the surface. To really understand the greenhouse effect though you have to know what happens next.

PS - you wouldnt walk into a room with 400ppm of cyanide gas would you?

CO2 is just a trace gas

Bob Loblaw at 22:48 PM on 3 May, 2024

jjones1960 @ 54:

After two months, the best you can come up with is an empty assertion that CO2 is a trace gas? On a post/thread that is devoted to demonstrating why that is such a bogus argument?

Well, let's review the calculation that you provide or reference, in support of your claim that CO2 "cannot trap a significant amount of heat anyway."

...oh, wait. You did not actually provide any calculation. Unfortunately for you, the people that have done the calculation come up with a different conclusion.

I miss the days when contrarians/deniers could actually put together a reasonable argument (however wrong) that presented some actual analysis (however wrong) that supported their positions. These days, it seems more and more that contrarians commenting here have nothing to say that goes beyond a 240-character slogan.

CO2 is just a trace gas

JJones1960 at 17:58 PM on 3 May, 2024

Bob Loblaw @ 51:

“CO2 is not "colourless" when it comes to infrared radiation. Just because JJones1960 can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.”

The point that you miss that that CO2 is a trace gas, therefore cannot trap a significant amount of heat anyway.

OPOF @52:

Your quote:
“Tropospheric ozone (O3) is the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).“

The point you miss is that ozone traps heat in relation to CO2 and methane as the ‘third most important greenhouse gas’ but that is IN RELATION to those gases. My point is that those gasses don’t and can’t trap a significant amount of heat because they are in trace amounts, therefore neither would ozone.

Welcome to Skeptical Science

brtipton at 10:41 AM on 1 May, 2024

I spent a large part of my career investigating, exposing and debunking scientific and engineering boondoggles or fraud within US DOD.

The SCIENCE behind climate change as about as well done as humanly possible. I have found zero politically motivated exaggeration of the situation on the part of climate the climate scientists. If anything, many reports have been watered down somewhat on the positive side.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true on the climate SOLUTIONS side of the coin. While all of the statements I can find are legally, and scientifically accurate; they are highly misleading creating a false sense of progress.

This became painfully evident during the 2022 meeting of the World Climate Coalition's conference on finance when the ONE climatologist who spoke correctly pointed out that ALL efforts to date have had no measurable effect on reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. In fact, atmospheric CO levels are accelerating upward. The MC followed up with "well, that's unfortunate. Let's move on to the good news." Followed by that session not being published on conference website.

Examples:

US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data states that about 2/3 of planned new generating capacity is green (correct.) They omit that new generating capacity if 1.2% of US total consumption and 2/3 of 1.2% is 0.8% PER YEAR for US conversion from fossil fuels to renewables.

The same source correctly states that about 25% of US sustainable energy comes from wind, but obscures that only 11% of total consumption is sustainable. This results in installed wind accounting for 4% of US total consumption. Note: That is INSTALLED wind, not ACTIVELY operating wind. A casual drive or fly by usually shows a large percentage of wind turbines are inactive. I have been unable to find data documenting the actual operating levels.

An article in the UK Guardian, about a year ago, reported that the first UK offshore wind turbine was operating. Based on their reported number and size of turbines, the entire installation, when completed, would generate about 1.9% of UK total consumption.

This linked in articles further digs into the state of affairs on "solutions." - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-does-megwatt-114-watts-bob-tipton-asdfc/?trackingId=8eOLtQUcTwizRZ8AN%2Fe4Pg%3D%3D

All of these are observations and attempts to discover core facts and are in need of skeptical review. As a skeptical reviewer, I welcome this.

There is an engineering adage - you cannot control what you cannot sense. If our leaders do not know the true state of affairs it is not possible for them to make effective decisions. It's not enough to put laser focus on the accuracy of the risk reports from the climatologists while ignoring the over exaggerating capabilities of the solutions we are staking our success on.

In my OPINION, the tools we have are not adequate to win this battle. There are few to know effective efforts to develop new tools. The vast majority of out best and brightest minds are bogged down adding more volume to a case which is already well proven. Further documentation of our impending mass extinction is a poor use of strategic resources.
The true battlefield we are on is one of COST to the consumer and TAXATION of the taxpayers. Until we have solutions where the green way is the cheap way, we will be pushing a boulder up a mountain. When we achieve that point, progress will be rapid and viral.

Bob Tipton
Cofounder [Howard] Hughes Skunkworks

Simon Clark: The climate lies you'll hear this year

Charlie_Brown at 02:32 AM on 1 May, 2024

Martin Watson @ 5,

Bob Loblaw and Eclectic provide good explanations. To add to them, look up Kirchoff’s Law for radiant energy: Absorptance = Emittance when at thermal equilibrium. Understanding this concept will go a long way toward helping understand the mechanism of global warming. Combined with the atmospheric temperature profile, it is key as to why global warming is a result of increasing CO2 and CH4 in the cold upper atmosphere. It explains why absorption in the lower atmosphere does not prevent radiant energy in the 14-16 micron range from being transferred to the upper atmosphere. Consider a 3-step process: 1) absorb a photon, 2) collisions bring adjacent molecules to the same temperature, 3) emit a photon. It might seem like a pass-through of photons, but think of it as conservation of energy, not conservation of photons. Thus, absorption and emission are functions of temperature. The atmospheric temperature profile is controlled by several factors including adiabatic expansion, condensation, convection, and concentration of greenhouse gases. When these factors are not changing, the temperature profile is fixed. Temperature controls radiant energy. The temperature changes only when something upsets the energy balance and steady state equilibrium temperature, like increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

Simon Clark: The climate lies you'll hear this year

Bob Loblaw at 23:50 PM on 30 April, 2024

Martin Watson @ 5:

From a quick reading, there is nothing wrong with the information presented in the link you provide. It looks like an accurate discussion of what happens to the energy contained in an IR photon when it is absorbed by a greenhouse gas (CO2 or otherwise). That energy is almost always lost to other molecules (including non-greenhouse gases such as oxygen and nitrogen), and this leads to the heating of the atmosphere in general.

The article you link to also goes on to explain how higher temperatures in the atmosphere lead to more collisions with CO2 molecules (or other greenhouse gases), which will increase the rate at which they emit IR photons. And it explains how those are emitted in all directions, and how this leads to the greenhouse effect.

Just because very few absorbed photons lead directly to an immediate photon emission by CO2 does not mean that the energy is lost forever and the energy is not eventually emitted as a photon. The complete 100% of the absorbed photon energy is added to the atmosphere, and it continues to remain in the atmosphere until it is eventually emitted out to space or absorbed at the surface.

Eli Rabbet's blog has an excellent discussion of this same factor.

In other words, that article is an accurate description of exactly the process by which greenhouse gases such as CO2 lead to warming of the atmosphere. It provides nothing that represents a refutation of modern (the past 100+ years) of climate science. The article does not mean what the people are claiming it means.

If you are in a debate with someone making this argument, perhaps you can try asking them "what happens to the other 99.998% of the energy?" Or perhaps ask them "why are you referring to an article that accurately describes the greenhouse effect and how it causes warming, as if it refutes it?"

Simon Clark: The climate lies you'll hear this year

Martin Watson at 23:43 PM on 30 April, 2024

Hi Eclectic

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, it was another website making the claim that this research meant the effect of CO2 was infinitesimally small. I then tracked down the geoexpro as the original source of the info. I have to confess I didn't understand it!

This was the website where I first read it:

notrickszone.com/2023/06/12/new-research-only-2-of-every-100000-co2-molecules-radiate-photons-and-this-controls-climate/

Simon Clark: The climate lies you'll hear this year

Eclectic at 23:30 PM on 30 April, 2024

Martin Watson @5 ,

the absorption and re-emission of IR-photons by CO2 molecules is discussed in "Most Used Climate Myths" Number 74 ~ check the top left of (every) page on the SkepticalScience site. [Click on View All Arguments]

The energized CO2 molecules then then immediately transfer energy (kinetic) to neighbouring molecules (being mostly N2 and O2). Much the same thing happens with other GreenHouse Gas molecules e.g. of water molecules etc.

And N2 and O2 molecules transfer energy by impact to their neighbours ~ including to CO2 as well. All these impacts happening at a rate of billions per second.

Therefore, even though the IR-photon emission "percentage" is ultra-low for a particular molecule of CO2 or other GHGas . . . the billions of impacts produce an emission of a sea of photons per cubic millimeter of air.

Also, the geoexpro article you link to, goes into all this in a more detailed way.

Martin, I did not see that article make a suggestion that CO2 had an "infinitesimally small" global warming effect. Have I missed something ~ or were you confusing your memory with some other article elsewhere on the internet? It would be interesting to examine who or what was making the claim that CO2 (or H2O or other GHGasses) was inert . . . and was making a claim that GreenHouse-type global warming does not exist. Because such a claim goes against all the evidence gathered during the last 100+ years of investigation by physicists.

Simon Clark: The climate lies you'll hear this year

Martin Watson at 22:31 PM on 30 April, 2024

I am really hoping that somebody will be able to debunk the following claim in a way I can understand, or point me to an article which already does that. Yesterday, I was Googling about climate change and I came across a claim about CO2 and photons. Basically, it was saying that out of every 100,000 CO2 molecules which absorb a reflected IR photon from the surface, only 2 will actually re-emit that photon. Instead the other 99,998 molecuales will bump into a molecule of nitrogen or oxygen. And the claim was this means the contribution of CO2 to global warming was infinitesimally small. It seems to be referencing this article. Thanks.

geoexpro.com/recent-advances-in-climate-change-research-part-ix-how-carbon-dioxide-emits-ir-photons/

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

MA Rodger at 19:42 PM on 25 April, 2024

Eclectic @14,

You say the work of these jokers Kubicki, Kopczyński & Młyńczak failed the WUWT test, being too bonkers even for Anthony Willard Watts to cope-with. I would say Watts has happily promoted work just as bonkers in the past.

And as you say, there is no WUWT coverage of this Kubicki et al 2024 paper although Google shows it is mentioned once in one of the comment threads, as is an earlier paper from the same jokers. Indeed, there are two such earlier papers from 2020 and 2022. Thankfully, these are relatively brief and thus they easily expose the main error these jokers are promoting.

In Kubicki et al (2020) they kick-off by misusing the Schwarzschild equation. The error they employ even gets a mention within this Wiki-ref which says:-

At equilibrium, dIλ = 0 even when the density of the GHG (n) increases. This has led some to falsely believe that Schwarzschild's equation predicts no radiative forcing at wavelengths where absorption is "saturated".

They then measure the radiation from the Moon through a chamber either filled with air or with CO2 and show there is no difference and thus, as their misuse of Schwarzschild suggests, that the Earth's CO2 is "saturated." In preparing for this grand experiment, they research the thermal properties of the Moon as an IR source and thus tell us:-

The moon. The temperature of its surface varies a lot, but for the part illuminated by the Sun, according to encyclopaedic information, it may slightly exceed 1100ºC.

This well demonstrates that these jokers are on a different planet to us as it is well know our Moon only manages 120ºC under the equatorial noon-day sun.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Eclectic at 01:29 AM on 25 April, 2024

Thanks for that, MA Rodger @13.

Possibly - just possibly - the ultimate Thumbs-Down on the Kubicki et al. paper . . . is that it has not been trumpeted at WUWT website (which usually trumpets any crackpot paper which seems "anti-mainstream" science. And that's despite many of the WUWT denizens regularly/continually asserting that the CO2-GreenHoouse Effect was now irrelevant (because "saturated") or was always non-valid anyway.

Now perhaps I have failed to remember "Kubicki" being a Nine-Day Wonder at WUWT ~ or perhaps I failed to notice "Kubicki" among the mountainous garbage-pile accumulating at WUWT. But as a final check, I used the WUWT Search Function . . . and turned up Nothing.

Something of Contrarian pretensions would need to be pretty bad, not to get 15-minutes of fame at WUWT. But maybe I speak too soon?

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

MA Rodger at 00:15 AM on 25 April, 2024

The paper Kubicki et al (2024) 'Climatic consequences of the process of saturation of radiation absorption in gases' is utter garbage from start to finish. When something is so bad, it is a big job setting straight the error-on-error presented.

As an exemplar of the level of nonsense, consider the opening paragraph, sentence by sentence.

Due to the overlap of the absorption spectra of certain atmospheric gases and vapours with a portion of the thermal radiation spectrum from the Earth's surface, these gases absorb the mentioned radiation.

I'd assume this is saying that the atmosphere contains gases (or "vapours" if you are pre-Victorian) which absorb certain IR wavelengths emitted by the Earth's surface. Calling this "overlap" is very odd.

This leads to an increase in their temperature and the re-emission of radiation in all directions, including towards the Earth.

The absorption if IR does lead to "an increase in their temperature" but the emission from atmospheric gases is determined by its temperature. Absorbed IR only very rarely results in a re-emission of IR (and if it does, the IR energy is not cause "increase in their temperature").

As a result, with an increase in the concentration of the radiation-absorbing gas, the temperature of the Earth's surface rises.

This is not how the greenhouse effect works. For wavelengths longer than the limit for its temperature defined by 'black body' physicis (for the Earth, about 4 microns), the planet emits IR across the entire spectrum. The level of emission depends on the temperature of the point of emission which for wavelengths where greenhouse gases operate is not the surface but up in the atmosphere. For IR in the 15 micron band, CO2 will result in emissions to space from up in the atmosphere where it is colder and thus where emissions are less. If adding CO2 moves the height of emission up into a colder altitude, emissions will fall and the Earth then has to heat up to regain thermal equilibrium.

Due to the observed continuous increase in the average temperature of the Earth and the simultaneous increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it has been recognized that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration associated with human activity may be the cause of climate warming.

This was perhaps true before the 1950s but the absorption/emission of IR by various gasses was identified and measured when the USAF began to develop IR air-to-air missiles. The warming-effect of a doubling of CO2 (a radiative forcing of +3.7Wm^-2) has been established for decades.

So just like debating science with nextdoor's cat, taking the heed the whitterings of Messers Kubicki, Kopczyński & Młyńczak is a big big waste of time.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 23:43 PM on 23 April, 2024

Theo:

Taking a quick look at that paper, I see it refers to Angstrom's work in 1900 to support their "saturation" argument. This is already discussed in the Advanced tab of the detailed "Is the CO2 effect saturated?" post that this at-a-glance introduces. Short version - we've learned a few things since Angstrom wrote his paper in 1900.

Searching the recent paper for "saturation", it seems that they are using the typical fake skeptic approach that applies the Beer-Lambert law (which is exponential in nature, and a standard part of radiation transfer theory) to the atmosphere as a whole. That is - they look at whether or not IR radiation can make it through the atmosphere in a single pass.

To nobody's surprise, this turns out to not be the case - IR radiation in the bands absorbed by CO2 rarely makes it directly from the earth's surface to space. The energy in the photons needs to go through a series of absorption/re-emission cycles as it gradually works its way up through the atmosphere. When these processes are included in the calculations, it turns out that this particular flavour of the "saturation" argument falls flat on its face, and adding more CO2 (compared to our current levels) does indeed have an effect.

Executive Summary: the authors of that paper have no idea how the greenhouse effect works, as Eclectic has stated.

Read the full rebuttal here for more discussion - and the details of the Beer-Lambert Law are also discussed in this SkS blog post.

Elsevier is usually considered a reputable publisher, but they screwed up on this one. The rapid passage from "received" to "accepted" is indeed a red flag. The journal - Applications in Engineering Science - is clearly an off-topic journal for this paper. On the page I link to, it mentions "time to first decision" as 42 days, and "review time" of 94 days. If you click on "View all insights", you get to this page that also gives "Submission to acceptance" as 77 days, and "acceptance to publication" as five days. The seven days for this paper (from "received" to "accepted") is, shall we say, a bit shorter than usual?

It is worth noting that several other papers in the same issue also have very short times between "received" and "accepted". Of the four I looked at, none of them had any indication that the authors were asked to revise anything, which is rather unusual. Someone at that journal is in a rush.

(If you click on "What do these dates mean?", below the title/author section of the web page for the appear, it specifically states that "received" is the date of the original submission, and they will say "revised" if a more recent version is submitted - e.g. after review.)

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

John Mason at 16:53 PM on 23 April, 2024

re - # 4: I've just taken a look at that paper. The reason we didn't mention it was that it came out very recently.

This however is part of the conclusion:

"However, the intention of the authors of this article is not to encourage anyone to degrade the natural environment. Coal and petroleum are valuable chemical resources, and due to their finite reserves, they should be utilized sparingly to ensure they last for future generations. Furthermore, intensive coal mining directly contributes to environmental degradation (land drainage, landscape alteration, tectonic movements). It should also be considered that frequently used outdated heating systems burning coal and outdated internal combustion engines fueled by petroleum products emit many toxic substances (which have nothing to do with CO2). Therefore, it seems that efforts towards renewable energy sources should be intensified, but unsubstantiated arguments, especially those that hinder economic development, should not be used for this purpose."

In scientific literature, a conclusion should be about the work that was done, and not an arm-waving diatribe! The Introduction likewise gives its first 400 plus words over to arm-wavy waffle about the IPCC. I'm surprised it got beyond peer review on that basis. Indeed, its submission/acceptance dates (Received 4 December 2023, Accepted 11 December 2023) suggests it never was reviewed. In most cases a period of months divides those two dates because the peer review process is quite slow. These are all warning signs that 'something is up' with this item.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Theo Simon at 15:46 PM on 23 April, 2024

I am not science trained but trying to understand. This rebuttal doesn't mention the alleged evidence presented in the paper "Climatic consequences of the process of saturation of radiation absorption in gases" by Kubicki and others - or does it? The current denialism talking point is that additional CO2 has now been shown to have no additional warming effect, and claims new proofs of this:

https://notrickszone.com/2024/04/23/3-physicists-use-experimental-evidence-to-show-co2s-capacity-to-absorb-radiation-has-saturated/

What is Mexico doing about climate change?

prove we are smart at 00:04 AM on 16 April, 2024

On behalf of Mexico and the many,many nations on this planet who will struggle more than the "entitled wealthy", climate justice - can it come from those who have given us the current 20% of global co2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zP0L69ielU

Full article here www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

Grumnut at 20:39 PM on 11 April, 2024

I think it's bizarre, that Durkin has basically made the same movie again. This is "The Great Global Warming Swindle" made over with the same players. One of the oddest parts of BOTH films is the contention of the claim that warming comes first, followed by CO2 rise, 800 years later. They even use the graph (at least in TGGWS) from the paper from Caillon et al. The trouble is, that paper clearly states that CO2 rose first in the Northern Hemisphere followed by warming. Highly educated scientists, some with doctorates, can't read a simple scientific paper, it seems.

They wouldn't be trying to put one over on us, would they?

Welcome to Skeptical Science

Bob Loblaw at 01:07 AM on 5 April, 2024

cookclimate @ 118:

I have looked at the paper in the volume I linked to in comment 121. There are definite changes compared to an earlier version I found that said "submitted to Earth and Space Science", so I presume that you've had some sort of review and modified the paper since the earlier drafts.

It looks like you have identified the 1470-year cycle using your eyecrometer. I see nothing in the paper that actually does any sort of signal processing to identify cycles using any objective statistical technique. You are seeing a cycle because you want to see a cycle.

Your speculation includes arguments that include all sorts of stuff that has been debunked many times before. Pages are available on Skeptical Science that cover thee topics:

Geothermal heat flux is included in this post.

The "CO2 lags temperature" argument is discussed here.

Most of your examples use regional, not global, temperature proxies. Regional temperatures are far more variable than global ones, and it is invalid to compare the two directly. This is discussed in this SkS post.

You're convinced that an increase in volcanoes are adding to warming. That is the opposite of the argument commonly made by "skeptics" that increasing volcanic activity caused the Little Ice Age, so a subsequent decrease is causing warming (discussed here). In any event, just counting the number of volcanoes (your figure 3) is extremely simplistic. Arguing that more volcanoes implies more geothermal heat is a non-starter, as discussed in the post linked above.

Your "computer models are unreliable" is an old, tired argument, scoring position 6 on the SkS Most Used Climate Myths. The rebuttal is here.

So, your paper is really nothing more than an "I see it" 1470-year cycle mixed with a rehash and Gish Gallop through a variety of common "skeptic" myths. I could probably find more, but it isn't worth the time.

I hope you didn't pay too much money to get it published.

Welcome to Skeptical Science

cookclimate at 09:28 AM on 4 April, 2024

CO2 does not cause Earth’s climate change.

It is estimated that it will cost $62 trillion to eliminate fossil fuels, but eliminating fossil fuels will be a complete waste of our tax and corporate dollars, because it will not stop the warming. You can’t stop Mother Nature.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) frequently shows that temperature correlates with CO2 for the last 1,000 years as proof that CO2 is causing the warming. But if you extend that to the last 800,000 years, the temperature and CO2 lines do not correlate or fit (Figure 14 in Supplemental Data). If the lines don’t fit, then you must acquit CO2. CO2 is not guilty of causing climate change. CO2 does not control Earth’s temperature. The IPCC has not demonstrated any scientific evidence that CO2 controls Earth’s temperature (they only have unproven theories).

The facts:
• Earth is currently warming (it is still below the normal peak temperature).
• CO2 is increasing (it is above the normal CO2 peak).
• Earth’s current warming is being caused by a 1,470-year astronomical cycle.

The 1,470-year astronomical cycle warms the Earth for a couple of hundred years and melts ice sheets primarily in Greenland and the Arctic. It has repeated every 1,470-years for at least the last 50,000 years. It is normal that it would be happening again. It accelerates Earth’s rotation, stopping length of day increases (Figure 9). It warms the Earth. Based on historical data, the current warming should peak near the year 2060 and then it should start to cool.

For more information, see A 1,470-Year Astronomical Cycle and Its Effect on Earth’s Climate,

DOI: 10.33140/JMSRO.06.06.01

and Supplemental Data,
www.researchgate.net/publication/379431497_Supplemental_Data_for_A_1470-Year_Astronomical_Cycle_and_Its_Effect_on_Earth's_Climate#fullTextFileContent

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

John Mason at 08:16 AM on 4 April, 2024

Jim, which is it to be?

"But truth is I have never denied the greenhouse effect."

"Clearly commneting here on SkS is a privelege only given to those who support the CO2 warming narrative."

If you have never denied the greenhouse effect, you must surely accept that enhancing its intensity warms the planet. Likewise you must surely accept that reducing its intensity cools the planet.

Both, I must add, based on very old, tried and tested first principles.

There are as we all know other factors that should be taken into account at all times. We are talking about one component, albeit highly significant, of the climate system here.

So I suggest you try and reconcile the two statements above, upon which I have quoted you.

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

jimsteele24224 at 07:54 AM on 4 April, 2024

I would respond to Charlie_Brown and Eclectic, but the moderator will simply remove my comments that refute your comments. Clearly commneting here on SkS is a privelege only given to those who support the CO2 warming narrative. Allowing scientific debate is not something that is honored here as revealed by the "moderator" deleting my post on polar bears, and other trivia. WUWT is clearly offtopic, but is always allowed because it dishonestly trashes skeptics which is the mission of SkS.

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

Eclectic at 05:09 AM on 4 April, 2024

Gentlemen ~ "Climate The Movie" is currently being featured and featured "bigly" , at the WattsUpWithThat [WUWT] blogsite. WUWT has the topic "pinned" for consideration and comments. Comments are currently numbering 422. Yes, 422.

However, please do not waste your time by seeking through the 422 for any sign of perceptive & intelligent comments. I assure you that I have skimmed the 400-ish . . . and it's merely the typical WUWT "usual suspects" who are angrily venting into the WUWT echochamber.

Jimsteele , it sounds like you are completely unfamiliar with the WUWT website. It is full (well ~ at the 95% level) of commenters who deny the greenhouse effect ~ either directly or indirectly. Yes, I view the website to "educate" myself . . . mostly about the follies of Motivated Reasoning which are on display there daily. WUWT manages to be both interesting and tiresome. But the cynical reader will see some amusing comments there ~ of egregious fatuities & unintended ironies.

Jimsteele @91 ~ please go back and carefully re-read my comment @84. No, I did not state or allege that you "denied the greenhouse effect". But among your convoluted statements on ocean warming/cooling, you both allege and imply that CO2 contributes little or nothing to the (presently unfrozen) temperature of the Earth's ocean. Do you see the irony/incongruity of your position ?

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