budbromley

The error in climate sensitivity is explained here, first for the layman and then for the scientist.

It is elementary physics that temperature has a logarithmic response to increasing carbon dioxide. This means doubling the CO2 in the air does not mean a doubling of temperature. The atmosphere is insensitive to CO2, all other things equal. Yet the models say that when CO2 doubles compared to some ad hoc baseline, temperatures should soar. The models are wrong, as we’ve seen. The most likely reason for their continued failure is that the replacing of the known logarithmic response with a speculated exponential-like response is wrong. In other words, scientists have guessed that CO2 (and other GHGs) respond much more dramatically in the atmosphere than it does “in the lab.”

Where did they get this idea? From the belief that it must be true, from believing that humans can only have a negative effect on the environment. But if this belief were true, then the models which incorporate it would make good forecasts. They don’t, so etc. etc.

It is true, of course, that burning oil releases CO2 into atmosphere. Is that bad? How do we know?

The only answer is: the models say increased CO2 will cause increasing temperatures. In reality, CO2 has increased, partly because of human contributions and partly because the earth slightly warmed (after it slightly cooled) as said above. But did temperatures increase as predicted? No, sir, they did not. What must that mean? Only one thing: the models are wrong. Therefore, it is a fallacy to say that we must “do what whatever we can” to “hold” temperatures “below a 2 degree” increase.

We do not, right now, know the effect our activities are having on the temperature. Therefore, it is preposterous to say we know what we can do to limit warming to 2 C. Plus, it’s much more plausible that more direct harm would come to people by cutting off their supply of cheap, reliable fuel. What about all those areas of the world that still have to burn wood or dung? Wouldn’t it be more humane to provide them with fossil fuels?

Fossil fuels would also help us mitigate against whatever changes in the climate we do see, whether these changes were wholly or partially caused by mankind. Just think: don’t people live well in the extreme north in the modern era, whereas in times past this was nearly impossible. Why? Only one answer: reliance on fossil fuels.

Somehow we have developed the idea, in the face of all evidence, that there is no way we can adjust to small, subtle changes in the climate. As technology increases—increases aided by fossil fuels—our ability to adapt gets better. Even if temperatures “soar”, as predicted, a few tenths of a degree over the next fifty years, surely it makes more sense to mitigate against these changes, rather than to hand over to complete control of the economy to the government?

The above explanation is by WMBriggs.  http://wmbriggs.com/post/18332/

And now for the scientist…

Feet of clay: The official errors that exaggerated global warming–part 2
Guest Blogger / 2 days ago September 3, 2016
Part II: How the central estimate of pre-feedback warming was exaggerated

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

In this series I am exploring the cumulative errors, large and small, through which the climatological establishment has succeeded in greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity. Since the series concerns itself chiefly with equilibrium sensitivity, time-dependencies, including those arising from non-linear feedbacks, are irrelevant.

In Part I, I described a small error by which the climate establishment determines the official central estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity as the inter-model mean equilibrium sensitivity rather than determining that central estimate directly from the inter-model mean value of the temperature feedback factor f. For it is the interval of values for f that dictates the interval of final or equilibrium climate sensitivity and accounts for its hitherto poorly-constrained breadth [1.5, 4.5] K. Any credible probability-density function for final sensitivity must, therefore, center on the inter-model mean value of f, and not on the inter-model mean value of ΔT, skewed as it is by the rectangular-hyperbolic (and hence non-linear) form of the official system gain equation G = (1 – f)–1.

I showed that the effect of that first error was to overstate the key central estimates of final sensitivity by between 12.5% and 34%.

Part II, which will necessarily be lengthy and full of equations, will examine another apparently small but actually significant error that leads to an exaggeration of reference or pre-feedback climate sensitivity ΔT0 and hence of final sensitivity ΔT.

For convenience, the official equation (1) of climate sensitivity as it now stands is here repeated. There is much wrong with this equation, but, like it or not, it is what the climate establishment uses. In Part I, it was calibrated closely and successfully against the outputs of both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 model ensembles.

(1) clip_image002

where clip_image004

Fig. 1 illuminates the interrelation between the various terms in (1). In the current understanding, the reference or pre-feedback sensitivity ΔT0 is simply the product of the official value of radiative forcing ΔF0 = 3.708 W m–2 and the official value of the reference sensitivity parameter λ0 = 3.2–1 K W–1 m2, so that ΔT0 = 1.159 K (see e.g. AR4, p. 631 fn.).

However, as George White, an electronics engineer, has pointed out (pers. comm., 2016), in using a fixed value for the crucial reference sensitivity parameter λ0 the climate establishment are erroneously treating the fourth-power Stefan-Boltzmann equation as though it were linear, when of course it is exponential.

This mistreatment in itself leads to a small exaggeration, as I shall now show, but it is indicative of a deeper and more influential error. For George White’s query has led me to re-examine how, in official climatology, λ0 came to have the value at or near 0.312 K W–1 m2 that all current models use.

clip_image006

Fig. 1 Illumination of the official climate-sensitivity equation (1)

The fundamental equation (2) of radiative transfer relates flux density Fn in Watts per square meter to the corresponding temperature Tn in Kelvin at some surface n of a planetary body (and usually at the emission surface n = 0):

(2) clip_image008 | Stefan-Boltzmann equation

where the Stefan-Boltzmann constant σ is equal to 5.6704 x 10–8 W m–2 K–4, and the emissivity εn of the relevant surface n is, by Kirchhoff’s radiation law, equal to its absorptivity. At the Earth’s reference or emission surface n = 0, a mean 5.3 km above ground level, emissivity ε0, particularly with respect to the near-infrared long-wave radiation with which we are concerned, is vanishingly different from unity.

The Earth’s mean emission flux density F0 is given by (3),

(3) clip_image010 238.175 W m–2,

where S0 = 1361 W m–2 is total solar irradiance (SORCE/TIM, 2016); α = 0.3 is the Earth’s mean albedo, and 4 is the ratio of the surface area of the rotating near-spherical Earth to that of the disk that the planet presents to incoming solar radiation. Rearranging (2) as (4) and setting n = 0 gives the Earth’s mean emission temperature T0:

(4) clip_image012 254.578 K.

A similar calculation may be performed at the Earth’s hard-deck surface S. We know that global mean surface temperature TS is 288 K, and measured emissivity εS ≈ 0.96. Accordingly, (3) gives FS as 374.503 W m–2. This value is often given as 390 W m–2, for εS is frequently taken as unity, since little error arises from that assumption.

The first derivative λ0 of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation relating the emission temperature T0 to emission flux density F0 before any radiative perturbation is given by (5):

(5) clip_image014 clip_image016 0.267 K W–1 m2.

The surface equivalent λS = TS / (4FS) = 0.192 K W–1 m2 (or 0.185 if εS is taken as unity).

The official radiative forcing in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration is given by the approximately logarithmic relation (6) (Myhre et al., 1998; AR3, ch. 6.1). We shall see later in this series that this value is an exaggeration, but let us use it for now.

(6) clip_image018 3.708 W m–2.

Then the direct or reference warming in response to a CO2 doubling is given by

(7) clip_image020 0.991 K.

A similar result may be obtained thus: where Fμ = F0 + ΔF0 = 238.175 + 3.708 = 241.883 W m–2, using (2) gives Tμ:

(8) clip_image022 255.563 K.

Then –

(9) clip_image024 0.985 K,

a little less than the result in (7), the small difference being caused by the fact that λ0 cannot have a fixed value, because, as George White rightly points out, it is the first derivative of a fourth-power relation and hence represents the slope of the curve of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation at some particular value for radiative flux and corresponding value for temperature.

Thus, the value of λ0, and hence that of climate sensitivity, must decline by little and little as the temperature increases, as the slightly non-linear curve in Fig. 2 shows.

clip_image026

Fig. 2 The first derivative λ0 = T0 / (4F0) of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, which is the slope of a line tangent to the red curve above, declines by little and little as T0, F0 increase.

The value of λ0 may also be deduced from eq. (3) [here (10)] of Hansen (1984), who says [with notation altered to conform to the present work]:

“… for changes of solar irradiance,

(10) clip_image028 …

“Thus, if S0 increases by a small percentage δ, T0 increases by δ/4. For example, a 2% change in solar irradiance would change T0 by about 0.5%, or 1.2-1.3 K.”

Hansen’s 1984 paper equated the radiative forcing ΔF0 from a doubled CO2 concentration with a 2% increase ΔF0 = 4.764 W m–2 in emission flux density, which is where the value 1.2-1.3 K for ΔT0 = ΔF0λ0 seems first to have arisen. However, if today’s substantially smaller official value ΔF0 = 3.708 W m–2 (Myhre et al., 1998; AR3, ch. 6.1) is substituted, then by (10), which is Hansen’s equation, ΔT0 becomes 0.991 K, near-identical to the result in (7) here, providing further confirmation that the reference or pre-feedback temperature response to a CO2 doubling should less than 1 K.

The Charney Report of 1979 assumed that the entire sensitivity calculation should be done with surface values FS, TS, so that, for the 283 K mean surface temperature assumed therein, the corresponding surface radiative flux obtained via (2) is 363.739 W m–2, whereupon λS was found equal to a mere 0.195 K W–1 m2, near-identical to the surface value λS = 0.192 K determined from (5).

Likewise, Möller (1963), presenting the first of three energy-balance models, assumed today’s global mean surface temperature 288 K, determined from (2) the corresponding surface flux 390 W m–2, and accordingly found λS = 288 / (4 x 390) = 0.185 K W–1 m2, under the assumption that surface emissivity εS was equal to unity.

Notwithstanding all these indications that λ0 is below, and perhaps well below, 0.312 K W–1 m2 and is in any event not a constant, IPCC assumes this “uniform” value, as the following footnote from AR4, p.631, demonstrates [with notation and units adjusted to conform to the present series]:

“Under these simplifying assumptions the amplification of the global warming from a feedback parameter c (in W m–2 K–1) with no other feedbacks operating is 1 / (1 – c λ0), where λ0 is the ‘uniform temperature’ radiative cooling response (of value approximately 3.2–1 K W–1 m2; Bony et al., 2006). If n independent feedbacks operate, c is replaced by (c1 + c2 +… + cn).”

How did this influential error arise? James Hansen, in his 1984 paper, had suggested that a CO2 doubling would raise global mean surface temperature by 1.2-1.3 K rather than just 1 K in the absence of feedbacks. The following year, Michael Schlesinger described the erroneous methodology that permitted Hansen’s value for ΔT0 to be preserved even as the official value for ΔF0 fell from Hansen’s 4.8 W m–2 per CO2 doubling to today’s official (but still much overstated) 3.7 W m–2.

In 1985, Schlesinger stated that the planetary radiative-energy budget was given by (11):

(11) clip_image030

where N0 is the net radiation at the top of the atmosphere, F0 is the downward flux density at the emission altitude net of albedo as determined in (3), and R0 is the long-wave upward flux density at that altitude. Energy balance requires that N0 = 0, from which (3, 4) follow.

Then Schlesinger decided to express N0 in terms of the surface temperature TS rather than the emission temperature T0 by using surface temperature TS as the numerator and yet by using emission flux F0 in the denominator of the first derivative of the fundamental equation (2) of radiative transfer.

In short, he was applying the Stefan Boltzmann equation by straddling uncomfortably across two distinct surfaces in a manner never intended either by Jozef Stefan (the only Slovene after whom an equation has been named) or his distinguished Austrian pupil Ludwig Boltzmann, who, 15 years later, before committing suicide in despair at his own failure to convince the world of the existence of atoms, had provided a firm theoretical demonstration of Stefan’s empirical result by reference to Planck’s blackbody law.

Since the Stefan-Boltzmann equation directly relates radiative flux and temperature at a single surface, the official abandonment of this restriction – which has not been explained anywhere, as far as I can discover – is, to say the least, a questionable novelty.

For we have seen that the Earth’s hard-deck emissivity εS is about 0.96, and that its emission-surface emissivity ε0, particularly with respect to long-wave radiation, is unity. Schlesinger, however, says:

“N0 can be expressed in terms of the surface temperature TS, rather than [emission temperature] T0 by introducing an effective planetary emissivity εp, in (12):

(12) clip_image032 0.6clip_image034,

so that, in (13),

(13) clip_image036 0.302 K W–1 m2.

This official approach embodies a serious error arising from a misunderstanding not only of (2), which relates temperature and flux at the same surface and not at two distinct surfaces, but also of the fundamental architecture of the climate.

Any change in net flux density F0 at the mean emission altitude (approximately 5.3 km above ground level) will, via (2), cause a corresponding change in emission temperature T0 at that altitude. Then, by way of the temperature lapse rate, which is at present at a near-uniform 6.5 K km–1 just about everywhere (Fig. 3), that change in T0 becomes an identical change TS in surface temperature.

clip_image038

Fig. 3 Altitudinal temperature profiles for stations from 71°N to 90°S at 30 April 2011, showing little latitudinal variation in the lapse-rate of temperature with altitude. Source: Colin Davidson, pers. comm., August 2016.

But what if albedo or cloud cover or water vapor, and hence the lapse rate itself, were to change as a result of warming? Any such change would not affect the reference temperature change ΔT0: instead, it would be a temperature feedback affecting final climate sensitivity ΔT.

The official sensitivity equation thus already allows for the possibility that the lapse-rate may change. There is accordingly no excuse for tampering with the first derivative of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation (2) by using temperature at one altitude and flux at quite another and conjuring into infelicitous existence an “effective emissivity” quite unrelated to true emissivity and serving no purpose except unjustifiably to exaggerate λ0 and hence climate sensitivity.

One might just as plausibly – and just as erroneously – choose to relate emission temperature with surface flux, in which event λ0 would fall to 254.6 / [4(390.1)] = 0.163 K W–1 m2, little more than half of the models’ current and vastly-overstated value.

This value 0.163 K W–1 m2 was in fact obtained by Newell & Dopplick (1979), by an approach that indeed combined elements of surface flux FS and emission temperature T0.

The same year the Charney Report, on the basis of hard-deck surface values TS and FS for temperature and corresponding radiative flux density respectively, found λS to be 0.192 K W–1 m2.

IPCC, followed by (or following) the overwhelming majority of the models, takes 3.2–1, or 0.3125, as the value of λ0. This choice thus embodies two errors one of modest effect and one of large, in the official determination of λ0. The error of modest effect is to treat λ0 as though it were constant; the error of large effect is to misapply the fundamental equation of radiative transfer by straddling two distinct surfaces in using it to determine λ0. As an expert reviewer for AR5, I asked IPCC to provide an explanation showing how λ0 is officially derived. IPCC curtly rejected my recommendation. Perhaps some of its supporters might assist us here.

In combination, the errors identified in Parts I and II of this series have led to a significant exaggeration of the reference sensitivity ΔT0, and commensurately of the final sensitivity ΔT, even before the effect of the errors on temperature feedbacks is taken into account. The official value ΔT0 = 1.159 K determined by taking the product of IPCC’s value 0.3125 K W m–1 for λ0 and its value 3.708 W m–2 for ΔF0 is about 17.5% above the ΔT0 = 0.985 K determined in (9).

Part I of this series established that the CMIP5 models had given the central estimate of final climate sensitivity ΔT as 3.2 K when determination of the central estimate of final sensitivity from the inter-model mean central estimate of the feedback factor f would mandate only 2.7 K. The CMIP 5 models had thus already overestimated the central estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity ΔT by about 18.5%.

The overstatement of the CMIP5 central estimate of climate sensitivity resulting from the combined errors identified in parts I and II of this series is accordingly of order 40%.

This finding that the current official central estimate climate sensitivity is about 40% too large does not yet take account of the effect of the official overstatement of λ0 on the magnitude of that temperature feedback factor f. We shall consider that question in Part III.

For now, the central estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity should be 2.3 K rather than CMIP5’s 3.2 K. Though each of the errors we are finding is smallish, their combined influence is already large, and will become larger as the compounding influence of further errors comes to be taken into account as the series unfolds.

Table 1 shows various values of λ0, compared with the reference value 0.264 K W–1 m2 obtained from (8).

Table 1: Some values of the reference climate-sensitivity parameter λ0
Source Method Value of λ0 x 3.7 = ΔT0 Ratio
Newell & Dopplick (1979) T0 / (4FS) 0.163 K W–1 m2 0.604 K 0.613
Möller (1963) TS / (4FS) 0.185 K W–1 m2 0.686 K 0.696
Callendar (1938) TS / (4FS) 0.195 K W–1 m2 0.723 K 0.734
From (8) here T0 / (4F0) 0.264 K W–1 m2 0.985 K 1.000
Hansen (1984) T0 / (4F0) 0.267 K W–1 m2 0.990 K 1.005
From (7) here T0 / (4F0) 0.267 K W–1 m2 0.991 K 1.006
Schlesinger (1985) TS / (4F0) 0.302 K W–1 m2 1.121 K 1.138
IPCC (AR4, p. 631 fn.) 3.2–1 0.312 K W–1 m2 1.159 K 1.177
Nearly all models adopt values of λ0 that are close to or identical with IPCC’s value, which appears to have been adopted for no better reason that it is the reciprocal of 3.2, and is thus somewhat greater even than the exaggerated value obtained by Schlesinger (1985) and much copied thereafter.

In the next instalment, we shall consider the effect of the official exaggeration of λ0 on the determination of temperature feedbacks, and we shall recommend a simple method of improving the reliability of climate sensitivity calculations by doing away with λ0 altogether.

I end by asking three questions of the Watts Up With That community.

1. Is there any legitimate scientific justification for Schlesinger’s “effective emissivity” and for the consequent determination of λ0 as the ratio of surface temperature to four times emission flux density?

2. One or two commenters have suggested that the Stefan-Boltzmann calculation should be performed entirely at the hard-deck surface when determining climate sensitivity and not at the emission surface a mean 5.3 km above us. Professor Lindzen, who knows more about the atmosphere than anyone I have met, takes the view I have taken here: that the calculation should be performed at the emission surface and the temperature change translated straight to the hard-deck surface via the lapse-rate, so that (before any lapse-rate feedback, at any rate) ΔTS ≈ ΔT0. This implies λ0 = 0.264 K W–1 m2, the value taken as normative in Table 1.

3. Does anyone here want to maintain that errors such as these are not represented in the models because they operate in a manner entirely different from what is suggested by the official climate-sensitivity equation (1)? If so, I shall be happy to conclude the series in due course with an additional article summarizing the considerable evidence that the models have been constructed precisely to embody and to perpetuate each of the errors demonstrated here, though it will not be suggested that the creators or operators of the models have any idea that what they are doing is as erroneous as it will prove to be.

Ø Next: How temperature feedbacks came to be exaggerated in official climatology.

References

Charney J (1979) Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment: Report of an Ad-Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, Climate Research Board, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Research Council, Nat. Acad. Sci., Washington DC, July, pp. 22

Hansen J, Lacis A, Rind D, Russell G, Stone P, Fung I, Ruedy R, Lerner J (1984) Climate sensitivity: analysis of feedback mechanisms. Meteorol. Monographs 29:130–163

IPCC (1990-2013) Assessment Reports AR1-5 are available from http://www.ipcc.ch

Möller F (1963) On the influence of changes in CO2 concentration in air on the radiative balance of the Earth’s surface and on the climate. J. Geophys. Res. 68:3877-3886

Newell RE, Dopplick TG (1979) Questions concerning the possible influence of anthropogenic CO2 on atmospheric temperature. J. Appl. Meteor. 18:822-825

Myhre G, Highwood EJ, Shine KP, Stordal F (1998) New estimates of radiative forcing due to well-mixed greenhouse gases. Geophys. Res. Lett. 25(14):2715–2718

Roe G (2009) Feedbacks, timescales, and seeing red. Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 37:93-115

Schlesinger ME (1985) Quantitative analysis of feedbacks in climate models simulations of CO2-induced warming. In: Physically-Based Modelling and Simulation of Climate and Climatic Change – Part II (Schlesinger ME, ed.), Kluwer Acad. Pubrs. Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1988, 653-735.

SORCE/TIM latest quarterly plot of total solar irradiance, 4 June 2016 to 26 August 2016. http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_3month_640x480.png, accessed 3 September 2016

Vial J, Dufresne J, Bony S (2013) On the interpretation of inter-model spread in CMIP5 climate sensitivity estimates. Clim Dyn 41: 3339, doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1725-9

September 3, 2016 in Climate sensitivity.

by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Feet of clay: The official errors that exaggerated global warming–part 2

The global warming case against Exxon and some free market think tanks by New York’s Attorney General and a posse of AG’s from other states “has collapsed due to its own willful dishonesty.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-exxon-case-unraveled-1472598472

As a general principle, I don’t like populist politicians of any ilk. Whether the Obama/Clinton ilk or the Trump ilk or the Bush/Rove/Chaney ilk or the Johnson ilk. Populism does not work well in a republic. Everyone in a republic must be subject to the same laws, or else there is no republic. A civilized society cannot swing from side to side based on who bought what and from whom on the top 10.

I look at it differently perhaps. I cannot see a scenario wherein populist Trump throws away the brand he created over his lifetime by becoming a corrupt Washington D.C. politician or an all out tyrant/dictator. Trump already has a legacy that many people envy and obviously he adores. I don’t care for gold doorknobs, casinos, golf and $1000 hotel rooms myself. But why would Trump throw away that brand to join the corrupt Washington D.C. establishment which he already knows the people hate?

I think it is much more likely that Trump will do what he thinks will satisfy the country, which obviously includes restoring individual liberty and a country you can be proud of, and getting big brother and sister out of your pocket and out of your life. In my opinion, Trump is far more libertarian in his approach than the Libertarian candidates.

Trump’s couth and charisma are difficult or impossible to appreciate, but that is not a reason to vote against him. You don’t vote against somebody for President because you hate his hairstyle or the way he talks.

I will vote against anyone for President and Congress who has sustained Obama’s policies, regardless of party, especially the non-stop unconscionable regime change wars and drone bombings now underway in eight countries. Yes, Hillary, it makes a lot of difference. Then, on top of that, I have a giant issue with Obama’s onerous and expanding federal government and policies, which Hillary says she plans to continue.

Non-partisan polls show that between 60% to 80% of the people think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. The ratings for Congress are in the gutter from which politicians steal their money. The establishment fear Trump because they know Trump will have public support and even a mandate to end their thieving ways.

Allow Washington’s ways to continue? Ladies and gentlemen, today, you are witnessing how government and banksters march the world to war, time and again. They make everybody angry, then the news is all about nukes in N. Korea, China in the South China Sea, Russia’s military in Ukraine and inside their borders with Europe. Then they blame an external enemy and pull the trigger and announce it on the news. Voila, you or your sons and daughters are drafted and we are at war again. There is only one party in Washington, D.C.  It is the war party.

Irradiance is the radiant flux (power) received by a surface per unit area. The unit of irradiance is watt per square meter (W/m2). So-called greenhouse warming results from infrared radiation from the sun and from nearby molecules or reflection, convection, or conduction from adjacent objects like the land surface, buildings, etc. Infrared radiation is continually being absorbed and remitted at a lower wavelength by molecules such as water vapor, CO2, methane and nitrous oxide in the air. These molecules cannot store radiative energy, they absorb and transform the radiative energy into molecular and atomic motion (vibrations, bending and stretching of bonds, collisions, etc ) and then remit any remaining radiation at a lower infrared wavelength.

Only some molecules in the atmosphere absorb infrared radiation; for example, nitrogen and oxygen are the major gases in our atmosphere, 78% and 21% concentration in air respectively, and the concentration of these gases can be measured accurately and reproducibly to hundredths of a percent, but nitrogen does not absorb and remit infrared radiation and oxygen and ozone (O3) absorb solar radiation only in the very short wavelengths – below 0.3μm.   In the longer, lower energy wavelengths of re-radiation, ozone absorbs around 9.6μm but oxygen doesn’t absorb at all.  And ozone concentration is only 0.000004%.  Like nitrogen, oxygen is transparent to re-radiation.   Infrared radiation passes through these molecules because there are no quantum energy bands in these molecules for absorption at infrared wavelengths of re-radiation.  On the other hand, water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and some other trace gases absorb infrared radiation and immediately re-emit (i.e. re-radiate) infrared radiation but at a lower wavelength. Nearby molecules of water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide then absorb the radiation at the lower infrared wavelength, which increases their motion and then re-emit the radiation at a lower wavelength in a cascade to lower and lower energy levels until eventually the only energy left is molecular motion from collisions, no radiant energy remains.

The concentration of water vapor/clouds in the atmosphere varies between about 4% near the equator to near 0% at the poles and high altitudes. This wide variation is caused by many factors. Water vapor’s irradiance in infrared wavelengths is measured to be 10’s of watts per square meter (W/m2).

The irradiance in infrared wavelengths of CO2 at 0.04% concentration in air is measured to be about 1.5 watts per square meter (W/m2). The concentration of methane (CH4, or natural gas) in air is only about 0.00017% and – like CO2 – can be accurately measured at a specific point but varies widely depending on many different factors. At that low concentration, methane’s infrared irradiance is only about 0.5 W/m2. The Infrared irradiance (i.e. greenhouse warming or radiative forcing) of both water vapor and CO2 are lower in higher, colder latitudes, around the north and south poles, because there is less radiation from the sun there and because the concentration of both gases in air is relatively lower there. The cumulative amount, human and natural, of all CO2 gas plus all methane gas that exists in the atmosphere, i.e. the two gases typically given as the two most dangerous greenhouse gases, has a greenhouse irradiance/ radiative forcing which is 5 times lower than water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere varies between about 0.045% and 0.019%…or up to 100 times lower concentration and up to 100 times less variation than water vapor. It is statistical fallacy to use a global average CO2 concentration in computer models at 0.04% or 400 ppm because CO2 follows Henry’s law and is not uniformly distributed or homogenous around the globe. Henry’s Law constant is temperature dependent. Henry’s Law requires that CO2 in the atmosphere at a given temperature at standard atmospheric pressure at sea level will reach an equilibrium concentration with about 50 times more CO2 dissolved in water than CO2 gas in the atmosphere immediately above the water. At the poles, CO2 concentration in air is low at 0.019% or 190 ppm, about where it was during the great ice ages. At tropical, warm latitudes near the equator, CO2 concentration is measured to be about 0.045% or 450 ppm at sea level. CO2 concentration in the water beneath each of those locations will be about 50 times higher than the air above it, according to Henry’s Law.

One implication of Henry’s Law: if the AGW hypothesis were correct, then there would be runaway dangerous warming from a hotspot in the atmosphere near the equator. AGW proponents have been sounding alarm and near panic about reaching or passing a point of no return now, around 400 ppm.  We have exceeded 400 ppm around the equator, but no such hot spot exists, as measured by satellites.

Another implication of Henry’s law: it would take about 4500 years to double the atmospheric concentration of CO2, if all other trends remain the same as today, because incrementally more CO2 would be absorbed into the oceans, lakes and all water to maintain the 50:1 Henry’s Law equilibrium constant.

Another implication of Henry’s law: models and proxy measurement constructions of prehistoric atmospheric CO2 concentrations based on ice core drilling, typically in Antarctica, Greenland, or glaciers, are not by themselves statistically reliable estimates of global CO2 concentration, but only representative of their specific sampling location.

Water vapor condenses into mist and raindrops as warm air rises and turns cooler in the upper atmosphere. The cooler mist and drops absorb CO2 from the air, immediately becoming weak carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is the same as you drink in soda pops. The colder the rain, the higher the concentration of carbonic acid, and the lower the pH and more acidic the raindrop, same as your soda pop.  The surface area of all the raindrops in the air, on plants, in the soil and the surface area of all rivers, lakes, oceans and puddles, which is an enormous water surface area, is continuously absorbing CO2 from the air and following Henry’s law.  

Carbonic acidified water spontaneously reacts with calcium and other mineral ions dissolved in the water to form calcium carbonate, which eventually precipitates as a solid and sinks to the bottom of the oceans or lakes as limestone (CaCO3, calcium carbonate.) This simple reaction continually removes CO2 (carbonic acid) from the water, and then more CO2 is absorbed from the air to maintain the Henry’s Law equilibrium. Since there is more dissolved calcium in the soluble ionic form of calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) in the top 100 meters of ocean water than all of the carbon on earth, that is, there is infinite buffering capacity for carbon and carbon dioxide, the ocean is termed an “infinite sink” for CO2.  This means that earth’s oceans can never become acidic, i.e. pH can never be less than 7, due to carbon dioxide. Acidifying the oceans is another scare tactic of global warming proponents.

To release CO2 from limestone back into water or air requires the extreme high heat of a volcano, leaving behind CaO (i.e. solid lime). This volcanic re-release of carbon back into the atmosphere has been continuous in human history. Carbon and water (carbohydrates) are the major building block of all life on earth and all of the carbon that has ever been in a living creature or plant has come from CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 from the atmosphere is the only source of carbon for living plants and creatures.  To dissolve CO2 into water requires no additional energy or catalyst, whether that water is in the ocean, or in a plant or animal. CO2 is highly soluble in water and the reaction produces heat, i.e. is exothermic. This is all part of earth’s carbon cycle.  Read all about it.

Humans have no control of the concentration of water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere. The concentration of water vapor and clouds varies widely over our planet for many different reasons and the conditions are changing naturally and continuously. The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis proposed that the tiny amount of irradiance from CO2 would force or trigger dangerous warming since CO2 irradiance is absorbed primarily by more prevalent water vapor and clouds and then increased warming causes increased evaporation and clouds; so went their hypothesis. But the concentration of water vapor and clouds and the continual re-emission of radiation, i.e. irradiance, of water vapor and clouds is very much larger and more variable than the irradiance of CO2 and methane combined.  And water vapor and clouds both absorb and re-emit infrared radiation as well as reflect radiation from the sun back into to the upper atmosphere and space.  An increase in cloud cover of 10% would be enough to cancel out global warming effects of increased CO2 altogether (Barry & Chorley).

And further, the available quantum energy bands in atmospheric CO2 molecules are already full. Adding more CO2 to our present CO2 level does not result in proportionally more greenhouse warming, but instead progressively less and less warming following a log curve as more CO2 is added. Climate will be progressively less sensitive to CO2.

In fact, the greenhouse warming irradiance from water vapor and clouds is so much larger and more variable than CO2 and methane irradiance that it is impossible in the real world at the current state of the art to measure a statistically significant amount of radiative forcing (i.e. irradiance) of CO2 and methane on water vapor and clouds,  which is the proposed cause-effect explanation for global warming.  What they have proposed cannot be usefully measured.  (The warming caused by the 10% contribution of humans to total CO2 cannot be measured.)  Since the proposed cause and effect cannot be measured by scientific and statistical standards, the AGW hypothesis cannot be proven by its salesmen,  AGW proponents.  It’s just guesswork which cannot be verified.  They probably sell snake oil elixirs too. 

One of the fundamental principles of science is that a hypothesis must be testable. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a proposed explanation to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that it be testable, i.e. measurable. Therefore, the AGW is not science. That should be a full stop.

But, wait there is more.  AGW proponents harshly criticize and threaten to prosecute skeptics and so-called deniers of AGW as being non-scientific or liars. Meanwhile AGW proponents continue to scare people in order to enable more taxation, more spending, more limitations on natural resources, more climate propaganda in schools and media, more crony sustainability subsidy deals, and more control over people’s lives.

It is a giant fraud. It is not science. AGW proponents should be investigated, prosecuted, fined and jailed. The damages they have caused the people are in the trillions of dollars. What did they know and when did they know it?  The fees alone on the triple damage settlements against global elites would make many class-action plaintiffs lawyers fabulously rich, not too mention compensating the people for damages. Recovery of provable damages is a justifiable re-distribution of wealth.

An open letter by my colorful friend Yuri in Gloucester, MA. Published after he managed to talk with the publisher who, evidently, overruled the refusal of the editor to print it. I think Yuri speaks for a lot of us.

“It is really quite simple. The ‘left’ and ‘right’, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, have been duped into a war against each other over ‘issues’ that truly separate, rather than unite, but that are also not the most senior issues. Although these issues present completely different ideological arguments and demands, as they must to gain the emotional buy-in from those duped, they are not the most threatening or ultimately dangerous to all–not just one ‘side’ or the other. This is the genius of the Hegelian Dialectic in action. All the while the left and right are battling over their ‘issues’, thesis and antithesis, the master manipulators achieve their end game–synthesis–which is the greatest threat to all: complete control over all. This is the proven, age-old, strategy in action: divide and conquer. Today, we have the master manipulators as those elite who control both major political parties and who are making inroads to other parties, such as the Libertarian Party (via their VP, a long-term CFR member). The master manipulators stoke the fires of division, while they gain greater State power and greater control of the State. Ultimately, while the ‘left’ and ‘right’ demand the State handle their ‘issues’ and remove some right from the other–for example, the ‘left’ demanding ‘gun control’ and the right demanding no marriages for homosexual couples, for example (whereas, if the State is given power to officiate and certify marriages for anyone, then by merit of equal protection, it must certify for all, else the State should not be in the ‘marriage’ business–this represents a cultural, moral, and a spiritual issue, not a State governance issue)–the elite garner more power over all and also erode other necessary elements of the Republic’s infrastructure. In other words, while the malcontents are fighting, the tyrants are increasing their power with each new law that erodes liberties and freedom for all. Once we realize that when we use the State to force others to align with our ideologies that we enable the State to use force against us all, we should be very, very wary of ever trying to do this, again. Yet, given the emotional pull of said ‘issues’, the natural reaction of most is to continue to emote into serfdom. The real game is always liberty or tyranny. Be duped and attempt to use the State to create your own perfect Utopia, or be free and use your own self-determination and maturity to live and let live, as long as no harm is done to any other. The latter is the key to liberty and freedom yet it requires thought, maturity, and restraint. Carry on.”

DM Chaney “Thoughts on Liberty” (Daily Journal Drafts)

The party platform adopted at the Democratic National Convention, on page 45, calls for a national mobilization on the scale of World War II. What enemy deserves the wrath endured by Hirohito and Hitler? Climate change! Democrats want to declare a war on climate.  Post by David Wojick

Source: The Democrat’s foolish War on Climate

https://judithcurry.com/2016/08/17/the-democrats-foolish-war-on-climate/#more-22008

“In addition to the substantial economic costs and minimal environmental benefits, and disregarding the fact that many climatologists question the validity of the EPA’s endangerment finding, the criticisms in the [EPA’s Office of Inspector General] OIG’s new report are another reason to pull the plug on the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases.”

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/11/new-epa-inspector-general-report-one-more-reason-to-reject-climate-change-regulation

What we see clearly illustrated in the study at the link below is one of the fundamental problems of climate science: the natural variability is so large in Earth’s climate that teasing out a single climate variable (such as global climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration) is statistically impossible. The signal is lost in the noise.

The natural variability of even the most significant variables (such as the atmospheric concentration of water vapor and clouds) is so large that the measurement of smaller variables (such as atmospheric CO2 concentration [~400 ppm]) cannot be distinguished from random noise in the measurement process itself. So far, there are no accurate and reproducible models of some of the most significant climate variables such as water vapor and clouds.

Therefore, it is a clear case of scientific fraud and criminal fraud for politicians to continue policies of paying out billions of taxpayer dollars, as well as a clear case of criminal fraud against any person or entity soliciting donations, since the claim that human-produced CO2 is pollution, or is an endangerment, is scientifically unproven.  Moreover, the claim by alarmist that human-produced CO2 is contributing or triggering dangerous warming is even less provable since the atmospheric concentration of the human-contributed proportion of total CO2 [~40 ppm] and the warming or cooling that might be caused by that tiny amount cannot be accurately and reproducibly measured or modeled.

If anything, attorneys general, district attorneys, prosecutors and class action plaintiff attorneys should be arresting, impeaching and prosecuting those responsible for this ongoing fraud, which represents hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, possibly trillions of dollars. The people should be reimbursed. How long will you allow these people to yell fire in the theater before you demand that they stop and punish them?

Re: floods and heavy rains: “no evidence was found for changes in extreme precipitation attributable to climate change in the available observed record.” ~ Karin van der Wiel1,2,*, Sarah B. Kapnick2, Gabriel A. Vecchi2, William F Cooke2,3, Thomas L Delworth2, Liwei Jia1,2, Hiroyuki Murakami1,2, Seth Underwood2, and Fanrong Zeng2
1 Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
2 NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey
3 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0307.1