Global Warming - REAL, but NOT a Big DEAL

[UPDATE: I reposted this at WUWT, the most viewed Climate website in the world, and have over 10,000 page views and 230 comments.]
We've reached a turning point where it is hard for any Global Warming Alarmist to claim (with a straight face) that the world as we know it is about to end in a decade or two or three unless we stop burning fossil fuels. Anyone deluded or foolish enough to make such a claim would be laughed at by many audiences.

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL

Yes, the world has warmed 1°F to 1.5°F (0.6°C to 0.8°C) since 1880 when relatively good thermometers became available. Yes, part of that warming is due to human activities, mainly burning unprecedented quantities of fossil fuels that continue to drive an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. The Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect is a scientific fact!

BUT GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT A BIG DEAL

As the animated graphic clearly indicates, the theoretical climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are handcuffed to inordinately high estimates of climate sensitivity (how much temperatures are expected to rise given a doubling of CO2). Since the advent of good satellite-based global temperature data in 1979, observed temperatures have risen at a fraction of the IPCC predicted rate even as CO2 continues to rise. Relax, there is not and never has been any near-term "tipping point". The actual Earth Climate System is far less sensitive to CO2 than claimed the IPCC climate theory, as represented by their computer models. Global Warming since 1880 is mainly due to Natural Cycles and Processes not under human control. Yes, the same Natural Cycles and Processes that were responsible for the many Ice Age cycles that repeatedly occurred about every 100,000 years or so.

MY JANUARY 2014 PRESENTATION 

By a stroke of good fortune, last week I was scheduled to present "Visualizing the Atmospheric 'Greenhouse' Effect - Global warming is real, but how much is due to human activities and how big is the risk?" to the Philosophy Club in the Central Florida retirement community where I live. This is a great time for Global Warming Skeptics to put the Alarmists in their place.

Everyone in the highly interactive and supportive audience was aware of newspaper and TV reports of the drama of those ill-fated Global Warming "Research" activists whose Russian ship, the Academik Shokalskiy, got stuck in the summer ice of the Antarctic. (Fortunately, those people are safe, having been rescued by a helicopter from a Chinese icebreaker.) In addition to the Antarctic adventure gone wrong, in the week leading up to and following my talk, the media was overrun by stories of the "polar vortex" literally freezing large parts of the US and even causing Florida temperatures to drop below 30°F.

Of course, we realize that the cold wave is only anecdotal evidence and "weather is not climate". However, photos and videos of researchers stuck in the Antarctic summer ice as well as scenes of American life frozen in place for days on end, when combined with clear and irrefutable evidence of a slowdown in warming since 1979 and no statistically significant warming since 1996 (as depicted in the graphic above), has considerable emotional impact.

My animated PowerPoint Show, which should run on any Windows PC, is available for download here. (NOTE: I knew that many members of The Philosophy Club audience, while highly intelligent and informed, are not particularly scientifically astute. Therefore, I kept to the basics and  invited questions as I proceeded. Since most of them think in Fahrenheit, I was careful to give temperatures in that system. By contrast, my 2011 talk to the more scientifically astute members of our local Science and Technology Club Skeptic Strategy for Talking about Global Warming was more technical. Both presentations make use of animated PowerPoint charts and you are free to download and use them as you wish.)

My presentation is based on my five-part series for the most viewed climate website in the world, "Watts Up With That" (WUWT) where I am a Guest Contributor. The series is entitled "Visualizing the 'Greenhouse Effect'" - 1 - A Physical Analogy, 2 - Atmospheric Windows, 3 - Emission Spectra, 4 - Molecules and Photons, and 5 - Light and Heat.  The series, which ran in 2011, generated tens of thousands of page views at WUWT, along with thousands of comments.

I wrote the series because WUWT is a "skeptic" website and attracts some viewers who reject the basic physics of the Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect. (The owner of WUWT, Anthony Watts, like me, accepts the basic physics and the fact that some of the warming of the past century is indeed due to human activities, such as unprecedented burning of fossil fuels that have raised CO2 levels. However, we are skeptical about how much the Earth Surface has actually warmed, and how big a risk is posed by moderate increases in CO2 and temperature.)

HOW A REAL GREENHOUSE WORKS

I explained how a real physical Greenhouse works and how that is both similar and different from the Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect. The Greenhouse descriptions I learned in high school, as well as those available on the Internet, consider only the RADIATIVE effect. The glass roof of the Greenhouse allows visible light to pass through freely, heating the soil, plants, and air, but is opaque to the resultant infrared radiation, which is partly re-radiated back down into the Greenhouse, warming it further.  That part is true, but far from the whole story. The MAIN reason a Greenhouse stays warm is that it is airtight to restrict CONVECTION and it is insulated to restrict CONDUCTION. In fact, it is possible to construct a successful Greenhouse using a roof made from materials that allow both visible and infrared to pass freely, but is impossible to make a working Greenhouse that is not both airtight and insulated.

HOW THE ATMOSPHERIC "GREENHOUSE" EFFECT WORKS

All warm objects emit radiation at a wavelength dependent upon the temperature of the object. The Sun, at around 10,000 °F, emits "short-wavelength" infrared radiation, centered around 1/2 micron (one millionth of a meter). The soil, plants, and air in the Greenhouse, at around 60 to 100 °F, emit "long wavelength" radiation, centered around 10 microns (with most of the energy between 4 and 25 microns).   

The Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect works because:

1. Short-wavelength radiation from the Sun passes freely through the gases that make up  the Atmosphere,
2. About a third of this Sunlight is reflected back by white clouds, dust, and light-colored objects on the Surface, and that energy is lost to Space,
3. The remaining two-thirds of  the Sunlight energy is absorbed by the Sea and Land Surface and causes it to warm,
4. The warm Surface cools by emitting long-wavelength radiation at the Bottom of the Atmosphere, and this radiation passes towards the Top of the Atmosphere, where it is ultimately lost to Space,
5. On the way to the Top of the Atmosphere, much of this radiation is absorbed by so-called "Greenhouse" gases (mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide) which causes the Atmosphere to warm,
6. The warmed Atmosphere emits infrared radiation in all directions, some into Space where it is lost, and some back towards the Surface where it is once again absorbed and further warms the Surface.
7. In addition to the RADIATIVE effects noted in points 1 through 6, the Surface is cooled by CONVECTION and CONDUCTION (thunderstorms, winds, rain, etc.)

THANK GOODNESS OR THE ATMOSPHERIC "GREENHOUSE" EFFECT

If not for the warming effect of "Greenhouse" gases, the Surface of the Earth would average about -1 °F, which would prevent life as we know it. This effect is responsible for about 60 degrees F of warming.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Earth Surface has warmed about 1.5 °F since good thermometer data became available around 1880. Some skeptics (including me) believe the actual warming is closer to 1 °F, and that government agencies have adjusted the thermometer record to exaggerate the warming by 30% or more.

However, it doesn't really matter whether the actual warming is 1 °F or 1.5 °F because we are arguing about only 0.5 °F, which is less than 1% of the warming due to the Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect.

HOW SENSITIVE IS THE CLIMATE TO HUMAN ACTIVITIES?

The IPCC claims that the majority of the warming since 1880 is due to human activities. It is true that we are burning unprecedented amounts of fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas), and that we are making land use changes that may reduce the albedo (reflectiveness) of the Surface. Most of the increase in Atmospheric CO2 (a 40% rise from about 270 to nearly 400 parts per million by volume) is due to human activities.

The IPCC claims that Climate Sensitivity (the average increase in Surface temperatures due to a doubling of CO2) is between 3 °F and 8 °F.  Some skeptics (including me) believe they are off by at least a factor of two, and possibly a factor of three, and that Climate Sensitivity is closer to 1 °F to 3 °F.

As evidence for our conclusions, we point to the fact that virtually ALL of the IPCC climate models have consistently over-estimated future temperature predictions as compared to the actual temperature record. Indeed, for the past 17 years as CO2 levels continue their rapid climb, temperatures have leveled off, which is proof that Natural Cycles, not under human control or influence, have cancelled out warming due to CO2 increases. Thus, Natural Cycles must have a larger effect than CO2.

VISUALIZING THE ATMOSPHERIC "GREENHOUSE" EFFECT

As I noted above, I wrote the "Visualizing" series for WUWT (1 - A Physical Analogy, 2 - Atmospheric Windows, 3 - Emission Spectra, 4 - Molecules and Photons, and 5 - Light and Heat) because some WUWT viewers are "Disbelievers" who have had an "equal and opposite" reaction to the "end of the world" excesses of the Global Warming "Alarmists".  By failing to understand and accept the basic science of the Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect, they have, IMHO, "thrown the baby out with the bathwater".

1 - A Physical Analogy

Albert Einstein was a great theoretical physicist, with all the requisite mathematical tools. However, he rejected purely mathematical abstraction and resorted to physical analogy for his most basic insights. For example, he imagined a man in a closed elevator being transported to space far from any external mass and then subjected to accelerating speeds. That man could not tell the difference between gravity on Earth and acceleration in space, thus, concluded Einstein, gravity and acceleration are equivalent, which is the cornerstone of his theory of relativity. Einstein never fully bought into the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics that he and others have called quantum weirdness and spooky action at a distance. He had trouble accepting a theory that did not comport with anything he considered a reasonable physical analogy!

So, if you have trouble accepting the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect because of the lack of a good physical analogy, you are in fine company.

Well, getting back to the Atmospheric "Greenhouse Effect, a "disbelieving" commenter on WUWT, suggested we think of the Sunlight as truckloads of energy going from the Sun to the Earth Surface, and the infrared radiation from the Surface as equal truckloads going the other way. How, he asked, could these equal and opposite truckloads do anything but cancel each other out as far as the amount of energy on the Surface of the Earth? In reply, I posted a comment with an analogy of truckloads of orange juice, representing short-wave radiation from Sun to Earth, and truckloads of blueberry juice, representing longwave radiation between Earth and the Atmosphere and back out to Space.

That thought experiment triggered my creativity. I imagined the Sun as a ball-pitching machine, throwing Yellow balls towards the "Earth" Surface (representing short-wave radiation) and Purple balls (representing long-wave radiation) bouncing back towards Space and interacting with the Atmosphere. The graphic below is one of my depictions of the physical analogy. Follow this link for more graphics and detail.


I imagined the Earth as a well-damped scale. The Yellow balls would bounce off the Surface and turn into Purple balls (representing long-wave radiation as the Earth absorbed the short-wave radiation and then emitted an equal quantity of long-wave radiation). The scale would read "1" unit.

If there was no Atmosphere, or if the Atmosphere contained no "Greenhouse" gases to obstruct the flight of the Purple balls, they would fly out towards Space.

I then imagined the Atmosphere as an obstacle that absorbed the Purple balls, split them in two, and emitted half of the smaller balls to Space and the other half back towards the Earth. The balls going towards Earth would be absorbed, further heating the Earth, and the warmed Earth would emit them back towards the Atmosphere. The process would be repeated with the balls being absorbed by "Greenhouse" gases in the Atmosphere, and then emitted with half going out to Space, and half back to the Earth. The sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +1/16 ... = 2 (approximately), so the scale reads "2" units.

Thus, in my simplified analogy, the "Greenhouse" gases in the "Atmosphere" cause the scale reading to double. So, the Atmospheric "Greenhouse" Effect causes the Earth Surface to be warmer than it would be absent the "Greenhouse" gases. I think Einstein would be pleased!  Read more detail at WUWT, including the 340 responses (comments received and my brilliant replies!)...,

2 - Atmospheric Windows

A real greenhouse has windows. So does the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. They are similar in that they allow Sunlight in and restrict the outward flow of thermal energy. However, they differ in the mechanism. A real greenhouse primarily restricts heat escape by preventing convection while the “greenhouse effect” heats the Earth because “greenhouse gases” (GHG) absorb outgoing radiative energy and re-emit some of it back towards Earth.
There are two main “windows” in the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. The first, the Visible Light Window, on the left side of the graphic, allows visible and near-visible light from the Sun to pass through with small losses, and the second, the Longwave Window, on the right, allows the central portion of the longwave radiation band from the Earth to pass through with small losses, while absorbing and re-emitting the left and right portions.
Sunlight Energy In = Thermal Energy Out
The graphic is an animated depiction of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” process.

On the left side:
(1) Sunlight streams through the Atmosphere towards the surface of the Earth.
(2) A portion of the Sunlight is reflected by clouds and other high-albedo surfaces and heads back through the Atmosphere towards Space. The remainder is absorbed by the Surface of the Earth, warming it.
(3) The reflected portion is lost to Space.
On the right side:
(1) The warmed Earth emits longwave radiation towards the Atmosphere. According to the first graphic, above, this consists of thermal energy in all bands ~7μ, ~10μ, and ~15μ.
(2) The ~10μ portion passes through the Atmosphere with litttle loss. The ~7μ portion gets absorbed, primarily by H2O, and the 15μ portion gets absorbed, primarily by CO2 and H2O. The absorbed radiation heats the H2O and CO2 molecules and, at their higher energy states, they collide with the other molecules that make up the air, mostly nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), ozone (O3), and argon (A) and heat them by something like conduction. The molecules in the heated air emit radiation in random directions at all bands (~7μ, ~10μ, and ~15μ). The ~10μ photons pass, nearly unimpeded, in whatever direction they happen to be emitted, some going towards Space and some towards Earth. The ~7μ and ~15μ photons go off in all directions until they run into an H2O or CO2 molecule, and repeat the absorption and re-emittance process, or until they emerge from the Atmosphere or hit the surface of the Earth.
(3) The ~10μ photons that got a free-pass from the Earth through the Atmosphere emerge and their energy is lost to Space. The ~10μ photons generated by the heating of the air emerge from the top of the Atmosphere and their energy is lost to Space, or they impact the surface of the Earth and are re-absorbed. The ~7μ and ~15μ generated by the heating of the air also emerge from the top or bottom of the Atmosphere, but there are fewer of them because they keep getting absorbed and re-emitted, each time with some transfered to the central ~10μ portion of the longwave band.
 the infrared (long-wavelength). Read more detail at WUWT, including the 489 responses (comments received and my brilliant replies!)...

3 - Emission Spectra

The Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” has been analogized to a blanket that insulates the Sun-warmed Earth and slows the rate of heat transmission, thus increasing mean temperatures above what they would be absent “greenhouse gases” (GHGs). Perhaps a better analogy would be an electric blanket that, in addition to its insulating properties, also emits thermal radiation both down and up. The graphic below, based upon actual measurements of long-wave radiation as measured by a satellite LOOKING DOWN from the Top of the Atmosphere as well as from the Surface LOOKING UP from the Bottom of the Atmmsphere, depicts the situation.
,
Description of graphic (from bottom to top):
Earth Surface: Warmed by shortwave (~1/2μ) radiation from the Sun, the surface emits upward radiation in the ~7μ, ~10μ, and ~15μ regions of the longwave band. This radiation approximates a smooth “blackbody” curve that peaks at the wavelength corresponding to the surface temperature.
Bottom of the Atmosphere: On its way out to Space, the radiation encounters the Atmosphere, in particular the GHGs, which absorb and re-emit radiation in the ~7μ and ~15μ regions in all directions. Most of the ~10μ radiation is allowed to pass through.
The lower violet/purple curve (adapted from figure 8.1 in Petty and based on measurements from the Tropical Pacific looking UP) indicates how the bottom of the Atmosphere re-emits selected portions back down towards the surface of the Earth. The dashed line represents a “blackbody” curve characteristic of 300ºK (equivalent to 27ºC or 80ºF). Note how the ~7μ and ~15μ regions approximate that curve, while much of the ~10μ region is not re-emitted downward.
“Greenhouse Gases”: The reason for the shape of the downwelling radiation curve is clear when we look at the absorption spectra for the most important GHGs: H2O, H2O, H2O, … H2O, and CO2. (I’ve included multiple H2O’s because water vapor, particularly in the tropical latitudes, is many times more prevalent than carbon dioxide.)
Note that H2O absorbs at up to 100% in the ~7μ region. H2O also absorbs strongly in the ~15μ region, particularly above 20μ, where it reaches 100%. CO2 absorbs at up to 100% in the ~15μ region.
Neither H2O nor CO2 absorb strongly in the ~10μ region.
Since gases tend to re-emit most strongly at the same wavelength region where they absorb, the ~7μ and ~15μ are well-represented, while the ~10μ region is weaker.
Top of the Atmosphere: The upper violet/purple curve (adapted from figure 6.6 in Petty and based on satellite measurements from the Tropical Pacific looking DOWN) indicates how the top of the Atmosphere passes certain portions of radiation from the surface of the Earth out to Space and re-emits selected portions up towards Space. The dashed line represents a “blackbody” curve characteristic of 300ºK. Note that much of the ~10μ region approximates a 295ºK curve while the ~7μ region approximates a cooler 260ºK curve. The ~15μ region is more complicated. Part of it, from about 17μ and up approximates a 260ºK or 270ºK curve, but the region from about 14μ to 17μ has had quite a big bite taken out of it. Note how this bite corresponds roughly with the CO2 absorption spectrum.
See more graphics and detail at WUWT, including the 476 responses (comments received and my brilliant replies!)...

4 - Molecules and Photons

In this part, we consider the interaction between air molecules, including Nitrogen (N2), Oxygen (O2), Water Vapor (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2), with Photons of various wavelengths. This may help us visualize how energy, in the form of Photons radiated by the Sun and the Surface of the Earth, is absorbed and re-emited by Atmospheric molecules.

The animated graphic has eight frames, as indicated by the counter in the lower right corner. Molecules are symbolized by letter pairs or triplets and Photons by ovals and arrows. The view is of a small portion of the cloud-free Atmosphere.

1. During the daytime, Solar energy enters the Atmosphere in the form of Photons at wavelengths from about 0.1μ (micron – millionth of a meter) to 4μ, which is called “shortwave” radiation and is represented as ~1/2μ and symbolized as orange ovals. Most of this energy gets a free pass through the cloud-free Atmosphere. It continues down to the Surface of the Earth where some is reflected back by light areas (not shown in the animation) and where most is absorbed and warms the Surface.
2. Since Earth’s temperature is well above absolute zero, both day and night, the Surface radiates Photons in all directions with the energy distributed approximately according to a “blackbody” at a given temperature. This energy is in the form of Photons at wavelengths from about 4μ to 50μ, which is called “longwave” radiation and is represented as ~7μ, ~10μ, and ~15μ and symbolized as violet, light blue, and purple ovals, respectively. The primary “greenhouse” gases (GHG) are Water Vapor (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The ~7μ Photon is absorbed by an H2O molecule because Water Vapor has an absorption peak in that region, the ~10μ Photon gets a free pass because neither H2O nor CO2 absorb strongly in that region, and one of the 15μ Photons gets absorbed by an H2O molecule while the other gets absorbed by a CO2 molecule because these gases have absorption peaks in that region.
3. The absorbed Photons raise the energy level of their respective molecules (symbolized by red outlines).
4. The energized molecules re-emit the Photons in random directions, some upwards, some downwards, and some sideways. Some of the re-emitted Photons make their way out to Space and their energy is lost there, others back down to the Surface where their energy is absorbed, further heating the Earth, and others travel through the Atmosphere for a random distance until they encounter another GHG molecule.
5. This frame and the next two illustrate another way Photons are emitted, namely due to collisions between energized GHG molecules and other air molecules. As in frame (2) the Surface radiates Photons in all directions and various wavelengths.
6. The Photons cause the GHG molecules to become energized and they speed up and collide with other gas molecules, energizing them. NOTE: In a gas, the molecules are in constant motion, moving in random directions at different speeds, colliding and bouncing off one another, etc. Indeed the “temperature” of a gas is something like the average speed of the molecules. In this animation, the gas molecules are fixed in position because it would be too confusing if they were all shown moving and because the speed of the Photons is so much greater than the speed of the molecules that they hardly move in the time indicated.
7. The energized air molecules emit radiation at various wavelengths and in random directions, some upwards, some downwards, and some sideways. Some of the re-emitted Photons make their way out to Space and their energy is lost there, others back down to the Surface where their energy is absorbed, further heating the Earth, and others travel through the Atmosphere for a random distance until they encounter another GHG molecule.
8. Having emitted the energy, the molecules cool down.

Read more detail at WUWT, including the 743 responses (comments received and my brilliant replies!)...

5 - Light and Heat

Solar “light” radiation in = Earth “heat” radiation to Space out! That’s old news to those of us who understand all energy is fungible (may be converted to different forms of energy) and energy/mass is conserved (cannot be created nor destroyed).
My Visualizing series [Physical Analogy, Atmospheric Windows, Emission Spectra, and Molecules/Photons] has garnered almost 2000 comments, mostly positive. I’ve learned a lot from WUWT readers who know more than I do. However, some commenters seem to have been taken in by scientific-sounding objections to the basic science behind the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect”. Their objections seemed to add more heat than light to the discussion. This posting is designed to get back to basics and perhaps transform our heated arguments into more enlightened understanding :^)

Solar "light" energy in is equal to Earth "heat" energy out.

Read more detail at WUWT, including the 958 responses (comments received and my brilliant replies!)...

ANSWERING THREE OBJECTIONS TO BASIC ATMOSPHERIC “GREENHOUSE EFFECT” SCIENCE

First of all, let me be clear where I am coming from. I’m a Lukewarmer-Skeptic who accepts that H2O, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the Atmosphere do cause the mean temperature of the Earth Surface and Atmosphere to be higher than they would be if everything was the same (Solar radiation, Earth System Albedo, …) but the Atmosphere was pure nitrogen.

The main scientific question for me, is how much does the increase in human-caused CO2 and human-caused albedo reduction increase the mean temperature above what it would be with natural cycles and processes? My answer is “not much”, because perhaps 0.1ºC to 0.2ºC of the supposed 0.8ºC increase since 1880 is due to human activities. The rest is due to natural cycles and processes over which we humans have no control. The main public policy question for me, is how much should we (society) do about it? Again, my answer is “not much”, because the effect is small and a limited increase in temperatures and CO2 may turn out to have a net benefit.

So, my motivation for this Visualizing series is not to add to the Alarmist “the sky is falling” panic, but rather to help my fellow Skeptics avoid the natural temptation to fall into an “equal and opposite” falsehood, which some of those on my side, who I call “Disbelievers”, do when they fail to acknowledge the basic facts of the role of H2O and CO2 and other gases in helping to keep temperatures in a livable range.

Objection #1: Visual and near-visual radiation is merely “light” which lacks the “quality” or “oomph” to impart warmth to objects upon which it happens to fall.

Answer #1: A NASA webpage targeted at children is sometimes cited because they say the near-IR beam from a TV remote control is not warm to the touch. Of course, that is not because it is near-visual radiation, but rather because it is very low power. All energy is fungible, and can be changed from one form to another. Thus, the 240 Watts/m^2 of visible and near-visible Solar energy that reaches and is absorbed by the Earth System, has the effect of warming the Earth System exactly as much as an equal number of Watts/m^2 of “thermal” mid- and far-IR radiation.

Objection #2: The Atmosphere, which is cooler than the Earth Surface, cannot warm the Earth Surface.

Answer #2: The Second law of Thermodynamics is often cited as the source of this falsehood. The correct interpretation is that the Second Law refers to net warming, which can only pass from the warmer to the cooler object. The back-radiation from the Atmosphere to the Earth Surface has been measured (see lower panel in the above illustration). All matter above absolute zero emits radiation and, once emitted, that radiation does not know if it is travelling from a warmer to a cooler surface or vice-versa. Once it arrives it will either be reflected or absorbed, according to its wavelength and the characteristics of the material it happens to impact.

Objection #3: The Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is fictional. A glass greenhouse works mainly by preventing or reducing convection and the Atmosphere does not work that way at all.

Answer #3: I always try to put “scare quotes” around the word “greenhouse” unless referring to the glass variety because the term is misleading. Yes, a glass greenhouse works by restricting convection, and the fact that glass passes shortwave radiation and not longwave makes only a minor contribution.

Thus, I agree it is unfortunate that the established term for the Atmospheric warming effect is a bit of a misnomer. However, we are stuck with it. But, enough of semantics. Notice that the Earth System mean temperature I had to use to provide 240 Watts/m^2 of radiation to Space to balance the input absorbed from by the Earth System from the Sun was 255 K. However, the actual mean temperature at the Surface is closer to 288 K. How to explain the extra 33 K (33ºC or 58ºF)? The only rational explanation is the back-radiation from the Atmosphere to the Surface.

Ira Glickstein

Global Warming Debate

I participated in a Joint Presentation on Global Warming at the Science-Technology Club, The Villages, FL, on 08 September 2011. My friend Bob Miller was on the AFFIRMATIVE side, which maintains that Global Warming due to unprecedented use of fossil fuels DOES constitute a substantial, near-term danger to human civilization on Earth. I took the NEGATIVE side that it DOES NOT.




Our combined PowerPoint chart set is available for anyone to download at https://sites.google.com/site/bigira/climate-related-ppt/SciTechGWDebateUpload.pptx?attredirects=0&d=1. Please use SLIDE SHOW mode to view the presentation because some of the charts are animated.

As indicated in the second graphic above, the debate follows the traditional 1858 Lincoln and Douglas debate format. (The photos show Bob in his younger days and me before I grew my beard :^).

The main difference in the format is that an Audience Participation Question and Comment period has been added between the initial presentations by each side and the rebuttal presentations.

To keep this debate on track, and prevent it from degenerating into a pointless argument about whether the so-called "Greenhouse effect" is real (it is), whether the Earth has been warming over the past century (it has) and, whether humans have any role in that warming (we do), both participants have agreed to the stipulations listed in the third graphic.

In short, we both agree that the "Greenhouse Effect" is real and rising CO2 levels do contribute to that effect, that it has indeed warmed, and that humans actions have some responsibility for the warming.

That leaves the much more important questions for debate:

• How much has the Earth actually warmed over the past century?

• How much of that is due to human activities, primarily rising CO2 levels?

• Does the temperature rise pose any substantial, near-term danger to human civilization?

• What, if any, drastic action is required to ameliorate human-caused Global Warming?

Ira Glickstein

Climategate - Cooking the Books on Global Warming

WHISTLEBLOWER'S REVENGE

If documents from any corporation or government office included the phrases "hide the decline" or "Mike's Nature trick" or asked colleagues to destroy certain emails ahead of a freedom of information request, the media would be all over it. Wouldn't they?

If the whistleblower released computer programs with programmer's notes that said:

shouldn't usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted

stop in 1940 to avoid the decline

There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations

What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah - there is no 'supposed', I can make it up. So I have :-)

Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!

that would be absolute proof the data was invalid. Wouldn't it?

Well, all this, and much more, has happened over the past two weeks, but, so far, the media is treading softly.

WHY?

Because the alleged malfactors are the very scientists who gave us the Global Warming scare. They "cooked the books" to push Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) - the idea that humans are mostly responsible for recent warming and the idea the Earth is close to a "tipping point". AGW is a sacred cow to politicos who have long planned to ride to riches and control of the global economic system.

Well, that old AGW sacred cow ain't going nowhere anytime soon.


WELCOME TO CLIMATEGATE

Today I Googled "climategate" and got 10,600,000 hits, a Google on "global warming" yielded fewer, 10,200,000 hits. The new term was invented only a week ago!

In my March 2009 postings on the Global Warming "Tiger" (see figure above) I allocated 30% of the apparent warming over the past 150 years to "Data Bias", defined as unintentional exaggeration of the amount of waming, primarily due to the encroachment of artificial heat sources on the measurement devices. I assumed the AGW scientists were basically honest, but unintended experimental bias had marred their results by about 30%.

Well, a couple weeks ago, thousands of emails and computer programs were released, possibly by an inside whistleblower from the major UK Climate Research Unit (CRU). Accuweather quotes Eduardo Zorita, a contributing author of the 4th assessment report of the IPCC: "research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files."

Just as Madoff got into trouble when the declining stock market caught him short and exposed his Ponzi scheme, the AGW climate scientists have been caught short by the unexpected stabilzation and small decline in global temperatures, probably due to changes in sunspot activity and other natural cycles that are undoubtedly the major cause of long-term climate changes.

WHY IT IS ABSURD TO ESTIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE TO TENTHS OF A DEGREE PER DECADE

The whole idea of accurately estimating changes that average a tenth of a degree per decade in global climate over centuries is absurd because, as we all know, temperature varies by tens of degrees every day!

We have recorded temperature readings that go back about 150 years, most manually read by volunteers or weather station employees who had to trudge 30 to 100 feet or more out to remote thermometers morning and night in all sorts of weather. If they were five (or fifteen) minutes early or late, the data would easily be off by tenths of a degree or more. If a new person took the job, he or she might follow a different schedule. With the advent of automatic reading, over the past few decades, the devices required electrical power and that caused many of them to be moved closer to buildings, where artificial heat sources biased the readings. Over the years, as hot air conditioner vents were added to buildings and asphalt driveways expanded, many thermometers were further biased by new heat sources. All this added to the experimental bias.

Data prior to about 150 years ago must be obtained from proxies, such as tree-ring data that give an indication of temperature on the basis of the rate of growth. However, variables other than temperature affect tree growth, such as rainfall and atmospheric CO2. Such data cannot approach accuracies of even one degree, much less precision to tenths of a degree.

Recognizing the possibility of bias and lack of precision, the experimenters wrote computer programs to process the data to adjust these biases. Of course, that opened the possibility some scientists would exploit the processing to hide inconvenient temperature declines and exaggerate AGW. It is clear from the emails and computer programs that have been released that some scientists took that opportunity to adjust the data to fit the story they wanted to tell. They believed that Global Warming was mostly due to human activity. They manipulated the data to tell that story!

You will hear much about Climategate in the main stream media soon.

Ira Glickstein

PS: Let me be clear, I believe there has been actual warming over the past 150 years, and some percentage of it is due to human burning of previously sequestered carbon (coal, oil, natural gas). I favor reasonable action, including a revenue-neutral Carbon Tax, to reduce the rapid rate of increase of atmospheric carbon gases.

Arctic NOT Ice-Free till 2060 at the Earliest!

According to the UK Met Office the Arctic will NOT be ice-free by the summer of 2020 as many climate "experts" continue to predict. Nope, it will be at least 2060 before that happens. Mark it on your calendars!

Also mark my prediction that "pigs will fly" in 2060, and "hell will freeze over" in the same year :^) Seriously, I have made predictions for 2052 and beyond in my free online novel. The beauty of making predictions fifty years in the future is that most of us will be dead by then and those who are alive will have forgotten.

Good news for the polar bears! Not so good for the shipping companies that planned trans-Arctic routes for transporting oil. Or for Global Warming alarmists.

The full text of the UK Met Office October 15th release is here. Key excerpts (with emphasis added):

"Modelling of Arctic sea ice by the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model shows that ice invariably recovers from extreme events, and that the long-term trend of reduction is robust — with the first ice-free summer expected to occur between 2060 and 2080. It is unlikely that the Arctic will experience ice-free summers by 2020.

"Analysis of the 2007 summer sea-ice minimum has subsequently shown that this was due, in part, to unusual weather patterns. ..."

"The high variability has made it difficult to attribute the observed trend to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, ...

"About half of the climate models involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report, show that ice declines in steps — failing to recover from extreme years. The observed temporary recovery from the 2007 minimum in 2008 and 2009 indicates that the Arctic ice has not yet reached a tipping point, if such exists."

In other words, the low point for Arctic ice in 2007 was mostly due to Natural Cycles in the ocean currents and solar phenomena, and not Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) due to human release of formerly sequestered carbon. About half of the most recent IPCC climate models are wrong about Arctic ice. We are nowhere near any kind of tipping point.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still concerned about the continuing rapid increase in atmospheric CO2. However, we have decades to figure out how to deal with it most effectively without further wrecking our economies via the Cap and Trade scam. I hope the coming decades of stable temperatures, and perhaps a bit of Global Cooling, will allow cooler heads to prevail and chose something like a revenue-neutral Carbon Tax. That kind of Carbon Tax would require minimum government enforcement and political chicanery. It would be hard to cheat on. Most importantly, it would actually work to reduce carbon emissions over time, harnessing market forces to do so.

Ira Glickstein

Global Warming Tiger - Natural Cycles

This is the third of the series Global Warming - Tale of the Tiger.

Read the first posting in this series: Tale and a description of the figure to the left. I believe the apparent 0.8ºC increase in Global Temperature over the past 150 years is due to three major causes and one minor one, as indicated by the parts of the "tiger". (The second posting details Data Bias.)

NATURAL CYCLES
This posting is about NATURAL CYCLES that I estimate are responsible for about 40% of the apparent warming. In other words, 0.3ºC to 0.4ºC of the apparent 0.8ºC temperature increase is due to natural cycles not under human control.

You are familiar with three of the natural cycles that affect the energy input and heat balance of the Earth: 1) diurnal - the daily rotation of the Earth, 2) seasons - Earth's yearly orbit around the Sun, and 3) sunspots - 9 to 13-year magnetic cycles on the Sun. Sunrise to afternoon temperatures vary by 10ºC or more and seasonal temperatures by 40ºC or more.

However, these cycles have no long-term effect on surface temperatures. They are not the cause of Global Warming. However, when scientists are trying to detect long-term temperature variations of fractions of a degree, multi-degree daily and yearly variations complicate the task.

Individual sunspot cycles are not long enough to have significant effects on global temperatures. However, when a multi-decadal series of especially short-strong cycles, or long-weak cycles occur, there are significant effects, see (7) below.

Three more natural variations are called Milankovitch cycles: 3) eccentricity of Earth orbit around the Sun, 4) axial tilt, and 5) precession. These changes do not increase or decrease the total amount of solar radiation falling on the Earth. However, they change the relative distribution between the polar and equatorial regions. It turns out that the more energy that falls on the polar regions, the more the Earth warms, and vice-versa. These cycles run from 19,000 to 400,000 years and they are the most likely cause of the approximate 100,000 year glaciation cycles seen in the ice core records. Over the past 20 thousand years or so, according to ice core data, the Earth has warmed by over 10ºC. During most of that time, human activity had no effect on global temperatures. The Milankovitch cycles may have contributed 0.1ºC or more to the 0.8ºC apparent Global Warming over the past 150 years.

Another set of cycles of interest are: 6) multi-decadal oscillations of the oceans, including the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (20-30 years), Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (15-20 years) PDO and IDO, El Nino-Southern Oscillation (3-8 years) ENSO, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (70 years) AMO, and others. These cycles are associated with temperature variations of 1ºC or more, and they may have contributed 0.1ºC or more to the 0.8ºC apparent Global Warming over the past 150 years.

The last cycle of interest is: 7) multi-decadal magnetic activity variations on the Sun. As I noted above, individual sunspot cycles, per se, are not associated with significant global temperature variations. However, a series of especially short and strong cycles may be associated with multi-decadal warming trends. Conversely, a series of especially long and weak cycles may be associated with multi-decadal cooling trends. See Solar variation for an excellent discusion.


CORRELATION OF TEMPERATURE WITH SUNSPOT NUMBER TRENDS


The figure (from Solar variation, with annotations in green and pink by Ira) compares global temperature with CO2 and Sunspot Number. [Click the diagram for a larger version.]


The upper dark red curve shows how temperatures have increased by an apparent 0.8ºC over the past 150 years. Note that there was a dip around 1860, another around 1910, and a third around 1950. A small, relatively short rise followed the 1860 dip, a larger, longer rise followed the 1910 dip, and the 1950 dip was followed by a very long and strong rise. That last rise has triggered current Global Warming fears.

The middle blue curve shows how CO2 has increased steadily since 1850, with a particularly rapid rise from 1960 to the present. (The reason the blue curve gets brush-like after 1960 is better measurement equipment that captured seasonal variations.) The correlation between CO2 rise and temperature rise has lent credence to the theory that rising CO2 levels are the main cause of Global Warming.

The lower yellow curve shows sunspot number variations. The thin line shows the individual 9 to 13-year sunspot cycles and the thicker line is the multi-cycle average.

My annotation shows, in green, the sunsport cycles that peaked below 80 sunspots/day. Note the correlation between those low cycles and the dips in global temperature experienced about a decade later. Annotations in pink indicate the sunspot cycles that peaked above 110 sunspots/day. Note that the peaks are correlated with those more active sunspot cycles.

In particular, note that six of the last seven sunspot cycles have peaked above 110 and that correllates with the global temperature rise from 1950 to 2000. However, since 1999 there has been a stabilization of global temperatures and, since 2005, a dip of nearly 0.2ºC in the non-smoothed data. That dip is NOT correlated with any dip in CO2 level rise - indeed CO2 levels are rising faster than ever.

Therefore, it is plausable that CO2 levels, while significant, are NOT the primary cause of Global Warming.

So, what is the main cause? Well, look at the thick yellow smoothed sunspot curve. It has been on the downswing for the past decade! The latest averages are below 80!

Couple that with the two-year (and counting) delay in the expected start of sunspot cycle #24. In 2006, NASA experts predicted cycle #24 would start at the end of 2006 or early 2007 and that it would be a doozy, peaking over 150! But, here at mid-2009 #23 has probably not ended yet nor has #24 started. So, NASA's latest prediction is that #24 will be be a weak kitten, peaking at 90. (I predicted, back in January that it would peak even lower, at 80. Also see an "Inconvenient" Minimum.)

CONCLUSIONS

Sunspot activity is better correlated with global temperature than CO2 levels. It is probably responsible for about 40% of the apparent Global Warming we have experienced over the past 150 years and over 0.3ºC of the actual warming. If the coming sunspot cycle is further delayed and if it is as weak as expected, that could stabilize global temperatures for a decade or more and give us breathing room to control CO2 levels in a conservative way.

Ira Glickstein

Global Warming: Tale of the Tiger

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, a tiger was terrorizing a village and four brave young men decided to do something about it.

The first approached the tiger's head and whacked it with a stick. The tiger ate him!

The second approached the tiger's fore quarters and struck out with a knife. The tiger clawed him to death.

The third approached the rear quarters with the same result.

The last brave young man decided to sneak up on the tiger from behind and he managed to snip a piece out of the tiger's tail and get away.

Of course, nipping the tiger's tail didn't do much to solve the problem. Nevertheless, the villagers celebrated his pluck and luck and everybody felt quite satisfied - until the next tiger attack.

This is the first of five postings about the causes and cures for Global Warming. There is no doubt the Earth has warmed significantly over the past 150 years. The IPCC claims the warming trend is mainly (over 50%) due to rising CO2 levels caused by human burning of formerly sequestered carbon (coal, oil, natural gas). They demand immediate action to reduce carbon emissions by 75% within the coming decades.

I believe they are right about our being in a global warming trend. I believe continued warming will affect our way of life. However, I think the IPCC will be proven to have been wrong about the percentage of global warming due to human activities and, especially, about our ability to stabilize and reduce carbon gas production.

LET'S LOOK AT THE "TIGER" OF GLOBAL WARMING

Let’s imagine Global Warming as that tiger, and let us divide it up into three large sections, leaving 10% for the tiger’s tail. The sections represent the causes of the 0.8 ºC (about 1.4 ºF) apparent temperature rise.

I say apparent because around 30% is due to bias in measurements, due to encroachment of local development and land use on temperature measuring stations. (The second posting is about Data Bias.) An additional 40% is real warming, due to natural cycles, mainly variability in the Sun’s activity and the Earth’s orbit. About 20% is due to "greenhouse" warming effects of the carbon gases that have fizzed out of the oceans due to natural cycle warming, especially over the past fifty years.

The remaining 10% is due to human activity generating greenhouse gasses. I suggest we are attacking the “tiger’s tail” –that last 10%- because we really cannot do much about the other causes and we need to find some satisfaction! I also suggest that efforts to reduce carbon footprints, some of which I support (Carbon Tax), are unlikely to have much practical effect.

After celebrating the successful, but futile, attack against the tiger's tail, the villagers had to face reality. They had to adapt to living with the tiger by fencing their village and being extremely careful when venturing out. They also prayed the tiger would go away.

Ira Glickstein

James Hansen favors Carbon Tax

I'm surprised and pleased that I agree with the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), James Hansen, on the need for a Carbon Tax. IMHO, Hansen has gone overboard in his dire predictions regarding human-caused Global Warming. GISS, his agency, has come in for some criticism here for what appears to be some bias in Global Warming data.

Nevertheless he is right on this one!

My support for a punitive Carbon Tax goes back many years and is well documented on this Blog: (July 2007, May, October, and November 2008).

An Opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal brought Hansen's statement to my attention. (The chart above is from Hansen's June 2008 presentation.)

With gasoline at $2 or less, and the memory of $4 and more clearly in mind, NOW is the right time to impose a $1/gallon carbon tax.

Hansen calls his proposal "Tax and 100% dividend" because it will apply equally to all forms of sequestered carbon (coal, oil, natural gas) and all of it will be returned, equally per-capita, to everyone with a Social Security number.

Other than collecting and distributing the carbon tax dividend, the government will have no role in using these revenues to select the specific alternative energy solution that will arise. By making carbon-based energy relatively more expensive, the carbon tax will spur consumers to conserve energy and also to select products that utilize alternative, non-taxed, energy. The tax will thus put an umbrella over researchers and corporations working on all sorts of alternative energy without imposing the heavy (and politicaly motivated) hand of government "experts" to tip the balance in favor of any one.

The proposed carbon tax will be revenue-neutral, returning money to the people. The tax will also be ultra-progressive since it returns the money equally per-capita while the rich will be paying most of the tax because they use more energy and products that require energy to produce and transport.


Here are some direct quotes from Hansen's remarks:

Tax and 100% dividend can drive innovation and economic growth with a snowballing effect. Carbon emissions will plummet far faster than in top-down or Manhattan projects. A clean environment that supports all life on the planet can be restored.

... Principles must be crystal clear and adhered to rigorously. A tax on coal, oil and gas is simple. It can be collected at the first point of sale within the country or at the last (e.g., at the gas pump), but it can be collected easily and reliably. You cannot hide coal in your purse; it travels in railroad cars that are easy to spot.

“Cap” [and trade of carbon credits] ... may do as much harm as good. ...

The entire carbon tax should be returned to the public, with a monthly deposit ...

A carbon tax will raise energy prices, but lower and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead. Product demand will spur economic activity and innovation. The rate of infrastructure replacement, thus economic activity, can be modulated by how fast the carbon tax rate increases. Effects will permeate society. Food requiring lots of carbon emissions to produce and transport will become more expensive and vice versa – it is likely, e.g., that the UK will stop importing and exporting 15,000 tons of waffles each year. There will be a
growing price incentive for life style changes needed for sustainable living.

The present political approach is to set carbon emission reduction goals for 2025 or 2050. The politicians do not expect the goals to be reached, and they define escape hatches that guarantee they will not. They expect to be retired or become lobbyists before the day of reckoning. The goals are mainly for bragging rights: “mine is bigger than yours!”

The worst thing about the present inadequate political approach is that it will generate public backlash. Taxes will increase, with no apparent benefit. The reaction would likely delay effective emission reductions, so as to practically guarantee that climate would pass tipping points with devastating consequences for nature and humanity.

Carbon tax and 100% dividend, on the contrary, will be a breath of fresh air, a boon and boom for the economy. The tax is progressive, the poorest benefitting most, with profligate energy users forced to pay for their excesses. Incidentally, it will yield strong incentive for aliens to become legal; otherwise they receive no dividend while paying the same carbon tax rate as everyone.

Special interests and their lobbyists in alligator shoes will fight carbon tax and 100% dividend tooth and nail. They want to determine who gets your tax money in the usual Washington way, Congress allocating money program-by-program, substituting their judgment for that of the market place. The lobbyists can afford the shoes. Helping Washington figure out how to spend your money is a very lucrative business.

But we can save the planet and alligators by making sure that not one thin dime of the carbon tax is siphoned off by lobbyists for their clients – 100% must be returned to citizens as dividend. Make this your motto: “100% or fight! No alligator shoes!”

Check the position of your congresspersons. If they spout things like “global warming is the greatest hoax in the history of the universe”, check the shoes of the people who visit them or have dinner with them. Changes in Congress are needed if we want our children and grandchildren to win this one.

Because of great benefits to the nation, humanity and nature, this approach soon would be adopted by other nations, providing an obvious path toward international agreements. (Jim Hansen)

Ira Glickstein

Bias In Global Warming Data?

Late one evening a policeman came upon a man who was crawling on hands and knees under a lamp post. "Whatch doing?" asked the cop. "Looking for a quarter I lost." "Where'd you drop it?" "Oh, in the alley back there." "Why you look'in here?" "THE LIGHT IS BETTER!"

As I've stated in previous postings (Carbon Tax, Definitive Guide to Global Warming, Nuclear Power in France, Correlation and Causation) I know Global Warming is a real phenomena, a substantial fraction of which is due to human release of sequestered carbon (oil, coal, natural gas). However, I believe the problem has been hyped by those who have their own agendas and are therefore "looking where the light is" to find evidence to back up their theory that we are near some kind of "tipping point" to global disaster.

I never imagined that the basic data record for the surface temperature of the Earth over the past few decades might be biased. However, that seems to be the case, at least for some measurements.

The top photo from http://wattsupwiththat.com/ (with annotations by me) shows the official NOAA Climate-Monitoring site in Clarinda, Iowa. Note that it is adjacent to a wastewater treatment plant, where warm water vapor could distort the readings. It is also quite close to what appears to be a methane gas burnoff torch associated with the wastewater plant.

The second photo is of the official NOAA Climate-Monitoring site in Fairbury, Nebraska. Note it is adjacent to a barbeque. It is also close to a house and a roadway where car exhaust could disort temperature reading.

Furthermore, a major data-reporting error occured early this month. According to http://wattsupwiththat.com/ as well as http://www.realclimate.org/ the official NASA GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies) worldwide surface temperature readings for October 2008 contained 90 sites (all or mostly in Russia) where September data was reported instead of October data, ressulting in errors of several degrees.

This data error affected a small percentage of worldwide sites. Due to this error, the average worldwide surface temperature for October was interpreted to be the warmest October on record. The worldwide surface data set goes back to 1880. GISS has corrected the error, see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.

There are a number of responsible and reasonable internet sites that report on climate change, some of which generally support the consensus that human activity is responsible for most global warming (particularly the http://www.realclimate.org/) and others that are skeptical (such as http://wattsupwiththat.com/). It is the skeptical sites that first noticed the error in the October data from Russia as well as the inappropriate locations of some official climate-monitoring stations.

It seems NASA simply took the reported October data without sufficient examination. How could they overlook such a drastic increase in temperatures from Russia when other sites in Europe and Asia reported little change? How could they miss 90 sites that had the exact, digit-for-digit data as in the previous month? Perhaps they were so pleased to have their theory of global warming confirmed that they failed to investigate further?

What if the faulty dataset had been of the previous January rather than September? I'll bet that if the dataset showed significant cooling rather than warming someone at NASA would have noticed the error!

It seems to me there should be standards for placement of official NOAA Climate Monitoring stations. For example, they should be at least 100 meters from a direct source of heat. Government employees regularly visit these stations for maintenance and they should notice if someone has placed a barbeque right underneath one! Of course, sometimes civilization may encroach on an existing site with a new house or a new factory or power plant or road. They should notice and move the site! According to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/19/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-74/#more-4209 there are dozens of official sites that are located in highly questionable places, many put there within the past decades.

By the way, the site in the second photo was placed in 1998, obviously after that old house was already there. The site in the top photo was placed in 1985, most likely also after the wastewater treatment plant, with its methane burnoff torch, was already in place!

Ira Glickstein