Climate-gate

[Aqueous Id]

The trick is, that with all of this "name calling"

If you don't want to be called a denialist, then stop denying climate science.

the real understanding of the climate balance suffers from the action.

You need real science to gain a real understanding of "the climate balance" as you call it. That's why universities were created. The prolific Joseph Fourier, who proposed the Theory of Heat in 1922, and described the Greenhouse Effect in 1824, was professor of the École Polytechnique. John Tyndall, who was first to discover that CO[sub]2[/sub] absorbs heat, was a professor of physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Svante Arrhenius, who expanded on Tyndall's work to conclude that anthropogenic CO[sub]2[/sub] in sufficient quantities will trump the heating by water vapor and accelerate natural global warming, won the 1903 Nobel prize in physics during his tenure as professor of physics at Stockholm University. G.S. Callendar, who revived their work and refined the estimates of global warming from anthropogenic CO[sub]2[/sub], graduated from a branch of Imperial College. These three men published seminal papers leading to a "real understanding of the climate balance". The links to the last three of these four papers, again, are:

http://nsdl.org/archives/onramp/classic_articles/issue1_global_warming/n3.Tyndall_1861corrected.pdf

http://nsdl.org/archives/onramp/cla...es/issue1_global_warming/n4.Arrhenius1896.pdf

http://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/qjcallender38.pdf

Two of the four original founders of NOAA were influenced by Callendar. One, an oceanographer named Roger Revelle, would go on to study the absorption of CO[sub]2[/sub] by the oceans, to independently confirm that uptake was not tracking with athropogenic emissions. He was professor of oceanography at Scripps University and namesake of the prestigious NOAA award.

Roger was active for several years in promoting the International Geophysical Year (IGY). In 1956 he became chairman of the IGY Panel on Oceanography. That same year, Charles David Keeling joined the Scripps Institution staff to head the IGY program on Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and to start the measurements at Mauna Loa and Antarctica.

--Walter H Munk, professor of geophysics emeritus, Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations, Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California​

Charles David Keeling was exposed to Callendar's work through Roger Revelle. Revelle, an officer of the US Navy who had been to Mauna Loa and already considered it an excellent site for a data collection station, encouraged Keeling to pursue funding for the groundbreaking of the Mauna Loa Observatory, and lobbied within the military and through his official government contacts to get the funding awarded. By 1958 Keeling had the first empirical evidence that anthropogenic CO[sub]2[/sub] was accumulating in the atmosphere.

Keeling and Revelle would later come to the attention of LBJ and Nixon (at least their work). It was then that NOAA was born as the agency we know it today, and their message (principally carried by a Democratic Senator to the UN) led to the formation of the IPCC. Revelle would influence Al Gore, leading to An Inconvenient Truth. During the intervening decades, volcanism was understood to have a chilling effect, and yes, it's in the balance. But unless we expect to have an unprecedented surge in volcanism (or any other mitigating effect), then there is no reason to be in denial of the IPCC. And, as you know, there is no basis for any such belief. The IPCC (NOAA) is obviously tracking volcanic emissions.

So we adopt the conclusions of the IPCC. Unless we're in denial. If you deny the IPCC, then you're in denial of the science that collects the facts and evidence. It's as simple as that. Only nature can trump science. No person who never bothered to study science can trump science. Not apart from some rare an extraordinary discovery. And nothing like that has happened here. This is just Right Wing politics as usual, dressed up as "God's revelation to man that the Earth is his dominion", to incite the fundies to support policies that are in the interest of making the richest people in the world richer -- namely Big Oil (and Big Energy in general).

For some reason you guys think we're too stupid to see through that thin patina of science you're calling real understanding of the climate balance. And yes, it suffers. So if that matters to you as you state, then stop doing it.

It's that simple.

 

[sculptor]

As/re percentages, care to be specific?

 

[rpenner]

Headline: Climate models accurately predicted global warming when reflecting natural ocean cycles: A new study shows that when synchronized with El Niño/La Niña cycles, climate models accurately predict global surface warming, Dana Nuccitelli, Climate Consensus - the 97% hosted by The Guardian, 2014-07-21.

... people who don't understand how the climate or modeling work have used the surface warming slowdown to incorrectly argue that climate models aren't reliable and that global warming is nothing to worry about. This new study shows once again that climate models are indeed reliable, and if we don't soon act to slow down human-caused global warming and the risks it poses, we're likely headed for a very bleak future.

Hear, Hear!

J.S. Risbey, S. Lewandowsky, C. Langlais, D.P. Monselesan, T.J. O’Kane, N. Oreskes "Well-estimated global surface warming in climate projections selected for ENSO phase," Nature Climate Change (2014)

The question of how climate model projections have tracked the actual evolution of global mean surface air temperature is important in establishing the credibility of their projections. Some studies and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report suggest that the recent 15-year period (1998–2012) provides evidence that models are overestimating current temperature evolution. Such comparisons are not evidence against model trends because they represent only one realization where the decadal natural variability component of the model climate is generally not in phase with observations. We present a more appropriate test of models where only those models with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation) largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model ensembles for comparison with observations. These tests show that climate models have provided good estimates of 15-year trends, including for recent periods and for Pacific spatial trend patterns.

When the phase of natural variability is taken into account, the model 15-year warming trends in CMIP5 projections well estimate the observed trends for all 15-year periods over the past half-century.

Related Coverage 1 Related Coverage 2 Related UWA press release

Y. Kosaka, S.-P. Xie, "Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling," Nature, 501, 403–407 (19 September 2013)

Despite the continued increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century1, 2, challenging the prevailing view that anthropogenic forcing causes climate warming. Various mechanisms have been proposed for this hiatus in global warming3, 4, 5, 6, but their relative importance has not been quantified, hampering observational estimates of climate sensitivity. Here we show that accounting for recent cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific reconciles climate simulations and observations. We present a novel method of uncovering mechanisms for global temperature change by prescribing, in addition to radiative forcing, the observed history of sea surface temperature over the central to eastern tropical Pacific in a climate model. Although the surface temperature prescription is limited to only 8.2% of the global surface, our model reproduces the annual-mean global temperature remarkably well with correlation coefficient r = 0.97 for 1970–2012 (which includes the current hiatus and a period of accelerated global warming). Moreover, our simulation captures major seasonal and regional characteristics of the hiatus, including the intensified Walker circulation, the winter cooling in northwestern North America and the prolonged drought in the southern USA. Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La-Niña-like decadal cooling. Although similar decadal hiatus events may occur in the future, the multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas increase.

Related Coverage 1 Related Coverage 2 UCSD Press Release

 

[zgmc]

Does anyone have a link to a good video which explains in detail the molecular interactions that lead to the greenhouse effect?

 

[rpenner]

Does anyone have a link to a good video which explains in detail the molecular interactions that lead to the greenhouse effect?

It's fairly simple blackbody physics, thermodynamics and conservation of energy.

1. For a body in energy equilibrium, the rate of incoming energy exactly matches the rate of outgoing energy.
2. Dense matter emits a continuum spectrum with peak wavelength inversely proportional to the frequency (also inversely proportional to the to temperature which is what I probably meant to write).
3. The sun is hot but far away, so the equilibrium temperature of an airless rock in Earth's orbit about the sun is strictly a function of its efficiency at absorbing solar radiation and efficiency at emitting it. Typical values are uncomfortably cold for humans.
4. Neutral Gases, especially at low pressure, mostly absorb or transmit light and UV due to details of the electron configuration and IR due to there bulk rotational and vibrational modes. So the potential exists for gases to be mostly-transparent near the peak of solar radiation and less transparent in bands more associated with the continuum spectrum of the ground.
5. Water vapor, methane and carbon dioxide are wobbly molecules that are good at absorbing long-wavelength ground radiation (at least in certain bands). Energy these molecules absorb can be re-emitted upwards or downwards or transferred to kinetic energy of diatomic molecules like N₂ which can't emit at these wavelengths at all.
6. Thus ground-radiation doesn't dump its energy into empty space quickly. The more of these gases there are, the slower the rate energy leaks out into space. Thus the biosphere of a planet with an atmosphere with some greenhouse gasses is warmer than the surface of an airless rock would be in the same orbit, all other things being equal. This is the Greenhouse effect and since glass lets through short-wave visible light and is opaque to IR radiation, it's well named in precise analogy with man-made greenhouses.
7. Thus elevated levels of CO₂ or CH₄ actually slow the rate at which heat of the biosphere can leak to space. All other things being equal, the biosphere gains more energy until outgoing energy again matches incoming energy. This new, higher energy equilibrium state and the process of transition to reach it is called Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Other man-made effects contribute (soot increasing efficiency at absorbing solar radiation). Some natural effects contribute in feedbacks (increased water vapor content of a hotter atmosphere leads to even more greenhouse effect than accounted for by just CO₂ and CH₄, melting ice reveals darker waters also increasing the efficiency at absorbing solar radiation). Some natural and man-made effects can reduce the effect (like sulfates and aerosols from smokestacks or volcanos reflecting more light out to space). But the main culprit in the past two centuries has been anthropogenic CO₂.

Measuring the energy rise in the biosphere is tricky since humans occupy only a small part of it. A lot has been done with surface air temperature, but that's very noisy and requires close to 30 years of data to spot the trend behind the natural chaotic variation (weather). Better methods account for the heat content of the oceans.

 

[Billy T]

Does anyone have a link to a good video which explains in detail the molecular interactions that lead to the greenhouse effect?

Rpenner's reply is fully correct. I gave same and more details in a post 12 pages back at: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?97892-Climate-gate&p=3192116&viewfull=1#post3192116

There I explained why H2O (a permanently polar dipole molecule) has more IR absorption capacity than even the 3D molecule CH4, which itself in more effective IR absorber than the linear molecule O-C-O. Also there I discussed other important positive feed backs that make Global Warming self accelerating.

rpenner notes the N2 is not able to block the escape if IR. I add same is true of the second most common air molecule, O2, and for the same reason, which I did not explain in the post 12 pages back but will now:

Symmetric two atom molecule can vibrate or spin but never make any electric dipole moment by doing so. (Center of charge remains at the mass center.) For IR radiation to be emitted (or absorbed) there must be a change in the molecule's electric dipole moment. They do absorbed and radiate if hot enough, but this is by a change in their electronic configuration with the dipole moment being changed in the process. Harsh UV can even unbind one of the molecules form the other. For example, make molecule OO into two separate atoms, O & O, but that UV photon must at least have the molecular binding energy. I forget what that is for O2, but it is something on the order of 5ev.

Any more energetic UV photon can also split O2, but the probability for it doing so decreases as the excess energy it has increases. It must end up in the added kinetic energy of the two separated O atoms. In the reference frame where the original O2 was at rest, the excess tends to be nearly equally shared, but the harsh UV photon had momentum and momentum must be conserved too. Reason why the absorption probably decreases as the excess energy becomes large compared to the binding energy, is the are less ways to conserve both. For example, to have the system end up (in the original at rest frame) with lots of energy and only the tiny moment of the UV photon, the two Os must be flying away from each other essentially with the same speed (each with ~50% of the excess energy) and nearly exactly perpendicular to the path the approaching photon had. If the UV photo had just a little more than the binding energy, the are many different ways way both energy and momentum can be conserved.

This is basically why X-ray penetrate materials well - their photon needs thousands of changes to be absorbed as their absorption in any one chance has very low probability. They pass by many outer shell electrons that are with relatively small binding energy and tend to be absorbed (and eject) a deep in the electronic structure electron as its binding energy is more like the energy the X-ray photon has. The cross section of inner shell electrons, near dozens of protons, is small.

PS I'm a Ph. D. physicist with strong background in spectroscopy, but a little weak in math, especially now 50 years after getting my Ph. D. - I have often learned from rpenner's excellent math knowledge. I hope a little bit of the above is new to him - partial re-payment of my knowledge debt to him.

 

[Billy T]

here is link to 10 page outline of new free book on England's global warming efforts and problems: http://www.withouthotair.com/synopsis10.pdf

It is quite balanced and informative.

 

[danshawen]

I just saw the greatest bumper sticker (recommended for anyone who either supports or denies global warming): "Stop Contintental Drift".

It's undeniably as great or even a bigger a threat as global warming, and about as likely to be responsive to practical political incentives as mandatory sterilization in exchange for gun ownership.

Fewer people would undoubtably solve a lot of environmental issues before they even rise to the level of public / political awareness.

 

[billvon]

I just saw the greatest bumper sticker (recommended for anyone who either supports or denies global warming): "Stop Contintental Drift".

Wow, I didn't know there were actually people out there who thought people caused continental drift. (Of course, most people think there's a dark side of the moon, too.)

 

[Facial]

Although CO2 is only 0.04 vol% in the atmosphere, it makes a big difference. If only we could see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81FHVrXgzuA

Note: I would warn against reading YT comments, as they are generally of very poor quality.

 

[Billy T]

http://www.climateplace.org/file/Summary.html is another good link, briefly hitting the high points of how serious the current global warming problem is, with several links to other studies, including the still very informative 2009 up-date by MIT of their 2003 forecast of expected temperature rise; (See graphical results at link - why it will not post I don't know.), a photo of methane ice burning, more focus on the Arctic methane release problems.
This text is associated with the MIT temperature rise graph:

"Climate scientists generally agree that to avoid catastrophe we better keep the temperature increase below 2ºC (3.6ºF). A 2ºC warming will be really bad and a 3ºC (5.4ºF) warming will be biblical. At 4ºC (7.2ºF) and beyond, we could face the collapse of agriculture, the economy, and even civilization itself. And because of tipping points, a 1ºC warming can lead to a 2ºC warming which can lead to a 3ºC warming and so on. Some of the nearer-term tipping points we need to worry about are:"
Then listed and discussed are four of the main positive feed-back "tipping points" or Roads to Hell, we are already advancing on.

Here is an hour long, understated discussion of why global warming, will first make western Europe, even down to Spain, have frozen ports as the Gulf Steam dies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyAEucg6teg&feature=em-hot-vrecs The winter of 2006 was a mild example of what will happen (ice blocking ports off the French coast of Britannia).

For an at times near start very dramatic view of melting Greenland ice sheet, plus an informative view of how the tiny population lives in state of rapid change with beautiful views, watch this 41 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgnvbMwRaf8&feature=em-hot-vrecs

 

[Trippy]

Rpenner's reply is fully correct. I gave same and more details in a post 12 pages back at: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?97892-Climate-gate&p=3192116&viewfull=1#post3192116

The fundamentals have been explained hundreds of times over dozens of threads by yourself, myself, Rpenner, Aqueous ID, and Origin, to name a handfull.

There I explained why H2O (a permanently polar dipole molecule) has more IR absorption capacity than even the 3D molecule CH4, which itself in more effective IR absorber than the linear molecule O-C-O.

Interesting point - Diatomic oxygen does not have an IR absorption band but triatomic oxygen has an absorption band around the 10 micron mark.
Also, diatomic oxygen does, in fact undergo a thermal emission of em radiation - it just happens to be in the microwave band, it also happens to be how we measure the temperature of the atmosphere - eg:here and here.
It's a rotational transition (I think), which means that it's thermal kinetic energy that's being released and is possible because diatomic oxygen has a permanent magnetic moment and spin.

 

[Billy T]

To Trippy:
Thanks for your links, especially the second as it confirms that already GHG is COOLING the stratosphere, just as I claimed it would (and explained why) even in the extreme case of earth with surface and lower troposphere HOTTER than 100C as the oceans boil away in Earth's first long slow stage of conversion to its hot stable state - a cooler version of Venus.

(That prediction is now in bold and large type in this quote of my post 778 below.)

{post 778 in part}... There is more than enough water in the ocean to make Earth's atmosphere IR opaque (or "completely opaque" if you prefer)* due to water vapor if it nears 100C but as the atmosphere mass rises the ground level pressure would be many times greater than 15PSI so the boiling point of water would be a little higher than 100C.

My guess that the final temperature might be 200C, not 900C was due to Earth being father from sun than Venus is. I have suggested than for a "million or so" years the complete ocean evaporation would take that the surface temperature would slowly rise and only surge up to the final Hot Stable State temperature when liquid H2O only exists in a 100% covering IR opaque cloud cover much higher than current clouds, with water vapor above the cloud tops and very high up some ice crystals as now.

These clouds would of course have lower albedo than Earth's current average, but probably greater than 0.1 so the IR radiated energy would be LESS than now and come from the tops of the clouds or a little above them. It must basically equal the net solar absorbed energy.

*BTW, animals would be "completely dead" too.

I have told why before, but again: due to the decay of thorium mainly the radiation energy leaving Earth is only "basically equal" the radiation energy absorbed. It is ever so slightly more.

 

[Trippy]

To Trippy:
Thanks for your links, especially the second as it confirms that already GHG is COOLING the stratosphere, just as I claimed it would (and explained why) even in the extreme case of earth with surface and lower troposphere HOTTER than 100C as the oceans boil away in Earth's first long slow stage of conversion to its hot stable state - a cooler version of Venus.

I hate to burst your bubble, Billy, but this is hardly a new prediction. Stratospheric/mesopheric cooling is one of the fundamental predictions of the anthropogenic global warming, this is why so many climatologists are at least wary of the change in behaviour of noctilucent clouds. It is also, as it happens, the accepted reason why the mesophere is so cold - because of the emission of heat energy by greenhouse gasses.

I most recently alluded to it in Post#591 I mentioned it three years ago here I also discussed it five years ago with Buffalo Roam. :Shrugs:

This is why we have/had missions like AIM and TIMED.

 

[Truck Captain Stumpy]

DATA POINT : Are the people who refuse to accept climate change ill-informed?

The fundamentals have been explained hundreds of times over dozens of threads by yourself, myself, Rpenner, Aqueous ID, and Origin, to name a handfull.


Interesting point - Diatomic oxygen does not have an IR absorption band but triatomic oxygen has an absorption band around the 10 micron mark.
Also, diatomic oxygen does, in fact undergo a thermal emission of em radiation - it just happens to be in the microwave band, it also happens to be how we measure the temperature of the atmosphere - eg:here and here.
It's a rotational transition (I think), which means that it's thermal kinetic energy that's being released and is possible because diatomic oxygen has a permanent magnetic moment and spin.

@Trippy
I recently ran across this article that brings a whole new light to the subject (specifically in regard to "climategate" and people who ignore empirical data of climate change etc)... rather disturbing when you think of it: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...refuse-to-accept-climate-change-ill-informed/

On the face of it, people are actually basing their answers on a cultural perception, rather than the empirical data.

Ars has previously covered Yale Professor Dan Kahan’s research into what he calls “cultural cognition,” and the idea goes like this: public opinion on these topics is fundamentally tied to cultural identities rather than assessment of scientific evidence. In other words, rather than evaluate the science, people form opinions based on what they think people with a similar background believe.

[sic]
This can explain a wide range of current phenomenon as well, with regard to people, their belief structures, and how they tend to ignore the painfully obvious truth to accept the far fetched illusory conspiracy or even religion... it can help comprehend the reasons people will accept a pseudoscience over real science, and it even touches upon the cult mentality (be it religious or otherwise)

just a thought. And given the nature of the article as well as my interest in psychology, I thought it might be helpful or interesting to share here, considering the thread topic, the article and the comments from so many intelligent people who are trying to explain to those who deny the empirical data.

Enjoy...

 

[Aqueous Id]

Although CO2 is only 0.04 vol% in the atmosphere, it makes a big difference. If only we could see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81FHVrXgzuA

Note: I would warn against reading YT comments, as they are generally of very poor quality.

Actually it demonstrates the depth of denial out there. The demo was well intentioned, trying the dispel the myth that trace quantities of a substance cannot have a large impact. I would suggest that some of those denialists try trace quantities of Arsenic in their chili dogs to prove the point. And by luck you picked a video that just happened to recently have the commenter advancing the ClimateGate claim that NOAA faked their data. So it was quite a good presentation of the futility of trying to teach this at even a child's level to the adults in the room who just won't grow up.

 

[Billy T]

I hate to burst your bubble, Billy, but this is hardly a new prediction. ...

You don't. I never intended it to be taken as an original observation of mine - only cooling by GHG does surprise some, so I did give simple explanation of why this is so, not that that is likely to be new either.

 

[Billy T]

The edges of the crater continue to melt, with material falling down, possibly more than 200 feet, to the bottom. "You can hear the ground falling," Plekhanov said. "You can hear the water running, it’s rather spooky.” Billy T adds: Note boundary ejecta around the hole in photo below. As melting continues, in warm Siberian summer that warmed dirt / rocks will transport heat down ~200 feet as it falls. (That is new positive feed back now known, bringing the total to 24!)

"A peculiar 100-foot {diameter} crater opened up in a gas-producing region of northern Russia last month, and scientists are coming to initial conclusions about what caused it: Methane gas escaping from melting permafrost, possibly blowing through the ground in an explosion, according to reports.

Scientists' early assessment is just that, preliminary, but not without data behind it. The bottom of the crater tested for methane levels up to 9.6 percent of the air content, which is about 54,000 times normal levels. The raised levels could be part of a pervasive increase in methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, escaping into the atmosphere. Two similar holes have been discovered in northern Siberia." = {Quotes from link blow.}

A crater recently discovered in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia on July 16, 2014. Russian scientists believe the 60-meter wide crater, discovered recently in far northern Siberia, could be the result of changing temperatures in the region. ... The summers of 2012 and 2013 were about 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal.

Recall that during the first 10 years after a 1 kg "puff" of CH4 is released, it has the same GW effect as 104 Kg "puff" of CO2 released. Also note that the near shore shallow Arctic ocean plus the Artic tundra hold more carbon than all the world's coal, including that we have already burned. Almost all of it can come into the air in via 20 or so mutually accelerating positive feed back systems and terminate life on earth much sooner than many think possible. The methane ice in the deeper ocean is an even greater store of carbon, but not to worry about it - mankind will be extinct before it significantly starts to decompose, driving Earth into it hot stable state. - Scared yet? Or do you just don't give a dam about your grand children?

PS one thing seems strange to me: The average molecular weight of air is 28.97 and that of methane is only 16. If the "air" at the bottom is 9.6% CH4, there must be a fast flowing "river of CH4" rising up thru that hole. When the scientists go their on foot instead of by helicopter, I sure hope none of them smokes! I assume they collected a sample of the bottom air by lowering a sample bottle from a helicopter? Hell, I would not even ride in one spewing hot carbon particles over the hole. I guess they did not get blown up as the copter's blade's "down wash" was methane free.

 

[billvon]

Recall that during the first 10 years after a 1 kg "puff" is released, it has the same GW effect as 104 Kg of CO2 released. Also note that the near shore shallow Arctic ocean plus the Artic tundra hold more carbon than all the world's coal, including that we have already burned.

Yep. Fortunately, even larger releases of methane has not terminated all life on Earth.

Almost all of it can come into the in a positive feed back system and terminate life on earth much sooner than many think possible. - Scared yet? Or do you just don't give a dam about your grand children?

The false dilemma! I love this classic fallacy. Do you just not understand logic, or are you intentionally ignorant? (<- another false dilemma)

 

[iceaura]

PS one thing seems strange to me: The average molecular weight of air is 28.97 and that of methane is only 16. If the "air" at the bottom is 9.6% CH4, there must be a fast flowing "river of CH4" rising up thru that hole.

Would 9.6% be enough to dramatically overpower the temperature difference (less than 4% mass density difference at identical temps)?

The warning here is that all safety calculations for the methane bomb that depend on heat transfer to the hydrates being by diffusion alone are dubious. Heat from a couple of decades of warming Siberian air did not diffuse 200 feet through frozen overlay and destabilize some methane stores.