Three Simple Facts About Carbon Dioxide

I sometimes get the impression more people know about Jalapeno peppers than capsaicin.

Most know it as pepper spray.

So, if 100% concentration capsaicin spray is directed into the faces of peaceful yet uncooperative college kids, do they perceive it as being analogous to the extreme global warming which would result from a 100% CO2 atmospere?

One can measure the C12/C13 isotope ratio of atmospheric carbon (CO2) ….. but it is impossible for them to determine the source from where the CO2 in the air comes from.

It makes no difference whether it is the current rotting, decaying, etc. of biomass that is emitting CO2 into the atmosphere ….. or …… if it is the current burning by humans of ancient biomass that was sequestered in fossil fuels that is emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, …. the carbon isotope “signature” is the same.

And your point is?????

The point the author of the article is trying to make is that we are adding additional CO2 to the atmoshpere beyond what our system can handle and still maintain the balance required to maintain the climate and environment for which the current inhabitants of the planet are adapted!

Any dicussion of CO2 needs to deal with the results of the Japanese IBUKU satellite that measured world wide CO2 levels. http: //chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/japanese-satellites-say-3rd-world-owes-co2-reparations-to-the-west/

Bizarrely, the IBUKU maps prove exactly the opposite of all conventional expectations revealing that the least industrialized regions are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet.

To all policymakers who study the Japanese maps it is apparent that the areas of greatest CO2 emissions are those regions with least human development and most natural vegetation: Equatorial Third World nations.

The Japanese evidence also disproves the often-cited hypothesis that Siberia and other areas of northern Russia were natural vents for large scale CO2 outgassing, exacerbating global warming fears.

In effect, this compelling new data appears to show that the ashphalt and concreted industrial nations are ‘mopping up’ carbon dioxide faster than their manufacturers and consumers can emit it. If this is confirmed, it means a cornerstone of man-made global warming may be in serious doubt.

It should be obvious to everyone that man's contribution to CO2 levels in inconsequential if the satellite findings hold up. Natural sources release much more CO2 than human activities. I have no doubt that if there were any questions about the findings that the believers in "the cause" would be shouting it from the rooftops.

The point the author of the article is trying to make is that we are adding additional CO2 to the atmoshpere beyond what our system can handle and still maintain the balance required to maintain the climate and environment for which the current inhabitants of the planet are adapted!

renee219, I’m pretty sure that most every one has an opinion on one thing or other and if they ever express that opinion it is undoubtedly an attempt to “make a point” to/on whomever they are addressing. And the author of the Seeded article is no exception, to wit:

(article citation/disclaimer) John Nielsen-Gammon is the Texas State Climatologist and a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University (but the opinions he expresses here are solely his own and are not intended to represent those of Texas A&M University or the State of Texas).

renee219, that included disclaimer pretty much leaves John Nielsen-Gammon dangling out on the end of a long limb to fend for himself. And after reading his commentary I can understand the reason why.

But what is truly appalling to me is that someone harboring said opinions is in a position to directly influence the immature minds of young undergraduates, thus nurturing them to “think n’ believe” in the same way as the author.

And renee210. I would like to point out to you that the human contribution to total CO2 emissions are actually insignificant at best because the natural CO2 emissions far exceed the amount humanity is responsible for. Here following are estimates of the main sources for natural CO2 emissions, to wit:

• Ocean: 16x mankinds
• Bacteria in Soil: 10x mankind
• Plant decomposition: 10x mankin

So, in total, natural emissions of CO2 are 36 times greater than mankind’s. Any search of the carbon cycle will show that regardless of how you state the number, mankind is but a “bit player” as a source of CO2.

PR,

You liked the Capsasion analogy here's another one which I think helps put a grasp on how something which may seem so minute can have drastic effects.

An in balance scale (like the ones pictured to represent justice) add just the tiniest amount to one side of the scale and the balance starts to tip, much the same in nature, add what might seem like an insignificant amount and it will start to tip out of balance. You can add to the other side of the balance to bring it back to center but if you if continue to add even more to just one side it will crash down completely out of balance.

CO2 has been added in what may seem like insignificant amounts since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and we have been tipping that balance with out thought for a hundred years. Sadly instead of adding weight to the other side of the balance we have a instead been removing weight from the other side, removing green areas and replacing them with pavement, cutting down rain forests, killing the plankton in the oceans with pollution,etc. and the balance is on the precipice of a crash!

Sam,

And renee210. I would like to point out to you that the human contribution to total CO2 emissions are actually insignificant at best because the natural CO2 emissions far exceed the amount humanity is responsible for. Here following are estimates of the main sources for natural CO2 emissions, to wit:

Read comment 6.5, just because it seems like a small amount doesn't change the fact that it is CO2 not balanced for the current system, the current system will move to a new normal to compensate for the imbalance. That new normal may not be one that is very conducive to current life forms on this planet, including humans.

(#6.7) Sam, ....... Read comment 6.5, just because it seems like a small amount doesn't change the fact that it is CO2 not balanced for the current system, the current system will move to a new normal to compensate for the imbalance. That new normal may not be one that is very conducive to current life forms on this planet, including humans.

renee219, I read it before I read the above post. And, renee219, mothers and guardians are always telling young children proverbial “cute” stories like that, but for the most part, very few if any of them apply to the natural world and/or the physical sciences associated with the natural world.

renee219, the non-biological or physical world consists of both “balances” and “counterbalances” of many numbers and kinds. We are inhabitants of “the water planet” and liquid water is the great “equalizer” on your balance scale.

And renee219, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 gas less than, say 2,000 ppm, don’t mean diddley feces relative to the earth’s average global temperature. renee219, it still gets just as cold at night time in the desert areas around the globe as it did 1,000 years ago. The increase in CO2 ppm “since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution” hasn’t affected those desert temperatures one damn bit. They will still freeze your arse off at night time iffen you don’t have warm clothes or shelter. Just ask some of those illegal immigrants who have hiked across the deserts in the southwest to get into the US.

And renee219, the only factual CO2 ppm records in existence are those from 1965 onward that were recorded at Mona Loa, Hawaii.

renee219, water (H2O) vapor is the most potent “greenhouse” gas in the atmosphere. Whereas CO2 concentrations are approximately 390 ppm, H2O vapor on average is between 20,000 ppm and 40,000 ppm That’s 390 parts per million as compared to 40,000 parts per million with the latter one having more than 2 times the Specific Heat Value as that of CO2. And you fanatics are scared shirtless of a 100 ppm increase in CO2. Mercy gawds almighty, …. scared of living and afraid of dying.

50 ppm of H2O vapor can absorb more IR energy than 100 ppm of CO2.

50 ppm of H2O vapor can absorb more IR energy than 100 ppm of CO2.

And it cycles out just as quickly as it cycles in, And the vapor or clouds block a lot of the radiant waves from the sun so it has a greater ability to absorb heat it also blocks heat.

And renee219, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 gas less than, say 2,000 ppm, don’t mean diddley feces relative to the earth’s average global temperature. renee219, it still gets just as cold at night time in the desert areas around the globe as it did 1,000 years ago. The increase in CO2 ppm “since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution” hasn’t affected those desert temperatures one damn bit. They will still freeze your arse off at night time iffen you don’t have warm clothes or shelter. Just ask some of those illegal immigrants who have hiked across the deserts in the southwest to get into the US.

The above statement shows your total lack of knowledge about climate change and what the consequences are, most of which have very little to do with what temperature it is outside!

(#6.9) And it (H2O vapor) cycles out just as quickly as it cycles in,

renee, only in your wildest of dreams. The ppm of atmospheric H20 vapor is constantly changing, but it never, ever completely “cycles out”.

Except for maybe the really extreme desert areas of the planet the atmospheric H2O vapor ppm is always greater than the CO2 ppm. Anywhere you have ever lived, renee, the H20 vapor ppm has always been greater than the CO2 ppm.

renee, maybe you have never associated the word “humidity” as being a reference to the H2O vapor in the air. Is that your problem?

And don’t you be forgetting, renee, ….. the more of that H2O vapor ppm that “cycles in”, the more of that CO2 ppm that “cycles out”. And that is the reason Charles Keeling had to move to the top of Mona Loa in order to get more accurate measurements of CO2 ppm.

renee, you really should read this USA TODAY article titled “Understanding air density and its effects” to learn something about what you think you already know.

(#6.9) And the vapor or clouds block a lot of the radiant waves from the sun so it has a greater ability to absorb heat it also blocks heat.

YUP, clouds, fogs and mists “blocks” the incoming solar energy by both reflecting it back into space and by absorbing it thus preventing the surface and near surface air from heating up. And they also “block” the IR energy being radiated from the surface and near surface air from escaping back into space by both reflecting it back toward the surface and by absorbing it and then re-radiating it back toward the surface.

But eventually all that energy sneaks between those "absorbing"molecules of air and make it back into space from whence it came.

renee, that is why the weather people call those air masses of high H20 vapor content a “Warm Front”. And your “mass” of CO2 is never mentioned because it doesn’t have any measurable affect on the air temperature

(#6.9) The above statement shows your total lack of knowledge about climate change and what the consequences are, most of which have very little to do with what temperature it is outside!

Oh, my my, … renee, me thinks the aboe comment verges on being a perity and feisty retort of displeasure. But tell you the truth, I have probably forgotten more about the Physical Science of climate and weather than you have ever known. But hopefully you are still young enough and thus plenty of time for learning, …… iffen you take a mind to.

Castor, seriously? You're really going to continue to bring up that point in every thread as if it was never refuted? Don't you ever feel embarrassed about it?

Hi RiH:

Instead, they have had to enlist another factor, a theoretical factor, an as yet unmeasured factor, an amplifying factor for CO2 to have a catastrophic effect and then project the combined effect linearly out 100 years before any catastrophic effect might be measured.

You're referring here to the "climate sensitivity", an estimate of the effect of natural feedbacks (such as water vapor) as a result of the radiative forcing of increased CO2. The thing is, ANY forcing (anthropogenic or natural) will be affected by such feedbacks - it's not something that's expected only from CO2. And yes, at this point that is something that is not completely settled, with a range of estimates of the magnitude of the sensitivity. But I think you're muddying the water a bit by insisting on "catastrophic" effects - whether the effect will be catastrophic is a separate question of whether it can be measured.

As you are also aware, the signal that CO2 is causative in climate change is lost in the noise of natural variation. Too much noise to see the signal. We are left with the trace gas radiative transfer model for climate change which states that the rapidly escalating atmospheric levels of CO2, more than 15% greater than the worst case scenario of the climate models, and we have had, ah, well, ahem...no temperature relationship to atmospheric CO2 levels.

There is certainly natural and internal variation with short-term "noise" in the climate system, but that doesn't mean that one can't identify and study long-term trends and their causes. It's still a system that's governed by the laws of thermodynamics. Multiple studies using different methods have looked at the radiative budget along with feedbacks and internal variations, and found that the warming trend in recent decades shows a clear signal from CO2 and other anthropogenic causes, that can't be accounted for by natural forcings and internal variation. One of the more recent examples is this paper in Nature Geoscience, which confirmed the results of previous studies (using different methods), finding that about three-quarters of the warming since 1950 is human-caused. See this article for a less-technical discussion of the study. I'm not sure why you think that there is "no temperature relationship to atmospheric CO2 levels", can you explain?

Nice try. I'll be back again to see how you explain how much global warming we are having on this winter's night.

A classic example of confusing weather with climate. What's important are the long-term global trends, which are positive over recent decades.

Edit: sorry P-r, we are posting across each other this morning!

Nice article, thanks P-r!

retired Physicist:

It seems silly to discuss CO2 behavior in a laboratory when the temperature outside is not cooperating.

I missed your response to my two links on a previous thread falsifying Mann's Hockey Stick; so I'll use a picture instead:

IPCC projections of temperature to scenarios of increasing atmospheric CO2, the worst case being Business As Usual and we already are 15% above the worst case scenario for atmospheric CO2.

I am not particularly mesmerized by Santer et al saying that there have been 10 year periods of non warming in the past particularly since in comparison to the past, the current atmospheric CO2 levels are unprecedented. So this 10 year period of non warming cannot be compared to previous 10 year period of non warming, unless, unless, CO2 has a minuscule effect which is lost in the current natural climate noise.

file://localhost/Users/honicky/Desktop/6a010536b58035970c0167619adf70970b.png

RiH, the Singer article is specifically talking about detecting changes in mean global temperature as a response to anthropogenic forcings such as elevated CO2. As CO2 has risen above the range seen in the ice cores, there have been numerous periods where the short-term trend is flat, but the long-term trend remains positive. See this graph.

Short-term noise, yes - but a clear long-term trend that can't be accounted for by natural forcings.

retired Physicist

Please suggest a way for me to insert a link into NewsVine: Copy and Paste do not seem to work for me. Any and all suggests appreciated.

Belfrey

The article by Knutti & Huber are model runs. Simulations from 1850 to 2100. These are not data, these are linear projections. In climate, as in weather, there is no linearity nor equilibrium. There are periods of great stability; i.e., low sensitivity, and then there are very brief moments, on decade scale, abrupt changes (the great climate change 1970 to 1980 for a recent example) of high sensitivity. Sensitivity does not stay the same through out earth's history; we've been iced over, and sunbathing and hot in the Arctic. We may be in another abrupt climate change already as surface temperatures more recently (2003 to 2011) are declining. At no point does the trace gas radiative transfer model hypothesis accommodate this anomaly. When you point out long term, centuries and millennium scale, the models depend upon linearity, the past is just like the future and all the noise will cancel out. Just not true. We have had a recent rapid increase in temperatures 1910 to 1940 that is the same rate as 1970 to 2000 with a decrease from 1940 to 1970. Nature was working her magic back then as she is now. It's all natural. No signal of CO2 yet, I'm looking.

When I learn how to insert data and graphs into this thread, we will not have to use climate model guestimates as "experiments" which they are not, and these model runs are all you have to go on right now.

This plot demonstrates the trend in temperature >100 years.

Plot with permission: Girma Orssengo PhD

No linked chains. 5th from left "unordered list"

Graphs:

JudithCurry.com Climate Etc. blog

Trends, Change points & Hypothesis

Girma Feb 8, 2 AM This graph shows longitudinal gradual rise in temperatures.

Girma Feb 8, 12:36 AM. Plots recent temperatures upon the IPCC projection scenarios for atmospheric CO2.

Let me know when you have seen both graphs and we can go from there.

RiH, I'll reply to your post #8.10 (unless someone else handles it), but it may have to wait - I've got a lot of work to do today, that will probably continue into the evening.

It looks like you're still in "newbie" status (in spite of having had the account since 2008), meaning that you haven't been granted the ability to post links. They do this to avoid spam advertising. You can contact the Newsvine administrators to ask them to grant you full posting rights.

try the link

woodfortrees.org

It is an interactive site. One can choose the limits and filters and get an output. Since there are a number of graphs, I will provide some parameters to be graphed.

try

HADCRUT3 variance-adjusted global mean

from 1880

to 1910

linear trend.

next

HADCRUT3 variance-adjusted global mean

compress 12

another

HADCRUT3 variance-adjusted global mean

from 1990

to 2012

compress (samples) 12

There are other data sets and more limitations, detrending capabilities, etc.

Hi RiH,

The article by Knutti & Huber are model runs. Simulations from 1850 to 2100. These are not data, these are linear projections.

They do make use of model simulations, but for the period up to the present they use estimates (including from measurements) of historical forcings as inputs for the models, and constrain the output to the temperature record. In other words, based on data regarding the natural and anthropogenic forcings, they determine how much of the warming can be accounted for from each. They're not generally linear models, either, I'm not sure if you know what that word means in this context.

In climate, as in weather, there is no linearity nor equilibrium. There are periods of great stability; i.e., low sensitivity, and then there are very brief moments, on decade scale, abrupt changes (the great climate change 1970 to 1980 for a recent example) of high sensitivity. Sensitivity does not stay the same through out earth's history; we've been iced over, and sunbathing and hot in the Arctic.

With respect, it appears that you don't understand what "sensitivity" means in this context. You seem to be using it to mean "variability", but that's not what it means in climate research. Climate sensitivity is a measure of how much a change in a given forcing (such as increased CO2) will affect the climate system after all the feedbacks are taken into account.

Yes, of course climate has varied in the past, that is not controversial.

We may be in another abrupt climate change already as surface temperatures more recently (2003 to 2011) are declining. At no point does the trace gas radiative transfer model hypothesis accommodate this anomaly.

Climate researchers do not think (and the models do not assume) that ONLY variation in greenhouse gas causes temperature variation. Causes of short-term variation around the trend, such as El Niño/La Niña cycles and other oscillations, are well known and non-controversial. But they don't explain nor obscure the long-term temperature trend. For example, in the past decade we've had the deepest La Niña since the 1970s and the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. These have been enough to flatten out the warming trend in the short term, but you notice that the temperature trend has not gone back down.

When you point out long term, centuries and millennium scale, the models depend upon linearity,

Which they do not...

the past is just like the future and all the noise will cancel out. Just not true.

Climate researchers do not assume the past is just like the future, but the noise, by definition, does cancel out in the long run - that's what separates it from the signal.

We have had a recent rapid increase in temperatures 1910 to 1940 that is the same rate as 1970 to 2000 with a decrease from 1940 to 1970. Nature was working her magic back then as she is now. It's all natural. No signal of CO2 yet, I'm looking.

The difference is that those changes can be largely explained by natural forcings, while the recent rise can't. For example, changes in volcanic activity explain a bunch of the variation seen in those periods you're talking about. Where is the natural forcing that can explain the robust positive trend seen over the past few decades?

The best place to start is with data and then move onto analysis. I suggest you investigate for yourself: WoodForTrees.org. Begin with the HADCRUT3 unadjusted data and draw some graphs. You will be looking at both land surface data and ocean data. Try it. As for ascribing various forcings to explain the temperature data, it is all models. Let me state categorically: All models are wrong, they become more wrong the further out in time they are extended. Models tuned to the past, as are all 24 Global Climate Models are a figment of the modeler's assumptions, imagination, and chosen start points. We are not going to have the same conditions in the future as we have had in the past. The future is currently unknown and any projections/predictions are guesstimates and should be regarded as such. We have a whole financial debacle based upon models. We have a whole climate change scheme based upon models that can not be validated; hence are useless. The future is anybody's guess. Cautious adaptation as conditions warrant is what we have done as a species and will continue to do in spite of consensus documents. Natural changes to weather and eventually climate possess great stability over long periods of time only to exert great instability, abrupt changes and new regimes. Please look at the data yourself: again: WoodForTrees.org. You will find the discontinuity between global temperatures and atmospheric CO2; the rise, the fall, then rise and now plateau of surface temperatures all in an easily viewable format. Again, try it. Preconceived notions of a connectivity between CO2 and temperature in the recent data does not exist. Look at the data yourself.

The best place to start is with data and then move onto analysis. I suggest you investigate for yourself: WoodForTrees.org. Begin with the HADCRUT3 unadjusted data and draw some graphs. You will be looking at both land surface data and ocean data. Try it.

I assure you that both P-r and I have looked at the temperature data from different sources many times. I've found the woodfortrees.org website very helpful, because I can download the tabular data to build my own graphs in Excel, in addition to making quick graphs using the web interface. However, the datasets do not support your assertions. They all show a solid warming trend in the past few decades. To what natural forcing(s) do you think that warming could be attributed?

As for ascribing various forcings to explain the temperature data, it is all models. Let me state categorically: All models are wrong, they become more wrong the further out in time they are extended. Models tuned to the past, as are all 24 Global Climate Models are a figment of the modeler's assumptions, imagination, and chosen start points. We are not going to have the same conditions in the future as we have had in the past. The future is currently unknown and any projections/predictions are guesstimates and should be regarded as such.

The models are not intended to be used as crystal balls. Scientists know that they do not predict future year-to-year variation or stochastic events. But when they use them for attribution of past and current trends, they use past and current data regarding natural and athropogenic forcings as input into the models, to recreate what has happened in the past century with all of that taken into account - that's not the same as using them to estimate what will happen in the future under certain (explicit) assumptions regarding those forcings. Thus, you can't dismiss the use of models for attribution of past and current trends for the same reason you dismiss their predictions.

We have a whole financial debacle based upon models. We have a whole climate change scheme based upon models that can not be validated; hence are useless.

They can be validated using the "hindcasting" I was talking about - i.e., seeing if they model past and current trends well, using known inputs.

Please look at the data yourself: again: WoodForTrees.org. You will find the discontinuity between global temperatures and atmospheric CO2; the rise, the fall, then rise and now plateau of surface temperatures all in an easily viewable format. Again, try it. Preconceived notions of a connectivity between CO2 and temperature in the recent data does not exist. Look at the data yourself.

Again, we've looked at the data many times, and they do not support your assertion. No climate scientist says that ONLY CO2 affects climate. We all know that there are other factors that have been causing short-term variation around the trend, and will continue to do so. But that doesn't make that long-term trend (which can't be explained by natural forcings alone, but does match with expectations once anthropogenic forcings such as CO2 and CH4 are taken into account) disappear.

RiH, I'm reminded of a discussion I had with a "skeptic" on another site a few years ago. He thought that he could demonstrate that the trend in temperature could be explained by internal variation within the system, rather than a change in the energy budget caused by things like CO2. He knew that I enjoyed making graphs, so he asked me to make one using a series of steps, going something like this: 1) Subtract the overall trend from the HadCRUT temperature record (this is known as "detrending"); 2) plot the Oceanic Niño Index (one of the measures of the strength of the El Niño/La Niña cycle) along with that line. 3) Scale the two datasets to each other. I grumbled about the validity of the linear detrending method he wanted me to use and scaling issues, but I humored him and made the graph. I'm enough of a geek that I did more than he asked for, labeling volcanic events, looking at correlations, etc. It's a little embarrassing to read now.

His point was that the El Niño cycle accounts for much of the variation during that time period, as shown by how the dips and peaks matched between the two plots (although with a bit of a lag, and some places where other influences like volcano eruptions altered the relationship). And he was absolutely right about that; it's well known that this accounts for some of the variation around the trend. The trouble is, it does not account for the overall trend at all - that trend was removed as the first step in the analysis! I pointed this out and asked where the extra energy was coming from that accounted for the overall trend, and he suggested that it was welling up from the deep oceans in response to El Niño events. I pointed out (with a graph of the thermocline) that the deep oceans are colder than the surface, and a poor source for heat. That was the last I heard from him about that.

The point is, there is certainly short-term noise within the system, and no one expects a perfect relationship between a single forcing and temperature on a year-to-year basis. But there is still an overall long-term trend that must be accounted for. There are, of course, natural factors that can affect long-term temperature trends, and climate researchers study those as well. The thing is, none of them have been acting in a way that can account for the trend in the past few decades. Solar inputs have not been increasing. Cosmic radiation effects have been flat. Volcanism has not been significantly decreasing. Added CO2 and CH4, and other anthopogenic effects, HAVE been increasing, and based on what what is known about how all of these different factors can affect climate, multiple studies have found that most of the recent warming trend is due to those anthropogenic effects.

retired Physicist & Belfry;

The non intersection theorem demonstrates that the system never passes twice through the same state. In non-math terms: whatever model you construct from the past, has no relevance for the future as you will never have the same conditions and precursors upon which your model has been constructed. Predictions, Projections, model assemblages whatever; you ain't ever going to be 18 again, and that pretty girl you should have/ would have/ might have? is married to someone else. All you can do is move on.

Climate sensitivity is a linear equation, as you know. Again, climate is not linear or is there equilibrium. Equations built upon those assumptions are ...well... wrong. For long periods of time, relatively so, climate sensitivity: change in temperature for a given change in atmospheric CO2 is very low. Then there are times when climate changes in decade time periods; hence, climate sensitivity is high. Taking the average is non-sensicle from both a computational stand point as well as theoretical.

I am sorry you can't figure out what else causes natural variation so that you have to add the trace gas radiative transfer model to you soup to get your hind cast models to work. It is not up to me to explain natural variation to you, only to point out that your assumptions, and hence attributions, are mistaken.

The beauty of WoodForTrees.com is that one can see that during the temperature instrument period, when one overlays the Mauna Loa CO2 seasonal variation trend, one sees a mismatch in trends so that whatever the CO2 signal is adding to the trend, is lost in the noise. Looking at the last decade or so, one sees a greater divergence between temperature and CO2, especially with the abrupt change in temperature to a plateau or even a decline. None of the current Global Climate Models predicted nor can replicate these observations. We can guess all we want as to why the observations are as they are, but it still comes down to: we are guessing.

Why are well intentioned people having difficulty saying: "I don't know; get back to me sometime in the future when we don't have to add fudge factors to our models."

The non intersection theorem demonstrates that the system never passes twice through the same state. In non-math terms: whatever model you construct from the past, has no relevance for the future as you will never have the same conditions and precursors upon which your model has been constructed. Predictions, Projections, model assemblages whatever; you ain't ever going to be 18 again, and that pretty girl you should have/ would have/ might have? is married to someone else. All you can do is move on.

None of which has any relevance to whether the models can be used for attribution of naturals vs. anthropogenic forcings, as I've explained.

Climate sensitivity is a linear equation, as you know.

No, it's not. Where did you get that idea?

Again, climate is not linear or is there equilibrium. Equations built upon those assumptions are ...well... wrong.

Climate models are not based on those assumptions. Where did you get the idea that they were?

For long periods of time, relatively so, climate sensitivity: change in temperature for a given change in atmospheric CO2 is very low. Then there are times when climate changes in decade time periods; hence, climate sensitivity is high. Taking the average is non-sensicle from both a computational stand point as well as theoretical.

Again, you are confusing sensitivity with variability. The climate is not modeled as if CO2 were the only input. The actual temperature trend is a composite of many inputs and feedbacks, including (but not limited to) CO2. They don't "take the average". Climate sensitivity is an emergent property of the models, not a model parameter.

I am sorry you can't figure out what else causes natural variation so that you have to add the trace gas radiative transfer model to you soup to get your hind cast models to work. It is not up to me to explain natural variation to you, only to point out that your assumptions, and hence attributions, are mistaken.

Excuse me, but I explicitly said that climate researchers DO know what causes natural variation. And those causes do not explain the overall warming trend. Please try to read more carefully before replying.

The beauty of WoodForTrees.com is that one can see that during the temperature instrument period, when one overlays the Mauna Loa CO2 seasonal variation trend, one sees a mismatch in trends so that whatever the CO2 signal is adding to the trend, is lost in the noise.

How do you figure that? I just went to woodfortrees.org to get the latest data. You can't plot on secondary axes using their web interface, so I downloaded the tabular data and plotted them in Excel. Here are 12-month running means for HadCRUT and Mauna Loa CO2 (temp anomaly in deg C on primary y-axis, ppm CO2 on secondary). I also added CO2 data from the Siple Station ice core, so that there would be CO2 values for the whole range covered by HadCRUT (as you can see, the end of that dataset corresponds well to where the Mauna Loa set begins): See Graph Here. It does not look to me at all like the CO2 correlation is "lost in the noise".

Looking at the last decade or so, one sees a greater divergence between temperature and CO2, especially with the abrupt change in temperature to a plateau or even a decline.

Again, these short-term variations around the trend do not remove the trend as a whole. There are many periods of several years in the past few decades that one could cherry-pick, during which the overall trend was flat or negative, but that does not make the long-term trend go away (see this image again to demonstrate what I'm talking about).

None of the current Global Climate Models predicted nor can replicate these observations. We can guess all we want as to why the observations are as they are, but it still comes down to: we are guessing.

Climate researchers can do more than guess; they can account for short-term variations from effects such as the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The observations thus far fall within the range of variation predicted from the models.

retired Physicist & Belfrey;

Gavin is not a truth teller. The 2011 "forecast" from 2000 to 2011, does not appear in TAR or FAR as I have read them or any place else except in 2011; kinda after the fact; "...if we assume we had made a forecast in 2000, and published it, then the answer would be...cooling and not warming."

Belfrey; I looked at your images and just sighed. Please go back, plot temperature 2000 to 2012. Download. Plot CO2 seasonal, 2000 to 2012. Download. Input to Excel. Then lay one trend over the other. The temperature signal does not follow the CO2 signal. If 2500 scientists who believe with 90% certainty that CO2 is the control knob of climate; and that CO2 DRIVES the worlds climate, then there should at least be a one to one correlation, Right? If the CO2 atmospheric concentration is UNPRECEDENTED, up 43% in recent times, and the overlay that I suggest (but can't reproduce here because I am a newby of 4 years) are not correlated, then either CO2 is not so powerful, or Mother Nature is pulling a fast one on the climate modelers, or....the climate modelers have got it all wrong; most likely the latter. How can one justify developing models based upon hind casting when the current CO2 is unprecedented? Aren't we in a new paradigm? Or maybe, again, the modelers (including Gavin) have got it all wrong; more likely than not.

My question to you: how much will a doubling of atmospheric CO2 raise the Global Mean Temperature in the year 2100? Final answer?

Belfrey; I looked at your images and just sighed. Please go back, plot temperature 2000 to 2012. Download. Plot CO2 seasonal, 2000 to 2012. Download. Input to Excel. Then lay one trend over the other. The temperature signal does not follow the CO2 signal.

Now, why would I want to do that, unless I was cherry-picking data in order to come to a false conclusion? I'm so sorry that I failed to do that, and instead made a graph where one can see the long-term trends. It's those which are relevant with respect to climate change, not short cherry-picked time spans. That's the point of this animated graph. Do you really not understand the difference between short-term variation and long-term trends?

If 2500 scientists who believe with 90% certainty that CO2 is the control knob of climate; and that CO2 DRIVES the worlds climate, then there should at least be a one to one correlation, Right?

Wrong on all counts; climate scientists do not think that ONLY carbon dioxide affects climate, as I've explained to you several times. They do not think that there will not be effects from other factors, as well, and (once again) they do not think that there will be a perfect year-to-year correlation to any single forcing, because at any time multiple factors are at work. What they say is that CO2 and other anthropogenic effects are responsible for most of the long-term warming trend seen in recent decades.

Find me one primary literature source from climate scientists that shows that they think that only CO2 affects climate, or that there won't be any variation around the trend. I'll tell you now: you can't. It's a straw man argument.

Gavin is not a truth teller. The 2011 "forecast" from 2000 to 2011, does not appear in TAR or FAR as I have read them or any place else except in 2011; kinda after the fact; "...if we assume we had made a forecast in 2000, and published it, then the answer would be...cooling and not warming."

I don't think you understand what you're looking at there. The black line is the ensemble mean hindcast and forecast (up to and after 2000, respectively) of the IPCC AR4 models, with the gray shaded area showing the area covered by 95% of the model runs. The colored lines are the actual temperature records overlaid on that. As you can see, those records still fall within the 95% range.

Belfrey;

Please at least read the Summary of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and its attribution statement. Wikipedia will do just fine. No straw man on my part.

I asked you to choose the same dates as Gavin did in his RC Feb 8, 2012 blog. The reason for the black line in his graph is to trick your eye and persuade you that temperatures are around a "mean". Leave the black line out, and voila, cooling. Of course if one uses models that leave out volcanos, and climate influencing variables like ENSO, and forget that the modelers said that the clouds' influence (high low and all that) are a wash, then, and only then can one see a continued trend; by leaving out data. Now if the Little Ice Age did occur, and our hemispheric temperature measurements and proxy data are to be considered, our long term warming (about 0.06 C per decade), is the baseline signal, the CO2 signal is where? Not evident.

There are a lot of influences on climate which in the vernacular is called Natural variations. You claim that climate scientists know what all these influences are and by how much? There are a lot of anthropogenic influences on climate, the only question is "how much?" Which reminds me, I missed your final answer to my question: how much will a doubling of atmospheric CO2 raise Global Mean Temperature by the year 2100?

Arrrgh, you are not going to believe this but I just lost a really long reply because I went back to edit a word, and apparently hit the wrong key before saving changes. I will have to reconstruct it, please stand by.

Please at least read the Summary of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and its attribution statement. Wikipedia will do just fine. No straw man on my part.

The 2007 IPPC attribution statement is as follows: ""Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations";^[2] It is extremely unlikely (<5%) that the global pattern of warming during the past half century can be explained without external forcing (i.e., it is inconsistent with being the result of internal variability), and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The warming occurred in both the ocean and the atmosphere and took place at a time when natural external forcing factors would likely have produced cooling."

This does not support what you've been saying at all. They do not say that CO2 accounts for all variation in mean global temperature, but rather that it accounts for most of the warming observed in the last 50 years, while natural forcings cannot explain that trend. That's pretty much what I've been trying to explain to you.

I asked you to choose the same dates as Gavin did in his RC Feb 8, 2012 blog.

Um, no, you asked me to choose "2000 to 2012". The shortest period in that blog post is 1980 to 2011.

The reason for the black line in his graph is to trick your eye and persuade you that temperatures are around a "mean".

Again, incorrect. The black line is the IPCC ensemble model mean. It says it right there on the graph. That was the whole point of P-r posting that link, to show you that the observed temperature record was not inconsistent with model predictions.

Leave the black line out, and voila, cooling.

Again, incorrect. Here's a graph of those same datasets over that time period, with linear trendlines. Still a very positive overall trend. You have to cherry-pick very carefully to avoid having a positive trend in the past few decades.

Of course if one uses models that leave out volcanos, and climate influencing variables like ENSO, and forget that the modelers said that the clouds' influence (high low and all that) are a wash, then, and only then can one see a continued trend; by leaving out data.

Naturally, volcanoes can't be predicted. ENSO is, by definition, an oscillation, i.e. noise around the trend. It doesn't cause long-term trends, as I explained in post #8.23. The latest data and analysis of cloud feedbacks indicates that they is not likely to be strongly negative (more likely net positive) - see Dessler (2010).

Now if the Little Ice Age did occur, and our hemispheric temperature measurements and proxy data are to be considered, our long term warming (about 0.06 C per decade), is the baseline signal, the CO2 signal is where? Not evident.

That makes no sense. The anthropogenic spike in CO2 has been mainly taking place in the past century or so. It doesn't matter where you start the temperature record, any CO2 signal will occur when CO2 is changing. That temperature also varied before that due to natural forcings is non-controversial and irrelevant.

There are a lot of influences on climate which in the vernacular is called Natural variations. You claim that climate scientists know what all these influences are and by how much? There are a lot of anthropogenic influences on climate, the only question is "how much?"

I suggest that you start reading the studies, such as Huber and Knutti (2012), that quantify such things.

Which reminds me, I missed your final answer to my question: how much will a doubling of atmospheric CO2 raise Global Mean Temperature by the year 2100?

There's no such thing as a "final answer" in science; scientists always remain open to revising the current understanding based on new evidence. And it would be more appropriate to say, "How much would doubling of atmospheric CO2..." The model projections are estimates made under certain explicit assumptions (the IPCC, for example, offers different projections under numerous different scenarios with different assumptions), and they're not intended to be used a crystal balls; that is to say, scientists don't think that all of the assumptions included in any of these scenarios will be exactly true, and acknowledge up-front that they can't include stochastic events.

That said, I'll give you this statement from Rahmstorf (2008): "Current state-of-the-art climate models span a range of 2.6–4.1°C, most clustering around 3°C." That's for a doubling from pre-industrial levels (from 280 to 560 ppm).

"Current state-of-the-art climate models span a range of 2.6–4.1°C, most clustering around 3°C." That's for a doubling from pre-industrial levels (from 280 to 560 ppm).

As I understand it, climate sensitivity is a ....known? A linear function?

Delta T = delta F X Lambda. Change in global mean surface temperature is equal to the change in forcing times the change in climate sensitivity.

If the current cooling period; i.e., 1997 to whenever continues, the trace gas radiation transfer model is... falsified? Do you agree? Are you not a little bothered that the climate sensitivity calculation has not changed in the last 2 1/2 decades? That we are no closer to a numeric now than 25 years ago? As we descend into a cooling period of some decades duration, CO2 will be perceived as a bit player in a Shakespearian tragedy needing no acknowledgement and asked to kindly exit stage left. Your grasp of the contemporary science; your clinging to the words and misdeeds of some climate modelers; your grasp at the straws of: "its aerosols; its, Natural Variation; its, whatever as an excuse why things are now not what were predicted, makes the tragedy personal and...unacceptable. I couldn't be wrong. I am so sincere. I have so many on my side. And yet; the tragedy plays out: no warming, only fudge factor science; and we inextricably descend into coolness. When will we acknowledge that we have made a mistake? The Press; the political types, the consensus scientists will all have to sign off on this one, and that is a long time coming. We have a temporary interruption to progress. Thank you to all involved. See you all again when you get your head on straight.

As I understand it, climate sensitivity is a ....known? A linear function?

Delta T = delta F X Lambda. Change in global mean surface temperature is equal to the change in forcing times the change in climate sensitivity.

You are incorrect, I'll try to tell you once again: climate sensitivity is an emergent property, a result of the GCMs, not an assumed parameter. It's only assumed as a parameter in simpler models (and they use estimates from GCMs).

If the current cooling period; i.e., 1997 to whenever continues, the trace gas radiation transfer model is... falsified? Do you agree?

First of all, 1997 to now still doesn't give you a cooling period overall; for better cherry-picking, I suggest starting the curve at the peak of the strong El Niño in 1998. Might as well do it right.

Whether it's falsified by cooling depends on the strength of other forcings. For example, if we have some sort of mega volcanic event, that could overwhelm the warming signal without falsifying the model. If we have future cooling that can't be explained within the context of the models once the various observed forcings and the feedbacks as we understand them are taken into account, then that would indicate that our current understanding is incomplete or wrong. But that's not true of the variation seen in the past decade.

Are you not a little bothered that the climate sensitivity calculation has not changed in the last 2 1/2 decades?

Uh, yes it has. Where are you getting these weird ideas?

So, I take it from your dramatic exposition that follows that you're predicting a long cooling trend. On what do you base that prediction?

Gavin said it.

I doubt that very much. In this post he points out that it is a result from models: "A standard experiment to determine this value in a climate model is to look at the doubled CO₂ climate, and so equivalently, the climate sensitivity is sometimes given as the warming for doubled CO₂ (i.e. from 280 ppm to 560 ppm)."

Belfrey;

I know I was being a bit flippant with my Gavin remark, and I know that Gavin would never admit that long term there will be global cooling. However, I was using some of his presentation: Global Ocean Heat Content (0-700meter), the MRI-CGCM (run 5) and trends 1998-2011 {-0.07, 0.49} degrees Celsius per decade as evidence that there was global cooling. The Hadley Center and Jones agrees that there is currently cooling.

The ocean current data Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Meridianal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and the now back-to-back La Nina's suggest we are in for several decades of cooling. It is more likely than not that there will be more La Nina than El Nino at least through 2030. The abrupt climate shift occurred around 2001.

My predictions for cooler and not warmer will have to weather the test of time. Keeping tract of ENSO, PDO, AMO, NAO and cloud cover will see the strength of the prediction. There will be a regime change after 2030 and we could have more cooling, or warming, or a combination producing decades of "stable trend and relatively even global temperatures."

I sure do like talking about the weather.

It is indeed "weather" you're talking about, if you want to attribute long-term trends to oscillations like the PDO. It's funny that some people think that all the mainstream climate modeling is just so much voodoo, but they're totally willing to accept how Roy Spencer cooks a graph.

Belfrey:

I don't recall mentioning Roy Spencer, although I do view his blog. His stated purpose in producing the graphs is "entertainment" as he says.

As you may or may not be aware, 30 year intervals is usually believed to be sufficient to change the discussion from weather to climate. I have made a 30 year prediction; therefore, a climate prediction.

Also as you may know, Global Circulation Models are weather models on steroids with the caveat that all noise will statistically come out in the wash if run far enough out. GCMs and the modelers who feed in the assumptions, are making their projections based upon linearity and equilibrium and there ain't such a thing in weather nor climate. Now I know Gavin will protest, but pay him no mind, as higher level statisticians will tell you, have told him as well as show you the same thing; pay him no mind. Hence my statement: All models are wrong, the further in time they are carried, the more wrong they become.

Speaking of models, I hope retired Physicist did not retire banking on his financial planner's Monte Carlo projections on income, spending, and risk taking. His financial planner is probably back to selling insurance door-to-door.

Hence my statement: All models are wrong, the further in time they are carried, the more wrong they become.

Of course they are, if you insist that they be used in a way for which they aren't intended. And no, they don't depend on "linearity and equilibrium"; show me some evidence that they do. Do you know what "linear" means in modeling? It means a straight line, y = mx+b. Even as basic a relationship as CO2's direct forcing is a logarithmic function, and the way it works in the GCMs is nowhere near that simple.

I have not been clear. I apologize. The individual GCMs unitize Navier-Stokes equations which are non-linear predictors. The mean of the assemblages of all the models used to project a future temperature, say 2 degrees Celsius in 2100 is a linear function. Nothing more complicated than that.

My point regarding GCMs is that each model has a set of assumptions, initial conditions, and parameters. The preconditions are all chosen by the modeler and run to give a projection of how much temperatures will rise given various guesses as to how much CO2 man will put into the air. The GCM give a pretty broad picture of the future; from very hot to cold. These runs are then assembled to give a range of future temperatures. Then a number as a best guess of the assemblage of the modelers is chosen. The current best guess of the assemblage of modelers will produce untold woe and sorrow in... 2100, maybe more!

I am still looking for your best guess temperature for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 in 2100.

My best guess: unmeasurable, no signal. I say this as the water vapor feedback mechanism needed by GCM in their projections is based only on...an idea; what might happen; there is no experimental proof, only...model runs, which gets back to best guesses of the modelers selecting their assumptions, etc, etc, etc. A tenuous house of cards on the pitching deck of a whaling ship in a typhoon.

You've suddenly changed your tune about the models, from overly simplistic and false statements to rather nuanced, and mostly correct ones. Good show. It's almost like someone else took over the keyboard.

It's not as though the water vapor feedback was invented from whole cloth. it's not exactly controversial that as mean temperature rises, more water evaporates; and as "skeptics" are so fond of pointing out, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. The water vapor feedback is another emergent property (not a parameter) of the GCMs, which are based in physics. And it's also not entirely without empirical support; multiple studies using observations of water vapor changes resulting from short-term temperature changes have corresponded well with the model predictions. See for example Dessler et al. (2008), which tracked water vapor changes in response to short-term fluctuations, and found that "The water-vapor feedback implied by these observations is strongly positive, with an average magnitude of λ _q = 2.04 W/m²/K, similar to that simulated by climate models." See also Dessler and Davis (2010), Dessler and Wong (2009), Huong and Ramaswamy (2008), Gettelman and Fu (2008), Santer et al (2007), and many others.

Belfrey:

Thank you for affirming that I have crossed over from the Dark Side and I may become a Jedi Knight, with some work of course.

The climate feedback of CO2 on water vapor is a conjecture, a model run, a guesstimate, an illusion. Go up 10 kilometers, what is the temperature?, water vapor?, relative humidity? where is the tropical trophospheric hot spot? Susan Soloman is still looking. Maybe she needs to look under a lamp post? I digress. Speculating about water vapor, intuition, best guesses all have their residuals to be accounted for.

Next question: What is your best guess as to the temperature in 2100 from a doubling of CO2? basically, how much? Is this really so hard?

No response to or mention of all of the studies I linked you to which support the water feedback simulated in the models? Oh, well.

Next question: What is your best guess as to the temperature in 2100 from a doubling of CO2? basically, how much? Is this really so hard?

Of course it's hard, which is why your ad hoc prediction of little-to-no change is highly questionable. I have no crystal ball which gives me any confidence in my own personal guesses on the matter. If CO2 doubles by the year 2100, I have no reason to disagree with the range predicted in the models, which I've already given you - absent some unusual stochastic forcings which cannot be predicted, of course.

Dressler & Davis 2010 are a reanalysis but no new data: i.e., measurements. Since previous measurements of decreasing mid and high tropospheric relative humidity disagree with consensus, these measurements must be wrong and here is why we think the measurements are wrong because we can reanalyze the data to fit with consensus. Down is now up. Everything is now fine with the world. Gavinesque. Next question?

Only one of several that I linked you to, RiH. And that was only a sample of those that are out there.

Belfrey

Try Susan Soloman et al NOAA and now at MIT.

Science 5 March 2010

Decreased stratospheric moisture by 10%, decreasing (trace gas radiative transfer model) by 25% from 2001 to 2009.

She is still looking for the "hot spot" which in Gavinesque logic is no longer needed to validate Catastrophic warming and certainly the absence of the "hot spot" does not invalidate Catastrophic...

Belfrey

Try Susan Soloman et al NOAA and now at MIT.

Science 5 March 2010

Decreased stratospheric moisture by 10%, decreasing (trace gas radiative transfer model) by 25% from 2001 to 2009.

Exactly - but this supports the water vapor feedback hypothesis, since (as you keep pointing out), there was no significant warming observed over that time period (actually a slight cooling trend overall). The water vapor feedback works in both directions, amplifying both negative and positive forcings (both anthropogenic and natural).

As the authors state in the article about their results, "the decline in stratospheric water vapor after 2000 should be expected to have significantly contributed to the flattening of the global warming trend in the past decade, and stratospheric water increases may also have acted to steepen the observed warming trend in the 1990s." As they also state, "the observations also suggest that stratospheric water contributed to enhancing the warming observed during 1980–2000 [as emphasized in previous studies (3–5)]." (I'm looking at the full text, if you don't have subscription access you can see the abstract here.)

She is still looking for the "hot spot" which in Gavinesque logic is no longer needed to validate Catastrophic warming and certainly the absence of the "hot spot" does not invalidate Catastrophic...

The "hot spot" is a model result from warming due to ANY radiative forcing (including natural ones, like increased solar activity), not just from CO2. (Surely you don't deny that warming has been occurring at all in the past few decades? Most "skeptics" these days have abandoned that, and are instead saying that the warming is not human-caused.) The real "fingerprint" of warming from CO2 and other GHGs is not the "hot spot" in the troposphere, but cooling in the stratosphere.

Belfrey

Please refer back to my post of 8.31 regarding rising temperatures since The Little Ice Age: 0.06 Celsius per decade.

The stratosphere is about 5 miles up at the poles and 6 miles up at the equator (where the jets and the radiosonde play). The stratosphere has an inverse temperature gradient with regards to the troposphere. The troposphere is hot on the bottom and cold at the top. The stratosphere is cold on the bottom and hot at the top. The primary determinants of the stratosphere temperature gradient are: ozone, water vapor, aerosols and the other green house gases. For the stratosphere to cool, ozone has to be depleted, greenhouse gases including water vapor have to RISE.

You see Susan Soloman, a member in good standing with the Catastrophic climate change Team, was on a wild goose chase and found decreased water vapor, not increased. She was under the spell of the hobgoblin, the known physics, a warmer earth surface would lead to more evaporation of water from the oceans (71% of earth surface) which would rise to the top of the troposphere and be dumped into the lower part of the stratosphere. Susan is now saying" way shucks", this is all compatible with Catastrophic people causing climate change. Her Gavinesque logic neglected the tiny, yet lynch pin step: what caused relative humidity in the troposphere and water vapor of the stratosphere to decrease? You see, we have seen an unprecedented rise in temperature, highly likely to a 95% confidence is due to man up until 2001 or so. Presumably water vapor was high during this warming period, and of course according to Gavin we are still in unprecedented and escalating temperatures, yet, yet, the data shows, decrease water vapor. When Susan came out with that finding, there was a whole lot of scrambling going on by the Climate Team; hence, the Dressler & Davis paper (down is now up).

You see the dilemma, for all the unprecedented surface warming the data set we use to control is saying it is, mid to high troposphere relative humidity went down when it should have gone up, and the stratosphere water vapor measurements went down when it should have gone up. Things are not going according to our Catastrophic climate change models. What is a catastrophe of a Climate Team to do? "our models are right and the data is wrong: science settled." Next question.

I'm afraid you're a bit mixed up. As you can see if you read the abstract, the Desser & Davis paper was not in response to the Solomon paper you posted, but rather to Partridge et al (2009), an analysis of radiosonde data. The Partridge paper itself states repeatedly that radiosonde data generally is, and probably should be treated with suspicion: "It is accepted that radiosonde-derived humidity data must be treated with great caution, particularly at altitudes above the 500 hPa pressure level... radiosonde humidity measurements are notoriously unreliable and are usually dismissed out-of-hand as being unsuitable for detecting trends of water vapor in the upper troposphere... Since 1973, the instrumental changes have had less obvious impacts, but there are still problems with reporting practices—particularly the reporting of data from higher levels where both temperature and humidity are very low... [Elliott and Gaffen (1991)] suggested that 'data above 500 hPa, with the possible exception of the tropics, are not reliable enough to draw conclusions about upper-level humidity. Even 500 hPa data may be unreliable at high latitudes.'"

The Desser and Davis paper compare their results to 5 other reanalyses, all of which incorporate satellite measurements as part of the analysis, rather than being solely dependent on radiosonde data. The Partridge analysis is the only one that comes up with a negative result. Repeatability is part of the scientific method; when one analysis comes up with a result that disagrees with all the others, and there is reason to believe that there are problems with the data, then it bears less weight.

The Solomon paper, on the other hand, is completely consistent with the water vapor feedback model; that would predict that when temperature is rising, water vapor concentration will increase (and magnify that trend), and when temperature is declining, water vapor will decrease (and magnify that cooling). That's exactly what they found. As you keep pointing out, 2001-2009 was a period of overall cooling, and water vapor decreased slightly. During the decades prior, which saw warming, atmospheric water vapor increased.

Belfrey

In rereading my post, I don't see where I asserted that the Dressler & Davis 2010 paper was addressing Solomon's findings. Rather, the Climate Team had a dilemma regarding what was a tenet of global warming, increasing water in the upper atmosphere due to increased evaporation due to global surface temperature elevations. D&D 10 rushed to fill the breach and Solomon pooh poohed the results away.

My question: what caused the climate to shift such that the earth started to cool from its unprecedented rising trajectory? Measurable climate cooling has been going on for at least a decade. The top of the troposphere and lower stratosphere responses are understandable and predictable, given that earth is cooling. Why did we have a regime change? No models predicted it which was the point I made regarding Gavin and his dog and pony show to the RC crowd. There have been two recent regimen changes: cooling to warming 1977/1978 and a warming to cooling regime change 1999/2001. Why? Models didn't predict either one. The models fail because the modelers who input the assumptions and their selection of physics have been agenda driven: to bring the science to the man made climate warming paradigm. Hence, natural variation science research has taken a back seat to the "agenda" with its political drivers.

Currently we have a square peg/round hole problem and continuing to force the issue defies logic and can only be seen in a political context.

There have been and will be abrupt climate changes many on a 30 year scale. I made a prediction based upon this paradigm. I am not wedded to this paradigm, but this paradigm of abrupt regime changes on a 30 year cycle fits pretty well today. If my prediction holds, we are in for cooling and not warming and CO2 mitigation is a considerable opportunity lost cost. What will happen after 2030 or so? Possibly warming, but cooling or little variation are all equal possibilities at this point.

There is a Russian paper on the obits of moon, sun, earth and giant planets influencing internal earth core/mantel which contributes to the wobble of the earth, the expansion and contraction of the atmosphere around the poles and equator, influencing ocean currents, ice accumulation on Antarctica & Greenland contributing to earth's wobble which can be seen in the lengthening and shortening of earth's day.(length of day) The authors claim a prediction ability resolving to one year. I have to go back and read it again and give it some thought. The very nice thing is that their model is falsifiable in as short as a couple of years. No prediction, no hypothesis. Not like our current crop of doom and gloom modelers who say: " ... its all very complicated and only a climate scientist would know..." I've heard this idea once or twice before.

In rereading my post, I don't see where I asserted that the Dressler & Davis 2010 paper was addressing Solomon's findings.

Hmm, then I must have misunderstood this:

When Susan came out with that finding, there was a whole lot of scrambling going on by the Climate Team; hence, the Dressler & Davis paper

Sorry about that.

Rather, the Climate Team had a dilemma regarding what was a tenet of global warming, increasing water in the upper atmosphere due to increased evaporation due to global surface temperature elevations. D&D 10 rushed to fill the breach and Solomon pooh poohed the results away.

Wait, now I'm confused: who is supposedly "pooh pooh-ing" whose results in this situation? Is Solomon now dismissing D&D (in spite of having published first)? I've got both papers here and I still don't see any way that their findings are contradictory, in spite of your colorful narrative. Solomon and all even acknowledge Dessler and others: "We appreciate helpful comments on a draft manuscript by K. Shine, M. Geller, A. Gettelman, and A. Dessler."

My question: what caused the climate to shift such that the earth started to cool from its unprecedented rising trajectory? Measurable climate cooling has been going on for at least a decade. The top of the troposphere and lower stratosphere responses are understandable and predictable, given that earth is cooling. Why did we have a regime change? No models predicted it...

As I keep telling you, the GCMs are not designed or intended to predict all of the short-term variation around the trend due to things like ENSO. These short-term periods over which the linear trendline is flat or negative have happened throughout the "unprecedented rising trajectory", as this graph shows (the point being made is tongue-in-cheek, but the data are real - I hope you will ponder that).

If, over the next few decades, the mean global temperature declines down to its pre-1990s levels (absent some unusual cooling event such as massive volcanism), then I will concede that the AGW model is falsified. Question is, if warming continues over the next decades, will you have a similar change of heart?

I have no skin in this game. If we return to warming tomorrow, I'am all in with CO2, except my question "how much warming" by 2100. I suspect that Gavin and crowd are now hedging their bets as the atmospheric pressure gradients: PDO and NAO are not in their favor. My guess is that we will be cooling from 2001 to 2031. The current versions of GCM are...well... how do I say this in polite company...crap. My guess is that we need a new crop of modelers whose sympathies and paychecks are not tied to global warming. The climate gate emails suggest there are disgusted scientists who are ready and willing to replace the tried and true, but basically flawed, current modelers: get rid of GAVIN and his ilk. In this context: Brilliant and flawed are part and parcel of one another. Quick one liners belong on the late night show, not in a science. The focus should be on understanding natural variation, not man's contribution to whatever...Fundamental flaw in focus. I do not know what the future holds. I do know that climate scientists don't know either. Those who claim knowledge of the future are charlatans and will steal your money. The climate scientists who claim prescience, are... well... watch your wallets. To repeat: the GCMs are wrong, and projecting them further into the future means they are more wrong. Do not make decisions upon models. One's gut instinct is better, however flawed it may be. Trust yourself, believe in yourself, your are better that myth makers.

Well, good luck trusting your "gut instinct" and all of that. I'll place my trust in the physics and expertise behind the models (and the empirical data that support them), rather than the rhetoric and straw man arguments of the "skeptics".

Throughout this conversation, I've watched as you bring up arguments such as, "there should at least be a one to one correlation, Right?" and then eventually drop them as it was clear I knew a bit more about it than that. I've watched as you characterize the models as ridiculously simple and "linear", and then abruptly change your tune after the umpteenth time I call you on it. And you continue to lament the models as "wrong" because they are unable to be used in a way they were never intended. The storytelling about how the Solomon et al paper supposedly was a problem which the Dessler & Davis paper was created to address (even though the former doesn't contradict the water vapor hypothesis, and isn't contradicted by or mentioned in the latter) is frankly just weird.

I've come to suspect that you know full well that these arguments are fallacious.

Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008

Thanks, P-r. That provides good support for what I've been saying: that climate researchers do not think that only CO2 affects climate, and the variation seen over the past decade can be accounted for under the current understanding of climate forcings.

Belfrey & retired Physicist

Several observations and comments on Kaufman et al 2011

The "et al" of authors includes Michael Mann of Climategate 1&2 emails. Mann is a climate modeler who has a very public advocacy stand on global warming. I am wary.

Aside: The Mann Hockey Stick was a deception in eliminating the tree ring temperature proxy data after 1960 and splicing on the thermometer record. The tree ring data had shown after 1960 a significant decline which lead to words like "trick" and "hide the decline." Michael Mann's science is not to be taken at face value in my opinion.

Kaufman et al self-reference which always makes me alert to whose data is pivotal in making the case presented in this paper.

The eruption of the equatorially located volcano Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 ejected an estimated 15 to 30 million tons of sulfur dioxide 21 miles up into the stratosphere. There was a measured global cooling of @ 0.5 Celsius. There have been other equatorial volcanos Krakatoa in 1883 with reports compatible with global cooling as well. The eruption of Navarupta in Alaska in 1912 may or may not have had a global impact as there is no "fingerprint" to assess. Although sulfates have a short tropospheric residence time of a week, ejections of sulfates into the stratosphere may reside longer. Yet in all these eruptions, the mass ejected was very large, very high into the stratosphere, the cooling effect lasted only a year as in the case of Mt. Pinatubo.

The Kaufman paper uses Mann's model to estimate aerosols in the troposphere. The aerosols are calculated estimates of sulfur emissions based upon economic estimates for coal use. The calculated estimates come from David Stern: Chemosphere 2005.

Stern 2005 states that global sulfate emissions peaked in 1989 and then fell rapidly. He noted that sulfate emissions then shifted towards East and South Asia and those emissions peaked in 1996 and also rapidly declined. His calculations go out to 2000.

In observing the plume of brown haze from East and South Asia, the westerly winds drive the haze in a northeast direction (soot in the Arctic).

The global warming temperature hiatus of 1998 to 2010 (in the Kaufman paper) and to 2012 currently and counting, is not uniform. Using WoodForTrees. org again, the Northern Hemisphere temperature has increased whereas the Southern Hemisphere has decreased. In fact, most of the global cooling observed is because the Southern Hemisphere temperatures have dragged down the global mean.

My take-away messages:

1) aerosols were declining when the "hiatus" was noted around 2000.

2) aerosols from coal & biomass burning are in the Northern Hemisphere where the temperatures are increasing. There is no substantial crossing of the equator by tropospheric weather systems to carry the haze South. What happens in the North usually stays in the North.

3) The observed impact of sulfates upon global temperatures as evidenced by volcano eruptions, involves the stratosphere and the coal & biomass burning pollution generally stays in the lower troposphere. Miles apart.

Although you both may like the paper by Kaufman et al, my comment is: its a modeling exercise, using a statistically suspect Mannian climate model, with inputs who's author states that global aerosols were rapidly declining from a peak 4 years before the temperature hiatus was noted, the aerosols are in the part of the globe that has been warming, not cooling and all this to wiggle around observational data on relative humidity in the troposphere and water vapor data in the stratosphere which do not support the Catastrophic climate change paradigm. This paradigm is not supported by these observations. Go back to the drawing board.

retired Physicist.

I went to they NOAA July 2011 site and found and lay person's description of the study.

I found at NASA a similar article lead author JP Vernier published by Geophysical Research Letters July 18, 2011. There are several authors that overlap between the Science July 21, 2011 and GRL. As they were measuring the same thing with the same instruments I wasn't sure why the two different publications other than to note that the GRL publication had many French authors and the Science had American authors. Since the satellites are a joint French/American venture and the ground based instruments were at Mauna Loa, it seems that.... I guess publish or perish is the motivation.

Now Vernier categorically states that the sulfates in the stratosphere did NOT come from China pollution but tropical lesser volcanos, capable of injecting SO2 18 to 20 kilometers. Once injected into the stratospheric layer, then the Brewer-Dobson currents would carry these particles higher up in the stratosphere. I did notice a discussion on this topic some time ago, that the height of injection determined if the stratospheric circulation would pick up aerosols or they would descend back into the troposphere. The other thing which was mentioned, that after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991, the measured stratospheric aerosols were being measured at background by 1998 through 2002. After 2002 the aerosols began to increase, at a level several magnitudes below those measured after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Mt. Pinatubo caused 0.5 Celsius cooling. The effect of smaller tropical volcanos is less, calculated at 0.1watts per square meter and this amount of reduction is suggested as causing a mild cooling. Aside from the issue of onset, when did the stratospheric aerosols rise to a level which influenced the global temperature, by my calculation, cooling began around 2001 when the measured aerosols were still background to 2002. The cooling preceded the aerosols by several years. I still think the effort put into making everything fit into the trace gas radiative transfer model of climate change would be better spent understanding "natural variability."

I believe I have done some work on this in trying to understand climate science. I have learned to avoid certain individuals who preach to the choir and anybody else who will listen. By their works they are known, not to be trusted.

retired Physicist

The fourth paragraph from the bottom: did you mean SO2 or CO2?

There are 5 items to read regarding the same data set: The GRL paper, the Science paper, the GRL pre-release introduction, NASA and NOAA all have editorials on the outcomes and interpretation. There have been several critiques of the Vernier/Solomon stratospheric aerosol research. My own editorializing came out as "Vernier categorically states..." He did not say it, I did. Upon reflection, I agree that this statement was over the top. I apologize.

I realize you found that I disparaged several climate researchers whom you hold in high regard. I did this from my own personal experiences; mocking their arrogance and manipulative behavior.

Regarding the science, I was not inaccurate; the climate did change from warm to cool prior to any change from background aerosols in the stratosphere.

I hope now we can agree that we are currently in a cooling period. The reasons for this cooling are not known. I have proposed a mechanism: the ocean-atmospheric coupling of currents, pressure gradients and cloud cover. I have made a climate prediction: cooling at least out to 2030 after which I expect another significant climate change; maybe further cooling, warming, or a stable temperature period. I do look at data, analysis, and other's interpretations and am usually modifying my own opinions as a result. On this thread I have been called a skeptic which I believe all scientists should be: i.e., skeptical. Science may be defined as: quantitatively trying to prove the experts wrong. Did I succeed?

Regarding the science, I was not inaccurate; the climate did change from warm to cool prior to any change from background aerosols in the stratosphere.

While it is possible to draw some negative linear trendlines, depending on where you start it (I haven't looked at whether these trends are statistically significant, though I doubt it due to the short time scale), I definitely think it's inaccurate to say that the climate has "changed to cool" over the past decade.

Belfrey

I used WoodForTrees. org HADCRUT3 raw data 1998 to 2012. Try it first raw data and then trend.

What is relevant to me, that Vernier says that the 1998 to 2002 period aerosols were at baseline. So I am choosing 1998 from the aerosol data and just plotting the global temperature raw data. Cooling began before there was any change from background in aerosols. The issues are, why did the climate get cooler? The decrease relative humidity in the troposphere data and the decline in water vapor from the stratosphere are all reflective of this cooling. What we do not have is an explanation of why did the cooling begin in the first place. I have given my opinion. The arguments of Solomon and Dressler & Davis are way after the fact and should be regarded as such. I have ascribed their motivation for saying what they say as trying to guide the discussion from what the data says: we are cooling, the models don't predict cooling. When GCM are tuned to this cooling, this puts climate sensitivity very low and projections of temperatures in 2100 are in the 0.5 to 1.0 Celsius range; very comfortable thank you. Atmospheric CO2 escalation is not matched by any temperature rise, and the modelers have no explanation except "aerosols" which don't rise for almost 5 years after the temperature record cooling had begun. A causal relationship is just not in the cards. Something else is going on. I ascribe it to natural variation which has received whoafully less attention and funding compared to the trace gas radiative transfer model in contemporary usage. We need to get back to understanding natural variation before tilting against windmills. I like Rosanonte (the journey), just not the group currently sitting in the saddle. They need to dismount and allow others, who see the world differently, a chance to work on climate change issues.

I used WoodForTrees. org HADCRUT3 raw data 1998 to 2012. Try it first raw data and then trend.

Yes, I think you missed my point. You can't say that we're now in a "cool climate" when we're sitting at the top of a long warm trend. You can draw a negative trend line (especially if you start at the peak of the major El Niño-related spike in 1998 - I see you took my advice for best cherry-picking), but most of 10 warmest years of the century, including 2011 and 2010 (depending on which record) are in the past decade. You can start reasonably calling it a "cool climate" if and when it goes back DOWN from this high point.

Belfrey

To begin a journey, one must take the first step. The first step in cooling began in 1998. We are coming down from a high, always uncomfortable for those addicted to escalating doses. Yet, down we come, withdrawing ever so slightly more heat from the environment, dragging down the temperatures. I am sorry that many will have to go cold turkey as those people will face themselves in the mirror, quietly bow their heads and say: "I was wrong." Those three little words, like a reluctant suitor, barely whispered from the throat. The courage is manifest when one says it out loud, where the focus of your attention can hear it. Some people miss these opportunities and go on wandering and wondering of what might have been. Go back to WoodForTrees. org. Overlay the last 15 years of temperature with CO2 concentrations. Use the trend function. Try it. I am not sure you will like it, its just what you need to do to move forward; no regrets.

Overlay the last 15 years of temperature with CO2 concentrations. Use the trend function. Try it. I am not sure you will like it, its just what you need to do to move forward; no regrets.

The preceding post is the kind of crap that P-r has been talking about. If you don't understand yet why this little exercise does not disprove AGW (after I've explained it several times), then I have to question whether it's worth continuing with you. You have a lot of nerve talking about "arrogance" of climate researchers, when your arguments show your ignorance on the topic (which is possibly intentional, since you stick to such arguments after they've been repeatedly refuted), yet you count your own "gut instinct" predictions as more valid than those of most of the leading experts in the field.